A BIRTHDAY WISH
by Ed Emberley
A birthday wish is granted in a roundabout way, via wordless cartoons that recall those that were once shown before the main feature. At the outset a mouse with a fishing pole cleverly frees some cheese from a trap. The cheese is then served with a candle at the birthday party for a smaller mouse who reveals, in a thought balloon, that his real wish is for an ice cream cone. The ensuing slapstick sequence involves a flyaway party hat, a winged mail carrier, a woodpecker activating a fire alarm which is answered by bugs with engine and hose. . . . Somehow a frog balloonist, a fox archer, and a rabbit yachtsman get into the act, and somewhere there's a turtle dishing out ice cream which eventually lands on the birthday table. An extended funnypaper schtick, unabashedly contrived and mechanically ingenious.