Fraidy Cat (TV series)

Fraidy Cat
Written by	Michael J. O'Connor
Directed by	Don Towsley
Voices of	Alan Oppenheimer Lennie Weinrib
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of episodes	18
Production
Running time	6 minutes
Production company	Filmation
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 6 (1975-09-06) – November 22, 1975 (1975-11-22)

Fraidy Cat is a 1975 comical children's cartoon show that originally appeared as a segment on Filmation's short-lived ABC series Uncle Croc's Block.^[1] The show had a run of twelve episodes; six more were planned, but they were scrapped due to the show getting cut from Uncle Croc’s Block when the latter was shortened to a half hour.

Plot[]

The show stars Fraidy "Nine" Cat (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer), an unlucky and miserable cat who, like all cats, has nine lives, but has used up eight of them and is on his ninth and last life, where he wants to make it last the longest.^[2] The main joke of the series is that as if Fraidy's life was not miserable enough. Nearly every time Fraidy inadvertently says out loud any single-digit number (from one to eight), or any word or any part of a word that rhymes with or sounds the same as the number's name in any language, sometimes, a ghost from one of his former lives will appear and mistakenly tend to make things even worse for the hopeless cat.

The ghosts are:

1. Tinker Elephunt "Cave One" Cat (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A prehistoric saber-toothed tiger with a caveman motif. He owns a huge pet Apatosaurus named "Ant" (voiced by Lennie Weinrib).
2. Kitty "Two" Wizard (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A befuddled magician whose wand was often on the wrong setting.
3. Captain "Three" Kitt (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A pirate who is the self-proclaimed "buccaneer's buccaneer".
4. Sir Walter "Four" Cat (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A foppish Elizabethan nobleman who is also an expert swordsman.
5. William "Billy Five" H. the Kit (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A western cowboy. He is a small guy with a very loud voice.
6. Jasper "Six" Catdaver (voiced by Lou Scheimer) - An undertaker who actually prefers to expedite Fraidy's passing to the "Other Side", though not out of spite. He is ironically the least troublesome of the ghosts.
7. Captain Eddie "Seven" Kittenbacker (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A pilot who is a very erratic flier.
8. Hep "Eight" Cat (voiced by Lennie Weinrib) - A zoot-suited jive-talking street cat.
9. Cloud Nine (voiced by Alan Oppenheimer) - As accidentally saying a number from one to eight gets Fraidy a ghost, as if to fill the void towards his last life, saying "nine" calls forth an ominous, malevolent storm cloud (shaped like the number nine) which immediately gives chase after Fraidy, attempting to blast him with bolts of lightning until Fraidy manages to either outrun the cloud or its (supposedly) limited time it can stay expires.

Each short begins with all eight ghosts appearing around Fraidy who says to the audience about his life: "Every kitty has nine lives. But eight of mine went fast. Now there's only one life left, and I want to make it last!" Cloud Nine appears and he starts running. Then he morphs into the yellow-lined cat's name which its letters said it was at the end of the intro.

Whenever terrified by some dangerous situation, Fraidy often exclaims: "This kitten's splittin'!"

Episodes[]

The twelve existing episodes listed were made before the cancellation of Uncle Croc's Block. The other six episodes were in production and eventually scrapped after Uncle Croc's Block being shortened to a half-hour.

Production[]

One of the few original series (outside of an adaptation) to be produced by Filmation; Fraidy was later syndicated as part of the Groovie Goolies and Friends series.

In 1995, Hallmark acquired Filmation, and a mass conversion of NTSC to PAL of the master tapes sped the tapes up by 0.5%. Most of the NTSC tapes of Fraidy are on many public domain DVDs, except for “It’s a Dog’s Life”, “A Small Star is Born”, and “A Scaredy Fraidy”. However, none of the NTSC episodes are taken from the masters, but instead taken from VHS tapes.

Cancellation, and Scrapping[]

After the 12th episode, the series was supposed to have 6 more episodes, but due to a business decision erected by Filmation, Uncle Croc's Block was shortened to a half-hour package, and Fraidy Cat was cut from the show, taking the unfinished episodes with it. The 6 aforementioned episodes never made it past the writing and storyboard stage.

Home media[]

All of the produced Fraidy Cat episodes were released by Boulevard Entertainment on two DVD volumes in the 2000s and later by BCI on a compilation DVD called Frightfully Funny Volume Two, which also included episodes of Groovie Goolies and Filmation's Ghostbusters.

Fraidy Cat has been mistakenly believed to be in the public domain and has shown up on many public domain compilation DVDs, such as Mill Creek Entertainment’s 200 Classic Cartoons box set, albeit in a very faded quality.

References[]

External links[]

• Fraidy Cat at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Fraidy Cat at IMDb
• Fraidy Cat at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on July 30, 2016.