A live interview with a Dutch TV station regarding the ongoing popular backlash in Poland against the government’s efforts to press supreme court justices into retirement took an unexpectedly light-hearted turn, making the Polish scholar interviewed in the segment an instant internet celebrity.

Professor Jerzy Targalski, a former anti-communist activist and prominent Polish scholar of political history, was speaking with NTR television recently when his cat cut in on live television, sitting down on Targalski’s shoulders.

Undeterred, Targalski, who was speaking from his private study, continued with his interview without missing a beat.