Cool Cat is a hip Bengal tiger cartoon character

Cool Cat is one of the very rare tiger cartoon characters. There certainly aren't many of them. Jeff Rovin in The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Cartoon Animals tells us that Cool Cat was a "Late entry into the Warner Brothers theatrical cartoon stable".

Cool Cat a hip, bipedal Bengal tiger cartoon character. Image: MikeB from Wikipedia commons.

He was a bipedal hep (hip) Bengal tiger. He wears a collar and necktie. He first appeared in Cool Cat in 1967 in which he is hunted by the "ineffectual Colonel Rimfire". The colonel travels through the jungle on a four-wheel drive robotic elephant named Ella! Col Rimfire tries again in Big Game Haunt in which he pursues the tiger into a haunted house were both of them were terrified by Spooky the ghost.

Rimfire always comes out the loser in subsequent cartoons featuring a circus and a Grand Prix. Cool Cat also has adventures at college in Bugged by a Bee. In that cartoon he impresses the girls with his athletic prowess according to Rovin. In fact he gets stung by a bee consistently. In another he seen with desert-dwelling Indians (Injun Trouble).

The voice of Cool Cat is provided by Larry Storch. Robert McKimson was the director the last two cartoons in the series.

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Jack L Warner reorganised the Warner Bros animation department in 1967. Rovin tells us that "the cat appeared in six cartoons (1968 to 1969). The animation, gags and characterisation were not up to the standards of Warner Brothers (Bugs Bunny, Road Runner)."

This observation seems to tie in with the reorganisation of the animation department referred to. Cool Cat reappeared later on in The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries television series. He was voiced by Joe Alaskey. He has brief cameo parts in most of the episodes.

Both the tiger and the colonel appear as major characters in the 2000 direct-to-video movie Tweety's High-Flying Adventure according to Wikipedia. The tiger's voice is provided by Jim Cummings while the colonel's voice is by Joe Alaskey.