Radio Eats Mice

The 1930 Talkartoon Radio Riot becomes increasingly bizarre as it goes along. The final scene is wonderfully warped.

Three little mice are listening to a scary story on the radio. They poke their heads through a blanket on their bed. The holes disappear and their heads are left floating in the air.



Their tails want help.



Then the radio eats the mice!



But it gets stranger. The radio picks the mice’s tails from its teeth, lays them on the bed and takes a bow.



No, that’s not the end of the cartoon. The mice’s heads come out of the radio horn and zoom toward the camera.



Van Beuren did this kind of thing as well, but this might have been the first cartoon where this happened. This also may be the first cartoon to parody the NBC chimes. It was the third Talkartoon to be released (Feb. 15, 1930), behind Noah’s Lark (Oct. 26, 1929) Marriage Woes (Dec. 21, 1929), according to Motion Picture News of Jan. 25, 1930. Billy Murray lends his voice in several places. Max H. Manne, who had been the manager of the Roxy Theatre in New York, is credited as “musical advisor.”