After seeing Katnip's Big Day, which featured a scene from this cartoon starring Buzzy the Crow and Katnip the Cat, it compelled me to see Cat-Choo again. While not a personal favourite, it is an entertaining cartoon and certainly better than the cartoon it featured in.
Cat-Choo does take a little too long to set up, and if you are familiar with the standard set-up for any Katnip cartoon regardless of who his foe is the story and the outcomes are not all that surprising. The final gag with the sun lamp is amusing and inventively animated, one of the most memorable parts of the cartoon visually definitely, but is a little on the cruel side, not quite as much as the most mean-spirited gags in Herman and Katnip's cartoons but it comes close. Other than those three nit-picks there is not much problematic with Cat-Choo.
It is very well-animated on the whole, back at a time where any low-budgets did not show in the way it would do in a lot of Famous Studios' later cartoons. It is very detailed in the backgrounds and has many lush colours, while the character designs are mostly smooth and solid apart from a little occasional roughness on Buzzy, the visuals in the tobasco gag and Katnip's cold symptoms are particularly well done. Adding much to the cartoon and matching brilliantly with the action, is the music score by Winston Sharples and Sammy Timberg, it's so beautifully orchestrated, the energy is non-stop, use of instrumentation is clever and it's consistently characterful. The music is always one of the best components of Famous Studios' cartoons and that's the case here too.
Cat-Choo is also very funny, with well-timed, beautifully animated gags that range from amusing to hilarious. The humour centring around Katnip's stupidity and trying to stick to what he's been reading is fun and creates a nice dynamic between him and Buzzy, but it's the tobasco gag that comes off the funniest. Katnip is amusing and appealingly dim-witted, one has to really feel sorry for him too in his want to get rid of his cold, and I don't have a problem with Buzzy (the sort of character who doesn't elevate the cartoon but hardly drags it down either) despite hearing complaints of him being a racial stereotype. Sid Raymond and Jackson Beck do great voicing Katnip and Buzzy.
Overall, good fun if not exceptional. 7/10 Bethany Cox
Cat-Choo does take a little too long to set up, and if you are familiar with the standard set-up for any Katnip cartoon regardless of who his foe is the story and the outcomes are not all that surprising. The final gag with the sun lamp is amusing and inventively animated, one of the most memorable parts of the cartoon visually definitely, but is a little on the cruel side, not quite as much as the most mean-spirited gags in Herman and Katnip's cartoons but it comes close. Other than those three nit-picks there is not much problematic with Cat-Choo.
It is very well-animated on the whole, back at a time where any low-budgets did not show in the way it would do in a lot of Famous Studios' later cartoons. It is very detailed in the backgrounds and has many lush colours, while the character designs are mostly smooth and solid apart from a little occasional roughness on Buzzy, the visuals in the tobasco gag and Katnip's cold symptoms are particularly well done. Adding much to the cartoon and matching brilliantly with the action, is the music score by Winston Sharples and Sammy Timberg, it's so beautifully orchestrated, the energy is non-stop, use of instrumentation is clever and it's consistently characterful. The music is always one of the best components of Famous Studios' cartoons and that's the case here too.
Cat-Choo is also very funny, with well-timed, beautifully animated gags that range from amusing to hilarious. The humour centring around Katnip's stupidity and trying to stick to what he's been reading is fun and creates a nice dynamic between him and Buzzy, but it's the tobasco gag that comes off the funniest. Katnip is amusing and appealingly dim-witted, one has to really feel sorry for him too in his want to get rid of his cold, and I don't have a problem with Buzzy (the sort of character who doesn't elevate the cartoon but hardly drags it down either) despite hearing complaints of him being a racial stereotype. Sid Raymond and Jackson Beck do great voicing Katnip and Buzzy.
Overall, good fun if not exceptional. 7/10 Bethany Cox
