From Series Creators – Melissa Hager and Sean Rutkowski
In January, 2011, Slider Cat Adventures series co-creator Melissa Hager launched her first YouTube channel, Videoetry. She was delighted when the first channel to subscribe to her site was LakeTahoeWeather. Melissa, a self-proclaimed weather nerd, had been in Lake Tahoe with her family the previous summer. She dearly loved the area and had written a prose poem for her Videoetry site about the lake. How cool for her first subscriber to be from there.
She immediately fired off an excited letter to LakeTahoeWeather thanking him for subscribing. Sean Rutkowski, creator of LTW and the CatsOnGlue channels, wrote back. Sean had been running his channels for three years and knew what he was doing. A mentorship was born.
Melissa subscribed to both of Sean’s channels. She was in awe of his beautiful cats and his video footage of Lake Tahoe and the surrounding scenery.
As Melissa continued to watch Sean’s channels, she could see the star power his cat, Slider, had. Slider is a Supreme Grand Champion (in the Alter Class) at The International Cat Association (TICA) awards. Along with Slider’s handsomeness and laid back personality, Sean takes him skiing, biking, hiking, and for walks on the beach in Tahoe sunsets. Slider leads an awesome life!
Melissa indicated to Sean that he should write a cat series based on Slider. Sean suggested he should take the photos and let Melissa tell the stories. A seed was planted.
As it happened, Melissa woke up one morning with an epiphany. Let’s make a YouTube series! Over the next two days, Melissa collected photos from Sean’s sites and sang her silly song “Cat Life” (you won’t hear it until the next promo a week before the launch on February 6, 2012). She fired off the promo to Sean in early December 2011.
Sean said, “I LOVE IT… I love it, I love it!” Through idea sharing (and dissing), photo and video downloads galore, and a mutual desire to highlight this awesome cat and his beautiful home, Melissa and Sean bring to you SliderCatAdventures on YouTube.
The series will have weekly episodes that will release each Monday, beginning February 6, 2012. Barring disaster (ie, bad internet connection, defiled computers, or illness), the episode will be up by 9 am Eastern Standard Time in the US.
The first season is the “S” season – everything from skiing, snow adventure, sailing to shopping. (I had to put that one in for my momma. -mh J) The goal is to create 20 episodes and we would love input for ideas from our fans - as long as any cat haters out there don’t suggest we sail Slider through the air off a cliff, of course.
The series is sponsored by CatsOnGlue, LakeTahoeWeather, and Videoetry. Check out the power of the internet and the YouTube channel. It can bring people 2,600 miles apart together to create!
Sincerely yours,
Melissa and Sean
“It’s Sure To Be Scintillating!”
