Jim Hill: From the Archives
Page 3 of 6

The Aristocats
(c) Disney

The Aristocats (1970)
Of course, there have also been cases where Disney has deliberately designed a character for a film, based on the looks and style of a certain celebrity, only to have that performer bail out of the project before work had actually begun on the production.

Case in point: Scat Cat in Disney's 1970 animated feature The Aristocats. Scat Cat's voice was supposed to be provided by legendary jazz trumpet master Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong. The character's look was modeled after Armstrong -- the way he played his trumpet, his roly-poly physique, right down to the prominent gap between his teeth.

Armstrong seemed to have a fine working relationship with Walt Disney Productions. He and his band had played numerous times at Disneyland. In 1968, Louis even recorded an album that was called Disney Songs the Satchmo Way. He also informed the Aristocats production team that he was thrilled with the idea of permanently becoming a part of the Disney family by providing a voice for one of the company's animated films. Encouraged by Armstrong's enthusiasm, the animators reworked the middle of the movie so it would feature Scat Cat leading all the other cats in a huge jazz production number.

Then in 1969 the deal suddenly fell apart. Before Disney had gotten Armstrong into the studio to record a single line of dialogue, Louis abruptly bailed out of the project. To this day, no one is exactly sure why Satchmo quit the film. Some have suggested that since his Disney standards album hadn't sold nearly as well as Armstrong had hoped Louis might have felt that he just didn't have that much appeal to family audiences.

Whatever his reasons, Louis's departure left a huge hole in Disney's then-in-production animated feature. The Aristocats whole second act was built on Scat Cat's impromptu jazz concert. Without a jazzman at the heart of that sequence to drive the action, that part of the film would just fall apart.

In desperation, Disney hired Scatman Crothers to provide vocals for Scat Cat. Their direction to Crothers: pretend you're Satchmo.

In the end, Scatman's impression of Armstrong was good enough to make Scat Cat's character work - which, in turn, made The Aristocats story work. Still, animation fans can't help but wonder how much better this film might have been if Satchmo hadn't been a no-show.