Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse is a 1960s children's cartoon television show that was produced by Trans-Artists Productions and syndicated by Tele Features Inc. The characters were originated and created by authors Bob Kane and Gerald J. Rappoport as a spoof of Kane's earlier creations, Batman and Robin. In many ways, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse presages the camp aspects of the later Batman live-action series, which William Dozier and Howie Horwitz produced as a villain-driven action-comedy lampoon. Storyboard design was by Kane's assistant/ghost Sheldon Moldoff.

Plot

In the animated series, the pair are anthropomorphic animal superheroes without known secret identities (the green-eyed caped crimefighter and his squeaky-voiced companion are usually addressed as simply "Courageous" and "Minute") who live in the Cat Cave. When summoned via the Cat Signal over their television set, Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse race to the scene of the crime in their sleekly feline red Cat Mobile which can convert into both the extendable-winged Cat Plane and submersible Cat Boat and thwart the criminal plots of various villains who threaten Empire City. The episodes contained storylines and screenplays and characters written by authors Gerald J. Rappoport and drawings and characters by Bob Kane. Though they fought many miscreants, the duo's recurring arch-enemy was Chauncey "Flat-Face" Frog who appeared in nearly every episode. The five-minute length of the cartoons made the series suitable for use as interstitials or airtime fillers, especially to accommodate a movie or show that ended at an unusually early time, as well as animated content for local children's shows. The first episode was broadcast on Wednesday September 14, 1960 as part of "The Tommy Seven Show" by means of channel 7, of which the call letters were WABC-TV of New York City.

Characters

Heroes

Supporting characters

Villains

Voice cast

Episodes

Home video releases

A&E Home Video (distributed by New Video) released all 130 five-minute-long episodes on DVD in Region 1 on October 29, 2002.

Music

The memorable theme music by Johnny Holiday features a walking bass line and is fashioned after the theme for Peter Gunn. It has most notably been performed in concert by the New York Dolls and their version of the "Courageous Cat Theme" featured on their album Rock'n Roll (1994). The theme was also featured in "Thousand Dollar Bill", a 1959 episode of the Mike Connors detective series Tightrope!. It also appears in "The Jackson Greene Story", a 1959 episode of The Millionaire (TV series). It was also sampled on Jay-Z's first recording "HP Gets Busy" by High Potent (1986), LL Cool J's "I'm Bad" (1987), and Soul Coughing's "Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago" (1994). In 2019, Brown Bear Records released a cover of the theme by The Gavoons on Brown Bear on TV, a compilation album of covers of television themes.

Merchandise

In 1960, Simon Says Records released a 12" vinyl record entitled COURAGEOUS CAT in the story of “Around the World in a Daze” featuring Dal McKennon and Johhny Holiday performing all the voices. It runs for 24 minutes and is available to listen to on Youtube. Other items of merchandise from the early 1960s included a Courageous Cat Sliding Squares Puzzle, a Super Slate, a Collegeville Courageous Cat halloween costume including mask, at least two coloring books, and matchbooks.

Later appearances

Reruns of Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse were shown on Nickelodeon's Weinerville in the 1990s along with reruns of Batfink and both segments of The Alvin Show. In Germany and Austria the show was called Mirakulus und Supermaus, and was broadcast as part of the German children's television show Bim Bam Bino (1988-98) on Tele 5. Some episodes were released on VHS and DVD.

Film version

In 2012 it was announced that Evergreen Media Group had acquired the rights to produce a live action/CGI film based on Courageous Cat, but as this has not manifested it is mostly likely no longer in development.

Streaming services

All episodes are currently available to watch on Amazon Prime in the US, and most are also available on stream services PROClassicTV and PlutoTV. As of 2023 episodes are available to watch in blocks of 5 on BFLIX.