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The first appearance of AlleyKat in 1952 was only two years after Catwoman was named, despite being a recurring character before then.
With the rising star of a femme fatale feline feloniously filching finds, the executives decided to come up with a counterpart for Robin to engage with too. In order to avoid the same exact tone, they resorted to having a cat magically fused with a young girl, an amateur gymnast, that had been at the circus on that tragic night for Dick Grayson.
The fusion happened when a magical cat statue that Selina had stolen fell out of her bag during a chase and Allison picked it up. As would later be revealed, the statue would fully transform someone into a cat as a punishment for it being stolen, but Allison threw it away at the first sign of discomfort. She lost the ability to speak and gained cat ears as her head was the first to start transforming, and after losing her job resorted to thievery using the more popular Catwoman as a role model.
The writers have stated that this decision was to avoid a direct copy of the Bat/Cat dynamic and because they didn't want to portray children flirting, as no matter what age Robin was, they intended on a certain role for him to fill and a flirty foe foiled their best laid plans.
Originally a one-off villain, she made a return in an issue two months later as the silent cat was recruited for a prison break where she could inexplicably talk again, but then vanished from further print runs as writers cited difficulty writing a mute character and claimed readership drop off due to unrelatability.
A representative of the ADA has said "[Allison's] two page story as she failed to adapt to her new disability was remarkably well done for its time. A representation of the not-so-average American experience when suffering an incurred impairment. Unfortunately, they undid all that work shortly after."
When the Bronze Age came around, Allison was reintroduced in almost the exactly same manner of the stolen cat statue landing on her and suffering an identical partial transformation, except Robin found her right after, quipping she was "not a Catwoman, but just a stray Alley-Cat" while striking at our at what he assumed was an accomplice.
Her expressions were much more fearful as she tried to plead, only letting a meow out that Robin took as mockery and quickly subduing her, although somewhat painfully. Robin's jokes to her continued silence continued as the shading grew darker in subsequent panels before he cuffed her and it brightened up considerably.
The arc would then go on to be a lesson for Robin to learn and hone his investigative skills as Allison was locked up, and by the time they saw Selina again, after some questioning realized she was an innocent passerby with terrible luck.
Tragically, during her brief lockup, Allison is killed the night before Robin presents the evidence to clear her name.
This twist gave mixed reviews as long time readers were disheartened to see a nod to the classics written off, but multiple civil rights groups applauded the parable to plant evidence and police brutality. Sadly, three months later this was ret-conned as Robin being mind controlled, citing pushback from upper management on the darker tones Robin's story had been slowly taking on.
AlleyKat has appeared in further media, including an unnamed gathering of villains in one episode of Batman: The Animated Series and is suspected to be a waitress in the background wearing an "Allison" name tag and signing to a patron in Batman Begins.
She was mentioned in an issue of Wonder Woman when she fought Cheetah in 1983, and has had a single toy made for a promotion with Burger King for a line of Batman villain themed toys.