What the Critics say about Eek! the Cat.....
"Eek! the Cat.... is easily the funniest show
currently on television, animated or otherwise. The title character is a sweet,
self-sacrificing cat who belongs to a loving but somewhat neglectful single parent family.
While this premise seems periosly close to the sugary sweet cartoons of the mid-seventies,
fear not. Creators Savage Steve Holland and Bill Kopp (who supplies Eek’s
Perky voice) inject liberal doses of counter cultire humor, and the end product is a show
that is side splitting and touching at the same time.
Eek’s life can be summed up with the old saying, "No
good deed goes unpunished." He would do anything for anyone because, as he says,
"It never hurts to help". But hurt it usually does, since Eek is the
unluckiest creature on earth, sort of a selfless Wile E. Coyote. Every week he gets
burned, shredded, electrocuted and squashed... and that’s just the opening credits!
Eleanor Donohue of Father Knows Best has a field day as the voice of
the absent minded mom of Eek’s human family. She very rarely has much to do
with the stories, but she wanders through the scenes doing 
housework
while practicing her berlitz tapes, learning such helpful phrases as "Your Christmas
elf is on fire", "Your infant has swallowed my grenade", or "Your ax
is swift, stewardess".
Those phrases, cheerfully spoken by an airheaded housewife, are fairly representative of
the show’s quirky humor, done so disarmingly sweetly that its makers can get away
with almost anything. That’s why Eek is the probably the only cartoon to do
a take off on Cape Fear. In their version,
however, the homicidal manic is a cute fuzzy (and tattooed) bunny who plans to kill and
rob Eek’s family, while framing the hapless cat, who gets trussed up and masked like
Hannibal Lecter.
In "Eek vs. the Flying Saucers",
Eek must save the world from aliens who are using his 300 pound girlfriend,
Annabelle, to power their death ray. After Earth is saved, a subplot involving a doomed
NASA mission blossoms into a full scale parody of Marooned that’s every bit as funny
as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version. (Apparently, this episode tested the liberal
nature of Fox’s Standards and Practices Department. According to a former employee of
the show, an exchange between Eek and the aliens regarding the planet Uranus was
censored.)
While Eek! the Cat is aimed at the same audience as Garfield, I find it much more
appealing because the characters, especially poor Eek!, are so likeable. He is
never portrayed as dumb or cruel. All of his problems are based on a combiniation of an
inability to say no, naive optimism, and just plain bad luck.
Although the writers frequently have fun with Annabelle's girth and
Blanche DuBois-like personality, she is also portrayed as loyal and, when she has to be,
even brave, and therefore worthy of Eek’s starry-eyed devotion. Even mom and
her two offspring, who do neglect Eek, are shown to be more thoughtless than
nasty. (Boy, this show could be the guilt trip for any pet owners who really thought about
it!)...
-Judith Reboy
Animato! Spring 1993 Issue 25, Page 12-13
She got it...
"....Lastly, Eek the Cat can go back to whatever dumpster it crawled
from. Good funny Dialogue, but tries to relay a "Garfield" attitude to
the star feline, and he simply cannot follow in the paw prints. I also am not fond that Eek
is constantly subject to ridicule, pain, torture, etc...."
Paul T. Kraly
Animato! Spring 1993 Issue 25 Page 11
He obviously didn't get it....
