Cat-Tails for Two

Cat-Tails for Two
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Airdate:	29 August 1953 Blue Ribbon reissue: 16 February 1963
Series:	Merrie Melodies
MPAA Number:	15618
Production Number:	1268
Vitaphone Number:	2212
Runtime:	6 minutes, 39 seconds
Copyright Renewed:	15 January 1980
Starring:	Speedy Gonzales Benny George
Crew
Voice Characterizations:	Mel Blanc Stan Freberg (uncredited)
Director:	Robert McKimson
Written By:	Tedd Pierce
Producer:	Eddie Selzer (uncredited)
Animated By:	Rod Scribner Phil De Lara Charles McKimson Herman Cohen Keith Darling (uncredited)
Layout Artist:	Robert Givens
Background Artist:	Richard H. Thomas
Film Editor:	Treg Brown (uncredited)
Musician:	Carl Stalling

Cat-Tails for Two is a 1953 Merrie Melodies short directed by Robert McKimson.

Title

The title refers to the song "Cocktails for Two".

Plot

Benny heads out in the evening, eager to please his pal George. George and Benny are walking down a pier looking for food when they find a Mexican ship. Figuring the ship will have plenty of Mexican mice, i.e. "Mexican food" (Benny: "It gives me the heartburn and I love it!"), they climb on, only to find an unkempt mouse calling himself "Speedy Gonzales, fastest mouse in all Mexico." George and Benny go through numerous attempts to capture Speedy, who always outwits them. Speedy comes to think of them as private entertainment, at one point declaring "I like those fellows. All the time having fon (fun)!" When they have had it with Speedy their final plan was to run a pipe into Speedy's hiding place (to the tune of Raymond Scott's "Powerhouse"), but Speedy grabs a wrench and bends the pipe back around to the cats, unbeknownst to them. George starts shoving a lot of dynamite into the pipe, resulting in a mountain of TNT piling up behind him and Benny. When George is done shoving dynamite through the pipe, he lights the last stick with a match, and the mountain of dynamite blasts him and Benny up into the air. As they descend, Benny asks George about their Mexican dinner, with George responding, "I kind of lost my appetite for Mexican food," before both cats plunge into the harbor. A smug Speedy declares, "I love those fellows. They're so see-lee (silly)!"

Caricatures

• Lon Chaney Jr.
• Burgess Meredith

Availability

Super 8

(1984) VHS
The Looney Tunes Video Show Volume 8

(1985) VHS
Speedy Gonzales' Fast Funnies

(1994) VHS
Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 1)

(1996) VHS
Looney Tunes Collection - Speedy Gonzales

(2006) DVD
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Disc Three (restored)

(2011) DVD
Speedy Gonzales

(2014) DVD
Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection: Volume 8 Disc 2

(2025) Blu-ray
Looney Tunes Collector's Vault: Volume 1, Disc 2 (restored)

Streaming

iTunes ( - ) (restored)

Tubi (2025 -)

Notes

• The cartoon is a successor to "Hoppy-Go-Lucky", in where a more intelligent cat attempts to give a mouse to Benny in a spoof of Of Mice and Men. However, George and Speedy replace Sylvester's and Hippety Hopper's roles in this short, respectively.
• This cartoon marks the debut appearance of Speedy Gonzales, although his original design here is vastly different from his later, more popular design. The Speedy Gonzales here has wider eyes, bigger teeth (one of which has a gold cap on it), messy, black hair, and wears a red shirt, a green sombrero (which only appears when he steals all the cheese in the mousetrap and leaves his calling card), and no pants.

Gallery

Early design for Speedy Gonzales