I should have been clearer, but I meant the cat leader sounded like James Mason. Professor Katz does look like and sound like Houseman.
I actually think that story effectively does ridicule the “Chariots of the Gods” trope by making it so outlandish. That part of the episode is more-or-less a parody of all those New Age theories.
It kills me too; he’s holding a diploma from my college.
Hmm. My husband pretends he hates cats, but secretly he loves our cat. So I’m guessing he found the episode so unsettling because it reminds him of his own conflicted and hidden feelings about cats. That kind of cognitive dissonance must be unbearable.
Cats definitely do have ulterior motives. I wouldn’t say those cats were evil, though. I mean their planet was dying. They were desperate. Poor kitties… 
(My cat kept looking up every time they meowed, running to the front window to see where all the cats were, but never quite managed to figure it out.)
I think this one didn’t click for me because of the cat factor. I neither love them nor hate them. And honestly, “cats are evil” is something I hear from cat owners more often than cat haters. So an extended cat in-joke doesn’t do very much for me.
I was convinced upon hearing the voice (of either the Professor or the Cat Leader or both, actually I think I thought it was the same voice) that the voice actor must have been Michael McKean and was disappointed to find that I was wrong.
I heard the voice as Michael McKean doing this character from Mr. Show with Bob and David.
You need to stop petting that kitty. The cats were definitely portrayed as evil. There was no element of “we hate to do this but we really must.” In fact, the leader especially rubbed it in the human’s faces.
Furthermore, their planet wasn’t dying (although those on earth probably didn’t know that). When we see them getting their rotation back, the cats on the planet are perfectly fine, and there are no flames in the atmosphere, like there later are on Earth. It seems like that, in the time period since they were sent off, they’d come up with a solution–or the leader was lying about how bad it was. Either way, the inhabitants of Thuban 9 are perfectly fine.
I liked the episode. I didn’t find it hilarious, but I usually don’t find Futurama hilarious. I did enjoy watching it, however. And I especially love the reference to an old movie I watch a while back where the cats could only speak because of their collars. That definitely seemed to be the case here.
BTW, the Futurama Wiki is really, really behind the times. I had to use Wikipedia to remember the cat planet location.
Try The Infosphere instead.
I understand it has the capacity of three ordinary Futurama websites.
No, it has twice the size of three ordinary Futurama websites.
It exists for no particular raison, however.
I probably did miss something, but I was mostly joking that they were poor and helpless. That’s what they want us to believe.
Ah, that’s the one who sounded like Stewie, then. I didn’t notice the difference between the Katz puppet’s voice and the cat-leader until I replayed the show.
How many references to the Statue of Liberty have there been in Futurama. There was the Planet of the Apes reference when they were travelling to the future. When the cats stopped the rotation of the Earth, the Eiffel Tower tumbled away to be replaced by Big Ben, and then the SoL. And last night was a rerun where the Omicronians came to Earth demanding to see the last episode of Single Female Lawyer. As the camera pulls back at the end of the episode to show the devastated New New York, the Statue is burning and it’s arm falls off. The Infosphere has a picture of the Statue holding up part of the travel tube network.
Any others?
There are many references to classic bits of animation. I re-watched it last night, and Kip’s dance at the club contained a direct quote of Oskar Fischinger’s classic Spiritual Constructions.
That is some hard-core animation geekery right there!