Little Blabbermouse

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Airdate:
6 July 1940 Blue Ribbon reissue: 12 June 1948

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:	Vitaphone Number:
5794	MM-9-9	9159

Copyright Renewed:

29 April 1968^[1]

Starring:

Little Blabbermouse

Crew

Layout Artist:

Owen Fitzgerald
Robert Logan Holdeman (both uncredited)

Background Artist:

Peter Gaenger
Griff Jay (both uncredited)

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

Little Blabbermouse is a 1940 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Title[]

The title is a play on "little blabbermouth."

Plot[]

A mouse, imitating W.C. Fields, leads tours of a drugstore for other mice. There are a number of products living up to their names: vanishing cream, reducing pills, sleeping powders, smelling salts, and cough medicine. On to the lunch counter: a giant malt (sign). More products: a shaving brush, Krazy mineral water, a rubber band (with brushes dancing to it). A musical revue: the clocks all sing "Start the Day Right"; an order pad would "Love to Take Orders from You"; a ballet troupe wants to "Shake Your Powder Puff"; and so on. Greeting cards greet our tourists. A cat appears during a mousetrap display and scares the mice away, and thus ends the tour. Little Blabbermouse, who's been chatting away the whole time, is silenced by the Fields mouse with a jar of alum.

Caricatures[]

Marian Jordan - the title character is based on her character Tini
W.C. Fields
George Washington
Jerry Colonna - greeting card character says "Greetings, Gate!"

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

Little Blabbermouse would star the same year in another short titled "Shop, Look & Listen", which was also directed by Friz Freleng. These two would be his only appearances in the cartoons. He also appeared in Looney Tunes comic books.
The European Turner dubbed print replaces original 1938-1941 Merrie Melodies ending music cue with 1941-1955 ones. The American Turner dubbed print, however, does not have this edit. As the HBO Max restoration uses the EU dubbed soundtrack, the error persists in that version.
The "rubber band" gag would be used again in "Tin Pan Alley Cats" as well as "Dough for the Do-Do".
This was the last cartoon that Ben Hardaway wrote for Warner Brothers before he left to work for Walter Lantz Productions. He would eventually return in 1948 and write "A Bone for a Bone" for Friz. Soon after, he left to work on "Pow-Wow the Indian Boy", featured on Captain Kangaroo.^[3]
According to the model sheet, the Blabbermouse character was originally named "Parcheezer."