First line of description: Thanks to #Sponsor
for sponsoring today’s Nerd Explains video on COOTIES starring Elijah Wood and Rainn
Wilson…link to sponsor. If puss filled chicken nuggets transformed
a school full of prepubescent psychopaths into zombies, what would you do? Clint just wanted to make a few quick bucks
substitute teaching at his hometown elementary school, but he and the rest of the neurotic
freaks on staff are about to have the school day from heck, when a random chicken nugget
turns a fifth grader into patient zero for the zombie apocalypse. If puss filled chicken nuggets transformed
a school full of prepubescent psychopaths into zombies, what would you do? I’m going to break down the mistakes made,
what you should do, and how to beat the KID ZOMBIES in COOTIES. Cooties begins by trying to turn me into a
vegetarian, which I don’t appreciate at all. From chicken farm to chicken nugget factory,
a sick rooster’s contaminated flesh is plucked, sliced, and processed before being deep fried
and served to little Shelly as part of a well balanced school lunch. As she bites down, gray infection erupts from
the nugget like pus from a boil. This is why you always look your food over
before shoving it down your gullet. In the same neighborhood, Clint, an elementary
school teacher and aspiring writer drives to work. Someone send this man an advance right now
– I gotta hear more about this nice evil boat. At Fort Chicken Elementary, Clint’s mistaken
for a dealer by the school’s crossing guard Rick who’s REALLY into fungi poppables before
the school’s resident PE teacher Wade blocks him in with a truck. Or.. like a sane, well adjusted adult, you
repark somewhere else and pop one of his tires as a lesson. Fort Chicken Elementary is what happens when
you put George Romero in charge of a Wes Anderson daycare. And this is BEFORE the jelly nuggets made
it into the cafeteria. Jesus. And the teacher’s lounge isn’t much better. It’s an asylum full of over sharers and
high strung weirdos. Lucy escorts Clint to his classroom, where
he finds two prepubescent weasels laying into little Shelly. She is looking rough. Sick. Covered in sores. Eyes blank and disoriented. Looks like that Tyson chicken ain’t sitting
well. At least she has an excuse for her behavior. Clint hasn’t realized it yet, but he is
punching way above his weight class here. Yes, this little Ahole is named Patriot. When Clint threatens to take away Patriot’s
phone, the little scamp neuters him with a threat to report him for inappropriate touching. To be fair, there is zero chance I’d be
a teacher today. Poor pay, you can’t pimp smack misbehaving
children, and they don’t let you carry a firearm to defend yourself from bullied loners
who snap. Patriot starts whisper bullying Shelly and
pulls her pony tail clean off her head. She turns and… Not much to say here besides, maybe don’t
bully someone who looks like they have the bubonic plague? Or, if you do, avoid their plague hole. Clint tries to pull her off, but gets scratched
for his effort. Shelly rushes off and Clint spirits Patriot
away to Nurse Rhonda’s Office. She says he’ll need stitches…for the silver
dollar of flesh dangling from his face. Yeah, no duh. Pull that thing away and I bet you see clear
to his teeth. Clint needs to get him to a hospital ASAP. After dog and cat bites, human bites are the
next most common…and they pack a SERIOUS punch in terms of infection rates and side
effects. Bites that break the skin basically inject
the victim with all the pathogens, viruses, and bacterial strains swimming around in the
human’s mouth. Even bites from clean mouths can cause wounds
that require prophylactic antibiotics. Recess begins and the playground swells with
pandemonium. Patriot’s second in command spots little
Shelly trying to dig her way out by the fence line and confronts her, only to get clawed
by her dirty, ragged fingernails. What did I say about getting in a leper’s
face? One second, he’s just your normal everyday
miniature psychopath and the next… Thanks for the run through of what NOT to
do. Why is every teacher here repeatedly running
into the fray and freezing for an eternity waiting for bloody psycho kids to make a move? You know these kids. This is insane behavior and something is obviously
wrong. AND you have like 100 pounds on these kids. There’s no excuse not to rock at least a
few of them with big nasty right hooks before you sprint for the door. Outside the fence line, Rick’s eating stuff
in his van when all of this is going down. He radios Vice Principal Sims for help. Add being elated during a zombie apocalypse
to my list of irrational fears. Rick, if you’re not going to drive off to
safety, at least move into the back of the van where they can’t see you. This James Taylor wannabe blindly barrels
out of his office onto the playground where he is IMMEDIATELY demoted on the food chain. How about we look out the window before rampaging
into the open when something seriously sketchy is going on? Not believing your unreliable crossing guard,
I totally get. But it is utter chaos out here. There’s blood and guts everywhere, which
you would have seen from the safety of the door. Now they’ve cut off your escape route and
these little psychos are turning you into shredded meat. Back in the teacher’s lounge, the dwindling
Administrative staff of Fort Chicken Elementary have remained shielded from the mayhem by
two inches of window glass and Clint’s unsubtle flirting with Lucy. At least until the socially awkward guy brings
them to their senses. Wade gives up on his NBA tryouts in time to
notice he’s become surrounded by giggling, hissing, bitey fifth graders. Things aren’t looking great so let’s assess
our options. He’s backed up to a high fence. Kids with their tiny shoes and still functioning
knees could definitely scale that way fast than he can. The kids’ll be chewing through his muscular,
basketball player calves like chicken wings before he makes it halfway up. There are cars to the right in the parking
lot. A solid option, if he has his keys, or knows
someone who might have left their door unlocked…but it’s a big gamble. And let’s be real. Wade doesn’t have the stamina to outrun
the horde. He’ll just die tired. So he does what any red blooded American would,
reaches deep into those six years he spent playing high school football, and breaks for
the safety of the school building, body checking kids left and right and NARROWLY getting inside
before the pint sized horde smashes into the doors. The only thing I’d change here is keeping
a basketball to use as a quick shield, chest pressing the ball into the faces of any kids
who come at him. I will give him props, though, for acting
first and not waiting for the kids to rush him. Teacher Tracy tries calling the police, but
the line goes dead halfway through. Now would be a great time to calmly walk over
to Vice Principal Sims’s office to retrieve our phones and call anybody that has a gun,
preferably Andy from the gun shop across the street. Instead, the world’s dumbest cop shows up
to save the day. He has the situational awareness of a blind
man, oblivious to the horde of zombified kids on the other side of the fence. Little Shelly finishes digging her way out
under the fence, as Officer Bonehead REACHES HIS FINGERS TOWARD SOME LITTLE GIRL’S MOUTH
through the chain links. Dude, what? Call me crazy, but as a rule of thumb I don’t
stick my fingies anywhere near people with blood soaked mouths. This is the weirdest reaction to what is happening
in front of you right now. There’s a horde of ravenous, growling kids…and
a bunch of teacher’s bodies disemboweled not twenty feet away. I’m not saying we should start capping these
kids. I’m just saying the front site should be
level with their head and the slack taken out of the trigger, just in case. The cop rushes back to his cruiser…where
little Shelly is waiting to finish him off. Why didn’t she just jump him outside the
fence? Possibly because he's an easier target sitting
down with a seatbelt on. He can't throw his weight around as easily
nor reach for his pistol easily. She can just pop up and rip into his neck. Now, the better question is, why the heck
is there no partition between him and the backseat like all police cruisers have, and
for a good reason. You're telling me this guy routinely transports
criminals in his backseat where they have complete access to him and his firearm on
his right hip? With even half a brain and a properly set
up police cruiser, his death could have been avoided. The good news is, his absence will be noticed
by the police department fairly quickly, I think. The bad news is, Shelley is on the loose and
could start a full on outbreak if she makes it to another school. We can only hope she’ll run into a moderately
capable adult, like Wade who could pin her to the ground and dribble her head on the
pavement until the screeching stops. In the teacher’s lounge, Wade’s steroids
kick in as he decides he needs to do something, but nobody thinks to just pull the nearest
fire alarm which would DEFINITELY get local fire and police to come running ASAP. Instead, Wade opens the door, where Patriot
leaps on him, forcing him back into the room. He tosses the kid off, but Patriot gets his
hands on Clint seconds later, forcing him to the floor. These people are USELESS…
if not outright HAZARDOUS to our survival. Rebekkah dodges a charge from Patriot, who
tackles a woman into an open cabinet nobody has a key for. Where are you all going?! Push that cabinet to the floor so the doors
are facing down, then tip that vending machine on top of it. Don’t give him the chance to escape later! Out in the hall, they encounter another random
teacher, who immediately runs out the front door and gets torn apart off screen. I mean, the less dead weight the better, but
SOMEBODY BARRICADE THE DOOR. Down another hall, they encounter a single
kid and reroute into the library…where they realize it’s Calvin, the only non-zombified
kid still left… Back in the teacher’s lounge, Patriot breaks
out of the cabinet. Look. At this point in zombie lore, if you DON’T
know to IMMEDIATELY barricade outside doors and windows in the event of an outbreak, you’re
already a lost cause. Here, it’s even more important since schools
are notoriously ill equipped to handle even the most basic emergency. They’re built for clear lines of sight throughout
the hallways and even into the classrooms. Ideal for spying on students…not so much
when the tables are turned against you by ravenous demons with claws and teeth. The teachers take shelter in a music room
with a WINDOWED DOOR – they’re just the worst – and Calvin tells them the kids have
cooties. The adults, if we even want to call them that,
start arguing about the best course of action and things get personal REAL quick. WHY ARE WE YELLING?! Are we ringing the zombie dinner bell? Wade wants to leap down to the ground from
this level and sprint to their cars. Clint wants to go for the cell phones locked
away in the principal’s office to call the CDC. Clint’s idea would be great…if they had
bothered to barricade the school doors like they should have and trapped Patriot… …So this couldn’t happen… Lucy has another idea. Pretty solid plan…if the school wasn’t
teeming with flesh eaters. But none of this strategizing is full proof
because THEY DIDN’T SAFEGUARD THE BUILDING’S ACCESS POINTS WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE. That should have been priority numero uno. Then, they should have cleared the building
by finding weapons and going from room to room, trapping or killing any kid zombies
they found. With that done, the next step would have been
to lure the kids into an area opposite the direction we wanted to go. Most schools have speaker systems, and one
like this with parents who actually care and teachers that are still trying DEFINITELY
does. Speaker systems can usually do wide broadcasts,
or broadcast to single locations. Turn on some Kid’s Bop Volume 67 and let’s
get out of here. If the speaker system didn’t work, Clint
should check his satchel for the voice recorder he was using earlier in the car. Record a message and place it on a far, high
window, just out of sight, luring the kids to swarm there while you sneak out unseen. And if he didn’t have that on him, this
school is bound to have one of those bulky rolling televisions teachers use to show videos. Turn that on in a class and draw them in that
way. Suddenly, Clint flinches. Everyone notices a band aid on his arm – the
scratch from Patriot. They assume he’s infected and Wade locks
him in a supply closet. With nothing to do but wait until 3…we get
to kick back and watch the horror show. Afterward, they unlock the supply closet where
they were keeping Clint and walk through out onto the roof. You mean to tell me you LOCKED A POTENTIAL
ZOMBIE in the corridor that might lead to your ONLY means of escape?! AND, you could have been out on the roof this
whole time trying to flag down help? I hope those teething toddlers rip you to
shreds, all of you. ESPECIALLY the guy who wants to screw a boat. When they go outside, there’s already a
parent pulling into the school lot. They try to wave her down, but she’s on
her dang phone, as the old timers like to say. Her infected son Racer gets in the car and
tears into his baby brother before baby bro tears into their clueless idiot mom. Suddenly a second healthy kid grabs Tracy’s
leg. The entire staff screams with fright…alerting
the zombies, forcing them back inside the building as the kid Z’s take over the roof. SHUT THE DANG DOOR. They rush into a room, but not quick enough. The Blond menace latches onto Doug’s leg. Wade gets the door shut and picks up a fire
extinguisher. You all knew this was coming. But maybe turn your head away so you don’t
get blood in your eyes and end up like that poor guy in 28 Days Later. Doug’s immediate response to seeing Blondie’s
body is somehow worse than Wade bashing his head in. You do you, buddy. I highly doubt you’re going to learn anything
from ripping out organs. The second healthy kid reveals she’s been
scratched across her back. Lucy sends her to wash the wound out with
water and soap while dr diptard manhandles a zombie's giblet without any PPE on in the
bathroom. He tells them that he suspects the virus is
only dangerous if you haven’t gone through puberty. Suddenly, because someone ran out of story
and something ought to happen in this zombie movie…Calvin goes into a diabetic coma. The lights go off and alarms start to sound
and someone with keys approaches the door. The janitor Mr. Hatachi appears with a flashlight…as
if it isn’t barely 3pm outside. A far door bursts open. Infected kids rush in forcing the gang to
run again. Hatachi ferries them into the janitor’s
area…where he also lives like some sort of house elf. Over Hatachi’s…walkie talkie?...they hear
news of a city wide evacuation. They’re alone – so it’s either figure
a way out or die. Clint notices one of those classic diehard
air ducts poking out of a wall and Hatachi produces school blueprints like he’s been
casing the joint out for a heist. Clint lays out their plan:
Not a terrible plan… besides inevitably having to out crawl the kids once they hear
you bumping your way around the vent shaft.. The camera lands on Clint, but…didn’t
you just say the most important part of your plan relies on EVERYONE shimmying through
that duct to get to Wade’s truck? Sounds to me like they want Clint to test
the shark infested waters. Screw that, we’re drawing straws. Clint puts up no argument like a punk tool,
and army crawls through the ducts. Lucy offers words of encouragement, but when
Wade PO’s her off, she snaps and decides to follow Wade into the duct. Sure. Why crawl quickly and effortlessly one after
another when you can constantly be in each other’s way? They make it to the teacher’s lounge.
..as loudly as possible. Lucy finds Wade’s truck keys and then leaves
Clint to deal with the vending machine while she crawls through the vents to the principal’s
office for a phone. The door opens behind him, and a girl on a
tricycle rolls in, trapping him in the corner. Nearby, Lucy crawls out into the principal’s
office to find all the phones destroyed. SECURE YOUR SURROUNDINGS, PEOPLE. This is zombies 101! At least someone finally shut the door behind
them. In the lounge, the machine tries to eat the
dollar bill again and the little demon lets out an ear breaking screech, drawing Patriot
to her like a screamer out of 7 Days to Die. Dumb. SO dumb. She weighs all of 50 pounds. Long kick her trike self back through the
door from whence she came and SHUT THE DOOR. Then you can take your sweet time with the
candy machine so you can save some useless dead weight kid. Instead, Clint grabs the candy bar and dives
back into the ducts with Patriot and the rest of his horde crawling after them, making EXCELLENT
time. Clint passes off the candy to the rest of
the staff and he and Lucy scramble away to an office where they barricade the vent from
the outside with a desk. THEN they remember to warn the others. Wade throws a bunch of junk into the vent
before sealing it shut with straps. You’re in a JANITOR’S CLOSET. Are you telling me there aren’t any CHEMICALS
or GLASS VODKA BOTTLES you could toss in there? Schools just aren’t what they used to be,
man. Trapped with seemingly no way out, Clint shoots
his shot with Lucy and scores, telling her he’s always liked her and came back knowing
she taught here, hoping to date her. They remember this isn’t an R-rated movie
and joke that they need the proper stimulants to do this right. Looks like nice boat guy’s figured out a
raging clue. Clint unlocks the door to find a zombie girl
playing Pretty Pretty Princess with a woman’s severed head. Lucy tosses pills onto the floor like she’s
at a rave in Budapest and the kids frenzy. Back in the janitor’s closet, the ding dongs
finally wake up to the fact that they’re SURROUNDED by potential weapons and gear. Forks. Gardening tools. Even an old drum set…for some reason. Hockey padding. A baseball shooter
And all the gear to turn Doug into the psychotic Mad Max Zombie fighter he was always meant
to be. Finally, these adults are using their marinated
nihilism and long running exposure to desensitizing violence to their advantage. BUT… Dude, maybe if that ball cannon can blast
‘em at 98 miles per hour. Otherwise, leave the face shredding to Hatachi
with his garden shears. Going full Commando is great…if you’re
packing heat like old Arny was. For this ragtag team of dumpster divers, I’d
be working in pairs to help reduce the risk of failure. Pair up so that one person takes the zombie
to the floor, and the other puts them out of their misery. So, the ball cannon and the drum symbol spear,
or Doug’s laser gun and the gardening sheers. Work AS A TEAM to lay them down, then knock
them out. Clint and Lucy emerge from hiding to discover
the pills have knocked out the zombie kids. They don’t take the time to double tap them
like they should. Idiots. Instead, they reunite with the rest of the
team. As the group moves down the hall, they knock
out kids with fast balls with a head accuracy that suggests Wade missed his calling to be
Agent 47. Dang dude, save some for the rest of us. But seriously, I hope someone’s picking
up your stuff as you go, cuz there are only like ten of them in that gun. And the second line better be taking heads
to make sure they stay down. Clint gets a good whack in, but just as I
suspected, they run out of balls almost immediately. As most of the group bursts through the doors
to find that the zombie kids are still hanging around playing in the playground. Something that could have been found out by
corner peaking before fully committing. The proper move here is not to get engulfed
by their numbers. This doorway should have been their hot gates,
with Wade as their Leonidas. Funneling them into a chokepoint, Wade using
his mass to keep the kids jammed, and Hatachi butchering them with the shears. I guess they never watched 300. Because back inside, Hatachi is separated
and fighting alone. He embraces his moment to shine and begins
WRECKING rugrats with a broom handle, martial arts, and his gardening shears. They really should have stayed together to
ensure he doesn’t get overwhelmed or winded. This man’s got the skill to cut the kids
down one by one. Outside, the barely functional adults charge
the horde of zombies with their makeshift weapons. Wade barely has time unlock his truck when
he’s swarmed by a bunch of adult children and takes one for the team, holding the horde
back while the others waste his sacrifice by standing around watching him slowly die,
then fleeing. Now in Wade’s truck, they book it out of
town, oblivious to the final threat hitching a ride in the back of the pickup. As the truck runs out of gas… Patriot makes his last stand. Clint does the sensible thing and brakes,
painting the road red with Patriot’s blood. A shame, since the zombie kids are supposed
to have black blood. Turns out Patriot wasn’t a zombie at all;
just a little psychopath the whole time. Even plowing headfirst into the asphalt with
his face isn’t enough to stop Patriot. This is why we double tap. Clint puts the truck in reverse and pancakes
the little kid against a tree. The question now is…where do they go from
here? To state the obvious, AVOID CROWDED POPULATION
CENTERS. In fact, avoid towns at all. Why? Because we’ve seen these kids stay in places
they know – they stayed on the playground and in the school long after the school day
ended. Our best bet for survival is to go where most
kids won’t – the woods, industrial areas, farmsteads. Places with shiny lights or playful noises
are to be avoided at all costs. Frankly, looking for the nearest isolated
house or public works building is ideal – anywhere where there might be a private water supply
and small or no windows to board up. Clear the building of any infected, and then
hunker down for the night and wait for daylight when you can MAYBE strategize a move to a
place with more resources that STILL isn’t going to immediately spring into the mind
of a zombified kid, like a walmart. The gang doesn’t think it out. Instead, they drive right into Danville, the
next town over…which looks super dead. They run out of gas and are forced to abandon
the truck. They find a storefront full of windows broadcasting
news across the United States – the kid menace has spread everywhere. Valuable information to have…but of course,
they lack the situational awareness to put someone on lookout. Tiny people crawl onto the truck behind them. You’re just lucky these kids like to hunt
their prey down screaming, otherwise you’d all already be dead. The kids chase the adults into an alley, where
the staff just barely manage to find a door open and seal themselves into a space of complete
darkness. They’ve just entered the very worst epicenter
they could have. Oh that, that’s not zombies. That’s just what happens inside a Chuck
E. Cheese. And that’s exactly where they are. As one of those dramatic theater camp kids
turns on a light, they find themselves in a kids play center, doomed and surrounded… …until OG Wade appears to save the day. Yeah, I think Deus Ex Machina did. How’d you know they picked this building,
Wade? Hatachi’s with him. The adults make a run for it to find Rick’s
van waiting for them as Wade super-soakers the entire facility. With that, the adults escape to face another
day…maybe…if they don’t run out of gas in front of a preschool first. While this isn’t the easiest zombie horde
to beat, it would have been MUCH easier if they barricaded the school doors properly
to begin with, then lured the kids to one side before breaking for the truck during
broad daylight. Once in the truck, they could have holed up
literally anywhere not likely to attract kids, and they would have been 70 percent of the
way to freedom before night even fell. For those reasons, I think COOTIES was Beaten. And remember…chicken nuggets’ll rot your
brain.
