Felix’s 90’s reboot “The Twisted Tales Of Felix The Cat”

Felix’s 90’s reboot “twisted tales of Felix the cat” 

Me and Felix the cat have a weird history. When I was about 5, my mom bought one of those “classic toons!” Tapes. You know, those one’s that were on the slower playing speed. Anyway, she bought one of those for me when we where on a road trip because she grew up with Felix and thought I would like it. However, I would find myself scared of something on that tape (again I was 5, I don’t really remember) and I never watched it again. For years after, just the character of Felix the cat scared me. So I never really saw the little cat again until I was a teenager and see someone write about “the twisted tales of Felix the cat”. I looked up some episodes of this reboot and at the time thought “oh yeah this is kinda cool, and kinda weird…” didn’t watch much past a few episodes. But a few weeks ago, similar to before, I saw someone on twitter post a funny clip from the show. And again I looked up an episode, but this time I found myself liking it. I watched episode after episode until it became clear that I really liked the show. Whenever I find something I really enjoy, or well, even stuff I hate. I like to look up the production of the show and learn anything I can. With this show I had to do a little digging, but oh how it was worth it! Because the behind the scenes state of this show is very odd. “Film roman” The animation studio famous for animating many Garfield specials including the classic show “Garfield And Friends”. As well as taking over klasky csupo’s job at animating the Simpsons would be responsible for the shows animation. The studio was founded in 1984 when an employee at bill Melendez productions named Phil roman (GET IT!) Left to help Jim Davis of Garfield make Garfield specials so that Bill Melendez could focus on the popular Charlie Brown specials they where known for. Film roman would go on to be a very successful studio, animating shows like “Family guy” “King of the hill” and many many more. But one of there biggest failures was the main point of this blog post. “Twisted tales of Felix the cat”. The show aired on CBS from 1995 to 1997. According to a promotional VHS, each episodes budget would go over $500.000! And had a marketing push with commercials and even Wendy’s happy meals!, or whatever Wendy’s calls there happy meals… Something I need to make clear now is that for the rest of this blog post, the facts I’ll be sharing come from “TV tropes” and being community edited, the facts might not be true, so uhhhh be warned I guess… https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TheTwistedTalesOfFelixTheCat 

A lot of talented people of note worked on the show. Mr. Lawrence, who would go on to wright and voice on spongebob squarepants. Mark Evanier who wrote nearly every episode of the aforementioned Garfield and Friends. Milton Knight who worked on the adventures of sonic the hedgehog, a childhood favorite and still a classic in the gaming community. And many many other people. However the show’s production seems a bit rocky. Lots of behind the scenes stories about how everyone had different thoughts on what kinda show it should be. Don Oriolo, who is the son of the creator of the 50’s version of Felix, naturally wanted it to be like that version of the show. But it resembles Ren and Stimpy before the more Hanna Barbara kinda show the 50’s version was. To quote Tv tropes. 

“Because CBS wanted the show to be aimed at kids, the staff was forced to pull back much of the adult humor. And apparently, a big reason for the season 2 retool was because Don Oriolo wasn't too happy with the first season and wanted to put his dad's characters in the show, hoping to "save it". All of the new supporting characters, Peeking Duck, Fats Holler, Candy, etc. were ordered to be scrapped, and characters from the Joe Oriolo era were brought back on his orders (though Don eventually relented and allowed a few of the first season's recurring cast, such as Roscoe and Sheba to stick around). Years later, Don Oriolo rationalized that what he was doing was an attempt at damage control on the show due to the many hands in the first season giving it an unfocused direction that took too much of the limelight away from Felix himself.”

There were many noticeable changes in season 2.  More wordplay than wacky visuals, And Felix’s voice changing from Thom Adcox-Hernandez in season 1 to Charlie Adler in season 2. I kinda like both voices and I find it hard to pick which one I like more. They're both MUCH better then the Micky mouse like voice he’s had with many other versions of the character. I suppose I should get into my own opinions on the show. I like it, sure sometimes I think it misses, but often I find it’s odd and extreme approach to gags fun. It has very impressive animation, and the voice’s do a great job. Even in season 2, where things are noticeably less wacky, I find I like the humor in writing. Though you can tell in the second season that many episodes are pretty much dedicated rantings about the production. But overall I would say this show is a winner! It really does remind me of that sonic show, In style and humor it’s very similar. Most of the time, I would say thats a great thing! But some of the more, uh, off jokes are here too. And I guess I should mention it’s more “edgy” humor. It’s kinda weird sometimes. Most of it’s no worse than a looney tunes short but it does make jokes that kinda shocked me. That can be good, it can be really funny. But admittedly, there are times where it’s a little much. I would still recommend the show if anything here sounds interesting to you. It’s available to stream for free on Roku.

Thanks for reading my first post. I really don’t know how often I’ll post, I just wanted a way to talk about toons I find interesting.