Cat's Eye View

We took an old school mascot and gave him some new school tech.

For over 50 years, Morris the cat has been 9Lives cat food’s finicky spokescat. He’s been in over fifty commercials, two feature films, and ran two (unsuccessful) presidential campaigns. But modern audiences had begun to forget him. And for him to come back and be a voice in advertising, he needed a reason to be in the cultural room of 2014.

Wearables were the talk of 2014. Early adopters all over the Bay Area and beyond had started sporting Google Glass, which was either a preview of the future or an invitation to mockery. Which made them perfect for a famously unimpressed cat.

So we outfitted Morris with his own pair, and I let him describe himself as “an early adopter of early adopting.”

And then we gave control of the camera to the audience. You weren’t watching Morris’s day, you were choosing what he did next.

We created Cat’s Eye View as a fully interactive film shot from the cat’s perspective. Think Choose Your Own Adventure, but, you know, more catastic. As Morris left each room, viewers were prompted with what he should do next. Should he go to the Gym? Select that and watch Morris put in reps in the bathroom unspooling the toilet paper. Or pick decorating, and watch Morris shove trinkets and curios off tables. And, of course, in the kitchen, Morris discovers a glitch to order tons of 9Lives cat food. We dropped Easter eggs throughout, from hidden links to classic commercials to coupons and a downloadable poster.

My life as Morris: how I spent half a decade as the voice of a cat.

As you know, during editing you often work with a temporary scratch track to get all the timing right before bringing in the voice artist. For Cat’s Eye View, I slipped into an empty room at the edit house, recorded the scripts on my phone, and we dropped it in.

As we moved into picture lock, it was time to pick the real voice actor. We sent along our top three favorites. And the client said “Can’t we just go with David?” So this bearded copywriter became the voice of an advertising icon who said his first words way before I was born. I stayed in that role for five years, giving Morris a voice over several campaigns, some with EVB, some with other agencies. I even did voice work for Morris when he showed up at SXSW to interview tech illuminaries. To this day, my cousin still says “Well, at least on your tombstone, it’ll read ‘Voice of Morris the Cat.’” (Still workshopping that one.)

Wearable tech glasses are dead. Long live wearable tech glasses.

When we developed this back in the Google Glass era, it was a joke on what seemed a passing fad. But now the fad is back, for better or worse. And it seems like Morris’ position on it has aged better than any of us expected.