Top Cat is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and originally broadcast in prime time on the ABC network.

Arnold Stang's vocal characterization of the main character was originally based on an impression of Phil Silvers's voice.

Top Cat and his gang were also inspired by the East Side Kids, roguish, street-smart characters from a series of 1940s B movies.

[2] The gang constantly hatch get-rich-quick schemes through scams but they usually backfire, and a frequent plot thread revolves around the local police officer, Charles "Charlie" Dibble (voiced by Allen Jenkins), ineffectually trying to either arrest them, evict them from the alley, get them to clean the alley, or stop them using the policebox phone.

He leaves for Hollywood in a limousine, accompanied by Top Cat and the gang in the guise of Benny's manager, valet, vocal coach, tailor, and chauffeur.

Jazz and his buddy Beau (voiced by Don Messick) are forced by Officer Dibble to keep the alley clean for 30 days.Benny wins a trip to Hawaii.

When Gutenbad offers a $10,000 reward to find the true violinist, the gang discovers that their neighborhood street cleaner is in fact Laszlo Laszlo (voiced by Leo De Lyon).Benny is a double for "Catwallader", the missing heir to a millionaire's fortune, the identification being clinched by a supposed birthmark on the sole of Benny's foot.

The lawyer appears with the real Catwallader, while Top Cat gets shocked to see that Benny's "birthmark" was chewing gum all along.

decides to attract her attention by pretending to come down with a rare illness, which will need a lot of nursing care.Benny has written to his mother that he's the mayor of New York.

Now Benny's mother is coming for a visit, and Top Cat and the gang must do everything they can to convince Mrs. Ball (voiced by Bea Benaderet) that her son really is the mayor.

This leads to Top Cat's being made an honorary police sergeant and Dibble's boss in the alley.Choo-Choo has fallen in love with a beautiful French cat named Goldie (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl); Top Cat and the gang help Choo-Choo to court her, but they hadn't figured on Goldie's jealous boyfriend Pierre (voiced by John Stephenson).When a stolen diamond ends up in Benny the Ball's stomach, it is up to Top Cat and the gang to find a way to retrieve him from Big Gus and his band of gangsters, who have kidnapped him and are attempting to retrieve the diamond the hard way.After Benny spends the night sleeping inside a museum, T.C.

He gives the check to Benny, who tries to show it to Top Cat (who mistakenly believes it is for 25 cents due to his latest hustle), so he tries to cash it himself.

In the end, the gang stays for several months until spring and the warmer weather arrive.Benny gets a new pet; a hungry, brown giant anteater which followed him into the alley.

Top Cat attempts to get rid of the animal until it is revealed that the anteater had escaped from the zoo and a large reward is offered for its return.An abandoned baby (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl) is found by Top Cat and the gang who intend on looking after it after finding a note from its desperate mother.

The first spree is at a local nightclub, where Benny falls in love with showgirl Honeydew Mellon (voiced by Sallie Janes).

She's in league with poker-playing con artists, who will do everything they can to separate Benny from his money.Officer Dibble takes a job at Cape Canaveral, and the gang discover about the luxurious treatment a chimpanzee (voiced by John Stephenson) receives while in the space program.

is diagnosed with only a bump on the head, but when paying the doctor's fee he offers his pocket clock, which was broken when he fell off the fence.

To help cheer him up, the gang decide to throw him a birthday party, with gifts from everybody in the neighborhood.Choo-Choo threatens to kill himself unless he can get a date with a Hollywood movie star named Lola Glamour (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl).

and the gang for a ride to show no hard feelings.A friendly hot dog vendor (voiced by Paul Frees) is swindled out of $1,000 by con men who pretended to have an oil well in Nova Scotia.

Top Cat disguises himself as a wealthy Texan in an attempt to get the money back, by convincing the crooks that the oil well really does exist.Officer Dibble attempts to break a record as the longest-serving police officer on the beat, which had been set years ago by his idol, policeman "Iron Man" Muldoon (voiced by Paul Frees); if he beats the record, he wins a vacation that would allow him to escape the gang for a while.

The gang and Dibble team up to catch the thief.Episodes of the series were released on VHS in Europe, as well as Worldvision Home Video in the United States.

Warner Home Video released Top Cat: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on December 7, 2004, as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classic Collection.

Each volume shows a group picture of Top Cat using Dibble's phone with his gang beside him, but the colour-coding is: The DVDs have since been made available to buy in other retailers across the UK.

[13] The gang's adventures continued off-screen in comic books as Dell (which became Gold Key) published 31 issues from 1961 to 1970.

[15] Top Cat had a backup story in Adam Strange/Future Quest Annual #1 in where he escapes from prison and meets Batman through a cosmic portal.

It also broadcast later with The Huckleberry Hound Show, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, The Flintstones and The Jetsons on Magyar Televízió from 1985 to 1990, and tv2 from 1997 to 1999 (together with Wacky Races, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Boomerang began broadcasting it in Hungarian in 2013 (the show had a one-off airing the year before as part of a Cats-themed block).

It was renamed Don Gato y su pandilla (literally Mr. Cat and his gang) and the main characters adopted different accents.

Besides Top Cat, all the other characters from the show were famous, and their popularity is commonly attributed by the excellent dubbing and voice acting:[24] The adaptation and translation was made by Rubén Arvizu.

In 2016, the characters from the show (all the cats and Officer Dibble) were used as part of a set of television commercials for the British bank Halifax.