Mr. Moocher (1944) User Reviews

A Strange Confection

[richard.fuller1 · 5/10 · 16 November 2013]

Many of these things seemed to imitate WB's Merrie Melodies more than anything else, and this is a prime example.

One just has to think too much as to what the crow is doing carrying all that 'hay' (which after a couple of viewings, I take it was grass-clippings) across the Fox's yard. Clearly the amount of grass became over-exaggerated, but this is what made the joke a bit of a miss.

I guess the Fox and Crow cartoons are sort of a variation on the Porky Pig and Daffy Duck set, where Daffy annoys poor Porky to the point of insanity. Or this one was.

Bit such as the Fox strangling the tube from the radio are interesting, but again, bit extreme from what Disney or WB might have done.

And clearly the way things progressed there was no way Always Love Thy Neighbor was going to catch on.

Good, if predictable, Fox and Crow short with a great ending

[llltdesq · 7/10 · 27 May 2015]

This is a cartoon in the Fox and Crow series released by Columbia studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

The short begins with Mr. Fox listening to a radio program exalting the virtues of being a "good neighbor" and "loving thy neighbor", which Fox takes to heart. Unfortunately for Fox, his neighbor is Mr. Crow, the "Mr. Moocher" referenced in the title.

Fox is minding his own business, mowing his lawn, when Crow strews his lawn with an ever-increasing amount of what looks like hay, eventually burying Fox. Crow digs out Fox in order to "borrow" his lawnmower, ruining the Fox's outdoor water faucet and his garden hose in the process. He then proceeds to wreck the lawnmower.

Cut to Fox trying to repair the hose in his bathtub, where he is disturbed by Crow wanting to "borrow" more stuff for a birthday party for himself. He proceeds to cart out furniture, musical instruments, pretty much anything he can think of, until Fox has had enough and takes his fury out on his radio.

Next, we see Fox turn his home into a fortress surrounded by electrified fence and blocked off from intrusion, only to have Crow get past everything in order to "borrow" sugar. Fox pulls up stakes and moves, house and all, to the middle of nowhere, where (you guessed it) Crow finds him with the intent of becoming his neighbor again. There follows one of the more memorable meltdowns in cartoon history. This makes the short.

This short deserves to be more widely known.

Mr. Moocher was a way excellent Fox & Crow cartoon from Columbia

[tavm · 10/10 · 16 June 2009]

Just watched on Daily Motion as linked from ThadBlog this hilarious Fox & Crow cartoon from the Screen Gems cartoon studio. In this one, the Fox lives in a nice house and yard while the Crow next door lives in a ramshackle shack. On Fox's radio, the announcer advises to "love thy neighbor". The Fox decides to do so "even if it kills" me, which isn't easy since the Crow wrecks his lawnmower and keeps "borrowing" things for his birthday party! I'll just stop there and just say how things keep on building from beginning to end and I just couldn't stop laughing. Kudos to writer Sid Marcus and director Bob Wickersham for such a perfect cartoon which one doesn't usually expect from the Columbia animation unit. So on that note, I highly recommend Mr. Moocher.