Some television personalities have a studio audience for their shows. B. Original’s Michele Beschen broadcasts her crafts-based show from a farm in rural Van Meter, Iowa, where her “studio audience” includes five loyal friends who diligently watch every taping, frequently appear on the show and even live on the set. They are her cats: Keisha, Maggie, Mable, Jack and Tom.
“They’re just always around,” Beschen says. “We keep the show as real as possible, so as long as they don’t mess up the continuity of a shot, if they wander into it, they stay in it.”
Beschen’s cats include one indoor Himalayan and four outdoor barn cats, frisky felines that congregate around the crew and prance through every shot they can. The show celebrates individual creative expression and independent values, so it is fitting that the only “special guests” it features are cats, the most independently spirited animals of them all.
**For the full article, pick up the January issue of CAT FANCY.**
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