When I was a teenager, I was sure my mother did it just to annoy me. All that cooing and baby talk was just so uncool. I mean, really, did this have to go on every single day? And then we had the spoiling. The cottage cheese and Kaopectate breakfasts for little ones with intestinal troubles, the dinner served precisely on time each and every evening, with individual tastes religiously adhered to, the favorite toys lovingly cared for. At age 14, it was sometimes the bane of my very existence. Of course, I had yet to understand that this was my genetic inheritance I was seeing. That’s right. My very own mother paved the way for my own cat to receive the royal treatment he so richly deserves. She helped me understand the true beauty, and inevitability, of being…….a Crazy Cat Lady.

And she’s not the only one, oh no! This past Christmas I was gifted with a formidable tribute to my past, and my future. I know I am loved when someone gives me a Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure! She is my heroine, in all her plastic glory.

The Crazy Cat Lady isn’t just any old action figure; she’s an action figure with cats. The beautiful lady herself is clad in a poop brown bathrobe with marvelously clashing blue and black checked pajama pants. Her navy blue shirt and bright green slippers are accessorized by her black headband which neatly holds her not-found-in-nature blond hair off her lined, under-eye-bagged, bug-eyed, pale-lipped catatonic face. She is further accessorized by one wee cat peaking from her pocket and another draped under her plastic helmet of unwashed hair. She also has what might be rings on two of her fingers, but I know in my heart that they aren’t. They’re both white and placed too far forward to be jewelry. But I know what they are – one is a string to remind her to get to the darn store and stock up on cat treats and the other is a bandage, covering the evidence of a recent love-nip from one of her babies. No, it doesn’t say that anywhere, but I know. All in all she is an absolute vision in plastic. And she is plastic, 100%. No silly attempts at faux hair or fabric clothing. She is what she is, right out of a factory mold, and proud of it.

Now what can you do with Crazy Cat Lady? Is she but a decorate bauble for your living room? Oh, no. She is a fully functional, amazingly articulated action figure toy. She bends at the knees. She bends at the waist – forward and backward. She bends at the elbows – again, forward and backward. And the pièce de resistance – she has full, 360 degree rotation of the arms at the shoulder! She’s remarkably double, triple and quadruple jointed. She can move in more unnatural ways than the most agile of superhero action figures. She has to have these skills; she has cats to tend to! She has seven cats, in fact. There are the two cleverly molded directly onto her body plus…….

Five extra cats! That’s right; she comes with even more accessories – feline accessories! She has her skittish black cat, her relaxed long haired pure bred, her two sassy tabbies each with a paw raised to playfully interact with their loving owner, her ever vigilant black and white with its fluffy tail, and what I truly believe to be her elder statesman yellow cat, calmly watching over the antics of all the others. This is a clan to be reckoned with, people. The cuteness alone could cause a synaptic overload. Add them to the amazingly hyper-articulated Crazy Cat Lady herself and you have one impressive Crazy Cat Family.

Although she is clearly going to be desired by virtually everyone who sees her, the Crazy Cat Lady is not for the young. She does have small parts that could cause a choking hazard to those small children not yet mature enough to properly revere this Action Figure Extraordinaire. Though she could theoretically be played with quite well due to her remarkable agility, it is rather unlikely that she will actually appeal to the kidlets. She’s a little too scary for them to appreciate that her glazed and frozen visage is one of absolute concentration on her feline companions. In other words, she’d freak out any reasonably sane child were she to be presented as an actual toy. Her packaging includes a quiz which allows anyone to determine whether they, too, might have what it takes to become a Crazy Cat Lady. Questions such as, “Can you tell your cats apart by the roughness of their tongues?” There are also cat quotes from the rich and famous such as this one from the ever articulate and not at all nutty Drew Barrymore:

”If I die before my cat, I want a little of my ashes put in his food so I can live inside him”

I know, it brings a tear to my eye, too. So yes, the Crazy Cat Lady really is more appropriate for the adult child than the chronological child. As such she is a perfect addition to my household. As I coo to my cat and tell him what a sweet little boy he is while digging beneath the couch for the toy he’s batted under there for the 800th time, I can gaze upon my plastic heroine, her presence inspiring me to get that giant cat tree I’ve been longing for, urging me to buy that sweater with the huge cat knit into the back, and silently telling me that it’s all okay. Telling me that my mom was right after all, baby talking to your cat is not only a form of therapy to soothe and calm the soul but a step towards the happiness only a multi-cat household can bring.

I highly recommend the Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure as a gift for anyone with cats and the ability to laugh at themselves and the goofy things we all do to keep our feline sweeties happy – she truly is an absolute hoot. She may not get a lot of play time from the children, but she gets admired regularly, which seems to be enough for her to have a satisfying existence. If you, like me, understand and embrace your slow, steady march toward Crazy Cat Ladyhood, you need this talisman of our shared future. She will warm the cockles of your heart. Now please excuse me, I need to get my cat’s blankie out of the dryer so he has a warm place to take his fifteenth nap of the day.




Special thanks to marytara who added this delightful item to the database; to disinclined, who knows that what I want for Christmas is something that will make me laugh; and to my mother, without whom I would never have understood how much fun it is to spoil your cat and drive your teenagers crazy at the same time.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): gift
Type of Toy: Action Figure
Age Range of Child: Other