CATS The Confusicle

The Cats movie presents a lot of misinformation about felis catus! So today we'll be talking cat facts: what are the answers to some of the most common questions about cats? What are some of the wildest wild cats in the world? And finally, what's going on with that Cats movie, huh? With special guest comedian Joey Clift.

FOOTNOTES:

1. Cougar purring
2. Cat tongue closeup
3. Cat slo-mo drinking water
4. The rusty-spotted cat, the world's smallest cat!
5. Hercules, the liger
6. The margay climbing a tree! 
7. The flat-headed cat
8. The Canada lynx's big ol' legwarmers
9. Pallas's cat looking like a muppet
10. Seriously Pallas's cats look like Yoda/Wookies
11. The Löwenmensch figurine, AKA, world's first furry
12. "Pinpointing the Exact Moment Cats Reviewers Lost Their Minds" 
13. "I took my dad, a veterinarian, to see Cats — he has some thoughts"

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology. I'm pro bird rights on Twitter, and
my pet dog is very disappointed in me today because
today's episode is all about cats. Cats the confusicle. That's right.
I sat down and watched one hour and forty nine

(00:26):
minutes of c g I human cat hybrids wiggle around
on screen, and I get the impression that if this
movie is the best Hollywood can do, that people may
be misinformed about what cats are and what they look like.
So today I'll be talking cat facts. What are domesticated cats,
where do they come from? And what are the answers
to some of the most common questions about cats. Then

(00:48):
we'll discuss wildcats and hand out awards to cats who
are the top of their catategories. Finally, we will discuss
the movie and offer some sensible, calm, rational critique. Discover
this and more. As we answered the ageal question what's
it like getting high off cat nip? And is the
experience similar to watching the Cats movie? So our domesticated

(01:11):
cats actually domesticated? Did we capture cats from the wild
and breed them to be our pets. Well. No, as
with most things, it seems that cats had to have
things their way when it comes to domestication. Our relationship
with cats as we know it today is started around
eight thousand years ago, as humans lived in agrarian societies
and the fertile Crescent. The cats were after the rodents

(01:34):
that plagued our farms, and humans were likely happy enough
to have these furry exterminators help out with their crops.
The Near Eastern and Egyptian wildcats were the two ancestral
lineages of the domesticated cat, the Felis catus, and these
cats decided they didn't really need to bother changing much
for us. At least on the DNA level, Domesticated cats

(01:55):
are remarkably similar to their wild counterparts. Unlike dogs, cat
didn't really need to change much. They already killed pests
for us at no extra charge. They were playful and
relatively non aggressive towards humans. As evolutionary geneticist even Maria
Geigl says, quote, I think there was no need to
subject cats to such a selection process since it was

(02:17):
not necessary to change them. They were perfect as they were.
Joining me to talk about the World's most Perfect Animal
is comedian Cat Fancier and Garfield impersonator Joey Cliff. Hey,
everybody and all the cats in the audience. You know. Now,
you might notice my voice is a little different this episode.
It's got a nice sort of raspy, lioness light quality.

(02:41):
That's because I am sick as a dog. How dare
you use that? I know? Well, yeah, I actually a cat.
Cat did got my tongue of I've knows everything. It's
all full of ats, all full of cats. Got cat

(03:02):
in my throat. Um. Fortunately, my voice did just come
back in the nick of time for this very important
episode about cats in general. We will talk about cats
the movie, but I do want to load this episode
with information about cats to kind of fight probably the
disinformation that people are getting from this movie, namely that
cats don't have butt holes, which is not true. Yeah,

(03:24):
cats don't have butt holes? Is that that's a major
plot point of the Cats movie? Yeah, it's it's sort of. Um. Now,
I don't understand why they didn't just give them all
suspenders like they gave one of the cats and spend
skinble shanks got these really tight, form fitting suspenders, and
I don't. God, it would have been better if they
all got those. I feel like all the other cats.
I mean like usually if you put clothes on a cat,

(03:46):
it's like not a fan of it. I feel like
Skimble Shanks was the one that like was okay with it.
When I owned cats as a kid, I did try
to put one of my cats in one of my
shirts and it was interesting in that the cat was
not a fan of it. But I never I never
tried to do um type fitting overall, so I feel
like that might have been better apparently according to the movie.

(04:09):
I think that the difference is if you put a
cat in like something that's baggy, it thinks that it's
being eaten by that thing, whereas if it's form fitting,
it's like, oh, this is fashion. I got it right, right.
So that's just they like stuff that's form fitting. That's
what we're saying is put your cat in in really
tight form fitting jeans. I men get like five hundred
tweets about like I tried this on my cat and

(04:30):
now I don't have eyeballs if you try to. If
you try to put form fitting tailor clothes under your
cat and it did not go well, please tweet at us.
So I want to talk about I kind of did
the Google auto auto field thing where I was like,
why do cats and then saw what auto field did?
Or wire cats blank? And I got a lot of

(04:52):
the most frequently googled things, and I would like to
answer them, and I think some of these answers are
not as intuitive of as you might think. I would
like to know that what are the top what are
the weirdest how to cats auto fills that you saw? Oh,
that's a good question I did see. I did see

(05:12):
one which was do cats have a penis? Which I
thought was kind of interesting. Has proven No, No, they no,
they don't. They just don't. All situations, Um, No they do,
they do. It's just you can't they are sheathed. Um.
And so that I think that was the funniest one
I thowt. And I mean it makes sense because you

(05:34):
can't really see it on a cat, so you'd be like, well,
where where does it go? Right? Yeah, that makes sense.
I guess that That's a question that I had up
until now. So first question I want to answer is
why do cats pur? And I think sort of the
intuitive answer is because they're happy, they're content and that's

(05:54):
it's it's not that that answer is wrong. It's just
a lot more complicated than that. They're filled with bumblebees
because they are filled to the brim with bees. So
both domesticated cats and wildcats per. Although lions, tigers, jaguars,
and leopards can't per, they can roar, they can't pur
there Apparently the um structure of their learns to allow

(06:17):
them to roar is mutually exclusive with their ability to pur,
so it's a trade off. Cougars are the largest wildcats
that can purn. I've got a got a short audio
clip of a cougar purring, which is this is going
to be very really excited. Oh isn't that nice? That
is really relaxing. That was kind of like how I sounded,

(06:41):
um when I was trying to sleep the past couple
of weeks with my cold, Just like you're mean, you're happy, Yeah,
real happy. There's a there's a podcast called just speaking
of the relaxation of cats. There's a podcast I believe
called the per cast just literally just six minutes of

(07:01):
a cat purring. That's by the editor of My Favorite
murder Right. Oh no, that's a there's two different perst
there's the percast with Stephen Ray Morris's nice Guy. That's
where they talk about cats. Then there's the percast how many,
so it's a different number of ours. I mean, I
don't I think that they might just be named the
same thing. I see. Okay, Yeah, it's a good it's

(07:22):
a solid pun, so I'm not surprised. I don't blame them. Yeah,
you should change the name of this to the perkase.
Oh boy, just like, let's get as much use out
of the percast as you could drive this into the ground. Yeah,
that's great. I would definitely. I do sometimes listen to
like cat purring, just like to help me sleep. It's
very soathing, which is interesting, and we'll talk a little

(07:43):
bit about why that might be so soothing. Souh. Typically
our cats will pur when they're being petted. They but
they can also pur when they're stressed, scared, or in pain.
So what's going on. It's kind of confusing. We know
that kittens pur to help their mothers locate them for nursing,
and they pur during nursing, and that I think is
kind of probably one of the major reasons for purring,

(08:06):
is like that that interaction between the kittens and the
mothers and cats will also purr when they're grooming each other,
including big cats in the wild. The ones that can
per will per when they're grooming each other. So it's
a social interaction as well. And as a researchers sort
of delve into all the various possibilities for why they
pur it becomes even more mysterious because purring could be

(08:31):
a multi functional communication and self soothing, self healing process.
So this is really surprising to me. Actually it may
help promote bone and muscle tissue healing. Yes, so the
frequency of purring is between fifty hurts, and it sounds
that this frequency is thought to trigger bone and tissue

(08:55):
repair and increase bone density, and that it's it's basically
it's rating at a way that's like stimulating the cells
and the bones and the tissues to engage in repair.
And it's a like our tissues will regrow and repair
and the same thing with bones. It goes through these
regrowing and repairing things and that helps increase your bone density.

(09:17):
Another way to do that is exercise, if you do
impact exercise, or you you lift small weights or big weights,
I suppose to for me, tiny tiny weight to cheerios
on a toothpick. That's that's the way for me. Really,
you've gone up. I've been doing um. But yeah, it's

(09:38):
so that that may help stimulate repair, which is great
for cats because they're very sedentary. And that could also
explain why they per when they're distressed or anxious, because
it could be a healing thing where they're sort of
like healing their bodies may be soothing themselves as well,
because it may have a soothing kind of reminds them
of them they were kittens as well. We know it's

(09:58):
a social context sort of a you know, when you
pet the cat, they purer. When they nuzzle each other
and groom each other, they pur so it's sort of
a you know, it's like a it's like a soothing
mantra for the cat. I wonder how much of that is.
I mean, I forget the exact percentage of it. But
it's like cats don't really meow to each other. They
only me out really to humans because they kind of

(10:19):
view us as their mommies and daddy. Yeah, they do
me out to their their mother when they but adult
cats don't know. They aren't as vocal to each other, right,
right right in terms of mewing, Like I wonder if
it is one of those things like you said, of
like it just kind of takes them back to being
a kitten, of you know, that's something that they do
and taken care of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but they
do the cats cats in the wild do per to

(10:41):
each other when they're grooming each other, which is really cute.
That is adorable. Is that what's happening with the cougar? Well,
it was actually purring your response to its caretaker. This
is a at a wildcat rescue, So he was he
or she actually I don't know, was responding to the
caretaker coming up to it. Very cute, delightful. Um. So,
even though we don't have like a solid answer to

(11:02):
why cats purn, there may not be a solid answer.
It may be sort of a multifaceted thing. Like we've discussed,
we do know how they do it. So inside the
cats larynx muscles expand and contract the glottis, which is
that's sort of like to exact um, the thing that
in cartoons like they jiggle and it makes their voice weird,

(11:23):
and that causes air to vibrate as it's pushed out
or breathe in, so like when cats are purring, they
can pur as they breathe out and breathe in. So
that's why it's that constant, like little like humming drum rolls.
You know, that makes sense. Yeah, So the next question
is why do cats lick themselves? And again it seems
like it has an obvious answer and magic because it

(11:46):
turns them on um so no um so. Answer number
one is that it cleans themselves and it's um and
that is true, But I do want to talk about
the complexity of why they do that and the tongues themselves.
So their tongues, as you probably know, have that like
sand paper texture, and that's due to the little papilla,

(12:08):
the little bumps on their tongues, and each of those
little bumps are shaped like tiny rasping hooks, and they're
made up of caratin like what's found in your finger nails,
and they're shaped like tiny hollow claws, which allows them
to brush through fur. And that's why they also get
like stuck on blankets. Like have you ever seen a
cat and it's flicking itself and then its tongue accidentally

(12:31):
gets on a blanket and it's just like stuck on
its tongues. Yeah, because all those little it's like velcrow,
all those little hooks have gotten stuck on the tiny
fibers on the blanket. But these scratchy tongues are great
for coming through their fur. It detangles their fur. It
acts as fleet combs to brush out parasites, and it
also combs out their protective oils that happen at the

(12:52):
base of the hair from the fallicle and then brushes
up through their coat which helps waterproof them. And it
can also keep them cool in hot weather. So it's
sort of a multi multi tool and omni tongue. It's
also like the hooks on their tongue. I'm not sure
if it's with house cats, but some some species of

(13:13):
cat um their tongue also allows them to remove meat
from bones. They do use it for that too, Yeah,
where it's like they they'll lick bones and they'll get
some of that meat off of the bone right um.
And it also I think it's main purpose is for grooming,
but they'll use it for for everything else. So that, Yeah,
they do lick bones and that helps them rasp off

(13:33):
that that meat at the end of the bone. And
that's yummy. Yeah, love love. I love chewing on bones personally,
and no, I do. I love bone marrow. So I'll
crunch those things open so I could use like a
real sticky tongue to get all the extra meat off.
What is the okay? So do you do it with
like chicken bones? Do you do it with like? Do
you do it with like a cow bone? Well? I

(13:53):
can't chew a cow bone open without breaking all my teeth,
but I have had I do like I I've had
cow bone marrow and it's very good. Yeah, like the
bone marrow is very good. It's it's good on toast.
What was the wait? Really? Yeah? What what was the
This is probably very off topic. What was the point
in life where you realized that bone marrow was the

(14:14):
thing you liked? Was it a recent thing? No, I've
done it since I was a kid, just like I
guess I just love love chewing on bones. That's Katie guarantee,
love chewing on them bones. Um, I guess that it's
the similar thing for me would be I just I
developed a taste for just like tuna fish out of
a can, and I was really I can't that tuna

(14:35):
fishes smells really strong to me the odor, and I
can't deal with the smell. I like freshly cooked tuna,
but can tuna fish. That smell just knocks me, knocks
me out of my socks. I think it's just were
you a picky eater growing up? I was very much
except for bones, loved bones bones. I think this might
have been I think that I think we were similar.
I was also a really picky eater. It's like, when
you're a picky eater, you pick like two things that

(14:57):
you like and for you it was just bones for
me chi For me, it was like it was tuna
fish heated up in a microwave, which I do not
do anymore good. You'll get kicked out of the office,
kicked out too many offices as a ten year old. Um, yeah,
it was that and like cinnamon toast crunch or something. Yes,

(15:17):
it makes sense, yea. So now moving on to how
do cats drink water? And speaking of which, I'm going
to drink some water right now. The way I drink
water is basically throw it towards my mouth and hope
I catch it now. So I humans drink with some suction.
You pursh your lips, you slip up that water. Sometimes
you use a bit of gravity to help. Cats don't

(15:40):
drink that way. As you know, cats lap, and it's
actually really interesting bit of physics. They don't. I think
the popular conception is that they curl their tongue backwards
and form like a little scoop, like a little ladle
with their tongue and then like scoop it into their mouth,
which is not true. So they can't suck water in
through section because as if they tried, they just just

(16:01):
I'll come out of the sides of their mouth. They've
got a joker mouth, yeah, because they have that really
long mouth, which is great for chewing off an antelope's head,
but it's not so great for sucking water. And so
instead they actually bite water right out of the air.
So they dip the tip of their tongue, which is
slightly curled, to actually increase the surface area of the tongue.
Just touching the surface of the water, they barely even

(16:24):
break the surface tension of the water, and then they
rapidly pull it back up and then they the water
will cling to the tongue as through liquid adhesion, and
liquid adhesion is the property of water that it clings
to surfaces. It moves across like rain drops down a

(16:44):
window pane, and so it'll cling to the tongue and
they pull it up create this column of water, and
then they just bite down on the column of water,
sealing their mouths shut so they can get a nice
bite of water without it leaking all over the sides
of their mouths. There's actually some really nice slow motion footage, uh,
you know, taken with a high speed camera of I'm

(17:04):
not sure if it exists for cats, but of dogs
drinking water does exist for cats. I'll post a link
to it in the show notes like it does look
really cool. It's essentially like they create a missile of
water then intercept out of the air with their mouths.
It's a really badass way to drink water because you're
biding the water. Yeah, I I've got I would try
it right now. I've got a cup of water that's
not super full, but if it was full, I would.

(17:26):
I would see if that would work for me, and
then we get water all over this microphie. It would
work for humans if we could do it as quickly
as cats too. I don't think our tongue muscles are
quite good enough to lap that quickly. Yeah, I think
you're right. The next question is why do cats rub
their heads against things? So this is called bunting, and
they're doing a form of scent marking. They have scent

(17:49):
glands and their cheeks that can mark their territory. It's
also a social gesture. Lions and other cats will greet
each other and express affection through bante you've seen cats
do what You've seen lions do it. All sorts of
cats will. That's when they just like kind of smash
their faces into each other like rams, but the adorable version.

(18:09):
And pet cats will also rub their faces against owners,
other cats or you know, other pets. Like sometimes it's
really cute to see cats just like headbutting a dog
and the dogs like what, Just for the record, bunting,
I've never heard that term, but that is the cutest possible,
it's like. So another question is why do cats need

(18:33):
and that's where they put their little paws, like making biscuits. Yeah,
with their little paws. So there's a couple of theories
for this. It could be a carryover from their wild
ancestors who had to do bed making, like tamping down
grass and foliage to make up comfortable bed. It could
also just be similar to the purring, where it's a
carry over from their kitten hood where they needing motion

(18:55):
that they make on their mothers to stimulate lactation. Yeah,
um yes, thank you, to stimulate the nipples to um
and it helps the mother produce milk for the kittens,
and so mimicking that motion might be comforting and some
cats to kind of lend itself to that particular theory
is that some cats will need a blanket and then

(19:17):
suckle on the blanket as they're sleeping. It's really cute.
It's like it's kind of like sucking a thumb like
sort of form of comfort. But we never like tell
cats like, hey, stop sucking your thomb. That's weird. If
a cat stopped doing that, I would be said, encourage
if your cat, your cat needs and then drules uh
just like yeah, don't tell it, no, tell it more. Um. Yeah.

(19:39):
I think that, like I'm not in necessarily sure with
the research is behind it, but I think that it
is like a you know, a stimulating electation thing, because
it's like when cats need, they tend to also rule
emperor while they're doing it. Yeah, Like it's clear that
when they're doing it, they're like they're having a good time. Yes, yes,
So next question is why do cats scratch furniture? Answer
number one is that they do hate you. It is

(20:00):
a way of showing their frustrating Actually, that is a
little bit true, because they can scratch out of frustration
and boredom, so it can be a passive aggressive thing.
It's not that they hate you, it's that they hate
your furniture choice, that you're not a very good designer. Well,
the common belief is that it's too sharpen their claws,
but there's not really evidence showing that this is true.

(20:21):
The main reason seems to be a form of communication,
a kind of cat business card, because they seem to
select specific places, like a specific chair they love to scratch,
or a tree stump or fence or your priceless ottoman.
You know. It's so it's like not my ottoman ittens.

(20:42):
Why so they have sent glands in their paws and
so it's likely a form of communication, either marking their
territory or just kind of a a cat business card
or like or a cat tweet where you're like, hey,
Mitten's was here and she's she's chilling. It's also an
enriched thing. They love getting little things in their in

(21:02):
their pots, so it can feel good, kind of be
a tactle thing. It can also be done out of
boredom or frustration when they don't have toys. So if
you have a cat who's scratches furniture, one of the
best things you can do is give them a bunch
of toys, especially scratchy things and things that make noise.
So speaking of the playfulness, it kind of leads into
this next question, which is why do cats love boxes?

(21:24):
I'm very excited. So you give a cat a box,
it will immediately jump in and it's actually kind of
funny how quickly they will. I was interacting with a
cat over the holidays, and the which I was interacting
with a cat over the holidays, I just put it
that way because it's not my cat. So there was
someone else's cat on somebody else. I know, I know,

(21:48):
I was, I was. I participated in an interaction with
a cat over Also, don't pot these cat details tell
me about this cat? Did look like it's a cute
ginger cat named Loki, like like yes, and yeah, he's
a real stinker um and so the I tipped over

(22:10):
a gift bag and the cat immediately went inside and
you could pick up that, and he was he's kind
of a wildly cat, so he doesn't really like sitting
in your lap, so I, but when you put him
in this bag, he suddenly just loves being in the bag.
You can carry him around. He's just purring like crazy.
So boxes or bags provide well, let me say, a

(22:35):
gift bag that has an open area where he can
escape through. Don't put your cat in like a closed
bag or or a trash bag. For the love of God, right,
there are cats that, like, like a friend of mine's
cat loved climbing in a grocery bag. Grocery bags are
a big thing because they make noise and they have
they have the box like quality and they can escape

(22:55):
from it. It has to have a clear escape path,
like they're not going to like something where it feels
like they Yeah, they don't want to put in like
a duffle bag. Although my cat growing up, so Mitten's
love to get in my suitcase every time I was
going off to college, like she would just like get
in my suitcase and be like, all right, we're ready
to go. Did you ever surprise everybody taking her to college.

(23:16):
She surprised me by hiding in my car and then
I would drive somewhere and then I'd hear this. We're like, well,
I gotta take Minton's back home. That means she wanted
to go to wanted to go to high school with us. Yeah,
so like an indoor outdoor cat. Yeah, she's in your
outdoor cats. That makes sense. She killed so many native birds,

(23:38):
probably very bad. Were gonna talking. We're going to talk
about that later. Cats killing birds. Oh, it's too depressing,
but they do. They kill a lot of They kill
a lot of birds. I think that there's something like
thirty three species of birds that are extinct only because Yeah,
and like when cats get on like a remote island,
they can just wipe out a bird population really quickly
because the birds aren't used to a predator like a cat,

(23:59):
and then just like pulverize the bird population. And I
think that that's something that I don't want to say.
I I don't love that cats commit bird genocide, but
that's a good take. You don't love it, Yeah, I
don't don't love, don't love genocide, but but I do
think that there is something kind of adorable about Like
the cats are so adorable that you kind of forget

(24:20):
that they're like the perfect chilling machine. It's the cutest
mass extinction event. So back to boxes. The reason I
have love boxes is delightful that they boxes provide a
feeling of security for the cats. So cats are ambush predators,
not not all cats hashtag not all cats, but are
domesticated cats are ambush predators, and they are also preyed

(24:44):
upon by larger animals, um at least like their ancestors were.
So so the security of being in a little box,
like being tucked in a little corner. It's great when
you're an ambush predator because you're hidden, and it's great
when you're hiding from from predators. So like it's like
their favorite place. They both they feel powerful, they feel secures.

(25:05):
It's also safe because they can kind of monitor the
only entrance next exactly they're not going to get they're
not going to fortress right that they can plot their
next move. My other kiddie growing up, Binkie loved it
when I would build him a pillow fort and he'd
get right in the cute. Do you have pictures of
this oh, I probably do somewhere in an old full album.
I don't have one right now, but so you'll have

(25:26):
to just use your imagination, good imagination station. Imagine a
very stinky cat. He smelled very bad, hiding in a
pillow fortress. Okay, if you're listening to this, um, if
you want to do fan art of what do you
think a pillow for? It looks like that would make
me help. I'll help the fan artists out. He was
a gray striped cat with green eyes. He was very

(25:50):
stinky and dumb. Was the chunky short for he was.
He was weird, he was lanky. He was kind of
an awkwardly shaped cat. And there's like an Adam Driver cat. Yeah, no,
he was is yeah, exactly, very very much. So that's
a very good description. So researchers have found that providing
boxes to shelter cats significantly reduces their stress levels and

(26:12):
it makes them more interested in interacting with each other
and with with humans. Also, cats love to ball up
in small spaces for warmth. So cats, one of the
reason they like will go in your sink and seem
to just go in little crannies and like curl up
into these little little croissants is that they're thermoneutral zone.

(26:33):
And the thermon neutral zone is the temperature range where
you don't have to produce extra body heat to make
up for the heat loss to the environment, So they're through.
Thermon neutral zone is about eighty six two d degrees fahrenheit.
In humans, it ranges from about sixty to eighty seven
degrees fahrenheit. So, in other words, cats would love to
turn up the thermostat if they could reach it. This

(26:55):
is where I learned that I'm a cat. Like I
even during the summer, all like sitting my else in
my apartment, like wrapped in a blanket. Yeah, yeah, I
I have a space heater and I once turned it
on and put my feet up to it and like
took a nap, and I turned it on so hot
it melted the varnish on the table that it was on.
My feet were fine. I don't recommend doing that, but yeah,

(27:17):
my feet were fine. So, speaking of napping, why do
cats nap all day? Real real easy answer to this
one is that, so cats aren't nocturnal. I know it
seems like they're nocturnal because you know, they're little creatures
in the night, but they're actually crepuscular, meaning that they're
most active during dawn and dusk, so any other time
of the day nap city. So that's why, you know,

(27:40):
that's why they can sometimes get the kitty jitters in
the morning that really excited, like four in the morning,
and then like and they get the kitty jitters or
I like to call it the kitty Jimmy's ut in
the evening to Okay, how long do you called it
the kitty Jimmy's for about five seconds? But I call
everything something like you know, now Jimmy's like like the

(28:01):
Jimmy legs is when jim Jimmy legs wiggle around. Yeah,
but like I just applied to the kitty Jimmy's. Sometimes
my dog gets like the food Jimmy's where she really
wants food and she's kind of like pacing around. Yeah,
like you're eating sandwich exactly. Yeah. The chicken Jimmy's is
a big one because like she really wants chickens, so
she's getting really to give her chickens a treat. How

(28:24):
occasionally I try not to give it to her like
too much though, because not great, but you know, but
she does. She still gets the chicken Jimmy's so all right,
next question, but about napping. Something I think is really
interesting about specifically lions is they sleep around eighteen hours
a day, um, just so they can be like extremely
active for six hours per day. They they're sleepy, cute

(28:48):
kitties like most of the time, and then that like
ten percent of the time they're just like murder machines. Yeah,
it's like the way that I picture it is that
they sleep. They sleep eighteen hours a day and then
they open their eyes just ready to murder. Basically, they're
open their eyes to the terminator point of view. Do
you want to that's the energy I want to bring
to sleep as much as I can and then wake

(29:09):
up and be ready to kill. Yeah. I think that
that's good. You could do that. You can get the
killing Jimmy's the murder Jimmy's so perhaps the biggest, the
most popular question about cats is how do cats mate?
You horny perverts? So it was at the top of
the one of the top ones. Yeah, unspayed female cats

(29:32):
are called queens, which I love. Yeah, yas cat queen.
Every play cat queens slay all those native bird species.
Every cats cat queen to me. Un Neutered male cats
are called tom's or full tom's like is they also
like the intact tom's because they got their bullsh So

(29:53):
females go into estros several times a year, so estress
is when they're fertile ready to make some kitten's. Tom's
will fight over the right to mate with queens who
are an astros. And when a female cat allows a
male to mate with her, she exhibits lordosis behavior, which
is where when they stick their butts in the air
like they just don't care. Yeah, And so the male

(30:15):
will bite the back of her neck, not to hurt her,
but probably to prevent her from like spinning around and
attacking him. It's also speculated it may have a soothing quality,
like when you grab a cat by the nape of
the right. They have sort of a reflex to relax,
like with the kittens when the mom grabs them, it
kind of relaxes them. That's why the vets. Sometimes they
grab the napo the nap when they give him a shot.

(30:37):
And so the male's penis is barbed, which is a
you know, I think that's a pretty popular fact now.
But the reason it's barbed is first of all to
help clear out rival male sperm, and it also induces
ovulation in the female cats, but through the tactile uh sensation.
Females yell as males inimating sort of like this loud,

(31:00):
kind of distressing sounding mew uh. Some speculate it's because
the penis barbs hurt and suck for the female, although um,
some research suggests it's actually a defensive yowl to let
the mail know that she'll attack him if he tries
any funny business because she's kind of vulnerable. So she's
like she's like, you know, like Netflix chill, but like

(31:21):
don't Netflix chill, but like don't steal my food, and
now like step the heck off. Like. Researchers have actually
tested these theories and it's insane. Researchers denervated female cats vaginas,
which yeah, it's when they cut off the nerves, which

(31:42):
numbs just kind of horrifying. Yeah, come on, guys, like
a come on, um, And then they found that this
caused the cats to emit fewer, fewer mating yowls, and
did not opulate as much in response to the you know,
mating So yeah, sure, okay, great, now we know that

(32:03):
that's a weird it's a weird study. Know that that
was somebody's somebody's PhD thesis was that somebody had to
write a grant convincing someone else to give them money
to do that. Yeah, what what's that person's problem? I
don't know. I mean, I respect science. Sometimes science gets
a little weird, is all I can say. Yeah, I
mean I think that that's the thing with like a

(32:24):
lot of research studies and then like you understand like okay,
like that's going to get us from point A to
point B or point C or whatever. But then there
are some studies where it's like do we need it's necessary?
Why did you get why did you get a million dollars?
And like multiple t A s to do? What do
you want? Why? Well, you know now now we know

(32:45):
though and knowledge about cat vaginas as powers. What I say, Yeah,
next question. I feel like the more I feel like
the more valuable thing to do would be to just
teach cats to talk and then ask him, oh, yeah,
I would, I would. I would do it. Grant for
that for cats to do like a cat vagina monologue.
That would be really good cat vagina monologue, very fun.

(33:06):
So next question is why are cats afraid of cucumbers?
That was a big Google one. Um easy answer to this. Basically,
they're startled by them because they think it's a snake.
And if you startle your cat with a cucumber, it's
pretty mean. So don't do that. Yeah, I am. I
run a cat Facebook group and whenever anybody posts the
cat cucumber videos, I'm always like, no, I don't don't

(33:28):
do that. Cat. Yeah, I think it's a snake. They
don't like it. It's a mean prank. It's a it's
kind of one of those it's like one of those
pranks where like you just scare someone. I think that's
like those are really mean pranks. I hate it when
people do that, Like I'm going to hide in a
garbage can then jump out at you, Like, what's the
cleverness of that. You're just scaring someone. Yeah, it's like
if you're prank as a surprised punch somebody in the face,

(33:50):
It's like, yeah, that's yeah, you're just at this point,
you're just terrorizing somebody. You're just bowling people and terrorizing them.
So don't So don't scare your cat with cucumbers please.
Uh And then to like. The last one I want
to talk about is cat taste. So cats, like people
are like, how do cats taste? Which I'm sure means

(34:15):
I'm not going to talk about that cat. I love cats.
I'm sure they mean, like, how do cats experience taste
the sweetness sourness? But the cats don't taste like humans.
They don't. They're sweet taste buds don't bind two sugar molecules,
so they can't taste sweetness. Um, they're actually all about
the taste of amino acids. They can taste bitterness. I

(34:36):
don't think they like bitterness, but they can't taste it.
And they're they're also sensitive to the temperature of their foods,
so uh, they prefer warm meals over cold meals because
if you think about it, like a warm meal, it's
probably more fresh. Cold meal more likely to be going bad.
So if you have a fussy eater cat who you
just like, it does not want to eat it's especially

(34:57):
wet food. If you warm that up into mic a
wave like that'll that'll do I mean, make sure it's
not like hot, but you know, warm it up, So
don't do it in the can. Don't do it in
the can. I don't think you can microwave a can
like that, but but yeah, warm it up in a
little dish and the microwave taste it to make sure
it's you know, the right time. Yeah, a little bit
of it, A little bit of it right right exactly? Uh?

(35:20):
And then would you is that like something that would
be confusing for you because you would microwave tuna and
then like, oh yeah, basically you're telling me that when
I was ten years old, I was a cat, right right? Well,
would you start kind of salivating if you started microwaving catfood?
Would it bring back to that? Would start salivating? And
then I would start just like needing the microwave like
it was bunting the microwave disturbing. Hey, you eat bones.

(35:47):
I do love bones. I'll love me some bones. Do
you eat cold bones? Warm bones? It doesn't any bones,
any bones. It's not like a temperature thing. I gotta
gotta I can crunch it open, I'll eat it. You're
in such a carnival, I know, so crazy, cat ladies.
Let's dissect this whole thing. I'll start off by acknowledging

(36:08):
some of the most obvious problem with this trope. The
sexism and the stigmatization of mental illness. There's the idea
that a woman who owns multiple cats is making up
for the fact that they're an old maid, filling the
man shaped holl in her heart with cats, which is
on every level dumb had a enormative sexist and catist.
It also assumes that there's some sort of connection between

(36:30):
anxiety and cat ownership. Well, I'm a nervous rack and
I own a dog. Explain that people. As it turns out, surprise, surprise,
there's absolutely no evidence to back up the crazy cat
lady trope. A U c l A studied surveyed students
and found no connection between anxiety, depression and whether they
own cats, dogs, or no pets. So what about the

(36:50):
gender part? Are women cat magnets never going a week
without picking up a new cat? A global survey done
by German market research institute JFK found that of men
surveyed owned a cat and twenty percent of women surveyed
owned a cat, which is a pretty underwhelming difference. So
where does the crazy cat lady troupe come from? Then?

(37:10):
Could it be from the nine six documentary Gray Gardens,
which features an eccentric wealthy aging woman whose house is
filled with cats and raccoons? Does it trace back to
the association between witches and cats or is it a
covert operation by the dog lobby when yes, definitely. When
we return, we'll take a look at some of the
wildest cats that you probably don't want to keep as

(37:33):
pets unless you're not all that attached to your eyeballs
and hands. Wildcats are found all over the world, but
there are only thirty eight species of cats. They vary
greatly in size, habitat, and behavior, and they all belong

(37:56):
to the clay field day pro Aluis is the old,
the snown genus of cats. These cats were lanky and
not much bigger than a house cat. And we're shaped
more like civets. And if you're wondering what a civet
is shaped like, well it looks like a sort of
mongoose cat. And if you're wondering what a mongoose looks like,
well a banana with legs and fur. Anyways, I can't

(38:16):
help you further than that, but what I can do
is recite all thirty eight species of currently living wildcats
in one breath. Here we go very excited about this
li lions, tigers, leopards, snow leppers, clouded lepers, jaguars, bay cats, servols, caracules,
pampas cats. Also lots of bobcats, cheetas, cougars, jagger on
these fishing cats, sand cats, black footed cats, Jeffrey's cats,

(38:37):
Andian mountain cats. Okay, there's still more cats very close
that I was almost there, So I want to talk
about some of my favorite wildcats and the winners of
some of our top Cat awards in their category. So
the smallest cat in the world, this is my one
of my favorite cats because it's so dark and not

(39:01):
quite it's sound. Cats are small, black footed cats are small.
But the smallest cat in the world is the rusty
spotted cat. So the rusty spotted cat is found indeciduous
forests in India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Uh They are
tan with brown spots and striations, and the adults look

(39:21):
and sound like a kitten. Let me show you a
video of these cats. They are extremely cute. Here's this
little guys at right that is an adult. I think
it's like it's tinier than a leave. Well that's a
pretty big leaf, to be fair, but it is tiny,
so it looks like a little kitten and it is

(39:43):
an adult cat, and let me okay, actually, I'm going
to play that meal because I think that is very cute.
Such a cute meal. So it weighs about two to
three pounds and its body is just over a foot long.
They are reportedly very active and playful. They're great climbers.

(40:05):
They hunt rodents, birds and insects and newborn's. Newborn kittens
way two ounces or tiny? Is it a foot long
from the tip of the head tip of the tail? No,
foot long minus the tail, and then it's a little
the tails a few inches long. Yeah. Are actually tails
actually pretty long? It's um, yeah, it's it's disproportionately long

(40:29):
to its body. But yeah, so with tail it's forty
ft long with its tail, No, it's probably like an
extra like half foot or something. Um. I feel like,
do you get this with cats where it's like, if
you hear a cute cat me out, Like, it feels
like your body just uncontrollably goes like, oh I become
I become a seven year old. Yeah. Well, I think

(40:49):
it's interesting because cat mews and mews are kind of
similar to baby baby prize. So I think they have
tapped into one of our own sort of instinctive responses
to want to protect babies. And that's why cats are
so miawi at us because they can get us to
do what they want us to do. It's an evolutionary
development where it's like the reason that we love cats

(41:11):
is essentially that they make us think that their baby
right exactly, like, I'm fine with it. I'm fine, I'm
okay with it. So now onto the largest cat. So,
the largest cat you can possibly get is actually, uh,
something that humans kind of help out with making. And
uh it is an adult male liger, which is a
hybrid between a lion and a tigress. And the largest

(41:34):
one of these is named Hercules, and he weighs over
nine hundred pounds and is ten ft tall when standing
on his hind legs. He's a big boy. Um. I
wish that, just like an alt pitch, I wish that
the smallest cat in the world was named Hercules and
the biggest cat member was named Tiny. That would be ironic,

(41:55):
very cute. But that sounds like a chalky cat. Yeah,
So why do likes get so big? Yeah, so a
liker is bigger than a lion or a tiger exactly.
He is a big The biggest cat you can basically
create is a liger. You put like a saddle on
one and ride it like a horse. You could briefly
before you get killed, but like the brief moment, it

(42:17):
would be a pretty good way to go as long
as they got like a good Instagram photo of it,
and the cat was like not too mad. So the
reason ligers get so big is actually very interesting. It
has to do with the competition between male and female genes.
So sometimes male and female genes of a species will
be at odds, so lionesses may mate with multiple males.

(42:39):
There's often a dominant male and a pride, and that
dominant male can get changed out by competition. A new
male can come in and mate. Sometimes more than one
male and a pride can mate at once, and male
jeens favor offspring who grow bigger faster so that they
can dominate resources from other offspring that may not share

(43:01):
their genes. Females, however, want all of their offspring to
succeed for obvious reasons, because they're related to all of
their offspring, and so they don't want one of their
kittens to grow really big, really fast and out compete
all her other kittens, so their genes actually counteract the
male growth genes so that she can spread out her

(43:22):
resources more evenly amongst her offspring. So that's sort of
a arms race with the genes of the female cats
and the male cats. Tigers actually don't have to compete
in this way because tigers were made monogamous during each
breeding season. They do have multiple partners over their lifespan,
but they remain monogamous over a period of time. So

(43:42):
that means that the male tigers don't really need their
offspring to grow competitively because they will be related to
all of them per per batch and per per mating season,
and so females don't need any defensive genes to stop
these fat babies from happening. So when a male lion
mates with a female tiger, creating a liger, the male

(44:05):
turbo growth genes aren't met with any defensive genes from
the female, so it just grows as big as it
wants to, and that's how you get that big old
hercules cat. Isn't there a deal? I could be completely
wrong here, but like ligers can't mate with each other,
that's correct, sterile, that's right. So so it's the same
thing with mules across between donkeys and horses, and in fact,

(44:28):
most of these hybrid species are sterile because of the
way that So the way that the genes work is
that you know, you'll have with with this within the
same species, you'll have the same number of genes and
they'll match up basically evenly, you know, one to one
amino acid to amino acid, whereas like when you have
two different species, they may have different numbers of of

(44:52):
of sex genes, so like when they're matching them up,
there will be a mismatch. Which so because the chromosomes
of their parents of a of a hybrid animal like
a Liger's uh, don't really match up, they can't produce
sex cells and like sperm or eggs, so they can exist,
they can be you can have that mismatch and create

(45:13):
a baby, but that baby then can't make sex cells.
And this is because there's a difference between mitosis, which
is the process of a developing fetus, and myosis, which
is the formation of sex cells. So in mitosis, you
get one set of chromosomes from your parents sex cells
and they're duplicated and split up, so you have two

(45:34):
new cell copies that are exactly the same. But in myosis,
you're creating sex cells by jumbling up your d n
A into non exact copies. So when in my mitosis,
if you have two sets of chromosomes that aren't from
the same species and they don't exactly match up, it's
not necessarily a death sentence, like you can still you know,
they're basically duplicated exactly as you're growing as a fetus.

(45:57):
But when you make sex cells in myosis, you're you
have to recombine it because if we're not a clonal species,
you don't have a baby that is your clones. So
but in that recombination, if you don't have the same
number of chromosomes from your parents, it gets all messed up,
and so you get this mismatch. It's like trying to
zip a sweater like halfway up. It doesn't work. I

(46:19):
guess in that case, it would be like zipping a
sweater to another sweater exactly. Yeah, that's right, a different
length sweat. It's like if you say yeah, yeah, like
where it's like, oh, I guess that those are stuck together.
I guess made a new article of but like, I
mean you can, yeah, it's not an effective sweat, right right,
and then you like and then you chop up those
sweaters and trying to mix them up and stitch them

(46:39):
together and just does not work. Yeah, and it's like,
well you congrats, you ruined two sweaters. Alright. So the
award for the most flat headed cat is drum roll,
the flat headed Cat. Yes, that's the name of the cat.
It's a small wildcat found in Borneo, Sumatra, the time

(47:00):
Lay Peninsula in wet lands, and it is endangered. The
wild population is only a couple of thousand, which is
very sad because I love this doofy little cat. I
gotta show you a picture of them. Yeah, just google it.
It's the that's the cutest cat ever. It's got got
a head you can serve drinks on. It's got a flathead. Look.

(47:21):
Scientists spend less time and less grant money trying to
figure out how cat vagina is working more money getting
me more flatheaded chat. So they're rust colored with a
white underbelly. It's a couple of feet long with a
five inch tail and weighs three to five pounds. So
they're they're a pretty small cat. Um. They're a bit
smaller than a domesticated cat who weighs from seven to

(47:43):
nine pounds. It's called a flat headed cat on account
of its big old flathead. It's adapted to a wet
land environment, so it's skull shape and jaw shape is
ideal for catching fish. Its teeth are hooked like little
fish hooks, and its eyes are forward facing and close together,
giving it good depth perception. It has prominent foot webbing

(48:07):
that allows it to navigate muddy and aquatic environments. And
it's just a real doofy looking kiddy that deserves our
love and protection. It's got big guys, so it always
looks surprised. I always look surprised Scott, like, like, are
you guys talking about Scott? Do you feel little duck
feet in a flat head? What's not to love? Next cat?
Canada's Links the biggest leg warmers of all cats. I

(48:29):
guess I kind of gave that one away, but yeah,
the winner of the biggest leg warmers is the Canada Links.
So it looks very cute. Yes, so. Native to Canada
and Alaska and sometimes found in the Rocky Mountains in
the US, it lives in boreal forests, which are often
quite cold with a lot of snow. It's just a
bit bigger than a bobcat and it's way flu fier,

(48:51):
So it's adapted really well for cold environments with a
real thick fur coat, and it has these huge chunky
paws and that act as insulated snowshoes on the snow. Um.
It reminds me of um if you remember like teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, how there would be like
Arctic action like Donna Tello and stuff like this. This

(49:12):
just feels like an Arctic action cat where it's like
it looks shoved those big old military ug boots. Yeah,
here's a here's one with like the biggest pas I've
ever seen on the ca It's just these big old
like muppety paws. Yeah, and it's like they look they're
probably deadly, but like also like you just want a snuggle.
You just want to snowgle that kittie. It'll scratch your

(49:33):
face off, but you want to suggle. My last words
will be worth it. Uh, my last words will be huyo.
Speaking of muppets, the most muppetist cat is the Palace's cat.
So here's a picture of this guy. Oh that that
cat looks like it should be voiced by the guy

(49:55):
that voiced Yoda. Yeah, it looks like it should be
in a Star War Like. It looks like a Star
Wars cat. Like, it looks like a Wookie, looks like
a Wookie. No, it looks like a a Wookie and
a Yoda had a baby. That's the I feel like
that's that's the real baby Yoda that I want the
baby a Woda. I've got some fan fictions. I mean,

(50:19):
I guarantee that there's a there's Yoda Chewbacca slash fiction
out there, like whatever, Like it's gotta be and Yoda
is going to be ripped under those those Jedi robes.
Oh yeah, you know, there's gonna be a moment where
like Chewbacca is going to touch Yoda's robe and then
feel his muscles and be like oh um. So. The

(50:40):
Palace's Cat is found in Central Asia in montane grasslands
at high elevations up to sixteen thousand feet. Uh. It's
about the size of a pet cat. It has real
fluffy fur that is grayish brown. It's legs are proportionally
shorter than most cats, which gives it a do fear
looking here, it's got tiny ears and round pupils, unlike

(51:03):
the slitted pupils, which makes it look pretty cute and silly.
They feed on gerbils, voles and young marmots. So if
you're wondering why the round pupils, some cats have round
pupils like big cats like lions and tigers, and smaller
cats tend to have slitted pupils and it's so it's
unusual for this Palace's cat to have the round pupils

(51:24):
because usually the smaller ones have the icelets. So researchers
have found that ambush predator cats tend to have slitted pupils. Uh,
So that makes sense for the smaller cats that rely
on ambush it makes sense because I'm sure like most
of their hunting is like and crepuscular. Right. They need
to be able to see during the day so they
can't be blinded by the light, but they need to

(51:45):
be able to have these big pupils so they can
lit light in during the nights. That slitted pupil really
works well for them. Whereas for big cats, they're active
foragers and they do ambush to some extent, but they
also chase down prey are long distances and they so
like having the big ground pupil is pretty important. I

(52:06):
feel like the reason this cat has big ground pupils
is marketability. Marketability, just like like it's so people are like,
this should be a stuffed animal. I will see this cat,
I will feed this cat everything. Well, yeah, I can't
really find a definitive answer, but I do have a guess,
which is that it may have something to do with
its high altitude montane environment. Um. So they do stock
in ambush prey, we do know that, but I wonder

(52:29):
if the harshness of the high altitudes means they have
to chase prey over greater distances and they have to
be able to spot them against this kind of rocky
environment and be able to give greater chase. Um. And
you know, maybe maybe it's just a guess. It could
be also could be the quality of the light in

(52:49):
these montane regions. Maybe like the the days are are
shorter and it's it's uh, but yeah, I'm not really
not really sure. I'd really love to hear from some
I experts on the this one, on their theory of
why does the Palaces cat? First of all, why does
the Palace's cat look like? And also why has it
got them around? Pupils um. If you're a scientist, if

(53:12):
you're listening to this, please tweet at us till us now. Also,
if you're an artist and you'll listen to this, please
uh do a drawing of Yoda romancing chew paca and
sent it and having a baby Palaces cat? Yes, please
please send us that. Please got some homework for a
fan artist? Can you really tame a wildcat? As we've

(53:34):
discussed earlier, our house cats aren't much different from their
wild ancestors, as their claw marks and bloodthirsty antics may demonstrate.
So can you tame a lion and keep it as
a big old house cat? Well? No, you can certainly
train a lion and other big cats to tolerate or
even enjoy your presence. You may make friends with them
just as easily as you make friends with mittens, your

(53:54):
little tabby cat. But the difference between mittens and a
line is just their share ability to kill you. In
is piste off at you, she could give you a
nasty slash on the hand, whereas a lion with a
bite force of six fifty p s I with teeth
the size of plantains could just destroy you. If Mittens
was lion sized, she may on a whim eviscerate you.

(54:15):
And this podcaster's opinion, wildcats make bad pets for those
of us who enjoy being intact, and more importantly, most
humans aren't equipped to give wildcats a good quality of life. Unfortunately,
that doesn't stop people from trying. They're over ten thousand
wildcats being kept as pets or kept in captivity outside
of zoos. In the US. There's no federal law regulating

(54:38):
wildcat ownership, so in many states it's legal. Many of
these cats are abandoned once their hold. Huge wild animal
antics get too much for their owners to handle, and
they can end up in crowded sanctuaries. In other words,
if you want the experience of owning a tiger house,
cat is just as likely to go around murdering prey
and trying them all you, but in a much smaller,

(54:59):
more ethical package. This leads me to my next theory.
The recent movie Cats is our attempt to finally dominate
and humiliate cats by turning them into shambling, humanoid abominations.
When we return we'll discuss this movie and try to
answer the profound question the Cats Movie provokes why anthropomorphism

(55:24):
didn't start with Disney or furries. Throughout human history, we've
been fascinated by giving humans animalistic traits or vice versa.
The Low and Men's figuring found in Germany is a
thirty two thousand year old ivory sculpture that is shaped
like a human with a lioness's head. Bastet and sec
Met were ancient Egyptian goddesses with women's bodies and the

(55:48):
heads of a cat and a lioness. So carrying on
this ancient tradition is the feature length movie Cats, which
I watched in its entirety completely sober. And I'm not
exactly sure or where we went wrong, whether it was
thirty two thousand years ago with the Low and Mensch figuring,
or maybe further back in our cultural history, but the

(56:08):
Cats movie is perhaps the last piece of art that
humans should ever be allowed to make ever again. I
think it's the last piece of art that we need
to We've done it. Yeah, I so the Cats movie,
whatever you say about it, I think it cements itself
as art just because it's a lightning rod in the
cultural zeit guys like it is. It's a thing that's

(56:32):
something that I oftentimes think about. This is just like
you know, comedian comedy writer guy who makes stuff whatever.
Is like the purpose of entertainment is to give people
basically shared experiences to bring them closer together, right right.
They never said that experience had to be a good one. Yeah,
but they never said it had to be a good experience.
But I don't think that the Cats movie was a

(56:54):
bad experience. Like for me, I've seen it twice. The
first time that the first time I saw it like
one a m on like a Sunday opening weekend, and
I saw it with like two people that are in
the Cat Facebook group that I run, and like there
were maybe ten of the people in the theater, and
within five minutes, everybody in the theater was just openly

(57:14):
shouting the screen. And it's like afterwards, like every person
in the theater like we all just like gave each
other high five and it was like, oh, like this
brought even just the random people in this theater together
for it, and I um on New Year's Day, I
really wanted to see Cats with a crowded theater of
people that we're going to get it. So I basically

(57:36):
found a screening of Cats in Burbank that had zero
tickets sold, and I just posted my cat Facebook group
and on Twitter. I know I was invited. I couldn't come,
unfortunately I was across the country, but I really wanted
to go. Yeah. I was basically like, let's sell at
this theater and have just like a really rowdy Cats screening.
And we sold it out within four hours, about forty

(57:57):
eight pairs of catiers that I gave to everybody that
came in in the theater. That's excellent, and um, it
was just like probably the most fun I've ever had
watching a movie. Was like just screaming at the screen
with all these people singing along the magical Mr Mustaphiles
with strangers. That sounds lovely. Yeah, my cat's experience was
a bit different. Um. I was extremely sick, so I

(58:20):
couldn't make it out to the theater. I got a
bluntline Crompy of Cats and cat Burg co cat burgled
the copy. Um, and I watched it with my boyfriend,
high on cough medicine, and we just kind of in
stony silence watched this thing. Sometimes looking at each other

(58:42):
in a gas horror as I you know, sipped on
my tess in. But right, right, right, it was no, No,
it was funny. I mean we were we were talking
the whole time about it because it was just unbelievable.
It was unbelievable how this got made. Yeah, it's like

(59:02):
it's something that I've talked about to a lot of
friends in that it's i mean, like the Broadway production
doesn't really make a ton of sense storyline wise. It's
basically just cats introducing. It's the spectacle. It's the spectacle.
It's a cat going like I'm Mr Fibbley Banks and
I'm the banker cat, you know or whatever, very good

(59:23):
cat character. Mr Fippley Banks, the banker cat. I'm pippoty
PLoP the podcast cat. Um, I'm Kibledie Katie. This the
cat who's got a cold, right right? Um, Yeah, It's
basically what we've done is essentially the Cats movie, right. Um,
it's that for several hours. Um, and like they stitched

(59:45):
together like kind of an like a little bit of
a narrative of um, Like there's the cats that want
to belong. There's a cat that like wants to learn
how to do magic and blah blah blah blah, and
like it's, uh, it's kind of nonsensical inter terms of plot,
but the spectacle of it is it's as um, it's

(01:00:06):
as entertaining as it is insane, and it is very insane, yes,
so to kind of I think the most powerful kind
of representation of what this Cats movie is is looking
at reviewers who have had to write up a full
review of Cats, and um, there's this great Esquire article

(01:00:26):
called pinpointing the exact moment Cats reviewers lost their minds Um,
So here are some of my favorite quotes from these reviewers.
So this one is from Casper Salmon, which I'm sorry
actually sounds like a name from Cats. Like it's a
great name. Not making fun of the name, it's an
excellent name, but so writes for a Prospect quote, Why

(01:00:50):
do some of the cats wear shoes? Why are they
sometimes as big as a human and sometimes as big
as a shopping bag? Why do some walk in some crawl?
Why do they have no X but no anuses? And
that's a that's a very good questions. Why do they
have why do they have butt cheeks but no anuses? Yeah,
that's a that's a big That's my thing is like,

(01:01:13):
you know, like if they had gone either give them
all suspenders, like they give one of the cats that's
very form fitting suspenders, leaving nothing to the imagination the
railway cat, or or just give them buttles. Have the
courage to give them butts. Yeah, I guess that. It
just it feels like my friend Haley Mancini, the way

(01:01:34):
that she described it is, it's like the way that
the cats look isn't in the uncanny It's so deep
in the uncanny valley that it's Uncanny Canyon, and it's
like it is just like it's it's insane, like there
are cats the Uncanny Mariana Trench, Yes, exactly. Like their
cats will have full conversations on two legs, sing songs

(01:01:55):
on two legs, and then they'll like drop to all
fours and crows at the scene. Here's a review from
Alison Wilmore of the Vulture quote. Are the coats that
some of the cats, like Macavity, Idris Elba and Old
Deuteronomy Dinch where actually made from the skin of other cats?
And if so, does this mean that Jinny any Dots

(01:02:16):
who at one point unzips herself out of a full
body first is the kind of twice Buffalo Bill in
Silence of the Lambs tipself multiple form fitting skin. I mean,
I really think that I was kind of really frustrated
at the movie of how like kind of rude the

(01:02:36):
movie was to Rubble Wilson. I thought it was pretty
disrespectful of her, the way they made her kind of
fall around and stumble over herself all the time. But yeah,
the unzipping, she's she's in a skin tight you know,
like c g I fur, then she unzips that for
and then is wearing like a show girl dress under that,
but then there's more for under that. It's sort of

(01:02:58):
like an It's a Loony Tunes move, right, It's like
any Tunes move but it doesn't work on human people
in a c g I thing. Well, the Jenny any
Dot scene, there's a moment in the scene where Jenny
any Dots reveals that she's enslaved mice to sing and dance,
and the mice have the faces of human children. They

(01:03:18):
are played by human child actor there. She reveals later
in that scene that she has an entire polluted platoon
of cockroaches. Also humanoid. Every This is what's so crazy
about this Sortically, while they're screaming and dancing and doing
a show tunes thing, but this is what's crazy about
this universe. Every living creature is humanoid, Like like an

(01:03:42):
earthworm is going to be a gooey long human, which
sounds like like birds are going to be humans. Uh,
Like a turtle is just gonna be like a turtle
head pokes out, it's a human face. There's also just
weird logic stuff of like mcavity is the He's essentially
the cat devil um. There are wanted posters on the

(01:04:03):
side of buildings from a cavity, which opens the question
of like are their jellical police? Like why like our cats? What?
Like what what used to cats have for money? Like
I don't know. They're also like like the cavity search
the police cat. Yeah, it's like that, and then it's
like who funds the police cats? It's like it's the

(01:04:25):
It's the sort of movie where it's like a it's
like Cathulu where it's like the more that you look
at it, the more in Jin Yamamoto of The l
A Times tweets quote me watching cats movie, why human
faces and human hands? Why so small? What is Judy
denches for coat made of? How do they poop? How

(01:04:46):
did I get here? Why so boring? Who is responsible
for this? What hath cat Maddie do rot? There are
also moments in it where, like Judy Dench and Ian
McClellan is in it as old Gusts, they like give it,
They're all. That's the thing is everybody in this movie.
Really it works so hard in this movie, which is
what maybe that's part of why it's so embarrassing too,

(01:05:07):
Like Ian McClellan went goes full method where he like
will interrupt scenes to nuzzle on things. Um, Like, there's
definitely a shot where like, I think he did nail
the cat nous the bass, like he did get the
cat attitude. Maybe that's what, like fifty years of Shakespearean
acting gets you the ability to act like a cat.
Like if you want to see Ian mcclawn like lap

(01:05:27):
milk out of a saucer, then oh boy, this is
the movie for you. And like Judy Dench, she like
she also like does she does a really good job
as Old Deuteronomy, But there are moments where she'll like
she'll be like talking in a scene and she'll lift
her leg overhead casually. Uh. They also like they patched
the movie where there's the first version of the movie

(01:05:49):
that was released because the movie was the director finished
editing the movie the morning it came out into theaters,
and um, but they like messed up a lot of
visual effects where like there you can see multiplied James
Dame Judy Dench's human hand ring. Yeah, there's a point where, um,
like what's his name hosts a late night show, James

(01:06:11):
James Gordon where he jumps through jumps through a cat
door and just disappears. Um, I haven't seen this, but
I've heard that there was a moment where you can
see an actor just like completely without c g in
their mo cap suit in the background. I didn't notice that, Yeah,
but I was I was on a medicine. There's just

(01:06:32):
like so much stuff in this movie that's like it's
like everybody but like everybody gives it. They're all and
like all like all the stuff that I'm describing, Like
it's if you like Lucky Rocky Horror Picture Show, if
you liked The Room, if you like just like crazy
midnight screenings of movies, then like you will love Cats
because there's so much insanity to it. It is kind

(01:06:53):
of escapism because it's so bizarre. It kind of made
me forget myself for a while, but so lost in
how bizarre it was. Yeah, and like and like the
songs are great, like everybody's everybody's musical performances are so good.
Like there are things like the skimble Shanks, the dancing
the Railway Cat Dance number where it's like clear that
guy's a world class cat happen dances the hell out

(01:07:15):
of that dance. Yeah, and it's tight. I cannot get
over how tight those overalls are. Sorry, this brings me
to this other review that Nigel Andrews of Financial Times
rights worryingly erotic. Yeah, that's the other thing is like
these cats, Frank, I mean it is they There's a
scene where Dame Judy Dinch is like the head of Cats,

(01:07:37):
is in with with all her cats in the theater
and they're just it's like they're rubbing up against each
other and flipping around and thrusting theater. And whenever cats
would get close to nuzzling each other, everybody in the
theater would chant nuzzle, And it happened a lot. My
response was much different. It was going like no, God, please.

(01:08:00):
There's also a point where Jason Trullo makes a makes
a joke about eating Rebel Wilson's but uh and then what, Yeah,
it's like right when he comes in, Uh he was,
he was a rum tum tugger. I think, Um, it's
the end of Rebel Wilson's thing, right before it gets
into his like funk number, he jokes about eater. But yeah,
I think he says it's something about like I'm excited

(01:08:21):
you're behind or whatever, and then he that and the
ends the song about like almost sucking on like Victoria
Veronica or whatever. That was weird. That was super weird. Yeah,
it's just like this is the movie is and everybody,
I hope I pronounced this name right. Devin Cogan wrote

(01:08:43):
an article for Entertainment Weekly titled I took my dad,
a veterinarian to see Cats. He has some thoughts, Oh,
I read this article. I highly recommend this article, but
I just I love it. Uh. And so she asks
her dad, like, what's the most bizarre aspect of the movie,
and and her dad, the veterinarian, says that the faces

(01:09:05):
are the worst, and I agree cat faces. He says
cat faces can be expressive, but they're extremely subtle. Um,
seeing all these cats make all these exaggerated faces was
kind of horrifying. Yeah, well, I think that like what
they think that they needed to make a choice between
are these like like in the Broadway play where it's

(01:09:25):
essentially people wearing leotard's or these just straight up cg cats.
And it's like, because it's this weird human cat hybrid
that looks like an an island of Dr Moreau there,
like it just gets into this area when whenever you
see a cat, you're not like, oh, you're like it's
like a visceral respect. And the thing is like with

(01:09:46):
the the long with the long tails too, like humans
with long tails doesn't read to me as cats. It's
almost like the in the way they walked it almost
like also like clear like gluteal must right. Right, Well,
it kind of almost like gave me like huge lemur
kind of thing, Like they looked like like huge lemurs,
which is unsettling. There is a moment where there's a

(01:10:09):
coordinated tail dance. Oh that's right, and they're all their
tails twitch in unison. Yeah, that made me that that.
I think that was the moment I lost my mind
because that was just like it made me want to
like un watch that part. I lost my mind literally
Frame one, when there's a cat face in the moon.

(01:10:32):
Uh yeah, my god, And I just knows, like dissonant music,
it's it's it's a ride. It's a real ride, like
like honestly, like see the movie, right, there's this scene
or Taylor Swift gets all these cats high with with catnip.
She's got a she's got a bedazzled canister of cat
up that she pours on it, and the nip has

(01:10:54):
catnip written on it in bedazzle, and she rides into
this scene on the DreamWorks logo, I do want to
talk about cat nip. So the cat nip is a
member of the mint family, and cat nip affects adult
cats and not kittens um. And the reason is that
it is actually acting as an artificial cat pheromone. So

(01:11:16):
the the nepotalactone oil and cat nip acts as like
an as basically an artificial cat pheromone. And so when
cats are super strung out on on catnip, they're also
kind of horny. So that's like one of the accurate
things in the movie is like when she like, you know,
gets them all high on cat nip and they're all,
I mean, to be fair, they are perpetually horny the movie.

(01:11:39):
It's not that big of a difference play cat nip.
They still want to post catnip. They just look drug. Yes, yes, exactly,
so yeah, I mean, would you do anything to fix
this musical or do you think it's perfect the way
it is? One moment woman, before I get to do
it Talking about that, there's a moment at the end
of the movie where Judy Dench looks at the camera

(01:12:01):
and addresses you. She breaks the fourth that's fourth ball,
well for three minutes to tell you what you should
have learned from the movie. Item one being that cats
are not dogs. That's like, that is like the the
ultimate lesson, Like that that's the profound thing, Like that's
what I was supposed to learn importantly at all. It's

(01:12:23):
not a dog theater that I was in screens along
with her, and you're like, I mean, like, but the
thing is that the movie is so insane leading up
to that that when she says that, you're like, are
they I don't know? Cats dogs? Ups is down. It's like,
I don't know what. Taylor Swift has a disturbing scene

(01:12:45):
where she walks around in high heels and as a cat.
Also there's like breakdancing cats wearing tims like it's just like, um,
I mean personally, I'm gonna say this is a perfect movie.
I would I would perfect movie. I would change nothing
about it. This was the most fun that I've ever

(01:13:06):
had watching a movie. I'd give them all by far,
I'd give them all bee holes, like this was better
than Star Wars. I want to see I would want
to see a cat in the Cats movie, like a
cough up a hair ball. That would a cat does?
I believe Bustofer Jones does on the barge scene at
the end, So like, look they thought everything they did

(01:13:29):
they did it would have been really fun to watch
and use the letter box would have been fun to
see that. That's something we all want to use that.
I mean, like all these are ideas that they can
include in A Cat's to write Cats to Cats to
the squeakol But it's like Cats. The thing is is
the format of the movie is so easily refillable because
it's just the next jellical ball, which the Gelco ball.

(01:13:50):
They're all jelical cats. I've never really explained what a
gelical cat is. Still, don't cat Um is a cat
who does not have a bee holes. It doesn't never
the whole. Yeah, it doesn't have nips. A lot of
people have said that they should have cat noses, that
the worst part is that their noses are human noses.
I think I think the worst part is everything about

(01:14:12):
their bodies, like the toes, the fingers, human fingernails. Yeah,
it's like even like, I'm I'm upset that the director
made those changes to graphical errors to me that that
is my han shot first, that is my George Lucas
treating tweeting the trilogy. What a lot? Just hum, just

(01:14:34):
give them human feet and hands like no fur on.
I'm just like, I mean, I think make it more horrifying.
I think I think the holes that we see a lot,
I think lean into the horror of it. Yeah. Absolutely, Well,
this has been a real trip. I gotta say. I

(01:14:55):
think as soon as I saw the trailer for The
Cat's Musical, I knew I had to have you on
and I knew I'd have to do this episode. Yeah,
this was set up months ago. Um, yeah, thanks for
having me. This was super fun. Yeah for sure. Um,
you got anything anything to plug? Anything to plug? Yeah?
Follow me on Twitter at Joey Tainman. Follow me on
Instagram at Joey Clift with like five eyes. The reason

(01:15:19):
it's five eyes is that like a twelve year old
took regular Joey Clift and now I just got the
stle with the one I got. And um, other than that,
let's see, I got a short film that um was
posted online recently. You can find it on my Twitter account.
It's called telling people your Native American when you're not
native is telling it? Bear? Your bear, not a bear.
The name is twenty four words long. Uh not. Other

(01:15:39):
than that, I don't know. Yeah, follow me on the
socials and uh, I don't know. Just like see the
Cats movie. I'm here to promote the Cats have nothing
to do with it, but I think you should watch it.
You can find the podcast online Creature Feature Pod on Instagram,
Creature feet Pot on Twitter. That's f E a T,
not f E teeth. That will be something very different.

(01:16:00):
I am Katie Golden. You can find me on Twitter
at Katie Golden and also at pro bird writes where
I'm actually, you know, I kind of want to make
a bird's musical properd rds. I gotta say, it's such
a funny twitter I think. So I'm gonna do birds
musical and have like Mr cheap cheap mcbeet beeps. Yeah
that's a good name, and uh you know old goosey

(01:16:24):
quacker bottoms bottoms yeah, like like like skimble feathers, the
airplane chat or airpane plane birds, chicken e cheep cheep
the beat beat cheap cheap all this makes more sense
than The Cat's Movie. Thanks to the Space Cossacks for
their magnificent song. Ex Alumina Creature features a production of

(01:16:46):
I Heeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from
iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. See you next Wednesday.
Yeah yeah, m oh