Buddy the Cat maintained his cool under extraordinary pressure during his latest act of heroism.
NEW YORK — Another day, another heroic cat.
Buddy the Cat was hailed for his heroism after a Thursday incident in which he saved his human … from burning his bagel.
Buddy’s human had placed the bagel inside the toaster at approximately 2:43 pm but neglected to turn the toast setting to medium.
“I was sitting on the kitchen floor, just thinking about klepping some delicious cream cheese when I detected the faintest whiff of burning bread,” Buddy said. “I knew immediately what was at stake, and I knew there was no time to lose.”
Buddy was able to get his human’s attention and led him to the kitchen, where the toaster situation was becoming more dire by the second.
“Unfortunately humans have dead noses, so Big Buddy didn’t realize how close we were to disaster,” the grey tabby said. “I had to act fast, so I bit him, then mewed at the toaster.”
Only one question remained: Would the human understand the obvious message Buddy was conveying to him, or would he remain entirely oblivious like most of his dim-witted kind?
Big Buddy’s bagel was headed for disaster when Little Buddy bravely intervened.
With time running out, Big Buddy finally realized what was happening and reached out to pop the toaster, saving the bagel.
If it hadn’t been for his quick-thinking and brave cat, Big Buddy’s bagel would have been ruined, rendered burnt and black by a toaster tragically set to its maximum toasting capacity.
“People are calling me a hero but honestly, I just did what any cat would do for their human,” Buddy said. “If that makes me a hero, well, then I guess I’m guilty as charged!”
Jeopardy featured an astonishing 32 clues about turkey during Buddy’s first night guest-hosting the game.
CULVER CITY, California — Buddy the Cat began his week-long stint guest-hosting Jeopardy on Monday to mixed reviews, with viewers divided on whether the famous cat was doing justice to the late, beloved host Meowlex Trebek.
The food-obsessed feline was said to have a heavy influence on category selection on the episodes he filmed, with approximately 63 percent of clues involving the consumption, description or preparation of yums.
“Enough turkey already,” one social media user fumed. “Is this a game show or a cooking show?”
Others praised Buddy’s performance as guest host.
“Buddy is absolutely dreamy as the host of Jeopardy, as we all knew he would be,” Twitter user @KittyKalico wrote. “Now all he needs is a mustache and everything will be right with the world.”
The game board during the first round of play on Monday, Buddy the Cat’s first episode as guest host.
Former champion Austin Rogers, architect of the Burj Khalifa and inventor of the Cuisinart, returned to the show as a contestant for Buddy’s first night guest-hosting the program and won handily, taking home a hefty $42,607 and successfully answering all three Double Jeopardy questions, which were all centered around poultry.
Rogers nearly doubled his score on Final Jeopardy, which offered contestants the following clue under the category “Space Yums”: “Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ate this food during the first-ever meal on the moon.”
Rogers correctly responded “What is freeze-dried roasted turkey?”, earning him the win.
Jeopardy champion Austin Rogers reacts after successfully answering a turkey-related question en route to his Final Jeopardy win on Monday night.
Buddy the Cat admitted Sunday he’s an American domestic shorthair after social media users called him out for presenting himself as an exotic Spanish feline.
The popular tabby cat had been going by the name Buddario El Pavo Gato de la Massivo Cajones, but after questions about his heritage went viral, he admitted in a rambling video that he was “just a basic tabby cat from New York,” and he was not in fact born on the island of Mallorca.
“My heritage is a lot of things, okay? There are a lot of regular cats in Europe too,” he said. “I have been clear about this, but the media keeps misrepresenting me.”
Celebrities and social media users reacted with doubt after user @LeniBriscoe unearthed one of “Buddario’s” old appearances on The Noon Show, where he prepared a traditional Mallorcan paella pate for the audience.
“We have Temptaciones, we have Fiesta Elegante, we have…em, how you say in English? Turkey?” he asked in a thick Spanish accent.
The feline influencer — or kittfluencer — was so committed to his ruse that he refused to eat cat food unless it came from “the Old Country,” sources said.
Previously the famously Spanish cat told interviewers he came to the US at three years old to open a yoga studio where clients pose to flamenco music and wave red bullfighter flags
But as an impromptu coalition of online sleuths found, “Buddario’s” parents are American domestic shorthairs from New York. The celebricat enjoyed a privileged upbringing and went to an exclusive boarding school for wealthy kittens.
After returning home on Sunday to find a crowd of reporters camped in front of his house, “Buddario” waved them off, refusing to answer questions.
“No habla Ingles,” he said, pretending not to understand as reporters shouted questions at him. “Todo es mentira en este mundo! Todo es mentira la verdad! Todo es mentira yo me digo, todo es mentira ¿por que sera?”
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder.
LOS ANGELES — At least 14 feline overdoses have been linked to a powerful new strain of catnip sold by Los Gatos cartel, the Feline Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said Thursday.
The new strain is a hybrid of the popular Purrple Haze and Meowie Wowie variants sprinkled with catnip-flavored Temptations that have been crushed into powder, the agency said.
Dubbed “Da Zooms,” the ultra-potent new nip is often cut with oregano to reduce its effects, but inexperienced cats may not realize what they’re dealing with. Overdoses render felines catatonic for several hours, during which they roll around with a blank stare before sliding into a deep sleep from which they cannot be roused until the effects wear off.
“This is powerful stuff,” said Squiggy the Siamese, president of Cats Against Narcotic Additives Baked Into Snacks, or CANABIS, a powerful anti-Temptations lobbying group. “If it can knock a 20-pound Maine Coon unconscious, imagine what it can do to an innocent three-pound kitten.”
The potent new blend of catnip is proving irresistable to cats.
Cat parents and caretakers are advised to look for the following signs that could indicate their furry loved ones are addicted to Da Zooms:
Suddenly getting the zooms and bolting around the house at 30 mph
Loss of interest in favorite foods and snacks that aren’t Temptations
Refusing regular catnip, or complaining that it’s “weak stuff”
Raiding pantries for cans of wet food, which are used as currency to buy highly potent illegal nip
Frequent trips to “The Corner”
Shaking paws and night sweats after being cut off from the product
In the meantime, the National Ad Council has unveiled a new PSA meant to inform cats of the dangers they face by consuming illegal catnip.
“This is your brain,” the ad’s narrator intones as the camera settles on a brand new, unblemished couch. “This is your brain on ‘nip,” the narrator continues with the camera scrolling over to an old, beat-up couch with claw marks all over it. “Any questions?”
Diego Gatinez, a spokesman for Los Gatos, called the new ads “racist” and blamed “uninformed gringos” for alleging that his organization is a cartel.
“We are a charitable 501(c)(3) organization, and we don’t appreciate the insinuation that we’re involved in illegal or violent activities,” Gatinez said. “Anyone who continues to intimate that we are a violent criminal organization should sleep with one eye open, because Los Gatos could appear right when you least expect us.”
Top image and the two following images by Andrew Marttila from his book, aptly titled “Cats On Catnip.”
It’s man vs cat in the ultimate battle of Buddies!
Back in August there was a story about a bored animal behaviorist and fellow New Yorker who built a talking board for her cat, a la Koko the Gorilla.
Kristiina Wilson told People magazine she was inspired to start the project during the initial Coronavirus lockdown, fashioning a makeshift talking board for her beloved foster fail.
Wilson used large buttons, coded by color and symbol, with each button triggering a recording of a different word when pressed: “Lady” for her, “Snuggle,” “Outside,” “Kittynip” and, of course, “Eat.”
She taught the little guy to use the board using “associative concept learning,” which in this case means pressing a particular button when she has the cat’s attention, and then performing the related action and pressing the button again.
Wilson’s DIY cat talking board.
“Whenever you’re responding to them, you also repeat the modeling,” Wilson said. “So if he asks for catnip and then I give him catnip, I hit ‘catnip’ again while I’m giving it to him to reinforce what that button is for.”
Her cat is a quick learner, Wilson told People. “He’s like a person dressed in a cat’s body. He’s been screaming at me since he was born and being very clear about his needs and wants.”
Hmmm. Sounds like someone else I know, someone who never hesitates to loudly inform me when he considers the service subpar or the meals tardy.
I decided to give it a try with Buddy, modifying the system to his most frequent demands. When pressed, the buttons say “Big Buddy,” “Food,” “Snack,” “Mattress,” “Nip” and “Mighty Hunter!” (Mattress, as regular readers of this blog have probably already figured out, means Bud wants to take a nap on top of me. Mighty Hunter is his favorite wand toy game. It should be called Inept Hunter, but we must keep up appearances so as not to offend delicate egos.)
I began training Buddy on his new talking board. On the first day he had great fun with it, slapping the buttons randomly and jumping on them to see how many he could activate at once.
On the second day, he understood that pushing the “Big Buddy” button would draw a response from me.
On the third day, I woke up to find three of the buttons relabeled and reset with new digital voice recordings: “Servant,” “TURKEY NOW,” and “SNACK NOW.”
THE PERPETRATOR: Although he may appear cute, behind that angelic face is a devious, scheming mind that will stop at nothing to obtain more turkey.
Perhaps most frighteningly, Bud was learning to combine the commands: “Servant…TURKEY NOW! TURKEY NOW! … Servant,” the speakers intoned as he hammered on the buttons with his paws.
But by the fourth day things had become truly horrifying. I walked into the living room and saw the humble talking board replaced by a complex ad hoc apparatus, with more than 150 symbols and a developing syntax.
“Good morning… servant… breakfast… immediately… then… massage… mattress…nap!” a synthesized Stephen Hawking said.
Buddy had tapped the message out with the speed and skill of a court stenographer, then sat there silently, looking up at me with his big green eyes.
“Little shit…is too clever…for…his own…good,” I said, mimicking the sound board.
“Big Buddy…better…watch…when asleep,” Buddy responded, pawing each button. “Sometimes…dark … I … can’t tell… where … is …litter box.”
He made a “mrrrrphh!” sound as if for emphasis, then tapped a single key three times: “Breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfast.”
I have now realized my most grievous error: Within two days Bud had wired his apparatus into the fiber optic router, and a few days after that he’d completed work on a prosthetic opposable thumb.
The arms race was escalating, and my lead was evaporating.
I considered bringing in a dog, but Buddy would just outsmart it: The little terrorist probably has an automated missile launcher at this point, and if not, dogs can be easily bribed with food.
No, I needed something nuclear. Something that would inspire cold terror in my cat and prompt him to think about further escalating the cold war between us.
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Pain In The Bud 