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The Fella with a Fiddle

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The Fella with the Fiddle
Directed byI. Freleng
Produced byLeon Schlesinger
StarringMel Blanc
Billy Bletcher
Bernice Hansen
Music byCarl Stalling
Animation byCal Dalton
Cal Howard
Color processTechnicolor
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Vitaphone
Release date
March 27, 1937 (US)
Running time
7:22 (one reel)
LanguageEnglish

The Fella with the Fiddle is a 1937 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.[1] The short was released on March 27, 1937.[2]

The title is derived from the cartoon's theme song, written by Charlie Abbott.

Plot

When the kids fight over a coin for ice cream, J. Field Mouse tells his grandchildren the story of a mouse whose greed and dishonesty became his undoing. Feigning blindness and playing the fiddle, he collects enough money to live an opulent lifestyle. His home, marked by a shabby exterior, turns out to be a mansion where he lives it up with his riches. All the fiddler's luxury is in jeopardy when the tax assessor knocks on the door. The fiddler hurriedly presses a series of buttons to hide his opulence and make his home look like a hovel. He succeeds in confusing the tax assessor to the point that he flees in frustration, but an eavesdropping cat plays on the fiddler's greed and lures him into his jaws by placing a gold coin there. And that, says J. Field Mouse to his grandchildren, was the end of the greedy mouse. One of the grandchildren asked if the greedy mouse got eaten. The grandfather said, "Yes, he ate him all up,". But one of his grandchildren notices a gold (cat's?) tooth hanging on display and realizes that things weren't quite what they seem.

Availability

Notes/Goofs

  • This cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on January 6, 1945. Because the cartoon credits Schlesinger on re-release, the original closing title card was kept. This Blue Ribbon reissue was the final to credit Leon Schlesinger. This meant that cartoons originally released between 1936 and 1944 that were re-released after 1945 also had their original ending titles scrapped out.
  • This short is the first Merrie Melodies short with Mel Blanc voicing characters.
  • The original ending titles have been found on an 8mm VHS.[3]

References

  1. ^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 57. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
  2. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 104–106. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMVoQZepQQo

External links


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