Cattanooga Cats

Cattanooga Cats is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC. It aired from September 6, 1969 to September 4, 1971.

Segments
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. During the 1970–1971 season, the segments It's the Wolf! and Motormouse and Autocat were spun off into a half-hour show. Around the World in 79 Days remained a 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 (voiced by Bill Callaway)
 * Singer/dancer Kitty Jo (voiced by Julie Bennett)
 * Bassist Scoots (voiced by Jim Begg)
 * Drummer Groove (voiced by Casey Kasem)

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" (also voiced by Julie Bennett) 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, The Cattanooga Cats (Forward ST-F-1018), 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.

Around the World in 79 Days
Loosely based upon the novel Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, this was an adventure segment involving balloonist "Phinny Fogg" (voiced by Bruce Watson) is conceived as the great-great grandson from America of the main character Phileas Fogg in the novel. He and reporter teenagers Jenny (voiced by Janet Waldo) and Hoppy (voiced by Don Messick) set out on a globetrotting adventure to travel around the world in 79 days and beat the original record set by Phinny's father. The trio are in competition for both the record and a £1,000,000 prize against the sinister Crumden (voiced by Daws Butler), who supposedly was the butler of the original Phineas. Crumden is aided by his idiotic chauffeur Bumbler (voiced by Allan Melvin) and his pet monkey Smirky (voiced by Don Messick). 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.

It's the Wolf!
It's the Wolf! followed the comic exploits of a wolf named Mildew (voiced by Paul Lynde), who aspires to catch and eat a sure-footed lamb named Lambsy (voiced by Daws Butler), but is always thwarted by the dog Bristle Hound (voiced by Allan Melvin). Bristle would apprehend Mildew (usually after hearing Lambsy cry out, "It's the wool-uff!"), 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.

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 (voiced by Marty Ingels) devised in his attempts to catch Motormouse (voiced by Dick Curtis), 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.

Voice cast

 * Jim Begg - Scoots
 * Julie Bennett - Kitty Jo, Chessie
 * Daws Butler - Crumden, Lambsy
 * Bill Callaway - Country
 * Peggy Clinger -
 * Mike Curb -
 * Dick Curtis - Motormouse
 * Marty Ingels - Autocat
 * Casey Kasem - Groove
 * Peggy Larey -
 * Mike Lloyd -
 * Paul Lynde - Mildew Wolf
 * Allan Melvin - Bumbler, Bristle Hound
 * Don Messick - Hoppy, Smirky, Opening Announcer
 * Jean Vander Pyl -
 * Hal Smith -
 * John Stephenson -
 * Ginny Tyler -
 * Janet Waldo - Jenny
 * Bruce Watson - Phinny Fogg

In other languages

 * Brazilian Portuguese: Turma da Gatolândia
 * French: Autochat et Mimimoto
 * Italian: I gatti di Cattanooga
 * Spanish: Los Gatedráticos del Ritmo

United States

 * ABC (1969–1971)
 * Television syndication (1971–1992)
 * USA Cartoon Express (1982–1992)
 * Cartoon Network (1992–2004)
 * Boomerang (2000–TBA: 2012-2013)

Epilogue
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, with Snagglepuss, on Laff-a-Lympics, this time voiced by John Stephenson. Lambsy appeared in the television film Yogi'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 Boomerang programming block on the Cartoon Network, which later became a spin-off network of its own. For several months the UK Boomerang channel ran the musical interludes from the show, all of which ran to exactly 1 minute 45 seconds, as short (and unidentified) 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.

Home Media releases
Warner Archive has yet to release the entire complete series to DVD.

Possible CD release
Curb Records, the eventual successor to Forward Records (owned by noted record producer Mike Curb), most likely owns the master tapes of the Cattanooga Cats album. Curb likewise has not expressed plans to re-release the Cattanooga Cats album.