Now Hear This (film)

Now Hear This
Looney Tunes series
The opening of the title sequence, with Satan wondering where his other horn went.
Directed by	Chuck Jones Maurice Noble (co-director)
Produced by	David H. DePatie
Story by	John Dunn Chuck Jones
Music by	Bill Lava (music) Treg Brown (sound effects)
Animation by	Ben Washam Bob Bransford
Layouts by	Maurice Noble
Backgrounds by	Philip DeGuard
Studio	Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s)	April 27, 1963
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Now Hear This is a 1962 animated short film in the Looney Tunes series produced by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. It was directed by Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble, and written by Jones and John Dunn. The title comes from a phrase used aboard American naval ships as an instruction to cease activity and listen to the announcement that will follow. The phrase was referred into another WB cartoon, Now Hare This, five years before this one.

This cartoon is notable in that it has no rings at the opening title sequence (see "Title Sequence" below). In addition, this cartoon is notable for resembling a UPA cartoon (whose cartoons had used limited animation techniques) more than a typical Warner Bros. short of the time.

Satan, the Head Devil, loses his left horn, which is found by an elderly man in Britain (there are clues to the cartoon's location; the bin says "Keep Britain Tidy" and Rule Britannia is heard twice) who uses it as a hearing trumpet. Soon the man experiences a series of aural and visual hallucinations: A bug sounds like a locomotive; a butterfly causes him to see strange patterns; a short man in a pink suit makes mischief, at one point pulling a telephone from the horn and turning the phone's mouthpiece into a shower outlet. These hallucinations become steadily more strange and frightening before finally culminating in a "GIGANTIC EXPLOSION!" Having suffered enough, the gentleman leaves the horn behind in favor of his original hearing trumpet, which he had thrown out at the cartoon's beginning. After he leaves, Satan materializes and is glad to find his missing horn; he screws it back on and disappears. The cartoon ends with the moral: "The other fellow's trumpet always looks greener".