FH Mini 39 - We Talk to a Super Mario Bros. Screenwriter

Dan McCoy

[0:00] Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse. This is Dan McCoy. Sorry, I'll do that first.

Elliott Kalan

[0:09] And I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:11] I'm Elliot Kalin. Dan, I'm glad you caught yourself there so that the audience the whole

[0:17] time wasn't saying, who is addressing me? Who's this mystery voice? What's going on?

[0:21] Where am I?

Dan McCoy

[0:22] Well, we have a guest tonight that I will introduce in just one second, but first I'll

[0:28] explain that here on the Flophouse podcast, on other weeks, every other week, we watch

[0:35] a bad movie and then we talk about it. And on these, not those weeks, the other weeks, is

[0:41] this easy to follow? We do minis where we talk about whatever we want to talk about. And

[0:48] in this case, we have a great guest who we want to talk to for the mini. Parker Bennett

[0:54] is a writer, an author, a cartoonist. The reason we have him on tonight, though, is because

[1:02] recently we did our Super Mario Brothers live show, which is a movie that he worked on as

[1:08] a screenwriter. And he was in the audience chatting away. We didn't know about it until

[1:15] Matt was texting us, our tech guy, and no one was answering because we were doing a live

[1:24] show at the time. I think that I was maybe the only one who actually saw it because Stuart

[1:29] was using his phone as his camera, among other reasons.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32] Which is great, because otherwise I would have been distracted when mid-show I got one of

[1:37] those jack-off blackmail emails. And I'm like, perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42] Now, you're saying this is a blackmail email of low quality where it's an email that says

[1:47] we have video of you jacking off and you have to give us money. Like, what do you mean when

[1:51] you say jack-off blackmail? And Parker, I apologize, we'll get to you very soon, but I have to get

[1:56] to the bottom of this mystery.

Dan McCoy

[1:57] Yeah, Stuart opened a real can of worms here that we have to address first, apparently.

Stuart Wellington

[2:02] Yeah, so the premise is that the guy takes a very friendly tone. It's like, hey, everybody

[2:06] does it. I'm like, oh, cool. Thanks, guy. He's like, but you do it way too much and do

[2:13] such weird stuff. And I'm like, oh, come on. You don't got to judge me now. And then he's

[2:17] like, if you don't want the people in your life to be embarrassed of you or something, yada,

[2:22] yada, yada. And at some point he starts asking for money. I'm like, buddy,

[2:26] you should be paying me. Yeah. Because if you don't find it hot, at least you're going to

[2:33] find it fucking hilarious. Okay. Well, and with that as the introduction, what's your pricing?

Dan McCoy

[2:38] What's your pricing schedule? Wow. We're going further into this bit. Okay. I'll DM you.

[2:44] We can have a little bit. Well, anyway, these messages were coming mostly just, just to me.

Elliott Kalan

[2:52] I saw the thread efforts. I was focused on the show.

Dan McCoy

[2:56] Yes. Well, certainly. But I was keeping an eye out for any information from our tech person.

[3:04] And then Audrey started running in and handing me post-its about how we could get Parker on

[3:10] the show. And I was waving her off angrily and then spending the next 20 minutes of the

[3:17] show worrying that I had been too brusque with Audrey when she ran in.

[3:21] Uh-huh.

[3:22] I love that this is the only time a flop...

Stuart Wellington

[3:24] Well, she did throw the engagement ring back into your face.

Elliott Kalan

[3:27] Yeah. It's the only time a flop house show has ever had a breaking bulletin, which, so we're

[3:32] not used to handling that situation.

Dan McCoy

[3:34] Yeah. There's no... We don't have the infrastructure for breaking news. But anyway, this is all just

[3:40] wind up to welcome Parker Bennett to the show. Hello.

Parker Bennett

[3:46] Thank you. Hi, guys. It's-a me, as they say.

Stuart Wellington

[3:50] Oh, wow. Showing off your bona fides right away.

[3:55] Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you, sir.

Parker Bennett

[3:56] Just to clarify, I was not in the chat room blackmailing Stuart about his jack-off blackmail

Stuart Wellington

[4:02] off. Thank you. Again, then I would ask you for money. It's, you know, it's all...

Elliott Kalan

[4:09] So you're saying it's almost... But if that's not the case, it's almost as if Stuart's tangent

[4:13] about his jack-off blackmail email was unnecessary in this episode. And I refuse to believe that.

[4:18] That doesn't fit into God's plan for this show. Hold on.

Stuart Wellington

[4:21] Previously, Dan had not wasted a single syllable in his introduction.

Elliott Kalan

[4:25] Yeah, it was...

[4:27] A long preamble.

[4:31] I feel like this... Whenever we have a guest on this show, it's like when I would invite

[4:35] a friend over for dinner when I was a kid, and all the behavior that I thought of as normal,

[4:39] I'd realize is totally... It doesn't make sense to outsiders who have functional homes.

Dan McCoy

[4:44] Yeah. So we'll get to your actual work in a second. But first, the first question I wanted

[4:52] to ask was, how did you come to be in the audience for our show?

Parker Bennett

[4:58] This is just... You're pimping me for a plug, because I listen to you guys constantly, all

[5:05] the time, every week.

[5:06] Oh, that's very nice.

[5:07] Thank you.

[5:08] And yeah, I would not miss that show. And I honestly, I also was very distracted during

[5:15] the show because of the amazing merch.

[5:18] Oh, wow.

[5:18] It was the quality of the merch.

Dan McCoy

[5:21] You know, speaking of both the merch and Audrey handing me notes, I'm holding up. Tell about

[5:29] merch limited time was a note that she gave me right before this.

[5:33] Wow.

[5:33] I think I teed you up.

[5:35] Yeah, that's great.

Stuart Wellington

[5:37] So when you're hearing this episode, there's still... If you're listening to it the day

[5:42] of release, there's still a chance that you can get in on some of the limited edition

[5:45] merch and the show itself if you haven't watched the show, right?

Dan McCoy

[5:49] Yes.

[5:50] Yes.

[5:51] We haven't figured it out. We may release this mini a little early. We may extend the show

[5:57] a little longer. One of those two, just because we think that it's so nice that we are able

[6:02] to talk to one of the screenwriters for the show. So if anyone listens to this,

[6:07] we don't want them to be wanting to see that show and then be disappointed. So we'll figure

[6:12] out a way of getting this out there before that goes away forever.

Elliott Kalan

[6:16] But I'll mention if there is time, then you can get tickets at theflophouse.simpleticks.com

[6:21] to see a recording of that show. And the aforementioned beautiful merch is at bonfire.com

[6:25] slash store slash flophouse tour store. All one word.

[6:29] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[6:30] I think if you Google bonfire flop house, you'll find it, which is hopefully an image of us

[6:36] being set on fire.

[6:37] Yeah. You find all the churches where they're throwing our merch onto piles and laying them

[6:41] on fire.

[6:41] Somebody has stuffed Dan into a bear costume.

[6:46] That's not going to bring back his honey.

Dan McCoy

[6:48] Yeah. Let's get back to our guest. I wanted to know, so you're one of the three credited

[6:56] writers for Super Mario Brothers. I know that there are many more than that. And that's, you

[7:00] know, for those who don't, who aren't professional screenwriters, crediting on movies is a crazy

[7:09] business that is decided by arbitration by the unions and all sorts of equations and such. Often

[7:16] there are many more writers who work on something that are listed, but you are credited. You're

[7:20] one of the three credited writers.

Parker Bennett

[7:22] I think it's, I think it's co-blame. I think the idea is not credit per se. So yeah, there

[7:29] were, there was a way, there was at least 10 writers.

[7:33] Wow.

[7:33] When we were brought on. So the project started with Roland Jaffe of the mission and Killing

[7:44] Fields fame. Yeah. Somehow talked Nintendo into giving him the rights to produce this movie,

[7:51] which I, you know, if you meet Roland Jaffe and if you've seen Spalding Gray swimming to

[7:55] Cambodia, he talks about Roland. It's, it's exactly that. It's like Roland is a, you know,

[7:59] this incredibly intense person and he, he has a British accent and he, he's just so in,

[8:05] he like, he just draws you in and you, you cannot help yourself, but you must do whatever

[8:09] he says. And, um, he talked them into giving him this thing. I don't know what they were

[8:14] thinking, but he commissioned a script from Ron Bass who wrote Rain Man. And, uh, they wrote,

[8:22] gave him a million dollars and Ron Bass wrote a script about two brothers, one sort of an idiot

[8:28] savant and the other sort of a grumbly guy. And they're on a road trip through America. And it was

[8:34] literally as if he'd taken the script for Rain Man and done a search and replace for Mark with Mario

[8:39] and Luigi. And did they ever jump on a turtle or anything? Like, no, no, no, no reference at all to the

[8:46] game. And so like the joke around the office, they called the script drain man. Like he was a

[8:51] plumber. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was like a million dollars. So the budget overruns have

[8:57] already started. Then they got what, Tom, Jim Genowin and Tom Parker, who worked with a guy

[9:08] named Greg Beeman to do a sort of the draft you would expect, like sort of a fantasy world. And

[9:16] it's, there's talking rocks and, you know, big flowers and it's kind of Wizard of Ozzie. And it's

[9:23] kind of a kid's movie and like really, like a, excuse, really young kid's movie. And they got

[9:29] really far into this. They had, you know, they had Clay Maquettes and they had, you know, the production

[9:35] staff had come on board to make creatures and things. And then the movie that Greg Beeman

[9:43] directed called Mom and Dad Save the World came out and it just completely tanked. And so they said,

[9:50] oh no, no, no. We're going to, we're going to get rid of the guy who's, who's done this movie that

[9:54] tanked and we're going to hire Rocky Morton and Anibal Jankel who've done one movie. So, but it was,

[10:02] you know, DOA, which was, you know, interesting. And, and they'd done a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[10:08] It's kind of still the way Hollywood works though. Cause it's like,

[10:10] I liked that indie film you made. Here's Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom. Have at it.

Parker Bennett

[10:15] Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, so they,

[10:20] Rocky and Mortonville had a pitch that they liked and they'd done Max Headroom, which is, you know,

[10:25] kind of a big deal. And, uh, uh, they had, uh, um, done a lot of music videos and they were really,

[10:32] I mean, commercial directors too. They're very, very stylish directors and, uh, and they also are

[10:38] British. So I don't know if Roland Jaffe was swayed at all by the fellow Brit angle here, but possibly.

[10:44] And, uh, and so they came in and, uh, they needed some writing done and, uh, we got an opportunity to pitch on the project.

[10:55] And I drew, cause I'm a cartoonist. I drew a poster and, uh, I drew a, uh, sort of a dark looking into the dark pipes coming out and into the darkness.

[11:08] And then in the middle of the darkness, there's these glowing eyes, those sort of reptilian eyes and, uh, you know, just, you know, big logo,

[11:17] Super Mario Brothers coming to save the world this summer. And I think that's what got us the job.

[11:22] I think the movie poster. Now that totally didn't work when we pitched the Munsters and had a shot a little video of the head of Herman Munster and panned up and re and it's a,

[11:32] it's a wedding cake with a Marilyn Munster and a guy on top. And we, that was our pitch. Uh, that don't work.

[11:39] So anyway, they, uh, had a movie with us.

[11:41] That's a great pitch for a Munster's movie though. That's a fantastic pitch for a Munster's movie.

Elliott Kalan

[11:44] I have a question.

[11:46] Still available.

[11:46] I mean, the Munster's are a flawed concept to begin with, but that's not your fault. That's, I mean,

[11:50] the genetics don't make any sense that a Frankenstein plus a vampire would make a wolf man. It doesn't,

[11:55] you know, but anyway, that's besides the point. So unless they're both carrying the recessive gene for

[11:59] lycanthropy. I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a scientist, but no. Uh, Stuart, sorry.

Stuart Wellington

[12:05] Uh, wait. So wait, uh, if you were a scientist, you'd be able to answer questions of lycanthropy?

[12:11] Well, if I was a, if I was a biologist who specialized in, in monsterology, sure. Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:16] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[12:17] Stuart, I know you just got distracted, but it really felt like you were, you were interrupting,

[12:23] like not to ask Parker a question, but to ask that question of lycanthropy.

Stuart Wellington

[12:28] I do have a question. Uh, so before putting this pitch together, had you, were you a fan of

[12:34] Super Mario Brothers?

Parker Bennett

[12:36] I didn't, I had never played Super Mario Brothers until we got hired. In fact, nobody in the production

[12:41] office was that concerned about referencing the game. Like nobody had done, nobody had done a video

[12:48] game movie. So nobody really knew what to do.

Elliott Kalan

[12:51] That's what I, that's what I wondered. Cause I was like, I was wondering, cause it really feels from

[12:55] the movie. Like I was wondering if there was any thought that like, well, we have to give the fans

[13:00] the video game, like something that they can hold onto. Or if it was just like, they're called

[13:05] Mary and Luigi. Maybe we see a pipe done. We're making the movie. Like, is that, there was just

[13:10] no feeling that it had to, it really had to spring from the game particularly.

Parker Bennett

[13:14] Well, I think because they had done this, you know, they'd gone pretty far into a movie version

[13:20] of that, like that. Right. So they had tried that and they were really didn't, knew they didn't

[13:24] want to do that.

[13:25] It was, it would skew too young. So that I think they then were kind of lost like, okay, well now what do we

[13:30] do? Cause it's not going to just be the bright colored video game thing.

Elliott Kalan

[13:34] And you're saying that it wasn't like when you were writing it, you weren't like, I can't

[13:38] believe I get to actually write a story for Mario and Luigi, two of my favorite characters.

Parker Bennett

[13:43] Well, all right. I was a big Donkey Kong addict. So, so I, you know, Mario has a place in my

[13:50] heart and, uh, you know.

[13:51] But Luigi can suck it.

Elliott Kalan

[13:55] Hey, where was he when he, when the ape needed stopping? I don't know. He wasn't helping.

Dan McCoy

[13:59] Yeah. I mean, not to be like, I don't want this to sound like weirdly condescending, but

[14:04] like, that's what I find charming about the movie is that it does feel like it's like the

[14:08] first of its kind. And like people didn't necessarily know, like, what is a video game movie? Like,

[14:14] what is that? Like, like, like a book, you know, was being adapted into a play for the first

[14:21] time. And they're like, I don't know, maybe if we put the book on stage, like that could be

[14:25] the, the play. Like, like chapters. We don't know. We'll have to figure that out.

[14:30] How do we do it? You know? And like,

Stuart Wellington

[14:31] Udo Kier wasn't sitting around. Is that it? Wait, is it? Who am I thinking of? No, that's

[14:36] Uwe Bowles.

[14:37] Who I was thinking of. No, but Udo Kier probably wasn't hanging around to answer video game

[14:41] questions. He was probably doing cool ass shit.

[14:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[14:44] I mean, knowing Udo Kier. Yeah, definitely. I mean, he's a huge gamer, but still.

Dan McCoy

[14:49] It feels like this whole like road not taken for video game movies in a way that like, I,

[14:54] I kind of really enjoy watching it, you know, like, yeah, like, yeah, sorry, go on.

Parker Bennett

[15:01] No, I, I, uh, well, I'm trying to, to pay attention.

Elliott Kalan

[15:06] That's always very hard. We can't even do that.

[15:08] Always hard.

[15:08] I was wondering because I got the chance once to pitch on a job I didn't get for a Looney

[15:13] Tunes project. And I was like, just to be able to write a script where like, I write like

[15:17] bugs bunny opens the door or something's like that would be so exciting. And I, and I'm always

[15:22] wonder when there's IP like this, if, uh, if the writer who's doing it has that sort of like

[15:27] thrill at just being involved with those characters or if it's just like, I just got to do this

[15:30] job. But I guess the Mario brothers games, I mean, they're 40 years old now, but at the

[15:34] time they were 10 years old, you know, or something. It wasn't, it's not like you

[15:38] grew up playing it, you know?

Parker Bennett

[15:40] Yeah, but they were, they were the most, I mean, it was the most recognizable piece of

[15:44] IP at the time, like more than Mickey Mouse, more than like, so Mario, uh, you know, had

[15:50] a huge, like whatever they call that. What is it? Q, TVQ?

[15:55] Q rating.

[15:55] Anyway, Q rating, you know, so that everybody like, there was a big understanding, okay,

[16:00] this is a popular character, but they, you know, there wasn't a character. It's like Mario

[16:05] runs around and jumps.

Elliott Kalan

[16:08] Especially back then.

[16:09] He likes to crush turtles.

[16:10] Like he didn't even have a voice yet back then. There wasn't even, it's a me Mario,

[16:14] it was, or Mario, I'm sorry. It was just like a, yeah, he really was just a guy in overalls

[16:18] who jumps on turtles.

Parker Bennett

[16:21] Yeah.

[16:21] And I think, I just, I think you should definitely tell everyone as you did on the, on the, uh,

[16:26] live broadcast, do not jump on turtles.

[16:29] Yeah. Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:29] That's something. Thank you. For anyone who hasn't watched the broadcast, it was, it's not a

[16:33] good idea. The turtles don't like it. It's not healthy for you. You get salmonella from

[16:36] their shells and they don't, you know, in the Mario games, often in the later games, the

[16:41] turtles will slide out of their shells and just get mad at you. That's not what happens.

[16:44] Trust me. Trust from a guy who knows, cause I learned the wrong way. Do not jump on a turtle.

[16:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:50] I want to go ahead.

[16:52] No, I just wanted to ask, like when you came on was, did you have like a, like, because there

[16:57] had been previous drafts, were there particular marching orders that they're like, we want

[17:02] you for this specific reason? Like what, what your like, so direction you were pointed in.

Parker Bennett

[17:08] Yeah. Well, we, we didn't take direction very well. Uh, so we had, we had it in our brains.

[17:14] We wanted to make ghostbusters. So in our, in our head, we wanted, uh, Bruno Kirby as Mario

[17:21] and, uh, we love John Leguizamo. He had done a live show and we saw in Chicago and, you know,

[17:27] we pitched him pretty early as, uh, Luigi and, uh, um, but you know, that we wanted Mario to

[17:35] be younger and kind of more Bill Murray-esque. And, uh, we wrote it, you know, in our first

[17:41] version of this, we had him hitting on women and, uh, he's trying to fix a dishwasher and

[17:47] he's kind of like, you know, I'm making bad double entendres and, uh, and, uh, talking

Elliott Kalan

[17:52] about pipes probably. Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[17:54] Probably talking about pipes. Wetness. Anyway, uh, yeah. So we, we had a more wisecracking,

[18:03] you know, ghostbustery tone and we wanted, you know, we knew that we had the concept, which

[18:08] was the dinosaurs had, uh, not actually gone extinct. They were thrust into a parallel dimension

[18:14] when the meteorite hit or meteor hit and, uh, uh, you know, evolved into sort of people, which

[18:20] we thought was genius. We just thought this is the best idea ever. And, you know, we're

[18:24] finally somebody has something we can hang on, you know, hang a story on. Um, later on,

[18:29] I realized they probably had just seen a Dr. Who episode with the Saurians and, and

[18:35] trimmed that. But, uh, but at the time I was like, you know, super enthralled. And, um, and

[18:41] so Terry and I were, you know, we're comedy writers and we were trying to, you know, make

[18:44] it funny and make it ghostbusters. And the producers, first of all, they wanted to keep the

[18:49] entire first act that Jim gentlemen and Tom Parker wrote and just have us go from there.

[18:54] And I was like, no, we can't, you can't set up one movie and then write another movie and

[19:00] go from there. So, so we didn't do that. And then they wanted us to keep everything in Brooklyn

[19:05] as long as possible because they didn't have the budget that they really needed to go do

[19:10] dino hat, you know, dino world, dino hat. And so we, you know, kind of extended the story

[19:16] in Brooklyn and added a whole bunch of nonsense that makes no sense now. It's like, well, there's

[19:22] these girls that are kidnapped and, but it's by these guys who don't, can't recognize humans

[19:27] apart. And so they can't get the princess right. And so there's like these, like half dozen

[19:32] girls from Brooklyn that are being kidnapped.

[19:35] One from Queens.

Elliott Kalan

[19:36] Yeah. And people will know, people who watch the show will know that people watched our

[19:40] live show will know that like that, that is, those are by far the best characters in the

[19:44] movie. Our favorite characters are all these Brooklyn ladies. The minute, the minute Mario's

[19:48] one woman who's smoking a cigarette the whole time.

[19:51] The minute Daniela Mario's girlfriend comes on screen, I'm like, who is this? This is the

[19:56] like, this is the movie I want to see. Come on.

[19:58] But it makes sense. Like, um, I love the idea of the version you're talking about. Cause as

[20:02] much as I love Bob Hoskins as an actor, he is so not creating a character in, in the Mario

[20:10] Brothers movie. And I feel like someone like Bruno Kirby would be like, oh, okay, I know

[20:13] this guy. Like I, you know, I can do this. Whereas, um, it may, maybe wasn't the best,

[20:18] the best use of Bob. If it was Bob Hoskins, it feels like they were like, he looks like the

[20:22] character, get him in that, get him in overalls, get him out there. You know?

Parker Bennett

[20:25] Yeah. No, they went to everybody who could possibly look like a short squat mustachioed

[20:30] guy. So Danny DeVito, they went to, you know, they went to a lot of people.

Stuart Wellington

[20:35] Well, and also like Hoskins, uh, was in Who Framed Roger Rabbit at this point, right? Like

[20:40] I feel like that's, there's some studio exec probably saw the parallels in their head.

Parker Bennett

[20:47] Yeah. I, there was also a ticking clock and they had to make a deal and, you know, uh, Tom

[20:52] Hanks had turned them down and, uh, et cetera. So I, you know, we, we were in the middle of

[20:58] writing when they made that deal. And so suddenly our draft made no sense. Uh, and it's like Bob

[21:04] Hoskins is not going to be, you know, coming on to the lady, uh, looking up her skirt under,

[21:10] uh, no, it'd be threatening.

Elliott Kalan

[21:11] It'd be incredibly threatening if he did that.

[21:14] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[21:14] Um, so we got a pat, we did a pass where we, we made him more of a fatherly older brother

[21:22] and, uh, tried to make that work.

Dan McCoy

[21:24] I mean, that's, I mean, you know, I, I don't know, like that's some of the stuff I enjoy

[21:29] the most is the, the sort of warmth of just him with, uh, Luigi. Uh, and we learned on,

[21:37] uh, the, the live stream that you were responsible for the Mario Mario scene, which has become Nintendo

[21:44] Canon. Uh, so, you know, I would say, uh, you, it's very fortunate that you, it seems like

[21:53] all of the best material that I remember at least comes from your draft.

Parker Bennett

[21:59] Well, no, let's, let's be fair. So, so really what happened was, uh, we, uh, we did a quick,

[22:06] quick draft to try to make it Bob Hoskins. And then they, they got nervous and they said, uh,

[22:12] actually a lovely man named Fred Caruso, who's one of the producers on the Godfather movies,

[22:16] uh, came up and he said, uh, just theoretically, uh, hypothetically, how soon would it take you

[22:22] to get packed up and out of this office?

[22:27] So.

[22:28] That's one way to do it, I guess.

[22:30] No rush, but tomorrow would be good.

Elliott Kalan

[22:33] Uh, this is going to sound like a strange question. Where were the offices? Were they,

[22:35] like, did they have you on the studio lot?

Parker Bennett

[22:38] No, this was in, uh, Light Motive Entertainment. This is Roland's company in, uh, West Hollywood,

[22:43] uh, Robertson Boulevard. And so we would, they had a loft. And so it was sort of the idea loft.

[22:49] So we had the Nintendo console and I, I logged many serious hours playing. So I became an addict

[22:56] of Super Mario Brothers. Yeah. And I was actually the one who was kind of the keeper of the,

[23:01] of the game flame. Like I insisted, you know, well, you can't just ignore all of the stuff.

[23:08] Like Nintendo had given us a, a cheap, a cheat sheet of like, here's the characters, you know,

[23:13] the ba-bomb and the thwomps and the, you know, so we've got to reference these guys somehow.

[23:18] And so I was, wherever possible, I'm like, you know, shoehorning it. Well, this is Toad. Yeah.

[23:25] The guy with the harmonica is Toad. And this is, uh, you know, the, uh, uh, we, you know, we had, uh,

[23:32] we couldn't make, we couldn't do Bowser cause that was just too weird. So we, we made him Koopa

[23:36] and we couldn't do Peach. So we made a Daisy.

Elliott Kalan

[23:39] Why was Bowser too weird?

Dan McCoy

[23:43] I think, you know, I guess, I think you can't, you can't help but think of the Sean Anah guy.

Elliott Kalan

[23:49] You're just like, oh, yeah. It's just, it's not threatening. Not threatening.

[23:53] He's also, yeah, he's also one of the least threatening members of Sean Anah. Not, not to

[23:57] mention already it's a, it's a non-threatening band. Yeah. So.

[24:01] Yeah. Is he though? All right.

Dan McCoy

[24:04] He does, uh, he does, you know, flex his muscles a lot. That's true. So.

[24:08] But what would have been scarier?

Stuart Wellington

[24:09] But the whole joke is that he's not that strong. That his muscles aren't that big.

[24:12] Anyway, Stu, you were saying?

[24:13] I'm, I wonder is, is it scarier to have like a dinosaur, dragon man, dragon turtle man, or

[24:21] Dennis Hopper? And I think Dennis Hopper's scarier.

[24:25] Yeah.

[24:26] With that haircut at least.

Parker Bennett

[24:27] Mm-hmm. Uh, yes. And in real life, even scarier.

Dan McCoy

[24:31] Yeah. Well, that was, well, I wanted to ask about that too. It seems, it seemed like,

[24:38] it was a tense, uh, production and I don't know how close you were to it, whether you

[24:43] witnessed any.

Parker Bennett

[24:44] Yeah. Well, so, so what happened was Ed Solomon and, um, oh God, I forgot the other guy's name.

[24:50] I'm sorry. Other guy. Uh, Ed Solomon and a partner, uh, were brought in after us.

[24:56] Well, actually, no, they, they brought George Stone in who had worked with them on Max Headroom

[25:00] and they, and I think, oh no. And then, um, uh, Dick, uh, Dick Clement and Ian Lafrenet,

[25:07] it was a bunch of, a couple of really seasoned British, uh, sitcom writers. Uh, they did a draft

[25:13] that was sort of a, kind of a diehard draft. Uh, so there was a lot of work done on this script.

[25:19] And honestly, the, their draft was what got like, uh, Fiona Shaw interested. Like they,

[25:24] they created that character and gave her a bunch of stuff to do. And then Ed Solomon came and sort

[25:30] of undid all that. And so she's in the movie now with, you know, and, and kind of wondering

[25:35] what happened. Uh, so lots and lots of writers.

Elliott Kalan

[25:39] It's a very curious character part now. Yeah. Her character, you're like, why is this in the

[25:42] movie? That makes sense that it's a, it's leftover from an earlier, earlier draft.

Parker Bennett

[25:47] Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think it was in the movie because, because Rocky and Annabelle were

[25:53] really kind of interested in making this more and more adult. Like they were not, they didn't

[25:57] want it to be a kid thing at all. They wanted it to be like, you know, hyper aggressive characters

[26:03] and kind of a punk rock feel. And, uh, I can, I can see some of that on the screen.

Stuart Wellington

[26:10] Yeah. And the, the, the, the police officers all wearing fetish gear with bedazzled police

[26:15] on their backs, you know, that's what they love. They loved that. They, they were had all

Parker Bennett

[26:19] over the office. They had the like spiky rubber suits everywhere. And I, I can't, I can only

[26:26] surmise. Uh, but, uh, yeah, so they, um, so there are numerous drafts. Ed Solomon,

[26:33] I think wrote the final shooting draft in a week of all nighters. And, uh, that's what

[26:38] they were shooting. And we were kind of friendly with, uh, uh, one of the guys in the office,

[26:44] uh, one of the production people, um, Lenny Young, and we were keeping tabs on what was

[26:49] going on and kind of wondering, you know, where the, you know, we'd worked on it and we were,

[26:54] we liked the project and we were, you know, we were motivated to stay involved. And he suggested

[27:00] we might want to come out to the set. And so Terry and I said, all right, well, and we got

[27:06] in a car and we drove to North Carolina from Chicago and, uh, we showed up on the set and,

[27:11] and Rocky comes like running over to say, Oh, good. You're here. You know, I was, I was just

[27:16] saying, I need a couple of pencils. And that was his term for the, you know, people who would

[27:21] listen to him and write down what he said. And, uh, and, and then the producers went, Oh,

[27:26] good. You're here. We need a couple of people to cut 25 pages out of everything that we haven't

[27:31] shot yet because we're $25 million over budget. Yikes. And so, uh, did you do the thing where

Elliott Kalan

[27:38] you like played with the margins and you were cutting stage directions and things like that

Parker Bennett

[27:41] to make it shorter? Yeah. You know, that dialogue extended where that one extra word,

[27:46] you know, gets that up on the page. Perfect. Yeah. It's, it feels so good when you, when you get

Elliott Kalan

[27:51] rid of a line and it's like, and you, and you're like, I didn't change anything about how this,

[27:56] how much time this will take, but it certainly looks like it's shorter. Oh, it feels so good.

Dan McCoy

[28:05] Hey kid, your dad tell you about the time he broke Steven Dorf's nose at the kid's choice

[28:10] awards.

S5

[28:12] In dead pilot society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks, but were never produced

Dan McCoy

[28:17] are given the table reads they deserve. When I was a kid, I had to spend my Christmas break

[28:22] filming a PSA about angel dust. So yeah, being a kid sucks sometimes.

S5

[28:27] Presented by Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker. Dead pilot society twice a month on maximum fun.org.

S6

[28:35] You know, the show you like, that hobo with the scarf who lives in a magic dumpster.

[28:42] Doctor who.

[28:43] Yeah.

[28:46] I'm going first. It's me, Jackie Kishan.

[28:48] Man, she's always this bossy.

[28:51] Hi.

[28:53] I'm Lori Kilt Martin.

[28:54] We're a bunch of standup comics and we've been doing comedy like 60 years total with both of us,

Elliott Kalan

[29:01] but we look amazing.

S6

[29:03] And we're working out.

[29:04] We drop every Monday on max fun and it's called the Jackie and Lori show.

[29:08] And you could listen to it and learn about comedy and learn about anger management and all the things.

[29:13] And Jackie is married, but childless and I'm unmarried, but child full.

[29:18] So together we make one complete woman.

[29:23] Is that just what that one's going to end?

[29:25] Yeah.

[29:26] And we try to make Kyle laugh just like that and say, oh my God, every episode.

[29:31] It's a good job.

Dan McCoy

[29:33] Jackie and Lori show Mondays only on maximum fun.

[29:36] This podcast is sponsored in part by better help online therapy.

[29:40] We get our cars tuned up to prevent bigger issues down the road.

[29:44] We get annual checkups and go to the gym to maintain physical wellness and prevent injury and disease.

[29:50] Well, going to therapy is like all of the above.

[29:53] It's routine maintenance for your mental and emotional wellness to prevent bigger issues down the road.

[29:59] Better help is customized online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist.

[30:07] So you don't have to see anyone on camera.

[30:08] If you don't want to, it can be more affordable than in-person therapy.

[30:12] And you can start communicating with your therapist in under 48 hours.

[30:17] Why invest in everything else and not your mind?

[30:20] You know, going to a therapist doesn't mean something's wrong with you.

[30:23] It means that you want to be the best person you can be.

[30:28] A person that you're happy with.

[30:30] A person who is happier in your own skin.

[30:34] In your interactions with people who could communicate better.

[30:37] All of these are things that therapy can help.

Elliott Kalan

[30:39] Even just someone who feels like they have a place that they can put the feelings or the thoughts or the worries they don't have a place for.

[30:48] There's almost nobody I can think of in the entire world who would not benefit from just having, at the very least, the outlet that therapy provides.

[30:57] If not the help for the things that Dan talks about.

[30:59] Which are things that almost everybody needs help with.

[31:01] With the possible exception of like, I don't know, Patrick Stewart maybe?

[31:07] I don't know.

[31:07] You see, you know, he seems really happy, you know.

[31:09] But I bet that's probably a result of therapy.

[31:11] I don't know anything about him.

[31:12] I might be starting a rumor.

[31:13] But it shouldn't be a rumor because everyone should get therapy.

[31:16] Yeah, but he and McKellen palming around.

[31:18] I mean, come on.

[31:19] They seem very well adjusted.

[31:21] That'll be fun.

[31:22] But if you're not them, which you may be, if you are them, please get in touch.

[31:25] We'd love to have you on the Flophouse.

[31:27] Ian McKellen or Patrick Stewart or both at the same time.

[31:29] But if you're not them, then it's worth looking into therapy just to get you to that Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen level of just feeling comfortable in your own skin, you know.

[31:39] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[31:39] Well, this podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.

[31:42] And the Flophouse listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash flop.

[31:49] That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash flop.

Parker Bennett

[32:00] So, yeah, the set was a disaster.

[32:03] It was shooting in this abandoned cement factory in North Carolina.

[32:08] They shot the crow there.

[32:10] Okay.

[32:11] And so there had already been a horrific incident.

Elliott Kalan

[32:15] It's got a really good track record, yeah, for smooth shoots.

[32:19] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[32:19] And it's 110 degrees and they can't run any air conditioning because of the sound.

[32:24] And then they can't use any of the sound anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[32:28] Oh, God.

[32:30] That's horrible.

Parker Bennett

[32:31] And everyone is miserable and nobody has – none of the directors – I'm sorry, none of the actors are, you know, getting any direction really.

[32:40] And so they're all sort of afloat.

[32:42] And Richard Edson and Fisher Stevens, you know, they're basically making up everything.

[32:48] They're just improvising everything that they're doing.

Stuart Wellington

[32:50] Yeah.

[32:50] That was a question I had is how much of that was on the page and how much was them just trying to do a riff on –

Parker Bennett

[32:56] I think they were just trying to – you know, and they wanted as much screen time as they could.

[33:00] So they would go keep riffing.

[33:02] And they were great.

[33:03] Yeah.

[33:03] Fisher Stevens is actually in the first movie that Terry and I got made called Mystery Date.

[33:09] So he plays a psychotic flower delivery person who's chasing after Ethan Hawke on a date that's gone awry.

[33:16] So lots of misery on the set.

[33:18] But also, you know, we had a great time.

[33:20] Like everybody else is miserable.

[33:22] We show up and it's like, oh, my God, look at this set of Dino Hatton and look at these props and look at the Goombas.

[33:29] And, you know, the genius production design of the creatures and the Goombas.

[33:37] There's a guy named Patrick Titopoulos who did all of the creature design.

Stuart Wellington

[33:41] Yeah.

[33:42] I think he's done – he was on that show Face Off, I think.

[33:46] Oh, wow.

[33:46] I think he was one of the – I don't know if he was a regular judge, but I definitely feel like I've seen him on there.

Parker Bennett

[33:54] Yeah.

[33:54] He's very well known now.

[33:55] He does all of the Zack Snyder stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[33:58] I think he did some Underworld stuff too maybe.

Parker Bennett

[34:02] Possibly.

[34:03] He was a genius.

[34:05] And so, you know, a lot of incredibly talented people and it's fun to see the effects and the – what do they call it?

[34:13] Articulated puppet that was Yoshi.

[34:16] So there's like these sticks that are coming out that are blue screened out and they're walking this thing and there's like all these wires coming and there's puppeteers doing all of this blinking and stuff.

[34:25] And it just – it looked – like it looks real on the set.

[34:29] And so that was amazing.

[34:32] But, you know, the actors were just miserable.

[34:34] Samantha Mathis – poor – poor Samantha Mathis.

[34:38] She was shooting another movie at the same time.

[34:41] Uh-huh.

[34:41] Oh, wow.

[34:41] So she was coming from the set of The Thing Called Love.

[34:46] Uh-huh.

[34:47] And I think she and River Phoenix were an item at the time.

[34:50] Okay.

[34:51] And so you could – if you freeze frame the movie, you can see like she hasn't slept.

Stuart Wellington

[34:56] Aw.

[34:58] But think of the stories she gets to take to that set from the Super Mario Brothers.

[35:03] Yeah, that must be –

Dan McCoy

[35:04] Boy, what tonal whiplash between those two movies.

Elliott Kalan

[35:09] She starts calling River Phoenix Yoshi on the set of the other one and you're like – he's like, what?

[35:14] Let me – oh, I'm sorry.

[35:15] I thought you were a dinosaur for a second.

[35:16] I apologize.

[35:18] Uh-huh.

[35:19] What set am I on?

[35:20] But it must be – seeing that set, it looks – yeah, it looks like it must have been amazing just to like walk around in it, you know, just to get to see it.

[35:27] Yeah, it really was.

Parker Bennett

[35:28] And, you know, you miss a lot when it's on film.

[35:31] Every corner is crammed with stuff.

[35:33] Yeah.

[35:33] That, you know, that's – I think that's the great joy of being the screenwriter is just knowing that some poor prop person had to stay up late and make the, you know, the meat donuts that you wrote into the thing.

[35:51] So, yeah.

[35:52] So, and we hung out mostly – so Fiona Shaw was trying to get us to write more stuff for her because she was – she thought we were –

[36:01] Dick Clement and Ian Love for an A.

[36:04] That's great.

[36:05] And, yeah.

[36:07] So we hung out with Richard Edson and Mojo Nixon when we could.

[36:11] And mostly we hung out in the editorial department and I became really good friends with Mark Goldblatt, who's stayed an amazing close friend for years.

[36:20] In fact, I thought of you guys because he – much – well, a long time ago now.

[36:27] Through Mark Goldblatt, I met Stuart Gordon.

[36:29] Oh, wow.

[36:30] And got to – you know, got invited to the private cast and crew screening of Castle Freak.

Stuart Wellington

[36:36] Oh, wow.

[36:38] Oh, man.

Parker Bennett

[36:39] And it comes back to the Flapos.

[36:40] Oh, man.

[36:41] Oh, that's so cool.

Elliott Kalan

[36:42] Well, Castle Freak is like Kevin Bacon.

[36:43] You're never more than six degrees away from it at any given time, you know.

Dan McCoy

[36:49] You got to – maybe you got to see our friend – our new friend Barbara Crampton, who still puts little hearts on our Instagram stories sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[37:00] She's amazing.

[37:01] She's the best.

[37:02] She's so sweet.

[37:03] Mm-hmm.

[37:03] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[37:05] Yeah.

[37:05] So, yeah, we hung out in the editorial and it was pretty clear from looking at the editorial that this was not working.

[37:11] Yeah.

[37:12] Yeah.

[37:12] You know, they tried real hard and they kept – I think as you guys noted, they just kept cutting it faster and faster.

Elliott Kalan

[37:19] Yeah.

[37:19] Oh, boy.

[37:20] I was trying to take notes while I was watching it and a long time Flapos listeners will know that I usually – the only time I get to watch these movies usually is while I'm doing the dishes or now while I'm eating lunch.

[37:29] And I had – it meant that, like, the dishes were taking me so long because I was like, hold on, wait, I got to write more notes.

[37:36] Hold on, hold on a second.

[37:37] Like, usually I can let a scene go by in a movie and then write down, you know, in a line what happened in the scene.

[37:42] But with this, it was like, wait, okay, then this thing happened.

[37:44] This, okay.

[37:45] Yeah.

[37:45] So, they get brought to the interrogation room and Koopa's there and he's pretending to be a lawyer.

[37:48] But then he immediately drops that act and starts just telling him that they're Koopa.

[37:52] They're Koopa.

[37:52] And then they get taken away to be devolved and they see another guy get devolved.

[37:56] And so Mojo Nixon gets turned into a Koopa and they give him his harmonica and then they're about to devolve the Mario Brothers.

[38:03] But they push Koopa in but just a little bit so he doesn't get devolved all the way and they escape.

[38:07] Like, it's – the movie is like – yeah.

[38:09] I feel like if you close your eyes for too long while watching the movie then you're like, what happened?

[38:14] Where are they?

[38:15] What's going on?

[38:16] Which in retrospect, like, is super fun.

[38:19] Like, it makes the movie more fun in some ways that it's like – it's like the movie – as soon as the title screen comes up, Super Mario Brothers, it's like the movie is checking to make sure you have your seatbelt on.

[38:28] And then it's like, okay, let's go.

[38:30] Like, 100 miles per hour.

[38:32] Let's keep moving.

Parker Bennett

[38:33] Yes.

[38:34] Well, anyway, we're on the set trying to cut lines and scenes and we get this horrible call from a PA that we need to come immediately, that the directors and the producers need us immediately because Dennis Hopper is very unhappy.

[38:53] And so basically the producers and the directors have thrown us under the bus because we cut, like, four lines out of some speeches.

[39:04] And he, you know, he'd already committed what few brain cells, you know, were working to, like, memorizing the one that he memorized.

[39:12] And he hollered at us for at least half an hour.

[39:16] Like, if you timed it, like, he kept screaming.

[39:20] He made me look up the word act in the dictionary and read it out loud.

[39:25] It was –

[39:26] Wait, wait.

Stuart Wellington

[39:27] Did you have a dictionary on set?

[39:28] Yeah.

[39:29] Yeah.

Parker Bennett

[39:32] Somebody – like, somebody – some poor PA had to go get a dictionary so I could read the definition of the word act.

[39:39] And, yeah, it's like – basically whatever time we saved by cutting the four lines –

[39:46] Yeah.

[39:47] Was eaten up in the production by – I think we lost the whole day for Dennis that day.

[39:54] Wow.

[39:55] And, yeah, everybody – nobody escaped unscathed.

[40:00] Eventually, we left and we were done with our little, you know, we cut what we could and we, you know, did the best.

[40:08] There was no ending because the ending we had written was supposed to be on top of the Brooklyn Bridge and was this giant climactic battle on top of the Brooklyn Bridge.

[40:17] And that had gotten scrapped long ago.

[40:20] And so we pitched this kind of goofy, like, we'll just make it as goofy as possible.

[40:26] There will be a ba-bomb.

[40:27] It will be tiny.

[40:30] Koopa will go into a bucket and then a giant, you know, Tyrannosaurus head will come out.

[40:37] And that's what they wound up shooting for better or worse.

Stuart Wellington

[40:41] Yeah.

[40:42] In some ways, it was pretty good.

Elliott Kalan

[40:48] Did Dennis Hopper ever apologize?

[40:50] I'm guessing not, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.

[40:53] No.

[40:53] Okay.

[40:54] I wish I was wrong on that, that he, like, sent you a bucket.

Parker Bennett

[40:56] Nobody, nobody, nobody apologizes.

[40:58] Nobody apologizes in Hollywood.

[40:59] That's not a thing.

[41:01] Yeah.

[41:01] So we left and we, here's the thing.

[41:04] Okay.

[41:04] And anybody who does anything in Hollywood knows this.

[41:08] You are deluded all the time that this could work.

[41:13] Yeah.

[41:14] Like, you're, like, you, hope springs eternal.

[41:16] It's like this treadmill of hope where you're, like, thinking, you know, it's not a good movie,

[41:22] but there are worse movies that have made a gajillion dollars on Memorial Day.

[41:26] Maybe this, you know, who knows?

[41:28] We don't know.

[41:29] But they had a test screening and it did not go well.

[41:34] And a lot of people in the audience were confused, essentially.

[41:37] Like, they didn't understand the premise, even.

[41:40] And so they brought Terry and I back to write ADR dialogue.

[41:47] And the post-production supervisor said it was the most ADR dialogue she had ever seen in a movie.

[41:53] Because, A, the sound they'd captured on set all had to be looped.

[41:58] Wow.

[41:58] And then we came in and whenever a character's in the long shot or turning their head away,

[42:04] we're saying, uh, meteorite, Earth, uh, parallel dimensions.

[42:09] Right.

[42:09] Because nobody got it.

[42:11] And then they forced us to write an intro to, like, set up the premise.

[42:15] Yeah.

[42:16] And we're, like, we're dragging our heels.

[42:18] Nobody wants to do this intro.

[42:20] And, uh, because they have no budget left.

[42:23] And, like, the guys, who's the guy who does your animation?

Dan McCoy

[42:26] Uh, Tony Ocher is the guy who does, like, the intros for the, the intros for the live show.

[42:32] And then John Holt, our friend, did the interstitials, uh, in, in the streaming thing this last time.

Parker Bennett

[42:39] I think we got somebody's, like, second cousin's nephew's, you know, girlfriend.

[42:44] I don't know where, wherever they got this person.

[42:46] Our thought was, okay, we'll do an animated intro in the style of the video game.

[42:51] Oh.

[42:52] Right?

[42:52] Like, that will tie it all together.

[42:54] We'll do a, you know, it'll look like the video game.

[42:57] And, uh, we had Dan Kesslinetta reading the voiceover.

[43:01] And, uh, I'd known him from Chicago.

[43:04] Um, and, uh, we had, uh, yeah.

[43:08] So we wrote this, you know, thing like Brooklyn 65 million years ago.

[43:13] And then Brooklyn now.

[43:14] Uh, of course, no, you know, meteor ever hit Brooklyn.

Elliott Kalan

[43:18] Okay.

[43:19] Yeah.

[43:19] It wouldn't have the guts.

[43:20] It wouldn't have the balls to come at Brooklyn.

[43:22] Learn something every day.

[43:23] You take that shit elsewhere, meteorite.

[43:25] Come on.

[43:26] Forget about it.

Parker Bennett

[43:28] So, so we added all this dialogue looping.

[43:30] And we added the intro.

[43:32] And it's still, uh, you know, we had the premiere screening.

[43:35] And my own mother came up to me at the premiere screening and said it was the worst movie she'd

[43:39] ever seen in her life.

Stuart Wellington

[43:41] Well, I can introduce your mother to some other movies.

[43:44] Um, from the Flophouse's back catalog that I assure her are worse.

[43:50] Um, you're supposed to lie.

[43:52] You're, you're, you're my mother.

Elliott Kalan

[43:54] Oh, no.

[43:55] Parents, parents, they, I think they get a thrill out of, out of those moments.

[43:59] There's a number of things I've worked, there was something I won an award for writing.

[44:03] And my dad was like, and I said, I won an award for it.

[44:05] And he goes, oh, I thought it was pretty poor.

[44:06] I thought that one was pretty poor.

[44:08] I was like, thanks dad.

[44:09] Wow.

[44:10] Appreciate it.

[44:11] Not your best effort.

Stuart Wellington

[44:12] So I, I, I have, I have a two part question.

[44:15] The first is, uh, did you have a hand in the, the end of the movie where they, that is very

[44:22] blatantly setting up the next adventure?

Parker Bennett

[44:25] I have to admit that that was entirely me.

[44:28] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[44:29] So that's what I was hoping you were going to say.

[44:32] What was the plan for the next adventure?

[44:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:36] So, all right.

Parker Bennett

[44:37] So what was supposed to happen is when they merged the dimensions, we, we envisioned there

[44:46] being like sort of, you know, how there's a multiverse.

[44:48] It's very popular now that we would see all of these incredible other dimensions and like

[44:55] including the video game, like you'd see the characters in a video game dimension and you'd

[45:00] see like, you know, the, the evolved from chipmunks, you know, you'd see a bunch of

[45:05] different things that were, you know, that it wasn't just the dinosaurs.

[45:09] So our idea for the sequel was, you know, the dimensions are collapsing and there's a whole

[45:13] bunch of other dimensions and, you know, we've got to, we've got to somehow stabilize the meteor

[45:17] and, um, et cetera, et cetera.

[45:20] And they had already tacked, they tacked on the-

Dan McCoy

[45:22] That movie's coming out.

[45:23] It's the new Spider-Man movie.

[45:24] And also the last Spider-Man cartoon movie.

Stuart Wellington

[45:27] Uh-huh.

[45:28] And kind of all of Rick and Morty.

[45:31] Yeah.

[45:32] We were ahead of our time.

[45:33] What can I say?

Dan McCoy

[45:34] Well, uh, it was amazing to have you appear.

[45:39] Uh, if you want to, if you want to see him appear and two thirds of the flop house, uh, look

[45:45] panicked all of a sudden, like they've been caught doing something they shouldn't be.

[45:51] Um, you can watch the live show for a little bit more probably now.

[45:55] Um, but before you go, uh, we wanted to ask whether there was anything, uh, you wanted

[46:01] to plug, anything you wanted to say to the listeners, any like message you want to get

[46:05] out in the world?

[46:06] Uh, anything.

[46:06] Something to the young generation for the future.

[46:08] The younger, yeah.

Parker Bennett

[46:09] Uh, well, so for one thing, uh, I'm, uh, um, one of the things that, uh, is, is sad to

[46:16] me is that my writing partner, Terry Runte, uh, uh, really did not want to be remembered

[46:21] as, you know, primarily as the guy who wrote Super Mario Brothers.

[46:25] And, uh, he died, uh, quite a while ago and I realized, oh, you know what?

[46:30] There's a whole bunch of his stuff that's really brilliant that I could put on the internet.

[46:34] And so I'm, uh, I've, I'm launching a website that's sort of a tribute to him called Terry

[46:38] Runte.com.

[46:40] Uh, his birthday's coming up on October 8th and the site will launch then.

[46:44] Uh, and I'm doing a little zoom reading of, uh, a story about Super Mario Brothers.

[46:49] And, uh, so people want to, uh, I don't know when this is coming out, but if it, if it's

[46:53] coming out before October 8th, uh, you can go to Terry Runte.com and, uh, sign up and get

[46:57] the zoom link for that.

[46:58] Uh, and I should note, uh, uh, there's a guy, a couple of guys, Ryan Haas and Steven Applebaum

[47:04] who are absolute like maniacs about Super Mario Brothers.

[47:07] And they've created a whole archive of everything about the movie at smbmovie.com.

[47:14] And so if you're, if you're interested in how this movie, uh, the, the genesis of this

[47:19] movie and the disastrous production of it and, uh, everything else, uh, all of that is

[47:25] there at smbmovie.com.

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] Well.

[47:28] I will say that there, there are movies that I, I mean, I, as much as I enjoy the Super Mario

[47:32] Brothers movie, there are other movies that I, that I dearly love that I find the making

[47:37] of them not half, not even a 10th as interesting as I do the making of this movie.

[47:41] So now it's like, I, like there's nothing I don't want to know about the making of this

[47:46] movie.

[47:46] I just want to know everything I can.

[47:47] So I'm going to be, I'm going to be spending a lot of time on that site for sure.

Parker Bennett

[47:51] Yes.

[47:51] Well, I think you guys can take some credit here because, uh, apparently like today there

[47:55] was a news article about how Super Mario Brothers is like trending and it's like number six in

[48:00] the charts on Amazon and like people are buying.

[48:03] I, I am assuming it's all because of the live show.

Dan McCoy

[48:06] Oh yeah.

[48:06] Yeah.

[48:07] It's the flop house bump.

[48:07] We call it.

[48:08] Yeah.

[48:10] If only, if only we had that much.

[48:12] I don't think it's that Chris Pratt news or anything like that.

Stuart Wellington

[48:15] No, they, I mean, they want to get that news out of there before our live show anyway,

[48:19] because they want to, uh, yeah.

[48:21] Yeah.

[48:22] Yeah.

[48:22] Trying to change the conversation.

[48:23] Catch the wave.

[48:23] Yeah.

[48:24] Yeah.

[48:24] Catch the wave.

[48:26] Catch the wave, dude.

[48:27] Taste the rainbow.

Elliott Kalan

[48:28] They're like, well, no one's going to be interested in Super Mario Brothers after the flop house

[48:31] show.

[48:31] It's only the huge lead up to the flop house show.

[48:34] So we better release this Chris Pratt information now.

Dan McCoy

[48:37] Uh, uh, well, thank you Parker for, uh, for being a listener and also for not hating us

[48:45] for, uh, talking about the movie, which we all, I think really enjoyed.

[48:49] So, uh, perhaps there's no reason to.

Parker Bennett

[48:53] Thank you.

[48:53] Yeah.

[48:53] No, it was a big question for me, whether it was a, a good, bad, worst movie.

[48:58] My mother had ever seen in her life or a bad, bad, worst, worst movie.

[49:02] My mother had ever seen in her life.

Dan McCoy

[49:04] Uh, well, there's no better place, uh, to stop than there.

[49:09] Uh, thank you to Alex, uh, our Al Smith, our, uh, producer.

[49:13] He has the last name.

[49:14] Go for it.

[49:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[49:16] I thought, why not do both of them?

[49:18] He, he got two, he got two in the mail.

[49:20] Use both.

[49:21] Um, go over to maximumfund.org.

[49:26] Check out the other podcasts.

[49:29] Um, thank you again to our guest, Parker Bennett.

[49:32] But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[49:35] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[49:36] I'm Ellie Kalin.

[49:37] And our guest has been...

[49:38] Parker Bennett.

Stuart Wellington

[49:39] And don't forget, if you get, if you're listening to this on day of release,

[49:42] to go check out, uh, our limited edition merch.

[49:45] And, uh, you might be able to still catch that live show.

[49:48] Bye.

[49:55] Maximumfund.org.

Parker Bennett

[49:56] Comedy and culture.

S7

[49:58] Artist owned.

[49:59] Audience supported.

FH Mini 39 - We Talk to a Super Mario Bros. Screenwriter

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