You Slept on This Movie – Cats Don’t Dance Retro Review

You know, sometimes there are absolutely fantastic movies that, for whatever reason, just don’t receive the love they deserve. Maybe the studio didn’t believe in it so it wasn’t advertised well, or the audience at the time just wasn’t feeling it but then it becomes a cult hit later on. One of my favorite animated movies as a kid, and even to this day, unfortunately suffered from this circumstance. But it was, and still is, such a great movie that I stan it ’til this day. As a fellow BNP contributor once put it, “What happened to all those animal actors that DIDN’T get hired for Fantasia?” Let’s hop in the way-back machine for this retro review of 1997’s animated classic, Cat’s Don’t Dance.

Imagine if Bugs Bunny was hired to make a Disney movie in the 90s and that’s this movie in a nut shell. Taking place in 1939, Cat’s Don’t Dance is about small town tabby cat Danny (Scott Bakula) with dreams of making it in Hollywood. He ultimately crosses paths with the child star powerhouse, Darla Dimple (Ashley Peldon). Out to get his big break, Danny meets a colorful cast of animals including the sarcastic and disenchanted white cat Sawyer (Jasmine Guy), plucky penguin Pudge (Matthew Herried), the chipper Tiny Hippopotamus (Kathy Najimy), the wise piano playing elephant Woolie the Mammoth (John Rhys-Davies), sassy rude fish Fances Albacore (Betty Lou Gerson), the always grumpy and elderly Cranston Goat (Hal Holbrook) and the timid T.W. Turtle (Don Knotts).

I took the time to name all…