oscaralbert Review of The Mice Will Play

The Mice Will Play (1938)

What's a Warnologist to make of THE MICE WILL PLAY . . .

[6/10 · 24 March 2016]

. . . with its patient predator, rodent wedding, and mouse orchestra? Hidden deep in the bonus feature menu of Disc Two of the "Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles," this Warner Bros. animated short tries to deflect casual analysis by opening in the "Experimental Laboratory" of "Dr. I.M. Nutts," who apparently turns out to be a Black Cat. For most of this seven-minute piece, the mice have the run of this lab, playing with a stethoscope, the X-Ray Machine, microscopes, liquid neon (?!), and so forth. However, early on there's a hint about the underlying serious content of this short, as a group of mice gnaw out the book title GONE WITH THE WIND in the Lab's baseboards. After "Johnny" Mouse rescues "Susie" Mouse ("Experimental Subject #12") from a cage, a Rodent Wedding is followed by an orchestral rendition of some obscure Warner Sheet Music song. Then the feline Dr. Nutts overhears Susie predicting a litter of fat mice, and he defers his plans for an immediate wedding couple snack in favor of a later Mouseketeer Feast. Putting two and two together, Warner is predicting that shortly after the release of TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE (Susie's number in captivity, remember?) President Cruz will appoint Supreme Court Justices even more Originalist than Justice Scalia, and America will be forced to revert to the Good Ol' GONE WITH THE WIND Racist Slavery Days, as mandated in the Original U.S. Constitution, complete with Dr. Nutts' Foodstock Breeding Program.