Lady, Play Your Mandolin!

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Airdate:
2 August 1931

Series:

Merrie Melodies

Production Number:
4803

Starring:

Foxy
Roxy

Crew

Voice Characterizations:

Johnny Murray (uncredited)
The King's Men (uncredited)
Ken Darby (uncredited)^[1]

Director:

Hugh Harman (uncredited)
Rudolf Ising (uncredited)

Written By:

Rudolf Ising (uncredited)

Producer:

Hugh Harman
Rudolf Ising
Leon Schlesinger (associate producer)

Animated By:

Rollin Hamilton
Norm Blackburn
Robert Clampett (uncredited)
Larry Martin (uncredited)

Film Editor:

Bernard B. Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Frank Marsales

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Screenshot of 2021 restoration
Brief cropped screenshot of 2021 restoration
Screenshot of 2021 restoration from MeTV+

Lady, Play Your Mandolin! is a 1931 Merrie Melodies short directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising.

Plot[]

Animal patrons at a Mexican cafe sing the title song. Foxy rides up on his horse, but when the horse tries to go inside, he ties its neck around a cactus. He enters the cafe and sings. Roxy takes the stage, playing her mandolin, and Foxy joins her in a duet. When the horse frees itself and sings with them, Foxy steps out and clobbers it with a bottle. Foxy and Roxy finish their song, but as the music plays out, the horse stumbles in, drinks a bottle of firewater, begins hallucinating, and dances so fast that he catches fire. A mouse climbs out of the horse's singed pants and slams a garbage can lid for the final cymbal clang.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

Starting with this short, all Looney Tunes shorts would be directed by Hugh Harman, and all Merrie Melodies shorts would be directed by Rudolf Ising until 1933.
- Some of the 1933 LT and MM shorts were co-directed by Friz Freleng with either Harman or Ising.
This short has rarely been shown since its original release.^[2] It was shown as part of the Toon Heads special The Lost Warner Bros. Cartoons with some parts cut for time.
This is the first Merrie Melodie to be produced and released.
This short marks the debut of Foxy and Roxy.
This short entered the public domain in 1960 due to Warner Bros. failing to renew its copyright in time.
This short has a unique version of the opening theme.
This is the only Harman/Ising Merrie Melodies cartoon not to be in the Associated Artists Productions package, having already been sold to Sunset Productions.
MeTV+ aired a previously unreleased restored print of this cartoon on Sunday Night Cartoons. This short's restoration would later be uploaded to YouTube without the MeTV+ logo. It was later added to Warner Bros. Discovery RIDE's streaming service.