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in: Hubie and Bertie Cartoons, Blue Ribbon reissues, Merrie Melodies Shorts,
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The Aristo-cat

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The Aristo-cat is a 1943 Merrie Melodies short directed by Charles M. Jones.

Title[]

The title is a play on an "aristocrat"; this pun would later be used by Disney for their 1970 animated feature film The Aristocats.

Plot[]

Meadows, a butler, is tired of the constant practical jokes of the family cat, Pussy, so much that he decides to quit his own job, leaving the cat home alone much to his chagrin. The cat doesn't know what a mouse looks like, so when Hubie and Bertie show up, he is terrified.

Hubie and Bertie take advantage by tricking him into believing that the family bulldog Rover is the mouse he wants to eat. After a narrow escape from the dog, the cat realizes that Hubie and Bertie are the real mice, and starts giving them a chase to eat them. The chase leads back to the very same doghouse where a violent cat-and-dog fight ensues, until the main problem is revealed to be a bad dream which both Hubie and Bertie, Pussy the cat and Rover the bulldog had all at the same time.

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

  • This cartoon features the debut of Hubie and Bertie. The short also contains an early version of Claude Cat, whom is known as "Pussy".
  • Hubie and Bertie's design looks slightly different from later shorts to follow: in this one, both of them look less anthropomorphic and more like "realistic" mice and notably lacking visible buck teeth from their elongated upper jaws, similar in vein to the unnamed grey mouse from Friz Freleng's "The Fifth-Column Mouse" released earlier that year. Both Hubie and Bertie would later be redesigned to look more anthropomorphic and cartoonish with bigger eyes, larger noses, longer upper jaws and with visible buck teeth on one of them in later appearances, though their respective fur colors would eventually swap starting with House Hunting Mice.
  • This short continue to experiment with strongly graphic, nearly abstract backgrounds, seen throughout Jones cartoons from late 1942–1943, especially during the scene of proto-Claude's mental breakdown upon learning of Meadows the butler's resignation.
  • Unlike later cartoons where Hubie and Bertie are voiced by Mel Blanc and Stan Freberg respectively (or vice-versa), here they are voiced by screenwriters Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce. In addition, both Hubie and Bertie have deeper voices in comparison to their later appearances.
  • As late as 2008, a 35mm print of this cartoon with its original titles was known to exist.[5]
  • This cartoon was shown in theatres with Rocky Mountain during its reissue.

Music-Cues[6][]

  • For You (by Paul Whiteman)
    • Played during the opening credits.[7][8]
  • In an 18th-Century Drawing Room (by Raymond Scott)
    • Plays during the opening scene.
  • Singin' in the Bathtub (Music by Michael Cleary & Lyrics by Herb Magidson and Ned Washington)
    • Sung by Pussy.
  • Inflammatus et accensus [From "Stabat Mater"] (by Gioachino Rossini)
    • Plays when Pussy screams for Meadows.
  • Who Calls? (by Johnny Marks)
    • Plays when Pussy hides to Hubie and Bertie.
  • Twilight in Turkey (by Raymond Scott)
    • Plays near the end when Pussy bed jumps around.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
  2. ↑ https://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col295/
  3. ↑ https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2015/10/meadows.html
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://likelylooneymostlymerrie.blogspot.com/2016/07/406-aristo-cat-1943.html
  5. ↑ https://blueribbonblues.neocities.org/checklist.html
  6. ↑ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035646/soundtrack/
  7. ↑ https://www.patreon.com/posts/whats-score-81644429
  8. ↑ https://books.google.com/books/about/Tunes_for_Toons.html?id=Rz2WJ_-NxsAC
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