Arthur the Kattomeat cat is a rare advertising critter who gets into the horrifying club not because of anything overtly disturbing about the content of the campaign itself, but for the grisly bit of folklore that accompanied it. At least two generations of UK television viewers will be familiar with the image of a white cat satiating his hankerings for marrowbone jelly by inserting his paw into a tin of cat food and shoveling the meaty debris into his jaws. If you're of the older generation, then perhaps you also recall the lurid scandal that made the rounds in the late 1960s, when a troubling rumour was circulated throughout the press as to how this particular dumb pet trick was procured. And if you're of the younger generation, then perhaps your parents shared their memories of that scandal, permanently harpooning the cuteness of the campaign in one fell swoop.
That was how it was for me. One day, I brought it up in a conversation how enamored I was by the cat's paw-dipping antics, only for my dad to give me a compelling reason why I shouldn't be. "Do you know why that cat ate food with its paw?" he asked. "It's because they had all of its teeth surgically removed. It couldn't pick up and chew food with its mouth like a normal cat so it had no choice but to lick it off its paw." Both of my parents seemed very convinced of this fact. If that story were true, then obviously it would be beyond revolting, and would certainly destroy any enjoyment to be had from the ads - once you contemplate the notion that this charismatic cat is sucking processed sheep intestines through toothless gums, all of the charm does rather evaporate. Is it true, though? I do think it's important to always be mindful wherever animals are exhibited for entertainment purposes, and certainly there are some appalling examples of film-makers treating animals in highly unpleasant ways to elicit certain behaviours before the camera, and yet there was a part of me that was unwilling to completely swallow this story. Something about it struck me as vaguely far-fetched, in that it somehow didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility to teach a cat to lick food off its paw using more orthodox methods.
The brand of cat food Arthur was accustomed to pawing, by one means or another, was Kattomeat, the feline counterpart to Kennomeat dog food, both of which were owned by Spillers. In 1992, Kattomeat was renamed Arthur's, owing to the enduring popularity of the paw-dipping mascot, although the brand has since been discontinued and Spillers has now merged with Purina. I later discovered that the Arthur campaign went as far back as 1966, so the original Arthur to whom my parents referred would presumably have been long gone by the time I arrived. The campaign ran on until at least the late 1990s (when somebody finally had the bright idea of teaming the cat up with popular culture's other iconic Arthur - although the connection is not made explicit in the above ad with Dudley Moore). Obviously, the role was filled by multiple cats. Did they all have their teeth extracted, then? Or just the original Arthur, at a time when animal welfare regulations were less stringent? If so, then what made the latter cats trainable and not Arthur? It merited further investigation.
Fortunately, the skin-crawling story does not appear to check out. This BBC article on celebrity cats contains only a very scant biography of Arthur, but within that finds time to assure its readers that the allegations of the cat being deliberately rendered toothless were a filthy lie. It also confirms that at least three cats played the role across the decade - Arthur's successors were Arthur II and Arthur III. This article on British cat food brands, meanwhile, assures me that paw-dipping is perfectly natural behaviour among cats. If so, then how did the story about Arthur's draconian dental work get started? As with some of the grislier rumours regarding Spuds MacKenzie and the Taco Bell Chihuahua, it's assuredly the case that humans have a real penchant for substituting our own punchlines in cases where either none exists or the story demands a more lurid punchline than that on offer by reality. And what could be more lurid than a pet trick as simple and innocuous as a cat dipping with its paw coming attached to such a disturbing behind-the-scenes anecdote? But in Arthur's case, we may even have been encouraged to adopt this narrative by a single individual with an agenda. Arthur, it seems, led a complex existence, enough for writer John Montgomery to pen a biography about him, Arthur The Television Cat, in 1975. Arthur was fifteen years old at the time and anticipating retirement following nine years occupied not merely with the filming of numerous television commercials, but also heated legal disputes among the various humans in his life. Arthur's celebrity came at a price - if not his teeth, then in everybody wanting a piece of him.
According to Montgomery, Arthur was originally introduced and hired out to advertising agency Geers, Gross by the actress June Clyne, but after Clyne passed away from an unspecified illness, confusion arose as to who then claimed legal ownership of Arthur. One such candidate was Clyne's partner, Irish actor Toneye Manning, who reported encountering the cat as a stray earmarked for destruction in 1964, and keeping him as a pet for a period of time prior to his TV debut. Manning was paid a fee by Spillers for ownership of Arthur in 1967, but in 1968 he contested this and attempted to reclaim the cat as his own. Arthur was temporarily returned to Manning's care, and although the ensuing court hearings concluded that Spillers were the rightful owners, Manning refused to relinquish Arthur. As per Montogmery's account, the allegations that Spillers had had Arthur's teeth removed for the sake of their commercials point toward originating with Manning, who claimed to be acting in the interests of the cat's welfare:
"...it was reported in the press that [Manning] had protested that [Spillers]...were not fit to look after animals because Arthur's teeth had been extracted "just for the sake of a commercial on television"...The accusation that Arthur's teeth had been removed to ensure that he ate with his paw was spread across newspapers all over the world. Spillers at one point issued a statement saying that it was untrue, and "completely without foundation", adding that "Arthur had the same number of teeth when last in Spillers' care as when Mr Manning handed him over to Spillers in September 1967."" (p.70)
This grisly legend, then, might have been nothing more than a malicious story spread by Manning in order to prop up his case, although Montogmery's book reveals that there may have been a smidgen of truth in the story, in that Arthur did indeed suffer in the dental department. It seems that Arthur had an ulcerated mouth, which resulted in some tooth loss, although Spillers maintained that this had occurred before the cat came into their full-time care in 1967, and when Arthur was presented in court, an inspection of his mouth revealed that he still possessed a sufficient set of teeth. Whether Manning was aware of Arthur's dental history and attempting to use this to his advantage, or he sincerely believed Spillers to be responsible for the cat's tooth loss is another matter. Either way, Manning later withdrew his allegation and the cat was returned to Spillers, although that wasn't the end of Arthur's turmoils. He later went missing from his home in 1974, presumed stolen, and eventually showed up on some farm in Dunstable.
Given that, one way or another, Arthur was cursed with a blemished mouth, is there still the chance that his celebrated dipping behaviours were in response to his oral abnormalities? Montgomery doesn't entertain the possibility. He assures us that paw-dipping is normal behaviour, particularly where a cat is reluctant to submerge its face into the food source. Montgomery's book also informs us that there was another, considerably less prevalent rumour that Arthur was really a female cat named Samantha, although this too may have rooted in another of Manning's eccentricities. According to Montgomery, Manning was in the habit of calling the cat "Samantha", although Arthur was indeed a castrated male. Arthur left no descendants, unless he managed to sire them during his time as a stray. Which was probably a good thing. There's a lot of talk in Montgomery's book about the number of unwanted kittens that get destroyed every year (at least back in the 1970s), and when Montgomery was writing, drowning was still considered an acceptable method of kitten disposal in some circles. Montgomery condemns such practices as extremely cruel, but even his suggestion that "Unwanted pets should be put to sleep at birth, but only by a qualified vet", might seem a bit gruesome to modern sensibilities. Just get your cat spayed or neutered, and this whole discussion will hopefully be moot.
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