YMMV / Cool Cat Saves the Kids

• Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus
• Cool Cat vs Dirty Dog: The Virus Wars

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• Accidental Aesop: A rare hard truth example. During the sandpit scene, Vivica A. Fox and Erik Estrada^note And Cool Cat's parents in the original book clearly see Butch tormenting Cool Cat and Maria (this scene is happening in a backyard rather than a public place, meaning Butch is also trespassing onto private property), but they don't intervene until Butch kicks sand in Cool Cat's face, and Butch is already gone by the time they come over. And when Butch eventually returns, they sit back and do nothing again, with Butch only leaving after Cool Cat and Maria yell at him. While the main moral the scene wanted to show was that bullying can be resolved without resorting to violence, the message instead comes off as saying that adults and authority figures won't intervene when you're being bullied and that it's easier to just take matters into your own hands.
  Erik: I can't believe it. That bully is back for more!
  Bobsheaux: And you're doing nothing!
• Accidental Innuendo: Many of Cool Cat's lines make him sound like some kind of bizarre pedophile/sexual deviant, such as "I LOVE ALL KIDS!" or "My belly feels great!". He also regularly makes a motion with his hand at stomach/groin level that look extremely like he's making a jerking-off gesture.
• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Many such examples.
• Adaptation Displacement: The movie is far more well-known than the picture books Derek Savage made to start the Cool Cat brand.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Adam at YourMovieSucks.org made the point that the film makes much more sense if you interpret Cool Cat and Momma Cat as adult humans who spend all their time engaged in extreme Furry cosplay.
  • By the same token, he also interpreted Cool Cat as a pedophile, based on a few questionable lines.
    "And I love you (Maria) too! And I'm Cool Cat, and I love ALL kids!"
    "'I LOVE BABIES'"
  • I Hate Everything speculates that Cool Cat is actually an extension of Daddy Derek's deranged and predatory psyche.
  • According to Bobsheaux:
    • Cool Cat is a manic depressive with low self-esteem and has to surround himself with constant reassurance of how cool he supposedly is. This explains all of the posters of himself in his room.
    • In Bob's review of Cool Cat Stops Bullying, he wonders if Butch comes from a poor family that can't afford clean clothes or healthy food, which explains Butch's appearance, and that due to his physical appearance, other kids bully him so he bullies people in response.
    • In that review he also notes that in the book Cool Cat's father is named Daddy Derek even though he's a cat, leading to speculation that Derek Savage might identify as a cat in real life.
  • Derek Savage has also created a series of Christian-themed children's books called Bible Birdie. Could he have intended Cool Cat as a Messianic Archetype along the lines of Aslan? It would explain why criticism and ridicule of the character is such a Berserk Button for Savage.
  • The crewman who accidentally wanders out of Daddy Derek and Cool Cat's house into a shot and *slowly* backs out could be seen as a normal person who spotted a grown man in a cat costume talking to young children and wanted no part of it.
  • Many viewers have pointed out that Cool Cat and Maria's conflict with Butch the Bully seems more logical and realistic when you interpret them as the bullies, as Cool Cat's patronizing tone of voice, them being a "pack" while Butch is a loner, and their repeated statement that Butch has no friends can bring to mind gaslighting and other forms of mental abuse, which in many Real Life cases has resulted in the victim performing violent actions that are not dissimilar to Butch's use of the gun in the film's climax. And unfortunately, like many real-life examples, Cool Cat and Maria are treated as the victims and not punished for their actions. The Kids Superhero version even supports this with a scene in which Maria taunts Butch about him not going to the Hollywood Parade or being invited to Vivica A. Fox's house while she and Cool Cat are.
  • Cool Cat and Maria are in a relationship. Given how much time they spend together, how Maria gushes over Cool Cat's compliments, and that they even suggest going on a vacation together.
  • Butch says that Maria has pretty hair, so that implies that he secretly loves her and is jealous that she spends time with Cool Cat, so he picks on her so he won't get rejected.
  • Some fans have theorized that Butch is neglected by his parents and acts out because of a desire for attention.
• Cliché Storm: There's a sand-kicking bully, candy stolen from babies, a Spinning Paper scene, a school election subplot, a Girly Girl who walks with a Skip of Innocence, an Opinion-Changing Dream that's a major plot point, and a housewife clad in a floral dress and necklace (who just happens to be a cat), all presented with no self-awareness whatsoever.
• Cult Classic: Of the So Bad, It's Good variety. People like to watch this film for the sole sake of laughing at the shoddy quality and for the memes.
• Designated Hero: Cool Cat and Maria call out Butch the Bully for not having any friends because of him being a bully. This makes them the bullies, as most cases of bullying in Real Life involve a group of people targeting a single person. Butch is also implied to live in a broken home, which makes the comparatively well-off Cool Cat and Maria seem even worse. In Kids Superhero, Maria even taunts Butch in one scene.
• Don't Shoot the Message: While anti-bullying PSAs are important considering school bullying is a problem in and of itself, the film has so many flaws that make it completely fall flat. Those flaws being that it's too absolutely corny to take seriously, the Broken Aesop (especially taking Derek Savage's real-life antics into consideration), and its overall quality. For example, it actually makes the typical excuses for bullying, portraying them as the victims of society. It's not like bullies will become your friends if you just say the right things. The movie also makes broad generalizations about why kids bully each other and portray bullies as Card Carrying Villains who you can spot just by looking at them.
  Erik Estrada: (judging Butch the Bully, who at this point hasn't even done anything yet) All Cool Cat's friends are cool. That kid looks like he's up to something.
  Vivica A. Fox: Hmmm. He better not be a bully, because I don't like bullies!
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Erik Estrada and Vivica A. Fox, due to the hilarious and memetic manner they perform their lines.
  • For fictional characters, Butch the Bully is popular for his hammy performance.
• Epileptic Trees: With Dirty Dog replacing Butch the Bully as the Big Bad in the sequels, a lot of theories have popped up about how the two characters are related. The most common among them is that Dirty Dog is Butch after he got older and became a furry.
• Fountain of Memes: Due to the ridiculous dialogue and hammy delivery of almost every character, this movie is really quotable.
• Ham and Cheese:
  • Connor Dean (the child actor playing Butch the Bully) is clearly having a blast.
  • Erik Estrada, who has a solid history of Adam Westing himself and has things like Sealab 2021 on his resume, clearly knows how hokey this movie is and hams it up on purpose. Vivica A. Fox, who also has a history of not taking herself too seriously (she's the producer/star of Lifetime's campy The Wrong Made-for-TV Movie franchise) goes more in a Cold Ham direction.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Derek Savage made a film with the intention of teaching kids about how to deal with bullying. Since November 2015, he's gained a reputation for bullying and harassing online reviewers who criticize the film. He even borrowed one of Butch's tactics seen in the movie: sending threatening emails as shown when he sent I Hate Everything emails under an alias as part of a false DMCA claim.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Jarring voice acting from Derek aside, the scene in Crazy Dream where Cool Cat meets a little boy is genuinely sweet. He also has a little fanboy moment when he meets Montel Williams, who teaches him how to shoot a balled-up napkin into a trash can basketball-style. Judging by Cool Cat's genuine enthusiasm^note Jason's voice, surprisingly, was not dubbed over by Derek in this scene, it seems like Jason Johnson was legitimately excited to meet the guy.
  • Meta example: Johnson had mentioned in a podcast interview that Erik Estrada and Jessica Salazar (Maria) developed a bond on set, with Erik occasionally referring to her as "mija".
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The film intends to make Butch look as bad as possible and plays Daddy Derek as the Big Good of the setting. After the film gained its reputation, Connor Dean (Butch's actor) has stated he ignores most criticism and negative comments he gets, while Derek famously started lashing out at his critics. Many comments on Ryan Oseris's interview of Connor noticed the irony.
  • Cool Cat says that dogs are his friends. In 2018, Derek Savage announced that Cool Cat would get an arch-enemy named Dirty Dog.
  • Butch the Bully was the main antagonist of Saves the Kids and was the only character who was remotely overweight. In the same film, Cool Cat is seen several times exercising, apparently because Savage wanted to say that he'd done his part to fight childhood obesity. This becomes funnier after the premiere of Cool Cat Fights Coronavirus. The suit actor they got to replace Jason Johnson (Enrique Lugo, who is credited as "Angel De Hope" in an edited version) is noticeably chubbier, and has a very visible "muffin top."
• Memetic Loser: Cool Cat. While he's heavily implied to be a child in-universe, the fact that he's played by (and looks and sounds like) an adult has led to many jokes and parodies portraying him as an immature wimp who can't even defend himself from an eight-year-old bully. Added to this, he never actively does anything heroic and always relies on adult figures doing most of the work, in stark contrast to the film's title claiming that he's going to Save The Kids.
• Memetic Molester:
  • The fact that Cool Cat is clearly a grown man in a costume, frequently talks about how much he "loves" kids and vice versa, and has a frequent habit of scratching his belly in an unintentionally suggestive manner - adds blatantly paedophilic undertones to the scenes where he interacts with the younger children, with many viewers joking and theorising that he's actually luring them in. In his review of the film, YourMovieSucks.org even jokingly created a sketch scene where Cool Cat gets caughton To Cat(ch) A Predator.
  • Derek Savage appears in the film as "Daddy Derek", who looks and dresses like a stereotypical middle-aged sex offender. This is indeed as cringeworthy as it sounds. His history with Playboy doesn't help.
  • The camera operator gets this at one point when you can hear what sounds like disturbingly heavy breathing at the exact moment when Cool Cat does his above-mentioned Character Tic in front of Maria. It's so perfectly timed, you could easily assume Cool Cat himself is the one making the noise.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Erik Estrada's "THERE HE IS" became an overnight sensation thanks to YourMovieSucks.org's review.
  • His line "That kid kicked sand in Cool Cat's face!" is equally memetic, especially with YourMovieSucks.org's Voice Clip Song of it.
  • Bobsheaux latched onto "Trolly The Trout makes another friend" as the new "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" (though he misspelled Trolly with an extra E).
  • Lots of jokes about the film's insistent use of the much-despised Comic Sans font. It's used in the packaging, the credits, and even in the printed material seen in the movie.
  • Cool Cat Loves _______!^ExplanationA Character Catchphrase of Cool Cat, often filling in the blank with something inappropriate.
  • "Boogie" and "boogie-woogie" constantly popping up in the movie in reference to dancing.
    Cool Cat loves to BOOGIE WOOGIE
  • EXQUISITE!
  • "Dogs are my friends! Identify yourself!" ^ExplanationCool Cat's response to Butch saying "You might look like a cat but you stink like a dog" during their phone call, which caught on due to Cool Cat's bizarrely intense, ultra-serious delivery of the line.
  • "It's _______ the _______! And he has no friends!" ^ExplanationA description of Butch the Bully that became a snowclone, frequently used to mock someone or something considered unpopular.
  • KIDS LOVES COOL CAT! ^ExplanationA headline typo during the Spinning Paper intro. This was inexplicably kept in the Director's Cut version.
  • The letter "a". ^ExplanationAll thanks to a rather bizarre tweet on Cool Cat's official Twitter account. Daddy Derek might have caught on to it, given that he went on to post similarly bizarre tweets.
• Misblamed: Cool Cat's weird gesture of scratching himself with his foot that got widely memed as him jerking off was commonly attributed to be yet another instance of Derek Savage's obliviousness regarding the messages of the movie. However, in a 2019 interview Jason Johnson revealed that it was actually an improvisation by him because he had noticed that Cool Cat didn't have any mannerisms of an actual cat, and that he only realized what it was mistaken for afterwards.
• Moral Event Horizon: Butch the Bully crosses it when he steals a gun and brings it to school, fully intending to threaten people with it. But given how the characters react, it appears that he was supposed to have crossed it when he kicked sand in Cool Cat's face!
• Narm: Has its own page.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Cool Cat's Dream Sequence, because of his eyes being open when trying to sleep, it looks like he is losing his mind. The fact that he wakes up in his closet curled up makes it seem more like Sanity Slippage.
  • Cool Cat and his friends finding a gun in the backyard. We never find out who owned it, or why it was left laying in Cool Cat's backyard.
  • Butch the Bully, a kid who can't be older than twelve, getting his hands on a gun and bringing it to school. While we only see him show it off to another boy, he did mention that he was also going to threaten other kids with it to get their money.
  • The film's portrayal of Cool Cat as an All-Loving Hero comes off as unintentionally creepy and unsettling. He's ostensibly a child but is played by (and looks like) a grown man, which gives weirdly pedophilic undertones to every scene where he interacts with young children.
  Cool Cat: I'm Cool Cat, and I love all kids!
• One-Scene Wonder: The woman sitting in the convertible with Cool Cat and Daddy Derek during the Hollywood Christmas Parade (played by actress Anita Marie Curran) only appears in the parade sequence. There's no explanation for who she is, she appears and disappears between shots due to only appearing in footage from the 2011 parade, doesn't even get a close-up, her only line is offscreen, and disappears after the parade.
• Overshadowed by Controversy:
  • Undoubtedly, one of the most well-known aspects of this movie is Derek Savage's various crusades against reviewers who criticized it.
  • Even after the false-flagging controversy, Derek's other actions outside the film have since added to this. The actors of both Cool Cat (Jason Johnson) and Momma Cat (April Berry) have cut their ties with Derek for various reasons,^note Johnson left once Derek's toxic behavior became too much for him, and Berry left after a combination of Derek's constant flirting and an incident where he barged into her house thinking that she and Johnson were up to something. Derek's usage of the Cool Cat Twitter handle is extremely controversial,^note He appears to be Sarcasm-Blind and replies to most trolls, retweets very inappropriate tweets, pushes his personal beliefs through it, flirts with most women who have a profile picture and occasionally he uses profanity on it. and he's also been accused of fraud^note He keeps raising money from fans with the promise of new Cool Cat films, but either doesn't follow up on them or makes something that clearly didn't need the sums he asked for; Kids Superhero is mainly a Re-Cut of the original Cool Cat Saves the Kids, causing many to wonder just where in the "production" did their money go—and this is not going into the fact he's completely serious about planning to do a sequel where an orange, anthropomorphic cat saves children from a humanoid bulldog trying to shoot up a school—causing many to wonder if Derek is completely sane.
• Padding:
  • Derek Savage created the film by adding around 30 minutes of interstitial material to three Cool Cat shorts he'd already produced. Since two of the shorts featured Cool Cat and his struggles with Butch, most of the new material continued with that storyline. But the Cool Cat in the Hollywood Parade short is plopped into the middle of the film with zero attempt to make it fit into the continuity of the plot. There are also the entirely pointless song sequences in which Cool Cat sings about himself, that seem like they were just excuses for Savage to show off his 1980s Kramer guitar signed by Van Halen. He even issued a press release admitting that he only added the two scenes of Cool Cat exercising so he could brag that his movie was helping to combat childhood obesity.
  • The recut, Cool Cat Kids Superhero, adds even more irrelevant scenes: Cool Cat works on a painting, performs an additional rap number, briefly throws an empty bottle into a recycling bin, rides on a motorcycle with Daddy Derek, films a vlog where he shows Daddy Derek doing a hitting-a-tree-with-a-pair-of-kamas exercise, and finds a lollipop, which prompts him to sing an inane ripoff of "Lollipop", before he randomly decides he doesn't want candy and puts it back down. Also, Butch and Maria are back, with their new scenes merely being unused scenes from the Saves the Kids shoot. A scene is added where Maria meets Butch on the street and taunts him about not being in the parade, and how she gets to hang out with Cool Cat and meet celebrities, while he doesn't, then walks home with Cool Cat^note Unlike other scenes where he gets chewed out, Butch didn't even do anything bad. He just happened to be walking by Maria, who saw a great chance to make fun of him.
  • The Director's Cut version adds several minutes from Cool Cat Flips a House (when Cool Cat and Daddy Derek work on renovating an old house), none of which is plot-relevant either.
• Periphery Demographic: Originally intended as an educational film for children, the film has attracted a far larger audience that revels in its quotable, So Bad, It's Good qualities.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Multiple reviewers, while generally enjoying Connor Dean's performance, don't think he makes a convincing bully, due to his chubby build, pale skin and frankly dorky hairstyle. Some have gone so far as to say it would have made more sense to cast him as a bullying victim.
  • Cool Cat Kids Superhero featured Cynthia Rothrock, an actress mainly known for martial arts films, to dub over Momma Cat's lines and nothing more. Some have commented that it might have made more sense for her to appear as herself and give advice on self defense.
• So Bad, It's Good: It may be silly, childish and poorly made, but god damn it's enjoyable.
• So Bad, It Was Better: Fans generally prefer the original cut over the later releases, which iron out some of the Special Effect Failure and weirder dialogue while doing nothing to fix the overall messy plot or low production values. Jason Johnson trying way too hard to try to sound like an excited child is agreed to be more enjoyable than Derek Savage's redub where he sounds like... well Derek Savage.
• Special Effect Failure: Despite No Budget, there are several moments that have this, mostly in relation to the Cool Cat suit:
  • Cool Cat's nightmare is shown with his eyes open^note fixed in Kids Superhero, making it look like he's having a seizure or tripping out on hallucinogenic drugs, despite the fact that later on in the film, they actually bother to tape on some eyelids to make him look mad/sad... for one scene. And then they just stop.
  • The film tries to hide the lack of a second costume by only showing Cool Cat and his mother in separate shots. The few times they're in the shot together are very ineptly handled: in the first one the split-screen cut is blatantly obvious, especially since it moves^note fixed in the first recut. Then Momma Cat serving Cool Cat breakfast is clearly chroma keyed, since Cool Cat isn't sitting anywhere near the table and doesn't look at her at all when he says "thanks".
  • Cool Cat's tail randomly uses a different prop in one scene. This prop never shows up anywhere else, so it's likely an error.
  • There is a brief but very noticeable line above the counter when Cool Cat goes into the kitchen to talk to Momma Cat, likely a botched crop by trying to merge the two scenes in editing.
  • When Cool Cat brushes his teeth, the frame is flipped so that the COOL CAT on his shirt reads frontwards in the mirror. It wouldn't even be noticeable except when he's done he turns and faces the camera and his shirt suddenly says ⅃OOƆ TAƆ.
  • The mouth of the Cool Cat costume alternates between being able to move and not move depending on the scene. Momma Cat, on the other hand, does not move her mouth at all, due to fake lips being pasted over it.
  • There's an audio editing glitch in the scene where Derek and Cool Cat talk about Derek's guitar that makes it seem like Cool Cat is reacting with a stunned Dramatic Stutter (this is fixed in the Director's Cut version, in which Savage dubs over Cool Cat's voice).
    Cool Cat: You did so awesome on that Van Halen guitar!
    Daddy Derek: Hey thanks man, and it wasn't me. This is a special guitar! Hey check it out, it's autographed by the Van Halen band, and it was autographed back in the 1980s!
    Cool Cat: W-Wow!
  • The credits background in the Kids Superhero and Director's Cut versions was clearly shifted to the left, as the right side of the image is just the cropped-out left side.
• Squick: Derek married a Half-Human Hybrid cat... and they had a Half-Human Hybrid child. Let that sink in. The scenes where he makes his attraction to her obvious, like calling her a "fine lookin' kitty cat" is particularly unsettling. What's worse is that there isn't actually a second catsuit. Cool Cat's mom is just Cool Cat with a dress and lipstick.
• Stock Footage Failure:
  • Among other things, Maria and Butch are both visibly younger in the Cool Cat Stops Bullying scenes than in the rest of the film, due to it being the earliest-shot portion of the film.
  • The layouts of the living room and dining room change during scenes.
  • Jamie's hair is shorter in the Finds a Gun portion... only for it to grow back in the ending, which is supposed to be set later in the day.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • The sinister-sounding musical cue that plays when Butch The Bully first appears^note When he's about to prank-call Cool Cat and Maria. bears a strong resemblance to the first part of Dreams of Cruelty (Pyro's theme), from Team Fortress 2.
  • The opening theme of the movie sounds like a slightly altered version of Riz Ortolani's opening theme to Cannibal Holocaust.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Later releases edit out the man in the background of one scene who comes out of his house, sees the filming, and immediately retreats back inside. Many viewers mourned the loss of this scene, regarding it as one of the funniest parts of the original cut.
  • It's generally agreed that the redubs for later releases aren't as entertaining as the originals; Cynthia Rothrock is blatantly phoning in her performance in Kids Superhero compared to April Berry at least trying, and Savage dubbing over Cool Cat in Director's Cut doesn't have the same somewhat-endearing energy as Jason Johnson.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Butch the Bully. While the film tries to make it seem like Butch does it for the heck of it, many viewers notice hints that suggest Butch comes from a broken home^note He threatens to tell his mother that Cool Cat and Maria yelled at him, rather than telling both his parents., and may even be a victim of bullying himself^note He's a loner, and a little on the chubby side, which would make him an easy target for fat jokes. Cool Cat and Maria love to bring up that he has no friends. In Kids Superhero, Maria even mocks Butch to his face about all the fun things she does with Cool Cat for no reason other than to make him feel like crap.. This could not only give Butch more depth but also show that sometimes, bullies act out because they themselves are hurting inside. In fact, perhaps Cool Cat, being someone who "loves all kids", could try to reach out to Butch and hear him out, get him to realize the error of his ways, and help him redeem himself.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Bullying is a serious problem faced by many children across the world, and there couldn't be enough children's media that addresses the problem in an intelligent, thoughtful manner. Unfortunately, most of the film is just random hijinks (such as Cool Cat going to the Hollywood Christmas Parade and writing a book) with very little focus given to actual advice about how to deal with bullying.
  • Although Cool Cat manages to redeem Butch's bully lackeys, he never attempts to do the same with Butch himself, despite knowing he has no friends and reassuring the lackeys from the vandalism attempt that there are people who care for them as something he could tell Butch.
  • In Cool Cat Kids Superhero, the new scene of Daddy Derek doing a kamas exercise could have been used to help kids understand the difference between martial arts or contact sports and just hitting people for the sake of being mean. Alternatively Momma Cat could have proved this lesson and make better use of Cynthia Rothrock than just having her dub over Momma Cat's lines and give Momma Cat some much-needed character.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Both Connor Dean (Butch) and Jason Johnson (Cool Cat) are putting far more effort into the film than the script and Derek Savage deserve.
• Uncertain Audience: The character of Cool Cat is generally written in a saccharine tone that seems to be designed to appeal to younger children and toddlers, but the film tackles some more mature subject matters such as bullying and gun safety, which would be more beneficial to older children and teenagers. The film also contains a variety of Parental Bonuses that would most likely fly over the heads of the child demographic, such as the celebrity cameos and the vehicles highlighted during the parade segment.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Butch the Bully is portrayed as an unredeemable bully with no attempt to explain why he behaves the way he does. With the "hero" being such an obnoxious character, it's hard not to feel a bit sorry for the lonely and friendless Butch. Despite the film trying to portray Butch as a Card-Carrying Villain, Cool Cat and Maria are actually far more realistic depictions of bullies, being the popular children who constantly rub in Butch's face that he has no friends.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Cool Cat is supposed to be a lovable, enthusiastic child with a big heart and lots of ambition. Instead, with an adult playing the role using a Large Ham style of acting, he just comes off as a shrill, narcissistic Manchild. Not helping matters is the fact that he belittles Butch for not having friends, which makes him come off as a bully himself.

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