Heathcliff

first off, riff-raff had the much hotter girlfriend. with that said, let me go on my tirade about this show. i am convinced that this show contained subliminal messages. i, too, used to watch this show almost every day. however, i cannot recall ever thinking it was good. i'd watch it from start to finish, without turning the channel, & the whole time i'd be thinking, 'wow, this show really sucks.' it is my theory that this show was used as an experiment on the under 13 demographic by a syndicate of advertisers simply known as 'the angry mob'.

I quite agree with the comment that lost were the days of magical cartoons. I grew up with G1 transformers and GI Joe - no 3D special effects and lame narratives.

I was delightfully surprised to see there were people in other parts of the world who shared my curiosity on the non-co-existence of HeathCliff and Riff Raff. This is a childhood mystery that I have grown up with up to today. When I was 7 and I started watching the first few airings on HeathCliff and the Catillac Cats, my mind did not distinguish HeathCliff and Riff Raff - you see they were both sort of orange and led the 3 other cats. So I took it they were one in the same essence. But with more airings and on careful inspection, I saw they were entirely different characters. Now, it is common place for writers to bring different comic personalities in the same setting,this habit was not so for earlier generation cartoons. Perhaps a sort of code of discipline in cartoon writing. I do not think their non-co-existence was for aesthetic reasons as per personality lines, but for legal reasons; they were engineered and voiced by two different people who reaped their individual credits. I must say however, in the aftertheme, you could see Riff Raff taking off his hat from HeathCliff's head with a stick, and I was deeply and passionately drawn to that brief scene - it triggered a sort of philosophic hypothesis that although they had a troublemaking essence in common, but when fused in the same time and setting, one respectfully recedes personality to the other to avoid a sort of time-paradox...and this extends beyond mere cartoon drama, because their co-existence was and would have been, in fact, illegal and a breech of contract with respect to the production laws governing that cartoon, and for credit reasons. So formal airing of HeathCliff could never permit co-existence of those characters.

The HeathCliff theme song is very nostalgic to me.

Heathcliff Heathcliff no one should, terrorize their neighborhood.... This cartoon came on everyday after school. The first half would be an adventure involving the comic strip cat Heathcliff, the second half would be about the much cooler and more happening cat, Riff Raff. Heathcliff lived in a house with a family, and Riff Raff had a much more happening pad in the junk yard. There were also three alley cats, one named Hector, one named Mongo and Wordsworth who always spoke in rhyme. They were the trouble makers and would show up and terrorize both Heathcliff and Riff Raff. Because Riff Raff's cartoon was always so much cooler, that is the reason it was shown second. It made children have to wait an extra fifteen minutes before going out to play and force them to see more toy commercials.

"Heathcliff Heathcliff no one should

Terrify the neighborhood

But Heathcliff just won't be undone

Playing pranks on everyone."

I think the theme song was the best part of the show. For some reason I wasn't a big Heathcliff fan. He got away with too much when other cats like Tom and Sylvester couldn't get away with anything.

i grew up watching nickelodeon. and everyday i would watch heathcliff. what an awesome show! heathcliff was the coolest. he would get all the ladies, could beat up any cat, and always did the right things in the right situation. i guess you can call him the arthur fonzarelli of alley cats. and riff raff, haha, riff raff was great!!! i wish the show was still on the air. if you love cartoons, this one is great!!!