Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse

We remember well when the first COURAGEOUS CAT cartoon appeared on our TV screen. It was totally unheralded, inasmuch as no one had heard of the feature. There was, as far as we knew, no review of it in TV Guide nor in any of the dailies' television sections.

C.C. may have been unknown, but it was totally obvious to anyone that we were viewing a sort of parody of Batman,a character whom those in our clan were all too well acquainted.

COURAGEOUS CAT was a very standard TV cartoon, not unlike the type that were all over Saturday mornings and noon time kids lunch shows at the time. The animation was a limited type, the episodes must have been 5-7 minutes each. They were formula, what with C.C. and his assistant, Minute Mouse, pursuing the perpetrators of bank robberies, burglaries, etc., using the Catmobile for super fast pursuit of criminal element. The Episodes were not Serialized, each being a complete story unto itself.*

They even had a recurring enemy known as the Frog, who had an Edward G. Robinson type voice. If memory serves properly, they had an exciting chase type theme music (which was somewhat similar to the PETER GUNN theme.)

While there were many other cartoon features around in those days, COURAGEOUS was the only one to parody the Batman-type, non super-powered costumed crime fighters, and a memorable job was done.

This should come as no surprise to anyone for it was Batman Creator, Bob Kane, who also came up with COURAGEOUS CAT.

NOTE:* There may have been some 2 part adventures, but not the long serialized type of story as seen on Rocky & Bullwinkle or Crusader Rabbit.

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse was, of course, a parody of Bob Kane's other creation Batman and Robin. Only two men provided the myriad of voices, Dallas (Dal) McKennon and Johnny Holiday. Lots of gadgetry and derring do, the Cat Cave, the Catmobile (which doubled as a plane, and recurring characters like The Frog and his Jimmy Cagney-like voice. If the name Dal McKennon sounds familiar he had a successful series-long run as the bartender Cincinnatus on Daniel Boone. He also voiced another parody character Cool McCool some years later. When I was a boy I watched these on WPIX-TV, Channel 11, New York.

Despite the similarities to Batman/Robin, Courageous Cat was a classic kids cartoon in the early 60s. No utility belt, but a "gun" for any situation, Courageous and Minute patrolled Empire City and were able to keep the town safe from the infamous Frog. Silly and at times ridiculous, but a pleasure to watch again and again.

Boy! Does this cartoon stir up some spooks ! We loved The Frog especially.As the arch villain of the series with bowler hat(?),ever present cigar and Edward G. Robinson voice he was a natural leader and in one particular episode enlisted all of the show's other assorted miscreants i.e. Foxy Fox et al in a scheme to launder cash from bank jobs. This consisted of each character working a la factory line...washing the bills in soap and water..then hanging out the loot with pegs on a clothes line etc. while The Frog crowed "Nice clean Money...Yeahhh!" Beats me how they didn't get away with that one! I remember it so vividly as one of my brothers (Hi 'Brian'!) tried out his new fangled tape-recorder on it. The "Peter Gunn" theme was also a great bonus.Good Times.