The Haunted Mouse

For the Tom and Jerry short, see Haunted Mouse.

The Haunted Mouse is a 1941 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Tex Avery.^[1] This film was the first cartoon written by Michael Maltese. This cartoon is also the first Looney Tune to be released as a one shot, which means there are no recurring characters in this cartoon. The short was released on February 15, 1941.^[2]

The Haunted Mouse
Lobby card
Directed by	Fred Avery
Story by	Michael Maltese
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Sid Sutherland
Production company	Leon Schlesinger Studios
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	February 15, 1941 (1941-02-15)
Running time	7:45
Country	United States
Language	English

Plot

A video in the restored version for the short.

A starving cat sees a sign that says "Ma's Place/Home Cooking/3 Miles". The cat follows the sign only to learn that the sign leads to an abandoned ghost town (population: 100 ghosts). He enters Ma's, now closed and haunted by the ghost of a mouse, who targets the cat in revenge for all of the cats who tormented him all his life. The ghost mouse convinces the cat to pursue the mouse for dinner, leading to a series of gags in which the mouse uses his phantom form to full advantage. The mouse's final gag, lighting the cat's foot on fire, backfires when the cat jumps in pain out a multiple-story window and dies; thinking he has won the fight, the mouse is shocked when the cat returns as a ghost, now on even footing. The cat begins chasing the mouse through and out of the town, dropping the population to 99 ghosts.