Join The Kato Club Fan Club Springs Up To Promote America’s Most Famous Housebuddy

When Matt Fitzgibbons did some promotional work for Tiny Tim a few years back, he watched the eccentric singer struggle to parlay his moment of fame into a long and lucrative career.

He really hopes that things will turn out differently for Kato Kaelin, America’s favorite houseguest.

“Tiny Tim’s people made decisions that weren’t good for the long term,” says Fitzgibbons, who lives in Toledo, Ohio. “Hopefully, Kato won’t make those mistakes.”

As America decides whether Katomania will last, whether O.J. Simpson’s former housebuddy will be a vanishing Vanilla Ice or an everpopular Zsa Zsa, Fitzgibbons and his Toledo friends want to help. They say that you can, too.

Join their Kato fan club! Call the Kato hotline and subscribe to the Katogram! Write to TV networks and Hollywood producers demanding that they make him a star!

“The fans are what make careers like his move,” says Fitzgibbons, who met Kaelin for the first time earlier this month at a mall in Terre Haute, Ind. “That’s our club’s mission.”

So far so good. Cynics who hoped they’d seen the last of Kaelin when he finished testifying at the Simpson murder trial must be sorely disappointed. Talk and tabloid shows, gossip columns and comedians - as well as the public - show no signs of letting him go.

“Whatever fix people are getting from the trial, I think they’re getting a similar fix from Kato, only now without the lawyers,” says Fitzgibbons. “I think he’ll be the Fonzie of the ‘90s - women are swooning, and men think he’s cool.”

The Kato Kaelin Global Fan Club began last summer, when a Toledo homemaker named Cecelia De Vaughn watched the 36-year-old aspiring actor testify at the preliminary hearing.

“Cecelia pointed at the screen and said, ‘I’d like to meet him,”’ says Fitzgibbons.

“I said, ‘You’ll never meet him unless you’re president of the fan club. OK, I just created the club. You’re president, I’m producer, and let’s go from here.”’

Fitzgibbons enlisted his friend Phil Schneider, who runs a promotion business in San Francisco.

“I’m the concierge,” says Schneider. “My job is to fulfill dreams.”

Right now his job is to put Kato updates on the toll-free hotline and sell fan club memberships at $13 apiece. No checks will be cashed and no credit-card charges processed, he promises, until the fancy certificates and laminated membership cards are ready.

“The more I get to know about him and his goals, the better I feel about what we’re doing,” says Schneider.

After Simpson was arrested last summer, Kaelin - a friend of both the suspect and his murdered exwife - became an instant celebrity. Part of the fame focused on his quest to be an actor and his “surfer dude” good looks, as the National Enquirer put it.

But there also were plenty of jokes about a man in his mid-30s mooching his way through Hollywood without displaying evidence of being particularly smart or talented.

Both sides of fame intensified in late March, when Kaelin took the witness stand for five days of testimony. With a national television audience watching, he ranged from earnest to witty to confused.

Typical of the derision was a column by Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post. In just one article, Kornheiser called Kaelin “a moron,” “a house pet, a cockapoo” and the most “recognizable yet insignificant figure in American history.”

Kornheiser gleefully predicted that with the testimony over, Kaelin would be “pretty much out of our lives (unless you have a guest house).”

So far the columnist couldn’t be more wrong. The Kato hotline is constantly busy, and the fan club already numbers well into the hundreds. Four days after he finished testifying, Kaelin was greeted by about 5,000 people at a picture and autograph session at Honey Creek Mall in Terre Haute.

Kaelin “managed it very well,” said Fitzgibbons. “He seemed very polite, and the crowd was very responsive. And his hair looked cleaner than it looked on camera.”

Raphael Berko, who became Kaelin’s agent five months ago, says his client “has real star charisma. It’s a natural God-given thing. Whether or not this trial would have happened, it was his destiny to become a star.”

Did the bad courtroom reviews dampen those prospects?

“You tell me,” Berko says. “In the last three days I’ve had over 165 offers for employment for him. He has offers from everybody, a lot of offers.”

Kaelin, who could not be reached for this story, has expressed amazement and gratitude for all the attention.

“I lie in bed at night and wonder, ‘What’s going on?”’ he told Larry King. He added that he was getting good advice from career planners “to make sure it’s the right course, because I really don’t want to be a curiosity.”

In a joking reference to his image as a freeloader, he declared, “I have income.”

Enough income, in fact, that Kaelin now wants to help others. Berko says Kaelin is happy to cooperate with his fan club, just so it’s clear all proceeds go to charity.

The agent also welcomes the folks back in Toledo who are rooting for his client, but he wants to make clear that the fan club won’t be charting Kaelin’s career. Nor is he thrilled with Fitzgibbons’ analogy to Tiny Tim.

“Kato is not like Tiny Tim,” Berko insists. “Kato appeals to both men and women. He’s a professional actor, a good-looking man and an athlete. He’s already got more offers than Tiny Tim had in his whole life.”

MEMO: For information about the Kato Kaelin Global Fan Club, call 1-800-434-KATO, or write to Ideas Unlimited-KKGFC, 530 29th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94121.