Sam Stall - 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization

In the days before computer-generated special effects, animal trainers used heroic measures to get four-legged thespians to “talk” onscreen. (The only thing that got the famous Mr. Ed to move his mouth on cue was a dose of peanut butter smeared under his upper lip.) But one famous feline pitch cat managed to spontaneously inaugurate one of the world’s most recognizable promotional campaigns.

It began in the early 1970s, when the advertising agency Della Femina, Travisano & Partners was engaged to create TV spots for Meow Mix cat food. When they shot footage of an orange-and-white tabby consuming the product, however, the luckless cat started choking. All they got was at-first-unusable footage of the feline working its mouth soundlessly as it fought for air. But then ad exec Jerry Della Femina thought of a way to turn lemons into lemonade. He added a soundtrack to the film, created the now-immortal “Meow, meow, meow” Meow Mix theme song, and started a sensation. Fortunately, the cat managed to spit out the offending food and went on to live a long and happy life.

Billionaire movie producer, aviation pioneer, and casino owner Howard Hughes was as incredibly famous as he was incredibly odd. The stories about his strangeness—from his dinnertime practice of sorting all his peas by size (he carried around a tiny rake for the purpose) to his obsession with designing the perfect brassiere for his amply endowed film protégée, Jane Russell—are legion. So it’s probably no surprise that he reacted bizarrely when his wife, Jean Peters, told him that a rather dicey-looking tomcat she’d adopted had gone missing.

The name of the cat is lost to history, but Hughes’s reaction to his departure is enshrined in the lexicon of eccentric anecdotes. According to the story, the billionaire launched a massive effort to locate the missing pet. He micromanaged the project from his mansion, demanding progress reports from his minions every hour on the hour. But when the poor cat was finally located hiding in an old barn, Hughes examined him personally and pronounced him unfit for his household.

This ignited a closely managed effort to find the cat a suitable new residence. Several potential adoptive owners were interviewed extensively, then rejected for various reasons. After much debate, the feline was bundled off to a high-class cattery—the sort of cattery that seemed more than ready to cater to Hughes’s oddball ideas of propriety. The tomcat took up residence in its own carpeted, tastefully decorated room, complete with a TV should it desire to catch a program.

The cattery required that former owners dash off a letter to their pets once each month. Hughes, eager to be rid of the problem, is said to have fobbed off the task on an underling. The writer was apparently still on the job—and the cat, presumably, was still enjoying his television-equipped suite—when Hughes passed away on April 5, 1976. Jean Peters, who had instigated the entire situation by taking in the feline in the first place, had divorced the erratic billionaire five years earlier.

Every bride gets a bit testy as her big day approaches. But in the case of one Thai couple, the bride and groom were both quite catty. That’s because they were Siamese cats named Phet and Ploy. Their 1996 Bangkok nuptials are considered the most opulent feline “wedding” on record.

Why do cats need to get married? According to their owner, cosmetics magnate Vicharn Charas-archa, it was only fair. Both felines were rare “diamond-eyed” cats, which according to Thai beliefs are extraordinarily lucky. Charas-archa became a believer after discovering the cats on the Thai/Burmese border and taking them in. Shortly thereafter, his struggling business started taking off.

So he shared the wealth by staging a wedding for his good luck charms at a Bangkok disco. The groom arrived by helicopter, and the bride (who came with a $40,000 dowry) by limousine. They wore a tuxedo and bridal gown and sported tiny wedding rings on their paws.

Post-wedding plans included a honeymoon river cruise and, sometime afterward, a trip to the vet. That’s because the “diamond eyes” effect is caused by a form of glaucoma.

The most beloved fictional character associated with London’s venerable Paddington Station is undoubtedly Paddington Bear. There’s even a gift shop at the cavernous train depot selling everything to do with its cuddly namesake. Of slightly more modest renown is the landmark’s other animal mascot—Tiddles, the lavatory cat. His somewhat less heartwarming story began in 1970, when lavatory attendant June Watson adopted a six-week-old stray and started bringing him to work with her. Soon, as many people dropped by to visit the personable feline as to use the facilities.

They came bearing gifts of steak, chicken, lamb, and whatever other tidbits they thought would tempt the cat. The deluge of goodies became so overwhelming that Tiddles got his own personal fridge to store them. Not surprisingly, this lord of the ladies’ loo soon swelled to royal girth. By 1982 he weighed so much that he was named “London Fat Cat Champion.”

Of course this was far from healthy, and visitors soon were discouraged from feeding him. But the goodies kept coming. Poor Tiddles, swollen to an ungainly thirty-two pounds, came to resemble a beach ball with fur. Though he eventually passed away from obesity-related health issues, it can safely be said that he died happy.

Is it possible to be too desirable? In the case of one hapless feline, it certainly was. Pity poor Toni, a cat with a pedigree so excruciatingly rare that he became an object of desire not only to aficionados, but to thieves.

His sorry tale began in June 2000, when British cat breeder Peter Collins heard someone snooping around the outdoor run used by Toni, his longhaired Turkish Angora. When Collins stepped outside, he saw a woman wearing orange glasses and a hooded jacket carrying his prized pet away in a basket. “I chased her and saw her getting into an estate car with foreign plates that had its engine running,” he told the BBC. “She jumped in and the car roared off before I could reach it.”

The heist, police surmised, was carefully planned and executed. But why would anyone go to so much trouble to nab a cat? Because Toni (full name Antonio B. Pinardin) was both exceedingly rare and exceedingly valuable (somewhere, experts guessed, in the neighborhood of £250,000). He’d been purchased a couple of years earlier by Collins and his wife, Joy, from a German breeder for the comparatively reasonable price of £1,500. But his stock soared after a catastrophe overtook his breed.