The Little Bantamweight is the final MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon, released in 1938.
Plot[]
When the eggs begin to hatch, Papa Rooster starts training his little fighters for the big bantamweight match. All the chicks look tough - except for one "mama's boy." Pop tries to forget about him, but when the chips are down, and all the other chicks have been knocked out, "mama's boy" comes to the rescue. The little rooster is thrown into a cockfight (the Golden Spur Tournament for Junior Bantam Weights) after The Champ wipes out a challenger. The runt of the group wins the fight.
Trivia[]
- Due to Disney's high volume of cartoon production, the studio got a little ahead of itself. Disney contracted out the production of three Silly Symphonies shorts- Merbabies, Pipe Dreams, and The Little Bantamweight- to Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Of the three, Disney only kept one (Merbabies), with the other two being sold to MGM, who released them as Happy Harmonies cartoons.
- The reason for this final MGM Happy Harmonies short was because these were too expensive to produce, going far over the budget, as these had music and 3-hue Technicolor. MGM fired Harman/Ising, but Fred Qumiby, producer for all Tom and Jerry cartoons from 1940-55, rehired them back.