Angel Puss
From Loonipedia
Template:Infobox Hollywood cartoonAngel Puss is a 1944 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated short directed by Chuck Jones. It was released on June 3, 1944.
Story Synopsis[edit | edit source]
A young African-American boy (drawn in blackface style) carries a sack to a river and laments that he has agreed to drown a cat. While the boy stares at the water, the cat slips out of the sack and fills it with bricks. When the boy says that he can't go through with the task, the hidden cat, pretending to be the boy's conscience, says, "Go ahead, Sambo, go ahead, boy," and reminds him that he has been paid "four bits" to do the job. Sambo reluctantly drops the bag in the river rather than return the money.
The cat then disguises itself as its own ghost, painting itself white and donning wings and a halo, and proceeds to "haunt" Sambo by repeatedly sneaking up on him and whispering "boo." Sambo runs away, but the cat rattles a pair of dice, causing Sambo to fall into a trance and sleepwalk back to the cat.
The hauntings continue until Sambo and the cat fall in a pond, washing off the cat's paint. When Sambo realizes that he has been tricked, he kills the cat with a shotgun blast. Immediately afterward, a line of nine ghost cats (representing a cat's nine lives) marches toward Sambo, saying, "And this time, brother, us ain't kiddin'."
Ban[edit | edit source]
Because the film contains racisms against African Americans, it is no longer available in any type of authorized release (with the exception of Bootleg releases) and is among the group of controversial cartoons known to animation buffs as the Censored Eleven. Angel Puss is the only Chuck Jones film and the only Looney Tunes release on the list.