Cats Don't Dance

Superb! A musical that would make Disney cry.
When this film released in 1997, nobody paid attention to it, because Disney's Hercules was the animated feature film everyone assumed to be better. Many animators would prefer Cats Don't Dance over Hercules, why? It is a tap dancing musical that really plays with the art of animation. The movie is directed by Mark Dindal (Emperor's New Groove) and the choreography is by the famous broadway dancing veteran Gene Kelley! It is also the last film involves Gene Kelley. Overall, the animation is wonderful, loveable characters, and unforgettable songs. This is a movie for all ages of animation or musical fan.

A classic in its own right....
NOTE: Revised Grammitcally and Structurally on Saturday October 23, 2010.

A flop in its release, it now has a minor cult following, and time has shown that this film still looks and sounds good on top of having a great story and consistently fun and engaging characters.

As far as Animated Musicals go, the songs in this could rival anything from Disney(Randy Newman has done quite a bit of music for Disney). The animation is colorful and splashy and the main theme/story is inventive, which is not all too common in animated films these days (especially in 2010).

The thing I find so special about "Cats Don't Dance" is that, while at 11yrs, I enjoyed it a great deal, and thought it was a very fun and entertaining cartoon, now that I'm older I see that the themes in this film parallel that of many ethnic actors trying to break into Hollywood, particularly blacks, and with that in mind it strikes quite a resonant chord today.

Cats Don't...

Fun romp
It may not be a classic but "Cats Don't Dance" is a fun time killer.

PLOT - It's the 1930s and no animal has been able to reach the star status of their human counterparts: Clark Gable, Cary Grant, Joan Crawford, etc. The only thing animals are wanted for is to say animal lines and do stereotypical animal things.

Then from Kokomo, Indiana comes the naive, humble but ambitious Danny (Scott Bakula, throwing out a voice that is decades younger than he actually is and doing his own singing), a fast tapping tap dancer who dreams of being the cat version of Gene Kelly or Bing Crosby, so he comes to Hollywood to seek his fortune, only to find a town full of crushed souls and broken dreams. He also runs afoul of Darla Dimple (speaking voice Ashley Peldon, singing voice Lindsay Ridgeway), a demented, narcissistic child star who is basically an evil version of Shirley Temple but pretends to be the sweet little girl image that the public has of her, which includes loving...

Click to Editorial Reviews