My Cat From Hell TV show and wth happened to Animal Planet?!

[eicanfly]

Ok, while I have learned a few helpful things from this show I don't believe it should be presented the way it is on tv. I think it gives cats a bad reputation reinforcing negative stereotypes of cats and 99% of the time it is stupid people and not the cats. It has some great advice and shows WHY the cats were behaving badly BUT I think it hurts cats chances in the adoption arena bc a person who's never had a cat before might see shows or the previews and might think "what a hassle, I'm not gonna get a cat"

Just wondering what others have to say about My Cat From Hell on Animal Planet.

AAAAND..did somebody BUY Animal Planet...did Fox buy that channel? the majority of the programming on the channel has become so exploitative and the slogan is now "Animal Planet...surprisingly human"  They really changed their program to humans exploiting nature and animals seems to me.

 

[smitten4kittens]

I agree. For people who already love and own cats you might get some tips. But I think the show makes it look like cats are violent animals who need very expensive animal behavourist training to make good pets. This can't be helping cats get adopted by people who have never had a cat before.

On the other hand, I'm sure the show Too Cute IS helping kitties get adopted by new cat owners

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[eicanfly]

That is true..is that a new show? I haven't had cable tv for very long and just saw the preview the other night. I am so broke I downgraded to super-basic tv yesterday...just 12 channels so I cant even watch anymore but have wanted to voice my opinion of MCFHell for a long time.

 

[etp23]

It actually had the opposite effect on me.  I've always been a bit afraid of cats and did think that they were somehow always just waiting to pounce on and scratch humans.  After watching this show for a few months, I saw that you could actually understand their body language and how to deal with some behavioral issues.  I had been thinking about a pet for a while, and I finally went out and adopted my kitty

 

[eicanfly]

Really?!!! I love that!! I'm inspired...maybe other non-cat people are swayed in a positive direction more than I thought. I should give the human race a little more credit.

May good karma rain down upon you
 

 

[2catminimum]

I realize that it really is a lot of the stupidity of the owner and not the cat (the name of the show is misleading) but honestly, I would rather not have someone who thinks that blindly about cats without researching it on their own or whatever to have a cat. Stupid Pet Owners are just the worst and we don't need anymore of those out there. 

 

[msbedelia]

I know that Cesae Milan's show The Dog Whisperer is not currently airing, but would you think that might have the same effect?

I agree though that the title is very poorly chosen.

I also like that it shows how workable most cat behavior problems are and what causes them. Also, the owners usually look really bad I think- I'm amazed at how many if them laugh when their cat attacks someone!

But it certainly could be having that effect. Tha being said, cats get a really bad rap in our society (outside of cat-lovers). How much more damage could this show possibly do, lol? Especially when there is a sweet and wonderful kitty at the end.

I also think television just becomes exploitative naturally, at least in our culture. Since its all ratings-driven, and sensationalism/exploitation sells...

 

[r0n1n]

That's my favourite show on TV. It reminded me how much I missed having a cat for many years - and now I have two....

 

[dejolane]

I love to watch My Cat from Hell. Jackson gives good advice when your kitty is in a bad mood.

 

[denice]

I really like that show and I just finished reading his book.  I don't think it would have a negative effect on someone serious about taking care of a cat but it might deter someone who thinks a cat doesn't need time and attention.  There used to be a dog trainer on Animal Planet called Victoria Stillwell and she didn't get her first dog of her own until a few years ago.  She got an adult chocolate lab rescue and when she first brought him home her daughter was afraid of him because of seeing the dogs on her mom's show.  Her daughter was hiding behind her and the dog came around to her, sat down and put his paw up for her daughter to shake hands.  That was all it took.  

 

[jetwet1]

My first post here, great site.

I do have a little bit of inside knowledge of the show, a friend of ours was shown on the show with her "cat from hell".

I like the show, and unlike other Animal Planet shows (I will get back to that point in a second) it does actually help spread a little bit of knowledge in how to handle cats.

The issue I have with the show is that they try to cram two cats into one show, if they stuck to one cat they would be able to show a lot more of the training side (both the human and feline side) which I think would help the viewers in understanding the issues and how to help fix them.

To my other point, there are shows like Tanked that try to show a little to much drama and not enough of the actual day to day living with the animals, I personally know Brett and Wayne and this is something they know about and have been pushing to change in the show.

So yes, "My Cat from Hell" is not the greatest show title in the world, but the show does do a good job of at least passing along some day to day cat caring ideas.
 

 

[Draco]

I enjoy My Cats from Hell. It gives me ideas on cat language and what to do if a need should arise. It also helped me give others advice here too. But I can see why you think it's mis-leading, especially with the title. It's a play on "It's Me or the Dog".. a cat version.

I think it's better than that show they used to air "House Cat, House Call".. they gave the same advice to every owner "Get a cat tree!". nothing learned there.

Cesar Milan is airing on another channel.. I forget which one. (on my TV, it's two channels up)

I don't like majority of the shows on Animal Planet anymore either. I don't find many of them educational, and they're all life drama that I do not like to watch. I also find some shows do not relate to animals either! I miss the days where you can watch animals interact in nature on TV.

 

[r0n1n]

OK.  If we're going to talk all seriously about MCFH then here goes...  While I do like the show a lot and it seems Jackson is a good guy and cares about educating the viewers I will agree that the drama side is overdone....and very repetitive.  So the OP is partially right.  In particular I find it grating when:

-The bit in every episode where Jackson tries to set the "stakes" and someone has to throw down the "I'm leaving card".

-The bit in every episode where he has to get bitten to show how dangerous the cat is.

-The fake suspense music when the owner is about to reveal everything is better.

As Jetwet1 said above they could easily spend more time on the training of one cat, spend less time on the boring tropes & drama above. I want More Cat less Chat! The diehard fans would stick around to watch something educational.  Anyone else who just stopped by for the drama would change the channel... but I suspect there's actually not many of them anyway.  AFICT cats are a niche interest in America.  You care a lot or you don't care at all.  

@Draco: I agree. In general Animal Planet (AP) seems to have gone down the crapper.  You used to be able to see animals in their natural state.  Now it's nearly entirely shows about one of the following:

- Tools molesting animals (Call of the Wildman, Anything involving crocodilians etc.) 

- Tools looking for fake animals (Bigfoot, Mermaids, Loch Ness Monster...)

- Tools (Tanked: Seriously, does anyone like this?  There's like 30 seconds of fish for every 30 minutes of bad jokes and mugging for the camera. MCFH could easily tip into this category if it lowered the cat:tool onscreen time.  Already it sometimes dips dangerously low e.g.  Melissa & Mariah.  More Cat less Chat!)

Too Cute is like the gold standard of what was good about AP.  Between it and MCFH I have no other use for AP.

 

[jetwet1]

I totally agree with you R0n1n, the sad reality of TV in the US now means that finding BBC America is one of your best bets, if you can work around the constant replays of Kitchen Nightmares then the Beeb does do some of the best nature shows in the world.

I also agree that MCFH is dangerously close to losing me, I watch it just to learn, not for the drama aspect.

As I said above, Wayne and Brett from Tanked know and agree with you, they keep pushing for me knowledge to be put into the show, they know that while the show is great advertising for their company, it also leads to headaches down the road when people buy these tanks with no idea of what is actually involved with them....I am also a fish person, I have a couple of 100G salt water tanks...Which the cats ignore

 

 

[r0n1n]

This is a bit of a digression but it's still about Animal Planet.

jetwet1: I would probably watch Tanked if it was 50% in depth talk about fish and I don't really care about fish.  But I do like learning about animals.

e.g. Here's a clown fish.  They're this big, they eat this, they like this, they don't like this, they live in these environments, they get along with these fish and they don't like these fish etc.  Here's a tank we built that had clown fish.  It had this, this and this for the following reasons.

Ironically, for all the supposed choice of thousands of shows on TV now, they're all cloned off each other.  There's probably only 5 different shows on TV.  Ever noticed how similar Treehouse Masters is to Tanked?  

Client says "I want this".  Someone says "it can't be done".  Someone says "Yes it can and I have a crazy scheme to do it".  Something goes wrong,  Someone says "this is crazy.  I told you it couldn't be done".  Someone fixes it.  The client comes in and says "Wow.  It's everything I always dreamed about". 

I mean no offense to Brett and Wayne but seriously, their show is just boring.  I'm sure they're better in person but the fake drama and the same jokes repeated week after week makes them seem like puppets.  

 

[jetwet1]

I can totally understand where you are coming from, as a fish person there are other aspects of Tanked I find annoying, but then the pop up and do something cool like the jelly fish tank.

What is interesting is going around Vegas (where we live) and seeing which tanks are still up and which are not. You may remember the gum ball machine tank they did at Serendipity 3 at Caesers, well anyone who knows anything about fish would be screaming at the top of their lungs that this was just a bad idea from the start, there would be so many algae issues just for starters.

But you are right, they all seem to be a copy and paste of each other, it's a shame that the educational part of the shows has to take a back ground place to the "drama".
 

 

[denice]

I prefer Nat Geo Wild to Animal Planet but they are more about animals in the wild or people keeping wild animals.  I did like Victoria Stillwell's dog training show when it was on Animal Planet.  It didn't seem to last very long.  I guess it wasn't dramatic enough but she had a lot of good advice about rewards based training.

 

[gocatgo]

There are several good things about MCFH and Jackson Galaxy, but there are also negatives.  In every episode of MCFH dealing with an aggressive cat, for example, Jackson tries to establish its "challenge line."  The "challenge line" concept is obviously bogus, since Jackson always approaches such a cat when it's already stressed out or feeling threatened and then Jackson irritates it more.  It's obvious the cat is in no mood to be approached, but Jackson comes closer and closer, causing the cat even more stress, until--SURPRISE!--the cat reaches out to claw or bite him.  If he's dealing with one cat bullying another, he asks the owner to bring them together so he can "see how they'll react to each other" in front of him and--SURPRISE!--the bully attacks the other cat.  This is totally unnecessary, since the owner has already told him clearly what the problem is.  All Jackson is doing is traumatizing the weaker cat, and sometimes even the owner expresses shock that Jackson wants this to happen.  In virtually every episode also,, Jackson asks at the end if the owner still wants to think about rehoming the cat.  Then comes some suspenseful music while we're getting a closeup of Jackson looking worried for several seconds, and then--SURPRISE!--the owner says no, not anymore, followed by Jackson reacting by pattycaking his hands and acting practically orgasmic.  Of course, this is anticlimactic, since the owner has already told Jackson that the behavioral issues that caused the owner to consider rehoming have been solved.  Apparently the producers are telling Jackson to do these things in order to up the drama, or else Jackson is doing them on his own, but either way, it's annoying and leads me to think that Jackson is more concerned about the show than he is about the cats on the show.

 

[neely]

 
I prefer Nat Geo Wild to Animal Planet but they are more about animals in the wild or people keeping wild animals. 

Ditto, I agree!

   Although not perfect, Nat Geo Wild is much more about animals than Animal Planet. 

 

[MoochNNoodles]

Just noting; this thread was started in 2013. 

I think they HAVE to push to increase the "drama" or the shows wouldn't interest as many people.  Either way; we haven't had cable tv in several years and I can't say I miss it very often.  

  Most networks change over time and it seems like they move away from what attracted me to them in the beginning.

Welcome to TCS Gocatgo!