From 1944 to September 1950, Herman, voiced by Arnold Stang and Allen Swift,[2] (occasionally by Jackson Beck) was a solo star of theatrical animation shorts produced by Famous Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures.

[5] Animation historian Leonard Maltin described the Herman and Katnip series as a prime stereotype of the "violent cat versus mouse" battles that were commonplace among Hollywood cartoons of the 1920s through the 1960s.

[citation needed] The violence in this series, while intended for comedic effect, often reached a level of brutality that surpassed both Tom and Jerry, Mighty Mouse, and Warner Bros.' Sylvester the Cat.

Frequently Herman and his mouse companions would sing a victory song as they observed Katnip being brutally tortured; e.g. being eaten by sharks, killed in a rockslide while mountain climbing, strung up with Christmas lights and plugged into an electric socket, getting electrocuted by a "shock tester" machine, then flattened by it; or even dying and his ghost being warned about "the fiery furnace" in "Of Mice and Menace".

The Simpsons writer/producer Mike Reiss insists that The Itchy & Scratchy Show is based on Herman and Katnip, which he calls a "cheap, ultra-violent knockoff" of Tom and Jerry.

Under the new name Hector, the rooster was featured in Dell Publishing's Animal Comics #7-17 (1944–1945), with Herman as ongoing co-star, and artist Walt Kelly (Pogo) drawing several of the later stories.

[citation needed] In Sudden Fried Chicken, the cartoons also adopted the name Hector, though the "Featuring Herman and Henry" title card remained unchanged for unknown reasons.

[citation needed] Katnip also had his share of running battles with Buzzy, a singing black crow in a flat straw hat, who spoke in stereotypical "black dialect" and per historian Don Markstein was "a take-off on the gravely voice of character actor Eddie Anderson, who played Rochester on Jack Benny's show, with [Sid] Raymond (Baby Huey) as Katnip, sounding like Benny himself".