Ep. #363 - Being the Ricardos, with Alison Rosen

Elliott Kalan

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

[0:03] The long-awaited third chapter in the Ng Trilogy, after chasing Amy and finding Forrester.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:39] Oh, hey. I didn't see you come in there. It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] Stuart, this is my apartment.

Elliott Kalan

[0:43] I'm Ellie Kalin, wondering if Stuart was talking to Dan or to the listeners, or perhaps to our guest, our very special guest this week, Alison Rosen, the host of Alison Rosen is your new best friend, co-host of Childish, and host of the new podcast, Upworthy Weekly, your place for positive things.

[1:00] Every Saturday. It's Alison Rosen, as mentioned in the previous part of the sentence. Alison, thank you for joining us.

S4

[1:05] Hello. I'm so excited to be here, and I'm just going to come in hot and say my understanding is you have a guest that is like everyone's favorite, and I am gunning.

[1:21] I mean, I was about to say for second favorite, but I don't know why I'm like handicapping myself.

[1:25] Go for the goal.

[1:26] Don't do that.

[1:26] Because she's so beloved, I don't want people to take it the wrong way, but I am trying to displace her.

Dan McCoy

[1:32] Okay.

S4

[1:33] You know what? I'll just be an alternate favorite.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] Shoot for the moon and reach the stars, which doesn't make sense because the stars are further out than the moon.

[1:42] Right.

[1:43] Well, you're the one who said it, Dan, so are you debunking yourself?

[1:46] Isn't that the saying, though?

[1:48] I feel like that is the way it's—

Elliott Kalan

[1:49] I always thought the saying was reach for the moon, but at least you'll hit a very tall mountain.

[1:54] Okay.

[1:55] As your plane crashes.

S4

[1:56] If you shoot for the moon but reach for the stars, you're going to be like, I am lost.

[2:02] Yeah.

[2:02] My navigation system was incorrect.

[2:05] Now I'm just in orbit.

[2:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] Very dangerous.

[2:08] Well, you're off to a great start.

[2:10] I think there's a real chance that Hallie's going to have to come back and reclaim her crown at some point.

[2:16] That's right.

[2:16] Defender title, yeah.

[2:18] Yeah.

[2:18] As Flophouse star.

[2:20] Yeah, and I don't really think—

Stuart Wellington

[2:20] So what do we do here, Dan?

Elliott Kalan

[2:25] Stuart, are you—is the spirit of Norm MacDonald, rest in peace, has he just entered your body?

[2:31] Because it's very Norm that you're saying that.

Dan McCoy

[2:31] Stuart is so concerned with setting the stage for what the podcast is and being professional that he forgets that what people like about the show is the knowledge of the show.

[2:40] That's nonsense.

[2:41] People like this show?

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] Stuart took a moment from sipping what appears to be just molten chocolate out of a huge cup to make sure that we set up the show.

[2:50] So we might as well do it.

Dan McCoy

[2:52] So this is a protein smoothie that Stuart made at Henderlands before coming here.

[2:56] Yeah, yeah.

[2:56] And then he arrived with it.

[2:58] He asked—he's like, can I have a knife to punch a hole in the top?

[3:01] Dan got very nervous.

[3:03] I will.

[3:04] Is there liquid in it or is it just the protein powder?

Stuart Wellington

[3:07] Yeah, I'm just slurping dry protein powder.

[3:11] My mouth is the fucking Sahara right now.

[3:13] He calls it a protein pixie stick.

Elliott Kalan

[3:15] Yeah.

[3:16] So Allison, protein shakes.

[3:18] Yes.

[3:19] Pro or con?

S4

[3:20] You know, I am pro for other people.

[3:23] Myself, I'm not really a protein shake gal.

[3:25] I feel like—and Stuart, I don't know what your, you know, regimen is.

[3:29] But I feel like if you're going to suck down a protein shake, then you should be following it up with some kind of reps or things where you're grunting.

[3:38] And I don't like to do any of that.

[3:39] Oh, oh.

Dan McCoy

[3:39] There's a lot of reps and grunts.

[3:41] He will.

[3:41] He loves things where he grunts.

Elliott Kalan

[3:44] And he loves putting them on TikTok.

[3:45] He even loves The Brothers Grunt, one of MTV's least popular television shows.

[3:50] So, Stuart, you mentioned what do we do on this podcast?

[3:52] Clearly what we do is we talk about protein shakes.

[3:54] Welcome to the shake house.

Stuart Wellington

[3:55] It was mainly—it was just one of those bids for attention I do here.

Dan McCoy

[4:01] We watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[4:03] In this case, we watched Being the Ricardos, which has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards.

[4:09] What?

[4:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:10] Well, there are—

[4:11] Mostly acting.

[4:12] There are three acting awards.

[4:14] Oh, entirely acting awards.

Dan McCoy

[4:15] Three acting awards.

[4:17] And I honestly like—the acting in this movie, maybe you guys will argue with me.

[4:21] I like the performances.

[4:23] I don't think that's where the fault lies.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] No, I think if I have any—I really like a lot of Nicole Kidman's performance.

[4:29] I don't like that she's performing it beneath several inches of drywall that have been applied to her face with some sort of spackling trowel.

[4:36] To make her look like Lucille Ball.

[4:38] But she does—she looks like the statue of Lucille Ball that was removed because it was such a—was so inhuman.

[4:43] Like, my issue with Nicole Kidman was that I think that she would have been better in it without makeup to look like Lucille Ball.

[4:50] Was she wearing prosthetics as well?

[4:52] She was.

[4:52] Okay.

[4:53] This was one of Nicole Kidman's roles where she puts on makeup and goes too far with it.

[4:58] Like in The Hours a little bit, we're in Destroyer.

[5:01] We're in Destroyer.

[5:02] She's supposed to look like someone who's been through a rough time.

[5:03] She looks amazing in Destroyer.

[5:03] And instead, she looks like somebody who has survived like an explosion.

[5:08] Like in this one, she's supposed to look like Lucille Ball, but instead she looks like a—I don't—she looks like someone who has had—

[5:14] Like an animatronic of Lucille Ball.

[5:16] Yeah.

[5:16] She looks like a Lucille Ball at like the magical world of Disney who is going to be like, welcome, as I show you some of my favorite routines.

Dan McCoy

[5:25] No, I agree that what they've done to make her look like Lucy is distracting, but that her—I think her performance is strong.

[5:32] She acts through it.

[5:33] Yeah, yeah.

[5:33] Yeah.

S4

[5:33] But was the actual Lucille Ball humorless and self-important?

[5:39] Because if so, she did nail it.

Elliott Kalan

[5:41] I mean, from everything I've read, she was a very difficult person to be around.

[5:45] I don't know about humorless, but self-important, I think, somewhat.

Dan McCoy

[5:48] I think the Sorkin is what you were diagnosed with there.

Elliott Kalan

[5:51] Yeah, this is—well, so this movie was not nominated for Best Screenplay or Director, which is accurate.

[5:56] Yeah.

[5:57] Because it is Aaron Sorkin playing to his faults on this, which as—this is a comment I made before recording, and I warned you all that I would say it during recording, and now I'm saying it.

[6:06] We're recording it now, that Aaron Sorkin, a man who has made multiple television shows, he wrote a Broadway show about the beginning of television and the creation of it.

[6:15] He is obsessed with television.

[6:17] He's just really fascinated by television, and yet he seems to have no idea how television works or how to at least present that in a dramatic way or a way that even feels real.

[6:27] Because it feels like he's caught up in this kind of fantasy idea of how TV works.

[6:32] But especially, I guess, the problem is that Sorkin writes about characters who are all—who are geniuses that everyone else won't believe until the last minute, and the process has to be warped around the idea.

[6:45] So, for instance, we'll get into the plot of this, but that, like, Lucille Ball is dealing with a television director that nobody likes, and the whole movie is wrong about everything, and will not listen to Lucille Ball.

[6:55] And I was like, Lucille Ball owns the company that produces this show.

[6:59] Why did they hire this guy if she hates him so much and he's so bad at his job?

[7:03] And, like, later on, she's like, we're going to re-block this scene.

[7:07] And her biggest idea is to shoot it so that the characters are facing the camera and don't have their backs to the camera.

[7:12] And it's like, yeah, they should have fired him the moment he blocked it this way.

[7:15] Like, it's a terrible idea.

[7:17] Like, you should always see the characters' faces.

[7:19] So anyway, there's a lot about this that is not true to life in many ways.

Dan McCoy

[7:23] I will be a little gentler and think that, like, there are moments when the executive producers and, like, the higher-ups are trying to put out multiple fires, which is what the movie is largely about.

[7:36] I thought that that felt accurate to my experience, my limited experience at the one TV show under, you know, two bosses.

[7:45] That, like, that felt real-ish.

[7:48] But then as soon as it came to the comedy stuff, it's like, wow.

[7:51] Like, his vision of, like, someone making comedy is Nicole Kidman staring off into space for a while looking super intense.

Elliott Kalan

[8:01] She's like the what's-his-name from Hannibal.

[8:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[8:05] He's, like, imagining the design of the serial killer.

Elliott Kalan

[8:07] That's how she imagines television.

[8:09] Like, it's a Queen's Gambit way of creating comedy, you know.

[8:12] And then.

[8:12] She's seen the script on the ceiling.

[8:15] Yeah, she takes some drugs.

[8:17] Now, Dan, were you won over at all by the comedy drums, the comedy swing drums that were playing in many scenes to give us the impression of energy and movement?

Dan McCoy

[8:24] Well, why don't we just get into the plot?

[8:27] Because I believe the movie starts with some comedy swing drums.

Elliott Kalan

[8:30] Oh, boy, does it ever.

[8:31] So, a lot of the soundtracks are like, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun.

[8:35] As if to tell, because it's like, come on, this is exciting comedy and people are troubled.

[8:40] So, we start off.

[8:41] This is a movie also.

Stuart Wellington

[8:42] It's kind of old-timey, right?

[8:42] It's like old-timey showbiz music.

Elliott Kalan

[8:44] Yes, it is old-timey, behind-the-scenes showbiz music, yeah.

[8:48] The movie starts off with something that we're going to see multiple times throughout, which is, I'm not going to go in as much detail with the plot as I usually do.

[8:55] Scene by scene.

[8:56] But it starts up with something that we're going to see throughout, which is the older versions of the executive producer of the show and the two writers on the show.

[9:04] And one of the writers is played as an old person by Linda Lavin and the other is by Ronnie Cox.

[9:08] So, I was like, I love seeing them.

[9:09] Like, this is great.

[9:10] I love seeing them in anything.

[9:11] But we're going to see them describe things, which we will then see in the scene afterwards, where they have added very little information we couldn't have gotten from the scene.

[9:21] Yes.

[9:21] And so, they're like, hey, you know, when we were on I Love Lucy, there was this one scary week.

[9:25] Boy, it was scary.

[9:26] It was the biggest show in America.

[9:28] People didn't use the fucking bathroom when I Love Lucy was on.

[9:31] And sometimes hospitals would shut down.

[9:33] Like, zoo animals would all hide because they were watching their TVs and their pens, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[9:39] Each one was like, the thing you got to understand.

[9:42] I'm like, fucking, I don't care anymore.

[9:44] Like, I don't need three people to tell me the thing I need to understand.

Dan McCoy

[9:47] But also, I think that, like, that phrase was reused in multiple scenes for the first, like, 15 minutes.

[9:55] Yeah, the thing you got to understand.

Stuart Wellington

[9:56] And when an old person, when you reach a certain age, when you're an old person and you say those words to me, I immediately tune out.

Elliott Kalan

[10:02] And especially because almost all of the first couple scenes, because it's not like we learn anything about the characters, even the characters that these people are portraying as old people.

[10:12] This could have, if there was a title screen, there was a text on title that just said, in 1953, I Love Lucy was the biggest show in America.

[10:19] That's all the information they're basically telling us that we're not going to get.

[10:22] Oceans or battlefields.

[10:23] That's all it needs to say.

[10:24] I also, I'm going to sound like.

[10:26] My mama told me a prophecy about an I Love Lucy show.

Dan McCoy

[10:30] I'm going to sound extremely uptight saying this, but I do not like the device of actors playing, like, older versions of the characters as if they're being interviewed for a documentary.

[10:43] Yeah, like fucking Frostnickson.

Elliott Kalan

[10:46] Yeah, Frostnickson, they do it, and it's terrible.

[10:47] Yeah.

S4

[10:47] I was, like, a dingbat enough that I thought these were the actual.

[10:53] Like, it was believable enough that I.

[10:55] Yeah.

[10:56] For a second, I was like, wait, is this, like, a semi-documentary?

[10:59] But Madeline Pugh, played by Linda Lavin, who I believed at this point was Madeline Pugh, and I'm like, god damn, she looks so familiar.

[11:07] I must be familiar with the actual Madeline Pugh.

[11:10] I think she's been on Sesame Street.

[11:12] And then I'm like, no, she looks familiar because she's Linda Lavin.

[11:14] Aha.

[11:15] And then Lightbulb, I realized.

Elliott Kalan

[11:16] Well, that's, as soon as they, as soon as, because I kind of half-remembered Linda Lavin, and then as soon as Ronnie Cox is on screen, I'm like, well, the villain for Beastmaster did not work on I Love Lucy.

Dan McCoy

[11:25] But that is the thing.

[11:26] Like, I don't think you're a dingbat at all.

[11:28] That's why I'm mad at it, because these are not, like, I mean, like, you know, Linda Lavin was, like, a big television star in her day.

[11:35] But these are, like, character actors.

[11:37] They're not people that were, like, audiences are immediately going to be like, oh, I know who that is.

[11:41] That's not the real person.

[11:42] Like, I feel like it is, it does fool people into thinking that.

[11:46] Yeah.

[11:46] And I think that.

Elliott Kalan

[11:47] I want to correct something.

[11:48] I said, wait, I meant the villain from Total Recall.

[11:50] I got Beastmaster in Total Recall.

[11:51] Ronnie Cox was not in Beastmaster.

[11:52] He was in Total Recall.

[11:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:52] Rip, Rip Torn, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[11:54] Good save to yours.

S4

[11:54] If you hadn't corrected yourself, I was going to leave this meeting.

Elliott Kalan

[11:58] I could see the fire in Allison's eyes, as she said, unacceptable.

[12:01] Really angry.

S4

[12:03] The thing that brought me to this show was a Twitter feud that I had with Dan.

[12:07] But this is unacceptable.

[12:09] I think that this device speaks to what, one of the main problems I had with the whole movie,

[12:16] which is just, this is, like, the self-importance of Aaron Sorkin.

[12:19] That we would, you know, that to get into this story, we would need to be hearing from three people

[12:25] who we don't know who they are, but they're so important that they're being interviewed.

Elliott Kalan

[12:29] And I think that's part of it.

[12:30] And I think also that it is a way of paper.

[12:33] I feel like the more a movie does this, the more the movie is saying to you,

[12:36] we really fudged the historical record.

[12:39] So we're going out of our way to pretend like this is accurate.

[12:43] Because we made a lot of, we really, because, and which is,

[12:46] like, a lot of the things they're dealing with in this one crazy week at I Love Lucy

[12:49] in reality happened over multiple years.

[12:52] And the thing that really bothers me is some stuff about Desi Arnaz's backstory,

[12:56] which they, which is, the way they present it is,

[12:59] they're conflating two different Cuban revolutions that happened 20 years apart.

[13:03] So, like, there's things that happen in this movie that are,

[13:05] but it feels like they're like, look, we messed with the historical record so much,

[13:09] we got to have people come on and pretend to be the real people

[13:12] and interview them in front of the cameras so that our dumb audience thinks that this is accurate.

[13:16] Because otherwise they might start pulling the threads.

S4

[13:18] The real, and the irony being one of the threads that goes through this movie

[13:22] is Lucy's concern that the script is insulting to the audience.

[13:29] Like, the audience isn't so dumb.

[13:31] Yeah.

[13:31] And yet, Sorkin thinks we, oh!

Elliott Kalan

[13:34] Mm-hmm.

[13:35] Yeah.

[13:36] Let's see the game they're playing.

[13:37] It's like, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:39] I want to, yeah, this is a big thing that people have had a problem with the movie,

[13:43] so I don't want to, like, go over it too quickly,

[13:45] that the accusation that Lucy's a communist,

[13:49] her saying that she was pregnant and the problems that that would cause for the show,

[13:53] and the stuff about, like, you know, having trouble with, like, Desi's affairs being on in the news.

[14:00] Like, those are three events that did not occur in one week that have been conflated into one week,

[14:06] and the movie, like, makes this falsehood about them being a week,

[14:10] but then also does flashbacks and also has these actors pretending to be these characters,

[14:16] and, you know, like, this really disturbed Audrey where she was like,

[14:21] if you're gonna, like, why put this self-imposed, like, one-week thing on?

[14:26] If it's a lie, and then do a flashback, and you have all these things.

Elliott Kalan

[14:30] Everyone knows Aaron Sorkin.

[14:32] This is famous in Hollywood.

[14:33] Everyone understands in Hollywood.

[14:34] Maybe you don't know it, Dan, because you live on the East Coast.

[14:36] Then Aaron Sorkin is a huge Bare Naked Ladies fan,

[14:38] and he's always listened to Bare Naked Ladies songs while he's writing.

Dan McCoy

[14:41] He's been to all those shows.

Elliott Kalan

[14:43] So I think that's the influence there is the one-week aspect.

Stuart Wellington

[14:46] If he had a million dollars, he'd make this movie.

S4

[14:48] She said that to Desi because he'd been out, you know, with his band,

[14:52] and she's like, it's been one week since you've looked at me

Elliott Kalan

[14:54] because he hadn't even been there.

[14:56] And he said, look, I'm the kind of guy that laughs at a funeral, you know.

[14:59] And there was all this stuff about Chinese chicken.

[15:01] It really, again, once you know it's there, it really pops out at you.

[15:05] So, but they're saying this crazy week when Walter Winchell on his radio show

[15:09] said that Lucille Ball was a communist,

[15:11] and a magazine said that Desi, her husband,

[15:13] for anyone who's not familiar with I Love Lucy who's listening to this,

[15:17] I mean, kind of shame on you,

[15:19] but also clearly you didn't grow up watching Nick at Night like I did.

[15:22] But I Love Lucy was a big show,

[15:24] and it started Lucille Ball and her real husband, Desi Arnaz,

[15:26] and they also produced the show.

[15:27] Anyway, that's what you need to know, I guess.

[15:30] We see that the news broke on the same day

[15:33] that Walter Winchell discovered Lucy had signed up as a communist once

[15:37] and that Desi Arnaz was having an affair.

[15:38] That was in a magazine.

[15:39] We then cut to Lucy and Desi arguing about the affair story,

[15:44] and then they start making up and having sex,

[15:46] and then they hear the Walter Winchell radio show say she's a communist.

[15:49] So it's like this movie is like a five-paragraph essay.

[15:53] We're going to tell you what we're going to tell you,

[15:54] and we're going to tell it to you,

[15:55] and then we're going to tell you what we told you over and over again.

S4

[15:58] Well, we learned at the very beginning, courtesy of Linda Lavin,

[16:01] as Madeline Pugh, that if they're not tearing each other's heads off,

[16:06] they're tearing each other's clothes off.

Dan McCoy

[16:08] Yeah, yeah.

[16:09] Relationship goals, right, Dan?

[16:10] I believe it's like an actual quote that somebody said about them

[16:13] that then the movie makes like thuddingly literal

[16:17] by having them have an argument and then have sex.

Stuart Wellington

[16:20] Oh, I thought they tore each other's heads off.

[16:23] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] Yeah, they were the inspiration.

[16:24] One of them was eaten like a brain man.

[16:27] Yeah, they were the inspiration for Rock and Sockham Robots.

[16:29] Originally, in Rock and Sockham Robots,

[16:31] you could have them had sex with each other too.

[16:33] So then we're at a table read for a new episode of I Love Lucy.

[16:37] Everyone's like, oh, we're talking about the Red Scare.

[16:39] It's the 50s, so this is all that we talk about is the Red Scare.

[16:43] All we talk about is communism.

[16:44] And we see the tension between Vivian Vance, who plays Ethel,

[16:48] and William Frawley, who plays her husband Fred on the show.

[16:54] Played by J.K. Simmons.

[16:55] Yes, played by J.K.

[16:55] And Tony Award winner Nina Arianda plays Vivian Vance.

[17:00] They were good.

[17:01] And I thought they were both good.

[17:03] And this is what I'm going to say.

[17:05] This is the mission statement of this movie.

[17:07] It is a movie about the making of a sitcom that operates as a sitcom.

[17:10] There is an A story.

[17:12] Lucy and Desi are worried about losing their show.

[17:14] And there's a little side story on the A story about Lucy and Desi are worried about their marriage.

[17:18] There's a B story.

[17:19] Vivian Vance doesn't like that the show needs her to be frumpy.

[17:23] She's a human woman, and she likes to seem attractive.

[17:25] And she doesn't like that the show is pushing her to be a frumpy housewife type.

[17:29] And then there is the sea story of there's a bad director on set, and nobody likes him.

[17:35] And it's like, and by the end of the movie, this will all have been wrapped up in one scene of conversation.

[17:40] Which, like, this is a, basically we're watching a sitcom that has been extended out for over two hours and is not funny.

[17:46] But they're all, and we also get, we meet the, we meet the executive producer, Jess Oppenheimer, played by Tony Hale.

[17:52] We meet the young Madeline Pugh, Madeline Pugh, played by Alia Shockwood.

[17:56] That's right.

[17:56] It's an Arrested Development reunion.

[17:58] Arrested Development mini reunion.

[17:59] They have very few scenes together.

[18:01] And although I guess on Arrested Development, they didn't have that many scenes together either.

[18:05] Maybe in Buster.

[18:07] And so on and so forth.

[18:09] And everyone's like, uh-oh, what are we going to do?

[18:11] Everyone's arguing.

[18:12] What if the show gets the plug poles because Lucy's a communist now and everybody hates communists?

[18:17] And William Frawley doesn't like communists either, but he's kind of an old cantankerous drunk.

[18:20] This is J.K. Simmons doing one of those, what I would call a later stage Tom Hanks role, where it's just kind of like, I'm charming.

[18:27] I'm just going to kind of float through this movie being charming.

[18:31] Yeah.

[18:31] I mean, he was in this first scene.

[18:33] Earned him a nom.

[18:34] You know, you can't argue that.

[18:35] But considering his previous ass that he won was for such an intense role.

[18:39] Maybe they're just looking at his range.

[18:40] I mean, he does have great range.

Dan McCoy

[18:42] I remember watching the first part where they're fighting and fucking.

[18:46] I'm like, I don't know about this movie, whether I'm going to find anything I like about it.

[18:50] And then when J.K. Simmons showed up, I'm like, oh, at least there's going to be something.

[18:54] Because like, he's on there just to be like cantankerous, but also secretly likable.

[18:58] I'm like, well, that's gold for you, J.K.

[19:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:01] And he has the genuinely funny lines in the movie.

[19:04] Like he gets some real digs on.

[19:05] Whenever the movie wants to be misogynist towards Vivian Vance, it has some real funny lines.

[19:10] Almost as if Aaron Sorkin, I don't know, it comes more naturally to him to do those.

[19:14] I don't know if that's true or not.

[19:16] But so Lucy and Desi are meeting with the network executives.

[19:18] One of them is Clark Gregg.

[19:19] So it's like, S.H.I.E.L.D. is producing.

[19:22] I love Lucy.

Stuart Wellington

[19:23] And he's got like, he's got a little hairpiece.

[19:25] It's cute.

Elliott Kalan

[19:25] Yeah.

[19:26] And she's meeting with her executives and sponsors.

[19:28] One of the sponsors is Philip Morris.

[19:30] And the movie sees nothing wrong with that, which feels like there's a kind of real old-fashioned

[19:35] bent to this movie that's like, yeah, why wouldn't she be sponsored by a huge cigarette

[19:38] company that kills people?

[19:39] Who cares?

[19:40] No problem.

S4

[19:40] I mean, it's the thing that happened.

[19:44] But I do feel like there's an aspect of it that is trying to look at it through a very

[19:49] modern lens with the, you know, with some of the issues, like they take on race and they

[19:55] take on gender a little bit and things like that, which I feel like is unrealistic for how

[20:01] the show actually was.

[20:02] But with Philip Morris, that gets a pass.

Elliott Kalan

[20:05] Yeah.

[20:05] Well, it's funny that the, it's also, if you were watching this movie, you would expect

[20:10] that I Love Lucy was like a deeper show than it was or like a more, I mean, it was an important

[20:17] show in that it was a huge show, but like the, but it was important for, I don't know, I guess

[20:21] more for what was going on behind the scenes rather than the actual text of the show itself.

[20:25] Yeah, that's the thing.

[20:26] About a goofy lady who was always ruining things for her husband and doesn't have a job and

[20:31] he won't let her have one.

Dan McCoy

[20:31] I'm going to push back on this a little bit just cause like, uh, so if, if anyone's interested

[20:37] in the story of Lucy, go and listen to, instead of watching this, uh, the Turner classic movies,

[20:44] um, uh, what is it?

[20:46] The plot thickens their podcast recently did a whole series on Lucille ball.

[20:51] I'm sure because they knew this movie was going to come out and they would look like roses

[20:55] compared to the movie.

[20:57] Uh, you know, uh, smart move on their part, but like it was important in the sense that

[21:02] it did, it did do some of the things that you're saying, like, uh, it revolutionized the way

[21:07] these shows were, um, uh, shot.

[21:11] I mean, all the behind the scenes stuff.

[21:12] Yeah.

[21:13] Yeah.

[21:13] Lucy being in, you know, such a creative force, you know, while being a woman, like the fact

[21:17] that it did show an interracial marriage, it wasn't the first one to have pregnancy on

[21:23] TV, but it was definitely the most important one.

[21:26] I got a question guys.

Stuart Wellington

[21:27] Do you think when, uh, when, you know, like Lucy and Desi pushed their beds together or

[21:33] slept in the same bed, do you think, uh, do you think all the sickos out there were like,

[21:37] fuck yeah, just started cranking it?

[21:39] That probably did.

Dan McCoy

[21:40] Yeah.

[21:40] That was porn for the time.

[21:42] I would imagine.

[21:43] Oh, cool.

[21:44] Yeah.

[21:45] Yeah, probably.

[21:46] No, it is the behind the scenes.

[21:47] I'm not, I'm not saying like, I love Lucy was like, you know, a silly show about a

[21:52] silly married couple, but.

[21:53] Yeah.

S4

[21:53] Well, the thing is in, in this, there's all this drama around, um, is it believable that,

[22:01] uh, Desi would walk in and put his hands around her eyes and say, guess who?

[22:07] And that she would, you know, guess all these names.

[22:09] And there's this like, but in the reality of the show, this is all, uh, Lucille, the character

[22:15] of Lucille Ball saying like, but are we supposed to believe that he would actually think that

[22:20] she thinks, see, I'm even having trouble articulating it.

Elliott Kalan

[22:23] Are we supposed to believe that, are we supposed to believe that she's like, are we supposed

[22:26] to believe that I don't know what man is in my house and that he's supposed to believe

[22:31] that I don't know what, that I don't know who it is.

[22:33] And it's one of those things where it's like, well, the joke is clearly that she's teasing

[22:35] him and he gets frustrated being teased with, but she doesn't seem to understand the joke.

S4

[22:39] There's so much drama around that.

[22:42] And it has that Sorka knee like, aha, you know, he's found the weak underbelly of this,

[22:47] that everything's going to spin around.

[22:49] Um, and so after I watched this movie last night, I watched the episode that was like

[22:53] the main episode featured in the movie.

[22:55] Yeah.

[22:55] And within three seconds, you buy into the reality of I Love Lucy, of, of, of, of, I Love Lucy

[23:01] that she's like sort of, you know, daffy and silly and would do this.

[23:05] And it all makes sense on the show.

Elliott Kalan

[23:07] Yeah.

[23:07] It's, it's a weird thing of like, um, it will, that, that feels like it's one of those

[23:11] times.

[23:12] Yeah.

[23:12] Exactly.

[23:12] Like you're saying like Aaron Sorkin is, is poking holes in the show that the people who

[23:16] made the show would not poke holes in because they know they're making a silly

[23:19] show.

[23:20] Yeah.

[23:20] Like it's, but Aaron Sorkin doesn't quite get, it's, it's not the best, like politics,

[23:26] it feels like politics is a better place for him to have characters like poking holes in

[23:30] each other's arguments as opposed to like what's a funny joke and what the logic of the joke

[23:34] is, you know?

Dan McCoy

[23:35] Well, that's, I mean like, and look, I'm talking, I'm talking as a person who I don't like a joke

[23:41] that, where that, that exists on faulty logic.

[23:44] Like I, I, I, but you love faulty towers.

[23:47] Hypocrite.

[23:47] No, but I mean like I, there were times when I'm like, I was writing with other people at,

[23:52] at the daily show.

[23:53] And like, I'd feel like, ah, is that a false premise?

[23:56] And I like, it would be a small thing, but I would like push back against it.

[23:59] So I, I certainly understand like objecting to a small issue, but as you say, this is clearly

[24:06] a tease.

[24:08] Like it doesn't make any sense as anything else.

[24:10] So to show her integrity by like her getting hung up on this just makes the character look

[24:15] dumb in the movie in a weird way.

Elliott Kalan

[24:17] Especially because the, the episode they're doing is about like Fred and Ethel have had

[24:21] a fight and Lucy is going to invite both of them to dinner without telling each of them

[24:24] so that they, I guess, fall back in love at dinner.

[24:26] It's like, that is a faultier premise than that she was teasing her husband that he got

[24:30] mad.

[24:31] Like it's, like it's, it's a, it's a ridiculous plot, but.

Stuart Wellington

[24:34] Yeah.

[24:35] I mean, in the, in the movie it comes off as her hyper fixating on something that doesn't

[24:40] like, doesn't matter.

[24:41] And she seems like she's out of step with the rest of the people involved.

[24:44] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[24:44] But I think that's also supposed to be that it's, she is the one, she's the one right

[24:49] genius there and everyone else won't listen to it.

Stuart Wellington

[24:52] It's like, I'm not sure if the movie is.

[24:53] But it doesn't come off as being a writing genius.

[24:55] It comes off as somebody who doesn't know what's going on.

Elliott Kalan

[24:58] No, that's true too.

[24:59] I guess it depends on whether, whose side you're taking.

[25:02] But anyway, Lucy is worried.

[25:05] Are they going to take away her show?

[25:06] Cause she's a communist.

[25:07] Meanwhile, she's still worried that Desi was unfaithful to her possibly.

[25:11] And she explains, she only signed up to be a communist in the thirties to please her uncle

[25:16] who raised her or her grandfather.

[25:18] I forget which.

[25:19] Her grandfather.

[25:20] Who was himself was a communist.

[25:22] And, and Desi wants, we'll find out later.

[25:24] Desi wants to have her played off like a mistake.

[25:26] Like she's as daffy in real life as she is on TV.

[25:28] And she doesn't want to admit that.

[25:30] She doesn't want to admit she made a mistake.

[25:31] Cause she didn't.

[25:32] We see a lot of flashbacks of how Lucy and Desi met when she was under contracted RKO.

[25:38] And, uh, the, and Desi is singing a song about for, there's a number of times when Javier

[25:42] Bardem sings songs in this movie.

[25:44] And I thought he did a really good job of selling those songs.

[25:47] Um, but there are so many, like, we don't have time to go to all the inaccuracies and

[25:51] anachronisms in the movie.

[25:53] But like, there were so many times during the discussion of her film career when I was like,

[25:58] she's waiting in this waiting room in the forties.

[26:00] There's a movie poster on the wall from a movie from the fifties.

[26:02] Like, this is bothering me.

[26:03] Like, now they're saying she's.

[26:04] She has a smartphone in her hand.

[26:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:07] She's, she's, she's watching TikTok while she's on set.

[26:11] Like this is, but, uh, there's, we see basically how, uh, she fixated, she set her sights on

[26:16] Desi and, and chased after him and really seduced him through a combination of brassy rudeness

[26:22] and brassy taking off her clothes in front of him.

[26:26] It's a one-two punch.

[26:27] And another thing that keeps coming up is the idea that Desi was driven from Cuba because

[26:32] he was born in Cuba.

[26:33] His family was a prominent Cuban family, that he was driven from Cuba by the communist revolution.

[26:38] And that's why he has this deep, deeper thing about communists.

[26:41] And that's the thing anachronistically that really got to me because he left, he left

[26:45] commun, he left Cuba in the thirties when the government was overthrown by Batista, who

[26:49] the communists would later overthrow 20 years later.

[26:52] So that was what made me madder was I was like, I can buy, there's a movie poster in the background

[26:56] that's from the wrong year, like whatever.

[26:58] Uh, the same way that it didn't make me as mad as in Manc when they're like, oh, we don't

[27:02] make the Wolfman.

[27:03] And I'm like, that movie didn't come out for 12 years until after this conversation.

[27:06] They're like, we don't make horror movies like Frankenstein.

[27:09] It's like, Frankenstein wasn't out yet.

[27:10] The scene takes place in 1930.

[27:12] But, uh, the, but the idea that this is an alternate universe where the communists took

[27:17] over Cuba like 20 years earlier is such a big change for his backstory that really, it really

[27:22] bothered me more than anything else.

Dan McCoy

[27:23] You know, when you're saying that about Manc, I was enjoying watching Alison's face where

[27:27] she sort of just like clocked who you were as a person more fully maybe than.

[27:31] That I'm still, that really bothered me in Manc.

Elliott Kalan

[27:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[27:35] But that's another one where it did, I mean, that's also like a film history period that

[27:40] like I particularly am interested in.

[27:41] Yeah.

[27:41] But it bothered me that, I mean, aside from the fact that Gary Oldman was playing a man

[27:45] 30 years younger than him in many scenes.

[27:47] But, uh, the, that movie is that anytime you do a movie that's like about behind the

[27:52] scenes in the entertainment business and there can't be bothered to get basic facts right

[27:58] just to create that illusion.

[28:00] It's, it just bugs me, you know.

Dan McCoy

[28:01] Alison, I want to, I want to fill you in though.

[28:03] This is part of a long running segment on the show, Yanking the Manc Crank, which is

[28:08] Yeah, Yanking the Manc Crank, where we talk about Manc and my problems with it.

S4

[28:11] Oh, I've never seen Manc.

[28:14] Should I, should I do it?

Dan McCoy

[28:15] No, it's not very good.

Elliott Kalan

[28:17] It's more fun to not see it, I think.

Dan McCoy

[28:18] Okay.

[28:19] Amanda Seyfried's pretty good.

[28:20] I didn't really like the movie that much.

Elliott Kalan

[28:22] She's fine in it.

[28:23] Yeah, the, uh, it's, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm segueing eventually into a, into a segment called

[28:27] Mancs for the Memories, which is long after everyone else has forgotten about Manc.

[28:31] I'm just like reminding people about it.

[28:33] Um, so anyway, they, uh, now they're in the, in the past, they're a thing.

[28:37] She dumps her fiance over the phone and, uh, and sticks with Desi.

[28:41] Um.

S4

[28:42] But even that scene was so, and I'm sorry to keep using this very, uh, very, uh, technical

[28:49] term.

[28:49] So sorkiny.

[28:51] It was just so sassy and clever the way she called him up and dumped him.

[28:56] And just like, no one is allowed to say a line that isn't like zing.

[29:02] Yeah.

[29:03] Everything is so zingy that it's, it's strange credulity.

Elliott Kalan

[29:06] Well, and I think that if the movie was more, it's directed in a very straightforward, I would

[29:11] almost say boring manner.

[29:13] And if it was more stylized, I would say like, yeah, that works for me.

[29:16] Right.

[29:16] But the idea that like this movie is supposed to be a historic, semi historically accurate

[29:21] to the point that we're pretending we have talking heads people explaining it.

[29:24] Yeah.

[29:24] For it to be that zingy is, yeah, is annoying.

Dan McCoy

[29:27] It both looks and plays like it would be better suited to being a miniseries on TV.

[29:32] I think.

[29:33] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:33] I mean, it feels like an HBO made for TV movie from about 30 years ago.

[29:37] Yeah.

[29:37] Where it's like, oh, this is a prestige TV movie.

[29:39] Like they've got big stars and HBO put money into it.

[29:42] But like, we're only going to hold it to TV movie standards.

[29:44] Like we're not going to hold this to like movie movie standards.

[29:47] Yeah.

S4

[29:47] I could see it being a miniseries because the pacing I thought was pretty weird.

[29:52] So if it were divided into little chunks, then it wouldn't have been so noticeable.

Dan McCoy

[29:56] Yeah.

[29:57] That's how I watched it.

[29:58] I think that would fix the flashback issue.

[30:00] Like the more I think about it, the more I think none of the flashbacks were necessary

[30:05] for the story they wanted to tell.

[30:06] Not at all.

[30:07] They could have just cut all of them.

S4

[30:09] And they all caught me by surprise.

[30:11] It took me a little while to be like, oh, this is some time ago.

Elliott Kalan

[30:14] And when also it got to the point where later on there's a scene that is not a flashback

[30:17] that I thought was a flashback for a while.

[30:20] Where I was like, oh, but if she knew this a long time ago, oh, wait, that was not a flashback?

[30:24] That was supposed to be in real time?

[30:26] The – there's nothing in the flashbacks that hasn't already been told to us in dialogue,

[30:31] basically.

[30:31] And it's like do the flashbacks or do the talking heads.

[30:34] Don't do both.

[30:35] I mean Dan was like, I love the talking heads.

[30:37] Yeah, put them all over the soundtrack.

[30:39] Yeah.

[30:39] That is the place.

[30:40] You know, they are burning down the house.

Dan McCoy

[30:42] I mean you wanted more of a style choice for the movie.

[30:45] That would be a very bold choice to just do talking heads songs for the whole soundtrack

[30:49] of this.

Elliott Kalan

[30:49] That's true.

[30:50] But it's – you don't need – it feels like padding at a certain point.

[30:54] It feels like the movie had only a little bit of story and they're just like – they're

[31:00] like, yeah, let's tell the audience three times that their jobs took them away from each

[31:04] other for a while.

[31:05] So, you know, we don't need to – I mean I guess that is the plot of La La Land.

[31:09] So, you can fill a movie with that.

[31:11] But anyway, they're mad at each other as tension continues.

[31:16] Vivian Vance, she doesn't like that nobody thinks she's sexy and she doesn't like that

[31:21] people think that she's the right age to be married to William Frawley who is much older

[31:25] than her.

[31:26] Much like everyone in the movie pretty much is older than the people that they're playing

[31:29] except for J.K. Simmons.

[31:33] And they – there's a lot of scenes of just people in rooms talking about, oh, did you

[31:38] see this story in the magazine?

[31:39] Oh, did you hear about Walter Winchell on the radio?

[31:41] And that's when Lucy and Desi walk into the writer's room, which this being the movie,

[31:45] the show has two writers, which might have been the case.

[31:48] Back then, shows didn't have a lot of writers.

[31:50] It's just the executive producer and two writers sitting in a room together.

[31:53] They really want to send Lucy to Italy so she can stomp on some grapes, which Lucy

[31:57] loves the idea of.

[32:00] And she goes – yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:02] Sorry.

[32:03] I was just thinking like, you know, it was one of these scenes I'm talking about where

[32:06] she stares intently off into space.

[32:08] And, you know, Zeus comes down from Mount Olympus to give her the greatest joke in history,

[32:15] which is in this case to lose her earrings in the grapes that they're stomping.

[32:20] And she has to, you know, swim around looking for her.

Stuart Wellington

[32:23] And we get to see a flash forward of her fantasy of this happening and the audience losing their

[32:29] fucking minds.

Elliott Kalan

[32:30] And she dreams in black and white much like androids dream of electric sheep.

[32:34] So every time she imagines things, it's in black and white.

[32:37] And the audience – and here's Stuart saying the audience is losing their minds.

[32:40] I mean, it is a very funny scene.

[32:42] Yeah, yeah.

[32:42] It's like Sandy at the end of Mouth of Madness.

[32:45] Not as played by Nicole Kidman.

[32:46] Exactly.

[32:46] But as played by Lucille Ball.

[32:48] And there's a – the same way that – I almost wish they had done like the chocolate conveyor

[32:52] belt or stuff like that.

[32:53] Like more classic Lucy scenes so we could see audiences going nuts.

[32:56] But every joke that anyone says in front of an audience in this, the audience explodes.

[33:01] Like I hope they had doctors on the set of I Love Lucy to help these people whose sides

[33:04] were literally splitting open and their guts falling out.

[33:06] Funny bones are shattered.

[33:07] Yeah, I've been slapping my knee so hard that my knee is powder now.

[33:11] Like they – I think movies about comedy, they so rarely realize that like not every joke

[33:17] is a super gut buster, you know?

[33:19] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[33:19] So –

[33:20] Well, and also that like people aren't just like silent until they like suddenly come

[33:24] out with the brilliant joke.

[33:25] Like that's – I wanted to talk a little bit about the way this is presenting comedy

[33:29] writing because, you know, like as we've mentioned before in the show –

[33:34] You're a comedy writer.

[33:34] There was a lot – well –

[33:36] Yeah, we get it.

[33:36] Yeah.

[33:36] There's a lot of – no.

[33:38] Show us your awards.

[33:39] Show us your NAACP image awards, Dan.

[33:40] At the Daily Show, when – especially when Elliot and I were there at the same time, there

[33:46] was a lot of obsession with Studio 60 because it's –

[33:48] And Hallie, right?

Elliott Kalan

[33:49] The other favorite.

Dan McCoy

[33:50] There was a lot of obsession with Hallie around the –

Elliott Kalan

[33:51] And Allison's nemesis, Hallie, my office mate, now my neighbor.

[33:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[33:56] But like Sorkin is so serious about the way he thinks comedy is done.

[34:02] And on this show, like I will say he gets two things right.

[34:06] The comedy writers are really mean to each other and they secretly think that they're better writers than the other one.

[34:13] But in real life, my experience is there's also a lot more esprit de corps and a lot more just like tossing out jokes.

[34:22] Like a comedy room is – sounds more like an episode of The Flophouse or something where everyone's just saying nonsense to try and –

Elliott Kalan

[34:30] And they're shouting over each other as opposed to looking at each other silently and then occasionally –

[34:34] It's like he thinks a comedy writer's room is like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?

[34:38] Where it's just kind of like bitter zings and otherwise deep silence when usually it's a lot of people yelling at each other.

S4

[34:46] Now, is a real comedy room extremely dimly lit?

[34:50] Because if so, they nailed that.

Elliott Kalan

[34:52] Aaron Sorkin really thinks comedians work in darkness, which is strange because you have to see what you're reading.

[34:57] You have to write things down on pads and stuff like that.

[35:00] But yeah, it's the one room – like in Studio 60, they worked in a room with I think one light.

[35:04] It looked like a Nazi interrogation room where they're arrayed around a table and most of them are in darkness.

[35:09] Like some kind of like Brecht or Kafka type room.

[35:12] And in this one, it's – yeah, it's just like the one room in the building with no lights, no overhead lights.

[35:18] It's just lit by whatever stray shafts might make it to the Venetian blinds to hit the table.

Dan McCoy

[35:24] They're writing from the room in Network where Ned Beatty makes his big speech.

Elliott Kalan

[35:29] Yeah, it's lit by one tiny lamp on a table.

[35:33] Yeah, he's – for someone who is also like – he's a writer.

[35:36] Like Aaron Sorkin is at heart a writer.

[35:38] He's not – he directs things, but he's not like a great director.

[35:42] It seems what comes naturally to him is words and yet he doesn't like seem to know how writing works.

[35:46] I don't know.

[35:47] Maybe that's how it works for him.

[35:48] Maybe he sits in a dark room and stares into space and a scene comes to him.

Stuart Wellington

[35:53] Maybe he's not used to working with other people on projects.

[35:56] Maybe he like –

[35:57] I mean that seems very like – based on what I've heard of his shows.

Elliott Kalan

[36:01] I mean yeah, that's true.

[36:03] So this – with the movie, these kinds of – oh, so Lucy and Desi then announced to the writers in this depressingly dimly lit room that Lucy is pregnant.

[36:12] And they want to write the pregnancy into the show.

[36:14] And the executive producer is like, no.

[36:18] We're going to have her go to Italy and stomp on grapes instead.

[36:20] And it's like you guys are doing 37 shows a season.

[36:22] You got room.

[36:23] Do both episodes.

[36:24] But he says they'll never let us discuss pregnancy on the show.

[36:27] And later on when they're talking to the studio, the network execs and sponsors are like, you can't ever be pregnant on the show.

[36:33] People will wonder how the baby got in there.

[36:36] Sickos, yeah.

[36:37] I think probably they –

S4

[36:38] I was just yanking it to that too.

Elliott Kalan

[36:43] Like just the thought of it.

[36:46] Just the barest hint of it.

[36:48] And I think there's probably – there was a reality to that.

Dan McCoy

[36:51] Because the most erotic thing about sex is that a baby is the result.

[36:54] Baby could be the result.

Elliott Kalan

[36:55] If you're St. Augustine, that's why you're supposed to do it.

Dan McCoy

[36:59] I mean, and also there are people with pregnancy fetishes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:02] But –

[37:02] Yeah, that's true.

[37:03] Don't shame them, Dan.

[37:04] There are people who like that.

[37:05] I mean, they don't – they like – I think it's more that they like the shape of the woman's body during pregnancy than the idea that there's –

[37:11] I mean, you don't have to read into it.

[37:12] That there's a tenant in that.

[37:13] Yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of – I mean, there's other reasons, I'm sure, like a fantasy of virility.

Dan McCoy

[37:18] But let's not – we don't need to –

Elliott Kalan

[37:19] I could see that.

[37:19] I could see that, yeah.

[37:21] I mean, you know – I mean, it's a fantasy of virility if they're with a pregnant woman.

[37:25] I think they don't understand how it works.

[37:28] It's not like they –

[37:28] It's not like they built an annex so that they could then fill in new tenants.

[37:35] But anyway, we could cut all that.

[37:36] It doesn't matter.

[37:37] Anyway, so –

[37:38] And I believe there was –

[37:40] Even in double it.

[37:41] They didn't let them say the word pregnant as is pointed out smugly at the end of the movie.

[37:45] Right, they had to say expecting, I guess.

[37:46] But it is one of those things where it's like the –

[37:49] People do – like people do have some idea even in the 50s of how babies are born.

[37:55] It's the same way that like there are all these –

[37:57] You know, when people watch movies from the 30s and 40s and they'll see stuff that seems like unintentional dirty jokes.

[38:03] And they'll be like, can you believe they didn't realize that was in there?

[38:05] And it's like, I hate to break it to you.

[38:06] They knew it was in there.

[38:07] They did it on purpose.

[38:08] Like they had sex back then too.

[38:09] Like it wasn't invented in 1967.

[38:12] But can we talk about –

[38:13] Yeah, it's true that –

Dan McCoy

[38:14] Oh, no.

[38:14] I was just going to –

[38:15] Before –

[38:15] I was just going to say they shouldn't have played these executives.

[38:18] Yeah.

[38:18] As if they're like shrinking violets.

[38:20] Like they should have been like, oh, we're going to get complaints from this group and this group and this group.

[38:25] Yes.

[38:25] Which I'm sure is what the actual thing was.

[38:27] What were you going to say, Allison?

S4

[38:28] When she announces she's pregnant, it's like a running joke that no one ever says congratulations to her.

[38:33] Because when she announces that she's pregnant, the people in the room are so uncomfortable that that one executive was like, how gulp much pregnant are you?

[38:45] He couldn't even use the right language.

[38:50] He was so uncomfortable.

Elliott Kalan

[38:52] Mm-hmm.

[38:52] We're just so ignorant.

[38:53] Men back then, they didn't even know.

[38:55] They were only interested in women as –

[38:57] Luckily, it's all fixed.

[38:58] As cooks and that's it.

[39:00] And they didn't know how anything else happened, you know.

[39:02] Yep.

[39:02] Oh, yeah.

[39:03] And luckily –

[39:03] It's fine now though.

[39:04] Yeah.

[39:04] Luckily, we live in a gender utopia now.

[39:07] So they –

Stuart Wellington

[39:08] It's like when I was watching 9 to 5 the other day.

[39:10] I'm like, oh, yeah.

[39:10] It's all better now.

[39:13] It's equal.

Dan McCoy

[39:14] You just brought that up because you want to talk about 9 to 5.

Stuart Wellington

[39:16] I love 9 to 5.

[39:17] So sue me, Dan.

[39:18] Not literally because I don't have that much money.

[39:21] And you are –

[39:22] I don't think I would have standing.

[39:24] I think the –

[39:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:25] What grounds would Dan be suing you on?

[39:26] What damages would there be from you liking 9 to 5?

Stuart Wellington

[39:29] I'm not a fucking lawyer, dude.

[39:30] I sell drinks to people.

Elliott Kalan

[39:32] I mean in a way that's kind of what a lawyer does except for the drinks is you listen to people's problems.

[39:37] And you tell them what to do.

[39:38] Although what you always tell them what to do is have another drink, which I think is a little self-interested.

[39:44] So, okay.

[39:45] They block the table read.

[39:46] Lucy keeps adding gags, which nobody is happy about, which doesn't make any sense.

[39:51] And this is when, as I was saying earlier, the director who's very bad and nobody likes him, and he's a fictional character.

[39:57] He's not a real person.

[39:59] He's doing a bad job and he's like, let's shoot this scene so that the people's backs are to the camera.

[40:05] And Lucy is like, I don't think this is a good way to shoot this scene.

[40:08] And he's like, Lucy, I'm the director.

[40:11] And I wonder how real those dynamics were.

[40:14] Maybe because she was a woman and people didn't listen to her.

[40:16] But she was the boss.

[40:17] Like again, her company was producing this show.

[40:20] It was a Desilu production.

Dan McCoy

[40:21] So, it just feels like the dynamics are a little fakey, a little forced.

[40:27] I know that, yeah, this was a problem that I had trying to assess the movie because I know that it must have been terribly difficult for her, even as a powerful woman in Hollywood, to like have her voice heard.

[40:39] But at the same time, like, you know, any show is desperate to keep the star happy.

[40:46] So, I don't know.

[40:47] I mean, and as you say, she was the producer as well.

[40:50] So, it seems very confusing to me.

Elliott Kalan

[40:52] And especially because later, there's a whole – so, in our flashbacks, we eventually get to the point where she is pitching the show to CBS.

[40:59] And they don't want Desi to play her husband because it would be an interracial relationship.

[41:04] And she says, well, then we're not doing the show.

[41:06] And we know how that turned out because Desi is the husband on the show.

[41:10] And it seems so weird that every other step of the way, we see Lucille Ball as an unstoppable juggernaut who just batters her way through obstructions and gets her way.

[41:20] But this one director will not listen to her ideas when they're blocking a totally unnecessary scene.

[41:25] And there's a part where they break for lunch.

[41:28] And Lucy's like, no, no, I want to talk to you about this.

[41:30] And the crew is standing around.

[41:31] And he's like, we're getting into a lunch penalty.

[41:34] And it was like, well, why don't you just send the crew to lunch and then talk to Lucy about it for like two minutes?

[41:37] I don't understand.

[41:38] There's no – it's like the fakest tension, you know, the fakest suspense in that.

[41:42] But why this – at a certain point, this director who becomes the hero of the movie because he's the only one willing to stand up to Lucille Ball, even though it's for a dumb reason.

[41:50] Anyway, so Vivian Vance gets insulted because Lucy sends Madeline Pugh to her room with some food for her to eat because she skipped breakfast because she's trying to lose weight.

[42:05] And Desi tells the network executives, and as Allison said, they're like, how much pregnant is she?

[42:10] Which is kind of a funny line.

[42:11] But it's a funny line like if a robot or an alien says it, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[42:15] And Javier Bardem plays this scene pretty well.

[42:18] He's pretty fun.

[42:19] He's charming.

Elliott Kalan

[42:20] Yada, yada, yada.

[42:20] Oh, yeah.

[42:20] And I think the – and it's just like tension is building.

[42:24] Desi's trying to keep things together.

[42:25] Lucy's trying to make things the way she wants them to be.

[42:28] Everyone's complaining to each other.

[42:30] They're all mad at each other.

[42:33] J.K. Simmons takes Lucy for a drink and says, you got to let Desi be the boss in public because you're pushing him away.

[42:39] You're making it so he doesn't feel like a man.

[42:41] And we flashback to, you know, just Lucy's career in movies ending and her being mad because they don't – she did such a good job in one movie that they don't have any more roles for her.

[42:53] She's too good an actress.

[42:54] They don't have the right roles for her anymore, which is not true.

[42:58] Not how – it's like not how things turned out.

S4

[43:00] And she's claiming to be 35, but she's actually 39.

Elliott Kalan

[43:04] Mm-hmm.

[43:05] Which the movie presents as if it is a real sin.

[43:08] Like that's – he's – the studio executive says that to her and she – and it's like case closed.

[43:13] Sorry.

[43:13] You're out of the business.

Stuart Wellington

[43:15] Now, the scene with J.K. Simmons where he's trying to explain to her the problem with her marriage, that's not the only scene like that.

[43:22] But nothing in Javier Bardem's performance or the script at this point has indicated that he is particularly unsatisfied with the dynamics on the show.

[43:33] No, that's true.

[43:34] That is true.

Elliott Kalan

[43:35] Which is weird to me.

[43:36] He's presented very much as a very supportive guy who is trying to keep things going and at least outwardly does not have any feeling – does not seem to have tension about his career basically now being second fiddle to his wife after he was a successful touring band leader and stuff like that.

[43:53] That doesn't seem to be coming through in his performance even though people are telling Lucy that.

[43:58] But Lucy is like, okay, I got to make him feel like he's the boss.

[44:00] And she goes to the executive producer and says, hey, why don't we give Desi an executive producer credit?

[44:05] And this is a strange scene because one, it is genuinely insulting to the executive producer to be like, hey, can you help me make my husband happy about doing this?

[44:11] But two, Desi is essentially the executive producer on the show.

[44:14] Like he's not – he makes a lot of decisions.

[44:18] He runs the business.

[44:20] Like he's the guy – she's like he designs the camera system that we use.

[44:24] He set up the company.

[44:26] He does all these problems.

[44:27] She makes a really good argument for why he should be an executive producer.

[44:29] So at that point I was like, why is he not?

[44:31] Like why doesn't he already have that title?

[44:33] It feels like a – like another weirdly forced conflict.

Dan McCoy

[44:37] I mean particularly because like – I mean again, I don't know whether this is like – this was different in old Hollywood.

[44:43] But like producer credits are given out like candy.

[44:46] Like even executive producer credits.

[44:48] Like you can have multiple executive producers on a television show.

[44:51] Most do.

[44:52] So it's very strange to me that they are just also giving him a credit.

Elliott Kalan

[44:57] I wonder – yeah, I wonder if it was different then because not like literally a credit bump is written into your contract when you sign on to a show.

[45:04] Where it's like – and on this season I'll get bumped up to this title.

[45:07] So it's – I don't know.

[45:09] It's a weird thing that it becomes conflict for a moment and then doesn't really – it's just part of this churning stew of conflict and tension over at the Lucy Show.

[45:20] Are they ever going to get this episode shot?

[45:22] What if they don't even have a show because of the communist thing which is kind of dropped out?

[45:26] Nobody's really – for most of the movie the communist thing is totally forgotten.

[45:30] And people are like, yeah, nobody's talking about the communist thing.

Dan McCoy

[45:33] That should be the main concern of that week.

[45:35] Is that the show might be canceled because of this communist bombshell?

Elliott Kalan

[45:39] If you're making a movie about – there's a week when we thought the show might get canceled.

[45:44] Make it about the communist thing.

[45:45] If you're making a movie about it's hard for two people to be in a marriage who are both creative people and are as driven to be together as they are by ambition driven to be apart.

[45:55] Make the movie about that.

[45:56] If the movie is about we want to present pregnancy for the first time in television and the network is up against us on it.

[46:02] Make it about that.

[46:03] But there's like so much stuff going on that none of it really gets much attention.

[46:07] And I wonder if the feeling he's going for is like, that's another week at the Lucy Show.

[46:11] You know, it's always crazy.

[46:13] Now we got to do it all over again next week.

[46:14] But it feels like none of them are that important because there's so much fires to put out.

[46:20] You know, she's so much pregnant all the time.

[46:22] How much pregnant?

[46:22] So much pregnant with problems.

S4

[46:24] Yeah, it's weird.

[46:25] You're right.

[46:25] Like none of the storylines really – I didn't – I found myself not invested in any of them.

[46:31] Yeah.

[46:32] None of the stakes for – they didn't create stakes that could like create a scaffolding to make a movie that you'd care about.

[46:42] I said that like a robot.

[46:43] They did not care about that.

[46:47] How much stakes were there?

Stuart Wellington

[46:50] No stakes enough.

[46:52] And then by the end of the movie when they wrap them all up, it feels dissatisfying.

[46:56] And the ones that they put the most emphasis on, you're like, oh, that matters?

[47:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:02] Well, and also some of the stakes are to some degree like false.

[47:07] I mean like again, just bringing in stuff from the more in-depth show about Lucy that I listened to.

[47:14] Like it was not like Lucy didn't know that Desi was a philanderer.

[47:20] Like this was a huge part of their relationship.

[47:22] But the movie kind of makes it out to be like, oh, this one time he was in the tabloids and she was worried about this one thing that he convinced her was not true.

[47:31] Whereas in reality, he was – you know, they were mostly prostitutes.

[47:35] He would go out and he would sleep with a bunch of prostitutes.

[47:37] And Lucy kind of knew, but she loved him so much anyway.

[47:41] And he was supportive career-wise, you know, and they loved each other.

[47:46] Like it was a complex relationship.

[47:48] But it's all boiled down to this one time that she thinks he's sleeping around.

[47:53] And it's so fake.

Elliott Kalan

[47:55] Now, I've never hired a prostitute.

[47:58] Do you hire them by the bunch?

[47:59] Is that how it works?

[48:01] Sometimes.

[48:03] Because I always thought it was like a pack of prostitutes.

[48:05] Is it a bunch?

[48:05] I don't know the terminology.

[48:07] I don't know how you order them.

Dan McCoy

[48:09] Yeah.

[48:10] It's a – well, one's just a prostitute.

[48:13] Two is a pair of prostitutes.

[48:16] Three is a gaggle.

[48:16] Yeah, let's make some jokes about sex work, guys.

[48:19] That's cool.

[48:20] I'm not making a joke about sex work.

[48:21] Stuart, it's a joke about –

[48:22] It's a joke about –

[48:22] Making a joke about –

[48:23] It's a joke about plurals.

[48:24] It's a joke about plurals.

[48:25] It's a plural joke.

[48:28] I mean, it wasn't a good one.

[48:30] You can certainly take me down for that.

Elliott Kalan

[48:32] Yeah, Stuart, you can sue him for that.

Dan McCoy

[48:34] I mean, you have damages from that.

[48:35] You don't need to claim that I'm trying to put anyone down, though.

S4

[48:39] Sometimes you could get a BOGO Pro, which is a buy one, get one prostitute.

Dan McCoy

[48:44] Oh, yeah.

[48:45] See, that's good.

[48:45] That's good stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[48:47] So, yeah.

[48:47] Yeah, so they're – anyway, they're all arguing.

[48:51] Everybody's arguing.

[48:52] And they're waiting to find out if the big sponsors in the East, if the big executives are going to support their pregnancy storyline.

[49:01] And Lucy is like – gets into a – not an argument, but a tense conversation with Madeleine Pugh because she wants the Lucy character to be smarter than she is.

[49:10] And there's a generation gap between them of women who want to be seen as smart and women who just want to work and be the bosses behind the scenes.

[49:19] And if that means looking daffy in public, that's what they'll do.

[49:22] A telegram arrives supporting Desi in the pregnancy battle.

[49:24] So that's kind of over by two-thirds of the way through the movie.

[49:28] That night – and this is the scene where I thought it was a flashback, but it was actually a regular back.

[49:32] Just – it was a forward.

[49:34] It was a regular time forward because it was just the next scene.

[49:37] Lucy is –

[49:38] Consecutive.

[49:38] She's doing the laundry and practicing her lines, and they have a baby daughter who is not sleeping well.

[49:45] And just showed up for the first time.

[49:47] Like, this is the first time I became aware there's a baby.

[49:50] I think they mentioned her, like, briefly in passing once.

[49:53] But up to this point – and so my wife was like, oh, so now it's the future and they had the baby?

[49:57] I'm like, no, no, no, no.

[49:57] This is their first child.

[49:59] Like, the first child that never got mentioned.

[50:01] They were barely.

[50:02] And she finds something in the laundry that's not super clear at first, but we know that it has unnerved her somewhat.

[50:10] So much so that she walks out into the rain in her pajamas, just dazed like a zombie.

[50:15] What does this mean?

[50:16] Okay, it's 2 a.m.

[50:17] She calls Vivian and Frawley over to the studio to restage the dinner scene.

[50:23] And again, she's like, hey, let's have you facing the camera so we can see what you're doing.

[50:27] And they're like, you're a genius.

[50:29] This is better.

[50:30] And she says, oh, I did this show to be close to Desi, so we'd be working in the same place together.

[50:36] But outside of work, it's like he ignores me and he doesn't pay attention to me.

[50:40] And she feels bad about it.

[50:43] Then we get some more flashbacks about her radio career.

[50:45] And this is when, if the movie is trying to present Lucille Ball as a smart person, this is a scene that really bothered me.

[50:51] Where she does her radio show, she's in her dressing room, and the EP of the radio show, who would go on to be the EP of the TV show, Tony Hale.

[50:58] He goes, hey, some people from CBS want to talk to you.

[51:01] And she's like, yeah, yeah, radio, CBS radio, blah, blah.

[51:04] And they go, well, actually, we're from CBS television.

[51:05] And she's like, CBS does television?

[51:07] What, you want to sell me one?

[51:08] And it's like, no, we want to do a TV show with you.

[51:11] And she's like, oh?

[51:12] She keeps running fucking bits.

[51:14] She runs so many zingers at them.

[51:16] And it's like, look, the minute someone walks in and says, no, to you backstage and says, we're from television, you know they're there to offer you a television show.

[51:25] Like, it takes so long for that to, she's got such a wall of zingers around her.

[51:30] It takes so long for that news to reach her skull.

[51:32] It's just like, come on, Lucy, you know this.

S4

[51:34] We've noticed when you do your radio show, you do a lot of gesturing.

[51:37] It's called acting.

Stuart Wellington

[51:40] And the thing is, like, every bit she does, their reaction is either complete confusion or they just say, that's funny.

[51:47] And you would think that that complete lack of response would make you not want to keep doing bits.

[51:52] Now.

[51:53] Well, that's the thing, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[51:54] For a true comedian, there's a certain point where what you want is the bad reaction.

[51:58] You're doing bits so that they fail.

Dan McCoy

[51:59] It is true that, like, she, like, really started playing up her facial expressions in radio because she noticed it got a good reaction from the crowd.

[52:08] And that was kind of what brought her into comedy as, you know, on TV.

[52:14] But the way it's presented in the movie really makes it seem like the CBS execs are like, wow, like, we didn't realize you had a face.

[52:22] Like, you could be on television.

[52:24] It's like, she's been in movies.

[52:26] Like, they know what she looks like.

[52:27] She knows she can, like, express things.

Elliott Kalan

[52:30] When we listened to you, it was like we thought you were just a voice, a disembodied voice.

[52:35] Yeah.

[52:35] But now we realize there's a face and a body attached to it, and we assume a person, a soul inhabiting that body.

[52:40] And television needs souls.

[52:42] Not if played by Nicole Kidman, but.

[52:44] Oh, wow.

[52:45] Ouch.

[52:46] I'm sorry.

S4

[52:46] I really, I get that she's being commended for this performance, but I did not.

[52:53] I mean, maybe, I guess it's the material.

[52:55] It depends, like, what the direction was, but I just would have, there's a million other actors I would have rather seen as Lucille Ball.

[53:02] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[53:02] List one of them.

[53:04] Emma Stone.

S4

[53:06] Kate Winslet.

[53:07] There's two.

[53:08] I mean, actually, Kate Blanchett was initially cast.

[53:11] She was initially attached.

Elliott Kalan

[53:12] I think she would have been more interesting in a lot of ways.

[53:15] Yeah.

[53:15] I just find Nicole Kidman.

Stuart Wellington

[53:16] My wife suggested Annalee Ashford of, you know, stage fame.

Dan McCoy

[53:21] Yeah.

[53:21] She would have been good.

[53:22] I think she's good when she's doing the dramatic parts.

[53:25] I don't think you ever get a sense from her that she's a comedian, which is weird because I do think Nicole Kidman can be funny in other movies.

[53:32] Like, I thought she was really funny in Moulin Rouge!

[53:35] And, like, she's doing a comic performance in To Die For.

[53:38] But here, like, you don't get the sense that she's got the whatever Lucy had is.

Elliott Kalan

[53:44] I'm going to blame the director.

[53:45] No, that's fair.

[53:45] That's where I'm going to put the blame on that.

[53:48] That there's a, the same way that when I was watching the Star Wars prequels with my older son and my wife walked in the room, she was like, Natalie Portman's really bad in this.

[53:58] And I was like, oh, they're all bad in it.

[53:59] You got to blame the directing.

[54:01] Like, like, these are all actors who are good actors and they're very bad in this movie.

[54:04] But you just, like, Samuel L. Jackson is bad in this movie.

[54:07] Like, that's how bad the directing is.

[54:08] But, so I'm going to blame, I'm going to blame Sorkin on that one.

[54:11] But I, I do agree with you that, like, Nicole, a lot of the reviews I've seen, they're like, Nicole Kidman plays Lucille Ball as a real person.

[54:18] And I don't really get that from her.

[54:20] I get a character from her.

[54:21] But I, I don't get a full, like, living, breathing.

[54:23] If anything, and the weird thing was that I had heard stuff about Javier Bardem being,

[54:27] being miscast.

[54:28] And I actually found him to be more.

[54:30] I thought he was great.

[54:31] Of a person than Nicole Kidman was, you know.

S4

[54:33] I just found the portrayal to be so uncharismatic and unlikable.

[54:38] Which, if you're going to spend two hours and however many minutes, like, with someone, they should be a little more likable.

[54:47] Even if she really was that tough in real life.

Elliott Kalan

[54:50] Or at least have the, like, someone could be unlikable but still have the charisma.

[54:53] Where you're like, I get it.

[54:54] I see why this person is the center of this whole thing.

[54:57] And I want to see them succeed.

[54:59] And, but it's, there's a, I don't know.

[55:01] Some of it is that Aaron Sorkin thing where it kind of like, the ending is never in doubt.

[55:05] Like, you kind of always know what's going to happen.

[55:07] And there's no, there's no stakes.

[55:09] And that makes it harder for the character to be sympathetic when they are, like, kind of spinning like a top, you know.

[55:16] I mean, I wonder if.

[55:17] Like Nicole Kidman.

[55:17] I mean, it is a weird choice that in the scenes where she's particularly flustered, Nicole Kidman begins to spin like a top with her arms out.

Stuart Wellington

[55:23] You know.

[55:24] Like a Mega Man villain.

Dan McCoy

[55:28] You've got to use that bubble on them.

[55:30] Yeah, you've got to use bubble.

Elliott Kalan

[55:31] Get a good bubble.

[55:32] Well, that's why, because Mega Man is all about the order of the levels.

[55:35] We all know that.

[55:36] That's the secret.

[55:37] You've got to know what order to do them in.

S4

[55:38] I'm going to change from saying she was unlikable, even though I found her to be unlikable, to she wasn't compelling.

[55:45] The character wasn't compelling enough to want to spend that much time.

Dan McCoy

[55:48] I do wonder if that's, like, in part, the problem is that they are making her up to look so much like Lucy and so much emphasis is going on imitation that I think that that mutes people's charisma sometimes when there's too much of that going on, like the surface stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[56:05] Yeah, I would always rather watch a movie where someone is playing the character in the movie and not worrying that much about seeming like the real person than one where they go all out to seem like the real person.

[56:16] If they can do both, that's amazing.

[56:17] But it's better to see this, like, you could cast someone who doesn't look like, I mean, cast Tiffany Haddish as Lucille Ball and then don't worry about the way she looks and just, like, let her be the character and it would be great, you know.

[56:30] So, but the idea that, like, you've got to get the voice exactly right.

[56:34] You've got to get the look as close as you can.

Stuart Wellington

[56:36] It's like the Wizard Magazine fucking casting shit where people were like, Debra Messing did that one photo shoot and she looked like Lucy.

[56:43] Why didn't they get her to do it?

Elliott Kalan

[56:45] There's obviously only one person who can play Wolverine, Glenn Danzig, a man who is not an actor.

[56:53] So, anyway, she's a sitcom star now.

[56:55] Cut to now.

[56:56] And Lucy, she surprises the executive producer by admitting that he was right.

[57:02] It was insulting to him for her to just kind of say, hey, can I give your credit to my husband in order to save our marriage?

[57:08] And he's like, I don't think you've ever said that before, that you're right.

[57:10] She's like, I don't think I've ever said it out loud.

[57:13] And they're interrupted by the –

[57:14] Yeah, Zing.

[57:15] They're interrupted by the –

[57:16] I'm very humble in my head.

[57:18] They're interrupted by the news that the executives are meeting with Desi, which is the kind of thing you would do if he was the executive producer of the show.

[57:26] The newspapers have picked up that Lucy is a communist story.

[57:29] Uh-oh.

[57:30] And Desi Arnaz has a plan.

[57:31] He's going to tell the audience that Lucy checked the wrong box on the what party do I belong to card.

[57:37] And she's like, no, I don't want to.

[57:38] I don't want – I didn't check the wrong box.

[57:40] I'm not going to do that.

[57:41] And he's like, you did check the wrong box because I was kicked out of my country by them.

[57:46] And it's like, well, you weren't in real life.

[57:47] Like, again, it's not – that's not true.

[57:50] Like the – you might as well go ahead and make him a Holocaust survivor at that point if you're going to like fudge it that much.

[57:56] But – or make it so that his family was killed in the Stalinist purges or whatever.

[58:01] Really make it obvious.

Stuart Wellington

[58:01] When the Decepticons attacked Cuba.

Elliott Kalan

[58:05] I was there when the bugs attacked Puerto Rico and destroyed San Juan.

[58:09] That way that you're not from Puerto Rico and that's from Starship Troopers.

[58:12] Like is that where you're from now?

S4

[58:14] Bolsheviks ran me out during the Crusades.

Elliott Kalan

[58:18] I'm so confused I have to believe it.

[58:21] It's like – I mean so no one would make up a lie that obvious.

[58:24] So it must be true.

[58:26] And Lucy and Vivian kind of make up a little bit over the fact that they're both worried about life I guess.

[58:32] And Madeline Pugh comes over to Lucy and is like, you're my hero, Lucy.

[58:35] There's a lot of unearned –

[58:36] That shit sucked.

[58:38] That scene sucks.

[58:38] Mending bridges.

[58:39] Yeah.

[58:40] And William Frawley comes out.

[58:41] And this was something I actually liked.

[58:42] He goes, you know, a man doesn't like being called old.

[58:46] And it was the first time throughout the movie where I'm like, oh yeah, his feelings probably are hurt.

[58:50] When Vivian Vance is constantly like, he's too old to be my husband.

[58:53] I'm not old enough to play his wife.

[58:54] You know, the – it was a – it was funny to me where I was like, I kind of bought into like, well, who cares about men's feelings until that moment.

[59:03] And I was like, oh yeah, that's right.

[59:04] Men have feelings too.

[59:05] I should know that.

[59:06] I have feelings.

[59:06] Like I should feel for William Frawley a little bit.

[59:08] Okay, men's rights.

[59:09] Yeah.

[59:10] I'm just saying.

[59:11] Yeah, file this episode under men's rights I guess.

[59:13] And that men have the best feelings.

[59:14] That's all I'm saying is that men have the best feelings.

[59:17] And they're all nervous about losing the show even though that's a problem that just popped up like a couple minutes ago and they had forgotten about until then.

[59:25] Desi goes out and he goes to warm up the audience, which he usually did.

[59:29] And he goes, look, I'm going to tell you the story about how – this is the story that's out there that Lucy is a communist.

[59:34] Well, guess what?

[59:36] I've got a phone call that I think is going to help out.

[59:39] And he puts the phone up to the microphone and he goes, is there – you can tell me, is there any – does the FBI have any reason to believe Lucille Ball is a communist?

[59:46] And the phone call is like, no, we don't.

Stuart Wellington

[59:48] In a very cheery voice.

Elliott Kalan

[59:50] Yeah, no, we don't at all.

[59:52] And with the FBI investigating her for communism, nope, we're not going to do that.

[59:56] And can you tell us your name?

[59:57] And he goes, J. Edgar Hoover.

[59:59] And the audience loses their shit.

[1:00:01] Loses their mind.

[1:00:01] Well, if J. Edgar Hoover has cleared her, she must be an all-American woman.

[1:00:05] And it's like the – I saw someone – before – this was spoiled for me because I saw someone mention on Twitter like that the idea that J. Edgar Hoover is the hero of the movie, a genuinely bad man.

[1:00:14] He did terrible things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:15] I was like, we're the directorial notes.

[1:00:18] Okay, you're only going to be a voice, but you need to convey that you're a huge piece of shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:22] Now, Elliot.

[1:00:23] But you're also – you're against all – now, everyone in this movie is going to go way overboard in trying to impersonate their people.

[1:00:29] But we want – instead of J. Edgar Hoover, the very, very mean man who is never happy, we want you to be kind of J. Edgar Hoover as kind of a Santa Claus type.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:36] Although, I was confirming what I already knew to be true, but I just looked it up that this phone call never happened.

[1:00:46] And apparently, he was a fan of the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:49] No, J. Edgar Hoover was too busy spying on civil rights activists.

[1:00:51] He didn't have time to call into I Love Lucy.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:53] No, but he did write a fan letter.

[1:00:55] So apparently, he did love Lucy like everyone else did.

[1:00:58] Everybody did.

[1:00:59] I wanted to ask Elliot, was this the fact that you – was this the part that you were particularly mad about?

[1:01:04] Because I was mad about this, that this – the whole major conflict is solved by a call to J. Edgar Hoover that didn't happen in real life.

[1:01:13] And it's like, well, if you had Hoover on your side the whole time, like what is your problem?

[1:01:17] Must be nice to have Hoover on your side.

[1:01:19] Rather than what really happened, which was that Desi came out and gave a heartfelt speech about his wife, which would have been, you know, a much more interesting cinematic rousing moment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:30] Much more interesting and much more on the note –

[1:01:32] Touching.

[1:01:33] Point for the story of the movie, which is about their marriage.

[1:01:36] Like the – what I think it bothered me that in a couple – I mean the thing that bothered me the most was the Cuban revolution thing, honestly.

[1:01:42] But this bothered me second most.

[1:01:43] But it was partly also because he says, I called everybody to – I called everybody I could to get to this.

[1:01:49] And it's like, oh, I would have liked to have seen that.

[1:01:51] I would have liked to have seen what the man who turns out to be the hero of the movie fighting for his wife and doing all the work as opposed to just seeing the – have him tell me that and hear a final phone call.

[1:02:00] Much as in the movie The Post.

[1:02:02] The court judgment that allows the Pentagon Papers to be printed is relayed to us by a woman repeating what she's hearing over the phone where it's like, movie, you can show us them announcing this.

[1:02:13] Like we don't need to – it doesn't need to be reported to us via phone, you know.

[1:02:17] But the –

S4

[1:02:17] Maybe this is why he was never home.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:19] Yeah, because he was busy.

S4

[1:02:22] Busy calling.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:23] I have to keep these calls a secret from Lucy too so it can be a big surprise later.

[1:02:27] It's being dramatic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:28] It is crazy.

[1:02:29] But, Danny, I think you're right.

[1:02:30] For a movie that has done so much work to gin up kind of fake drama, for it to then completely avoid the most real drama that they could have at that moment is a very frustrating thing.

[1:02:42] Allison, you wanted to say something earlier.

[1:02:44] I'm sorry we interrupted you a while ago.

[1:02:45] Oh, yeah.

S4

[1:02:45] So, apparently, she wasn't cleared though.

[1:02:49] I mean she wasn't – she was like that was I think the end of it publicly but I think J. Edgar Hoover did –

[1:02:55] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:55] She went to jail.

[1:02:56] She died in jail.

[1:02:57] Wow.

[1:02:58] And yet again they didn't show that.

S4

[1:03:00] No, but I think that they did like keep records on her and keep tabs on her for years after.

[1:03:04] I know this because after I watched the movie then I was griping about it to my husband for so long and then we watched the episode of I Love Lucy and then both of us were curious like what was the real story.

[1:03:14] So then we both did some Googling and he encountered something that said that

[1:03:18] that they kept – they were like spying on her for years after this.

[1:03:23] I totally believe it.

[1:03:23] Well, that sounds like Hoover.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:25] Yeah.

[1:03:26] I could imagine Hoover being like what a hilarious lady.

[1:03:29] I love her show.

[1:03:30] She might be a communist so we're going to watch her for the rest of her life.

[1:03:33] I love watching Lucy on the TV.

[1:03:35] Now I can finally watch her in her private life.

[1:03:36] But it's such an anti-dramatic way to end the movie and it is the idea that J. Edgar Hoover is a good guy in it, that they're going to finish everything with a telephone call.

[1:03:47] Like you said, in the real life Desi came out and gave this inspirational speech about his wife.

[1:03:52] Like end the movie that way.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:54] Yeah.

[1:03:54] But I guess –

[1:03:55] Well, I texted you this beforehand but like it feels like Aaron Sorkin is like, no, no, no, no.

[1:04:00] I write the inspiring speeches here, Desi Arnaz.

[1:04:03] You don't get one in my version.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:05] Not realizing that he would get to write this speech in the movie because it's a little bit like – there's an old story about an episode of the Joey Bishop show where Joey Bishop was playing himself and did like an identical brother or identical cousin.

[1:04:18] And he was mad because the cousin character was getting all the funny lines.

[1:04:21] And it was like – he just couldn't figure – he couldn't accept that even though he was playing both characters.

[1:04:26] He didn't like that the other character who was not him was getting the funny lines.

[1:04:30] Oh, man.

[1:04:31] That's great.

[1:04:32] But so they arranged that call.

[1:04:35] Now that they have J. Edgar Hoover's seal of approval, no one can ever take their show off the air.

[1:04:39] It's good.

[1:04:40] It's gold forever.

[1:04:41] The audience applauds.

[1:04:42] They can't wait to see Lucy and backstage.

[1:04:45] Desi is like, we did it, Lucy.

[1:04:47] I saved you.

[1:04:47] And Lucy goes, have you been cheating on me?

[1:04:49] And he goes, no, no, of course not.

[1:04:50] I never would.

S4

[1:04:51] Crazy that it's all – like that's like Whiplash, not the J.K. Simmons movie.

[1:04:56] Like it happened so fast.

[1:04:58] Like yay.

[1:05:00] I'm exonerated.

[1:05:01] But also I have something to bring up to you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:04] And I think if they had really been able to sell the idea that this is festering in her, this doubt, you know, this worry about his fidelity, then it would have made sense that like she just can't hold it in anymore.

[1:05:13] But instead it just feels like the movie is like, well, we're running out of time.

[1:05:16] We got to resolve this plot too.

[1:05:17] And he's like, what are you talking about?

[1:05:18] We're about to do the show.

[1:05:19] Come on, let's do it.

[1:05:20] And she holds up.

[1:05:21] She goes, I found this handkerchief with lipstick on it.

[1:05:23] And he goes, no, no, that's your lipstick, remember?

[1:05:25] And then she holds up another handkerchief with her lipstick, which is a different shade, which I thought was hilarious that she's like, I better have all my evidence on it.

[1:05:34] And she's been walking around all day with these two handkerchiefs waiting for the moment to spring the trap on him.

[1:05:40] Yeah, just to remember which pocket which one's in.

[1:05:43] Oh, yeah, like a great magician.

[1:05:44] And she's like, close the doors.

[1:05:48] One of us in here is a philanderer.

[1:05:49] Let me explain.

[1:05:51] And he goes, oh, they were just call girls.

[1:05:53] They were hookers.

[1:05:54] It doesn't mean anything.

[1:05:55] There's nothing deeper than that.

[1:05:56] And my wife turned to me at this point and went, that's not a good excuse.

[1:05:59] That does not fly.

[1:06:00] I was like, yeah, I know.

[1:06:01] Don't worry.

[1:06:02] And she interrupts him.

[1:06:04] She's like, I just want to know.

[1:06:06] Now we have to start the show.

[1:06:06] Like now that that doubt has been taken, now that she knows, she can go do the show.

[1:06:12] But then there's this like, this coda.

[1:06:14] And I want you guys to maybe explain it to me because I didn't really understand what was going on with it.

[1:06:18] The talking heads are back and they're like, so Lucy and the director disagreed about this bit where Desi sneaks up behind her and she pretends she doesn't know who he is.

[1:06:26] So they did it two ways and they recorded it the way where she pretends and it worked fine.

[1:06:31] And they recorded it.

[1:06:32] They tried to do it the other way.

[1:06:33] And for the only time in I Love Lucy history, Lucy forgot her lines.

[1:06:38] And she just kind of blanks and can't remember what the line is.

[1:06:40] And then they go on and they go, we never did a retake of that open.

[1:06:44] And we shot the rest of the episode and Lucy went on forever.

[1:06:47] And then there's a piece of text on screen that says, the morning after the Lucy show ended, she filed for divorce from Desi.

[1:06:53] The morning after I Love Lucy ended.

[1:06:54] And what is going on when she blanks in the opening scene?

[1:06:59] Is it that she like, at that moment she no longer loves him and so she can't play that real scene?

[1:07:04] She has to play the fake scene or what's going on?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:05] There's a part earlier in it where she talked, like, it says whenever Lucy was in, like, a particularly bleak mood, she said that she has no home.

[1:07:14] Because, like, she'd, you know, like, all this stuff had happened with her family growing up and et cetera.

[1:07:19] So, like, she feels displaced.

[1:07:20] And then, like, Desi comes in.

[1:07:22] He does his, Lucy, I'm home.

[1:07:24] That's the line that triggers her to be, like, just like, I don't have a home anymore.

[1:07:29] Like, this man has cheated on me.

[1:07:31] Like, that is the way I interpreted what was going on there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:34] That makes sense because she was talking earlier about, like, I made this.

[1:07:37] We were never together even though we were married.

[1:07:39] We were always a part working.

[1:07:40] So, I made this home and the only place he pays attention to me is this stage.

[1:07:44] This is our house.

[1:07:45] Like, that makes sense to me.

[1:07:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:47] I didn't get that either.

[1:07:49] This would, but, well, but the thing that makes me mad about it is just, like, this is all, I presume.

[1:07:54] I mean, I don't know for sure, but I presume this part is all made up bullshit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:57] You heard a podcast about it.

[1:07:59] You don't know.

[1:07:59] I mean, you're an expert now, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:00] Yeah, I was not there for the shooting of this particular episode.

[1:08:04] But this feels like just, like, made up bullshit so you can have, like, this emotional ending.

[1:08:09] And it also, like, yeah, she divorced him after I Love Lucy went off the air, which was further down the line.

[1:08:18] Just, like, nine years later.

[1:08:19] And, like, it just makes it feel like, again, that there was this one instance of philandering and then she divorced him.

[1:08:26] When, in reality, yeah, she divorced him because he was sleeping with prostitutes all the time.

[1:08:31] But it was something that was going on for years.

[1:08:33] All the time.

[1:08:34] Even during the shooting.

[1:08:35] Even during the episodes.

[1:08:36] I don't know.

[1:08:36] Even while she was sleeping with him, he was sleeping with prostitutes at the same time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:40] She was like, how do you think I don't notice this?

[1:08:42] We're both in the bed together.

[1:08:43] He's like, Lucy, I don't know what you're talking about.

[1:08:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:46] Yeah.

[1:08:47] And then she pulls out one pair of panties.

[1:08:49] He's like, that's your panties.

[1:08:50] And he pulls out another pair of panties.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:52] And then she points to her own pelvis where she's still wearing panties.

[1:08:56] And she goes, these are my panties.

[1:08:58] He goes, no, no, that's your vagina.

[1:09:00] This is my vagina.

[1:09:03] I mean, the implication is also that they did not – from that moment on, their marriage was a sham until the end of the – and she only stayed with him for the show.

[1:09:12] Which is like –

Dan McCoy

[1:09:12] They were like friends until they died.

[1:09:15] Like they could not stay married, but they shared a lot of love.

[1:09:19] And like she was there when he died.

[1:09:21] Like it's just a weird way of presenting it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:24] But at the same time, like the – I mean, their children are executive producers on this movie, which means that they oversaw everything because as the movie makes clear, you earn that executive producer title.

[1:09:34] Yeah.

[1:09:34] And I know that her daughter was like, they did it.

[1:09:37] They got an honest movie.

[1:09:38] So I don't know.

[1:09:39] Maybe that's more accurate than anything.

[1:09:40] I wonder which part she's talking about.

[1:09:42] Not the Cuban Revolution stuff.

[1:09:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:44] I mean, is there any idea why this specific – because – so the movie takes place over a week where they're like producing this one episode of the show.

[1:09:53] And from what I can tell, it's not a particularly exemplary episode.

[1:09:57] Like it's not one of the standouts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:59] Well, I think that might be part of it is that they're – they – is choosing a week where they're just making a regular run-of-the-mill episode rather than like one with a famous set piece or like not her dancing with the eggs in her shirt or Vitamita Vegemen or any of those episodes.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:13] And maybe this is the one, the communist one.

[1:10:16] Like I mean they compressed it all, but like they could – he could be like, okay, well, what was the one for that specific?

[1:10:20] I don't think so.

[1:10:21] According to what I read, I think they just picked an episode.

[1:10:23] Yeah.

[1:10:24] Then that's very strange.

S4

[1:10:25] Yeah.

[1:10:26] And also this was actually –

[1:10:27] Maybe it's his favorite episode.

[1:10:28] I don't know.

[1:10:28] This was the 22nd episode of season one and in the movie it's the 37th episode.

[1:10:35] Yeah.

[1:10:35] I don't know the significance of that, but it's just a minute.

[1:10:37] It's also funny – wait.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:38] Numerology, baby.

[1:10:39] They do say it's the 37th, right, which would be the last episode of the season.

[1:10:44] But the writers are working – they have a whole board of upcoming episodes.

[1:10:48] And it's like how far ahead were they working?

[1:10:49] Did they work on next season's episodes already?

[1:10:52] I mean that's how they did it back then.

[1:10:53] I don't know.

S4

[1:10:54] Is – is – does anyone –

[1:10:56] I don't know.

[1:10:56] Is Aaron Sorkin like a big I Love Lucy fan?

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:59] I don't know.

[1:10:59] It doesn't seem like it.

[1:11:01] Not based on the content.

[1:11:03] Well, that's – I kind of had the same reaction to this that I had to West Side Story in some ways where I was like,

[1:11:08] I don't know why the people who made this felt the need to make this.

[1:11:11] Like I don't know what from this Aaron Sorkin felt was the story he wanted to tell or why he was telling it.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:17] I wouldn't be surprised if – I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, number one, as you say, he's a TV nut.

[1:11:22] But even though he doesn't seem to know anything about it.

[1:11:25] So he's like –

[1:11:25] That's what his business card says.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:26] It says Aaron Sorkin, TV nut.

[1:11:27] Yeah, and a number one grandpa.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:29] This is one of the most important television shows.

[1:11:32] And it touches on like these political and social issues that I can get on my high horse about.

[1:11:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:38] His horse is very high.

[1:11:39] It would be funny if his Twitter bio was like TV nut, husband, petrius.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:47] Shroom enthusiast.

[1:11:48] And then it's like West Wing guy or something like that.

[1:11:52] I mean he also – I guess he was not the first person attached to this movie.

[1:11:58] So maybe he was just taking a job.

[1:12:00] I don't know.

[1:12:00] But it doesn't seem like it.

[1:12:02] Yeah.

[1:12:02] I don't know.

[1:12:03] It's a movie that feels very like – yeah.

[1:12:08] I mean I was very bored by it while watching it, I have to admit.

[1:12:11] But once it was over I was like, so that was something about I Love Lucy.

[1:12:15] But I don't know what it's saying.

[1:12:18] I don't know what the story is meant to communicate other than what a crazy week.

S4

[1:12:21] You know who did enjoy it?

[1:12:23] At the very end my five-year-old walked in during the scene where he comes up behind her

[1:12:28] and puts his hands in front of her eyes.

[1:12:30] This is during the movie, not when I watched the actual episode afterwards.

[1:12:33] And he laughed and said, that's funny.

[1:12:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:36] Okay.

[1:12:37] So that's what Aaron Sorkin was doing for the five-year-old in all of us.

[1:12:41] That does seem like a thing five-year-olds would enjoy.

[1:12:44] A little peekaboo.

[1:12:45] A little surprise.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:47] He's like, they put a Zeus spin on peekaboo.

[1:12:49] That's amazing.

[1:12:50] Yeah.

S5

[1:12:55] Hi, I'm Janet Varney.

[1:12:57] And just like you, I survived high school.

[1:13:01] And we're not alone.

[1:13:02] On my podcast, The JV Club, I invite some of my friends to share the highs and lows of their teen years.

[1:13:10] Like moments with Aisha Tyler.

S4

[1:13:11] But when you're a kid, the stakes are just pretty low.

[1:13:14] Go to school, try not to get in trouble, get laid.

S5

[1:13:17] Jamila Jamil.

[1:13:18] I watched television probably every waking hour during that time.

[1:13:22] And I was shit-faced on medicine.

[1:13:24] And Dave Holmes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:25] We talked and talked, and then everybody left.

[1:13:27] It was just us two, and I was like, I love you.

S5

[1:13:28] Learn how you too can be a functioning adult after the drama and heartbreak of high school.

[1:13:33] Every week on The JV Club with Janet Varney.

[1:13:36] Find it on Maximum Fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:37] Or wherever you get your podcasts.

S5

[1:13:39] This is a judgment-free show.

S6

[1:13:42] We have wasted this world.

[1:13:45] Our magic put a storm in the sky that has rendered the surface of our planet uninhabitable.

[1:13:51] But beneath the surface, well, that's another story entirely.

[1:13:57] In a city built leagues below the apocalypse, survivors of the storm forge paths through a strange new world.

[1:14:04] Some seek salvation for their homeland above.

[1:14:07] Others seek to chart the vast undersea expanse outside the city's walls.

[1:14:12] And others still seek.

[1:14:14] What else?

[1:14:15] Fortune and glory.

[1:14:17] Dive into the EtherSea, the latest campaign from the Adventure Zone.

[1:14:21] Every other Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:26] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace.

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[1:15:16] I thought so.

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[1:15:21] Won't mention the address here because this is a Squarespace ad, not a Dan McCoy ad.

[1:15:27] But if you look around, you can find it.

[1:15:28] Anyway, the point is you should head off to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

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[1:15:51] Hey, better help.

[1:15:54] This podcast is sponsored by better help online therapy.

[1:15:57] We talk about better help a lot on the show.

[1:15:59] And this month, we're discussing some of the stigmas around mental health.

[1:16:04] A lot of people think I got to wait till life is, is bad.

[1:16:09] I feel bad.

[1:16:11] My pain is unbearable, whatever to go to therapy.

[1:16:13] That's not true.

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[1:16:31] I'm in therapy.

[1:16:32] I don't think that's surprising to anyone.

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[1:16:43] And I recommend therapy.

[1:16:47] And this podcast is sponsored by better help, which is a customized online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist.

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[1:17:33] And before I send you back to the meat of the show, I just want to say that we have a JUMBO TRON, JUMBO TRON, JUMBO TRON.

[1:17:47] This is from Shonen Flop.

[1:17:52] And it says, Japanese comics, a.k.a. manga, are the blueprints for almost all anime and are a notoriously cutthroat business.

[1:18:04] For every Dragon Ball Z, there are hundreds of failed series that got the axe from publishers.

[1:18:10] On the Shonen Flop podcast, David, Jordan, and guests such as Tim Batt and Xander Cannon, hey, he's been on our show, navigate the world of failed manga.

[1:18:22] Will they discover a lost gem or a certified flop?

[1:18:27] Find Shonen Flop on your podcast app of choice, on Twitter at Shonen Flopcast, or at ShonenFlop.com.

[1:18:37] Keep on flopping.

[1:18:43] Okay, well, let's do our final judgments.

[1:18:45] And this is where we say whether it's a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of like.

[1:18:52] We will clarify if you have any questions about these categories that don't really cover the experiences.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:59] Because if you choose wrong, you'll be punished.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:01] Yeah, the dunk tank is what happens.

[1:19:05] No, I'm going to, look, having given out the categories, I don't know if this really fits into the usual ones for me because.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:13] We got to talk about our categories at some point.

[1:19:15] It happens so often that we have trouble with the categories.

[1:19:17] That's part of the fun, I like.

[1:19:19] Part of the fun.

[1:19:19] Wait, so Dan, I put together, actually, I have an agenda for our next meeting of what things we need to talk about.

[1:19:23] Number one, Kevin, for sure.

[1:19:25] Number two, the categories.

[1:19:27] And then I have an alternate list of things we don't need to talk about at the meeting, and Bruno is number one on those.

[1:19:31] So we got to talk about Kevin.

[1:19:32] We got to talk about the categories.

[1:19:33] We don't need to talk about Bruno.

[1:19:34] So that's just for the meeting next time.

[1:19:36] Okay, great.

[1:19:38] Now, everybody's talking about Jamie, but I don't know that we have to.

[1:19:41] We'll put that on a separate list for the meeting.

[1:19:43] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:43] You know, everybody's doing it, so why can't we?

[1:19:47] So I don't, I don't know.

[1:19:50] Sorkin, sometimes I enjoy him very much.

[1:19:53] And then sometimes his particular flaws are so big that they just sink everything.

[1:20:01] He likes to be clever.

[1:20:03] He likes to have all of his characters basically talk exactly the same as one another in these clever ways.

[1:20:09] He loves grandstanding speeches, et cetera, et cetera.

[1:20:14] And the thing is, I usually find it entertaining.

[1:20:17] It just depends on whether I find it entertaining good or it's like a hate watch, which is like, I don't think it's good, bad.

[1:20:24] I think that if you, you know, enjoy Sorkin sometimes, but sometimes she gives you a headache.

[1:20:29] This is interesting to watch because you can be like, oh, why are you doing it this way?

[1:20:35] And especially because the movie is so filled with like information while still being wrong about so much.

[1:20:42] Like, like it is, it might as well be like a, like a YouTube explainer about I Love Lucy that he's done in dramatic style, except for then like a bunch of the facts are wrong.

[1:20:52] So I, I don't know.

[1:20:53] Yeah.

[1:20:53] There's a bunch of footnotes in the comments.

[1:20:54] Yeah.

[1:20:55] What do you, what do you say, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:56] Yeah.

[1:20:56] I mean, I'm not, uh, I honestly, I wasn't super familiar with I Love Lucy when I was a kid.

[1:21:02] I'm sure I saw some episodes on Nick at Night.

[1:21:05] Um, but it didn't have, seemed to have a particularly big place in my brain.

[1:21:10] Uh, but I found like, particularly I found like Nicole Kidman's performance was very off putting.

[1:21:16] Uh, I, most of the scenes are fairly flat.

[1:21:19] It's all that like walk and talk, like overly snappy kind of mean, everybody's mean to each other dialogue.

[1:21:25] They are all very mean to each other.

[1:21:27] Yeah.

[1:21:27] Um, and it turns out all the stuff I learned was wrong.

[1:21:30] So fuck you movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:33] Uh, so I'm going to say bad, bad.

[1:21:35] Yeah.

[1:21:35] I'm also going to say bad, bad.

[1:21:36] I found it very boring and, um, some people in it were trying and there were some moments that were amusing, but overall I was, I was left bored and baffled.

[1:21:45] That's right.

[1:21:46] B and B, a classic Airbnb in that I was breathing air and I was bored and baffled while watching the movie.

[1:21:51] Alison, what do you think?

[1:21:52] I think you probably liked it, right?

S4

[1:21:54] I loved it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:55] I don't know.

S4

[1:21:56] I don't, when you said that we're going to do being the Ricardos, I thought, but this is the flop house.

[1:22:01] I thought we talk about trash and this is a gemstone.

[1:22:06] Um, I was on the edge.

[1:22:07] No, I also give it two Bs.

[1:22:09] Bad, bad.

[1:22:10] Um, I found it very unenjoyable to watch.

[1:22:16] Uh, and if I, if we weren't going to be talking about it, I would have turned it off.

[1:22:20] And, you know, also like Stuart, I, uh, I love Lucy was not, you know, like I'm sure I've seen episodes, but I never really paid attention to them.

[1:22:28] And then afterwards I did go watch an episode and I found myself laughing and really enjoying it.

[1:22:34] So, uh, this movie does a disservice to the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:37] Yeah, it's a, it's a fun show.

[1:22:39] I mean, I grew up in a very, I love Lucy, uh, loving household because my mom was a big fan.

[1:22:44] And, and so it's, uh, and probably continues to be, but she doesn't, doesn't talk about it that much anymore.

[1:22:48] But, uh, it's.

[1:22:49] Like Bruno.

[1:22:50] Yeah, we, we, we don't talk about Lucy anymore.

[1:22:52] She's more into the dictator and, uh, what's the other, other ones you made? Borat?

[1:22:57] Yeah, now what, if they.

[1:22:58] If, you know, let's think if in Kanto, it was the movie Bruno they weren't talking about, I would totally get it.

[1:23:02] There's, you know, you want to avoid it, but the, it, yeah, it's like a, this is the movie equivalent of like you go out for a meal and they're like, oh no, no, we only serve protein shakes here.

[1:23:12] And you're like, okay, well at least it's going to have the nutrients of a meal.

[1:23:15] And you drink the whole thing and it tastes chalky.

[1:23:17] And they're like, actually there were no nutrients in that.

[1:23:18] And you're like, what?

[1:23:19] So why do you drink it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:22] Thanks for, thanks for putting it in words.

[1:23:24] I'll understand.

[1:23:25] Yeah.

[1:23:25] I had to translate it into Stewies.

[1:23:27] Yeah.

[1:23:28] Like, so wait, I'm not getting gains from this?

S4

[1:23:33] Okay.

[1:23:33] Yeah, it was just a slog, but it wasn't accurate.

[1:23:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:39] When it lacked in excitement, it gained in disinformation.

[1:23:44] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:45] Yeah, it's like, if you're going to make up a story, make a fucking good one, dude.

S4

[1:23:50] Yeah.

[1:23:50] I wondered, was there source material this was based on?

[1:23:53] And it seems like there was not.

[1:23:55] Hence, like we're saying, he made up so much of everything.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:00] Yes.

[1:24:00] Yeah.

[1:24:00] When you realize he can just make up a story like, I don't know, do like a Lord of the Rings

[1:24:03] or something.

[1:24:04] Who knows?

[1:24:04] Yeah.

[1:24:05] Yeah.

[1:24:05] Have a smile.

[1:24:06] Yeah, sure.

[1:24:07] Why not?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:09] Okay.

[1:24:09] Well, let's go on to letters from listeners.

[1:24:12] Listeners like you, you write them and then they go through the internet and I get them

[1:24:18] and I read them on the air.

[1:24:20] That's how it works.

[1:24:21] I didn't need to explain it in such detail.

[1:24:23] This is from Chris, last name withheld.

[1:24:27] And Chris writes, fellas, let's have a chat.

[1:24:30] It's been.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:31] It's going to be hard when we can't talk really back to him, but I guess we could do it through.

[1:24:35] Like he sends a letter or she, they send a letter and then we respond and they send

[1:24:41] another letter, like a chest by mail type thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:43] Yeah.

[1:24:44] Let's have a chat.

[1:24:45] It's been nearly three years since Tom Hooper's cats and your episode about it came out.

[1:24:50] But earlier this month, I was struck with.

[1:24:52] I suddenly saw this look on the face of Stuart just feeling very old that it's been three

[1:24:55] years since then.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:57] Oh God.

[1:24:58] Especially because like.

[1:24:59] Night from the Crusades.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:00] That was one of the last movies we saw before the pandemic.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:04] Dan, I also think you misread that.

[1:25:05] You should have said Ants Man.

[1:25:06] Almost three years since.

[1:25:08] Just for Aaron Sorkin's sake.

[1:25:10] He's listening to this episode, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:12] But earlier this month, I was struck with an intense cat's fever that snowballed out of

[1:25:17] control.

[1:25:17] It could be feline AIDS.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:19] Thank you.

[1:25:20] That is a good point.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:21] Or cat's scratch fever.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:24] No, we're not giving Ted Nugent money.

[1:25:26] Okay.

[1:25:26] No.

[1:25:26] I mean, we don't ever, Stu, I don't think we have to pay for that.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:29] We've never paid for me singing one part of cat's scratch finger.

[1:25:33] Cat's fever that snowballed out of control and resulted in me spending full days watching

[1:25:39] the cat's movie, followed by filmed cat's stage shows, followed by your cat's episode,

[1:25:46] followed by listening to my favorite songs on repeat.

[1:25:49] Despite Elliot teasing the audience that the Flophouse might do a yearly cat stravaganza

[1:25:54] that never occurred.

[1:25:55] Yeah, we've never done it.

[1:25:56] I'm a gracious listener.

[1:25:58] And since you seem to get such joy from the movie, I'd like to inform you of two cat's

[1:26:02] facts.

[1:26:03] Facts.

[1:26:03] Number one.

[1:26:04] Number one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:05] The word facts has all the letters in cats, plus one extra.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:09] Ooh.

[1:26:10] Ooh.

[1:26:11] I guess that is a fact.

[1:26:12] News you can use.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:14] Prove me wrong, Dan.

[1:26:15] Prove me wrong.

[1:26:16] It's a cat.

[1:26:17] That's a cat.

[1:26:18] All right.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:21] In the recording of the 1998 stage production during Rum Tum Tugger's song.

[1:26:29] I like even just reading the name makes Dan smile.

[1:26:31] It's hard to say without giggling.

[1:26:34] Rum Tum Tugger's song.

[1:26:35] A lot of the choreography is concerned with Rum Tum Tugger's undulating hips and pelvic thrusting.

[1:26:41] And at one point, there's a lady cat kneeling on the ground and he pelvic thrusts directly

[1:26:46] into her face.

[1:26:47] She then swoons and has to be held back by some other cats.

[1:26:51] And almost immediately after she's set upright, Rum Tum Tugger approaches her again and puts

[1:26:56] something, we have no idea what, in her mouth.

[1:26:58] But she then eats with delight.

[1:27:00] He struts away and we are given no explanation for why that just happened.

[1:27:04] That's a little cat's moment from the stage show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:06] So is that the fact?

[1:27:07] Because that's not really a fact.

[1:27:08] It's not really a fact.

[1:27:09] It's just kind of a thing.

[1:27:10] It's a description.

[1:27:10] It's a play-by-play.

[1:27:12] Yeah.

[1:27:12] Number two, I regret you.

[1:27:13] I believe it was.

[1:27:14] Well, I will say.

[1:27:15] There was at one point when I think there might have been a Daily Show piece about it.

[1:27:18] A woman was suing the production of Cats in New York for Closed because she was in the

[1:27:22] audience and I believe the actor playing Rum Tum Tugger came up and like thrusted

[1:27:25] his pelvis in her face as part of it.

[1:27:28] Like he would go into the audience, I guess, and be sexy in front of the audience.

[1:27:31] And she did not care for that.

[1:27:32] And I think.

[1:27:33] No, I wouldn't either.

[1:27:34] I think that's a.

[1:27:34] I don't know how the case went, but I think there was a lawsuit.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:36] I think they should not have choreographed it in that fashion.

[1:27:40] No.

[1:27:40] Number two, I regret to inform you that as opposed to the movie where Monkstrap is, as

[1:27:45] you said, a cat so boring that he has no discerning qualities and can only sing about other

[1:27:49] cats, he does have one standout quality in the stage production, which is that he is

[1:27:54] Monkstrap the racist cat.

[1:27:56] Yes, you may say that Tom Hooper did everything wrong with this movie, but he did make one good

[1:28:01] decision, which was removing the particular song from the movie.

[1:28:04] The awful battle of the peaks and the pollicles.

[1:28:08] This is a song that comes right after old dude arrives in which all the Jellicle cats put

[1:28:13] on a play for him about a fight between the pollicle dogs, presumably the dog equivalent of the

[1:28:19] Jellicles and the peak dogs who seem to be distinguished from pollicle dogs purely by their being Chinese

[1:28:25] breeds.

[1:28:26] Monkstrap narrates the play and at some point sings, now the peak, although people may say what they please, is no British

[1:28:33] dog, but a heathen Chinese.

[1:28:35] And soon after, and together they started to grumble and wheeze in their huffery, snuffery, heathen Chinese.

[1:28:41] Oof.

[1:28:42] Yeah.

[1:28:42] Sounds like, yeah, that's like Dr. Seuss did a polish on T.S.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:46] Those are the pages that they take out of the Dr. Seuss books now.

[1:28:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:50] Of course, they're referring to dogs here and not people, but you know.

[1:28:54] Oh, okay.

[1:28:54] Then it's fine.

S4

[1:28:57] Why didn't you say?

[1:28:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:59] Then, bafflingly, once the cats are done with their play, they look to old dude for approval.

[1:29:05] And his response is essentially, cats, dogs, what does it matter?

[1:29:09] We will both come to dust in the end.

[1:29:11] And you're like, uh, what?

[1:29:13] Propped him in to say that.

[1:29:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:29:16] Now that you've experienced the epic highs and lows of my cats facts, I mean, again, we're

[1:29:20] not sure about the facts, but it was interesting.

[1:29:23] I have an entirely unrelated question.

[1:29:25] Have you ever had a movie or a book, album, comic, or anything, I guess, that you, for

[1:29:30] some reason, had a very specific impression of that you thought everyone on earth must

[1:29:35] have, only to go out in the real world and discover that your impression was horribly,

[1:29:40] horribly mistaken in some way?

[1:29:42] Bonus points if it's super embarrassing.

[1:29:45] Thanks, Chris Redacted.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:46] Well, I thought cats wasn't racist, which apparently is not true.

[1:29:49] So there's that.

[1:29:50] But first, before we get to that question, Allison, have you seen cats?

S4

[1:29:53] I saw the show when I was young.

[1:29:56] But not the movie?

[1:29:56] I have not seen the movie.

[1:29:57] Is it enjoyable bad or just bad bad?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:00] I think we all think it's very enjoyable.

[1:30:03] I think I need to see it.

S4

[1:30:04] Maybe I'll watch that today on a television that's not playing the Super Bowl.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:09] Yeah.

[1:30:09] There's not a second in that movie that you're not like, someone made this movie.

[1:30:13] This is crazy.

[1:30:14] This was a choice.

[1:30:16] And I think there's two really great dance scenes in it.

[1:30:19] And just when the movie starts to flag, that's when, that's right, the railroad cat comes

[1:30:23] out and he just does an amazing tap dance and he's like a, just, he's a gay icon and everything.

[1:30:31] I love tap dancing.

S4

[1:30:32] I love Andrew Lloyd Webber.

[1:30:33] And I love T.S. Eliot.

[1:30:35] Some of T.S. Eliot.

[1:30:36] So I think I should see it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:38] Which is the railroad cat?

[1:30:38] Is it Skimble Pants?

[1:30:40] Is that his name?

[1:30:40] Skimble Shanks.

[1:30:41] Skimble Shanks.

[1:30:42] Yeah.

[1:30:42] The, yeah, so it's well worth, it's well worth seeking out.

[1:30:45] I think we, you know what, guys, we should do an annual cat.

[1:30:48] We should watch Cats again at least with, with Jenny and Natalie.

[1:30:52] Maybe we can bring other people, star of the show Allison or maybe star of the show Hallie.

[1:30:56] Yeah.

S4

[1:30:57] Sorry, Hallie.

[1:30:58] Now, the actual Cats movie does have buttholes or does not?

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:03] So, I mean, the performers have buttholes somewhere on their person, I would imagine.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:08] Yeah, under the costumes.

[1:31:09] So, there's, there are conflicting reports about the butthole cut.

[1:31:14] There, it seems like the buttholes were not necessarily intentionally meant to be buttholes, but an artifact of the way the CGI was and looked in the context of wearing catsus like buttholes.

[1:31:27] But we're not sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:28] Well, I mean, I can be, I mean, I assume Todd Vaziri will write in and correct me on this, but one of the, all CGI characters start with buttholes and then they have to be painstakingly erased.

[1:31:37] So, Jar Jar Binks, Gollum.

[1:31:39] Sure.

[1:31:40] All the, you know, Killer Croc or whatever, all the Transformers, they all have buttholes originally.

[1:31:45] And then it has, that's just part of software.

[1:31:46] Just for accuracy.

[1:31:47] Yeah, just right.

[1:31:48] Well, it's just the way the computer graphics work.

[1:31:49] And they have to be erased frame by frame, much like a Henry Cavill mustache.

[1:31:54] And so it's, yeah, so maybe they just forgot to do it for a cut of Cats, you know.

[1:31:59] You never know.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:01] Well, yeah, if nothing else, this will encourage you to watch Cats.

[1:32:05] What was the question?

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:07] So have you ever had a movie or something that you had a specific impression of that you thought everybody knew?

[1:32:11] Well, I think this wasn't embarrassing, but I think I've talked to before.

[1:32:14] I may have been shouted down on the show about it, about my interpretation of the song Norwegian Wood by the Beatles,

[1:32:19] where it seems that everybody but me agrees that the main narrator of the song burns down this woman's house at the end,

[1:32:26] which I always, I never, I never took that interpretation.

[1:32:29] I never assumed it.

[1:32:30] And it was, it stopped being a meaningful song to me once it gained that interpretation of a story.

[1:32:35] When it was a song about a man who goes out on a date with a woman, ends up at her home, wants to sleep with her.

[1:32:43] She seems to want to sleep with him, but he cannot figure out how to make it happen because he's just so awkward around her.

[1:32:48] And when he wakes up the next morning, she's gone and he lights a fire for himself and just thinks about this missed opportunity.

[1:32:53] Like that really struck home to me.

[1:32:55] And when people are like, no, no, at the end, he burns her house down.

[1:32:57] I was like, well, then it's no longer a story I can relate to.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:59] I don't think you have to take that as a gospel interpretation.

[1:33:02] It's something that I think is out there in the world as an interpretation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:06] Okay.

[1:33:06] Because that song, it had an important place for me as a kid where I was like, this is one of the first songs I remember hearing about where it was like, this feels like a grown-up situation.

[1:33:13] This is a real grown-up situation that is not just like, I love you or I'm so mad or whatever.

[1:33:19] And for it to end with a Tales from the Crypt-esque ending was just always a disappointment to me.

[1:33:26] I mean, that was a show for adults when I was a kid.

[1:33:29] I guess that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:31] It was great in our man.

[1:33:33] I don't know.

[1:33:35] Like there was a time on this podcast where I recommended a movie based almost entirely on my belief that the titular character rips off his own ding-dong in the film.

[1:33:47] And apparently even the director has sounded off and R.I.P. Stuart Gordon sounded off and told me that was wrong.

[1:33:55] I can't convince him.

[1:33:57] I can't convince him now.

[1:33:58] I mean, there's no convincing.

[1:33:59] We've all seen the movie.

[1:34:00] What movie?

[1:34:01] It doesn't happen.

[1:34:02] It's called Castle Freak, directed by Stuart Gordon.

[1:34:05] And I recommended the film based on the merit that the Castle Freak rips off a lot of stuff, including his own ding-dong.

[1:34:14] But nope.

[1:34:15] In fact, having multiple views, you heard it here first, folks.

[1:34:18] I'll admit that having watched the movie many times, you know what?

[1:34:22] I don't think it—

[1:34:23] Thank God.

[1:34:23] I don't think it—

[1:34:24] Yeah.

[1:34:24] Healing can begin.

[1:34:25] Yeah, we can put this to bed.

S4

[1:34:28] Do you still recommend it, though, or only if he rips off his ding-dong?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:31] You know what?

[1:34:32] Having watched it multiple times, you know, as we said, going painstakingly frame by frame to erase buttholes, I—in order to prove myself right, you know what?

[1:34:42] I learned to find a lot of things to love about that movie.

[1:34:45] Yeah.

[1:34:45] Okay.

[1:34:46] So, yeah.

[1:34:47] So, I guess I'll be recommending Castle Freak.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:49] I mean, for anyone listening, if you haven't seen Castle Freak, it's a very rough movie.

[1:34:52] Like, it's a grim movie.

[1:34:54] Yeah.

[1:34:54] Yeah, it's gross.

[1:34:55] Even though there's no scene of him ripping off his own ding-dong, there are other things that are difficult to watch.

[1:34:58] There's evidence that it's been removed.

[1:35:01] There's, yeah, evidence.

[1:35:02] It's not there.

[1:35:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:03] I don't know if this, like, fully is the best answer to this specific question, but—

[1:35:08] Well, we'll be the judges that.

[1:35:10] It's adjacent.

[1:35:11] When I was a kid, I had really weird sort of pop culture heroes, like, out of step with—

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:19] Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, Bill Cosby.

[1:35:22] Yeah.

[1:35:22] Harvey Weinstein.

[1:35:24] Harvey Weinstein.

[1:35:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:26] He was really into Harvey Weinstein and Epstein.

[1:35:28] As a kid.

[1:35:28] Yeah.

[1:35:30] No, I—Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood, like, it seems like very old English—

[1:35:37] I mean, they're perfectly good childhood heroes if you were born in the 1880s.

[1:35:40] Sure.

[1:35:41] Yeah.

[1:35:41] I just remember that, like, I had a birthday when I was a young kid that was Robin Hood

[1:35:49] themed that, like, we—like, my parents made a bunch of, like, little felt green hats for

[1:35:54] us.

[1:35:54] Oh, that's cool.

[1:35:55] And, like, there was a toy arrow game.

[1:35:58] And, no, I mean, you know, it was fun.

[1:36:01] I had a great birthday.

[1:36:03] In retrospect, I think that my friends probably were all like, this guy's weird.

[1:36:07] Why is there a Robin Hood theme to this?

[1:36:12] I mean, you were 23 at the time.

[1:36:13] That's why I was a law for a team.

[1:36:15] Yeah, that was the problem.

[1:36:15] That was the problem.

[1:36:17] Allison, is there anything that you're thinking of?

S4

[1:36:19] Yeah, but can I also judge your answer?

[1:36:21] Sure.

[1:36:21] Because I say no, that doesn't work for this question.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:24] It doesn't answer the question.

[1:36:25] That's for sure.

S4

[1:36:25] I mean, he said it was adjacent, but I don't know that it is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:28] It seems like your impression was that Robin Hood was cool, which is, like, more of an opinion

[1:36:32] than a misinterpretation.

[1:36:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:34] That's true.

[1:36:35] Well, I, you know, you caught me, Alice.

S4

[1:36:40] Listen, when I was on Jordan Jesse Go, I talked about our little Twitter feud.

[1:36:46] And Jesse was like, you chose the worst guy to have a Twitter feud with because, and by

[1:36:51] the way, I didn't start it, because he's just going to, like, you know, think about

[1:36:55] it and feel bad.

[1:36:56] So now I'm, is that your thing, thinking about things and feeling bad?

[1:37:00] It's kind of my thing.

[1:37:01] It's one of my things.

[1:37:02] Yeah.

[1:37:02] Okay.

[1:37:03] Because I don't want.

[1:37:03] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:03] That's one of his big things.

[1:37:04] One of your big things?

[1:37:05] Yeah, yeah.

[1:37:05] One of his biggest, yeah.

[1:37:06] Okay.

S4

[1:37:06] I'm just kidding.

[1:37:07] Your answer was totally fine.

[1:37:09] No, I.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:11] It's perfectly acceptable.

[1:37:12] It was funny when, like, I was listening to that episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:16] It was such a, it was such a weird combination of, like, Stuart, you'll understand this.

[1:37:22] You know, not distinguishing between bad and good attention.

[1:37:25] I was like, oh, they're talking about me.

[1:37:27] That's great.

[1:37:28] But also feeling like, oh, people who don't know any of us, maybe they'll take this seriously

[1:37:33] and think.

S4

[1:37:34] So the beef was, Jesse was talking about Amish hats.

[1:37:39] And I quickly Googled and found that the name of these Amish hats are, they're called

[1:37:44] scribblers.

[1:37:45] And so we had a lot of fun with that.

[1:37:46] And then Dan Googled and saw that there's, like, some Amish publication called The Scribbler

[1:37:52] where they had written about the hat.

[1:37:54] And so he thought that I had, I was confused.

[1:37:57] But then I found something that.

[1:37:58] What an asshole.

[1:37:59] I know.

[1:38:00] Can you believe the temerity?

[1:38:01] And then I found something that said the hat is called The Scribbler.

[1:38:05] So.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:07] Yeah, yeah.

[1:38:07] No, no, I'm fully, I will accept the villain role here because I was a guy making a correction

[1:38:14] on the internet.

[1:38:15] Yeah.

[1:38:16] You didn't explain to me.

[1:38:17] The reason why I.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:19] That's why you and me think alike.

[1:38:21] We think the same things and say them.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:23] The only reason why I thought this was okay was because I wanted to join in the fun with

[1:38:28] my podcast pals and Jordan and Jesse Go have a thing that, like, if you make a correction,

[1:38:35] you actually tweeted at JD Power to avoid.

[1:38:38] That was funny.

[1:38:39] So I'm like, yeah, I'll play into this, like, this, like, bit of JD Power.

[1:38:44] But I tagged Allison in part because I wanted to know, like, is this, like, did she see something

[1:38:52] different than me?

[1:38:52] Because, like, it's such a fun fact that I kind of wanted to be proven wrong and know

[1:38:57] that it was indeed The Scribbler.

[1:38:59] But what I had been seeing was not that.

[1:39:02] But anyway, I will stop trying to justify myself.

[1:39:04] I'm sorry.

[1:39:05] Really?

[1:39:05] Because it seems like you're still doing that.

[1:39:07] Yeah.

[1:39:07] It sounds like you just want some friendship.

S4

[1:39:09] It led to me being a guest on this podcast and Unseating Helly.

[1:39:13] So I have two answers to Chris Redacted's question.

[1:39:17] My best friend growing up was Mormon, and we used to watch the show Small Wonder.

[1:39:22] So for a long time afterwards, I thought that Small Wonder was religious programming.

[1:39:30] I thought it was a Mormon, wholesome Mormon show.

[1:39:34] But, like, remember that?

[1:39:35] What was it?

[1:39:36] Was there a show called Sammy and Goliath?

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:39] There's Davey and Goliath.

[1:39:41] Yeah, yeah.

[1:39:41] That was a religious show.

S4

[1:39:42] Yes.

[1:39:42] I thought it was like that.

[1:39:44] Okay.

[1:39:45] So.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:45] Or, like, Just the Ten of Us was a religious show.

[1:39:48] Was it?

[1:39:49] What?

[1:39:49] Yeah, because they're, like, they have that many kids.

[1:39:52] Yeah.

[1:39:53] They're, like, super Christian.

S4

[1:39:54] Yeah.

[1:39:54] Coach Lubbock and his wife definitely were not using any sort of devil's contraception.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:59] Yeah, absolutely.

[1:40:00] I thought it was just because he needed to feel it.

[1:40:03] I thought it was just, you know, there was a premise of a show.

[1:40:05] He has a weird-shaped wiener, okay, guys?

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:08] Normal human condoms don't work for Coach Lubbock.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:10] They did an episode about that, but it was pulled by the network where he talks about his inability to find a condom that fits his feet.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:16] I feel like I also, like, I feel like I also, while I went on a trip through Europe with an ex-girlfriend and we, like, crashed in, I think, like, Nice or somewhere.

[1:40:29] And I remember we were watching on TV and we found the one station that had English programming.

[1:40:34] And there was an episode of Just the Ten of Us.

[1:40:37] And there was, like, a moment where Coach Lubbock is, like, praying to God.

[1:40:41] And there's, like, a light on him.

[1:40:42] And I'm like, this just confirms it.

S4

[1:40:44] It does ring a bell that he was religious.

[1:40:47] And my other one, and I don't know if this really, Dan, you'll have some company in your Jason answer.

[1:40:52] I don't know how much this really qualifies.

[1:40:54] But when I saw Napoleon Dynamite, and I don't know how you guys feel about that movie, but when I saw it, I was like, this is a bunch of manufactured nostalgic trash.

[1:41:03] I had a strong distaste for that movie.

[1:41:07] And then tons of people that I like and respect like that movie.

[1:41:10] So that was one where I was convinced that we all must be having the same specific reaction.

[1:41:16] And then I guess I'm kind of alone.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:19] Yeah, I mean, I've experienced that from the other side of, like, thinking, like, oh, this is going to be a huge blockbuster because it's so fun.

[1:41:27] And then bombing large.

[1:41:29] Like, when I saw The Frighteners, I was like, this would be great.

[1:41:32] Oh, well, that's a fun movie, yeah.

[1:41:34] And then no one went to see it.

[1:41:35] Nobody else was interested in.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:36] Damn, don't you pull that stock into John Carter merch?

Dan McCoy

[1:41:39] And that just didn't go anywhere, man.

[1:41:42] I am far more on your side with Napoleon Dynamite.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:44] Yeah, I find Napoleon Dynamite hard to take in large doses.

[1:41:48] But I think that Dan, that Dan's watching The Frighteners as, like, a teenager.

[1:41:52] And he's seeing the scene where John Astin, as a ghost of a cowboy, is having sex with a mummy.

[1:41:58] And he's like, this is a huge hit.

[1:41:59] Bop-o-be-o.

[1:42:00] This is going to be a huge hit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42:01] I love the idea that you're defining a movie of Napoleon Dynamite as, like, a large amount.

[1:42:07] Like, would you prefer to be in, like, quibby-sized chunks?

[1:42:10] Very, very much so.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:11] If it was like that, you'd be like, this is great.

[1:42:13] I love the tweet.

[1:42:14] It's not great, necessarily.

[1:42:14] But, like, if you took that same movie and cut it up into five-minute episodes, I'd be like, oh, yeah, I could watch a couple of these in a row.

[1:42:21] I'm not going to watch the whole thing, but, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:24] So, our second and final question is from, or not question, just, well, I guess there's a question here.

[1:42:29] Adam, last name with help.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:30] How let us be the judges, Dan, rather than you racking your brains over it.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:33] I started a sentence that I was unsure of.

S4

[1:42:34] Now, did this one also get sent to you and then come to you through the internet, and then now you're reading it on the show?

Dan McCoy

[1:42:41] Thank you.

[1:42:41] You grasped the idea.

[1:42:43] I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:43] I'm so glad that you made that clear.

[1:42:45] Now, guys, before we get to this letter, I do want to mention that I've done some research, and I think I understand the origin of the butthole cut of Cats.

[1:42:52] Originally, the soundtrack was performed by the butthole surfers, and then, and so, that's that cut.

[1:42:58] And then, they came to a disagreement, and they had to have the actors sing the songs.

[1:43:02] It was very expensive, because they had to reshoot the whole movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:05] Makes sense.

[1:43:06] Adam, last name withheld, writes, howdy, floppers.

[1:43:09] I recently listened back to the 2017 episode, The Countant, where Stu briefly introduces his own Louisiana-based character, Gumbo Stu.

[1:43:18] First, I'd like to note that this precedes Elliot's introduction of Crawdaddy by several years, and therefore, I believe Elliot owes Stu royalties.

[1:43:28] Second, I'm wondering what you would pitch as a Gumbo Stu slash Crawdaddy crossover.

[1:43:33] Romantic comedy?

[1:43:34] A Toho-style Gumbo Stu versus Crawdaddy?

[1:43:36] What?

[1:43:37] We got a hot mystery, I think.

[1:43:39] Where does Noir Kid fit in all this?

[1:43:41] Here's the floppy two to Adam, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:43] Now, I do want to say, I think as great as Gumbo Stu is, I feel like Crawdaddy has a premise, which is that he's from the Louisiana Bayou, but now he lives in suburban Connecticut.

[1:43:53] So, whereas Gumbo Stu is just kind of like a guy, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:56] Like usual, I tossed out the beginnings of an idea that Elliot then made much better.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:03] Oh, we do.

[1:44:04] That happens sometimes.

[1:44:05] So, I think if I was going to pitch a movie, it would be about, it's a real country mouse, city mouse type story, or a back to your root story, where maybe either Gumbo Stu goes to visit Crawdaddy.

[1:44:15] Sweet home Alabama or…

[1:44:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:44:17] Where Crawdaddy comes home and realizes he doesn't fit in anymore, and Gumbo Stu has to teach him how to get back into the bayou.

[1:44:22] Or Gumbo Stu visits Crawdaddy and is aghast that Crawdaddy is all about being an insurance executive and stuff like that.

[1:44:30] And he has to, and he forces, and he kidnaps him and takes him back to the bayou to teach him how to be himself again, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:35] Yeah, there's got to be like some fish out of water elements, some like Beverly Hillbillies type stuff.

[1:44:40] Yeah.

[1:44:40] Like, you know, Gumbo Stu is trying to like wash his clothes in a, I don't know, like a fountain at a public park or something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:48] He sticks, he's trying to stuff his clothes into the Keurig coffee maker in the kitchen and stick to wash them.

[1:44:54] Yeah.

[1:44:54] And the, you know what, this is kind of like Hook in a way, where like, yeah, Crawdaddy has kind of forgotten.

[1:45:01] It's kind of like Hook, another huge success.

[1:45:02] Yeah, and he has to go back and rediscover that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:05] Was Hook a big success?

[1:45:06] I feel like I loved it when I was a kid, and I say bang-rang all the time still.

[1:45:11] Sure.

[1:45:12] That's your greeting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:14] Only when appropriate, which is when something very good happens.

[1:45:17] So, Hook was a critical flop, but according to Wikipedia, on a budget of $70 million, it made $300 million.

[1:45:23] Whoa.

[1:45:23] So, I don't know what the marketing costs were, but that seems like a success to me.

[1:45:26] Like some Bofo B.O., yeah.

[1:45:28] Yeah.

[1:45:28] Okay.

[1:45:29] Well, let's move on to the last segment.

[1:45:31] Alison, do you have any Louisiana-based characters you'd like to introduce?

[1:45:34] Oh, my God.

S4

[1:45:38] Swamp Al.

[1:45:40] Nice.

[1:45:40] That's me.

[1:45:41] Swamp Al.

[1:45:42] Swamp Al.

[1:45:43] Yeah.

[1:45:43] And I also wash my clothes in coffee makers.

[1:45:48] You gotta do it.

[1:45:49] And I make my coffee in a boot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:54] I thought you were going to say you make your coffee in a washing machine, and it's so much coffee.

[1:45:57] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:58] It's sounding more and more like the improvised song off of I Think You Should Leave.

[1:46:03] And I make my coffee in a boot.

[1:46:06] Just details.

[1:46:08] Okay.

[1:46:09] Well, the last thing we do on the show is we recommend movies that we've seen, usually recently because they're on our mind, but whatever, that we like.

[1:46:17] Maybe you should watch it instead of being the Ricardos.

[1:46:20] Almost certainly.

[1:46:21] I'm going to start off real quick because I don't have much to say about the movie other than Stu invited me on a movie date a little ways back.

[1:46:30] We saw Jackass Forever.

[1:46:32] I had never seen a full Jackass movie or show even.

[1:46:39] I'd seen individual stunts, which maybe I would laugh a little bit, but my nervousness about personal injury kept me from enjoying it.

[1:46:51] But I discovered the secret of Jackass, which is like one stunt on its own might be too much, but 50 stunts in a row is exactly the right number.

[1:47:01] It's a masterclass of pacing.

[1:47:03] Yeah.

[1:47:03] I laughed a lot.

[1:47:06] And at the end, there were moments when I was sort of falling out of my seat just with a combination of discomfort and laughter.

[1:47:15] So I've been brought around, I mean, partly because also they're all so old right now that it's kind of, I kind of watch it.

[1:47:24] I'm like, oh, you know, they're just like me.

[1:47:26] Anyway.

[1:47:28] Yeah.

[1:47:28] Jackass is like, they're just like us.

[1:47:30] What about you, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:32] I'm going to recommend a movie from this year that I don't think I've recommended yet.

[1:47:36] I'm going to recommend a movie from the director of Heart Beeps.

[1:47:41] I'm going to recommend The Card Counter directed by Paul Schrader.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:44] Just for the record, Paul Schrader did not direct Heart Beeps.

[1:47:46] We know this.

[1:47:47] We can agree to disagree on this one.

[1:47:50] Stuart's new rip off the ding dong is that Paul Schrader directed Heart Beeps.

Stuart Wellington

[1:47:55] So it is a movie where Oscar Isaac plays a very cool dude who counts cards and got out of jail.

[1:48:03] He's so cool.

[1:48:04] He has to wrap every piece of furniture in his hotel room with a sheet.

[1:48:09] He's got a, let's say, a complicated past featuring Willem Dafoe.

[1:48:15] And he has a friendship with Tiffany Haddish.

[1:48:19] And it's a movie about professional gambling that doesn't like, where the gambling part of it isn't actually that important.

[1:48:27] It's just like a fun character study.

[1:48:30] And it's great.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:31] I don't know if it's fun.

[1:48:31] Like it's a revenge movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:33] I thought it was fun.

[1:48:34] It also had me Googling.

[1:48:36] Rolling in the aisle.

[1:48:37] Yeah, exactly.

[1:48:38] It had me Googling Oscar Isaac sunglasses card counter.

[1:48:42] And I found out they're not that bad.

[1:48:43] They're like only 250 bucks.

[1:48:45] So why don't you send me some money so I can buy some sunglasses.

Dan McCoy

[1:48:50] For something I will immediately lose?

[1:48:52] Probably.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:55] But I mean, in all things considered, they could be, what, like $10 million.

[1:49:00] I don't know what sunglasses cost.

[1:49:03] This is the bubble that the Flophouse apparently lives in.

[1:49:07] That I don't know the price of sunglasses?

[1:49:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:49:12] I'm going to recommend a movie from another country.

[1:49:17] It's I'm Your Man from Germany.

[1:49:19] Ich bin dein Mensch starring Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens, Flophouse favorite Dan Stevens.

[1:49:24] And it's the story of an academic who, in order to secure, or it's kind of a, it's kind of a, a under the table quid pro quo, to get more funding for the work she's doing in archaeological studies.

[1:49:36] She agrees to three weeks of product testing with a robot man who's supposedly designed to be her perfect partner.

[1:49:43] And I thought that, I just really liked it a lot.

[1:49:47] I thought it was a really charming movie.

[1:49:48] It's a real small scale science fiction character study.

[1:49:51] And I liked the characters in it.

[1:49:53] I felt like it was the most emotionally real portrayal I've seen so far of someone with a romance, with a, written a romance with a, with a mechanical object.

[1:50:01] Take that, her.

[1:50:02] And, and I just really liked it.

[1:50:05] It was Germany's entry for the Oscars, but it was not selected as a nominee for best international feature film.

[1:50:12] That's a tough category.

[1:50:13] It is.

[1:50:14] And that's a hard category, especially this year.

[1:50:16] And this movie was probably a little lightweight in some ways for that category, especially this year.

[1:50:22] But, but I really liked it a lot.

[1:50:23] So that's I'm Your Man.

[1:50:25] If you want to watch a kind of German romantic comedy-ish that is charming and sometimes funny and sometimes very serious and sweet.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:35] I just, I'm imagining me like thinking like, ooh, what am I in the mood for?

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:38] A German romantic comedy-ish thing.

[1:50:42] Well, that's the thing.

[1:50:42] It's like I kept thinking about how like Germany is not the country you think of as romantic comedy.

[1:50:47] But there's also like, was it mostly Martha?

[1:50:49] The movie that they remade with Catherine Zeta-Jones.

[1:50:51] Well, that's a German romantic comedy.

[1:50:52] It was really good.

[1:50:53] I mean, it's at this point 20 some odd or 30 years old, you know.

[1:50:56] So every 30 years, I guess, Germany comes out with a real good, real solid romantic comedy, you know.

[1:51:00] Is it subtitled or dubbed?

[1:51:02] The one I watched was subtitled.

[1:51:04] And the funny thing was that it had been recommended to me and I did not know at first that it was a German movie.

[1:51:08] So when the credits came up in German, I was like, wait a minute.

[1:51:12] And then I, the whole, and because Dan Stevens, who is not German, is the co-lead.

[1:51:16] I was like, is this, is this dubbed in German?

[1:51:19] But they're speaking, I can tell from their lip flap that they're speaking German.

[1:51:22] Like this is, so.

[1:51:23] Wait, Dan Stevens speaks German?

[1:51:25] Unless he learned all of his lines phonetically in Tony Van Der Poet and the Mambo King style.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:30] But maybe, I don't know.

[1:51:31] Allison, do you have a movie you'd like to recommend?

S4

[1:51:34] Yes.

[1:51:34] So I just watched a movie that quite possibly you guys have all already seen and your audience as well.

[1:51:40] But I watched the 1975 version of Stepford Wives.

[1:51:44] And I had never seen it.

[1:51:45] A thing about me is I scare very easily.

[1:51:49] So I generally can't handle horror, can't handle scary movies.

[1:51:53] And when I was a kid, I had a babysitter that watched Stepford Wives.

[1:51:57] And I saw like, you know, the funny thing is that it's really not a scary movie.

[1:52:02] But there are a couple scenes that are like scary.

[1:52:06] And so I had seen one of these scary scenes when I was a kid.

[1:52:09] And that movie, just the idea, I was very afraid of like Superman 3, as silly as that is.

[1:52:13] Like I was very afraid of robots and things like that.

[1:52:15] So that movie always kind of haunted me when I was young.

[1:52:19] And I don't know what compelled me to check it out very recently.

[1:52:24] But I decided I could probably handle it.

[1:52:26] And I mean, there's issues with the movie.

[1:52:30] But I really did enjoy it.

[1:52:32] And I was able to go to sleep right after.

[1:52:33] And I didn't have nightmares.

[1:52:34] So if anyone out there also avoids all scary things, I think you might enjoy this movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:52:40] I love that.

[1:52:41] Yeah, yeah.

[1:52:42] No, that's a...

Stuart Wellington

[1:52:44] Most of the stuff I recommend is super gross or...

Dan McCoy

[1:52:47] Yeah, I mean, mainly.

[1:52:48] I feel like we get a fair number of emails from people who are like, I want to watch a scary movie, but I don't want to get scared.

[1:52:55] So this is a very...

[1:52:57] Stepford Wives.

S4

[1:52:57] Yeah.

[1:52:57] I mean, my husband, who does enjoy scary things, was surprised.

[1:53:01] And he and I have this ongoing debate about whether something is really horror or not.

[1:53:06] Because like, I didn't see Squid Game.

[1:53:08] I watched the trailer for Squid Game.

[1:53:09] And I was like, there's no way I can handle that.

[1:53:11] And he kept insisting it's not horror.

[1:53:13] And I'm like, everything about it seems like horror to me.

[1:53:16] I get, though, that Stepford Wives is more like drama thriller than horror.

[1:53:22] But still, it's...

[1:53:23] You know, I feel like nowadays it's almost...

[1:53:26] It almost feels like a quaint movie.

[1:53:28] The things that there's the tension about in the movie are kind of quaint.

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:33] But when...

[1:53:34] I feel like it's a horror movie similarly to...

[1:53:37] In the way that...

[1:53:38] When people ask me if they...

[1:53:39] For a scary movie that's not that scary, I usually recommend The Others.

[1:53:42] Also with Nicole Kidman, which is a movie I love.

[1:53:45] But it's like...

[1:53:45] And the Stepford Wives remake with Nicole Kidman.

[1:53:47] Well, but I wouldn't recommend that.

[1:53:49] And it's like a ghost story, but it's not a horror horror.

[1:53:53] Like, there's nothing in it where you're going to shield your eyes because you didn't want to see that.

[1:53:57] You know.

[1:53:57] Unlike my wife and I, we recently watched Yellow Jackets.

[1:54:01] And we both really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:54:03] Nothing gross in there.

[1:54:04] I didn't realize how gory it was right off the bat.

[1:54:07] And I was like, even the thing that happens before the plane crash is really gory.

[1:54:10] There's so many species where I had the pleasure of watching something while she told...

[1:54:15] Watching something while also being on When Can My Wife Go Back to Looking Patrol.

[1:54:20] Yeah.

S4

[1:54:22] Maybe Yellow Jackets is what made me think I could handle it.

[1:54:25] Because I really did surprisingly enjoy Yellow Jackets.

[1:54:28] So then I was like, maybe there's more that I could watch.

[1:54:31] So here's the question.

[1:54:31] Could I handle The Shining?

Elliott Kalan

[1:54:34] That's a good question.

[1:54:35] That's a pretty scary movie.

[1:54:36] That's a pretty scary movie.

[1:54:37] It's a pretty scary movie.

[1:54:38] And I think The Shining, it's also...

[1:54:40] The atmosphere in it is genuinely really frightening.

[1:54:43] Like, there's some blood gore stuff, but it's like...

[1:54:45] That's a movie where from moment one, I feel like the movie is daring you to not be creeped out.

[1:54:52] You know.

[1:54:52] Yeah, I don't know.

S4

[1:54:53] It's less actual gore that stays with me than disturbing ideas.

[1:54:59] That's what really gets me.

[1:55:01] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:55:03] So I have a pamphlet that's going to terrify you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:55:09] Hey, we've come to the end of our show.

Dan McCoy

[1:55:11] Yeah.

[1:55:11] I want to thank Allison very much for quashing our beef and coming on the show.

[1:55:16] Thank you so much for having me.

[1:55:18] Do you have anything that you want to plug?

[1:55:20] I know that we asked you towards the beginning, but again...

[1:55:23] Yeah.

S4

[1:55:24] I mean, just, you know, check out my podcast, Allison Rosen is Your New Best Friend, Childish, and the new one, Upworthy Weekly.

Dan McCoy

[1:55:31] And for us, I will promote us and say, hey, listener, if you have a moment, go to iTunes, leave us a review, spread the word on Twitter or whatever you like to use, something nicer than Twitter maybe.

[1:55:43] You can follow The Flophouse.

[1:55:44] There are no, Dan.

[1:55:44] They're all cesspools.

[1:55:46] At TheFlophousePod on Twitter, at TheFlophousePodcast on Instagram.

[1:55:50] We have a YouTube channel, YouTube.com, TheFlophousePodcast.

[1:55:54] And if you like merch, it's on our website.

[1:55:58] We're a member of Maximum Fun.

[1:56:00] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out all the great podcasts on that network.

[1:56:04] Allison Rosen, as mentioned before, has been on Jordan Jesse Go many times.

[1:56:11] So if you like her here, there's other podcasts to discover with her on Maximum Fun in addition to her own podcasts.

[1:56:18] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith, who is at HowellDotty on Twitter.

[1:56:24] If you want to see what he's up to.

[1:56:26] Thank you so much for listening.

[1:56:28] Until next time, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:56:30] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:56:32] I'm Ellie Kalin.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56:33] And I'm Allison Rosen.

[1:56:35] Bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:56:40] Okay.

[1:56:40] We're going to do the intro and then we're going to roll into the gym.

[1:56:46] Being the recorders.

[1:56:47] Yeah, the recorders.

[1:56:51] That's what we're doing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:56:53] We are being them.

[1:56:54] Yeah.

[1:56:55] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:56:57] On this episode, we discuss being the Ricardos.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:00] The sequel to Being John Malkovich.

[1:57:03] But this time, it's about the Ricardos.

[1:57:06] I think we can do dumber.

Stuart Wellington

[1:57:09] MaximumFun.org.

S7

[1:57:11] Comedy and culture.

[1:57:13] Artist owned.

[1:57:14] Audience supported.

Ep. #363 - Being the Ricardos, with Alison Rosen

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