Our pal Peter Sanderson takes a look at that most effectual Top Cat. A lot of cartoon shows I enjoyed as a youth don't hold up well when viewed today. For instance, I loved all the Woody Woodpecker cartoons when I was nine and today, there are about eight of them I can watch without pounding my head against a tree. But every so often when I catch a Top Cat, I'm delighted with how well they work.
The show only lasted one season in prime time, a fact Joe Barbera used to attribute to a theory that adults don't want to watch talking animals. I suspect there were just too many of them that season. In addition to Top Cat, the schedule also had The Bullwinkle Show, The Alvin Show, The Bugs Bunny Show and Calvin and the Colonel. (The Flintstones was also on that year but it was about funny cave people, not funny animals.) Also, Top Cat had an odd time slot. It was on at 8:30 following an hour of The Steve Allen Show and preceding the cop show, Hawaiian Eye. That wasn't a great place for kids to find it and if kids didn't, adults wouldn't, either.
When Top Cat left prime time, the same thirty episodes (that was how long a season was in '61) reran ad infinitum on Saturday morning and did quite well. In fact, when they finally started to peter out several years later, Hanna-Barbera almost engineered a deal to make some new ones to refresh the package. "Refresh" is programming exec talk for adding new episodes into a bunch of reruns. It never materialized but Joe Barbera spent a lot of time afterwards trying to find a way to bring T.C. and the gang back. They finally did a syndicated TV movie in 1987.
Anyway, Peter has some good thoughts on the show. Go take a peek.