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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande, hi. I'm Cynthia ARIBO, and you're listening to the Broadway Podcast Network. Visit bpm.fm, to discover more.

[0:12] Mike Abrams: Welcome to the wrong cat died the podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today we are covering skimble Shanks, the railway cat. Cue the intro music.

[0:24] Speaker 1: There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the wrong one died. I'm the wrong one died.

[0:41] Mike Abrams: Welcome to the wrong cat died the podcast breakdown of the cat's atrophy. Today, we're going to talk about skimble shanks. And that is a mouthful, so I'm just going to call him skim from here on out. So where do we even start with skim? His song starts with him fast asleep, which is really weird because it doesn't fit his character. He's known as being one of the responsible older cats who takes pride in his work. He works for the train and believes that nothing could run without him, and he basically owns the train, doing everything that needs to be done to keep it on time. And since this was originally set in London and not New York, he's probably actually decent at his job and keeping the train on time, unlike anyone touching the MTA seriously, New York, can anyone get the subway on time ever? Well, what do you need to know about skim? Well, he's actually really animated and energetic. He seems to be very well liked by everyone. He sings his own song, which is actually pretty awesome, since that's been pretty rare. His dance number isn't too intricate from a dancing standpoint, but it has some other highlights, which I'm going to call out here in a minute. The only thing you need to know about Skim is that he rocks this boss vest, which makes him extremely well dressed. Buster forgets all the love for his wardrobe, but skims hipster look makes him look like he's dressed right out of Williamsburg. Now let's get to the fun parts about skim song. There are a few fun and weird parts that I want to highlight I lightly covered the first one, which is that He's fast asleep at the start of the song, which to me, is really, really weird, and it's not really how I portrayed him as this hard working cat from start to finish. The next part is also pretty weird, and it's when he's cleaning the train. The song says they wouldn't be bothered by mice. He picks up this fake mouse and he hands it to Old Deuteronomy. It's a strange scene, and it's really weird because Old Deuteronomy looks like he's happy to receive it and even fakes to pet it with. How happy OD is. It makes me think that this might be a bribe, but at the same time, I would not be thrilled if someone handed me a mouse. Then again, I'm not a cat, just a cat's expert. Either way, I was super confused about this whole scene. I felt like it was a bribe, and I really don't know if it's helping or hurting his case. With our judge Old Deuteronomy, there are two other minor parts before I call it the last major one. One is he changes his pants in the middle of the song. It's this very innocuous, quick scene, but when I was watching it, there's 10 cats lying in front of him, and to me, it seems a little strange to just drop your trousers in front of a bunch of cats. Well, unless you're in one of those Buster for Jones establishments. The other weird one was this random sneeze in the middle of the song. It comes after the line a crank to shut the window. Should you sneeze? But then an actual cat sneezes as a really, really weird way to highlight it. So I was so confused at where that fit into the poem. But the last part is probably the main reason why skim will get a higher rating than he deserves. Because during skim song, they build an entire train from random parts in the set, and it's one of the coolest things to see. Skim is on top acting like the conductor as the rest of the cats build out this elaborate train. It even includes a light at the front, which goes back and forth, making it look like the train's moving, however, and this is a big however, as cool as the train is, it's not great for everyone. That's right. There's about 10 seats that are getting absolutely blasted by the light. And of course, that's where I sat the first time I saw the show. That's right, the first time I saw the show, that damn train light blinded me for a full minute as skim strutted his stuff on top of the train. As cool as it was to see them build the train, it sucked to watch them drive the train, and that light blinded me for a good couple minutes. That one bad experience is why I am not the biggest skim fan. How does skimble Shank song differ from the poem? It's nearly identical, but let me tell you the quick differences. And there's one I love and there's one I hate. So I'm gonna start with the one I hate, because it's very simple. There are a few extremely minor word changes that are so unnecessary that it's annoying. For example, the lyric in the watches of the night I was always fresh and bright, which changed to in the middle of night, he is always fresh and bright. Why? Andrew Lloyd Webber, why would you do this? What value does this change bring? Just keep the original poem. But as bad as that was, here's one good change he made. The poem was written about skimble Shanks, which means that it referenced him by name in the third person pronoun. But skimble Shanks sings his song, so Andrew Lloyd Webber switches those lyrics to the first person pronoun, which is very smart, so kudos there. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Let's dig into some real and fictional character. For skimble shanks. Skim seems to fit a lot of different themes, so these are gonna seem pretty random, since the cats movie is about to come around for the holidays, I wanted to highlight an uncle from the movie we're gonna see in the rumor mill. Why skimble Shanks is kind of considered a creepy uncle? So that is where this is coming from. But in home alone, Uncle Frank gives off some of those skim buys, Uncle Frank is hyper focused on rushing the family out of the house to make sure they catch the plane on time, and he definitely has a little bit of the creepy uncle vibe, so much so that in the second movie, Kevin uses Uncle Frank's shower singing to fool the plaza hotel staff, keeping the family on time and weirding everyone out with a weird shower scene, just like when skim takes his pants off in front of his whole family, makes sense. Second one is skim reminds me a little bit of Monica Geller from friends. She's over the top. OCD, constantly cleaning and keeping everything in order. If Monica wasn't a chef, she probably would be cleaning up the MTA, getting all the trains running on time. Plus, she ends up marrying her friends and adopting twins. I'm going to just call this foreshadowing again, since there's an adoption note in the rumor mill. So stay tuned. A couple things coming from the rumors, and last but not least, skim is like Thomas the train. The train part is obvious. What I'm really focused on is the Thomas the Train meme that has been famous for the past few years. This popular meme is Thomas the Train that says it was time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything. It's usually some ridiculous headline, like the Florida man did this, and then it's followed by that picture. But honestly, that's kind of how I feel after I saw cats the first time. Did Buster for Jones just really reference going to strip clubs? It's time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything. Did demeanor, just sing a sexual song about her abusive boyfriend. It was time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything. Did we get just introduced to a cat named Peter? It was time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything. Did that cat just make a child cry in the 10th row? It was time for Thomas to leave. He had seen everything. And last one, did grizzabel Really just die over all these more worthy cats? It was time for Mike to leave. He had seen everything. Welcome to the internet rumor mill. Okay, so first things first, I want to clear up a little bit of research I've done the 2016 Broadway cast. There's the rumor which I referenced is episode three, and in both bonus episodes is that there was some skimble Shanks, rum, tuck Tugger issues with the actors. And after talking to multiple people on the cast and them also asking other people from the cast, no one remembers anything about it, I'm still hoping to talk to either rum, tug Tugger or skimble Shanks from this cast. But the current theory is because their characters have vastly different personalities. If you're an outsider, you might think they have issues purely by watching but there is nothing to note from this rumor mill. So talk this up as one rumor we have proven incorrect. I want to get the other one out of the way before I get to the cat's family tree. So Skim is a Taurus. No comment. But what about skim on the cat's family tree. He's a little bit tougher to figure out because he's an older cat. So he's seen holding Jenny Andy don't hand throughout the show a lot. So a lot of people think that they're parents, and that makes me wonder why that would be or maybe why he's handing a mouse to Old Deuteronomy. Because I thought Old Deuteronomy and Jenny were characters, or the working theory is all of these cats are all related to each other in some way, but I have no idea how. I have tried to map this out a lot, and cannot figure it out from the creepy uncle vibe, which I mentioned earlier, there are some rumors that he's rumble teasers uncle, which I have trouble with, because if he's Rumple teaser's Uncle, but not Mungo Jerry's uncle and their brother and sister. How does that work? So again, I'm not really sure how this all intertwines, but he's also rumored to be rumple teasers, Father or lover, so hopefully it's just not all three. The last weird rumor is that he might be core COVID father. And I have no idea if that's how you pronounce it, this guy is totally insignificant, so you don't need to know anything else about him, but it says that he's the adopted son, and as I teased out the fictional character section, I did not realize that adoption was part of this, because I want to know how that works. Do they apply to go through a formal process? Can they adopt outside the Jellicle family? I need answers. Angela Webber, where are you at? I really need help on this. I want to know the cat's family tree and the adoption process. Now this is really going to throw a wrench in me trying to figure out the cat's Fumi tree, because it's hard enough as is, and if you start adding adoption into the process, I am in trouble. Let's dig into skimble shanks. YouTube comments. Here are my favorite mirror to bacon. I can see this song being stuck in my head when I'm at a funeral or a really important job interview, well, bacon that does not sound good from nobody. Don't worry. Skimble, I also immediately break into song as soon as I wake up from sleep, same from Tristan melody. I find this whole musical to be very confusing, but what I do know is that I. Eye for skimble shanks. Tristan, I'm not sure I agree with you, but hey, you do you from gumshoe. Skimble has BDE, big dad energy, whoa, gumshoe. I thought you were going in a very different BD direction. And from analicious, I realized porn is easier to explain than this. Wait, is this not just very porn. Christopher Guerrero said it's just cat porn. So why does skimble Shanks deserve to die over Grizabella as one of the adults and most responsible cats in the show? He has to at least be considered despite the train light accelerating, my cataracts, the train is one of the most impressive parts of the play. He keeps a lot of stuff moving, which is important in this dysfunctional dystopia world, plus skim bribes, Old Deuteronomy with a mouse, which seems to be working since Old Deuteronomy loved it. Quick counter as amazing as skimble Shanks is if you take the train out of the equation. This is a pretty forgettable song, and I pretty sure I would reward memory with grays over this in that song. So how do I rate skimshanks On a scale of one to nine cat lives? I give skimble Shanks four cats. He sits somewhere in the middle as an older cat, and he has to be more deserving than most, but he's also pretty forgettable. So it was time for skim to leave. He had seen everything. Thank you for listening to Episode Eight about skimble shades, the railway cat on the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cat's catastrophe. To follow along, you can subscribe on Apple podcast, Spotify Stitcher, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the wrong cat died. Or check out our website, the wrong cat died. Calm. You.