As if 2020 wasn’t hard enough, in the last month of the year My Favorite Murder host Georgia Hardstark dropped some heartbreaking news. Elvis, her cookie-loving Siamese cat passed away. Well known for regularly guest “starring” on the podcast, this 16-year-old feline quickly became one of the most beloved cat celebrities among the likes of Hamilton the Hipster Cat, Lil’ Bub, and of course (the now also deceased) Grumpy Cat.
To honor Elvis’s memory, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite famous felines in pop culture. These 12 kitties who hit the screen have, like Elvis, brought us laugher, happiness, and have left paw prints on our hearts that will never fade.
Here are 12 pop culture kitties worth meowing about!
1. Puss in Boots — Shrek 2, Puss in Boots
DreamWorks fairy tale satire wouldn’t be complete without this dashing ginger feline. The tabby-patterned swashbuckling swordscat has moves like Zoro, a swoon-worthy Spanish accent (helloooo there Antonio Banderas), and the ferocity of a tiger. And let’s be real. Who else has the nerve and the power to take down a fully grown Ogre? Or in Puss’s solo jaunt (in his self-titled Puss in Boots film), a crazed golden goose that wrecks havoc on a quaint village . . . and still manage to be devastatingly cute? Rhetorical question. Because the answer is no one but Puss.
2. Crookshanks — Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Hermione’s fluffy ginger cat isn’t merely a rescue from Diagon Alley, he’s also part Kneazle. In the wizarding world, Kneazles are cat-like creatures who look like miniature lions with bushy tails and copious floof. Kneazles are known for being exceptionally intelligent and uncannily accurate at sniffing out suspicious and untrustworthy people.
Clever Crookshanks is the first one to discover Sirius Black and his whereabouts. AND he sees right through Peter Pettigrew in his animagus form while he’s disguised as the Weasley family’s hand-me-down rat Scabbers.
Without Crookshanks’ nimble paws and his keen observation, Harry and Hermione never would’ve made it through the Whomping Willows secret tunnel and discover the truth about the escaped “mass murderer” Sirius Black!
3. Jones — Alien
In Ridley Scott’s famous sci-fi film Alien, Ellen Ripley and the crew of the Nostromo are terrorized by grotesque extraterrestrial beasts while en route to returning to earth. Of the seven member crew, Ripley is the only human survivor. Jones, the scrappy ship’s cat, is no fool though. This crafty kitty manages to do what the unfortunate humans cannot. He eludes and escapes the alien as it picks off the crew one by one.
But that’s not all. When Ripley flees with Jones onto a shuttle and prepares to zoom back to Earth, the kitty has a final heroic moment. With his feline senses tingling, Jones notices that the Alien is in attempting to stow away in the said escape shuttle. Without Jones’s watchful eye, Ripley would’ve been another victim!
4. Buttercup — The Hunger Games; Mockingjay
In The Hunger Games, Primrose Everdeen is described as the light to her elder sister Katniss’s darkness. Katniss is black-haired and gray-eyed, whereas Prim is blond-haired and blue-eyed; Katniss is known for her skepticism and hardened ways, while Prim is always warm, kind, and loves freely.
Prim’s companions of choice are a nanny goat named Lady and a mangy ginger stray cat who was infested with worms and fleas before she nursed him back to health. Bestowing him with the name Buttercup, Prim is the only one who can get away with cuddling this finicky and prickly feline. Buttercup brings Prim comfort while she’s in District 12 and forced to watch her beloved big sister compete in the Hunger Games.
Later on in the The Hunger Games finale Mockingjay, Katniss rescues Buttercup from a bombed District 12 and sneaks him into the underground bunker that is District 13, reuniting Prim with her best friend and making their little family just a little bigger.
5. The Cheshire Cat — Alice in Wonderland
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?”
The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” answered Alice.
“Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
Lewis Carroll
In both the 1951 Disney animated classic and Tim Burton’s live-action adaptations of Lewis Carroll’s fictional masterpiece Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat plays a pivotal role. Of all the madness and mayhem Alice encounters in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat is one of the most memorable of the bunch. His cunning grin, luminously-colored fur, and nonsensical ramblings make him one of the ultimate scene-stealers in our round of up the most iconic cinematic cats. This kitty catty is rather batty and doesn’t so much guide Alice on her path through the Tulgey Wood as he does ask her existential questions and misdirect her to wander farther into this loony land.
6. Salem — Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Before the dark Netflix reboot The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina there was the ’90s sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch starring Melissa Joan Hart. In the cheeky show, American teen Sabrina Spellman lived on 133 Collins Road with her witch aunts Hilda and Zelda and a sassy talking black cat named Salem. But Salem is more than he first appears. He’s no mere familiar. His snarky one-liners and his campy tirades about world domination come from his decidedly human background. Turns out Salem was a warlock whose desires for taking over the world and his unchecked power led the Witch Council to intervene and transfigure him into a house cat. With his abilities stripped away and a sentence of 1,000 years in feline form, the one thing this cat hasn’t lost is his tongue. And boy, he doesn’t let us or his teenage witch housemate forget it.
7. Kirara — InuYasha
In Rumiko Takahashi’s feudal fairy tale InuYasha, an anime that spans seven seasons and over 190 episodes, one of the five leading characters is a young woman named Sango. This giant boomerang wielding bad-ass is a demon-slayer from a renowned village known for defending ancient Japan from evil and supernatural forces. Her partner in slaying is a cat named Kirara (pronounced Key-lah-lah), a pint-sized little fluff with a “twin” tail. But when she’s not a mewling ball of cuteness, she can transform into a fierce feline that’s larger than a stallion! With the abilities to fly and generate fire and cute little chompers that transform into a saber-toothed snarl, Kirara is a formidable fighter who keeps Sango airborne and the demons down.
8. Thackery Binx — Hocus Pocus
Oh, Binx! What would the epic Halloween favorite Hocus Pocus be without cursed colonial teen turned talking black cat Thackery Binx? The self-appointed guardian of the Black Flame Candle, Binx springs into action when modern-day teen Max Dennison stupidly resurrects the wicked Sanderson Sisters. Thankfully, Thackery has enough smarts for both of them (it comes with the whole cursed to live an immortal life territory)! Wise, witty, and unexpectedly humble, this tritagonist is essential in the fight against Salem’s most notorious witches. And let’s be real. He was everyone’s first crush.
9. and 10. Artemis and Luna — Sailor Moon
Usagi Tsukino dons a sailor suit and wields magical artifacts with her BFFs, fighting evil by the moonlight while winning love (and friendship) as an ordinary middle-schooler by the daylight. With powers of the moon that come from being the reincarnation of lunar Princess Serenity, Sailor Moon uses all manner of enchanted tech (and her own innate supernatural powers) to try to defend earth from The Dark Kingdom and other alien forces that threaten mass murder.
A black kitty with a crescent moon marking on her forehead named Luna, and her other half, a white cat named Artemis with the same marking on his forehead, are there to give guidance to the bumbling Usa-chan. Not only can they talk, but they have a wealth of knowledge of the Moon Kingdom and instruct the sailor guardians on how to use their alien technology and control their transformations. Now that’s some purrfect mentoring.
11. Jiji — Kiki’s Delivery Service
This little black cat is young witch Kiki’s familiar and her best friend. When thirteen-year-old Kiki leaves her village to start her witch training and honing her talents, Jiji is there with her on every bumpy broom ride as she works at improving her flying and succeeding as a one-woman-postal service. This pancake-loving kitty is often the voice of reason and keeps Kiki grounded whenever her flights of fancy spike up or when her emotions get the best of her.
12. Goose — Captain Marvel
In the MCU’s Captain Marvel, half-Kree Carol Danvers is an intergalactic warrior with the kind of powers that many of us can only dream about. But it’s her animal companion Goose who made us lose our freaking minds when the film came out in 2019. The scene-stealing ginger tabby (and Nick Fury’s new BFF) is a Flerken, one of the rarest alien species (there are only 118 in existence) in the collective Marvel universe.
Goose and his fellow Flerkens have the simultaneously awesome and wtf-is-this-freakiness ability to shoot out tentacles from their mouth to take down opponents. They also have the handy bonus feature of, well, being able to hold entire universes inside said tentacle sprouting mouths, all in a cute, cuddly, kitty package! Goose is the best boy.
Don’t see your favorite feline here? Shout them out in a comment below! The more meows the merrier!
And if you’d like to donate to cats in need on Elvis’s behalf you can do so over on MFM’s website.
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