Ricky's cat-com
Ricky Gervais has never been afraid to bring a successful sitcom to a close, but he says his new animated comedy has got legs - and lots of them!
Ray Burmiston/Netflix
- Caroline Frost
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Why make an animation about cats? I’ve always loved cats, and I’ve always loved animation, which makes it sound simple, but digging a hole sounds simple until you get started.
Cats and dogs have always been part of my family. When I was born, I acquired a big, fat, grey moggy called Smokey. I was about three when he died, and my mum’s party trick was singing the old folk song On Top of Old Smoky and making me cry. Then I had another big, fat tabby called Paddy, as well as a black labrador called Lucky, who arrived when I was about seven. I ran home from school and there she was, a puppy with a little belly that could fit into my little hand.
The week before lockdown, we lost our cat Ollie, who was 16 and a half. We decided to foster another one, so Pickle arrived and she hid behind the couch for 24 hours. Then she came out, got on my lap, and I said, “We’re keeping her.”
Gervais's early sketch of Gus. Netflix
I’m pretty sure my whole family loves animals more than people, mostly. I’ve always felt you have to protect them, not hurt them. They haven’t got a voice, they’re vulnerable. Just think how many animals are killed for us every day, for whatever reason. Never mind recycling or washing out a coffee jar, if everyone went vegan it would be the single biggest thing that has ever happened to save the planet. I don’t get too political, it’s just for my own peace of mind, but everything outside my work and home life is something to do with animal rights. I’ve always done that, it’s just that now people know about it.
As for animation, at its peak The Simpsons was the greatest sitcom of all time and one of my favourite films ever is The Jungle Book. My mum took me to see it when I was five or six and I was mesmerised. I cried when I thought Baloo was dead. The next day, the teacher let me direct the class as though I was making the film. After an hour, she said, “Ricky, we’ve got to stop now.”
Gus is a cross between my cat Pickle and me. I drew him as a fat bloke on the couch
Alley Cats comes from an idea I had when my gigs were postponed in lockdown and I thought I could do an animation over Zoom. Four years later, it gets made! I first drew a little sketch of Gus, who was, I suppose, a cross between my cat Pickle and me. I drew him as a fat bloke on the couch, like somebody out of a classic British sitcom. Then, just as for a sitcom, I built up the other characters around him.
I’ve done lots of animation and it’s usually you alone in a booth, and you’re the last element. Here, the actors went first, and it was my favourite way of working ever: there’s no hair and make-up. I’m sitting down in a room with my friends, like for a podcast or a radio play, and then the animation followed. Real artists took my sketches and made them look beautiful, not like my scrawls on a toilet wall.
Gervais with (clockwise from back) cast mates Tony Way, Jo Hartley, Diane Morgan, Tom Basden, David Earl, Andrew Brooke, Kerry Godliman and Natalie Cassidy. Netflix
We made a little demo that became the first episode, and Netflix commissioned it. They’re calling it “adult animation”, although I worry about that term; this isn’t a gross-out cartoon. If it weren’t for the swearing, kids could watch it. The cats swear because I wanted them to be real and gritty. There’s just one who doesn’t swear, he’s like a posh pet, and there’s a little bit of classic sitcom in that contrast. Us Brits have always done a class struggle, and I want these cats to be at the bottom of the pile – punching up, vulnerable, with anxieties and fears. There’s nothing cartoony about them; it’s a traditional sitcom, just with cats.
(L to R) David Earl as Puke, Diane Morgan as Olive, Jo Hartley as Kitten, Ricky Gervais as Gus, Tom Basden as Ponce, Andrew Brooke as Fang. Netflix
I had a few rules: audio is king; plus I wanted to go retro. If you look at what’s happening behind the cats, it’s all in 2D. Lots of little things hit you on a subliminal level. Round is funnier than square and spiky; short, fat legs are funnier than long, skinny ones. And I wanted everything to be cosy and safe.
I always like trying new things, and I never usually think like this, but I can see me doing this for ever. It’s such a beautiful way of working. If it also makes the audience feel animals have as much right to be here as we have, that’s great, but at the end of the day, I want viewers to laugh and maybe cry a bit as well. But mostly, I just want them to love these cats.
As told to Caroline Frost
How did Alley Cats go from sketchpad to screen? Three key players tell all
Tom Basden voices Ponce
Zoe Barling
How did you come to work on Alley Cats?
Since doing [2016 film] David Brent: Life on the Road and [Netflix series] Afterlife, Ricky and I have stayed in touch. He’s always coming up with good ideas. In this one, a lot of the comedy comes from these cats saying things that people couldn’t get away with.
Ricky insisted that the voiceover was recorded with everyone together. Is that unusual?
Yes – I’ve done one kids’ show, and that was me on my own in a studio, recording one line at a time and then moving on. But when you’re doing comedy, it’s so valuable to be in a room together, riffing off each other. It wouldn’t have worked as a show if we’d been in separate studios.
Ricky is an outspoken animal rights advocate. Does the series reflect that?
Definitely. It’s always done with humour and through set pieces – a cat will suddenly get run over, and the gang just take it in their stride. But there is that constant reminder of the fragility of all other life in a city.
Are you a cat person?
It may be that I’m not a cat person or that cats aren’t Tom people, but the antipathy feels mutual. Also, I really like birds. So I get very sad by the amount of birds that cats kill… CRAIG McLEAN
Paulo Ferreira – animation supervisor
Ricky drew the original sketch of Gus. What was his vision for Alley Cats?
The original designs were a little bit dirtier and scruffier. But the cats are meant to look cute. That was one of the things he emphasised for us: to make sure that, despite them saying these absurd things, they would still behave like cute cats.
As part of your process, did you study cats and how they move?
Yes, we always reference real life when doing animation, usually using video, and people [on the animation team] had their own cats. So we already knew some traits of cats – when they are interested or angry, they would have more movement on their tails, or would pose their ears differently.
What are the particular challenges of animating cats?
The first obvious one is animating quadrupeds. Humans have two legs but cats have four. So that’s more legs on the ground, and that means you have to think about the timing of each leg. For this show, we had another interesting challenge: translating the correct expressions with their mouth shapes. Because we want to still keep them looking like cats, but also have appealing, human expressions.
Netflix
Is that even more challenging when they’re swearing?
It’s more about finding the nuanced expressions, and how we translate difficult emotions. As an adult show, we have a bigger range. Finding the right tone and working with voice actors to deliver their correct intent is the biggest challenge.
What’s Ricky like as a collaborator?
Animation is very different from live action. It needs to be front-loaded. Because the process is so lengthy, it’s very costly to change things. So Ricky was conscious about when and how to make the decisions. He was very clear about communicating what he wanted to get out of a certain scene, or out of a character, a performance or anything like that.
And finally, are you a cat person?
I am. I do have two dogs right now, but I had cats before. I prefer a cat. Don’t tell my girlfriend. CMcL
Andy Burrows – composer
Netflix
When did you and Ricky start working together?
I met him in the heyday of our band Razorlight, on The Jonathan Ross Show. A few years later he said he was trying to put a band together for a David Brent project. The following two years involved us messing around with the songs he’d written as the character, I got a band together and we played live shows, then we did the Life on the Road music and all ended up in the film. Then I did the music for three series of Afterlife. And now this.
How did the Alley Cats process begin for you?
It always starts a little bit earlier with Ricky because he’s so passionate about music. He was throwing me bits of the script that he thought could have music ages ago. He sent me the scene of Gus singing a nursery rhyme 18 months ago.
Any key inspirations that you drew from?
From the moment you knew it was an animation and it was about cats, you’ve got classic Disney cartoons and The Lovecats by the Cure seeping in. You start thinking about a dusty old piano and violin strings – an old-school, organic, earthy sound representing a bunch of low-life cats.
There’s a delicate little piano motif when a cat gets run over in the first episode. So are your cues: mournful and thoughtful?
Absolutely. But one of the things that I learnt with Ricky through making Afterlife was finding that space between going all in when sad things occur on film, but also holding back. These evocative bits of music can’t overpower what’s going on with the visuals and dialogue.
What it’s like working with Ricky?
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He’s an amazing sounding board, musically and professionally. It’s an amazing thing to have somebody with that depth of musical knowledge who hasn’t forged a career out of music. He’s brilliant to talk to, full stop. CMcL
Authors
Caroline Frost
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