Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner

Deprecated

We have moved to portable infoboxes using the new Template:Shorts

Please do not use this template anymore. It is left here for reference purposes.

Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner

Directed By: Robert Clampett Produced By: Leon Schlesinger Released: August 22, 1942 Series: Looney Tunes Story: Warren Foster Animation: Virgil Ross Rod Scribner (uncredited) Layouts: Backgrounds: Film Editor: Treg Brown Voiced By: Mel Blanc (uncredited) Sara Berner (uncredited) Music: Carl W. Stalling Starring: Piano-Playing Narrator (played by Leo White) Moth Honey Bee Black Widow Spider Preceded By: The Squawkin' Hawk Succeeded By: Fresh Hare

Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner is a 1942 Looney Tunes short directed by Bob Clampett.

Plot

The film begins and ends with a live-action piano player, his singing inexplicably voiced over by Mel Blanc and carried as narration throughout the cartoon, the moth character appears in both scenes, and in the final shot eats the guy's pants right off, sending him clumsily running off into the distance. Plotwise, a wiseguy moth is preparing for his wedding day ("Here comes the groom, straight as a broom, all purtied up with ten-cent perfume"!). He wakes up late, and after getting some breakfast at the bar (A few peoples' pant cuffs) he gets held up by a Black Widow spider, who seduces him with a cigarette lighter (moths are attracted to light, of course). A wacky chase ensues. His bride-to-be, a bee, thinks he's ditched her, and cries... until she realizes something might be wrong and comes to the rescue ("confidentially, she stings!") Also keep an eye out for another unique cartoon filming technique, the photographic backgrounds used for the moth's suit-pocket home and other key scenes.

Availability

• VHS - Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition Volume 7: Welcome To Wackyland
• DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5, Disc 4

Notes

• This short combines live-action and animation.
• Similar to You Ought to Be in Pictures, the animation unit did not have access to location sound recording equipment, so all of the live-action footage was shot silent, to which the voices had to be dubbed in later, which is why the voices were dubbed by Mel Blanc.
• This short is now in the public domain as Sunset Productions failed to renew the copyright in time.
• The working title of this cartoon was "The Moth and His Flame."

Gallery