Have a lot of appreciation for Friz Freleng, and like and even love a lot of his cartoons featuring some of animation's most legendary characters. Once he hit his stride and his style evolved, although his early stuff is also worth watching for mainly curiosity, much of his work was very well made with outstanding music, very funny writing and one could see why the characters revered so highly now were so influential and appealed so much. Less so early 60s onward, when time and budget constraints showed.
'Little Blabbermouse' was made when Freleng was not yet at his very best and is not going to be for everybody. It is wholly dependent on whether one likes music revue/spot gag cartoons and whether one can endear to the titular character. For me, while it is not a great cartoon by any stretch and there are a couple of big problems with it, 'Little Blabbermouse' was an interesting cartoon and a mostly entertaining one with several great merits.
As said, whether one likes 'Little Blabbermouse' is going to be largely dependent on whether Little Blabbermouse appeals as a character to the viewer. Am going to be honest, even for a character who was deliberately meant to be annoying that aspect was overdone and outstayed its welcome too early, with the constant over-talkativeness being at first mildly amusing but with each interruptions it became increasingly corny and makes the viewer want to yell stop. It clearly intended to amuse but irritated instead.
While he was never the most subtle of voice actors, Mel Blanc still deserves being called one of the greatest who ever lived with the unparallelled ability to voice multiple characters and bring so much life and an individual identity to each one, but this is a rare case of me feeling that his voice work grated and that the over-talkativeness was in serious need of a toning down.
The story is paper thin and merely a series of musical sequences and gags. Parts are a bit hokey and corny, mostly to do with Little Blabbermouse.
However, the rest of the characters more than make up for it. The tour guide, a WC Fields caricature, is a far more interesting and entertaining character, and what was said by him amused, educated and intrigued. Cannot fault Tedd Pierce's voice acting here either, his Fields voice spot on. The inaminate objects are all great fun too and throughout. The gags are on the most part very amusing, if not exactly hilarious, some of them are visual when objects live up to their names and that is done imaginatively.
Lots of energy can be seen here, structurally it flows naturally and never loses coherence and it doesn't get too cute, which is a good thing. The pharmacy setting is made great use of and the ending is satisfying.
Furthermore, the animation is very good. It is lush and vibrant in colour and meticulous and beautifully drawn in detail. The character designs are fluid, well drawn and distinctive of Frleeng. Carl Stalling's music is lush and characterful, with clever orchestration and a mastery of not just adding to the action but enhancing it as well (Stalling was a near-unequalled master at this, though Scott Bradley gave him a run for his money). The pre-existing music is exuberantly arranged and makes one smile and tap their feet.
Overall, nice cartoon, although the titular character is an annoyance which brings things down sadly. 7/10
