Schluss mit dem Käse

It's nighttime at the Hunka Cheese Factory and Hubie and Berite have eaten all they can eat. Their stomachs are dragging on the ground, and they're almost gagging. Hubie points out, "The avenge mouse eats 12 pounds of cheese in a lifetime. I figured tonight, we've lived 2,000 years."

In their twisted way of thinking, they figured since they've eaten all the cheese they could eat, there is nothing left to live for, so they write a suicide note stating "Goodbye cruel world. (signed) Hubie, Bertie, P.S. we've lived a full life."

The funny stuff comes when the two crawl into the big (and stupid) Claude the cat's mouth....but cat wakes up and thinks all of this is too good to be true, or a dream, and spits them out. It goes on from there and the mice keep trying to be eaten and the cat keeps being suspicious and spitting them out.

The cat even runs into the house's library and looks up "Mental Diseases - Their Causes and Cures" thinking either he or these little mice are nuts. The ironic twist is that the cat winds up thinking he, too, should end it all. We also get a dog involved.

A bizarre but clever cartoon that doesn't evoke a lot of laughs but has a unique story.

Cheese Chasers (1951)

*** (out of 4)

The final of six films in the Hubie and Bertie series has the two mice eating so much cheese that it actually makes them never want to have it again. So, with that in mind, they decide to end their lives by offering themselves up to Claude the Cat but he can't understand why they're doing it so he refuses to eat them. Soon Claude is wanting the local bulldog to eat him but he too refuses. This is a fairly cute and entertaining short that manages to have enough charm and laughs to keep it going. The entire situation of someone wanting the higher up to eat them is pretty funny and it makes for some solid entertaining. There aren't any major laughs but there are enough here to make this worth viewing.

We all know what happens in cartoons when cats try to catch mice, but what happens when the mice want the cat to eat them? That's just what happens in "Cheese Chasers". Wise-guy rodents Hubie and Bertie have just eaten way too much cheese and feel that they can't eat any more of the stuff. With nothing left to live for, they try to get Claude the Cat to devour them, but he doesn't want to. Feeling that he can never eat another mouse again, he tries to get a bulldog to eat him, but that leads to pure confusion on the dog's part, to the point where all four characters end up doing something that no mouse, cat or dog would probably ever consider! I don't think that I've seen all the Hubie and Bertie cartoons, but this one is a really fun romp. With all sorts of gags, there isn't a dull moment in it. And you may just feel hungry for cheese after watching it (don't eat too much, mind you; you don't want to do what these characters did!).

Two thousand years. Yeah, I guess that life's like that.

'Cheese Chasers' is quite a unique cartoon, not just for Chuck Jones but generally as well. The short-lived (only six cartoons, all worth seeing) but worthy-of-more-attention Hubie and Bertie series is unlike what is often seen in cartoons, and 'Cheese Chasers' is one of the more unique cartoons in the series.

Luckily, 'Cheese Chasers' is also a wonderful cartoon. While not quite one of the funniest or laugh-a-minute-hilarious cartoons Jones has done, it is still very entertaining and humorous, with some great dialogue including the witty and very tense exchange resulting in imploring to be massacred. What 'Cheese Chasers' also manages to excel in is tackling a very heavy subject and not trivialise it, dealing with it in a dark, sometimes poignant and delightfully bizarre way. Bizarreness is not always a good thing, dependent on the execution, but it works brilliantly here.

The animation is excellent. Attention to detail is meticulous, the colours are rich and vibrant and the characters are designed in a way that's distinctively Chuck Jones. As always, Carl Stalling's music does not disappoint and demonstrates why he has always been my personal favourite of the regular Looney Tunes composers. Orchestration is clever, rich and luscious, the energy, character and appropriately dark atmosphere are evident throughout and it not only fits with what's going on but adds to it.

Hubie and Bertie are both lively and appealing characters, and they are ideally matched by the suitably antagonistic Claude and the delightfully dim-witted dog. Cat and mouse games have seldom been darker or more bizarre in cartoons than in the Hubie and Bertie series, not even in Tom and Jerry. Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg provide flawless vocals.

All in all, really wonderful stuff. 10/10 Bethany Cox

The last and craziest of the six Hubie & Bertie cartoons, about two decidedly non-country mice. In this one, the pair have been living in a cheese factory and, having eaten enough cheese for the next two thousand years, decide to end it all, by leaping into the mouth of Claude Cat, their dupe in the Oscar-winning MOUSE WRECKERS. The entire cycles goes on and on, with many a funny sight gag. Highly recommended.