The Christmas Martian, with Alonso Duralde

Dan McCoy

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[0:51] On this episode, we discuss The Christmas Martian.

Stuart Wellington

[0:54] The movie that stretches the definition of only 65 minutes.

[0:58] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[1:25] Welcome to The Flophouse.

[1:26] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:29] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:30] And it's that time of year again.

[1:32] The happiest time of year because of the time we're joined in our annual Christmas visit

[1:36] by that bearded gentleman that we're all waiting to have show up in our houses in the middle of the night.

[1:41] Alonzo Duralde, the greatest film critic there is.

[1:44] Alonzo, give us what are the credits you prefer to be used today and what are you promoting today?

Alonso Duralde

[1:49] Oh, you know, I mainly like to be known as a person who breaks into Elliot's house via the chimney.

[1:54] Killer of killers.

[1:55] Killer of killers.

[1:59] Let's see.

[2:00] I'm the film critic for The Film Verdict or one of the film critics for The Film Verdict.

[2:05] No, you're the one that counts.

[2:07] Yeah.

[2:07] Oh, stop.

[2:09] Podcast co-host of several shows including Linoleum Knife and Maximum Film right here on the Maximum Fun Network

[2:15] and author of Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas now out in a revised and updated edition.

Dan McCoy

[2:22] Pick it up.

[2:22] What were the Christmas innovations that occurred?

Alonso Duralde

[2:26] You know, it's amazing what pops up in 15 years.

[2:30] Yeah.

[2:31] There was a crazy amount of new stuff to get to.

[2:35] I mean, when I wrote the book in 2010, Netflix was still sending discs in the mail.

[2:39] Oh, my.

[2:40] So, you know, they really changed the game there.

[2:43] But then there was also a lot of cool older stuff that I just, you know, and a box upon me I didn't know about when I wrote the first go-round.

[2:51] So, like, thanks to Turner Classic Movies' pre-Christmas week marathons, I now have a much fuller understanding of Christmas noir that I didn't have before.

[3:00] Oh, wow.

[3:01] So, there's a bunch of those in there and some other fun stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[3:04] Are there any old movies where Santa has to solve a mystery?

Alonso Duralde

[3:09] You'd think.

[3:09] But, you know, I think he might be a little too omniscient about that.

[3:13] I mean, he does see you when you're sleeping and know when you're awake.

[3:15] So, he also knows when you shiv that guy.

Elliott Kalan

[3:18] He immediately knows who's been naughty or nice, so there's not a lot of mystery elements.

[3:21] That's true.

Alonso Duralde

[3:23] Five-minute mysteries with Santa Claus.

Elliott Kalan

[3:25] That would be so fun.

[3:26] It's like a Columbo-type show.

[3:27] Every week Santa has to solve a mystery, but he figures it out instantly because he sees everything.

[3:32] And then the rest of the episode is just him puttering around.

[3:36] Yelling at elves.

[3:38] Yelling at elves.

[3:41] What are you doing over there?

Stuart Wellington

[3:42] Get back to work, slacker.

[3:43] Yeah, he doesn't realize the cameras are on.

[3:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:47] Not so jolly now, are you?

[3:49] Yeah, it's like that documentary that ruined Shelley Berman's career over Santa.

Dan McCoy

[3:54] Because Alonzo.

[3:54] That was a joke for Alonzo.

[3:56] Yeah.

[3:57] Because Alonzo is the expert, you know, usually he comes with some-

[4:02] The X-maspert.

[4:03] Possible.

[4:04] Yes, X-mas.

[4:05] You're like, practice trying that one out?

[4:08] Yeah.

[4:08] Or you're like launching a tour truck?

[4:10] I'll tell Alonzo for that one.

Elliott Kalan

[4:11] If you don't pronounce it the right way, it doesn't sound great.

[4:14] Yeah.

[4:15] I'm a perp.

Dan McCoy

[4:17] For this year, he suggested The Christmas Martian, which I was very excited it was only 65 minutes long until I watched it.

Alonso Duralde

[4:25] Yeah.

[4:25] Odell is doing a lot of lifting in that sentence.

Dan McCoy

[4:28] It certainly felt more interminable than movies, you know, three times the length.

Elliott Kalan

[4:33] It's amazing.

[4:34] So I think it was last year I watched all of The Human Condition, which is like almost nine hours long.

[4:39] And I found it so captivating.

[4:41] That's a lot of fucking dishes for you, buddy.

[4:42] It sure was.

[4:44] But watching The Christmas Martian, it was like, it felt, yeah, like time had no meaning.

[4:49] And I was like, what is going on?

[4:51] It felt so much harder to get through than nine hours of something else.

[4:55] So I'm glad to hear that you guys had the same experience.

[4:58] That you guys weren't like, I loved it.

[4:59] It was so fun.

Dan McCoy

[5:00] It also didn't help that I had to keep like rewinding like 20 minutes because I'd realized that nothing that had happened had entered my brain.

Stuart Wellington

[5:08] Yeah, that's going to be a real challenge in my summary.

[5:11] So I'm probably going to rely on you guys.

[5:13] It's that way that like I can sit down and watch like a two to three hour long movie and I'm like, great, this works perfectly.

[5:21] But if I have to sit down and watch like three episodes of the same television show, I'm like, oh no, it's time has no meaning.

[5:27] There's a beginning and end.

[5:28] Every, you know, like time keeps resetting.

[5:31] Like, you know, the.

[5:32] So that's what this movie felt like every two minutes, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[5:36] If not more.

[5:37] And what made it even harder for me at first was so I found.

[5:40] So this movie is available on Amazon Prime.

[5:43] But when I started up that version of it, the audio and the video were out of sync.

[5:47] So I and I.

[5:48] Oh, no.

[5:49] This movie is so amateurishly done that I didn't know if that was a choice or not.

[5:54] And I was like, so I had to watch the first couple of minutes of it before I realized, like, I got it.

[5:58] I got to test this.

[5:58] So I went to the Tubi version instead.

[6:00] And that one, the audio wasn't sync.

[6:02] And I was like, thank goodness I didn't sit through 65 minutes of this movie with the audio.

[6:07] Not it.

[6:07] Not just out of sync by a couple seconds, out of sync by minutes.

[6:10] So you would have the audio from one scene over the video of another scene.

[6:13] And there's a part where you can see video tracking lines.

[6:17] Like, they clearly transferred this from a VHS.

[6:19] And I was like, well, that's just the Amazon version.

[6:21] Nope, that was on Tubi, too.

[6:22] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[6:23] See, now I watched, there's a beautiful Blu-ray of this that came out in the last couple of years.

[6:28] Is that Vigorsen from put that out?

[6:30] Yes.

[6:30] Yeah, they're Canadian International Pictures label.

[6:33] And I watched the original French in subtitles version.

[6:37] I don't know what Tubi has.

[6:40] No, they just have the English dub.

[6:41] Just the dub.

[6:42] Okay.

[6:42] But yeah, it's as crisp as it's ever going to work.

[6:45] Vigorsen.

[6:46] Exactly.

[6:47] And Katu is what they call Catherine.

[6:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:50] Yeah, I had a...

[6:51] Martian du Noel.

[6:52] Yeah.

[6:53] There was a constantly...

[6:54] That's actually the title.

[6:56] Glitching square in the corner of what I watched where I'm like, is that my television?

[7:01] No, it must be this whatever, yeah, decades old VHS they use.

Alonso Duralde

[7:06] There's certain movies where you just honestly don't know.

[7:09] I remember there's this queer art film from like the 50s or 60s called Pink Narcissus.

[7:16] And it's non-narrative.

[7:17] It's all just sort of this very lush imagery.

[7:19] If you've seen like Pierre Eugile or like those kind of artists that very much influenced their like big swaths of like pink silk and glitter and that kind of thing.

Elliott Kalan

[7:31] All the music videos in the 1980s, a lot of fluttering curtains, things like that.

[7:34] Exactly, yes.

Alonso Duralde

[7:34] Roxy Music was taking notes.

[7:36] So they brought it back to Dallas one time and they screened it for me because I was reviewing for the gay paper there.

[7:44] And they accidentally repeated one of the reels and I just thought, oh, what a bold choice.

[7:50] And I had to find out later, oh, that's not the...

[7:53] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[7:54] Well, in that context, it's like, sure, why not?

[7:56] It's like the old story of like the abstract painting that's in a museum for years and then someone comes by and they're like, that's upside down.

[8:01] That's not the way that's supposed to be.

Alonso Duralde

[8:03] True story.

[8:04] We bought a piece by the artist Atala Auerbach and it came with very specific instructions on how and where to get it framed.

[8:15] There's like a place in Los Angeles that does their, you know, version of like it has to be this kind of museum level framing, blah, blah, blah.

[8:23] And they didn't know which side was up until they asked the artist.

[8:27] I was like, this is every hacky joke about contemporary art and it's true.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] And then the artist is like, I don't know because actually my kid did it.

[8:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:36] Yeah, they're like, which side do you think is up?

Elliott Kalan

[8:40] Oh, man, just tell me.

[8:42] Speaking of not knowing which way is up, what's going on in the Christmas Martian?

Stuart Wellington

[8:46] Yeah.

[8:46] Okay, fine.

[8:48] Let me crack out my two note cards.

[8:52] We open in rural Quebec.

[8:55] It's more like a small town.

[8:57] It's not super rural, but it's fairly rural.

[8:59] We meet two children, Frankie and Kathy or Francois and Cateau.

[9:05] Cateau, yeah.

[9:06] Who are wandering around a snowy landscape, just two figures on a field of white.

[9:12] The color is blown out by time.

[9:15] It is almost like a scene from McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

Dan McCoy

[9:18] Yeah.

[9:19] We hadn't mentioned it before yet.

[9:21] This is a French-Canadian production.

[9:23] So I presume we all watched it dubbed.

[9:28] Maybe Alonzo saw it.

[9:30] Yeah, I watched subtitled.

[9:32] That's how I roll, you know.

[9:35] I must see the Christmas Martian as the filmmakers intended.

[9:38] Yes, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[9:39] I will have some other questions for Alonzo.

[9:43] It was so snowy, I worried I'd turned on Quintet.

Dan McCoy

[9:47] Man, that's the second Quintet reference you've made in recent episodes.

[9:51] I know.

[9:51] It's in my head for some reason.

[9:53] Yeah, you watch it with the kids.

Alonso Duralde

[9:55] I just did a screen drafts episode about Altman, and Quintet is mentioned.

[9:59] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

[10:02] So they wander into a little grocery store, like a convenience store,

[10:09] and while they're talking to the adult there,

[10:12] a Martian wanders into the store,

[10:16] cleverly disguised as a bunch of coats and a hat,

[10:19] and he steals a bunch of-

[10:21] I think he's just dressed in coats and a hat.

[10:23] Interesting, interesting.

[10:24] Okay.

[10:25] I mean, he does not make that-

Alonso Duralde

[10:26] A fishnet body stocking made of green yarn.

[10:29] Let's describe the Martian here, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[10:31] Okay, so Matt Damon gets stuck on Mars.

[10:34] Okay, yeah, go on.

[10:36] It's it, it's it.

[10:37] He grows potatoes there.

[10:38] With his own poop.

Dan McCoy

[10:39] Yeah, he's, I'm pulling up a picture that I have of the Martian.

Elliott Kalan

[10:44] He's a guy, I know he's played by a guy who was like a big children's entertainer.

Stuart Wellington

[10:48] In my house, we call it Barsoom, by the way.

[10:51] That's fair.

Elliott Kalan

[10:52] That's fair.

[10:52] Well, yeah, your grandma, Deja, always called it, always called it Barsoom.

[10:56] The old country, she called it.

[10:59] He's got, so this guy is, he's wearing just regular winter clothes, right?

[11:03] But over that, yeah, it's literally a fishnet, like thick yarn over his whole body.

[11:08] And it looks, he looks like a killer in a, you know, in a movie.

[11:12] A giallo, yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[11:13] And he's got this sort of mesh face mask.

Dan McCoy

[11:16] He's got a mesh face mask with holes for the eyes and then one big hole that goes over the nose and the mouth.

[11:22] And it looks.

Elliott Kalan

[11:22] He should be the guy, he's the guy that Hannibal Lecter is helping someone catch.

[11:26] Like that's what he looks like.

Alonso Duralde

[11:27] I was going to say, you know, this is the James Gunn callback outfit.

[11:30] Like I, I mean, I got it.

Dan McCoy

[11:32] It looks like some kind of Martian fetish gear of some stripe.

[11:36] Like this man.

Stuart Wellington

[11:38] I feel like putting Martian in it at all is being too cheerful.

[11:40] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[11:41] Yeah, this movie throws on Marsha in the way that like Americans think anyone who speaks Spanish is from Mexico.

[11:47] It's like.

Elliott Kalan

[11:49] Also, he never says he's from Mars, right?

[11:51] He's just from another planet.

Alonso Duralde

[11:52] No, he says he's very much not from Mars.

[11:54] That it's from a planet that we don't even know where it is yet.

[11:56] Oh.

[11:56] Because we're not advancing up.

[11:58] So, you know.

[11:58] That is insulting of the filmmakers.

[12:00] Pretty racist for the Quebecois, I have to say.

Elliott Kalan

[12:03] Do you think they were trying to jump on the Santa Claus Conquers the Mars Bandwagon?

[12:07] Conquers Mars Bandwagon?

[12:08] Yes.

[12:09] Sorry, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

[12:11] Yes.

[12:11] Please, Elliot.

[12:13] I know, I apologize.

[12:13] I have to respect the debut of Pia Zadora.

[12:18] It's the only, because that's the only other thing I can think of that Santa Claus and Martians put together.

Dan McCoy

[12:23] Yeah, everybody's looking to cash in on that action.

[12:26] Yeah.

[12:26] One short of a trend piece.

Stuart Wellington

[12:29] So, the Martian is like stealing food, like sweet food, like whatever.

[12:37] Jelly beans.

[12:38] Yeah, jelly beans, candy, confections.

[12:40] Yeah.

[12:41] And, of course, the shopkeeper.

[12:43] Maple-based things of various kinds.

[12:44] Yeah.

[12:44] The shopkeeper calls the cops.

[12:46] And we learn over time that this is not the first sighting or incident where people are like concerned that there seems to be something strange going on in their town.

[12:55] In their neighborhood.

[12:56] Yeah.

[12:57] Something strange in their neighborhood.

[12:58] Yep.

[12:59] And don't look good.

[13:01] I don't know the rest of the song.

[13:02] Who would they call, Elliot?

[13:02] It sure don't look good.

[13:03] They would call, they would call, they would call, le busteux despecteur.

[13:07] De fantôme.

[13:09] Yeah.

[13:10] So, and like, you know, like people have seen UFOs flying around in the sky, et cetera, et cetera.

[13:16] So, the kids go chasing after this Martian.

[13:20] They follow his footprints in the snow that are green.

[13:23] I couldn't tell that they're green, but we hear that they're green.

[13:26] The Blu-ray makes it clear that they're green.

[13:29] Oh, thank you.

[13:30] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[13:30] I'm so glad someone went through frame by frame and restored this.

[13:34] They're also like, they also, like, they track him.

[13:37] There's like bubbles around and they find like a giant matchstick that when they strike the matchstick, it launches Kathy up into the sky and she flies around for a bunch while she's holding the matchstick.

Elliott Kalan

[13:50] And they shot this using a real crane that they pull around on.

[13:55] No.

[13:55] It was the first thrill of the movie where I was like, I'm worried this kid's going to fall.

Stuart Wellington

[14:00] At some point.

[14:01] Yeah.

[14:02] John Landis isn't the fucking supervisor, right?

[14:04] I hope not.

Dan McCoy

[14:05] Like, her brother's constantly yelling, like, Kathy, you're too high.

[14:08] Come down or whatever.

[14:09] And I'm like, if he, if she had control over this, I think like it's one of these like many things and like dumb kids movies where she's like, well, the kid has to be saying something.

[14:19] It's got to be yelling something.

Alonso Duralde

[14:22] Like, she can't figure this out on her own.

[14:24] No, yeah, you see that shot of the little girl, like, suspended in the air with nothing under her feet and you're thinking the safety standards on this could not have been, like, up to current standards, let us say.

[14:36] Probably not.

Stuart Wellington

[14:37] The terror in her face, real, not acting.

Alonso Duralde

[14:39] Yeah, no, it's, she's method.

[14:42] The kid, by the way, who plays Francois is the son of the director, by the way.

[14:47] Oh, no.

[14:47] How did he get the role?

Stuart Wellington

[14:49] After a worldwide search.

Elliott Kalan

[14:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[14:51] Ellie, don't launch into your rant about nepotism.

[14:54] We don't have time for it.

Elliott Kalan

[14:55] Excuse me, I'm just, nepo babies are ruining the French-Canadian independent film community.

[15:01] The Santa Mars films.

Stuart Wellington

[15:02] He auditioned wearing a fake mustache, so his dad never knew his name.

[15:06] He wrote, he wrote his name as Joe Hill instead.

[15:09] So, no.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Exactly.

[15:11] Do you think Stephen King is just like a huge Joe Hill fan and has no idea?

Alonso Duralde

[15:14] This guy looks exactly like me.

[15:16] He's great.

[15:18] Weirdly, I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night.

Stuart Wellington

[15:21] Oh, that is weird.

[15:22] And maybe Joe Hill has memories.

[15:24] He's like, I remember my mom would go out on dates with a guy named Richard Bachman.

[15:31] Okay.

[15:31] He was always a running man.

[15:33] I don't know.

[15:34] That didn't work.

[15:35] But I tried it.

[15:36] You know, I tried it.

Alonso Duralde

[15:37] He had a problem with a Turner overdrive.

[15:40] It was a long walk, but it didn't pay off.

[15:42] Yeah.

[15:42] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[15:45] So, at one point, while she's hanging in the air, her brother's like, just fall.

[15:50] It's snow.

[15:51] It's soft or something.

[15:52] So, she falls and, of course, does not injure her stuff.

Dan McCoy

[15:55] And is fine.

[15:55] Yeah.

[15:56] But there's hard ground beneath that snow.

Stuart Wellington

[15:59] And snow, when compacted, can get pretty hard.

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] Yeah.

[16:02] Also, no matter how soft the snow is, if you're falling from 20 feet, 30 feet, it'll probably

[16:08] hurt.

[16:08] Yeah.

[16:09] But it's a movie.

[16:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:10] Even if Spider-Man tries to stop you from falling, you could still snap your neck if he does it

[16:15] by the feet.

Elliott Kalan

[16:15] Yeah, exactly.

[16:16] Exactly.

[16:16] He's lost a good girlfriend that way.

[16:18] At least one.

[16:20] Yeah.

[16:20] That we know of.

[16:21] Yeah.

[16:22] I don't know how many he's got stashed in his closet.

[16:27] So, but this is a kid's movie, so, of course, she is not mangled or killed.

[16:30] She's not mangled.

Stuart Wellington

[16:31] So, they eventually find the Martian's UFO.

[16:35] It's like a red saucer that is partially covered in snow.

[16:40] And it's like lodged in a snow bank.

[16:42] They explore for a little bit.

[16:43] They find their way inside.

[16:45] Ooh.

[16:46] And they eventually bump into the Martian himself.

[16:50] Who will remind everyone is not from Mars.

[16:52] Not from Mars at all.

[16:54] He looks like a weird man in fetish gear.

[16:57] And they, after a brief interaction, they bond over a shared love of candy.

[17:04] And they learn that the Martian is stuck there.

[17:07] That he's an alien from a distant galaxy.

[17:10] And that he was, what, like exploring or observing planets when his ship crashed.

[17:16] And he needs a part fixed in order to leave.

Alonso Duralde

[17:20] I think it's important that this movie, much like Oogie Loveswood Generations Later, reminds children that when you meet a stranger, it's always a great idea to go into their vehicle and have candy.

Stuart Wellington

[17:32] He seems super nice and cool.

[17:34] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[17:36] He also, he, when he, when he, oh, of course.

[17:38] I mean, he, so he's, there's a scene where he, in that moment where, there's a moment in that scene where he's trying to figure out what language they speak.

[17:44] And he's kind of going through different languages.

[17:45] And in this English dub, at least, he, to find English, he starts reciting, I think, the Declaration of Independence.

[17:51] And it was like, wait, this isn't yours.

[17:53] Hold on a second.

Alonso Duralde

[17:55] Yeah.

[17:55] I think it's just a point.

[17:56] Canada has a rich history of their own English language documents that they could have leaned upon here.

[18:01] I assume.

[18:02] I don't know any of them.

[18:03] But, you know, they must have them.

[18:04] Get Guy Branum in here.

[18:05] He'll tell us all about it.

Stuart Wellington

[18:06] I like the idea that they're like swinging for the fences where they're like, let's use an American thing so that we'll play well in American audiences.

Dan McCoy

[18:14] That's where the money is.

[18:15] When it hits the multiplexes.

[18:16] Not reading the Canadian hockey code or whatever.

[18:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:20] Recipe for, well, I don't know, like maple syrup or Tim Hortons menus.

[18:24] Recipe for maple syrup.

Alonso Duralde

[18:25] Kind of one of the cool ideas here is the idea that they, that like he crafts a beverage that allows them to understand each other.

[18:32] Yeah.

[18:32] Again, like kids, drink what the stranger gives you.

[18:35] But, you know, the idea that it's not just like some mechanical thing, but a liquid I thought was so groovy.

Elliott Kalan

[18:43] Because they believe in organic technology that changes the user.

Stuart Wellington

[18:48] Yeah.

[18:49] I don't know if you've heard of a little Canadian filmmaker, David Cronenberg.

[18:53] It would be so funny if it was like, this is his earliest work.

[18:57] Uncredited.

[18:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:58] The new flesh.

Dan McCoy

[18:59] The failure of this catapulted him in a different direction.

Elliott Kalan

[19:02] You can only tell the one scene.

[19:03] He's totally going to do children's movies.

[19:05] The one scene where the Martian just chomps down on plastic all the time.

[19:08] I mean, that's our future, buddy.

[19:11] I was reading something recently that was talking about, I think it was them reaching out to David Cronenberg to potentially direct Return of the Jedi.

[19:18] I think after, maybe after David Lynch had turned them down.

[19:21] And him saying, he said something about like, I lost it halfway through the phone call.

Stuart Wellington

[19:24] What would that sound like when David Lynch turned them down?

Elliott Kalan

[19:27] I don't think it's the right film for me, George.

[19:30] That kind of thing, yeah.

[19:32] I mean, I appreciate the invitation and all.

[19:35] Trust me, I respect what you're doing, but it's not my kind of work.

[19:40] That's the kind of thing he would say, yeah.

[19:41] Because that's what he said about it.

[19:42] David Lynch was open about it.

[19:43] He's like, yeah, I knew it wasn't going to be my movie, so I didn't want to make it.

[19:46] And it's like, yeah.

[19:47] I'm more suited for Dune.

[19:51] Okay.

[19:52] I don't really want to work with little bears, George.

[19:55] Not this way, anyway.

Dan McCoy

[19:58] Maybe in a dream.

[20:02] Here's my pitch.

[20:03] They go to a diner.

Elliott Kalan

[20:05] And George Lucas is like, there's no diners in Star Wars.

[20:07] And then years later, he put that one diner in episode two.

[20:11] And David Lynch calls out.

[20:12] What the fuck?

Dan McCoy

[20:12] George, you told me there were no diners in the Star Wars universe.

[20:15] Damn it, Lucas.

Elliott Kalan

[20:19] Okay, so the kids offered to.

[20:21] It was the lawsuit of Lynch v. Lucas over the ownership of character Dexter Jetster, space diner owner.

Stuart Wellington

[20:27] So, you know, this doesn't happen yet in the movie, but it happens later.

[20:34] But I feel like it's important to bring up the name of the Martian, so I don't just keep calling him the Martian.

[20:39] Yes.

[20:40] Now, his name, of course, is in an alien tongue that would be far too difficult for a human to pronounce.

Elliott Kalan

[20:45] Oh, your tongue would just tear out and fall out of your mouth if you tried to say it, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:48] Roughly translated into English, it means poo flower.

[20:53] Now, that was hilarious.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] Yeah.

[20:56] Yeah, that was, I mean, it was a thing that was in the movie for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[20:59] Did it wake you up out of your slumber, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[21:02] I, you know, I was just like watching it like, why is it, why is this happening?

[21:07] Like, the movie is not like, like the movie is so, I mean, it's dumb, but it's so innocent otherwise that I'm like, why is there this scatological thing in here that's not like a joke?

[21:20] Like, it's not funny that his name is poo flower.

Stuart Wellington

[21:23] So is this any different in the original French or Cépecois?

Alonso Duralde

[21:27] It is, I don't remember the actual phrase, but it's essentially poo flower.

[21:31] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[21:32] They're being true to the OG.

[21:34] They weren't playing lowbrow for the English audience.

[21:36] No, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[21:37] They were respecting the auteur's intention.

[21:39] I mean, give them credit.

[21:41] They got to the joke before Douglas Adams did of having an alien with an embarrassing sounding name.

[21:46] Because that was his whole thing with Slurdy Bartfast, the idea that he has a name that he's embarrassed about.

[21:50] So, you know what?

Dan McCoy

[21:51] I mean, that's a badass name.

[21:52] I was going to name my firstborn Slurdy Bartfast.

[21:54] Slurdy Bartfast is a great name, yeah.

[21:56] I have to say, as a kid, like, and even now to some degree, but like, as a kid, I was like, what?

[22:02] Like, is that, like, a particularly embarrassing name?

[22:06] Like, I guess it sounds kind of like fart or like, it's got like gross sounds in it, but I'm like, what?

Elliott Kalan

[22:13] Let's go to, let's go to, let's go down Adams Avenue to Hitchhiker's Corner, my regular segment where I tell you things about Douglas Adams writing Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[22:21] I love this segment.

[22:22] And so he wanted a name that sounded like it was, could be filthy, but wasn't actually because he was doing this for the radio.

[22:29] And he says it is in the behind the scenes writings that he started with the name Farty Fuckballs as the character.

[22:36] And then like, and kind of like drained it of actual swear words until he got to Slurdy Bartfast, something that sounded vaguely vulgar, but was not actually vulgar.

[22:45] Okay.

[22:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:47] I mean, look, I love the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but for me, that part fell flat.

[22:51] I'm like, what is the deal?

Alonso Duralde

[22:52] I think Farty Fuckballs is from the original draft of the Christmas Martian.

[22:56] They're like, no, it's for kids.

Elliott Kalan

[22:58] It's for kids.

[22:59] Come on, guys.

[22:59] What about Poo Flower?

[23:01] Sure, I guess so.

[23:02] We have three names for this Martian we can use.

[23:05] Farty Fuckballs, Sucky Dicks Up, and Poo Flower.

[23:08] I guess we've got to go with Poo Flower.

[23:09] Those are the only three options?

[23:10] Yeah, those are the three options the Canadian Film Board said we could use.

[23:13] We've got to pick one of them.

Stuart Wellington

[23:14] All right.

[23:15] Everything else is already copyrighted.

Dan McCoy

[23:18] It's pretty copyrighted.

[23:19] Every other name that exists.

[23:21] Every other possible name.

[23:22] Oh, man.

[23:23] I'm sorry.

[23:24] We tried to clear Clitoris Jones, but it turns out there was a man with that name, so we couldn't do it.

[23:32] Yeah, yeah.

[23:32] He lives in Toronto.

[23:34] No, damn it.

Elliott Kalan

[23:37] What about Queen Elizabeth II?

[23:39] No, can't do it.

[23:39] Can't do it.

[23:41] Can't do it, Sally.

[23:42] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[23:43] So, the kids offered to help Poo Flower by, I'm just going to call them Martian again.

[23:49] I don't know why I brought them.

[23:50] Yeah.

[23:51] It certainly meant I got to say a lot of bad words.

[23:54] So, that was a good idea.

[23:55] My uncle is a welder.

[23:57] So, they decide to pile onto a nearby passing sledge and ride across the landscape, eventually realizing this is going to slope.

[24:06] What's on that sledge?

[24:07] Well, like a bunch of wood.

[24:08] Wait, is it a bunch of wood?

[24:09] What is it?

[24:09] It's manure.

[24:10] Manure.

[24:11] Oh.

Alonso Duralde

[24:13] The Martian is like, I don't know what this smell is, but it's certainly vivid.

[24:17] And the girl says, you know, it smells bad, but it sure grows vegetables or something.

[24:23] Oh, that's right.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] This really doubles as just a catalog of ways to travel across snow.

[24:30] Every way you can find to travel across snow, somebody does in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[24:34] I'd like to commend Stuart at this point, by the way.

[24:37] Like, I commend him and make it clear to the audience that his summary is so much clearer than anything that happens in the film.

[24:43] Because the film alternates between, like, low-speed shenanigans that go on forever and, like, cutaways to random people in the town doing bits of business.

[24:56] And it all feels so disjointed.

Elliott Kalan

[24:58] This is classic.

[24:59] I mean, this is the kind of movie I haven't watched in a long time where it's like a classic 60s, 70s, low-budget film where none of the shots are long enough or they're way too long.

[25:09] And it's clear they didn't get the coverage they needed for scenes.

[25:11] And it's clear that, like, dialogue – I mean, we're watching the dubbed version anyway, but I assume the dialogue was dubbed in at the last minute even in the French one to explain what's going on on screen at times.

[25:21] Like, it's just, like, real amateurish stuff.

[25:25] It was kind of refreshing.

Alonso Duralde

[25:26] Welcome to my childhood.

[25:27] I grew up on all the Disney movies that you won't find on Disney Plus because they're just not all that good.

[25:33] Song of the South, that kind of stuff.

[25:34] For instance, yeah, no.

[25:36] No Deposit, No Return with David Niven and Darren McGavin and Don Nott.

[25:41] Million Dollar Duck or something like that.

[25:43] Not on Disney Plus.

[25:43] Million Dollar Duck, exactly.

[25:45] These were the kiddie matinees of my youth.

[25:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:49] I mean, with a name like Million Dollar Duck, though, I mean, like, he puts butts in seats.

[25:53] And there's only one million dollar duck and that's Howard.

[25:56] While Uncle Scrooge is livid.

Dan McCoy

[25:59] Well, he's got so much more than a million.

[26:02] Like, he would be mad.

[26:03] He'd be in the hospital.

Stuart Wellington

[26:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:04] He would take issue.

[26:06] Okay.

[26:07] So, they ride across the snow.

[26:11] They realize this isn't going fast enough.

[26:13] So, the Martian takes the kids off the sledge and he strikes one of his giant matches and they fly away.

[26:20] And the adult is like, what the fuck?

Elliott Kalan

[26:21] I'm realizing we don't have to spend a lot of time on it.

[26:24] But we skipped very early on the part where an adult sees the Martian fly away and he's dressed like Mary Poppins, I guess, for some reason.

[26:31] Oh, yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[26:31] The Martian's in drag at one point and he calls a cab.

[26:34] Yeah.

[26:35] Or he's in a phone booth and a cab shows up.

Elliott Kalan

[26:37] I'm not sure what the connection there is.

[26:38] But then he just flies away.

[26:40] Like Mary Poppins, yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[26:41] And even, like, cocks his legs in that, like, woohoo, I'm flying away.

[26:45] Yeah.

[26:46] Yeah, it's a moment.

Dan McCoy

[26:47] I can't remember the order of things.

[26:48] Have we gotten to the part where, like, one guy also who has, like, seen the spaceship, like, talks about how he saw this giant egg?

[26:57] The biggest egg?

Stuart Wellington

[26:58] I mean, this is kind of, like, interspersed in these scenes with the kids and the Martian.

[27:04] We see the townspeople kind of sharing their suspicions of the strange happenings around town.

[27:10] Usually this is held at, like, the general store.

[27:12] Maybe the sheriff wanders in and, like, puffs his chest out.

Elliott Kalan

[27:15] It's like the local package store or whatever, you know, where you go and get everything and your drinks and stuff.

Dan McCoy

[27:20] I don't feel like we need to dwell on any of those scenes.

Alonso Duralde

[27:23] Also, like the Warriors, there's a DJ who pops in periodically to let us know that, like, reports of UFOs are a prank.

Elliott Kalan

[27:31] And also the children's parents where the mother keeps being like, our children never came back home for lunch.

[27:36] And the dad's like, it's fine.

[27:37] It's fine.

[27:38] They're on vacation.

[27:38] Who stole my turkey?

Dan McCoy

[27:39] Yeah.

[27:40] I just wanted to acknowledge the existence of those scenes.

[27:42] But also that scene in particular had me clutching my head a little bit because I'm like, why is this fucking idiot, like, so fixated on the idea that this was, like, not literally, not that it just looked like an egg.

[27:53] There was a literal giant egg.

[27:54] And man, if I could get my hands on that fucking egg, I'd have the biggest egg.

[27:58] I'd be so rich in egg.

[28:00] All that yolk.

[28:01] I just swim in it.

[28:02] Like, nobody's business.

Elliott Kalan

[28:05] Do fromage.

[28:06] It's the only, like, flashback in the movie, right?

[28:08] He's telling a story and then we flashback to him seeing it.

[28:11] But we know there's an alien in this movie at this point.

[28:13] Like, there's no – this is normally in a regular movie.

[28:16] This is what you would show earlier to build up to the idea that there's something strange in the neighborhood and it don't look good.

[28:22] But here, it's happening in the middle when we already know about it.

[28:25] It's just – yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:25] And also, the vast majority of this movie has no music except for when it does, which is just the theme music that's like do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

[28:35] Right?

[28:36] Something like that.

[28:37] Stuart, we don't have the rights to that music.

[28:39] Oh, no.

[28:40] Oh, no.

[28:40] Let me get some – yeah, like, what are they – like, beaver bucks?

[28:44] What do they use up there?

[28:46] We're all loonies.

[28:48] They have birds on them.

Dan McCoy

[28:50] They do have beavers on them, too.

[28:51] Canada jokes because we –

[28:52] Loonies, right?

[28:52] Loonies?

[28:53] Yeah, loonies.

[28:53] We all desperately would like to live there right now.

[28:55] Yes.

[28:56] Yeah, it would be great.

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] Okay.

[28:58] So the –

[28:59] Shout out to our friend Eric Marzizak who got while the getting was good and moved from New York to Canada years ago.

Stuart Wellington

[29:06] So the adults, as I said, the adults are getting suspicious.

[29:09] They are in – they basically form a posse over time to figure this out.

[29:15] So the kids eat a stolen turkey and a whole bunch of candy.

[29:19] They learn about their new Martian friend.

[29:20] It was their mother's Christmas turkey that they took.

Elliott Kalan

[29:23] It's not like they stole it from the store and ate it raw.

Stuart Wellington

[29:25] I mean we know that he's not above stealing, so that's fine.

[29:28] That's right.

Elliott Kalan

[29:28] They didn't steal a live property off a farm and then tear it apart in a sort of suddenly last summer type massacre.

[29:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[29:35] Is that the second suddenly last summer reference you made recently?

[29:38] I think so.

[29:38] Yeah, because we did it.

Elliott Kalan

[29:39] We recently did our live shows in Chicago and I also made a suddenly last summer reference.

[29:42] For some reason, suddenly last summer and Quintet have been on my mind quite a bit.

[29:47] So I don't know why.

[29:48] Tell your therapist.

Stuart Wellington

[29:51] I like my entire –

[29:53] We procured for him.

[29:54] I would say the majority of my therapy appointment this week was based on me having seen a movie, which is not uncommon in my therapy session.

[30:03] The Princess Martian?

[30:04] It was the – I was like, Doc, can you kill me?

[30:10] Can you do the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind treatment for me please?

[30:16] Just for this movie.

[30:16] Wipe it right out.

Dan McCoy

[30:18] Yeah.

[30:18] I know what you suddenly did last summer.

[30:20] Is that anything?

Elliott Kalan

[30:21] It could be.

[30:23] I mean the audiences that would get either side of it don't match at all.

[30:27] Yeah.

[30:28] And are dwindling by the ear.

[30:30] Yeah.

[30:30] It's true.

[30:31] Yeah, it's just Alonzo.

Stuart Wellington

[30:32] I feel like the only way you can test this theory, Dan, is to like make it into what?

[30:36] A one-panel gag comic or something?

[30:38] Yeah.

[30:38] But does Dan have the technology to do that?

[30:41] Yeah.

[30:41] Send it into – what?

[30:42] To the New Yorker.

[30:43] New Yorkers looking for shit like that?

[30:45] Yeah.

[30:45] That's what they love.

[30:48] Don't they have like a little comic contest?

[30:50] You could win that shit.

[30:50] A little comic.

[30:51] Okay, so –

Elliott Kalan

[30:52] Dan, why don't you just stick that in as the caption of whatever panel they've got in there.

Stuart Wellington

[30:56] Yeah, sure.

[30:57] With a newly fixed and cleaned of snow UFO, they manage to fly this flying saucer and they go for a little ride around the world.

[31:07] Not without a couple of false starts and hiccups like when they're clearing the snow off.

[31:12] And they almost get – take off and they almost all die, but luckily they don't.

Dan McCoy

[31:16] Is this the part where they go to the desert?

[31:19] I think so.

[31:20] Yeah.

[31:20] And they're like, oh, look.

[31:22] It's the Sahara Desert.

[31:23] And they're like, wow.

[31:24] And then there's just like a static scene of them staring out the fake window where there's like, you know, green screened in like just dunes, sand dunes.

[31:34] As they cast it out.

Alonso Duralde

[31:35] It lingers so long.

[31:37] It's worth noting that the UFO is a TARDIS and that it is way bigger on the inside than it would appear to be on the outside.

[31:43] On the outside, it looks like a really cool like early 70s, like the sort of light fixture you would have hanging over the dining room table.

[31:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[31:52] You thought so?

[31:53] I thought it kind of looked like an egg.

[31:55] It also –

[31:55] It looks nothing like an egg.

[31:57] I thought you mentioned it.

[31:58] No.

Elliott Kalan

[31:59] They also – we should mention also that – so this flying saucer has a long antenna on the top that you never really see the top of because it's clearly the wire that it is hanging from.

[32:07] That's – yes.

Dan McCoy

[32:07] I was going to ask whether that was intended to be the antenna and that's how they're getting away with the most egregious wire that I have ever seen.

Stuart Wellington

[32:14] Yeah, because it's the same – they're using the same crane that they yanked that young girl around.

[32:19] Yeah, they rented it for the day.

[32:21] You got to use it for other things.

[32:22] I love my husband.

Alonso Duralde

[32:23] He just opened the MoMA Design Store website.

[32:26] Oh, that's awesome.

[32:28] And here is the Nelson saucer bubble from Herman Miller light fixture.

[32:32] And yeah, that's exactly what this thing looks like.

[32:34] Have your own little Christmas margin in your house.

[32:36] In red, yeah.

[32:37] It's red.

[32:37] In red.

Stuart Wellington

[32:38] For the Christmas collection.

[32:39] Yeah.

[32:40] Okay, so they take a ride –

[32:41] The MoMA Christmas collection.

[32:43] They take a ride around the world.

[32:46] Around the world, around the world.

[32:50] They –

[32:51] Better aliens in that one.

[32:52] Yeah.

[32:53] They return to their town and like the kids look out the windows.

Elliott Kalan

[32:58] He tells them they're taking a ride around the world.

[33:00] He's just showing them images on a video screen.

[33:02] It's possible they're not going anywhere.

Stuart Wellington

[33:03] It's like a Disney dark ride, you know.

[33:06] Yeah, it's like a Nathan Fielder bit.

[33:09] So they are flying over their Kepecois town.

[33:13] They're pointing out things they know.

[33:14] They point out the road that leads to Grandma's house, which I feel like expands the universe of this movie considerably.

[33:20] Well, they're opening it up for a spinoff sequel.

[33:21] Yeah.

[33:22] The Martian and the grandma.

[33:24] We're going.

[33:26] They say goodbye.

[33:30] They wander off into the night to return home.

Elliott Kalan

[33:33] Oh, wait.

[33:34] I should say before you go.

[33:35] Please.

[33:35] I should say the part where they're excited to see their own hometown.

[33:38] That was the one moment in the movie that I genuinely really liked a lot.

[33:42] That these kids – he's like, this is Antarctica.

[33:44] Here's this desert.

[33:45] But then seeing their own town from above.

[33:47] Yeah.

[33:48] It seems genuinely thrilling to them.

[33:49] They're like, oh, yeah, there's the road there.

[33:51] And I thought that was a – I don't know if they meant it that way, but that felt like a richly observed – the idea that like, yeah, the thing they're most excited about is seeing where they live, but just from a different angle.

Alonso Duralde

[34:00] And this movie came out, by the way, the same year as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which at the end of the movie, of course, they're looking down from the great glass elevator to seeing their own town.

[34:09] That was the big competition.

[34:10] Which is in Bavaria for some reason.

[34:12] That was the competition in the theaters.

Stuart Wellington

[34:13] They're like, who's going to win the weekend?

[34:15] Yeah.

[34:15] What Christmas?

[34:16] Or Willy Wonka.

[34:16] There's a competition at what?

Elliott Kalan

[34:18] Conners.

[34:20] We got to delay the release of Willy Wonka by three weeks.

[34:23] We don't want to get stepped on by the Christmas Martian.

[34:25] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:26] So the kids leave right in time for the posse to arrive.

[34:31] So the Martian is looking out his view screen, and he sees just like a sea of foreboding lights heading in his direction.

[34:39] It looks like all like snowmobiles, which there was briefly a little confusion because the kids stole a snowmobile earlier.

[34:47] Do you remember that?

[34:47] They kept selling the welder's stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[34:50] Their welder uncle, they kept stealing his things, then bringing them back.

[34:52] And the police officer would be like, we said it was stolen.

Dan McCoy

[34:55] Exactly.

[34:56] And now it's back.

Elliott Kalan

[34:56] Arrest someone.

[34:57] You know.

[34:58] But I thought the shot of the snowmobiles all coming from the darkness.

[35:02] Yeah.

[35:02] Very Mad Max.

[35:03] Yeah.

[35:04] Yeah.

[35:04] Very Mad Max.

[35:04] That was genuinely – I liked it.

[35:06] It was a little scary, and I was like, all right.

[35:08] Okay.

[35:08] This is a better shot from a different movie where it's like evil snowmobile or sort of dad.

Dan McCoy

[35:12] Suddenly it's the Oxbow incident.

[35:14] I want to talk about this moment.

[35:16] The Oxbow Martian.

[35:18] At this point, like, the Martian can leave in his ship.

[35:22] But he sees these people coming out, and he's like, oh, you know, oh, more friends are coming to say hi or whatever.

[35:27] He goes out.

[35:29] Because he represents the spirit of fun, Dan.

[35:31] Right.

[35:32] But then this posse starts chasing him around, and the fucking Martian doesn't just, like, get back in his goddamn ship and take off.

[35:39] He, like, runs around the snow for a long time.

[35:43] His power is like a god.

[35:44] The point at which I texted Alonzo saying that I hate him.

[35:48] I hate this idiot.

Stuart Wellington

[35:51] Yeah.

[35:51] You're welcome.

[35:53] He is so advanced that he has nothing to fear from these primitive humans.

[35:58] Dumbass Martian.

Alonso Duralde

[35:59] And they've moved so far beyond, like, hate and violence on his planet that, yeah, he just assumes this is like a Lollapalooza.

[36:06] Like, you know, he doesn't read bad intent into it at all.

Elliott Kalan

[36:10] Much of the movie is the kids showing him different winter sports and ways to have fun in the snow.

[36:15] So maybe he just thinks there's another one.

[36:17] Yeah, true.

[36:18] So he leaves them on.

[36:19] It would be so funny if he's like, let's chase everybody, and they just shoot him and gun him down.

[36:23] And at the end of it is the Martian lying in the snowbank, bleeding to death, like at the end of McCabe and Mrs. Miller.

[36:27] And the kids are at home being like, wow, I hope we get to see the Martian again.

[36:31] And he's just dead.

Stuart Wellington

[36:32] And the snow slowly covers his body.

[36:35] And we're like, wow, they really build a community out there in the frontier.

[36:39] The kids put the church fire out, yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[36:41] You'll see him again come springtime.

Dan McCoy

[36:44] I'm glad you could restore my faith and my own empathy because as much as I hate that Martian, I was like, oh, no.

[36:50] Yeah, you don't want to see him gunned down.

[36:51] No.

Stuart Wellington

[36:53] No, not with like crazy 70s technology.

[36:55] It's horrifying.

Elliott Kalan

[36:57] No, they shot Pooh Flower.

[36:58] No, he was the best of us.

Stuart Wellington

[37:01] So the kids return home.

[37:03] Their father puts on his Santa outfit to surprise the kids and give them presents.

[37:08] And he starts giving them presents.

Elliott Kalan

[37:10] Doesn't go down the chimney because he's seen gremlins.

[37:12] He knows that's a mistake.

Stuart Wellington

[37:13] He does, yeah.

[37:13] He has that part queued up on his VHS tape.

[37:16] He can see to the future.

[37:19] He is distracted briefly and he leaves the room and then Pooh Flower shows up, also dresses Santa Claus.

[37:26] And then the father returns and there's a big confusion.

[37:29] And then a bunch of cops show up and arrest both of them because they can't tell who is who.

[37:34] Under suspicion of being Martians, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:35] These cops have never considered the idea that they could take the fake beard off of these two.

[37:43] I don't know if you want to see which one of the Martian is.

[37:44] Not these days anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[37:46] For all they know, maybe these are Jewish policemen.

[37:48] They don't know who Santa Claus is.

[37:49] They think this is what Martians look like.

Stuart Wellington

[37:52] Could be.

[37:53] This was a Michael Chabon script, right?

[37:55] The legendary French Canadian Jewish.

[37:55] Exactly.

[37:57] That's what I was going with this.

[37:59] So they're both arrested.

[38:00] They ride in the back of a cop car with who's like the chief of police who looks like a pig in a sty.

[38:07] He's so happy.

[38:08] And the – but then the Martian just disappears from the back of the car.

[38:13] And then like I guess it's the end of the movie.

[38:15] What happened?

Dan McCoy

[38:16] I don't remember.

[38:17] Notes at this point just say flies away?

[38:19] Question mark.

[38:22] What do they do?

[38:23] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[38:24] I think he just leaves, right?

[38:25] I think he just leaves and that's it, right?

[38:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[38:28] You had two extra note cards to figure out there.

[38:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:31] And there's no like text at the end that says whether the dad was found guilty of being a Martian and sent to jail or anything like that.

Stuart Wellington

[38:37] Well, they had to cut him open to find out.

Elliott Kalan

[38:40] They determined not a Martian.

[38:42] Determined up.

[38:42] Well, we got good news and bad news.

[38:44] Good news, we dropped the charges.

[38:45] Bad news, your father is just in his constituent parts now.

[38:49] Bad news is we can only do it once.

[38:50] He's definitely human.

[38:51] Bad news is.

[38:52] It's hard for the Martian to get home because as a Christmas gift, he has given the kids the model of his UFO that I think they used for some of the shots.

[39:00] Yeah.

[39:00] So, you know, I don't know how he's going to get away now that they have the craft.

Dan McCoy

[39:04] Off camera.

[39:05] Alonso, do you know anything about this movie that you can tell?

[39:08] Like I seem to, you know, from poking around the internet, it seems like maybe it's a minor like cult film in Canada.

Alonso Duralde

[39:16] Yeah, I think it's the kind of movie that they would run on Canadian TV.

[39:20] Like, you know, Dave grew up in New Hampshire and he said he remembers seeing it as like on offer as a kiddie matinee up there because that's, you know, very near the border.

[39:29] So, yeah, I believe this is a beloved Canadian film and it occupies an interesting little corner of history because they ran out of money and this producer named Rocky.

[39:41] Really?

[39:42] Yeah.

[39:42] It looks like it's all up on screen.

[39:44] Every centime of it.

[39:48] All the loonies are up there, eh?

[39:50] And this producer named Rock Demers came in to sort of help finish it and he winds up becoming this kind of the Canadian Disney in terms of like having – he has this company called Les Productions La Fête which makes all of these bananas live action kids movies.

[40:06] I don't know if you all have ever heard of The Peanut Butter Solution.

[40:09] Yeah.

[40:09] Yeah, or like, you know, Jacob Tutu and the Hooded Fang and Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler.

Elliott Kalan

[40:17] Jacob Tutu and the Hooded Fang is – I've never seen the movie and I've never read the book.

[40:22] Oh, I read the book.

[40:23] It was listed as one of the books – in the back of a book I had as a kid, it listed it as another book available from the publisher and I was like, what is this book about?

[40:31] What is a Hooded Fang?

Dan McCoy

[40:32] I wish I could tell you having read it but I just remember it being weird.

Elliott Kalan

[40:36] I remember as a kid assuming like I guess he gets a pet cobra or something but I never went all the way to actually read it.

Alonso Duralde

[40:41] Yeah, I have not watched that one.

[40:43] I need to but anyway, so yeah, but this is the beginning of his career as a kid film producer.

[40:50] So, you know, thanks to The Christmas Martian, we eventually get down the road to Jacob Tutu and the Hooded Fang.

[40:57] So, yeah, so this is – you know, I think this is in that category of like what's that – there's also that Canadian TV special where Gilda Radner voices a witch.

[41:09] Oh, yeah.

[41:10] That's like a Halloween –

[41:11] Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[41:12] Yeah.

[41:13] Yeah, that's a Halloween favorite up there.

[41:15] The witch is something, yeah.

[41:17] So, yeah, you know, I don't know that it's really made it to the lower 48 as much as a cult item but that was before this episode was recorded.

[41:25] So, clearly now I think the avalanche begins and I think Riff Trax did this one a couple years ago.

[41:30] That would make sense, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:31] I was going to recommend this to the Mystery Science Theater people should they do more episodes and then I saw that Riff Trax did one of it and I'm like, all right, never mind.

[41:41] It's been taken care of because it just – I realized the reason I – one of the reasons I hadn't seen a movie like this in a long time is that this is the kind of thing I would watch – I would see only on Mystery Science Theater 2000.

[41:51] Yeah.

[41:52] You know, something where otherwise it would not have fallen into my lap because it didn't reach the level of professionalism that made it to Milburn, New Jersey.

Dan McCoy

[42:01] Well, and something with a lot of natural space for jokes to fill.

Elliott Kalan

[42:05] Yes.

[42:06] Oh, yeah, no.

[42:07] It's made for it.

[42:07] But these are the worst – speaking from experience, when you get a movie that just has like three minutes with no dialogue and you're like, oh, damn it.

[42:14] What are we going to say?

[42:14] They're just running around in the snow.

[42:16] They're doing nothing.

Alonso Duralde

[42:18] Time for another political rant.

[42:22] I will say this.

[42:23] Like there's something about a kids movie that not only feels like it was made for kids but it was made by kids.

[42:30] That's true.

[42:31] You know, like it really feels like the Frankie and Catherine are like sitting there going, okay, now what happens?

[42:37] And then what?

[42:38] And then he does this, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[42:40] It has the feeling – yeah, of like – that's the best thing you can say about it is it's interminable for an adult but it has the feel of a story kids are making up or even that the kids have the camera and are just like shaking it around and things like that.

[42:51] And I have to admit compared to – the talk of The Office where I am has been the live action Moana trailer.

[42:58] And compared to something like that, I think I kind of prefer the Christmas version in some ways.

[43:03] There's no green screen.

[43:05] Yeah.

[43:05] Oh, no.

[43:05] It's all – this is all reality.

[43:07] Yeah.

[43:07] That kid is really way too high in the sky.

[43:10] Dangling their feet.

[43:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:12] So let's do final judgments whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie we kind of like.

[43:18] I'm going to say – I think I texted some variant of this to Stuart that any like three minutes isolated of this movie is hilarious.

[43:27] But if you watch all 65, it's interminable.

[43:30] Like it would be a great thing if you're looking for something weird to put on in the background of your holiday party on mute.

[43:38] Like if you're the kind of person to do that sort of thing.

[43:41] Which feels like 50% of Dan's acquaintances.

[43:44] Yeah.

[43:45] I recommend it for that use and that use alone.

[43:48] I would say it's a bad, bad movie because it really tried my patience.

[43:52] But, you know, it's got its charms.

Elliott Kalan

[43:55] It tried your patience.

[43:56] Did it want to buy?

Dan McCoy

[43:57] No.

[43:59] I mean, my patience is pretty small.

[44:00] So they got to run Amazon instead.

[44:02] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[44:03] Now, yeah.

[44:04] I mean, this is a monstrous movie.

[44:07] But –

[44:08] I mean, I feel like this is very much a bad, bad movie.

[44:12] But with the caveat, I feel like under – with the right audience of bad movie sickos, if you are doing a bad movie night that is Christmas themed, I could see this one being a fun one to watch with people and watch people squirm and get annoyed and check their phones for 65 minutes.

[44:31] It feels like an eternity.

[44:33] But, no, I would say this is a bad, bad movie.

Elliott Kalan

[44:36] I agree with you guys that I think it is a – this is a bad, bad movie for solo viewing.

[44:43] But, yeah, if you wanted to use it to – if the thing you want to watch is the effect it has on somebody else, then it's a good, bad movie for that.

[44:50] But I feel like by the end of our discussion, I kind of talked myself into liking the concept of it as a low-budget, four-kids, really dumb, you know, little movie.

[45:01] But it is not – I wouldn't recommend watching it or showing it to people unless you want to see the movie and be uncomfortable.

[45:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:07] I actually watched this movie and then immediately watched Zardoz for the first time to prepare for Flop TV.

[45:13] And I'm like, what a day I'm having.

[45:17] What a time to be alive.

[45:19] Alonso, what do you say?

Alonso Duralde

[45:21] I mean, I can't disagree with anything you're saying.

[45:24] And I will – I do say this probably plays best if you're in a situation where you're with people who are enjoying its badness and you can talk to each other during the slacker parts of it.

Elliott Kalan

[45:35] But ultimately, I mean –

[45:36] Which is like 75 to 85 percent of it.

Alonso Duralde

[45:40] But ultimately, I have to kind of say this is a movie I kind of like just because I was four years old in 1971.

[45:46] And so, like, I recognize the shape of this sort of misbegotten children's entertainment that was just the coin of the realm of the early 1970s.

[45:57] And I can see where if you were a kid and you saw this at Christmas time, it would be the sort of thing that you would want to go back to every year.

[46:03] And then maybe as an adult at one point go, oh, God, this really isn't very good, is it?

[46:07] But there is something so – like, you know, on Project Runway, Heidi Klum used to always use the term home-sewn as like kind of a disparaging thing.

[46:18] But there's something home-sewn about this movie.

[46:21] It literally just feels like some people who are not in any way in the show business were like, let's make a kid's film with these things that we have handy and all of this damn snow.

[46:31] And so, yeah, on that level, I think it kind of works.

[46:34] But, yeah, it is a tough sit by yourself, no question.

Elliott Kalan

[46:37] Yeah, it's hard to – I like the idea of it more than I like the it.

[46:41] But I will say in a world where the problem is that things are too slick and soulless and kind of like ultra-polished in terms of like AI and professional entertainment, things like that, there's something I do find appealing about like this is the like dumbest, roughest, cuttest, like most slapped together type thing.

[47:01] There is a –

Alonso Duralde

[47:02] There were no studio notes involved in the making of this.

Elliott Kalan

[47:05] Yeah, exactly.

[47:06] Nobody was like, how do we get it to be four quadrants?

[47:08] I think they were like, how do we get enough film to get it up to 65 minutes?

Stuart Wellington

[47:13] Alonso, now I kind of want to see the judges from Project Runway give their takes on this movie.

[47:19] If only I want to see like Tim Gunn be nice.

[47:22] I want to see Nina Garcia be, I don't know, unhappy.

[47:25] And I just want to see Law Roach's face.

[47:27] Like I want to see his displeasure or maybe he'd love it.

Alonso Duralde

[47:30] Yeah, I at least want to hear their thoughts about the Martians' fishnet bodysuit.

Dan McCoy

[47:36] I do want to acknowledge –

[47:37] They were handed a fishing net and Tim Gunn said, make it work.

[47:39] Come on, make it work.

[47:41] You know, we've navigated Elliot's now long ago move to L.A. as best we can.

[47:48] You know, we've done what we could for that.

[47:50] And I think it's, you know, not really affected that much except for that like watching a bad movie alone is never the ideal way to experience them.

[48:00] So I think that probably the level of bad, bad ratings has gone up since then.

[48:05] Simply because the three of us aren't all watching these movies together and having a grand old time.

Elliott Kalan

[48:11] Certainly, I think that's a good point.

[48:13] Certainly, I enjoy these movies much less when I'm by myself.

[48:16] And also, I only have time to watch these movies and no other movies in between.

[48:22] It feels like user error on life there, buddy.

[48:27] Oh boy, is it ever.

[48:28] Yeah.

S5

[48:35] Hello.

[48:36] Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Beef and Dairy Network podcast.

[48:39] No, no, I'm sorry.

[48:39] No sales calls.

[48:40] Goodbye.

Stuart Wellington

[48:41] It's a multi-award winning podcast featuring guests such as Ted Danson, Nick Offerman, Josie Long.

S5

[48:46] I don't know what a Josie Long is.

[48:47] And anyway, I'm about to take my mother into town to see Phantom of the Opera at last.

[48:51] You are wasting my time and even worse, my mother's time.

[48:54] She only has so much time left.

[48:55] She's 98 years old.

[48:56] She's only expected to live for another 20 or 30 years.

[48:59] Mother, get your shoes on.

[49:01] Yes, the orthopedic ones.

[49:02] I don't want to have to carry you home again, do I?

Stuart Wellington

[49:04] Right, well, if you were looking for a podcast...

S5

[49:06] Mother, you're not wearing that, are you?

[49:07] It's very revealing, mother.

[49:08] This is a musical theatre, not a Parisian bordello.

Stuart Wellington

[49:12] Simply go to MaximumFun.org.

S5

[49:14] I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak.

[49:16] Mother!

[49:17] Mother, not that hat!

S6

[49:18] Have you been looking for a new podcast all about nerdy pop culture?

[49:21] Well, I have just the thing for you.

[49:24] Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries.

Stuart Wellington

[49:27] Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries is a weekly pop culture history podcast hosted by me,

[49:32] Host Alston.

S6

[49:33] And me, host Brenda.

[49:34] We've already tackled mysteries such as what happened to the puppets from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,

[49:39] a Snoopy Mexican, and why do people hate Barney so much?

Alonso Duralde

[49:43] From theme parks to cartoons to 80s, 90s, and 2000s nostalgia, we tackle it all.

S6

[49:47] Check us out every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get podcasts.

Stuart Wellington

[49:55] The internet.

[49:56] The internet.

[49:58] We are all on it all the time.

[50:01] You need to be on it all the time.

[50:03] It's so important these days.

[50:06] And have you ever needed to start like a small business or something?

[50:10] You know what you need?

[50:11] A website.

[50:12] You know where that website lives?

[50:13] On the internet.

[50:15] And you know who can help you with that website?

[50:18] Our sponsor today, Squarespace.

[50:21] Now, Squarespace provides a platform for you to set up your website.

[50:25] And it gives you every tool you need to run your small business website.

[50:30] Whether it's creating the website itself, the look, the feel, getting your hands in the dirt of this website.

[50:37] Perhaps you're a person who needs to see examples of something before you actually, you can't create it whole cloth from the matter in your brain.

[50:46] Maybe you need, so they provide templates that are created by professional artists that give you a sense of what that website you are creating is going to look like.

[50:55] And if you need to do business, well, they give you all the tools you need to sell stuff, invoice people, take payments, all that stuff.

[51:02] And also, hey, do you need a schedule?

[51:04] I need a schedule.

[51:06] That's what the internet's for, creating schedules.

[51:08] You can create a schedule on that website thanks to Squarespace.

[51:11] So, you need to head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[51:16] And when you're ready to launch that website, use offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Dan McCoy

[51:27] Thank you, Stuart.

[51:28] And speaking of whole cloth, we're sponsored in part today by Quint.

[51:33] You know, things are getting colder.

[51:35] There's a lot of holiday stuff going on.

[51:37] So, you need some wardrobe staples that are going to look sharp and feel good and keep you warm, you know.

[51:43] From Mongolian, let's take that again.

[51:47] From Mongolian cashmere sweaters to Italian wool coats, Quint's pieces are crafted from premium materials and built to hold up without the luxury markup.

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[52:08] Each piece is made from premium materials by trusted factories with rigorous standards for craftsmanship and ethical production.

[52:17] Quint's delivers these beautiful products at an affordable price by cutting out the middleman and traditional markups.

[52:24] So, you know, I got one of these Quint's pieces.

[52:26] I got a cashmere sweater, a charcoal color.

[52:31] It's been very comfy.

[52:33] It's something that I can put on that's sort of easy to wear but also looks sharp.

[52:39] I have enjoyed it.

[52:40] So, get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with Quint's.

[52:44] Don't wait.

[52:46] Go to quints.com slash flop for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

[52:52] Now available in Canada, too.

[52:53] That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash flop.

[53:00] Free shipping and 365-day returns.

[53:03] That's a full year.

[53:04] Quints.com slash flop.

[53:07] Also, we have a pair of J-J-J-Jumbotrons.

Elliott Kalan

[53:11] I just say, Dan, before you get to that, if Quint's is available in Canada, Martians no longer need to wear fishnets.

[53:17] They can now wear warm clothes.

Dan McCoy

[53:19] Important clarification for you Martians out there.

[53:22] And also, thank you.

[53:23] I was going over Canada.

[53:26] I'm like, I should have said something about the Martian movie that we watched.

[53:30] Anyway, Jumbotron.

[53:32] The early amateur hour is like the Flophouse if the hosts were in a musical comedy polycule.

[53:39] So, it's nothing like the Flophouse.

[53:41] But it is in the good-bad column.

[53:43] Join Nicole, Laurel, and Daniel for a funny, filthy variety show with segments such as Unicorn Hunter Hunters and Is This Polly?

[53:53] Monogamous folks love it, too, but they love only one host at a time.

[53:56] So, why listen to helpful polycasts when you can shotgun Chaos Muppet Energy with Poly Amateur Hour?

[54:04] There will be jingles.

[54:06] Listen to Poly Amateur Hour wherever you get your podcasts.

Elliott Kalan

[54:10] We also have a personal Jumbotron.

[54:13] That's a Jumbotron that's for a person from another person or people.

[54:16] And this Jumbotron is for Evelyn Ann, and it comes from Jonathan, Fletcher, Ian, and Oscar.

[54:22] And it says, happy 15th anniversary to my amazing wife.

[54:25] You're my best friend and the most amazing travel partner anyone could ask for.

[54:28] You've made a Cuisin art, if you will, of bringing joy to everyone you encounter.

[54:33] We are very blessed.

[54:35] What a sweet message.

[54:36] That's so lovely.

[54:37] Now, to go from that sweet message to some more crass commercialism because we got some Flophouse things to promote as well.

[54:43] As you may know, Flop TV continues apace.

[54:46] The government tried to shut us down, but we said no.

[54:49] Every first Saturday of the month, we are doing our live, one-hour, televised-type version over the internet of the Flophouse.

[54:56] It's Flopsterpiece Theater this season.

[54:58] We're doing some of the biggest, most famous-est flops, or most legendariest flops, I should say.

[55:02] And the next episode, as we're recording this, but I think when this episode airs, we're not done already.

[55:08] I think it will have been done, but you can still talk about it.

[55:10] I'm unstuck in time.

[55:11] Well, our December episode was Zardoz.

[55:14] On December 6th, we talked about Zardoz.

[55:15] It was hilarious.

[55:16] It was hilarious.

[55:17] January 3rd, we'll be talking about Dr. Doolittle, the 60s version.

[55:21] And February 7th, we'll be talking about Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[55:24] That's live on the internet, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific each time.

[55:28] But let's say you can't make it at that time.

[55:30] Don't worry.

[55:31] If you have a ticket to a Flop TV show, you can watch the recording of it as many times as you want through the end of February.

[55:38] So go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[55:40] Again, that's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[55:43] Buy yourself individual tickets or get the season pass.

[55:45] That's six shows for the price of five.

[55:47] Do it.

[55:47] It's like you're stealing money from us.

[55:49] You know you want to.

[55:50] It's the thrill of crime, like in the movie Pickpocket.

[55:52] Anyway, we've got another show that I want to say.

[55:55] That's an in-person show.

[55:56] So the Flophouse is returning to San Francisco Sketch Fest for SF Sketch Fest 2026.

[56:02] We're going to be appearing on Sunday, January 25th.

[56:06] It's an afternoon show, 4 p.m. Pacific time, in person.

[56:09] So you know what?

[56:09] You can still go to work on Monday, and you won't be too tired from our show.

[56:13] So come on by Sunday afternoon, January 25th in the San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[56:17] We'll be at Cobb's Comedy Club again.

[56:18] I love performing at Cobb's.

[56:19] It's a really fun comedy club to be at.

[56:21] Go to sfsketchfest.com, I think.

[56:25] Let me double-check that.

[56:26] Yes, it's just sfsketchfest.com for more information.

[56:30] And I just want to remind everybody, I've got a book out right now.

[56:33] Joke Farming, How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense from the University of Chicago Press,

[56:36] written by me.

[56:37] It's got all of my joke writing secrets.

[56:40] Shh.

[56:40] Don't tell anybody.

[56:42] You can learn how to write jokes the Elliot Kalin way if you buy the book.

[56:45] And it's available anywhere books are sold.

[56:47] So go buy it.

[56:48] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[56:49] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

[56:53] This first letter comes from Aaron, last name withheld, who writes,

[56:58] Like many a millennial, whatever combination of literacy and interest that turns one into a reader,

[57:04] trademark sign, earlier in life, has completely atrophied for me.

[57:09] I used to be a reader, and now I can't honestly say that I am.

[57:13] The shame.

[57:14] I've decided on a plan, though.

[57:16] Get back into reading through film criticism.

[57:19] Can you recommend columns, books, articles, or newsletters about film that are well-written

[57:23] and genuinely fun enough to rival flicking through brain-rotting short-form video content on my stupid phone?

[57:31] So, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:32] Aaron, last name all.

[57:33] I was just reading about the study that said that flipping through short-form video content,

[57:38] the effect on your brain is bad.

[57:40] Yeah.

[57:41] Literally, you're worse at everything afterwards.

Stuart Wellington

[57:43] So, I'm going to recommend a website.

[57:46] I love it.

[57:47] I hope it goes on a million years.

[57:48] It has some really great thoughtful criticism.

[57:51] It's called The Dissolve.

[57:53] Oh, no.

[57:53] It's never stopping.

[57:54] No, no, no.

[57:55] No.

[57:55] Stuart.

[57:56] Yeah, sorry, guys.

Dan McCoy

[57:57] Although, I mean, we should recommend, of course, The Reveal, a newsletter from a couple of the Dissolve folks,

[58:04] Keith Fitz and Scott Tobias, and Keith was kind enough to come out to our Chicago live shows.

[58:09] Yeah.

[58:10] That's a great newsletter for Alonzo, I'm sure, has thoughts on film criticism.

Elliott Kalan

[58:14] I mean, I feel like Alonzo's work is, itself, I always enjoy, and I always find both thoughtful and well-written.

[58:22] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[58:22] Well, I'm going to shamelessly recommend my husband's new newsletter on the Ghost site called Sluggish at sluggish.ghost.io,

[58:32] and it is film criticism, but also he writes about food or art or music or whatever he has a mind to.

[58:40] And I've always been a fan of his prose, and I think he is not here to bum you out with talk about contemporary politics.

[58:48] So if you're looking to avoid that lane entirely, I think you'll enjoy what you see at Sluggish.

[58:54] And then, of course, you know, Justin Chang over the New Yorker doing a bang-up job.

[58:59] You know, he's got a Pulitzer in his pocket, and the other one is playing a piano.

[59:06] I lost my Alanis Morissette there.

[59:08] But anyway, he just wrote a really great takedown of Wicked for Good that made me feel less alone in the world.

[59:14] I was just reading that yesterday.

Dan McCoy

[59:17] If you don't mind reading older criticism, I mean, like, there are great new critics on the site as well,

[59:24] but, like, all of Roger Ebert's stuff is at, you know, rogerebert.com, and, like, you can –

[59:30] there's a reason why he was a beloved critic.

[59:34] He is a very, like, personable, like, fun writer.

Stuart Wellington

[59:39] And also, obviously, if you're on Letterboxd, you should read Dan's Letterboxd reviews.

[59:43] He's a very good Letterboxd reviewer.

Dan McCoy

[59:45] Yeah, they call him his generation's Paul Schrader.

Stuart Wellington

[59:48] I feel like – but the thing is, I feel like Dan does give thoughtful reviews, whereas, like, I'll do, like, one fucking line or joke.

[59:56] And I feel like that seems to be – there's, like, such an aspirational trend at this point of, like,

[1:00:02] can I come up with the best one-liner to describe this movie?

[1:00:06] And it really overlooks the impact of real, thoughtful film writing or just writing on art in general can have on your enjoyment

[1:00:16] and also your willingness to check out stuff you might not.

[1:00:19] I – one of my – I read – I listen to a lot of heavy metal music, and part of the reason that I explore so much

[1:00:28] and I make it almost like a hobby is that I have found a couple of blogs that I really love,

[1:00:34] and I really love these writers.

[1:00:36] And, like, reading – critical writing on something like music or, like, reading – having somebody describe something

[1:00:46] that isn't just words, you know?

[1:00:48] Like, describing – like, music and writing are so different, and, like, writing and images can be very different.

[1:00:54] Like, it's just an interesting – like, seeing somebody try and describe the feelings you get while watching a movie

[1:01:01] or, like – yeah, it's – I don't know.

[1:01:03] I just think it's really interesting, and it – I feel like it's becoming less valued in our current culture.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:11] I also – I wanted to recommend three books that are not necessarily film criticism but are about movie making

[1:01:15] that if you haven't read – or if you want to get your eyes off of a screen and onto paper,

[1:01:20] unless you're reading them, I guess, as e-books or whatever.

[1:01:23] But I'm sure Alonzo's probably read all of these.

[1:01:25] You guys might have read them too.

[1:01:27] But The Devil's Candy by Julie Salomon, which is a great book about the making of Bonfire of the Vanities.

[1:01:32] Picture by Lillian Ross, which is a great book about the making of The Red Badge of Courage,

[1:01:36] where you do not gain respect for John Huston by the end of the book.

[1:01:40] But it's a really fascinating book.

[1:01:42] And also When the Shooting Stops, The Cutting Starts by Ralph Rosenblum about film editing.

[1:01:46] And those are just three – those are three great books about movies.

[1:01:50] And they're written well as well.

[1:01:51] I would throw in Stephen Bach's Final Cut also about the making of Heaven's Gate.

[1:01:56] I was going to mention that too, and I'm like, it's four books too many.

[1:01:58] But Final Cut is also fantastic.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:59] Oh, you know what?

[1:02:00] Because we're going to do Dr. Doolittle in a couple of months for Flop TV.

[1:02:05] Pictures at a Revolution is a great book.

[1:02:07] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:02:08] Yeah, yeah.

[1:02:08] That's also a great book.

[1:02:09] It deals with – one of the things it deals with is Dr. Doolittle and the death of like old Hollywood filmmaking through that movie.

Alonso Duralde

[1:02:17] Speaking of Mark Harris, his Mike Nichols biography is really great too.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:20] Oh, it's great.

[1:02:21] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:21] I just have to read that one.

[1:02:22] And actually I'll recommend another one is The Studio by John – is John Gickery done, right?

[1:02:27] John Philip Dunn.

[1:02:28] Yeah.

[1:02:29] Seth Rogen, yeah.

[1:02:30] Where he basically was just wandering around.

[1:02:32] Yeah, Seth Rogen.

[1:02:32] He was just walking around 20th Century Fox for like a year and just writing about what's going on and what it's like there.

[1:02:38] And it's so – I found there's so much in it that is about the making of – Dr. Doolittle is coming up.

[1:02:42] It's going to be our big release.

[1:02:43] We've got to get rid of Dr. Doolittle.

[1:02:44] And there's like a page and a half where they're like, we're going to make this movie about apes, whatever.

[1:02:48] And I'm like they have no idea that that movie is going to be a huge hit and Dr. Doolittle is going to be a fiasco.

Alonso Duralde

[1:02:54] And also, you know, while we're going down this rabbit hole, there's a really fun book called Roadshow about the age of the elephantine 1960s musicals and how they basically almost destroyed Hollywood.

[1:03:06] Because everybody was chasing the dragon of Mary Poppins and Sound of Music.

[1:03:09] And like every studio sank a fortune into these huge behemoth roadshow intermission musicals at a time when the kids just wanted to see Easy Rider.

[1:03:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:20] And I will recommend a book, Kyle Buchanan's Blood, Sweat, and Chrome about the making of Mad Max Fury Road.

[1:03:27] It's really fun.

[1:03:28] And it's like – it is one of those things where you're like not only do I love the movie but also it really imparts that feeling of like, yeah, this movie shouldn't have gotten made probably and we'll probably never see something like this again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:40] No, it's amazing when you're reading a book about a movie and you know the movie was made.

[1:03:45] That's why you're reading the book.

[1:03:46] But every turn of the page you're like there's no way they're going to be able to do this.

[1:03:50] Like this is impossible.

Alonso Duralde

[1:03:51] Someone's going to die.

[1:03:53] Tom Hardy's involved.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:55] I also want to put on my Dave Berg hat and the lighter side of film criticism.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:02] Everyone's favorite Mad Magazine article, the lighter side of.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:05] This writer was asking for like also some short and engaging stuff.

[1:04:11] Nathan Rabin has been a big supporter of the podcast over the years.

[1:04:15] And he does a lot of very funny like sillier projects like we might do here on our show.

Alonso Duralde

[1:04:21] His new book, The Fractured Mirror is about to come out which is a terrific look at American movies about movie making.

[1:04:29] And so if you're looking for something that you want like some short hits that you're not going to get mired in the middle of a real long chapter, that's the ticket.

[1:04:37] And it's really sharp and fun film writing.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:40] But let's move on to –

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:42] I feel like that's the most time we've ever spent answering a question.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:46] I think we could spend, you know, like a lot longer.

[1:04:51] But Andrew, last name withheld, writes this.

[1:04:55] Would you recommend books about movies?

[1:04:58] No.

[1:04:58] Here we go again.

[1:05:01] Based on a recent letter, I knew I had to provide some additional reporting.

[1:05:06] In 2008, I got to go on the study abroad trip of my dreams.

[1:05:10] We spent a month living on the Galapagos Islands, learning about its human and natural history.

[1:05:15] There was a cute one-room schoolhouse on the island where we'd take lessons right next to the beach.

[1:05:20] It was the only inhabited island because it had a dormant volcano that collected a major source of fresh water.

[1:05:26] The volcano seemed cool, so I got two friends to ditch class one day, bike across the island, and hike up to the volcano to the lake.

[1:05:34] We spent an idyllic morning swimming around with the warm water in the Caldara, then took a break to eat Ecuadorian Oreos on the shore.

[1:05:42] Suddenly –

[1:05:43] Wait, wait, wait.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:44] I want to know how Ecuadorian Oreos are different than domestic Oreos.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:47] You know, all these little details.

[1:05:49] Suddenly, this jaunty old white guy with a coterie of eight to ten young women came marching down the volcano straight towards us.

[1:05:56] He started chatting us up and seemed a bit zany.

[1:06:00] The women, young American students –

[1:06:01] He told us he was a Martian.

[1:06:02] He was wearing a fishnet of some kind.

[1:06:05] He took our jelly beans.

[1:06:07] The women, young American students, didn't really say anything.

[1:06:10] They just kind of followed him and sat looking as he pontificated to us.

[1:06:14] He then started saying, this is a beautiful place, but whatever you do, never go swimming in the freshwater in the Galapagos.

[1:06:19] He said there's, quote, small brain-eating worms in the water, and for God's sake, whatever you do, don't swim in there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:26] I'm wondering which horrible person in the news this guy is going to turn out to be.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:30] I was kind of rolling my eyes at this strange man who started lecturing us about brain worms when my friend, who had been kind of quiet since this guy showed up, suddenly asked, are you Patch Adams?

[1:06:40] And he said, yes, of course.

[1:06:42] That's why I know about these brain worms.

[1:06:44] Anyway, it's time for me to go.

[1:06:47] He then teleported out.

[1:06:50] As he and the young women left, they kept saying, don't get brain worms.

[1:06:58] I was stunned and now actually kind of worried that a doctor had told me I was going to get brain worms.

[1:07:02] But also because it was apparently Patch Adams.

[1:07:06] I turned to my friend who had identified him and was like, how did you know that was Patch Adams?

[1:07:11] He told me that at the University of Illinois, there's one dorm that's kind of a hippie dorm, and they have various artists and residents who live with the students.

[1:07:19] And Patch was a recurring guest who apparently had a reputation of sharing his weed.

[1:07:24] We then spent the next few weeks on the Galapagos logging many more rapid, weird encounters with Patch and his group of young ladies.

[1:07:31] We'd emerge from a hiking trail right when their bus happened to be driving by, and they would see us and shout, brain worms.

[1:07:36] Or we'd be at a restaurant, and they would all happen by and shout, brain worm boys.

[1:07:41] Later, we encountered them swimming on a different island and asked, aren't you all worried about the brain worms?

[1:07:47] And Patch Adams was like, oh no, it doesn't affect me.

[1:07:50] Were they just fucking with us about the brain worms, or does Patch really have ultimate healing powers?

[1:07:56] So that's another Patch Adamantium update for you from Andrew Lessing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:00] I feel like it raises so many more questions than it answers.

Alonso Duralde

[1:08:05] Get the Director of Health and Human Services on the horn.

[1:08:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:10] Anyone knows about brain worms, yeah.

[1:08:12] Certainly become the number one Patch Adams anecdote podcast on the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:16] I think if people have stories about Patch Adams, write in.

[1:08:18] Tell us your Patch Adams.

[1:08:19] I want to hear more about the tales of Patch Adams.

[1:08:20] Are we going to have to fucking watch Patch Adams on this show?

Dan McCoy

[1:08:23] Maybe.

[1:08:23] We're going to have to eventually watch Patch Adams, yeah.

[1:08:25] Now, I also want to make it clear.

[1:08:26] These are all secondhand stories that I'm just reporting along.

[1:08:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:08:32] We're not looking for Richard Simmons over here.

[1:08:34] We haven't independently confirmed any of them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:35] I mean, if you're Patch Adams, write in and tell us.

[1:08:37] What were you doing in the Galapagos with a bunch of young women telling people about brain worms?

[1:08:41] Yeah, were there brain worms?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:42] Yeah, what's your secret on avoiding brain worms?

[1:08:45] Do you have to vibrate your skull at a specific frequency?

[1:08:48] Send it to our government.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:51] Perhaps.

[1:08:52] Anyway, that's our reoccurring segment, Tales of Patch Adams.

Alonso Duralde

[1:08:58] Tales from the Adams Patch.

[1:08:59] He is alive.

[1:09:00] I'm just checking his wiki page.

[1:09:02] Yeah, if you know.

[1:09:03] 80 years young.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:04] If you were immune to brain worms, you'd be alive too.

[1:09:06] Yeah.

[1:09:07] It's the number one cause of death is brain worms, yeah.

[1:09:10] Oh, wow.

[1:09:11] That's him.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:13] Let's move on to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:15] It's so funny if he's like, someone's like, who are you?

[1:09:17] And then he puts the red nose on them.

[1:09:19] They go, Patch Adams.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:19] Oh, Patch Adams.

[1:09:21] Or he's going to go rolling things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:22] He takes the red nose off and nobody knows who he is.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:27] So let's move on to recommendations.

[1:09:30] Movies that may be a better use of your time than The Christmas Martian.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:35] So I saw this movie about this doctor who thought laughter was the best medicine.

[1:09:40] It was called Dr. Giggles.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:47] So this, I'd like to recommend a movie called PTU.

[1:09:52] It's a...

[1:09:53] With Jeremy Piven?

[1:09:54] No.

[1:09:55] That's P-T-U.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:56] It's PT, so it's Jeremy Tiven.

[1:09:58] Yeah.

Alonso Duralde

[1:09:59] Paul Thomas Yu.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:02] Paul Thomas Anderson.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:03] I would look at this title, by the way, and I keep thinking, paid time off?

[1:10:10] PTU.

[1:10:11] PTU.

[1:10:11] It's on the Hong Kong collection on Criterion right now.

[1:10:16] It's directed by Johnny Toe.

[1:10:17] It's 88 minutes long.

[1:10:19] It's one of these sort of crime movies about, you know, cops being just as bad and dumb as

[1:10:28] the criminals and sort of events spiraling out of control.

[1:10:31] It's kind of a one crazy night cop thriller in that way.

[1:10:36] I'll admit that, like, some of the machinations of the plot got a little convoluted for me

[1:10:42] to keep track of, like, who was mad at who for what.

[1:10:45] But it didn't matter.

[1:10:47] It just was, like, kind of a pleasure to be in the world.

[1:10:51] Like, I'm going to sound like the old man that I increasingly am and also have been since

[1:10:57] I was a young man and say that, like, it really made me feel for, like, what we've lost with

[1:11:02] the way movies are filmed now.

[1:11:04] Like, it just looked gorgeous.

[1:11:07] Like, it looked beautiful.

[1:11:09] Like, it's all shot at night, but it's these vivid sort of, like, neon colors, too.

[1:11:15] And the staging was gorgeous.

[1:11:19] Like, it's just the sort of thing that you don't see much these days with digital photography.

[1:11:25] But if you want to see something and just sort of, like, soak in the atmosphere, I really

[1:11:29] enjoyed it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:30] Sounds good.

[1:11:31] Cool.

[1:11:32] I actually have two movies to recommend because I've seen...

[1:11:35] Yeah, I know I've seen a lot of movies.

[1:11:37] But both of them I really loved, so I can't...

[1:11:40] I don't want to save either of them.

[1:11:41] I hope that's okay.

[1:11:43] Check the rule book.

[1:11:44] Is it allowed?

[1:11:45] Well...

[1:11:46] I don't care.

[1:11:46] I'm going to go ahead.

[1:11:46] We didn't bother to write one, so yes.

[1:11:48] Are you a golden retriever?

[1:11:51] Uh-oh.

[1:11:53] Depending on my personality test.

[1:11:56] So the first movie I'm going to recommend is, as of this moment, my favorite movie of the

[1:12:02] year.

[1:12:03] It's the new movie from Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value.

[1:12:08] Love it so much.

[1:12:09] I am a huge fan of his Oslo trilogy.

[1:12:12] And while this isn't, I guess, technically part of that, it feels like a natural progression

[1:12:16] of the themes that are in those movies.

[1:12:19] It is this beautiful story about a father and daughter who are estranged.

[1:12:25] The father's a filmmaker who wants to make one more project.

[1:12:28] And his daughter is an actress who has, let's say, a lot of resentment toward her absentee

[1:12:34] father, who's frankly kind of a piece of shit.

[1:12:38] Joachim Trier has a way of taking themes and ideas that seem like they're very serious and

[1:12:47] kind of boring and making it kind of light and fun and makes those emotional moments really

[1:12:54] hit.

[1:12:56] And yeah, I found it to be really beautiful.

[1:12:58] And it's a really fun movie.

[1:13:00] And it's got some great performances from Stellan Skarsgård, of course, and Renata Reinsver.

[1:13:06] Reinsver, yeah.

[1:13:07] And Elle Fanning's great in it.

[1:13:09] And of course, Anders Danielsen Lai, Lee Lai, manages to sneak his way in there and doesn't

[1:13:16] have too many terrible things happen to him this time, which is unique for Joachim Trier

[1:13:21] movies.

[1:13:22] Yeah, I really loved it.

[1:13:24] It's great.

[1:13:25] And I also got a chance to go to Lincoln Center to catch a matinee screening, which meant I

[1:13:32] was there with a lot of very old people, of Spain's offering for the Academy Awards a movie

[1:13:39] called Surat, which is a kind of like What If Wages of Fear was held at a rave in the deserts

[1:13:46] of Morocco, where a father, a middle-aged father drags his young son to this rave because he's

[1:13:53] searching for his daughter who has gone missing.

[1:13:56] And he has reason to believe that she is at this rave.

[1:13:59] And he continues to follow leads kind of deeper into the desert and putting himself and his

[1:14:07] son into greater danger.

[1:14:09] And a lot of the cast are non-actors who were handpicked from the rave scene.

[1:14:18] And so you have these really interesting performances from some, I would just say,

[1:14:24] interesting kind of looking people.

[1:14:26] And it felt very natural.

[1:14:28] And the sound design is incredible.

[1:14:30] It's all shot in the deserts of Morocco.

[1:14:32] So it's gorgeous.

[1:14:34] And then, of course, the way it incorporates dance music is really interesting, too.

[1:14:41] And it was really fun when my friend who I went to see the movie with was in the bathroom

[1:14:45] after the movie.

[1:14:47] And then she heard an older lady be like, I'm over raves, which is great.

[1:14:53] Yeah.

[1:14:54] So Surat, it's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:55] Is it my turn to recommend a movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:58] Yeah.

[1:14:58] No, I got some more.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:00] Okay.

[1:15:00] I'm going to recommend a movie that I just saw recently.

[1:15:04] And it's not the greatest movie in the world, but I had a lot of fun watching it.

[1:15:07] It's a Samuel Fuller movie from 1950 called The Baron of Arizona, which is – stars Vincent

[1:15:12] Price.

[1:15:13] And it's loosely, very loosely based on a true story of this guy who in the – right before

[1:15:19] Arizona was a state in the late 19th century, this guy forged a bunch of documents because

[1:15:23] he was – and he found a woman and he said, she's the last heir of this baron who had a

[1:15:29] Spanish land grant that by law has to be recognized by the United States and it covers all of Arizona.

[1:15:36] And he had gone to all this trouble to basically like turn part of the U.S. territories into

[1:15:45] his own personal kingdom and try to get it through the courts with all these forged documents.

[1:15:50] And he came very close to actually doing it.

[1:15:52] And again, this movie version of it is – I think they changed every single fact in the

[1:15:58] entire thing other than the names of the people involved.

[1:16:00] But Vincent Price is really fun in it.

[1:16:02] There's some really fun scenes where he's like, yeah, I guess I just got to be a monk for

[1:16:07] three years in Spain so I can get access to this one document I need to forge.

[1:16:12] And it's a short type movie.

[1:16:14] It starts out a little slow but it's got a lot of fun to it and it's called The Baron

[1:16:18] of Arizona.

[1:16:18] And is it an amazing movie?

[1:16:20] No.

[1:16:20] But there's – like I said, there's a lot of fun stuff and it's a fun story.

[1:16:23] So I would recommend it if you want to watch like I did.

[1:16:26] I was like, I want to watch an old movie that I have not seen that will – I'll watch it

[1:16:31] relatively quickly and it will be fun.

[1:16:32] This was exactly what I needed.

[1:16:33] So that's what I watched.

[1:16:35] Alonzo, what about you?

[1:16:36] What movies about Barron's have you seen?

Alonso Duralde

[1:16:38] Barron's not – at the moment a little slack on that front.

[1:16:41] But I'm going to take a page from Stu and recommend two movies.

[1:16:47] Do it.

[1:16:47] One of them is the new one from Max Walker Silverman who had a film a couple years ago

[1:16:51] called A Love Story with Dale Dickey.

[1:16:53] This film is rebuilding and like most movies nowadays, it stars Josh O'Connor.

[1:16:59] And he plays a guy in Colorado whose – there are fires in the hills that displace him from

[1:17:07] his land and some of his neighbors as well.

[1:17:10] So they all wind up in kind of like a FEMA trailer camp trying to figure out what to do

[1:17:13] next.

[1:17:14] He has a young daughter that he is jointly raising with his ex-wife played by Megan Fahey.

[1:17:20] And her mom is played by Amy Madigan giving another great performance this year that is

[1:17:24] not Aunt Gladys.

[1:17:26] But it's a really beautiful and quiet movie about people and the land and about sort of

[1:17:32] people at turning points in their lives and trying to figure out what they're going to

[1:17:36] do next.

[1:17:37] And a film that is also quiet and beautiful and very much about people in nature is Train

[1:17:46] Dreams, which is on or coming to Netflix.

[1:17:50] But if you have the chance to see it in theaters, I really recommend that you do because it is

[1:17:54] one of the most gorgeous films of this year.

[1:17:56] It stars Joel Edgerton as a guy who in the early 20th century kind of travels to go work

[1:18:02] in like labor – lumber camps to like sort of clear out the forests in the Pacific Northwest

[1:18:08] as the railroads are coming in.

[1:18:10] He gets married to Felicity Jones.

[1:18:13] They have a young child and he's got like his home life with them but also kind of going

[1:18:18] off to do these jobs.

[1:18:19] And, you know, things happen to them in their lives.

[1:18:24] And, yeah, both of these films, you know, they're of the kind of Terrence Malick, Kelly

[1:18:32] Reichardt school of like not a ton of dialogue.

[1:18:34] Fast action.

[1:18:35] Pulse pounding.

[1:18:36] Exactly, yes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:38] Cray edited in a blender, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:41] Yeah, I really –

[1:18:42] Terrence Malick, you know best from Crank, Crank series.

Alonso Duralde

[1:18:47] So, yeah, I really love both of these movies.

[1:18:49] They're among my favorites of this year and I hope people check them out.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:54] I'm just – I went into a reverie like imagining a Terrence Malick crank where it's all shot

[1:18:59] at Golden Hour and, you know.

[1:19:03] Beautiful.

[1:19:03] Yeah.

[1:19:04] Haunting.

[1:19:06] Thank you, Alonzo, for torturing us yet again.

Alonso Duralde

[1:19:10] It's what I do.

[1:19:11] Thank you for having me back.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:14] You should certainly plug again if there are things you would love to plug.

[1:19:19] Plug your book again.

[1:19:20] Plug your book again, Alonzo.

[1:19:21] Sure, yes.

Alonso Duralde

[1:19:21] The book is Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas, revised and updated.

[1:19:24] It is out now.

[1:19:25] It is in stores everywhere, ideally.

[1:19:27] It's certainly online, booksellers.

[1:19:30] I can guarantee you'll find it there.

[1:19:33] Go bug your library.

[1:19:34] Get them to get a copy, too.

[1:19:35] Why not?

[1:19:36] You can also pick up my book, Hollywood Pride, that I did with TCM and Running Press.

[1:19:41] That's still out there in the world as well.

[1:19:43] Read my stuff at The Film Verdict and check me out on the podcast Linoleum Knife with my

[1:19:48] husband, Dave White.

[1:19:48] We just hit our 15th anniversary.

[1:19:51] Oh, yeah.

[1:19:52] We're not a flophouse level, but we're part of the old guard.

[1:19:58] You can hear me on Maximum Film here on the Maximum Fun Network.

[1:20:01] I'm also on Breakfast All Day with Christy Lemire.

[1:20:04] It's a YouTube show, but we also do a podcast.

[1:20:07] And I pop in regularly at the Deck the Hallmark podcast to talk about Christmas movies on the

[1:20:11] regular.

[1:20:11] So, yes, go get sick of my voice.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:15] It's impossible.

[1:20:15] We've all been guests on Maximum Film, right?

[1:20:18] Yeah.

[1:20:18] I believe you have.

[1:20:19] Yeah.

[1:20:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:21] And Linoleum Knife is – I just want to make a special –

[1:20:24] Linoleum Knife.

[1:20:25] Yeah, Linoleum Knife.

[1:20:27] Linoleum Knife I want to make a special plea for is just – it's such a great – I love

[1:20:30] listening to it.

[1:20:31] Oh, thank you.

[1:20:31] And it's such a – it is like the perfect mixture of like intellectual and cozy, you know?

[1:20:38] Like it's like – there's something very cozy about it, but also I come away from it

[1:20:42] always with like an idea or a recommendation or something from it that I hadn't thought of

[1:20:46] before and wouldn't have known about otherwise.

[1:20:48] So, I really treasure it.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:49] Thank you, Elliot.

[1:20:50] I appreciate it.

[1:20:52] Well, as long as we're thanking people, we should thank Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:20:59] He goes by the name Howell Dottie all over the internet.

[1:21:02] He sure does.

[1:21:03] Alex came up to see our Chicago live shows and it was both a delight to see him and he

[1:21:09] was a big help at the shows.

[1:21:11] He got me way too drunk the night before.

[1:21:13] I blame Alex exclusively.

[1:21:16] Yeah.

[1:21:17] You had no – you had no hand in that.

[1:21:18] You were led astray.

[1:21:20] Mm-hmm.

[1:21:20] So, thank you, Alex.

[1:21:21] How could Stuart know?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:22] Stuart doesn't have a lot of experience with alcohol.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:25] I'm just – I'm just baby.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:28] Oh, Stu is baby.

[1:21:30] Okay.

[1:21:30] Yeah, Stu is baby.

[1:21:31] Yeah.

[1:21:32] Uh-huh.

[1:21:33] And thank you, of course, to Maximum Fun, the home of our show, the home of Maximum Film,

[1:21:39] the home of a lot of great shows.

[1:21:40] Check him out over at MaximumFun.org.

[1:21:43] But for this episode of The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:21:46] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:48] I'm Elliot Kalin, author of Joke Farming, How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense on store

[1:21:51] shelves now.

[1:21:52] I should have mentioned it.

[1:21:53] And we've been joined by –

[1:21:54] Alonzo Duraldi.

[1:21:56] Bye.

[1:21:57] A Merry Christmas Martian to us all.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:01] And a Martian New Year.

[1:22:03] It's slowly gotten better.

[1:22:04] It's finishing the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:06] It's only taken us almost two decades.

[1:22:08] One of these days, we're really going to nail it.

[1:22:09] Much like people in both of your households, I have a cold.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:22] My fucking thing's up.

[1:22:23] Energy is a little low.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:24] Yeah, you can hear my throat doesn't feel so good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:28] Should I go drink a bunch of NyQuil so I can match your energy?

[1:22:32] That'd be great.

[1:22:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:33] Okay.

[1:22:34] I don't know what I'm looking for on my phone.

[1:22:36] Let's just start the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:38] Are you DMing with anybody?

Dan McCoy

[1:22:39] No, I think I was subconsciously like, I'm going to call up this stuff.

[1:22:43] I'm going to be later in the show.

[1:22:44] But that's so far ahead.

[1:22:45] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:46] Yeah, later is not now.

[1:22:47] By definition.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:48] You've never said anything truer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:52] They call me the tautologist, Batman.

[1:22:58] Maximum Fun.

[1:22:59] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:00] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:23:02] Supported.

[1:23:03] Directly.

[1:23:03] By you.

The Christmas Martian, with Alonso Duralde

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