The central character, Top Cat — called T.C. by close friends — is the leader of a gang of Manhattan alley cats: Fancy Fancy, Spook, Benny the Ball, The Brain, and Choo Choo. Top Cat and his gang were inspired by characters from the popular situation comedy The Phil Silvers Show. It has also been said that the Bowery Boys influenced the show. Maurice Gosfield, who played Private Duane Doberman on The Phil Silvers Show, also provided the voice for Benny the Ball in Top Cat (Benny’s rotund appearance was based on Gosfield too). Arnold Stang’s voicing of Top Cat strongly resembled Phil Silvers’ voice as well.

A frequent plotline revolved around the local policeman, Officer Charlie Dibble, and his ineffective attempts to evict the gang from the city. The only reason that he wanted to be rid of them was that Top Cat and his gang were constantly attempting to earn a quick dollar—usually through an illegal scam. Dibble’s appearance was modelled on Allen Jenkins who did his voice. The name Dibble has passed into the vernacular as slang for police officers.
In 1985, Top Cat appeared on Yogi’s Treasure Hunt with all the other Hanna-Barbera characters and then in 1987, Hanna-Barbera Studios created and produced a feature-length telefilm based on the show titled Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats (part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 film series), in which the gang helps a young girl claim her inheritance. In 1991 he became a teenage cat (but he still lived in a trash can) on NBC’s Yo Yogi!.
In the United Kingdom, the show was renamed Boss Cat shortly after it premiered in 1962 (by means of a crudely substituted title card) when it was first aired on BBC television (now called BBC One) because Top Cat was also the name of a brand of cat food. The dialogue and theme tune still referred to the character by his original name. The altered name was last used for a repeat run in 1989, and by the next repeat run in 1999 the cat food had long since disappeared and the original title was used, and this continues on Boomerang and on BBC Two.

 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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