| Marc Anthony & Pussyfoot | |
|---|---|
[[ |250px]] | |
|
First appearance |
Cheese Chasers |
|
Created by |
Chuck Jones |
Marc Anthony (referred to as Marc Anthony on his food dish in Feed the Kitty) and Pussyfoot (sometimes called "Kitty", but in some of the WB animation history books, she is referred to as "Cleo") are animated characters in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. Marc Anthony 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 has discussed the efforts to maximize the kitten's sheer adorableness. All head and eyes, she is black with a white face and belly and a white tip on her fluffy tail.
Recent history and influence[]
Since their retirement, Marc Anthony 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 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.
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 Anthony believes that Pussyfoot has been turned into a cookie (and unaware that she is actually perfectly safe), was the subject of a 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 Anthony 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 Anthony 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.