A Degree Absolute! episode thirty-three — "THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA" with Josh Spiegel

Does Mister-not-Doctor Andrew MacDuhui (Paddy McG) hate pets? (He does not, no matter what his low-information neighbors in the fictional Scottish town of Inverinoch think.)

Did Walt Disney hate cats? (Our very special guest Disney expert, Josh Spiegel, makes a compelling case.)

Were animals harmed during the making of this motion picture? (Most certainly, regrettably.)

Our principled stand against pandering to the Internet's insatiable appetite for cat content crumbles as we pad, paw, 'n' claw our merryish way through...

The Three Lives of Thomasina

Written by Robert Westerby, from Paul Gallico's novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God

Directed by Don Chaffey

Released December 11, 1963

A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode thirty-two — THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH with Margaret H. Willison

On February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced a band from Liverpool, England formerly known as The Quarrymen to an estimated 73 million viewers of his primetime CBS variety show. And down the dial on NBC, the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color drew an audience of something less than 73 million for the first installment of its three-part The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, an adaptation of Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan's novel Christopher Syn starring our man Patty McG as an 18th century man of the cloth* by day/masked-smuggler-by-night who helps the common people by... paying their taxes, we think? Using the funds he earns from smuggling brandy and tobacco. He also helps them elude the pressgangs who roam the marsh looking for reasonably able-bodied youngish men to abduct into King George III's Royal Navy.

*Specifically, a "fuckable vicar" in the estimation of our generously oversharing special guest Margaret H. "Hula Hoop" Willison, whose effervescent personality really ties the room together. (Dang. That's the wrong Coen Bros. reference.) 

The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

Teleplay by Robert Westerby, from the novel Christopher Syn by Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan

Directed by James Neilson

Original airdates February 9, 16, and 23, 1964