Keyboard Cat
| Keyboard Cat | |
|---|---|
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| Website | YouTube |
| Uploaded | June 7, 2007 |
| Filmed | 1984 |
| Filmed by | Charlie Schmidt |
| Uploader | Charlie Schmidt |
| Under the name | Keyboard Cat |
| Duration | 54 seconds |
| Category | Comedy |
Keyboard Cat is an Internet meme. It consists of a video from 1984 of a female cat called "Fatso" wearing a blue shirt and "playing" an upbeat rhythm on an electronic keyboard. The video was posted to YouTube under the title "charlie schmidt's cool cats" in June 2007. Schmidt later changed the title to "Charlie Schmidt's Keyboard Cat (THE ORIGINAL)".
Fatso (who died in 1987) was owned (and manipulated in the video) by Charlie Schmidt of Spokane, Washington, United States. Later, Brad O'Farrell, who was the syndication manager of the video website My Damn Channel, obtained Schmidt's permission to reuse the footage, appending it to the end of a blooper video to "play" that person offstage after the mistake or gaffe in a similar manner as getting the hook in the days of vaudeville. The appending of Schmidt's video to other blooper and other viral videos became popular, with such videos usually accompanied with the title Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat or a variant. "Keyboard Cat" was ranked No. 2 on Current TV's list of 50 Greatest Viral Videos.
The first such "Keyboard Cat" video, entitled "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat" was created by Brad O'Farrell, who both secured Schmidt's permission to use footage and asked Schmidt to allow anyone to use the footage with or without permission. Over four thousand such videos now exist, with a website created to collect them.
The Keyboard Cat meme has been spoofed several times on television. Keyboard Cat was popularized by Stephen Colbert on May 18, 2009, during a "toss" with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Andy Samberg's opening monologue suggested that award winners whose speech went on too long would be played off by Keyboard Cat.Kato Kaelin also spoofed Keyboard Cat in a segment of Tosh.0 entitled "Keyboard Kato" in the series first episode. A television advertisement for Wonderful Pistachios features Bento, Charlie Schmidt's current Keyboard Cat, cracking one of the nuts during the song. In the Mad episode "Avaturd / CSiCarly", Keyboard Cat is shown to be the music leader of the Na'vi alongside other famous blue characters in a spoof of the James Cameron film Avatar.
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