The Coolest Dog

Marvin Washington asks Wooton to film the birth of his new band, Los Perros Frescos, a name Marvin believes means the Cool Dogs. He imagines that the footage will someday become a documentary sold to enormous crowds. Marvin appoints himself drummer and songwriter, while his friend Trent reluctantly supplies the band's only other instrument, a cello.

The first rehearsal proves that drums and cello do not automatically make music. Trent cannot find a recognizable structure in Marvin's pounding, and even the band's name appears to mean the Fresh Dogs rather than the Cool Dogs. Tamika prepares a joking product table stocked with earplugs, earmuffs, and aspirin.

Marvin nevertheless persuades Aubrey Shepard to let the band perform at her birthday party. Trent is horrified because they have less than two weeks to prepare, but Marvin is more interested in pre-signing family photographs for future fans than in solving the band's musical problems. He dismisses Trent's objections as a failure to understand his invented ideas about harmony and soul.

Trent urges Marvin to add another musician. Wooton auditions on saxophone and plays impressively, but he knows only one song. He returns to filming just as Trent hears Tamika playing keyboard. Her skill could give the band the melody it lacks, and Trent immediately invites her to join.

Marvin refuses because he has made a rule against girls in the band. When Trent challenges him, Marvin pulls rank as leader, and Trent quits. Marvin claims he can begin a solo career, but the party has been moved to the town gazebo, where far more people may hear him. With Wooton's encouragement, he reluctantly invites Trent and Tamika back.

The reunited group still cannot agree on its music. Tamika brings a real song with lyrics and a possible cello part, but Marvin rejects it as too feminine and insists that the band must remain centered on his drums. He will not accept advice even though the performance is only two days away and his own compositions still have no clear chorus.

At the gazebo, Marvin privately tells Wooton to make the drums louder, while Tamika privately requests more volume for her keyboard. A mistakenly printed sign advertises the band as Lost Pairs of Fresh Cokes, and Wooton's introduction offers yet another incorrect translation of their name. The confusion worsens as soon as they begin playing.

The competing demands overload the generator and plunge the stage into darkness. By the time power is restored, nearly everyone has left. The band completes its performance for only Aubrey and her grandfather, whose hearing aid is turned down. Trent and Tamika want nothing more to do with Marvin after the humiliating debut.

Wooton suggests that an apology may reunite them. Marvin writes a long, awkward song declaring how sorry he is, but behind its silliness is an honest confession. He has kept Tamika out because she often does better than he does at school and sports, and he feared that music would become one more place where she outshone him.

Tamika assures Marvin that he really is a good drummer and that this is still the band he created. She does not need to be its star, and neither does he. Trent points out that a group can succeed without any one person controlling it.

Marvin asks them both for another chance, invites Wooton to join on saxophone, and calls for Tamika to receive a keyboard solo. With pride giving way to teamwork, Los Perros Frescos begins playing together again while Wooton's camera records a far more important moment than the grand debut Marvin originally imagined.