We're halfway to Halloween, Mom Can't Cook fans, so what better way to celebrate than with a spooky DCOM! This week it's 2002's The Scream Team, which is, confusingly, about a group of ghosts called The Soul Patrol. It's also about Ian and Claire, two kids whose grandfather passes away, but unfortunately gets his soul crushed in the fist of an evil dead inventor called Zachariah Kull. And also about an insulting Halloween festival that Zachariah Kull is annoyed about? But also mostly about...

Miracle in Lane 2 tells the inspirational story of Justin Yoder, the first person with a disability to compete in the All American Soapbox Derby, and also presumably the first person to sit in a Disney screening room watching a movie about his life that inexplicably features loads of scenes of his parents going to town on each other. Frankie Muniz plays Justin, a plucky kid searching for a sport in which he can compete at the same level as his athletic brother Seth (So Weird's Patrick...

The iconic good-vibes surfin', boardin' legend from Johnny Tsunami (1999) makes a glorious return to the Disney Channel in 'Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board' (2007)! Johnny returns to O‘ahu, Hawaii for his grandfather's wedding, but finds the island paradise under the cruel yoke of a gang of mountainboarding teens! Can Johnny save his increasingly large family from the poisonous influence of these bad dudes and their strikingly terrible extreme sport? Why won't his tiny uncle stop slipping...

Apes. What are they all about? Can we trust them? Are they going to go ballistic and destroy our houses? If only there were some way we could ask them. Well friends, there is: sign language, the communication method that can be learned by apes. Unfortunately the ape in this movie, Jennie, isn't really interested in learning sign language, and is more interested in ape carnage and killing the mailman. Will Jennie be able to adjust to living with a human family? How quickly is she going to...

Jace Newfield is a New Yorker through and through. He loves jazz music, playing baseball in Central Park and, of course, the great taste of an egg cream. He's also a person who is blind, although in a place like the Big Apple, he lives a normal life with his friends. But when his family uproots and moves Jace to Utah, he finds himself struggling with his new surroundings. The school won't get a beeping backboard to allow him to play basketball, his music teacher hates him, and his classmates...

We all feel like we don't belong on this planet now and then, but very few of us choose to construct an intergalactic satellite communications dish in our backyard to beg aliens to come and pick us up, and even fewer of us have those calls answered by a talking dog with a necklace made of lips. Not so Mike Pillsbury, an awkward computer genius who decides to depart planet Earth when some bullies set fire to his skeleton roundabout (it's a long story). Mike soon gets more than he bargained...

Imagine, if you will, some cooking. Seems pretty normal, right? Well get this: it was done by a BOY. Sorry to shock you with such a mind shattering scenario, listeners, but you'll need to be thusly prepared for this week's episode which is about Eddie's Million Dollar Cook-Off, a movie in which baseball-loving teen Eddie Ogden discovers a passion for the culinary arts that is as charming as it is devastating to his personal and academic life. Will Eddie be able to overcome the violent...

Welcome back, podcast fans, to Mom Can't Cook! This week we're recapping 2006's Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, a film that attempts to be a martial arts movie, a high school drama, a wacky fish out of water comedy and a thoughtful examination of the pressures affecting first and second generation immigrants. Does it succeed? Kind of! DCOM royalty Brenda Song plays Wendy Wu, a feisty teen whose only goal in life is to be crowned homecoming queen at the prom, a plan that is thrown into jeopardy...

Happy Holidays, Mom Can't Cook listeners! We got you this episode, about a film in which Melissa Joan Hart falls in love with a sexual nutcracker. MJH plays Kate Holiday, an overworked baker who has to make 15,000 cookies for the army for some reason. But when she receives a magic nutcracker that turns into a man for some reason, it rekindles her love for Christmas for some reason. Enjoy, and we'll see you again on January the 22nd, or earlier if you head to our Patreon at...

It's the holiday season folks, so this week we're cracking into a seasonal DCOM: the impossibly festive sounding The Ultimate Christmas Present (2000). The movie tells the story of Allie and Sam, two teenage girls who steal Santa's weather machine, which you'll notice, isn't a thing Santa is known for having. If he were known for having a weather machine, said machine probably wouldn't have an earthquake button either, but while we're here imagining things, we may as imagine a better movie. ...

Continuing the grand DCOM tradition of trying to get you to care about niche sports, this week's episode is about Right on Track (2003), which takes us deep into the highly competitive world of *checks notes* junior drag racing. Here we meet Erica Enders and her sister Courtney, junior dragster prodigies who struggle to be taken seriously because of a) the sexist attitudes of those in charge of this male dominated sport, and b) the fact that the sport itself is driving really fast in a...

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is a Disney ride in which you get in an elevator that flings you up and down for about a minute. As you can probably tell from that description, it's rich with narrative potential, which is why we have 1997's Tower of Terror movie starring Steve Guttenberg and Kirsten Dunst, the movie we're talking about today. Guttenberg plays the improbably named Buzzy Crocker, a fraudulent journalist who is presented with the opportunity of a lifetime: head to the...

If you didn't watch 1999's Don't Look Under the Bed when it first came out, then let us introduce you to that rarest of things: a good DCOM! If you did watch it when it first came out then you won't need reminding, as this film is absolutely terrifying and you've doubtless seen it every time you close your eyes for the last 24 years. The film tells the story of Frances Bacon McCausland, a gifted teen who starts to be blamed for mysterious, mischievous happenings all over town. At first she...

Ah, October. Jack-o'-lanterns on every stoop, crisp leaves upon the ground, and a new Halloweentown movie to stare at in baffled wonder as Marnie condescends to every single person she meets and then goes time travelling. Yes friends, it's time for Halloweentown II: Kalabar's Revenge (2001), a sequel which picks up where the first movie left off, but introduces a new threat to peace in both the creature and the human realms: some guy in a turtleneck. Will Marnie and her grandmother be able...

17 year old Pete Riley thinks he has it pretty tough. He's the assistant manager of a huge cinema, there's a big Hollywood premiere happening tonight, and he's friends with like, 37 named characters that this film expects us to keep track of. An impossible task for a movie audience, let alone one stressed boy. But buckle up folks, because Pete's evening is about to get a whole lot weirder as a mysterious phantom starts stalking his megaplex, messing with the screenings, terrorising the...

Do you ever wish horses could speak to you? Perhaps in the voice of outrageous funnyman Sinbad? Then what you need, friend, is la confianza de caballos, otherwise known as the confidence of horses. When 14 year old wannabe jockey Corrie gains this incredible gift, as well as her own racehorse, the self-doubting stallion Thunderjam, her whole world is turned upside down. But will Corrie and Thunderjam be able to weather the storms of a disapproving mother, an evil rival horse owner, and a...

This week on Mom Can't Cook, Luke and Andy delve into a most perplexing mystery: just what the hell is going on in the 2002 Disney Channel Original Movie Get a Clue. The film stars Lindsay Lohan as Lexy Gold, an aspiring journalist whose scoop on a secret relationship between her teachers kicks off a twisty, intriguing mystery that lasts a good 45 minutes before it completely falls apart into Scooby Doo-style farce. Which honestly, is pretty good going! You'll get it next time, Disney...

When we last saw Zenon Kar, star of Disney Channel Original Movie Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century, she'd become a hero after saving her space station from a baffling plot that was something to do with insurance fraud, I think. But now Zenon is back for Zenon: The Zequel (2001), and facing a new threat to her home, as well as the possibility of alien life who are really into rockstar Proto Zoa. Will Zenon save her home, again? What do the aliens want with the lead singer of Microbe? And why...

Ten hut, maggots, this week Mom Can't Cook! is off to military academy, with all the discipline, uniformity and wild, flamboyant gun twirling that that entails. That's because we're talking about Cadet Kelly (2002), a film in which feisty, artistic teen Kelly Collins (Hillary Duff) is forced to attend military school after her new stepdad is made Commandant. Along the way she'll face tough commanding officers, struggle to maintain her individuality, and for some reason, become extremely good...

Peel your ears and get hip to this, daddy-os, Mom Can't Cook! is making the scene with a flick that is as confusingly 1950s as this sentence. That's right, it's Alley Cats Strike, a film about an unpleasant group of 1950s obsessed, bowling-loving outcasts who are suddenly thrust into the limelight when they find themselves as the town's last hope to win a prestigious, apple-themed sporting tournament. Can they act non 1950s long enough to carry the town to glory? Will a normal person be able...

What if a huge pop star accidentally swapped phones with a teenage fan? Seems like the sort of thing his PA would fix in about 15 minutes, right? Well not in Stuck in the Suburbs (2004), because you wouldn't believe how long it takes to sort out or how many low speed bicycle chases are involved. The phone in question belongs to pop sensation Jordan Cahill, and ends up in the possession of Brittany Aarons, a Jordan superfan and aspiring musician who is thrilled to have a connection to her...

Buckle up, DCOM fans, because this week we present a crossover event easily as momentous as Avengers Endgame: all three Lawrence brothers in a single movie! That movie is Jumping Ship, a canonical sequel to Horse Sense, which you'll remember was a story about a spoiled rich kid learning about honest down home folks who keep it real by owning horses and operating enormous ranches. What might surprise you is that this film contains almost no horses, and is instead a story about ancient temples...

Introducing Mom Can't Cook! Extra Helpings, a fortnightly series of bonus episodes of Mom Can't Cook! A DCOM Podcast, exclusively for members. Go to Patreon.com/extrahelpings to sign up! Luke and Andy are here to tell you all about it, and play you the first 10 minutes of the debut Extra Helpings episode. When you join you'll get access to the Extra Helpings podcast feed in your app of choice, and be swept away on an audio tide of hilarity, as Andy and Luke recap episodes of 'So Weird', the...

It can be challenging when parents decide to remarry, and if your Dad is a sentient bubble of pink gas in political exile (?!) from the planet Zircalon, well it probably doesn't help matters. Welcome to Stepsister From Planet Weird (2000), in which Andy and Luke find themselves at the base of podcasting Everest -- tasked with recapping what is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most bizarre DCOM they've faced to date. Expect unhinged aliens, extreme sports and a narrative structure that would...