House Hunting Mice 1947

Outside a model “home of tomorrow” designed by Frank Lloyd Wrong, Hubie reads the advertisement and calls Bertie’s attention. The pair — hoping for a den of plenty and food — climbs up to the House to see what’s inside, greeted by a robotic, upbeat voice welcoming them to “Super House - The House of Tomorrow.” The setup promises a tour of modern conveniences, and the mice waste no time indulging in the demonstration.

The first showcase is the Automatic Phonograph, where a robotic hand hurls a record toward a rising phonograph player as if tossing a frisbee, and the machine somehow catches the disc in a gleeful whirr of gears. Next comes the Automatic Sweeper, a gleaming helper that promises to clean any mess with precision. Bertie can’t resist pressing the next button, and Hubie, staying at a safe distance, watches as the demonstration spirals into mischief. The button triggers a laundry contraption that sucks Hubie straight into the machine, pulling him through a series of cleaning steps until he’s folded and stacked with the laundry. He surfaces, disgruntled, and delivers a sharp slap to Bertie for the reckless stunt.

The mischief continues as Hubie spots a new feature: the Cheese Dispenser. A piece of cheese shoots across the floor, and the Sweeper whirs into action, whisking it away into a trash can. Bertie attempts to catch the next cheese on a plate, but the plate shatters on impact. The Sweeper resumes its cleaning duty, and Bertie finds himself tossed aside again. In a quick salvage move, Hubie tricks the Sweeper into leaping out a window after he tosses a vase, but it returns just as Bertie answers the front door, and Hubie ends up discarded once more.

Determined to get the cheese without further hazard, Hubie devises a plan and triggers chaos instead: he drops a box of firecrackers and a lit candle into the floor for the Sweeper to contend with. The plan briefly succeeds, tossing Bertie and the debris aside, but the resulting explosion only elicits the Sweeper’s response—its hand hits a Repair Service button, and a repair bot arrives to fix it up completely. Undeterred, the mice nail the record player shut in the floor and unleash a barrage of records via the Automatic Phonograph, slamming them against the walls. Frustrated and overworked, the robot finally gives up, puts on a coat and hat, grabs a briefcase, tacks an “I Quit!” sign on its closet door, and exits the House of Tomorrow.

Hubie revels in the momentary victory, but Bertie spots a hidden danger: a button labeled Spring Cleaning Service. Pressing it unleashes an army of Sweeper robots that spill from another closet and flood the living space with cleaning power. The two mice scramble to escape, only to be ensnared by a rolling carpet that sweeps them outside. As the Sweepers begin a brutal carpet-beating on the way out, Hubie looks at Bertie with comic exasperation and cries out the season’s final humor: > HEY, BOIT! C’MERE!