Irv Spector wrote only one cartoon with Herman & Katnip, the first entry in the actual H&K series (after being regulars in the Noveltoon series), Mice-Capades. This short contains all of the trademarks of the classic unsettling Famous Studios production; the ultimate one being that a bottle of poison (clearly labeled, with a skull) is readily available in the kitchen. (I think Joan Crawford lived in this house.) Al Eugster is trying to get a little angular with the poses and animation here, with mixed results.
And the theme song is probably the best one ever written in history.
[dailymotion id=x99pav]
Quite a contrast to the video directly below, huh?
Neither Eugster nor Spector seemed really thrilled doing work on the continuing series, whether it’s H&K or Popeye — their best work at Famous, either working together or separately, were on the one-shot Noveltoons, though Spector’s “Taxi Turvy” had one of the rare original storylines in an early 50s Popeye, and “Mice Capades” was one of the first Spector shorts where impending death was a key part of the plotline.
Meanwhile, Eugster came out and proud as a UPA sympathizer by 1954, and in the final few Popeyes he did the angular reaction takes made up a bit for the fact the stories weren’t as good as those being done by the Tom Johnson unit (In “Mice Capades” it looks like he’s really trying to hide the UPA stuff from Seymour Kneitel, which is probably why his one-shots are more fun — you really couldn’t do much to break out of the dull pacing and takes using continuing characters, but one-shot characters could be angled and jerked suddenly into any type of reaction shot without someone saying “That doesn’t look on-model”).
Always loved this Hubie and Bertie-inspired short!
A couple questions…
1. I’ve heard that there are some really violent Herman and Katnip cartoons, but all of the ones readily available on the Internet don’t seem much worse than your typical Tom and Jerry cartoon. Are there really any H&K that went beyond the typical amount of cartoon violence?
2. What’s the story of the name change from Noveltoons to Harveytoons?
1. Well, they can get a little gruesome, like Herman cutting off Katnip’s head with a pair of scissors in plain view in Herman the Cat-Toonist, but I’d have to agree with you. T&J slapstick was equivalent to the Three Stooges, in my honest opinion: at its best, absolutely great, but the rest of the time, just noise. H&K are a few notches down, but I still have a soft spot for the series (and Arnold Stang’s vocal talent).
2. Noveltoons became Harveytoons when they got bought by Harvey Comics. They were just retitled
Is this the first instance of waterboarding in a cartoon? (Well, vinegar-boarding.)
Most of the Herman & Katnips I’ve seen are pretty repetitive, but this one was okay. Some good layouts here and there.
The ending could’ve been set up a little better though. Katnip already found out that the mice’s rouse was fake before he died, so there should’ve been some actual divine intervention that would’ve otherwise convinced his ghost to be nice to the mice (though in one way, his fate could’ve counted as purgatory).