Felix and the Rhinoceros is a 1960 Felix the Cat cartoon, and the 40th episode of the Felix the Cat (Joe Oriolo) series.
Professor is watching Felix go to the circus on his Ray-O-Gram as the cat goes up to the despondent looking circus owner, asking how business is doing. He reveals it's not doing good and needs a new, odd attraction and that whoever could provide it would become famous. Felix decides to help him, and shows his Magic Bag of Tricks to him, transforming it into a plane and taking off, impressing the owner. Professor gets an idea and runs to an airplane he has stored in his lab, taking off to the circus. Professor contacts Felix and asks where he's going, and Felix tells him he's flying to the jungle, but it's none of his business. After a brief chase, Felix evades Professor through the clouds, and sets off to find a circus oddity. He eventually lands at the coast of a jungle, and turns his Magic Bag to normal. Felix soon encounters a man wearing a tribal mask, and the man introduces himself as a Witch Doctor, and orders Felix to go home, saying the jungle is dangerous. He points him to a "Cat Eating Plant" nearby, and Felix looks at it as the doctor takes off his mask, revealing himself to be Professor, who runs into the plant and uses it to snap at Felix, scaring him. Felix throws a nearby coconut into the plant, which ends up conking Professor in the noggin. Felix whistles as he walks through the jungle as Professor sets up another trap for him—a caged rhino he owns named Tiny, and a rope trap with a banana in it. Felix falls for it and gets snared. Professor frees Tiny and laughs as the rhino charges at Felix, who calls for help.
Unable to stop the rhino, Felix decides not to go hungry, munches on the banana he has, and tosses the peel aside. Tiny slips on the peel and spins through the air like a buzzsaw, which Felix uses to free himself from the rope. Felix escapes and wonders if he should go home as Professor rushes back to his plane and disguises himself as a monkey. Felix gets scared as the "monkey" chases after him, but things get worse when he encounters a gorilla just ahead, so he hides in a bush. Professor also gets scared by the gorilla and flees as the gorilla chases him. Felix, hiding from both of them, finds a pair of ostrich eggs, with a crocodile sleeping nearby. Professor then shows up near the lizard, and hides in a hole near it. The gorilla runs past, stomping on the crocodile, but Professor pops his head out and the lizard assumes he was the one who did it, and chases him back to his plane, chewing off his costume bite by bite. Professor is safe inside, but the lizard falls asleep next to the plane. Professor searches in his trunk and grabs a ghost costume, using it to scare the crocodile away. Not far away, Felix is resting on a rock and tells the Magic Bag that they've had no luck and should go home, but a stampede of animals rushes nearby. Felix wonders what's scaring them, and sees a "ghost" doing it. Felix mistakes Professor's disguise for an oddity, and turns the Magic Bag into a butterfly net, capturing him. He ties him to his airplane and carries him back to the circus. The circus owner brings in big bucks from the new attraction, but Felix wishes the Professor was around to study this, failing to notice Professor flustering in his cage about being foiled again. Felix rests in a hammock and reads one of his comics, laughing as the cartoon irises out.
Tropes:
- Bedsheet Ghost: Professor disguises himself as one to scare Felix late in the cartoon.
- Blooper: Even though it's daytime at the circus where Felix is at, Professor takes off from his laboratory at night and arrives at the circus soon after.
- Cool Plane: Felix's Magic Bag rocket plane. Professor's airplane is pretty spiffy looking, too.
- Hulk Speak: Professor talks like this while disguised as a jungle native.
- Man-Eating Plant: Felix encounters one in the jungle, but it's actually a machine built by Professor.
- Ironic Name: "Tiny" the rhino is anything but tiny.
- Show Within a Show: Felix reads one of his own comics in the end of the cartoon.
