The Pied Piper of Guadalupe is a 1961 Looney Tunes cartoon co-directed by Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt.
Sylvester the Cat is in Guadalupe (presumably the one in Baja
) chasing mice. He is singularly ineffectual at it: not only is he unable to catch any mice, they routinely whack him over the head with two-by-fours. After seeing a storybook on a stand in the square, Sylvester hits on an idea. He dresses up as the Pied Piper, and, after taking music lessons, uses a flute to lure the mice out of their mouse holes and into his jug. This works brilliantly on all the mice — except for Speedy Gonzales, the fastest mouse in all Mexico. Speedy, who is immune, then has to defeat Sylvester and rescue his mice brethren.
Tropes:
- Ash Face: Sylvester is hiding in a barrel, about to throw a stick of dynamite. Speedy sees this and starts rolling the barrel, which then tumbles down a long set of stairs — onto a sleeping bulldog. Cue explosion, cue Ash Face on both Sylvester and the bulldog, cue Sylvester taking a beating.
- Badass Boast: Speedy asks for all his mice friends back, and says "if you don't give them back, I will take them." He does.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: One of the mice carries a "Loco El Gato" sign. While this does technically translate as "Crazy Cat" it's incorrect in that, in Spanish, adjectives are supposed to come after the noun they're modifying. (So technically, the sign was saying "Crazy. Cat." as if they were seperate concepts, or worse "Crazy. The Cat.") The sign should have said "El gato loco", or, even better "¡El gato está loco!" ("The cat is crazy!") or "¡Qué gato tan loco!" ("That cat was crazy!").
- Brief Accent Imitation: After coming out completely bandaged, Speedy attempts to give Sylvester his flute back and asks if he "wants eem", to which Sylvester replies, "No, I don't want 'eem'."
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the end, Speedy gets a hold of Sylvester's flute and plays it, causing Sylvester (or at least his feet) to become entranced by it.
- Immune to Mind Control: Speedy shows no sensitivity to Sylvester's magic flute playing. Maybe because he's the smartest mouse in all Mexico as well as the fastest. (This seemingly gets averted later on, though Speedy might have been just playing along so he could rescue his friends.)
- Magical Flutist: Sylvester's flute playing puts all the mice except for Speedy into a trance. In the end, Speedy gets a hold of the flute, which he offers to Sylvester, but he doesn't want it anymore, so Speedy decides to play it himself, resulting in Sylvester becoming entranced.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Ends with Speedy walking off into the distance playing his flute, and Sylvester painfully and involuntarily dancing off into the distance thanks to the flute.
- Tuckerization: The music teacher Sylvester takes flute lessons from is J.C. Melendez, one of the animators on this short. Melendez would later become better known as Bill Melendez, one of the executive producers and directors on the Peanuts TV specials.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Of the six mice whom Sylvester captures, only four are shown being rescued by Speedy on camera. It's pretty easy to assume Speedy saves the last two offscreen, seeing as how leaving his friends behind is something he would never do.
