Felix the Cat (TV series)

Background

In 1954, Otto Messmer retired from the Felix daily newspaper strips, and his assistant Joe Oriolo, co-creator of Casper the Friendly Ghost, took over at the request of King Features Syndicate. Oriolo made a deal with Felix's new owner to produce a new series of Felix cartoons for television. He created 130 two-part stories, totaling 260 television cartoons, produced by Felix the Cat Productions and distributed by Trans-Lux. The series discarded Felix's earlier supporting cast and introduced many new characters, all voiced by Jack Mercer.

Oriolo's plots center on antagonists trying to steal Felix's Magic Bag, though these foes sometimes appear as Felix's friends. The cartoons used limited animation and simple storylines due to a small budget. The series introduced Felix to Japanese audiences; a Japanese dub aired on NHK from July 4, 1960 to January 24, 1961, and reran on Fuji TV three years later.

Characters

Felix the Cat is the main character and star, who has adventures with his magic bag of tricks. The bag appears in two patterns: an earlier dot-and-cross pattern and a later houndstooth pattern; episodes with the houndstooth bag are missing from the marketplace. Felix almost always ends up laughing, though a few episodes conclude with him on the losing end without laughter or his signature line 'Righty-o!'. The Professor is Felix's archenemy, a mad scientist with a speech impediment who tries to seize the Magic Bag.

He uses inventions and disguises but always fails; in episodes involving his nephew Poindexter, he becomes a reluctant ally of Felix, especially against the Master Cylinder. Poindexter is the Professor's nerdy nephew and Felix's best friend, depicted as a stereotypical scientist with thick glasses, a lab coat, and a mortarboard; a button on his lab coat controls devices. He calls Felix 'Mr. Felix', and Felix sometimes calls him 'Poinsy'. Rock Bottom is the Professor's bumbling bulldog sidekick who walks and dresses like a human; his full name is Rock Bottom Age.

He occasionally works for the Master Cylinder. Both the Professor and Rock Bottom sometimes say 'Oh, what's the use!!!!!' when their schemes fail. Master Cylinder is an evil cylindrical robot who first appeared in the 1958 episode 'Master Cylinder-King of the Moon'. He tries to kidnap Poindexter to use his intellect for building weapons; it is revealed he was once a pupil of the Professor until an explosion destroyed his original body.

Home media

Media Home Entertainment put eight episodes on VHS. A "Collector's Edition" DVD arrived in 2001 from Golden Books Family Entertainment and Sony Wonder, containing ten first-season episodes. That disc later got re-released as "Mischief and Mayhem" by Classic Media and Genius Products in 2006, then by DreamWorks Animation in 2014. The full first season hit DVD in October 2007 as "Felix the Cat: Golden Anniversary Edition," courtesy of Classic Media and Genius Products.