Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner (1942)

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

. . . competing with Nostradamus for the title of Most Accurate Prognosticator of American's Future Ever, what creature would YOU use to represent someone who posed an Unprecedented Threat to Destroy Our U.S. Social Fabric? Why, a moth, of course. This subtitle character (THE MOTH WHO CAME TO DINNER) can be intended as none other than Hillary's Nemesis, Donald J. Duck. Viewers will note that there are three human cartoon ladies shown from their waists down 2:26 into EATIN' ON THE CUFF. The Trump-like Moth devouring Future America like a deranged Pac-Man then leads you to suspect that the American Censor Board forced Warner's seers to change the first letter of that last title word from an "M" to a "C," as Mothman Trump gobbles up these three ladies' undies on the hoof, so to speak, during the next two seconds. The Looney Tuners may have been warning the Beauty Pageant Contestants of our 21st Century against standing around nude for one instant longer than necessary in their all-female dressing rooms, since the Trumpster was likely to use his minuscule moth-sized hands to barge through the door into their Private Sanctum at any time. Or Warner may have been warning the trio of Future Mrs. Trumps of their marital rape danger. Probably, MUFF is intended for BOTH classes of Endangered Women and Girls.

Directed by Bob Clampett, "Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner" is a wonderfully wacky Warner Bros. cartoon in black-and-white. The narrator of this picture is played by Leo White (with Mel Blanc's hilarious voice overdubbed) as he plays the piano and sings a catchy rhyming song concerning the action. It appears that a male moth is preparing to marry a female bee, when a sinisterly widow spider interferes and causes havoc.Several scenes in this cartoon that I especially like: The bee and the spider engage in a sword fight with their abdomens. The spider gets into the joyful spirit of the rhymed verse when she reads that a moth is attracted by a flame. The moth eats a woman's foxy apparel until all that's left is a Hitlerian hair part & moustache. He also extracts a zipper from his immune system. The spider interrupts her troublemaking long enough to tell a cardplayer to play his jack."Eatin' on the Cuff" is a somewhat unusual cartoon in that we have some live action (from Leo White) and realistic backgrounds. With that said, the cartoon is still hilarious. The widow spider is so nutty that she even sounds like Daffy Duck at one point!

One of the lesser known Looney Tunes cartoons - it only became available on DVD this year - Bob Clampett's "Eatin' on the Cuff or The Moth Who Came to Dinner" really surprised me. It features a live action piano player telling the story of a moth who falls for a honeybee, but then a black widow tries to steal him.While the story is pretty sedate, you can't deny how cool the animation is. Obviously, we get to see the moth eat people's clothes (even giving a fox scarf a most embarrassing look). But the black widow assumes a Veronica Lake look in one scene, and the honeybee goes all WWII on the black widow. True, this short may look soft compared to Clampett's other work (e.g., "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"). More than anything, I like how they tried all these different ideas in their cartoons. Worth seeing.

The first minute-and-a-half of this "short" is different from most cartoons you will see. We see a "live" piano player and singer (Rolfe Sedan) playing a little ditty about a moth who is about to marry his bee girlfriend. The moth lives in a closet somewhere, inside a "zoot suit." When the song is over, we see the animated portion of the cartoon which begins with the moth saying, "Oh, happy day!" and then devouring three or four sets of clothes before leaving in his top hat and tails to get married. Later, we see a "widow" trying to nab him before he gets to the church and that's where most of the gags occur. We also see Mr. Sedan again at the end, and he performs the cartoon's final gag after finishing his song.This whole cartoon is done in rhyme to the song...and it's very dated, suited mainly for smaller kids. Adults aren't going to get much out of this. Even the kids would have to be really small to enjoy this dated effort.It wasn't total loss for me, as I did enjoy seeing the widow temporarily transform herself into Veronica Lake but you have to know who she is today to appreciate the reference. When this was made, she was a big star, but that was a long time ago and her stardom was gone by the end of the decade, and so were corny musical cartoons like this. When you see the ending of this cartoon, you'll really know what I mean.