Latest / Ridiculous History / It's a Cat's World, Part 2: The Rise of the Cat Show

Transcript

It's a Cat's World, Part 2: The Rise of the Cat Show · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. This is part two of our episode
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: on the astonishingly rich history of cat shows. We had
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to take a break and uh and play with our
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: own cats. Well, no, maybe you played with your cat.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I had. I had to go feed one of mine
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: because he was screaming at me. Man, did I tell
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you this cat, this new cat that I've got, has
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a really really adorable thing that she does where she
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: likes to pounce claws out on bare feet. You've mentioned that,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you mention, I think you recommended a spritzer bottle to
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: break her of this habit. But I also have a
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: laser pointer that I have to use as a diversion
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: so that I can just cross the living room, you know,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: without like getting attacked. So you know, again, a great
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: example of cats gonna do what a cat's gonna do. Yes,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Now imagine taking these uh notoriously anti authoritarian creatures and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: trying to get them to light up for a display
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of their prowess in a cat show. So back to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: this guy I mentioned earlier. His name Harrison Weir. His Uh.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: His claim to fame and history being super into cats.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Two cats myself. So thanks for making this less stigmatized, Harry. Uh.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: He shook the cat world at its foundations, like the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: guy invented the bread slicing machine. He it was an
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: animal lover all sorts of animals. Uh. And he held
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: cats higher than most other animals in his esteem. He
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: said they are possibly the most perfect and certainly the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: most domestic of animals. That's very nice, though it is
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: scientifically not accurate. Uh. He wasn't always a cat person.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: In his book Our Cats and All About Them in
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty nine, he said, you know, I used to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: have a bias against cats, and I took some time
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: coming to this pro cat belief. And once he was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: convinced that cats were cool, he started to proselytize for them.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: He became the Edward Bernese, fighting a one man battle
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to save the public image of cats. And here's a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: line from what he wrote. He said, long ages of neglect,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a little treat to mention absolute cruelty with literally or
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: no gentliness, kindliness, or training have made the cat self reliant. Uh.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And he also said the small, though a large dog
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: may be regarded and petted, but it's generally useless. A
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: cat a pet or not ease of service, Which is
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: interesting because you've probably also heard the opposite argument from
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of people folks throughout history. I think it's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: in the eye of the beholder or the petter. So
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: he knew he knew he couldn't just write books that
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: say cats are cool, right, literacy is not where it
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: is at this point in and also books you have
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to pay for them, So like, how can I how
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: can I get more people on board with cats in general?
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: This led him to develop a competition, the Cat Show.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: So he wanted to get the wealthy upper crust on
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: board with the idea that the idea that where it
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: sounds weird where you're talking about it, well, all these
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: pet shows do the idea that you will take your cat,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: your animal, whatever you're in this case your cat, you'll
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: take your cat to a single place. And then there're
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: all some help being authority, who is like again they
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: look at your Persian cat. They're like, this is the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: most Persian Persian cats, This is most jellical, those street
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: cats or whatever. Here is your award. Uh. To do this,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: he had to make it look legit. So he started
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: making rules and categories, and again, to be very honest
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: with you here, folks, this stuff is arbitrary. He's just
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: kind of going with what feels good in his mind
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: at the time. Wouldn't you say? Yeah? I mean, you know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: he was essentially, this is a thing that I've never
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: been done before, so we had to start somewhere. I
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: would love to hear a few examples of these cat tigories.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: He So there were a couple of things like type
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of cat mainly Persian cat, said already, Manx cats, English
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: short hair cats, things like that, and then each of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: those would have the thing that Paul fight them as
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: that cat breed. But it's not super specific to the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: point of like the tale should be x centimeters long
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. Yeah, that's right. Uh So, you know,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: in in true cat loving fashion. As the kind of
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: innovator of this whole thing, he appointed himself what he
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: referred to as an adjudicator. Uh And he was joined
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: by his brother John and a priest named Reverend mcdonnaugh um,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And then they hired a show manager named f. Wilson.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Then they had to get some people to actually participate,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: so they rounded up some of their friends and family.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: What they referred to as a goodly number of animals
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: were assembled to be evaluated. And when he was on
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the train heading to the Crystal Palace the day of
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the big show, he actually ran into a friend who
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: asked how he was doing and where he was going to,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: which were responded the cat Show. And his friend was
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a star honest and said, a show of cats. Why
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I hate the things? Uh you know in this you know, rubbed,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: we're the wrong way obviously as um as a man
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: of the cat. And he said, I'm sorry, very sorry
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: that you do not like cats, before kind of going
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: into the spiel and explaining the majesty and glory of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: cats as animals, but also of of this event that
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he was trying to curate. And then you know, in
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: his book we mentioned earlier are cats and all about them?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Weird talks about this conversation and then eventually admits he
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: wouldn't a bit overboard, and his friends just said, stop,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I see you do like cats and I do not,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So let the matter drop. Did he let it drop?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Of course not. He doubled down. He took his cat
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: hating friend from the train with him to the Crystal Palace,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and there they discovered that the show was off to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: a great start. Uh, we're looking had a range of cats.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Around a hundred and fifty to two hundred and eleven
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: were shown cats somewhere between. There. There were two hundred
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: thousand guests that showed up to just stare at cats.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Two hundred thousand. That's insane. It's a it's a good turnout,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it's a good turnout. Uh. The newspapers played
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a role in this because they had talked about it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: in advance. They also noticed the presence of exotic cats,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like the feline version of an imported weird car. Yeah, well,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: something that certainly would have been seen as an oddity.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: They would have been able to see every day, So
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: there was some draw there. Things like a something called
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a Scottish wild cat that was owned by the Duke
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: of Sutherland, an Algerian cat that was listed as a
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: quote French African cat, a polydactyl cat that had twenty
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: six claws, and a tortoise shell cat um. There were
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: also some that purported to belong to the sta half
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of the of the palace Um or to have been
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: caught in the sellers of the palace and thrown into
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: gauges to add, you know, some more numbers to to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: the to the showing. So I think we set this
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: up earlier. Were has made a cat show with three
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: judges himself, his brother, one of his brothers, and a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: priest who was uh he wasn't hired just because he
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: was a priest. By the way, folks, he was a
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: well known breeder of St. Bernard's, so a friend of animals,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: if not cats specifically. Were had what he called the
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: standards of excellence or standards of points. These were the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: guidelines that these three dudes would use to judge these cats.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Later these would be um revised into a manual for
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: organizers of other cat shows, and this manual was called
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: our Cats. So they were sorted according to things like
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: coat length, body type, shape color. This is where this
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: is where you see the origin of the phrase chunk.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: I'm kidding that last part is not true, uh towards
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the mic like old yeah. Uh So again this this
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: criteria is pretty much up to weird. You know, he
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: didn't have a ton of scientific analysis to bring to
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: bear here. Awards were given to cats that best fit
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: his criteria. And then there were also I would call
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: them like Carnival awards, the superlative awards, you know, the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: biggest cat and the fattest cat, which yes, ridiculous historians
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: were two different things, of course they are. No, I
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: never would have questioned that, nor would I have ever
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: questioned the judgments of this, this triumvirate. I wonder what
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: was the I mean, these are similar, you know, to
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: what you see in a dog show, like bite, you know, uh,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: posture gate, things like that. But again, a lot of
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the things that you do in a dog should only
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: apply to cats. And I can only imagine that this
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: would have been a bit chaotic, right, Like, cats aren't
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: known for like standing still and like, you know, bending
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: to the will of people. So I imagine with like
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: somewhere between hundred fifty to fifty um, I imagine it
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: would have been quite a thing to behold the noise alone, right,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, cats are are not known for being super
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: quiet either, But it went overwhell. The aristocratic crowd dug
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the whole judging quality. But where we're really kind of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: this was a this is a personal passion project for him.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: He wasn't in it for the accolades. He was in
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: it for the sheer, you know, reverence of of cat
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: kind um. And he wanted to let people know about
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: all of the varieties of breeds and also convinced people,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: like he tried to do on that train, to give
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: cats a chance. You can get a few more by blow.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Reports of this in an excellent article from Atlas Obsura
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: how England's first cat show countered Victorian snobbery. This this
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: thing was a runaway success. His friend on the train
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: was wrong. He was on the wrong side of history,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: which is weird to say about cat shows, but here
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: we are. Uh. The first cat show plans kind of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: in a hurry. It's a little bit of a one
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: man band situation, and he wanted to get the wealthy
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: people in the aristos. It was a success, so the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: second show expands a few months later. He encourages working
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: class people to submit their own ordinary cats, like you know,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the their neighborhood Tom or whatever. Um let's call him
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: famous Tom. That's a cool cat name. So weird hoped
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: that by celebrating the everyday cats. He I love that
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: earlier point. He's not trying to make money. What he
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was genuine It appears to be the case that what
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: he was genuinely trying to do was inspired owners of
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: cats or humans of cats throughout all socioeconomic levels to
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: take better care of these feelines. So this next exhibition
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: has many more cats on display, there's an expanded judge pool.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: They also have trophies that they're awarding to people. It's
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: it's getting legit. But then of course fame gets in
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the way. Uh. The shows at Crystal Palace did have
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: a positive impact on social perception of cats and they
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: were getting they were gradually becoming less of a divisive
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: thing to have in your home. In We're founds the
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: National Cat Club. He appoints himself president and then they
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: have their first official show at the Crystal Palace, as
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you know, like the National Cat Club cat show or
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: cat competition, cat petition. The pieces are there, Yeah, and
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, and what we were saying, I think the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: first go of this there were somewhere between a hundred
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: two two hundred entries. This one had more than three
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty UH entries into the competition. Again, it
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: just seems like it would have been absolute chaos, but
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: they seem to manage to keep under control. But the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: interesting thing is we're kind of starts to get the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: sense that people, other people's motivations aren't as pure as his.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Other people aren't in it just for the cat, you know.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And he expressed in eight two in a new preface
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: for the second edition of Our Cats and All About Them.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Uh he he kind of expressed remorse ever having been
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: part of the National Cat Club. He said he no
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: longer believed in their ideals instead of like this, I
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: now feel the deepest regret that I was ever induced
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to be in any way associated with it. Uh. The
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: main problem, he said in the same statement, was that
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of these be he considered a lot of
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: these uh so called cat fanciers to be narcissists. Um.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: And it was all about themselves. It was all about
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: what could the cats do for them in terms of
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: their image or whatever, rather than focusing on the animals themselves.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: He went on to say, I found the principal idea
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of many of its members consisted not so much in
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: promoting the welfare of the cat, which he capitalizes by
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the way like you would like god, um, as of
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: winning prizes and more particularly their own cat club medals.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: And by the way, we're was known for his reverend
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: capitalization of the word cat. This guy meant business and
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: in his defense, it was Uh, the arbitrary capitalization of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: different things was more common back then. But still, yes,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that's definitely a choice. That's a feline flex on his part.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: The issue is that the general public was not eligible
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to win these special medals. The only way you could
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: win a cat club medal is if you were a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: cat club member or a cat who's human was cat
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: club member. So we thought this was super snotty. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you know what, he was right because he had been
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: trying to raise respect for cats, so he needed the
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: ruling class, the wealthy class on board there. But he
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: didn't know they would bring their elitist tendencies along, and
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of course they did. It was part of the way
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: they defined themselves at the time. So now cats in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: general are no longer considered super dirty and wicked. But
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: there's there are a lot of class issues that are
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: ruining cat shows for Harry. Uh. Some judging categories are
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: divided by the class not of the cat, but of
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the cat owner. And uh, this one reporter who went
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: to a national cat club show in a t said
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the following, I am sorry to see that some cats
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: entered into the working men's classes are also entered into
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the ordinary classes. These, to my mind, are only bogus
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: working men's cats. Pre Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, bogus
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was a much more um impactful, insulting word. Yeah, it's
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: almost like we're kind of created a monster with with
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. Like he was in it for all
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the right reasons, and he was he was doing it
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: to kind of combat the snobbery of the time when
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: it came to animals and pure breads and all of that,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and to get people more hip to the idea that
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: cats are cool too. But then, of course, as as
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it will, uh, snobbery pervaded his cat shows and and
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: what they when it became was something that he did
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: not like, and it just kind of snowballed from there. Uh,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: this kind of you know, pervasive snobbery just got deeper
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and deeper. Um, and it really was kind of like
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: almost causing the themselves to be treated like commodities as
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: opposed to you know, what we're intended, which was to
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: highlight them as the noble creatures that he believed they
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: were and give them their due when we've got this
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: history of cats being treated horribly. But at the end
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of the day, even if it wasn't in the way
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: that we're maybe wanted it to be, it certainly was
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: raising the profile of cats in the you know, public,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: kind of collective unconscious, I suppose. Uh. And Francis Simpson,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a fellow cat lover, wrote in his nineteen three book
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of the Cat the following in terms of like the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: kind of shifting cashet of felines, he said, the cat
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: is gradually creeping into the affections of mankind, even in
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: this busy, workaday world. And then he called out we're
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: as the kind of single minded individual that led to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the quote great strides um in cat fancy dumb suppose,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: especially after kind of being reviled as visionaries often are.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: You'll recall back to eighteen seventy one when We're had
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: that really awkward encounter on the train. Or he wouldn't
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: let it lie that that cats needed to be loved, uh,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and and respected, even if the general consensus
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: was that they were lower creatures. Right, Yeah, but the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: cat world kind of turned against them for a time. Uh.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: We also see other people, acknowledging his foundational role here.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Magazine called Lady's Realm in nineteen hundred expressed the same belief.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: They said, we had quote done wonders for the amelioration
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: of pussy or repairing the reputation of the cat. In
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: just the span of thirty years, which is not a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: long time, cats had gone from being chased in the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: streets to be allowed to uh sit and perr by
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the fireside, And Lady's Realm also included how great has
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: been the change in the conditions of life for the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: harmless necessary cat. At this point, now that we're reaching
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the end of our two part episode, we need to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: share an epilogue because you see, nothing occurs in a vacuum.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That's one of the consistent lessons of history. So while
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: this cat craze is occurring at London's Crystal Palace, other
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: people throughout Europe are getting on board. They want to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: be a part of this, and so that's when we
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: see four other cat shows being held by members of
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the public unrelated to Harrison were uh there are two
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: in London, two in Scotland, and then eventually they just
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: become a common thing. It's no longer weird to hear
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: about the UH the annual cat show. Eventually, of course,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: because the US is always trying to emulate European culture.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: At this time, UH, the practice of the cat show
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: crosses the Atlantic. If you were at Madison Square Garden
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: in just hanging out, then you may have well run
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: into the first well known cat show on the American continant.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: And the same thing happened. People started forming cat clubs,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: start organizing their own events, and then they morphed into
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the things you see today, which are still not as
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: popular as the as the dog shows. Right, what is
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it you Canuba dog show? That's the one. I think
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: that's the brand that sponsors in that popular dog food.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: You know I fight at the top of the show
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: the first episode. I almost joked, like this seems like
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a relic of the past, like cat shows surely don't
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: exist anymore, and what a dummy I am, Like, of
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: course they still exist. They're they're not as popular or
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: as widely you know, broadcast or or known as dog shows,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: but they certainly exist. And you can actually go to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: c f A UH dot org and and see a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: calendar of of cat shows and also the the year's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: previous winners from all the different categories of breeds cf
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: A standing for the Cat Fanciers Association. I love that
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the word fancy is still part of it, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: it's still in the in the nomenclature. There's a very
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: popular cat magazine called cat Fancy. I think there's also
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: dog Fancy, but I believe cat fancy is definitely a thing.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Well there, I'm sure there are fans of felines who
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: will tell us that cats are just fancier. Uh no,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: no comments, no comment. I love out all animals, um, well,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: not all of them. They had some things to work
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: out with. Possums. Possums are weird, right am I the
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: only one here? Like? Oh, they're very strange. I mean
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: even you've ever seen one like come up on you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: at night with its weird transparent glowy eyes no thank you,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and they hiss. Will alone. Out of all the marsupials
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: this continent could have had, we got possums anyway. Yes, cats.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: So now, as as Noel said, you can find cat
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: shows pretty easily in the US and in Europe, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you see that people's opinions of cats. This is what
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I know. I kept hilling on this the judging qualifications
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and standards are still pretty arbitrary, right. The Siamese cat,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: which is now the ninth most popular cat breed in America,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was once upon a time seen as a quote unnatural
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: nightmare kind of cats, and now here in one. It
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: seems that the more things change, the more they stay
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the same. As long as there are cats, there are
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: going to be cat shows. Let us know if you've
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: gone to one, you know what I mean, Send us
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: pictures of your cats, or send us pictures of your pets.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Extra points extra arbitrary Internet points for uh for really
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: really weird pets. We're not gonna get into it today,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: but if you wish, you want to do a little
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: extra reading. On the side, there is a how stuff
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Works article on how cat shows work. Um just gotta
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: animals dot how stuff works dot com, slash pets slash
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: cat dash show dot htm. Uh. Some good info there
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: on just the procedural aspects of cat shows, which clearly
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: still exists, although unfortunately Cat Fancy Magazine stopped publishing in
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: two thousand and fifteen, so you know, it's tough to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: be a print magazine these days. But the sentiment and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the values of cat fancy live on in homes across
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the planet. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Maybe
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: you had a furry companion of your own, purring along
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: as you listened. Let us know what other animal competitions
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: have you seen. I'm sure there their horse shows a plenty,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: dressage performances and so on. The thing we mentioned earlier,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the thing I was saying about the most beautiful goat.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I was referring to the Maza Yen Alms competition in
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia. Uh, the a goat from Damascus, Dame Carer
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: won the first prize for most beautiful goat. Yeah. I
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I don't really think of the word beautiful when I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: think of goat. So maybe there in lies the irony
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of the competition. It's a kind of goat called a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Damascus goat. Hang on, you, guys, I'm gonna say, I'm
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: gonna send you a picture. It's worth it. Uh. This
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: is this is not the specific goat, but this is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: what these uh, this is what these goats look like.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: So Noel Casey, I want you to pull this up.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I put it in our chat on our zoom. Check
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: this out. And that is not a beautiful goat. It
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: looks like a fist. It looks like you have it's like,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: oh my god. And and it has weird little elf ears,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and it's eyes are and the wrong they're like it
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: looks like a like a lizard, like it's got an
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: eye on each side of its head. That is idious.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: What is going on? Wow? Yeah, well beauties of the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: eyebill holder, Casey, what do you think about that? Guy?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a very unique, so diplomatic, but I
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: would not associate that with beauty now. So again, that's
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: that's one of our that's another way to prove that
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: sometimes these standards can be arbitrary. Thanks so much for
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: coming along with us on this journey. Thanks to Harrison
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Weird for redeeming the cat, Thanks to our long suffering
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: super producer at Casey Pegram and and of course thanks
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to Christopher Haciots faced Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Eve's Jeff Coach. Check out her show This Day and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: History Class along with Jay dot Ill, the podcast which
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: she produces huge thanks to research associate Gabe Louisier and
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Cat Fancier. I imagine I assume we'll have to confirm
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: that later directly. But this was definitely a doozy of
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: a two parter. I certainly learned a lot. I'm a
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: cat owner and I didn't know half of this stuff.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And we would like to hear from you. If you
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: want to start a cat picture or pet picture sharing thread,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: go on over to Ridiculous Historians on Facebook and uh,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: let us let us know what your non human companions
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: look like again in bonus points for any really exotic
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: or unexpected ones. You can also find us on Instagram.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter, not just as shows,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on Instagram.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I am at how now Noel Brown, and you can
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: send me your pet pictures directly if you prefer at
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: ben Bullet hsw on Twitter or at ben Bullet on Instagram. Yes, Noel,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: what a ride. I tell you, man, I would be
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: weirded out go into a cat show, not because of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the cats, but because I feel like I might run
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: into some very aristocratic person who would make me uncomfortable.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Oh, I definitely twopen. You
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: gotta fear of the aristocrats. We'll see you next time, folks.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows.