Herman and Katnip

Herman and Katnip is a duo of cartoon characters, Herman the mouse and Katnip the cat, that starred in theatrical animated shorts produced by Famous Studios in the 1940s and 1950s. Arnold Stang voiced Herman while Sid Raymond voiced Katnip.

From 1944 to September 1950, Herman the mouse, voice by Arnold Stang, was a solo star of theatrical animation shorts produced by Famous Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. Katnip the cat, voice by Sid Raymond, made his first appearance in November 1950 with "Mice Meeting You". The two characters continued to star in animated cartoons until 1959.

In 1958, they and the other original Famous characters were purchased by comic-book publisher Harvey Comics, which continued to promote the characters under the name Harveytoons. The 1944 to 1950 Herman the Mouse cartoons (originally released as part of the Noveltoon series) were sold by Paramount in 1955 to U.M. & M. TV Corporation for television distribution.

Animation historian Leonard Maltin described the Herman and Katnip series as a prime stereotype of the "violent cat versus mouse" battles that were commonplace among Hollywood cartoons of the 1920s through the 1960s. The violence in this series, while intended for comedic effect, often reached a level of brutality that surpassed both Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse, and Warner Bros.' Sylvester the Cat. Most of Herman's battles with Katnip ended with Herman victorious; a few had Katnip sharing in Herman's spoils or Herman's victory coming at some other cost. Frequently Herman and his mouse companions would sing a victory song as they observed Katnip being brutally tortured; e.g. being eaten by sharks, killed in a rockslide while mountain climbing, strung up with Christmas lights and plugged into an electric socket, getting electrocuted by a "shock tester" machine, then flattened by it; or even dying and his ghost being warned about "the fiery furnace". Originally Herman and Katnip intended to appear as a cameo in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit in the deleted scene "Acme's Funeral". [1]

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