The Aristocats: Special Edition, Dig Those Swingin' Cats!

Walt Disney Studios recently re-released the classic gem from 1970, The Aristocats, and I am pleased to report that, after 38 years, it's still a swingin’ picture.

The Aristocats was first released on video in 1996, the same year our oldest daughter was born. Those were the days, you may recall, when a Disney feature video release was an opportunity to be taken advantage of; it might sell out and not be available for purchase again for years! So, of course, I bought it. Our family has been watching that same video copy of the film, off and on, for the past 12 years and we still enjoy it. The only change has been that now there are more of us watching and the tape is sort of stretched and compromised due to wear and tear. But last week our Aristocats viewing experience evolved.

That's when I got my hands on a copy of the newly released The Aristocats: Special Edition, and a family favorite became even more special.

The Aristocats: Special Edition comes with the bells and whistles required for any animated feature released on DVD. It has a games and activities section, which I explored with five-year-old Boy Wonder and which he enjoyed for about five minutes. It includes a deleted scene and song, which I watched with the girls (ages 10 and 11) and to which they paid little or no attention; we all agreed it was a scene well cut. I tried to explore the "Backstage Disney" section, but none of the kids were interested, and neither, really, was I. What we all wanted to get back to was the movie itself which, thanks to digitization, is now not only a lot of fun, but also much more beautiful.

The improved color quality really hit me in the scene in which the mama cat, Duchess, and her kittens, Marie, Toulouse and Berlioz -- the titular aristocats -- are in the drawing room painting and practicing "scales and arpeggios." The paint with which Berlioz creates his portrait of the butler, "old pickle-puss Edgar," is so much more vivid than in our old tape copy that the difference was quite noticeable. The entire film is more colorful and clear in a way that refreshes and breathes new life into it. And this is a pretty lively film to begin with.

In case you have forgotten, or have never seen The Aristocats, this is the jazzy Disney movie. The one set in Paris and populated with cats and kittens that play trumpets, harps, guitars, drums, the stand-up bass and piano. They are, as Duchess (Eva Gabor), says, "shvingas," (that's "swingers" with an accent), hep-cats, alley-cats and aristo-cats, and they are a whole lot of fun. The supporting cast includes English geese (quite proper), a couple of very funny bloodhounds (one of them, Napoleon, sounds weirdly like George W. Bush when he declares, "I'm the leader! I’m the one that says when we go."), a mouse named Roquefort and the liveliest, swinging-est 90-something year-old attorney you ever met.

Even if you have already seen or own The Aristocats on tape, I recommend checking out this newest edition. It's sure to be a bright, swingin’ way to spend your next family movie night.

Sue "Mom on Film" Harvey is a mother of three who shares her passion for film with bi-weekly, family-friendly movie recommendations.

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