Taming the Cat (1948) watch online HD

'Taming the Cat' is an above-average Heckle and Jeckle offering. The opening sequence is a bit odd. We see a house cat next to an unoccupied birdcage as he pulls a canary feather out of his mouth. Hmm, I wonder what happened? Now he hangs up a sign: 'Songbirds Wanted'.

I never knew that magpies were songbirds, but Heckle and Jeckle apply for the job. Now, here's the most delightful part of the cartoon. With Jeckle playing the piano, Heckle distorts his own beak into a parody of Jimmy Durante's schnozzola, and (in a splendid imitation of Durante's voice) he sings a sprightly ditty called 'A Couple of Songbirds Today'.

Unfortunately, the ensuing mayhem is just a bit too by-the-numbers, and some of this material (with a cat getting clobbered indoors) seemed more appropriate for Tom and Jerry. However, Jeckle does an amusing variant on the "lady getting dressed" gag which he performed in several previous cartoons. My rating for this one is 9 out of 10, but mostly for that delightful song ... which Heckle reprises at the finish.

This is a short in the Heckle and Jeckle series produced by Terrytoons. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is actually the type of plot which makes for a very good Heckle and Jeckle cartoon. The two birds can be rather obnoxious, so in order to make them sympathetic, they have to be in a situation where they're the "good guys", comparatively speaking, and here they are someone to root for.

The antagonist here is a cat with a penchant for birds as food. He takes a birdcage but recently vacated to try to get dinner, er, tenants. There's a sign reading "Wanted, songbirds". H & J come by, see the cage and, wanting a home, determine themselves to be "songbirds" and prove it by launching into a musical number, complete with Jimmy Durante impersonation and then a song and dance number.

The cat, growing impatient that they won't go in the cage, decides to push the issue, only to find out that the birds are rather difficult to catch, getting punched repeatedly. There follows a series of somewhat standard gags for these cartoons. The reason they work here is that the timing is rather good. The execution is great. The birds play pool with the cat, they fake the cat out with the "phone" call in the shower and so on. A gag involving a vacuum is very good.

The ending is obvious but fun. This is in some ways a musical cartoon. This cartoon deserves to be better known. Most highly recommended.

This Heckle and Jeckle short opens with a cat spitting out a feather then placing a on the windowsill along with a sign saying 'Songbirds Wanted'; we then see the two Talking Magpies, who are flying south for the winter... they spot the sign and it is only a matter of time before the cat is in trouble. When they enter the house they prove they are song birds by singing a song. Soon the cat is after them but he never gets the upper hand as Heckle and Jeckle constantly outwit him.

This was a fun short with plenty of good gags; highlights include tricking the cat into putting his head on a chopping block and luring him into a shower pretending he has a phone call then watching it fill with water. The moment where Heckle starts to sing was fun and rather unexpected. While the gags are similar to those found in other cartoons what sets this duo apart is the way they talk and their almost effortless superiority.