Characters / Felix the Cat - Felix the Cat

The world's most famous cat, and the longest lasting character in cartoon history.

There are various incarnations of Felix the Cat throughout the franchise, with only a few consistent traits shared between all of them. Tropes specific to a certain Felix should go in their respective profiles below.

General

A few of Felix's various designs.^note From left to right; the original 1920's Felix design, his mid 1920's redesign, and his 1959 Joe Oriolo redesign.

Tropes associated with Felix In General:

• Adaptational Personality Change: Notably, almost every new incarnation of the Felix series completely overhauls his personality.
  • The Van Beuren Felix changes Felix from an Anti-Hero into a generic Kid Hero.
  • The Joe Oriolo is the most notable one, changing Felix's personality from a rascally Anti-Hero into a genial everyman.
  • The Betty Boop and Felix incarnation of Felix is by far the most brazenly changed in character, since it turns him into an Expy of Garfield, complete with speaking with thought balloons and saying acerbic things in his head.
• Anti-Hero: In some of the original cartoons, and occasionally in Twisted Tales.
• Art Evolution: Felix started as a four legged cat with corners that could poke out the eye of a tiger. After a few shorts, he started walking on his hind legs, and in 1924, Bill Nolan redesigned Felix into the curvier, softer design we're more familiar with. In the late 1950's Joe Oriolo completed the evolution by slickening up Felix's design to read more clearly on TVs, and this remains the standard Felix design to this day (although Twisted Tales of Felix briefly went back to using the original Bill Nolan design).
  • In the comics, Felix went through several redesigns as well, starting off with his standard cartoon design, but eventually started getting drawn in an even rounder, cuter looking art style by Otto Messmer. By the time Otto retired from drawing the comics, Joe Oriolo took over art chores and starting drawing Felix in them like he did in his made-for-TV cartoons.
• Badass Adorable: Felix normally isn't the fighting type, but when push comes to shove, he can definitely put up a good fight.
  • In "Uncle Tom's Crabbin", Felix tricks Simon Legree into chasing after himself to help Uncle Tom, even flinging rocks right back at Legree while he's chasing him. And then Felix fights Simon Legree's hunting dog one on one and quickly beats the animal into a limp noodle (literally—nothing is left of the thing but a long string by the time he's done).
  • In "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg", he takes the initiative to rescue his pet goose from Captain Kidd and his gang of pirates, and he even grabs a sword and attempts to duel one on one with the Captain.
  • In "Felix Babysits", the normally jovial Trans-Lux Felix is almost eaten by the ravenous amoeba King Gulpo, but he will have none of it and brutally socks him right in the stomach.
  • Baby Felix gets a case of this in Baby Felix Halloween. Despite being a baby, Baby Felix is capable of fighting his way through an assortment of ghosts and monsters with a hat as his weapon.
• Cartoony Tail: His tail can even detach and shapeshift! While he could still do this in the Trans-Lux cartoons, it was played down considerably in favor of the Magic Bag.
• Cool Old Guy: Technically speaking...Being introduced in 1919 makes him over a hundred years old by today.
• Cats Are Magic: Thanks in part to the surreal nature of his early films and the Magic Bag of Tricks.
• Catchphrase: "Righty-o!" in the Joe Oriolo series. It also pops up in Twisted Tales, but not as frequently, and it's archaic nature is sometimes mocked (i.e. in "Phoney Phelix").
• The Determinator: Felix is a very ambitious critter.

• Friend to All Living Things: One of the most enduring traits of Felix through the series is his kind hearted, altruistic nature; if someone is in need of aid, be it a kid baseball player who got wrongfully thrown in jail and needs a stand-in for his game, Uncle Tom at the mercy of Simon Legree, a clown about to commit suicide, a lost pet elephant who needs to be returned to her Rajah, or a Princess whose kingdom was overthrown by an evil dictator and his army of robots, he will not hesitate to help, and he shows virtually no signs of maliciousness or veangefulness (although he was a lot more rascally in his silent cartoons). At most, he just gets agitated at someone whenever they wrong him. He even holds no ill will towards his arch enemy, the Professor, and even helps him out if he winds up in trouble.
  • The Van Beuren Felix plays this trait up even more; in the opening of "The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg", Felix is handing out gold coins by the bucketful to the local poor, thanks to the help of his golden goose and her endless supply of golden eggs. And when the goose gets kidnapped by Captain Kid, her eggs are the last thing on Felix's mind—he's genuinely concerned for her safety, and he even tries to put up a fight against the pirate before he captures her.
  • In "The Termites of 1960", Felix actually gets upset because he (seemingly) killed the termite that was pestering him.
  • In certain levels of the NES video game, Felix gets the ability to ride on turtles and dolphins if you grab a power-up, and they help him by attacking enemies for him.
• Funny Animal: He's an anthropomorphic cat.
• Fun Personified: He's very good-natured and fun-loving.
• Kick Them While They're Down:
  • In "Felix and Vavoom", Felix steals Professor and Rock's diamonds right from under their noses. While they were wrong to attack Felix and Vavoom, they were perfectly in their right to take the diamonds, since nobody owned them, making it come off as Felix rubbing salt in their wounds by doing this.
  • In an uncharacteristically mean moment, the Twisted Tales episode "Attack of the Robot Rat" has Felix outright mocking Professor and Rock after he defeats their giant robot, rubbing it in their faces that they'll never defeat him. Even in his Twisted Tales incarnation, Felix was never that cocky or inconsiderate.

• Medium Awareness: The Silent era Felix is implied to be aware he's in a cartoon, considering he can manipulate the symbols and words he thinks up to his advantage, such as in "Felix Saves The Day", where he climbs up four question marks he created to reach a jail cell. Twisted Tales makes it absolutely clear that Felix knows he's a cartoon character—"The Underwater Kingdom" even has him remembering one of his past cartoon adventures, specifically the Van Beuren era short "Neptune Nonsense".
• Mysterious Middle Initial: A comic story had him operating as a detective under the name of Felix T. Cat. When asked, he says that the "T" stands for "The".
• Nice Guy: Felix is this in most of his incarnations, even in his early scrappier years.
• Older Than They Look: Most people believes Felix the cat is a cartoon character from the 1950s-1960s but actually Felix is a cartoon character from the late 1910s (1919 specifically) and 1920s.
• Significant Name: Felix is Latin for Luck, which fits Felix's subversion of the "black cats bring bad luck" stereotype.
• Species Surname: Occasionally, he is addressed as Felix T. Cat, making his surname his species as well.
• Stock Animal Diet: In the classic, Joe Oriolo and Twisted Tales series, he's shown to have an affinity for milk, a trait commonly associated with cats—in the NES video game, he can even collect milk bottles to refuel his power-ups. In the B&W cartoons, Felix is shown to have an affinity for fish, but in the Van Beuren era short "Neptune Nonsense", Felix owns a pet goldfish and tells King Neptune that he doesn't eat fish.
• Suddenly Speaking: In the three Van Beuren shorts and the Tras-Lux TV cartoons.
• Vague Age: Like many famous cartoon chracters, Felix's age is never made clear. This is most notable in the Trans-Lux television series, where he is shown to be living by himself and is trusted by the Professor to look after his nephew Poindexter, but is occasionally referred to as a kid. The Van Beuren shorts consistently portrayed him as being kid like in personality, but apparently old enough to own his own house and run his own business.
• Vocal Dissonance: Felix has constantly rotated through voice actors throughout the years, so he goes through a lot of voice ranges.
  • His earliest voice was a barely legible cat-like voice provided by an uncredited actor for his first sound cartoons.
  • Walter Tetley gives him a very kiddy sounding voice in the Van Beuren shorts.
  • Jack Mercer gave him a Mickey Mouse-esque falsetto in the Trans-Lux cartoons (which David Kolin and Dave Coulier patterned their own voices after in The Movie and Felix Saves Christmas respectively, although Coulier does a much lower voice than either Mercer or Kolin).
  • Thom Adcox makes him sound like a teenager in Twisted Tales first season, and Charlie Adler basically uses the same voice he uses for Chicken when he voiced Felix in season 2, not even attempting to keep his voice consistent with Adcox's voice.
• The Voiceless: He was originally a silent cartoon star (although he did occasionally talk through speech balloons) and remained silent for a bit even after his cartoons started using sound. In the Betty Boop crossover comics, where he was Betty's pet, he didn't speak at all, with his thoughts being represented by thought bubbles instead.
• Walking the Earth: Felix is never in one place for too long.

Felix The Cat (Classic)

Debut: Feline Follies (1919)

The original Felix that started it all. In the hands of Otto Messmer, Felix was, first and foremost, a thinking character, a being with a wit as fast and sharp as a razor, who could improvise to any situation at the wink of an eye, with a wide range of emotions or thoughts represented by his large, expressive eyes, as well as his detachable, shapeshifting tail. Going in hand with this was his cat like curiosity, which was frequently what got him into his mis adventures. Personality wise, the Silent era Felix can be described as a boy like anti-hero, and a survivor. In many of his early films, Felix was portrayed as an anthropomorphic housecat, who could talk and engage with humans as well as he could with any other animal, but was usually just seen as a pest or a convenience for them, so Felix was often forced to be a nomad, scraping around and traveling anywhere and going any length to get a bite to eat, and often (sometimes literally) getting the boot for his troubles. While he sometimes has altruistic qualities, being perfectly willing to help out anyone he comes across, he had just as many vices in turn and could be crafty—he was not above stealing to get a bite to eat, and he was perfectly willing to pull strings to get what he wanted on occasion.

• Characterization Marches On: In his first couple films, he was a regular housecat named Master Tom. Felix got his real name in his third film The Adventures of Felix, and he started walking around on his hind legs soon after.
• Constantly Curious: Otto Messmer described boylike curiosity as being a major trait of Felix's personality, which often ends up getting him into one adventure after another.
  Otto Messmer: "I used an extreme amount of eye motion, wriggling eyes and turning his whiskers, and this seemed to be what hit the public - expressions! I think instead of just having him chase a lot of things around and bumpin' each other, which might be funny, I made him act as a little boy would wonder... how high is that star, how deep is the ocean, what makes the wind blow? I used all those things for a theme."
• Cute Little Fangs: He's sometimes drawn with a little fang poking out of his mouth.
• Demoted to Extra: In the comic "Felix And His Friends #3" (1954), the story "Felix and the Merry Midgets" has the story mostly focus on three little dwarfs who help plan a surprise birthday part for Felix, who doesn't show up until late in the story.
• Friend to All Children: In the silent films and comics, Felix is seen getting along with kids very well, such as in "Felix Saves the Day", "Felix Gets Revenge" and "Felix Minds The Kid".

• Mr. Vice Guy: The Silent era Felix is unmistakably the hero of the cartoons, but he's not without his vices—he's not above pulling strings to get what he wants, such as his first newspaper comic involving bribing some mice to invade a man's house so that he can get a job and food from him in exchange for catching the mice, and even in cartoons where he has a wife and kids (such as in "Flim Flam Films"), he has no shame in flirting with another kitten nearby.
• Pragmatic Hero: Felix sometimes falls into this in the silent cartoons and comics. He is unquestionably the protagonist, but he's not above doing something shady to get what he needs to survive, especially since he's often homeless and has to scavenge for food. In his newspaper comic debut, he tries to get a job as a mouse catcher, but is given the boot by a houseowner. Felix is so indignant, that he figures out a plan—he steals a wheel of cheese from a truck nearby, and bribes some local mice with it to terrorize the owner of the house. The fearful owner offers Felix a job and food on the spot.
• The Unintelligible: In the earliest sound cartoons starring him, he was provided a voice by an uncredited actor, but he barely made any real words, just bizarre, cat like gibberish.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Felix occasionally used this ability in the silent cartoons, most notably in "Felix in Hollywood".

Van Beuren Felix

"This afternoon, we're riding through, nature and me..."

Debut: The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg (1936)

Voiced by: Walter Tetley

The shortest-lasting incarnation of the character, this version of Felix was created for the short-lived theatrical cartoon revival of the series by Van Beuren, as part of their Rainbow Parade series of cartoons. He only appeared in three cartoons due to the studio abruptly going belly-up in 1936. Personality wise, there isn't much to say about this Felix. He's nice, meek and kiddy, but that's about it.

• Flat Character: He's probably the least interesting or developed of all the Felix incarnations in personality, owing in part to the fact that he only starred in three shorts. He's a nice guy, but he has none of Felix's wilder qualities from the older shorts, and he's much more meek than the Joe Oriolo Felix.
• Kid Hero: Felix is strongly implied to be a kid (or at least kid-like in personality, it's not clear due to his Vague Age) in the Van Beuren shorts, despite running his own business and owning a house in two of the shorts.
• Papa Wolf: Felix gets rather temperamental when Captain Kid kidnaps his friendly golden goose, and he at least tries to put up a fight against him, even though he gets beaten rather easily.

Joe Oriolo Felix

Debut: The Magic Bag (1959)

Voiced by: Jack Mercer (Trans-Lux TV series), David Kolin (The Movie), Toshihiko Seki (Baby Felix, adult, Japanese voice), Don Oriolo (Baby Felix, adult, English Dub), Dave Coulier (Felix The Cat Saves Christmas)

"Righty-o!"

—Joe Oriolo Felix's catchphrase

After acquiring a license to the character in the late 1950's (and later outright buying out the franchise), Otto Messmer prestige Joe Oriolo rebooted the Felix series with this version of the character. Due to moral attitudes towards cartoons of the time and network restrictions, Joe Oriolo's Felix is also divorced from the salty Silent Era Felix, but not to the extent of the Van Beuren Felix—he is a fairly laid back, pun cracking and jovial, fun loving character, loving to travel and help out anyone possible, and being friendly to virtually everyone, including his own foes—but he was also assertive and stern in the face of evil, and was more than willing to chase down his adversaries and give them what they had coming when he gets the chance, often with the help of his Magic Bag of Tricks, which was introduced in this series.

• All-Loving Hero: His personality became this in this series. He never holds grudges and is friends to virtually everyone, including his foe the Professor. The only person he openly hates is Master Cylinder, and for very good reason.
• Born Lucky: Ironically for being a black cat, its pretty rare for anything to go completely wrong for Felix, in stark contrast to just how unlucky his foes Professor and Rock Bottom are.
• Deadpan Snarker: In the movie, at least. "Where are we, New Jersey?"
• The Everyman: In the Trans-Lux cartoons. Unlike the meek, childish Van Beuren Felix, this incarnation is much more assertive and jovial.
• Flat Character: The Joe Oriolo Felix isn't all that shaded of a character. He's easygoing, genial and a proverbial boy scout with few, if any, vices. Sympathetic for sure, but this also makes him a rather uninteresting protagonist, hence why the plots of most of the Joe Oriolo series is driven by the villains instead.
• Foil: To the Professor. While the Professor is grouchy and antagonistic, Felix is kindhearted and jovial.
• Forgot About His Powers: In "Blubberino the Whale", Felix is stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean and starving. The thing is, Felix has his Magic Bag on hand, which he can use for any situation or purpose he needs—-in fact, he turns the bag into a gyrocopter at the end to defeat the eponymous whale. And in "The Magic Bag", we can see the bag is capable of creating food too. Why didn't Felix just use the bag to return back to the mainland in the first place, or at least just conjure up a meal for himself then and there?
• The Good Guys Always Win: The Joe Oriolo Felix, without exception, always came out on top over Professor and the other villains. This was due to a mandate from distributor Trans-Lux, who said Felix always had to win in the end.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: In "Felix Babysits", Poindexter uses a formula to shrink him down to microscopic size, which causes no end of trouble for himself, and even Poindexter himself once he reverses Felix's transformation—while enlarging another amoeba, King Gulpo, along with him.
• Mellow Fellow: In the Joe Oriolo cartoons, he's a very easygoing guy and isn't one to hold grudges.
• Plot Armor: While he's not an Invincible Hero, even with the Magic Bag of Tricks on hand, In the Joe Oriolo cartoons, distributor Trans-Lux gave a mandate that Felix always had to win against Professor and the other villains, with no exceptions.
• Pungeon Master: The Trans-Lux Felix really likes to make puns and lighthearted wisecracks. This element was present in the early newspaper comics too, but nowhere to the extent of the TV era cartoons.
• Show Within a Show: The Joe Oriolo Felix is frequently seen either reading his own comics or watching his own TV show in-universe.
• Signature Laugh Almost every episode ends with Felix doing his iconic high pitched belly laugh. Usually because the villain just got their comeuppance.
• Villains Act, Heroes React: In the Joe Oriolo cartoons, Felix is almost never the instigator of the conflict when Professor and the other villains are involved in the plot, which happens to be more often than not. He's always on hand and ready to work against whatever trouble they bring to the table.

Felix (Felix The Cat Live)

Portrayed by: Rick Davis

Debut: Above the Sky (1972)

One of the more peculiar incarnations of the character, portrayed in live action costume. Due to the rarity and obscurity of the series, little is known about this take on Felix. Appearance wise, he's based on the Joe Oriolo Felix.

Tropes:

• Adaptational Wimp: Understandably, he has none of the surreal abilities of the previous Felixs at his disposal, but he also doesn't have the Magic Bag of Tricks on hand either, despite the show's theme song mentioning it.

Felix (Betty Boop & Felix)

Debut: Betty Boop and Felix (1984)

One of the more mundane incarnations of the character, and acerbic in personality. He lives as a normal housepet with Betty Boop.

• Adaptational Wimp: This Felix has none of the abilities of the other Felixs, nor his Magic Bag of Tricks.
• Expy: Of Garfield in personality.
• Put on a Bus: He was forced out of the crossover comic with Betty Boop when King Features Syndicate, who ran the strip, found out that while they distributed his comics in the past, they didn't have the rights to actually use him in their own comics.
• The Voiceless: This Felix is incapable of speaking, but the reader can see his thought balloons.

Twisted Tales Felix

Debut: Guardian Idiot (1995)

Voiced By: Thom Adcox Hernandez (Season 1), Charlie Adler (Season 2)

An attempt at creating an amalgam of the Otto Messmer Felix and the Joe Oriolo Felix, this Felix has the personality of a rascally teenager. He has the surreal abilities of the original Felix, but he also has access to the Magic Bag of Tricks.

• All Men Are Perverts: In Twisted Tales, he's much more interested in relationships with girls. This is especially notable in "Wet Paint", where one way he uses the 3-D paint is by creating a girl for him to make out with.
• Composite Character: He's a mashup of the Otto Messmer Felix and the Joe Oriolo Felix.
• Show Within a Show: This Felix has his own cartoon show in-universe, called The Not-So-Twisted Tales of Felix The Cat. He also had his own comic book, which dates all the way back to 1925 (Felix did star in newspaper comics of the tim], but comic books weren't invented till the 1930's, and Felix didn't get his own comic book until 1938).
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Felix retains this ability from the silent-era Felix and can use it alongside his Magic Bag of Tricks.
• Waxing Lyrical: In the second season of Twisted Tales, Felix will sometimes quote his own theme song, but usually in a sarcastic way.

Baby Felix

Debut: Baseball-O-Rama (2000)

Voiced By: Yumi Touma (Japanese voice), Denise Negame (English dub)

The Joe Oriolo Felix, but as an infant. Both he and his adult self interact through time travel to help him learn as he grows up.

• Brats with Slingshots: In Baby Felix Halloween, Felix can acquire a slingshot to use as a weapon, but he only uses it to save his friends instead of for mischief.
• Charged Attack: In Baby Felix Halloween, Felix has a hat and slingshot attack that he's able to charge up for more damage.
• Cute Kitten: He's the Joe Oriolo Felix as a toddler. His older self even interacts with him via Time Travel and gives him his own Magic Bag of Tricks to use.
• Weaponized Headgear: In Baby Felix Halloween, Felix dons an Indiana Jones-esque costume, and uses a fedora as his default weapon.