The Worst Idea Of All Time - Cats 2: Unauthorized (fixed)

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

UPDATE: The original audio for this episode was not good. Hopefully it now is good!It has been brought to Tim and Guy's attention that a group of Americans have taken it upon themselves to create a sequel to Cats, a spiritual succession (or at least response) to Tom Hooper's 2019 horror film. The movie is incredible - an artistic marathon that was birthed from the pandemic lockdowns and now exists in all its live-action, animated, puppeted, all-singing and all-dancing glory on YouTube dot com.See Cats 2 in all its wonder at cats2.art Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers' internet. Visit Rogers.com for details. We got you, Rogers. to We hope you, dearest ones, might help us find the answer. So you've got Guy Montgomery and Tim Batt here. Hello everybody. We have just watched a film that is, it's independent.

It couldn't be more independent. It's tethered to intellectual property We've spent a lot of time with but it is entirely its own thing We have gone on the website youtube.com and we have watched cats to open parenthesis unauthorized closed parenthesis

Unauthorized by the way spelt the American way with a Z as opposed to an S. If you check in Jake Jones or follow the link that I've got in the episode description, that's a shortcut way to find it. And I would recommend doing that. It's unbelievable that this piece of art is free to the public. It's unbelievable it was made.

I really... Guy and I just watched it. We just watched Cats 2, the unauthorized. I don't know. I don't know what to say. So in this episode, we will be giving you our immediate response. We'll be discussing some of the finer points and then later on we'll be joined by some of the creators, makers, actors, singers, artists. Animators, puppet masters. But what I would like to say at this juncture is I would highly recommend stopping the episode now

if you haven't watched it and go and watch it. Yeah, if you're watching this on our sub stack, you'll be able to see occasionally the movies playing without audio on the screen behind us. We've got it going behind us on the TV. This is the movie we've just watched. I mean... Hour long runtime? Yeah, hour five. It's got a very funny recurring gag that does seem to sort of

extend the length of the movie near the end. This is... I just can't believe people sat down and made this. I really love and got it done. Let me open with this. I loved this. I loved this so much. There was so much, so much love and creativity put into this thing. It is just it is a piece of art that is just teaming with genius. Yeah.

So they've got an Instagram as well. Cats to unauthorized again unauthorized spelled with the Z to the number by the way. I, I just can't concede like, do you think that they're they're T.S. Elliot fans, Andrew Lloyd Webber fans, Tom Hooper fans? How do you how do you get? Okay, it's wonderful that we get to speculate on this and then immediately ask them to solve the mystery. My suspicion is that these are at least half of them are like musical theatre

people. The music's too good. The original music they've made for this, the whole thing is underscored by original songs with fantastic arrangements. The singing is beautiful. The instrumentation is great. Well, the variety of production on the audio is arrangements. The singing is beautiful. The instrumentation is great. Well, the variety of- The production on the audio is fantastic. The variety of genres is only managed by the variety of cinematic styles that they've inserted. Like, they're a dab hand at pretty much everything

they pick up these guys. We've also got, they have released, and we have, oh, I have in front of me, like a lyrics book, the book of the poems that feature they've created a lot of new cats. Really beautiful opening title sequence. And this all I could think when I was watching is that this is what YouTube was for before YouTube became some crazy massive arm of Google. Yeah, this is when people like before the machines were telling us what what we like.

You can make something, you can put it up and people can find it. And it is for stuff like this. What I was... I don't think we should get into what that final gag is. It's the longest joke I've ever been, I think, exposed to in my life. And it just kept giving. So I won't get into that, but it did change my mind about a mission. But I think I I still state the mission I want to make it my maybe our mission to get the currently at 1.9 thousand views on YouTube I really think it's important that we get this to 50,000 views Wow. Yeah 50,000 50,000 I mean it's not impossible, but it's not. I think there's a plan. You've got a plan.

Just keep posting about it and specifically target people who, you know, can can write about it on public on online publications. This needs to get in front of people. People need to see cats too. I would recommend yeah, before even sort of listening to the podcast, particularly the part in which we talked to the creators, I think. Not that there's spoilers, I suppose, but it's worthwhile to watch. We'll do spoilers. We will be spoiling stuff. The one I mean, I suppose I'm saying the magic isn't experiencing the entirety of the art. It's the narrative isn't what's going to get you into this.

Well, it's true. But it's so much a part of this was the delight and the unexpected. Yeah. And just not knowing what was coming next. So that's why it is, I think really important. Just pause our podcast. If you possibly can find an hour or five minutes to watch this thing. If it's not right now. I don't have a gun to your head. I'm not your dad. Come back to this. You live your life. But I would highly recommend that you do go ahead and watch it. live your life, but I would highly recommend that you do go ahead and watch it. It's a unique feeling isn't it to reflect on a piece of art

which is so independent and so thoroughly enjoyable that really I have no desire I mean no desire or ability really to tear strips off any of this like it why why would you even try it's so I guess it's hard isn't it to try and break it down to its component parts feels wrong Here's what you just know. Yeah, go on. Well, there's it appears to me that there's five there's five on-screen creators We can spend time with mm-hmm. They've made it in New York City But it appears they've got either their own b-roll footage or found b-roll footage from all sorts of different parts of I suppose

Why did New York State, potentially the world. And in some ways, space also. They deploy, like it's live action, it's animated, it's in clay, it's told with, what are those overhead projectors? Overhead projectors. Marionette puppetry. Marionette puppets, sock puppets, other kinds of puppets, morph suits, face paint, blue screen.

They're out in the community. They're on the subway and face paint reading the newspaper, then all of a sudden, they are not on screen at all. They're there, I assume controlling, you know, the puppet of Roy rodeo, the cowboy cat, Rodeo, the cowboy cat. Roy Rodeo, the cowboy cat. I really enjoyed Roy. I did not, I mean, I would, I should really have the number in front of me.

I'd say they create and tell the song or poem of four or five, maybe up to six original cats. Roy Rodeo, the cowboy cat, crumble tooth. Crumble tooth is when you know you're, so you're having a good time because you're watching the movie and you're thinking a good time immediately because the first thing you're greeted with as a is a guy I think it's Jude right who later gets revealed to be Deuteronomy is that who greets us at the start? I thought I think that's that's sort of like the head of the Jellicles. I don't think

that's Jude because I think Jude appears later on with the full beard. Yeah, right. Gotcha. There's this sort of accounts. It appears to us and this is the beautiful thing about art. There is a healthy amount of interpretation that you can bring to bear on this piece of art yourself. But there seems to be sort of a council of Jellicle overlords, humans in face paint. And that's kind of the first thing you get exposed to and you go, okay, this is going to be cool. Yeah.

Filmed on what I can only imagine to be a sort of early 2000s VHS camcorder, much of it. I would call this the greatest example of a mixed media film ever. Yeah. That I've ever. Yeah. That I've seen. Yeah, there's right now.

There's some nighttime footage B roll of a raccoon. And a cat. Yeah, and I want to ask them about this scene. I mean, how could you not crum, but crumble to so you've got your opening credits. You've got some sort of, you know, the the host Jellicle I guess, kind of performing a poem in the style of the original cats, to help set the scene, lay our scene. And then all of a sudden, you enter the world of Crumble Tooth, the landfill, the landfill cat.

Time of the Dump has sharpened her taste. So this is a one fanged cat who lives at the dump. And as soon as you're in the world of crumbled tooth, you realize this is much bigger and better than what you'd sort of been girding your loins for. You realize this isn't just people circling the idea of cats too, but these are people who have actually fleshed out several new characters who are entering the the world of cats yeah who belong in the world of cats with uh music and visual accompaniment that is worthy of uh entering the what's the word the cannon the cat cannon and um the andrew louis weber cat cannon from crumple tooth on, you know, it's a host of different cats.

And you're just excited to spend time with any of them. And they sort of, so they've got McCavity. McCavity's on the scene. McCavity is the cloud that looms over this entire production. That's right. We're flitting around different places. We're having a lot of fun with meeting all these characters. Rodeo Roy, the cowboy cat, Crumble Tooth.

The alabaster cat. The alabaster cat is another character. Tender Toes. The shadow cats are actually pretty dark, but apart from that, everyone's, we've got a bunch of goodies, and then we've got this persistent threat of Macavity lurking.

Macavity, that's right. Macavity is the dark spectre that hangs over the film. We know Deuteronomies on the scene, and so it's sort of bookended by the traditional cats, the headline cats of Tom Hooper's cats. Yeah. But well, I don't know. Tom Hooper's cats, Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber's cats. Are they T.S. Eliot's cats?

Yeah, they are T.S. Eliot's cats. Did he name them like Deuteronomy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, right. T.S. Eliot. Andrew Lloyd Webber got, Andrew Lloyd Weapon got his hands on a book of poetry by T.S. Elliott and, um, he wouldn't let go. Andrew Lloyd Weapon. Yeah, that's right.

The sharpest tool. Whenever you're getting original source material and adding major chords to it. That's right. Throw it in a chorus, become a billionaire. I hate on your taxes. Who do you, I mean, all the three sort of creative visionaries whose eyes or hands have, you know, handled the cat's world. This is my favorite. No, no, no. So I'm saying the question. No, I like this one

best. You've got TS. This cannot exist without what has come before. So you've got TS, you've got a LW. And you've got hoops after in Tom Hooper. Yeah. Who's vision Do you think that they have taken the most from and run it run with here? Like, do you think there's any inspiration or whose inspiration from those three? Do you think I was gonna say Tom Hooper immediately? But in all honesty, probably Andrew, Andrew Lloyd Weapon. Yeah, it's probably the greatest inspiration for this.

There is a bit of interpolation of still images of people who have performed in different bits of costume and in the Broadway musical cat. Here's the thing about okay, so Andrew Lloyd Weapon, a name I'm having real trouble saying any faster than that. His version is mad, but fits within the rubric of musical theatre. Now I don't know if that's because it is such an old musical that the world of musical theatre almost bended around to sort of make cats its heart. And so it took on all the weirdness as a medium to sort of facilitate it being the central pillar of the medium.

But either way for me, that is, it has a home where it makes sense, right? There are certain rules in musical theater that it's adhering to. And though the uninitiated may come into Sue Weapon's production and say, this is crazy, if you know musicals, it's sort of all makes rough sense Now Tom Hooper's production

Conversely follows no rules of film and cinema and in that way He is such a maverick creative visionary that in some ways this leans more into that because these guys have seen the rule book, had a read, thrown it out the window. They have to finestrated the rule book. Do you think Tom knew that knew what he was doing at the time? He was a surprise to him at the end when he was like, oh, this isn't a movie. I've made something else. I've made something else. I've made something new. And what we know about creativity is creativity thrives with restrictions. A lack of restrictions makes creativity impossible.

And what Tom Hooper we know came up against is an incredible deadline. That meant that he was working on special effects. It's something like the day before it got its public release. Because they put the arseholes in. Then a little bit after as well, where they had like a Catz V 1.1 that went out to the cinemas. So in that way, creativity found him with such a steady deadline. Now, these fine folks... Well, because you would assume right, after the...

No, I don't think any studio was chasing down the makers of cats to say, we've got to get this thing online before the 1st of April. This is the thing is after the unique sort of box office and cultural response to Tom Hooper's cats, you would, you would be forgiven for thinking that maybe that is the end of Cats entering the cinematic frame. Maybe Cats is not made for this adaptation. Maybe it is best left to the stage. Hmm. Enter Cats 2 Unauthorized, who obviously have seen a candle that needs to continue to burn.

Yes. Now, there are comments on the YouTube. There's only 13 of them, so we can definitely juice that number. I'm liking the video on my YouTube account right now. Okay, I will do the same when we finish. Could you read me some of the comments? Well, my favorite comment, which seems to be the most popular, it sits at the top of the comments, is a modern masterpiece. I bet the suits at Hollywood working on cats too are and bullets knowing they can't compete. So the question is, if they were making a cat's to how do they respond to this already being out there? I think you've got a zig where these folks have zagged.

So you would have to sort of go, um, Michael Bay on it. Explosions. Explosions like very... The cats have weapons now. Straight down the middle. You want to fuck all the cats. All the cats are super like... Super close ups on their cat nipples. Yeah. And it's all very like sexually confused

because they've made them super fuckable, but they're still obviously cats. To be fair, they kind of they got them a little bit fuckable in the in Tom Hooper's cat. That's true. But not like, you know, no one was walking out of there being like, oh, I, you know, too horny. But that's true. When you're watching it, you're like, are they trying to make me? Yeah, I think that in the same way that just you can't help

but getting a little bit fuckable if you are if you dedicate your life to professional dance. Your body takes on certain qualities of toneness. One of the, one of the comments, but you're not running at it. Yeah. Like a Michael Bay version of cats too would be. One of the comments was, um, um, was there a plot to this movie? And I assume Jake, one of the creators, has responded, it's all on the screen. Great, great reply to that. Easy 10 out of 10.

It has cats. Yeah. You need to do a letterbox review. One of the comments is, can't wait for the Frosty Fellas to get their mitts on this. Oh, that's nice. I'll actually have a look.

Is it on letterbox? I don't know how to get things on letterboxd but it should be. Right so okay Letterboxd might be a closed garden where you've someone else's got a... Here it is Cats 2. It is on Letterboxd. Our one? This one? What we just watched is on Letterboxd. Fantastic. Cast Jake Jones. Roll call Jake Jones, Colleen Fitzgerald, Colton Foster, Karen Foster, Danny Natter. And the reviews? Surprisingly, like they're engaging with it like a block. Could you read one? I would love to hear what the general public have to say

about this movie One person's written. I was too sober for this Lol, that's fear. It's pure unhinged energetic chaos fandom filmmaking and action But the creativity and music make it somewhat delightfully mesmerizing Quite enjoyed the animation puppets and especially the lengthy final musical number of cat names Honestly, I might have voted for this in our Seattle Film Critics Society best Pacific Northwest Film Award if it had been nominated Because it's so endearing and unabashedly unique you can watch it on YouTube here. Yeah, that's a good review I agree someone else is just should have won that very specific award in Seattle someone's written

Man the pandemic was a weird time. Katz was a weird time. A delight for the senses. About as much plot as Katz won, but with some honestly excellent puppetry and a 12 minute finale. Yeah, we don't want to spoil it. God's go Gob smacked. There were various points during that last number where Guy said

are they fucking with us? I said at one point I said are they challenging me? Are they challenging me? He said aloud to his friend Tim. The song structure is such where we go chorus verse chorus verse chorus verse and then at one stage The song structure is such where, you know, we go chorus, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse.

And then at one stage, we're in the chorus and we lose the forest for the trees. Yeah. And we can't remember that there were verses or other bits of the movie that wasn't what we're in right now. It is hypnotic. It is mesmerizing. And there is something about the decisions that they've made in this movie around pace, which I really, really liked. It felt like a tonic for the TikTok era that we're in. There are like language shots of cats filmed seemingly on a 240p camcorder at night.

Just a mere few pixels. Yeah, you know, capturing the representation of a cat. I mean, before we talk to the creators, can you talk to me about your response to the shadow cats? They left you a little spooked. Why? Why was that? No, I like I actually really, really liked the shadow cats. The as I saw it, the concept of the shadow cats was, um, I think, um, uh, there's sort of a little bit of an esoteric version of angels, right?

That is angels as they're known at the moment, I think in popular cultures, a very sort of hallmarked whitewashed version of them. Um, but I think there are versions of what angels are that they are these. of them. But I think the reversions of what angels are that they are these entities, heavenly entities that come and sort of assist, you know, they say God works in mysterious ways. These angels, they're doing a lot of things. We don't always see the path that they're putting us on or helping guide us through. That is how I interpreted the shadow cats, which are represented in cats to unauthorized a collection of semi deities sent to earth to carefully nudge us onto the right path. And it's not for us to question how or why, but they are, as the song

said, they had to hold our hand. Yeah. To take us through life. And I like the idea. There was, there was sort of interpolated with orchestral imagery and footage. And at the end, there was sort of, at the end of the shadow cats portion of the movie,

there was a conductor, and then the shadow cats were kind of. Yes, they are the conductor of us all. And you're okay with that? I thought it was cool. I thought it was cool. I thought it also sort of scratched the itch in my mind about, you know, shadowy figures controlling things

that we don't always see, but they're there. That was good. And I liked that they were sort of, as I interpreted them, a little bit not morally ambiguous, but they weren't clear cut goodies. Yeah. I think is that a moral is that. Yeah, I think so.

They were serving a wider purpose. They weren't a McCavity clear cut villain. Scary. Yeah. They got, I tell you what was scary to me. McCavity they is represented. Yeah, they got, I tell you what was scary to me. McHavity, they is represented, I don't know that you see McHavity's corporal form initially, but McHavity gets a song towards the end and they unveil their construction and visual

interpretation of McHavity and he is a freaky looking puppet. Real freaky looking puppet. Scary. Long teeth, long claws. And then they put- I don't know why this lyric struck me so much, but one inch claws, that's all she wrote. And then they get him behind the wheel of a vehicle.

So now we're in point of view of McCavity. We're like first person perspective, watching McCavity's claws, driving like a fucking maniac. Yeah. I think on a snowy road in what looks to be upstate New York. It looked fucking cold when they made this movie, I gotta say.

The footage at the start is like, it's so snowy. Yeah. And they're in close quarters, like, I know it would be too much to ask. They've made they've given so much they've made so much but I behind the scenes making of you know a documentary of them yeah constructing this even if it's just the found footage of like what they filmed pre and post that what made it in

this the thing you never know what's going to be incredible and they sort of, you know, they must have all been living. I mean, I guess this is the beauty. We're going to talk. We're about to talk to them. We're going to get to find out. And as you can hear, which humping at the bit. So but another fantastic thing that's at the beginning of this cinematic masterpiece is sort of a reference to a lot of projects, but artistic projects that get started and not finished. And they sort of say, that's what we love about cats. Cats, cats get things.

I can't remember the exact verbiage, but cats complete things that they set out to do. Yeah. And I sort of, I felt like I was hearing directly from the filmmakers saying, and cause you, these guys seem like guys with a lot of ideas. Yeah. These folks right here, I reckon they come up with lots of ideas. is hard but is alarming and what has me curious about talking to them is um This is fun and funny, right? Yeah, but they play it all with an incredibly straight bat. Yes, they don't Wink to the camera they that only probably in the finale as I acknowledging that they're toying with us

I love you know, like I get like a cat does with a loose thread but probably in the finale are they acknowledging that they're toying with us? A little. You know, like a cat does with a loose thread. But you know, throughout all of the parts where it's like the chorus line and the four kind of central jellicles are together, there's no acknowledgement that what they're doing could be funny. And it's kind of- That's absolutely as it should be. And also, that's not for us to I know.

I know movie isn't funny. It is funny to us today. I just want to know when we talk to them if they smile or if they don't like I'm really interested and kind of almost nervous because if they don't smile, then I'm worried. I've got it all wrong. Well, that's okay to that's out. I don't think you can get it wrong. Look, this is why I love this thing so much. This is just art to me. This is what art's all about. You have an idea, you go out, you paint your face, you get in the New York subway, you bring

your ancient camcorder and you film it and then you write and record and beautifully produce music to sit under that scene. I just think of how many, even myself, how many times I've started something and not finished it. How many projects across the world like this, yeah, managed to get just up on the plane, just up off the ground and got abandoned for any of the myriad reasons that it can be impossible to finish something. This is so many different things at once. Visually, sonically, creatively, there are so many points at which you could have, it could have fallen over, or you could have said, I'm just going to put that to the side and

take a rest from that. Like to finish this, to finish this in all of its contained forms. Yeah. And I wonder if there is some strength in the fact that there's, uh, is there about five co-creators and that, you know, if someone's a bit, oh, but I mean, too hard, you know, there must be so many different complimentary skill sets as well, because not surely not all of them are that good with puppets or that good with music or that good with lyrics or that good animating or that good with editing. Yeah. I mean, anyway, I think it's probably time

for that conversation now. All right. Well, before we do that, how many out of 10 cats, how many cats do you give cats to unauthorized? So this is my rating. Yep. Of course. This is not the rating that I think everyone,

this is not the rating I think everyone will have when they see the film. Quite fine. That would be an insane thing to try and guess. It's 10 paws out of 10. It's 10 for me also. Okay. But something in our hearts says we have to make cats too Something inside of me and you Okay, we are now joined by half-ish of the creators of Cats Too Unauthorized

I'd describe it as what's three out of five in percentages? It's 60% Yeah, no. That is correct. 60% of the core cast of Cats 2 Unauthorized, a movie that, for your information, we've both just scored a perfect 10 paws out of 10. Yeah, independently, we both gave it a perfect score, perfect rating, and we've just given a 25-minute review, which was glowing, which we shall not repeat. A lot of the conversation, for me,

was centered around the fact that you managed to get the whole thing done. But can I just, first of all, let's get a little structure here. So we are joined by Danny and Colleen and Karen. If I may, Guy. Yes. First, I just, I got to know a little bit about you folks. If it would be okay, if anyone wants to kick off, just can you, I want to hear from all three of you.

Who are you people? What do you do? How do you get to be a person who makes something like this? Basically we've all known each other since grade school. We grew up in a small rural part of Washington state in the Pacific Northwest, which was a very unique place called Yelm, Washington. Y-E-L-M. Everybody yell go yell.

Yeah. I can see how you got unusual consonant and vowel combinations cooking at the end of your movie then if you grew up in a town called Yelm. It was a Native American word. As many of the things names here are. So just for the listeners, that was Karen speaking. And so you all went to grade school together.

I'm gonna throw to Colleen. Tell us about yourself, Colleen. Let's add to the picture here. Sure, yeah. So we grew up in this small, Colleen. Let's add to the picture here. Sure, yeah. So we grew up in this small, strange town. We did musical theater together as young people. And I wasn't in this particular production, but the rest of the cast was in a community theater children's

production of Cats. So that's how the love and appreciation for the musical came about to begin with. And yeah, we did theater together and then continued, went off to college and stayed friends and kind of have been apart and back together for, you know, most of our lives now. That's fantastic. And Danny, I'm gonna throw the ball to you. How many things have you folks made together? Like, is this the first big project

that you've got across the finish line? Well, I think our creative projects kind of began around that same time that we were in theater. I know that me and Jake and my brother, who wasn't a part of the project, we got together making a lot of videos and we're in a band in middle school called the freaking pirates. And that's where a lot of our creative stuff started. But we've always been making strange videos or having different projects. And more recently, Curran and Jake and I tried to make a movie about a dentist called the,

what was it called? An Inconvenient Tooth. An Inconvenient Tooth. Yes, that's correct. And. Very good. Is that a case of coming up with an outstanding title first and then fitting the movie around it after the fact?

No, oddly. You wanted to make a movie about a dentist and then the title came later? Yeah, strangely. Fantastic. Okay, so first of all, I've got to say I was right. It had the fingerprints of musical theater kids written all over it, the creativity,

but also just the musical chops. Like my hat is off to, first off, all over it, the creativity, but also just the musical chops. Like my hat is off to first off all the singers, but particularly like the production of all this audio is a little amateur audio man myself. Holy shit, good job, really good job. Full credit goes to a Curran and Jake Jones. They were the primary songwriters and producers of all that music.

And yeah, they're amazing. And shout out to our mixing and mastering guru, Evan Easthope. So you went to the extent of having this getting mixed and mastered. Is it on Spotify? Yes, it is. That cat's too unauthorized as the artist. And I'll be you're racking in some big bucks from Spotify, some huge numbers.

I've got to know, obviously you've got this shared creative background and passion for musicals. Some of you have actually performed in the original Cats, which is not a surprise because while this is entirely its own thing, spiritually it is a progression from the Cat cinematic universe. When did you start thinking cats to like it was this in the works before Tom Hooper got his paws all over the book for cats or did you see that and think he's making it weird you know let's make it

weirder yeah it was literally in the parking lot outside the theater, Yom Cinemas, after seeing the newest Cats movie. And we were like, we gotta save this legacy. Yeah, I believe Curran was the one that started our group thread called the Cats Appreciation Thread and Sorority. And I think his first message was, the purpose of this thread is to create cats too. And that kind of sat for several months, I think, before we revisited it during

the year of COVID when we were all quarantined and just kind of Zoom meeting together. And at some point it came back up and saying, when are we going to make cats too? The group thread came about because of COVID and and like cats and like we had just seen cats in the theater and then COVID happened. And so we had this like group chat and we were meeting all the time and we just kind of like came up with all of these hypothetical ideas and then ended up putting pretty much all of them into the movie. We should say that Colleen is coming to us from a beautiful horse park. I think we got a horse farm.

A horse farm. I don't know if you can hear me very well. Around horses. Occasionally we hear you crystal clear and then sometimes you sound sort of, um, but it's all worth it. It's absolutely worth it for the speech. This is a creative project born out of seeing Cats, which as Tim and I both know, was like the sort of last precursor to COVID-19.

I believe it was the last movie that we saw before the pandemic started. And then obviously you've got time and space around you. You're all, everyone's quarantining. And this, Karen, you sort of lobbed this creative ball into the middle of the group to say, well, did this become like a centralized part of your quarantine experience where you'd catch up, you discuss the project and you realize that once the quarantine period had blown over that you might actually get together and turn this into something.

Yeah, what every week on zoom, we would have a Cats 2 meeting throughout all of the pandemic. Mm-hmm. So how long are these meetings running for? And then I guess what I really want to know is the first thing you do when you're all allowed to reunite, basically get into production. There was a bit of a production going on kind of during,

there was a lot of, we had a shared Google spreadsheet that started with this potential plot to what a cat sequel might look like. And some of those made it into the film, but it really kind of evolved as we did that. We kind of took the TS Eliot route and decided, hey, we all need to write a poem about a cat. We all need to discuss these things jellicle. Jake and

Curran kind of got right into the business of writing some of these songs. Us who wrote poems but weren't so comfortable writing the songs, they wrote songs for us. And we sang those songs and we all kind of creatively decided what those songs might look like represented on screen. So did you all broke out and took by the way, before we get into the individual cats and poems I suppose, when two cats too curious came up on the screen my heart sang. I couldn't think of a more bespoke sort of title card or sentence that could tickle every single part of my being.

So did you all write individual poems for, you know, for obviously your crumbled tooths and your spindlewixers, everyone went out and sort of came back with a cat and said, this is the cat I've got, this is the cat I'm thinking about, this is who I'm looking at. And I suppose from that submission, how much of the other people put creative input

into the song that came out or the identity of that cat and how much of it was just the original vision? Like, were these cats all created in silos from one another or once they were out in the spreadsheet was everyone contributing? Yeah, we were in constant communication we have a group thread that we're just texting in all day every day and then the spreadsheets and the actual concentrated meetings over zoom and then in real life production meetings but yeah it was just like that. Can I ask who, um, whose idea was the shadow cats? Because I would, hopefully they're on this call.

I would like to direct a couple of questions, um, to that creator. That's Jake, but, uh, I can tell you everything you need to know about it. Yeah. We all kind of agree that shadow cats is the heart and kind of gets to the soul of cats too. I completely, completely agree. As a viewer, I totally felt that. By the way, this, the thread, the message thread that you had, my mind needs to be preserved in the Library of Congress, I think. There are 666 texts of different cats names in that thread. It's going to be a very long one.

And did we see all of them? Was there, how many, how many are in there? We had to edit it down from like 700. Yeah. The goal was 666. Um, but some of them weren't so family friendly and we wanted our family to be able to show it to their kids. Uh, and some of them were just way too long to be able to speak in one beat.

One of them was literally named penis. One was named Fucker. It came right after Tucker. It was pretty good. I thought I mean, I would I think, you know, maybe that that's in the small jolt through a person. But I think inside of the you've seen the whole rest of the film, the flurry of names that you're throwing at us.

I mean, Quinn, for me, the two top names were Quinn and, uh, Smanuel. Regardless for me, for some reason, really stuck out. Whoever put an M in Samuel, you know, and put an M where the M was. And actually close second place for me, DeGeneres. Was that, was that just what, was that just one thing that people could add to Willy nilly? That was one very busy day. Yeah, I was washing dishes at work and texting with one hand.

Just over the course of several hours. Were you laughing? Every time I want to just a quick pick up, I can go back to that thread and it's always funny. That's so beautiful. To bring it back around though. Sorry, I wanted to ask about the shadow cats. So Ken, I, in our review, which you guys didn't hear, which I think is good, I put my opinion as a viewer is to sort of what the shadow cats were

and almost had some guesses of what they were inspired by. Could I hear from you, the creators, what are the Shadow Cats? Well, for me, these Shadow Cats is kind of like the larger idea where it's just, it's not just cats, it's not just silly songs and fun and games. It kind of speaks to a sense of the world and the universe at large being inevitable and unknowable.

And there's deeply hidden and predestined structures that can only be hinted at or intuitive. And I think that is displayed beautifully in the lyrics. I wholeheartedly agree. And also picked up by, um, is there a bit with the alabaster cat coming up? Is a, it's sort of almost a fixture of an ancient ruin that was appearing in different locations and a beam of light is thrust from it even in its ruined state and creates exactly the right angle and beam of light to go out?

There's a lot of... Yeah, I just... Serendipity isn't strong enough. It spoke of fate. It spoke of the cosmos. It spoke of determinism to me in some ways. But in a nice comforting way where there is sort of some force, some sense of a deity that is looking after us rather than a sort of cold scientific after after the shadow cats song Tim sort of turned to me and I thought I thought I saw fair in his eyes But I realized now that it was in fact Excitement. Yeah Excitement and I suppose a sense of camaraderie with the what what was being presented to you. Yeah I think you picked up on the message perfectly. I might have missed the boat here, but spindle wicks

I think you picked up on the message perfectly. I might've missed the boat here, but Spindlewix obviously, the crafty cat, was beautifully realized in the overhead projector, which was, who, like, there were so many different elements of puppetry and creative visualization, like practical props making, I suppose. Who was spearheading that charge?

This is a sidebar to the question I'm trying to get to. So there's just so much to talk to you about. That was me. Yeah, the overhead projector. Because I'm a teacher and so I had access to an overhead projector. And so I borrowed it from school and we did all the spindle wicks at my house. And was spindlewix your cat? That was Danny's cat. No, that was Danny's, but it came up with the video idea. Spindlewix was my cat.

We had the idea of doing some form of shadow puppets throughout the whole thing for Spindlewix, and we couldn't really figure out how exactly to do it. But then Colleen had this idea of the overhead projector, and it just kind of clicked into place. This is perfect. We can do it now that we have this missing link. This is hearing how it's all put together. This is such a pure distillation of creative collaboration. It's unbelievable. Like for, you know, I would assume the visual treatment of the

cat that you wrote a poem for, you know, like to hear that it's just other people feeding in and building all the time, it's so pleasing. But Spindleworks is trying to find a sort of not a back entrance, but a practical means of entering the heavy side layer, if I'm not mistaken, right? Well, I think it was a bit of column A and column B, yes. discovers that it is love that grants entrance. But then McKevity comes along and McKevity somehow without the purity of love finds entrance to the heavy side. Like, can you just talk to me a little about that? Yeah, it was in the very opening sequence.

It was through deceit and dark magic. And I think that keeping it that abstract was really all we could put out there. Yeah. But the idea was that he was just climbing underneath the stairs that Grizabella was ascending while everyone was distracted by her ascension into the heavy side. And I guess in Tom Hooper's version, she flew up in a hot air balloon, right? Yeah. But with the version we were more familiar with, she climbed Hooper's version, she flew up in a hot air balloon, right? Yeah. But with the version we were more familiar with, she climbed up this beautiful staircase and we just wanted to represent that as well.

Can I ask, I sort of have an inkling of how you felt, but as fans of the musical and obviously creators of cinema in the Cats universe, what was your feeling after seeing Tom Hooper's Cats? Was it pure disdain? Or was there also sort of a fondness for the unfulfilled ambition, but ambition all the same? 10 minutes alone in a theater except for like three rows ahead of us. There were two people wearing cat ears, just crying laughing at how bizarre it was visually and choreographically. And then I think we kind of settled into it and enjoyed elements of it. I thought the production, musical production was really good.

Mm-hmm. There was kind of a morbid curiosity as to where it might lead and like a bit of disgust, but also like almost a guilty pleasure in it. Which we didn't know going in. That's the thing. Like everyone now knows the perspective with which to hit Tom Hooper's Cats, but when you first went in there and watched it, no one knew what they were in for. I don't think everyone does. I think fans of cinema who are just looking for a movie and come across it would be very confused. They get the full experience. Colleen, I have a question for you. You're a teacher. I would love to know the age group

of the students that you're teaching and have any of them seen this this movie that you've made and did they respond to you about it? I teach high school English and I don't believe any of my students have seen I did put a little blurb about it on my like you know you have a teacher bio sheet on outside of your classroom door, but I don't think any of my students read that. So it's secretly hidden there. So they could watch it, but I don't think they have. Gotcha. Can I ask, so you all know one another from the Pacific Northwest. Obviously, people, you know, you grow older older and you move to different places and it can be hard to maintain the intensity of friendship and certainly creative collaboration. A lot

of the start of this movie is in what looks like a very cold time in New York City. Was that was that one of you was stationed there through the quarantine and was that was you current. So were you? What tell me about when you were getting that footage. Moved to Brooklyn to try and infiltrate the art scene there in fall of 2019. Yeah, so then- That's a tough time to move to New York City. Yeah everything shut down and so I was

basically had two friends and they were they lived in that apartment where I pretended to live and my friend filmed me walking around the desolate winter in New York and the subways and everything and it winter in New York and the subways and everything. And then the footage where you're all where the sort of the chorus cats are all together. Is that in a shared house that some of you did live in or all do live in together? Yeah, that's right through the store.

Yeah, that was post COVID after Karen moved back and we were all kind of reunited. And that's where all of the filming of the Cora Scouts took place. And that's where I currently live as well. Kieran and I are currently roommates or flatmates to you New Zealanders. And Colleen used to live here and I took her room. Thank you, Danny, for translating that for our Antipodean audience and ourselves. I just have one question and that's around the raccoon scene. Who filmed that?

And did you... Was that filmed independent of knowing you were making cats too? I just have one question and that's around the raccoon scene. Who filmed that? And did you, was that filmed independent of knowing you were making cats too? Or were you making cats too? And was an animal handler used cause it seemed choreographed, but those animals were unmistakably real. Yeah, bro. That was in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. And I just saw it when I was walking through the park at night. Nightwalking.

Yeah, nightwalking. The Gumby cats are quite beautiful in the heavy side lair, and then when McCavity shows up they return to... I mean, there were shades of Shrek where I was like, they go into sort of Gumby appearance form, but the magic of Shrek, of course, is that Shrek discovers and Fiona discovers that is the form of true love itself. Whereas I felt like you and by turn, I as an audience member was rooting for the Gumby cats to be returned to the sort of beautiful painted form. Can you tell me what you guys were thinking with those guys?

I just wanted to show McCavity fucking up the heavy side layer. And that was just the best way I could find a represent. That was by turning them from Renaissance era paintings of cats to medieval era paintings of cats, which are famously much worse. Yeah, it was visually so effective. It was such an effective tool. How many sort of serious critical conversations have you had about the creative process behind this movie? More than you'd think. I don't I would I think

you've had seven deserves a lot in a film festival. We've had many conversations ourselves to one another about the creative process. Of course. You guys were, you've done some screenings of this around before, obviously before you put it up on YouTube, you were playing it at cinemas. What was the response like when you got that up

on the silver screen? It was pretty well received. Yes. Very positive. Yeah. It was in a film festival in Seattle. We released it at a local theater later in a film festival in Seattle. We released it at a local theater later at a film festival in Seattle. And some of our friends and people that were part of the artist scene here in Seattle came and loved it. It was a we were very pleased with the reception that we had.

That is so cool. Colleen, tell me about the experience of bringing, of like going there and other people seeing this and you being able to see the audience's response to it. Yeah, it was cool for me because like, I feel like everyone else who's been part of Cats 2 has been in bands or like been performing and are used to people looking at them and I'm not really, haven't really been a performer and so it was cool to kind of be on the other side for me and sort of special to get to work with my friends doing art stuff and music stuff and so yeah, it was really strange and fun and exciting for me personally. I've also got to say I feel at the end of the movie, you left the door open for a

Cats 3, you know, it's obviously impossible to vanquish someone as sinister as McCavity. Is this creative collaboration you've opened? Is that, you know, is it still ongoing? Yeah, we have recently actually talked about a threequel. I think we're going to try to produce a different play first, but probably get the creative ball rolling on Cats 3 as well. Where-

We do always kind of make mention of Cats 3, and it's a little tongue in cheek, but there's also, I think, a little bit of seriousness and maybe a bit of hope there every time we kind of bring it up. Yeah, my idea was for McCavity Jr. to grow up raised by Jellicles but have this inexplicable proclivity towards naughtiness. proclivity towards naughtiness. Because I mean, you know, I think in the cinema, obviously, you're going to make it to the end. But for people watching on YouTube, the 12 minute finale,

not everyone's going to know that McCavity Jr. was sent down from on high. Some people might not make it to McCavity Jr. And so when they see Cats 3 show up on the algorithm, they must think, holy fucking shit, how's this happened? I do. I think speaking of serendipity and synchronicity, the film on screen behind us is coming to a close. We've got the finale playing now. So I've just got one final question for you around to the production elements. And then one thing that I'd like to lay as a stake in the ground associated with this film, how long did it take to make this? Once you got out of lockdown,

how long did it take to film this and edit it and record all the music and put the thing together? Cause it just looks like an enormous creative effort that has come together. Start to finish about three years. Yeah, and there were some times where it kind of lapsed and we kind of just didn't really talk too much about it. Yeah. And can I ask what the budget was?

Zero dollars. Yeah, we all just spent our own money. I spent some money on some puppets. I maybe spent, I don't know. It just on materials, things like that. But felt hot glue guns. felt hot glue guns for. It's incredible for a movie with a budget of $0 to feel more creatively realized than whatever they spent on the original cats film 80 million more maybe yeah, since maybe hundreds of millions of dollars. And so the, the thing that I would like to say aloud

to have some accountability is, so right now, Cat's Too Unauthorized is sitting at just under 2,000 views on YouTube. And I would like to take a little bit of responsibility to make sure that this film gets 50,000 views on YouTube. That would be a dream come true. I think that primarily, we made this for ourselves, but we would like everybody who would like to see it

and who can get something out of it to be able to do so. Well, I think listeners to this podcast are uniquely positioned to have a draw towards it, a curiosity that hopefully, you know, there's a broader audience who are learning about Cats 2 unauthorized and interested to poke their nose. This is going to be a team effort,

it's gonna be a family effort. We need everyone to contribute. And in particular, we need those with social media accounts to spread the good word on Cats 2. And we need those who are in a position who may write for online publications, for example. I think it is incumbent on you. I can hear a horse, that's so cool.

It is crucial that you try and find a slot on your website to showcase and cast a spotlight on Cats 2 unauthorized. I saw you guys were on Letterboxd. You know that? You know Cats 2 unauthorized is on the movie review App letterbox. I don't even know what that is. It's a very it's a very popular App it's a fantastic way to log and keep track of what you're watching what your friends are watching

This is not an ad for letterbox sure sounds like one, but it's it's being well received I'm gonna get on there and and write a review right after this. Five stars, if you're curious. We're deeply appreciative. So in closing, thank you for making this. I'm sorry we couldn't get all of the creators on the call. But thank you for making the time to talk to us. And most of all, yeah, just huge appreciation

for this epic creative masterpiece you've put into the world. Thanks. We love you guys too. Thank you for having us on. Thank you. Spelling Bee is like my favorite show ever. Are you serious? Yeah, man.

That's crazy. How did you find Spelling Bee? How are we even talking to each other? Danny and I found out that we both were fans of yours separately. Yeah, I've been listening to you guys for about a decade, about when that vice article for grownups to came out. So I it's kind of weird talking to you guys because mostly it's just been listening and kind of having this companionship almost. Yeah. But now here you are talking to me directly. I came through the Taskmaster pipeline as soon as it was on YouTube

Yeah, ah, you're a shining star on your series. So I looked up your other works Well here we all are it's a pleasure Live from Yelm and Auckland, New Zealand together at last Thank you so much for your work for your time and everyone make sure you get on YouTube look up cats to Unauthorized share it round link in the show nights Let's get it 50. Yeah, you got it. You've got a comment on stuff too. Cuz that's that's how you juice the algorithm That's right. Anyway, check a thumbs up in there. We know the dream peace and love peace and love