The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat (season 1)
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 Showtime! (Peeking Duck)
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The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat is an animated urban fantasy-comedy television series that premiered in 1995 and was broadcast on CBS. It featured one of the most popular American cartoon characters, Felix the Cat.
Why This Season Rocks
- It is very faithful to the original silent-era Felix the Cat cartoons of the 1920s and it expands on the surreal universe present in most silent era cartoons such, with anthropomorphic households, cars, clocks and even boats, with very odd looking background elements. It gave the show a unique look and feel that was different from most of the shows it premiered alongside.
- Of course, with a surreal universe, there's going to be surreal comedy. And by Minerva, there's plenty here for those lucky surrealists in animation form, such as a gangster shark winning a Deed to the Earth in a round of craps, and locking it up in a gained safe to harvest its supply of Velcro (or felcron as it's called in the episode). Plus, there's plenty of slapstick, sight gags and running gags to keep you company. Easily the best example is whenever there's an episode with Shamus T. Goldcrow in a major role. He offers Felix a job in one of his detective cases, Felix declines, and then Goldcrow says "Did I forget to mention the reward? 14 bucks!" With Felix excitedly exclaiming "Wow! That's seven bucks apiece! I'm in!"
- Great animation that takes full advantage of the Fleischer style. Reportedly, it was one one of the most expensive shows to come out of animation studio Film Roman, and it shows. The animation is smooth, slick, and even has moments of CG thanks to Rough Draft Studios (such as the intro and a gag in the episode "The Slime King") granted, it can get slightly ugly at times, but that hardly happens, and when it does, it's hardly noticeable.
- Likable characters that have their own unique personality. Felix retains his mischievous and cunning attitude from the '50s Felix cartoon, but now with a boatload of sass, for example. Some characters (while not unlikable) can be a bit archetypal such as Rosco, who's basically Patrick Star except not as hilarious even for some funny jokes every now and then, but most of the characters are usually distinct and likable.
- Jazzy soundtrack produced by the Club Foot Orchestra. It matches the mood of most scenes almost perfectly, and while it's not as good as Ed, Edd n' Eddy, for example, it's still great stuff. The theme song in particular is a jammin' rock song that sounds like a total head-bopper.
- Felix's "This is too stupid!" line from Now Playing - Felix.
- Despite restoring the series to it's original dark and surreal tone from the silent-era Felix the Cat cartoons, it at least manage to maintain a certain innocence quality to the Felix the Cat character, such as the retaining of Felix's signature laugh from the 1950s Felix cartoon.
Bad Qualities
- Some moments can be gross and disgusting.
- There is a lot of weird, disturbing, inappropriate and nonsensical content. There are also various instances of gratuitous, over-the-top, unsetteling imagery (despite the good animation) and disturbing facial expressions.
- The show can have corny moments at times.
- Nastasshia Slinky is unlikable.
- A few of the plots copy those from other shows.
- Although minor, the stock cartoon sound effects (mostly from the Hanna-Barbera library) can be used at inappropriate times.
- In "Five Minute Meatball", a stereotypical Italian chef hires Felix to deliver a meatball in five minutes, complete with a continually running timer in the corner of the screen.
- The series went downhill in Season 2 due to Don Oriolo (the franchise's then-owner) wanting the series to emulate the '50s show that his father Joe Oriolo helmed, but failed. The writers hated the Joe Oriolo version, and responded by sticking in as many potshots to both it and the Oriolos as possible, which angered Don immensely.
- This season appears to play it safe with a lot of scenes and jokes (presumably due to TV show regulations during the 1990s restricting the use of violence in children's television, if not outright banning it). Even then, the art style remains hideous and the show's attempts at censorship are beyond laughable.
- The humor in this season falls flat or feels awkward due to the wonky animation, which despite being great in the previous season, is now beyond sub-par and cheap-looking. Every single joke falls flat or feels awkward because of this.
- Felix is very poorly represented in the second season, going from mischevious, sassy and cunning to a wild, wacky, hyperactive, obnoxious, Screwy Squirrel-esque character who comes off as more annoying and obnoxious than funny; this is a huge insult to his original self, his season 1 counterpart from this show and Joe Oriolo (his creator).
- The segments are pretty bad and forgettable and don't try many new things to keep them from being too formulaic.
- Quantity Over Quality: Film Roman didn't run this season properly, as the segments were produced in as little time as possible, hence the rushed production and extremely poor execution of each episode.
Trivia
- There was one scene (specifically at the very final episode), Felix the Cat ripped the clone's face off, unintentionally predicting the HET meme 18 years prior