The Lyin' Mouse

The Lyin' Mouse
Blue Ribbon reissue card
Directed by	I. Freleng
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger (uncredited in reissue)
Animation by	Ken Harris
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Running time	7 minutes

The Lyin' Mouse is a 1937 Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.

Plot

A mouse is trying to free himself from a trap when a cat arrives. The mouse, desperate to avoid being eaten, asks if the cat has heard the story of "The Lion And The Mouse." He tells a story about a ferocious lion in the jungle who scares all the animals; the mouse has a horn that imitates the lion's roar, and has some fun with it until the lion catches him. The mouse pleads for his life, and the lion, distracted by a bigger catch, agrees. The bigger catch is a trap set by the Frank Cluck expedition; the lion avoids the first trap, but falls for the second, and find himself in a circus lion-taming act (where he put his head inside the tamer's mouth). The mouse happens by, and chews a lion-shaped hole in the lion's wooden cart/cage, setting him free. Back to the cat: moved by this story, he releases the mouse. Just before entering his hole, the mouse yells one last word at the cat: "Sucker!" The cat shrugs and says, "Well, can you imagine that."

Availability

• DVD - Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (USA 1995 dubbed print added as a bonus)
• LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 5, Side 3 (USA 1995 dubbed print)

Notes

• This short is the first Warner Bros. cartoon to give story credit, in this case, to Tedd Pierce.
• This cartoon was re-released into the Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodies program on December 22, 1945.
• The ostrich from "Plenty of Money and You" makes a cameo appearance, when the animals run away from the mouse's lion noise. Coincidentally, both shorts with that ostrich were directed by Freleng.