The Cat Came Back
1988 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Cordell Barker
Genres: animation, comedy, musical
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
In this animated musical short based on a traditional folk song, Old Mr. Johnson tries ever more frantic schemes to get rid of a small yellow cat that keeps returning to his home.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Look, it's a children's animation built on a folk song—textbook safe—but Barker turns repetition into something genuinely unhinged, each escalation more violent and absurd than the last; it's what happens when you hand a subversive sensibility a traditional premise and let him demolish it frame by frame.
Barker's *The Cat Came Back* is a masterclass in how constraint breeds formal elegance—animating to a pre-existing song structure forces compositional rigor, and the escalating gag architecture sits squarely in the lineage of classic theatrical animation, executed with impeccable timing and visual clarity.
The genius move here is the color palette: that single bright yellow cat against muted, naturalistic backgrounds creates instant visual hierarchy and makes each slapstick beat land harder without needing a bigger budget, just a smarter chromatic choice.