The original VHS footage of Fatso was recorded by performance artist Charlie Schmidt in 1984. He put the cat in a shirt belonging to his son Cody and manipulated his paws to make the cat appear to be playing the keyboard. On June 7th, 2007, Schmidt uploaded the video to his YouTube channel, originally titled "Cool Cat" where it sat in relative obscurity for another two years.
On February 2nd, 2009, YouTuber / blogger Brad O'Farrell posted a mashup video of a man falling down an escalator with Schmidt's cat, entitled "Play him off, Keyboard Cat." The idea of "playing someone off" came from the trope of "giving someone the hook" for a bad performance, a technique from Vaudeville shows. The original video has since been taken down from the original channel, but has been reuploaded by other users. According to The Guardian's report, the original video was in fact produced decades ago and the cat died in 1987. - KnowYourMeme
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