Cattanooga Cats is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired on ABC from September 6, 1969 to September 4, 1971. The show was a package program similar to the Hanna-Barbera/NBC show The Banana Splits, except that it contained no live-action segments. During the 1969–1970 season, Cattanooga Cats ran one hour and contained four segments: Cattanooga Cats, Around the World in 79 Days, It's the Wolf! and Motormouse and Autocat. During the 1970–1971 season, It's the Wolf! and Motormouse and Autocat were spun off into a half-hour show. Around the World in 79 Days remained as part of Cattanooga Cats, which was reduced to a half-hour. Motormouse and Autocat ran concurrently with Cattanooga Cats until both met their demise at the end of the 1970–1971 season.
''Cattanooga Cats''
Cattanooga Cats depicted the adventures of a fictitious rock band similar to The Archies and The Banana Splits populated by anthropomorphic hillbilly cats consisting of:
Lead singer/guitarist Country
Singer/dancer Kitty Jo
Bassist Scoots
Drummer Groove
A fifth member, a mouse keyboardist named "Cheesie", was storyboarded but cut out of the series. The group traveled around in a van, was chased by a female cat groupie named Chessie, the "Autograph Hound" and Kitty Jo owned a big blue dog named "Teeny Tim". The singing vocals for The Cattanooga Cats were performed by Michael Lloyd and Peggy Clinger. Producer Mike Curb was the musical director for the series and co-wrote all the songs performed by the Cattanooga Cats. Ted Nichols composed the background music. An LP, Cattanooga Cats, featuring some of the songs used in the series, was released in 1969. The Cats also appeared in various "bumpers" between the other cartoons, but were best remembered for their animated musical segments. These cartoons showed a strong psychedelic and op-art influence and the Cattanooga Cats remain a cult favorite to this day.
Episodes
Only nine cartoon story segments featuring the characters were produced.
No.
Title
Air date
''Around the World in 79 Days''
Loosely based upon the novelAround the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, this was an adventure segment involving balloonist Phineas "Finny" Fogg Jr. is conceived as the great-great grandson from America of the main characterPhileas Fogg in the novel. He and reporter teenagers Jenny Trent and Hoppy set out on a globetrotting adventure to travel around the world in 79 days and beat the original record set by Finny's father. The trio are in competition for both the record and a £1,000,000 prize against the sinister Crumden, who supposedly was the butler of the original Phineas. Crumden is aided by his idiotic chauffeur Bumbler and his pet monkey Smirky. Unlike the other segments, Around the World in 79 Days was a serial with a continuing story, however, as with many shows made during this period, it has no specific ending.
Episodes
''It's the Wolf!''
It's the Wolf! followed the comic exploits of Mildew Wolf, who aspires to catch and eat a sure-footed lamb named Lambsy. The wolf is always thwarted by a sheep dog named Bristol Hound. Bristol would apprehend Mildew, pound him, and toss him sailing into the air, with Mildew screaming a phrase such as "Spoilsport!" as he flies into the horizon and lands with a thud.
Episodes
''Motormouse and Autocat''
Essentially a motor-racing version of Tom and Jerry, this segment involved the antics of a race car-driving cat and a motorcycle-driving mouse. Much of the segment's appeal lay in the bizarre cars that Autocat devised in his attempts to catch Motormouse, and in the pleasing and unusual character voices and dialect. For example, Motormouse would often over enunciate words, saying things like "Chi-co-ry", and greeting Autocat with a friendly "Hey there, Au-to-cat". Motormouse resembled Pixie & Dixie in character design.
Hanna-Barbera had high hopes for Cattanooga Cats to be a hit program, like The Banana Splits, but the show failed to attract a large audience during its original run. Mildew Wolf, the most popular character on the program, resurfaced six years after the cancellation of Cattanooga Cats as co-host on Laff-A-Lympics, this time voiced by John Stephenson impersonating Paul Lynde. Lambsy appeared in the television filmYogi's Ark Lark. Sky One occasionally broadcast Cattanooga Cats shorts in the UK in 1990, the segments were shown in complete isolation, broadcast neither as part of the original show or a new compilation. Reruns of the show were not seen until the program began airing as part of the Boomerangprogramming block on Cartoon Network, which later became a spin-off network of its own. For several months, Boomerang UK channel ran the musical interludes from the show, all of which ran to exactly 1 minute 45 seconds, as short fillers before closing down at midnight. When the channel expanded to 24 hours, these interludes were dropped. The complete show has not been seen in the UK in recent years. Mildew Wolf will appear in the upcoming HBO Maxoriginal seriesJellystone!
Home media
has yet to release the entire complete series to DVD.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack album for the series was released in 1969, containing eleven of the show's songs with the lead vocals performed by Michael Lloyd and Peggy Clinger. The songs "Mother May I" and "Merry-Go-Round" were also released as singles to coincide with the series and album, with "Johnny Johnny Jump-Up" and "Country Carnival" as their respective b-sides. The songwriters were uncredited on the album but were credited on the accompanying singles. Curb Records, the eventual successor to Forward Records, most likely owns the master tapes of the Cattanooga Cats album. Curb likewise has not expressed plans to re-release the Cattanooga Cats album.
Track listing
Side 1 Side 2
Other songs
In addition to the album, other songs were featured in the series that were not released in any format.
