CATS The Confusicle

I sat down and watched one hour and forty nine 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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 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. 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 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

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 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. 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 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. 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.

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 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? 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, 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 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 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

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. 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, 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, 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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. 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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. 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 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, 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

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 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 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? 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. 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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, 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 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. 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

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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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. 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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. 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

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, 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 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 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 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 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

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

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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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

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.

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 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

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