Being a fan of Merrie Melodies but knowing very little of Foxy, let alone not seeing any of his three cartoons, it was high time to put that right if only for curiosity. As the first Merrie Melodies cartoon, it's decent enough though they certainly went on to much better things later on.'Lady, Play Your Mandolin!' is practically plot-less and doesn't make an ounce of sense. The animation is uneven, it's crisply shaded and has some nice detail, some of the movements flexible, but the designs of the supporting characters are strange and in a rather ugly way and parts are on the stiff and repetitive side.One can understand too why Foxy didn't last longer as a character, he's amusing enough if rather derivative of Mickey Mouse but not as strong or as expressive a personality.However, the music is suitably peppy and does a great job in rousing the spirits. The atmosphere is bizarre but not in a way too unappealing. Actually the whole cartoon bursts with such joy that it is difficult to not fall for its charm warts and all.Depiction of alcohol is humorously done and one is amazed at what is gotten away with, this being pre-Production Code. There are some good gags here, especially the castanet teeth, the horse exploding and particularly the horse playing its own head as a trombone.Overall, watchable but less than great. 6/10 Bethany Cox

. . . Warner Brothers portrays Mickey Mouse as a swaggering fop in LADY, PLAY YOUR MANDOLIN! From the title of this "Merrie Melodies" cartoon short, you can tell that Warner's version of Mickey is not making a gentlemanly request, but issuing a misogynistic command. Six sheets to the wind from guzzling a gallon of then-outlawed booze, Mickey's stand-in rodent already has punched out his horse before summoning his surrogate Minnie (beating BLAZING SADDLES' "Mongo" by nearly half a century in accomplishing this equestrian feat). While complying with Master Mouse's directive, Minnie comes off like some kind of cheap stripper, as she warbles a verse which mostly rhymes the word "poop" with nonsense syllables. Because of LADY, PLAY YOUR MANDOLIN!, 10 of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories are still under copyright, and will be forever, along with every other word and doodle that the world has produced since Steamboat Willie's advent in 1925. That's what happens when you make a mouse roaring mad with a mandolin!

Not your typical Looney Tune or Merrie Melodie, this cartoon is plain weird. Trying to find a new character to replace Bosko, Foxy was created (Mickey Mouse with bigger ears and a bushy tail) to try and build a new brand ... but after three or four appearances, he disappeared into history, and was promptly forgotten.Now, two DVDs include this cartoon and give you a chance to see for yourself. 'Lady ..' is an extra on 'Little Caesar', and also appears on Disc 3 of the 'Looney Tunes Golden Collection, volume 1' (within a documentary about lost cartoons). Watching it now it really does give me the creeps, the animation, the characters, the voices, are all extremely strange, and proof positive that the series was not always, if ever, aimed at children.'Lady ...' uses its limited time to present a look at the sins of drink in a time of prohibition, and uses primitive and obvious gags, as well as horrible singing creatures of indeterminate species, to sing the songs.

The first credited Merrie Melody is a poor effort. The animation is repetitive, the gags poor -- one involves a character's dentures coming out on an armature and acting like a castanet -- and the songs -- "Lady, Play Your Mandolin" and "I Am A Gay Caballero" are sung in annoying cartoon voices.