Directed by: Friz Freleng

Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!

Synopsis: Sylvester the Cat and a kitten both seek shelter at Elmer Fudd’s house but when he announces he only plans to keep one of them Sylvester does everything he can to be chosen.

Cartoon Cats: Sylvester (voiced by Mel Blanc) is scrounging for food in some garbage cans. An orange kitten suddenly shows up, also scrounging, and grabs a nice fish bone for himself. Sylvester is quick to toss the kitten away.

Realizing it is getting cold, Sylvester pounds on the door of a house then pretends to be frozen when Elmer Fudd (voiced by Arthur Q. Bryan) opens the door .

Elmer is quick to take in Sylvester and provide him with a home.

Unfortunately the kitten has the same idea and Elmer also takes him in.

Elmer explains that he can only keep one of them but isn’t sure which one, although he keeps commenting on how cute kittens are.

Sylvester dresses as a baby but Elmer just comments on what a silly way that is for an adult cat to act.

After Elmer goes to bed, Sylvester imagines several ways to rid himself of the annoying kitten.

Calling from the kitchen, Sylvester offers the kitten some milk but pours it on the kitten’s head before breaking the dish. Sylvester stands aside as Elmer comes in to investigate and finds the mess. Instead of getting angry, Elmer realizes the kitten is hungry and offers him most of what’s in the refrigerator.

Next Sylvester rolls a ball of yarn to entice the kitten into playing. The other end of the yarn is tied to a stack of dishes which comes crashing down. Sylvester catches the kitten trying to glue the dishes back together and takes them and smashes them again just as Elmer walks in.

After reading a book on hypnotism, Sylvester puts the kitten into a trance and tries to get him to hit Elmer on the head with a baseball bat. Only Sylvester points to his own head while trying to explain and the kitten clobbers him.

The next ploy Sylvester tries is winding up a toy mouse and letting the kitten chase it into a mousehole. He then boards the kitten up inside the wall. The kitten gets back by pounding nails out of the wall, causing pictures and shelves to come crashing down. Finally the kitten unscrews a light fixture above Elmer’s head and Sylvester tries to reach it with a screwdriver but is too late. Of course this makes Sylvester look like the guilty party.

Elmer warns Sylvester that if he is disturbed one more time he is throwing Sylvester out. This gives the kitten an idea.

The kitten does everything he can to make noise, including firing off guns, banging drums, turning on the radio and playing the player piano. In the end Elmer is evicted because of the noise and all three end up scrounging through garbage cans in the cold.

Final Mewsings: The question isn’t which cat to keep but how many more cats to take in!

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