Talk:Top Cat

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"Who's intellectual;/ Close friends..." or "Whose intellectual/ Close friends..."

Okay, sorry, I bowed down to the Google god on that one.

• "top cat" "who's intellectual" (about 41 matches)
• "top cat" "whose intellectual" (2 matches)

Anyone have any more reliable source for which one is correct...? -- Oliver P. 23:04 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

It should be whose as who's is a contraction of who is, which doesn't make sense in this context. (I think) Tuf-Kat

Depends on the parsing. Should this be:

Top Cat: The most effectual.  
Top Cat: Who's intellectual. 
Close friends get to Call him TC, Providing its with dignity 

or

Top Cat: The most effectual!  
Top Cat! 
Whose intellectual close friends get to call him TC, providing its with dignity.

I think the top is what was intended, but the musical accompaniment makes the latter seem a possibility. (Depends on if you think TC or his friends were intellectual. As I recall, they were blithering idiots!) This may be one of the imponderable questions of the ages.... -- Someone else 23:14 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Aaah, I'm too young to have seen it, so I didn't realize there are multiple interpretations of the staggering work of genius that is this theme song! Tuf-Kat

Hey, come on now, don't let me down, this is important! If you listen to the chorus singing it, you'll hear how "close friends" runs straight on from "intellectual", making it clear that they are one and the same. So it's got to be "whose", regardless of what the illiterate web sites thrown up by Google suggest. Deb 23:25 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Hmm, I always interpreted it as being a song about a cat who is intellectual. The verse starts by proclaiming his great character - namely, the fact that he is "effectual" - and I interpreted the verse as continuing in the same vein, by also proclaiming that he is "intellectual". In a song which is almost in its entirety a paean to the greatness of Top Cat, it would seem strange to me if it were attributing this quality to his friends (whose subordinate position to Top Cat is an integral part of the social system in this cartoon), rather than to him. -- Oliver P. 23:27 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Once this is decided, this talk page should be memorialized somewhere, as it's hilarious. Only on Wikipedia does such a conversation occur. Tuf-Kat

I think the only way to resolve this issue is for us to purchase a copy of the "Cartoon Tunes Songbook", available from KIDiddles Online Store at $9.95. Do you think Jimbo Wales would consider it a worthwhile investment? Deb 23:41 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

I think it would be better to rely on the written word than on the chorus's diction. After all, who is to say the chorus fully understood the mythic import of the words of the immortal bard? Does no library have a copy of the tome in question?<G> -- Someone else 00:02 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

See what you've started, TK!!! I hadn't heard the melody or even thought of it for nearly 2 decades until you changed your name. Now I'm haunted by it. And so is my flatmate since I mentioned it to him. And his girlfriend. Now you have started something. JTD 00:12 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, that was my plan. Once the world is distracted by this song, nobody will oppose me as I take control of the entire planet. Ha! Nobody can stop me now! Tuf-Kat

One further thought. Oliver and Someone else have been taking the lyrics a little too literally. May I venture to suggest that the use of the adjective "intellectual" (as in "intellectual close friends") is intended to be ironic? Deb 17:55 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, but is this anything more than your own personal conjecture? If not, then I'm afraid that it is not a strong enough argument to counter the divine proclamation of the Google god. (Has no-one found that songbook yet? Well, really, what can be of greater import in the Wikipedia than a definitive answer to this question?) -- Oliver P. 23:45 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Oliver, I thought you had gone away! (Not that I would have wished for that, you understand.) I wonder if anyone is personally acquainted with the lyricist? JTDirl, perhaps? Deb 19:37 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

'fraid not. No idea!

Gone away? Oh no, I can never leave the Wikipedia. :) Well, I keep trying to, temporarily at least, because I have so much work to do, but then I keep finding myself coming back... Which is terribly annoying, of course... probably for everyone concerned. ;) -- Oliver P. 20:49 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] top cat theme muffled words

The most important debate is about the commonly-misheard lines after "close friends get to call...". Contrary to modern mythology, the words are NOT (I maintain):

 "close friends get to call him T.C., providing it's with dignity."

Instead I'm certain that the original, correct words are:

 "close friends get to call at TC, providing it's with invitee."

The incorect words, heard on the more modern re-recorded soundtrack on CDs/videos since the 80s, is pure guesswork - and wrong. Hanna-Barbera told BBC's 'The Saturday Picture Show' that they did not know what the muffled words were - and subsequently guessed "him" and "dignity" when having to re-record a non-muffled version for compilation CDs and videos.

As Hoyt Curtin never printed the words for posterity, the only way to confirm it would be to listen to the ORIGINAL soundtrack - which fairly unquestionably says: "close friends get to call at T.C., providing it's with invitee." (Invitee is a US expression for an invitation.) Original recordings are difficult to find. Terry McGrath.

Now that really is weird! Deb 21:45, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Has anyone considered another possibility?

 "close friends get to call him T.C.; bromide it gets whipped in the tea"

After all, animal protection agencies often need to neuter feral cats, and bromide in the tea is sometimes used within institutions for similar purposes[1]. Marnanel 18:18, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Is invitee a US expression for invitation? Or does it mean, as a British person would read it, the invited? It would work with the latter interpretation. I must admit, I've never been sold on the "with dignity" answer. If a hard 'D' like that gets lost in the mix the singers' diction must have been appalling. Whereas invitee could easily transfer to a featureless mumble when subjected to multiple voices. --bodnotbod 18:53, Jul 21, 2004 (UTC)

It is correct that 'invitee' more usually means 'invited' in US legal jargon, but in US slang it can mean either. I once heard the phrase 'invitee' used to mean an 'invitation' by W.C.Fields in a film, when he said he couldn't attend a party as he didn't have an invitee, (meaning a paper 'invitation' in that case).

---

In the Southern U.S., invitations are often informally/colloquially refered to as "in-vites". The only use of "invitee" to mean invitation that I'm familliar with is the one alluded to about Fields. I'd almost guess that the original implication was that T.C., himself, was the intellectual ("who's intellectual") and that this passage concluded the paen to Top Cat, and that the next line is that his "close friends get to call him TC, provided it's with dignity" as befits such an august feline personage. His friends are not intellectual. It should be considered that the article is correct in that this is a cartoon version of "Sgt. Bilko" as "The Flinstones" was a cartoon of "The Honeymooners", rewritten just enough that Hanna-Barbera didn't get sued for infringement. And Bilko's followers were none too bright. (I would suggest that the true T.C. sidekick was Benny the Ball, but he's not an "intellectual" either, none of the gang is, but TC certainly is in his own conceits, and is smarter than the other cats. I'm still reeling with shock that there are only 30 episodes. Shows how many times you'll watch the same exact thing over and over when you're a kid, I guess.

Rlquall 18:59, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi, guys... I'm desperate. :) I'm a big fan of Top Cat. Do you have any idea where I could download some episodes from? I know the series are for sale, but I hoped I could dwnl some, because taxes are, let's say, BIG for Romania. Thx guys. BTW, I think it's "Who's intellectual/ Close friends get to call him TC/", judging by the fact that TC is a shrewd, one-step-ahead-of-the-others guy. please write back. bye.

Sorry, I don't think Wikipedia supports that kind of thing... Phred Levi 09:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Children's television series?

I take issue with the classification (in the sidebar) of this show as a children's television series. The Wikipedia entry for children's television series defines such a show as a television program:

1) "Designed for and marketed to children."
2) "Normally aired during the morning and afternoon hours, mainly before and after school."
3) With a purpose "mainly to entertain and sometimes to educate the young audience about basic life skills or ideals."

I maintain that Top Cat fails in all of the above categories except the "entertain" portion of #3.

When the show originally aired in the 1961-1962 television season, it was shown on Wednesday nights at 8:30 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone of the United States. I watched the show when it first came on the air and was indeed entertained by it, but in response to poor grades on one of my report cards, my parents changed my bedtime from 9:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Monday through Thursday nights. Thus I was not allowed to watch Top Cat again until my grades came up on the next report card. If Top Cat were really originally designed for and marketed to children, it would not have been shown at 8:30 p.m. on a "school night". The school nights are normally Sunday through Thursday nights. My parents allowed me to continue to stay up until 9:00 on Sundays because I woke up later on that day. In addition, I think there was a T.V. values judgment--I don't think they minded it when I watched Car 54, Where Are You? or The Ed Sullivan Show as much as they minded it when I watched Top Cat because of their own interest in and appreciation of the two Sunday night shows (although, since they both aired in the 8:30-9:00 p.m. time slot in those pre-VCR days, we had to pick which one we wanted to see in a given week). On Wednesdays, they didn't even watch Top Cat with us--as one of the first homes on our block to have a second T.V., they took advantage of this situation to watch a show starring Joey Bishop that aired on NBC at the same time as Top Cat.

Even when I watched Top Cat, the plots were way above my head. I thought it was just six felines playing around and having a good time. While there was some of that in the show, I have discovered in the years since then that the whole idea was Top Cat, with the help of his five buddies, and working against Officer Dibble, trying to make a fast, usually illegal, buck. This type of activity (including trying to outsmart a police officer) is not a basic ideal you want to be teaching your kids. I know that other cartoon shows aimed at kids had problems like this, too--Yogi Bear stealing picnic baskets in Jellystone Park despite Ranger Smith's watchful eye is an example that comes to mind immediately. But it could be argued that Yogi Bear cartoons teaches a basic life skill to future visitors to the National Park Service--beware of bears who may want to steal your dinner! As I've watched episodes that have been released on VHS and DVD over the years, I have seen why my parents did not want me to watch Top Cat.

If you have any reason to believe that Top Cat should still be classified as a children's television series, please post them here. Otherwise, I may try to find a new category for it. RSLitman 13:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)