I Was a Teenage Thumb

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Airdate:
19 January 1963

Series:

Merrie Melodies

MPAA Number:	Production Number:
19941	1578

Copyright Renewed:

15 June 1990

Starring:

Ralph K. Merlin Jr.

Crew

I Was a Teenage Thumb is a 1963 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble.

Title[]

The title is a play on the 1957 film I Was a Teenage Werewolf.

Plot[]

George Ebenezer Thumb and his wife Prunhilda desperately want a son, so they are granted a thumb-sized one by the constantly-transforming wizard Ralph K. Merlin Jr. After being snatched by the family cat, and then by a large bird, the baby manages to escape, then falls victim to a giant fish caught by a knight, which is then brought to King Arthur himself for a meal. The baby then is noticed by Arthur when he cuts open the fish. Arthur makes him a knight, and he eventually marries and has a son the size of his thumb, who has a son the size of his thumb, and so on.

Prunhilda is still endlessly knitting a giant bootie while having a strange craving for sardines in strawberry popovers, much to George's horror, who witnesses the insanely large bootie his wife is still knitting.

Caricatures[]

Ronald Colman - Narrator

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Censorship[]

Versions of this cartoon commonly shown on American television (and one international channel) all edit out King Arthur calling his knight Morty an "ass" for bring him a fish with a baby inside of it, but the edit is done in three different ways:

On ABC and Nickelodeon, King Arthur's line after he finds the thumb-sized baby in his fish, "Morty, you ass! This fish is full of people!" was edited to remove "you ass" (so now the line goes, "Morty...this fish is full of people!"). ABC used to air this uncut on Saturday morning TV in 1988, then dropped it from its rotation until ten years later (in 1998), when it re-emerged with the "you ass" line removed.
Rather than edit the "you ass" in "Morty, you ass! This fish is full of people!", Cartoon Network and Boomerang version cut the entire scene featuring the line^[1]. This only applies to the U.S. feed of Cartoon Network and Boomerang; international feeds, including the version shown on the Latin American sister channel, Tooncast, have this short uncut.
The Russian channel 2x2 kept the scene of King Arthur finding the baby in the fish, but muted out the "you ass" in "Morty, you ass, this fish is full of people), so now the line goes, "Morty, [no audio], this fish is full of people."

On December 25, 2021, MeTV showed the cartoon uncut. The short is also uncut on WarnerMedia RIDE.

Notes[]

This is the second Looney Tunes cartoon based on the classic Tom Thumb story, the other being "Tom Thumb in Trouble". This one, however, is told with a dry, British twist.
In the opening credits, director Chuck Jones' name is credited as "Chuck Jones. Esq."
Current television prints of this cartoon have blue borders in the opening credits, although both the opening and closing rings lack borders (as evident by the video in the infobox above). Since the use of colored borders in the opening titles for post-1948 cartoons are usually associated with the Golden Jubilee VHS tape collection of the mid-1980s by fans, it was unknown whether this print was originally mastered to be included in one of the tapes in said VHS collection but was omitted at the last minute.

Television[]

The Merrie Melodies Show: Episode # 13 (1970s) along with "Mexican Mousepiece" and "Tease for Two".
The Bugs Bunny/Looney Tunes Comedy Hour (1985-6)
The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show: 17 September 1988, 14 February 1998, 23 January 1999, 27 March 1999^[2]^[3]
Bugs Bunny and Friends: December 25, 2021 (on MeTV)