Contemporary Italian Meow-sterpieces
The category “delightful animated Italian children’s TV shows about cats” has more entries than you might expect! (Two. It’s two.)
The other week we talked about shows with dogs in, but we all know there are a LOT of cat-centric shows out there for children, too. To be honest, I could just categorise this newsletter by doing one animal each week (bears… rabbits… birds…) and I’d have a year’s worth of #content. Cat Squad! (Meow meow meow meow meow meow)
Of course, it doesn’t really work that way; nobody really says “do you want to watch a program about cats,” then puts SuperKitties on. If you want ACTUAL animals, we can (and will) talk about Fearne and Rory’s Vet Tales another time. But in the interests of brevity, and my sanity, this week we will talk about Italian cartoon gatti.
This newsletter is dedicated to real life super kitties Napkin and Daisy, who we adopted from Celia Hammond Animal Trust in November and have since become valuable, productive members of our household. JOKING! Of course they haven’t, they’re cats, they just sleep in a dangerous position at the top of the stairs, be endlessly fickle about acceptable cat food brands, and jump scare you when you’re lying on the sofa. I love them, the useless freeloaders.
Feline Good
I only know about 44 Cats because, in our world, one of the treatiest treats, real “fill up the pom-pom jar” territory, is an outing to the big shopping centre in Bromley for the excellent CLIP theatre, then lunch at Wagamama, followed by The Entertainer toy shop.
I was always pleasantly surprised by what good value the toys were. One slightly stressful pre-Christmas, I dispatched my husband to get some bits on click & collect from there, carefully directing him to the top floor of the shopping centre, opposite the McDonald’s. Well, it turns out there are TWO Entertainer toy shops in Bromley Glades. Yours truly had been frequenting the bargain outlet this whole time, and not the one where the Xmas presents were to be collected. (Sorry darling!!) So of course I didn’t get the hype about why Furbies/Magical Mixies/Gabby’s Dollhouse are so expensive: we’d been in the shop where all the fashionable toys of three Christmases ago are flogged off cheaply, all along.
(Also it should be called Gabby’s Cathouse, can’t understand why it isn’t?🤔)
Anyway, one trip, the girls asked for the 44 Cats figures, and I was like, I have never heard of this but they are quite literally 85p, so, sorry UN Sustainable Development Goals, we will definitely take these chunks of colourful plastic home with us. And guess what? They are from a TV series, it is on Netflix, and it actually…pretty good.
It’s all at the Co-op, meow
44 Cats is Italian and made by the same people as Pinnochio (on CBeebies) but vastly superior IMHO. Four cats (Lampo, Milady, Pilou and Meatball) live in a kindly old lady’s garage in Rome. They play in a rock band, called The Buffycats, meet various visiting feline friends, do battle with a rival gang of cats, and protect Granny Pina’s garden from the malign intentions of a Trump-esque villain. There is a lot going on. I had an Italian housemate for a while in Brussels, and if you walked in mid-meal when his friends were round, there were just 17 different conversations going on, at the same time, over strong beer and antipasti; it is that kind of vibe.
As a show, it holds up. It holds the girls’ attention for 12 minutes, the goodies are good and the baddies are bad (unlike the moral vacuum that is Peter Rabbit) and the cats sort out their problems with teamwork and kindness. There’s a bit of stinky/gross humour, so maybe avoid it if that’s a problem (maybe avoid having five-year-olds if that’s a problem, you silly poo-poo head).
As someone who follows Can I have Another Snack? and occasionally thinks about how fatness is portrayed in children’s shows, Meatball and his rumbly tummy can be a bit #problematic but not to the point I’d avoid it entirely. Conversely, If you’re dealing with a fussy eater, it will make spaghetti and meatballs very appealing. There is a whole musical number about the magical properties of nonna’s noodles. Did I mention it’s Italian?
The final thing worth noting is the entire programme is retro-fitted to the theme tune. The Zecchino d’Oro was a sort of Sanremo Music Festival for children (and as we all know, Sanremo is an Italian precursor of Eurovision). In 1968, the winner was Quarantaquattro gatti, a song about self-governing Roman cats who basically unionise and get small children to give them food and soft beds. Well, that’s what it says here, anyway. Since then, it has become an enduring icon of the Italian cultural landscape, been performed by Pavarotti, and inspired a surprisingly durable range of cheap plastic figurines.
Clearly Su-purr-ior
Cats, in my experience, have more going for them than dogs. Dogs are great, but you do have to train them, walk them, pick up the poo… it just seems a lot of effort. Cats are gonna cat, regardless of what you do. Look at this beautiful eighteenth century poem, For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry (click the link for the whole thing):
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him, and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
The cats are an instrument for children to learn benevolence upon. Being able to give treats to a being smaller than oneself is a nice feeling, and it’s a delight to see. The cats also – just as they did 300 years ago – tool around all day long, something that is perfectly captured in Mio Mao.
Giallos, Much?
Mio Mao is on Milkshake! and 5 on Demand and, I learn from this Wikipedia article, a not-very-gritty reboot of a 1970s claymation series. The episodes are exactly five minutes long (bene). They are extremely gentle, with zero peril, and have lovely calm narration by Derek Griffiths – basically the voice of children’s TV for us Xennial mums (molto bene). Finally, the actual animation, the way the cats move, is just delightful in a Morph-esque way (benissimo).
When you switch it off you can get the play-doh or plasticine out for (one hopes) some quiet playing while you have a cup of tea, inspired by our little feline friends and whichever creature they’ve met that episode. Just go and watch it and see how restful it is. 44 cats is great, but it’s frenetic. This is like lying by a pool in the Abruzzo mountains with a cold chinotto.
It also has a great theme tune, from the 70s version, which is what piqued my interest in the first place. When I work, I like to listen to music, but it can’t have singing in English, or I just write the words they’re saying (please tell I’m not the only person with this problem?). Not classical though, it just seems a little disrespectful to the Berlin Phil to shove them on in the background. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed Shakira in the original Español, the jazz stylings of the David Rees-Williams Trio, and the library music grooves of Alan Hawkshaw.
As I gradually fell down rabbit holes of “music that’s funky enough to make you do things, but has no English lyrics, and isn’t some dystopian hellscape called ‘ultimate revision study deep focus playlist’ which sounds like one is on valium, on hold, on a corporate earnings call” I ended up in the world of giallo soundtracks. And when I heard Mio Mao’s theme tune, my ears pricked up like a Maine Coon hearing someone open a tin of Felix three houses away.
Giallo (it literally means yellow) are trashy Italian films from the seventies with amazing titles like Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and Rivelazioni di un maniaco sessuale al capo della squadra mobile (I’ll let you translate that one yourself). I am going to come clean and confess: I’ve never seen any of them. Not because I don’t watch films! I do! I literally did a paper called “Modern European Film” at university, and for many years was the proud owner of a UGC Unlimited card!! But it was all Fassbinder and Almodóvar, darling. At least the excellent Anne Billson has written a primer for when I’m ready to dip my toes into the sexy widow-infested waters.
We’ve had Enough Meow
Right, that wasn’t very relevant, was it. Sorry. Mio Mao’s great. I’m off to Google cheap child-friendly holidays to Lake Garda. A tutti!