So some day, a fairly nice day
There was the birth of a child
And a stir was caused by this
It wasn't some kind of bird or amphibian
It was feline, and a canine
If you will, a CatDog.
(I was going to parody the whole theme song but the formatting looked uglier than I thought it would).
So CatDog is an interesting thing for me to discuss, both in it's history as well as my personal experience. CatDog was a 1998 TV series that ran on Nickelodeon, and the pitch behind this show has fascinated me since I learned this. Apparently, series creator Peter Hannan recorded the theme song in a bathroom (I don't know if it was his own or a public one, the source didn't state) and sent the tape to Nickelodeon. From the song alone Nickelodeon knew they had a hit and greenlit the series. Nickelodeon was so kind to the show that they gave it more episodes per season than normal as well. This is something to remember a little bit later, but it's very impressive. Also, I looked it up and Hannan is not a traditional cartoonist, he's a composer and illustrator. He's not the first person to get an animated show without starting out as a full animator, the only reason I'm bringing this up because this may explain why the artwork for this show looks the way it does, as well as why the theme song is so well loved.
You'll notice I'm very relaxed while talking about this show, the reason I want to talk about this show is purely on a personal basis so it wouldn't fit to be as professional and analytical as I was in my last retrospective or my book reviews. The thing is, when I was growing up through high school I was the kind of person who believed the cartoons I grew up on were not only objectively superior but basically the only good ones. Not much later in life I realized that was stupid, and as my hubris, I tried thinking of shows that didn't hold up as well. I was always drawn to CatDog, I couldn't help but shake that I found it very average. A few months ago I bought the complete series box set, because it was time to see if I was right.
-Season One-
The basic premise of this show is that the main characters are a conjoined twin, one being a cat named Cat and the other is a dog named Dog. The other half of the premise is that the world just completely hates them. Nothing is allowed to go there way, they need to lose according to the statues quo. There are bullies named Greaser Dogs (or just Greasers most of the time) who always have to get away with their actions, which are based upon the fact they hate CatDog for being both half cat as well as not technically a dog. There is also an evil green rabbit named Rancid Rabbit, who usually gets away with his actions driven completely by greed. Sometimes he's beaten badly, but even if he loses, so does CatDog.
The genre for this type of show is sometimes called "Sadist Show". It's a divisive style, but, I personally have liked this genre several times over. For me, it can be done wrong, and CatDog's first season dipped into that a bit. As I said, they always lose. I don't mind main characters losing, but if it's always supposed to be that way, it's hard to root for them when the set rule means it can't change. The rule was so enforced that if it looked like CatDog was about to win, some kind of caveat needed to happen so that didn't.
Another problem that occurred was on how unlikable Cat could be, or rather, how much he wasn't. When your main character is constantly attacked and forced to lose, it's useful for them to be fairly bad people, as bad people getting karma is funny. Sadly, Cat's mean streak wasn't hard enough for it to be funny. On the other hand, the villains were so blatantly mean that is was hard to be happy about them always winning.
Compare this to other "sadist shows". Ed, Edd, n' Eddy made Eddy a jerk, and while Double D and Ed weren't bad, they were not blameless. The other kids were mean, but they were developed to seem like kids, and they were being scammed, so winning for them wasn't a horrible thing most of the time. Fairly Odd Parents doles out abuse equally for everyone, but the heroes still do win so you can easily root for them since it's not a consistently sad story. Drawn Together is really mean towards every single thing, but it does mean that the characters are getting their karma, so it can be easily quite funny.
There was one thing I was quite happy with, Winslow. Winslow was a blue rat who was their neighbor (via a mouse hole). He was a jerk, not an outright villain, just a jerk who liked messing around with CatDog. He managed to be funny, and, he was allowed to get the abuse handed right back to him. Moreso than Rancid and especially more than the Greasers. Meaning, while he wasn't an actual villain, he was a funny jerk who could get karma very easily. It was what the show needed to aim for. Speaking of;
-Season 2-
While I had almost complete apathy for the first season, I still put in the disk for season two once I was done. From the first episode, something very interesting happened. I think I wasn't the only person who had those complaints from the first season, because everything I complained about, and one thing I wasn't, was addressed.
For starters, the Greasers were suddenly allowed to lose. Not only that, but they were also given a few episodes that softened them up a little bit. They were still villains, but this was the season we learned Cliff does ballet, we got deeper development in Shriek's crush on Dog, and Lube was given a lot more stupid things to say. I like how Lube was written. He was the dumb one, but the show never used that as a reason to say "He's not so bad after all." When they wanted to soften him, they just did it, his stupidity did not override the fact he loved being a bully just as much as the other Greasers did. I've seen too many shows, especially for children, that believe being dumb absolves them from wrong. This show doesn't believe that, and I thank it for much for it.
That also went for Dog. If Dog was incredibly stupid in an episode, the chances of him getting karma went up by a lot. Cat also finally became legitimately cruel when the show needed him to be. Cat's punishments now fitted his personality, and it was funny to see him get roughed up, as well as Dog now that it was very clear how many things were his fault. As for episodes were they did nothing wrong, they thankfully addressed those too. While they could still be punished for no wrong doing, the show decided to let them win every once in a while. As for the caveat, some episodes kept it in but made it so minor that is was just a punchline and didn't override the happy ending. Other episodes just plain didn't have a caveat at all!
The genre itself also changed to a more traditional style of absurdist comedy. CatDog could now stretch their body for miles on end, and unlike the few times we saw it in the first season, this was permanently a thing they could do instead of something they could sometimes do. Situations fit absurdity more than the harsh cruelty of season one's style. It added a lot more humor, from any kind of place the writer's felt would work with the bizarre world they created. I went from laughing about once an episode, to finding the entirety of the episodes funny.
The other thing they changed, the thing I said didn't need to change, was the animation. Season one's animation was good. The art style looked clean and it moved fine enough, it was good animation. Suddenly, starting with season two, the animation became brighter and more fluid. It went from a show that looked good, to a treat for the eyes on occasion. I have to applaud the writers of this show for clearly listening to the public, and the animators for decided they could improve something that was simply okay the first time around. So, what does that mean for;
-Season 3-
You may have noticed I barely mentioned the other characters in the show. I was waiting for season three, as this was the season where the cast suddenly became more of an ensemble. Characters who had been there since the first season, one from the second, and a brand-new from the third, all became important to the episodic stories. Everyone talked to each other a lot more, and became more involved.
We had Lola Caricola, the newest character. Lola was a purple bird (Yellow-bellied whippoorwill, a fictional species) who studied other animals as her passion in life. She was one of the nicest characters to ever exist in the show, however, her debut features her not remotely understanding the main character's personal space, setting her up as a still part of this world of fairly unlikable people. I really liked Lola. New characters during a show's run is nothing new to me, I watch a lot of TV. What matters is if they fit, and Lola fit.
As for older characters, we have Randolph, Mervis, Dunglap, and Mr. Sunshine. Randolph was the TV reporter and sometimes celebrity. He was very outgoing, and yet not as egotistical as you would expect for this show. He was also enthusiastic about everything, his catchphrase being "and I LOVE it!" It wasn't hard to not love him too, at times he did feel like he came from a different show, but he still fit so well.
Mervis and Dunglap are remembered by many as the two characters who always appeared together, enough that the character entry on TVTropes calls them that.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/CatDog
However, until season three they hardly ever interacted with each other. It was rare they'd be in the same episode. I have a funny feeling they ended up taking advantage of the fact John Kassir voiced both characters anyway, and it worked out for the best. The two finally got more development as characters. They were sometimes CatDog's only friends, but the both of them were so hardheaded that they would turn for a quick laugh, and despite always being around each other and apparently even sharing a living space together, they clearly outright hated each other. Anything set them off, and it was very funny to watch.
Mr. Sunshine didn't have too much to delve into, his joke was that he spoke in monotone. They did write him as a character, but with nothing too strong other than the way he spoke. This was a nineties show, and I can't help shake the fact it may have been a Ben Stein reference. Remember that? When the nineties loved Ben Stein? Enough that they would have him voice characters, or just base entire characters on him even if they couldn't get him? I don’t know why this happened, but it happened for a while until suddenly it didn’t. Maybe the joke was exhausted?
Oh, also there was Eddie the Squirrel. A squirrel who wants to be a Greaser Dog. A lot of people hated him for his voice but I think Eddie worked fine, he was purposefully annoying and got a lot of punishment dealt out to him. Starting in season three, Eddie had more moments of defiance, having enough of the Greasers treating him poorly. This ranges from him joining a group helmed by CatDog and being their friend for the episode, to creating an evil robot and ruling the town with an iron fist.
It's not too often I can tell which season of a show I'm watching from the episode's style and tone alone, but I've always loved it when that would happen. CatDog ended up being a really good example of that. With that in mind, I have only one thing left to bring up;
-Season 4-
CatDog ended up getting a made-for-TV movie. The plot was that CatDog discover the possible place they came from, and go looking for their parents. It's funny and heartwarming, and I insist watching it even more than the rest of the show if you aren't sure about re-watching the entire series. It's shorter than re-watching a season and it's really good. After that, there was the rest of the fourth season. Now, earlier I said Nickelodeon gave the series more episodes per season. For some reason, this completely changed in season four. They got a lot less episodes than usual for this show, although most likely the same amount as other shows, and they didn't even air them until years after the series was done. It's not as uncommon a practice as you may think. Sometimes a show is cancelled after episodes have been finished so they hold onto the episodes and dump them out later. Sometimes they don't even admit the show was cancelled until the episode dump has started. Many TV stations do this even to this day.
With only a few episodes, all I can say is once again they seemed to listen. The Greasers were mostly relegated to cameos, they never got to be an antagonist aside from the movie. Both Lola and Eddie only cameod in the opening of the movie and never appeared in the rest of the season. I guess people got tired of them. I like the change of the Greasers, because for some reason, the writers started building Winslow as the new main antagonist. It was an interesting change, and we even learned it's a family tradition to be a mean prankster, passed down since the cavemen version of Winslow’s species. I was a great set-up the fourth season didn't have enough time to develop, so I can't help but wonder how it would have ended up. As for Lola and Eddie, I missed them, but I do understand using them less if backlash was harsh.
We also found out Mr. Sunshine's real name is Cornelius, and its not an ironic nickname, he used to be a few happy guy before events I won't spoil. Said episode also features Peter Hannan as a narrator character, who gets violently attacked several times, more than anyone else in the episode. I love it when creators are humble in cameos, and with this it worked great.
At the end of the day, I'll have to think of another show for my hubris. Aside from the apathy I felt for season one, I heavily enjoyed re-watching CatDog. It knew how to grow, it knew how to have a unique season-by-season feeling, and I grew to really enjoy the characters. The back of the complete series box calls it "one of you're favorite Nickelodeon shows", and yeah, it might be.