Lady, Play Your Mandolin!

Lady, Play Your Mandolin! is the first Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Rudolf Ising of Harman and Ising.[1] The short was released on August 2, 1931, and stars Foxy, a character who appeared in three 1931 shorts.[2]

Lady, Play Your Mandolin!
Foxy makes his entrance
Directed byRudolf Ising (uncredited)
Produced byHugh Harman
Rudolf Ising
Associate producer:
Leon Schlesinger
Story byRudolf Ising (uncredited)
StarringRudolf Ising
Abe Lyman
Rochelle Hudson (all uncredited)
Music byMusical score and direction by:
Frank Marsales
Animation byDrawn by:
Rollin "Ham" Hamilton
Norm Blackburn
Uncredited animators:
Isadore Freleng
Robert Clampett
Carman Maxwell
Larry Martin
Assistant animator:
Bob McKimson (unc.)
Layouts byIsadore Freleng (unc.)
Backgrounds byIsadore Freleng (unc.)
Color processBlack-and-white
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date
  • August 2, 1931 (1931-08-02)
Running time
7 minutes
LanguageEnglish

Overview

The cartoon features Foxy as a gaucho who decides to visit a local saloon. His horse soon finds himself drunk and begins to hallucinate wildly. Similarly to Foxy, the cartoon features a female fox character that is very reminiscent of Minnie Mouse.

As was typically the case with the early entries in the Merrie Melodies series, one purpose of the cartoon was to promote a Warner-owned popular song. The title theme, written by Oscar Levant with lyrics by Irving Caesar, was a 1930 #5 pop hit sung by Nick Lucas and released by Brunswick Records, which had been purchased by Warner Bros. the previous year (Another recording, by the Havana Novelty Orchestra was released the same year on RCA's Victor Records). In the short, it is sung by a female fox character who would later become Foxy's girlfriend, Roxy.

The credited animators were Rollin "Ham" Hamilton and Norm Blackburn (plus uncredited animation by Isadore Freleng, Robert Clampett (his first cartoon at WB according to some sources) and Carman Maxwell) with a musical score and direction of the Abe Lyman (Brunswick Recording) Orchestra by Frank Marsales. Rudolf Ising provides the voice of Foxy while Harman-Ising regular Rochelle Hudson as well as Abe Lyman (and probably members of his band) provide the other voices.

Availability

The cartoon is available as an extra on the Little Caesar DVD and Blu-ray. It is also available on the DVD 'Attack of the '30's Characters', albeit in an unrestored form. Like the post-1948 Warner Bros. cartoon library, it is the only Looney Tunes cartoon that was never sold to Sunset Productions nor Associated Artists Productions, presumably because of its alcohol-related subject matter. It is also the only Looney Tunes cartoon not available on TNT in the 80s, nor Cartoon Network but available on Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang until the late 2000s. In 2003, it was included within bonus features on disc 3 of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1.

References
  1. Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Company.
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 83. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.


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