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Kitty Kornered is a 1946 Looney Tunes cartoon, directed by Robert Clampett and produced and released by Warner Bros. Pictures. Considered among Clampett's best and wackiest films, Kitty Kornered was Clampett's final cartoon starring his longtime star Porky Pig (although he made a cameo in Clampett's next cartoon The Great Piggy Bank Robbery as a train driver), and marks the only appearance of the (then unnamed) Sylvester the cat in a Clampett-directed cartoon and only one of two times Sylvester spoke in a Porky Pig cartoon.

Porky and Sylvester would later be paired in a trio of shorts directed by Chuck Jones: Scaredy Cat, Claws for Alarm, and Jumpin' Jupiter. Both also co-starred (with Daffy Duck, which has a sped-up version of Sylvester's voice, including the lisp) in The Scarlet Pumpernickel (the only other time Sylvester spoke in a Porky Pig cartoon).

Synopsis

As the film opens, we see the neighborhood's cat owners all (literally) throwing their cats out for the night. Porky Pig attempts to do the same, but his four cats (a tall black and white lisping cat (Sylvester), a medium sized tabby, a diminutive kitten, and a dumb drunkard cat) throw him out. Porky bangs on the door, demanding to be let in, but the cats pop out of the door and proclaim in unison, "Milkman, keep those bottles quiet!", and then slam the door in his face. Porky falls into the snow. Sticking his face out (and now resembling Santa Claus), Porky states that he hates pussycats. While the cats are lounging around, Porky throws open the window while making an incredibly menacing face. He chases them around the house until one of them throws him into a teapot. Porky retaliates by siccing his pet dog "Lassie" on the cats. The cats see the dog's shadow and run for their lives, not knowing that "Lassie" is really only a shadow puppet created with Porky's fingers.

The cat with the lisp plots revenge, which is exacted by having the cats create a War of the Worlds-esque sensation about invading aliens, placing the fear of God in their porcine owner and driving him into a panic over "M-M-Me-M-Me-M-M-M-Me-M-Me-M-Men from Mars!" Assuming the appearances of Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders cavalry (in reference to the then-popular film Arsenic and Old Lace), the cats charge at Porky and run him out of the house once and for all. Homeless, alone, and cold in the snow, Porky turns to the camera and asks "D-D-Does anybody in the audience kn-kn-know somebody that kn-knows somebody that, uh, that has a house to rent?"

Trivia

• The still anonymous Sylvester had a black nose and yellow eyes in this cartoon.
• Two scenes in this cartoon directly parody Frank Capra's film verion of "Arsenic and Old Lace" -- when Porky appears through his living room window and scares his cats (one is even drinking from a wine bottle labeled "Arsenic and Old Grape") and when all the cats charge up the stairs dressed as Teddy Roosevelt (one of the characters in Arsenic is insane and believes he's Teddy Roosevelt. He runs up his house stairs while yelling "Charge!"). Orson Welles's radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" is also referenced in this cartoon, when the cats announce the martian invasion by using the radio in Porky's bedroom, causing Porky to panic.
• The first color Looney Tunes cartoon to use the written-out "That's All Folks" ending sequence and onwards. In this cartoon, the Merrie Melodies ending music is heard for some reason.
• In this film the WB shield doesn't zoom to the viewers (similar to the Daffy Duck short The Great Piggy Bank Robbery), only the sound effect is heard.
• Despite his one appearance in the series the drunk cat with the red nose, gray fur, big lips, and saggy jowls was popular enough to appear in several later cartoons such as in the Rolling Stones music video Harlem Shuffle with art by Ralph Bakshi and John Kricfalusi, in a few episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures, an episode of Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and among the many cats in Tweety's High Flying Adventure.

Censorship

• On The WB!, the part where the cats drink alcohol, read comics, and smoke cigars before Porky bursts in was cut.

External links

• Kitty Kornered at the Internet Movie Database
• Review of Kitty Kornered and context to War Of The Worlds