The first of our three items today (plus there’s lagniappe at the bottom) are the three best cat commercials ever made. I chose the first two, but reader Divy insisted that I add the third,
This one was originally broadcast on the Superbowl, and in my view has never been bettered for a cat commercial. Repeated watching enables you to pick up things you missed the first time. It even has its own Wikipedia entry, “Cat herders“, which says, among other stuff, this:
Cat Herders is a commercial made by Fallon for Electronic Data Systems (EDS). Alluding to the management-speak idiom “It’s like herding cats” that refers to the impossibility of controlling the uncontrollable, it posits an analogy between herding cats and the solution of seemingly impossible problems by EDS.
. . . Authentic cowboys were required, and a casting call was put out across Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California. Some of the cast had never acted previously but others were SAG-accredited.
Actor Tony Becker points out that many of the actors were “real-life cowboys”, and gives a comprehensive cast list [the list is on the page]
Real cowboys!
Here’s a well-known Cravendale Milk ad for cats with thumbs. Very clever!
And here’s one of the “got milk?” series that is Divy’s favorite. Cats don’t have no truck with fake milk!
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This is from Fox News, but there’s no politics in it—just humanity. Click to read about a lovely man who rescued a kitten from a bunch of horrible people who glued it to a road! How much more disgusting can people get?
An excerpt (the story is from October of 1918):
A tiny kitten may have shaved off one of his nine lives after being discovered glued to a busy road in Oregon on Friday.
Chuck Hawley was driving to work on Silverton Road Northeast just outside of Salem around 7 a.m. when he noticed there was something in the road in a busy lane of traffic.
“When I went to pick her up, her feet were stuck to the road, and I’m like, ‘uh oh.’ So I start to pull her feet up, and it was like a rubber cement, so she was glued to the road.” Hawley told FOX12. “It was all under her neck and then she had a little bit down her side, but it was mostly her tail and her feet.”
The 5-week-old kitten, frightened and cold, had her feet soaked in glue that was “sort of rubbed into the pads of her feet,” according to Hawley.
“Sticky” the kitten was found with her feet stuck to a busy road on Friday. (FOX12)
“I think the way she was sitting someone actually went out and put her there,” he told FOX12. “Because there were no glue footprints around, it was just a glob of glue under her, so it looked like someone just took her and put her in the road.”
Hawley took the kitten, now named Sticky, to an animal clinic where staff members had to use mineral oil to get the glue off her tiny paws. Puncture wounds were also found on the kitten’s neck, but it’s yet to be determined what caused them.
On Monday, Hawley said he spoke with deputies from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, who came to his home to take pictures of Sticky’s neck injuries as they investigate how she ended up glued to the road.
And so Sticky was saved!
The little kitten is expected to make a full recovery — and wound up getting a new home out of the ordeal after Hawley adopted her.
“The funny thing is we were just talking about getting a cat a couple of nights ago,” he said. “Seems like there’s easier ways for the cat to find us, but if that’s how we’re doing it, okay, I guess that’s how we’ll do it.”
Here’s a 2-minute4 video:
Stuff like this both restores my faith in humanity but also makes me realize how horrible some people are. Torturing a poor animal that never did anything to you! Isn’t that the way that some serial killers start?
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From Bored Panda we have some vintage cat photos. The site has twenty, but I’ll show half a dozen. Click on the headline below to see them.
First, BP‘s intro:
Cats have a way of capturing our attention and our hearts, and it’s not just a modern thing. Long before the internet, people were photographing their furry companions, preserving those moments for generations to enjoy. Thanks to Paula Leite Moreira, a Brazilian journalist and the creator of the Instagram account “All Vintage Cats,” these charming snapshots from the past are now reaching a whole new audience.
Paula’s collection is like a time machine for cat lovers. From historical archives to forgotten magazines, she’s unearthed photos that show cats in all their timeless glory—lounging, playing, or even posing with famous faces. If you’re someone who appreciates old photographs or just loves cats, this project is a quiet little gold mine you won’t want to miss. Scroll down to take a look at some of the gems she’s shared.
Milk right from the source! A note from the article:
Bored Panda reached out to Paula Leite Moreira once more to learn more about her insights on the evolving portrayal of cats in photography across different eras and cultures.
When asked if she noticed any patterns or trends in how cats were photographed across different decades or countries, the journalist mentioned that in the early days of photography, around the mid-19th century in Europe, photos often depicted kittens mimicking human poses, sometimes even dressed in tiny outfits. “These images were frequently made for postcards. But aside from that period, it’s remarkable how photos from decades ago are similar to those we see today. Owners also enjoyed capturing casual moments with their cats at home, with their families, in an unpretentious way.”
From the article:
We were curious about the most surprising or unusual place where Paula came across a vintage photo of a cat. “Definitely a photo of a kitten ‘hidden’ in the so-called ‘longest beard in the world’ of a Frenchman named Louis Coulo,” the journalist responded.
It is a great photo, and here it is:
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Lagniappe: From Newsweek, a cat with salacious markings (below). I don’t think the black bit looks like a middle finger, though:
Picking a name for a pet is no easy task, which is why one owner took to Reddit and asked for name suggestions, but the answers they received were unexpected.
Reddit user u/martindukz posted to the subreddit channel r/funny a picture of the unnamed brown, white and black calico cat sitting on a footrest. Within four days, the post received over 27,000 upvotes and almost 10,000 comments.
People were basing their suggestions on a specific physical characteristic. The shape of the black fur marking on her lower back immediately gave people ideas; however, the suggestions weren’t what the owner expected. People flooded the comment section with not-safe-for-work name options.
The owner commented on the post, saying the cat’s name is Chili, but based on the marking, they are open to renaming her; hence, the post to Reddit.
Newsweek reached out to u/martindukz via Reddit for additional comment.
“I may be a little dark, but I see a middle finger in that black splotch. I won’t make any name suggestions,” commented one Reddit user.
Others suggested subtle names after humans such as Richard or the author Charles Dickens. A more subtle name idea was Clickbait “because that mark looks like a computer mouse.”
Not everyone had their heads in the gutter. Someone asked: “Am I the only one that thinks it’s a lighthouse?”
h/t: Dan, Divy
In the cat herder commercial, look for the guy with the lint roller.
😹
Don’t forget the wonderful contribution to cat commercials by ZeFrank, the Friskies cat food “dear Kitten” series. See them on youtube.
Sticky’s rescue has been all over the news. The great part is her rescue. But whomever glued the helpless creature to the road is the personification of evil. Part of the reason that this story has been so widely reported is undoubtedly because even the press can’t fathom someone committing such a despicable act.
I suspect that the person who glued that poor kitten to the road was nearby when Hawley stopped to rescue it, slipping away so that he (and his cell phone) wouldn’t be discovered. Sticky’s death was obviously staged.
It wasn’t that long ago that people used to torture cats for amusement and nobody thought much of it. Human cultures have now evolved to the point where doing this is rightfully considered despicable. There’s comfort in that, as well as in Sticky’s deliverance.
Though I do think the press may have avoided reporting the details of this to avoid inspiring copycats.
“I suspect that the person who glued that poor kitten to the road was nearby when Hawley stopped to rescue it, slipping away so that he (and his cell phone) wouldn’t be discovered. Sticky’s death was obviously staged.”
Like an arsonist.
Indeed. Serial killers often have a childhood history of cruelty to animals.
I love those cat commercials!!!!!!!!
Moreira’s mention of the old vogue for taking photos of cats “mimicking human poses, sometimes dressed in tiny outfits” reminds me of one of my earliest favorite books, Four Little Kittens. Ancient even then, it was available only at my grandma’s house and I would eagerly pore over the black and white photographs of kittens going fishing or shopping or otherwise engaged, all nattily attired. Because I was very young, I believed there were cats that really did this.
Great Caturday roundup. 🐈🐈🐈
I just found a cat gem:
https://x.com/musicjim2/status/1888228607786385582?s=46
I especially like the two milk commercials. The kitten glued to the road is just sick. I’ve worked with kids who did stuff like that. In fact, I removed a very small female cat from a client’s house once I discovered what the boy with FAS was doing to her. Sadly, kids with FAS are incapable of emotions like empathy, guilt, etc. I told his mother I’d take the cat home or call Animal Control. Turned out, the little cat was a runt and she gave birth to 3 kittens less than 2 weeks after I confiscated her. She and her offspring became the joys of my life. The runt mama cat lived to be 17, her “boys” both made it to 18. Her little calico I found a home for also lived 18 years.
Speaking of cat commercials, this one has shown up here in Canada recently.
Cat with no pulse
Apparently, it’s from the UK in 2013. I guess the company has revived it for our market. AFAIK, it’s never aired here before.
βPer
The Cat Herders is wonderful. (A shame about the errors in the subtitles, where some of the “herd/herding”s mistakenly appear as “hurt/hurting”.)