Punkin' Puss

Punkin' Puss is an orange-furred cat who lives in the Ozark mountain country. Unlike Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long Coyote, Punkin' doesn't have an occupation in law, and prefers to live in the hills. He is often feuding with his nemesis, Mushmouse. He is also good friends with Ricochet.

Personality
Punkin' Puss is often described as an “ornery critter” and there’s little doubt as to why–he’s known to be a bully towards mice–particularly Mushmouse, his favorite target–and has a very short temper, noted by some to be worse than Ricochet's; his solution to dealing with problems is to either fight them or take his rifle to them to the point where even Ricochet notes that it's bad news when he gets a gun. He can be greedy as well, and has been known to butter people up if they have money. Although he is a frontiersman, he spends majority of his days feuding and fussing with his lifelong nemesis, Mushmouse. He is wholly devoted to this feud, even going as far as to set times for it to start and end. For all his talk about being “the boss in these yar hills”, he’s quick to cowardice and will choose flight over fight if things get bad enough.

Because of his bad traits, not many believe that there is a good side of Punkin’ Puss. As an independent frontiersman who’s proud of his heritage, Punkin’ Puss himself has trouble expressing feelings other than simply anger or annoyance as he doesn’t want to be known as “soft”. He mostly keeps his emotions to himself due to this, as well as a tendency to allow them (or his fears) to consume him to the point where he immediately jumps in. This doesn’t always help him, but it does show that he cares for his friends. He values loyalty and honesty over everything else (which is ironic since he’s quick to lie) and vows never steal from his friends (although he can be greedy when money’s involved), no matter what their standing; in fact, the few things that riles him up more than anything else are people who break their word, steal, or betray, whether they do it to him or to someone else. He can be genuinely nice to people that he’s friends with, something that has confused Mushmouse. He also doesn’t like the thought of taking someone’s life, whether it was for sport or if it was necessary, which is demonstrated often in his feud with Mushmouse, as seen below.

Despite his obsessive, destructive and often complicated feud with Mushmouse, Punkin’ Puss sometimes considers the mouse to be a good friend. He often becomes despaired at the thought of having killed Mushmouse, and on very rare occasions, he can be genuinely friendly to the mouse. He also has a deeply hidden protective streak towards him, shown often when another cat beats up on Mushmouse, although he’s quick to state that the only reason he protects him is so he can shoot him later.

Similar to Droop-a-Long Coyote, Punkin' Puss is a very good cook, and is also smarter than one would assume on the surface.

Trivia

 * Similar to Ricochet and Droop-a-Long, he is one of the few Hanna-Barbera characters who doesn't have "birthday" (as even characters such as Touché Turtle have one). For the purpose of Blazin' Trails, he does have one and shares a birthday month with Quick Draw McGraw.
 * Punkin's portrayal in this series comes from the Temporary Truce universe, which also features Ricochet and Droop-a-Long.
 * He has an "odd friendship" with just about everyone he meets, though it's more obvious with Ricochet than with Droop-a-Long. Ricochet and Punkin' pick at and nag each other all the time, and even make snide remarks about each other's background (Ricochet's moniker for him is "stubborn hillcat" and Punkin's moniker for Ricochet is "smarty-aleck rabbit"), but Punkin' considers Ricochet to be a good friend of his, despite it all.
 * He also has many cousins just like Mushmouse, though many of them are just as cruel as he is (or even more so).
 * Punkin's cousin, Mose, is apparently one of the few people that he fears the most. Mose was a villain in Temporary Truce, as well as its sequel, A Hillcat's Requiem. Punkin' revealed that Mose is a member of Red Scorpion's Arkansas branch in a special that takes place during the "Sheriff of Two-Bit" arc.