Studio: Famous Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Short Synopsis
Katnip the cat is laid up with a streaming cold, wrapped in a bathrobe and sneezing on the floor, dosing himself from medicine bottles. He consults a book of "Hot tips for colds", which recommends: "Starve a fever and feed a cold. A remedy for cats like you: it's best to eat some fresh crow meat, cooked in a deep dish stew." The crow in question is Buzzy, a cheerful, wisecracking crow in a straw hat, who has no intention of becoming Katnip's medicine. Katnip, bleary and sneezing, tries one scheme after another to catch the crow and get him into the pot. Buzzy turns each plan around, and at one point stirs up a bowl of stew of his own, splashing it everywhere, with Katnip as the intended victim. The sneezing cat ends up worse off after every attempt, chasing around the house, and Buzzy stays one step ahead. How Katnip's cure finally turns out is not described in the sources this book could check.
Why It Matters
- The rhyming remedy in the medical book is a neat comic engine, and Buzzy's bright, cocky personality makes him an appealing trickster against Katnip's sickly frustration. Famous Studios' bold, flat colour gives the house interiors an early-1950s brightness.
- It was a Buzzy and Katnip short in the Noveltoons series, where Famous Studios paired Katnip with several rivals, most often Herman the mouse. It was also the first Noveltoon to use Winston Sharples's newly recomposed series theme, which became familiar to generations of television viewers through Harvey reruns.
Notes and Trivia
- Buzzy's voice and mannerisms draw on the racial caricature common in cartoons of the period.
- One video gathered under this title is actually the Terrytoons cartoon The Haunted Cat (1951).
- See also: Cat Tamale (1951), The Friendly Ghost (1945).