David Baddiel has a mission “to fulfil a lifelong dream of spending as much time as possible with cats”. He wants to put felines in the spotlight and challenge common misconceptions about them being “sneaky, evil and lazy”. Baddiel gets stuck in. He meets famous cat influencers such as Atticus – a stunning ragdoll with 96,700 Instagram followers, who was asked by Paramount to perform a promotional motorbike stunt for the latest Mission: Impossible film. He does kitten yoga, hand-feeds two chatty cheetahs and even bathes with lions. It’s every cat person’s dream!
The show’s premise is that cats are popular on social media. The hashtag #catsofinstagram currently has more than 212m posts on Instagram’s mobile app, and #cat ranked among the top 100 trending hashtags. Yet hardly any TV shows are made about cats and their owners. Instead, cat owners, like myself and Baddiel, are often subjected to cruel stereotyping. A few years ago, cat ownership was even mocked by the current US vice-president, JD Vance, who dismissed his rivals in the Democratic party as “childless cat ladies”. Not any more. Enter David Baddiel: Cat Man.
