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Kitty Kornered is a 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. The short subject stars Porky Pig and Sylvester, here unnamed.
Plot
Sylvester and the other three cats after throwing Porky outside. A scene cut from BBC, Kids WB and Boomerang.
At 9pm on a cold winter's night, the neighborhood's cat owners all (literally) throw their cats out for the night. Porky Pig attempts to do the same, but his four cats (a tall black and white lisping cat (Sylvester), a medium sized tabby, a diminutive kitten, and a dumb drunkard cat) throw him out. Porky falls into the snow. Sticking his face out (and now resembling Santa Clause), Porky states that he hates pussycats. Porky bangs on the door, demanding to be let in, but the cats pop out of the door and proclaim in unison, "Milkman, keep those bottles quiet!", and then slam the door in his face.
While the cats are lounging around, Porky throws open the window while making an incredibly menacing face. He chases them around the house until one of them throws him into a teapot. Porky retaliates by setting his pet dog "Lassie" (a reference to the dog of the same name from the movie Lassie Come Home (1943) from MGM) on the cats. The cats see the dog's shadow and run for their lives, not knowing that "Lassie" is really only a shadow puppet created with Porky's fingers.
When the cat with the lisp (Sylvester) finds out that they've been tricked, he and the others plot revenge, which is exacted by having the cats create a War of the Worlds-esque sensation about invading aliens, placing the fear of God in their porcine owner and driving him into a panic over "M-M-Me-M-Me-M-M-M-Me-M-Me-M-Men from Mars!". Assuming the appearances of Theodore Geisel and his Rough Riders cavalry (in reference to the then-popular film Arsenic and Old Lace), the cats charge at Porky and run him out of the house once and for all. Homeless, alone, and cold in the snow, Porky turns to the camera and asks "Pardon me, but d-d-does anybody in the audience kn-kn-know somebody that kn-knows somebody that, uh, that has a house to rent?"
Evolution of Sylvester
The still anonymous Sylvester appears in the film, with a black nose and yellow-green eyes. He is joined by, among others, a drunk cat with the red nose, gray fur, big lips, and saggy jowls who was popular enough to appear in several later cartoons such as in the Rolling Stones music video "Harlem Shuffle" (with art by Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi), in a few episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures, an episode of Animaniacs, and among the many cats in Tweety's High-Flying Adventure.
Availability
- VHS - Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Porky Pig Cartoon Festival Featuring "Nothing but the Tooth" (unrestored)
- VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Porky! (unrestored)
- LaserDisc - Cartoon Moviestars: Daffy! and Porky! (unrestored)
- LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 1, Side 4: Bob Clampett (unrestored)
- VHS - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, Vol. 4: Bob Clampett (unrestored)
- VHS - Looney Tunes: The Collectors Edition, Vol. 1: All-Stars (1995 USA Turner Dubbed Version)
- DVD - Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 2, Disc Three (restored)
- DVD - Blues in the Night (1995 Turner dubbed version added as a bonus)
- Blu-ray, DVD - Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1, Disc 1 (restored)
Censorship
Versions shown on FOX's Merrie Melodies Show, The WB, and the United Kingdom's BBC channel cut the scene where the cats smoke cigars, read comics, lounge, and drink wine before Porky bursts in on them.[1]
Notes/Goofs
- Considered among Clampett's best and wackiest films, "Kitty Kornered" was Clampett's final cartoon starring his longtime star Porky Pig (although he made a cameo in Clampett's next cartoon "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" as a train driver).
- This marks the only appearance of the (then-unnamed) Sylvester in a Clampett-directed cartoon, and only one of two times Sylvester spoke in a Porky Pig cartoon. It was also the first appearance of Sylvester in the Looney Tunes series and also the only short where Sylvester does not have his red nose.
- Porky and Sylvester would later be paired in a trio of shorts directed by Chuck Jones: "Scaredy Cat", "Claws for Alarm", and "Jumpin' Jupiter". Both also co-starred (with Daffy Duck, which has a speed-up version of Sylvester's voice, including the lisp) in "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" (the only other time Sylvester spoke in a Porky Pig cartoon).
- This is the first color Looney Tunes cartoon to use the written-out "That's all Folks" ending sequence and onwards, although the Merrie Melodies ending music is heard because WB was making a new version of the music to replace the 1939-46 ending as that one had Porky say, "Th-th-th-that's all Folks!" At the cartoon's start, the WB shield doesn't zoom to the viewers (similar to the Daffy Duck short "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"), only the sound effect is heard. This trend would be used until 1964.
- The alien disguises worn by Sylvester and his cohorts were seen again as real characters in the episode of The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, "Spaced Out".
- The wine bottle the drunk cat drinks from is named "Arsenic and Old Grapes", a reference to the film Arsenic and Old Lace.
- Even though this is a Looney Tunes short, it uses the Looney Tunes end title with the 1941-1955 rendition of the Merrie Melodies theme playing over the end title.
- When the drunk cat slips into the goldfish bowl, we hear the wound of the bowl rolling on the table, yet the bowl does not roll.
- Porky's front door has molding on most scenes, but when the smallest cat lowers the doorknob to jump through the keyhole, the door is plain. On the next shot, where the drunk cat dives for where the keyhole was and hits the door, the molding is back, then disappears again when the cat falls to the floor.
- When Sylvester dives under the bed, the production cells of him diving were placed over the bed by mistake, so that he appears to dive on top of the bed and then disappear.
- At the beginning of the cartoon, every time the font door of Porky's house is opened or closed, the door changes color often. Although the original door color is white, when half opened the door turns green and when wide open the door turns yellow. Then, when the door is closed, the door color changes from yellow to green and finally white.
- The copyright was renewed on 1974.
Gallery
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External links
- Kitty Kornered at the Internet Movie Database
- Review of Kitty Kornered and context to War Of The Worlds
