Lady, Play Your Mandolin!

Lady, Play Your Mandolin! was the first Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon, directed by Rudolf Ising of Harman and Ising. It was originally released in September 1931.

The black and white cartoon features the short-lived Mickey Mouse-inspired character Foxy as a gaucho who decides to visit a local saloon. His horse soon finds himself drunk on tequila and begins to hallucinate wildly.

As was typically the case with the early entries in the Merry Melodies series, one purpose of the cartoon was to promote a Warner-owned popular song. The title theme, written by Oscar Levant with lyrics by Irving Caesar, was a 1930 #5 pop hit sung by Nick Lucas and released by Brunswick Records, which had been purchased by Warner Brothers the previous year (Another recording, by the Havana Novelty Orchestra was released the same year on RCA's Victor Records). In the short, it is sung by a female fox character who would later become Foxy's girlfriend, Roxy.

The short was animated by Rollin Hamilton and Norm Blackburn with a musical score and direction of the Brunswick Recording Orchestra by Frank Marsales.

The cartoon is available in a Cartoon Network-produced feature about "Lost Cartoons", which is included in the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 1, Disc 3.