Out of all of the shows that Hanna-Barbera have produced be it Scooby-Doo and all of it's various versions to something like like Wacky Races the studio did have alot of great classic cartoons that people still talk about to this very day. The thing however cannot be said for Top Cat as while the characters have started to see a resurgence in popularity be it due to the movies Top Cat: The Movie and Top Cat Begins or them being featured characters on the show Jellystone really not alot of people talk about the original Top Cat show and well i'd thought i'd do exactly that by reviewing the first episode to be produced and so then join me as I review the episode that despite it being the first episode produced it was the third to air with the episode in question being called simply just "Hawaii Here We Come" enjoy.
The plot of this episode is when Benny wins a trip to Hawaii Top Cat and the rest of the gang decide to sneak on board the ship and go with him while Officer Dibble has to track down a thief before he flood Hawaii with his counterfeit money.Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual plot that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. Plot wise this episodes plot is pretty standard Top Cat stuff with Top Cat scheming to get something all the while trying to avoid getting caught by Officer Dibble which to be fair is a format that down work. However the plot of the episode does become more interesting when you add in thief plot to the episode as that is something that does add stakes with the plot of the episode really picking up once all of the characters are on board the ship as up until that point the episodes plot had been pretty thin at best but once they all get on the ship the whole plot just comes alive, another issue in regards to the episodes plot is that despite being promised to be a featured main character in the episode the second the gang all get on the ship Benny seem to get forgotten about with him not even having any lines of dialog in that part of the episode this is despite the fact that it's Benny that gets the main plot of the episode started in the first place the episodes plot is one that does show alot of promise but its a case where something that could be considered the side plot is alot more interesting that the main plot despite the fact that the main plot opens itself up for more comedic moments with the plot of this episode really being really rather entertaining and ae well as being really rather engaging as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Starring in this episode is Arnold Stang as Top Cat , Allen Jenkins as Officer Dibble and Maurice Gosfield as Benny The Ball and A Passenger. Also starring in this episode is Marvin Kaplan as Choo Choo and A Passenger , Leo DeLyon as Spook and Brain , John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy , The Sergeant , The Boat Captain , The Purser , Mac and Boss Of The Deck and Don Messick as The Boarding Representative , The Crook , A Policeman , A Passenger and A Sailor.
Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual acting that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. To be frank it was shocking to see good acting in this episode as usually for an animated sixties TV show you don't usually get good acting sometimes you but not always and thankfully this was one of the few times where you do get good acting with all of the episodes actors turning in performances that whilst they aren't going to be winning the any OSCARS is more then passable for the kind of show that this is. With the best actor in the whole entire episode being John Stephenson as the man plays SIX different characters in this episode and yet you can never tell that it's him doing the voices as he gives each of his characters a distinct voice which does help make them feel unique with John adding in enough of himself to all of the characters that he plays in the episode that you get a sense of he is just putting himself out there and giving us a glimpse as to who he is as a person with there being a reason that Hanna-Barbera would keep on bringing him back as he is just so good in this episode with is natural acting ability really shining through in this episode. With the acting that's in this very episode really being helped buy the fact that this episodes script is just so good that all this episodes actors have to do is just say the lines as they are written and a good performance will come out of them naturedly which is something that really does help to raise the overall quality of the acting that's in this very episode.
Doing the animation for this episode is the legends and the greats that are currently over at Hanna-Barbera Productions. Now then interms of what I personally thought / felt about the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual animation that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty really good. For a TV show that was made in sixties by Hanna-Barbera as while there is still that air of cheapness to the episodes animation with there being alot of repeated backgrounds and very limited movements by the characters this is still something that does add to the charm of the episode rather then detract from it. As with this being the first episode that was produced it would have been very easy for the makers of this episode to really go all out with the animation but that wouldn't gave left much for the rest of the show and therefor they do have to think more smarter and that does result in an episode that does look cheap and while yes the characters do show signs of having fluid animation alot of the time we do get this rather stilted looking animation which yes is cheap to produce as you only have to animate certain frames of the character it still would have made the episodes animation look all the more better and it will give people more of a reason to watch episode 2 of the show as now they would be thinking that the animation is going to be this good every weak but to be fair not having the animation be this good does mean that the episode has to rely more on the writing and the characters to carry the episode as unlike alot of animated shows today it can't just fall back on the animation as the animation isn't that good whereas the writing and the characters are likable enough to trump the animation in this episode.
This episode does have the stereotypical thief character in this episode with him making fake money for some unknown reason. Whilst it would normally be seen as a bad thing for an episode or a movie not to give any personality to someone that is essentially it's main character here it is something that does make alot of sense as this show is meant to be aimed at little kids to at best families and that does mean that the villain is going to be as bare bones as it gets with him running around the boat trying to avoid Officer Dibble who followed him on to the boat when he dressed as an old lady as he just wanted to return the money that he gave him and that's it with the character not really having interesting about him which is something that does make sense given the fact that this is an animated show made in the sixties. However it still would gave helped the character out alot if we get some background on the character even if it's just his name as he is literally credited as just The Crook and that's it and heck if they did give him a name and more of a personality then he could have gone on to become more of a recurring villain in the show instead of just being in this one episode as the idea of someone using obviously fake money is a good idea as is having Top Cat and the gang be the ones to come up with the idea to stop him in the first place but due to the fact that the makers of this episode treated the character like an afterthought when compared to the rest of that plot it does mean that a good character does get wasted as it would be super fun to see this character having interactions with members of the gang with them all believing that he is a Granny before revealing that he's actually a villain.
For some odd reason alot of this episode does take place on this one boat which wouldn't be bad thing were it not for the fact that the boat isn't all that interesting. As there's nothing on the boat that makes it a visually interesting place to spend alot of the episode and yet the makers of this episode thought that it was a good idea idea to spend alot of the time on this boat with us not really getting to much of the boat outside of this one floor which the episode pretty much uses up a few minuets after all of the characters embark on the boat with alot of the other locations in the episode being more interesting as we of course have the gangs alleyway which is always a fun place to visit and we have a random shop which could have worked as a main location for the episode. Granted the boat might have looked this empty due to budgetary reasons as these Hanna-Barbera shows were always done quickly and cheaply and that does mean that alot of the backgrounds are going to look empty alot of the time hence why we never seen alot of people walking in the background and it would have to mean animating alot of things that aren't important to the episode in the grand scheme of things but if your going to make a boat the main location for that is essentially your first episode then why not go as all out as you can and make the boat look full not only with staff and holiday makers but also with various activities while these are small things they are also things that will make the boat look like a more interesting location rather then being the flat and boring location that it does end up being as there is clearly no thought put into making the boat look like a place we actively want to spend more time on especially as the episode does have other and more interesting locations.
Something that was rather annoying in this episode was the fact that they used the same running sound effect over and over again. Granted this sound effect is something that you do think of when you think of how cheap Hanna-Barbera are but when you have alot of characters running in the episode and your hearing the exact same sounds over and over again it looses all of it's charm and starts to become more of an annoyance then it is charming and while it's not a bad sound effect and it is something that does it job really well it's not really something that you want to be hearing every single time a character is running on screen and alot of the characters in this episode are running for a long period of time which means that we stuck hearing the same stock running sound effect for a long period of time. This is something that does hit home just how cheap Hanna-Barbera were as they did reuse alot of sounds effects in there shows ad movies which OK fair enough they had the right to do that but it does get to the point where your left thinking of other and better shows that you've heard it in with taking you out of this episode however to be fair even this episode that running effect is only used at the right time and it isn't used when the characters are running all of the time but it something that we didn't need to hear alot of the time as creating a new running effect for when the characters are running on something wooden would helped the episode alot more as the one that they do use sounds like the characters or running on carpet which is fine for something like Scooby-Doo as that could very easily be the case but for his episode where toy see the ship is made of wood and have no carpet it doesn't really work all that well.
Now then this episode has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly twenty five minuets and thirty five seconds. This is pretty much the bogstandard running time for alot of animated shows from around this time period and to be frank this episode really doesn't need a long running as the show itself doesn't take the time to set up how the gang met and became friends and runs on being an episodic show which does mean that you can watch just a few episodes of the show and get a good idea as to how the rest of the show is going to go and it means that you can start this show with any episode you want and just jump around from random episode to random episode with the episode having more then enough plot to really cover that amount of running time. Yet this episode still doesn't use its running time all that wisely as the episode doesn't take the time to fully develop it's plot as while the episode does full explain the main plot with Benny and the gang as well as they could have done when it coms to its subplot with Dibble trying to catch The Crook that doesn't get developed at all with that plot not even getting introduced until the third act of the episode when a plot that is this important being something should be introduced alot more earlier but in all fairness Dibble isn't the main title character of the show Top cat is and therefor any plot with him in it is going to always be the amin plot of the episode with the makers of this episode caring more about reusing the same running effects that they did about giving the plot any kind of development. Whilst none of the characters also get any kind of character development in any of the shows episodes this isn't that big of a deal as the show was an episodic TV show and therefor of course none of the episodes characters are going to be getting any kind of character development as they have to rest the status quo by the end of the episode but in all fairness it would have been nice if we did get at least a hint of character development from either Dibble or Top Cat but I really will admit that this episode really does have some really good pacing to it tho.
So now then as this is a comedy that really does mean that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that that actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very episode was in all honesty not that bad. While this episodes jokes are more cute then laugh out loud funny this is something that does work for the show as the show was made at a time where all of these jokes would have been seen as being laugh out loud funny and the makers of this episode did for obvious reason have to cater to the audience of the time and not the audience that they didn't know that they were going to have. With the best joke in the whole episode also being the most simplest joke that they had as when Benny gets on the ship without knowing that his friends are also going to sneak on board they al pack themselves into Benny's trunk with Benny only finding out when he's alone in what is quite possibly his room and he hears them banging on the trunk with them all being either rightside up or upside down for some strange reason this joke being a cute little joke that does tell you just how smart that Top Cat is a character as he thought up that entire scheme in a few seconds flat and pulled it off with it being a joke that granted won't get alot of laughs out of people but it is one that that will get a small chuckle or two out of people and that's the very thing that this joke really was always meant to do it was always meant to be this small cute joke that will get a chuckle out of people and it does exactly that with the rest of the episodes jokes being just as good as well in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this was a really fun episode that does let you know just what kind of show that you are in for with the episode being ten times better then both of the theatrically released Top Cat movies as there is alot of thought and effort put into making this episode be as good as it was in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very episode in this very review and as such that really does mean that this very episode really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 7 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in his very review well then boys an girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from Amazon. Co . Uk , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website to use to get the images from this very episode that I used in this very post being the really great Google Images really simply just due to the fact that really alot of if not really all of the images that are all really from this very episode with alot of them really being really better quality then what you'd really think of and all of the images are really of course up and really on Google Images really are also really all fairly high in quality and as well as them all being really fairly freaking high in definition.