Three Little Kittens (bizarre 1933 Van Beuren cartoon classic)

[@annfrazier7275]

I'm 65 and used to watch these in the fifties. Right now I am watching with my 14 week old kitten who seems to like it as much as I do.

[@nightbloomer4739]

I’m 75 and rediscovering beauty of animation in 30s & 40s. The series Happy Harmonies, Silly Symphonies are especially great. For lovers of Fantasia, I highly recommend.

[@marshallamdur9732]

Saw this years ago on TCM and have wanted to rewatch it since! Thanks for sharing!! MEEOOOWWW!!!!!!!

[@HooDatDonDar]

Theatre where I saw this, huge laugh at the end, when the kittens get up. Calls of ‘ oh, they’re so cute!’ ( sarcastic) and ‘wow not a wimpy cartoon’. All thru the next few cartoons, someone would call ‘meow, meow, meow’ in this cartoons style. I guess no one was expecting the last half of the cartoon.

[@Pensive_Scarlet]

Those are the most hardcore kittens I've ever seen. They almost snapped that rat's neck! And they're soooooooo cute~ :3

[@bentropiansky1576]

The cheese slicer, which as a kid I perceived as a hooded figure, haunted me for many years. I was amazed to refind this cartoon after so long. How horrible it would have been if the other kittens hadn't gotten there in time. But, unlike life, cartoons always have a happy ending.

[@krazykat1977]

Original title: Rough On Rats. This is a classic, a wonderful mix of crude animation, surrealism, and a Gene Rodemich musical score.

[@StarMan831]

To be fair, all that black kitten did initially was pull his tail, and the rat decided to kill him for it, and it can assumed they were siblings so of course they would be protective of each other. But yeah it went bit farther than necessary.

[@christineklinger]

Love this cartoon it's so cute and funny. Thanks for sharing the video and for the laughs.

[@elmerjadams]

This is really ROUGH ON RATS (1933).

[@80srama1]

One of my favourite cartoons, although it has a disturbing edge. One moment it's three kittens frolicking around to bouncy 30's music, then they're in a violent confrontation with a giant rat out of a horror flick. Parents might find the rodent's treatment disgusting, but when I saw the film screened at a public library years ago, the kids were cheering the kitties on, laughing at the rat's demise. It's a cartoon thing, leave it at that.

[@HooDatDonDar]

Yeah, kids can like that stuff. Read uncensored Bros. Grimm fairy tales sometime. Ogden Nash: *Don’t Cry, Darling, It’s Blood All Right* Whenever poets want to give you the idea that something is particularly meek and mild, They compare it to a child, Thereby proving that though poets with poetry may be rife They don’t know the facts of life. If of compassion you desire either a tittle or a jot, Don’t try to get it from a tot. Hard-boiled, sophisticated adults like me and you May enjoy ourselves thoroughly with Little Women and Winnie-the-Pooh, But innocent infants these titles from their reading course eliminate As soon as they discover that it was honey and nuts and mashed potatoes instead of human flesh that Winnie-the-Pooh and Little Women ate. Innocent infants have no use for fables about rabbits or donkeys or tortoises or porpoises, What they want is something with plenty of well-mutilated corpoises. Not on legends of how the rose came to be a rose instead of a petunia is their fancy fed, But on the inside story of how somebody’s bones got ground up to make somebody else’s bread. They go to sleep listening to the story of the little beggarmaid who got to be queen by being kind to the bees and the birds, But they’re all eyes and ears the minute they suspect a wolf or a giant is going to tear some poor woodcutter into quarters and thirds. It really doesn’t take much to fill their cup; All they want is for somebody to be eaten up. Therefore I say unto you, all you poets who are so crazy about meek and mild little children and their angelic air, If you are sincere and really want to please them, why just go out and get yourselves devoured by a bear

[@gnikcohs]

Disturbing? Anybody seen Itchy & Scratchy? This was just before the Hays Code and may have been a bit more violent than cartoons would be for awhile but I think Van Beuren was poking fun of Mickey Mouse and used a little reference to The Mad Doctor cartoon. Walt was suing Van Beuren for their use of Mickey and Minnie clones in The Office Boy and Red Riding Hood. Anyway it's a great, funny, cartoon from a studio too many of whose cartoons are in obscure collections of "banned" or "forgotten"

[@sockjean2967]

“Three little kittens so happy and gay”

[@MrGONZILA84]

AMAZING CARTOON!!! THE MUSIC IS PERFECT!!

[@LyricJCartoons]

Originally released as "Rough On Rats". And yes, it's from Van Beuren

[@HooDatDonDar]

Rough on Rats = an arsenic-based rat poison sold for many decades.

[@FlameAdder]

Three Little Kittens for Cuphead DLC

[@LoganBrewer-d4n]

so cute

[@HuggyBoBo]

Great version of the age old "Three Little Kittens" kids' rhyme. Thanks for sharing this. Have an awesome day. Sending you best wishes from all at HuggyBoBo 👀🎈

[@dancetomlover99abandoned98]

Hi huggybobo

[@f1f1s]

My left ear went mad in the beginning.

[@jackieb8504]

Right 💨♓

[@Tsumami__]

Well that escalated quickly

[@gnikcohs]

What a great cartoon, perfect the way the kittens went from cute innocent play to relentless, but still playful, rat killing. Part of the chilling effect of the toon is how in the last minute the rat went from trying to attack the kittens to a convincingly battered and beaten, even pathetic, wreck which the ever playful kittens seemed to have so merrily killed. The rat choking was, atypically for a cartoon, particularly convincing. All that made the cartoon hit one's sensibilities harder than cartoon violence normally provokes, and also made the kittens enjoyment of the whole thing a bit shocking, but that rat needed to be killed. I think this is almost certainly Van Beuren. Official Films was a home film distributor which got the rights to a bunch of Van Beuren cartoons. I think Jungle Jinks was the name Official marketed the cartoons under. I had never seen the word Jinks except in high jinks and jinks means playful, frolicsome acts. So Jungle Jinks is quite appropriate for this cartoon.

[@LAPO5511]

Rough On Rats Original title

[@wiseoldude]

Thanks for posting! This is one of my all-time favorite cartoons. I always thought the music was done by Cab Calloway's band but I see no credits on the intro.

[@doobiesmoke15]

Awesome, so much better than so many other cartoons that portray filthy disease spreading rodents as cute and harmless while portraying the beloved pet cats who protect us from them as evil oafs

[@joanhill230]

6:26 Did they just flip off the dead rat? :o

[@koopercoleman1369]

Joan Hill i think they are

[@HooDatDonDar]

No, that’s thumbs up.

[@StarMan831]

Ain't no kill like overkill.

[@OpinionsAnimationStudios]

@zwerty007 Crikey. It was *many* years ago, m8 ..Early 1990's from a mail order house & it was VHS. I think the title was indeed 'Banned Cartoons'. & the titles I *do* recall on said tape were : Walter Lantz's 'Scrub Me Mamma With A Boogie Beat', 'Little Eva', 'Bugs Bunny : All This And Rabbit Stew', 'Thank You, Masked Man' (This was animated to a Lenny Bruce monologue from the LP of the same name), and of course '3 Little Kittens', amongst many others. The VHS is obviously Out Of Print.

[@cpake3198]

6:30 so each little kitten is happy and gay did i hear wrong or did that sound like the old lady said gay

[@K-o-R]

These Cuphead bosses are really getting out of hand.

[@sonicfanboy3375]

Can imagine a Cuphead boss inspired by the rat

[@benjamintropiansky2257]

That cheese slicer gives me nightmares to this very day.

[@rick_terscale1111]

Partyraiser & Furyan - We Just Dont Stop (Official video clip) brought me here. :D

[@sabalouie2000]

What a dark twist.

[@gdlywom]

Now THAT'S a cat and mouse cartoon! Or in this case, kittens vs. a rat! Get him, kitties!!! :-)

[@HooDatDonDar]

4:34 That slicer got moved back. Hero save.

[@zwerty007]

@BadNews88 Wow, thanks. I probably won't get the VHS, but I'll definately look at the other ones on the internet. I liked your original post, btw.

[@dominickdirienzo8266]

At least this didn’t include a mean shop keeper who would’ve tossed those kittens out in the street or worse!

[@thecinemasnob]

I was sent here by me. =)

[@zsquaresoff]

This is how Jerry should've been treated by Tom :P

[@ziggy12657]

I hate that little bastard Jerry. The rodent gets away with everything.

[@marshaholt9419]

super mario bros 2 at 5:04

[@jesusnthedaisychain]

Yeah, after the kitten started messing with him by pulling his tail.

[@pqribber]

Theramin in the orchestra, too!

[@TheIgnatzz]

Probably is Van Beuren. Foster used to do the Tom and Jerry's.

[@joanhill230]

6:26 Uh...did those kittens just flip us off?😳

[@jesusnthedaisychain]

That rat was just minding his own business. The kittens started this fight. That's what's most disturbing. It's a cartoon version of a gang initiation.

[@HooDatDonDar]

They were just playing ( ignoring the whole cat and mouse thing). The rat then tried to slice one of them alive. No wonder he got it.

[@acla9000]

The kittens didn't know there was in fact a big nasty rat behind that "string".

[@OpinionsAnimationStudios]

When I first saw this - on a banned cartoon compilation - I went: "What The Hell? Who directed this? Brian DePalma or Paul Verhoeven?" Facetious, of course, m8's..But, I'd not be surprised iof THEY feasted their peepers on this during their growing-up years! Ennyroad, thanx fer the clip, m8's..

[@adetayomichaelakinyemi]

Blossom-Orange Bubbles-Yellow Buttercup-Black

[@dancetomlover99abandoned98]

That’s from ppg name something else

[@Lucius1958]

"Sure makes you drop yer doughnuts!"

[@RMCultOfficial]

where the hell is the mama cat during the entire show??!?!?!

[@johnlandis2552]

not really bizarre, compared to other 'toons of the time and genre, such as winsor mccay's "rarebit fiend" stuff

[@mcrp_]

john landis You should see the little king series. That shit is bizarre AF

[@Bizarronumber4]

Also the Fleischer cartoons of the time, they're really wild!

[@skylarsquid0641]

After their moms first appearance, where is she?

[@HopethePrincess]

...other than the cigars and the noose thing- the cigars only because they are little kittens, and thus babies- I don't really find anything too gruesome or terrible about this cartoon... lol I guess for the time, of course, it was terrible, but my only basis for comparison is many decades later, with the cartoon Tom and Jerry. Many a cigar, many a noose... much more violent. Bah, I dunno. This didn't strike me as horrible as my friend made it out to be lol

[@Kodocha7]

brad and sarah brought me here

[@HoboProductionsCo]

I think its kinda cute

[@HooDatDonDar]

P.S. This villian would do better to go over to the “Swing, You Sinners!” cartoon and steal some chickens.

[@ZyxthePest]

Cinema Snob brought me here. Poor Sarah lol.

[@marshaholt9419]

creepy ending

[@ferociousgumby]

Why does castor oil show up in all these cartoons?

[@AlbinoTanuki]

Yeah, but didn't that rat try to put one of the kittens through a meat slicer?

[@zwerty007]

@BadNews88 Can you give me this banned catoon compilation? I'm interested!

[@cmh6911]

That looks just like me

[@liambyrne5450]

I'm not wholefully convinced here, this seems a fairly typical ol'fashioned cartoon beatdown, nooseing included, people just seemed to me to have gotten a little jumpy when such an image preceded what appeared to be the Rat simply being knocked out, of course I would prefare that the rat was mercilessly killed in that shot by the kittens since that would make this dry cartoon at least somewhat entertaining but it all seems too damn asinine to be a cartoon snuff film, but hey I hope I am wrong.

[@dancetomlover99abandoned98]

Cute till 3:53 🤯

[@arbitor365]

pause around 6:34

[@jackieb8504]

Jon Clerwater

[@momoandmiz]

Everything was cute until about 3:53

[@PerFranck]

how is this bizzare? Have you guys seen yugioh?

[@lennoxsanimationsstudioonb7130]

Cartoon hippo's theme song what if☻

[@ziggy12657]

At least there wasn’t an abusive human in this cartoon. Cute little kittens don’t deserve to be mistreated.

[@faiyahdude5279]

Did I just saw them flipping the bird? 6:28

[@sonicfanboy3375]

I think those are their thumbs 👍

[@HooDatDonDar]

Ok, so they shouldn’t have pulled his tail. But he way overreacted. Some people are like that, bent and evil - dis them and they get all ‘ I have to keep up my badass rep, who care who gets hurt’. I think that is what is being shown here - horror films often have this kind of creepy obsessive in them. See how the rat’s lair looks like a horror film set.

[@Rockfist63]

Did she say gay 6:19

[@acla9000]

Formerly 'gay' would be used as a synonym of happy, joyful, enthusiastic.

[@ChasformerG2]

I was sent here by the Cinema Snob.

[@metalmugen]

the music keeps getting more and more out of control as the story progresses ,. by the end of the video is like it does not give a fuck fucking disturbing

[@ovidiu-adriansabie3795]

rat

[@jackieb8504]

Right 💨♓ Aight chee ➿k

[@redzeppelin6]

it's just you

[@SodaPolycarbonate]

Is it just me or is there a strangely racist quality to this - i.e. at the start the black kitten is left behind and acts a little ditzy?

[@HooDatDonDar]

That’s just you.