Cat’s out of the bag as Hello Kitty food truck returns
We’ve been sitting on this bombshell for a long time, since the Hello Kitty Cafe Truck’s last visit to the Bay Area.
We didn’t really want to break the news to you devoted fans but now, with the return of her food truck — stops in San Jose (today), San Francisco (May 19), Pleasanton (May 26) and Walnut Creek (June 2) are scheduled — we figure we have no choice but to rat her out.
Hello Kitty is not a cat. What? you say. But she acts like a cat, looks like a cat and purrs like a cat (OK, she doesn’t purr, though she would if her creators would draw her a mouth), so she must be a cat, right?
Afraid not. A reader tipped us off the last time we wrote about the Hello Kitty Cafe, admonishing us not to refer to her as the “winsome whiskered one” because she is no feline.
We were skeptical of his assertion, so we did a little research. Although Sanrio PR representatives wouldn’t respond to our queries, we found the genealogical proof right there on the corporate website.
Hello Kitty is a human female. And although she was created by a Japanese company, she is British.
“Hello Kitty was born in the suburbs of London,” the website says. “She lives with her parents and her twin sister Mimmy who is her best friend. Her hobbies include baking cookies and making new friends. As she always says, ‘you can never have too many friends!’ ”
Still think she’s a pop culture cat? Dig deeper and you’ll find this:
“As tall as five apples, and as heavy as three, Hello Kitty is a bright little girl with a heart of gold. She loves to bake cookies and play the piano, and dreams of one day becoming a pianist or maybe even a poet. She has a gift for music and English, and a soft spot for Mama’s apple pie. Hello Kitty and her twin sister Mimmy are the best of friends.”
Yep, so she’s an English girl with a bit of a problem with, ahem, facial hair. Nothing a good pair of tweezers couldn’t resolve if Kitty really wanted to drop this cat ruse.
But maybe she and her fans are fine with all this. And who are we to pop that pretty pink balloon of belief?
So fans are free to continue buying her so-adorbable stuff, riding on her themed plane, drinking her rosé wine …
Oops, that was the other bombshell. Turns out Hello Kitty is old enough to drink. She’s officially 43 years old.
But in the hearts and minds of her fans, the winsome whiskered one will be forever young — and always super-cute.