Lady, Play Your Mandolin!

Lady, Play Your Mandolin! Is part of the Merrie Melodies series, and is best known for the debut of Foxy, a fox who only appeared in this and two other shorts before being discontinued due to a phone call to Walt Disney demanding Warner Bros. Stop using the character due to his similarities to Mickey Mouse (as the short was made by an ex-Disney employee).

In this short, set to the song with the same name as the title (at the time, Merrie Melodies was done to promote songs Warners owns), Foxy arrives at a bar disguised at a Mexican saloon (which is pretty bold for Warner Bros., as this was two years before Prohibition was repealed). As a result of the era, the booze is labelled with skull and crossbones, and the characters all drink like crazy while singing the song. Even Foxy takes part in the singing and drinking, and even falling in love with a female vixen (later given the name Roxy) who actually plays her mandolin. A old short worth checking out if you treat it as the product of its time.

Not your typical Looney Tune or Merrie Melodie, this cartoon is plain weird. Trying to find a new character to replace Bosko, Foxy was created (Mickey Mouse with bigger ears and a bushy tail) to try and build a new brand ... but after three or four appearances, he disappeared into history, and was promptly forgotten.

Now, two DVDs include this cartoon and give you a chance to see for yourself. 'Lady ..' is an extra on 'Little Caesar', and also appears on Disc 3 of the 'Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 1' (within a documentary about lost cartoons). Watching it now it really does give me the creeps, the animation, the characters, the voices, are all extremely strange, and proof positive that the series was not always, if ever, aimed at children.

'Lady ...' uses its limited time to present a look at the sins of drink in a time of prohibition, and uses primitive and obvious gags, as well as horrible singing creatures of indeterminate species, to sing the songs.

The first credited Merrie Melody is a poor effort. The animation is repetitive, the gags poor -- one involves a character's dentures coming out on an armature and acting like a castanet -- and the songs -- "Lady, Play Your Mandolin" and "I Am A Gay Caballero" are sung in annoying cartoon voices.

The first Merrie Melody cartoon becomes funny once you realize the historical context. "Lady, Play Your Mandolin!" was released during prohibition, but features a bunch of characters drinking themselves stupid (those cartoons loved inebriation, didn't they?). Otherwise, you can see that the Termite Terrace crowd was only getting started, so you can forgive them for creating something that looks too much like a Disney cartoon; they got really good when they deliberately tried to be the anti-Disney. There's a reason that Foxy didn't get as well known as Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Elmer, etc. But at least the existence of this cartoon paved the way for the Looney Tunes.

Foxy only made three cartoons---two of them--SMILE<DARN YA,SMILE and ONE MORE TIME are classics---everybody remembers the title songs. This is the Foxy nobody knows about. Frank Marsales specialized in bizarre closeups of animals,and have inanimate objects suddenly not only spring to life but join in the group singing. Opening scenes of a jolly gorilla waiter---and Marsales specialized in hippos with a Joe E. Brown yell.

Hey,they look like foxes to ME!!