Shorts
Series
About Shorts
Animated shorts came to MGM late compared to other major studios. It was already 1930 when the studio was called on to distribute a series of cartoons from longtime Disney collaborator Ub Iwerks Studio that starred a character named Flip the Frog. The first Flip cartoon- Fiddlesticks- was notable for being the first sound cartoon to be produced in two-color Technicolor. The series ran to nearly forty entries before running out of steam in 1933, and was succeeded by Willie Whopper.
Iwerks distribution deal lapsed in 1934, and MGM wanted to keep an animation component at the studio. First they contracted with producers/directors Hugh Harman and Rudolph Ising to produce a new series of color cartoons. Harman and Ising brought their popular Looney Tunes character Bosko with them to MGM when they left Warner Bros. Their first series was Happy Harmonies and in many ways resembled the Looney Tunes' sister series, Merrie Melodies. The Happy Harmonies regularly ran over budget, and MGM dismissed Harman-Ising in 1937 to start its own animation studio.
The MGM Studios first self-produced series was Captain and the Kids, based on the characters created by Rudolph Dirks. The series did not prove to be too popular with movie-goers. Reversing direction, the studio re-hired Harman and Ising in 1939. Ising created the studio's first successful animated character, Barney Bear. However, MGM's biggest cartoon stars would come in the form of the cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry, created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in 1940. The Tom and Jerry cartoons won seven Academy Awards between 1943 and 1953. In 1941, Tex Avery, another Schlesinger/Warner Bros. alumnus, joined the animation department. It was Avery who gave the unit its image and style, with successes like Red Hot Riding Hood, Swing Shift Cinderella, and the Droopy series.
Avery left the studio in 1953, leaving Hanna and Barbera to focus on the popular Tom and Jerry and Droopy series. After 1955, all cartoons were filmed in wide screen CinemaScope until MGM closed its cartoon division in 1957. Hanna and Barbera started their own studio, and became synonymous with television cartoons.
Cartoons
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Little Buck Cheeser
Little Cheeser dreams of building a rocket ship and going to the moon like his hero, Buck Rogers. Inspired by Rogers (and visions of cheese), Cheeser and the mice build the rocket to see if…
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An Optical Poem
To most of us, music suggests definite mental images of form and color. The picture you are about to see is a novel scientific experiment. Its object is to convey these mental images in vis…
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Jitterbug Follies
Count Screwloose and J.R. the Wonder Dog are promoting a $10,000 swing contest. They intend to skip town with the entry fees, but a menacing thug from the "Citizens for Fair Play" convinces…
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Wanted: No Master
J.R. the Wonder Dog tricks his roguish master (Count Screwloose) into answering an ad for marriage by placing a picture of a very pretty girl over the face of an unattractive spinster.
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The Little Goldfish
A goldfish living in a fishbowl dreams about living life in the sea, but the little fish soon realizes that the big ocean is no place for him. He dreams that as the maid changes the fishbow…
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Art Gallery
Night falls in an art gallery. A statue of Nero comes to life and tries to tempt the statuette of the Three Good Little Monkeys (See No evil, Hear No evil, Speak No evil) into helping him s…
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Goldilocks And The Three Bears
Yet another version of the classic fable of breaking and entering; in this bear family, Papa is a bit accident-prone and cowardly.
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The Bookworm
In a library, a raven is trying to catch a studious bookworm for dinner. To everyone's shock, including the raven, characters from various horror books come to life and chase the bookworm.…
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One Mother's Family
A mother hen takes her chicks for a walk in the woods. Her time is occupied trying to keep them all out of harm's way, particularly one accident-prone little rooster.
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The Blue Danube
A conductor, in silhouette against sheet music, leads the title tune, which dissolves into a series of placid landscapes. We see a swan family. A duckling rescues the little swans.
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Peace On Earth
On Christmas Eve, two squirrel children ask their grandfather what men are. He describes them, then narrates the story of how humanity destroyed itself by war, as chilling scenes of armed c…
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The Mad Maestro
The maestro is conducting his orchestra of assorted animals. Some of them aren't very adept at following his direction.
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Home On The Range
A calf ventures away from her mom to go out and play with a hare in the middle of the night in the dark forest. Suddenly, a hungry wolf shows up and tries to get a piece of veal. But the ot…
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A Rainy Day
Mama Bear persuades her reluctant husband Papa Bear to fix the shingles on the roof, a job that he put off doing. But the job proves larger than it first appeared, and he ends up trying to…
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Swing Social
A black man is lazily fishing on a pier, his jug of moonshine out of sight of the approaching preacher. The preacher tells the fisherman that the fish don't bite on Sunday, then the camera…
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Tom Turkey And His Harmonica Humdingers
Tom Turkey wanders over to the general store, his harmonica in hand. In no time he and the good ol' boys there begin a jam session on harmonicas (and one piccolo) that end up turning the st…
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The Milky Way
Three kittens, denied milk as punishment for misbehaving, sail up into the Milky Way in a hot air balloon. Once in the Milky Way, they find it a land of natural milk springs and gushers. Th…
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The Bookworm Turns
Dr. Jekyll switches the brain of a bookworm into a dumb crow.
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Romeo In Rhythm
Swingin' Romeo and Flat-Foot Juliet do their Jazzy version of Romeo and Juliet.
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Papa Gets The Bird
Mama Bear thinks Papa Bear is a nincompoop. Papa Bear decides to prove her wrong by giving Mama Bear's canary a bath. However, the canary has other ideas and Papa Bear ends up wrecking the…
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The Homeless Flea
A flea tries to build itself a home on the back of a dog. Of course, the dog tries to get free of the menace. It all escalates to a high-speed pursuit. In the end, the flea must face its de…
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Gallopin' Gals
A stakes race for fillies is the subject of this cartoon, with the contestant horses portrayed as catty, gossiping women. One horse, Maggie, is a cowry, clumsy horse racing against stronger…
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The Lonesome Stranger
A spoof of the Lone Ranger. Three Mexican banditos shoot up a town and rob the stage. The Lonesome Stranger and his horse "Sa-liiiiiver" must stop them. However, this hero is less than hero…
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Mrs. Ladybug
A mother ladybug has too many children to handle, so she puts out an ad for a maid to help with the chores. A big black spider dresses up as a maid to get in the door.
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Abdul The Bulbul-Ameer
The familiar song is adapted into a cartoon short. Abdul The Bulbul-Ameer, a rotund Arab, gets into a brawl with Ivan Skavinski Scavar, a preening Russian Cossack, over an offense to Abdul'…
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The Little Mole
A morality play about a little mole. He's given a chance to see by a con man named Professor Primrose Skunk, using pop bottle bottoms for lenses. The mole forgets his mother's admonition to…
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The Goose Goes South
A little goose walks south instead of flying, hitchhiking as he goes. He runs into trouble with a family of hillbillies for trespassing. He also runs into a bird caricature of Kate Smith, S…
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Dance Of The Weed
A clumsy yokel of a male weed courts a delicate female flower ballerina by trying to dance with her.
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The Alley Cat
A hungry alley cat is scrounging for food when he notices a hot babe cat way up in her Park Avenue apartment. He serenades the pampered high-society feline (with a voice that is far from Am…
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Little Cesario
The saga of a screw-up St. Bernard puppy born into a family of decorated life-savers who, in spite of his bumbling efforts, manages to save the life of his hero- the head of the clan- and e…
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Officer Pooch
Officer Pooch, the local ice cream-swilling cop on the beat, attempts to rescue a kitten stuck atop a utility pole while a stray mutt hampers his attempts in an effort to get the kitten. By…
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The Field Mouse
A lazy field mouse is criticized for his disinterest in work by his invalid grandfather, until one day he proves his worth by going into the thresher and rescuing his grandpa from the deadl…
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The Hungry Wolf
A wolf, starving to death, runs across a cute little rabbit. The innocent rabbit tries to help the wolf, even though the wolf looks at the rabbit as nothing more than a meal. But just as th…
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The First Swallow
The story of a single swallow who, taking a rest from southward flight at a mission in California, ultimately brings about the famed migration of swallows to the mission at San Juan Capistr…
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Little Gravel Voice
A little burro can't make any friends because his ear-splitting brays drive all the other young animals in the desert community away. He sinks into despair until he spots the animals who re…
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Bats In The Belfry
A trio of belfry-dwelling bats explain why they are associated with nuttiness. They do so in a musical manner and are not afraid to demonstrate what they mean.
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Blitz Wolf
This variation on the Three Little Pigs tale takes place during World War II. The evil Adolf Wolf, "one big stinker," is about to invade the state of Pigmania, but Sergeant Pork spoils his…
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The Early Bird Dood It
The worm barely escapes the bird again. In search of a way to get rid of the bird, he enlists the help of a cat, but the bird is too smart for the cat.
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Chips Off The Old Block
Butch, a beaten up pug of a tomcat, is having a good day, and everything is peaceful. Then the doorbell rings. He finds the unexpected present of four kittens left on his doorstep (and from…
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The Boy And The Wolf
A little Mexican boy is herding sheep with his dog Perrito. The boy plays a prank on Perrito, pretending the wolf is attacking the flock. Later, when the wolf really comes, Perrito at first…
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Red Hot Riding Hood
This sensual adaptation of the old fairy story soon liberates its principals from their cute Disney-style forest and slaps them right in the middle of swanky Manhattan. Grandma's a nymphoma…
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Who Killed Who?
A man is murdered, and the detective tries to find out whodunit. But the house he's investigating is decidedly haunted, and he never knows just what's round the next corner. Gags include a…
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One Ham's Family
A big bad wolf dresses up as Santa Claus in an attempt to bag some ham. Mother and Father Pig turn in for a good night's sleep. The hungry wolf soon meets their little monster of a kid, Jun…
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War Dogs
A pseudo-documentary about an army canine unit, "The WOOFs", and their training regime. One dog, though, Private Smiley, just doesn't seem to get the hang of it, though.
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The Stork's Holiday
The stork must improvise a defense against anti-aircraft fire in order to deliver babies to Nazi Germany.
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What's Buzzin' Buzzard?
Desperate to get a bite to eat, two buzzards resort to cannibalism.
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Innertube Antics
A suburban homeowner, embarrassed by his small rubber contribution to the war drive in comparison to his neighbors, goes searching the yard for more. He finds an inner tube half-buried in h…
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Batty Baseball
Baseball is being spoofed in general. The gags slowly rises to the level of exaggeration that's typical for Tex Avery.
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The Tree Surgeon
Tree surgeon Doctor Donkey rushes to treat a sick giant sequoia. Little does he realize that this is no ordinary house call. Trying to revitalize the sequoia with some "Vitamin Tree-B," he…
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Jerky Turkey
A dopey Pilgrim goes hunting a turkey who speaks in a Jimmy Durante impersonation and runs the local black market. War and rationing gags abound (Pilgrims line up behind a sign reading "Ye…
