The Aristocats and The Aristocrats

The Aristocats

I get that people can't help but notice the similarity between the name of the movie and the name of a certain well-known category of joke, but is there any proof that the name of the former was deliberately referencing that of the latter? I say that unless there is, the Parental Bonus entry should be scrapped and the mentions of the similarity in name should probably be limited to a "not to be confused with the aristocrats" mention at the end.

EDIT: For the record, I haven't gotten around to watching this movie yet, so I'd appreciate it if any references to crucial plot details (if they are at all relevant or brought up for some other reason) could be hidden behind spoiler tags.

edited 25th Mar '14 8:16:33 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

That wasn't intended. Duchess and her kittens are upper-class cats. Thus the pun is that they're aristocratic cats - i.e., "aristocats."

But you've now gotten me to thinking about a mixture of the two... ("Everybody wants to #%&$ a cat...")

edited 25th Mar '14 8:22:45 PM by Aldo930

Aristocrats refers to the upper class. The family of cats in the film come from an upper class household. The name is a pun on the word "aristocrats." Far as I remember there's nothing you could connect to the old joke, but I also don't see the wording of the Parental Bonus entry as necessarily referring to the joke either (though I guess if the trope is about content like that then this example would be misuse anyway).

edited 25th Mar '14 8:32:06 PM by stingerbrg

Yeah, I'm going to scrap that entry, and check for any sign of crosswicking. I suppose the Running Gag in the description is more of a grey area, so I'll leave that be for now until it is further discussed, but I don't want people assuming without proof that the movie is referencing the old joke.

We made that joke in our article for the movie, I think worrying about it is too late at this point.

How old is the joke, again? Older than the movie, right? But was it well known at the time?

The joke dates back to Vaudeville (20's and early 30's anyhow, so late Vaudeville) and has been very well known among comedians since. I'm sure Disney writers were aware of the joke, but I'm also sure The Aristocats has absolutely nothing to do with it. There's nothing about the film that bears any resemblance to the joke.

The joke was sort of an in-joke among comedians, though; no one actually used it in their act. So the general public was not generally aware of it; whether the Disney writers would be or not is open to debate — they were animation writers, not stand-up comedians. What's more certain is that it most likely wasn't any kind of Parental Bonus; most people wouldn't know about it.

("Everybody wants to #%&$ a cat...")

A cat is fine, too.

/derail

But seriously, I think the whole description needs to be reworked to something less a Running Gag and more a normal description of the film (which I've not seen, either, so can't help there), though a "not to be confused with" line at the very end of the description isn't entirely unreasonable.

Aside from me enjoying the movie as a cat person, it is only an average Disney flick, about on par with the others of the immediate post Disney era (counting The Jungle Book as Disney era), like Dalmations and Robin Hood.

Has possibly the dumbest Disney Villain, however. Talking Animals in this world are of a class where they can all understand each other, but still relate to humans as normal animals. Ergo, the old lady giving the money to the cats really means that he would have the money as the cats' caretaker. The only caveat is that he wouldn't be able to give the money to his family in turn, but still, he was set and screwed it up by not thinking it through.

edited 27th Mar '14 7:25:36 PM by Ogodei

Thus making it more funny

ahh, see, but he HATED them. The kittens anyway, because they liked to mess with him. A dumb reason, to be sure, but the pettiness might just serve to make it more horrible.

He didn't have any reason to think it'd be any harder than, well, killing a small bunch of cats, and that it would bring him any more problems.

I think it beat Cruella De Vil's motivation, and her intended effort/goal ratio. Not only anyone seeing you wearing clothes made of dog fur will think you're a complete insane weirdo, but she had so much money she could have bought enough dogs to make her stupid coat anywhere else.

edited 28th Mar '14 10:40:31 AM by NapoleonDeCheese