Fund This: ‘Simon’s Cat’ Seeks £275,850 For Biggest Adventure Yet

Welcome to Fund This, a new column here at Tubefilter. Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, or any other similar crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: Simon’s Cat in Off to the Vet

Asking For: £275,850 ($472,921.38) on Indiegogo

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): £106,990 ($183,438.63)

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 22

Description: If you spend a lot of time watching YouTube videos, you’re probably familiar with Simon’s Cat. Since releasing his first web short six years ago, Simon Tofield has dedicated more than 50 YouTube videos to the animated adventures of a nameless cat based on Tofield’s own pets. Each Simon’s Cat episode runs between 1-3 minutes and follows the titular cat as he figures out new, inventive ways to get his owner to feed him.

This adorable, bug-eyed character has become a huge hit on YouTube. It is Simon’s Cat, not Grumpy Cat or Lil Bub or Henri, who is the site’s most popular feline. Tofield’s videos have amassed more than three million subscribers and over half a billion views, and his cat’s hi-jinks have also been printed in four separate books published in Tofield’s native UK.

Tofield now wants to send Simon’s Cat on its biggest adventure thus far. Should he raise the requisite funds, he and his team will create an 11-minute film titled “Off to the Vet“. “Producing this new longer film will be a huge project for us,” said Simon’s Cat team member Mike Cook

in a pitch video. “It will actually be like making a whole year’s worth of Simon’s Cat films all in one go.”

Creator Bio: Simon’s Cat is Tofield’s claim to fame. As seen in his pitch video, he has built a team of animators and cat lovers around him, but it is his four cats that provide the inspiration for his work. “Cats are such expressive animals, who tell you what they think through body language. So they make great subjects for animation,” Tofield told The Washington Post last year. “All of my cats [Hugh, Teddy, Jess and Maisie] have played a role in providing antics for basing stories around.”

Best Perk: Backers at the £35 ($60) level receive a cute, plush toy version of Simon’s Cat. Presumably, the plush toy will not hit you on the head with a bat if you forget to feed it.

Why You Should Fund It: Tofield has stated that each episode of Simon’s Cat takes seven weeks to animate and one week to do sound. This is a significant time commitment, but Tofield has kept up with it; in fact, his YouTube channel has become more active in the past year. It would be fair for Tofield to take time off from his channel as he works on his film (a la 5secondfilms), but he has displayed a strong work ethic by deciding to keep up active posting while working on “Off to the Vet”.

Let’s be honest, though: Many of the people who are funding Simon’s Cat aren’t doing it because of Tofield’s work ethic. His feline creation is absolutely precious and crisply animated. The cat’s half-muted meows can melt even the most hardened heart. Even a non-cat owner like myself can appreciate Simon’s Cat, and the promise of an 11-minute episode is worth the investment.