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[0:00] Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi. I'm Cynthia Erivo, 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 tastrophe. I'm your host, Mike Abrams, and today I'm about to do the unthinkable. I'm going to tell you about Grizabella, who I've spent nine episodes arguing as the wrong cat to die. Cue the intro music. There's a cat over here. There's a cat over there. I'm the wrong one die. I'm the wrong one died. You I don't want to do this, but I feel that it's my duty to tell you about Grizabella, because she is going to be one of the main characters in the movie, and Jennifer Hudson is about to play her. But I'm putting this out there right up front. Not happy about this episode, and I only want to get to the rumor mill so I can make up vicious rumors about this cat. But before I do that, here's what you need to know about Grizabella, who I will be calling Grizz from here on out. She comes in midway through the first act, right around the end of rum tug Tugger song. The music gets really ominous, and she clearly is despised by all the younger cats, especially Demeter in bubble arena, which makes sense when you think about it, because we assume that that's their mother who abandoned them and left them to be with their cat abuser, Macavity. This leads to the first time Grizabella sings. She starts singing a song called Grizabella, the glamor cat. Griz sings the beginning, and bomb and Demeter come in to finish the song. This song is purely an explanation of who Grizabella is and why she is banned from the tribe. It's short, it's slow, it's kind of boring. One quick note about this song, and I'll touch on this in the rumor mill that there's a line that says she's near the grimy road of toddingham Court, which is a reference to her being a prostitute. So here's our winner, ladies and gentlemen, the winning cat is a rumored prostitute a positive message for children all over the world. We will dig more into this in the rumor mill, but I had to call that out right up front. Fast forward to a bunch of entertaining songs and dances that we've covered in previous episodes, with much more worthy cats and Grizabella comes back to the jell cabal right before intermission. Her entrance is super weird. She's trying to mimic the other dancers, but instead, it looks like she's having a seizure. It's said that she's trying to show that she can dance, but she's actually too weak to do the dance. But personally, I didn't see it. It just looked awkward and out of place. And after she's done dancing, like Elaine Bennis from Seinfeld, she starts to sing the prelude to memory. She sings the first verse and reaches out to touch her hand to Old Deuteronomy, who looks at her and waves her off. Curtain drops. Scene ends, intermission, and you think that that would be a huge bad sign for grizabell winning, but no, of course not, because we know how this story ends. We don't see grizzabel again until the last scene where she comes back out and belts out memory. Memory is likely the only song you know from this musical, and it's an incredibly emotional ballad. If I had a booming voice, I would love to belt this song out, but my voice sucks, so I just admire singers. Singing this song, it's really a brilliant song. So I do give kudos to Andrew Lloyd Webber here for this one. After she's done singing, all the cats have a change of heart. She ends up collapsing midway through the song, but the cats encourage her to get up and continue. She ends up getting up and getting Old Deuteronomy is blessing as She ascends to the heavy side lair being lifted into the sky by a tire swing at the end of the show. Show over Grizabella wins, wrong decision. I could probably tell you a bunch more about Grizabella, but I don't want to this is all you need to know going into the movie. So get excited to hear Jennifer Hudson sing memory, which we do expect to be incredible. But as you've heard from the previous nine episodes, I still think she's the wrong choice. So how does this song differ from the poem in the book? Well, Grizabella is not in the book. This poem is nowhere to be found in the book. Instead, Grizabella, song and character is based solely on an unpublished poem by TS Eliot titled grizzabella the glamor cat, which is the song that had to be given to Andrew Lloyd Webber by TS Eliot's widow. Get this, the reason it's not in the book is because it was rejected for being too sad for children. Hold the mother effing phone. A poem that is too sad for children is the basis for the main character who ends up being the ultimate winner, which is the exact side argument I've been making for this entire podcast. This musical is not meant for children. Wu Tang may be for the children, but cats is not even the original writer thought it was too much for children. Parents stop bringing your kids to this musical. Let's dig into some real and fictional characters for Grizabella. This is kind of a dangerous one for me, since I could list every diva movie star who ran into drug issues, so we're gonna be a little careful with it, but I'm gonna start with someone who actually played Grizabella, and it was actually the grizzabella I got to see both times, which was Leona Lewis. Leona Lewis won. British X Factor, which further proves my point that this is just a deranged singing contest. Leona Lewis really belted out memory beautifully. So I can only criticize her so much, but she's a little bit of a one hit wonder in the US from her song bleeding love. Speaking of which bleeding love would be a really great song from a cavity to sing. Like I said, you could argue a bunch of child stars who fell off the deep end to be Grizabella. And I'm afraid to make too many parallels, so I'm just gonna list out a few that jump out to me, Lindsay Lohan, bald, Britney, spears, Amanda Bynes, all of them come to mind. And if we ignore grizabella's Gender shy, LaBeouf Macaulay Culkin and vanilla ice, they all could work too. And I really love the Vanilla Ice one, since I could totally see Grizabella being reborn into a successful home improvement show. New fan fiction anyone I want to get to the rumor mill, but let's do one more fictional character. I might have been the only person to see this movie, but dickie roberts with David Spade. Dickie roberts was a child star who fell on hard times and ends up moving in with some random family. It's a pure redemption story of someone completely disowned from his family, just like grizzabel was removed from the Jellicle Tribe, dickie roberts ends up being super likable by the end and is loved by his new family. So it kind of fits. Let's dig into the rumor mill, which is the only reason I wanted to even write this episode. Let's kick things off with the astrology sign. She is an Aries. That's it. I will say, though, if anyone knows a cat astrologist, I would love to talk to them, so please pass along their information. Now let's get to one of the more wild ones I found, and something I knew nothing about, but it kind of makes sense. There is a cat named Baby Grizz that we're supposed to be seeing in the ensemble at the start of the show. It's rumored to actually be grizzabel reborn from the heavy side lair. And in the opening number, she doesn't remember her past, but looks at her youth and beauty. Essentially, we're seeing the end of the show at the beginning of the show. I've watched this intro a bunch of times in the movie, and I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out which one is baby grace. I've looked up pictures. I've looked up who she's supposed to be. I kind of see the pictures, but I can never figure it out. And so it's incredibly, incredibly interesting to look at this rumor. I love the rumor as a writer. It's really brilliant. The fact that we're seeing a reborn Grizabella at the beginning, it's very meta. But on the other hand, and I need to call this out, who the hell is going to pick up this minor detail when you're seeing the show for the first time, I feel like I'm one of the foremost experts on this story and this musical at this time, and I had no idea about this rumor. So just stick with me here. I want to think about from this perspective. Imagine you're an eight year old kid. You have horrible parents who brought you to the show. You get seated, you've got your $12 Coca Cola and your $15 bag of M M's. The lights go off and bam. Sarah gene four playing jelly, who jumps out and makes you cry. You're traumatized. Have no idea why your horrible parents brought you to this nightmare. Now all the cats are on stage doing an opening number. You look around as you drip tears into your coke and M M's. There's somewhere between 23 and 25 cats on stage, and you haven't been introduced to any of them besides the one that made you cry. All you're thinking about is why Sarah grabbed you from the first side of the aisle and how you're ever going to sleep again. You look back at the cats doing a ballet, how the hell are you supposed to pick up that one random character is a meta version of the main character. You know nothing about baby. Grizz and Peter are somewhere in the back, confusing the hell out of everyone just dancing the night away. As a writer, I love the creative foreshadowing, but as a person who's trying to help people understand this crazy musical. Come on. Andrew Lynn Weber, can't you make it a little easier for us to pick up on this? I had no idea, and I have now seen this a billion times. Okay, changing gears, grizzabella cats, family tree. It's a little easier compared to some of the middle aged cats, because I've really discussed a lot of them at this point. I discussed Buster for Jones's jelly lorems and grizzabella's love triangles in previous episodes, but I want to remind that she's likely been a lover of Buster fern. They were definitely childhood friends. And it's also rumored that she's been lovers with pretty much all the older kittens. It also seems really clear that she's rum tug, Tugger, demeters and Bumble arenas, mom, and she's probably also Gemina and monkeys traps, Mom and I would assume a few others along the same lines of the family tree. The rumor I found online, but also had a fan, send to me, is that it's rumored that Grizz and mccavid have some type of relationship. She's either worked with him or dated him, or, who knows what else, but her involvement with him could be the main reason that she was banished from the tribe. And this rumor makes sense when you combine it with this other rumor, which is that Grizabella was a prostitute, which we covered earlier. If she was a prostitute, it seems plausible she was working with macavid, and it's also a very strong reason why she was removed from the tribe, and also probably why she's the mom of nearly half the characters. Now, what I've been wanting to do this whole time, I want to combine all these rumors and let me tell you my Grizabella story. So here's what I have for grizzabel storyline at a young age, grizzabel is a rock star and takes the cat world by storm. She goes on tour, becomes super famous. She ends up signing a contract with Macavity so that Macavity can manage her career. She has early successes, but at some point, Macavity wants her to become a pop star. Instead of singing ballads, grizzabel rebels ends up doing a ton of. Drugs onto her. Her friend bustafer tries to get her out of this contract, and as the rich friend, he ultimately can do a lot of stuff with this, but he can't help. She's beyond help. She ends up the prostitute being wrongfully treated by Macavity. She drags her daughters into this, and that's why bumblerina and demeanor are in this crazy relationship with Macavity. Ultimately, Grizz becomes so old and washed up that she gets booted from the Buster for gentlemen clubs and ends up on the street. She tries to make it to a revival, but it falls flat. She moves away to an unknown Island, does a ton of drugs before she finally cleans the Prax. She waits for America's Got Talent to kick off their 25th season, and sings memory in a dramatic fashion to win over the hearts of America. Every Boomer is watching, remembering the fond times they had with young Grizabella. Every millennial is fascinated by how talented she is and how she's powered through these tough times. They're proud she's doing what she loves. And every Gen Z is wondering, who the hell is Grizabella, and wondering if maybe Kanye will make her famous like that. New singer Paul McCartney, America is mesmerized by the entire thing, and forgets the fact that a dude literally just shot lightning out of his hands and was a magician singing one of the best songs that she best songs of the show, and that there are plenty other better choices. Literally, every other amazing cat is a distant memory for America. See, see what I did there memory. America votes and she wins this deranged competition show, which doesn't result in a million dollars, but instead a sacrificial murder. It leads to mass chaos with documentaries and podcasts about the comeback and the comeback and the controversial ending. A movie gets made, and the trailer nearly breaks. Twitter, everyone wonders, what in the world is going on with this decade, and are we really prepared to be going into 2020, with cats. The movie is the last thing we see. Life goes on for all the cats, except for Chris, who dies to live another day the end. Let's dig into grizzabel as YouTube comments. This video has over 1800 comments, and 99% of them are just people saying that they're crying. So let me just read a couple senpai desu. I don't know anything about this musical, but I'm sobbing dead origami. I actually need this specific version on Spotify so I can cry dramatically in my car as onlookers pass by. Please be a damn ninjas cutting onions again, and then, last but not least, from the wrong cat died. Am I the only one who thinks grizabell was the wrong cat to die? And yes, I made that comment on this video. So why does Grizabella deserve to die over Grizabella? Okay, this is usually where I'll give the reasons that the main character that I've been talking about is better than Grizabella. But since I think she was wrong from the beginning, I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I will give you a very short counter on why I would make an argument for Grizabella. If I was to make an argument for Grizabella, it would send around her comeback and redemption story. That's all I'm giving you. That's all you get. I'm not going into any more detail. So how do I rate Grizabella on a scale of one to nine cat lives? I'm not rating Grizabella. I spent nine episodes telling you why all the other cats are more worthy. So Grizabella gets an incomplete she was the wrong cat to die. Thank you for listening to Episode 10 about Grizabella on the wrong cat died, the podcast breakdown of the cats taffy, although this is the end of our journey preparing you for the movie, there's still more to come. Stay tuned for future bonus episodes and other great content coming your way from the wrong cat died. And since the wrong cat died, has been unofficially sponsored by cats the movie, and have been preparing you this entire time to go see it. Go check out cats the movie and theaters near you on December 20, 2019, and let me know what you think. 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.