BACKGROUND
Becoming only the 10th official Disney Channel Original Movie, Johnny Tsunami came to Disney Channel back in 1999, just under two years after the premiere of the first official DCOM Under Wraps (1997).
The early times of Disney Channel movies were strange, seeming to lack focus and identity, as numerous films were released each year with very different themes and stories. In 1999 alone, Disney Channel created eight new movies to showcase on their channel, with 2000 seeing the most movies released in a single year, with 12.
Despite this, Disney Channel had seemed to figure out that they were going to have success with sports movies, after the success of the first of this type, Brink!, the third ever DCOM. Premiering in 1998, Brink! was about the world of inline skating. Following on from this movie was Johnny Tsunami, seen to be the second sports-themed DCOM.
Inline skating might have been an interesting sport to focus on, since inline skating is not widely shown on an international stage, so for Johnny Tsunami, it made sense to pick a more popular, globally recognised sport. In this case, they actually chose three: surfing, skiing, and snowboarding, with the rivalry between the sports a key aspect of the film’s story.
All three are complex sports in their own right, with plenty of differing disciplines on offer to athletes and sportspeople. Skiing and snowboarding in particular feature frequently on screen as well, in a variety of movies including Chalet Girl (2011), Eddie the Eagle (2016), and Downhill (2020). Disney Channel even revisited snowboarding for their 2014 DCOM Cloud 9. They are sports that everyone knows about and look great on camera.
However, I’m not a fan of winter sports, or sports in general. I don’t like watching people crash out and injure themselves doing death-defying stunts and tricks, and I don’t understand why you’d ever want to do something so dangerous, seemingly just for fun. And that brings me to the question: why can’t there just be a film about curling? Can you tell the 2026 Winter Olympics had an effect on me?
Speaking of the Olympics, Johnny Tsunami came out only a year after the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, where no doubt many children starting to get interested in winter sports. But for the sun and sea lovers, Johnny Tsunami also had that covered, with a sprinkling of surfing thrown in, in amongst an overall message about social classes and the divide between them, warning viewers not to judge people or put them in a box.
PLOT
Johnny Tsunami starts with an older guy surfing in Hawaii. This is Johnny Tsunami, as explained by his grandson, Johnny Kapahala, who tells his friends his grandfather is a legendary surfer, and got the name “Tsunami” after he saved three people in the ocean years ago after a small plane crash. Johnny wants to be a great surfer, like his grandfather, aiming to inherit the Tsunami medallion, which is passed down to the best surfer in Hawaii.
Later, Johnny is participating in a surf contest, managing to ride a huge wave before time runs out. His mother and grandfather watch on from the beach, however, Johnny’s father did not attend the contest because he is busy working. When Johnny arrives home, he talks to his dad about what he is working on, as his father sets up computer connections for schools – remember, this film is set in the late-90s. His father wants to show Johnny what he’s been working on, and decides to search for the average salary of a surfer. It turns out it isn’t much at all. Johnny’s father says Johnny needs to think about a future with a decent job and a decent salary, not have dreams of being like his grandfather. Johnny walks away. Johnny’s mother then comes in, and asks if Johnny’s father told him the big news. He hasn’t.
The next morning, Johnny’s parents sit Johnny down and tell him that they are moving to Vermont, as Johnny’s father has a contract to work with a private academy, the same school that Johnny will be attending. They will be leaving in a week. Johnny pretends to be alright with this, heading off to surf, and not wanting to talk to his friends about it.
As the Kapahalas are about to leave, Johnny says goodbye to his grandpa, who tells Johnny he’ll have to come back to claim the Tsunami medallion, but until then, he should try to find the good in this new situation. Johnny and his family arrive in snowy Vermont, quite the change from the lovely sun and warmth of Hawaii. They make their way to their new home, which is very different. Johnny accepts the whole experience of living in Vermont compared to Hawaii will just be…different. Johnny’s father tries to get Johnny excited about his new school, showing him the school’s brochure. Woo-hoo.
The next day, Johnny and his father drive to school. Johnny says he’ll be fine to find his way on his own, and goes to his first class, American History. The students are less than welcoming though, especially a group of snobby boys who make fun of Johnny for his clothes and general laid-back attitude. One girl, Emily, does try to engage with their teacher’s attempts to talk about Johnny’s home though, which Johnny appreciates. At lunch, the culture shock continues, as he learns that this school only has pineapple from a can – gasp! – and that he has to sit and eat lunch alone, still not in proper uniform.
Later, one of the boys from Johnny’s class, Brett, takes Johnny’s surfing magazine, and he sees an article about Johnny in it. Jealous of his surfing talent, he and Emily invite Johnny to ski with them that afternoon. Johnny lies, pretending that he has skied before, however, by the time they get to the ski resort, it’s quite obvious to everyone that Johnny doesn’t know what he’s doing. They take the ski lift up to the summit, at which point, Brett pushes Johnny down the slope. Johnny manages to ski all the way down, ending up falling right into the ski shop. At home, Johnny’s father learns he went skiing, and tells Johnny he should be focusing on his studies, not sports, fearing that a love of skiing is set to replace his love of surfing, and will keep him from pursuing a “real” career.
Back at school, Johnny is made to wear proper uniform, although as soon as his father leaves, he puts on one of his own shirts underneath his blazer. This gets him sent to the Principal – sorry – Headmaster’s office. As he waits to be seen, Emily leaves the office, and admits that the headmaster is in fact her father. Emily warns Johnny that her father is very strict on dress code, worrying Johnny. But when he goes to talk to Headmaster Pritchard, there is no trouble, although he is told to wear the correct uniform from now on. On the bus home that day, a group of young snowboarders boards the bus. One of them, Sam, sits next to Johnny. Johnny asks if Sam could teach him how to snowboard, but seeing his uniform, Sam says he can’t, as Johnny is an academy kid, and academy kids only ski.
In the school library, Johnny talks to Emily about this, and learns that the academy kids are known as “Skies”, after Skyline Academy, whereas the public school kids are known as “Urchins”, showing a class divide between the two. The Skies ski on one side of the mountain, whilst the Urchins snowboard on the other, keeping the two groups separate. Johnny doesn’t think that’s fair and the next time he sees Sam, he reiterates that he wants to snowboard. Sam takes Johnny to the snowboard shop, where the owner turns out to be a big fan of Johnny’s grandfather, Johnny Tsunami. He gets Johnny sorted with a snowboard.
On the slopes, Johnny thinks he’ll be able to snowboard easily, as it’s basically just surfing but on snow, however, he wipes out numerous times, until he is finally able to keep himself upright. Johnny thinks he’s ready to jump, but Sam tells him he definitely isn’t. He’ll have to wait a little while before doing that. Walking through town, Brett and his friends see Johnny with a snowboard and start to torment him about it. Johnny’s dad drives through, and takes Johnny home. His father believes those were his new friends….
Back at the ski resort, Sam tells Johnny that he is the first Sky to have “crossed the line”. Sam gives Johnny some backstory into the resort. When the original owner of the resort died, the area was split into two sides: one for skiers and one for snowboarders. Annoyingly for the snowboarders, the skiing side has the best runs, and they aren’t allowed to go on them. Sam watches Johnny practise his boarding more, with his friends telling him to give it up with helping Johnny. Sam refuses, instead taking Johnny back to his house. Sam lives on a US Marines base, having had to move around many times over the years for his father’s job. It is just Sam and his father though, since his mother died, but they are very close. Sam has been told the two should be in Vermont for a little while still. Johnny is introduced to Sam’s father, who is the complete opposite of his own. Johnny later shows Sam the best of Hawaii whilst at his house, and Sam loves the idea of living there.
A little while later, Emily asks Johnny about snowboarding, wanting to try it out for herself. Johnny says he doesn’t think a die-hard Sky like Emily would ever be able to do it, but she says she’ll try it out after school that day. Emily seems to be doing very well for a first timer, but she gets a little ahead of herself, and ends up sliding down a very steep run, getting out of her depth very quickly, and has to stop herself from falling to her death by hanging on to a broken branch. Sam, being the more experienced boarder of the group, attempts to go down to help her, but he slips too. He shouts to Johnny to board down the slope and get help from the ski patrol. He goes right away, making some impressive jumps on his way down, witnessed by Sam’s other boarding friends. Johnny gets someone from ski patrol to follow him back, where a rope is passed down to Emily and Sam to climb back up.
The fallout of the drama is soon realised, as Emily gets a call from her worried father, who grounds her, and Brett warns Johnny to stay away from Emily from now on, telling him that Emily was only being nice to him because her dad had told her to be. Sam’s father picks Sam and Johnny up, pleased to see they are both ok, but telling them to be more careful next time. At home, Johnny’s father is angrier about the situation, believing that getting Johnny away from his grandfather would make him less reckless and more focused, but it hasn’t worked. As Johnny walks back to his room, Johnny hears his father call his grandpa a “surf bum”. His mother is more supportive, telling Johnny’s father not to be so hard on him. Johnny calls his grandpa, and says he misses home back in Hawaii. Johnny’s mother then interrupts the call and the two talk about his father. His father sees life very differently from his grandfather now, but it wasn’t always like that.
At school, Johnny talks to the headmaster about the incident on the slopes, trying to make things better for Emily, but it doesn’t work and Emily says she can’t talk to Johnny anymore. Back on the slopes though, Sam’s group say they were very impressed with Johnny’s jump, and invite him on a run. Sam even lets Johnny get the same hat as him, officially making him part of their group. During the run, they go over to the skiing side of the mountain, where they are called out by Brett for being on “their” territory. A fight ensues, which is quickly stopped as ski patrol are spotted nearby.
News of the fight makes it to the headmaster the next day, who brings Johnny and his parents in to discuss it. Johnny is put on probation, as Brett has said Johnny started the fight, which was not true. The headmaster warns Johnny he should choose better friends to hang out with. To make things even worse, Sam waits outside Johnny’s house to talk to him, telling him that Sam is leaving to go to Iceland because his dad got a new post. Not wanting to stay in Vermont anymore, Johnny leaves a note on his computer telling them he has run away. His parents are worried, as is Sam’s father who also received a note. They don’t believe the boys could’ve got far without any money.
However, the two actually made their way to Hawaii, by sneaking onto a military plane. In Hawaii, they meet up with Johnny’s grandfather, who lets the boys stay with him. Johnny’s grandfather speaks to his father, who demands Johnny Tsunami sends them home. He refuses to send them back, wanting to wait until they are ready to return. Johnny’s parents argue over this, with Johnny’s mother getting tired of her husband’s attitude.
In Hawaii, the kids are told they can stay as long as they want, so Johnny and his grandfather teach Sam how to surf. Later, they sit by a campfire and talk. Johnny Tsunami says he always liked the idea of going somewhere to ride new waves, with waves being a metaphor for obstacles in life. Johnny Tsunami tells Johnny he is not perfect, and doesn’t want Johnny to aspire to be like him. He should have his own journey, whether that has something to do with surfing or Hawaii or neither. The next day, Johnny says he wants to return to Vermont, believing it is time to go back.
In Vermont, Johnny’s father is shocked to find that Johnny Tsunami has come with the boys. That evening, Johnny’s father thanks his father for his help in getting Johnny home. The two talk about how Johnny’s father needs to be less harsh on Johnny, and how Johnny Tsunami wishes he could go back and be a better. Johnny’s father should be more supportive of Johnny, like Johnny Tsunami had been for him, when Johnny’s father decided to stop surfing all those years ago.
The next day, Johnny takes his grandfather to the slopes as Johnny Tsunami wants to snowboard. Randy, the owner of the snowboard shop, is excited to meet Johnny Tsunami. Johnny tries to teach his grandfather how to snowboard, but his grandfather goes off on a run immediately, showing he is actually a skilled snowboarder; Johnny never knew. At the end of the run, the two run into Brett, who tells Johnny to stay away from “his” side of the mountain. Johnny says in Hawaii, they sometimes have contests with groups of surfers, with the winner getting to keep the beach for the day. Johnny suggests doing the same here. If Brett can win against Johnny in a race, then Johnny and the boarders will stay away. If Johnny wins, the skiers must share the mountain with the snowboarders. And just to up the stakes, Johnny Tsunami adds his medallion to the race, with the winner claiming it.
Johnny tells Sam all about the contest, but he says he’ll be leaving the next day so won’t be able to see it. Johnny’s father then tells Johnny to forget about being grounded and to go out there and win that race, so they can keep the medallion in the family. On the day of the race, Johnny Tsunami and Johnny’s parents arrive to watch, as does Sam, whose father is letting them leave for Iceland the next day so he can watch. At the starting point, Brett pushes Johnny over, and heads off, leaving Johnny to play catch up. He catches up fast, and despite Brett’s attempts to sabotage the race, Johnny wins.
To celebrate, Johnny’s parents throw a party, where Emily and Johnny get to dance together. Johnny is also given the option of returning to Hawaii to stay with his grandfather if he wants, but he chooses to stay in Vermont. Johnny hears from Randy and Ronnie, the owners of the ski resort and owners of the snowboard shop and ski shop respectively. They said that when their parents divorced, they grew up very different people, going to the two different schools, and couldn’t agree on what to do with the mountain after their father died. So, they split the mountain in two. They’ve now realised that isn’t something they should’ve done thanks to Johnny, and confirm the mountain is now accessible to everyone all the time.
CHARACTERS & CAST
Johnny Kapahala is the main character of Johnny Tsunami, despite not being the title character, which refers to his grandfather. Johnny Kapahala is laid-back and relaxed, having grown up in Hawaii surfing, seeing his grandfather doing the same. Johnny is shocked to find his family are moving to Vermont, the complete opposite of Hawaii, but attempts to take all this in his stride. After realising that the snobby academy kids will not accept him, Johnny makes his own decision to join up with the snowboarders, with Sam becoming his best friend from that point. Johnny finds he is accepted in this group and loves snowboarding, this being more familiar to Johnny thanks to his surfing background. Although Brett and his friends try to keep Johnny down, he refuses to bow to pressure, not allowing them to stop him talking to Emily, Brett’s crush, or stop him snowboarding. Johnny overcomes many social barriers throughout the events of Johnny Tsunami, reuniting the feuding sides once and for all.
Brandon Baker was cast as Johnny Kapahala. He had previously worked for Disney, as he was cast as Mowgli in their live-action adaptation The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story. He went on to work with Disney Channel further after Johnny Tsunami, with a recurring voice role as Duke Anoi in their animated series The Proud Family (2001-05), as well as making an appearance in Even Stevens (2000-03) as Zack Estrada. Baker was also cast as Cray Blake in the teen sitcom One World (1998-2001) for NBC prior to his role in Johnny Tsunami. Baker is now said to have become a wedding officiant for an elopement company[1].
Sam is Johnny’s best friend in the film, although this would seem an unlikely friendship given the fact they come from two different schools that have a fierce rivalry between them. Sam first meets Johnny on the bus, and tells Johnny he won’t be teaching Johnny how to snowboard because he’s from the “wrong school” and should focus on skiing. But Johnny is persistent, and Sam seems to be impressed by that, with Johnny working hard to prove himself to be a good snowboarder. Sam is loyal to his new friend, not wanting to listen to his other friends, who tell him he shouldn’t be mixing with a Sky. Without Sam’s help and support, Johnny would not have been motivated or able to reunite the mountain. Sadly, Sam leaves to go to Iceland, but I’m sure they would’ve kept in touch after that.
Sam was played by Lee Thompson Young who was known at the time for his starring role as Jett Jackson in the Disney Channel series The Famous Jett Jackson (1998-2001), returning to reprise the role for the DCOM Jett Jackson: The Movie. He was nominated for many Young Artist awards for this role. He appeared as Chris Comer in the film Friday Night Lights (2004), with this story later becoming a television series. More recently, he was cast as Barry Frost in the early seasons of crime drama Rizzoli & Isles (2010-16), passing away in August 2013 at the age of 29, after struggling with his mental health.
Emily is Johnny’s love interest, as well as that of Brett’s, causing animosity between the two. Emily is not threatened by the arrival of Johnny to their school, unlike some others who see him as too different to fit in. Emily even invites Johnny to ski with them after his first day at the academy, although this does not go well. She later asks Johnny to teach her how to snowboard, showing she doesn’t want to just hang out with the posh kids, but when this also does not go well, and her father finds out, Emily tries to keep her distance from Johnny from then on. But by the end of the movie, Emily has clearly seen the error of her ways, and her and Johnny become closer now that Brett is out of the way.
Kirsten Storms was cast as Emily. Just a few months before the premiere of Johnny Tsunami, Storms appeared in the title role of Zenon Kar in the DCOM Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999), going on to reprise the role for two further sequels. Also for Disney Channel, Storms voiced the character Bonnie Rockwaller in Kim Possible (2002-07). Outside of that, Storms appeared as Belle Black in the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965-present) from 1999 to 2004, and now can be seen as Maxie Jones in the ABC soap General Hospital (1963-present), having been on the show since 2005.
Brett is the preppy, arrogant boy who makes Johnny’s life difficult whilst in Vermont. Brett sees himself as better than Johnny, and doesn’t like how different Johnny is. He also doesn’t like how close Johnny and Emily get during the course of the film, seeming to think he has some sort of claim on Emily and that Johnny isn’t good enough for her. Brett continuously torments Johnny throughout the story, getting him in to trouble on many occasions, despite Brett being the one to start the trouble. Brett thinks he can control everyone just by being mean, but he doesn’t get his way in the end because even cheating doesn’t win Brett that race, and he has to accept the new order of things.
Zachary Bostrom was cast as Brett. Bostrom had already had a couple of screen roles prior to his casting in Johnny Tsunami. For example, he had appeared as Kevin Brady in A Very Brady Christmas (1988), before being cast as Ernie Henderson in the sitcom Harry and the Hendersons (1991-93), based on the 1987 film of the same name.
Now to the parents. Pete and Melanie Kapahala are Johnny’s parents, who both view their son differently. Pete seems to believe that Johnny’s interests of surfing and then snowboarding are getting in the way of Johnny’s future career – even though he’s only thirteen – and that Johnny is set to grow up just like his grandfather, lacking purpose and a life plan. Johnny’s mother on the other hand wants Johnny to live his own life, and not let his father tell him how to be or how to act. She knows Johnny should do what makes him happy and that being so tough on him at that age isn’t good. In the end, Melanie tells Pete that she doesn’t like how he is behaving, both towards their son and to Pete’s father, which seems to make Pete realise that he needs to change and be more supportive of Johnny.
Pete Kapahala was played by Yuji Okumoto. Okumoto was cast as Lieutenant Zenji Abe in Pearl Harbor (2001), and as Chozen Toguchi in The Karate Kid II (1986). He reprised his role as Chozen Toguchi in the Netflix series Cobra Kai (2018-25). Melanie Kapahala was played by Mary Page Keller, who had previously been cast as Laura Kelly in the Fox sitcom Duet (1987-89), returning to the role for its spin-off series Open House (1989-90). In more recent years, she played the recurring role of Dianne Fitzgerald in Pretty Little Liars (2010-17) and was cast as Sara Carver in the ABC Family series Chasing Life (2014-15).
Johnny Tsunami is a typical “surfer dude”. He doesn’t want to spend his life thinking about work or obligations, unlike his son, Pete, who only seems to think about work. The two have become very different people, with different attitudes towards life, which has caused some friction between the two, especially as Pete believes his father is almost corrupting his son, making Johnny believe that a life as a surfer is the way to go. Eventually, Johnny Tsunami and Pete reconcile, understanding why they are the way they are, and accepting that Johnny’s happiness is what’s important here, not Pete’s thoughts about his father. Johnny Tsunami is a loving grandfather to Johnny and always supports him.
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was cast as Johnny Tsunami, having previously appeared as Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat (1995). He went on to voice General Krull in Planet of the Apes (2001) and played The Baron in Memoirs of a Geisha (2004). More recently, he voiced Hashi in the animated film Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) and was cast as Nobusuke Tagomi in the first three seasons of The Man in the High Castle (2015-19). I randomly recognised him from one episode of Season 1 of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2003), where he playing a martial artist called Tai Wei Tse, who fights Sabrina in a competition, although she has to use magic to win, making her a cheater. Tagawa died in 2025.
Finally, I will just mention Headmaster Pritchard, Emily’s father and headmaster of the academy. Headmaster Pritchard is quite strict and has high standards for his students, although initially he does cut Johnny some slack, due to the upheaval Johnny has experienced in moving from Hawaii to Vermont, as he doesn’t shout at Johnny for wearing his own shirt to school. However, towards the end of the film, Headmaster Pritchard’s patience with Johnny appears to wear thin, as he gets his daughter into trouble on the slopes, and then is said to have started a fight with Brett. He tells Johnny to choose his friends wisely, not believing the snowboarders are good for him, showing that Headmaster Pritchard leans into the classism between the two schools as well. We don’t even get to see how he reacts to the ski resort now being shared, or how he feels about Johnny and Emily.
Gregory Itzin was cast as Headmaster Pritchard. He went on to play Charles Logan in the series 24 (2001-10) from Season 4 onwards after appearing in Johnny Tsunami. Itzen also had a recurring role as Supervising Agent Virgil Minelli in The Mentalist (2008-15). He passed away in July 2022.
MUSIC
The music within Johnny Tsunami, in terms of songs, are featured as either background music or to accompany montages of the snowboarding and skiing runs. Because these sports tend to be considered to be quite daring, with wild jumps and crazy speed, the genre of music used in this film is rock music. This is in contrast to the music within most DCOMs, which many would describe as inoffensive pop music.
Although I am not really a fan of rock music in general, I do think the decision to use this type of music better reflects the “coolness” of snowboarding than the more conventional pop route would’ve done. Rock music is also seen to be more appealing to boys, who no doubt were the primary target audience of Johnny Tsunami.
Within the songs in Johnny Tsunami, three were performed by the band Fastball. Fastball are a rock band formed in 1992, who were signed to Disney’s recording label Hollywood Records around the time of Johnny Tsunami. The first of their songs in the film is “Fire Escape”, where a brief excerpt is played in the scene when Johnny wakes up the morning after the surf contest, and wants to go out to surf. He is then told by his parents that they will be moving to Vermont in a week. “Fire Escape” was written by Miles Zuniga, a member of Fastball. The next song of theirs, “Nowhere Road”, is used for the scene where Sam and Johnny arrive in Hawaii, having run away from their homes in Vermont, and are reunited with Johnny’s grandfather. I actually quite liked this song. “Nowhere Road” was written by Tony Scalzo, also a member of the band.
At the end of Johnny Tsunami, during the party that Johnny’s parents put on to celebrate his win against Brett in their race, and the reunion of the mountain, the Fastball song “The Way” can be heard. This song is potentially the most well-known of Fastball’s songs in this movie, as the single peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Modern Rock Tracks Chart in 1998. It was also written by Tony Scalzo.
As well as these songs by Fastball, two songs by Jeffries Fan Club are credited in Johnny Tsunami. Jeffries Fan Club was a ska band formed in 1996. They later disbanded in 2001, although they did play a few reunion shows in 2002 and 2006. Here, their song “Crystal 52” accompanies the snowboarding sequence where Johnny and his grandfather snowboard together, after Johnny and Sam return to Vermont, with Johnny Tsunami coming with them. Their song “Rolled” appears to have been used as background music playing in the snowboard shop the first time Johnny visits it. Both songs were written by the band.
“Life Jacket”, written by Mike Arrieta, Zac Diebels, Matt Franks, and Mike Johnston, the members of the metal band Simon Says at the time, who perform the track, is used during the snowboarding sequence where Johnny gets to join Sam’s friends, the Urchins, for a run down the mountain, which puts them in the path of Brett and his skiing buddies. Like Fastball, Simon Says appear to have been under Disney’s recording label at the time of Johnny Tsunami. The band had formed in the early 1990s, breaking up in the early 2000s, before reuniting in 2023. This was the other song in the film that I quite liked.
The final song credited in Johnny Tsunami is “So Down”, written by Jesse Camp, Share Ross, Alex Kneipkamp, Bam Ross, Joe Alameda, and Ric Browde. It was performed by Jesse Camp, who rose to fame by winning the MTV contest Wanna Be a VJ in 1998. This track was part of Camp’s 1999 album Jesse & the 8th Street Kidz, and was released under Disney’s recording label Hollywood Records. In the movie, “So Down” appears to be the music playing in the snowboard shop on Johnny’s second visit there, with Johnny Tsunami.
Phil Marshall is credited as being the composer of the Johnny Tsunami score, which consists of both tracks to accompany the fast-paced snowboarder life in Vermont, as well as those that represent the more relaxed vibes of life in Hawaii. He worked on the music for multiple 1990s and early 2000s Disney Channel Original Movies, including Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century (1999) and its 2001 sequel; Stepsister from the Planet Weird (2000); Jumping Ship (2001); Doubled Teamed (2002); and Right on Track (2003).
PRODUCTION
Disney Channel had already made films set around Halloween, ones based around science-fiction, and some that were just flat-out bizarre concepts, like one about a kid who becomes a merman at the age of 13 – that’s The Thirteenth Year (1999) if you’re interested – in their first few years of developing movies under their Disney Channel Original Movie branding.
Instead of following in those sorts of ideas, Johnny Tsunami followed Brink! (1998) by being a sports movie. Just a simple idea about teenagers participating in sports, no big deal, nothing too weird or abstract. Yet, these earlier sports movies are the ones that are remembered, probably because teenagers can relate to them easily. This made Johnny Tsunami already a possible contender for DCOM success.
The story and screenplay for Johnny Tsunami was developed by Douglas Sloan and Ann Knapp. The duo co-wrote the DCOM Motocrossed (2001) a couple of years after Johnny Tsunami, before co-writing various Power Rangers television series, such as Ninja Storm (2003) and Dino Thunder (2004). Separately, Knapp has written various Barbie-related screen stories, like Barbie Princess Adventure (2020) and Barbie: Mermaid Power (2022). Sloan went on to be an executive producer of other DCOMs, including Minutemen (2008), Dadnapped (2009) and StarStruck (2010).
Johnny Tsunami was directed by Steve Boyum, who went on to direct a few other DCOMs in the early 2000s, including Stepsister from Planet Weird (2000) and Mom’s Got a Date with a Vampire (2000). He also directed episodes of television series such as Hawaii Five-0 (2010-20); Supernatural (2005-20); and Lethal Weapon (2016-19).
Although parts of Johnny Tsunami are both set and were filmed in Hawaii, apparently in North Shore on the island of Oahu, the rest of the film is set in Vermont – but it was not filmed there. Disney actually took production to Utah, where a list of other DCOMs have been filmed, including Go Figure (2005), Good Luck Charlie, It’s Christmas! (2011), and the High School Musical trilogy.
One specific filming location used was Brighton Ski Resort, which is a short distance from Salt Lake City in Utah. This was where many of the ski and snowboarding scenes were filmed. Brighton Ski Resort was also reportedly one of the ski resorts used for the DCOM Cloud 9 (2014), which was another movie about snowboarding – and one I liked much more than Johnny Tsunami[2]. Brighton Ski Resort was actually the first ski resort to open in the state of Utah, back in 1936, when there were only around 15 other ski areas in the whole of the US. It is located at the top of Big Cottonwood Canyon[3].
Because of the era that Johnny Tsunami was released, there is little behind-the-scenes footage of filming, whether that is because Disney Channel had not yet perfected their DCOM marketing campaign of including short videos about filming or cast interviews from their new films in between their programming, or because very few people would’ve been recording these little extras and therefore have not uploaded them to YouTube, I don’t know. Based on other sports-related Disney Channel movies though, I’m going to assume that most of the cast would’ve required lessons in skiing and snowboarding to be able to shoot their scenes, with the stunts being performed by stunt doubles. I don’t think that’s a stretch to make that assumption. Outside of that, I only know one other thing about the filming process and that is that the crew decided that having everyone use the chair lift to get up and down the mountain for the skiing and snowboarding portions of the film would take too long, so they came up with an innovative solution to this. It was quite simple really; they attached bungee cords to the back of snowmobiles and had the cast get back up the mountain that way, by basically driving them up whilst they rode on behind[4].
We may not consider a film about snowboarding to be very unique in present day; however, snowboarding actually hadn’t entered the mainstream until the late 1980s. Professional snowboarding events only really began in the 1980s, and the International Snowboarding Federation didn’t form until 1985. From this point, snowboarding started to become more prevalent in the media, which the iconic snowboarding scene in the James Bond film A View to Kill (1985) proved, thus potentially increasing interest in the sport. Snowboarding was not even introduced to the Winter Olympics until 1998, when it was held in Nagano, Japan. Curling also became an official medal sport at the Olympics in this year, just so you know. Since then, snowboarding has remained popular, with many more disciplines existing now, including Big Air, Snowboard Cross, and Slopestyle. The biggest competition for snowboarding outside of the Olympics is the Winter X Games, which began in 1997 and became an annual event from 2002[5].
Some big names in the sport currently include Team GB’s Mia Brookes, who narrowly missed out on a medal position at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics in the Big Air competition; Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale from Great Britain who won a gold medal in 2026 for the Mixed Team Snowboard Cross; Austrian Anna Gasser, who won two gold medals for Big Air, at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics; and American snowboarder Chloe Kim, who added a silver medal to her collection at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games in the Halfpipe, after winning a gold medal at both the 2022 and 2018 Winter Olympics. Another couple of big names in the sport are American Travis Rice, a two-time gold medallist at the Winter X Games, winning for Slopestyle in 2002 and Big Air in 2009, and American Shaun White, who currently holds the world record for the most Olympic gold medals by a snowboarder, holding three for Halfpipe in the Olympics at Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, and PyeongChang 2018. White has won numerous medals at the Winter X Games over the course of his career too, including 13 golds. White is also a skateboarder, having fronted video games about both sports.
Johnny Tsunami was only released just after a year after snowboarding made its debut at the Winter Olympics, bringing global attention to the sport, and only two years after the inaugural Winter X Games, so I believe that the choice of having Johnny Tsunami focus on snowboarding was no coincidence, as Disney Channel had probably hoped to capitalise on its interest with this movie.
RECEPTION
Johnny Tsunami premiered on Disney Channel in the US on 24th July 1999. Strange to have a summer release date for a movie primarily about winter sports, don’t you think?
There is little information on the viewing figures of many Disney Channel Original Movies on their premiere dates when going back to the late 1990s and early 2000s, so I am uncertain how popular the film was on its release date. Looking at other movies from around this time that did have their viewing figures listed somewhere, of which there were only around two or three, it would seem the average audience was around 3 million, though I cannot say if this was the case for Johnny Tsunami.
In terms of audience reactions, many felt Johnny Tsunami was a decent movie from Disney Channel, with the story seen to be fairly fast-paced, and that the acting amongst the kids was pretty good, compared with other television movies and given their young age, although it is worth noting that some of the leads already had some acting experience before this film. It was also felt that the dynamic between Brandon Baker and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, as Johnny and his grandpa, was good and the movie could only benefit from that. Generally, Johnny Tsunami is remembered as one of the better snowboarding movies, with a good message about tolerance and prejudice, and father-son relationships.
However, on the other hand, some felt the story was not particularly unique, with the class division being seen as cliched. Johnny Tsunami is also yet another sports movie about the underdog, who doesn’t seem like they’ll be good at the specific sport they’re trying but with practice and raw talent, they manage to succeed. Disney Channel in particular seem to like using this general story template for many of their DCOMs. The academy kids were seen to be incredibly stereotyped too. There were even comments about the locations used, because many, especially those who know Vermont, were very annoyed that Utah was being passed off as this area, without any real similarities in their scenery and skiing runs.
Johnny Tsunami has become one of the more popular and talked about DCOMs of that early era of official DCOM. It gets mentioned along with the likes of Brink!, Halloweentown (1998), and Motocrossed, mostly mentioning these as the very best of the best within Disney Channel’s movie catalogue. Personally though, I did not particularly enjoy Johnny Tsunami. It wasn’t something that really grabbed my interest from the start, and when the race was called at the end of the film between Johnny and Brett, I already knew Johnny was going to win. The message about the division between the “posh” kids and the other kids was the most interesting part for me, but I have seen that before. I think the trouble is the earlier DCOMs feel quite low budget and basic if you watched their more popular ones, like High School Musical (2006) and Camp Rock (2008), first like I did.
Johnny Tsunami was later nominated for the Humanitas Prize in the category of Children’s Live-Action Television. It lost to a different DCOM: The Color of Friendship (2000).
LEGACY
Given Johnny Tsunami’s approval amongst a subset of Disney Channel viewers from the 1990s, it is no surprise then that Johnny Tsunami has made a few lists where the best Disney Channel Original Movies have been ranked. What might come as a surprise is that there are over a hundred DCOMs, so even making a top 50 list would be an achievement.
For example, Cosmopolitan chose the “best” 65 DCOMs, of which Johnny Tsunami was one, ranking at No. 33 in this list[6]. Entertainment Weekly went a step further and picked their 40 top DCOMs, with Johnny Tsunami being positioned in the No. 15 spot. Reflecting on the film, they said that this film was fun and put together some of the best Disney Channel talent at the time from a variety of their franchises[7]. This has since become quite commonplace for Disney Channel, in order to increase the reach and success of their films.
Although these are impressive rankings for an older film like Johnny Tsunami, it perhaps should be taken into account the age of the people ranking these films. I’m not being ageist or anything, but if you were not watching Disney Channel in the 1990s, then the chances are your DCOM rankings would be very different. These two specific lists seem to have more focus on the late-90s and early 2000s DCOMs, and my own personal ranking would look quite different because I was not watching the channel at that time.
This film could also be credited with bringing the popular slogan “Go big or go home” to a younger audience. It is heard in Johnny Tsunami as the snowboarders congratulate Johnny on making some big jumps on the slope and they invite him to participate in a run. “Go big or go home” is revealed to be the snowboarders and the Urchins’ motto. Many people also know this slogan though, mostly in the context of sports, without seeing the film.
A few years later, a sequel to Johnny Tsunami premiered on Disney Channel. This new DCOM was Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board, released in 2007, eight years after its predecessor. I hadn’t seen Johnny Tsunami before, and the only reason I’d heard of it is because I remember Johnny Kapahala: Back on Board being aggressively advertised prior to its premiere date – the mid-2000s was primetime for me watching Disney Channel – and of course, it mentioned the original film.
More recently, Johnny Tsunami was referenced in a YouTube stunt. YouTuber Brad Jacobson decided to make a video to see if it was possible to surf on a snowboard. Teaming up with surfer Julien Williams, they set about seeing if it was possible. Williams spent many attempts paddling out into the waves on a foam surfboard, with a snowboard in hand. He then caught a wave on the surfboard before jumping onto the snowboard. Despite needing a few attempts, Williams did succeed in this, with online news outlets reporting that this was the “real” Johnny Tsunami, since it combined the film’s two main sports of surfing and snowboarding, showing how the term “Johnny Tsunami” has been adopted in pop culture[8].
FINAL THOUGHTS
Johnny Tsunami is not a Disney Channel movie that I will be rushing to go back and see again. It simply wasn’t for me. Not because it was about sports – although I’m not sporty, there are actually many sports movies I like – but just because it doesn’t match up to my expectations of what a DCOM should be.
I was watching Disney Channel when they were making a lot of musicals, and these will always be my favourite time of DCOM, and even when they weren’t musicals, they generally featured actors from the channel that I already knew, making me want to watch their new films. This wasn’t the case for Johnny Tsunami.
But I appreciate that many 90s kids would have enjoyed Johnny Tsunami and I hope this review goes some way into continuing the dialogue around this film.
REFERENCES
[1] Credit: Bentley Maddow, ‘What Happened to Johnny Tsunami’s Brandon Baker? A Rare Catch Up With the Disney Star’, EOnline.com, 30th August 2025.
[2] Credit: Jennifer Guzman, ‘Got Disney+? Keep an eye out for these movies filmed in Utah’, KSL.com, 12th November 2019.
[3] Credit: Local Lexi, ‘Ski Utah Resort Histories I Brighton Resort’, SkiUtah.com, 15th December 2020.
[4] Credit: Stacey Grant, ’23 Surprising DCOM Secrets Even Die-Hard Fans Didn’t Know’, Seventeen.com, 25th October 2017.
[5] Credit: Ben Kissam and Tom Ward, ‘The thrilling evolution of snowboarding: from its roots to today’, RedBull.com, 12th December 2023.
[6] Credit: Mehera Bonner and Jasmine Ting, ‘The 65 Best Disney Channel Original Movies, Ranked’, Cosmopolitan.com, 25th March 2025.
[7] Credit: EW Staff and James Mercadente, ‘The 40 best Disney Channel Original Movies, ranked’, EW.com, 1st July 2024.
[8] Credit: Justin Leveille, ‘The Real Johnny Tsunami: Surfer Shreds a Wave on a Snowboard’, Snowboarder.com, 24th August 2023.
The Disney Purist 