Eats are West

Hungry Felix the Cat wanders and ponders into town, where he comes upon a tea room. Typically impecunious, he questions how he might pay for a meal; ever resourceful, he uses the question mark that forms above his head to tip the tea pot-shaped sign of the eatery in order to get a drink, but the needy thief is evicted by a tea cup hurled from within. Shaking his fist from a distance, he ponders again. Felix comes upon a whitewasher putting up a poster that reads "Try Mammy's Flapjack Flour." Struck again with inspiration, the clever thief absconds with the pancakes on the mammy's plate, but she will not stand for this and emerges from her poster angry. Felix runs with Mammy hot on his trail. As he trips and falls, the stolen pancakes drop to the ground and stand on their edges: Felix now emits exclamation points which he fashions into a handcar, the flapjacks serving as wheels. He pumps for dear life through the rails of a fence; the car comes apart, but our feline hero now sits on a fence rail and realizes a quicker mode of escape exists: with more exclamation points, he constructs a propeller, and he taunts Mammy as he zooms away. Mammy shakes her fist, watching in amazement. From his high perch, Felix enjoys a smoke.

A title card reads: Westward -- pursued by hunger. Felix paces; he spots a man on horseback. Another title explains: The pony express -- late with grub for the boys. More exclamation points! Felix fashions an umbrella, jumps from his plank, and gently floats down into the rider's sack. The iris finds Felix inhaling sausages. We arrive at the lodging of some hungry cowboys. The pack is delivered and -- "CAUGHT," reads the title. In an instant, the cowboys' six shooters come out; Felix closes the light. BANG! Against the black scene, we see white puffs of smoke and white silhouettes of Felix and his assailants in a mad tangle. Felix shows enormous skills at hand-to-hand combat as well as gunslinging. The lights relume, and we find the buckaroos felled. Felix sneaks out under a ten gallon hat and evades a few more bullets fired from within the lodging. Now pursued on horseback, the cat whips out a lasso and deftly snaps it into the shape of a horse; the new creature bucks on being mounted, but flees at its maker's command.

"The pace made a wreck of the horse," reads a new title. Spindly now, the horse collapses; but it has served its purpose. Felix shrugs and glibly blows a kiss in the direction of his far-off tormentors. Close by, an American Indian offers a bowl to his chief, who bellows: "Heap tired soup! Chief want meat!" A native scout sees Felix and therein an opportunity to please the chief: he fires arrows at the tiny quarry, but Felix dodges these even when they pursue him; he hides perfectly behind a skinny tree.

On horseback now with an army, the chief is now on the prowl for Felix. Pacing hurriedly, a frightened Felix pulls out a couple of revolvers and begins to fire madly in every direction, blowing heads and limbs off of threatening silhouettes. An arrow catches his tail and pulls him through the air back into the city where still he fires like mad, enveloping all in smoke. Fired yet for battle, he sees a cigar store Indian and blindly shoots it full of holes. A constable on patrol gives Felix the eye; seeing his folly, a weak-kneed Felix drops his guns and flees.

• Felix the Cat filmography