Louis is dreading his father's law firm's family picnic because Steve Stevens is determined his family will win the picnic's decathelon for the third year in a row. Loius tries to get out of it but the family legacy is just too strong. Louis doesn't prove to be much of a competitor, but the family is locked in a close race with the Austrailian family the Dandridges. Donny injures himself in an event, so Louis must participate in the deciding contest, the father-son kayak race. Seeing how much it means to his father to win and how much faith he's put in his youngest child, Louis ensures he'll win his leg of the race by drilling a hole in Quincy Dandridge's boat. After the family's victory, Louis is haunted by guilty feelings. At the dinner table the family all tell of some big accomplishment they made that day, then Louis reveals he cheated in the race. Ashamedly, Donnie, Ren and Eileen all admit they cut corners that day. Mr. Stevens feels as though it's his fault for driving the famil

Family Picnic

Christy Carlson Romano

Shia LaBeouf

Nick Spano

Tom Virtue

Donna Pescow

Mark Rosman

Matt Dearborn

Scrub Day

Foodzilla

The Stevens are a middle-class family living in Sacramento, CA. Husband and father Steve is a successful attorney. Wife and mother Eileen is a state Senator. Their oldest child Donnie ia a high-school sports legend. Ren, an 8th-grader, is just about the perfect daughter. She makes the best grades, she's popular, she does volunteer work and other extracurricular tasks by the score. Her brother Louis, in the 7th grade, is her opposite. He likes to sleep late, he's messy, his grades are not good, he's frequently in detention and he seems to take nothing seriously. But he is serious about finding something of his own that he can do to put himself on a par with the rest of his overachieving family. Though he and Ren occasionally soften their attitudes toward each other, at any given moment the're likely to be fighting like mongoose and cobra.

In this episode, Louis finds a valuable ""Roaring Drycon"" card for sale online. He asks the price and finds out that the seller wants a date with his s

Swap.com

Coach Tugnut is looking for a replacement on the track team and he gives a tryout to Louis, the younger brother of the legendary Donnie Stevens, who the coach reveres. Team member Larry Beale sees an opportunity to destroy the Stevens legacy at Lawrence Junior High and finally defeat his nemeses. At the tryout Larry makes it look like Louis' time is best, and he makes the team. In practice Larry holds back against Louis, making Louis think that he's a great runner. Ren, who is assigned to cover the track meet for the school paper, figures out what's up. She tries to tell Louis but he's sure that Ren is just jealous because he's finally found something he's successful at. Ren warns Larry not to mess with ""Stevens genes;"" he'll lose every time.

During the race, Larry gets tangled up with an opponent and falls down. Louis goes back to help Larry, who jumps up and speeds off to win the race. Louis sticks with the injured opponent and the crowd cheers them instead of the winner Larry. Ren w

Stevens Genes

Louis wants to enter the school talent show and do his comedy routine but he waits too long and misses the entry deadline. He tries to get Ren to let him share her spot in the show with him, but she has no sympathy. At dinner Louis gets his parents to pressure Ren into doing an act with him, much to her annoyance. They do Louis' act in rehearsal and it gets a lot of laughs. Larry Beale sees this and doesn't like it. He tells Ren that she's just being her brother's flunky in the act and that he keeps all the good lines for himself. Falling into Larry's trap, Ren gets mad at Louis and quits the act. When the talent show comes around, Larry and his partner Ivan go onstage before Louis and steal his act. Louis is crushed now that he won't get to do the one thing he felt he was really good at. Ren takes pity on him and at the last minute they come up with a comic opera routine that wins the brother and sister first prize.

Take My Sister... Please

Ren is overjoyed that June Marie is going to be her ""pre-high school mentor."" She excitedly sings her praises to everyone in the family, but Louis is only interested in finding his missing tape of a favorite Saturday Night Live episode. He gets some surveilance equipment from Tom and begins spying on family members to find out who taped over his show. While doing this he finds out that June Marie is only using Ren in an effort to make a play for their brother Donnie. Louis tells Ren but of course she doesn't believe him.

What'll Idol Do?

Best friends Ren and Charlotte are having a great time decorating the gym for a dance, but things change when Charlotte's old friend Yvette shows up and Ren starts to feel left out as Charlotte seems to pick up right where she left off with Yvette. Even Ren's mom likes the new girl. The situation isn't helped when Yvette accidentally knocks Ren off a ladder while they are working in the gym, sending her flying through a huge hanging banner. Ren becomes so irritated that she breaks off her friendship with Charlotte. Mom tries to convince her, though, that it's possible to have more than one best friend, something Ren doesn't think is true. At the dance, Ren and Yvette run into each other in the bathroom, and to Ren's surprise, Yvette confesses that she has felt like the odd person out with Charlotte since she came to Sacremento. All three girls make their peace.

Meanwhile, Louis tries to convince his mother that he is mature enough to babysit for Twitty's little brother, along with some

All About Yvette

In the cafeteria one day Louis saves the school's sort-of celebrity Blake Thompson (who's made a couple of TV commercials) from choking. Blake is grateful and takes a liking to Louis, inviting him to join his ""in"" crowd. Louis takes to his new status right away, putting a strain on his old friendships with Twitty and Tawny. But as soon as Blake sees that Louis is gaining some popularity himself, he drops him like a hot potato. The result is that Louis is out of favor with both his new friends and the old ones, too. Tawny comes up with a ""life-saving"" scheme, though.

Meanwhile, Ren is being given a hard time in her job as school policy monitor by Larry Beale, who heckles her when she speaks at lunch and fills her suggestion box with not-so-nice suggestions. Ren feels like she's ""lost her mojo"" when it comes to handling Larry and is going to quit her policy monitor position, but she gets some encouragement from Louis--and unexpectedly, from Larry, too.

Louis in the Middle

Louis wants badly to be on the TV-news magazine Ren is producing at the school, the ""Wombat Report."" Somehow he convinces her that he will do a serious piece, a profile of one of the cafeteria ladies. When the show airs live, Louis ambushes the woman and does a mocking interview with her that turns into a free-for-all with food flying everywhere. Ren is in a rage at Louis until she finds out how popular the segment was. The next day everyone is laughing at the cafeteria lady and calling her ""Foodzilla,"" the nickname Louis gave her. Embarrassed, she flees the cafeteria and quits her job. Back at home, Mrs. Stevens finds out what happens and tells Louis and Ren to go apologize. Arriving at the lady's home, they talk to her and find out she's an interesting woman named Elsa Schotz who emigrated to America and is a professional yodeler. They give her a makeover and promise to show another report about her at school. But by the time the second show airs, Ms. Schotz has run off to Las Vegas

The 7th graders are terrorized by the approaching of ""Scrub Day,"" the day when the upperclassmen are supposedly allowed to do terrible things to them. Louis is desperate to find a way out of it, but Ren and Donnie offer him no help. Louis organizes the ""United Scrubs of America"" to stand up to Larry Beale, their chief tormenter. Larry thwarts them by saying that this year they will only concentrate on one scrub--Louis. Louis turns around to find that all his supporters have deserted him. On Scrub Day the patrol is out in full force seeking Louis, but he proves to be elusive for them. Finally they catch him, when who should show up but big brother Donnie. But instead of rescuing Louis, Donnie arrives dressed like Gandhi! (He's appearing in the Living History Pageant.) Donnie has taken Gandhi's philosophy to heart and advises Louis not to fight back, then he gets a page and leaves. Beale and company take their prisoner to the cafeteria where they dump him in a vat of sloppy joe. Remember

Ren is an organizer of the ""Beacon of Help"" fund-raiser, where people will work, walk, skateboard, etc. for pledges of money. Louis wants to find something suited to his talents which also might impress Tawny. He decides to ""doze for dollars"" and is scheduled to spend 48 hours in a bed in a department store window. He soon draws a crowd and news media, who dub him the ""amazing boy."" Ren is irritated that she does the hard work and Louis gets the attention. But Louis' fame proves fleeting when he's upstaged by a skateboarding dog. He also can't go to the ""Fun-tasia"" festival where Tawny is spending the day with Zack Estrada. Loius calls Tawny on the phone and admits he should have washed cars with her and Twitty instead of being selfish, but she can't hear him. Louis wants to leave the window early, but his malfunctioning bed threatens to swallow him up. Tawny realizes that Louis is more interesting than Zack, and she comes to visit him.

Easy Way

Mrs. Stevens wants Ren to take an internship with a city councilman. Ren's schedule is already overloaded, but she says yes to please her mother. Louis finds clues that lead him to believe that Ren is up to something secret. When he finds out another girl got the internship that Ren told their mother she'd gotten, he begins spying on her. He follows her to Tokyo Rick's restaurant, where he's surprised to see Ren singing onstage under the name ""Isis."" Louis torments Ren by doing things like putting up posters all over school advertising her appearance at the restaurant. He also persuades his parents to go to Tokyo Rick's. Ren gets mad at him and calls him a ""nothing boy."" She apologizes and confesses that she's been singing to release some of the pressure from all her other duties. Louis now wants to stop his parents from going to the restaurant, but they've already left. He catches them there and tries to distract them, but they see Ren. After some explaining, the four of them end up o

Secrets and Spies

Ren is lobbying to get her own telephone. Her parents say she can have it if she keeps from insulting Louis for a week. At school, sleazy salesman Mr. Wallace promotes the 7th grade chocolate sale, offering a state-of-the-art motor scooter as a prize for the most sales. Louis catches scooter fever and makes plans with Twitty to sell 400 boxes of chocolate. By mistake Louis and Twitty both order 400 boxes, and Mr. Wallace tells them they're financially responsible for all of them. Twitty and Louis fight about who's to blame and break up their partnership.

The next day Louis gets up early to start selling the chocolate, but his sales technique is lousy compared to Twitty, who even sold Mrs. Stevens six bars. Back at home Donny has used so much hot water in the shower that all the stored chocolate in the garage has melted and is sliding down the driveway. Mr. Stevens slips and falls in it, as does Wallace when he comes by demanding payment. Mr. Stevens tells him off and threatens to sue

Deep Chocolate (aka Chocolate Wars)

Louis makes Ren late for school on the Friday when she's supposed to set up her display for Lawrence Junior High's 75th anniversary. She assures Principal Wexler she'll have it done in time for Monday. While Wexler is going out of town, Coach Tugnut, about number 6 in line, is put in charge of the school. In gym class a girl Ren hardly knows named Chloe spends too much time talking to her and Coach gives both of them detention! Ren feals uneasy in the strange world of detention, run by a sleeping teacher and full of the school's misfits. The king of detention turns out to be none other than her brother Louis, who runs a gambling operation featuring racing hamsters. Tugnut shows up. Everything is hidden from him but he questions Ren. She doesn't rat out Louis, which gains her some respect in his eyes.

Ren needs to work on her display before Monday but doesn't know how she could possibly do that. Louis offers to help her by breaking into the school after hours. When they arrive there Ren

After Hours

Louis is managing Twitty's band. They've got a chance for a gig at a big party thrown by Jason Bagwell, so they are auditioning for a lead singer. Ren hates the band until she gets a look at Jason, then she decides she wants to be the singer in order to go to the party. Louis says no way, but the band likes her much better than the parade of freaks they've been auditioning. Fearing Ren will take over, Louis puts Ren's membership to a vote. The band all vote for Ren and against Louis. Frustrated, Louis gets Tom to program a few instuments and he forms a rival techno band featuring the bizarre poetry of Tawny. Both bands audition before Jason. He rejects them both, but proves himself to be such a jerk that no one wants to get the job anyway. The two groups form a ""super band"" and play their own big gig--at a kids' birthday party.

Battle of the Bands

Ren is surprised by Louis, who she finds in her closet looking for Hanukkah presents. In the process he messes up her room and breaks Donnie's trophy's trying to run away from her. Keeping up his search, Louis finds the presents in the basement. Upstairs, Ren asks her mom to tell the Hanukkah story again (Eileen's side of the family is Jewish.) Louis hears his dad coming upstairs to get him, so he hastily wraps the presents in a blanket and dangles them outside his window. The presents all go crashing to the driveway. When the family sees what happens, Louis is in trouble with them all. Feeling sorry for himself later, Louis wishes out loud that he hadn't been born into this family where he doesn't fit in.

Suddenly in great flashes of light an old woman appears to Louis. It's the spirit of his great-great-great-great grandmother Bubbie Rose. She's heard Louis complaining and is ready to take him on a trip to see what would have happened if he hadn't been born. They travel to the Steven

Heck of a Hanukkah

Coach Tugnut need a wrestler in Louis' weight class, and always looking for something to excel at, Louis tries out for the team. He does very well in the practices, but he's horrified to learn his first opponent will be the dreaded Mimi Nagurski! Knowing that wrestling a girl is a lose-lose situation for him, Louis tries to quickly gain enough weight to make himself ineligible. When that doesn't work he shows up at the match in a silly costume callling himself ""Luscious Lou,"" bragging about how he's the wrestler who uses love insted of force. He tries to get the crowd behind him but they don't buy it, so he has to go ahead and wrestle Nagurski. Also, Ren tries to get back at Louis with practical jokes of her own, but they end up backfiring on Donnie instead.

Luscious Lou

Louis tries to butter up his father so he'll buy him a used Sludgee machine from the convenience store, but Mr. Stevens has three words for him: get a job. Ren is a volunteer career counselor at school and she gets Louis three different jobs, including one in ""journalism"" (a paper route), but he blows all three. Finally Louis comes up with his own brainstorm, a dogsitting service. Louis fills the house with canines who run wild and drive Ren to distraction, but when he comes up one dog short at the end of the day, she rescues him by finding ""Poopsie."" Also, Donnie and Mr. Stevens get out the big old birdhouse they never finished. But when they start working together, they realize why they left it incomplete. Father and son don't get back on good terms until they take a couple of hammers to the project.

Get a Job

Louis plans to make an entry in a local young people's film festival. He recruits Tawny and Twitty for his cast and Tom for his crew and they begin making his extremely low-budget space alien love story. Louis proves to be a fanatical and dictatorial film director, and after Tawny almost gets hurt on a cheesy special-effect shot, his cast and crew quit en masse. Louis finishes the film alone and shows ""Three Eyes Wide Shut"" at the film festival, where it plays to great laughter from the audience, especially in the scene where Louis has his arms wrapped around himslf pretending to be two people kissing. Louis is humiliated, but Tawny at least will stand by him after the film's showing.

Also, Ren is ready to tell Bobby Deaver that she's interested in him, much to the delight of school gossip-monger Ruby. Ren practices her lines she's going to use on Bobby, then writes them out. Ruby mistakenly gives the note to Bobby. Ren is frantic to get the note back, but it turns out that, rather tha

Movie Madness

Ren and Louis are both looking forward to Zack Estrada's party with anticipation and nervousness. Ren has told her friend Ruby that she's planning to make her move on Bobby Deaver at the party. Louis decides to go when Tawny and Twitty say they're going, but he's afraid because he can't dance. He goes to Betty London's dance studio but all she teaches him are the rhumba, cha-cha, etc.—dances that he doesn't think will impress Tawny. Ren is mortified when she hears Louis will be at the same party as her and Bobby. She stipulates all sorts of no-contact rules for Louis to follow. At the party, Louis is too shy to ask Tawny to dance. Ren's attempts to hook up with Bobby meet with disaster. First her hair gets caught in a houseplant, then her foot gets stuck in the toilet. Louis is amused with his sister's plight at first, but he senses that Bobby is as important to her as Tawny is to him. To help her out, he creates a distraction by doing the tango with Mrs. Estrada, which impresses Tawn

Strictly Ballroom

Ren Stevens looks like a shoo-in for "Student of the Semester" and among her biggest supporters are Principal Wexler and two admiring young cub reporters, Carla and Marla, who are writing about her for the school paper. But the unthinkable could happen: in Mr. Rupert's wood shop class Ren may get a "C" on her final project. Louis helps her to cope with the possibility that she may have to accept less than perfection.

Meanwhile, Louis' locker has become a mess, and it's not all his fault this time, as a broken steam pipe is creating new life-forms in the muck. Principal Wexler gives him a dusty old janitor's closet as a temporary space, and Louis uses it to create "Casa de Fiesta", a spot which becomes as popular as Studio 54 among the students.

Almost Perfect

Ren and Louis are at the carnival on a Ferris wheel when the ride gets stuck with them at the top. As the two argue, a repairwoman comes climbing up to their bucket and serves as a moderator for their argument. In flashback we see Louis' first days at junior high and how he embarrasses Ren. We also see the early rivalry between Ren and Larry Beale plus Louis' first flirtations with Tawny.

A Weak First Week (aka Pilot)

The Stevens are a middle-class family living in Sacramento, CA. Husband and father Steve is a successful attorney. Wife and mother Eileen is a state Senator. Their oldest child Donnie ia a high-school sports legend. Ren, an 8th-grader, is just about the perfect daughter. She makes the best grades, she's popular, she does volunteer work and other extracurricular tasks by the score. Her brother Louis, in the 7th grade, is her opposite. He likes to sleep late, he's messy, his grades are not good, he's frequently in detention and he seems to take nothing seriously. But he is serious about finding something of his own that he can do to put himself on a par with the rest of his overachieving family. Though he and Ren occasionally soften their attitudes toward each other, at any given moment the're likely to be fighting like mongoose and cobra.

Family Picnic

Seasons3

Season 1 Episodes21

Cast5

Crew2

Discussion

Episode Summary