Cats Don't Dance (1997)

This is one I have wanted to watch for a while. It came out just after Toy Story, which I think signaled a new age of animation, as it was made with computer graphics, and led the way for a large number of computer animated films to follow and even some of which still used the look of handdrawn films. Prior to that, and with hand drawn animated films becoming a ratity, due to the amount labor needed to produce them and of course cost, there were much fewer animated films being released. That being said, I think this film was created with the help of computer animation, but I am not sure. So, I really an interested an any animated film made before the realese of Toy Story, and while this was realease just after, it still was unknown to me, and it took a while to track it down, as I don't think it is well known, nor has it been given a lot of publicity. The film has quite a notble cast, at least to me, due to my being aware of them from other shows, such as Scott Bakula and René Auberjonois both of whom I know of from Star Trek (and Scott from Quantum Leap) and as far as I know have never voiced characters in an animated film before. I was impressed that Scott Bakula did his own singing parts, as most of the other voice actors in this film did not, and I don't ever recall hearing of Scott Bakula signing in any other film. Don Knotts also lends his voice to character, though I would have nearly not noticed, if I hadn't seen his name assocated with the film before watching it. John Rhys-Davies also voices a character. I know him from playing Sala in the first and third Indiana Jones film, and from Flash Gordon, but I haven't seen him in anything else I can recall. The film was directed by Mark Dindal, who worked on a number of Disney asnimate featurs, before going on to direct The Emperor's New Groove and Chicken Little. The film was okay, but the story didn't really stand out, nor were any of the songs all that remarkable. It was interesting, as it was set in the 1930's and featured a large number of cameos of actors from that era, much like the old Looney Tunes also did, though those actors were current at the time those were created.