Cats don’t do sports. Although we love chasing balls, we are not familiar with the concept of “teams,” and we’d like to keep it that way. So there will be no Super Bowl watching here. Some humans, I’ve heard, “just watch it for the commercials,” and while I think this is a waste of time — time that would be better spent playing with their cats and feeding them treats — you most likely remember the “Cat Herders” commercial from Super Bowl XXXIV, in 2000:
Here are some fun facts about the commercial:
- The advertiser, EDS, is an information technology company. They had been around for decades as Electronic Data Systems and were trying to rebrand themselves for the new millennium. Why they wanted to dump a load of money to announce this in a venue that’s best used by consumer product-oriented companies such as Budweiser, Motorola, M&Ms and Pepsi is a question that no one has seemed to answer satisfactorily.
- Unless you work in IT, you probably don’t even remember who the ad is for.
- The commercial was created by the Minneapolis-based ad agency Fallon, which had three other spots in that year’s Super Bowl lineup.
- Only about 60 cats were cast to be in the commercial, many of them with specialties, such as swimming or docility. The scenes where there appear to be hundreds of them are computer generated. The CGI was created by Sight Effects, Inc.
- Also computer generated are the scenes with cats running among the horses. So don’t worry, no feline actors were stomped during the commercial’s making.
- Thirteen cat trainers worked on the filming.
- Most of the humans appearing in this commercial aren’t traditional actors, either — they are real cowboys, who work at ranches in California, Colorado and New Mexico. Supposedly, much of the script was based on dialogue that came from the cowboys themselves.
- The filming was done at Tejon Ranch in Lebec, CA, located off the 5 freeway, north of the Angeles National Forest, but before you hit the Grapvine. Tejon Ranch is a popular filming location.
- When he first saw the commercial, EDS’s vice chairman, Jeff Heller, thought it was “terrible,” and wanted to pull it.
- It was nominated for “Outstanding Commercial” in the 2000 Emmy Awards. The winner that year was Nike’s “The Morning After.”
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That was a great commercial!! We’ll look at the commercials tomorrow!!
Sniffie and the Florida Furkids
HA! I like that one! Very funny.
We came to your blog via The Conscious Cat and love what you have to say, Sparkle! That’s our mewmie’s favorite commercial, too, hahameow…
Cat TRAINERS?? There are cat trainers? Do the cats know?
Since I hardly ever watch TV, I’ve never seen this so thanks for posting it. Looks interesting. Anything with cats is interesting. Unfortunately my stupid sound is not working at the moment (it takes unannounced vacations) so when it’s working again I’ll come back and see this.
Cat trainers?
@Rebecca – Well, they call them “cat trainers,” but I think it’s more like they’re on-set servants and gofers for the cats – you know, giving them treats, massages, serving as “gatekeepers,” that sort of thing. They’re also there to collect the money for the cats, since we’re above doing it ourselves. I think they like being called “cat trainers” because it makes them feel important.
My Mommeh still remembers that commercial! She laughed and laughed when she saw it.
Wow has it been 10 years? I am getting old. I work/worked for EDS (it has since been bought by HP). As far as a reason my guess is in 1999 we got a new CEO and won our first billion dollar contract and at the time saw growth for tech service outsourcing. Plus I think the employees wanted commercials. We watched the whole series of those commercials a few months ago at our work holiday party to remember the good ole days of EDS.
We love that commercial!!
Mommy remembers that mercial. She says thanks for the memberies!
I am proud to report that I watched not ONE second of the Super Bowl, and spent time squeezing and cuddling my kitty.
Then again, I don’t get TV reception…
That ad was for a Super Bowl?! Never knew it. Sparkle, you are the bastion of information and wit.
And I thought my job was hard. Wait a sec…my job essentially is herding cats. Sigh. No comfort here.
It was a great commercial. I like the cats. But it didn’t really explain what the company wanted from me. That’s okay though, because the cats are what’s important anyway.
That was the silly part — they didn’t really want anything, except to announce that they were EDS, this fab IT company ready to take over the year 2K! I found the comments above from Amy very interesting. (Who knew that one of my blog followers would be an EDS employee?) BTW, now they’re part of HP.
Mom has a co-worker who didn’t know da phrase “herdin cats” – he’s Korean. So Mom pulled up dat ad to show him. Funny, I don’t know da Nike day affer ad. Did it haf cats?
Purrs,
Victor & Nina
PS Years an years an years ago, like when our boy was still a bean-kitten, Dad werked for a branch of EDS as a temp. He still has an EDS mug. Him programed puters until he decided he’d rather be a foto-maker person. Whatefur, as long as he cooks an I get chick-hen.
We don’t know about you,but we find that verry ofenceive.Many farm cats got killed by hore’s hoves! Cat herders our tales!