50 Fun Facts About The Aristocats

In which city is The Aristocats set?

The original story was set in New York; producer Harry Tytle moved it to Paris after London had worked so well for 101 Dalmatians.

In The Aristocats, Edgar carries the cats off on what?

A motorcycle and sidecar suits the 1910 setting, but it does not survive the trip: two farm dogs give chase, the machine comes apart, and the dogs end up riding in the sidecar.

In The Aristocats, why does Edgar decide the cats will outlast him?

He counts their nine lives: at about twelve years a life, Edgar's muddled sum tells him the four cats will be around long after he is gone, so he decides to get rid of them instead.

Which of Madame's four cats in The Aristocats is the talented painter?

Toulouse shares his name with the painter Toulouse-Lautrec, and his big work in the film is a rude portrait of Edgar the butler, which makes his sister giggle.

In The Aristocats, the kitten Berlioz is talented at what?

Playing the piano: Berlioz, who shares a name with the composer Hector Berlioz, cracks his knuckles like a maestro and then plays so that the keys catch his sister's tail.

The only girl kitten in The Aristocats is named after which French queen?

Marie Antoinette gave her name to the kitten, who tries to be a lady like her mother but still scraps with the two boys and runs to tell tales on them.

In The Aristocats, what is the name of the retired opera singer who owns the cats?

Madame Adelaide Bonfamille, voiced by Hermione Baddeley, dotes on her cats so much that she wills them her fortune ahead of her butler, which starts all the trouble.

In The Aristocats, what does Edgar sneak back to the farm at night to recover?

His hat and umbrella: Edgar is gloating that the police will never find a clue, and offering to eat his hat if they do, when he remembers where he dropped it.

In The Aristocats, how does Edgar overhear Madame's plans for her will?

Through a speaking tube, Edgar hears Madame's lawyer list her fortune and dances for joy, then learns that the cats inherit first and he only comes after them.

How does Edgar sedate the cats in The Aristocats?

Sleeping pills in a dish of cream: Edgar serves it as 'crème de la crème à la Edgar', and Roquefort, dunking a cracker in a kitten's bowl, nods off alongside the cats.

In The Aristocats, which two farm dogs ambush Edgar in the countryside?

Napoleon and Lafayette guard a French farm yet drawl like American country boys: their voices came from two Alabama-born sitcom stars, Pat Buttram of Green Acres and George Lindsey of Mayberry R.F.D.

What does the lead farm dog in The Aristocats do whenever his partner makes a suggestion?

Adopts the idea as his own: 'I'm the leader,' he snaps, before repeating whatever was just suggested, and he closes the film by ruling on when it is the end.

In The Aristocats, which vehicle do Duchess, O'Malley and the kittens briefly hitch a ride in?

A milk truck: O'Malley stops it by leaping at the windscreen, the cats help themselves to breakfast in the back, and the furious driver chases them off.

When two geese spot O'Malley thrashing in a river in The Aristocats, what do they assume he is doing?

Learning to swim, they decide, and badly: the geese offer a lesson and snip the willow branch he is clinging to, so their help very nearly drowns him.

In The Aristocats, the two English geese are named what?

Abigail and Amelia Gabble are twin sisters on a walking tour of France, and they make the cats waddle along behind them in goose formation.

In The Aristocats, what is the name of the two geese's tipsy uncle?

Uncle Waldo staggers out of a restaurant that had planned to cook him, already 'basted in white wine', and O'Malley decides he has been marinated in it.

In The Aristocats, where does Edgar plan to ship the cats after recapturing them?

Timbuktu: Edgar locks the cats in a trunk bound for it, but after the stable fight it is the butler himself who is shut inside and carted away.

In The Aristocats, what kind of animal is Roquefort?

A mouse, which is awkward when Roquefort is sent to fetch a gang of alley cats: they toy with him while he guesses O'Toole and O'Brien before blurting out O'Malley's name.

In The Aristocats, Frou-Frou, who helps subdue Edgar, is what kind of animal?

A carriage horse: Frou-Frou pulls Madame's coach, and Edgar unwisely boasts to her about the catnapping in the stable while Roquefort listens from the oats.

Who voices both Baloo and Thomas O'Malley of The Aristocats?

Phil Harris had shown in The Jungle Book how far a star voice could shape a character, so O'Malley was built around his easy-going patter, and Little John in Robin Hood followed.

What full name does O'Malley sing for himself in The Aristocats?

Abraham de Lacy Giuseppe Casey Thomas O'Malley is the name he sings, which Duchess says 'seems to cover all of Europe'; Italy's dub cut it down to Romeo, a Roman alley cat.

Which actress voices Duchess, the mother cat, in The Aristocats?

Eva Gabor was, the director said, 'probably the freshest femme voice we've ever had in a cartoon', and Duchess's ladylike personality was shaped around it; Robie Lester sang her songs.

Thurl Ravenscroft, the bass voice of the Russian cat in The Aristocats, spent five decades as which cereal mascot?

Tony the Tiger was Ravenscroft's for more than fifty years, always without credit, which is why one of America's most-heard voices belonged to a man few could name.

Which jazz legend was originally meant to voice Scat Cat in The Aristocats?

Louis Armstrong was the model for Scat Cat's look and manner, but he dropped out before recording a line, and Scatman Crothers was hired and told to imitate him.

Which instrument does Scat Cat play in The Aristocats?

Trumpet: Scat Cat leads the alley band on it and hands it to one of the kittens for a go, only for a bandmate to judge that the youngster 'blew it'.

Which Aristocats character led Disney+ to pull the film from young children's profiles in 2021?

Shun Gon, the Chinese cat, plays the piano with chopsticks and was voiced by a white actor; Disney's own advisory calls him a racist caricature of East Asian peoples.

Who directed The Aristocats?

Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney's Nine Old Men, also produced the film and remade it from a sentimental tale about finding homes for the kittens into a comedy chase.

What distinction does The Aristocats hold in Walt Disney's own career?

The last project he approved: Walt Disney saw Ken Anderson's early sketches and gave the go-ahead shortly before he died in December 1966, four years before the film reached cinemas.

The Aristocats was first planned as a two-part live-action story for which Disney television series?

Wonderful World of Color was the plan from 1962 until producer Harry Tytle suggested the cat story would work better as animation, and Walt Disney agreed in 1963.

Which Aristocats character, due to be voiced by Elsa Lanchester, was cut from the story entirely?

Elvira the maid was Edgar's partner in crime in the early drafts; dropping her left the butler as the lone villain and cost the film a comic duet written for the pair.

Hermione Baddeley, the voice of Madame in The Aristocats, played Ellen the maid in which Disney musical?

Mary Poppins had Baddeley below stairs as Ellen, the Banks family's maid; as Madame she ends The Aristocats by turning her mansion into a home for the city's alley cats.

Which songwriting duo wrote 'Scales and Arpeggios' and the title song for The Aristocats?

The Sherman Brothers wrote a string of other songs for the film, most of them dropped after the pair left the studio; The Tigger Movie in 2000 was their first Disney film in over 28 years.

Which French entertainer came out of retirement to sing the title song of The Aristocats?

Maurice Chevalier agreed after hearing a demo on which one of the songwriters imitated his accent; it proved his last work for the screen, and he died just over a year after the film opened.

Which song in The Aristocats replaced a rejected number called 'Le Jazz Hot'?

'Ev'rybody Wants to Be a Cat' came from Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker, brought in after the staff songwriters behind 'Le Jazz Hot' had left the studio, and it is the tune the film goes out on.

Terry Gilkyson, who wrote 'Thomas O'Malley Cat', wrote which Jungle Book song?

The Bare Necessities was the only Terry Gilkyson song to survive after Walt Disney judged his Jungle Book songs too dark, and it earned an Oscar nomination.

Bill Thompson, whose last film role was a tipsy goose in The Aristocats, was the original voice of which cartoon dog?

Droopy took his meek deadpan from Wallace Wimple, the character Thompson played on radio's Fibber McGee and Molly; at Disney he was also Mr. Smee and the White Rabbit.

O'Malley of The Aristocats was to be a striped tabby until the director recalled the trouble of animating which character?

Shere Khan's stripes had cost so much time and money to keep in place in The Jungle Book that O'Malley was redrawn as a plainer, cheaper alley cat.

The Aristocats opened across the United States on which day of 1970?

Christmas Eve brought the nationwide opening, about two weeks after a Los Angeles premiere, and the film was a hit that Disney sent back to cinemas in 1980 and 1987.

The two English geese in The Aristocats were voiced by the actresses who played the Pigeon sisters in which comedy?

The Odd Couple made Monica Evans and Carole Shelley a double act on stage, film and television; Disney paired them again as the goose sisters here and then as Maid Marian and Lady Kluck in Robin Hood.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics' consensus calls The Aristocats 'a mostly middling effort' redeemed by what?

Its voice cast and jazzy tunes win the consensus over, and Roger Ebert agreed: his three-star review called the two lead voices 'charming in their absolute rightness'.

A cancelled sequel to The Aristocats would have centred on which character finding romance on a cruise ship?

Marie was to fall for another kitten while her family took on a jewel thief at sea, but John Lasseter cancelled it with Disneytoon's other sequels when he took charge of Disney animation.

Which musician was attached in 2023 to direct a live-action Aristocats remake that was later abandoned?

Questlove, the Roots drummer whose documentary Summer of Soul won an Oscar, picked the remake as his first scripted feature, then said in August 2025 that it would not go ahead.

The Aristocats was the last animated feature released during whose tenure at the studio?

Roy O. Disney, Walt's brother and business partner, put off retirement to finish Walt Disney World, opened it in October 1971 and died that December, a year after the film came out.

Which Disney regular, the voice of Winnie the Pooh, plays Roquefort in The Aristocats?

Sterling Holloway had voiced a cat and a hunter for Disney, the Cheshire Cat and Kaa the python, before this film cast him as the hunted: the cats' nervous little friend.

In The Aristocats, what is the name of Madame's eccentric elderly lawyer and oldest friend?

Georges Hautecourt, voiced by Charles Lane, bounds up the stairs declaring that lifts are for old people, though he admits he is 'not as spry as I was when I was 80'.

According to the director of The Aristocats, on which movie star was Thomas O'Malley modelled?

Clark Gable, rather than Wallace Beery, the rough-hewn star behind Baloo: with one actor voicing both animals, the director wanted his tomcat sharper so the two would not seem the same.

What breed is the farm dog who leads the attack on Edgar in The Aristocats?

A bloodhound: by ear alone he works out that an intruder's squeaky footwear is a pair of oxford shoes, size nine and a half, with a hole in the left sole.

Scatman Crothers, the voice of Scat Cat in The Aristocats, later played the psychic cook Dick Hallorann in which horror film?

The Shining has Hallorann fly back from Florida and cross the snow to save the boy, only to be killed as he walks in; in Stephen King's novel the cook survives.

Why does Duchess turn down O'Malley's rooftop proposal in The Aristocats?

She could never leave Madame, Duchess says; when O'Malley protests that they are only her house pets, she answers that they mean far more to the old lady than that.

What change does Madame make to her will at the end of The Aristocats?

She cuts out Edgar: 'Scratch one butler,' says her lawyer, though Madame never learns of his crime and sighs that he would not have left had he known about the will.