Mouse-Warming (1952) User Reviews (4)

Charming mouse story

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 23 April 2022]

Have been a lifelong fan of animation, that's no secret here. Chuck Jones is also an animation director legend and one of the best and most influential. The mice versus cat conflict kind of story is a very common one in animation and any cartoon with that kind of story tends to be predictable and can be too bland and cutesy, especially when part of a series that revolve around that formula. Often find too that the cats are much more interesting than the mice characters.

Something that is the case with 'Mouse Warming'. It is a worthwhile cartoon and was better than expected, it is funnier than expected and not as over-cute, but it is a fairly typical mice versus cat conflict sort of cartoon and not much different from others with a similar formula. 'Mouse Warming' succeeds in a number of areas, but also could have been better and Jones is not on his best form. We are talking about overall cartoon here, not in terms of animation or direction.

'Mouse Warming' as said succeeds in a number of areas. The animation is vibrant and beautifully detailed in unmistakable Jones fashion. The music is lush and characterful, not only adding to the action but also enhancing it.

Enough of the writing is surprisingly sharp and amusing, and a lot less sugary than what was feared. Considering how old the story is, the energy was also more than expected and it was sharper. The gags are well timed and don't feel too recycled, they are also amusing. The cat is a fun and formidable character that takes the laughs well while also being suitably antagonistic.

Do agree that the mice really lack personality and it does mean that because of such a wide divide in the extent to how interesting the characters are that the conflict lacks tension.

While there is more energy than expected, the story is very predictable and more of the same and something that had been done to death many times already. It is a little too slow and cute to begin with.

Overall, nothing mind blowing but could have been a lot worse. 6/10.

MOUSE-WARMING tells the story of quadruplet brothers . . .

[oscaralbert · 6/10 · 22 March 2016]

. . . which are not as rare in the Rodent Kingdom as quads tend to be among we Human Beings. These brothers probably are identical (though mice mostly look the same to me). During the course of this seven-minute Warner Bros. animated short, Claude the yellow cat gobbles down the first three boys, one by one. (This is perhaps for the best, because the guys have only ONE toy hot rod to their name, and they're all fixated upon the same neighbor gal.) The doomed trio seem to be semi-literate, able to read but not to write. This enables Claude to trick them into his gullet, since Warner felines tend to be prolific writers, with a devious capacity for inter-species communication (that is, Claude can write Mouse). Unfortunately for the yellow cat, Mouse Brother Number Four obviously has crashed some cat training sessions, and he's able to give the half-satiated mouser a taste of his own medicine. Though this turn of events strains credulity, it's probably not the first implausible close to a Warner short. Since the romantic mouse couple are last seen in the cold storage of a refrigerator, this may be the animators' way of telegraphing that the Chill of Death (by being eaten alive) awaits the rodent pair as soon as Claude gets his appetite back.

Overly sweet characters but still has funny moments

[bob the moo · 27 February 2004]

When a new family of mice move into the floorboards of a house, the resident male is overjoyed to see that the family includes the hottest little mouse he has ever seen! However attempts to put moves on her are hampered by fact that she is on the other side of the hallway - a hallway guarded by a hungry, mean cat. Will love find a way?

With a jolly animation style, bright colours, sweet mice and a romantic plot, I was terrified that this cartoon would be as bad it those few words would suggest. Things looked bleak as a cute male mouse made eyes at a cute female mouse `across the way', but happily things got better once the cat made an appearance. The material is actually pretty good when you consider the dross too often given to minor characters, I laughed quite a few times and some of the gags are actually quite imaginative and clever.

As far as characters, none of these here are really that good. The cat is easily the best as he gets the laughs by being the brunt of most of the jokes. The mice are too cutesy and nondescript to really be good as characters; in fact, if it weren't for the cat I'd have dismissed this as sickly mush.

Overall this short is actually a lot funnier and sharper than you'd think from the set up. The jokes may not be unique to this short but the basic characters do a good job of delivering the material; the cat in particular does well to lift the material out of the cutesy romantic plot into a much better vehicle.

A Better Mousetrap

[boblipton · 10/10 · 15 December 2002]

Another of Chuck Jones' hilarious psychological shorts, about the dangers teenagers are willing to run for romance -- in this case a seventeen-month-old mouse, who is being fed forged love notes by Claude Cat. But what's that note Claude got from the bulldog?