Pete the Cat is a fictional cartoon cat, created by American artist James Dean. The series started with four books illustrated by Dean and with text by Eric Litwin; since then, James Dean and his wife Kimberly Dean have written and illustrated the series of books.

Content

The first book, ''Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes'', is the story of a cat named Pete whose white shoes become dirty after he steps in various substances, but "Pete never loses his cool." Written as a song, its refrain is "I love my white shoes", changing to "I love my red shoes", "I love my blue shoes", and "I love my brown shoes". Then he steps in a bucket of water and the colors wash off, and they become wet, but still never loses his cool, he just sings his song. The book was self-published in 2008 and sold 7,000 copies in 10 months before it was picked up by HarperCollins – alerted by a YouTube

meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural i ...

in which two little girls read the book – and distributed throughout the United States and Canada. It rose to number 8 on the ''

New York Times Best Seller list ''The New York Times'' Best Seller list is widely considered the preeminent list of best-selling books in the United States. John Bear, ''The #1 New York Times Best Seller: intriguing facts about the 484 books that have been #1 New York Times ...

for picture books.

Author and illustrator

Eric Litwin (also known as "Mr. Eric") is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

storyteller and musician from

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

James Dean - Mazza Summer Conference 2013

The book uses a character first devised by James Dean, an artist active in Atlanta, who drew up Pete in 1999 and in 2006 self-published ''The Misadventures of Pete the Cat''. Litwin wrote a story about and a song for the cat, and the two began a partnership. The collaboration between Dean and Litwin ended in 2011. James Dean and wife Kimberly Dean continue to write and illustrate the ''Pete the Cat'' series, now over 60 books, together.

Honors

In 2010, the Georgia Center for the Book released a list titled, "25 Books All Young Georgians Should Read". ''Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes'' is one of the books included in that list.

Adaptations

On December 26, 2017, an animated holiday special, ''Pete the Cat: A Groovy New Year'', was released on

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Jacob Tremblay Jacob Tremblay ( ; born October 5, 2006) is a Canadian actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including a Canadian Screen Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, a Young Artist Award, and nominations for a Screen Actors Guild Award, tw ...

starred as the title character, with his parents voiced by

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in ...

and

Diana Krall Diana Jean Krall (born November 16, 1964) is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide, including over six million in the US. On December 11, 2009, '' Billboard'' maga ...

. Additional voices were provided by

Atticus Shaffer Atticus Ronald Shaffer (born June 19, 1998) is an American actor known for playing Brick Heck on the ABC sitcom '' The Middle'' (2009–2018), as well as for voicing Edgar in the film '' Frankenweenie'' (2012) and Ono on the Disney Junior seri ...

KT Tunstall Kate Victoria "KT" Tunstall (born 23 June 1975) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician. She first gained attention with a 2004 live solo performance of her song " Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on '' Later... with Jools Holland''. Th ...

, and

Don Was Don Edward Fagenson (born September 13, 1952), known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer and record executive. Primarily a bass player, Was co-founded the funk-rock band Was (Not Was). In later years he produced s ...

. It was followed by a ''

Pete the Cat Pete the Cat is a fictional cartoon cat, created by American artist James Dean. The series started with four books illustrated by Dean and with text by Eric Litwin; since then, James Dean and his wife Kimberly Dean have written and illustrated t ...

'' series, based on the books and developed by ''

Phineas and Ferb ''Phineas and Ferb'' is an American animated musical-comedy television series created by Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh for Disney Channel and Disney XD. Produced by Disney Television Animation, the series was originally broadcast as a ...

'' co-creator

Jeff "Swampy" Marsh Jeff "Swampy" Marsh (; born Jeffrey Kent Dudman; December 9, 1960) is an American animator, writer, director, producer, and voice actor. He is known for several animated television series, most notably as an executive producer and the voice of ...

, which was released on September 21, 2018. The series also has a Christmas special called ''Pete the Cat: A Very Groovy Christmas'' which was released on November 20, 2018, guest starring Dave Matthews and

Jason Mraz Jason Thomas Mraz (; born June 23, 1977) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. He rose to prominence with the release of his debut studio album, ''Waiting for My Rocket to Come'' (2002), which spawned the single " The Remedy (I Won't ...

. There are tie-in books based on the TV series. A second season began production as of February 2019. Throughout June–July 2019, clips from then-unreleased episodes from season 1 were uploaded to the Pete the Cat YouTube channel. The clips were later taken down in July 2019, but were reuploaded one month later. The second half of season 1 was released on August 9, 2019. A Valentine's Day special called ''Pete the Cat: A Very Groovy Valentine's Day'' was released on February 7, 2020. The first part of season 2 premiered on June 26, 2020. For season 2; Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and KT Turnstall replaced Elvis Costello and Diana Krall as Pete's parents. Three days later, the series also released a

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about hand washing. The second part of season 2 was released on November 13, 2020. A back to school special ''Pete the Cat: Back to School Operetta'' was released on August 27, 2021. The third part of season 2 was released on November 5, 2021. The fourth and final part of season 2 was released on March 11, 2022.

TheatreWorksUSA TheatreWorksUSA is a professional, not-for-profit theatre for young and family audiences founded in 1961. The company is based out of New York City, but has touring productions that run through forty-nine states as well as parts of Canada. Pl ...

has created two ''Pete the Cat'' musicals.

References

External links