Critters of the Cinema

Critters of the Cinema is a company which provides animal talents to film, television, music videos, commercials, print work, parades and live stage events. The company was founded by Rob Bloch in 1981. Critters of the Cinema provided animal talents to several episodes of and and to the seventh feature film, . 
== Star Trek ==
Critters of the Cinema started to work on The Next Generation in when several horses were required for the cliffhanger and its sequel . Bloch and fellow horse trainer John Hanna worked on these episodes and Hanna also appeared as a background actor, a buggy driver in the second episode.
Bloch and his crew chose the dog to play Maura in the sixth season episode . Friday previously worked on the television series Perfect Strangers and for four years on General Hospital beside other projects. For the episode , Bloch chose the two wolves and Teddy. They previously worked as the wolf "Two Socks" on the Academy Award winning drama Dances with Wolves in 1990.
Critters of the Cinema also took over from Gary Gero and Birds & Animals Unlimited when they "cast" a new Spot. Animal trainer Scott Hart worked with Somali cats on the episodes and . Bloch and his crew changed Spot's appearance when they chose orange tabby cats instead. , , and became the lead "Spots" while later joined the group. For Spot's appearance in Star Trek: Generations, Critters of the Cinema worked with Monster for some early scenes and with Brandy for the end scenes. The back-ups and Zoe also worked on this film. Star Trek: Generations is the only Star Trek project on which the company received screen credit for their work.
Karen Thomas-Kolakowski is the animal trainer who was responsible for the work with the cats on Star Trek: The Next Generation. For the final TNG episode she worked with the cats Bacall, Uma, Zeke, Bandit, , and Shelley, the fill-ins , , Buffy and as well as their doubles , Sinbad, Sascha and Justin. All these cats can be seen as Data's cats in the anti-time future.
For Star Trek: Voyager, Critters of the Cinema worked on the pilot episode, . They provided horses for a location shooting as well as the two dogs seen in this episode. One of the dog trainers was Rose Ordile.
Year 	Image	Role 	Animal 	Episode / Film	Trainers
 	 	Horses 	Unknown 	 	Rob Bloch and John Hanna
 	 	Labrador Retriever puppies	Unknown 	 	Rob Bloch, LuJean Rose, and Karen Thomas-Kolakowski
–	 	Spot 	, , , and 	, , 	Rob Bloch and Karen Thomas-Kolakowski
 	 	Maura 	 	 	Rob Bloch and LuJean Rose
 	 	Troi's dog 	 	 	Robert Dollwet
 	 	Wolf 	and Teddy 	 	Rob Bloch, Chris Edrington, and Bobbi Edrington
 	 	Data's six cats 	Bacall, Uma, Zeke, Bandit, , Shelley; Doubles: , Sinbad, Sascha and Justin; Fill-ins: , , Buffy and	 	Rob Bloch, Karen Thomas-Kolakowski, LuJean Rose, Carrie Toth, and Debbie Silverman
 	 	Spot 	and , back-ups and Zoe 	 	Rob Bloch, Karen Thomas-Kolakowski, and Kelli Cole
 	 	Horses 	Unknown 	 	Catherine Pittman and Debbie Silverman
 	 	German Shepherd 	Unknown 	 	Rob Bloch and Rose Ordile
 	 	Mollie 	Unknown 	 	Rob Bloch and Rose Ordile
 	 	Lizard 	Unknown 	 	Rob Bloch
 	 	Neeka 	 	 	Rob Bloch and Cynthia Coulter
 	 	Spawn beetles 	Unknown 	 	John Baldwin and Karen Thomas-Kolakowski
 	 	 	Unknown 	 	Unknown
== Other productions ==
Critters of the Cinema provided animal talents to dozens of film, television, commercial and print productions. Between 1995 and 1999 they worked on the comedy series Unhappily Ever After and in 1997 on the fantasy series Power Rangers Turbo. Other television work includes Dinosaurs, Home Improvement, Married with Children, Alf, Knots Landing, Hunter, Murphy Brown, , The Garry Shandling Show, S Club 7 in L.A., , , , , Threat Matrix, Providence, , , Roseanne, , Mr. Belvedere, General Hospital, ', The Tracey Ullman Show, The Young and the Restless, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, , Who's the Boss?, , Tales from the Crypt, , Melrose Place, , Moloney, Players, Cracker, Boy Meets World, Sunset Beach, The Bold and the Beautiful, , Suddenly Susan, The Lion's Den, , and Sex and the City.
Film work includes the romance The Woman in Red (1984), (1984), (1985), (1985), (1986), (1987), (1987), (1987), (1987), (1989), (1991), (1993), (1993), (1994), (1997), (1997), (1999), (2000), the comedy More Dogs Than Bones (2000), (2000), (2000), the comedy 100 Girls (2000), and (2002).
Critters of Cinema also worked on commercials and print ads for Toyota, ShowBiz Pizza, Sony, Ray Ban, Hitachi, Bud Light, K-Mart, Lipton Iced Tea, Oldsmobile, Pepe Jeans, Dorito Chips, JC Penny, Toys'R'Us, Sprite, Avis, Pepsi, Epson Printers, Meow Mix cat food, yahoo.com, T-Mobile, Wrangler Jeans, Wells Fargo Bank, Kelloggs, Chevrolet, Pac Bell, McDonald's, Nissan, Viacom Cable, M&Ms, HBO, Chysler, Honda, HIS Jeans, Ford, Wrigley's Gum, and Fruit of the Loom. Animal talents also worked in music videos for , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .
== External links ==
* – official site
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Category:Production companies
Category:Casting department