The Fella with the Fiddle

The Fella with the Fiddle
Merrie Melodies series
Directed by	I. Freleng
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Voices by	Mel Blanc Billy Bletcher Bernice Hansen
Music by	Carl Stalling
Animation by	Cal Dalton Cal Howard
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Vitaphone
Release date(s)	March 27, 1937 (USA)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7 min (one reel)
Language	English

The Fella with the Fiddle is a Merrie Melodies cartoon short released in 1937, with a theme song written by Charlie Abbott. This was the first Merrie Melodies cartoon with Mel Blanc.

Plot summary

J. Field Mouse tells his grandchildren the story of a mouse whose greed and dishonesty became his undoing. Feigning blindness and playing the fiddle, he 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 hurriedly presses a series of buttons 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 coin there. And that, says J. Field Mouse to his grandchildren, was the end of the greedy mouse. But one of his grandchildren notices a gold (cat's?) tooth hanging on display and realizes that things weren't quite what they seem.

The cartoon appears in Blue Ribbon re-release as The Fella with a Fiddle.

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/