''Bottles'' is a 1936 '' Happy Harmonies'' animated cartoon directed by

Hugh Harman Hugh Harman (August 31, 1903 – November 25, 1982) was an American animator. He was known for creating the Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM Cartoons and his collaboration with Rudolf Ising during the golden age of American animation. Career He ...

and produced by

Rudolf Ising Rudolf Carl Ising (August 7, 1903 – July 18, 1992) was an American animator best known for collaborating with Hugh Harman to establish the Warner Bros. and MGM Cartoon studios during the early years of the golden age of American animation. In ...

for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio.

Plot

On a dark and stormy night, an elderly pharmacist falls asleep at his stool while mixing poisonous chemicals in a glass bottle. After he falls asleep, the night takes a sudden fantastical turn as his poisonous bottle—topped with a " skull and crossbones" stopper as a warning label—suddenly springs to life, becoming a malevolent cackling skeleton. Laughing evilly, and screaming "Death walks tonight!", the skeleton douses the pharmacist with chemicals that mysteriously cause him to shrink. Waking up, the pharmacist sets out to explore his store in his new minuscule form and finds that ''all'' of the bottles in the pharmacy have similarly sprung to life, with most of them taking on colorful personalities based on their contents: three baby bottles become a trio of crying babies, a bottle of

Scotch whiskey Scotch whisky (; sco, Scots whisky/whiskie, whusk(e)y; often simply called whisky or Scotch) is malt whisky or grain whisky (or a blend of the two), made in Scotland. All Scotch whisky was originally made from malted barley. Commercial disti ...

becomes a jolly Scotsman (married to the bottle of rum that sits next to him), a bottle of Absorbine and Absorbine Jr. become a father and son, a container of

vanishing cream Lotion is a low-viscosity topical preparation intended for application to the skin. By contrast, creams and gels have higher viscosity, typically due to lower water content. Lotions are applied to external skin with bare hands, a brush, a clean ...

playfully vanishes and reappears, a bottle of

smelling salts Smelling salts, also known as ammonia inhalants, spirit of hartshorn or sal volatile, are chemical compounds used as stimulants to restore consciousness after fainting. Usage The usual active compound is ammonium carbonate—a colorless-to-w ...

sniffs everyone in close proximity, and a bottle of India ink takes the form of an Indian snake charmer—charming a tube of "Cobra

Toothpaste Toothpaste is a paste or gel dentifrice used with a toothbrush to clean and maintain the aesthetics and health of teeth. Toothpaste is used to promote oral hygiene: it is an abrasive that aids in removing dental plaque and food from the teeth, a ...

" that becomes a live snake. With the evil skeleton nowhere in sight, the pharmacist joins the bottles in their merriment as they all begin to sing, dance and frolic in turn: three bottles of Cuban rum sing a Spanish song, a pair of rubber gloves spring to life and tap-dance, a bottle of

Carmencita Carmen Dauset Moreno, better known simply as Carmencita (1868 – 1910), was a Spanish-style dancer in American pre-vaudeville variety and music hall ballet. Biography Born in Almería, Andalusia, Spain, Carmencita took dancing lessons in Malag ...

-brand powder and a bottle of

toilet water Eau de toilette (, meaning "grooming water") is a lightly scented perfume. It is also referred to as aromatic waters and has a high alcohol content. It is usually applied directly to the skin after bathing or shaving. It is traditionally composed ...

dance a

flamenco Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and ...

dance, a pair of salt shakers come to life as Dutch children and go ice-skating on a mirror while a bottle of talcum powder drops imaginary snow on them, a bottle of shaving cream happily takes up a shaving razor, and the pharmacist finally takes up a

smoking pipe A smoking pipe is used to inhale the smoke of a burning substance; most common is a tobacco pipe, which can also accommodate almost any other substance. Pipes are commonly made from briar, heather, corn, meerschaum, clay, cherry, glass, porcela ...

and begins playing it like a tuba. But all is not well in the pharmacy, as the skeleton has secretly formed an alliance with a small cadre of evil bottles that inhabit the darker corners of the shelves: a bottle of witch hazel springs to life as an old witch, and several bottles of spirits of ammonia open up to release a trio of mischievous singing ghosts. As the witch and the skeleton mix a poisonous brew in the pharmacist's beakers and test tubes, the ghosts fly out to snatch up the pharmacist and bring him back to the skeleton. As the skeleton cackles triumphantly, the ghosts hurl the pharmacist into the glass distiller as it bubbles with chemicals. Helpless, the pharmacist is sent hurtling through the twisting tubes of his distiller, chased and ground up in a mincer (which splits him up into tiny duplicates of himself), only to be hurled back into the distiller after the skeleton sucks him up in a

syringe A syringe is a simple reciprocating pump consisting of a plunger (though in modern syringes, it is actually a piston) that fits tightly within a cylindrical tube called a barrel. The plunger can be linearly pulled and pushed along the inside ...

. After sending him through the distiller twice, the skeleton finally traps the pharmacist in a glass beaker, laughing as he ties him up with rubber tubing and attacks him with a pair of scissors, threatening to snip him in half. Finally, when the pharmacist's death seems certain, he wakes up at his stool, unharmed and back to his normal size. Looking to his bottle of poisonous chemicals, the pharmacist realizes that he had merely been having a nightmare, and laughs in relief.

Characters

The

Pharmacist A pharmacist, also known as a chemist (Commonwealth English) or a druggist (North American and, archaically, Commonwealth English), is a healthcare professional who prepares, controls and distributes medicines and provides advice and instructi ...

is an old and ancient man who is working late making some magical chemicals, liquids and potions around the interior of the old, and vintage apothecary building with windows, top and glass bottom shelves, and a table with a stool. This may have been the first cartoon short to utilize a character named Witch-Hazel, which would give way to other characters with similar

names A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A persona ...

created by

Walt Disney Productions The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

and

Warner Bros. Cartoons Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. was an American animation studio, serving as the in-house animation division of Warner Bros. during the Golden Age of American animation. One of the most successful animation studios in American media history, it was ...

Trivia

There have been suggestions that

Ian Anderson Ian Scott Anderson (born 10 August 1947) is a British musician, singer and songwriter best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist, acoustic guitarist and leader of the British rock band Jethro Tull. He is a multi-instrumentalist w ...

of Jethro Tull, when writing the opening riff to " Aqualung" (1971) might have been subconsciously influenced by the "Spirits of Ammonia" song about 7:45 into the ''Bottles'' cartoon.

References

External links

* {{Harman and Ising 1936 films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animated short films Films directed by Hugh Harman 1930s American animated films Films scored by Scott Bradley Happy Harmonies 1930s English-language films