Cole Smithey

“	Let me know when that fuck Bob finally drops.	”
Cole

“	I do not regret giving birth to Cole.	”
Barbara Chandler

Cole Smithey
Information
Name	Joseph Cole Smithey
Also known as	The Smartest Film Critic in the World Joe Cool Coleslaw
Date of Birth	24 July 1963 (age 61)
Gender	Male
Nationality	American
Race	White
Spouse	Katherine Kyle (2013 – present)
Father	Ran Coleman Yeatts (alleged biological father) Jack Dale Smithey (biological father, as claimed by Barb) Jerry Harmon (stepfather) Robert Chandler (stepfather)
Mother	Barbara Chandler
Siblings	Christian Weston Chandler (half-brother)
Education	San Diego State University (DA) Hartnell College San Francisco City College
Occupations	Magician's assistant (1967-1976) Film critic Musician Tour guide

Joseph Cole Smithey (born 24 July 1963) is Chris's half-brother, Barbara's first son, and lone (living) escapee of the Casa de Chandler prior to Chris's arrest. Despite sharing chromosomes with his mentally challenged brother and being raised and abused by the same horrible mother, Cole leads a relatively normal life. Cole's emails to Chris revealed a lot of information about the Chandler family.

Life

Childhood

Cole was born on 24 July 1963, to mother Barbara Chandler, and father Ran Coleman Yeatts, who divorced Barbara before Cole was born. Barb has claimed that Jack Dale Smithey was Cole's father, who she claimed to have married; however, their relationship is shrouded in mystery, and Cole has spent years trying to figure out if Barbara was even actually married to Jack. He was mainly raised by Barbara and her later husband, stepfather Jerry Harmon. Harmon used to perform as a magician, and Cole frequently performed alongside him in his stage act entitled Operation Snowball. As a kid, he got into music, film and comics as a hobby. He stated he was a big fan of Kiss, and attended drum lessons at the age of 12. He saw his first R-rated movie, Fists of Fury, at the age of 8.

Cole has stated his childhood was fraught with abuse. In e-mails exchanged with his half-brother Chris, Cole particularly singled out Barbara for her treatment of him, stating she would abuse him via methods like bare spankings and cold showers. He also called out Jerry for his treatment of him as well, saying he'd join in with Barb and her abuse of Cole; however, he has been more charitable about Jerry in other accounts, so it's more than likely Barb who treated him the worst. In his article Saturday Night Special, Cole recounted an incident where Barbara fired a loaded gun at a steel door to ward off a burglar, the resulting ricochet of which almost striking young Cole in the head. These events have obviously had a lasting impression on him, and almost certainly contributed to him eventually leaving the care of Barbara in 1980.

• 

  Barb and Ran's marriage license.

• 

  The divorce.

• 

  Cole's TRUE and HONEST biological father, Ran Coleman Yeatts, from the 1961 Wake Forest yearbook. Notice the physical similarity.

• 

  Cole's family tree

California (1980-96)

Cole left home in 1980 at the age of 16 or 17 and moved to California. Not long after moving, he had a sinus infection which came close to killing him. This was the second of at least three near-death encounters in his life. Cole's LinkedIn profile states that he attended San Diego State University from 1981 and earned a Dramatic Art degree in Music in 1984. While at college he was the drummer for a Poway-based punk rock band called "The Rockin' Dogs" which played shows in the San Diego area. The band was formed in 1981 and broke up in 1985.

Cole later moved to Northern California. At some point he attended Hartnell College and San Francisco City College, where he pursued a similar course of study. His LinkedIn profile does not mention him receiving a degree from either school. In July 1989 the Chandler household, including Chris, flew to San Francisco to celebrate Cole's 26th birthday. This was the only time they came to visit him during his entire 16-year tenure in California. By 1994, still in San Francisco, Cole was doing shows as "Cole Blooded" and had apparently shifted to the guitar.

In 1996 he moved to New York.

Present

“	As the story goes, human boy Andy (voiced by John Morris) is off to college, and must finally put away childish things — something most boys do before junior high. Talk about arrested development — this kid isn't getting any dates.	”
Cole in his infamous Toy Story 3 review, quite clearly seeing Chris in Andy.

Cole currently lives in Manhattan and is a film critic who is featured on Rotten Tomatoes. He was mentioned in Time magazine for being the first critic to give a negative review to Toy Story 3, breaking the Toy Story franchise's string of perfect scores on RT. Several years later, in an interview with Arthur Spatchcock, Chris stated that he disagreed with his brother's review even though he hadn't seen the film.

Cole occasionally hosts eBay auctions for the winning bidder to spend a night with him drinking craft beer at his wife's bar and talking about film, proving that, despite one half-brother being a pretentious wannabe hipster douchebag and the other being a socially-stunted mentally-ill manchild, they both share the same bloated ego.

He brands himself as "The Smartest Film Critic in the World." (A title that the late, esteemed film critic Roger Ebert once mocked.) Cole regularly posts his reviews to YouTube, but his videos have hilariously low view counts, rarely more than a few hundred per video and sometimes not even more than a few dozen, even on reviews of well-known films. Ironically, the various videos Chris posted to YouTube over the years are literally thousands of times more popular than those of his relatively more successful brother. It probably doesn't help matters that Cole Smithey's videos have rather low production values, and negative reviews of well-received films (like Toy Story 3 and Lady Bird, which we will get to). On a sidenote, he also considers Freddy Got Fingered (a film often considered to be one of the worst of all time) to be "Classic Cinema".

“	Wild Strawberries is a thematically abundant film that fluidly condenses a lifetime's worth of experience into succinct cinematic fragments under Ingmar Bergman's complex construction of abstract corollaries.	”
An example of Cole Smithey's obsession with big words

By March 2007, Cole was in a relationship with a woman named Katherine (no, not her). This is most likely the same Katherine he married in March 2013. Given that Cole mentioned an earlier wedding during his correspondence with Chris, it appears that Katherine is his second wife, unless the "wedding" in 2013 was actually a renewal of vows. His brother-in-law, John Kyle, sang at his wedding. John later commented on Message for John Kyle, where he mentions Cole.

“	He's a great guy. He's my brother in law, and he's never mentioned Chris to me. I think he's doing his best to distance himself from this. You all should too.	”
John Kyle

According to an article written by his friend, syndicated cartoonist Ted Rall, Cole once came close to death from necrotizing fasciitis after an ER nurse made a misdiagnosis, and believes that 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders's rise can be attributed to the "failure of propaganda."

Cole has co-hosted a free weekly podcast called LA GRANDE BOUFFE (THE BIG FEAST) since 23 April 2016.

In December 2017, Cole repeated his Toy Story trick by being the first critic to give Lady Bird a negative review, ruining its perfect 100% Rotten Tomatoes score from 196 previous reviewers. Cole added fuel to the firestorm of criticism he received by admitting to spoiling the film's score on purpose.

On 30 September 2020, Cole allegedly sent flowers to Barb for her 79th birthday. Many people believe, however, that it wasn’t actually Cole, but a ween pretending to be him. After the flowers were received, Chris made a video, showing Barb’s gratitude for the flowers, and claiming that in Dimension C-197, Cole and Iron Man hang out a lot, and that he’ll get to meet Batman in New Jersey when the Dimensional Merge happens.

It remains unknown how Cole reacted to the news that Chris was committing incest with Barb, except for the fact that he stopped allowing Twitter users to reply to his tweets and deleted one tweet from July 2021 which had been flooded with replies about incest.

Identity of Father

As stated above, Cole was kept in the dark about the identity of his true father. Jerry Harmon was Cole's stepfather and father figure for almost the entirety of his childhood.

According to Barb, the elusive Jack Dale Smithey was his biological father, whom she allegedly was married to before Cole was born.

At one point, Cole would make a trip to Richmond to get all of Barb's marriage certificates. As he suspected, there was no marriage certificate for a marriage to Jack Dale Smithey, not even Jerry Harmon. There was, however, one to a Ran Coleman Yeatts, whose middle name coincidentally matched with Cole's first name. They divorced 2 months before he was born. In fact, he used to visit Cole as a "family friend.".

Cole went even further and tracked Jack Dale Smithey down all the way to Florida, who confirmed Cole's suspicions. When Cole confronted Barb about the Jack's revelations, she promptly hung up the phone.

While there is no definitive proof that Ran Coleman Yeatts is his biological father, such as a DNA test (he was dead by the time Cole found out), considering the similarities in their appearance and the timeline of Cole's birth, it can stand to reason that Ran is Cole's biological father.

That doesn't stop Barb and his mentally stunted little brother from being in denial, however.

Relationship with Barbara and Bob

“	The crux of my problem with Barbara comes from two sources. The first is Bob's bitter influence on her, which worked to separate our relationship just as Bob did with his own children with whom he has no association. In nearly 44 years of life, I have never met a meaner or more reprehensible Republican cur than Bob Chandler. I hope that you will e-mail me when he dies so that I can celebrate. Our mutual hatred has never been a secret, and it points out Barbara's proclivity to isolate herself via scurrilous mates. The second and more compelling issue that permanently ruined my relationship with Barbara is the litany of lies she tells anyone who'll listen about the identity of my biological father and about her marriage history.	”
Cole Smithey on his complicated relationship with his biological mother and stepfather..

A likely summary for Bob and Cole's relationship.

Cole smiles alongside Barbara on Chris's 18th birthday.

Cole was not on good terms with Bob or Barbara. According to Cole, Bob worked his "bitter influence" on Barbara to separate her from Cole. He has "never met a meaner or more reprehensible Republican cur than Bob Chandler." In multiple emails to Chris, Cole asks to be informed when Bob dies so he can celebrate.

Barbara visited Cole only once in 27 years, whereas Cole had made special effort to visit her several times. Cole's wife's family treats him more like family than his own. Chris has complained that Cole is ignoring Barb's attempts to get in touch with him. It would seem that Cole has left his mother to her own devices. As the Financhu Crisis progressed, Barb has seemingly expressed interest in meeting Cole, although it's not clear if this is to try to mooch off of her son or if she wants to try to bond with him before she croaks.

Of course, Cole would do well not to bother with Chris and Barb's (dubious) pleas for a visit, given Barb's history of manipulation and dishonesty (such that he even once referred to her actions as "pathological behaviour"), not to mention her history of abusing him during his formative years.

Shortly after Bob's death on 6 September 2011, a troll on 789chan took Cole's wish of knowing when his stepfather died, contacting him using the phone number he provided in his leaked emails. In spite of his vitriol towards Bob three years prior, he was apparently quite broken up by the news. While Cole was certainly upset at Bob, his reaction to Bob's actual death shows that he ultimately did sympathize with him. While no audio of this call has ever been released, its existence is confirmed by those who browsed the board at the time.

Relationship with Chris

Depicted burning his money instead of giving it to Chris, as drawn by Chris in June 2016. Note in the picture it says "mother and sister."

Ironically, for much of his life Cole has actually gotten along much better with Chris than with either Bob or Barb, and possibly better than with any of his other direct relatives. Then again, when you don't actually know who your paternal relatives are, you have to take what you can get.

Cole was not around when Chris was growing up. Being nineteen years older, he was in California making a life for himself. Cole said that Barbara and Bob neglected Chris for years with the abusive babysitter, which suggests that he believes that Chris's muteness in early life was their fault. When he was eventually able to speak again around age seven, Chris visited Cole in San Francisco along with Barb. This was the only time Chris had ever been on an airplane for 35 years, the only time he had ever been to the West Coast of the United States and one of the few times that he has left Virginia.

Cole's relationship with his family became somewhat closer after he moved back to the East Coast in 1996. He came to visit them in Virginia on various occasions, although they never visited him in New York. For New Year's Day 1998 Chris gave Cole a Lego Band Stand and wished him a "Rocking New Year." However, in 1999, on a Spanish exercise, Chris described "Cole the Beedrill" as muy feo (very ugly), suggesting relations had strained, probably because of Barb (although he may also have been referring to the aspect of the actual Pokémon species). Nevertheless, Cole visited for Chris's 18th birthday party in 2000. Later in the same year, for Cole's 37th birthday, Chris made him A CD For Cole Smithey!. Naturally, the present had little to do with Cole and everything to do with Chris, even featuring a picture of Chris on the cover.

The half-brothers hold their hands the same way on Chris's 18th birthday.

The last time they set eyes on each other was at the 2004 Weston family Christmas party.

In July 2007, Chris sent an e-mail asking for Cole's vote in the PaRappa contest. In return, Cole asked Chris to find out the truth about his father from Barbara. The timing of this request was probably not a coincidence, as Ran Coleman Yeatts had died a month prior. Chris did ask his mother about it, but she maintained her version of the story (It's unclear why Cole expected anything else). Chris was more interested in the PaRappa contest than his brother's plight, showing just how self-absorbed he truly is (though in Chris's defense, getting involved in an awkward quarrel about parentage is a pretty odd price for a simple upvote on a video). Chris's dismissive attitude only resulted in Cole becoming even more bitter towards both Chris and Barbara than he already was. Suffice to say, Cole did not vote for Chris. To date, these remain the last known communications between the half-brothers as Cole probably distanced himself even further from Chris since only a couple of months later, the GAMe PLACe photograph was posted onto 4chan, thus beginning Chris's infamy on the internet.

In a leaked e-mail sent to Jackie on 14 May 2011, Chris wrote that Cole "has had mental problems since he hit his head on a bus, and has taken it out heavily on our mother." Some argue the story could be a lie Barbara told Chris to explain Cole's bitterness towards her while masking the issue that actually caused it.

Cole (far right) as a Mii in one of Chris's Super Smash Bros. Videos, Family Needs to appreciate Family

In recent years Chris has made numerous efforts to get in touch with Cole, to no avail. In October 2013 he told his friend Rebeckah, "I have no confirmed or direct contact with him in NY; he doesn't respond to email, twitter feed, Facebook, YouTube, etcetera, either. So, I am most unable to reach him at all." On 22 June 2013, Chris attempted to contact Cole via video. He recorded a message directed to John Kyle, Cole's brother-in-law, who sang at his wedding (Kyle would later reveal that, until the video was brought to his attention by a troll, he had not even known that his sister's husband had a half-brother). Chris expressed anger at Cole for not inviting him and Barb to his wedding. He also claimed that relatives, including Jerry Harmon and Jack Dale Smithey, had been lying to Cole about Barb, making him believe that Barb was abusive, when according to Chris, she's a good person.

In the same month, Chris tried to communicate with Cole on Twitter, basically telling him to come back home so he could dump his familial responsibilities on him and go on his Sweetheart Search. He also suggested that Cole had some mental/physical problems of his own (even talking down to him at one point) right before activating the "Playing for Sympathy" card, lamenting his time in jail.

In August 2015, Chris tried yet again to reach out to Cole, this time through Facebook, hoping that a flurry of hashtags would work their magic. In November 2015 he returned to YouTube with a video depiction of a battle in which Chris and his allies face off against Cole, his other step-brother, and his step-sister in Super Smash Bros. "OUR Mother is Still Alive; I REALLY want you to make amends and get close, once again, to her before Her time runs out," he wrote in the description. The following day he arranged a similar fight among his Amiibo figurines and angrily accused Cole of being possessed by the spirit of Count Graduon. He posted an image of his Cole Amiibo on Facebook. In this spat of postings Chris attempts to appear concerned about Cole not being around for their mother's twilight years, thinly veiling his real concerns.

Chris has two explanations for this falling-out with his half-brother, both fed to him by Barb. First, Cole has been entirely misled about Barb's character by the lies of other family members. "She is the opposite of what hate they filled Cole's head with," Chris asserts. Second, Cole's "mental problems" caused by his childhood injury mean that he has "taken it out heavily on our mother." "Lord Knows What Else goes on through his head," Chris has concluded, demonstrating that more than anything else, Cole is almost entirely unknown to Chris. For the most part, the main trait Chris seems to be aware of regarding his half-brother is that he has a career and makes a living. This, in traditional Chris fashion, means opportunity and progressively his attempts to reach out have more and more focused on Cole financially supporting Chris and Barb, returning Chris to the idyllic balance he enjoyed with Bob as the responsible man in the house.

In June 2016, Chris posted a Facebook rant about Cole alleging that he and his wife spend two thousand dollars a month on rent for an apartment "a few buildings down East 90th from Carnigee [sic] Hall" and that he once lived at Carnegie Hall itself. In reality, Carnegie Hall is not near East 90th Street, and nobody lives at Carnegie Hall—it's a concert hall, not an apartment building. East 90th Street actually passes through Carnegie Hill, a neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper East Side. This lack of research didn't stop Chris from depicting his half-brother as having money to "piss and burn" while simultaneously begging him for money.

In May 2017, Chris mocked Cole on Twitter, stating "Oh my gosh, my half brother is suddenly begging for money now". This was in response to Cole asking his fans to pledge money to him on Patreon in a since-deleted video, suggesting he has also hit rock bottom. Chris said he would pledge to him, but he still hasn't apologized or made up with Barb. Ironically, Chris tried to pledge to him but Cole blocked him, making it clear once again that he really wanted nothing to do with his old life.

In December 2017, Chris wanted to drive to New York to confront Cole. He tried to channel his Sonichu power to conjure up Cole's address but was unsuccessful and did not attempt to make the trip. Joshua Wise discouraged Chris from doing this, leading to him dropping the idea.

A certificate sent to anyone who bought Cole's stuff

Chris began offering pieces of Cole's belongings for sale via eBay in March 2018, mostly his comic books. He placed great value in the fact that these comic books belonged to Cole, supposedly seeing him as some sort of celebrity, even referring to him as his mantle "The World's Smartest Film Critic." He even went so far as to make certificates that confirmed that these comic books belonged to Cole.

On 30 September 2020, Barb received a bouquet of flowers for her birthday, ostensibly from Cole (although it is more likely from a ween). Chris (while roleplaying as Sonichu) recorded a video of Barb thanking Cole, before turning the camera back to himself and informing Cole that he (Cole) had been hanging out with various superheroes from Marvel and DC, and encouraging Cole to get back into contact with Chris via his publicly available cell phone number.

Cole in the comics

Throughout the original run of Sonichu, Cole was referenced in the CWCipedia profile for Rosechu as "Professor Cole," assumed to be a version of Cole Smithey, listed as the one who gave Kel the Pichu who would become Rosechu. Chris later marketed a custom Amiibo depicting Cole as a Jerkop, seemingly foreshadowing his presence as a villain in the CWCville universe. It was not clear for several years whether the original "Professor Cole" character was still canon.

In Sonichu 7, the comic version of Chris mentions Cole by his full name, Joseph Cole Smithey, to classmate Joseph Herring. This was later retconned to "Joe Cool" Smithey.

Cole finally appears in Sonichu #12 as, indeed, a Jerkop, brainwashed by Count Graduon. Reldnahc uses Cole to "distract [Chris] with family" in order to get the drop on him. He is bizarrely depicted as a gray-haired, mustached old man with a trilby. Comic Chris immediately identifies him as his brother despite Cole never appearing in the comic before, made all the more confusing by the same battle also featuring Chris's imaginary sister and evil twin.

In 2019, Chris confirmed that Cole was the Pokémon Professor during 2003, but stated his "methods and ideals were varied," and his work was "faltering" by 2005, leading to his demotion in favour of a smoking-hot graduate whose body Chris describes in vivid detail. A year later, he "quite" and moved to New York to become a full-time movie reviewer.

Gallery

• 

  Young Cole with his stepdad Jerry Harmon with a plane.

• 

  Jerry, young Cole & Barbara at a backstage of "Disaster Headquarters."

• 

  King Karnak, Barbie & Cole, of Operation Snowball.

• 

  1977 - Teenage Cole skateboarding around the University of Virginia.

• 

  1984 - Cole playing drums.

• 

  Chris's gift to Cole in 1998

• 

  A CD For Cole Smithey!

• 

  As if Barbara had any involvement with the CD.

• 

  Postcard Cole sent to Barbara in 1994.

• 
• 

  Cole as a Jerkop.

• 

External links

• ColeSmithey.com
• Cole at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cole's YouTube channel
• LinkedIn page

    People