"Meow! Meow!"
Ventriloquist Cat is a 1950 animated short directed by Tex Avery.
The short opens with a black cat scribbling the phrase "I hate dogs" all over an alley. At that moment, Butch appears on the scene and the cat accidentally writes on him. After losing Butch, the cat hides in a box of props outside a magic shop, where he finds a ventriloquist gadget. Now able to throw his "Meow" anywhere he wants, the cat decides to have fun with his pursuer by using his new skill to play tricks on Butch throughout the short, with the poor bulldog receiving Amusing Injuries at every turn.
Tropes present in this short:
- Always Need What You Gave Up: After getting Butch in trouble with a bunch of dogs, the cat tosses away his ventriloquism device before laughing while mockingly going 'Meow!'. Unfortunately, without the gadget, the dogs were able to tell the 'Meows' were actually coming from, resulting in them chasing him.
- Fur Is Clothing: For one of his tricks, the cat projected his meow at a series of mannequins dressed in suits. Butch then stripped the suits off each dummy looking for the cat. The cat then projected his meow onto a police officer, and Butch ends up stripping him down to his boxers before realizing he wasn't a mannequin. In retaliation, the officer pulls Butch's fur down, leaving him in his boxers.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After spending the whole episode playing tricks on Butch, the cartoon ends with the cat being trapped in the middle of a telephone pole between Butch and a pack of dogs.
- Offscreen Inertia: The cartoon ends with the cat caught between Butch at the top of a telephone pole and other dogs at the bottom, running up and down the pole well into the night.
- Oh, Crap!: The cat escapes a pack of dogs by climbing up a telephone pole. Unfortunately, Butch is on the top of that pole due to the cat's last prank. The cat is too busy laughing at the other dogs to notice Butch at first, and once he does, his taunting meows gradually dwindle down to a few pathetic mews.
- Pain to the Ass: When Butch hides inside a barrel, the cat puts a dynamite stick inside. It goes off, and Butch looks behind him and holds the barrel up in modesty. The cat then puts a mirror behind Butch to show the audience his scalded backside.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: As a last attempt to catch the cat, Butch disguises himself as a female cat using a masking and a fake cat tail.
- Torso with a View: When Butch uses a kite to chase after a box-tied balloon he thinks the cat is in, the cat sends a stick of dynamite up the kite's string, resulting in a big hole being blown in the middle of the kite (and presumably Spike), big enough for a duck to fly through it.
- Ventriloquism: The cat finds a device that allows him to throw his voice and uses it to mess with Butch.
