This little short is about a guy who wants to join the grouch club because for six months since moving to his town he has been unsuccessfully trying to join the library. The librarian is a courteous blockade of documentation requests - you must own a home or have cosigners that do, you must have references, and you must have a telephone, among others. And there is a fellow that has a Franklin Pangborne like presence who steps into the picture every time the would be library member raises his voice.
The short was directed by Lloyd French, who worked for Hal Roach and directed Laurel and Hardy. The would be member of the grouch club does have an Oliver Hardy - like demeanor in that he starts out calm and polite and grows angrier and louder with each ridiculous impediment put in his way.
Today the grouch would just buy the book off of Amazon if he met resistence at the library. Who wants to put in a landline just to satisfy such a stuffy institution anyways?
