Keyboard Cat

Not to be confused with Nora (cat), a cat that plays a piano on her own, nor with "Kitten on the Keys", a composition by Zez Confrey.

Keyboard Cat
A cat wearing a t-shirt and appearing to play a keyboard
A screenshot from the Keyboard Cat video
Directed byCharlie Schmidt
Produced byBrad O'Farrell
StarringFatso (a.k.a. Keyboard Cat)
Release dates
  • 1984 (1984) (Fatso)
  • 2009 (2009) (Bento)
  • 2019 (2019) (Skinny)
Running time
0:54
CountryUnited States
Charlie Schmidt, who made the Keyboard Cat video.

Keyboard Cat is a video-based internet meme. Its original form was a video made in 1984 by Charlie Schmidt of his cat Fatso seemingly playing a musical keyboard (though manipulated by Schmidt off-camera) to a cheery tune. While Schmidt had uploaded the video himself to YouTube in 2007, Brad O'Farrell, with Schmidt's permission, appended the video to the end of a blooper video uploaded in 2009 as if to have the cat "play" the person offstage after the gaffe as they had done in vaudeville. The idea of this quickly expanded on the Internet by numerous other users, typically under the name "Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat", and became a popular meme on YouTube.

Although Fatso had died in 1987, Schmidt has since adopted two other cats that have become a new "Keyboard Cat", providing video footage to be used for the meme: Bento (until his death in 2018), and the current Keyboard Cat, Skinny.