Top Cat Strikes Gold With the Most Tip-Top Blu-ray

Warner Archive exec GEORGE FELTENSTEIN returns with details on the extensive restoration and special features on the newly released TOP CAT Blu-ray.

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Episode Transcript

(00:11):
Ladies and gentlemen. Children of all ages, we love
head of our mirror. Welcome to the Fantastic World
of Hannah and Barbera, a celebration of Bill, Hannah, Joe

(00:32):
Barbera and the thousands of people, past and present who
have shared in their entertainment tradition.
And now your host, Greg Airbar. Thank you, Chris Anthony.
Welcome to the funtastic world of Hanna and Barbera.
I'm Greg Airbar, author of HannaBarbera, the recorded history.
We have one of our favorite people in the whole wide world

(00:55):
here today, Mr. George Feltenstein from Warner Archive.
And we're going to talk about the indisputably most
sophisticated animated primetimeseries ever made.
That is now on Blu-ray, the fabulous top cap.
But first, I want to welcome to the show.
Thank you for being on again. George, it's my pleasure, Greg,
great to be with you. This is really big news.

(01:17):
It has all of the elements of the classic Hanna Barbera.
Excellent writing, flawless casting, the image work is
great, and what a Hoyt curtain score.
Yes, he's the chief. He's the king bottom.
Of everything. He's the most tip.
Top top cap. I've always loved it since

(01:37):
childhood, so this is for me, a personal dream come true to be
able to go back to the negativesand have it look fantastic.
I've never lost my affection forthe series.
It's really so well written and so well performed by the
talented voice actors and it's beautiful to look at and it's

(01:58):
timeless. I have course have the DVD and I
love it and it has a lot of the features that I'm assuming,
according to what I've been reading, are also going to be on
the Blu-ray. Is that correct?
Yes, absolutely beautiful Blu-ray.
Oh, that's great, because sometimes in the transition,

(02:18):
like with those anniversary collections and stuff of the RE
issues of Hanna Barbera stuff, not all that stuff got through
and there are a lot of reasons for it.
But in this case, this is such an important title.
Those commentaries and those interviews are irreplaceable.
I. Couldn't agree with you more and
what they did a few years back, and I had no involvement with

(02:40):
this, was our kids marketing group took a lot of the Hanovera
Bureau DVD sets that were issuedin the early aughts and
repackaged them into less discs and that meant less quality.
It did lowered the price. They did do very well and that

(03:00):
helps get more people to have awareness of these series.
But when we started doing the Blu-ray remasters, starting with
Johnny Quest, then moving on to Jetsons and others, I had hoped
that we could get to Top Cat. And that day has finally
happened. Yeah, it is a time for great
rejoicing. This is a true classic.

(03:22):
Not that the other ones aren't as well.
The shows themselves look spectacular and their ability to
entertain and capture an audience and provide humor for
audiences of all ages is still very much intact, and I think
the show holds up wonderfully. I love it just as much as I did
as a kid. It is one of those things that

(03:44):
you return to over and over again and see it in a different
place in your life and appreciate the nuances and the
the subtleties the that you might have missed earlier or
forgot about and go like, oh, that was great.
One of the cool things to me about Top Cat was you had
supporting voices from the HB Greats lineup, Don Messick and

(04:06):
Doz Butler and Gene Vanderpile. But because these scripts were a
little more sophisticated, you got to hear them paying off
lines and using their great timing for sharper kinds of
jokes and material. Absolutely.
I mean, I picked up on that as akid because when I was watching
as a kid, I knew there were certain things I didn't

(04:28):
understand because I was basically a toddler when I first
watched it. But I continued watching it in
the reruns for years and years thereafter, and it's wonderful.
What particularly struck me was that I really, really appreciate
even more that extra level of excellence in the voice work.

(04:51):
Because here you don't have. It's not just not to demean them
in any way. It's not just the usual Hanna
Barbera voice actors. You have people that never did
animation voices before since and I think it gives a special
feeling to everything. And they clearly we're taking,

(05:14):
oh, we're not making this as a babysitter for little children,
We're making a great thing for adults.
I think the comedy and the writing really hold up well.
The performances are quite impressive.
I particularly marvel at Arnold Stang because he was always

(05:34):
playing nerdy parts and here he's obviously, I think we've
even talked about this previously that was derivative
of Bilko and Phil Silvers and what not even down to having
Maurice Gosfield, you know, who's Doberman on the Bilko show
playing Benny the Ball and they designed his character to look
like him. I think it was a nod of the head

(05:56):
as opposed to trying to be derivative, but it stands on its
own. And I also particularly get a
kick out of Alan Jenkins as Dibble.
He's my favorite. Kid, he was such a great
character actor. I'm glad you got great taste.
I mean, he just blended in so well.
And I think it's it's the writing that particularly I find

(06:20):
so impressive. It is so well written and the
shows hold up and I really hope that people who may not be
familiar with the series will finally discover it.
And really, I believe, and I only believe this when you have
a beautiful presentation with exceptional quality.

(06:41):
It is much more likely you're going to grab an audience and
get them in. I think that this collection is
very, very much attractive in multiple ways.
We've also carried over the extensive special features that
were created for the DVD of 20 years ago when Boys cast members

(07:02):
were still alive, and we have 3 episodes with commentaries.
There's a lot of on camera interview material and sketches
and really a plethora of exceptional features that we
usually don't have because, you know, they were not as careful

(07:22):
about maintaining this material on other series.
I think there was a real bonanzaon Top Cat in terms of what was
able to be located. And I'm happy to say that we do
have the little Kellogg's windowshield at the end of the
beginning titles, which people haven't seen in a very long

(07:43):
time. So it's just a little extra
something. We're really happy about that.
There are some very poor qualityblack and white Kellogg's
commercials in the supplements, which were gathered a very long
time ago. But I feel the episodes need to
be of the pristine quality. If the extra features are of

(08:04):
lesser quality, at least they'rethere and we're not leaving
anything out that was on the DVD.
Everything's been carried over. So you get an extreme
improvement in the presentation of the episodes.
All the episodes were scanned at4K from the original camera

(08:25):
negatives, and then the new masters were created.
And our way of handling animation is we take care of all
the film damage, but we don't change what you would have seen
on a premiere broadcast, taking into account, of course,
premiere broadcasts were shown in black and white.

(08:46):
But if there is a problem on a cell, if there's cell dust,
those organic things that represent this kind of
production, we leave those. We don't want to turn them into
soap opera. The defects that are inherent in
the cell animation, we leave. The defects in the film is what

(09:09):
we repair and that's done by hand and it's done very
carefully and I'm very, very happy with how it's turned out.
The fans will be, too. Oh my goodness.
So aside from this set, no one has seen how good these look
until they play them in the Blu-ray or the 4K in the

(09:31):
players. Absolutely.
You can see them in other ways. You can see them if they're
streamed or on television. They come from the same sources
because everything's been upgraded.
But the way things are compressed or there's such a
small file size and digital, thedisc is still your best bet for

(09:52):
perfect entertainment and the exceptional quality.
And that's why it's so important.
I'll say it again, I sound like a broken record, but physical
media wants you to buy this set.It's on your shelf forever.
Make sure you watch the whole thing.
We generally don't have any defectives, but there can always
be a defective on a manufactureditem.

(10:14):
Make sure that your disk plays properly and there's no
scratches on it, and it will be yours forever and ever and
playback for decades to come. And that's what's exciting about
it, owning Top Cat when I was a kid.
And Greg, I bet this was your experience too.
It was thrilling to be able to have a little 50 foot or 200

(10:34):
foot 8mm silent black and white thing that you buy at the camera
store. I did.
This is the world we live in now, where you get something
better than what was available when the show was created,
basically. Yeah, I have Space Monkeys on
Columbia 8mm and I watched it over and over and over again and

(10:55):
had the Cold Picks album. I wore that out, Nurse LaRue.
I can still hear the crackles. I still have it.
I just loved it. I love the fact because I knew
it. Even then, as a very small
child, I knew the difference between the original soundtrack
and something that was recreatedin a record studio.

(11:18):
I was flummoxed by the fact thatthere weren't more original
soundtracks available. That was basically something
that was changed with the work that Earl Kress and my friends
at Rhino. All that happened before I
started partnering with Rhino onbehalf of our company on

(11:41):
soundtracks. The Picnic Basket was literally
a dream come true to be able to have all that original music and
the songs and the audio and the sound effects, and it's
wonderful to be able to have that.
This is a huge leap forward fromwhat was done on DVD 20 years
ago, so we're very proud. Of it is also a bit of a tribute

(12:03):
to have Earl Kress on there, since he was so instrumental in
those CDs and a lot of the bonusextras, and he hosts the
features. So it's nice that that will also
live on. Earl was pretty much the
official historian of sorts of that era.
He found a lot of stuff and audio and video.

(12:24):
We owe him a lot. For certain.
And you know, I had the same feeling as I was watching them
because we were not close friends, but I had met him a few
times and you know, I thought hewas doing the Lord's work.
And I have not looked at the booklet of the Picnic Basket
probably in 25 years, but I remember his intro to it was

(12:47):
saying how when he was a kid he had wanted the original
recordings and why wasn't that possible And he made it happen
along with the folks at Rhino. There are two original Rhino
staff members still with Rhino, but the Rhino group of the 90s
made amazing things happen in all sorts of multimedia and pop

(13:10):
culture. That picnic basket,
unfortunately, my cardboard is not survived.
You can't carry it anymore like a picnic basket.
But I've been trying to convincemy colleagues here that a
reissue, you know, even though CDs are not what they were in
terms of being able to get them or the sales they can generate,
just making it, the music itselfavailable again to own is really

(13:34):
worth doing. And I hope that they will follow
through on that. There seems to be interest.
There really should be because from what I've noticed with all
the different music streaming services, because of the efforts
of you and Errol and Fred Seibert and Robin Frederick, EJ
Dick, a lot of those people at Rhino, that stuff became

(13:54):
plentiful in the 90s, but now because of all kinds of issues,
you can't stream original soundtrack themes.
As far as I know. Now, there's some pretty good
imitations. There's about five of them that
this one guy did in England, I believe, that are stereo and the
top cats. Terrific, but it's not the
original. So it would be great if either a

(14:14):
new compilation what they can retrieve, or a recreation of the
picnic basket. That would be sensational.
Yeah, I hope it happens. I've been talking about it for
years and years and years, and since that's an area I have no
oversight in, all I can do is make collegial suggestions
within on the organization, and I have done that.

(14:36):
But to be able to own the serieswith such premium quality,
that's something I'm deeply grateful for and very, very
proud of, and everybody who worked on it here has been.
People were in the edit rooms and color base were just
hysterical watching the episodesbecause a lot of them had never
seen it. They didn't know anything about
it. That's what I was going to ask

(14:57):
you. You know, you've got generations
that grew up on the more recent things, The Simpsons and Bob's
Burgers and Family Guy, and theydon't realize that, hey, there
was something that predated it that paved the way.
And that must be pretty cool to see them react to.
Wow, they were doing this kind of thing then?
Absolutely. Without question, it is

(15:18):
revelatory. And of course, you know, I don't
know where The Simpsons fit in it, but I certainly know that
Seth MacFarlane was so incredibly influenced by Hanna
Barbera and ended up being a junior employee there when he
first came to California, I think in the mid 90s.
He had a small role there and they shouldn't have let him get

(15:39):
away because he was developing Family Guy.
And I'm a fanatic Family Guy fan.
I just never get tired of it. But Top Cat was as cutting edge
in its day as the animation thatwe're seeing in prime time
today. They didn't have the freedom,
but they were riding with such wit and intelligence that they

(16:02):
didn't need to, you know, crossover a certain line in
order to be, you know, whether it's shock value or this and
that. I'm not condemning or judging
anything of what's done today. I love a lot of what's done
today, the purity of intelligentwriting and creativity.
And at the time, I especially think Top Cat more than even

(16:25):
Jetsons or Flintstones. Top Cat was, you know, but they,
they were living in an alley. They were kind of like the
Bowery boys. Top Cat was a little bit of a
con man, you know, and he made things happen that other people
would be afraid to do. And I say people, of course,
because, you know, it didn't really dawn on me at, let's say,

(16:46):
age two or three watching the show that it was about cats.
They were like people, you know,I didn't get the joke on The
Flintstones until I was like about four that, oh, this is the
Stony, you know, you're a toddler, you don't know these
things. I just knew it was entertaining

(17:07):
and I appreciated the humor. And I also would notice that a
lot of the background music was the same as on some of the other
shows. And I always got a kick out of
that. But it's really quite a
wonderful thing. It really, really is.
You know, there was a long period of time where we were not
allowed within the company to work with original negatives.

(17:29):
We had to work with secondary elements.
Happily, the Hanna Barbera library, once it fell under the
Turner and then Warner ownership, there was a huge
amount of money spent making inter positives off the camera
negatives for protection. Hannah Barbera series and shows

(17:50):
had never really had protection elements.
And those protection film elements, a lot of them were
made in the late 90s and even atthat time there were so many
things that were missing. But there was an honest effort
to see the value in the work that Mister Hannah and Mr.
Barbera put into all of their creations to protect them.

(18:12):
Now we're going back to the camera negatives, scanning it
for K for preservation and able to create new high definition
masters, hence the Blu-ray. We're looking for the best
picture and also the best sound.Our archival audio team went
over the tracks and cleaned themup to sound really terrific.

(18:32):
The music's a very important part of it and it looks as great
as it sounds. And, and again, I can't control
my enthusiasm and gratitude for this because it's a wonderful
thing to have happened and we'reworking on many different Anna
Barbera projects at the same time.
Right now. It's finally happening that

(18:55):
we're able to put things back together with Top Cat.
The real issue was coming to thesad conclusion that we didn't
have the original end credits for every episode.
That really was terribly disappointing, but we have done
what they did 20 years ago by making sure that when people

(19:16):
purchase this series, they get a45 second credit roll that lists
everybody who worked on the showin any capacity so that they
will not be forgotten because a lot of those people are no
longer with us. It was a stellar supporting
cast, in addition to The Maine people, Alan Jenkins you
mentioned and Arnold Stang, JohnStevenson, who rarely had a lead

(19:39):
you know he had. Marvin Kaplan.
Marvin Kaplan, there wasn't anything he couldn't say that
didn't come out better. But then you had people like
Herb Vigren and Herschel Bernardi.
Wow. I mean, there was a lot of
people who weren't always in cartoons but were in radio and
in sitcoms. The Sally James from Dick Van
Dyke Show, and just a load of great people.

(20:02):
Audio wise, it's a beautiful thing and I'm very excited to
hear the sound because that is one of Hoyt Curtin's greatest
scores. Without question, it sounds
really, really good and think about most people saw this with
the 16mm picture and track, which is very, very reductive in
terms of the full frequency of the recordings.

(20:25):
So this is something for fans tobe very excited about.
I agree, I think that a lot of times it is to do with
presentation and sometimes you don't even realize
subconsciously how a less than perfect picture or sound affects
your overall impression. And that's been the case with a
lot of HB stuff that wasn't necessarily seen under the best

(20:46):
circumstances through compressing and 16 and all kinds
of things. So when you see the colors as
they were rendered, these were master artists that designed
these things and bold color and those wonderful thick lines and,
and I love how you can see the paint moving around and you
know, this was really made by people.

(21:07):
Exactly. It's the organic nature of the
animation. You feel the human touch.
That's what we don't see anymorewith so much that's computerized
and. It's just so, and not anything
that's negative about CGI mean CG is great.
It does come from the hands of people on the controls and
fantastic films and stuff, but there is a sort of ultra

(21:31):
perfection to it. And what makes Hanna Barbera now
seem even more special is the fact that it has a very, I
guess, comforting homemade feeling to it because it was so
handcrafted. Absolutely.
And again, I think it all comes back to how they created the
characters, the cleverness. You can tell that these are

(21:55):
being worked on both from an artistic standpoint as well as a
storytelling standpoint by very intelligent people.
There's a certain responsibilityI feel in what I do hear
everyday. We're the caretakers of the work
of so many talented individuals need to honor their work and

(22:19):
make sure that it doesn't fade away and fall out of the public
consciousness. And by bringing attention to
these details, I think we're doing a service to their memory
and saluting their hard work. It's very important.
It's truly, truly important because the marketplace and the

(22:41):
options are more crowded than ever.
And so it's not always possible for everybody to even find and
locate and learn what's great out there.
And I do contend that there are all ages given the opportunity
to be exposed to some of this wonderful stuff, we'll enjoy it
and really pick up on it and maybe say, oh, what else do
these people do? And what else can I find?

(23:01):
And I have a lot of faith in that.
I really do. So do I, and I got a little
whiff of it a couple of months ago when we put out Top Cat in
the Beverly Hills Cats, which did a very commendable job of
trying to recreate what had beendone at that point more than 25
years earlier. Top Cat is al, gulp, 63 years

(23:25):
old. This does not compute.
It's timeless in its ability to entertain.
I mean, the drawings of cars anddibbles, telephone and whatnot.
There are certain things that date it, but overall it's pretty
timeless in the storytelling andthe way that they deal with

(23:46):
things, and I think that's really wonderful in the book.
I made some parallels to Disney classics with Hanna Barbera as
far as their timeline and their innovations and achievements.
Like The Flintstones was their Snow White because of what it
opened up in the business of animation as well as the art

(24:07):
that we still feel this day. To me, Top Cat was sort of their
Fantasia because Top Cat, from what I've read, The Flintstones
was made for adults, but it was made for the whole family.
And so I think Barbera was hearing well how it isn't that
adult and he was saying, well, that's kind of the publicity.
In the case of Top Cat, it was even though we loved it as kids,

(24:30):
it was way more of a grown up story.
It pushed the envelope as far assnappy dialogue, the situations
they got into and that in some ways it was testing how far can
we go with prime time animation,how sophisticated can we get.
And in some ways it was not considered their biggest hit,

(24:53):
but neither was Fantasia and it's day.
People didn't know how to deal with it, but over the years not
only has it been really embraced, but it's one of their
biggest international. Successes.
I think that's a wonderful analogy because there are
certain elements of plot points,you know, like top cat falling

(25:14):
in love. You wouldn't see that
necessarily on the Flintstones. They went a little bit more
adult, just ever. So it's still G rated, but you
know, they were expressing feelings and things and so forth
that were not the same as what you'd see on Flintstones or
certainly on Yogi Berra and whatnot.

(25:36):
It is very sophisticated writingand I think the fact that some
of the writers went on to write other very well regarded sitcoms
is a tribute to that. Top Cat falls in love, we keep
coming back to. But it did have that maternity
ward scene. Yeah.
There's no way Fred or Barney would have done that.
You don't seem so happy, Sir. I just hope this isn't like the

(25:58):
last one. Why?
What was wrong with her? Nothing but a problem.
She'd take a bottle at 8:00 and Polish it off, then at 2:00 in
the morning yell her head off for another one.
Boy, what a swinger. So you drink them all by
yourself. Huh.
Just like that every drop and keep the whole neighborhood
awake. Yeah, you mean singing and
playing the piano breaking things, huh?
Mostly with her loud crying. Oh, that kind, Yeah.

(26:21):
Oh, they're the worst. The worst?
And then crawling all around on her hands and knees.
Well, after 2 bottles, who? Wouldn't It's been awful.
I haven't had a decent night's sleep in two years.
Yeah, but what parties? What parties?
How about you? You got a girl too?
Oh yeah, real beautiful liquor. Oh, what are you?
Feeding her peanut brittle and then later tonight maybe a

(26:44):
little pizza for two. Peanut brittle pizza or.
Maybe a bowl of chili. Hey, that's some baby.
Yeah, but she'll never match yours and those two bottles a
night. How big is she?
She's 3 feet tall. 3 feet tall. Hey, could I have your
autograph? That's the kind of thing it was

(27:07):
a cartoon, but that's the sort of thing you would have expected
more in a Carl Reiner show, something.
Right, right. It has more in common with the
sitcoms of the time that ran in prime time than it had with what
we now know is Saturday morning animation is it was just that

(27:27):
little cut above. Yet I think most people
experience Top Cat, even though it was only one season.
Those 30 episodes ran on Saturday morning for two to
three decades, if I'm correct, and he just kept selling them
from one network to the other. It bounced around that and the
Jetsons. It just always fascinated me.

(27:50):
There was only one season of Jetsons, Johnny Quest and Top
Cat, and they always made one network Saturday morning lineup.
Joe Barbera was in there selling, you know, always with a
great result. We really have to be grateful
for his salesmanship that he kept that series in the public

(28:12):
eye for many, many years. When other shows, live action
shows and some animation shows that were created in the early
60s that disappeared within a few years, they would hit
syndication and they would just be gone from public view.
Top Cat remained in the public view for decades, and that's a

(28:33):
great thing. That's an interesting point,
too, because Joe Barbera had to go in and pitch these previous
series to get them on Saturday morning.
It wasn't just like the networksout of the blue said, oh, what
can we plug in here? He had to convince them that
they would work. It was another pitch he had to
do. And in a way, going back to

(28:55):
Disney, it was repurposing your classics and finding new markets
for them rather than just throwing them over your shoulder
and saying, well, that one's done.
It's mining your resources really brilliantly.
Absolutely. And I would say that that was
one of the things that they werevery creative about being able

(29:16):
to repurpose and find a new way to get people to watch some of
the other creations they had. But Top Cat was self-contained.
We have 30 F hours here they are.
They will bring ratings if you will run it.
I do recall if my memory is serving me correctly when I was

(29:38):
very, very young, that it was simultaneously, I believe,
syndicated as well as on Saturday morning.
I have dim memories, and they could be wrong, of one of the
local television stations in NewYork running it on an early
Saturday evening time slot at the same time it was playing

(29:59):
network Saturday mornings. Yeah, I know that certainly
happened with The Flintstones, where they went right into
syndication, hot and heavy playing in the afternoons.
And then, like, October of 1966,suddenly The Flintstones were on
NBC as well. And I couldn't understand that
as a little child. I was like, how could it be on

(30:20):
Channel 5 and Channel 4 at the same time, you know?
And I wanted to understand that.I wanted to learn about that.
Eventually I did, but I was fascinated by the whole process,
how they kept these characters alive, how they kept being able
to make toys if they had the show on the air.

(30:40):
There was still a market for derivative products.
And of course, as something you focused on more than anyone, the
Hanna Barbera records. They created a top cat story
with original music and even though I knew it wasn't Arnold
Stang as top cat, Doz Butler dida pretty good stand in imitation

(31:01):
for the story of the top cat Robin Hood record, which I loved
as a kid. Me too.
The song about Officer Dipple I do think is one of the worst
songs ever written. It's just terrible.
You know what's funny about thatis as kids we've saw it as
deliberately terrible. We thought it was funny because

(31:22):
they were kind of singing it in mock sincerity.
We always thought, you know, man's best friend is not his
dog. Man's best friend is Dibble.
Right. And then they came up with the
ability to rhyme quibble with Dibble.
I was very impressed with that, yeah.
Who protects us all from harm? Come, friends, let's not

(31:46):
quibble. Who's the lost strong right arm?
Our pal, Officer Dibble. He chases bandits, burglars too.
He's ready for a fight. But frankly, friend, I'm telling
you his part's. Much worse.
Than his bite. So hail.

(32:08):
To Dibble on his feet with honors.
Let's not quibble. Man's best friend is not his
dog. Man's best friend is Dibble.
Dibble. Maybe it was just so bad it was

(32:36):
good. I don't.
Know no, I think ultimately all of those records and you've
written so beautifully about them in your book.
All of those albums were so carefully thought out and lever
in finding a way to take their characters and connect them to
stories that go back, you know, hundreds of years or several

(33:00):
decades that were basically in the public domain.
But that, you know, everybody knew there'd been millions of
versions of Robin Hood and they created one of the top Cat,
which is very clever because that was something Top Cat would
have done. Yogi did it, Robin Hood Yogi,
where he was like be robbed fromthe rich to feed the poor,
namely us. Is that really?

(33:21):
And then Side 2 is very similar to that episode Naked Town,
where the crooks are pretending to be film makers.
But it's surefire. And the record is very brisk and
very nicely done and the timingsand the music's perfect and it
really does capture the show, which didn't always happen on.
And I enjoyed that Hanna Barberarecord almost as much as I

(33:46):
enjoyed the Cool Picks. But the Cool Picks records were
in a class by themselves. They were a dream, you know?
I know that they're highly collectible, something to be
very proud of if you have them in your collection that aren't
all scratched up like mine. That's the toughy.
I want to play something for you.
This is ABBC radio sketch because Top Cat was huge as Boss

(34:09):
Cat, right? I don't know if you've ever
heard this, but this is Mitchelland Webb, and I would say this
is probably from late 80s, early90s, something like that.
Good morning, Officer. Superintendent.
Take a seat. Officer Super.
How can I put this? Police resources are always
limited, officer, and one of those resources is time.
We have to be careful about how we focus our efforts.

(34:31):
Can I stop you there Michael? Is this about top cat?
It's mainly about top cat. That cat is a menace.
He's a bit cheeky. A bit cheeky.
He comes up with scams. He comes up with capers.
All right, so you're saying he'sa fraudster?
What sort of thing? Identity theft?
Credit. Cards well, him and his mates
will dress up like Arabs and popstars and stuff and then

(34:53):
they'll. OK, OK, I've got some of your
notes here. 9:30 AM. Went to the alley, waited for
Top cat 1030 saw top Cat. He's dressed up like an Arab and
stole an important Ruby. They will get TC.
Who's TCTC? Top cat?
That's what his close friends call him.
Look, Brian, we've got to focus more on knife crime.

(35:14):
Gangs. Gangs.
Yes, gangs. He's the indisputable leader of
the gang. He's the boss, he's the Pip,
he's the championship, he's top cat and he's scum, all right.
Right, so you say we've had forensics do a mock up.
Is this what he looks like? No, no, I've told you he's
yellow. He's yellow and he wears a hat

(35:35):
and a waistcoat. A waistcoat.
All right, Brian, I think you need to take a holiday.
Have you got family you can staywith?
Got a cousin, lives in the country.
Nice. Yeah.
Jellystone Park. Some nice walks in Jellystone.
Maybe your cousin can help you. What does he do?
Park Ranger? Well, I say park Ranger.
He's mainly in charge of picnic basket safety.

(35:58):
Sounds like he's got his head screwed on.
I mean, he wouldn't get obsessedto the detriment of his other
duties with the maniacal pursuitof one cheeky but ultimately
lovable animal who wears 2 itemsof formal clothing.
Would he? Would he?
Maybe I'll better stay with. My mom.
That's pretty remarkable. I'd never heard it before,
that's for sure. It was huge.
And of course there's been two films and all that, but nothing

(36:20):
like the original. And this is really big news for
those of us. I mean, we grew up with the
records with it on TV, waiting for it to come back to TV.
Then when it came to VHS, that was time for rejoicing again.
So it being like this is really,really wonderful and it's really
important for everyone to know that you vote with your wallet.

(36:43):
You know, we're talking about the importance of physical
media. Companies want revenue no matter
how the trends may go. If they see revenue and they see
things coming of the fact, I want to ask you that is ordering
it sooner rather than later going to make a better impact?
Oh, without question. I mean, I can't tell anybody
what to do. I can recommend just letting

(37:05):
people know that the earlier something is ordered, the sooner
we can get a green light to moveon to the next project.
Not just being profitable, but it has to be significant enough
of a profit to justify the humanresources that we have to
dedicated to making these thingshappen.
Perfect example of this is we'vebeen doing these Blu-ray disc

(37:28):
collections, Looney Tunes collector's choice.
We did 3 volumes and the third volume didn't get discounted as
much as the first two had been and we noticed slow sales.
Now of course, everybody wants to be able to get a good price.
But because there was no dip in the price, the sales were not as

(37:52):
robust and it put the 4th volumein jeopardy of not happening and
it took a little longer than theothers did.
It finally happened and that'll be coming out November 26th, but
they had been coming out at a clip about 3 months apart.
You know, people waiting for a sale.

(38:14):
I understand, you know, everybody's got tight budgets
and trying to make things work for our respective households,
but when something is purchased early and right now Top Cat is
available at a discount, it's a great deal.
The list price is 3499 and that's for a four disc set with

(38:34):
the highest quality. I mean, in the days of
Laserdisc, if we would have donetop cat, it would have cost like
$100 or something like that. That's right.
You know, it's a generational thing.
People don't realize how expensive when the home video
market first came to be, you know, it would be 5998 to buy a

(38:54):
collection of cartoons and 7998 to buy a tape of a new feature
film. Pricing eventually readjusted
and came down, but the prices that are in place now I think
are quite reasonable. I know that there have been two
films in the last week from other studios that have been

(39:14):
announced and I just pre-orderedright away.
They were things I wanted to have for my collection.
It could be that, you know, six months down the line it'll be
selling cheaper. But I also want to show my
support for anything that is being done by whoever is doing
it so that there will be more ofthe same.
And I feel confident that Top Cat is going to sell well for

(39:36):
us, and I do hope that the fans of the series won't hesitate to
place their orders so they can start enjoying how cool and
wonderful the series still is. And then it's never looked
better. And increase the possibility of
more to come. We do make a difference, us
folks who buy stuff. My top cat's supposed to come

(39:57):
tomorrow and I'm very excited. And I always preorder on Amazon
because you will get the best price you can get.
In fact, my book's $30. But it's 2495 right now and if
you had pre-ordered it and I ordered one to see what would
happen, you know, I wanted to see it come in the mail and get
excited. But it's 2495 now.
So whenever you pre-order, you're assured you're going to

(40:19):
get the lowest price Amazon can give you.
And that's based on massive buying.
And if it's a couple of dollars here or there or you're
thinking, well, the Lutley Tune set a year later was less and
all that, that's not unwise because, yeah, we're all
watching our budgets and money is really tight.
And it cost a fortune, you know,for McDonald's now.

(40:40):
And it's the world's changed. But if you think of it as you're
making one less executive, say, obviously since that one came
out, nobody really wants it or what?
And I've been in meetings like that at Disney where they've
been people who were decision makers leaning towards that
while they didn't have a real response.
It's like, what is it? Like the coyote?

(41:00):
If the catapult doesn't work, you don't try.
It again exactly. This is convincing them that
we're serious when we say I'd buy it in a minute if it came
out. You're not giving money to a big
company, you're giving money to content you love that a big
company owns. And I'll get off my soapbox.
This is a gem. This is one piece of animation

(41:23):
history and television history that is really treasured by
many, many people. I've never met anyone who
doesn't like Top Cat. I really, when the subject comes
up of, you know, television animation and television series
and I've never heard anyone say a word against it.
There's just been tremendous enthusiasm for it.

(41:44):
Yeah, and I want to point out another episode, another
outstanding one, because there are comparisons to the Bowery
Boys and the East Side Kids and to Bilco, but I see a lot of
Damon Runyon in it. And they did an episode that was
based on the classic Lady for a Day, which was also a Pocketful
of Miracles were Benny's mother,wonderfully played by B

(42:04):
Benedrick, comes to town and they convince him he's the mayor
and all of the things they do toconvince her and also keep
Dibble out of the way. It has that wonderful heart and
soul. It's also top cat taken
advantage of things. But at the heart of it, they're
doing the right thing. Bye, bye everybody.
Thank you for everything. Bye bye Mom, right soon.

(42:32):
Control yourself, Dibble. Sorry TC, I'll try.
Mine's going to send them a cheesecake.
Penny No one deserves a cheesecake more than off as a
dibble. That's one of my all time
favorite episodes and that's on there.
I was always struck by that. And of course, anytime Benedeira
did anything, I was there. She was an outstanding voice

(42:56):
artist as well as an outstandingsupporting actress and comedian,
and I loved all the things that she did.
Was very disappointed when she was no longer the voice of Betty
Rubble. It definitely lost something in
the transition, although the replacements were quite fine.
You know, she's very, very talented, and it's just that

(43:17):
Hanna Barbera difference that makes it so wonderful.
That's true. And the combination of of really
striking artwork and color design and all with a powerhouse
soundtrack that has those elements of voice and music and
sound effects, we love them. And it's an outstanding release.
And you're an outstanding fellow.
You're out there duking it out for us, George, and we really

(43:40):
appreciate it and we appreciate you being on our podcast again.
Well, thank you so much. I'm humbled and I appreciate it
greatly. We're both getting to talk about
something that we love very much, and we hope that the love
spreads among the fans out therewho can have TC on their shelf
to enjoy for years and years to come.

(44:00):
Yeah, there's the slogan, give yourself some TLC, get TC.
There you go. Well, thank you, George.
Thank you all so much for listening.
Thank you for all of your continued nice things and of our
show. And just one end by saying see
you next time and bye bye. We hope you enjoyed the
fantastic world of Hannah and Barbera with Greg Airbar.

(44:23):
Please join us again and Many thanks for listening.