Alias St. Nick

Harman-Isling Christmas cartoon. Mother mouse reads "A Visit from St. Nicholas" to a bunch of little mice kids. Among them is Little Cheeser. Cheeser is cynical and doesn't believe in Santa. Meanwhile some mangy-looking cat eavesdrops through the window and decides to masquerade as Santa. He hopes to gain entrance to the mouse home and eat them. But once inside he gets more than he bargained for from the suspicious Cheeser. An innocent little toon that will probably play best for toddlers. Not really much for adults. First appearance of Little Cheeser. The cat looks positively demonic. The animation is nice.

The MGM cartoons do tend to trade on cuteness, and are never as hip or edgy as the Warner Brothers output of the 30s and 40s, but this one really isn't hard to watch, if you don't mind yet another cat-versus-mouse cartoon. The cat just wants a meal, but after all, playing on the gullibility of nice little mice is pretty rough, and he's obviously cast as an out-and-out villain. As mouse households go, this one is enormously well-furnished and a quite extensive burrow capable of sheltering thousands of mice, by the look of it. The cunning cat shows enormous resourcefulness in quickly coming up with a Santa suit and an enormous bag of really terrific toys, many of them mechanical. It's a pleasure to watch those mice having a ball with all that great stuff; as a Santa impostor, that cat performs admirably. When his cover is blown (literally!) and the cat is finally out of the bag, so to speak, the mice mobilize as a fearless attack force using many of the toys. Inventive visuals abound. Worth a look!

It's a MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon. Mrs. Mouse is reading "The Night Before Christmas" (the title on the book) and all her baby mice are laughing. An argument breaks out about Santa Claus. A scrawny cat is outside freezing and the mice won't let him in. He does overhear the argument about Santa Claus. He has the idea to play Santa Claus. The mice let him in and he brings them gifts.

It's a Harman Ising cartoon. Rudolf Ising is apparently the director. I was thinking that the disbelieving mouse would uncover the ruse. At the very least, the cat should have a plan to catch and eat all the mice. This cartoon is fine, but it has no bite. It's a meh.

In 'Alias St. Nick' a cat tries to get his Christmas dinner by playing Santa Claus for a family of mice. This short is pretty low on humor, it goes for cuteness instead and suffers for it. Some fun voice characterizations is about all this short has going for it.

On Christmas Eve, a cat disguises himself as Santa Claus to get into the home of a mouse and her many children.

Like almost all of the Harman-Ising cartoons of this period, I find something off about it, and it's the heavy-handed sense of humor. It seems calculated to get through to the dullest of audiences. It annoyed me as a young child when I delighted in the rapid-fire gags offered by Looney Tunes and Fleischer, and offends me now. Like a lot of entertainment offered to young children, it seems intent on despising its audience.

There is also something a bit odd about the Technicolor effects. Disney had recently lost its monopoly on 3-Strip Technicolor for cartoons, but Harman-Ising's use of it suggests they were still being very cautious in mixing primary colors.