User Reviews

. . . it's no accident. Several Walt Dizzy films featured this "invisible" or oddly-colored rodent theme earlier, particularly in the Chip & Dale franchise. Of course, having a radio announcer reporting on a dangerous escapee from a lab or zoo was a recurring feature of Warner Bros. Animation, including a memorable outing with Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil. Some say that duplication of another's work is the sincerest form of flattery. Copyright lawyers contend that appropriation of a rival corporation's intellectual property is the root of all lawsuits. THE MISSING MOUSE sure seems fodder for litigation.

"The Missing Mouse" is a cartoon from 1953, so this one has its 65th anniversary next year. The title makes obvious that this is either a Disney Mickey cartoon or an MGM Tom and Jerry cartoon and with the collaboration of Hanna, Barbera and Quimby, it is of course the latter. This is not one of the earliest works still, but one of the more (maybe most) famous cartoons starring the world's famous cat and mouse duo from the 1950s. It is also shorter than the early ones who made it to 8 minutes occasionally. This one here runs for 6 minutes roughly. It starts with the usual chase sequences, but then we find out that a white mouse is on the run from a laboratory and it is on the danger of exploding. Jerry soaked in powder or milk or anything hears it too and starts pulling pranks on Tom for the rest of the film. Until he ends up in the water and the color vanishes. But this is when the real white mouse shows up and Tom thinks it's Jerry again. These moments of Tom realizing it is the real white mouse and then hearing it is not a danger anymore were maybe the funniest from this short film. It was also interesting to see Jerry in a different color I think. The comedy was okay, not too good, not too bad. The story was a bit absurd. And how did Nelly Furtado say already, there is a lot of sh*t on the radio. All in all, not one of the best or worst Tom and Jerry cartoons. Worth checking out overall.

Tom mistakes Jerry for an escaped lab mouse which will produce an a-bomb proportioned explosion even with the slightest hit. Violently funny situations occur as the white bleached Jerry torments Tom by threatening to fall down or hit himself with a claw hammer, and of course he loses the bleach without realizing it, quite predictably I might add.

I'm unsure whether I've seen Jerry get this much hammering (literally) in any of these cartoons. Usually it's Tom who suffers but this time he only gets the token iron on his face and some of that hammering as well. What really struck me was that the real lab mouse - a cute and benevolent little rodent without the violent streak Jerry has - in the explodes in Tom's face and while Tom survives the blast that wrecks at least the house (or even the city?), the lab mouse apparently goes to meet its creator.

I don't know whether Hanna/Barbera acknowledged this problem in this kids' film, but this is pretty shocking to me. Nobody really don't die in these films unless were talking about Itchy and Scratchy, and even if they do, we're shown how their souls leave their body and ascend/descend to heaven/hell in some amusing way, but at least they're back in the next film.

The lab mouse never resurrected.