The Night Watchman

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Original Title
Blue Ribbon

Airdate:
19 November 1938 Blue Ribbon reissue: 18 May 1946

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:	Vitaphone Number:
4685	MM-6-8	8607

Runtime:

7 minutes, 18 seconds

Copyright Renewed:

17 February 1966^[1]

Crew

Animated By:

Ken Harris
Keith Darling (uncredited)
A.C. Gamer (uncredited)
Bob McKimson (uncredited)
Phil Monroe (uncredited)
Rod Scribner (uncredited)
Ben Washam (uncredited)

Background Artist:

Art Loomer (uncredited)

Film Editor:

Treg Brown (uncredited)

Musician:

Carl W. Stalling

The Night Watchman is a 1938 Merrie Melodies short directed by Charles Jones.

Plot[]

The watchman gets sick, so his son Tommy Cat is enlisted to watch the kitchen. When the gangland-style mice find out that he's the one on duty, they try to take over.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Censorship[]

On the now-defunct WB channel, the sequence near the end of the short where Tommy Cat punches the mice was shortened.^[2]

Notes[]

This cartoon was the first short to be directed by Chuck Jones.
- When Frank Tashlin left Termite Terrace after producing "You're an Education", Leon Schlesinger had to find a new animation director to take Tashlin's spot. Schlesinger approached Robert McKimson, but McKimson declined the offer, allowing the offer to go to Chuck Jones.
This was the first known short to make use of the 1938-39 green and yellow Color Rings with a black background and the shield was reverted to red, which would be used until September 1939.
For both American and European "dubbed versions" created by Turner Entertainment, recreated Blue Ribbon title cards were made for this short and "Daffy Duck & Egghead", as their AAP prints they were sourced from had their titles excised.^[3] The recreated blue ribbon card had the opening rings from "Count Me Out".
This was Margaret Talbot's (née Peggy Hill) first short for Chuck Jones, later to do the voice of Sniffles the Mouse. Coincidentally, Tommy Cat bears some facial resemblance to Sniffles, as he served as a prototype for the character.^[4]
- A Looney Tunes promotional book from 1939 features both Tommy and Sniffles as separate characters, however.^[5]
Much like "Ain't We Got Fun", this short features mice in villain roles rather than the cats. Jones would use similar role reversals in cat-and-mouse in "Scaredy Cat", "Kiss Me Cat" and "Claws for Alarm", but with Sylvester & Pussyfoot having the roles of the victims respectively.
The scene where the lead gangland mouse pulls of the button from Tommy Cat's suspenders (and Tommy Cat doing the same thing to the lead gangland mouse at the end) is a partial reference to the Mickey Mouse short "Mickey's Rival" by rival studio Disney, where Mortimer Mouse pulls off the buttons from Mickey's shorts.