Top Cat: The Complete Series (Repackaged/DVD)

Not taking anything away from "The Flintstones" or "The Jetsons" or any of the other great Hanna Barbera cartoons, but "Top Cat" may just be the funniest, hippest, smartest show HB ever put out. From the writing, the backgrounds, setting the show in a real (as opposed to fictional) city--New York--and Gershwin-esq music ques, every episode of "Top Cat" is quality comedy from the first frame to the last. I absolutely loved this show as a kid, and now that I'm an adult I can watch it with a new appreciation for the talent that went into making it. Seven characters voiced by six great actors (The wonderful Leo de Lyon pulled double duty as the voice of both Brain and Spook), each with a distinct and endearing personality. Arnold Stang is brilliantly cast as Top Cat, bringing a sensitivity and vulnerability to the role of this "hukster." Maurice Gosfield is hilarious as the delightful Benny the Ball, as is Marvin Kapland as Choo-Choo. And Allen Jenkins is perfect as officer Dribble, er, I mean Dibble. Really, the only character who doesn't do much for me is Fancy-Fancy, but the episodes tend to leave him and Spook (whom I do like) a bit more in the background than the other characters. Combine great characters with great actors and great writing and you get some great comedy. In the first episode, "Hawaii Here We Come," the opening shot of little Benny hula dancing and singing "Aloha Hoyiiiiie!" is just one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And in that same episode they seem to take a swipe at Disney with a line about Davy Crockett and "that song," which Dibble tries to remember but comes up with "Daaaavy Crockett, with the googlie eyes . . . no, that's not it." This is most definitely a show for all ages. Kids will like the funny cats, and adults will appreciate the more subtle aspects of the humor. On that basis alone I'd recommend this DVD, but wait! There's more! This DVD package has some great extras. The documentary Back to Hoagy's Alley, hosted by Leo de Lyon (Spook and Brain) is very nice, and I really love the interview with Mr. T.C. himself, Arnold Stang. I have watched one of the commentaries so far, and that's very good as well, and I look forward to watching the other two. Video quality is excellent and holds up even on my 42" plasma. My only complaint (just a nit-pick, really) is that disc 4 is two sided so you have to flip it over. Couldn't they have made it single sided, dual-layered instead? Oh, well, not really important. In short, if you are a fan of TV animation from the 50s and 60s then you must get this set. It's a shame that T.C. only got 30 episodes (though they were shown for years on Sat. mornings). This show should have gone on much longer. But maybe with this DVD release T.C. will get some new fans and the show will get the broad recognition it deserves.

Funny. Good price. Classic show.

Good quality video, you can tell the image is interlaced but it doesn't detract from viewing on a modern display. No "vibrating edges" just some visible scan lines during movement. Here's an extreme example in the added photo with the background wooshing by at high speed. The only time there's that much movement is in the intro. The subtitles are accurate but with some lines skipped for simplicity (Benny's Hawaiian singing in Ep. 1 for example). Case arrived intact unlike a lot of DVDs ordered so I'm happy with that. All in all big recommendation.

I was just a kid when Top Cat became the second prime-time cartoon show, and couldn't wait to watch it. The Flintstones broke the ice in '60, and TC and crew came on in '61. It is a real tragedy they didn't make more Top Cat, because of the two, I and many others prefer this feline take on the old Sgt. Bilko show. The quality of the video is fantastic--and it's GREAT seeing them all in color. (I had no idea Choo-Choo was PINK)... of course it was only done that way to create all the right shades of gray/white/black for a show that only aired in black and white--but in color it's even better. The audio could be a little louder, unless it's just that my DVD player doesn't pick up the audio track that well; I have to have the volume almost to full 100 to get it clear across my living room. Other than that, I split my sides watching the antics of TC and company, and am amazed at how much I remember even after not having seen this show in over 40 years! I KNEW sooner or later he'd call officer Dibble--Officer Dribble... I distinctly remembered it... and he did. Memories, Memories! Benny the Ball, Chooch, Fancy, Brain, Spook, and TC, they're all here and what fun it is to share them with my grandkids who love them as much as I did. It's SO refreshing to be able to show them cartoons that do NOT have kids who hate their parents, dysfunctional families that are rife with obscenities, and sexual innuendo... none of that.. just good clean wholesome...and funny entertainment. Love it. Oh, and the extra features on each disc are fun as well... interviews with the voices of Leo De Lyon who was both Spook and Brain, (Am I just spinning wheels, or was there a character called Leo the Lion, and Hardy Har Har?---could this be the guy who was THAT voice too? LOL) and in another one, the guy who was Chooch's voice, and even Top Cat himself. They also have one episode on each disk where you can hear them discussing the show as it's played (this is NOT the regular show--but an extra)... and it's really enlightening hearing all the commentary. I was leery of the investment at first, and still rue the fact that there aren't a whole lot more episodes of this wonderful show available. That said, anyone who came up in the era of those great Hanna-Barbera cartoon shows like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Deputy Dawg, Flintstones, Jetsons,...all great FAMILY fun... will just love TC and the Gang!

I'm not ordinarily a fan of the rather crude and often physically implausible Hanna-Barbera style of animation (the lush Disney school is more to my taste), but as a lifelong cat lover, how could I have failed to enjoy this one-season wonder? Set in and around Hoagy's Alley in Manhattan, it chronicles the adventures of straw-hatted yellow tomcat Top Cat (voiced by Arnold Stang), whose "close friends get to call him T.C.," and his gang of alley mousers--diminutive Benny the Ball (Maurice Gosfield), turtlenecked pink-furred Choo-Choo (Marvin Kaplan), ladies' man Fancy-Fancy (John Stephenson), beatnik Spook, and slow-witted Brain (both Leo deLyon). T.C. is a born hustler who's always looking for a good angle (he runs a bingo game, a sports pool, and a raffle racket, among others), and this frequently brings him into conflict with the local beat cop, Officer Dibble (Allen Jenkins), who would dearly love to run him in--most often on the excuse that he's let his alley get littered (a state in which his neighbors and the Sanitation Department are probably complicit) or been using Dibble's police phone box (usually by answering it when Dibble isn't there). Sometimes Dibble wins, sometimes T.C. does, yet Dibble, as we see early on, would miss T.C. if he wasn't around--and T.C., despite his larcenous instincts, is really a decent fellow at heart, who occasionally even finds himself on the side of the law, as when (in the opening episode, "Hawaii, Here We Come") he and his "men" help Dibble catch a counterfeiter, or (in "Naked Town") they break a ring of warehouse thieves. He even schemes to get Dibble reinstated when the Sergeant replaces him, lets his gang persuade him to take care of an abandoned baby, and plays a willing role in helping Benny convince his visiting mother that Benny is the Mayor! Apart from the quality of the animation, the show's great weakness is that it apparently didn't have a "series bible" to keep the writers straight on character background, which, if you have a good memory and care about consistency, will irk you. In one episode Benny has a mother, in another he was reared in an orphanage; in one Choo-Choo got at least as far as fifth grade, in another only kindergarten; in one Dibble's been on the Force 15 years, in another only 10. My own favorite segments, I noticed, tended to be those in which Dibble and T.C. team up (as in "Dibble Breaks the Record," when the cats decide to help him top Iron Man Muldoon's record for pounding a beat without missing a day, or "Dibble's Double," in which a notorious criminal master of disguise makes off with some paintings while posing as him, and T.C. and the gang jump in to clear him); they don't seem to realize that if only they could stop disagreeing, they'd make really formidable allies. The heart and soul of it all, of course, is T.C. Fending off would-be usurpers from out of town, taking full advantage of his opportunities as they arise, "protecting" his "boys" from exploitation as he defines it (though often with ulterior motives), he's admittedly a feline Sgt. Bilko, yet somehow you can't help liking him--his quick, creative mind, his brashness, his wit, his occasional sentimentality, and his persistence. Three one-sided discs and a double provide all the series episodes plus bonus material.

Love this DVD

Thank you. This is awesome.

Brings back the good ole days

La información que se da acerca de este DVD es engañosa ya que indica que los idiomas y subtítulos están en inglés y español; sin embargo, solo tiene los subtítulos en español. No está doblada en ese idioma. Por ese motivo la he calificado como deficiente y he hecho la devolución del producto.

Muy buena DVD series completas lo recomiendo

Brand new disks in a sealed box. Disk are working OK.

Tem gosto de infância

On of the best cartoon series of the 60s. Nostalgic viewing.