Bento the Keyboard Cat, internet sensation and YouTube star, dies

The beloved feline star of the popular meme has died age eight. But does this really mean the end?

Tonight he's jamming with Kurt and Jimi. Keyboard Cat, the internet meme that bookended a thousand pratfalls, is dead.

In April 2009, thanks in part to a single tweet by Ashton Kutcher, videos of a cat "playing" a junky little Casio riff became the de rigeur way to "play out" any footage of, say, a man falling down an escalator in a wheelchair, a singing woman collapsing a table, or just a mortar round misfiring.