It's Got Me Again! (1932) User Reviews

Old & Creaky, But Still Passable

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 1 July 2007]

This is an early (1932) attempt to have a cartoon in which the animated figures react to music. In other words, all their movement, from individual steps to slapstick-type stuff, all coincides with the music. In the '40s several cartoons won awards for this sort of thing, ones that feature Tom and Jerry or Bugs Bunny.

This one wasn't advanced enough to have that cleverness and color that we saw in the next decade, but for a 1932 effort this is passable. Just don't expect to get any laughs out of it. It still has some entertainment value, however, and all these little miniature Mickey Mouse- lookalike mice are "cute."

The "story" is just a bunch of mice enjoying a record, jumping on top of the vinyl disc as it goes around on the record player. Later, some of them play the flute and jump up and down on the drums. The second half offers some humor as one of the little mice falls into a spittoon

I did think Al Jolson imitation near the end was pretty good. Also, instead of "That's all, folks," the ending was "So long, folks!"

I saw this on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Three. It was one of the "From The Vault" features on disc two.

It's Got Me Again! was interesting as the first Oscar-nominated cartoon from Warner Bros.

[tavm · 7/10 · 18 January 2009]

After so many years of seeing this early Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon short listed among the Oscar nominees for Best Short Subject-Cartoon/Animated in Leonard Maltin's book "Of Mice and Magic", I finally got to see this on YouTube. This was the first entry from the studio whose initials were trademarked as a shield that got an Academy Award nomination (It lost to Disney's Flowers and Trees). It concerned various mice who at night dance and play music until a cat threatens to spoil their fun. Quite entertaining musically with some amusing gags near the end when they attempt to chase away the cat. I especially like the creative way the mice used the record needle as a machine gun. If there's one caveat, it's that in many scenes the mice's faces look like Disney's Mickey. I've said a few times that because the directors-Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising-once worked for Uncle Walt during the Alice and Oswald days that they probably got that look by osmosis. Some have accused me of spreading lies since it's well known that Ub Iwerks created the famous mouse after Harmon-Ising left Disney. Maybe so, still I stand by my assumption that Hugh and Rudy probably drew the mice that way simply because Oswald looked similar when they worked on him. Having said all that, I'll just now say judge for yourself when you watch It's Got Me Again! on YouTube. P.S. While I've also seen Hold Everything, I didn't know of any similarities since it's been almost two years since I watched that and reviewed it here on IMDb.

Pretty boring, but watchable

[cartoonnewsCP · 5/10 · 7 September 2016]

Cartoon It's got me again has a mouse and his friends entering the store, when a cat barges in to eat a mice. The mice friends attack the cat with the store supplies until he runs out of the store.

The cartoon fell into the public domain in 1961 when United Artists, successor to AAP, the owner of the shorts from 1956-58, failed to renew the copyright. The cartoon was nominated for an Oscar but did not win. It is notable as the first WB cartoon to be nominated and one of three nominated cartoons without a DVD release.

5/10, eh, recommended for historical content. It's not all that interesting, but a one time view is recommended. As most of the Harman-Ising cartoons were.

Fun Short

[Michael_Elliott · 25 February 2008]

It's Got Me Again! (1932)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Oscar-nominated short has various mice singing and dancing but the mood changes when an angry cat shows up. I'm somewhat surprised Disney didn't go after this film because the mice certainly share a resemblance to Mickey Mouse. With that said, this is a very fast paced and funny film that has some great animation. The song and dance numbers are all pretty good and the cat is a great villain. This is also a pretty dark film so it might scare some of the kids watching.

Turner Classic Movies shows this quite often.

It's Got Me Again

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 11 February 2024]

Frank Marsales gives us a little lively instrumental of "Get Happy" before we are introduced to some squeaking mice who like to come out to play after midnight has struck on their clock. They are in a music room with it's wind-up gramophone to which they all - and there are millions of them - dance. Then they have a go on the drum, the accordion, practise some military precision marching. One even has a go on the French horn though, and that's their mistake. It disturbs the cat outside in the rain! Still obliviously mucking about on the piano, their feline foe is figuring a way to get into that room! Job done, a late supper beckons - can the mice escape his claws? Luckily the cat's aim is pretty rubbish but it's still risky for one singing mouse whose friends must come to his rescue! Drumsticks, needles and even a blow torch - what chance has the poor moggy? It's quite a fun animation this with some characters amongst the mice - even one on a crutch, but the story isn't really up to much and the general cacophony doesn't really stand out. It's watchable, but you'll never remember it.

It seems like a Mickey ripoff.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 22 September 2009]

While the mice in this animated short don't act like Mickey, they sure look like him. Some say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery...to me it just seems like a cheap attempt by Looney Tunes to ripoff the Mouse! Like the early Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies animated shorts, this one was supervised by the (uggh) team of Harmon and Ising--whose cutesy style was really big during the 30s and early 40s. While popular at the time, today their cartoons for Merrie Melodies and MGM look, well, pretty dreadful. It isn't that the animation is so bad, but the stories are just so saccharine and lack any of the edge later cartoons would have. Fortunately, for a Harmon/Ising production, this is among the least cutesy of their cartoons. Now this isn't saying it's good, because it really isn't. I only gave this film a 5 because relative to other films of the day, it was pretty average--though significantly less interesting than a real Mickey Mouse cartoon of the day.

The film consists of a raspy cat trying to kill the poor mice and, naturally, the mice prevailing (I bet you didn't see THAT coming, huh?!). In addition, there is some singing at the end because I think Harmon/Ising were contractually obligated to irritate the audiences with these awful songs.

Of interest to film historians (after all, this film was somehow nominated for an Oscar) and masochistic film viewers who like painfully unfunny cartoons.

A Warner Brothers cartoon that is reminiscent of early Disney

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 11 January 2001]

This cartoon has the look and feel of a Disney cartoon rather than the typical Warner Brothers cartoon. The singing and dancing mice, their antics and the general layout and design of the cartoon remind you more of Disney than anything else, but Warner Brothers was in the process of developing their distinctive style and traces of it can be seen here. Very good cartoon with a fairly well-developed plot. Well worth your time to watch, it shows up on Cartoon Network's Late Night Black and White periodically.

The first Oscar-nominated Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 19 September 2016]

And it's a good one, well worth seeing for more than just historical interest and a worthy nomination. There have been much better Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoons since, but 'It's Got Me Again' is a very good early effort.

'It's Got Me Again' is admittedly very light on plot, more an excuse really to string along gags and song and dance numbers (sounds like a bad thing, but it actually comes off better than it sounds), and a bit creaky occasionally like at the beginning. Other than that, there is nothing really bad about 'It's Got Me Again'.

The animation is very good (and agreed, somewhat Disney-like, unusual but interesting), very detailed, smooth, remarkably fluid from each frame and meticulous in design and detail, the black and white is also pleasing on the eye and avoids being primitive. The song and dance moments are fun and pleasant, especially the Al Jolson-esque one, with energetic and beautifully orchestrated incidental scoring, not exactly ones that will burn in the memory forever but they hardly bring the cartoon down at all.

While it's not hilarious, 'It's Got Me Again' has some fun and very clever gags. The Al Jolson moment is definitely great, but the highlight has to be the introduction of the cat. The mice are cute and amusing, but making more of an impression is the cat who is a great character. The voice acting is stellar.

Overall, the first Oscar-nominated Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies cartoon proves itself worthy of it. Not one of the best cartoons ever made, but holds up nicely. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Mickey Mouse imitators beware!

[slymusic · 16 October 2009]

"It's Got Me Again!" is a wonderful early black-and-white Warner Bros. cartoon. The plot: Mice just wanna have fun (in fact, the song "Get Happy" can be heard during the opening titles), but a sinister feline interrupts their musical festivities.

My favorite scenes: A group of mice bop along with a phonograph record while a few individual mice dance & spin on the turntable. When a mouse literally gets cornered he recites a wonderful rhyme beginning with "Oh Mr. Cat, please let me go, oh Mr. Cat, don't tease me so! Looks like he's got me again! Mamie! Mamie!" I also like the opening shot of a mouse tiptoeing on a glockenspiel, sliding down a cello, bouncing on a bass drum, and cranking a Victrola.

The mice in "It's Got Me Again!" all look like Mickey! No doubt the animators at Warner Bros. were hell-bent on outdoing Walt Disney.

Inventive, dark, creepy and fun. Worhty of its Academy Award nomination

[phantom_tollbooth · 8/10 · 3 November 2008]

'It's Got Me Again' was the first Looney Tune to be nominated for an Academy Award and it's easy to see why. A classy, atmospheric short, 'It's Got Me Again' stars a gang of Mickeyesque mice who come out to play one night, making music and dancing together (including some reused footage from the third Looney Tune 'Hold Anything'). There's lots of fun sequences leading up to the appearance of a cat who threatens to end the celebrations. The arrival of the cat leads to the best part of the cartoon, an Al Jolson routine by a cornered mouse who performs the title song with impassioned desperation. Of course, the mice team up to dispose of the feline antagonist. 'It's Got Me Again', like most of the early Looney Tunes, has a simple premise but does plenty with it. It's a deeply satisfying picture which feels like a classic in many ways. Although it may bore some modern audiences, fans of animation will no doubt delight in its invention.

Warner Bros. is urging We 99 Per Center meek mice . . .

[oscaralbert · 8/10 · 11 January 2017]

. . . of America's "Far Future" (compared to when IT'S GOT ME AGAIN was created and released in 1932) to Rise Up & Rebel against our KGB Red Commie Foreign Oppressors, slated to Take Over America next week. An event as momentous as England's Norman Invasion of 1066 has required more than one warning from Warner Bros.' Animated Shorts Seers division (aka, the Looney Tuners). These Prognosticators Non Pareil have churned out countless alarms about America's upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti, most if not all of which have gone largely unheeded. Some Warnologists (or specialists for the interpretation of these Nostradamus-like prophecies, only far more accurate than Mr. N's over-rated rantings) see the One Per Center Ferociously-Fanged Fat Cat depicted terrorizing we 99 Per Center Mice in IT'S GOT ME AGAIN as representing Big Medicine and Bloated Pharmaceuticals, from whose Evil Clutches our Champion Obama rescued us a decade ago. Soon, however, Big Medicine and it's Evil Twin, Big Medical Insurance will be murdering ordinary average normal Americans again, just like in the Bad Old Days, in accordance with the new American Czar KGB Chief Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin's master plan for his MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (or, as some would say, multi-billion dollar deluded loan shark "victim") the puppet Rump.

However, Warner's Looney Tuners seem to be telling us that all is not lost IF we let our guard down and allow this vicious cat to come into the Castle of Our Homeland from out of the cold rain by sliding down our chimney. It's the Sacred Duty, Warner tells us, of every 99 Per Center Mouse (something that presumably especially applies to the Silent Majority who did NOT fall for Putin's Fake News and Rig the Election for Rump!--as denoted here by the mouse who clumsily nods off, falls into the Yucky Spitoon, and then thoughtlessly wakes up the cat by blowing into a Sousaphone!) TO FIGHT BACK, by any means necessary.

The mice attack the Putin\Rumpster Cat with EVERYTHING they've got. They take on this symbol of the Fat Cat Billionaire Oligarchs with projectiles (drum sticks fired by violin bows), flame-throwers (scent spray manipulated McGiver-style), and machine guns (using the record needles prevalent back in Great Grandpappy's 1900s Heyday for ammunition). So go ahead, Warner suggests, and ACT NOW, before it's too late and all of your parents and grandparents and siblings with cancer and other Pre-existing Conditions start getting bulldozed into mass graves as Putin smirks. YOU know which of your neighbors had Rump\Scents campaign signs in their yards, or Rump\Scents bumper stickers, or shot off their mouths about donating money to help the Red Commie KGB Death Star machine to invade America. Next time you see them make Citizens' Arrests on the charge of Conspiracy to Commit High Treason against the USA. Do this especially if they're Active Duty or Ex-Military, as these individuals have all taken the Oath to Preserve and Defend America's Constitution, so they cannot mount a defense stating that they acted in Ignorance. The German majority in the 1930s all decided to "go along to get along," and did not make waves for Der Fuehrer. Most of them died during the decade of World War II, along with 50 million innocent people. MORE is at stake this time, IT'S GOT ME AGAIN! warns us. Fight back! Rebel!