The Lyin' Mouse is a 1937 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng.
Title[]
The title is a play on "lion."
Plot[]
A mouse is trying to free himself from a trap when a cat arrives. The mouse, desperate to avoid being eaten, asks if the cat has heard the story of "The Lion and the Mouse". He tells a story about a ferocious lion in the jungle who scares all the animals; the mouse has a horn that imitates the lion's roar, and has some fun with it until the lion catches him. The mouse pleads for his life, and the lion, distracted by a bigger catch, agrees. The bigger catch is a trap set by the Frank Cluck expedition; the lion avoids the first trap, but falls for the second, and find himself in a circus lion-taming act, where he put his head inside the tamer's mouth. The mouse happens by, and chews a lion-shaped hole in the lion's wooden cart/cage, setting him free. The cat, moved by this story, releases the mouse. Just before entering his hole, the mouse yells one last word at the cat: "Sucker!" The cat then shrugs and says, "Well, can you imagine that."
Availability[]
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Volume 5, Side 3, Freleng Follies (USA 1995 Turner print)
Taz's Jungle Jams (USA 1995 Turner print)
Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (USA 1995 Turner print)
Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (USA 1995 Turner print)
Streaming[]
Goofs[]
- A quotation mark is missing on the Blue Ribbon reissue title card of this cartoon.
Notes[]
- This is the first cartoon to include a story credit, here to Tedd Pierce.
- While the American Turner "dubbed" version print retains the original ending music, the European Turner print changes it to the 1941–55 rendition of "Merrily We Roll Along". As the 2020 restoration uses the European Turner print's soundtrack, the error persists in that version.
- The ostrich from "Plenty of Money and You" makes a cameo appearance when the animals run away from the mouse's lion noise.
- Coincidentally, both shorts featuring this character were directed by Friz Freleng, and both got reissued.
- This is the first Merrie Melodies cartoon not to have any songs sung, breaking the tradition of the series of using the shorts to promote a song. While "Uncle Tom's Bungalow" experimented with the idea, it still used "Swanee River" in its intro before the main story.
- The story of the lion and the mouse would later be used in Chuck Jones' 1944 cartoon "From Hand to Mouse".
- The working title was "The Lion and the Mouse".
_-_Cat.jpg "The Lyin' Mouse (1937) - Cat.jpg (362 KB)")
_-_Lion.jpg "The Lyin' Mouse (1937) - Lion.jpg (247 KB)")
