Taking the Blame

I don't think any cartoon makers liked cats. Even though almost every studio turned out a version of the Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens, the prevalence of cartoon mice from long before Disney came up with Mickey meant that cats were the enemy. Add in the occasional dog in cartoons and it meant that cartoons took on an ailurophobic air that extended to newspaper cartoons. Surely not even Jim Davis likes Garfield.

So this cartoon about how Betty Boop brings home an enormous black cat who terrorizes Pudgy is fairly standard. Of course, Pudgy takes all the blame until Betty chains him outside and the cat opens the ice box to steal a turkey is a natural. Too bad that Betty had been destroyed by the Production Code. The Fleischers could no longer do anything interesting with her, so they saddled her with cute sidekicks like Pudgy and Grampy. Unfortunately the Fleischers didn't do cute so well. They did funny, and this one isn't because everyone is trying to be cute.