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.

Video of the Week: Top Cat Has a Chat

 When you think of Top Cat, it's hard not to hear Arnold Stang's stellar vocal performance immediately afterwards. Though several others have tried, nobody has come remotely close to matching him as that character. He was an integral part of the show, and that's not even getting into the other highlights of his long career in the entertainment industry. 

To honor Stang, I'm sharing this great TV interview he did in 1993 on the cable show Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends, which aired around New York City. It's a lengthy interview, and there's plenty of discussion regarding Top Cat to be found. Enjoy!

Top Cat Print Ads

 One thing I love to share on this blog is old-school print ads. It's always fun to see how these classic shows were initially promoted, and Top Cat is no different. Today, I've got three cool newspaper ads promoting the shows premiere. This first one is pretty simple, just a picture of Top Cat from the series, and a note of when and where it'll be airing.

These next two are pretty interesting ones. Both are from the same day, both are advertising the series premiere, but if you read closely, you'll find the episodes they discuss are totally different. The first claims "Top Cat Falls in Love" as the premiere episode, while the second mentions "The 1,000,000 Derby" instead. Everything I've seen, from Yowp's blog to Wikipedia, says the latter is the real series premiere. Perhaps the other paper was simply given out of date information? Regardless, it's things like that that make looking at these pieces fascinating to me, and I hope you feel the same.

Top Cat and Benny Have a Cookie

I can't say why, but there sure are a lot of Hanna-Barbera cookie jars out there (read this post if you don't believe me). Everyone from Scooby to Fred Flintstone has been turned into one, and Top Cat is no exception. In fact, he's not the only one from the series. Benny the Ball, TC.'s right hand, also has his own cookie jar. Both of these guys saw release in 1990 from the Harry James Studio, who made a whole bunch of cartoon-based merchandise. I don't know where these were sold or how many were produced, but based on how little info I could find, I'm sure it was a limited release.

Below is the Top Cat jar, which features him relaxed on a trash can. For 1990, it's a nice representation of the character, and the trash can also has some great paint applications. Color me impressed!

As good as that one looks, I think the Benny jar looks even better. The design is quite accurate to the character, and I love the big smile they gave him. Also, I can't get over the fact they made a Benny cookie jar. You would have thought they'd simply do Top Cat and call it a day, but deciding to do another character from the show is seriously cool.

Lastly, here's the packaging, which was shared between both pieces. The box has a fitting yellow color scheme, and describes the jars as "the greatest collectables in the world." I'm not sure about that personally, but I won't deny that these are great. You may also notice the other characters are represented here, which makes me wonder if they had plans to make cookie jars for them as well. I mean, who wouldn't have wanted an Officer Dibble ceramic jar?