Customer Reviews

Herman & Katnip [VHS]

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When I heard circa 1995 that there was a Herman & Katnip video with a collection of their cartoons, I went searching for it to no avail. Thank God for the Internet! I bought the video circa 2000.

Herman was probably Famous Studios/Harvey Cartoon's version of Bugs Bunny: rodent with a Brooklynese accent, urbane attitude, and a penchant for outwitting or outmaneuvering a larger-but-dumber predator--in Herman's case, the oft-flustered, kinda lovable Katnip. Perhaps as the youngest of my family, I "looked up" to the tiny little warrior who defended himself and his friends against a Bigger One. Herman was one of my heroes when I was a TV-addicted child in the 1960s.

Nine cartoons in this collection include: "Of Mice and Magic" (1953), in which Herman uses magician's tools in a old abandoned theater to rescue his girlfriend Louise from Katnip's clutches (and why are female cartoon animals almost always colored white?); Herman the Catoonist (1953), where the characters cavort around a cartoonist's drawing board; Northwest Mousie (1953), set in wintry Canada; Surf and Sound (1954), a beach adventure; Of Mice and Menace (1954), where Herman takes his three nephews to a penny arcade; Ship A-Hooey (1954), with Captain Herman and his crew aboard a ship; You Said a Mouseful (1958), where Herman tries to keep a little hungry mouse named Chubby out of trouble in Katnip's pizzeria.

I miss the ones about Herman on the railroad, or as Robin Hood, or as a princess' rescuer, or at the circus, or as a jazz orchestra conductor, or... I'm also sorry they haven't seen fit to release any Buzzy and Katnip cartoons, but today's audiences wouldn't be too happy with the obviously Black (as in African-American), Brer-Rabbit style trickery of Buzzy.

Anyway, I have nine Herman and Katnip cartoons. Great art? No. Great fun? Well--good fun. And precious nostalgia. Some may complain about the cartoon violence--pans on the head, mousetraps that spring on cats, and the required dynamite sticks. But like I said...good fun.