Movie-lover Dan Florio found himself in an agonizing predicament back in 2004 when he went to see the highly-anticipated remake of King Kong. "It was opening night," says Florio, "I had to pee desperately, but I didn’t want to miss any of the movie, so I didn’t go. I couldn’t enjoy the movie."
On the way to the restroom after the movie, he saw all the other movie-goers waiting in line for the next showing. "I wanted to tell them about this one really long, gross scene with insects that would make the perfect time to run and pee," says Florio. But instead of heralding the pee time personally in the theater, he started a website.
"The website opened to crickets," says Florio, but he didn’t give up on his quest to share the best pee times with fellow small-bladdered film fanatics. Here’s where his mother, Ginger Gardner, stepped in.
"I suggested he contact Leo Laporte, the tech guy and Laporte mentioned the runpee website on his radio show," says Gardner, or "RunPee Mom" as she’s called on the app. Soon, the website grew in popularity, even making it as a question on the popular game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
RunPee Mom tells the story, "The contestant was asked what information the website RunPee.com provided. He didn’t know the answer, but he had a lifeline to call former United States House Majority Leader, Tom Delay. Delay told the contestant the website gave the best times to pee during a movie, but the contestant didn’t believe him. He lost the million dollars!"
Despite gaining fame on television, movie lovers were begging for a phone app. That’s when the RunPee app was born — in Florio’s bedroom.
"I never anticipated this app would be very popular," says Florio. "I mainly did it as practice for learning a new computer code."
The app includes a setting that will make your phone vibrate when it’s time to get up and go. It even tells you what you missed while you’re in the bathroom and whether or not there are extra scenes after the end credits.
As the app gained popularity, Dan Florio was challenged by finding the best pee times for as many movies as possible.
"Sometimes, there were Fridays where I would sit through three movies in a row, that was a lot," so he employed his mom and sis, Christene Johnson. Now all three divide and conquer the films, seeing as many as possible on opening day.
"It works out well," says Johnson, or "RunPee Sis" as she’s called on the app. Her brother loves action movies, her mom loves dramas and comedies, "And I love horror movies, so we have every genre covered," she says.
When asked which film will win Best Picture at the Oscars, Florio thinks Life of Pi will be the winner. However, RunPee Mom has a different opinion.
"If you’d asked me a week ago, I would have said Lincoln. But I just saw Django Unchained and that was a great movie," says Gardner.
RunPee Sis votes for Flight. "That movie blew me away!" she says with no pun in intended, I think.
Florio was kind enough to share a couple of pee times with SheKnows:
Zero Dark Thirty: 54 minutes in. The cue is when Jessica says, "With 25 million dollars on the table I think he'll give up the big man." Then you see on screen: Camp Chapman — Afghanistan.
Les Miserables: 55 minutes in. The cue is after Jean Valjean sings "Cosette shall have a father now."
Check out the RunPee app for yourself at runpee.com. Available for Android and iPhone.
Price: 99¢.