Top Cat Dolls

Click to enlarge. Top Cat Dolls by Ideal
are the most rare.

       The Top Cat "Doll" is based upon the animated "Top Cat" and his gang who 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 buying 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.
       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.

• vintage 1985 Hanna Barbera Top Cat show plush
• Marx TV Tinykins plastic figures from Top Cat
• Watch vintage Warner Bros. cartoons here

"At home in Bel-Air with wife JoAnne, son David and daughter Deborah, Arnold is
 --excuse the expression!--"top dog" On T.V. he's the voice of Top Cat,
as seen opposite lionizing a spellbound cartoon pal.

       "Arnold Stang, the funny little man with the famous falsetto, takes on a new job this fall as the voice of a battling big-city feline known as "Top Cat" or "T.C." to his furry friends in the ashcan set. Stang, who weighs in at 106 and stands five-three, has parlayed this unprepossessing exterior and unique voice into a steady success as an actor-comedian. With oversize lens-less glasses ("who needs glasses?") perched on his parrot-like nose, Stang has panicked the customers on TV and in movies--enacting roles sometimes requiring comedy facility, sometimes dramatic talent in touching characterizations… Movie-goers may recall him best for his superb acting as Sparrow, the little punk who was Sinatra's sidekick in "The Man with the Golden Arm." TV viewers will probably recall him as the stagehand who regularly frustrated the star on The Milton Berle Show. And, on radio, Stang was well established as Seymour on The Goldbergs. In more recent years, he did a regular comedy stint on Bert Parks' Bandstand show, sandwiched in with numerous dramatic rolls on major TV shows…Top Cat is a new cartoon animal comedy series from the Hanna-Barbera studio, which originated that successful Stone Age romp, The Flinstones. Along with "T.C." Stang, there is a roster of famous voices. Benny the Ball, T.C.'s straight man, has the voice of Maurice Gosfield of "Doberman" fame. Allen Jenkins talks for a "human" policeman, Officer Dibble. Fancy Fancy, a feline Don Juan, is played by John Stephenson. Spook and Brain--two far-out cool cats--are spoken for by comedian Leo DeLyon. Choo-Choo, an impetuous tom more daring than wisdom dictates, is voice-fed by Marvin Kaplan…With his commitment for this series, Arnold Stang has moved his family from their home in New Rochelle, near New York, to the Los Angeles area-a cross-country trek which represents a change of home and school life for JoAnne, Arnold's pretty wife, and David Donald 10, and Deborah, 9…as pictured above with "T.C." Radio TV Mirror, 1961

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