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

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Airdate:
22 August 1942

Series:

Looney Tunes

MPAA Number:
8235

Crew

Voice Characterizations:

Mel Blanc (uncredited)
Sara Berner (uncredited)

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

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

Title[]

The first half of the title, "Eatin' on the Cuff," means to eat without charge. In the film, it is also taken literally—the moth is seen eating pant cuffs. The second half, "The Moth Who Came to Dinner," is a play on the 1942 Warner Bros. film The Man Who Came to Dinner.

Plot[]

A live-action piano player sings and narrates a story about a wiseguy moth preparing for his wedding day. "Here comes the groom, straight as a broom, all purtied up with ten-cent perfume!" The moth wakes up late, and after getting some breakfast at the bar and a few people's pant cuffs, he is held up by a Black Widow spider, who seduces him with a cigarette lighter. A wacky chase ensues. His bride-to-be, a bee, thinks he's ditched her and cries, until she realizes something might be wrong, comes to the rescue, and duels with the spider. "Confidentially, she stings!" The moth and the bee reunite and kiss.

The piano player finishes narrating the story and tells the audience, "I never could understand what that cute little bee would see in that silly moth. What a dope." The moth gets upset and eats his pants right off, sending him clumsily running off into the distance.

Caricatures[]

Adolf Hitler
Eddie "Rochester" Anderson - "My, oh, my!"
Elvia Allman - "Look, a man!"
Veronica Lake - spider's disguise
Mischa Auer - "Confidentially, she stings!"

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

This short combines live-action and animation.
The Black Widow references the "Look, a man!" catchphrase of Cobina from The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope.
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 mute, to which the voices had to be dubbed later, which is why the voices were dubbed by Mel Blanc.
- Also similar to "You Ought to Be in Pictures" is that this animated/live-action hybrid cartoon is also produced in black-and-white.
This short lapsed into the public domain in 1970 since Warner Bros.-Seven Arts neglected to renew the copyright in time.
This is the last black-and-white Looney Tunes short that Bob Clampett directed. Clampett would be promoted to Tex Avery's unit after he left, and his old unit would be taken over by Norman McCabe and later Frank Tashlin.
The working title of this cartoon was "The Moth and His Flame" and was later changed to "The Moth Meets His Flame."^[3]
The moth in this short (as "The Moth & His Flame") would appear in "The Rascals" section of the instruction manual for The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2. Despite this, he does not appear in the game itself.
Vitaphone release number: 798