gavin6942 A maid is kidnapped and scratches a message onto D.C. the cat's collar and when his owner Patti (Christina Ricci) discovers this, she plays amateur detective with the help of D.C. to try to find the culprits.This movie is sitting pretty low on IMDb. Anything below a 5 is usually pretty awful, and I am sad to see this end up there. Yes, it's true, this is far from Ricci's best role (I think we've mostly forgotten about it). And yes, the humor gears more towards kids than adults. But is that a bad thing? What's interesting looking back on the film now (2016) is seeing some great actors in a film few care about. Michael McKean plays a good father, Tom Wilson is a bumbling cop. Peter Boyle is always great. This is really a nice lead role for Doug E. Doug, which begs the question: what ever happened to Doug E. Doug?

michaeljocallaghan I switched on the TV and started watching this movie part way through. I found it so funny I wanted to find out more. Its style of humour makes jokes in quite a sophisticated way, assuming the audience is smart and paying attention. From the reviews I have read I think very few critics were paying attention. I loved the way the movie takes sideswipes at American society, rich people and the not so rich.I have been the barrage of negative criticism from professional critics and viewers. It's a mystery to me. Brilliant cast. Brilliant writing. How did they get the cat to act like that?

Python Hyena That Darn Cat (1997): Dir: Bob Spiers / Cast: Christina Ricci, Doug E. Doug, Michael McKean, Dyan Cannon, Peter Boyle: Utterly boring and stupid remake of the 1965 original. This version is about as exciting as getting a vasectomy. Witless plot regards a cat that prowls out at exactly eight-o-clock. It diverts a dog's attention so to steal its food before the mutt receives a fence board to the head. It would watch a bird through a window, then a cat, etc, etc. Who gives a crap. A kidnapped rich woman slips a watch around its neck and its owner played by Christina Ricci investigates. She is joined by rookie cop Doug E. Doug who will obviously prove himself to his fellow cops. The cat is not half as interesting as the Siamese in the original. Uninspired directing by Bob Spiers whose locations are the only area of compliment. Ricci deserves better than this, and Doug overacts as the rookie cop viewed as a joke to others on the force. Being part of this film will not likely help him in the popularity polls either. Michael McKean, Peter Boyle and Dyan Cannon make forgettable appearances and that is pretty pathetic considering the talent involved. It is a family mystery but lacks the intrigue of the original, which wasn't quite as corny as this turned out to be. Perhaps if the cat was given a personality then perhaps this film might have rose above mediocre, otherwise it has all the ambition of a cut dog. Score: 1 / 10

StarrySky123Inf They made this movie modern, but they also made it more realistic! I am soooo sick of this "Reality TV" era. People seem to have forgotten that fantasy and exercising the imagination are the original reasons for and the very fabric of entertainment movies. For example, in the original, Patricia Randall and her older sister, Ingrid, were living alone at their house while their parents were traveling in Europe. The character of Ingrid was not even in this movie. Part of the fun of the original was that Ingrid Randall and Zeke Kelso were starting to fall in love. Their parents never called their daughters or anything. In real life, few parents would actually stay away that long at once, and even if they did, they would keep closer tabs on their girls. In the new version, Patricia Randall is an only child and her parents happen to be out of the house or just unaware of what is happening. Who cares whether or not it would happen in real life? That was the original point to making movies like that Darn Cat; so that people would get to see things happen the way that they WANT them to happen, not the way that they actually do happen. Christina Ricci also degraded the precocious but sweet character that Hayley Mills originated. Of course, the decay and crudity of the modern world had to be embedded into this movie that was assumed to be like the original; safe and fun for all ages! It was nice to see Dean Jones in the movie, but that is just about the only positive thing I can think of about this version. On top of everything else, the original version immortalized D.C. as a SIAMESE cat(No other kind of cat should have been used), and the rocky title song of this movie was JUNK! It was not at all worthy to be compared to the soothing, orchestrated title song in the original, written by Richard and Robert Sherman, the composers of music for many other Disney classics (e.g. The Parent Trap, Mary Poppins),and sung beautifully by Bobby Darin. What is wrong with today's producers? Do they not want their children to enjoy the same harmless but fun entertainment that helped make their own childhoods memorable? It is a good thing that the classics are being re-released on video and DVD because right now, the past seems to be the only place to find true family entertainment.