Welcome back to TV specials. I am super excited to be finally doing an October episode. It's October 1st. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Brucker and I'm joined by my good friend, Nate. Nate, how are you doing? Man BREKER I'm doing good in this chilly October weather that we're experiencing in the middle of September.

Yeah, we're actually recording this in mid-September, but this is going to be released October 1st. And if you're listening to this, it's finally the best month of the year. That's up for discussion. But okay, all we talk about, it's not under normal circumstances. You know, football is in full swing. Hockey's back is the World Series. This is like we're not like the good angels are coming out for beers. This is when, you know, it is, you know, spooky season.

Mansbach is my favorite season. I just love and the weather's kind of nice. It goes it depends where we're in the market. You're making good points. You also get where fall clothing. Yes. Yes. I feel like that's arguably the time of the year where everybody has their best outfits, right? Yes. Yes. Like the good lazy outfits, jeans and a hoodie. Like it's pretty easy. Jeans and hoodie, jeans and a flannel.

Right. And you look you look fashionable because you're in season, but you're also super comfy. Yeah. Yeah. This is this isn't about TV shows anymore. It's about fashion.

But but seriously, thank you guys for coming back to film on the rocks are these little TV special episodes are a lot of fun and we're kind of covering some stuff that's very nostalgic to us today. We are talking about even Stevens, a very fine Disney Channel show that I grew up watching. I loved even Stevens. Did you did you watch the show? Yeah, I used to love the show. I feel like this was a part of, like the golden age of of cartoons, mainly because I think it was just.

It was on. Huh. Well, it's like, oh, not not cartoons, but sorry. I was thinking of the beginning. The Claymation. Oh, just like the the golden age of just kid shows in general. But I only say that because I was a kid when these shows were coming out. But this was this was definitely one of them at the top of my list. Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. I completely agree with you.

I actually have some stuff to say about that point. I want to quickly just sort of plug what all we got planned for October. We have. Yes, a lot going on, guys. So outside of this TV specials, we get four movies. We got The Cabin in the Woods, which is coming out this upcoming Sunday Cabin in the Woods. We got Sleepy Hollow Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp. That is like a quintessential October movie for me.

We got a classic. We got Hocus-Pocus. That's a movie that's been on my list for a long time to do. And we're going to be wrapping up the month with John Carpenter's Halloween.

I'm super excited to be doing all four of those movies and we got a little surprise experimental episode that we're going to tease. We're kind of just going to surprise everybody with it. They'll be out middle this month, maybe towards the end, but you'll we'll definitely be we got something cooking up for it. It's going to be a lot of fun. Not not sure it's cooking in the cauldron. We're not sure of the reaction to it, but I think it'll be mostly positive.

Yeah. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. So and please be sure we are going to have a talks on the rocks at the end of the month. So please be sure to write into the mailbag, which is a forty hour podcast to Gmail dot com, or you can scroll down to the show, notes to the link to our website and we're asking for Halloween stories. You know, how do you normally celebrate the holiday?

What kind of cool costumes have you done before any find stories, trick or treating stories, spooky things. You know, just writing in any sort of Halloween story or memory you want to share with us. And we'll be happy to give you a shout out. There'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, for sure. And you know what I'm most excited about with these episodes is that we're going to have a lot of guests. Right. This is going to be my first experience having guests on the episode.

I'm yes for it. Yeah. Yeah. We got a lot of guests and I don't want to plug it on old plug there just in case, you know, something goes south. Oh yeah.

But so give back to the main event. So even Stevens, the specific episode we're talking about is from Season two, Episode 11, a very scary story. This is a very fun Halloween special of even Stevens. And I always loved it when TV shows did these Halloween special episodes. It's always a lot of fun. A lot of TV shows do it. Yeah, they kind of like get you in the spirit, kind of get you prepped and primed up for it, maybe give you some costume ideas, right.

Yeah. Especially like this this episode because like just the. Mood of this episode is so great because, like it just because, you know, it takes place in the school. I love seeing how the school's decorated for Halloween, like, don't you miss that? Like being in middle school and like, your classrooms would be decorated or there was that like one special day where all the kids got to come in, in their costumes for whatever the weather was that they were wearing for Halloween.

It was always like a really fun time of year.

Yeah, no, it's definitely a good time. With so speaking to classrooms and the Halloween decorations, I don't think my school really did that too much. They were pretty against a lot of things I want to say, and that was one of them. But they definitely did let us do like a costume dress up day. And I remember in seventh grade was the last year that everybody. Stopped. Oh, really? The last year that everybody dressed up, but that was not the same year, that was also not the last year that I stopped dressing up because I'll never forget showing up eighth grade Halloween and.

I was the only one in the cost. You were the only one because, you know, what costume were you in the. I was wearing. Yeah, I do remember actually, it was Obi Wan Kenobi. My mom had made me and it was the same costume I had worn for like two years. And but he was my favorite one. My mom made it. And also he was so it was so dope. I had the opportunity to be lightsaber and everything.

And I came to school with it and I like called my mom that same day. I was like, hey, can you bring me a change of clothes? Oh, that's a good question. Was it like episode one Obi Wan Kenobi or was it like episode three or like old Ben Kenobi.

Hmm. Which I want to see. Oh, I don't know. He had different ones. I thought it was just the one. I'm pretty sure this was after Attack of the Clones. OK, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I remember like one of my favorite costumes I did to school. I was in the first grade when I did this, but I just did a skeleton just like a simple skeleton costume. I don't know, it was just really fun just because it was like one of those costumes.

I was head to toe and I just really felt I remember feeling super immersed and like I'm a skeleton, like when I was in the first grade, I don't know. But this is me. This is my identity now. Yes. This is this is who I am now. I'm just bones.

That could be your nickname. Breker Bones. Um, uh, phrasing. Yes, exactly. But that's why we had the little explicit on these episodes for a little mess ups like that. But anyways, I wanted to kind of touch on the point you made about even Stevens being in this golden era of TV shows for kids, because I totally agree. I mean, because, you know, everybody could kind of complain like, oh, man, TV shows suck.

Now, when I was a kid, that's when they were the best. Right. Like, everybody could kind of say that because of nostalgia bias. But, man, I've been going back and, like, actually watching this whole show, it's legitimately funny, like late. The jokes are really good. And like, I I'm actually laughing at the jokes and is and part of it is because Shil above, you know, he was a good child actor, but the writing was also really good.

And something that I appreciated from the show was that Disney actually acknowledged real life things like Lewis talks about how he wants to be on SNL, like there's a whole episode where one of his SNL recording tapes is missing and he's trying to find it. And he even has like a picture of Kramer from Seinfeld in his bedroom. Like, that was cool. So, like, that's something I really appreciate and kind of, like, grounded it a little bit in the show isn't I mean, like Louie gets into predicaments that no other kid, like, really would get into, like in some episodes.

But I don't know, like the show, it's it's written well, I mean it's written for kids, but it's still legitimately funny. I was actually pretty surprised how well-written it was to like it flowed. And then you can you can really tell that the writers were like intentional with the episode because they kind of dropped hints foreshadowing to things at the end right throughout the throughout the episode. And, you know, like they didn't really rely too much on what's the word I'm looking for, like ridiculousness in life, right?

Yeah, spastic, right? I was like, yeah, because there are a few shows like that, like Drake and Josh, for example, the Amanda Show, which were also good shows, but at the same time, like even Stevens didn't rely on like the whole like well, like let's be goofy just for the heck of it. Let's just scream loud and make people laugh. And I noticed I don't know if this is true. I just I wrote it down because I don't think I noticed it, but I didn't really notice a lot of canned laughter in the show, too, like canned audience laughter.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no there's no laugh track in this. Yeah. OK, cool. So I felt very trusted by the writers that they like knew me as a child, would know when to laugh. Right. Right. Yeah. And that they kind of trusted their own jokes too. So um. Yeah. And I think also I mean, I mean they do have a lot of sound effects. I like musical cues like the whole like what you know, like kind of things to sort of like maybe emphasize, but I'd much rather have that than a fucking laugh track, to be honest.

And I think I think you made a really good point that, like, had to do like with the writers. I think it just comes from the tier of people that are working on this. So even Stevens was created by Matt Dearborne, who had produced like several other TV shows of notes, he produced Beverly Hills nine oh two one oh as well. Yeah. So I mean, this so this show, I mean, so like the the pilots of even Stevens was actually it wasn't originally going to be like an even I'm sorry, it wasn't originally going to be a Disney show.

This was kind of like a pilot.

I don't remember what network it aired on maybe ABC. I'm not really sure. But Disney picked up the show like this wasn't like Matt Dearborne pitched this directly to Disney and Disney agreed to it, like he went ahead and just created that show and then Disney picked it up. Wow. I didn't give, like, a great amount details there, but that's pretty much like what happened. He also created another Disney show, the film The Future, which I remember liking.

I haven't watched it yet, but I remember liking that show, even though that one is like a higher concept. But that was fine. So even Stevens aired for three seasons between 2000 and 2003 with 65 episodes and an original TV movie. Yeah. Speaking of the the sixty five episodes. Sorry, go ahead and finish your thought. I'll jump back to that. Oh no. So I was just going to say that Matt Dearborne had won three Emmys for this show, so he won an Emmy for every year that that this show aired new episodes.

He won three Emmys for Outstanding Children's Series and in 2001 won a BAFTA award for Outstanding International Children's Series, which that's so cool. This show stars even. Oh, I almost said he was so even Stephen stars Child Labov, who I'm pretty sure everybody knows, Christy Carson Romano, who also voiced Kim possible. If people didn't know that Nick Spano, who is their brother. Nick Spano, Tom, I can't remember his name, Donny. I couldn't remember the Donny, OK.

Tom Bachu, D'Anna Pa., AJ Troth, Margot Harshman, Lauren Frost and Jim Weiss as Coach Hudnut and George Anthony Bell as Principal Wexler.

So going back to when you said it aired for 65 episodes, I don't really remember this movie or this TV show kind of falling off in terms of interest, right? Mm hmm. And so I kind of looked into that. And apparently up until 2005, Disney had never let shows go past 65 episodes, which is why it was canceled. Like it just hit that point. And I just I had a theory to I don't know if it's true, but that's what the Internet said.

So I'm just going to go with it. Right. So I had some theories as to why, like, that might be the case. And I think it might have to do with maybe like the audience kind of aging out of the show. Right? Oh, that's a good that's a good point. I watch this in middle school. I was in middle school when this came out, maybe end of elementary. But by that time, I was definitely watching other shows.

It was watching a little bit more mature shows. I switched to MTV instead of a Nickelodeon and Disney, even though I still watched SpongeBob. SpongeBob is timeless. It is timeless. And then I also kind of thought maybe it's because the actors were kind of going through puberty because I guess the age range was like preteen tween age. And when you're kind of casting in that like one season, they're going to look like a kid. The next season they're like two feet taller.

And yeah, the voice is cracking every every once in a while. So I think maybe it has to do with that. So it's like it becomes unrelatable to like the prepubescent audience.

Maybe that's an interesting point, because I would because I would think that, like, the audience is growing with the cast, like in a way just kind of like you're like as they're progressing like say like into high school or whatever, maybe that's when you're starting to go into high school. So you're kind of like wanting to keep up with your with these characters that you've invested in. But I think that's actually a good point you make because, you know, you're trying to get fresh blood in or whatever, whatever Disney thinks of.

And Disney probably doesn't want to like, say, stagnate. They kind of want to come up with, like, new fresher shows, I guess. But yeah, that's a good point. I also think that's why that they interjected that character of beans and because he doesn't arrive till the second season and beans is like a much younger character than Luis because Luis because like you, what you're going to say between seasons wanted to you could tell a huge difference in the character, like pretty much everyone, really, because they all grew a lot over season one and season two.

And season two is like they're very much like like they're like very much like preteens or thirteen year olds. Like, it's like a big difference from season one. And so I think they check the beans to like capture time to get the attention of like the much younger kids. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a good point. I also wondered because that's like something that I think that TV shows over like in the UK do, because it's not like how TV shows are now like in America where they run for like ten seasons and everybody kind of is like this should have ended like four seasons ago.

You know, I think over in the UK they kind of just like signed a contract saying, all right, all right. You got this for, let's say like three or four seasons. But that's it. Like, they don't have so many options like reapproved right now. You got to, like, tell your story in, like three or four seasons. And so which I think makes for better writing because it forces them to, you know, come up with Alt's.

But like, even Stevens is great. I would have liked to have seen Lewis go to high school, you know what I mean? Middle school. Yeah. Owren I think Rhen ends up being a freshman in high school, but Lewis is in like middle school, like seventh grade, I think. But Donnie, does Donnie go to the same schools then? Yes, I see. Donnis whole situation confuses me a little bit because he looks fucking old.

Like I had a five o'clock shadow. Yes, he I think he's supposed to be a senior in high school, maybe a junior, because he's definitely in high school, that's for sure. Because I remember there's like episodes where, like college football scouts come to, like, look at him and stuff. So he's definitely in high school. But yeah, no, he he's like a grown ass man.

I'm just wondering, like, why they're all in the same school. Maybe it's like a private school or something. I don't know. It's like this. Maybe Donny goes I fuck do I have no idea. I'm sorry. This is just something that distracted me. Yeah. I don't know. My school was six, seven, eight. And then you go to high school nine through twelve. Right. Is that how yours was. Yours is a little different.

Yeah. Mine was a kindergarten through eighth grade and then we went somewhere else for his. OK, OK, yeah, but so, yeah, so I'm not really sure that that's a good question. I'll try to pay attention to that more. But so it was kind of get into this episode. So even Steve, in Season two, Episode 11, a very scary story. This episode originally aired October 19th, 2001. So here is a quick plot synopsis.

Lewis is trying to plan a funny Halloween prank with his friends, Twitty, Tony and Tom. Meanwhile, Rhen, coach Tognum in Principal Wexler are running a school wide eye exam. However, after students get their eye exam, they begin acting kind of funny and suspicious. They wear these thick sunglasses and they are compulsively drinking milk and they become very concerned with their permanent records. Turns out that all of this is an evil plan by Iran to turn the whole student body into clones of rent or rent kids as she terms them innocent and students are having their eyes removed during the eye exams.

Lewis is the last student to go through the eye exam and or he's evading the eye exam and he is trying to run away from this zombie like a mob of the student body. But we find out that this is all just a scary story. Lewis has made up to scare Beanz. Very funny episode. I really like this. Like I said, I love the mood of this. It's it's in this episode flows like it just moves like this.

There's not a boring part of it. It's just it all just flows so. Well, I love it. Yeah. I was actually surprised how clunky that it wasn't right. Because I think these these kid shows, these shows are written for kids with ADHD, or at least I thought where they just have like they would have like a bunch of random segments or random tangents, just kind of like to distract you or to kind of keep you engaged, keep you looking at the TV, whereas, no, this one is like if you looked away and like you jump back in like, oh, this was still following the same storyline that, you know, it started with.

So I thought that was pretty good. What did you think about so how do you had you watched the show since we were younger? No, really. I mean, when Disney Plus first launched, this was one of the first shows I binge watched. So I mean, before Disney plus. No, I haven't seen it since I was a kid. OK, so this was my my first watch since, I guess 2003. And I forgot that there was claymation at the beginning.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's a lot of fun to watch it. Yeah. Yeah it is like jazzy big big like super quirky. Yeah. The music also kind of reminded me of 30 Rock a little bit, but I guess like a more happy go lucky version of it. But anyways I was watching with my girlfriend and she goes Oh my God, is this, is this what this show is like. No, no, no. I actually completely forgot.

This is the beginning. But now this is this is a normal show. Yeah. But like, this show kind of starts off pretty hot, I think, with all of the horror movie references. Right? Yeah. There's something that I loved at the beginning of this. Yeah. So I don't know the name of the movie, but it's like an Alfred Hitchcock movie with the girl in the shower and the guy my shower curtain and step psycho.

That's it. So they kind of reference Psycho a little bit with Ren. She's like taking a shower or she's watching a movie. Somebody take a shower. That's what it was. OK, I was like that. That would have been weird. So she's watching the movie with that. So it's like Psycho with a zombie movie crossover and then she gets that scream phone call. Yes, yes. And I was like, I bet I was so distractors.

I bet you Breker just fucking squealed right now and he saw this. You're like, I love that movie. In that opening scene. There's so many nods because like the movie she's watching, it kind of is like Psycho. That's not the one that came to me. But that is that is a good call. It kind of it was more reminiscent of the night of the Living Dead to me because she called them mutans. But they look like zombies walking around.

And just like you said, like he she she gets that creepy phone call from Lewis and it's kind of like scream to you like penguins, which is very much just like, what's your favorite scary movie? You know of it. It's great. I love this love like all like the nods in the music in that first scene. It sound, it kind of I might be like making a stretch here, but it kind of sounds like music from Friday the 13th.

Not like it's not the church. It's not that it's kind of like this just because I play the Friday the 13th video game, I hear like that the the tracks of that movie a lot is like the Nenna. I don't know how to describe it, but it kind of sounded like Friday the 13th a little bit to me during like so many chase scenes. But yeah. No, it was it was it's it's a lot of fun just getting like a lot of nods.

I love that Ren does this like whole like callback thing. She does star 69 to trace the call back to to. I was like, oh, that's such a good thing. I don't know if people could do that anymore, but yeah, now it still works. It still works. But it's just so random because, I mean, yeah. Now the phone numbers, we can see the phone numbers, right. Yeah. So it's different.

So going back to the. Like I said, I want to jump too far ahead. Where are you going to say? Oh, I was going to say another opening scene. Let's let's cover drinking rules real quick, OK? Yeah. Yeah. So what drinking rules that you got. Um, so I had I like wrote down a bunch and then as I was watching the show I was like, oh damn, I like these things happen a lot.

And so this is actually a really good episode to drink it like an October first beer too. Right. Because I mean, this episode would just get you really, really messed up, like. Really? Yeah. This 22 minute episode is dangerous dance, dude. It's dense with drinking rules. Right? I think we're going to probably have a lot of overlap with our rules, but for right now I've got some visual and some some audio ones that you guys can follow along with.

So every time you see a pumpkin drink, that's a good one. Yeah, there's a lot. It happens a lot. Some transitions that they use in the show or pumpkins, which is like my favorite. I love that. I love when even the transitions are themed into like whatever holiday special it is. Oh, it's great. Mm hmm. So I'm going to let you guys choose between these ones. It's so every time you see milk, right.

If you're paying attention to the episode, if you see milk, drink or so, I'm not going to double jeopardy you. So or any time you hear somebody slurping milk, you drink. So that's a reminder that you're somebody like it's time for me to slurp down this beer. And then the last one is any time somebody goes in to get your eyes checked, it's a good one. Mm hmm. Let's talk about you. What you got.

So, yeah, this had a very similar issue, as you say, that like it was. There are so many rules you can do so. I definitely had the audible slurping of the milk because that is like a key one to this episode I had every time. This is like a rule you could use in pretty much any episode of even Stevens. But every time Louie screams, he does he does do a lot of screaming. So every time he screams a really fun one that you can do.

And this is a really fun thing to do if you are watching with friends. So when you're watching this, you kind of notice that there are lots of repeat background characters. There's there's a lot of people like like, you know, as the costumes really stick out so late, there's ones that stuck out to me where there were a couple of people that were just dressed up as Egyptian pharaohs. There was a guy dressed up as a pizza that you see a lot.

There was a skeleton guy, a clown, and you just see them constantly throughout the episode. So play with friends and like people could be assigned one that costume character. So whenever they come up on screen, take a drink or you like, you know, pick which one you're playing with in the first person to, like, point them out like they won and like the rest of the room has to drink. It's a lot of fun. Yes.

I just love the pizza when cracks me up because I love the idea of somebody going, you know, going to be for Halloween.

Slice pizza dough is to give you Spook's a lot of weed too. That's the guy that's like super into the Rob Zombie Halloween rendition. I was like, so I just. Yeah. So whenever you see those costumes with friends, take a drink or like you point them out, like I said and I said. So two more rules that I had drink every time there is a catch, a nod to a real horror film, kind of like how we mentioned in the opening scene.

There's a lot of nods and there are some like throughout the whole show sorry, I'm still not used to doing TV's TV shows. And my last drinking rule is drink every time the like. They do like this Dutch angle and that's when, like, the camera is like kind of off center is like tilted a little bit. It kind of like almost like a 45 degree angle. There's a lot of that in this episode and it's commonly used in horror movies just because it makes the audience feel like something is slightly off, even though they're not paying attention.

So but I notice the camera work in this episode was very stand out in different from the rest of the series because they do something in this that they're like John Kabita didn't like in Halloween, not so much like a povey of like say like the killer or like the zombies or whatever. But the camera is like following and tracking Lewis a lot because normally, like any other episodes, it kind of just like makes it cut to where Lewis will be and we just see him walk into frame.

But like in this, the camera is tracking him like the whole time. So you kind of you kind of just like you're like walking with him and you kind of just like feel like you're you feel like you're running away from the zombie map with him a little bit. And that's which that's like a whole nother cool camera trick thing that a horror horror directors use to use the camera to tell the story. But anyways, I just really noticed that that stood out a lot in this episode.

We catch. Good catch. Thank you. So. Oh, I do have one more bonus, one, every time they say Penguin and take a drink. That's a good one. That's like a nice, modest, modestly consistent one. Yes. Throughout the episode, I do love his costume. And this is him, just a penguin writer. I don't know what that is. Yeah, there's a lot it's very it's very loose. It's very even it's perfect yet.

It is. So, Lewis, I just I love he's in a costume for 98 percent of this episode is just until the very end. He's not. But he is I was thinking, man, he must have gotten so sweaty doing this because he's running a lot in that in that bold costume and it's like felt so, you know, that thing is like super hot. Yes. I just and I love how dedicated he was to this character because whenever he would run, you kind of like hit the back of the penguin as he was even running from, like, Principal Wikler.

Let's go. Get out of my way. It's so funny. He kind of reminded me a lot of of Jim Carrey. Right. OK, he's been to the movies and how. Oh, you could just really. Right. You would sell his characters a lot. Um, so just kind of writing off of that that thing. I notice I actually did look some stuff up and it turns out. So a lot of people also thought above took a lot of Jim Carrey influence in his acting, specifically for even Stevens and.

For some reason, they actually had Twitter beef back in 2014. What's, yeah, Jim Carrey in childbirth. And this is obviously when this is after Qalibaf has been hated. Right? He's a very polarizing person. I don't know. I guess I should have looked at what the Twitter beef was basically shil above insulted Jim Carrey's parenting and. Oh, yeah, that's a hot button and. Jim, Jim Carrey was pissed and I think I think he also kind of felt like, I guess with all these comparisons between him and childbirth as a child actor, I guess he kind of felt like he was being mocked.

Right, or his shtick was being stolen. That's so stupid. He's a kid. But whatever it's it's no, this is a that's a theory. I don't know if that's how he actually felt. Oh, I thought you were saying it was like something that he like tweeted. Is that you stupid little runt?

You still might keep making funny faces. I own funny faces. Yeah, it's so stupid. But if it's like that Indiana Jones son roll was mind you little shit taken all my roles. That would be a worst movie. Yeah, but before we get into the scenes of this episode, I want to quickly thank our sponsor. Supported Support is a super awesome service that helps you meet your goals. Everyone could use a little extra motivation or accountability from time to time.

And it's totally normal and OK for somebody to feel like they need help in that department. It's nothing to be embarrassed about. Have you supported before? Really great experience? I highly recommend doing people signing up for it. It's really helpful. The whole idea of supporting is that if you have somebody holding you accountable, helping you come up with a nice personalized plan to help you meet your personal goals, you're more likely to stay motivated and actually accomplish those.

It's really easy to use. You just download the free app and you get a two week free trial. Just tell them that film The Rocks. Thank you. And you get partnered up with a new accountant. You partner up with a new accountability body every week. It's super awesome. And it's all done in positivity, not added pressure. And everybody can use accountability from time to time or help with motivation. There's definitely some people from even Stevens that could use accountability or some extra motivation.

Nate, who could have used supported from this. I think it should have been a Lewis's friends in the show. Right. They were just supposed to pull off this huge prank and they all just kind of fell through the cracks. They were really hold each other accountable. They're just like, you know, I'm going to go get my eyes checked. And it's like now, man, we had we came here on a mission. We have an itinerary.

We have an itinerary. Let's accomplish what we came here to do. No time for lollygagging. So they needed support, a full, full fledged.

I totally agree. I was kind of going to lean back guys in this, you know, like Principal Wexler and Coach talked. I could have you support because I mean, you know what? Louis is public enemy number one and like for them. So they should have put him at a higher priority. He should have been one of the first people to get the eye exam. They should have they should have had somebody hold him accountable, like he'd got to get that.

Did you get Lewis you win the student body? I don't know. That's kind of just depends on your work approach. Right. Because I guess you can take that big, daunting task force. You can do all the little small, easy ones first. And that's something that you and your accountability body will talk about and see which one is the head to get support dotcom. And that support is support with an eye at the end of it to get supported dotcom or swipe over to our show notes and click the link or download the free app today and tell them that film and their accent.

You can start your two week free trial today. All right. Let's, uh, let's continue on with our even Stevens discussions and talk about the scenes.

We kind of already talked about the opening scene, which is a lot of fun. You know, we talked about how much we like that, what else from this episode that you like, Nate. So I thought it was funny. So I'm going to talk about Ren real quick. So Ren is Lewis's older sister, and if you're not familiar with who she is, she's kind of like the teacher's pet. She's kind of a kiss ass. And I thought it was funny.

Like later on in the episode, Louie and Rent are running away from the bad guys and they run up to the principal's office and he's got like a pass code to get in. And it was just it was just really funny to me that Ren knew the pass code because she knew the principal's birthday. Right. And that's what that's what the passcode was. I was like, you know, you really have to be a kiss ass if you're like a middle school, high school, really.

Any student, you know, your principals birthday like, yeah, it's nice to know people's birthday, but at the same time, like, come on. Yeah, it's not it's I don't see so much as kiss ass, just like she is being taken advantage of because like in other episodes she has way too much responsibility for what's for who is supposed to be like an eighth or ninth grader to like run the school like she like Principal Wexler relies on her way too much, like she honestly needs to be getting paid for because she's basically his secretary, his secretary.

He's she is his handler, really.

I mean, so I and I also love that little punch code that you're talking about is. Only the last two digits of his birth year, so it was a two digit security code, 56, 57, 56, 57. Just try both. That's what I was like. Screw this, do both. We'll take you to Hong Kong.

You were so engaged. You were screaming. Yes, I was going to larrieux. All because it's a point where, like, they're running away from the zombie like mob, which is which was heavily foreshadowed in the zombie movie that Ren was watching at the beginning of the episode. But I was because I was I was with them because the camera was tracking them. I felt like I was running with them. And I was like, just just just just do it, like, bug me so much because, like, just if you're wrong, just punch in the other one.

I didn't get why you had to get it right on the first try.

But she's a perfectionist. She she is. Yeah. That's a good part. I really like that. Oh I did love. Sorry I seen a little like small part I wanted to point out was I really loved when Louis goes to spy on this just like background character Melissa, that we don't really know who she is, but we just see that Melissa goes to get her eye exam. And Louis is, I think, spying on her as she's getting her eye exam.

That's like we kind of see, you know, everything that's going on. And we see, like, kind of the whole part of they're kind of sort of hypnotized in a way to care about the permanent records and about drinking milk and whatnot. Although the little detail of when she's getting her eyes up, Louis covers the eyes of his fake penguin is looking good.

Yeah, it was really cute and pretty funny. It's like immediate. Immediately after this, Louis goes to a payphone to call his parents and he is just losing his mind and freaking out. It was it was very funny because he's like screaming, asking for help, asking to come pick them up. And then he just goes that he, like, wraps it up by going, all right, guys, hoping having a nice day.

Love you. Bye.

He always finds time for the important things also. So that's a very nice quality of the movies. That's funny. OK, so speaking on the topic of permanent records and in school records and such, did your teachers ever use that as like a fear mongering? Oh, yeah. Oh yes. You OK? Yeah, because I that was also used against me and when they're talking about it in the show, I was like, you know what? I'm pretty sure someone told me that was complete bullshit.

It's like the only black permanent record there really is is like your criminal record, right? Yeah. They're not going to put they're not going to put that. You get like a C on your math exam on Tuesday, like on your criminal record. Right. Yeah. Or that you didn't get this eye exam in the seventh grade. Yeah. Yes, yeah.

Like oh you didn't get your shots, you didn't get your papers checked. Mm hmm. I thought that was a little ridiculous, something that popped out to me. But also on the topic of. I guess the episode mainly, I thought it was pretty interesting. So did we always see. Did we know the name of the organization that they were claiming was leading these exams? Oh, no. Yeah, no, they didn't.

I thought they I thought they did say did they say regional I network at the beginning. Oh, they say it when Lou when Mr. and Mrs. Stevens and Donny show up to the school. They did they say it then the regional eye exam or what was it, the regional eye exam network. Yeah. Mm hmm. OK, so that's that's why I thought it was kind of a cool detail, because obviously it's like an acronym, the acronym of that is Ran right at our end.

And it turns out Ran is like the mastermind behind this whole thing really. And that's like where I was talking about the foreshadowing or it's kind of hinting like right now we think rent is a victim with Lewis and they're running away from the crimes. But really, it's just like it was kind of hiding in plain sight the whole time. And she's the one responsible. I thought that was pretty. I thought that was pretty fun. And she sticks out so much because she's the only person not wearing a costume because like even like Coach Thurgoona is like dressed up as Igor.

I mean, he like he has explanation as to why he's dressed like that, but maybe he looks like Igor and Principal Principal Wexler. He's not dressed up as a principal anymore. He's dressed up as an optometrist. So he's a mail order optometrist's. Yeah. So it's kind of like just like, you know, she she's the she's the black sheep and all this she's the sore thumb that's sticking out. So it kind of should have been obvious, you know, but it wasn't because everybody was like, oh, that's right.

You know, that's how she is. She's is a serious person.

Yeah. Can I. Are you done with your thought? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. OK, I'm going to comment real quick on. So you mentioned this guy's name a couple of times, Coach Lugnut. Um, so I thought that was odd. Right, for a kid's show. Is that kind of just clicked with me. Oh my gosh. Really.

So I looked into that and apparently at some point the actor later after the show was done and he was done with Disney, the actor admitted that the name was a double entendre. It was meant to be sexual in nature, but something they kind of like slipped between the cracks. But he followed up with saying, like the big head at Disney Love, that kind of stuff. As I was reading it, I was like, yeah, they fucking do.

Like, have you heard of all these? I like the Disney movie. Yeah, like Sex in the Dust and. Yeah, yeah, it's Yeah. The Penises and the Little Mermaid cover. Yes. I have one of those too. I have that VHS and it 100 percent is there. She's bad. Yeah. Yeah. I never thought about that. Well I guess because like a scene like Segway back into that scene that I did like was what we were just talking about were his parents and Donny do show up to the school.

I really like this a lot because that's because that's where I felt like you get like as a kid, you get like a little bit of hope, like, oh, Lewis is about to get out of this. You know, his parents are there. They're going to get him. They're going to get him out of there. But then, you know, they get their eye exams. And that's like when you as a kid, you kind of lose all hope.

You know, like the parents can't solve it. Who can? Yeah, exactly. So that's I really love that little detail that they're that they included the parents. And I thought that was really nice. Yeah, I feel that because it's so true, though, because I remember as a kid like like if my mom couldn't solve it, I'm like, fuck, I guess it's just it's unsolvable, you know, it just doesn't exist. I would do that with my math homework.

Sometimes be like, you know, my mom could do it. Like, it just doesn't it's not real math. It's fake news. The limit does not exist. It does not exist. The kid came here and I'm glad you got that to mean girls reference. Yeah. Go go watch your old episode anyways. Um, so so we find out that Louie eventually winds up in like Louie eventually winds up in the dungeon of this school. And this may be so uncomfortable.

It's like I'm not uncomfortable with rent being the ringleader of all this. I was so uncomfortable with Principal Wexler and Coach Tugg calling her mistress the whole time. Yeah. Like she was some sort of dominatrix. That was fucking weird. Yeah. Especially like to get up season and whatnot. I was like, why are we like sexualizing this, like 16 year old, like, please stop.

Where is the fuck you. Right. Doing this. Mm hmm. I wonder that's like the sexual awakening for some people. Mm hmm. Yeah, that was weird. And then when and then when they turn Lewis Shadowbox character into Ren. He's still Lewis's head with Ren's body. Yeah, and like this part gave me anxiety because I was like, no, no, no, don't be weird. Don't make this weird because he starts, like, touching himself.

Oh, to clarify. And I was like, please don't grab the boobs. Just don't grab any any part. Stop, freeze. But he grabbed, like, his arms and I was like, oh, crisis averted. I was I got so uncomfortable. Yeah. It's kind of like in that 2002 live action Scooby Doo movie where they like Fred and I look at myself naked. Yeah. It's like that's like Jesus, Rantes, my kids are here.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I'm happy. And that's actually like right where the story breaks and we find out that Louie, this is just a scary story that Louie is telling beings to scare him and which like, I'm really happy because, like, I'm happy it wasn't a dream and it was there's Louie telling a scary story because like the dreams kind of like a cheap way. This is just less cheap. And because it also kind of explains because as I was watching this, I was going I don't remember people getting killed off in this show.

What was going on? Like, how are they going to retcon this? Yeah, I was like, this has this is probably just a dream. And then inserts that say, oh, OK, OK, I like that more. But were there I always felt like those the like the holiday episodes were just kind of in their own universe kind of anthology. A little bit, yeah. Did you kind of feel like they had to tie this into the normal show?

I was thinking, you know, it was either anthology or a dream or something like that, but I didn't know if it would tie in or not. The next episode, literally, everybody just ran walking around.

Just that's the life of the show. Kristy Karlstad Romanos salary just like skyrocketed after this episode. She's 90 percent of the cast. Yeah, that's funny. But to what you're talking about, how it was just a story he told the beans. I was wondering if we were going to see beans in this episode, like, wow, I'm surprised because usually he's jumping in there comic relief at some point, but we didn't need him at all. I don't think we didn't need him.

But when I did see him, I was like beans because I was excited to see him, you know, even though he's not an important character whatsoever. I don't remember liking him that much. But it was fun to see him was very nostalgic. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was kind of like they're getting everybody in this episode. The only people that I think that we didn't get where some of rends friends. I can't remember their names right now, but there was some like Ren's friends that were, you know, throughout the show that we didn't get in this episode.

Those were like the only I think the only normally reoccurring people that we didn't get. Oh, OK. I don't I don't remember having friends. It's been I mean, it's been like 17 years. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I've been watching this before. Moving on to a message of the episode where there are other scenes you wanted to point out. Uh, now I think we touched on everything. Very cool, so did you.

So I kinda got I might have some people eye rolling at my message of this, but did you have any sort of message or lesson or anything like that from this episode? Yeah, mine was pretty simple. It's basically just don't cry wolf. Oh, people, if you want people to believe you when the situation is crucial, when the situation matters, don't lead them to believe that you're a liar or you're some sort of trickster by calling attention to situations that don't need attention, call to them.

Mm hmm. Right. So just, uh. So that's it. Don't cry wolf. That's interesting. That's something to think about. But I think that's something that you could definitely sort of see because he's trying to get Elisa's parents to believe him. But they're like, oh, did you pull another prank? You know, so that's a good pull. That's something I missed on. But so I had that this that this episode was kind of about this is like more specific, like satellite.

So, General. But like this movie, I'm still not used to it. This TV episode was about lose fear of growing up and him being left behind from his friends. So like he to me, because since this is a story he's telling, he's kind of yeah, I felt like it was kind of him subconsciously putting in some of his own personal fears that he has. And he has this fear of being left behind, like his friends growing up and, you know, starting to care about their health and well-being.

You know, I eat the milk drinking or caring about their permanent record, you know, getting jobs and building a resume or whatever, because he gives off so much and has all these pranks. So I have a feeling. So I felt like this was just telling a story of Louis, his fear of being left behind and everybody else taking life too seriously and him just never really returning to that level. So that's kind of like what I got from this.

And there's also the whole, like, commentary very early on the episode between him and ran on how he's saying, like, Ren, you you're just like a fun ruiner. Like you never have any fun in Rentz. There's like, well, I care about responsibility and you should try out you should try out being responsible sometime. And so in that's kind of like what I felt like. That was kind of like what this measure was about. Was I just a general fear of being left behind by your friends and then being successful while you are struggling to be successful because maybe you missed out on something.

That's kind of what I got from this dam. People might be rolling their eyes at that. I don't know. No, dude, that was good. That's really good. That's something I got for this is all just one big Louis Freudian slip. But yeah, thanks things I really like yours, the whole don't cry wolf, because that was obvious and something I completely glossed over. Do you know you're too busy being deep over there, man?

I loved it. That was great. Thanks. So now we just pat each other on the back. How many how would you rate this out of out of five stars? How many stars would you give this episode? Does it make you want to watch more? And did you think that this aged well? So I'm going to rate it as if not as an adult. Right. So I'd give this one. Like a four point six, nine five, I thought this was a I was actually really impressed with this episode, to be completely honest, like we talked about at the beginning, it was just so well-written.

I felt so trusted by the writers with no laugh track that they knew they knew what they were writing was funny and that we would have laughed at the right times. And I was really impressed with childbirths acting right, because I I think the last thing I'd seen him act in was Indiana Jones, which wasn't like supernatural to me. Um, and then before that was Disturbia, which I thought was pretty good in Disturbia. Oh yeah, I agree.

But I don't really remember his acting as a kid. It's just not something I really paid attention to. But even as an adult, I was like, damn, he actually like he didn't sound like he was overacting at all, like you'd see in other kids shows of this era. But at the same time, like as an adult, I think this show was. I mean, that's obviously not something I'd watch right now at my age, and that's not to sound like I'm like this old person.

I just it just didn't really catch my interest. It actually but it went by really fast. It didn't feel like it was dragging at all. But if I was a kid, like, I would absolutely watch this a lot more, but it's just not it's not just like the type of content that I consume right now. And and also, let me just add to that. Like I'm not saying I don't watch kid shows. Like, I definitely just am currently watching the legend of Korra.

Right. Like the avatar. So so, like, I'm not like just just not watching kid shows because I think I'm too old for them. This one just wasn't my cup of tea. OK, so I guess if you were like, you know, pretend you're like eight year old Nates, if you just saw this, would it make you want to watch more episodes? Oh, absolutely. And especially if I had this on Disney plus I would have already I would have already binge watch the show.

Gotcha. Yeah, awesome. I kind of agree with you. I would rate this. I have it at four stars. And because I think that this episode is super awesome, the only thing it loses points on is for that weird sexual tension with mysteries. Ren, that's I mean, so I kind of give it minus points for that. But just because you don't leave that leave that stuff out of these kids shows my opinion that. So yeah, this is a great episode.

It moves flow, flows well is not boring at all. I thought it aged really well. I didn't really besides like the pay phone being like the only like kind of like older technology in this, it aged pretty well honestly, you know, like cheesy special effects. Either I take that back. The whole cloning upper end did look really cheesy, but yeah. And I did love the part where some of some of the placates actually start to try to manhandle Lewis into the into like the little cloning machine.

And you can just tell those are just those are just people with dark hair. They're obviously not. Cristie Karlstad Romano, into your point about Lewis or I'm sorry, Shil above being a really good actor. I completely agree. And I want to sort of give some praise to to Christy Carlson, Armano Romano, because as I've been watching this show, she stands out as like a really good actor in this show as well. I'm kind of surprised she didn't do more stuff.

I looked at her IMDB page and she's been doing like a lot of movies is just shit you've never heard of or probably haven't seen. But I thought she was really talented in this. Maybe she didn't translate well to film, I don't know. But I thought that she was really good in this. Yeah. Yeah, I thought she yeah. I would agree with that side that I actually think it's pretty good. The dad. Oh yes. I think Tom Virtue's his name.

Mm hmm. It is. He just he just really he I, I can't really name a movie that I've seen him in, but I've seen him a lot. He's just one of those characters that you see pop up and he's very recognizable to if if people I'm going to recommend a podcast if you're like a huge fan, even Stevens, there's this podcast called Even Stevens Ranked and they go through each episode like one at a time and they like say like where in the sixty five episode was where they had that ratings.

And they actually interview a lot of the actors from this. And they have an episode where they interview Tom Vertue or Timber's you forget his first name, but the dad of the show and that interview was really cool. So I'm going to recommend people go check that out. It was really cool how his interpretation of the dad character for this was. It was interesting. So I think that's awesome. Yeah. Can I can I just say something is that.

Yeah, ever since I've been jumping back in the pod and we've been kind of like plug in other people's I've really been looking for for new like podcast content to follow. So it's been super cool, like jumping and all these other people's podcasts and seeing them or listening to them because I'm like really enjoying it and it's just like nothing I'd been exposed to before, so. Thank you, everyone, appreciate it. It's been really fun. Yeah, and please still listen to us, but yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Sure to love to. Yeah. I don't have enough room in my Q for film on the rocks anymore. Sorry, but any final thoughts before we wrap it up. Uh, let me check my notes.

Just there was one page.

Uh, no, it's a sticky note to stick it out. I just flicked it around. Now I don't have anything. I think I'm good. Awesome. Well, thank you, everybody, for listening to this episode of TV specials. And this was a lot of fun. I hope that you guys are enjoying these TV specials. They're they're a fun break for us. And they're super nostalgic to kind of want to quickly plug our Pichon. If you like these TV specials, we will be having an exclusive TV specials episode on the page you on later on this month.

We will be covering one of the Halloween specials of Boy meets World. It's one of my favorite Halloween specials of any TV shows is from Season five, Season five, Episode seventeen. And then there were Sean. This was a really great creepy one. Also has a guest star of Jennifer Love Hewitt get started on this episode. So it's a lot of fun that will be available on Patrón dot com Slashfilm in the Rocks at the two hour level. If you want to check that out later on this month and be sure to write into our mailbag for our Halloween talks on the rocks.

But today, stay tuned for our spooky episodes and tweet us. Let us know how you like in these episodes for sure.

Enjoy this very themed October.