Henry's Cat

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Henry's Cat

Genre	Family, Animation
Created by	Stan Hayward
Written by	Kevin Baldwin Bob Godfrey Stan Hayward Mike Knowles
Directed by	Bob Godfrey
Narrated by	Bob Godfrey (UK)
Theme music composer	Peter Shade John Hyde Jonathan Hodge Rowland Lee
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	5
No. of episodes	51
Production
Producer(s)	Bob Godfrey
Running time	5 minutes (season 1-2), 15 minutes (season 3-4), 13 minutes (season 5)
Production company(s)	Bob Godfrey Films Ltd.
Broadcast
Original channel	HBO (1983-1995) Showtime (1995-1996) TNT (1996-1997) TCM (1997-1998) Cartoon Network (1998-1999) PBS Kids (1999-2000) Boomerang (2000-present) BBC (1983-1985) CBBC (1985-1997) Nick Jr. (1997-1999) Milkshake! (1999-present) Channel 5 (1999-present)
Original run	1983 – 1995

Henry's Cat is an animated children's television programme, written by Stan Hayward and produced by Bob Godfrey,^[1] who was also the producer of Roobarb and Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk. The show starred a laid-back, ponderous yellow cat, known only as Henry's Cat, and his many friends and enemies.

Henry's Cat was first screened by BBC Television in the UK on 12 September 1983, and has enjoyed reruns since then. Five series were made in total.^[2]

He knows everything about nothing

and not too much about that

but if you know someone

who knows what he knows

then you must know Henry's cat
:Excerpt from Henry's Cat theme.^[3]

Characters

Henry's Cat and his friends

Henry's Cat - laid-back, a daydreamer.
Chris Rabbit - Henry's Cat's best friend, an ever-enthusiastic, highly energetic blue rabbit.
Mosey Mouse - the opposite of Chris Rabbit, Mosey is dour and realistic.
Douglas Dog, Sammy Snail, Pansy Pig, Denise Duck, Ted Tortoise, Philippe Frog - miscellaneous friends of Henry's Cat. They all mean well, but often overestimate their own abilities in various ways.

His enemies

Farmer Giles - a (human) farmer with a Westcountry accent, frequently inconvenienced by Henry's Cat's adventures.
Constable Bulldog - a very stern policeman (or policedog) who takes a very dim view of the gang's well-meaning escapades.
Rum Baa Baa - a criminal mastermind, and the most evil sheep in the whole world.

Henry

Henry himself never appeared on screen; the name is thought by some to be an allusion to an earlier one-off Hayward/Godfrey collaboration, Henry 9 To 5 about a bowler-hatted commuter who escaped his boring everyday life by indulging in daydreams, mostly of a sexual nature. Henry's Cat shared the earlier character's tendency toward wild flights of fancy and laid-back approach to life. Henry's Cat creator Stan Hayward included the official explanation for the character's lack of a name on the official Henry's Cat Special Edition DVD in 2000. The explanation was that Henry, an unseen character in the series, had been Henry's Cat's original owner. He had moved away, and Henry's Cat had forgotten to go with him. He had a terrible memory, and later even forgot his own name, and so became known simply as "Henry's Cat".

Episode list

Series 1 (1983)

Each episode in this series is 5 minutes long.

#	Title	Summary
1	The Hobby	Henry's Cat is inspired to find a hobby of his own and watches his friends doing theirs.
2	The Race	Henry's Cat holds a race with all his friends racing with their own talents.
3	The Circus	Henry's Cat sees a circus and sees this as an exciting opportunity.
4	The Competition	Henry's Cat, Chris Rabbit and Mosey Mouse dress up as a one-man band for a competition.
5	The Moon Trip	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit go in a balloon for a journey to the moon.
6	The Hypnotist	Henry's Cat is inspired by the TV to try out hypnotism to help his friends, but soon decides to undo his hypnosis.
7	The Holiday	Henry's Cat goes on holiday on a sailing boat at sea.
8	The Treasure	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit try to find treasure with a dividing stick.
9	The Ill Wind	A sick Henry's Cat imagines himself dying and going to the afterlife.
10	The Diet	Henry's Cat takes the advice of a weighing machine to cut down on overeating and take exercise.
11	The Fortune Teller	Henry's Cat goes to a fortune teller at a funfair with his future near at hand.
12	The Explorer	Henry's Cat goes exploring to find the West Pole.
13	The Whale	Henry's Cat goes fishing for a whale to get something new to eat.
14	The Invention	Henry's Cat is inspired to invent a machine and ends inventing something for Captain McGregor.
15	The Dream	Henry's Cat falls asleep after eating a lot, dreaming about vivid things.
16	The Robbery	Henry's Cat becomes detective, but runs into Mosey Mouse's uncle.
17	The Christmas Dinner	Henry's Cat helps Chris Rabbit prepare a Christmas Dinner but get themselves stuck.
18	The Film	Henry's Cat gets an old film cine camera to make a film starring his friends.
19	The Disco Dance	Henry's Cat takes his friends to a disco dance competition. When that does not work out, they join a carnival.
20	The Artist	Henry's Cat tries to learn about art and how artists see things differently.

Series 2

Each episode in this series is 5 minutes long.

#	Title	Summary
1	The Magic Tummy Button	Henry's Cat and his friends search a museum for the lost temple of Aki-Kun-Bubu to find the magic tummy button.
2	The Secret Weapon	Henry's Cat dreams about himself and Chris Rabbit as scientists defending the earth from little blue men.
3	The New Year's Resolution	Henry's Cat is prompted to take exercise for New Year with a backwards running race with his friends.
4	The Good News Day	On a day when nothing happens, Henry's Cat dreams he is a heroic captain of a world cruising plane.
5	The Catseye Kid	Henry's Cat imagines himself as the cowboy Catseye who is out to stop the cattle rancher, Bandit Baa Baa.
6	The Hot Day	On a hot day, Henry's Cat unknowingly gets himself joining the Foreign Legion in the hot desert.
7	The Merry Men and Women	Henry's Cat dresses as Robin Hood and recruits his friend as his Merry Men and Women.
8	The Actor	Henry's Cat decides to become a famous actor and does in the Theatre by accident.
9	The Weatherman	Henry's Cat becomes weathermen to report good weather forecasts.
10	The Invitation	Henry's Cat is invited to dinner party with Lady Snotgrove, but he feels unprepared without proper table manners.
11	The Ventriloquist	Henry's Cat enters a contest as a ventriloquist with Chris Rabbit as his dummy, but it all goes wrong.
12	The Clever Trick	Henry's Cat learns a trick to bend objects, which eventually makes him famous around the world.
13	The Hero	Henry's Cat imagines his Great Uncle Felix's adventure as an ace fighter pilot against Baron Von Baa Baa.
14	Caveman Cat	Henry's Cat daydreams about being a cave cat with his inventing neighbour Chris Rabbit.
15	The Abominable Snowman	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit go an expedition which winds them up in trouble.

Series 3

Each episode in this series is 15 minutes long.

#	Title	Summary
1	The Treasure Hunt
2	The Day of Terrible Jokes	Henry's Cat fascinated by Medieval Knights dreams that he is bold knight winning a jousting tournament against Sir Loin of Lamb. After that he is sent to capture a three-headed dragon.
3	The Case of the Pilfered Pearls
4	The Lost World	Henry's Cat fascinated by a TV program called Tarzan dreams that he himself is a jungle man with the huge responsibility to take care of the Lost World. The next day Henry's Cat has to stop Rum Baa Baa from capturing the dinosaurs.
5	The Computer	Henry's Cat goes to a computer exhibition. There he rents a small computer robot he calls Puter. Trying to buy Puter is hard and keep his house orderly is difficult for Henry's Cat.
6	The Correspondence Course	Henry's Cat goes to Big Bob's Animation Studios to make a cartoon - and a Wibbles Wobbly Jelly advert.

Series 4

Each episode in this series is 15 minutes long.

#	Title	Summary
1	"Out for the Count"	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit are in a blowing gum match, but get lost and enter the creepy castle of Count Rum Baa Baa. Together they thwart his experiments.
2	The Birthday Caper	Fed up on his birthday, Henry's Cat decides to go to Hollywood.
3	The Funny Feeling	Mosey Mouse catches Clownitis, a disease a year on Mid-Summer's Day after he drank Moo-Moo Juice. Henry's Cat rushes to the Moo-Moo Juice factory to stop Rum Baa Baa (who is controlling the machine).
4	Once Upon a Time	Henry's Cat imagines himself meeting various fairy tale characters - and a wolf who wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood's Granny.
5	The Jingle	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit go to Cyril Chipper to help in his advertising campaign becoming successful. Each new campaign they take up became more successful than the first.
6	The Great Adventure	Henry's Cat and his friends go to space in a flying carrot, eat food tablets, and try to stop Rum Baa Baa.

Series 5

Each episode in this series is 13 minutes long.

#	Title	Summary
1	The Mystery of the Missing Santa	Henry's Cat and Chris Rabbit as detectives goes on a caper to find the a kidnapped Santa. They both break in the chateau, rescue Santa and get Count Baa Baa arrested.
2	When Time Went Wrong	After attempting to fix his cuckoo clock, Henry's Cat along with Chris Rabbit travel in time to the Prehistoric Times. As they try to go back to the Present, they travel from one Epoch into another.
3	The New President
4	Valentine's Day	Henry's Cat buys a new TV, and sees Pansy Pig (with a paper bag on her head, thinking she is ugly), so he hosts "Blind Dates". Contestants: 1. Rum Baa Baa (Henry's Cat's enemy) 2. Sam Pig (Pansy's love interest) 3. Ted Tortoise (one of Henry's Cat's friends)

Notes

The companies that released the videos were Guild Home Video, Castle Vision, Playbox Video, Children's Choice, Screen Legends and Pickwick Video, but despite airing on Children's BBC it was never licensed to home video by BBC Video. Family Home Entertainment and Lionsgate Home Entertainment also had a USA release in 1989–present.
Bob Godfrey Films' opening logo of this series was Henry's Cat meowing, in a direct parody of the MGM logo.
In the United States, episodes from the first two series (i.e., the 5-minute cartoons) were sometimes shown on PBS right after Zoobilee Zoo, to round out the half-hour time slot.
In the late 1990s, the 13-minute episodes were aired on Showtime.

Credits

Series 1

Created by: Stan Hayward
Script: Stan Hayward
Animation: Bob Godfrey, Paul Stone, Kevin Baldwin
Music & Sound: Peter Shade
Narrated by: Bob Godfrey
Camera & Editing: Derek Phillips
Production: Mike Hayes
Produced & Directed by: Bob Godfrey

Series 2

Created by: Stan Hayward
Script: Stan Hayward
Animation: Kevin Baldwin, Bob Godfrey, Malcolm Hartley, Drew Mandigo, Paul Stone
Music: John Hyde / de Wolfe Ltd.
Dubbing: John Wood Studios
Editing: Sean Lenihan
Camera: Derek Phillips
Production: Mike Hayes
Produced, Directed and Narrated by: Bob Godfrey

Series 3

Created by: Stan Hayward
Script: Stan Hayward
Animation: Kevin Baldwin, Bob Godfrey, Malcolm Hartley, Mark Oz, Paul Rosevear
Music: John Hyde / de Wolfe Ltd
Trace & Paint: Tancy Baran, Beryl Godfrey, Louise Unwin
Camera: Derek Phillips
Editing: John Daniels
Production: Mike Hayes
Produced, Directed and Narrated by: Bob Godfrey

Series 4

Created by: Stan Hayward
Script: Stan Hayward
Animation: Kevin Baldwin, Bob Godfrey, Neil Salmon
Additional Animation: Steve Roberts
Music: Jonathan Hodge
Trace and Paint: Beryl Godfrey, Louise Unwin
Camera: Julian Holdaway, Heather Reader
Editing: Picture Head
Production: Mike Hayes
Narrated, Directed and Produced by: Bob Godfrey

Series 5

Created by: Stan Hayward
Script: Stan Hayward, Mike Knowles, Kevin Baldwin, Bob Godfrey
Storyboard, Layouts, Animation: Kevin Baldwin
Additional Animation: Jeff Goldner, Neil Salmon, Bob Godfrey, Jody Gannon.
Trace and Paint: Denise Hambry, Lisa Smith, Jazvinda Phull, Beryl Godfrey, Ricky Arnold
Music: Rowland Lee
Title Music: Jonathan P. Hodge
Camera: Jeremy Moorshead
Backgrounds: Bob Godfrey
Editing: Picturehead
Production: Mike Hayes
Narrated, Produced and Directed by: Bob Godfrey

External links

References

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