JOG ON KITTIES

March 9, 2011 11:07 AM

CATS, WITH THUMBS. (SLVP)
posted by The Whelk (37 comments total)

I'm not sure why, but the narrator sounds like a low-rent Patrick Stewart to me. So when the narrator rasped "tiiiiimmmmmme" I mentally followed it up with "...is the fire in which we burn."
posted by jedicus at 11:13 AM on March 9, 2011

It's Tim Curry, BTW.
posted by The Whelk at 11:20 AM on March 9, 2011

According to Urban Dictionary, "jog on" means "fuck off". Mystery solved!
posted by sbutler at 11:22 AM on March 9, 2011

Oh wow! Tim Freaking Curry! That was spectacular. Although, now I'm sort of afraid. What if there's some sort of West Side Story-ish gang of cats stalking outside of my door right now!? Times like these that I'm glad I don't live in the UK.
posted by Krazor at 11:22 AM on March 9, 2011

so why is it that all tv commercials nowadays seem to be about schizo-affective hallucinations?
posted by ennui.bz at 11:24 AM on March 9, 2011

It's Tim Curry, BTW.

Ha! I completely failed to get that the first two times around, but I definitely hear it now. My apologies to Mr. Curry for the "low-rent Patrick Stewart" comparison.
posted by jedicus at 11:26 AM on March 9, 2011

You're a kitty!
posted by -t at 11:27 AM on March 9, 2011

If cats had thumbs, they'd lie on the back of the couch in front of the window wondering why the hell the human isn't reading their mind and bringing them milk and delicious fishies right this damn moment. Thinking that an extra digit would suddenly make them proactive and self-motivated is a stretch.
posted by ardgedee at 11:27 AM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I mean, what a potential interesting evolutionary development for our feline friends.
posted by -t at 11:28 AM on March 9, 2011

There is that scary moment in any cat owner's life when the little beast has figured out how to open the fridge and you catch them in the act of trying to pull out the plastic container of chicken and you both stop, stare into each other eyes and think

"Yeah, I'm on to you. Whatya gonna do about it?"
posted by The Whelk at 11:30 AM on March 9, 2011 [5 favorites]

so why is it that all tv commercials nowadays seem to be about schizo-affective hallucinations?

Because we're all used to them.

Right?

Guys, come on, back me up on this.

*sob*
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 11:33 AM on March 9, 2011

ennui.bz: so why is it that all tv commercials nowadays seem to be about schizo-affective hallucinations

Uh... actually, that's just you. The OP was actually just a pretty standard beer commercial. What is this nonsense about kitties with thumbs?
posted by hincandenza at 11:37 AM on March 9, 2011

but the narrator sounds like a low-rent Patrick Stewart to me. So when the narrator rasped "tiiiiimmmmmme" I mentally followed it up with "...is the fire in which we burn."

I will embarrass myself by publicly nitpicking that it was Malcolm McDowell's character who actually spoke that line in ST:Generations, not Picard.
posted by aught at 11:38 AM on March 9, 2011

so why is it that all tv commercials nowadays seem to be about schizo-affective hallucinations?

To be fair I think commercials have always been like hallucinations to an extent
posted by girih knot at 11:41 AM on March 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I will embarrass myself by publicly nitpicking that it was Malcolm McDowell's character who actually spoke that line in ST:Generations, not Picard.

Oh, I knew that. Hearing what I thought was Stewart's voice just put me in a ST:TNG state of mind.
posted by jedicus at 11:49 AM on March 9, 2011

There is that scary moment in any cat owner's life when the little beast has figured out how to open the fridge and you catch them in the act of trying to pull out the plastic container of chicken and you both stop, stare into each other eyes and think

"Yeah, I'm on to you. Whatya gonna do about it?"

Wait, how big is your fridge? If I ever met a cat that could open a full-size refrigerator, my foremost concern would be the potential damage they could inflict on my face with their rippling, muscled arms.
posted by invitapriore at 11:50 AM on March 9, 2011

the door didn't close very tightly and there was usually a towel on the handle.

Cat pulls towel with teeth, opens fridge, sat peacefully in crisper.
posted by The Whelk at 11:53 AM on March 9, 2011

I had a cat that could open doors that opened inwards. He did it by stretching up, putting his paws on the knob and sort of batting it rapidly 'til it turned enough to move the deadlatch out of the strike plate; this, combined with his weight resting on the door, caused it to open.
posted by Mister_A at 12:09 PM on March 9, 2011

I had a cat (The AntiChrist) who regularly opened my fridge and once wrestled out a turkey that was in there defrosting for Thanksgiving dinner. He and the bird were both 16# (though it looked like about a pound got transfered from turkey->cat by the time the wreckage was discovered on the living room floor). It's all about leverage, determination and a weak seal on the fridge.
posted by jamaro at 12:10 PM on March 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

My cat can open closed doors. My cat can open cabinets. My cat jumps on top of doors (yeah, on TOP of them). My cat is crazy.
posted by litnerd at 12:19 PM on March 9, 2011

One of my cats is a polydactyl and he uses his thumbs all the time.

You haven't seen creepy till you come around a corner and witnessed your cat casually holding a toy in its hand halfway between the ground and its mouth, just kind of staring off into space.
posted by quin at 12:30 PM on March 9, 2011 [9 favorites]

Wow, that's a really strange synchronicity. I just accidentally looked up cat thumbs on Google yesterday while looking for a way to do thumbnails on category pages in Wordpress. I was quite surprised to find results for cats with thumbs. What is the universe telling me? Oh, and also, does anybody know a nice plugin to do thumbnail categories in Wordpress?
posted by bitslayer at 12:53 PM on March 9, 2011

My cat jumps on top of doors (yeah, on TOP of them).

Hey mine too! Unfortunately, he's not very good at getting down, so he uses us as ladders. Without our foreknowledge.

There's nothing quite as startling as having your cat's pointy ends in your shoulder with absolutely no warning.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 1:03 PM on March 9, 2011

The best door manipulation I have seen from a cat was when one of my friend's cats trapped himself in a laundry hamper and was just on the verge of opening the hatch on the top of it when another cat came in and saw that she could trap him in there by standing on top of it. The resulting image is hilarious.
posted by invitapriore at 1:04 PM on March 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Seen this ad a bunch of times on TV here in the UK, but after reading this MeFi post I now have the Gorillaz's Kids With Guns stuck in my head, but with the lyrics changed to "cats with thumbs".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:24 PM on March 9, 2011

Yeah, one of my cats has thumbs, and yeah, she uses them to pick stuff up, open doors, etc. It's one of the main reasons we don't keep guns in the house.
posted by infinitywaltz at 1:25 PM on March 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

The embedded video on the Guardian page is herky-jerky for me every time I try to watch it. Here's the video on YouTube.
posted by ericb at 1:33 PM on March 9, 2011

Cravendale's 'Cats with Thumbs' webpage.
posted by ericb at 1:36 PM on March 9, 2011

There's nothing quite as startling as having your cat's pointy ends in your shoulder with absolutely no warning.

Yes there is, when your friend's 3.5kg iguana does that, and you didn't even know he had an iguana.

If cats had fully opposable thumbs, I doubt they'd waste time on milk when they could instead be plucking out your tasty eyeballs while you sleep. Mmmm... tasty, tasty eyeballs. Wait, you didn't think your cat was engaged in a staring contest as a dominance thing did you? It's thinking about a gooey centered snack.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:36 PM on March 9, 2011

TONIGHT! MY UN-CAT-VENTIONAL CAT-VENTIONISTS! YOU ARE TO WITNESS A NEW BREAKTHROUGH IN BIOCHEMICAL RESEARCH! AND PARADISE IS TO BE MINE!

It was strange the way it happened, suddenly all the pieces seemed to fit into place! What a sucker you'd been! What a fool! The answer was there all the time! It just took a small accident to make it happen. AN ACCIDENT! And that's how I how I discovered that ... SPARK! ... which is the breath of life! Yes, I have that knowledge! I hold the SECRET!

TO MILK!

ITSELF!

THROW OPEN THE REFRIGERATOR DOOR!

AND STEP UP THE MILK DISH

THREE!

MORE!

SHELVES!
posted by Reverend John at 2:14 PM on March 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

My childhood cat never figured out how to open doors but one day, to his great regret he discovered how to turn on the vacuum cleaner. We were both laying on my bed, I read while he slept. He jumped to the floor and I'm not sure if he was playing with it or just hit it accidentally but he pressed the foot switch hard enough to activate the vacuum. It sprung to life and he bolted for the door which unfortunately for him was closed. All I heard was vrooooooooom----THUNK!

After getting up and switching off the vacuum I found him crouched in the far corner under my bed where he stayed until dinner time. When I realized what had happened I nearly hyperventilated laughing.

Several weeks later I woke up one morning with him sitting on my chest staring at me. We looked at each other for a few seconds and then he puked on my face. I suppose I had it coming.
posted by the_artificer at 7:58 PM on March 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Who says they don't? I for one welcome our dexterous feline overlords.

Signed,
teh kittah
posted by SoFlo1 at 8:25 PM on March 9, 2011

The problem, of course, is that cats with thumbs are just,a dumb as those without, only more enabled. My thumb kitty just recently learned to pick up hay (for the bunny) in his little hand-paws before eating it. One or two straws at a time... But he still pukes it up like the non-thumb cats. So now he can open the hay bin, reach in and grab some hay, and vomit all over at his leisure. Yay evolution.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 12:21 AM on March 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

There is that scary moment in any cat owner's life when the little beast has figured out how to open the fridge and you catch them in the act of trying to pull out the plastic container of chicken and you both stop, stare into each other eyes and think

"Yeah, I'm on to you. Whatya gonna do about it?"

Mrs arcticseal commented this evening that the paring knife seems to have gone missing. Without prompting, we both turned and looked at the cat, who in turn stared back at us. the bedroom door is getting locked tonight.
posted by arcticseal at 4:43 AM on March 10, 2011

Thumbs aren't so bad. It's when they have hands that you really have to start worrying.
posted by Adridne at 10:22 AM on March 10, 2011

kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty
posted by you're a kitty! at 5:28 PM on March 10, 2011

mittens. thumbs plus white paws is the cutest thing.
posted by you're a kitty! at 5:28 PM on March 10, 2011