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Changes: Cats Don't Dance

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'''Danny:''' All I wanna do is the thing I love. Doesn't everyone?
  
'''Danny:''' All I wanna do is the thing I love. Doesn't everyone?
   
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'''NC (vo):''' But Danny finds out he's not the only one with dashed dreams. He comes across an elephant named Woolie Mammoth, who's the logo for the studio, which he has to do ''every time they make a movie''.
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'''NC (vo):''' But Danny finds out he's not the only one with dashed dreams. He comes across an elephant named Woolie Mammoth, who's the logo for the studio, which he has to do ''every time they make a movie''. This cracks me up, because it would be so much easier just to shoot it once and reuse the footage.
  +
  +
''(The scene shows Woolie sticking his head through the logo, getting his makeup done, and trumpeting.)''
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'''NC (vo):''' But every time a movie is made, he has to squeeze his head through, get made up, and he has to do the sound effect all over again. That's just enjoyably pointless. It's made even funnier by the fact that he's apparently a piano player.
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  +
'''NC:''' ''(confused)'' How???
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  +
'''NC (vo):''' He has hooves or paws or whatever elephant hands are called! How does he hit the keys? I know it's a small thing, but that really makes me laugh. Danny finds out that Woolie wanted to be a musician, but the Hollywood system chewed him up and spat him out, just like all the rest of his new friends. Apparently, Hollywood just isn't interested in animals as leads.
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'''Danny:''' But I thought Hollywood was always looking for new talent.
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'''Woolie (John Rhys-Davies):''' Talented people, not animals.
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'''NC:''' When will human washing stop?
   
 
''The script is incomplete.''
  
''The script is incomplete.''

Revision as of 23:21, 15 July 2017

 Cats Don't Dance

Nc-cats-dont-dance-620x330

Aired
July 12, 2017
Running time
12:54 
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Next review
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(The shortened opening)

NC: Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Critic. I remember it so you don't have to. Ever since I started this show, I got a lot of requests to review the movie...

(Cut to the title card for the movie NC was requested to do...)

NC (vo): ...Cats Don't Dance, released in 1997.

NC: (staring quizzically at the DVD case) Really? This is seen as a bad movie? I mean, I remember seeing it a long time ago and I recall it being... (shrugs) okay.

(Clips from the film are shown.)

NC (vo): Not perfect, but a serviceable film. A nice little kids' movie with nice animation and one or two laughs. I even mentioned at one point I would never review this movie because I didn't think the flaws were bad enough to fill up an entire review.

NC: But then I started thinking about it. Maybe you don't want me to review this movie because it's so bad, but because it...left an impact.

NC (vo): I've been hearing more and more that this is one of those movies that was played a lot on Cartoon Network, and even though it bombed at the box office, it found life on VHS, resulting in only now a widescreen release on DVD. And with all the recommendations I've been getting for it, clearly it has a follow-up.

NC: So what is it that draws so many people to this animated flick? Why not take a look? This is my quick mini-review of Cats Don't Dance.

NC (vo): It starts off with a Randy Newman song...

(NC, trying not to lose his cool, just inhales with his nose, smiling forcibly.)

NC: ...That's nice.

NC (vo): ...as we see a cat in the 1930s named Danny, played by Scott Bakula...

NC: This will be the greatest movie ever made if this is all secretly an identity from Quantum Leap!

NC (vo): ...is traveling to Hollywood to try and become a star.

Danny (Bakula): ♪ You can do anything if you try / Dig that face, they ain't seen nothing like it anyplace / It's right up on the movie screen... ♪

NC (vo): The first thing you might notice about this film is that it seems...well, corny.

NC: Like Indiana can't supply enough fuel for your corniness. But...there's a couple things to keep in mind.

NC (vo): On top of the beautifully colorful and lively animation, this is a throwback to musicals of that era, which represents Danny's optimism that's going to be dashed later on in the film. In fact, reality is already kind of sinking in, as the love interest of the film is not introduced through glitter in life, but rather, Danny unknowingly screwing her over, blinded by his cheerfulness. Everything he does somehow results in her misery.

NC: Also, shit! Captain Archer's a good singer!

Danny: ♪ Hollywood! Where the streets are paved with gold! Where the kitties never grow old! ♪

NC: Ensign, set a course for...smooth. (He smiles as the jazz music plays in the background.)

NC (vo): Danny enters a talent agency, coming across a slue of weirdos and has-beens - if they ever have been - and the talent agent just happens to need a cat for a Noah's Ark picture.

Farley Wink (Frank Welker): Just sign here, here, here, here, and here and here and here and here... and over there and down the middle...

(Sawyer walks into the room, soaking wet from the fountain water. Inside the room, we see Tillie the hippo.)

Sawyer: A cat crossed my path.

Tillie (Kathy Najimy): Really? Orange tabby?

Sawyer: Yeah.

Tillie: Green vest?

Sawyer: Yeah.

Tillie: Straw hat?

Sawyer: Yeah.

Tillie: What a koinky-dink.

Sawyer: Yeah. How'd you know?

Tillie: Hippo intuition.

NC (vo): While the music in scenes like this can get distractingly loud, the pacing is pretty impressive, calling back to classic fast-talking comedies of that time, like His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby.

Farley: Give you Sundays off.

Sawyer: Never work Sunday.

Farley: Double time.

Sawyer: Triple.

Farley: Triple?

Sawyer: There an echo?

Farley: You're pushing me!

Sawyer: No chow, no meow.

(The scene cuts to a clip from His Girl Friday.)

Walter Burns (Cary Grant): This will bring us back together again. Just the way it used to be.

Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson (Rosalind Russell): That's what I'm afraid of. Any time, anyplace, anywhere.

Walter Burns: Don't mock me. This is bigger than anything that ever happened to us.

NC (vo): Only this time, the animation can magnify the movements as well as the speech. Plus, our love interest, Sawyer, played by Jasmine Guy, continues to comedically be the subject of needless violence - the best kind of violence!

(The door closes on Sawyer's tail. Sawyer yelps in pain.)

NC: I'm not usually for animal cruelty, but if Tom and Sawyer could get together for a slapstick routine, I already have the perfect name...

(Sterling Archer from the eponymous TV series pops up from the right.)

Archer: Tom Sawyer?

NC: (softly) That's actually better!

NC (vo): Sawyer gets roped into a role, too - as they can't find any female cats - and they're off to shoot with their main star, a Shirley Temple knockoff named Darla Dimple, played by Ashley Peldon.

NC: She's just jealous because she flunked out of art class.

Darla: ♪ I built a little boat, as cute as it could be... ♪

NC (vo): This is by far the best part of the movie. At first, you might be wondering what I'm talking about, but when Danny musically improvises, her reactions from here on out are beyond priceless.

Darla: And who here is an angel? Can you tell me who here is an angel?!

Flanigan (Rene Auberjonois): Why, you are, Darla, sweetheart, celebrity, darling.

NC (vo): I don't think there's enough haunted houses for the amount of scary faces she makes in this movie. They're all horrifyingly insane and the animation doesn't hold back in the slightest, making every reaction hilarious.

NC: (takes out a DVD for the movie) Even the one on the cover is kind of disturbing. She looks like whoever possessed Regan in The Exorcist.

NC (vo): With such a light-hearted tone for the rest of the film, this is an enjoyingly cynical approach to a child icon. It's kind of weird, but also funny. This idea of turning a Shirley Temple-type persona into a villain. It's the equivalent of showing the Olsen twins as villains, or the Jerry Maguire kid (Jonathan Lipnicki) as a villain, or...

(A demonic clip of Mara Wilson is shown.)

NC: (terrified) Nope! That one's for real!

NC (vo): This leads to the only character who might actually be funnier than Darla - her butler, Max. When she calls for him, we don't even see him approach. He's already inside. The angles they use to show the size of this guy are simple in layout, but ridiculously effective. He never even separates his teeth to say a word.

Max (Mark Dindal): Yes, Miss Dimple?

NC (vo): And when he puts Danny in his place, his exit through the perfectly him-shaped hole is inspiringly extreme.

(Max exits through the hole he made in the wall.)

NC: I don't think Batman could have an exit that good.

NC (vo): When Danny tries to figure out what he did wrong, Sawyer lays some blunt reality on him, leaving probably the film's most poignant line.

Danny: All I wanna do is the thing I love. Doesn't everyone?

NC (vo): But Danny finds out he's not the only one with dashed dreams. He comes across an elephant named Woolie Mammoth, who's the logo for the studio, which he has to do every time they make a movie. This cracks me up, because it would be so much easier just to shoot it once and reuse the footage.

(The scene shows Woolie sticking his head through the logo, getting his makeup done, and trumpeting.)

NC (vo): But every time a movie is made, he has to squeeze his head through, get made up, and he has to do the sound effect all over again. That's just enjoyably pointless. It's made even funnier by the fact that he's apparently a piano player.

NC: (confused) How???

NC (vo): He has hooves or paws or whatever elephant hands are called! How does he hit the keys? I know it's a small thing, but that really makes me laugh. Danny finds out that Woolie wanted to be a musician, but the Hollywood system chewed him up and spat him out, just like all the rest of his new friends. Apparently, Hollywood just isn't interested in animals as leads.

Danny: But I thought Hollywood was always looking for new talent.

Woolie (John Rhys-Davies): Talented people, not animals.

NC: When will human washing stop?

The script is incomplete.

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