The 9th Life Of Sherman Phelps is a 5-episode miniseries of animated shorts from the famous Canadian studio Nelvana created by Todd Kauffman and Mark Thornton, a Canadian animation duo who would later become better known for creating Fresh TV's Grojband and DHX Media's Looped, as well as working on the incredibly popular Total Drama franchise.
Sherman Phelps is an average cat living an average life. He's got his friend, a rat named Ronald, and nine whole lives to live...
Actually, no he doesn't have nine lives.
You see, what Sherman doesn't realize is that he's died eight times already, and is now on his ninth and final kitty cat life. What of his other lives? Well, they've all ascended to Kitty Cat Heaven... but they can't get in because the rules of Kitty Cat Heaven state that all nine of Sherman's souls must be present and accounted for to be allowed in.
Sadly, Sherman's previous lives don't want to just wait for him to die one last time so they can finally get in, so they decide to "help him along". For some reason, they can't simply take control of Sherman's body back from his ninth life and make him kill himself. However, Ronald is still fair game to them.
So, Sherman simply goes about his final life, blissfully unaware of the dangers his previous lives are putting him in.
The series aired on YTV in 2004 as one of 10 miniseries of animated shorts that were shown on the Animated Anthology show, Funpak. Interestingly, Todd Kauffman also co-created a second Funpak show with fellow animator Joey So called The Not-So-Superheroic Adventures of Sidekick, which became its own series known simply as Sidekick in 2010.
Also see Rotting Hills, another Funpak miniseries that has its own page on this wiki.
Compare and contrast Fraidy Cat, a show that shares extreme similarities with this series.
The 9th Life Of Sherman Phelps contains examples of:
- Artistic License – Ornithology: "Serenity Now" opens with the shot of a Hummingbird that has "insect" wings, no legs, and what looks like a mouth. To put things into perspective it's basically just a floating shape with wings as a result of some Limited Animation.
- Black Bead Eyes: Sherman has little black bead eyes. So do a few background characters.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Ronald suffers a lot from the attempts by Sherman's previous lives to kill his friend. Aside from the obvious misfortune of getting possessed, he receives the brunt of all the slapstick and violence that come from the ghosts' failed efforts to kill Sherman and usually ends up having to pay for whatever mayhem was caused while he was possessed.
- Carnivore Confusion: One of the background characters is a bird who is married to a worm (that has bird children, mind you).
- To make it even more morbid, in "Candy Bandit", when Sherman Phelps holds up a wanted poster of a candy thief to the worm, the baby birds tweet constantly at him as if they want to eat him.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: Well, HAD nine lives in Sherman's case. He's already died eight times (and doesn't realize it), and the ghosts of his previous lives are trying to make it happen one more time.
- Character Catchphrase: Sherman's catchphrase is "Humm-dinger", which he says at the end of every short.
- Circling Birdies: At the end of "Cloak & Stagger", after getting run over by the spy's car, Ronald has a wrench, a nut, and a bolt circling his head. They soon all drop and hit him on his head, knocking him out.
- Eye Glasses: Ronald's glasses.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Sherman only wears a pair of striped pants. Ronald only wears a pair of pants, a necktie, and his eyeglasses.
- Human Popsicle: While there aren't any humans in the show, Ronald (and the ghost who's possessing him) ends up frozen solid from staying in the frozen meat truck for too long while Sherman tries to return someone's glove.
- Medium Blending: Although the characters are 2D Flash-animated, the show's backgrounds are live constructed miniature sets.
- Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: With the exception of Sherman's catchphrase, there is no spoken dialogue in the shorts (although the characters do squeak, grunt, laugh, etc.).
- New Job as the Plot Demands: Sherman and Ronald have a different job in each episode, as does the unnamed elephant who appears in every episode (usually as a customer or in opposition to Sherman and Ronald).
- Recurring Extra: An unnamed elephant appears in every short, usually as the customer for whatever job Sherman and Ronald have for the short.
- Rube Goldberg Device: Ghost-possessed Ronald builds one in "Moving Target" using a piranha in a fishbowl, meat hanging from a string, a slide, a tricycle, a bear trap, and other assorted things. It was to be used to kill Sherman. It just makes the elephant character mad at Ronald.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Ronald is putting one up in "Candy Bandit" for the purpose of capturing the titular criminal.
- World of Funny Animals: The setting of the show.
