| Marc Antony & Pussyfoot | |
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From left to right: Claude Cat, Pussyfoot and Marc Antony |
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| First appearance | Feed the Kitty (1953) |
| Created by | Chuck Jones |
Marc Antony (referred to as Marc Anthony on his food dish in Feed the Kitty) and Pussyfoot (sometimes called "Kitty" or "Cleo" in some of the WB animation history books) are animated characters in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Marc Antony is a burly bulldog that is usually brown with a tan belly and black ears, though his coloration varies in some shorts. Pussyfoot/Cleo, in contrast, is an extremely cute, blue-eyed kitten to whom Marc is utterly devoted. Chuck Jones, the creator, has discussed the efforts to maximize the kitten's sheer adorableness. All head and eyes, it is black with a white face and belly and a white tip on its fluffy tail.
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Since their retirement, Marc Antony and Pussyfoot have been largely forgotten due to the popularity of other characters such as Jones' earlier creations, Wile E. Coyote and Pepe le Pew. Pussyfoot has appeared in some recent Warner Bros. merchandising, however, and the pair have been featured in various Warner Bros. productions, such as the third segment of the 1982 Twilight Zone movie, and a 1999 Looney Tunes comic book story called "Bringing Up Baby". Tiny Toon Adventures featured a similar character named Barky Marky who was a comparatively minor character on the show. The pair were also an inspiration for the Buttons and Mindy characters that were featured in the successor to Tiny Toons, Animaniacs. Interestingly enough, in the Buttons and Mindy short Cat on a Hot Steal Beam, the cat that Mindy follows throughout the cartoon is none other than Pussyfoot. Pussyfoot also makes a cameo appearance in Chuck Jones' 1995 short Another Froggy Evening.
Chuck Jones would later revisit the gimmick of a cute kitten with an unlikely protector in a MGM Tom and Jerry short, The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse, with Jerry becoming a kitten's friend and protector against a selfish and jealous Tom.
A segment of Feed the Kitty, in which Marc Antony believes that Pussyfoot has been turned into a cookie (and unaware that the kitten is actually perfectly safe), was the subject of an homage in the Pixar film Monsters, Inc. In it, monster James P. Sullivan ("Sulley") believes that a little human girl he is protecting has fallen into a trash compactor and reacts nearly shot for shot as Marc Antony did in his cartoon short.
A reference is also made to Feed the Kitty in the 13th and 14th episodes of season 14 of South Park with Eric Cartman acting as Pussyfoot and Cthulhu as Marc Antony in his "cute kitten" routine.
Feed the Kitty is available on DVD, appearing on the compilation Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1 and Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, and Blu-ray, on Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1.
Marc Antony and Pussyfoot are set to appear in The Looney Tunes Show. Marc Antony and Pussyfoot also appear in The Looney Tunes Show opening.