Saturday Night Live alum Robert Smigel will always have a soft spot for Toonces, the cat who could (sort of) drive a car.
On the latest episode of LateNighter’s podcast Inside Late Night With Mark Malkoff, the comedian—who first joined SNL as a writer in 1985 and served as a featured player from 1991 to 1993—looked back fondly on the quirky kitty character.
Toonces first appeared in the 1989 sketch “Toonces the Driving Cat: Driver’s Test,” which sees Steve Martin and Victoria Jackson as a couple who discovers their cat can drive (albeit, not very well) and decide to let him take the wheel. While Toonces was portrayed by a puppet, SNL used a live cat for the opening credits and close-up scenes.
“I have to admit that I was obsessed with Toonces,” Smigel tells Malkoff. “I was obsessed with, particularly, the opening credits, where they used the live cat and they had the two arms operating the steering wheel. I mean, I’d never seen that done before.”
“I was so amused by it that I would literally run up to 17, where the offices were, and videotape the pre-tape,” he added. “The cat [is] just sitting around. [He] has no idea he’s in a comedy bit, and to me, this was the funniest thing in the whole world.”
Smigel revealed that Toonces had a major influence on his own comedy style, especially the creation of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who made his first appearance on a 1997 episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
“Obviously [Toonces had] a huge influence on comedy that I did later, whether it was Triumph humping a live animal, or [SNL‘s] TV Funhouse, where Dino and I had a dog puppet giving birth to puppies and having them come out of a hole between a cat,” he said. “Nothing made me laugh harder for a while than the idea of using animals in ways where they don’t have to do anything, but they’re in a ridiculous comedy bit, and they have no idea.”
Toonces became a recurring sketch, with Dana Carvey later taking over the role Martin originally played. In 1992, NBC even aired a half-hour special, Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car. It included the eponymous sketch, plus new material like “The Tooncinator” and “Toonces Without A Cause.”
