Cool Cat Saves the Kids / Trivia

Acting for Two:
- April Berry voiced Momma Cat in the pre-2018 versions of Saves the Kids (credited as April Ann Reese) and played a teacher in the Finds a Gun segment (credited separately as April Berry).
- Derek Savage's decision to voice Cool Cat for the "Cool Cat's Crazy Dream" video creates a bizarre impression of Talking to Themself. In his interview on the Super Media Bros podcast, Jason Johnson says that Savage's initial plan for the earlier Cool Cat videos was, in fact, to voice Cool Cat himself, before Johnson talked him out of it.
- In one scene^note, Jason Johnson (who played Cool Cat) also portrayed Momma Cat.
Alan Smithee: According to Jason Johnson, Savage used "Angel Hope" for any instances where he personally wore the Cool Cat suit. In Crazy Dream, Cool Cat (voiced by Savage and portrayed by Johnson using stock footage) is credited as being played by "Robby Victors", and Dirty Dog (voiced and portrayed by Savage) is credited as being played by "Robert Bryant".
Approval of God: When YouTubers first began to criticize the movie, Savage himself started out praising them for caring about it, with his only gripe being Cool Cat being labeled a pedophile. But after I Hate Everything released his review, for no apparent reason, he suddenly pulled a 180 and began striking down videos on a massive scale.
Blooper: Because of the low production values and Savage apparently never bothering to do more than a single take for each scene, the film has many glaring mistakes that were left in.
- During the news report at the beginning of the film, one of the Spinning Paper headlines reads "Kids Loves Cool Cat." Inexplicably, this was not fixed in the Director's Cut version.
- The parade scene uses footage from the 2011 and 2012 Hollywood Christmas Parade events that Savage and Cool Cat appeared at. During the 2011 event, whoever was in the suit^note clearly threw the outfit on in a hurry, as the neck of the costume hangs over the shirt collar (making it look like Cool Cat has a double-chin) and the orange arms of the costume are not properly attached, with the right arm exposing the actor's wrist and the left arm overlapping the sleeve of the shirt he's wearing. At one point the actor also gets out of the car and runs through the parade without putting on Cool Cat's orange shins.
- The orange left arm once again overlaps the sleeve of Cool Cat's shirt during the sandbox scene when he yells at Butch. Cool Cat's Angry Eyebrows are also attached before Butch even arrives at the scene, making it look like Cool Cat is angry at the sandcastle.
- When Cool Cat walks out of his house with the boombox, his tail snags on the bush while he dances and he visibly struggles to pull it off.
Colbert Bump:
- The website Something Awful published an article on Savage and Cool Cat in 2013, giving them minor attention.
- Its trailer got a little viral attention on YouTube when it debuted in 2014, but the two-part YourMovieSucks.org review in early 2015 raised its profile and gained the movie a cult following.
- Mumkey Jones gave one to Derek Savage's Indiegogo campaign to produce a sequel to the movie, Cool Cat Stops a School Shooting. The campaign had barely met over $1,000 of its $25,000 goal. Then Mumkey stepped in and said that he'd ask his fans to help back the campaign on the condition that he gets to play a major supporting role in the film. Derek agreed to this. Unfortunately, despite a subsequent increase in donations, especially within less than 24 hours of Mumkey's video, the campaign didn't manage to make enough money in time for the deadline.
Copiously Credited Creator: Besides the prominent note "Cool Cat is created by Derek Savage", Savage is also credited for directing, producing, writing, acting, additional camera, color correction, writing and producing the opening and closing credits, and writing and producing the songs (with other people listed for "music track by"). He's also been accused of making up pseudonyms so he can avoid crediting himself with even more stuff.
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: During the scene of Cool Cat showing off famous vehicles, he refers to them by exegetic names, such as the "Back to the Future Car" or the "Ghostbusters Car," rather than the DeLorean or ECTO-1 respectively.
Creator Backlash: While Jason Johnson did admit to having fun making it, he believes the end result deserves its reputation.
Creator Breakdown:
- For a period in late 2015, Derek Savage took to attacking anyone who uploads any content that mocks his film in any way. He's even gone as far as to threaten legal action against I Hate Everything and getting into fights with his fans on Twitter, to the point where Cool Cat's Twitter account was set to private for a while. The sad part is that it didn't use to be this way. When the film was popularized by the YourMovieSucks.org review, Derek Savage found out about it and took the criticism in stride. The only thing he complained about was the "Cool Cat is actually a pedophile" jokes, which he thought were taking things a bit too far. Otherwise, he acted far more reasonably than he did afterwards. It is unknown what exactly it was about IHE's video that made Derek angry and begin his false-flagging spree.
- As said by IHE in this video, he received an email from a "law firm" Byrne & Shapiro pressuring him into taking down his video for Jurassic Shark for supposed copyright infringement. Although initially believing it, cracks began to show when he noticed several discrepancies, such as how they didn't leave a phone number, didn't try to hit his video with a copyright strike, don't have an office, and sent the email from a Yahoo account, the same e-mail service Savage uses. Additional digging from Your Movie Sucks shows that the director and producer of Jurassic Shark had never even heard of the law firm^note or Savage. Needing more evidence, IHE managed to trick Savage into admitting he made up B&S as a scare tactic to make him take down more videos.
- He also managed to dox several YouTubers who made parody videos including Mr. Bump, maker of the YouTube Poop "Cool Cat Joins ISIS", whom he threatened to send the address of to the real ISIS. Later he threatened to send the same address to the FBI terror division under the false pretense that Mr. Bump was actually affiliated with ISIS. It really goes to show what depths Savage will sink to in order to "protect his brand."
The Danza: Madison is played by Madison Marie Steinacker, and Serge is played by Sergio Blanco. Likewise, the police officer played by Steve Crest was named Officer Crest in Finds a Gun and the YMS cut, before it was removed in all later edits.
Dawson Casting: A rather extreme example. Cool Cat seems to be, at most, eight years old. His original actor is an adult. Even more extreme with Savage taking over the voice.
Dear Negative Reader: Derek Savage has baited his haters to send criticism his way, only to report their negative reviews for copyright violations.
Deleted Scene:
- The scene of Butch reacting to Cool Cat in the Hollywood Parade was intended to be included in the original cut of Cool Cat Saves The Kids, but left out. It was eventually included in the later recut and in Cool Cat Kids Superhero.
- In Cool Cat Kids Superhero, any scene where Cool Cat jerks his leg and pumps his fist is cut.
- More footage shot that was unused ended up in a YouTube video called “Cool Cat’s Crazy Dream”. Though Derek dubbed over Jason Johnson as Cool Cat. Johnson eventually copyright-claimed the video, but it's since expired.
Descended Creator: In addition to directing, Savage also appears as himself (Cool Cat's father), as well as voicing Cool Cat and Dirty Dog since 2019.
Fan Community Nicknames: The Cool Cat Twitter account is trying desperately hard to make "Cool Caters" (shouldn't it be "Cool Catters"?) an example, but nobody else has adopted it.
Follow the Leader: The recut of the film was named Cool Cat: Kids Superhero in order to cash in on the rising popularity of superhero movies.
He Also Did:
- The actor who plays the police officer who arrests Butch the Bully, Steve Crest, has previously appeared in a number of porn films.
- Derek Savage himself both posed for Playgirl and wrote a novel dealing with the life of a male stripper in the past.
Hostility on the Set: According to Jason Johnson, Derek Savage had a crush on Momma Cat's actress, April Berry^note, and would frequently flirt with and make unwanted advances towards her, though she would always shut him down. On the final day of filming, Berry reportedly allowed Johnson to use her shower after he had spent the entire day in the Cool Cat outfit because he lived a few hours away from the set. This resulted in Derek storming into the house uninvited and furiously confronting them. Berry never worked with Savage since this incident, resulting in Savage recasting Momma Cat in the recut, and Johnson only worked with Savage on the new scenes in the Kids Superhero recut, with Savage taking over Cool Cat's voice himself afterward.
Keep Circulating the Tapes:
- The original edit, aka the YMS edit, of the film. After Adam posted the video on the copyright fiasco, Derek clearly lost all respect for him as he took down the YMS cut (though it is included in the 2019 box set, which itself is currently out of print). He also deleted Adam's cameo in Gun Self-Defense For Women.
- The first cut of the film became this when Derek recut the film to remove scenes such as the man in the background walking out then back into the house.
- With the release of Cool Cat Kids Superhero, Derek stopped selling the second cut of Cool Cat Saves The Kids. Then with the Director's Cut version, Derek stopped selling that as well.
- Also, the three videos that Derek patched together to make this film were out of print before the aforementioned box set was released, and never sold well anyway.
No Budget: Big time. The movie was shot on a video camera, had all of its scenes shot in one take each (resulting in many mistakes being left in), and they couldn't even afford a separate costume for Momma Cat. Although in his interviews, Jason Johnson said that the "Cool Cat Stops Bullying" video had a fair amount of money behind it since Derek Savage was financing it with income from his day job. For the other parts of the film, Savage didn't have as much money to work with, and so he started trying to crowdfund the footage, as well as handling most of the crew chores on his own (which explains why he's a Copiously Credited Creator).
Non-Singing Voice: Cool Cat's song vocals are obviously dubbed in. Not only that, all the songs are performed by different people. In the new rap number featured in Cool Cat: Kids Superhero, Cool Cat's vocals are done by Derek Savage himself!
The Other Marty:
- Cynthia Rothrock replaces the previous actress who voiced Momma Cat, April Berry, in the recut version Cool Cat Kids Superhero.
- The Director's Cut version has Savage dub over Jason Johnson's voice as Cool Cat.
Real-Life Relative:
- Jessica Salazar (Maria) and Lisa Salazar (one of the Momma Cat suit actresses) appear to be related, as is Cesar Salazar (a production driver).
- The girls who appear in the opening (Alexandra N. and Mackayla McGee) appear to be related to costume designer Mike McGee.
Recycled Script: According to Derek in this video (at 7:42), the Cool Cat Finds a Gun story was adapted from another of his books, Trolly Finds a Gun, to the point where one of the kids in Finds a Gun (Mikey) shares his name with one of the Trolly characters from the book.
Referenced by...: After the debacle where he tried to help Derek Savage crowdfund Cool Cat Stops a School Shooting, only for Savage to pull a bait-and-switch and try to launch a different Cool Cat project, Mumkey Jones decided to make a 20-minute film called Munkey [sic] Jones Stops a School Shooting for an official budget of $5. Jones plays both the hero (in a monkey mask) and the villain in the Large Ham style of Cool Cat and Butch the Bully, and adds an extra Take That! by making the villain's henchman a character named Fabulous Feline.
The Shelf of Movie Languishment: The pilot episode for Cool Cat Flips a House was completed in 2020, but still has yet to receive a full release (apart from portions of it later being used in the 2022 Re-Cut of Saves the Kids and Cool Cat vs Dirty Dog: The Virus Wars).
Streisand Effect: You could rename this the Savage Effect, based on how Derek's copyright strikes and grandstanding took Cool Cat from obscurity to major phenomenon practically overnight, including the creation of this very article on This Very Wiki, as well as raising the profiles of I Hate Everything, Bobsheaux and Your Movie Sucks.
Throw It In!:
- When getting into the car to go to Hollywood, Cool Cat struggles to open the door, eventually managing to open from the inside. Derek claims the car is locked "for safety purposes". However, the door wasn't locked at all, but Johnson was struggling because of the oversized hands on his Cool Cat outfit.
- Johnson realized during filming that Cool Cat never did anything to convey many cat-like traits, and improvised the Character Tic where Cool Cat scratches himself and shakes his leg. He didn't realize until watching the finished product how inappropriate this actually looked.
Uncredited Role:
- The actor who played Cool Cat in the footage from the 2011 Hollywood Christmas Parade (as Jason Johnson wasn't cast until the following year) goes uncredited.
- The driver who almost hits Mikey as he tries crossing the street isn't listed in the credits. Between this and Cool Cat running across the street to catch Butch shortly after, the scene about safe road crossing makes it feel as if it was a last-minute addition to the film and was likely unintentional.
- Similarly, the neighbor who infamously looks out and walks back in during one scene in the YMS Saves the Kids cut. Further not helped by ultimately becoming an Un-person in all future versions.
What Could Have Been:
- Following the Parkland school shooting, a sequel, called Cool Cat Stops a School Shooting, was going to be made and it was meant to be a PSA specializing in what to do in the event of a school shooting. Though it received a Colbert Bump from Mumkey Jones (who would've also starred in the film), the film's fundraising project could not get enough money in time for the deadline, so Savage tried reformatting the fundraiser for a smaller backup project called Cool Cat: Stranger Danger Alert & Home Cooking Tips (which is about what you would expect from such a title). Despite that, the fundraiser ultimately failed in the end, but Savage released it as "Cool Cat's Crazy Dream" in 2019, which is detailed on the main page. Despite this, Savage was clearly insistent on continuing his work on Cool Cat Stops a School Shooting and claimed to have finished a screenplay for it. The ending to Cool Cat Fights the Coronavirus was set up as a teaser for the School Shooting video.
- At one point, Cool Cat was purportedly a 45-book series.
- All three shorts that comprised Saves the Kids were produced as pilots for a TV series called Cool Cat's Fun House. Unable to get it picked up, he stitched them together into a feature film. Crazy Dream even features deleted footage from the Hollywood Parade short of Cool Cat talking to the audience while sitting on a chair against a green screen.
- According to an interview with Jason Johnson (Cool Cat's actor), John Schneider was going to be in Stops Bullying instead of Erik Estrada, but he backed out at the last minute. In addition, another interview with Johnson revealed several tidbits:
  - The Kids Superhero edit was planned to be even bigger, adding twelve new scenes instead of seven, have three new celebrity appearances instead of just Cynthia Rothrock voicing Momma Cat, and introduce a new child character.
  - Savage tried to get Halle Berry (!) to voice Momma Cat in Kids Superhero.
  - Savage planned a follow-up to Saves the Kids with a film called Cool Cat vs. the Wicked Witch, and Vivica A. Fox would have returned.
  - Johnson's performance was originally a one-time thing, and Savage considered putting someone else in the suit, possibly a woman.
  - Johnson was asked by Savage to accept an award at his 420 Awards production as Cool Cat, and present an award as himself. Johnson, pointing out the obvious issue with having a character made for children appearing at an event that's ostensibly a celebration of marijuana, refused the offer, which caused Derek to cut ties with him.
  - Johnson recommended another actor who he knew and had access to a police car to play the police officer in Cool Cat Finds a Gun, but Savage turned him down due to his Scottish accent and cast Steve Crest instead.
  - Savage considered sneaking an actress in a witch costume into the Hollywood Christmas Parade's audience with the intentions of filming Cool Cat in the Hollywood Christmas Parade and the unproduced Cool Cat vs. the Wicked Witch simultaneously before Johnson talked him out of it.
  - As stated in Acting for Two, Derek was originally going to do the voice of Cool Cat from the beginning while Johnson would simply wear the suit. Johnson eventually talked him out of it, but he did ultimately take over as the voice in "Cool Cat's Crazy Dream" after Johnson left Savage.
  - According to Johnson, despite being replaced, if Savage offered him another chance to reprise his role as Cool Cat, he would agree under three conditions: he was paid an appropriate rate, a more competent screenwriter is used in place of Savage (whether they were YouTube-based or Hollywood-based was optional), and he would receive proper credit for playing the character.
- In one of the intros on the box set, Savage states that he tried to get Chuck Norris to appear in Cool Cat Stops Bullying.
- The film's Re-Cut would've been titled Cool Cat Loves You before being changed to Cool Cat: The Kids Superhero! and then Cool Cat Kids Superhero.
- The celebrity segments in Cool Cat's Crazy Dream that were filmed during the afterparty of the Hollywood Christmas Parade in 2012 were produced with the intention of possibly using them for future projects. Johnson wanted to talk to Lou Ferrigno, who he grew up watching, but Savage (who disliked Ferrigno personally) held him back.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: In a now-deleted video, Savage admits that he didn't conceive Cool Cat Saves the Kids as a full-length project. Instead, he started with a single short video (Cool Cat Stops Bullying, with Erik Estrada and Vivica A. Fox). When he had trouble selling it, he tried making two other shorts, Cool Cat Finds a Gun (which was made in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting) and Cool Cat in the Hollywood Christmas Parade. Then, when he realized that he'd have more luck with a feature-length film, he stitched them all together with an additional half-hour of new material. Some of the oddities of the film, like Cool Cat's habit of pausing in the middle of sentences ("It's not cool to...paint on someone's wall!"), the type of unpolished delivery you get from child actors who never had a chance to rehearse, and Non Sequitur lines (like Daddy Derek's response to being told how crazy the day was "Hey, I hope that's a great thing!") make it seem like the dialogue was ad-libbed or was scripted on the fly, but Jason Johnson has said that there was an actual screenplay written (albeit a grammatically-incorrect, sometimes incoherent one).
- According to an interview with Johnson, while the original Cool Cat Stops Bullying project was a sanctioned SAG-AFTRA production, the other subsequent footage and projects are non-union and actors did not need to sign any contracts and were compensated in cash and personal checks upfront. This explains why celebrity actors such as Estrada and Fox only appeared for a few minutes in the project.

Trivia / Cool Cat Saves the Kids

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Trivia / Cool Cat Saves the Kids

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