ABC made a television pilot for a series based on Cat Ballou starring Lesley Ann Warren as Cat and Jack Elam in the Lee Marvin role. It aired on September 5, 1971, but was not picked up for series development and distribution.

NBC also made a television pilot for a series based on the film. It starred Jo Ann Harris as Cat and Forrest Tucker in the Lee Marvin part. It was also never optioned by the network for a series.

The Farrelly Brothers often cite Cat Ballou as one of their favorite films. They admittedly used the device of the strolling singing troubadours from Cat Ballou in their popular 1998 hit comedy There's Something About Mary.

Jane Fonda would become much more adept at screen comedy as a result of Cat Ballou, bringing crack timing and a sense of innocent bewilderment and an amusing naivety to her roles in Any Wednesday [1966], Barefoot in the Park [1967] and Barbarella [1968].

Despite Lee Marvin's success in a comedy, he would not follow Cat Ballou with any more comedic portrayals for many years. His hard drinking, disheveled miner in the musical romance, Paint Your Wagon [1969], shared similarities with his Tim Strawn role from Cat Ballou, but his dim-light-bulb character in Pocket Money [1972], opposite an equally clueless Paul Newman, was a much more deadpan comedic performance without the slapstick and broad humor of Cat Ballou. He did make one more comedy western in 1976, The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday; it was not a success.

The success of Cat Ballou encouraged other directors to attempt comedy-westerns, some of them successful such as Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles [1974] and the spaghetti Western spoof My Name Is Nobody [1973], but most of them were box office flops such as The Cheyenne Social Club [1970] and Rustlers' Rhapsody [1985].

by Andrea Passafiume