The Big Splash

The Big Spalsh is the fifteenth episode of the third season of the Disney Channel original sitcom Even Stevens. It was written by Matt Dearborn, directed by Paul Germain, and aired on September 9, 2002.

Plot
Louis asks Tawny, Twitty and Tom to wait and meet in the gym. To their great surprise, they find out that he's a member of the school's diving team! But when Louis does his first dive in competition, it's a ragged cannonball that splashes about half the water out of the pool, and though Coach Tugnut isn't amused by this(especially since he ends up getting spalshed), the rest of the crowd loves him for it. Meanwhile, Ruby has the inside track on who is going to win in the class favorites voting. Ren is set to sweep the big awards, but finds that in the "Best Smile" category, she has stiff competition from another girl named Kelly Kerwin(April Gilbert). Ren starts to make elaborate efforts to beat her. When Louis comes home late, he doesn't want to tell his parents where he's been, but Ren spils the beans about him being on the diving team. Steve and Eileen are delighted at this news. Later that night, she works on her smile, and the next day at school she and Kelly are involved in a spaghetti-western-style "smile-down."

At Louis' next diving meet, his dad brings along his boss Mr. Kupchek to see his son. But Louis does his same big-splash dive, that the crowd thinks is funny. Kupchek gets drenched like everyone else, and Steve's chance of a promotion are suddenly diminished. Later at home Steve tells Louis how proud he was of him for making the team, but how disappointed that he didn't take it seriously. He tells his son that everything in life can't be a joke all the time. Louis takes what his dad says to heart and imagines himself at his 10-year junior high reunion, still acting like the class clown, only now he's just an embarrassment to his former friends.



At school, Kelly tells Ren that she's tired of the competition and is through with it. The only trouble is, Ren can't stop smiling because her facial muscles have locked up! To make matters worse, she's supposed to sing the school song before the diving match and has no time to let her face unfreeze. Ruby puts heavy makeup on Ren and gives her a new hairstyle to distract from the constant smiling, but she tells Ren to take a short cut through the steam room to get there. When she emerges before the crowd at the match, which again includes Steve and Mr. Kupcheck(who's six year old son begged to be taken there), her makeup is smeared and her hair is standing on end, making her, not Louis, look like the clown. Louis, for his part, takes his diving seriously this time and does it straight. This disappoints the crowd, but his dad, who has unexpectedly shown up to support his son, is proud of Louis, even though he accidentally lost his bathing suit during the dive!