"Pizzicato Pussycat" is a 1955 Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng. In it, a suburban couple named John and Vy Jones keep hearing piano music playing from within the house but have no idea where it's coming from. Coincidentally, their (unseen) daughter Mary Lou's toy piano has been missing for days. Meanwhile, the house cat catches a mouse... only for that very mouse to reveal that he's the pianist who's been playing Mary Lou's piano for the last few days. When the Jones's come inside the room, the cat abruptly hides the mouse in their grand piano and pretends to play it. Amazed, Vy calls the press, and the starry-eyed cat agrees to spare the mouse's life if he can continue to be the former's musical puppet. Unfortunately, the cat and mouse team's big concert turns out to be a disaster when a mishap exposes the cat as a fraud. Things temporarily return to normal with the cat chasing the mouse... until the cat accidentally discovers that he has a talent for drumming after trying to smack the mouse with a set of drumsticks. The cartoon ends with the cat and mouse playing upbeat jazz music together, while the Jones decide to keep their unusually talented pet duo a permanent family secret.
"Pizzicato Pussycat" provides examples of:
- Blind Without Them: The mouse needs his big glasses to read music. When they break accidentally during the concert, he can't play properly and the cat is exposed as a fraud.
- 15 Minutes of Fame: A variation. The cat's fame ends not out of people growing bored with him, but because the above-mentioned accident quickly reveals him to be a fraud.
- Bowdlerise: The version of this cartoon shown on Nickelodeon (and ABC's The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show after 1994) cut the scene near the cartoon's end in which the mouse emerges from a cymbal on the drum set and acts Chinese for a few seconds.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In spite of the cat and his owners being publicly disgraced, the cartoon has a happy ending, as the cat and mouse become a private jazz duo for the Jones's.
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: John and Vy's daughter, Mary Lou.
- Hidden Depths: The cat, when chasing the mouse, discovers he has a talent for jazz drumming. Thus, they become a jazz duo for the Jones's.
- Knee-High Perspective: In some scenes, the Jones' are only seen from the waist down. They're actually the same husband/wife couple that was in the previous year's "Goo-Goo Goliath" (except with the wife being named Vy rather than Ethel).
