The time it was nearly Planet of the Cats

Astronaut George Taylor is furious. He is trapped. Trapped like an animal in a net.

During the crash on this hostile, strange planet he injured his throat and has been unable to speak, but such is his fury, he overcomes the injury and roars the immortal line – ‘Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty cat.’

There is a pause and director Franklin J. Shaffner calls ‘cut.’

“What in Sam Hill was wrong with that?” yells an infuriated Charlton Heston, who is playing Taylor

Shaffner simply points at Miffy the cat, who is playing the evil Dr Zaius, and is currently sat quietly licking her own bottom.

In 1968, Planet of the Cats was a huge gamble for 20^th Century Fox. Up until then science-fiction was almost exclusively consigned to a B-movie ghetto.

However, Planet of the Cats had a budget of $6 million, with over a million going on training the cats. This was a big deal, but Charlton Heston had doubts.

“It was pretty clear for the get-go that the cats weren’t going to play ball,” he remembered during a 1995 Wogan interview.

“The first day working with them, they wouldn’t go where they were told, they’d lie down when they were supposed to be walking, and whenever the camera started rolling they’d just turn their backs on it, lift up their tales and show it their- you know, their backsides.

“It was almost like the cats were wilfully doing exactly the opposite of what the humans wanted.”

The problems came to a head when writer Michael Wilson needed to do some urgent rewriting and the entire feline cast came and sat on his typewriter.

“It was pretty clear then that we weren’t going to be able to use real cats,” said Heston.

“Frankie, he was the director, you understand, he suggested using humans in cat costumes.”

“So, Frank dressed up as a giant cat and, well, it just didn’t work. He just didn’t look particularly feline.

“Then someone suggested putting a cat in the cat costume to make it more feline but, you know, I think we all felt that would make matters worse.”

Morale was low, but it was at this point, with the director dressed as a giant cat, that a classic was born.

“Well, my Ma visited the set that day and her eyes weren’t that good and she just said ‘why’s that man dressed up as an ape?’

“Well, me and Frankie looked at each other and, we said it at the same time, I remember, we just both said ‘Planet of the Apes,’ and that’s where it came from.”

Filming was halted, the cats were all fired, the ape suits were made, actors were hired to play the apes, and a science-fiction classic was made.

However, regardless of how successful it was, there are Hollywood rumours that persist to this day that, with the advances of modern CGI, someone will finally make Planet of the Cats.

Probably Tim Burton, you’d imagine.