A Mouse Divided

A Mouse Divided is a 1953 Merrie Melodies short directed by I. Freleng.
== Title ==
The title is derived from the Abraham Lincoln quote: "A house divided against itself cannot stand".
== Plot ==
At a Stork Club, a drunk stork takes his leave from a party occurring there to deliver a baby, telling his fellow partygoers to hold the fort until he gets back as he was buying the drinks. Elsewhere in a suburban neighborhood, Sylvester's wife admonishes his laziness and, wanting a baby, notes to him how it's strange they've never had a bundle from Heaven. Sylvester simply tells her not to start on the "patter of little feet around the house" stuff again, saying that he's busy. This causes his wife to go into a depression which he is quick to mock; "And what thanks do I get? I wish I was dead. Boo-hoo-hoo! Everyday, it's the same thing - pitter-patter of little feet! Hmph!"
Meanwhile, the drunk stork arrives in their neighborhood where he briefly stops to rest. Feeling too exhausted to continue to his intended destination, the stork decides after seeing their house that it was as good a place as any to deliver the baby, noting to himself "What's the difference? (hic!) A baby's a baby. It's the environment that molds them (hic!)." Sylverster's wife graciously accepts the bundle and Sylvester, despite his earlier objection, is nonetheless excited to be a father- until he learns the baby is a mouse, at which point he tries to lunge at it. His wife, having being called "Mama" by the mouse, quickly takes the baby and admonishes Sylvester for his attempt, saying that "even if he is a mouse, he's ours". Sylvester in response tries to cleave the mouse in half, saying "You're a gambling woman. What do you take, heads or tails?" His wife quickly stops and admonishes him again, reiterating that "mouse or no mouse, he's your son." Sylvester is none too pleased that he has become the "father of a breakfast."
As Sylvester is busy begrudgingly changing the mouse, his wife decides to go out, telling him to take their son for a walk once he's done. Once she leaves, Sylvester makes another attempt to eat the mouse, to the point of putting him in a diaper made with a lettuce leaf before putting him between two bread slices. Before he can even attempt to take a bite, the mouse calls him "Daddy", which causes Sylvester's heart to melt, saying "Aw! He called me Daddy!". Sylvester's attitude towards his false son changes entirely, and he takes the mouse for a walk. Unfortunately, no sooner does he take a corner than he is quickly forced to bring his son back into the house as a battalion of the neighborhood cats, who are not so enamoured of the little mouse, pursue Sylvester.
The cats promptly stake out the house and try to steal the mouse, only to be foiled by Sylvester each time, who for once is now on the winning end of tricks to which he usually ends up being foiled. He spots a cat climbing in through a window and promptly closes it, almost chopping the cat's tail off. The cat inaudibly curses at him to which Sylvester simply closes a blind. Then, he hears a knock at the door and he tries to answer it, at which point a cat posing as a salesman bursts in, "demonstrating" a vacuum cleaner which he uses to suck up the mouse from the carraige before taking his leave, saying all the while, "Good day, sir, I represent the Little Giant Vacuum Cleaner Company, Walla Walla, Washington. And if you watch closely, you'll notice the powerful action of this machine as it removes completely and forever all foreign particles from around the room. I realize that you may not be ready to purchase the Little Giant right now, but if you ever do, just remember the Little Giant Vacuum Cleaner Company, Walla Walla, Washington." Sylvester quickly realizes what happened and heads outside to beat up the cat and retrieve his son, admonishing the cats for being "cannibals". Once he puts the mouse back in his cradle, another knock at the door is heard and when Sylvester answers it, he is met with a cat disguised as a teenage bobby-soxer dancing to music on a record player he is carrying, claiming "I understands you need a babysitter." Not fooled by the cat's poor disguise, Sylvester simply slams the door on him. No sooner afterwards does he spot a hole being cut in the floor beneath the mouse's cradle. Sylvester quickly substitutes his son with a stick of dynamite which he lights as the cradle is being lowered beneath the floor. After the explosion, the now charred cradle is raised back up and nails are sheepishly hammered in from underneath. Sylvester then hears what appears to be Santa Claus above; it's another disguised cat trying to climb down the chimney, which Sylvester quickly catches on to because the calendar reads July. He lights another stick of dynamite which he sends up the chimney via balloon, blowing the cat out of the chimney and over the horizon. Sylvester then peers out of the mail slot of the front door and sees more cats holding a tree trunk, intending to ram the door down. Sylvester quickly opens the door before impact causing the cats to run up the stairs and fall out of a back window into a well.
Meanwhile, the still-drunk stork returns with a fishing rod, under orders to retrieve the mouse and deliver him to his actual parents by fishing him out of the house via the chimney with a piece of cheese, telling himself as he lowers the cheese down the chimney, "What a fuss they made at the office (hic!). Now I gotta get the mouse to his real parents (hic!)." The mouse sees the cheese, but Sylvester stops the baby, thinking "those darn cats" are making another attempt to kidnap the mouse. Sylvester grabs the cheese and gets hoisted up the chimney instead. In his inebriated state, the stork mistakes Sylvester for the baby, saying "Boy (hic!), did that mouse grow!" and then delivers Sylvester to the mouse's parents.
Later, the mouse couple walk a disgruntled Sylvester, dressed as a baby, with the wife telling her husband, "Nothing like this ever happened on my side of the family!" and he stares at the audience in bewilderment at iris-out.
== Availability ==
W UK10562 LooneyTunesVideoShowNo9The.jpg|(1984) VHS The Looney Tunes Video Show, Volume 9
24Karat-FrizFreleng.jpg|(1985) VHS, Beta A Salute to Friz Freleng
Bumper01.jpg|(1994) VHS Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 1)
SYLVESTER AND TWEETY'S BAD OL' PUTTY TAT BLUES.jpg|(1994) LaserDisc Sylvester and Tweety's Bad Ol' Putty Tat Blues
LTCE VOL 9 A LOONEY LIFE.jpg|(2000) VHS Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition, Vol. 9: A Looney Life (1998 THIS VERSION, without notice)
A1L-oj097sL. AC SL1500 .jpg|(2003) VHS Tweety & Sylvester (2003)
331779_front.jpg|(2023) Blu-ray Looney Tunes Collector's Choice: Volume 1 (restored)
=== Streaming ===
File:Lt boomerang.jpg|Boomerang App (-)
lt hbo max.jpg|HBO Max Latin America / Brazil (2021 - ) (restored)
== Censorship ==
* An ABC version cuts all the scenes featuring the drunken stork delivering the mouse to Sylvester's house, creating a plot hole as to how the baby mouse ended up at their house.
== Television ==
* This short was aired in black and white on 11 October 1960 as part of the first episode of The Bugs Bunny Show.
* This short appeared in Episode 24 of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show that aired 28 February 1987.
== Notes ==
* Friz Freleng would recycle elements of the short in two later shorts, 1954's "Goo Goo Goliath" and 1955's "Heir-Conditioned", both of which he also directed:
**"Goo Goo Goliath" would use the plot element of the stork delivering the baby to different parents than intended when he decides he can't continue to his intended stop, only to be sent back to rectify his mistake. A major difference in that short is that John and Ethel make the best of having to take care of their false son. Additionally, while the stork rectifies the situation with the Giant's baby, he still ends up delivering John and Ethel's baby to the wrong parent.
**"Heir-Conditioned" recycled the plot element of the cats trying to steal something that someone was trying to protect and even used similar gags (namely the salesman and cutting-a-hole-in-the-floor attempts). The difference here is that Sylvester co-starred with Elmer Fudd and that what was being protected from the cats was Sylvester's then-inherited fortune which Elmer, as Sylvester's financial advisor, wanted to invest; Elmer spent most of the short not only trying to keep the cats from getting at it (they were convinced Elmer was not going to let Sylvester spend the fortune on himself), but trying to teach Sylvester the importance of investing.
* While this cartoon was used in Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island, it starts at Sylvester's House and the ending is changed and reanimated so that Sylvester was delivered to Fantastic Island, where the wedded mouse duo wished for a baby.
* This short and the Daffy Duck cartoon "Duck Amuck" were submitted for Academy Awards in 1952, though neither was nominated.
* The Boomerang SVOD print uses the unrestored late-1980s/early-1990s VHS/LaserDisc print for this short instead of the 1998 "THIS VERSION" restored print.https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bta9Mx64_sXxF2qgRFIbDNs5aR7TEOd2/view?usp=sharing
* Sylvester's wife would later reappear in "Goldimouse and the Three Cats" seven years later, albeit with a drastically different appearance, voice and personality, where both she and Sylvester had a son named Sylvester Junior.
* This cartoon marks the debut of Freleng's version of The Drunk Stork, who would reappear in four more cartoons after this one, "Goo Goo Goliath", "Stork Naked", "Pappy's Puppy", and "Apes of Wrath". Prior to that, a different drunk stork previously appeared briefly at the beginning of Bob Clampett's "Baby Bottleneck", who is a caricature of Jimmy Durante.
* This is the only cartoon in which the drunk stork's voice is higher-pitched, making him sound a little like Daffy Duck. In later cartoons beginning with "Goo Goo Goliath", the drunk stork's voice is lower-pitched.
* The restored print on HBO Max in Latin America and Brazil has a very minor portion of the ending soundtrack missing.
* This short was submitted for consideration for an Academy Award in 1952, but was not nominated.http://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/cartoons-considered-for-an-academy-award-1952/ Cartoon Research - Cartoons Considered For An Academy Award -- 1952
== Gallery ==
MouseDividedCredits1.png
MouseDividedCredits2.png
Lf.jpeg|Animation cel
81xVEqVRTpL. SL1500 .jpg
2B0937AB-4D50-4586-A837-DA4B0055BF3C.jpeg
=== TV Title Cards ===
lt mouse divided tbbs.jpg|The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show
Screenshot_20190906-200736.jpg|The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show (Final Season)
Screenshot_20190906-200131.jpg|The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show
== References ==
 
Category:Sylvester Cartoons
Category:Shorts
Category:1953
Category:Merrie Melodies Shorts
Category:Cartoons directed by Friz Freleng
Category:Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island Cartoons
Category:Cartoons with music by Carl W. Stalling
Category:Cartoons with layouts by Hawley Pratt
Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Irv Wyner
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Bea Benaderet
Category:Cartoons with orchestrations by Milt Franklyn
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons with sound effects edited by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons produced by Eddie Selzer