- Feed the Kitty, Kiss me Cat, Feline Frame-up and Cat Feud
- Score: 🐱🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon series
- Duration: 6-7 minutes
- Release date: 1952, 1953, 1954 and 1958
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family
- Cats Spotlight: Claude Cat and Pussyfoot
Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot
Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot are characters from Warner Bros. that appeared in 4 short movies between 1952 and 1958 (they also made cameo appearances in other series but I will limit here to the series where they are the protagonists). The movies are different but the stories always involve Marc Anthony, who is a big brown bulldog protecting and being affectionate to Pussyfoot, a small black and white kitten.
A little parenthesis here: I didn't know about Marc Anthony before looking for and watching these shorts (I probably could have watched this on TV as a kid but I can't remember), but Pussyfoot is a common stationery character here where I live (I don't know if she is like that in USA). So I was pretty surprised to find out that she had her own animation series but at the same time I am disappointed that this duo didn't appear in a TV series or full length film.
Anyway, back to the main topic. Since the movies feature the same characters, similar story and are short movies I'll talk about them in this same section.
In the first short, Feed the Kitty (which is pictured here), Marc Anthony finds Pussyfoot in his yard and tries to scare her off but she wasn't scared of him and instead he ends up loving her (who wouldn't?) and brings her home as a pet. The whole short is about Marc Anthony trying to hide the cat from his owner who is tired of tidying up his messes at the house. In my opinion this short is the most charming of the 4 and also my favourite, so I wholeheartedly recommend it.
The second short, Kiss me Cat, is about Marc Anthony trying to prove to his owner that Pussyfoot can hunt a mouse so that she can stay in the house. Even though I disagree that kittens can't hunt just because they are cute (these people never saw a tiny angry furry thing) it has some pretty fun scenes.
The third short, Feline Frame-up, features another Warner's character, Claude the cat. I'm gonna straight up say that I didn't like this short at all and is pretty stupid (Tom and Jerry's level of stupidness). In this series I think that Claude also belongs to the human couple, alongside Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot, because the episode begins with Claude kicking Pussyfoot off her bed and the rest of the film is about Marc Anthony trying to avenge Pussyfoot/deliberately hurting him. Did Claude was being a jerk kicking Pussyfoot off her pillow? Yes, but does this justify the gratuitous cartoon violence toward cats? No. Anyone who owns more than one cat knows that they can fight a lot, especially because of sleeping places, but it's like a sibling fight and Marc Anthony fighting back to Claude would be the same as a mom hurting one of her kids because they fought. So I wouldn't recommend this short.
The fourth short, Cat Feud, has Hector the Bulldog instead of Marc Anthony and Claude the Cat. The story is a mix of the 1st and 3rd shorts, it starts with Hector finding Pussyfoot in a construction site (I assume he is a guard dog), trying to scare her, loving her and protecting her. Then appears Claude, this time as a hungry stray cat, that tries to steal Pussyfoot's lunch and as, you probably guessed, Hector assaults him. I don't have much more to say about this short than that I didn't like and wouldn't recommend it.
Overall the pair Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot is great (it was even referenced in the Pixar's Monsters SA movie), the art is beautiful as expected of the era and the OST is ok-ish but I have to wonder what the hell is wrong with these animators for enjoying a cat being assaulted on TV. So, do yourself a favour and watch only the first two shorts.
Note: Marc Anthony also appears alone in one short and both make cameo appearances in other shows but my point here is cats as main characters so I didn't cover these.
- Três Gatinhos Órfãos
- Score: 🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon episode
- Duration: 9 minutes
- Release date: 1935
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family, Musical
- Cats Spotlight: The three kittens ofc
Three Orphan Kittens
This short movie is part of Disney's Silly Symphony, which is a series of short animation movies each featuring charming music (the title is pretty much self-explanatory). Since this movie is only 7 minutes long there isn't much to review without spoiling everything, but I'll try.
The story is about three little kittens that were abandoned in a
snowy night right in front of someone's lawn, then they managed to
get inside the house without anyone noticing and do what every
kitten knows best, wreak havoc! Despite this stupid beginning the
kittens have an almost happy end, the OST is pretty good
and the kittens are cute, but I recommend it? No, I'm pretty
sensitive when it comes to portrayal of cats in the media so if a
cat is hurt/mistreated I don't like it and even though it's mild I
didn't like some stuff that happened on this short. So, I'd only
recommend it for completion purposes.
- O Gatinho Malvadeza
- Score: 🐱🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon episode
- Duration: 8 minutes
- Release date: 1935
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family, Musical
- Cats Spotlight: Ambrose
The Robber Kitten
The Robber Kitten is another episode of the Silly Symphony by Disney. This episode is really short, so the review will be shorter as to not spoil everything The story is about Ambrose, a humanoid kitty that wishes to be a robber and doesn't want to take a bath, so He runs away from home (he also calls himself Butch for some reason). Since it's a Silly Symphony, it features a song, this time with lyrics.
I think that Ambrose design was cute, even though I don't like humanoid cats very much, except his glove's hands (it's weird how he is the only character in this short that isn't fully clothed). But if you were to replace him with a boy, it'll have no difference in the story since he just behaves like a human instead of a cat (even the part that he doesn't want to bathe). The song was alright (I didn't like it much), and the art is good. The only The weird part is how Ambrose's mom is literally a woman with a cat head, she doesn't have a tail, and her arms are furless, so she is really weird and ugly. Otherwise, is a decent short with a moral at the end.
- A Via-Láctea
- Score: 🐱🐱🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon short
- Duration: 8 minutes
- Release date: 1940
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family
- Cats Spotlight: The three little kittens who lost their mittens
The Milky Way
The Three Little Kittens is a short cartoon made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adapted from the nursery rhyme of the Three Little Kittens who lost their mittens. The short won the 1940's Oscar for Best Animated Short Film.
The story is about the three little kittens that, after having lost their mittens are sent straight to bed by their mother without milk (dinner, I suppose), so they decide to go on a trip to the Milky Way, where everything is actually made of milk. The short has a narrator singing about the situation where the kittens are (just like other old Cartoon shorts like Silly Symphony) and has some scenes that it shows the cartoon as part of the pages of a book, to make It looks more like a nursery rhyme, I think. The art is also lovely and the kittens look very cat-like, even though they're humanoid cats.
I think that this short is lovely; it's the best that I've seen since I started this review page and I recommend it (I totally get why it won an Oscar).
- Score: 🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon short
- Duration: 9 minutes
- Release date: 1941
- Genres: Animation, Comedy
- Cats Spotlight: Butch
The Alley Cat
The Alley Cat is a short by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer that stars a male black cat named Butch and a female white cat named Toodles Galore, which you may recognize has recurring characters of Tom and Jerry Cartoon. This short was their debut.
Breaking the usual pattern of my reviews here, I'll start saying that I do not recommend (unless you like Tom and Jerry, but if you Like Tom and Jerry, you wouldn't like cats given how he is mistreated in the series), and the review will contain spoilers. The story starts with Butch, an alley cat, trying to seduce a Toodles, a rich cat that lives in an apartment and has a butler. The Butler gets annoyed by the constant meowing of Butch (that sounds like Donald Duck for no reason) and constantly sends their bulldog to chase him down, but Butch always outsmarts the dog until a moment when the butler accidentally hits the dog and his dog starts to chase him. Butch went to the house with Toodles, and they dance together, the end. The butler also managed to ruin the house. while trying to chase off Butch.
The good point of this short is that the cats get a good ending and that Toodles likes a cat instead of a mouse (just like in Tom and Jerry, which is weird and doesn't make any sense, but this isn't a review about Tom and Jerry, so I'll resume my complaining here lol). The bad part is everything else; it's the owner's fault (the butler) that a male cat is wooing his cat and he should have spayed her to prevent this, also it makes no sense to try to hurt another cat when you already have one, so he is a hypocrite. At least he got his just deserts in the end (which is the reason I didn't give it a lower score).
- For Scent-imental Reasons, Scent-imental Romeo, Little Beau Pepé, The Cats Bah, Past Perfumance, Two Scent's Worth, Heaven Scent, Touché and Go, Really Scent, Who Scent You? A Scent of the Matterhorn and Louvre Come Back to Me!
- Score: 🐱🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon series
- Duration: 6~7 minutes
- Release date: From 1949 to 1962
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Romance
- Cats Spotlight: Penelope Pussycat
Pepé le Pew and Penelope Pussycat
This is a cartoon that I knew as a kid, but I couldn't understand why Penelope liked him because I didn't know what skunks were and I thought that he was just a really ugly cat (lol). Pepé le Pew appears in a series of 12 cartoon shorts costarring with Penelope Pussycat, and in almost all of them the story consists in Penelope mistakenly painting her black fur with white stripes (resembling skunk stripes), Pepe failing in love with her and she ruining for her life because he stinks (but sometimes she is the one to run after him).
If you're already used to watch old cartoons, you know what to expect of the art style but, if you never watched them, the art is pretty, with fluid animations and few people as extras. The soundtrack is alright, nothing memorable. The characters are only Pepe and Penelope, Penelope never talks and shows her emotions in her expressions, and Pepe is just stupid that you'll either like or hate him. Also, all the titles of the shorts are puns.
Since there is too much episodes in this series, and they're shorts, I'll group them into two groups: the good and the bad. The good ones are For Scent-imental Reasons, Scent-imental Romeo, Little Beau Pepé, Past Perfumance, Two Scent's Worth, Touché and Go, Really Scent, Who Scent You? and A Scent of the Matterhorn; the bad ones are The Cats Bah, Heaven Scent and Louvre Come Back to Me!. The best of them is Really Scent because Penelope is trying to woo Pepe this time, and the worse one is Louvre Come Back to Me! because Pepe is trying to separate Penelope and her cat boyfriend (but the other 2 are pretty bad too).
- Me dê uma pata
- Score: 🐱🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon short
- Duration: 8 minutes
- Release date: 1941
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family
- Cats Spotlight: The kitten
Lend a paw
A Mickey Mouse cartoon, it actually starts Pluto but the story revolves about a cat. The story is pretty short so there is much to review without spoiling it. Pluto catches a bag that was floating in the river outside his home, it turns out there was a orange kitty trapped inside it and Mickey adopts him, so Pluto tried to get ridden of him but accepts him in the end.
Though the series start with animal abandonment, it pass a sweet story of rescuing animals. I'd still recommend it and list it here, since the plot focus on the cat. The short was dedicated to the The Tailwaggers Foundation, a nonprofit animal welfare organization. and it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short of 1941.
- Score: 🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon short
- Duration: 7 minutes
- Release date: 1950
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family
- Cats Spotlight: Milton and Richard
Puss Cafe
A Pluto cartoon, but the story is again focused in a cat (this time two), and it isn't as good as the other one but still watchable. The story is about two stray cats, Pluto and Milton that while patrolling their territory, find a house with a birdhouse full with birds, a lake full with fishes and a front door full with bottles of milk (a perfect café for cats, since the title), but the house is guarded by Pluto, which is totally not happy with the cats stealing his stuff.
The personality of the cats follows the cliche of that one is stupid while the other has the brains, so the stupid one ends up ruining their plans (think of Pinky and the Brain). So they end up in some comic violence situations (which I didn't like it much so the reason I give this score) but I actually liked the ending, so I'd recommend it anyway and the cats are cute too.
- Score: 🐱🐱
- Type: Cartoon short
- Duration: 8 minutes
- Release date: 1936
- Genres: Animation, Comedy, Family
- Cats Spotlight: The three kittens
More Kittens
Sequel of the short Three Orphan Kittens, also part of Disney's Silly Symphonies. The story is about the three kitties going in the backyard and making a mess, with the family dog, a turtle and a bird. The art, animation and OST are similar of the other short and this time the kitties have a home, but, I didn't like how some woman shooed them to the backyard at the beginning of this short. So I'd say the same thing as I said before, the cats are cute but I don't like how they are being treated in their home.
