Ep.#465 - Smurfs, with Jesse Thorn

Stuart Wellington

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

[0:03] We'll decide, does it Smurf that Smurf, or is it a big piece of Smurf?

[0:30] Smurf.

[0:33] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[0:34] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:35] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[0:36] Hey, Dan.

[0:36] It's me, Stuart Wellington, your friend.

Elliott Kalan

[0:38] My name's Ellie Kalin, and I'm also Dan's friend.

[0:41] Have the rumors been going around saying I'm not Dan's friend and only Stuart is Dan's friend?

Dan McCoy

[0:44] Yeah.

[0:45] Yeah, that's been talk.

[0:46] Ellie, why don't you introduce our guests as well?

Elliott Kalan

[0:48] I'm very excited for our guest today.

[0:50] As everyone knows, this is Movember when we do Mo episodes with Mo guests.

[0:54] So we've got with us Mo himself from the Three Stooges.

[0:58] Mo Howard.

[0:59] No, I'm just kidding.

[1:00] Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

[1:01] With us is the founder and still Lord Emeritus of Maximum Fun, one of the most pioneering

[1:13] people in podcasting, a radio professional celebrating 25 years of his show Bullseye.

[1:19] Please join us in welcoming one of our great friends, Jesse Thorne.

[1:22] Jesse, thank you so much for being here with us.

Jesse Thorn

[1:24] Hello, friends.

[1:26] And by friends, I mean Dan specifically.

[1:29] Yeah, showing off.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31] We're all friends of Dan around here.

[1:33] Well, I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34] I don't get it.

[1:35] How did I get knocked out of friends?

[1:36] I'm not even in the friend zone.

[1:38] I'm out of the friend zone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39] We're going to change the name of the podcast to Friends of Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41] Dan's friends.

[1:42] Dan and friends in Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[1:44] I mean, this has just been a decades-long project to cheer me up.

[1:47] So, it's only right.

[1:52] Hey, guys.

[1:53] This is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either rejected critically or commercially.

[1:58] And we discuss it.

[2:00] We give our...

[2:01] Which was this one?

[2:02] Well, this did okay.

[2:03] I don't think it was like a huge hit, but it did okay.

[2:06] So, looking at the numbers...

[2:06] We're talking Smurfs.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] Looking at the numbers here, on a budget of $58 million, according to Wikipedia, its box office was $120 million, which is probably about break-even or a little less at this point.

[2:18] The way movies cost and marketing cost.

[2:21] So, I'm going to say, I don't know if they're going to be rushing out to make another Smurfs movie anytime soon.

Jesse Thorn

[2:27] I think they...

[2:27] Don't they protect the budget cost by, like, selling the advance rights to Belgium?

[2:33] Because that seems like they could get $60 million in Belgium.

[2:35] Oh, yeah.

[2:36] Yeah.

[2:36] Yeah, yeah.

[2:37] Yeah, the Smurfs were...

[2:38] P.O. is a national hero.

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] The Smurfs were like a French or like Belgian.

[2:42] They're Belgian.

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] They were actually elected to the Belgian parliament, despite being personal characters.

[2:46] Yeah.

[2:47] Many years ago.

[2:48] So, yeah, they're national treasures.

Dan McCoy

[2:49] I mean, it's certainly shocking that this wasn't a bigger success, given that there have been a couple of previous Smurfs movies.

[2:56] And Smurfs is yet another, like, property, mostly from the 1980s, that I don't think modern kids, like, think about at all.

[3:05] Yeah, what did your kids say about this when they saw the trailer, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[3:08] When my kids saw it, they were not familiar with the Smurfs saw it.

[3:10] When they saw the trailer, they said, they're just ripping off the trolls.

[3:13] They're just trying to make a trolls movie.

[3:15] And I will say that the Smurfs, I think, predate those trolls movies, certainly.

[3:19] I don't know.

[3:20] But the way this movie is done, they are trying to make a trolls movie.

[3:23] Like, they're trying to go with the trolls template.

[3:26] And I never thought I would say this ever.

[3:28] Trolls does it much better.

[3:29] Trolls is a much more satisfying movie.

[3:32] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[3:34] I only saw one of the trolls, and I just wanted to punch the movie in the face.

[3:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[3:39] There's a trolls holiday special that they did for Netflix, I think, which I think is the best of the trolls movies.

[3:44] But otherwise, it's a, yeah, the trolls, I thought I didn't like the trolls movies until I saw Smurfs.

Dan McCoy

[3:49] I saw a world tour during COVID at the height.

Stuart Wellington

[3:54] You just wanted to see the world again.

Dan McCoy

[3:55] At the height of, well, it's my height of my flirtation with marijuana because the world was sad.

[4:02] Unlike now.

[4:04] Unlike now when things are looking up.

[4:06] Yeah.

[4:06] Well, I mean, I, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:08] Well, Dan, you're just happy that the president is once again killing people with no legal authorization.

[4:12] That's what you want.

[4:13] No, I'm not happy about that.

Dan McCoy

[4:15] It's not as much of a thing anymore.

[4:19] It did not agree with me physically.

[4:22] But when I watched it.

[4:23] Trolls World Tour?

[4:24] No.

[4:25] Marijuana.

Elliott Kalan

[4:26] Dan got real paranoid when he watched Trolls World Tour.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] Yeah.

[4:29] But at the time when watching it, Audrey remembers me like just watching it and going, look at the textures.

[4:36] So that's something that trolls has to offer.

Elliott Kalan

[4:40] The biggest crime of Trolls World Tour was when my kids wanted to hear the song Barracuda.

[4:44] And one of them announced it.

[4:45] They go, Siri, play Barracuda by the Trolls.

[4:48] And I was like, no, that is by heart, sir.

[4:51] Like, let's get one thing straight.

[4:53] Did Siri play the Trolls version, though?

[4:55] And did play the Trolls version.

[4:56] And I turned it off and I said, we're listening to the heart version.

Jesse Thorn

[4:59] I have a close friend and colleague.

[5:01] I won't say who he is, but his initials are JM and he has curly hair and he's been a guest on this show.

[5:07] Jim Menson.

[5:12] Who wrote for the Trolls television show for a time.

[5:18] These days he's been writing on some really great shows.

[5:22] That was just a time when he was unemployed and taking some work that came his way.

[5:27] And the thing that I remember most vividly about Trolls and the Trolls universe is that the creator of Trolls is still alive.

[5:34] Or at least was at the time.

[5:36] This is in the universe or is this in the world?

[5:40] This is in the world.

[5:42] Okay.

[5:42] In the simulation we exist in.

[5:44] The world of countries and people.

[5:45] Yeah.

[5:45] Okay.

[5:46] Thank you.

[5:46] And she had set down rules for how the Trolls could operate.

[5:51] And one of the rules was the Trolls can't have enemies.

[5:55] And so in the Trolls TV show, they had to come up with whatever, 50 plots or 80 plots that had no enemies in them.

[6:06] They could only have misunderstandings.

[6:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:10] I mean, that's like spirited away.

[6:13] But in the Trolls movies, they do have enemies.

[6:15] So that seems like a little hypocritical on the part of Trolls.

Jesse Thorn

[6:18] Yeah.

[6:19] Take it up with that elderly German lady or whatever it is.

Elliott Kalan

[6:24] I mean, I've got a lot of things to say to elderly German ladies.

[6:26] But I guess it's an elderly Norwegian lady.

Dan McCoy

[6:28] I mean, one, that's a good story.

[6:30] And two, I would kill for a little work on a Trolls TV show.

[6:34] I think you would crush it, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[6:36] I feel like you do a great job, Dan.

[6:38] I think there was a time maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[6:39] Like friendly misunderstandings is like 90% of your life.

Dan McCoy

[6:45] Yeah, but I think they get a little crankier than they would like on the Trolls show.

Elliott Kalan

[6:49] You're like, Dan, you can't just keep pitching episodes where the Trolls send a text that they should have looked at one last time before they sent it.

Dan McCoy

[6:55] You're like, oh, could this be taken the wrong way?

Jesse Thorn

[6:58] You're like, wait, wait.

[6:58] I've got a pitch about the Trolls being a little annoyed that they're disappointed with the most recent issue of Cooks Illustrated.

Elliott Kalan

[7:07] But I'll say this for your unnamed friend.

[7:10] Maybe there's a time period in entertainment history when people would be like, ugh, I'm working on this thing.

[7:15] I'm a little ashamed of it.

[7:17] Right now, work is work.

[7:18] Unless you're working on like the Nick Fuentes show, it's fine.

[7:24] Don't be ashamed of your work.

[7:25] Go check out Teen Titans Go.

Jesse Thorn

[7:27] He works on Teen Titans Go.

[7:28] It's a very funny show.

[7:29] Yeah, it's a very funny show.

Dan McCoy

[7:30] I'd also like to say to Cooks Illustrated, you're doing a great job, actually.

[7:36] You've really expanded the types of cuisines that you feature in there.

[7:40] Yeah.

[7:41] And it's all good.

[7:43] You can hire Dan.

[7:43] He's great at that stuff.

[7:45] Dan would love to write for Cooks Illustrated.

[7:46] Yeah.

[7:46] Yeah, jokes.

Stuart Wellington

[7:47] Does Cooks Illustrated need like fucking single panel gags?

[7:51] Dan will write that shit.

Elliott Kalan

[7:51] When you do your annual April Fool's issue, Schnooks Illustrated, where it's just like a parody of the regular magazine, have Dan do that.

Dan McCoy

[7:58] Well, we're clearly all raring to talk about Smurfs.

[8:01] Is there anything else?

Elliott Kalan

[8:02] What else can we talk about to put off Smurf talk?

Jesse Thorn

[8:04] How are you on an etching of a ham?

Stuart Wellington

[8:11] Better get those spirals Uzumaki style.

Dan McCoy

[8:14] I've never seen Hodgman's eyes light up more, by the way, than when I told him that I contributed a tip to Cooks Illustrated.

[8:21] And he demanded find it and send it to him.

[8:26] Anyway, Smurfs.

Stuart Wellington

[8:27] So wait, before we get into the movie, do you guys have like a history relationship with Smurfs?

Elliott Kalan

[8:34] I mean, when I was a kid, I'm sure I watched the old show, but I had no affection.

Dan McCoy

[8:38] Yeah, I watched the old show.

[8:39] And the movie that they did, Smurfs and the Magic Flute, was on television a lot when I was a kid, and I would watch that.

Stuart Wellington

[8:45] My mom actively wouldn't let me watch them.

[8:49] She hated the Smurfs because of Smurfette, because of the idea that there's one female Smurf and she's like blonde, basically.

[8:59] She's like this blonde caricaturge.

[9:02] Well, she would love this movie where she's played by Rihanna, which brings.

Elliott Kalan

[9:07] They went so far in the other direction that Smurfette is the most competent, accomplished, psychologically stable character that there is no character to her.

[9:17] Like, there's just no.

[9:18] And instead, you have to ask the audience to invest emotionally in James Corden.

[9:23] And that's two big flaws right there.

Dan McCoy

[9:25] And by the way, Rihanna lobbied to do this movie.

[9:28] She's a producer on this.

[9:30] She made music for this.

[9:32] This and Wakanda Forever.

[9:34] Like, the only new Rihanna music in years and years and years.

[9:38] It's kind of amazing that, like, she's like, Smurfs, that's where it's at now.

Elliott Kalan

[9:42] It's strange when someone, you find out the thing that someone has a deep connection to that they're really excited about.

[9:48] And sometimes it can be very surprising.

[9:50] Like, I just found out earlier today that one of my favorite books of my childhood, Lizard Music by Daniel Pinkwater, is being made into a movie.

[9:57] And The Rock is going to be in it.

[9:59] And The Rock is the one who's really pushing it and being like, I got to make this for my kids.

[10:03] I got to make a Lizard Music movie.

Stuart Wellington

[10:04] You guys have a lot in common, Elliot.

[10:05] Apparently.

Elliott Kalan

[10:06] And it's one of those things where I'm like, I never would have guessed this is the book that The Rock would be like, I have to make a movie out of this book.

[10:12] You know?

[10:13] So, we'll see how it turns out.

[10:14] Maybe we'll be doing Lizard Music on this very podcast in a few years.

[10:17] I hope not.

[10:17] I love that book.

[10:17] Yeah.

[10:18] I hope it's a good movie.

Dan McCoy

[10:19] Well, let's get into the details.

[10:21] We begin, as any Smurfs movie must, at the dawn of the universe where we have a prologue.

[10:27] The Smurfs are eternal.

Elliott Kalan

[10:28] They're the Alpha and the Omega.

[10:29] They've been with us forever.

Dan McCoy

[10:30] A prologue explains there are four magic books that together rule the universe.

[10:35] Right off the bat.

Elliott Kalan

[10:36] Right off the bat.

[10:37] I was like, don't need this in a Smurfs movie.

[10:39] What are you doing?

Jesse Thorn

[10:40] This part is narrated by Joseph Campbell.

[10:44] The Smurfs were born on the back of a turtle.

Dan McCoy

[10:48] All cultures have a story about Smurfs.

[10:51] Like, supposed to be a parody of the Infinity Stones or a ripoff?

Stuart Wellington

[10:56] My grandma told me a wives' tale of four magical tomes.

Elliott Kalan

[11:02] My mama once told me, stay away from the Smurfs.

[11:05] You know?

[11:05] But I think, my guess is this is not a parody.

[11:08] My guess is this is a, them trying to do with the Smurfs what every movie does.

[11:14] And I don't always want to put this at the feet of executives.

[11:16] It's not always their fault.

[11:17] But it does strike me as executives saying, like, how do we Marvel movie up the Smurfs, basically?

Dan McCoy

[11:22] Let's give the Smurfs some stakes.

Elliott Kalan

[11:24] How do we involve a multiverse with the Smurfs?

[11:27] Yeah, how do we give them stakes so that the Smurfs are not just dealing with complications between friends in a Dan McCoy-esque way?

[11:33] Yeah.

[11:33] Instead, it is how the Smurfs are saving the universe.

Stuart Wellington

[11:35] Yeah, how do we keep the Smurfs?

[11:37] Why don't we change the threat from, they're just going to get, like, cooked alive by this weird dude?

Dan McCoy

[11:41] What did Gargamel really want to do with the Smurfs?

[11:44] He just doesn't like them.

[11:45] He wants to kill them or something.

[11:46] He wants to cook them or something.

[11:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[11:48] Smurfs probably taste great.

[11:49] That's your tip from Cooks Illustrated, Dan.

[11:52] Fry up some Smurfs.

Jesse Thorn

[11:53] Elliot, this might not be the idea of executives.

[11:56] This could be the idea of Chris Miller, the director of the film, who's not Chris Miller, the director of good films, but rather Chris Miller, the director of bad films.

Elliott Kalan

[12:05] Yeah.

[12:06] It could be.

Dan McCoy

[12:07] It could be one of those things.

[12:07] Or the writer who was, like, a South Park writer, apparently.

[12:10] That's a weird combo of…

Elliott Kalan

[12:12] My guess is that this movie went through a long, torturous development process.

[12:15] Yeah.

[12:16] And as with many of these long, torturous development processes, they ended up with a movie that is trying to imitate just what other movies are already doing.

Stuart Wellington

[12:24] Yeah.

[12:24] It's like…

[12:24] I was trying to imagine…

[12:26] It's like a program where if you just inserted a whole bunch of other screenplays, it just, like, came up with a new screenplay for you to use.

Elliott Kalan

[12:34] We have that program.

[12:35] It's called Hollywood.

[12:37] Jesse, what were you going to say?

Jesse Thorn

[12:38] I was trying to imagine Sue Brady, the woman who, like, wrote on Team America and stuff and wrote this film, pitching jokes, and then people just sort of, like, covering their eyes and walking away.

[12:51] Yeah.

[12:52] Like, no, we're not doing…

[12:53] No, no, no, no.

[12:54] It's four magic books, and James Corden sings a song.

Stuart Wellington

[12:58] The only jokes are ones where you take a swear word and swap in Smurf.

[13:02] If it's a different type of joke, get it out of here.

Dan McCoy

[13:06] So, we got these four books.

[13:08] The Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance, led by Gargamel's brother, Razamel, wants these books to rule the world with the evil, but the Smurfs, they opposed, they stood against these wizards.

[13:19] It's usually what I think of when I think of Smurfs.

[13:21] And Papa…

[13:22] Guardians of Order.

Stuart Wellington

[13:23] Rescued one of the books, Jaunty Grimoire, to hide her.

[13:27] Important to say her because this is an anthropomorphized book voiced by Amy Sedaris.

[13:31] Yeah, that is important.

Elliott Kalan

[13:32] One of the many, many, many celebrity voices in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[13:36] And I will say up front that the best voice acting in here…

[13:43] No doubt.

[13:44] I don't know what you're going to say.

[13:45] Gargamel and…

[13:46] Yes.

[13:47] And Razamel, both done by the same person, who is a…

[13:50] Who's a voice actor.

[13:51] …professional voice actor.

[13:51] Yes.

[13:52] Yeah.

[13:52] Like, why the fuck do you keep putting celebrities with unremarkable voices in these things when voice actors kill it every time?

[14:01] Like…

Elliott Kalan

[14:01] The fact that later on, there's a character voiced by Kurt Russell.

[14:05] And I was like…

[14:06] Who's that?

[14:07] Yeah, you're like…

[14:07] This is like a nothing voice.

[14:08] And then in the credits, I was like, Kurt Russell.

[14:10] And I'm like, well, he's a guy who projects such charisma, but it's not coming through.

Dan McCoy

[14:14] You don't think he walked into that booth ready to voice Ron the Smurf?

[14:18] Yeah, he's like, what the fuck am I doing?

[14:20] I got to go back and play video games.

Jesse Thorn

[14:22] To be fair, I think there were a lot of grandpas out there going like, oh, I got to see this Smurfs movie.

[14:28] Kurt Russell has five lines.

[14:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[14:32] He's like, I'll take my grandkids to see this.

[14:35] I'll take a break from playing video games and discussing hockey with John Carpenter and knock these out.

Elliott Kalan

[14:40] But the point of doing a celebrity voice is that ideally, the voice is so recognizable that there's a jolt of excitement.

[14:48] That's the same reason you cast a celebrity in a movie.

[14:51] You cast a star is because the audience can then bring their love of that actor or their understanding of that actor to the role, right?

[14:57] Like that's why Alfred Hitchcock was like, I cast stars.

[14:59] Because when you cast a star, they bring all their previous roles with them.

[15:02] You don't have to build the character the same way because you know who Jimmy Stewart is.

[15:05] You know who Cary Grant is.

[15:07] But to cast actors whose voices are – and there's some great actors in here who I love.

[15:11] But like other than Natasha Lyonne, there's none in there where I'm like, oh, yeah, this person has a very distinctive voice where as soon as I hear it, I know exactly who this person is.

Stuart Wellington

[15:19] Yes.

[15:19] And she also like when she was doing the talk show circuit for this movie was talking about being in a Smurfs movie, which alone is funny.

[15:29] But we flash forward.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] My only worry is that it might become part of the Jane Lynching of Natasha Lyonne, which is when someone goes from being super fun to being like they're everywhere.

[15:39] Why is this person in everything?

[15:41] You know?

[15:41] I also realize the Helen hunting of Jane Lynch.

Dan McCoy

[15:44] You know?

[15:44] Yeah.

[15:44] When the last name is Lynch, I don't –

[15:47] Yeah.

[15:48] It wasn't the best grammar used.

[15:50] Yeah, yeah.

[15:51] Anyway, we flash forward from the dawn of time to Smurf Village now where the Smurfs – they sing a few bars of the famous theme.

[15:58] That's a big flash forward.

Stuart Wellington

[15:58] That's a billions of billions of years.

Dan McCoy

[16:00] They sing a little of the famous Smurf theme before Papa Smurf drops a beat from his turntable.

[16:04] I immediately fucking called this shit.

[16:06] Yeah.

[16:06] The music switches to Everything Goes With Blue by Tyla because these aren't your daddy's Smurfs.

[16:11] No.

[16:11] These are –

[16:12] No.

Elliott Kalan

[16:12] These are hip new Smurfs.

[16:14] This was the kind of stuff where they would show it in the trailer and my kids were like, they're just trying to do Trolls.

[16:18] They're ripping off Trolls because this is the Trolls movies all over, you know?

Dan McCoy

[16:21] Well, yeah.

[16:21] The Trolls – it's all very music-based in the Trolls.

[16:24] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[16:25] And it's very music-based and it's specifically pop music, like pre-existing pop music, you know, medleys of pop songs.

Jesse Thorn

[16:31] There was a time when this movie was going to be called The Smurfs Musical.

[16:36] Oh.

[16:37] And that is weird because there's like three songs in it.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] I think that's probably why they changed the title because they don't have that many songs.

Jesse Thorn

[16:44] Like, honestly, if I was going to guess what happened in the process of the development of this film,

[16:49] it's that the woman from South Park wrote a script with a bunch of jokes in it.

[16:53] They crossed out all the jokes.

[16:55] Rihanna signed up and said, this will be the Smurfs musical with songs by Rihanna.

[17:01] Everybody was like, it's been a long time since Rihanna's had songs.

[17:04] Then Rihanna wrote two songs and left.

[17:07] Yeah.

[17:08] And then they had to fill out the rest of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[17:11] Yeah, for sure.

[17:13] But we used this song to get introduced to the idea that all the Smurfs have, you know, names based on their defining traits.

[17:23] We, you know, meet a lot of the Smurfs like Vanity, Hefty, Worry, Brainy, Grouchy.

[17:27] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[17:27] This is very funny to me is that they have an entire song where you literally have their names come up on screen.

[17:32] And then the next scene is about all the Smurfs have something.

[17:35] I don't have something.

[17:36] This guy has this thing.

[17:38] This guy has this thing.

[17:39] It's like, did you think I missed the beginning of the movie?

[17:41] Like, is this for people who were getting popcorn and they didn't time it right?

[17:44] Like, I just met these characters.

[17:46] You don't have to tell me again.

Jesse Thorn

[17:46] I think it's fun, Elliot, that they all get introduced by their one special quality.

[17:52] Like, you know, Brawny Smurf or whatever his name is, is like lifting up a guy.

[17:57] Hefty Smurf is lifting up a guy, et cetera, et cetera.

[17:59] And then through the course of the rest of the film, they don't use their special powers at all.

[18:04] They just run around like regular Smurfs that have no distinctly interchangeable Smurfs.

Elliott Kalan

[18:09] But I'm sure you're as excited as I was to hear the incredibly recognizable voice of Alex Winter as Hefty Smurf.

[18:15] And I like Alex Winter a lot.

[18:16] I'm glad you're getting some work.

Jesse Thorn

[18:17] I was honestly, I don't know how they can make this entire movie without Jack.

[18:22] Jack McBrayer being in it once.

Stuart Wellington

[18:24] I thought it was wild when we meet the Poots later on.

[18:28] And none of them are voiced by Jason Mansoukas, who looks like one of them.

[18:32] I thought you were going to say Imaging Poots.

Dan McCoy

[18:35] Seems like a no-brainer.

Stuart Wellington

[18:37] Yeah, the name is right there in the name, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:39] Speaking of names, there's one no-name Smurf.

[18:42] Again, unfortunately, James Corden's in this film and he plays the lead.

[18:46] And he has an existential crisis because he's like, I don't know my thing.

Elliott Kalan

[18:50] I don't know my thing.

[18:51] Hey, Dan, we've never seen a movie like this before, right?

[18:53] Where there's a society where everyone has a thing and the main character doesn't have a thing.

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] There's this one guy trying to find his thing desperately and he just can't.

[18:59] And he just can't do it.

[19:00] We've never seen this before, right?

[19:02] Yes.

Jesse Thorn

[19:02] This bit of dialogue comes up, by the way, because Papa Smurf says,

[19:07] isn't it great that everyone in this village has a thing directly to the Smurf who doesn't have a thing?

[19:14] Yeah, because Papa Smurf's a jerk.

Stuart Wellington

[19:16] He's a real dick.

[19:17] Also, like, is he fucking, like, his thing is being Papa?

[19:21] That's wild.

[19:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:22] So, Papa Smurf.

[19:23] He is Papa, the town, though.

[19:25] Yeah.

[19:26] Well, I mean, his thing is fucking.

[19:28] Yeah.

[19:28] I mean, that's the thing.

[19:29] When his brother shows up, I'm like, why do they make this one so fucking sexy?

Elliott Kalan

[19:36] Papa Smurf is really playing the Charles Xavier role, which is the leader who, the more you see him and the more you see him in directs to the coast, you're like, this is not a good guy.

[19:45] Like, the way he manipulates people is not good, you know.

Dan McCoy

[19:47] The other thing, like, you're making me realize that when we meet his brothers later on, their names are Ron and Ken, right?

[19:53] Yeah.

[19:54] Like, so, like, they don't have a thing either, apparently.

Jesse Thorn

[19:57] No, somebody at some point said, this is a movie about brothers.

[20:01] Yeah.

[20:01] But then, thought of no stuff for that.

Elliott Kalan

[20:04] It also shows that they lost interest in no-name Smurf at some point.

[20:07] They're like, uh, well, what about Papa's family?

[20:09] Can we get into that?

[20:10] But I think that's because Papa Smurf, this is the subtext of this movie.

[20:14] He named himself Papa Smurf.

[20:16] He started Smurf Village because he is trying to regiment a world where everyone is defined incredibly tightly by the one thing that they do.

[20:23] And his brothers are not welcome in the village.

[20:25] They do not like that stuff.

[20:27] And so, it's a, uh, but we don't get into that.

[20:30] But it says, it paints Papa Smurf in a bad light.

[20:32] But you're right, it's a, the movie kind of careens around being like, is this what it's about?

[20:36] Oh, it's about this guy I can't find.

[20:37] He's the one Smurf who doesn't.

[20:38] Well, actually, maybe it's about how brothers and brothers love each other.

[20:42] Actually, maybe it's about how we're stronger together.

[20:44] Uh, what, what is this movie about?

[20:45] Hold on a second.

Jesse Thorn

[20:46] Yeah.

[20:47] I have a question.

[20:48] You mentioned that Papa Smurf named himself.

[20:50] Do you think it's possible that character was inspired by Father Yod of the Source family?

[20:55] Do you think there's a possible second film in this where-

[20:58] It's almost certain.

[20:59] Papa Smurf invents green goddess dressing, uh, starts a psych rock band, and then-

[21:05] And has a cult.

[21:06] Jumps off a cliff and dies because he assumed that because he's a god man, he would know how to hang glide.

[21:12] I mean, it sounds amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[21:14] Yeah.

[21:14] I think that's the Smurf movie I want to see.

Dan McCoy

[21:17] Uh, but yeah, to return to the emoji movie plot of the, of the film, uh, we, uh, no name is worried about not having a thing.

[21:26] Doesn't have a thing.

[21:27] He's, he's, he's comforted by his friend, possible romantic partner, question mark, Smurfette.

Elliott Kalan

[21:33] I think, I think they don't know what, they don't know whether they want that to happen in this movie.

[21:37] Yeah.

[21:38] So they don't have it happen, but they're kind of almost having it.

Stuart Wellington

[21:40] And they make a point of pretty upfront talking about how Smurfette isn't, wasn't originally a Smurf.

[21:44] Well, this is what I wanted to talk about.

Dan McCoy

[21:46] So she, she talks about how she dealt with being the only Smurf made out of clay by Gargamel to sort of infiltrate Smurf village.

[21:53] That's Smurf canon.

[21:55] That's, that's not original.

[21:55] No, that's, that's, that's actually Smurf canon.

[21:58] But it confused me because later in the movie-

[22:00] A Smurf canon is also what you shoot Smurfs out of.

[22:02] Later in the movie-

[22:03] That's what I call my dick.

[22:07] Gargamel like shows her-

Stuart Wellington

[22:08] You eat too much blue food coloring.

Dan McCoy

[22:10] You eat a lot of blue foods, yeah.

[22:11] Too much.

[22:12] We know what I'm trying to do here.

[22:13] Yeah, exactly.

[22:14] Later in the movie, Gargamel or Razamel, one of them, like shows her like a photo album of like her time with them.

[22:23] And it's acted, it's, it's as if it's like this shocking reveal that she hasn't already dealt with.

[22:28] And I don't understand because like right up front, she's like, hey, like this was me.

[22:32] I was made out of clay by these guys.

Stuart Wellington

[22:35] I mean, it's, it's a weird moment because they show her this, this book and they're like,

[22:39] actually back then you were like super into being a weird clay member of our family.

[22:45] I don't remember that.

[22:47] Yeah.

[22:47] Like now we're doing some weird like memory horror.

Jesse Thorn

[22:50] Like that does read as like an executive note that they had the part later on where she was uncomfortable with it.

[22:58] But then somebody said, uh, children don't know the Smurf canon that well.

[23:02] They don't know that she was made out of clay, but you better have her say it in the beginning.

Elliott Kalan

[23:06] As someone who is, who is working on a show based on IP where there's a lot of questions sometimes about how much the audience will be aware of the original IP that it's based on.

[23:14] Yes.

[23:15] I think you're right.

[23:15] I think that was, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point that was supposed to be a reveal.

[23:19] And instead they were like, let's just get it out at top because it's going to be confusing.

[23:23] And we also, this character feels very noted to death, this, this Smurfette character in that, like, she never has, or the only problem she seems to have is she loves French fries too much in one scene.

[23:35] Problem?

[23:35] And she eats all of them, which is, if that's a problem, then lock me up officer.

[23:38] You know, but it feels like they have been, there are probably moments where she shows doubt in herself or anything like that.

[23:45] And they probably said, no, we want a strong female character.

[23:48] We can't do this.

[23:48] Or we, we want, we don't, Rihanna doesn't want to doubt or something like that.

[23:51] So there's a, because I feel like there's a different version of this movie, which is about Smurfette's story.

[23:55] And instead they've tried to make her both the strongest, best of all the Smurfs.

[24:00] And also she's in that same wild style Lego movie role where it's like, hey, this character should probably be the hero of the movie, but the hero of the movie needs to be kind of like a schlubby guy who doesn't know his place in the world.

Dan McCoy

[24:13] Speaking of that schlubby guy, unfortunately, James Corden gets a song about how he feels lost.

[24:17] And it's just like really crazy rap song.

Stuart Wellington

[24:21] It's kind of like Ludacris's area codes.

Elliott Kalan

[24:24] I never thought I'd hear a Smurf say, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf, Smurf.

[24:28] But he's just trying to say skeet the whole time.

Dan McCoy

[24:30] No, it's like this down-tempo ballad where he's accompanied by a turtle on the keyboard who I assumed would be just like a one-off character for this scene.

[24:38] Keeps showing up.

[24:39] But weirdly, this turtle is like in like half of the movie.

[24:42] Who's the voice of the turtle?

Jesse Thorn

[24:44] Some animator designed this turtle and was pumped.

[24:47] He sold it hard in every meeting.

[24:50] He's like, he just raised his hand.

[24:51] What if the turtle's in this scene?

Dan McCoy

[24:53] I looked it up.

[24:54] This turtle's played by Marshmallow, who is a music figure of some kind.

[24:59] Yeah, I'm not familiar with their work.

Elliott Kalan

[25:01] But yeah, this turtle, I got very frustrated every time this turtle showed up.

[25:05] Because there's, it's a, it is like, this will be funny to have this turtle show up again.

[25:10] But he doesn't do anything and he's not funny.

Stuart Wellington

[25:13] So it's like, why is this non-Smurf that is not adding anything?

[25:17] So Smurfs are described as being three apples high.

[25:19] Yes.

[25:20] That's crazy.

[25:20] There's no way they're three apples high.

[25:22] Crab apples.

[25:23] Crab apples high.

[25:24] Really?

[25:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:25] These are old-fashioned apples.

[25:26] These are heirloom apples.

Elliott Kalan

[25:28] Yeah, these aren't the apples you get in the supermarket that have been genetically modified.

[25:31] Oh, thank you.

[25:32] Yeah.

[25:32] To be super big.

[25:33] Product of a different time.

Dan McCoy

[25:33] I mean, speaking of which, like, you know, like, Smurfs had, like, these elements of sort

[25:38] of medieval culture.

[25:41] Like, there's, like, a medieval element to Smurfs.

[25:45] Yeah.

[25:46] Yeah.

[25:46] But mostly they just, like, hung out in the village and, like, did stuff together.

[25:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:50] Because they lived in a village and they each were named after the job they did, like, in

[25:54] medieval time.

[25:54] Right.

Jesse Thorn

[25:55] You know these Smurf hats are a special kind of hat?

[25:58] This feels like something Elliot would know about.

[26:01] Yeah, these Smurf hats.

[26:02] And the texture.

[26:03] Did you see the textures on them?

Dan McCoy

[26:04] Well, not like I used to, but.

[26:07] What are they called?

[26:08] What are these hats called?

Jesse Thorn

[26:09] These Smurf hats are this special kind of hat that's associated with, like, the Enlightenment.

[26:15] Yes.

[26:16] And battles for liberty.

Elliott Kalan

[26:18] These are called Phrygian caps.

[26:19] And they became very big, especially during the French Revolution.

[26:22] It was a very big time for these.

[26:24] They represented kind of, like, the idea of, like, the Roman populace, I guess.

[26:32] You know, and so that became a thing of, like, a representation of, like, Enlightenment

[26:36] and equality, that kind of stuff.

[26:37] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[26:38] There are multiple flags, like, national flags, where the central figure in the seal or the

[26:45] flag of the nation is wearing one of these hats because it's, like, the opposite of wearing

[26:51] a crown.

[26:52] So it represents that you have, like, a Republican government.

Elliott Kalan

[26:56] Yeah.

[26:56] Well, you know what?

[26:57] I was wrong.

[26:57] I'm looking up more about that.

[26:58] It's not a Roman thing, but it is an ancient world thing.

[27:00] And it became, and during those, that time, it was like the Jacobins, particularly during

[27:05] the French Revolution.

[27:06] It was like, this is their version of, they were using this as their version of the Roman

[27:11] kind of liberty cap, basically.

Jesse Thorn

[27:13] Is that why this Smurfs movie was so heavily covered in Jacobin magazine?

Elliott Kalan

[27:18] Yes, exactly.

[27:20] It's ironic because the Smurf village lifestyle is very much not what, it's the far stage of

[27:27] revolution where there is now a new dominating leader has taken over, you know.

Dan McCoy

[27:31] Elliot, are you at all familiar with, like, the original comics?

[27:34] Like, in my head, like, this is, like, almost akin to, like, the Belgian version of Asterix

[27:41] and Obelisk or something where it's, like, this vaguely, like, historical fantasy world.

[27:46] I mean, like, there's obviously a lot more history in Asterisk or something.

[27:50] Yeah, this version of the shit out of the Gauls or whatever.

Jesse Thorn

[27:54] Dan, have you never seen Les Adventures de la Strumpf, the mid-1960s first feature film

[28:01] in the Smurfs franchise?

[28:04] Have you seen it, Jesse?

[28:06] No.

[28:07] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[28:08] Well, anyway, we will, so we don't have any knowledge of the original.

[28:11] So he sings this dope song and then he gets his wish granted by a magic book.

[28:15] Yeah, my point in taking us down this non-fruitsful path.

[28:18] I forgot what we were talking about.

[28:19] Thank you, Stuart.

[28:20] This all started with that turmoil.

Dan McCoy

[28:23] Just how far this movie, like, which is, like, stuffed with modern, like, fantasy action

[28:29] movie tropes has nothing to do with what, like, historically the Smurfs have been about.

Elliott Kalan

[28:34] No, I think that, I mean, the Smurfs historically are, like, a gentle storytelling thing.

[28:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[28:38] Yeah, they're not, like, battling.

[28:40] They're, like, I don't know, like, tricking Gargamel's dumb ass and, like, sticking his hand

[28:44] in the fire or something.

[28:45] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] The worst thing that's going to happen is Asriel the cat might grab you or something like

[28:49] that.

Jesse Thorn

[28:50] I went on r slash Smurfs last night or maybe it was r slash the Smurfs while I was waiting

[28:55] for my child to fall asleep.

[28:56] And what kind of horn did you find?

[28:57] Just sitting in a beanbag chair in a room.

Elliott Kalan

[29:00] It's all, just all pictures of Smurfette and she's just, she's just got, she's a dump truck

[29:04] on the back.

[29:05] That's what it is.

Jesse Thorn

[29:06] First of all, first of all, no, I, like, looked at the top posts for the last year.

[29:11] None of them were about the Smurfs movie except for, like, the eighth one, which was just sort

[29:16] of, like, why don't people like the Smurfs movie?

[29:19] Here's my reasons.

[29:20] Very gentle.

[29:21] And the biggest reason was in the canon, the Smurfs are just hanging out in Smurf Village

[29:27] doing whatever.

[29:29] And so they were upset that they would do something other than whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[29:32] Yeah, well, I think it's a misreading of what, I mean, I don't have any affection for the

[29:36] Smurfs whatsoever, but it's a misreading, I think, of what appeals to people about the

[29:41] original property, which is, I think, the gentleness of it, the same way that the Ferdinand animated

[29:45] movie from years ago, totally, by having him actually fight in a bullfight and win, misreads

[29:51] the point of that fucking book, which is that he refuses to fight in a bullfight and he gets

[29:56] what he wants through non-violent defiance, you know, resistance.

Jesse Thorn

[30:01] It's also, in many ways, a misreading of the kind of fundamental appeal of James Corden,

[30:08] which is none.

[30:10] He has no appeal.

[30:11] No one likes James Corden.

[30:13] I'll say this about James Corden.

[30:13] No one likes James Corden.

Elliott Kalan

[30:15] I've said it before.

[30:15] When I saw him in One Man, Two Governors, or whatever it was, on Broadway, I was like,

[30:21] this guy is hilarious.

[30:22] And I think when he is playing a character who is not supposed to be likable and is doing

[30:26] farcical things on stage, he is very funny.

[30:29] I think the problem is when you make it him not playing an unlikable character and instead

[30:34] you're supposed to having the audience feel like, I really, I want him around, you know,

[30:38] or I want to get to know him better.

[30:40] You know, it's a, he, there's things that you can do very well.

Jesse Thorn

[30:42] Are you telling me that one of the actors in this film you saw on stage in New York?

[30:48] Let's see.

[30:48] Was it just one of them?

Elliott Kalan

[30:49] Let's see.

[30:50] Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.

Stuart Wellington

[30:52] So it would be like if they made a Lord of the Rings movie and they're like, actually,

[30:55] your hero's Gollum and you got to hang out with him the whole time.

[30:59] That sounds pretty cool.

[31:00] That sounds pretty good.

[31:01] Yeah.

[31:02] It sounds like it.

[31:03] And then he keeps ralming up stuff.

Jesse Thorn

[31:05] Stu, you're starting to sound like a real Los Angeles area waiter.

Dan McCoy

[31:11] So this no-name Smurf, who is now a crowd, he's gotten magical powers.

[31:16] He shows off the new powers to the village.

Elliott Kalan

[31:18] This is also hilarious to me because he's like, I found my thing.

[31:21] It's like, my thing is I'm kind of a nerd.

[31:23] My thing is I'm very vain.

[31:24] My thing is I have vast magic powers.

[31:27] It's like, this doesn't fit into what Smurfs do.

Jesse Thorn

[31:30] By the way, in the previous scene, there's like a list of types of Smurf and it's not funny.

[31:39] And then at some point he says like, I could be magic Smurf.

[31:43] And then Papa Smurf's like, Smurfs aren't magic.

[31:46] Yeah.

[31:46] And then like 30 seconds later, he becomes magic Smurf.

[31:51] And you're like, did they send somebody back to page four of the screenplay to make sure to write in Smurfs aren't magic?

Stuart Wellington

[31:59] Yeah, because they were like, I don't know.

[32:01] He starts doing magic stuff.

[32:02] Kids are going to be confused and assumed all Smurfs are blasting magic beams out of their hands.

Elliott Kalan

[32:06] It's just because Papa Smurf doesn't want them to get involved in magic because he's trying to hide the truth about the magic book from them to keep them safe.

[32:14] Come on.

[32:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:15] Yeah.

[32:15] Well, it doesn't work because No Name immediately shows off by opening a giant interdimensional sky portal that allows Razumel to detect Smurf Village.

Elliott Kalan

[32:26] Not the kinds of things that Smurfs usually do.

[32:29] So were we previously familiar with Razumel?

Stuart Wellington

[32:31] This is Gargamel's brother Razumel.

Elliott Kalan

[32:33] I believe this is an original character to this movie.

[32:37] Oh, okay.

Stuart Wellington

[32:37] Razumel, who, I mean, the character design looks like a classic Belgian dude.

[32:41] And he's got a, he's got like an intern character voiced by Dan Levy.

Dan McCoy

[32:47] I find it, sorry, go on.

[32:49] No, no, no, it was just.

[32:50] I just find it very strange that if this is a new character, I assumed that maybe this was like some deep Smurfs lore.

[32:55] If this is a new character, then why?

[32:57] Like if you're already, if you're going to diverge from what the Smurfs are so much in the movie, just make it fucking Gargamel.

[33:04] We all know that Gargamel's the bad guy.

[33:06] Make him the main bad guy.

Elliott Kalan

[33:08] My guess is they wanted to have, they wanted Gargamel to be able to be a sympathetic character.

[33:15] That they wanted to have, be able to do more with Gargamel or something like that.

[33:18] So they introduced another guy to shit on Gargamel all the time and be worse than Gargamel so that you could then have a turn so that Gargamel later helps the Smurfs.

[33:27] Because wouldn't that be amazing?

[33:29] Gargamel and the Smurfs on the same side working together?

Dan McCoy

[33:31] But then at the end of the movie, spoiler, like there's like the mid-credit sequence is Gargamel like bursting in.

[33:37] Because he didn't see it.

[33:38] And being like, we've got some unfinished business with the Smurfs.

Elliott Kalan

[33:42] Well, because now you've built him up.

[33:44] Now you know, oh shit, Gargamel's now, what's he going to do?

[33:48] We've seen him go through his arc and now he's empowered.

Dan McCoy

[33:51] Guys, I just realized that we're four 40-something men yelling about Gargamel.

Elliott Kalan

[33:58] I love it.

[33:59] This is why you do stuff like this.

[34:00] What we are really yelling about, Dan, is storytelling and how storytelling is done in movies.

Stuart Wellington

[34:06] And one of the Smurfs, one of the reviews of the Smurfs.

[34:08] Smurfs said exclusively about Gargamel's portrayal in the Smurfs movie 2025.

[34:14] Why isn't he as sexy as I remember?

Elliott Kalan

[34:16] But I think there was one of the reviews that I was looking up of the movie.

[34:19] They were saying, this is Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian.

[34:21] He says, there seems to be a worrying assumption here that a film aimed at very little kids doesn't need to have a very interesting or engaging story.

[34:27] And that's my big issue.

[34:28] And I think the Gargamel stuff is part of that.

[34:30] That there's an assumption that this is for kids.

[34:33] Who gives a shit?

[34:34] Make it the same stuff that we've done in all these other movies.

[34:36] When if anyone needs something, a story that will be wonderful, it's kids.

[34:42] Like this is, there are children that I assume this is the first movie they've ever seen.

[34:46] And it's like, that's their poorer, unfortunately, for this being their introduction to film.

[34:50] As opposed to something that really moves them or excites them, you know.

Jesse Thorn

[34:53] I think there's also a very fundamental miscalculation in the lead characters of this show and the actors who portray them.

[35:01] Yeah.

[35:01] Like, to cast a movie like this with celebrity voice actors is de rigueur and understandable.

[35:10] And like, it's not like they were going to go ahead and cast incredible voice actors in all these parts.

[35:18] Like, truly, Rihanna could not be more boring in her performance.

[35:25] Yeah.

[35:25] It is as though she is like barely there.

[35:29] And James Corden is actively unpleasant.

[35:33] And they give him nothing funny to do.

[35:36] So, there's no winning here in this story when those.

[35:41] And I don't, the thing that I don't understand the most about it is like the whole marketing campaign for this movie was based around Rihanna as Smurfette.

[35:53] Like, that's the only poster that I remember is Rihanna as Smurfette.

[35:58] And like, I know that Rihanna is a hit maker.

[36:03] And she's certainly very famous.

[36:05] Yep.

[36:06] But like, do people want to see a Rihanna movie?

[36:10] Do children want to see a Rihanna movie?

Dan McCoy

[36:13] I think there's a great thirst for more Rihanna as someone who, you know, is now a billionaire and has retreated into not doing entertainment for the most part.

[36:21] But they don't want it in Smurf form necessarily.

Elliott Kalan

[36:23] My guess is it's entirely a matter of just how many followers does she have on these social media feeds?

[36:29] Great.

[36:29] We can guarantee X number of people who are huge Rihanna fans will go.

[36:33] It is, you're casting someone entirely for that publicity marketing aspect of it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:37] If it was a Smurfs movie where all the Smurfs were just hanging out with Rihanna.

[36:41] That'd be a better movie.

[36:42] I would love that.

[36:43] It would be a better movie.

[36:44] Interviewing Rihanna.

[36:44] This is the movie.

[36:45] Yeah.

[36:45] And like helping her write a fucking album.

Elliott Kalan

[36:47] Rihanna finishes her last concert.

[36:49] She goes, I'm just so tired.

[36:50] I'm so tired of being a big star.

[36:52] I just wish I could just relax and hang out somewhere.

[36:55] And she falls asleep clutching a stuffed animal Smurf.

[36:57] She wakes up in the Smurf village and the rest of the movie is just her hanging out with the Smurfs.

[37:01] Better movie.

[37:02] A thousand percent better movie.

Jesse Thorn

[37:03] I will say this for this Smurfs movie, which is there were three previous Smurfs movies in the last cycle of Smurfs movies.

[37:13] Two of which were like Smurfs in real life, one of which was a fully animated Smurfs movie.

[37:17] And Smurfs in real life, of course, had that famous thing.

[37:20] Smurf with the head on his pancakes.

[37:22] Pancakes, yeah.

[37:23] And I have not seen these movies, but I have looked at like trailers for these movies to prepare for this.

[37:31] You just looked up the nude scenes.

[37:32] They looked awful.

[37:35] Yeah.

[37:35] Like they really looked grotesque.

[37:37] They looked nasty.

[37:39] This movie in the scenes where they are in the Smurf world, I thought it looked pretty good.

[37:46] Like they seem to have learned some of the lessons of recent films that have taken greater advantage of the human touch and the possibilities of animation in the context of 3D animation.

[38:05] You know, like I don't know.

[38:06] I don't know if you guys saw Puss in Boots 2.

[38:11] Yeah.

[38:11] But Puss in Boots 2 is really good.

[38:14] Yeah.

[38:14] Or at least very good.

[38:16] Yeah.

[38:16] And it is really cool looking.

[38:19] And part of the reason is because the aesthetics are very flexible and interpretive.

[38:25] And this has some of the hand of man in it and reflects some of the like values of the comics and the cartoons of the 80s in interesting ways and looks pretty decent.

[38:38] Now, later they muddle that up by doing 17 other things.

[38:42] But when I was looking at it, in contrast to say trolls, which is just a pile of crap on the screen.

[38:49] I was looking at, I mean, incredible textures.

[38:52] I got to give it to Dan for identifying that.

Elliott Kalan

[38:54] He just kept licking the TV screen because he wanted to taste those textures.

[38:58] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[38:58] I was like, this is actually kind of good looking, I thought.

[39:01] I don't think it looks bad.

[39:02] Everything else was horrible to this point.

Elliott Kalan

[39:04] I think from a technical point of view, everything looks great in Smurfs.

Dan McCoy

[39:08] I agree with you 100%.

[39:10] I was amazed at how good Smurfs looks.

[39:15] Like it finds that middle ground between like we're doing a computer animated movie, but we're going to have some hard lines in here.

[39:21] We're going to like, you know, like find the middle ground between.

[39:26] We're going to have some hard lines.

[39:27] No on-screen drug use.

Jesse Thorn

[39:29] We're going to.

[39:30] There's some stretchiness and bounciness to it.

[39:32] Yeah.

[39:32] There's a little bit of.

[39:33] Yeah, it feels like a cartoon.

Elliott Kalan

[39:34] There's motion lines.

[39:35] Rather than them trying to make photorealistic Smurfs.

Dan McCoy

[39:38] If you, I was saying like, if you put on, if you put the sound down on this and put Dark Side of the Moon on and watch Smurfs, probably pretty good.

[39:48] Yeah, his textures are incredible.

Elliott Kalan

[39:49] The Smurfs in the other movies do look grotesque compared to these Smurfs.

[39:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:53] Okay.

[39:54] We're not that far into this movie.

[39:55] We're not at all.

[39:56] He gets magic powers.

Elliott Kalan

[39:58] Yeah, yeah.

[39:58] From the Amies to the Bears.

[39:59] And Razamel has now identified where the Smurfs are with Zintern.

Dan McCoy

[40:03] Yes.

[40:03] And the Smurfs figure, obviously, Papa has to be kidnapped by their old nemesis, Gargamel, who should have been the main villain of this movie as far as I was concerned.

[40:13] But No Name brings Gargamel to Smurf Village for them to capture and they interrogate him and he doesn't know where Papa Smurf is.

[40:21] But Clumsy has found a magic record that Papa has labeled as the way to find Ken.

[40:28] The guy that, as he was being, Papa Smurf was being sucked away.

[40:31] He's like, find Ken.

[40:33] And so when they put this record on.

Jesse Thorn

[40:35] Hold on, Dan.

[40:36] What happens is Papa Smurf says, find Ken, find Ken.

[40:40] And then in the next scene, a guy says, well, this record says find Ken on it.

[40:46] That's it.

[40:46] That's the problem.

Dan McCoy

[40:48] We put together the clues.

[40:51] This mystery has been solved.

[40:52] Mr. Smurf, I gave you all the clues.

Jesse Thorn

[40:54] Yeah.

[40:54] They don't even show him looking for something.

Stuart Wellington

[40:57] He just holds up a record.

[40:59] I found the thing he said.

[41:00] Why didn't he just like hand him the record as he's being sucked away and be like, play this to find Ken?

Elliott Kalan

[41:06] Why did he just say, go to Paris to find Ken?

Dan McCoy

[41:09] Yeah.

[41:09] Good point.

[41:11] Well, they don't know what Paris is.

[41:13] And they need to learn a lesson about the power of music, Elliot.

[41:16] That's true, I guess.

[41:18] Yeah.

[41:18] Because this is a musical, as we all know, the Victrola sucks them through the horn of it and takes them into Paris in the real world.

[41:28] Which is a weird thing about this movie is like part of it takes place in the real world where cartoon characters live, some of them.

[41:36] I don't know what makes them different from the ones that live in the cartoon world.

[41:39] But none of this is commented on these various levels of reality, really.

[41:43] Which I kind of like.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] I kind of like that they're not like, whoa, where are we?

[41:47] I kind of like the seasickness of not understanding.

[41:49] But it's also very strange when you're like, okay, I get it.

[41:51] So the cartoon characters live in the Smurf universe and they live here.

[41:53] And they're like, there's Razumel's castle here in Germany.

[41:56] And it's like, okay, wait a minute.

[41:58] There's just a cartoon castle in Germany?

Stuart Wellington

[42:00] They're not worried about alienating German audiences by saying Razumel lives there?

Jesse Thorn

[42:05] What's most amazing to me about this concept where they're visiting real life cities of the world is that they do nothing with it.

[42:16] Yeah.

[42:16] Like the extent to which they do nothing with the places that they visit can't be overstated.

[42:22] Like they don't even bother to like have a scene in the Eiffel Tower.

[42:26] There's a shot of the Eiffel Tower very briefly before they go into a generic nightclub.

Stuart Wellington

[42:31] I mean, later on they do during a song number ride around in kangaroo pouches.

[42:37] That's true.

[42:37] In Australia.

[42:38] While the kangaroos sing backup vocals.

[42:41] And it's weird.

[42:42] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:42] Much like much.

[42:43] Oh, they end up in Australia.

[42:44] Much like that X-Men storyline for years when they were living in the Outback.

[42:48] You know, when the Reapers came after them.

[42:49] But you're right.

[42:51] Like they don't have to slide down a long bread in Paris at any point or any of that kind of stuff.

[42:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:58] They have to direct some poor chef into cooking good ass shit.

[43:02] There's a not very important scene where Razumel.

Dan McCoy

[43:07] They're all not very important, Dan.

[43:08] We learned that Joel has gotten Papa Smurf where we also learned that Razumel apparently has a podcast that's mentioned in passing.

[43:18] Because saying that someone has a podcast is a punchline.

[43:20] Instant joke.

[43:21] In films.

[43:22] Well, Dan, come on.

Jesse Thorn

[43:24] It's not that he has a podcast that's the punchline.

[43:27] It's that he was on a Zoom and he was muted and he should have been using his podcast microphone.

[43:32] I have to admit something shameful.

Dan McCoy

[43:34] He was muted on the Zoom, Dan.

[43:35] I have to admit something shameful.

[43:37] They had this magic Zoom and when it cut to him being muted, I snorted briefly.

[43:42] Oh, wow.

[43:42] But I'm sorry.

[43:44] I apologize.

Stuart Wellington

[43:45] And this magic Zoom, it was probably three voice actors doing the voices for these all-powerful human beings.

[43:51] The other wizards, you've got Hannah Waddingham is one of the wizards.

[43:55] Who put some effort into this vocal performance.

Elliott Kalan

[43:58] Nick Kroll is one of the wizards and Octavia Spencer is one of the wizards.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] This is the only time I have not recognized Nick Kroll in a voice performance.

[44:06] That's how bland this film is.

[44:08] Dan, you say you snorted.

Jesse Thorn

[44:10] I smurfed my pants.

Elliott Kalan

[44:11] Oh, man.

[44:12] Don't even get – okay, we'll get to that.

[44:14] We'll get to that.

[44:15] This movie does – it does crime one for me in this kind of movie.

Dan McCoy

[44:19] But Razumel, having now located Papa, he tries to magically grab the book from Smurf Village but only manages to bring Gargamel, who had been trapped there, to him.

[44:29] So now the brothers are together.

[44:32] Meanwhile, in Paris, the Smurfs are rescued from a street sweeper.

Elliott Kalan

[44:36] I also mentioned, once again with Razumel, similar to the king or whatever he is in Shrek, it is part of the fact that this is a very short person.

[44:44] And you can get some humor out of that because short people are evil and should be objects of ridicule.

Dan McCoy

[44:49] No reason to live is the song that has taught us.

[44:51] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[44:51] There's literally – I mean, that's the anthem of short person hate for generations.

[44:56] Literally no reason to live.

[44:57] That Randy Newman refers to them as vermin who are diluting the blood of the nation I think is really unacceptable.

Stuart Wellington

[45:04] I feel kind of uncomfortable along with Jesse being two tall men here.

[45:08] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[45:09] I'm super tall.

[45:11] Is there anything where they put down hunks in this movie?

[45:13] Because I could get upset about that.

[45:15] How tall are you, Stuart?

[45:16] How tall?

Stuart Wellington

[45:17] Yeah.

[45:17] I'm only – I'm 6'1".

Dan McCoy

[45:19] Okay.

[45:20] I'm 5'11".

[45:21] I was like – I was taken out of the –

[45:24] Listeners, of course, know that I am 1'7".

[45:26] You're 3'5".

[45:28] Yeah, 3'5".

[45:29] Yeah, but crab apples, yeah.

[45:32] So the Smurfs in Paris are rescued by the international neighborhood wall Smurfs.

[45:36] Isn't that a Jay-Z album, Smurfs in Paris?

[45:40] They go to their base, which is hidden inside of a disco ball.

Stuart Wellington

[45:44] Because, again, like you can't do a modern Smurfs movie without having like a bunch of like ninja Smurfs doing flips and throwing fucking shuriken of things.

Dan McCoy

[45:53] Here we meet Ken, Papa's tough brother, who's the voice of Nick Offerman.

[45:58] I did recognize, of course, Nick Offerman.

Stuart Wellington

[45:59] Who, again, for some reason, they just like sexed this guy up.

[46:03] I'm like –

[46:03] He's like throwing his body around and I'm like –

[46:06] Can I tell you what?

[46:07] Are they all shirtless or just him?

Jesse Thorn

[46:08] Nick was recently on my public radio show, Bullseye, and he casually –

[46:13] Celebrated 25 years.

[46:14] Yeah, thank you.

[46:14] And he casually mentioned that he's really into massages because he learned it in theater school.

[46:21] Go on.

[46:21] And so I was like, well, I know how to create a viral moment.

[46:24] Give me a massage.

[46:26] He did.

[46:27] He is genuinely great at it.

[46:29] But when we posted that clip on Instagram, I don't know why I hadn't put these pieces together.

[46:35] But just the astonishing flood of horniness that appeared in our comments.

Dan McCoy

[46:42] That guy is a legit sex symbol.

[46:44] For certain communities.

[46:47] He's a burly, masculine fellow who's also very – seems very sweet.

[46:51] I understand.

[46:51] Really, really nice guy.

[46:54] So, yeah, this is the top –

Elliott Kalan

[46:56] And he has the power of the offer, the radioactive offer that bit him a long time ago.

[47:00] That's true.

Dan McCoy

[47:02] What was the offer?

Elliott Kalan

[47:03] Was it the show, the TV show?

[47:05] We'll give you this much money for it to be on a television show.

[47:08] Yeah.

[47:08] He said, I'll take it.

Dan McCoy

[47:10] This is the scene – when they meet Ken, this is the scene with the most arguing,

[47:14] where swear words are replaced by Smurf.

[47:18] But Ken reluctantly agrees to help them.

[47:21] And no name uses magic to create a portal to Razumel's castle.

[47:26] But –

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] And I'll also mention real quick.

[47:28] When I mentioned crime number one, it is when kids' movies do a joke where they're replacing a swear word with another word.

[47:34] It's just being kind of cheeky.

Stuart Wellington

[47:36] It's not like murder, right?

[47:37] You weren't talking about murder.

Elliott Kalan

[47:38] No, no.

[47:39] Murder I'm fine with.

[47:39] Murder's number two.

Stuart Wellington

[47:40] Yeah, murder's number two after this.

[47:42] Yeah.

[47:43] Sometimes my number twos are a murder, if you know what I mean.

[47:45] Oh, God.

Elliott Kalan

[47:47] I don't.

[47:47] You talking about when you're smurfing?

[47:49] This is just Stuart appealing to yet another very specific demographic.

[47:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:55] Unfortunately, Razumel's castle has a force field around them – around it that bounces them to the inter-portal way station,

[48:02] which is not something that should be in a Smurf movie, and the Australian Outback.

[48:06] I mean like –

[48:06] Along with Gateway.

[48:08] It's just like fucking – it really feels like Congress in like 2021 passed a law that multiverses had to be in everything.

[48:17] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[48:17] Yeah.

[48:17] And they just – all of these things are things that they just say.

[48:21] There's nothing shown.

[48:23] Only –

[48:23] No.

[48:24] Yeah.

[48:24] Like they just – like just at some point, Gargamel – like they're going to Gargamel's castle, and Gargamel says,

[48:30] well, good news, we've got a force field, so they'll bounce off us and land somewhere else.

Elliott Kalan

[48:34] And then they land in – it's like –

[48:37] When that kind of thing is done well, it feels like children making up a story as they go along, but here it's not.

[48:42] They don't pull it off that way.

Dan McCoy

[48:43] The thing is, they're rubber and we're glue.

[48:47] Whatever way it goes, I don't know.

[48:48] Anyway, the Outback is the home of the Snooter Poots.

[48:51] Of course.

[48:52] We all know this.

[48:53] Every school child learns this.

Elliott Kalan

[48:54] This is sort of – as soon as the Snooter Poots came in, I was like, whatever.

[48:57] Like, I don't –

[48:58] Dan, have you not seen Kangaroo Jack?

[49:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:01] You know, this actually reminds me, like my old sketch group, Mr. White Pants, had a sketch written by the great Rob Morrison about a –

[49:10] about a children's show called the Peetle Schnorts.

[49:16] And it was like the most insane, like, list of just like stoned guy things about the Peetle Snorts.

[49:25] And I wish I could remember more details about it, but that's what I think about when I hear the Snooter Poots,

[49:30] who are fluffy creatures who steal from multiverse travelers.

[49:34] And –

Stuart Wellington

[49:34] I mean, and these things feel like they've been focus grouped to death to be like the next cute minion-esque type figure.

[49:41] Like, there had to have been a Snooter Poot spinoff script, again, probably starring Jason Mantzoukas, somewhere in the pipeline.

[49:51] I'm sure that was –

[49:52] The Snooter Poots are kind of cute.

[49:54] Yes.

[49:54] Yeah.

[49:55] But I'm sure that was –

[49:55] And when they're voiced by Natasha Lyonne, like, that adds to it.

Elliott Kalan

[49:58] Sure.

[49:58] But I'm sure that was part of the thing.

[49:59] It was like, we need something in here that we can spinoff.

[50:02] And it like – they could do a Gargamel movie, but we need another type of creature that we –

[50:06] I think you're exactly right.

[50:07] Like a minions type thing, you know.

Dan McCoy

[50:09] And they're led by, as Stuart said, Natasha Lyonne as Mama Poot, who is also an old flame of Kins, apparently.

[50:17] And they ask her to open a portal to Rasmus Castle, but she is too scared of the evil wizards to help.

[50:22] And that makes No Name also get scared and run away.

[50:25] And Smurfette follows him, and we get a song.

[50:28] And that's what Stuart was talking about before.

[50:31] And what was the purpose of this song?

Elliott Kalan

[50:32] I kind of couldn't –

[50:32] The song was –

[50:34] It felt like it was every You Can Do It song mushed together.

[50:37] And at a certain point, I was like, I don't know what the message of this song is anymore.

Dan McCoy

[50:39] The purpose was to get them riding around in kangaroos.

[50:41] In kangaroos, yeah.

[50:42] It's too sad.

[50:43] But while they're busy in their kangaroos and musical interlude, Razamel kidnaps everyone except for Mama Poot, who uses an old, broken down, like, interdimensional truck or something.

[50:55] That is powered by fear.

Stuart Wellington

[50:56] Now, the song, I believe, was to make him not scared anymore.

[50:59] And then the next scene, they're like, we need you to be super scared.

[51:03] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[51:04] Good writing.

[51:05] Yeah.

[51:05] When they said that – when they said the Beverly Hillbillies jalopy that they drive was powered by fear, I was like, wow, that's an idea from a different movie.

[51:14] Yeah.

[51:15] Whoa.

Dan McCoy

[51:16] It was – it's so from a different movie that it bounced off my brain like there was a force field around it.

[51:23] Well, they certainly don't do anything with it.

Stuart Wellington

[51:25] Like, it's not a –

[51:25] Yeah, it's not like they, like, whipped out a phone.

[51:27] They're like, scroll through the news.

[51:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:31] It's like there's the – you know, we all remember in Inside Out when the – when they have to keep singing to power that wagon to get them out of the, like, forgetting place.

[51:41] It's like they're almost trying for the laziest version of that.

[51:44] Yeah.

[51:45] Yeah.

[51:45] It's one of the – when I saw Inside Out in the theaters, I was like, that was good, but it was not like – you know, it's not top Pixar.

[51:50] And then you watch something like Smurfs and you're like, what an amazing movie Inside Out is.

[51:53] Like, what is – how much lands the emotion in that movie?

[51:56] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[51:57] So, they go to Razzmell's Castle and they sneak in inside a fast food takeout bag, which is where Smurfsat eats a lot of French fries, as mentioned previously.

Elliott Kalan

[52:07] This is – there's a very strange scene of a snooty butler being disgusted by fast food.

[52:13] And it goes on for a long time.

[52:14] And I was very confused by all of this.

Dan McCoy

[52:18] Yeah.

[52:18] I think it was supposed to, like, create some sort of tension about whether they were going to be found inside the fast food bag.

[52:24] I guess so.

Elliott Kalan

[52:25] But also, it's that, like, this is how bad these guys are.

[52:28] They hate French fries.

[52:29] You know, I don't know.

[52:30] Yeah.

[52:30] But then onion rings are mentioned and they all go, ugh.

[52:32] I'm like, what's – wait, hold on a second.

[52:34] Wait, what's wrong with those?

[52:35] Yeah.

[52:35] I love onion rings.

[52:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[52:38] Meanwhile, Gargamel is getting increasingly disenchanted with Razmell because Razmell will not show him any brotherly affection at all.

[52:46] And as Razmell is about to smash the Smurf prisoners using his smashing machine –

[52:52] Yeah, I'd smash those Smurfs.

[52:53] Okay.

[52:54] Don't we know.

[52:55] All right.

[52:56] Ron, at least.

[52:58] That's what I'm saying.

[53:00] Our heroes burst in and No Name threatens Razmell with his magic.

[53:04] But it turns out that No Name doesn't have magic.

[53:08] Jaunty has been hiding inside of No Name's hat.

Elliott Kalan

[53:11] Now, remind everyone, Jaunty is the sentient magic book voiced by Amy Sedans.

[53:15] Jaunty is Grimoire.

Dan McCoy

[53:16] Of course, our favorite character.

[53:17] Yeah.

[53:18] Took America by storm.

[53:20] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[53:20] Another spinoffable possibility is Jaunty and her Grimoire family.

[53:25] Yeah.

[53:27] So she's been hiding under his Phrygian cat.

Stuart Wellington

[53:30] The whole movie giving him magic.

[53:32] Were Phrygian cats a place to hold like small books?

[53:35] Is that maybe a reference to that?

Elliott Kalan

[53:37] Yeah, I think that's what it was.

[53:38] Maybe that's how they hid their revolutionary texts.

Stuart Wellington

[53:40] I don't know why you're confused.

[53:41] We're talking about real life, Stu.

Dan McCoy

[53:43] Phrygian cats are a place to hide Amy Sedaris.

[53:46] Yeah.

[53:47] She's very small.

[53:48] She can get inside.

[53:50] No, but she's revealed because she's allergic to cats.

[53:54] She sneezes at Asriel revealing herself.

Elliott Kalan

[53:57] She has a book that is allergic to cats.

Dan McCoy

[54:00] This is the hangout.

[54:01] I mean, that's not a bad descriptor for Elliot Kalin, actually.

Stuart Wellington

[54:06] Good point.

[54:06] That's a good point.

[54:07] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:09] A sentient book, allergic to cats.

[54:11] Here's where, as I said, Razmelschus smurfed that photo album and she's like weird about it.

[54:19] And I'm like, we dealt with this.

[54:20] We dealt with this at the beginning.

Elliott Kalan

[54:21] It's purely to set up the idea that she might have made a heel turn, but of course she hasn't.

[54:27] It turns out it was all a trick.

Stuart Wellington

[54:30] Okay.

[54:31] It would be so great if the whole movie-

[54:33] It's just so further discord between the Smurfs.

[54:35] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[54:36] If the whole movie they had been setting up that she has this dark side that she has to keep pushing away, so you don't know which way she's going to go, that would be very funny.

Dan McCoy

[54:42] Yeah, and not Dark Side of the Moon, which again is what you should listen to while watching Smurfs.

[54:47] Yeah, so you can enjoy the textures.

[54:51] So Razmelschus leaves all the Smurfs to get smashed by his giant smashing machine starring The Rock in theaters now.

[54:58] But Gargamel is annoyed.

[55:00] They paid for a spot or?

[55:01] Yeah.

[55:03] Gargamel, well, he needs all the help.

[55:05] It's not a big success.

[55:07] The Rock's Oscar campaign is floundering.

[55:10] Gargamel is annoyed with the Rock's Oscar.

Elliott Kalan

[55:12] Strangely, sad and depressed was not what people wanted from The Rock in movies.

Dan McCoy

[55:16] Uh-huh.

[55:17] Yeah.

[55:17] But, you know, respect.

[55:19] Gargamel is annoyed at his brother and frees the Smurfs and they all fly off on Asriel, who he enchants to have wings.

Stuart Wellington

[55:27] I do like after Razmelschus captures the jaunty grimoire and turns her evil, he then throws her down on the ground and begins surfing around on her like a hoverboard.

[55:38] I thought that was pretty funny.

Dan McCoy

[55:40] I also, the more you say words like Razmelschus and Jaunty grimoire, the more I laugh as well.

Jesse Thorn

[55:48] I think my understanding is that she's one of those human carpets from New York City nightclub culture in 2002.

[55:54] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[55:56] They all, so Asriel loses his wings.

[55:59] Not a good enchantment, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[56:00] The spell almost instantly wears off.

[56:02] Gargamel is not a good wizard.

[56:03] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:03] They crash in a field where-

[56:05] If he was a better wizard, he'd fix the fact that he has like one tooth, right?

[56:10] Probably.

[56:11] Maybe he likes it that way.

[56:11] What I'm saying is dentists are real life wizards.

[56:14] They're the real wizards.

[56:16] We salute you.

[56:16] They're such real magic.

[56:17] Real magic, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[56:19] God bless you, America's dentists.

[56:23] They crash in a field.

[56:25] Long venue drill.

[56:28] Smurfette and No Name both blame themselves for leading Razmels to Jaunty, but Papa says,

[56:33] no, it's actually my fault, and we get a flashback, which is just what we need at this point.

[56:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:38] Where the voice kills the momentum of this high-speeding movie.

[56:43] Kurt Russell, the previous-

[56:44] I mean, this is a long movie.

[56:46] Yeah.

[56:46] For what it is.

Elliott Kalan

[56:47] I actually know it's not.

[56:48] It's an hour and a half, but it feels like a very long movie.

[56:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:51] Because it's completely miscellaneous.

[56:53] I feel like this sequence, this flashback sequence, is one of the things that highlights

[56:59] what's so wrong about this movie is that this sequence is basically all battles.

[57:03] And I'm like, why is there so much fucking battling in this movie?

[57:06] Why are Smurfs, like, punching dudes and shit?

Elliott Kalan

[57:09] Yeah.

[57:09] Why is a Smurf holding, like, a sword and a shield?

[57:12] The Smurfs should not be doing this.

[57:13] It's not what they do.

[57:14] It's not why they're here.

[57:15] You know, it's not the purpose of this.

[57:16] But it's the same way that, like, part of the issue I had with the, like, Tim Burton,

[57:20] Alice in Wonderland movies, where it's like, the evil.

[57:23] The queen or whatever is going to take over the world and we've got to assemble our armies.

[57:27] And I'm like, that's not what Alice in Wonderland is about.

[57:29] Like, it's not a Game of Thrones style fantasy world.

[57:31] It's about nonsense.

[57:32] It's about nonsense jokes and word logic and logic puzzles.

[57:35] Like, it's a misunderstanding of what the thing.

[57:38] Or it's a, you're taking the surface of a thing and then applying it to the inner workings

[57:44] of some other thing, you know?

[57:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:46] But this flashback is all about the previously mentioned Kurt Russell as other brother, Ron,

[57:52] who sacrificed himself to save Jaunty in the past, which led Papa to create Smurf Village

[57:58] to keep his Smurfs safe rather than lose them in battle.

[58:02] And he kept it a secret all these years.

Elliott Kalan

[58:04] Do you think it was weird for Nick Offerman to be playing opposite a character named Ron?

Dan McCoy

[58:08] Probably.

[58:08] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[58:09] Wow.

[58:10] That's a good point, Elliot.

[58:11] Thanks for interrupting.

[58:12] And my understanding is like...

[58:15] Can we just get a sound sample of that that can play every time?

Stuart Wellington

[58:20] Do you think...

[58:21] Yeah, because I bet he recorded all his lines in a big room with all the other voice actors

[58:24] all at once.

[58:25] Oh, they all did it together.

[58:26] For sure, for sure.

Dan McCoy

[58:28] But yes, Papa has kept it a secret that Smurfs are the gardeners of good, which I thought

[58:32] was kind of a funny, funny, ungainly title for them.

Elliott Kalan

[58:39] They're making the best use of a thing that shouldn't be in the movie.

[58:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[58:42] Yeah.

[58:43] With a new sense of purpose, they all team up with Gargamel to fight Razamel, who has

[58:47] trapped the other evil wizards in a water cooler so he can solo reign over the universe.

[58:53] And Razamel zaps most of the Smurfs away, including Papa, who sacrifices himself to protect

Stuart Wellington

[58:59] Smurfette and no name.

[59:00] And this all occurs in some kind of like nebulous cosmic zone, right?

[59:03] Yeah.

[59:03] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[59:05] It's a real multiverse of madness.

[59:06] So speaking of multiverse of madness, Smurfette briefly pretends to always have been on Razamel's

[59:11] side to steal the book and they do a big chase through...

[59:13] For like half a second.

[59:15] Yeah, they do a chase through dimensions.

Stuart Wellington

[59:16] Just enough so that like a little baby in the audience might start to cry and then would

[59:21] be like, oh, wait.

Elliott Kalan

[59:22] I mean, you never know.

[59:23] It's like when Detective Pikachu came out, when my older son had never seen a movie where

[59:28] a character is revealed to be a bad guy.

[59:30] And so when it turns out Bill Nighy is a bad guy, which if you've ever seen a movie, you

[59:34] know it from moment one.

[59:34] He was like, him?

[59:36] I was like, oh, that's right.

[59:38] You haven't seen a movie that does this before.

[59:39] Oh, okay.

Jesse Thorn

[59:40] But this truly, like this sequence, which doesn't look bad.

[59:44] I mean, there's like an 8-bit dimension.

[59:46] There's like a claymation one or something.

Elliott Kalan

[59:48] I like the concept of this.

[59:49] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[59:51] Not a terrible idea.

[59:51] But it is such a transparent ripoff of Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse, which is a really

[59:59] good movie.

[1:00:01] Yeah.

[1:00:02] Like Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse is legitimately wonderful.

[1:00:06] And this is just a garbage version of that.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:10] Yeah.

[1:00:10] And we've seen it so many times at this point.

[1:00:13] We've seen it in that.

[1:00:15] We've seen it in Multiverse of Madness.

[1:00:16] Like even going back, like it's a different kind of thing.

[1:00:19] But I remember like Looney Tunes back in action when they're running through the different

[1:00:22] paintings.

[1:00:23] Like it's very similar to that kind of thing.

[1:00:26] But then again, I was glad for some like visual inventiveness, something new.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:31] And this feels like the kind of thing I wish the movie had more of, even if it's a thing

[1:00:34] we've seen somewhat before.

[1:00:36] Like the Smurfs going through different visual schemes is more.

[1:00:41] I don't like that.

[1:00:41] They're like cutting Razumel's arms off and things like that.

[1:00:45] I don't like that.

[1:00:46] But I think I'd like that more than them having to like sneak through the sewers of Paris to

[1:00:51] have a meetup with this, with the rebel boss or something.

[1:00:55] Well, again, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:56] Like the idea of them running away from Razumel to try and trick him in some way is more interesting

[1:01:01] than what eventually happens.

[1:01:03] Yes.

[1:01:03] How they best him.

Jesse Thorn

[1:01:04] There's a weird.

[1:01:04] Aesthetically, it really like highlights the extent to which they have all this, relatively

[1:01:11] speaking, aesthetic invention in Smurf world.

[1:01:14] And then they go into the real world and everything looks like crap.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:19] Well, the real world has that kind of like AI gloss sheen on everything.

[1:01:22] You know?

[1:01:23] Yeah.

[1:01:23] I'll say, yeah.

[1:01:24] But anyway, Dan, you were going to talk before we interrupted you yet again.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:28] There is one world.

[1:01:31] The one outlier world here, since most of these things are like different art styles, is just

[1:01:36] a microscopic world where Razumel encounters a tardigrade that creeps him out, which was just

[1:01:43] kind of a strange.

[1:01:44] Voiced by hero of democracy, Jimmy Kimmel.

[1:01:46] Interlude.

[1:01:47] Yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:48] That feels like one of those things where like tardigrades are like one of the things

[1:01:51] that are like big right now.

[1:01:53] And so I think that there's just them trying to get there.

[1:01:55] I mean, they're very small, Elliot.

Jesse Thorn

[1:01:56] That's a good point.

[1:01:57] That's a very good point.

[1:01:57] I'm surprised they didn't throw a capybar into that scene.

[1:02:00] Exactly.

[1:02:00] That's the same way that like it would have been a joke.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:02] His eyes rolled so hard, I thought he had a stroke.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:06] And an axolotl.

[1:02:08] An axolotl, exactly.

[1:02:09] The way that all the animals that used to be cool and indie have now sold out, and that's

[1:02:13] one of them.

[1:02:13] Yeah.

[1:02:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:15] But they seemingly make it back.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:16] Except Matamatas, still indie, still edgy.

[1:02:18] Matamatas, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:20] I can't wait.

[1:02:21] It's just going to break my heart when Hollywood gets a hold of Matamatas, the best turtle.

Jesse Thorn

[1:02:25] Yeah.

[1:02:25] Do you think that Jimmy Kimmel even goes to a studio, or do you think they send a tape sinker?

[1:02:32] Like, do you think they just go to Jimmy Kimmel's office with a directional microphone, point

[1:02:37] it at him, say these four sentences, and leave?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:41] I think that's probably closer.

[1:02:43] Probably, yeah.

[1:02:43] Or he just records it on his set, you know, or at a VO booth in the studio where he does

[1:02:49] this, and then they just send it over.

[1:02:50] Because that's the kind of thing when, at the Daily Show, there'd be times when they

[1:02:53] need like John to do something brief for another project, and he would just do it there.

[1:02:57] You know, he doesn't go to the studio or anything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:59] John, you're going to do the voice for a tiny water bear.

[1:03:06] What's that from?

[1:03:07] I mean, that's a tardigrade.

[1:03:08] That's a tardigrade.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:09] Oh, okay.

[1:03:09] I thought you were referencing a real project.

[1:03:12] No, no, no.

[1:03:12] When he did that movie, Tiny Water Bears.

[1:03:15] Tiny Water Bears in my wine.

[1:03:18] Don't drink that.

[1:03:19] It's full of tiny water bears.

[1:03:21] Well, anyway, these guys, they seemingly make it back to a Smurf village.

[1:03:25] But, uh-oh, it's just a nightmare universe where Razumel takes the book back, all seems lost,

[1:03:31] until No Name realizes he's got the magic in him after all.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:35] He does have magic in him.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:36] Yeah.

[1:03:37] And he's immediately super powerful and defeats Razumel, brings back all the Smurfs.

[1:03:42] Guys, this sucks.

[1:03:43] This part sucks the most.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:45] This all sucks, much like it sucked in Harold and the Purple Crayon that ended almost the same way.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:49] Or the Super Mario Brothers movie, where all of a sudden he's just like,

[1:03:52] okay, I guess he's the toughest now.

[1:03:54] Yeah.

[1:03:55] He didn't, like, if No Name had, like, five minutes to power up, like, fucking Goku,

[1:03:59] at least that would have happened.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:02] Like what?

[1:04:03] By just, like, plugging himself into an outlet?

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:04] I was going to say, if he just, like, floats there and goes, ah!

[1:04:08] And, like, lightning shoots around him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:10] Or if he's, like, actually, there's still, even though you think you've gotten rid of my friends,

[1:04:15] they're still with me.

[1:04:16] My love for them is still with me.

[1:04:17] And I can draw on that to make magic.

[1:04:18] Even if it's something that is meaningful in some way or make meaningful.

[1:04:21] Yeah.

[1:04:21] But instead it's just like, actually, no.

[1:04:23] It turns out I do have real magic.

[1:04:24] Bam, bam, bam, bam.

[1:04:25] Like, okay, cool.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:26] And I'm going to be, like, really sassy and, like, give you the deal with it look all the time.

[1:04:31] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:31] And because that's the world we live in now where the qualities that are most prized are

[1:04:35] strength, lack of mercy, and trolling.

[1:04:38] So let's give that to No Name Smurf right now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:42] Let's have sympathetic voice actor

[1:04:45] and James Gordon do this.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:49] Anyway, Razumel's defeated.

[1:04:50] Gargamel banishes him through a multiverse door.

[1:04:53] And Papa and Ken's lost brother returns through a door.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:56] He really throws his brother into exile very easily, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:01] And everyone celebrates in Smurf Village.

[1:05:03] They dance to another pop song before we get that mid-credits scene I talked about before

[1:05:08] where Razumel is stuck in the tardigrade dimension where he hates.

[1:05:15] And Gargamel bursts in on his brother's former assistant, Joel, and says,

[1:05:19] break time's over.

[1:05:20] Break time's over.

S5

[1:05:21] We have unfinished business with those Smurfs.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:23] Very good Gargamel.

[1:05:24] Wait a minute.

[1:05:25] Is there a professional voice actor here with us right now?

[1:05:28] Guys, I could do it better than most of the people in this fucking movie.

[1:05:32] But yeah, that was Smurfs.

[1:05:34] Smurfs 2025.

[1:05:36] Copyright whoever.

[1:05:37] Smurfs 2025.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:40] That's what the official records say, yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[1:05:44] Can I tell you the note that I wrote before I gave up on taking notes?

[1:05:50] Buy more Smurfs.

[1:05:53] Well, there is this one part that says, when he's making clogs, why does one Smurf eat sawdust?

[1:06:00] That was not clear.

[1:06:01] Yeah.

[1:06:02] The people who made this were called Domain Entertainment.

[1:06:08] And this was the first note that I took.

[1:06:12] And it said that Domain Entertainment's logo just looks like it's a stock footage library.

[1:06:17] Yeah.

[1:06:17] Just truly the most generic entertainment company that could ever exist.

[1:06:22] It could run before an episode of like Hercules the Legendary Journeys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:27] Domain Entertainment sounds like the pre-written text where you will alter it when you actually have your real company name.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:35] Sort of Lorne Ipsum.

[1:06:38] Sorry, I took a little break to have refreshing glass of water.

[1:06:40] You guys both drank water at the same time.

[1:06:43] It was really cute.

[1:06:44] Yeah, thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:44] Looking up to Maine Entertainment, also producers of Weapons and Sinners.

[1:06:49] Wow.

[1:06:50] Wow, they're crushing it this year.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:52] They're all over the place.

[1:06:53] So this is where we do final judgments.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:56] And Twisters and a Minecraft movie.

[1:06:58] They seem to have made every single movie according to this letterboxd.

[1:07:01] Wow.

[1:07:01] That's awesome.

[1:07:02] I have so many movies.

Jesse Thorn

[1:07:04] I didn't see Weapons, the one, the most prestigious of those movies perhaps.

[1:07:08] But I saw the other three and I liked all of them.

[1:07:12] So good work, Domain Entertainment.

[1:07:14] Yeah.

[1:07:14] So every now and then they get a good one.

[1:07:16] I like Twisters.

[1:07:16] I take that back.

[1:07:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:18] Final judgments.

[1:07:19] This is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.

[1:07:24] I'm going to first jam Smurfs with some faint praise.

[1:07:28] I'm going to say I had really low expectations that Smurfs exceeded in that for a movie about a 80s cartoon property that doesn't seem to understand the thing that it's doing.

[1:07:42] I liked it better than the recent Garfield movie that we also covered on this.

[1:07:49] And there are a lot of times where like I recognize.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:53] It's like I don't support the president, but he's not Pol Pot.

[1:07:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:56] Well, I recognize that this was like.

[1:07:58] No, he's getting there.

[1:07:59] A lot of soulless storytelling and baffling choices.

[1:08:05] But there were times at which the level to which they were throwing in crap that shouldn't be in this movie amused me.

[1:08:12] Like I would cackle.

[1:08:13] Like, what the fuck is this movie doing?

[1:08:15] And as I said before, it looks pretty good.

[1:08:19] But it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:08:22] It is a mishmash of nonsense with, as Jesse says, two pretty bad performances at the center.

[1:08:32] Yeah.

[1:08:32] Did not like.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:34] Yeah.

[1:08:34] This is a bad, bad movie.

[1:08:35] I think it's a bit of a mess.

[1:08:37] And I can't like.

[1:08:39] I think the biggest sin this movie commits is the fact that we're talking about a.

[1:08:43] We're talking about a property where like the Smurfs don't go around punching people.

[1:08:48] And this movie is like, what if the Smurfs are blasting and punching people all the time?

[1:08:51] And that sucks.

[1:08:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:54] I also think it's a bad, bad movie.

[1:08:56] I have nothing else to add.

[1:08:56] Jesse.

Jesse Thorn

[1:08:57] I had Rebecca Sugar on Bullseye the other day.

[1:09:01] Actually, Elliot came out.

[1:09:02] It was a 25th anniversary show for Bullseye.

[1:09:05] And Rebecca Sugar is the creator of Steven Universe, which is a really beautiful, wonderful show.

[1:09:10] And she just got the job directing a Moomins movie.

[1:09:16] Moomins are sort of like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:17] Moomins are going to be defending the multiverse with a lot of magic laser blasts and stuff.

Jesse Thorn

[1:09:22] Exactly.

[1:09:23] Like Moomins are sort of like the Smurfs.

[1:09:24] Like one of the Moomins dies.

[1:09:25] If the Smurfs didn't have the 80s Santa Barbara cartoon nostalgia, right?

[1:09:30] Like the other Moomins have to get revenge.

[1:09:33] Very sort of European beloved characters.

[1:09:37] And she and I were backstage chatting about this job because I was so happy that she got this job.

[1:09:43] She's such a wonderful person to have this job.

[1:09:45] And one of the things we were talking about was how these 3D animated movies, how difficult it is to capture the aesthetics of cartooning in 3D animation.

[1:09:56] And how disinterested people were for a long time because 3D animators seemed mostly interested in being able to create verisimilitude.

[1:10:05] And recently that has changed and there's been some really cool looking ones.

[1:10:09] Spider-Verse is one, although it's pretty 2D for a 3D movie.

[1:10:13] 2D from Facts of Life?

[1:10:15] Yeah.

[1:10:15] I thought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie looked pretty good.

[1:10:18] Oh, yeah.

[1:10:19] That's great.

[1:10:19] And cool.

[1:10:20] Like I said, I really liked Puss in Boots 2.

[1:10:24] And I think that – and actually the thing I was talking –

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:27] Mitchell's first machines had some fun stuff in it.

Jesse Thorn

[1:10:29] Great movie.

[1:10:30] One of the directors of that movie, Big Mac's Fun Fan.

[1:10:33] And like one of the movies that we talked about was the Peanuts movie that Paul Feig made or Paul Feig co-made.

[1:10:43] And that movie made, I thought, a lot of really interesting choices in terms of reproducing the line art style of an iconic artist in a 3D animated movie.

[1:10:53] That I thought were really successful.

[1:10:54] I liked that movie a lot.

[1:10:56] And so I want to give credit to the people who made this movie on the animation side for making choices.

[1:11:07] And at least in Smurf World, I thought it looked really cool.

[1:11:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:12] And in Razumel's Castle specifically, it looked really like hand-drawn but 3D.

Jesse Thorn

[1:11:17] Yeah.

[1:11:17] It had a very – what's that?

[1:11:21] LaserDisc video game.

[1:11:23] Dragon Quest.

[1:11:25] Is that the one that you play in the –

[1:11:27] Full motion video.

[1:11:28] With the full motion video in the arcade from like 1980.

[1:11:31] Oh, Dragon Quest.

[1:11:31] Yeah, Dragon Quest, right?

[1:11:32] Dragon's Lair.

[1:11:34] Dragon's Lair.

[1:11:35] The Don Bluth animated game.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:37] You're trying to trigger the next piece of animated Don Bluth thing and he never can do it.

[1:11:41] You can't get anywhere.

[1:11:42] It's so hard.

[1:11:42] Impossible.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:43] They made an app for the phone where you could just have unlimited lives and it still took me forever.

Jesse Thorn

[1:11:50] Yeah.

[1:11:51] So I want to give a shout out to those animators for doing much better work and making more interesting choices than they had to despite the fact that the middle 40% or 50% of the movie is in a pretty generic real world setting that adds almost nothing aesthetically.

[1:12:08] But that having been said, this movie's garbage.

[1:12:14] It's mostly garbage in that it's so fucking boring.

[1:12:19] It is just a pile of stuff happening for no particular reason.

[1:12:23] People explaining things to each other.

[1:12:26] Nothing is fun or exciting in the entire movie.

[1:12:30] The songs are terrible.

[1:12:33] Like it really – but what is most distinctive about how bad it is is I was struggling to remember what was happening as I was watching it because it was so boring and forgettable.

[1:12:49] Like those storytelling choices are so dull and predictable but also too complicated to remember and put the pieces together.

[1:13:00] Oh, it is a mess.

[1:13:01] It is a very bad, bad movie.

[1:13:03] And I say that as somebody who's like just left the part of my life where my children need to watch this kind of movie so I need to take them to it and I watch a lot of them.

[1:13:12] Some of them are passable.

[1:13:15] This is not one of them.

[1:13:16] This is just the most generic.

[1:13:18] That said, I saw Trolls World Tour and instead of passing out of my mind immediately upon having watched it, it inserted itself into my mind where I hated it actively, continuously thereafter.

[1:13:33] And so I will say this was better than that in that it is now completely gone from my mind.

[1:13:41] Everything that Dan said to me was a revelation just now as he was recapping the film.

[1:13:46] Four strong recommendations for Smurfs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:49] And then when Jesse listens to this episode in the future, he's like, oh, wow, Ron is Papa Smurfs' brother?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:56] Ron, don't walk in the opposite direction from Smurfs.

[1:13:59] Yeah.

S5

[1:14:04] Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like.

[1:14:06] That's hard to sell in a promo like this.

[1:14:09] So we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered.

[1:14:13] Take it away, real Billy Joel.

[1:14:15] Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on MaximumFun.org.

[1:14:32] Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:14:47] Thanks, real Billy Joel.

Jesse Thorn

[1:14:48] No problem, Griffin.

S5

[1:14:50] What's more action-packed than prestige television?

[1:14:54] With more continuity than comic books?

[1:14:56] And more reality than reality television?

[1:14:59] One, two, three.

Jesse Thorn

[1:15:03] It's professional wrestling.

[1:15:08] This is awesome.

Jesse Thorn

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:10] And to better understand wrestling is the ultimate form of entertainment, you need the Tights and Fights podcast.

S5

[1:15:16] This is the perfect wrestling show with a lot of love, a lack of toxic masculinity,

[1:15:21] and just the right amount of butts, cats, and spandex.

[1:15:26] Listen to Tights and Fights every Saturday on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:32] The Flophouse is made possible in overwhelming measure by the kind support of listeners like you,

[1:15:40] but we also make room for a couple of sponsors.

[1:15:45] And this week we are sponsored by Factor.

[1:15:49] You know, fall can be a difficult season for a lot of people.

[1:15:53] You got kids, then you got to get them back to school.

[1:15:57] Things, you know, like start heating up before the holidays.

[1:16:01] Shorter days can make it feel like there's less time, even though, you know, it's the same number of hours.

[1:16:06] But you know what I mean.

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[1:16:43] I always try to make time for cooking.

[1:16:47] Sometimes it's hard.

[1:16:49] I enjoy it.

[1:16:50] But yeah, October was a crazy month for me in particular.

[1:16:54] It's not going to get any easier now that we're in November.

[1:16:58] And sometimes it's nice to have something like this.

[1:17:00] I have enjoyed factory meals in the past.

[1:17:02] I find them really pretty delicious for something that comes prepackaged.

[1:17:09] Sometimes you can be a little snobby about something like that.

[1:17:11] But they do a great job over at Factor.

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[1:17:33] Get delicious, ready-to-eat meals delivered with Factor.

[1:17:36] Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code and qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase.

[1:17:44] And our other sponsor this week is HEMS, which starts out,

[1:17:48] Tired of trying to figure out what actually works for hair loss?

[1:17:52] Well, not I, but I will channel, I will try and channel our most hair-losinist member of the flop house, Elliot.

[1:18:00] Hey, it's me, Elliot.

[1:18:02] Well, all right, that's kind of insulting.

[1:18:04] But anyway, through HEMS, you get access to clear solutions, expert guidance,

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[1:18:25] Doctor-trusted, clinically-proven ingredients like finasteride, hope I'm saying that right,

[1:18:31] and minoxidil are designed to stop further hair loss and regrow hair in as little as three to six months.

[1:18:39] And you want those clinically-proven ingredients.

[1:18:42] You don't want some snake oil.

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[1:19:26] Hey, let's take a break from plugging other people to plug us, the Flophouse, your pals, sort of.

[1:19:34] If you live in the Chicago area and you don't have any plans for the evening of Sunday, November 16,

[1:19:40] we added a late show after our first show sold out.

[1:19:44] We'll be talking about K9 with Jim Belushi.

[1:19:46] Known Worldwide is one of the two Belushis.

[1:19:50] The show is at Sleeping Village at 9.30 p.m.

[1:19:52] And if you go to the events page at flophousepodcast.com, you will find a link to tickets.

[1:19:57] Also, Flop TV is going strong.

[1:20:01] We just did our episode on Xanadu, a movie that, spoiler alert, I kind of like.

[1:20:09] And, you know, I'm recording this before we do our Xanadu presentation, actually,

[1:20:15] to be dropped into a later episode, so I can't say exactly how it went.

[1:20:19] But I can tell you that my presentation was on one of my 80s fixations.

[1:20:24] It was 80s night, so I focused on an 80s fixation of mine.

[1:20:29] The original cartoon, Jim, about Jim and the Holograms,

[1:20:34] a band fronted by a lady pretending to be another lady

[1:20:38] with the aid of a hologram machine that her dead dad left to her,

[1:20:42] along with, you know, an orphanage, part ownership of a record company.

[1:20:50] Anyway, it's a wild show.

[1:20:52] I did a whole thing on it.

[1:20:54] You can get tickets or a season pass and not miss anything without season pass

[1:20:59] because all of the episodes, even the ones that have already aired,

[1:21:02] will be available on demand through February of 2026.

[1:21:05] But if you want to join us live, those shows are on the first Saturday of every month.

[1:21:10] It's a video stream.

[1:21:12] We're doing film flops starting in the 2000s, going back to the 50s.

[1:21:15] Big finish this season will be Plan 9 from Outer Space, which we've never talked about.

[1:21:20] It's got presentations, pre-tapes, questions from the chat.

[1:21:23] So if you want to see the shows, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:21:27] That's T-I-X for ticks.

[1:21:29] And get those tickets and more info.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:31] That's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:35] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

[1:21:38] This first one is from Brian, last name withheld.

[1:21:41] And Brian writes,

[1:21:43] I'm an archaeologist and frequently have long commutes to remote places,

[1:21:47] and your podcast has been a constant companion for the last decade.

[1:21:51] When I was pulling into a worksite last week, listening to episode 462, Imaginary,

[1:21:57] while sipping my coffee,

[1:22:00] Stuart and Dan were talking about the kid with the missing thumb

[1:22:03] and made some jokes about his inability to hitchhike.

[1:22:07] I guffawed appropriately, then took a long, deep draw of coffee.

[1:22:11] At which point, Elliot exclaimed,

[1:22:13] he was scheduled to be on Roper at the movies.

[1:22:15] And I proceeded to plaster my dash and windshield with coffee.

[1:22:19] It was a spit take for the ages.

[1:22:22] If every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings,

[1:22:25] I hope something equally good happens for the three of you

[1:22:28] every time you've made someone lose a beverage.

[1:22:31] My question.

[1:22:33] My first time teaching at college was as a TA for a class called

[1:22:37] Archaeology in the Movies,

[1:22:39] which used movies as a lens to understand popular sentiments about the past,

[1:22:45] indigenous cultures, heritage, etc.,

[1:22:47] and compare them to what we actually do in the field.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:50] You taught about how archaeologists routinely carry whips

[1:22:53] and have to sneak into submarines.

Jesse Thorn

[1:22:57] I like the idea that he has long commutes to remote work sites.

[1:23:01] And in my mind, immediately, it was like he leaves suburban New Jersey every morning

[1:23:05] to go to ancient Egypt.

[1:23:07] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:08] That fucking island with all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park.

[1:23:11] And then a little line.

[1:23:12] Dinosaur island, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:13] A line goes on the map to show where he's going.

[1:23:15] If you had to design a similar syllabus to teach a class about your work

[1:23:19] or a personal interest through film,

[1:23:22] which movies would you include?

[1:23:25] I'm sorry to break in so fast,

Jesse Thorn

[1:23:26] but for our work, it's obvious it's Alex Inc. starring Zach Braff, right?

[1:23:31] Yeah.

[1:23:32] I know it's not a movie technically,

[1:23:33] but if you put three episodes together, it's a sort of trilogy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:37] Well, the thing is, it has the scope and ambition of a movie.

[1:23:39] It's a trick.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:39] Because TV is the new movies and the new novels.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:23:42] Yeah, of course, you're covering this extensively on Podcast Movie Movie Podcast,

[1:23:46] your bonus content on the MaxFun bonus feed about movies and TV that feature podcasting.

[1:23:53] Your love for Alex Inc. radiates from every episode.

[1:23:59] Yeah, I had to switch to it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:00] It's just good that somebody finally got podcasting right on TV.

[1:24:03] I know.

[1:24:04] Like, I've seen TV shows featuring actual professional podcasters

[1:24:09] that don't seem to understand what podcasting is.

[1:24:12] Yeah, yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[1:24:15] I don't, we have watched a lot of podcast and podcast adjacent things

[1:24:20] for Podcast Movie Movie Podcast,

[1:24:23] the bonus show that I've been doing with my Jordan Jesse co-host Jordan Morris.

[1:24:27] None of them are anything that I would use to teach podcasting.

[1:24:30] So I picked my special interest, which is baseball.

[1:24:34] Yeah.

[1:24:34] Are there any movies about baseball?

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:37] There's that one about the chimp that pitches, right?

[1:24:41] Let me check the rule book first.

Jesse Thorn

[1:24:42] Well, that's for your list of, for your special interest,

[1:24:47] movies with Jason Alexander.

[1:24:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:24:52] I think about baseball movies a lot because I love baseball so much.

[1:24:57] I love movies so much.

[1:24:59] And there are like some favorites that I'm not as hot on as other people are,

[1:25:04] although I think they're perfectly fine.

[1:25:07] I like Bull Durham, but I don't love it.

[1:25:10] I thought Moneyball was fine.

[1:25:14] And A League of Their Own is a charming film, but not one that I treasure.

[1:25:21] This is where you and me part ways, but that's okay.

[1:25:23] We can still be friends.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:24] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:25:25] This is the ruffle feathers hour.

Jesse Thorn

[1:25:27] I know how important baseball and all sports are to you, Elliot.

[1:25:30] Yep, I love it.

[1:25:32] But I thought Everybody Wants Some is, I think, a wonderful movie.

[1:25:39] I know that there's some disagreement on that question on this program, but I know Stu's on my team.

[1:25:44] I think it's like one of the best expressions of the way that it feels to be on a team at its best.

[1:25:55] And also, like the best way of being a jock.

[1:26:03] Like being a jock in a really non-toxic way as like an expression of a sort of fraternal love and the joy of using your body.

[1:26:15] And like I only played baseball until I was like 15 or something, but that's definitely how I felt about playing baseball.

[1:26:24] Speaking of playing baseball, Ephus, which came out this past year, is a wonderful sort of low-key movie about a rec baseball league and a rec baseball game that's going to be the last one at this park.

[1:26:39] And it's all these middle-aged men who have been playing rec baseball their whole adult lives.

[1:26:45] And like the sun is going down and the game is just played inning by inning.

[1:26:50] And it's just about them as this, you know, thing passes out of their lives.

[1:26:56] It's very charming, very funny, a really beautiful movie that really captures like the adult relationship with baseball, I think.

[1:27:08] There's a beautiful movie called Sugar that's maybe 15 or 20 years old now.

[1:27:15] It's about a Dominican player as he goes from the DR to the minor leagues and eventually washes out.

[1:27:24] That I think is sort of one of the best depictions of playing baseball on screen and what I imagine the actual experience of professional baseball is like.

[1:27:35] Like I think people kind of imagine a major league type scenario, but this is a much more humane, human scale version of what a baseball player might actually be like in their life.

[1:27:48] Pride of the Yankees, which is like a very corny movie in a very sort of 1940 type way or 1950, whenever that movie came out.

[1:27:59] But I think it really is a good movie and is the kind of the appeal of the corniness of baseball to me.

[1:28:11] Like the idea of just a pure American hero, you know, like it's just a really nice pure American hero movie.

[1:28:20] Field of dreams, which I like.

[1:28:22] A lot of baseball nerds hate field of dreams, but the idea of baseball as this kind of like, as just kind of like a feeling about this vague past.

[1:28:36] It sort of captures the way that baseball is this kind of like timeless companion in a way that other sports aren't.

[1:28:44] Pickleball?

[1:28:44] There's some, I know, right?

[1:28:47] But like, you know, football is this like Titanic clash and basketball is this, you know, beautiful ballet.

[1:28:56] And baseball is just sort of like boring and always there, but also in the same way that like you could become, as you get older, you become satisfied when you do the dishes.

[1:29:10] You know what I mean?

[1:29:11] Like it is like a friend, you know, it is a satisfaction.

[1:29:15] And that is about like being older and connecting with yourself as a child.

[1:29:20] And the field of dreams captures that very well.

[1:29:24] And then I was trying to think of any documentary about baseball besides Ken Burns baseball that's good.

[1:29:28] Ken Burns baseball is good.

[1:29:30] It's like all the things that are wrong with Ken Burns.

[1:29:32] Like he really like, he really shaves edges off of things and, you know, shows archival footage of things that are not the thing that is being talked about and that sort of thing.

[1:29:43] And it's very corny, but it is genuinely very good.

[1:29:46] But I recommend it actually because I was thinking about it to Elliot that he watched with his son Sammy, a documentary called The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg that I think is a really interesting movie about baseball at its peak in the 1930s.

[1:30:02] It's a story of baseball as it relates to the, you know, the immigrants in the United States and civil rights.

[1:30:12] And also just sort of baseball when it was the central cultural force in American life.

[1:30:18] So, yeah, there's some baseball movies for you.

[1:30:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:21] Well, my answer is going to sound so woefully unthought out after that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:28] It's that BJ Novak movie about podcasting.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:31] Well, again, yeah, nothing has gotten podcasting right.

[1:30:34] Oh, Tusk.

[1:30:35] Nothing has gotten podcasting right.

[1:30:37] So, I was thinking about comedy and writing in general.

[1:30:42] And, like, the thing is, like, also famously, like, narrative movies have not gotten comedy right either.

[1:30:50] Like, which is weird since so many of them are made by comedians.

[1:30:55] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[1:30:55] Remember when a really smart, pretty good comedy writer wrote a really well-reviewed movie about late-night comedy that starred Emma Thompson, the greatest world actor in the world of comedy?

[1:31:08] And it was a B-.

[1:31:10] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:11] Yeah, and I watched it, and I was like, none of this, none of this is how late-night comedy is made.

[1:31:16] This is so wildly wrong about everything.

[1:31:20] So, I was going to recommend, there are a lot of great documentaries.

[1:31:24] Just, like, look up documentaries about comedy.

[1:31:26] I liked the Steve Martin one that was on Apple a lot.

[1:31:29] Oh, I got to watch that.

[1:31:30] I haven't seen it yet.

[1:31:31] That's a good one in particular, I think.

[1:31:33] But there's a ton of them.

[1:31:35] And on a jokier side, but not that jokey, for just writing in general, maybe Barton Fink.

[1:31:41] Because it really captures the misery side of things.

[1:31:43] It's not a movie, but what about Larry Sanders?

[1:31:46] How do you feel about Larry Sanders?

[1:31:47] Larry Sanders.

[1:31:48] You know what?

[1:31:48] That feels real.

[1:31:50] I think some of it feels real.

[1:31:52] Larry Sanders.

[1:31:52] I mean, it's exaggerated in the way that, like, all fiction has to be.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:56] I think the thing that gets me is that they try to get away with the idea that there's essentially one writer on that show, which you can't do.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:04] There's two, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:05] There's two.

[1:32:06] But you only see one of them constantly carrying his laptop around all over the place.

[1:32:09] I think it's undercutting how many people it takes to accomplish a show like that.

[1:32:18] Which you can't have a show with 60 characters on it.

[1:32:22] Yeah.

[1:32:22] But it gives you across the idea that, like, you can make a late-night network television show with, like, a staff of 10, which you could never do.

[1:32:30] Yeah.

[1:32:31] But, you know, that's the kind of thing you have to do.

[1:32:33] Well, Elliot, put your money where your mouth is.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:35] What do you have to say about movies that reflect something?

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:39] I mean, I was going to take the easy way out and be like, I'm going to teach a class about New York in the 70s.

[1:32:43] And there's a ton of movies about that, you know.

[1:32:45] Mm-hmm.

[1:32:46] But I think there's a – I would find it really hard to do something about my work, like you're saying, using movies.

[1:32:52] Because writing is not a visually interesting thing to do.

[1:32:58] It's such an internal process.

[1:33:00] And even writing a TV show where it's a lot of collaboration between people, it's still you're talking in a room.

[1:33:05] And so the one thing that comes close is, I guess, I remember when I was a segment producer at The Daily Show, my dad was like, is it like the scene in broadcast news where she's got to get that tape down the hall really fast?

[1:33:17] And I'm like, yeah, it is like that.

[1:33:19] I do a lot of running through halls with tapes to get them.

[1:33:20] You're right.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:21] That's a pretty good movie about TV.

[1:33:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:25] And for me, when it comes to running a bar in New York City, there's a couple of movies I would recommend.

[1:33:32] I mean, I'll put Cocktail up there because it's kind of dumb.

[1:33:35] Like, it's dumb.

[1:33:36] It's a dumb movie.

[1:33:37] And it's not accurate to what being a bartender is like.

[1:33:39] And in a way, a lot of it is like, yeah, you don't do this.

[1:33:42] You don't get up and like sing like 50s fucking pop songs or like read poetry while standing in a busy bar.

[1:33:49] Like, no, you're slinging drinks, idiot.

[1:33:51] Coyote ugly.

[1:33:53] Yeah, coyote ugly.

[1:33:54] Obviously coyote ugly.

[1:33:56] I'm definitely going to – I would definitely show Support the Girls from, what, 2018 just because it really highlights the way that like a restaurant or bar, like the community that grows out of it and also the way that running that business requires you to manage so many different things.

[1:34:14] And it's really complicated.

[1:34:16] I think that's a really good example.

[1:34:19] And then I would also – I'm going to – weirdly enough, I'm going to do two Darren Aronofsky movies.

[1:34:24] The first is the recent Caught Stealing, a movie I don't actually think is very good.

[1:34:29] But the bar stuff I think is actually pretty accurate to my experience of bartending in New York City.

[1:34:37] That's a baseball movie, right?

[1:34:38] He wears a Giants hat.

[1:34:39] He played for the Giants, right?

[1:34:40] Yeah, there's also a baseball element.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:42] And I liked Caught Stealing, so I'm going to be the pro Caught Stealing voice.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:45] Okay.

[1:34:45] Yeah, I mean I think – I would say it's a mixed movie as far as reviews are concerned.

[1:34:51] And then I would also – I think the most accurate depiction to my experience bartending is Darren Aronofsky's mother.

[1:34:59] That's what I thought you were going to say.

[1:35:00] Because it is like – that is like every fucking bartending stress dream that has like kept me up.

[1:35:06] Just like that feeling that people will not stop coming into your bar and are behaving like maniacs and you're just trying to get out of there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:14] That scene where they keep sitting on the sink even when she keeps telling them not to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:17] That's exactly like bars.

[1:35:20] I mean I've had to like yell at people like, no, don't climb and stand on top of a table, lady.

[1:35:25] I know it's your birthday.

[1:35:29] Did they give you that table?

[1:35:31] Yeah.

[1:35:31] Is that your table that you brought from home?

[1:35:33] We don't allow outside tables in my establishment.

[1:35:37] Wait.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:38] The scientists tried to bring in the periodic table and you're like, get the fuck out of here.

[1:35:41] Get the fuck out of here.

[1:35:43] Hey.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:43] Was that just one question?

[1:35:44] I can't remember.

[1:35:45] That was just one question, yes.

[1:35:46] Okay.

[1:35:46] I have to find the letters for the game.

[1:35:50] We went so long that I was like, okay, now I'll just –

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:53] Sorry we all gave thoughtful responses.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:55] It's – okay.

[1:35:56] Here's the other letter.

[1:35:59] This is from Adam Lasting Withheld.

[1:36:01] Who writes –

[1:36:02] Hey, dudes.

[1:36:02] How you doing?

[1:36:03] That's what you had to find, Dan?

[1:36:05] Yeah.

[1:36:06] What's wrong with you, Adam?

[1:36:07] Why did you write that in?

[1:36:09] No.

[1:36:09] Adam writes, I was a graduate student in Pittsburgh when The Dark Knight Rises was filming.

[1:36:14] I was unfortunately away while filming was happening, but I had friends who were extras in some of the big fight scenes.

[1:36:20] But the lab I worked at was the building that they used as City Hall, and the final confrontation between Batman and Bane took place in the lobby I walked through every morning.

[1:36:30] I don't think the movie is particularly good, but as a graduate school – but as graduate school was not very –

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:35] I think the movie is very bad as a graduate school.

[1:36:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:38] You cannot get a degree from Dark Knight Rises.

[1:36:41] It's a certificate program at best.

[1:36:42] Yeah, exactly.

[1:36:43] I don't think the movie is particularly good, but –

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:46] Excuse me.

[1:36:46] I have a law degree from Dark Knight Rises.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:50] What is this?

[1:36:51] What is this piece of paper?

[1:36:52] Where did you get this?

[1:36:53] Who gave you this?

[1:36:55] Such a beautiful piece of paper.

[1:36:57] Yeah.

[1:36:58] Yeah, I know HVAC repair.

[1:37:01] But as graduate school was not very good for my health, the Batmobile shooting the building in the face has a special place in my heart.

[1:37:08] My question is this.

[1:37:10] Do you have any movies where you like watching one scene and then you turn it off, but you've seen that scene a ton of times because you like it so much?

[1:37:17] Thanks for your podcast and attention, Adam.

[1:37:19] Last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:21] I think the closest answer I have to this, and it might make me some enemy, is I don't love the movie Streets of Fire.

[1:37:28] But I do love the opening song in Streets of Fire.

[1:37:31] Yeah.

[1:37:32] That scene is one I'll just put on and watch it because I love the way he puts it together.

[1:37:35] I love the song.

[1:37:36] I think it's – so it really gets me going before a meeting.

[1:37:39] If I have a pitch or something, that's a song I'll listen to beforehand.

[1:37:41] But I don't love the rest of the movies.

[1:37:43] I don't watch the rest of the movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:44] Like when I got this question, I didn't really consider like I only want to watch this scene.

[1:37:50] I don't like the rest of the movie as much.

[1:37:52] I thought of it more as like what is one scene that kind of encapsulates the vibe of the whole movie?

[1:37:59] And for me, that is the scene in Unforgiven with Gene Hackman talking in the jailhouse with – what's his name?

[1:38:10] Saul –

Dan McCoy

[1:38:10] Saul Rubinick.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:12] Yeah.

[1:38:13] And it's such a great scene.

[1:38:15] It's like a full movie in one scene.

[1:38:18] It's so great.

[1:38:20] The rest of the movie is great too.

[1:38:21] But I feel like that is just – it's such like a beautiful bit of acting and writing.

[1:38:27] And yeah, it's awesome.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:29] I'm sure I have some of my own, but what sprung to mind just now was actually –

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:34] There's a lot of online videos where you'll just watch a little bit of it and then not finish it.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:39] Uh-huh.

[1:38:39] I got what I needed.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:40] You kind of don't need the setup or the wrap-up.

[1:38:43] The setup's important.

[1:38:45] You need to see what the scenario is.

Jesse Thorn

[1:38:47] I'm an old man.

[1:38:47] Stu's been watching a lot of videos of Ron lately.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:50] I do, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:51] And I don't need the setup.

[1:38:53] I need stories.

[1:38:53] I have my own fantasy that sets up this circumstance.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:56] Okay.

[1:38:57] Anyway, not that.

[1:38:58] No, I was – again, this is not a movie that like we don't like the rest of the movie.

[1:39:04] We like the whole movie.

[1:39:05] But there was a period of time when Audrey, when she didn't know what else to watch, would throw on the recent Dungeons & Dragons on her Among Thieves and specifically watch the opening where he keeps waiting for Jonathan to show up and asking where Jonathan is.

[1:39:24] And the scene with the corpses who have to answer questions.

Jesse Thorn

[1:39:30] I'm not a big watcher of movies that I'm going to be watching.

[1:39:36] At least kind of like a movie.

[1:39:37] At least kind of like a movie before I'm willing to spend my life watching it.

[1:39:40] Unless I get to see three of my favorite friends in the world and be a guest on their podcast.

[1:39:46] So, I was thinking like, what is a movie where I like a movie where I like a scene but don't like other parts of it?

[1:39:51] The best I could come up with was the movie Dirty Work, which actually has a few parts that I like.

[1:39:58] And, you know, Norm MacDonald was, like most people my age, worth knowing, but also emotionally broken, my hero when I was 14.

[1:40:08] And there's some real funny stuff in Dirty Work, but like I watched the whole movie.

[1:40:15] It's not a good movie necessarily.

[1:40:18] But I could watch any day like the part where they're about to get in a bar fight and Chris Farley goes, puts a quarter into the jukebox and goes,

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:30] Street fighting man, Rolling Stones, L7.

Jesse Thorn

[1:40:34] But then he accidentally presses L8 and the Pina Colada song comes on.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:40] I remember that having a lot of, yeah, like very good isolated bits in it.

Jesse Thorn

[1:40:45] Yeah, Chevy Chase is crazy funny in that movie.

[1:40:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:48] So let's do recommendations.

[1:40:52] Movies that would be a better use of your time than Smurfs.

[1:40:56] And I'm going to pull out, we were talking about The Dark Knight Rises just a moment ago.

[1:41:02] Another Dark Knight.

[1:41:03] We were talking about that, weren't we?

[1:41:05] The Darkest Knight, of course, Batman 66.

[1:41:10] The Batman movie from 1966.

[1:41:12] My friends and I have been watching, doing a watch of the whole Batman series recently on Sunday nights, which is, of course, delightful.

[1:41:24] And at the end of the first season, before we started the second season, that's when the Batman movie came out.

[1:41:30] And so we slotted that in there and watched that recently.

[1:41:33] And it's just so much fun.

[1:41:35] You know, you go through this thing when, as a kid, you don't quite understand that this is essentially a comedy show that you're watching.

[1:41:42] Like, you're watching a Batman show seriously because you're a kid.

[1:41:47] And you're like, why is it so weird?

[1:41:49] Why is it so goofy?

[1:41:50] Like, oh, this is dumb.

[1:41:52] Or like, but you like it.

[1:41:53] But you're like, this is dumb.

[1:41:54] And then you realize, oh, that's all intentionally dumb.

[1:41:56] These are all jokes in here.

[1:41:58] And they're really good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:59] It's the old thing of, like, people being like, ugh.

[1:42:03] I feel like there's a long time they're like, ugh, it's so campy.

[1:42:05] As if comedy was not the purpose of the show.

[1:42:08] Like, oh, they were trying to make a serious Batman show and they screwed it up because they didn't know what they were doing.

Jesse Thorn

[1:42:13] One of my kids went through a Batman period and we watched this.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:19] And, like, the thing that struck me is just Adam West is really funny.

Jesse Thorn

[1:42:25] He's so good in it.

[1:42:26] He is really funny.

[1:42:28] And not like, I'm a ridiculous man and they gave me things to say that make me look funny.

[1:42:35] Like, he is on purpose super funny in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:38] Well, I think it's, like I was just saying about the show, I think Adam West did not get a credit he deserved for that.

[1:42:43] Where it was like, ugh, he's so, like, it was as if it was a flaw of his performance that it is hilarious.

[1:42:49] When that is exactly what he's going for.

[1:42:50] He is playing a guy who is unaware of how ridiculous the things he's doing are.

[1:42:54] You know, that kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:55] But it's, you know, he's great in it.

[1:42:57] Well, also, it can simultaneously be funny and campy and have, like, there's some great villain performances in there.

[1:43:03] Like, Frank Gorshin and Burgess Meredith in particular, I think are super amazing.

[1:43:09] I mean, like, also Julie Newmar's Catwoman.

[1:43:13] Just, like, terrific performances in this silly show.

Jesse Thorn

[1:43:18] When my kid was going through that Batman period, I talked to friend of Max Fun and friend of this show, Glenn Weldon from Pop Culture Happy Hour,

[1:43:25] who wrote a wonderful book about Batman called The Caped Crusade.

[1:43:30] And I asked him, like, what's the Batman thing I would enjoy?

[1:43:34] And he recommended the comic Batman 66, which we bought a few, like, compilations of.

[1:43:40] And it really is a blast.

[1:43:43] And I had a great time also reading those, like, 50s, early 60s, you know, Calendar Man era Batman compilations as well.

[1:43:52] Like, I was like, this is genuinely fun to look at and really fun to read.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:57] Yeah.

[1:43:57] So, if you haven't checked it out in a while, Batman 66, Batman the movie, I don't know, it's called Batman.

[1:44:04] Do you remember when he's running around with the bomb?

[1:44:07] I was going to say, the scene where he's trying to get rid of that bomb is one of the funniest scenes, actually, in all of the movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:13] And to watch that scene and not realize you're watching a comedy.

[1:44:16] It always backs it up.

[1:44:17] Like, when he sees the little ducks and he's like, oh.

[1:44:20] You can't get rid of the bomb there.

[1:44:21] A bunch of nuns.

[1:44:23] Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.

[1:44:25] Like I said.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:25] And you get to a point where he's just, like, racing around, like, the same, like, triangle, like, running into the marching band with the tubas.

[1:44:31] And it's just, it's great.

[1:44:33] Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:34] So, Dan just recommended a man movie.

[1:44:36] I'll recommend a man movie.

[1:44:38] That's right.

[1:44:39] A few weeks ago, I went to a screening of Roof Man.

[1:44:43] The screening I went to, this is directed by Derek Cienfrance.

[1:44:47] And the screening I went to actually had a Q&A with Mr. Channing Tatum himself, the star of the movie.

[1:44:54] Now, this is a movie that's based on a real-life story of a man who escaped prison and hid inside of the ceiling.

[1:45:05] And then later on inside the building of a Toys R Us store.

[1:45:09] This is a period piece.

[1:45:12] It's set in the 90s.

[1:45:13] And he, his life gets more complicated when his desires to run away and be free are complicated by his relationship that he forms with one of the employees at the Toys R Us, played by Kirsten Dunst.

[1:45:27] And this is a movie that, for one, is like set in the world of like, I don't know, like strip malls and like suburban America.

[1:45:37] And it feels like so like fresh and unique.

[1:45:40] Like it feels like I'm in a fucking different country watching this.

[1:45:43] Even though this is a, this is like a world that I lived in and grew up in.

[1:45:46] And like, even though the circumstances are different, but he's, they're spending so much time in this Toys R Us.

[1:45:52] It really like took me back to my, if any, if you've worked retail at all, like it took me back to that time in my life where my world was so focused around this little place that sold stuff and the routine of it.

[1:46:07] And like, I don't know, it's, it's just kind of magical.

[1:46:11] And I think the movie is a little bit too long.

[1:46:14] It could be tightened a little bit, but there's so many great performances and there's so many great performances in small roles.

[1:46:19] Peter Dinklage plays the manager and he's such a creep.

[1:46:23] And also like, he gets involved in a, in Kirsten Dunst's character's church, where the leaders of the church are played by Ben Mendelsohn and Uzo Aduba.

[1:46:31] And Ben Mendel, there's a scene where Ben Mendelsohn is like leading the show choir with this feathered hair.

[1:46:36] And it's just so much fun.

[1:46:38] And I think part of it's also this idea that this man is like struggling with the choices he's made.

[1:46:42] And he knows what he probably should do, but his, you know, what his head is saying, what his heart is saying are different things.

[1:46:51] And I think it's a, I think it's a really interesting movie and it's very sad, but it's also kind of beautiful.

[1:46:56] So I enjoyed it.

[1:46:57] Check it out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:59] I'm going to recommend, I figured we talked about Smurfs in this episode.

[1:47:02] I know it seems like it's been a long time since we talked about Smurfs, but that was just this episode.

[1:47:06] And the, uh, I was thinking about what are kids movies that accomplish something more like what the Smurfs, I would assume them to be doing, which is more gentle or quiet in a way.

[1:47:17] I couldn't think of anything exactly, but I remembered of the movie that came out last year, uh, called flow.

[1:47:22] That's an animated movie about some animals that have to escape a flood.

[1:47:25] Basically, there's no dialogue.

[1:47:27] It's very quiet and very, I found it very slow, but my younger son really loved it.

[1:47:32] Like he was really absorbed in it.

[1:47:34] And I thought it delivered to him, I think a very, there's danger in it.

[1:47:39] Like there's stakes in it, but it is a very like, um, like comforting movie in some ways because it is not hyper, hyperactive.

[1:47:47] Like it's not loud.

[1:47:48] And so I think, uh, for a kid who wants to watch a movie and does not want to watch something that is about a magic battle to save the universe, or you think it's not in the mood for that kind of thing.

[1:47:58] Then flow was really worked well for him as something that he could live in for a little bit and enjoy without it amping up his adrenaline every minute of every moment of it.

[1:48:09] So that's what I recommend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:10] It's interesting.

[1:48:11] It is a movie that has those stakes, right?

[1:48:13] Like it's still like, it's still scary at times, but I feel like there's a, there's a gentleness to it, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:20] Yeah.

[1:48:21] And I think it's all, it's so much of it is in the pace and the tone of it, that it is not trying to shove emotions down your throat or shove, you know, excitement down your throat.

[1:48:28] It's not an exciting movie.

Jesse Thorn

[1:48:30] It's got a really, really good capybara in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:32] And there is a good capybara in it.

[1:48:33] Yeah.

[1:48:33] I know how you feel about capybaras, but still.

Jesse Thorn

[1:48:36] I, um, I figured like, uh, I was thinking like, what movies have I seen recently that are recommendable?

[1:48:42] Then I was like, well, when am I going to get to be on the Flophouse again?

[1:48:45] I should just recommend my favorite movie.

[1:48:47] Yeah.

[1:48:48] Um, so I really love, so.

[1:48:51] So boxing Helena.

[1:48:56] Christmas with the cranks.

[1:48:57] All ladies do it.

[1:48:58] Uh, I, uh, my, my father served on an aircraft carrier early in the Vietnam War, specifically, specifically in the, in the war against, uh, uh, Laos and Cambodia.

[1:49:13] And he, one of his jobs on the carrier was he operated the projector room in the movie theater.

[1:49:21] And there was like this horrible piece of it, which was that one of the things that he projected was tail films from the airplanes that were on the carrier.

[1:49:28] But the good thing was that he got to see the movie A Thousand Clowns over a hundred times.

[1:49:36] Um.

[1:49:37] That's a hundred thousand clowns.

[1:49:38] Yeah.

[1:49:39] So many clowns.

[1:49:40] And my, my parents were very bitterly divorced.

[1:49:44] My dad's gone now, but, but my parents were very bitterly divorced.

[1:49:47] And A Thousand Clowns was like the only thing besides James Brown that they agreed on.

[1:49:52] Like the only thing that they both spoke fondly of.

[1:49:54] Everything else was divided in the divorce.

[1:49:56] Like somebody had to give up Nina Simone.

[1:49:58] But, uh, but A Thousand Clowns, they always agreed on.

[1:50:03] It is a movie from the early 1960s, uh, the sort of just pre-hippie counterculture 1960s.

[1:50:12] It was originally a play and the playwright based the protagonist, who's played by Jason Robards, on Gene Shepard, who was a legendary radio essayist, but also, uh, you know, the basis of the movie, The Christmas Story.

[1:50:28] Uh, Christmas Story.

[1:50:30] Um, but it's about this, it's about this comedy writer who is out of work and takes care of his 13-year-old nephew, who is like a super precocious, neurodivergent weirdo.

[1:50:44] And he is trying to find a job because otherwise CPS will take the kid away.

[1:50:54] And Robards' character is just a classic comedy writer guy and that he is unbelievably charming, unbelievably fascinating.

[1:51:07] Like a guy that wants, um, that wants this kid that he truly loves to have like every vision of what is special and amazing about the world.

[1:51:17] Right?

[1:51:19] Um, you know, my mom often talks about Irving R. Feldman's birthday, uh, which is the birthday of the guy that runs the junkyard that every year, uh, Jason Robards' character takes the kid out of school for.

[1:51:33] Um, and the conflict in this movie is not between Robards' character and CPS.

[1:51:44] Although the guy that plays Mr. Feeney is the CPS guy.

[1:51:50] Um, and he does a wonderful job.

[1:51:52] And there's a-

[1:51:53] William Daniels.

[1:51:53] Yeah, and there's a very sweet, um, there's a very sweet love story with Barbara Harris, who's, uh, the lady, um, CPS worker.

[1:52:03] But, like, ultimately the conflict is that Robards is so deeply committed to his-

[1:52:13] his values of the world being a magical, amazing place that he can't accept the idea that he has to take responsibility for his life.

[1:52:26] Right?

[1:52:27] That he thinks that it's okay for him to think of himself as so special that he doesn't have to take a shitty job so that he gets to keep his kid.

[1:52:40] And this central conflict is he's going out for these jobs and he's disqualifying himself for everyone.

[1:52:47] And he ultimately has to face whether he's going to go work on the Chuckles the Chipmunk show, uh, with his old boss that he hated.

[1:52:56] Um, and Chuckles the Chipmunk is an extraordinary performance of the just desperation and sadness of show business.

[1:53:05] Um, and it's like, it's a movie that moves me to tears every time I watch it because it reminds me of how difficult it is when you are-

[1:53:17] you know, an idealist who's dedicated your life to laughing and joking and stuff.

[1:53:23] And maybe you're even good at it.

[1:53:25] That you-

[1:53:27] what really matters is that you take responsibility for your relationship with the other people in your life.

[1:53:33] Right?

[1:53:33] That, like, you can't just be a solipsist.

[1:53:36] You can't just be-

[1:53:37] uh, you can't just be a-

[1:53:39] a heel who's so charming that he gets away with it, you know?

[1:53:43] Um, and, uh, it's also a-

[1:53:47] it's also a very interesting film technically.

[1:53:50] It was a- it was a play originally, and there's not much that happens out in the world.

[1:53:56] And so if you've ever read that book, When the Shooting Stops, about film editing,

[1:54:00] there's a whole chapter in there about all the things they did to, um,

[1:54:06] enliven the film in the editing room.

[1:54:08] Um, there's a lot of montages that take-

[1:54:12] take advantage of a lot of stock footage to depict the rat race.

[1:54:18] Um, and it's a very, like, it's a very countercultural-

[1:54:22] it's a very-

[1:54:23] it's a very vivid reminder that there was a counterculture before there was hippies.

[1:54:28] Um, that there was, like, something-

[1:54:32] I- I think it reminds me a lot of, uh, my late friend Mal Sharp, who was one of the creators

[1:54:38] of the MaxFun podcast, Coil and Sharp.

[1:54:42] Um, in that he was, like, in the early 1960s before hippies, like,

[1:54:47] doing things that were really magical and incredible.

[1:54:50] And, um, so yeah, it is-

[1:54:53] it is the-

[1:54:54] like, in the question, what is the best depiction of making comedy?

[1:54:59] It is not my best depiction of making comedy, because there's no comedy made in the film.

[1:55:04] Um, you know, it's about a guy who's-

[1:55:06] who can't get a job making comedy.

[1:55:09] Um, but in terms of-

[1:55:12] depiction of the emotional life of someone who is driven to create comedy,

[1:55:17] uh, it is the most compelling film I've ever seen.

[1:55:21] Because it is ultimately about, like, again, that-

[1:55:25] that conflict between thinking of yourself as special

[1:55:28] and realizing that your job on Earth is not to be special.

[1:55:32] It is to take care of other people.

[1:55:35] Um, and, uh, yeah, the ending is-

[1:55:39] is ambivalent enough, um, in terms of where this guy goes

[1:55:44] and what kind of guy he is, that Gene Shepard actually severed his relationship

[1:55:50] with his friend that-

[1:55:52] Wow.

[1:55:52] that wrote the-

[1:55:53] wrote the play and film, um, because he felt it was too scathing of,

[1:55:57] you know, him being a manic pixie dream boy.

[1:56:01] Um, but I- I find it inspirational.

[1:56:06] Like, it reminds me why I am, uh, you know,

[1:56:12] besides being a comedy guy, also a comedy dad.

[1:56:14] Like, why I'm so grateful to work with Jordan and John Hodgman,

[1:56:19] who are people who will go put up flyers with me at all the campus bus stops.

[1:56:24] You know what I mean?

[1:56:25] Yeah.

[1:56:26] Um, and, uh, it's a- it's a really beautiful movie.

[1:56:29] It is on, um, it is on Blu-ray.

[1:56:33] Uh, you can get it on Blu-ray.

[1:56:34] Sometimes it is on, uh, AMC.

[1:56:37] But also, let's say you had a tube, um,

[1:56:42] that you could type a thousand clowns into and then filter by length.

[1:56:46] Um, I bet you could find it there if you wanted to.

[1:56:48] I'll also say this, guys.

[1:56:50] I love the movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

[1:56:52] There's gonna be a 4K Blu-ray from Criterion coming out.

[1:56:55] And your boy wrote the essay with a lot of help from my friend,

[1:56:58] Elliot Kalin.

[1:56:59] Oh, cool.

[1:57:00] Not a lot of help.

[1:57:01] Thrilled to see that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:02] I'm excited to get a copy of that myself.

[1:57:04] I'm gonna second your A Thousand Clowns recommendations.

[1:57:06] It's a great movie.

[1:57:07] Thank you.

[1:57:08] And, uh, you wouldn't know it,

[1:57:09] but you're all familiar with the work of the actor who plays the kid,

[1:57:12] Barry Gordon,

[1:57:13] because he went on to be the original voice of Donatello.

[1:57:15] Yeah.

[1:57:16] In each Turtles cartoon series.

[1:57:17] Oh, he also sang All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.

Jesse Thorn

[1:57:21] And he was president of SAG-AFTRA.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:23] He's the longest-story president of SAG.

[1:57:25] Like, it's great.

[1:57:26] But that's, it's a great movie.

[1:57:27] That performance that, uh, that Gene Sachs gives as Chuckles the Chipmunk is astonishing.

[1:57:32] It's such a, like, it is, um, it is like, I think it's the best performance of a,

[1:57:38] of a, an incredibly self-centered, narcissistic, low self-esteem performer

[1:57:43] that maybe I've seen in a, in a movie.

[1:57:46] It's so, it's so hurtful.

Jesse Thorn

[1:57:47] If you read when the shooting stopped,

[1:57:50] he was a replacement cast member in a reshoot.

[1:57:53] Uh, like, they just sort of, like, brought him in four months or something

[1:57:57] after they finished the movie.

[1:58:00] And it is the most extraordinary performance.

[1:58:03] And, uh, what's his face who plays his brother actually won the Oscar?

Elliott Kalan

[1:58:07] Awesome.

[1:58:08] This, this is the movie he won his Academy Award for.

[1:58:10] Yeah.

[1:58:10] Was for a sporting actor for this movie.

Jesse Thorn

[1:58:11] And he's, he's really wonderful in it as, as, uh, the, Jason Robards character's, uh,

[1:58:16] brother and agent, uh, who is a fruit enthusiast and thus very relatable to me.

[1:58:22] Uh, but not to Elliot.

[1:58:23] No.

[1:58:24] Well.

Stuart Wellington

[1:58:24] It's the one thing I don't like about the movie.

[1:58:25] Well, it's like there's some kind of alien monster in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:58:29] Jesse, uh, speaking of doing, uh, shameful things as a necessary part of a showbiz career,

[1:58:35] uh, you care so much about your show, uh, Bullseye that you watch the Smurfs.

[1:58:43] Do you want to plug it before, uh, we sign off?

Jesse Thorn

[1:58:47] Yeah.

[1:58:47] Well, first of all, I watched the Smurfs so that I could spend some extra time with three

[1:58:51] of my favorite guys on earth.

[1:58:52] Aw.

[1:58:53] Um, I love you guys all very much.

[1:58:54] You're such wonderful friends.

[1:58:56] I'm so grateful.

[1:58:56] And you're, you're in my life.

[1:58:58] Um, but yeah, also it's the 25th anniversary of my public radio program, Bullseye, that I

[1:59:02] started 25 years ago in Santa Cruz, California as, uh, a college sophomore with my friend, Jordan

[1:59:09] Morris, who's been a guest on this show, uh, who was my, my resident on the hall that I was

[1:59:15] the RA of, um, but yeah, I've been interviewing figures in the world of arts and culture for

[1:59:20] 25 years on Bullseye, um, including many people from the world of film.

[1:59:26] One that stands out, uh, is maybe six years ago, I got to interview Pedro Almodovar, um,

[1:59:33] and it was a really extraordinary experience.

[1:59:36] I've gotten to interview Mike Lee two times.

[1:59:39] That's probably my favorite living filmmaker.

[1:59:43] Um, uh, um, Ryan Johnson's coming in in a few weeks.

[1:59:46] Uh, it's always, Ryan's been a guest on the show several times, uh, and he's one of the

[1:59:51] best guys around, um, as well as many, you know, movie stars.

[1:59:57] Um, but it's in-depth conversations about where art comes from, um, with people who make stuff

[2:00:06] that's awesome.

Dan McCoy

[2:00:07] Yeah.

[2:00:07] I'm hard to please when it comes to interviews.

[2:00:09] It's not my usual thing.

[2:00:11] Uh, I think you're my favorite interviewer.

[2:00:14] I enjoy what you do.

[2:00:16] Thank you, Dan.

[2:00:16] So, uh.

[2:00:18] What about you, Stu?

[2:00:19] Who's your favorite?

[2:00:20] Is it me or?

[2:00:22] Uh.

Jesse Thorn

[2:00:22] It's the, it's the Hot Ones guy, isn't it?

[2:00:24] It's the guy from Hot Ones.

[2:00:25] It's the Hot Ones.

[2:00:26] It's the guy from Hot Ones.

Stuart Wellington

[2:00:27] Yeah, he makes you chicken.

[2:00:29] Yeah, I mean, I just like, uh.

[2:00:30] Like hot chicken.

[2:00:31] Yeah.

[2:00:32] He's, he's like my favorite bald interviewer.

[2:00:35] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[2:00:36] Elliot's, Elliot's favorite interview, by the way, is the chicken wings from Hot Ones.

[2:00:40] It's not even the guy from Hot Ones.

[2:00:41] They're great.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00:41] They do great work.

[2:00:42] I actually, I'm a huge, you're my second favorite after that guy who did the interview

[2:00:45] with the vampire.

[2:00:46] Because that's tough.

[2:00:46] That's, that's scary.

[2:00:48] You're taking your life in your hands to do that.

[2:00:49] That takes guts.

[2:00:50] Yeah.

[2:00:50] You know, the slate man.

Stuart Wellington

[2:00:52] Yeah.

[2:00:53] Well, not the actor who played the character.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00:55] Christian Slater.

[2:00:56] No, it was him.

[2:00:56] Christian Slater.

[2:00:57] The actor did it.

[2:00:58] That's my favorite interviewer is the actor Christian Slater.

Stuart Wellington

[2:01:01] Talk to a fan.

[2:01:01] Yeah.

[2:01:03] Um, well, uh.

[2:01:04] Yeah, it's Michael, it's what?

[2:01:06] Michael Sheen doing David Frost.

[2:01:08] That's my favorite.

[2:01:09] Yeah.

[2:01:10] Man, what a dumb movie at times.

[2:01:12] Oh, okay.

[2:01:13] The way they like mix in footage of the, I didn't like it either, but we can't litigate Frost

[2:01:18] Dixon, right?

Elliott Kalan

[2:01:18] We should do a mini about Frost Dixon.

[2:01:19] We should do a mini about Frost Dixon where it's like, why do we have the actors playing

[2:01:22] the cat, that historical figure is doing talking heads to the camera as if this is a documentary?

[2:01:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:01:27] Like, what is this?

[2:01:28] Yeah.

[2:01:28] Very irritating.

[2:01:28] Yeah.

[2:01:29] Yeah.

[2:01:29] Um, so that's the perfect note to sign off on.

[2:01:34] Uh, thank you to, uh, Jesse for being here, uh, and watching Smurfs despite, uh, his reaction

[2:01:40] to it.

[2:01:41] Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.

[2:01:44] He goes by Howell Doughty online.

[2:01:45] You can find all of his creative works scattered across the internet.

[2:01:49] Thank you to Maximum Fun.

[2:01:51] Uh, you can find other podcasts at MaximumFun.org.

[2:01:55] Many, many years ago, Jesse said, hey, hey, what about you guys coming on Maximum Fun?

[2:02:00] And it was, uh, it was a dream come true as someone who, uh, really loved, uh, Jordan

[2:02:06] Jesse Go and, uh, and a lot of the podcasts on MaxFun and it's been a great fit.

[2:02:10] Uh, so thank you again, Jesse.

[2:02:13] Uh, check out the other podcasts.

Jesse Thorn

[2:02:14] I just saw our friend, I just saw our friend Al Madrigal who on the podcast network that

[2:02:18] you guys were with previously.

[2:02:20] Yeah.

[2:02:20] And, uh, I, I was reminded that first of all, I'm still very good friends with Al Madrigal,

[2:02:24] but I was reminded that he texted me, I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house.

[2:02:29] I know, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of Al Madrigal.

[2:02:33] Uh, he's like, I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house.

Stuart Wellington

[2:02:35] He literally was a professional firing person for years.

Jesse Thorn

[2:02:38] Yeah.

[2:02:38] He's like, I'm so mad at you.

[2:02:40] And he's like, the reason, like, I understand why they did it.

[2:02:43] It makes so much more sense at MaxFun.

[2:02:45] Uh, but that's the one show of ours that me and Kristen listened to.

Dan McCoy

[2:02:50] Oh, that's a very nice thing to hear.

[2:02:52] It's sweet and it makes me feel bad.

[2:02:54] Well, uh, sorry, Al.

[2:02:57] Thank you, Al.

[2:02:57] If you're still out there.

[2:02:58] Al still loves you.

[2:02:59] Don't worry.

[2:03:00] Um, well, uh, for the flop house, I've been Dan McCoy.

[2:03:04] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03:06] I'm Ali Kalin, and I'm so happy that we had our guest today.

[2:03:09] Jesse Thorne.

[2:03:12] Bye, everyone.

[2:03:21] Together, there's almost 50 years.

[2:03:23] No, there's more than 50 years.

[2:03:24] I was just going to do two shows together.

[2:03:26] But all of us individually, there's nearly a century of podcasting experience on the Zoom.

Stuart Wellington

[2:03:32] So our sound quality is going to rock.

[2:03:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03:36] Certainly.

[2:03:37] He goes, I'm radio, almost 30-year radio professional, Jesse Thorne.

Jesse Thorn

[2:03:44] I got four candy corns left.

[2:03:47] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[2:03:48] Candy corns.

[2:03:49] Stop chewing that candy corns.

[2:03:51] Yeah, grip it and rip it, baby.

[2:03:52] Are we ready?

[2:03:52] Mm-hmm.

[2:03:53] I'm going to, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03:55] Don't grip it too hard and don't rip it too hard.

Dan McCoy

[2:03:58] That's a good point.

[2:03:59] You've got to grip it hard if you're going to rip it hard.

Elliott Kalan

[2:04:01] But not too hard, because you want to leave ripping room.

[2:04:04] Firm but loose.

[2:04:05] All right, here we go.

[2:04:08] Maximum Fun.

[2:04:08] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[2:04:10] Of artists-owned shows.

[2:04:12] Supported directly by you.

Ep.#465 - Smurfs, with Jesse Thorn

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