CatDog

CatDog is an American animated television series created by Peter Hannan for Nickelodeon. The series follows the life of conjoined brothers of different species, with one half of the resultant animal being a cat and the other a dog. Nickelodeon produced the series from Burbank, California. The first episode aired on April 4, 1998, following the 1998 Kids' Choice Awards, before the show officially premiered in October of that year. Similarly, the Season 2 episode "Fetch" was shown in theaters with The Rugrats Movie in 1998 before airing on television.

The series was ended on June 15, 2005, after a total of four seasons and 68 episodes over 7 years. It was produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio and Peter Hannan Productions, and was released on DVD in Region 1 by Shout! Factory. After the initial run concluded, Nicktoons continued to show re-runs of the cartoon until September 5, 2011.

Two animation studios—Saerom Animation through Watchview Studio and Rough Draft Studios through Rough Draft Korea—worked on the animation for the show.

Premise
The series revolves around Cat and Dog, a conjoined twin of a cat and a dog, who share the same body with no tail or hind legs. Although they are best friends and brothers, they have very different personalities, similar to "The Odd Couple" and the original "Looney Tunes" shorts, mixed with elements of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, and fellow Nicktoon Ren and Stimpy. Cat is very cultured while Dog is very fun-loving. Dog enjoys chasing garbage trucks, cars, and exploring many things that Cat does not want to be involved with. Dog enjoys eating at fast-food restaurants (such as Taco Depot), whereas Cat does not. The series takes place in Nearburg, a town dominated by anthropomorphic animals and the occasional humanoid.

Production
The series, created by Peter Hannan, was developed as the next Nicktoons production and produced from Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. Hannan served as executive producer. This was part of Nickelodeon's $350 million investment in original animation over the next five years after the series' inception.

Albie Hecht, Nickelodeon's senior vice president of worldwide productions, said that the creators planned for the series to "really play off of kids' sympathies" by portraying the characters as experiencing "the worst of both worlds". Hannan said CatDog was inspired by watching neighborhood cats and dogs occasionally fight each other, and thought that it would be great to make conjoined twins Cat and Dog to see how both of the animals would fare against other things.[2] The idea of them being conjoined twins came from Hannan watching several news stories on TV about conjoined twins living a normal life conjoined together. Both aspects he claimed, initially developed the idea of CatDog.

The title characters were originally envisioned as a two-headed superhero called "CatDog Man."

Critical
The series was reviewed by Common Sense Media with a score 2/5 stars, advised for children 7 and up. The series has a 6.6/10 rating on IMDb, and an 8.0/10 on TV.com.

Awards and nominations
In 1998, the series was nominated for an Annie Award for Outstanding Individual Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television Production, for "Dog Gone". The recipients would have been Derek Drymon, Robert Porter and Peter Hannan.

At the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards, the show was nominated for Favorite Cartoon. However, it lost to Rugrats. It did so again in the 2000 Kids' Choice Awards.