Banjo the Woodpile Cat

An all-but-forgotten but charming Don Bluth television special. It was his very first non-Disney production, and was essentially a test run for his newborn studio; though it was made before Bluth finally quit Disney. Originally conceived as a a full-length feature film (but was cut short due to budget restraints), and later as a Christmas Special (which also didn't stick), the story tells the tale of a kitten who runs away from home and has adventures in the big city, but soon begins to get homesick for his family and deeply regret running away. With the help of some colorful locals, he eventually makes his way home again. The film can be considered an Ur Example of a typical Don Bluth film, as it employs many of the same tropes that would resurface in his later works.

Details behind the making of the film can be viewed here.

Watch it (in three parts) here, here, and here.

Tropes used in Banjo the Woodpile Cat include:

• Angry Guard Dog: (see "Cats Are Mean" below)
• Cats Are Mean: Inverted; this is about the only Don Bluth production in which Dogs Are Mean and Cats Are Nice.
• Cool Cat: Crazy Legs.
• Corporal Punishment: Banjo runs away from home after his father tells him to fetch his own switch to be beaten with.
• Cute Kitten: This doesnt have a kitten for the main character for nothing.
• Dashingly Dapper Derby: Crazy Legs wears one.
• Doing It for the Art: The entire film was made in a garage, over a period of six years, with the animators literally learning as they went along, working long hours into the night, only stopping for lunch breaks and this was while most of the animators still had day jobs at Disney.
• Do They Know It's Christmas Time?: At one point, this short film was to be a Christmas Special. Some Christmassy things are still visible in the film, such as Crazy Legs' Santa Claus costume.
• Down on the Farm
• The Forties: Set in 1944.
• Gray Rain of Depression: The scene where Banjo curls up in an alley and cries as he shelters himself from the rain in a tin can. It's very similar to a scene used in a later Bluth production, An American Tail.
• The Homeward Journey
• No Antagonist: Though the full-length feature would have had one. Bluth later acknowledged that this was one weakness in the film's story, but then again the film was made more for the art than for the plot.
• Off-Model: Crazy Legs notably becomes slimmer whenever the situation calls for it--most blatantly during the climatic dog chase.
• Parental Abandonment: In this case, it's Banjo's own fault.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: Banjo himself, Cute Little Fangs and all.
• The Runaway
• Underside Ride: This is how the title character goes to the city.
• Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Bluth based the story on a childhood pet cat of his who lived in a woodpile on the farm he grew up on, got lost one day, and found its way back weeks later.
• What Could Have Been: It was originally going to be a full length movie, but was cut short because of budget restraints.
  • It also was going to have a villain named Rocko who eventually showed up in nearly the same form as Warren T. Rat in An American Tail. In fact, had the film been completed it might have been a bit like An American Tail with cat protagonists instead of mice.