Ep. #356 - The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, with Ben Harrison

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the very excellent Mr. Dundee.

Elliott Kalan

[0:05] That's not a movie.

[0:07] This is barely a movie.

[0:30] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[0:37] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:38] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:39] Oh, hey, Dan McCoy.

[0:40] It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:41] Oh, wow.

[0:42] Hey, guys.

[0:42] You're here, too.

[0:43] It's me, Elliot Kalin.

Stuart Wellington

[0:45] And you know what?

[0:45] We also are joined by a very special guest.

[0:48] Uh-oh.

[0:48] Who's that in the corner?

[0:49] That's right.

[0:49] It's Ben Harrison, host of The Greatest Generation and a thing he told me to say, and I fucking

[0:55] forgot it.

Elliott Kalan

[0:56] It was just a string of letters and numbers.

[0:58] No, it's K-Pod 101.3.

[1:00] It's another podcast co-hosted by Ben.

S3

[1:02] Okay.

[1:03] The joke is that it's a radio station, but it does have the function of just being a string

Dan McCoy

[1:08] of nonsense letters and numbers.

[1:09] Yeah.

[1:09] Has it made it?

[1:10] I don't want to bring you on and roast you right away, but has it caused trouble with people

[1:15] trying to find this show of yours?

S3

[1:19] No.

[1:20] Nobody's really trying to find it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22] I think it's rich that Stuart, who had a podcast called Till Deaf Do Us P-Party,

[1:28] spelled phonetically.

[1:30] Spelled phonetically.

[1:31] It was the one who was like, this name is nonsense.

Dan McCoy

[1:35] Wow.

[1:35] A title that just confused me.

[1:38] Like, I think until I was like six episodes in and I-

[1:42] Little episodes.

[1:42] ... finally realized why it was spelled like that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:46] Yeah.

[1:46] Thanks for the low-key drop on my podcast there.

[1:50] If you listeners at home want to find it, I think it's still on the internet somewhere.

S3

[1:53] I thought I was coming on to plug my thing, but I'm actually here to kind of help the other

[1:58] Stu's thing.

[1:58] It's an alley-oop.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59] This is a stealth plug for Stu's old Def Leppard podcast.

Dan McCoy

[2:03] If you'd like to hear more of producer Alex, he was the co-host of that with Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[2:08] And arguably more of me because there's only two of us, so just on, you know, law of averages.

[2:14] Okay.

[2:15] So yeah, Ben, thanks so much for coming on.

[2:17] I'll apologize in advance for the movie we watched.

[2:20] Dan was like, we got to watch this movie.

[2:22] I got a fucking serious boner for it.

[2:25] My exact words, I'm sure.

Elliott Kalan

[2:27] He did say, I believe I've been eyeing this one for a while and then with an eggplant emoji

[2:31] afterwards.

S3

[2:35] Before we heated the mics up, Elliot was expressing that he had a lot of worry that he was watching

[2:42] the wrong movie and I felt exactly the same way.

[2:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:46] I kept checking to make sure this was the movie we had agreed on because while we were watching

[2:50] it, I was like, is this?

Dan McCoy

[2:51] I looked at the text message so many times, like, it's really this?

[2:55] This is the thing?

[2:56] You know, like, when I was watching it, I felt like, yeah, it seems like it was more

[3:01] of like a series of short YouTube videos maybe that Paul Hogan would make with his celebrity

[3:07] friends, which is maybe a venue where I would have enjoyed it more, where it finds its natural

[3:13] level of just like, you know, I don't know, this celebrity goofing around on YouTube.

Elliott Kalan

[3:19] I think it's the kind of thing where if you did very little to it and you chopped it into

[3:25] smaller chunks and released it on Adult Swim as a parody of this type of like a celebrity

[3:30] playing themselves in a show, I'd be like, this is hilarious.

[3:35] They got it down perfectly.

S3

[3:36] You know?

[3:37] Yeah.

[3:37] Whichever producer did this.

[3:38] Dude, can you believe John Cleese is on an Adult Swim thing?

[3:42] What?

[3:43] Yeah.

[3:43] My mind went on.

[3:44] He should be on Twitter yelling about woke people for some reason.

Elliott Kalan

[3:47] He's a very old man, Dan.

[3:49] He's a very old man.

[3:49] Ruining my love of him.

[3:51] He's a very old man who has always loved money.

[3:53] It's not that surprising.

[3:54] As much as he is one of my still comedy all-stars, I just don't.

[3:58] Anytime there's a famous person that I love who is above a certain age, I just assume they

[4:02] will say things that I don't agree with and find horrible.

[4:05] That's the way I feel about him.

[4:07] That's the way I feel about the late Eli Wallach, you know?

[4:11] I don't know what he would have said.

[4:13] He doesn't on Twitter.

S3

[4:14] Comedy star Eli Wallach.

[4:15] I mean, speaking of very old men ruining their own reputations comedically, this movie.

[4:22] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[4:24] Look, but I'm just, this is, you know, guys, I do want to get serious for a moment.

[4:26] They can't all be the late Ed Asner.

[4:28] Not all old celebrities can be great guys politically.

[4:32] That's just the way it is.

[4:33] So just be glad we do have some Ed Asners out there and, you know, be ready to ignore

[4:37] things that people say when they're old.

[4:39] Okay, guys.

[4:40] Speaking of people you would like to ignore when they're old.

[4:42] Exactly.

[4:43] Yeah.

[4:43] So Paul Hogan, everybody.

[4:45] So this is a movie starring Paul Hogan for the younger people in the audience, of which

[4:48] I don't think we have that many.

[4:50] Paul Hogan was once very famous for playing the character Crocodile Dundee.

[4:54] Stu, Dan, Ben, who would like to explain what a Crocodile Dundee is?

[4:58] Well, so.

[4:59] It's not a sequel to Major Dundee, the Sam Peckinpah movie about the Civil War.

[5:02] Just get that out of your head right away.

Dan McCoy

[5:04] I want to say, to explain this old character, I'm going to briefly reference something nearly

[5:09] as old.

[5:11] The Australia episode of The Simpsons, where they go to Australia and they have, like,

[5:18] some of the State Department come in and talk about how Australia and U.S. relations have

[5:23] been bad since we, like, were briefly fascinated with them for a couple of years.

[5:30] Yeah.

[5:31] And then ignore them entirely.

[5:32] And it pans over a Yahoo Serious film festival.

[5:35] And Lisa says, I know both of those words, but I don't understand what they mean.

Stuart Wellington

[5:41] Yahoo Serious, the star of Young Einstein and Reckless Kelly and other movies.

Elliott Kalan

[5:48] Probably other things.

[5:50] But then he founded the search engine Yahoo and he's a billionaire now.

[5:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:54] Now he's got some serious money.

Elliott Kalan

[5:56] But yeah, for the younger people, in the 1980s, there was a brief Australia craze, which

[6:01] took the form of the movies of Paul Hogan, the Crocodile Dundee movies, where he plays

[6:05] kind of like an outback outdoorsman who leaves Australia almost immediately in the movie and

[6:10] then is a fish out of water in New York, right?

Dan McCoy

[6:13] Actually, there's a surprising amount of Australia in that movie.

[6:17] It's almost half and half.

S3

[6:18] And it was like, it was like Crocodile?

[6:19] And he finds it to be an urban jungle that has just as many strange dangers as the outback.

[6:25] Yeah.

[6:25] Yes, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[6:25] So there was the Crocodile Dundee movies.

[6:27] There was a couple of bands and like the Land Down Under song and stuff like that.

[6:32] And it worked.

[6:32] And there was the movie The Cars That Ate Paris.

[6:34] Fucking Midnight Oil.

[6:35] And that was basically the Australia craze.

[6:37] Crocodile Dundee, those bands, The Cars That Ate Paris.

[6:39] Oh, and also The Wave and Last Picnic and Hanging Rock.

[6:43] And yeah, it was, I mean, everyone was watching Australian movies.

[6:46] Dead End Drive-In.

[6:47] Yeah, everyone was watching Australian movies.

[6:49] Dead End Drive-In.

[6:49] Yeah, Razorback.

[6:50] Yeah, it was a huge Australian cruise.

[6:51] Patrick.

Dan McCoy

[6:54] Road Games.

[6:55] Yeah, Road Games was huge.

[6:56] Oh, yeah, all good movies.

[6:57] Yeah, and Paul Hogan was a comedian who hit upon this character.

[7:03] Was the character like part of the like Australia PSAs he did or was it just like something separate?

[7:09] I think it was something separate.

Elliott Kalan

[7:10] I think he did the Australia PSAs afterwards.

[7:12] I don't know exactly.

[7:13] Yeah.

[7:13] So the Crocodile Dundee was very loosely based on a guy who was living on the outback in Australia who I think turned out to be a criminal later on.

Dan McCoy

[7:20] Yeah, and Hogan also did like two others of these movies where Stuart and I were talking about it before the show.

[7:28] Like the first one's like this light fish out of water romantic comedy and the second two are about crime for some reason.

Elliott Kalan

[7:36] The first one has a drug subplot in it too, doesn't it?

[7:39] Or no?

Dan McCoy

[7:39] I think it's very small if it exists.

Stuart Wellington

[7:41] It's not like the two and a half hour long drug kingpin opus that is part two.

Dan McCoy

[7:46] The other two like take a swerve into like actual like just like action movies rather than –

Elliott Kalan

[7:50] Well, it's like how in the 80s there was this moment.

[7:53] It was the Australia craze meeting with the drug subplots in movies craze the same way that like Three Men and a Baby is a movie that's about drugs at a certain point.

[8:02] Like that's why the baby is brought to them is because of a drug kingpin.

[8:06] Like people were – in the 80s people were obsessed with drugs, Australia, and also if you were a TV show, you were going to go to Europe, you were going to be mistaken for spies, and you were going to get chased around.

[8:16] It doesn't matter if your family ties, if you're facts of life, you're going to get mistaken for a spy and get chased around Europe in one special episode.

Stuart Wellington

[8:22] Now, just to let everybody know, Crocodile Dundee was a huge hit.

[8:27] It was an independent movie, and it was a huge hit for two reasons.

[8:30] One, because his character – oh, so much fun.

[8:32] What a great character to have around.

[8:33] And two, that movie poster is fucking awesome.

[8:37] Describe it for us.

[8:37] Describe it.

[8:38] He's like – wait, is part two the one where he's pushing the buildings, the Twin Towers aside like they're cheeks?

[8:43] I think that's the original.

Elliott Kalan

[8:46] I think it's supposed to be like high grass in a forest.

[8:50] Not butt cheeks?

[8:50] Not butt cheeks that he's spreading apart, I guess, to pleasure in New York.

[8:54] Okay.

S3

[8:54] Well, many people call it the original Goatsy, but –

[8:58] He was originally called Crocodile Goatsy.

[9:02] Yeah, that was the original.

[9:02] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[9:04] I don't know, Elliot.

[9:05] The poster does have that tagline.

[9:07] This summer, croc gives the city a good rimming.

S3

[9:11] That was the original.

[9:13] Yeah.

[9:14] That was the original.

[9:15] It's occurring to me – the poster for this movie is a reference to that, right?

[9:19] Yes.

[9:19] Because he's got the two wedges of the inflatable pool croc.

[9:23] Yes.

[9:24] In the same position.

Elliott Kalan

[9:25] It's very much an homage to the original.

[9:27] Guys, this is 80s talk.

[9:29] This is not Cardinal Dentia.

[9:30] I just had to mention I had a breakthrough recently when I realized that they remade the movie If Looks Could Kill as Spider-Man Far From Home.

[9:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:41] And I was like, wait a minute.

[9:43] Hold on.

[9:43] I can't.

[9:43] And I was just matching those movies up to up in my mind.

[9:45] Those two movies up in my mind and it was like –

[9:47] You're perfect.

[9:48] The end of Usual Suspects.

[9:49] I dropped my coffee mug and it shattered everywhere.

Dan McCoy

[9:51] Now, when you say breakthrough, do you mean like psychological breakthrough once you had this realization?

Dan McCoy

[9:55] Yeah.

[9:56] It really helped me a lot with my issues.

[9:58] So, guys, should we –

[9:59] Well, sorry.

[10:00] I just want to say like Paul Hogan, you know, never able to replicate the success after the Crocodile Dentia character in Hollywood.

[10:06] Not with Lightning Jack.

[10:07] Not with what?

[10:08] Almost an angel.

[10:09] Flipper he was in.

[10:10] He was almost an angel.

[10:11] You know, I think he's done some stuff that are like back in Australia, smaller movies that we don't know about.

[10:17] But this movie is about, you know, him being a has-been.

[10:21] And we've given you all this background.

Elliott Kalan

[10:24] According to Wikipedia, it says he played himself a couple years ago in a movie called That's Not My Dog!

[10:29] Exclamation point.

Dan McCoy

[10:31] I don't know.

[10:32] I can't believe I forgot his Oscar-nominated turn.

S3

[10:34] I can't believe the Flophouse hasn't covered that.

[10:37] I mean that's like a perfect companion piece to A Talking Cat.

[10:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[10:41] But I'm sure you'll get into it with the plot summary.

[10:44] But it's funny to me that we gave all this background because the movie also knows that people don't understand this about who Croc Dundee is or who Paul Hogan is these days.

[10:53] It does and it doesn't.

Elliott Kalan

[10:54] It does an animated sum up.

[10:57] The movie is – we'll get to it.

[10:59] But the movie is both – takes place in a world where Paul Hogan has been out of the spotlight for years and also takes place in a world where Paul Hogan is still one of the biggest stars in the world and everyone recognizes him and wants to know what he's doing.

[11:11] It's a –

[11:12] Sure.

[11:13] It's very much a dream world where Paul Hogan is still famous.

[11:16] Chevy Chase is a beloved nice man that everyone loves and so forth.

[11:22] Okay.

[11:23] So let's start at the beginning.

[11:24] Okay.

[11:24] Paul Hogan, he is 80 years old.

[11:26] Now he's 82.

[11:27] By the time they're making this movie, I think he was 80.

[11:29] He's tired of being confused for Crocodile Dundee, which to be honest, if he wasn't wearing a name tag that said Paul Hogan, you would not recognize him as Crocodile Dundee.

[11:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:37] Mainly because he is 40 years older than he was when he played the role.

Elliott Kalan

[11:40] But still, he looks great in great shape.

[11:42] He's in the Hollywood Hills being peer pressured by some tourists to stop a rattlesnake because they think that he's Crocodile Dundee.

[11:50] And the snake lunges at him and he hits it with a stick and that launches the snake towards a woman's face.

[11:56] And of course, the story is all over the news as any story involving Paul Hogan is bound to be.

Stuart Wellington

[12:01] And this –

[12:02] Yeah, like four different entertainment outlets.

[12:04] I mean I think it's just a symptom of the 24-hour news cycle.

Dan McCoy

[12:07] To be honest, I mean in a news of the weird way, like if Crocodile Dundee –

[12:12] But it's not being presented as news of the weird.

[12:14] Whack the snake into someone's face.

[12:14] It's being presented as scandal in Hollywood.

Elliott Kalan

[12:17] Like you imagine that this is the top story and the second story is that like Charlie Sheen killed somebody.

[12:23] Like that's the level of importance they're giving this story.

[12:26] It's also set in a world where people still get their entertainment news from like Entertainment Tonight or like Access Hollywood type shows.

[12:33] Yeah.

[12:33] As opposed to through Twitter where you then have to like search for the original name of the person so you can find out what story people are reacting to.

Stuart Wellington

[12:40] Why is everyone so mad at Jake Gyllenhaal this weekend?

[12:44] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[12:44] Something about a scarf?

[12:46] He stole a scarf?

[12:49] So it's – the story is all over the place.

[12:51] And this is – the movie goes through these cycles of Paul Hogan getting into situations where he gets himself into some kind of trouble.

[12:56] And then it gets all over the news.

[12:57] And he keeps saying in the movie, he's like, I just – I always – you know, they're like, stay out of trouble, Paul.

[13:01] And he's like, I just find myself in these situations.

[13:04] And it's like –

[13:04] Which he does.

[13:05] Which he does.

[13:06] They recap his life story over the opening credits I guess about how he was the most famous export from Australia.

Stuart Wellington

[13:13] We see – we see – briefly see Ben Mendelsohn which made me very happy.

[13:16] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:17] I mean there's a number of cameos from – it's really funny because throughout the movie they have cameos from Australian actors who clearly were asked like, hey, would you do a five-second joke about Paul Hogan?

[13:28] And they were like, yeah, sure.

[13:29] And then footage taken out of context of American celebrities where it's being repurposed as if they're talking about Paul Hogan.

[13:36] Which I thought was really funny.

[13:39] So he disappeared from the public eye after Crocodile Duntie 2.

[13:43] Suddenly we're back in L.A.

[13:44] And a weird thing about this is that the buildings whenever we're in a skyline shot of L.A.

[13:50] have CGI posters on them for fake movies, which was a strange choice.

[13:55] It was just very weird.

[13:56] But anyway, Paul's manager is – who's the daughter of his original manager isn't happy with the snake incident.

[14:03] And she's like – while they're driving on a very green screen to drive through L.A.

[14:06] She's like, hey, you've got to be on your best behavior.

[14:09] The queen wants to knight you and give you a knighthood.

[14:12] And he's like, oh, I don't want a knighthood.

[14:13] I don't need that.

[14:14] And she's like, come on.

[14:15] It's the queen of England.

[14:15] You've got to take it.

[14:17] And they drive past this kind of very crappy Crocodile Dundee impersonator out on – outside the theater in Hollywood.

[14:25] And Crocodile Dundee gives him the stink eye.

[14:29] He's going to have to deal with that guy later.

[14:30] But he doesn't want the knighthood.

[14:31] He just wants to retire because I guess when you get a knighthood, you have to work forever.

[14:35] Like, is he worried that he'll have to be called up –

[14:36] He's got to defend England.

[14:37] He's got to be called up to defend England from a dragon at some point.

Dan McCoy

[14:40] Well, also, that's the – you put your finger on, like, the fundamental weirdness of this movie that I wanted to get into where, like, yeah.

[14:52] Simultaneously, no one knows who he is and yet he is not allowed to retire.

[14:56] Like, the movie makes it out.

[14:58] Like, you know, people are making demands on him all the time.

[15:01] Like, this woman – like, this is her main client is Paul Hogan.

[15:06] Like, so much so that later in the movie she quits when, like, he's, like, unable to – like, you can't manage him anymore.

[15:13] And it's like, what is going on in this movie that, like – like, he's being pursued for films?

[15:19] We'll get into it.

[15:19] But I just want to, yeah, say how weird this – the disjoint is.

[15:23] They did not make a decision about what this movie was about.

Elliott Kalan

[15:27] Yeah.

[15:28] It's a very disjointed movie.

[15:30] And also, if you want to retire, you usually can just do that.

[15:34] Not one – maybe one chance out of 100, someone decides to make a podcast about how nobody's seen you for a while.

[15:40] And you have to put out a press release saying, no, you were not kidnapped by your maid.

[15:44] But usually you can just retire and nobody really bothers you that much.

S3

[15:48] That does happen to 1% of all famous people.

[15:50] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:51] Which, I mean –

[15:52] Disappear from the public eye.

[15:53] Just statistically, that's thousands of famous people over statistics.

[15:56] Yeah.

[15:56] It's a very small percentage.

[15:57] Yeah.

[15:58] And there are a few times when they keep calling Crocodile Dundee the most successful independent film in history, which I don't know if that's true.

[16:06] I think –

[16:06] It was huge.

[16:08] It was, but, like, in a world with –

[16:10] Return on investment.

[16:11] Halloween maybe is also the –

[16:12] What I've always heard was that Halloween or Deep Throat were the – that Deep Throat was the most successful in terms of budget to pay off because it cost very little because it was essentially an assault.

[16:22] And made a ton of money, but all that money went to the mafia.

[16:25] But the – but maybe they could have just said one of the most successful.

[16:29] Anyway, it doesn't matter.

[16:30] It's a movie.

[16:30] It doesn't – are they worried about getting Pinocchios from the Washington Post?

[16:34] I guess I shouldn't be so worried about it.

[16:37] He goes to meet some studio executives who are really excited to meet him.

[16:40] And everyone on the lot recognizes him.

[16:43] And, of course, this is L.A., so everyone gets very over-the-top complicated health smoothies that are delivered by a guy with a beard and a man bun.

[16:52] And it was like, is this like a stealth pilot for like an L.A. Portlandia type thing?

[16:57] Like where it's just a – because it's a very – it's a stale joke, but they take a long time to do it.

[17:03] And there's not that many other like L.A. jokes in the movie.

[17:06] So it's – I don't know.

[17:07] It feels like a sketch movie at times.

[17:09] Anyway.

S3

[17:10] It felt like maybe somebody watched like a few episodes from season one of Curb Your Enthusiasm and were like, okay, I think I got it.

[17:17] I think we could do that.

[17:18] I know what Los Angeles is like.

[17:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:20] These executives have an amazing idea.

[17:23] They want Will Smith to play his son in a new Crocodile Dundee movie.

[17:28] And Paul Hogan keeps trying to tell them it doesn't make sense because Will Smith is American?

[17:33] No, don't worry.

[17:34] He can do accents.

[17:35] You know he's about to say black each time and they keep cutting him off.

[17:38] And then multiple black people join the meeting while he's trying to say this.

[17:43] And it's one of those things where it's like you have to just believe everybody in the world grew up watching Crocodile Dundee because they're just so overjoyed to be in a meeting with Paul Hogan, which appears to be happening in the lobby of a building.

[17:54] They didn't even have him into a conference room or something.

[17:56] And finally he tells them – finally he says, no, he can't play my son.

[18:01] He's black.

[18:01] And that immediately puts a chill over the meeting.

[18:04] He gets in trouble.

[18:05] He gets in trouble.

Stuart Wellington

[18:05] It's such like a weird like straw man cancel culture like attempted humor here where they're like, well, this could happen.

[18:14] This is what happens is that people are too caught up with this bullshit and that he can't even say what everybody is thinking.

[18:21] And I don't know.

[18:21] It fucking sucks.

[18:22] It's stupid.

[18:23] It sucks.

S3

[18:24] I couldn't believe that they like – they went through the scripting and development process on this movie and nobody was like, hey, maybe we should take this out and put something in that makes sense.

[18:33] Because like there's no like internal logic to the joke even.

[18:36] Like there are so many examples where a white person and a black person can be in the same family.

[18:42] And this movie like doesn't know that.

[18:44] No.

[18:44] Yes.

[18:44] There's like a possibility.

Dan McCoy

[18:46] Well, and it also doesn't know that like – yeah, like that is a common thing that happens.

[18:51] But these execs, if they were going to cast Will Smith, would say like explain like – like know that this is an old man and give him a reason why this is like happening or saying –

Stuart Wellington

[19:02] I mean the ironic thing is that –

[19:04] Dan's offending Paul Hogan here.

[19:06] No, no.

[19:06] I'm saying this.

[19:08] I'm not –

[19:09] I'm taking advantage of this.

[19:10] Dan Watson.

[19:11] Oh my god.

Elliott Kalan

[19:11] I mean again –

[19:12] I'm not certain.

[19:13] I'll go to my old man rule which is old people say offensive things.

[19:17] Yeah.

[19:17] But it's really – you are supposed to be on – the movie wants you to be on Paul Hogan's side and see how ridiculous this concept is, which is stupid.

[19:25] It is not a ridiculous concept.

[19:26] But also in real life – I don't know how many of you guys have dealt with executives at major media companies.

[19:31] In real life, this is how the meeting –

[19:33] Oh, fuck off.

[19:33] This is how the meeting would go.

[19:34] It would go like this.

[19:36] Hey, we've got Crocodile Dundee and we've got Will Smith.

[19:40] He wants to play Crocodile Dundee's son.

[19:41] And then the studio executive would say, but he's black.

[19:44] He can't be his son.

[19:45] Well, no, no, no.

[19:46] We'll say – but I don't understand it.

[19:48] You're going to have to have a couple minutes in that movie where you explain how a white guy could have a black son.

[19:52] Okay, I guess we'll do that.

[19:53] And you would write and shoot a scene where it's like, well, you know, ever since you adopted me from the orphanage in America or something like that.

[20:03] And then you would cut that scene before you released it.

[20:05] That's how it would work.

[20:06] Studio executives are the ones who are like, I don't understand this.

[20:09] You've got to explain it to me.

[20:10] Not Paul Hogan.

Dan McCoy

[20:11] And the studio executives would be like, can we also write Paul Hogan out of this movie and just have Will Smith?

[20:16] Is that possible?

[20:17] Well, that's the other thing.

Elliott Kalan

[20:18] If Will Smith wants to make a Crocodile Dundee movie, that movie is getting made.

[20:20] I'm sorry, Paul Hogan.

[20:21] Exactly.

[20:21] You're not going to be kidding.

[20:22] It's still going to be – it's going to be called Son of Dundee.

[20:25] And he's going to be like, yeah, my dad died.

[20:26] A crocodile ate him.

[20:27] Anyway, it's my adventure now.

Dan McCoy

[20:30] Now I have to get revenge.

[20:32] It's weird though because like this movie – it sets you off on this tone of like, oh God, is this movie going to be like this weird screed against cancel culture?

[20:43] And the thing is like this is the one time in the movie where like Paul Hogan's character like deliberately like – like it's not a weird misunderstanding.

[20:54] Oh, okay.

[20:55] Is what I'm saying.

[20:56] Like he says the thing that they're mad about and that's, you know, what happens.

[21:01] Whereas the rest of it, it's all like weird misunderstanding.

[21:03] So it's like what are you railing against, Paul Hogan?

[21:06] The idea of like misunderstandings?

[21:08] They understand exactly what he's saying.

Elliott Kalan

[21:11] Like there's – yeah, there's – well, I mean it's a different – there's at least one time where it's like, well, if Paul Hogan is railing against signage that's not clear enough maybe.

[21:20] Like he would have known he was in the wrong place if he had paid attention.

[21:24] But, okay, he goes home to his dog and his son.

[21:27] His son is too busy for him.

[21:28] He seems to be running a nightclub out of his bedroom.

[21:31] And this is a long-running gag where his son is running multiple businesses and is very talented at everything and does not have time for Paul Hogan.

[21:37] And it never really culminates in anything.

[21:40] It's just a running gag, you know.

Dan McCoy

[21:41] It never culminates in anything and yet it was one of my like more favorite gags in the movie just because it was done so casually and not commented on.

S3

[21:51] Yeah, it was almost – it was never underlined.

[21:53] Paul talks –

[21:53] He never turns to Cameron and says like, I should be more involved in my son's life.

[21:58] Now, what accent do you think that was, Ben?

[22:00] I just –

Elliott Kalan

[22:01] Yeah, that was kind of like Crocodile Beetle.

Dan McCoy

[22:06] Oh, it's a little hard here in Australia.

[22:09] Leprechaun goes to the Outback.

[22:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:12] They wanted Paul Hogan and they got Paul McCartney.

[22:14] Oh.

[22:19] I'm a bit of a crocodile dundee-ly-doo.

[22:22] Anyway, so Paul Hogan, he talks on FaceTime with his granddaughter Lucy.

[22:27] She believes in him.

[22:28] She always will.

[22:29] And then we know Paul isn't racist against black people because he's palling around with his best buddy.

[22:33] You know it, Reginald Bell Johnson.

[22:36] Who I did not recognize at first because he didn't have a mustache.

[22:39] Yeah.

[22:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:40] I want to –

[22:41] You probably got sick of getting all the paparazzos.

[22:44] Now.

[22:44] Cut that thing off.

Dan McCoy

[22:45] I would like nothing more than to talk about Reginald Bell Johnson.

[22:48] So let's do it, Dan.

[22:49] Let's –

[22:49] Before we do, I have one question.

Elliott Kalan

[22:51] It's your podcast.

[22:51] No one's stopping you from talking about RVJ.

Dan McCoy

[22:53] I have one question.

[22:54] Did you have the problem that Audrey and I had where like we are so used to like lazy like signifiers in movies

[23:01] that as soon as it cut to like an overhead shot with like conga music playing and I saw Reginald Bell Johnson with a pork pie hat,

[23:09] I'm like, oh, did he go to Miami?

[23:13] Like I feel like the language of like film stereotypes are –

[23:15] Did they splice in footage from an episode of Burn Notice into this?

Elliott Kalan

[23:19] Like we were confused.

[23:20] It did confuse me why they were suddenly at a street festival and my guess is literally that they called Reginald Bell Johnson's reps

[23:26] and said, would he be in this movie?

[23:28] And they said, well, he's at a street festival right now.

[23:29] So if you want to catch him, go ahead.

[23:31] Bring your camera.

[23:33] Just getting some fried bread.

[23:35] You got to come fast.

[23:36] But yeah, it's – and they also run into Olivia Newton-John who's another old pal of Paul.

[23:41] It makes sense.

[23:42] They're both Australian, right?

[23:43] And she wants to set Paul up with a friend of hers.

[23:46] But first she convinces him to come to be at a charity event that she set up for kids at an orphanage or something.

[23:52] And Paul, he goes to get some groceries but then his car is stolen by a fake valet.

[23:57] He gives his car – his keys to a guy dressed as a valet.

[24:00] It turns out that's just a car thief.

[24:01] Uh-oh.

[24:02] Don't worry.

[24:02] We've all been there.

[24:03] That guy will come back.

[24:04] Yep.

[24:05] And Paul, he sees the fake Crocodile Dundee from the Lyft car I guess he's in.

[24:09] And he says, hey, stop here.

[24:11] The Crocodile Dundee impersonator does not recognize him.

[24:13] And he gets into an argument.

[24:15] And then the impersonator's kids who are dressed as crocodiles jump out and start – they're little kids.

[24:19] They start attacking Paul Hogan.

[24:21] And people assume that he's fighting children.

[24:23] Suddenly he's all over the news again for strangling a child.

Dan McCoy

[24:26] I do want to – I want to highlight one moment because like I feel weirdly compelled to highlight it when I do think something works briefly.

[24:34] Go for it.

[24:35] Yeah.

[24:35] Give them the credit.

[24:36] I did laugh when like the impersonator has like a big like cardboard knife and he goes, my knife's bigger than that.

[24:43] And Paul Hogan's like looking on in disbelief as the one thing everyone remembers from Crocodile Dundee is butchered.

Elliott Kalan

[24:49] There's a couple – I mean there are a couple of jokes in the movie.

[24:51] There's a joke later that I laughed at and there's a musical number later that was better than it had any right to be.

[24:56] Yeah.

[24:56] Yeah, absolutely.

[24:58] So he's all over the news again.

[24:59] His manager's upset.

[25:00] She's like, you got to get this knighthood.

[25:02] You're going to jeopardize your knighthood because you imagine, yeah, QE2 is just constantly watching entertainment news being like –

S3

[25:10] I mean how could she miss it?

[25:12] There is wall-to-wall Paul Hogan coverage.

[25:15] Yeah, that's true.

[25:15] That's fair.

Elliott Kalan

[25:16] That's fair.

[25:17] And there's – we briefly meet maybe the movie's least okay character, his Mexican landscaper who is – just has a super over-the-top accent and is just stealing food from Paul Hogan's kitchen and eating a big like Dagwood sandwich.

[25:34] And this is a character you could easily remove wholesale from the movie and you would never notice.

[25:40] Instead, they had to keep him in and it's not good.

[25:43] Lucy calls and she's like, I heard you were going to be a knight.

[25:46] Is that true?

[25:47] I'm so proud.

[25:48] And he's like, okay, you know what?

[25:49] If you want me to be knighted, I guess I'll go through with it.

[25:52] I guess I'll accept one of the highest honors that the Commonwealth can provide, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[25:59] I mean I can watch a movie with a reluctant hero.

[26:03] Like I've watched plenty of those.

[26:04] But there's something very interesting about a movie that's trying to convince me that I need – like not only that Paul Hogan is somebody that I should be paying attention to, but he's this like reluctant hero.

[26:14] So I'm like I don't – I didn't care about him before the movie started.

[26:18] That was awesome.

Dan McCoy

[26:19] Like Audrey kept having this problem which is like are we supposed to sympathize with him against like his manager who's trying to get him to do like this charity function?

[26:28] Like I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[26:29] Also, the Queen of England is like I want to give you a knighthood and he's like eh, I don't know.

[26:35] And we're supposed to be like yeah, stop bothering this old man.

Dan McCoy

[26:38] I mean unless you're taking a principled stand against the royalty.

[26:44] And there are people –

S3

[26:45] Hey, leave Paul Hogan alone, the institution of monarchy.

Elliott Kalan

[26:48] And there are people who do that.

[26:50] I think John Cleese is on record as saying that like if he was offered a knighthood, he would turn it down and that kind of stuff.

[26:56] Whereas Michael Palin, he ate it up.

[26:58] He just took it.

[27:00] Well deserved.

[27:00] Good job, Michael Palin.

[27:02] Good job, Mikey.

[27:04] Good job, Mikey P.

[27:05] And now he doesn't want to be a knight.

[27:08] Uh-oh.

[27:09] Unfortunately, a knight is coming his way.

[27:11] His good friend Wayne Knight, Newman from Seinfeld.

[27:15] Talk about things that can be lifted wholesale from this movie.

[27:18] So Wayne Knight is like my wife's mad at me because I've been singing too loud at home practicing for my Broadway premiere.

[27:25] And apparently the song he's singing in his Broadway show is Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey, the Michigan J. Frog song.

[27:30] And so he's like I need a place to stay because my wife's mad at me.

[27:34] Don't tell her I'm here.

[27:35] And he just runs upstairs and starts singing Hello My Baby, Hello My Honey while tap dancing as loud as possible.

[27:41] Which makes it really hard for Paul Hogan to take a nap.

[27:44] And I got to tell you, there are ways to do a joke where someone can't take a nap because it's loud.

[27:49] Go watch the movie It's a Gift.

[27:50] There's a whole sequence where W.C. Fields is trying to take a nap and people keep bothering him.

[27:54] It's hilarious.

[27:54] This is not – they don't really pull it off here.

[27:58] The idea of Wayne Knight tap dancing to Hello My Baby was pretty funny.

S3

[28:04] The one thing I liked about this was there was a – there's a shot like overhead on his couch when he first lies down.

[28:10] And there's one pillow on the couch and then two more down on the floor.

[28:13] And I was like what's going to happen with those pillows down on the floor?

[28:16] And then Wayne Knight is suddenly tap dancing upstairs.

[28:19] And I was like perfect.

[28:20] He can make a head sandwich with those extra pillows.

[28:23] And did he?

[28:24] Yeah.

[28:25] It was a plant and payoff.

[28:26] It's classic movie magic.

[28:28] That's the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[28:28] Paul Hogan is like Jacques Tati.

[28:31] All the math is right there on screen and you're watching him put it together.

[28:35] And that's where the fun comes.

[28:38] He's – Paul –

[28:40] The Swiss watch.

[28:42] Yeah.

[28:42] This movie is a real intricate mechanism.

[28:45] So many interlocking gears that have to be calibrated just so.

[28:49] So it's that night.

[28:51] Paul's got to go to the charity event that Olivia Newton-John talked him into.

[28:54] He has his driver who turns out to – because I guess his car is still stolen.

[28:57] His driver turns out to be John Cleese who explains he is now doing this because he lost all his money to prostitutes, he says.

[29:04] John Cleese drives him to a big event.

[29:07] There's spotlights everywhere.

[29:09] There's a red carpet.

[29:10] And uh-oh.

[29:11] Too late, he notices.

[29:12] He's taken Paul Hogan to the Black Talent Awards.

[29:15] And Paul Hogan on the red carpet explains to reporters he's there to help all the less fortunate people who are inside who didn't have it as easy as himself.

[29:22] And he offends the reporters because it sounds like he's saying black people are less fortunate than himself.

[29:25] It is yet another time that Paul Hogan has decided to step his crocodile skin boot into the racial minefield that is modern America.

[29:35] And it doesn't work very well.

[29:38] It's just not – it's not very good.

Stuart Wellington

[29:43] It's all – that's the thing.

[29:45] It's all context.

[29:46] That's the thing.

[29:47] That's what he's trying to explain is that people have to understand there's context and that when he is sitting at home in his massive L.A. mansion eating sandwiches.

[29:57] Yeah.

[29:58] That we should be more considerate that he just wants to take a nap.

Elliott Kalan

[30:01] Now, here's the question I have for you guys.

[30:04] I mean he's basically Dagwood Bumstead.

[30:06] He's taking a nap.

[30:07] He wants to make big sandwiches.

[30:08] He keeps running into the mailman.

[30:10] He works for Mr. – for whatever the guy's name is.

[30:13] Dan, what's Dagwood's boss's name?

Dan McCoy

[30:14] Weatherby?

[30:15] No, no, that's Archie.

[30:16] Thank you.

[30:16] No, that's Principal Weatherby from the Archie comics.

[30:18] Yeah.

[30:18] Who am I thinking of?

[30:20] I'll get it.

Elliott Kalan

[30:20] Let me look up Dagwood Boss.

[30:23] Mr. Spacely?

[30:24] Mr. Dithers.

[30:26] That's who it is.

[30:26] Mr. Dithers.

[30:27] Mr. Julius Caesar Dithers.

[30:29] I didn't know that was his first middle name.

Stuart Wellington

[30:32] And he's got a fucking dime for a wife, man.

[30:34] What the fuck?

Dan McCoy

[30:36] This reminds me, recently we were – like Audrey made a reference to a Dagwood sandwich or like Dagwood eating big sandwiches.

[30:42] And she said, it's the one thing people don't remember about Blondie.

[30:46] Name another thing about Blondie.

[30:47] And I was dismayed at how many things I could name about Blondie.

Elliott Kalan

[30:52] I mean that is – to be fair though, that is – asking you a question about an old-timey comic strip is – you're going to get – I mean you know that Blondie started as like a – she started as a flapper.

[31:01] Yeah, she was – yeah, she was a flapper like society girl.

[31:04] And he was rich.

[31:05] And he married her and got cut off.

[31:07] And then it became the story of him eating sandwiches and not having sex with his gorgeous wife.

Dan McCoy

[31:12] Getting interrupted also from naps by the annoying kid next door who would just walk in.

Stuart Wellington

[31:18] And he didn't ever want to work, right?

[31:20] He wanted always a nap and not work.

[31:22] Yeah.

[31:22] I mean he would go to work.

Elliott Kalan

[31:24] And he was always late for work and he'd run out and bump into the mailman.

Stuart Wellington

[31:26] Because he's always like styling his fucking hair like that crazy shit.

Dan McCoy

[31:30] He had a teenage son and teenage daughter who looked just like smaller versions of them.

[31:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:36] Just like in real life.

[31:37] That's how genetics works.

[31:39] So that's why when you – that's why as Dan once said I think in a presentation how when a pig and a frog have children, you get two girl frogs and two boy – two girl pigs and two boy frogs.

[31:50] That's how it works.

[31:51] Yeah.

[31:52] That's what Mendel said.

[31:53] Anyway, Paul Hogan finally ends up at the right charity event and everything works out fine, right?

[32:00] Not right.

[32:01] No.

[32:02] John Travolta is not there.

[32:04] So Olivia Newton – or he's always referred to as Johnny for some reason.

S3

[32:07] Johnny T.

[32:08] It seemed like they couldn't say his – like there seemed to be like a licensing issue in this scene.

[32:14] It was very confusing.

Dan McCoy

[32:16] I have a problem with the stagecraft of this – I'm going to take the stage manager to task here because –

[32:23] Paul Hogan goes out.

[32:27] Olivia Newton-John and Paul Hogan are in the back.

[32:30] Olivia is trying to get Paul to go out at his cue to start singing You're the One That I Want in Greece.

[32:35] He's filling in for John Travolta.

[32:36] He's filling in for John Travolta.

Elliott Kalan

[32:37] She was going to do a duet with Johnny T and he's not there, so Paul Hogan is going to fill in.

Dan McCoy

[32:41] Yeah.

[32:42] And he has – he doesn't really want to do it.

[32:44] He's like lingering.

[32:45] He's lingering in the back.

[32:46] He finally comes out –

[32:46] Luckily, they have a leather jacket that fits in perfectly.

[32:49] He comes out and he starts singing at Sandy's part.

[32:52] He's missed his own cue.

[32:53] He starts singing at Sandy's part.

[32:54] I don't know why Olivia Newton-John doesn't come out at that moment.

[32:58] But more so, I don't know why the stage manager, once the audience starts turning on him for not being John Travolta, keeps holding Olivia Newton-John back from going on stage.

[33:08] The one thing that could possibly assuage this crowd is their beloved star of Greece.

Elliott Kalan

[33:13] I'll do you one better.

[33:15] I don't know why it wasn't announced to the crowd.

[33:17] We're so sorry.

[33:17] John Travolta couldn't make it tonight.

[33:19] Exactly.

[33:19] He's not singing in for him as Paul Hogan.

Stuart Wellington

[33:21] It was on a little slip of paper in their program and it just – people don't read that.

Elliott Kalan

[33:25] Literally at every single play that there has ever been in the history of the world.

[33:29] I mean that's not – I guess when Thespis invented acting for the first time.

[33:32] Maybe they didn't have a slip that said Thespis is going to be –

[33:35] Tonight, Thespis is sick.

Dan McCoy

[33:36] So he's being played by Draspis or something.

Elliott Kalan

[33:38] But anyway, they don't – so instead, these people who are there literally to see Johnny T.

[33:46] They have signs of his name.

[33:48] They've dressed like him.

[33:49] They're shouting, yeah, Johnny, Johnny T.

[33:50] Give us our Johnny.

[33:52] That to be confronted instead with this elderly Australian man in leather jacket mumbling the wrong words to the song,

[34:00] I understand that would be a shock to the system.

[34:02] That's not what you're saying.

[34:03] If I was –

S3

[34:03] But would you riot, Elliot?

[34:04] Would you start a riot over that?

Elliott Kalan

[34:06] Let me – let's create a thought idea.

[34:09] Okay.

[34:10] So recently, Stuart and I, we were going to go see Judas Priest in concert.

[34:14] Unfortunately, their shows were rescheduled because of a health problem with one of the band members.

[34:19] But if Stuart and I had gone to that concert and I cannot wait.

[34:23] Rob Halford, the metal god himself, is about to walk out on stage and I hear the opening of Exciter, one of my favorite of their songs.

[34:30] This is a great way to start the show.

[34:31] Full of energy just like in the Unleashed and the East album.

[34:34] Rob Halford's about to come out.

[34:35] I could not be more excited.

[34:37] And Paul Hogan comes out also in leather and starts mumbling Exciter.

[34:41] The wrong elderly man comes out in leather.

[34:42] The wrong elderly man.

[34:43] At least – a man roughly 10 years older than Rob Halford who is only in his early 70s.

[34:49] Yeah.

[34:49] That I think I might just lose it and start throwing things at the stage much like these people do.

[34:54] And I'd be holding Elliot back like the stage manager.

[34:57] And Olivia Newton-John will be back there waiting for her duet on the Ripper and they're saying, no, no, no, stay back here, stay back here.

[35:03] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[35:05] Getting really dangerous out there.

[35:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[35:07] The crowd throws a thermos at him and he tosses it aside.

[35:11] It bounces off a balloon and knocks a nun in the face.

[35:13] And he gets the blame for that which seems admittedly a little unfair.

[35:17] Everyone saw it.

[35:18] Everyone saw it.

[35:18] Yeah.

[35:19] I mean he wasn't throwing it at her and the thermos was thrown at him first.

[35:22] Anyway, you better believe it's all over the news that he –

[35:25] They're just looking for a reason to cancel him at this point.

[35:29] And no wonder – news all over him.

[35:30] No wonder there's a paparazzo hiding around his house and up in his tree.

[35:34] He throws a rock and knocks him down.

[35:36] Turns out he's kind of a down-on-his-luck photographer who came to L.A. with big dreams and now just hangs around Paul Hogan's house.

Dan McCoy

[35:46] There's a later – look, far be it for me to quibble with the internal logic of the talented Mr. Dundee.

[35:53] The very excellent Mr. Dundee.

[35:54] The talented Mr. Ripley Dundee.

[35:56] But later –

Elliott Kalan

[35:57] The talented Mr. Dundee has the scene where Paul Hogan watches Jude Law get out of the shower and Jude Law knows Paul Hogan is watching him.

[36:04] And he's not sexually attracted to Paul Hogan but he does get a thrill from knowing Paul Hogan is sexually attracted to him.

[36:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:10] What a movie.

[36:11] What a good movie.

[36:12] Yeah.

[36:13] Yeah.

[36:13] No, there's a scene later on I'm sure we'll mention it but I just went like where the gag is every photo becomes less valuable once Paul Hogan is in it.

[36:24] Like Paul Hogan is like, oh, I can get you a picture of Kim Kardashian.

[36:27] What about a picture of Kim Kardashian and me?

[36:29] And like the price goes down and the photographer is saying this.

[36:33] Like why is a photographer then hanging around Paul Hogan's house if he knows that this man is worthless to him?

[36:40] Like I know this is a logical hurdle that it's too high for this particular movie to clear.

Elliott Kalan

[36:47] I mean why didn't Darth Vader blow up Leia's ship instead of trying to walk his way through it where the Death Star planes are?

[36:54] Just believe.

[36:55] It's called drama, Dan.

[36:56] It's called drama.

[36:57] But also it's very clear he's not good at being a paparazzi.

[37:01] Like he's bad at it.

[37:02] So – but you're right.

[37:03] It doesn't make sense.

[37:04] He watches on the news –

S3

[37:05] But he is good at being a fine art photographer but he just doesn't know it yet.

[37:08] Yeah.

[37:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:09] We'll see that.

[37:10] He's going to miss his – he's one of these guys who becomes an accidental art star.

Dan McCoy

[37:14] He's also one of these guys that I thought I could safely ignore when he like shows up in the movie because I'm like, oh, this movie is so filled with like pointless diversions and cameos and whatnot.

[37:25] Surely he will not be important to the rest of the movie and he becomes very important later on.

[37:30] Yeah.

[37:30] He's a major character.

Elliott Kalan

[37:32] And he looks like a friend of mine.

[37:33] So I kept thinking that he was the friend that – I was like he's in the movie.

[37:37] This is great for him.

Dan McCoy

[37:38] I kept thinking he was Nick Schwartzen.

Elliott Kalan

[37:40] I thought so too.

[37:41] But he's not.

[37:42] He does look like him too.

[37:43] He does look like him too.

[37:45] Paul Hogan watches other Australian actors slag him on TV.

[37:49] There is a funny joke about the movie Lightning Jack I thought where he goes – he goes – he goes – someone's like much like Lightning Jack.

[37:56] No one is laughing which I thought was funny because it's not a good movie.

Stuart Wellington

[37:59] And there's like a – there's a brief – they're interviewing people and they briefly interview the like villain from the later Saw movies and I'm like he's Australian?

[38:08] What's going on there?

[38:10] That was pretty – that was cool for me.

[38:11] And yet Jeffrey Rush, nowhere to be found.

[38:14] Amazing.

[38:15] Yeah.

[38:16] Casanova Frankenstein himself.

Elliott Kalan

[38:18] Himself.

[38:18] Very Australian.

[38:20] Not there.

[38:21] So Paul, he misses Australia.

[38:23] He's looking at real estate in Australia, beachfront real estate, and he keeps getting bought out from under him.

[38:27] Which at this point it's like you seem to be rich, Paul.

[38:29] You should just take the plunge.

[38:31] Just make an offer on one of these houses.

[38:33] You know, stop waiting.

[38:34] His son is leading an aerobics class outside.

[38:36] He's too busy to have breakfast with Paul.

[38:38] And Paul's manager calls him in for a talking to.

[38:40] She's been trying to stop the nun story.

[38:43] And Paul keeps saying, put me on one of these tonight shows.

[38:45] I need to be on one of these tonight shows.

[38:47] And she's saying, no, no.

[38:48] He somehow wants to retire but also really wants to be on the tonight show.

[38:51] He's like, I could play a baby – a baby xylophone for some kind of song.

[38:56] I could do that.

[38:57] I could slow jam something.

[39:01] But Paul Hogan sounds like a very bad Reese Darby, I realize, from a different country, not Australian.

[39:09] And she says, you know what?

[39:11] I won't call the queen and tell her not to knight you if you go for an intervention lunch with Chevy Chase, which makes no sense.

[39:19] If you want someone to learn how to stop being an asshole in public, you do not send them to Chevy Chase.

Dan McCoy

[39:24] I mean that is the joke of it, right?

[39:26] But it's a very weird one.

[39:28] It requires the audience to be aware.

[39:32] And we all are, obviously, because we're the kind of nerds who know this stuff.

[39:36] But not everyone knows that Chevy Chase is a famous asshole.

[39:40] So they aren't going to get the meta joke of this is the person to emulate.

[39:44] So it just seems strange.

S3

[39:46] Well, and as a movie that has given us all of the backstory on Paul Hogan for this exact reason,

[39:52] it seems like it could have given us an expo dump on Chevy Chase if it really wanted to.

[39:56] To sell that as a joke.

[39:57] And since it didn't, I feel like it almost is not aware of that as a joke.

Elliott Kalan

[40:02] I mean, because then Chevy Chase, they go to lunch, and people are constantly going up to Chevy Chase and telling them how wonderful he is.

[40:10] And telling him, you're so amazing.

[40:12] I love you so much.

[40:12] I love your movies.

[40:13] And they're not naming.

[40:14] They're like, I loved you in Three Amigos.

[40:16] They're like, oh, he was so great in Caddyshack.

[40:19] Like, they are talking his real credits.

[40:21] So this is not some alternate universe Chevy Chase who made other things and who people like.

[40:26] And he keeps – he's like – and Chevy Chase is like, people love me because I won an Oscar for Caddyshack.

[40:31] And this is not true, and the movie knows it's not true.

[40:34] But it's never clear whether the movie is saying it as a joke or whether people think that in this world.

[40:39] Or it's one of these things that's almost a joke but not quite to the point where I was like, is this operating on a higher level than I understand in terms of comedy that I don't get the joke here?

[40:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:50] Yeah.

[40:50] I think it's just that he's lying about having an Oscar.

[40:52] But everyone seems to know it already.

[40:54] I think you're out thinking yourself.

[40:55] I must be.

Elliott Kalan

[40:55] It's just – anyway, the studio executives come by.

[40:58] They want to pitch a Crocodile Dindy revenge movie where his wife gets killed and he starts dating Rachel McAdams.

[41:04] And that scene just kind of peters out.

[41:06] It doesn't really go anywhere.

Stuart Wellington

[41:07] I mean most of the scenes in this movie end without a joke or a conclusion.

[41:11] Yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[41:12] Wait.

Stuart Wellington

[41:13] This was the scene where it ends when he walks out without paying for a $40 glass of wine.

[41:19] And a security guy tackles him.

Elliott Kalan

[41:20] Yes.

[41:21] Well, because Chevy Chase says he's going to pay I think and then he doesn't.

[41:24] Yeah.

[41:25] Yeah.

[41:26] And Chevy Chase does the thing where he's like, you can get away with anything when you're as beloved as I am.

[41:30] Watch this.

[41:30] And he knocks his fork on the ground and a waiter picks up and goes, oh, I'm so sorry.

[41:34] And Chevy Chase is like, oh, yeah, it fell right off the table.

[41:36] Can you give me another fork?

[41:37] And he's like, see?

[41:39] And I'm like, so that's what you're getting away with?

[41:40] It's like that every now and then you knock a piece of silverware onto the floor?

[41:45] It was a plate.

[41:46] He broke a plate.

Stuart Wellington

[41:47] Yeah, but you can still get away with that.

Dan McCoy

[41:50] I know.

[41:51] I just like it is a measure of difference that you've like actually shattered something.

[41:56] Oh, did he break a plate?

Stuart Wellington

[41:58] Yeah.

[41:58] Yeah, because if a fork shatters, you got bigger problems.

[42:00] I mean, unless a fork makes a shattering noise when it hits the ground.

[42:03] They're like, Mr. Freeze must be in your restaurant.

Elliott Kalan

[42:04] Oh, I missed the shattering noise.

[42:05] I apologize.

[42:06] I mean, maybe if there had been a shot, but I guess in the budget they didn't have room for a plate to be broken.

[42:10] Yeah.

S3

[42:11] Well, I think critically the breaking of a plate is sort of morally comparable to hitting a nun in the head with a water bottle or making racially insensitive remarks on a red carpet.

Elliott Kalan

[42:21] Probably, yeah.

[42:21] It depends on the plate.

[42:22] I mean, we're the only restaurant in L.A. that only serves antique Ming Dynasty ceramics.

S3

[42:29] Be careful.

[42:30] Jackie Chan is our waiter to protect them because if anyone's going to break in and write something.

[42:34] That's a pretty good premise.

[42:35] If only you had an Oscar, Paul Hogan.

[42:37] Dan.

[42:37] None of the bad things that are happening to you would have happened.

Elliott Kalan

[42:40] Dan, I know you have issues with this, but I want you to make note.

[42:42] Jackie Chan was not in this movie.

[42:43] I know sometimes you can't tell.

[42:47] Thank you.

[42:48] There were many celebrities in this movie, but he was not – but Mr. Jackson Chan was not one of them.

[42:53] Okay, so –

S3

[42:53] Elliot, after he gets tackled by the security guard, he wakes up in the hospital with multiple shattered bones, right?

[42:59] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:01] Nope.

[43:01] He's just back at home talking to his daughter – his granddaughter on the phone.

[43:05] Making what?

Stuart Wellington

[43:05] What's that?

[43:06] A turkey Marmite sandwich?

[43:08] What's he –

[43:08] Or a Vegemite Marmite sandwich?

Elliott Kalan

[43:10] Yeah.

[43:11] Yeah, one of those.

[43:11] And he's – she's like, oh, I have this new school and the girls there aren't so nice to me.

[43:16] What do you do?

[43:17] And he's like, ah, blah, blah.

[43:18] He's giving her advice and she's still excited about his knighthood.

[43:20] He's got to get this knighthood.

[43:22] His granddaughter is depending on it.

[43:24] Now, he could always just tell his granddaughter he got knighted.

[43:26] There's no – I mean, there's – what is she going to Google him?

[43:29] And there's going to be a newspaper headline that says, Paul Hogan advocates lying to children.

Stuart Wellington

[43:36] Yeah, she won't find out for real until she's much older and it sends her on some kind of shame spiral.

Elliott Kalan

[43:42] Yeah, Dan, Dan, I've spent years now on an elaborate con that makes my son think that there is a pixie of some kind that eats his teeth and leaves money behind.

[43:51] It's true.

[43:52] And I gain nothing from this lie that there's some creature that sneaks into our house, devours his teeth, poops a dollar bill under his pillow all without waking him.

[44:01] And then it leaves for the next time.

[44:03] You know what?

Dan McCoy

[44:05] Directly after I said it, I was like, oh, all people do is lie to kids.

[44:08] So much of your is lying to your children, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[44:10] I mean, at some point, Dan may have a child and, of course, when that child is of age, they're going to watch Romancing the Stone and then he will lie to that child and say there was never a sequel.

[44:19] For some reason, they made no follow-up.

Dan McCoy

[44:24] They did re-team in War of the Roses, which you can see when you're older.

[44:29] But, yep, nothing for this one.

Elliott Kalan

[44:32] But what's this jewel of the – no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Stuart Wellington

[44:37] It's one of those fake movie posters.

Dan McCoy

[44:39] Yeah, yeah.

[44:40] Here's a great 80s pop song that's not from that movie that does not exist.

Elliott Kalan

[44:48] So then this is the scene where he talks to that photographer.

[44:51] He learns how little his pictures are worth.

[44:54] And the photographer convinces Paul Hogan to help him find celebrities.

[44:57] Uh-oh, who's going to drive them around?

[44:59] It's John Cleese.

[44:59] And for no reason at all, he gets them into a chase with the police.

[45:03] And John Cleese is just – he's just a maniac who constantly gets into chase scenes and then runs away at the end of it.

Dan McCoy

[45:11] I love Paul Hogan's commitment to just being unflappable throughout the entire – like chase.

[45:17] He's just like, oh, God, another shenanigan I'm in.

Elliott Kalan

[45:20] And the photographer in the back of the car is trying to make up for it.

[45:23] He's like, whoa!

[45:24] Yeah.

[45:25] Whoa!

S3

[45:27] I felt so bad for this actor.

[45:29] You're like, I'm in a movie and I'm going to be in a scene with John Cleese and Paul Hogan.

[45:33] And I'm like, they're the straight men?

[45:35] What?

Stuart Wellington

[45:36] Yeah.

[45:37] It was uncredited.

[45:38] But the second unit director for this scene was William Friedkin, if you couldn't tell.

[45:41] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[45:42] Really?

[45:42] No wonder.

[45:43] Really?

[45:44] I mean, to be – there were a number of shots that were clearly cars driving at normal speed that had been sped up.

[45:50] But there were other ones – but there was also a shot of a car driving against the flow of traffic.

[45:54] And I was like, did they do this for this movie?

[45:56] Or is this like stock footage you can buy that they got?

[46:00] Because I wasn't sure.

[46:01] But yeah, now that I know that William Friedkin worked on it, that makes a lot of sense.

[46:05] It had all the hallmarks of his big car chase movies like The Boys in the Band and Bug.

[46:14] So the photographer – they're like, there's Kim Kardashian.

[46:18] There's another famous person.

[46:19] And the photographer keeps taking pictures.

[46:21] But they're all coming out blurry because they're driving around.

[46:23] The other funny thing is that they're pointing to like movie premieres that are full of photographers already.

Dan McCoy

[46:28] Yeah, that's what I was like.

[46:29] Why didn't he just go there in the first place?

[46:31] I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[46:31] The point of being a paparazzi photographer is to get the picture nobody else has of this celebrity where they're in their sweatpants.

[46:38] They're Glenn Danzig carrying a box of kitty litter in a parking lot.

[46:41] They're eating ice cream and they look really gross like they look fatter than normal.

[46:45] That's why you're a paparazzi.

[46:46] To get a picture of them on the red carpet when there's like a dozen other photographers, why bother?

[46:50] I mean there's a reason –

[46:51] Nobody else that.

Stuart Wellington

[46:51] They want you struggling to carry a mountain of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.

[46:56] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[46:56] There's a reason that Peter Parker is selling his –

Dan McCoy

[46:59] You have a cutout of a former lover.

[47:01] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:02] Oh, God.

[47:03] I love it.

[47:04] There's a reason Peter Parker is selling his Spider-Man pictures and not his photographs of like trees.

[47:09] Nobody wants those.

[47:10] Anyone can take them.

[47:11] Yeah.

[47:12] Okay.

[47:13] So they end up getting arrested and then we cut to what turns out to be a dream sequence but it is a very elaborately produced musical number from some sort of Crocodile Dundee musical of a That's Not a Knife song.

[47:25] And this is by far the highlight of the movie.

[47:27] I'll go out on a limb on this.

[47:28] This is actually a pretty fun song.

[47:30] The performers are really good in it.

[47:31] There's some funny rhymes in it.

[47:33] This song should be in a much better movie about Paul Hogan playing himself.

Stuart Wellington

[47:37] Yeah.

[47:38] The decision to have the Crocodile Dundee character in the musical to be very much not Australian was great.

[47:43] Yes.

S3

[47:44] Yes.

[47:44] Such a strange choice.

[47:45] He's like a guy with curly hair and like eyeliner and like a sparkly hat.

Elliott Kalan

[47:50] Because it's Broadway.

[47:51] I mean to be honest, he kept reminding me of Jello Biafra.

[47:54] I was like, did they get him for this?

[47:58] That would be a really weird choice for him.

[48:00] But he's in bathtubs over Broadway.

[48:01] So I don't know.

[48:03] But this is – I mean guys, tell me if I'm wrong.

[48:06] But once this started, I was like, okay, you know what?

[48:08] There is a part of this movie I can enjoy.

[48:10] You know?

Dan McCoy

[48:12] There are parts of this movie that gave me a mild smile.

[48:15] But I think, again, in a YouTube two-minute video maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[48:21] What I liked about this musical is that it knows how to fucking tease the audience.

[48:26] Because they give you the first part of the line.

[48:28] That's not knife.

[48:30] And then they just tease out the final line.

[48:33] And they don't actually even say this is a knife.

[48:35] They have a knife descend from the ceiling with the word written on it.

[48:41] It's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[48:42] Yeah.

[48:43] You're waiting for – it's like they're edging you the whole time for this catchphrase.

S3

[48:46] I don't know if you guys experienced this, but like watching this movie, I remembered the line as,

[48:51] that's not a knife, this is a knife.

[48:53] But they show the clip in the reel at the beginning recapping the important beats of Hogan's life.

[48:59] And it's, that's not a knife, that's a knife.

[49:02] And so the line in the song is, that's a knife.

[49:04] But the sign on the knife that comes down says, this is a knife.

Dan McCoy

[49:08] And I was like, ah, my brain can't.

[49:10] The angel effect, yeah.

S3

[49:11] It's like we got to cover all our bases.

[49:13] Yeah, it's like how you remember it and how it actually was accommodated in one song.

[49:19] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[49:20] That's the brilliance of that song.

[49:21] That's amazing.

[49:22] Yeah.

[49:23] That's true.

[49:24] Yeah, it's a real play it again Sam type thing where it's like, did you know he never said that in Crocodile Dundee?

[49:31] Except I've never heard anyone deliver that trivia because no one cared, I guess.

[49:36] I will say there's one other joke, I don't remember where it comes, but somewhere in the movie there's another joke where an Australian actress who I did not recognize who she was is talking about, she's like, oh, I used to love watching his movies and I'd get so scared when he would be playing, he would be fighting with those crocodiles and sharks.

[49:50] And, you know, you got to feel for his children.

[49:53] And they're like, oh, no, you're thinking of the crocodile hunter.

[49:55] We're talking about Paul Hogan.

[49:56] And she goes, oh, he's a dickhead.

[49:57] And just the way she said he's a dickhead I thought was really funny.

[50:01] It was just like, so matter of fact, like, well, that goes without saying.

[50:04] Oh, we all know that.

[50:06] Yeah.

[50:07] Anyway, so Paul wakes up in prison.

[50:09] He dreams the whole musical number.

[50:10] His manager bails him out.

[50:12] I guess he will face charges at a later date.

[50:14] Although knowing L.A. maybe never.

[50:16] Celebrities, you know how it is.

[50:18] So back to his house and back to the Wayne Knight sea story in the sitcom of a movie.

[50:25] Wayne Knight is like, my wife is coming over.

[50:28] Don't tell her I'm here.

[50:29] And she comes to the door and Paul Hogan is lying.

[50:32] Oh, I haven't seen him.

[50:33] He's not here.

[50:34] And she's like, are you sure?

[50:35] He's not.

[50:35] I wanted to thank you for having him here.

[50:37] I know he can be a handful.

[50:38] And then Wayne Knight shows up and goes, hey, honey.

[50:40] And they kiss.

[50:41] They're not mad at each other at all.

[50:42] And she's like, how dare you lie to me, Paul?

[50:46] And it's the scene.

[50:47] It makes no sense.

[50:48] It's like.

Stuart Wellington

[50:49] It is like the level of trolling that our editor Alex did to me the first time I met his parents is we were having dinner together.

[50:57] And he goes, hey, mom and dad, Stuart would like to say grace.

[51:00] And I was like, what the fuck are you doing?

Dan McCoy

[51:04] Yeah.

[51:04] One can only assume that this whole ruse has been some sort of elaborate sex game they have.

[51:10] Oh, maybe.

[51:11] Where they shame Paul Hogan.

[51:13] Yeah, because they're kissing pretty hard.

[51:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:15] They have a Paul Hogan embarrassment fetish.

[51:17] Yeah.

S3

[51:18] Yeah.

[51:19] They steal the chocolate chip cookies and go back and do unspeakable things with them.

[51:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:23] Yeah.

[51:24] Paul, he loses his knighthood for obvious reasons.

[51:27] I mean, getting in a car chase with John Cleese, this is not okay.

[51:30] His manager quits.

[51:32] She says, I think maybe I'll go back and do what I want.

[51:34] Something for children.

[51:36] What that is is left up to the future.

[51:37] We'll find out later.

[51:38] Two weeks later, he's packing his house up.

[51:41] He's decided to leave Los Angeles.

[51:43] The Crocodile Dundee run is over.

[51:45] He's going to slink back to Australia with his tail between his legs.

Dan McCoy

[51:49] The thing that it seemed like he wanted to do from the beginning of the movie,

[51:52] and nothing was really stopping him.

[51:54] He's finally doing it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:55] His goal, his stated act one goal is now the act two rock bottom moment.

[52:00] And it doesn't make any sense.

S3

[52:04] He also has a very long beard in this scene, but that's just a gag.

[52:08] Well, that's a gag.

Elliott Kalan

[52:08] He takes his long beard off and puts it in a box.

[52:10] But it's like if in the movie Rudy, he was like, I want to play football.

[52:14] And then at the end of act two, he's on the field and he's like, oh, I've never hated myself more.

S3

[52:22] I've become what I set out to become.

[52:25] I've become what I most love.

Elliott Kalan

[52:29] So if the beginning of Star Wars, Luke's like, I want to get off this planet.

[52:34] And then by act two, he's like, I miss Tatooine.

[52:37] I wish I was back with my aunt and uncle.

[52:40] Oh, right.

[52:40] They were burned to a crisp.

[52:41] Right, right, right.

[52:42] Sure.

[52:43] So I kind of forgot that by the end of the movie.

[52:45] I'm not so sad anymore.

[52:47] Is it – and I will say it's another – it's a measure of how masterful that movie Star Wars is that it never occurs to us that it takes place over like a day or two.

[52:55] And he is totally not grieving for his aunt and uncle anymore and he's become a Jedi Knight after a day of training.

[53:00] It's amazing.

[53:01] What a movie.

[53:02] And it just doesn't occur to us.

[53:03] Okay.

[53:04] Olivia Newton-John decides to cheer him up by setting him up with this friend of hers.

[53:08] They meet and they're really into each other right away.

[53:11] It's a sweet little first date scene that gets interrupted because the valet bandit – that's right, the guy who stole his car – is in the middle of stealing another car.

[53:20] Paul Hogan gets handed a can from a grocery shopper.

Dan McCoy

[53:23] Because if there's one thing we know about Crocodile Dundee, he throws cans.

[53:28] Maybe that's a thing from the movie.

[53:30] I don't remember it because America doesn't, I guarantee you.

Stuart Wellington

[53:33] He showed the clip at the beginning of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[53:35] Did they?

[53:36] The Crocodile NES game.

[53:37] Maybe he's throwing cans at bad guys.

[53:40] Yeah, it's an upgrade.

[53:40] You got to upgrade your weapons a lot.

[53:42] He throws a can.

[53:43] It flies through the air for roughly 45 minutes.

[53:47] And they keep cutting between Crocodile and Paul Hogan, the guy running away, and a kind of homeless bag lady who's running.

[53:55] And I kept expecting the can to hit her by accident for it to be another mishap.

[53:59] But instead it hits the –

[54:00] What was she there for?

[54:02] Is that the red herring?

[54:03] Yeah, that's the misled?

Dan McCoy

[54:04] That is why it was there.

[54:05] They're setting you up to worry that it's going to happen again.

Elliott Kalan

[54:08] But it's not funny enough or dramatic enough.

[54:10] Just have him throw the can and have it hit the valet thief in the head.

[54:13] No, it doesn't make any sense.

[54:14] It doesn't need to be there.

[54:15] Anyway, it hits the valet – maybe she's a ghost that appeared on screen and they didn't know she was in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[54:20] So the crazy thing is it hits the valet band in the back of the head.

[54:24] His head shatters.

[54:25] Brains and blood go everywhere.

[54:27] And people start freaking out.

[54:28] And Paul Hogan looks at his hands now covered in blood.

Elliott Kalan

[54:32] Yeah, the blood spatters hundreds of feet back to where Paul Hogan is standing because there was just that much blood in the guy's head.

[54:37] He didn't realize that the valet bandit, his head is just a balloon full of tomato juice.

[54:43] And he was carrying the rage virus.

Dan McCoy

[54:45] So all those people are infected.

[54:47] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[54:48] So this is the –

[54:49] That's right because it's called the very excellent Mustard Dundee 28 days previous.

S3

[54:53] If only he had done that somewhere that didn't have 10,000 onlookers standing around to burst into applause when he hit the gun.

Elliott Kalan

[55:01] Everyone applauds and Paul Hogan is back on top.

[55:05] It's all over the news.

[55:06] He does everything.

[55:07] Because if there's anything we love, it's rebuilding our fallen idols after they do something minor.

S3

[55:13] The all is forgiven stories that are playing on all of the entertainment shows.

Stuart Wellington

[55:17] Well, that's why all these canceled celebrities are now doing – meeting out vigilante justice on the streets.

Elliott Kalan

[55:25] Yeah, yeah.

[55:25] As the Chappelle-in-jews.

[55:27] They're going out and just –

[55:28] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:29] Just stopping bad guys.

Stuart Wellington

[55:30] Do we talk about the fact that there's like a weird amount of footage of – on a news show where they clearly repurpose footage of fucking Mel Gibson looking like a crazy person.

[55:39] And I'm like, stop making me look at this.

[55:44] And there's a weird fucking joke about them running over fucking Harvey Weinstein and I'm like, I don't know.

[55:50] I don't know what they mean by this.

[55:52] Like, I don't know.

[55:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:53] It's a – it was one of those things where like if they had – I didn't know if the joke was, oh, we ran – who was we ran over?

[56:00] Harvey Weinstein.

[56:00] Oh, good.

[56:01] Let's back up and run over him again.

[56:02] Or if the joke was, oh, no, we hit Harvey Weinstein.

[56:05] Like, that's a bad thing.

[56:07] It's just – it's so – it's hard to parse the politics of this.

[56:10] Again, movie made by an old man.

[56:11] It's hard to know what's going on.

[56:13] It's like Gran Torino.

[56:15] You're like, oh, I guess he's trying to do something that's not racist but it comes off pretty racist.

[56:21] He gets positive news.

[56:23] Chevy Chase finally gets bad press.

[56:25] I don't – for knocking things off of tables in restaurants.

[56:28] Yeah.

[56:29] Because apparently he's a fucking cat.

[56:31] Yeah.

[56:31] Because apparently it is the slowest day in entertainment news that Chevy Chase knocks plate off table.

[56:38] It's the second story on the broadcast.

[56:40] You know?

S3

[56:43] Paul Hogan is back on top being the first.

Elliott Kalan

[56:46] The lead story.

[56:47] Being the lead story.

[56:49] Well, it's too bad every other famous person died three days ago because these are the only two we have anything to report about.

Dan McCoy

[56:57] That mysterious celebrity rapture happened.

Elliott Kalan

[57:02] Celebrity rapture sounds like Kirk Cameron's next movie.

[57:05] Yeah.

[57:08] I want to see that so badly.

[57:09] Okay.

S3

[57:10] The skies were dark because all the stars were taken to heaven?

[57:14] We're literally in heaven.

[57:15] We're literally in heaven.

Elliott Kalan

[57:16] So the skies were bright again because all the stars were back in heaven.

Stuart Wellington

[57:21] This definitely feels like an L.A. where like at least like all celebrities under the age of 45 have been raptured.

[57:29] Like we are only seeing – like that's why Paul Hogan is the lead story.

[57:34] Yeah.

[57:34] Because no one else is around.

Elliott Kalan

[57:36] We only see younger people when they are on TV talking about Paul Hogan.

[57:40] That's the – like we see a Hemsworth talking about Paul Hogan.

[57:42] That's it.

[57:43] Which one?

Dan McCoy

[57:44] To quote Audrey when he came on, I was like, aw, Luke, the least of the Hemsworths.

Elliott Kalan

[57:52] He's Hemsworth less than the other's Hemsworths.

[57:54] Yeah.

[57:55] It's half a hem.

[57:56] So now we have a client – we have this kind of montage that usually means the movie is over but somehow it keeps going a little bit.

[58:03] Paul's manager goes to London to accept the knighthood for him which I didn't know you could do.

[58:07] I kind of thought you had to be there to get knighted.

Dan McCoy

[58:09] I do like the line where they're like, no, the knighthood for the star because it's the queen's favorite – the star of the queen's favorite movie, Crocodile Dundee 3.

[58:20] And the fact that they went with the sequel, I loved.

Stuart Wellington

[58:23] What if her actual favorite movie was King Ralph, guys?

[58:26] Wouldn't that be fucking weird?

[58:27] That would be weird.

[58:28] It would be weird, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[58:30] I mean she does have a fantasy of finally hanging up the crown, handing it over to John Goodman.

[58:35] Yeah.

[58:36] I think we'll give it to Peter O'Toole.

Elliott Kalan

[58:37] Good shape.

[58:38] The idea that there's so much in that movie that they don't really – I guess they don't really know how monarchy works that like the king can't just name another person.

[58:48] Like you're the king now.

[58:49] Forget it.

[58:50] I'm out of here.

[58:50] But also the – or maybe you can.

[58:53] I haven't been done.

[58:53] But that – I imagine Queen Elizabeth II sometimes is just like if only I could sit down to take a group photo and end my time on this earth and just leave this torment and never have to worry about Helen Mirren playing me again in anything.

[59:06] And being so much better at me than I am at me.

Stuart Wellington

[59:10] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[59:10] When she's playing that level in Hitman 3, she's like, I wish this was me.

[59:14] Now also, Crocodile Dundee 3 is called Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles on the poster.

[59:18] So I don't know if it was officially Crocodile Dundee 3.

[59:21] Was it?

Dan McCoy

[59:22] Could you put it on the bloops page for the –

[59:24] Okay.

[59:25] Let's do it.

[59:25] Crocodile Dundee 3.

Stuart Wellington

[59:26] Crocodile Dundee 3, the poster is still fucking cool.

Elliott Kalan

[59:33] I mean it's got Paul Hogan on it, so you know it's cool.

[59:35] Yeah.

[59:36] So we see the opening of a gallery show for the photographer.

[59:40] He has an exhibit called –

[59:42] It's like a Mapplethorpe type thing, right?

[59:44] Nope, not at all.

[59:46] Mapplethorpe's photos are very, very posed and also very crisp in their visuals, their images.

[59:52] Whereas his are very blurry and it's called Life is a Blur and it's his blurry pictures of L.A.

[59:57] And we see – it's implied that I guess Kim Kardashian bought the photograph of her and his eyes widen as if he's Abu looking at that one big ruby in the Cave of Wonders in Aladdin.

S3

[1:00:10] They had so much coverage of this actor just taking in like big self-satisfied breaths and like looking around in wonderment at his own genius.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:18] And his mom comes up to him and goes, nice work.

[1:00:21] I never thought you'd amount to anything.

[1:00:23] And he's like, thanks, mom.

[1:00:24] And it's like, okay.

[1:00:26] And they're not really a joke there.

[1:00:30] Reginald Bell Johnson is now starring in the Crocodile Dundee musical on Broadway.

[1:00:34] The studio executives are so impressed by Paul Hogan's amazing idea to make a musical of his old movie because it's never been done before.

[1:00:42] Certainly never been done on Broadway before.

S3

[1:00:44] How did he come up with it?

[1:00:45] How did he come up with that?

[1:00:47] Well, it took a head injury and a night in jail dreaming it up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:50] And the fact that it's also a Go-Go's jukebox musical just is the icing on the cake, you know, that it just – it gets to be both of those things.

[1:00:57] But –

Dan McCoy

[1:00:57] Yeah.

[1:00:58] The funny thing here though, like you see Paul Hogan getting ready, you know, like there's these two big things happening.

[1:01:05] He's being knighted, premiere knight of his musical.

[1:01:08] Like he's getting ready.

[1:01:09] Like the movie is trying to lead you down the garden path thinking he's getting ready for one of these things.

[1:01:14] And then like you see him with his – like, oh, he's at his granddaughter's recital.

[1:01:19] And there's also like news, like voiceover being like, Paul Hogan misses his spot on The Tonight Show.

[1:01:26] And I'm like, fuck, you like triple booked yourself just to not accept any of it?

[1:01:31] Like that's the weirdest part to me.

[1:01:33] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:33] He's not at the opening night of the musical.

[1:01:35] He's not at The Tonight Show that he booked knowing it was the same – knowing not only is it the same night as his granddaughter's musical, but he's going to have to go to Australia for that musical.

[1:01:43] So he's not even going to be on the same continent that the show is taping.

[1:01:47] So Paul attends his granddaughter's school play.

[1:01:50] He snubs The Queen, snubs The Tonight Show, snubs the Broadway opening musical, all he cares about is family.

[1:01:56] And Paul's son opens a nightclub and a girl shows up and they smile at each other.

[1:02:02] And I was like, are we supposed to know who this is?

[1:02:04] Yeah.

[1:02:04] Is this a character that was referenced earlier?

[1:02:07] Guys, is it a famous person?

[1:02:08] What was it?

[1:02:09] Tell me.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:09] Explain.

[1:02:10] Well, I was hoping that you'd looked it up.

[1:02:12] I thought maybe she was a famous actor that I was not familiar with.

[1:02:15] But in the absence of any context, it was just like, well, I guess this like, you know, handsome young guy who's good at everything, you know, there's just a pretty girl that's going to like him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:28] It was like this is not a – he's already – he's like this – he's presented as, yeah, very handsome, super talented guy.

[1:02:35] So for him to get the girl at the end is not a triumph.

[1:02:38] Like it's not –

[1:02:39] No.

[1:02:39] It's not like, you know, when – that moment in the sandlot where the nerdy kid kisses the lifeguard and then they're like, they're married now.

[1:02:49] They have six kids.

[1:02:50] And you're like, yeah, the nerdy guy did it.

[1:02:52] Like it's not that moment, you know.

[1:02:53] Yeah.

[1:02:54] Again, that's a moment that comes after a brief assault.

[1:02:56] So it's not that great a moment.

[1:02:57] Yeah.

[1:02:58] But, you know, since he kisses under the false pretenses that he's dying and she has to give him mouth to mouth.

[1:03:02] But again, you know what I'm saying.

[1:03:06] For his son to like have a pretty girl smile at him, that probably happens 75 times a day.

[1:03:10] He's like Paul Hogan's son.

[1:03:12] Everybody wants to get with him so they can get with Paul Hogan.

[1:03:14] Anyway, John Cleese is in another car chase.

[1:03:17] Uh-oh.

[1:03:18] Will that guy never learn?

[1:03:19] And the movie should be over, but it's not.

[1:03:21] Paul has moved to Australia with his dog.

[1:03:24] He gets a magazine in the mail that shows that his manager has achieved her dream of making something for kids.

[1:03:29] Is it a Crocodile Dundee cartoon?

[1:03:31] Yes, that's exactly what it is.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:32] It's like Animation Monthly or some shit.

[1:03:34] What's the name of the magazine?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:35] We've entered a world where the only entertainment available to the masses is Crocodile Dundee.

[1:03:39] And it's related to its Larry franchises.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:42] Yeah, you're like going to pitch like a new take on like Sherlock Holmes or whatever.

[1:03:47] Now, how does Dundee fit into this?

[1:03:49] It's called Sherlock Dundee.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:51] Okay, so it's a crocodile.

[1:03:53] Disney Plus subscriptions have gone way down.

[1:03:57] Dundee Plus subscriptions way up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:00] It's like the answer to Martin Scorsese being like,

[1:04:03] oh, Marvel's really taken over entertainment.

[1:04:05] Like, it could be worse, Marty.

[1:04:06] What if it was just Crocodile Dundee?

[1:04:07] What if the CDCU had taken over everything?

[1:04:17] And Olivia's friend, whose name I don't remember, goes to Paul's new house.

[1:04:22] They're not lovers necessarily.

[1:04:23] But they do seem like they're close friends.

[1:04:25] So that's okay.

[1:04:26] At that age, you know, there's no real difference.

[1:04:28] It's just about companionship.

[1:04:29] And Paul is relaxing on the beach while his granddaughter plays with his friends.

[1:04:33] It looks like Paul Hogan is finally going to get what he's always wanted the whole movie,

[1:04:37] a nice nap.

[1:04:38] When, uh-oh, who is implied to be on the chair next to him because his face is covered by a newspaper

[1:04:45] and his voice is clearly dubbed in.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:46] Because he didn't want to fly to Australia.

[1:04:49] Who is it, Dan?

[1:04:50] Who is it?

[1:04:51] Wayne Knight is back.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:52] That's right.

[1:04:53] Wayne Knight is back, or at least his voice is.

[1:04:55] As again, they stand in with a newspaper over his face.

S3

[1:04:58] A newspaper with Wayne Knight's picture on it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:02] To really drive the bit home.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] Now, Stuart.

[1:05:07] Now, Stuart.

[1:05:08] Hold on.

[1:05:08] I just want to – well, yeah, yeah.

[1:05:10] He's very frustrated in the movie, but I want to ask Stuart a very important question.

[1:05:13] This is a good question.

[1:05:14] Yeah, I want to know the answer to this question, too.

[1:05:16] Did you stop the movie right at the credits again, or did you see the thing that happened?

[1:05:22] Or did you go to the mid-credits again?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:23] Little tag.

[1:05:24] Stuart's face is in his hands.

[1:05:26] I feel like such a fucking idiot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:31] So, guys, about five minutes before this point in the movie, I was making coffee, and then I left my apartment.

[1:05:41] Yeah.

[1:05:41] She said, come here.

[1:05:43] She said, come here.

[1:05:43] Let's make it clear.

[1:05:44] Yeah, they come here to record.

[1:05:45] Did you not finish the movie?

[1:05:48] I mean, when does it finish?

[1:05:51] Yeah, that's true.

[1:05:52] I mean, I think it lives on forever.

[1:05:53] You're right.

[1:05:54] It's in all of our hearts.

[1:05:55] Sure.

[1:05:55] I think the last moment my brain captured from this film was him looking at animation quarterly or whatever in his mailbox, and then his friend walking up.

[1:06:06] And I'm like, I'm assuming it's over at this point.

[1:06:09] You almost did it.

[1:06:10] I'm like, I should have assumed, because there's so much gold on screen, that there must have been a little bit of stuff that wasn't quite enough to stuff.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:18] This movie did not at all feel like it was struggling to find ways to find out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:23] I'm just amazed that Stuart almost made it all the way to the end of this 88-minute marathon.

[1:06:29] That is the very excellent Mr. Dundee.

[1:06:34] There's a mid-credit sequence where he's shaving with a knife, and he's dressed as the Crocodile Dundee again, and he goes, that's not a knife.

[1:06:42] That's a bloody stupid way to shave.

[1:06:44] And then he winks at the camera, and that's it.

[1:06:46] So don't worry.

[1:06:47] It's not setting up the sequel still.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:49] Oh, okay.

[1:06:50] Oh, okay.

[1:06:51] I would have felt like an idiot.

[1:06:52] Luckily, I rented it.

S3

[1:06:53] Obviously, the part that sets up the sequel is when Sam Jackson, at the end of the credits, says he's going to rope him into the Dundee initiative.

[1:07:00] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:00] Oh, right.

[1:07:02] Oh, man.

[1:07:03] Well, that's the nice thing about having rented it, is I can go and watch those bloops.

[1:07:08] Then I'll text all you guys with my thoughts.

[1:07:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] OMG, I can't believe they did that.

[1:07:14] Hills text us.

[1:07:15] Yeah, yeah.

[1:07:15] With an emoji of a shocked cat face.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:19] Yeah.

[1:07:19] And then probably a selfie of me and the screen and holding up today's newspaper, so you know that I'm watching it today.

S3

[1:07:27] Good.

[1:07:28] That for some reason has your picture on it, but it's also covering your face, so you can't really tell if it's you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:34] It's a picture of me and Wayne Knight.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:37] Headline reads together again.

[1:07:39] Shaking hands while holding up newspapers of that day when that photo was taken.

S5

[1:07:45] Look, it's a rough world out there, especially lately.

[1:07:53] I get it.

[1:07:54] So let's take care of our minds as best we can.

[1:07:58] I'm John Moe, host of Depression Mode with John Moe.

[1:08:00] Every week, I talk with comedians, actors, writers, musicians, doctors, therapists, and everyday folks about the obstacles that our world and our brains throw in front of us.

[1:08:11] Depression, anxiety, traumatic stress, all those mental health challenges that are way more common and more treatable than you might think.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:19] The first time I went to therapy, I was so ashamed and I was like, can't believe I gotta go into therapy.

[1:08:23] Like, I thought I could be a man.

[1:08:24] And Humphrey Bogart was never in therapy.

[1:08:26] And then my dad said, yeah, but he smoked a carton of cigarettes a day.

S5

[1:08:31] Give your mind a break.

[1:08:32] Give yourself a break.

[1:08:33] And join me for Depression Mode with John Moe.

S6

[1:08:36] You're in the theater.

[1:08:38] The lights go down.

[1:08:39] You're about to get swept up by the characters and all their little details and interpersonal dramas.

[1:08:44] You look at them and think, that person is so obviously in love with their best friend.

[1:08:48] Wait, am I in love with my best friend?

[1:08:50] That character's mom is so overbearing.

[1:08:52] Why doesn't she stand up to her?

[1:08:53] Oh, good God.

[1:08:54] Do I need to stand up to my own mother?

[1:08:55] We never know when we'll see ourselves in a movie.

[1:08:58] But that search for recognition is exactly what we're going to talk about on the podcast Feeling Seen with me, Jordan Cruciola.

[1:09:05] Each episode, we'll bring in a guest to talk about the films that they see themselves in and also the ways that movies have fallen short.

[1:09:12] So join me every Thursday for the Feeling Seen podcast here on Maximum Fun or wherever you find your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:24] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Lumi Labs.

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Elliott Kalan

[1:09:57] Although he's probably microdosing, Dr. Strange.

[1:09:59] Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:59] Let's be honest.

[1:10:00] Come on.

[1:10:00] Or macrodosing.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:01] Yeah.

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[1:10:14] Yeah, and a party boy.

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[1:10:18] I call you a dour Dan.

[1:10:20] A dour Dan?

[1:10:21] Sure.

[1:10:22] Why not?

[1:10:23] But one thing that helps me along is if, you know, sometimes if I microdose a gummy, the

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Elliott Kalan

[1:11:41] This podcast is also sponsored by BetterHelp Online Therapy.

[1:11:45] I'm going to introduce you guys and everyone else listening to a concept called preventative

[1:11:49] maintenance.

[1:11:50] I don't know if you're familiar with it.

[1:11:52] It means taking care of something so that you don't have larger problems with it later.

[1:11:56] We get our cars tuned up.

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[1:12:03] and diseases and things like that.

[1:12:05] That's all preventative maintenance.

[1:12:06] Well, going to therapy is just like that.

[1:12:08] It's a kind of routine maintenance for your mental and your emotional wellness to prevent

[1:12:12] bigger issues that might happen down the road.

[1:12:14] It doesn't mean anything's wrong with you.

[1:12:15] I cannot stress that enough.

[1:12:17] Therapy does not mean something is wrong with you.

[1:12:19] It doesn't mean you have a problem.

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Dan McCoy

[1:13:30] Okay, let's talk about it.

[1:13:31] So was this a movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:33] I guess we're doing it.

[1:13:34] The question I have is, was this a movie?

[1:13:36] Like, what is this thing?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:37] Final judgment.

[1:13:38] Is this a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, a movie kind of like?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:41] This movie straddles the line between feature film and video you show at an anniversary party.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:46] Yeah, it really does.

[1:13:49] I mean, look, what I'm going to say about this movie is like, I'm going to say good bad because I enjoyed watching it.

[1:13:55] It was certainly like a very strange experience.

[1:13:59] There's stuff in it that like politically I'm like, I don't know what you're doing, movie.

[1:14:04] I don't think you do.

[1:14:05] I don't think you're smart enough.

[1:14:07] But there is a certain charm.

[1:14:10] Like, I think that Paul Hogan is still like kind of a charming presence.

[1:14:14] And there's a bit of enjoyment to be gotten out of like what I call the old geezer movie where you get like someone who used to be famous.

[1:14:25] And like late in their career, they do something that is like just really like playing off like the zazz of being like, okay, well, here's a star who's old now doing a thing.

[1:14:35] Like Grumpy Old Men or the more like upscale version would be like Nobody's Fool with Paul Newman.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:43] I mean, Grumpy Old Men is a pretty upscale version compared to the very excellent Mr. Dundee.

[1:14:48] No, no, no.

[1:14:48] I know.

[1:14:49] It's Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau and Anne Margaret.

[1:14:50] It's way, way, way higher.

[1:14:52] I'm not saying that.

[1:14:53] But there's like –

[1:14:53] When Kevin Pollack is the fourth-billed person in the movie, that's pretty upscale.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:58] There's a version –

[1:14:59] Oh, I'm sorry.

[1:15:00] When Burgess Meredith is fourth-billed, Kevin Pollack is fifth-billed, Dan.

[1:15:03] There is a type of movie where the charm is just like, oh, this old guy is still kicking.

[1:15:09] Yeah, yeah.

[1:15:09] That's true.

[1:15:09] And I kind of enjoyed it on that level because those were not – like Crocodile Dundee, the first one, is fine.

[1:15:19] It's a fun piece of whatever it was.

[1:15:22] Like there's stuff in it that didn't age well.

[1:15:23] But like it's charming enough.

[1:15:25] It was funny like I – you know, our pals over at Blank Check did the Patreon, all of the Crocodile Dundee series.

[1:15:32] And they were like, we're recording commentaries for all three of them all in one day.

[1:15:37] And I like rubbed my hands with glee knowing like, oh, boys, you're like – the diminishing returns you're in for.

[1:15:45] But I don't know.

[1:15:46] I'm just saying – like there was parts of it that was like sort of like weirdly charming in the same way that watching someone's anniversary video can be charming.

[1:15:54] But it's not a good movie by any means.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:57] I mean it works really well.

[1:15:58] It works very well as a proof of life video just to be like, Paul is still around.

[1:16:02] He's still fine.

[1:16:04] He can walk.

[1:16:05] He can talk.

[1:16:05] He can drive.

[1:16:06] He sees at night.

[1:16:07] Like he's taking care of himself fine.

[1:16:10] He doesn't need help.

[1:16:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:13] Yeah.

[1:16:13] So mild fondness but it's definitely not a movie.

[1:16:16] What do you guys have to say?

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:19] Yeah.

[1:16:21] It's a tough one.

[1:16:22] But yeah, I mean – yeah.

[1:16:25] I mean I guess it's kind of a good bad movie.

[1:16:29] Yeah.

[1:16:29] I mean it's – there's not really any jokes.

[1:16:36] Yeah.

[1:16:37] You know, it's kind of tough.

[1:16:38] You know, this is a little bit tough.

[1:16:40] I had – last night when my wife was trying to fall asleep.

[1:16:44] She's been having neck problems and my cat climbed off of my chest, my 20-pound cat muscles.

[1:16:50] He climbed off of my chest and climbed basically onto her head and she just started like yelling because it was hurting her neck.

[1:16:57] So I tried to reach over and push the cat and instead my hand reached under the cat and somehow I must have hit the wrong button because I managed to express his anal glands.

[1:17:09] And he squirted fucking shit on my hands and on her pillow.

[1:17:15] And just what I'm trying to say is that that was funnier than what happened.

S3

[1:17:25] That does sound funnier than this movie still.

[1:17:27] Yeah.

[1:17:28] Yeah.

[1:17:28] Very fair.

[1:17:30] Yeah, it's a mild good bad.

[1:17:32] I mean I'd say that the first third is where the most squirmy, uncomfortable stuff happens.

[1:17:38] Yeah.

[1:17:38] And also is where your mind is racing like trying to figure out what is even about to happen to you.

[1:17:47] And then once you kind of relax into it, it's like – it's, you know, it's fine.

[1:17:51] It's just – it's kind of – it's just – it misses so many of the at-bats that – and it has so – like for as like thin an idea as it is, it does have like a number of setups and they just like never go anywhere.

[1:18:09] And it's like almost amazing to watch something set so many things up that fail to be, you know, realized at all.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:17] You use the metaphor of at-bats.

[1:18:19] It's like if the pitcher is throwing balls right over the plate and the batter is still in the cab from the hotel to the stadium.

[1:18:26] Like that's – he's never going to hit them.

[1:18:27] He doesn't even know the balls.

[1:18:28] He doesn't know the game has started.

[1:18:30] Yeah.

[1:18:30] I'm going to give it a – I'm going to give it a – I'm going to say it's a semi-likable bad bad.

[1:18:38] I feel like it's – aside from that musical – aside from that – that's not a knife musical number.

[1:18:47] It's not that like, oh, this movie is so painful.

[1:18:50] But it's like there's no reason to watch it.

[1:18:51] There's just no – if you're on a space shuttle and it's a generations-long flight to another planet and this is the only movie that's on board in the on-ship library,

[1:19:02] then like it could be worse, but there's no – there's so many other choices even for good bad movies to watch.

[1:19:09] Why bother?

[1:19:09] A lot of diabolical form of torture.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:12] Unless you're an absolute weirdo like me who texts you both saying I've had my eye on this one.

[1:19:18] Yeah.

[1:19:19] Just because it's such a strange cultural artifact.

[1:19:22] Yeah, there's no need to excavate it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:24] I would say it's for Paul Hogan completists only.

[1:19:31] Yeah.

S3

[1:19:33] Yeah.

[1:19:34] I mean, I think from now on they'll screen it every year at HoagCon.

[1:19:38] Yeah.

[1:19:38] Uh-huh.

[1:19:40] Yes, we all eat our Hoagies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:42] Yep, that's the food of choice at HoagCon, Hoagies.

[1:19:44] The only things to watch there are the Paul Hogan movies and The Ballad of Cable Hoag starring Jason Robards.

[1:19:49] Second Sam Peckinpah reference of the episode, dudes.

[1:19:53] Nice.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:55] Well, let us move on to letters from listeners.

[1:20:00] You can write us a letter.

[1:20:02] Yeah, why not?

[1:20:04] Why not?

[1:20:05] Why not?

[1:20:05] Why don't you do it right now?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:06] Yeah, nothing's stopping you.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:07] Or is it?

[1:20:08] Who's stopping you from writing a letter?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:09] Tell us.

[1:20:10] Write us a letter and tell – oh, wait, you can't.

[1:20:12] Okay, how are you going to communicate with us if you can't write a letter?

[1:20:15] Can you tweet?

[1:20:16] No.

[1:20:17] They won't let you tweet either.

[1:20:18] Okay.

[1:20:19] Dan, do you think maybe they can call us on the phone?

[1:20:21] I'll just give them your phone number.

[1:20:22] Okay, that's Dan McCoy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

[1:20:26] Alex, bleep it out.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:28] This is from Alexander, last name withheld.

[1:20:31] Who writes, I will be concise.

[1:20:33] My first child is due on Christmas Eve.

[1:20:36] Congratulations.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:37] You know, there was another child who was due on Christmas Eve.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:41] Tell me, tell me.

[1:20:42] What was it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:43] A very special child, and that child's name was Humphrey Bogart, born on Christmas Day in 1899.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:51] My first child is due on Christmas Eve.

[1:20:54] My spouse has 12 weeks of paid parental leave.

[1:20:57] Shout out to paid parental leave.

[1:20:59] And I will use FMLA to take off eight.

[1:21:03] Can you recommend movies or audiobooks to experience in 15 to 30-minute intervals between diaper changing slash feeding slash napping slash cuddling?

[1:21:13] Bonus points if the experience is heightened by a pronounced lack of sleep and or excess of hormones.

[1:21:19] Best, Alexander.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:22] I'm going to say right off the bat that if your experience is like mine, you're going to be like, oh, all this time I'm just like holding a baby or waiting to hold a baby.

[1:21:29] I'll use that time to catch up on movies.

[1:21:30] Doesn't work that way.

[1:21:31] I'm sorry.

[1:21:32] Yeah, your mind will be addled.

[1:21:34] You'll only be able to do one thing, which is curse the gods that you ever chose to continue this benighted race known as humanity.

[1:21:43] Bring this pox upon yourself.

[1:21:46] But what do you guys think?

[1:21:47] What stuff that's good to watch in like 50, 50 minutes?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:50] I figured this would be mostly a question for you to the degree that I –

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:53] When my older son was a baby, it just –

[1:21:58] Every now and then I'd try to watch a movie in the middle of the night while I was like trying to soothe him and it wouldn't really work.

[1:22:03] When my younger son was a baby, there was only one movie I managed to watch that way and that was Stalker.

[1:22:08] Andrei Tarkovsky's kind of hypnotic, kind of boring science fiction film.

[1:22:14] And unfortunately, the problem was that part of the strengths – one of the strengths of Stalker is the sound design.

[1:22:19] And I had to watch it with the sound super low because I was trying to get a baby to sleep.

[1:22:22] So I was like, I'll watch a foreign movie.

[1:22:24] I'll read the subtitles.

[1:22:25] But I still didn't get the full movie.

[1:22:27] That being said, with headphones, I mean, find a long book that you really want to hear and go for it.

[1:22:33] There's a little book called The Power Broker.

[1:22:35] It's very long.

[1:22:35] They'll give you plenty of things to listen to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:37] Just slap the noise canceling on your headphones so that the baby doesn't bother you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:42] Exactly.

[1:22:43] And, Stu, what's an epic fantasy story maybe or some real long novel or something like that?

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:48] Oh, yeah, I don't know.

[1:22:51] I mean I feel – I was going to try and answer the question about like movies to watch.

[1:22:55] I feel like – also, don't you like watch most of your movies while doing the dishes?

[1:22:59] How long do you take doing the dishes?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:00] I mean every time I watch the movies, it's in 15 to 30-minute intervals because I'm doing the dishes while I do it.

[1:23:05] Yeah, so.

[1:23:05] Yeah.

[1:23:06] The only movies I get to watch all the way through these days are children's movies I'm watching with my kids.

[1:23:11] So if anyone has any questions about my neighbor Totoro, I recently watched that all the way through.

[1:23:16] Yeah, that's great.

[1:23:17] Otherwise, I'll continue to go back to watching Malcolm X in 30-minute chunks while I do the dishes.

S3

[1:23:22] So your recommendation is all movies, basically.

[1:23:24] Every movie should be watched that way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:25] I mean the amazing thing about watching movies that way is that I feel like it gives me a much better sense of whether a movie is hitting certain marks structurally because it's like I know I am this far into the movie.

[1:23:38] Where am I in the movie?

[1:23:39] And when it's a really good movie, I feel like, okay, I'm as far into the movie as I feel like I should be into the movie.

[1:23:45] Like the movie feels like it's at the right point.

[1:23:46] And if it's a movie that's not working as well, there are a lot of times when I'm like, oh, what am I like, an hour, hour and 20 minutes in this movie?

[1:23:52] Oh, okay, 35 minutes.

[1:23:53] No cat has been saved yet?

[1:23:55] What the heck?

[1:23:55] They haven't saved the cat.

[1:23:57] She-Love hasn't shown up yet?

[1:23:59] Every movie has that She-Love moment.

[1:24:01] When She-Love, that's classic story circle structure.

[1:24:04] You got to have a She-Love moment.

[1:24:05] Sure, yeah.

[1:24:06] Okay, but Stu, recommend some movies then.

[1:24:08] I don't fucking know.

[1:24:09] Like –

[1:24:09] What?

[1:24:11] You're like, I thought I'd recommend movies.

[1:24:13] Okay, recommend some movies.

[1:24:13] I don't know, dude.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:14] He pulled the football away.

[1:24:16] I mean, I feel like – so I've been watching – like I watch a lot of stuff when I work out at home.

[1:24:22] And all that shit is like whatever is like fucking like Chopping Mall and shit on Shudder.

[1:24:30] I watch things that I know that like I'm going to enjoy that have – like Chopping Mall have an Academy Award winning soundtrack.

[1:24:38] And yeah, like stuff that – like Chopping Mall and Teton, as soon as it's over, I just want to start it back up again.

[1:24:46] It helps at Chopping Mall that's only like 70 minutes long.

[1:24:49] But I feel like –

[1:24:51] You're really hitting Chopping Mall hard.

[1:24:52] This is a big plug for Chopping Mall.

[1:24:56] I don't know.

[1:24:57] I mean like – yeah, I would say I generally would use that time to like go through weird shit on like Shudder

[1:25:04] or dig deep into the bowels of Amazon Prime and Netflix to see what kind of fucking mysteries await you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:11] Yeah, especially because if it's a baby, they can't – they don't understand what's going on on the screen.

[1:25:15] So you don't have to worry about them watching something that's going to scar them for later in life.

[1:25:19] Unlike when I finally got to see Mandy a couple years ago and I sat there worried the entire time that my son would wander into the room having woken up in the middle of the night and see something – see a guy with – like see these horrible perverts slopping down their food while watching porn on TV before Nicolas Cage chopped their heads off.

[1:25:38] You know?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:40] Oh, man.

[1:25:40] That's awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:41] You're making it sad.

[1:25:42] I want to watch it again right now.

[1:25:43] It's a great movie.

[1:25:44] Just even if my kids walked in during the Cheddar Goblins commercial, it probably would have done something terrible to their psyche, you know?

[1:25:49] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:50] They would spend so many years like wondering, did I dream that?

[1:25:54] What was that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:55] They'd be like, was that a real – knowing my kids, they'd be like, I want to eat that.

[1:25:58] Is that a real product?

[1:25:59] How do I get that?

Dan McCoy

[1:26:02] Moving on.

[1:26:03] Tyler, last name withheld, writes, what are the lyrics to the Flophouse theme song?

[1:26:10] We all love the instrumental version, but sometimes you just need to sing along, you know?

[1:26:14] I tried Googling it, but all I got were Elliot's mail song videos and the Full House lyrics.

[1:26:19] Tyler, last name withheld.

S3

[1:26:22] This is like the Gene Roddenberry thing where he wrote lyrics that would never be played with the original theme song to Star Trek.

[1:26:29] That was like a rights thing.

[1:26:30] So they would get paid every time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:31] Yeah, you would get a co-writing credit.

[1:26:34] It's the same way that there's lyrics to the Odd Couple theme, which are terrible.

S3

[1:26:38] Oh, man, we should have gotten in on this.

[1:26:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:41] Yeah.

S3

[1:26:43] Well, if you guys ever adapt the Flophouse to television, that's what you got to do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:47] Yeah.

[1:26:47] I mean, the ironic thing is there are lyrics to the Flophouse theme.

[1:26:50] I don't know if you guys know them, but the lyrics are,

[1:26:52] whatever happened to predictability, the milkman, the paperboy, the evening TV.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:56] It seems like the meter of that wouldn't fit the music.

[1:26:59] It fits.

[1:27:00] I'm not going to do it now, but sing it for yourself.

[1:27:03] Yeah.

[1:27:03] Try this at home, everyone.

[1:27:04] It's an experiment you can do.

[1:27:06] Yeah.

[1:27:06] Do the –

[1:27:07] It's the TikTok –

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:07] Just pull out some vinegar and some baking soda and then sing the lyrics.

[1:27:11] Yeah.

[1:27:11] It's called the Full Flophouse Challenge.

[1:27:13] Hashtag Full Flophouse Challenge.

[1:27:14] Post to TikTok.

[1:27:15] Sing the Full House lyrics to the Flophouse theme.

[1:27:17] Yeah.

[1:27:18] But yeah.

[1:27:19] No, we haven't posted TikTok.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:21] Someone will actually do this, Elliot.

[1:27:22] I want them to do it on a platform that I understand and will look at.

[1:27:25] Dan, it's the future.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:26] Dan, I keep telling you, you need to start a TikTok account where you bake things for me

[1:27:30] and I get to do reaction shots.

[1:27:32] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:34] Sounds good.

[1:27:35] I don't understand it, but it sounds great.

[1:27:38] Let's move on to recommendations of movies that we have seen and would recommend.

[1:27:46] I will recommend – you know what?

[1:27:49] Stuart and I –

[1:27:50] He's going to say Mr. Dundee.

[1:27:52] Stuart and I went out.

[1:27:54] We saw a movie together.

[1:27:56] I was –

[1:27:57] How sweet.

[1:27:57] Stuart was –

[1:27:58] Yeah, baby.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:00] Honeymoon.

[1:28:01] More.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:02] Yeah, Dan.

[1:28:02] So are you trying – you got married and then you're trying as best as you can to

[1:28:05] spend no time with your wife?

S3

[1:28:07] Dan, you got married to a different person than I thought you did.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:11] Audrey has work to do during this day, whereas I currently –

[1:28:15] Whereas Stuart sometimes can sneak out of work.

[1:28:18] Anyway, so yeah, we were – we went to see Last Night in Soho, which Stuart did not enjoy

[1:28:27] as much as me.

[1:28:27] No.

[1:28:28] And I will admit that Stuart's critiques are correct,

[1:28:35] that Edgar Wright and I forget the co-writer of the screen –

[1:28:44] Edgar wrong.

[1:28:45] Her –

[1:28:46] The screenplay does not necessarily have the subtlety or sensitivity to like deal with a lot

[1:28:59] of the stuff it brings up and I understand that criticism and that the plotting gets a little

[1:29:06] like baroque towards the end and in a way that undermines maybe some of the themes of

[1:29:13] the movie.

[1:29:13] I'm trying to be vague because, you know, they're twists and turns.

[1:29:16] It's that kind of movie.

[1:29:19] Was the problem you had with the twists or with the turns?

[1:29:22] Well, look, I like – the problem is like I didn't – and I see what Stuart's saying,

[1:29:27] but I also like didn't walk in expecting like a coherent sort of feminist statement out of the film.

[1:29:33] I expected a skillful genre pastiche as Edgar Wright is good at doing.

[1:29:40] And so I was perhaps less disappointed by the turns it takes.

[1:29:44] And the movie – if you can enjoy it just on a pure like this is a movie about movies level

[1:29:49] and you're okay with that.

[1:29:51] Yeah.

[1:29:51] Like it has a very entrancing sort of world to live in.

[1:29:56] Like Edgar Wright remains unparalleled.

[1:29:58] I think it like matching music to action with modern filmmakers.

[1:30:04] And there's just a lot of joy and skill in the way the world is realized.

[1:30:10] Even if like – I don't know.

[1:30:13] The sort of movie it is and the sort of filmmaker Edgar Wright is like combined together

[1:30:18] winds up with some wonky plotting and themes maybe.

[1:30:22] But I thought it was a lot of fun.

[1:30:24] I've thought about it a lot since I watched it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:27] Yeah.

[1:30:27] I mean technically it's very good.

[1:30:29] But kind of like – it makes me think of Jojo Rabbit,

[1:30:35] another movie that I did not like from a filmmaker I do like.

[1:30:38] And I've enjoyed thinking about why I don't like those movies.

[1:30:41] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:43] Which, you know, it's important to understand why you don't like things sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:47] I'm going to recommend a movie from Denmark.

[1:30:51] Oh, yeah.

[1:30:51] From 2020 starring guess who?

[1:30:54] Mads Mikkelsen.

[1:30:56] A man who I am very mad about because he's great.

[1:31:00] I'm recommending a movie called Riders of Justice.

[1:31:03] Oh, I got to see that.

[1:31:04] It's fucking great.

[1:31:06] It's about a military man played by Mads Mikkelsen who – his wife dies in an accident and he returns home to kind of take up his life and help out his grieving daughter.

[1:31:21] And then he is approached by a mathematician who explains that it was mathematically impossible for it to be an accident, that it had to be an act of violence.

[1:31:32] And it leads down this weird – it turns into this revenge story that's similar to another movie that I love recently, Pig.

[1:31:38] I feel like it subverts a lot of the revenge movie tropes.

[1:31:42] But it also manages to add in, you know, just enough thrills for it to be exciting.

[1:31:48] And it's great.

[1:31:49] I really enjoyed it.

[1:31:50] It's sweet and touching.

[1:31:52] And, yep, thumbs up.

[1:31:53] Riders of Justice.

[1:31:54] And if you see a movie poster for it, the movie poster that's at least on – that's on most streaming services is fucking dog shit.

[1:32:02] It looks like – it looks like this, like, knockoff fucking Sons of Anarchy garbage.

[1:32:06] And it is absolutely not that.

[1:32:08] It has, like, motorcycles exploding, which I don't think I've seen a single exploding motorcycle in the movie.

[1:32:15] Just looking up this –

[1:32:16] They just picked weird stock images, huh?

[1:32:19] Yeah, it's kind of weird.

[1:32:21] Yeah.

[1:32:21] Oh, this one.

[1:32:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:32:22] Oh, yeah.

[1:32:23] It's bonkers.

[1:32:24] It is nothing like that.

S3

[1:32:25] What they should have done is have Mads Mikkelsen pushing two buildings aside.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:29] Pushing two motorcycles aside like their butt cheeks.

[1:32:32] Yeah, with a big smile on his face.

S3

[1:32:35] Oh, you know he's nasty.

[1:32:39] Should I go with a wreck?

[1:32:40] Yeah, do it.

[1:32:41] Sure, I'll go last.

[1:32:42] That's fine.

[1:32:43] I saw the new Almodovar film last night at AFI Fest.

[1:32:48] It's called Parallel Mothers, and it is absolutely wonderful.

[1:32:53] It's a sort of a melodrama with Penelope Cruz playing a mom – you know, she becomes a mother unexpectedly in her 40s, and she meets this young woman who has also become a mother unexpectedly, I think, underage in the hospital.

[1:33:10] And there are some hijinks to do with their relationship that I don't want to spoil.

[1:33:17] But there's also kind of a plot running in the Spanish Civil War and Penelope Cruz's family history with that.

[1:33:26] And it's sort of comparing the sort of lies that we tell in our day-to-day lives to the kinds of lies that, like, fascist regimes keep telling.

[1:33:38] And it is, like, incredibly powerful.

[1:33:41] And I was just – like, my – I was in a theater, and my N95 was, like, totally stoked when I was walking out.

[1:33:49] Because it's, like – it's such a wallop at the end.

[1:33:53] But it's also just, like – it's got all of the, like, things that I love about an Almodovar movie, like all the fun melodrama stuff, and feeling like I'm in, like, a – almost like a soap opera for long stretches.

[1:34:07] And then, like, realizing that it's all been, like, building to a really mind-shattering conclusion.

[1:34:16] So, really recommend it.

[1:34:18] I think it's going to be on Netflix in 2022.

[1:34:21] But if you can see it before then, run, don't walk.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:25] I mean, it's not giving us much time.

[1:34:27] 2022 is almost here.

[1:34:29] Oh, yeah.

[1:34:30] I guess it is.

[1:34:31] It is.

[1:34:31] Get ready, guys.

[1:34:33] It's almost New Year's.

[1:34:34] That's right.

[1:34:34] Find someone to kiss when the ball drops.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:37] Your resolution should be to watch Parallel Mothers.

[1:34:41] How is that going to fit into a pair of sunglasses for me?

[1:34:44] Where are my eyes going to go?

[1:34:46] One is going to go in the O, right?

[1:34:48] The two – the zero.

[1:34:49] I don't know that one.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:51] Just like a scoop out that a two has that can kind of go there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:55] Okay.

[1:34:55] So, I guess – yeah.

[1:34:57] I guess that works.

[1:34:57] Don't worry.

[1:34:58] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:58] I'm not as nervous about 2022 now.

[1:35:00] America's best minds have been working on this for years.

[1:35:03] They're ready for it.

[1:35:04] It's one of the reasons –

[1:35:05] Y22K, they called it.

[1:35:07] Yeah.

[1:35:07] One of the reasons we were taken so surprised by the pandemic was that all – the CDC and

[1:35:12] everybody were working on this problem.

[1:35:14] So, I think they've got it almost worked out.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:16] They have a big whiteboard that says extra eye question mark.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:24] 20202 question mark.

[1:35:31] I'll recommend a movie finally.

[1:35:33] I'm going to recommend a movie by a director who I previously recommended a movie by before.

[1:35:38] I'm going to recommend the movie Working Girls, which is currently on the Criterion channel.

[1:35:41] It's written and directed by – or co-written and directed by Lizzie Borden, whose movie Born in Flames I recommended a while ago.

[1:35:48] And it's a kind of day in the movie.

[1:35:50] It takes place over one day about a woman who works at like – it's a boutique brothel in the mid-'80s.

[1:35:56] The movie is from 1986.

[1:35:58] And how very dull most of that is and how also very awkward a lot of that is.

[1:36:07] And it's about her and these other women that work at this brothel.

[1:36:11] And one of the things I liked about it was that it is neither glamorizing sex work and making it look like it is a liberating, enlightening experience, nor is it making it seem like it is the worst hell that a person can go through.

[1:36:25] It makes it feel very much like a job.

[1:36:27] And there were times when I was watching it where I was like, I wish I could adapt this into a sitcom about these women basically having to sit around and hang out together until Johns come in.

[1:36:36] And then having to deal with each Johns individual weird thing that they need that they can only get from the women who work at this place.

[1:36:42] And some of it is funny and some of it is really serious and thought-provoking.

[1:36:47] And I just – I really liked it a lot.

[1:36:49] It feels like you are spending time watching some real people living in this space.

[1:36:54] And the movie, although it's about prostitutes in a brothel, it is very much about what it is like to have a job and to work for a job where you do not control your hours.

[1:37:03] You don't control what you do during the day and you're kind of at the whim of a boss who pretends to care about you but really only sees you as something to be making money from.

[1:37:13] So it's ultimately about capitalism.

[1:37:15] But it was really good.

[1:37:17] But that makes it sound like it is kind of like an academic treatise when it's actually a really entertaining movie.

[1:37:22] So that's Working Girls from Lizzie Borden.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:25] Well, what a delight.

[1:37:27] What a delight to be here with you fellows.

[1:37:30] What a delight to have in Harrison.

S3

[1:37:31] I love the wrecks at the ends of these.

[1:37:33] I write these down most weeks when I listen to your show.

[1:37:38] Whose do you like best?

[1:37:40] Yeah, whose has got the highest hit rate?

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:42] It's okay if it's me.

S3

[1:37:44] I actually don't know.

[1:37:47] I just write them down.

[1:37:49] I have a shared note with my wife and we've watched quite a few of the movies that you guys have recommended.

[1:37:54] It's really been a great part of our week.

[1:37:59] You know, I get the Flophouse and then I get this fringe benefit.

[1:38:02] Oh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:02] Thank you.

[1:38:03] Thanks very much.

[1:38:03] It's really nice to say.

[1:38:04] We, you know, sometimes we feel like people just probably fast forward through the recommendations part because, you know, we're not doing our classic jokes that people love so much.

[1:38:14] All our bits.

[1:38:15] Our famous bits.

[1:38:16] Our famous bits.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:17] And the famous bits that people ultimately on Twitter clamor for and then tell me to never do again.

[1:38:24] But that's true.

[1:38:25] I feel that way sometimes too.

[1:38:26] I worry that way because I remember when I was running a screening series in New York, it was very hard.

[1:38:31] You would say, this is a great movie.

[1:38:33] You're going to love it.

[1:38:33] It's going to really mean something to you.

[1:38:34] And it would be hard to get people to say that.

[1:38:36] But if you were like, you got to come see this movie.

[1:38:38] It's the biggest piece of shit.

[1:38:39] It's ridiculous.

[1:38:40] You would have a back house.

[1:38:41] Like, it would be full.

[1:38:42] But if you're like, this movie is amazing.

[1:38:45] You have to trust me.

[1:38:46] This movie, you're going to remember it for the rest of your life.

[1:38:48] They'd be like, eh, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:50] Well, you do that presentation about Nuki.

[1:38:53] And you are imploring the audience to, under no circumstances, watch Nuki.

[1:38:58] Like, you are begging.

[1:39:00] You are on your knees begging them.

[1:39:01] Please don't watch it.

[1:39:02] And every person I've talked to after your presentation is like, I got to watch that fucking shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:07] This is a presentation I used to do at live shows about the movie Nuki, the second worst movie I ever saw.

[1:39:11] Yeah, and it's like, this is a bad movie.

[1:39:13] Don't spend your time on it.

[1:39:16] And it's just, yeah.

[1:39:16] I'm writing this down, Elliot.

[1:39:17] How do you spell that?

[1:39:18] Oh, boy.

[1:39:19] Like it sounds.

[1:39:20] I mean, the point of the presentation is,

[1:39:23] I mean, if people want to see it who haven't seen it, next time we do a virtual show, maybe I'll do that one.

[1:39:27] But the point of the presentation is that perhaps this movie is art in a way by making us feel the discomfort of the main character.

[1:39:35] But it's, yeah.

[1:39:36] But people, they're like, oh, a bad thing.

[1:39:39] I'm drawn to that.

[1:39:40] Yeah.

[1:39:41] I live in the 21st century.

[1:39:43] Joy is devalued.

[1:39:44] I need the sting of torture to know I'm alive.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:47] As someone who is, I mean, arguably like the most committed to trash of the three of us in that, you know, we have a bad movie podcast.

[1:39:56] And then on top of that, I will actively watch bad movies.

[1:40:01] Yeah, for fun.

[1:40:02] Weekly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:03] Much to Elliot and my confusion.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:06] You can't just fill yourself with garbage.

[1:40:10] You got to have good stuff too.

[1:40:12] Please.

[1:40:12] Got to have a little salt to bring out the sweets.

[1:40:16] Wait, that was the other one.

[1:40:18] Well, I mean, it is true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:22] Like, it is similar to food.

[1:40:23] Movies are like, like you are what you eat.

[1:40:25] Like at a certain point, you become the thing, the media you're ingesting.

[1:40:28] And I think if anything, the last 20 years of public life in America has shown us that if you ingest nothing but crap, then you find yourself turning into a thing you don't want to be.

[1:40:39] You know?

[1:40:40] So I guess what I'm saying is have a good thing every now and then.

[1:40:43] Like watch a good movie every now and then, people.

[1:40:47] I'm sure you're all, all our listeners, I'm sure you're watching good movies regularly.

[1:40:50] But, you know, look for them, you know.

[1:40:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:53] Well, anyway.

[1:40:54] So the normal stuff at the end, which is to say the important stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:00] Well, the first thing I'm going to say is, hey, Ben, do you have anything you'd like to plug, my man?

S3

[1:41:05] Oh, sure.

[1:41:06] Yeah.

[1:41:06] So I co-host The Greatest Generation and The Greatest Discovery right here on the MaximumFun.org network.

[1:41:13] Those are Star Trek podcasts.

[1:41:15] And if you're into Star Trek, give them a listen.

[1:41:18] If you're watching the new shows, that's Greatest Discovery.

[1:41:21] And if you are into the old shows, that's The Greatest Generation.

[1:41:26] We've done Next Gen and DS9, and we're currently working our way through Voyager.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:30] I feel like even if you're only, like, medium into Star Trek, you'll like the show.

[1:41:34] Oh, yeah.

[1:41:34] It's got a ton of funny bits.

[1:41:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:35] I enjoy these shows.

[1:41:36] I think they're really funny.

[1:41:37] And I'm a wars boy.

[1:41:38] I don't really care that much about Star Trek.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:40] Yeah.

[1:41:41] And also, if you're a MaximumFun member, just to, you know, plug the network, there's a bonus

[1:41:47] episode where you gents and we gents come together to talk about Star Trek V.

S3

[1:41:54] Yeah.

[1:41:55] One of my favorite things we've ever done is the Flophouse X Greatest Gen collabo in the

[1:42:01] MaxFun bonus feed.

[1:42:03] Collabo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:04] It was really fun to talk about Kirk killing a catwoman in a pool table full of milk.

S3

[1:42:13] Or an elderly.

[1:42:15] And then Spock killing a grifter that is posing as God at the center of the galaxy.

Dan McCoy

[1:42:19] And an old William Shatner climbing, free climbing up a mountain.

[1:42:24] That was ridiculous.

[1:42:25] I remember.

S3

[1:42:27] But I also have a new podcast called K-Pod 101.3.

[1:42:33] And that is a show that I'm doing independently with Dan Kennedy of the Moth Podcast where we

[1:42:39] play two morning drive time DJs on an alternative rock station in L.A. in 1998.

[1:42:46] And our characters are just back from rehab.

[1:42:51] We were forced.

[1:42:52] We were suspended from the air and sent to rehab.

[1:42:55] So we're two characters that would otherwise have never had a moment of introspection in their

[1:43:00] life who are now like back on air and trying to be the zoo crew that they are expected to

[1:43:06] be.

[1:43:06] But are like wondering, hey, are we jerks?

[1:43:10] While they're doing it.

[1:43:12] So the comedy is from that.

[1:43:15] I both love that.

[1:43:16] I'm like, wow, a high concept.

[1:43:20] Yeah.

[1:43:21] It's kind of weirdly high concept.

[1:43:23] It's a little 30 minute, 25 to 30 minute episodes.

[1:43:27] We've had some really great guests.

[1:43:28] We've had Ophira Eisenberg and Jesse Thorne and Ted Travelstead.

[1:43:34] And we've got some great folks coming up.

[1:43:37] I'm hoping to rope the three of you in for guest spots at some point in the future.

[1:43:44] But you don't have to promise to anything right now.

[1:43:46] Dan's pumping his fist.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:47] He's excited.

[1:43:48] Dan's either excited or hungry.

[1:43:50] I can't tell.

[1:43:51] Could be both.

[1:43:52] He's ex-hungry.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:54] He's rubbing his belly.

[1:43:56] So I think it's maybe the second thing.

[1:43:57] I've got to get some food in this team.

[1:43:59] Wait, Stuart, I see Dan is looking at you and you're turning into a big turkey leg.

[1:44:04] Oh no.

[1:44:05] But I still have my face, right?

[1:44:06] Yeah, yeah.

S3

[1:44:07] Is that a Zoom filter or is that really happening?

[1:44:10] What the hell?

Dan McCoy

[1:44:14] Well, that sounds very interesting.

S3

[1:44:16] But thank you guys for having me.

[1:44:18] This is a real treat.

[1:44:20] I love your show so much.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:21] Thank you for coming on.

[1:44:23] Thank you, sir.

[1:44:25] Well, now I will also thank our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:44:28] I mentioned them earlier.

[1:44:30] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out other shows you might like.

[1:44:34] You know, whether they're funny or serious, I think the network has a nice kind of vibe that carries through the different shows.

[1:44:43] So I'm sure you'll find something else that you'll like.

[1:44:45] Also, thank you to Alex Smith.

[1:44:49] You know, check out his podcasts.

[1:44:51] It's old Def Duis Papardi, who is not extant at the moment, but had Stuart on it.

[1:44:57] And then he's got the Fast Track podcast.

[1:44:59] Oh, Donnie's Fast Track, yeah.

[1:45:01] But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:04] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:45:05] I'm Elliot Kalin.

S3

[1:45:07] And for the last time, I'm Ben Harrison.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:09] The last time.

[1:45:10] Boom.

[1:45:13] Whatever happened to predictability?

Dan McCoy

[1:45:15] The milkman, the paperboy, the evening TV.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:18] Uh.

[1:45:20] Uh.

[1:45:21] Very end of the episode, Ben, we will say our names.

[1:45:25] Okay.

[1:45:25] And then you will say your name after Elliot says his name.

[1:45:28] Yeah.

[1:45:28] You might do a fucking bit.

[1:45:30] You never know this.

[1:45:31] What?

Dan McCoy

[1:45:32] We always forget to tell the guests that they're expected to see themselves out by saying their name.

[1:45:39] And it's always confusing to them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:40] It's just an awkward, awkward silence.

[1:45:42] And then they go, oh, oh, oh, me too.

[1:45:43] Yeah.

[1:45:44] And we're like, God, you look like an idiot.

[1:45:45] Why are you on our podcast?

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:48] That's the only way we can feel smarter.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:52] MaximumFun.org.

[1:45:53] Comedy and culture.

[1:45:55] Artist owned.

[1:45:56] Audience supported.

Ep. #356 - The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee, with Ben Harrison

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