Mouse Wreckers (1949)

. . . is that cats are a waste of space. This oft-repeated message is borne out once again in the animated short, MOUSE WRECKERS. Claude Cat is presented at the onset here as a highly decorated "mouser," with a whole trophy case documenting his exploits against presumably mechanical mice of the sort featured in feline rodeos. But as soon as Claude's exposed to a couple Real Life Rodents, he's driven batty in about five minutes. Most of us can picture the Pope sitting around in His ornate bathrobe, stroking a fluffy white pussycat. (Or am I confusing the Pontiff with SPECTRE's Number One?) At any rate, the Papal Representatives who have censored virtually every American flick released since July, 1934 (see *THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, a 2006 documentary) forced Warner to delete its original MOUSE WRECKERS climax, in which Claude gets toasted in the fireplace after the cheese. The Church was no problem with roasting Saints such as Joan D'Arc, but apparently Fraidy Cats must NOT be fried. I suppose the big fear is that Cat Nips might taste too much like chicken.

Chuck Jones's Hubie and Bertie shorts generally worked with darker material and 'Mouse Wreckers' was no exception. A relentlessly cruel cartoon, it involves the attempts of two mice to convince an unwitting cat that he is mentally ill. Hiding up a chimney, Hubie and Bertie subject the cat to various ordeals that rudely awaken him from his slumber. Starting small, these pranks build up to an inspired sequence involving an upside down room which just gets more and more confusing. The cartoon ends with the mice taking over the house as the cat cowers in a tree, driven completely insane. Jones's was a master at drawing out the comedy from these morbid scenarios and he manages to make an hilarious film which has a constant sense of unease without leaving a bad taste. The concept of actually having the mice as the bad guys and the cat as a manipulated innocent was a bold and brilliant move. It's worth noting that Jones remade 'Mouse Wreckers' as a Tom and Jerry cartoon named 'Year of the Mouse'. Although I'm not hugely fond of the majority of Chuck Jones's Tom and Jerry shorts, 'Year of the Mouse' is actually fantastic and, in many ways, improves on 'Mouse Wreckers' by making the scenarios more horrifically violent and the ending more satisfyingly just.

I never even knew that the cat in "Mouse Wreckers" was named Claude until I read about it on this site. But either way, Claude really suffers here, as New York-accented mice Hubie and Bertie pull a series of tricks to scare him out of the house. Probably the coolest gags are the stunt with the rope, and then the whole end sequence.Still, I can't help but wonder why it is that cats always have to bear the brunt of abuse at the hands of cartoon characters. It seems like there should have been some cartoon in which a cat makes mincemeat of a dog or something. But still, this is a great one.Claude really could have used some pineapple upside down cake at the end!

This cartoon short, an Oscar nominee, features Hubie and Bert ("Yeah, yeah, sure, sure") tormenting poor Claude for the first time. Poor Clude didn't fare terribly well in any of his cartoons, either with Hubie and Bert or in other cartoons, but this is by far the most devastatingly funny appearance by any of them. You really get to feel quite sorry for poor Claude after a while here. He just happens to be in the way here. He doesn't do anything to deserve this nightmare. He's simply there. Recommended.