Angel Puss

Angel Puss
Looney Tunes series
Directed by	Chuck Jones
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Story by	Lou Lilly
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Ken Harris
Release date(s)	June 3, 1944
Color process	Technicolor

Angel Puss is a 1944 short animated cartoon written by Lou Lilly, animated by Ken Harris, and directed by Chuck Jones. It was released on June 3, 1944, by Warner Bros. Pictures as part of its Looney Tunes series.

Synopsis

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'."

Bans

Because the film contains racist portrayals of African-Americans, it is no longer available in any type of authorized release 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.

External links

• Angel Puss at the Internet Movie Database
• Angel Puss at the Big Cartoon DataBase