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The Fella with the Fiddle is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short released in 1937, with a theme song written by Charlie Abbott. In its Blue Ribbon reissue, the title was changed to The Fella with a Fiddle.
Plot
When his grandchildren fight over a coin for ice cream, J. Field Mouse tells them the story of a mouse whose greed and dishonesty became his undoing.
Feigning blindness and playing the fiddle on the street corner, this mouse collects enough money to live an opulent lifestyle. His home, marked by a shabby exterior, turns out to be a mansion where he lives it up with his riches. All the fiddler's luxury is in jeopardy when the tax assessor knocks on the door. The fiddler scurries around to hide his opulence and make his home look like a hovel. He succeeds in confusing the tax assessor to the point that he flees in frustration, but an eavesdropping cat plays on the fiddler's greed and lures him into his jaws by placing a gold crown on his tooth.
And that, says J. Field Mouse to his grandchildren, was the end of the greedy mouse. One of the grandchildren asked if the greedy mouse got eaten. The grandfather said, "Yes, he ate him all up." But one of his grandchildren notices grandpa's gold tooth watch fob and begins to doubt the story.
Trivia
- The gold tooth watch fob looks nothing like the cat's gold crown, so it's unclear whether grandpa is the fiddler or not.
- Final cartoon to be re-issued by Leon Schlesinger even though it was reissued in 1945 still having his credits.
- This short is the first Merrie Melodies short with Mel Blanc voicing characters.
Status of original titles
Original ending titles have been found on a 8mm VHS.[1]
References
External links
- Big Cartoon Database entry at http://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/143-Fella_With_A_Fiddle.html
- Internet Movie Database entry at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028859/