| Meatless Flyday | |
|---|---|
 Title card | |
| Directed by | Friz Freleng |
| Written by | Michael Maltese |
| Starring | Mel Blanc,Cy Kendall |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
Production company | Leon Schlesinger Studios |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Meatless Flyday is a 1944Warner Bros.Merrie Melodies directed byFriz Freleng.[1] The short was released on January 29, 1944.[2]
The title is a pun onmeatless Friday, a reference to the traditionalRoman Catholic practice of abstinence from meat on Fridays.
An overconfident and guffawingspider (voiced byCy Kendall) spots his intended prey, a mute fly, on the ceiling, and indulges in various cat-and-mouse schemes to try to catch him for food, including painting a load ofbuckshot with "Kandy Kolor" and luring the fly to eat it and drawing him closer with amagnet, which only succeeds in attracting a set of metal cutlery which the spider has to dodge to save himself. At one point the fly manages to set fire to the spider's feet, and as the spider nose-dives like a plane he exclaims "Look! I'm a Zero, I'm a Zero," referring to theMitsubishi Zero used by the Japanese duringWorld War II. He sees the fly on a wedding cake as a bride and dresses as the groom only to be blown up by a dynamite stick.
Eventually, the spider catches his prey, and, when he is about to carve him up while singing the song "Would You Like to Take a Walk?", the fly points to a wall calendar giving the day as "Meatless Tuesday", a reference tofood rationing during World War II. The frustrated spider runs to theUnited States Capitol and rants toCongress "You can't do this to me! You just can't! You can't! You can't! You can't! You can't!"
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