Today’s the special Christmas Caturday edition, and we’re celebrating with a great video, “Mog’s Christmas Calamity,” which happens to be the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s annual Christmas ad. It’s narrated by none other than Emma Thompson, and has already been viewed by more than 27 million people since it was posted on YouTube November 12. Watch it and see if it doesn’t make you choke up a little:
Mog got his egg after all!
A bit of the backstory is given on WhoSay:
Mog the cat is the creation of bestselling children’s writer Judith Kerr, who penned an entire series of books about the lovable but clumsy feline. As The Guardian notes, this is Mog’s first appearance since 2002, when the cat died of old age in the book Goodbye, Mog. [JAC: That sounds like a sad book, though a bit of investigation suggests that Mog is given an afterlife.]
For Sainsbury’s Christmas campaign, Kerr, now 92, revived the cat’s story, penning Mog’s Christmas Calamity. She also illustrated a book of the same name to accompany the ad. It’ll be sold in Sainsbury’s stores, with all profits going to the charity Save the Children.
Has anyone read Kerr’s stories? Here’s a relevant tw**t:
Judith Kerr's 'Mog' at heart of @sainsburys Christmas ad: https://t.co/vD9wjo7Osu pic.twitter.com/OAA4QYXLfH
— The Bookseller (@thebookseller) November 12, 2015
And here’s a behind-the-scenes video about how the ad was made. Be sure to watch it, for it features Kerr herself as well as some background on the animation:
*******
Here are two other Christmas-themed cat items:
The cartoon below reminds me of Muezza, the cat supposedly owned by Muhammad. The story goes that Muhammad, heeding the call to prayer, found Muezza sleeping on his sleeve. Rather than rouse the cat, he cut off his sleeve to let it sleep.
h/t: Candide, Lauren, Steve and others.
Hmmm, hadn’t actually endured the advert until now – thank FFwd, not thank FSM – but did anyone else get savours of the Bowling Ball being given a Helping Hand into the Bathtub etc?
That’s not how you should use a foam fire extinguisher if you suspect the presence of hot fats. Even if it does make the burnt offerings look more Xmassy.
The intro was cute. The Dad wanted a new “bat”, and the Mom wanted, “well…”.
The film is really well made. The CGI is super, and as you can see from the “Making of” film, it puts an interesting constraint on filming.
My favorite part is that, while the little boy is dreaming about airplanes the little girl is dreaming about a chemistry set and becoming a scientist !!(instead of a stereotypical dream about dolls and becoming a princess).
I missed that. Good eye.
That film looks great! I felt a little choked up just watching it for some reason. Anything with animals gets be choked up (sad or happy) but I never care much about humans. Well, I care, I just don’t get as choked up.
You’re not the only person I know who prefers animals to humans. Some say humans are soul suckers, while cats and d*gs fill your soul.
Absolutely adorable. And to see how far animators have progressed in just a few years is just amazing. They now make animating hair look easy, and I know it is not.
That story about Muhammad and his cat reminds me of the Chinese Han Dynasty emperor Liu Xin, who is said to have cut off his sleeve so as not to awaken his young male lover Dong Xian. This apparently is the origin of the Mandarin slang ‘cutsleeve’ for a gay man
The Mog stories are wonderful. I read the first few for my sons when they were young, and the stories were as much fun for me as for little kids. Mog had a great, sad-sack personality-in pursuit of adventure she would get into all sorts of predicaments, and wind up needing to be rescued or reassured or fed by her “people.” The most fun was “Mog In The Dark,” where she has a hallucinatory nightmare about flying and being terrified by a MouseDogBird.
Muezza? I thought that story came from China a bit before the invention of Islam.
That’s some story!
Love the Mutts cartoon. That strip is one of our favorites, and Mooch the cat is our favorite character in it, though Earl the d*g is a close second.
A nephew of mine received an xmas present of the “Exploding kittens” game. Quite surreal fun if you can overlook the sacrilegious notions (to c_ts, paws be upon humans) involved. It was invented by Matt Inman who is the author of “The Oatmeal” comic.
Matt wrote a book,”How to know if your cat is plotting to kill you” which tries to make humour out of reversing normally accepted ideas, seeing a dark side to things.
Matt has a Youtube video of his Bahfest routine, “I do not believe in Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, I believe in Jibbers Crabst” which is a sort of variation on the flying spaghetti monster.
From 8:29-9.50+ in the video there is some amusing mockery of religious faith
Bahfest Youtube channel video,”BAHFest West 2014 – Matt Inman: Jibbers Crabst”
Sorry. I should have tried the WEIT search box first before posting as I see The Oatmeal is old news and all this was mentioned by Jerry Coyne at least 4 times: 12th Nov 2015, Dec 21 2015, Dec 10 2014, June 3 2014. I’d actually seen some of those before but just didn’t twig.