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Description
"Top Cat. The most effectual Top Cat."

Lets continue our Disney/Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary celebration with Hanna-Barbera's gang of streetwise cats lead by one wearing a fancy get up; Top Cat.

Top Cat (T.C. for short) is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats living in Hoagy's Alley: Fancy-Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, Brain, and Choo-Choo.
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, ineffectually trying to either arrest them, evict them from the alley, get them to clean the alley, or stopping them from using the policebox phone.

The writing may not be the strongest among Hanna-Barbera's line-up, but it is decently well written and each episode is solidly paced, does manage to be decently funny and charming, can be heartwarming every now and then, and tends to be more sophisticated than many of the other shows.
And with the decent writing, this in turn leads to some solid episodes like "The Long Hot Winter", "The Tycoon", "The Grand Tour", "The Late T.C.", "The Unscratchables", "T.C. Minds the Baby", "Farewell Mr. Dibble", "King For a Day", "The Golden Fleecing", "Dibble's Birthday", "A Visit From Mother", and more.
While i don't think the show is one of Hanna-Barbera's funniest, it still has a decent sense of humor and does lead to some comedic and chuckle-worthy moments like the witty dialogue and banter from the characters, the crazy situations they get themselves in, some of the gags, and some of the slapstick.
The show can also be decently heartwarming and tender at times like the relationship between Benny and his mother, T.C. and the gang looking after an abandoned baby, and whenever T.C. and the gang, and Dibble help each other out.
The animation is just what you would expect from Hanna-Barbera around this time: cheap but appealing. The characters all have pretty solid designs and decent movements, the backgrounds are nicely painted and colored, and there are some decent effects.
The characters are all pretty decently likable, and they all have pretty solid chemistry.
Top Cat is a pretty likable protagonist as he is very crafty with his schemes, very witty with how he outsmarts Dibble and his foes, but also has a good heart with how much he cares for his friends, and is more than willing to help others in need.
The other cats are also pretty likable, and do have their fair share of funny and caring moments like the gullible but friendly Benny, the mischievous Choo-Choo, the smooth talking and charming Fancy-Fancy, the charismatic Spook, and the ironically dim-witted Brain.
Officer Dibble is also pretty likable as even though he's usually very stern and by the books when it comes to Top Cat's schemes and the law, and doesn't like T.C. and his gang loitering in the alley, there are times where he does respect and like them, and they in turn do the same despite all the times they tricked or outsmarted him.
There's also a good amount of decently likable minor characters like Benny's caring mother Mrs. Ball, the vicious but gullible Griswald, T.C.'s smooth talking impersonator A.T. Jazz, and more.
The voice acting is pretty solid, and does lead to some great performances like Arnold Strong as Top Cat, Maurice Gosfield as Benny, Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo, John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy, Leo De Lyon as Spook and Brain, Allen Jenkins as Officer Dibble, and more.
The music for the show is pretty decent and does capture the show's comedic and heartfelt tone, but there are a few times throughout the show where music cues from other shows were used.

Overall, despite not being one of the funniest, Top Cat is one of Hanna-Barbera's most unique of their lineup because of how down to earth and sophisticated it was compared to their other shows. So in that regard, i say it's worth a watch.

Cast:
Arnold Strong as Top Cat
Maurice Gosfield as Benny
Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo
John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy
Leo De Lyon as Spook, Brain
Allen Jenkins as Officer Charlie Dibble
Dos Messick as Griswald
Bea Benaderet as Mrs. Ball
Daws Butler as A.T. Jazz

Crew:
Created, Directed, and Produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
Music by Hoyt Curtin

Misc.
Production company: Hanna-Barbera Productions
Original network: ABC
Air Date: September 27, 1961 – April 18, 1962

It's honestly surprising that there wasn't much done with Top Cat after the show ended. All that Top Cat got after this was appearances in some of the Yogi Bear spin-offs like "Yogi's Ark Lark", "Yogi's Treasure Hunt", "Yo Yogi" and "Jellystone", some cameo appearances in other shows like "Duck Dodgers" and "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", and an episode centered around him in "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law".

The only pure Top Cat media we got after the show was a TV movie in 1988 called "Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats", which i watched and thought was pretty decent with decently likable characters, serviceable animation, good voice acting, solid music, and a decently written plot. But felt more like a lost extended episode from the show.

Then there was the 2011 movie simply titled "Top Cat: The Movie", and boy, this was something i don't want to look back on.
The story was very nonsensical, clunky, and cliched, the pacing was all over the place, many of the jokes were really bad, and it completely clashed with the more down to earth tone of the show by having a villain with goals of world domination with a robot army. The animation was passable, but the Flash animated characters don't mix well at all with the CGI backgrounds. The characters from the show have been severely flanderized, and the new characters weren't interesting at all. And the voice actors sound like they didn't even care. Just skip it.

But it was a financial success, which led to the 2015 prequel "Top Cat Begins", and this movie had many of the same problems as the first movie with a dull and cliched plot, weak jokes, uninteresting characters, and sub-par voice acting. I will give it credit that the animation for what it is is decent, and they did have the plot be more in tune with the tone of the show instead of going over the top like the first movie. So i think it's a little better than the first movie, but still not recommended.

Description
"Top Cat. The most effectual Top Cat."

Lets continue our Disney/Warner Bros. 100th Anniversary celebration with Hanna-Barbera's gang of streetwise cats lead by one wearing a fancy get up; Top Cat.

Top Cat (T.C. for short) is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats living in Hoagy's Alley: Fancy-Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, Brain, and Choo-Choo.
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, ineffectually trying to either arrest them, evict them from the alley, get them to clean the alley, or stopping them from using the policebox phone.

The writing may not be the strongest among Hanna-Barbera's line-up, but it is decently well written and each episode is solidly paced, does manage to be decently funny and charming, can be heartwarming every now and then, and tends to be more sophisticated than many of the other shows.
And with the decent writing, this in turn leads to some solid episodes like "The Long Hot Winter", "The Tycoon", "The Grand Tour", "The Late T.C.", "The Unscratchables", "T.C. Minds the Baby", "Farewell Mr. Dibble", "King For a Day", "The Golden Fleecing", "Dibble's Birthday", "A Visit From Mother", and more.
While i don't think the show is one of Hanna-Barbera's funniest, it still has a decent sense of humor and does lead to some comedic and chuckle-worthy moments like the witty dialogue and banter from the characters, the crazy situations they get themselves in, some of the gags, and some of the slapstick.
The show can also be decently heartwarming and tender at times like the relationship between Benny and his mother, T.C. and the gang looking after an abandoned baby, and whenever T.C. and the gang, and Dibble help each other out.
The animation is just what you would expect from Hanna-Barbera around this time: cheap but appealing. The characters all have pretty solid designs and decent movements, the backgrounds are nicely painted and colored, and there are some decent effects.
The characters are all pretty decently likable, and they all have pretty solid chemistry.
Top Cat is a pretty likable protagonist as he is very crafty with his schemes, very witty with how he outsmarts Dibble and his foes, but also has a good heart with how much he cares for his friends, and is more than willing to help others in need.
The other cats are also pretty likable, and do have their fair share of funny and caring moments like the gullible but friendly Benny, the mischievous Choo-Choo, the smooth talking and charming Fancy-Fancy, the charismatic Spook, and the ironically dim-witted Brain.
Officer Dibble is also pretty likable as even though he's usually very stern and by the books when it comes to Top Cat's schemes and the law, and doesn't like T.C. and his gang loitering in the alley, there are times where he does respect and like them, and they in turn do the same despite all the times they tricked or outsmarted him.
There's also a good amount of decently likable minor characters like Benny's caring mother Mrs. Ball, the vicious but gullible Griswald, T.C.'s smooth talking impersonator A.T. Jazz, and more.
The voice acting is pretty solid, and does lead to some great performances like Arnold Strong as Top Cat, Maurice Gosfield as Benny, Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo, John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy, Leo De Lyon as Spook and Brain, Allen Jenkins as Officer Dibble, and more.
The music for the show is pretty decent and does capture the show's comedic and heartfelt tone, but there are a few times throughout the show where music cues from other shows were used.

Overall, despite not being one of the funniest, Top Cat is one of Hanna-Barbera's most unique of their lineup because of how down to earth and sophisticated it was compared to their other shows. So in that regard, i say it's worth a watch.

Cast:
Arnold Strong as Top Cat
Maurice Gosfield as Benny
Marvin Kaplan as Choo-Choo
John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy
Leo De Lyon as Spook, Brain
Allen Jenkins as Officer Charlie Dibble
Dos Messick as Griswald
Bea Benaderet as Mrs. Ball
Daws Butler as A.T. Jazz

Crew:
Created, Directed, and Produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera
Music by Hoyt Curtin

Misc.
Production company: Hanna-Barbera Productions
Original network: ABC
Air Date: September 27, 1961 – April 18, 1962

It's honestly surprising that there wasn't much done with Top Cat after the show ended. All that Top Cat got after this was appearances in some of the Yogi Bear spin-offs like "Yogi's Ark Lark", "Yogi's Treasure Hunt", "Yo Yogi" and "Jellystone", some cameo appearances in other shows like "Duck Dodgers" and "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", and an episode centered around him in "Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law".

The only pure Top Cat media we got after the show was a TV movie in 1988 called "Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats", which i watched and thought was pretty decent with decently likable characters, serviceable animation, good voice acting, solid music, and a decently written plot. But felt more like a lost extended episode from the show.

Then there was the 2011 movie simply titled "Top Cat: The Movie", and boy, this was something i don't want to look back on.
The story was very nonsensical, clunky, and cliched, the pacing was all over the place, many of the jokes were really bad, and it completely clashed with the more down to earth tone of the show by having a villain with goals of world domination with a robot army. The animation was passable, but the Flash animated characters don't mix well at all with the CGI backgrounds. The characters from the show have been severely flanderized, and the new characters weren't interesting at all. And the voice actors sound like they didn't even care. Just skip it.

But it was a financial success, which led to the 2015 prequel "Top Cat Begins", and this movie had many of the same problems as the first movie with a dull and cliched plot, weak jokes, uninteresting characters, and sub-par voice acting. I will give it credit that the animation for what it is is decent, and they did have the plot be more in tune with the tone of the show instead of going over the top like the first movie. So i think it's a little better than the first movie, but still not recommended.