The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones

Melpomenus Jones follows a painfully polite young minister who simply cannot bring himself to say goodbye. Planning a short vacation to visit friends, he keeps getting pulled into lingering conversations and small social obligations, so his intended departures keep slipping away. The film tracks the mounting awkwardness and growing discomfort his inability to close a visit creates, using snappy ragtime music and a dry narrative voice to underline the humor. The story stays light and quirky, focusing on manners and social hesitation, and it ends with Melpomenus making an unexpected exit on the final day of his leave, a finale the short frames without spoiling the specifics.

Directed by Gerald Potterton and released in 1983, the short adapts a Stephen Leacock story and features Mavor Moore as the narrator, with a toe-tapping ragtime soundtrack that sets the film's brisk pacing and comic tone.

As a brief animated short, it didn't enjoy a wide theatrical release and firm box office numbers aren't publicly available. Its distribution seems to have been limited to festival screenings, television slots, or collections of short subjects rather than major commercial runs.

Those who come across the film tend to appreciate its dry, understated humor and its study of excessive politeness and social anxiety. The animation is efficient rather than flashy, relying on rhythm, narration, and musical cues to build timing and comic payoff instead of elaborate visuals.

The Awful Fate of Melpomenus Jones remains relatively obscure, but it appeals to readers of Leacock and collectors of early 1980s Canadian animation. Its ragtime score, concise storytelling, and lightly satirical take on manners make it a neat, compact example of literary adaptation in animated form.