Posted: July 16, 2008 2 a.m. EDT
Zoey, a plump tabby cat, and her housemates Ginger and Oscar have become movie stars, of a sort. A cat video made by Zoey’s owner, Paul Klusman of Wichita, Kan., has attracted more than 2 million hits on the video website YouTube, the Kansas City Star reports.
Klusman, an aerospace engineer, filmed the cat video earlier this year, following the activities and antics of his cats. Segments show the cats playfully fighting, tearing boxes with their claws and teeth, creating “performance art” and allowing themselves to be measured with a tape measure. Klusman posted the video, titled “An Engineer’s Guide to Cats,” at YouTube in February but didn’t see much activity associated with the film.
Wanting to generate more interest in his film, Klusman excerpted a segment of his pets “yodeling” and linked it to the original film. The title of the new segment —“Funny Cat Yodeling”— immediately attracted viewers. “A few days later, I saw that it had 1,000 hits,” Klusman told the Star. “Sometime that afternoon, 3,000. By evening, 6,000. It exploded.”
Klusman hopes the attention will help him pursue his goal of making feature films. He said he has received proposals from filmmakers who may want to market his ideas. He also is receiving proposals of a personal nature from women who love cats.
As for the real stars of the video, they continue to enjoy life with Klusman. Zoey, Ginger and Oscar all were strays before Klusman rescued them, and he said he could not be happier for them now.