- This article is about the 1951 Looney Tunes short. For the 1944 Private Snafu short, see The Chow Hound.
Chow Hound is a 1951 Looney Tunes short directed by Chuck Jones.
Plot[]
A large dog bullies a timid red cat and a tough brown mouse into various scams to obtain free food from various residences. Using the cat to pose as a starving housecat in four different aliases, the dog steals meat dinners over four different places:
- The first being "Butch," a turtleneck-wearing feline. After getting his steak dinner, he sneaks it up his shirt and gives it to the dog.
- A bow-tied "Harold," who is scolded by his female "mistress" as he comes home. Nonetheless, the owner gives the cat some chicken wings.
- "Timothy," the alley cat who serves as the mouse catcher for an older gentleman living in a brownstone apartment building. To pretend that the cat has caught a mouse, he grabs an unwilling mouse to be held by the tail onto the cat's mouth, and the owner gives him another steak. When the mouse tries to challenge the dog, the dog just stuffs the mouse back in his tin can home.
- As a "saber-tooth alley catus," complete with fake fangs for a new zoo exhibit. When the zookeeper gives the cat a steak, the cat tries to get back at his enslaver, he wraps a stick of dynamite inside the steak. The dog gobbles up the explosive steak, but when it explodes, he is unfazed past considering it spicy.
Throughout all of the scams, the cat is constantly berated by the dog for forgetting to bring gravy with the dog's meats. Eventually, the dog looks through his scheme book, eventually complaining that this process is too slow and meager for his needs. However, he sees a sign advertising a reward for lost animals and gets a sinister idea to hold the cat hostage for weeks and use the same cat in question to pose as these lost animals. He uses a trick bed to give the cat towards each of the previous owners, then yanks the cat out once he has received his reward. By the end, the dog is massively rich and the con artist buys off a butcher shop with his ill-gotten gains, stating that he'll never starve again under the acres and acres of meat that is now all his.
The dog ends up eating way more than he can chew, and he is sent to a pet hospital for overeating. As the doctors leave the morbidly-obese dog to rest, the cat and mouse visits by, with the cat stating, "This time, we didn't forget the gravy." Finally able to give their enslaver his comeuppance, the mouse and cat forcefully funnels down a giant canister of gravy onto the dog's mouth as the dog fruitlessly tries to beg them to stop.
Television[]
- The Bugs Bunny Show (1960–1968)
- Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon (1988–1989; 1994–1999)
- Merrie Melodies Starring Bugs Bunny and Friends [Syndication and Fox] (1990–1994)
- Acme Hour [Cartoon Network] (1999–2003)
- The Bugs and Daffy Show [Cartoon Network] (1999–2004)
- The Chuck Jones Show [Cartoon Network] (2001–2004)
- The Looney Tunes Show [Cartoon Network] (2001–2004)
Availability[]
Censorship[]
- Almost every recent American TV airing of this short (particularly the airings on the FOX version of The Merrie Melodies Show in the early 1990s, the former WB! network in the mid-1990s, Nickelodeon throughout its run in the 1990s, and post-2001 Cartoon Network and Boomerang (pre-2001 Cartoon Network originally aired this uncut)) cuts the part where the dog (dressed as a game hunter) returns the cat (dressed as a saber-toothed alley cat) to the zoo because the mouse is depicted as an African savage. The edits on all four channels make it seem that the dog earned enough money from scamming the three owners rather than scamming the three owners and the head of the zoo (which was where the big reward was from).[3]
- The version used in the international Turner-owned cable networks Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and the Latin American channel Tooncast, shows this scene uncut.
- In addition to the above cut, the FOX Merrie Melodies Show version also cut the ending where the mouse and the cat visit the dog in the hospital (after being admitted for stuffing himself on the meats in the deli) and funnel gravy into his mouth as revenge.[3]
- This cartoon has seldom aired on television after Cartoon Network dropped the Looney Tunes shorts from its programming due to themes of prostitution/slavery. It was also pulled from the 2020 reissue of the Best of Warner Bros. 50 Cartoon Collection: Looney Tunes DVD for this reason, being replaced with "Trap Happy Porky".
Notes[]
- This cartoon appeared in the films Cats & Dogs and Conspiracy Theory.
- Names of numerous Warner Bros. Cartoons staff in the newspaper are mentioned in the want ads as inside jokes. Among of the crew members mentioned include Lloyd Vaughan, Ken Harris and Chuck Jones. Even the Termite Terrace is mentioned in one of these want ads.
- Disney animator Eric Goldberg, who would later work as an animator for the movie Looney Tunes Back in Action and provide the voice of Tweety, Speedy Gonzales and Marvin the Martian in the same film, stated that this was his most favorite Looney Tunes cartoon, as revealed on this cartoon's commentary as heard on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6 DVD and Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1 Blu-ray/DVD releases.
- The dog resembles a muscular Charlie Dog.
- The press release for the 2024 Warner Archive Blu-ray of Rover Dangerfield listed this cartoon, as well as "Hollywood Canine Canteen", as bonus features, but these were left out of the final release.[4]
Gallery[]
References[]