Sorry to start your week off on a sombre note, but one of the purest animals on the Internet has passed away, and it’s probably going to wreck the rest of your day.
Sweet angel Bento, who you would probably remember as Keyboard Cat crossed the rainbow bridge on March 8, leaving his human and best friend, Charlie Schmidt, behind.
Bento made feline history by becoming a viral hit with his pianist prowess, which was captured by Charlie and posted online. Sitting well over 50 million views, Bento shot to fame and is recognised as one of the original cat memes, where the video of him playing his jaunty tune on the keys was used to ‘play off’ humans who had fucked up.
Bento was not the original Keyboard Cat – Charlie’s older ginger moggy, Fatso, was the first musical artist that resided with Charlie, but Bento was the one we knew and loved dearly.
He was the star of various commercials for pet adoption associations, was used by Stephen Colbert for his show in 2009, and was jokingly used by Andy Samberg to get award winners off the stage at the MTV Movie Awards. Hell, even Weezer had Keyboard Cat’s music playing them off the stage during their tour with Blink 182.
Charlie shared a memorial video dedicated to sweet Bento, who we assume is now playing the keyboard in Cat Heaven to all the other kitties.
Rest in power, Keyboard Cat. The Internet is much less pure without you.
