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Kit for Cat is a 1948 Looney Tunes cartoon starring the cat that would eventually be known as Sylvester, an unknown kitten, and Elmer Fudd. This cartoon features Elmer Fudd without his hat or hunting clothes.
This 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
Sylvester is in the trash alley trying to find food to eat. 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) and other foodstuffs never mentioned. Then Sylvester knocks his head on the wall 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 the glasses and dishes. When the kitten plays with it, the glasses and dishes 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 (He says, "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, and Elmer, waking to notice Sylvester in his bed, throws him back down the stairs. Sylvester is then warned by Elmer 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. 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, 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, does role-reversal and tries to make noise himself to try and frame Sylvester. He tries to shoot lots of rifle bullets 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 the door numerous times (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 (where "Melvin" and "Beatrice", puns on their voice actors' names, take turns trying to kill each other), activates the coin-operated piano, 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.
Title status
- The 1998 dubbed version restores the original opening and credits. This version was used on the DVD releases, minus the altered end card, as the Blue Ribbon end card was used for unknown reasons.
- The release on Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 and Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection Volume 1 still contain the 1955-1956 Blue Ribbon Merrie Melodie closing with the original ending music for unknown reasons. The audio is of a noticeably lower pitch, at least on the DVD releases. However, a print with original pitch sound can be found on at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3t9sa3
- While almost all prints have the Blue Ribbon closing, a 1998 WB dubbed version print shown on television (usually outside the USA) and on the European VHS tape "Wideo Wabbit" has the original LT ending card. Since the original ending card is most likely to be lost (evidenced that the restored version on DVD uses the Blue Ribbon closing), the dubbed version print most likely replaced the 1955-1956 Blue Ribbon closing with the 1948-1949 or the 1952-1953 Looney Tunes ending card as seen on High Diving Hare. Hence it is the only dubbed version created by WB to have an altered end card. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4saie7
- The Elmer Fudd (1990) VHS and the Special Bumper Collection (Vol. 4) have this cartoon unrestored in the Blue Ribbon form. However, the Wideo Wabbit EU VHS restores the cartoon and original opening, credits, and ending titles in 1998 dubbed version format. The BR ending was re-used in 2003 for the Volume 1 release of the Golden Collection.
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.
Trivia
- The title is a pun on the term 'tit for tat'.
- Most of the cartoon's concept were recycled from the Bugs Bunny cartoon Hare Force.
- The radio soap opera characters "Melvin" and "Beatrice" are references to actors Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet who voiced them.
- The background used for the opening titles is almost identical to those of Back Alley Oproar.
Availability
- DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1, Disc Four
Gallery
