Vermin Time

Here’s a different frolicking mouse cartoon than the Tex Avery/Warners one we told you about yesterday. It’s When the Cat’s Away, a 1935 Harman-Ising short for MGM.

The mice take a little break in the cartoon, when the hero mouse activates a pump which lets out drops of water that land with a Latin beat in a pan.



What’s that behind the cockroach powder?



It’s a cockroach! And he’s singing (are you surprised?) “La Cucaracha.” And what’s that behind the scrub brush?



Yes, a whole chorus of roaches!



And still more of them.



And a pair of Latin dancing cockroaches.



That roach powder isn’t very effective, is it? Come to think of it, the place is infested with roaches and mice. Who’d want to live there?

This cartoon has a lot of similarities to Harman-Ising’s work at Warners: lots of singing and dancing, a menace that shows up half-way through and is vanquished (although not by a gang this time, just the hero mouse), and a chirping, off-camera, female chorus (could it be the Rhythmettes, the same one heard on Warners cartoons?).

There are never any credits on these early Harman-Isings at MGM.