Kit for Cat
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| Kit for Cat | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | I. Freleng |
| Animation by | Gerry Chiniquy Ken Champin Manuel Perez Virgil Ross Pete Burness (uncredited) Jack Bradbury (uncredited) |
| Layouts by | Hawley Pratt |
| Backgrounds by | Paul Julian |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Running time | 7:23 |
Kit for Cat is a 1948 Looney Tunes cartoon starring the cat that would eventually be known as Sylvester, an unknown cat, and Elmer Fudd. This cartoon features Elmer Fudd without his hat or hunting clothes just like he does with others.
That was only one of five post-1948 WB cartoons to get a Blue Ribbon reissue prior to 1956 - with the original credits cut. The others were Daffy Dilly, The Foghorn Leghorn, Scaredy Cat, and You Were Never Duckier. Kit for Cat was the only one of these to originally be a Looney Tune (the rest were Merrie Melodies), and the only Friz Freleng-directed cartoon in the group (The Foghorn Leghorn was directed by Robert McKimson, the others by Chuck Jones).
Plot
The beginning starts with Sylvester in the trash alley trying to find food to eat (Which was recycled from Life with Feathers). When a kitten comes by, Sylvester yells at the kitten that the alley is his ("Say, listen, small fry, I'm working this side of the street! Now scram! Go on, beat it! Get lost!"). When a blizzard comes, Sylvester acts frozen and knocks on Elmer Fudd's door, begging for shelter ("Please, save a frost-bitten feline from a frozen fate!"). Elmer Fudd tries to warm up Sylvester by putting him on his sitting chair near the fire and tells Sylvester to consider his home as his own now. When the same kitten comes acting half frozen, Elmer Fudd is surprised by two cats ("Dear me, two cats! I'd wike to have a cat awound the house alwight, but I can't keep both of ya..."). Elmer thinks the baby kitten is cute ("Hahahaha! Baby kittens are so cute!"). Sylvester tries to act like a baby, but Fudd is disappointed by Sylvester's way of acting when he's grown-up (labelling it "a widicuwous way for a gwown-up cat to behave") and tells him to "act your age". Elmer decides "Well, maybe I'd better sweep on it and make up my mind in the morning", to Sylvester's chagrin.
Sylvester then decides how to get rid of kitten, like thinking of hanging up the kitten, shooting him with revolver, or tying him up and leaving him in front of a train. Then Sylvester decides to frame the baby kitten by pouring all the milk in a milk bottle on him and then dropping the bottle to make it look like the kitten did it ("What's going on here? Did you do that?"). Fudd thinks the kitten did it by accident ("Aww, the poor wittle fewwa, you must be starved. How negwectful of me.") and gives the kitten milk, cheese, hamburgers, pickled herring, smoked barracuda, salami, bologna (in that order), etc. Then Sylvester bangs his head against a doorframe in disappointment as each food item is mentioned.
Sylvester then throws a ball of string to the baby kitten to play with, but the other end of the string is tied to a stack of glasses and dishes. When the kitten plays with it, a teacup at the bottom of the stack is pulled loose, causing the rest of the stack to fall and break. The kitten quickly tries to fix it all by gluing them back together, but Sylvester breaks every one he fixes. When Fudd sees Sylvester breaking his dishes, he says that he's making it very easy for him to make up his mind which of the two cats to keep ("So, bweaking my dishes? You're making it vewy much easier for me to make up my mind which one of you to keep!").
Sylvester then hypnotizes the kitten with a book of hypnosis to hit Elmer on the head ("The head. The head. On the head. Here, stupid, on the head."). The kitten becomes mistaken, and hits Sylvester's head near Elmer's bed (as Sylvester stupidly pointed at his own head when he ordered the kitten to hit Elmer's head), making Sylvester sleep with Fudd in the bed; Elmer, waking to notice Sylvester with him, throws him back down the stairs and warns him that he'll be held responsible for the next time Elmer gets disturbed ("If I'm disturbed once more, I'm holding you wesponsible!").
Sylvester then uses a mouse toy and the kitten chases it, getting inside a mouse hole. Sylvester locks up the mouse hole with wood and nails. The kitten, however, undoes all the portraits and things held by nails on the walls to try and alert Elmer of what happened. Sylvester, remembering Elmer's warning, tries to catch all of them. The chandelier on top of Fudd's head crashes before Sylvester can fix it with a screwdriver (because Sylvester is too late to do anything because the chandelier is broken), which angers Elmer so much, that he tells Sylvester he will be thrown out if Elmer hears just one more sound regardless of who made it, and assures him that that's his final warning ("That's the wast stwaw! I'm giving you just one more chance! If I hear just one more sound out of you, just one more peep, just so much as one tiny wittle peep, out you go! And that's my final warning!").
Next, the kitten, overhearing Elmer's warning, tries to make noise himself to try and frame Sylvester. He tries to shoot lots of shots from Elmer's hunting rifle though Sylvester puts some earmuffs on Elmer's ears beforehand (the kitten tries using the gun again later on), bangs on a parade drum, slams two doors with Sylvester stubbing his right toes in stopping the second one (at which point, Sylvester loses his patience with the kitten, and from that point chases the kitten to try and get rid of the kitten by force), turns on the radio (which plays a soap opera where "Melvin" and "Beatrice", puns on their voice actors' names, take turns trying to kill each other), activates the coin-operated pianola, and is even chased by Sylvester. Eventually, all the noise crescendos, too loud for even the earmuffs on Elmer's head to block out thanks to a last-minute addition of Sylvester crashing into a metal bowl the kitten held up; he stops them and says that he has "made up his mind who's weaving these pwemises!", but not before Elmer's landlord serves him an eviction notice ("Oh no, you haven't, I've made up my mind! Here!"), presumably for all the noise pollution the two cats caused. The cartoon ends with Elmer, Sylvester and the kitten looking for food in the trash alley.
Censorship
- When this aired on ABC, the part where Sylvester hypnotizes the kitten to hit Elmer in the head as he sleeps (with the kitten hitting Sylvester instead) was cut. Also: the part where Sylvester uses his finger to plug the barrel of a firing shotgun was shortened.
Avalibility
This cartoon is featured, uncut and uncensored, with the original opening titles restored (with the Blue Ribbion ending) on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, disc 4