Top Cat Begins (film)

Top Cat Begins is a 2015 Mexican-Indian-American computer generated animated comedy film, acting as a prequel to the Top Cat TV series between 1961-1962, with the blessing of the copyright holders, Time Warner. It was written by Jim Krieg, Doug Langdale, with additions by Jorge Ramírez-Suárez, produced by Fernando De Fuentes S. and José C. García de Letona, and directed by Andrés Couturier. It was animated by Mexican studio Ánima Estudios, and distributed theatrically by Warner Bros. Pictures in Mexico on October 30, 2015, then a theater release in the United Kingdom on May 27, 2016, followed by a direct-to-video release in the United States on September 29, 2017.

Due to Top Cat: The Movie being a moderate success in Mexico, Ánima Estudios were rewarded with the opportunity to produce this second film, but it didn't perform as well its predecessor and was a box office bomb in the UK, so that's you haven't seen them make a third one since.

The film reveals how circumstances brought together each of the alley cats of Hoagy's Alley under Top Cat's leadership.

Characters

 * style="background-color:#clear"| Spook
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Ben Diskin
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Top Cat
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Jason Harris
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Fancy-Fancy
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Matthew Piazzi
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Maitre'd
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| David Shaughnessy
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Choo-Choo
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Jason Harris
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Brain
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Jason Harris
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Furletta Duchat
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Patty Mattson
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Mr. Big
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Darin De Paul
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Health inspector
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Benny the Ball
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Chris Edgerly
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Hair Bear
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Officer Charlie Dibble
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Bill Lobley
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Mad Dog
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Diedrich BAder
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Nun
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Chief Thumbton
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Dave Boat
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Officer Lopez
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Mrs. Ball
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Lauri Fraser
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Muttley
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Granny Dibble
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Charlie Adler
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Chopper
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Hong Kong Phooey
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Francois Papin
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Madame Fifi
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Officer Lopez
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Mrs. Ball
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Lauri Fraser
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Muttley
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Granny Dibble
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Charlie Adler
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Chopper
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#clear"| Hong Kong Phooey
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Francois Papin
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Madame Fifi
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Francois Papin
 * style="background-color:#aaffaa"| Unavailable
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Madame Fifi
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A
 * style="background-color:#d2d2ff"| Madame Fifi
 * style="background-color:#ffff00"| N/A

Organizations

 * New York City Transit Authority
 * The Fabulous Murdock and the Woockies
 * New York Police Department
 * New York Film Festival
 * Enigma Inc.
 * Great Couture Inc.

Locations

 * United States
 * New York
 * New York City
 * Starlight Club
 * Grethel Donuts
 * McClaw Tavern
 * Bank-O
 * Empire State Building
 * State of Liberty
 * Segova Coffee Shop
 * Hoagy's Alley
 * Police station
 * Charlie Dibble's residence
 * Bagel Corner
 * Gerano's Laundry
 * Fabric House
 * Brooklyn
 * Mexico
 * Ireland
 * Dublin
 * Germany
 * France
 * Paris
 * Eiffel Tower
 * The Moon

Objects

 * New York Press
 * Fire in the Hole
 * Enter the Dog
 * la beauté étourdie
 * Top Cat comic

Vehicles

 * Train

Music
The music is composed by Leoncio Lara Bon.

Behind the scenes

 * The movie title is a reference to the film Batman Begins, also owned and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
 * Unique to this film, is the promotion of beer at a supermarket.
 * There's an advertisement for Sugar Flakes and Kentucky Chicken Factory, parodies of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Kentucky Fried Chicken, respectively.
 * There's a poster advertisement of a film called Judgement Day: The Last Clean, with a robot resembling Rosie from The Jetsons, but she is gray, and wears sunglasses and a jacket to evoke the T-800 Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 * Outside of McClaw Tavern, there's a couple of posters advertising Hair Bear (albeit just his hair), from Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch!
 * Gerano's Laundry accepts parodies of MasterCard and Visa.
 * The garbage bins T.C. and Benny hid in are full of DVDs of Top Cat: The Movie, which is ironic, because it performed better than this movie.
 * Muttley, from Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in the Their Flying Machines, has a cameo with his face drawn on a dumpster.
 * Top Cat's disguise of Dr. Sylvester Garfield, comes from two other animated anthropomorphic, talking cats: Sylvester from Looney Tunes, and Garfield, the star of his own comic strips.
 * A newsstand has parodies of Time, a Marvel NOW! era comic, and Variety.
 * A photo of Chopper, from the Yakky-Doodle shorts, hangs in Granny Dibble's living room.
 * Granny Dibble also has a painting of Dogs Playing Poker.
 * Hong Kong Phooey, from the TV series of the same name, is the star of the film Enter the Dog, a parody of the 1973 film Enter the Dragon.
 * la beauté étourdie is a parody of the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally...
 * The Cutu Comics logo on the fourth wall breaking Top Cat comics, is a parody of Charlton Comics, which did print their own Top Cat series for 20 issues between 1970-1973.

Errors

 * The one dollar and five dollar bills have made up people on them, instead of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, respectively. The only one they seemed to have got right is Alexander Hamilton on the ten dollar bill.
 * Officer Dibble says, "Sorry, boys" when the kittens were clearly a boy and a girl.

Trailers
UK trailer:

US trailer: