Laura and Oliver

I was in the car listening to the radio one day when I heard about auditions for Meow Mix‘s new game show, Meow Mix THINK LIKE A CAT Game Show. The add said, “Team up with your cat! You could appear on national TV! And get the chance to win $1 million and other great prizes! I have a couple of cats, so I decided to take one and audition.

I picked Oliver—aka Pookie, as in Garfield’s stuffed animal—to bring to the audition. Pookie is full grown but still the baby of the family and is very talkative and is the first one to come up to new people who come over to visit.

The auditions were held on Saturday and Sunday, July 26th and 27th. I went on Sunday, and the auditions were open from 12 PM to 6PM at The Prescott Hotel in San Francisco, CA.

The instructions said:

Pack your cat in his best carrier and get to an audition near you. Eight finalists will be flown to Los Angeles where we’ll tape a 30-minute program testing how well they can think like their fellow cat-testants.

What to expect:

• To show off your knowledge of cats with a MULTIPLE CHOICE TEST
• To cheer your cat on as he shows how camera-friendly he is in a SCREEN TEST
• To “play nice” with your cat in a VIDEOTAPED INTERVIEW to see how you interact

So the day of the taping I dressed up, brushed Oliver, and packed him into his big heavy plastic carrier and we set off for San Francisco. San Francisco is about an hour from my home.

Now I set out on my journey with great excitement, Oliver, on the other hand, didn’t quite feel the same. Oliver was meowing and meowing with increasing panic non-stop. After we had been driving about 15 minutes, Oliver used the bathroom in his kitty carrier, number 1 and 2. This was bad news. I pulled over to a gas station, let him out of the carrier, cleaned it all up with some tissue I luckily had in the car, then I put him back safely in the carrier before I opened the door and took all my tissues to a garbage can. So, that problem was solved, except for the cat pee that was still on my hands, but we continued. It was pretty gross!

I was hoping that part of Pookie’s panic had been from needing the bathroom, and that soon he would settle down. That didn’t happen. He continued to cry, whine, and plead all the way there.

We arrived at The Prescott Hotel, which provided free valet parking for contestants. As we entered the auditions were going on immediately to the right. Since Oliver (Pookie) was still meowing they moved us to another area so as not to disturb the audition. Everyone was exceedingly friendly and helpful and wanted to look at and talk to Pookie as well.

They gave me a clipboard of information to fill out. One page was general information including our vets name and phone number, one was a release of information, and can you be available to fly between August 27-30, or something like that. The last page was a multiple choice test.

This multiple choice test was serious. I know cats, I’ve had cats all my life! Even so, I was unprepared for the difficulty of this test. The questions were, “How many bones are in a cat’s body?” The choices were—300, 400, 500. I had no freaking idea?! I picked 500, but I still have no idea if that was correct. Other questions were, “Do cat’s always land on their feet?” and “What makes cat’s eyes glow in the dark?” I just marked something because I honestly had no idea.

As I was filling out all of these papers, Oliver was still meowing. A staff member came by and told the staff member who was helping me to take Oliver in to see the vet—to be evaluated. I stopped taking the test at that point and we went to another room. It seemed to be a waiting room, there were many people sitting around in chairs with their cat carriers, which contained very calm and quiet cats. We were taken to a table at the back where the staff vet was checking over cats. She looked at Oliver and said, “This kitty is very upset, see how he’s cowering?” And although he hadn’t been earlier, he was at that point, after we had set him up on the vet’s table. She then said, “They are only going to pick one cat from today’s audition, only one cat from each city, and I can tell you right now, it’s not going to be yours today. If he is stressed now, he is going to be even more upset when he gets in front of the lights and cameras. I’ll tell you what, if this is something you want to do, start taking your cat out on short trips regularly. Get him used to it.” Then another lady said, “If you don’t mind I’m going to spray some of this spray in front of your cat’s carrier, the scent is supposed to calm them down.” I agreed, she sprayed. I told them both thank you and took Pookie and we left. Everyone still was very nice, and they even gave Pookie swag! He scored! Yes, he got his very own schwag, six pouches of New! Meow Mix Wholesome Goodness cat food.

We went home, and Pookie was still meowing all the way. That spray had zero effect.

What I learned:

1. Be prepared for anything. So glad I had tissue, but baby wipes would have been even better.

2. If you would like to get your pet into show business, take him out often in his carrier on short trips. Pick up the dry cleaning, put gas in the car, pick up something from a friend. Never, ever leave your pet in the car for any extended length of time, it’s dangerous. In fact, the more you take your pet along out of the car, the better.

3. Get a cute, light carrier. So many of the hollywood starlets have made purse pooches an accessory that there are a lot of choices available. My favorite, that I saw on Sunday, was like a large purse frame made out of a raspberry canvas, with a wire screen on all sides and the top. The woman carried her cat in it just like a large tote purse!

So live and learn. It was not a great idea to take a friendly house cat, who has never been out except to the vet, and try to make him a hollywood star.

Pookie is very happy to be home and continues to be the first to greet new guests. He’ll always be a star to me!