Honestly, if you grew up with a TV in the late eighties, you probably still have that jingle stuck in your head. It’s a simple, catchy, slightly repetitive tune that heralds the arrival of a gray tabby behind the wheel of a Chrysler LeBaron. Toonces the driving cat snl was never supposed to be high art, yet it became one of the most enduring symbols of Saturday Night Live’s golden era.
The premise was breathtakingly stupid. A couple—played with incredible earnestness by Steve Martin and Victoria Jackson—discover their cat can drive. They don't panic. They don't call a scientist. They just hop in the backseat. Then, inevitably, they scream "Toonces, look out!" as the car sails over a cliff.
It’s the kind of comedy that shouldn't work more than once. But it did. For years.
The Genius of Jack Handey
To understand Toonces, you have to understand Jack Handey. He’s the guy behind "Deep Thoughts," those surreal one-liners that felt like Hallmark cards written by a sociopath. Handey had this specific brand of "dumb smart" humor. He once said he couldn't quite remember how the idea for a driving cat came about, but he actually named the character after his own real-life cat.
People often forget how weird SNL was back then. Handey wasn't interested in political satire or celebrity impressions. He liked puppets. He liked animals doing human things poorly.
Most of the time, the "acting" was done by a puppet created by Bob Flanagan, a veteran from the Jim Henson Muppet Workshop. That’s why the paws looked so strange on the steering wheel. They were stiff, oversized, and completely incapable of actually steering. Whenever the show used a real cat for the close-ups, they’d just put it in a stationary car and hope it didn't jump out of the window.
Why It Actually Worked
The secret sauce wasn't the cat. It was the humans.
Steve Martin and Victoria Jackson played the owners, Lyle and Brenda Clark, with a level of sincerity that made the absurdity pop. They weren't in on the joke. When Toonces failed his driving test in the sketch with Kevin Nealon, they were genuinely disappointed. They treated him like a gifted but reckless teenager rather than a domestic shorthair.
- The Visual Gag: Seeing a cat's head barely peeking over the dashboard.
- The Repetition: You knew the cliff was coming. You just didn't know when.
- The Theme Song: It essentially narrated the entire plot in ten seconds.
Toonces the Driving Cat SNL: More Than Just a One-Hit Wonder
You might remember the cliff. Everyone remembers the cliff. But the writers took Toonces to some truly bizarre places.
In one sketch, Toonces is approached by Martians. Instead of being terrified, he eventually ends up piloting their spaceship. Naturally, he crashes it into the Washington Monument. Then there was "The Tooncinator," a parody of Terminator 2 featuring Linda Hamilton herself. She reprised her role as Sarah Connor, fleeing a robotic version of the cat.
Phil Hartman played the Terminator, and even he couldn't save them. "He can drive," the Terminator warned, "just not very well."
The 1992 Special
By 1992, the character was so popular that NBC gave him a half-hour prime-time special: Toonces, the Cat Who Could Drive a Car. It featured guest stars like Dana Carvey and even featured Toonces as a talk show host.
It was a bit of a "jump the shark" moment for some fans. A five-minute sketch is one thing; thirty minutes of a cat crashing cars is a lot to ask of an audience. Still, it proved that the "Toonces the driving cat snl" brand was a powerhouse in the early 90s.
The Technical Side of a Driving Cat
How do you film a cat driving? In 1989, you didn't have CGI. You had fishing line and plywood.
- The Puppet: As mentioned, Bob Flanagan’s puppet did the heavy lifting. The movement was deliberately clunky.
- The Real Cat: For the iconic theme song shots, a real tabby was used. The fake paws were attached to the steering wheel in front of it.
- The Cliff: This was almost always a toy car or a crude model being shoved off a miniature ledge. The low-budget feel was part of the charm.
It felt like a home movie gone wrong. That’s probably why it stood out in an era of increasingly polished television. It was raw, it was silly, and it was unapologetically cheap.
The Legacy of the Crash
Toonces became a cultural shorthand. Even today, if someone is a bad driver, people of a certain age will call them Toonces. It’s a weirdly specific legacy for a sketch about a puppet.
The reason it holds up better than some of the political sketches from 1990 is that it isn't tied to a specific era of news. It's just a cat in a car. That’s universal. It taps into that basic human realization that our pets are probably smarter than they look, but definitely shouldn't be trusted with heavy machinery.
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Actionable Insights for SNL Fans
If you're looking to revisit this era of comedy, don't just stick to the YouTube clips.
- Check out the Jack Handey collections: If you like the humor of Toonces, his book The Stench of Honolulu is a masterclass in that same surreal style.
- Look for the "Driving Miss Daisy" parody: It’s one of the best Toonces sketches, featuring Jan Hooks and Phil Hartman. It shows how the show could blend high-brow parody with low-brow animal gags.
- Observe the puppetry: Next time you watch, look at how the puppet moves compared to the real cat shots. The transition is hilarious once you notice it.
Toonces was a product of a time when TV could be truly random. It didn't need a deep meaning or a political message. Sometimes, you just want to see a cat drive a car off a cliff. And honestly? We still do.
To dive deeper into the history of late-night comedy, you should look into the writing credits of the 1988-1992 SNL seasons to see how many future legends were essentially writing for a cat puppet.