Movies / Animé and Toons

CatDog Season One Part One

By Hervé St-Louis
November 3, 2011 - 07:39

CatDog is  Nickelodeon series from 1998 part of the animated revival of that company in the 1990s that gave the American public many hip television series for kids that could be enjoyed by adults. Catdog was part of that wave and played specifically on Nickelodeon and later on Nicktoons. CatDog is about a pair of conjoined twins with one end being a cat the other one a dog. They are as different as they could be, but they are brothers at heart and through all their differences and the pressures of the world, still love each other. Th

Many of the series that premiered in the 1990s seem to have been inspired by Ren and Stimpy. At first glance, CatDog was too but the series really was kid-friendly and one thing I like about it is that there was no moral to be learned by kids. It was created to entertain only and not to educate and teach social skills like so many cartoons feel they have to.

The stories in CatDog are pretty regular though and use classic cartoons plots and premises we’ve all seen many times, but with a twist since the protagonists are conjoined twins. If you’ve watched Rocko’s Private Life or any other cartoon from that era, you’ll feel familiar with CatDog. So no, there’s nothing groundbreaking about CatDog and after the novelty of conjoined twins wears off, the viewer is left with a solid cartoon series that doesn’t push the boundaries, but doesn’t bore either.

The voice acting however, handled by old pros like Tom Kenny, Jim Cummings and Carlos Alazraqui is excellent. Many of the characters, besides CatDog have Brooklyn accents which gives an interesting raspy feel to the series. The opening theme song however, is quite good with a fake country style singer reciting a quick intro on the CatDog’s origins.

The animation is excellent of course, with loads of slapstick humour and very kinetic action – I just like shots where Dog is running mindlessly after a target with Cat just forced to follow along and floating like a bandorela. More could have done with the characters designs of other characters besides CatDog and the background sets of the series. It’s standard cartoon fair with nothing too memorable about it.

This first set includes four hours worth of cartoons but not the entire first season. They aren’t any DVD extras.

Rating: 8 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12