Rutherford the Amazing Telepathic Cat was a carnival act in the early 20th century that toured the United States with his owner, Ron Barnuckle. With his supposed telepathic link to his owner, Rutherford astounded audiences with an apparent mastery of mathematics, science, and literature.

The carnival would set up shop in town and tour for 6 days of the week, except Tuesdays - because Rutherford quote “hated Tuesdays”. Really this was just an excuse for travel days.
The act was only one way in which the performers made money. A nationally syndicated restaurant review of the toured town’s pizza - Rutherford’s favorite food - would also accompany Rutherford’s stay. In fact, it is now often an overlooked fact that Rutherford’s Telepathic Pizza Review was credited at the time with popularizing the dish not just in the United States, but the whole world.

The carnival act would fall out of favor when a commission was appointed by the Taft administration to investigate the supposed telepathic powers and intelligence of the Cat. It was discovered that Barnuckle had conned audiences through use of robotics and children sitting on each other’s shoulders in a cat suit. The fall out was enormous as the nation had to come to terms with the lies of Rutherford and Barnuckle, who until then had started to border on the status of folk heroes.

All copies of their syndicated pizza review were destroyed and Barnuckle was put on trial for fraud. Taking a settlement where he promised to not publicize himself or Rutherford in any way going forward, Barnuckle escaped serving any prison time, and would spend the rest of his days on a small farm in Pendleton, Indiana.

Any knowledge of the duo may have been completely forgotten had it not been for the recent discovery of one of the original Rutherford cat suits along with these tour photos and film in the Pendleton public library. It’s theorized that the library may have been built over the old Barnuckle farm property. While Jim Davis has never confirmed ever hearing of Rutherford the Amazing Telepathic cat or Ron Barnuckle, their influence remains obvious.

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