You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
About You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
A top-hatted bee tries to sneak upstairs into a house made from a fedora, bounces off the sofa, and trips the alarm. His wife wakes, accuses him of drinking, sings the title song, and goes out to gather honey herself. A storm drives her into a barrel where a spider swallows the key and shuts her in a dark room. The husband hears her, blows a flower like a horn, and a swarm arrives — some riding a harmonica — to yank the spider with a thorny vine, chase him onto a bucket in a pond, and finish the fight with a shotgun, peas, and dynamite.
Cast & crew
More about You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
Rudolf Ising directed the fifteenth Merrie Melodies short, released by Warner Bros. and Vitaphone on 10 September 1932. Hugh Harman, Ising, and Leon Schlesinger produced it. Rollin Hamilton and Larry Martin animated; Frank Marsales scored it around Harry M. Woods’s song.
Themes
Making
Harman and Ising were still making one-shot musicals for Schlesinger, built so a Warner-owned song could carry the reel. The wife’s number is the Woods tune named in the title.
Reviews
The Film Daily called it “thoroughly enjoyable nonsense.”
Music
Frank Marsales wrote the score. The wife sings Harry M. Woods’s “You’re Too Careless with Your Kisses,” with vocals by the Rhythmettes.
Preservation
The picture survives in black and white. United Artists did not renew the copyright, so it entered the public domain in 1961. A traced color version was made by Turner in 1992.
Notes
- It opened the 1932–33 Merrie Melodies season. From this short on, the end card showed the cartoon’s own star instead of Foxy or Piggy.
- Johnny Murray is credited as the voice of Wilbur Bug, and Rudolf Ising as the spider, both uncredited on screen. The Rhythmettes sing.
- A Ben Bernie gag lands the line, “And now you’re in the hands of the dear old maestro.”
- United Artists missed the renewal, and the short entered the public domain in 1961.
- Turner Entertainment colorized it in 1992 by tracing each frame onto a cel.
- A 1980s WKBD broadcast cut the first two minutes and started at the wife’s accusation.
Scenes
- The bee tells his shoes to be quiet, then bounces off the sofa and sets off the alarm.
- The spider locks the barrel and swallows the key.
- Bees ride a harmonica into the fight and drop dynamite on the spider’s bucket.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (You're Too Careless with Your Kisses! (1932).webm)
Quotes
You're Too Careless with Your Kisses!
And now you're in the hands of the dear old maestro.
