cats making out

It’s for real, from a 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon called Katnip Kollege, and if it isn’t an example in getting crap past the radar, then I shall eat my copy of Chuck Jones’s memoirs. If you don’t believe me, try to imagine two human actors in the posture and position of these two funny-animal cats (named “Johnny Cat” and “Kitty Bright,”) and think about what would be involved. Then think about the fact that pretty much every frame of this animation had to be painstakingly drawn by someone, right down to Johnny Cat’s wandering hands. To be sure, the studio execs and the viewing audiences in 1938 might not have been as quick on the uptake: the audiences in particular would not have been able to parse the animation frame-by-frame with software, and certainly no one in 1938 would have had Omaha the Cat Dancer to educate them about certain…possibilities inherent in funny animal characters.

Still, more evidence that our dirty minds have always been working…