"The Cat Came Back" is an unusual cartoon for Looney Tunes because it's made with two-color film stock...and inferior sort of color process which produced a very limited range of colors. However, with the copy I saw on HBO Max, clearly someone must have altered the cartoon, as some colors which you never see in two-color film ARE present here...such as bright yellows, true blue (often with two-color, blues look blue-green) and chartreuse. The other possibility is that IMDB is wrong and this film WAS actually made with three-color Technicolor. Regardless, it looks really nice.
In this short, a small cat (perhaps it was Beans...a hero the studio tried, in vain, to promote in this era) getting slapped around by mother mouse. However, when he complains to his mother, she approaches the mother mouse...and she beats up this cat as well. This is a bit of a problem as both mothers have offspring who like each other and want to be friends. When the kitten is washed away into the sewer, his mouse friend follows....so what's next?
The animation and color are great. The story isn't bad since it's not overly cute nor filled with singing (a problem with Looney Tunes shorts of this era), but it's also not particularly funny either. Of course, I'd rather have not particularly funny than super-cute characters singing mindlessly! Overall, I give it a 6...which is relative to other cartoons of 1936 and does NOT mean the short is comparable to the great shorts the studio made in the 1940s and 50s.
In this short, a small cat (perhaps it was Beans...a hero the studio tried, in vain, to promote in this era) getting slapped around by mother mouse. However, when he complains to his mother, she approaches the mother mouse...and she beats up this cat as well. This is a bit of a problem as both mothers have offspring who like each other and want to be friends. When the kitten is washed away into the sewer, his mouse friend follows....so what's next?
The animation and color are great. The story isn't bad since it's not overly cute nor filled with singing (a problem with Looney Tunes shorts of this era), but it's also not particularly funny either. Of course, I'd rather have not particularly funny than super-cute characters singing mindlessly! Overall, I give it a 6...which is relative to other cartoons of 1936 and does NOT mean the short is comparable to the great shorts the studio made in the 1940s and 50s.