“ | Yeeeessssss, Ms. Dimple? | „ |
~ Max's first line. |
“ | OUI, MISS DIMPLE!!! | „ |
~ Max's last words, as he flies into the distance. |
Max is the secondary antagonist of Warner Bros.' 1997 animated feature film Cats Don't Dance. He is the butler and the legal guardian of Darla Dimple.
He was voiced by the film's director Mark Dindal, who also voiced Yzma's cat form in The Emperor's New Groove (another film directed by Mark Dindal).
Description[]
Appearance[]
Max is colossal in size. He is extremely strong, heavy and muscular. He is completely bald and has fair skin, brown eyes and a scar on the right side of his face. He wears a black tuxedo, a white shirt, a black bow tie, white gloves with Mickey Mouse's three slots on hand, and black shoes. He also has a red rose on his tuxedo.
Personality[]
Max is truly rude, dishonest, argumentative, intimidating and obsequious. He is portrayed as a wicked, arrogant, oppressive, menacing, rambunctious and persuasive manservant. He is very protective towards Darla, and is very fond of her, showing that he does care about someone other than himself. He is completely serendipitous and cooperative for keeping Darla Dimple safe and happy. Max is also very responsible for enforcing her will. Despite his vindictive and acrimonious nature, he is shown to be very quiet, patient and thoughtful, being a capable piano player. He is also shown to be an extremely formidable and destructive enemy when he likes to torment or crush people. In the climax, his emotionless façade gradually breaks down into pure sadism.
History[]
Max is a colossal manservant who provides the muscle that Darla Dimple lacks and is a force to be reckoned with, capable of inhuman strength: in fact for a large part of the film, Max was seen as almost invincible (due to a combination of his strength and his extremely gigantic size) - his arrival caused people to flee in terror and it was clear from his first appearance that he was the tool by which the bratty Darla maintained her power as she performed. After Danny accidentally offends Darla during her song, she summons Max to punish Danny as a warning for crossing Darla's path. He goes to Darla's House, and he lights the fireworks from rockets during Big and Loud sequence.
As well as providing Darla Dimple with an impressive enforcer, Max also served as her manservant - performing any task she asked of him, he was surprisingly gentle towards Darla and was very fond of her: this loyalty could arguably be a redeeming feature to the otherwise thuggish and aggressive character, but in the end, he was still basically an oppressive bully. Darla did not really appreciate Max at all and often treated him badly (though Darla treated everyone badly unless doing so would endanger her status as a celebrity). Max was also shown to be fond of dancing, as to Darla's horror, he started giving in to his temptation to dance along to the music played by Danny and the other animal actors.
Max humanly tried to stop Danny from fixing the animal's reputation but was defeated near the end of the film when he climbed onto a giant Darla-shaped balloon while trying to pursue Danny. Just as he had Danny cornered, Max loses the upper hand as the balloon he is standing on is leaned against a spike. Gripping the rope connected to the balloon, Danny asks Max "How does the kitty cat go?" mirroring the scene when they first met, Max replies "Meow" knowing that he is finally at the mercy of someone smaller than him. Danny replies "Very good" before pulling the rope, popping the balloon and sending it and Max flying into the distance, much to his intense panic.
After Darla is exposed of her true colors and sent through a trapdoor as a cruel punishment, she calls out for Max, but he can only cry out "Oui, Miss Dimple!", as he is still flying over the city of Paris in France on the popped balloon.
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Trivia[]
- In name and appearance, Max is a reference to the late Erich von Stroheim's sinister character Max von Mayerling from the 1950 noir film Sunset Boulevard by Paramount Pictures.
- Max was voiced by Mark Dindal, who also served as the director of the film. His voice was originally used as scratch dialogue, but after the film began to run out of money, another actor could never be hired.