Henry's Cat Cartoon
by Michael
Henry's cat cartoon is one of the British TV cartoons. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals says that Henry is never seen in the stories but the video below would seem to disprove that. Henry as you can see is a bare (unclothed), orange, cobby (cat fancy term meaning stocky and rounded) cat who fantasizes about escapades. He seems to be a kind of Walter Mitty character. Henry's cat likes to daydream about being special and outstanding. There is a recurring evil sheep, Rambaba, who is his enemy. The video above shows, The Holiday. In another cartoon movie animation, The Lost World, Henry's cat is watching a Tarzan movie on television and he starts to daydream about being Tarzan. He dreams that he is swinging from vines and riding an elephant. In his dreams he prevents Rambaba from capturing a 90 foot tall King Kong. Sometimes his friends in his "real life" (as opposed to his fantasy day dream world) join him on his day dreaming exploits. Take the cartoon, The Great Adventure, for example. In this cartoon it is 1000 years in the future and Henry's cat is Captain Goodcat who commands the spaceship Fabulous Flying Carrot. His associate is Dr. Chris Rabbit and some other animals feature, a duck, dog, pig, parrot, worm, snail frog and mouse. The captain's superior, Commander Sheepdog instructions them to go on a mission to find out why, in deep space, stars are disappearing. Captain Goodcat discovers that Rambaba has stolen them. Rambaba wanted to use them to make a giant space sign to advertise a new product food manufactured from recycled rubbish (sounds like real life cat food!). This is real fantasy stuff. The feel of the cartoon is clearly different to the American ones. Captain Goodcat and his crew are thrown into prison. Eventually Henry's cat persuades Martians to rebel and the evil sheep's dastardly plan is thwarted. In another episode (this time more on the ground in both senses) called The Weather Man, he decides that as a weather man he would be able to improve the weather (much needed in Britain) by employing the heat from a volcano. Each episode was 15 minutes long. The first screened in 1984. They were produced by Bob Godfrey Films Ltd. and created by Stan Hayward. Compared to US cartoon cats there is limited animation but this is made up by the wit and charm of the films. They have been shown in the US on cable TV.  From Henry's Cat Cartoon to Cartoon Cats |