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

[0:12] Speaker 2: Welcome to the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we're going to do it. Today is episode number 13. Now the number 13 is either a symbol of good fortune or a cursed number, and that's how I feel about this cat. Today, I'm finally going to do it. I'm covering Peter.

[0:33] Speaker 3: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the wrong one died. I'm the wrong one died.

[0:49] Speaker 2: Welcome to the wrong cat died. The podcast breakdown of the cat's aastrophe. Today we're gonna talk about my best feline friend, Peter. Normally, I nickname Peter, but let's be honest, Peter doesn't deserve it. So here we go. Where to even start with Peter? Well, let's start with this. I consider myself pretty good at using the Google machine, but I don't care how good you are at searching on Google or how deep you dig into the cats fandom online, you will not find a single written word on Peter. That's right, he does not exist on the interwebs, even the cats wiki fandom page, yes, the website, which has over 4600 pages devoted to cats, doesn't have a Peter page. That's right. This website has an entire page devoted to Gilbert. Now, who's Gilbert? You might be asking, Gilbert is an acrobatic Siamese cat who plays the lead in growl Tigers last stand in only the Japanese production of Cats. Gilbert is featured in a kung fu fight with growl tiger with swords and nunchucks. Gilbert ends up slaying growl tiger in the number and that's the end. I'll be honest, Gilbert sounds pretty awesome, but he's on stage for one fight in only one country's production, and even Gilbert has a page on the Wikipedia site and Peter does not that is how worthless Peter is. But I'm covering Peter. Anyways. I'm covering him because it's my obligation to listeners to do so, since there are basically no written words on Peter. And Christopher ger who played Peter in the 2016 revival, would not give me Peter's backstory. I'm going to have to just make it up before I do that. Let's cover the only real things we know about Peter. We know he's listed in the naming of the cats, and that he dances in the opening number. After that, he disappears, and the actor goes on to play bus for Jones and Gus. That's it. I guess we can cue the outro music and call this the shortest episode ever. Nah, that's boring. That wouldn't be fun. So let's make up some stories about Peter. Let's start with how TS Eliot decided to name the cats. You know, he picked names like rum, tug Tugger, Mr. Staffles, Jenny, any doubts and Peter? So here's my theory on how Peter got his name in 1938 TS Eliot, the writer, was invited to a charity auction to fight hunger. Since you know, this is like during the Great Depression, being a charitable man, TS Eliot decided to offer up a prize for the live auction. That prize allowed the highest bidder to name the final cat, and the naming of the cats a new poem he was working on this event was the who's who of the 30s movie stars like Clark Gable and Will Rogers were all in attendance, but they were all outbid by the one and only Shirley Temple. Many of you might not know this, but Shirley Temple was notorious for throwing away money on tax write offs. Shirley had just come out of school studying Russian emperors, and when asked what name she wanted to be included in the poem, she blurted out, Peter the Great. But TS Eliot realized that this cat was going to be so insignificant in the poem that calling him great would be blasphemous, so he just named him Peter, once blessed into the poems Andrew Lloyd Webber had to include him in the story, because how are you going to have a cat orgy in the opening number if you don't have 25 or more cats on stage? And after that opening number, Peter hits a fork in the road, and this is where I come in. Now I want to give you four scenarios on what could possibly happen to Peter after he dances his one dance, with each scenario getting less and less plausible for what actually happens to Peter. So let's kick it off with my first theory, and this is what I actually think happens to Peter. As we know. Peter is here for the orgy and the naming of the cats, and then he goes home. And where's Peter's home? His home is a phallic shaped, freshest big boy that floats throughout her space in this scenario, Peter's full name is Mr. Peter bigelsworth, and he is the ugly, worthless cat of Dr Evil in the Austin Powers movies. He makes an appearance for only a few seconds on screen to help the real actors perform, and then he disappears. He's completely forgotten about and nearly dies a bunch of times. Except, you know, in cat. Stein's a positive thing, so maybe he just becomes a distant memory. Get it. Memory. Nailed it. My second theory hinges on the entire cat's murder competition being like, America's Got Talent. Something I've said over and over on this podcast, if you've never seen the show, this is how it generally works. People come up in front of judges and perform just about anything they want that they're going to deem as a talent in the early stages, producers usually mix in some really great performances with some really horrific performances. That would be Peter dancing. However, what if they decided to keep him on staff between the scenes, Peter could be the one setting up stages between performances, cleaning up all the cat crap, or putting down protective mats for when there's a fight scene about to happen, you know, like with monk in the cavity. Peter proved he's worthless beyond the opening number. So he's just a stage hand after so here's how that would work out in the play. Peter would finish his dance number and get ready to help Jenny Andy dots first, her number involves her shedding her big coat into her skimpy tap dance number. So Peter would be the invisible one helping her remove the coat and get off stage. He's then the one that hands bust for Joan, his pimp cane, and puts out the stool for Gus to sit on. He's basically the one backstage pulling Grizabella into the heavy side layer on that tire swing. Basically no one sees Peter after the opening number. He's always doing something to keep his worth, and that's the only reason Andrew Lloyd Webber kept him in the musical. My third theory comes from an Instagram follower named Brielle. So thank you, Brielle, for sending this in. I think it's great. Brielle's theory is that Peter is a spy from a cavity. So I want to expand on this, because I love it. This theory essentially makes Peter mccavity sidekick. Sidekicks really have two main functions in a TV show or a movie. One would be to counteract the main character by giving a different perspective and two to be the agent of emotional growth for that main character. Now this takes a little liberty that we're going to call Macavity a main character, but assuming that these are both true, here's how I envision Peter's storyline going behind the scenes of Macavity. After Peter finishes dancing in the background unnoticed, he follows Macavity around as Macavity hatches out all of his evil plans, Peter is the snitch telling stories in McCabe's ear. He's saying things like some monk and demeanor behind the trash cans getting frisky. Want me to take care of him, boss. Unfortunately, mccavity is busy breaking every human law and ignores Peter. Basically, Macavity is not there. Macavity will never be Batman and Peter is only Robin in spirit, meaning he's never going to get his own movie. The reality is mccavity and Peter are more like pinky in the brain, with Macavity being a smart but devilish cat and Peter being the dim wit that becomes lovable just because of how worthless he is. And you know how every pinky in the brain episode ends and ends with him failing, just like Macavity failed to beat Grizabella and Peter failed to even get a page on the wiki, fandom site, a site that covers everyone, including Gilbert. My last theory is my most blasphemous, but also my favorite, and I'll dig a little bit deeper into this in the rumor mill. But here's my teaser. There's one Peter parallel that I doubt was intentional, but still raises an interesting question for me. So as you know, Peter is one of Jesus's 12 disciples and Saint Peter guards the gates of heaven. Is it possible that Peter was picked as one of the cat's names, as a weird shout out to be the guardian of the heavens? Maybe, just maybe, Peter is actually more powerful than Old Deuteronomy. Old Deuteronomy might have the power to decide who ascends to the heavy side later. But what if Peter decides who gets in. Maybe Peter is only in the first number because after the competition starts, he has to head to his post. He can't stay down with the living cats, since he has to go protect the gates to the heavy set layer. And if that's the case, do we think that Peter is actually letting Grizabella in? I'm going to dig deeper into this later, because I have a theory on how this actually unfolds, but this is my favorite Peter question, so stay tuned. How does Peter's song differ from the poem? Well, first off, calling it Peter's song is blasphemous, but let's cover the naming of the cats from a song and poem perspective, it's nearly completely true to the poem, except they cut out one section, and that section reads, there are fancier names, if you think they sound sweeter, some for the gentleman, some for the dames, such as Plato atoms, Electra Demeter, but all of them sensible, everyday names. I completely get why they cut this out. It just lists a few more names and ends the same way as a section right before it. It was a pretty simple cut. My real problem with this song is, why did Peter get picked over James? Both are disciples. This is giving more credibility to my last Peter theory that he's guarding the gates of heaven. Also, I didn't see Gilbert's name listed anywhere in the naming of the cats who named Gilbert. Maybe that's my next question I need to answer. Let's dig into some real and fictional characters for Peter. I've already given a bunch of pop culture parallels, but since Peter is the worst character of the musical, I'm going to give you some other questionable characters from TV and movies. Up first is scrappy doo. Scrappy. Do is Scooby. Doo is annoying nephew. Scrappy is consistently ranked one of the worst characters of all time. It reminds me of Peter in the sense that he's a. Annoying and barely involved in the show, basically scrappy. Is the dog version of Peter the cat. Up next is Jean Ralph's twin sister, Mona Lisa, and Parks and Rec. Mona Lisa lacks any work ethic and takes naps all the time. Even her own twin brother calls her the worst person in the world. She's constantly drinking and doing drugs and is only in seven episodes, so just like Peter should sleep on the job and barely useful, up next is Peter on friends. Because if Peter was on friends, he'd definitely be Marcel the monkey. I never understood why Marcel was a plot line in friends to begin with. They already have six main characters and cameos from just about every major star in the world. Adding in a monkey was unnecessary and kind of cheesy. And I love friends, but Peter is the epitome of being a worthless character in a show that already has way too many leads. And last but not least, Peter is either Nicky or Mikey on Good morning Miss bliss. If you don't remember Good morning Miss bliss, you might remember the show. It became Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell became a cult classic that went on for years and years, creating infamous characters, kind of like cats, well, well, just like Peter, Nicky and Mikey were there in the beginning and then disappeared without any explanation during the rest of the show's history. I guess we can say Nikki and Mikey are Peter and Gilbert. Welcome to the internet rumor mill. Seriously, there isn't a single written word on Peter, so I have nothing to base any of this off of. So I apologize that this section is shorter than normal, but I promise to dig into that one theory a little deeper. But before I do that, let's start with the astrology sign. I don't have my handicaps astrology sign page because remember, Peter does not exist on the internet, so I had to do my own research into what sign fits Peter based on cats astrology. Here's my best guess. Peter is a Libra. Why a Libra? According to Cat time, which has an incredibly detailed breakdown of cats astrology, signs, a Libra cat is indecisive, often starting projects and not finishing them. That sounds just like Peter, who starts the show but doesn't finish it. So I'm deeming Peter a Libra. And now let's go to the cat's family tree. Here'd be my best guesses. I only have two. The first is who would be Peter's dad? Peter's dad has to be one of four choices. The first two are obvious to me, which is Old Deuteronomy or Macavity. Old Deuteronomy is the OG and I have a feeling he's the default dad for basically every cat, if we don't know cavity, is also older and has a lot of abusive relationships, which would be the kind of upbringing that would create a monster like Peter. But a big part of me actually thinks he might be Gus kid. Since the same actor plays Gus and Gus is one of the oldest cats, I guess that same theory could be said for bus for Jones too. Maybe Peter could be the bastard child of bus for Jones, who was abandoned at birth and sent to Dr Evil. Either way, those are my four guesses. Now my other cast family tree theory stemmed from what I teased earlier. Let's do a little math. If Peter truly is the guardian of the heavy side lair and Grizabella does die at the end of the show, despite me not liking it, that means that Grizabella and Peter meet at the end of every night. Now let's add in something we learned in Grizabella is Episode 10. In that episode, we learn that there's a potential baby Grizz in the opening number, but baby Grizz is only in that opening number. Logic makes you think that Andrew Lloyd Webber needed bodies for his dance orgy, but I think that Peter brings baby Grizz down to dance in the opening number as a foreshadowing for each night. That's right. Think about it this way, each night the show starts with baby Grizz, who's the ghost of the dead Grizabella, and Peter, who's the keeper of the heavy, sad lair, dancing with all of the potential contestants. Peter is basically the ghost of cats must pass, showing a young Grizabella her future. Peter and Grizz are actually translucent the rest of the show, as Peter explains to Grizabella each cat's audition and why she ultimately wins. So I'm putting this out there right now. If cats ever want to do their own version of wicked where Grizabella tells her side of the story. Peter showing Grizabella around would be the perfect story arc to follow theory over. Okay, I lied. I got one more rumor. I'm assuming Peter is Gilbert's brother. Let's dig into Peter's YouTube comments. Since Peter doesn't have a song, had to go with naming of the cats, and there's not a lot there. So here's what I found. Ian duty. Now look at your cat looking at you. I don't know why Ian's comment made me laugh, but it did. Parker e rich, why does this feel like I'm being initiated into a call? Well, Parker, it's because you are welcome to the junk tribe. Daniel Hammonds, there's one character in the scene that wasn't in the rest of the musical. Well, Daniel, there's actually a couple, and one of them is Peter. So thanks for noticing. And last but not least, the Terminator. I'm never naming a cat of mine a normal name again. Well, Terminator, that's unless you pick Peter or maybe Gilbert. So why does Peter deserve to die over Grizabella? He doesn't enough. Said, quick counter, as amazing as Peter is, well, Peter is amazing. I'd pet Gilbert before I pick Peter to ascend to the Heaviside Layer. Long live Gilbert. So how do I rate Peter on a scale of one to nine cat lives? I give Peter negative nine cats, but I give Gilbert one cat. Thanks for listening to Episode 13 about Peter on the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's Tasha fee to follow along, you can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died, or check us out on our website, the wrong cat died.com. You.