Yeah. I’m the guy
that came up with the Kitten Channel. All Kitten, All the Time. We were national for ... well, about a year, I
guess. I mean, it was cable, and it wasn’t available in every market. We weren’t like TBS or WGN,
or anything like that, but we were national. It was just an idea that started when me and Dave.. that would be Dave
Engels... well, you see, I had this kitten. Meowser. Adorable little thing. Black with white paws.
Her tail had a white tip on it. Me and Dave, and sometimes Steve and his girlfriend... well, they’d come over
and just watch the cat. You ever just watch a kitten run around your apartment? I mean, who the heck needs a TV?
Even when she was sleeping. You know, it’s impossible to get worked up about anything when there’s a sleeping
kitten around. So we got this idea to tape her. Dave had a video camera, and we went down to Radio Shack and got
us some transformers, or something like that – you’d have to ask Dave. Anyway, it allowed us to feed the
video camera directly into the TV. I think it was Kara, Steve’s girl friend, not the one he’s dating now,
but the one he was dating back then. So she gets this idea to do the Public Access thing. You know, cable TV.
Heck, anybody could put anything on Public Access back then... Well, not porn... but you know. At first we claimed we
were doing it as a project for this college class we were taking – Dave and me – but then we had to admit we were
doing it instead of going to class. What it came down to is, we figured that if the silly cat were so darned entertaining
to us, then why not everybody? Really. If somebody could broadcast their fireplace – remember that? –
then why couldn’t we broadcast my cat? So we did. And people watched it. It was crazy! It became
this immediate local hit. Everybody in Kansas City was watching it. Then we started getting sponsors. I
hired a couple of guys to help film her. Then we switched over to straight cable, and Bam! We were national.
I mean, this is all like... in six months. It was estimated that somebody was always watching my cat. But then,
after about a year, our ratings started to fall. You see, the problem was, she wasn’t a kitten anymore.
Nobody really cares about a cat – a grown cat. They don’t jump around spastically. They don’t
try to climb the house plants or run into the wall. They eat. They sleep. They lick themselves. That’s
it. So I had to get me another kitten. And then another. And then another. I have eight cats now.
And nobody cares. I blame it on the jerk that started the Aquarium Channel. I mean, really, it was a great idea.
You don’t need a camera crew at all. Just a tripod. But here I am with all these cats. I had to move.
I had to get a bigger place. All the money I made – and it really wasn’t that much, really – it’s
gone. Yeah, the money’s gone, but the cats are still here. And, see, you have to feed the kitten kitten
food. It’s really high in protein, which kittens need. But you also have all these other cats. They
don’t want to eat their low-octane food. Oh no. They want the kitten’s food. It doesn’t
matter what you put out for them. They’re going to eat the kitten’s food. So the kitten’s always
hungry because all the other cats are constantly eating her food, and all the other cats are getting enormous. Yeah,
the vet says we shouldn’t let the other cats eat the kitten's food, but she had no clue just exactly how we should do
that. So now I got all these cats. I mean, everybody wants a kitten. But how many people want a fully grown
cat? Especially a fully grown cat that weighs 20 pounds. At least.