Kitty Kornered

Bob Clampett was at his creative height and his last year at Warners when he directed this cartoon. The plot involves Porky Pig trying to put his four cats out for the night (one of the cats is an early version of Slyvester). Several scenes parody Arsenic And Old Lace and the Orson Welles' radio play of War Of The Worlds. Everything gels together very nicely in this one; the jokes come fast and furious, the timing is razor sharp, and the art direction, use of color and camera compositions all greatly enhance the scenes. A special standout is the animation, though. It is suitably exaggerated and there are several great eye-popping "takes." The rest of the animators on Clampett's team had finally caught up to Rod Scribner's style of cartooning at this point. (Rod Scribner was one of Clampett's head animators and was instrumental in breaking the Warner cartoons away from the stultifying and literal "realistic" animation of the day to a looser and more expressive style.) A very funny and energetic cartoon that for some reason has hardly been shown on T.V. Highly recommended!

Porky Pig is trying to put out his four cats for the evening and one them is the cat we know as Sylvester, who became a lot more famous when he was paired with Tweetie, which began the year after this cartoon was released.

At 9 p.m., according to this story, all cats were thrown out of their houses for the night, even in the middle of winter. Where did that come from? Well, Porky has three big cats and one little guy. That's the one, the shrimp, with an attitude and there is no way he's going out in the snow. Pretty soon all four cats are inside and Porky is outside and f-f-f-freezing in his nightcap.

There are some funny visuals in here as the cats live it up for a short while, getting drunk on "Arsenic And Old Grape" wine, smoking cigars, binging on chocolates....until Porky gets back inside. Then, look out!

Great visuals and direction by Robert Clampett highlight this, although all the action and noise could give you a headache. This is one, wild cartoon with something loud happening every second. It has to be one of the wilder cartoons of the classic era.

I enjoyed how both sides tried tricks on each other, such as the "Lassie" and "War of the Worlds" imitations.

That about says it - only Clampett would have booted-out house cats try to scare their way back into the nice warm house by convincing their master (in this case, a terrified Porky Pig) that the Earth is being overrun by Martians! One of the best double-takes ever.

This cartoon is just fantastic! One of my favorite Porky cartoons is by the late Bob Clampett. The cartoon is hilarious, and I love cats. Out of Porky's four cats, I love the little bitty kitty the most. You might also notice that one of the cats is an early version of Sylvester; he's got a black nose, not a red one. I love that speech he made:"Brother pussycats! We've been skidded out, scooted out, backed out, and booted out! But tonight, we was scared out! It's unhospitabitatble, and furthermore, it's un-cat-stitutional! "

I found it humorous when Porky, wearing a teapot on his head, clashes with a china cabinet and declares, "I hate p-p-p-pussycats!" via the spout.

In "Kitty Kornered", Porky Pig has a really hard time getting his cats to go out for the night, as they always seem to be one step ahead of him. I assume that the whole part about the Martian invasion was probably a takeoff on Orson Welles's famous (or is that infamous?) radio broadcast. It's the sort of cartoon where they just keep a gag coming every second. But how could it not be, coming as it does from the crowd behind the Looney Tunes cartoons? So, it may not be the greatest cartoon ever created, but you're sure to have a good time watching it. And if you ever hear of a Martian invasion, you know just what to do.