“He knows every trick, doesn’t miss a lick. When it comes to keeping fat, some city slicker, no one is quicker than… that darn cat!” This week we watched That Darn Cat (the original version released in 1965). This is the 42nd movie in the Disnerd Movie Challenge. Scroll down for our main review if you watched with us last night. For the rest of you, our synopsis is below.

Synopsis

A cat named D.C. (short for Darn Cat) wanders through the neighborhood, tricking dogs and flirting with a female gray cat. Later, D.C. follows a customer, Iggy, walking out of a delicatessen holding some wrapped salmon steaks. Iggy returns to his apartment and meets up with his partner, Dan. The two men talk about the bank heist they pulled off. They have taken hostage Ms. Miller, a bank teller. Iggy wants to kill her, but Dan says they need to keep her alive for now, and sends Ms. Miller to the kitchen to cook the steaks. D.C. has followed Iggy to the apartment and sneaks into the kitchen. Ms. Miller notices D.C. and attempts to carve “HELP” into her wristwatch, but she is interrupted before she can finish the last letter. She slips the wristwatch around D.C.’s neck, and D.C. returns home to the Randall household. Patti Randall arrives home along with her boyfriend Canoe. They go inside the house, and are seen by the neighbor Mrs. MacDougall, who is scandalized by the sight of a boy entering Patti’s house. Her husband, Mr. MacDougall, tells her it’s none of her business. Patti and Canoe learn about the bank robbers still at large, and realize they know the kidnapped bank teller. Patti’s sister, Ingrid, arrives home with Gregory Benson, whom she is sort-of seeing. Gregory keeps talking about how much trouble it was for him to hunt a duck for tomorrow’s dinner. D.C. overhears about the duck and sneaks off to steal it. Gregory catches D.C. in the act, but D.C. escapes to the Randall home, where Gregory angrily yells at Patti over what D.C. did. He threatens to shoot D.C. if he ever sees the cat on his property again. That evening, Patti discovers the wristwatch and finds the scratches on the back. She figures out what it means, and by the next morning also concludes the wristwatch came from Ms. Miller. Patti tries to tell this to Ingrid, but Ingrid warns Patti to drop the subject since she has no evidence and to not go to the police. After Ingrid leaves for work, Patti decides she won’t go to the police—she’ll go to the FBI. Patti goes to the FBI office and meets Agent Zeke Kelso, telling him of her conclusions. Kelso’s boss agrees it’s the best lead they have and assigns Kelso to the case. Kelso isn’t happy about it, partly because he is allergic to cats. Patti and Kelso go to Patti’s house, where Mrs. MacDougall is scandalized to witness yet another man entering the house. Inside, Kelso prepares to photograph and pawprint D.C., neither of which go well. Canoe loudly knocks on the front door and Patti pretends to be sick in order to send Canoe away, although he realizes something is up. At the FBI office, Kelso informs his team of their mission to tail D.C. in hopes he will lead them back to the robbers’ hangout. They’re reluctant, but take on the job. At the robbers’ apartment, their landlady realizes a third “tenant” is in the unit and demands additional rent. Iggy and Dan reassure her and send her away, and they realize they can’t keep Ms. Miller around much longer.

As the agents get ready to tail D.C., Mrs. MacDougall attempts to eavesdrop on the stakeout using a fishing line and her husband’s hearing aid, but Mr. MacDougall stops her. D.C. eventually goes out for the night, and the staged FBI agents report the street names they see D.C. walking down. D.C. eventually leads the FBI to the robbers’ apartment and they notice him staring up at the second floor, but do not realize he was looking at Ms. Miller. D.C. leaves before the agents can act on this. Ingrid returns home, upset with Gregory over his continued references to his mother. She finds Kelso hiding out in her room and freaks out, causing Kelso to become distracted. The other FBI agents continue to follow D.C. but miss the name of the street he just went down. They spot him going into a house, and Kelso instructs them to follow him inside with guns out. It turns out D.C. has returned to the Randall home. The FBI agents burst into Ingrid’s room, scaring Kelso, Patti, and Ingrid. The stakeout fails, and Kelso’s boss agrees that they can no longer rely on D.C.’s prowling. Kelso decides to try using a transmitter and attaches it to the cat’s collar. Patti tests out the bug on Ingrid, who gets trapped in a closet during the test. Kelso persuades Patti to go on a date with Canoe so he can stop interrupting their case. Kelso hears Ingrid calling for help, but he is unable to get her out from the closet. D.C. leaves for another prowl and Kelso follows him, forcing Ingrid to have to bust down the door herself. Kelso follows D.C. to a drive-in movie theatre where Patti and Canoe are watching another surfer film. D.C. wanders around the lot as Kelso chases him down, while he himself is followed by theatre workers because he doesn’t have a car. Wacky antics ensue, and D.C. runs away to Gregory’s house as Kelso continues to follow. Canoe and Patti soon return home, while Gregory catches D.C. and attempts to shoot him. The terrified cat runs back to the Randall house as Gregory gives chase. Gregory forces his way inside demanding to know where D.C. is even as Patti and Ingrid tell him to leave. Patti finds D.C. under a bed, safe. Kelso, who also returned to the house, hides in a closet to avoid Gregory, but he is found. Gregory immediately assumes Ingrid has a secret boyfriend and says he will no longer drive Ingrid to work. Canoe also wants to know what’s going on, but is scared off by Gregory’s rifle and rage. With the cat lead a bust, Kelso has to stop the case as they have no evidence of a jeweler selling Ms. Miller the wristwatch.

The next morning, Patti goes to a jewelry store while Canoe tails her without her knowledge. Patti persuades the jeweler, Mr. Hofstedder, to go along with her scheme, much to his unease. She pretends to be Mr. Hofstedder’s foreign niece and calls the FBI to report evidence. Kelso’s boss calls back Mr. Hofstedder, who reluctantly confirms the story. The FBI agents use this new “lead” to continue the case. Meanwhile, the robbers prepare to kill Ms. Miller and hide her body. Back at the Randall house, Kelso decides they will send a human along with D.C. to locate the robbers. Canoe demands Patti tell him what’s going on, but she rebuffs him. As they prepare for another stakeout, Patti accidentally lets slip to Kelso’s boss that she knows Mr. Hofstedder. Luckily, D.C. distracts everyone and Patti goes after him. Mrs. MacDougall sees everyone leaving the house and excitedly tries to follow them. Mr. MacDougall has had enough and calls the police, warning them of a prowler dressed as an old woman. The police track the “prowler” down and arrest Mrs. MacDougall. Canoe, who has been following Patti after she left with Kelso, tries hiding against a garage door, but he gets stuck between the opened door and the ceiling. D.C. arrives at the apartment and sneaks in, while Kelso and Patti wait outside. Just as the robbers are about to murder Ms. Miller, D.C. attacks the robbers while Kelso calls for backup. D.C.’s collar slips off and the crooks realize he was bugged. Kelso knocks on the door and pretends to be looking for his wife’s lost cat, but Dan doesn’t buy the story. Patti shows up and pretends to be Kelso’s wife, but Dan sees right through the charade. He points his gun at them and orders Iggy to collect the stolen money. Patti throws D.C. at Dan’s face, and Kelso immediately lunges at Dan and gets the gun out of his hands. The two men fight, while Patti manages to almost stop Iggy. Iggy runs out the door but trips over D.C. and falls down the stairs, with the money bursting out of his suitcase. Kelso defeats Dan and handcuffs him and Iggy. The next day, Patti and Ingrid enjoy reading the headlines. Gregory arrives and tells Ingrid all is forgiven. Ingrid is all smiles, but then slips past Gregory and into Kelso’s car to go on a date with him, leaving Gregory dumbfounded. Canoe crashes his car into Gregory’s thanks to his neck being twisted out of shape due to the garage door incident. He confesses to Patti that he was following her and apologizes for his behavior. Patti accepts this and says Canoe is maturing. Mrs. MacDougall arrives home and yells furiously at her husband, who hightails it out of there. D.C. is last seen with the female gray cat from earlier, followed by their litter of kittens.

Thoughts Before Watching

Megan: I’ve never seen this film before, but it has Hayley Mills, a cat, and a mystery, so this sounds quite promising. I’m hoping it’ll have some good comedy to it, too.

Kevin: I’ve heard of this movie a lot, partly thanks to the sequel that came out in 1997, but I’ve never watched either one of them. I think my parents might have watched the original version on T.V., because something about the preview image looks familiar. Well, it’s got comedy and mystery to it, so it has to be better than Those Calloways, right?

Thoughts After Watching

A great mix of comedy and suspense!

Kevin: I already knew this had to be funny, especially given its 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. When you have a title called That Darn Cat, you know that most of the comical moments will come from funny antics and situations. I’ll admit I was also expecting there would be some wit or clever jokes, but this movie pretty much relies on situational humor. And you know what? Disney finally nails it! Previous comedies were just okay, and some completely missed the mark, but That Darn Cat delivered. It also holds its own in the suspense/thriller department, too. Some of the funniest moments are D.C. stealing Gregory’s duck (and subsequently showing off the duck in his mouth even as Patti tries to defend him), the scene at the drive-in theatre as Kelso tries to capture D.C. (the way those cars bounce had me laughing out loud!), and the stakeout where Kelso’s buddies try to follow D.C. to the house they believe the robbers are hiding in, only for it to be the Randalls’ home where Kelso and Patti are doing their stakeout. However, my absolute favorite scenes were any involving the Randalls’ neighbors Mrs. and Mr. MacDougall. Mrs. MacDougall’s nosiness is over-the-top, and while she is certainly annoying, all of the scenes are played for laughs. The way Mr. MacDougall both tries to ignore his wife and tell her off for butting into other peoples’ business is hilarious, and the cream of the crop comes when Mrs. MacDougall decides to tail Patti, so Mr. MacDougall calls the police on his snooping wife and gives her description as a prowler! I’m not going to pretend that that was not satisfying; no one should be that nosy for any reason, especially when you’re just a neighbor who has no legal guardianship over someone else’s children.

The mystery aspect of the movie is also done really well, although it’s not as big of a highlight as the comedy. The film does try now and again to play off the scenes with the robbers and their kidnapped bank teller with some degree of hilarity, although there are moments where it’s treated seriously and you almost can’t help but wonder if the bank teller is in serious trouble. For example, the landlady of the robbers’ apartment realizes they have a third person (although she doesn’t realize what’s going on) and demands the rent money from whom she believes is another tenant. Iggy and Dan realize they can’t keep Ms. Miller around forever, and this just increases the sense that they could very well get away with killing her. It’s moments like this that have just enough suspense that can keep you a bit on edge, all the while nicely balanced with plenty of comedic scenes and jokes. The movie doesn’t feel like it jerks you around from one mood to another, but instead all flows very naturally.

Canoe and Gregory are terrible partners

Kevin: If you’ve been following us, you probably knew this was coming. Disney once again displays representations of “men being men.” As is the case with other movies of this time period, this apparently means having men give in to the more aggressive behaviors of their personalities. This is exemplified most in the characters Canoe Henderson and Gregory Benson, the (sort-of?) boyfriends of our female leads, Patti and Ingrid, respectively. Just… wow, these two. Almost every moment they are on screen is an over the top show of how manly they want to be. Everything they want is right and everything their romantic partners want is wrong, or so they seem to believe. They’re also highly aggressive and controlling.

Canoe: The Surfer Bum

Kevin: The first time we meet Canoe, he dismisses Patti’s tastes in movies as “unhealthy” and “depressing” even though all she’s really asking for is to go see a romance movie, or at the very least something different than the last several movies they’ve seen, all of which have been about surfers and surfing. Shortly later, we see another example of how little Canoe thinks of Patti’s opinions when he’s busy fixing himself a sandwich within Patti’s own home (at least he’s fixing his own sandwich instead of asking the woman in his life to do it for him) and complaining about a lack of peanut butter and olives for him to eat. The following exchange occurs:

CANOE: “You know, Patti, sometimes you worry me. I mean, you don’t eat enough to keep a bird alive.”

PATTI: “Canoe, this is just a wild idea but has it ever occurred to you there’s more to life than surfing and eating?”

CANOE: “Like what?”

PATTI: “Forget it. I just realized I was talking to myself.”

It’s difficult to just write this off as the typical behaviors of a young man. While that could be true at the time, it doesn’t make it excusable. These negative traits continue throughout the movie. As the case unfolds and Patti finds herself helping Kelso out, Patti forgets about a beach date she hadn’t truly agreed to. The day of the date, Canoe arrives at the Randalls’ doorstep to pick her up. She answers the door and attempts to convince Canoe she’s too sick to go, although it’s clear to Canoe that something is amiss. Rather than do the sensible thing by walking away after being told to leave (because in this moment Canoe would have every right to feel slighted at what looks like deeply suspicious behavior), Canoe attempts to force his way into his girlfriend’s home! There are so many issues with this, both with the action itself and Canoe’s very words during this scene. His jealously comes out a little later when he sees a mysterious car out in front of the house while picking up Patti for a drive-in movie date. It’s actually understandable since he has no idea what’s going on and Patti is being secretive, so I can’t blame him for that. It’s really just how he chooses to deal with these things that is such a detriment. For example, we later see that Canoe is tailing Patti when she goes undercover to Mr. Hofstedder’s jewelry shop. Not only is this creepy, but again it’s a mark of how controlling he is of Patti (or, at least attempts to be, because he has no power over her at all). In the end, his sneaking around trying to find out what Patti’s been up to leads him to getting stuck in a garage door. All of what’s transpired seems to cause some kind of maturity in Canoe, and he later admits his behavior to Patti and apologizes for it (all while unable to turn his head to face her directly because his neck is twisted up thanks to the incident with the garage). Pattie acknowledges that this shows Canoe is maturing. I suppose it’s true to a small degree. Still, I will at least say that Canoe looks like a saint compared to the disaster that is Gregory Benson.

Gregory: The Tantrum-Throwing Mama’s Boy

Kevin: Gregory’s attempts at wooing Ingrid are almost the opposite of how Canoe tries to win over Patti. Where Canoe is a bit of a slacker and just wants to go with the flow of things (a reference to his love of the surfer movies, maybe?), Gregory is cocksure and smarmy, and his constant references to his mother are a bit too weird. His first scene has him going on and on about how great of a cook his mother is, and how much trouble he went through to procure a duck for the amazing dinner she is going to make for him and Ingrid. Seriously, this exchange goes on forever. I get wanting your partner to like your family, but Gregory drops in so many things about his mother and her fantastic cooking that it actually starts to sound creepy. There’s nothing to suggest he actually likes Ingrid. Instead, he appears to be exploiting opportunities to show off the wonderful life he has with his mother. Gregory also completely misses the mark when showing Ingrid affection, such as a moment where she clearly lifts her head in an attempt to get a kiss on the lips, only for Gregory to purposely kiss her forehead. Now, it becomes clear that Ingrid doesn’t have much affection for him anyway, as we later learn she is sort of using him just to get rides to work. Still, I would argue that Ingrid is at least trying to make him happy. The problem is that she becomes miserable in turn. Gregory continues making weird references to his mother, such as insisting Ingrid wear a dress that matches his mother’s favorite color, in spite of Ingrid trying to counter that she looks horrid in yellow. Ingrid nevertheless relents to his request due to his forcefulness. There are two other moments that stand out. The first is when Gregory mistakenly believes Kelso is Ingrid’s secret boyfriend, and Gregory immediately wonders what his mother will think of it. The second is at the end of the movie when he tells Ingrid that his mother has forgiven all the trouble that has been going on lately. Ingrid has yet to actually meet his mother, so this nameless, faceless woman’s opinions of Ingrid mean nothing. All of this shows how little Gregory actually cares about Ingrid as a person. To him, she is more of an accessory he can use to impress his dear mother (soooooo weird!).

Like Canoe, Gregory also has moments of aggression. However, his aggression comes out as full blown rage. Our first instance of this is when Gregory learns D.C. stole the prized duck. Gregory is absolutely beside himself. Now, the loss would be incredibly frustrating and I could understand getting angry. But Gregory goes as far as attempting to shoot D.C. multiple times. At one point, Gregory follows D.C. into the house. Like Canoe, he also attempts to force himself into the Randalls’ house, only he is successful. However, I suspect this is partly because he is holding a freakin’ rifle in his hands and looks completely deranged with rage. This guy is the absolute worst character in this film.

If there’s one positive thing about what happens with these two, it’s that the film finally seems to do something that not many previous Disney films managed. It shows that these negative traits are bad and the men cannot continue to be this way and still maintain healthy relationships. In fact, both Patti and Ingrid are a lot more forceful and assertive compared to other women in previous movies. They are willing to put the men in their lives in their place and not always deal with their nonsense. So, in the end we see that Canoe and Gregory cannot keep being the men they are without repercussions. In Canoe’s case, he realizes he’s wronged Patti and seeks to change (again, it’s not the greatest arc, but it’s something). In Gregory’s case, he remains a jerk, and loses Ingrid in the process. Oh, and the icing on the cake is Canoe crashing into Gregory’s nice car because Canoe can’t see straight due to his messed up neck. Obviously, it would still be many years before we began to see more equality between Disney men and women, but it is still a start.

Finally some women with agency!

Megan: While the boyfriend characters in this film are indeed atrocious, the women in this film have far more agency that we’ve seen in previous films. Sure, they’re nowhere near their modern day counterparts, but it feels like such a vast improvement over some of the last few films we’ve seen. Perhaps this has something to do with the male/female duo who both wrote the book and the screenplay: Gordon Gordon (nope, not a typo - that’s his name), and Mildred Gordon. While an additional man helped write the screenplay (Bill Walsh), it’s clear that having a credited female writer involved helped this film pass the Bechdel test, albeit with a pretty slim margin. Most of Patti and Ingrid’s conversations revolve around the male cat, D.C., the “boyfriends” (Canoe and Gregory), or the male agent(s) taking over Ingrid’s bedroom, while only one conversation is about another woman (Ms. Miller) and one or two other conversations involve Ingrid telling Patti what not to do. Still, it’s enough to pass. Beyond that, however, we do see the female characters in this film exerting some control on their situations.

Megan: Take Ms. Miller, for instance. Although she’s unfortunately thrown into the “damsel in distress” trope, she is not one to just sit helplessly and let this story happen to her. In fact, if not for her quick thinking with her watch at the beginning of this film, it’s unlikely anyone would have been able to rescue her. After all, it was her scratched “HEL” and the watch around D.C.’s neck that led Patti to deduce Ms. Miller was being held somewhere in the neighborhood, thus kicking off the FBI investigation. Ms. Miller doesn’t stop there, either. Once the cat has left, she eavesdrops on her captors’ conversations. She knows they’re planning to kill her, so she tries both to persuade them to let her go, and to draw attention to the apartment by lighting a fire in a garbage can right under the window. Had no one come for her, we can be sure Ms. Miller wouldn’t have let her captors kill her without a fight.

The landlady, Mrs. Tabin, may have a very minor role in the film, yet she, too, holds her own. While she may have mistakenly leased an apartment to two criminals, when she hears a third person in their unit she is quick to demand what is rightfully hers. She doesn’t stop with a single warning, either. When the crooks evade her request for additional rent, she returns again and again—once even snatching a $20 bill out of the air and pocketing it as the additional rent charge. When the men tell her the other tenant is a woman who is ill, Mrs. Tabin is quick to offer a bowl of soup for the sick woman (albeit it’s partly a ruse so she can confirm that there is in fact a third tenant staying there illegally, but still, she didn’t need the pretense of caring for a sick tenant since it’s her job to know who’s living in her building—it shows she actually cares). If Patti and Agent Kelso hadn’t succeeded, it’s quite possible Mrs. Tabin and her prison-guard sister might have been the ones to rescue Ms. Miller.

Even the nosy neighbor, Mrs. MacDougall, has quite a bit of agency. When she suspects something isn’t right at the Randalls’ house, she takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of it. She even creates her own listening device with a fishing pole and a hearing aid (and it likely would have worked, too, if her husband hadn’t stopped her). When she sees suspicious persons leaving the Randalls’ residence, she goes after them without question. Granted, she likely wouldn’t devote so much of her time to spying on her neighbors if she had a career to give her purpose in life. (Someone with her knack for spying and her ingenuity would be an asset to the FBI.) It’s likely because she’s a bored housewife with nothing to do that she spends so much of her time investigating everyone else’s lives.

Megan: Ingrid might seem like she doesn’t have much agency compared to the other women in this film, but she has actually flipped a common trope on its head. Whereas we’ve often seen men using women or otherwise stringing them along, in this film Ingrid is the one stringing along Gregory. It’s clear she has no romantic interest in him (in the scene Kevin mentioned about the kiss on the forehead, I took it as she was expecting he’d kiss her on the lips and so she somewhat reluctantly braces for a kiss she doesn’t want, only to be somewhat annoyed that he kissed her on the forehead like a child). Ingrid is literally using Gregory as a free carpool service, and though Patti warns her that Gregory is likely to get the wrong idea, Ingrid is happy to keep up with the charade if it means she’s guaranteed a ride to and from work each day. She’s also the head of household while their parents are away. While she isn’t able to control her sister Patti much at all, she is able to manipulate Gregory until a better offer (Agent Kelso) comes along.

Patti, of course, has the most agency of all the female characters in this film. We get the sense from Ingrid’s remarks to Patti that this isn’t the first time Patti has gotten involved in some sort of police matter. Much like Mrs. MacDougall, Patti doesn’t seem to have any sort of occupation to give her days purpose or meaning, so she has taken it upon herself to become an amateur sleuth, much like Nancy Drew. When D.C. arrives home wearing a watch, Patti takes it upon herself to unravel the mystery behind it. She knows she needs the FBI’s resources, but she also recognizes there’s a good chance she won’t be taken seriously, so she sneaks past the FBI’s receptionist in order to speak to Agent Kelso directly, having selected him as one most likely to hear her out. Throughout the movie we see Patti using persuasion and misdirection to maintain her involvement in the case, and to ensure the investigation continues. While her interest in the case is partly rooted in her own personal curiosity, Patti also wants to rescue Ms. Miller, whom she knows as a casual acquaintance. In the end, it is Patti’s persistence in convincing the FBI to follow her cat that leads to Ms. Miller’s rescue, which makes Patti the true hero of this story.

Still no escape from sexism

Megan: For all the agency the women have in this film, there’s still a veil of sexism that is likely a byproduct of when the movie was created. Patti, for example, is overly concerned with her looks, commenting on how she’s too young to have bags under her eyes, and primping before meeting with Agent Kelso. No male character ever makes the same remarks as to his own appearance, and not one of them tries to primp for the women in this film. Similarly, the bank robbers refer to Ms. Miller as “mother” and “moms” while ordering her to cook for them. There’s no evidence Ms. Miller is even married, but regardless of whether or not Ms. Miller has children, there’s no reason for complete strangers to refer to her as “mother” or “moms”—it becomes an insult. And insisting that she cook for them simply because she’s a woman/their captive is similarly insulting (and also stupid on the part of the robbers—what’s to stop Ms. Miller from tainting their food?) There’s also the many layers of sexism in the sisters’ relationships with Canoe and Gregory that Kevin has already touched on. While I appreciated that Gregory was clearly cast aside for his terrible behavior toward Ingrid and Patti (and D.C.), it bothered me that Patti was so quick to take Canoe back because his apology was a sign of his “maturity.” If a guy I was dating were to stalk me and spy on me the way Canoe did, it would take a lot more than an apology to make me consider going out with him again. In fact, there’s a 99.99999% chance I’d break things off right on the spot, not invite him in to have a sandwich as Patti does at the end of the film. Still, at least we’re seeing some progress in the right direction.

There is so much falsifying going on!

Kevin: I’m not complaining about this because it made for some hilarious scenes, but it’s a good thing this movie has a happy ending. So much of how the case was handled was done illegally. Not only does Patti falsify information and get her friend Mr. Hofstedder to be a participant, but later she also schemes to find more evidence even if she has to create it to make it work! Yeah, no, if this evidence came to a fair judge the case would be thrown out and the evidence deemed inadmissible. Part of this can likely be explained by Patti’s admittedly endearing nature; she simply wants to help. (And Haley Mills’ acting just sells the performance.) Besides, it’s easy to believe the ends justify the means here. After all, an innocent woman’s life is at stake. So, while what Patti does is illegal, it brings up deeper questions about the difference between morality and law. Something may be illegal, but it doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.

Kevin: This was truly a fun movie, and one I wouldn’t mind seeing again a few times. It shows its age a bit, particularly with character relationships, but because the humor is situational it means the comedy isn’t necessarily outdated. The acting is also really great here. Hayley Mills showed she had superb acting chops as early as Pollyanna. With this film, the only thing not perfect is her attempt at an American accent, but in a way this just emphasizes the movie’s comedic nature. She still delivers a wonderful performance. We’ve seen her grow and mature over four films including this one (she was contracted for six Disney films, two of which are not yet available on Disney Plus, thus not in our challenge). While she has played the plucky, glass-half-full sort in just about every role, she has managed to still make each character look and feel different. As she exits her final contracted Disney film role, a newcomer arrives in the form of Dean Jones (Agent Kelso), who would go on to star in several Disney films of his own. I especially loved his acting during moments when he was sneezing around the cat(s) playing D.C.. The way his eyes watered and his voice got all nasally was so convincing I actually wondered if Jones was allergic in real life. Either way, those moments and many more showed some fantastic acting, and I’m looking forward to more of his films as we continue the challenge. Lastly, Roddy McDowall was amazing as Gregory. He had the whole package down and sold the role perfectly. The first time I saw his character, I actually told Megan I was reminded of Neil Patrick Harris’ character Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, thanks to the suit and what was (to me) similar sounding voices and looks. (Gregory is far worse than Barney ever is, though.) All together, between the acting and the comedy/mystery combination, I would definitely recommend anyone see this at least once.

Verdict

Kevin: 6

Megan: 6

Final Score: 6

What did you think of That Darn Cat? Tell us in the comments below!

Ways to Watch

Disney Plus

DVD