YMMV / The Aristocats

• Accidental Innuendo: Thomas tries to warn Duchess that Scat Cat and his friends are "swingers". Duchess asks what he means, to which Thomas says, "Not exactly your type, Duchess."
• Actor Allusion: Roquefort describes "creme de la creme a la Edgar" as "deli-si-ous". The way he says it sounds exactly the same as how Kaa describes Mowgli when he's about to eat him.
• Adaptation Displacement: The film is an amalgamation of two extremely obscure children's stories, so little-known that neither they nor their authors (Tom McGowan and Tom Rowe) have Wikipedia pages.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Is Edgar really a villain, or a Jerkass Woobie? After all, he put the cats to sleep and abandoned them when he could have poisoned them.
  • On that note, did Edgar expect them to survive, or was he trying to kill them? That was enough sleeping pills for a human to have to worry about an overdose (although, given his general intelligence, Edgar may not know about that). Also, we never saw how he planned to dispose of the cats, as he lost them when he was attacked by Napoleon and Lafayette. Was he planning on releasing them in the wild... or drowning them in the river?
  • Had Madame Adelaide decided to bequeath everything to him as her lawyer initially assumed, would he have tried to get rid of her? If not, what would stay his hand? Unwillingness to harm an old woman? A belief she'll die soon enough anyway? Fear of getting caught?
  • Was Madame Adelaide's decision to make her cats the inheritors of her fortune the result of her love for them, or the result of her sanity slipping after losing many of her family members?
• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Yes, they did have motorcycles in 1910. They were invented in 1885.
  • Likewise, the Métro 1 opened in 1900.
  • It's been commented on many a forum that kittens with Berlioz' and Toulouse's coloring and a white mother couldn't possibly have the same father. Rebuttals usually center around how Duchess could be masking and carrying genes that would allow one orange and one black cat in the same litter. There's actually a much simpler explanation: if a female cat mates with more than one male, sperm from multiple fathers can fertilize eggs in the same pregnancy. Thanks to cat biology (i.e. intercourse triggers ovulation), it's 100% possible and common for kittens in one litter to have different fathers, a phenomenon known as heteropaternal superfecundation. However, it would be rather unusual for a rich lady to allow her high-bred cat to mate with multiple males.
• Awesome Music:
  • The Sherman Brothers' opening song is incredibly delightful and fits the film's French setting perfectly. They even got Maurice Chevalier to come out of retirement to sing it!
  • "Ev'rybody Wants to be a Cat" is the film's standout song and for good reason. It is an insanely catchy jazz song that starts a bit slow with only Scatcat and Thomas singing, before becoming more lively, bombastic and fun as more cats and instruments join the fray, culminating in some of the jazziest music in a Disney movie. Don't be surprised if you wind up wanting to be a cat yourself by the end.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The hound dogs, who come close to stealing the show despite only having a few scenes.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Shun Gon, the Siamese member of Scat Cat's gang. He's clearly one of the good guys, but he has the buck teeth and the exaggerated accent of a bad Chinese stereotype. He even uses chopsticks to play the piano! For an extra layer of awkwardness, the character is voiced by Paul Winchell, a white man. So you basically have Tigger doing Yellow Face, complete with the same recognizable hooting laugh.
• Genius Bonus: Zigzagged a bit with "Scales and Arpeggios". While there's plenty of both in Marie's part, most of the accompaniment that Berlioz plays is a third technique, known as "Alberti bass". This is justified by the rules of musical counterpoint, which among other things frowns upon the use of parallel octaves, i.e. two different voices playing the same exact material.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Marie gets a disproportionate amount of attention in Japan and is more frequently featured in Tokyo Disneyland. Why? Japanese love cute kittens, so much so that she's gotten her own manga called Miriya & Marie. It was released in Japan and Brazil and gained western translation and release under the "Disney Manga" brand in the United States in June 2018. If you're looking for Aristocats merchandise outside Japan, you won't find any outside of the DVD and Blu-Ray, and the occasional novelization and picture book. Marie merchandise, on the other hand...
  • Some merchandise, namely from Hot Topic/Box Lunch will occasionally include the other two kittens (though still always accompanied by Marie), but all other characters (even Duchess and O'Malley, who are often fondly remembered in the sea of Disney romances) remain firmly un-merched.
  • Marie is also popular in Brazil, probably because she's just so darn cute.
  • Much like Duffy the Disney Bear, this is translating back to the American parks: there is now a walkaround character of her who hangs out in Epcot's France pavilion in the World Showcase and moved to the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World.
  • The film itself in Italy, thanks mostly to a creative dub job which transforms O'Malley into a Roman playboy named Romeo. O'Malley and Marie are the most popular characters in Italy, so much that their names in the Italian dub (Romeo and Minou, respectively) are still among the top 10 most popular names for Italian cats.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Charles Lane (who voiced the aging but sprightly Georges Hautecourt) was 65 years old when The Aristocats was first released. He would eventually live to the age of 102 when he passed away in July 2007.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A cat playing the piano?
  • Additionally, the two Chinese cities Shun Gong mentions are Shanghai and Hong Kong, though Hong Kong got a park first.
  • Amelia Gabble (one of the goose twins) pointed out at one point that she was not a chicken. Ironically, her actress Carole Shelley had voiced another British bird (CHICKEN) with white feathers: Lady Cluck, Maid Marian’s (Maid Marian is voiced Monica Evans (Abigail Gabble)) lady-in-waiting in Disney's "Robin Hood" (1973).
  • Georges's comment on not being as spry as he was when he was 80 and his general denial of his advanced age are more amusing when it's taken into consideration that his voice actor managed to live up to 102.
  • Roquefort dons a deerstalker and cape when he goes out to look for the cats. Cut to 1986...
  • The roguish male protagonist wants to take the aristocratic female protagonist on a magic carpet ride?
  • On October 29th, 2019, a fanfiction.net user "The Parody Master" released a fanfic which was a parody of Disney's recent trend on live-action remakes from the Disney Animated Canon titled "Edgar." It's a sarcastic re-telling of the titular film from Edgar's POV (similar to Maleficent) and how he was misunderstood. Four years after the fic was released, Disney announced a live-action remake of The Aristocats on January 20th, 2022.
  • Edgar tries shipping the cats to Timbuktu. A certain title character would later repeatedly try doing the same to a nemesis cat, except to Abu Dhabi.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Duchess gets quite a bit of this in Crossover Ships. A popular example is the Theme Pairing of her and Lady from Lady and the Tramp.
• Jerkass Woobie: Edgar to some point of view. He does seem like a fairly decent guy near the beginning, despite his bumbling nature. Is it really so hard not to feel bad for him when he learns that he'll likely never see a penny of his mistress's fortune because the cats inherit it first (although, given cats' lifespans, he would still inherit eventually, and as the cats' caretaker would be the de facto heir even if the cats inherit in law)? Granted, he becomes a lot less decent as the film goes on, but still.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Since the 1990s, some viewers only watched the film for any scene featuring Marie.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The shot of Marie primping herself to get ready to practice her scales and arpeggios is a very popular gif.
  • The scene in which Frou-Frou kicks Edgar has apparently become a minor meme, with it being edited into other scenes so she's doing it to other characters, such as here and here
• Moe: Marie is so blatantly cute that even her spoiled behavior is somewhat adorable. To a lesser extent, her Cute Kitten brothers also qualify.
• Moral Event Horizon: Edgar attacking O'Malley with a pitchfork and a sickle, which certainly would have killed him. Then again, he did have a few lives to spare.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Duchess' voice. Even when her accent slips.
  • Similar to Duchess, Marie's voice due to having a cute British/mid-Atlantic accent and how her lines are delivered as a result. Especially when she's singing "Scales And Arpeggios" with her brother Berlioz and her mother.
• Narm Charm: On the flip-side of Questionable Casting below, some people think Eva Gabor's voice for Duchess is quite motherly. Not as good as her work as Bianca but still quite suitable for a fine-bred cat.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Roquefort getting Jump Scared by one of the alley cats while trying to get help. The poor mouse is trying his best to help while muttering nervously about being sent to fetch a group of cats. He protests O'Malley sending him, saying that he's only got one life as opposed to cats' nine — and then one of the cats pops his head into view with a Slasher Smile that seems scarily odd after their earlier scene.
  • Edgar's Uncertain Doom, as he was last seen locked in the very trunk he intended to ship the cats away in, with no signs of air holes or anything to give him a shot at surviving for a prolonged amount of time inside. Worse still, the film does not acknowledge any of this in any way. Unless one assumes he made enough noise to alert people outside, odds are the trip did not end well for him...and if so, whoever next opens that trunk will get a nasty surprise.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Bill Thompson as the hilariously drunk Uncle Waldo. Even the main characters comment on it. May overlap with Ensemble Dark Horse, especially for older audiences. Unfortunately, this was also Bill Thompson's final role in an animated film, due to him dying of septic shock a few months later.
    "I like Uncle Waldo."
    "Yes, especially when he's 'marinated'."
  • Waldo's nieces Abigail and Amelia - two very British, very pompous French & Saunders esque geese - who only have around seven minutes of screen time. Their bit is quite amusing.
• Padding:
  • Both comedy scenes involving Edgar and the hound dogs. The first occurs when Edgar is trying to dump the cats in the countryside. The only event that's strictly relevant to the plot - when Edgar loses the basket - happens early in the scene. The slapstick chase sequence goes on for about five minutes, involving Edgar getting flung into the air twice and a windmill. The second scene, where Edgar returns and retrieves the objects he lost during the chase, isn't actually required for the plot at all; Edgar is merely covering his tracks.
  • Similarly, the scene with Uncle Waldo is nothing but a drunk goose making a fool of himself to a pair of geese who may already be rather grating to the viewer. In a story about lost cats making their way back home and a family gaining a new father, it can feel especially pointless to the narrative.
• Pop Culture Holiday: Since Japan loves Marie, they celebrate "Marie Day" on February 22, which is also when the country celebrates Cat Day.^note Cat Day is on February 22 in Japan because the date resembles the words "nyan nyan nyan" (meow meow meow).
• Popular with Furries: Duchess is a popular cat character amongst furries, though Thomas, Scat Cat and his gang have their fans too. Marie is especially popular in Japan, Italy and France.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Unshaved Mouse couldn't buy Eva Gabor as a loving devoted mother figure (consequently he felt her role as Miss Bianca in The Rescuers was a better fit for her).
  • Pat Buttram (who later became something of a Disney regular in the 70s) and George Lindsay seem to have wandered in off the set of Hee Haw. Their characters don't seem to fit the tone of the setting or movie (although because they're both very funny, the positives probably outweigh the negatives).
  • Having Tigger playing an Asian Speekee Engrish.
• Rooting for the Empire: Edgar has his fair share of fans who believe he has reason to act, having been passed over in favor of Madame's cats.
• So Okay, It's Average: You won't find a lot of people who remember this one, whether to praise it or trash it; at most, people might hum some of the songs (especially "Everybody Wants to Be a Cat"). It does have a strong cast of characters, but despite this it has next to zero merchandising presence; it took Marie getting incredibly popular in Japan to even get some in the West.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The Gabble Sisters' theme music is remarkably similar to "Baby Elephant Walk" by Henry Mancini.
  • Edgar's sneaky theme has a distinct The Pink Panther flavor to it also. Which was also written by Henry Mancini.
• Theme Pairing: Duchess and Lady from Lady and the Tramp are shipped together because both are fancy, lady-like, and easygoing Uptown Girls whose canonical love interests are "Tramps".
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As mentioned above in Padding, Napoleon and Lafayette's conflict with Edgar ended up going nowhere. Had the two of them returned a third time for the final battle against Edgar, not only would it have made their scenes feel less like Filler, it also would have provided a proper resolution to this subplot.
• Values Dissonance: If the film were made more recently, it's seriously doubtful they'd be able to get away with having an Asian cat who has crooked eyes, buck teeth, a thick accent, and plays the piano with his chopsticks, playing a 'Chopsticks'-style melody filled with Asian buzzwords (even worse, Chinese-sounding gibberish in some dubs). Nor is it likely he could have worn a cymbal like a rice hat. Tellingly, his solo often gets bowdlerized out of soundtrack releases of "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat", such as when the Walt Disney Records Legacy Collection's Aristocats album muted the lyrics. Not to mention that the full music video for "Ev'rybody Wants To Be A Cat" is absent on Disney's YouTube and VEVO channels, relegating them to either foreign-language dubs or the occasional unofficial upload, racist imagery intact.
  • There’s also the clearly drunken Uncle Waldo; it’s doubtful a kids movie would have such an alcoholic character presented and played for laughs.
• The Woobie: Marie goes through the wringer constantly in this movie, particularly during the countryside scenes. Her peril, especially when she comes close to drowning, is also played for dramatic effect.

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