"I belled the mouse!"
"Bell Hoppy" is a 1954 Blue Ribbon Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson and starring Sylvester the Cat and Hippety Hopper.
Sylvester is blackballed by the Loyal Order of Alley Cats Mouse and Chowder Club (again), while Hippety escapes from a zoo deliveryman. When he's found by the Grand Poohbah of the Order, he mistakes the baby kangaroo for a mouse, big enough for a whole banquet. Unfortunately, Hopper is too much for one cat, so the Order decide to have someone put a bell on Hopper's neck so they can hear him coming and gang up on him. At first, no one wants to volunteer, until Sylvester re-appears....
Notable in that this is one of the few times Sylvester triumphs over Hippety Hopper (though given that he actually liked his new toy, Hippety clearly wasn't all that bothered by the result).
"Bell Hoppy" provides examples of:
- Aside Glance: The Grand Poohbah while realizing he can con Sylvester into belling Hippety.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Hoping to pass his initiation, Sylvester says he hope to run into a large mouse soon. He quickly bumps into Hippety and just as quickly learns what a handful he can be.
- Book Ends: Sylvester gets conked on the head by a billiard eight-ball (as a Visual Pun on the term "blackballed") at both the start and the end of the cartoon.
- Brotherhood of Funny Hats: The Loyal Order of Alley Cats Mouse and Chowder Club. Interestingly, only one member other than the Grand Poohbah is actually wearing a hat (a derby to the Poohbah's empty tincan).
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After all the abuse Sylvester had to go through to get the bell on Hippety, he goes on to become the Grand Poohbah... because the other members were hit by the zoo truck Hippety was captured in and are now too incapacitated to do much of anything.
- Got Volunteered: None of the Alley Cats want to bell the "giant mouse", when Sylvester comes in begging to be reinstated. Instead of kicking him out, the Grand Poohbah decides to let him win back membership by doing what the others don't want to do.
- Guile Hero: Sylvester lampshades how he's constantly failed to overpower Hippety with brute force, so he opts for trickery with the Mirror Routine. It works.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After what they put Sylvester through, the Alley Cats finally get theirs when they jump into the street to get Hopper and get hit by the van that just picked him up. Sylvester, at the end, assumes the role of Grand Poohbah, since all the other cats (including the real Grand Poohbah) are too badly injured from the van accident to bother protesting his self-appointed authority.
- Literal Metaphor: Sylvester's interpretation of getting blackballed by the club means getting hit with a billiard eight ball.
- Mirror Routine: How Sylvester finally gets Hopper to put on the bell. Since he can't outdo him with his muss-kles, Sylvester decides that he'll have to use a little ch-ch-ch-chicanery to bell Hippety. He stands on the other side of the fence and imitates Hopper as he looks through a gap, eventually getting Hopper to imitate him putting the bell around his neck.
- Oh, Crap!: The Alley Cats right before getting hit by the zoo truck.
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Sylvester after the first time he gets clobbered by the Alley Cats by mistake.
- Running Gag: Sylvester getting clobbered by the Alley Cats every time a bell rings, thinking it was Hopper.
- Seesaw Catapult: At a junkyard, Sylvester ends up standing on one end of a plank propped on a tire. Hoppy jumps down from a ledge and onto the other end, sending him flying up to the same ledge. Sylvester then decides that two can play at that game and jumps down... only for Hoppy to be too heavy to launch, causing Sylvester to be flung far away.
- Taught by Experience: When a stoplight makes the same noise as the bell, Sylvester thinks to jump away from the bell this time. Unfortunately, the Alley Cats jump to the same spot he did.
- Telephone Polearm: Continuing the Running Gag, the Alley Cats beat up Sylvester with a giant club. But they don't know it's him in that Fruit Cart coming down the hill...
- Who Will Bell the Cat?: The premise of the cartoon. In an amusing reversal, the cats want to bell the giant "mouse" so they can eat him, but realize they Didn't Think This Through first. So when Sylvester wants to rejoin the club, they give him the honor of belling Hopper. Ironically, they don't have an issue being out on the battlefield together as backup.
