You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!

You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
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Airdate:	10 September 1932
Series:	Merrie Melodies
Production Number:	MM-1-2
Vitaphone Number:	5426
Runtime:	7 minutes, 19 seconds
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Johnny Murray The Rhythmettes Rudolf Ising (all uncredited)
Director:	Rudolf Ising (uncredited)
Producer:	Hugh Harman Rudolf Ising Leon Schlesinger (associate)
Animated By:	Rollin Hamilton Larry Martin
Film Editor:	Bernard B. Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Frank Marsales

You're Too Careless with Your Kisses! is a 1932 Merrie Melodies short directed by Rudolf Ising.

Plot

A bumblebee wearing a top hat and holding a cane is attempting to make his way home, but the outside keeps disrupting him, and he cannot help but stop and smell it. When he does get home, he quietly enters and makes his way upstairs. His shoes follow him, but he tells them to be quiet and walks upstairs. Since he cannot maintain his balance, he bounces off a couch cushion and attempts to get back up the stairs. He hopes to get to bed without awakening his wife, but he trips, causing the window shade to roll up and the alarm to ring.

His wife awakens and accuses him of drinking late, before breaking out into the title song. She decides to assume the role of the honey-collector until a storm happens. She runs for cover and hides in a barrel that she mistakes for a house. She knocks on the door, which is answered by a spider inside the barrel. The spider lets her in, but only because he wants her to be his next meal. When she sees the spider, she screams and runs, but cannot get out because the spider has locked the door and swallowed the key.

She runs upstairs and hides in a dark room. The spider enters the door, closing it on the way in, causing the room to become pitch black. The bee manages to get to the window and screams for help, but not before the spider grabs her and closes her mouth.

At her house, her husband, still drunk, hears her screams, and jumps out of the window attempting to save her. He uses a flower as a trumpet and calls for other bees to help him. Several bees run out and grab what they call a horse (actually a harmonica). When the spider comes out to confront the bee's husband, the bee takes a thorny vine and runs it between the spider's legs. The spider flees, and the captured bee comes out, pointing out the Calvary arriving. The spider jumps into a bucket and fires out a shotgun. Suddenly, a squad of bees approaches, and one of them drops a stick of dynamite onto the spider. The spider is sent flying from the explosion. The bees cheer in victory, and the spider frowns.

Caricatures

• Ben Bernie - "And now you're in the hands of the dear old maestro."

Availability

(1997) LaserDisc
The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: Volume 5, Side 1, Black and White Classics (USA 1995 Turner print)

Streaming

Warner Bros. Discovery RIDE (2021 - 2023) (restored)

Censorship

• When this short aired on WKBD in the 1980s, the first 2 minutes were cut due to time constraints, so the short now begins with the bumblebee's wife accusing her husband of drinking honey all night.

Notes

• This is the first Merrie Melodies short in the 1932-33 season, and also to not have either Foxy or Piggy in the ending card.
• This cartoon entered the public domain in 1961 as United Artists did not renew the copyright in time.

Gallery

Lobby card