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Flowers for Madame is a 1935 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.

Plot[]

In the middle of a garden, a series of flower chorus lines dance to "Oh, You Beautiful Doll" played by a dandelion Harpo Marx. Various dandelion and flower parades ensue, such as playing the harp on a spider web, and violets dancing using dandelions as parasols. A duo of snails announces a flower pageant, with prizes given to those who participate. Many floats are in the parade. A hillbilly cactus sees the parade and wants to take part in it as well. He sprays some seeds onto a toy train and waters the seeds to produce various bluebells. The audience likes the cactus' float, but not the judges. The train spontaneously breaks, ejecting the cactus, and he becomes the laughing stock of the pageant.

In another part of the garden, a match is lit by a magnifying glass and starts to incinerate the pageant. As many of the flowers and snails run away in fear, the cactus sees the fire and tries to put it out. His attempt to get rid of the fire with a sprinkler fails, as a flame manages to burn him in the back. However, a watermelon patch is good enough to stop the fire when he pokes holes in the watermelons. The cactus is now declared a hero. A small flame manages to escape being extinguished, but a grasshopper finds the flame and spits a curveball on it to finally douse the last of the fire.

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Notes[]

  • The soap box reads Pierce's Pine and Tar Soap, a reference to Tedd Pierce.
  • This is the first Warner Bros. cartoon produced in three-strip Technicolor. Prior to this, all Warner Bros. color cartoons were produced in either Cinecolor or two-strip Technicolor, due to Disney's exclusive contract with three-strip Technicolor. As this contract expired in 1935, other studios, including MGM and Van Beuren studios, were now free to use this process.
    • Due to this, it is often debated that the short's original titles are either the 1934-1935 Merrie Melodies curtains opening and Jester ending card or the iconic and famous "bullseye" color rings, since it was reissued for the Blue Ribbon series. It was also rumored that a special version of the 1934-1935 Merrie Melodies opening and closing cards were used for the short. However, it has not been officially confirmed what the original titles are actually like at this time. At the end of the Blue Ribbon release, the music playing is abruptly cut off as it switches to the "Merrily We Roll Along" ending. This presumably meant it did have an ending similar to subsequent shorts of this period; compared to the previous period where the music of the short would end before the Jester appeared.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. Catalog of Copyright Entries
  2. (3 October 2022) Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2 (in en). BearManor Media, page 42.