Studio: Fleischer Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Max Fleischer
Short Synopsis
Betty brings home a black cat as a companion for her puppy Pudgy. The cat is mean, greedy and sly, and from the first minute it arranges for Pudgy to take the blame for everything it does: a vase knocked over, a box of chocolates eaten, a lamp broken. Each time Betty finds the puppy beside the wreckage and the cat looking innocent, and each time Pudgy is scolded, until at last she puts him out of the house. Coming back in, she catches the cat with its head in the refrigerator eating her fish, and understands. She goes for it with a broom, smashing windows, lights and pictures as she chases it, and the cat turns on her, hissing. Pudgy gets back in, catches the cat's tail in a mousetrap, and the cat bolts in panic into Pudgy's kennel, where the puppy slams a set of bars across the door. Betty hangs a For Sale sign on the kennel and gives Pudgy a hug.
Why It Matters
- The cat framing the dog is a plot Tom and Jerry would use for twenty years, and the Fleischers tell it with a lightness the later series lacked; Pudgy, in his first proper starring role, is a bewildered small dog who cannot understand why he keeps being punished, and the animation of his misery is the film's best work.
- The cartoon is in the public domain in the United States, and it marks the moment the Betty Boop series became a Pudgy series, with Betty reduced to owner and judge; the shift was the studio's answer to the Production Code, which had made the old Betty impossible.
Notes and Trivia
- This is one of four films in which Betty spanks Pudgy; later Fleischer historians have counted.
- Hicks Lokey went on to Disney's Fantasia and Dumbo.
- See also: Baby Be Good (1935), Pudgy Takes a Bow-Wow (1937).