Cooler Than Homework #007 – The Thirteenth Year & Memorable Birthdays

Nicole Sweeney 0:18
Hello, and welcome to Cooler Than Homework, a Disney Channel Original Movie podcast. I’m Nicole Sweeney and the best birthday present I’ve ever received was a hand painted sign with “it’s five o’clock somewhere” misspelled.

Matthew Gaydos 0:36
I’m Matthew Gaydos and the worst birthday gift I’ve ever received is a clock that has 12 different mustaches on it instead of numbers. It never got hung up.

Marines Alvarez 0:51
My name is Marines and the worst birthday gift that I ever received was a note on a disposable paper plate.

Ceri Riley 1:04
And I’m Ceri Riley and the worst birthday gift I’ve ever received is a capsule from a bowling alley vending machine.

Nicole Sweeney 1:13
Wow.

Matthew Gaydos 1:15
What was in it?

Ceri Riley 1:16
I don’t even remember. It probably like a sticky hand or maybe a plastic ring. It was given to me by the boy who had a crush on me in first grade. So… sorry, Aaron.

Nicole Sweeney 1:28
This week we are talking about The Thirteenth Year and Mari is going to tell us how close Ceri was to her plot guess.

Marines Alvarez 1:37
You got mermaids! You did it!

Ceri Riley 1:39
Mermaids! First and one of my only notes of this mermaid– all caps.

Marines Alvarez 1:46
Honestly, like the too long, didn’t read version of my plot synopsis is a boy is actually a merman. And that’s it. The long version is that we start with a mermaid who’s like happily swimming around with her baby and I can honestly say that I’ve never thought about like infant mermaids and like the logistics of carrying underwater and then like they would have to be taught to swim like you teach like toddlers to walk right?

Nicole Sweeney 2:19
Yes.

Marines Alvarez 2:20
I thought about this for a long time.

Ceri Riley 2:23
I haven’t and so now I’m going through what I assume you went through like just imagining a mer-baby floating there and the mom being like move, just waiting for it to do something kind of like tumbling around in the water.

Marines Alvarez 2:37
It’s very cute to think about.

Nicole Sweeney 2:38
How much is the baby inheriting the like innate ability to, you know, live in the ocean of a fish or the innate uselessness of a human baby?

Marines Alvarez 2:49
Right, right and well, in this movie wants to think probably uselessness because she’s carrying him and also, the way that I interpreted this is that like she’s spotted by a fisherman and she basically has to dump the baby to get away. I don’t know if anybody as any other like conclusions, but she she abandons the baby because she’s been spotted by this fisherman named Mr. Wheatley. And I guess he’s slowing her down or something. I honestly don’t know.

Matthew Gaydos 3:17
Yeah.

Marines Alvarez 3:18
She drops the baby’s off on a stranger’s boat and the boat owners find the baby and decide to keep him and adopt him and named him Cody. So we fast forward 13 years and Cody is helping on his parents boat and he is also part of the swim team at school. We get an extended opening sequence of Cody swimming and running to his meet because he’s late. He makes it to the swim meet but he still comes in second to a dirtbag. On the plus side, Cody has a girlfriend named Sam. She’s very cute, and his swim team makes it to the state finals. He also saves the tuba player from drowning because the kid, Jess Whealey, accidentally falls into a pool.

At school Cody is kind of like a big man on campus. He’s a popular kid, but he also toes this weird line of almost kind of being like a main boy but not quite as bad as the other kid. It was a little touch and go for me. I was like, Is he a mean kid? Is he not? But I think the point is that he’s kind of somewhere in the middle. In his biology class, they are conveniently starting a lesson on marine biology and Cody is paired with, uh, nerdy Jess who almost drowned for project. Jess wants to start working on it right away but Cody’s birthday party is the next day and he invites Jess offhandedly. Jess does show up to the party but the mean boy makes fun of him and Cody only lightly protests. After his 13th birthday, Cody starts to notice weird things happening. He accidentally zaps his alarm clock with electricity from his fingers. He gets a milk carton stuck to his hands. He can’t stop drinking water. He’s having weird dreams about bright lights underwater.

So, Cody turns to Jess for help, after they struck up a previous truce on the basis that Jess was going to help Cody pass biology and Cody was going to teach Jess to swim. Jess consult shis dad, who’s Mr. Wheatley, the fishermen from the beginning, and who has become obsessed with mermaids since he spotted Cody’s mom 13 years ago. And there’s another little sequence where Jess is running tests to determine what’s happening with Cody and Cody’s abilities– so he can generate electricity, he can talk to fish, he can climb walls like with like sticky like Spider Man kind of thing, he can swim really fast, and sometimes when he gets wet scales appear on his arms.

So Jess is like the signs, I don’t know what they are point to, but they conclude that he is indeed a merman. There’s a bit of back and forth with Cody’s parents about whether or not they believe him and when they finally do believe him what to do about it. They agree though that Cody should definitely not get into water in front of lots of people. Cody can’t resist though especially as his rivalry with the mean boy kind of ramps up and state finals approaches. He sneaks out of his house and swims in the meet winning by a lot and breaking a state record. But the water causes his fins to appear and both the main boy and Mr. Wheatley notice. At home Cody chase to calm his parents down by saying that no one noticed anything but then Jess shows up with the news that everybody’s talking about Cody, and then Sam shows up and faints at the sight of Cody’s fins. When she comes to they all asked her to please keep the whole mermaid thing a secret, and she agrees to, but she’s also weirded out by the whole Merman thing and is like I can’t do this and bails.

The next day Cody goes for a swim and meets his mermaid mom. Mr. Wheatley sees them again this time and so the mermaid mom swims away. Cody calls Sam and the kiss and makeup and then he introduces Sam to his mermaid mom. The touching moment is interrupted by Cody suddenly like writhing in pain. He said Sam to get his parents and we watch as his feet turned into flippers and I hated the sight of them They were like extra thick and rubbery and I just did not want to look at it in the eye. Mr. Weasley grabs Cody and kind of helps him but mostly is like using him as bait to capture the mermaid mom. Mr. Wheatley gets the mermaid mom in a net, and Cody begs just to help so just jumps in the water with a knife, finding that his swimming lessons paid off and frees mermaid mom. Unfortunately his leg gets caught in the net in the process and he’s dragged underwater. Cody manages to get in the water and get Jess, out but he isn’t breathing. Cody’s mom and dad show up. Sam shows up and they perform CPR but Jess still isn’t breathing. So Cody uses his like eel electricity to zap Jess’s heart back and it seemed really risky, honestly. I had so many questions about like the voltage used because just like his body doesn’t even move, but apparently it was like enough electricity to bring him back to life

Ceri Riley 8:09
And doing it twice so quickly is like what? You don’t just like put more electricity if it doesn’t work.

Matthew Gaydos 8:16
He also destroyed a scoreboard earlier.

Marines Alvarez 8:20
The point is that it was really risky but Jess lives. The mermaid mom is back and looking at everyone meaningfully. So Cody translates that he has to go with her because she’s the only one who can help him with his changes. Cody’s adoptive mom is very sad, but the moms share an oddly touching moment that is mostly done all via telepathy. And mermaid mom promises to have Cody back before school starts again. I was not aware that school had ended but it’s cool. Cody says goodbye to everyone and swims off with his mermaid mom. The end.

Matthew Gaydos 8:56
That is a very good point about school ending. Like as if like state swim meet mark to the end of the school year.

Nicole Sweeney 9:04
Yes, the classical conclusion to the school year, the state swim meet.

Ceri Riley 9:10
Everyone goes out, watches the swimmers, and then it’s like happy summer

Marines Alvarez 9:14
Never goes back to school.

Nicole Sweeney 9:19
All right, Matt, where is this cast now?

Matthew Gaydos 9:21
Well, uh, mostly, I know the answer to that. As usual, some people are missing or haven’t done anything since this so we don’t know what they’re doing. But there are some recognizable people in this cast. We’ll start off with the director who is Dwayne Dunham. He directed not only the movie “Little Giants,” which makes sense because some of the people in this movie are also in “Little Giants,” but he also directed “Homeward Bound” as well as “Halloweentown.” And some other DCOMs that I can’t mention because we haven’t watched them yet.

Nicole Sweeney 9:57
Oh man. This man directed my childhood.

Matthew Gaydos 10:00
Yeah. And more interestingly, he also was one of the editors of “Return of the Jedi.”

Nicole Sweeney 10:06
Oh!

Ceri Riley 10:07
Oh, weird.

Nicole Sweeney 10:07
That is interesting. The way you said interestingly, I was like, oh no, this could go anywhere.

Matthew Gaydos 10:14
No, he like directed a bunch of children’s things but then he was like in the editing department of “Return of the Jedi” and like Indiana Jones and “Twin Peaks” and a bunch of not kid things. Then we have our star of the movie Cody Griffin, played by– I didn’t write this down. Why did I not write his name down because his name is awesome.

Ceri Riley 10:34
Oh, yeah, his name is very weird that I did see

Matthew Gaydos 10:37
His name is Chez Starbuck and he has, uh, I think what we have come to find is maybe the best outcome of all child stars on this podcast. He’s a happy dad on Instagram. And he’s carpenter, he’s an artist and he just seems like a happy family man with a cute kid with a delightful Instagram where he shows off his art and his family and his carpentry.

Nicole Sweeney 10:58
We love a DCOM kid turned Instagram parent.

Matthew Gaydos 11:01
Yeah, he’s just a big beefy dad, that’s what he is.

Marines Alvarez 11:07
I love it.

Matthew Gaydos 11:08
And he was interviewed a few years ago saying he’d be down to like play the dad in a sequel to the 13th year

Nicole Sweeney 11:14
Yes!

Ceri Riley 11:15
Wow.

Marines Alvarez 11:16
And nobody has made this yet?

Nicole Sweeney 11:17
Right!

Matthew Gaydos 11:19
Maybe that’s the culmination of this podcast is like once we’re done talking about all the DCOMs, we start making our own.

Nicole Sweeney 11:25
Yes, we launch a Kickstarter to make the sequel to “The Thirteenth Year.”

Matthew Gaydos 11:31
The Fourteenth Year!

So next I have what I thought was the most recognizable face in the movie, but apparently not to all of us. We have the dad Whit Griffin, played by Dave Coulier, a who I think three of the four of us recognized as Uncle Joey from Full House.

Nicole Sweeney 11:50
Yes.

Marines Alvarez 11:51
Literally all he is.

Ceri Riley 11:54
I have no– I’ve never seen this man in my life.

Nicole Sweeney 11:58
Are you sorry to that man, Ceri?

Ceri Riley 12:02
But when we were watching– this is an interruption. I hope I’m not stealing your thunder, Matt. But one of the random fishermen who is uncredited, I think…

Is Scully from “Brooklyn 99.” And I yelled from the couch as I was watching. Iwas like I recognize someone finally. And I was watching with my partner, and she turned to me and was like, you mean, you didn’t recognize Uncle Joey? And I was like, No, no, I gotta send an email. I don’t know what words you’re saying, but I gotta send an email because I recognize someone, She too was appalled that I didn’t recognize this man, but I’m sorry.

Matthew Gaydos 12:12
Yes.

Somehow, somehow Ceri has never seen an episode of “Full House” or “Fuller House” because this man has been playing Uncle Joey for 30 years, but he also does a lot of voice acting and just about everything from “Robot Chicken” to “American Dad” to “Muppet Babies.” So you’ve probably heard his voice in something as well. Even if you don’t recognize his very, very recognizable face.

The mom Sharon Griffin is played by Lisa Stahl who was on “Baywatch,” as well as playing the ex-girlfriend in George Michael’s Careless Whisper music video. And she also plays the ex-girlfriend in “Jerry Maguire.” So that was who she was in the 90s was just typecast as the ex girlfriend. But the most recent information I could find out about her is that she was running a photography studio in Los Angeles, but all of the websites for that company seemed to be broken. So I don’t know how well they’re doing right now.

Ceri Riley 13:32
Oh, no.

Matthew Gaydos 13:33
Yeah, if you can find Sullivan Studios in Los Angeles, you can hire the mom from 13th year to take your photgraphy stuff.

Marines Alvarez 13:41
Free advertising for her struggling business.

Matthew Gaydos 13:45
Yeah. Next up, we have the girlfriend Sam in this movie played by Courtnee Draper. She did some other child acting, which we also can’t talk about because we’re going to talk about it in the future hint hint, but she is now a voice actor, mostly she’s also done other human acting. But most famously, she’s recently voiced Elizabeth in the video game Bio Shock Infinite.

Ceri Riley 14:10
Oh, cool!

Matthew Gaydos 14:11
Yeah, which is like a big starring role in that game.

Ceri Riley 14:14
Yeah, I know that one too.

Matthew Gaydos 14:16
Yeah!

Nicole Sweeney 14:17
She was also on an episode of “Veronica Mars,” living in a== living on like a communes

Matthew Gaydos 14:23
See, it’s the thing is like, I looked up her her roles, and she looks very familiar to me as like child actor, but none of her other roles, like jumped out at me. So I’m like, oh, you just somehow existed in my brain.

Marines Alvarez 14:37
Nobody saw I think the name of the show was like The Jersey or something as a Disney show as well. And and the whole premise was like a magic– magic jersey that they put on. And when they put it on, they would like become famous athletes.

This sounds very familiar!

So then the famous athletes were like guest starring on each episode and they were very bad actors, and it is a very bad show… as I remember it, but I watched it a lot.

Matthew Gaydos 15:04
I completely blocked that show out of my memory. Yes. It just rushed back as he started describing it. I was like, that sounds fake. Oh, wait, no, I remember everything!

We have the friend Jess Wheatley, in this played by Justin John Ross. And he is one of the people I could not find a shred of like evidence that he still exists anywhere in the universe anymore. I don’t know what he’s up to. I found someone who I thought might have been him. And if it is him there, he’s led a very interesting life, but I have very, very little evidence to prove that it’s him, so I’m not going to put that theory out there on the internet.

Nicole Sweeney 15:41
Alright, alright.

Matthew Gaydos 15:42
But I will continue to do some searching and if it turns out to be him, I promise you I will deliver that news here on this podcast. It would be the most interesting where are they now, ever.

Ceri Riley 15:56
Tune in for the hot gossip. Matt’s gossip column.

Matthew Gaydos 16:00
You have to listen to every episode of this podcast on the chance that I might reveal where that guy is now.

His– his dad in the movie, Jess’s dad, Big John, as they call him, is played by Brent Briscoe, who is just in every single thing you’ve ever seen. He’s very recognizable. He’s in “The Dark Knight Rises.” He’s in “Spider Man 2.” He’s in “National Treasure.” He’s in “Desperate Housewives.” He’s in CSI, and he’s also JJ ofJJ diner on “Parks and Recreaction.”

Ceri Riley 16:28
Oh! Wow! He’s just so generic that I did not recognize his face but I feel bad because he’s in so many things that I like

Matthew Gaydos 16:37
He’s just been in everything so you don’t like– he just like washes by into the background. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any information about the the douche bag jock, Sean Williams, played by Tim Redwyne. He did like one movie after this and also doesn’t seem to be online has a presence or anything at all. So who knows? But then we have a mermaid mom played by Stephanie Chantelle Durelli, who, at the time in the 90s seemed to be sort of a stunt actress and celebrity trainer. Now she owns a company called Eccentric Talent Management, where you can get performers to come to your parties including sword swallowers, fire breathers, people on stilts, but most importantly, you can get her to come to your party as a mermaid.

Nicole Sweeney 17:27
Yesss!

Marines Alvarez 17:29
Okay, if we ever have some sort of like live Cooler Than Homework meetup or event, we are hiring this woman come be a mermaid.

Ceri Riley 17:40
That can be one of the Kickstarter goals.

Nicole Sweeney 17:42
Yes.

Matthew Gaydos 17:43
Yeah.

Ceri Riley 17:43
Paying for her fee.

Matthew Gaydos 17:45
And my last two little shout outs, one was going to be Scully from “Brooklyn 99,” because that’s cool. He just plays a random guy in the doc like Sarah said, but then we also have which I mentioned at the end of last episode, in line at the water fountain, waiting, impatiently, a young uncredited Kristen Stewart.

Marines Alvarez 18:03
You mentioned that this was going to happen, and I totally did not catch her.

Nicole Sweeney 18:07
I also did not.

Ceri Riley 18:08
Yeah. Also same

Matthew Gaydos 18:09
She is– if you’re looking for her, I was helped out because I was watching with Devyn, my fiance, who like remembers this movie very well and remember the exact scene when I mentioned it to her of like, Oh, no, there’s a point in the movie where he’s really drinking a lot of water and he’s at the water fountain for a really long time. And if you’re looking as they go down the line, like the second girl they show has this little Bob cut and she’s like, I don’t know, six, seven years old, and it’s definitely Kristen Stewart.

Nicole Sweeney 18:35
Weird.

Matthew Gaydos 18:36
But yeah, that’s where those people are now Kristen Stewart is obviously you know, up to more.

Nicole Sweeney 18:41
She’s got some stuff going on.

Matthew Gaydos 18:43
Yeah, she’s busy.

Nicole Sweeney 18:47
It is now time to talk about this movie. But first, a nostalgia check. Do you remember watching this movie before being tasked with watching it for this podcast?

Matthew Gaydos 18:57
No.

Nicole Sweeney 18:59
Oooh!

Marines Alvarez 19:00
I do. And in fact, the scene where like Sam is– she comes to and she’s like, you’re telling me that you all think he’s a mermaid. And they all go Merman. Like, that was so deeply ingrained in my brain… that it was like almost like I had a physical reaction to watching it again, like, Oh my gosh, that has been in my brain for so many years. So yeah, this is definitely one that I watch and I watched multiple times.

Nicole Sweeney 19:28
I also remember watching this though, maybe not quite so strongly.

Ceri Riley 19:34
Not at all.

Nicole Sweeney 19:36
Great.

Ceri Riley 19:36
Unsurprisingly.

Nicole Sweeney 19:39
All right, so did you like it now? I’m really curious since you this was your first experience with the 13th year?

Matthew Gaydos 19:46
Yes, I really, really liked it. Some maybe not great acting aside. I don’t know if this is necessarily my favorite DCOM we’ve watched so far, but personally, I think it’s the most well made DCOM we’ve watched so far.

Nicole Sweeney 20:01
Hmm, interesting.

Matthew Gaydos 20:03
Yeah just purely from like a filmmaking side of things like editing shooting storytelling. I think there are moments in this where I kind of– and this isn’t like a slight against DCOMs because obviously I love them– but there was moments where I forgot I was watching a DCOM, which I feel like DCOMs have like an energy about them that when you’re watching them, it’s very clear that you are watching one. And there was some scenes, most notably when the mom and dad are like arguing in the kitchen and like Cody’s on the stairs watching them. It was just like a real moment and it was shot well and I’m just like, Oh right. No, no, no, this is like a Disney Channel movie. This is not like just another movie that came out in the 90s. So good job Dave Coulier, best acting of your career.

Marines Alvarez 20:44
Honestly, he did such a great job in this in this movie. I was expecting because he’s so Uncle Joey that you know, like seeing him and him not being Uncle Joey. I was very, I don’t know, It’s like proud of him. I’m proud of you, bb.

for him.

Matthew Gaydos 20:59
Good job not doing a Bullwinkle impression.

Marines Alvarez 21:01
Exactly. I enjoyed it too. Again, probably not my favorite of the ones that we’ve watched so far. But I think that maybe a lot of that has to do with nostalgia. And like just some of like, my other favorites were favorites when I was like younger and so that kind of carries over but yeah, this was entertaining. I thought to that, like it didn’t have– it was interesting to me in like the line up of the ones that we’ve seen so far. You can make an argument for Zenon, but I feel like this was probably the first one that is like not like an underdog or nerd kids story. It was like the cool kids in school on the swim team and the– he’s he’s just has this girlfriend at the beginning and it’s like really cute. And I don’t know the story just felt a little different that way. And there wasn’t so much of like a a lesson or message was just really this kid was a mermaid and he was like surprise, I’m a mermaid and that was kind of the story. So I found that entertaining.

Ceri Riley 21:59
As an adult watching this movie, I liked it. It was fine, but I think because the story was just this kid becomes a mermaid, it was less fun for me. And I don’t know whether it was like the brain space I was in or like my willingness to be excited about mermaids last night when I watched this. But, it was okay. I didn’t have any standout moments. I wasn’t particularly excited by anyone’s acting, or any parts of the story. The mermaid costumes were cool. I liked it when he got scales on his hands. So whoever did the makeup and special effects great, or practical effects, I guess. Because the special effects again, probably good for the time but very weird. Fin legs? Did not like that whole montage of like glancing down, leg morphs. Very Animoprhs. So anyway, this is like middling of DCOMs that we’ve watched so far. It didn’t blow me away, but it was nowhere near the depths of horror that was “Can of Worms.”

Matthew Gaydos 23:05
Oh, yeah, no, no, no, no.

Nicole Sweeney 23:07
I would also classify it as middling. I opened up our little ranking spreadsheet, I see that Ceri also opened it. At this moment, we’re both in the doc trying to assess how we feel about this movie against the other movies that we’ve watched. And I think yes, I generally enjoyed this movie. So far can of worms and you lucky dog are the only ones that I really actively did not enjoy. And then the others they’re sort of, you know, a scale. This is not “Zenon” or “Brink.” “Halloweentown,” I also just, you know, it lives in my feelings stronger than this movie does, but aside from that, I generally enjoyed this. It was perfectly fine. I will probably never watch it again, question mark? Although I guess I might have said that before we started doing this podcast, so honestly, what do I even know?

Matthew Gaydos 24:04
I brought this up earlier and Nicole told me we should probably wait until this section of the podcast to talk about it but the dates in this movie. mainly the most important date in this movie of his birthday. What? Okay. When is his birthday? Cuz I don’t think he was a newborn when he was dropped off on that boat. He looks bigger than a newborn

Nicole Sweeney 24:28
Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Matthew Gaydos 24:29
but yet they celebrate a birthday for him, which I guess is his like, gotcha day. And they just like happened to line up with when he’s becoming Merman. And I know I’m not supposed to think that deeply about it, but I did.

Marines Alvarez 24:44
Yeah, I mean, they can invite you to think about like on his 13th birthday, he begins to change and then be like, but he’s adopted, and no one knows what his birthday is. You’ve got to expect that they’re going to be some questions.

Ceri Riley 24:58
And everything started happening after the birthday party?

Nicole Sweeney 25:01
Yes.

Ceri Riley 25:02
Is that correct?

Nicole Sweeney 25:03
Yeah.

Ceri Riley 25:03
Okay.

Matthew Gaydos 25:03
I believe so.

Ceri Riley 25:04
Except he got thirsty before the birthday party, so maybe like thirst is the first sign of Merman

Marines Alvarez 25:11
Within like a margin of error, like plus or minus a few weeks on his birthday.

Ceri Riley 25:16
Yeah, I don’t know. Also, maybe mermaid newborns are just more fully formed babies.

Matthew Gaydos 25:26
I mean, I can’t argue that idea.

Ceri Riley 25:31
I’m a biologist, Matt.

Matthew Gaydos 25:35
I guess it has to learn to swim early on, I guess they might need to be bigger.

Nicole Sweeney 25:38
Right.

Ceri Riley 25:39
Mmhmm.

Nicole Sweeney 25:39
Yes. Going back to the uselessness of a human versus, you know can exist in water of a fish.

Matthew Gaydos 25:45
Yeah, but he also was pretty useless.

Ceri Riley 25:47
Yeah.

Marines Alvarez 25:48
We’re gonna go to a weird place of like mermaid infant birth. Like… and I don’t want to think about it.

Matthew Gaydos 25:57
But now everyone else is thinking about. Where’d that baby come from?

Marines Alvarez 26:03
You keep talking about really big well fromed babies and I’m sorry I’m going to think about where that baby came from.

Matthew Gaydos 26:09
Was it an egg?

Ceri Riley 26:10
Definitely an egg, yeah. It was like– it’s like fish mating. There’s a bunch of eggs laid in the ground, then the gametes get sprayed across the sad you have all these eggs with like full big babies in them. And they just pop out and start floating around because they don’t know how to swim.

Matthew Gaydos 26:32
This is why we’re not getting that sequel where he plays a dad.

Ceri Riley 26:36
I would love it. Speaking of that, I love Jess and his nerds don’t have friends we have hobbies. I a hundred percent would have related to him as a kid, sticking my face in tide pools and then being like this is a totally normal thing to do when you don’t have friends. So welcome. I’ll show you fish.

Marines Alvarez 26:58
He was oddly like self aware it was really like charming even when he was like, I don’t know saying something loudly in school, I guess talking about being a mermaid or something like that. And Cody was like, shhh, keep your voice down and he’s like, Oh, sorry. I’m not used to talking to people who have to like watch out for the reputation. So it was little things like that were just like, oddly self aware of like his in new friendship and interacting with people that I was like, oh, baby,

Matthew Gaydos 27:26
And like with the birthday party, like he shows up and he hears people sort of like making fun of him and he just leaves. He’s like, yeah, you know what, I’m not gonna stick around for this. Like, I don’t need to tolerate this.

Ceri Riley 27:37
Yeah, it’s sad, but it’s like, Good on you. You know what being bullied feels like and you’re not gonna stand up for it. You can go enjoy your fish.

Marines Alvarez 27:45
his relationship with his dad was also like– they don’t really I don’t know address it but you can tell like his dad has been consumed by this thing. And there’s like a rift between, like his dad’s obsession and the little kids interests and so all their scenes like when he’s like dad told me about mermaids and his little eyes light up like a son. Yeah, I will. I don’t know why it was so feelsy about this movie. It gave me a lot of emotions.

Matthew Gaydos 28:15
I think that’s what like what I was trying to say with like the it’s well made is like those things worked. Like you said that weird, emotional moment between the moms where they just like stare at each other. You’re just like, well, that shouldn’t work. That shouldn’t like emotionally work, but somehow it does. And I think you’re right, like the scene you’re talking about with Jess and his dad where he sits him down and he’s like, Oh, you want to you want to hear my stories? Like oh, okay, like no one else has ever wanted to listen to his stories, but now his son wants to listen to his stories.

Marines Alvarez 28:43
Heartwarming.

Matthew Gaydos 28:44
I am curious to know what happened to Mama John. Where’s– where’s Big Mom John?

Nicole Sweeney 28:50
Big Mom John?

Big John’s wife. Where’s the mom?

No, I like Big Mom John.

Marines Alvarez 28:58
No, don’t correct yourself, that was correct.

Matthew Gaydos 29:01
Just like the timeline of like, okay, he has like he has a fellow 13 year old child like Cody, who was the mermaid boy that he saw. So he’s been sort of exiled from society since he saw the mermaid and freaked out. So at some point in there, Jess’s as mom was part of the picture, maybe she left because of his mermaid obsession, but I don’t know. I wish they would have at least hinted at it a little bit of like, Is that why mom left or something?

Ceri Riley 29:33
Maybe his mom drowned in the ocean which is why he saw obsessed with mermaids because it’s like…

Matthew Gaydos 29:39
Yeah! And why he won’t let his son swim.

Nicole Sweeney 29:42
You guys, this is a DCOM! Calm down! Get the fuck out of here.

Marines Alvarez 29:49
That’s too deep.

Nicole Sweeney 29:52
This is a fun movie where a boy becomes a fish.

Ceri Riley 29:59
And it’s teaching us about life and family, Nicole. Why are mermaids sticky?

Matthew Gaydos 30:09
That’s a fair point.

Ceri Riley 30:11
I just would like to know. The electric thing they kind of gloss over because it’s like oh, it’s like an electric eel. Garbage but still fine. No explanation for the stick.

Nicole Sweeney 30:22
I wouldn’t have asked you that question. I would have asked you to explain to me the biology of why the mermaids are sticky, so the fact that yu are the one asking this question tells me that there is no answer.

Ceri Riley 30:34
It just seems like it’s a very Spider-Man power.

Matthew Gaydos 30:37
Yeah.

Ceri Riley 30:37
And very not a fish. Everything I think of when I think fish slimy, falls a lot, I don’t know. Like glides through the water. Sticky is so far away from that list.

Matthew Gaydos 30:49
Yeah, I think that those– those first scenes when he’s like, first realizing something is wrong are very much just straight out of Spider-Man where he’s just picking things up and can’t sit them down and you’re like, Oh, okay, I did not know this was part of being a mermaid.

Ceri Riley 31:03
Yeah, it’s like they watched other media, read other media with teen boys going through weird puberty and they were like, oh, I guess sticky is one of them.

Marines Alvarez 31:13
Think of the scenes we could have!

Ceri Riley 31:15
The physical comedy,

Matthew Gaydos 31:17
To be fair, like 13 year old boy personal hygiene is not high on the list. So they’re just kind of always coated in a layer of stick.

Marines Alvarez 31:24
So the sticky had nothing to do with being a mermaid. Cody was just dirty.

Matthew Gaydos 31:33
Well, so, on that note, I was wondering like when his parents are giving him the big speech of like, don’t go in water. I’m like, he has to shower at some point and no one is addressing this.

Nicole Sweeney 31:43
Yes. And because he is a 13 year old boy, surely that would cross everyone’s mind like how much we want to make sure he showers. So…

Matthew Gaydos 31:55
Yes! Has anyone seen the new Aquaman movie because that’s all I could think about was watching most of this.

Nicole Sweeney 32:03
I have not.

Ceri Riley 32:05
I watched it on a plane and I think fell asleep during part of it but what made you think of it? Just that he also is a merman?

Matthew Gaydos 32:14
No, but like the the whole idea of that he’s dropped off by his mom, mermom at like a lighthouse fishermen place and like so the opening scenes of this are very similar to the opening scenes of “Aquaman” and I was like, Oh, all right. Like I know this story. I already saw this movie also on a plane.

Ceri Riley 32:32
Yeah. This is like if Aquaman was less muscley and just like a normal boy.

Matthew Gaydos 32:38
Yeah, if he was more sticky.

Marines Alvarez 32:40
And Unlce Joey was his dad.

Ceri Riley 32:44
My only other thing I guess kind of related to this and maybe the answer is just he’s a sticky Merman and that’s not a very appealing thing. As a Jess, I would have thought if my best friend or my my boyfriend was turning into a merman, I mean, it’d be weird, but it’d be cool mostly because it made my it would make my life more interesting and as a kid, I was just waiting to be whisked away into my magical life that wasn’t currently what was happening. So the fact that Sam didn’t like it and fainted and then shunned him for a little bit was very strange to me. But maybe I’m the strange one. And I wanted to know what other people’s reactions to that one was.

Nicole Sweeney 33:26
I mean, I get it in the sense of like, yes, this is incredibly weird, but I also am with you. Like my read is more like I am- I was a weird kid. And it’s like, that’s fine. Like, I don’t I don’t look at her and think that her reaction was weird. But also, yes, 100% would have eagerly welcomed the confirmation that I was secretly living in some sort of fantastical story.

Matthew Gaydos 33:50
Like Sam has seen a “The Little Mermaid” and like now she has a mermaid boy.

Nicole Sweeney 33:53
Yes!

Matthew Gaydos 33:54
She’d be stoked.

Nicole Sweeney 33:55
Right?

Marines Alvarez 33:56
I think that this is when I started thinking about the fact that like Sam and Cody, were like the popular kids, because again, like had it been a bunch of the weird kids, they’d be like, awesome, but I can imagine that like 13 year old Sam, like, who cares about like popularity and what her friends think was immediately like, Oh, hell no, no, I have a mermaid boyfriend. Like that reaction tracked, but also can’t relate. At all.

Matthew Gaydos 34:22
Yeah, I saw both sides of that where it’s like, yeah, she’s like, sort of got that fickle 13 year old popular girl vibe going on, but also at the beginning of this movie, she is so into him that it’s like I’m like, Oh, no, they’re inseparable. Nothing can break them apart. Because even though he is like…

Marines Alvarez 34:40
They are 13, Matt!!

Matthew Gaydos 34:42
But like, I believe in their love.

Ceri Riley 34:45
She gives them a picture of herself.

Matthew Gaydos 34:48
Yes! That is a boss move.

Matt, is this your DCOM OTP?

It might… no because I think– I don’t think he’s as cool as she is. So I’m like eh. For me, like she is like super into him. It’s very clear she likes him and he’s still doing the like, Oh, well, I don’t know. And I’m like, dude, she likes you. She gave you a picture of herself in a seashell frame. Just accept it. And so yeah, I don’t know, because she was so into him earlier and he was the one who was kind of standoffish for her to be the one who like runs away from him later on didn’t track for me entirely as well. Like I could see him hiding from her like he did on the beach, like that made sense to me, but yeah, I also was kind of hoping she’d be like, Oh, cool. I am here for you in this weird, troubling time.

Nicole Sweeney 35:43
This Week in honor of this movie, in which a boy’s birthday is the moment when he turns into a fish, we are discussing our most memorable birthdays.

Matthew Gaydos 35:55
Unfortunately, I never turned into a fish so I don’t have that. I am cheating a little bit, and I’m picking two, because I have one from when I was a kid. That’s my most memorable birthday. And then one from when I was an adult, that’s the most memorable birthday. So for when I was a kid, I had a lot of weird parties of like, weird themed of like Jurassic Park and country music and Power Rangers and all this stuff. But there was one where I– through family, friends, whatever, my brother in law, worked on the pit crew for a racecar driver and I was a big fan of racing when I was a kid, big NASCAR fan. And for my fifth or sixth birthday, he got the race car driver to bring his race car to my house.

Marines Alvarez 36:47
What?

Ceri Riley 36:48
Woah!

Matthew Gaydos 36:49
Yeah, and all of like me and my friends got to sit in the race car. And it was super cool.

Ceri Riley 36:57
That’s ridiculous. My brain would’ve exploded something back cool but relevant into my interest happened.

Matthew Gaydos 37:05
Yeah. And then I think the one that sticks with me most as an adult is oddly enough the same birthday that I got the mustache clock for was my my 26th birthday mostly because I went skydiving and then as soon as I got done skydiving drove directly to like the family fun center in town and we did go karts and laser tagging. And that was all like the weirdest day of my life at that point. I just fell out of the sky and now doing laser tag. What’s happening?

Marines Alvarez 37:39
I have two, as well. So one is when I was growing up my older sister got a quince said like the whole shebang like the big dress, the hall, the food thing and as my birthday was approaching, I was like absolutely not. I will not do this. You will not put me in the middle of all these people in the center of attention and we will not spend all that money. If you– if you have all that money, you’re going to give me the cash. I did not get the cash. I highkey protested a quince. So for my 15th birthday, I had just like plan to go. My mom was like I’ve mentioned before, like very, very strict. So like sleep overs were never a thing. But by this time, I’m 15. So she’s like, why don’t you just go spend the weekend go sleep over your friend’s house. I was like, elated. It was memorable for like good and bad reasons. But it just I think back to this and like what little shits kids are, bBecause I spent so much of that weekend complaining about my mother. And like, I would call her and be like, hey, like where I’m with my friends and we all want to go do I don’t even remember what now like, I don’t know, watch a movie. And she’s like, no, I really think you shouldn’t like come back home, whatever. And it kept like calling her for permission. And she kept saying no, no, no, so I was complaining about her the entire weekend. And finally I was just like, I’m going to go home because like she’s not letting me do anything and when I get home she had like, set up the surprise birthday party for me. And the sleepover was like, an excuse to get me out of the house. And it was a whole luau. And everybody had leis and there was like food and gifts everywhere. She even bought me an outfit. So like, they brought me in and rushed me to the back and like changed into my cute little outfit that she had bought me. And all my friends who were with me at the sleep over knew that I had spent like the entire weekend like complaining about my mom. I felt terrible. But also she was an she’s a doll and my older sister helped you and they put on this like, fantastic birthday party for me and I had like the time of my life. So that was great. Even though it was like no parties, they were like okay, and they still gave me a party. More recently when I turned 30 I was freaking out about turning 30 because it seemed like time had come for me. And I decided that the best way to kind of, I don’t know mitigate that and just sort of feel better was to really a celebrate my 30th birthday. And I did this whole, like 30 things for 30 thing and it was like a good way to to just be like you’re going to be fine. And it culminated in a week in New York, and I saw Hamilton on Broadway and it was fantastic. The hype was real. And I did not feel bad about turning 30 because I was watching Hamilton. So it was a good strategy.

Ceri Riley 40:24
My birthday is usually not memorable because it’s at the end of the school year. So it’s like late May. In college people are always taking finals during my birthday, or it was like when final projects were due. So it was very sweet. What my friends like would take time to bake me a cake or surprise me with little things like that. But the most memorable birthday was probably, I think it was in ninth or 10th grade. So I don’t even know what birthday this is. This is how little I pay attention to my birthday. But I was a camp counselor at the Science Center in Seattle. And over the Summer that usually meant week long camps. but during the school year, it was sometimes overnight camps for like if the Boy Scouts rented out the Science Center or if their people had, I don’t know, a really big event for some reason. And so I had one of those overnight camps and was really stressed out because it was gearing up towards finals time and I cared about school. And instead of having to ride the bus back, one of my friends offered to a must have been like later high school then because the one of my friends offered to drive me home. And so they picked me up in Seattle and drove me home. And then, like, just six or seven of my friends had decorated my house and like talk to my parents about this and because I never had people over, and just like decorated my house and did a little surprise party. And it was just very sweet. And I probably cried, but it was just like, ah, they care and they took time out of their busy lives to do a thing for me, when everyone was stressed out about tests and things like that.

Nicole Sweeney 41:58
That is very, very sweet.

Matthew Gaydos 42:00
Very sweet.

Nicole Sweeney 42:01
Pure and good. I– my most memorable birthday is all related to my, like best birthday gift. And it was during my semester abroad. And so I was, you know, like spending the semester with a bunch of people that I had not known. You know, prior to January when we all showed up and so the sign. They had this sign commissioned for me. Like I just I showed up to class, the day of my birthday, and like waiting for me, in the middle of the classroom and you know, there’s like 18 kids, so it’s, it’s fine. Or kids, I say kids were all like, this was my 20th birthday. But 18 students in this class, we were all traveling together a bunch, you know, so it’s very sort of like a tight knit kind of environment. You know, so I arrived to class and they had like draped a, I don’t know, tarp or something over a chair and then sitting on the chair was this sign that they had commissioned for me. And then this ridiculous there’s like vodka… Like, cheap, cheap vodka. But it, the bottle I the it’s it was called magic moments. And then but then it was like frosted with like a cutout in the shape of a guitar. And then if you look through the guitar, there was a kid swimming. Like none of it made sense. Like there’s just like so many design elements going on. Yeah, so the whole thing was just like very outlandish and silly. But it was like this element of I was far away from home, and in this kind of, you know, intense and stressful, whatever. And this group of people who really didn’t know me that well still went out of their way to do this really, like thoughtful and kind thing for me. That was really lovely. And then that night, we went out to a bar that was attached to a gas station. This is like a thing. We were in Cape Coast, Ghana. And so we were at this bar, and it was like thundering and lightning and the power went out at one point. And so we were just like hanging out in the dark at this gas station bar. And it was ridiculous but also, I don’t know, like, I just remember feeling very, very happy at how surreal it was like, like, this was an incredibly weird experience that I was having. And I was really, really grateful to be having it. So I think that is probably my most memorable birthday.

Ceri Riley 44:38
So many things.

Matthew Gaydos 44:40
Yeah.

Ceri Riley 44:40
I feel like all three of your most memorable birthdays was like, twist after twist after twist. I thought my birthday was gonna be this and then it was this. I love it.

Nicole Sweeney 44:52
And now it is time to discuss the lessons that we learned from watching The Thirteenth Year. Matt, what did you learn?

Matthew Gaydos 45:00
I learned that if your child is able to climb on the ceiling, it’s probably not just puberty.

Marines Alvarez 45:09
My lesson is related. Media in general has taught me to like believe your kid. I feel like if my kid came to me was like, I’m turning into a mermaid. I don’t have kids, but I feel like if I had a kid, I’d be like oh my god, really, and I would believe them. And any skeptical parent in media obviously doesn’t watch TV and, and or movies or read books because I feel like I’m so prepared for my kid to be a fish.

Nicole Sweeney 45:33
Yes.

Ceri Riley 45:39
Really bringing in the next generation of parents in being ready for your kid to be a fish. They can be whatever they want.

Nicole Sweeney 45:45
Really, though, it’s usually like the cool aunt who does believe them. And that’s like, that’s precisely the role that you get to occupy because you don’t have kids.

Marines Alvarez 45:54
Amazing.

Ceri Riley 45:56
I learned that nerds can have friends as hobbies… Jess.

Marines Alvarez 46:04
Podcast high five!

Nicole Sweeney 46:07
That’s really beautiful. Mine is not beautiful and the lesson that I learned from Cody’s swim coach is that winners don’t lose.

Marines Alvarez 46:18
Accurate.

Nicole Sweeney 46:20
Alright, Ceri. It’s time for you to guess the plot of the next movie. Next time on Cooler Than Homework, we will be discussing “Smart House.”

Ceri Riley 46:30
So “Smart House” obviously is about what Disney in 1999 thought the house of the future would look like. So kind of like now I have been to Tomorrowland and they have that like conveyor belt of the I don’t know what it’s called…

Matthew Gaydos 46:48
Carousel of Progress?

Ceri Riley 46:49
That one. So it’s the idea of the future. It’s not quite Jetsons because Disney was realistic. So this is the year 2015 Which is still felt very far in the future. And they’ve got like a robot butler maybe who’s a little comedian, and they’ve got the outfit like selector with the buttons. But this is a danger warning of the dangers of robots, when you ask your house to do too much, then it starts rebelling against you. And wacky antics ensue when the house starts like making them smoothies that don’t taste good, but it’s healthy for the kids or like checking ham sandwiches out of the fridge or picking weird outfits because the house is having fun. Tagline?

Nicole Sweeney 47:45
The tagline of this movie is the Cooper’s house has a mind of its own.

Ceri Riley 47:50
I’m going to keep riding this roller coaster then. OK, so the house gets increasingly increasingly out of control. And it becomes sort of humans vs. robots standoff, where the Coopers the inhabitants of this house, I think that they are white picket fence, dog, boy girl child, Mom, dad perfect family that needs the perfect house and then they’re realizing like this is their hubris and getting the perfect family perfect house. Are they really the perfect family because they don’t communicate with each other. They communicate with the house more than they do each other. They the boy plays too many video games talks to the TV talks to the robot Butler, everyone talks to the robot Butler. The girl I don’t know does art or something. The mom uses the kitchen to help her cook, the dad props his feet up, and I don’t know like the house takes his briefcase or whatever. So they like a 50s family but in the 2050s and as the house starts to rebel against them, then they have to learn that they love each other more than they love the house. And smart house ends with them stripping everything out of the house except for their favorite robot Butler, Dave. And so like the house is a normal house, and it just becomes Smart Dave, the family and then their favorite Butler. The end.

Matthew Gaydos 49:25
Yeah, all right.

Nicole Sweeney 49:25
Great work.I can’t wait for you to watch this movie as always.

Ceri Riley 49:29
Oh no! I feel like I got the smart house bit but then probably nothing else.

Marines Alvarez 49:37
I think we’re all speechless!

Nicole Sweeney 49:40
We are we are all speechless. We’re just gonna have to watch and find out. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Cooler Than Homework. If you are enjoying this podcast, tell your friends about it. There will be a post dedicated to this episode up at snarksquad.com/DCOM so you can tell us all of your thoughts about “The Thirteenth Year” or you can find us all on Twitter. I am @sweeneysays.

Matthew Gaydos 50:02
I am @MatthewGaydos.

Marines Alvarez 50:04
You can find me @mymameismarines.

Ceri Riley 50:06
And I’m @ceriley.

Nicole Sweeney 50:08
Thank you as always to Stefan Chin for the theme music that is playing us out and we will see you all again next time with “Smart House.”

Transcribed by https://otter.ai