SPOKANE -- Years ago people dreamed of striking it rich sending their home videos to America's Funniest Home Videos. Today, Spokane resident Charlie Schmidt is striking it rich thanks to his dearly departed cat Fatso, which the rest of the world knows as the Keyboard Cat.

In the last six months or so, videos featuring Charlie's cat have been seen more than 10 million times.

“It's just nuts, just nuts,” Charlie says.

Schmidt's cat Fatso was around in the 1980s and Charlie had the foresight to shoot some video of him. Earlier this year video of Fatso playing the keyboard went viral online and the rest is Internet history.

“I'm always hoping to hit a home run though. I mean I really am,” he said.

Charlie's video of Fatso was a home run that just keeps going further out of the park. In fact not only are people watching videos of Fatso but now Charlie's making money off those videos. So far, in fact, he's made about $20,000 off his keyboard cat.

There's ads that run on his videos online, and Fatso has his own keyboard cat iPhone app, and of course there's the keyboard cat clothing line. Yes, you heard correctly. Fatso has his own clothing line.

“You'll see all these shirts, with the cat, skateboards, mouse pads and aprons and posters,” Charlie said.

The long-departed Fatso now has an empire of merchandise in his memory.

“I think that's the coolest, people from Spain are buying posters of my cat,” he said.

While Fatso only had nine lives his spirit also lives on through his personal website keyboarcatchurch.com. Yep, a church dedicated to the Keyboard Cat.

“That doesn't happen to me every week ... that's the cat, the power of the cat,” Charlie said.

“You can't do that crap on purpose, you just have to do what you like, full blast, and maybe something will happen.”