Directed by Robert Clampett. Released in 1940.
“To arms! To arms! The cat!”
A brand new look, but the same great taste! Welcome to the new and improved Wackyland! Just in time for the five year anniversary coming up! Without further stalling, let’s dive into today’s short.
It starts by telling us this is an adaption of the story “20,000 leaks under the ceiling.” (I’d read that.) We see a mouse happily skipping and whistling down the street. A hungry looking cat is close behind. He’s not really trying to be quiet or sneaky, so I’m not too surprised when the mouse makes a sudden turn and the cat ends up in mud. Stupid cat, mice are snake food. Elsewhere, we see a pet fish shop run by my good friend Porky. (He owns the place, but it’s under new mis-management? I’ll just take that to mean that the fish are in charge of themselves.) Peeking in the window shows a fish that is somehow resting at the bottom of its bowl with its eyes closed. (Must be a new species. I’ve never seen a 14 karat gold fish) Inside, Porky and the fish serenade us with a song about why they are good pets. And fish puns abound! There are A.C. and D.C. electric eels, (which aren’t really eels. I know about fi… oh forget it) a perch on a perch, a mackerel full of holes, and some soles tapping along to the music. There’s even a chorus line of legs dancing. (This is what I’m talking about! Maybe I should buy me some of these sexy fish.) The curtain goes up revealing a disturbing octopus is the owner of all of them. (And I take back my comment. Sexy fish are one thing, but sexy mollusks are out of the question. You’d think I’d learn. This gag was used two years earlier in the short “Porky’s five and ten.”) After the song ends, it’s lunch time. Porky goes on his way and I wish I could join him. (That octopus won’t leave me alone now.) As he leaves the cat from earlier walks by. He happily enters this all you can eat buffet. (Fish are cat food. Not mice) He reaches into a tank, causing an oyster (that looks more like Cecil Turtle than a bivalve) to hide under it’s bed. (Clever pun.) The cat does get his mitts on a cute little fish who is powerless to resist. (If only she was a piranha) Good thing the eels saw the whole thing, and flash a message to the rest of the store. A turtle mounts a seahorse and warns of the danger, a tuna lays an infant-try, (That’s my joke. The tuna clucking is theirs. Chicken of the sea, you know) and a flying fish takes off like a plane. The cat is scared and backs into another tank that contains a hammerhead shark, who bonks him on the head. (Don’t question why you can buy it, purchase today!) One of the eels shocks the cat, and he flings the fish into the air. The flying fish grabs her, (I’m really just guessing it’s a her. It has eyelashes, and since fish don’t usually have those, its probably the way to tell its gender. At least the tuna laid eggs. (…That were already fertilized… That’s not how fish work!) The cat falls into a tank where he is punched by some a mussel. (Another good joke.) I bet you didn’t know those creatures had Popeye’s arms. That’s probably his origin story. (A mussel was going to be cooked, but it ate the spinach that was stuffed inside and it grew stronger, a spine, and vocal chords. I’m getting off topic.) The cat flies out of the shop just as Porky returns. Back in street the cat is pleased to see that mouse from before. He rears to attack, but the mouse growls at him. The cat regresses into the kitten he was on the inside the whole time. (Go back to milk, junior. Fish are big-cat food.)
Personal Rating: 3