Autocat

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Eyes: Black
Hair: Orange and white fur
Race: Cat


Occupation: Race driver


Story: Autocat is the inventive car driving cat who is always chasing Motormouse.


Continuity: Hanna & Barbera Cartoons
Company: Hanna-Barbera Productions
First app.: Cartoons: The Cattanooga Cats Episode 1: Wheelin' and Dealin' (1969)
Creator(s): William Hanna
Country of origin: USA


Background notes: Motormouse and Autocat is a mix between Tom & Jerry and Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner, only without the inventiveness and violent graphical humor of neither Wile E. Coyote nor Tom & Jerry. The basic premise is a cat chasing a mouse. There is a little bit of story, but mostly it's just a series of chases where Autocat tries to catch Motormouse, using a new approach/invention, and the plan/invention backfires. Autocat uses various cars, often with a dragster/race car motif, and Motormouse drives a small motorcycle.

The series started out as one of the cartoons in the series The Cattanooga Cats in 1969 (16 episodes). The series only lasted one season, but Motormouse and Autocat continued the following year in It's the Wolf and Motormouse and Auto Cat (10 episodes), with the last episode in 1971. After this, the series was apparently abandoned, and the characters haven't been used since then. In the cartoons, Autocat's voice was done by Marty Ingels.

In comics, the characters only appeared briefly in the series Fun-In from Gold Key in 1970, sharing the space with other Hanna & Barbera characters. Other than that, the two never made it out of the cartoons and today, the series is for the most part forgotten, apart from the occasional reruns on some of the cartoon channels.


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