Skimbleshanks Skimbleshanks Skimbleshanks is a cat character in T. S. Eliot's book of poetry "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" and in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical "Cats". The T. S Eliot poem begins as a parody of Rudyard Kipling's poem "l'Envoi" (also known as "The Long Trail") from "Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses". Compare the first few lines of Kipling's Skimbleshanks is described as living on the Night Mail overnight express train that travels on the British West Coast Main Line (WCML) between London Euston and Glasgow Central. He is however not exclusively based on the WCML, as he has visited
Joel Chandler Harris Uncle Remus-inspired dialect, referring to themselves as "Brer Rabbit" and "Old Possum," respectively. Eventually the dialect and the personae became a sign of their collaboration against the London literary establishment. Eliot titled one of his books "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Ralph Bakshi wrote and directed a 1975 American live action/animated crime film titled "Coonskin" based on Harris' Brothers rabbit, fox, and bear who rise to the top of the organized crime racket in Harlem, encountering corrupt law enforcement, con artists, and the Mafia. In 1946, the Walt Disney Company produced a film based on the Uncle Remus tales