The Cat's Tale

'The Cat's Tale' (1951)

Opening thoughts: Mighty Mouse's theatrical series consisted of 80 cartoons running from 1942 and 1961. They vary in quality. Some, as far as the previous cartoons in the series go, are quite good, such as 'The Mouse of Tomorrow', 'Mighty Mouse and the Wolf', 'Bad Bill Bunion' and 'The Wicked Wolf'. Others were quite weak, such as 'Eliza on the Ice', 'The Two Barbers', 'At the Circus' and 'My Old Kentucky Home'. The others are in between mediocre and slightly above average.

1951's 'A Cat's Tale' is rather average. On paper, a Mighty Mouse origin story did sound interesting, but the execution was nowhere as compelling or original. 1951 did see some good Terrytoons cartoons in what was a fairly unexceptional year, with the best all being from the vastly superior Heckle and Jeckle theatrical series. 'A Cat's Tale' is not quite one of the very worst, it is better than 'Spring Fever' and 'Injun Trouble' but it is a very average missed opportunity that doesn't do anywhere near enough with what the synopsis indicated.

Good things: Am going to start with the good. The most consistent asset of all Terrytoons' output was always the music, and it is once again the best asset here. Being one of only two things to be outstanding. It is its usual lush and characterful self, not just adding to the action but enhancing it as well and also love how wild it is. The animation is equally great in quality, especially the backgrounds and landscapes, the characters are well drawn and the colours are really beautiful on the eye.

Did like the cat character, which was a surprising mix of formidable and not too hard to feel for. The cartoon did start with promise with a strong atypical opening told from a different point of view, the point of view aspect being what potentially would set it apart from the rest of the series.

Bad things: So much is wrong however. Mighty Mouse is very bland in personality and the cartoon goes too far on making him too cute and then in the second half he was pretty annoying. The origin story is too cutesy and says nothing illuminating or interesting about how Mighty Mouse came to be. While the final battle is very formulaic and severely lacks tension, if you've seen other final battles in previous Mighty Mouse cartoons pretty much the same things happen here.

One of the biggest problems is the story, or should we say lack of it. The story is paper thin to the point of non-existence and takes forever to get going. The action has glimpses of amusement but has very little spark or tension, as well as being very predictable with everything practically being seen from miles away. Despite the cartoon being short, it really does struggle with having enough content to sustain the length, meaning the middle act is very padded. A more nitpicky problem is that the cartoon doesn't explain who or what the shadowy figure is.

Concluding thoughts: In conclusion, average.

5/10.