Cheese Chasers

At the end of a raid on a cheese factory called "Hunka Cheese Co.", Hubie and Bertie, both of them green-faced, decide to stop eating. Hubie determines to Bertie that, based on the amount of cheese the average mouse eats in a lifetime (12 lbs.), they have eaten enough in one night to have lived 2,000 years (48 tons). Claiming that they will never be able to even touch cheese again, and thus believing that they have nothing left to live for, Hubie and Bertie become suicidal and try to get eaten by Claude Cat. They leave behind a suicide note, enter Claude's house through a mouse hole, open the sleeping Claude's mouth, step into it, and then close it with them still inside. The cat wakes up and looks in a mirror. Seeing the mice in his mouth twice, he spits them out one at a time; the mice just as quickly re-enter Claude's mouth. When Claude takes them out, Hubie and Bertie beg him to eat them. The cat says that he must be dreaming and sticks himself in the backside with a pin to wake himself up. Screaming in pain, he leaps into the air and lands on a pillow. Commenting on what a terrible dream he believes he had, Claude laughs it off and tries to go back to sleep. Hubie and Bertie quickly run into Claude's mouth and again beg him to eat them. Claude sticks out his tongue and sees the mice. Realizing that this is not a dream, the cat runs away, cringes in fear in a corner and asks the mice what he ever did to them. When Hubie and Bertie insist that all they want is for him to eat them, Claude says that he does not want to eat them. When he offers the mice a hunk of cheese to make them leave, they scream in fear and tell him to take it away. Confused, the cat consults a book called Mental Diseases: Their Cause and Cure. He finally finds the page he is looking for, tears it out of the book, folds it into a paper three-cornered hat and assumes a Napoleon pose.

Realizing they have to get tough with the cat, the mice, both of them carrying a hammer, find Claude inside a glass bottle, building a model ship outside of it (Claude breaks the fourth wall and says to the audience that it is said that a hobby sometimes helps). Shattering the bottle with the hammer, Hubie asks Claude if he is going to eat them or not. When the cat refuses, the mice bring the hammer down hard on Claude's foot, angering him enough to grab them and put them in his mouth, laughing evilly all the while. When he realizes the danger of this, the cat spits the mice out one at a time again and runs out the front door, slamming it behind him. Claude finally concludes that he will never again be able to eat mice, that he has nothing left to live for, and also decides to commit suicide. Claude also leaves behind a suicide note, walks stiffly outside and punches a bulldog in the front yard, who runs out of his doghouse, barking in anger. Then he looks back and sees Claude waiting for him, blindfolded and smoking a cigarette. Confronting Claude, he asks, "Hey cat, what gives? Why don'tcha run? Don'tcha know I'm gonna massacree ya?", to which Claude says he does and begs him to do so. The bulldog angrily tells Claude not to give him any nonsense. When Claude continues to beg the bulldog to "massacre" him, and the mice come running out of the house and once again try to get into Claude's mouth and beg him to eat them, the bulldog finally tries to figure out why Claude no longer wants to eat mice and the mice do not like cheese anymore. Figuring out in the end that "It just don't add up," he runs after a passing city dog catcher truck, now wanting to get committed and therefore put to sleep ("Hey, wait for me! Wait for baby!"), with Claude ("Hey, wait for me! You gotta massacre me!") and the mice ("Wait, you cowardly cat!") running after him, all three of them still wanting to end their own lives.

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2 (DVD set)
• Looney Tunes Mouse Chronicles: The Chuck Jones Collection (DVD set)

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Cheese Chasers

• Cheese Chasers at IMDb
• Cheese Chasers at The Big Cartoon DataBase