"Early To Bet"(1951) Merrie Melody
Director: Robert McKimson
Story: Tedd Pierce
Animation: Phil DeLara, Emery Hawkins, Charles McKimson, Rod Scribner
Layouts: Cornett Wood
Backgrounds: Richard H. Thomas
Voices: Mel Blanc, (cat and bulldog) Stan Freberg (Gambling Bug) Robert C. Bruce (narrator, beginning)
Music: Carl Stalling,
A real standout one-shot cartoon from Robert McKimson, who really did some of his best work during the early 1950's. The opening introduces us to a little "Gambling Bug", known for giving people the urge to place wagers whenever he bites them (Including a couple of guys in a bar who bet whose glass a fly will land on first!) . Cut to a cat and dog, previously seen as a team in 1950's "It's Hummer Time", playing gin rummy for "penalties", with and the cat (who also appears in two Foghorn Leghorn cartoons, "A Fractured Leghorn (1950) and "Leghorn Swoggled" (1951)) losing to the dog every time. The Gambling Bug decides to be of service and bites the cat on the ear, giving the cat more confidence but not a bit more luck. The penalties, which are really the dog's excuse to beat up the cat, worsen, with such titles as "Gesundheit",(pepper and bubble gum) "William Tell" (the dog shoots an arrow at the apple on the cat's head) and "Roll Out the Barrel" (gunpowder keg, with predictable results.) The dog finally decides to quit before the cat kills himself. The cat gets wise to the insect, and treats him to a penalty of his own: "The Post", that is, a bug-swatter made from a rolled up copy of "The Saturday Evening Post". Carl Stalling is on top of his game in this one: Every time the cat gets his confidence back, the background music becomes "The Gold Digger's Song ('We're In the Money')", and when he spins the wheel determining his next penalty, we get "Blues in the Night". You won't read much about this cartoon elsewhere, but it's worth pointing out, because it's a great exercise in film comedy. It's also charming, there's little not to like about it. The dog became a McKimson regular between 1948 and 1952, appearing most notably in two very similar Sylvester titles :"Hop, Look and Listen" (1948) and "Hippety Hopper" (1949), and also "A Fox in A Fix"(1951), in which the dog plays along with a chicken-hungry fox disguised as a dog.
