Kangaroos are interesting animals. They are marsupials which means that the females lack a placenta or womb. This means that they have really small gestation periods and the young are born in a near unrecognizable state. The young then crawl into a pouch that their mother has where they will latch onto a nipple and suckle constantly. As the young gets bigger, it starts to resemble its parent more. Eventually, it can venture out of the pouch. But will continue to visit and once it gets too big, at least poke its head in for a quick suckle. Adult kangaroos feed on grass and other vegetation. They have to hop everywhere as they are incapable of walking. They live only on Australia along with the majority of the worlds marsupials. They have long ears much like a rabbits, and thick supple tails.
Now why am I discussing the natural aspects of a kangaroo on a blog about animation? Well, based on that description I just gave you, would you ever look at one of these things and go “Wow. That’s a big mouse.”? And yet, that’s how this guys shorts play out. Sylvester will catch sight of him and try to hunt him, under the assumption that he is a rodent of unusual size. (Although if Sylvester is a normal house cat, and Hippity is as tall as him, then capybaras are larger still.) His reasons for catching him aren’t even food based. (Just like in nature. Predators aren’t likely to waste their time hunting something large that can fight back unless there is a number of themselves) Most of the time, its a matter of pride. He wants to prove to his son that he can catch said mouse as he has just spent the first part of the short bragging about his skills. Other times, he wants nothing to do with the “mouse” but other characters refuse to believe in a giant mouse’s existence and demand he face his fear. Hippity himself doesn’t talk as he is a baby. What’s more, since he comes from a species who is known to practice kick boxing as young, he doesn’t know that his repeated pummelings of Sylvester are hurting him. So, yeah, his shorts aren’t big on story. It’s just McKimson trying his own version of a chase cartoon. Jones had his coyote/roadrunner and wolf/sheepdog, Freleng had Sylvester with Tweety or Speedy, and McKimson had a baby kangaroo. (Who for the sake of the joke is always drawn with rounded ears to look more mouselike.)