It’s about Pluto being tried in Cat Hell by the corrupt Cat justice system for his crimes against all the cats he murdered, including witness testimonies from some of the victims who died gruesome deaths.
About
After Pluto goes chasing a cat and gets scolded by Mickey, who angrily tells him that he’ll “have a lot to answer for on his judgement day”, Pluto falls asleep and dreams that a cat baits him into chasing it only to lead him to a trap in the Cat Underworld. There, a Cat Prosecutor brings charges against him in front of a Cat Judge, and a Cat Jury, a cat version of Lady Justice, and several Cat Witness testimonies by or about victims of Pluto’s bullying that all resulted in them dying or in one case, being institutionalized due to the extreme trauma that includes panicked convulsions triggered by the sound of barking.
He is declared guilty (this cartoon taught me how to spell “GUILTY” btw as the Cat jury spells it out in a cheerleading syntax) and gets lowered into a pit of fire on a chair with a hole in the seat so the flames can burn his ass. This wakes him up as an ember from the fireplace he was dreaming near pops out and burns Pluto’s tail, causing him to freak out and jump into the tub where Mickey is bathing the kitten. Mickey laughs and tells Pluto and the kitten to “kiss and make up”. Pluto is apprehensive at first, but warms up to the kitten when it licks his nose. They then start making out and begin an interspecies romantic relationship. Jk. Pluto smiles and licks back and that’s the end – a bad dream made a dog nice to cats. Yay.
My History with it
This was one of my favorites as a kid that was included on a VHS with a bunch of other pre-1960s Disney animated shorts. I would hum the “ooo-wa ooo-wa ooooh” refrain from the kittens and mimic the saddle riding jaunty skip that the cat steward of the wheelchair bound victim did.
I wondered why it wasn’t streaming on Disney+ with all the other 1930’s Pluto cartoon, rewatched it on YouTube, and saw the reason (See below), which of course is a dumb historical sensitivity issue.
Highlights
When Pluto is being trolled into the underworld, the forrest they run through has scary-cat trees going by in the background that is easy to miss but a lovely attention to detail.
An early predecessor to the sentient tiger head entrance to the Cave of Wonders makes a cameo in this short, 58 years before Disney’s Aladdin:
Although the true Gross-up Close-up technique wouldn’t be pioneered until the 1990s with Ren & Stimpy, this 1935 offering has some legit art moments that come close. Take this “muah ha ha ha” moment from the Cat Prosecutor:
And then this extended close-up that shows Pluto fretting as a reflection in the Prosecutors eyes. Nice!
Why it’s banned
One of the testimonials of Pluto’s crimes against cat-kind is a joke about “poor Uncle Tom [cat]”. A reference that obviously went over my head as a child who had never heard of “Uncle Tom” being either a book or a pejorative. I think the 3 girl cats that sing about him being drowned in the river as well as the resulting “9 Little Angels” that spring out of his grave singing is supposed to be a joke about mistral shows with the fleshy puss-mouths mimicking the makeup of Blackface (?).
Although Disney features other “offensive to modern day sensitive and pandering to and toward infantilized groups” cultural references, this one was deemed too much to just add a warning label to and as of the time of this writing, no one has just edited out the offending scene to include the rest in the streaming library.
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