Dibble Breaks The Record

It looks like illness is going to prevent Officer Dibble from setting the record for uninterrupted service on his beat, the reward for which is a two-week paid vacation. Because he has an interest in the matter (namely, having Dibble out of his fur for two whole weeks), Top Cat does everything he can to keep the policeman on the job.

Teaser Sequence: Dibble is walking on the street, not paying any attention to where he's going. He steps on a roller skate. Top Cat tells the cats "Hurry, you guys, we've got to stop Dibble. Clear everything in his way, we got to save him." Spook opens up a door to A&A Food saying "Let's make it a safe entrance man, like you know what I mean" and a screaming Dibble skates through the door with bananas on him. Spook runs around to the backdoor saying "He's shook, man! Like this boy is really rolling" as Dibble continues screaming and rolling-skating. Choo-Choo tells Benny, Brain and Fancy try to stop and catch him in a alley as he goes by, but instead, they each get a banana. Top Cat tells Brain to put up a fence board because Dibble is going to go through a fence. Brain puts it up and Dibble is send flying and lands onto a pair of long-johns hanging on a wire.

Top Cat, Spook, Benny the Ball, Choo Choo, The Brain, Spook, Fancy-Fancy, Officer Charlie Dibble, Sarge, Horse, Bank Robbers

Top Cat has the distinction of being one of the few animated series to debut in prime time. After one season, it was moved to Saturday mornings, and was met with huge success.

Essentially, Hanna-Barbera took Phil Silvers' popular character from the hit prime-time sitcom Sgt. Bilko and turned him into a cat. T.C. and the gang (Benny, Choo Choo, Fancy-Fancy, Spook, and The Brain) lived on the streets of Manhattan and were always in search of a free lunch, figuratively and literally. Their main obstacle was Officer Dibble, who had an extreme dislike for the crafty cat and his schemes, especially when they involved using the police phone for personal calls. The Sgt. Bilko connection was strengthened by the fact that Maurice Gosfield, who played Doberman on the sitcom, voiced Benny, T.C's right hand cat.

Like The Flintstones, Top Cat was written for adults and children alike, since it was initially shown during the family hour on a weeknight. This particular programming effort made the scripts stronger than your average cartoon, relying less on overused cartoon cliches and more on character. Unfortunately, T.C. didn't do well in prime time, but when he and the gang moved to Saturday mornings, the show found a loyal audience, who still remember it fondly.

The name of this show became "Boss Cat" when it ran in the United Kindgom to avoid confusion with a British cat food called Top Cat.