Rocket-bye Baby
| Rocket-bye Baby | |
|---|---|
| Merrie Melodies series | |
| Directed by | Chuck Jones |
| Produced by |
Edward Selzer (uncredited) |
| Story by | Michael Maltese |
| Narrated by | Daws Butler (opening, uncredited) |
| Voices by |
Daws Butler (uncredited) June Foray (uncredited) |
| Music by |
Milt Franklyn (arrangement) |
| Animation by |
Ken Harris Abe Levitow Ben Washam Harry Love (special animation effects) |
| Layouts by | Ernie Nordli |
| Backgrounds by | Phillip DeGuard |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 4, 1956 (USA) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 7 minutes |
| Language | English |
Rocket-Bye Baby is a 1956 animated cartoon short in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Cartoons. The Michael Maltese story follows the adventures of a baby from Mars who ended up on Earth after the planets passed close to each other. It was Warner Brothers' take on the borderline hysteria surrounding UFOs in the 1950s, augmented by the Russian space program and the Roswell Incident.
The cartoon is one of very few Warner Brothers short films of the era that did not use Mel Blanc's voice talent. Instead, Daws Butler, famous for the voices of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound and other characters in the Hanna-Barbera oeuvre, and June Foray, most famous as the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, provided the vocal content of the film. No recurring characters were used.
The movie begins with a vignette showing the planets Mars and Earth, during which the narrator (voiced by Butler) explains that, in the summer of 1954, the planets came so close to each other that "a cosmic force was disturbed" and a baby destined for Earth arrived at Mars, and vice versa. Two comet-like bodies are shown colliding and then assuming paths distinct from their original directions of travel. The transit of one, colored green, is followed as it flies through Earth's atmosphere, above hundreds of homes with strange-looking TV antennas, then arrives at a high-rise hospital.
Joseph Wilbur (voiced by Butler) is waiting with other anxious, heavily smoking fathers in the hospital waiting room. Finally, an announcement (voiced by Foray) comes over the P.A. that Joseph can see his baby. Excited, he presses against the glass of the nursery window while his baby is rolled in on a small gurney. The baby becomes visible, but wait! His head is green! Then, he jumps up from the gurney and we see that his head has two antennae that spark and make Morse-code style beeps! "Somebody goofed!" Joseph says before fainting.
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