Senior cat Ella is obsessed with watching the animated film “The Grinch,” and she loves watching TV so much she insists that her human mom put cartoons on for her every morning.
Ella was adopted by Emily Beck and her husband in 2019, when Ella was 10.
Beck’s husband had wanted a kitten, but she was skeptical since she had grown up with dogs.
“Not really my thing, but we can check them out, and so he kept looking at kittens,” she said. “I came across Ella and she licked me through her cage… I just thought she was so cute, and we took her into the interaction room.”
They noticed that Ella tilted her head to the side.
Ella has a head tilt, likely caused by prior neglect. Photo courtesy of Emily Beck
“My husband actually said to the volunteer, ‘Is her neck okay?’ because she has a crooked neck. We realized it was from neglect of a previous owner. The most information they could give us was that it was from an untreated ear infection.”
Beck fell in love with the little tabby mix.
“I just thought she was the sweetest thing ever,” she said.
They brought Ella home and it wasn’t long before they noticed that Ella was fascinated by TV.
“I was working three jobs at the time and going to school, so when I would get home, I just wanted to put on something and take a quick nap,” said Beck.
She happened to put on “The Grinch” and was surprised by Ella’s reaction.
“She was just enthralled by it,“ said Beck.
The 2018 animated film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch.
Beck thought maybe this was a one and done thing, that Ella wouldn’t continue to watch.
“But then the more I kept playing (the Grinch), the more she just kept watching it,” said Beck. “Every single time we put it on she just wanted to watch it.”
Ella and her love for the Grinch went viral. She has thousands of fans. The “OG Film Connoisseur,” as she is known in social media, on TikTok has 712,000 followers and more than 36 million likes. On Instagram she has more than 130,000 followers.
Ella Is Fairly Unique In Her TV Obsession
Cat behaviorist Dr. Mikel Maria Delgado cites a study that found only about 6 percent of cats like looking at TV.
“It’s not so much what they are attracted to as what they can detect,” she said. “Cats do not have full color vision and seem to only detect colors in the blues and greens, so those are most likely to be distinguishable for them.”
Beck said Ella is indeed drawn to videos that have a lot of green. It may explain her love of the Grinch.
Delgado said some cats are probably attracted to the movement on the screen.
“Indoor cats are fairly near-sighted and they have a different flicker rate from humans, so we don’t know how clear the images are to any individual cat,” she said.
Mom, Gimme My Cartoons!
Ella likes to watch cartoons in the morning and will sit in the doorway and stare until she gets her way.
“She’s very demanding, and then she also will meow if the streaming service is taking too long to load. But most of the time, when she’s watching the actual show, she’s pretty quiet,” said Beck.
Ella has other favorites besides the Grinch.
“She really loves the kids show ‘The Octopus.’ And then she also really loves the Disney Channel, which I think once again it’s because those two shows are very vibrant and there’s always so much going on,” said Beck.
Beck said there are some shows Ella will watch all the time and then other things that she does not like.
“I have tried the ‘Little Mermaid’ before and ‘Coco’ a few times, and she just will not watch them,” said Beck. “She wants nothing to do with them. So, there are some that she just constantly loves and they’re tried and true, but otherwise she’s like, no, thank you.”
Ella has little interest in live action shows with actual humans, but she does seem to enjoy Taylor Swift and Harry Styles videos.
Beck and her husband adopted another cat, a calico named Jovie. Ella and Jovie get along pretty well, with Ella being a bit protective of her younger “sibling.”
“If (Ella) doesn’t know where Jovie is, she has to look for her until she knows where she is, to know that she’s safe,” said Beck.
In addition to sharing Ella’s TV watching via her social channels, Beck tries to raise awareness about the importance of considering senior pets when adopting.
“When we were going to go looking for cats my husband was set on getting a kitten and because we had seen Ella, that entire plan was thrown out the window and we wouldn’t change it for the world,” she said.
“People (say) well you don’t have her first 10 years. No, I don’t have her first 10 years, but I can make her next 10 years the best they can be. And I don’t think that any animals should have to essentially be brought to a shelter just because of their age. I like to just bring awareness to that, that they have so much love to give. And basically, when you see them, you know what you’re gonna get. So, I knew I was gonna get a pretty calm cat, but I also didn’t know, you know, she’s gonna watch television.”
