Much Ado About Mutton (1947)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Izzy Sparber

Writers:

Joe Stultz (story) and
Carl Meyer (story)

Release Date:

18 July 1947 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short

Plot:

The big bad wolf is hungry and thinks lamb-chops would fill his need, so he puts the a snatch of a couple of Uncle Blackie's fleecy-white nephews...

Plot Keywords:

Wolf | Disguise | Lamb | Blackie The Lamb | Scheme

Cast

Sid Raymond	...	Wolf (voice) (uncredited)
Arnold Stang	...	Blackie (voice) (uncredited)

Runtime:

USA:7 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Approved | USA:Passed (National Board of Review)

Company:

Famous Studios

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

A fun and lively cartoon that I find very entertaining.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Through most of the mid to late 1940s, Paramount's Famous Studios did some fairly good work. Sometime in the 1950s, they kind of seemed to surrender to a rising tide of mediocrity and just turned out shorts virtually indistinguishable from each other and started strip mining the old Fliescher Studios shorts for ideas (particularly the Popeye shorts). But in the 1940s, they actually did some really nice work. This short is a case in point. Because I want to talk about the short in some detail, this is a spoiler warning:

This is a short focusing on a sheep named Blackie. It starts out with three lambs dancing to a jazzed up version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" until a wolf comes along (the characterization of the wolf and the voice all seem very familiar, but I can't quite place them). The wolf grabs two of them, but they get away and all three run for help to their Uncle Blackie. There's a really nice bit surrounding the sack the wolf tried to trap the lambs in that I won't spoil here. Uncle Blackie manages to get rid of the wolf in a creative (and likely painful) way.

The lambs, of course, don't learn anything and wind up in trouble again when the wolf pretends to be "Little Boy Blue" blowing his jiving horn. The wolf lures them back to his place only to have Blackie save them at the last instant.

There follows the longest section of the short, where the wolf goes after Blackie himself, with predictable (but hilarious) results. There are elaborate bits involving a magnifying glass and Blackie tending a bar and serving the wolf a "mint julep" made of hot sauce. Some really funny stuff in this part of the cartoon.

Finally, the wolf manages to get lucky and actually catches Blackie. Not being the shiniest pebble in the pond, the wolf allows Blackie to trick him and get away, leading to the final gag and a very funny close to the short.

You can find this short on the occasional VHS cassette or DVD. It's definitely worth tracking down. Most recommended.