meltdown – Pain In The Bud

Buddy the Cat was cruising through Sunday night’s Acatemy Awards ceremony and razzing the celebrity cats in attendance when things took a turn for the bizarre and violent.

After joking that Alejandro Baldwinito the Spanish cat would have to lose Best Actor after his wife, Ellaria, lost Best Actress, comedian Buddy turned to Garfield and his better half, Venus the two-faced kitty.

“Venus, I love you! Two-Face in the next Batman movie, can’t wait to see it!” Buddy said, drawing laughs from the crowd — including from Garfield, who appeared to find the joke hilarious.

But when Garfield noticed Venus staring daggers at him, he cleared his throat and stood up.

“Uh oh!” Buddy said as Garfield padded over to him. “Uh oh! It’s…”

Buddy was stopped mid-sentence as Garfield paw-slapped him hard across the face, drawing shocked gasps from the stars in attendance.

“Oh, wow! Wow!” Buddy said. “Garfield just slapped the s— out of me!”

“Keep Venus’ name out your —-ing mouth!” Garfield yelled, settling back into his seat.

“Wow, dude!” Buddy replied. “It was a Batman joke!”

“Keep my wife’s name out your —ing mouth!” Garfield repeated, casting a glance at Venus as Lupita Purrongo looked on behind them, open-mouthed and horrified.

“I’m going to, okay?” Buddy said, momentarily at a loss for words.

“That was, uh, the greatest night in the history of television!” Buddy said, recovering and cutting some of the tension in the room.

Just minutes later, Garfield accepted the Oscar for Best Actor and had a meltdown on stage.

“I do it for love!” the rotund orange tabby said. “I have to protect the people around me, and Richard, King Richard, he once said, you know… Who has lasagna? Does anyone have lasagna?”

NEW YORK — Buddy the Cat declared men’s tennis number one Daniil Medvedev “a lanky human” after the latter called a chair umpire “a small cat” during a match on Friday.

Medvedev, who is known for his outbursts on the court, suffered a meltdown during his semifinal victory at the Australian Open. The Russian yelled at the chair umpire for allegedly allowing his opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, to receive coaching from the stands, which is a no-no in professional tennis.

After the umpire hit Medvedev with a warning, the top-ranked men’s player launched a minute-long tirade.

“Bro, are you mad?” Medvedev yelled to the umpire. “For what? And his father can talk every point? Bro, are you stupid? His father can talk every point!”

When the umpire made it clear he wasn’t sympathetic to Medvedev’s complaints, the frustrated Russian dissed him.

“If you don’t give him a warning, you are — how can I say it? — a small cat!” he said, gesticulating wildly.

It was the second time in as many matches that Medvedev had resorted to insults. Asked why Australian fans booed him during his quarterfinal match against Nick Kyrgios, Medvedev told an interviewer it was because the fans “probably have a low IQ.”

Screenshot_20220129-165424~2 — Above: Medvedev’s meltdown and offensive anti-feline insults

Buddy the Cat assembled a hasty press conference within a few hours. Flanked by the Rev. Al Sharpclaw and other feline community leaders, Buddy accused Medvedev of “blatant antifelinism.”

“There is nothing wrong with being a small cat,” the silver tabby said, pounding his paw on a table for effect. “In fact, Medvedev unknowingly paid the umpire a compliment. But that doesn’t change the fact that he intended it as an insult.”

Buddy, Sharpclaw and other leaders demanded the WTA sanction Medvedev and mandate his participation in species tolerance classes.

In the meantime, the 25-year-old Medvedev has advanced to the Australian Open men’s final, where he’ll face 36-year-old Rafael Nadal on Sunday.

The Mallorcan not only has 20 major titles under his belt, he’s also held in high esteem by the world’s felines, who see a kindred spirit in Nadal’s obsessive-compulsive behavior and tendency to erupt into short bursts of energy expenditure. It’s also long been rumored that Nadal loves boxes.

Fellow tennis star Sebastian Korda named his cat after Nadal. No one has named a cat after Medvedev.