Simon's Cat

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About

Simon's Cat is an animated cartoon series illustrated by artist Simon Tofield, featuring a mischievous feline and his owner Simon. Since its YouTube debut in March of 2008, the series has spawned two books and a cartoon strip in the British tabloid The Daily Mirror.

History

On March 4th, 2008, a video titled “Simon’s Cat ‘Cat Man Do’” was uploaded by YouTuber simonscat^[1], which featured a cartoon cat repeatedly attempting to wake its sleeping owner. In four years, the video accumulated over 34 million views and 20,000 comments. On the same day, the website SimonsCat.com^[3] was launched, which now includes an archive for the animated series, a community blog, contests and a merchandise store.

Reception

On March 14th, 2008, the "Cat Man Do" cartoon won the "Best Comedy" award at the British Animation Awards.On January 13th, 2009, the book publishers' news blog The Bookseller^[4] reported that the publishing rights to two illustrated Simon's Cat books had been purchased by Canongate Books. In October, the "Let Me In" episode won the "Most Outstanding Animation" award at the 7th Animae Caribe, Caribbean Animation Awards Festival. The same year, Tofield won YouTube's Blockbuster Award. On July 3rd, 2009, the official "Simon's Cat" Facebook^[8] page was created, which accumulated over 677,000 likes within the next three years. On September 24th, 2009, the book Simon's Cat: In His Very Own Book^[6] (shown below, left) was released by Grand Central Publishing.

On November 23rd, 2010, a Simon's Cat cartoon strip began running on the British national tabloid The Daily Mirror.^[5] On June 2nd, 2011, a second book of illustrations Simon's Cat: Beyond the Fence^[7] (shown above, right) was released. On July 15, 2012, YouTubers TheFineBros^[2] uploaded a video titled "Kids React to Simon's Cat", featuring adolescents watching and reacting to the animated series.

As of July 20th, 2012, there have been a total of 22 episodes produced with an average of 12 million views per video and the YouTube channel has gained over 960,000 subscribers and received over 260 million video views.