It is always interesting to see any cartoon from Fritz Freleng relatively early on in his career. As it is seeing early Looney Tunes characters that are not the iconic more well known characters that we all know and love, with more interesting and fleshed out personalities.
'The Country Mouse' is not one of Freleng's best efforts, much better would come later. It is a fairly underrated cartoon, especially when compared to his better known cartoons and with ones in general featuring wider known Looney Tunes characters. Certainly beats most of the filmographies of previous Looney Tunes stars Bosko and Buddy, and Freleng's very early efforts with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit which were not particularly good representations of his talents.
Story-wise, 'The Country Mouse' is reasonably slight and predictable. It's also more of a very amusing cartoon than a continually hilarious one. Some, including me at all, will be put off by the less than nurturing and at times violent and cruel characterisation of the grandmother, anybody who considered previously that all grandmother characters were loving and sweet will eat their words.
However, 'The Country Mouse' has great animation, with beautiful colours and meticulous detail. The characters are drawn well with smooth movement and it was clear that Freleng's animation style was becoming faster, more inventive, looser and smoother. The music is every bit as good and perhaps even better. It's beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and characterful, adding to every action, expression and gesture and even enhancing them, like the box punches.
When it comes to entertainment value, 'The Country Mouse' is not laugh-a-minute but it did raise a number of big chuckles. The boxing, regardless of what people may say about the accuracy or lack of it, are particularly well done in the animation and the humour.
As for the titular character, Elmer, he is fun and easy to root for if not with the most interesting personality. The bulldog is the most colourful character and serves as a great formidable opponent.
Overall, pretty good underrated relatively early Freleng effort, though he went on to do much better later. This is very much an intriguing look. 7/10 Bethany Cox
