Western Animation / Cat Burglar

His lives are in your hands, folks. Good luck!

Cat Burglar is an interactive short cartoon created by Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker and directed by Mike Hollingsworth (of BoJack Horseman fame). It marks another experiment in Netflix's catalog of interactive media, following successes like Brooker’s own Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Though this is marked as an adult-animated production, it is noticeably Lighter and Softer than Brooker’s previous efforts, being a tribute to the works of Tex Avery.

The premise is simple. Rowdy, a cat who is also a burglar (get it?), seeks to break into a local museum to steal an impossibly valuable painting. Problem is, he doesn’t have the best luck and he’s down to a third of his nine lives after a string of comical misfortunes. Now the viewers must help him get past security, including inept guard dog Peanut, by correctly answering a series of trivia questions requiring a keen mind and quick reflexes.

The short premiered on Netflix on February 22, 2022. Watch the trailer here and a behind the scenes video here.

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Tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer: One of the ancient antiquities segments has Rowdy disguised as "Cleocatra" to distract Peanut, much like Bugs Bunny has done many, many times. It works a little too well, much to Rowdy's disgust.
• Addressing the Player:
  • Peanut informs the viewers at the start that this is an interactive short, encouraging them to have the remote, controller, phone or mouse ready when the questions pop up.
  • After losing the first of his three remaining lives, Rowdy reminds the viewers that they are in charge of continuing the plot by answering questions correctly and, thus, keeping him alive.
• Artistic License – Biology: It's anyone's guess how a male cat and a male dog are able to have biological children together in one of the bad endings. Rule of Funny is about as close to an answer you're going to get.
• Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: As a burglar, Rowdy spends most of the cartoon trying to avoid being caught by Peanut, the security guard. But when Peanut boasts that he has the only key to the display room, Rowdy walks up to him with a big Cheshire Cat Grin. Peanut does a nervous "Uh oh," and this leads to a segment where Rowdy chases after Peanut to get the key.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Essensially in all of the 6 main endings where Rowdy successfully steals the painting and become rich. To drive this further, he even gets away with tormenting the homeless Peanut when he's digging for food, except for one of the endings.
• Bad Guys Play Pool: Exaggerated. In the game over scene where Rowdy goes to Fire and Brimstone Hell, a Big Red Devil (possibly Satan himself) turns Rowdy's nine souls into pool balls. He hits them all into the same pocket of the pool table, leaving them trapped and hanging above a pit of fire, presumably for eternity.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Peanut set up several booby traps in the display room depending on the iterations that are more than deadly. He smiles and in the land mine variant wishes Rowdy good luck.
• Big Red Devil: In one of the game over scenes, Rowdy goes to Fire and Brimstone Hell and is tormented by a red devil with pointed ears, horns, and a pointy tail.
• Black Comedy: Rowdy's deaths are pretty brutal, and HILARIOUS! The same goes for some of Peanut's Amusing Injuries.
• Cats Are Mean: Rowdy is introduced by tormenting a poor squirrel, not to mention many of his rude actions throughout the short.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: Rowdy used to have nine lives, but he only has three at the start of this short. After you lose your first life, his spirit will explain that he's lost the other six to bad luck.
• Casting Gag: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Blas García voice God, who previously voiced Him in the dub of Bruce Almighty.
• Clingy Aquatic Life: In the scene where Rowdy makes Peanut fall asleep by playing a violin, Rowdy puts Peanut in a box that goes on a delivery truck, then a plane, then a boat that hits an iceberg and sinks into the ocean. Peanut walks back to the security office wrapped in seaweed, and with a starfish on his face.
• Deathly Dies Irae: In the ending where Rowdy’s soul gets his wings clipped while ascending to heaven and ends up in hell, dies irae, dies illa plays as he falls.
• Destructive Saviour: Whether he succeeds or not in capturing Rowdy, Peanut causes just as much, if not more, destruction to the museum and the artifacts inside.
• Dogs Are Dumb: Peanut isn’t the sharpest tooth in the dog's mouth. Whether that’s gonna keep him from stopping Rowdy is up to you.
• The Dog Bites Back:
  • Not just Peanut (obviously), but also the squirrel Rowdy tormented in the opening gets his revenge in one of the game over sequences.
  • One of Rowdy's deaths is Peanut somehow arresting the shadow puppets that Rowdy summoned with his hands. When Rowdy goes to investigate, Peanut uses shadow puppetry of his own to ram Rowdy into the ground.
• Driven to Suicide: One possible fate for Rowdy. After dressing up as Cleopatra and getting dragged into marriage by Peanut, the bad ending depicts the two in a loveless marriage with screaming children. Ultimately, Rowdy will choose to jump out the window to his death. It's the only ending where Rowdy dies via suicide.
• Failure Montage: After you lose your first life, Rowdy will chastise you for being careless with his lives before showing you why you’re only getting three lives instead of a cartoon cat's usual nine. His previous lives were lost, respectively, by being blown up by a TNT detonator, having a wall collapse on him, throwing a brick at a store window only for it to bounce back at him, be subjected to a Backwards-Firing Gun gag while holding up a bank, get attacked by a Killer Gorilla in an old lady's purse, and being executed via electric chair.
  Rowdy: "Well, there's a reason they don't call me 'lucky cat'..."
• Fat Bastard: The Big Red Devil (possibly Satan) who tortures Rowdy in one of the game over screens is so fat that his gut sticks out from under his shirt.
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: A potential fate for Rowdy should he lose all his lives. Quite obvious for a character who specializes in thievery.
• Fluffy Cloud Heaven: Rowdy seems to be heading for it after losing all his lives. The Man Upstairs (and later Peanut) has different ideas.
• Follow the Bouncing Ball: Or rather, follow Peanut's severed head. One of the choices has Rowdy lop off his head with a sword as it bounces to a song about how incompetent he is.
• French Jerk: The Museum Owner, who owns a hoity-toity museum and is physically and verbally abusive to Peanut, speaks with an exaggerated French accent.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: The spinning newspapers in the "Rowdy successfully steals the painting" endings are all fully readable beyond the main headline, with the exact contents changing in each ending.
• Gasshole: One of the bad endings has Peanut eating a sandwich with Rowdy's meat in it, then proceeding to fart out one of Rowdy's lives.
• Gone Horribly Right: One of the ancient antiquities segments has Rowdy disguised as "Cleocatra" in an attempt to seduce Peanut long enough to knock him out with a specter. However, it works a little too well, forcing Rowdy to go on a series of dates and can end up marrying Peanut if the player screws up the trivia segment.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Usually averted when something appears more detailed. The details don't warrant it being gross.
  • Played straight if you succeed in the mummy's trivia section. Rowdy had to get out of his skin like a suit, and while he succeeds, he realizes what he's missing. The armpit hair, the six nipples (some with piercings) and his innie are grossly designed. That female scream off-screen is warranted.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The default clothing mode for both main characters. Rowdy wears a black knit cap and turtleneck sweater and Peanut wears a security guard outfit, but neither of them wear pants or shoes.
• Hard Truth Aesop: Life Isn't Fair, and sometimes a bit of bad luck can screw up even the most foolproof plan. Peanut is just doing his job by stopping a thief, at the threat of going back to the pound and becoming a stray again. Yet to "win," you have to let Rowdy skewer Peanut in a variety of ways. And even if you decide to help Rowdy, the questions get harder the longer you persist.
• Hero Antagonist: Peanut serves as the barrier to Rowdy's goals, being a security guard who tries to get ahead of the cat burglar's antics.
• Homage: Brooker's goal for this series was to be a spiritual revival of Tex Avery's cartoons. Dragon's Lair and its use of The Many Deaths of You has also been cited by the crew as an inspiration.
• Improvised Parachute: If Rowdy succeeds in the pole-vaulting segment, it ends with him using a bra as a parachute.
• Jerkass: Not only Rowdy, but also the Museum Director, who verbally abuses Peanut everytime he's onscreen. He also hits Peanut with his cane.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Rowdy's Establishing Character Moment is chasing down a squirrel, mugging it for nuts, and dropkicking it. In any case you need a reminder that Rowdy is not a hero.
  • If Rowdy wins, he becomes rich while Peanut get fired and is forced to live on the streets, after which Rowdy will give him one last dose of physical harm for kicks, complete with Laughing Mad after doing so.
  • Likewise, if Rowdy loses all three lives, Peanut will often interrupt his ascension to Heaven to clip his wings and send him back to Earth.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After chopping off Peanut with his helicopter in the second ending, the vehicle ends up crashing against the rival museum and flung Rowdy through the building, killing him in the process.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: When Peanut realizes that an intruder has cut the security alarms as well as the cameras, he wastes no time in retaliating. He has Rowdy on the ropes in several of their encounters or subjects him to rather painful booby traps. You sometimes root for him and can sabotage Rowdy to lose.
• Logo Joke: The opening of the cartoon spoofs the title card for vintage MGM cartoons. It reads "A Cut-Rate Pictures Flixtoon: Technically in Color", over a parody of the MGM logo, with an elephant instead of Leo the Lion and the motto "Logo Spoofis Parodus".
• The Many Deaths of You: So many ways Rowdy can die. All so very funny and/or violent. Even Peanut is not safe from this.
• MacGuffin: The Priceless Painting at the museum is the central plot point of this short. Peanut has to guard it overnight to keep his job, while Rowdy wants to steal it and strike it rich.
• Maurice Chevalier Accent: The Museum Owner has an exaggerated French accent, fitting for his haughty personality.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Played straight with Peanut (see Beware the Nice Ones), but subverted with Rowdy. In the behind-the-scenes interview with Peanut and Rowdy, Peanut claims that he and Rowdy are great friends off-camera, and Rowdy isn't that bad. Rowdy proceeds to steal his money and put a mousetrap in Peanut's wallet.
• Mickey Mousing: In keeping with the classic cartoon style, the score includes plenty of this.
• Multiple Endings: For both victories and defeats. Notably, each time you win the game, a new painting will be added to the display in the rival museum, up to six in total.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While you can still fail and get a bad ending, if Peanut never taunted Rowdy with the key to the Priceless Display Vault, then the cat would have been unsuccessful in the heist no matter what he did.
• Off with His Head!: One scene has Rowdy decapitating Peanut, his head then becoming the bouncing ball in a Follow the Bouncing Ball sing-along. He also loses his head in some of the endings.
• Retraux: The cartoon has all the visual and musical aesthetics of a classic cartoon, particularly those of Tex Avery.
• Rule of Three: Each interactive section has a question with three sets of choices. You must get all three sets correctly or lose a life.
• Self-Deprecation: The fourth painting ending repeats the ending mentioned in Spinning Paper, with the additional headline "Dumb Audience Thought It Was Another Ending: Animators Make Small Variation To Save $$$".
• Shout-Out:
  • One Spinning Paper in the third ending features an ad for the Great Poochini, who looks like Tex Avery's Butch, with his conductor a dead ringer for Droopy himself.
  • Another Droopy reference: The voice of the priest in Peanut and "Cleocatra's" wedding sounds like an impression of Droopy.
  • In one successful ending, Rowdy removes his fur to get away from Peanut and the mummy he attached to his tail. In embarrassment, he pulls aside a clothing rack filled with Lawyer Friendly Cameos of many of Tex Avery's characters, including the aforementioned Butch, and the Wolf from Red Hot Riding Hood.
  • One of Rowdy's deaths ends up with his skin hanging on a wire. Also on the wire is a skin that's a dead ringer to Screwball Squirrel (1944). May also double as a Take That! considering Tex himself considered Screwy a Creator's Pest.
  • If Rowdy chops off Peanut's head, the body is pecked at by vultures resembling the ones in Avery's What's Buzzin', Buzzard.
  • The books Peanut is reading while in the security station are Old Yeller, "War and Perkingese", "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hydrant" and "Crime and Pugnishment". When reading Old Yeller, he asks the audience not to spoil the ending.
  • The stolen paintings Rowdy displays in his mansion in the victory endings are all parodies of actual famous paintings: "Girl with a Pearl Earring", "The Birth of Venus", "American Gothic", "The Mona Lisa", "Girl before a Mirror", and "Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear". ArtStation submission of the individual paintings here.
• Spinning Paper: Shows up in every painting ending. Exaggerated in the third one: after two plot-relevant papers, the third newspaper is about a string of spinning newspapers causing havoc all over the city. As Peanut finds his old uniform in the garbage, a random spinning newspaper flies by and decapitates him.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: In one of the endings after losing all three lives, GOD, of all people, allows Rowdy, and the viewer by extension, to retry the short and reach the true ending by stealing the painting.
• Too Dumb to Live: In the Failure Montage, some of Rowdy's deaths fall under this: trying to blow up a house while standing next to it, or attempting to hold up a jewelry store when the clerk is heavily armed. You probably also shouldn't light a match underground to determine your location, since gas lines are underground.
• Villain Protagonist: Rowdy is squarely in this role, as his primary objective is nabbing a priceless painting for his own gains.
• The Voiceless: Played with. While Rowdy never speaks when he's alive, his soul is very talkative whenever he dies.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Each time Rowdy loses a life, his spirit ascends skyward, complete with wings, halo, and angelic harp music. If you cost him his first (read: seventh) life, he will briefly stop mid-air to remind you that his remaining lives are in your hands.
• You Bastard!:
  • If you either accidentally or on-purpose mess up a trivia question, Rowdy will call you out for it the first time he dies. He reminds you that if he loses three lives, that's it, game over.
  • The endings where Rowdy successfully steals the painting consistently show Rowdy directly or indirectly killing a homeless Peanut digging for food in the trash. You can never take satisfaction from it.

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