Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner

Moths and Termites in cartoons seemed to have the ability to turn fabric or wood to nothing in seconds. Here, a moth who is going to marry a honeybee girl, goes about trying to make it happen. This is a forgettable cartoon because, except for the use of a frenetic piano player, there is little original about it all. The animation is trite and the story has little to offer.

One of the lesser known Looney Tunes cartoons - it only became available on DVD this year - Bob Clampett's "Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner" really surprised me. It features a live action piano player telling the story of a moth who falls for a honeybee, but then a black widow tries to steal him.

While the story is pretty sedate, you can't deny how cool the animation is. Obviously, we get to see the moth eat people's clothes (even giving a fox scarf a most embarrassing look). But the black widow assumes a Veronica Lake look in one scene, and the honeybee goes all WWII on the black widow. True, this short may look soft compared to Clampett's other work (e.g., "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"). More than anything, I like how they tried all these different ideas in their cartoons. Worth seeing.

The "moth who came to dinner" part of the title is a play on the title of a successful Warner Brothers full-length film, "The Man Who Came to Dinner", which also came out in 1942.

When I began watching this short, I was very shocked as it really didn't look like a Looney Tunes short in artwork or style. It begins with a live action piano player (whose voice is dubbed by Mel Blanc) talking to the audience and narrating the story.

The story is about a strange relationship between a moth and a bee...and how their wedding nearly didn't happen thanks to the spider. I thought this story was a bit sappy.

The artwork is very odd in this one. Much of it consists of black & white cartoon characters superimposed on real people. A very odd looking short whose story was more sappy than enjoyable.

This cartoon has never been televised to my knowledge. The reason is because it is in black and white. It is a strange one, though. It starts and ends with live-action footage of a piano player who sings the story of a moth who is late for his wedding to a bee. He is sidetracted by a black widow spider who tries to seduce him. The characterizations aren't as strong as in Clampett's other, more well known, cartoons. The strong point of this cartoon is the animation, though. It is incredibly loose and distorted. It looks as though the entire cartoon were animated by the great Rod Scribner. It is worth seeing just for this, if you can find a copy of it.

The first minute-and-a-half of this "short" is different from most cartoons you will see. We see a "live" piano player and singer (Rolfe Sedan) playing a little ditty about a moth who is about to marry his bee girlfriend. The moth lives in a closet somewhere, inside a "zoot suit."

When the song is over, we see the animated portion of the cartoon which begins with the moth saying, "Oh, happy day!" and then devouring three or four sets of clothes before leaving in his top hat and tails to get married. Later, we see a "widow" trying to nab him before he gets to the church and that's where most of the gags occur. We also see Mr. Sedan again at the end, and he performs the cartoon's final gag after finishing his song.

This whole cartoon is done in rhyme to the song...and it's very dated, suited mainly for smaller kids. Adults aren't going to get much out of this. Even the kids would have to be really small to enjoy this dated effort.

It wasn't total loss for me, as I did enjoy seeing the widow temporarily transform herself into Veronica Lake but you have to know who she is today to appreciate the reference. When this was made, she was a big star, but that was a long time ago and her stardom was gone by the end of the decade, and so were corny musical cartoons like this. When you see the ending of this cartoon, you'll really know what I mean.