FH Mini 60 - StuStu's Podcast Adventure

[0:00] Hey there, boils and ghouls.

Stuart Wellington

[0:06] This is Stuart Wellington on the Flophouse Podcast.

[0:08] We're doing one of those Flophouse minis this week.

[0:11] That's where we, on our off weeks, instead of doing our normal show where we watch a bad movie and then talk about it,

[0:17] we're going to be doing something a little bit different tonight.

[0:19] We're going to do whatever the fuck I want to do.

[0:22] Once again, I'm Stuart Wellington, and joining me, as always, are my co-hosts, who will introduce themselves now.

[0:28] Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:30] And Elliot Kalin.

[0:32] And I want to warn everybody, this is going to be an extra fun episode because I have a lingering cough.

[0:37] Oh, that usually equals fun.

[0:39] So I may cough sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[0:41] Yeah.

[0:42] Sometimes when Stuart is very drunk, those are good episodes.

[0:45] And sometimes when Dan is getting over being sick, just bring some kind of strange energy out.

[0:53] If for some reason we can do all three of those at one time, oh, doggy.

[0:57] Oh, wow.

[0:58] So if this is your first time listening to the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] What's my equivalent?

[1:01] What's my equivalent to you being drunk and Dan being sick?

[1:03] Just my, I'm tired?

[1:03] I think you're just kind of normally a ball of energy.

[1:08] Okay, ball of energy.

[1:09] I was worried where that sentence was going, but what I'm normally.

[1:12] You're normally a great dude.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15] Oh.

[1:16] You have full-blown ability to make people laugh.

[1:23] Great dude-itis.

[1:25] Okay.

[1:26] So if this is the first time you're tuning in.

[1:28] A lignant case of good stuff.

[1:30] Yeah.

[1:31] If this is the first time you're tuning into the podcast, I would highly recommend turning

[1:35] this shit off and listening to a different episode.

[1:38] We have more normal episodes.

[1:40] Yeah.

[1:40] Yes.

[1:40] This is for the real ones, the true fans.

[1:45] Uh-oh.

[1:46] Now I'm digging myself in deeper.

[1:48] Okay.

[1:48] So today's episode is something.

[1:51] Part of a series we call Stuart Wellington for completists only.

[1:54] Yep.

[1:55] So this is a little, this is a little Flophouse Manny brought to you by Minnie's Bar and Maniac

[2:01] of New York.

[2:02] And this Manny is, has a subtitle, and that is, we are titling it Stew Stew's Podcast Adventure.

[2:11] That's right.

[2:12] I'm going to be talking about a, one of my, see, I think everybody knows, if you know me,

[2:17] you know that I'm a man of many passions and that's an appropriate reference to what I'm

[2:22] talking about today.

[2:22] I'm a man of many passions.

[2:24] The soap opera passions.

[2:26] He loves the soap opera passions.

[2:28] Many seasons of passions.

Dan McCoy

[2:30] So what are some of your passions, dude?

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] Name some of your other passions.

[2:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:33] Before we get into the specific passion, tell us in general what your passions are.

[2:38] Let's see.

Stuart Wellington

[2:39] Creating PowerPoints for live podcasts with my two friends.

[2:44] Okay.

[2:45] Who are they?

[2:45] Warhammer.

[2:46] Warhammer.

[2:47] Oh, who are they?

[2:48] Okay.

[2:49] When I mentioned you should ask me questions, I didn't even realize.

Elliott Kalan

[2:54] So Warhammer, I would say what?

[2:56] George R.

[2:56] R.

Elliott Kalan

[2:56] Martin, the books, not the shows.

[2:58] Yep.

[2:59] Passion.

[2:59] You're pretty good.

Dan McCoy

[3:00] Is passion fruit one of your passions?

[3:02] Because I know that you're passionate about fruit, but is passion fruit specifically?

[3:05] Yeah, that's a good question.

[3:06] That's a good question.

Stuart Wellington

[3:07] I would like to direct your attention to the episode titled The Fruit House, where I address

[3:12] my top five favorite fruits.

[3:14] Yeah.

[3:15] In an episode that seemed to drive you both super mad.

Elliott Kalan

[3:19] Yeah.

[3:19] And you said that The Passion of the Christ was a life-changing movie for you?

Stuart Wellington

[3:23] It was.

[3:24] It was life-changing in that my life was different because it was slightly older.

[3:30] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[3:31] Yeah.

[3:31] Afterwards, you were somewhat around two hours older.

[3:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:35] Slightly older.

Elliott Kalan

[3:36] And as soon as the movie was over, you looked in a mirror and you said, but there was time

[3:40] then.

Stuart Wellington

[3:41] Where did the years go?

[3:43] Where did it go?

[3:44] I looked, yeah, I looked in a mirror.

[3:46] I had a special mirror made just to show, I don't know.

[3:50] Now I'm talking about the-

Elliott Kalan

[3:51] You have a special mirror made that has a mustache painted on it and a beard so that you look

Stuart Wellington

[3:54] like an old man when you look at it.

[3:56] Yeah.

[3:57] I had to get a special mirror artist to do that for me, which I was about to start talking

[4:05] about the rehearsal on HBO Max, which I'm not going to talk about.

[4:08] That's going to be for a later thing because, oh boy, that show.

[4:11] Woo doggy.

[4:13] Instead, I'm talking about a different show or in fact, in this case, I'm going to be

[4:16] talking about a show and a comic book.

[4:19] I'm talking about a long running-

Dan McCoy

[4:22] Three's company and mouse.

[4:26] Weird pairing, but I'm sure it'll all click into place.

[4:30] I think you can see the steward design.

Elliott Kalan

[4:33] I was just recently, I was reading, I've been reading the book Fun City Cinema recently,

[4:37] which Dan got me for my birthday last year.

[4:40] And at one point they mentioned that there was a double feature that was released where

[4:43] it was Rosemary's Baby and The Odd Couple.

[4:46] And it was called The Greatest Double Feature Ever when it was released.

[4:49] And it was like two classic New York stories on one bill.

Stuart Wellington

[4:54] Yeah.

[4:54] I mean, it doesn't not live up to its name.

[4:58] Okay.

[4:58] So what I'm talking about today is not that.

[5:01] I'm talking about something completely different.

[5:03] I'm talking about a long running Japanese intellectual property called Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

[5:09] The reason I use the term intellectual property is because it began as a serialized manga

[5:15] and has since been adapted into-

Elliott Kalan

[5:20] Can you define manga for any of our listeners who are in 1987?

Stuart Wellington

[5:23] Sure.

[5:24] So manga means Japanese comic book.

[5:27] Oh.

[5:28] And in fact, that's one of the things I wanted to-

[5:31] Before, and it's in addition to be-

[5:33] It's been adapted into live action films, into original animated films,

[5:39] and what is currently going on is an ongoing animated series.

[5:46] Now, I have mentioned Jojo's Bizarre Adventure before, and I've made reference to it on previous episodes of the podcast,

[5:53] often to crickets and no response.

Elliott Kalan

[5:57] Yeah.

[5:57] I mean, the problem is that we did a number of episodes that were co-hosted with several crickets.

[6:02] That's true.

[6:04] And it was hard for them to take part in the conversation because they have to talk by rubbing their wings together, I think.

[6:08] Uh-huh.

[6:08] And crickets, right in if I'm wrong.

[6:11] And so it was hard to understand what they were saying a lot of the time.

Stuart Wellington

[6:14] And I'm glad that you mentioned several because normally when you go to buy crickets from like a pet store or something,

[6:19] and you're like, yeah, can I get, I don't know, like one or two crickets?

[6:22] They're like, sorry, dog.

[6:23] Nope.

[6:23] It only comes in a giant-ass box full.

Elliott Kalan

[6:26] I remember when I was a kid and I had pet lizards, having to go once a week to buy a bag of crickets,

[6:32] and I would feed the lizards one cricket each a day,

[6:35] that it meant that I had a bag of crickets just in my room all the time.

[6:38] You know what?

Dan McCoy

[6:39] You know what I remember?

[6:40] My brother had like, also had lizards.

[6:43] Uh-huh.

[6:43] And we would walk along the side of the driveway.

[6:49] Like we would walk along the grass on the side of the driveway because if you stepped,

[6:53] like sometimes crickets would jump out onto the driveway where they were easy to pick up and catch.

[6:59] And in retrospect, this memory feels like a memory of a time when there were still bugs in the world,

[7:09] like when climate change hadn't like so scorched the earth that like,

[7:15] I just don't think that if I like went home right now and I walked along a driveway,

[7:19] there would be enough crickets to feed a pet lizard.

[7:23] That's what I'm saying.

Elliott Kalan

[7:23] I think you need to move to California, Dan,

[7:25] because I'm constantly finding bugs and spiders in my house.

Stuart Wellington

[7:28] Yeah.

[7:28] Listers, uh, Listers, write in, uh, and tell Dan if you have seen a bug recently.

[7:34] I mean, I'm not saying there are bugs around.

[7:36] Tell Dan where the good cricket hunting is.

[7:37] I'm aware of.

[7:38] Oh, weird.

[7:39] We got, we got a bunch of letters from, uh, from Michael Shannon's character from the movie Bug.

[7:45] He says he's seen a million of them.

Elliott Kalan

[7:46] He says they're under his skin right now.

[7:50] So he hasn't seen them then, but he feels them.

[7:52] Dan, I have this image now of you and your brothers wearing orange hunting vests and hunting caps,

[7:56] creeping along a driveway.

[7:58] Yeah, saying be very, very quiet.

Stuart Wellington

[8:01] Well, hunting quickets.

[8:02] Pith helmets, yeah.

[8:04] Yeah.

[8:04] Okay.

[8:05] So, uh, so from the sounds of it, you guys, uh, do you, do you have any understanding of what Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is about?

[8:13] What it is?

Elliott Kalan

[8:14] I have to admit, I, I, I based a lot on your recommendation.

[8:17] I started reading the manga and I quickly found it was not quite for me.

[8:22] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[8:23] Well, I know that we're going to find out more about that.

[8:26] We'll dig into that.

Dan McCoy

[8:27] Audrey has watched it.

[8:29] I didn't watch it with her.

[8:30] I assume it is about a man named Jojo and the Bizarre Adventure or adventures that he has.

[8:37] Yeah.

[8:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:39] Now the thing is, Jojo is, was a man who thought he was a something, but he let it all something, something.

[8:46] Uh-huh.

[8:47] I don't know what he says in the song after that.

[8:49] I think he needs to return to your studies.

[8:50] He's left his home in Tucson, Arizona for something.

[8:53] For some California grass.

[8:55] Uh-huh.

[8:55] Yeah.

[8:55] Which is, at this point, the California grass is all dying.

[8:58] There's a big drought.

[8:59] So, Jojo, don't come here for grass.

[9:00] Yeah, yeah.

[9:01] Go to the East Coast where there's plenty of water.

Stuart Wellington

[9:03] No, not likely.

[9:05] But anyway.

[9:06] Do you guys, do you guys have, uh, much experience with manga or, like, watching long-running

[9:16] animated series?

[9:17] No.

[9:17] Anime series.

[9:18] I will say no.

[9:18] Yeah, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[9:19] I'll say yes.

[9:21] Okay, give me some examples.

[9:22] We can have it debate.

[9:23] Give me some examples.

[9:24] What, like, what do you mean?

[9:24] I don't have to, because I said no.

[9:26] Oh, Dan doesn't, Dan doesn't have to.

[9:28] Elliot.

[9:28] I haven't, I guess, I haven't watched, uh, do they have to be long-running Japanese animated

[9:33] shows?

[9:33] Yes.

[9:34] Hmm.

[9:34] And I guess, you know what?

[9:35] I haven't watched too many of that, because, like, Cowboy Bebop's not that long a series.

[9:40] Um.

[9:40] But that's, I mean, that's a good example.

[9:43] Okay.

[9:43] Sure, yeah.

[9:44] So, but that was, you know, when I was in college, I used, my roommate and I used to

[9:47] watch a lot of Cowboy Bebop.

[9:49] Uh, I've read, uh, and I've read plenty of manga in my time, you know?

[9:54] Look, if Katsuhiro Otomo's doing it, I'll read it.

[9:57] That's just, that just goes without saying.

Stuart Wellington

[9:58] Yeah, he's the master.

[9:59] He's the best.

[10:00] Yeah.

[10:00] Uh, okay.

[10:01] So, we're, we're gonna jump right in, uh, and we're going to talk, now, the thing about

[10:06] my experience with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure is, in no way am I an expert, so I'm not gonna

[10:11] get everything right.

[10:12] I'm, I describe myself as an enthusiastic, uh, amateur, or, uh, I don't know.

[10:18] Um, and I, my first exposure was to the OVA, uh, which is another term for like an, like

[10:28] an animated movie, basically, that's broken up into parts that came out in the 90s.

Elliott Kalan

[10:33] You know, an OVA and OVA is, involves the production of eggs.

Stuart Wellington

[10:36] Oh, okay.

[10:37] Interesting.

[10:38] So, I got that totally wrong.

[10:39] I biffed it.

[10:40] Uh, add that one to my biff column.

[10:42] Put it in the goofs, the goofs page for Stuart Wellington on IMDb.

[10:45] Put that in my biffs.

[10:46] Um, and I, so I, I watched the, uh, the original animation from the 90s that's based on the

[10:53] third part, AKA Stardust Crusaders.

[10:57] And I loved it.

[10:58] I thought it was great.

[10:58] I watched it a bunch of times.

[10:59] I think I recommended it on this show years ago.

[11:01] It's awesome.

[11:02] Um, and then years later, I was looking for some comics to read and I'm like, you know

[11:07] what?

[11:07] Fuck it.

[11:07] Why don't I read it?

[11:08] Why don't I go back?

[11:09] I like this.

[11:10] Let me go back and start from the beginning.

[11:11] So, I read the first couple, I read the first three series in, uh, as a manga.

[11:18] And then after that, they, they didn't have all the manga's translator put out in these

[11:23] fancy hardbacks.

[11:24] So, I started watching the animation.

[11:26] So, it's, there's, uh, for series four and five, I only watch the, the show.

[11:33] So, it's going to be, my, my experience might be a little different.

[11:36] I might know things, uh, as one way or another way, just to give people a little background.

[11:41] Sure, you definitely know things.

[11:43] I'm not, don't be so hard on yourself.

Elliott Kalan

[11:44] Thank you.

[11:45] Yeah.

[11:45] And he's seen things.

[11:46] He's seen things he can never forget.

[11:48] Yeah.

[11:49] Exactly.

[11:50] It's a surprise that I haven't torn my eyeballs out.

[11:53] Yeah.

[11:54] It's amazing that Sam Neill got so much acting work after he tore his own eyeballs out.

[11:59] Because he's a method actor.

[12:00] He does his own stunts.

Dan McCoy

[12:01] Well, where he was going, he didn't need eyes anymore, is the thing.

[12:05] And where he was going was the Borgias.

[12:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] So, he didn't end hunt for the wilder people and he didn't need eyes for those, I guess.

[12:11] Yeah.

[12:12] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[12:12] It's similar to how Christopher Lloyd got jobs after he threw away all the roads that were

[12:19] created because they didn't need roads in the future.

[12:23] In a way, I wish we didn't need roads because the United States infrastructure is falling to

[12:29] pieces.

Elliott Kalan

[12:29] And preach, brother.

[12:30] Let's pedestrianize this whole country.

[12:32] Walk end to end just like Forrest Gump.

[12:34] He showed us the way.

[12:35] Yeah.

[12:35] Suck it, Robert Moses.

[12:37] Is this?

[12:37] Yeah.

[12:38] He should.

[12:38] Yes.

[12:38] Thank you.

[12:39] Yes.

[12:40] Here's something that a lot of people don't mention in the goofs column.

[12:43] At the end of Back to the Future, he says, where we're going, we don't need roads.

[12:46] When you see the future in Back to the Future Part 2, there are lots of roads.

[12:49] Mm-hmm.

[12:49] Yeah.

[12:50] It's fucking nasty with them.

Dan McCoy

[12:51] It seems like when you're flying.

[12:53] It's not like you can just fly wherever.

[12:55] There are specific flight paths that are basically sky roads.

Elliott Kalan

[12:58] Yeah.

[12:59] That's a very good point.

[13:00] That's a very good point.

[13:00] It's actually a good point.

[13:01] I'm starting to think this guy who invented time travel after hitting his head on the sink

[13:05] when he was standing on the toilet might not have it all together.

Stuart Wellington

[13:08] True.

[13:09] I don't trust him.

[13:10] Okay.

[13:11] So we're going to jump right in.

[13:12] I'm going to explain a little bit about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[13:15] After 15 minutes, we're going to jump right in.

[13:16] We're going to jump right in.

[13:18] We're going to raw dog it.

[13:19] I'm going to talk a little bit about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[13:21] There will be some mild spoilers, but I hope that at the end you will understand a little

[13:27] bit of why I love this property.

[13:30] Okay.

[13:31] So I put together a little bit of a slideshow for you guys so you guys can see some of

[13:35] the beauty of what I'm talking about.

[13:37] Yeah.

[13:37] Let's pull this shit up and I'm going to start slideshow over here.

[13:42] Now we have this first slide and this is the introduction.

[13:45] This is the first part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[13:48] Now something you have to understand is that there are multiple JoJo's and there are many

[13:53] Bizarre Adventures and it's broken up into different series and it kind of follows roughly multiple

[13:59] generations of the Joestar family.

[14:02] Now Joestar, of course, is a traditional family name, a Liverpudlian family name.

[14:07] Let me start my slideshow.

Elliott Kalan

[14:12] I mean, that would explain why the Beatles have a song about a guy named JoJo.

Stuart Wellington

[14:15] That's absolutely true.

[14:17] And in fact, you're also going to see through some of the naming conventions that the creator

[14:22] of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Hiroki Araki, is a huge fan of rock and roll and pop music

[14:29] because he is not too careful at disguising some of his favorite bands and singers and songs.

Elliott Kalan

[14:36] Now are you going to get into, I assume at some point JoJo's Bizarre Adventure crosses over

[14:39] with JoJo Rabbit for the larger JoJo verse for JoJo No Way Home?

[14:43] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[14:44] Exactly.

[14:44] Yeah.

[14:45] It crosses over.

[14:47] There has been an argument in the case of that.

[14:50] Well, we'll talk about this later.

[14:51] Okay.

[14:52] We'll actually get into that when we get into part three, Stardust Crusaders.

[14:55] So we're going to talk first about part one.

[14:57] That is Phantom Blood.

[14:59] And right here, we have this first slide.

[15:00] This is from the opening of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[15:03] And we are, our story opens in 1880 in Liverpool.

[15:08] Yeah.

[15:09] Which one of these guys is JoJo that I see here?

[15:13] That's a very good question.

[15:14] That is on the, the fellow on the right with the dark hair is Jonathan, is Jonathan Joestar.

Elliott Kalan

[15:21] And he's holding a book and he's got like a little red bow tie.

[15:24] Very thick neck.

[15:25] Both of these guys are very built.

[15:26] I got to object.

Dan McCoy

[15:27] They're beefcakes.

[15:28] I got to object to the way this gentleman is dressed with the purple hair because not only,

[15:35] like, so there's a, you know, he's wearing a dress shirt with a bow tie.

[15:39] And then over that appears to be some sort of V-neck sweater or sweater vest that's paisley.

[15:45] And then over that, there is a vest.

[15:49] And then over that, there is sort of a smoking jacket cape.

[15:55] And I think that it's a lot of things going on.

[15:58] Liverpool is very cold.

[16:00] There's a lot of styles happening here.

Stuart Wellington

[16:03] They should call it JoJo's Bizarre Layering.

[16:05] Yes.

[16:06] Well, I'm glad that you're pointing out, I'm glad that you're pointing out some of these style choices.

[16:10] Because one of the great things about this series is the, I guess, the fashion forward element of the characters.

[16:19] Now, standing over Jonathan Joestar's shoulder is Dio Brando.

[16:25] Now, Dio Brando is his adopted brother.

[16:28] Okay.

[16:30] Dio Brando's father saved Jonathan's father's life after a carriage accident that took the life of Jonathan's mother.

[16:39] So, he adopted this poor kid, Dio Brando, and brought him into the family.

[16:44] Now, and the whole part of this story arc is kind of the conflict between Dio and Jonathan.

[16:52] Now, Jonathan's our hero.

[16:54] So, of course, he has nothing particularly interesting about him.

[16:57] He's big and tough and smart.

[17:00] Dio, on the other hand...

Elliott Kalan

[17:01] If I'm remembering from reading the comic, he is incredibly naive.

Stuart Wellington

[17:05] Yeah.

[17:05] Yeah, exactly.

[17:07] And Dio, on the other hand, is immediately evil.

[17:11] He, like, beats up a dog early on.

[17:15] He kisses Jonathan's sweetheart.

[17:18] He turns all of Jonathan's friends against him.

[17:21] They fight quite a bit.

[17:23] And as you can see, Dio's also holding there...

[17:25] He's holding this, like, this stone mask.

[17:28] And now, that stone mask is going to be pretty important because part of...

[17:31] In the course of their struggles, they find out this stone mask is an Aztec artifact.

[17:38] And it somehow, when blood is splashed on it, it awakens.

[17:44] And if attached to a person, turns them into a vampire.

[17:47] Okay.

[17:48] That counts as a bizarre adventure.

[17:49] Who says, smoking!

[17:51] Right?

[17:51] He says, it would be appropriate.

[17:54] Or he'd say, at least somebody stopped me.

[17:57] Somebody should stop him.

[17:58] Yeah.

[17:58] And that somebody is Jonathan Joestar.

Elliott Kalan

[18:00] Now, when he says...

[18:02] When Jim Carrey says, somebody stopped me, does that mean that that whole movie is a cry for help?

[18:06] Mm-hmm.

[18:06] Yes.

[18:07] In many ways.

[18:08] Well, he's a murderer.

[18:09] That's...

Stuart Wellington

[18:09] I feel like that's part of the appeal of Jim Carrey is there's clearly sadness behind his eyes.

[18:14] Oh, very much so.

[18:15] Yeah, like Will Ferrell.

[18:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:17] So, wait, he's a murderer.

[18:18] You mean the mask or Jim Carrey?

[18:20] Good question.

Dan McCoy

[18:22] Well, I think the mask just sort of brings out what's inside you, as we see in the movie,

[18:26] the mask.

[18:27] Like, you know, when the bad guy gets it, he just turns into a big, like, tough guy who,

[18:31] like, spits out bullets.

[18:32] But when Jim Carrey, you know, who watches Tex Avery cartoons...

[18:37] Yeah.

[18:38] Yeah.

[18:38] He turns into, like, a wolf.

Stuart Wellington

[18:40] He turns into a real cherry-popping daddy.

[18:42] Mm-hmm.

[18:43] And the dog just pees all over everything.

[18:45] That's the worst kind of daddy.

[18:45] The worst kind of daddy.

[18:47] By far.

[18:47] Worst kind.

[18:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:49] And nobody knows what happens when Jamie Kennedy puts on the mask, because no one saw that

[18:54] movie, not even the people who made it.

[18:56] It's a mystery.

[18:58] That's what the experiment was.

Stuart Wellington

[19:01] Yeah, write in.

[19:01] If you watch that movie, write in and tell us that you did and that you're a real person,

[19:05] and if you're Jamie Kennedy, you're not.

Dan McCoy

[19:07] You're not a real person.

[19:08] So...

[19:09] Sorry, Jamie.

[19:10] Sorry, Jamie.

Stuart Wellington

[19:12] Malibu's least one.

[19:13] As I said, the conflict between Jonathan Joestar and Dio Brando is central to this.

[19:21] Dio is trying to get Jonathan's father's fortune.

[19:23] He's trying to somehow get his father to leave his entire fortune to him.

[19:28] And in the process, he poisons Jonathan's father slowly.

[19:32] And then when his evil deeds are revealed, he puts on the mask, becomes an immortal vampire,

[19:41] and the rest of the series is Jonathan trying to defeat a evil, super powerful vampire dude

[19:51] who kills everything.

[19:52] It's a very gory kind of horror forward story.

[19:56] And he doesn't do it on his own.

[19:58] He enlists the help of some friends.

[19:59] Let's go to the next slide.

[20:01] Okay.

[20:02] We have two more Victorian gentlemen on the left.

[20:06] We got Tom Petty from the Don't Come Around Here No More video.

[20:09] Yeah.

[20:10] Now, it's funny that you bring up Tom Petty because that actually is a...

[20:16] He's a...

[20:17] Like a gutter-born criminal named Robert E.O. Speedwagon.

[20:24] Oh, wow.

[20:25] Okay.

[20:26] Who, you know, he's like a...

[20:29] He's a rapscallion type.

[20:32] He becomes an important figure in the whole universe.

[20:35] He eventually forms a foundation that pays for the Joestar's family's fight against evil.

[20:42] And on the right is another gentleman.

[20:44] This is William Zeppeli, who is an Italian martial arts master.

[20:51] Sure.

[20:52] Who can harness the power of Hamon, which involves some kind of like careful breathing.

[20:59] Yeah, just ham.

[21:01] The power of ham.

[21:03] It's spelled very similarly.

[21:05] It's one of those like common...

[21:08] I feel like it's a common thing in martial arts.

[21:11] To use ham.

[21:11] Like martial arts fantasy stories.

[21:13] To use ham and to use like breath control.

[21:17] Like breath control is like an all-purpose...

[21:19] Like if you can control your breathing, you can...

[21:22] In this case, it's...

[21:23] It gives you like the power of life, which is the opposite of D.O.'s power of death.

[21:29] You can...

[21:30] Obviously, you can describe these gentlemen.

[21:31] They're both wearing top hats.

[21:34] They are flashy dressers.

Elliott Kalan

[21:36] Checkerboard top hats.

[21:37] It's very common back then.

[21:39] Zeppeli's got the longest cuffs in the world.

[21:43] With three...

[21:44] True.

[21:44] Kind of three cufflinks on the outside per cuff.

[21:48] And they all...

[21:49] Big guns.

[21:49] Very muscular.

[21:51] Huge arms.

[21:51] They're all kind of dressed like circus performers from like a rock and roll traveling freak concert circus.

[21:58] You know?

[21:59] Like every time a band...

[22:00] Like Marilyn Manson did like a circus theme.

[22:02] I feel like these would be like the ringmasters.

[22:05] You know?

[22:05] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[22:07] And that's exactly how you'd imagine a martial arts master from Italy to dress.

[22:12] Now, the...

[22:14] Jonathan is...

Elliott Kalan

[22:16] Is it an Italian form of martial arts or he went to the East to learn martial arts, but he's from Italy?

Stuart Wellington

[22:21] You know, I'm trying to remember because it was a while since I read this one.

[22:26] But I feel like it's...

[22:28] I can't...

[22:28] He learned it from a master who will be introduced in the next segment.

[22:32] Okay.

[22:33] But it's like a...

[22:35] I don't...

[22:36] It's his like goal to defeat...

[22:38] Like destroy the mask and the creatures that created this stone mask.

[22:43] So I don't...

[22:44] Maybe it comes from like the Aztec people.

[22:46] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[22:47] Maybe.

[22:47] I mean, he doesn't have to worry about destroying the mask.

[22:49] The sequel pretty much did that.

[22:50] The franchise is dead in the water.

[22:52] That's true.

Stuart Wellington

[22:53] Yeah.

[22:54] So Jonathan and his friends, as we said, fight D.O.D.O. raises an army of zombies.

[23:02] And obviously one of the highlights, of course, you're in the 1880s.

[23:08] They got to definitely fight a zombie version of Jack the Ripper.

Elliott Kalan

[23:12] Oh, I thought you were going to say going to that big exposition at the Crystal Palace where they had those dinosaur statues.

Stuart Wellington

[23:20] Uh-huh.

[23:21] They didn't do that.

[23:22] That would have been a great idea.

[23:24] Oh, okay.

[23:24] That's too bad.

[23:26] In a final act of sacrifice, Jonathan defeats D.O., but he sacrifices himself and he...

[23:33] But he's going to live on through his unborn child, thus ensuring that we have another generation and we have another bizarre adventure on our hands.

[23:43] So let's move to the next slide, guys.

[23:45] Let's do it.

[23:45] Can't wait to see...

[23:46] Okay.

[23:47] This is the next slide.

[23:48] This is the...

[23:49] You're looking at the cover of the first issue of the comics.

[23:52] This is for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2 titled Battle Tendency.

Elliott Kalan

[23:59] And who's this guy who's incredibly ripped and his shirt can't even cover his abs?

[24:05] That's how...

[24:06] I mean, he's lifting his arms up, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[24:07] You're going to see a common style choice that many of these characters, their shirts cannot cover their abs.

[24:14] And there's a lot of straps.

[24:16] Similarly, their gloves cannot cover their fingers.

[24:19] Now, so the gentleman right in front, that's going to be this series, JoJo.

[24:26] That is Joseph Joestar, the grandson of Jonathan Joestar.

[24:31] Okay, so the Joestar family continues.

Elliott Kalan

[24:33] So Jonathan's son didn't do much of anything.

[24:35] The adventures skipped a generation.

Stuart Wellington

[24:37] Not...

[24:38] Yeah, I think...

[24:38] I believe the unborn child in this case was a daughter, actually, Elliot.

[24:42] Oh, okay.

[24:43] Stuart, I will say that I've seen...

Elliott Kalan

[24:45] So Josephine Joestar could still have adventures.

[24:47] Anyway, Dan, continue.

Dan McCoy

[24:48] I've seen...

[24:49] I've seen comic covers that are clearer to interpret than this one.

[24:55] Like, I'm not quite sure...

Elliott Kalan

[24:57] Not comic book covers by Dave McKean.

Dan McCoy

[25:02] It looks like we are looking at, like, a face through sort of the facets of a big diamond

[25:08] or something like...

[25:09] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:10] It's almost...

[25:11] Or like there's rays of light coming out from JoJo that are obscuring the figures in the

[25:16] background.

Dan McCoy

[25:16] Who is doing a real glamour pose with both of his arms above his head and suddenly...

[25:21] He is stunting, yeah.

[25:23] So he can see his abs.

Stuart Wellington

[25:25] Yeah, in the back, in the scintillating light that seems to be radiating out from Joseph

[25:31] Joestar, you can see images of this series' fill-ins, which we'll talk about in a second.

[25:38] So this series takes place much later.

[25:41] It takes place in the 1930s.

[25:44] Oh, I can tell that from the way that he was dressed.

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] What was his tank top with straps and his fingerless glove gauntlets.

[25:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:52] The way that he looks kind of like a Rob Liefeld character.

Stuart Wellington

[25:55] He does if Rob Liefeld was cool.

Elliott Kalan

[25:59] Actually, yeah, you know.

[26:01] He's made some good stuff.

[26:02] I mean, he is like a Rob Liefeld character in that we don't see his feet because the image

[26:05] cuts off at the waist.

[26:07] That's actually true, yeah.

[26:08] But he doesn't have enough pouches.

[26:11] Oh, no, not all.

[26:11] Straps without pouches.

[26:12] That's a Liefeld no-no.

[26:14] So 1930s.

[26:15] What kind of guy is he?

[26:16] What's he doing?

Dan McCoy

[26:17] Is that your elified no-no of the week, by the way, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[26:20] Yeah, that is.

[26:21] Yeah, thank you.

[26:21] That is.

[26:21] That's my elified no-no.

[26:23] Thank you for reminding me of my elified no-nos.

[26:25] The elified no-no this week is if you're going to have straps, put some pouches on them.

[26:29] Put some pouches on them.

[26:29] What are your heroes going to carry things in?

[26:31] We don't know what they're carrying in the pouches.

[26:33] We don't need to know.

[26:34] Probably subway tokens and lipstick.

[26:36] But your heroes need straps with pouches.

[26:38] That's the Liefeld no-no and my elified no-no for the week.

[26:41] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[26:42] So this series, JoJo, he's a globetrotting adventurer, like you'd imagine.

[26:49] He's working on behalf of the Speedwagon Foundation.

[26:54] REO Speedwagon is still alive.

[26:57] But he's an old man, and he is dealing with some Nazi problems.

[27:03] Aren't we all?

[27:05] The focus of this story is the creators, the race of beings that created that vampire mask from the first series,

[27:15] are a group of four immortal beings that are found in stone pillars in the Aztec ruins.

[27:25] These four pillar men.

[27:27] Let's advance so we can see what they look like.

[27:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:29] Yes, please.

[27:30] I'd love to see.

[27:30] Oh, they look like all the other characters.

[27:32] They look exactly like all the other characters.

[27:35] So these four immortal beings that are, let's say, roughly humanoid.

[27:42] I mean, they're pretty humanoid.

[27:45] They're pretty human.

Dan McCoy

[27:45] They're just big buff dudes.

[27:47] Yeah, they look like any comic.

Elliott Kalan

[27:49] And they have lines on them that I can't tell if they are scars or stitching like they're made out of canvas.

[27:54] Like they're rock men.

[27:56] It's like two shadows.

Stuart Wellington

[27:58] So these are the four pillar men.

[28:00] They are immortal beings that are seeking to become the ultimate being.

[28:05] And in order to do that, they need to combine one of these stone masks with a rare red gem called the Stone of Aja.

[28:15] For all you Steely Dan fans out there.

[28:17] I don't get that reference.

[28:19] I don't understand.

[28:20] These four pillar men are named Santana, Wamu, ACDC, and Cars.

[28:28] Now, of those four, which one do you think is the most powerful, guys?

[28:32] Just based on the name.

[28:33] ACDC.

[28:34] It's got to be, right?

Dan McCoy

[28:35] Dan, what do you think?

[28:36] I would say ACDC.

[28:37] I mean, like Cars is probably my favorite band of those.

[28:40] But yeah, ACDC is probably the most powerful.

Stuart Wellington

[28:43] I got to surprise you guys.

[28:44] It's Cars is by far the most powerful.

[28:47] Really?

[28:47] That's surprising.

[28:49] It's very surprising.

Elliott Kalan

[28:51] And so this series.

[28:52] But I like it.

[28:53] So you don't have to tell me which one is which.

[28:54] But I like that they all seem to have kind of boy band personalities.

[28:56] One guy, that one guy with the kind of white headdress is clearly the sensitive one.

[29:01] And the guy with the, the other guy in the middle is like the seductive one.

[29:04] The one with the black head wrap, he's the leader.

[29:06] And the one in the back, he's kind of like the bad boy bruiser.

[29:09] He's the one who's like a little bit less articulate.

[29:11] You know, you wonder which fan is going to like that one.

[29:14] Because he's all about breaking stuff.

[29:15] But he's got his fans.

[29:17] He's got his fans.

Stuart Wellington

[29:18] That's the thing about boy bands.

[29:20] And also characters from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which any group of characters from this series are a lot like boy bands.

[29:29] So the focus of this series is Joseph Joestar's struggle against these immortal beings that are almost impossible to defeat.

[29:37] In fact, he gets in a fight with them and they, they beat him so badly.

[29:41] And he's like, don't kill me yet.

[29:44] Give me a month to get more powerful.

[29:46] Let me, give me a month to train.

[29:48] And then I'll give you a real fight.

[29:49] And these pillar men are like, you know what?

[29:52] Fuck it.

[29:53] Let's, I want a real fight.

[29:55] Incredibly lenient.

Elliott Kalan

[29:56] An incredible opportunity on the fireman.

Stuart Wellington

[29:58] Very sportsman-like.

[29:59] Ticking clock on there.

[30:01] They, they put magic binding poison rings around his heart and throat that after a month they will dissolve and kill him.

[30:11] So he has to defeat them in battle.

[30:12] And the only way you can get the antidote is from their nose rings and lip rings respectively.

[30:18] So of course he has to go train and let's move on.

[30:20] Let's see his, his teacher.

[30:22] Let's advance to the next slide.

[30:24] That's his teacher, Lisa Lisa.

[30:26] She's a ham on master.

[30:28] We're talking about breath control again.

Elliott Kalan

[30:30] So he has still, it still sounds like it's based around ham.

Stuart Wellington

[30:33] Yep.

[30:34] It sounds, it's based around ham.

[30:36] The magical life giving force of breath control.

[30:40] And he fights these immortal beings.

[30:43] It's great.

Elliott Kalan

[30:43] Lisa Lisa, I'm getting the big kind of Carmen Sandiego vibes.

Stuart Wellington

[30:47] There's definitely, she's a, she's a mysterious woman.

[30:50] Uh, she wears, has very big shoulder pads.

[30:53] Yeah.

[30:54] She's great.

[30:54] It's awesome.

[30:55] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[30:55] Now this is interesting to me because.

[30:57] Her arms seem to be the length of her body, but they're bent at the elbows.

[31:00] So it's hard to tell.

[31:01] It's perspective, dude.

[31:03] No, but the weight, she's holding her waist.

[31:05] Wait a minute.

Dan McCoy

[31:06] This, this is, uh, this is interesting because I just listened to the, um, recent, there was

[31:14] a, uh, I listened to the podcast.

[31:17] It's called the hit parade.

[31:18] It's a slate podcast.

[31:20] And, uh, they had a, um, an episode on, I, I forget what the name of the style of music.

[31:29] It was.

[31:31] Jazz.

[31:32] No.

[31:33] Uh, it was.

[31:35] Zydeco.

[31:36] No.

Dan McCoy

[31:37] I, I, I, no, there's a, there's a type of music that Lisa, Lisa, Lisa and cult jam.

[31:45] Oh.

[31:45] The band was a part of this wave.

[31:48] Oh, freestyle, freestyle.

[31:50] That was what it was.

[31:50] Uh, and I was like, Oh, I'm listening to this, uh, podcast.

[31:56] Let me Google Lisa, Lisa.

[31:58] And half of it was these, uh, uh, uh, manga characters.

[32:04] These.

[32:05] Yeah.

[32:07] And so I was like, I don't think that's the band, Lisa, Lisa and cult jam that I'm looking

[32:13] at.

[32:14] It seems to be a large muscular, uh, woman from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

[32:20] But, um, so this is, this is, it's interesting that you did this.

[32:24] It provides the second half, the, uh, resolution to a mystery that was in my brain.

[32:30] Like, why does this, why does this character have the same name as this band?

[32:35] It seems like everyone has the name of bands in Jojo.

[32:38] So.

Stuart Wellington

[32:39] Oh, oh, do they?

[32:41] You, you, you're, you're buckle up, buddy.

[32:44] Um, so, so this, once again, these, these first two parts are fairly straightforward.

[32:49] We have like a Victorian horror action adventure and then like a globe trotting action horror

[32:55] adventure against immortal monsters.

[32:57] Okay.

[32:58] Um, now we're about to get to the two main genres.

[33:02] Yeah.

[33:03] Before we jump into the third part, which is where I feel like this series really kicks

[33:07] off, like really the heart of Jojo's.

[33:09] I feel like Dan has some words from one of our sponsors.

Dan McCoy

[33:13] You know what?

[33:14] Um, the Flophouse is sponsored, uh, mostly by listeners like you who, uh,

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[33:23] But we also have some kind advertisers as well.

[33:27] And this week, the Flophouse is sponsored in part by policy genius, which is not an insurance

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S4

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S5

[36:22] I'm Lisa Hanawalt.

[36:23] And I'm Emily Heller.

[36:24] Nine years ago, we started a podcast to try and learn something new every episode.

[36:28] Things have gone a little off the rails since then.

[36:31] Tune in to hear about.

[36:32] Low stakes neighborhood drama.

[36:34] Gardening.

[36:35] The sordid, nasty underbelly of the horse girl lifestyle.

[36:38] Hot sauce.

[36:39] Addiction to TV and sweaty takes on celebrity culture.

[36:43] And the weirdest, grossest stuff you can find on wikipedia.org.

[36:47] We'll read all of it no matter how gross.

[36:49] There's something for everyone on our podcast, Baby Geniuses.

[36:52] Hosted by us, two horny adult idiots.

[36:55] Hang out with us as we try and fail to retain any knowledge at all.

[36:58] Every other week on Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[37:01] Baby Geniuses tell us something we don't know.

[37:04] Stuart, back to you.

Stuart Wellington

[37:06] Okay, now let's get into series three of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[37:11] Stardust Crusaders.

[37:12] Why don't you guys advance the slide so we can see you're looking at the cover of the

[37:16] first issue of Stardust Crusaders there?

[37:19] Oh, so many hearts.

[37:21] Oh boy.

[37:22] Yeah.

[37:23] So as you can see, there's some very specific design choices.

[37:26] And on right there, you see this series JoJo.

[37:29] That's Jotaro Kujo, the grandson of Joseph Joestar.

[37:34] Kujo?

[37:35] Jotaro Kujo.

[37:37] He's the Japanese grandson of Joseph Joestar.

[37:43] And he, this is the, this, finally we have a JoJo that actually has a little bit of personality.

[37:50] Jotaro is clearly.

[37:52] In volume three.

[37:53] In volume three.

[37:55] Well, where's the previous.

Dan McCoy

[37:56] Like most cable shows.

[37:58] You just got to stick with it through the first couple seasons and then it gets really good.

[38:02] In a lot of ways it's like succession.

Elliott Kalan

[38:04] I'm waiting for someone to be like, stick through the first three seasons, but in the last episode of the fourth season, it really gets good.

[38:10] How many seasons are there?

[38:11] Four, four seasons.

[38:12] That's the last one.

[38:14] Actually.

Stuart Wellington

[38:15] What I'm a, I'm a firm believer that if, if at any, if at any point you are intrigued by what I'm talking about, I would highly recommend starting with series three.

[38:25] Or I think the, with the animated series, they actually condense the first two into just the first season.

[38:31] So just start with Stardust Crusaders because this is where, this is where this kind of defines the series.

Elliott Kalan

[38:37] Maybe that's, maybe that's what I should have done because I started reading the first volume and I did find the personalitylessness of the main, the original JoJo, Joe, Joe Prime to be a little off.

[38:48] Yeah, Jonathan Joestar, yeah.

[38:50] It reminded me a lot of the, there's a Nathaniel West book.

[38:52] Joseph Jehoshaphat.

[38:54] There's a Nathaniel West book called A Cool Million in which the, this, it's the, the joke of it is just that these two characters who are naive, optimistic Americans of the type that you would see in novels around the turn of the century in the 20th century, just terrible things happen to them one scene after another.

[39:10] Just horrible things.

[39:11] And they're always really naive and idealistic and optimistic.

[39:14] And I was like, oh, this JoJo guy reminds me of this, but it's like, I don't know where this story is going or what's going on.

[39:20] So Stardust Crusaders is the one.

Stuart Wellington

[39:22] Stardust Crusaders is where you should start.

[39:24] Because what this, this is the series where they-

[39:26] You might as well call it Start Dust Crusaders.

[39:30] They really should have.

[39:32] So the-

[39:33] There's no law against it.

[39:34] The most notable addition at this point is they introduced the idea of the stand.

[39:41] Now, the stands are like magic powers that select individuals have.

[39:48] It's like a mutant power or a superpower.

[39:51] But it's some kind of a power that only other people who have a stand can see.

[39:57] And it's usually represented by some kind of like anthropomorphized figure of some kind.

[40:06] As you can see on the image on the right, we see Jotaro with his stand, star platinum.

Elliott Kalan

[40:13] So it's kind of like a bluish, purplish, what, armored figure with long hair and he's got gloves covered in frog eggs or some kind of brown bobber.

[40:21] Looks like a wrestler.

[40:22] Yeah, looks like a wrestler.

[40:24] Okay.

[40:25] And he's just kind of jumping out of JoJo in a flurry of Japanese lettering.

Stuart Wellington

[40:30] Yeah, so these stands are something that the stand user can summon and provide some kind of magic power.

[40:38] In this case, Jotaro, star platinum, moves super fast and punches things super hard.

[40:44] Okay.

[40:45] I don't remember him in the book, The Stand.

Elliott Kalan

[40:48] Dan, I-

[40:49] He's not, but you should check.

[40:51] I'll go-

[40:51] Dan, can you guys wait a second while I go check my unabridged version of Stephen King's The Stand?

[40:57] Okay.

[40:57] This will take a while.

[40:58] Part one, chapter one.

[40:59] Everyone was feeling sick.

[41:01] Ugh, I'm feeling so sick.

[41:02] I guess it's some kind of virus or something.

[41:04] That's not good.

[41:05] I'm almost 100% sure it more likely starts with some kind of like 50s bullshit or like-

Stuart Wellington

[41:12] Yeah, baby, you love your man lyrics.

[41:16] A description of a classic car.

[41:20] So, Jotaro, as I said, he-

Elliott Kalan

[41:22] I mean, if it makes you feel better, there definitely are scenes of a teenage boy masturbating and then letting the semen just kind of dry into a scale.

[41:29] Aal on his belly.

[41:30] There's a lot of that in Stephen King books, too.

[41:32] Doesn't happen in JoJo's, but, you know, I haven't read it all yet.

[41:36] Maybe his adventure is not that bizarre.

Stuart Wellington

[41:38] As I said, Jotaro is kind of a bad boy.

[41:41] He's sassy, but he's a little bit smart.

[41:44] He doesn't like authority.

[41:46] He also has hair that kind of clips through the back of his hat, which is really cool.

[41:50] Cool.

[41:51] He is, in all ways, he's the coolest dude.

[41:55] Okay.

[41:56] And he goes on a globetrotting adventure against an immortal vampire.

[42:02] Dio's back.

[42:03] And when Dio came back, he awoken the stands in a number of different individuals.

[42:09] So Dio is sending stand-powered individuals who he has brainwashed to fight them.

[42:15] And then, of course, they turn them over to their own.

[42:18] You know, it's one of those things where they, like, get in a fight and by the end they're friends again.

[42:22] And then they join up their team.

[42:23] So he's causing people to literally stand in the place where they live.

[42:27] Exactly.

[42:28] I'll have to exam that statement.

[42:30] So let's go to the next panel.

[42:31] This is some fan art where we have – this is our team.

[42:34] This is our globetrotting adventure team.

[42:36] I hate to say it.

[42:36] I kind of like the fan art.

Dan McCoy

[42:37] Yeah, the fan art is a little less busy, I would say.

[42:43] See, I think you're ignoring the appeal.

Stuart Wellington

[42:47] Okay.

[42:47] I think you're ignoring the appeal of the poses that could never be reproduced by a human body.

[42:54] So as we can see, this is Jotaro, Kakyoin, Paul Nareff in the middle.

[42:59] He's the silly bad boy.

[43:02] There's a lot of bad boys.

[43:03] You have Avdol.

[43:05] They all seem like bad boys.

[43:06] On the far left, that's right.

[43:08] You have Joseph Joestar, the hero from the previous series.

[43:13] Grandpa Joe comes along to help.

[43:16] So they travel around.

[43:17] Just like in Willy Wonka.

[43:20] It's a lot like Willy Wonka.

Elliott Kalan

[43:21] So Willy Wonka – I didn't realize Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an unofficial prequel, I guess.

[43:26] Or not pre – I guess it takes place in between volumes of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

[43:29] I would argue all those – because it is a Bizarre Adventure.

Stuart Wellington

[43:31] And all those characters dress appropriately.

[43:34] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:35] Yeah, it's an REO Speedwagon.

[43:36] It was dressed kind of Wonka-ish.

Dan McCoy

[43:38] Yeah.

[43:38] This – now what is with this – there's a guy here who has like straps on his pants in such a way as to sort of like emphasize his area.

[43:49] Like they go –

Stuart Wellington

[43:50] It's like a codpiece over his pants.

Dan McCoy

[43:52] No, but they're like straps that go where, as Stuart would put it, the cum gutters go to sort of like –

Elliott Kalan

[43:58] Don't put words in Stu's mouth, especially not those words.

Dan McCoy

[44:01] Pull it taut over the buffalo area as they would say on Mystery Science Theater.

[44:08] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[44:08] Well, so that's Muhammad Avdol.

[44:11] He – his – of course, his stand is Magician Red because as you've already pieced together, all the stands, at least initially, are all themed around the major arcana of the tarot.

[44:25] Obviously.

[44:26] Yeah, that's what I had guessed.

[44:27] Yeah.

[44:28] It makes a lot of sense, right?

Dan McCoy

[44:29] You know, you didn't even need to say it because –

Stuart Wellington

[44:32] But you look at these characters and you're like –

[44:34] Way ahead of you.

[44:36] You look at these characters and you're like, they're dressed pretty crazy.

[44:40] Well, this is very reserved for this series.

[44:43] These are – this is very normal style.

[44:45] So let's move on to the next.

[44:46] So they got to fight an enemy and that enemy, of course, is Dio Brando, a mortal vampire.

[44:52] Let's look at this next panel.

[44:53] That's what Dio looks like now.

Elliott Kalan

[44:54] So he's got these – so his belt buckle and also his knee pads are all in the shape of enormous hearts?

[44:59] Mm-hmm.

[44:59] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[45:00] Because he's got style.

[45:01] And standing over his shoulder, that's right.

[45:03] Dio has a stand as well.

[45:05] His stand, the world.

[45:08] Okay.

[45:08] What does the world do?

Elliott Kalan

[45:09] What's the world's power?

Stuart Wellington

[45:11] Other than also having heart-shaped knee pads.

[45:12] Like the earth?

[45:13] Like the world world?

[45:15] Well, you know, the card, the world.

[45:17] The major arcana of the terror, the world.

[45:19] The arcana card.

[45:20] And in fact, his – it takes them –

[45:22] So one of the exciting things about stands is that we're talking –

[45:26] they routinely run into situations where they have to fight these super-powered individuals who have some kind of super-power.

[45:34] And every time it almost becomes a – they have to like figure out what their enemy's power is.

[45:41] Uh-huh.

[45:41] Whereas I was used to like Western superhero comics where like somebody will show up and I'm like,

[45:45] I'm the master of, you know, shooting webs out of my hands.

[45:48] Or I'm going to cover you in glue and then I'll drive forever, Spider-Man.

[45:53] In this stuff, the stand users are like, I am not going to tell you shit because as soon as you know what my powers are,

[46:00] you'll be able to defeat me.

[46:01] So a lot of it is like trial and error and figuring out –

[46:05] And luckily we got a Jotaro Kujo who's super smart as well as being sassy and super tough.

[46:11] So a lot of it is trying – is the like – there's a certain amount of – I don't know what word I'm looking for.

Dan McCoy

[46:24] Mystery?

Stuart Wellington

[46:25] Exactly.

[46:25] That's exactly what I was looking for.

[46:27] Mystery.

[46:30] So –

Elliott Kalan

[46:31] This reminds me of a – this reminds me of many years ago when I was a student at NYU.

[46:35] The cartoonist Evan Dorkin came to talk to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club.

[46:39] And he talked about how stupid he always thought it was that Electro – he's fighting Spider-Man.

[46:46] Spider-Man goes, I know Electro's powers.

[46:48] I know I get him wet.

[46:49] He'll short out.

[46:50] He gets him wet.

[46:50] He shorts out.

[46:51] He sends him to jail.

[46:52] Electro gets out of jail.

[46:53] He puts on the same Electro costume.

[46:55] And it's like you're saying, Stu.

[46:56] It's like he's advertising how you defeat him.

[46:58] And Evan Dorkin was positing a world where Electro dresses up like Scorpion.

[47:02] And Spider-Man goes, it's Scorpion.

[47:03] I know how to stop him.

[47:04] I just grab his tail and swing him around.

[47:06] And he grabs his tail and Electro just electrocutes him through the tail.

[47:09] And that would have been a Sparner move.

[47:10] But these Western heroes and villains are just so prideful.

[47:13] They can't put on another one's clothes and kind of let them get the credit, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[47:18] Yeah, exactly.

[47:19] And that's Dio's whole thing is he doesn't let anyone know what his power is,

[47:23] which of course is to freeze time for everyone else for exactly five seconds,

[47:28] which I don't think is a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[47:30] No, but that's a good power to hide too because you're not going to figure it out right away.

[47:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:35] And then of course, and though his stand is fairly close ranged,

[47:41] he'll usually freeze time and then have his stand go and punch a hole through the person,

[47:45] which is fatal for most people.

[47:47] Yeah.

[47:48] Nine times out of ten.

[47:50] Nine times out of ten.

[47:51] So that is Stardust Crusaders.

[47:52] Dan, are you pulling that from the New England Journal of Medicine?

Dan McCoy

[47:54] Yeah, well, they do the study on holes being punched through people.

Stuart Wellington

[47:59] Stardust Crusaders has a ton of crazy stuff in it.

[48:02] It introduces stands.

[48:04] It's this like fun globetrotting adventure that ends up in Egypt.

[48:07] There's one of my favorite sequences is a,

[48:11] there's a sequence where they get in a,

[48:15] they're fighting a stand user who is a gambler

[48:18] and he keeps forcing them to gamble away basically their lives.

[48:23] And it is, it's like such a silly, like non-action based sequence,

[48:29] but it's so fun.

[48:30] And the reactions of all the characters are so crazy.

[48:33] I love it in every animated version I've seen.

[48:36] Every time when I read it, it was like,

[48:38] I already knew what was going to happen.

[48:39] I still love it.

[48:40] It's, and that's, that's like the heart of what,

[48:43] what I love about JoJo's is that it's like,

[48:46] it's never what I expect.

[48:47] And there's, I love the like weird mystery of trying to figure out

[48:52] everybody's abilities and people overreacting to things.

[48:55] It's great.

[48:56] So Stardust Crusaders, thumbs up.

[48:59] If you want to check out JoJo's, that's the place to go.

[49:03] Time to move on to the next one.

[49:05] And that's our next series.

[49:07] Oh yeah.

[49:08] And also in Stardust Crusaders,

[49:09] there's a villain named Vanilla Ice who destroys people.

[49:13] Okay.

[49:14] Destroys people?

[49:15] Just like the real Vanilla Ice.

[49:16] Well, his stand involves creating a void bubble around him

[49:22] that destroys everything it touches,

[49:25] which is probably inspired by Vanilla Ice.

[49:27] Okay.

[49:28] So let's move on to the next slide.

[49:29] This is the first cover of our next series,

[49:32] Diamond is Unbreakable.

[49:35] Now we have a nice cool collection of characters there.

[49:38] Obviously you can see in the back,

[49:39] Jotaro Kujo shows up and now he's a little more experienced.

[49:43] He's learned some stuff from his battles with Dio,

[49:46] but we have a couple other characters here.

[49:47] He's got a bigger hat, certainly.

[49:49] As you can see,

[49:49] a couple of these characters are wearing school uniforms.

Elliott Kalan

[49:53] I could not,

[49:54] honestly,

[49:54] I could not tell that.

[49:56] Yeah.

[49:56] They're so covered in geogahs and baubles and chains and things

[50:00] and ornaments.

[50:01] I did not,

[50:02] I missed that.

Stuart Wellington

[50:03] So this,

[50:04] this series takes place entirely in a small Japanese town named Morio.

[50:11] And it almost has like a weird Twin Peaks vibe

[50:15] because there's a serial killer who is stalking the streets,

[50:20] a serial killer,

[50:21] that's right,

[50:21] who has the powers of a stand.

[50:24] And we follow our new Jojo,

[50:28] Josuke Higashikata,

[50:30] a Japanese teenager with a cool pompadour haircut and a powerful stand ability.

[50:35] And a bunch of his friends as they travel around town and deal with other stand users

[50:41] and eventually try and track down this serial killer.

[50:44] Let's get right to Josuke.

[50:46] That's him.

[50:47] Go to the next panel.

[50:49] Oh,

[50:49] is this from the cartoon?

[50:50] Oh.

[50:51] This from the cartoon.

[50:53] That's Josuke.

[50:54] As you can see,

[50:55] he's got a pompadour haircut.

[50:57] Yeah.

[50:58] He,

[50:59] and over his shoulder is his,

[51:02] his stand,

[51:03] his stand.

[51:04] Crazy diamond.

[51:05] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[51:06] Who,

[51:06] I mean,

[51:07] let's,

[51:07] let's describe this character.

[51:10] I would say that this character is if there was sort of a fetish gear version of Bane.

Elliott Kalan

[51:15] Yeah,

[51:15] I could see that.

[51:16] I was going to say like if the X-Men villain Avalanche,

[51:19] if half of his costume fell off in pieces and revealed that he didn't wear anything underneath.

[51:24] There is a lot of flesh here.

[51:27] A lot of,

[51:27] yeah,

[51:27] it's,

[51:28] he's,

[51:28] and it's a lot of flesh,

[51:30] just kind of hearts stuck onto his body.

[51:33] Including one in the groin zone.

[51:36] Yeah.

[51:36] One in the groin zone and one has like a little,

Stuart Wellington

[51:39] yeah,

[51:39] he's got a little like soul patch heart.

Dan McCoy

[51:41] Soul patch heart.

[51:42] Yeah.

[51:42] But he also has.

[51:43] Which matches,

Stuart Wellington

[51:43] which matches the hearts that,

[51:45] uh,

[51:46] Josuke uses to adorn his,

[51:48] to decorate his school uniform.

Elliott Kalan

[51:49] Yeah.

[51:50] And he's also got tubes going from his neck into,

[51:53] I don't know what,

[51:53] his back.

[51:54] Seems unnecessary.

[51:56] But,

[51:56] uh,

[51:57] like,

[51:57] so,

Dan McCoy

[51:57] like Bane had like a tank that he would get stuff from.

[52:00] Just the tubes,

[52:00] tubes going from one part of his body to another part of his body.

Elliott Kalan

[52:05] I mean,

[52:05] we all have those inside of us.

[52:07] Yeah,

[52:07] exactly.

[52:07] Outside of you.

[52:08] Yeah.

[52:09] So,

[52:10] uh,

[52:10] this where.

[52:11] I'm just noticing that the top of his helmet is flat,

[52:13] but it's still shaped like a heart.

[52:15] Shaped like a heart.

Stuart Wellington

[52:16] Hell yeah.

[52:17] So,

[52:17] uh,

[52:18] this,

[52:18] so Josuke's stand is similar to star platinum in that it's fairly short range.

[52:24] It's fast and tough,

[52:26] but it has a very specific unique ability.

[52:29] And that's the things that punches and destroys,

[52:32] uh,

[52:34] he can remake.

[52:35] So he can heal people.

[52:36] He can fix things that have been destroyed.

[52:39] This is the series where they really start exploring some of the wacky stand powers that they can do with some of the weird combos that they can,

[52:46] uh,

[52:46] that they can do with the various abilities.

[52:49] And it's also an important thing because previously when they would introduce,

[52:53] uh,

[52:53] like a villain that has a power that like kills somebody.

[52:57] Uh,

[52:57] now what they'll do is,

[52:59] uh,

[52:59] they can demonstrate how deadly somebody stand is.

[53:02] And then Josuke can use,

[53:04] uh,

[53:05] crazy diamond to just heal that person again.

[53:08] Uh,

[53:08] which is important that you need to have a healer on your team.

[53:11] Basically.

[53:11] Yeah.

[53:12] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:12] You got to bounce out the,

[53:13] the party.

[53:14] I,

[53:15] can I just say before we move on,

[53:17] also Jojo,

[53:19] the top of Jojo's pompadour kind of looks like a waffle iron.

[53:23] Like the texture is to me,

[53:26] very evocative of a,

[53:28] of a waffle iron.

[53:30] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:30] Yeah.

[53:31] And one of the,

[53:31] one of the key things about this Josuke is you cannot make fun of his hair or else it sends him into a berserker rage.

[53:37] Oh no.

[53:37] Dan,

Elliott Kalan

[53:38] you better keep that to yourself.

[53:39] Oh no.

[53:40] Dan,

[53:40] do not say anything more about that because you might get a,

[53:43] a,

[53:43] a visitor that you are not going to be happy with.

[53:46] Yeah.

[53:47] What he does isn't very nice.

Stuart Wellington

[53:49] So a lot of this series is Jojo and his friends,

[53:53] uh,

[53:54] running into enemy stand users,

[53:56] uh,

[53:57] having,

[53:57] you know,

[53:58] a life or death battle.

[53:59] And then oftentimes defeating the enemy and that enemy becoming their friend and part of the team.

[54:05] Uh,

[54:05] which is great.

[54:06] At one point,

[54:07] a character shows up that is an alien.

[54:10] Uh,

[54:10] and that's the first time we've ever addressed aliens in the series,

[54:13] which is kind of wild.

[54:15] And the alien has a stand that stand of course is earth,

[54:18] wind and fire.

[54:19] Uh,

[54:20] it's yeah,

[54:21] it's a,

[54:21] it's a wild,

[54:22] it's a wild season.

[54:23] It's a lot of fun.

[54:25] I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[54:26] And also it really,

[54:27] it plays into like the,

[54:28] the horror angle with a,

[54:30] an evil serial killer villain who we'll introduce on the next slide.

[54:34] Right there.

[54:36] Uh,

[54:37] that is,

[54:38] okay.

[54:39] That's Yoshikaga Kira.

[54:42] That's,

[54:42] uh,

[54:42] the name of the,

[54:43] uh,

[54:43] the kind of like uptight,

[54:45] uh,

[54:46] businessman,

[54:47] uh,

[54:48] serial killer guy who,

[54:50] you know,

[54:51] uh,

[54:51] is just looking for some woman to share his life,

[54:53] but he often kills them.

[54:55] In fact,

[54:55] always does.

[54:56] And standing in front of him is his stand.

[54:59] Killer queen.

[55:01] Now his,

Dan McCoy

[55:01] his stand has some powerful thighs.

Elliott Kalan

[55:04] Yeah.

[55:05] Those thighs are roughly as wide as,

[55:06] as barrels.

[55:08] Yeah.

[55:08] And,

[55:09] uh,

[55:09] he's also,

[55:10] he's also some sort of a cat robot.

[55:12] He looks like a cat robot.

[55:14] Like a pink cat robot.

[55:14] Based on his appearance,

[55:15] what do you think his power is?

[55:18] Uh,

[55:18] well,

[55:18] he's certainly Jellicle.

[55:20] So there's right that right off the top.

[55:22] True.

[55:22] So I'm sure he can sing about himself.

Dan McCoy

[55:24] Mm-hmm.

[55:25] I mean,

[55:26] like,

[55:27] I look,

[55:27] I'm,

[55:28] I,

[55:28] something about it,

[55:29] like some sort of like evil love perfume.

[55:33] Is that a thing?

[55:34] I mean,

[55:35] it is now.

Stuart Wellington

[55:36] That would a hundred percent fit within this series.

[55:39] So the powers of killer queen are all based around explosives.

[55:43] Okay.

[55:44] Because nothing is more powerful than a serial killer that can blow up all evidence of his crimes.

[55:49] Oh my God.

[55:50] That's how he's been able to survive for so long in Morioh.

[55:54] Uh,

[55:55] it,

[55:56] it,

[55:56] this is a super fun series.

[55:58] It leads to a really fun conclusion with some fun,

[56:00] like time hopping shenanigans.

[56:03] Uh,

[56:04] I,

[56:05] I like this one a lot.

[56:06] Uh,

[56:07] yeah.

[56:07] So thumbs up.

[56:08] A lot of,

[56:08] a lot of sweet,

[56:09] sweet,

[56:10] uh,

[56:10] boys in this one.

[56:12] Uh,

[56:12] speaking of sweet boys,

[56:13] we're going to move on to the next series where we leave Morioh,

[56:17] Japan,

[56:18] and we go to,

[56:20] on a trip to Italy,

[56:22] Italia.

[56:23] So let's look at this next group of boys.

[56:25] This,

[56:25] this next group.

Elliott Kalan

[56:26] Uh,

[56:27] yeah,

[56:27] it's,

[56:27] I'm not,

[56:28] they seem to exist in,

[56:30] yes.

[56:31] It's either,

[56:31] either Italy or,

[56:32] or Narnia.

Stuart Wellington

[56:33] So looking at these boys,

[56:35] what do you,

[56:37] what do you think their profession is?

Elliott Kalan

[56:39] Uh,

[56:40] I'm getting,

[56:41] I'm getting real improv everywhere vibes.

[56:43] Some kind of modern circus or mostly acrobatics.

Dan McCoy

[56:47] I know we mentioned a boy band before,

[56:49] but maybe that,

Elliott Kalan

[56:51] Yep.

[56:52] Are they,

[56:52] are they,

[56:53] wait,

[56:53] hold on.

[56:54] We'll figure this out.

[56:54] Are they,

[56:55] are they a roller derby team?

[56:57] Like a red fest roller derby team.

Stuart Wellington

[56:59] I know,

[57:00] I know you guys don't have a lot of experience with it,

[57:02] but they are very clearly a group of Italian mafiosos.

[57:06] Oh,

[57:06] sure.

Elliott Kalan

[57:07] Okay.

[57:07] Yeah.

[57:08] It's yeah.

[57:08] With the,

[57:09] with the belt buckle that says a hanging over the crotch.

[57:12] And having,

[57:14] having kind of like a,

[57:15] a half shirt with leather straps,

[57:16] just sort of,

Dan McCoy

[57:17] to a neck leash.

[57:18] Open jumpsuit.

[57:20] This like white jumpsuit with like an open breastplate.

[57:23] Yeah.

[57:24] Yeah.

[57:24] Like,

Elliott Kalan

[57:25] just like tags dangling off of it.

[57:28] They're like little paddle ball paddles.

[57:29] They're just hanging off of the,

[57:31] and then,

[57:32] and of course,

[57:32] and there's the guy who's got a,

[57:34] no shirt and then a tie.

[57:36] And then over that kind of a,

[57:37] a weird kind of slit up the middle jacket.

Dan McCoy

[57:40] Or the one that has sort of abs painted on in purple on their shirt.

[57:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:46] And then there's the,

[57:47] the one that has a hat that is like a red,

[57:49] it's almost like a miniature wimple.

[57:51] Yeah.

[57:51] With like a,

[57:52] with like a phallic kind of blue sword going down the forehead.

[57:55] Classic mafiosos.

[57:58] Yep.

[57:59] So this is,

[57:59] this is the team.

[58:01] And we,

[58:01] we didn't even,

[58:01] we didn't even mention the one whose hair is,

[58:03] it seems to be,

[58:04] it seems to be contorted to the shape of three eyeballs along,

[58:08] along his forehead.

Stuart Wellington

[58:09] The best part is that the last member of the team is the Jojo of this

[58:13] series.

[58:15] Giorno Giovanna.

[58:17] Now,

[58:18] which one is that?

[58:18] So this is,

[58:19] this is,

[58:20] that's the,

[58:20] the blonde haired fellow with the curls and the heart shaped cutout of his

[58:24] pink jumpsuit.

[58:25] Okay.

[58:26] Yeah.

[58:26] Okay.

[58:27] So this is,

[58:28] this is the cast of the,

[58:30] the final series I'm going to be talking about tonight.

[58:32] This is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Series 5.

[58:36] Vento Oreo,

[58:37] the golden wind.

[58:39] And these are the,

[58:41] our,

[58:42] our Jojo.

[58:43] Let's move on to the next slide.

[58:44] Our next slide is right there.

[58:46] That's Giorno Giovanna and his stand.

[58:50] Giorno Giovanna and his stand,

[58:51] the gold experience.

[58:53] I think at this point,

[58:55] I think at this point,

[58:55] we have to mention that there is,

Elliott Kalan

[58:56] I think we've danced around that there is a,

[58:58] there's a real heavy kind of Tom of Finland,

[59:00] Homo Rattis.

[59:01] Yeah.

[59:01] Are they a couple?

[59:02] A lot of this.

[59:02] A couple of the stand.

[59:03] Yeah.

[59:03] The stand is kind of like leaning into Jojo with its arms around his shoulders.

Dan McCoy

[59:08] Arms draped over him.

[59:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[59:09] And a head kind of like nuzzled against Jojo's head and there's a tear falling

[59:13] from the stand's eye,

[59:14] it looks like,

[59:14] or perhaps that's just,

[59:15] that it's just come up out of the water.

[59:17] But there's a real,

[59:17] I feel like this is the most,

[59:19] this is the one that has.

[59:20] It's sensual.

[59:20] A sexual relationship.

[59:22] Yeah.

[59:22] Between Jojo and his stand.

Stuart Wellington

[59:24] Part of the,

[59:24] one of the things about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and the art style is that I

[59:28] always kind of liken it to if somebody was doing fashion plates for an issue of

[59:34] Italian Vogue and use only WWF wrestlers as the models.

[59:39] And I feel like this is the,

[59:40] this is the most on the nose.

[59:41] Like I feel like the,

[59:42] the fashion in this specific one,

[59:45] since they're,

[59:45] they are in Italy,

[59:47] the fashion is,

[59:48] is super bonkers.

[59:50] And it's so funny because they keep,

[59:52] they regularly mention how the,

[59:55] the,

[59:55] the mafia can blend in with society.

[59:58] And I'm like,

[59:58] every single one of these gangsters looks like a maniac.

[1:00:02] I mean,

[1:00:02] I just like to blend in with like the future of time cop.

[1:00:05] Yeah.

[1:00:06] Like the Super Mario brothers,

[1:00:07] the movie world.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:08] The fifth element they would blend right in.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:11] Like there's moments where they're like,

[1:00:13] we need to find the stand user in this crowd.

[1:00:16] I'm like,

[1:00:16] I think you can find him.

[1:00:18] It's the crazy looking one.

[1:00:20] So as I,

[1:00:20] as I said before,

[1:00:21] so standing over Giorno's shoulder is his stand,

[1:00:24] the gold experience.

[1:00:27] His stand is,

[1:00:28] is a similarly short range stand.

[1:00:31] But the,

[1:00:33] and similar to Josuke's,

[1:00:36] it,

[1:00:36] it has a life giving element.

[1:00:38] So it,

[1:00:39] the things it touches,

[1:00:40] it,

[1:00:40] it can,

[1:00:41] it can alter the life form.

[1:00:43] So it could turn something that has,

[1:00:45] like it could turn a stick into,

[1:00:47] in like a,

[1:00:48] somebody's liver

[1:00:49] or it can turn a beetle into a necklace.

[1:00:54] It,

[1:00:54] it's,

[1:00:55] it's this weird kind of all purpose,

[1:00:57] like morphing ability.

[1:00:59] It has the same,

[1:01:00] it has the same power that,

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:01] the same power that Calvin's transmogrifying box has in Calvin the Hobbes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:06] But the,

[1:01:06] the focus is around life,

[1:01:07] which is kind of cool.

[1:01:08] Cause it does,

[1:01:09] it's like an echo from the,

[1:01:11] the previous,

[1:01:11] like the ham on,

[1:01:12] like breath control,

[1:01:13] life energy thing.

[1:01:14] So an important thing here also is that Giorno Giovanna isn't a Joestar.

[1:01:20] Giorno is the son of Dio Brando.

[1:01:24] That's right.

[1:01:25] The villain from Stardust Crusaders.

[1:01:27] So he puts together,

[1:01:29] he joins,

[1:01:30] he joins this team of gangsters with the express purpose of trying to take down the boss.

[1:01:36] because the boss of the Italian crime organization,

[1:01:40] Passione,

[1:01:41] that's the name of the organization.

[1:01:43] This boss has been,

[1:01:44] yeah,

[1:01:45] this boss has been selling drugs to children,

[1:01:47] which in the,

[1:01:48] in this series is the worst possible thing you could do.

[1:01:52] So he wants to become a,

[1:01:54] I mean,

[1:01:54] in real life,

[1:01:55] it's pretty bad.

[1:01:55] No,

[1:01:56] you're right.

[1:01:56] He wants to become a gang star in his words and,

[1:02:00] and overthrow the organization and run the organization himself.

[1:02:04] And he enlists,

[1:02:06] he initially fights and then enlists,

[1:02:07] uh,

[1:02:09] the,

[1:02:09] who I would consider to be the real hero of the story.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:12] Let's move to the next slide.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:14] That's,

[1:02:15] that's the,

[1:02:15] the capo of their group.

[1:02:17] That's Bruno Bucciaretti and his stand,

[1:02:21] Sticky Fingers,

[1:02:22] AKA Zipper Man.

[1:02:24] Because a lot of names.

[1:02:25] Zipper.

[1:02:25] I get it.

[1:02:26] Those are zippers that are hanging from him.

[1:02:27] I see.

[1:02:28] A lot of the names have been,

[1:02:29] were changed for the English translation and dub.

[1:02:32] Uh,

[1:02:33] there's a,

[1:02:33] there's a stand called,

[1:02:35] uh,

[1:02:35] craft work that was changed to arts and crafts.

[1:02:38] Uh,

[1:02:39] obviously in this case,

[1:02:40] uh,

[1:02:40] there's one of my favorites is baby head.

[1:02:43] Uh,

[1:02:44] well,

[1:02:44] was originally baby face.

[1:02:46] that's a stand that involves a computer and,

[1:02:49] uh,

[1:02:50] using somebody's DNA to create a evil stand baby.

[1:02:53] Uh,

[1:02:54] this is a wild series.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:55] I am so glad this is called Zipper Man because I was looking at it.

[1:03:01] I'm like,

[1:03:02] that looks like a big,

[1:03:03] like the little thing,

[1:03:05] like the thing that you hold onto in a zipper,

[1:03:07] the little tab,

[1:03:09] like the flange giant one hanging off of kind of the belt area of the stand.

[1:03:15] Uh,

[1:03:15] and I was like,

[1:03:17] am I crazy?

[1:03:18] Is that like a zipper thing?

[1:03:20] And it was good to know that I was right.

[1:03:23] It's not little penis,

[1:03:24] man.

[1:03:25] Yeah.

[1:03:25] You were going to say something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:27] No,

[1:03:27] no.

[1:03:27] Yeah.

[1:03:27] Just that,

[1:03:28] that it,

[1:03:28] it does look like he has a giant paddle penis.

[1:03:30] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:31] And Bruno has this like weird short bangs.

[1:03:34] And that stand has a lot of attitude.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:35] I feel like the stands have more,

[1:03:36] more and more attitude.

[1:03:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:38] This one's all attitude.

[1:03:40] Uh,

[1:03:40] Bruno Bucciarati is the leader of the group.

[1:03:42] He's got a bowl cut with bangs and he has these like barrettes in his hair.

[1:03:47] I don't know if I'd call it a bowl cut.

[1:03:48] That's a Louise Brooks haircut.

[1:03:49] Yeah.

[1:03:50] It's a bob.

[1:03:50] It's a little bob.

[1:03:51] Yeah.

[1:03:51] It's a bob.

[1:03:52] You're right.

[1:03:53] Uh,

[1:03:53] similar to Giorno,

[1:03:54] he's got a cutout in his little suit,

[1:03:57] uh,

[1:03:57] showing off a nice set of tattoos.

[1:03:59] Uh,

[1:03:59] now,

[1:04:00] uh,

[1:04:00] his stand sticky fingers,

[1:04:01] uh,

[1:04:03] when it,

[1:04:04] uh,

[1:04:04] things it touches,

[1:04:05] he can open up like zippers.

[1:04:07] So it allows him to like,

[1:04:09] he can like punches,

[1:04:11] he can punch somebody's arm and their arm will come unzipped from their body.

[1:04:15] He can punch his own body and parts of it.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:18] Now,

[1:04:19] Stuart,

[1:04:19] this is postulating that,

[1:04:22] uh,

[1:04:22] just like a normal arm is zipped on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:25] Well,

[1:04:25] the power creates the zipper,

[1:04:27] right?

[1:04:27] Yeah.

[1:04:27] It creates a zipper.

[1:04:28] He can punch a wall and create a zipper.

[1:04:30] And then,

[1:04:31] and then fall through the wall.

[1:04:33] And then zip the wall closed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:35] Cause the ability,

[1:04:35] cause the ability to unzip a zipper is not that great a superpower.

[1:04:37] Yeah.

[1:04:38] Most people can do that.

[1:04:39] Yeah.

[1:04:39] That's true.

[1:04:40] What if you don't need to stand for that?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:42] No.

[1:04:42] You just embarrass people by being like X,

[1:04:44] Y,

[1:04:44] Z.

[1:04:45] Now,

[1:04:45] what if he punched zipper from,

[1:04:48] uh,

[1:04:48] rescue Rangers?

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:50] I feel like zipper would get covered in zippers and then get unzipped and we would all be fucking

[1:04:55] bumped.

[1:04:56] Didn't zipper like,

Dan McCoy

[1:04:57] yeah.

[1:04:59] Wait,

[1:04:59] especially in the movie.

[1:05:00] Didn't zipper marry gadget?

[1:05:01] Well,

[1:05:02] in the,

[1:05:03] yeah.

[1:05:03] In the recent Chip and Dale movie.

[1:05:05] Canon.

[1:05:06] It's Canon.

[1:05:06] Dan doesn't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:07] You have to imagine them on their honeymoon.

[1:05:11] Imagine it right now.

[1:05:12] So,

[1:05:13] uh,

[1:05:14] why not?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:15] Let's look at,

[1:05:16] let's look at some of the villains there,

[1:05:18] uh,

[1:05:18] that are arrayed against our rowdy boys here.

[1:05:20] Okay.

[1:05:21] We got a,

[1:05:22] uh,

[1:05:22] the,

[1:05:22] uh,

[1:05:22] the next slide is the,

[1:05:24] this is the assassin squad,

[1:05:26] uh,

[1:05:27] that are all named after food.

[1:05:28] We got chocolate,

[1:05:30] Pesci,

[1:05:31] uh,

[1:05:31] fromage,

[1:05:33] all those fucking shits.

[1:05:34] Uh,

[1:05:35] and they,

[1:05:35] of course attack them.

[1:05:37] They attack our friends one by one.

[1:05:39] Uh,

[1:05:40] one of them,

[1:05:41] Pesci has a stand that is a magical fishing rod.

[1:05:46] Uh,

[1:05:46] yeah,

[1:05:47] it's great.

[1:05:48] Oh man,

[1:05:48] it's great.

[1:05:48] These guys,

[1:05:49] look at these normal gangsters.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:52] The one where his head is also his neck and he's got like a pineapple top coming at his head.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:57] That's Pesci,

[1:05:58] of course.

[1:05:59] And he's kind of a wimpin.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:00] This is the first time that I realized I'm like,

[1:06:03] oh,

[1:06:03] it's Joe Fish.

[1:06:04] Joe Fish is his name.

[1:06:07] Joe Fish.

[1:06:08] Yeah.

[1:06:09] Anyway,

[1:06:10] sorry.

[1:06:10] Thank you for that realization.

[1:06:11] Yeah,

[1:06:11] no,

[1:06:12] I'm glad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:12] The guy in the middle with the weird,

[1:06:14] uh,

[1:06:15] golf,

[1:06:15] uh,

[1:06:16] gesture cap.

[1:06:16] Robert De Niro is Robert of Niro.

[1:06:18] What?

[1:06:20] Amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:22] And Al Pacino's name actually means Pachinko.

[1:06:25] Oh,

Dan McCoy

[1:06:26] the,

[1:06:27] the game or the new series on Hulu.

[1:06:30] Is it Hulu?

[1:06:31] I don't even remember.

[1:06:32] I don't know.

[1:06:33] Uh,

[1:06:34] what are you saying,

[1:06:34] sir?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:35] I want to point out in the next slide.

[1:06:36] Uh,

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:36] we're going to advance to the next slide because I got something special for you.

[1:06:40] We have,

[1:06:41] we have a stand that's right after Dan's heart here.

[1:06:45] That is one of the enemies.

[1:06:46] And the stand is talking heads.

[1:06:50] Oh,

[1:06:50] man.

[1:06:52] Uh,

[1:06:52] now describe talking heads to me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:54] It's really visually moving into Aeon Flux territory.

[1:06:57] Yeah.

[1:06:57] That last one was super Aeon Flux.

[1:07:00] Yeah.

[1:07:00] The bodies are getting thinner and more distorted.

[1:07:03] Like their,

[1:07:03] their,

[1:07:04] uh,

[1:07:04] postures are more distorted and,

[1:07:06] and on oblique angles and yeah,

[1:07:09] a kind of unnerving Aeon Flux quality.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:12] Uh,

[1:07:12] I would say that the stand,

[1:07:14] you were going to say,

[1:07:15] describe it.

[1:07:15] I,

[1:07:16] it's,

[1:07:17] I,

[1:07:17] you know,

[1:07:18] I understand why it's called talking head because the head is the largest thing,

[1:07:22] but it's not just a head.

[1:07:23] It's got little arms and like kind of a little body that trails off into a tail.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:30] It's like a baby devil genie.

[1:07:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:32] It kind of looks like a,

[1:07:33] if there's a cute version of that squid from Prometheus,

[1:07:37] it's sort of in that.

[1:07:38] It's in the movie.

[1:07:39] The cute version is in the movie.

[1:07:40] Okay.

[1:07:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:41] It's a little baby squid.

[1:07:43] Yeah.

[1:07:43] So to give you an idea what this,

[1:07:44] what talking heads power is,

[1:07:46] is it,

[1:07:46] uh,

[1:07:46] climbs into your mouth and replaces your tongue and then says the exact opposite of what

[1:07:51] you want it to say.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:53] Amazing.

[1:07:55] What a great power.

[1:07:56] Speaking in tongues.

[1:07:57] I get it.

[1:07:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:58] It's a,

[1:07:58] it's a very specific power.

[1:08:00] Luckily,

[1:08:00] uh,

[1:08:01] it's used in,

[1:08:02] uh,

[1:08:03] coordination with a teleporting shark stand that can teleport from different bodies of

[1:08:08] water,

[1:08:09] including blood and tears coming out of your eyes.

[1:08:13] Sure.

[1:08:14] Uh,

[1:08:14] yeah.

[1:08:15] So,

[1:08:15] uh,

[1:08:16] yeah,

[1:08:16] this is,

[1:08:17] this is a,

[1:08:17] again,

[1:08:18] this is similar to Stardust Crusaders in that there's a little bit of a globe

[1:08:21] trotting element.

[1:08:22] Uh,

[1:08:22] they travel all around Italy.

[1:08:24] Uh,

[1:08:25] we get to know all of these rowdy boys.

[1:08:26] Like Stanley Tucci.

[1:08:27] Wait,

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:28] so is Stanley Tucci looking for Italy or whatever?

[1:08:30] Is that just a JoJo's adventure?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:32] It is a lot like a JoJo's bizarre adventure.

[1:08:34] I wonder what Stanley Tucci's stand would be.

[1:08:37] I mean,

[1:08:37] he dresses,

[1:08:38] depending on the role,

[1:08:39] well,

[1:08:40] could easily dress like one of our various stand users.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:43] An incorrectly made Negroni is his stand.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:47] Oh no.

[1:08:48] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:49] Shots fired.

[1:08:50] Now in the-

[1:08:51] Shots I don't understand fired.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:53] In the,

[1:08:53] so in the,

[1:08:54] in the third series,

[1:08:55] we introduced,

[1:08:56] uh,

[1:08:56] the concept of stands.

[1:08:57] In the,

[1:08:57] the,

[1:08:58] the fourth series,

[1:08:59] we introduced the idea that stands are given to people if they are shot by a magical

[1:09:05] arrow that will either kill them or bring out their stand.

[1:09:10] Oh,

[1:09:10] like the Terrigen Miss.

[1:09:11] Okay.

[1:09:12] Exactly.

[1:09:12] And a lot of the action involves chasing around,

[1:09:15] trying to get that arrow away from bad guys.

[1:09:19] Finally,

[1:09:20] in this series,

[1:09:22] we,

[1:09:22] we address the idea that stands come from an alien meteorite that came to earth and will,

[1:09:31] was,

[1:09:31] uh,

[1:09:32] basically causing some kind of a virus that would either kill you or give you powers.

[1:09:36] And then somebody took the meteorite rock and formed arrows out of it and then sold those arrows to a hag named Enya in Egypt who gave them to Dio.

[1:09:49] So that's how,

[1:09:50] that's how,

[1:09:50] so far,

[1:09:51] that's where we're at on stands and how they came to be.

[1:09:54] And finally,

[1:09:55] let's talk about the guy,

[1:09:57] uh,

[1:09:57] the big bad,

[1:09:58] the boss of the organization.

[1:10:00] Let's go to the next slide.

[1:10:01] This is what a crime boss looks like guys.

[1:10:04] Sure.

[1:10:05] Of course,

[1:10:06] that's what you think of.

[1:10:07] That's Diavolo and his stand.

[1:10:09] King Crimson.

[1:10:11] Uh,

[1:10:12] yeah.

[1:10:13] So Diavolo is a super bad dude.

[1:10:16] Uh,

[1:10:17] he dresses like a totally normal gangster and King Crimson has a little baby face.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:22] If a gangster was in those creepy Calvin Klein commercials from about 25,

[1:10:26] 30 years ago,

[1:10:27] we're,

[1:10:28] we're kind of young people in,

[1:10:29] in jeans and no shirts stood next to ladders in a basement and answered uncomfortable questions about themselves.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:34] And his stand looks like Iron Man and fishnets.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:37] Yeah.

[1:10:38] If this is that waffle print again,

[1:10:40] if Iron Man fell into a waffle iron,

[1:10:42] uh,

[1:10:43] this is,

[1:10:43] this is that guy.

[1:10:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:45] And King Crimson,

[1:10:46] it's another thing where they,

[1:10:48] uh,

[1:10:48] Diavolo tries to keep his identity secret because of course he's a secretive mob boss.

[1:10:53] Uh,

[1:10:54] and,

[1:10:54] uh,

[1:10:55] he tries to keep his power secret,

[1:10:57] his power bill based on the name King Crimson.

[1:11:00] Look,

[1:11:00] what do you guys think his power might be?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:03] Um,

[1:11:04] uh,

[1:11:06] just,

[1:11:06] he releases a,

[1:11:08] like,

[1:11:08] just like a flood of blood.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:11] Oh,

[1:11:12] that would be awesome.

[1:11:13] It is not a flood of blood.

[1:11:15] Uh,

[1:11:15] that's similar to some other standings.

[1:11:16] Um,

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:17] so maybe what if it's like,

[1:11:18] uh,

[1:11:19] if,

[1:11:19] okay,

[1:11:19] it's like King,

[1:11:20] so it's like he takes you to court because you're in the court of the Crimson King.

[1:11:24] So he's like,

[1:11:25] he's a lawyer.

[1:11:26] He's a lawyer and he's good with injunctions and torts and things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:30] These,

[1:11:30] these are,

[1:11:31] these are all really good guesses.

[1:11:32] he,

[1:11:32] he has a two-part power.

[1:11:33] One is that he can see briefly what is going to happen in the future.

[1:11:38] And the other is that he can erase 10 seconds worth of time,

[1:11:44] uh,

[1:11:45] which is a weird power.

[1:11:47] And I don't quite know why or how it's good,

[1:11:51] but he does it a lot.

[1:11:53] Uh,

[1:11:53] and,

[1:11:54] uh,

[1:11:54] yeah.

[1:11:55] So,

[1:11:55] uh,

[1:11:56] it leads to a very complicated,

[1:11:58] uh,

[1:11:59] showdown at the end that is not necessarily my favorite,

[1:12:01] but,

[1:12:02] you know,

[1:12:02] uh,

[1:12:03] this was still quite a bizarre adventure to go on.

[1:12:06] Um,

[1:12:07] and,

[1:12:07] uh,

[1:12:08] yeah.

[1:12:08] So that is,

[1:12:09] uh,

[1:12:09] so that's going to be,

[1:12:10] that's,

[1:12:11] that's it with,

[1:12:12] uh,

[1:12:12] at the end of five series worth of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

[1:12:16] I'm looking forward to see where it goes next.

[1:12:17] I believe our next Jojo is our first female Jojo,

[1:12:22] Jolene Cujo,

[1:12:23] the daughter of,

[1:12:24] uh,

[1:12:25] Jotaro,

[1:12:25] the coolest dude in the universe,

[1:12:27] as I mentioned before.

[1:12:28] Um,

[1:12:29] there's so many cool stands.

[1:12:31] Uh,

[1:12:31] you gotta catch them all.

[1:12:33] Uh,

[1:12:33] I recommend this series.

[1:12:35] Uh,

[1:12:35] guys,

[1:12:36] do you have any parting questions or thoughts on this adventure I've taken you on?

[1:12:40] Uh,

[1:12:41] no,

Dan McCoy

[1:12:43] I feel like before this,

[1:12:44] I had sort of,

[1:12:45] uh,

[1:12:46] my,

[1:12:47] uh,

[1:12:47] understanding of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure was at an F.

[1:12:51] And now it's sort of a D plus.

[1:12:55] Easily a D plus.

[1:12:56] Yeah.

[1:12:56] Thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:58] No,

[1:12:58] you're welcome.

[1:12:59] I,

[1:13:00] I also don't have any questions.

[1:13:01] I feel like that was thorough,

[1:13:03] comprehensive.

[1:13:04] It did leave me asking more questions.

[1:13:06] Then we're answered,

[1:13:07] but I'm,

[1:13:08] it also left me afraid of answering those questions.

[1:13:10] Yeah,

[1:13:10] exactly.

[1:13:11] And unsure of myself and who I am and,

[1:13:13] and what works in the universe and what,

[1:13:15] what I should be expecting from my entertainment.

[1:13:17] So,

[1:13:18] uh,

[1:13:18] thank you for that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:19] So guys,

[1:13:19] I've almost finished this bottle of Mezcal.

[1:13:21] so I think it's probably a good time for us to sign out.

[1:13:24] Uh,

[1:13:24] this,

[1:13:25] uh,

[1:13:25] podcast is on the MaxFun network.

[1:13:27] You can check out a bunch of other fun podcasts on there.

[1:13:30] Some are not about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

[1:13:33] Um,

[1:13:34] roughly,

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:34] roughly 99.9999999% are not about Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:40] Uh,

[1:13:40] so you're saying there's a chance.

[1:13:42] Uh,

[1:13:43] uh,

[1:13:43] this podcast was edited by the loving hands of Alex Smith.

[1:13:47] You can find him as Howell Doughty on various social media.

[1:13:51] Uh,

[1:13:51] you can check out his podcast,

[1:13:53] Howell Doughty's Fast Track,

[1:13:54] which Dan just recorded a dope ass song for.

[1:13:58] Um,

[1:13:58] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:14:01] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:14:02] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:14:04] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:15] Maximumfun.org

Dan McCoy

[1:14:17] Comedy and culture.

[1:14:18] Artist owned.

[1:14:20] Audience supported.

FH Mini 60 - StuStu's Podcast Adventure

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