Pussies galore! David Baddiel’s Cat Man is perfect TV | television

DAvid Baddiel has a mission to “fulfill a lifelong dream of spending as much time with cats as possible.” He wants to highlight cats and challenge common misconceptions about them being “sneaky, evil and lazy.” Badiel gets stuck in place. He meets cat influencers like Atticus – a stunning ragdoll with 96,700 Instagram followers who was asked by Paramount to perform a promotional stunt on a motorcycle for the latest Mission: Impossible film. He practices kitten yoga, hand-feeds two chatty cheetahs, and even bathes with lions. It’s every cat person’s dream!

The premise of the show is that cats are popular on social media. The hashtag #catsofinstagram currently has over 212 million posts on the Instagram mobile app, and #cat is ranked in the top 100 trending hashtags. However, rarely are any television shows produced about cats and their owners. Instead, cat owners, like Baddiel and me, are often subjected to harsh stereotypes. A few years ago, cat ownership was even ridiculed by the current US Vice President, J.D. Vance, who described his Democratic Party rivals as “childless cat ladies.” Not anymore. Enter David Baddiel: Catman.

From the beginning of the show, it was clear that Baddiel really, truly He loves cats. His face lights up every time he meets him. He even sprays himself with catnip to attract the attention of the famous King Louis, a British shorthair who makes fun of caviar and has 139,000 followers on Instagram. King Louis He bites Baddiel because he played “bongo” on him. A “bongo” is a gentle, rhythmic pat on either side of the buttocks. As a passionate cat person and member of the Apocalypse Meow WhatsApp group, I know a true cat person when I see one. David Baddiel is one of us.

Unlike many celebrity-driven documentaries, Cat Man Not trivial by any means. Baddiel has cats: Tiger, Zelda and Ron. They are all featured on the show, through home videos and brief appearances on set. The tiger goes upstairs, and Ron hides behind the wall. However, while filming the first episode, Baddiel’s 15-year-old cat became ill. Despite the best efforts of his daughter Dolly, Pip dies. Have a tissue at the ready – I was a trembling wreck. Because there is nothing trivial about Baddiel’s real tears in front of the camera. Those tears represent the many people like me who have experienced the loss of a pet. As Daoud says: “55% said they hide their sadness for fear of ridicule.”

Cat Man does everything he can to sway the haters, too. We meet Holly and Colin, who run Holly’s Merry Moggies Rescue Centre, which cares for disabled cats. People reject some cats because they don’t “look good” on social media. How can you resist Bertie, the spinster who was born without eyes? Or Dr. Susan, a very talkative cat show model who knows everything about animals. She is the proud owner of Lucy, an amazing 11-year-old Bengali girl with over 40 roses. Lucy has won the top prize twice, any It’s the feline version of Crufts, run by the Cat Fancy Board (essentially the Kennel Club for cats, but with a much better name). Baddiel attends the senior match with Dr. Susan, who is hoping for a third win, but is skeptical, given Lucy’s age. Lucy had won, and you’d have to be dead inside not to want that for both of them.

Better yet, Cat Man has several celebrity cat lovers: Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Ross, and Lou Sanders among them. All of them have the same level of affection as Baddiel. “Dogs pay. Cats are independent,” jokes comedian Josh Widdecombe, before casually admitting to sharing a glass of water with him. If he is not ashamed of that relationship, then no one should ever be ashamed either. However, I will not drink this water.

All good documentaries have to have a balance. Enter comedy legend and cat hater Frank Skinner, who describes the creatures as “evil.” He says he prefers dogs: “Dogs are slapstick. Cats are satire.” However, when Baddiel mentioned the cat they’d been sharing (sort of) for over 20 years, Chairman Meow, she noticed a soft smile flicker in Skinner’s eyes.

David Baddiel: Cat Man is the ultimate comfort watch. If seeing David Baddiel breastfeeding and cuddling Larry, Cat No. 10, doesn’t brighten up your dreary January, and maybe even make you love cats, nothing will. I came away feeling proud to be a passionate cat person, and like Baddiel, I don’t care who knows it.