Think I Can Has Cheezburger invented the 'lolcat?' Wrong! Harry Pointer, a photographer from the 1870s was actually the first recorded photographer to pose his cats in all sorts of hilarious positions. Here's a sampling of the modern day lolcats' ancestors cheesing it up in the 19th century.
According to Wikipedia:
A lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat with text intended to contribute humour. The text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and its use in this way is known as "lolspeak" or "kitty pidgin".
Pointer didn't have a funny line for every photo, but it's clear he had a penchant for humor judging from the awkward poses some of these cats had to endure. Remember, back in the old days, subjects had to stay perfectly still for minutes. Those must have been some trained cats.
