This fan page is devoted to the creepiest-ever kids' cartoon from the mid-60s, CATTY & THE MAJOR, which was frantically torn off the air after only 4 episodes due to supposed convulsions, 'conclusions'(?) and other bad behavior in kids who saw it.
The Major seemed to be a frontloading zombie whose expression makes it clear he is in constant, eyes-open awareness of his brittle circumstances. Rubberized and unblinking, Catty was a rudimentary cat whose relentless intensity exhausted those who wished to understand him. Fans have graded Catty's wildly fluctuating proportions,classifying his most frequently resolved dimensions as 1. inflatable, 2. stretched-out-like-gum and 3. 'toddling'.
What happens in an average C&M episode? Conditions on the ground are desperate. Apparently running a gas station, C&M are plagued by illness and obscure needs, horrible dolls and their own malevolence. A giant metal ball studded with spikes erupts out of nowhere and smashes important things. Catty clicks his fingers like a cool crooner and sings that 'We are ancient, everyone.' They stand completely still in disused power plants, for ages. Drivers unlucky enough to stop at the gas station are harassed, Catty pressing his face against the customer's cheek until his cartoon bones can be felt through his 'costume'.
Their supposed adventures are punctuated by notorious 'dark scenes' in which something is briefly glimpsed going on in a semi-darkness unusual for cartoons of that era, and scenes of Catty in his mechanical 'siege chair', which hums and crackles and has Catty in a trance. The siege chair sequence, which was repeated without alteration in each episode, was given a whole minute of airtime and thus is presumably of great significance.
Though generally falling about with a head like an old shrivelled acorn, the Major would sometimes collapse entirely, at which even a light breeze would be seen to move him in quick jerks like the dry husk of a dragonfly. Catty was described in TV Guide as a 'deadly toy'. This seemed to catch on and the show was outlined in other rags as 'the adventures of a duo of lethal toys', with 'More from the killer twins' and so on. Whether any of the listings editors were watching the show is doubtful. A listing in the Philadelphia Daily News described episode three with the words 'Catty runs for Mayor' and the Baltimore Bee summarised the same episode as 'The taciturn trio build an airplane'.
CATTY & THE MAJOR was conceived and written by cult SF author Jeff Lint, author of the Arkwitch novels and responsible for infamous 70s comic THE CATERER. Lint fans and toon fans nave since set about dissecting the four episodes (and the unproduced scripts) for meanings they maybe never had, and a side-group who record their strange dreams about the characters.
Excerpts salvaged from the show can be seen here in connection with the new biog of Lint:
Youtube
CATTY & THE MAJOR
LINT myspace page is here:
Jeff Lint Myspace
LINT biog (with chapter on C&M plus rare pics) and critical studies
book AYPI can be found here:
LINT (UK
edition)
LINT
(US edition)
AYPI
(UK edition)
AYPI
(US edition)
THE CATERER comic back-issue here -
THE CATERER
Jeff Lint fan site (old) here -
Jeff Lint Fansite
