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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit vpm.fm to discover more.

[0:13] Speaker 2: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm a wrong one die. I'm a wrong one died.

[0:23] Mike Abrams: Welcome to the wrong cat died the podcast. Break down. The cast atrophy. I'm your host, Mike Abrams and I today am re recording a new intro to the old intro as I am nearing my 100th episode, because I have a feeling many of you are finding this podcast for the first time listening to this episode, and the evolution of the show has been pretty dramatic. What started as a 10 episode mini series has turned into a full fledged parody podcast about cats, the musical. The introduction that you're about to hear was is what was recorded back in 2019 ahead of the disaster of a film that Universal decided to release. I agreed to 10 episodes explaining the characters that we were gonna release before the movie came out. Pretty early into those 10 episodes, though, I started to meet former cats cast members and started recording our conversations as I'm nearing now. 100 episodes I've talked to cast members from well over 15 different productions and many other fans of the show. I plan to continue this show for as long as more cast members are willing to record with me, since I feel like I am doing the Jellicle Lord's work by documenting the history of cats and musical from so many different perspectives, what you'll hear next is my original introduction that was written for the 10 additional episodes in 2019 The show is so much more than that now, but I wanted to preserve a little history of the podcast, so here is the original production. Enjoy it, and thank you for listening to the show. Welcome to the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. We're recording live from New York City, and I'm your host, Mike Abrams, this is my podcast about cats. The musical cue, the intro music, there's

[2:07] Speaker 2: a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the wrong one died. I'm the wrong one died. You

[2:23] Mike Abrams: Music. Welcome to the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cats. Tastrophe. For those of you who already know me, you probably know I have extremely strong opinions about cats the musical. Others of you who don't know me, you're probably wondering, What the hell is this going to be all about? And I'll tell you. But before I get into it, I need to give you a little bit of background on how and why we got to this moment today. A little bit about me. I grew up in Indiana and lived in Indiana until 2016 when I moved to New York for a job. I grew up with a pretty standard Indiana sports life. Started playing hockey when I was three years old. Watch nearly every pacer and Colts game have been a league pass subscriber for the NBA for the past 10 years, and the list of sports goes on and on and on and on and on. On top of that, I'm a horrific singer, a terrible dancer. My rapping is way more Weird Al than it is Lin Manuel and I avoided basically every school play growing up by being the tree or just standing in the back mouthing the watermelon without actually seeing the single sound. Long Story Short, I'm not a Broadway Insider. I don't know squad about Broadway but, and a big but here, I have extremely strong opinions about cats, the musical, one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history, written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on poems by TS Eliot. Now, don't get me wrong, just because I'm not a Broadway insider doesn't mean I'm not a Broadway fan. I'm a huge fan of musicals. I've become an even bigger fan since moving to New York. Turns out, living closer to the theater district and being in New York City makes it much easier to attend shows than being in Indianapolis and seeing one of the five traveling shows a year. So when I got to New York in 2016 I decided it was time to see the classics, shows I've never seen I'd never seen Les Mis. I'd never seen wicked I'd never seen fan of the opera, and many more that any theater junkie is going to know, line by line, song by song. So in July of 2016 I decided it was time to see cats. That life changing Saturday matinee show is what brought me to this microphone today. Like many of you, I saw that absolutely terrifying movie trailer, cats, the musical movie comes out this December, and oh my god, that trailer nearly broke the internet. Watching that trailer, I was part horrified, I was part excited, but really I was a whole lot of angry. And you're probably wondering, why angry? How could anybody be mad at that trailer? And the reason I was mad is because it reminded me of that first time I saw the musical and my biggest gripe with it. So what bothered me? Why was I mad? How could something so revolutionizing bring me such anger? I'll tell you. Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the wrong ending. Spoiler alert. Wait, can you actually spoil something that has no plot either way? This is my thesis statement about cats, the musical. Grizabella. Was the wrong cat to die at the end of the play. Now that the movie is about to come out, I need to set the record straight and tell you why I'm right and Grizabella was wrong. I may have only seen the show twice in my life, but I'm ready to defend my thesis podcast and get my cat's PhD. I'm here to put in the time and effort and research so that way I can get you ready for the theater. So you don't have to do this, because no matter what level of a cat's expert you are, you're going to be fully confused come December when you go to the theater. And I want to make sure that you watch the movie from the right lens. I want to make sure that you watch the movie and question why Grizabella is the ultimate winner. Most importantly, I want to make sure you watch the movie and walk out and say, Damn, Mike was right. Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn't know shit over the course of the next few weeks leading up to the movie, I'm going to break down the other cats in the play and tell you why they're more worthy to ascend to the heavy side layer than Grizabella. Now, if you've understood these past few minutes, you've probably seen cats, and you've probably seen it recently. You're not one of the people that saw it as a kid and have no memory of any of it. So if you're one of those people, feel free to jump right into Episode one for everyone else, let me tell you about when I lost my cats virginity, and I'll clue a little bit of a breakdown, so that way you can listen to future episodes and be only somewhat confused. I've only seen the cats the musical twice in my life, both in the past three years and both on Broadway. The first time was the revival in 2016 a friend of mine was able to secure free tickets from the production company for the second to last preview before the show opens. Now, I didn't know anything about previews, dress rehearsals, or actual openings, or anything with that matter, because, again, I'm not a Broadway insider, but I was told it's essentially the last tune up before the quote, unquote true open. So we had Saturday matinee tickets, and I was going to go with my friend. Well, it didn't work out. My friend wakes up horribly sick and lets me know about it about an hour before the show, I now have two free tickets an eighth row center all to myself. It's a rainy Saturday, and shockingly, no one wants to join me. No one wants to drop everything they're doing on a Saturday in New York City to come see cats. Can't believe it. So you know what? I decided to just go by myself, and as I sat down in the theater, I realized I had no idea what I was about to see. So I did what everyone does, and I pulled out my phone, started reading and asking a few friends. And here's the problem, no one knows. No one still knows. The trailer came out and people tried to write plots, and still no one knows. Everyone says it's great, singing, fun, dancing, but it's a very loose plot. There's a tribe of cats called the jellicles, and they have one night where they get together to make the quote, unquote, Jellicle choice, which is basically a decision of which cat gets to die at the end and ascend to the heavy side lair to come back for a new life. The show proceeds to introduce one cat after another, where they sing their song and dance and basically make their case on why they should die. I'll be honest, it felt like an extremely weird competition show. It's like America's Got Talent, except all the performances are humans dressed as cats, and the winner gets to die instead of a million dollars. But that's the entire premise. There's no story arc, there's no climax, there's no conflict of resolution. It's just cat after cat after cat after cat after cat until finally, the wrong one dies. You get to meet old cats, magical cats, railroad cats, rock star cats, fat cats and a bunch of other cats. You get to ignore transitions or plots or any type of dialog that would give you any idea of what's happening. You focus 100% on singing and dancing and scaring the absolute shit out of a bunch of children whose parents should have never brought them to the theater in the first place. Seriously, why do parents bring kids to the show? It is extremely dark and haunted my adult nightmares. I can't imagine seeing it as a child. At the end of the show, Grizabella belts out memory, which is pretty much the only song anyone knows from the show, and ascends to die show over just recapping. It reminds me of how much I dislike that decision, and I'm no longer staying silent on this topic. So over the next few weeks, I'm going to take you cat by cat on a journey to discuss why Grizabella was the wrong choice. I'll break down each cat's plot, their song, fun facts, the extremely concerning internet rumor mill. And yes, there is an internet rumor mill on cats. At the end of the episode, I'll rate the cat on a scale of one to nine. Cat lives deciding how much more they deserve to die over Grizabella join me on this journey as I tell you why the wrong cat died. The podcast breakdown of the cat's tastrophe. The next episode is about the big od himself, Old Deuteronomy. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts, follow us on Instagram and Twitter at the wrong cat died. Or check out our website, the wrong cat died.com. You.