Studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions (Merrie Melodies)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, The Vitaphone Corporation
Produced by: Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
Midnight. A man and everything in his house are asleep, and his black cat is outside wooing a white female cat on the fence, with a chorus of neighbourhood cats and kittens joining in on the title song and dancing along the fence top. A drunk, half-blind tomcat lurches in, hijacks the serenade by playing the same song on a phonograph record, and the black cat answers with a brick. The two toms chase each other, spar with their tails on the power lines, are hit by a rolling pin from a window, roll down the wires into a yard and brawl until a bulldog chases and flattens them both. As they lie there, the female cat strolls past with her real partner and a litter of kittens, one of whom blows them a raspberry. Realising they have fought over a gold-digger, the two toms shake hands and collapse.
Why It Matters
- The alley-cat serenade became a cartoon standard, and this is one of its earliest and best versions, with the fence-top chorus line and the record-player rival as good ideas; the twist ending, in which the girl turns out to have a family, has a sourness unusual for a song cartoon. Harry Warren's song came from Footlight Parade, released by Warner two months earlier.
- Merrie Melodies in 1933 were still song plugs for Warner's music publishers, and this one shows the formula working: a hit tune, a set piece built on it, and seven minutes of animals. Earl Duvall's brief run as director produced this and Buddy's Beer Garden, the two best cartoons of the Buddy era.
Notes and Trivia
- Footlight Parade, with James Cagney and Busby Berkeley's water ballet, had introduced the song in October 1933.
- Cat serenades recur at Warner through the 1930s, up to Freleng's The Night Watchman (1938).
- See also: Buddy's Beer Garden (1933), You're Too Careless with Your Kisses (1932), How Do I Know It's Sunday (1934).
