A Cat Is a Cat

A Cat Is a Cat

…and that is that. A playful animated meditation on our feline friends with some beautiful artwork.

Are you a dog or a cat person? If you favour the felines then this animated meditation on cats of all shapes and sizes is for you. The film grew out of industry veteran Vera Linnecar's play with applying mottled coloured paints directly onto animation cels. Paired with the piano music these scenes are a playful experiment, mixing abstraction with careful observation of cat behaviour.

Vera started her animation career at the Halas & Batchelor studio in 1940, as did Elizabeth Horn, who also worked on this film. Moving from tracing, to inbetweening, to animating, Vera became one the company's principle artists. In the late 1940s she moved to the Larkins studio which better suited her experimental spirit. In 1957, along with Nancy Hanna, she joined Bob Godfrey and Keith Learner at Biographic, and continued innovating there until she retired in 1983, after four decades in the business.

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Creatures Great and Small

Fur, feathers, bugs or beaks: from the start animators have cast the whole natural world in their human comedies and dramas

Would you know Mickey was a mouse if you didn’t know his surname? Many of the most famous animated characters are drawn from the animal kingdom, but they rarely behave quite as nature intended. Anthropomorphism has a long history in storytelling - going back to Aesop and beyond - and animation has imported it into film. But whether it's Bonzo the Dog or Charley the Cat, these characters are really studies in human nature. 

23 videos in this collection

Bonzo No. 5

  • 1925

Feline Fun

  • 1986

The Clown and His Donkey

  • 1910
Kids don't always listen to their parents. But in the 70s they certainly listened to a giant ginger tabby cat...

Charley Says: Falling in the Water

  • 1973
An animated xmas with paper dog Snap

Goodwill to All Dogs

  • 1960

Superted

  • 1975

The Fabulumperous Car

  • 1972

The Six-armed Image

  • 1921

The Elstree Erbs

  • 1930

Tale of a Tendril

  • 1925

Bonzo [No. 1]

  • 1924

Bonzolino or - Bonzo Broadcasted

  • 1925

Willie Comes to Life

  • 1948

Running a Cinema

  • 1921
…and that is that. A playful animated meditation on our feline friends with some beautiful artwork.

A Cat Is a Cat

  • 1971
Charley's cat-astrophic teatime hijinks leave him with a burning message to share

Teapot

  • 1973

Topical Bonzette

  • 1925

Steve's Cannon Crackers

  • 1937

Bee Boy

  • 2005

Apodemy

  • 2012

Moxie

  • 2011

The Obvious Child

  • 2014

Booster Bonzo; Or, Bonzo in Gay Paree

  • 1925
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