Meet the wobbly, wonderful Kansas City cat with 1.4 million TikTok fans
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the living room of this Kansas City home, in the sight of the Amazon delivery guy leaving boxes on the porch, to join this cat and this other cat in lawfully mock matrimony.
Willy the groom is a handsome black cat with golden eyes, wearing a black tux. Phoebe the bride is a stunning Southern kitty in a tiny white gown and veil.
Willy is an internet superstar who has amassed an audience of more than 1.4 million followers since his human mama began posting videos of his life in Kansas City on TikTok.
This is an arranged marriage between the celebrity and his online girlfriend. No prenup was signed.
The two met for the first time just minutes before the ceremony. In feline terms it was love at first sight; Willy only hissed once at his beloved. The TikTok videos of their big day have been watched more than 800,000 times.
The groom’s fans know him as Willy Wonky, a special needs cat born with a neurological condition that hinders his ability to walk. Cats like Willy stumble instead of slink. They’re known as wobbly cats.
He goes by @IAmWillyWonky on TikTok; the same on Instagram, where he has more than 200,000 followers.
His TikTok and Instagram numbers stun his owner, Mandy Morris, who owns a vegan restaurant in the Northland with her husband. She now posts two to three videos a day for Willy’s fans. They get to see him living the good life — his spa days, his special wake-ups on Wednesdays, snuggling with his human parents.
“I definitely count it as a job now,” said Mandy. “I’ll go to the restaurant early every morning, then come home in the afternoon and create content.”
If she misses a day, Willy’s fans message her: Is he OK?
No one wanted Willy
Like the bride and groom, the best man and flower girl were cats — Charlie Bucket and Hobbes.
Phoebe rode 15 hours in a car from Birmingham, Alabama, to marry Willy. She, too, is a special needs cat. Her human daddy held onto her and helped her scooch a few inches down the “aisle.” The white runner led to the sofa, where Willy lay like a prince under an arch of white flowers and lights.
At one point, the best man started biting the flowers, nearly pulling the set piece down on Willy’s head.
Through the hubbub of the day, Willy never moved from that spot.
Mandy was an experienced foster mom and volunteer for The Rescue Project in Kansas City when she first laid eyes on Willy in November 2020. He was just 3 months old.
“There was just something in his eyes. There was a sparkle there. He was teeny-tiny,” she said.
He was living with a foster family and needed a forever home. She kept seeing his picture on social media.
No one wanted him.
“For some reason, black cats have a hard time getting adopted,” she said. “It’s a bad luck thing, I guess. I don’t know. I never understood it. I just love black cats. I love their personalities.”
The second strike against Willy was his health. He was described as having cerebellar hypoplasia, or wobbly cat syndrome.
Mandy, who “had every animal you could imagine” growing up, had already talked to her husband, Phillip Newman, “about how I wanted to open up my home to some sort of special needs or elderly or hospice situation for animals,” she said. “I really wanted to start doing that now that we have a house and the space.
“And Willy just won my heart.”
But she was scared too.
What is CH?
“I didn’t know anything about wobbly cats. Before Willy I had never heard of wobbly cat syndrome or cerebellar hypoplasia,” Mandy said.
CH, shorthand for the condition, happens when a mama cat gets infected with a virus while she’s pregnant and passes the infection to her unborn kittens. The virus attacks the cerebellum — the part of the brain that controls motor skills, coordination and balance — as it’s developing.
CH cats feel no pain, and their condition does not progress or deteriorate.
“The sad thing is CH animals don’t usually make it out of the shelters because they get euthanized,” Mandy said. “They just don’t have people to adopt them. People don’t want a special needs animal and they (shelters) need the space.
“So a lot of them don’t get a chance at life. That’s why I think it meant the world to me to adopt Willy and learn and give him the best life I could.”
Willy’s new in-laws, Stephanie and Scott Brown of Birmingham, feel the same about their special needs kitty. The Browns run an after-school learning center for children in their hometown.
Phoebe is a CH kitty.
Willy’s TikTok account was one of the first the Browns found when they started using the app.
“Phoebe had a really big crush on William,” Stephanie said. “She would flirt with him shamelessly.”
(A paws here: Stephanie did the teasing. You know cats can’t really type.)
The Browns volunteer with a cat rescue group in Birmingham and, like Mandy and Phillip, had fostered animals before they met Phoebe. She was 10 months old when she was rescued from a hoarding situation.
“I wasn’t familiar with wobbly cat syndrome at all,” said Stephanie. “I just saw her in a cardboard box bouncing around and I fell in love. I was like, ‘I need her!’”
The Browns took her home as a foster in February 2021 and adopted her the next month.
“They are some of the sweetest cats,” said Stephanie. “It’s almost like they appreciate the special help and attention you are giving them, and it makes you love them even more.
“Phoebe is unlike any other cat I’ve had, and it’s hard to articulate.”
Both families have come to know their cats for more than their limitations. “It helps you understand that disability is kind of a misnomer,” said Scott. “Just because someone or a cat has a disability doesn’t mean they are diminished in life. So some of the things we really want to show with Phoebe is she has a joyful life.
“Mobility differences and things like that aren’t things that have to make you pitiable.”
Stephanie said, “When you first see them, you see the way they are moving, it can be natural to feel some sadness. And then you spend a little time and, uh, they don’t care.
“That’s just the way they were born, the way that they move. They are completely fine.
“Traditionally most of these cats have been euthanized. But now we’re able to see them living and thriving and having full, wonderful lives. It’s very heartwarming to be a part of it, to help people understand a little bit how wonderful they are.”
Life with Willy
When Mandy and Phillip — the owners of Tree Hugger Kitchen in Riverside — first brought Willy home, he wobbled when he walked “but he could get himself from room to room, get himself into the potty,” Mandy said. “He was pretty self-sufficient with a little help.”
Like parents with a newborn, they Willy-proofed their house, a one-story with no stairs. They covered the wood floors with rugs and runners to provide soft landings when Willy flopped over.
They bought a kitty litter box low to the ground for easy entry. “He potties on his side,” said Mandy. “He lays on his side and goes. But it works.”
They bought a custom food stall with sides to help hold him up as he ate. And to prevent the unsteady kitty from tipping over his water bowl and flooding the floor, he got a cat fountain.
“It was just learning as we went, what he was responding to. He really communicated to us what was working and what wasn’t,” Mandy said. “He doesn’t like us to assist him. People were like ‘get him a wheelchair, get him this, get him that.’
“He would growl and get all upset. He’s a very vocal cat. Not so much anymore.”
Mandy warns people not to adopt a wobbly cat or a special needs animal just “because they’re cute. It is a lot of work. And please do your research, very, very important to make sure you have the right home environment for them.
“I wouldn’t recommend a special needs animal in a house with multiple levels unless you have ways to block off stairs.”
And Willy couldn’t defend himself against big dogs or little kids, she said. There are no little ones in the home. Just two other cats, Charlie Bucket and Hobbes.
Willy’s love life
Willy and Phoebe’s courtship began with friendly prodding from their fans online.
Willy (OK, his mom) asked her out, then asked her to be his girlfriend, then proposed in a message written in cat food.
“Why do these two cats have a better love life than I do?” one of their fans jokingly asked.
Phoebe has a moderate case of CH. When Mom or Dad hold her by her sides to keep her from flopping over, she looks like she can walk normally.
Some people affectionately call the unsteady CH gait a drunken sailor walk, said Stephanie.
Phillip said it’s like these cats move in disjointed, stop-motion animation. Their movements are deliberate as their brains work to concentrate on each step.
When Mandy and Phillip saw that Willy seemed to be having a progressively harder time walking and began flopping over more, they could tell his eyesight was deteriorating.
He had an MRI, and his owners were surprised to learn he does not, after all, have CH.
But now they don’t know what he has.
“It’s some neurological condition that looks like CH but there’s a million of them and they don’t know what it is,” said Mandy. “They just don’t know what he has, and whatever it is, this one is progressive, it’s degenerative.
“The vet said he could live 15 years. We don’t know. It’s not a death sentence for him by any means. But compared to three years ago, it’s a world of difference, sadly, with him.”
A friend for Willy
Willy can’t walk on his own anymore. His legs are weaker. He can still use the litter box by himself but he has to be carried there.
“We’re just making sure he’s comfortable and happy,” Mandy said. “I don’t like to tell his followers that it is degenerative. I think I have said it, but I am trying not to make it too gloom and doom. It’s really just a lot of unknown.”
They adopted a CH kitten in July. He is 4 months old, a tornado compared to Willy’s calm. They named him after another character from “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.”
Charlie Bucket “is amazing and has so much energy and so much personality and he really does get along great with Willy and they have just the most adorable relationship,” Mandy said.
As Willy’s following on social media grows, she has learned to take the good with the bad, to ignore the people who accuse her of keeping Willy alive just so she can make TikTok videos.
People have called her an animal abuser.
“No, I could get rid of all of this (social media activity) and be fine,” she said. “But I love bringing awareness. The best thing that has come out of social media is the messages that I get … from people adopting and fostering special needs animals. That’s why I do it.
“I wanted to bring awareness that these animals deserve the life. … They make amazing pets and they bring so much happiness to our home and I just think it’s so important … sorry …”
The mother of the groom began to cry.
These Kansas City area animal shelters are in crisis. Here’s how you can help
