Remember the Winnebago Man video? Here’s that, but with kittens

The video is the brainchild of Daniel Mergele and his wife, Misty Valenta, who acts as the Community Outreach Coordinator of the Williamson County Shelter. The “Wilco Kitty Man” himself, however, is portrayed by the couple’s friend, Eric Forcke. Though Forcke was a newcomer to acting, Mergele says that he and his wife thought, “he had the perfect demeanor” for the role. As for basing the announcement on the classic viral video, Mergele explains that they were originally considering “a used car salesman video” but abandoned that idea once they’d remembered Jack Rebney’s famous outburst. “[We] thought it would be a funny angle to have a dry, grumpy character making an animal shelter video that he clearly didn’t want to,” he explains. Previous to this, Mergele and Valenta produced a Beatles-themed clip called “All Together Meow.”

“Wilco Kitty Man,” which has no relation whatsoever to the band (even if Wilco did feature a cat on its most recent album cover), shows would-be benefactor Forcke struggling at every step of the way to get his animal-adoption message across. For the life of him, he cannot recite the full name of the Williamson County Regional Animal Shelter. He has numerous suggestions for his feline costars as well, including, “Let’s look at the camera, please!” and, “Wake up, you’re on camera!” Perhaps the comedic highlight is a scene in which the faux-Rebney assembles a cardboard cat carrier only to declare, “The cat’s just gonna fall out this bottom.” In place of the truly foul language from the original “Winnebago Man,” meanwhile, “Wilco Kitty Man” substitutes some well-timed bleeps and at least one amusing, G-rated epithet: “Kitten whiskers!” In all, this is a cute little video from an institution which, in its own words, “provides a safe environment for the lost, abandoned, and homeless animals of these jurisdictions and works diligently to place them in good homes.”