Kitten and Cat
Dear Kitten
is a series of ads produced by the Friskies cat food company and BuzzFeed Video. It is narrated by a pet cat (played by Ze Frank of True Facts fame), who has taken it upon himself to mentor a kitten who's new to the house. In typically serene style, he guides his protégé through such human mainstays as the toilet, football, and vacuums (or, the dreaded monster "Vack Ooum").
This series includes the following tropes:
- Cats Are Mean: Downplayed. The characters are nice, but their species' culture demands that new cats be hissed at 437 times before they're "begrudgingly" accepted into the household.
- Cats Are Superior: Cat considers himself the head of the household, not the humans living there.
- Cat Stereotype:
- Kitten is a cute, bright-eyed orange tabby.
- Cat is a laidback and snarky grey tabby.
- Curtain Camouflage: Cat believes the reason Vack Ooum has never caught him is because he hides behind the "Curtains of Invisibility".
- Dogs Are Dumb: Cat firmly believes this, and one video is devoted entirely to explaining this to Kitten. He notes that he originally believed Peanut, the dog before the current one, was just a very ugly cat.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Cat concludes that he's being fed dry kibble because he's being trained as an astronaut.
- Furry Reminder: The primary joke of the series. Though he is eloquent and experienced by feline standards, Cat has no understanding of mirrors, human bathing, or clothes separate from their owners.
- Interspecies Friendship: Cat is not particularly fond of the St. Bernard puppy currently in the house, but he was close to the Dachshund, Peanut, that lived with them before. "Rest in peace."
- Mundane Object Amazement: The cats love smelling stinky human shoes; Cat remembers very nostalgically the time when he was small enough to fit in one.
- Nature Abhors a Vacuum Cleaner: Cat tells Kitten about the time he destroyed the "Vack Oom" by clogging it with cat toys, he then warns Kitten that they should keep an eye on the new robot vacuum cleaner but takes solace in the fact that it is "stupid" but they may still need to push it down the stairs one day.
- No Name Given: It's mentioned that the main characters have names, but blurbs just refer to them as "Cat" and "Kitten". Presumably Cat's aloofness makes him address Kitten impersonally.
- Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Cat is reluctant to admit it, but he is fond of Kitten and sad that he (?) is growing up so fast.
