It's Got Me Again!

After so many years of seeing this early Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short listed among the Oscar nominees for Best Short Subject-Cartoon/Animated in Leonard Maltin's book "Of Mice and Magic", I finally got to see this on YouTube. This was the first entry from the studio whose initials were trademarked as a shield that got an Academy Award nomination (It lost to Disney's Flowers and Trees). It concerned various mice who at night dance and play music until a cat threatens to spoil their fun. Quite entertaining musically with some amusing gags near the end when they attempt to chase away the cat. I especially like the creative way the mice used the record needle as a machine gun. If there's one caveat, it's that in many scenes the mice's faces look like Disney's Mickey. I've said a few times that because the directors-Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising-once worked for Uncle Walt during the Alice and Oswald days that they probably got that look by osmosis. Some have accused me of spreading lies since it's well known that Ub Iwerks created the famous mouse after Harmon-Ising left Disney. Maybe so, still I stand by my assumption that Hugh and Rudy probably drew the mice that way simply because Oswald looked similar when they worked on him. Having said all that, I'll just now say judge for yourself when you watch It's Got Me Again! on YouTube. P.S. While I've also seen Hold Everything, I didn't know of any similarities since it's been almost two years since I watched that and reviewed it here on IMDb.

It's Got Me Again! (1932)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short has various mice singing and dancing but the mood changes when an angry cat shows up. I'm somewhat surprised Disney didn't go after this film because the mice certainly share a resemblance to Mickey Mouse. With that said, this is a very fast paced and funny film that has some great animation. The song and dance numbers are all pretty good and the cat is a great villain. This is also a pretty dark film so it might scare some of the kids watching.

Turner Classic Movies shows this quite often.

Frank Marsales gives us a little lively instrumental of "Get Happy" before we are introduced to some squeaking mice who like to come out to play after midnight has struck on their clock. They are in a music room with it's wind-up gramophone to which they all - and there are millions of them - dance. Then they have a go on the drum, the accordion, practise some military precision marching. One even has a go on the French horn though, and that's their mistake. It disturbs the cat outside in the rain! Still obliviously mucking about on the piano, their feline foe is figuring a way to get into that room! Job done, a late supper beckons - can the mice escape his claws? Luckily the cat's aim is pretty rubbish but it's still risky for one singing mouse whose friends must come to his rescue! Drumsticks, needles and even a blow torch - what chance has the poor moggy? It's quite a fun animation this with some characters amongst the mice - even one on a crutch, but the story isn't really up to much and the general cacophony doesn't really stand out. It's watchable, but you'll never remember it.

This is an early (1932) attempt to have a cartoon in which the animated figures react to music. In other words, all their movement, from individual steps to slapstick-type stuff, all coincides with the music. In the '40s several cartoons won awards for this sort of thing, ones that feature Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny.

This one wasn't advanced enough to have that cleverness and color that we saw in the next decade, but for a 1932 effort this is passable. Just don't expect to get any laughs out of it. It still has some entertainment value, however, and all these little miniature Mickey Mouse- lookalike mice are "cute."

The "story" is just a bunch of mice enjoying a record, jumping on top of the vinyl disc as it goes around on the record player. Later, some of them play the flute and jump up and down on the drums. The second half offers some humor as one of the little mice falls into a spittoon

I did think Al Jolson imitation near the end was pretty good. Also, instead of "That's all, folks," the ending was "So long, folks!"

I saw this on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three. It was one of the "From The Vault" features on disc two.

This cartoon has the look and feel of a Disney cartoon rather than the typical Warner Brothers cartoon. The singing and dancing mice, their antics and the general layout and design of the cartoon remind you more of Disney than anything else, but Warner Brothers was in the process of developing their distinctive style and traces of it can be seen here. Very good cartoon with a fairly well-developed plot. Well worth your time to watch, it shows up on Cartoon Network's Late Night Black and White periodically.