Ricky Gervais making Alley Cats, a cartoon about a bunch of foul-mouthed feral cats, sounds like exactly the kind of idea that might have struggled to find a home a few decades ago. Alley Cats takes Gervais’ familiar mix of sharp humour, social observation and a fascination with life’s more awkward moments and drops it into the world of a group of feral cartoon cats trying to survive on the streets. It’s a strange setup, but animation has always been good at making strange ideas feel completely normal. Animation loves strange ideasAlley Cats sits in a different space, closer to the adult animated sitcom tradition, but that’s part of the appeal. That freedom to build worlds and characters without rules is a huge part of the attraction of adult animation, and animation in general.