The Aristo-Cat

Quite interesting, because the Warner Brothers studio, managed to predict a future Disney movie, with released in 1971. Called the Aristocats, I find this very interesting and how predictions can happen with one thing causing multiple other things to happen, and cool that the aristocats movie of Disney was predicted three decades ahead of time, and also this is a cartoon that exists and it's short for some reason and it's from before the Disney movie or it wouldn't be a prediction and that's interesting to me how this is only 7 minutes long even though The Aristo-cat is supposed to be a movie.

"The Aristo-Cat" is the first in an extensive, Oscar-nominated series by Chuck Jones. The series is one of my favorites, but this short is one of the lesser ones. The only reason I say it is a landmark is because it marks the debut of three great characters. The premise is good, but the following action is run-of-the-mill funny stuff.

A butler is left to look after a pampered cat (Claude) who continuously humiliates him. After having had enough of it, the butler quits. Claude is petrified, but finds a book that informs him that cats eat mice, the only problem being that he doesn't know what a mouse looks like; therefore, he is perfect prey for a couple of wise-ass mice (Hubie & Bertie), who deceive him into thinking the large bulldog outside (why is it always a bulldog?) is a source of food. You can guess what follows, and if you can't, I don't think you can read either.

It's also interesting to note that in post-1948 shorts, Hubie and Bertie swapped coat colors. Worth a watch any time, but the later cartoons were much improved.

As always, Chuck Jones's wise-guy mice Hubie and Bertie (making their debut) play tricks on an unsuspecting feline. While "The Aristo-Cat" has a fairly routine plot, the background catches my attention. The slanted angles look more like what I would expect in a Salvador Dali painting (Bob Clampett used Daliesque angles to a great degree in "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"). But it's not just the angles. The colors - resembling those in Jones's "The Case of the Missing Hare" - obscure all perspective. This has to be the least pleasant place for a cat to attack a dog, believing the dog to be a mouse! So this is far from a masterpiece, but the background should draw interest. Even more than the fact that it's Hubie and Bertie's debut. Jones branched out their personalities in "Mouse Wreckers", "Cheese Chasers" and "The Hypo-Chondri-Cat".

Fun Chuck Jones short that introduced minor Looney Tunes characters Hubie and Bertie. If you aren't familiar with them, they're two mice (one brown, one gray) who act as the antagonist for some other character, in this case a pampered cat who lives in a wealthy household where he never has to catch mice or anything. So he's lazy and spoiled. He also plays pranks which ticks off the butler so much he quits, leaving the cat alone to fend for himself. Enter Hubie and Bertie to screw with him. The music is quite nice and matches the action well. The animation is lovely. There's one brilliant scene in particular where the cat is freaking out because he's alone. Really good stuff. It's a fun cartoon with some nice Jones touches. As other reviewers have noted, the second half isn't as strong as the first. But it's never bad.

Chuck Jones's 'The Aristo-Cat' is a visual masterpiece which is slightly hampered by a very thin plot. The first of Jones's short lived Hubie and Bertie series about two frequently cruel and sadistic mice and their tendency to prey on the emotionally frail, 'The Aristo-Cat' reduces the star character's roles to virtual cameos. The Hubie and Bertie films have always been amongst my favourite cartoons but the two rodents add very little to this short and their roles could just as well have been filled by any generic mouse characters. However, 'The Aristo-Cat' pays less attention to the normal conventions of plot and instead throws the spotlight on the tremendous nervous breakdown of Pussy the cat. A spoiled feline who pushes his butler, Meadows, too far and then finds himself with no-one to look after him, Pussy makes the most of his short time in the spotlight (he was usurped by the similarly jittery Claude Cat) by having one of the all time great mental collapses in cartoon history. As he runs around the huge, empty mansion screaming "MEADOWS" in vain, the startling abstract backgrounds, filled with angular shapes of vivid colours, move around behind him reflecting his encroaching madness to incredible effect. It's so luscious to behold that the arrival of Hubie and Bertie actually comes as a disappointment and brings the cartoon to a sadly predictable conclusion (including a hugely unsatisfactory deus ex machina ending). Happily, by this stage 'The Aristo-Cat' has already established itself as a must see and, while its eventual disintegration prevents it from entering the annals of the genuinely classic, the cartoon's first half ranks alongside some of the most startling imagery of any Warner cartoon.