The Unexpected Pest is a 1956 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson.
Plot[]
Sylvester's owner, John, is fed up with his laziness. John's wife, Marsha, says they only got the cat to keep away mice, and there hasn't been a mouse around in months. Sylvester desperately looks for a mouse to catch to prove his worth. When he has no luck finding a mouse in the house, he goes outside and finds a little mouse, who agrees to the same mouse that Sylvester will catch over and over again, only because he wants to be roughed up in front of his master.
It doesn't take the mouse long to realize that Sylvester really does need him alive, and he decides to stop being his fool. As a result, Sylvester pays the price for using the mouse for selfish reasons by constantly trying to prevent the mouse from causing trouble breaking the dishes, or trying to harm himself by jumping off the shelf, attempting to get himself eaten by Sylvester, grabbing cheese off a mousetrap, dropping a clothes iron on himself, sitting on a lit TNT stick. Sylvester saves the mouse from each situation, but when he throws the dynamite out the front door, he doesn't realize John is outside. John is shown injured and angry with Sylvester.
Sylvester is thrown out of the house and battered and beaten. The mouse fakes suicide by pretending to jump off the bridge of a river, and Sylvester, having become fed up with the pesky mouse, says "And good riddance too!" Once Sylvester leaves, the mouse climbs back on the bridge, and says "After all he's been through, I thought he deserved a happy ending."
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Censorship[]
On ABC's The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show, the scene of Sylvester trying to save the mouse from attempting suicide by having a clothes iron fall on his head, only for Sylvester to get hit instead was cut.[2]
Notes[]
- From this to "Barbary-Coast Bunny", all the cartoons have the 1954-55 ending card. After, "Rocket-bye Baby", the red card would only appear on "Half-Fare Hare".
- The names Marsha and John are a reference to the 1951 Stan Freberg song "John and Marsha". "Wild Wife", "Punch Trunk", and "Unnatural History" also reference this record.
Gallery[]
TV Title Cards[]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/27565510/boxoffice-october041965
- ↑ The Censored Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies Page: U-Z http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-u-z.aspx