JR's NIMH / Don Bluth Page - Cats Don't Dance

Danny meets Sawyer, a cat who he'll plague with misfortue!

Pretty much the same as above, but in 16:9 widescreen! mmmmm... wide...screen! :-)

"Cats Don't Dance" is the story of a star-struck cat named Danny (voived by Scott Bakula, Sam in the TV series "Quantum Leap"), and his quest to get into the movie world of Hollywood in the late thirties.

This doesn't end up being an easy task however, as Hollywood has no interest in animal stars, only human ones.

Danny dances into town, fresh from the small town of Kokomo, Indiana - a checklist for stardom in his pocket, and heads straight for Farley Wink's Animal Actors Agency. The agency that day is filled with hopeful animal actors... the new Darla Dimple (a sinister Shirley Temple-like girl who hates animals) picture, "Little Ark Angel" is casting for animal actors and Danny manages to get a part... as a cat!

Danny is handed his script, and is surprised and disappointed that his only line in the film will be "meow!" - but that's all cats get to say in Hollywood! Danny Cat decides to ad-lib a little, and in doing so begins to upstage Darla Dimple and the rest of the animals! Darla is enraged, and calls for her giant Lurch-like ("The Addams Family"'s butler) butler Max, who teaches Danny the error of his upstaging ways!

Darla Dimple eventually appears to have forgiven Danny, and offers to help Danny Cat and the rest of the animals get noticed by arranging a surprise show for Mr LB Mammoth, the head of Mammoth Productions, but the whole event is a disaster. Danny's act is

sabotaged, and the stage is flooded. The animals, L B Mammoth and part of the studio! - are washed away in a giant flood wave. Thinking the flood their fault, Mr L B Mammoth fires the whole animal cast from his studio, telling them that they'll never work in this town again! When the rest of the animals discover

that Darla Dimple had helped Danny to arrange the show where they were washed away Danny realises that he's just been used and made a fool of, and the other animals discover that Danny has destroyed what little chance they ever had of success in the movies.

That's it for Danny - he's helped wreck the careers of himself and his friends, just as Darla Dimple had hoped he would. He boards the next bus for Kokomo, and heads back home...

I'm sure most children will like "Cats Don't Dance" - Its brightly-coloured, has lots of songs and dancing, and also has a child villain, voiced by the then 9 year old Ashley Peldon.