To Pete or not to Pete

[David Gerstein]

	Dear Eta,

"Point 2, the black cat appearing in the Alice Comedies being Pete is 
an assumption, not a fact, to the best of my knowledge, and I have 
recently researched the matter for an article on Pete I wrote for the 
Italian magazine IF.
	I concede, however, that I might be wrong on that, so please can 
anybody bring proof of that cat's Peteness?"

	Yikes! Eta, I think you were looking at the wrong animal for Pete...

	Pete isn't the cat in the Alice Comedies. That cat (Alice's best 
friend, looking a lot like Felix) is named Julius, and his name is 
given in many of the Alice cartoons I've seen.
	Pete is the BEAR in the Alice Comedies and later the Oswald cartoons. 
He is first called Bootleg Pete in ALICE SOLVES THE PUZZLE, but later 
gets other names like Putrid Pete, and Pegleg Pete. In these early days 
he's a little thinner than later, and his pegleg is a little longer.

	Pete appeared in the Oswald series after Alice ended, and in Oswald, 
Pete began to get fatter and wear more clothes. Finally he turns from a 
bear into a cat (by virtue of his nose and ears getting shorter) when 
the Mickey series begins.
	Interestingly, when Mintz and then Walter Lantz made Oswald cartoons 
after Disney, they continued to use the bear version of Pete as 
Oswald's enemy!

	Best, David