Cats and Bruises

Cats and Bruises is a 1965 Merrie Melodies cartoon starring Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester. The title is a pun on “cuts and bruises”. The cartoon itself is mostly made up of old refuses footage from previous Warner Brothers cartoons, due to extreme low budgets, making this one of the lowest-budget cartoons ever made.

Plot

Sylvester spies on the Cinco De Mayo festival where Speedy Gonzales and his friends are dancing and partying. Sylvester then dons a mouse disguise consisting of only a pair of mouse ears, and gatecrashes into the festival. At first when two of Speedy's friends mistake Sylvester in the mouse disguise as a giant mouse, Speedy points out to them that its a cat (el gato), not a mouse, and all the mice then retreat and run for their lives.

Speedy then lures Sylvester to the dog pound, where he gets attacked by numerous bulldogs. Sylvester escapes from the dog pound and continues chasing Speedy. And when Sylvester successfully catches Speedy with a net, Speedy continues running inside the net, dragging Sylvester along until the cat crashes into a pole.

Later, Speedy is serenading his girlfriend on a boat on the lake. Sylvester goes after Speedy in an inflatable raft, but Speedy throws a dart into the raft, puncturing it and causing Sylvester to sink underwater into the lake.

Next, Sylvester drags a box, a plank and a 500-pound weight to the point at the base of the apartment building that is in a direct vertical line with the window where Speedy and his girlfriend are. He supports the plank with the box in the middle, stands on one end of the plank and heaves the weight onto the other end. This propels him up to Speedy's level and enables him to snatch the mouse. However, as he runs off, the weight lands hard on his head.

Finally, Sylvester builds himself a hot rod racing car and chases Speedy with it. As the chase continues, Sylvester realizes that he forgot to put brakes on the car, and drives off a cliff and into the lake in the middle of the desert.

With Sylvester out of the way, Speedy then tells his friends that the party continues. Speedy's triumph is however short-lived, as an injured Sylvester in a wheelchair then chases Speedy at slow speed.

Crew

• Co-Director: Hawley Pratt
• Story: John Dunn
• Animation: Bob Matz, Norm McCabe, Don Williams, Manny Perez, Warren Batchelder, Lee Halpern
• Layout: Dick Ung
• Backgrounds: Tom O'Loughlin
• Film Editor: Lee Gunther
• Voice Characterizations: Mel Blanc
• Music: Bill Lava
• Produced by: David H. DePatie and Friz Freleng
• Directed by: Friz Freleng

External links

• Cats and Bruises on IMDb