The Cat From Outer Space (1978)

Gotta love when a movie is exactly what it says on the tin. You know what to expect with a title like this. Right? Riiiight?

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The year is 1978. Last year, a little movie called Star Wars took the box office by storm and absolutely crushed everything Disney released to a fine space dust… except The Rescuers for some reason. By the next summer, science fiction was the thing, and wouldn’t you know it? Disney finally picked up on what was trendy! They’re learning! This being 70s Disney, things still aren’t promising, but at least they’re acknowledging what the audience wants to see. That’s a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the script was written by Ted Key, who gave us the shining gems that were Million Dollar Duck and Gus. Oof. In the director’s chair, we have Norman Tokar, who’s been with us since 1962’s Big Red. Sadly, he would pass away a little less than a year after this film wrapped, making this his last movie. A sincere thanks for Candleshoe and The Apple Dumpling Gang, but on the whole, it’s been real, it’s been fun, it hasn’t been real fun.

But did Tokar go out on a good note? Well…. no. The Cat From Outer Space is regarded as a minor cult classic now, with a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but at the time, it was critiqued for being too long and too predictable. The Disney comedy formula got old ten years ago, and yet here we are, still throwing a fumbling everyman into wacky situations where he gets upstaged by an animal. No matter how good the special effects are, the horse is dead, stop beating it.

STORY

Cold opens are a rarity in the Disneyverse, but we sure have one here. It’s almost entirely hidden by violently green credits, but you can mostly get the gist. This time, we jump right in without even an establishing shot. Just right into it. Farmer Dallas McKinnon, looking exactly like you’d expect the voice of Big Thunder Mountain to look, grabs his gun and creeps through the bushes to find a flying saucer crashed right on the edge of his property! It looks kind of like a ladybug and kind of like Plan 9 from Outer Space. And I know I just made that joke in Return to Witch Mountain but Disney is not exactly meeting the standard set by Star Wars here.

The alien inside, Zunar J5/9 Doric 4-7, calls home to report the emergency landing, but the mothership can’t get anyone out there. He’s on his own, with just 69 hours to fix the ship and get to the rendezvous point before he’s stuck on Earth forever. Well, there’s no time to lose so Zunar J5/9 Doric 4-7 heads down the gangplank. And we see that he’s none other than the title of the movie!

Four military guys drive up to investigate reports of a UFO. General Stilton, the leader of the group, immediately assumes it’s the Communists and orders his underlings to call the Pentagon. Zunar J5/9 watches unnoticed as they begin the first of several running gags that isn’t nearly as funny as somebody thinks it is, repeating “Colonel”, “Captain”, “Sergeant”, “Yes sir!” as each of the General’s orders gets kicked down the chain of command. As the Sergeant confronts the farmer and swears him to absolute secrecy, a helicopter hauls the spaceship away. The military guys take their leave, unaware that the cat from outer space is stowing away on their truck bed using his magic telekinetic collar.

As the last of the loooong credits fade away (yeah, three paragraphs in), a NASA expert comes out to examine the flying saucer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have that much information. All he can really do is admire the craftsmanship and confirm that it’s not Russian. Okay, there’s a lot of things in this movie that make it feel like it was made almost twenty years before it actually was, but the Red Scare references are definitely one of them. None of this is exactly what General Stilton wanted to hear so he orders his men to call in anyone who might know anything. If it wasn’t built by human hands, that means it was built by something else. From somewhere else. And the pilot could be anywhere, anyone, or anything.

The next morning, the cat follows the military guys out to the Energy Research Laboratory, home of Dr. Heffel and his team of scientists. Heffel, by the way, is played by the incomparable Hans “Captain Hook” Conreid in his final Disney performance. His team includes Dr. Elizabeth Bartlett, the only woman in this movie and an expert in vapid love interest-ology, and Dr. Norman Link, a gambling addict and an expert in being annoying-ology. There’s also Mr. Stallwood, played by Roddy McDowell in a major downgrade from his Bullwhip Griffin days. He’s just a gofer and not a scientist at all so Heffel throws him out. A truly winning cast of characters.

After impressing upon the gathered brainiacs the importance of keeping this top secret, General Stilton opens his briefcase. Inside is a mysterious object that looks not unlike my humidifier at home, except sparkly. And floating. He tasks everyone with figuring out how it stays suspended, but he shuts everyone down before they can get more than a few words out. Meanwhile, Stallwood sets up a radio transmitter in the supply closet to report back to a Mr. Olympus that his employers are onto something big. He just doesn’t know what yet. But one thing’s clear- Stallwood’s a spy!

General Stilton gets sick and tired of all the guesswork and yells at the scientists to give him something concrete. Dr. Liz Bartlett pipes up that she knows another scientist, named Frank Wilson, that might have some more insight. He has some unusual theories about electromagnetism, and they might be useful. Heffel has his doubts but hey, they’re not getting anywhere as it is so what harm could Wilson do?

But we meet Frank, and all he has to say on the subject is that the propulsion unit looks like an artichoke and might be powered by mayonnaise.  Charming.  But nah, that was only a joke that didn’t go over well, much like most of this movie.  His actual theory is a long stream of junk science involving electromagnetism and the “primal mainstream”, the current of energy that powers the universe.  All these big words probably make Key feel smart.  He insults General Stilton by snarking that the energy coming from his brain could power an electric train.  Liz is mortified and Heffel physically hauls him out of the meeting.  But someone is impressed: the cat hidden in the rafters.

The cat follows Frank down to his lab, home to an admittedly pretty awesome Rube Golberg coffee machine.  The dejected scientist distracts himself from his moping by trying to name the stray cat he found, eventually settling on Jake.  And, since the cat can’t make fun of him, he outlines some of his theories about the world’s electromagnetic energy as the fuel of the future.  And it almost looks like Jake is reading his notes.  Weird.  He takes a cursory notice of Jake’s fancy collar and decides to take him home until he can get in touch with his owner.  Maybe he can bring him over to meet his neighbor, Liz.

And here she is now!  And she’s not happy.  He made her look like a total fool in front of General Stilton, and after she’d already had to endure tons of sexist insults for the crime of standing up for him.  She won’t be getting anywhere near his carpool that night after that stunt, though she does acknowledge that Frank has no idea about how to take care of a cat.  While she gets Jake some water, he finally gets a chance to explain himself.  He was just overwhelmed by the amazing propulsion unit, and hey, so is Liz.  Even though they carpool together, they’ve apparently never talked before and it turns out they’re very interested in each others’ work.  Some excruciatingly awkward nerd flirting later, they decide to chat more over dinner.  And she hurries out.

Jake muses on how well that went.  Naturally, Frank is absolutely shook by the fact that the stray cat he just found is talking, but Jake has more important things to worry about.  Like his broken space ship that he needs to get fixed in less than three days or he’ll never see home again.  And, since Frank is the only human who has come close to figuring out his ship’s propulsion unit, Frank’s going to be his repair guy. Frank still can’t get over the whole talking alien cat thing, so Jake explains that where he’s from, they just didn’t need to evolve farther than that.  Which is not how that works.  Instead of developing our bodies, his people evolved superior intellects that somehow enabled them to manufacture things like the magic collar and space flight without opposable thumbs.  To demonstrate, he makes a bunch of musical instruments play themselves.

Once at Frank’s apartment, Jake enjoys a meal of chopped kidney, the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted.  Then he gets back to business and asks Frank to help him fix his ship in exchange for the secrets of the universe or something.  Frank agrees and we waste no time rushing out to the hangar.  And by “waste no time”, I mean we waste a lot of time.  Frank stops this movie’s sense of urgency cold inquiring about the magic collar.  Without it, Jake is an ordinary house cat, which directly contradicts what Jake said about having a highly developed brain.  However, the power being tied directly to the collar means Jake’s not the only one that can use it.  Even an unevolved creature like Frank can get it to work.  And you know what that means!  Fun with special effects!  Frank grips Jake’s collar and levitates several feet in the air.

Just then, his neighbor Link bursts in like he owns the place.  He nonchalantly asks why Frank was flying, but it’s no big deal.  He’s much more focused on sating his gambling addiction with the big basketball game, and since his wife threw him out, his only option is to intrude on Frank.  Frank tries to push him out, but Link ain’t moving.  He’s about to lose big on this game, if something doesn’t change.  But lo and behold, something does change.  At the very last second, Jake’s collar glows.  The ball tips into the hoop against the laws of physics, and Link won his money!  His telekinesis works long distance apparently. Sure. And now that he got his way, Frank can push him out of the apartment.

Frank and Jake get ready to head out to the hangar, but meet with yet another distraction.  Liz is at the door, all dressed up and ready for their date.  She even brought her cat Lucybelle along, and Jake is instantly smitten with the fluffy white Persian.  Unfortunately, Frank forgot all about the date in the wake of the whole magic space cat thing.  He stumbles all over himself trying to find an excuse until Jake bails him out with a violent sneezing fit.  His cat got sick and he has to run to the vet!  Perfect!  Liz agrees to take a rain check, Frank escapes into the elevator, and we are finally on the way to the military base, unaware that Stallwood the Spy got there first.

This super mega ultra top secret military base is guarded by the ultimate in military defense technology: a padlocked chain link fence.  Because this is literally Witch Mountain with a cat instead, Jake telekinetically opens the lock and they waltz right on in.  They encounter absolutely no opposition, either.  No guards.  No guns.  No nothing.  Frank just enjoys a leisurely jog through the base all the way up to the hangar where the spaceship is held.  It’s buck wild.  This would be a good point to set up a good, tense, dramatic heist.  But nah.  This is 70s Disney, baby.  Right outside the hangar, Frank finally encounters one singular guard with a German Shepard, but Jake’s collar freezes them in place and that’s the end of that.

Continuing from the pattern of the absolutely useless security on this base, the door to the hangar isn’t even locked.  Frank follows Jake right into his ship, marveling at all the advanced technology.  But Jake (probably) doesn’t have time to give the grand tour.  He gives Frank instructions on how to help find the problem, using a lot of gobbledygook technobabble nonsense that doesn’t actually mean anything but makes Ted Key feel smart.  My favorite part of it is the sonic transducer: a device which is capable of breaking down solid matter and projecting it… through space… and who knows… perhaps even TIME. ITSELF.

Something’s wrong with the transducer, so Frank has to fly to the roof to fix it.  To do that, he borrows Jake’s spare collar, and spoiler alert, the fact that Jake even has a spare collar never comes up again, even when it would greatly benefit the plot for the spare collar to come up again.  Arrrghghghgh.  Frank uses it to levitate up on some highly visible wires to change the induction transducer or something none of these long words actually mean anything.  He wastes more of Jake’s precious time messing around while Stallwood watches in awe from the skylight.

It’s back to business when Jake calls Frank back to the ship.  Looks like Jake found the problem: a piece of the fuel cell equivalent or something is completely fried.  Jake can’t make the emergency repairs without a material called org-12, and Frank has no idea what he’s talking about or how to get it on his planet.  Jake has the computer read out the material’s chemical properties and Frank realizes that org-12 is just Cat Planet’s name for elemental gold!

It’s time to go. Jake’s freeze spell or whatever the scifi equivalent is wears off, and the revived guard realizes hey, maybe civilians shouldn’t be able to get this far into a military installation. So the cavalry finally gets their rears in gear. Frank sneaks through the chaos with the strangest run I have ever seen. It’s like he’s being directed by the Ministry of Silly Walks. Slapstick ensues. People falling over trash cans. Cat flying at a guy’s face. Running. Crashing. Stallwood getting knocked off the roof into a garbage truck. More weird running. Eventually, they make it back to Frank’s motorcycle, but the military’s trucks box them in. So our telekinetic magic alien levitates the bike over the heads of the astonished military goons. It was a lot more impactful in ET.

Our intrepid trespassers make it home safe and sound. Jake chows down on a bowl of tuna, which he likes even more than the chopped kidney. He might be happy, but Frank’s not. By his calculations, they need $120,000 worth of gold and not only does he not have anywhere near that kind of money, that is way too much gold to fit in a space as small as Jake’s cosmic gas tank. Jake isn’t worried about it. He can just shrink it. But he doesn’t understand the money problem no matter how much Frank explains the concept of living paycheck to paycheck. Before they can get too far, Link saunters back in to watch the horse race he’s bet on. And that gives Jake an idea. If he can use his powers to rig a bunch of sporting events, they can just place bets for the $120,000!

To prove his point, Jake uses his powers make Link’s chosen racehorse, a broken down nag confusingly named Sweet Jake, suddenly run on fast forward and win the race. Frank still doesn’t think this harebrained scheme could possibly have a chance, but this is a post Walt live action movie so Jake pushes him to move forward. And to teach Frank how to gamble, he insists on telling Link about the magic space cat. Naturally, Link doesn’t believe them. Not even when Jake makes beer jump out of his glass and back into its can, or when it sprays him in the eye, or when he makes the paper towels wrap around him like a mummy. Link snaps that he’s done listening to this and he’s finally going home, so Jake levitates him around the apartment. And that finally convinces him. But he’s not the only one who witnessed Jake’s amazing powers. No one realizes Stallwood is outside the window with a video camera, capturing the whole thing for his employers.

The military finishes searching the spaceship for evidence and finds incriminating fingerprints all over everything. Weirdly enough, there’s also fur and pawprints everywhere. They run the fingerprints through the computer database and quickly come up with a match: Frank Wilson from ERL. Heffel can’t believe one of his scientists, even the most incompetent one, could possibly turn traitor for the United States. I’m more surprised that a computer in 1978 can turn up a person’s entire name, social security number, work history, and more with a scan. I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure that’s not how this works now. But I’m probably expecting a lot from a movie that throws around the phrase “neo-mag neutralizing intercog” like it means anything.

Link calls up his bookie Honest Harry at Earnest Ernie’s Pool Hall and shows Frank how to bet a bundle on three football games at massive odds. They settle in with snacks to watch the big game. Their team wins the first one without even needing Jake- so far so good! But Liz comes back, throwing a wrench into their plans. She’s back to try their date again, so Jake tries the sneeze routine again. Liz offers to go fetch a vet in their building and misinterprets Frank yelling “get him” at whatever’s happening in the football game for permission to go fetch the vet. Dr. Weinger is just as preoccupied with the football game as the other men, barely paying attention to his patient. Incidentally, he’s played by Alan Young, who would soon go on to be the official voice of Scrooge McDuck. More importantly, he pulls Jack’s collar off! Jake manages to get it back on long enough to win the second game, but that’s as much as he can do. Dr. Weinger sticks him with a needle, and the sedated cat goes limp and useless with one game to go.

With his dreams of vaguely defined world changing sciency-ness at bay, Frank throws the vet out for sedating his cat without consent. Liz tries to smooth things over, and storms back to Frank’s apartment to chew him out for being rude. But Frank wants nothing to do with her. They have to get to Earnest Ernie’s to cancel the bet, or they’re going to lose everything, and forget getting the gold. Liz blocks the elevator demanding to know why the man she sort of kind of maybe has a crush on, so Link tries to push her away. She threatens that she’s a black belt, which gee, sounds like she should be quite a force to be reckoned with if, perchance, she were to be threatened by the bad guys later in the movie? Spoilers: nope. Shrinking damsel. This never comes up again. But for now, Frank has no choice but to tell her the truth about Jake. She just believes alien space cat instantaneously with absolutely no pushback whatsoever.

Some military guys disguised as deliverymen follow our heroes to Earnest Ernie’s, keeping an extra close watch on Frank. Earnest Ernie refuses to cancel the bet, and there are no other sporting events happening that day that they can bet on. Their only hope is a game of pool against Sarasota Slim, the best hustler around. And okay, what kid is going to get that joke? I only got that joke because I’d watched the Game Grumps play Minnesota Fats: Pool Legend earlier the same day I watched this. Who is this movie even aimed at? Anyway, they’re desperate, so Frank agrees to have Liz play Slim, because she has the longest odds because she’s delicate and female and can’t be good at things. Frank tries to use Jake’s collar to manipulate the game, but he’s not as practiced as Jake so the balls end up flying everywhere but the pockets and Slim crushes their hopes and dreams.

At the last possible second, the disgusting scent of some guy’s onion sandwich rouses Jake. Frank fills him in on everything he missed while he was out cold, but it’s too late. The game is lost. Frank scrapes together the very last of their money and begs for one more game, but Earnest Ernie chooses now to grow a conscience and refuses. Honest Harry, who is very definitely not a mob boss, insists on letting them play, but those odds just aren’t long enough. To get them to their coveted $120,000, they end up having Liz play the next round blindfolded among some other conditions that I don’t really understand. With Jake’s help, Slim just can’t get the ball to go where he wants it to, but Liz drops every single ball right into the pocket. They did it! They got the money!

Two thirds of the way through the movie is a good place to introduce our main villain, right? I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s something to be said for building an aura of terror and mystery around your bad guy, but Shere Khan and Sephiroth this ain’t. This is Mr. Olympus, Stallwood’s employer who has been mentioned all of once this entire time. He’s… a mob boss? Criminal mastermind? Bad Bond Villain? I don’t know or care and neither do the writers. He’s evil. That’s all we get. He watches Stallwood’s video, fascinated by the possibilities presented by the mystical cat collar. Stallwood preens in the glow of a job well done, but it’s not over yet. First, they have to get a hold of it. So off they go.

The military guys just now get around to running the fur and pawprints into their computer. There must be a mistake. It can’t possibly just be a cat, right? General Stilton orders another test, but it turns up the same results. And come to think of it, Stilton remembers that Frank has frequently been seen with a cat in his arms. The evidence is more incriminating than Stilton could have dreamed, and that means it’s go time. The fake deliverymen are back, staking out Frank’s apartment building. Somewhere offscreen, Frank, Link, and Liz ran down to the gold store to pick up a giant gold bar. It’s getting close to time for Jake to leave, so he tears himself away from grooming his new girlfriend Lucybelle and gets to shrinking the gold. Suddenly, the military breaks down the door to arrest them all on the spot. Lest we expect a 1970s comedy to have any kind of tension, Jake freezes them on the spot and finishes shrinking the gold without incident.

There’s only one problem left: how to get on the base with the whole military very slowly gunning for them. Frank solves that problem by stealing Stilton’s clothes right off his body. The already unconvincing illusion is ruined by Liz and Link following close behind with the cats. Shockingly, it doesn’t fool the fake deliverymen, but Jake just freezes them and everything’s fine. Isn’t this an exciting climax? Stallwood and Olympus roll up, and Stallwood excitedly points out the cat using his powers while the gears turn in Olympus’s head. Frank zooming off in the military’s jeep gives Olympus a perfect opportunity to order his goons to descend on Frank’s friends with guns drawn. Frank himself makes it to the base just as pathetically easily as he did the first time. All he has to do is bark orders. He doesn’t even bother hiding the cat! And the guards immediately evacuate the hangar and leave the spaceship completely clear of any witnesses because they suck at their job. Jake slinks into the spaceship and gets booted up, calling to the mothership and preparing for liftoff.

Back at the apartment, the immobilization wears off and the Colonel, Captain, and Sergeant try their best to hide their snickers at seeing the General in his underwear. But General Stilton gets the last laugh with a meaningful look, and soon he leads the way back to base wearing the Colonel’s clothes with the Colonel in a fetching orange bathrobe. Link rushes up to the base and declares that he’s a friend of the General, which is apparently all you need to get clearance to a top secret military installation. Only after escorting Link to the fake general do the guards finally figure out that Frank is not their boss. So Jake freezes them. And Link spits out what he rushed over to say: Liz and Lucybelle have been kidnapped by Olympus! Frank has no idea who Olympus is, which kills any tension and makes the confrontation a lot less satisfying. A hero and villain who never interact and don’t know the other exists is a lot less exciting and emotionally investing than a connection like Simba and Scar, or Basil and Ratigan, or any number of better movies. It’s infuriating.

Well, compelling climax or not, the girlfriends are in danger. Jake insists on helping because he’s fallen in love with Lucybelle. Frank refuses- he has to get home and complete his mission, or he’ll be stuck on Earth forever. And no one wants it. Frank and Jake say a hurried goodbye, which is the sort of thing you’d expect to have some kind of weight to it. But it doesn’t. It’s just a rushed “thanks bye.” Jake never fulfilled that promise to help Frank do science either. In a better movie, I’d say it was foreshadowing but that’s giving The Cat From Outer Space way too much credit. The ship lifts off as Frank and Link watch. The military guys watch in shock as the UFO disappears into the sky, and it looks like that’s the end of the title character with twenty minutes left. But shocker! Jake leaps into Frank’s lap! He chose to stay on Earth with his friends! There’s no time for an emotional payoff, though. They have to get to the girls.

Apparently they’re so worried about their girlfriends that they wait until morning to meet up with Olympus at the airfield. Stillwood gushes that all they need to do is hand Liz over and they’ve as good as got the collar, but Olympus has no intention of giving Liz back alive. Liz, our self-proclaimed black belt rocket scientist, sits back passively and lets the men talk about killing her. Oh, she tries to threaten them, but he just tells her to shut up and she melts back into the scenery. Great. The military shows up, so Olympus fires up the chopper and takes off over their heads. Jake streaks out of the car and hops aboard a busted up cropduster. There’s no way it can fly- unless Jake makes it fly. So Frank climbs in and chases down our bad guys, because it makes much more sense than just stopping the helicopter. It’s not like they had a spare collar earlier or anything, right? Nah. No need to write that back in after introducing it. Better to have yet ANOTHER overly long chase sequence with janky stuntwork and the worst taxidermy cat I have ever seen in my life.

The upshot is that Jake loses the bad guys by threading through a bridge so small you’d have to make a conscious effort to smash into it, causing the villains to helplessly smash into it. Our tough rocket scientist black belt faints, because she’s only a girl after all. The villains recover from the crash and open fire on the cropduster, except for Stallwood who inexplicably lets loose a signal flare inside the helicopter. Like an idiot. The blast locks the controls, and Olympus declares that it’s time to bail out. Unfortunately, there’s not enough parachutes for everyone, so Stallwood and Liz are SOL. Stallwood panics and grabs Olympus, clinging for dear life as they all plummet to the ground. Liz is left alone in a pilotless helicopter, and she’s only mildly annoyed about it. So she does what every hyper competent rocket scientist black belt pool hustler action girl would do and screams for a useless bumbling man to save her.

Once again, the climax of a Disney comedy drags on for way longer than it needs to. Jake flies the cropduster under the helicopter. Frank climbs up to grab Liz’s hand. He fails. He grabs again. He fails. He grabs again. He fails. The two spend another twenty years of my life grabbing for each other and missing and falling and catching themselves and grabbing for each other and falling. Then Lucybelle gets down, and Jake gets distracted by making sure she’s okay. Then the humans grab for each other and miss and fall and grab for each other and miss and grab for each other and miss and fall…. It’s as riveting as it sounds. They don’t even seem particularly concerned, either, which really kills the suspense. The noises and reactions they make sound more like they’re working on an experiment that’s not going well more than mortal peril. After for freaking ever, Liz and Frank drop snugly into the cropduster, and everyone’s safe and sound.

Meanwhile, Team Bad Guys is left dangling by their parachute strings over a vast canyon that is very definitely really there and not a bad composite shot. Link gives Team Military the rundown completely offscreen, and they do a complete 180 on Jake. He’s not a criminal anymore, he’s an emissary of an allied nation. Because Link said so, I guess. So, all’s well that ends well, and all that’s left to do is… for Jake to become an American citizen? What? What is this ending? It’s really easy for him, too. All he has to do is repeat the Pledge of Allegiance and levitate the judge for no apparent reason. That’s it. I’m so tired. But that’s the incredibly odd note this movie ends on. No kiss between Liz and Frank. No more mention of space. No Jake telling Frank the science secrets he promised at the beginning. Just the Pledge of Allegiance. And that’s it.

Look, guys, I don’t expect a movie called The Cat From Outer Space to be high cinema. It sounds like schlocky B-movie fun, and it… well, it’s schlocky. Would-be plot elements drop in and out with little to no bearing on anything, shoved aside by complete nonsense in the name of wackiness. The entire premise of the movie- Jake and Frank’s agreement for Frank to help in exchange for scientific knowledge- falls by the wayside about halfway through. The fact that they even mention the spare collar and Liz being a black belt only to have them just never get brought up again, when we spend half an hour messing around on planes instead, is infuriating. Instead, it gets too bogged down in Disney live action tropes to actually be fun. The gambling. The mob. The chase scenes. Yet again, we have a premise that the writers couldn’t figure out how to flesh out into a full length film, so they just packed it chock full of the old standbys from twenty years ago. We’ve been spinning our wheels mixing and matching identical scenes in every movie since Shaggy Dog in 1959. I keep saying this, but it’s long since stopped being entertaining.

CHARACTERS

Frank Wilson would have been played by Dean Jones had this movie come out when it feels like it should have come out. It’s the exact same character he always plays, somehow wide-eyed and skeptical at the same time and pretty much just here to have a human lead. It’s also weird that he’s very clearly written as young, naive, and idealistic and then not played that way at all. Ken Berry is a poor man’s Dean Jones at the best of times, as seen in Herbie Rides Again, but the fact that his appearance and acting style are completely at odds with the script just make the whole character not work. Not that they’re really trying. He’s just here for the cat to have someone to talk to.

Liz Bartlett is the only female scientist in the movie. Naturally, that involves her never getting to do anything sciency, constantly being belittled by her colleagues, looking stupid in a room full of men, and getting used by everyone around her. But hey, at least she’s a black belt! It would be a shame if she never got a chance to use that skill and became reduced to a shrinking violet damsel in distress for the spies to toss around. Wouldn’t it? She’s an improvement on Sandy Duncan’s previous character in Million Dollar Duck, but that’s not saying very much. It’s always disappointing when you can tell the writers don’t think much of women- can they really not think of ways to write female characters in comedy without making them ditzy or shrieking harpies? They don’t even follow through with the love interest angle! Side note, in real life, Sandy Duncan is actually severely allergic to cats. That’s why Lucybelle is usually seen in a cat carrier held away from her- that, and apparently that cat was mean and angry and kept scratching her up.

Norman Link is such an awful neighbor that it almost comes off as disingenuous when he’s suddenly the ride or die best friend ready to risk everything for Frank. He’s like if Kramer was addicted to gambling. And that is an absolutely buck wild character to have in a family movie. It’s far, far, faaaar from the first time gambling has been a plot point in one of these tired comedies, but I can’t think of a character who so clearly had a problem that was played for laughs. It’s kind of uncomfortable. It would be nice if his redemption of sorts, where he tells the military Jake’s on their side, didn’t happen offscreen, too. McLean Stevenson is one of a few M*A*S*H* alumni in the cast. In fact, he was replaced Harry Morgan, who we’ll talk about in a minute!

Zunar J5/9 Doric 4-7 / Jake is far and away the best thing about that movie. He’s got some sass to him that reminded me a lot of Thackery Binx. And if you know me at all, you know making me think of Hocus Pocus is always a mark in the plus column. His powers are really convenient, though, to the point where they take away any sense of dramatic tension this movie should have. Why should we care when they’re being chased, if he can just freeze their pursuers? Why should be worry whether Frank gets the gold in time, if Jake can just rig a bunch of sporting events? It’s telling that he had to be sedated for a large chunk of the movie just to pretend there’s some kind of stakes to anything. And it still comes off as padding!

He’s played by brother and sister Abyssinian cats named Rumple and Amber, and they are absolutely adorable. I’m not really a cat person, but if I was, I’d want one of these guys. They’re precious. And very well trained- this is some of the best animal acting I’ve seen, even if it is unfortunate that the poor things are sedated out of their minds in the pool hall. For his voice, they brought in comedian Ronnie Schell of Gomer Pyle USMC fame, who also had minor roles in Strongest Man in the World, Gus, and Shaggy DA. Schell also played one of the military officers, but his voice had to be dubbed by another actor because it was too recognizable as Jake.

General Stilton comes off like he’s going to be the villain, only to fade into the background and turn it all around once Olympus shows up. It’s a shame. Not only is the entire Olympus plot completely pointless and underwritten, but a well-intentioned extremist like Stilton was shaping up to be is an interesting villain archetype. Trying in his own misguided way to save America from potentially hostile aliens? That’s a plotline right there! That’s something for Frank and Jake to go up against! He’s the hero of another story and I’d love to see them take that to its conclusion instead of randomly throwing in spies who don’t do anything. I also just really enjoy Harry Morgan’s particular brand of snark and dry wit in these comedies. It’s usually a breath of fresh air to see his name pop up on a cast list, especially after he stole all of Snowball Express and Apple Dumpling Gang. I say usually because he’s sadly not given very much to do here except bark orders. He barely even gets any oneliners and it is a tragedy.

MUSIC

After his less than stellar work on Return from Witch Mountain, Lalo Schifrin gets another chance to score a Disney movie. And it’s… well, it’s a soundtrack. As is usual with Disney’s space themed endeavors, there’s a lot of theriman to create an otherworldly feel. And then most of the rest of the score is surf guitar, which is pretty much the only part of this movie that feels like it’s from the 70s and not the mid 60s. Of particular note is Olympus’s leitmotif, which mixes foreboding trembling strings with… pixie dust chimes. It’s bizarre.

ARTISTRY

Most of this genre is pretty unremarkable looking, shot mostly on Golden Oak Ranch with lots of harsh, flat lighting and a static camera that’s entirely fixated on wide shots. This is no exception. We do get some nice effect work… sometimes. We also get some not so nice effect work at other times. The exterior and the interior of the spaceship are delightfully kitschy in a low-budget, B-movie, MST3K kind of way. And then you get to the plane sequences. And guys. I’m not advocating for throwing a real cat around a plane. I’m actually very glad they used a fake cat. I just wish said fake cat wasn’t the ugliest piece of taxidermy I’ve ever seen. Even Sandy Duncan has commented on how bad these things looked: “The problem is that these stuffed cats really don’t look like cats at all. This infuriates Norman who sometimes swings them by their tails and throws them against the wall — breaking them in pieces.” 

FINAL THOUGHTS

I really, really, feel like I’ve been writing the same review for two and a half years. And let’s be real, I kind of have. Judging purely by the titles, I think this era is coming to a close but I hesitate to say that with any kind of certainty. It just… keeps going. And in this particular movie the elements I’ve been whining about are assembled in such a haphazard and weird fashion that the movie that resulted is so incredibly strange that it comes off as the worst of the lot. Or maybe that’s the fact that it symbolizes how incredibly out of touch the Disney studio is at this point. After all, this kind of movie was popular almost twenty years ago. And they’re still making them. Send help.

Favorite scene: Jake taking Frank to the spaceship for the first time. You get to see Jake in his element, along with some unique set design, and I got to quote Rocky Horror.

Final rating: 3/10. Uggghghghghghghhghgghghhghghghghghghg.

Back to fixing the images and protecting my blog from Imgur’s nonsense, I guess.