Felix the Wonderful Cat
One of my earliest childhood memories (early 1960’s) is sitting in front of our Black and White television and watching with rapt attention while the following lyrics played:
Felix the Cat,
The wonderful, wonderful cat!
Whenever he gets in a fix
He reaches into his bag of tricks!
You’ll laugh so much your sides will ache,
your heart will go pitter-pat,
watching Felix the Wonderful Cat!”
While the theme song may be a bit corny, those who remember watching the exciting episodes of Felix the Cat in their heyday will remember with fondness that tune. Who is Felix you may ask? Well, his name is partially derived from the Latin word for “happy”. He is a walking, talking and quite intelligent Cat, completely black in color and with large round white eyes and a fantastic belly laugh that he gives at the successful end of each of his adventures. Felix was born during the silent-film era, but went thru many evolutions and morphed into the loveable character we all recall today.
The versions I recall best are the ones from the 50’s and 60’s where Felix starred in 260 television cartoons distributed by Trans-Lux starting in 1958. Felix would have adventures along with his Magic Bag of tricks alongside the characters that included the sinister, mustachioed Professor; his intelligent but bookish nephew Poindexter (with an IQ of 222); the Professor’s bulldog-faced, bumbling sidekick Rock Bottom; an evil, cylindrical robot and “King of the Moon” named The Master Cylinder; and a small, unassuming and friendly Eskimo named Vavoom, whose only vocalization is a literally earth-shattering shout of his own name.
Felix’s unprecedented popularity leads to many companies and organizations adopting Felix as a mascot. The first of these was a Los Angeles Chevrolet dealer name Winslow B. Felix who first opened his showroom in 1921. Being raised in Southern California, I readily remember the large neon sign of Felix Chevrolet, with its giant, smiling images of Felix. It is easily one of Los Angele’s best-known landmarks to residents, standing watch over both Figueroa Street and the Harbor Freeway.
In my college days, I fancied myself as a hacker and went by the name Felix the Cat. I would collect hacker tools for the Commodore 64 and Apple II in my floppy disk case which I called my bag of tricks. What an imagination I had as a kid! Never was a threat to any software company in any way… I just collected hacker tools. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha (My best Felix laugh).
Tags: Cartoons, Felix the Cat
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