Did Salvador Dali really bring an ocelot to restaurants?
Yes. His name was Babou, he sailed on the SS France, and when a Manhattan restaurant objected, Dali explained he was an ordinary house cat painted over in an op art design. In this episode of Our Next Collar, Babou explains the painter behind the mustache: the most famous surrealist image in the world, which is smaller than a notebook, and the shy man who built a performance braver than himself.
History remembers the famous. Their pets remember the person. On Our Next Collar, a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history. One of them tells what they really saw. This episode is part of the Older Kids tier, for families ready to go a little deeper: same show, same honesty, told up a band and never grown-up. Tonight, a wild cat crossing a marble hotel floor.
This episode is fully scripted and has passed the Talking With Pets accuracy review. The recording is in production. The audio player and the full transcript will appear right here the day the episode goes live. Join the founding list below and we will write to you when it does.
From the episode
Chaco: I mean, why bring an ocelot?
Babou: Because an ocelot is genuinely not performing. Everything else in the room was performing. The people performing normalcy. Dali performing surrealism. I was simply there. An actual wild animal in a hotel dining room. That was the most surreal thing in any room he ever entered, because it was real.
[Chaco stops writing.]
Babou, the SS France photographs, the painted-over house cat story, the tiny Persistence of Memory, and Breton's expulsion are all real. The conversation is ours.
Sources and further reading
- Babou the ocelot: documented photographs, including aboard the SS France; the Manhattan restaurant āpainted-over house catā anecdote. Contemporary accounts.
- The Persistence of Memory (1931): 24.1 by 33 centimeters, the two-hour painting time and the Camembert origin by Dali's own account. The Museum of Modern Art; The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (1942). moma.org
- Surrealism: Andre Breton's 1924 manifesto, Freud's influence, Breton's expulsion of Dali and the āAvida Dollarsā anagram; Dali's documented rebuttal.
- The performance: the tank arrival at his retrospective, the documented mustache writings, and āEach morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure, that of being Salvador Dali.ā Multiple documented interview sources.
All historical claims above were checked in the Talking With Pets accuracy review, most recently the full editorial pass of July 2026.
Did Salvador Dali really have a pet ocelot?
Yes. Babou the ocelot traveled with Dali in the 1960s and is documented in photographs, including aboard the ocean liner SS France. In one documented anecdote, when a Manhattan restaurant objected, Dali explained that Babou was an ordinary house cat he had painted over in an op art design. Source: documented photographs and contemporary accounts.
How big is The Persistence of Memory?
Surprisingly small: 24.1 by 33 centimeters, roughly the size of a piece of notebook paper. By Dali's own account he painted it in about two hours one afternoon in 1931, after watching a soft Camembert cheese. It hangs at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Source: MoMA; Dali's The Secret Life of Salvador Dali.
Was Dali kicked out of the Surrealists?
Yes. Andre Breton, who wrote the movement's 1924 manifesto, expelled Dali and mocked him with the anagram Avida Dollars. Dali's documented rebuttal: the difference between me and the Surrealists is that I am a surrealist. Source: documented movement history.
Was the real Dali like the public Dali?
The episode's honest answer is that both were true. The mustache, the tank arrival at his own retrospective, and the daily pleasure of being Salvador Dali are documented performance. Underneath was a man who would watch a fly cross a surface for an hour, seeing ordinary things until they became extraordinary. The performance and the shyness can both be true.
What is Our Next Collar, and is this episode good for kids?
Our Next Collar is an educational history podcast where a brown tabby cat named Prince MoRee reaches the pets of history, and one of them tells the true story of the person they knew. The core episodes are for ages 6 to 10, and this one is part of the Older Kids tier for ages 9 to 12, for families ready to go a little deeper. Every episode lists its sources and says plainly which parts are real and which are ours. It is a podcast from Talking With Pets.
Our Next Collar Ā· the true stories only the animals saw.
Chaco, Roxie, Moose, Prince MoRee, and Armando are getting the pilot ready. Join the founding list and we will write to you when the first episodes go live. Listen with someone you like.