Studio: Harman-Ising Productions, Leon Schlesinger Productions (Merrie Melodies)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, The Vitaphone Corporation
Produced by: Hugh Harman, Rudolf Ising, Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
A honeybee makes his way home through the forest, dallying with the flowers, and tiptoes up the stairs of his house, which is made from a fedora, so as not to wake his wife. He falls over the sofa, sets off an alarm and is caught; she accuses him of staying out drinking and announces that she will do the honey-collecting from now on. Out she goes, and a storm blows up. She takes shelter in a tumbledown house made of a barrel, which belongs to an old and hideous spider, who locks the door, swallows the key and leads her into a dark room. Her cries for help reach her husband, who blows a horn and summons a legion of bees on tiny horses pulled from a harmonica. They storm the barrel, the husband runs a thorny vine where it hurts the spider most, and the villain flees on a bubble while the couple are reunited to the title tune.
Why It Matters
- The spider's house, the bee's fedora home and the cavalry on harmonica horses are the kind of small-scale invention the Harman-Ising Merrie Melodies did well, and the storm and rescue are staged with a melodramatic flourish that parodies live-action thrillers of the day. Marsales's arrangement of the Harry Woods song carries the romance.
- The film is the fifteenth Merrie Melody and a good example of the series in its first years, when each cartoon was built around a Warner-owned song and a romantic couple of insects, flowers or animals. The insect-village setting was a stock one, from Fleischer to Disney's Silly Symphonies, and this is a lively version of it.
Notes and Trivia
- Harry M. Woods also wrote "Side by Side" and "Try a Little Tenderness".
- The spider's comeuppance, a thorn across the groin, is the kind of gag that vanished from cartoons after the Production Code of 1934.
- See also: Love a Parade (1932), Bosko the Doughboy (1931), Sittin' on a Backyard Fence (1933).