This title is so strained that it caused me, these many years and miles away, to pull a muscle.
Blues in the Night, eh? WB certainly used its musical catalogue in these cartoons. There’s an interesting suggestion of how and that this was always business, however much we spectators may key on culture and art and auteurism.
Bert and Hubie are Stan and Ollie knock-offs—dumb guy, cruel/smart guy—but they are of course nowhere near as good. Claude the cat’s fear of the draft is funny. The power of suggestion part is also good, especially when Claude turns plaid. “Don’t overdo it,” they say, and then pull out an eggbeater to prepare for their operation. The cat’s fainting leads us to a nice little surreal nightmare. (At this point we always cite the pink elephants from Dumbo. So, the pink elephants from Dumbo.)
The ending is practically an afterthought, but it’s an interesting one.