Mungojerrie

"Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, we're a notorious couple of cats. As knock-about clowns, quick-change comedians, tight-rope walkers and acrobats."

- "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer"

Mungojerrie is a featured character in the musical Cats. He is one half of a criminal duo alongside Rumpleteazer.

Personality
"Mischievous, Rambunctious, Ne'er-do-well"

- Three Words

Mungojerrie is a a young, high-energy, mischievous character. He is mentioned as a rumoured agent for Macavity, but it seems he specializes in only petty theft. Despite his criminal activity, he is generally received well by other cats; many productions show other cats finding his antics irritating or amusing, with the more mature Jellicles showing disdain. He can be seen as idolising Tugger, wanting to copy his moves and get as much attention from the girls.

The Palladium production, which introduced Street Cat Tugger, showed an interesting reversal in their characterisations. Now Mungo seemed the older, more established cheeky, popular Tom, and Street Cat looked up to him for approval.

Role
"Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. Male-female duo. Strong dancers with acrobatic ability and excellent voices. High baritone for Mungojerrie and high belt for Rumpleteazer. Lots of personality, young, full of energy, impudent and cheeky."

- Casting Calls

Mungojerrie shares a featured song with Rumpleteazer (aptly named "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer") as well as a number of lines in other group songs.

In the original Broadway production, Mungojerrie only appeared as a "trash puppet", played by Coricopat and conjured by Mistoffelees who sang the song to entertain Bustopher Jones. In mid-1987, the Broadway show was overhauled, and Mungojerrie became a full ensemble character as Carbucketty was cut from the show.

Appearance
Mungojerrie is an orange, brown, and black tabby cat. In London-based productions he often has prominent white spaces, suggesting a narrow white bib. These designs often coincide with Rumpleteazer having a bold colour palette to match, and they appear very similar. Broadway-based productions give Mungojerrie a much darker palette, with very little base white showing through, and similarly give Rumpleteazer a much softer, paler look, and it is only their song costumes that bring them together to the point one might be mistaken for the other.

His song costume consists of a vest top and stockings, usually made of a stretch velour that makes the colours appear particularly vibrant. London style song costumes give him leggings and sleeves similar to Rumpleteazer's song costume, while Broadway influenced costumes give him warmers that are bolder than his regular warmers. The original song costumes for "Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer" consisted of a commercial tiger print fabric. The Broadway production re-imagined their solo completely, dressing them as "Puppets" made from the trash in the junkyard, similar to the Beetles, or the Pekes and Pollicles. Subsequent productions, however, reverted to the original concept of costume pieces thrown over the ensemble costume.

Fandom
For fandom headcanons and theories, CLICK HERE.