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Kathie Lee's faux Cee Lo puppet cat creeps out Hoda

To say Kathie Lee and Hoda are obsessed with "The Voice" is a bit of an understatement. But something was missing from their morning reviews of the singing contest: an animal sidekick.Cee Lo Green judges the contestants with the help of a rented kitty named Purrfect, who may be the show's non-singing breakout star — she even has her own Twitter feed and Facebook fan page. Clearly, Kathie Lee and

To say Kathie Lee and Hoda are obsessed with "The Voice" is a bit of an understatement. But something was missing from their morning reviews of the singing contest: an animal sidekick.

Cee Lo Green judges the contestants with the help of a rented kitty named Purrfect, who may be the show's non-singing breakout star — she even has her own Twitter feed and Facebook fan page. Clearly, Kathie Lee and Hoda needed a mascot, but given Hoda's touch-and-go relationship with the animal kingdom, they stuck with a paper cutout of a Persian cat. But that didn't stop Kathie Lee from doing her best impression of Cee Lo's ominous petting.

"Ew, ew, ew, weird," said Hoda, clearly intimidated by the new guest's star power. "Stop stroking it! Gross."

That's the idea. Long live Stick Purrfect!

Julieanne Smolinski is a TODAY.com contributor. She is making her own judgmental cat puppet.

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