FH Mini 143 - IP Freely 2026

[0:00] Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of the Flophouse Mini. That's right, usually

[0:10] the Flophouse watches a bad movie and then we talk about it, but also usually, because

[0:15] it's half the time, so it's really equal, we do Flophouse Minis, where we just kinda

[0:22] talk about whatever we want. Sometimes it's related to movies, sometimes it's not related

[0:26] to movies, sometimes it's related to things that are related to movies, and sometimes

[0:31] it's not related to things that are related to movies. You're saying that like you've

[0:35] got a sexy secret. Should we change it from Mini to Flophouse Unchained or something?

[0:42] I mean maybe, it doesn't really make any sense, it's no longer short, it happens half the

[0:48] time anyway. So welcome to another Flophouse Unchained, where we get raw and crazy, we

[0:56] let ourselves loose, we do whatever we want, there's no rules. I'm Elliot, Bad Dog Kalen,

[1:03] and I'm joined by my co-hosts, Dan Off The Leash McCoy, and Stuart Bow Wow Wow Wellington.

[1:10] That's right, and you're in the Flophouse Doghouse, we're talking about something very

[1:14] exciting. That's right, we're talking about the public domain, because this episode is

[1:19] coming out January 10th, 2026. This is one of the most exciting times of the year because

[1:23] this is when we finally get our hands on all those cultural properties that have entered

[1:28] the public domain, and we can do whatever we want with them, yay! Let me explain. Every

[1:33] year, the copyright expires on a class of really old stuff, and it just becomes part

[1:38] of the common creative clay of American art. And I feel like as a creative person who wants

[1:43] to make a living, I love the idea of copyright, because I want to make something, and then

[1:48] own it, and then make money off of it, and leave it to my family. But as a creative person

[1:52] who recognizes that in reality, corporations own most of the copyrights, and they just

[1:56] hold things back and make it harder for other people to do cool things with them, I also

[2:00] like the public domain a lot. And I think that there's something really exciting about

[2:04] the public domain, because you can finally do stuff with famous stuff. And we are now

[2:08] entering this era where the things that are going into the public domain are 20th century

[2:14] things that we are already familiar with. It's no longer like, oh, this old book from

[2:18] like a thousand years ago or whatever is in the public domain.

[2:22] Moby Dork, Shamala is in the public domain.

[2:25] Yeah, now I can finally make the three butt sketeers, and they can have sex with each

[2:29] other, like who cares, you know? But now we have these new things in the 20th century

[2:33] that are public domain. This year, pretty much everything from the year 1930 is in the

[2:38] public domain now, which is super exciting, because this has went like movies that people

[2:42] might have watched on their own just because are in the public domain now. So I decided

[2:47] I want to make this a new annual tradition. Every January, I'm going to talk to my friends,

[2:51] Dan and Stu, and I'm going to say, here's some new public domain properties. What are

[2:54] we going to do with them? Like, what can we do with them?

[2:57] And so let's talk about some of them. A few characters are entering the public domain

[3:01] this year that are exciting. For instance, the earliest character of Nancy Drew is entering

[3:07] the public domain. So guys, what are we going to do with Nancy Drew now that we can do whatever

[3:12] we want with her?

[3:13] What's her whole thing, Dan, before you get creepy?

[3:16] Why is there an assumption I'm going to get creepy? Her whole thing? Like, she's like

[3:23] a young woman who solves crimes.

[3:25] Okay, Dan, don't get creepy. Okay, yeah. She's a girl detective, basically.

[3:29] Yeah, she's Lady Hardy Boy.

[3:31] Exactly.

[3:32] Okay, but I think she may have predated the Hardy Boys. I don't know.

[3:35] I think she did.

[3:36] She dated the Hardy Boys?

[3:37] Yeah.

[3:38] She dated both of them at the same time in a movie that I saw.

[3:42] Sounds complicated.

[3:43] Well, obviously, it was scheduling.

[3:46] It was called Challengers.

[3:49] Whatever you did, next, Luca Guadagnino is going to do Challengers, but it's about two

[3:56] boy detectives and they're dating a girl detective.

[3:59] That's a pretty good, I don't know, that's a pretty good pitch.

[4:02] I mean, they're going to be able to, they'll find all the clues as to infidelities and

[4:06] whatnot.

[4:07] I guess that's true. It is hard to have an affair when the person you're cheating on

[4:10] is a detective.

[4:12] You would think, but I feel like oftentimes they're so wrapped up in their own mysteries.

[4:16] They forget to pay attention to the thing right in front of them.

[4:19] They don't understand the mysteries of the heart.

[4:20] I feel like we're kind of partway to what our Nancy Drew property is going to be. Nancy

[4:25] Drew is like, she's got a couple of lovers and she's got to keep them in the dark about

[4:30] each other and cover up her tracks, or alternately, she thinks that somebody is cheating on her.

[4:37] Her boyfriend's cheating on her.

[4:38] She's got to figure out the mystery.

[4:40] Maybe it uncorks a larger can of worms.

[4:43] Do they can worms with corks?

[4:45] Almost like a clueless sort of take where Nancy Drew's with this high school detective

[4:51] who is, I mean, I'm basically talking about fucking Veronica Mars.

[4:54] I guess it's about like, you know, like the paranoia that seeps in when you deal with

[4:59] mysteries like and like it leads her to see infidelity where it may not actually.

[5:04] OK, so I mean, that's kind of like a Harriet the Spy type thing where she kind of is intruding

[5:08] in people's lives because she thinks there's more kind of adventure going on in them.

[5:12] Harriet the Spy, not in the public domain.

[5:14] Nancy Drew now is. So let's try it.

[5:16] Nancy Drew, it's like, but this could be like the gritty dark take where Nancy Drew is kind

[5:21] of she believes that she's paranoid and believes there's mysteries all around her, you know,

[5:26] and she's losing her mind.

[5:28] And then probably Elder Gods or something.

[5:29] Or we could do the gross out comedy version.

[5:32] Nancy Drewel.

[5:33] It sounds more like a Garbage Pail Kids.

[5:37] Oh, is there something more gross out?

[5:39] I love that Stewart's like, let's do the gross out version and Dan goes, and it sounds like

[5:43] Garbage Pail Kids.

[5:44] It's like, yeah, exactly.

[5:45] I guess I'm arguing with the comedy part of it.

[5:50] I mean, if you're going to if you're going to doubt the legacy of Art Spiegelman, Dan,

[5:55] in the way, you know, then sure you can.

[5:58] Creator of Garbage Pail Kids.

[5:59] No, it's true.

[6:00] And Wacky Packages.

[6:01] And Wacky Packages.

[6:02] And also Mouse.

[6:03] The story of his father's experiences in the Holocaust really contains multitudes.

[6:07] Art Spiegelman.

[6:08] Yeah.

[6:09] Yeah.

[6:10] So he's not in the public domain yet, though.

[6:11] So let's.

[6:12] OK.

[6:13] Nancy Drew is a.

[6:14] So we're either doing a kind of a kind of gothic noir where she's losing her mind or

[6:18] it's kind of like, oh, it's a gross out.

[6:23] Now, what now?

[6:24] What are the details of Nancy Drew beyond the obvious?

[6:27] Well, she's like she's a gross girl detective.

[6:31] I think it's pretty straightforward.

[6:34] She's a gross.

[6:35] So she it's hard for to go undercover or to like be like to fade to the background because

[6:39] she's so gross.

[6:40] She's always drooling.

[6:41] Yeah.

[6:42] She's questioning people.

[6:43] Nancy Drew's coming over.

[6:44] Yeah.

[6:45] I think she'll be like farting and giving herself away when she's hiding in the bushes.

[6:49] Yeah.

[6:50] What's her premise?

[6:51] She's a really good detective, but no one takes her seriously because she's so gross.

[6:55] She's so gross.

[6:56] Yeah.

[6:57] OK.

[6:58] Yeah.

[6:59] It's not just drooling.

[7:00] It's any gross thing.

[7:01] No.

[7:02] Her given name, her Christian name is Nancy Drew.

[7:04] But the movie is called Nancy Drool because they call her that because she drool.

[7:08] I like it.

[7:09] So she's got all she's got all the suspects in one room and she goes, no one's leaving

[7:12] this room until we find the killer.

[7:14] But she keeps farting.

[7:15] So they all really want to leave the room.

[7:16] And the killer volunteers that they did it because they wanted to get out of there.

[7:19] Yeah.

[7:20] She's farting and it's getting smelly.

[7:21] And then she finally throws up.

[7:23] And that smells so bad that the killer admits it.

[7:25] Yeah.

[7:26] Well, it's the smell of the vomit that's the worst part of it.

[7:28] I see right.

[7:29] Because it makes everybody throw up.

[7:30] You've seen Stand By Me.

[7:31] Everybody throws up when there's throw up around.

[7:32] Yeah.

[7:33] That's what happened.

[7:34] OK.

[7:35] So I think.

[7:36] So Nancy Drool.

[7:37] We got it.

[7:38] I don't even know if we need her to be in the public domain to do that.

[7:41] It might fall under the parody rules, but that's cool.

[7:44] It means we don't have to worry about getting legal involved.

[7:46] Just to check.

[7:47] Drool is what the tagline would be.

[7:48] That's cool.

[7:49] That's cool.

[7:50] Just drool it, I think, would be another one.

[7:53] Just drool it.

[7:54] Yeah, exactly.

[7:55] Yeah.

[7:56] So that's Nancy.

[7:57] Nancy Drool is now Nancy Drool.

[7:58] OK.

[7:59] Let's go to another character who is now entering the public domain.

[8:03] Dan's going to love this one because he loves comic strip characters.

[8:06] And there's no comic strip character that I think has really touched the hearts of America,

[8:11] gotten across the idea of humor, got the adventure of comic strips.

[8:15] No character does it better than Blondie.

[8:17] That's right.

[8:18] Blondie.

[8:19] This is the early.

[8:20] This is Blondie from her first appearance, who is a flapper, you know, and I but I assume

[8:24] you could still do the Blondie, who is a who's just a housewife, you know.

[8:28] So, Dan, what are we going to do housewife?

[8:31] And Dan, what are we going to do with Blondie again?

[8:33] Keep it clean.

[8:34] You don't have to keep it as clean as Nancy Drew, who is, I think, potentially a minor.

[8:39] I don't remember.

[8:40] Blondie, of course.

[8:41] I mean, she is.

[8:42] Maybe you don't need to keep it clean.

[8:43] I don't know.

[8:45] She's super hot.

[8:46] Thanks, Elliot.

[8:48] You're attributing all of this perviness to me.

[8:52] And I feel like it just makes you sound like you're I don't know.

[8:58] But Blondie, what a deflection with the shield over here.

[9:04] So there were a lot of that was a great defense.

[9:06] You're making me sound pervy, but I don't know.

[9:07] Maybe you are.

[9:09] There were a series of like Blondie movies back in the day.

[9:14] I mean, I think it actually is more interesting that she was a flap.

[9:18] Like the thing is about Blondie is like they they abandoned the premise in charge in favor

[9:23] of just sort of like, I don't know, suburban comedy.

[9:27] Yeah.

[9:28] But part of the humor of it, I guess originally was that like, yeah, she was a free spirited

[9:33] flapper girl who then marries like kind of a square guy and they have a suburban life

[9:39] or whatever.

[9:40] I mean, is he a square?

[9:41] He's got that crazy haircut.

[9:42] And he's such big sandwiches.

[9:44] He's a young, rich guy.

[9:45] And I think if I'm right, currently, the story is that he gets like disowned by his family

[9:49] for marrying Blondie.

[9:50] And that's why they become suburbanites, you know, rather than living it.

[9:54] OK.

[9:55] Yeah.

[9:56] Well, I think that the fish out of water like return to that.

[10:00] That seems like the interesting part of it, right?

[10:03] Like, there's no...

[10:03] So it's kind of a born-yesterday type thing?

[10:07] I know I saw that movie, but I can't really remember what it was.

[10:09] Where she's like a gangster's mole who's like...

[10:11] Right, right, right.

[10:11] They want her to enter society,

[10:12] and so the guy comes to teach her

[10:14] and make her, you know, educate her on stuff,

[10:16] sophisticated stuff. Yeah.

[10:17] I remember her playing...

[10:18] Like a my fair lady. Playing gin.

[10:19] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[10:21] But you want the, or you want the,

[10:23] I hate to bring up vomit again,

[10:24] that scene in your favorite movie, Babylon,

[10:26] where she's at that fancy party

[10:27] and she just throws up all over the place.

[10:29] Yeah.

[10:32] Sorry, I'm so sleepy right now.

[10:34] No, this is good, this is good, this is great.

[10:35] Stuart, what do you think about Blondie?

[10:37] What are you going to do with her?

[10:37] And again, this is Blondie the character, not the band.

[10:40] The Blondie the band will not enter the public domain

[10:42] until 50 years from now.

[10:44] But can we have this Blondie start a band?

[10:47] Yes, this Blondie could start a band, for sure.

[10:49] Interesting.

[10:50] Okay, so this is what happens.

[10:51] So Fish Out of Water story.

[10:53] Fish Out of Water story,

[10:54] she has to learn how to be a suburban housewife,

[11:00] despite having a background as a flapper.

[11:02] And in the process,

[11:03] she inadvertently invents the Brownie variation,

[11:07] the Blondie.

[11:08] Oh, okay.

[11:09] And they become incredibly rich.

[11:11] So that's the arc of the story.

[11:13] Okay, interesting.

[11:13] You could do that.

[11:14] I mean, that feels like that's your story for.

[11:16] And Dagwood is asleep when this happens.

[11:20] That's pretty terrible.

[11:22] Sleeping off a sandwich.

[11:25] And he is, there's a little bit of strife

[11:27] because suddenly they're thrust into the public eye

[11:30] because of her invention.

[11:31] And is this like a big eyes type scenario

[11:33] where Dagwood is taking credit

[11:34] for the invention of the Blondie,

[11:35] even though he had nothing to do with it?

[11:36] Of course.

[11:38] As a sleepy man,

[11:40] I have to say, I'm so fucking mad

[11:41] that that kid in Blondie who keeps waking up Dagwood,

[11:45] just like wanders into the house to wake.

[11:48] I mean, although, also it's on Dagwood.

[11:50] Like, lock your fucking door.

[11:52] You know that I don't want to get in.

[11:53] Or sleep in your bedroom, not on the couch.

[11:55] You know, that might be part of the story.

[11:56] Why does this kid not assume Dagwood has a gun?

[11:59] I mean, the first time you wake someone up,

[12:02] you intrude in someone's house and wake them up

[12:04] and they don't shoot you.

[12:05] I think that's, the precedent has been set, you know?

[12:09] I don't know, after the first time,

[12:10] maybe that's when he goes to the pawn shop,

[12:12] he trades in his wedding band.

[12:14] His wedding band.

[12:16] His wedding band goes,

[12:17] this is what brought me all the trouble.

[12:18] This is what brought me low.

[12:20] I'll trade it in for a gun now.

[12:21] So Dan's version of Blondie and Vol

[12:23] is kind of like an advocation

[12:27] of the stand your ground laws.

[12:29] You know, that kind of thing.

[12:30] I didn't say that.

[12:32] I just said, lock the door.

[12:34] I didn't say nothing about,

[12:35] you guys brought guns into the conversation.

[12:39] That's true, that's true.

[12:40] Okay, so Blondie is the story of the rise and fall,

[12:43] the fall and rise of this family.

[12:45] A flapper who invents a dessert.

[12:47] Okay, I think that sounds great.

[12:48] I think it's pretty good.

[12:49] Yeah, I think that's good.

[12:50] Okay, next, Dan, keep it clean.

[12:54] Now in the public domain,

[12:56] the earliest version of Betty Boop

[12:57] where she still looks like a dog woman.

[12:59] That has entered the public domain.

[13:01] Not the later Betty Boop who is not a dog woman,

[13:03] but the original one.

[13:05] I don't know if there's any way of keeping this clean.

[13:08] I think what we should do

[13:10] is we should sell T-shirts on the boardwalk

[13:13] that feature Betty Boop,

[13:14] but she's like covered in tattoos

[13:15] and has like pistols in her hands.

[13:18] Stuart, I hate to break it to you.

[13:20] Someone stole your billion dollar idea.

[13:22] What?

[13:24] Oh, hard earnings during spending.

[13:28] You're like, well, what if we just did T-shirts

[13:29] where the Looney Tunes characters were rappers?

[13:31] Stuart, I hate to break it to you, yeah.

[13:33] Okay, okay.

[13:34] We'll Rick and Morty this.

[13:36] Rick and Morty, but they're like super high.

[13:40] I mean, we've got America's first cartoon sex pot,

[13:43] but she's a dog.

[13:44] I feel like this is,

[13:46] there's gotta be some money

[13:47] that we can get from the furry community.

[13:49] While you guys talk about this,

[13:50] I'm gonna Google this.

[13:51] You're gonna Google this?

[13:51] You're not aware of the early dog, Betty?

[13:52] I'm not aware.

[13:53] So when Betty Boop first appeared,

[13:54] she was the girlfriend of what, Bimbo the dog?

[13:58] Was her, was,

[13:59] and so she was also supposed to be a dog

[14:01] and she has floppy ears

[14:02] and like a little bit more of a dog-like face,

[14:03] but she still has that Betty Boop baby head, you know?

[14:08] Oh, that's kind of,

[14:09] this one's kind of terrifying.

[14:10] Is it confusing you, Stuart?

[14:12] No.

[14:12] Making you feel things, urges,

[14:14] you've never felt before.

[14:15] That one's kind of weird looking

[14:16] because her teeth,

[14:16] there's a lot of teeth in that picture,

[14:19] but this is what we're talking about,

[14:20] like that kind of thing?

[14:21] Well, actually, there was an early outcry

[14:22] that her teeth looked too human

[14:24] and so the animators went back

[14:25] and they gave her more cartoony teeth

[14:27] like she had in the video game.

[14:29] Yeah.

[14:30] Just kidding.

[14:31] That's a Sonic joke.

[14:32] Okay, she looks,

[14:33] well, okay.

[14:34] Yeah, yeah.

[14:35] I get it, yeah.

[14:36] So what are we gonna do?

[14:37] And so the Fleischer,

[14:37] whoever, the Fleischer company

[14:39] or whoever owns the Fleischer estate now,

[14:41] they are arguing,

[14:42] no, Betty Boop is not in the public domain

[14:44] because she is a different character

[14:45] than this dog woman who looks just like Betty Boop.

[14:48] But for all intents and purposes,

[14:49] it's this early version of Betty Boop

[14:51] where she's a dog.

[14:51] So what do we do with this Betty Boop dog character?

[14:54] Well, if that's true,

[14:54] then maybe we could make a movie

[14:55] about this dog character walking around

[14:58] and everyone thinking that she's Betty Boop

[15:00] and having to disabuse people of that notion,

[15:05] for fear that like it'll cause legal troubles for her,

[15:08] perhaps.

[15:10] Not sure where to go with this.

[15:11] Yeah, yeah.

[15:12] Would you call it not boop or something like that?

[15:14] I'm not boop?

[15:14] Yeah, boopless.

[15:16] Boopless.

[15:17] Boopless.

[15:21] Oh, what's the diagnosis doctor?

[15:24] Sorry, boopless.

[15:27] This is the hardest part of my job,

[15:30] having to deal with a dog woman

[15:31] who looks like Betty Boop.

[15:33] Boop job, I don't know.

[15:36] Yeah, run with that, Dan.

[15:37] You've got some puns on your tongue.

[15:39] No, no.

[15:40] Yeah, I got puns on my tongue

[15:43] and a song in my heart.

[15:44] Yeah, would you call this a reboot?

[15:47] Yeah.

[15:48] So Dan, you saw the Boop Broadway musical.

[15:49] Was she a dog woman in that?

[15:51] Yeah.

[15:52] Oh God, this musical was such a fucking mess.

[15:55] Like, I mean, it was basically just like,

[15:58] they saw Barbie and they're like,

[16:00] let's just do that.

[16:01] Where it's, you know.

[16:02] But with Betty Boop.

[16:03] She comes to the real life and has to sort of,

[16:06] I don't know, but like.

[16:07] So you're saying,

[16:08] she went back to life, back to reality.

[16:10] Now, is Betty Boop, is, are there,

[16:14] because in some ways, like Barbie is meant

[16:16] to kind of represent womanhood, I guess.

[16:20] Is Betty Boop the same sort of character?

[16:21] I mean, Betty Boop is like Blondie.

[16:23] Like Betty Boop represented kind of like

[16:25] in the 30s, rather than 20s,

[16:27] but represent kind of like flapper,

[16:28] kind of like wild girl energy.

[16:30] You know, like she's a party girl.

[16:32] Eventually they like domesticated her too.

[16:35] But that's what she was supposed to be.

[16:37] The funny thing about the Boop musical,

[16:39] to take a step this road a little bit,

[16:41] is there's, you know, this young girl character

[16:44] who loves Betty Boop and has like this big,

[16:46] like a monologue at one point about all the things

[16:49] that Betty Boop represents.

[16:51] And I'm like, what are you talking about?

[16:53] Like, I mean, like number one,

[16:56] like no young kid knows Betty Boop

[16:59] as anything other than maybe like, yeah,

[17:01] I recognize that face.

[17:02] Oh, that's a character on a t-shirt

[17:04] that you buy at the beach or on a boardwalk.

[17:06] But also like Betty Boop doesn't recognize.

[17:08] Stop reminding me.

[17:09] Like, like maybe at some point she represented

[17:13] some sort of like flapper freedom,

[17:14] but she doesn't represent anything.

[17:16] I know she's pretty sassy.

[17:17] You've seen the way she puts her hands on her hips

[17:19] and is like, eh, cocks her head to the side.

[17:22] She represents like monsters and horny,

[17:25] like ghosts, like running after her.

[17:27] And I'd be like, no.

[17:29] The problem is you know too much about Betty Boop.

[17:31] Is that I think to most people,

[17:32] they're not aware of her time spent running,

[17:34] being chased by ghosts who would then stop

[17:36] and do a Cab Calloway song

[17:37] and then go back to chasing her, you know.

[17:39] I think most people only know her

[17:41] as like a sexy, baby-headed lady.

[17:43] Yeah, you're the audience member

[17:45] that they dread arriving for the Boop musical.

[17:48] But that's the point.

[17:49] Excuse me, where does this fall into Boop continuity?

[17:51] If people don't have any associations with her,

[17:54] they're also gonna be like, what are you talking about?

[17:56] Like, why are you trying to make this

[17:58] into some sort of icon with meaning

[18:00] rather than, you know, a fun old cartoon character.

[18:04] So your answer is we don't do anything with Betty Boop.

[18:07] We just leave her in the graveyard of ideas.

[18:10] We don't take advantage

[18:10] for now being in the public domain as a dog woman.

[18:13] I mean, if anything, I would wanna lean

[18:15] into more of the weirdness

[18:16] of all those old Betty Boop cartoons.

[18:18] Like the great thing about those is like,

[18:20] they had no continuity.

[18:21] It was anything for a gag.

[18:23] Like some weird creature would show up

[18:26] and a thing would happen and it would not make any sense.

[18:28] And then we'd be on to the next thing, you know.

[18:30] Now guys, we've gotten pretty far into this mini

[18:33] and I feel like we've really kind of approached this

[18:36] from a writer's angle, which makes sense

[18:39] because we're all, you know, accredited writers here.

[18:42] But the,

[18:46] we haven't considered casting yet.

[18:49] And I feel like that's a big part.

[18:50] Is there anybody we've talked about?

[18:52] Blondie?

[18:53] Who have the biggest heads in Hollywood?

[18:54] It's true.

[18:55] I will say that's one of the big strengths

[18:57] of the Barbie movie was getting Margot Robbie,

[19:00] an actress who looks just like Barbie

[19:02] but also brings intelligence to it and is a good producer.

[19:05] Because she's the, I mean, she's the star of the movie.

[19:08] So she's not an unsung hero,

[19:09] but she's apparently the person who was like,

[19:10] get Greta Gerwig in.

[19:12] I'm gonna fight for the things

[19:12] that Greta Gerwig wants to do with this movie.

[19:14] And so they really lucked out

[19:16] that you had someone who was a good producer

[19:18] and a great actress who looks just like the character.

[19:20] So who could be Betty Boop?

[19:21] And she also won the plank competition

[19:24] among all the cast when they were doing a plank competition.

[19:28] Okay, I mean that.

[19:29] I find that unsurprising,

[19:30] considering the shape that she's in.

[19:33] I guess so.

[19:34] No, but I mean like, she's also really tall.

[19:36] I feel like Gosling would have an advantage

[19:38] because he's a little shorter, right?

[19:40] I feel like with his kind of shoulders and chest,

[19:43] I feel like he's unbalanced.

[19:44] Unbalanced, hard to plank.

[19:46] So who would play Betty Boop?

[19:48] And then let's move on to the next character,

[19:49] an even more beloved cartoon character.

[19:53] Who's got like a high voice?

[19:55] I don't think we're gonna get the head size.

[19:57] So who could do the voice?

[19:59] Who's got a huge head?

[20:00] I don't mean this in an insulting way at all, Christina Ricci has a very large forehead,

[20:08] has big eyes.

[20:09] She could be Betty Boop for sure.

[20:10] Yeah, certainly.

[20:11] Good call.

[20:12] Okay, moving on.

[20:13] Okay, so we talked about Blondie, we talked about Betty Boop, who's an even more beloved

[20:16] cartoon character who's entering the public domain.

[20:18] That's right.

[20:19] Flip the Frog, the Ub Iwerks character, Flip the Frog.

[20:22] Oh, sure.

[20:23] Ub Iwerks, of course, when he left Disney, he created the Flip the Frog character and

[20:27] he is now in the public domain.

[20:28] Stuart, you love Flip the Frog.

[20:30] Dan, are you Googling Flip the fucking Frog?

[20:33] I have it in my, I have it visually in my head.

[20:36] Oh yeah, I got him saved in my hidden folder.

[20:39] Yeah.

[20:40] Here we go.

[20:41] Look at him.

[20:42] Oh, okay.

[20:43] Looks happy.

[20:44] Yeah, he looks like something.

[20:49] He does look like something.

[20:50] You know, let's move along.

[20:51] Let's move along.

[20:52] He does.

[20:53] He looks like, he also looks like he has a sexy secret.

[20:56] So Flip the Frog is kind of like a, is kind of a crying game type movie.

[20:59] Okay.

[21:00] It could be.

[21:01] Who knows?

[21:02] All right.

[21:03] So let's move on.

[21:04] It's not just characters.

[21:05] There's also some books that are entering the public domain.

[21:07] Two big books in particular are entering the public domain this year.

[21:10] We can do whatever we want with them.

[21:12] One, The Maltese Falcon.

[21:14] The Maltese Falcon, the book, is now in the public domain.

[21:17] So guys, what are we going to do with The Maltese Falcon?

[21:19] And don't just say it's a horror movie where a falcon is killing people.

[21:21] Yeah, I mean, that's the obvious one.

[21:24] So it's, uh, so in the movie, is it about a book called The Maltese Falcon?

[21:30] No.

[21:31] And again, the movie is not in the public domain.

[21:33] That won't come into the public domain for another, I think, 11 years.

[21:36] So this is just the book, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

[21:39] So.

[21:40] Dan, you certainly read this book before, right?

[21:43] Uh, I'm trying to remember whether I actually read The Maltese Falcon.

[21:47] I think I did, but it was like back when I was in high school.

[21:54] Yeah.

[21:55] Go for it.

[21:56] Okay.

[21:57] It's called The Maltese Space Falcon.

[21:58] The whole, it's the same old book, but you said it in outer space.

[22:01] Space detectives.

[22:02] You got space gangsters or whatever.

[22:05] Just do it.

[22:06] Call The Maltese Space Falcon.

[22:08] Or when Star Wars enters the public domain in the 2670s, I think in the year 2072 or

[22:15] something like that, then you do The Maltese Millennium Falcon.

[22:18] You can finally combine them.

[22:20] It's really cute.

[22:21] You think the world's still going to exist then?

[22:23] I mean, the world will exist.

[22:24] I'm not sure if humanity will exist by that point.

[22:25] You know, as, as he said in Jurassic World Rebirth, the world's going to shake us off

[22:30] like a bad cold or something like that.

[22:32] Yeah.

[22:33] Um, so guys, Maltese Space Falcon.

[22:35] Did he say that?

[22:36] He does say that.

[22:37] Yeah.

[22:38] Wait, who's he?

[22:39] Oh, he, the scientist guy.

[22:40] Oh, okay.

[22:41] The sexiest scientist.

[22:42] Who is he?

[22:43] Dr. Loomis.

[22:44] Okay.

[22:45] Uh, so what, what would you guys want to do with The Maltese Falcon?

[22:46] Dan, what would you want to do with like a detective mystery where they're looking for

[22:48] a valuable statue?

[22:49] And you can't do Space Falcon.

[22:50] L.A. cult based on Space Falcon.

[22:51] I already said that.

[22:52] Yeah.

[22:53] I'm going to do, uh, I'm going to, I'm going to do a gunfighter Falcon, like, uh, like

[22:57] Wild West.

[22:58] Old West.

[22:59] Okay.

[23:00] It's an old West mystery.

[23:01] All right, Dan, I guess what genre is it?

[23:02] Pirate Falcon?

[23:03] What are you going to put on there?

[23:04] Um, Maltese Cave Falcon?

[23:07] Underwater Falcon.

[23:08] Okay.

[23:09] The Maltese Aqua Falcon.

[23:11] How would that operate exactly?

[23:12] Um, well, hard to fly underwater.

[23:15] I mean, it wouldn't fly anyway.

[23:19] Can mine be a peanut butter Falcon?

[23:26] Tell me how that works.

[23:27] Tell me how that operates.

[23:28] Uh, I didn't see the movie, so I can't.

[23:30] Are you talking about the peanut butter solution?

[23:32] Is that what you're playing off of?

[23:33] Maybe.

[23:34] He's talking about the 7% solution.

[23:36] The story where Sherlock Holmes is addicted to peanut butter and he goes to Sigmund Freud

[23:39] to help him.

[23:40] Yeah.

[23:41] Uh, so, okay.

[23:42] Maltese, the Maltese Peanut Butter Space Falcon.

[23:44] Let's work on it.

[23:45] He goes underwater at some point.

[23:46] Maybe he goes to a water planet.

[23:48] Mm hmm.

[23:49] Yep.

[23:50] Go on.

[23:51] What?

[23:52] I thought, yeah, I thought you were.

[23:53] No, I was right.

[23:54] Peanut Butter Falcon is an existing movie.

[23:55] I already stole that idea.

[23:56] I was right.

[23:57] You guys were all wrong.

[23:58] I'm right.

[23:59] We're wrong?

[24:00] About what?

[24:01] You guys are wrong.

[24:02] I don't think we ever said that's not a thing.

[24:03] All right.

[24:04] Let's move on to the Maltese Falcon Center Space.

[24:06] Here's another book.

[24:07] Entering the public domain.

[24:09] The Little Engine That Could in the public domain right now.

[24:12] What can we do with the Little Engine That Could?

[24:14] You guys must know this story, right?

[24:16] You know this story, but what if we came at it from a new angle?

[24:21] OK.

[24:22] What if he couldn't?

[24:23] Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

[24:24] What if we make it demotivational?

[24:26] We sort of like, you know, train children.

[24:30] And we will train children.

[24:31] It's a book about a train.

[24:32] Yeah.

[24:33] We need to prepare them for the world that exists now, where the small get crushed and

[24:39] cannot succeed.

[24:40] So with it end with so the book as it ends now, the Little Engine That Could agrees to

[24:44] take the toys and candy and good foods for all the children on the other side of the

[24:48] mountain.

[24:50] She agrees to take it over them over the hill.

[24:51] And she does.

[24:52] She's able to do it in this for after these are in the process.

[24:55] She dies.

[24:56] Right.

[24:57] No, that doesn't happen.

[24:58] It ends with her saying, I thought I could.

[24:59] I thought I could.

[25:00] I thought I could.

[25:01] If you it's not canonical that she dies afterwards.

[25:04] I think you're thinking of like the giving tree.

[25:07] But the so in your version of it, when the older trains say, I'm not going to do that.

[25:12] It's impossible.

[25:13] They are proved right.

[25:15] And the Little Engine That Could will go up the hill and then what fall backwards or like

[25:18] be derailed or something like that.

[25:20] No, it's just a big train on the top that just like sort of slaps and slaps and says,

[25:26] we don't want the kids to have this stuff, slaps her down, go away.

[25:30] And then and then what happens to the toys?

[25:31] They all die.

[25:32] Or what happens to them?

[25:34] They're alive.

[25:35] Yeah.

[25:36] They're all talking and dancing around and asking her to bring her places.

[25:39] Yeah.

[25:40] OK, I will remind you, maybe you guys have forgotten.

[25:42] This is a book for children.

[25:44] This is a book for children.

[25:45] So it doesn't it doesn't it plays fast and loose with the laws of reality.

[25:48] Trains talking.

[25:49] Yeah.

[25:50] But if we're making this into a movie, the audience, the core audience knew it as children.

[25:55] We want to give them something to enjoy as an adult.

[25:58] Right.

[25:59] You want it to age up with the audience.

[26:00] That's a very good point.

[26:01] OK, so yes, emotionally complex.

[26:03] Right.

[26:04] And dark and gritty.

[26:05] Yeah.

[26:06] The Little Engine has like a backstory and like a drinking problem.

[26:12] Yeah.

[26:13] The Little Engine is looking for redemption and then fails.

[26:15] Does not achieve that redemption.

[26:16] Yeah.

[26:17] Yeah.

[26:18] So this is like a like a Nicholas Winding Rifen type movie.

[26:19] Yeah.

[26:20] Maybe the Little Engine was the train from that thing where if you go on one side, you

[26:23] run over a bunch of people and if you go on the other side, you have a trolley problem.

[26:26] So that's OK.

[26:27] You bring the trolley.

[26:28] So the Little Engine has to go over a hill to bring the toys to the good little boys

[26:31] and girls on the other side.

[26:33] But it's got it.

[26:34] But there's people on the track and then there's more people on the other track.

[26:37] And you have to decide whether to switch tracks.

[26:40] Yeah.

[26:41] Wow.

[26:42] What a what a grim tale.

[26:43] Yeah.

[26:44] It's gritty.

[26:45] It's super gritty.

[26:46] And then we have and then we have a like a hip hop score, you know, but with some needle

[26:49] drops from the 80s and 90s, you know.

[26:52] Mm hmm.

[26:53] Yeah.

[26:54] A lot of a lot of fast camera movement.

[26:55] Yeah.

[26:56] Yeah.

[26:57] A lot of fast.

[26:58] Yeah.

[26:59] Yeah.

[27:00] Exactly.

[27:01] Yeah.

[27:02] Just make it disorienting and unpleasant.

[27:03] Sickening.

[27:04] We've got the poll quote for the poster.

[27:05] Disorienting.

[27:06] Unpleasant.

[27:07] Says Dan McCoy.

[27:08] Sickening.

[27:09] Says Stuart Wellington.

[27:10] You can now.

[27:11] Look, it's the future.

[27:12] Look, who cares?

[27:13] There are no rules.

[27:14] Come on.

[27:15] I'm Jordan Cruciola, host of Feeling Seen, where every week I have a different actor,

[27:25] director or writer as my co-host.

[27:28] And whoever that co-host may be, it is a sure bet that we are digging deep and having a

[27:32] great time doing it.

[27:35] I love that you just said that.

[27:38] Yeah.

[27:39] I mean, if I were going to join a cult, I think this might be it.

[27:41] A fresh look at your favorite film and a peek behind the curtain at how movies get made.

[27:45] OK, I'm going to tell you this whole story.

[27:47] OK, I almost got fired from that movie.

[27:50] You should be listening to Feeling Seen.

[27:52] I had so much fun.

[27:54] I love what you're doing.

[27:55] I hope I did OK.

[27:57] New episodes every week on Maximum Fun.

[28:01] On Judge John Hodgman, the courtroom is fake, but the disputes are real.

[28:06] Brian would say, I'm the Gumby of this family.

[28:09] He's just not.

[28:10] Claiming to be Gumby is an un-Gumby-like claim.

[28:14] No, it's just Gumby and I being our authentic selves.

[28:18] So what's your complaint?

[28:19] Too many sauces?

[28:21] There are no foods on which to put the sauces.

[28:24] Have we named all the sauces on the top shelf yet?

[28:26] Not even close.

[28:27] You economize when it comes to pants.

[28:30] Truly, it's not about the cleanliness of the pants.

[28:32] Well, why isn't it?

[28:33] This is what I want to know.

[28:35] Judge John Hodgman, fake court, weird cases, real justice.

[28:40] On MaximumFun.org, YouTube, and everywhere you get podcasts.

[28:45] Hey there, flop folk.

[28:47] If you want to drink less in 2026, maybe instead of pouring a cocktail, try Sol's Out of Office

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[30:05] and use the code FLOP, that's GetSoul.com,

[30:09] that's S-O-U-L, promo code FLOP for 30% off.

[30:16] And of course, the Flop House also has its own stuff

[30:19] to talk about, for instance, Flop TV continues apace.

[30:23] Last week was our Dr. Doodle episode of Flop TV

[30:27] where we talked about the 1960s Rex Harrison, Dr. Doolittle

[30:30] and we have one more episode left of Flop TV.

[30:33] Again, Flop TV is the one hour on your computer,

[30:36] live video broadcast where we do the Flop House

[30:39] but we have video segments, we do a PowerPoint presentation,

[30:43] it's a lot of fun stuff,

[30:43] we answer questions from the audience.

[30:45] There's one episode left that's in February, February 7th,

[30:48] we'll be talking about Plan Nine from Outer Space.

[30:51] That's right, the baddest of the bad movies, supposedly,

[30:54] the one that was elevated to the tip of the top

[30:58] that everyone knows about, Plan Nine from Outer Space,

[31:00] the crowning masterwork of Ed Wood,

[31:01] we'll finally be talking about it, February 7th.

[31:03] Not Orgy of the Dead?

[31:05] No, Orgy of the Dead is not considered his masterwork,

[31:08] neither, not Glen or Glenda, not Bride of the Monster,

[31:11] any of those things, or Bride of the Atom,

[31:13] is that what it was released as?

[31:14] I don't remember.

[31:15] It was released as Bride of the Monster.

[31:17] Bride of the Monster, okay, I got it mixed up.

[31:20] If you go to theflophouse.simpletics.com,

[31:23] you can buy tickets for the episodes,

[31:25] tickets for the episodes,

[31:26] but you just said the season finale's coming up.

[31:28] Oh-ho-ho, if you missed any of the episodes,

[31:30] you can buy a ticket to watch the recording of that episode.

[31:33] Those will all be available through the end of February

[31:35] in case you can't join us live.

[31:37] If you get the season pass bundle,

[31:38] that's six shows for the price of five, you should do it.

[31:41] It's like you're taking money from us,

[31:43] money we can use to feed our families,

[31:44] but now you get to hold on to it.

[31:45] It's like you're stealing one episode out of our pocket,

[31:48] like you're a little bandit.

[31:49] When we're not looking.

[31:51] Yeah, like you're a raccoon.

[31:54] So that's theflophouse.simpletics.com

[31:55] for Flop TV season three as it comes to a close,

[31:58] but we are also going to be in San Francisco

[32:01] in just a couple of weeks.

[32:02] We're going to be appearing at SF Sketch Fest

[32:04] at Cobb's Comedy Club once again on Sunday, January 25th.

[32:08] We're doing an afternoon show,

[32:10] so you'll still get a good night's sweep for work

[32:12] the next day, don't worry, little baby,

[32:14] and we'll be there.

[32:15] Go to sfsketchfest.com for the schedule and tickets.

[32:20] It's gonna be a lot of fun.

[32:21] We're gonna be talking about Master of Disguise,

[32:23] the Dana Carvey movie that has been

[32:24] one of the most requested movies for us to talk about.

[32:27] I think just because of the scene

[32:28] where he dresses up like a turtle man.

[32:30] That's-

[32:31] That's not the whole movie.

[32:32] No, it's this one scene.

[32:33] No, unfortunately, it's a very short part of the movie.

[32:34] Unfortunately, he doesn't spend

[32:35] the whole movie as a turtle man,

[32:37] but that will be Sunday, January 25th

[32:39] at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of SF Sketch Fest.

[32:42] Don't worry though, Stuart,

[32:43] Pistachio Disguise, he puts on a lot more disguises.

[32:47] Some of them are racist.

[32:48] Oh boy, can't wait to talk about it.

[32:50] That'll be great.

[32:52] We had a great time at SF Sketch Fest last year

[32:54] when we talked about Cutthroat Island.

[32:56] When you do all those accents, Dan,

[32:57] you can be like, it's from the movie.

[32:59] I have to do it, he's in the movie, all right.

[33:01] So anyway, I'm gonna get canceled for this,

[33:03] but I guess it's okay for Dana Carvey

[33:04] to do it 25 years ago.

[33:06] That's what I sound like.

[33:09] I love this version of Dan.

[33:11] Me, Dan McCoy, all right,

[33:13] I guess I'll do it, all right.

[33:16] So that's, again, go to sfsketchfest.com

[33:19] for the schedule.

[33:20] There's a lot of great shows going on and to get tickets.

[33:23] And if you wanna buy a book and have me sign it,

[33:26] go ahead and buy a copy of Joke Farming,

[33:28] How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense.

[33:30] It's available in stores now.

[33:32] But let's get back to the show.

[33:34] We're gonna talk about just a few more properties

[33:36] that are now in the public domain,

[33:38] what we're gonna do with them.

[33:39] So let's talk about a couple of movies

[33:41] that are now in the public domain

[33:44] as of the release of this episode.

[33:46] These are movies people watch.

[33:47] Dan, did you know Animal Crackers

[33:51] is now the second Marx Brothers movie

[33:52] to enter the public domain?

[33:54] What can we do with Animal Crackers?

[33:56] I know you love the idea of messing with it.

[33:58] Yeah, please, let's take something I love

[34:01] and do something new with it for no good reason.

[34:04] Chris Pratt's in it.

[34:06] Oh, God.

[34:08] So this is an Animal Crackers remake.

[34:10] Chris Pratt stars as which of the brothers

[34:12] or all three of them?

[34:13] Garfield.

[34:14] All four of them.

[34:15] I'm sorry, it's a four Marx Brothers movie.

[34:16] Garfield, geez.

[34:18] Wait, so he's, or we were,

[34:19] wait, he's Garfield in Animal Crackers?

[34:22] Yeah, because Garfield's an animal.

[34:25] That's a good point, that's a good point.

[34:28] Like, so, you know, I mean,

[34:30] obviously the key component to any Marx Brothers movie

[34:33] is the Marx Brothers.

[34:34] We don't have access to them.

[34:37] Debatable.

[34:38] They made a Three Stooges movie

[34:39] without the Three Stooges.

[34:40] Otherwise.

[34:41] What about Brain Donors without them?

[34:45] Sure.

[34:46] Brain Donors is the closest.

[34:47] Pastiche.

[34:48] And they do an okay job.

[34:50] There's laughs in Brain Donors.

[34:51] It's a funny movie, yeah.

[34:54] But yeah, I'm trying to like think,

[34:56] like what are the components?

[34:57] Like Animal Crackers is a musical mystery

[35:01] about a-

[35:03] Stolen painting.

[35:04] A stolen painting.

[35:05] And you never quite find out

[35:07] who actually stole the painting,

[35:09] I don't think, really, in any satisfying way.

[35:12] I mean, because also it's a movie version of a play

[35:15] where they cut like a third of the play out

[35:17] to make it into a movie.

[35:18] So a lot of stuff was lost.

[35:20] What you missed in mystery,

[35:21] we've got a mystery character

[35:22] who's in the public domain now, Nancy Drew.

[35:24] Maybe we just insert Nancy Drew

[35:25] into the Marx Brothers Animal Crackers movie.

[35:28] Honestly, that would be really funny

[35:30] if there was like a child detective

[35:33] who was taking things really seriously.

[35:36] And then you had these sort of like

[35:37] four numbskulls running around.

[35:39] Trying to mess with them.

[35:40] Or acting like children.

[35:41] Yeah, yeah.

[35:41] Dan, I think maybe we just made that movie better.

[35:44] What do you think?

[35:45] I don't think it's,

[35:46] I mean, it's one of my favorite movies in the world,

[35:48] but that's a good idea.

[35:49] We didn't make it better,

[35:50] but the idea of a,

[35:53] I don't love it usually when the Marx Brothers characters

[35:55] are engaging with children in the movies.

[35:57] Because it's a lot of like,

[35:58] the children love them,

[36:00] they're just really delightful.

[36:01] Like it's a way of softening the characters.

[36:02] But I do like the idea of a child

[36:04] who is irritated by the Marx Brothers.

[36:06] Yeah.

[36:07] Like, act like adults.

[36:09] Exactly.

[36:11] Let's go to,

[36:12] here's one other movie that's in the public domain now.

[36:15] This is a best picture winning movie.

[36:16] All Quiet on the Western Front.

[36:18] Is now in the public domain.

[36:19] The novel I believe already was.

[36:21] Now the movie is,

[36:22] we can do whatever we want with that movie.

[36:24] What are we gonna do with it?

[36:25] So.

[36:26] Like put a musical number in it?

[36:28] Yeah.

[36:30] Let's play it all backwards,

[36:31] like in somebody's memories.

[36:33] So it's like,

[36:34] so functionally,

[36:35] like okay,

[36:35] what's different that like between the,

[36:38] like we already could have adapted the book.

[36:40] I mean, and they just did a couple years ago.

[36:42] Yeah.

[36:43] It's just a new version of All Quiet on the Western Front.

[36:44] And they like,

[36:45] did really well, right?

[36:46] So if the movie is what is like available to us.

[36:49] This is the actual movie is what's available.

[36:50] So we could re-edit it.

[36:52] We could insert ourselves in it.

[36:53] We could tint it and add like 80s music,

[36:56] like the Giorgio Moroder.

[36:58] Metropolis.

[36:59] Metropolis.

[36:59] That's a good idea, yeah.

[37:00] What if we tinted it and we added modern music to it?

[37:03] What if it's all Taylor Swift scored?

[37:05] I mean, that's not public domain music, but.

[37:07] We could do a section that's like rotoscoped.

[37:10] Yeah, you could do that.

[37:11] Are you allowed to do that or is that?

[37:13] Yeah, you could do that.

[37:14] Were we allowed to do that before?

[37:15] Can you rotoscope?

[37:16] No, you couldn't.

[37:17] So the thing is, anything that is specific to that movie,

[37:19] any changes that were made between the book for that movie

[37:22] or anything that's specific,

[37:25] the imagery from that movie was not in the public domain.

[37:27] Now it is.

[37:28] Now it's, you could rotoscope it now.

[37:30] What's different in the movie?

[37:32] The part with the aliens?

[37:34] Yeah, yeah.

[37:34] The part, well, now the part with the aliens,

[37:36] because we're adding that in.

[37:38] I don't remember all the differences

[37:39] between the movie and the book,

[37:40] but now you could take the footage from that movie

[37:43] and you could do whatever you want with it.

[37:46] So I think Dan's idea of doing a Giorgio Moroder on it

[37:48] is kind of a fun one.

[37:49] Yeah.

[37:50] Yeah, let's make it like an MTV,

[37:52] all quiet on the restaurant front.

[37:53] There you go, yeah.

[37:55] It loses some of the anti-war message,

[37:57] but it gains Dan's chance ability.

[38:00] I mean, when you put Love is a Battlefield on there,

[38:02] does that dilute the anti-war message

[38:03] or does it make it harder, hit harder?

[38:06] Yeah.

[38:06] Yeah, that's a good question.

[38:07] Again, Love is a Battlefield, not a public domain song.

[38:09] We'd have to license that song.

[38:12] Let's talk about, there's a play

[38:13] that's in the public domain now,

[38:15] The Human Voice by Jeanne Cocteau.

[38:17] That's the play where it's a woman on the phone

[38:19] with her lover who is leaving her.

[38:22] And it's just, I believe it's just a one-person play

[38:25] the whole time.

[38:26] What are we gonna do with this play?

[38:27] Now that it's in the public domain,

[38:28] we do whatever we want with it.

[38:29] Can we finally provide the other half

[38:30] of that phone conversation?

[38:32] And maybe it's really funny.

[38:34] Yeah, we intercut it with Bob Dewhart

[38:36] doing a one-sided phone conversation.

[38:38] Again, Bob Dewhart's work is not in the public domain.

[38:40] We'd have to license that.

[38:42] But we don't have to pay for the Human Voice license.

[38:44] We can use that money for Bob Dewhart's talk.

[38:46] That's half the price of what it would've been a year ago.

[38:49] A year ago, if you wanted to do

[38:50] that Human Voice, Bob Dewhart mashup,

[38:51] you would've had to pay out the nose.

[38:53] Now you just gotta pay out one nostril.

[38:54] Yeah.

[38:58] Yeah, I was gonna say-

[38:59] What are we doing here, guys?

[39:01] We should just cut together footage

[39:03] from all these other movies

[39:04] that involve people talking on the phone.

[39:06] So it's like she's talking to untold millions

[39:09] of people on the other side of that line.

[39:11] Although we'll have to pay for a lot of things.

[39:14] Yeah, although, I mean-

[39:15] But this is gonna make boffo B.O.

[39:17] So I think we get the idea.

[39:18] Oh yeah, oh yeah.

[39:20] People are gonna be thirsty for this.

[39:22] There's gonna be clamoring.

[39:23] Guaranteed, guaranteed.

[39:25] Oh, a new spin on the Human Voice?

[39:27] Wonderful, this is exactly what I want.

[39:29] This, I gotta see.

[39:31] Like, the Human Voice?

[39:32] I've got one of those.

[39:34] All right, I'll buy it.

[39:36] What happens in this one?

[39:39] Yeah, sounds good.

[39:40] Okay, so that's what we do.

[39:41] We just cut it with a lot of this.

[39:42] It'll be like that Apple commercial

[39:44] for the iPhone years ago,

[39:45] where it's just shots of people on the phone.

[39:46] But now there's a story to it.

[39:48] Or what if, you know the movie Sorry, Wrong Number?

[39:50] Which is-

[39:51] I do know.

[39:52] Which is not in the public domain.

[39:53] But if you cut those together,

[39:55] so she's on the one end.

[39:57] Again, this is the play.

[39:58] So we'd have to shoot the footage of it.

[40:00] movie of the human voice, but it's not in the public domain yet.

[40:02] Okay.

[40:03] You had an actor on stage doing this one side of the phone call, and then you had the footage

[40:09] from Sorry, Wrong Number where she believes there's a man who's trying, she's overheard

[40:12] a call about a man who's going to kill her.

[40:14] And then you cut those together.

[40:16] Yeah.

[40:17] There you go.

[40:18] You've got your story.

[40:19] It's a good idea.

[40:20] Yeah.

[40:21] And finally, the last thing we're going to talk about today, finally, it's in the public

[40:24] domain.

[40:25] I know, Dan, you've been clamoring for something like this.

[40:26] I hope it's Alf.

[40:27] Alf is in the public domain, but Gordon Shumway is not, and I don't understand how.

[40:35] Because that was a later edition.

[40:37] You can do all the stuff about Alf in the house, but you can't do anything about Mel

[40:41] Mac that was established in the cartoon series.

[40:43] Oh, I don't care then.

[40:46] Just kill me.

[40:47] But finally, in the public domain is the original German text of Relativity, the Special and

[40:53] General Theory by Albert Einstein.

[40:55] The English translation has been in the public domain since 1995, but we've been unable to

[40:59] touch the original German text.

[41:01] And it's so much more beautiful than the original German.

[41:03] No, because it's a beautiful language.

[41:05] Exactly.

[41:06] Dan, Stu, what are we going to do now that we can do whatever we want with the German

[41:09] text of this?

[41:10] You speak German.

[41:11] Yeah, ich kann am besten Deutsch verstehen und sprechen.

[41:16] I mean, obviously we put a beat to it.

[41:19] We released it as a fucking awesome rap song.

[41:24] Okay.

[41:25] It's German, so people won't be able to argue whether or not it sounds good.

[41:30] Too obvious to say, but, you know, the best ideas are sometimes like that.

[41:35] Sometimes it's just the first one, the first one.

[41:38] Yeah.

[41:39] All right.

[41:40] So just to continue with, just to wrap up what we've talked about, we've really come

[41:42] up with a lot.

[41:43] We've taken, I think we've fulfilled the...

[41:45] You TM'd this, right?

[41:46] You TM'd the whole episode, right?

[41:49] The Flophouse is of course copyright and trademark of us.

[41:52] But we've done exactly what public domain is for, which is to take pieces of culture

[41:58] and be able to, and not just culture, but also scientific discoveries, things like that,

[42:03] and to make new things about them that enrich them, that enrich the common culture, and

[42:07] that add new meaning and new ideas to the pot of ideas that all of humanity gets to

[42:14] pull from.

[42:15] So those ideas we talked about, Nancy Drool, it's Nancy Drool, but she's gross, Blondie,

[42:21] she's inventing the Blondie, that's the story of that.

[42:26] Buddy Boop, there's a dog woman who's constantly being confused for Betty Boop and she is tired

[42:30] of it.

[42:31] Flip the Frog has a sexual secret we didn't really get into.

[42:35] The Maltese Falcon now takes place in space, or perhaps it has peanut butter.

[42:39] The Peanut Butter Falcon, again, not in the public domain, but the Maltese Falcon is in

[42:41] space or underwater.

[42:42] The Little Engine That Couldn't, we've taken that beautiful tale of inspiration and we've

[42:46] made it a realistic tale of disappointment.

[42:49] Animal Crackers now has a little kid who is constantly annoyed by the Marx Brothers

[42:52] in it.

[42:53] All Quiet in the Western Front is full of 80s hits and tinted imagery, and the human

[42:59] voice is now slammed up against a movie that we don't have the rights to, unfortunately.

[43:04] And finally, Einstein has taken his proper role as a rap star, a hip-hop luminary.

[43:10] The real MC Squared.

[43:13] Oh my god.

[43:14] That's what we release it as.

[43:17] We release it as Relativity, The Special, The General Theory, Club Remix by MC Squared.

[43:23] That's what we do.

[43:24] Guys, we did it.

[43:26] There's a reason we have the public domain and we fulfilled it today.

[43:29] So thank you for coming with me on this journey.

[43:31] Thank you listeners for coming with us on this journey as well.

[43:33] We, of course, are The Flophouse.

[43:35] We are produced by Alex Smith, our producer.

[43:37] He goes by the name HowlDotty online.

[43:39] Look up his music and podcasts.

[43:41] He's a wonderful person and a very funny and talented individual.

[43:43] We are part of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network.

[43:46] Please go to MaximumFun.org to listen to other great podcasts you will probably enjoy.

[43:51] And until then, just keep listening to The Flophouse, tell people about us.

[43:55] Why not leave a five-star rating so that people know that we're doing wonderful things with

[43:58] the public domain here.

[43:59] Come see us on Flop TV, and by come see us, I mean tune in on your computer.

[44:03] Come see us January 25th in San Francisco at Cobb's Comedy Club.

[44:06] Otherwise, that's all the business we've got right now, guys.

[44:09] We'll see you next week on a movie version of The Flophouse where we're talking about

[44:13] a movie rather than a mini version where we drive each other insane.

[44:17] We're talking about a mini, yeah.

[44:18] We're going to be talking about a mini, yeah.

[44:19] Minnie Mouse is going to be in the public domain very soon, if she isn't already.

[44:24] I can't wait.

[44:25] Okay, so for The Flophouse, that's been Elliot Kalin.

[44:27] This is Dan McCoy over here, and I'm Stewie Wellington saying bye-bye-bye.

[44:32] Perfect.

[44:33] Maximum Fun.

[44:34] A workaround network.

[44:35] A virtual reality.

[44:41] Maximum Fun.

[44:42] A workaround network.

[44:43] Of artist-owned shows.

[44:44] Supported.

[44:45] Directly.

FH Mini 143 - IP Freely 2026

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