Top Cat

On the Baby Boomometer of nostalgic resonance, the DVD release of Top Cat ranks somewhere below The Flintstones and Jonny Quest, but above Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Just as The Flintstones drew from The Honeymooners for inspiration, so does Top Cat borrow from another classic sitcom, The Phil Silvers Show. Top Cat (“whose intellectual close friends get to call him TC”) is the conniving Bilko-esque leader of a colorful gang of New York alley cats, including Choo Choo, Fancy-Fancy, Spook, The Brain, and right-hand cat Benny, voiced by Maurice Gosfield, who portrayed Doberman on Phil Silver's show. Their nemesis is Officer Dribble, I mean, Dibble, but mostly TC and company outsmart themselves in a series of get-rich quick schemes. The smartly-written Top Cat was further proof that animation was not just kids' stuff, and this four-disc set presents the complete series run of 30 episodes, as well as bonus features that include three audio commentaries, a 17-minute series overview, and a half-hour's worth of interviews with the voice cast, including Arnold Stang, who relished the opportunity to act against milquetoast type to create smooth and fast-talking TC. Not as popular perhaps as other Hanna-Barbera series', Top Cat is still sure to enjoy more than nine lives on DVD. Recommended. (D. Liebenson)