< Felix the Cat

Felix the Cat/Characters


Felix the Cat

The world's most famous cat, and the longest lasting cartoon character in history. In the hands of Otto Messmer, Felix was, first and foremost, a thinking character, a being with a wit as fast and sharp as a razor, who could improvise to any situation at the wink of an eye, with a wide range of emotions or thoughts represented by his large, expressive eyes, as well as his detachable, shapeshifting tail.

In 1936, years after Mickey Mouse had taken the throne of cartoon king from him and, combined with inept management, caused his theatrical cartoons to fall out of popularity, Van Beuren Studios took a shot at reviving Felix's animation career (as he was still very popular in the comic pages). Unfortunately, Instead of taking advantage of the possibilities layed down by the earlier cartoons, director Burt Gillett wrote off the surreal nature of Otto's Felix as "outdated" and proceeded to turn Felix into a cookie cutter Mickey Mouse clone with no distinguishable characteristics, and overshadowed Felix's role with his own large cast of characters in a lush, Disney-like setting. While there was the occasional bit of the original surrealism, it felt forced and tossed on, as if they were only done to remind the audience of what Felix is supposed to be like. While the shorts were fairly successful in spite of changing what Felix was about, the subsequent shutdown of Van Beuren Studios abruptly ended the series, once again putting Felix's animation career on ice.

In the late 50's, Joe Oriolo, a former assistant of Otto Messmer, took control of the Felix franchise and rebooted the series with the Trans-Lux Felix the Cat TV cartoons. For character, he went back to the original Felix template of him being a thinking character, but added some changes of his own, such as Felix's slicker, more streamlined design, as well as the series trademark "Magic Bag of Tricks", made to largely replace Felix's improvisational tail from the original cartoons. However, this magic bag helped establish the formula of these cartoons, of giving the villain of the pictures, the Professer, a reason to hunt down Felix.

The Professor

The arch-nemesis of Felix in the Trans-Lux TV cartoons. His modus-operandi in life is to steal Felix's magic bag of tricks for his own use--failing to realize throughout the years that the bag will not work for anyone but Felix, for some reason.

  • Affably Evil: Once you look past the whole "obsessively hunting for Felix's bag of tricks" thing, he's really not that evil.
  • Aesop Amnesia: He never seems to accept that the bag won't work for him.
  • Badass Moustache
  • The Determinator: He will stop at nothing to get Felix's bag.
  • Enemy Mine: In the Movie, he's forced into this with Felix due to having to save Oriana.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: When it comes to getting that Bag of Tricks, he has as much luck as Wile E. Coyote does at catching the Road Runner.
  • Mad Scientist
  • Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate
  • No Name Given: His name is just "The Professor". The episode "Captain No-Kiddin" even made fun of this, showing that he can't even remember his real name.
  • Running Gag: If he fails in getting the bag of tricks, chances are he'll have a machine laying around his lab made solely to beat himself up for his failure.

Pointdexter

The nephew of The Professor.

The Master Cylinder

A bizarre giant robot that resides inside of the moon, where he reigns supreme as King. He was initially a pupil of the Professer until his original body was destroyed. He also made an appearance at the end of the Felix movie, in a very out of nowhere twist, complete with upgrades!

  • Evil Is Hammy
  • Humongous Mecha: Particularly in his movie appearance.
  • Meaningful Name: He is literally a giant cylinder, after all. It goes further in the movie, where Cylinders are expanded to become a whole legion of robots.
  • Tin Can Robot
  • Took a Level in Badass: In his appearance at the end of the Felix movie--they even compare the newer version with the original, side by side! Subverted however, by the fact that Felix beats him by throwing a book at him.

Rock Bottom

The professor's sidekick who happens to be a bulldog.

Rock Bottom: Excuse me, boss, I forgot what I'm supposed to do. I'm so stupid!

Vavoom

A little Eskimo with a voice loud enough to literally knock over trees! Named after the sound he makes whenever he opens his mouth.

Kitty Kat

Felix's girlfriend, who appears mostly in the later comics.

The Duke of Zill

The villain of The Movie.

  • The Faceless: With the exception of a brief glimpse of his original human form, we don't see his face at all in the movie, which is completely hidden by his glass helmet-fishbowl thing. Strangely, one trailer for the form showed that his eyes were original meant to be visible, but this didn't make it into the final film for some strange reason.
  • Freudian Excuse: Was possibly driven insane by the accident that left him permanently trapped inside a life support suit.
  • Hollywood Cyborg
  • Mecha-Mooks: His vast Cylinder army.
  • Sequel Hook: Upon his defeat in the film, he disappears and says "I'll be back." Well, it's been almost 20 years and he STILL hasn't come back!

Princess Oriana

The Princess of the land of Oriana from The Movie.

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