''It's Got Me Again!'' is a 1932
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
''
Merrie Melodies
''Merrie Melodies'' is an American animated comedy short film series distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was part of the ''Looney Tunes'' franchise and featured many of the same characters. Originally running from August 2, 1931, to Septem ...
'' animated
short film
A short film is a film with a low running time. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of not more than 40 minutes including all credits". Other film o ...
directed by
Rudolf Ising
Rudolf Carl "Rudy" Ising ( ; August 7, 1903 – July 18, 1992) was an American animator best known for collaborating with Hugh Harman to establish the Warner Bros. and MGM Cartoon studios during the early years of the golden age of American a ...
.
The short was released on May 14, 1932.
It is noted as the first cartoon from Warner Bros. to be nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...
in 1932.
The title refers to the song "It's Got Me Again!" (music by
Bernice Petkere, lyrics by
Irving Caesar) which plays during the cartoon.
Plot
One night, a
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white ...
-like mouse crawls out of a mouse hole and attempts to sneak out only to be scared back by a grandfather clock's chimes and gets its tail stuck in a mousetrap. After escaping the trap via entering its hole, the mouse exits the hole, grabs and eats the cheese on the mousetrap and continues trekking onwards. After going through multiple
musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...
s, the mouse bounces on a drum and activates a gramophone, which plays the titular song. This causes the mouse to tell his mouse friends to come out and dance to the tune, which they promptly do. Some mice even run on the disc being played only to be launched off. One of the mice launched bounces off of a horn and slides through a flute, creating multiple smaller versions of itself, which starts to play
Yankee Doodle
"Yankee Doodle" is a traditional song and nursery rhyme, the early versions of which predate the Seven Years' War and American Revolutionary War. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today. It is the state song of the U.S. ...
alongside its fellow mice. During this, a few mice march across the ceiling (with animation reused from
Hold Anything), with one off-sync and even falling off of the ceiling and into a
spittoon after the song ends. The mice mock the off-sync mouse who retaliates by
blowing a raspberry
Blowing a raspberry, also known as giving a Bronx cheer, is to make a noise similar to flatulence that may signify derision. It is made by placing the tongue between the lips and blowing.
A raspberry when used with the tongue is not used in any ...
through a trombone, creating a loud noise and stopping the mocking mice. The mouse then waltzes off whistling Yankee Doodle, all the while a hungry cat watches on.
The mouse waltzes to a piano where two mice are shown doing a variation of the
Apache dance
Apache (), or La Danse Apache, Bowery Waltz, Apache Turn, Apache Dance and Tough Dance is a highly dramatic dance associated in popular culture with Parisian street culture at the beginning of the 20th century. The name of the dance is pronounc ...
on it. During this, the hungry cat climbs to the rooftop and watches from above before diving through the
chimney
A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typical ...
. After landing in the fireplace, the cat notices a
cuckoo clock
A cuckoo clock is a type of clock, typically pendulum clock, pendulum driven, that striking clock, strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. Some move their wings and ope ...
before diving towards it and eating it, which causes the cat to hiccup cuckoo noises. As it sneaks up on the mice, the cuckoo noises alert the mice to the cat's presence, causing all but one mouse to escape. This mouse is chased all around the house until he's cornered. This results in him begging the cat to let him go through singing a variation of the title song. However, seeing as the cat won't let him go, the mouse's friends launch a drum stick at the cat using a guitar's bow as a bow and arrow.
This causes the cat to flee as the rest of the mice attack the cat with other instruments-turned-weapons, such as a harp launching more drum sticks, mice using a flamethrower to burn the cat and cause him to be knocked out by a drum, a mouse tickling the cat with a
noisemaker, and ending the cat off by firing needles from the gramophone as if a machine gun, resulting in the cat fleeing through the window as the mice cheer.
Title song
Throughout the cartoon, the song "It's Got Me Again!" by
Bernice Petkere plays. While the original song is played at the start, most of lyrics don't seem to be intelligible outside of the name of the song and certain other words and no other records of the song before or after the cartoon exist. The song is, however, among the songs played in
Vince Giordano: There's a Future in the Past, although no lyrics are sung.
Home media
''It's Got Me Again!'' is available as a bonus feature on disc 2 of the ''
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3'' DVD and on disc 3 of the ''
Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2'' Blu-ray.
References
External links
*
{{Harman and Ising
1932 films
1932 comedy films
Films scored by Frank Marsales
Films directed by Rudolf Ising
Animated films about mice
Merrie Melodies short films
Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films
Animated films about cats
1930s Warner Bros. animated short films
1930s English-language films
English-language short films
American animated black-and-white films
1932 animated short films