User Reviews

This is a cartoon in the Farmer Al Falfa series produced by Terrytoons studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is a rather odd little cartoon, even for a Terrytoon. It opens with a cat and mouse cruising down the road in a car. They are clearly at odds in the beginning, with the cat silently yelling at the mouse for one reason or another. The car itself isn't too terribly well connected, as the body and the wheels separate on one or two occasions A motorcycle cop climbs up, spider-like, into a birdhouse to wait and watch for speeders. After the cat and mouse go driving by, the cop begins chasing them. Putting aside their differences in order to get away, which they do by losing the body of the car and proceeding on just the wheels.

Enter Farmer Al, almost three minutes into the film. He's repairing a flat tire. Meanwhile, his car keeps kicking Al with a tire when he isn't looking. It seems his car doesn't much like Al. Al, after repairing the tire, tries to figure out what's wrong with the car, tosses out the engine and the car becomes a bucking bronco.

A policeman directing traffic stops them and the car ultimately eats him, eventually spitting out the clothes and the badge. Al and the car then speed back home, where the car dirties Al's window and leaves. Al advertises for window washers and then goes in to feed his fish. Some really funny gags here.

The cat and the mouse take on the job of washing the windows, but the cat decides the mouse makes a great wash rag and starts using the mouse to clean the windows. Cut to Al snoozing while a mouse cleans his glasses.

Outside, the cat sets down the now soaked, groggy and angry mouse, who tosses a bucket at the cat for tolerably understandable reasons and one half of the war is on. The second half is Al going toe to to with the mice in his house. The best gags here deal with the cat contending against both the mouse and the fish and getting beaten soundly.

The two story lines converge with Al and the cat chasing their respective adversaries to the same spot and having all the mice start chasing Al and the cat with seltzer bottles. The last scene is great, so I won't spoil it here.

Well worth seeing. Recommended.

This is another Paul Terry silent cartoon. A cat and mouse are riding in a car that keeps slipping off its wheels so the mouse positions the car parallel to the wheels as they keep moving. A policeman dog gives chase after spying on them through a birdhouse which he climbed, spider-like, through. Cut to a separate scene with Farmer Al Falfa painting his tires before leaving. A human policeman chases him but when the cop catches up, the car eats him spitting his out uniform and beat stick! As the farmer arrives at his home, the cat and mouse-who had managed to elude the police dog-come up, sees the window washer ad, and get to work with the cat using the mouse as a sponge! There's also a fish who washes inside and outside his bowl and another mouse who cleans the farmer's glasses. It all ends with the mice chasing Al and the cat outside...Besides some of what I described in the synopsis, there's a few more amusing sight gags like when the car arrives at a river, the wheels go underwater while the body of the car becomes a boat with the cat and mouse rowing! Also, the cat and mouse's car gets a flat so the mouse gets the pump and pushes the air through the tire while the car is still moving! Not much logic here and the animation was pretty primitive but if your an animation fan who's curious about these early silent Terrytoons, this and many others that are on YouTube are worth a look.

I seen a video of this cartoon online some weeks ago. This silent short is one of the early cartoons of the "Aesop's Fables" started by Paul Terry. Only a handful of shorts in the series are based on the original fables themselves because Paul Terry said he never heard of Aesop at the time.

The cartoon shows a cat and mouse who are good team in losing the cop that goes after them on the highway. But when they take the job of window washing at Farmer Al's home is where they have a fallout. The cat does clean the window but uses the mouse to clean it instead of a sponge. The mouse doesn't take it too kindly, and therefore hurls a pail at the cat, prompting them to go into a chase.

What I really like about the short is the beautiful melody that plays at the opening scene. I cannot imagine a melody more beautiful than that. As for the gags and the story, it's entertaining enough.

Because Krazy Kat shorts were a hit at the time, there's also some influence from those shorts in this. Some time after the fallout, the mouse tosses a brick on the cat's head. Pretty reminiscent.