Western Animation / Cheese Chasers

"Cheese Chasers" is a 1951 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese.

Two mice, Hubie and Bertie, overindulge at a cheese factory and get sick of the stuff. Figuring they have nothing left to live for, they decide to commit suicide by stepping into the mouth of Claude Cat. Claude thinks there's something off about mice wanting to get eaten and becomes frightened of them, so he figures there's nothing left for him to live for and goes to Marc Antony, a bulldog, to get himself killed.

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"Cheese Chasers" provides examples of:

• Agony of the Feet: When Claude refuses to eat them, Hubie and Bertie, determined to end their lives, hit Claude's foot with a hammer, trying to provoke him into eating them.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Taken to psychosomatic extremes. Hubie and Bertie want Claude to eat them, then Claude wants Marc Antony to massacre him. Finding irreparable fridge logic in it all, Marc Antony wants the dog catcher to take him.
• Aside Glance: Marc Antony (the bulldog) gives one of these (combined with a Thousand-Yard Stare), after getting immensely confused as to why Claude is terrified of mice and why Hubie and Bertie are terrified of cheese.
• Balloon Belly: At the end of their binge, Hubie and Bertie have very bloated stomachs.
• Big "NO!": Downplayed. Claude lets out an intense but short "NO!" when Marc Antony asks him if cats eat mice.
• Bungled Suicide: Hubie and Bertie try to commit suicide by stepping into Claude's mouth while he's asleep but only succeed in driving him to suicide as well.
• Cartoon Cheese: Averted at the beginning, with Hubie and Bertie, at the end of their binge at the factory, having eaten paths through a variety of cheeses. Later, though, Claude, trying to get them to leave him alone, offers them some yellow cheese that has holes in it.
• Driven to Suicide: Hubie and Bertie, having eaten themselves sick on cheese, decide there's nothing left to live for, since they'll never be able to enjoy cheese again.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: Hubie and Bertie are unable to think of anything else to do in life after downing a mother-load of cheese, so they decide to let themselves be eaten by a cat, leaving the trope before doing so (with a double-meaning P.S. attached: "We've lived a full life"). But the eagerness to get eaten scares Claude to the point that he can't eat mice anymore, and unable to perform his main reason for existing as a cat, he leaves the trope (with a P.S. that says, literally, "No P.S.") and proceeds to go draw Marc Antony's wrath.
• Green Around the Gills: At the end of their binge, Hubie and Bertie are green in the face.
• Let's Meet the Meat: When Hubie and Bertie try to get Claude to eat them, he's quickly suspicious, and freaks out over their increasingly aggressive attempts to be eaten. By the cartoon's end, he's frantically pulling them away as they cling to his lips, shouting, "Let us IN, Mister Cat! Eat us! EAT US!"
• Nothing Left to Do but Die:
  • Hubie and Bertie pig out on cheese to the point that they get sick of the stuff. Believing there's nothing left to live for, they decide to commit suicide by cat.
    Hubie: Bert, an average mouse eats 12 pounds of cheese in a lifetime. I figure tonight we've lived 2,000 years!
    Bertie: Hubie, I'll never be able to touch the stuff again.
  • Later in the short, Claude, disturbed by the two mice wanting to get eaten by him, decides to get pulverized by Mac Antony. Marc attempts to mathematically (as in, actually using an adding machine) look at the situation, but can't make heads or tails of it either, and decides to purposefully get caught by the dog catcher.
    Marc Antony: IT JUST DON'T ADD UP!
    [A dog catcher's truck drives by. Marc begins to chase it.]
    Marc Antony: HEY! WAIT FOR ME! WAIT FOR BABY!
    Claude: [chasing Marc] Hey, wait for me! You gotta massacre me!
    Hubie and Bertie: [chasing Claude] Wait, you cowardly cat!
• One Last Smoke: When Claude, deciding to end his life, punches Marc Antony, the dog starts to chase him. He then realizes that Claude hasn't been running, has blindfolded himself, and has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.
• Orifice Invasion: Hubie and Bertie, on finding Claude asleep, open his mouth and step inside.
• Rebus Bubble: Claude's reaction to the mice's initial attempt: Map of Scandanavia + Denmark highlighted = "Something rotten in"
• Seen-It-All Suicide: The cartoon uses an extended version of this trope and Nothing Left to Do but Die. Hubie and Bertie discover that they have eaten enough cheese to make themselves sick of the stuff, and decide to commit suicide by cat. Their efforts cause the cat to go mad and try to commit suicide himself by asking Marc Antony to massacre him, driving the dog mad as well.
• Shout-Out: The Rebus Bubble described above references a famous line from Hamlet: "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
• Stock Animal Diet: Lampshaded by Marc Antony as he tries to make sense out of the situation—and defied by the cat and mice.
  Marc Antony: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Now... uh... you're a cat... right?
  Claude: Right.
  Marc Antony: And... uh... cats eat mice... right?
  Claude: No!
  [A Beat as the dog gives a confused look to the camera.]
  Marc Antony: Uh... you... uh, you're mice... right?
  Hubie: Right.
  Marc Antony: And... and mice... they eat cheese... right?
  Hubie and Bertie: Cheese? Ahh! Don't mention that word!
• Suicide as Comedy: Hubie and Bertie are unable to look at cheese after binging on it, so they decide there's nothing to live for and try to get Claude to eat them. This freaks out Claude, who, when he realizes he'll never be able to eat another mouse, decides he needs to end it all and tries to get Marc Antony to massacre him. That said, the meat of the comedy is not so much that attempting suicide is funny, but the reaction from Claude (and later Marc Antony), who won't aid or abet Hubie and Bertie because he's sure it's a trick (i.e., they must be poisoned).
• Through a Face Full of Fur: Hubie and Bert turn green from indigestion through eating too much cheese.

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