The Cat Came Back - Television Tropes & Idioms

You can fly to the other end of the world, and know you'll only find, that I've reserved the seat behind you, we can talk about old times.

— Marillion, "The Uninvited Guest"

But the cat came back, the very next day, the cat came back, they thought he was a goner but the cat came back, he just wouldn't stay away.

— The Cat Came Back, Harry S. Miller

Bob saved Alice's life. Alice then voluntarily and happily worships and takes care of Bob constantly to pay him back. This drives Bob crazy. Crazy enough to try and get away from Alice, but he is doomed to fail. If he gets on a bus, or a plane, or a boat, as soon as he reaches the destination, Alice will be waiting for him, holding the sweater she knitted for him, as well as a tray of his favorite food. Alternatively, Bob could barricade himself in an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, and just as he finishes hammering in the last nail, he realises Alice has been standing next to him all along, handing him the nails.

This uses a comic version of Offscreen Teleportation. If you're dealing with an object of similar tenacity see Clingy Mac Guffin. Compare The Thing That Would Not Leave.

The trope is named after the song and cartoon

The Cat Came Back, where a man desperately tries to get rid of a cat, but no matter what he does to get rid of the thing, the cat comes back "the very next day" (and brings massive misfortune to anyone who tried to take it away).

With just a tiny tweaking, such a plot can easily go from comedic into horror territory: variations of the story of the demon (or corpse) you just can't get rid of no matter what you try...

Examples:

Anime and Manga

Early in Love Hina, Keitaro and Naru both go on a trip to the same place on the same train in an attempt to get away from each other.

Comic Books

More than one comic in Archie Comics has centered on this with regards to Mr. Lodge or Professor Weatherbee trying to get away from Archie. Fly to Rome, he's for some reason hustling tips at the cafe. Head for Japan, he's three rows ahead of you in the audience at the Kabuki. Has driven Mr. Lodge over the edge into temporary mental collapse.
"You will not find The Phantom; he will find you." - Old Jungle Saying
If Batman gets on someone's case, there is no shaking him. Well, there was that one guy, but he had to go through three clubs and two subways.
- And when he came back home Batman was waiting for him there.
The Buck Godot Zap Gun For Hire graphic novel PSmIth has fun with this one. A man shows up at the bar with a gun, ready to shoot the bartender. He is defeated, and thrown into the "sleep room". Then it happens again. And again. After thirteen times, the robot that's been taking the man to the sleep room complains that he can't do it again because the room is full. Further investigation shows that thirteen identical clones with a Hive Mind have all tried to kill the bartender.
In the Tintin comics, Captain Haddock can never escape opera singer Bianca Castafiore. If she doesn't show up in person to plague his life, a Tibetan porter or a Middle Eastern trader will be listening to her singing the Jewel Song on the radio at ear-splitting volume. Cue cursing from Haddock.

Film

Lampshaded in The Emperors New Groove: while chasing the heroes, villainess Yzma and her lackey Kronk plunge into a chasm. The heroes then race back to her secret lab in Kuzco's palace, where they find the two pursuers waiting for them. When they ask how she managed this, Yzma looks startled and turns to ask "How did we, Kronk?" Kronk pulls down a map detailing said plunge and says, "You got me. By all accounts, it doesn't make sense."
- Of course, if you look closely, you'll see that they got there first by falling directly into the crocodile pit adjacent to the lab.
In Up, after Carl tries to get rid of Dug and Kevin, they each show up exactly where he and Russel were running to. Of course, they are an old man and a kid with a house tied to their backs versus a hyperactive dog and a very fast bird.
"You have saved our lives. We are eternally grateful!"
- WILL YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!
No teleportation, but in What About Bob? Richard Dreyfuss' character cannot escape Bill Murray's character.
Weekend at Bernie's
Played for laughs masquerading as horror with the doll in Doom House.
The film Malicious is an example of the "horror" variation of this trope. Bonus points for featuring Molly Ringwald naked in it.
In Redemption, a Perestroika-era Georgian film, the body of the local Party official keeps getting dug up and left exposed no matter how often people put it back in its grave.

Literature

The first Harry Potter book features the Dursleys being dogged by magical postal owls in this fashion.
- Taken to its logical conclusion in The Film, where Harry looks out the window, while Uncle Vernon is happily spouting about how "there's no post on sunday." Their lawn, car, and roof are covered in owls, as are the neighbors' lawns, cars, and roofs, and their neighbors' lawns, cars, and roofs, and so on. The entire subdivision is besieged with owls, all to get Harry his acceptance letter. All while Hedwig's Theme plays quietly and cheekily in the background.
Appears in Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22. Yossarian spends much of the second half of the book trying to escape Nately's Whore, going to such lengths as to take her up in a plane, fly over Italy, strap a parachute to her back and kick her out (over German held territory), only to return to Pianosa and find she's already waiting for him.
The early Discworld book The Light Fantastic has an extremely elderly wizard preparing an elaborate method of escaping Death. The last step is climbing into a tiny airtight box and locking it from the inside. Just as he settles down, he hears a voice in his ear: Dark in here, isn't it?
- Inverted with the Igors, who stay out of your way most of the time but appear behind you right when you need them.
  - In Going Postal, an employer of an inquiring turn of mind stands in front of a bear trap and calls for his Igor. He hears the bear trap go off, then turns around to see an uninjured Igor holding the sprung trap. Igor tells him this isn't the first time, for him or for any Igor; one of his uncles was employed by a man who liked to stand with his back to a pit of spikes when he made the call. Then one day he forgot it was there. Talk about laugh.
- Nanny Ogg claims this tends to happen with magic rings. "How many times have you thrown a magic ring into the deepest depths of the ocean and then, when you get home and have a nice bit of turbot for your tea, there it is?". Granny however claims this has never actually happened.
- Also shows up in Guards! Guards! which has the villain at the end of the book futilely fleeing from the supposedly imprisoned Vetinari.
Wednesday at the beginning of American Gods.
No matter how much the nameless protagonist protests and runs, Sam-I-Am will always be just around the corner to attempt to get him to try the eponymous dish...

Live Action TV

In addition to the animated cartoon mentioned above, the trope-naming song was also memorably featured in a sketch on The Muppet Show.
Neds Declassified School Survival Guide: Two episodes have Ned facing this from his mad Clingy Jealous Girl Missy.
- Also, there's one other episode where Missy's cheating off of another girl, and when the other girl moves her paper so Missy can't see it, Missy's instantly on the other side of her and continues to copy the answers. Or So I Heard
- The girl was Moze, one of the Three Amigos. Or...so I heard. From my brother who may or may not exist. Who would watch these kind of shows. So...Yeah
- It's okay. We love you anyway.
A rather literal instance of this happened in the pilot episode of Early Edition, when Gary, trying to evade the newspaper-bringing cat, left town and went to a very remote area. The cat had no problem at all finding him and delivering his paper.

Music

A bizarre Randy Travis song, "What'll You Do About Me", features the narrator having a Cowboy And The Lady-esque one-night stand and becoming a stalker afterwards. Sample lyrics: "You can change your number, you can change your name, you can ride like hell on a midnight train. That's all right, mama, that's okay, but what'll you do about me?"
- Nickelback sings a similar song, "Follow You Home", where the stalked girl rigs a car without brakes and buries the stalker to try and escape, among other things.
The novelty song Little Blue Man in which a woman is continuously stalked by a Little Blue Man who professes his love for her. Finally she drops him off a building in desperation, only to have him return one last time to announce that he doesn't love her anymore.
Paul Dehn's poem Mrs. Ravoon, memorably set to music by Tom Mastin. "You are too much with me, late and soon."
"You'll never get rid of the *boom-boom-boom* no matter what you do!"

Video Games

In Final Fantasy VII, Cloud attempts to sneak out of Aerith's house during the night because her mother told him to leave before she goes with him on a dangerous trek through the slums. He sneaks past her bedroom as she's sleeping, sprints across the Sector...only to find her waiting for him at the entrance to the next area, earning a well-deserved gesture of shock from Cloud. But how...you were...and I ran...
In Clock Tower for the SNES, when you are being chased by Scissor Man, if you duck into an elevator, when you reach the floor you were heading for, Scissor Man will step out of the nearby room. I doubt this was intended as part of the game, but it is certainly freaky if you don't expect it.
In The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, the Staff of the Everscamp compels whoever has it to never let go of it, and whoever holds it is followed by four daedric (demonic) scamps, though they do nothing more than follow the owner (and emit a terrible odor). The only way to get rid of the staff is for someone else to willfully take it, or to return it to its shrine.

Web Original

From The Grand List of Console Role Playing Game Cliches:
'Most villains in RPGs possess some form of teleportation. They generally use it to materialize in front of the adventurers when they reach the Obligatory Legendary Relic Room and seize the goodies just before you can. The question "if the bad guy can teleport anywhere at any time, then why doesn't (s)he just zip in, grab the artifact, and leave before the adventurers have even finished the nerve-wracking puzzle on the third floor?" is never answered. '
- For the lulz, I suspect.

Webcomics

Done in this strip from Girly.

Western Animation

In the Looney Tunes short Yankee Doodle Daffy, Porky Pig is a talent agent trying to go on vacation, who first has to get away from Daffy Duck, who is trying to convince Porky that his young client "Sleepy LaGoon" has star quality, mainly by demonstrating his apparent talents himself.
- A similarly-themed cartoon has Daffy trying to evade "The Little Man from the Draft Board", who even follows him into Hell.
- Subverted in the Bugs Bunny short "Tortoise Beats Hare." it wasn't the original tortoise that kept inexplicably escaping Bugs' methods of leaving him behind. It was a series of identical tortoises which the first one bribed to screw with him.
- Pepe LePew. No matter where that poor cat goes, Pepe is there to hold her in his arms.
- That red hairy monster was also quite persistent in following Bugs in that one cartoon.
  - Oh, you mean Gossamer!
Droopy is an undisputed master of this trope.
- Of course, there often was more than one of him.
The Warner siblings on Animaniacs are fond of doing this as well. Apparently, they can even bi-locate (stand in two positions at the same time in the same room).
- They meet their match in the short Chairman of the Bored, in the form of Francis "Pip" Pumphandle, who follows them home and only leaves when his monotonous anecdote is complete. At the end they decide they actually miss him, and chase after him, wanting to hear more of his stories.
Happened in an episode of The Simpsons — Bart and Lisa escape from Mr Burns through a laundry chute, only to find him waiting for them when they hit the ground. Lampshaded when Bart incredulously points out that it's physically impossible for Burns to have arrived first.
In Sponge Bob Square Pants, the titular character actually so annoys his attempted murderer, the Tattletale Strangler, that he locks himself in prison to get away from SpongeBob.
A Running Gag in Garfield And Friends, where Garfield will often send the annoyingly-cute Nermal off to Abu Dhabi, but he will find his way back into Garfield's house just seconds later.
Dexters Laboratory had a pretty standard version of this one in the episode "The Continuum of Cartoon Fools", in which Deedee repeatedly found ways to get into Dexter's Lab, and only by figuring out the obvious entrance Deedee could use every time to get inside (the secret book case entrance) could Dexter seal her off once and for all. The kicker? He locked himself out of the lab. He then spends the last thirty seconds or so of the cartoon going on a tirade about how he's no better than "that crazy coyote or that stupid duck".
The robin in Krypto the Superdog, whose desire to be Bat-Hound's partner drives the normally implacable Caped Canine to hide in Krypto's spaceship with the lights out.
In an episode of Recess, a kid follows the Recess gang around causing bad luck. They do everything they can to lose him, but he always catchs up (usally with a Cat Comes Back type moment). Vince boots a ball all the way to China and tells the kid to retieve it. The gang think hes gone, only for him to come back from China a few seconds later, with a hat and a bowl of food.
- They bullied The Flash?!
In the Phineas And Ferb episode "Perry Lays an Egg", Perry the Platypus discovers Dr. Doofensmirtz's latest scheme is simply to ridicule the whale who stole one of his old girlfriends, and promptly turns around with an annoyed look on his face. Dr. Doofensmirtz has to chase Perry down in this manner and demand Perry thwart his "evil scheme". "I just insulted the macaroni and cheese recipe of a whale! How is that not evil?"
In FlashForward, Dr. Benford has a vision of the future in which she's having an affair with another man, who turns out to be the father of a boy under her treatment. To try to avoid this, she transfers the boy to another department, but he's promptly transferred back. (episode "Black Swan")
Lampshaded in an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where Shake, Frylock and Meatwad attempt to rid themselves of a murderous ventriloquists' dummy, only for it to reappear every time they look away. Their final attempt to get rid of it involves Shake burning it with a flame thrower while Frylock and Meatwad watch several surveillance monitors looking in every direction. The dummy then appears from above in a parachute.