Топ Кэт: Манхэттен мысықтарының хикаясы

American animated sitcom
the animated television series

Top Cat is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna Barbera Productions and originally broadcast in prime time on the ABC network. It aired in a weekly evening time slot from September 27, 1961, to April 18, 1962, for a single season of 30 episodes. The show was a ratings failure in prime time, but became successful upon its time on Saturday morning television. The show also became very popular in Latin American countries (especially Mexico), and the United Kingdom.

Top Cat was created as a parody of The Phil Silvers Show with Arnold Stang imitating Sgt Bilko's voice for the titular character. Hanna Barbera sold the cartoon to ABC based on a drawing of the main character. This was only the second cartoon series to premiere on prime time network television in the United States.

The title character, Top Cat (T. C.; voiced by Arnold Stang impersonating Phil Silvers) is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats living in Hoagy's Alley: Fancy Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, Brain, and Choo Choo. Top Cat and his gang were inspired by the East Side Kids, roguish, street smart characters from a series of 1940s B movies, but their more immediate roots lay in The Phil Silvers Show (1955–59), a successful military comedy whose lead character (Sergeant Bilko, played by Silvers) was a fast talking con artist. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman in The Phil Silvers Show, provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat, and Benny's chubby appearance was based on Gosfield's. Additionally, Arnold Stang's vocal characterization was originally based on an impression of Phil Silvers's voice. During the original network run, the sponsor objected to the Silvers impersonation—insisting that he was playing Arnold Stang, not Phil Silvers—so in later episodes Stang modified the Top Cat voice, to a closer tone of his own voice. The gang constantly hatch get rich quick schemes through scams but most of them usually backfire, and a frequent plot thread revolves around the local police officer, Charles "Charlie" Dibble (voiced by Allen Jenkins), ineffectually trying to either arrest them, evict them from the alley, get them to clean the alley, or stopping them using the policebox phone. Like The Flintstones, all the episodes feature a cold open, which is a small scene from the episode that takes place in medias res, and after that, a long flashback that leads to the scene begins with the series' theme song "The Most Effectual Top Cat" and features Top Cat's misadventures that happen before the scene from the beginning plays. The story then continues from where it left off. In some episodes, the flashback stops near the middle when the same scene plays.

Top Cat aired on Wednesday nights in Prime Time from 8:30 to 9:00 pm. Hanna Barbera created 30 half hour episodes of Top Cat. The show was broadcast in black and white but was created in color. The show aired on Saturdays in 1962 and 1963 on ABC, and was then rerun in various Saturday morning slots on NBC from 1965 to 1969, and occasionally in the 1980s. Reruns of the series aired on Cartoon Network from 1992 until 2004, and on Boomerang from 2000 to 2014 and again from November 26 to November 29, 2020. Reruns later returned to Boomerang on April 4, 2023.

Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman says that the series can be seen as social commentary. The cats may represent disenfranchised people confined to living in a poor environment. Top Cat's get rich quick schemes are efforts to escape to a better life. The gang faces a human police officer who frustrates their efforts and keeps them trapped in the alley. This enforcement of the social order by police ensures that the cats will not escape their current living conditions.

Top Cat was conceived along the lines of a traditional, live action situation comedy, and Hanna Barbera recruited top sitcom writers of the day to furnish scripts, including Barry Blitzer (a Bilko veteran), Harvey Bullock, and Kin Platt. In the current DVD versions, however, only Platt gets writing credit due to a production error: the closing credits from Platt's episode were used for every episode, so Platt gets screen credit regardless of who wrote the actual scripts.

The gang's adventures continued off screen in comic books as Dell (which became Gold Key) published 31 issues from 1961 to 1970. Charlton Comics published 20 more issues from 1970 to 1973. In Mexico, Ediciones Latinoamericanas' "La Colección Primavera" featured Don Gato in 1968. In 2012, there was a crossover between Top Cat and Chilean comic book character Condorito. Top Cat had a backup story in Adam Strange/Future Quest Annual #1 in where he escapes from prison and meets Batman through a cosmic portal. Unlike the cartoon, Top Cat is from a world where cats are the dominant species. As a follow up, Top Cat also appears in one issue of a crossover series between DC and Hanna Barbera, titled Superman/Top Cat Special (October 2018).

T. C. and friends appeared on three View Master reels in 1962. These were titled "Medal for Meddling", "Zoo Operation", and "No Cat Fishing".

The Original TV Soundtrack, written and recorded by Hoyt Curtin, was released by Colpix Records in 1962, consisting of slightly edited versions of "The Unscratchables" and "Top Cat Falls in Love". Hanna Barbera Records released an LP in 1965 titled Robin Hood Starring Top Cat. T. C. and the gang were pictured as Merry Men on the cover. Its songs included "Top Cat", "M O N E Y", "Dibble", "Robin Hood", and "Buddies". It was re released in 1977 on Columbia Records' Special Products label. A jazzy arrangement of the Top Cat theme can be heard most weeks over the end credits of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour. The titles and underscore were released as part of the CD release, The Best of Hanna Barbera: Tunes from the Toons by Music Club in 2002 in Europe.

Other Hanna Barbera characters make cameo appearances during the series. In the episode "King for a Day", Brain and Spook are reading comic books. Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound comics can be seen in the bottom right corner of the scene. In the episode "Rafeefleas", the gang is wandering through a museum at night when they come upon a group of statues labeled "Prehistoric Man". Choo Choo insists that he's seen the figures before, maybe on TV, but T. C. waves this off. The statues are modeled after Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. In the episode "A Visit from Mother", "El Kabong" graffiti (Quick Draw McGraw's alter ego) is seen on the wall in the background.

Top Cat also made a cameo appearance in one of the What a Cartoon! shorts named "Buy One, Get One Free" in a party scene. Top Cat's theme is featured in The Flintstones episode "Surfin Fred" when Barney and Betty discover that Jimmy Darrock is in fact not a lifeguard. Officer Dibble makes a cameo appearance in The Flintstones episode "Time Machine", as a policeman in the future, thus returning the favor done in the episode "Rafeefleas" mentioned above. Top Cat and his gang appeared in Yogi's Ark Lark. While the others don't have dialogue, Top Cat was voiced by Daws Butler while Benny the Ball was voiced by John Stephenson. It was presumed that Arnold Stang wasn't available at the time while Maurice Gosfield was already dead in 1964. In 1985, Top Cat appeared on Yogi's Treasure Hunt with Yogi Bear and other Hanna Barbera toon stars as the treasure hunt assigner. Officer Dibble made an appearance in the end of the show's episode, "Yogi's Beanstalk" voiced by John Stephenson since Allen Jenkins had died in 1974. In 1987, Hanna Barbera produced a feature length television film based on the show titled Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (part of the Hanna Barbera Superstars 10 film series), in which the gang helps a teenager claim her inheritance. During that time, John Stephenson reprised Officer Dibble while Benny the Ball was voiced by Avery Schreiber. Top Cat appears as a teenager in Yo Yogi! where he lives in a trash can at the mall. In the Fender Bender 500 segment of Wake, Rattle, and Roll, Top Cat and Choo Choo were one of the racers driving a trash can modeled monster truck called the Alley Cat. Top Cat was seen in a Cartoon Network Rap in 1995. In the Duck Dodgers episode "K 9 Quarry", Top Cat was amongst the poached Hanna Barbera characters on the Alien Hunter's ship. Top Cat, Benny, Spook and Brain made a cameo appearance at the end of The Powerpuff Girls episode "Catastrophe". They can be seen at the bottom left corner of the screen (although, instead of his hat, Top Cat has a splat of slime on his head). Top Cat was seen briefly driving a motorcycle in the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends episode "Cheese a Go Go". Top Cat and the gang appear in a third season episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, "Mindless" where Birdman serves as Top Cat's attorney for charges of bookmaking and running an illegal gambling facility. In this appearance, Top Cat was voiced by Tom Kenny, while Benny the Ball was voiced by Maurice LaMarche. Top Cat also makes a cameo in the series finale when Birdman is forced to retry all his cases. Top Cat and Benny have a cameo in the Wacky Races episode "Off Track". Top Cat, Benny, and the rest of the alley cats appeared in the HBO Max original series Jellystone! Choo Choo, Spook and Brain are females in this series. Spook is also renamed as Spooky and is completely silent. Top Cat made a cameo appearance in the Teen Titans Go! episode "Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary".

Top Cat and his gang (except for Brain) appeared in the March 10, 2016 strip of Heathcliff.