Rose’s Peekaboo

Rose’s Peekaboo

The cartoonist Pat Brady (male) has drawn the popular strip Rose Is Rose since 1983, introducing the world to the Gumbo family, which includes the longhaired cat Peekaboo, who is adorable but (typical of comic strip cats) provides many “catty” observations on the family’s life. Peekaboo is the companion of the family tot, Pasquale.

Cat in the moon

Cat in the moon

Cosmo was a comic book cat in the late 1940s. He resided on the moon and took “cosmic catnip capsules.” He kept watch on Earth, located people needing his aid and flew by rocket to Earth, where he was super fast and super powerful.

Naturally he wore a cape (as all superheroes do) with a big letter C in the middle of his chest. It’s odd that the brave, dynamic Cosmo never made it into animated cartoons.

Poor dumb Katnip

Poor dumb Katnip

The MGM movie studios had a big hit with the Tom and Jerry cartoons, so Paramount studios created their own cat-and-mouse team. Herman (a mouse in a bow tie and pants) and Katnip first appeared together in the 1947 cartoon Naughty But Mice.

Most of the cartoons followed a standard formula: some mice were having fun, Katnip showed up to spoil things and Herman had to come to the rescue, which wasn’t hard, considering how dumb Katnip was. (Unlike Tom and Jerry, who were mute, Herman and Katnip did have voices.) As if Herman weren’t enough trouble, Katnip also had to face the mischievous crow Buzzy in several cartoons.

Confused mouser

Confused mouser

Sylvester was a mouser as well as a bird chaser, and he never quite caught on to the fact that the character Hippety Hopper was a baby kangaroo, not a giant mouse. Cat and kangaroo first appeared together in the 1952 cartoon Hoppy Go Lucky.

Poor Sylvester was as unsuccessful in capturing the bouncing Hippety as he was in catching the bird Tweetie. Adding to his humiliation was the fact that his son was a witness to his failure in capturing the “giant mouse.” He had no more luck with a real mouse, the infamous “fastest mouse in all Mexico,” Speedy Gonazales.

Poor Elmer

Poor Elmer

Sylvester wasn’t always chasing Tweetie Bird. In one cartoon, he did something alley cats are famous for: creating a racket at night and keeping people awake.

In the 1948 cartoon Back Alley Oproar, the obnoxious cat not only meows but sings opera, plays musical instruments and does everything else possible to keep poor Elmer Fudd from falling to sleep.

At the end of the cartoon, Elmer succeeds in killing the cat—only to realize that all nine of Sylvester’s lives are still around to harass him with their caterwauling.

Finally, a sweetiecat

Finally, a sweetiecat

Most cartoon cats are obnoxious, but in 1952 Warner Bros. debuted the most adorable cat ever, a tiny black-and-white kitten named Pussyfoot. The kitten is adopted by a huge bulldog, Mark Antony, and the dog goes out of his way to protect the tiny puss.

A running gag in the cartoons is watching Pussyfoot dig his claws into the dog’s back until finally, to the dog’s great relief, he settles into the dog’s fur for a nap.

Scented cat-chaser

Star Face.That Is Awesome.

Skunks don’t live in France and don’t mate with cats, but anything is possible in a cartoon. Beginning with the 1951 cartoon Scent-imental Romeo, Warner Bros. used the formula of having a lovesick French skunk, Pepe Le Pew, pursue a “female skunk”—actually a cat who had a stripe of white paint spilled on her back.

Mouthing romantic phrases in both bad English and bad French, Pepe hopped gaily after the disgusted cat. Part of the fun in these cartoons is that real skunks are not graceful but real cats are, and the Pepe cartoons reverse this, with the frantic cat tripping over herself to flee the skunk.

Speedy versus the cats

Speedy versus the cats

Speedy Gonzales, “the fastest mouse in all Mexico,” faced several foes, including Warner Bros.’ favorite cartoon cat, Sylvester. But in one of the funniest cartoons ever made, Speedy faces a chubby cat named Jose and a skinny cat named Manuel.

Mexicali Schmoes (1959) shows the two hungry cats being constantly outwitted and outrun by Speedy. At the end, Jose catches the slowest mouse in all Mexico, Slowpoke Rodriquez—who, unfortunately for the cat, also packs a gun.

Just the facts, cat

Just the facts, cat

The Hanna-Barbera animation team produced the famous Tom and Jerry duo, but they also produced cartoons featuring a cat and mouse working as a team.

These were Snooper and Blabber, two trench coat–wearing detectives that were part of the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon show that debuted in 1959. Super Snooper (the cat) and Blabber Mouse often seemed to be a parody of the popular Dragnet series. Like other Hanna-Barbera shows, this one spun off comic books, lunchboxes, toys and other items.

Not quite country

Not quite country

In 1969, ABC and Hanna-Barbera planned to launch an animated Saturday morning cartoon show called Nashville Cats, but at almost the last minute the show was renamed Cattanooga Cats.

The cats were a country-rock band (dressed in hillbilly garb, of course) who had various adventures and tried to avoid the annoying Chessie, the autograph hound. The show also included the Autocat and Motor-mouse cartoons, a sort of race-car version of the familiar cat-chases-mouse routine.

Pink and civilized

Pink and civilized

“Exit, stage left!” and “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” were the trademark phrases of Snagglepuss, a pink lion wearing a formal tie and cufflinks.

Snag, who debuted on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show Quick Draw McGraw in 1959, was perfectly harmless, but he was often pursued by the big-game hunter Major Minor, who somehow got the impression that Snagglepuss was ferocious. The cat’s distinctive voice reminded everyone of the character actor Bert Lahr, who played the lion in The Wizard of Oz.

Cinderella’s mice pals

Cinderella’s mice pals

In the 1950 Disney animated movie Cinderella, the heroine’s best friends are the household mice. And while Cinderella must cope with her wicked step-mother and snooty stepsisters, the mice must cope with the menacing cat, Lucifer. (Lucifer is another name for Satan, but you knew that already.)

Lucifer is a nasty character but also very funny as we watch him writhing in agony while Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters sing and play music badly off-key.

Of course cats dance

Of course cats dance

The 1997 animated movie Cats Don’t Dance centered on the cat Danny, a dancer in 1930s Hollywood who couldn’t figure out why he could never get human parts in movies. A silly but generally enjoyable movie.

What the Dickens?

What the Dickens?

Oliver Twist, the classic Dickens novel about an orphan boy falling in with lowlifes, was resurrected in the 1988 Disney animated movie Oliver and Company. This time Oliver is a kitten in New York, taken in by a gang of thieving dogs.

Siamese, if you plee-eez

Siamese, if you plee-eez

Disney’s wonderful 1955 animated movie Lady and the Tramp is basically about dogs, but two of its most memorable characters are Si and Am, a pair of Siamese cats who make serious mischief in Lady’s household.

The troublemaking twosome sing “We are Siamese if you plee-eez” while raising a ruckus. Oddly, their squeaky voices were provided by husky-voiced singer Peggy Lee.

Puppets and cats

Puppets and cats

The wonderful 1940 Walt Disney movie Pinocchio featured two animated cats in prominent roles. One was the adorable Figaro, the pampered pet of old Gepetto, who created the Pinocchio puppet.

Figaro is with Gepetto when he is swallowed by the whale Monstro. The other cat, quite different, is Gideon, the dopey companion of the fox J. Worthington Foulfellow; these two form a pair devoted to Pinocchio’s moral downfall.