Is this cat a hero or just darn nosy? We dig into That Darn Cat (1997), starring Syn the cat and a gang of endearing two-legged co-stars.

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Episode intro (00:00)

Paul: Wow, I am super excited to talk to you guys today about "That Darn Cat", which was a 1965 film starring Syn the cat, who played DC or Darn Cat. I don't know if you guys saw this before, but just wow trust me check it out it's awesome it's great.

But, did you know that Syn the cat actually had a brush with death before production that almost made him not available for the film. Or there's an animal equivalent of the Academy Awards — you're probably thinking Paul, what the eff you talking about? Learn about all this and more as we're Hoofin' it in Hollywood.

[Theme song music] The birds and the beasts are on the screen. They're the ones that you have seen. You've watched them since childhood, as they're hoofin' it in Hollywood.

[Music, That Darn Cat theme song: While the city sleeps, ev'ry night he creeps, Just surveyin' his domain, He roams around like he owns the town, He's the King, he makes that plain, He knows ev'ry trick doesn't miss a lick, When it comes to keepin' fat, Some city slicker, no one is quicker than, That darn cat.

Introductions (01:15) 

Paul: Welcome everybody to episode three. I'm your host Paul, and with me today I have my co-host Audrey...

[extended silence] 

Audrey: Oh, I panicked because every time I, say [laughter], I'm like "hellooooo." I'm like, "Okay Audrey don't say something dumb, just say hello," but I was too busy thinking it, so then I didn't talk. Can you introduce me again?

Paul: Today with me I have my co-host Audrey 

Audrey: Hello.

Paul: Jordan 

Jordan: Hi

Paul: and Melissa 

Melissa: Hello.

Paul: So, yes we're talking about "That Darn Cat" in this episode, and I'm gonna actually turn it over to Jordan to talk about the film "That Darn Cat" 

Film facts: About "That Darn Cat" (01:56) 

Hosted by Jordan

[Punky rock music segment intro]: 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 4. Film facts, film facts, film facts!

Jordan: Let's go! "That Darn Cat" was made in 1965, it's a Disney movie directed by Robert Stevenson. Robert Stevenson directed other amazing things such as Old Yeller, Gunsmoke, and Zoro. The movie was written by Gordon Gordon and Mildren Gordon, who actually wrote the original novel Undercover Cat

Melissa: That's a lot of Gordons 

Jordan: Okay then Bill Walsh wrote the screenplay for the movie, uh starring Syn the cat. We got Dean Jones, Dorothy Provine, Roddy McDowall, and Elsa Lanchester. In the lead spot we have Haley Mills as Patty. And Haley was pretty prolific in Disney at the time. This is her sixth Disney movie. 

Jordan: Okay, Haley Mills wrote a book called Forever Young where she talks about her life acting. My favorite story from Forever Young was talking about, she made something like $2 million from the first few years of her life, which her dad and lawyer put into a trust fund for her, so that she could access it when she turned 21. All on the up and up. When she turned 21 there was nothing in her trust fund. British Department of Taxation decided that she owed 90% of the $2 million in her trust fund. She had nothing.

Audrey: What the hell?

Melissa: That's f***ed up. 

Audrey: Well, now I want to buy her book.

Jordan: I know I want to read the book too. because I read another, I read a thing about it. ,I I mean sure she's fine now, that was when she was 20. 

So aside from the actors, the only thing I could find, was about how much it cost. It said over $1 million, not much information there, that's the only thing I could really find. It said over a million dollars. It grossed a lifetime of $28 million, so I'd say that was a profit, did pretty well. I'm guessing with the advent of home video it did even better afterwards because everybody loved Disney home video.

It had a theme song sung by Bobby Darin, the guy responsible for like Splish Splash and Dream Lover and we'll probably some of that — 

Audrey: Oh wait, are you talking about Splish Splash I'm — I was taking a bath bum bum bum. [Jordan: Yes.] Who knew? 

Melissa: Okay we better have a clip of that song put in here or something. Man, it is... you can pop your ass to it.

Audrey: Wait to Splish Splash? 

Melissa: No, "That Darn Cat".

Melissa: Definitely both, but more so maybe "That Darn Cat". 

Paul: Twerking to Splish Splash.

Audrey: Splish, splash off the butt, you know like if it... all right sorry Jordan.

Jordan: Okay, more phone facts. It was nominated for best comedy of the Guild Awards and Laurel Awards and Haley Mills got nominated for female comedy performance, no winners, but everybody was nominated. [Audrey: Really?] Yeah, nobody won anything. The competition that year in 1965: “Dr Zhivago” by David Lean, “For a Few Dollars More” - classic spaghetti western - from Sergio Leone. And “The Sound of Music” by Robert Wise. 

"That Darn Cat". So, the very beginning of this movie we're introduced to DC. He's causing all sorts of trouble around town, he's stealing food, he's pissing off dogs, pissing off people. Just kind of a good intro like montage seeing this cat go around. But, that was a good intro. 

Paul: The title when the dog barked "That Darn Cat"," I was like oh f*** yeah I'm in.

Melissa: Yeah, Jordan and I looked at each other and were like hell yeah. 

Movie summary (05:50) 

Jordan: So we're introduced to a pair of bank robbers named Dan and Iggy. They've taken a woman hostage, Margaret Miller. They're deciding what to do with her. They can't dump the body very close, which is really creepy, because they said that they would get found out. And so while they have her they just decided to make her cook, which is kind of weird, but — 

Melissa: Yeah, that was weird.

Paul: Becomes like a mom. 

Jordan: Yeah they call her "moms," too. [Paul: Yeah]

Jordan: So, the cat comes in. They see the cat, they think it probably just lives there and they pretty much ignore it. And so Margaret Miller takes her watch off and scratches — she tries to scratch the word "help" — She's interrupted, so she only really gets H E L. She puts it on the collar, puts it on the cat, shoos the cat away, and the cat runs away with this watch that says "help." She's hoping that somebody will see it because she is convinced she's probably going to die soon. 

So, the watch is found by Patti, played by Haley Mills. And she immediately knows that it's Margaret Miller, or immediately thinks that it is, and goes directly to the FBI, which is what one would do if they found a lost watch.

Paul: How she pieced that all together was awesome and I don't even care, like… that was rad. She just f***in was like it's got to be aliens. I know it's aliens because it's got f***in slime on it.

Jordan: I thought it was weird that she immediately went to 'well this is the person that's kidnapped and they wrote help on this.' But they had just been reading newspaper headlines, and I think on the TV that Canoe was watching they talked about it. So it was in everybody's mind. I mean I guess it would be like us seeing something in the news every single day and then something happening out of the ordinary, we would kind of just go there. I think that's a natural thing to happen. So, I didn't, I didn't cringe my face too much about that part.

What I did cringe about is when she goes to the FBI. She goes to the FBI office and then just immediately was like "I want to talk to an agent," and then just kind of goes in and talks to an agent. 

Paul: Oh, I love that, dude. [Audrey: I did, too.] The simplicity of the storytelling was just like a joy to watch. Like in modern day times, none of that would have worked out and we would have had have watched how she would have gotten there. And it was just awesome that — she just like, she's like "This is what it is, here's the issue." 

Audrey: Yeah, I really appreciated the simplicity. And I also feel like that was part of the comedy, too, is that like "of course this is silly," like it you know wouldn't happen that way. 

Paul: So they find that — they call the FBI agent, he actually believes her. He thinks that it’s plausible that somebody scratched that on a cat's, or on a watch, that they scratched "help." So, um he decides to help her. She picks him — oh yeah she picks him because he's the hottest FBI agent in the room. She's like "that's the guy, he's going to be the one that helps us." She goes in there just walks into his office and sits down and starts talking to him. 

We see, we go back to the kidnappers for a while and it gets kind of creepy. Then they decide they're going to kill Miss Miller soon and they just keep going back to there... I think give you that sense of urgency, that's kind of the only reason. Because those robbers are kind of dumb, and the lady doesn't really do much. She tries to burn the place down at one point to get out, but that's all it really... it just keeps going back to them to kind of show that time is progressing and her time is running out.

The FBI agent sets up a sting in the older sister Ingrid's room at Patty's house. And, also I didn't mention this but these are two women, I would say Patty might be like early 20s and Ingrid is probably later 20s. They're both living alone because their parents are off in Europe traveling and so these two women live in this house by themselves, visited once in a while by… some... men. Who we’ll also talk about later.

Melissa: Quite a few men. 

Jordan: So we have George who was kind of — 

Paul: Gregory.

Melissa: Gregory. 

Audrey: Gregory.

Jordan: Gregory. Sir Gregory, say that again, sir Gregory. Okay Gregory, I guess he's a carpool driver. He drives her to work, but he obviously thinks there's more to it than that. 

Audrey: Well I think she does too, because she like goes to kiss him in the one scene. 

Jordan: Oh wait she does, yeah. The one thing I noticed about George he was very handsy, he was very —

Audrey: Gregory. [Laughter]

Jordan: What's going on? I quit. Okay but then also Patty has a boyfriend or kind of a boyfriend, who is just a boy that's been hanging around, according to the neighbors since he was a child. But you could tell that he's totally got a crush on Patty and Patty just kind of lets him hang around. But he's also very handsy and very... just he's a wiener, always trying to get a sandwich.

Paul: Dude it cracked me up every time. 

Audrey: Yeah I kind of loved Canoe, because he did seem — like in the movie they described him as being kind of boyish and young, and I feel like he played that character perfectly. Like he felt young.

Paul: And she called him like sticky paper. 

Audrey: Fly paper.

Paul: Fly paper. 

Jordan: And so okay so she gets this FBI agent to come. He believes her, they set up a sting, they decide that they're going to get FBI agents to follow the cat around thinking that the cat will probably go back to where it came from. And if it was somebody writing a word 'help,' it will take them to the hostage. 

And that's so they, they do like three different attempts. It's either bungled by the men who come in, or it's bungled by the nosy neighbors, or it's bungled by the ineptitude of some of the FBI members. But for whatever happens, the first time goes through, they don't find the hostage. They try it one more time, they don't find the hostage. The FBI decides ‘okay it's probably not really a thing.’ Patty has to make up a lie to get them to come back and investigate a little bit more. They finally do come back to try to do one more sting. 

They put transmitter on the cat's collar and he follows it himself — now this is Kelso that I'm talking about — there's a drive-in movie theater scene where it's basically like a big long escapade-type chase where he's chasing it around. Patty's chasing him, and Patty's boyfriend is chasing her because he's trying to figure out what's going on between her and this other guy he doesn't know. So, it's just this big long sequence of people running around. 

But DC goes into where the robbers are he follows it himself. Now this is Kelso that I'm talking about. And there a fight ensues. It really never shows Miss Miller getting rescued, but I'm assuming the hostage was rescued and everything went down fine. And happily ever after basically. That's the movie in a nutshell.

At the very end we see DC and a cute fluffy cat and three kittens walking into the sunset.

Paul: Yeah, dude 

Melissa: Bow chicka wow wow

Paul: He's been slinging dick, dude. 

Jordan: Gross.

Paul: Hey, it's life man, it's a beautiful thing. Those cats are beautiful. 

Creature chronicles: About the animal actors (14:57) 

Hosted by Paul

[Piano music segment introduction: Hm? What's that? It's Creature Chronicles.]

Paul: Honestly, guys I was considering renaming the segment to 'rabbit holes,' because everything I kept searching just kept yielding more and more treasure that didn't quite relate to Syn, but did. If you hear me get on a little bit of a tangent, just bear with me, I feel like there's a lot of good interesting stuff coming this way.

Things to know about siamese cats (15:20) 

So to start we're going to talk about Syn the cat. He is a Siamese cat. I want to talk a little bit about the breed because I want you to know who he is on an animal level and you can kind of keep that in the back of your mind when we start talking about his career. So Siamese cats — they're native to Thailand. They became popular in North America in the 19th century. Their personality — they are highly social, they're excav... excav... they excavate ground, they have like a digging machine.

Jordan: What? 

Melissa: Hell yeah

Audrey: They excavate your heart. 

Paul: They excavate your heart. [Melissa: Aww]. But, they are extroverted and outgoing and they're also known for being loyal, kind of like a duck, like once they imprint on you they follow you everywhere basically. 

Melissa: Is my cat part Siamese, cuz he's up my butt 24/7. 

Paul: Yeah, maybe

Melissa: He's up my butt. He is, he like follows me around. He is my shadow.

Audrey: So is Panny, my cat.

Paul: The last thing I was going to say is they're known for talking a lot and they actually have a nickname called "meezers" because they have a low-pitched cat call that's very high volume, and so this is a sample of a siamese, or a meezer talking. [Clip: “Meerow”]

Jordan: Really quickly, speaking of cat meows, I did find on there some weird reference that showed use of stock sounds. And it showed a meow that was used in there, and I went to that meow and found that that meow has been used in over 80 other films and 100 TV shows.

Paul: It's like the Willhelm meow.

Jordan: It's like the Willhelm meow, it must be. This is what the meow sounds [m-rowww]. Like crazy 

Paul: Oh no way, I've heard that before! 

Jordan: Yeah you've probably heard of before.

Melissa: I love that.

Paul: All right, so I'm going to move on to the history of Syn cat. He was born in Ontario, California,  to two owners. And sadly they dropped him off at a pound because they thought he was too standoffish. I think it's kind of ridiculous cuz like I know they're supposed to be, like, cool cats, but it's a cat, too. 

Audrey: I feel like all cats are a little standoffish. [Paul: Yeah.; Melissa: Exactly yep].

Paul: So around the same time, Bill Koehler, he is a dog trainer who gets dogs trained for films — he got a task to try to find a cat for a film. And so he went to the pound that Syn cat was at and he looked at about 25 different cats and then he found Syn. And he very loosely describes their first interaction and he basically said they looked into each other's eyes and they just both knew.

Audrey: Aww, they both knew.

Melissa: There we go.

Paul: And so he ends up spending a lot of time with Bill Koehler, because he is a trainer, and the productions that Syn is in, he's all trained by Bill.  Apparently he took to acting quick, so kudos for him. 

Syn's backstory (17:00) 

Paul: All right, so I'm going to move on to the history of Syn cat. He was born in Ontario, California,  to two owners. And sadly they dropped him off at a pound because they thought he was too standoffish. I think it's kind of ridiculous cuz like I know they're supposed to be, like, cool cats, but it's a cat, too. 

Audrey: I feel like all cats are a little standoffish. [Paul: Yeah.; Melissa: Exactly yep].

Paul: So around the same time, Bill Koehler, he is a dog trainer who gets dogs trained for films — he got a task to try to find a cat for a film. And so he went to the pound that Syn cat was at and he looked at about 25 different cats and then he found Syn. And he very loosely describes their first interaction and he basically said they looked into each other's eyes and they just both knew.

Audrey: Aww, they both knew.

Melissa: There we go.

Paul: And so he ends up spending a lot of time with Bill Koehler, because he is a trainer, and the productions that Syn is in, he's all trained by Bill.  Apparently he took to acting quick, so kudos for him. 

Syn's acting career (18:20) 

Paul: So let's talk a little bit about the films he was in. The first role he was in, he played the role Tao in “The Incredible Journey” in 1963, because we cannot get out of Homeward Bound's ass, we have to talk about it every single episode. 

Melissa: It's just always going to be there, yep. 

Jordan: It’s the standard, that's why we did it first. 

Paul: But yeah so he was the main cat in “The Incredible Journey,” but he did have some cat backup. And from what I learned on the set, he was supposedly like kind of a huge a**h*** to Bodger, who was the bull terrier. He would hiss at them a bunch throughout the filming of it. 

They even went so far as to make them walk in order when they were filming because they wanted to control the chaos. They wanted to make sure that like they were separated [Melissa: oh wow]. 

But one random day they decided to change it up, and they told Syn to hop on a fence while the two dogs were walking on the ground. And I don't know what Syn experienced on that fence — like if he had like, a reawakening, but the moment he came down he was best friends with that bull terrier. 

Audrey: I read that he was really on the fence about the bull terrier bull terrier and then he got off the fence and was like "he's not so bad."

Paul: Yeah, so this is where we talk about his brush with death, which was actually in “The Incredible Journey.” One day they went to go get him and the other cat actors, and when they went into the room that they were in they were all laying down on the ground, still, but they weren't dead. But they were in a real bad state and after a couple days, they were still in that bad state. They ended up taking some vitamin K shots and like injecting the cats and that brought them back to health. But the reasoning for this is because they were being poisoned chemically. The property owner who owned the land that the film crew was shooting on, he used a chemical called sheep dip.

Jordan: [laughs] Sorry, it's not funny. Sheep dip, hmm.

Paul: Sheep dip. To make sure that there weren't parasites like lice, ticks, or blowflies getting on the animals. It was, like, completely pure of heart, but it had a negative effect and basically almost wiped out all the cats, which was wild. 

Jordan: Oh my God

Melissa: Poor kitties.

Paul: No, it was crazy and that was one of the rabbit holes I went down — learning about sheep dip. 

So let's talk about his second film which was "That Darn Cat" in 1965. So to prepare for this role he was trained for three months prior to the filming and he took to it naturally. He was a great actor. Bill Koehler was actually quoted in the Peninsula Times Tribune saying that “Syn the cat was so awesome, he put us ahead of schedule, his performance astounded production personnel."

Syn and Hayley Mills actually bonded as well during rehearsals. She would cradle him in her lap and Syn would respond by kneading her, licking her, and giving her head bonks. 

Audrey: There was absolutely one scene where you can see him makin’ biscuits on her shoulder when she's carrying him around.

Jordan: There was a scene where he was being not… just ornery in her arms and she just stopped and looked at him and you could tell that it was kind of not a part of the movie.

Audrey: Oh yeah, it looked like he legit hurt her. She, she winced.

Melissa: Yeah I feel like you could tell that they had a relationship and like she kind of just handled him. I don't know, like not crazily, but again you could just tell she was familiar with him he was familiar with her. 

Jordan: Comfortable is what I would say. Yeah she seemed very like she didn't — she wasn't — like "uhhhh I don't want to hold him" 

Melissa: That she wasn't afraid to like — 

Paul: She handled him like a child. [Melissa: Yes]. Like there were parts where he was just looking around and she was like —

Jordan: Like it was her cat.

Syn's legacy (21:30) 

Paul: Yeah. Then finally just to kind of cap off his life he is passed away, unfortunately. I couldn't find how or where but it's been over 60 years, yeah. But I found he had a net worth estimated over $25,000. [Audrey: Hey, Melissa: Wow, Jordan: Dang.]

Paul: Which is crazy yeah he was a rich cat. To remember Syn cat, we're going to remember what he liked to do. These were Syn's hobbies: they reportedly included perpendicular tree trunk walking, which I think is a fancy way of saying climbing up a tree, refrigerator and back porch poaching, fence hopping, garbage inspection, hide and seek, neighborhood touring, and alley ball, which I don't know what that is... if he was hanging out with orphans in an alley playing stick ball. 

Melissa: Kicking a ball around, yeah in an alleyway. 

Paul: Oh! And I forgot closed claw horseback riding, what was that?!

Jordan: Do you have a video of that? 

Melissa: I would love to see a photo of that.

Paul: So um let's talk a little bit about his legacy, there's not too much going on except for he was the Patsy award winner in 1966 for picture animal top star of the year. What are the Patsy awards? It's basically the Academy Awards for Animals. 

I didn't know that this actually existed, it blew my mind while I was going down this rabbit hole, but apparently back in 1939 the American Humane Association started the Patsy awards after a horse was killed during the filming of the film Jesse James. I'm not sure why it took 1951 to actually get the awards going but there's a little bit of a gap there. And it was popular enough that they actually had Ronald Reagan host the first award ceremony, which the award went to Francis the Talking mule. 

And in the 70s it was televised, but sadly I couldn't find any clips of it. I did find an ad about the Patsies though that I'm going to play right now. [CliPaul: To Devonshire Downs at Northridge California for the annual Patsy Awards. To Francis, star of Francis, join the acts among others. Patsy is short for Picture Animal Top Stars of the Year. Jill Wills, Francis’ voice and lovely Ruth Hampton [Melissa: if you just showed this to someone with no context] Francis and his friend indulge in a bit of horse play. [Audrey: that Mr Ed? Just kidding] No, Junior they weren't talking about you. 

Melissa: So wait are the Patsy awards still around or was it just like a back then thing?

Paul: It was shut down in 1986, so it was the year I was born and I think I think they were making room for me or something. [Melissa: Your fault, Paul] yeah that's all I got so I'm now going to turn it over to Audrey to talk about movie magic.

Movie magic: How did they make the animals do that? (24:45) 

Hosted by Audrey

[Soft music, echoing voice: "Get ready for: movie magic."] 

Audrey: Okay yeah here we go, so Movie Magic: um this one is going to be kind of difficult because I really couldn't find that much. Things weren't documented in the same way in the 1960s as they were in some of the later movies that we've done. 

Here are some things that I could find actually in articles or wherever. First of all there was one article where Bill Koehler was talking about Syn's disposition in general, in “The Incredible Journey,” in the scene with the bear and he was talking about how, you know, they were like "how are we going to get him to hiss at this bear?" But then it was like well, "Syn would naturally oppose anything from a gopher to the National Guard," so of course a bear was no problem. So that made me think of this movie because Syn hisses a lot. 

Melissa: I was going to say, I wondered how they got him to do that on command however they did, cuz that yeah that was impressive.

Audrey: And I'm thinking maybe he, from, judging by this quote, it sounds like he just is kind of... he'll take whatever on. 

And then the other thing that I thought was interesting is that there's one story that goes to show how much things have changed in the way that they film things, because if you remember when we talked about “Homeward Bound,” the newer one, the movie we reviewed in episode one, you'll remember there was a lot of like: 'first we had the chicken run across the screen and then we had the dog run across the screen.' Like a lot of separation of animals so that predator and prey were never together. 

But then there was an incident where they were trying to get Syn to hiss and so had him, they like showed him a pigeon or something, and then he swatted it and hurt the pigeon. Like attacked it. So that just goes to show that apparently that there were — it was a later phenomenon to keep prey and predator separate from one another. 

Jordan: Maybe after that one scene.

Audrey: Yep, Syn destroyed a freaking pigeon.

Paul: I had read that blood got on Haley and the other lead actor as well, so he must have taken that pigeon to task dude. Like exploded him. 

Audrey: I guess. Kind of sad. Speaking of blood, one of the things you could notice with your eyes is how they did the really advanced makeup for agent — what was that agent… Kelso. How they did the really advanced makeup for agent Kelso and his cat scratches, which truly looked like just like a magic marker.

Melissa: That's I was going to say it looked... yeahhhh. 

Audrey: I got screenshot of that I'll put it in the transcript. 

Paul: Also not an authentic reaction to a cat scratch cuz that stings for hours after. [Melissa: It does].

Audrey: I did wonder with as much as Syn's claws appeared to be out, I wondered how they were not covered in scratches all the time. Like I'm sure that was part of the Movie Magic like maybe he wasn't as close to scratching them as it looked like sometimes. But yeah.

Other things that you could just notice you may have seen that there were areas where the footage was very clearly sped up to make things like chase scenes appear faster. 

Paul: Nooo, no they just move that fast. Come on Aud.

Audrey: There were clearly many different cats. We know this from what we read, but also some of them had really huge balls and other ones either had no balls or small balls, so...

Melissa: Okay I noticed that, cuz I said something to Jordan at the beginning, I think it's the beginning montage with the song and everything and I was like "man [Jordan: why did they keep his balls?] dude has some big old balls.

Audrey: He does. I'm pretty sure the scenes that I assume were Syn because he was being held a bunch, was a big balled cat and then some of the the stunt devil cats or stunt double cats were uh smaller-balled cats. 

Paul: That's how they classified them, like nutsacks.

Audrey: Bring me a small ball, give me,

Melissa: Bring me one of them small balls. 

Audrey: I got a job, I got a job for a small ball over here.

Paul: What if you were in charge of finding cats and that was like, you had to like feel their nuts?

Audrey: Why —  Paul. Why would you have to feel them? Just use your eyes .

Paul: Like okay yeah okay you look at — 

Audrey: Every episode Paul is all up on these animals' business.

Melissa: How do I sign up for this job? Just kidding, just kidding.

Audrey: Jesus, so this movie like I said was challenging because there isn't — since it's older there isn't as much out there to find on the internet — but I found out there's an old book called “The Wonderful World of Disney Animals” by Bill Koehler. So I was able to dig up some information that I didn't think I'd be able to dig up. 

One of the challenges that they had in "That Darn Cat" is that they needed Syn to make a lot of precise movements like to precise places. You know how he would just jump all over the place, from thing to thing? They needed to get him to do precise movements, which he could respond to a bell, that's how they got him to move a lot of places. But this was like very specific things. 

They figured out that he would also respond to the bell played through a speaker. Which is interesting because apparently not all animals will do that. Like it makes a different enough sound. He required a little bit of retraining, but not a ton to realize that like' hey this bell coming through a speaker is the same as the bell when it's being rung.' So they were able to put little speakers around and they put them in a lot of places, like... under different objects on a table, different sides of the table, under Haley Mill's blouse.

Paul: What really? [Melissa: Really?]

Audrey: Yeah there was one where they referenced putting it in in her shirt to get him to go to her.

Melissa: Oh wow.

Audrey: Even though he wanted to go to her most of the time anyway it was, you know, if they needed him to go right to her for a scene.

Paul: How big are these speakers? I'm thinking of like you know like a wall mount or something.

Audrey: I think like a cigar box. I think that’s the comparison that he made. They called it a core... "a sound wire to a small console about the size of a large cigar box." 

Melissa: Okay so not huge but not tiny, like what we're used to nowadays.

Audrey: Yeah the next challenge was: how do we get him to stop at a very specific spot on like an open lawn? So they went through this big process where the shop people built him this like plywood riser to put the speaker core under so it wouldn't muffle the sound so much. But after a bunch of trial and error they found that even when there were mats over the speaker cores he still responded to it pretty well. 

And Bill Koehler noted in the book that they learned a lot about cats and how they respond from this type of work. He talks repeatedly about how they learn things about animal behaviors that otherwise we don't know. Or like their ability to sense things, which is pretty cool. 

Melissa: Yeah [Paul: Wow]. 

Audrey: And then the next challenge was how do we get him to look high up? Or like at a person's face? And they figured out that they could put the speaker core at the end of a pole and dangle it over someone. And taught him that if he would look and stare at it he would get a treat. So he learned how to stare at the speaker core in different locations.

Melissa: That's pretty neat

Paul: Is like basically everything just speaker cores? [Audrey: Uh-huh]. Is that like all they use to have them do stuff? That's insane.

Audrey: It was just like bells everywhere. 

Can you guess one of the most challenging scenes in the movie for them to film?

Melissa: Was it the scene with him grabbing — was it a duck — that was hanging up? 

Audrey: Yes, but no it wasn't that scene.

Paul: Oh was it the dog scene at the very beginning?

Audrey: No it wasn't that one. Jordan, do you have a guess?

Jordan: The paw print part was my guess.

Audrey: Okay no it wasn't that either. Here is the part that was the hardest: getting him to run into that spout in the alley. 

Do you remember when he was running away from the FBI agents and he has to run into a spout? [All: oh yeah yeah yeah yeah]. So they were like no problem, easy peasy, we can get him to run fast from one location to the next, just ring the bell, it's fine. Wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it, wouldn't do it, and people were like "What do we do, he won't run into this freaking spout." 

Finally one of the other animal trainers was like "put a light in there," and they did and he immediately did it. And so this is another thing that they learned — it wasn't that he was like afraid of the dark or anything, it's just that it took his eyes a minute to adjust and so he couldn't, he like wasn't seeing it, because of the change in light from where he was running.

Paul: That makes sense 

Audrey: So they just didn't account for that.

Paul: Cat anatomy dude,

Audrey: Yeah, who knew? So I anyway it's just little little fun facts there that I learned from the book. 

Melissa: I was going to bring up — and I didn't write down the time stamp for it — but there was one part where he was on the bed and it was a pretty fast shot, cuz like I had to have Jordan rewind it a couple of times and pause it. Where you could clearly tell it was like a stuffed cat 

Audrey: Oh yeah, I saw that, I screenshot that. Thank you for reminding me. So there was one point where you could definitely notice a stuffed cat and it was, he was like on the bed in the background. And he was very clearly stuffed and almost looked like a dog.

Melissa: That's exactly what I said. I was like they made that stuffed cat too big. Like he looked big. 

Paul: So the only bit of movie magic that I pulled out — and it's very near and dear to my heart — is apparently Haley the actress was a nailbiter, so she bit her nails all the time and she couldn't get her hands in the shot. So they had to use a bunch of like hand stunt doubles. 

Melissa: No, I read that too and I was like what?

Paul: I would have been soulmates with her, I would have been soulmates with her. Because we could have chewed each other's fingers [Audrey: no stop]

Melissa: [imitates puking] No thank you.

Paul: Do you have anything else Audrey?

Audrey: That's all I got. That's the end of Movie Magic. 

Paul: All right that's all you got, I'm going to turn it over to Melissa to do some fun stuff.

Audience anecdotes (35:45) 

Hosted by Melissa

[Music in an 80s pop style with an echoing voice: "All aboard for audience anecdotes."]

Melissa: I have to sneeze, I'm going to mute really quick. 

Uh so it's it's that time again it's time for our animal review of Syn the cat and I was thinking for this episode's rating scale — I was bouncin around on a couple ideas but I think I definitely want to use the "inked paw print" scale or inky paw print. However you want to say that. And I'm thinking out of five inked paw prints how would you rate Syn the cat's performance as as DC. I will, I'll just jump in and go first, give you guys a little bit of time to think that over. But for me 100% five inked paw prints out of five. He stamped them all over my face. And my heart.

Audrey: Listen, there's no question. There's no question — five inked paw prints, which I think would make this sound [makes slurp stamp sound five times].

Melissa: That's uh... I mean I kind of agree. It's a little, uh a little weird sounding, but. Kind of like Canoe's shoes after he got out of the pool. 

Melissa: But yeah, so my big thing is I don't know how somebody can train a cat to do all those things that well. So five inked paw 

Audrey: Five big ole ball sets for me.

Melissa: Oh no. Five big old balled cats.

Melissa: Anyways somebody else take it away.

Paul: How can we follow that? Five inked paw prints for me as well. I loved the cat, I don't know what else to say, I've said a lot about him already. I just, he was really good but I can't find anything wrong with him.

Paul: I'll give him five paw prints. He was excellent. I mean he always looked like a cat, which was awesome and you know huge shout out to Haley as well because she treated him like a cat and handled him like a cat, and I feel like the chemistry between the two of them, like really helped. It was kind of like a yin and yang for me. Not trying to take anything away from Syn, he was fantastic, but I don't know the two of them together was believable. He was a cat first and foremost and not like a trained animal, so it was cool.

Jordan: five paw prints for the cat, five shitty fingernailed handprints from Haley Mills 

Melissa: Ew, five bitten fingernails from —

Paul: Hey! You're saying that my fingernails are shitty and I think I take offense to that . Maybe, I don't know how I feel about that. 

Jordan: Stop biting your fingernails. I had five offstandishness marks for Paul. 

Paul: Have you been thinking about that the whole time we've been friends?

Jordan: About your offtandishness?

Paul: No about my fingers, my shitty fingers.

Jordan: I've never even noticed your shitty fingers.

Paul: Wait, look at them. 

Jordan: I never knew you thought you had bad fingernails and I've known you for a long time. 

Paul: I don't, I just thought I found a soulmate through time. So.

Audrey: Well I thought all the acting in this movie was excellent honestly.

Paul: Yeah. Just super quick side tangent: everyone was trying super hard. Like it was amazing.

Melissa: 100% agreed, it was, the acting was great. I think even for the time and, again, with the whole slapstick kind of Vaudeville type humor, comedy, everybody was just on point. They brought their 'A game.' It was very entertaining to watch.

All right we're going to move on to our audience reviews. These reviews I'm going to read — normally I take from Rotten Tomatoes, but then I also believe I have one from Amazon. 

So the first review I'm going to read is from Amazon from somebody named Sean J. Malloy and this was from November 3rd 2023, so not, you know, pretty much a year ago. He gave it five stars and said "I'd forgotten how funny this movie is after all these years and except for the inescapable bits of life in the early 1960s—" so that's sort of what I touched on, "the film is timeless and LOL funny. The film will delight most jaded 21st century of all ages." 

Paul: No, I like the term jaded there because I feel like that's — we are jaded and it was a breath of fresh 

Audrey: A breath of fresh?

Paul: Yeah I'm using that now: breath of fresh. 

Audrey: No you’re not.

Melissa: I kind of weirdly like that. 

Paul: Don't yuck my yam. 

Audrey: Aud, quit yucking my yam. 

Melissa: You're from the 1960s.

Audrey: Probably from like the 25,000s or something.

Paul: Oh! Quit yucking my yum, that's what — yam is funnier though. I'm gonna start saying yuck yuck my 100% 

Melissa: Yuckin my yam sounds like a code word for sucking D. 

Anyways, last review I have for us is a Rotten Tomatoes from January 15th 2020, so I believe that that's the newest one that I had down and somebody gave it three stars out of five and said "long cat is a tad overly long and you might feel yourself drifting towards a catnap in parts, but the mischievous moggie in the middle has fun with this family yarn, outshining the two-legged co-stars"

Audrey: Two — wait… no, no, oh wait the two legged co-stars are people. Okay, I understand. 

Melissa: But what is a moggie? They said "this mischievous moggie in the middle" M-o-g-g-i-e.

Audrey: Moggie, I'm going to look it up. Oh, moggie is a cat. It's a British, it's a British slang for a cat.

Paul: Oh we're we're just dumb. That's basically it. 

Audrey: So [fake british accent] "moggy in the middle," that's how you have to say it.

Melissa: Perfect. So yeah that was it for the review section of my part and we're going to jump to everybody's favorite: surprise scenario. See what you guys are thinking for this one. 

So I ask you: if you were an FBI agent cat like DC, what would be your secret mission to help out your human? So you're DC, you're a secret secret agent, FBI agent, but you got to help your — what would be your secret mission to like help out your human? 

And again I can go first, give you time to think. Okay cuz I kind of came up with something, so I just thought if I was, now this isn't like super crazy important, but I thought it would be fun to help my human when you know when you're doing something, like goin the bathroom and you're like "hey I'm out of TP, I need somebody to bring me that sweet TP." You're stuck on the sh***** and you need it. Or if you're taking a shower —

Paul: Why did you say sweet TP?

Audrey: So, wait, wait, wait, so you're an FBI cat... 

Melissa: That's, okay —

Paul: Your job is to get crapper paper? 

Melissa: Yes and I said sweet T, because I mean you got to wipe with something right? Like, don't you want that?

Paul: Why is it sweet? Why is it flavored toilet paper? 

Jordan: I don't, it's not sweet taste.

Audrey: Like "sweet" like, you know, slang.

Melissa: Yeah, you buy that good, really soft, strong durable toilet paper. It feels good on your tush. 

Paul: I don't know if it's ever referred to as sweet.

Jordan: I think everybody has—

Audrey: Okay, so Melissa the FBI cat is going to fetch toilet paper.

Melissa: Yes, but hold on, and I was also thinking of times when you're taking a shower and maybe you forget to grab a towel, so I would like sneak in as the FBI cat. I know it doesn't make sense, but this is just what I came up with okay, so I would bring —

Paul: Were you in the bathroom thinking about this? Is that... 

Melissa: God dammit 

Paul: You're in the restroom, ran out of toilet paper, and were like "man if I was an FBI cat, this is what I would do." 

Paul: Because you didn't have any sweet toilet paper. Good job, give me that sweet sweet TP.

Melissa: No, I don't know. Don't ask, it's just what popped into my head. 

Audrey: So, oh wow.

Melissa: I mean your secret mission doesn't have to be of the utmost importance, but that's pretty important, especially if you're a human. That's how I feel, too though so I don't know what do.

Paul: You guys, I think my FBI cat would — okay so follow me on this — cooking takes a lot of time, and it costs a lot of money. What if I could get an FBI cat to just get the ingredients for me? And like sous chef it. That's what I would use him for. No he's fetching the ingredients, yeah fetchin’ ingredients and then I let him cut up stuff. 

Melissa: I'm cool with that but like what if you went to, you know, the Butcher and your meat, and then grabbed it and just like dragged it all the way along the ground home.

Paul: Hey, as long as it gets in the freezer so that I can come back to it later I'm fine with that. If he's leaving it on the front porch in the sun: no go, dude.

Jordan: Okay, I'll go. You guys know the problems I've been having with wild animals in my backyard. Got deer eating all of our garden vegetables and we have wild cats running through and terrorizing our cats. So my FBI cat — we go on a stake out just like DC did, but he'd be staking out deer and when the deer came he would shoot them in the face. [Melissa: gasp.] That's it, that's all he would do. Hell yeah, then our tomatoes would be safe and we're gonna eat tomatoes and cucumbers and zucchini all summer long, baby.

Audrey: If I had to do something around the house, like you, it sounds like you were all based in the house — I would trick all the stray cats into coming close to me and then take them to the vet to get spayed or neutered. 

Melissa: I kind of love be 

Paul: Yeah that’s a good idea.

Audrey: [singing] Undercover cat getting rid of your balls and stuff]. 

Melissa: That's a good PSA, get your cat spayed or neutered please, especially if they're like outdoor cat. 

Paul: But yeah yeah dude don't contribute to that s*** would all. 

Jordan: Do you think all your friends would hate you after that though? You're kind of like the snitch cat.

Audrey: I mean it's the price I have to pay. As an undercover FBI agent. I'ma snitch on your balls. 

Jordan: Yeah 

Paul: The departed for a cat. Snitch on the big balled cats out roaming the neighborhood. 

Audrey: I'm sorry at least I'm not like taking my claw and doing it myself! That's option two. 

Paul: Oh, oh hey earlier I was saying you had the job to try to find out who had the cat balls that your cat would do that there you go basically he would find the balls and then chop them. That's your secret mission. 

Melissa: Your secret mission — it all came full circle there.

Paul: The zeitgeist, yo. 

Melissa: Yeah great great job guys, I'm, I'm really liking those answers.

Audrey: I also do this as a two-legged animal where I take cats and get them neutered. I've done that before. 

Paul: Oh I thought you're going to say that you hunt other men down and cut up their... so that's what Audrey does in her free time.

Melissa: Do that I do that with two a I fight other two-leg people 

Audrey: No, I have had cats neutered before. I'm not taking my garden loppers and lopping off balls.

Melissa: We know what Audrey does on the weekends.

Melissa: All right guys that was insane, but super fun. Thank you for answering my surprise scenario.

So the very last section we've got, guys, is "adopt, take to the no kill shelter, or taxidermy." So I noticed I've been running into like a little bit of an issue with us doing movies with one animal, so I think you guys last time, sort of on the fly improvised picking out some other characters. So, I sort of went that route with this movie. But I'm going to go with [Jordan: which three characters?]. 

So I was going to go with Darn Cat or DC, Canoe (just because I didn't really like him), and Gregory.

Audrey: Oh, I mean this is easy peasy lemon-squeezy ballsy squeezies. Obviously, I'm going to adopt DC without question. I will get him neutered so that he's not having more kittens all over the neighborhood.

Melissa: Good idea.

Audrey: I'm taking Canoe to the no-kill shelter. I like Canoe, he's adorable, he needs to grow up. And I'm taxidermying Gregory, because he a dick hole. So that's where I'm — that's it.

Jordan: Okay, I pretty much then am agreeing I think with what everybody said, well with what Audrey said. I would adopt the cat, and Canoe was not so bad... he was a little bit much, but yeah, he needs to go to the shelter. He'll find somebody to adopt him. And then yeah Gregory was a mess. Gregory is just going to be taxidermied and just collecting dust somewhere. Forever. 

Paul: I like DC a lot, but I think I would take Canoe. I would adopt him because I feel like you could bro out and have a lot of fun. I don't know how to surf, he could teach me how to surf. I think that would be pretty cool. I do like DC, but I think Canoe would be a fun time and honestly… we've got a sandwich shortage in this household and I would love to have someone on board for sandwiches again. So, 

Melissa: Yes, that's a very a Paul thing.

Paul: Personal favorite for me and I don't get to partake a lot and so I would also taxidermy Gregory because [ __ ] that guy. So I would put DC in your guys' no-kill shelter because in this scenario, you guys have one so you be able to take them and do what you want.

Audrey: Speaking of sandwiches, I think one of my favorite lines in the whole movie is when she was like "and you can come in and make a big weird sandwich." [movie cliPaul: "tell you what let's go into the kitchen and you can make yourself a big weird sandwich."]

Jordan: Yes, I laughed at that. 

Audrey: It was so cute.

Melissa: I know, but I want to know what to her is a weird sandwich. But that was very cute: 

Paul: you can make one of your big old weird sandwiches.

Melissa: Now Paul wants you to say that to him Audrey.

Paul: yeah dude. 

Audrey: Come into the kitchen and make yourself a big weird sandwich. I also thought that was really funny. 

Melissa: Uh I'm I guess I'm going to be lame, just kidding, and agree with Jordan and Audrey on this one. I would definitely adopt DC. I would take Canoe to the no kill shelter. And yeah Gregory would get taxidermied. And I don't really know what I would do with him. I kind of like Audrey's idea of him being like a scratching post for DC. Just kidding, I know you didn't say that. But just like decoration, I don't know. I don't know what I would do with them. [Audrey: A scratching post for DC, that’s so dark]. Maybe I'd mail, I'd mail Gregory back to his mom or she could have him forever... she gets a freeze dried human like the carbonite.

Audrey: I was going to say, what what if we freeze dry him and then DC scratches him into little, like freeze dry strips.

Melissa: Perfect, we're on that again. 

We have a new brand of freeze dried food we want you guys to try, yeah it's called Sir Gregories, you'll be able to find that on the Tik Tok shop. Just kidding I bet you call it scrambled Gregs. No scrambled Gregs.I'll have an eggs and Gregs.

Melissa: Oh my goodness. But yeah that's all, that's all I got for my section, so thank y'all.

Paul: Thank you, Melissa, thank you everyone for joining us on this episode it was a blast now go make yourself a big weird sandwich.

Paul: I hope you make yourself a big weird sandwich and enjoy the night that film was awesome but if you stick around with us next month we're going to go with a Halloween theme we're going to be reviewing the 2019 film pet cemetery we want to keep the spooky vibes going for October So if you like this show we'll just ask that you like subscribe review comment do whatever you can to get the word out because we like producing it and you can only help us grow. Check out our website for our transcripts and a lot of extra fun content and yeah, yeah thank you Melissa, Jordan, Audrey for joining me this was a blast so goodbye everyone bye bye bye bye bye 

All screen captures included in this article are intended to complement review and research of "That Darn Cat"