| Cattanooga Cats | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animation Comedy |
| Written by | Neal Barbera Larz Bourne |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices of | William Callaway Casey Kasem Jim Begg Julie Bennett Bruce Watson Janet Waldo Don Messick Allan Melvin Daws Butler Marty Ingels Dick Curtis |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 17 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | September 13, 1969 – September 5, 1971 |
Cattanooga Cats is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. It aired from September 6, 1969 until September 4, 1971.
Contents |
The show was a package program similar to the Hanna-Barbera/NBC show The Banana Splits, except that it contained no live-action segments. During the 1969–1970 season, Cattanooga Cats ran one hour and contained four segments. During the 1970–1971 season, the segments It's the Wolf! and Motormouse and Autocat were spun off into a half-hour show. Around the World in 79 Days remained a part of Cattanoga Cats, which was reduced to a half-hour. Motormouse and Autocat ran concurrently with Cattanooga Cats until both met their demise at the end of the 1970–1971 season.
Cattanooga Cats depicted the adventures of a fictitious rock band similar to The Archies and The Banana Splits populated by anthropomorphic hillbilly cats:
A fifth member, a mouse keyboardist named "Cheesie", was storyboarded but cut out of the series. The group travelled around in a van, was chased by a female cat groupie named Jessie the "Autograph Hound" (also voiced by Julie Bennett) and Kitty Jo owned a big blue dog named "Teeny Tim". The singing vocals for The Cattanooga Cats were performed by Michael Lloyd and Peggy Clinger. Producer Mike Curb was the musical director for the series and co-wrote all the songs performed by the Cattanooga Cats. Ted Nichols composed the background music. An LP, The Cattanooga Cats (Forward ST-F-1018), featuring some of the songs used in the series was released in 1969.
The Cats also appeared in various "bumpers" between the other cartoons, but were best remembered for their animated musical segments. These cartoons showed a strong psychedelic and op-art influence and the Cattanooga Cats remain a cult favorite to this day.
Only nine cartoon story segments featuring the characters were produced:
Loosely based upon the novel, Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, this was an adventure segment involving balloonist "Phinny Fogg" (conceived as the son of the main character Phileas Fogg in the novel and voiced by Bruce Watson) and reporter teenagers Jenny (voiced by Janet Waldo) and Hoppy (voiced by Don Messick), who set out on a globetrotting adventure to sail around the world in 79 days and beat the original record set by Phinny's father. The trio are in competition for both the record and a US$1,000,000 prize against the sinister Crumden (voiced by Daws Butler), who supposedly was the butler of the original Phineas, aided by Phineas' chauffeur, the idiotic Bumbler (voiced by Allan Melvin), and Crumden's pet monkey, Smirky (voiced by Don Messick). Unlike the other segments, Around the World in 79 Days was a serial with a continuing story, however, as with many shows made during this period, it has no specific ending.
It's the Wolf! followed the comic exploits of a wolf named Mildew (voiced by an uncredited yet easily recognizable Paul Lynde), who aspires to catch and eat a sure-footed little lamb named Lambsy (voiced by Daws Butler), but is always thwarted in this plan by the dog Bristle Hound (voiced by Allan Melvin). Bristle would apprehend Mildew (usually after hearing Lambsy's cries of, "It's the wool-uff!"), pound him, and toss him sailing into the air, with Mildew screaming a phrase such as "Spoil Sport!" as he flies into the horizon and lands with a thud. Showing modest responsibility, Lambsy never fails to recognize Mildew.
Essentially a motor-racing version of Tom and Jerry, this segment involved the antics of a race car-driving cat and a motorcycle-driving mouse. Much of the segment's appeal lay in the bizarre cars that Autocat (voiced by Marty Ingels) devised in his attempts to catch Motormouse (voiced by Dick Curtis), and in the pleasing, and unusual character voices and dialect. For example, Motormouse would often over enunciate words, saying things like "Chi-co-ry", and greeting Autocat with a friendly "Hey there, Au-to-cat". Motormouse resembled Pixie & Dixie in character design.
| # | Title | Air Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Wheelin' and Dealin'" | |
| Motormouse and Autocat compete with their racing machines when they receive new parts and upgrades. | ||
| 2 | "Party Crasher" | |
| Autocat tries to crash Motormouse's party, not realising it is for his birthday. | ||
| 3 | "Water Sports" | |
| 4 | "What's the Motor with You?" | |
| 5 | "Mini Messenger" | |
| Autocat attempts to put Motormouse's Delivery Service out of business. | ||
| 6 | "Wild Wheelin' Wheels" | |
| Autocat's failed attempts to catch Motormouse without a car, prompt him to take drastic automobile action. | ||
| 7 | "Soggy To Me" | |
| Motormouse becomes a Fire Fighter. Autocat's efforts to bag Motormouse, end with him soaking wet. | ||
| 8 | "Crash Course" | |
| Autocat tries to ensure Motormouse doesn't make it to the motorcycle race, but he gets himself in the race. | ||
| 9 | "Fueling Around" | |
| When Motormouse mixes a new Super fuel, Autocat tries to mix his own, with explosive results. | ||
| 10 | "Buzzin' Cousin" | |
| 11 | "Snow-Go" | |
| 12 | "Hard Days Day" | |
| 13 | "Tally Ha Ha" | |
| 14 | "Hocus Focus" | |
| 15 | "Kitty Kitty Bang Bang" | |
| 16 | "King Size Kaddy" | |
| 17 | "Catch as Cat Can" | |
| 18 | "Catnapping Mouse" | |
| 19 | "Paint That Ain't" | |
| 20 | "I've Been Framed" | |
| 21 | "Match Making Mouse" | |
| 22 | "Electronic Brainstorm" | |
| 23 | "Brute Farce" | |
| 24 | "Bouncing Buddies" | |
| 25 | "Ramblin Wreck from Texas" | |
| 26 | "Two Car Mirage" | |
| 27 | "Alacazap'" | |
| 28 | "Geni and the Meany" | |
| 29 | "Choo Choo Cheetah" | |
| 30 | "The Fastest Mouse in the West" | |
| 31 | "Cat Skill School" | |
| 32 | "The Cool Cat Contest" | |
| 33 | "Lights! Action! Catastrophe!" | |
| 34 | "Follow That Cat" | |
Hanna-Barbera had high hopes for Cattanooga Cats to be a hit program, like The Banana Splits, but the show failed to attract a large audience during its original run. Mildew Wolf, the most popular character on the program, resurfaced six years after the cancellation of Cattanooga Cats as co-host, with Snagglepuss, on Laff-a-Lympics, this time voiced by John Stephenson. Lambsy appeared in the TV film Yogi's Ark Lark. Sky one in the U.K occasionally broadcast "Cattanooga Cats" shorts in 1990. the segments were shown in complete isolation, broadcast neither as part of the original show or a new compilation.
Reruns of Cattanooga Cats were not seen until the program began airing as part of the Boomerang programming block on the Cartoon Network, which later became a spin-off network of its own. For several months the UK Boomerang channel ran the musical interludes from the show, all of which ran to exactly 1 minute 45 seconds, as short (and unidentified) fillers before closing down at midnight. When the channel expanded to 24 hours, these interludes were dropped. The complete show has not been seen in the UK in recent years.
There are no plans from Warner Home Video to release a complete series DVD set of the entire show for the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection at the present time.
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