Angel Puss
Angel Puss | |
---|---|
Directed by | Chuck Jones |
Story by | Lou Lilly |
Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
Starring | Mel Blanc |
Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
Animation by | Ken Harris |
Color process | Technicolor |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date | June 3, 1944 |
Running time | 7 minutes |
Angel Puss is a 1944 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.[1] The short was released on June 3, 1944.[2]
Plot
A young African-American boy (drawn in blackface style) carries a sack to a river and laments that he has agreed to drown a cat. While the boy stares at the water, the cat slips out of the sack and fills it with bricks. When the boy says that he can't go through with the task, the hidden cat, pretending to be the boy's conscience, says, "Go ahead, Sambo, go ahead, boy," and reminds him that he has been paid "four bits" to do the job. Sambo reluctantly drops the bag in the river rather than return the money.
The cat then disguises itself as its own ghost, painting itself white and donning wings and a halo, and proceeds to "haunt" Sambo by repeatedly sneaking up on him and whispering "boo." Sambo runs away, but the cat rattles a pair of dice, causing Sambo to fall into a trance and sleepwalk back to the cat.
The hauntings continue until Sambo and the cat fall in a pond, washing off the cat's paint. When Sambo realizes that he has been tricked, he kills the cat with a shotgun blast. Immediately afterward, a line of nine ghost cats (representing a cat's nine lives) marches toward Sambo, saying, "And this time, brother, us ain't kiddin'."
Notes
The short is one of the "Censored Eleven," a group of Warner Bros. animated shorts that are withheld from circulation due to their dated racist stereotyping and portrayals.
References
- ^ Beck, Jerry; Friedwald, Will (1989). Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Henry Holt and Co. p. 151. ISBN 0-8050-0894-2.
- ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 100–102. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
External links
- 1944 films
- 1944 animated films
- 1944 short films
- 1940s American animated films
- 1940s animated short films
- English-language films
- American films
- American animated short films
- African-American films
- African-American animated films
- Short films directed by Chuck Jones
- Looney Tunes shorts
- Warner Bros. Cartoons animated short films
- Films about race and ethnicity
- Censored Eleven
- Vitaphone short films
- Films produced by Leon Schlesinger
- Films scored by Carl Stalling
- Looney Tunes stubs