Mouse Wreckers
| Mouse Wreckers | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes (Hubie and Bertie) series | |
Title card for Mouse Wreckers, showing Hubie and Bertie
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| Directed by | Charles M. Jones |
| Produced by |
Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc (Bertie, Bulldog, Claude Cat) Stan Freberg (Hubie, uncredited) |
| Music by | Carl Stalling |
| Animation by | Lloyd Vaughan Ken Harris Phil Monroe Ben Washam |
| Layouts by | Robert Gribbroek |
| Backgrounds by | Peter Alvarado |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by |
Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
| Release date(s) | April 23, 1949 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 6 minutes 55 seconds |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | House Hunting Mice |
| Followed by | The Hypo-Chondri-Cat |
Mouse Wreckers is a 1949 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones, starring Hubie and Bertie in their first pairing with the redesigned Claude Cat (an early, primordial version of the cat appeared in 1943's The Aristo-Cat). The short centers around Hubie and Bertie's attempts to move into a new home by chasing Claude out of the home. Mel Blanc voices Bertie and an uncredited Stan Freberg voices Hubie. The title is a pun on house wrecker or home wrecker, where a house is destroyed, often figuratively, by a single person. Mouse Wreckers was nominated for Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for 1948, but lost to The Little Orphan, a Tom and Jerry cartoon which was the fifth Oscar (of seven) given to the cat and mouse team.
The cartoon was loosely remade as Gopher Broke in 1958, and later as the Tom and Jerry cartoon The Year of the Mouse in 1965 (also written by Maltese and directed by Jones).
Scouting out a new home, Hubie calls over Bertie, who begins to gaze into it before Hubie slaps Bertie to make him realize that before they can move in, the cat Claude, who has an award for Best Mouser - 1948 (along with other mouser awards), must be removed first. Realizing that the task may not be easy, Hubie comes up with several ways to chase Claude out, all of which are designed to drive him crazy, having Bertie do each of the tricks.
First, Hubie lowers Bertie down the chimney on a fishing line. At the bottom of the chimney, Bertie grabs a piece of wood, smacks Claude in the head with it, and is then quickly yanked back up the chimney. When Claude just goes back to sleep, unable to figure out what happens, Bertie is lowered again, pumping air into Claude Cat. When Bertie is yanked back up the chimney and the pump is released, Claude ends up flying all over the living room, hitting all of the walls and ceiling before landing hard on the pillow on which he was resting. Claude then takes the bottle of catnip he had hidden in an overhead lamp, tosses it out the window, and inaudibly mutters the Pledge of Sobriety.
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Wikipedia