Rip
The villain of Cry of The Cat, the first in the 2000 series (and the only one adapted for TV besides Mary-Ellen) Rip is a cat with literally nine lives. Problem is, he can remember whenever he dies, and now he wants to share his agony with anyone who crosses him.
- Adaptational Ugliness: In the book Rip looks more or less like an ordinary black cat. In the TV episode, he's a hairless, Frankenstein-like revenant more befitting his twisted origins.
- Animal Testing: He's the only survivor of an unholy experiment, although it is not explained why it was being done to begin with.
- Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Said experiments killed his fellow strays, and left him an unstable undead monstrosity. And now he wants the head scientist, (along with her young daughter and that girl's best friend), to suffer as he did.
- Body Horror: His horrific origin and abilities, obviously, but then there's what slowly happens to those he scratches.
- Cats Are Mean: Stine's not fond of them, and with Rip, he could not make that any more obvious.
- Cats Have Nine Lives: And thankfully not more. Using up is ninth life is what finally finishes him off.
- Freudian Excuse: It makes his vicious, vengeful nature initially understandable, but Rip ultimately overshadows this with the horrible lengths he's going to for revenge.
- The Virus: Each scratch of his transfers his DNA into the victim, slowly turning them into human-cat hybrids. And worse, his death doesn't cure this.
- Would Hurt a Child: Hates humans indiscriminately, children included, and will take apparent pleasure in tormenting them if they get in his way.
