Claws in the Lease
| Claws in the Lease | |
|---|---|
| Looney Tunes/Sylvester series | |
| Directed by | Robert McKimson |
| Produced by |
David H. DePatie (uncredited) |
| Story by | John Dunn |
| Voices by |
Mel Blanc Nancy Wible |
| Music by | Bill Lava |
| Animation by |
Warren Batchelder George Grandpré Ted Bonnicksen |
| Layouts by | Robert Gribbroek |
| Backgrounds by | Richard H. Thomas |
| Studio | Warner Bros. Cartoons |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | November 9, 1963 |
| Color process | Technicolor |
| Running time | 6 minutes |
| Language | English |
"Claws in the Lease" is a 1963 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The story revolves around the main characters of Sylvester and Sylvester Jr., a father cat and his son, leaving the city dump where they live, and attempting to find local home owners to take them in. After numerous attempts to trick an old woman into letting them both stay with her, there plan backfires and all three wind up living at the dump.
Plot
Sylvester lives with his son in a city dump. Sylvester Jr. then decides to find a home for themselves. He finds one, but the lady who lives there only wants to adopt Sylvester Jr. and separates him from his father. When the lady puts milk in a bowl for Sylvester Jr., Sylvester starts drinking it but gets bopped on the head with a broom by the lady, who then takes Junior inside. Then Sylvester gets angry and starts knocking on the door and screaming: "Alright, you catnapper, come back with my son! Come on now, open up", but the lady hits him with the broom again, telling him to stay out.
For Sylvester's next attempt, he takes Junior's can of "Pussy Kins Cat Food" and hides in the television. When the lady turns on the TV (she and Junior were preparing to watch her favorite horse opera, 'Cheyenne McMaverick, Sheriff of Gory Gulch', which was on Channel 12), Sylvester is shown eating the food, then he holds up a sign: "Ask for it by name", and starts ad-libbing a jingle for it: "Pussy Kins Cat Food tastes real good, satisfies cats like cat food should, hardens their muscles, softens their fur, Pussy Kins Cat Food makes them purr", but the lady gets wise and throws him out of the house through a window, breaking said window, and throwing the can after him. Then Sylvester continues the "commercial": "Are you getting more cat food lately...but enjoying it less?" This is a parody of a Camel Cigarettes commercial from the period.[1] Junior lets Sylvester back in the house, but when he hears the lady coming (singing "Home On The Range") Sylvester hides in the shower, but that is exactly where the lady goes. She absent-mindedly uses the cat to scrub her back, but he escapes and hides in her bathrobe which the lady puts on right after leaving the shower. With Sylvester unknowingly still in the bathrobe, the lady starts inserting rollers in her hair, but a few end up in Sylvester's head. When the cat pops up from behind the lady, she screams and he makes a break for it.
Sylvester finally brings out the heavy artillery by filling the house with hordes of mice. Upon the lady's screams, Sylvester comes in wearing a super hero's cape and suit and announces: "This is a job for Superpuss!" He enters the house but is immediately thrown out by the mice who also eject Sylvester Jr. and the lady. The lady is infuriated with Sylvester, "An' it's all yer fault, ya stupid feline!" and pounds him on the head for having her evicted from her house. The cartoon ends with Sylvester Jr., Sylvester, and the lady living at the dump. He is dividing up the chicken bones as in the beginning, but the lady orders him to "git up here with that grub, before I turn ya wrong side out! Ya silly cat!!!" Junior refers to them as being "one big happy family...I guess."
Edited versions
- When the short aired on ABC, the network had made two different edited versions—one in 1988 and another that was used from 1994-2000:
- The 1988 version cuts the part where Sylvester Jr. runs to get Sylvester from the dump after Sylvester Jr. finds a home and Sylvester tries to drink from the bowl of milk before getting beaten with a broom repeatedly by the woman who takes Sylvester Jr. in the house, followed by the scene where Sylvester ends up getting beaten with the broom again. The edited version in 1988 showed Sylvester Jr. being taken in by the lady, and showed Sylvester banging on the door, but cut to the scene with Sylvester Jr. and the lady eating snacks and watching TV to remove the part where the lady beats Sylvester on the head again when she opens the door.
- The 1994-2000 version left in the part where Sylvester Jr. gets his father from the dump after finding a home and Sylvester drinking the milk before getting beaten, but the beatings were shortened from six hits to one and the part where Sylvester tries to retrieve his son, only to get beaten again was cut completely. Also edited in the 1994 version was the part after Sylvester sings the "Pussykins Cat Food" jingle where he gets thrown out the window and hits a tree and the part after the mice throw Sylvester, Sylvester Jr., and the housewife out where the housewife barks, "And it's all your fault, you stupid feline!" and slams her fist on the top of Sylvester's head.