We have four—count them, four—felid features today. The first is a short video showing how cats don’t give a damn what you do for them, so long as you feed them:
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And you probably remember Didga, the famous skateboarding cat, whom we’ve featured twice before. Well, now he’s got a friend, Boomer, who happens to be a beautiful BENGAL KITTEN:
I think they’re gonna be friends!
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And here is a selection of the ten best cat commercials ever. I’ve shown some of these before, but it’s nice to have them in once place. The first two are my favorites, with the second, “cat herding,” a work of true genius that bears repeated watching (you’ll miss stuff the first time). The eighth and ninth are very good as well:
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Finally, a report from the Independent that cats are “better” than dogs—at least from an evolutionary perspective. It summarizes a recent paper showing that, in North America, felid lineages were much more resistant to extinction than were lineages of canids. Indeed, some of the felids might have driven the canids extinct. I have the paper, but haven’t yet read it, as it’s technical and paleontological (not my area):
h/t: Amy, Robin
Sub
Excellent selection of ads. That first one is brilliant. Waiting… to grow opposable thumbs.
The ‘be more dog’ one though, is blasphemy (or is that heresy?).
And the eighth – we built this city on rock’n’roll – I agree is totally cool. Catchy tune, and besides, the yellow car with the full set of rally lights is a Ford Escort Mark 2 (like mine, except for the lights). So, cool 😉
cr
The hearding cats ad still holds up well years later. I remembered the ad well but I had, and have again, forgotten who’s ad it was. I guess there’s more to sucesful advertising than having a wonderfully memorable ad.
The be more dog ad was cute, but also a bit creepy. Looks like they stuck a floppy fake fur tail extender on a golden retriever and digitally pasted a cat head on it for the “more dog” sequences
Yeah, I think that ad is blasphemy.
The Cat Herding ad was for EDS (Electronic Data Systems), a data processing company founded by H. Ross Perot (it’s now a division of Hewlett-Packard). The full ad originally ran during a Super Bowl, possibly in 2001.
My two favorite bits in the ad are getting the cats out of the tree and the guy sitting near the campfire with the sticky roller getting cat hair off his shirt. My favorite bit of narration is the part that goes, “…when you bring ’em into town and you ain’t lost a single one…”
But it’s never made clear exactly what they’re bringing ’em into town for. Seemed rather sinister to me.
And from the buildup, I expected the punchline to be a lot cleverer than “bringing together information, ideas, and technologies”. What a waste of a great ad concept.
It’s a riff on a cliche that managing programmers (or other geek types) is like herding cats. The entire commercial is the punchline and the ending just ties it to the advertiser.
Yes, I’m familiar with the cliché. But the fact that they spent that much effort on bringing it to life made me think they were going somewhere fresh and interesting with it. Unfortunately they didn’t; there’s no real idea here beyond the cliché itself.
At the time it was made it was very original and creative. And the genral public got it just fine.
The cat in the first video did the same thing children sometimes do on Christmas morning. They’ll ignore a big, expensive toy and choose instead to play inside the box it came in.
We will never run out of Caturday stuff!
And now even science contributes:
So did cats cause d*gs? Were wolf packs a result of felid dominance in the New cat eat cat World?
There’s another video in there of Boomer’s first time in the sand….
b&
I had to stop watching those commercials as my broken ribs and laughter don’t mix!
My FAITH will remain firm with the belief that dogs are far more advanced as a species than cats. While I do enjoy the deluge of cat stories, photos and videos at this blog, I value it entirely as a form of “short term” entertainment and have yet to realize any sustainable qualities that would benefit my or my dog’s well being on the evolutionary landscape.
Where is a ZeFrank “Dear Kitten” or Henri, the depressed cat?
I LOLed at the mortgage one, hilarious.
I loved the one with spaghetti sauce. I saw where it was going just moments before it happened.