Editing Mighty Mouse (section)

===Melodrama spoofs===
In 1945, ''Mighty Mouse and the Pirates'' was the first Mighty Mouse cartoon to feature sung dialogue, in the [[operetta]] style. ''[[Mighty Mouse in Gypsy Life|Gypsy Life]]'' (1945) and ''The Crackpot King'' (1946) followed in the same style.<ref name=terry-ch18/> ''Gypsy Life'' was particularly successful, earning Terry his third nomination for an [[Academy Award]] for Short Subjects (Cartoon).<ref>{{cite web|title=18th Academy Awards|url=http://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/1946 |publisher=The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences|access-date=May 14, 2012|year=1946}}</ref>

There was a romantic, [[damsel in distress]] element in these cartoons—in each one, Mighty Mouse saves a dark-haired beauty from terrible trouble, and in the latter two, the camera fades out on the hero and the girl in a romantic clinch. While these were very similar to the musical [[melodrama]] spoofs that were soon to emerge, they didn't have an overwrought narrator, or the suggestion that the cartoon is an episode of a continuing story.

In November 1947, ''A Fight to the Finish'' was the first in a series of musical melodrama spoofs, with Mighty Mouse saving damsel in distress Pearl Pureheart (sometimes "Little Nell") from the villainous, mustache-twirling cat Oil Can Harry. Terrytoons revived the concept from their earlier [[Fanny Zilch]] series, a melodrama spoof that ran for seven cartoons from 1933 to 1937. Fanny was constantly tormented by a human version of Oil Can Harry, and protected by her lover, J. Leffingwell Strongheart.

''A Fight to the Finish'' begins with a snatch of [[Cole Porter|Cole Porter's]] song "And The Villain Still Pursued Her", which had also been used as the theme for the Fanny Zilch cartoons. The narrator opens with an urgent recap of the (nonexistent) previous episode: "In our last episode, we left Mighty Mouse at the old Beaver River station. As you remember, folks, he was locked in a desperate struggle with a villain. But on with the story..." Mighty Mouse is engaging in "a fight to the finish" with Oil Can Harry, now a villainous cat with a mustache, a top hat and a big black cloak, voiced by Tom Morrison.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Markstein |first1=Don |title=Oil Can Harry |url=http://www.toonopedia.com/oilcan.htm |website=Don Markstein's Toonopedia |access-date=February 10, 2020}}</ref> The blonde heroine, Pearl Pureheart, is tied up in the other room, but refuses to give up hope. Harry manages to knock out Mighty Mouse, and leaves him tied to the railroad track with a bomb on his head, and the 5:15 train due to pass by. Harry drives Pearl away to his home, where he woos her in song, to no avail. Mighty Mouse manages to blow out the fuse, stop the train and escape from his bonds, and rushes to Pearl's rescue. At Harry's house, they fight with fists, guns and swords, as Pearl slips out the window and onto a passing log which is floating down the river into a mill. Mighty Mouse throws Harry into the river and rushes to rescue Pearl, who's heading for the buzzsaw. The narrator asks, "Is our little heroine doomed to destruction in the sawmill? Will Mighty Mouse arrive in time? See the following episode, next week!" The camera starts to iris out, but then stops, as the narrator relents, "Stop! Gosh, we can't wait until next week. Please, show us what happens, won't you?" Mighty Mouse grabs Pearl in time, and the pair have a brief romantic chorus together as the cartoon delivers a happy ending.

The melodrama spoofs continued as an occasional series over the next six years, with Oil Can Harry and Pearl Pureheart returning in thirteen more cartoons. Another memorable short was 1949's ''The Perils of Pearl Pureheart'', in which Oil Can Harry hypnotizes Pearl into singing "[[Carry Me Back to Old Virginny]]" on stage at an old saloon, where he vacuums up the tips thrown by the audience. Hypnotized for three and a half minutes of the six-minute cartoon, Pearl continues to sing as the battle between Harry and Mighty Mouse rages around her, even underwater.

To vary the formula, the melodramas started traveling to exotic locales, including Italy (''Sunny Italy'', 1951), Switzerland (''Swiss Miss'', 1951), Holland (''Happy Holland'', 1952) and even prehistoric times (''Prehistoric Perils'', 1952) and medieval times (''When Mousehood Was in Flower'', 1953).

The fourteen Oil Can Harry melodrama theatricals were:

* ''A Fight to the Finish'' (1947)
* ''Loves Labor Won'' (1948)
* ''The Mysterious Stranger'' (1948)
* ''Triple Trouble'' (1948)
* ''A Cold Romance'' (1949) 
* ''The Perils of Pearl Pureheart'' (1949)
* ''Stop, Look and Listen'' (1949)
* ''Beauty on the Beach'' (1950)
* ''Sunny Italy'' (1951)
* ''Swiss Miss'' (1951)
* ''Prehistoric Perils'' (1952)
* ''Happy Holland'' (1952)
* ''A Soapy Opera'' (1953)
* ''When Mousehood Was in Flower'' (1953)