Rita and Runt is a musical segment in the Animaniacs cartoon. Rita is a sassy, smart, street-wise cat, while Runt is a dumb yet sweet dog, based on Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man. Runt hates cats, but is too dippy to know his best friend is one.
They first starred together in "When Rita Met Runt", episode six. Together they had a romp through various time periods from ancient Egypt to Nazi-occupied Poland circa 1939 to Salem during the infamous witch trials and occasionally stopping by in our contemporary era. Rita enjoys breaking into impromptu songs (as the feature is centered more or less around Broadway singer Bernadette Peters). The theme of Rita and Runt is to spoof the Broadway musical, and more broadly, musicals in general - one of the most lavishly scored and animated of the Rita and Runt segments is a spoof of Les Miserables.
Curiously, Rita and Runt were absent for the latter half of the series' run—no one really knows why.
