Nothing wrong with a leash for a cat. Cats generally don't like being controlled, but they can be trained into tolerating it. They should have definitely gone with a harness rather than a collar though. With a harness, the guy could have lifted the cat up by the leash and dropped it into the box with much less fuss and pain than what the collar would have caused.

Yeah, it is a classic, it happened on my local news channel when I was a kid and it became famous. Theyd always replay it once in a while I grew up with that video. Its cool there is the internet now so its available to watch anytime now.