Let's Watch This: "Top Cat: The Movie" (2011)

Hey, guys. I'm in a Hanna-Barbera mood today (mainly because the trailer for HBO Max's Jellystone came out... and it looks awful, by the way), so I decided to post a review of something based on a Hanna-Barbera show. That Hanna-Barbera show is Top Cat.

Top Cat premiered in 1961, another creation of Hanna-Barbera for ABC. Inspired by The Phil Silvers Show, the cartoon focused on a sly alley cat named, well, Top Cat (voiced by Arnold Stang), who led a gang of other cats in a bunch of zany schemes. The show only got one season consisting of thirty episodes, but Top Cat has gone on to become one of Hanna-Barbera's most iconic characters. He's especially quite popular in Latin America.

Which is how Top Cat: The Movie came to be.

This actually isn't the first movie to start T.C., that honor goes to 1988's made-for-TV Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. But we'll look at that movie another time. Top Cat: The Movie (or, as it's called in its home country of Mexico, Don Gato y su Pandilla) came out in 2011 in Latin America to great success. Then it was released in the United Kingdom in 2012. Reception in the U.K. and the United States wasn't as good as reception in Latin America. On the flip side, the film does have a few positive reviews on IMDB... but just as many (if not more) negative ones. Seems pretty polarizing.

What do I think of the movie? Well, I won't give that away just yet. You have to suffer through an incredibly long review of a movie based on a show where talking cats attempt to con people out of their money first. Let's get started.

The movie begins with Top Cat (voiced by Jason Harris Katz) relaxing in the sun aboard a yacht... oh, wait, he's not on a yacht, it just LOOKS LIKE he is! You sure had US fooled, movie! How clever you are!

That wasn't sarcasm, this sort of joke is perfectly in-line with the humor from the original show.

One thing I should mention is that the film features Flash-animated characters in CGI backgrounds. I don't know why they decided to go that route instead of animating the backgrounds in Flash too (wouldn't that be much cheaper?) but it doesn't quite result in the effect that they're going for. It looks like when you go into Photoshop and insert a piece of clip art you found on Google Image Search into an actual photo. Maybe it would've looked better if the CGI weren't so BAD...

One of these things is not like the others. Which one is different? Do you know?

"Time for my lunch appointment!" Top Cat announces, and thus off he heads as we get a recreation of the show's theme song. Soon T.C. is sitting outside a restaurant with his right-hand man... er, right-hand CAT, actually... Benny the Ball (Chris Edgerly), munching on what appear to be little finger sandwiches. "What more could an alley cat need than good food and good friends?" he asks... just before seeing an attractive girl cat walk by and ditching Benny to stalk her. Yes, this movie has Top Cat getting a girlfriend. Despite the fact that Top Cat doesn't actually NEED a girlfriend. But then again, I don't think Bugs Bunny needed a girlfriend either, but that didn't stop Warner Brothers...

"After this, Benny, why don't we go steal some pic-a-nic baskets?"
"Wrong Hanna-Barbera cartoon, T.C...."

But before T.C. can catch up with the girl cat, he's stopped in his tracks by a mean-looking bulldog. He identifies the dog as his old pal Griswald (who was voiced by Jason Harris Katz in the UK release of the film, but then dubbed over by Danny Trejo for the US release because I guess they thought it would sell more DVDs). Okay, confession time - I initially thought that this character was just made up for the movie, but a quick trip to the Top Cat Wiki (yes, there's a Top Cat Wiki. Does anything NOT have a Wiki nowadays?) informed me that Griswald did indeed appear in at least two episodes of the original show. Interesting that they chose to bring back such an obscure character.

"No, I'm NOT Muttley! We don't even look that much alike!"

Griswald is ticked off at Top Cat because the flea collar he sold him doesn't work, but Top Cat manages to trick him again because Griswald is apparently a massive idiot. We get a chase scene and then Top Cat catches up with the girl cat. You can tell that this cat is a girl because she has a full head of hair (despite the fact that Top Cat and his pals don't... does this mean that in their universe, they're considered bald?) and a curvy figure (gotta appeal to the furries in the audience).

I looked it up. Unlike Griswald, this character WASN'T in the original show.

She introduces herself as Trixie (Melissa Disney), and tells Top Cat when he starts hitting on her that she doesn't date anyone from the alley. Griswald shows up again, but winds up getting covered in cement before he can mangle Top Cat, and while T.C. is distracted Trixie manages to slip away.

Top Cat heads back to his alley, where Benny is waiting for him... as is Officer Dibble (Bill Lobley). He says that the restaurant the two cats were at before told him about their freeloading, and also that he's up for an important promotion and he wants to make sure that Top Cat doesn't mess it up. Okay, taking all bets! How much for "Top Cat does indeed mess it up at some point in this movie"?

Has Top Cat ever actually been arrested by Officer Dibble? If not, no
wonder he doesn't take Dibble very seriously...

Before he leaves, Officer Dibble warns T.C. to stay away from Connity Hall, where a violinist that Top Cat and Benny really like just so happens to be performing that night... so, yeah. I think it's pretty safe to say that Top Cat will head to Connity Hall and do something to muck up Dibble's chance at a promotion. And among those expected to attend the performance is the Maharajah of... Pikachu? I swear Top Cat said "Pikachu". Anyhow, the Maharajah of Pikachu is apparently well-known for giving away rubies as tips. This gets the gears in Top Cat's head turning, and he comes up with a plan to get himself out of that ally and into Trixie's pants. But first, he has to summon the rest of his gang. Let's see... there's Choo-Choo (Jason Harris Katz again), a pink cat who I'm just now noticing kind of looks like Snagglepuss...

"Top Cat needs me?! Exit, stage left, or stage right, even!"

Spook (Benjamin Diskin), who in the original show sounded like a beatnik but now sounds like a surfer dude (I guess surfer dudes are considered the modern equivalent of beatniks?)…

Here's something for you to think about - if Top Cat and his pals are
alley cats, then how did they afford those nice clothes that they wear?
Maybe they made the clothes themselves?

Fancy-Fancy (Matthew Piazzi), who's a suave ladies' man... errr, ladies' CAT, that is... and who also abandons his date when he hears Top Cat calling his name... resulting in said date going over a waterfall presumably to her doom... that's a pretty dark joke, but eh, she had a pretty annoying voice anyway...

Kind of surprised they didn't give him a French accent to really complete
the "suave ladies' man" stereotype. Maybe they were afraid that Pepe Le Pew
would sue them if they did...

And Brain (Jason Harris Katz... yeah, he voices a LOT of characters in this), whose schtick is that he's an idiot. Which makes it amusing that his name is "Brain". Because he doesn't have a brain. Nyuck nyuck nyuck…

Seriously, he makes Pete the Puma look like Albert Einstein.

Once the cats are all gathered in the alley, Top Cat informs them that the Maharajah of Pikachu is in town... and he brought his rubies with him, hintidy-hint-hint-hint. Choo-Choo points out that, according to the newspaper, Officer Dibble is the Maharajah's police escort, and he'd NEVER let Top Cat anywhere near those rubies. That is why Top Cat will disguise himself as the Arabian oil king Ali Katt by... putting on a turban. Not much of a disguise, T.C. I mean, how dumb does he think Officer Dibble is?

I know there was an episode of the show where Top Cat disguised himself
the exact same way, so I can't fault the movie for this, but, seriously, does he
really not expect Officer Dibble to recognize him?

We cut to that night, where the Maharajah of Pikachu (Jason Harris Katz) is arriving at Connity Hall. As I just stated, there was an episode of the show where this exact same character appeared (though he was called the Maharajah of Pookajee rather than the Maharajah of Pikachu) and he ALSO ran afoul of one of Top Cat's schemes while Officer Dibble was in charge of protecting him. In other words, the filmmakers recycled a plotline from the show.

He kind of looks like Mr. Twiddle from the Wally Gator cartoons,
doesn't he?

Top Cat and his crew quickly discover that if they want to get into the concert, they'll need tickets... and the tickets are sold out. Brain suggests that they swipe someone else's tickets, but Top Cat reminds him that they might be con artists, but they do have a moral code: they only steal from folks who DESERVE to be stolen from. And wouldn't you know it, a guy who deserves to be stolen from just so happens to show up!

Gee, I wonder who the film's villain is...

This is Lou Strickland, our antagonist. He makes it very clear that he is a loud-mouthed, short-tempered, misanthropic troll of a guy, making it incredibly satisfying when Top Cat cons him out of his tickets so he and his boys can slip inside. He's also unbelievably ugly and has a very annoying voice (provided by Jason Harris Katz in the UK release and by Rob Schneider in the US release). And it's then revealed that Trixie, that girl cat from before, is his employee. I wonder if that could turn out to be a problem for Top Cat...

Inside the theater, Top Cat has Choo-Choo distract Officer Dibble so he can charm the Maharajah of Pikachu. It's here that we discover Mr. Maharajah is the owner of a tech company that's created some sort of iPhone/suitcase/camera/paperweight gadget. As the concert begins, Top Cat makes a bet with the Maharajah - if the violinist misses a note, Top Cat gets all of the Maharajah's rubies. If he doesn't, the Maharajah gets Benny. With the help of Fancy-Fancy and Spook, Top Cat wins that bet - but the Maharajah can't give him any of his rubies because he's already given them all away as tips.

"Y'know, you look very familiar. Have I met you before?"
"Yes, in an episode of the original show. They recycled the plotline for
this movie."

In place of the rubies, the Maharajah gives Top Cat his iPhone/suitcase/camera thing, and Top Cat and Benny try to sneak out before Officer Dibble spots them. Alas, Benny winds up giving them away, resulting in another chase scene... and also THIS happening:

I have so many questions... the obvious one being WHY IS THERE AN ELEPHANT PREPARING TO PERFORM BALLET IN A CONCERT HALL?

So thanks to Top Cat, Officer Dibble's chances of getting a promotion are the size of Atom Ant... or are they? He gets a call from his superior telling him to come down to the station for an important announcement. He's sure that this means he's going to be the new police chief of New York City!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we never saw the police chief in the original
show, right? This is a banner event for Top Cat fans!

Unsurprisingly, that's NOT what the police chief (Bob Kaliban) tells him. No, no, instead, he just wanted Officer Dibble to meet the guy who he HAS chosen to be his replacement. Wow, way to get his hopes up and then yank out the rug from under him, buddy. And who DID he choose to be his replacement? Why, none other than that Lou Strickland guy! Because surely the best choice for new police chief of New York City is an obviously evil loud-mouthed deranged-looking constantly-aggravated troll who apparently doesn't even have much police experience. I think even BRAIN would be a better choice for police chief than this guy.

Methinks the police chief is a few sodas short of a six-pack.

So WHY is the police chief letting Lou take over? Well, apparently he's his son-in-law and he needed a job. Wait, his son-in-law? That means Lou must be married to the police chief's son or daughter. How could this guy have possibly gotten married? Who in their right mind would marry a guy like Lou Strickland? I can't think of one positive quality that this man has. Is everybody in the police chief's family an idiot?

After the police chief leaves, Lou tells Officer Dibble that he's replaced all of his fellow police officers with computers. Why? Because people can make mistakes, but machines can not. Of course, a criminal can easily destroy a machine by smashing it to pieces with a baseball bat whereas they couldn't do that to a person, so there's at leasst ONE flaw in Lou's plan. The only reason Dibble hasn't been fired yet is because Lou needs SOMEONE to turn on the computers. Oh, and he's also doing a surprise inspection of Dibble's beat.

Remember, kids, brush your teeth frequently or else they'll end up looking
like this guy's.

Strickland being chief of police isn't a good thing for Top Cat, either. Strickland recognizes him as the cat who conned him at the concert the other night, and he vows to get his REVENGE. Then Top Cat, his pals, and Dibble discover that the Strickland standing in the alley with them is just a hologram. And he likes to channel the Great and Powerful Oz.

I'd love to see some random citizen walk by and wet their pants at the
sight of a random giant floating head.

So now Dibble is stuck doing paperwork in a small, dark office, the cats' alley has a giant electric fence in front of it, and Strickland has a million cameras all over the city. Oh, and did I mention his fleet of robot henchmen?

Can't be a generic insane cartoon supervillain without some robot henchmen.

Well, technically he just has the one, but he has a company that can build billions of 'em. All he needs is thousands and thousands of dollars, which he wants the mayor of New York (Bob Kaliban) to give to him. Meanwhile, Top Cat and his crew have enlisted the help of a gorilla (Fred Tatasciore) to take care of the electric fence.

I kind of wish they'd made the gorilla Magilla. Would've been a neat cameo.

Cats: one. Strickland: zero. However, the gorilla is hungry and the cats are out of bananas. You know that old joke "what does a thousand-pound gorilla eat"? Well, the answer to that question really IS "anything it wants to".

Including Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, apparently.

Question: if they have a gigantic, incredibly angry gorilla, why don't they just sic it on Strickland? Then the movie would be over in, like, three seconds. But instead, we have a few minutes of the gorilla beating the crap out of Top Cat and his crew. Oh, and that girl cat Fancy-Fancy was romancing before shows up again. I guess she survived the waterfall after all.

The good news is, the mayor spots the gorilla rampaging through New York on one of Strickland's cameras just as he's about to give the guy a million dollars. When Top Cat appears, he guesses that the gorilla is his doing and refuses to give Strickland any of his money because clearly Top Cat found away around his precious technology. Cats: two. Strickland: still zero.

Strickland is now even more thirsty for revenge against Top Cat, and when Trixie admits that she knows him he comes up with a plan to get that revenge...

"Sir, I'm afraid you've gone mad with power.
"Of course I have! You ever tried going mad WITHOUT power?! It's
BORING! No one listens to you!"

Trixie's job now is to invite Top Cat out on a date and seduce him. When she leaves to take a phone call, Top Cat digs through her purse and finds... some sort of camera with a vacuum cleaner attached to it that allows Strickland to create a hologram of him. Then Strickland has that hologram rob an orphanage.

So when Top Cat returns to the alley, the others start chewing him out for robbing the orphanage despite his insistence that he didn't do it. "You told me that we only robbed people who deserved it. That we lived by a code," Brain points out. As if things couldn't get any worse, then Strickland and his police robot show up. Strickland shows Top Cat and his gang a video that his security cameras took of him robbing the orphanage and dubbing his friends "losers". Predictably, none of the other cats question why the Top Cat in the video is talking in such a stilted fashion and has that robotic sound to his voice. And just to further twist the knife, he knocks over a trash can to reveal bags of money inside, "proving" that T.C. wasn't going to share the money he stole with his friends.

Hello, new potential meme...

So of course Top Cat's gang judges it strictly by how it looks and doesn't stop to think about whether or not this is in-character for Top Cat, or whether or not they should trust an obvious slimeball like Strickland (I mean, I know I probably shouldn't expect them to immediately jump to the conclusion that it's a hologram, but shouldn't they at least be A LITTLE suspicious?). When Trixie shows up, Top Cat realizes that she's in cahoots with Strickland. She claims it's "just what's best for the city" as Top Cat is dragged off by the police robot.

In court, the judge (Bob Kaliban) actually believes that Top Cat could hypothetically be innocent... but then it turns out that the jury consists entirely of Strickland. I don't know much about the legal system, but I'm preeeeeeeeeeetty sure you can't have a jury of only one person. Especially when that person is an obvious slimeball. And apparently Strickland is Top Cat's lawyer, too. Pretty sure that's not how it works either. What, did Strickland pay off the judge or something? Isn't that ALSO frowned upon?

Why didn't they just have a bunch of kangaroos as the jury to make the
fact that Top Cat isn't going to get a fair trial more obvious?

And on top of THAT, Top Cat doesn't even get a trial because the judge saw the video (is EVERYBODY in this film except Top Cat an idiot?). He's sentenced to Cat Jail, but then Strickland tells him that Cat Jail is filled up, so instead he gets sent to DOG Jail. And now that Top Cat's behind bars, the mayor is convinced that technology can indeed keep New York City safe and gives him the money he needs.

I think this picture summarizes pretty much every character in this movie pretty well...

So now Top Cat is stuck in dog jail, where Griswald is waiting for him (he got thrown in there for an overdue library book). Meanwhile, the other cats are failing at life without their leader, and Strickland rules over the city with an iron fist. He vows to put security cameras in every single room of their houses. And he's also got a whole army of police robots to do his bidding.

"Oh wee oh, oh weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee oh..."

In Dog Jail, Top Cat manages to fool the dogs into thinking that he is a dog... and that Griswald is a cat. I see he's decided to use every other character in the movie having the IQ of a loaf of bread to his advantage.

At least the prison warden was nice enough to let T.C. keep his hat and vest...

After that, he starts digging a hole to escape... only to hear Benny's voice through the window. Peeking in, he sees his gang on TV talking about how much he sucks, which depresses him so much that he gives up on trying to escape.

Strickland continues his reign of terror on the city. He gives somebody a one hundred dollar fine for not having an "eating a banana in public" permit. When the guy tosses it in a trash can, he starts charging him for "trash can rental" and "trash can deposit fees". Somebody else gets hit with a twenty-dollar "hat-wearing fee", a one-thousand dollar fee for "carrying a concealed hat", and three days in the slammer. Yeah, by now it should be obvious Strickland's claim that he wants to get rid of crime altogether is just an excuse for him to torture people because that's how he gets his kicks. Plus, it gives him lots and lots of poorly-rendered money, allowing him to channel Scrooge McDuck.

"DuckTales! Woo-hoo!"

"You were supposed to make this city safer! But instead, no one is safe from YOU!" Trixie complains. She angrily storms out of the room, then we cut back to T.C.'s gang. They're miserable, out of money, and (thanks to a convenient rainstorm) soaking wet. "I can't believe T.C. would abandon us like this!" Benny complains.

I'm sorry, WHAT? He didn't "abandon" you. He got thrown in jail for a crime he didn't commit and YOU abandoned HIM.

Anyhow, back in Dog Jail...

Is that Huckleberry Hound in the back I spy?

Top Cat manages to win over the other dogs by serving them better food than what they were being served initially. And, oh, look. There are some dogs that look like Top Cat's crew. What a coincidence. Oh, and their names are Vinny, Spectrum, Einstein, Dandy-Dandy, and Chattanooga.

Can you guess which one is supposed to be which of Top Cat's friends?
Hint: the one that's supposed to be Choo-Choo is the one that's pink.

Officer Dibble is miserable too. Strickland is making him do humiliating things like scrub his toilet. Trixie shows up and shows him a secret file on his computer informing him that the Top Cat who robbed the orphanage wasn't Top Cat (as everyone else had suspected) or a hologram (as I suspected). It was a robot! WHAT A TWIST!

Then Strickland shows up on a secret screen disguised as a picture frame and brags about how he's not even the police chief's father-in-law... which I'm not surprised by, seeing as no man or woman in their right mind would ever marry a guy like Strickland. In fact, the police chief doesn't even have a daughter. Strickland claims that he's just a really good con man, but to be honest, I think the REAL reason why he was able to con the chief is because the chief is just an enormous moron. He sics his robots on Dibble, but he manages to escape, find Top Cat's pals, and tell them that he's innocent.

I hope they all feel really stupid right now.

Unfortunately, Brain destroys the only evidence that Dibble has of Top Cat's innocence (because he assumes that it's what framed T.C.). So instead, Spook suggests breaking Top Cat out of jail. He knows a guy named Gus who's broken out of jail lots of times. Benny starts to think of a way to find him, and the screen fades to black... oh, wait, never mind. It's just an eclipse. That was the funniest joke in the movie.

So, how are they going to get to where Gus (Jason Harris Katz) lives? Easy - Benny has a horse! That's oddly convenient.

Seriously, how did Benny get a horse?

They finally arrive at Gus' place, where Dibble recognizes the rest of his gang: Small Louie, Skinny Moe, Fatty Stan, and One-Eyed Bill (the only one whose name isn't ironic). Fancy-Fancy asks for his help, and conveniently enough it turns out that he owes Top Cat a favor (he fixed Top Cat's vest one day and when Top Cat gave him a dollar bill as payment, he didn't have change for it), so he agrees to help.

I didn't know the Ant Hill Mob moved to New York. Maybe that's why
they weren't in the Wacky Races reboot...

Gus has previously escaped from Dog Jail (why he was sent to Dog Jail in the first place, I don't think they ever mention), so they use the tunnel he dug that time to get in. When they arrive, they discover that Top Cat has transformed the place into a paradise. He's really happy to see them again... but he's still going to give them a hard time for immediately assuming that he's a common criminal and turning their backs on him. Personally, I don't blame him in the least.

"Seriously, you guys believed the obviously evil Strickland over ME? How
long have you known me for? YEARS?"

He goes on to add that he's got NEW friends, in the form of those dogs who look and act exactly like them. Benny apologizes for doubting Top Cat, and of course he forgives them. But how will they get out of jail? Easy - Top Cat tricks one of the robot guards into thinking that he's served his full sentence, allowing him to leave... but not before Benny reveals to the dogs that Top Cat is indeed a cat, resulting in them giving chase.

I do like the gags during this scene with the cats interacting with their
doggy doppelgangers.

After escaping the dogs, Dibble tells Top Cat that Trixie helped them and that she's being held prisoner by Strickland. They run into the police robots, who try to arrest them for loitering and being out past curfew, but Top Cat points out that THEY'RE loitering and out past curfew too. The result: they blow up.

Then we cut to Strickland taking a mud bath, only to be informed that the robots have captured Dibble. He gets thrown in the same jail that everyone else in the city has been thrown in... including Trixie. "Soon, every city in this country will look like THIS!" Strickland cackles.

But, surprise! The robots that captured Dibble are actually Top Cat and his pals in disguise. Dibble is just keeping Strickland distracted. When Top Cat tries to free Trixie, she tells him that the user manual holds the key code for all of Strickland's systems. He keeps it inside a vault in the command center.

"Yep, I'm a cyborg now. Don't ask."

To get past the robots guarding the command center, Top Cat disguises Fancy-Fancy as a girl robot, and as they're chasing after him the rest of the cats sneak in. Now they just have to break down the door to the vault using something really thick... such as, for example, Brain's head.

"Duh, but I don't wanna use my heaaaaaaaaaaaaad!"

So they head into the vault, but Benny winds up tripping a laser that alerts Strickland of their being in the vault. But, Benny also manages to find the manual... which is written in Portuguese for some reason. But then he finds the English section! Choo-Choo finds the self-destruct code, but Strickland traps him, Benny, Spook, and Brain in the vault, then proceeds to brag to Top Cat about how he is unstoppable. He summons his robots to annihilate Top Cat... but then Top Cat gets an idea. He asks Strickland if he built the robots himself. Strickland says no (he's not going to ruin his "perfect hands" with manual labor), he hired somebody in Pikachu to do the job. "I thought that logo looked familiar. I know the maharajah," Top Cat replied, getting out that camera/iPhone/paperweight doohickey that as it turns out can also control the robots.

And here I thought that thing wasn't going to be brought up again...

"Looks like I have control of the city now, Strickland! I demand you free the citizens from jail and tell the people I'M INNOCENT!" Top Cat snaps. Strickland refuses, so Top Cat orders the robots to arrest him. But Strickland still has a self-destruct button, which he promptly pushes, blowing up all the robots and freeing Dibble, the cats, and the citizens. Then Top Cat reveals something else - the iPhone-camera-paperweight-whatever it is DOESN'T control the robots. The robot that he was supposedly "controlling" with it was just Fancy-Fancy in disguise. Ha ha, Strickland just got PUNKED!

Dibble announces that Strickland is under arrest. And Top Cat mentions that he's heard there's no more room in the Human Jail. You know what THAT means, don't you?

Karma sucks, doesn't it, Strickland?

For his role in saving the day, Dibble is rewarded with the job of police chief. Top Cat and Trixie are an item. And Griswald apparently got out of jail and becomes part of the gang!

The end.

What's the Verdict?

This was blah. Very, very blah. First of all, every character except for Top Cat is a massive idiot. Seriously, who in their right mind would look at a guy like Strickland and say, "Yeah. That's a trustworthy fellow!"? Speaking of which, the villain is incredibly annoying and repulsive. The voice acting is hit-or-miss... Top Cat and Benny sound pretty spot-on, but Choo-Choo is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too high-pitched and nasally, and Spook doesn't sound ANYTHING like he did in the show. The animation - both Flash and CGI - is mediocre at best. Some of the jokes were funny, I'll admit. And, hey, at least it did SOMETHING with a Hanna-Barbera character that wasn't Scooby-Doo during the early 2010s. There was a long time . I suppose fans of the show would like it fine, but I've seen far better movies based on animated shows.

One more thing... this exists:

No, I'm not going to review it.