Rose’s Peekaboo

Rose’s Peekaboo

The cartoonist Pat Brady (male) has drawn the popular strip Rose Is Rose since 1983, introducing the world to the Gumbo family, which includes the longhaired cat Peekaboo, who is adorable but (typical of comic strip cats) provides many “catty” observations on the family’s life. Peekaboo is the companion of the family tot, Pasquale.

Cat in the moon

Cat in the moon

Cosmo was a comic book cat in the late 1940s. He resided on the moon and took “cosmic catnip capsules.” He kept watch on Earth, located people needing his aid and flew by rocket to Earth, where he was super fast and super powerful.

Naturally he wore a cape (as all superheroes do) with a big letter C in the middle of his chest. It’s odd that the brave, dynamic Cosmo never made it into animated cartoons.

Poor dumb Katnip

Poor dumb Katnip

The MGM movie studios had a big hit with the Tom and Jerry cartoons, so Paramount studios created their own cat-and-mouse team. Herman (a mouse in a bow tie and pants) and Katnip first appeared together in the 1947 cartoon Naughty But Mice.

Most of the cartoons followed a standard formula: some mice were having fun, Katnip showed up to spoil things and Herman had to come to the rescue, which wasn’t hard, considering how dumb Katnip was. (Unlike Tom and Jerry, who were mute, Herman and Katnip did have voices.) As if Herman weren’t enough trouble, Katnip also had to face the mischievous crow Buzzy in several cartoons.

Confused mouser

Confused mouser

Sylvester was a mouser as well as a bird chaser, and he never quite caught on to the fact that the character Hippety Hopper was a baby kangaroo, not a giant mouse. Cat and kangaroo first appeared together in the 1952 cartoon Hoppy Go Lucky.

Poor Sylvester was as unsuccessful in capturing the bouncing Hippety as he was in catching the bird Tweetie. Adding to his humiliation was the fact that his son was a witness to his failure in capturing the “giant mouse.” He had no more luck with a real mouse, the infamous “fastest mouse in all Mexico,” Speedy Gonazales.

Poor Elmer

Poor Elmer

Sylvester wasn’t always chasing Tweetie Bird. In one cartoon, he did something alley cats are famous for: creating a racket at night and keeping people awake.

In the 1948 cartoon Back Alley Oproar, the obnoxious cat not only meows but sings opera, plays musical instruments and does everything else possible to keep poor Elmer Fudd from falling to sleep.

At the end of the cartoon, Elmer succeeds in killing the cat—only to realize that all nine of Sylvester’s lives are still around to harass him with their caterwauling.

Finally, a sweetiecat

Finally, a sweetiecat

Most cartoon cats are obnoxious, but in 1952 Warner Bros. debuted the most adorable cat ever, a tiny black-and-white kitten named Pussyfoot. The kitten is adopted by a huge bulldog, Mark Antony, and the dog goes out of his way to protect the tiny puss.

A running gag in the cartoons is watching Pussyfoot dig his claws into the dog’s back until finally, to the dog’s great relief, he settles into the dog’s fur for a nap.

Scented cat-chaser

Star Face.That Is Awesome.

Skunks don’t live in France and don’t mate with cats, but anything is possible in a cartoon. Beginning with the 1951 cartoon Scent-imental Romeo, Warner Bros. used the formula of having a lovesick French skunk, Pepe Le Pew, pursue a “female skunk”—actually a cat who had a stripe of white paint spilled on her back.

Mouthing romantic phrases in both bad English and bad French, Pepe hopped gaily after the disgusted cat. Part of the fun in these cartoons is that real skunks are not graceful but real cats are, and the Pepe cartoons reverse this, with the frantic cat tripping over herself to flee the skunk.

Speedy versus the cats

Speedy versus the cats

Speedy Gonzales, “the fastest mouse in all Mexico,” faced several foes, including Warner Bros.’ favorite cartoon cat, Sylvester. But in one of the funniest cartoons ever made, Speedy faces a chubby cat named Jose and a skinny cat named Manuel.

Mexicali Schmoes (1959) shows the two hungry cats being constantly outwitted and outrun by Speedy. At the end, Jose catches the slowest mouse in all Mexico, Slowpoke Rodriquez—who, unfortunately for the cat, also packs a gun.

Just the facts, cat

Just the facts, cat

The Hanna-Barbera animation team produced the famous Tom and Jerry duo, but they also produced cartoons featuring a cat and mouse working as a team.

These were Snooper and Blabber, two trench coat–wearing detectives that were part of the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon show that debuted in 1959. Super Snooper (the cat) and Blabber Mouse often seemed to be a parody of the popular Dragnet series. Like other Hanna-Barbera shows, this one spun off comic books, lunchboxes, toys and other items.

Not quite country

Not quite country

In 1969, ABC and Hanna-Barbera planned to launch an animated Saturday morning cartoon show called Nashville Cats, but at almost the last minute the show was renamed Cattanooga Cats.

The cats were a country-rock band (dressed in hillbilly garb, of course) who had various adventures and tried to avoid the annoying Chessie, the autograph hound. The show also included the Autocat and Motor-mouse cartoons, a sort of race-car version of the familiar cat-chases-mouse routine.

Pink and civilized

Pink and civilized

“Exit, stage left!” and “Heavens to Murgatroyd!” were the trademark phrases of Snagglepuss, a pink lion wearing a formal tie and cufflinks.

Snag, who debuted on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon show Quick Draw McGraw in 1959, was perfectly harmless, but he was often pursued by the big-game hunter Major Minor, who somehow got the impression that Snagglepuss was ferocious. The cat’s distinctive voice reminded everyone of the character actor Bert Lahr, who played the lion in The Wizard of Oz.

Cinderella’s mice pals

Cinderella’s mice pals

In the 1950 Disney animated movie Cinderella, the heroine’s best friends are the household mice. And while Cinderella must cope with her wicked step-mother and snooty stepsisters, the mice must cope with the menacing cat, Lucifer. (Lucifer is another name for Satan, but you knew that already.)

Lucifer is a nasty character but also very funny as we watch him writhing in agony while Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters sing and play music badly off-key.

Of course cats dance

Of course cats dance

The 1997 animated movie Cats Don’t Dance centered on the cat Danny, a dancer in 1930s Hollywood who couldn’t figure out why he could never get human parts in movies. A silly but generally enjoyable movie.

What the Dickens?

What the Dickens?

Oliver Twist, the classic Dickens novel about an orphan boy falling in with lowlifes, was resurrected in the 1988 Disney animated movie Oliver and Company. This time Oliver is a kitten in New York, taken in by a gang of thieving dogs.

Siamese, if you plee-eez

Siamese, if you plee-eez

Disney’s wonderful 1955 animated movie Lady and the Tramp is basically about dogs, but two of its most memorable characters are Si and Am, a pair of Siamese cats who make serious mischief in Lady’s household.

The troublemaking twosome sing “We are Siamese if you plee-eez” while raising a ruckus. Oddly, their squeaky voices were provided by husky-voiced singer Peggy Lee.

Puppets and cats

Puppets and cats

The wonderful 1940 Walt Disney movie Pinocchio featured two animated cats in prominent roles. One was the adorable Figaro, the pampered pet of old Gepetto, who created the Pinocchio puppet.

Figaro is with Gepetto when he is swallowed by the whale Monstro. The other cat, quite different, is Gideon, the dopey companion of the fox J. Worthington Foulfellow; these two form a pair devoted to Pinocchio’s moral downfall.

Morris, the ultimate cat snob

Morris, the ultimate cat snob

Think of “spoiled cat” and you probably think of Morris, the spokes-cat for the 9-Lives brand of cat food. Morris was found at an animal shelter in a Chicago suburb, and the Leo Burnett ad agency turned the big orange tabby into a superstar.

He debuted in ads in 1969 but died in 1975 and was quickly replaced by a Morris lookalike. The “real” Morris the cat was John Irwin, the man who provided the bored, haughty voice of the oh-so-finicky cat.

The Hello Kitty phenomenon

The Hello Kitty phenomenon

One of the merchandising marvels of the last twenty years has been Hello Kitty, the brainchild of the Sanrio Company of Japan. Buyers consider the countless Hello Kitty products—toys, watches, clothing, figurines and other collectibles—to be adorable with a capital A.

The main character is Kitty White, who is (big surprise) a white kitten, always sweet and considerate, always with a red bow on one ear. She lives with her family in London and loves to give tea parties and bake cookies.

The cast includes her adorable parents and grandparents, her adorable twin sister (who wears a yellow bow) and her adorable animal friends—monkeys, moles, raccoons, even dogs and mice. One thing all the characters have in common, besides being adorable: they have no mouths. It is a “cult of the cute,” but what cat lover would complain?

The grand-daddy of all cat logos

grand-daddy of all cat logos

Most of the cat advertising images mentioned in this section are long gone, but one lingers on, and that is the Cat’s Paw cat, the black mascot of Cat-Tex shoe soles and rubber heels. Cat’s Paw began in the early 1900s when the Massachusetts Chemical Company began using the name for its rubber shoes and then later for soles and heels.

Knowing that people were aware of how surefooted cats are, the company employed slogans like “I never slip” and “The heel with nine lives.”

The most familiar image, still seen on Cat’s Paw products, shows the head, shoulders and (of course) extended paw of a black, red-eyed cat. Many a U.S. shoe repair shop had (and has) a Cat’s Paw clock prominently displayed.

Ah, slumbering Chessie

Ah, slumbering Chessie

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad still exists, but you can no longer sleep on a C & O car, since the line no longer has passenger cars. But in days past the railroad advertised you could “sleep like a kitten” on C & O trains, and the railroad’s logo was an adorable tabby kitten, Chessie, snuggled under a sheet with its head and one paw showing.

Chessie was taken from a picture made by the artist Guido Gruenwald that was purchased by a C & O executive. C & O ran its first ad with Chessie in 1934, and the company was flooded with requests for copies of the image.

The railroad knew a good thing when they saw it and started marketing the Chessie image on clothing, bags, playing cards and other consumables. The tiny kitten was, at that time, the best-known cat in America.

Thread cats

Thread cats

You might be familiar with the Coats and Clark Company, a maker of thread. Back before Coats and Clark merged, Clark’s Thread hit upon a rather obvious advertising ploy: show an adorable kitten playing with the thread. (After all, everyone knows that cats and kittens like to chase strings and threads.)

The idea caught on, and other thread companies used cats in their ads. The Corticelli Company, for example, showed two adorable white kittens frolicking with spools of thread of all colors, with the slogan “Too strong to break.” In their day—the first decade of the twentieth century—the Corticelli kittens were among the most famous ad cats in the world.

Before Socks, stockings

Before Socks, stockings

Black cats with white paws were being named Socks well before the Clinton presidency, and perhaps that suggested the brand name Black Cat to the Cooper brothers of Kenosha, Wisconsin, who founded the Black Cat Hosiery Company in the 1890s.

All the socks and hose produced by the company bore the image (on the toe) of a grinning black cat with a ribbon around his neck. (It was actually “grinnier” than the Cheshire cat of Alice in Wonderland.) In time the a in black and cat morphed into the front legs of the black cat image.

. . . And nearby, his white brother

... And nearby, his white brother

One of the Cooper brothers who founded the Black Cat Hosiery Company started a firm (just across the street) to manufacture underwear.

In a remarkable leap of creativity, the company chose to use a grinning cat with a ribbon around his neck as its logo, and the company was called White Cat. Many years later, this company morphed into Jockey, now a well-known maker of underwear.

The Coke cat

The Coke cat

The Coca-Cola Company has been around for a long time, and has, naturally, produced some memorable ads to promote its products.

One ad from the 1920s showed a stylishly dressed woman of the period drinking Coke, while her equally stylish white cat drank milk from a blue bowl.

The Kellogg’s cats

The Kellogg’s cats

Producing various cereals over so many decades, the Kellogg’s Company has inevitably featured cats in some of its ads (even though cats have zero interest in eating cereal themselves).

An ad for Kellogg’s Toasted Corn Flakes from the early twentieth century depicted a child holding a gray cat, with the tag line “For Kiddies, Not Kitties.” A couple of decades later, the kiddies could order, from the back of a Kellogg’s cereal box, a huggable doll, Crinkle the Cat.

Tiddledywinks, feline style

Tiddledywinks, feline style

The old children’s game of tiddledywinks seems pretty quaint compared to today’s video games, but it is still available, and basically unchanged. It was ridiculously simple: coinlike disks were used to flip smaller disks into a cup to score points.

In the 1930s the English firm of J. W. Spear and Son produced its Little Kittens version of the game, in which the cups were mouths and paws of some gaping kitten figurines.

Dueling tomcats

Dueling tomcats

Parker Brothers, the famous board-game company that gave the world Monopoly, Sorry, Risk and other classics, is an old firm, dating back to the 1800s. One of its early products was the Amusing Game of Kilkenny Cats, obviously a take off on the old expression “fighting like Kilkenny cats”.

The game box depicted two cats (presumably toms) in waistcoats, aiming their dueling pistols at each other while their cat friends stood nearby awaiting the outcome.

Psychic cats

Psychic cats

Parker Brothers later produced another cat parlor game, the Black Cat Fortune Telling Game, which debuted in 1897. The game involved cards of the four standard suits, each with a cat image on the back.

Matching the words on the cards’ backs could (supposedly) tell the players’ fortunes. No doubt Parker Brothers was counting on buyers to connect cats (black ones especially) with the occult and witchcraft.

Rodent-killing competition

Rodent-killing competition

Inevitably some of the products sold to kill rats and mice would have to use cats as part of their marketing strategy. In the 1870s, the businessman Ephraim Wells developed a product he called Rough on Rats (field-tested in his own rat-infested home).

Some of the ads for Rough on Rats showed a bevy of disappointed and alarmed cats, lamenting that they had been replaced by the amazing product.

Tsuda’s costumed cats

Tsuda’s costumed cats

“Cats can’t be taught tricks.” Well, some can, as proven by Satoru Tsuda of Japan. He came up with the idea of using trained cats in TV ads in unconventional ways. He took in four strays and taught them not only to pose for the camera but to wear costumes of various types, including street thugs, punk rockers, policemen and soldiers.

The costumed cats were seen on TV, billboards, print ads and naturally made their way via merchandising into calendars, posters and jewelry. Not bad for a band of homeless cats and a very patient (and later very wealthy) trainer.

Cats and cigar logos

Cats and cigar logos

Cigars were (and, mostly, still are) a “guy thing,” so perhaps it is surprising that cigar companies in the 1800s so often used cats in their names and logos. In those days it was generally assumed that “real men” (the kind who smoked cigars, that is) were more fond of dogs than cats.

Nonetheless, cigar boxes and wrappers from the nineteenth century testify to the many cat names and images used by cigar companies: Two Toms, Old Tom, Mr. Thomas, Cats, Tabby, Me-Ow, Our Kitties, White Cat and, yes, even Pussy. Some showed cats smoking cigars (fat chance!), and the Me-Ow logo showed two black tomcats in the claws-out, backs-up fighting stance.

Cats and stoves

Cats and stoves

The days of the black stove that burned wood or coal are long gone, but in the old days keeping the stove’s iron finish free of rust was essential, so various companies marketed “stove polish.” One brand was Black Cat, manufactured by the J. S. Prescott Company.

Naturally the label pictured a black cat (with a red ribbon on his neck). While there is no connection between cats and stoves, the sleek coat of a black cat surely would have reminded buyers of how their stoves ought to look.

Cat compacts

Cat compacts

Back in 1930s America (there was that Depression, remember?) store customers were always happy to get something for free.

One “freebie” was the paper compact, a cardboard-encased compact mirror given free to women, always (of course) bearing inside it an ad for some store or service.

Some of these compacts bore the face of a cat on the inside, perhaps because most women find cats appealing and perhaps because cats (like mirrors) are associated with grooming.

Cat-and-dog product

Cat-and-dog product

If you had to guess, what would you think a product called Honest Scrap would be? The answer: chewing tobacco.

Honest Scrap was a brand of chewin’ backy produced by the Lorillard company, and one of its advertising images was a black cat facing off with an only slightly larger white dog. The image bore the title “An everyday scrap.”

The catnip toy guy

The catnip toy guy

Catnip-filled balls and catnip-filled mice toys have been around a long time—in fact, since 1907, when a veterinary supplier, A. C. Daniels, patented his Catnip Ball, a small wooden ball, hollowed out for holding catnip and serving as a great toy for felines.

Later he patented the first catnip-filled toy mouse. Naturally Mr. Daniels also marketed his own catnip, under the brand name Summit.

Babies and tires

Babies and tires

The Michelin tire company has been using its adorable baby image for several years now, accompanied by the slogan “There’s a lot riding on your tires.”

Back in the 1920s, the Fisk Tire Company of Massachusetts was already using a protective parent image, but not a human one: one of the company’s ads showed a fierce-looking mother cat frightening a dog away from her basket of wide-eyed kittens.

Interestingly, on the wall behind the kitten basket is a pre-Michelin image of a tot holding a tire, with the slogan “Time to Re-tire—get a Fisk.” We can assume that tire buyers were expected to connect new tires with the parental protectiveness of the mother cat.

Preferring cream (gasoline) to milk

Preferring cream (gasoline) to milk

With the exception of the Exxon tiger, cats haven’t been used much in gasoline ads, but back in 1929 there was a wave of advertising for Ethyl, the new antiknock compound developed by the General Motors Corporation.

An Ethyl Gasoline Corporation was established to promote the new product, and its ads featured a longhaired white cat, with the slogan “To make your engine purr ... use Ethyl.” The ad also noted that “the aristocratic Angora and the proletarian puss have at least one thing in common: that is, both prefer cream to milk.” The “cream” was the new Ethyl additive.

The pre-tire Goodrich

The pre-tire Goodrich

Most folks know how much most cats dislike water, so inevitably some companies would employ “cat hates water” images in their ads. One such company was B. F. Goodrich, the rubber company famous today for its tires.

In its pre-tire days the company manufactured boots and galoshes, and some of the Goodrich ads from the early 1900s depicted smiling cats walking through the rain while wearing Goodrich galoshes.

The Umbstaetters’ cat ’zine

The Umbstaetters’ cat ’zine

It’s hard to imagine now, but decades ago there were literally hundreds of monthly magazines featuring short stories. In the era before movies, TV and radio, fiction magazines were a prime source of entertainment. One of the most popular ones was The Black Cat, begun in 1895 by Herman Umbstaetter and illustrated by his wife, Nelly.

The covers featured Nelly’s illustrations of a black cat in various human poses—painting, playing a flute, sailing a ship and so on. The cat’s face also appeared in the initial letter of each short story. Many of the ads in the magazine also used a black cat image. By the time the Boston-based magazine ceased publication in 1923, it had featured some noted writers, including Jack London. The covers were and still are considered collector’s items.

Inky cats

Inky cats

What does ink have to do with cats? Not a thing, but that hasn’t stopped a couple of ink companies from using cats in their ads. In the early 1900s, the Thomas Company of Chicago used a rather stern-looking black cat in its ads, along with a slogan advising buyers to ask for “the ink with the cat on the bottle.”

Beginning in 1941, the Carter’s Ink Company used a mother cat with kittens on some of its ink bottles, and its full-color ads depicted a white mother cat hanging out her nine kittens—each a different color—to dry on a clothesline. The nine Carter ink colors fit perfectly with the slogan “Carter’s Ink has 9 dyes.”

From cats to newly hatched chicks

From cats to newly hatched chicks

Bon Ami scouring powder has been around awhile, along with its familiar baby chick logo and the slogan “Hasn’t scratched yet.” Bon Ami was launched on the world in 1886 by the soap manufacturer John Robertson, who used the mineral feldspar as the “magic ingredient” in Bon Ami.

In the early days, long before the baby chick logo, Bon Ami ads sometimes showed a fierce cat, claws out, on the verge of scratching two dogs, with the slogan “Cats can, but Bon Ami cannot scratch, for it lacks grit.”

Soapy cats

Soapy cats

In the public’s mind, cats hate water, and thus they hate bathing . . . so using a cat image in soap advertising doesn’t seem to make sense, except that people also know that cats are fanatically clean.

Thus more than a few soap companies have used cats in ads for soap, including the famously pure Ivory Soap, which has been around since 1879. One Ivory Soap a from more than a century ago showed a snow-white cat surrounded by twelve malicious-looking dirty gray cats. The ad had a one-word caption: “Envy.”

The Sunkist cat

The Sunkist cat

You no doubt associate the name Sunkist with citrus fruit, oranges in particular. Back in the 1930s, some of the fruit sold under the Sunkist label also bore another label: Tom Cat, as seen in the image of a blue-and-white cat on boxes of citrus.

Before the Energizer bunny . . .

Before the Energizer bunny . . .

Decades ago, a company called National Carbon began producing batteries with the brand name Eveready, a brand that is still around today. In the 1930s, many Eveready ads featured cats, such as one of a curious tot shining her flashlight on a contented mother cat with a litter of kittens.

Another Eveready ad showed a couple in pajamas, who have apparently been awakened by the sound of a beribboned kitten walking on the piano keys. The image of the kitten on the keys, looking both surprised and amused at the flashlight shining on it, is priceless.

The Fancy Feast dandy

The Fancy Feast dandy

Any commercial for Fancy Feast Gourmet Cat Food had to star a very sophisticated and beautiful cat. The original one was SH III, the pet of Scot Hart (which should enable you to figure out who the cat was named for).

SH III was a gorgeous Chinchilla Persian who also appeared in such movies as The Jerk, Scrooged and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

Tiger into cat, Olympic style

Tiger into cat, Olympic style

You might remember the 1988 Olympics, held in Seoul, South Korea. The mascot of the games was Hodori, a tiger, though he was presented as a frisky (meaning “very athletic”) house cat.

Hodori the tiger gained worldwide recognition through all the Olympic souvenir paraphernalia. But of course Koreans had been aware of him for centuries, since he was a key figure in numerous folk tales and legends.

-Philes and -phobes

-Philes and -phobes

You are probably aware that an ailurophile is a person who likes cats, while an ailurophobe is someone who hates or fears cats.

Both words are rooted in the Greek word ailuros, meaning (surprise!) “cat.” (The Greek word philia means “love” and the word phobos means, of course, “fear.”)

Is it curable?

Is it curable?

Cat lovers have a hard time comprehending ailurophobia, the fear or hatred of cats. But for some people it is very real, in many cases rooted in a childhood experience of being scratched or bitten by a cat. Some people have fainted at the sight of a cat, while others experience panic or anxiety attacks.

Considering how seldom cats attack people, is this fear “all in the head”? More importantly, is it curable? The good news is that, yes, any phobia is curable, and some ailurophobes have become avid ailurophiles. The bad news is that some people do not fear cats but actively hate them, and such people are unlikely to seek out a cure.

Name trends

Name trends

There are trendiness patterns in human names, with some names popular at one time and then unpopular at others. (For example, in the author’s school days, there were lots of Cathys, Rickys, Lindas, Gregs, Marks and Tims—names rarely bestowed in our present flood of Brittanys, Jacobs, Ambers and Matthews.)

According to a recent issue of Cat Fancy magazine, the most popular names for female cats are: Muffin, Misty, Fluffy, Patches, Samantha, Tigger, Tabitha, Missy and Pumpkin. And for the toms: Tiger, Max, Charlie, Rocky, Toby, Sam, Smokey and (oddly) Mickey. We’ll check back with the magazine in about ten years to see if a new wave of cat names has come into vogue.

Cat stamps

Cat stamps

This won’t surprise you: there were official U.S. stamps featuring dogs before there were any honoring cats. Cat fans complained, and the Postal Service responded in 1988 with a set of four cat stamps, each featuring two breeds of cats, including (of course) an American shorthair and a Maine coon.

The stamps were given their public premiere at an appropriate place: New York’s Winter Garden Theatre, which at the time housed the long-running musical Cats. The stamps sold for twenty-two cents, by the way.