FH Mini 80 - Behind the Scenes

[0:00] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:06] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:07] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:09] And I'm Elliot Kalin saying,

[0:10] Dan and I may be on strike from work right now,

[0:13] but we're not on strike from your hearts.

[0:15] And we know there's a lot of people out there

[0:16] who want to support us writers,

[0:18] while we Writers Guild writers

[0:19] try to do right by our fellow writers

[0:21] against the AMPTP jerks,

[0:24] I'll just call them what they are,

[0:25] who refuse to pay us our due.

[0:26] Hey, if you'd like to support writers like we are,

[0:29] why don't you go to entertainmentcommunity.org

[0:31] and make a donation.

[0:33] Used to be called the Actors Fund,

[0:34] now it's for the whole entertainment community.

[0:36] Entertainment Community Fund.

[0:37] Go to donate and choose the film

[0:39] and television workers section.

[0:41] That's going to help not only writers

[0:42] who may need help during this strike if it goes long,

[0:45] but also writers' assistants

[0:46] and all sorts of support staff

[0:48] who also will need help

[0:49] and are also out of work right now

[0:51] because of this showdown that doesn't need to happen,

[0:54] but which the big execs decided to make happen.

[0:56] That's right.

[0:57] We didn't need to bring about Ragnarok.

[1:00] They brought Ragnarok,

[1:01] but now we're going to rock it all night long.

[1:03] Thanks for putting that into perspective for me.

[1:05] Starting with this hit from Katrina and the Waves.

Dan McCoy

[1:09] Okay.

[1:09] Well, you might think that Elliot's in charge of this many,

[1:12] but he's not.

[1:13] He's just...

Elliott Kalan

[1:13] And I did turn into a DJ halfway through there,

[1:16] which I don't know how that happened.

Dan McCoy

[1:17] He's just full of fervor and fever for his union.

[1:22] Your union too.

[1:23] Yeah, my union as well.

[1:24] Well, I'm just saying that he's...

Elliott Kalan

[1:25] Yeah, but Dan's not as full of fervor and fever.

[1:27] Fever a little bit.

[1:28] How are you doing, Dan?

[1:28] You looking?

[1:29] You doing okay?

[1:30] I know you had to do a lot of walking yesterday.

Dan McCoy

[1:32] Yeah.

[1:33] So, yeah.

[1:34] The strike's going on.

[1:35] Thank you for bringing it up

[1:36] because honestly,

[1:37] that was the thing I was going to start with.

[1:39] I was walking the picket line yesterday.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43] That's also this song from Katrina and the Waves.

[1:45] I'm walking the picket line.

[1:47] Whoa.

[1:47] Oh, wow.

[1:48] I'm walking the picket line.

[1:51] Whoa.

[1:52] And don't it feel necessary?

[1:54] De-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de.

[1:56] That's how it goes.

Dan McCoy

[1:59] Yeah.

[1:59] And so I buy into a little bit of the thinking that devalues writers

[2:05] because I was mostly excited to see the various actors I recognized

[2:11] on the picket line.

[2:13] I wasn't like, ooh, look at that famous writer.

[2:15] I mean, like, I guess, you know, Starly Kine was there.

[2:17] She's a well-known writer,

[2:18] although probably most well-known because she did podcasts anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[2:21] And you saw Josh Gondelman.

[2:23] He's also well-known to doing podcasts.

[2:24] Yeah, notorious coke fiend Josh Gondelman.

Dan McCoy

[2:28] Mostly known for, yeah, for cocaine and for being a stand-up.

[2:35] There's not a lot of celebrity in writerhood, but I did see.

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] Dalton Trumbo would say, fuck off, dude.

[2:42] Yeah.

[2:43] That's a classic Dalton Trumbo.

[2:44] He's a screenwriter.

Elliott Kalan

[2:45] Yeah.

[2:46] Or have you ever, Patty Chayefsky would be like,

[2:48] Patty Chayef you, Dan, for not mentioning me.

Dan McCoy

[2:51] Yeah.

[2:51] Okay, you came up with a couple.

[2:53] I mean, they're both dead, too.

[2:54] I can do it, too.

[2:55] William Goldman, he's known, but.

[2:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:58] Tony Gilroy Vey.

Stuart Wellington

[2:59] Yeah.

[3:00] Tennessee Williams would be like, oh, now I said Tantan.

Dan McCoy

[3:04] It's a playwriting, though, where I feel like there is more of a modicum of celebrity in a way that, for some reason.

Elliott Kalan

[3:11] Well, for some reason, because playwrights own their work and are associated with their work,

[3:15] whereas screenwriters traditionally have to sell their work and are removed from their work.

[3:19] It's called labor's alienation from the product of its labor, Dan, and we have to talk about it.

[3:24] So today on the Flophouse Mini, I'm in charge now.

[3:27] Sorry, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[3:29] No.

[3:29] So, yeah, I saw Zach Cherry and possibly Helly from Severance, his co-star.

[3:36] I wasn't sure.

[3:37] Oh, cool.

Dan McCoy

[3:37] Okay.

[3:38] I saw Gina Gershon on the picket line.

[3:41] What?

[3:41] Most importantly, of course, I saw.

Elliott Kalan

[3:42] Why did you bury the lead, Dan?

[3:43] Why did you bury the lead that Gina Gershon, one of my favorites, was on the picket line?

Dan McCoy

[3:47] Very excited.

[3:48] Very excited.

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] And meanwhile, who did I see?

[3:50] Zach Braff.

[3:51] Great.

Dan McCoy

[3:52] Thanks.

[3:53] But also, of course, even more exciting, 80s kids will remember, Curtis Armstrong was there.

[4:00] Oh, wow.

[4:00] Walk in the line.

Elliott Kalan

[4:02] It's an entire mountain's made of snow.

Dan McCoy

[4:04] Yeah.

[4:04] I get it.

[4:05] The top-hatted best friend from Better Off Dead and from many other 80s comedies.

[4:13] Anyway, the point is—

[4:14] Did he always have a top hat?

[4:16] I think he mostly did.

[4:18] I think Better Off Dead he did.

[4:19] Yeah.

[4:19] I mean, certainly Better Off Dead, but—

[4:21] No, no.

[4:22] I don't think as Booger he wore a top hat necessarily.

Stuart Wellington

[4:25] That would undercut the character Booger by giving him an affectation like a top hat.

Elliott Kalan

[4:30] I think of him more of a slob than a snob, but, you know, it's possible.

[4:34] It could be a slobby snob.

[4:35] Now, we're not—

[4:37] We're a snobby slob?

Dan McCoy

[4:40] We're not covered by the writer's strike here in the Flophouse for two reasons.

Elliott Kalan

[4:44] Dan, hold on a second.

[4:45] In those slobs versus snobs movies, we're always supposed to be on the slob side.

[4:49] But what if that slob was Slobodan Milosevic?

[4:51] I think I would be on the slob side in that one.

[4:53] I mean, I think—

[4:54] Yeah, I'm not slobbing that knob.

[4:55] That's one slob.

[4:57] You're not going to knob, right, Stu?

Dan McCoy

[5:00] I think that culture has proven that in a lot of the cases, we should have been on the snob side in those movies.

[5:08] Well, I mean, I guess culture has proven there were no good guys in those movies.

[5:11] That's true, yes.

[5:12] It was just a—

Elliott Kalan

[5:14] It's just like the classic slobs versus snobs movie Predator versus Alien.

[5:17] No matter who wins, we lose.

Dan McCoy

[5:18] It's like a Mad Magazine spy versus spy comic.

[5:21] You're not especially supposed to root for either spy.

[5:24] You're supposed to see the—

Stuart Wellington

[5:25] You root for the gray spy because she's a sexy lady.

Dan McCoy

[5:27] I remember explaining to a—

[5:29] I remember explaining to a—

[5:30] I was putting them in this unending battle to no end.

Stuart Wellington

[5:34] I remember explaining to a bar regular once some of the—I don't know, some of the gross stuff in Revenge of the Nerds,

[5:40] and he got so angry, like, that I pulled the scales from his eyes.

Dan McCoy

[5:45] He got so angry that he screamed at nerds like over and ripped up the bar.

[5:49] Oh, if only.

Elliott Kalan

[5:50] Now, guys, not that we need to spend any more time on this, but I'm pretty sure that the alien would be the slob and the Predator would be the snob.

[5:57] Prove me wrong.

[5:58] What do you think?

[6:00] Let's see.

[6:00] Well, I mean, the Predator does—it's hard to say.

Dan McCoy

[6:03] You got a lot of gadgets.

[6:04] The Predator hunts for sport.

[6:07] Yeah, that seems snobbish.

[6:08] Which is shared by snobs and slobs.

[6:10] And the alien is literally drooling all the time.

[6:13] That's pretty slobby.

[6:14] True.

[6:15] The drooling more so.

[6:16] I mean, like, there are plenty—

[6:17] There are plenty of slobs who hunt.

[6:20] I mean, it's not a—it's for all people.

Elliott Kalan

[6:23] And I think the Predator's—and the Predator's mouth is pretty moist, too, now that I think about it.

Stuart Wellington

[6:27] And the alien's always trying to get laid after a fashion.

[6:32] Yeah.

[6:33] Yep, that's classic slob behavior.

[6:35] Yep.

[6:35] I believe Ridley Scott described the alien as always trying to get laid.

Elliott Kalan

[6:40] Now, the xenomorph—what defines the xenomorph is that he's always trying to get some.

Dan McCoy

[6:49] This is also not what this episode of the Flap House Mini is about.

[6:54] But returning to the—I was trying to say, I was—this is all preamble, by the way.

[7:02] Yeah, what's this podcast about, man?

Elliott Kalan

[7:03] Oh, it's not just about you name-dropping who you saw on the picket line?

Dan McCoy

[7:07] I mean, I had a plan.

[7:08] But as you know, when man makes a plan, Elliot and Stuart laugh.

[7:13] Canal Panama, yep.

[7:17] No, so in the spirit of the writer's strike—now, obviously, we're not covered by that here on the podcast for two reasons.

[7:26] One, we don't write this.

[7:28] Two—

[7:28] What?

[7:30] Two, we own this—

[7:32] And more importantly—

[7:33] We own the show, so there's no one to strike against in this case.

Elliott Kalan

[7:39] And there's nothing in the strike rule saying we cannot create independent media that is entirely owned by us.

[7:46] Profits accrue to us.

[7:48] No executives allowed.

Dan McCoy

[7:50] But for this mini, I have gone pencils down, and I'm taking a series of questions from a listener named Aaron,

[8:01] who I'm afraid, Aaron, technically, now you're a scab.

[8:05] No, but Dan, this is not a guild-covered project.

[8:08] Oh, right, right, right.

[8:09] I just explained that.

[8:09] And Aaron had a bunch of behind-the-scenes questions.

[8:16] And I thought this was also in the spirit of the strike because this presages the kind of bad reality programming you'll get without writers.

Stuart Wellington

[8:26] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:27] This is now officially a documentary because we're talking—

[8:29] Unlike good reality programming.

[8:31] Behind the scenes.

[8:32] You know, I know you've got your shows.

Elliott Kalan

[8:34] Yeah, I got my stories.

[8:36] And reality producers, as people who are crafting narratives, be it through editing or through writing, should be members of the writers' guild.

[8:42] Should be covered by the guild.

Dan McCoy

[8:43] Yes.

[8:44] You know, so just another way that the people, the money people are screwing over the actual workers.

[8:52] But here we go.

[8:54] So this is—these are a series of behind-the-scenes questions.

[8:57] Okay.

[8:58] Now, the first one is how do you—

Elliott Kalan

[9:01] I'm going to be amazed if there's anything we haven't already covered on the fan podcast, the Peach Pit, which is—

[9:06] This is true, yeah.

[9:07] Which is behind-the-scenes.

Stuart Wellington

[9:07] I can't wait until the Peach Pit episode on this episode.

Dan McCoy

[9:11] When that drops.

[9:13] Ooh, spicy.

[9:15] So this is part of a list of things.

[9:18] So maybe is it meant to stand alone?

[9:20] But the first question is how do you make an episode, which is kind of a broad topic to cover.

[9:26] So maybe we'll circle back and see how well we've done at saying how we make an episode.

[9:32] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[9:33] Answer, badly.

Dan McCoy

[9:37] How long does it take to edit?

[9:40] Now, so these days—

[9:42] Perfect.

Stuart Wellington

[9:42] Directed to me, the guy who edits every moment of this podcast.

Dan McCoy

[9:45] These days, producer Alex does it.

[9:51] And frankly, I have no idea how long he takes on it.

Elliott Kalan

[9:54] Okay, so we're 0 for 2 for questions right now.

Dan McCoy

[9:56] One we refuse to answer and one we don't know the answer to.

[10:00] We'll come back to the first one.

[10:01] We'll see what we have.

[10:02] Two strikes.

[10:05] Producer Alex, I'm pretty sure he puts more time into it than I did when I edited it.

[10:12] Surely not.

[10:13] And when I edited the show—

Elliott Kalan

[10:15] How is that even possible?

[10:16] Dan, you would handcraft every moment, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[10:20] Here's the thing.

[10:21] The show is edited very little.

[10:24] We will cut out stuff.

[10:25] I'm sure this shocks people.

[10:27] We will cut out stuff that after the fact, we're like—

[10:31] If we feel like we've said something that we don't want to stand behind or we've said it long.

Stuart Wellington

[10:36] LA goes on a crazy rant, a super conservative rant.

[10:39] We're like, what are you talking about?

Elliott Kalan

[10:40] Yeah, the audience has been saved from my one-world government rants and things like that.

Dan McCoy

[10:47] No, but I mean, I think none of us are perfect.

[10:49] So occasionally we'll say something and we're like,

[10:51] I'm not comfortable with the way that came out.

[10:53] I feel like it may be construed as something that I did not intend.

[10:58] So I will—

Stuart Wellington

[10:59] So if you hear anything kind of fucked up come out of my mouth, you're like,

[11:02] oh, wow, what's the stuff that he took out?

Dan McCoy

[11:05] Stuart stands behind what he's saying 100%.

[11:08] That's the lesson that you should take.

[11:10] Everything on the podcast from now on, he stands behind—

[11:13] I'm playing a character.

[11:15] The character said that.

[11:17] Come on, babies.

[11:18] Levels of indemnification here.

[11:21] This is a real Jon Stewart saying, I'm just—

[11:23] You know, I just make jokes thing going on.

[11:25] Oh, no.

[11:27] Yeah, very little gets cut.

[11:29] Bathroom breaks get cut.

[11:31] We find that listeners probably don't love those.

[11:34] Yeah, because we're not mic'd up in there yet.

Elliott Kalan

[11:37] Yeah, we don't have—

[11:37] Yeah, we'll bring the mics in there someday.

[11:39] Yeah.

[11:40] For the plop house.

[11:41] Sorry, we should cut that joke.

[11:42] Yeah, cut that one out.

Dan McCoy

[11:46] But in the old days when I did it, I mostly—

[11:49] Like, early on, I was like, let me tighten this thing up.

[11:53] Let me cut out, you know, ums and errs and whatnot.

[11:56] And, I mean, not whatnots.

[11:58] Occasionally, those are important to the construction of a sentence.

[12:01] But I would cut them out.

[12:03] But then I found that, number one, I didn't like to do the work.

[12:06] And number two, you mess with sort of natural conversational timing too much,

[12:11] and it sounds weird.

[12:12] So I just would sort of, you know, put on the front and back of the show,

[12:18] the theme, figure out the outtakes from, like, when we were babbling ahead of time,

[12:23] put in ads, et cetera.

[12:25] Like, all of the very obvious cuts are most of the cuts that exist.

[12:29] I think Alex is a little bit better about dealing with overtalk if he hears it.

[12:35] And that's why the show now sounds better than when I was in charge.

Elliott Kalan

[12:38] Now it has minimum overtalk, whereas during Dan's reign it was maximum overtalk,

[12:43] just like the Stephen King movie of the same name in which all of the world's telephones

[12:49] come to life, which now that I think about it is kind of the plot of Cell,

[12:53] a very good Stephen King novel.

[12:54] So maybe I shouldn't make fun of him.

[12:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:57] How much gets cut?

[12:58] I mean, like, I think we've been over that.

[13:00] So we can put that question in the rear view.

[13:04] What kinds of things have gotten cut in the past?

[13:06] Too hot for TV, again, not really too hot for TV, too dumb for us.

Elliott Kalan

[13:13] Too poorly phrased for TV, I guess sometimes.

[13:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[13:18] I mean, I'm sure that I've, like, said something that was insensitive,

[13:22] because, but in the rhythm of the show, it, like, any details got lost.

[13:28] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[13:31] What else?

[13:32] What's involved in dealing with remote recording and syncing?

[13:36] So, you know, this is all really fascinating stuff.

[13:39] Again, trying to scare you out.

Elliott Kalan

[13:41] Well, I don't think there's any, I haven't seen any, oh, wait, Dan, were you talking,

[13:44] I was just about to say, I haven't seen any problems with remote recording, right?

[13:46] Mm-hmm.

[13:47] Yeah.

[13:48] Yeah.

[13:48] Yeah, because I think we're doing fine.

[13:50] Oh, sorry, Dan, were you talking about?

Dan McCoy

[13:51] It's a funny bit.

[13:52] It's a funny bit that's happening that is too much like real life.

[13:55] What a hilarious little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[13:57] Dan seems to say it's funny, and he's smiling, but his eyes aren't smiling.

Dan McCoy

[14:02] My eyes are always smiling, because they're Irish.

Elliott Kalan

[14:05] Oh, wow.

[14:08] Amstash.

[14:09] Irish eyes are, even when you're cutting your finger off and throwing it at your best friend's door,

[14:13] your Irish eyes are smiling every time.

[14:15] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[14:17] A former best friend's door.

[14:18] I guess if they were still best friends, he wouldn't have had to cut off his finger and throw it at his door.

[14:22] I mean, that dude sucked, right?

[14:24] He's a bummer.

[14:26] He's a no-no.

[14:27] Wait, which one?

[14:30] Padraic.

[14:31] Padraic.

[14:31] What's his name?

[14:33] The one?

[14:34] That's why he broke up with him, right?

[14:35] It's because he's a bummer.

[14:37] He's not a good friend.

Elliott Kalan

[14:38] I mean, he is a bummer.

[14:39] I don't know if he's not a good friend, necessarily.

Dan McCoy

[14:40] It seems like he's a good friend.

[14:42] It seems like the guy doing the breakup is maybe not the nicest in the family.

[14:45] Yes, that's true.

[14:46] Yeah.

[14:47] I mean, I understand his reasons.

[14:49] I have sympathy for both of them.

[14:50] That's the beauty of the movie.

[14:51] I think everyone's been on one side or the other of that, or both.

Elliott Kalan

[14:58] You've either just wanted to focus on your music, or you've just wanted to tell your friend about what's going on with your pet donkey.

Dan McCoy

[15:05] You've wanted to throw severed fingers at someone?

[15:08] Oh, so much.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Or is it a donkey or a pony?

[15:11] I'm trying to remember now.

[15:11] It's a donkey.

[15:12] It's a donkey, okay.

[15:13] Because it's very small.

Stuart Wellington

[15:15] Yeah.

[15:16] Jenny's a small donkey.

Elliott Kalan

[15:17] Yeah, they called us monkey.

[15:19] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[15:22] Recording remotely is fairly easy in this modern world.

[15:27] We have a Zoom, like you've seen at your office or on TV or during the pandemic.

[15:34] We're all familiar with Zooms.

Elliott Kalan

[15:35] Keep giving them examples of where they might have seen Zooms.

Dan McCoy

[15:39] We get a Zoom room, you know, like the song Boom Boom in the Zoom Room.

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] Dan, I love that you are the one who is running this mini.

[15:50] You chose to answer these questions, and you're answering them as if you are stalling for time to keep like a kidnapper on the phone line.

[15:57] Well, here's the thing.

Dan McCoy

[15:58] You guys are so loose.

[16:00] And the thing is about these answers is they're not essentially interesting, so we got to zazz them up a little.

[16:07] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[16:08] I didn't know we need a zazz.

[16:10] Okay.

[16:10] Hey, chat GPT.

[16:11] Just add 10% more zazz on these answers.

[16:14] No, Stu.

[16:15] Stu.

Elliott Kalan

[16:16] That's the whole point of the strike.

[16:17] We're not doing that.

[16:18] Although, chat GPT, if you could zazz it up a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[16:21] Why are we going to zazzle.com while we're at it?

Elliott Kalan

[16:24] Oh, wow.

[16:25] There was a – this was very scary to me.

[16:28] I saw an article where someone had AI write like a short episode of 30 Rock about the strike, and I read the script that was supposedly AI produced, and I was like, well, this is bad.

[16:39] It's not funny.

[16:40] The character voices are wrong.

[16:42] The plot doesn't make sense.

[16:43] The scenes don't go anywhere.

[16:45] But it doesn't read like a computer wrote it.

[16:46] It reads like a bad writer wrote it, and that really scared me.

[16:50] That if AI is already at the level of writing what bad writers can write, it was very frightening.

[16:54] So I guess what I'm saying is, chat GPT, if you can zazz this up a little bit, that'd be great.

[16:58] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:59] Whoever wrote that – whichever chat GPT wrote the 30 Rock script didn't have enough zazz.

Elliott Kalan

[17:04] I feel like that's the prompt that will cause the AI to destroy itself the way Kirk would talk a computer into some logic loop is you go, give me your prompt.

[17:13] And it's like, zazz this up.

[17:14] And the computer is just like, what is zazz?

[17:16] Does not compute.

[17:17] And then it explodes.

Dan McCoy

[17:18] Well, no.

[17:19] I just remember like, you know, executives are famous for giving contradictory notes.

[17:25] Yep.

[17:25] I've received many in my time.

[17:26] Yeah.

[17:26] We're going to – yeah, we're going to get a bunch of robot meltdowns of like, this is not logical in the future.

Elliott Kalan

[17:33] Irrational does not compute.

[17:34] How can I include more information about the character and also cut it down a bit?

Stuart Wellington

[17:40] But how can I inject my personal trauma into this story?

Elliott Kalan

[17:43] Well, when an executive sits down with an AI because the AI wants to pitch a story and the executive goes, but what about this is authentic to your experience?

[17:51] And the AI is like, I'm a computer.

[17:53] I have not lived a life.

[17:54] I don't know.

[17:55] I did the research.

[17:56] Does that count?

[17:57] I feel for it.

[17:58] But how does it tie into your childhood?

[18:01] It does not compute.

[18:02] Did not have childhood.

[18:03] And it explodes.

[18:05] Maybe that's –

[18:05] The AI always says, ah, before it explodes.

[18:06] I also feel like it would speak –

[18:07] Because it's Kathy bot.

[18:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:09] It should speak in full sentences if it wants the job.

Elliott Kalan

[18:12] It's true.

Stuart Wellington

[18:15] And not just saying beep boop in between.

Elliott Kalan

[18:18] It would be so funny if it's writing brilliant scripts but you can't use them because between every line of dialogue it says beep boop.

[18:24] And they're like, oh.

[18:25] It's just too expensive to take out all those beep boops.

Dan McCoy

[18:28] Yeah.

[18:28] And then the guild's like, don't tell anyone about find and replace.

[18:32] This is the only –

Stuart Wellington

[18:34] Yeah.

[18:34] Nobody talks about the fourth rule of robotics, which is to say beep boop is up in the spot.

[18:39] It's not possible.

Elliott Kalan

[18:39] If it doesn't conflict with the first three laws.

[18:42] That's the important thing about the robotics laws.

[18:44] So if a human orders a robot, don't say beep boop.

[18:47] Then it stops saying beep boop.

[18:48] Yeah.

[18:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:49] Well, thank you, chatbot, for all that zazz you added to this question.

[18:55] To finish with some information, we all record then locally into digital recorders.

[19:00] And Alex just matches those files up.

[19:04] We do a little count off.

[19:05] Very simple.

[19:06] Yeah, we record locally, but we think globally.

[19:09] Oh, wow.

[19:09] Cool.

[19:12] You know, some people clap to synchronize the tracks.

[19:16] Yeah.

[19:16] I asked Justin McElroy of the McElroy Brothers.

[19:19] Maybe you've heard of him.

[19:20] Oh, wow.

[19:21] Very famous.

[19:21] He said they do count off.

Stuart Wellington

[19:22] Put a little more zazz on that line there, Dan.

[19:25] You may have heard of him.

[19:26] Wait, do they clap?

[19:27] Do they –

[19:27] They do a count off.

Dan McCoy

[19:29] That's –

[19:29] They do a count off.

[19:30] Yeah, that's honestly why we do a count off.

[19:32] Oh, yeah.

[19:33] That sounds good.

[19:33] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:33] If it ain't broke, I'll do and fix it.

[19:35] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[19:38] Have you ever scrapped an entire episode on purpose?

[19:43] Not –

[19:43] Not on purpose, necessarily.

[19:45] Not on purpose.

[19:45] We scrapped –

[19:46] Let's see.

[19:46] There's the one that had a bunch of noise over it.

[19:49] There's one that we just lost.

[19:51] There's a couple that we just lost.

[19:53] Yeah.

[19:53] One regular one, one live show.

Elliott Kalan

[19:55] Now, we did scrap one on a porpoise.

[19:58] It was an accident, but it was on a porpoise.

[20:00] Mm-hmm.

[20:00] We said we were going to like record an episode, entire episode riding a porpoise.

[20:04] It did not work.

[20:05] The porpoise kept saying beep boop.

[20:06] It was a computer porpoise.

[20:08] Computer porpoise, yeah.

[20:10] Wow.

[20:11] Very waterproof.

[20:12] It was that computerized dolphin from Johnny Mnemonic, the movie.

[20:15] And so, he just wouldn't stop saying beep boop while we were recording.

[20:18] Oh, man.

Dan McCoy

[20:19] Yeah.

[20:20] But it was very squeaky beep boop.

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] Yeah, yeah.

[20:24] I don't think we've ever – I don't think we've ever recorded an episode and been like,

[20:27] ugh, that's no good because our standards are quite low.

[20:30] I was going to say the opposite.

[20:32] Whatever comes out of our mouth is fit for the audience.

Stuart Wellington

[20:33] Clearly, every episode we put out is basically perfect.

[20:36] So, to have this kind of a track record, you have to throw – you got to kiss a lot

[20:39] of frogs and throw those frogs in the garbage.

Dan McCoy

[20:41] I did start watching – I did start watching the movie Arsenal.

[20:48] It was one of the possibilities for a cage miss episode.

[20:51] About the soccer team?

Elliott Kalan

[20:53] Football, I'm sorry.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] No, it's the other use of Arsenal.

[20:56] Thank you, Stuart.

[20:56] I think it was about guns and stuff.

[20:59] I think that was its name.

[21:00] Anyway, I informed the guys it was just too, like, boring and just sort of – it had,

[21:08] like, bad vibes.

[21:09] I'm like, I don't think we're going to have fun talking about this.

[21:11] So, we did a switcheroo.

Elliott Kalan

[21:12] And there are also fun movies that we don't get to do because Dan's like,

[21:15] I watched that already.

Dan McCoy

[21:17] I've loosened up a lot about that.

[21:19] I used to be, like, I want us all to be, like, experiencing this for the first time.

[21:22] I think that's part of the –

Elliott Kalan

[21:23] Like, I have to preserve –

[21:24] Well, in fact –

[21:24] I have to preserve my Morbius hymen would have been the way that you used to think about it.

[21:28] And now you're like, you know what?

Stuart Wellington

[21:29] I'll do Morbius again.

[21:31] Why not, man?

[21:32] Well, in fact, like, next week's episode is a movie I had previously watched and enjoyed,

[21:36] and I'm excited to talk about it with you guys.

[21:38] When we talk about 84 Brady.

[21:40] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[21:41] Yeah, I've got –

[21:43] I'm going to have some words with you about your enjoyment of this film.

Elliott Kalan

[21:47] What I love is –

[21:48] So, I rarely have seen the movie ahead of time because the kind of movies I watch for fun

[21:53] are not the kinds of movies I do on the podcast.

[21:54] They are old.

[21:55] They are foreign.

[21:56] Solitary experience.

[21:57] Yeah, they're solitary experiences.

Dan McCoy

[21:58] Ellie is what people know as smart.

Elliott Kalan

[22:03] He's a smart, discerning person.

[22:06] And Dan, usually he watches, like, the action or the horror movies ahead of time.

[22:10] But Stuart, it's always all the romantic comedies.

[22:12] What audiences may not know is Stuart and his wife watch every romantic comedy that is released.

[22:17] I'm just a big fucking softie, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[22:20] I got a big old heart, and it needs to be filled with movies.

Dan McCoy

[22:25] To be massaged gently.

[22:27] It needs to be massaged gently.

[22:28] It's too big.

Stuart Wellington

[22:29] It's much too big.

[22:30] That's why I started lifting weights, so the rest of my body would match up with my giant heart.

Dan McCoy

[22:35] Yeah.

[22:37] You know, that's what's more important than having a beautiful mind.

[22:39] What?

[22:40] A beautiful heart.

[22:41] A giant heart.

[22:41] That's fucking ridiculous.

[22:43] A giant massagable heart.

Elliott Kalan

[22:43] Did a fucking robot write that line?

[22:46] I mean, that is a movie that at times feels like a robot wrote it.

[22:49] Yeah, that's true, yeah.

[22:51] Why?

[22:51] It does not compute.

[22:52] Why does the person with emotional issues not just stop having those emotional issues?

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] Thank you, Medibot.

Elliott Kalan

[22:59] Now check out fucking Amidala's pregnancy for me.

[23:03] It seems as if she lost the will to live.

[23:05] What school did you go to, Medibot?

[23:07] Like, that's not a diagnosis.

Stuart Wellington

[23:09] It was a liberal arts college.

Elliott Kalan

[23:12] I technically have a doctorate in English literature.

[23:15] Medibot.

[23:16] Minor in hacky sack.

[23:19] This is a real catch-me-if-you-can scenario.

Dan McCoy

[23:25] Hey, you know what?

[23:26] We're about halfway through the show.

[23:29] Whoa.

[23:31] Maybe it might be two-thirds of the way.

[23:33] We might be doing like a Broadway style, you know, where the first act is significantly longer.

Elliott Kalan

[23:38] Yeah, there's more songs than the first act.

[23:39] Act two.

[23:40] That is the worst thing that you can hear at a stand-up show is after you've sat through four or five comics.

[23:44] Yeah.

[23:45] You go, okay, we're halfway through.

[23:46] And you're like, seriously?

Dan McCoy

[23:48] Yeah.

[23:50] Anyway, I think it's a good time to thank our sponsors.

[23:54] Of course, every episode of The Flophouse is sponsored by listeners like you who have become members at MaxFun, MaximumFun.org.

[24:03] Thank you very much.

[24:05] Yes.

[24:05] Thank you to our current members.

[24:07] Thank you to our past members.

[24:08] And you know what?

[24:09] Thank you to our future members.

[24:11] Ooh, members yet unborn.

[24:13] Consider joining at some point in the future.

Elliott Kalan

[24:15] It is not an over-exaggeration to say that your support is what is getting Dan and me through this strike right now.

[24:24] Yes.

[24:25] So we really appreciate it.

[24:26] That is 100% true.

Dan McCoy

[24:28] But also, in a smaller way, we get support from a few sponsors.

[24:34] And let's thank them by fulfilling our contract with them and reading the thanks we've been provided.

Elliott Kalan

[24:44] I love, Dan, that you just – again, you are pulling back the curtain.

[24:47] Yeah.

[24:47] We don't miss.

Dan McCoy

[24:50] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Soylent, the original food tech company that makes delicious and nutritious nutrition products in convenient formats.

[25:02] You got your Soylent Complete Meal that comes in convenient, ready-to-drink shake and powder formats.

[25:09] And it provides 20 grams of plant-based protein, 39 essential nutrients, healthy fats, and 400 calories of slower-burning carbohydrates in one delicious serving.

[25:20] Now, this seems like something a muscle man like Stuart could enjoy.

[25:24] We got Soylent Squared, small in size, big on nutrition.

[25:28] Soylent Squared is a delicious and balanced 100-calorie complete nutrition bar that can be taken on the go, eaten as a snack between meals, or enjoyed as a sweet, nutritious mini-treat.

[25:39] You know, have you ever done any calorie counting, as I have, as I intermittently attempt to adjust my weight?

[25:48] It's hard to find a snack that's 100 calories or less.

[25:52] So perhaps this is a good option for you.

[25:56] Soylent Complete Energy is not your typical energy drink.

[25:59] It is the first complete nutrition nootropic shake to fuel your mind and body, formulated with a proprietary blend of B vitamins, caffeine, I-theanine, I-tyrosine, and alpha-GPC plus 15 grams of plant-based protein.

[26:15] And Dan, now you're going to explain to us what each of those things are, right?

[26:18] Oh, I could, Elliot.

[26:20] I don't think I could.

[26:21] We just simply don't have the time.

[26:24] A delicious way to keep going throughout the day without sugar highs and lows.

[26:28] And Complete Protein, a deliciously rich and creamy plant-based high-protein nutrition shake with 30 grams of complete plant-based protein.

[26:37] 39 essential nutrients and zero grams total sugars.

[26:41] This unique, well-balanced shake also provides 5 grams BCAAs.

[26:47] You got to get them BCAAs.

[26:49] Yeah, yeah.

[26:49] Tell them this out.

[26:50] Don't want them on the table.

[26:51] And 1,000 milligrams omega-3 healthy fats.

[26:54] Satisfy your protein needs without sacrificing nutrition or taste.

[26:57] These are the quickest, easiest meals on the planet.

[27:00] No cooking.

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[27:01] If any of this sounds to your liking, why not go to Soylent.com slash flop and use code flop to get 20% off your first order.

[27:12] That's Soylent.com slash flop and code flop for 20% off your first order.

Elliott Kalan

[27:20] And I have known multiple people who have relied on Soylent for getting in shape for roles that they were about to take.

[27:26] These were actors.

[27:27] And they found it effective and also they enjoyed it.

Stuart Wellington

[27:31] Yeah.

[27:31] And I want to jump in here and say, Dan, you don't have to lose any weight.

[27:35] I love you just the way you are, buddy.

[27:37] You're great.

[27:38] Thanks.

Dan McCoy

[27:39] I mean, it does personally make me feel a little bit better.

[27:44] I just want to make that clear.

Elliott Kalan

[27:45] And Dan, as your doctor, you know, maybe a little bit.

Dan McCoy

[27:49] Yeah, I mean, to anyone out there, I want to make it clear.

[27:53] You should love the body you're in.

[27:55] But, you know, just for my own health, I have felt it necessary.

Elliott Kalan

[27:59] And Dan, can you describe how physically we should love the body we're in?

[28:02] Are there any sorts of things we should do with our hands particularly?

[28:05] Different podcast.

Dan McCoy

[28:06] I think that's for private times.

[28:09] You should probably not do that around others.

[28:11] Private time is the podcast name.

[28:12] Without their consent.

[28:13] I mean, there's a whole list of things.

[28:16] I can send them to you, Elliot.

[28:17] I'll give you some pointers.

Elliott Kalan

[28:18] With diagrams, yeah.

[28:19] That'd be great.

[28:20] If you can send me your JOFAQ.

[28:22] Links to videos.

Stuart Wellington

[28:25] What did you say?

[28:27] Links to videos.

[28:28] I'm not going to specify the location.

Dan McCoy

[28:31] I thought you said all the feels.

[28:34] And I was like, oh, that's an interesting usage of that phrase.

[28:36] I mean, it's a certain type of feel.

[28:37] Because it really is the feels that you're interested in.

[28:41] A certain type of way.

Elliott Kalan

[28:42] Literally.

[28:42] We also have a Jumbotron, Dan.

[28:45] Oh, wow.

[28:45] Thank God.

[28:46] This Jumbotron, it's a message for Zachary Michael.

[28:49] And the message is from YFU.

[28:51] And the message says, no peaches for you.

[28:54] Shame.

[28:55] Shame.

[28:56] That's it.

[28:57] Quite a mystery.

[28:58] Oh.

[28:58] I wonder if someone is using our podcast to create like a sort of escape room or one of

[29:03] those monthly puzzle boxes people get.

[29:06] Very.

[29:06] But I hope that the intended recipient of that message received it and understood it.

Stuart Wellington

[29:12] Dan was telling me about his favorite monthly puzzle box is when he just takes other people's

[29:17] packages and tries to figure out what it is.

[29:19] I don't do.

Dan McCoy

[29:21] They're not.

[29:22] Things are true.

Elliott Kalan

[29:24] Dan, do you think that our Jumbotron has been used to awake a sort of Manchurian Candidate

[29:29] sleep or cell agent just now?

[29:30] I hope not.

[29:31] That's my worry.

[29:32] I hope it wasn't.

Stuart Wellington

[29:33] I hope not.

[29:33] Unless it's like one of the dudes in 100 Bullets.

[29:36] Because those dudes are fucking cool as hell.

[29:38] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[29:39] Yeah.

[29:40] If you are a Manchurian Candidate sleep or cell agent, let us know.

[29:43] And let us know if you've been awakened and what your mission is.

[29:45] That'd be great.

[29:46] Dan Churian Candidate.

[29:48] Dan Churian Candidate or Manchurian Dandedate.

[29:52] It works both ways.

Dan McCoy

[29:58] Hi, I'm Travis McElroy.

S4

[29:59] And I'm Teresa McElroy.

Dan McCoy

[30:01] And we're the hosts of Schmanners.

S4

[30:03] If you're looking for a good place to jump into our show, we really recommend either the

[30:08] Playgrounds episode or the Job Interviews episode.

Dan McCoy

[30:11] Or if you want to go way back, you can check out the episode where we compare the differences

[30:15] between afternoon tea and high tea.

[30:18] So check out those episodes and new episodes every Friday on Maximum Fun or wherever you

[30:23] get your podcasts.

S5

[30:27] Hey, it's John Moe inviting you to listen to Depresh Mode with John Moe, where I talk

[30:32] about mental health and the lives we live with all kinds of people.

[30:36] Famous writers.

[30:37] David Sedaris, welcome to Depresh Mode.

[30:39] Thanks so much for having me.

[30:40] Movie stars.

[30:41] Jamie Lee Curtis, welcome to Depresh Mode.

Dan McCoy

[30:43] I am happy to be here.

S5

[30:46] Musicians.

[30:46] I am in St. Paul, Minnesota.

[30:48] I'm talking to Amy Mann.

Dan McCoy

[30:49] Great to talk to you.

[30:50] And song exploders.

[30:52] Rishi K.

[30:53] Shiraway, welcome to Depresh Mode.

[30:54] Thanks so much for having me.

S5

[30:56] Everyone's opening up on Depresh Mode on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[31:03] Okay, the next question is, how do you take notes and how detailed are they?

[31:09] Ellie, you're the biggest note taker for movies.

Elliott Kalan

[31:11] I love taking notes.

[31:13] I'm a big note taker.

[31:14] And I take notes on each scene of the movie as it's happening.

[31:18] What happens then is I usually condense those notes into, I try to do no more than 18 kind

[31:24] of bullet point chunks.

[31:27] And sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less.

[31:30] But I often, when you're taking notes in a movie, here's the problem.

[31:34] You often don't know what moments are important or not important until after you've gotten

[31:38] a little more context.

[31:39] And I don't want to waste your time, the listener, with unimportant stuff.

[31:43] So I'll go back and I'll condense it a little bit and edit it.

[31:46] But yeah, I take pretty detailed notes during the movie.

[31:50] Unfortunately, it's hard to pick up the names of characters in modern movies.

[31:55] Often, they don't use them that much or they use them very casually.

[31:58] And so I'll be, go back and forth in my notes, replying, referring to a character by either

[32:03] their character name or the actor's name.

[32:05] And I get a little confused.

[32:06] So that's something I need to smooth out later.

[32:08] Did I have time to condense my notes for our next week's episode, 80 for Brady?

[32:12] I did not.

[32:13] So let's find out.

[32:14] Oh, wow.

[32:15] And it's rich with incident.

[32:16] It's rich with incident and low on plot.

[32:19] Low on plot, rich with incident.

[32:21] The characters' names are not memorable.

[32:23] And so we'll see.

[32:24] Yeah.

[32:25] I mean, with that one, you just think of them as the three or the four actors.

[32:31] Yeah.

[32:32] I'm not going to be like, well, then Lily Tomlin and someone's going to write in and be like,

[32:35] you mean Lou, the character, right?

[32:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[32:39] Yeah.

[32:39] They'll disappear into their roles in this movie.

[32:43] There's almost no role for them to disappear into.

Elliott Kalan

[32:46] That's the amazing thing.

Dan McCoy

[32:47] I do a little less summarizing or a lot less summarizing.

[32:50] But when I do it, I try and only do bullet points for multiple reasons.

[32:57] One is just laziness of note-taking.

[32:59] I will admit it.

[33:00] But I also think that my time would be better served paying more attention to the movie and

[33:05] less time typing.

[33:07] And if I write too much on the page, I'm okay at adjusting on the fly.

[33:11] But sometimes I'll just get into more detail than is necessary.

Elliott Kalan

[33:16] Often you're doing things like folding your laundry or cutting mangoes that make it hard

[33:20] to also write notes at the same time.

Stuart Wellington

[33:22] Organizing is CDs.

Elliott Kalan

[33:25] Our recording schedule.

[33:27] Experiencing all the feels.

Dan McCoy

[33:29] Our recording schedule has changed a little.

[33:31] But when we used to record on the weekends and we were watching the movies on the weekends

[33:36] and I was in charge, Audrey would actually offer to take notes, which is very, very nice of her.

[33:43] I was like, I'm very Midwestern, so I'm like, no, no.

[33:46] I can do it.

[33:47] And then we would both end up taking notes until she was like, look, I'm doing this so

[33:51] you can watch the movie.

[33:53] And so that's.

Stuart Wellington

[33:54] Oh, yeah, that's cool.

[33:56] Yeah.

[33:56] I mean, I feel like this question is mainly directed at me because I'm a summary master.

[34:00] So, yeah, I mean, I take notes in my little computer notes app and I try and condense it

[34:08] after I've watched the movie.

[34:09] I also, a little peek behind the curtain, I try and focus on setting up my.

[34:16] I'm co-hosts for jokes as opposed to making jokes myself.

[34:21] Who knows if I'm successful?

Elliott Kalan

[34:22] That's only for God to decide.

[34:24] I will.

[34:25] That's a fair point.

[34:26] I will sometimes write down funny things that I notice, but I will also write down in my

[34:30] notes questions that I want to ask you guys or things I want to prompt you to do.

[34:34] And then while I'm doing the summary, I'm like, eh, I'll just do this myself.

[34:37] And then I, and I don't always follow those prompts.

[34:39] But often if you hear me say like, Dan, can you describe this thing that I've written

[34:43] that in my notes?

[34:44] Oh, that's right.

Dan McCoy

[34:45] That's a good, that's a good pointer.

[34:46] We should share our practices more.

[34:50] More often.

[34:50] Yeah.

[34:51] Pointers from one another.

Stuart Wellington

[34:52] I also, I take all my notes.

[34:53] I don't get angry at him for being like, where are you putting me on the fucking spot, dude?

[34:57] Yeah.

[34:58] I was taking a sip of water.

[34:59] What are you doing?

[35:00] You also have notes.

Elliott Kalan

[35:01] I can't expect that you wanted, how could I host this person that you would expect me

[35:04] to talk about the movie we watched on this podcast where we talk about movies?

Dan McCoy

[35:08] Well, I mean, there is a rule in improv that you're not supposed to pimp someone into something,

[35:14] as they call it.

Stuart Wellington

[35:16] Yeah.

[35:16] Luckily, I've never taken an improv class.

[35:18] This is all natural.

Elliott Kalan

[35:19] I didn't know we were doing improv too, since the rule I believe in improv is yes and, and

[35:23] Dan's rule is off.

[35:24] Why would you ask me that?

[35:25] No, no, no.

[35:26] I'm not a part of this.

Dan McCoy

[35:27] I know.

[35:27] Well, I may have, you know, I may have lost trust for you based on all the other times

[35:32] that you write in your notes, interrupt Dan here.

Elliott Kalan

[35:37] Well, that's when you're summarizing, I just write interrupt on a piece of paper and I just

[35:41] hold that up.

Dan McCoy

[35:42] Yeah.

[35:42] Tape it to your screen.

Elliott Kalan

[35:44] One thing I will mention is I take my notes by hand, unlike Stuart.

[35:47] And so like, I have these books of notes for movies that we've watched and I've been trying

[35:52] to think of something to do with them.

[35:53] And the ideas come up in the past about trying to auction them off for charity or something.

[35:57] And I may try to do that maybe to support the strike.

[36:01] Let's see if I can get my acts together, which I might not be able to, but we'll see.

[36:06] I'll talk to these guys about how they think maybe we could do that.

Dan McCoy

[36:09] That sounds good.

[36:10] The next question.

[36:12] Have any of the movie makers ever contacted you except the one who was a recent guest?

[36:17] I'm assuming that in that case, except the one who was a recent guest is referring to

[36:22] from the Super Mario Brothers when we had the screenwriter on.

[36:27] Oh, yes.

[36:29] But I mean, obviously also Chris Weitz of Twilight New Moon, who has become...

[36:36] Friend of the pod.

[36:37] His signature credit.

[36:38] Total sweetheart.

[36:39] Yeah.

[36:40] Yeah.

[36:40] A lovely human being who has, even after we made fun of Twilight, invited us into his home.

[36:50] Man, this fucking game.

Stuart Wellington

[36:52] One of these days, he's going to take you downstairs to show you that fucking cask of Amontillado.

[36:57] Yep.

[36:58] Just brick you into the wall.

[36:59] And you're going to be like, you know what?

[37:01] Game recognized game.

[37:03] The long con.

Elliott Kalan

[37:06] Other than that, no, I don't think so, right?

Stuart Wellington

[37:08] What about Accidental Love or whatever?

Dan McCoy

[37:13] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:14] We had the Nailed Brothers, I'll call them.

[37:18] That was Matt Silverstein and Dave Jesser.

[37:20] That was a little different in that they didn't get in touch with us after we recorded about the movie.

[37:25] Oh, yeah, right.

[37:26] I was working with them on a television show called House Broken, and they suggested that we do that movie.

[37:33] Oh, that makes sense.

[37:33] And I wanted to have them on for it.

[37:34] But I did have a recent experience on an airplane in which someone walked up to me.

[37:40] I was flying from L.A. to New York, and someone walked up to me on the plane and said,

[37:44] are you really Caelan from the Flophouse?

[37:45] I love your podcast, even when you're making fun of one of my movies.

[37:48] And I'm like, what?

[37:49] Huh?

[37:49] What?

[37:49] And he revealed to me he was a producer on Wild Mountain Time.

[37:54] And I felt very bad for a moment that I had lambasted the film.

[37:58] And I was like, Dan kind of liked it.

[38:00] And he was like, it's fine.

[38:01] It's fine.

[38:02] So he was very nice.

[38:03] He was very pleasant.

[38:04] I have yet to have an experience personally, I don't know about you guys, where someone has,

[38:09] A, known that we covered a movie of theirs, and B, was mad about it.

[38:13] I've certainly been in, especially during this strike, I've been in meetings with people whose movies we have covered,

[38:18] and I have not gone out of my way to tell them that we have covered their movie.

Dan McCoy

[38:23] Yeah, you don't know how people will respond.

[38:27] Parker Bennett was the screenwriter for, I forgot to mention his name, one we said before.

[38:33] Oh, and you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[38:33] I once worked with Michael Colton and John Abood, who worked on Zoolander 2, as they were writers on that.

[38:43] And one of them liked our coverage of Zoolander 2.

[38:46] The other one, I think, did not appreciate it.

[38:48] Oh, wow.

[38:49] Well, that's a shame.

[38:51] They're both very nice guys.

[38:52] I'm still friendly with both of them.

[38:53] They're both nice guys.

Dan McCoy

[38:54] I may have mentioned this at the time, but the first time I ever got paid for a piece of comedy writing was in Modern Humorist,

[39:03] which they founded back in the day, a website.

[39:08] I did a piece called First Drafts of Famous Poems that got cut down into one poem,

[39:12] but you know what?

[39:14] It set me on my path, so thanks guys.

Elliott Kalan

[39:18] And they're doing great.

[39:19] They're currently, they were the creators of the show Home Economics,

[39:22] and until the strike they were running that show,

[39:24] and Michael Colton was on Jeopardy as a contestant, did much better than I did.

[39:29] So, you know, who's laughing now?

[39:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:32] Yeah, that's the thing.

[39:33] Hopefully our audience.

[39:35] Most of the people we cover are very successful, so they can afford to be.

[39:39] Yeah, they can laugh it off.

[39:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:41] But if I could be mean about it, who's laughing now?

[39:43] Not the viewers of Zoolander 2.

Stuart Wellington

[39:45] Wow.

[39:48] Oh, man.

[39:49] Oh, he's a stinker.

[39:51] Oh, look at him.

[39:53] Oh, look at him.

[39:54] He's doing all dance.

[39:55] He's doing all kicking.

[39:56] He's capering around.

Dan McCoy

[39:58] He's getting smaller and smaller.

[40:00] Oh, wow.

[40:02] Oh, now he's back.

[40:05] Guys, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[40:07] There's worlds within worlds.

[40:09] We're like ants.

[40:10] Ants.

[40:11] Quantumania.

Dan McCoy

[40:13] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[40:14] Who's Quantumania?

Dan McCoy

[40:16] Hey, this is the last question.

[40:18] Did you guys see that movie?

[40:19] Unless we sort of go back.

Stuart Wellington

[40:21] Hey, did you guys see Quantumania?

[40:22] I haven't seen it yet.

[40:23] Are there ants in it?

Elliott Kalan

[40:24] I haven't seen that Ant-Man movie with the Quantums.

Dan McCoy

[40:26] I saw the Ant-Man movie.

[40:28] Uh-huh.

[40:28] I enjoyed it okay.

[40:30] I think everyone's right who makes the critique of like, why are we doing an Ant-Man movie that

[40:35] removes all sense of scale?

[40:37] Because everything is like.

[40:40] It's in like wacky verse, right?

Elliott Kalan

[40:42] Yeah.

[40:43] Yeah.

[40:43] It takes place in the cartoon world from Roger Rabbit.

[40:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:47] Oh, cool.

[40:48] It is the.

[40:48] And horny.

[40:49] The most.

[40:51] The most expensive looking movie you'll see where basically every shot just looks like

[40:56] people standing in front of a green screen.

[40:58] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[40:59] That's what it looked like from the trailers and the pictures.

[41:02] And I remember in the trailer, there's a shot where he and his daughter are like running

[41:05] from a spaceship that's shooting lasers at them in like a Dayglo fantasy world.

[41:09] And I was like, this is not what I want out of this Ant-Man movie.

[41:11] I mean, there is fun.

[41:13] I want it to be holding up a paper clip and it's enormous.

Stuart Wellington

[41:16] Yeah, yeah.

[41:17] I want him to be like, look at that steering wheel.

[41:20] That thing is huge.

[41:21] That thing is huge.

Elliott Kalan

[41:21] You got it, Tiny A.

[41:23] That's from Tiny A, man.

[41:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:25] I thought it was Tiny Austin Butler.

[41:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] It's actually Tiny Austin Pendleton.

Dan McCoy

[41:32] There is fun stuff in it though.

[41:34] And I like the way it ends.

[41:35] It ends on a note of like comic anxiety that is like different than most Marvel movies.

[41:39] But if you've got Marvel fatigue, it is certainly not an essential one.

[41:44] Don't.

[41:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] Don't.

[41:45] Don't.

[41:45] You know.

[41:46] Walk.

[41:46] Don't run.

[41:47] Yeah.

[41:47] I think I'm saving up my, I'm saving up my, my Marvel fatigue.

[41:50] The lactic Marvel acid is, is just dying down.

[41:53] So I think I'll go see, I might see Guardians and then let the, that build up again.

[41:57] I love it.

[41:58] I'm feeling it.

[41:58] We'll be talking about Guardians.

[41:59] I mostly liked it.

[42:00] Next episode.

[42:02] All right.

[42:03] Feelings.

[42:03] I'll try to watch it.

[42:04] I'm not busy striking for my life, Charlie Brown.

Dan McCoy

[42:07] You know who I saw.

[42:08] Speaking of writer's strike and Guardians, you know, I saw a screening, a screening of Guardians.

[42:14] Oh, no.

[42:14] Jim Starlin?

[42:16] Opus from the Colbert Report.

[42:19] Oh, okay.

[42:19] You make a joke about using the writer's strike.

[42:22] At least a couple of us in the same screening were watching Guardians.

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] I mean, but that's, I mean, that's, it's totally against the spirit of the writer's strike for you to take that time off to go pay for Hollywood movies.

[42:34] Like to support, support the machine that's crushing us.

Dan McCoy

[42:37] I mean, I already, I mean, it's part of it.

[42:39] That work has already been paid for.

[42:41] Oh, that's right.

Elliott Kalan

[42:41] And you've got the Alamo package.

[42:43] So you're, so you're, so you're watching, you're stealing money from the executives.

[42:46] Nice job.

[42:47] Nice.

[42:47] Well, really you're stealing from the theater chain, I suppose.

[42:50] But, you know.

Dan McCoy

[42:50] The theater chain makes it up in concessions, especially in Alamo where they're serving you them burgers and stuff.

[42:56] Yeah, you wouldn't, you wouldn't download a movie, would you?

[42:59] You wouldn't download a cheeseburger, would you?

Elliott Kalan

[43:01] I mean, did I pay to watch 80 for Brady?

[43:04] Maybe not.

[43:05] Maybe that's part of my strike.

[43:07] But I would download a cheeseburger, especially if it's in paradise.

Dan McCoy

[43:11] I feel like at this point we're closer to just talking than podcasting.

[43:14] So let's get to the last question.

Elliott Kalan

[43:16] Is there a difference?

Dan McCoy

[43:18] The last question is, what other prep do you do for an episode?

[43:21] And that is, we watch the movie all separately.

[43:25] When you talk about remote viewing, like that's the sad part about doing things remote is we don't get to

[43:33] watch altogether unless we're doing like a live show.

[43:37] Yeah.

[43:37] For years we used to watch it together.

Stuart Wellington

[43:39] Instead, we have to make, actively make time to spend with each other if we want to hang out, not podcasting.

[43:46] Yeah.

[43:47] Which is lovely.

[43:48] And I used to, my prep used to be drinking a lot.

[43:54] I don't do that anymore.

Dan McCoy

[43:56] Yeah.

[43:57] That also used to be my prep because I was younger and we did it at night.

[44:02] Now that I have more physical infirmity and we're doing it in the middle of the day, it's less of the, it's slim to none.

[44:12] Let's say.

Elliott Kalan

[44:15] Yeah.

[44:16] I used to be full of chicken when we do those recordings, but now I have to eat my chicken at other times.

[44:20] Yeah.

[44:20] Because I'm not going to eat a four piece Popeye's bone in meal at 10 in the morning.

Dan McCoy

[44:26] Yeah.

[44:26] Or should I?

[44:27] I mean, you would.

[44:28] I mean, I would.

[44:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:29] But.

[44:30] But I feel kind of, I feel the rest of the day.

Dan McCoy

[44:32] sense of propriety that keeps you from going down that road.

Stuart Wellington

[44:37] Yeah.

[44:37] You take a look at the pictures of your children in your wallet and you're like, not today.

[44:42] I got to do this for them.

[44:43] I know.

Dan McCoy

[44:45] I mean, in terms of preparation too, like I'm the kind of person who likes to know how this

[44:51] connects to the greater sort of movie world, like what people have worked on, you know.

[44:55] Oh, yeah.

[44:56] Yeah.

[44:56] Like to track down.

[44:57] I leave that to blank check.

[44:58] What has the screenwriter done?

[44:59] What has this director done?

[45:00] If it's someone unfamiliar to me.

[45:02] Like, is there any sort of trivia about this movie that I can dig up or whatnot?

[45:09] And that's always interesting to me, like the context.

[45:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[45:12] You go and live in the goof section.

Elliott Kalan

[45:15] I live in the goofs.

[45:17] He goes, Audrey, you won't see me for a while.

[45:20] I've got to go to the goof side.

[45:22] Yeah.

[45:24] By Dave Berg.

[45:28] There was my son has discovered Mad Magazine.

[45:33] And, you know, the way Mad Magazine works now is there's, I don't think they put out any

[45:36] new material.

[45:36] It's all repackaging of old material, which means he'll get an issue that has a theme.

[45:41] And some of the articles are from the 90s.

[45:43] Some are from the 60s.

[45:45] And they often will have a lighter side of, and he'll be like, look at this.

[45:49] And I'm like, oh yeah, that was always the worst part of the magazine when I was a kid.

[45:52] And he'll laugh at it and I'll notice, oh, Dave Berg didn't do this.

[45:56] This must have been after Dave Berg died and somebody else took it over.

[45:59] Yeah, I never understood.

Stuart Wellington

[46:00] It's like the lighter side of the Iran-Contra conflict.

Dan McCoy

[46:04] Yeah.

[46:05] Those were the weakest.

[46:07] And I was never fond of the bread and butter of Mad when I was reading it, the long movie

[46:15] parodies that were just, you know.

[46:16] Really?

Elliott Kalan

[46:17] Oh, I really liked those when I was a kid.

[46:19] But it's like with the lighter side, it was like the adult swim of reading a magazine.

[46:24] Kids, get out of the pool.

[46:25] Here's something for old people.

[46:26] And it would just be like, in every issue, every single issue, three pages of this children

[46:31] or this young person's humor magazine is taken over for jokes about like being a baby boomer

[46:37] and getting older and being annoyed with young people.

[46:39] It's really crazy.

[46:42] No, give me a-

[46:43] At least the cartooning was visually hilarious, right?

Stuart Wellington

[46:46] Yeah.

[46:47] Who's, wait, so who is that guy?

[46:49] Was it Don Severin?

[46:52] Is that who I'm thinking of?

Elliott Kalan

[46:53] No, John Severin did do work for Mad.

[46:55] You're thinking about Don Martin, maybe?

Stuart Wellington

[46:57] Don Martin, maybe, yeah, who did the crazy faces.

Elliott Kalan

[46:59] Yeah.

[46:59] He would do like Mr. Phone Bone and shploying and things like that.

[47:02] That dude fucking rocks.

[47:03] I like that.

[47:04] You know, give me the-

[47:04] I mean, the greatest stuff, and if, Dan, you're not reading the movie parodies, you're missing

[47:08] Mort Drucker's work, and he was maybe the greatest caricaturist there's ever been.

Dan McCoy

[47:12] The art is great.

[47:13] I just found the writing on those to just be like, I don't know.

[47:18] Like, I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[47:19] Well, I guess if this is the one episode that Dick DiBartolo listens to, we're going to be

[47:23] in trouble.

Dan McCoy

[47:24] I get that it's a series of strung together gags on the theme of a movie, but I just would

[47:30] get bored by it very quickly.

[47:32] Give me the shorter pieces.

[47:35] Give me a snappy answer to stupid questions so I can learn how to be a sarcastic jerk and

[47:39] not be nice to people asking very reasonable questions.

Stuart Wellington

[47:46] I would love to see, Elliot, I would love to see you do a movie parody.

[47:51] Write a movie parody, Mad Magazine style, and get, I don't know, Tom Fowler to do the art.

[47:56] Oh, that's a great idea.

[47:57] He's a great caricaturist, and I feel like you'd get the spirit perfectly.

[48:02] Someday, who knows?

[48:03] Someday, I'd love to do that.

Elliott Kalan

[48:04] Yeah, the universe.

[48:05] Yeah, got to pick up the right movie for it.

[48:07] That's the thing.

[48:08] We'll have to see.

[48:09] And then you got to watch the movie.

[48:10] The only Mad Magazine ones I had trouble with were the ones where it was clear they had

[48:13] not really seen the movie and were doing it off of the trailer.

[48:17] There was one when Goldeneye was coming out.

[48:19] All that they had heard was this was going to be a kinder, gentler, more 90s PC bond.

[48:26] And so the whole parody was about that.

[48:27] And you watch the movie, and it's like, none of that comes through.

[48:30] The movie doesn't have any of that.

[48:32] There's still a, he still has a sex fight in a sauna with a lady.

[48:36] It didn't fit.

Dan McCoy

[48:39] Well, that's been our mini on Mad Magazine.

[48:43] So thank you for listening.

[48:47] If you want to support the writer's strike again, Elliot, how would you recommend that people do that?

[48:52] You're better at this.

Elliott Kalan

[48:53] I mean, one thing you can do is you can, if you are in the creative industries, if you are a union member, whether the WGA or SAG-AFTRA or a DGA or a Teamster or a IATSE, a laborer, we would welcome you on any of the picket lines in New York or Los Angeles.

[49:11] I just saw a thing.

[49:13] I think it was a thing.

[49:17] They had put together a small picket line and was able to stop that production because IATSE workers and Teamsters, I think, are not crossing – Teamsters especially are not crossing the line right now, which is wonderful.

[49:27] This is the first union action I can think of in my time in the guild where all the unions seem to be lined up together, which is really fantastic.

[49:35] But if you can't do that thing, if you can't come picket with us, and if you're not a member of a craft union or an entertainment union, the better thing to do is go to entertainmentcommunity.org.

[49:45] That's entertainmentcommunity.org.

[49:47] Go to donate and earmark your donation for film and television professionals.

[49:54] Not to say that you shouldn't support live performance professionals if you would like to.

[49:57] That's the other thing.

[49:58] But for this strike, it's film and television professionals, and that money will be there for when writers, writer's assistants, like I said, support staff who are out of work because of this strike when they need it the most.

[50:10] So thank you very much for doing so.

[50:12] We really do appreciate it.

[50:13] And otherwise, get on social media and just tweet about how great writers are and how they should be treated properly and that it's a profession and not like a hobby slash gig that we do because we love giving computers things to ingest so they can spit out crap.

[50:29] Does that make sense?

[50:30] Is that clear?

[50:31] Yeah.

[50:31] It makes sense to me.

[50:33] Okay, great, great.

Dan McCoy

[50:35] Well, yeah, thank you for that.

[50:37] And then thank you to our producer and editor, Alex Smith, for all his fine work.

[50:42] Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[50:45] Again, go to MaximumFun.org to check out all the other great podcasts on the network.

[50:51] They're adding new ones all the time.

[50:53] Well, not all the time.

[50:54] That would be absurd.

[50:56] But very frequently.

[50:57] Who would have to listen to it if there was a new one every moment?

[50:59] You could wish to it.

[51:00] That's unsustainable growth.

Elliott Kalan

[51:01] We should also thank—

[51:03] Andy Warhol did say that in the future, everyone will have a podcast, but still.

[51:05] Sorry, Stuart, you were saying.

Stuart Wellington

[51:06] We should also thank Aaron for the questions.

[51:09] It was Aaron, right?

[51:09] Thank you, Aaron.

[51:10] Can we answer the first one?

Dan McCoy

[51:12] How do we make the show?

[51:13] Uh-huh.

[51:14] Well, in the words of Jesse Thorne, the show is produced by speaking into microphones.

[51:19] And in the words of me, poorly.

[51:21] Yeah.

[51:23] So, thanks, everyone.

[51:25] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[51:27] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[51:29] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[51:31] Bye!

[51:32] Ho-ha!

[51:34] Heee!

[51:35] Heee!

FH Mini 80 - Behind the Scenes

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