Cat City

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Cat City (Macskafogó) is a 1986 Hungarian animated film about mice being oppressed by cats.

The movie opens with a Star Wars-syle text scroll, which tells the main situation: In year 80 AM Anno Mickey Mouse, the mice of Planet X are threatened by humiliation and total apocalypse. The well-organized, fully equipped gangs of evil cats are aiming to wipe out the mouse civilization totally, not caring for the old conventions between mice and cats. But in the last moment, when the mouse leaders are beginning to consider leaving the planet, a new hope rises...

The film is a parody of several famous feature films, mainly the James Bond series. The main plot is about a special spy who is sent to the city of "Pokyo" to get the secret plan of a machine which could save the mouse civilization. Of course, the cats don't want this to happen, and send some rat gangsters to stop him, who don't always prove as efficient as their presentation showed.

In 2007, the film was followed by Macskafogó 2: A Sátán macskája, a sequel that focuses on a mouse journalist, Stanley, who finds a tribe of untamed cats in the jungles of "Pafrika". The cats summon a demon cat, Moloch, to take the world back from the mice.

Tropes used in Cat City include:
  • The Ace: Nick Grabowski.
  • Exclusively Evil: The cats, except for Cathy.
  • The Amazon: The jungle where Lazy Dick's plane crashes. It must be Planet X's equivalent of Central America, as implyed by the Mayincatec pyramids and the bats being Mexican bandits.
  • Artificial Limbs: Teufel has a metallic left hand with really sharp claws.
  • Asian Gal with White Guy: A rare non-human example: Grabowski and Csino-san. (Even though Grabowski,being a mouse, is grey rather than white, but definitely European.)
  • Badass Normal: Grabowski is capable of causing some real pain to Teufel.
  • Bad Boss: Teufel to Safranek and Gatto to Teufel. Implied that Gatto tolerates failure even worse than Teufel, when Safranek immediately accepts Teufel's punnishment instead of risking Gatto hearing about it.
  • Bandito: The bats.
  • Bat Out of Hell: Subverted. While initially posing a threat to Lazy Dick (threatening him to suck his blood), the bat bandits eventually befriend him.
  • Big Bad: Mr. Gatto
  • Bilingual Bonus: Lots of it. Teufel's name is a classic example: it means "Devil" in German, but sounds like "tejfel", which means "sour cream" in Hungarian. For further examples see Hurricane of Puns below.
  • Bottomless Magazines: The battle scene near the end of the movie.
  • Brainy Brunette: Tissi, the Only Sane Woman among the rats.
  • Brought to You by The Letter "S": Grabowski has a letter "G" on the shirt he wears in most of the film.
  • Butt Monkey: Teufel regularly vents his anger on poor Safranek.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: The rats. They have an entire music video to promote themselves as gangsters.
  • The Cavalry The attack of Lazy Dick and the bat bandits on Mr. Gatto's party.
  • Cats Are Mean: The Movie.
    • The only character who subverts this trope is Cathy, the daughter of Safranek.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Lazy Dick and the bat bandits.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Lazy Dick's musical skills, which earn him the friendship of the bats, and ultimately help to defeat the cats.
  • Children Are Innocent: Cathy the kitten is the only feline friendly to mice.
  • Cigar Chomper: Teufel.
  • Cool Car: The car of the rat gangsters. Too bad they can't use it properly.
  • Cut Himself Shaving: Safranek must do this all the time as his boss, Teufel brutally injures him for every mistake he makes, and pretends not to know about it subsequently.

Teufel : Not another accident? Oh dear. What happened to you this time, Safranek?
Safranek: * gulps* I was shaving, sir.
Teufel: But, your hand!
Safranek: That's what I was shaving with, sir.

Buddy: What's rule number one of gangsters?
Cookie: I only know number six. Good gangsters commit adultery.

  • Guns Akimbo: Some of the bat bandits uses two guns while flying, holding the guns in their legs.
  • Have a Gay Old Time: Sergeant Lazy Dick. (In Hungarian, of course, his name doesn't have a double meaning).
    • His name may actually be a German Bilingual Bonus, where "dick" means "fat".
  • Humongous Mecha: the Cat Catcher, which is an enormous robot bulldog.
  • Hurricane of Puns: In the Hungarian version.
    • The secret password for the mice's council is "Egy aprócska kalapocska, benne csacska macska mocska" [say: edy op-roch-ko kolo-poch-ko, beh-neh choch-ko mach-ko moch-ko] (meaning "A tiny little hat with a silly cat's dirt in it").
    • The original title "Macskafogó", although literally it means "Cat catcher", comes from the word "Egérfogó" meaning "Mouse trap", changing the word "egér" (mouse) into "macska" (Cat).
    • The Police chief, Bob Poljakow promises that he would recruit again Grabowski and "bring back Cincinnatus from the yoke" -- a historic reference to Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, this patriotic elderly Roman patrician who left his plow in the field to come to Rome's rescue in its moment of need around 458 BC. However, "cin" or "cin-cin" is the equivalent of "squeaking" in Hungarian...
    • The boss of the cats (the fat white one) is called Giovanni Gatto. Gatto is an Italian word, it means cat in English (and macska in Hungarian). Also, Giovanni is the Italian equivalent of the Hungarian first name János (John in English) – and if a Hungarian says "macskajancsi" (Johnny Cat in English), it means jerk, lame, loser, or a coward. Also, there existed a mafia clan named Gatti in New York.
    • The daughter of Safranek, the lame assistant of Mr. Teufel is called CAThy.
    • Mr. Teufel's name. Teufel means devil in German, but it's also pronounced very similarly to "tejfel" (sour cream), which cats like a lot.
  • I Know You Know I Know: Cookie delivers this line, pondering if Grabowski knows they're after him.
  • Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: The four rats.
  • Inevitable Waterfall: Sgt. Lazy Dick ends up in one in the jungle. He tries to avoid it by playing his trumpet to blow his boat back. But he eventually gives up... because he's out of tunes.
  • Jerkass: Every single cat character, except Cathy.
    • The rats aren't particularly friendly either.
  • Laughably Evil: The rats, full time.
  • Lean and Mean: Mr. Teufel.
  • MacGuffin: The Cat Cather plans.
  • Mouse-Eating Plant: Lazy Dick encounters one in the jungle.
  • Mass "Oh Crap": The cats's reaction to the enter of the Cat Cather.
  • More Dakka: The battle scene again.
  • Mouse World: Subverted, since the Mouse World exists not on the edge of the human, but the cat society.
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Teufel means "devil" in German.
  • Nice Mice
  • Not So Harmless: Safranek was the Chew Toy through the whole movie, but near the end Teufel assigned him to coordinate the battle, and he proved to be frighteningly effective.
  • One-Man Band: Due to their tight budget, the entire orchestra of the mouse police consists of one mouse, Lazy Dick.
  • Only Sane Man: Buddy thinks he's the one among the rats, but really Tissi is the one.
  • Petting Zoo People: The characters are Borderline Petting Zoo People.
  • Red Right Hand: Exaggerated with Teufel, almost to the level of parody. He has an Eyepatch of Power (with a ruby under it, nonetheless), a robotic hand, a torn ear, and even his tail seems to have its tip cut off.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The bossy and arrogant Buddy opposed to the Dumb Blonde guy Billy.
  • Slice of Life: The main plot lines are constantly interrupted by scenes of average mice living their everydays life, who are then abused, robbed and threatened by cats.
  • Scream Discretion Shot: Whenever Teufel vents his anger on Safranek.
  • Shout-Out: The film opens with a Star Wars style text scroll.
  • Smart People Play Chess: Grabowski beats himself in chess in eight out of ten games. In the other two, he wins.
  • Species-Coded for Your Convenience
  • The Stoic Tissi and Grabowski.
  • The Syndicate: Cat organisation.
  • Shrink Ray: The cats test one at the beginning of the film, so they could get into mouseholes. It works, but it also weakens the test subject who's easily beaten up by a mouse.
  • Tempting Fate: At the beginning, a bank clerk assures a worrying client that to this bank, cats could only break into with a tank. Guess what happens next.
  • Thirty Seconds Over Pokyo: Portrayed as a hi-tech metropolis, home of the professor designing a Humongous Mecha, an attractive female assistant in kimono, and a cat trying to catch Grabowski with karate moves using chopsticks.
  • You Dirty Rat: The four gangsters.
  • You Have Failed Me...: Subverted with Teufel and Safranek. Mr. Gatto, however, has the mounted heads of Teufel's precedessors on his wall.

The sequel provides examples of:

  • Animals Not to Scale: Torzonborz is a badger about the same size as a mouse. Justified since she's a mouse in disguise.
    • Also the film begins with Stanley, a mouse, cutting his way trough the jungle, and accidentally chopping off the tail of a leopard and a python that are in scale with him as if he was a human. Then he runs into the cats, are as big compared to him as real life cats compared to real life mice - which means they're gigantic compared to the leopard. Made even weirder, when the cats leave the jungle and enter the savannah, they're immediately attacked by a rhino, and later by an elephant herd, that are in scale to them, as if the cats were humans.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: The cats are forced to wear ribbons, which are oppressing their violent nature.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The following exchange

Grabowski after watching a recording of Molloch breaking into the "civilization" Did you notice anything strange?
Edlington Strange? Well besides cats breaking through our outer defense, and pressing two of our guards into a DVD, nothing!
Harvey Those cats are not wearing ribbons.
Edlington Harvey! No, you're right, they aren't wear ribbons.
Grabowski True, but what I meant was that giant cat had red eyes. However only albino cats have red eyes, but there is no such thing as a black albino.

Chief Cat: Did you notice, that this herd was really only one bison filmed many times?
Mioka, the wizard: What did you expect? This is a low-budget production.

Mouse general: Where are the Stormtroopers? Answer me? Where are the Empirial Stormtroopers?
Mouse soldier: Sir, in another movie, Sir.

Stanley as Grabowski paints a large number "2" on the chest of the Cat Catcher: What are you doing?
Grabowski: This way everyone will now, that this is the Cat Catcher 2.

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