I Haven't Got a Hat



I Haven't Got a Hat is a 1935 animated cartoon with the first appearances of Beans the Cat Little Kitty Porky Pig Oliver Owl and Ham and Ex.

Plot summary
The short opens with introductions of Miss Cud (the school teacher) Beans (who is eating out of jar of jam) Porky Oliver Owl (both of whom are shown at once) and Ham and Ex (twin puppies) although Little Kitty is absent from this sequence. After this a poster is shown explaining that the school children are sponsoring a musical and recital for the benefit of teachers and parents.

The school talent show first features Porky Pig reciting The Ride of Paul Revere but due to his excessive stutter (which causes him to recite his part with incredible strain and even sweat moments) the children whistle and cat-call which causes several stray dogs to burst into the schoolhouse and chase poor Porky out. A small gag involves Porky pointing to offstage students to provide sound effects for his poem (the underside of a turtle's shell for a drum and falling light bulbs for gunfire). However he points to the wrong student but the intended student takes his cue causing Porky to point to the correct one.

Next up Little Kitty attempts to recite Mary Had a Little Lamb. She is so nervous that she forgets a couple lines (even confusing snow for corn flakes) and then proceeds with the rhyme but gradually speeds up her voice to a high pitch. Throughout her perfomance she is fidgeting and crossing her legs in a way to suggest she urgently needs to go to the toilet. She reaches the end of the ryhme as she makes a hasty exit to a building that may be the school outhouse.

Third Ham and Ex sing the song I Haven't Got a Hat written by Buddy Bernier and Bob Emmerich. During this performance Oliver Owl refuses to share some candy with Beans.

When Oliver goes up for his recital Beans decides it is time for payback and sneaks a stray cat and dog into the piano. Their commotion creates a virtuoso performance of the Overture to Zampa to riotous applause. When the animals jump out of the piano (with the cat chases the dog rather than the other way around) the ruse is revealed to the audience's disapproval and Oliver humbled and vengeful covers Beans in green ink from his pen causing Beans to fall off his ladder and launch a pail of red paint onto Oliver. Caught in the same predicament they shake hands as the cartoon ends. This ends scene emphasizes the fact that this was a two-strip Technicolor cartoon with only red and green hues. At the time (as started before) the three-strip process (with blue hues added) was exclusive to Disney for use in cartoons. This contract ran out in the fall of 1935 and WB released their first three-strip Technicolor cartoon Flowers for Madame in November of that year