Q. and A. With Stuart Elliott

Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com.

Q. This is in reference to your story last week about a campaign for a new cat food from Merrick Pet Care with a food blog “written” by a feline critic named W. (Mittens) Bloomfield, an acerbic American Shorthair. It reminds me of a proposed cat food commercial created by some wit that featured a mouse as the presenter. The last line was, “After all, I am cat food.” It was not produced, Stuart.

I was at Grey. I think it was by a copywriter who held another job at a different agency. Mornings at Grey. Afternoons at the other agency. He also set up a Vietnamese boutique in Greenwich Village. This was 1965, so that’s something.

I think he finally left the business and set up a direct mail operation selling things like taps for shoes. I heard he got rich. But that was a long time ago in a land far away. The ad biz was a bit wacky in those days.

A. Thanks, dear reader, for the stroll down memory lane. I hope your anecdote will inspire a plot thread for a forthcoming episode of “Mad Men.”

Q. A cat critic named W. (Mittens) Bloomfield? I would have named him Addison DeMittens!

A. Thanks, dear reader, for the tip of the hat to one of my all-time favorite movies, “All About Eve,” and one of my all-time favorite characters, an acerbic theater critic named Addison DeWitt, played by George Sanders.

One of the film’s best lines comes when DeWitt offers a newspaper to Karen Richards, played by Celeste Holm. “Why not read my column to pass the time?” he asks. “The minutes will fly like hours.”