Conroy Cat is a Webcomic and later Web Animation series by Alex Dudley. Dedicated to animation fans, The Cartoon Chronicles of Conroy Cat is about the titular character doing odd jobs to get his name out and try to become famous in Cartoon Land. Most of the strips feature characters from other animation works, such as Comic Books, Anime, and lots of Western Animation. There have also been "toon training" sessions, in which Doggy D. Dachshund, a toon based on old black and white animation toons and one of the few recurring characters, teaches Conroy how to harness the power of the "funny bone" to create all the gags that you see in cartoons. It often lampshades the common gags and devices of animation. It ended in 2011.
Doggy also has his own series of shorts called Toons These Days, where he rants about modern day animated shows. It initially ended as of December 29th, 2012, until Dudley decided to start a second season with two segments per episode: Doggy's usual ranting and Conroy giving a more analyzing review. Halfway through the season, the two segments split into two separate shows under the same "Toons These Days" title. On October 13th, 2014, Alex announced that Toons These Days was picked up by Channel Awesome of The Nostalgia Critic fame, and episodes started rolling out there on October 21st. After the pick up, Doggy D. Dachshund even made a cameo appearance at the end of The Nostalgia Critic's review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014). In 2015, the Conroy strips are back in production, but only for 1 or 2 pages per month.
The whole body of work can be seen here
. Conroy Cat shorts and Toons These Days shorts can be seen on Alex Dudley's YouTube channel, Newgrounds page, and DeviantArt account, the latter being where he showcases all his toon ideas, including his Web Animation series, Kassandra Goddess Of Awesome, currently on hiatus indefinitely. Conroy Cat and Kassandra: Goddess of Awesome cartoons are now on Battery POP (here), a cross-platform kids' media website where cartoons, music and other such works can be viewed and voted up, with things that "pop" receiving more funding.
The Cartoon Chronicles of Conroy Cat provides examples of the following tropes:
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Conroy and Doggy, and sometimes whatever other other toon is the guest for the day. Lampshaded here.
- All There in the Manual: This Journal post that allowed viewers to speak with Doggy reveals a few things about Cartoon Land. Among one of those things is that Toons come into being at the Sea of Scraps. While bad toon ideas sink to the bottom, ones with potential float and get picked up by a ferry to Cartoon Land where they have to earn their place as a cartoon star.
- Alliterative Name:
- Conroy Cat. The comic's title is alliterative accordingly.
- Doggy D. Dachshund.
- Alliterative Title
- Amusing Injuries: They happen. It is a comic about cartoons.
- Animated Actors: The comic takes place in a world where all toons are actors, and Conroy's many jobs involve working behind-the-scenes of several cartoon series.
- Anime Hair: When Conroy gets a job as a barber, his first customer is Yugi Moto.
- Aside Glance: Doggy does it here.
- Author Appeal: Dudley admits to being a big Pokémon fan when starting the Bag-'Em-Alls arc.
- Behind the Black: Conroy learns about this gag in this strip.
- Better than a Bare Bulb: When it comes to almost anything relating to cartoons.
- Brain Bleach: Conroy sees Doggy "naked" and says that he'll "take up that sale on brain bleach."
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: And lampshaded here
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: It got lampshaded, too.
- Carnivore Confusion: One cartoon lampshaded Heffer's cannibalistic behavior.
- Creating Life: In the very first strip, no less.
- Cutaway Gag: Parodied here.
- Dueling Movies: Acknowledged In-Universe when this strip lampshaded the timing of the release of the last Harry Potter movie and the new Winnie the Pooh movie.
- Foil: Conroy Cat and Doggy D. Dachshund were highly designed to contrast each other. Conroy is a modernly-designed young toon with an optimistic view on all cartoons, whereas Doggy is an Inkblot Cartoon Style Jaded Washout with a pessimistic, critical view on today's toons.
- Gaming Webcomics: Defied by Doggy when Conroy takes notice to Sonic Colors. He goes so far as to liken it to an animation channel airing Live-Action TV.
- Genre Shift: In late 2011, Dudley started doing animated shorts with the characters.
- Groin Attack: Doggy hates this trope. After hearing how Puss in Boots kept messing up jumping over a spike in the filming of his new movie, his detest for it increases.
- Kamehame Hadoken: Conroy does a chi blast with undesirable side effects.
- Lampshade Hanging: Happens practically every other strip.
- Lower-Deck Episode: A few strips focus entirely on other cartoon characters and do not feature the main characters at all.
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Conroy does this in typical cartoon fashion, though it has the justification of Conroy doing odd jobs to support himself in his quest to make it in Cartoon Land.
- Piano Drop: In this strip.
- Recycled In Space: The comic lampshaded the concept of Danny Phantom in the form of a mathmatical equation.
- Shared Universe: Kind of. More like a shared multiverse. It's in its own animated universe, but has a connection to the Reviewaverse.
- Shout-Out: How the funny bone works is a lot like chakra from Naruto. When Conroy points this out, he is immediately hit with a cane for it.
- The Barbershop Conroy briefly works at is called Freaky Fred's Hair Salon.
- The Smurfette Principle: Annie Mae is the closest this strip has to a female main character and she still doesn't appear very often.
- Sphere Eyes: Conroy.
-
Spiritual Successor: This strip posits that MAD is one to Animaniacs. - Story Arc: The only major arc the comic had starts here.
- Symbol Swearing: It was lampshaded.
- Take That!: "Okay, is anyone here not getting the 'live-action' treatment?"
- One strip has Dudley laying in bed with a headache. When Almost Naked Animals is coming up next, his headache worsens.
- Take That, Scrappy!: Invoked when Miko gets Squashed Flat by Bulkhead.
- One strip
- Toon Physics: Conroy learns that toon physics is broken down into two factors: the "Funny Bone" which handles Amusing Injuries and impossible physical feats, and the 4th wall.
- Toon Town: Cartoon Land.
- Unexplained Recovery: In "The Brat Came Back".
- Unusual Eyebrows: Conroy appears to have only one eyebrow, though he has been drawn with two eyebrows more recently.
- White Gloves: Doggy wears them, if only because that's what old toons wear.
- Worth It: Conroy's feelings about [[the result of an overcharged Ki Blast.
Toons These Days provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: Doggy's full name has been revealed to be Doggy D. Dachshund, but only in this review show.
- Alter Kocker: Doggy has this personality.
- Caustic Critic: Doggy. In his review of Motorcity, He flat out admits he just likes to complain.
- Fauxtivational Poster: Conroy has one in his bedroom seen in his review segments.MOTVIATIONAL POSTER
Just a simple background prop. - Formula-Breaking Episode: A minor example: Since Doggy doesn't know anything about Video Games, Conroy joins in on the Wreck-It Ralph review.
- Grand Finale: The SpongeBob SquarePants review ends with Doggy getting the electric chair and Conroy devastated... until Doggy hits him with a cane, as toons don't die. He then decides he's ranted enough and leaves to watch "those newfangled cat videos on The Internet".
- Series Fauxnale: Dudley eventually changed his mind, and is now working on a second season.
- Series Fauxnale: Dudley eventually changed his mind, and is now working on a second season
- Irony: In The Fairly OddParents! review, Doggy is at a loss when, despite all the reasons to complain about the show, he just cannot bring himself to hate it. Meanwhile, the otherwise optimistic Conroy has no problem saying that, despite a good moment here and there, the show has long overstayed its welcome.
- Noodle Incident: It's never explained as to how and why Doggy got arrested twice.
- Pet-Peeve Trope: If there's one thing Doggy hates the most about today's cartoons, it's Totally Cool Dudes. Ironically, Doggy sheepishly reveals that he went through a Totally Radical phase in the review of The Looney Tunes Show.
