Subscribe!Henry's Cat (1983)
First episode title: The Race
How familiar with the show am I?: I don't think I'd heard of it.
Who is Henry? The answer to that is not forthcoming in this show, but we do get to meet his cat and a bunch of his animal friends.
It's another one of those short shows that take place in what appears to be a white void, with only as much scenery as the story requires. It saves on money and, y'know, it doesn't look bad. Also like some of those other shows, it is fully narrated, with the narrator doing all the voices. The opening sequence shows the words "Henry's Cat" being spelled out in rainbow colours, and then Henry's Cat himself appears with a pot of rainbow-coloured paint and a brush in his hands, like he can somehow just paint in all rainbow colours at once.
Henry's Cat is an orange cat that stands on his hind legs and doesn't seem to have a tail. In the only couple of shots this episode to have full backgrounds, we see his house (Henry's house?), and then the loft (attic) of the house, where Henry's Cat is clearing up all the rubbish that's in there in order to take it out to the dustbin. There's stuff like a mounted deer head, a gramophone, what looks like one of those old-fashioned upright radios, and unfortunately also a golliwog. All of the stuff is coloured in a uniform dim greyish colour even when it's shown outside in daylight, as if it's all covered in dust.
He finishes taking everything to the dustbin, which was a lot of work, and so he decides to sleep on a rocking chair outside for the rest of the day. Never forget that you're allowed to just do that. The only scenery to show that we're outside now is the sun, which is drawn with a cute face.
The cat's sleep is interrupted by Chris Rabbit, who is blue, jumping over and shouting "Let's have a race!" and then jumping away again. Then he jumps back and declares himself the winner, like he expected Henry's Cat to be racing him when he hadn't even gotten out of his chair. The cat, now that he's awake, tells Chris that proper races have lots of people in them and they involve running and swimming and all sorts of things. Chris excitedly repeats what the cat said, although he adds some details of his own, including prizes and "a special prize for rabbits". Something makes me think he's not going to like it if he's not the winner...
So Chris dashes off and it cuts to him telling a collection of other animals about the race that's now going to happen. When he says that it will involve things like running and swimming, Denise Duck says that she can swim, and this sets off all the other animals saying what things they can do, regardless of whether it's something that makes sense in a race: Sammy Snail can crawl, Pansy Pig can eat, Douglas Dog can bark, Philippe Frog (who has a stereotypical French accent, of course) can leap, and Ted Tortoise can sleep. So, how many of these animals actually know what a race is?
While they're having this weird conversation, Henry's Cat walks by, wanting to find a dustman to take the rubbish he threw out earlier. I don't think wandering around is the way to do that, really - does he not at least have a phone? Chris spots him and tells the other animals that the cat is the one that's going to judge the race and give them their prizes. Yes, the cat definitely did not agree to that.
Chris says that the race starts now, and so all the animals start doing their respective talents as fast as they can, in no particular direction and with no obvious goal. Chris actually covers the running here, even though we've only seen him jumping until now, but he does do it very fast. And all the others are shown to do their things quickly too, although Ted Tortoise's sleeping isn't obviously fast in any way, despite the narrator treating his attempt no differently from the others. Well... I guess you could at least say that he's "fast asleep"!
Henry's Cat just looks around in blank, smiling confusion at all of this, not really sure how to judge who was winning. Nevertheless, we're told that he let it go on for an hour before declaring an end to the race! And no-one seems to have lost their momentum. He bangs on a bucket to get everyone's attention and tells them to line up. Walking up and down in front of the line, he gets out a pad and pencil, writes some things down, and then tells them all it's a draw between everyone, and they all get prizes. Well, I guess that's one way to settle it.
Henry's Cat: And a special prize for Chris Rabbit, because it's his birthday this year.
All of the animals jump up and down in excitement - the narrator says that none of them had ever won a race before. We can therefore conclude that the narrator does not consider Chris's brief solo race at the start of the episode to be a valid competition.
Chris starts shouting for prizes, so the cat tells all the other animals to follow him. He leads them... to the pile of rubbish from his loft! He gives them all the most random gifts from the pile, and they all seem very pleased with them. How is it that this episode only has, like, two plot points, and I didn't foresee how they were going to intersect? Chris's special prize is a hot water bottle, which the cat claims you can keep carrot juice in when crossing the desert. You would not think that was a common concern, but apparently it's just what the rabbit has always wanted.
Henry's Cat finally gets to relax on his rocking chair, and the narrator gets weirdly philosophical as the show ends:
Narrator: He sat back in his chair and rocked himself off to sleep, thinking with some satisfaction that, although the human race could not solve its problems, his race could.
We haven't even seen any humans in this show! What a random thing to think.
Well, that's that, then. This show did what it needed to do in the time that it had and left me amused. What more is there to say?