Cartoon Cats

The first animated cat was George Herriman's Krazy Kat, transferring from paper to screen in 1916.

More successful was Pat Sullivan and Otto Messmer's Felix, who in his prime during the 1920s was as popular as Charlie Chaplin.

Felix was succeeded by Tom and Jerry, created in the late 1930s by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. This team's production company also made Top Cat, a popular 1960s television series.

The first full-length feature cartoon was Warner brothers' Gay Purree, in the 1960s, with Judy Garland as the voice of Mewsette, the feline leading lady.

This was followed in 1970 by Walt Disney's Aristocats, featuring the elegant Duchess, who was given voice by Eva Gabor, and the stouthearted drifter O'Malley, spoken and sung by Phil Harris.

Robert Crumb's sexually explicit Fritz the Cat was transferred from a cartoon strip to screen in 1972.

Since then, with the exception of Felidae (1994), the animated film that director Michael Schaak adapted from the novel by Akif Pirincci, felines have returned to peripheral roles such as the nightmarish urban cats in Stuart Little (2000).