The Lyin' Mouse

The Lyin' Mouse
Blue Ribbon reissue card
Directed by	I. Freleng
Story by	Tedd Pierce
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Starring	Mel Blanc (Cat and Lion roaring, uncredited) Billy Bletcher (Lion and Cat humming, uncredited) Bernice Hansen (Mouse, uncredited)
Edited by	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Ken Harris A.C. Gamer (effects, uncredited)
Layouts by	Griff Jay (uncredited)
Backgrounds by	Art Loomer (uncredited)
Color process	Technicolor
Production company	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release dates	October 16, 1937 (1937-10-16)(original release) December 22, 1945 (1945-12-22)(Blue Ribbon reissue)
Running time	7 minutes
Language	English

The Lyin' Mouse is a 1937 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. ^[1] The short was released on October 16, 1937. ^[2]

Plot

A grey mouse is trying to free himself from a trap when a cat arrives. Desperate to avoid getting eaten, the rodent asks if the feline has ever heard the story of The Lion and The Mouse. When the cat angrily replies that he never heard of it, the mouse tells the tale about a ferocious lion in the jungle, who scares all of the animals whenever he goes.

Also in the story is a brown mouse, which has a horn that imitates the lion’s roar, and has some fun with it until the golden big cat catches him in the act. The mouse pleads for his life, and the lion agrees not to eat him after being distracted by bigger catches. But those are actually traps set by the Frank Cluck expedition – the lion manages to avoid the first trap (a fake roasted chicken), but he falls for the second (a tied-up lamb), and soon finds himself in a circus lion taming act, where not only does the tamer put his head inside the felid’s mouth, but the lion also puts his own head in the tamer’s mouth.

After performing, the lion is locked in a cage, in deep sorrow due to his fate. But that night, the brown mouse happens by and chews a lion-shaped hole in the cage, setting the big cat free – and that is where the story ends. The cat is moved and apologetically releases the mouse. Upon release, just before entering his hole, the mouse yells one last word: “Sucker!” To which the cat responds by lunging at the rodent, but he misses and bumps into the wall. As the cartoon ends, the feline shrugs and tells the audience: “Well, can you imagine that?”

Home media

• DVD - Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (USA 1995 dubbed print added as a bonus)
• VHS - Taz's Jungle Jams (USA 1995 dubbed print)
• LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes , Volume 5, Side 3 (USA 1995 dubbed print)
• VHS - Videotoons Volume 2

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 the ostrich were directed by Freleng.

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. 63. 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 6 June 2020.

External links

• The Lyin' Mouse at IMDb