Age Old Debate Continues - Basement or Roof? - in Latest "Kiff" on Disney Channel

The second episode of the second season of Kiff allows us to see the worst movie imaginable, along with the ongoing debate over which is most important to a home - the roof or the basement?

The Other Movie

Who loves a recurring character? We do! And this time, we’re heading back to the Table Town movie theater and visiting Nick Nàmé. Kiff, Barry, and Trevor are heading to see a movie but they can’t decide which. “Chugga Roo" or “Melons for Sale." The kids finally decide on “Melons for Sale" and head to Nick, who is ready to take their tickets and Trevor (AKA Straight Edge)’s cell phone. This isn’t a requirement, but a favor that Nick does for Trevor to protect him from his intrusive thoughts to illegally bootleg the film and record it on his phone. That’s something Nick respects, and as the manager of the theater, he is itching to dish out a lifetime ban.

The kids head into the theater, where they quickly regret their decision to see this movie - AND - it’s in Black and White. Since the movie is basically the same dialogue - “Melons for Sale" - the kids quickly reach their breaking point and decide to sneak into the other film, “Chugga Roo." This movie is substantially more popular, so as soon as they get into the theater they have to protect their seats, which will be hard considering that Trevor has to use the restroom. As long as he is fast, saving his seat shouldn’t be a problem, so long as he doesn’t try and leave the theater and find himself trapped in a service hallway or anything. Oh wait, that’s exactly what happens.

In the theater itself, Kiff and Barry are realizing the error of their ways by sneaking into this theater as the seats are quickly filling up. Surely, if this movie is sold out, then there will be three too many people looking for an extra seat. Their goose is cooked for sure.

Inside the service hallway, Trevor is writing notes for someone to come open the door to no avail, and fighting another intrusive thought he is having - going out the nearby emergency exit and triggering the theater-wide alarm.

After getting kicked down to the front row where there are three open seats, Kiff sends Trevor a text - forgetting that Nick has his phone - saying that they moved seats in the theater that they snuck into.

After the last legal seat occupant comes in and raises a fuss that he has nowhere to sit, security shows up to check everyone’s ticket. Kiff and Barry begin to panic, but if they leave now, it will be very obvious that they were the ones who snuck in and be publicly shamed by a theater full of judgemental audience members.

Just as security gets to them and after some amazing ticket stub stunt work to avoid the guard actually looking at the ticket, Trevor finally cracks and leaves the hallway through the emergency exit, triggering the alarms, activating the fire sprinklers, and causing the theater to evacuate.

As the kids leave, thinking of how close that was, Nick is standing there waiting with Trevor’s phone. Reading the texts from Kiff, he knows they snuck out of “Melons for Sale" and caused all the mayhem - however, instead of dishing out that lifetime ban, he doesn’t understand how they didn’t leave “Melons for Sale" even sooner, considering how bad of a movie it is. As such, he lets them have their own private screening of “Chugga Roo."

Roy-Alty Check

Hey, remember last season? Kiff made a movie that swept all the awards and became a huge success while she was trying to make a great blooper reel. Roy Fox, her producer, sure does, and he stops by the Chatterly residence to drop off Kiff’s royalty check for the movie.

Upon looking at it, Kiff exclaims “10,000 Smackers!" in front of her parents who are watching. Realizing this is a lot of money, they suggest that Kiff does something good for the house with it - even though they tell their daughter it is in fact, her check and she can do whatever she wants with the money.

That said, Kiff does want to help her parents and is open to ideas - with Martin suggesting repairs to the basement and Beryl suggesting repairs to the roof. This becomes a bit of a feisty argument and Kiff tells them to present their best case and whoever has the better presentation will get the check.

Martin runs off to make an elaborate presentation, likely because he knows that Beryl will make a substantially better one, and comes back out to discover that she has taken their daughter out to a lavish brunch, obviously in the hopes of swaying her to give up the check to fix the roof.

The brunch is full of expensive treats and dishes, and when Beryl steps away for a moment to top off her plate, Martin shows up and takes his daughter out to the circus that has arrived in town. While there, he explains the clown car, and how a number of clowns are in the basement of the circus, coming up through the ground into the car, making it a very important place. Kiff understands and even says that she is now leaning toward team basement. That’s ahead of Beryl making a surprise appearance at the top of the trapeze, explaining how important a roof is as part of the big top. Now, Kiff is leaning toward team roof. As this happens, Martin realizes she needs to be stopped and heads home to show how frail the basement is as he starts to destroy it further. Beryl comes home and does the same to the roof. Kiff tells them both to stop and to take the money, but again her parents say that it is HER money, and once again suggest spending the nuts on either the roof or the basement. When Kiff suggests that she likes to persuade people with a song - and that’s when a fantastic baseline appears and we get the second song of the season so far that will get stuck in your head and have you yourself debating roof or basement.

The song follows Kiff all the way to her classroom, where it erupts again getting the whole class involved before Kiff finally breaks down and screams at her family, telling her to each take half of the money in the check. Something she probably should have done from the jump.

As she hands over the check, it turns out that the check is only for 26 nuts - 13 each. Brunch alone was over 40! How could they fix the roof and the basement with only 26 nuts? “10,000 Smackers!" is apparently something that Kiff says when she gets so excited that she wants to kiss something 10,000 times. Knowing the writers of this show, I look forward to hearing this phrase at least once more in the season.

This episode of Kiff is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW website. It is expected to arrive on Disney+ later this summer. You can catch up with earlier episodes streaming now on Disney+.