Top Cat Heads For Beverly Hills

  In 1987, Hanna-Barbera began to put out a series of made for TV movies known as the "Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10." The films covered many different characters and franchises, ranging from a Flintstones and Jetsons crossover to several Scooby installments. The films also allowed Hanna-Barbera to return to characters that the studio hadn't utilized in some time, and nowhere was that more evident than in the fifth film in the series to air, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats.

Like other Hanna-Barbera classics, Top Cat was anything but that when it premiered on TV. The show was canceled after one season, but slowly began to take on a new life in reruns. Despite this, the characters were rarely seen again, save for the occasional crossover series. Finally, in 1988, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats premiered, being the first Top Cat production in over twenty years. 

On paper, it sounds like a surefire hit. It brought back the surviving cast members, and stuck heavily to the formula the original series created. Barry Blitzer, a writer on the series, also came back to pen the script. Unfortunately, the special doesn't quite live up to the best episodes of the show, or even some of the weaker ones for that matter. I've discussed the film before, but for me personally, it feels more like an imitation of the series than a genuine continuation. After the first couple minutes and the wow factor of seeing these characters again wears off, you're left with a pretty unremarkable TV film.

Despite my feelings for the film, I felt I owed it at least one dedicated post during Top Cat June. From the Beaumont Enterprise on March 27th, 1988, here's a preview they did for the movie. They run through its storyline, the animation precess, and they also have a couple quotes from Top Cat himself, Arnold Stang for good measure. 

Top Cat and pals prowl Beverly Hills

By Lela Davis

    Try talking to a Top Cat, the coolest cat in the alley, and see how you feel.
    Arnold Stang has been the voice of the Hanna-Barbera Top Cat since the feline hereo first started scamming the alley with his buddies. Now, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera have created a new two-hour special called "Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats" which will air at 9 a.m. Sunday on KBMT (Channel 12). 

    The animated story is so full of high-sounding morals and low-sounding conniving that Stang had to talk fast, just to tell it.
    Top Cat and his buddies' latest scam is posing as "Alley Scouts." They do good deeds, whether they're needed or not, and then hit up their "victims" for a reward.
    During the Alley Scouts scam, Benny the ball saved the life of a bag lady without asking for a reward. And it turns out that the bag lady was the wealthy and eccentric Mrs. Vandergelt. She wore disguises so she could find out who her true friends were.
    Now, Benny has been summoned to the Vandergelt Mansion in Beverly Hills for the reading of her will.
    To everyone's surprise, Mrs. Vandergelt has left her entire fortune to her long-lost niece, Amy. But since Amy is long-lost, the bulk of the estate goes to good scout Benny the Ball—with one condition: If anything happens to Benny within the first 48 hours after the reading of the will, the estate reverts to the servants Snerdly and Rasputin.
    Top Cat suggests to Benny that he and the gang move in the mansion, where life can be great.
    "I don't want to tell much more about the plot," said Stang, "because I'd be giving away some surprises. But Top Cat and his friends get lonesome for the alley, so when they move out of the mansion, it's because they want to."
    The procedure for an animated Top Cat show is that Stang and the other characters record the story first, and then the animation begins. He and the other actors are directed by Gordon Hunt, a veteran director who guides actors through performances in recording sessions before a microphone almost in the same manner as he directs plays. 

    The animation process takes almost a year after the voices have been recorded.
    "Although it sounds easy, the acting challenge is greater when you're only talking to a mike," said Stang. "I find acting in the theater easier to do and more rewarding. There, I have direct contact with the audience. All of them are individuals. You marry them—have the same reactions, share a common experience. Depending on the intelligence and the emotions of the audience, you create a mutual experience. They are sending a signal that comes back.
    "It is more difficult to do the acting without audience reaction. You must create everything yourself—your own mind, your own voice. You rely on magic and imagination to compensate."
    Films call on other kinds of talent, he said. "It's a technical medium, a director's medium, an editor's medium. Your meaning can be changed by the way a movie is put together."
    Stang, who has played the role for many years, says he thinks of Top Cat as a person. "I know about his background, his family and his childhood," he said. "I know his personality—how he would react to a situation. The only way I can play him is to identify, which I do. He's raffish— a Huckleberry Finn kind of person who represents the escapes people wanted and didn't have."

A Toast to Top Cat

 If there's one kind of item you can always expect classic cartoon characters to show up on, it's drinking glasses. I can't say why, but Top Cat is no exception, and that's what I'm here to show today. This first glass was released in 1996 by Duo Penotti, and is pretty barebones as far as collectible glasses go. Just a couple images of Top Cat, Dibble, and the Top Cat and Cartoon Network logos. It would've been nice to see some of the other characters, but oh well. This was actually part of a series of Cartoon Network glasses, with the others being based on The Flintstones, Tom and Jerry, and Wacky Races.

The glasses I'm about to discuss are definitely more interesting. These ones were made in 1997 by Nutella, and I believe only saw release in Italy. T.C., Choo Choo, Brain, and Fancy Fancy are all present and accounted for. What's also great about these ones is the art on each one is entirely different from one another. As far as I know, it also original art, too. And since it was the 90s, they threw Choo Choo on a skateboard for good measure. 

That's Mel Blanc's Line!

 Top Cat might be the focus of the blog this month, but it's not all I intend on talking about. While preparing things for the month, I also completely neglected to mention the legendary Mel Blanc's birthday, which was on the 30th of last month.

As one of the most notable men in the history of both Hanna-Barbera and classic animation in general, I feel I'd be doing a disservice to not post something for the day, late as it may be. Today, I want to share with you this fantastic clip of Mel Blanc on the short-lived 1980s TV series, That's My Line. Bob Barker, another TV legend, interviews the man of a thousand voices here, but he's not alone. Also joining in on the fun is his son Noel, who would briefly take over several of his father's roles after he passed away in 1989. Enjoy!

Top Cat Cast and Characters, Side by Side

 As I've said before, I think Top Cat is among one of the best Hanna-Barbera cartoons in regards to its voice cast. It brought together some of the best from animation, television, and radio, and each character had a distinct voice that you can recall just from a single photo of the character. So why don't we spend today's post celebrating the main characters of the show, and more importantly, the men who brought them to life?

We'll start with the one and only, Top Cat, brought to life by Arnold Stang doing a take on Phil Silvers. For over sixty years, Stang was an actor at his core. He performed in plays, animation, feature films, television, radio, and even did a few memorable commercials. He sadly passed away in December of 2009, but his work continues to endure. Here he is alongside T.C. on the cover of a TV Graphic issue, published around the series premiere.

Top Cat's great, but he isn't quite complete without his right-hand man, Benny the Ball, portrayed by Maurice Gosfield. While Stang imitated Phil Silvers, Gosfield was a major cast member on that show. In addition to his screen credits, Gosfield served in World War II, and appeared in several Broadway shows. Maurice Gosfield would pass away on October 19th, 1964 at the age of 51, only days after being diagnosed with critical hypertension. 

Below are two photos of Gosfield. The first simply has him with Benny, while the second features both with Arnold and Top Cat. Benny may have been the only cartoon character he voiced, but he most definitely made him a memorable one.

Next up, we have a photo of Marvin Kaplan with Choo-Choo, one of my personal favorite members of  the gang. Like Arnold, Kaplan appeared in everything from plays to cartoons. He also notably reunited with Stang in the 1964 film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and the 1988 Top Cat TV movie. He continued to work until he passed away in August 2016 at the age of 89.

Continuing on, we have a Hanna-Barbera regular, John Stephenson, staring down Fancy Fancy. Stephenson acted on screen many times, but he'll best be remembered for his voice-over work, especially at Hanna-Barbera. His voice was heard on The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, and Scooby-Doo, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Stephenson passed away back in 2015, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's a few years earlier.

Now, we have quite possibly the most mysterious cast member of Top Cat, Leo De Lyon, sandwiched between both Brain and Spook. Leo did a fair amount of voice acting over the years and was a musician, but information regarding him beyond that is sparse. He evenually retired from live performances in 2011, and passed away in September 2021 at 96 years old. He was the last surviving cast member of the series.

Finally, here's Allen Jenkins, who appears to be imitating the expression of his animated counterpart, Officer Dibble. Though he's best known to us for Top Cat, he also did a variety of TV and film appearances, including a cameo in the aforementioned It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. He continued working until he died on July 20th, 1974 at the age of 74.

Video of the Week: Top Cat Cartoon Network Promos

 When it launched in 1992, the Cartoon Network gave the entire Hanna-Barbera catalog not only a new home, but a new audience. But even old shows need promoting, and Cartoon Network cooked up a whole bunch of memorable and creative commercials for these shows.

Today, I'm sharing three Top Cat-focused commercials the network played over the years. This first ad aired in 1994, and shows a bunch of clips from the show accompanied by a a jazzy song made for the commercial. A match made in heaven if you ask me.

This second clip was broadcast in 2002. It features an animated Top Cat interacting in a live-action environment, struggling to find a home in a particularly messy trash can. Jeff Bergman handles vocal duties for T.C. here, just as he did in the often forgotten Web Premiere Toons series of shorts from around the same time.

Finally, we have one of several bumpers for the show that were created during the channel's 
"powerhouse" era, named after the Raymond Scott piece that was frequently used in these promos. It's little more than a short chase between Top Cat and Officer Dibble, but it's a fun piece of animation. David Strandquest directed the bumper, as well as many others from this era. I highly recommend going through his Youtube channel if you're interested in this part of the channel's history, as he has several uploads of those bumpers.

Top Cat (Almost) Enters the New Millenium

 Unlike other Hanna-Barbera classics, Top Cat never got an all-new series. Yes, there were TV movies, crossovers, and those theatrical films produced for Mexico (Don't worry, I'll get to those later this month), but there weren't reboots and sequels like there was for something like The Flintstones. But that isn't to say they didn't give it the old college try. 

Above is an image of Top Cat as he was intended to look in a planned reboot of Top Cat Warner Brothers Animation was working on in the mid 2000s. These character designs were conceived by Dave Kupczyk, a Disney Renaissance animator who took on character design duties on several other shows from the era. You can check out all the designs on his blog here, but I thought I'd share some of the more interesting ones. T.C. himself isn't too much of a departure from the original, but now he sports a new hat and sunglasses.

One of those "interesting" designs is Officer Dibble, who has little in common with the original besides being a police officer. Judging by the character designs, it looks like a goal for this series was to modernize the characters, and Dibble here is the best indicator of that. Like I said, he doesn't really look like classic Dibble, but he does look like a modern police officer.

In addition to updating the existing characters, new ones were intended to appear alongside them. The most notable would be a girl cat named Roxy. What her role in the show would've been is unclear, but I imagine she would've been a new member of the gang.

Despite a whole roster of characters being designed, the show never came into being. If I had to say, WBA probably felt there wasn't enough "brand recognition" attached to the Top Cat IP to justify making a new series for it. Even the aforementioned theatrical films were only distributed by WB, not produced by them. But, going off the designs alone, would any of you have been interested in this series? The comments on Kupczyk's blogs are pretty 50/50, so I imagine that will be the case here.

Top Cat Whitman Goodies

 Like other Hanna-Barbera series, Top Cat had a swath of merchandise to accompany it. and then some. One of the companies that hopped on the gravy train was Whitman Publishing. For decades they made books for many animated characters, ranging from Hanna-Barbera to Walt Disney. Today, I'm sharing just a few of the books the company commissioned for Top Cat during its run.

The first book, titled "Top Cat Sticker Fun," gives you pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Inside are a bunch of stickers, featuring T.C., his supporting cast, and a few objects for safe measure. Below is the book cover, as well as some of the stickers included.

Here's one of several Top Cat coloring books Whitman put out. The cover displays the main cast at sea, famously the feline's favorite area to explore. Judging by the actual pages, it looks like this book follows a loose narrative based around this setting, so it's not as random as you'd think. 

Another interesting coloring book was the "Choo Choo Coloring Book." While Benny may've gotten his own cookie jar, it appears Choo Choo got a coloring book all about him. Definitely a cool find, but I feel like making a coloring book about one character in a series with many is a bit of a strange decision.

You may also notice the second photo mentions a "Watkins-Strathmore" company, rather than Whitman. Technically, the two are different companies, but Whitman itself is a subsidiary of Watkins, hence its inclusion here.

Beyond the activity titles, Whitman also published picture books. Here is one of the Top Cat books, sporting some stunning cover artwork. The interior artwork was done by The Mattinsons, who were frequently contracted to do work for Whitman's children's books. Eileen Daily took care of writing duties.