Film's Title (Year of Release)

Short synopsis (or is that "short's synopsis?")

Cast (click here to learn about our new ongoing project, The Mel Blanc List)

Critique

Video Release of the Cartoon (Video Studio, Video's Year of Release)

An ad appearing in The Buffalo News in Buffalo, NY on December 23, 1967.

Cool Cat (1967)

Big-game hunter Colonel Rimfire and his mechical elephant traverse the jungle looking for prey. They find a laid-back tiger named Cool Cat, who tries to take the fake elephant under his wing to teach it how to survive in the habitat.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire
The Clingers: Theme Song Singers

Critique
Here we go, the first new recurring Warner Bros. cartoon character in well over a decade, and the start of an entirely brand new series, and it's not very good. Points are trying to be earned for coming up with something relevant, but by 1967 beatniks were no longer the go-to shorthand for the counterculture, as the full-blown hippie movement was easily overtaking it. All of this makes a beret-wearing, smooth-talking archetype like Cool Cat seem antiquated at the time of this short's release. The opening jungle design is at least unique and a breath of fresh air after two solid years of dilapidated Mexican backdrops, but so little of what we see feels like a Warner Bros. cartoon. Trying to go in a new direction is never a bad thing, but it clashes badly with what had come before—and there's not even a recognizable character present to tie it all together. (Meanwhile, the colorful jungle motif would disappear by the next entry in the series.) Larry Storch, meanwhile, is an accomplished comedian and he definitely has a gift for voices and dialects, and Colonel Rimfire in particular stands out as a unique characterization, but the absence of Mel Blanc on the soundtrack makes the cartoon feel even more alien to the rest of the Warner Bros. oeuvre. The desire to compare this short and series to the studio's past is encouraged by the film itself making references to recognizable elements. Rimfire gives us an "I tawt I taw a putty tat" line (even after he had already been watching Cool Cat on his periscope, but whatever), and there's a weird switch to a Road Runner-style canyon when Ella falls off a cliff—they want us to make the comparison. As for our new "star," it's not that impressive of a debut, as the Hanna-Barbera influence is still clearly weighing on director Alex Lovy; it's a thin character whose personality is conveyed more by his outfit than his actions. Unlike, say, the classic "carrot at the rabbit hole" scene in A Wild Hare or the Latin-subtitled freeze frame of Fast and Furry-ous, Cool Cat's introduction involves him simply walking out from behind a boulder holding an umbrella; pretty understated. Though there's something of a noble trait to him "protecting" Ella and trying to show him/her/it the ropes, we're never quite sure if he's playing dumb or fully aware of the situation, and it makes it difficult to know how much we're supposed to be rooting for him. Buckle up, folks, because we're going for the most tepid of rides.

An ad appearing in The Morning Call in Allentown, PA on October 2, 1968.

Big Game Haunt (1968)

While evading Colonel Rimfire, Cool Cat hides out in an abandoned house, where a lonely ghost named Spooky hopes to make the tiger and hunter his friends. Intended as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off series starring Spooky.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, Spooky

Critique
Only a cartoon in and producer Bill Hendricks already feels Cool Cat is an established enough star to use as a launching pad for other new characters, which may be the funniest idea to ever come from the Seven Arts era. (The studio's other new series, Merlin the Magic Mouse, was similarly used.) Our hero is hardly fully formed in his own right. His default mode is to remain expressionless, which becomes unnerving when Cool Cat only has a glassy blank forward stare as he's being chased or shot at. Even Larry Storch's performance isn't consistent, as the smoother, warmer voice from the previous film has become noticeably hoarser, like Cool Cat after a pack of literal Kools. As for the new character of Spooky, he's just a watered-down copy of Casper crossed with shades of Droopy, not charismatic enough to be charming like the former and too milquetoasty to be entertaining like the latter—and either way, the idea of a ghost just wanting to make friends had not only been done to death already but was still fresh on people's minds as having been done better with Casper's prominence on Saturday morning television. (While the idea of a Droopy-like ghost wouldn't be attempted again for another twenty-three years via an episode of The Ren and Stimpy Show, which again proved that the concept doesn't quite work.) Bill Lava does create a nifty little theme for the character, but the characterization more or less stops there, with Spooky only being used as a plot device to prompt scared takes from our two leads. There's definitely comedy that can be mined from horror (even here we get a decent chuckle with Rimfire telling Cool Cat to "find your own place to hide"), but every setup is labored and only occasionally is there a well-paced comedic reaction to pay it off (one such interaction cuts to a closeup of Cool Cat even before he begins to react). For the briefest of moments it seems like we're about to get a mistaken-identity back-and-forth similar to the one back in Hare Remover but nothing comes of it. There's hardly any kind of satisfying ending, with the short trying to go for a weaksauce version of a "here we go again" kind of gag; it almost comes off as a threat of more tedium. It does a ghost cartoon no favors when the recommendation is to just stick with Casper.

An ad appearing in The Kilgore News Herald in Kilgore, TX on July 24, 1970.

Hippydrome Tiger (1968)

Colonel Rimfire and Ella track Cool Cat to Paris, where the tiger is competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans road race.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, French Police Officer, Flagman, Race Official

Critique
"Hey, the hip kids today seem to like hot-rodding, and Cool Cat is a hip character, so this cartoon practically writes itself!" must have been the general thinking behind this one. It is a bit of an awkward fit, though. There was an influx of racing movies at the time, with possibly The Great Race being the best known example, but they weren't really tied to the beat movement or general counterculture (unless one counts the Elvis movies). The cartoon studio itself hadn't done a road-race picture since the black and white days of Porky, and it doesn't seem as if they missed out on any innovative gags in the interim. Sure enough, the only couple of scenes taking place during the actual race are more or less glorified "backfired weapons" gags. (And to think this same year an entire Saturday morning cartoon would premiere revolutionizing the cartoon humor that can be gleaned from automobile races.) Ella continues to be the funniest, or at least most interesting, element in the Cool Cat cartoons—surely, the only funny gag in this entire short comes from Rimfire and Ella "hiding" in the race crowd (immediately followed by arguably the only other amusing moment with Rimfire hopping off a spectator's head). Rimfire reassuring his vehicle about not feeling bad after making a radar mistake goes a long way in trying to give the mechicanical elephant some sort of (if only displaced) characterization, which unfortunately makes the later gags of the machine smashed up leave a bad taste in one's mouth. Does Ella in fact have feelings? If so, then seeing it in pieces with springs sticking out and no ability to react is more cold and heartless than the typical Looney Tunes slapstick of old. Cool Cat again has a new voice from Larry Storch, one with a kind of light, husky tone. He's a little more aggressive toward Rimfire here than he has been in the past, but also like before it could be any character penciled into this plot. The sorta expected "surprise" ending doesn't offer much, and even our leads regard it as merely a reset to their next formulaic chase.

An ad appearing in The Chilliwack Progress in Chilliwack, BC on May 27, 1970.

3 Ring Wing-Ding (1968)

Seeing an ad in the paper from a circus offering a thousand bucks for a live tiger, Colonel Rimfire brings in Cool Cat. The feline soon gives chase throughout the big top. Colonel Rimfire's final appearance in a theatrical cartoon.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Colonel Rimfire, Seal, Ringleader

Critique
Essentially a later Bugs/Daffy cartoon a la People Are Bunny or The Iceman Ducketh, but without the charm, wit, or characters we love. Also missing is any sort of cleverness on the part of our protagonist, who doesn't so much trick his way out of spots as he lets some form of violence take over. The prime example is the tiger posing as "Asbesto the Great Fire Eater"; Rimfire immediately sees through the guise and forces him at gunpoint to swallow a flaming stick. It almost resembles some kind of Yosemite Sam bit, but instead of Cool Cat turning the tables on the hunter the way Bugs would in, say, High Diving Hare for an easy example, our hero instead burns his insides, screams, and essentially runs away to the next scene. (At least when a much funnier version of this entire bit was done a decade earlier in Tweety's Circus, the supposed fire-eater was in fact the villain.) Honestly, the whole thing comes off as a pretty sadistic short, as classic Looney Tunes slapstick gets traded in for Cool Cat getting painfully shot in the ass or the tiger merely chucking baseballs at Rimfire's face (although in all fairness, one of the more amusing moments involves the hunter kicking the tiger out of his hammock to get his attention Beetle Bailey-style). There is a spark of originality with a running gag forcing Rimfire to keep rebuying admission to get into the circus, but the rest of the cartoon is cluttered with tired acrobatic tropes already seen in the likes of Big Top Bunny, Inki at the Circus, Popeye's Tops in the Big Top, and director Lovy's own Three Ring Fling for Walter Lantz. Even the final gag is a lame retread of the old, not-really-all-that-funny-in-the-first-place "one for you, one for me, two for you, one-two for me" money bit. Considering how derivative it is of previous cartoons, ironically this short would have a lasting legacy that affected a large chunk of the Looney Tunes canon, as it is from William Lava's score here did we get the brief circus ditty that would be played for decades over the cartoons' title cards seen primarily on Saturday morning television (though the specific arrangement used on television doesn't appear here in the short). In addition to Colonel Rimfire, this would also serve as Alex Lovy's swan song for the Cool Cat series; in fact, it would be his final Warner Bros. cartoon with any recurring character, with the jack-of-all-trades heading back to Hanna-Barbera most likely as soon as his contract was up. A more familiar and reliable Warner Bros. director would soon return, but the death throes have already begun.

An ad appearing in the Traverse City Record Eagle in Traverse City, MI on May 9, 1970.

Bugged by a Bee (1969)

Cool Cat is apparently attending Disco Tech, where he wants to be the big man on campus by trying out for all of the sports. Unfortunately, a bee that he had swatted at keeps getting his revenge on the tiger. The first of two Cool Cat shorts directed by Robert McKimson.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Gopher, Coach, Announcer, Umpire, Rowing Captain, Referee, Dean, Football Players

Critique
In another era, this would have been the kind of cartoon that director Robert McKimson had excelled at, as an inept braggart bumbling his way into sports success is a plot that befits the likes of Foghorn Leghorn or Sylvester. But now he gets stuck with a protagonist he's neither familiar with or enthused about, gags that were ancient even when they were new ("bat boy" being the most obvious example), and a central conflict to have to awkwardly shoehorn into every scene. There is unfortunately nothing the director can add to set it apart from either the handful of Alex Lovy efforts we've already seen or the most generic-looking television animation of the time (certainly the repeated animation of the cheering girls gives off a very 1970s Hanna-Barbera vibe). The bee's constant stinging does little more for the plot than to get from Point A to Point B, and it becomes a very tiring "wash, rinse, repeat" kind of structure with the only difference in each scene being the sport involved. Cool Cat, meanwhile, remains a completely colorless entity, devoid of any charm with only the occasional slang thrown in to approximate "character." There is nothing funny or entertaining about him, while Larry Storch isn't given much dialogue for the tiger apart from repeatedly shrieking in pain (which itself gets old fast). "Autopilot" doesn't articulate the banality enough; it's the kind of cartoon that would have easily been produced by artificial intelligence if done half a century later, complete with the most telegraphed "surprise" ending ever.

An ad appearing in The Morning Call in Allentown, PA on September 18, 1970.

Injun Trouble (1969)

Cool Cat drives his dune buggy into Indian territory, where he encounters a series of spot gags. The final Warner Bros. cartoon of the classic theatrical era. The final theatrical Warner Bros. production directed by Robert McKimson. Has never aired on television in the United States.

Larry Storch: Cool Cat, Mad Indian, Talking Horse, Indian Giver, Painter Indian, Pailface, Arrow Indian, Indian Girl, Groucho Indian, Bareback Indian, Topless Bartender, Gower Gulch, Indian Lookouts

Critique
This is it, the grand finale of a legendary studio that in one form or another began in 1929 with Bosko the Talk-Ink Kid, and it's amazing to think of how innocent and charming the blackface tropes of that initial character were versus the wall-to-wall offensiveness we're subjected to here. For all of the infinite praise writer Cal Howard gets from animation scholars and colleagues as one of the medium's greatest gagmen, for him to just turn in a series of Native American puns that were already cringe-worthy at the beginning of the decade doesn't speak highly of his legacy. And it's not the subject matter's fault, either; the gags are just lifeless, all executed in a way as if expecting a laugh track to be dubbed in after each one. William Lava does the short no favors with his pulsing, almost menacing tribal score, which is used more to punctuate the nature of the puns than to actually match any action on the screen. Sure enough, after about four minutes the whole crew just drops the Indian plot and we move on to generic Old West gags. It does allow for arguably the cartoon's most memorable gag (the topless saloon), but it's still just more of the same—he's a cow-PUNCHER, so he PUNCHES people, get it?!? The fact that Warner Bros. had the temerity to submit this cartoon for Academy Award consideration speaks volumes for how low the bar had been set at the studio that had given the world the likes of Porky in Wackyland, Bugs Bunny Rides Again, and Duck Amuck. When even your "star" character wants to leave the picture, you know you've reached the end.