Deep Dive Disney: Wes Looks at The Aristocats

Well, after analyzing two films at the same time for The Jungle Book, analyzing one singular mostly uncomplicated film is most welcome. Welcome everyone to Deep Dive Disney’s look at The Aristocats. So… what is the Aristocats? Well, on the surface, it’s the story about three adorable kittens and their mother who are lost in the wild due to a Greedy Butler who’s upset that the cats are set to inherit their owner’s fortune instead of him. (More on that later there’s surprisingly a lot to unpack there.) As the cats try to make their way home, they come across a street wise alley cat named O’Malley who agrees to help guide these poor lost house cats back to their home in Paris, forming a romance with the mother, Duchess, along the way. It’s a simple, albeit flawed, story that I actually enjoyed more than I was expecting to. Let’s dive right into The Aristocats

Main Character:

I’m going to give brief mention of the three kittens here, Marie, Berlioz and Toulouse, since they’re in this weird middle ground of too important for the side character section but not important enough to be full-fledged main characters. They’re cute, can be a little irritating, especially at the beginning, but they’re ultimately harmless I suppose.

Now on to the real main characters. Yet again, we have a case of two protagonists. While at first, I really didn’t think I was going to like Duchess, she just seemed like another spoiled rich pet who thinks she’s better than everyone. It rubbed me the wrong way in Lady & The Tramp, and I thought it was going to rub me the wrong way here, and while at first I wasn’t feeling her over-emphasis on sophistication, once she gets lost and starts interacting with O’Malley, she becomes a lot more interesting. I actually really enjoy the chemistry between her and O’Malley and how she seems to really enjoy hanging out with ScatCat and the Alley Cats and feels that she could make a life for herself with O’Malley. The only reason she doesn’t is this sense of responsibility she feels to her owner. Speaking of O’Malley, he’s also a pretty likable character. That’s Phil Harris again, the voice of Baloo, and he’s always likable when he pops up in one of these flicks. I actually really love the romance that forms between him and Duchess. This is not a Cinderella romance where all it takes is for them to make eye contact and they fall madly in love, ironic since the first thing O’Malley notices about Duchess is her eyes. They actually take their time and form a believable romance. O’Malley puts his life on the line several times for Duchess’s kittens and shows Duchess that life can be enjoyable even if you’re not always being pampered. They are a genuinely likable couple. They do have the third act breakup like so many other terrible films have, but at least here it doesn’t last long and there’s no forced misunderstanding, they just kind of have this sad farewell. These two might actually be my favorite Disney Romance so far.

Villain:

So, we’ve covered a lot of Disney Villains who one could find themselves rooting for. Be it Captain Hook for how unlikable his nemesis was, Maleficent or Cruella for how incredibly entertaining they were or even Shere Khan if you make the argument that he’s only trying to eliminate a potential threat to his jungle home. However, even if you like those characters, they are still unquestionably bad guys. Edgar Balthazar, the faithful Butler to Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, is presented as the antagonist of the film but I can honestly say, I do not believe he’s the bad guy. He may do sneaky underhanded things to get what he wants, but that does not necessarily a villain make. Let me explain. As I said, Edgar is the Butler to Adelaide’s estate and, by all appearances, does his job well and serves his employer loyally. However, when he overhears a conversation between Adelaide and her lawyer, he learns that his employer, who has no next of kin, is leaving her entire fortune to her cats and expects Edgar to stay on and care for them after she’s gone. After all the years of loyal service, his reward is given to a bunch of cats? I honestly don’t blame Edgar for doing what he does. Only in this movie could the put upon blue collar working stiff who’s screwed over by his employer's ridiculous whim and tries to get what he feels he’s owed be the bad guy. If anything, Madame Adelaide is the real villain here. She’s the one who’s lived in the pampered world of the Aristocracy so long that she has more of an attachment to her pets than she does another human being. She’s the one who creates the situation that forces Edgar’s hand. I’m sure if she left her fortune to Edgar on the condition that he care for her cats, he probably would have had no problem with that since he was basically already doing that anyway. Hell, Adelaide even looks a little like Lady Tremaine from Cinderella, another eccentric rich lady who seems to love her cat more than any human being. Notice how at no point does Edgar try to bump off the old lady, something someone in his position could do very easily. He doesn’t even try to kill the cats he just wants them out of the way. Ironically, if Duchess hadn’t felt this strong obligation to Adelaide, something likely created in the first place by Adelaide’s inability to connect with anyone other than her pets due to the sense of superiority inherent in the aristocracy, Duchess would have stayed with O’Malley, Edgar would have gotten what he wanted and everyone would have been happy except the rich white lady, which frankly, I can live with. My point here is that Edgar is not a bad man. Is he greedy, sure, but in the real world, who isn’t? Even the Disney Wiki agrees with me. This is a direct quote from the Edgar Balthazar page on the Disney Wiki: “This attitude only sparks because Madam Bonfamille’s fortune is mentioned; otherwise he would have willingly remained loyal to his mistress, thus eliminating his antagonist role.” Admittedly I’m reading between the lines a lot here, but I still think that Edgar deserved better.

Side Characters:

For such a seemingly simplistic film, they surprisingly manage to cram a lot of side characters into the proceedings. There are a couple of geese that the cats meet along their journey, which leads to a weird subplot about their uncle who escapes a restaurant that was trying to eat him and gets drunk on the cooking wine in the process. The Uncle gets a couple laughs, but these characters are mostly pointless.

Georges, Adelaide’s elderly lawyer gets a couple laughs and I swear to god, this is the same old geezer who fixes up Woody in Toy Story 2.

There are these two dogs that pop up in the movie that I found absolutely hilarious. I loved how they obsessed over the proper procedure for chasing cars and the leader’s insistence on making all the decisions even though he always ends up deciding to do what the smaller dog suggests anyway never failed to get a big laugh.

By far, my favorite characters in the film were ScatCat and his band of Alley Cats, and I do mean band. These guys are masters of swing music and personify the phrase Cool Cat. They were a delight every time they were on screen. Well, except for the uncomfortable Asian stereotype cat, that was just cringeworthy. ScatCat himself is voiced by the Legendary Scatman Crothers, an extremely talented actor and musician whom you may remember as Dick Halloran from The Shining. He and his cats seem like they’d be a blast to hang out with and you can understand why Duchess warms up to them so fast. I’d actually be willing to watch an entire film that was just about them, again, provided they nixed the horrible Asian stereotype. Fun fact, Billy Boss, the big Russian Cat is voiced by the always awesome Thurl Ravenscroft. Who’s Thurl Ravenscroft? Well, in addition to acting as the lead vocalist for “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” from How The Grinch Stole Christmas and “Grim Grinning Ghosts” from the Haunted Mansion Ride at Disney World, he’s also the original voice actor for a certain cereal mascot by the name of Tony the Tiger. To borrow a phrase, he’s Grrrreat!

Songs:

Some of the early songs I can’t say I really cared for. The introductory Aristocats song was dull and underwritten and the Scales and Arpeggios song was just irritating, like Sweet Nightingale from Cinderella with none of the irony. Fortunately, the songs do get better as the movie progresses.

O’Malley’s introductory song is actually pretty fun, just what I’ve come to expect from the talented Phil Harris. Just like Bare Necessities, it’s a great introduction to the character of Thomas O’Malley and what he’s all about. It’s not quite as memorable as Bare Necessities, but it’s still a fun song to groove to.

Now, let’s talk about Everybody Wants to Be a Cat, the song sung by ScatCat and the Alley Cats. Fun little story: Back in the day, Disney used to have this series of sing along VHS tapes, which were essentially a compilation of Disney Songs that little kids could sing along with. The reason I bring this up is because as a very small child, I had a few of said types and this song just happened to be on one of them. As a small child, I was obsessed with this song long before I saw the movie it came from. Now that I’ve seen it with the film attached, it’s still a great swing number that steals the show and, quite literally, brings the house down. It starts off nice and slow, but then it gets wild and energetic. You can’t help but get up and dance to it. Just make sure you take the infamous chopsticks bit with a grain of salt I guess.

Memorable Scenes:

There’s this absolutely wonderful and hilarious scene where Edgar tries to get his hat and umbrella back from the two dogs so as not to leave incriminating evidence behind. Just seeing Edgar try to outwit these dogs as well as the dogs playing off one another as they respond to the situation is great. This scene also gives us one of the strangest and most hilarious out of context lines in the entire film: “You’re Not Going to Believe This, But It’s a One Wheeled Haystack.” God that line’s amazing, I want it on a T-Shirt.

Story:

Lost Kittens trying to get home is the story on screen and it’s fine, but there’s a much more serious story going on in the background. From my perspective, this is the tragic story of a put-upon servant who has been screwed over by his rich employer, is forced to do underhanded deeds to make sure he gets what he feels he’s owed, is unfairly vilified for trying to fight back against a system that keeps the working class down, is completely robbed of his dignity and is ultimately disproportionately punished for his crime. Like I said, I truly feel bad for Edgar and feel he is more victim than villain in this story. Who among us hasn't been screwed over by an uncaring boss at one time or another. This is not a man who sought world domination, he's a working class joe whose employer didn't show him the respect he deserved. With all the Disney remakes floating around out there, I’d actually be interested seeing a version of this story where Edgar is actually the hero, or at the very least gets a happier ending, as opposed to what we'll be discussing in our next section.

The Dark Disney Factor:

Even though Edgar’s ultimate defeat in which he’s locked in a chest that gets sent to Timbuktu is played for laughs, the subtext of this scene actually becomes incredibly dark when you realize that there were no air holes and no food or water in that trunk. So… yeah, by the time he gets to Timbuktu, Edgar is probably dead and some unlucky bastard found a malnourished corpse in a trunk, the final indignity in the story of a man who just wanted what should have been rightfully his. God I feel so bad for this poor guy.

Final Thoughts:

I was not expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did, but despite some unfortunate stereotyping and the unnecessary vilification of a character who really wasn’t all that bad when you think about it, I actually found this one to be a lot of fun. It’s by no means my favorite, nor is it any kind of grand groundbreaking epic, but it’s funny, charming, well animated and I found it to be a perfectly fine way to kill ninety minutes. If you have a little kid, they might like this, and if you watch it with them, you’ll probably get a few laughs as well. I’m incredibly excited for next time since we’re looking at one of my all-time favorites. Join me next time as we analyze the Disney classic, Robin Hood.