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Cats and Bruises is a 1965 Merrie Melodies short directed by Friz Freleng and Hawley Pratt.

Title[]

The title is a play on the phrase "cuts and bruises".

Plot[]

Sylvester spies on the Cinco De Mayo festival, where Speedy Gonzales and his friends are dancing and partying. Sylvester then dons a mouse disguise consisting of only a pair of mouse ears, and gatecrashes the festival. When two of Speedy's friends mistake Sylvester in the mouse disguise as a giant mouse, Speedy points out to them that it's a cat (el gato), not a mouse, and all the mice then retreat and run for their lives.

Speedy then lures Sylvester to the dog pound, where the cat gets attacked by numerous bulldogs. Sylvester escapes from the dog pound and continues chasing Speedy. When Sylvester successfully catches Speedy with a net, Speedy continues running inside the net, dragging Sylvester along until the cat crashes into a pole.

Later, Speedy is serenading his girlfriend on a boat on the lake, singing the popular Mexican song "Cielito Lindo". Sylvester goes after Speedy in an inflatable raft, but Speedy throws a dart into the raft, puncturing it and causing Sylvester to sink underwater into the lake.

Next, Sylvester drags a box, a plank and a 500-pound weight to the point at the base of the apartment building that is in a direct vertical line with the window where Speedy and his girlfriend are. He supports the plank with the box in the middle, stands on one end of the plank and heaves the weight onto the other end. This propels him up to Speedy's level and enables him to snatch the mouse. However, as he runs off, the weight lands hard on his head.

Finally, Sylvester builds himself a hot rod racing car and chases Speedy with it. As the chase continues, Sylvester realizes that he forgot to put brakes on the car, and drives off a cliff and into the lake in the middle of the desert.

With Sylvester out of the way, Speedy tells his friends that the party continues. Speedy's triumph is however short-lived, as an injured Sylvester in a wheelchair then chases Speedy at slow speed, so slow that Speedy lightly jogs away saying, "This is the only way to run."

Availability[]

Streaming[]

Notes[]

  • This cartoon contains reused animation from "Canary Row", "Dog Pounded", "A Pizza Tweety-Pie", "Here Today, Gone Tamale", and "The Pied Piper of Guadalupe".
  • The mouse ears Sylvester wears at the start of the cartoon are the same ones as in the end of "Here Today, Gone Tamale", except here they are all black, resembling those of Mickey Mouse's ears from Disney.
    • Interestingly, in the cartoon's old Latin Spanish dubbing this Mickey Mouse reference in that scene is made more obvious, where when one the Mexican mice commented about Sylvester's mouse disguise, instead of saying "He's the biggest mouse I've ever did seen" as in the original version, in the old Latin Spanish dub the line has been changed to "Ese ratón es más grande que Mickey Mouse" which translates as "That mouse is bigger than Mickey Mouse" in Spanish. [1][2][3]
  • This is one of the last pairings of Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester ("The Wild Chase" would be their last pairing, not counting Sylvester's cameo in "A Taste of Catnip") and the last cartoon in the Golden Age of American Animation where Sylvester speaks; in his final two appearances, "The Wild Chase" and "A Taste of Catnip", Sylvester does not speak.
  • This is also last Sylvester/Speedy cartoon to have both characters speak, although while Sylvester remained mute for the rest of his final appearances from the Golden Age of American Animation, Speedy resumed having speaking roles when paired against Daffy Duck.
  • MeTV+ aired a previously unreleased restored print of this cartoon on Sunday Night Cartoons. It is the first short to be restored for the Sunday Night Cartoons block. This restoration was later made available on Warner Bros. Discovery RIDE.
  • The restoration on the titles has a brief error where the abstract lines do not fully disappear before the title card, an error that also occurs with the "Mexican Mousepiece" restoration.
  • This is the only cartoon where Sylvester defeats Speedy in the end.

Goofs[]

  • When Sylvester starts chasing one of Speedy's friends, his mouse ears disappear from the shot permanently.
  • During a brief shot showing the bulldogs in the dog pound, the bulldogs' mouths do not move to the barking sounds.
  • When Sylvester is driving his racing car to chase Speedy, one of his arms is missing.
  • Sylvester's neck becomes black and white in different shots.

Gallery[]

TV Title Cards[]

Speedy Gonzales Cartoons
1953 Cat-Tails for Two
1955 Speedy Gonzales
1957 Tabasco RoadGonzales' Tamales
1958 Tortilla Flaps
1959 Mexicali ShmoesHere Today, Gone Tamale
1960 West of the Pesos
1961 Cannery WoeThe Pied Piper of Guadalupe
1962 Mexican Boarders
1963 Mexican Cat DanceChili Weather
1964 A Message to GraciasNuts and VoltsPancho's HideawayRoad to Andalay
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the HouseCats and BruisesThe Wild ChaseMoby DuckAssault and PepperedWell Worn DaffyChili Corn CornyGo Go Amigo
1966 The AstroduckMucho LocosMexican MousepieceDaffy RentsA-Haunting We Will GoSnow ExcuseA Squeak in the DeepFeather FingerSwing Ding AmigoA Taste of Catnip
1967 Daffy's DinerQuacker TrackerThe Music Mice-TroThe Spy SwatterSpeedy Ghost to TownRodent to StardomGo Away StowawayFiesta Fiasco
1968 Skyscraper CaperSee Ya Later Gladiator
1979 Fright Before Christmas
1980 The Chocolate Chase
Sylvester Cartoons
1945 Life with FeathersPeck Up Your Troubles
1946 Kitty Kornered
1947 Tweetie PieCrowing PainsDoggone CatsCatch as Cats Can
1948 Back Alley OproarI Taw a Putty TatHop, Look and ListenKit for CatScaredy Cat
1949 Mouse MazurkaBad Ol' Putty TatHippety Hopper
1950 Home, Tweet HomeThe Scarlet PumpernickelAll a Bir-r-r-dCanary RowStooge for a MousePop 'Im Pop!
1951 Canned FeudPutty Tat TroubleRoom and BirdTweety's S.O.S.Tweet Tweet Tweety
1952 Who's Kitten Who?Gift WrappedLittle Red Rodent HoodAin't She TweetHoppy Go LuckyA Bird in a Guilty CageTree for Two
1953 Snow BusinessA Mouse DividedFowl WeatherTom Tom TomcatA Street Cat Named SylvesterCatty CorneredCats A-weigh!
1954 Dog PoundedBell HoppyDr. Jerkyl's HideClaws for AlarmMuzzle ToughSatan's Waitin'By Word of Mouse
1955 Lighthouse MouseSandy ClawsTweety's CircusJumpin' JupiterA Kiddies KittySpeedy GonzalesRed Riding HoodwinkedHeir-ConditionedPappy's Puppy
1956 Too Hop to HandleTweet and SourTree Cornered TweetyThe Unexpected PestTugboat GrannyThe Slap-Hoppy MouseYankee Dood It
1957 Tweet ZooTweety and the BeanstalkBirds AnonymousGreedy for TweetyMouse-Taken IdentityGonzales' Tamales
1958 A Pizza Tweety-PieA Bird in a Bonnet
1959 Trick or TweetTweet and LovelyCat's PawHere Today, Gone TamaleTweet Dreams
1960 West of the PesosGoldimouse and the Three CatsHyde and Go TweetMouse and GardenTrip for Tat
1961 Cannery WoeHoppy DazeBirds of a FatherD' Fightin' OnesThe Rebel Without ClawsThe Pied Piper of GuadalupeThe Last Hungry Cat
1962 Fish and SlipsMexican BoardersThe Jet Cage
1963 Mexican Cat DanceChili WeatherClaws in the Lease
1964 A Message to GraciasFreudy CatNuts and VoltsHawaiian Aye AyeRoad to Andalay
1965 It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the HouseCats and BruisesThe Wild Chase
1966 A Taste of Catnip
1980 The Yolks on You
1995 Carrotblanca
1997 Father of the Bird
2011 I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat
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