These animals imitated the mores and customs of their human counterparts: shiftlessness, violence, grudge-holding, contempt for education, and other attributes common to the genre. Judging from the patch on the window-shade, they’re also color-blind.

Mushmouse and Punkin Puss are seen here in a rare moment of comity; usually they were at odds, employing tricks and gunplay to settle some long-forgotten score. Like most Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the era, it was a reminder to kids that their culture was manifestly inferior to its predecessor. There’s no way we could look at a modern cartoon, compare it to an old Tom & Jerry or Looney Tune, and not see the horrible cheapness of our times.

Did they not think kids would notice that the cat, supposedly mired in poverty, had an infinite number of stoves?