Catscratch

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
From left to right: Gordon, Mr. Blik, and Waffle riding in a car-turned-spaceship to get some moon rocks for a barbecue pit. And it just gets stranger from there.

Old Mrs. Cramdilly had three cats, all from the same mother, whom she loved very much. So, when she died, she gave them her house, her fortune, and her butler, Hovis. Now, they spend their days hanging out in their awesome house, drinking root beer, and facing off against anything from the vastness of space to a zombie horde to those jerks next door.

Yeah, we know, it's that kind of show.

It's a loose lighthearted adaption of one of Doug Ten Napel's earlier works, a comic named Gear. Catscratch was a Nicktoon made in 2005. Although the show had its decent ratings, It only lasted for a season, but that season was stretched out over two years. It then got a short run on Nicktoons Network before being cancelled again. Since then, it's lain forgotten among the other castaway shows of Nickelodeon.

The three cats are best described as thus:

  • Mr. Blik: The de facto leader. Greedy, self-serving, and envious. Basically, Ted Baxter in cat form.
  • Gordon Quid: An inexplicably Scottish cat, who has a huge crush on Human Kimberly, the girl next door with a unicorn obsession.
  • Waffle: A goofy cat who's fascinated by everything. And we mean everything. Though his favorite things would be the word Splee and his pet newts, lead by Gomez.
Tropes used in Catscratch include:

Mr. Blik: Look! (points to moon rocks)
Waffle: A finger!

  • Balloon Belly: The cats in the Root Beer Episode
  • Batman Can Breathe in Space: In the pilot.
  • Blackmail The episode "Blik Mail". Blik is very uncomfortable with his brothers knowing of his doll, Commodore Nougat.
  • Big Fancy House: The mansion.
  • Body Horror: Gordon, when suffering from allergies.
  • Brick Joke: A particularly well done example. In the pilot, Gordon tries to convince Blik to not enter a barbecue contest by telling him an old Scottish tale that involves the Duke Irk Splee trading his heart to a seal woman for moon rocks to make perfect barbecue ribs (and it gets even sillier). Waffle's interpretation of the Aesop is to never trust a seal woman. in the 14th episode, Gordon turns the attacking Banshee to stone using a falsetto voice (look, just roll with it), and the Banshee statue cracks open to reveal ...a seal woman.
  • Broke Episode: Waffle once spent the entire fortune on valuable vases so he could play with the bubble wrap. This forces the cats to go work in the mall. Luckily, they return the vases with the receipts at the end of the episode.
  • Brown Note: Gordon's 'Song of the Sea'. It's not too damaging to living matter, but it cracks walls, breaks glass bottles, turns banshees to stone, and rips beards off.
  • Butt Monkey: Hovis.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Gordon with Kimberly. Later Mr. Blik with Katilda, and vice versa
  • Catch Phrase:
    • Waffle: Splee!
    • Blik: Yeah!
    • Gordon: Great Gopher!
  • Cloudcuckooland: There's a secret door in the mansion that houses an impossible world. Naturally, Waffle's the king of this land.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Waffle. He'd eat donuts right off of donut trees and likes smelling flowers painted on shirts.
  • Coincidental Accidental Disguise: Gordon has a violent allergic reaction to broccoli (that doesn't actually debilitate him in any way), which coincidentally makes him look exactly like the monster from a movie his brothers were watching. Later, Gordon has a different reaction to chocolate, which makes him looks like another monster from a comic book his brothers were reading.
  • Comic Trio: Mr. Blik is the schemer, Waffle is stupid, Gordon is powerless
  • Cool Car: Gear and the Chumpy Chumps' car
  • Cool Pet: Waffle's newts
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: When Waffle has to drive Gear in a race against the Chumpy Chump Boys due to height regulations, he's at first completely useless. Then, his pet newt Gomez ends up on the Chumpy Chumps car. He then becomes a ridiculously good Drives Like Crazy driver, who can even steer with his tail.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Hovis. So very much Hovis
  • Defeat Means Friendship: The Kraken.
  • Deus Ex Machina: Double subverted in the pilot. By an absurd series of events, Blik ends up at the barbecue with a plate of nicely baked ribs in time for them to be judged. But, they were cooked in rocket flames so they taste like rocket fuel. But, Blik still 'won' the Worst Baked Ribs ribbon, so it all ends happily
  • The Ditz: Waffle when he's at his worst.
  • Don't Try This At Home: Make fools out of an "Exclusive" Country Club.
  • Duck Season! Rabbit Season!: In the episode "Mall Adjusted", Gordon and Blik are insisting the other be the one to try a clearly foul beverage:

Blik: Alright, you win. You drink it.

Blik: Hovis, from now on, you will call us cats-tronauts.
Hovis: That sounds painful.

    • In one episode, Waffle took a magazine quiz that told him he was a dog, so he started acting like one. He semi-offscreen 'humps' Hovis' leg.
    • Not to mention an entire episode about Gordon wanting a larger tail after being laughed at by the neighbors.
      • Female neighbors, to be specific. And he was significantly comforted when his crush said she liked it.
  • God Save Us From the Queen: Kraken's mom.
  • Halloween Episode
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Gordon's Rob Paulsen, Hovis is Maurice LaMarche, Waffle's Almighty Tallest Purple and Pleakley, Mr. Blik is Dojo, Katilda is Hynden Walch, Human Kimberly's Myrtle Edmonds and, more recently, Panini.
  • Huge Schoolgirl: One of Kimberly's 9-year-old friends is inexplicably a giant.
  • Interspecies Romance: Gordon & Human Kimberly, it's one-sided on Gordon's part.
  • In the Name of the Moon: "In the name of the Highland Quid clan, feel my sting!"
  • Inherently Funny Words: Splee
  • It Runs in The Family: The Highland Quid clan is quite fond of beards. Yes, even the women. Yes, even the babies.
  • It Tastes Like Rocket Fuel
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: The entire series is available online, even if it does take some digging to find them. Constant attempts have been made by various people to get the series on YouTube, but the episodes are always removed within days, if not hours. Only two episodes have ever even gotten an official home release, and that was on compilation DVDs; a third was planned, but the DVD series was canceled before that could happen. In short, good luck ever actually watching this show.
  • Killer Rabbit: The last episode had a duck that Gordon feared from his childhood. The other two ignore his fears until it's proven that the duck is actually a competent fighter.
  • Large Ham: Mr. Blik
  • Lethal Chef: Again, Mr. Blik.
  • Lighter and Softer: Gear, this series' original source material, is outright Grimdark comparing to this adaptation.
  • Lions and Tigers and Humans, Oh My!: 3 out of 4 animals can talk. And no one ever finds that weird.
  • Liz Lemon Job: Hovis. So very much Hovis
  • Lovable Coward: Mr. Blik, most of the time.
  • Made of Iron: The cats. In the first couple of episodes, they fall from the height of a skyscraper and from the outer atmosphere.
  • Man Child: Waffle
  • Man in a Kilt: The entire Highland Quid clan.
  • Mars Needs Women: Gordon loves Human Kimberly, who is human. Gordon is a cat that thinks he is Scottish.
  • The Messiah: Waffle. A giant cat-hating dog? Waffle makes friends with it.
  • Mood Whiplash: When compared to its source material...
  • New Powers as the Plot Demands: Gear. Considering the first episode had it converted into a spaceship in less than an hour, you learn to expect this. Driving through the Atlantic Ocean, giant drill, whatever is needed, Gear had it.
  • Nice Hat: The important hat from the first episode.
  • Nintendo Hard: Apparently, Spindango Fundulation is this. Justified, as it's really a test made by an alien race to see who would be mighty enough to defeat the other evil alien race.
  • Nightmare Sequence: Waffle has a couple when he's temporarily convinced that he's evil.
  • Not So Above It All: Hovis normally acts reasonable and Genre Savvy enough, but he tends to make snarky comments whenever he finds a way to throw jabs at Mr. Blik, such as joining the fun of calling him "Mr. Pickles" when his fur turned green.
  • Old Retainer: Hovis.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: The cats once tried to sneak into Kimberly's sleepover to get some root beer (they ran out). The disguises consisted of wigs and dresses. This would actually be half-plausible if they weren't cats.
  • Perspective Magic: One of the aspects of the world inside the secret door.
  • Pet Heir: Guess who.
  • Power Incontinence: Blik temporarily gets magnetic powers from static buildup in his fur. As the episode progresses, it slowly grows more powerful and more uncontrollable, to the point that it was dragging large freight ships towards Blik.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent:

"101 Signs that You are Evil. Sign #1: You are friend of snakes. Whew! Good thing you're a newt."
...or newts.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

  • Rich Idiot With No Day Job: The explanation for why the cats have so much time to goof off.
  • Screwed by the Network: If you look at the episode premieres, you'll notice that there are long breaks in the premieres after the 9th, 16th and 19th episodes. That's right, there was a 4-month break before the last episode premiered. Also, after going off-air on Nickelodeon for a few months, it was moved to premium channel Nicktoons Network - but they somehow only managed to air 17 out of 20 episodes in a 13 month period before replacing it with El Tigre for some arcane reason. It probably would have been 16 if not for the fact that the second-to-last episode was aired way earlier in the order for a Music Week the channel was doing.
  • Selective Magnetism: Averted big time. When Blik accidentally gets uncontrollable, increasingly stronger magnetic powers, everything starts flying at him, up to giant freight ships.
    • Well, technically it's played straight. At that level of magnetism, he would have probably been pulling iron from the ground beneath him.
  • Species Given Name: Human Kimberly is human.
  • Sphere Eyes
  • Rule of Funny: The reason for everything.
  • Selkies and Wereseals: In one episode, the banshee that's haunting the Highland Quid Clan is in fact a selkie (called a "seal woman" in the show) under a curse.
  • Servile Snarker: Hovis.
  • Shout-Out: The cats ride in a ridiculously awesome car named Gear, a shout out to the inspiration of the show.
  • Sibling Rivalry: The cats, quite often.
  • Sixth Ranger: Katilda.
  • Smart Ball: Waffle occasionally states the definitions of words like fulcrum or gimlet, as if he was a judge at a spelling bee contest.
  • Space Whale: Wish-Granting Space Kraken, actually. Get it right!
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Gordon and Waffle, in keeping with the Lighter and Softer tone of the show and its general absence of continuity.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Katilda.
  • Suddenly Always Knew That: Dear Mrs. Cramdilly used to have a collection of medieval weaponry.
  • Tastes Like Diabetes: In-universe example. Due to Gordon stuffing a cutesy diorama in the Earth's core (again, just roll with it), the entire earth becomes this, with Gordon becoming Godchu without the lightning, Blik becoming a doll, and Waffle becoming a flower. Then, the cuteness collapses on itself and things start turning south...
  • Team Chef: Gordon, and a very good one as long as his food's not too...Scottish.
  • Team Pet: Gomez and the other newts.
  • Televisually-Transmitted Disease: Gordon's 'allergies'
  • Terrible Trio: The Chumpy Chump Brothers
  • The Ditz: Waffle
  • The Grays: The Halloween episode aliens.
  • The Jeeves: Hovis
  • The Noseless: Gordon, Blik, and Mr. Waffle all lack one.
  • This Is My Side: One episode has the house split up between the cats.
  • Trademark Favorite Food: Well, favorite drink. The cats like root beer enough to (1) have an entire vault dedicated to the drink and (2) disguise themselves as girls and sneak into a child's sleepover to get it.
  • Tsundere: Katilda is closest to Type B. She's usually a relatively nice cat (a bit crazy, but nice) but when it comes to Blik, things tend to get violent.
  • Uncle Pennybags: All the cats. Well, they don't actually give out money, but they're okay for the most part.
  • Undisclosed Funds: The cats are rich. How rich, we don't actually know.
  • Vaporware: The DVD.
  • Vetinari Job Security: When Blik temporarily moves out to live with hobos, Waffle and Gordon enjoy time without Blik bossing them around. But, then they realize that Blik, being the bossy de facto leader, was the only one who knew how to do important things like use the remote or use the telephone.
  • The War Room: Apparently, cats' mansion has one.
  • Wall of Weapons: In the finale of the "allergies" episode, there is an entire arsenal of various weapons.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Waffle's moon-gravity basketball dunking.
  • World of Chaos: Again, secret door. The place runs on cartoon physics.
  • Zany Scheme: Pretty much any scheme that the cats come up with.
  • Zombie Apocalypse: Waffle inadvertently causes one of those by grabbing the wrong book on a bookcase. He then defeats them with Frickin' Laser Beams.

Gordon: Laddie, I said blue cookbook, green room. Green cookbook, blue room is... The Scottish Book of the Dead!
Waffle: Oh. That explains the long and mysterious incantation with sour cream.

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