Ep. #406 - Ghoulies

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss...

Stuart Wellington

[0:02] Ghoulies!

[0:04] Guys, I can't tell you how happy I am to finally talk about a real f***ing movie.

[0:30] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:39] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:42] And again, as with many of our recent episodes, I cannot wait to tell you later in the show about our upcoming live-ish and live shows.

[0:49] Tonight, if you're listening to this episode the day it's released, we're having an episode of Flop TV.

[0:53] I'll tell you more about that later.

[0:55] And October 19th, we're doing two shows in Los Angeles at the Vidiot's Theater.

[0:59] I'll tell you more about that later in the show, too.

[1:01] But if you don't want to wait for me, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com to get your tickets for tonight's Flop TV show.

[1:07] Or go to vidiotsfoundation.org to get your tickets for the live shows on Thursday, October 19th.

[1:12] But Dan, we'll talk about more of that later.

[1:14] What's going on today?

Dan McCoy

[1:17] Well, today we're doing an episode of our podcast.

[1:19] It's called The Flophouse.

[1:21] Oh, interesting. Okay.

[1:21] Oh, weird.

[1:22] It's a show where typically we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:27] Now, until recently, we had been on strike.

[1:31] The Writers Guild of America had been on strike.

[1:34] SAG-AFTRA, as of this recording, is still on strike.

[1:36] Not the members of the podcast union striking against unfair podcasts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40] No, no, no, no.

[1:40] We're the management of the podcast.

[1:43] We'd be striking against ourselves.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45] Seems like a bad idea, but if I'm not being fair to myself, I think it's only one option, and that's striking.

Dan McCoy

[1:52] Out of an excess of caution, even though we were not necessarily endorsing these dumb movies we usually watch, we hadn't been doing-

[2:00] Yeah, there's no Flophouse bump.

Elliott Kalan

[2:02] There's no sudden rush to the video store for some time.

[2:05] I do think that-

Stuart Wellington

[2:06] Check out the Wikipedia page for Castle Freak, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[2:09] Okay, that's a Flophouse bump.

Dan McCoy

[2:11] There's a cohort of listeners-

Elliott Kalan

[2:12] Ironic since Giorgio of Castle Freak has no bump.

Dan McCoy

[2:16] There's a cohort of listeners that does watch the movies beforehand.

[2:20] So, instead, we have been going back and watching older movies.

[2:24] Now, as I said, we've reached a tentative agreement.

[2:29] But you know what?

[2:30] Not the podcast.

[2:31] We're talking about the WGA.

Elliott Kalan

[2:31] No, no, the podcast is still striking against itself, yeah.

[2:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:35] But you know what?

[2:36] The lure of an 80s flashback Shocktober, when we watch horror movies, was a little too tasty to pass up, even if we don't have another reason to do it, other than our own enjoyment right now.

[2:47] So, we're doing that.

[2:49] We are reaching back into the 80s.

[2:52] A lot of people's favorite decade for horror movies, specifically, for various reasons.

[3:00] I mean, some of them, for people of our age, just nostalgia.

[3:03] But there are more legitimate arguments we made, I think.

[3:09] But there are also some movies from the 80s, horror movies, that were not as beloved, perhaps.

Elliott Kalan

[3:16] I would say probably most of them, when it gets down to it.

[3:20] The thing that was such a big horror boon in the 80s, if I'm understanding correctly, was essentially the home video market.

[3:27] Yeah.

[3:27] That finally you could get horror movies into people's laps, into kids' television screens, through video stores.

[3:34] And it meant that there was a lot of great product that came out.

Dan McCoy

[3:37] Videodrome was broadcasting them all the time.

[3:39] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:40] Well, we couldn't find where the broadcast signal was coming from.

[3:43] There were some rumors about where videodrome was coming from.

[3:45] And if you look too deeply into it, you had to start putting the tapes in your belly.

[3:48] And then you become a terrible person.

[3:50] Years later, you become just a terrible, horrible person.

Dan McCoy

[3:52] You can't argue with the convenience of it, though.

[3:54] I mean, you don't have to carry any extra equipment.

Elliott Kalan

[3:57] Until the format switches over, and then you've got to get your belly taken out and a DVD player put in.

[4:01] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[4:03] At least it's not Laserdiscs.

[4:05] Those things are huge, and that's a big belly.

Elliott Kalan

[4:08] Yeah, it is.

[4:08] But a lot of the stuff that was coming out was also crap in the 80s horror.

[4:13] Right, right.

[4:14] Which kind will we have watched today?

[4:16] You'll find out.

[4:17] Dan, tell us more.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] Yeah, we chose to watch Ghoulies, a film that despite—

Elliott Kalan

[4:23] I feel like something you say at a press conference before an apology or to a judge.

[4:26] We chose to watch Ghoulies.

Stuart Wellington

[4:28] Well, yeah, we fall upon the mercy of the court.

[4:31] Yeah, it was solely our decision to make.

[4:32] It was 80 minutes long.

[4:33] It was solely our decision to make.

Elliott Kalan

[4:35] In our defense, we were led to believe that this would be a Gremlins-type story, and that maybe there'd be a toilet scene.

[4:41] Yeah.

[4:41] And the toilet scene, you know what?

[4:44] After all these years of saying it doesn't happen, it does show up in an insert shot that I wouldn't be surprised if it was added later to justify the poster.

[4:50] Yeah.

[4:51] But otherwise, we'll get into it.

[4:53] But this movie doesn't really pay off the promise of Ghoulies.

Dan McCoy

[4:55] I'm glad that you bring up the poster because what I was saying was like this is a frequently invoked film on the podcast mostly because of the poster that has a Ghoulie and a toilet and the tagline, they'll get you in the end.

[5:10] You know, great advertising.

Stuart Wellington

[5:11] So it raises a question.

[5:14] Are we going to see a Ghoulie bite somebody on the ass?

Elliott Kalan

[5:18] Yes.

[5:18] And we're going to find out if that question is answered by the film.

[5:21] And here's the weirdest thing about it to me is the Ghoulie in the poster is like dressed like a little kid.

[5:25] Like he has a little blue T-shirt and red suspenders.

[5:28] And the Ghoulies in the movie are starkers.

[5:31] They do not wear clothes.

[5:32] And I thought it was very – it led me to believe that these Ghoulies were going to be kind of like wisecracking jerks as opposed to what they are, which is just kind of giggling little creepos.

Dan McCoy

[5:42] I think that later in the series they do start – like I think that outfit may actually get worn in a later movie.

[5:50] I'm not –

Stuart Wellington

[5:50] I mean they would have to.

[5:51] I mean by the time they go to college in the third one, he's got a dress.

[5:54] It's like a half shirt.

[5:55] Like it shows off his abs.

[5:58] Oh, you know what?

[5:58] He's chopped up.

[5:59] You're right.

[5:59] He looks awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[6:00] I never – I thought that was like a different color on the shirt.

[6:02] You're right.

[6:02] That is a half shirt.

[6:03] So he's dressed to go to like Muscle Beach or something like that.

[6:07] You know?

Dan McCoy

[6:08] Yeah.

[6:08] Now, I want to ask you guys something.

Elliott Kalan

[6:10] And these – and the Ghoulies are also ripped.

[6:12] Like their abs are incredible.

Stuart Wellington

[6:14] They're incredible.

[6:15] I want to find out.

[6:16] I mean, you know, abs are made in the kitchen, so – but they're always eaten.

[6:20] So, I mean, I don't know what –

[6:21] Did you make me some?

[6:21] Yeah.

[6:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:25] I wanted to ask you guys because Ghoulies, for all that it has loomed large in my imagination,

[6:31] I have never watched Ghoulies.

[6:33] I had not watched it before watching it for the podcast.

[6:38] I think maybe I've seen bits and pieces, but that's it.

[6:40] Have you guys seen Ghoulies before?

Stuart Wellington

[6:43] I feel like I definitely have because – but then it could just be – like it reminds me of

[6:49] almost every other like Charles Band production of this time.

[6:53] Yeah.

[6:54] That's the thing.

[6:54] There's always like a wizard and some other bullshit.

Elliott Kalan

[6:58] I didn't think I had seen it, but watching it for this, there were things that felt really

[7:01] familiar.

[7:02] And I can't tell exactly the story.

[7:03] If I had seen it before or if it's just that Charles Band is – he didn't direct this

[7:07] one.

[7:07] He was going to, but then he just produced it.

[7:09] But they're working in a very familiar vein.

Dan McCoy

[7:12] He directed, however, Ghoulies 2, which immediately upon, you know, providing a

[7:19] somewhat tepid Ghoulies review on Letterboxd, I had people assuring me that Ghoulies 2 was

[7:27] the superior film.

Elliott Kalan

[7:29] Well, I think – so my understanding is that – we'll get into the plot of this – is

[7:32] that Ghoulies, the first one, is not really very much about the Ghoulies.

[7:35] And that for Ghoulies 2, people were like, we want to see some Ghoulies doing stuff.

[7:39] Yeah.

[7:39] Let's have some Ghoulies in these Ghoulies movies.

Stuart Wellington

[7:41] I don't want to see 40-year-old college students trying to get laid.

[7:45] That's Ghoulies 3.

Elliott Kalan

[7:46] Ghoulies go to college.

[7:47] Ghoulies 2 is the one where it has almost the same poster, but there's two Ghoulies

[7:51] popping out of the toilet, one out of the bowl and one of the tank, and it says, they'll

[7:54] get you in the end, dot, dot, dot, again.

Dan McCoy

[7:57] They'll get you in the end and the back.

[7:59] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[8:00] Yeah.

[8:00] And it's almost like Ghoulies 2 is being like, look, watch Ghoulies 2.

[8:03] You're going to get what Ghoulies promised you that you didn't get.

[8:06] And then Ghoulies 3, they could finally have fun and send them to college and they could

[8:09] finish their degree in hotel management or I don't know.

[8:13] Automotive repair.

[8:15] And Ghoulies 4, I don't know anything about.

Dan McCoy

[8:17] Yeah, let's find out.

[8:18] Well, let's dig into these Ghoulies.

[8:19] Today on the Flap House.

[8:20] We cooked up a big plate of Ghoulies while Stuart was making those abs.

[8:23] Join us, won't you?

Elliott Kalan

[8:24] Join us, won't you?

[8:25] As we explore Ghoulies.

[8:28] That's my, you must remember this.

[8:30] And just like, you must remember this, the join us, won't you comes nine minutes into the episode.

[8:35] So anyway, let's talk about Ghoulies.

[8:37] So we open on the titular Ghoulies.

[8:40] They're these kind of hideous little beasties who are watching a satanic mass that's being

[8:45] presided over by a warlock named Malcolm Graves.

[8:48] And Malcolm Graves is played by Michael Desbars, who people who had HBO as teenagers in the 90s

[8:52] will know best as the older man that Jamie Presley seduces in Poison Ivy, the New Seduction.

Dan McCoy

[8:57] So that's where you recognize him from.

Elliott Kalan

[9:00] Malcolm Graves, he wants to sacrifice his infant son, Jonathan, in order to gain Jonathan's

[9:05] youth energy.

[9:05] But Jonathan's mother, Anastasia, stops him.

[9:08] Instead, Anastasia is sacrificed and her death is so gruesome that even one of the Ghoulies

[9:12] covers his eyes.

[9:13] And these guys are gross.

[9:15] And baby Jonathan is spirited away into hiding by the groundskeeper, Wolfgang, played by Eraserhead

[9:20] himself, Jack Nance.

[9:22] Jack Nance.

[9:23] Jack Nance.

[9:23] Now, can you guys describe the Ghoulies for me?

[9:25] What do they look like?

[9:27] Because the movie, it's not like Critters, where they kind of hide them for a while.

[9:30] Like, you see the Ghoulies right away, pretty much.

[9:31] Right away.

Dan McCoy

[9:31] No, they're little puppets.

[9:35] They're kind of like...

[9:36] Okay, so Topo Jijo, that kind of thing?

[9:38] That's what you mean?

[9:38] No.

[9:39] There's one of...

[9:40] There's a green guy that looks kind of like a Madball, but with like a body and arms

[9:45] and legs.

Stuart Wellington

[9:45] Not the band Madball, which looks like old guys from New York.

Dan McCoy

[9:48] Yeah.

[9:48] And he's like kind of the sloppy swamp Ghoulie.

[9:51] There's like a furry one that looks like kind of an overgrown rat.

[9:56] Yeah.

[9:56] Not the band rat.

Stuart Wellington

[9:58] Not the band rat, which looks like old hair metal guys.

Dan McCoy

[10:01] There's...

[10:01] There are various little creatures.

[10:04] And right away, I want to get into one of the things that I found unexpected and bizarre

[10:10] about this movie.

[10:11] How moist they are?

Elliott Kalan

[10:12] Is that it?

[10:12] Because they're all covered in kind of goopy goo all the time.

[10:15] No, I was going to...

Dan McCoy

[10:16] Like...

[10:17] So the typical rap on Ghoulies is that it was...

[10:20] Is, hey, I'm Ghoulies that I'm here to say.

[10:23] Uh-huh.

[10:24] People think of it as a Gremlins ripoff.

[10:27] It was in production at the same time as Gremlins.

[10:30] Now, that does not necessarily mean...

[10:32] It wasn't in some degree ripping it off.

[10:34] Like, they were like, let's push this Ghoulies film out because we know that this Gremlins

[10:37] script is hot.

[10:38] But it's not a direct ripoff in the most simple sense.

Elliott Kalan

[10:43] It's not like a mockbuster kind of like, we're taking this thing and doing our copy of it.

[10:47] But I think something funny is that you'll read descriptions of it and they're like,

[10:50] it was in production at the same time but ran out of money, which meant it had to take

[10:54] a break and Gremlins beat it to the theaters.

[10:56] As if there was any world in which these were equal competitors to be hit to the box office.

[11:02] If the Steven Spielberg produced Gremlins, which are the best puppet effects of it at the

[11:08] time compared to Ghoulies, like as if Ghoulies was like, ooh, we could have been there.

[11:11] We could have been that if we got there just a little bit faster.

Stuart Wellington

[11:15] As you guys point out, I think a lot of people mistakenly say that this is a Gremlins ripoff.

[11:19] But what they don't talk about enough is how hereditary is a Ghoulies ripoff, which I will

Dan McCoy

[11:23] explain in this four-point presentation.

Elliott Kalan

[11:26] I mean, it's a good call.

[11:27] It is basically the same movie in a lot of ways.

Dan McCoy

[11:30] Let me, before you get to that PowerPoint, let me complete the thought, which was just like,

[11:35] so I still was kind of expecting like this, like, oh, rascally little monster critters movie.

[11:42] And, you know, Gremlins, the fact that the Gremlins aren't necessarily super terrifying makes sense.

[11:49] Like they will kill you and that's scary, but that's because they're like these amoral mischief creatures.

[11:55] But in Ghoulies—

[11:56] They got mutant madness, yeah.

[11:58] In Ghoulies, you have these little, like, critters running around.

[12:02] Not the critters.

[12:03] Those are crites, of course.

[12:04] Yeah, that's very different.

[12:05] But, and they are sort of the result of these occult rituals.

[12:12] Like, these wizards can, you know, control these Ghoulies, which are maybe, I don't know, demonic forces.

[12:18] Who knows?

[12:19] But it is much less impressive to me as like, I'm a master of sorcery.

[12:25] And because of that, I control these Ghoulies.

[12:28] I made this gross little dude.

[12:31] Look at that.

Elliott Kalan

[12:32] Am I not your king?

Stuart Wellington

[12:33] All powerful.

[12:34] I mean, I think all children are gross little dudes for a while.

[12:37] I guess.

[12:37] That's very true.

[12:38] I guess that's the greatest power of all.

[12:40] It's the greatest act.

Elliott Kalan

[12:41] The greatest act of art is the creation of human life.

[12:44] And all art is merely us trying to imitate the power of God, which only exists in the creation of human life.

[12:51] Now, the—

[12:51] And Ghoulies.

[12:52] And Ghoulies.

[12:53] The greatest work of art is Ghoulies.

[12:54] But the other thing is that the Gremlins, they have so much personality.

[12:58] They have so much charisma.

[12:59] They are real characters.

[13:00] They are a hot kind of—they have a—they have a—they—

[13:03] When you—you can just watch Gremlins hanging out at a bar, and it is fun.

[13:06] The Ghoulies have no personality whatsoever.

[13:08] They just kind of are around.

[13:09] They're kind of set dressing, and it's very disappointing.

[13:11] Okay.

[13:12] So this baby was saved by Eraserhead.

[13:14] Years later, Jonathan, the baby, has grown up.

[13:17] He's now a college student of indeterminate age.

Stuart Wellington

[13:20] Art, like, most of the time, he looks mid-30s.

[13:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:24] When he first shows up with his girlfriend—

[13:25] At best.

Elliott Kalan

[13:26] Yes.

[13:26] When he shows up with his girlfriend, Rebecca, I thought they were a married couple.

[13:29] But it turns out they're just boyfriend, girlfriend, and he's a college student.

[13:32] And he has inherited this large estate from his father.

[13:34] In reality, it is Los Angeles' historic Waddles Mansion.

[13:38] Many things have been shot there.

[13:39] Okay.

[13:39] One of the few surviving big mansions from the pre-Hollywood days in Hollywood.

Dan McCoy

[13:45] Well, this is one of the funny things to me.

[13:46] Like, this presumably American mansion also has this, like, medieval catacomb beneath it where you raise ghoulies.

[13:55] That's Hollywood.

Elliott Kalan

[13:56] The only thing about that is that it's very unlikely that there's that huge a basement in California, an earthquake-prone place.

[14:02] Yeah.

[14:02] But you could say it was from the time when people really copying old European styles.

[14:06] Sure.

[14:07] You know, Hearst was literally dismantling old castles and bringing them to San Sinai.

[14:11] And I guess if you're into, like, raising ghoulies.

[14:14] Look, if you're into raising ghoulies—I mean, it's possible that Jonathan's dad just had that basement put in because he could put some ghoulies in it.

[14:20] Yeah.

[14:20] Raising ghoulies is not a thing you do on ground level or the second floor.

[14:24] Imagine how much less impressive a magic ritual is if it's happening in the attic or on the second floor as opposed to a basement.

[14:32] Come on.

[14:32] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[14:32] Is it a creepy attic?

[14:33] Is it one of those ones with, like, the big round window?

Stuart Wellington

[14:36] Is it one of those ones where the geometry doesn't make sense and there's a witch up there?

[14:39] So it's a regular attic.

Elliott Kalan

[14:40] You have to stoop a little bit.

[14:41] It's full of old Christmas lights.

[14:42] That's the attic it's happening in.

[14:44] Oh, that's boring.

[14:44] And there's, like, a wasp nest.

[14:46] It's the attic Chevy Chase goes to in Christmas Vacation where he just gets stuck up there.

[14:50] Yeah.

[14:51] You need somebody down below to make sure that the trap door doesn't fly up and get stuck.

[14:56] So anyway, they explore this large estate he's just inherited.

[14:58] They find a grave on the premises that has a pentagram on it, but the dirt's too high to read the name.

[15:02] And later, Jonathan also finds his dad's black magic supplies in the basement.

[15:07] They're just lying around.

[15:08] They have not been put away.

[15:09] They're just in boxes lying around like a basement.

[15:11] So Jonathan and Rebecca, they do what any young college people would do upon encountering getting a mansion.

[15:16] They throw a party, and their collection of weird friends show up.

[15:19] Okay, let me see if I can remember all of them because they're – I don't even know if all of them get names on screen.

[15:24] But there's Dick, who is girl crazy and thinks he's God's gift to women.

[15:28] There's a socially awkward young man named Mark who everyone calls Toad Boy.

[15:31] And Dick kind of looks like Big Ed from Twin Peaks, right?

[15:35] I can see that, yeah.

[15:36] He's got a little bit of a rockabilly aesthetic and that kind of thing.

[15:39] There's two burnouts whose names I don't remember.

[15:41] And there's Donna played by young Mariska Hargitay in her film debut, I believe.

Dan McCoy

[15:46] Oh, yeah.

[15:48] And we watch one of the burnouts breakdance.

[15:49] You may remember from The Love Guru.

Elliott Kalan

[15:53] They just meant – oh, does she actually appear in it?

[15:55] I don't remember.

[15:55] I know that she says her name a lot.

[15:56] No, no.

Dan McCoy

[15:56] They just use the – it's just such a dumb joke.

Elliott Kalan

[15:59] That's how he – that's how his greeting is like Mariska Hargitay, that kind of stuff.

[16:03] Yeah.

[16:04] What a terrible movie.

[16:04] So one of the burnouts breakdances for a while and then Jonathan suggests they conjure a spirit just as a lark.

[16:10] They go down to the basement.

[16:11] They do this ritual.

[16:12] Nothing seems to happen.

[16:14] So everybody walks away disappointed and Jonathan doesn't do the spirit dismissing spell.

[16:17] As soon as they're all gone, what appears on the floor?

[16:20] We got a ghoulie.

[16:22] A ghoulie.

Dan McCoy

[16:22] We got one.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] A real big problem with a real bad logo.

Dan McCoy

[16:26] I will say that this movie is like 80 minutes long.

[16:30] And it takes about 30 minutes to get to the point that Elliot just said.

Elliott Kalan

[16:35] Yes, I cut out a lot of the party.

Dan McCoy

[16:38] It is a movie that has its charms but it is pretty dull whenever there's not a ghoulie on screen.

Elliott Kalan

[16:44] There's a part where once the ghoulie – once the ritual doesn't work out quite as I want it, they go, oh, where's Robin?

[16:49] This other character, Robin.

[16:49] Where's she?

[16:50] Let's go look for her.

[16:51] That doesn't pay off in any way.

[16:52] Who cares?

[16:53] It's just a way to get them out of the room, I guess, that they've noticed Robin has gone somewhere else.

[16:56] The next day, Jonathan tells Rebecca that he is leaving school to focus on repairing the house.

Stuart Wellington

[17:03] On ghoulie-based business.

Dan McCoy

[17:08] This is the real world of the future.

[17:10] I'm bringing these cobbler's ghoulies to make shoes.

Elliott Kalan

[17:13] And she reacts the same way he would if he said he's dropping out of school to get into crypto.

[17:17] She's like, I don't know if that's a great idea.

[17:20] But he also gets obsessed with those magic artifacts.

[17:23] He draws ritual markings on the floor and he makes a talisman necklace for Rebecca that's kind of like a safety thing.

[17:29] I think he had one as a baby.

[17:30] I don't remember.

[17:31] All this magic is having a terrible effect on him.

[17:33] He looks old.

[17:34] He looks less healthy.

[17:35] Yeah, it's the magic.

[17:37] And he doesn't go outside at all, too.

[17:39] And he conjures some more ghoulies and he tells them to obey him and not let anyone else see them.

[17:45] And eventually this is going to lead to when he's just kicking back in his study reading books while ghoulies are just kind of hanging over his shoulder drooling and grumbling.

[17:53] And it's like this is what the power has given you?

[17:55] Is you just have these gross things hanging on your shoulders while you're just hanging out?

Dan McCoy

[17:59] Yeah, this is what I was thinking because, like, what would you guys do if you had, you know, a few ghoulies at your disposal?

[18:04] I would ask them to leave.

[18:06] They don't seem to do much.

[18:07] They can't get anything off, like, a high shelf, for instance.

[18:11] Or, you know, what are other things ghoulies can't?

[18:14] They couldn't drive you anywhere.

[18:16] They couldn't reach the pedals.

[18:17] Maybe, like, a couple of them stacked on top of each other.

Stuart Wellington

[18:20] I'd have them go on to World of Warcraft and do some XP mining for me just to level my character.

Elliott Kalan

[18:26] I feel like most of your time at the ghoulies would be spent cleaning up after the ghoulies.

[18:30] Like, there's more trouble.

[18:32] The fact that he later uses ritual to get better helpers is a real indictment of the ghoulies.

[18:38] That's a lot.

[18:39] So now he's doing rituals in full warlock robes holding a magic spear, a magic trident of some kind.

[18:46] He's praying to Paimon.

Stuart Wellington

[18:47] What a hereditary thing.

Elliott Kalan

[18:50] Yep, he is.

[18:50] Okay.

[18:51] And he gains the power to make it rain in the basement.

[18:53] Again, I don't see what the benefit of this is.

[18:56] Now you have a wet basement.

[18:56] Water in your basement is literally something you don't want.

[18:59] It's the thing that people go out of their way to avoid.

Stuart Wellington

[19:01] As a small business owner, water in your basement is a nightmare.

Elliott Kalan

[19:05] You don't want that.

[19:06] But he has the power to make it happen in his own house.

[19:08] Rebecca walks in on him, and it is hilarious.

[19:11] It's like she's walked in on him masturbating to pictures of someone he used to date.

[19:14] She is understandably upset.

[19:16] He is embarrassed and cannot explain it.

[19:18] And he promises, okay, I'm going to cut it out with the magic.

[19:21] No more magic.

[19:22] I promise.

[19:22] I promise, baby, no more magic.

[19:24] Baby, baby, I'm cured.

[19:26] I'll go to therapy for it.

[19:27] No more magic.

[19:28] Cut to the next scene, and he is lighting a magic candle next to their bed.

[19:32] This is Jonathan.

[19:33] You haven't even been able to go one scene without magic.

[19:36] He and Rebecca start making love as a ghoulie pops up to watch.

[19:40] Yeah.

[19:41] Which to me would be a major turnoff.

[19:42] Even if they're working for me, I don't want them in the room when I'm having sex.

[19:45] How do you guys feel about it?

[19:46] I know you're a little kinkier than me.

[19:48] I'm a little vanilla.

Dan McCoy

[19:48] Yeah, I mean, I like an audience.

[19:50] Is it a – yeah, it would have to be maybe a handsome or ghoulie before it's going to work for me.

Elliott Kalan

[19:56] So you're look-shaming with the ghoulie.

[20:00] But just the fact that he's just sitting – I don't –

[20:02] I'm just talking about my personal kinks, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[20:03] Yeah, I mean, let's go to bdsm.org and fill out the quiz and see what it says about –

[20:10] Let's go to ghouliewatchme.com.

Elliott Kalan

[20:12] Adult ghoulie finder.

[20:14] Now, here's the thing about it, though.

[20:16] I can understand the thrill of being watched.

[20:18] But being watched by someone who is giggling the entire time seems off-putting to me.

Stuart Wellington

[20:23] Yeah, yeah.

[20:23] It's the ghoulie equivalent of like Statler and Waldorf criticizing you.

Elliott Kalan

[20:27] Now, that's something – to be honest, to be having sex while Statler and Waldorf are just criticizing me and making jokes.

[20:34] The only problem with it is that I would get too hard, I think.

[20:37] It would be too excited.

[20:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:39] That's your Patrick Bateman in the mirror moment.

Dan McCoy

[20:42] When's he going to come?

[20:42] I'm just asking when we can go.

[20:44] That kind of stuff.

[20:45] Oh, shit.

[20:46] And you're just laughing too hard to continue.

Elliott Kalan

[20:49] It would be too close.

[20:51] The duet of pleasure would cancel each other out.

[20:53] Like two perfect waveforms meeting.

[20:55] Yeah?

[20:56] Yeah.

[20:57] All I want to do now is write jokes for Statler and Waldorf to say while they're watching people have sex.

Stuart Wellington

[21:05] Weirdly enough, the Jim Henson company is not into your pitch, Statler and Waldorf.

[21:11] I think Jim Henson himself probably would have.

Elliott Kalan

[21:14] Yeah.

[21:15] I mean in his private life, who knows what that guy was into?

[21:17] Yeah.

[21:18] You know.

[21:19] So there's got to be times when he had sex as Kermit.

[21:23] It had to be, right?

[21:24] Oh, my God.

Stuart Wellington

[21:25] I mean if I was on the receiving end, I would request Kermit.

Dan McCoy

[21:29] Knowing that his one sort of vice in life was he was a philanderer.

[21:34] I'm sure there's got to be someone.

Elliott Kalan

[21:35] And he liked expensive cars.

[21:36] He would buy very expensive cars.

Dan McCoy

[21:37] Who was like, do Kermit for me.

[21:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[21:41] Had to happen.

[21:41] Be Kermit.

[21:42] Come on.

[21:43] He would just say, is Kermit in the room with us tonight?

[21:46] He could be, perhaps.

[21:49] That kind of thing.

[21:49] Yeah.

[21:51] You're really good at that.

[21:52] Yeah.

[21:53] You're really good at that.

[21:53] I do a lot at home.

[21:54] Not in the bedroom, but maybe I should.

Dan McCoy

[21:56] Sure.

[21:57] Nice.

[21:58] You're making it a little easier to be green.

[22:01] As you say to me, Elliot, and now Audrey has annoyingly picked it up too.

[22:07] He's like, sure, laddie.

[22:09] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[22:12] Would I do this to my friend Rocco?

[22:15] You might, Rabbit.

[22:16] You might.

[22:16] Okay.

[22:17] It's a great voice.

[22:19] I don't mean it as an anti-Irish slur.

[22:21] I apologize.

[22:21] So anyway, John starts muttering magic incantations while they're in the act, and Rebecca angrily

[22:26] storms out.

[22:28] Makes sense.

[22:28] Doesn't notice that the ghoulie is watching.

Stuart Wellington

[22:29] She does see the pentagram under the bed, though, right?

[22:32] Yes, I think so.

[22:33] The magical warding circle or whatever.

[22:34] Now, I have to say, sure.

Dan McCoy

[22:39] Go on.

[22:39] It's not unreasonable under these circumstances for her to storm out, but the movie narratively

[22:45] seems like it gets to this point pretty quickly, especially considering how much time is spent

[22:50] not doing much at the party.

[22:51] It feels like there should be a little bit more of a build to, it's clear this is a problem

[22:59] this guy has.

[23:00] I know it's weird to come home and see that your boyfriend is wearing ceremonial robes

[23:06] in the basement.

[23:07] And soaking wet for some reason.

[23:09] Nothing bad, per se, has happened at this point, I guess.

[23:14] No, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[23:15] Well, I mean, he's gone back on a promise.

[23:17] He's creeping around.

[23:18] It's more that she's mad that his life is falling apart and he's not taking responsibility

[23:21] for himself.

[23:22] But I agree.

[23:22] Ghoulies is not a masterclass in storytelling.

Stuart Wellington

[23:25] Do you think it would have been better if this section had been more like a French

[23:29] farce where he's trying to hide the ghoulies from her?

[23:33] Ghoulies keep almost popping up.

[23:36] I want to see this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[23:37] I'd enjoy it more, certainly.

[23:38] Yeah.

[23:38] I don't know if it would raise the thrill level or the terror level, but it would be

[23:41] more fun to watch.

[23:42] Sure, yeah.

[23:43] Where's your terror level at now, Elliot?

[23:46] The terror level.

[23:47] Orange or red?

[23:48] Yeah, the terror level.

[23:50] It's yellow.

[23:50] It's pretty low down.

[23:52] Oh, okay.

[23:52] We'll see.

[23:52] You don't have to take your shoes off to watch Ghoulies at this level.

[23:59] I will say, this kind of thing is handled much better in the very beginning of a movie

[24:05] called Ride with the Devil.

[24:06] It's a hammer-arm movie that's not perfect, but there's a point where two friends show up

[24:10] at a friend's house for dinner, and it turns out the date got mixed up, and their friend

[24:13] is hosting a satanic mass that night.

[24:15] And the friend is, he's in robes, and they're like, what's going on?

[24:18] He's like, oh, well, you were supposed to go for dinner tomorrow night, not tonight.

[24:21] And I always found that very funny and also a little scary, the idea that you just show

[24:25] up at your friend's house the wrong night and realize that he's involved in this stuff.

[24:29] That's a great setup.

[24:30] Yeah, it's much like in Hereditary, where she just finds all these magic books going through

[24:34] her mom's stuff.

[24:35] And the really scary part is not that her mom was involved in magic, but that her mom didn't

[24:38] include her in this aspect of her life.

[24:40] That's the harsh part.

[24:42] So now, with Rebecca gone, Jonathan just throws himself into full-time warlocking.

[24:46] His eyes start to glow.

[24:48] They start looking like his dad's eyes did in the first scene.

Dan McCoy

[24:50] Also, his pupils, like one of them goes off to the side, and I honestly couldn't tell

[24:56] whether that was an intentional choice or just the contacts not settling correctly.

Elliott Kalan

[25:01] That's a very good question.

[25:02] That's a very good question.

[25:04] Again, these are not Grinch stole Christmas level contact lenses.

[25:07] They're not sticking right in there.

[25:09] He decides, I guess, that the ghoulies are not cutting it in the assistant department.

[25:13] And he conjures two kind of gnomes in armor who are named Grizzle and Greedy Guts.

[25:18] And these are hands down, I will brook no argument, hands down the best characters in the movie.

[25:23] Guys, fight me over it.

[25:25] Fight me.

[25:25] I'm not going to fight you.

Dan McCoy

[25:25] No, they have the most charisma.

[25:29] I mean, like, I would love –

[25:31] The best performances.

[25:32] Also, the best performances.

Stuart Wellington

[25:33] The kids call it Riz these days, by the way.

[25:35] Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[25:36] I would love the ghoulies to be the top performances.

[25:43] But, you know, like, they aren't given the personality that these are – you know, like,

[25:47] these are two little person actors in armor, basically.

[25:53] But they have, like, a lot of –

[25:54] I want to make sure we say their names.

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] So Grizzle is played by Peter Risch and Greedy Guts is played by Tamara DeTro.

[26:00] Who also – Tamara DeTro is – I don't know if she's better known, but she also played E.T.

[26:05] For much of the movie E.T.

[26:06] Wow.

[26:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:08] No, they're great.

[26:08] In a costume, right?

Elliott Kalan

[26:10] Yes.

[26:10] No, she was in the makeup chair for hours and hours.

[26:13] No, she's in a costume.

[26:14] It was all motion capture, yeah.

[26:17] And they are – they give the best performances in the movie.

[26:19] Their characters are the most interesting.

[26:21] Grizzle, as portrayed by Peter Risch, and I wonder if this was in the script or not,

[26:24] is very reluctant to do the bad things and does not like that he is under the control of Jonathan,

[26:30] whereas Greedy Gut is more eager to kind of, like, play up to the master in order to get what she wants.

[26:36] And there's, like, an actual dynamic with them that I find – that is interesting.

[26:40] I wish this movie was called Greedy Gut and Grizz and was about these two characters loose in Los Angeles, but it is not.

[26:47] In order to test their power, Jonathan makes them levitate a wine goblet so that they can drink it.

[26:52] Greedy Gut starts telling about a more dangerous ritual that can bring him even greater power, but he needs seven people for it.

[26:58] And Grizzle is like, don't tell him, don't tell him.

[27:00] And unfortunately, they don't get too much screen time.

[27:03] By now, Jonathan is at the stage I mentioned earlier where he's just kicking back reading while a ghoulie just grumbles on his shoulder into his ear.

[27:10] I would find that very distracting if I'm trying to study a magic book, but Rebecca returns.

[27:14] It's a soothing sound of ghoulies.

[27:17] Because it's like –

[27:18] It's a white noise machine.

Stuart Wellington

[27:20] I mean, honestly, I feel like the sound of a ghoulie grumbling in your ear sounds a lot like the vocalists in the bands I listen to.

Elliott Kalan

[27:28] Yeah, that's fair.

[27:29] It's like –

Dan McCoy

[27:30] I'm just imagining that one of my, like, meditation apps has one of the options.

[27:35] It's like, ghoulie grumbles.

Stuart Wellington

[27:37] Oh, yeah, my Waze app has the ghoulie option for the voice to read the directions.

[27:44] I don't understand what that means.

[27:46] Is that a stopped car ahead?

Elliott Kalan

[27:51] Houston Street.

[27:52] You can't even get the pronunciations right.

[27:54] Come on, ghoulie AI.

[27:55] Come on.

[27:56] So Rebecca, she's like, can you please leave the house?

[28:00] But the gnomes put a spell on her so that she'll obey Jonathan.

[28:03] She's in kind of a trance.

[28:04] And Wolfgang comes in.

[28:06] He's like, oh, I was powerless to do anything but watch the evil overtake Jonathan.

[28:12] I feel like the movie is in bad shape when you cannot afford much of Jack Nance's screen time.

[28:18] When Jack Nance is not – they're really not making it worthwhile for Jack Nance to be on screen very much.

Dan McCoy

[28:23] Yeah, well, I mean, this voiceover was so confusing to me because the movie doesn't have it in general.

[28:30] And I guess it's just like the movie needs to remind you that Jack Nance's character is in the movie so that when he comes back later on, you're like, what?

Elliott Kalan

[28:37] When he comes back zapping magic all over the place, you're like, why didn't he do this earlier?

[28:42] He's always like, oh, I just couldn't.

[28:43] I couldn't.

[28:44] Jonathan invites his friends to a dinner party where everyone's wearing sunglasses because he has to wear sunglasses to cover his glowing eyes.

[28:50] And they're all wearing their shades inside.

[28:51] They're wearing their sunglasses at night so they can, so they can keep track of the visions and ghoulies.

[28:56] Ghoulies are popping up all over the table, but nobody seems to notice them.

[28:59] And the ghoulies are loud.

[29:00] Again, they're grumbling constantly.

[29:02] They're eating the food as well.

Dan McCoy

[29:05] Just like that song, ghoulies busting out all over.

Elliott Kalan

[29:09] Yeah, that's what the movie was based on.

[29:12] Jonathan, he casts a spell.

[29:14] And this is, I think, the best part of the movie aside from when Rizzle and Greedy Gut are in it.

[29:19] Where he casts a spell that suddenly the table disappears.

[29:22] Then he transports them into the basement and they're all covered in white sheets.

[29:25] Not like clan white sheets, but like burial shrouds.

[29:28] And it's genuinely very creepy.

[29:30] It's genuinely strange.

[29:32] The ghoulies are loving this ritual.

[29:34] They are all over it.

[29:35] And everybody starts yelling and yelling and yelling.

[29:38] And the warlock dad, Malcolm, his dead body pops out of the grave, now yelling, having been revived.

[29:43] And then suddenly, they're all back at the dinner table.

[29:45] And I thought this whole sequence, this is the best sequence of the whole movie.

[29:47] It's genuinely cool.

[29:48] I liked it a lot, yeah.

[29:49] Yeah.

[29:49] And John and Rebecca are like, well, everybody, thanks for coming to our dinner.

[29:53] We are leaving to go to sleep.

[29:55] But you can all stay the night.

[29:56] Which is a weird thing for the host to do.

[29:59] When dinner's not really over yet.

[30:01] To be like, I'm so tired, I gotta get my sweepies in.

[30:04] So you guys hang out and be at the house.

[30:06] Maybe it's the kind of thing that rich people do.

[30:08] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[30:09] Yeah.

[30:10] If you got that many extra.

[30:11] Yeah, if you're super rich, just write in and tell us if they do, if you do shit like they do in Ghoulies.

[30:16] Like, so the reason I want people to leave at the end of the night is that we live in an apartment, you know.

Dan McCoy

[30:22] And there's essentially four rooms here.

Elliott Kalan

[30:26] Yeah, it's what the movie Four Rooms was based on, your apartment.

Dan McCoy

[30:28] If you live in a mansion, you know, like you're like, yeah.

[30:31] Also Joe's apartment.

[30:32] There's probably people living here I don't know about, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[30:35] I mean, there's that scene in Citizen Kane where he's like, I believe some stragglers are still in the east wing, you know, from the party that they had.

[30:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[30:42] Yeah, the, so like if you had a huge mansion, you'd be like, yeah, fuck it, do whatever you want.

[30:47] Go into my wine cellar, go hang out in my.

[30:49] You three lunkheads, come polish this urn for me.

Dan McCoy

[30:53] I don't care.

[30:54] I have a mansion.

[30:55] Yeah, I do like.

Elliott Kalan

[30:56] I'll just get a new urn.

[30:58] You break whatever you want.

[30:59] I don't give a shit, Stooges.

Stuart Wellington

[31:01] Yeah, you can go hang out with this weird life-size Klaus Kinski clown doll that's in one room.

Elliott Kalan

[31:08] It is a strangely furnished and decorated house.

[31:12] It's decorated in creepy modern.

[31:15] But so, but I guess you can do that when you're rich.

[31:18] So zombie dad is walking the grounds.

[31:20] He's just petting ghoulies when he runs into them telling them he's their true master.

[31:23] He's returned.

[31:24] The friends pair off and they get attacked in different ways.

[31:27] And this takes a while.

[31:28] It's, it's, I'm shortening it considerably.

[31:31] Mariska Hargitay and, is it Mariska Hargitay and Toadboy gets attacked or is it?

[31:35] I think so, yeah.

[31:36] Yeah, yeah.

[31:37] They get attacked in the garden by ghoulies.

[31:39] Dick has paired off with another girl and he leaves and he encounters, this is the strangest one of these.

[31:45] He encounters Malcolm Graves, the dead warlock.

[31:48] But Malcolm Graves has taken the form of a sexy lady who Dick is, who's like, kiss me.

[31:54] And he's like, well, I've never met you before, but I'm, I'm so, I'm so love happy that when I wander through a mansion and a creepy lady tells me to kiss her, I just do it.

[32:01] Honestly, I get it.

[32:03] And, but unfortunately that's a bad mistake because she strangles him with an enormous serpent tongue that shoots out of her mouth.

[32:10] You live by the sword and die by the sword.

[32:12] That's what I'm saying.

[32:13] Yeah.

[32:13] Live by the French, die by the French.

[32:16] And Robin gets, another woman gets strangled by a ghoulie inside a big clown doll that, that Stuart mentioned before.

[32:22] And my favorite one of these is of the two burnouts, one of them just gets attacked by ghoulies.

[32:27] The other one, Grizz has to go get a ghoulie, subdue it, and then he just throws it at the other burnout.

[32:32] And you can tell that Grizz does not want to be doing this.

[32:35] He's regretting it the entire time.

[32:36] He feels bad about it.

[32:38] That's acting.

[32:38] He clearly doesn't want to do it.

[32:40] Richest character in the movie, Grizzle.

[32:42] Meanwhile, John tells Rebecca, he goes, I hope you can, you can forgive me.

[32:46] And he puts the safety talisman necklace on her and she falls asleep.

[32:50] And she goes into a sleeping trance.

[32:51] And I think this is meant to protect her.

[32:53] And this is the moment when dad goes, ghoulies, come to me.

[32:57] And they're all popping up everywhere.

[32:58] And if you finally get the insert shot of the ghoulie popping out of the toilet, that's it.

[33:03] We have, we have fulfilled.

Dan McCoy

[33:04] The audience stands up, applauds, files out of the theater.

[33:09] Yeah.

[33:09] The usher's like, no, don't, there's more movie left.

[33:12] And they go, now there's work at search.

[33:13] It's all we came to see.

Elliott Kalan

[33:14] We came to see it.

[33:15] It's beating the Flash entering the speed zone as the number one stand-up and sheer moment in American film history.

Stuart Wellington

[33:21] 20-minute standing ovation at Cannes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:24] At James Cannes' house, you mean, where they all premiere of Lewis.

Dan McCoy

[33:27] Yeah, James Cannes' house, yeah.

[33:28] He's loving it.

[33:29] He's just loving it, yeah.

[33:30] He's just loving it, yeah.

[33:30] But you guys see this movie, they got these crazy little monsters.

Elliott Kalan

[33:34] Ever since I saw that one of them was in the turlet, I had to see it.

Stuart Wellington

[33:38] There's the, I really like the way that when he summons the ghoulies, it also summons all of the dead party goers, I guess.

[33:48] And they just kind of like inch along the ground like weird worms.

[33:53] And I thought that was pretty cool.

[33:54] Like that's a cool bit of physical work by those actors.

Elliott Kalan

[33:57] And Rebecca sees, well, we'll get to it in a moment, but Rebecca sees one of these and is horrified to see her friend kind of like, yeah, like wriggling along the ground, like almost Uzumaki style, the way people's bodies move in Uzumaki comics.

[34:09] And I was like, that is cool.

[34:10] That's a cool creepy touch.

[34:11] I like that.

[34:11] Anytime a human body is moving in a way that is unnatural for a human body, it can get, it can be very effective on film.

[34:19] You know, it's why there's so many, why there's so many, what, palabalus dancers that go into the horror realm.

[34:27] Anyway, that's a modern dance reference that I probably mispronounced.

[34:29] So anyway, all the ghoulies and the dead people are coming out.

[34:33] They're writhing around.

[34:34] Rebecca wakes up to find Jonathan in a trance.

[34:36] She's horrified.

[34:37] She rips off her talisman.

[34:38] She runs to the stairs.

[34:39] A flying ghoulie, like a flying squirrel ghoulie knocks her down the stairs where she seemingly dies.

Stuart Wellington

[34:46] Knocks her down the stairs, but she has just enough time to like rebuking.

[34:49] Buking Jonathan and be like, why'd you do this, dude?

[34:53] Or whatever.

[34:54] Yeah.

[34:54] I mean, was it worth it?

[34:56] It's a fair question.

[34:57] Why did you raise all these ghoulies?

[34:59] I think it's really funny that she's like, before I go, I'm going to talk some shit.

Elliott Kalan

[35:05] Before I go, tough love, why'd you raise all these ghoulies?

Dan McCoy

[35:09] I guess the assumption is that, you know, like there's a corrupting influence.

[35:14] Like he does the first ritual out of curiosity, you know, youthful high spirits.

[35:21] And then he's corrupted into like the lust for power, but it all happened so fast.

[35:26] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[35:27] This is some natural Dan generosity coming out right now.

[35:30] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[35:31] How many times did the movie make you cry, Dan?

[35:33] There's no sense early on where he's like, ugh, my lifelong dream has always been to be the king of the ghoulies.

[35:39] Like, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[35:41] I was the king of prom, but there were no ghoulies at prom, unfortunately.

[35:45] Then I was the king of queens.

[35:46] There were ghoulies there.

Stuart Wellington

[35:48] I was originally going to, I think if there's any borough that is lousy with ghoulies, it's queens.

[35:53] Staten Island, my friend.

[35:54] Staten Island.

[35:55] Oh, you got me.

[35:56] Like Nicole Mallet-Tagas.

[36:00] Ghoulies and wild turkeys.

[36:00] Do you think he was also, like he was going to school for like management?

[36:05] And that's why he's like, I just love being in charge of all these ghoulies.

[36:08] I love administrating the ghoulies.

Elliott Kalan

[36:10] I think that's it because they're all trying to get power, but it's a very abstract concept of power.

[36:15] Like I don't know what Jonathan wants to do with this power.

[36:18] I don't understand what it means for him.

[36:20] I don't know what kind of power the ghoulies convey because they don't do anything other than attack people occasionally.

[36:25] It's not like the ghoulies are stealing money for him or anything like that.

[36:28] Even the gnomes that can levitate things, I don't know what they're bringing to Jonathan's organization.

[36:32] It feels like Jonathan, like many startup founders, doesn't really know what to do with his staff once he's expanded beyond the size he can reasonably manage them.

[36:40] I feel like –

[36:41] He loses sight of his core mission.

Stuart Wellington

[36:43] I feel like as soon as he summoned the ghoulies, he should have been like, well, they can help me like fix up the house.

[36:51] I know you're saying they're gross and they're incapable of doing that.

[36:54] And then we get a house montage.

[36:55] We're capable.

[36:57] And that would at least make sense.

Elliott Kalan

[36:59] Yeah, at least I can see ghoulies crawling around the roof, nailing down shingles and stuff like that, putting down tar paper, but they don't even do that.

Stuart Wellington

[37:05] Yeah, you throw on like a little banger, like put one foot in front of the other.

[37:11] Yeah, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[37:11] See, now that would be a funny horror comedy where there's like these little creatures that this warlock wanted for like world domination.

[37:20] And this guy gets the power for it and he's just using them for chores and stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[37:24] Well, here's – okay, the strike is ending.

[37:26] Here's my pitch, Hollywood.

[37:28] I know I shouldn't be pitching right now.

[37:30] A contractor gets control of black magic.

[37:33] He's just going to use them to work on houses.

[37:35] And the ghoulies are really upset because they want to be wrecking havoc.

[37:38] And he's like, but what I need you to do is lay down grout.

[37:41] That's what I need you to do.

[37:42] I don't need you to wreck havoc.

[37:43] Like I'm a contractor.

[37:44] I like my life.

[37:45] I make good money.

[37:46] I don't need – they're like, you could have power, domination.

[37:49] I don't need that.

[37:50] I have what I need.

[37:51] I'm going to retire pretty – in 10 years.

[37:53] This is what I need right now.

Stuart Wellington

[37:54] And one of the clients who's like real – like a real pain in the ass shows up to the job site, sees the ghoulies.

[38:01] They kill her or him.

[38:04] Yeah.

[38:04] And –

[38:05] Or him.

[38:06] It could be.

[38:07] Or him.

[38:08] Gender neutrality.

[38:09] Gender equality.

[38:09] Yeah.

[38:09] And then the contractor's like, oh, God, I got to do something with a stupid body.

Elliott Kalan

[38:14] Yeah.

[38:14] Now that's your ghoulies movie.

[38:16] Anyway, the – and it's called Ghoulies Bringing Down the House or something like that.

[38:20] Oh, I love it.

[38:21] Yeah.

[38:21] So – but I agree.

[38:24] It's like not clear why – other than a family curse or the lure of the taboo or the forbidden.

[38:29] It's really not clear why Jonathan is doing any of this or why he is – because I can understand – I can understand the lure of forbidden knowledge.

[38:36] And I can do something that no one else knows how to do and they don't even know the power to do this exists.

[38:40] But if the – what you basically have is you can get a bunch of greasy, goopy little monsters that just hang around.

[38:46] Yeah.

[38:46] And you can make it rain in your basement.

[38:48] Like that's it.

Stuart Wellington

[38:49] There's nothing more forbidden than a gaggle of tiny, gross briefs.

Dan McCoy

[38:53] I feel like I'd be like, ooh, forbidden knowledge.

[38:55] I can do spells.

[38:56] And then I would do it and some ghoulies would show up and be like, ugh.

[38:59] I'd like throw the spell book away.

[39:02] Yeah.

[39:03] None of these spells are any good.

Elliott Kalan

[39:04] Yeah.

[39:05] It feels like – it feels like he's gone into a bad porn search where what has come up is not what he was looking for and it's not that helpful for his –

[39:12] Yeah, no thanks.

[39:14] For his objective.

[39:16] All right.

[39:17] So anyway, Jonathan shows up in the basement and he finds that his dad has set up everything for a magic ritual to steal Jonathan's youth.

[39:25] His friends are all in those winding shrouds.

[39:27] He tries to beat dad with magic, but he can't do it.

[39:30] Come on.

[39:31] It's like the story of Oedipus Rex but with magic.

[39:34] So in this case, he doesn't manage to do it.

[39:36] He can't defeat his dad.

[39:37] His dad revives Rebecca.

[39:39] And from this point on, I was not sure whether his friends were dead or alive because he revives Rebecca and she tries to ensnare him with a kiss.

Stuart Wellington

[39:45] Are they dead or alive final?

Elliott Kalan

[39:48] Yeah, I think that's what it is.

Stuart Wellington

[39:50] Which is the one where they become hitmen – where the hitmen start killing people and giving all their money to starving children and then they grow wings.

[39:56] I think that's the second one.

[39:58] That's never like two, right?

[39:59] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[39:59] Yeah, because I think the third one is the one where at the end, the two hitmen merge together into kind of a mechanical being and they go and attack the crime boss while he's having sex with his boyfriend.

[40:08] I think that's right, yeah.

[40:09] And it just ends with the crime boss going, uh-oh.

[40:11] And that's the end of the movie.

[40:14] After they've combined into some sort of master assassin mecha machine.

[40:20] Anyway, what an interesting film series.

[40:22] So they fight, but – oh, so Rebecca's like, kiss me, Jonathan.

[40:28] And the gnomes say, no, it's a trap.

[40:29] It's a trap.

[40:30] And there's a moment when Jonathan is like, grizzle, greedy gut, who are you working for?

[40:34] But then they show they're loyal to him.

[40:37] The dad is attacking Jonathan and he's about to kiss him and steal the life out of him when Wolfgang throws a magic spear through his back.

[40:46] It's that trident.

[40:47] Wolfgang is back and at this point – Chekhov's Jack Nance.

[40:51] Chekhov's Jack Nance is fired.

[40:53] And he reveals he is chock full of magic.

[40:55] He can teleport.

[40:56] He's zapping lightning bolts all over the place.

[40:58] It's like, why did you do any of this before?

Stuart Wellington

[41:00] That's in Jack Nance's contract.

[41:02] You put him in a movie.

[41:02] He's zapping his lightning bolts.

Dan McCoy

[41:03] I want to say, like, this might be my favorite part of the movie where Jack Nance and the bad guy fight.

[41:10] And it's essentially just them, like, grappling with each other.

[41:14] Like, not that much, really.

[41:15] Just like they basically have their hands around each other's necks in the classic we're both strangling each other stance.

[41:22] And animated eye zaps come out.

[41:25] Yeah.

[41:25] Each of them back and forth.

Elliott Kalan

[41:27] Yeah.

[41:27] And they have this magic battle.

[41:29] It wakes up Rebecca.

[41:30] It's shaking the house, bringing down the house.

[41:33] Much like in that Ghoulies contractor one.

[41:34] And both warlocks vaporize.

[41:37] They both disappear.

[41:38] And Jonathan wakes up his dead friends and is like, we got to get out of here, everybody.

[41:42] And they flee the house, which does not crumble.

[41:44] They don't have the special effects budget for that.

[41:46] But they all get in their cars.

[41:47] They drive away leaving Grizzle and Greedy Gut just to wave goodbye to them.

[41:51] I guess they're stuck in the house.

[41:52] And as they drive away, Rebecca's like, oh, is it all over?

[41:57] And Jonathan goes, yeah, it's all over.

[41:59] But then the Ghoulies pop up in their back seat and their burnout friend goes, oh, and freeze frame on this goofiest of facial expressions credits.

[42:09] Ghoulies.

[42:09] And that's Ghoulies.

[42:11] Ghoulies.

[42:11] The movie where the Ghoulies were more like incidental set dressing than actual plot mechanics.

Stuart Wellington

[42:16] I feel like most movies would be improved by a little bit of Ghoulie set dressing.

[42:20] Oh, sure, sure.

[42:21] All of them.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] Spotlight.

[42:22] You throw some Ghoulies in there.

[42:24] Yeah.

[42:24] The favorite.

[42:25] Throw a little bit of Ghoulies in the background.

[42:28] Where are the Ghoulies?

Stuart Wellington

[42:29] Yeah.

[42:29] If you were just going to have Ghoulies.

[42:30] If you had access to Ghoulies, you know you'd use them.

Dan McCoy

[42:33] Someone's complaining at the box office.

[42:34] American movies used to have Ghoulies in them.

Elliott Kalan

[42:37] I go to everything that's rated G, hoping it's rated G for Ghoulies.

[42:40] And it never is.

[42:41] There wasn't a single Ghoulie in Elemental.

Dan McCoy

[42:45] Okay.

[42:46] Well, let's give our – oh, yeah.

[42:50] We've got special Shocktober categories.

[42:52] Yeah, what are the categories?

[42:53] Oh, right.

[42:53] I forgot about this.

[42:55] Is this movie totally scarifying, totally snorifying, or frighteningly funny?

[43:04] And I'll start off, before I get to my judgment.

Elliott Kalan

[43:07] Thanks for jumping on that grenade, Dan, of getting to talk first to give your opinion first.

Dan McCoy

[43:11] Now, before I get to my judgment, two quick things.

[43:14] I want to shout out my friend Ashley, number one Ghoulies fan, who happened to have her birthday on the same day that I was watching Ghoulies for the first time.

[43:23] And number two, I have a fondness for this movie because our cat panda, when we first –

Stuart Wellington

[43:30] Now, this is a cat named panda.

[43:32] It's not a cat-panda hybrid.

Dan McCoy

[43:34] Yeah.

[43:34] Man, what I wouldn't give for a cat panda hybrid.

[43:37] Oh, so cute.

[43:40] This was a panda named partly that because it was our pandemic cat who visited us as a kitten in our former apartment's backyard.

[43:53] And we lured –

Elliott Kalan

[43:53] She was dropped off by the cat train, the panda express.

Dan McCoy

[43:57] Mm-hmm.

[43:57] It was this adorable small kitten.

[44:00] We lured him inside, initially with the intent to –

[44:04] Eat.

[44:05] To have people under the stairs.

[44:06] To neuter and return, maybe.

[44:09] But who are we kidding?

[44:10] We're keeping that cat.

[44:12] But we lured the cat in, and we couldn't find it for a long time, and we were trying to keep it separated from Archie so no diseases.

[44:20] We had shut it in the bathroom, and there was – the cat was not there.

[44:25] Like, there was no place for the cat to go.

[44:27] There's no place at all.

[44:28] And then we realized that there's like a little skirt underneath the toilet.

[44:34] The cat was lurking beneath the toilet in such a way that we could only see if we put a mirror back to the wall.

[44:41] Wow.

[44:42] And for the first, like, week we had the cat, it was just hide back under the toilet.

[44:47] And so early on, Panda's nickname was Ghoulie because it was a toilet cat.

[44:55] And I just needed to tell the tale so that generations to come will understand how a cat can hide under a toilet sometimes.

[45:05] Like a ghoulie.

Elliott Kalan

[45:06] So did a panda get you in the end?

Dan McCoy

[45:08] My heart, yeah.

[45:11] Yeah.

[45:12] As for Ghoulies, I will say it has a lot of elements that I enjoy.

[45:18] And, you know, let's take the silly Shocktober categories off the table for a second.

Elliott Kalan

[45:26] I kind of like this –

[45:26] Why even put them on the table in the first place, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[45:29] Because I enjoy the way they make you frantic.

[45:32] I kind of like this movie because I am sentimental about schlocky horror of the time.

[45:43] And, you know, some of the elements are fun to look at as, like, silly low-budget practical effects and such.

[45:50] As a movie, I find it pretty slow considering it's 80 minutes.

[45:57] And a lot of that, I think, has to do with a lot of these unanswered plot questions that don't give it a strong plot driver other than they're just ghoulies wandering around.

[46:06] But not even that much.

[46:08] But I still sort of like it just because I like this kind of thing.

[46:13] What do you guys have to say?

Stuart Wellington

[46:15] Yeah, this is definitely a movie I kind of liked because it's got ghoulies in it.

[46:19] It's got an old dead warlock guy.

[46:21] There's all kinds of magic.

[46:23] There's, like, a party and some party animals.

[46:25] And there's a weird clown.

[46:27] Man, thumbs up.

[46:28] What a good movie.

[46:29] Yeah.

[46:30] Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[46:31] I hate to be the negative Nancy here, but I'm going to say that I think it's –

[46:35] Check, Nancy.

[46:36] Totally snorifying.

[46:37] I find it totally snorifying.

[46:38] I think there are moments in it.

[46:40] I like that ritual scene that we talked about.

[46:42] I like grizzling, greedy gut.

[46:44] I think it's – you could do – you could certainly do worse if you're looking for a less than 90-minute 80s kind of not that exciting horror movie.

[46:52] But I mostly found it snorifying.

[46:54] And also, as many people have said, it's not – it doesn't – and as we've said, it doesn't do a lot with the ghoulies.

[47:00] Like, and it's hard for me to overlook the fact that it's called ghoulies.

[47:02] And the ghoulies are there, and they don't really do much of anything.

[47:05] I don't want to watch Jonathan becoming a warlock.

[47:07] I want to watch these ghoulies doing some ghoul stuff.

[47:10] It should have been called –

Dan McCoy

[47:11] You reminded me of that Simpsons where Homer has angered, like, the mob for some reason.

[47:21] And then the Yizuka show up and there's like a little –

[47:26] Yakuza?

[47:27] Yakuza, sorry.

[47:28] Yakuza?

[47:30] Apologies.

[47:31] I forgot the word.

[47:32] There's like a little guy, and Marge's like –

[47:35] Oh, but that's right.

Stuart Wellington

[47:36] That little guy's not doing anything.

Dan McCoy

[47:38] He's going to do something real cool.

[47:39] He's going to do something.

Elliott Kalan

[47:40] Oh, I missed it.

[47:42] Yeah, as soon as they go outside, you just hear him scream and then knock everybody out.

Dan McCoy

[47:45] Yeah, and I feel like that's your attitude towards the ghoulies.

[47:48] Like, oh, man, when those ghoulies show up, they're going to do something cool.

Elliott Kalan

[47:51] Well, I feel like this movie is – yeah, they're going to do something awesome, and then they don't.

[47:54] And this movie is very old-fashioned exploitation stuff in the way that the title and the poster promise something so different than what you get in the movie.

[48:04] And if this movie was called Warlock's Son or something like that or like Blood Curse or something, and it didn't have a ghoulie sticking out of a toilet with the tagline, they'll get you in the end, no one would remember this movie.

[48:16] No one would ever think about it.

[48:18] If there was an accurate poster and an accurate title, this movie would have been forgotten.

[48:21] It's all about the poster and the title and the promise therein, and it fails to deliver on that promise.

[48:26] That's what I'm saying.

[48:27] Ghoulies, please back your knife and go.

Dan McCoy

[48:29] Yeah.

[48:29] Oh.

[48:30] You know what, though?

[48:31] I may watch Ghoulies 2 and report back to you whether it is indeed superior.

[48:35] Please do.

Stuart Wellington

[48:35] Actually –

[48:35] We call that Last Chance Ghoulies.

[48:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:39] Yeah, Tom Ghoulikio will still give them a chance to win back a slot.

[48:44] Dan, that should be a future mini is you should watch Ghoulies 2 and 3 and tell us about them.

[48:49] Because you know after Ghoulies 2 you're going to have to watch them go to college.

Dan McCoy

[48:52] Okay.

[48:52] I accept that assignment.

[48:53] Anyway, let's move on.

[48:56] Yeah, let's do it.

[48:57] In addition to the kind support of listeners like you, you can support us through MaximumFun.org,

[49:06] although MaximumFunDrive will be coming up in a while.

[49:11] But you don't have to wait for the drive.

[49:12] You don't have to.

[49:14] You don't have to.

[49:15] It's not a law.

[49:18] No.

[49:18] It's not a law.

[49:19] We also have sponsors.

[49:21] Sorry, that's what I was getting to.

[49:22] Sponsors like Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online.

[49:31] Stand out with a beautiful website.

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[49:41] Everyone's got to have a home on the web.

[49:43] If they are a brand, if they're looking for work perhaps, if they sell stuff themselves, Squarespace is a great way you can put your ideas and such onto the web.

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Stuart Wellington

[50:46] We're also sponsored by Smalls.

[50:49] Now, it's no secret that the Flophouse are – a big part of the Flophouse is that we are huge fans of kitty cats, Elliot not included.

Elliott Kalan

[50:58] Only for biological reasons?

[51:00] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[51:30] Neal's for our kitty cats.

[51:33] And Smalls has also recently partnered with the Humane Society, and they've donated over a million dollars worth of food to hungry little kitties.

[51:41] Now, they've even included an ability for you at checkout to donate extra food to kitties, which I don't know if you're like me and you're limited by the amount of cats you can feed, by the space that you live in.

[51:53] Now, you can feed other cats.

[51:54] Now, after making the switch to Smalls, 78% of cat owners reported their cats have shinier and softer fur.

[52:02] You want to pet that fur.

[52:03] You want that stuff to be soft and shiny, right?

[52:07] And many of their owners, me included, reported their cat's breath smells way better, which is very important because my cat likes to stick – my cat muscle sticks his mouth right in my nose all the time.

[52:20] So, is your cat food giving back to cats in need?

[52:23] Well, Smalls is.

[52:24] So, if you want to give Smalls a try and ditch kibble forever, head to smalls.com slash flop and use promo code FLOP at checkout for 50% off your first order, plus free shipping.

[52:37] That's right.

[52:38] That's the best offer you are going to find, but you have to use this code FLOP for 50% off your first order.

[52:44] One last time for everybody in the back seats.

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Elliott Kalan

[52:51] We've also got a j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jumbotron today.

[52:57] This is a promotional jumbotron, very exciting.

[52:59] And this message is from the makers of Field of Screams.

[53:02] Writer-directors Evan Runkle and Alex Mode would like to announce Field of Screams,

[53:07] a micro-budget independent horror movie being filmed in Flophouse star Hallie Hagelin's home state of Colorado.

[53:13] The film is about a group of friends who get accosted by killer scarecrows when cleaning out an old farm.

[53:18] To learn more, visit our Instagram page, Field of Screams Film.

[53:22] To help make our movie one everyone kind of likes, support our Kickstarter running from October 1st through November 5th.

[53:28] So go and support the Field of Screams Kickstarter running from October 1st through November 5th

[53:34] to help them achieve their micro-budget Colorado horror dreams.

[53:39] And you know what? There's other stuff that you can do online besides just supporting independent filmmaking.

[53:44] You can also support the Flophouse because tonight, if you're listening to this episode the day it's released,

[53:50] tonight, this very night, October 7th, tonight, tonight, there's Flop TV tonight.

[53:59] Oh, yay.

[53:59] And we'll be talking hot dog and hamburger.

[54:04] Tonight, it's the long-awaited American Meat Double Feature.

[54:07] Tonight, October 7th at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 Passem Pacific.

[54:13] What's Passem?

[54:13] You'll have to tune in to find out.

[54:15] We'll find out Passem with you.

[54:16] Good question.

[54:17] We're going to be talking about Hot Dog the Movie and Hamburger the Motion Picture.

[54:21] And, oh, boy, we're going to have some stuff to talk about because this is some rotten meat.

[54:30] Especially the hamburger portion.

Dan McCoy

[54:30] I'm not eating these films by now, and Stuart and I have been putting it off until closer to the show, I believe.

[54:36] I like it to be fresh.

[54:38] I like it to be fresh, too, but Elliot has to talk about both these movies.

[54:43] So I have to do the summaries.

Stuart Wellington

[54:44] Yeah.

[54:45] I'm very interested to see how you're going to try and summarize this.

[54:48] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[54:48] This is two movies.

[54:49] I've got to cut the summaries way down.

[54:51] And Hot Dog the Movie, I'll give you a sneak preview.

[54:54] I was watching it, and I was like, well, it's not my kind of movie.

[54:57] I don't really like it.

[54:58] These characters are kind of jerks.

[55:01] And then I watched Hamburger the Motion Picture, and I was like, oh, we're far out there.

[55:05] That Hot Dog the Movie.

[55:06] Like, it's, oh, boy.

[55:08] So you'll get to hear all about it.

[55:10] We're also going to have a new PowerPoint presentation from one Daniel K. McCoy.

[55:14] We're going to take questions from our viewers and answer them live on the air.

[55:17] It's a live broadcasted show.

[55:19] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com to join us tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[55:24] Or go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com in the future to watch the recording of the show.

[55:30] And you can also watch the recordings of our previous two episodes, and you'll watch the recordings of all of our episodes as they come up.

[55:35] Flop TV is a monthly first Saturday of the month show.

[55:39] And if you get a season pass, you can get a little bit of a discount on the ticket prices for all of them.

[55:43] And you'll get access to those recordings so you can watch them at your leisure.

[55:47] And those recordings will stay up as long as the show is running.

[55:51] But, hey, let's say it's not enough to see us online in your computer screen.

[55:56] You want to see us in person.

[55:57] You want to smell us.

[55:58] I want to smell Dan.

[56:00] You want to smell Dan from a slight distance.

[56:02] We're getting in line.

[56:04] Here's how you can do it because we're going to be doing, as we've said before, two live shows on Thursday, October 19th at Vidiot's, the theater in Los Angeles.

[56:13] Go to vidiot'sfoundation.org, and you'll see that we're doing two shows in one night, 6 p.m.

[56:17] We're talking about Speed 2 Cruise Control.

[56:19] And at 8.45 p.m. we're going to be talking about Three Men and a Baby.

[56:22] And who's going to be joining us to talk about Three Men and a Baby?

[56:25] It's going to be Three Men and our baby, who is?

[56:28] Hallie Haglund?

[56:29] That's a weird way.

[56:30] Our little baby, Hallie Haglund, will be with these three men.

[56:33] And she's going to be joining us for the Three Men and a Baby show.

[56:35] Each of those shows will be totally different from each other.

[56:37] Each will have new presentations and stuff.

[56:39] Right, guys?

[56:40] You're doing two different presentations for each?

Dan McCoy

[56:41] I am doing two new different presentations.

Elliott Kalan

[56:46] I am too.

[56:46] So feel free to come and see both shows if you want.

[56:49] That would be great.

[56:50] Or just see one if you're in the Los Angeles area.

[56:52] Go to vidiotsfoundation.org for those shows on Thursday, October 19th.

[56:57] It'll be really fun.

[56:58] And I'll mention, as I mentioned last week, as we're recording this, the writer's strike

[57:02] seems to be ending, which is fantastic.

[57:04] I'm very excited about it.

[57:06] The SAG-AFTRA strike, as we're recording this, is still going.

[57:08] And even for writers and other entertainment workers, it's going to take some time before

[57:12] the work starts up again.

[57:13] So if you'd like to help people in this exciting but also a little still uncertain post-strike

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[57:45] Those are our sponsor spots for today.

[57:48] And as Bill Mooney says in the Twilight Zone, that's all the TV there is.

S4

[57:58] The human mind can be tricky.

[58:01] Your mental health can be complex.

[58:02] Your emotional life can be complicated.

[58:05] So it helps to talk about it.

[58:06] I'm John Moe.

[58:07] Join me each week on my show, Depression Mode with John Moe.

[58:10] It's in-depth conversations about mental health with writers, musicians, comedians, doctors,

[58:16] and experts.

[58:17] Folks like Noah Kahn, Sashir Zameda, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

[58:21] We talk about depression, anxiety, trauma, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism.

[58:26] We have the kind of conversations that a lot of folks are hesitant to have themselves.

[58:31] Listen, and you won't feel as alone.

[58:33] And you'll have some laughs, too.

[58:35] Depression Mode from Maximum Fun at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

S5

[58:44] Hey, this is Daniel Barwella, technology and data specialist.

[58:47] I'm here with...

S6

[58:48] Kira Gowan, ad operations specialist.

[58:50] And we are both worker owners here at Maximum Fun.

S5

[58:54] October is National Co-op Month, so we're celebrating our brand new co-op and others with an event called...

[59:00] Co-Optober!

S6

[59:01] We've got special events all month long, starting with a live Q&A on YouTube, where MaxFun worker

[59:06] owners will answer your questions on Friday, October 6th.

[59:10] And much more to come.

S5

[59:11] We also want to tell you about some incredible limited edition merch exclusively available

[59:15] to MaxFun members until the end of October.

S6

[59:18] If you're already a member of MaxFun, you've shown that you care about our shows and what

[59:22] we do.

S5

[59:22] If you also want to help launch us into this new cooperative era and show off your support,

[59:26] go ahead and get yourself a hat, pin, or shirt.

[59:29] We worked with some of our favorite artists to make them really special.

S6

[59:32] For details on merch, all of our upcoming events, like Meetup Day and more, visit MaximumFun.org

[59:38] slash Co-Optober.

S5

[59:40] That's C-O-O-P-T-O-B-E-R.

S6

[59:43] Happy Co-Optober!

[59:46] What do we do next?

Dan McCoy

[59:48] Next, we're going to take a couple of letters from listeners.

[59:52] I mean, they've been sent already.

[59:54] Don't send them right now expecting them to be answered on this episode because that cannot

[1:00:00] happen in this time flow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:03] If you have a time treadmill, you could go send them back in time.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:07] But these are other letters from listeners.

[1:00:11] This first one being from Jason, last name withheld.

[1:00:13] Voorhees?

[1:00:14] Alexander?

[1:00:16] Yes, it's Jason Voorhees being more talkative than usual, saying...

[1:00:20] Well, he's writing.

[1:00:20] He can do that.

[1:00:21] Yeah.

[1:00:21] The series has gone downhill.

[1:00:23] Canonically.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:24] I'm a huge fan of the...

[1:00:26] It's like Boba Fett.

[1:00:26] Dear sir, I must take pen in hand and put my machete down from that hand to complain to

[1:00:31] you about your recent program.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:34] I've listened to nearly every episode of the years except during part of the pandemic when

[1:00:37] I didn't commute to work, which is my listening time.

[1:00:41] I'm only now working my way through those episodes and wanted to point out something about the final

[1:00:46] program.

[1:00:47] When Jerry Cornelius is about to transform...

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:50] Listeners may remember, the final program was our episode with Joel Hodgson and Matt McGinnis.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:53] Thanks, Smiling Stan.

[1:00:56] The final program.

[1:00:57] When Jerry Cornelius is about to transform and says a Humphrey Bogart quote, is it possibly

[1:01:03] a veiled reference to the creature from British folklore, the Boggart, which is often described

[1:01:09] as a bestial human?

[1:01:10] This is just one of those things that I guess we'll never know but have to say huh about,

[1:01:15] which brings me to a question.

[1:01:17] Are there movies for which suddenly, years or even decades later, you learned a cultural

[1:01:22] or other reference that suddenly makes a scene in the movie make more sense?

[1:01:27] Stay strong.

[1:01:28] Best wishes, Jason.

[1:01:31] I had a hard time with this because I know that this has definitely happened to me, but

[1:01:36] it's more of a case of like, I know that something...

[1:01:40] I knew that something was a reference.

[1:01:42] I'm like, well, eventually I'll know what this reference is.

[1:01:45] Like when I saw Spaceballs for the first time, I had not seen Alien.

[1:01:49] I was too young to see Alien when I first saw Spaceballs, but I was like, oh, okay.

[1:01:55] This chest bursting thing.

[1:01:57] This is a reference to Alien.

[1:02:00] I'm aware generally that this is a reference.

[1:02:03] And I feel like a lot of things like that happen with The Simpsons where I'm like, this

[1:02:06] is referencing something, but I don't know what yet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:09] Well, that's, I was going to say, it happens a lot with TV show jokes.

[1:02:12] And my example of that was, it was only this year that I watched The Simpsons Mr. Plow

[1:02:17] episode and was like, oh, this scene is a reference to Sorcerer.

[1:02:21] That's what this scene is.

[1:02:22] Because certainly when the episode first aired when I was a kid, I had not seen Sorcerer.

[1:02:26] And like you, I saw Alien after Spaceballs, but I kind of knew about that scene.

[1:02:30] So I got the joke.

[1:02:31] But as a kid watching Simpsons, I didn't know thing one about Sorcerer.

[1:02:34] I didn't know it existed.

[1:02:35] So there was just this scene that was, that I didn't quite understand why they were doing

Dan McCoy

[1:02:38] it, you know?

[1:02:39] Yeah.

[1:02:40] They're like in Homer at the Bat.

[1:02:41] There's the scene where he hits the home run and it breaks the lights and the natural.

[1:02:46] A movie which I still haven't seen, but now I'm aware like, oh, that's why it's not particularly

[1:02:51] funny right there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:52] I didn't see enough Academy Award like highlight reels to know the natural.

[1:02:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:56] What's weird is that Dan didn't see the natural, but he's seen every episode of Supernatural.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:03] Doesn't that thing have like 16 seasons or something?

[1:03:07] It's a hugely successful show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:09] People love it.

[1:03:09] Yeah.

[1:03:10] Yeah.

[1:03:10] Well, I feel like there was an episode of this, not of a reference that makes a scene

[1:03:14] makes sense, but that imbues it with more meaning from a recent episode we did when we

[1:03:18] talked about the net and how there's that opening scene where the guy commits suicide

[1:03:22] in a park and how that's very much playing off of the then relatively recent suicide of

[1:03:26] Vince Foster and how as a kid, I didn't really know that.

[1:03:30] But, but now I look at it and I go, oh, I see adult audiences would have probably picked

[1:03:35] that up.

[1:03:35] But, uh, I know that, um, uh, for various reasons, no one is allowed to acknowledge the

[1:03:40] existence of Woody Allen.

[1:03:41] But the first thing that came to mind thinking about this was a joke in the movie sleeper

[1:03:45] where they talk about how there was a nuclear war that was caused.

[1:03:49] And they say when a man named Albert Shanker got ahold of a nuclear warhead.

[1:03:53] And for years I was like, don't get it.

[1:03:56] Don't know what that means.

[1:03:57] Don't understand it.

[1:03:58] Like, I don't know what that joke is.

[1:03:59] I don't know if that's a real person or not.

[1:04:00] It doesn't make sense to me.

[1:04:02] And it wasn't until many years later when I read a book about, uh, when John Lindsay was

[1:04:05] mayor of New York, that there was a whole section about Albert Shanker, who was the volatile

[1:04:09] leader of the United Federation of Teachers Union.

[1:04:13] And so it's like, this is a joke that seems painstakingly designed to be understood only

[1:04:18] by people who were involved in 1960s New York public education controversies.

[1:04:23] So it's like, it's a joke that even at the time was probably not understood by a lot of

[1:04:27] people, but certainly by now there's, there's almost no way of getting that joke, you know,

[1:04:31] unless you've researched New York controversies of the time, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:35] Yeah, this is a tough one.

[1:04:37] Like I, I feel like there's, uh, gotta be a million examples.

[1:04:40] And as I like work my way back through older movies, I see more and more examples of this

[1:04:45] sort of thing, but I just, nothing's, nothing's sticking to my brain right now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:49] There are definitely movies.

[1:04:50] And I, again, I can't think of any at the moment, but there are definitely movies where

[1:04:52] I saw something not realizing it was a reference, but liked it, but then saw the original many

[1:04:57] years later and was like, oh, okay.

[1:04:59] Like I didn't realize they were ripping something off or, or, uh, or doing an homage or whatever.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] Uh, well, this is from Joe Last Name Withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:09] Versus the Volcano?

[1:05:11] Yeah.

[1:05:11] Joe V Volcano.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:14] That legal.

[1:05:15] There's a movie, there's a movie I watched for the first time this year.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:18] I've been trying to fill in watching movies that I was too young to see when they came out.

[1:05:22] Yeah.

[1:05:22] And I was aware of them being out.

[1:05:23] And I watched Joe vs.

[1:05:24] The Volcano and I'm like, this movie is, does not really understand itself.

[1:05:28] I was, I was, I was very confused by it.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:30] It has its proponents, uh, but I've always found it like a little inexplicable.

[1:05:37] Like it's like, it's the whimsy doesn't land in a way that makes sense to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:42] Well, I think cause it has no jokes in it.

[1:05:43] It's a whimsical movie that has no funny parts in it.

[1:05:46] Yeah.

[1:05:47] It's like, and it's, it's so bleak and it's hard to, but it's hard to buy Tom Hanks as a

[1:05:51] guy who's like on the edge of not, not buying, not accepting life anymore, you know?

[1:05:55] So anyway, but, uh, but anyway, so Joe V. Volcano, I apologize.

[1:05:59] You wrote us a letter.

[1:05:59] Thank you for listening.

[1:06:00] I shouldn't bad mouth you.

[1:06:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:02] Uh, Joe V. V. writes, hearing Dan announced this episode brought back a flood of memories.

[1:06:11] This is in response to the, um, Legend of the Titanic episode.

[1:06:16] As I had seen some clips of this movie in my misspent youth, I couldn't wait.

[1:06:21] To hear the floppers react to this piece of ill-advised cinema, but something was off.

[1:06:26] Why did the scene with the wrapping safety dog get a mention?

[1:06:29] Did they miss it somehow?

[1:06:30] Was I getting Mandela affected?

[1:06:33] As it turns out, I was thinking of the other Italian animated children's film retelling the

[1:06:38] sinking of the Titanic with anthropomorphic mice, Titanic colon, the legend goes on.

[1:06:44] Oh.

[1:06:45] My mistake.

[1:06:46] I'm pleased to report that our shared reality is stable, and I was just confused.

[1:06:51] Although it is weird, they made two of them.

[1:06:53] And there's a link to the wrapping dog, and there's an alternate English release where the

[1:06:57] dog raps.

[1:06:58] It's party time over and over.

[1:07:00] But Joe says, very Mr. Worldwide entertainment.

[1:07:02] He refuses to acknowledge it.

[1:07:06] Not only that, there's a sequel to The Legend of Titanic, which is a whole other movie, as

[1:07:12] far as I'm able to tell.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:13] Yes, it's called – and that one, I briefly scrubbed through it on 2B because it came up

[1:07:18] right after I watched The Legend of Titanic.

[1:07:20] That's what it recommended to me.

[1:07:21] And they go looking for the wreck of the Titanic, and they find mer people, and there's a whole

[1:07:26] storyline of underwater mer people, and they learn how to breathe underwater.

[1:07:29] I feel like we might have to watch it at some point.

[1:07:31] There's like a battle between flying fish and things like that.

[1:07:34] That sounds pretty good, actually.

[1:07:35] We might have to do it.

[1:07:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:36] This is a weird cottage industry of, yeah, mice movies.

[1:07:41] Okay, yeah.

[1:07:42] I'll try it.

[1:07:44] Titanic mice movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:44] I'll try anything once.

[1:07:46] Will you?

[1:07:47] Yeah, why not?

[1:07:48] I don't know.

[1:07:49] Up to and including murder.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:55] So those were the letters.

[1:07:57] Let's move on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:59] So are we going to watch that other Titanic movie, too, or no?

[1:08:02] Let's do them all.

[1:08:03] Okay.

[1:08:03] Let's do all of the Titanic movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:05] Mice on the Titanic theme month.

[1:08:07] Yeah.

[1:08:09] Mice-tanic.

[1:08:10] Yeah, that's going to just be the new podcast, is us watching Titanic movies.

[1:08:15] So look for that, everyone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:18] They said the podcast was unthinkable.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:21] Let's recommend some movies that we actually liked that might be a better use of your time.

[1:08:33] I was maybe going to go older just because the SAG-AFTRA strikes are still ongoing.

[1:08:38] But I was looking at movies I've seen lately, and it's been a real dry spell in terms of me enjoying stuff.

[1:08:47] But I did like the new film that got sort of dumped to Hulu, the No One Will Save You, starring Caitlin Dever.

[1:08:59] That's fucking great.

[1:09:00] That's fucking great.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:00] Essentially wordless.

[1:09:04] Like just there's no dialogue.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:07] So it's like a Jacques Tati type thing, like a lot of little misunderstandings.

[1:09:10] Yeah, kind of.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:12] Like quirky business with props.

[1:09:14] Mixed with like a little cottagecore aesthetic.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:17] It's more unnerving suspense with some kind of amusing off-the-wall choices that I don't want to spoil.

[1:09:28] Yeah, I'll watch it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:30] Don't tell me.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:30] It's really good.

[1:09:31] It's really good.

[1:09:32] The movie is, you know, like really tightly directed.

[1:09:38] The effects for, you know, like looking a little silly, fakey sometimes like are also some indelible images, I think, in the movie.

[1:09:50] And Caitlin Dever, who I think is a really strong actor, is terrific at really letting you inside this character's head without dialogue.

[1:10:02] So that's my recommendation.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:05] Yeah, that's a great one.

[1:10:06] I'm going to recommend a little bit of an older movie.

[1:10:09] A movie that I never saw when it was released and only watched it just this past weekend is The Birdcage starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

[1:10:20] It is about a gay couple whose son is getting married.

[1:10:27] And he's getting married to the daughter of a right-wing senator played by Gene Hackman.

[1:10:34] It obviously, it is an older movie.

[1:10:36] So not all of it is going to work.

[1:10:38] Hank Azaria playing a Guatemalan, like, rent boy character is probably not the most sensitive.

[1:10:46] He is very good at it.

[1:10:49] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:50] It's very funny to see these movies where at the time it was like a super progressive movie.

[1:10:54] And now it's like, uh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:56] But what I will say is I feel like, obviously, there's a ton of, like, little performances both from, like, Christine Baranski, who's great.

[1:11:05] Diane Wiest, who's always great.

[1:11:07] But, like, just, it's been so long since I've seen Robin Williams.

[1:11:14] And he, like, he brings such vulnerability to this character.

[1:11:19] And, like, I choked up a little.

[1:11:22] Like, he's so good.

[1:11:24] Yeah.

[1:11:24] He's such a good actor.

[1:11:25] And he's wearing the fucking hottest fits I've seen in the movie in a long-ass time.

[1:11:30] I, what I wouldn't give for his wardrobe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:33] Oh, that, I could see you, I could see you really enjoying that wardrobe.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:36] Yeah.

[1:11:36] And even Gene Hackman, who could be playing, I mean, this is basically just, it's a French farce.

[1:11:42] Um, and he, like, he could be playing a very broad, simple character.

[1:11:47] But he, even he adds a little bit of vulnerability to his, like, shitty right-wing senator character.

[1:11:54] Um, and I think, I don't, I don't think it all works.

[1:11:57] But I think the stuff that works is really good.

[1:12:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:01] I, I wanted to say about Robin Williams, I feel like he sort of, you know, became famous.

[1:12:07] And a lot of people prefer him, like, being, like, totally off the leash.

[1:12:12] I like him when someone leashes him in a little bit.

[1:12:16] And I like that they made the choice to, you know, Nathan Lane and Hank Azaria are playing very broad characters.

[1:12:24] And he is the grounded one, sort of on that end of the family.

[1:12:28] And, uh, and he does it so beautifully, that movie.

[1:12:32] It's, it was amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:34] Uh, I'm gonna recommend a movie that's also about marriage and parents.

[1:12:38] Very interesting.

[1:12:40] Uh, I recently watched, uh, the movie Late Autumn.

[1:12:43] This is a Japanese film from 1960s.

[1:12:45] It's directed by Yasujiro Ozu, who most people would know from, like, Tokyo Story.

[1:12:49] Uh, one of the great, great directors of Japanese cinema.

[1:12:53] And, uh, Late Autumn is a story that is sometimes funny and sometimes serious.

[1:13:00] And the stakes in it feel very small, but the way the characters are drawn and kind of the generosity of spirit applied to all of them, kind of like what Stuart's talking about, uh, I found very beautiful.

[1:13:13] And by the end of it, I just found it to be just an emotionally beautiful movie and a very, like, a very sweet movie but a very powerful movie.

[1:13:19] And so the story is that, uh, there's a, uh, widowed woman and her daughter.

[1:13:23] Her daughter is now 24.

[1:13:25] And the, the male, these three male friends who were friendly with the husband slash father who died before the movie started, they decided it's time for this daughter to get married.

[1:13:35] She's so pretty.

[1:13:36] She's such a nice girl.

[1:13:37] It's time for her to get married.

[1:13:38] And they start trying to set her up with, with, uh, young men they know.

[1:13:41] And at a certain point they decide, well, we're going to have to get the mother to get married too.

[1:13:45] And they are just kind of three meddling guys.

[1:13:48] Uh, but they're not villainous about it, even though they're insensitive about it.

[1:13:52] And the, as it goes on, you get a deeper kind of understanding of the relationship between the mother and the daughter and how much they, the daughter does not want to get married because she feels like that will leave her mother alone when she moves out to, to live with her husband.

[1:14:05] And how much she thinks she is supporting the mother and how much the mother feels like she is supporting the daughter.

[1:14:11] And it's all very like, uh, there's no scenes where characters kind of like have a big yelling fight or something like that.

[1:14:17] You know, characters kind of get, understand things that they've understood before.

[1:14:20] But it's all, it's in that Ozu style of very, uh, subdued for the most part.

[1:14:24] But I thought very beautiful.

[1:14:25] And, uh, it's got this color, color cinematography that's really gorgeous and very sweet.

[1:14:30] And just one of these movies where when I finished watching it, I was like, oh, like I've gotten like a big dose of like human emotions and like human, of humanity.

[1:14:39] And it felt very, um, inspiring and, uh, and fulfilling that way.

[1:14:43] So that's late autumn.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:45] There's, there is one of those things, those moments when like we watch a bunch of movies for the flop.

[1:14:50] And then you'll watch a movie that actually, uh, makes you connect with humanity.

[1:14:55] And you're like, oh, what happened?

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:58] Is that, is that the sky?

[1:15:00] Yeah.

[1:15:00] I bet you that ghoulies and hot dog and a hamburger have only suffered by the fact that I watched late autumn right before.

[1:15:06] Cause it was like, I know what this art form is capable of.

[1:15:10] Like it's, yeah, it's capable of like making me feel like I'm a part of this human family that we're all, that we all share the same basic emotions and we can connect over that.

[1:15:18] And then I had to watch this garbage, you know?

[1:15:20] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:22] Um, well.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:23] That's also, that's also the magic of film.

[1:15:25] Film can be a statement about human life and family connections and what we owe to our neighbors and our friends.

[1:15:31] It can also be a movie about a bunch of morons skiing for like 90 minutes straight.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:37] And that's what the flop house is about too.

[1:15:39] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:40] Um, like would I want to see Charles Banns drive my car?

[1:15:43] Probably.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:47] But your expectations would be different.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:49] Same, it would be, it's entirely the same movie, but at the end the ghoulies pop up in the backseat.

[1:15:54] Oh my God, it would be so good.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:58] That's as good a note as any to end the show.

[1:16:02] Before we go, remember that if you're interested in any of those live shows, a shortcut, just go to our website.

[1:16:09] They're all listed on the events page.

[1:16:10] And our website is?

[1:16:12] Flophouse, the, no, it's flophousepodcast.com.

[1:16:16] Sorry.

[1:16:17] If you Google the Flophouse Podcast, that's how anyone gets to anything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:20] Go to flophousepodcast.com.

[1:16:22] I once saw, I once saw an ad on TV for an exterminator and it said Google and then their name.

[1:16:26] And I was like, uh, just, don't be lazy.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:29] They're just being honest, you know?

[1:16:31] They're honest about the way we live today.

[1:16:33] That's true.

[1:16:33] That's what you want out of an exterminator.

[1:16:35] Out of an exterminator, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:36] But you'll find links to those shows.

[1:16:38] And again, tonight, if you're listening to this, the day it comes out, we'll be doing our hot dog and hamburger episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:45] If you don't want to do that, but you want to help us out, leave us a nice review on iTunes podcasts.

[1:16:54] Don't say mean things.

[1:16:56] Why?

[1:16:57] Why?

[1:16:58] And also go over to MaximumFun.org.

[1:17:02] Check out the other podcasts on there.

[1:17:03] If you like podcasts, I'm sure you'll find at least one other thing that appeals to you.

[1:17:08] And also thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:17:13] You can find him under the name Howell Dottie, doing various stuff on the internet.

[1:17:19] But for now, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:17:22] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:24] I'm Ellie Kaelin.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:27] I'm recording.

[1:17:41] Okay, so we didn't record me saying fat natties, right?

[1:17:44] No.

[1:17:46] I'm talking about natties.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:48] Maybe people think you're talking about natties, so it's okay.

Ep. #406 - Ghoulies

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