Dodsworth the cat

Dodsworth is a fictional cat from the Merrie Melodies series loosely based on W.C. Fields. He is depicted as a larger lethargic cat with marking almost identical to Sylvester. He was very lazy and was proud of that fact. His attempts to coerce a white kitten to do his work for him ultimately backfire.

## Appearance in Kiddin' the Kitten

The cartoon starts with Dodsworth's mistress on a table and screaming as a group of mice steal food and take it to their hole. She then got down from the table and walked to Dodsworth, who is laying down on his bed and eating sardines instead of catching the mice. She is mad at Dodsworth because of his laziness, and she told him that he'll be out of his home if he doesn't get rid of the mice. As soon as his mistress walks away, Dodsworth sets up a school of mouse catching, which he pretends to be a professor of.

Dodsworth heard a knock on the door, and he opened it to see a white kitten outside. After he lets the kitten in, he hooks the kitten to a fishing line and casts him into the kitchen. The kitten sees the mice, who are carrying more food to their hole, and he started chasing them. The chase with one mouse went on until that mouse went into the hole. The kitten managed to catch the mouse by setting his fingers up like a mouse trap and placed a piece of cheese on it. With two tugs on the fishing line, Dodsworth reeled the kitten back and placed the caught mouse in a cage, but he also told the kitten that he has to catch more than just one mouse in order to graduate. He casts the kitten back into the kitchen, and the kitten saw three more mice, who each went inside a different hole. The kitten got a hunk of cheese out of the fridge and placed ball bearings in the cheese. He then carried the cheese to the mouse holes, stick signs on it, and watched all the mice come out of their holes and eat the cheese while out of their sight. Once the mice finished eating all the cheese, they all went back into their holes, and the kitten tugged twice on the fishing line again, signaling Dodsworth to reel him back for the second time. Dodsworth asked the kitten where the mice are, and the kitten got out a magnet, which attracts the mice because of the ball bearings in the cheese they ate. Dodsworth is surprised by this, and while all the caught mice were put in the cage, he heard his mistress calling him, causing him to hand the kitten his diploma and rush him out of the house. When the mistress saw all the mice in the cage, the kitten went back inside to see that Dodsworth is getting credit for the kitten's work of catching all the mice in the house. While Dodsworth and his mistress went into the kitchen, the kitten opened the cage and poured water on the mice, causing them to run loose and cause trouble for Dodsworth and his mistress. The kitten went out the door and back in the house through the kitchen door. In the kitchen, Dodsworth is bound, gagged, and knocked out with a mallet by one of the mice, while the mistress is on a box and screaming as the rest of the mice danced around like Indians. The kitten then got all the mice out of the house.

The cartoon ends with the kitten laying down on Dodsworth's bed, with Dodsworth's name on it crossed out, and behaving the same way Dodsworth did, while the mice went back inside the house and started stealing food again.

## Appearance in A Peck O'Trouble

Lazy Dodsworth the Cat wants to catch a woodpecker for his breakfast. The woodpecker has built its home inside the upper trunk of a very tall tree, and Dodsworth puts on a professor's cap, pretending to be a passive teacher of bird-catching and thereby deceive an eager-to-learn kitten into doing the perilous ascending of the tree to try to catch the woodpecker. The true fact, is Dodsworth's schemes were deceptive and deceiving the kitten, throughout.

He was voiced by Sheldon Leonard.