The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty

My mother swore to me that I didn't imagine this show. I remember him getting shut in the garage when he got in trouble for something the dog did. Then he'd imagine he could fight back and he was a starship captain or Catzan or Catman! Felicia was his girlfriend and I think I remember the theme song. Something about "He's Waldo Kitty, a meek and mild kind of cat, but I'm a daring hero, and I like being that."

It was clever and very memorable. If it can stick in your head from 6 to 36, that's pretty well done. I recommend voting for it on tvshowsondvd.com

I'd love to have this for my kids.

When I was six years old, I remember this show called "The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty" in which it involved the hero feline, his love and the big bad bulldog. The series begin in live action and then switch to animation and back to live action. If there is anyone out there that remember this show please make your comments. I really love this show so much that I do recall one episode when Waldo Kitty was daydreaming as "Catman" with a partner who was a bird called "Robin". Well towards the end of the animated part he (Waldo) does some really ingenious ways of defeating the bulldog when it shifts back to live action. Ah to be six years old again.

Like some others above, this cartoon was a little slice of my childhood I think about once in a while. I remember the year it came out (I was 11 years old) and I was a cat lover and I mostly watched it because I liked the cats, and deep down I thought the execution of the cartoon part was pretty cheesy though I liked the overall story line. The next season when I did not see it listed in TV guide I was very disappointed, but I had a feeling it was not going to be renewed.

Anyway, 35 years later I still remember the lyrics of the song:

I am Waldo Kitty, a meek and mild kind of cat

And I'm a daring hero, and I like being that

When I see a friend in need

I want to be a friend indeed

I just pretend and - suddenly

I'm anyone I want to be - a courageous kind of cat!

Then there was an instrumental interlude. I forget if there was a second verse or not, but I suspect there wasn't because if there was I probably would have remembered at least some of it.

As a cat lover, I remember Secret LIves of Waldo Kitty vividly.

As others have noted, the show began with Waldo as a real life cat, his feline girlfriend and the bulldog who terrorized them both. Voices were provided over the real animal trio.

When Waldo pondered how he would escape from this latest dilemma, he would daydream himself into anthropomorphic cartoon form.

The set-ups were five very familiar scenes; Tarzan (Catzan), Batman (Catman), Lone Ranger (Lone Kitty), Robin Hood (Robin Cat) and the STar Trek Enterprise Captain.

In each scenario, the bulldog would now have the same three henchmen over and over; three dogs, one tall, one short and I guess the last one was average, don't recall.

In the Catman adventures, the real life cat at the beginning would be joined by a real life bird, attempting to aid friend Waldo in escaping from the bulldog.

When they went cartoon, the bird of course became Sparrow, the equivalent of Batman's Robin.

Lone Kitty was without a doubt the most interesting, as in real life, Waldo the cat would have a sidekick in the form of a real rabbit. IN the cartoon version, the rabbit of course became Tonto (Can't recall the character's name).

Of the five adventures, four would become real cartoons from the same company that made Waldo Kitty.

Star Trek, with the original cast doing the cartoon voices, came out about four years earlier.

Tarzan, Lone Ranger (voiced by William Conrad of Cannon fame) and Batman (voiced by much of the 1960s TV show, including Adam West and Burt Ward) would all come about over the course of time from this animation studio.

On Waldo Kitty, as on all these other cartoon shows, the adventures played out much the same over and over.

In Waldo Kitty, the bulldog villain was always snarling laughing, kidnapping the female, only to be thwarted by the Waldo character. It never strayed from this plot. Over and over again in each adventure.

Plotwise, I recall two moments.

In Robin Cat, the hero was in disguise at the archer show to rescue Maid Marian and he motioned for her to remain quiet to his secret, so he puts his finger to his mouth and goes 'shhhhh'.

"Why do you put your fingers to your lips, sir?" She matter-of-factedly asked, perplexing him.

In Catzan, the cat would be leaving and would utter 'keep noses clean'. I guess because at nine-years-of-age, I had never heard that phrase before and so I had no idea what he meant. It was an odd phrase to even put in a children's cartoon. I have never forgotten that bit, especially from what was supposed to be a jungle-raised character.

Undeniably the saving grace was the theme. Sung by Howard Morris, showing the most majestic cat from the show walking toward the camera on a treebranch, it then gave way to some gravelly voice singing "He's Waldo Kitty" and showed the cartoon figures of Waldo.

I had never heard of Walter Mitty, so I never knew what this show was based upon. Perhaps that was for the better. I did like this show and would like to see it again.

Someone wrote about this show: "I thought my sister and I were the only ones watching it". Well, that applies to me too. Waldo Kitty is a distant childhood memory, so far removed I wondered for years if I dreamed it... and then, I looked it up on IMDb and couldn't help smiling. There it was: the song, the cat, the "Cat Enterprise" I remembered so well and felt so excited about ("Oh boy, a episode of Waldo Kitty in SPACE !").

Funny, as I watched the opening it all seemed so familiar, so immediate, so obvious. I had forgotten that there was a real live action cat, for instance, but of course there was... Why else would my sister and I love this show so much if it hadn't been for a real cat? (We had a cat back then, which probably explains a lot....)

Anyway, 7 out of 10 for sheer nostalgic fun.