Yankee Doodle Cricket (1975)

I wanted a special holiday video to feature on the Rocket for the glorious Fourth, so I raided my trove of DVDs and found a great special from my past, Chuck Jones’ utterly charming Yankee Doodle Cricket from 1975, one year before the huge bicentennial celebration. Officially a sequel to A Cricket In Times Square, this was based on the book by George Selden, and features Mel Blanc doing the voices for multiple characters. The premise seems more than loosely based on Disney’s Ben and Me, in which a mouse is integral to all the myriad accomplishments credited to Ben Franklin. This time, our beloved founding fathers owe it all to a collection of cute critters, among them Chester Cricket, Harry the Cat, and Tucker the Mouse.

It all starts when Tucker drafts a declaration of “interdependence” between cats and mice, and shows it to Harry, who sneaks it to his owner, Thomas Jefferson, and… you can guess the rest. Meanwhile, both animals realize a flag is needed, so they take a cue from a trod-upon snake, and… well, you get the rest. And as for the show’s title, it has to do with a new national anthem (not the Star Spangled Banner) crafted by the “Yankee Doodle Cricket” and played by the “instruments” of all the woodland creatures.

Clever references to other presidential one-liners during Jefferson’s lame attempts at writing, and a nice musical interlude beginning the second half of the special. As for Chuck Jones’ animation, it’s, of course, magnificent, although this probably shouldn’t be your introduction for a non-Warner Bros. Jones work (I’d go with the more celebrated Rikki Tikki Tavi, which you can find on the same DVD as this one). On balance, a nice feature to include if you, like me, have a roster of patriotic videos to show to commemorate Independence Day. Perhaps you can sneak it somewhere between 1776 and The Stars and Stripes Forever.

Cutest scene: a boy and girl firefly need to light up to replace Paul Revere’s “one if by land, two if by sea” lanterns because he’s drunk. (I’m not quite sure if parents would appreciate this depiction!)