Director
Bruno Bianchi
Cast
Mel Blanc - Heathcliff
Donna Christie - Iggy
Peter Cullen - Pop
Marilyn Lightstone - Sonja
"Heathcliff, Heathcliff, no one should terrorize their neighborhood." That's the first line of the opening theme to the 1980s animated series Heathcliff. For the movie version of this show, it would be more accurate to replace "terrorize" with "rip-off."
Back in the early 1990s, I watched this cartoon at 6 a.m. each weekday morning before being hauled off to school. It was about the only cartoon on that early during the week. My only options at that hour were this, or The Flintstones. I alternated.
I'm glad I didn't know there was a theatrical release of the children's cartoon, Heathcliff.
I wasn't a die hard fan of the series. I watched it mainly because it was something to watch while eating breakfast before school.
Had I known there was a movie, and asked my mom to take me to see it back in 1986, I would have felt cheated. I know I would have.
If anyone watched the TV series before going to see this movie back then, then chances are they already saw the movie before even buying a movie ticket.
The cartoon series originally ran from 1984 to 1988. Reruns aired after the last season.
The program is based on the comic strip about an orange cat who torments the owner of the "Elite Fish Market", Mr. Schultz, and is just a general nuisance to the residents in the town of Westfinster.
Heathcliff was created by George Gately in 1973, nearly five years before Garfield made his first appearance. So, yep! Garfield isn't the original orange cat after all. Nevertheless, I don't find Heathcliff nearly as funny as Garfield.
I believe the comic strip, Heathcliff, is still published in newspapers and can be read at GoComics.com.
The movie is composed of seven different cartoons that all originally aired on television before hitting the big screen. So, it goes without saying this doesn't feel like a motion picture at all. The opening song and credits are the same as the TV series. The end credits are, too. Everything is the same. No creative differences to give audiences a little something extra and new. Nothing for fans to look forward to. It's like a TV special that got a theatrical release.
In this movie, Heathcliff relates his past shenanigans and misadventures to his three bored nephews, who lazily look exactly like their uncle, as they're stuck in the house on a rainy day.
The first story, Cat Food for Thought, sees Heathcliff become television celebrity.
In the next story, Heathcliff's Double, well...I think the title speaks for itself.
After that, the segment The Siamese Twins centers around two Siamese cats who meander through town ruining Heathcliff's reputation.
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| Scene from An Officer and an Alley Cat |
The Catfather is a parody of The Godfather.
Heathcliff enters the ring with a famous feline boxer in the segment Boom Boom Pussini.
For a children's cartoon, the last segment, Pop on Parole, leans a little dark. It's about Heathcliff's father who's out of jail on parole. His son thinks he broke out and that the police are looking for him. He does all he can to save his dad from being arrested again, only to find out the situation is not what it should be.
Some segments continue right after the other like a big segue.
And overall, like the nephews, I was bored from the beginning all the way to the abrupt ending. I struggled to pay attention, and forced myself to be interested to what was happening.
The studio (DiC Enterprises at the time) really ripped audiences off making them buy a ticket to watch seven cartoons they already saw on TV.
The movie is like a long, drawn out flashback episode of any given sitcom. I hated those, and still do. Those kinds of episodes are a poor attempt by studios to save money while still filling air time. Only with Heathcliff: The Movie, audiences were required to buy a ticket.
The movie does feature the voice talent of the legendary Mel Blanc (if you don't know who he is, I'm sorry for you) as Heathcliff, and Peter Cullen (the voice of Optimus Prime in Transformers among other notable characters) as Pop.
Blanc's voice talent in the series is enough to make Heathcliff memorable.
Director Bruno Bianchi was a French cartoonist, comic artist, and a co-creator of the popular cartoon, Inspector Gadget.
He started his career at DiC Entertainment, which produced the Heathcliff cartoon series.
Bianchi was also a director for other iconic 80s titles such as Rainbow Bright, M.A.S.K., and the short-lived series Popples based on the once popular toyline.
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| Riff-Raff and Cleo. |
The second half of the show centered around "The Catillac Cats" - a gang of junkyard cats (Hector, Wordsworth, Mongo, and Cleo) led by another orange cat named Riff-Raff.
These characters make a few random appearances (except for Riff-Raff and Cleo) in the movie, but it's all focused on Heathcliff. Points for consistency!
Any kind of storyline, no matter how poor, would have been a better idea than this big disappointment.
It's pathetic. It's dull. Heathcliff: The Movie is the worst attempt at a cash grab I have seen so far in my life. I can't find a big enough word to emphasize how forgettable this is. No one should rip-off their neighborhood.
About "Comic to Movie"
In this new year, I'm going to sort through over 30 obscure, forgotten, or overlooked titles based on comic books and comic strips. I'll see which ones still deserve appreciation, and which are better left in the garbage can of comic book cinema - forever disposed like those childhood comics your mom threw away when you moved out of the house.
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