Original Air Date: November 4, 1961
Starring: Hugh Downs, Barbara Billingsly, Tony Dow and Jerry Mathers as “The Beaver”
Guest Starring: Bootsy
Directed by: David Butler

Cat Out of the Bag Alert!  This review contains spoilers for this episode!

Synopsis: Beaver (Jerry Mathers) finds a Persian cat on the doorstep and takes it in.  The cat belongs to Mrs. Prentiss (Grace Wallis Huddle) who rewards Wally (Tony Dow) and Beaver for finding her Precious Bootsy Wootsy.  But when Bootsy keeps returning to the Cleaver home, Beaver has to figure out what to do.

Featured Feline: Bootsy is a beautiful silver Persian which is featured prominently throughout this episode.

Beaver makes the mistake of feeding Bootsy right before giving him back to Mrs. Prentiss, which is why the cat keeps returning to him.  That and the fact that Beaver is much better company than Mrs. Prentiss.

In the end Beaver uses Gilbert’s dog to chase away the cat.  But then the dog wants to stay with the Cleavers.  Well, with such a wholesome American family who wouldn’t rather stay with them?

Final Mewsings: As usual Ward was right . . . cats don’t tolerate being called Bootsy Wootsy very well.

[nggallery id=106]

Relevant Links:

To discuss this film and other cats in movies and on television, join us on
Facebook and Twitter.