#6: Season 1, Episode 18 - “Movie Madness”
Louis takes a stab at directing a short film in hopes of winning the Sacramento Young Peoples Film Festival and it is absolutely incredible. Not the film, the film is god awful. But Louis’ blatant, unfiltered narcissism -- THAT is something to behold. The subplot follows yet another one of Ren’s attempts to approach Bobby Deaver for the first time but somehow results in some glorious miscommunication between her and recurring character Ivan.
This one opens in history class with a teacher named Todd Zanders who only appears in this one episode. I kinda love this guy and wish we saw more of him. He’s a total hippie and is making the class take “deep, cleansing breaths -- in with the good, out with the bad” when Louis comes running in late and disrupts the peace. Louis is clearly excited about something so Todd pulls the old “why don’t you share with the rest of the class” card, probably hoping that will intimidate Louis and shut him up, but this is Louis Stevens we’re talking about here. Todd technically gave him the floor, so ya know Louis is gonna run with it. He gets up on his chair and announces to everyone that he’s going to be entering his currently non-existent film in the Sacramento Young Peoples Film Festival.
“I, Louis Stevens, will be entering my film in the Sacramento Young Peoples Film Festival. And after I win first place in the festival and get my million dollar movie deal... I will, sadly, be moving to Beverly Hills to a sprawling ranch home.” -- The narcissism is already in full swing. I love it. I also love that Louis says he’ll be moving to a ranch home because he already stated in Episode 15 that he’s “always liked ranch style!” houses. Good continuity.
Louis goes on to say he’ll be needing a limo driver, a gardener and even suggests that Todd should be his personal chef. Oh my god. He tells Tawny, Twitty, and Tom to meet him at his house after school to discuss the logistics of the project and its million-dollar plot.
It cuts to the subplot where we meet both Ruby and Bobby for the first time! Ruby is reporting to Ren with her latest gossip column and the two of them end up checking out Bobby Deaver from across the hall. I just gotta include a gif of Bobby’s first appearance because the level of intentional dramatic cheese is hilarious.
Ren is gushing over Bobby from afar saying things like “He’s so cute. Look at his hair... It’s perfect. Look at his walk! He’s so cool!” and for whatever reason, everyone’s favorite lackey Ivan is within earshot and assumes Ren is crushing on him. He’s flying solo in this episode and I guess this shows us why he’s a hanger-on every other time we see him. Ivan on his own is pretty sad and shy.
Ivan under the impression that Ren’s compliments are directed at him.
Ruby inspires Ren to talk to Bobby but warns Ren that she should write down everything she wants to say to him beforehand to ensure their first conversation will be absolutely perfect. We get a bit later on where Ren is in her room trying to come up with an ideal icebreaker and oh my freaking god. This has got to be one of my favorite Ren scenes in the entire series. Good LORD! She imagines how each scenario could play out in her head and I die laughing every time. Two brilliant ideas she comes up with are to walk right up to Bobby and say “Hey, Bobby. Nice belt!” or my personal favorite: “Hey, Bobby! Oh, I wouldn’t try that Salisbury steak if I were you!” The writing on this show is so incredibly random sometimes that it only ever results in greatness. Also “Nice belt!” is so disturbing. She says it in the most suggestive way too. Why are you staring at.. that... region, Ren?! Each ridiculous scenario ends with Bobby making the most irritated and confused face and completely ignoring her... because, I mean... would you know what to say to someone who walks up to you, creepily smiles, and tells you to avoid eating Salisbury steak with no further explanation?
I just realized that this show often depicts girls as being the first ones to make a move or initiate a relationship, which is kinda cool since we’re pretty much conditioned to sit around and wait.
After everything, Ren ultimately decides that marching up to him and saying “Hi, Bobby! I have a big crush on you and I just wanted to let you know how I feel!” is the best way to go.
It cuts to Louis’ room where he’s having that meeting with Tawny, Twitty, and Tom. Once again, we see Louis determined to find his "thing." That’s pretty much what the overall theme of the show originally set out to be. In addition to our lovely bickering siblings, of course. Here, he’s super optimistic that he’s finally found his “thing” in writing/directing. Sweetie!!! Your thing is comedy!! We all know this already!!!! But, still. I really enjoy the idea of Louis constantly searching for something to excel at. He explains to them that “Everyone has their thing. Twitty has his music! You’ve got your poetry! Tom’s got..... his... parents!” HAHA. Poor Tom.
Louis goes on to brief the gang on the plot of the movie which he describes as “the classic love story about an alien (Tawny) and a cowboy (Twitty).” An instant classic, honestly. Louis truly believes that they’ll “walk in as nobodies, and walk out as stars” after appearing in his movie. Well, everyone except Tom -- who he relegates to the role of his assistant.
”I see stars.”
It cuts straight to filming and boy do things really get going now. Louis has transformed part of the living room into a tinfoil explosion, which I’m assuming is supposed to be the inside of a spaceship. (see cover photo.) This episode is FULL of amazing dialogue and quotes from Louis. It’s insane! So, as usual, it’s going to be very difficult for me to not quote every single one. Twitty decided that his cowboy should have giant mutton chop sideburns and speak with an English accent without consulting Louis, Louis gets insulted because “that’s not in the script” -- which Twitty and Tawny haven’t even been given yet. Once they get their scripts, however, they’re confused as to why it’s only one page. Louis, being the informed and gifted director he thinks he is, condescendingly explains “We’re only shooting scene 27 today. We shoot out of order. It’s called filmmaking.” Except everyone knows that films shoot out of order due to the availability and scheduling of the sets/locations and actors, etc. Louis Stevens has only two actors at his indefinite disposal and seemingly one set location. He’s literally shooting out of order for no reason and is completely oblivious. It’s great.
Louis can’t be bothered with rehearsals, blocking, or any other necessary steps towards making a movie and jumps straight to filming. Tawny is unsure of what he wants her to do because “all that script said was ‘the spaceship lands and the alien looks around.’” Louis has no time for her valid confusion and snaps “THAT’S RIGHT. YOU’RE CONFUSED AND FRUSTRATED. DID YA READ IT?!?!” I love this so much. Louis starts recording and Tawny vents out of character/as herself: “This is ridiculous. I don’t know where I am! I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING!” and Louis praises her ‘performance.’ HAHAHAHAHAHA.
“GENIUS! THAT IS GENIUS! RIGHT ON THE MONEY, BABE! RIGHT ON THE MONEY!”
I’m not even sure how to review the next part of the episode because the performances truly speak for themselves and I gotta stop myself from typing out a transcript of the whole thing, lol. Basically, Louis goes into full meltdown mode. Freaking out over Tawny saying “Hi, Cowboy” instead of “Hello,” Twitty’s unauthorized addition of a gold tooth for his cowboy, and Ren interrupting a scene. “PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A DEMOCRACY. THIS IS A MOVIE. IT’S MY MOVIE. WHICH I WILL NOT LET YOU MESS UP!” He instructs Twitty and Tawny to meet him outside for a saloon scene. Except Louis doesn’t have saloon money:
Twitty: “Louis! What is this, man? Where’s the rest of the saloon?!” Louis: “CUT! Twitty, it’s a close-up. No one’s gonna see the saloon!! Let’s try it again. But this time, give me a little more.” Twitty: “More what?!” Louis: “JUST MORE!!!!!!”
-- Louis Stevens, everyone. The greatest director of our time. 10/10 would recommend.
We get possibly the greatest line in the whole episode when they start filming and a lawnmower revs up as soon as Louis shouts ‘action.’ He cannot believe the audacity of his neighbor and shouts “WHAT IS THAT? WHAT IS THE NOISE?! WHO MOWS THEIR LAWN ON WEDNESDAY?!?!?!” Things only get worse when the sprinklers randomly turn on too. At this point, Louis is #confirmed crazy.
“TOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I also love Louis’ little toilet paper roll that serves absolutely no real purpose.
The next day, they move on to filming the big finale scene where Zenobia the Alien takes off in her spaceship, leaving her cowboy lover behind. Louis originally intended for it to take place during a harsh winter blizzard and assigned Tom the responsibility of making convincing snowflakes. Tom shows up with this:
“TOM, YOU CHOWDERHEAD! I ASKED FOR SNOWFLAKES, NOT DOILIES!”
Louis has no choice but to ditch the blizzard and changes it to “a blazing desert windstorm in the middle of fall.” Okay. Zenobia’s spaceship is a tiny tinfoil thing way up in the trees and Tawny’s like “......how am I supposed to get up there?!” and Tom arrives with a “harness” that’s actually just a freaking elastic luggage rope as if that’s going to handle Tawny’s weight. But Louis assures her “of course it’s safe!!!” because he had Tom test it on a 20-pound sack of potatoes. Sounds legit.
Is he gonna add that “blazing desert windstorm” in post, or?
They start filming and sure enough, the “harness” breaks and Tawny falls a good 8 feet to the ground. Louis couldn’t care less though and the gang is D O N E with him at this point. They all quit the project on the spot, leaving Louis to finish the movie himself. Tom was the last one to quit and it’s pretty sad. Louis immediately looks to Tom as a last resort and expects him to step in and help finish the movie, but Tom flat out says “you’re only nice to me when you want something” and Louis has no remorse like “yeah, so?” -- This is the only part of the episode that kills me. But even so, you can tell that Louis is realizing the error of his ways pretty quickly.
Louis left sad and deserted. “I CAN FINISH THIS MOVIE BY MYSELF!!! .....It’s my ‘thing’.”
Unfortunately, finishing the movie himself includes having to play every role himself as well. Louis is confident that if he shoots at the right angle and disguises his face and voice, no one will be able to tell the difference: “It’s called Movie Magic.”
Ren: “I’m sorry, little three-eyed girl, but do you know where my brother is?”
It cuts back to the subplot. Remember how Ren wrote a hypothetical note to Bobby just to get her thoughts down? Well, she gave it to Ruby to read and Ruby proceeded to stuff it into Bobby’s history textbook without Ren’s permission. Great job, Ruby. Unsurprisingly, Ren is livid. I would be too. Ren is a mess during history class, sweating the moment when Bobby will take out his book. So she crawls on the ground and tries to sneakily retrieve the note from his backpack. This is pretty funny. Her teacher is the same hippie guy, Todd, and this time he’s making Ren’s class do stretches “for knowledge, focus, and concentration.” Once Ren is spotted on the ground lookin’ like a weirdo, she makes up some bogus excuse that she was “squatting for truth!” HAHAHA.
She’s unable to get the note back in time, but amazingly... the note isn’t even in Bobby’s book! Turns out Ivan and Bobby bumped into each other in the hallway earlier and accidentally swapped books in the process. Therefore, the note was delivered to Ivan. You guys know I love a good miscommunication plot. They never fail to make me laugh. Ivan dramatically approaches her later and says “Ren... It needs to end. The looks in the hall, love notes...” I really love Eric Jungmann’s performance here. He’s pretty hilarious and obliviously arrogant, thinking that Ren is in love with him. One thing I never understood was how Ivan could think the note was written for him though? Because I’m SURE Ren must’ve written Bobby’s name somewhere on there! Unless she was keeping it super mysterious for whatever reason. Anyway, Ivan says “Please, Ren. Don’t speak. I’m gonna walk away now. Try not to watch me.” I love it. That’s the end of the subplot. Much like in Surf’s Up, I wish this miscommunication plot had more layers!!
Ren just stares at him all ~fake-emotional~ and lets him believe what he wants to believe lol.
CUT TO THE FILM FESTIVAL!!! Which takes place at the real-life Vista Theatre in Los Angeles. (Another filming location I’ve added to my bucket list, tbh.) Louis is clearly anxious while waiting around for the festival to kick off and is kinda dreading the ~big premiere~ of his million-dollar movie. He’s sort of standing there rambling random things off to people like ‘have your people call my people!’ and at one point walks alongside a guy and says “yada, yada, yada... let’s just talk about somethin’!” -- Seinfeld reference, anyone?! Crazy to think that the “Yada Yada” episode first aired a mere 4 years before this at the time. I just thought that line was another awesome, subtle thing to throw in and makes for a cool connection to Louis’ Kramer poster. Of course, Louis Stevens would casually quote Seinfeld! I bet it was an ad-lib, honestly. Shia’s the best.
In the end, Twitty, Tawny, and Tom eventually show up in support of Louis and his movie. Louis apologizes for acting like a jerk and Tom even vows to put “the snowflake incident” behind them. It’s a nice moment before the premiere of what might be the best worst movie ever made, only in competition with Tommy Wiseau’s The Room.
Let’s just say, “Three Eyes Wide Shut” premiered to... mixed... reviews from the audience. It's very embarrassing. We never actually see the finished product. They only show us a few scenes, which always bummed me out. So I took it upon myself to edit together what “Three Eyes Wide Shut” might’ve turned out like given everything we saw Louis film. And it’s... something:
The intro alone kills me. You know a movie’s gonna be a doozy when the opening credits are typed in Comic Sans. Notice how at the very end Tom mispronounces his own name?! He definitely says “Tom Griblaowski.” Really weird.
Needless to say, Louis is absolutely mortified by how awful his movie was. He tries hiding by attempting to blend in with some cardboard cutouts in the lobby, but... you can kinda see him there.
Fun Fact: I was recently binge-watching “That’s So Raven” in preparation for the “Raven’s Home” spin-off, and I was so shocked to discover how many actors they recycled from Even Stevens. Beans, Cynthia Mills, The Asian radio announcer guy, the “Look Smart, Be Smart” instructional tape guy, Beans’ cousin Chris, Mr. Crappizi the school photographer -- the list goes on and on. And if that wasn’t enough... THEY EVEN RECYCLED THESE CARDBOARD CUT-OUTS!!!!!
I DIED LAUGHING AS SOON AS I SAW THIS. Oh my god. I obviously recognized it right away. All of this recycling makes sense though, as both shows were produced by Brookwell/McNamara. But, like... wow. Amazing. After the movie, Twitty and Tom try to make Louis feel better by telling him “You got into the festival, didn’t you?! And they only took the Top 10 entries!” Which would’ve been nice... except Louis explains “Everyone got accepted. There were only 9 entries.” HAHAHAHA. As Twitty and Tom head home, Tawny emerges from the theater and her mind is still reeling from the movie. She’s the only other person on the planet who understood the message Louis was trying to convey which is apparently “feeling like an outsider and wanting to be accepted by your peers.” Yeah, right.
I always thought it was a nice touch that Tawny wore a green shirt with eyes on it to the premiere of the movie. Definitely feels like a little tribute to Zenobia, lol.
This is really great though because it sets up Louis and Tawny again nicely. It further establishes that Tawny understands Louis better than anyone else. She got the point of his film when no one else did. She asks if they can watch it again and after they do, all we hear is a sultry voiceover of Tawny saying "I liked it even better the second time" - Oh, God. This always made me really uncomfortable lol. The episode ends with fake “bloopers” from the making of the movie and I can’t deal with it. Interestingly, I watched this episode on TV not too long ago and they cut out Tom's rapid-fire accented quote "Taco burrito, nacho's premio, $1.89 for a limited time, you know what I'm saying?" -- Is that considered offensive or racially insensitive now? I’m assuming. I have no idea but, I thought that was weird and suspicious.
And that’s it!
I love this episode. So, so much. There’s an aspect to it that is very ahead of its time. Like I mentioned, quality quotes are flying left and right in this one! The humor is ON POINT and the performances are stellar. Especially from Shia! I always say that this is one of the episodes where Louis is at his most ‘Michael Scott.’ There’s just this level of hilariously endearing narcissism that Michael exudes all throughout The Office’s run mixed with that signature dry humor and I get those vibes from Louis so strongly here. It makes me SO HAPPY. I mean, yeah, I usually don’t like it when Louis’ ugly side makes an appearance, but it’s beyond tolerable for me in this one because the plot is just so hysterical. As entertaining as Michael’s narcissism was, it also got him in a lot of trouble as well. Often resulting in very cringe-worthy moments or people resenting him, which we see happen to Louis here. Idk. I just love finding similarities between my favorite shows. This episode also reminds me of when Michael wrote and directed his own terrible movie “Threat Level Midnight.” HAHA.
I love Ren’s side story, too. It’s one of her stronger/funnier ones for sure. The miscommunication always gets me and the plot is also pretty important because we’re introduced to Bobby and Ruby! I’m ranking this one juuuuust shy of the Top 5 due to it having two separate plots. My Top 5 are all episodes that interweave A and B plots because I feel like Even Stevens just works better that way in general. But, still. That doesn’t take away from how solid this episode is. It literally meets all of my criteria: Personal favorite, quality plotline, quotable dialogue, hilarity, iconicness, overall entertainment value, and there’s even some character development too! So good.
Thanks for reading!!
Just so y’all know, I actually managed to get “Three Eyes Wide Shut” listed as a legitimate short film on IMDb. I am not kidding. Please feel free to leave a sarcastic review. It’s currently boasting a 6.0. LOL!
For this episode’s Redbubble design, you can get a reproduction of the Three Eyes Wide Shut theatrical poster!! Omg. This is one of the first things I designed and it’s been sitting in my Redbubble drafts for months. I’m so excited to publish it! haha. The poster can be seen on Louis’ bedroom wall throughout the series! I also made a little “A Louis Stevens Production” design (Comic Sans and poor capitalization and all) with Louis as the MGM Lion, lol.
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