Aristocats
A View From The Scratching Post
by Anomymous!

1970 was a time of great chaos in the world of animation. Warner Brothers had shut down their entire division, MGM had too, Academy Award winning animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera were reduced to producing cheap weekly television product and, worst of all, animation's greatest spokesman, Walt Disney, had died three years before, leaving the whole industry without a focus, without ambition and, most of all, without vision. But there was a small hope. Against all odds and the predictions of industry insiders, Disney's studios kept on. Walt had a hand in the studio's last production, the excellent Jungle Book (1967) and had, evidently, commissioned work on the next story, an adventure tale about a family of cats lost in the French countryside trying to find their way back home. But, according to Disney mythology, that was pretty much Walt's involvement in the project in it's entirety. After that, they were on their own.

So, as animator Wolfgang Reitherman settled almost completely into the driver's seat, the studio that bore his name took a few cautious steps without Walt. The result was an unqualified international blockbuster called... The Aristocats.

As the studio now has finally released this, the most glamorous of all of it's animated features, we have decided to give you excerpts from an extended interview we conducted, at no small expense, with the industry insiders who had the most at stake at this time of animation crisis... the cats.

"What I'd discovered in talking to a lot of my colleagues, was that I was actually having it pretty easy during the late 60's. Jerry and I had stayed close from vaudeville on. We weren't getting the jobs like we used to, but we could work. People were interested in working with us. Chuck Jones even came on for a while. It wasn't great, but it was liveable. I used to talk to Sylvester who was always complaining about that bird, and who wouldn't, but it was never like that for us. Jerry is my boy's godfather for heaven's sake. So, I think that the whole Aristocats thing wasn't such a big deal for me... Still, I didn't call Jerry for a month."

Interestingly enough, it was not until the 90's that an adult cat actor got another starring role in a theatrical feature, Tom and Jerry: The Movie.

"I'd been working doing stand up out of Dallas. It wasn't bad and since there was a LOT more tolerance for prop comics at that point. You could just squeeze a living out of it. Still, I kept thinking I was good enough to make the big push. I was working with this guy Geisel on some scripts for a feature, but, frankly, Hollywood had it in for cats right then. Particularly bipedal ones. Just creeped them out, I guess."

"So, you can imagine, I was keeping track of this thing real close. I just kept thinking, 'If they'll go for rich French cats with children born out of wedlock, than I darn well BETTER be able to get a deal...'"

The Cat in the Hat got his deal and made his first television special in 1971, the year after the premier of the The Aristocats.

"People have this illusion that during the late sixties that me and the Panther and Tom were on thum thorta Bacchanalian retreat down in Key West or thomething, just watching the royaltieth roll in. Well, people are THTUPENDOUSLY MISTHINFORMED! Oh, I'm sorry. Did I get you? Bad habit. Even those of us who had been moderately thuckthessful early on had not known how to negotiate with a major thtudio. We just took what work we could get. And, usually, that meant you got teamed. I mean, you have to remember that, after Felix, the movie cat was considered a predatory beastht, without wit or moralth! It was awful. Only Figaro got a real deal. I mean, on hith own. And even that got cut short. But I remember watching that first one and thinking, 'Gosh what a break! I almost cried.' Next day walked right back on the lot and let that bird humiliate me.

So, where was I? Oh, yeth! The Arithtocatsth! Oh, thorry. Get you again? Thorry, I used to have a little better aim with that. Still funny though. Anyway, I was having a bad time right then. I couldn't get perthonel appearances without the bird and me and the bird were not talking. So, I did NOT want to see a big budget feature about cats, right then. But the kid wanted to go and my wife wanted me out of the house, what can you do? Can you even imagine my reaction? THUFFERIN' THUCKOTASH was I, oh sorry, was I moved! I mean the movie has problems, but here were a bunch of felines who were not being bapped over the head by mice and birds and bees! They were charming. They were refined. And they were strong leading actors! I remember writing to O'Malley, who I knew from local (stht)S(th)AG/AFTRA potlucks, and saying 'Brother, I hope you know what you've done. You've changed the world!"

Sylvester went into writing criticism for some local Hollywood Entertainment papers for a few years after the premier of The Aristocats and soon started a series of small personal appearances on TV specials as studios recognized the value of classier productions for cartoon compilations. By 1979 Sylvester had patched up his differences with Tweety Pie which reenergized both of their careers returning them to their rightful place as one of Hollywood's greatest comic duos.

Felix the Cat passed away on October 28th, 1983. A standard bearer in the struggle for recognition of cat accomplishments in animation, Felix, arguably, was the most influential character in early cartooning. It is said, perhaps apocryphally, that one of the few items that Charles Lindberg (who was, incidentally, the subject of Plane Crazy, the first ever Mickey Mouse cartoon) carried with him on his Transatlantic flight was a Felix doll. George Bernard Shaw has said that if Michelangelo "were now alive I have not the slightest doubt that he would have his letter-box filled with proposals from the great film firms to concentrate his powers to the delineation of Felix the Cat instead of decorating the Sistine Chapel." (Though whether he meant it as a compliment is open to debate.) Over 75 years since his debut in films, Felix is still as profoundly recognizable as Mickey Mouse or Charlie Chaplin.

The following comments were made over a span from when Felix was at his most famous in the Twenties to when Felix, while still one of the most profitable images in the world, lived it utter destitution in New York's Lower East Side. His only income... retirement checks.

"It is truly impossible to describe the breadth of our reality. Without boundaries we could make ourselves into anything. Our bodies were tools, our bodies, they were symbols. I could snap my tail off at the base and use it to catch a fish and I could do it simply, honestly. So there would be mystery, but there would not be fear. This, I think, is not such a bad way to live." -- Felix (1974)

"I am looking forward to this Aristocats. Nothing pleases me more than the undeniable grace of an animated cat family. We are not under represented... we are unexplored." -- Felix (1969)

"My reaction? Pure joy!" -- Felix at the premier of The Aristocats (1970)

"If I can accomplish anything in my career, it would be to communicate to people that nice guys can do mad things and they are still the same nice guys. And there is no one too strange to be embraced." -- Felix (1926)