Ah Catdog... A walk through the world of mediocre cartoons. While not a horrible cartoon, it's definitely not up there among the best. I remember it more because I thought it was an idiotic show, more than remembering it for being any good.

Plot: The plot jumped all over the place, but the main theme of many episodes was one of Catdog's halves longing to have independence or longing to express itself individually. Storylines episode per episode were hit and miss. Some clever, some god-awful. The humor that was supposed to drive the show was the same, hit or miss.

Characters: Catdog's character was not that interesting for a main character. Sure, the cat half was smart but arrogant and the dog part was dumb and humble who had moments of brilliance, but isn't that what so many other shows attempt by having two separate characters??? Slapping them together into one doesn't exactly save the show from being boring in this regard. The other characters were forgettable, and usually just an annoyance rather than actually adding anything to the story. One thing I can say though, none of the characters were nice, all of them just came off as being mean and self-involved. And everyone knows a show needs at least ONE nice character to keep the atmosphere light and enjoyable on the show.

Animation: While uniquely styled and not purely bad, I thought the animation almost looked dirty. Just something about it sometimes was very messy. Maybe it's just me...

Sound/Music: The voice actors were okay, sometimes Dog's voice could get on a viewer's nerves, and some of the minor characters were irritating. Music was alright, none of the songs or music has managed to stick in my memory. So that's both a positive and negative thing, positive in that none of the songs were so bad I remember them, and negative in that none of the songs were good enough to remember either.

In the end, Catdog was just an average cartoon. To some, it might have more appeal than to others. But in my view, it was just another cartoon that had it's run and probably won't ever be given the same status as other Nickelodeon shows such as Rocko's Modern Life. Maybe worth watching for the sake of nostalgia, but maybe not at the cost of buying a box-set of one of the seasons or something...

Not what I call an entertainment.

There were so many episodes where Cat wanted to be a normal cat, but then at the end change his mind...

It was never my favorite as a kid but I still watched it, but now I really can't stand this show. Maybe you'll like it, but not my kind of show.

Catdog is a fun show. Good but not great. That could have been the extent of this review, if I hadn't accidentally begun having curious thoughts.

The other day I expressed the heinous view to someone, that I really wasn't that big a fan of the old Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry format of cartoon, because it seemed to me that it mostly involved setting up two characters in an adverserial relationship and then having the one you would naturally expect to win (usually the carnivore) try to 'get' the other one (usually a herbivore), And fail. Plus the 'winner' character was usually annoying. Now, do this interminably, for decades. I'm sorry, but it didn't keep me interested past about grade 6, despite being constantly told how these cartoons were 'really for adults'.

Then I started thinking about that adverserial relationship and what had happened to it, and it seemed to me that it has morphed into a scenario where the old enemies are now on the same side, and instead of a straight out X versus Y relationship, you have two people who don't really get along (typically one will annoy the other by being incredibly dopey), but who are forced together by the plot. Think 'Pinky and the Brain' for an example of this trend in transition. Then think 'Angry Beavers' for an example of it in its modern form. Now the antagonists are brothers. Dag drives Norb mad, and they spend half the time fighting, but basically love each other deep down. Now take this to its ultimate conclusion (thus far), and you have 'Catdog', where the antagonist siblings are literally joined together physically and can't get away from each other.

What about it? Well, for a start it's a lot more nuanced and interesting than just having two characters chasing one another about and falling off cliffs and being hit over the head, and blown up, time after time after time. Without meaning disrespect to people who think that sort of thing constitutes the Golden Age of American cartooning - and I certainly agree that the animation was way better than the dire 60's, 70's and most of the 80's - we would probably have to agree to disagree about The Three Stooges versus Seinfeld as well. I think South Park proved that limited animation and good writing will win out over good animation and predictable writing.

Catdog (do we refer to him/them in the plural or singular?) lives in a house which is shaped like a bone at one end and a fish at the other - which pretty much sums up the relationship of the central character(s). Opposites joined together by some bizarre kinship, driving each other mad (well, Dog drives Cat mad anyway), but still with some genuine affection buried deep down there somewhere. Really not a bad idea. Of course I wouldn't want to see this being done for the next 30 years, and maybe this show takes it about as far as it can go - unless in the unlikely event of someone making a series from Cathy Hill's brilliant 'Mad Raccoons' comic, where one of the characters, Uncle Erf, has multiple personality disorder and is actually his own wife, son and dog, and has passionate arguments which end up with him leaving him/herself amd having an affair.

But back on track... Catdog has something of an Angry Beavers/Rocko's Modern Life vibe to it, which isn't surprising, since all three were from Nick, and members of the creative team of both shows are present here (Rocko and Heffer are there in the voice cast for instance). It isn't as demented, or quite as cerebral as 'Rocko', but it's probably about as far as we can expect Nick to go in that direction these days.

I forgot to mention that Catdog's enemies are a bunch of sort of 50's rocker types called The Greaser Dogs. They're amusing but really a sideshow to the central tension between the main character/s.

I wouldn't weep if I didn't see this again (as in fact I haven't done for some time), but it's still a pretty funny show.