Bento The Keyboard Cat Has Sadly Passed Away

It's always really sad when one of your heroes dies. First up it was David Bowie a few years back, now Stephen Hawking has died as well, there aren't that many genuine heroes left in the world.

Well, it brings me no pleasure to announce that Keyboard Cat has become the latest popoular culture icon to sadly pass away.

Yes, that wonderfully talented cat has taken his final encore and gone to join the other musical cats in heaven - he's up there right now jamming with Scat Cat from The Aristocats, and the entire original cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats.

In actual fact, Keyboard Cat - whose real name was Bento - died on 8 March, a few weeks back, but evidently his owner has just shared the devastating news with the rest of the world.

Charlie Schmidt posted a video tribute to Bento on Facebook, as well as a picture with the dates of his birth and death, confirming the worst.

Bento was not the original Keyboard Cat - that was another cat owned by Schmidt called Fatso, but the original footage was taken in 1984 so we can safely assume that Fatso left us some time ago.

Once the footage became popular around the end of this century's first decade Bento really made the role his own and became a celebrity online, as well as in his home town of Spokane, Washington.

He appeared in many videos, including advertising campaigns, and sold a whole load of Keyboard Cat merchandise.

There was also his charitable work - he was the face of a pet shelter's project to try to encourage people to adopt more pets.

There has been an outpouring of grief online for the loss of one of the meme world's true stars.

One adoring fan said: "Bento the keyboard cat... has died. He passed away last week. He'll live forever in our memes..."

Another added: "Bento the Keyboard Cat has passed away 3/8/2018. Rest in Paradise <3"

Fellow famous feline Grumpy Cat also broke the news to his 1.47m followers, sharing the tribute video.

Bento reminds us of a simpler time when memes were relatable and understandable, a time before everyone became so relentlessly angry all of the time and was no longer happy with a cat playing a piano and wearing a little jacket.

RIP Bento, we hardly knew ye.