Love Potion #9 (1992)

In the scene where the cats all come in search of Paul’s, now tantalizing, cat, 40 cats were used, all of which were neutered males. This scene was shot in several cuts. The cats were released outside of the apartment window by one trainer and called from inside the apartment by another trainer, who was out of camera range. Once inside the apartment, the cats followed hand and verbal commands to sit, stay and move on cue, with food rewards. The cat seen eating the “potion”, was actually eating a small amount of cat food placed on the paper. The cat’s voices were added in post production. Paul’s cat is also in other scenes eating her dinner, meandering around the apartment, sleeping with Paul and playing with her squeaky toy. Diana has two chimpanzees in her lab, one boy and one girl. Before Paul and Diana try the potion out on themselves, they decide to try some on the chimps. They take the boy chimp into another room. Diana takes a swab and puts some of the potion on the girl chimps’ lips. As soon as the female makes a little sound, one of the walls starts to come down. We see that it is the male chimp breaking through. The female, seeing him come, runs and gets into her cage, closing the door behind her. The male chimp jumps on the cage and furiously humps the cage until he finally collapses, falling fast asleep. This scene was shot in cuts. The liquid that was placed on the chimp’s mouth was a sugar water mixture, which the chimp liked. The chimp seen knocking down the wall was trained to do so with hand and verbal commands and food rewards given by his trainer. The wall was constructed of a very thin balso wood, which was easily knocked down and caused no injury to the chimp. The chimp had been trained to make the “humping” motion and responded to hand and verbal commands, with food as a reward. The little girl chimp was not actually in the cage during this scene. When the chimp collapses, he was simply given the verbal command to “lay down and go to sleep”.