Window Washers
About Window Washers
A cat in shorts and a rat speed down a country road. A highway cop on a motorbike thinks they are over the limit. They drop the car’s frame in his path and roll on with the wheels. An old farmer is thrown from his own car into a puddle; the splash hits a window. The pair see a window-washer’s sign. The cat uses the rat as a rag. The rat, battered, throws the bucket, and the chase goes indoors. The rat slips into a crack in the wall. A fish pulls the cat down by the tail, taking it for a worm, and the rat drops a brick on him. Weasels then hose the cat and the farmer and come after them with soda siphons.
Cast & crew
More about Window Washers
Paul Terry produced this Aesop’s Fables short. It was released on 20 July 1925 and runs 6 minutes 23 seconds at the corrected speed. Keith-Albee is named with the theatrical issue. When television packages went out in the 1950s, music tracks were laid on. The silent original had none.
Themes
Making
Terry’s unit builds the short as two chases joined by a joke: the rat is the washrag. The cop, the fish, and the weasels are separate interruptions, not one plot.
Music
Silent in 1925. Musical tracks were added for 1950s television.
Preservation
The short survives, including a later television copy with added music.
Notes
- The on-screen title is often given as The Window Washers.
- John Foster, Frank Moser, Harry Bailey, and Jerry Shields are listed with Terry on the production credits.
- The old man is thrown by his own car. The mud he splashes is what creates the washing job.
- A 1950s television issue added a score. The 1925 release was silent.
Scenes
- The pair ditch the car frame and leave the cop with it.
- The farmer’s splash muddies a window, and the cat washes it with the rat.
- A fish mistakes the cat’s tail for a worm.
- Weasels turn a hose, then soda siphons, on the cat and the farmer.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (The Window Washers.webm)
