Aren't you a little young to be jellicle cats?note
References to Cats in media.
Asian Animation
- Bread Barbershop: In "Choco's Blind Date", Choco gets tickets to Cats. Only since this setting has almost every character be Anthropomorphic Food, it's called Catcakes instead.
- The Punch-Out!! fanfic Shining and Sweet has a smoothie place called Jellicle Slurps, and the chapter it's introduced in is called "Jellicle Slurps for Jellicle Boysnote ".
- Sorrowful and Immaculate Hearts: "Stolen Moments" reveals that Bruce has names for all the stray cats that live in the woods behind Wayne Manor. Names like "Mistoffelees" and "Jennyanydots".
- The Turning Red fanfic The Great Red Panda Rescue
it's implied Priya is a fan of the musical. When asking her friends if she should audition for the school musical, Miriam encourages her. She reminds her of the summer she was into the musical about people dressed in fursuits and sang about who deserved to die.
- Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022): In the "Uncanny Alley" scene, Chip and Dale spot two humanoid cats fighting like actual alley cats.
- Jersey Girl: Every single student in Gertie's school talent show chooses to perform "Memory," except Gertie herself, who instead performs "God, That's Good!" from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Ollie considers the show to be the second worst thing to ever happen to New York.
- Keep the Change (2017): Sarah wants to sing a song from Cats at the drama club meeting.
- The Marvels (2023): The montage of Goose and her kittens devouring S.A.B.E.R. workers to evacuate them off the station is appropriately set to "Memory".
- The Terminal: Victor plans to see Cats while he's in New York City. When he arrives, he learns that not only is he not allowed to leave the airport due to a civil war in his home country, but Cats has been canceled.
- Appointment with F.E.A.R. have the protagonist, Jean, watching an opera of "Rats" revolving around a group of andromorphic rats who sing songs while living in garbage, a parody of Cats.
- The Animal Naming Conventions in Tailchaser's Song are based off of those in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Cats have three names: a casual "heart name", a selective "face name" that only their close ones know, and their "tail name", which is a secretive name no one but the cat knows.
- Unwind contains the line "There’s a theater on the next street playing a revival of Cats, which mankind will likely have to suffer through for the rest of eternity."
- An episode of Adam Ruins Everything features a Cats parody when Adam discusses cats.
- ALF: In "Isn't it Romantic?", Willie tells ALF that he and Kate are going out to see a musical. ALF hates the idea of musicals because he is annoyed by people bursting into song. When Kate tells him that the musical they're seeing is Cats, ALF wants to come along so that he can go backstage and eat the actors after the show.
- Angel. Angel tells Fred to pretend to be a vampire for a sparring session. Fred raises her hands like claws and lets out a fierce growl. Angel is not impressed. "You're a vampire. You're not starring in Cats."
- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: The episode "I Need Some Balance" has a series of parodies of Cats; it has also been established in-universe as Rebecca's least favorite musical.Rebecca: Go away, itchy cat! Scram! Stop ruining my vagina like you ruined musicals!
- In the Glee episode "New York", Rachel tells the other Glee club members that she bought tickets to the musical for them all. Quinn reminds her that Cats had closed about 11 years previously.Rachel: He [the guy she brought the tickets from] did seem crazy. He charged my credit card by swiping it through his butt crack.
- One Muppets Tonight episode features a joke about Bats: The Musical.
- The penultimate episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt features Titus earning a role in Cats, only to discover their secret.
- On Caroline in the City, neighbor Annie is a cast member of Cats.
- Henry Danger: In the Musical Episode, Ray mentions that he was once in a musical about cats. Charlotte guesses it was Cats, but Ray refuses to confirm this.
- The Nanny references Cats as one of the many (great) plays that Mr. Sheffield had turned down in his course as a theatre producer.
- In Six Degrees of Separation, Paul, a man who claims he's the illegitimate son of Sidney Poitier, cons his way into the lives of several characters by that claim, along with claims that his father is going to make a live-action movie of Cats, and will arrange parts for all of them. The children of these characters, whom Paul also claims to know, are not amused, especially when it comes to Cats.Tess: You went to Cats. You said it was an all-time low in a lifetime of theater-going.Ouisa: Film is a different medium.Tess: You said Aeschylus did not invent theater to have it end up a bunch of chorus kids wondering which of them will go to Kitty Kat Heaven.
- One of the musicals Nostradamus foresees in Something Rotten! is a musical about dozens of cats dancing across the stage.
- From Angels in America:Roy Cohn: [On the phone to his secretary, who's getting theatre tickets for a client] So, baby doll, what? Cats? Ugh. [On the phone to the client] Cats! It's about cats. Singing cats, you'll love it. Eight o'clock, the theater's always at eight. [To himself] Fucking tourists.
- In the Helluva Boss episode "Truth Seekers", when Blitzo and Moxxie are dosed with truth serum, they start confessing certain secrets to each other. Blitzo confesses that he thinks Moxxie has shitty taste in music.Moxxie: "Shit taste"?! (tears up) You said you liked that musical I recommended to you!
Blitzo: I lied! I left halfway through!
Moxxie: You...you said you loved it!
Blitzo: (in tears) It was awful, Moxxie! It was about ugly, horny cats!! (both of them start to cry)
- Schaffrillas Productions: In his ranking of the DreamWorks Animation movies, he said The Boss Baby made him question his sanity constantly, "and I saw Cats on opening night in theaters." He also confessed that the sight of an overweight Puss in Shrek Forever After now gave him war flashbacks to Rebel Wilson's appearance in the film.
- In the Jake and Amir episode "Doobs" Amir’s childhood friend Doobs auditioned for Cats, and it is revealed that Amir has also tried out for Cats in the past.
- Jacks Films: The 2019 film became an target of Jack before and after the release. Dedicated videos include his honest review, a livestream of his analysis of the trailer, and an episode of YIAY where he asked his viewers to photoshop their ways of fixing the Unintentional Uncanny Valley (solutions include putting them in fursuits, drawing them as anime catgirls/boys, and turning them back into humans).
- Bojack Horseman: In "BoJack Hates the Troops", Princess Carolyn, an anthropomorphized cat and agent of the titular character, apparently has the opening number of Cats as her hold music.
- Centaurworld: The first shot of the cat-taurs, who as a species are themed around performance and musical theater, has them performing a creepy introductory song in the vein of the opening number, until Zulius throws a shoe at them.
- The Critic: Marty Sherman's parade float, an unfinished horse with only the ass done, catches fire and goes out of control, crashing into a showing of Cats.Jay Sherman: And nothing of value was lost!
- Family Guy: In "Brian Does Hollywood", Lois recalls a previous time when Peter disturbed a performance. During a performance of Cats, Peter crashes through a wall, running over one of the performers. He tries to explain that the "cat" just jumped in front of him and he never meant to hit it.
- In the Hey Arnold! episode "Quantity Time", as Big Bob Pataki tries to find ways to connect with Helga, he ends up taking her to a musical called Rats that he mistakenly thought she wanted to go to. However, it ends up working out in the end as both Bob and Helga end up having a great time as they revel in how stupid the musical is.
- Housebroken: The Grey One's housemates introduce themselves to Tabitha with a short parody of the opening song. They apparently regularly perform musical theater numbers to cope with their horrible living situation and prevent themselves from turning to violence.
- The Loud House:
- In "Out of the Picture", one of the Drama Club members is dressed as a Jellicle cat.
- In "Stressed for the Part", Mrs. Bernardo mentions that she was once involved in a lauded production of Kats in 1989.Mrs. Bernardo: Kats with a K, for legal reasons.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: There's a place in Manehattan right in front of a musical theater that resembles Times Square. One of the big advertising posters mounted there is black with a pair of eyes on it, a reference to Cats. The silhouettes in the eyes aren't cats, though, but ponies, and the eyes themselves aren't feline either.
- Phineas and Ferb: During a musical montage in the episode Rollercoaster the Musical, Phineas and Ferb (as well as the chorus girl and back up dancers) appear in a junkyard-esque setting wearing costumes reminiscent of the Broadway version, specifically the 1998 stage film.
- The Simpsons made several take thats at the show:
- One Itchy and Scratchy short has Scratchy see the musical...and then blow his own head off out of boredom.
- Then there's this bit from "Old Yeller Belly":Kent: So, would you consider yourself a cat person, Mr. Simpson?Homer: Yes, I would.Kent: You must really love the musical Cats?Homer: God no, it sucks.
- In the first segment of "Treehouse of Horror XXVI", Sideshow Bob, working as a college professor after finally killing Bart, chastises his students for using Wikipedia to research T. S. Eliot, lamenting "I didn't think the author of Cats could be insulted further."
- C-Bear and Jamal: One episode has the annual class play be Cats...In the Hood. The cast gamefully struggles on with costumes of every animal you can think of ''except'' for cats, until they somehow get cat costumes at the end of the episode.
- Wallace & Gromit appeared in an advert for VisitEngland. Among their holiday snaps is Wallace dragging Gromit to see the musical.
