Feline Friday is my chance to celebrate famous cats across the arts, whether their origins are in gaming, film, anime, literature or anywhere else.

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Kitten Catastrophe Crew

PAW Patrol episode 74 (2015)

If I may be so blunt, Adventure Bay seems like an absolute nightmare of a place to reside in. Every single one of its denizens is a vapid nobody, constantly demanding rescue services from the almighty PAW Patrol.

Helmed by the equally vapid child overlord Ryder, this team of canine emergency workers is made up of various heroic puppies. They are all upbeat, chatty, and yep, you guessed it… entirely vapid.

If I have to hear them all chortling in unison at Marshall’s puns one more time, I will unload on the town with an automatic weapon. I wonder which dog they would send in for that mission?

Fortunately, nearby is the sleepy burgh known as Foggy Bottom. Its mayor, Humdinger, is a pompous megalomaniac who is typically committing crimes and inadvertently causing widespread destruction. Despite his shortcomings, he is a man of exquisite taste, as he boasts his own villainous counterpart to the PAW Patrol in the form of the Kitten Catastrophe Crew.

These cats each act as a parallel to the six original members of the PAW Patrol, utilising similar skill sets while remaining mercifully silent the whole time. Do you know what this makes them? Deliciously unvapid.

For the most part, they willingly carry out Humdinger’s bidding, though they are clearly dismayed by his general incompetence, and often placed in precarious situations as a result of his meddling.

Look, they’re like most cats, really: loyal to a point, and that point is most often associated with food — leading me to believe that Humdinger shells out that good shit, like a mixture of turkey, anchovy, and the blood of their enemies (aka that fucker Marshall).

What he is not quite so generous with, however, is individuality. We later discover that their endearing moniker of “Kitties” isn’t just a nickname, as they actually don’t have names of their own. As such, they are typically referred to as the cat equivalent to their accordant PAW Patrol member: Cat Rocky, Cat Zuma, etc..

The only ongoing exception to this rule is the analogous answer to the mechanical Robo-Dog, dubbed Meow-Meow. Which is a pretty shit name, but at least it’s something she can call her own — and I’m fairly sure, a street drug that will fuck you up for the rest of your life. Hell yeah, it’s actually kinda badass when you think of it that way.

As the series goes on, the Kit-tastrophe Crew shift towards more of a passive role in the narrative, likely due to the gag of “naughty kitties do bad things, end up in a spot of bother, get rescued by benevolent (and vapid) dogs” growing stale. Additionally, they’re just too damned adorable to be bad guys forever — how can we stay mad at those little smoochy faces? More importantly, how can we deny ourselves of the potential merchandise revenue that comes with making them less villainous?

Ironically, of course, my time spent watching PAW Patrol has actually made me more likely to favour the wicked scallywags of society, primarily due to the aforementioned vapidity… which I have only just now confirmed to be a real word.

The identities of these felines may be interchangeable, but at least they’ve got that chutzpah, baby. Mayor Humdinger… let’s burn this motherfucker to the ground.