— Back in the late 1980's Steve M. was a disgruntled computer technician looking for a career change when his cat leaped forward with an idea.
"I was sitting in front of the TV with my wife, watching a National Geographic special on birds of the Cayman Islands or somewhere," he said.
"Our cat, Stick, who never even glanced at TV before, came out of his box like a shot and sat right in front of the screen, growling and meowing."
Steve borrowed a friend's video camera and tripod, scattered birdseed and popcorn in his wooded back yard and recorded the antics of neighborhood birds, squirrels and chipmunks that gathered for a noisy feast.
"When I brought the tape back to the house and showed it to Stick, he went ballistic," Malarkey said. "He was in front of the TV, behind the TV, on top of the TV, knocking things over and swiping at the screen."
Nice kitty.
Steve went into the "cat business" in a big way. A light bulb went off in Steve's head....and he did what few others ever do.....he took a chance and followed his instincts...... he hired a professional video production company to professionally film those same backyard scenes with high end cameras and then do professional editing to make his first version of "Video Catnip," a professional, 25-minute VHS version that went to market in September of 1989.
Soon afterwards Steve got some free press coverage from the Associated Press and articles were run about this new video program just for cats to watch (the FIRST ever made for this purpose) in newspapers across the country. Things then went nuts. He proceeded to sell a few thousand copies within months.
He kept getting more and more press coverage. More newspaper stories, coverage on local and then national television news shows on every major network and features written up in national magazines such as Ladies Home Journal, Parade Magazine, Readers Digest, Cat Fancy and more. Sales grew and grew to over 100,000 copies sold.
Then around 2002, dvd's were getting popular and Steve decided to make a NEW DVD version of VIDEO CATNIP, which included the original 25 minutes of footage in the original VHS program, along with an additional 90 minutes of NEW footage, for a new 2 hour long dvd version.
Sales of the 2 hour dvd took off right away and to date here in 2012, over 400,000 copies of VIDEO CATNIP have been sold, entertaining over 1,000,000 very happy kitties.
Making VIDEO CATNIP the biggest selling and most effective entertainment program for cats to watch ever made!
Now aren't you kicking yourself for not thinking of this :) But glad that you found us here at www.VideoCatnip.com :)