Marc Antony (referred to as Marc Anthony on his food dish in Feed the Kitty) and Pussyfoot (sometimes called "Kitty" or "Cleo" in some of the WB animation history books) are animated characters in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of five shorts, including Feed the Kitty, Feline Frame-Up, and Kiss Me Cat. Marc Antony is a burly bulldog that is usually brown with a tan belly and black ears, though his coloration varies in some shorts. He bears a close resemblance to Hector the Bulldog, but with thinner back legs and minus the outer fangs. Pussyfoot/Cleo, in contrast, is an extremely cute, blue-eyed black-and-white Tuxedo cat to whom Marc Antony is utterly devoted with motherly passion. The characters seem to be named as an allusion to Marc Antony and Cleopatra, who were lovers detailed in Plutarch's Parallel Lives. Chuck Jones, the creator, has discussed the efforts to maximize the kitten's sheer adorableness. All head and eyes, it is black with a white face and belly and a white tip on its fluffy tail. Fans frequently confuse Marc Antony for Hector, but by right they are not the same.
Influence
Pussyfoot has appeared in some Warner Bros. merchandising, and the pair have been featured in various Warner Bros. productions, such as the third segment of the 1983 Twilight Zone movie, and a 1999 Looney Tunes comic book story called "Bringing Up Baby". Tiny Toon Adventures featured a similar character named Barky Marky who was a comparatively minor character on the show. The pair were also an inspiration for the Buttons and Mindy characters that were featured in the successor to Tiny Toons, Animaniacs. Interestingly enough, in the Buttons and Mindy short Cat on a Hot Steel Beam, the cat that Mindy follows throughout the cartoon is none other than Pussyfoot. Pussyfoot makes a cameo appearance in Chuck Jones' 1995 short Another Froggy Evening. Jones would later revisit the gimmick of a cute kitten with an unlikely protector in a MGM Tom and Jerry short, The Unshrinkable Jerry Mouse, with Jerry becoming a kitten's friend and protector against a selfish and jealous Tom (the plot of which was borrowed from Feline Frame-Up).
A segment of Feed the Kitty, in which an apparently "inconsolable" Marc Antony believes that Pussyfoot has been turned into a cookie (and unaware that the kitten is actually perfectly safe), was the subject of a homage in the 2001 Pixar film Monsters, Inc. in which Sulley believes that a little human girl he is protecting has fallen into a trash compactor, and reenacts the scene with Marc Antony nearly shot-for-shot.
A reference is also made to Feed the Kitty in the 13th and 14th episodes of season 14 of South Park with Eric Cartman acting as Pussyfoot and Cthulhu as Marc Antony in his "cute kitten" routine.
Feed the Kitty is available on DVD, appearing on the compilation Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 1, disc 3 and Looney Tunes Spotlight Collection, and Blu-ray, on Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 1.
Appearances
Classic shorts
- "Cheese Chasers" (1951) First appearance of Marc Antony.
- "Feed the Kitty" (1952) First appearance of Pussyfoot.
- "Kiss Me Cat" (1953)
- "Feline Frame-Up" (1954)
- "No Barking" (1954) Marc Antony Cameo.
- "Go Fly a Kit" (1957)
- "To Itch Its Own" (1958) Marc Antony as Buther
- "Cat Feud" (1958) Final appearances of Pussyfoot & Marc Antony.
- "Another Froggy Evening" (1995) (Pussyfoot cameo)
Other media
- Animaniacs episode 14, part "Cat on a Hot Steel Beam" (Pussyfoot only)
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Marc Antony only, colored grey)
- Space Jam
- Looney Tunes: Back in Action
- Tweety's High-Flying Adventure (Pussyfoot only)