“Le Avventure di Gatto Evaristo”/The Adventures of Evaristo the Cat (partially found Italian Super-8mm “Sylvester” copycat; 1970)

Evaristo drinks what appears to be a “strength potion” in a very damaged frame of a cartoon.

Status: Partially Found

Le Avventure di Gatto Evaristo (The Adventures of Evaristo The Cat) was a 1970 cartoon believed to be made only on Super 8mm featuring Evaristo, a cat that likes to prank his friends: Ottavio the dog, Sansone the bird and a mouse named Filiberto. Evaristo has a similar behavior to the Warner Bros Icon Will E. Coyote although being in design very similar to Sylvester, making it a kind of copycat of him.

Production Details

The cartoon episodes were made by a studio called “Polistampa S.P.A. Milano” later named “GLM Studio” in what is believed to be the cartoon’s production time, the cartoon was drawn and animated by Giancarlo Marchesi that was later joined by his daughter Loretta later in the production, Giancarlo worked in the production of other famous Italian cartoon such as “La Linea” and several commercials aired by Rai in “Carosello” but on the internet few information about him are present. During the analysis on the episodes owned by the user Hydragon23 it’s discovered that in the copies belonging to him Polistampa is never mentioned, another studio called “ISA” is mentioned instead, the information regarding this company are non existent to this day. In the production time the GLM Studio was supervised by the famous Italian Disney comic artist Romano Scarpa who is believed to have voiced the dog.

Dub Anomaly

During the episode “Le Avventure di Gatto Evaristo” the dog dub seems off and with no acting saying:

“Veramente tremendo…

Vediamo adesso cosa combina!”

If translated, it goes:

“He’s really tremedous…

Let’s see what he does now!”

The distant noise of what sounds like a television program can be heard in the background, after further analyzing it seems to be an audio segment from the Italian dub of the anime “Mazinger Z” probably done in the same room, the cause of this anomaly can be the poor way the dub was recorded due to the cartoon being a “home only” release and not a television one. Analysing Hydragon’s copies the original dub of the dog in the same episode can be heard, making this anomaly probability due to the fact that the owner dubbed the copy with his voice using a projector that had this function.

Although the possibility of it being an official dub still remains because in the “original dub” copy Polistampa is never mentioned and it could be that the dub anomaly is still present in all of the Polistampa copies, probably due to legal trouble with the original voice actor.

“Amore Indiano” Anomaly

During the reproduction of the episode “Amore Indiano” owned by LMW user Hydragon23 it’s discovered that it’s an actual Woody Woodpecker episode, the episode is branded as a Gatto Evaristo episode because on the box a similar adaptation of title was printed. The original title in the cartoon is “Indian Whoopiee” and on the box “Amore Indiano” (Indian Love) is printed.

The possibility of this anomaly could rely on the fact that after being sued for the plagiarism of Sylvester, Polistampa had to recycle the Gatto Evaristo boxes to sell other movies and cartoons.

Current State

The cartoon was brought to light by a famous Italian YouTuber named Yotobi that owns what could be the two only publicly released episodes that are talked about here. The other owner is a man on an Italian auction site but the episode’s name and content is unknown. The series remains partially found (3 known episodes) to this day, it’s unknown if the other episodes existed or got unreleased or maybe destroyed and lost in time, but it’s possible that the show was canceled due to a lawsuit from Warner Bros regarding the plagiarism with “Sylvester” which at the Evaristo looked similar to. According to some news, some cartoon's episodes were screened in 2003 in Turin during a Film Festival held at "Le Gru" mall.

In the 8 of March 2023 two episodes were uploaded by the owner Hydragon23 on YouTube, although not in digitised form, the videos consisted in filming the projection, the two episodes being “Gatto Evaristo il Ventriloquo” and “Sansone contro Gatto Evaristo” are now being digitised and color corrected by a team in The Lost Media Wiki.

Known Episodes

“Le Avventure di Gatto Evaristo” (Ep.1?) In Color; With Sound. Status: Damaged audio and orange dominant. Owned by: Karim Musa aka Yotobi.

“Evaristo e Filiberto All’Ultimo Scherzo” Black and White; Mute Status: Good quality picture. Owned by: Karim Musa aka Yotobi.

“Evaristo il ventriloquo” In Color; With Sound. Status: Good quality picture, orange dominant; good audio. Owned by: LMW User Hydragon23

“Sansone Contro Gatto Evaristo” In Color; With Sound Status: Good quality picture, orange dominant; with good audio. Owned by: LMW User Hydragon23

“Amore Indiano” “Indian Whoopiee”; Black and White; Mute; Anomaly Report: Is another cartoon branded as a Gatto Evaristo episode. Status: Good quality picture; Reported Owned by: LMW User Hydragon23

All other episodes remain completely lost.

Gallery

Yotobi's video on the subject.

Another YouTuber’s follow-up video on the subject.

a promotional article from an issue of the newspaper "Corriere della Sera" dating back to 1973

External Links

• Romano Scarpa’s Wikipedia page.

• Site with information about Giancarlo Marchesi.

• Site with information about Lorenna Marchesi

• Article regarding GLM Studio’s history and supervision with Romano Scarpa.

• Article regarding Romano Scarpa’s cartoons with GLM Studio.

• Article that advertised a screening of the cartoon at "Le Gru" mall of Grugliasco (Turin) during summer of 2003