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A Mouse Divided is a 1953 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.

Title[]

The title is derived from the Abraham Lincoln quote: "A house divided against itself cannot stand".

Plot[]

At a Stork Club, a drunk stork takes his leave from a party occurring there to deliver a baby, telling his fellow partygoers to hold the fort until he gets back as he was buying the drinks. Elsewhere in a suburban neighborhood, Sylvester's wife admonishes his laziness and, wanting a baby, notes to him how it's strange they've never had a bundle from Heaven. Sylvester simply tells her not to start on the "patter of little feet around the house" stuff again, saying that he's busy. This causes his wife to go into a depression which he is quick to mock; "And what thanks do I get? I wish I was dead. Boo-hoo-hoo! Everyday, it's the same thing - pitter-patter of little feet! Hmph!"

Meanwhile, the drunk stork arrives in their neighborhood where he briefly stops to rest. Feeling too exhausted to continue to his intended destination, the stork decides after seeing their house that it was as good a place as any to deliver the baby, noting to himself "What's the difference? (hic!) A baby's a baby. It's the environment that molds them (hic!)." Sylverster's wife graciously accepts the bundle and Sylvester, despite his earlier objection, is nonetheless excited to be a father- until he learns the baby is a mouse, at which point he tries to lunge at it. His wife, having being called "Mama" by the mouse, quickly takes the baby and admonishes Sylvester for his attempt, saying that "even if he is a mouse, he's ours". Sylvester in response tries to cleave the mouse in half, saying "You're a gambling woman. What do you take, heads or tails?" His wife quickly stops and admonishes him again, reiterating that "mouse or no mouse, he's your son." Sylvester is none too pleased that he has become the "father of a breakfast."

As Sylvester is busy begrudgingly changing the mouse, his wife decides to go out, telling him to take their son for a walk once he's done. Once she leaves, Sylvester makes another attempt to eat the mouse, to the point of putting him in a diaper made with a lettuce leaf before putting him between two bread slices. Before he can even attempt to take a bite, the mouse calls him "Daddy", which causes Sylvester's heart to melt, saying "Aw! He called me Daddy!". Sylvester's attitude towards his false son changes entirely, and he takes the mouse for a walk. Unfortunately, no sooner does he take a corner than he is quickly forced to bring his son back into the house as a battalion of the neighborhood cats, who are not so enamoured of the little mouse, pursue Sylvester.

The cats promptly stake out the house and try to steal the mouse, only to be foiled by Sylvester each time, who for once is now on the winning end of tricks to which he usually ends up being foiled. He spots a cat climbing in through a window and promptly closes it, almost chopping the cat's tail off. The cat inaudibly curses at him to which Sylvester simply closes a blind. Then, he hears a knock at the door and he tries to answer it, at which point a cat posing as a salesman bursts in, "demonstrating" a vacuum cleaner which he uses to suck up the mouse from the carraige before taking his leave, saying all the while, "Good day, sir, I represent the Little Giant Vacuum Cleaner Company, Walla Walla, Washington. And if you watch closely, you'll notice the powerful action of this machine as it removes completely and forever all foreign particles from around the room. I realize that you may not be ready to purchase the Little Giant right now, but if you ever do, just remember the Little Giant Vacuum Cleaner Company, Walla Walla, Washington." Sylvester quickly realizes what happened and heads outside to beat up the cat and retrieve his son, admonishing the cats for being "cannibals". Once he puts the mouse back in his cradle, another knock at the door is heard and when Sylvester answers it, he is met with a cat disguised as a teenage bobby-soxer dancing to music on a record player he is carrying, claiming "I understands you need a babysitter." Not fooled by the cat's poor disguise, Sylvester simply slams the door on him. No sooner afterwards does he spot a hole being cut in the floor beneath the mouse's cradle. Sylvester quickly substitutes his son with a stick of dynamite which he lights as the cradle is being lowered beneath the floor. After the explosion, the now charred cradle is raised back up and nails are sheepishly hammered in from underneath. Sylvester then hears what appears to be Santa Claus above; it's another disguised cat trying to climb down the chimney, which Sylvester quickly catches on to because the calendar reads July. He lights another stick of dynamite which he sends up the chimney via balloon, blowing the cat out of the chimney and over the horizon. Sylvester then peers out of the mail slot of the front door and sees more cats holding a tree trunk, intending to ram the door down. Sylvester quickly opens the door before impact causing the cats to run up the stairs and fall out of a back window into a well.

Meanwhile, the still-drunk stork returns with a fishing rod, under orders to retrieve the mouse and deliver him to his actual parents by fishing him out of the house via the chimney with a piece of cheese, telling himself as he lowers the cheese down the chimney, "What a fuss they made at the office (hic!). Now I gotta get the mouse to his real parents (hic!)." The mouse sees the cheese, but Sylvester stops the baby, thinking "those darn cats" are making another attempt to kidnap the mouse. Sylvester grabs the cheese and gets hoisted up the chimney instead. In his inebriated state, the stork mistakes Sylvester for the baby, saying "Boy (hic!), did that mouse grow!" and then delivers Sylvester to the mouse's parents.

Later, the mouse couple walk a disgruntled Sylvester, dressed as a baby, with the wife telling her husband, "Nothing like this ever happened on my side of the family!" and he stares at the audience in bewilderment at iris-out.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Censorship[]

  • An ABC version cuts all the scenes featuring the drunken stork delivering the mouse to Sylvester's house, creating a plot hole as to how the baby mouse ended up at their house.

Television[]

  • This short was aired in black and white on 11 October 1960 as part of the first episode of The Bugs Bunny Show.
  • This short appeared in Episode 24 of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show that aired 28 February 1987.

Notes[]

  • Friz Freleng would recycle elements of the short in two later shorts, 1954's "Goo Goo Goliath" and 1955's "Heir-Conditioned", both of which he also directed:
    • "Goo Goo Goliath" would use the plot element of the stork delivering the baby to different parents than intended when he decides he can't continue to his intended stop, only to be sent back to rectify his mistake. A major difference in that short is that John and Ethel make the best of having to take care of their false son. Additionally, while the stork rectifies the situation with the Giant's baby, he still ends up delivering John and Ethel's baby to the wrong parent.
    • "Heir-Conditioned" recycled the plot element of the cats trying to steal something that someone was trying to protect and even used similar gags (namely the salesman and cutting-a-hole-in-the-floor attempts). The difference here is that Sylvester co-starred with Elmer Fudd and that what was being protected from the cats was Sylvester's then-inherited fortune which Elmer, as Sylvester's financial advisor, wanted to invest; Elmer spent most of the short not only trying to keep the cats from getting at it (they were convinced Elmer was not going to let Sylvester spend the fortune on himself), but trying to teach Sylvester the importance of investing.
  • While this cartoon was used in Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island, it starts at Sylvester's House and the ending is changed and reanimated so that Sylvester was delivered to Fantastic Island, where the wedded mouse duo wished for a baby.
  • This short and the Daffy Duck cartoon "Duck Amuck" were submitted for Academy Awards in 1952, though neither was nominated.
  • The Boomerang SVOD print uses the unrestored late-1980s/early-1990s VHS/LaserDisc print for this short instead of the 1998 "THIS VERSION" restored print.[1]
  • Sylvester's wife would later reappear in "Goldimouse and the Three Cats" seven years later, albeit with a drastically different appearance, voice and personality, where both she and Sylvester had a son named Sylvester Junior.
  • This cartoon marks the debut of Freleng's version of The Drunk Stork, who would reappear in four more cartoons after this one, "Goo Goo Goliath", "Stork Naked", "Pappy's Puppy", and "Apes of Wrath". Prior to that, a different drunk stork previously appeared briefly at the beginning of Bob Clampett's "Baby Bottleneck", who is a caricature of Jimmy Durante.
  • This is the only cartoon in which the drunk stork's voice is higher-pitched, making him sound a little like Daffy Duck. In later cartoons beginning with "Goo Goo Goliath", the drunk stork's voice is lower-pitched.
  • The restored print on HBO Max in Latin America and Brazil has a very minor portion of the ending soundtrack missing.
  • This short was submitted for consideration for an Academy Award in 1952, but was not nominated.[2]

Gallery[]

TV Title Cards[]

References[]

Sylvester Cartoons
1945 Life with FeathersPeck Up Your Troubles
1946 Kitty Kornered
1947 Tweetie PieCrowing PainsDoggone CatsCatch as Cats Can
1948 Back Alley OproarI Taw a Putty TatHop, Look and ListenKit for CatScaredy Cat
1949 Mouse MazurkaBad Ol' Putty TatHippety Hopper
1950 Home, Tweet HomeThe Scarlet PumpernickelAll a Bir-r-r-dCanary RowStooge for a MousePop 'Im Pop!
1951 Canned FeudPutty Tat TroubleRoom and BirdTweety's S.O.S.Tweet Tweet Tweety
1952 Who's Kitten Who?Gift WrappedLittle Red Rodent HoodAin't She TweetHoppy Go LuckyA Bird in a Guilty CageTree for Two
1953 Snow BusinessA Mouse DividedFowl WeatherTom Tom TomcatA Street Cat Named SylvesterCatty CorneredCats A-weigh!
1954 Dog PoundedBell HoppyDr. Jerkyl's HideClaws for AlarmMuzzle ToughSatan's Waitin'By Word of Mouse
1955 Lighthouse MouseSandy ClawsTweety's CircusJumpin' JupiterA Kiddies KittySpeedy GonzalesRed Riding HoodwinkedHeir-ConditionedPappy's Puppy
1956 Too Hop to HandleTweet and SourTree Cornered TweetyThe Unexpected PestTugboat GrannyThe Slap-Hoppy MouseYankee Dood It
1957 Tweet ZooTweety and the BeanstalkBirds AnonymousGreedy for TweetyMouse-Taken IdentityGonzales' Tamales
1958 A Pizza Tweety-PieA Bird in a Bonnet
1959 Trick or TweetTweet and LovelyCat's PawHere Today, Gone TamaleTweet Dreams
1960 West of the PesosGoldimouse and the Three CatsHyde and Go TweetMouse and GardenTrip for Tat
1961 Cannery WoeHoppy DazeBirds of a FatherD' Fightin' OnesThe Rebel Without ClawsThe Pied Piper of GuadalupeThe Last Hungry Cat
1962 Fish and SlipsMexican BoardersThe Jet Cage
1963 Mexican Cat DanceChili WeatherClaws in the Lease
1964 A Message to GraciasFreudy CatNuts and VoltsHawaiian Aye AyeRoad to Andalay
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the HouseCats and BruisesThe Wild Chase
1966 A Taste of Catnip
1980 The Yolks on You
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 Father of the Bird
2011 I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat
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