Three's a Crowd

Three's a Crowd is a 1932 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising. The short was released on December 10, 1932. Plot An old, bespectacled gentleman, an open volume in his hands, sits in his library, in a rocking chair, in his stocking feet, comfortably before a warm fire. A clock above the mantle strikes (the face apparently reading about five, but the number of rings indicating eight) and the gentleman, rising, sets the open book down on his seat; yawning and stretching, he makes his way across the room, a well-used, lit taper in his hand, which he sets on a table near the threshold, extinguishing the flame with a great breath as he exits. We cut back to the rocker and the open book, Alice in Wonderland, out of which who should emerge but Alice herself! Up leaps the tiny girl to the arm of the chair, up she leaps to a nearby table, the which she runs across until she meets a radio, whose great dial she adjusts with some effort. The song of the title comes through, our little heroine swaying and scatting her way through it. Merrily she rolls along, skipping and sliding past some untidily shelved volumes, out of one of which, Robinson Crusoe, emerges some accompaniment, likely Robinson himself and Friday. Meanwhile, Rip Van Winkles book snores away; the cover is pushed away by Rip, apparently awakened by and much enjoying the music. Alice trots along, coming across The Three Musketeers, whose cover she pries open: "All for one and one for all," cry Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, raising their rapiers as they segue into their own scatting-routine. Cut to Robinson, Friday, Napoleon, and Omar Khayyam, who stand amongst the books bobbing about happily to the tune. There is a universal burst of applause as the musketeers conclude their number: Henry VIII, surrounded (presumably) by some of his wives, shouts "Whoopee!" Nearby, Marc Antony crawls out of Antony and Cleopatra, shouting, as if in Julius Caesar, "Friends, Romans, countrymen...lend your ears to that dear old maestro!" The camera pans to a portly Emperor Nero, who stands before a book containing an image of the Great Fire of Rome and holds his iconic, anachronistic fiddle. He plays an exotic tune: Cleopatra comes dancing out of her book, looking like an Egyptian tomb-painting.