Cat

VHS cover

***Cat*** is the first episode of the first season of Eyewitness. The topic of the episode is about the lives and influences on human culture of both wild and domesticated cats. The episode aired on 8th August 1994.
*Cat* is based on a book title that was first published in 1991, and has been republished in 1997, 2004, 2014 and 2022.

## Episode

### Introductory sequence

A tiger set against the white background is shown walking towards the camera before leaping up and over it, leaving the white screen before the title sequence begins.

### Episode outline

Click here for the full transcript for Cat.

The episode opens by introducing cats as stealthy and intelligent animals, said to possess nine lives and always prepared for the unexpected, demonstrated by a cat escaping a maraduring crow, falling amidst a cascade of cat art, landing through a hole, and seemingly morphs into a black panther when it emerges, which bound off to join other big cats. There are over thirty-five species of wild cat and over three hundred different breeds of domestic cat, which the narration states are all the same under the skin regardless, fine-tuned to hunt.

Although tigers were believed in Indian myth to be a divine punishment, they rarely kill people and sometimes hunt on the outskirts of settlements. In many settlements there is a secret world of feral cats. Wild cats only eat meat and are the most specialised of flesh eaters. As well as their teeth and claws, cat’s weapons include their senses, such as whiskers, forward-facing eyes and movable ears. Although the prey may vary, all cats know when to spring the ambush and when a kill is possible. Whatever the prey, whatever the cat, stealth, cunning and patience are needed.

The first cats started to evolve 500 million years ago (see Errors and corrections below). A weasel-like creature called Miacis is believed to be the first cat and the ancestor of all carnivores. Then came Dinictis, with long fangs. This dental fashion peaked with Smilodon, the sabre-toothed cat.

An old Jewish belief holds that God created lions but not housecats – the cats were snorted from the lion’s nostrils. The story of the domestic cat began in Egypt nearly five thousand years ago, where the sphinx still pays homage to the relationship between man and cat. Vermin were destroying grain and spreading disease, but were hunted by reed cats. Since then, the game of cat-and-mouse continues. To this day, it is considered good luck in Egypt to own a cat. The love of cats peaked with the worship of Bastet. When a royal or sacred cat died, it was mummified and the owners shaved off their eyebrows in mourning. The penalty for killing a cat was death. The Egyptian love of cats became so well-known that an attacking Persian army put cats on their shields, in the belief the Egyptians would never raise their swords to such sacred images. It may have had some truth – the Persians were victorious.

Cats were soon invited onto ships and soon became as revered at sea as on land. Sailors believed cats brought good luck, they could raise winds, protect the crew from ghosts or forecast storms. As a result, cats have colonised everywhere from the sub-Antarctic to the tropics. But their cleverest move was into human homes. They can charm humans to get the food, warmth and affection they want but still remain aloof and independent. They show their pleasure by purring. Only small cats can purr while only big cats can roar.

The lion’s roar is among the most frightening of animal sounds. Only the male has a mane, which has often been associated with the sun. The male lion’s role is to defend the pride. There have been many and varied links between lions and humans – Daniel gained fame after surviving being thrown into a lion’s den, while Tarzan and Hercules both killed lions to show their strength. Around the world the lion remains a symbol of dominance. The lion is the only social cat. The male is lazy and leaves the hunting to the lionesses, who cooperate to ambush their prey.

In the wild, lionesses share parental duties and lion cubs are born with spotted coats that fade as they grow. Even a domestic kitten still has the instincts of a wild cat. Female cats move their kittens from place to place at the first sign of danger. Kittens playing are actually learning survival techniques. It takes three years for a tiger cub to grow up into a three-metre-long adult.

If a tiger fell from a height it would land on its feet, just like a housecat. In some Asian countries the tiger is revered as a god and there are also tales of weretigers.

While the tiger is the biggest cat, the cheetah is the fastest. It can change direction without breaking its stride and has a highly flexible spine to help with this. Big or small, cat skeletons are very similar. In the cheetah, the long tail is used as a counterbalance in the chase. Once it reaches its prey, the cheetah trips it up before delivering the fatal bite. Cats always walk and run on their toes. Cheetahs cannot retract their claws like other cats, keeping them out during the chase to provide grip. Their long legs make cheetahs the fastest of all cats, able to accelerate from nought to over a hundred kilometres per hour in three seconds. It can leave a sports car in the dust but only maintain that speed for two hundred metres.

Cat’s eyes have special reflective cells that help them see better at night; the change in pupil shape led some to believe cats could communicate with the dead. A cat’s tail is a mood indicator, wagging it more vigorously as it gets angry. A Manx cat’s moods are a mystery, for it has no tail. Cats lick themselves both to keep their coats immaculate and also to reduce stress and spread scent over their bodies. Whatever their size and shape, cats behave in similar ways and are sometimes thought to be fickle.

The legendary fickleness has been surpassed by cat breeders and feline fashion. Designer domestic breeds with different sizes, colours and coat lengths have been created, visualised in the episode via a literal catwalk of cats parading (from the siamese to the russian blue), as have hybrid big cats in zoos and circuses. Many wild cats have coat patterns to camouflage them from their prey such as the tiger, the jaguar, the snow leopard and the clouded leopard. Black panthers are actually a black leopard and camouflaged at night in the dim rainforest. Despite differences in coat pattern, all cats share a tear stripe at the corner of each eye. Many also have an eye-spot behind the ear to be flashed in communication and deter attack from behind. The same method has been used by forestry workers to deter tiger attacks. The lynx changes its coat from a long winter one to a shorter summer one.

While cats are still very independent, they do accept a helping hand from man. It was Isaac Newton who created the cat-flap. Throughout history cats mean different things to different people. In the Middle Ages they were accomplices to witches, a black cat can be either bad or good luck and they are popular folktale characters. In cartoons, the cunning mouse outsmarts the cat but reality throws this notion out of the window. Big or small, the cat remains a supreme predator.

## Animal species filmed for the programme

### Studio footage

* Tiger, *Panthera tigris*
* Domestic cat, *Felis catus*
* Carrion crow, *Corvus corone*
* Leopard, *Panthera pardus*
* Cheetah, *Acinonyx jubatus*
* Lion, *Panthera leo*
* House mouse, *Mus musculus*

### Stock footage

* Caracal, *Caracal caracal*
* Ocelot, *Leopardus pardalis*
* Leopard, *Panthera pardus*
* Margay, *Leopardus wiedii*
* Domestic cat, *Felis catus*
* Tiger, *Panthera tigris*
* Fishing cat, *Prionailurus viverrinus*
* Lion, *Panthera leo*
* Jaguar, *Panthera onca*
* Serval, *Leptailurus serval*
* African savannah hare, *Lepus victoriae*
* Plains zebra, *Equus quagga*
* Blue wildebeest, *Connochaetes taurinus*
* Yellow-billed kite, *Milvus aegyptius*
* European pine marten, *Martes martes*
* Black rat, *Rattus rattus*
* Cheetah, *Acinonyx jubatus*
* Geoffroy’s cat, *Leopardus geoffroyi*
* Eurasian lynx, *Lynx lynx*
* Thomson’s gazelle, *Eudorcas thomsonii*
* Sand cat, *Felis margarita*
* African wildcat, *Felis lybica*
* Snow leopard, *Panthera uncia*
* Indochinese clouded leopard, *Neofelis nebulosa*
* Impala, *Aepyceros melampus*
* Bobcat, *Lynx rufus*
* African buffalo, *Syncerus caffer*

## Stock footage sources

* The Jungle Book (1942) - Tiger attack
* Life on Earth: The Hunters and the Hunted (1979) - Lion hunting wildebeest
* Pets in the Wild: Tiger on the Tiles (1988) – Multiple clips: Geoffroy’s cat claw-sharpening, bobcats, domestic cat grooming
* The Great Rift: Footprints in the Valley (1989) – Lion hunting zebra
* Natural World: Vietnam – the Country not the War (1991) – Clouded leopard
* The Velvet Claw: Sharpening the Tooth (1992) - *Smilodon* animation

## Credits

* Producer - Yvone Ellis
* Director - Gavin Maxwell
* Graphics Designer - Alisa Robbins
* Writers - George Bloom and Brian Meehl
* Camera - Dominique Grosz and Mark Payne-Gill
	+ Assistant - Andy Shillaber
* Set Design - Ben Scott
* Production Manager - Peter Thorton
* Assistant - Louise Dawe-Lane
* Production Secretaries - Cathy Wilkin and Caroline Elston
* Unit Manager - Grant Dean
* Picture Researcher - Martin Wills
* Graphics Designer -Richard Higgs
* Editors
	+ Offline - Chriss Godden
	+ Online - Sharon Stiles
* Dubbing Editor - Julie Mitchell
* Dubbimg Mixer - Andrew Wilson
* Music - Guy Michelmore
* Exectuve Producer - Michael Bright,

## Making this programme

The making-of documentary begins showing how the set is painted white to provide a neutral background on which more detail can be observed. When filming the big cats, the cameraman was kept in a filming box. The tigers had half-an-hour to acclimatise and the set was managed to make the animals comfortable, both for their welfare and to ensure the shoot was a success. For the opening segment, the tiger was enticed with meat to jump on top of the cameraman’s filming box. The tiger was then filmed against a blue background, which could be changed in the computer to the city background. This blue background was also overlaid with a stormy sea in the ship cat sequence. The mouse was on a different set with just a piece of rope and the blue screen. To make it appear as if the mouse is eaten by the cat, some cat food is hidden behind the cannonballs in the ship scene. By combining animals shot against white, blue and natural backgrounds, the grace and beauty of the cats are brought into sharp focus.

## Errors and corrections

* The episode says that cats first started to evolve around 500 million years ago. This corresponds with the Cambrian Explosion during the Ordovician period, when complex life made its first big appearance. The first cats actually evolved around 25 million years ago, during the Oligocene.
	+ It can be presumed the script said ***5***0 million years ago, closeer to the correct date, and Andrew Sachs mispoke.

## Further Information

* The poem the narrator quotes at the begining is by Arthur SJ Tessimond, simply titled *Cats*.
* The music for the episode is in jazz.

## Home media releases

As well as being released on VHS, Cat was also released as part of the DVD release in the USA.

Cat America-release DVD cover

**Writing staff**: Anne MacLeod • Ben Southwell • Ben Steiner • Brian Meehl • David Hanson • David Stafford • David Helton • George Bloom • Lynette Singer • Mike Tomlinson • Paul Thomas • Stan Cullimore
**Directors**: Gavin Maxwell • Justine Kershaw • David Hutt • Andrew Jackson • Justin Hardy • Ludo Graham • Jerry Foulkes • Derek Hall • Sanjida O'Connell • Caius Julyan • Bonni Cohen • Leanne Pooley • Edwina Vardey • Alexandra Beazley • Sam Hodgkin • Karen Walsh • Jack Weber • Richard Simkin • Alex Hearle • Brian Cummins • Ben Southwell
**Composers**: Guy Michelmore (season one) • Guy Dagul (seasons two and three)

**Season One**: **Cat** • Fish • Horse • Dog • Jungle • Bird • Amphibian • Insect • Shark • Elephant • Reptile • Dinosaur • Skeleton
**Season Two**: Desert • Tree • Ape • Mammal • Butterfly and Moth • Volcano • Rock and Mineral • Seashore • Pond and River • Weather • Arctic and Antarctic • Prehistoric Life • Shell
**Season Three**: Flight • Bear • Sight • Island • Survival • Mountain • Monster • Human Machine - Plant • Ocean • Planets • Life • Natural Disasters