Ep.#461 - An Easter Bunny Puppy

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss an Easter bunny puppy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:03] I thought we were discussing a movie, but I guess we're discussing a puppy.

Dan McCoy

[0:29] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:32] Hey, Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:35] Hey, Stuart Wellington and Dan McCoy. I'm Elliot Kalin. That's my name.

Dan McCoy

[0:40] Thanks. We've all successfully set our own names.

[0:44] But for how long?

[0:45] Time for a break. Time for a union-mandated break.

[0:48] Yeah, we earned it. We earned this.

Stuart Wellington

[0:51] Time for me to slide down that brontosaurus.

[0:54] Quit in time, boys.

Elliott Kalan

[0:56] Do you think that brontosaurus eventually went to Mr. Slate and was like,

[0:59] I got to file a harassment claim against Fred Flintstone.

[1:02] He's always running his feet along my tail.

Dan McCoy

[1:04] I have so much back chafing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07] Because you know those fucking feet are so calloused, right?

[1:10] Oh, yeah. He uses them to drive in that car.

[1:12] To push his car.

[1:13] They're like fucking catcher's mitts.

[1:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15] Well, this isn't Flintstones issues podcast.

[1:20] This is a podcast.

[1:22] Could be.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22] Could be if we had our eyes on the prize, boys.

Dan McCoy

[1:26] Yeah.

[1:26] What a dream that would be.

[1:27] But instead, we're stuck talking about movies that have been either critical or commercial flops.

[1:34] Or in the case of this movie, I don't think anyone bothered reviewing it.

[1:39] That's because we're in.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40] And I don't believe it was ever released in theaters.

[1:42] Yeah.

[1:43] What?

[1:44] I assume this was just kind of in the middle of the night like a toxic waste barrel just dumped onto America's streaming services.

Dan McCoy

[1:51] Well, let's not judge already.

[1:53] Yeah, you're right.

[1:54] Let's not judge.

Elliott Kalan

[1:55] It might be great.

Dan McCoy

[1:56] This is, of course, Small Timber or, as some say, Smallvember where we watch small movies.

[2:04] I don't even remember anymore.

[2:04] You say Smallvember, so I shouldn't have reminded you.

Stuart Wellington

[2:08] Guys, this Smallvember really reminded me why I wish this podcast was always Smallvember.

Dan McCoy

[2:16] Yeah.

[2:16] I mean, like, in general, we try and not, as we say, punch down to movies that people weren't going to care about anyway.

[2:26] Here's the problem.

Elliott Kalan

[2:27] Over the years that we've been doing this podcast, we've become such media titans that every movie is punching down for us now.

[2:33] That's true.

[2:34] Yeah, we're a flop house empire.

Stuart Wellington

[2:36] Also, like, if we were only watching these super pure uncut weirdo movies from Smallvember, I feel like we'd get kind of desensitized and, like, nothing would give us joy anymore.

Elliott Kalan

[2:46] No, I think we would watch nothing but these.

[2:48] And then one day we would go into a movie theater and watch a big budget movie, and it would be the greatest movie we've ever seen.

[2:53] And it would also be terrible.

[2:55] We'd go in and see, like, just a piece of junk and we'd be like, oh, my God, it's so amazing.

[2:59] Look at how the craft that went into this.

[3:00] This must be the greatest movie ever made.

[3:02] So I think we would just risk destabilizing our compasses.

Stuart Wellington

[3:06] Scenes end at a natural conclusion as opposed to just petering out.

[3:11] Or not.

[3:11] Or looping.

Elliott Kalan

[3:12] Where's the 20-second long establishing shot of a stream that has nothing to do with the plot or the action of the movie?

Dan McCoy

[3:19] Where's the master shot of the outside of the house that occurs in the middle of a scene that you then cut back to?

[3:25] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[3:26] None of these performers seem to have noticeably had laryngitis throughout most of the shoot.

[3:32] Interesting.

Dan McCoy

[3:33] Yeah.

[3:33] We got to keep it to one month as a treat for ourselves.

[3:37] Yeah.

[3:38] Yeah.

[3:38] I think that's really it.

[3:39] Yeah.

[3:40] But, yes, we watched an Easter bunny puppy.

Elliott Kalan

[3:43] It's the opposite of no nut November, I guess, where it's like extra orgasm September.

[3:48] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:48] Yeah.

[3:48] Non-stop nut September.

[3:50] Oh, boy.

[3:51] So don't be too much.

[3:52] Oh, man.

[3:53] There's too much jism on everything.

[3:56] I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[3:56] You know, I drink a lot of pineapple juice and a lot of water and all the supplements.

[4:01] You're the guy who brought up nutting.

Dan McCoy

[4:03] I was sitting here peacefully.

Elliott Kalan

[4:05] For the children listening, they were talking about actual tree nuts, walnuts, things like that.

[4:10] This is how you talk.

[4:11] Innuendo, Dan.

[4:12] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[4:13] Innuendo.

[4:14] Yes.

[4:15] Not outnuendo.

Elliott Kalan

[4:15] You used outnuendo, Dan.

[4:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:19] This is, of course, another film by David Dicato.

[4:25] Well, I mean, the director's trademarks are all over it.

[4:27] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[4:29] I just like the way it's almost like everyone's familiar.

Dan McCoy

[4:32] Yeah, everyone knows.

[4:33] Well, so you may be—long-time listeners may remember we discussed A Talking Cat.

[4:40] So said because it has an interrobang with either two bangs or two interros.

[4:46] I can't remember which at the end of it.

[4:48] We'll let the philosophers argue it out over the centuries.

[4:50] Yeah.

[4:51] And in the same year, I believe, he also made a movie about an Easter bunny puppy.

Elliott Kalan

[4:57] That was the one thing that I didn't like was finding out how this movie came out at the same time.

[5:01] So I'm like, wait a minute.

[5:02] We're doing a small member movie that's like 13 years old.

[5:05] What are we doing?

[5:05] 12 years old?

Dan McCoy

[5:07] What we're doing is—

Stuart Wellington

[5:09] Statue of limitations.

Dan McCoy

[5:10] Exactly.

[5:11] What we're doing is I saw this movie with my bad movie watching crew that I watch movies with outside of the Flop House for some wild reason.

Elliott Kalan

[5:20] Makes it sound like you and a bunch of bruisers that kind of like rampage through a town watching bad movies.

[5:25] It's like a wild one, you know.

Dan McCoy

[5:26] But it was so special that I knew that I needed to share with you two fellows.

[5:30] I love that Dan's the kind of sicko who has multiple bad movie viewing crews.

[5:35] Yeah.

[5:36] I mean, I duck out about half the time these days because there is a limit.

[5:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:43] Well, you know, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.

[5:46] So true.

Elliott Kalan

[5:49] So true.

Stuart Wellington

[5:50] Elliot, I believe you're trying to talk about this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[5:53] I am going to be doing the summary for this one.

[5:55] So Dan and I watched this together.

[5:57] It's true.

Stuart Wellington

[5:57] We plopped down on the couch and watched it together because we figured this would be a special one to enjoy as friends.

[6:03] And you know what?

[6:04] It was great.

Elliott Kalan

[6:05] I wish I could have joined you, especially for the five-minute Easter egg dying montage.

[6:10] Was it only five minutes?

[6:12] I wanted to go back and find it.

[6:13] Could be longer.

[6:14] So I actually timed it.

[6:16] But my timing disagrees with, I think, with the IMDb trivia mention of it.

[6:21] So we'll get to that.

[6:22] We'll get to that.

[6:22] So an Easter Bunny puppy, as Dan said, this is another from the studio of David Dakota.

[6:28] He directed.

[6:29] He didn't write this one, I don't think.

[6:30] But I know he doesn't write him.

[6:31] He just directs him, right?

[6:32] But I don't think he's the credited director.

[6:34] I think they credited someone else, but that's fine.

[6:36] The logo opens, of course, for fun family features.

[6:40] This is neither fun and barely a feature.

[6:43] And the opening titles are stock photos of dogs above an endlessly repeating parade of rolling CGI Easter eggs.

[6:52] Did you guys?

[6:53] This was one of a couple times in the movie, Dan and Stu, where I have to admit I broke the rules and hit that 10-second skip button quite a bit.

[7:00] Oh, no.

[7:00] So that I didn't have to sit through the entire endless repetitive parade of Easter eggs.

Dan McCoy

[7:03] We watched the whole thing, my friend.

[7:05] Yeah.

[7:05] We were enjoying the looped music.

[7:08] No, I thought it was good.

Elliott Kalan

[7:10] The movie begins, as all great movies do, with a not full frame, like it doesn't actually fill the whole frame image of the movie's own poster thumbnail.

[7:17] So it's like if you clicked on this on Tubi and then the movie started, you'd be like, wait a minute.

[7:21] Am I looking at the Tubi screen again?

[7:24] Yeah.

[7:24] And there's a little VO over it.

[7:26] There's a kid that's talking, but we're going to find out it's actually a dog.

[7:28] This is Russ the dog.

[7:29] He says, hey, have you ever heard of this story of the Easter bunny puppy?

[7:34] Well, I'll tell you, that puppy on the poster, he's not even in the movie.

[7:38] That's not the Easter bunny puppy.

[7:40] I'm a dog.

[7:41] For the next 90 minutes, you're going to be able to hear my thoughts through telepathy.

[7:44] But my owners and humans can't hear my thoughts.

[7:46] Only you.

[7:47] And I'm like, this movie is setting up its rules hard.

[7:50] It's going way in on its rules.

Dan McCoy

[7:53] It's already like being like, okay, fuck you internet database goofsters.

[7:57] These are not going to be goofs.

[7:59] I'm telling you, yes, this isn't the same puppy.

[8:02] That's why we know.

[8:04] And also, don't be like, why do we hear the dog's voice?

[8:07] But nobody else hears it.

Elliott Kalan

[8:09] Look, these are Garfield rules.

[8:11] Are you not familiar with Garfield, you idiots?

[8:13] But Russ has a lot of attitude.

[8:15] Russ is a dog with a lot of attitude, but it's also a kid's voice.

[8:18] So it's very funny when a kid is mispronouncing words or like slowly reading through words,

[8:23] but with attitude.

[8:24] Uh-huh.

[8:25] We start, of course.

Stuart Wellington

[8:26] Very Bart Simpson.

Elliott Kalan

[8:27] Yes.

[8:28] Oh, yeah.

[8:28] You know.

[8:29] Bark Simpson, if you will.

[8:30] Oh, my God.

[8:31] I will.

[8:34] There's an overhead shot.

[8:35] Thank you for asking permission.

[8:36] Yeah.

[8:36] You got to.

[8:37] These days, you got to.

[8:38] You know.

[8:38] Can't be too careful.

[8:40] Overhead shot.

[8:41] What?

[8:42] Jesus.

[8:43] No, I was saying California is a two, is a, is a, do you need permission to, for a pun?

[8:48] It's one of those states.

[8:49] No.

[8:50] Okay.

[8:50] It's a double permission state.

[8:52] So.

[8:52] Yeah.

[8:53] Overhead shot of some exurbs and then a long shot of a beach.

[8:57] So.

[8:58] Does this movie take place, the house they're in, is that at the beach or is it in an exurb

[9:02] far from the beach?

[9:03] Because we get kind of competing establishing shots of where we're located.

[9:06] Later, they go up to the woods, of course.

[9:08] Yeah.

[9:08] And we see a stream a lot of times.

[9:09] But where is this house, other than Southern California, where is this house located?

Stuart Wellington

[9:13] I don't, I don't know.

[9:15] I mean, is that, does that coastline look like Southern California?

[9:19] No, it does not.

[9:20] It does not.

[9:20] It looks like a Caribbean beach.

[9:22] It looks like a Caribbean beach.

[9:23] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[9:24] The beaches in Southern California don't tend to have palm trees on the sand and coconuts

[9:28] everywhere.

[9:29] Yeah.

[9:29] So, Russ, he introduced himself to us.

[9:31] He's a dog.

[9:32] What kind of dog is he?

Stuart Wellington

[9:33] A corgi.

[9:34] Yeah.

[9:34] A corgi.

[9:35] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[9:35] Yeah.

[9:35] He does not live with.

[9:36] Can you tell because he's swinging that fat ass all over the place?

[9:39] I only, I couldn't tell because I'm like the queen of England is not here.

[9:42] So, I guess it's not a corgi.

[9:43] But Russ is a corgi.

[9:45] He's real smug.

[9:46] He lives in a mansion.

[9:47] He's owned by his, his human, Jennifer Diamond.

Stuart Wellington

[9:50] Now, there's the same, there's the, okay.

[9:52] There's the same mansion from A Talking Cat, right?

Elliott Kalan

[9:55] There's the same mansion from A Talking Cat.

[9:56] His owner, Jennifer, is also from A Talking Cat.

[9:58] Although, this is the actress, Christine DeBell, who Dan would know best from Alice in Wonderland,

[10:02] an X-rated musical from 1976.

Dan McCoy

[10:04] I did.

[10:04] In fact, he did.

[10:05] In form.

[10:07] Stuart was like, she's from A Talking Cat, right?

[10:09] And then he like looked up some other thing that she was in.

[10:11] I'm like, yeah, and the X-rated Alice in Wonderland.

[10:13] Yeah, she's in fucking Meatballs, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[10:15] So much, and she's in Meatballs.

[10:16] So, my joke about Dan being a perv was actually not a joke, but an accurate reporting.

Dan McCoy

[10:20] Yeah.

[10:20] I mean, I have not actually seen that movie.

[10:23] I just am aware.

[10:24] Okay.

[10:25] He's worried it would –

[10:27] More of an intellectual perv.

Elliott Kalan

[10:28] When it comes to Alice in Wonderland porn, you're more of a three girls fan.

Stuart Wellington

[10:32] I don't know what that is.

[10:33] Wasn't that the Lost Girls?

Elliott Kalan

[10:35] Lost Girls.

[10:35] That Alan Moore.

[10:36] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[10:36] Dan doesn't want us to talk about that.

[10:38] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[10:39] The one Alan Moore work where I'm like, I think I am not going to read this.

Stuart Wellington

[10:43] Yeah, let's do a skip on this one.

Elliott Kalan

[10:45] Sure.

[10:46] Let's do a little skip.

[10:46] You know what?

[10:47] I think I'm going to use my hall pass on not reading this one, Alan.

[10:50] And maybe I'll just read Jerusalem again, see if I can get through it.

[10:54] Yeah, good luck.

[10:55] Jennifer Diamond, she is a mystery writer.

[10:58] We watch her dictating the end of a mystery novel into a tape recorder for a long time.

[11:02] She is dictating paragraphs of this novel into a tape recorder.

Stuart Wellington

[11:06] And like you can tell this is a big budget movie.

[11:09] Because this writer, of course, is using one of those special laptops that has duct tape over the Apple logo.

Elliott Kalan

[11:17] Yes, that's a special writer's only laptop.

[11:19] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:20] Yeah, that's how you know that this is a high class production.

Elliott Kalan

[11:23] Russ then introduced us to Jennifer's teen daughter, Lucy, who was also in A Talking Cat.

[11:28] Oh, yeah.

[11:28] She has a crush on Jake, the neighbor boy who just moved in next door.

Stuart Wellington

[11:33] Let me guess, he was in A Talking Cat.

Elliott Kalan

[11:35] I don't think he was.

Stuart Wellington

[11:38] Maybe he was.

Elliott Kalan

[11:38] I don't remember.

[11:39] And Jennifer warns Lucy, do not trust men.

[11:42] I learned that from your father.

[11:42] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[11:42] You were thinking of Eric Roberts.

[11:45] Jake is not Eric Roberts.

Elliott Kalan

[11:47] No, no, he's not.

[11:48] Yeah.

[11:49] Russ finally gets around to saying, oh, hey, by the way, there's this Easter bunny puppy story.

[11:53] I guess I'll tell it to you now.

[11:54] But first, there's some more beach and house exterior shots.

Dan McCoy

[11:57] Yeah, Jake escaped A Talking Cat.

[11:59] He was not in A Talking Cat.

Stuart Wellington

[12:00] So, Jennifer Diamond, the writer, while she's dictating her latest mystery novel.

[12:07] Miss Marbles, her mystery character.

[12:08] She's wearing like a weird wig.

[12:10] Is that like a wig for her to get into the Miss Marbles character?

[12:15] I believe so.

Elliott Kalan

[12:15] So, you'll learn that she needs to kind of like visualize her stories.

[12:19] Right.

[12:20] And see them acted out in front of her.

[12:21] Which is not a thing that a lot of writers do, but maybe some writers do it.

Dan McCoy

[12:26] I don't.

[12:26] Yeah.

[12:26] This was many times during this picture.

[12:29] I was like, this woman maybe is not cut out to be a writer because it seems like she has no imagination, suspension of disbelief, like ability to like visualize a thing without having someone dress up in costume and do it in front of her.

[12:45] All things that I think are.

[12:46] Yeah, but numbers don't lie, buddy.

[12:47] She wasn't a best-selling novelist.

Elliott Kalan

[12:48] Dan, you might be right because she's about to have her imagination challenged by her literary agent who faxes her a picture of the movie's poster, which says Easter bunny puppy and has that image of a puppy.

[12:59] With bunny ears on.

[13:00] And she's told by her agent, this is your new book.

[13:03] It's a family book.

[13:03] Your last mystery book didn't sell very well.

[13:05] So, you're going to write a family holiday book.

[13:07] And she's like, what do I know about Easter?

[13:09] I'm Jewish.

Stuart Wellington

[13:10] Does this happen a lot?

Elliott Kalan

[13:12] I will say sometimes my literary agent will be like, here's an idea that you might want to think about.

[13:16] Here's a kind of book that I think there's room for in the market.

[13:19] But he cannot send me a cover and say, you're writing this book now.

[13:22] And then me be like, I got to do it, I guess.

[13:24] He's my boss.

[13:26] So, no.

[13:27] I assume it doesn't happen this way, the same way.

[13:30] Anyway, they don't know much about Easter.

[13:32] They're Jewish.

[13:33] Their Jewish identity does not play into the rest of the movie particularly.

[13:37] They fall into Easter pretty easily.

Stuart Wellington

[13:39] Don't they go on like an exodus to the woods or something?

[13:42] That's very Jewish.

Elliott Kalan

[13:43] If you take access to me in a leaving of one place for another place, then yes, I guess they do do an exodus in the woods.

[13:48] Okay, so I'm right.

Stuart Wellington

[13:49] Okay, cool.

Elliott Kalan

[13:49] Yeah, yeah.

[13:51] She talks to Lucy for a while.

[13:54] She's like, what if the puppy is the bunny's assistant?

[13:57] And Jennifer is like, I need your help, Lucy.

[13:59] I need you to help me visualize this book.

[14:01] And Lucy's like, all right, I'll help you for two straight days.

[14:04] If you leave me alone the rest of spring break so I can go make out with Jake, the boy that I have a crush on who I've never talked to before.

Stuart Wellington

[14:11] Okay, that's interesting.

[14:12] So that's probably the only hijinks that happen in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[14:15] Oh boy, Stuart.

[14:16] Get ready for some hijinks.

[14:18] Also that I'm going to help you for two days thing goes right out the window.

[14:20] Like that, there's no ticking clock to this one.

[14:23] Jennifer is dictating a story about an egg hatching a bunny and a puppy.

[14:27] And Lucy is in an Easter bunny costume acting it out so that Jennifer can visualize it.

[14:31] And they argue about how unrealistic this all is.

[14:34] But uh-oh, there's a doorbell.

[14:36] The doorbell rings.

[14:37] Lucy, I think, forgets she's dressed as the Easter bunny.

[14:39] Answers it.

[14:40] It's Jake and his mom.

[14:42] His mom, Beth, played by Lisa London, who Dan will remember best from Savage Beach.

[14:46] And?

Dan McCoy

[14:48] And a talking cat.

[14:49] And Hots.

[14:50] Oh, and Hots.

[14:50] She's in Hots also.

[14:51] I didn't realize that.

Elliott Kalan

[14:53] So I guess Dan will know her best from Hots.

[14:56] The movie I've never actually seen.

[14:58] I've only ever heard.

[14:58] Oh, wow.

[14:59] I don't even know what it stands for.

Dan McCoy

[15:00] Honestly, like-

[15:01] What does Hots stand for, Dan?

[15:02] Just head over to Criterion, dog.

[15:03] That's the question that the movie seeks to answer.

Stuart Wellington

[15:07] But um-

[15:07] Yeah, that's Dan's Criterion closet pick.

[15:10] He's like, where's Hots?

Elliott Kalan

[15:12] I don't see it in here.

[15:12] Well, I'll just write Hots on one of these-

[15:14] I'll write Hots on this case for Winter Light.

[15:16] Hold on a second.

Dan McCoy

[15:17] Yeah.

[15:17] Grading on the very steep curve of sex comedies, that one's actually kind of like sweet and

[15:24] nice because at least it's about a bunch of like horny sorority sisters who have like

[15:30] high-spirited hijinks rather than like horny dudes who do awful things.

[15:35] Oh, okay.

[15:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:36] Well, so that's Dan's recommendation for today, Hots.

Dan McCoy

[15:39] Yeah, check out Hots, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[15:41] Not Hot to Trot.

[15:42] It's a different movie that's about a talking horse.

Dan McCoy

[15:45] Now, the level of-

[15:47] Production value is very low.

Elliott Kalan

[15:50] The level of-

[15:50] And Hot to Trot?

[15:51] Well, I mean in this movie, but Hot to Trot, it's not like it's a huge budget movie.

[15:56] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[15:56] The level of lack of knowledge that this woman has about Easter and how much research she

[16:01] needs to do.

[16:01] Would you say that that rings true as a man who is Jewish?

[16:05] Like, it's probably true that, you know, like Christianity hasn't just culturally steamrolled

[16:09] everything and like-

[16:11] It pretty much has.

[16:12] Like put his temples into the-

Elliott Kalan

[16:13] It pretty much has.

[16:14] I would say if you are-

[16:16] I would say the fact that she's like, what even happens?

[16:18] An egg or whatever?

[16:19] I think if you're-

[16:20] Even if you're Jewish, you know that the Easter bunny has eggs.

[16:22] You know that people are collecting eggs.

[16:24] You don't necessarily-

[16:26] I don't know that every Jew knows that Easter is commemorating in the resurrection of Christ.

[16:30] Sure, but this movie doesn't appear to either.

[16:32] I'm not sure all Christians know that Easter represents the resurrection of Christ.

Dan McCoy

[16:35] This is a completely secular version of Easter that is presented here.

[16:40] There's no mention of the Bible.

Elliott Kalan

[16:42] In some ways, this is the most insidious form of Christian culture entangling secular culture

[16:47] because it's like, hey, you don't even need to be Christian to celebrate Easter.

[16:52] Like, just come on and collect these eggs with us.

[16:54] Hey, come on.

[16:55] It's just fun.

[16:56] It's just about fun and finding eggs.

[16:57] Hey, have you heard the good news?

Dan McCoy

[16:58] And then they're like, he did it.

[17:00] He grabbed the egg.

[17:01] He grabbed the egg.

[17:02] Swarm, swarm, swarm.

Elliott Kalan

[17:03] Yeah.

[17:04] Torture him until he converts.

[17:06] That's how they did it in the Spanish Inquisition.

[17:07] Yeah, yeah.

[17:07] Can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery anymore.

[17:09] They were like, Jews, why don't you come and collect some eggs?

[17:12] Oh, we like eggs.

[17:13] Sure, of course.

[17:13] Swarm, swarm.

[17:14] Torture him.

[17:14] Convert him.

[17:15] That's how they did it.

[17:16] A lot of Dracula was doing it.

[17:16] Yeah, was that Dracula?

[17:17] Yeah, yeah.

[17:17] Well, that was Dracula was undercover as part of-

[17:20] He was undercover as a vampire investigating the Spanish Inquisition because they thought

[17:24] it might be a problem.

Dan McCoy

[17:24] I don't drink colored eggs.

[17:27] Well, you wouldn't drink them, Dracula.

[17:28] I don't understand.

[17:29] Perhaps this egg is full of blood.

[17:31] No.

[17:31] It's just an egg.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] There's no blood in it.

Dan McCoy

[17:34] There's a little bit in the embryo.

[17:36] Milk in the embryo.

Elliott Kalan

[17:37] Perhaps it is full of delicious albumen.

[17:40] Is that a thing that you like, Dracula?

[17:42] I have a variety of likes and dislikes.

[17:46] It's not just blood for me.

Dan McCoy

[17:47] Just because I don't drink wine doesn't mean I don't like other things.

Elliott Kalan

[17:51] I contain multitudes.

[17:53] Don't limit me based on your preconceived notions of what the vampire is like so you don't drink

[18:00] blood.

[18:00] Of course I do.

[18:01] I love it.

[18:03] Do you have any?

[18:04] Everyone thinks I just walk around in a cape and a tuxedo and like a weird medal that I

[18:08] must have gotten in some ancient war.

[18:10] You don't do that?

[18:11] Well, of course I do it, but it's not the only thing I wear.

[18:13] I wear other things sometimes.

[18:14] It's really cool.

[18:14] If I'm going to go do hot yoga, I don't wear this outfit.

[18:18] Did you do hot yoga, Dracula?

[18:19] Not too hot.

Stuart Wellington

[18:22] Wow, he's doing some shtick.

Elliott Kalan

[18:25] It's slowly turning into Hotel Transylvania.

Stuart Wellington

[18:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:29] So Lucy, forgetting she's dressed as the Easter Bunny.

[18:32] Is that Hotel in the Catskills?

[18:35] I don't want to talk about Dracula in the Catskills because then we started getting into

[18:38] anti-Semitic vampire tropes.

[18:39] Yeah, you're right.

[18:41] Cats kills?

[18:42] I would kill a cat.

[18:43] No, Dracula.

[18:44] That's not what it means.

[18:45] Calm down, buddy.

[18:46] Yeah, it's Dutch.

[18:47] It means something different.

[18:48] So Lucy, she forgets she's dressed as the Easter Bunny.

[18:50] She answers the door for Jake and her mom.

[18:51] She's so embarrassed and she gets mad at her mom.

[18:54] And Jennifer's like, but I need your help.

[18:56] I got to write this book.

[18:58] We'll have to celebrate Easter this year.

[19:00] Cut to the egg dying montage.

[19:03] Okay.

[19:03] So they dye Easter eggs.

[19:05] I timed it at four and a half straight minutes of screen time.

[19:09] Roughly four minutes, you know, give or take a few seconds.

[19:12] And it's just them dying eggs, the same kitchen counter where the camera pans back and forth along the counter,

[19:18] occasionally dissolving to the same shot of the camera panning back and forth.

[19:21] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[19:22] Guys.

[19:22] Some of those shots are looped.

[19:24] Yeah, that's true.

[19:25] Guys.

[19:26] The actors make small talk to one another that we cannot hear.

[19:29] That is drowned out by the music.

[19:30] Yeah.

[19:30] Some sort of Casio library music is playing.

Elliott Kalan

[19:33] And how did you guys feel while watching this?

[19:36] Did you feel like it would never end and this is just your life forever now?

[19:39] Just watching the die eggs?

Dan McCoy

[19:41] It's kind of beautiful.

[19:42] When the first, you know, like, as I said, this is the second time I've seen an Easter Bunny puppy.

[19:46] So you were prepared for this, yeah.

[19:48] No skips.

[19:49] I was waiting for this to happen.

Stuart Wellington

[19:51] I was going to react.

[19:53] It is one of those times you're like.

[19:55] I think what happened was watching the realization that this was still going on dawning on me.

[20:00] At first, Stuart seemed disinterested.

[20:02] And then the more and more I'm like, really?

[20:05] Yeah.

[20:05] Again?

[20:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:07] It was hampered a little bit by Stuart checking his phone during it.

[20:11] So he didn't like notice for a while.

[20:13] A very natural and understandable.

[20:15] That's why you got to watch these things in the theater, you know?

[20:18] Well, when I watched it the first time around with the group, like, Audrey could not stop laughing.

[20:24] As it started just, like, extending past the point of madness, she just couldn't stop.

Elliott Kalan

[20:30] It is audacious the way that this movie wastes the time of the people watching it.

[20:34] With the long establishing shots of unrelated places, with this sequence.

[20:39] Like, this movie is like you have a limited amount of life on this earth and I'm going to use up,

[20:43] I'm going to suck up as much of it as I can for no reason.

[20:46] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:46] It's a moment like this where, yeah, it's a moment like this where you realize Russ's comment that this movie is going to be 90 minutes long.

[20:55] You realize that's a threat.

[20:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:58] That wasn't a promise.

[20:59] It was a warning.

[21:00] Yeah.

[21:01] So they die eggs for a long time.

[21:05] It inspires the mom for an idea about a mutant bunny puppy chicken.

[21:08] But that leads into a story about how Lucy's mom was almost a bunny before she met Lucy's dad.

[21:14] This is the kind of winking reference that all good kids' movies do to the fact that one of the lead actresses did pose for Playboy in the 1970s.

[21:21] So that's a little Easter egg, pun intended, for all the vintage porn collectors in the audience for this family film.

Dan McCoy

[21:30] Now, I do know that, you know, teenagers are clearly, like, they're insecure.

[21:35] They aren't necessarily thinking rationally about things.

[21:38] Like, everything, perspective is not high on a teenager's skill set.

[21:44] But it is ridiculous to the point.

[21:46] Like, we'll see later on how ridiculous it is, the level at which this teen girl is having, like, is worried about her crush seeing her in a bunny suit around Easter.

[22:01] Yeah.

[22:01] You know, as if, like, no one has ever found it, like, cute that that might happen.

Elliott Kalan

[22:06] I wonder if it's just maybe he knows she's Jewish and he's like, are you blaspheming and, like, taunting the sacraments?

[22:16] Is that what you're doing?

[22:17] You dressed up in an Easter bunny costume so that you could put on some sort of satirical pageant making light of my beliefs?

[22:26] Maybe that's it.

Dan McCoy

[22:26] Again, I don't think that the secular elements of Easter are cared that much about from that perspective.

Elliott Kalan

[22:31] I don't know, Dan.

[22:32] We live in a country where a lot of people get very mad when the people at Walmart say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas.

[22:36] So I don't know.

[22:37] That's true.

[22:37] Yeah.

[22:38] So anyway, I know that I will probably get in trouble for what I'm going to say about this, which is that.

[22:43] Wow.

[22:43] Don't care about Easter.

[22:44] Don't like Easter bunnies.

[22:45] Don't care about it.

[22:46] But any holiday where someone's going to hand me chocolate in the shape of an animal, I can get on board for that aspect of the holiday.

[22:53] Yeah, sure.

[22:53] I like chocolate.

[22:54] I like animals.

[22:55] I like eating both of them.

Stuart Wellington

[22:57] Yeah, I'm not a huge Easter fan, but I am a huge fan of Critters 2.

[23:02] So I guess it's a watch.

[23:03] Yeah, it takes place in Easter.

[23:04] Yeah.

[23:05] To make the connection that the audience may not.

[23:08] If our audience is familiar with Critters 2, turn this episode off.

[23:11] Go watch it.

Elliott Kalan

[23:11] I mean, much the same way that to me, Christmas is the Gremlins holiday.

[23:15] Sure.

[23:15] Dan, so you're the only one who came from a background of like extreme faith.

[23:19] You know, you were raised in a household that was strictly Calvinist, right?

[23:23] Yeah, extreme faith.

[23:24] You did a lot of snowboarding.

[23:25] This isn't your daddy's Jesus.

[23:28] A lot of inline skating with sermons.

[23:31] What's your feeling about Easter?

Dan McCoy

[23:36] Clearly, it is the sort of cornerstone religious holiday for Christianity more so than like in a religious sense, more so than Christmas, which is just like, okay, this person was born.

[23:49] Whereas like the resurrection, the crucifixion and the resurrection are kind of the point of that.

[23:55] Ultimately more important than the birth, right?

[23:57] Yeah.

[23:57] Yeah, but.

Elliott Kalan

[23:59] It's what makes him, it's what in theory makes Jesus more than just a guy with some interesting ideas.

[24:05] Have you heard of him?

[24:05] His name was Jesus.

[24:06] And I'd like to tell you a story.

[24:07] I have heard of him.

[24:07] But an extreme red dude he was.

Dan McCoy

[24:09] But culturally, like it never made much of an impact on me because I'm like, well, Christmas is the good one.

[24:16] You get all these presents.

[24:17] Like I don't care about like getting up in the morning.

[24:20] I enjoyed it.

[24:22] Like, yeah.

[24:22] Like I'll get up in the morning and find some eggs that we died the other day.

[24:27] So they don't sneak up the house when we can't find them and I'll have some chocolate in a little basket.

[24:33] Chocolate and hard-boiled eggs.

[24:34] Yeah.

[24:35] Two great tastes of them go great together, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[24:37] So it's good that I have a Bible scholar and a comic scholar here because I have a question for you.

[24:44] Is Lobo a thinly veiled Jesus Christ figure?

[24:48] Why?

[24:49] Well, he's called the main man.

[24:50] He has died and come back many times.

[24:51] He's died and come back.

[24:53] He's got a similar hair and beard style.

Elliott Kalan

[24:55] He's been to heaven and dealt with the angels.

[24:59] I would say no.

Dan McCoy

[25:03] I'm going to add my voice to the course of no's.

Elliott Kalan

[25:07] I think Jesus did a lot less smoking cigars and fragging bastiches.

[25:11] No.

[25:12] In his time on earth.

[25:12] Maybe it's in the Apocrypha, Elliot.

[25:14] Oh, is that it?

[25:17] And lo, did the Son of God frag the bastiches.

[25:21] For anyone who's not familiar with Lobo, that's okay.

Dan McCoy

[25:25] He really doesn't like bastiches, though.

[25:27] He really doesn't like them.

[25:28] He likes to frag them.

Elliott Kalan

[25:30] He's the last Zarnian.

[25:32] You know, so.

[25:33] He's a space bounty hunter who rides around on a space motorcycle.

[25:36] Rides around on a space motorcycle.

[25:37] That's right.

[25:38] And there's something Lemmy-ish about his look, you know?

[25:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:42] He's kind of what, like if an antisocial 12-year-old was like, what would be the best comic?

[25:48] Yeah, pretty much.

[25:49] Yeah.

[25:49] Yeah, and he has a dog.

[25:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:51] A dog.

[25:52] But doesn't he have a daughter?

[25:53] Didn't they bring his daughter into-

[25:54] Yes, he does have a daughter.

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] I wrote a comic once that she was in.

[25:56] I forgot her name, though.

[25:57] She was a member of the Teen Titans for a little bit.

[25:59] Lobo's daughter.

[25:59] Yeah.

[26:00] Not a great dad.

Stuart Wellington

[26:02] No, yeah.

[26:02] Let's go say that.

[26:03] Nothing would indicate that he would be a great dad.

Elliott Kalan

[26:05] No, I don't think so.

[26:07] So, Russ has been away for a while.

[26:09] Well, they've been dying these eggs.

[26:10] Who wouldn't want to go away for a while while they're dying these eggs?

[26:13] And Jake returns him.

[26:15] And Jake and Lucy hang out a little bit.

[26:16] And Jake reveals that his dad is in prison for a jewel robbery, or rather a Fabergé egg robbery,

[26:21] that he says he didn't commit.

[26:23] And he and his mom are going to go back to their old home for a traditional Easter egg.

[26:27] The old home that they were ostracized from because his dad is a jailed, convicted felon.

[26:33] They still go back every year for the Easter egg hunt.

[26:35] It's tradition.

[26:36] They just can't avoid it.

[26:37] They love it.

Stuart Wellington

[26:38] So, wait.

[26:38] Their old home was in, like, a log cabin in the woods.

[26:42] Yeah, like a camp site?

[26:44] The, like, home that they have fled to is in what has to be some kind of affluent L.A. suburb.

Elliott Kalan

[26:50] It looks like it's, like, Covina or something like that.

[26:52] Like, it's someplace where you can get a huge house for not that much money, I'm guessing,

[26:56] because it's just, like, in the middle of nowhere.

[26:57] That's my guess.

[26:58] Although, the shots of Caribbean Beach make it seem like it's on a beach somewhere.

[27:03] It's beach adjacent.

[27:04] It's very much the kind of house you rent for a film shoot, for an independent movie or a porno movie.

[27:11] Yes.

[27:11] Big rooms with lots of windows.

[27:13] There's a staircase that kind of winds around the inside of the house, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[27:16] There's, like, a car parked in the living room.

Elliott Kalan

[27:19] That's the funniest thing.

[27:20] As some kind of art piece, they have just the body of a VW bug in the middle of the house,

[27:25] which is, I've never seen that, to be honest, in my time in L.A., but maybe I'm not going to the right houses.

[27:30] So, she goes, he's like, we're going back to this Easter egg hunk.

[27:34] Easter egg hunk.

[27:35] He's the Easter egg hunk.

[27:36] Yeah.

[27:37] That could have been the name of the movie.

[27:38] Yeah.

[27:39] An Easter egg hunk?

[27:40] Question mark.

[27:40] And so, she tells him, that wasn't me dressed as a bunny.

[27:43] That was my twin sister, Marion, who wears glasses and loves Easter.

[27:48] And Lucy and her mom agree to go to the Easter egg hunt, but now she has to pretend to be sisters.

[27:52] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[27:54] The speed at which, like, we're doing the actual, you know, summary part of it.

[28:01] This real movie is much slower.

Elliott Kalan

[28:01] We don't, just for first-time listeners, Dan's not implying that we usually narrate the movies in real time.

Dan McCoy

[28:08] No, no, no.

[28:09] But the speed is great, don't get me wrong, but I think that it glosses over a little bit the degree to which, like,

[28:17] so this teen girl was so distressed by her crush seeing her in a bunny costume around Easter that her solution is.

[28:26] So distressed by how she was dressed, yeah.

[28:27] That she is going to pretend that she is one half of a pair of twins, and it was the other loony twin that did that.

[28:36] Yes.

[28:37] But she's a cool girl who is, you know, ready to make out.

[28:42] So that's the shenanigans.

Stuart Wellington

[28:44] That's the kind of tight shenanigans you'd expect from an episode of Fawlty Towers, but in this case, it is an Easter bunny puppy.

[28:51] Yes.

[28:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[28:51] I mean, it really shows you that this is sitcom level.

[28:54] This is like 70s or 80s sitcom level plotting that they have stretched out through long Easter egg dying montages and shots of beaches and streams.

[29:02] Yeah.

[29:03] And the dog is – it's very funny how little of an element the dog and his talking are in this movie about the Easter bunny puppy.

[29:10] He's ostensibly the narrator, but he mostly just says things like, oh, boy, humans are so weird.

[29:15] Or like, Lucy, you're crazy.

[29:17] That kind of stuff.

Dan McCoy

[29:18] The kid who is doing this is doing a great job.

[29:22] You know, like, as you say, the kid is a kid.

[29:24] He's a kid, yeah.

[29:25] We'll mispronounce stuff.

[29:26] But it is very funny to me sometimes when they cut to, like, the dog reacting just because of the kid's voice.

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] It looks like he's now – you know, he's now older, and he looks like, according to his IMDb, that he's doing a lot of, like, working in production for various TV shows.

[29:41] Oh, that's nice.

[29:42] Oh, cool.

[29:42] So an Easter bunny puppy I think is still his major credit.

Dan McCoy

[29:46] Maybe it inspired him to work in the –

[29:48] But this dog is the sanest character in the movie because it exists to be like, what?

Elliott Kalan

[29:54] Why are you doing that?

[29:55] Well, he's the Garfield, and everyone else is John Arbuckle.

[29:58] Yeah, yeah.

[29:59] Yeah, yeah.

[30:00] So Mom and Lucy, they drive to the cabin for a while as they discuss this new Marion character because Mom has to be in on it so that she doesn't blow her cover that she has two daughters.

Stuart Wellington

[30:09] What I love is that this is another one of David Decato, like, signatures.

[30:14] Yeah.

[30:15] Is the driving sequence where it takes, like, four or five minutes, and it's just tons of shots of the car going around curvy roads.

Dan McCoy

[30:24] And also, I noticed during this, like, Stuart was pointing out that he favors a close-up from just below the person's face.

[30:34] Yeah.

[30:35] And then in the car, he shot the dog the same way.

Elliott Kalan

[30:41] He likes to give a sense of grandeur and majesty.

[30:45] Uh-huh.

[30:45] Slightly.

Stuart Wellington

[30:46] The camera shakes slightly to give you that kind of – that gorilla filmmaking.

[30:52] Yeah, like a gorilla has the camera.

Elliott Kalan

[30:57] Yeah, that's classic gorilla filmmaking.

[31:00] So Russ complains.

[31:03] He's like, my humans, they do these silly things, but I'm compelled to help them when they're in trouble.

[31:08] I don't know what help he's claiming that he's providing to anyone in this movie.

Dan McCoy

[31:13] I mean, eventually he will.

[31:14] Eventually he'll solve all of their problems.

Elliott Kalan

[31:16] By accident.

[31:17] I mean, they'll save them, I guess, at the end.

[31:18] Yeah.

[31:19] Right away, Lucy has to pretend to be Marion for Jake.

[31:22] Now, tell me, is this like a Dead Ringer-style tour de force where there's clearly two different personalities at work here?

[31:29] How different are Marion and Lucy?

Dan McCoy

[31:33] I mean, she does like –

[31:35] Glasses.

[31:36] Yeah, she ups the like – I'm awkward for the – was it Marion, is that the one?

[31:43] Yes, Marion.

[31:44] The librarian.

[31:45] I mean, I think that this – like she puts in a fine performance for the level of film that this is.

[31:54] Okay.

[31:54] Like she's like doing her best, you know?

[31:57] Like everyone is like weirdly committed even though the movie lets them down at every turn.

Elliott Kalan

[32:05] So the two other teen guys come by while they're talking and they –

[32:09] That's too many teens.

[32:10] This is Jasper and Kenny.

[32:12] And Jasper is the nice one and Kenny is the kind of dickish one.

[32:16] And these two teen guys, they come by.

[32:17] They're like, hey, Jake, where'd your dad hide the stolen jewels?

[32:19] At first I thought they were bullies.

[32:21] They talk like Flash Thompson talks to Peter Parker.

[32:23] But then it turns out they're friends of his kind of.

Stuart Wellington

[32:27] It's a thin line when you deal with teenage boys.

Elliott Kalan

[32:29] That's true.

[32:29] Or a podcast.

[32:32] It's a constant.

[32:32] Why, whatever do you mean, Daniel?

[32:35] Whatever do you mean, Dan, you piece of shit.

[32:37] Anyway, so that was too far.

[32:40] The nice friend, Jasper, he loves Lucy's mom's books.

[32:44] He's a big fan.

[32:45] He wants to be a detective someday.

[32:47] I thought this was foreshadowing for him to kind of solve the mystery of what happened with the Faberge egg.

[32:51] No, just a throwaway line.

[32:53] Doesn't matter.

Stuart Wellington

[32:54] Well, no, it's a way to get him in that bunny costume.

Elliott Kalan

[32:57] I guess that's true.

[32:58] Yeah.

[32:58] They ask if Lucy has a sister and Jake's like, yeah, sure, I do.

[33:04] Jake's like, she does.

[33:05] And Lucy goes, oh, my sister's napping.

[33:07] And they go, well, we'll wait here and help your mom with her book while we wait for your sister to wake up so we can.

Stuart Wellington

[33:13] These guys are hard up.

Elliott Kalan

[33:15] They're so, they are so, they're such horndogs for a girl they have not met.

[33:19] And they've just been told exists.

[33:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[33:22] I mean, sometimes the fantasy is more exciting than reality, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[33:25] I guess that's true.

[33:26] I was very nervous when he's like, yeah, we'll stay behind with your mom and help her out with her project.

[33:31] I was like, uh-oh.

[33:32] I've seen a lot of videos like this that I wouldn't call family fun.

Dan McCoy

[33:35] Well, that's what I wanted to get to.

[33:38] Because, like, I haven't seen any of David Ticato's, like, looter projects.

[33:42] It seems like he has a sideline in softish core film.

[33:48] I mean, I don't even know how sexual they are.

[33:50] But they seem like they're, like, soft core sexy movies.

[33:54] And there's something about this scene that, like, is setting up a weird, like, love triangle.

[34:02] And then, yes, the later scene where, like, the writer employs these older teen boys to, like, hey, like, come with me and act out these scenarios.

[34:12] That this movie always feels like it might take a hard left turn into the wrong drive and go down into a sex picture.

[34:22] But it never does.

Elliott Kalan

[34:23] No.

[34:23] There's a lot of the way that he makes this that feels like he's making, like, a family film in the style of pornography.

[34:30] Exactly.

[34:31] In the style of, like, low budget but not amateur pornography.

[34:35] And it's very weird.

[34:36] It's just a very weird feel that I would not.

[34:39] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

[34:39] He's got three movies coming out this year.

[34:42] He works.

[34:43] Three movies already out this year.

[34:44] He works a lot.

[34:45] The Wrong Marriage and The Wrong Obsession.

[34:47] Oh, I forgot.

Elliott Kalan

[34:48] I forgot he directed Sorority Babes and the Slimeball Bowlerama.

[34:51] I'm looking up his credits right now.

Dan McCoy

[34:54] Classic.

[34:55] Yeah.

[34:55] At least in the annals of titles of movies.

Elliott Kalan

[34:57] The classic in the annals of movies I see at the video store and never actually have watched.

Stuart Wellington

[35:01] Yeah.

[35:01] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[35:01] When you're at the video store, you know, once a week when you're picking up tapes to watch with your family.

[35:07] Things that were on.

[35:07] Usually when I'm getting Reblings 2 again.

[35:09] USA, Up All Night.

Elliott Kalan

[35:11] And he directed Test Tube Teens from the year 2000.

[35:14] Oh, okay.

[35:15] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[35:16] Yeah.

[35:16] Man's got away with titles, huh?

[35:17] Yeah, sure.

[35:19] He's done a bunch of Puppet Master movies.

[35:20] This is like a – he's made a whole bunch of these movies in The Wrong series.

[35:24] Like The Wrong Mommy, The Wrong Boy Next Door, The Wrong Stepmother.

[35:29] Bikini Goddesses.

[35:30] The Wrong Teacher.

[35:31] Man, this dude's crushing it.

[35:32] Hatticoat Planet.

[35:33] I wish – you know, I wish I had it all fucking figured out like this.

[35:37] Oh, he did Puppet Master 3, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[35:39] He did a lot of Puppet Masters.

[35:40] He did Retro Puppet Masters, trying to Greg Sestero.

[35:42] He did a series called The Brotherhood, which is, I guess, horror movies – oh, I guess, homoerotic horror movies.

[35:47] I've never seen these, but there's somehow six of them.

Stuart Wellington

[35:50] So –

[35:50] I mean, hey, we can change that.

[35:52] Creepazoids.

[35:53] You know, Shocktober's right around the corner, I like.

Elliott Kalan

[35:56] That's a good point.

[35:57] Apparently, I guess he did a movie called – oh, I remember when that came out.

[36:00] Never mind.

[36:00] Yeah, he does – but lately he's gone into – well, you know what?

[36:03] He proliferates.

[36:04] He's got a very diverse portfolio of works, you know?

[36:10] Clearly, he puts a lot of care into each of them.

[36:13] Yeah.

[36:13] So – but you got to – I mean, this is the thing also that the – I think it's very easy to valorize the kind of crap makers of the olden –

[36:25] days of movies, but it's harder to recognize the – and celebrate the crap makers of today, you know?

[36:33] You can spend all your time talking about your Herschel Gordon Lewis's and Ray Dennis Seckler's and stuff like that.

[36:37] But, you know, there's still people working those same well-worn fields of garbage that is just there to fill screens, you know?

[36:46] And more power to them, you know?

[36:47] They're keeping America alive in some way or another.

[36:50] Anyway, so Jen asked the two boys if they can help with a book.

[36:53] They say, sure.

[36:54] Lucy and Jake take Russ for a walk and they talk about Marion.

[36:57] And Russ is so grossed out by the thought of human kissing that he just poops to break the moment.

Stuart Wellington

[37:03] I thought he just farted, but maybe he pooped.

Elliott Kalan

[37:05] Oh, they make it – I mean, they talk about it like he poops, but, you know.

[37:08] The boys are helping Jennifer act out her story and that's when Jake's mom comes by.

[37:11] She brought the costumes.

[37:12] I really love it.

[37:13] With the costumes.

[37:14] They're wearing the costumes.

[37:14] Yeah.

[37:15] And Jake's mom comes by with her friend, Mr. Courtney Scammon, who instantly –

[37:19] He is Scammon.

[37:20] So clear he committed the crime that Jake's dad went to jail for.

[37:23] He's so suspicious.

[37:25] There's no mystery whatsoever.

[37:26] It's so obvious.

[37:27] His name is Scammon.

[37:29] That's such a Charles Dickens-y name.

[37:31] Like, well, what do I call this criminal character?

[37:33] Hmm, about Larceny Dubad.

[37:35] You know, that's the – Jake's mom wants – totally oblivious to this – wants to set up Mr. Scammon and Jennifer as an item.

[37:44] Who knows?

[37:44] Maybe it'll happen.

[37:46] Jake's mom learns the story of Jake's dad, Marcus.

[37:48] He was accused of stealing a golden Fabergé egg.

[37:51] She has since become an expert on Fabergé eggs.

[37:54] I love it.

[37:55] And has a little – she has a whole book of them and gives a little explainer about what Fabergé eggs were, where they come from, their history.

[38:01] And Jennifer goes, hmm, if I was missing barbels, I would guess that an egg like that would be hard to transport.

[38:08] It must be hidden nearby.

[38:09] And we see that Russ has started digging a hole.

[38:12] What's in that hole, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[38:13] Now, why was it hard to transport?

Elliott Kalan

[38:15] What's in that hole, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[38:16] Well, the egg.

[38:17] The egg is, of course, the egg.

Stuart Wellington

[38:18] As we will later learn, it fits neatly in a bag and can be carried around by a puppy.

[38:22] Yeah, and it's also –

[38:23] With nobody noticing.

[38:24] Totally unnoticed by anybody, yeah.

[38:25] About a third or a quarter of a size of an actual Fabergé egg as well.

[38:29] Wow.

[38:30] Dan, we have our own Fabergé expert in here.

Elliott Kalan

[38:33] Fabergé egg expert.

[38:35] Now, Dan, tell us more about the fascinating world of Fabergé.

Dan McCoy

[38:41] They're a bunch of eggs.

[38:43] There's only so many of them.

[38:44] Lionel Fabergé.

[38:46] They're fancy.

[38:48] Yeah.

[38:48] And they're expensive.

[38:49] Okay.

[38:50] They're expensive because there's only a few of them and they're fancy.

[38:52] And now when you go to Easter egg hunting, do you hunt for those eggs?

[38:56] No.

Stuart Wellington

[38:57] Well, at Dan's house he does because he's super rich.

[38:59] But we – are they expensive?

[39:02] Because they don't really do anything.

[39:03] But like maybe –

[39:04] What do you want them to do?

[39:05] Like a Yoshi come out of them?

[39:06] Yeah.

[39:07] That seems like for that price, that's the minimum you should expect.

[39:09] Don't overpromise, buddy.

[39:11] Or like if I'm driving my car and I fall asleep at the wheel, the Fabergé egg will take the wheel and get me home safe.

[39:17] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[39:18] Well, now we're living in a fantasy world, Stuart.

[39:21] How much of my bank is this thing?

Elliott Kalan

[39:23] It's a Fabergé fantasy of designated egg drivers.

[39:30] Thank you.

[39:32] So anyway, moving forward.

[39:37] Yeah.

[39:38] Russ has started digging up the egg.

[39:40] Okay.

[39:41] Great.

[39:41] Lucy shows up as clumsy Marion for Jasper and Kenny.

[39:44] She says, oh, no, she's allergic to plastic eggs.

[39:46] She's making up lie after lie.

Stuart Wellington

[39:48] She's trying so hard to make them uninterested.

[39:52] It only makes them warmer more.

[39:53] It only makes them more attracted, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:55] She's just spinning a tangled web, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[39:58] Yeah.

[39:58] And she's catching these flies in her tangled web for sure.

[40:01] And Russ thinks that Lucy is bonkers.

[40:04] But Lucy is excited.

[40:05] She thinks she's convinced the boys that Marion is the bonkers one.

[40:09] But Russ, he says, the boys haven't given up.

[40:12] And he's going to go finish digging that hole.

[40:14] Because he does not – Russ knows better than Lucy does.

[40:17] Teen boys, they'll take a girl who's a little loony.

[40:21] If they think it'll lead them to something.

[40:22] Sometimes they'll prefer it.

[40:23] Yeah.

[40:23] Sometimes.

[40:24] If it thinks it'll lead them to some lip-on-lip kissing action, you know?

[40:28] Now, Dan, is that the grossest way I could have described kissing?

Dan McCoy

[40:30] It really was.

Stuart Wellington

[40:32] I'm like, why is it so much grosser than the actual gross things we said?

[40:36] It's a really weird pitch for Elliot to be a staff writer for Tiger Beat.

[40:39] But I guess –

Elliott Kalan

[40:40] 40 ways to improve your lip-on-lip kissing.

[40:44] Some call it the most intimate type of kiss.

[40:46] One person's hole of a mouth goes on another person's hole of a mouth.

[40:50] The fleshy protuberances that surround the hole touch each other and caress each other in different lascivious ways.

[40:57] Dan, how do you think?

[40:58] You're the editor of Tiger Beat.

[40:59] Are you accepting this article?

Dan McCoy

[41:01] I'm sending you to the FBI.

Elliott Kalan

[41:05] But inside that hole lives a fleshy tentacle that also wants to get in on the action.

[41:09] It's called the tongue, and it's very wet.

[41:11] So, Dan, do you like this article?

Stuart Wellington

[41:12] Dan, you describe the tongue as humans love muscle.

[41:16] No.

Elliott Kalan

[41:18] Some call it the strongest muscle in the human body, and it certainly wants to wrestle with opponents in other mouths.

[41:24] That's right.

[41:25] The tongue wants nothing more than to challenge and compete.

[41:28] A Siamese fighting fish.

[41:30] You have to keep it in a separate mouth or else it will try to attack until death, the tongue in another mouth.

Dan McCoy

[41:35] This I like better because it's left sexuality far behind and gone into the world.

[41:40] Oh, that's not true, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[41:40] There's a certain sexual aspect to it.

Dan McCoy

[41:42] This is effectively an Aeon Flux episode.

Elliott Kalan

[41:45] Yes, one specific one.

[41:47] This erotic competition between tongues can have only one winner.

[41:51] That's right, because the tongue that wins eats the tongue that loses.

[41:54] It's still happening.

[41:56] So, Jennifer doesn't have any ideas for the book.

[41:58] Russ feels Mr. Scammon is hiding something.

[42:00] And Russ says to the audience, keep watching and you'll find out another threat.

[42:04] No.

[42:05] The next day, the Easter egg hunt, it's deserted for some reason.

[42:08] Why is that?

[42:09] Then we see a brief flashback.

[42:10] Mr. Scammon put out a road-closed sign to stop people from going to the Easter hunt because he is going to look for his Easter egg with a suspiciously, fakely weathered antique map.

[42:20] And it's like, you buried this egg.

[42:22] You stole it and buried it.

[42:23] Why was your map burned and weathered and teased to look like it's a pirate map?

[42:27] Why did you steal this from a fucking escape room?

Dan McCoy

[42:29] I also love this shot of him putting the road-closed thing up because you can fully see that the sign says road-closed when he's putting it up over there.

[42:35] But the camera feels the need then to drift down ominously to show that it says road-closed.

Stuart Wellington

[42:40] I also like that it's shot in black and white.

Elliott Kalan

[42:43] Yeah.

[42:43] Yeah, because it's the past.

[42:44] It's a little touch.

[42:45] Yeah, that's a little touch.

[42:46] So, the Easter egg hunt is deserted.

[42:48] I guess they were the only ones whose houses were located after that point in the road.

[42:52] And Jake's mom is like, why don't we hunt eggs together?

[42:55] And he's like, only men hunt.

[42:57] Men hunt on their own.

[42:58] It's an alpha male thing.

[42:59] It's such – he's in Lucy territory here with his strange lies that he's telling.

[43:04] The boys show up for Lucy and Marion, and Lucy starts getting tripped up by her lies.

[43:08] And the boys – Jasper and Kenny are like, okay, we'll go find Marion.

[43:12] As Lucy goes out with Jake and Russ, we get a lot of nature photography at this point.

Stuart Wellington

[43:16] Because, again, somebody just needs to explain to Lucy that teenage boys are dumb.

[43:20] Yes.

[43:20] And they can be easily tricked.

Elliott Kalan

[43:22] Yes.

[43:22] Oh, very much so.

[43:23] Yeah.

[43:24] Yeah, that's why they're falling into tiger pits all the time or responding to duck calls.

[43:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[43:30] Yeah, yeah.

[43:31] Responding to duck calls.

[43:31] Getting trapped by the bad guy in the black phone.

[43:36] Teen boys are falling for black phone all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[43:38] Oh, man.

[43:40] I mean, it is Ethan Hawke.

[43:41] He's pretty cool.

[43:42] That's one of the – that's one of the largest sources or the biggest sources of teen boy trickery in America today is black phone.

[43:48] Black phone.

[43:49] That's why when you're in high school, they're like – they separate the girls into one gym and the boys into the other gym.

[43:55] And the boys learn about black phone and how to avoid it and all the dangers.

[43:58] Yeah, they don't pay attention.

Stuart Wellington

[44:00] They're too busy like playing with fidget spinners and whatnot.

Elliott Kalan

[44:04] They're all Robloxing and Minecrafting and things like that and Fortnite-ing.

[44:08] So, Mr. Scanty.

Stuart Wellington

[44:08] You've talked to your sons about this, right?

[44:11] More than I'd like to.

[44:11] About the dangers of black phone, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:12] Well, I haven't yet sat them down and had the talk, by which I mean the talk about black phone.

[44:17] I'm worried they're not ready for it yet.

[44:18] Now, what about black stone?

Dan McCoy

[44:20] Have you talked about the dangers of Harry Blackstone?

Stuart Wellington

[44:22] I have talked about the dangers of Harry Blackstone many times.

Dan McCoy

[44:24] He might spirit you away with his magic powers.

[44:26] Exactly.

[44:27] I tell them about that.

Stuart Wellington

[44:28] I say don't let him –

[44:29] You guys mentioned black stone.

[44:31] You, of course, are talking about the element Noctlith, which is what the Blackstone Fortresses have been created by that Abaddon's forces use to attack the Imperium of Man.

[44:41] Of course, that's what we were talking about.

[44:42] That's also a talk I've had with my children.

Elliott Kalan

[44:43] Yes, it's very important.

[44:44] Yeah.

[44:45] I talked about that and I talked about the birds and the bees, by which I mean kind of birds and bees they have in Warhammer that we can say.

Stuart Wellington

[44:52] Oh, there's birds and then there would be bees, right?

[44:59] Probably well.

[45:00] This was a rich thing.

Dan McCoy

[45:01] You think the grim, dark world of the future would have bees in it.

[45:04] Come on.

Elliott Kalan

[45:05] Although maybe honey is too sweet for that horrible universe.

[45:09] So Mr. Scammon, he has, as we said, a pirate map of some kind and he's looking for his Faberge egg.

[45:15] Lucy and Jake hunt for eggs.

[45:17] Now this is the next what I would call filler segment where over six minutes of screen time, we watch various characters looking around for eggs as their dialogue is mostly drowned out by the music.

[45:28] Dan, how much were you just ejaculating throughout this whole thing about how long it went?

Dan McCoy

[45:33] The beauty of this was also that the eggs are just sort of on the ground in a line.

[45:39] They aren't hidden anywhere.

[45:40] It's just like they're like, there's one.

Stuart Wellington

[45:41] There's another one.

[45:42] Hunting means walking around a 10 foot by 10 foot square patch filled with eggs.

Elliott Kalan

[45:48] I mean, you would think Blackphone had put these eggs out to trap these teenagers.

[45:54] So there's a lot of this.

[45:55] Lucy and Jake, they're about to kiss when Russ runs off and Jake follows him.

[46:00] And Lucy overhears Kenny insulting Jasper because Jasper brought some flowers for Marion.

[46:05] And Kenny is like, you idiot.

[46:06] Girls don't like flowers, you puss.

[46:09] Like he's just mean.

[46:10] And so she puts on her glasses and pretends to be Marion to make Jasper feel better and even kisses him on the cheek.

[46:15] Uh-oh.

[46:17] Jake walks up.

[46:17] Not until I kind of condensed some things.

[46:19] Jake then finds Russ.

[46:20] He doesn't notice that Russ dug up the gold egg.

[46:22] And he goes, okay, Russ, you can have the egg and stuffs it in his collar.

[46:26] But he walks up as Lucy, pretending to be Marion, has just kissed Jasper on the cheek.

[46:31] And she has to reveal she lied to everybody.

[46:34] There's no Marion.

[46:35] It was all a hoax.

[46:36] Not since the movie Sisters.

[46:41] Has there been a bigger twist involving sisters in a movie?

[46:45] And so Jake and Jasper.

Stuart Wellington

[46:46] It's a real Twelfth Night situation, right?

Elliott Kalan

[46:47] It is a very Twelfth Night situation.

[46:50] Oh, boy.

[46:50] And they have both been Malvolioed on this one.

[46:53] And that does not feel good.

[46:54] Oh, man.

[46:54] No.

[46:55] That's my greatest fear is to be Malvolioed.

[46:57] To be forced to wear yellow stockings and then stuffed in a box.

[47:00] That's the kind of thing that Blackphone might do to you.

[47:03] Yeah.

[47:04] So Jake and Jasper.

[47:05] Nefarious Blackphone.

[47:09] Nefarious Blackphone sounds like a villain from like a kid's cartoon or something or Slylock Fox or something.

[47:15] Yeah.

[47:16] So Jake and Jasper, they're both upset.

[47:19] Meanwhile, Scammon finds where he'd bear the egg.

[47:22] Uh-oh.

[47:22] It's not there anymore.

[47:23] He somehow knows a dog did it.

[47:25] He doesn't know which dog, but he knows if only a dog could accomplish this.

Stuart Wellington

[47:28] I buried this under a not very deep – in a not very deep hole under a little bit of sand right next to a parking lot.

[47:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:36] It doesn't seem like the best hiding spot or hiding job.

[47:40] Yeah.

[47:41] It seems like a child with a pail and a little plastic shovel could have found this egg pretty easily.

[47:46] The diamonds are – Lucy is so upset that Jennifer and Lucy are just going to leave and go home.

[47:51] And Scammon decides he's going to follow because he's got to get his egg back.

[47:55] Oh, they took me egg.

[47:57] Oh, I need me egg back.

Dan McCoy

[47:58] Well, this is also the mirror around here is where like I think Lisa London is like, we got to go home because I have larynge.

S6

[48:05] I'm losing my voice.

Elliott Kalan

[48:06] Throughout the movie, Lisa London's voice has been so faint.

[48:09] Even when she's delivering her Fabergé egg history monologue.

[48:12] And I was like, I guess it's just her voice.

[48:14] And then at that point she's like, I think I have laryngitis.

[48:17] The next scene, her voice is fine.

[48:19] So clearly Lee Shatty isn't out of order as the movie usually is.

[48:22] But it's so funny that it's like – that they felt like after so long they finally had to mention the laryngitis.

[48:28] Yes.

[48:28] I guess they thought they could get away with not mentioning it for that long.

Dan McCoy

[48:31] Yeah, but it had gotten so bad that they're like, okay, we have to actually say something about it in the movie.

[48:36] And clearly they only had like three filming days or whatever.

[48:39] So they couldn't wait for her to have her voice back again.

[48:43] They're just like power through a baby.

Elliott Kalan

[48:43] No, they couldn't shut down production as they waited for her health return.

[48:47] At home, Jennifer tries to cheer Lucy up by putting Russ in bunny ears.

[48:51] But it does not work.

[48:53] Russ drops the egg.

[48:55] Jake and his mom come to the house with Mr. Scammon.

[48:58] And Jake wants to apologize and make up with Lucy.

[49:01] And –

Stuart Wellington

[49:02] Mr. Scammon's like, hey, let me meet that dog of yours.

Elliott Kalan

[49:05] Yeah.

[49:06] Mr. Scammon's like, you have a dog?

[49:08] I'd love to meet him.

[49:09] So he's snooping around the house looking for the dog.

[49:11] I will say this scene between Jake and Lucy where Lucy is upset and Jake comes up to talk to her.

[49:15] There's a moment in it where she's like, I don't want anyone to look at me right now.

[49:19] And he looks away and they start to make up.

[49:21] And she's like, you can look at me now.

[49:23] And he's like, in a way it makes this conversation easier that he's not looking at her but has his back to her.

[49:27] And I was like, in this very artificial movie that does not feel like real life, this felt like to me like a genuinely kind of like sweet moment.

[49:35] Like a sweet – it actually makes it easier to talk, to have this conversation.

[49:38] I thought it was like, this is a sweet kind of real feeling moment that I did not expect in the middle of a movie narrated by a dog about the worst egg thief in the history of egg thievery.

Stuart Wellington

[49:47] Yeah, it briefly takes you out of the movie similar to how moments later we see Mr. Scammon chasing a corgi around the upper floors of the house.

[49:56] And there's a moment where there's very clearly another man reflected in like the window or the –

[50:04] It's like an upper fireplace with like a glass thing in front of it.

[50:07] And I'm like, is this the camera operator or is this just like a strange man making weird motions?

Elliott Kalan

[50:12] Yeah, or a three-men-in-a-baby style ghost.

[50:15] Yes.

[50:16] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[50:16] That was the third option.

[50:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:19] So they – but this – he's chasing after the dog.

[50:23] This happens when finally the egg falls from the staircase into Jake's mom's hands.

[50:27] And she's like, this is the egg.

[50:29] The egg they said my husband stole.

[50:32] Mr. Scammon has them at gunpoint.

[50:34] Did not expect to see a gun in this movie.

[50:35] That was a big shot.

[50:37] It's a tiny little gun.

[50:38] But it is still – I did not like seeing a gun in this movie.

[50:40] But luckily, Russ bites him.

[50:42] Jennifer picks up the gun.

[50:43] And Russ has the best dialogue in the movie at the very end.

[50:47] He goes, I'm the Easter Bunny punk.

[50:49] Deal with it.

[50:49] Hippity-hoppity.

[50:50] Peace out.

[50:51] And that's the end of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[50:53] Yeah.

[50:54] It's a real – it's a catchphrase, of course, now that we've seen blazoned on bumper stickers and T-shirts across America.

[51:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:02] Deal with it.

[51:04] Peace out.

[51:05] Yeah.

[51:05] I'm the Easter Bunny punk.

[51:07] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:07] I mean that's just made for the back of a T-shirt.

[51:10] Yeah.

[51:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:12] Not since I'm Rick James bitch has a catchphrase.

[51:15] It's so hard.

[51:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:17] Yeah.

[51:17] I feel bad because when Russ the dog is in the street, people just yell that at him.

[51:21] And he's like, I'm known for other things.

Elliott Kalan

[51:23] I'm not just an Easter Bunny puppy, you know.

[51:25] Hey, say hippity-hoppity.

[51:27] Peace out.

[51:28] Wait.

[51:28] Let me get my phone out.

Dan McCoy

[51:31] So, yeah.

[51:33] That's the tale of the Easter Bunny puppy.

Elliott Kalan

[51:36] Not the Easter Bunny puppy, Dan.

[51:38] No, not the actual.

[51:39] And Easter Bunny puppy.

[51:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:40] And not the actual tale of the puppy.

[51:43] Very good point.

[51:44] That's the story.

[51:46] Yeah.

[51:46] I'm glad you differentiated about that.

[51:47] That's the game.

[51:48] It would have confused our listeners.

[51:51] But now we have to pass judgment in a segment we call final judgments about whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[52:02] Okay.

[52:02] So, what do we do in this segment, Dan?

[52:04] I think I just explained it.

[52:05] I don't know why.

[52:06] Okay.

[52:06] I have to go over it again.

[52:09] Caught in a loop like that egg-dying scene.

[52:12] But I'm going to say, having seen it twice now, probably not like – like don't watch this on your own.

[52:21] Don't be a fool.

[52:23] Don't do that.

[52:24] Like Elliot was.

[52:26] Like Elliot was.

[52:26] This is work for me, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[52:28] It wasn't like I was like, oh, let me pop in a movie.

[52:30] What would I enjoy on my own?

[52:31] An English – an Easter bunny puppy.

[52:34] They'll say an English bunny puppy, which would be an interesting switch on it.

[52:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[52:38] But if you're a bad movie sicko and you've got friends, like for me, this is a classic good, bad movie.

[52:44] This recaptured the joy I felt watching Talking Cat and I had a great time.

Stuart Wellington

[52:53] What do you think?

[52:54] Yeah, you know, this is – sorry, it just took me a second because I was really going through the whole of my experience with an Easter bunny puppy.

[53:03] This is exactly the kind of movie that I do this podcast to watch.

[53:07] You know, a movie where most of the runtime is either dying Easter eggs, painting Easter eggs, driving to a place, and then looking for Easter eggs.

[53:15] It's great.

[53:16] Two thumbs up.

[53:17] This is a good, bad movie, I would say.

Elliott Kalan

[53:20] I would also call it a good, bad movie.

[53:21] Again, not really – even watching it on my own, it was still kind of funny to watch it.

[53:25] It was just – I couldn't experience the dying egg sequence in real time.

[53:31] I had to get a little bit of assistance on that one.

[53:34] But it is – there's something about these movies that is so weird in terms of the tone and the feel of them.

[53:41] And they're so – but at the same time, there was nothing in it that I found upsetting, you know?

[53:45] It feels like you're watching a family movie from another dimension, but it's not like – nothing happens in it, at least for me,

[53:50] where I was like, ugh, now I feel gross.

[53:53] Now I feel bad watching this.

[53:55] That's hard to find sometimes.

[53:56] So don't watch it with your kids.

[53:58] They will be very bored.

[53:59] I mean, I'm sure they're – actually, a kid would probably like it.

[54:02] It's something that moves and has sound coming out of it and colors.

[54:05] But I think if you're getting together –

[54:07] A dog talks, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[54:09] Come on.

[54:09] They'll watch anything as long as it's on like an iPad or something, right?

[54:12] They will.

Elliott Kalan

[54:13] If you get together your decadent bad movie crew and pop in an Easter bunny puppy,

[54:20] and I think you're going to have a good time wasting time.

S4

[54:29] Hi, I'm Alexis.

[54:31] I'm one of the co-hosts of Comfort Creatures, and I'm here with River Jew, who has been a member since 2019.

[54:37] Thank you so much for being a listener and the support of our show.

[54:40] Yeah, I can't believe it's been that long.

[54:42] Yeah, right?

[54:43] As the MaxFun member of the month, can I ask what sort of made you decide to be a member?

S5

[54:49] I used to work in a library, so I just used to listen to podcasts while I reshelved all the books.

[54:55] It's really helpful with doing –

S4

[54:58] Reading at work.

S5

[54:59] So I just wanted to give back to what's been helping me.

S4

[55:03] Yeah.

S5

[55:03] It feels good to be part of that.

S4

[55:05] As the member of the month, you will be getting a $25 gift card to the MaxFun Fun store,

[55:11] a member of the month bumper sticker,

[55:13] and you also, if you're ever in Los Angeles, you can get a parking spot at the MaxFun HQ just for you.

S5

[55:19] Yay!

[55:19] I'm actually going to LA in September, so I'll get to use the parking space.

S4

[55:24] Yes!

[55:25] Thank you so much, River, for doing this.

[55:27] This has been an absolute blast.

S5

[55:28] Yeah, of course.

[55:29] I've been so glad to be able to talk to you, too, and I'm so excited to be a member of the month.

[55:34] Yay!

S6

[55:35] Become a MaxFun member now at MaximumFun.org slash join.

[55:40] Hey, everybody.

[55:42] I'm Jeremy.

[55:42] I'm Oscar.

[55:43] I'm Dimitri.

[55:44] And we are the Eurovangelists.

[55:46] Or a weekly podcast spreading the word of the Eurovision Song Contest, the most important music competition in the world.

Dan McCoy

[55:52] Maybe you already heard Glenn Weldon of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour talk up our coverage of this year's contest.

[55:57] But what do we talk about in the off-season?

[55:59] The rest of Eurovision, duh.

[56:01] There are nearly seven decades of pop music history to cover.

S6

[56:04] Mm-hmm.

[56:04] We've got thousands of amazing songs, inspiring competitors, and so much drama to discuss.

[56:10] And let me tell you, the drama is juicy.

Stuart Wellington

[56:12] Plus, all the gorillas and bread-baking grandmas that make Eurovision so special.

Dan McCoy

[56:16] Check out Eurovangelists, available everywhere you get podcasts.

[56:19] And you could be a Eurovangelist, too.

[56:21] Ooh, I want to be one.

[56:22] You already are.

[56:23] It's that easy.

[56:23] Oh, okay.

[56:24] Cool.

[56:26] Let's talk about our sponsors.

[56:29] Of course, the Flophouse could not exist without the listeners who have become members at MaximumFun.org.

[56:38] They support us in the overwhelming part.

[56:42] But we also have a couple of sponsors.

[56:45] This podcast that you are listening to right now is brought to you in part by Squarespace.

[56:52] Whoa.

[56:52] Squarespace, Elliot.

[56:54] Whoa.

[56:54] Square.

[56:55] Square.

[56:55] Space.

[56:56] Yeah.

[56:56] Imagine a space, and then imagine that space is square.

[56:59] I can't do it.

Elliott Kalan

[57:00] Tell me more about it.

[57:01] What does it mean?

[57:01] I can't understand it.

Dan McCoy

[57:03] Well, it gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid online all in one place.

[57:09] How does it do that?

[57:09] I love offering services, and I love getting paid.

[57:12] Yes.

[57:14] Mostly the second part.

[57:16] The services are kind of a route to the second part, but sure.

[57:19] I mean, if you don't like what you do, sure.

[57:21] You know what they say.

[57:22] If you don't like what you do, you work every single day of your life.

[57:24] They do say that.

[57:26] You can get paid on time with professional on-brand invoices and online payments.

[57:30] Plus, you can streamline your workflow with a built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools.

[57:36] And hey, you want your website to look good.

[57:38] Well, Squarespace also offers a complete library.

[57:44] I'm getting excited.

[57:45] A complete library.

Elliott Kalan

[57:46] You could not be more excited about how complete that library is.

Dan McCoy

[57:49] Of professionally designed and award-winning website templates with options for every use and category.

[57:56] You got your intuitive drag-and-drop editing to make designing that website easy.

[58:01] Beautiful styling options.

[58:02] Unrivaled visual design effects.

[58:04] No experience required.

[58:06] You don't have to be an HTML wizard to have a nice website.

[58:10] So, head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[58:14] And when you're ready to launch, use offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[58:22] We also have a Jumbotron today.

[58:27] It's kind of a Jumbotron for us.

[58:29] This message is for the Peaches.

[58:31] I assume they're talking to us.

[58:33] And it's from Luke.

[58:34] Yay!

[58:34] And Luke says,

[58:35] Hey, Peaches.

[58:36] I have nothing to shout out, but I felt like throwing you guys some beer money.

[58:39] So, I give you the gift of 350 characters of nonsense to read.

[58:43] Someone should start a polyphonic spree cover band and call it Contrapuntal Rampage.

[58:47] Tenacity.

[58:48] Lugubrious.

[58:49] Bowies.

[58:50] Bowie boys.

[58:51] Nish-nashers.

[58:52] Toy boat.

[58:53] Toy boat.

[58:54] And that's the end.

[58:55] Bye!

[58:57] What a sweet Jumbotron.

[58:59] Thank you very much, Luke.

Stuart Wellington

[59:00] I can't believe Luke got you to read his, what?

[59:04] Kidnapper's note or whatever?

[59:06] Mr. policeman, I gave you all the clues.

[59:08] Toy boat.

Elliott Kalan

[59:08] Toy boat.

[59:10] Thank you, Luke.

[59:11] If anyone else wants to, I mean, this opens up an interesting new area for Jumbotrons.

[59:16] Usually, us to read a personal message to somebody or an advertising message, go to what?

[59:22] MaximumFun.com slash Jumbotron to buy one.

[59:25] But I guess this enters the realm of just paying us to say whatever, which, you know, we're not

[59:30] proud.

[59:31] We'll do it.

[59:31] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[59:32] We'll do it.

[59:32] How not proud are we?

[59:33] We're so not proud that we're actually very proud.

[59:36] What are we proud of?

[59:37] We are proud of the fact that we're appearing in Chicago on Sunday, November 16th, and our

[59:42] first show sold out.

[59:44] So we have put a second show on the books.

[59:47] So that's right.

[59:48] We are live in Chicago Sunday, November 16th.

[59:50] If you missed your chance to go to our early show, we will now have a late show.

[59:54] Both shows will be about Jim Belushi movies.

[59:57] So don't worry.

[59:57] You'll get the full talk of Belushi either way.

[59:59] I fished my wish.

[1:00:00] Yep.

[1:00:01] The early show was Taking Care of Business.

[1:00:02] The second show, I believe, is Canine, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:05] Yeah.

[1:00:06] Another book about – oh, another book.

[1:00:07] Another movie about a dog.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:08] Well, movies are just books for your eyes.

[1:00:10] So, you know, it's okay.

[1:00:11] That's the thing.

[1:00:12] Yeah.

[1:00:13] So the Flophouse will be live in Chicago Sunday, November 16th.

[1:00:17] The early show was sold out, but the late show, I think there's still some tickets available.

[1:00:20] Go to flophousepodcast.com slash event slash the-flop-house-live-in-Chicago for tickets.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:29] There's probably a better URL to go to, but –

[1:00:31] I do think –

[1:00:32] If you go to theflophousepodcast.com under the events page, I believe our very kind webmaster has put up an event link.

[1:00:40] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:40] Just go to flophousepodcast.com, not the Flophouse.

[1:00:43] Just go to flophousepodcast.com and go to the events section.

[1:00:46] Let's make it more confusing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:47] Let's get something else for a while.

[1:00:48] Elliot, earlier you said movies are books for your eyes, but don't you use your eyes to read books?

[1:00:55] Not if you're using Braille or an audiobook.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:57] Okay.

[1:00:58] Columbo's got you there.

[1:00:59] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:00] Columbo has got you there.

[1:01:01] Technically correct.

[1:01:02] Bugs meany again.

[1:01:03] Yep.

[1:01:04] So do – actually, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[1:01:07] That's where you should go.

[1:01:08] You'll get tickets for a Chicago show Sunday, November 16th.

[1:01:11] Let's say you're not in Chicago.

[1:01:13] Let's say the late show manages to sell out too.

[1:01:15] How are you going to see your Flophouse boys putting on a show with your eyes, the things you use for movies and not for books?

[1:01:22] Well, you're in luck because Flop TV is on the air.

[1:01:26] That's right.

[1:01:26] Flop TV season three, Flopsterpiece Theater is now appearing the first Saturday of every month, Saturday through February.

[1:01:34] Go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com for tickets.

[1:01:37] Just this past Saturday as we're recording this, we did our Pluto Nash episode.

[1:01:43] It was super fun.

[1:01:44] We had a great time.

[1:01:45] The next one is October 4th, Saturday, October 4th.

[1:01:48] We're going to be talking about Jack Frost starring Michael Keaton as a bad dad, snowman dad.

[1:01:53] And it's going to be the first Saturday of each month.

[1:01:55] After that, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:01:58] If you can't watch the show live, these shows are the first Saturday of the month, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:02:04] If you cannot watch it live, maybe you live in another country.

[1:02:06] Maybe you got plans that night.

[1:02:08] Maybe you – I don't know.

[1:02:09] You just don't want to watch things live because you're worried that Dan is going to lose his shit and you don't want to see it happen live in front of you.

[1:02:15] It's fine because your ticket gets you access to the recording of the show, and those recordings are going to stay up online through the end of the season.

[1:02:23] So you can watch them all at your leisure as many times as you want through the end of February 2026.

[1:02:30] That Pluto Nash show, I had so much fun.

[1:02:32] I'm really looking forward to this Jack Frost show.

[1:02:35] I have to make a video for it, and I've got an idea that I think is dumb.

[1:02:39] So I think you guys will enjoy it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:42] Oh, weird.

[1:02:43] Okay, because normally our videos are really serious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:45] Exactly, yeah.

[1:02:46] So that's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:02:49] Join us live on your computer the first Saturday of each month through February.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:55] Let's answer a few listener letters, letters from listeners.

[1:03:00] This first one is from Andy, last name withheld.

[1:03:04] Andy Dufresne just broke out of jail.

[1:03:07] Yeah.

[1:03:08] How do you get poop stains out of a prison uniform?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:12] If anyone should know, it should be you, Andy.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:15] No, Andy writes –

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:17] Floppers, I crawled through a mile of the worst shit and crap.

[1:03:20] I forgot what it says that you can imagine.

[1:03:22] I can't remember what Morton Freeman says.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:24] Just garbage.

[1:03:25] A lot of – oh, it was the worst.

[1:03:27] Oh, man.

[1:03:27] It was the worst.

[1:03:28] How do I get this taste out of my mouth?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:30] Oh, his mouth?

[1:03:32] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:33] You got to believe he got some in his mouth.

[1:03:34] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:35] I don't got to believe that, Dan.

[1:03:38] Andy writes.

[1:03:39] That's what the I want to believe poster means.

[1:03:42] I know.

[1:03:43] Why is there a UFO on it, Dan?

[1:03:45] Oh, I just want to believe that he got poop in his mouth.

[1:03:47] That's a toilet bowl.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:48] So nothing about aliens?

[1:03:50] No.

[1:03:51] So why is there a picture of a UFO?

[1:03:52] That was the cheapest picture I could get when I was making the poster.

[1:03:55] Just a stock photo.

[1:03:56] Yeah, that's to get him in the door.

[1:04:00] That's a loss leader.

[1:04:03] You come in for the aliens.

[1:04:04] You stay for the poop in Tim Robbins' mouth.

[1:04:08] And how – does this work?

[1:04:10] Not yet, but I'm pretty sure it will.

[1:04:12] Fingers crossed.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:13] Bitch, if I ever get to ask him a question at something, I'm going to ask him if he ever – if he, like, the idea of poop getting in Andy Dufresne's mouth informed his performance.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:23] Yeah.

[1:04:23] This is – wait, this is Tim Robbins you're asking or David Duchovny as Fox Mulder?

[1:04:29] I don't know if either at this point.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:31] They're so linked in America's imagination.

[1:04:33] That's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:34] That's true.

[1:04:35] That's when TNT would play Shawshank Redemption and then in the middle they just cut in an episode of The X-Files and then go back to the movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:43] Innovative.

[1:04:43] Okay.

[1:04:44] Well, sorry.

[1:04:45] This is from –

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:45] Scully, there's been a report of a Shawshank being redeemed.

[1:04:49] But that's impossible, Mulder.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:51] I don't even know what that is.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:55] Andy writes –

[1:04:56] See, when Mulder was a kid, his little kid sister got taken to Shawshank.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:01] Yeah.

[1:05:01] And she had to go through a pipe.

[1:05:03] Through a pipe, yes.

[1:05:04] He's always been obsessed by it, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] Andy writes, hey, floppers, in the past two weeks –

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:09] The cigarette smoking man is like, there's more in that shit pipe than you can even imagine.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:14] No, don't smoke around there.

[1:05:15] There's so much methane.

[1:05:16] Ah, explosion.

[1:05:17] Yeah.

[1:05:17] In the past two weeks, you've commented on two areas right in my professional wheelhouse as a federal criminal defense lawyer, not an assassin.

[1:05:27] Shawshank prison.

[1:05:28] Uh-huh.

[1:05:29] First, the maximum penalty for an attempted assassination of federal officials under the federal statute is life in prison.

[1:05:36] There is no death penalty for that crime unless the crime is completed.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:40] Ah, okay.

[1:05:41] Thank you.

[1:05:41] I'm glad I was right about that.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:42] Second, FaceTime video and audio are believed to be harder for the government to monitor, so some folks use it for that reason.

[1:05:49] Oh.

[1:05:49] It's probably true about the content of the communication, but not the metadata – who, when, where, how long, etc.

[1:05:56] I think questions like this are way more interesting than people who ask the generic and boring, how can you defend guilty people?

[1:06:02] I'm inevitably asked all the time.

[1:06:05] What question about your work do you hate, and what do you wish people would ask you instead?

[1:06:11] Andy, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:13] I got an easy one.

[1:06:14] What kind of drinks do you like to make?

[1:06:20] Well, what kind do you –

[1:06:21] The easiest, fastest one.

[1:06:25] Yeah.

[1:06:25] Like a bottle of Miller Highlight.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:28] Yeah, whatever's on tap.

[1:06:30] Yeah.

[1:06:30] Or just the bottle, just hand it to them.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:32] Yeah.

[1:06:32] And what would you rather answer?

[1:06:35] What would I rather answer?

[1:06:36] Yeah, that's part of the question.

[1:06:37] What would you prefer?

[1:06:39] What kind of question would you prefer?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:40] Who do I prefer is like, Stuart, how do you keep your hair looking so amazing?

[1:06:44] Okay, well, is that about –

[1:06:45] It's more of a compliment, that question.

[1:06:47] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:50] You know, podcasting doesn't inspire a lot of questions, so I'll talk about writing.

[1:06:55] I feel like it does.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:58] I mean, the main question I get about podcasting that's annoying is people go, wait, you make money off of that?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:03] Yeah.

[1:07:05] I get that from my wife.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:06] She goes, people pay you for this?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] So about writing, what do people ask that bothers you, Dan?

[1:07:15] You must love this Trump guy.

[1:07:17] He gives you lots of material.

[1:07:18] Yeah, I did hate that back in the day.

[1:07:20] And it's not a question.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:22] No, but we did not love that Trump guy because he gave us a lot of material.

[1:07:27] We did not indeed.

[1:07:29] Like, I'm happy to talk to people about how I got into the business, but it's, you know, as a question, I don't know how useful I think it is.

[1:07:39] And so I'm not wild about, like, trying to answer it because it is so idiosyncratic as a field that I'm like, well, I can tell you how, and I will.

[1:07:48] But I don't know, like, the answer, like, the real answer that you should care about is, like, network and practice, you know.

[1:07:58] I would like to think I would be good at, happier to answer sort of specific questions about writing, like, how is a joke constructed?

[1:08:10] But I think about it, and I'm like, I don't know if I could speak well to that.

[1:08:15] Like, so much of it is just, like, impulse and practice.

[1:08:20] And, like, I don't – I'm looking forward to Elliot's book, Joke Farming.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:23] I was going to say, Dan, if you want to know about how a joke is constructed, get ready because there's a book coming out in November that will tell you all about it.

[1:08:29] It's called Joke Farming.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:29] Yeah, I guess the question I'd like to answer is, would you like a job?

[1:08:35] When can you start?

[1:08:36] That would be a good one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:37] I was going to say, Dan, the question I used to get was, how do I get – how do I start a writing career?

[1:08:41] How do I get a writing job?

[1:08:43] Now I feel like the question I get a lot is, so there aren't a lot of jobs out there, are there?

[1:08:46] And I'm like, it's never good when I think the general public is aware of how hard it is to get a job in a particular entertainment field.

[1:08:54] But, yeah, the question I'd want to answer is, hey, what's Jonah Ray like?

[1:08:59] And I'd be like, he's a real nice guy.

[1:09:01] Yeah, he seemed nice.

[1:09:02] He's very nice.

[1:09:03] Okay.

[1:09:04] Very funny, very nice.

[1:09:05] Class act, solid, very tall.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:07] Question?

[1:09:08] Very tall.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:09] Yeah, very tall.

[1:09:10] And answered over here at the Flomp House.

[1:09:12] Yeah.

[1:09:12] This letter is from Allison, last name withheld.

[1:09:16] Who writes?

[1:09:16] Allison Williams, star of Girls and Peter Pan.

[1:09:19] And I abridged this because she was –

[1:09:20] And Meghan, right?

[1:09:22] Yeah.

[1:09:22] Yeah, yeah.

[1:09:23] Or they were too nice to us, so I cut out some of the nice parts.

[1:09:29] Yeah, you're right, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:30] You're right, Dan.

[1:09:30] We don't deserve it.

[1:09:31] We need more punishment.

[1:09:33] We've been bad boys.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:34] Well, it feels a little self-serving to read it all in the air.

[1:09:36] I guess so.

[1:09:37] Mother says I shouldn't get praise.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:41] First off, I'm a huge fan.

[1:09:42] I could gush for hours about this podcast getting me through hard times, making me laugh on long, super sweaty subway rides when I lived in NYC, cheering me up in L.A. traffic where I now live, accompanying me on the Brooklyn Half Marathon, et cetera.

[1:09:56] In terms of real-life encounters, I briefly met Elliot at the signing of Horse Meets Dog at Skylight Books in Los Feliz a while back.

[1:10:03] He was lovely, and I was kind of awkward, so that was fun.

[1:10:06] Oh, that's nice.

[1:10:07] I'm sure you were great.

[1:10:08] In terms of subconscious encounters, I had a dream about you all recently in which we met.

[1:10:13] You put me on a text chain with the three of you, and then I didn't understand any of the references or jokes any of you made on the chain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:19] To be honest, that's how I often feel about the text chain the three of us are on.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:24] I guess this is the part where I ask a question.

[1:10:26] The anxiety of that text chain dream is really putting the pressure on me to make this a good one.

[1:10:31] So, now that I've gushed, time for you to gush.

[1:10:35] What are your favorite things about each other?

[1:10:38] Aww.

[1:10:38] Allison Lasting withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:41] Didn't realize I was walking into a trap.

[1:10:44] It's a trap.

[1:10:44] Oh, boy.

[1:10:45] It's going to be so much more typical.

[1:10:46] Oh, man.

[1:10:46] Is this a Lady Raven concert?

[1:10:47] I think.

[1:10:50] Okay, let's see.

[1:10:51] Things that I like.

[1:10:53] I like.

[1:10:54] Well, one thing that I like about performing with my two friends is that Dan is very good at being the straight man, and he is very good at taking the lumps that we give him for no reason at all.

[1:11:07] Dan's making faces like, what kind of compliment is this?

[1:11:10] This is a weird compliment, but I'll take it, I guess.

[1:11:13] No, I'm saying you're talented.

[1:11:14] And Elliot is very good at filling any space he is given when necessary.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:20] I'll get a little more personal.

[1:11:22] I think that Stuart is very patient, and if I inadvertently hurt his feelings, he will absorb it and then tell me about it calmly at a later date.

[1:11:37] Oh, wow.

[1:11:38] You need to tell my therapist.

[1:11:39] Elliot is, for all the shit he gives me on air, is always very concerned about my well-being.

[1:11:47] During the time that I was post-divorce and single, he would have me over to have dinner with his family frequently, and it was very sweet.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:58] Yeah, that was the character.

[1:12:00] The real me is the me that's mean to you.

[1:12:01] That was the personia.

[1:12:04] Dan has got an enormous heart.

[1:12:06] He's got an enormous heart, and he's always ready to think the best of somebody after he's had a moment to think about it.

[1:12:15] But most of the time, he's trying to think the best of people.

[1:12:19] And Stuart is a stalwart rock that can be relied on and leaned on in tough times and good times.

[1:12:28] And you never have to worry that he's not going to have your back.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:31] Oh, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:33] And I just like performing with these guys.

[1:12:34] They're really fun.

[1:12:35] Two of the guys were like, it makes me laugh more when we're talking than almost anything else that happens in life.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:43] So I appreciate it.

[1:12:45] Audrey has remarked on, even when we're off stage, she's like, you guys, when you get together, you're doing it.

[1:12:52] You're doing the same thing.

[1:12:54] It's fun to, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:56] Danielle will hear, I listen to podcasts a lot while I'm doing chores.

[1:13:01] And there are times when I listen to this podcast and I'm laughing.

[1:13:02] And Danielle, my wife, will go, listen to yourself again, huh?

[1:13:05] And I'm like, but I laughed at something Dan said.

[1:13:07] Yeah.

[1:13:08] I was laughing at a Stuart thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:11] I mean, I often miss a lot of what's going on because you're in it.

[1:13:15] So you're not fully engaged in the whole thing.

[1:13:18] And so I will laugh at stuff that you say later on.

[1:13:20] I'm like, oh, that was what was going on when I was trying to look something up or worrying about the next bit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:27] Yeah, I was trying to craft my next hilarious bit.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:32] Well, enough of this fuzzy sweetness.

[1:13:35] Time to get down to business again.

[1:13:37] Brass packs, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:38] Yeah, now you're going to get some bumpy sourness.

[1:13:40] I also like that Dan keeps us on track all the time.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:44] Bust some balls.

[1:13:46] Let's crack some skulls.

[1:13:47] Let's talk about movies that we've seen that we would recommend.

[1:13:53] Let's say in addition to this one, if you're a bad movie sicko, you can watch this one too.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:58] I mean, let's have some movies that we recommend to non-bad movie sickos.

[1:14:01] For non-ironic reasons?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:02] Okay.

[1:14:02] Well, Criterion this month has a bunch of stuff that I was like, wow, this is really geared towards me.

[1:14:11] They had a Robert Altman retrospective.

[1:14:16] They have a lot of Robert Altman movies.

[1:14:18] They have 70s paranoid thrillers.

[1:14:21] Well, and they have nunsploitation.

[1:14:25] But I'm not going to talk about some nunsploitation.

[1:14:28] I'm going to talk about an Altman movie that I had not seen before, which is Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bulls History Lesson.

[1:14:35] It is a lesser-regarded Altman movie.

[1:14:41] But I liked it quite a bit.

[1:14:43] And it is a movie that in some ways takes place in one location because it's all Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

[1:14:53] But it is so expansive, this location.

[1:14:56] And there's so much of Altman's like, we're going to get a snatch of character here.

[1:15:01] And a character's going to cross the screen there.

[1:15:03] And we're going to follow things.

[1:15:04] And, you know, the way he builds a thing slowly, sort of piece by piece.

[1:15:08] And it is a movie about the way that the legend of the Wild West was, you know, constructed by white people.

[1:15:19] And it is a movie about how Buffalo Bill, played by Paul Newman, sort of is quietly driven insane by the dignity of Sitting Bull,

[1:15:31] who refuses to engage with the myth-making that Buffalo Bill would prefer.

[1:15:38] And I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[1:15:42] It's, you know, maybe, sure, go see like some of the bigger Altmans first.

[1:15:47] But once you're in that pool, check this one out as well.

[1:15:51] How's the sound on this one?

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:54] Overlapping.

[1:15:55] Yay.

[1:15:56] Ooh.

[1:15:57] Okay, so I'm going to recommend a movie that's kind of similar to an Easter Bunny puppy.

[1:16:03] This is a movie about somebody desperately trying to get close to someone else in a desire to kind of either just enjoy being in their orbit or experience the world through their eyes.

[1:16:17] Dan and I went and saw Lurker this week, which is initially kind of going in.

[1:16:22] I thought it was going to be more of a thriller.

[1:16:24] And it ends up being a little bit more of a black comedy or like a character study.

[1:16:29] Would you agree with that, Dan?

[1:16:30] I would agree with that.

[1:16:31] Like, it's not that there aren't like, you know, like kind of creepy and weird moments.

[1:16:36] But I feel like it's best play.

[1:16:38] Like the whole thing plays best when it is just kind of an awkward comedy.

[1:16:42] And it is about a young man who kind of sneaks his way into an emerging pop star's entourage.

[1:16:51] And he is trying desperately doing everything he can to appear like he's not being desperate to be part of this guy's life.

[1:17:01] And it's one of the things that I found kind of fascinating about it is how even the most like while they manage to capture the feel of excitement when somebody that you idolize gives you a moment of their attention, that like rush that he feels.

[1:17:18] It also does a pretty good job of reminding you how immature and kind of gross that kind of young man pop star lifestyle is of just a bunch of people hanging around in a rich house that is not taken care of very well.

[1:17:33] And it's like a weird dorm and everything feels so surface level.

[1:17:37] Nobody seems to like each other that much.

[1:17:41] And then when it gets to the third act, I think the movie actually starts to cook the most.

[1:17:48] But yeah, I thought it was a lot of fun.

[1:17:49] It was kind of – it was also that it was kind of different than what I was expecting.

[1:17:53] So check it out, Lurker.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:56] I'm going to recommend a movie from a couple years ago.

[1:18:00] It is a French movie, but it's also a horror movie.

[1:18:04] What?

[1:18:04] What's this all about?

[1:18:04] A horror.

[1:18:05] Stuart suddenly, he heard French and he was like, no.

[1:18:08] And he heard horror and he was like, what?

[1:18:09] Ooh la la.

[1:18:10] So this is a movie called – this is a movie called The Vordalac from a couple years ago.

[1:18:15] Oh, yeah.

[1:18:15] This is a French vampire movie that there's a – it tells the story of a – it's like 18th century or so.

[1:18:22] And there's a French kind of minor nobleman who's on a mission in an area between – somewhere between France and Turkey.

[1:18:30] I'm not – I don't remember exactly where it takes place.

[1:18:32] Somewhere in Eastern Europe I think.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:35] That would be Germany is between France and Turkey, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:38] Yeah, I guess maybe it's – but there's a – it seems to – I don't know exactly where it is.

[1:18:41] I don't know exactly where it is.

[1:18:42] But he has lost his horse.

[1:18:44] He's wandering through the woods and he ends up receiving help at the home of a family who are waiting for their elderly father.

[1:18:52] Their elderly patriarch to return from fighting the Turks.

[1:18:55] And he returns and it is very clear that he is a Vordalac, which is a kind of Slavic vampire.

[1:19:02] So I guess this must be some Slavic – anyway.

[1:19:05] The important thing is the nobleman, he has – he's attracted to the daughter of this Vordalac.

[1:19:12] And so he feels like he can't just run away else because he doesn't have a horse.

[1:19:15] And the family kind of one by one starts falling under the spell of this figure who is clearly a vampire but is also the patriarch of their family.

[1:19:24] So they can't outwardly kind of go against him the way that they probably should.

[1:19:29] And it is a – it's not a super flashy movie.

[1:19:33] But I have to admit when the new version of Nosferatu came out, I kind of wanted it to be like a little weirder and stranger and get into more kind of interesting waters.

[1:19:44] And I feel like the Vordalac provides some of that strangeness and weirdness and more interestingness that I was hoping for from that.

[1:19:51] And so if you want to see a vampire movie, that's not – it's not a lot of like suddenly a vampire jumps out at you.

[1:19:57] Ah!

[1:19:58] But it's a – but it still has this kind of like creepy, strange atmosphere of it.

[1:20:03] And the way they handle the existence of the vampire itself, which I don't want to give away, is at first very – like almost silly but becomes less and less so as the movie goes on.

[1:20:18] And I thought – I found it really discomforting in the way that a good horror movie can be.

[1:20:23] So I would recommend it.

[1:20:24] That's L'Vordalac spelled V-O-U-R-D-A-L-A-K.

[1:20:28] And I keep calling it Vatilork and stuff like that and Validork.

[1:20:31] I can't – I had to look up how it's spelled.

[1:20:33] You're a Validork.

[1:20:35] Oh, man.

[1:20:36] I got you.

[1:20:36] There's fair.

[1:20:38] That reminds me.

[1:20:38] I've got to get my wife a Validorks day card.

[1:20:43] That's love between dorks.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:45] Yeah.

[1:20:47] Okay.

[1:20:47] Well, three great recommendations.

[1:20:50] Before we get into sign-offs, I want to mention a couple of things that I think that maybe we forget to mention, which is that we have a newsletter.

[1:21:00] It's called Flop Secrets.

[1:21:01] If you go to flophousepodcast.com, you can sign up to get that a couple of times a month and hear about what we're up to in sort of a more detailed way.

[1:21:12] You get a little extra funny writing maybe sometimes.

[1:21:16] It's a good way to keep up with us.

[1:21:18] We have an Instagram where a lot of stuff gets posted, clips from the show, TikToks that Stu makes.

[1:21:26] And also not officially affiliated with us but made by a listener.

[1:21:32] There's a Discord channel.

[1:21:34] If you go to lastnamewithheld.com, you can join that Discord.

[1:21:37] And they do a lot of watch-alongs.

[1:21:40] They watch the movies against my recommendations.

[1:21:43] They watch the movies that we cover beforehand.

[1:21:46] And also I think during the Shocktober season, they'll be doing a lot of watch-alongs of horror stuff.

[1:21:53] So check that out as well.

[1:21:55] But I want to say thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:21:59] If you go to MaximumFun.org, there's a lot of great other shows there.

[1:22:03] You can become a member and support us.

[1:22:05] There's also our producer, Alex Smith, who I'd like to thank.

[1:22:09] He goes by the name Howl Doughty Online, which he uses for music, Twitch streams, his own podcast.

[1:22:18] He's a creative genius in his own right.

[1:22:21] Check his stuff out.

[1:22:22] But that's it for The Flophouse.

[1:22:24] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:22:25] I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:27] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:22:30] Bye.

[1:22:31] Bye.

[1:22:35] Small Timber, guys.

[1:22:41] Small Timber.

[1:22:42] It sure is small and it sure is Timber.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:43] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

[1:22:45] Mm-hmm, Timber.

[1:22:47] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:48] Oh, yeah.

[1:22:49] Dan watched some line dancing yesterday to the tune of Timber.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:55] Mm-hmm.

[1:22:56] I don't know that I actually watched much line dancing.

[1:22:58] I was in the vicinity where line dancing was occurring.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:02] You showed up late so you didn't get to see me boogieing my little tushy off.

[1:23:07] I had to pick it up off the floor.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:09] Yeah, I've seen you without a tushy before.

[1:23:11] It's terrifying.

[1:23:11] It's horrifying.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:13] You had to go back to the hospital for a detushectomy.

[1:23:17] That's when they reattach you.

[1:23:17] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:18] Yeah.

[1:23:18] Let's get into this thing.

[1:23:21] Yeah.

[1:23:21] It's called a podcast.

[1:23:22] I don't know.

[1:23:22] This is all pretty funny stuff.

[1:23:24] Yeah.

[1:23:27] Maximum Fun.

[1:23:27] A worker-owned network.

[1:23:29] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:23:31] Supported.

[1:23:32] Directly by you.

Ep.#461 - An Easter Bunny Puppy

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