Most likely this is because orange cats are almost always male, and (neutered) male cats tend to be goofier than females.

I think the association with discrimination against red haired humans is a stretch though

I had couple of cats (orange male and tortoiseshell female) that lived 20 years after I picked them off the street. The female had only one kidney and the male had an extra vertebra but these things only became a problem in their last year.

They were both very calm creatures. The male was one of the most gentle cats I've ever known. I really miss him greeting me by nodding at me from the sofa when I got home.

I was just thinking how behavioral differences of red haired foxes, cats, and humans from their closest relatives are explained by the same sort of proopiomelanocortin and other substantia nigra differences from weak MC1R activity.

Tangential and sample size n = 1, but the two orange cats in my life were spankers/lovers of cat bongos whereas all other coloured cats were not.

There is something different about them, and the red hair thing is a coincidence.

Did you know people with blue eyes are more likely to have bipolar disorder? This of course doesn’t mean everyone blue eyes has bipolar disorder but it makes it more likely. I think the issue may be playing out in orange cats as well. It’s certainly not going to give me every orange is weird, but it increases the likelihood and I think that’s why we see the stereotype play out.

I had an orange cat growing up in the 1970s well before the Internet and out of the seven cast I own as a child. It was very much different.

Hey, some of us love and appreciate that red hair too!