CatDog


CatDog is an American animated television series created by Peter Hannan for Nickelodeon. The series follows the life of conjoined brothers of different species, with one half of the resultant animal being a cat and the other a dog. Nickelodeon produced the series from Burbank, California. The first episode aired on April 4, 1998, following the 1998 Kids' Choice Awards, before the show officially premiered in October of that year. Similarly, the Season 2 episode "Fetch" was shown in theaters with The Rugrats Movie in 1998 before airing on television.
The series was ended on June 15, 2005, after a total of four seasons and 68 episodes over 7 years. The series was produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and Peter Hannan Productions, and was released on DVD in Region 1 by Shout! Factory. After the initial run concluded, Nicktoons continued to show re-runs of the cartoon until September 5, 2011.
Two animation studios—Saerom Animation through Watchview Studio and Rough Draft Studios through Rough Draft Korea—worked on the animation for the show.

Premise

The series revolves around Cat and Dog, a conjoined twin of a cat and a dog, who share the same body with no tail or hind legs. Although they are best friends and brothers, they have very different personalities, similar to "The Odd Couple" and the original "Looney Tunes" shorts, mixed with elements of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and fellow Nicktoon Ren and Stimpy. Cat is very cultured while Dog is very fun-loving. Dog enjoys chasing garbage trucks, cars, and exploring many things that Cat does not want to be involved with. Dog enjoys eating at fast-food restaurants, whereas Cat does not. The series takes place in Nearburg, a town dominated by anthropomorphic animals and the occasional humanoid.

Episodes

Characters

Main

The series, created by Peter Hannan, was developed as the next Nicktoons production and produced from Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. Hannan served as executive producer. This was part of Nickelodeon's $350 million investment in original animation over the next five years after the series' inception.
Albie Hecht, Nickelodeon's senior vice president of worldwide productions, said that the creators planned for the series to "really play off of kids' sympathies" by portraying the characters as experiencing "the worst of both worlds". Hannan said CatDog was inspired by watching neighborhood cats and dogs occasionally fight each other, and thought that it would be great to make conjoined twins Cat and Dog to see how both of the animals would fare against other things. The idea of them being conjoined twins came from Hannan watching several news stories on TV about conjoined twins living a normal life conjoined together. Both aspects he claimed, initially developed the idea of CatDog.
The title characters were originally envisioned as a two-headed superhero called "CatDog Man."

Release

Broadcast

The series originally aired on Nickelodeon in the US from 1998–2005. It was subsequently aired on Nicktoons and on NickSplat. In the UK and Ireland, the series was broadcast on Nickelodeon and on Nicktoons. In Canada, the series was broadcast on Nickelodeon and on YTV. In Australia and New Zealand, the series was broadcast on Nickelodeon. In Japan, the series was broadcast on Nickelodeon. In Middle East, the series was broadcast on Nickelodeon Arabia and on MBC 3 and on Spacetoon English.

Home media and digital download releases

Two VHS tapes of the series were released on March 30, 1999. Together Forever contains the episodes "Dog Gone", "Flea or Die", "Diamond Fever", "CatDog's End" and "Work Force" with a bonus short "Cat-Diggety Dog" and CatDog vs. The Greasers contains the episodes "Siege on Fort CatDog", "Squirrel Dog", "Full Moon Fever", "Shriek Loves Dog" and "All You Need is Lube".
In 2010, Nickelodeon contracted Amazon.com's CreateSpace service arm to produce DVD sets of CatDog and other Nickelodeon shows exclusively for sale on Amazon. The DVDs were "manufactured-on-demand" DVD-Rs to match orders. The series is also available for download on Amazon's InstantVideo service.
CreateSpace ReleasesRelease DateDiscsEpisodes
Season 1April 7, 2010420
Season 2, Volume 1December 1, 2010317
Season 2, Volume 2December 1, 2010417
Season 3December 1, 2010313



The complete series is available for download in the iTunes Store.

Reception

Critical

The series was reviewed by Common Sense Media with a score 2/5 stars, advised for children 7 and up. The series has a 6.6/10 rating on IMDb, and an 8.0/10 on TV.com.

Awards and nominations

In 1998, the series was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production, for "Dog Gone". The recipients would have been Derek Drymon, Robert Porter and Peter Hannan.
At the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards, the show was nominated for Favorite Cartoon. However, it lost to Rugrats. It did so again in the 2000 Kids' Choice Awards.

Video games