Title: Hiss and Make Up
Studio: WB
Date: 09/11/43
Credits: (Freleng)
Series: Merrie Melodies (on a Blue Ribbon release)
Running time (of viewed version): 8:02
Commercial DVD Availability: -
Synopsis: When it's cat versus dog, bird wins. Except he also loses.
Comments: Everyone looks oddly designed for WB, tho they all look WB. The dog looks similar to the dogs in Hi Diddle Diddle. The animals don't have very good plans. Backgrounds are quality, but odd. Air raid warden joke. It's winter in this thing. Almost like proto characters (granny, tweety, sylvester). Horrific teeth prison at the end. My instinct is a cartoon with hiss in the title should have a snake, but I can see how it could be for a cat; I wonder if it's an individual thing, or a shift in the zeitgeist.
Dogs from Hi Diddle Diddle for comparison:
"Hiss" suggests a snake to me, too.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1980s, DuckTales constantly used the word "web" as part of characters' names—meaning to imply ducks' webfeet, but suggesting spiders to me and other confused kids back in the day.
This is also one of the first major uses of "Powerhouse" by Carl Stalling, after getting access to the Raymond Scott music catalog. Freleng's cartoons of the 1943-44 period have some pretty cynical/mean endings (mainly in the Bugs shorts, but this one also counts, especially if you stop and think what a cat with jagged teeth might want to do with a canary after the iris out...)
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