And we’re back!
The bluebirds’ trolling of the dwarfs didn’t quite have the intended effect, as they’ve now determined that whatever’s terrorizing them is upstairs. Someone’s got to go down and chase it up, as Doc says. Er, go up and chase it down. Everyone except Dopey picks Dopey, who is handed a candle and given the “we’re right behind you” routine. So up he goes, and we partake in yet more padding. He sees Snow stretching under the blanket, freaks out, runs downstairs and bumps into his friends, they run outside and lock him in, he rips the door handle off and trips into a cupboard, a bunch of pots get stuck on him, the others think he’s a monster and starting beating him up, etc.
I suppose one could make the argument that they’re trying to establish characters, and to that I say…yeah, you’re probably right. I just wish it was either shorter or more clever.
Anyway, they finally figure out that they’re beating the wrong person to death and start interrogating Dopey about what he saw. He pantomimes sleeping, and they decide to go kill the monster before it wakes up.
Thankfully, it cuts right to the bedroom afterwards. They see Snow under the covers, surround her and raise their weapons in preparation for a kill strike as Doc pulls off the blanket. When he does, though, they stop in the middle of it. “What is it?” Happy asks Doc.
"Why, it’s a girl!" he answers. And a mighty pretty one, at that. "She’s beautiful. Just like an angel," Bashful remarks.
Grumpy, who has evidently seen The Phantom Menace, is having none of that. “She’s a female, and all females is poison! They’re full of wicked wiles!” He doesn’t think highly of the idea of being quiet around her, either, and his shouting soon wakes her up. The dwarfs try to hide, but it seems that for them, “hide” means “position yourself so that your face is the first thing that the person you’re hiding from sees when they wake up.”
"Oh! Why, you’re little men!" Snow says when she sees their faces peeking up from the other end of the beds. "How do you do? I said, how do you do?"
"How do you do what?” Grumpy snarks.
"Oh, you can talk! I’m so glad!” Snow then proceeds to correctly guess who’s who, which I think is supposed to be something showing how great she is but really isn’t that hard. Either way, they’re sufficiently charmed by it. All except Grumpy, who still demands to know who she is. Finding out that she’s both the princess and a fugitive doesn’t change anything. “If the queen finds her here, she’ll swoop down and wreak her vengeance on us!” he reasons. “She’s full of black magic. She can even make herself invisible. Pfft! Might be in this room right now!”
But the queen doesn’t know where she is, Snow says, and she’ll earn her keep if the dwarfs let her stay. She’ll wash and sew and sweep and cook —
"Cook?" the dwarfs exclaim. Can she make apple dumplings? How about gooseberry pie? She can? HOORAY! She stays!
As if on cue, the soup that Snow was making is ready. Well, almost ready. That’s okay, though; the dwarfs have time to wash up!
"Why wash?" they wonder. They aren’t going anywhere, and it isn’t New Year.
"Oh, perhaps you have washed," Snow says.
"Why yes, perhaps we have!"
"But when?”
After a few seconds of trying and failing to come up with a good response, the dwarfs finally settle on “recently.” This doesn’t fool Snow, who wants to see their hands. They relent one by one, and she shames them all thoroughly. “March straight outside and wash,” she says, “or you’ll not get a bite to eat.”
Hanging their heads, six of them march out the door. You get no points for guessing which one doesn’t. The camera then zooms out to show us Snow standing behind Grumpy, accompanied by a surprisingly ominous musical sting. She could be sharpening a knife and it would still be appropriate. “Well, aren’t you going to wash? What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” she teases when he doesn’t answer. Grumpy knows he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t, so he sticks his tongue out at her and stalks off after the others. He hits the door on the way out, which makes both Snow and the audience laugh.
Meanwhile, the dwarfs are gathered around a water trough and quite reluctant to get any closer to its contents. It’s cold and wet! Do they have to get in? How hard do they scrub? Will they have to wash where it doesn’t show? For the sake of our collective sanity, we’re going to assume that means behind their ears.
"Now now now, don’t get excited," Doc says. "Here we go!"
And we’re off into our next musical number, “The Washing Song.” Doc teaches the dwarfs to roll up their sleeves, work up some suds and stick their faces into it. Oh, and splashing a lot. Can’t forget the splashing. It’s rough going for a while, but the others soon get into the rhythm of it.
Grumpy is (GASP!) unimpressed by their efforts. “A fine bunch of water lilies you turned out to be!” Next thing they know, Snow will be tying up their beards with pink ribbon and spraying them with perfoom. “I’d like to see anybody make me wash, if I didn’t wanna!”
But as he’s about to learn, those who defy the cult of Snow White are forcefully re-educated. Doc gathers the others together, and they whisper for a bit before putting their plan into action. They go for the double whammy of suspicious whistling and slowly surrounding Grumpy, who has just enough time to realize what’s going to happen before they pounce on him. He’s dragged to the tub and dunked in, and the dwarfs proceed to scrub him into semi-subservience. The cherry of humiliation? Blue ribbons in his beard and a crown of flowers. “You’ll pay dearly for this!” he yells at them.
"Supper!" Snow shouts from inside, and the joy of torturing Grumpy is quickly forgotten. Doc and company throw him back in the water before racing inside, leaving him to stew in his own fury.
Scene! :D
