Since we are creeping up on Halloween I thought it would be fun to feature some spooky cartoons from years gone by. Today I have conjured up one of my personal favorites in the 1948 Chuck Jones classic Scaredy Cat starring Porky Pig and his overly paranoid companion (for good reason) Sylvester.
In this one Porky buys a old gothic mansion that is populated by a group of murderous mice that have done away with the prior owners.
It's a case of fear at first sight for Sylvester who is terrified of their new home from the moment he sees it. After the cat discovers that the rodent inhabitants plan to do them deadly harm it's an all night free for all. While Porky is trying to get some rest Sylvester foils one murder attempt after another on his life.
Here are some interesting notes courtesy of the folks over at Looney Tunes Fandom:This is the first short where Sylvester is given his name, as prior to that he was unnamed (or in the case of "Tweetie Pie" he was named "Thomas"). This is also the first Sylvester short directed by Chuck Jones.
This was only one of five post-1948 WB shorts to get a Blue Ribbon reissue prior to 1956 - with the original credits cut. The others were "Daffy Dilly", "The Foghorn Leghorn", "Kit for Cat", and "You Were Never Duckier". "Scaredy Cat" is the latest-released short to have its credits cut upon reissue.
It was the first of three Jones shorts which placed Porky Pig and Sylvester (in a rare non-speaking role as Porky's pet) in a spooky setting where only Sylvester was aware of the danger, the other two shorts being "Claws for Alarm" (1954) and "Jumpin' Jupiter" (1955).
This was the only entry in the trilogy in which Porky Pig does eventually realize the danger they are in.
Parts of this short were used in the Halloween TV special, Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special.
In this short, there is a brief sequence where Sylvester is reminded by his conscience of how Porky raised him from a kitten. Sylvester's kitten form in this sequence possibly inspired the creation of his son Sylvester Junior in the Robert McKimson shorts.
The high-pitched yelling from the fleeing mice was re-used in "Kiddin' the Kitten" (when the kitten chases the mice out of the house), "Kiss Me Cat" (when the mice family runs away from a "magnified" Pussyfoot) and "Forward March Hare" (when the soldiers run for cover as Bugs uses an ammunition shell to nail his calendar to a wall). Interestingly Kiss Me Cat also depicts the cats as the heroes and the mice as the villains rather than vice-versa, much like this short. The former was directed by McKimson, while the latter two were also directed by Jones.
This is the final short to use the 1941-1945 opening theme in the Blue Ribbon reissue, as well as the final Blue Ribbon reissue to axe out the original technical credits. Subsequent reissues after that would survive their original technical credits.
The killer mice resembling Hubie and Bertie from this cartoon would later reappear in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "Curse of De Nile", where this time they all have brown fur instead of grey fur, and are depicted as Egyptian killer mice. In this said episode, Sylvester is aware of the danger, and frequently saves Granny, Tweety and Hector from the dangers despite how oblivious the three are to the danger they're in, similar in vein to this short.
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