SHARK-A-THON!! Day 11 Mississippi River Sharks!

Day 11 Mississippi River Sharks

That’s correct. You read that right. Mississippi River Sharks.

I don’t think we need to get too much more into it then that yes?

I mean…the title says it all, so yes. Lets jump in without delay and see what the river has to offer, I guess?

Actually it should be pretty fun.

Mississippi River Sharks

Tagline: There’s a New Mouth in the River

Synopsis: Sharks attack a fish rodeo on the Mississippi River, and it is up to a group of locals, along with a visiting actor from a successful franchise of shark movies, to stop the sharks.

If you wanted extra cheese on your cheeseburger, you got it. If you didn’t? Your still getting it.

As only SyFy channel can deliver it to you. There actually was a time SyFy made really good content, back in the day when like Comedy Central and HBO, and now Netflix. You had a channel looking for all the content it could get and put out there. Including my main reason for loving SyFy, they used to play Dark Shadows in the morning. Love that show still and it was fun catching it on tv again. They also were the one place I could catch and got addicted to the greatest science fiction show of all time, Farscape.

But then it hit a snag where it seemed all you could find were films like Birdemic. So this became their bread and butter. Which is both horrible, but also with chances of fun.

We begin this tale with a woman on a tinder date. An odd tinder date because she’s watching an old shark film at a bar, while enjoying her drink. It’s presented like she’s watching it on a laptop. Which is why that’d be odd for a date. Well her date doesn’t seem to care for her love of old shark movies. Which is sad because shark movies are fun. It’s also understandable because some of these shark movies are. Well yes.

The best moment from their date though was the man excusing himself to the restroom while asking his date to watch his drink for him. She says sure and he gives her a stare followed by a knowing look about why to watch his drink. Again my humor is. Well yes.

Needless to say she’s not enjoying herself either because the guy seems uninterested and hard to talk too. Which I can relate with somewhat as I did not have the best of dates online, stories for another time, or an entire podcast for that matter. But she’s gonna take a breath and relax. She’s not dated in forever so it’s just a matter of shaking out those awkward social cobwebs. So minding what he said about watching his drink she leaves it at the bar for anyone to possibly roofie in her absence. She’s taking in the scenic riverboat view. Which honestly does look rather fun. Until it isn’t! No not because of sharks. But because her date did not go for a peepee. He went for a look see. He is now talking to another girl and they seem to be honestly hitting it off. A victory for tinder date, a crushing defeat of confidence for our lady.

But he notices she spotted him so he has to come over and…inform her he doesn’t think it’s going well, so he’s going to flirt around the ship. Surely that can only go well. During this exchange there’s a loud noise, like an explosion almost. This alarms her and she ask worriedly if he happened to hear the same thing she did. He sadly did not as he was too invested in himself and trying to get her to get over the fact things didn’t work out on their date.

Well no waiting around it seems as we now have. Bad CGI sharks leaping up onto the boat!

Which is slightly misleading from the poster which made me hope we’d get a giant shark! But unfortunately that is not the case. We get two chonky sharks leaping aboard the ship. No one dies. Not even douche date guy. Sadly. Instead we get our lady friend asking an older woman for her cane and going to town beating on a shark.

Enter beginning credits and our adventure is under way.

But not on the riverboat sadly. No we are picking up our story at a gun..liquor..bait shop. Shop. Where people are preparing for the the towns traditional Fish Rodeo. Their 25th annual for that matter. Which carries the name of their celebrity guest and local shark movie franchise star. Any time I’ve seen these type of setups in films and I hear people laugh because they don’t buy things like that existing, let alone stupid festivals for things like Cornstalks. I have to share with them the fact Stockton California where I went to High School, the place to be and hang out was their Asparagus festival. Stockton was not a backwoods town. And teens did hang out at and go to this thing. Why I don’t know. So my point is DON’T QUESTION IT!

So our towns folk are all ready for their fishing adventure to begin but alas. Our celebrity guest has not yet arrived. We also have learned thanks to an assistant to the loudest mouth of the south NOT named Jimmy Hart, that the riverboat accident we witnessed earlier? Even though we didn’t see it. DOZENS. That’s right. Dozens of people were killed by sharks. It’s mass hysteria on the waters of New Orleans and people were killed by leaping sharks!

But our souther loud mouth in charge of things does not care for this. He only concerns himself with the fact that our celebrity guest is late, that Trash services will not be changing out garbage cans until the next day and as far as his assistant informing him that the Government wants to shut down all river activity until they determine what happened? His response if you couldn’t guess it, is thus. “Well you can just tell the governments office, that they can kindly take their notice and fold it five ways and then cram it where the elves don’t play!” I have not heard that saying, but I will use it as I enjoy any reason to use the word elves and talk about their many countless slaughter parties.

So we setup an event of mass killings by leaping sharks. We have our uncaring even coordinator. What else do we need. Oh how about a shark killing to let us know the sharks are moving along the river? Yes lets.

We meet a woman happily painting a river scene and enjoying being alive. Listening to happy ducks in their happy water. Until they aren’t happy and the ducks go silent because sharks in the river have good culinary taste. This sudden quiet alerts her that something. Is indeed. A foot.

But for her it’s not shark business, or a French chef hiding in the bog collecting ingredients for duck a l’orange. It’s a pesky bob cat. So she whips out a black powder revolver. Which I have not seen those in ages but. There it is. She’s thankfully kind and informs the bob cat she doesn’t want to hurt them, so they should just run off. Good on her because I love cats. Even the ones that could slaughter us.

Well to her surprise from the bushes she aims at comes not a bob cat. But Snuffy the twitch streaming Vtuber. It’s a raccoon. Snuffy is a raccoon Vtu….nevermind. Moving on.

As she discovers the cute raccoon is not a threat. She is able to laugh this off and relax herself. Which is exactly what you want as a shark in the water as it means no tense meat. Yes she gets killed by another land leaping shark. And we get a dramatic cup of blood splashed onto the painting she was making.

That’s the end of poor lady bob cat hunter.

Back to the Jason London 25th anniversary fishing rodeo.

Which means the introduction to two characters and a love interest story. We have Dingus and Dangus the fishing buddies, and Tara the chemist with her papa.

Now Dingus and Dangus are best friends, with actual names. I just can’t for the life of me get behind them as Dingus the lead guy just really. If bland had a face. It’d be his. Also kinda want to slap him. I don’t know why either. Hm. Anyway their actual names are Wyatt and Eric. Eric I like. Wyatt…slappy face.

Anyway they have aspirations of winning this fishing rodeo and walking away into the hearts of the town, and getting to meet Jason London. Eric however is taken momentarily from his dreams of cuddling against Jason London as he spots lady friend love interest Tara. They are not being that subtle but that’s fine. Its SyFy.

So lets start this thing already! I want my shark kills!

Which the start of this thing is. Kinda great.

Everyone is ready and roaring to go. This thing is big business in the town. You got celebrity guest and Shark Bite star Jason London. Rivalries as far back as the river is long. Everyone is after this prize money and the fame of not only winning. But beating the two time champion who’s a living breathing rectal fissure. So when the gun fires off signaling the start and people are….casually walking to their boats and the dock. This is the calmest rush to a tournament I’ve ever seen, and It’s kinda great.

What isn’t so great is our next shark kill.

Which happens as Tara’s father is driving off to pickup a shipment at his shop, when he happens to notice a fisherman on a dock struggling with a fish he just snagged and instantly pulls him off his feet and into the water! So just as it looks like Ray might save this man but. Lord why do you do this SyFy.

Just as the fisherman is saved and helped to his feet while still in the river. He gives an odd look and Ray looks over him only to discover. Protruding from his belly. A baby CGI shark. Wiggling and waggling.

It’s just. Well yes.

SyFy.

Well something of importance we do learn. Is that our current two time champion in this fishing rodeo? He’s a dirty filthy cheating asshole. He’s got boxed up on ice huge catfish ready for his next victory. What an asshole. Well actually the film is doing every last thing it can to show us he’s an absolute one hundred percent unwashed asshole. Between taunting people, cheating, and being smug as smug can be. He’s shaping up to be someone earning a hopefully none mediocre death.

We also learn our beloved town favorite movie star, is a typical big Hollywood all about the money, ladies and cares nothing for anyone not handing him a paycheck. The biggest mouth of the south not Jimmy hart who’s running this thing, his names Big Bill by the way. Well he’s mad again as their big celebrity guest isn’t at his booth signing autographs. He’s instead on a dock reinacting scenes from his Shark Bite films for local hot ladies. So Big Bill is big pissed. Which is understandable. I mean you pay a lot of money for a guest to make a two hour appearance only to have them turn up an hour and a half late then take off after 10 minutes of singings. Yeah. That don’t fly with Big Bill.

Do we need a scene where Jason London tells big bill he is leaving and doesn’t care as long as he’s paid, and seeing Big Bill get ready to rupture several veins in his neck? Yer darn right we do! We need it because. Well.

Because this is a fun scene where the hot girls he was impressing with his horrible acting  all get scared and scream when they discover the painting ladies severed head floating In the water. Which then scared Jason London because the tough shark hunter is afraid of real life dangerous animals.

This is also setting up what our characters will be doing with their time in this movie. Which is moving along rather quickly. Tara was near by with Eric and they come running to check on the scared screams. Once they discover the head, It’s Tara who proclaims what killed the woman and their threat. Well threats. So she’s going to do her best to help out and keep people safe. Jason now over his traumatic experience also throws his hat in the ring. Reminding everyone he is their best chance of survival as he was in 4 of the 5 shark bite films. No one talks about part 3 which did not star him.

Meanwhile back with daddy and the dead fisherman. He’s contacted law enforcement and the sheriff has arrived to assist in the situation. Which is actually pretty funny. Imagine showing someone a dead body missing its entire middle section in a perfect circular hole. Now imagine that someone you showed this too tells you “A bob cat could’ve done this.”, how many seconds would you spend staring at this person questioning how many bob cat murders did they witness to come to this conclusion. Do bob cats meticulously nibble and eat the middle sections out of their pray? Also are Bob cats water based predators?

Or you can just tell them like daddy did, that a shark did this. Not no bob cat.

Well the sheriff isn’t fully convinced and he needs to retrieve that body. So into the water he goes.  Yes a shark comes for the sheriff, but as the sheriff tells us “No sharks gonna get the jump on me!”, just as a shark pulls him under and begins chomping away. Unfortunately for the shark, Daddy has a rifle and he’s got the sheriffs back covered. So we are spared the loss of law enforcement. For now.

But we need a little more comedy and chance for something horrible here. Which brings another character who’s been lingering in the background.

Local news reporter Gale W- No. wrong movie. Local reporter Allison, and her camera man Phil. She’s here covering this event. But she’s an eager go-getter reporter and she’s looking for that big break thru story that’ll land her in prime time.

So while listening to radio wave chatter, she catches word about the sheriff and a dead body. So off they go, finding themselves just in time to catch Daddy helping up the sheriff after his shark encounter and losing a boot to the razor toothed villain of a fish.

It’s funny because you have Daddy. Who told the Sheriff not to go in the water. But he did and got bitten . To now the sheriff and Daddy telling Phil the camera man not to go in the water. Yes Phil also gets bitten . This time in the raw chonky flesh of his leg. Things are not looking good for Phil.

But things are about to not look good for a lot of people.

As the reality begins to sink in that sharks are in the river water. Big Billy is being constantly reminded he needs to do the right thing. Which is to close down this event before he rings the dinner bell for every shark in the river! Which. He surprisingly does. Like seriously its actually surprising he isn’t going full evil money hungry figure looking to ignore murder for the sake of a few dollars more. Good on him. Good on you movie.

Well he does however skip out on telling people himself as he has a lot of crap to deal with and our local acting legend Jason London offers his services, as he informs Billy. He’s an actor. His words matter, and people will believe him.

Which no one does. At all. I mean honestly do you want to hear from a guy known for loving the smell of his own ass who’s famous for doing shark movies to tell you there is a serious shark threat in a river? Or would you more likely believe a local big man in charge of the event. Well no one listens so of course we will have shark carnage soon enough.

But not just yet. Oh no. Not just yet. We gotta wait a bit more.

Until then we have Wyatt doing his part in the fishing rodeo. Trying to catch his big prize winning fish. Which, good lord these people.

Okay. So Wyatt is fishing. He catches “A big one” on his line. He’s using a towing truck to help draw in his fish. You begin to see popping out of the water. A large sharks tail. “Man this is gonna be a big fish.” You see, a sharks fin and tail. “This is definitely gonna set a record”, you then pull from the water an entire shark to go with the shark fin and tail. “That ain’t no cat fish.”

When you realize. The moment your brain clicks over and realizes the sharks tail, connected to the sharks body, traveling up its shark fin. To its shark shaped head complete with sharks jaws. Isn’t in fact, a cat fish. But a shark.  How you didn’t think it was….moving on.

So we have a caught and now hanging shark. Good for you Wyatt. So what do? Well Jason has an idea. He’s going to prove he is more than just an actor. He’s a threat to these sharks. So he pays a kid one whole dollar to record him with his phone as he picks up a machete, walking off to face the shark and kill it. Only to end up head butted by the shark right in the shin which. Kudos on the movie for skipping an obvious nut shot joke. Really that took some restraint. Where Jason is made to look silly and fail killing the shark. Tara picks up the machete and shows them all how it’s done.  Stabbing the shark in the head. But is it really dead? We will see I guess?

It's dead.

But its brothers and sisters aren’t!

So we have marina sharks, and river sharks. We also have competition asshole claiming this is all sabotage by Tara in an attempt to prevent him from winning the tournament. Because remember. He’s an asshole, and we are waiting for his death.

We are also waiting for more shark kills!

Which the movie happily provides as it knows we are on a time schedule and its time is quickly running out. Seriously we’re near an hour into our hour and twenty minute movie so. Good timing. We have a dead shark stabbed in the head hanging off the dock. So naturally people want their pictures taken next to it. Including a local man who’s wife is taking his picture next to the shark for….their Christmas cards. Okay why not.

While the man tries out several different poses beside the dead shark, and is told to move closer and closer to the edge of the dock. For no reason. The dead shark begins to waggle and wiggle and before you know it. It’s free! Possibly still alive or mostly dead. The idiot man is knocked into the river and greeted immediately by sharks wanting him to answer for the mistreatment and fishing of their sibling. Also he dies.

More importantly though Jason London has located himself a big stick ice pop and has brain freeze. I love that he found this ice cream treat because its not only one of my favorites, and was one of my dads favorites. It’s one of the official grown man ice creams and top “Dads” ice cream treats next to fudge pops.

Fortunately Jason is still alive to entertain us. Unfortunately we need another victim. This time, it’s the assistant to Big Bill. He’s gotta die. I mean he hasn’t done anything really except upset Big Billy. But he DID have one important task. One job to do before he could hang up his glasses and call it a day. He was tasked with calling all of the fishermen to alert them to return to the docks. YOU HAD ONE JOB KID! But his time has ended, as his papers blow out of his hands, into the water. Which he must then collect. Therefor giving the sharks a chance to chomp away at his tasty bits.

It really is almost a blink and you miss it death. Which is worrying. Usually these films want to setup deaths, let them linger a bit and then snatch them up. But SyFy films can be like a rolling bolder chasing archeologist. It can start off as nothing impressive at all. Then build up steam and just as your enjoying watching it roll around. You realize it aint stopping and at the same time no one laid down further track for it, so the bolder is just going to roll off. Which I mean. Can be a good thing. But it also derails the passing of your movie and turns it into a series of flashes.

Like for instance….

We have the quick death of our assistant. Followed up by our group of heroes deciding they need to hop on a boat to go get to Tara’s dad and help people. Lives are in danger. Jason is still worried about himself and after his leg injury does not want to be bothered by anyone. So our heroes move on without him to ready their boat. Jason notices sharks coming toward the boat. He apparently doesn’t know how to raise his voice to alert them, he mildly tries to get their attention but then decides. He’s going to: “Let’s show them what a SyFy films hero looks like”. He puts on his characters eye patch, grabs a harpoon. Says his characters catchphrase “One fish, two fish. Red fish…dead fish” and launches the harpoon. Missing the fish. Cussing out his mistake and he is sadly bitten by a shark and tossed into the water. Is he alive? Is he dead? He’s dead, as multiple body parts float to the surface. He went out a hero.

We’ve had a series of quick deaths and then our bolder met a small hill which was the death of Jason. It’s just one hit after the other but only Jason got the dignity of a full scene and setup. Which makes sense but still. This is a shark bolder. Which honestly would be a great thing to see. Like Critters 2 when the critters formed a giant critter ball.

Anyway. Our heroes are giving us a quick montage of them reading all the guns in Tara’s dads shop. As well as making all the bombs they can out of readily available material. Which really we could’ve done without. Although it did slow the movie suddenly. Which thank you. But it largely wasn’t fun and it was meant to be. As made clear with Wyatt as he was loading up the guns into a bag. With what I’m guessing was ad lib lines as it all came off rather awkward and just. Well it happens.

We also had a chance to flesh out Tara’s story as she gets some alone time with Eric. But all we get from her talking is hearing her tell us how she felt out of place at her fancy school because everyone was just so smart. So this is why she changed majors and decided to come back and help her daddy with the store. It isn’t much and again, the scene could’ve just not happened and the movie would be the same for it.

Meanwhile, what of Daddy you ask? Well him, the sheriff, and reporter lady are headed back to the event. But not before running into….a redneck fisherman who. Was swallowed by a shark. But not eaten. Leaving the redneck to hop down the road side. Until he loses balance and falls over. The sheriff runs over with his SUV. Killing the shark but. Somehow. Not the redneck? Who gets up, shakes it off and goes back to fishing like nothing happened.

The movie is made up of random moments but at least they’re all connected, and characters are staying in character. Like the asshole champion. He’s so obsessed with the tournament that even as its canceled? He’s…stealing the trophy. Which is the same as winning it. Minus the praise of the town, reward money, and you know. Actually winning. Speaking of in character. Big Bill is even returning to his original character. Which is odd. He was setup as the big money loving I don’t care about people guy. But then he does care about people when he lets our heroes try to stop the sharks. But NOW he’s back and upset. He’s upset because these kids he let take care of the sharks. Are firing rifles into the river, and launching one bomb into it. This is enough to cause him to blow a gasket and declare them a worse problem for him compared to the sharks. They’ve damaged boats which. We have no record of. They’ve broken countless laws. Which I guess? And worst of all? They’re costing him money, by ruining his very expensive fishing rodeo. So he’s back to caring only about money and himself. Going so far as using a gun to lead the kids off the dock. It’s…kind of confusing but sure let’s go with it. He tried letting them handle this their way. It’s time to do things his way.

Of course he’s going to die.

But not in a way that suits him.

Or another character.

While our heroes gather to piece together their final plan to capture and kill all the sharks. Big Bill is busy doing his best Yosemite Sam impression, loading up his things. When he notices fishing champion asshole. Who is literally sneaking around with the trophy hidden behind himself. Of course Bill notices this and ask him what he’s hiding. He tells him nothing. So he ask him “What you got behind your back!”, the man actually turns around to look out at the river, exposing that he has the huge trophy behind him to Bill. Turns back to him and says “Mostly the river”. While Bill grumbles and hollars about that statue he’s got.

The two men fight over this and it turns into an actual, It’s mine. Is not. Is too battle. And as you can guess how it will end. Both men are standing on the dock. One hand each on the trophy, tugging it back and forth and of course yes. A shark leaps up and chomps down the statue, as well as both their arms that held onto it. Both men scream out. Fall in the water and. That’s their death.

You setup a major cheating fishing asshole, only to have them lose an arm and fall into the water. You setup, gave a change of heart and then changed back another bad guy, and he too loses an arm. That’s our payoff to the baddies.

So what big plan do our heroes have to help them clean the river? A giant fishing net.

The plan is to setup on a bridge a large fishing net. Use chum to get the attention of the sharks and gather them all in one place. Once they’re all there, they can use the tow trucks towing lift to drag the other end of the net upward and then toss into the river a 4 foot long pipe bomb. Catch and release? More like catch and kill!

How they didn’t use this is beyond me. It feels ripe for the film. But oh well.

Does it work?

Comically well. We get a large fish net filled. Over filled actually with dozens of sharks. So much so there’s even a few sticking out of the net wiggling their butts. All that’s left is to launch the large pipe bomb and we have ourselves an ending to our movie.

Only we can’t have that. So we solve this by letting dumbass Wyatt launch the pipe bomb. Wyatt already tried once, while quoting Jason London and failed. But all he actually has to do this time. Is just light and drop a bomb. They decide ah heck why not. So he lights it. Quotes Jason London again and. Fails.

How…only Wyatt could do it. It’s not really funny like they were hoping. It’s just a groan because it means yes. This movie must continue on.

That’s not a good sign.

Well we still have some hope here. The sharks are still held in their net. Which surprisingly hasn’t broken. But the weight is proving too much for the truck and is slowly dragging the net and truck toward the water. So they need to keep the truck moving to keep the sharks out of water.

Not only do they achieve this. But the manage to drag the sharks dead center onto the bridge. Which would only work if you sank the truck off the other end. But thankfully the truck was on the roadside under the bridge and. It worked. So now with the sharks in the middle of the road, do we let them suffocate? That’s cruel we can’t do that.

Instead a truck driver listening to a self help cd looks away from the road to change out cd’s and ends up running into the sharks. Exploding them into a wave of blood.

Our heroes have accomplished destroying the sharks. Tara gets the man of her dreams. And Wyatt finds the bloody first place trophy, declaring himself the winner.

I really want to slap him. He’s annoying and I know he was meant to be funny but god he’s not. At all. But his celebration is cut short as a hanging sharks head from the bridge falls ontop of him. Does it kill him?

No. No unfortunately. Instead it apparently took his eye. So yes. He now gets to wank off to himself every night, as he wears an eye patch. Just like Jason London’s character in the shark bite movies. He also is working with Tara’s dad at his general store. While Tara is all about going back to college and her new boyfriend Eric.

But the movie does one thing. One thing that felt odd until you realized what was going on.

They close our last loophole.

As Wyatt is left along to put supplies away. A girl comes into the shop asking if they have a phone she could use as she lost hers and needs it to call people. Wyatt is struck by this woman and her beauty. Also the fact a woman would talk to him. She tells him he looks like that guy from those shark bite movies and he knows he has met his soul mate. He tells her he loves those movies and she too, loves those movies. He tells her how he’s something of a hero, how he helped save a bunch of people by killing a bunch of sharks. That’s when we find out the girl he’s talking too? Was the one from the very beginning on the riverboat who was beating sharks with the old ladies cane as she informs him, “Yeah, so did I.”

The end.

In defense of this film.

It wasn’t entirely bad, or so bad I felt bad watching it. The premise and photo looked promising. The film itself was forgettable SyFy trash. But it still wasn’t horrible. The story stayed on point. People died mostly for a reason but largely just because. Since it was made for tv there isn’t much gore which is fine. We’ve watched a few of these were the gore was completely absent and they were still entertaining. This movie was just lacking. It wasn’t lacking from writing, or direction. The acting was fine. Not the worst or the best but. Fine.

It just wasn’t that good in the end.

It could’ve done better, absolutely. Some characters could’ve been fleshed out more, Maybe do more with the ones you had as well. Jason London didn’t offer much in the film to be honest. They could’ve shot more with him. But even thinking back on all he did in the movie. It was enough for what was needed for the film. But it again just didn’t stick well. All the characters really had that same vibe. It’s hard to put really but they were there, without leaving an impression. Which when those are your heroes. You kind of don’t want that. You want them to stand out. They just didn’t. Again they were just fine in their roles but.

I don’t want it to sound harsh, maybe you’ll agree or not but. I kind of want to say that, they are good actors. But I would have cast others as the leads as they just didn’t feel like lead actors. None of them had any stand out moments or offered something in that way. They just sort of were there. So it would’ve helped the film had they really sank themselves into those parts and delivered something.

The movie was never boring. It had a lot going on. It stalled once, rushed itself. Then slowed down. Like the movie wanted to skip over the middle of the film where it could’ve grown its characters, but opted instead to grow the body count. Which is nice sometimes but it’s not everything. Really the movie could’ve benefited from some extra growth. It’s not a sin for these type of movies to do so. But when things like this come about it brings on that cookie cutter feeling of this was manufactured and everyone got paid so, move on to the next project. I’m sure I’m wrong on that last note. But I really believe I’m right about the rest.

Is it worth the rental? I mean. If the scenario is it’s a Friday night. You got pizza, hot wings and friends. You picked three movies. I’d play it as the middle feature. Because that’ll give people something to chuckle at while they relax after the initial part of the gathering, take their smoke breaks, change and chat with friends. Leaving the last movie to draw everyone back in and be something of higher entertainment. So it’s a good filler film. But not a great feature presentation.

Still you should check it out for yourself, see if you agree, or if you just want to keep along with this month and join me in this madness. Just don’t steal any trophies, and always keep your eyes on the road.

Until tomorrow chum buddies.