Studio: Famous Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Short Synopsis
Detailed plot accounts of this Herman and Katnip short are scarce, and this summary follows the surviving film. The film has a Mexican theme: one mouse, in a sombrero and carrying a guitar and a suitcase marked "Mexico", flies in on the back of a big red-and-white bird. As usual Katnip the cat is lying in wait, and the chase moves through a cellar and a back yard full of crates and baskets. A mouse is seen trapped inside a glass bottle, a mouse appears as a little ghost with a harp, and Katnip himself is forced through a drainpipe until his body takes its twisted shape. The frames this book checked show the familiar Herman and Katnip pattern, with the cat taking the worst of the punishment, but the order of events and the ending are not described in any source it could find.
Why It Matters
- The Herman and Katnip films are built on uncomplicated, often brutal slapstick, the cat's suffering escalating to absurd degrees, and Cat Tamale is a typical example, with the drainpipe gag a graphic highlight. The Mexican setting gives the studio a chance for bright colours and music.
- Herman and Katnip were among Famous Studios' most durable pairings, and their cartoons were rerun for decades on television under the Harvey label, which made them familiar to audiences who never saw them in cinemas. The film's Mexican character also reflects the ethnic caricature common in 1950s cartoons.
Notes and Trivia
- Herman and Katnip appeared together in Noveltoons from 1950, and Paramount sold the films to television in the late 1950s.
- See also: Cat-Choo (1951), The Henpecked Rooster (1944).