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I’m Ricky Gervais and here is why I had to make my new Netflix comedy show about cats
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!
Nathan Congleton/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images
- Caroline Frost
Published: Monday, 27 July 2026 at 5:00 pm
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This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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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.”
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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.”
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.
(L to R) Ricky Gervias as Gus, Tom Basden as Ponce, David Earl as Puke, Andrew Brooke as Fang, Diane Morgan as Olive, in Alley Cats. Netflix
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.
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.
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.
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Alley Cats is out on Friday 7 August on Netflix
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Authors
Caroline Frost
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