Baby Blues

With Mickey, Janet and a bland older sister as part of the family, you'd think Mickey's parents would invent birth control early, but it's not the case: a fourth child is due, and thanks to an almanac, Mickey learns that "every fourth child is born Chinese." Fearful of such a circumstance, Mickey stops being an irritating little brat and asks the Gang to help him to stop it.

After talking to a nurse and a stork, Spanky decides to introduce Mickey to Lee Wong, a friend of his whose dad runs a laundry (did Chinese people do anything else?) Surprisingly, the rest of the short is a pretty good plea for tolerance for the time period. Lee turns out to be a swell guy, whose family makes all-American meals, so Mickey is satisfied. Unfortunately, his next sibling is neither Chinese nor male nor singular, so Mickey decides to do the family a big favor and run away.

Clumsy in the MGM way, but it can't be faulted for its ultimate message, even if it's still grounded in stereotypes. (Every fourth word in the last half of the film is "Confucius.") One weird shot, though, is even after the Gang has clearly established that they're not getting "bird's nests" for lunch, Mickey is still making worried faces until he sees his OWN plate. Maybe he thought he alone would be poisoned. Who could blame him?