Macskafogó – Cat City

Macskafogó or Cat City is a 137 minute long Hungarian cartoon movie that was first presented 30 years ago in 1986. It was directed by Béla Ternovszky and written by József Nepp.  The title roughly means ‘cat catcher’. It has many different themes meshed into it that parody Disney (Mickey Mouse), some Warner Bros. references (Planet X), and George Lucas’s Star Wars.

The film opens with a Star Wars style text scroll, which tells the main situation:

In year 80 AM Anno Mickey Mouse, the mice of Planet X are threatened by humiliation and total apocalypse. The well-organized, fully equipped gangs of evil cats are aiming to wipe out the mouse civilization totally, not caring for the old conventions between mice and cats. But in the last moment, when the mouse leaders are beginning to consider leaving the planet, a new hope rises…

The film is a parody of several famous feature films, mainly the James Bond series. The main plot is about a special spy who is sent to the city of “Pokyo” to get the secret plan of a machine which could save the mouse civilization. Of course, the cats don’t want this to happen, and send some rat gangsters to stop him, who don’t always prove as efficient as their presentation showed.

The cat culture best reflects the American culture in a negative light. The main cat character, Tejfel, who is on the front movie cover suggests a somewhat ‘Scarface’, a mixture of a pirate and Ian Flemming’s Doctor No (the mechanical hands).

There is a hero supposed to restore order to the city, called Grabowsky (a word play with ‘grab‘ or ‘catcher’) who is supposed to stop the robberies in the city and be the protector of the mice race. An evil gang of cats does not want Grabowsky to interfere with their plans, and will use whatever resources to stop him, such as the employment of the Four Gangsters.

Tejfel (Fritz Teufel), however is considered number two in the organization of the cat gang. He answers to a higher source of power in a very similar sense of the S.P.E.C.T.R.E (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) organization.

The hero has been asked to save the world one more time to make sure a WMD can be produced to stop the evil cat society. At the same time, the cats are paranoid about this weapon becoming active and destroying their thirst for power and their backstabbing way of life.

Tailing him is sidekick Seno-san, the assistant to the scientist who basically has the role of the ‘Bond girl’ in the movie. The romance element is a parody of all the James Bond movies ever produced.

The group of rats is known as “The Four Gangsters” (Burns, Bones, Cookie and Candy.).

They are four different sociopathic personalities that talk extensively about killing mice.

Cookie has a flair for serving up mice victims in the kitchen with seasonings, some sandwich spread, and usually a knife.

Bones has a talent for taking on disguises to scare his victims.

Burns wears a more militant costume, similar to the Soviet era uniform, and likes to torture the mice. And lastly, Candy is a bit of a seductress; she walks by in a park scene to get the attention of a skirt chasing mouse, to turn around and shoot him point blank in the head.

source: wikifur.com, wikipedia