Original Air Date: November 12, 1969
Starring: Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Randall Duk Kim
Directed by: Barry Shear
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains spoilers for this episode!
Synopsis: A group of young college students decide to break into the Bishop Museum and steal King Kamehameha’s cloak just for kicks.
Cat Burglar (Scene Stealer): The students stage a test run to find out how quickly the police will arrive on the scene. Eddie (Randall Duk Kim) gets up on the roof of the museum and bypasses the alarm over a skylight so he can cut the wire and open it up. Once done he picks up a white cat which he has stashed aside. The cat, which has one blue eye and one yellow eye, is wearing a makeshift harness.
Eddie lowers the cat, whose name is Sam, down into the museum by a rope attached to the harness. The cat meows on the way down and looks nervous.
Eventually Sam gets to the floor (a little roughly) and climbs out of the harness. Earlier one of the other students had thrown a little catnip pouch onto the floor where the cloak is displayed.
As Sam steps onto the floor around the exhibit an alarm goes off. But when guards and police appear moments later the cat is nowhere in sight.
McGarrett (Jack Lord) and Danno (James MacArthur) arrive on the scene but everyone is clueless as to how the alarm was triggered. Kono (Zulu) then approaches carrying Sam. McGarrett smiles as they approach.
“Look what I found behind Queen Emma’s silverware. And I thought I knew all the cats on the island,” Kono smiles, handing Sam to McGarrett.
Danno (James MacArthur) asks if McGarrett still wants him to find out who triggered the alarm. “No,” McGarrett says, handing Sam to him, “Take him downtown and book him for trespassing. Read him his rights and give him some milk and catnip.”
Danno laughs as McGarrett hands him the cat but Chin Ho (Kam Fong) isn’t laughing. Danno hands the cat to Chin, who then passes him back to Kono. “You heard what he said! Book him!”
At least two cat actors played the part of Sam, because in this latter scene he has two blue eyes.
Final Mewsings: What happened to the catnip pouch?
Many thanks to Jerry Otwell for letting us know about the cat in this episode!
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