Where kittens learn to cat!
The Kitten Academy is a kitten-fostering organization run by a couple in Connecticut. Christopher (Mr. A) and Deepa (DJ) Jansen are Kindhearted Cat Lovers who've turned a couple of rooms in their house into "classrooms" where the kittens can learn how to cat. They also host a YouTube livestream that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in both rooms (provided they have enough kittens to populate both), and on most Saturdays at 10 a.m. KATZ (Kitten Academy Time Zone; that is, Eastern Time) they host a special Mailbag show where they open up letters and gifts sent to the kittens by their dedicated fans.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Kitten Academy has a "No Sads
" policy, and that extends to this page. Please do not post Tearjerker tropes here. The 'Academy isn't about that.
The Kitten Academy website can be found here: Kitten.Academy
Their YouTube channel is here: KittenAcademy Livestream
Their Twitter account is @kitten_academy.
They also maintain a Discord server (accessible to Patreon donors) with multiple channels on which fans of the Academy and its kittens can chat with Mr. A, DJ, previous "alumni" adopters, and each other. See the KA website for info on donating and joining.
Kitten Academy contains examples of:
- Accentuate the Negative: Inverted! At the Kitten Academy, they accentuate the positive. They have a strict "No Sads" policy in that they avoid discussing the sad stories that often come with foster kittens. The kittens and momcats often have to Earn Their Happy Endings, and the happy bits are what matter most. Mr. A and DJ also don't want to come across as exploiting the sad stories for donations — even going so far as do temporarily de-monetize their YouTube videos when a series of sad advertisements were added to them. The kittens and momcats have good lives at the Academy and afterwards, and that's what's the most important.
- Affectionate Nickname: Mr. A gives the faculty cats, momcats, and kittens Affectionate Nicknames, usually by appending "bean" to the end of the cat's name. Examples are Loganberry being called Loganbean or Loganbunny, and Custard being Custaru. DJ names them; Mr. A nicknames them.
- The Alleged House: Mr. A has taken to joking that the Connecticut house is one of these, due to the large number of things that have needed to be repaired or replaced since they've moved in there.
- Boarding School: The Kitten Academy is themed like this, with the kittens being the students and the academy fosters' resident pets being the faculty. The kittens graduate after they receive their spay/neuter, first shots, and microchips.
- Catchphrase: Mr. A's "We've got that going for us, which is nice."
- Creepy Long Fingers: When the kitten Etch was born, Mr. A commented that Etch had "creepy long fingers." Etch having extra digits contributed to this effect.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Bessie (Bespoke), from the 2020 Hipster Weebops class, was basically a feline version of this due to having cerebellar hypoplasia (aka “Wobbly Cat Syndrome”), and became a big fan favorite as a result of both the cute-clumsiness and her Determinator methods of getting on in spite of it.
- Cute Kitten: Naturally!
- Extra Digits: A few of the momcats and kittens that have come through KA have been polydactyls.
- The Faceless: Mr. A, when he does the mailbags on Saturday mornings. In order to keep the focus on the gifts and the kittens playing around him, we usually only see him from the mid-chest down.
- Fake Pregnancy: Occasionally the Academy will bring in a supposed "momcat" who turns out to not be pregnant at all. These will jokingly be referred to by the viewers as “pregnots”.
- In late 2017 they had an entire rash of these. One (Filbert) was actually male, while a couple of others (Cashew and Quiche) were just pudgy. Still another never even made it onto the livestream before the ruse was discovered. KA fans went along with the fun, claiming that the Academy was
so much fun that cats were faking pregnancies to get in.
- In late 2017 they had an entire rash of these. One (Filbert) was actually male, while a couple of others (Cashew and Quiche) were just pudgy. Still another never even made it onto the livestream before the ruse was discovered. KA fans went along with the fun, claiming that the Academy was
- Family Theme Naming: Each class of kittens is given a name based on their mother's name. See the Kitten Classes folder on the Kitten Academy Characters page.
- Fan Convention: An annual "KA-Con" is held each summer
- Fan Speak: The fosters and fans of the Kitten Academy have a growing list of special words and phrases...
- "A door bell": Adorable
- "Adooter": Adopter
- "Contraptions": A momcat's labor contractions.
- "Cutting onions": When Mr. A or DJ get overcome with emotion and tear up. Tears of Joy, of course, since the Kitten Academy has No Sads. This generally happens during the mailbag, when a fan sends in a heartfelt letter.
- "Dide": A misspelling of "died," which is short for } "That was so cute I died".
- "Hisses get kisses": If a kitten hisses at another, or at Mr. A or DJ, it gets picked up and kissed as a form of gentle discipline.
- "Pregnot": A (sometimes!) female cat brought to the Academy who turns out not to be pregnant. On at least one occasion, a pregnot wasn't female. Lookin' at you, Filbert!
- "Sboogles": Hugs and kisses.
- "Secret Agent (cat's name)": Sometimes a cat has to wear a tight-fitting body sleeve after their surgery to keep them from licking their stitches. A cat wearing a secret agent suit is also a suitaloo (see below).
- "Shakashaka (cat's name)": When a cat repeatedly paws or scratches at a glass door, window, or mirror, usually while standing on its back legs. Shakashaka Ari!
- "Singing the songs of his/her people": When a cat or kitten is meowing loudly and continuously.
- "Smols": Kittens a few weeks old or older, which are usually kept in the main room.
- "Suitaloo": A cat wearing a protective body sleeve after surgery.
- "Tinies": Kittens from newborns to a few weeks old, usually kept in the annex.
- "Why are you the way you are, (cat's name)?": Used when a cat is acting especially silly.
- Fanfic: KA fan Wombat has written several Fanfics starring successive classes of kittens. They can be read here.
- Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The Saturday morning Mailbag streams.
- Funny Background Event: The kittens, momcats, and faculty often get up to adorable shenanigans during the mailbag sessions.
- Happy Place: Many Kitten Academy fans consider the livestream their Happy Place.
- Hero of Another Story: The good folks at Danbury Animal Welfare Society (DAWS), the nearby rescue shelter that handles adoptions for KA and provides them with new kittens and/or momcats to foster. And On Angels' Wings, which performed the same role when the Academy was in Illinois.
- Jingle: Sarah Donner, an indie singer-songwriter and dedicated KA fan, has written and recorded a jingle for the Saturday Mailbag videos.Kitten Academy
Is where you wanna be
When you are a cat
On a Saturday
They can pounce and play
Time for the... Mail-baaaaaag - Kindhearted Cat Lover: Comes with the territory.
- Meat Puppet: Of the most adorable variety! When a kitten is adopted, Mr. A holds them up to one of the webcams and jiggles their paw to make them look like they're waving goodbye to the fans.
- Older Than They Look / Teen Pregnancy: Occasionally KA will bring in a momcat that is small and dainty enough to pass for a kitten herself. (Or young enough to technically be a kitten herself. One example of this was Roux, who was estimated to be less than a year old when she arrived.)
- P.O.V. Cam: The "Kitten Close Up" streams, in which Mr. A narrates short (usually 20 minutes or so) videos of the kittens taken with his smartphone.
- Pungeon Master: Mr. A is capable of unleashing some real doozies when narrating the Close Up and Mailbag videos. Often followed by audible groaning from DJ.
- Put on a Bus: The kittens and momcats leave the Academy after "graduating" and getting adopted. Averted with the faculty cats, most of whom are former student kittens that Mr. A and DJ were either unable to find adopters for or just decided to keep on permanently.
- On rare occasions the bus comes back, as when an adoption turns out to be a poor fit. Then there’s Trout from the "Angel’s Fish" class, who returned to the Academy for a special visit when his adopters came back a few months later to adopt Garbanzo from the "Chili’s Beans" class and brought Trout along.
- Retool: In the summer of 2019, the Academy moved from Illinois to Connecticat.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: The kittens, of course! And the momcats. And the faculty cats. And Elsie, when she was around.
- Not to mention the mice, birds, squirrels, rabbits, and other wildlife that occasionally turn up outside the house. (Or inside the house, in the case of mice. Yes, mice have occasionally made their way into a house packed with felines. Mr. A typically catches them in a humane trap and then releases them back into the outdoors.)
- Signing Off Catchphrase: At the end of every Kitten Close Up video, Mr. A reminds viewers, "If you want to keep watching these kittens, you can tune in to the regular Kitten Academy livestream right here on YouTube."
- Then, as the camera focuses on one kitten or cat, "Say goodbye, (name of cat)." And, finally, "Goodbye, everybody."
- Spin-Off: Wednesdays with Winnie and Gary. Winnie (Wingdings) and Gary (Garamond) were part of the "Fonts" Kitten Academy class and now have their own YouTube channel.
- The Voice:
- Mr. A typically provides off-camera narration for the Kitten Close Up streams.
- DJ during the Saturday mailbags. She's usually off-camera, her presence indicated by her voice alone.
