Black Cats on Holiday

June 15, 2015 10:46 PM

What to do when your country is suffering under a spell of bad luck due to a surfeit of black cats and nobody's winning the lottery jackpot? You send them on holiday to a country where they do bring luck.
posted by MartinWisse (30 comments total)

They couldn't send them to Australia because of the strict immigration policies there.
posted by sour cream at 11:17 PM on June 15, 2015 [4 favorites]

Up until they say airport, this seems like it's building to something much more terrifying.
posted by kafziel at 11:18 PM on June 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

I'm not sure this was such a good idea 😿
posted by unliteral at 11:26 PM on June 15, 2015 [1 favorite]

What a horrible ad campaign, if only because all I can think of is what would happen to that hotel room after a hundred cats gorged themselves on seafood and milk.
posted by bethnull at 11:26 PM on June 15, 2015 [5 favorites]

all I can think of is what would happen to that hotel room after a hundred cats gorged themselves on seafood and milk.

That would be the residual bad luck.
posted by Ravneson at 12:22 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

New Zealand is not, in fact, the most welcoming country to try to bring random animals to.
posted by aubilenon at 12:29 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

It seems like a story without an ending.
posted by biffa at 12:57 AM on June 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Black cats on holidays vs Sandy Skoglund's Radioactive green cats
posted by elgilito at 1:47 AM on June 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a clever ad campaign, but I'd like some independent corroboration before I believe that it actually happened.
posted by hippybear at 2:36 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

This could have gone very badly.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 5:47 AM on June 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

Oh, I thought it was funny. Probably bc I'm a kiwi. I hope they have a whole series of ads coming out.
posted by gaspode at 7:03 AM on June 16, 2015

What I want to know, is whether black cats are truly considered lucky in New Zealand?

They are unlucky here in the USA. Not so much for those who cross their path, but personally unlucky for themselves. I visited a "No Kill" cat shelter in Ohio and they had a hugely disproportionate number of black cats there. A shelter worker told me it wasn't so much the superstition thing, as it was that visitors can't tell them apart, and therefore don't get attached enough to any particular one, to spring it. Cats with distinctive markings are easier for the visitors to bond with. So the black cats accumulate in the shelter, staying there much longer on average.
posted by elizilla at 7:03 AM on June 16, 2015 [4 favorites]

Oh, this clearly didn't happen, but it's adorable.
posted by maryr at 7:52 AM on June 16, 2015 [3 favorites]

elizilla, I knew black cats were among the last to be adopted. I hadn't heard the "don't get attached" part before. Another reason I've heard is that they can be difficult to photograph--their features flatten. I know from experience it takes a bit of doing to get a good pic of my housepanther, especially in cute, catlike activities. But, with enough light, it can work.

Ours is super-sweet. She runs into our room every morning, chirping to my wife about her evening. At night, when my wife reads to our daughter, the cat, Luna Nueva ("New Moon"), joins them. She seems partial to Harry Potter.

There are good reasons to adopt a black cat.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:11 AM on June 16, 2015 [5 favorites]

The cats are beautiful. I had a black cat for awhile. He was very sweet and smart. I could not keep him when I had to move.
So he went back to his previous humans.
Another one, a feral lived in my yard, and was father to an absolutely huge son.
I love black cats.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:22 AM on June 16, 2015

Is there something with black cats that makes them genetically more likely to be svelte? I have a friend with five cats, and most of them are overweight, but not Dora, who is black and has never had any trouble maintaining her figure. And then I think, and I don't think I've ever seen an overweight black cat, or at least not an overweight black shorthair.
posted by JHarris at 8:22 AM on June 16, 2015

JHarris, I've seem my share of...ah hem..."fluffy" black cats. Mr. Eko of Dark Star Books is pretty big. I've seen others.

Black is just slimming.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:32 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yeah, black cats can be chunky too. My friend calls hers Fatness Everdeen.
posted by deludingmyself at 8:52 AM on June 16, 2015 [10 favorites]

Black is slimming, JHarris.
posted by maryr at 9:50 AM on June 16, 2015

My sister's black cat is pretty fun to photograph.
posted by maryr at 9:54 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

so basically what they're saying is if I get a ticket to Beirut, I get a free additional ticket to Auckland!!! and five-star lodging with meals!!!!1! Ermegehrd I've always wanted to go to New Zealand woot brb asking my human to buy me tickets
posted by Susu pitchounette at 10:17 AM on June 16, 2015

oh dear y'all had to go and give my cat ideas. As if she weren't all talkative and adventurous enough already.

*off to look at plane tickets to Beirut*
posted by fraula at 10:22 AM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Here's another fat black cat to add to the data set. Pookie weighed 23 pounds at his highest recorded weight. The orange one was the little cat at only 18.

If I'm ever in a position to have another cat, I'm looking for a black one. Though to be fair, the black one found me.
posted by monopas at 10:57 AM on June 16, 2015 [1 favorite]

monopas: Though to be fair, the black one found me.

The best ones usually do.
posted by MrGuilt at 11:48 AM on June 16, 2015

My sister's black cat is pretty fun to photograph.

Awww, he's adorable!
posted by JHarris at 11:51 AM on June 16, 2015

I miss my cats so much. Every one of them has been black. The last one passed last year at the age of 14.

This vid was just wonderful.
posted by MissySedai at 12:16 PM on June 16, 2015

Fraula, my big fat black cat Spike just woke up from his nap and looked very VERY intrigued when I played your video of Susu. I think he wants to be FRIENDS.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 12:31 PM on June 16, 2015

MrGuilt, the orange fluffball in my life demands that I request the source of the cat hammock linked in your "activities" picture. I have so much spare human furniture that should obviously be repurposed for cat hammock-lurking!
posted by nicebookrack at 12:38 PM on June 16, 2015

nicebookrack, that's a Cat Crib, which straps to the legs of a chair. My cats got it a couple years ago when visited by the Christmas Snow Leopard. We got ours locally at Confetti Cats. Pictures of my coalition in the hammock are in the shop now, demonstrating its use.
posted by MrGuilt at 12:45 PM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]

Our two black cats, brother and sister, are around 9-10 pounds each yet look substantially different in size. The brother looks the more larger of the two and has a body shape I now know, thanks to a site which was the subject of a previous MeFi post, as "cobby". The sister is more sleek and slim and svelte and other nice, sinuous S words. I still maintain it is right to call him Big Cat and call her Little Cat because the brother is also the most polydactyl cat I've ever met (eight claws on each front paw, five on each back) whereas she has the normal number of claws. I am willing to accept change should she ever grow larger than him. In conclusion thank you, Internet, for providing me with a place to talk about my cats.
posted by Spatch at 2:29 PM on June 16, 2015 [2 favorites]