prior to his battles with katnip, herman teamed up in several cartoons with the henpecked rooster henry. henry's nemesis is his domineering wife, bertha (a.k.a. chicken pie), who makes him do all the work around the house, even saying that if she catches henry loafing again, "i'll clip your wings and chop you down to a croquette!" bertha is deathly afraid of mice, however: always "bawking" in shock every time herman scares her. with herman's help, henry tries to manipulate bertha into treating him more fairly ("hey! listen, you old hen! from now on, i'll do no more work!"). the title cards for the team-up shorts read "featuring herman and henry"; the first such short was "henpecked rooster" (1944), and the last "sudden fried chicken featuring herman and henry" (1946), in which bertha beats the rooster hard enough to hospitalize him.