The Aristo-Cat

Chuck Jones's 'The Aristo-Cat' is a visual masterpiece which is slightly hampered by a very thin plot. The first of Jones's short lived Hubie and Bertie series about two frequently cruel and sadistic mice and their tendency to prey on the emotionally frail, 'The Aristo-Cat' reduces the star character's roles to virtual cameos. The Hubie and Bertie films have always been amongst my favourite cartoons but the two rodents add very little to this short and their roles could just as well have been filled by any generic mouse characters. However, 'The Aristo-Cat' pays less attention to the normal conventions of plot and instead throws the spotlight on the tremendous nervous breakdown of Pussy the cat. A spoiled feline who pushes his butler, Meadows, too far and then finds himself with no-one to look after him, Pussy makes the most of his short time in the spotlight (he was usurped by the similarly jittery Claude Cat) by having one of the all time great mental collapses in cartoon history. As he runs around the huge, empty mansion screaming "MEADOWS" in vain, the startling abstract backgrounds, filled with angular shapes of vivid colours, move around behind him reflecting his encroaching madness to incredible effect. It's so luscious to behold that the arrival of Hubie and Bertie actually comes as a disappointment and brings the cartoon to a sadly predictable conclusion (including a hugely unsatisfactory deus ex machina ending). Happily, by this stage 'The Aristo-Cat' has already established itself as a must see and, while its eventual disintegration prevents it from entering the annals of the genuinely classic, the cartoon's first half ranks alongside some of the most startling imagery of any Warner cartoon.