A Cat Once ‘Haunted’ A Shop In New York City. Now He’s Starring In TikTok’s Hottest New Show

Casper the cat, much like his ghostly namesake, is a lot more friendly than he is scary.
The orange tabby spooked his way into the name after “haunting” the ceiling of the Brooklyn-based scenic shop Object Fabrication, which has built sets and pieces used by Elton John and seen in the musical adaptation of “Safety Not Guaranteed.”
While Casper hasn’t done a world tour or hit the stage, he’s now a star on “Shop Cats,” a social media show highlighting felines living in bodegas and other businesses in New York City.
“He’s our mascot and our leader here, so him being on the show makes perfect sense,” said Sophia Rauch, project manager at Object Fabrication.
The show, launched by media company Mad Realities last month, has become a viral hit, with its clips garnering tens of millions of views across Instagram and TikTok.
Shop staffers spill on their four-legged business partners as “Shop Cats” host Michelladonna talks with the felines, scopes out their vibes and learns whether they’re “hunters or gatherers” with fun toys and treats.
Comedian Michelladonna, who grew up in Queens’ Ridgewood neighborhood, told HuffPost they could talk about bodega cats “all day” and feel it’s the “perfect” gig.
“People on the show are just down to participate — it’s just so authentic and organic because it’s hard to be a fake New Yorker,” they said.
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Drew Rosenthal, head of production and creative producer at Mad Realities, is admittedly not a New York native.
But as someone with three cats, including one fittingly named Meme, he felt he needed to do the city, and its felines, “justice.”
He filmed a “test shoot” for the show with Kiki, who calls his local bodega in Brooklyn home. The video quickly became the top-performing episode for Mad Realities, with over 5 million views on TikTok.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence,” said Rosenthal, who added that the bodega’s owner had the “biggest smile on his face” while discussing the viral episode.
“When Drew pitched the idea we were like, ‘Oh, my God, we have to make this.’ It was framed like ‘MTV Cribs’ meets [“Crocodile Hunter”] Steve Irwin,” said Alice Ma, co-founder and CEO of Mad Realities.
“It’s the magic of cats,” Rosenthal said.
Michelladonna, whose bubbly personality lights up the show, took their mother’s feedback seriously when she said she wished she could share her daughter’s work with her Spanish-speaking friends.
“So I was like, let me cook,” said Michelladonna. The show, based in a city with over 1.8 million Spanish speakers, has bilingual captions for every episode.
It’s not Michelladonna’s first bodega cat rodeo. They used to delight their social media followers with their “Mr. Fluffy” character — an impression of a bodega cat with a New York accent and “puffa jacket.”
“I’ve been a cat myself, so that’s why we understand each other so well. I understand the language,” said the host, whose local bodega — and its cat, Lulu — also made an appearance on the show.
Filming with animals is sometimes a roll of the dice. So before the crew starts filming, the host tries to talk to the shop owners, “New Yorker to New Yorker.”
Michelladonna’s favorite episode hasn’t yet aired. It features Ashley, the resident cat at a Bronx bodega; as the host walks in to meet Ashley, four Dominican men greet them from behind the counter.
“It was lovely, I was like, ‘Put some music on, let’s dance.’ It was such a vibe,” they said.
Rosenthal said the episode “exemplified” what he imagined for the show.
Ma noted that the show is open to new ideas. She said the “Shop Cats” crew is looking to get in touch with adoption groups and other animal-centric organizations for collaborations, at a time when the city’s animal shelters are overwhelmed.
“We have this huge platform so it’s like, how do we divert some of that attention to improve resources for cat care in general throughout the city?” she said.
August Hunt, owner of Object Fabrication, had his first encounter with Casper after spotting a cat refusing to leave an abandoned, doorless cat carrier across the street from his shop.
Hunt brought Casper into his shop’s back room. The cat “disappeared” soon after, he said, but the food Hunt left out kept going missing, and the litter box was clearly being used.
Five weeks went by without sight of the feline, until one day a bird snuck in the shop. After failed attempts to shoo it away, Hunt heard a “ginormous noise” coming from the ceiling.
“Sure enough, it was Casper attacking the bird,” Hunt said.
“We got ladders, climbed up there and we just saw two little eyes and that’s kind of where the name came from — the ghost that we never saw.”
The cat eventually started poking his head out, creeping his way down from the ceiling. After about eight months, he had grown fond of his new family in Brooklyn.
“Suddenly he wanted to be there and be a part of the shop. It’s his orange cat personality,” said Hunt.
“He loves inspecting our work. Some of the employees call him ‘boss man’ or ‘supervisor,’” he added.
Now with shots and trips to the vet under his work belt, Casper likes to cuddle up in his chair as employees work on signs, displays for brands and other projects.
“He’s the head of morale here, almost like a therapist,” Rauch told Michelladonna.
On the show, Michelladonna reminds Casper that they’ll “never disrespect” him and asks about his “job,” knowing that it’ll be hard to get much of an answer.
“Do you have benefits here?” the host asks, holding a microphone up to the cat’s unmoving mouth. “Do you have vacation days? Do you know how to handle heavy machinery?”
Casper would later swipe his paw at the host, a feisty way of signaling the interview was over.
That kind of feline feedback hasn’t dampened Michelladonna’s spirits, though.
For the host, the show isn’t just about connecting with cats, but with people, too — and not just in New York City. Fans stopped Michelladonna in public during a recent trip to Chicago, and the host has gotten messages from viewers from as far away as France.
Michelladonna sees the show as emphasizing the universal, “lovely” bond between animals and humans.
“These are not just pets, they’re part of people’s family,” they said.