Shop Look & Listen

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The Timid Toreador	Elmer's Pet Rabbit

Airdate:
21 December 1940

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:
6265	9639

Copyright Renewed:

1 November 1968^[1]

Crew

Voice Characterizations:

Mel Blanc (uncredited)
Bill Thompson (uncredited)
Georgia Stark (uncredited)^[2]

Layout Artist:

Owen Fitzgerald (uncredited)
Robert Logan Holdeman (uncredited)

Background Artist:

Peter Gaenger (uncredited)
Griff Jay (uncredited)

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

Shop Look & Listen is a 1940 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.

Title[]

The title is a play on the railroad safety phrase "stop, look, and listen."

Plot[]

Little Blabbermouse is at J.T. Gimlet department store. He is on a tour of the shop. During the tour, he keeps harassing his tour guide. Turns out the store is having a sale and everything must go, including J.T. Gimlet. The tour guide shows them hosiery with no runs, no hits and no errors; a painting of Whistler's mother, who whistles "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain"; and The Thinker, who keeps thinking about his 1940 tax form: "Confidentially, I think." They take at a look at some robotic ashtrays, and a robotic poker table which shuffles, deals and even cheats. Shoes include red and green mules. Finally, the tour guide wraps up Blabbermouse with a sticker over his mouth that reads, "Do Not Open 'Til Xmas."

Caricatures[]

Marian Jordan
W.C. Fields - tour guide
Whistler's Mother
Mischa Auer - "Confidentially, I think"

Availability[]

Goofs[]

When "The Thinker" is revealed with an income tax form, the distant shot shows it is for the 1939 taxes. When the closeup occurs, it is instead listed as the 1940 taxes.

Notes[]

The blabbermouse starred in another short released earlier that same year "Little Blabbermouse", which was also directed by Friz Freleng. This is also his final appearance; after that he was discarded with his character traits transferred over to Chuck Jones' Sniffles as of 1943.
No print with the original ending card has been released on home video. However, a French Canal+ channel that aired this short prior to the release on The Golden Age of Looney Tunes LaserDisc in 1997 showed that original ending title card intact.^[3]
The edited soundtrack of dubs of both Turner prints (American and European) cut out the mouse's blabbering and mumbling with the 1941-55 ending rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along". The American and European Turner prints' original English audios, however, do not have this edit.
When Blabbermouse babbles after the gift-wrapper wraps the pink ribbon, he randomly asks "Did Don Ameche invent that too?"; Ameche had starred as Alexander Graham Bell in the film "The Story of Alexander Graham Bell" in 1939.