by Ted Davis
Original Air Date: October 3, 1986
Directed by: Jackie Cooper
This review contains Cartoonish Kitty Carnage Warnings!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!
Synopsis: When irritated mob boss Don Phillip Souza (Al Ruscio) places a million dollar bounty on gun-loving, criminal-hating police detective Sledge Hammer (David Rasche), he is ordered to leave the city for his own safety, eventually ending up in a bucolic Amish-like community where he is still the target of Souza’s paid assassins.
Kitty Cameos (with Cartoonish Kitty Carnage Warnings!): Early in the episode, a calm Souza is seated at his desk petting and stroking an equally calm grey and white tuxedo cat, but once he receives the report that detective Sledge Hammer is shutting down all the crime in the city, the incensed and frustrated mob boss tosses the (obviously fake) kitty out of the window.
Souza gets a second cat, a black one, but it’s tenure is even briefer than that of the first cat, as the aggravated mob boss also tosses it through the open window immediately after learning that the hated Hammer is still alive.
The inevitable next cat is a plush ginger model and the third time appears to be the charm because this time it’s Souza who leaves through the window, after a brief altercation with the constantly inventive and surprising Sledge Hammer, who fooled the credulous gangster into believing he was dead.
The surviving ginger cat takes over Souza’s chair.
Final Mewsings: The three cats were actually the same cat, just reincarnated until he received justice.
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