by Linda Kay

Only a handful of feline actors have been featured in television series over the years, let alone starred in their own show. But one cat managed to feature in two television shows in the 1970’s; as the star of a Saturday morning program and a notable co-star in a prime time series. That cat actor was named Waldo Kitty after his first big role.

Humble Beginnings

Waldo Kitty was a rescue cat, saved from the pound sometime in 1975 by trainer Frank Inn who spotted something special in the orange and white tabby. The background stories of cat actors are hard to piece together since the only information available are articles stemming from press releases which were often embellished to come across as “rags to riches” fairy tales. But Inn was known to adopt and train rescue animals and undoubtedly this was also Waldo’s background. Backed by a team of similar looking cats, each of which specialized in specific actions, Waldo had real star potential and was soon doing commercials.

When Filmation Studios needed a star for one of their new series, Waldo turned out to be the perfect fit. In fact it is possible that Inn was searching for a cat to star in the new program and came across Waldo as a likely candidate, but this we cannot confirm. Inn’s company, Frank Inn, Inc., would also be called upon to provide the other animal stars for this new show.

Filmation started in 1962 when Lou Scheimer teamed with Hal Sutherland to create commercials and movie titles. During this time Lou met Norm Prescott who asked if Filmation could do a project for him called Journey Back to Oz. Lou owned 80% of Filmation and gave Norm half of his share in the company (it’s Scheimer and Prescott’s names you see revolving in a circle with the “Produced by” during Filmation credits). Filmation’s big break came when they were hired to produce Superman cartoons for CBS. After creating many other animated series, many based on popular comic book superheroes, they produced Shazam! in 1974, branching into live action production.

By the summer of 1975 newspapers reported that for the first time Filmation Studios overtook Hanna Barbera as the largest producer of Saturday morning fare with their shows airing on all three networks. The fact that the studio was now producing both animated and live action programming might have accounted in part for the expansion.

For the upcoming 1975 – 1976 season, Lorna Smith, who was head of layouts for several Filmation series, suggested the company create a show featuring cats. An adaptation of James Thurber’s popular story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (first published in The New Yorker Magazine and made into a 1947 film starring Danny Kaye) was greenlit and production began. Walter Mitty is the story of a shy, meek man whose mind often wanders into fanciful daydreams in which he is the brave hero, rescuing fair maidens and bringing down bad guys. It seemed natural to want to rework this idea into a Saturday morning series which was certain to appeal to kids. Plus who could resist the temptation of changing Mitty into Kitty as part of the title?

The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty included both animation and live action. The live action segments featured a cowardly but intelligent ginger and white tabby cat named Waldo (voiced by Howard Morris) who lives in a house owned by a woman named Maureen. His friend and romantic interest (in a strictly Saturday morning sense) is a white Persian named Felicia (voiced by Jane Webb). Their nemesis is a brutish bulldog named Tyrone (voiced by Allan Melvin) owned by their cantankerous neighbor Mr. Wetzel (voiced by Chuck Dawson . . . note that we never actually see the faces of the people in the series).

The live action segments occur at the start and end of every episode with Waldo and Felicia either being bullied by Tyrone themselves or seeing a mutual friend (a yellow canary named Sparrow or a rabbit named Pronto) being victimized. Felicia entreats Waldo to take action against Tyrone but the cowardly kitty shirks in the face of danger. Felicia often steps in herself and becomes the target of Tyrone’s anger, causing Waldo to wish he could be brave and leads into his daydream.

The live action melts into an animated segment in which Waldo takes on one of five well-known heroes in cat form: Cat Man (Batman), Catzan (Tarzan), The Lone Kitty (Lone Ranger), Robin Cat (Robin Hood) or Captain Herc from Cat Trek (Star Trek). The cartoons included sarcastic wit and over the top voice acting, not to mention a laugh track (possibly to offset the unmistakable low-budget constraint and recycled cells that was a standard hallmark of Filmation’s animated fare).

After the animated portion of the episode plays out and the famous cat caricature saves the day they return to live action for the final segment in which Waldo bravely outwits Tyrone and saves Felicia. The live action segments really are the highlight of the series with the animal actors turning in marvelous performances.

The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty debuted September 6, 1975. Publicity photos of producers Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott (the latter mistakenly credited as live-action segment producer Richard Rosenbloom) meeting the animal actors at Frank Inn, Inc.’s kennels were published in various newspapers to help promote the series.

The show proved to be popular with both critics and kids (yours truly included) but Lou Scheimer was reportedly not happy with the final results, or more likely he wasn’t happy with the headaches it created. For one, Scheimer claimed that filming the live action segments with the animals proved difficult because the bulldog actor who played Tyrone kept chasing the cats around the set (although, to be honest, this was what the dog was usually called upon to do!)

Then there was the fact that Lorna Smith felt she wasn’t getting the credit she deserved for bringing the idea for the series to the producers. Scheimer said he didn’t remember such a conversation but gave Lorna the unique “Based on an idea by” credit after she protested (quite rightfully if it was her idea!). On top of that, NBC only ordered thirteen episodes which made syndication in other markets very difficult. But the worst was yet to come.

In December 1975, James Thurber’s widow, Helen Thurber, sued NBC and Filmation Studios for copyright infringement. It didn’t hurt that Mrs. Thurber had sold the film and television rights of the original short story to Samuel Goldwyn Productions, a studio with a lot of clout and a legal department to back up their claim. The lawsuit stated that the show contained “extensive materials which were copied largely from the copyrighted story and copyrighted motion picture.” Filed in the U.S. District Court, the suit went on to state that the “defendants have unfairly competed and will unfairly compete with [the] plaintiffs.” It likely didn’t help that the character was continually mis-identified as “Walter Kitty” in TV listings and articles.

It’s incredible that no one thought to obtain the rights to the story, although animated adaptations of other shows were not uncommon at the time. Filmation could just as easily been sued by the owners of the other intellectual properties parodied in the animated segments, but as far as we know no other companies or creators filed such claims. As part of the settlement with the Thurber estate and Goldwyn, the name of the series was changed to The New Adventures of Waldo Kitty when the episodes were rerun as part of The Groovie Ghoulies and Friends and the live action segments were removed altogether.

By all rights this should have been the end of Waldo Kitty’s career. But a cat with such unmistakable talent deserves a second chance and three years later that’s exactly what happened.

Act Two

On April 10, 1978, NBC-TV aired a made-for-TV movie called To Kill a Cop based on the novel by former NYPD deputy police commissioner Robert Daley and starring Joe Don Baker as no-nonsense New York City Chief of Detectives Earl Eischied. At the time no plans were made for extending the property into a TV series but as the fall season of 1979 approached NBC found themselves lacking strength in their planned line-up. A hole opened up and executive producer David Gerber was asked to adapt the Eischied character into a series. Joe Don Baker agreed to return, having enjoyed working with Gerber before and seeing value in the proposed series’ realism.

Scripts were based on actual police files and while the setting of the show was New York City only location scenes were actually filmed there with the remainder shot on a studio lot in Burbank, California. Other actors returning from the original telefilm were Alan Oppenheimer, Alan Fudge and Eddie Egan (although their character names were changed). Added to the cast of regulars were Suzanne Lederer and Vincent Bufano playing a team of detectives doing a lot of the footwork.

Joe Don Baker reportedly asked the show’s creators to gentle down his character just a bit and so a new cast member was added; a pet cat was implemented for the express purpose of softening Eischied’s tough guy demeanor. The cat cattle call went out and the perfect feline thespian was found who could hold his own against Baker. The news was first reported in The Vidiot column of the Valley News on July 28, 1979:

    Speaking of Eischied, although the series hasn’t started production yet, NBC has been referring to it as “hard-hitting” and “realistic.” Now comes word from Hollywood that a new member has been added to the cast.
    “Waldo Kitty,” the press release says, “one of Hollywood’s most dynamic feline performers, will play Joe Don Baker’s pet cat, P.C., in Eischied, the realistic new police drama premiering this fall on NBC. Waldo is single. He enjoys catching mice and shopping for kitty litter in Beverly Hills.”

The show debuted on September 21, 1979 to mixed reviews. Some lauded the program for its authenticity while others panned it as being just another cop show treading the same tired ground as previous programs (in hindsight it is actually a pretty solid police drama). Because publicity stills prominently featured Joe Don Baker posing with Waldo Kitty, that aspect of the show was played up in the press and many dismissed the cat as just another gimmick, akin to Kojak’s lollipop (although a fairer comparison would have been Barretta’s cockatoo). The series’ creative consultant explained in an article posted in the Star Gazette on September 9, 1979 how he came to include the cat:

    With Kojak it was lollipops. Does Eischied come with a gimmick. “Well yeah,” confessed creative consultant Mark Rodgers. “Since he lives in an apartment, and with his personality, we gave him a cat, named Waldo. I got the idea when I visited one of the small offices in New York where they investigated crimes along Wall Street. The officers there had two cats.”

But let’s be honest . . . as much as Waldo was featured with Baker in photographs in order to garner publicity, a series that prided itself on realism was hardly going to have a police chief walking around crime scenes with a cat on his shoulder. P.C. was not a “sidekick”; he was simply Eischied’s cat and as such was limited to about one scene per episode (and didn’t even appear in some episodes). Only twice was P.C. present in Eischied’s precinct office; once when Vincent Bufano’s character brought him back from the vet, another when Eishied thought the cat would be lonely when he had to work on a Sunday. Most of the time P.C. was seen relaxing around Eischied’s apartment before setting out for some nightly carousing which loving cat dad Eischied often lamented.

But if softening Eischied’s character was the goal it certainly succeeded. In the previously mentioned sequence where P.C. is brought into the office after a visit to several veterinarians (all of whom report the cat is healthy), Eischied melts like butter and even gives his kitty a kiss. (Granted the idea of using a cat to add humanity to a tough character was not a new concept, as a similar tactic was used to soften Jack Palance’s character by giving him an allergy to his daughter’s cat, Yankee, in the 1975 telefilm and subsequent series Brock.)

Interviews with Joe Don Baker promoting Eischied’s premiere often brought up his kitty co-star, and being a cat enthusiast himself Baker was more than willing to discuss his new furry friend, as in the August 26, 1979 issue of the News and Record TV Week magazine:

    There is one thing Hollywood will allow Baker to do in “Eischied” that has to do with his own preferences. That’s the incorporation of Baker’s love for cats into the series. Baker adopted three of his own alley cats from Actors and Others for Animals. “But I only have two now,” he said, adding his male cat died of “a strange leukemia, and I almost lost my mama cat.”
    One of Baker’s co-stars in “Eischied” will be Waldo Kitty, a performer rescued from the animal shelter by Benji’s trainer, Frank Inn. Waldo won the role of Eischied’s pet, P.C. (Police Commissioner), in an audition of feline hopefuls.
    Many an actor has cringed at working with animal actors, but there’s no problem between Baker and Waldo. “He’s an affectionate cat,” said Baker, who’s obviously quite pleased with his furry, orange and white co-worker.

The story about the loss of Baker’s third cat was explained in a completely different way by The Tribune on September 1, 1979 (albeit the previous story sounds much more probable):

Not That Cat’s Meow

    Joe Don Baker, star of NBC-TV’s new “Eischied” series, is a cat lover, but not all of his cats return the affection. “I used to have three cats but now I have only two,” says Baker. “One night I was watching myself on a TV show, and I picked up my favorite cat and held her to the screen so she could see me. The next day she took off and I haven’t seen her since.”

The Public Opinion also commented on Baker’s love of cats on October 19, 1979:

    “Eischied” also contains another kind of realism — a cat. His real name is Waldo, but on the series Eischied calls him “P.C.,” short for Police Commissioner.
    “I love cats,” he said. “I have two of my own, but we couldn’t use them on the series. They’d be too skittish. So we got Waldo. He’s a great actor, and very affectionate. He loves to nuzzle up against you.”

Waldo was often singled out for special praise, as in the Waterloo Region Record on November 16, 1979:

    We see brief glimpses of Eischied’s private life with his off-duty love, Irene Stafford (played by cool, elegany Laraine Stephens) and his feline roomie P.C. (for Pet Cat) (???), played by Waldo Kitty, who it must be noted, chews sardines with his best side to the camera, like the thespian trooper he is.

Eischied only ran for one season but the series repeated on NBC in 1980 as part of their Late Night Movie programming on Sunday. What had to be the press release for Waldo’s work on Eischied was recirculated and several newspapers ran with the story during this latter run, although there didn’t seem to be any new project for Waldo behind the promotion.

Waldo Went From Street to Screen

    Poor Waldo! He was floundering, not know which direction to take in his life — even though he had a choice of nine. Then chance and a fleet-footed cat catcher changed him from an aimless wanderer of the Los Angeles streets into a major television star.
    Now you can see him in segments of “Eischied,” presented on Sundays as a segment of NBC’s Late Movie.
    Abandoned by his parents shortly after birth in 1975, Waldo eked out the existence of an orphan, wandering from home to home and pad to pad, refraining from establishing any lasting friendship.
    Then came the fateful day when he was picked up for vagrancy. While languishing in a cement and wire cell at the animal shelter, he was spotted by animal trainer Frank Inn. He immediately recognized Waldo’s potential along with the innate star quality that shone through his streetwise demeanor.
    Waldo, in turn, recognized the potential of his new position. Three squares a day and a warm place to sleep was infinitely better than his previous existence. He never balked at the rigours of training and soon was starring in TV commercials.
    That ‘big break’ came when we was asked to star in his own Saturday morning children’s show, ‘The Secret Life of Walter (sic) Kitty.” Whammo! He was on his way and the ascendency of his star has not declined.
    His most important role to date was a co-starring stint in “Eischied,” the realistic police drama series. His talent and persona appeal won him the coveted role opposite Joe Don Baker as Eischied’s pet cat, P.C. (for Police Commissioner).
    Waldo is still single — in spite of numerous offers from his admiring fans. He prefers wearing his whiskers (??), has light green to yellow eyes, is orange and white and weighs 12 pounds. He likes people and doesn’t object when asked for his paw print.
    He’s also politically independent but strongly opposes anti-litter laws, a position not quite understood by some citizens.
    “Litter is important to us cats,” explains Waldo. “Imagine the health and pollution problems if there was none.” — Elizabethton Star – September 14, 1980

We don’t know what happened to Waldo after this. It could be with two series under his collar he retired. Or perhaps he continued to do sporadic film and commercial work. But his appearances in both morning and late night shows on NBC helped him capture the hearts of a generation of children and adults alike.

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