I always felt sorry for the cat.
I have been told that the whole point in the "cat in a box" thought experiment was to point out how ridiculous the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics was when aplied to anything bigger than an atom. After all, a cat -large multicellular life form- can only be alive or dead, no middle ground in this and not seeing the cat does not change it. (particularly since in real world things happen wether or not a human is watching)
But as usual people didn't get the joke.