TC's Thoughts On.....TC!

Yes, folks, I'm talking about Top Cat, that adorable, money-hungry furball from the Big Apple, who's the only Hanna-Barbera character with the same initials as moi. But enough about that. I'll cut to the chase now.

I can't remember when I first saw Top Cat, let alone the first episode I saw. All I know is it was sometime during its Saturday morning run in the late '60's. And I was instantly taken with it. Although I liked all the characters, TC himself, Benny, and Officer Dibble are my top three.

Judging from what I saw, it was evident that all TC wanted was a better place than a trash can or alley. What cat wouldn't? Sure, his schemes were illegal, but I didn't care. However, each time he used the police phone, I thought, "TC. hang up that phone before Dibble catches you!"

I also commend HB for not making the mistake of depicting New York City as some paradise or Utopia. They presented it as the hotbed of crime that it was and still is in real life(I visited the Big Apple often throughout the '70's, but only did so when accompanied by others).

The show's opening and closing were also memorable. TC hitching a ride in a chauferred limo, pretending to pay the doorman, casually walking into an upscale bistro(and ignoring the dress code), and stealing a workman's lunch were all tipoffs to the nature of his business. Along with fleeing when the humans gave him dirty looks, and escaping in a taxi. The closing merely showed him sipping milk he stole from a milk truck, and getting ready for bed inside his trash can.

But, showing that you can't keep a good cat down, TC resurfaced several times in other HB series, specials, and made for TV movies. Most memorably as the boss on "Yogi's Treasure Hunt." Who better than he to send them off in search of treasure?

Finally, I'll never see the Top Cat movie that was filmed in Mexico, for I fear it'll let me down.

Trivia Question 63: Name the female cat who, along with her "guardians," set out to steal Benny's money.

When the BBC first aired Top Cat in the UK there was a popular cat food on sale by that name. Since the BBC could not appear to be advertising (the rules against advertising, especially in children's programming, were quite strict - brand names could not be shown or spoken) they renamed Top Cat as "Boss Cat". In the title sequence, when TC pulls down the blind with the title on the BBC cut to a title card reading Boss Cat. The show was listed as Boss Cat, and the continuity announcers had to introduce it as Boss Cat. But they made no attempt to change the soundtrack, so everyone knew it was just a charade.

Trivia Answer: Honeydew Melon, who was one of the few female cats in the series.