Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats

Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats
Written by Barry Blitzer
Directed by
Voices of
Theme music composer Hoyt Curtin (arranged by Sven Libaek)
Ending theme "The Most Effectual Top Cat" (Instrumental)
Composer(s) Sven Libaek
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Executive producer(s) William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Producer(s) Berny Wolf
Jeff Hall
Editor(s) Gil Iverson
Robert Ciaglia
Running time 92 minutes
Production company(s) Hanna-Barbera Productions
Distributor
Release
Original network Syndication
Original release March 20, 1988 (1988-03-20)[1]
Chronology
Followed by The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound

Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats is a 1988 animated made-for-television film produced by Hanna-Barbera for syndication as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series. The movie's plot is essentially an extended remake of the original show's episodes, "The Missing Heir" and "The Golden Fleecing".

Plot

The movie opens on what appears to be another average day in Hoagie's Alley (which, for the purposes of this story, has apparently been relocated closer to Beverly Hills) for Top Cat and his gang, who are today posing as Boy Scouts, out doing good deeds in the hopes of getting rewards. During the course of this, Benny the Ball saves the life of a bag lady. Unbeknownst to Benny, it is revealed afterwards that she is actually a rich woman named Gertrude Vandergelt, who plans to leave her fortune to her missing niece, Amy. Meanwhile, Officer Dibble arrives to put an end to T.C.'s shenanigans after an unsuccessful attempt by Brain to wash his police car's windshield. Just when Dibble is about to arrest the gang, though, he gets a call saying that his application for retirement has been approved, so he can now retire from the police force, and thus he drops the charges against T.C. and the gang.

A few days later at a gypsy store, Benny receives fake news from Mrs. Vandergelt, disguised herself as Sid Buckman, that she has died and put his name in her will. Upon hearing of this, T.C. and the rest of the gang accompany Benny to the Vandergelt mansion, where Dibble is now working as a security guard. At the mansion, they meet the conniving butler Snerdly, and his Muttley-esque wolfhound Rasputin. Gertrude Vandergelt reads the will, which states that Benny inherits her fortune (seeing how the true heir to the fortune, Amy, is nowhere to be found), provided that nothing bad happens to him within the next two days. This upsets Snerdly, for he had hoped to obtain the fortune himself, so he and Rasputin plot to do away with Benny. T.C. and the gang move into the Vandergelt mansion with Benny.

After several failed attempts at murdering Benny, Snerdly realizes that to get to Benny, he'll have to get rid of the protective T.C. To do this, Snerdly calls up a femme fatale cat named Kitty Glitter, telling her that he has fixed her up a date with a handsome rich cat, as he describes T.C. Kitty is eager to have a rich cat for a husband (to the point that she puts on a wedding dress for the date), but this plan is foiled when she mistakes Brain for T.C. It's only when Snerdly calls her again, demanding to know where she is, that she realizes she's made a mistake.

That night, Snerdly throws a costume party, making Benny wear a bulldog mask and then calling up the local dogcatcher and his pet doberman Dobey to say that there's a mutt roaming around the Vandergelt estate. Sure enough, the dogcatcher arrives and captures Benny. It doesn't take long for T.C. and the rest of the gang to realize that Benny is missing, so they go looking for him. Thanks to a tip-off from Dibble, T.C. finds out that Benny has been taken to the pound, so they take the limousine there and break Benny out. Just as they escape, though, the dogcatcher takes off after them in hot pursuit.

As it turns out, the missing Amy (whose character is a parody of Little Orphan Annie) has been working at a car wash as part of Snerdly's evil plot. While on the run from the dogcatcher, T.C. and the gang turn up in the car wash and recognize Amy from a portrait hanging in the mansion, so they decide to bring her back to the mansion so that the inheritance can be rightfully given to her. They arrive too late, as it is now midnight and Snerdly has just inherited the Vandergelt fortune, but Gertrude Vandergelt then reveals herself from his disguise of Sid Buckman, which means that she, in fact, faked her death as part of a scheme to unmask Snerdly's crookedness. In their attempt to escape, Snerdly (who attempts to disguise himself using the aforementioned bulldog mask) and Rasputin are caught by the dogcatcher.

In the end, T.C. and the gang return to their old lifestyle in Hoagie's Alley, and Dibble rejoins the police force. Kitty Glitter reappears, still wanting to be wed to the rich cat she believes T.C. to be, but she dumps him when Brain lets it slip that they're broke. Afterwards, Amy pays a visit to have a picnic with T.C.'s gang and Dibble.

Voice cast

Production credits

  • Hanna-Barbera Presents
  • "Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats"
  • Executive Producers: William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
  • Producers: Berny Wolf and Jeff Hall
  • Written by: Barry E. Blitzer
  • Supervising Director: Ray Patterson
  • Executive in Charge of Production: Jayne Barbera
  • Character Voices: Leo DeLyon, Dick Erdman, Teresa Ganzel, Linda Gary, Marvin Kaplan, Kenneth Mars, Lilly Moon, Rob Paulsen, Henry Polic, II, Avery Schreiber, Arnold Stang, John Stephenson, Frank Welker
  • Creative Design: Iwao Takamoto
  • Directors: Paul Sommer, Charles A. Nichols
  • Recording Director: Gordon Hunt
  • Talent Coordinator: Kris Zimmerman
  • Animation Casting Director: Andrea Romano
  • Director of Music Supervision: Joanne Miller
  • Music Composed and Conducted by: Sven Libaek
  • Story Direction: Charlie Downs, Alex Lovy, Gary Hoffman, George Singer, Wendell Washer, Lew Saw, Bob Taylor
  • Layout Supervisor: Margaret Parkes
  • Design Supervisor: Jack White
  • Character Design: William Frake, III, Lee Evans, Mike Bennett, Scott Jeralds, Lance Falk, Brian Hogan, Di Rudder
  • Layout: Peter Sheehan
  • Animation Directors: Jay Sarbry, Joanna Romersa, Bob Goe, Lefty Callahan, Joan Drake, Tim Walker, Rick Leon
  • Animation: Murray Debus, Steven Taylor
  • Key Background Supervisors: Al Gmuer & Richard Zaloudek
  • Key Background Layout: Bill Proctor, William Frake, III
  • Key Background: Lorraine Marue, Jeff Richards, Ron Roesch
  • Animation Supervisor: Jon McClenahan
  • Graphics: Iraj Paran, Tom Wogatzke
  • Title: Bill Perez
  • Animation Checking & Scene Planning: Paul B. Strickland & Ellen Bayley
  • Color Design: Olga Zahorsky
  • Assistant Animation Supervisor: Rick Tinschert
  • Ink & Paint Supervisor: Donene Bailey
  • Character Color Key Supervisor: Alison Leopold
  • Camera Supervisor: Fernando Letteri
  • Xerography: Star Wirth
  • Technical Director: Terry Smith
  • Program Administrator: Barbara Simon Dierks
  • Production Assistants: Sandy Benenati, Vicki L. Casper, Erika Grossbart, Debby Lathrop-Robbins, Ginger Robertson, Robin Strickland, Mark Lesser
  • Production Coordinator: Lynette McClean
  • Supervising Film Editor: Larry C. Cowan
  • Dubbing Supervisor: Pat Foley
  • Music Editors: Terry Moore, Joe Sandusky, Daniels McLean, S.M.E.
  • Editor: Robert Ciaglia
  • Show Editor: Gil Iverson
  • Sound Direction: Alvy Dorman, Stan Wetzel
  • Sound Editors: Michael Bradley, Tim Iverson, David M. Cowan, Jerry Winicki, Michele Iverson, Carol Lewis, Catherine MacKenzie
  • 1/4" Editors: Kelly Foley, Paul Douglas
  • Track Readers: Yvonne Palmer, Jim Hearn, Kay Douglas, Kerry Iverson, Lee-Tsu Aries
  • Production Manager: Wayne Dearing
  • Negative Consultant: William E. DeBoer
  • Post Production Supervisor: Joed Eaton
  • This picture has made the jurdisction of I.A.T.S.E., affiliated with AFL-CLO
  • © 1988 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Home Media releases

Hanna-Barbera Home Video released Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats on VHS in 1989.

On August 9, 2011, Warner Archive released Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats on DVD in NTSC picture format with all region encoding, as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[2]

Trivia

  • At the beginning of the film, Benny is seen riding on the side of a limousine with the camera angled so that it looks like he's inside until the limo turns a corner. This is a direct reference to the TV series' intro sequence, which had Top Cat doing the same thing (the gag itself actually originated in the Donald Duck short The Autograph Hound).
  • The Flintstones (Fred and Wilma) and the Rubbles (Barney and Betty) can be seen living on Megabucks Drive as the tour bus drives by.

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/106135607/
  2. ↑ "Top Cat DVD news: Announcement for Top Cat - Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats". TVShowsOnDVD.com. Archived from the original on 2012-01-29. Retrieved 2012-10-20.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.