The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat is an animated series starring the character Felix the Cat, produced for television by Film Roman. The series first aired on September 16, 1995 on CBS lasting for two seasons with the final episode airing on April 12, 1997. The first season consists of 13 episodes and the second and final season consists of 8 episodes. This is the second television series featuring Felix the Cat; the first was the 1959–1962 series Felix the Cat.
History
The show was a modern take of the original 1958–1962 series produced by Otto Messmer's former assistant, Joe Oriolo. His son, Don Oriolo, was involved in the creation of this series as well. In many ways, the show reverts to the silent era of shorts with surreal settings and offbeat character depictions. Felix is also more like his original mischievous adult form, rather than the young and innocent depiction from the 1936 Van Beuren shorts, the 1959 TV series and 1988's . It does, however, contain some elements from the 1950s series such as Felix's Magic Bag of Tricks and the characters Poindexter, the Master Cylinder, the Professor and Rock Bottom. The series used Fleischer Studios' style. The series starred Thom Adcox-Hernandez as the voice of Felix the Cat, but since Adcox-Hernandez's voice was apparently a temporary role while the producers kept looking for a more suitable actor by the first season's run, he was replaced by Charlie Adler in Season 2. It was produced by Phil Roman and Timothy Berglund and is reputed to have been one of the most expensive cartoons ever made by Film Roman. Martin Olson and Jeremy Kramer, two comedy writers known for pushing the envelope into the bizarre, wrote both outlines and scripts for the series. The main theme was composed by Don Oriolo, while the musical score and closing theme were composed and performed by the Club Foot Orchestra.
Characters
Felix the Cat: The main character and star of the show. He has many adventures with his secret bag of tricks that often helps in dangerous situations.
Allies
Rosco: - Felix's dim-witted best friend.
Candy Kitty: - Rosco's sister and Felix's love interest.
Sheba Beboporeba: - A friend of Felix the Cat.
Shamus T. Goldcrow: - An anthropomorphic crow.
Skiddoo the Mouse: - One of Felix the Cat's friends.
Bermuda Triangle: - He is an anthropomorphic version of the location of the same name. He wreaks havoc because of his stupidity. He caused all sorts of chaos in New York City until he fell in love with Times Square. The two ended up getting married.
Nastasshia Slinky: - An actress who Felix is obsessed with.
: He is the nerdy young nephew of the Professor. He is depicted as a stereotypical scientist; he is very intelligent and always wears thick Coke-bottle glasses, a lab coat, and a mortarboard. A button on the chest of his lab coat acts as a control for whatever device the plot calls for. Despite the Professor being his uncle, he is also one of Felix's best friends. Whenever he talks to Felix, he refers to him as "Mr. Felix".
Fufu Gauche: - A disgraced fashion designer who tries to get revenge on the city by replacing everyone's clothes with his tacky fish costumes.
Oscar: - A minorvillain whose sole appearance was in the episode "Phoney Phelix", serving as one of the most pathetic foes Felix has ever faced. A wanna-be cartoon star who met failure at every step of the way, Oscar sought to climb his way to stardom by hijacking Felix's own cartoon, despite being a painfully obvious impersonator.
Fuzzy Bunny: - A cutesy toy rabbit who manages to replace Felix's own show and become a nationwide sensation, thanks to how cute he is. In truth however, he is actually a gruesome thug in a rabbit suit.
* Froggy: - Fuzzy Bunny's henchman.
* Fuzzyman: - Fuzzy Bunny's henchman.
Bet a Billion Bill: - A smooth-talking and arrogant hotshot playboy gambler.
Captain Herman:
Mad Doctor: He is a parody of the Professor from the 1958-61 Felix the Cat series.
Leadfanny: He is a parody of Rock Bottom from the 1958-61 Felix the Cat series. He is a stereotypically gay dog whose voice is an imitation of actor Harvey Fierstein. Leadfanny is Mad Doctor's assistant.
Cast
Thom Adcox-Hernandez - Felix the Cat
Charlie Adler - Felix the Cat, Additional voices
Jeff Bennett - Froggy, Fuzzyman, Additional voices
A number of episodes have been released on VHS by BMG Video, and several DVD releases of episodes were available in Hong Kong under the title "The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat II". A 3-DVD box set of the entire series was released on April 26, 2013 containing 21 episodes or 58 individual segments, this release being the first complete collection with an English soundtrack.
