Cool Cat (Looney Tunes)
 |
Cool Cat is a fictional cartoon character created by director Alex Lovy for Warner Bros. Cartoons in the 1960s. His first appearance was in the self-titled short Cool Cat in 1967. He was voiced by Larry Storch. Robert McKimson took over as director for the last two cartoons in this series.
Character Biography
Cool Cat was a Tiger (whose design was very similar to that of The Pink Panther, who first appeared on screen four years earlier, and Snagglepuss) who wore a stylish green beret and scarf. Unlike most other Looney Tunes characters, Cool Cat was unapologetically a product of his time. He spoke in 1960s-style beatnik slang and acted much like a stereotypical laid-back 1960s teenager — he was often seen strumming a guitar or traveling cross-country in his dune buggy. One cartoon — McKimson's Bugged by a Bee — depicted him as an alumnus of "Disco Tech" playing varsity football against the long-haired team from "Hippie University".
However, most of Cool Cat's cartoons dealt with his encounters with Colonel Rimfire (also voiced by Storch), a fussy, British-accented big-game hunter armed with a blunderbuss. Rimfire essentially acted as the Elmer Fudd to Cool Cat's Bugs Bunny, but was used only by Lovy. Cool Cat bears the distinction of starring in the very last cartoon produced at the classic Warner Bros. Cartoons studio: Injun Trouble in 1969. Shortly after this cartoon was produced, the venerable animation studio shut down for good.
His cartoons can easily be distinguished from most of the other Looney Tunes cartoons, for they feature an updated Looney Tunes logo with stylized animation, a 1967 remix of "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down" by William Lava, and featuring the then-current Warner Bros.-Seven Arts logo (a combination of a simple W and 7 inside a stylized shield outline).
Cool Cat made later appearances in the television series The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, including the 2000 direct-to-video movie Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (Colonel Rimfire also appeared in the latter). He made brief cameos in most, if not all of the episodes, appearing on posters in the background, walking by in street scenes, etc. His appearances aren't entirely overlooked by the cast, for Tweety has once responded to Cool Cat's appearance with "We had to get him in this cartoon somewhere." He was voiced by Joe Alaskey and Jim Cummings in these later appearances.
Cool Cat and Colonel Rimfire are the only W-7 Arts characters to make any appearances beyond the classic era to date.
Titles
- Cool Cat (1967)
- Big Game Haunt (1968)
- Hippydrome Tiger (1968)
- 3 Ring Wing-Ding (1968)
- Bugged By A Bee (1969)
- Injun Trouble (1969)
