Herman and Katnip: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:00, 17 January 2024

Revision as of 13:49, 23 January 2024

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==Legacy==

Animation historian [[Leonard Maltin]] described the ''Herman and Katnip'' series as a prime stereotype of the "violent cat versus mouse" battles that were commonplace among Hollywood cartoons of the 1920s through the 1960s.{{citation needed|date=April 2015}} The violence in this series, while intended for comedic effect, often reached a level of brutality that surpassed both ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'', ''[[Mighty Mouse]]'', and [[Warner Bros.]]' [[Sylvester the Cat]].{{citation needed|date=April 2015}}

All of Herman's battles with Katnip ended with Herman victorious. Only two cartoons, "''You Said a Mouseful''" and "''Katnip's Big Day''", had Katnip sharing in Herman's victory. Frequently Herman and his mouse companions would sing a victory song as they observed Katnip being brutally tortured; e.g. being eaten by sharks, killed in a rockslide while mountain climbing, strung up with Christmas lights and plugged into an electric socket, getting electrocuted by a "shock tester" machine, then flattened by it; or even dying and his ghost being warned about "the fiery furnace" in "Of Mice and Menace". It had been originally intended that Herman and Katnip would make a cameo appearance in the film ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]]'' in the scene called "Acme's Funeral", but the scene was cut out of the film.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hill |first1=Jim |title=Storyboards reveal what Marvin Acme's funeral in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" would have looked like |url=http://jimhillmedia.com/editor_in_chief1/b/jim_hill/archive/2014/05/08/storyboards-reveal-what-marvin-acme-s-funeral-in-quot-who-framed-roger-rabbit-quot-would-have-looked-like.aspx |website=jimhillmedia.com |date=8 May 2014 |language=en}}</ref> Katnip later appeared in the episode "Self Help Huey" of the animated series ''[[The Baby Huey Show]]'' as a cat redeemed by his persecutions of the past and tries to teach a Fox to follow the same path with [[Baby Huey]].

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===[[Buzzy the Crow|Buzzy]]===

Katnip also had his share of running battles with Buzzy, a singing black [[crow]] in a flat straw hat, who spoke in stereotypical "black dialect" and per historian [[Don Markstein]] was "a take-off on the gravely voice of [[character actor]] [[Eddie Anderson (comedian)|Eddie Anderson]], who played Rochester on [[Jack Benny]]'s show, with [[Sid Raymond|<nowiki>[Sid]</nowiki> Raymond]] (Baby Huey) as Katnip, sounding like Benny himself".<ref name="toonopedia-buzzy">[http://toonopedia.com/buzzycro.htm Buzzy the Crow] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]]. [https://www.webcitation.org/6XZWqzrwp?url=http://toonopedia.com/buzzycro.htm Archived] from the original on April 5, 2015.</ref> Katnip's battle with Buzzy was usually based on Katnip trying to kick an ailment. He would read a rhyming verse from a medical book that suggested crow meat as the sure cure. Once confronted by Katnip, however, Buzzy would propose another solution in an attempt to save his own skin, to which the cat usually replied, "Hmmmm, that sounds logical", but these solutions usually "failed" at the expense of Katnip, who would finally lose his patience and say, "This time, I'm doing what the book says!" This would result in a chase between the two characters--withcharacters—with Buzzy making occasional puns at Katnip's expense along the way--andway—and end with Buzzy victorious and Katnip nowhere near the road to recovery.

Buzzy the Crow was introduced in the 1946<ref>{{cite book |title=That's enough, folks: Black images in animated cartoons, 1900-1960 |url=https://archive.org/details/thatsenoughfolks0000samp/page/72 |url-access=registration |author-link=Henry T. Sampson |last=Sampson |first=Henry T. |page=[https://archive.org/details/thatsenoughfolks0000samp/page/72 72 ''ff''] |year=1998 |publisher=[[Scarecrow Press]] |isbn=978-0-8108-3250-3}}</ref> [[Paramount Pictures|Paramount]] cartoon, produced by [[Famous Studios]],<ref>{{cite book |title=Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons And Blacklisted Animators in America |last=Cohen |first=Karl F. |page=58 |year=2004 |publisher=[[McFarland & Company]] |isbn=978-0-7864-2032-2}}</ref> ''[[The Stupidstitious Cat]]''. Buzzy's mannerisms and voice were based on what are now considered the offensive stereotypes of African-Americans of the time. [[Jackson Beck]] voiced Buzzy.

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==External links==

* {{CommonscatinlineCommons category-inline|Herman and Katnip}}

* {{bcdb|Paramount_Pictures/Famous_Studios/Herman_and_Katnip/index.html|Herman & Katnip}}

{{Famous Studios}}