FH Mini 137 - Stuster's Millions

[0:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[0:08] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:09] I'm – wait for it. Wait for it. Big twist coming. Big twist coming.

Elliott Kalan

[0:15] Elliot Kalin. The twist was that there was no twist.

[0:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[0:18] Well, you certainly wasted some time, and that's what we like to do here on the Flophouse podcast.

[0:24] It's mostly a waste of time podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[0:26] We're number one in Apple podcast apps wasting time section.

Dan McCoy

[0:32] Often a podcast about bad movies, but every other week we do our somewhat inaccurately named Flophouse minis where we talk about just whatever.

[0:42] Usually still about movies.

[0:43] It's a lot of affirmations usually.

Stuart Wellington

[0:46] Oh, really?

[0:47] Where we talk about the good things that each of us bring to the table.

[0:50] I must have been out on those days.

Elliott Kalan

[0:52] And we talk about our wildest, craziest, most embarrassing sex stories.

[0:57] So, Dan, you said you had a pretty amazing one to tell us about today.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01] Mm-hmm.

[1:02] Dan's always bragging about his body count. Let's find out about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:06] That is not the topic of today's mini that I am leading.

[1:13] All right. Tune in next time.

[1:15] So, for this, we're going to play a little game that I've named Stewsters Millions.

[1:22] Oh, no.

[1:23] Okay.

[1:24] In this game, Stuart, you are the CEO of Stew Studios.

[1:28] And Elliot is your trusted top development exec.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34] Uh-huh.

[1:34] Oh, boy.

[1:34] So, my job is constantly on the line.

[1:36] I've really got to earn my key.

Dan McCoy

[1:38] Well, good news for you, Elliot.

[1:41] Stew Studios is trying to run a pro-stewsters style scheme and create a slate entirely full of bombs in order to collect the money back as tax losses.

[1:52] Oh, thank goodness.

[1:52] Yeah, I love it.

[1:53] So, how are you going to do this?

[1:55] Well, I've assembled a list of 10 of the most profitable movies of all time.

[2:00] Not the 10 most profitable because there's some franchise repeating that I wanted to avoid.

[2:05] But 10 of the highest grossing films not adjusted for inflation.

[2:09] Okay.

[2:10] For each of these extremely successful movies, I want you guys to confer and pick one big change you would make to turn that movie into a megabomb.

[2:21] Okay.

[2:21] And then explain your thinking.

[2:23] So, this is a collaborative game.

[2:24] Uh-huh.

[2:25] There's not – you're not against each other.

[2:26] There aren't points.

[2:27] But I will be judging you internally at all times.

[2:31] Just like real life.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] And just to clarify –

[2:32] Yeah, how's that any different from normal, Dan?

[2:33] Yeah.

[2:34] And just to clarify, I'm only talking to Elliot because if I asked you, you'd be like, add women to it.

[2:40] I'd be like, calm down, Dan.

[2:41] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[2:44] That would not be my personal attitude.

[2:46] Unfortunately, society seems to have taken a different turn.

[2:51] So, let's start this up.

Elliott Kalan

[2:54] Some would say a worse turn.

[2:55] I would agree with that.

[2:55] Yeah.

[2:56] I don't like the turn society has taken within the past year or two.

[2:59] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[3:00] You know, as we get older, there's a tendency for you to look back at the days of yesteryear and think, oh, man, things were better then.

[3:07] But like, they were, right?

Elliott Kalan

[3:10] Yeah.

[3:10] Well, I mean, all times have their good and their bad.

[3:13] But I will say that I did not think that – as I entered middle age, I was like, oh, now I'll be the kind of person whose thoughts help decide the direction of the country.

[3:24] Nope, not the case.

[3:25] And I'm like, oh.

[3:26] So, I guess there was that brief period when I was kind of in sync with a lot of what was happening.

[3:32] And now it feels like I'm less and less in sync with a lot of what was happening.

[3:35] Is this just a process of aging?

[3:37] You'll find out in 20 years when we do more Flophouse episodes.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] It'll happen to you.

[3:43] So, the first one, of course, is Avatar, guys.

[3:48] Of course.

[3:49] Huge hit.

[3:50] The Airbenderist.

[3:51] No, not that one.

Elliott Kalan

[3:52] The last of the Airbenders, which they can't make anymore.

Stuart Wellington

[3:55] The one with the big blue cats.

[3:56] Used up all the bending.

[3:58] Oh, the blue cat.

[3:59] Oh, this is Fern Gully for adults.

[4:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:02] I was going to say, but not that kind of for adults.

[4:04] But they are pretty nude, those big blue cats.

Elliott Kalan

[4:06] Yeah, but that was also the Fern Gully.

[4:07] It was the last rainforest, right?

[4:09] So, again, you can't have any more of those.

Dan McCoy

[4:11] Yeah, you used a ball of rain for us.

[4:12] I mean, they did make a second never-ending story.

[4:14] But I guess that's more like they're trying to deliver on that promise.

Elliott Kalan

[4:19] Yeah, I mean, if the first one was called the ending story,

[4:23] then it would make, like, Ender's Game.

[4:24] You can't make a sequel to that.

[4:25] That would be great.

[4:26] That would be insane.

[4:27] It's got End right in the name of it.

[4:28] It was also a huge flop, so.

[4:30] Oh, yeah, that movie also was a big flop.

Dan McCoy

[4:31] Yeah, probably a Stu Studios film.

[4:34] Yeah, crushing it.

Elliott Kalan

[4:36] So, Stu Studios is loosely based on a song by Rod Stewart, right?

Dan McCoy

[4:39] It's loosely based on a song by What's-His-Face?

[4:42] What's Su-Su Studio?

[4:44] What's that?

[4:44] I thought that was Rod Stewart.

[4:45] Okay.

[4:45] Oh, it's Phil Collins.

[4:46] Phil Collins.

[4:47] Yeah.

[4:48] So.

Elliott Kalan

[4:48] I get all those.

[4:50] I get there.

[4:50] They all are kind of like a steaming mash of singers that my mom listened to when I was a kid.

Dan McCoy

[4:57] Now, why are they steaming?

[4:58] What happened there?

[5:01] So, any thoughts on how to bombify Avatar?

[5:06] Avatar.

[5:07] Okay.

[5:08] So.

[5:09] How to Obama-fy it?

Elliott Kalan

[5:10] So, the characters are always like, uh, um, uh.

[5:11] So, you got to make one big change to make.

[5:14] How do you turn Avatar into a bomb?

Dan McCoy

[5:16] Or do you turn the world to reject Avatar?

Stuart Wellington

[5:18] Well, I would say instead of putting it all on an alien planet, you set the whole thing in.

[5:36] Like a Spencer's Gifts?

[5:38] Like a Spencer's Gifts.

[5:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:41] So, they're trying to, instead of unobtainium, they're trying to get one of those, like, machines that you put your hand on the outside of the globe.

[5:48] I don't know if we're allowed to change that many things.

Stuart Wellington

[5:51] I mean, there's a knock-on effect of, like.

Elliott Kalan

[5:55] Yeah, I thought there was unobtainium in the Spencer's Gifts, in the unobtainium section.

Dan McCoy

[5:59] I mean, maybe.

[5:59] I guess so.

Elliott Kalan

[6:00] I think another thing you could do, this again, another change is, if it's the same movie, but in the middle,

[6:05] there's a very graphic child sacrifice scene because the Na'vi engage in child sacrifice and they kill their children in order to appease their god.

[6:12] I think that might turn audiences off of the Na'vi as a noble people, you know?

Dan McCoy

[6:18] Right.

[6:18] And it's really graphic.

Elliott Kalan

[6:19] It's like 35 minutes long, this child sacrifice scene.

Dan McCoy

[6:22] Change the general morality of that.

[6:25] Oh, you'd have no good guys.

[6:27] There's no heroes in this movie.

[6:28] Yeah, yeah.

[6:29] Interesting.

[6:30] All right.

[6:32] Okay.

[6:33] Another thing you could do?

Elliott Kalan

[6:34] Wait.

[6:34] Another thing you could do?

[6:35] Okay.

[6:35] Wait.

[6:36] Yeah.

[6:36] Keep pitching the ideas.

[6:37] Keep pitching.

[6:38] Okay.

[6:38] If you don't do the Spencer's Gifts idea, you don't do the child sacrifice idea.

[6:42] What if instead all the Na'vi are constantly farting all the time, even in the middle of battles, like during the romance scenes, just constant farting.

[6:51] Because that's how their alien metabolism metabolizes the gases in the atmosphere of whatever the planet was called, Avatar planet.

[6:58] What's it called?

Dan McCoy

[6:58] I think you're in danger of making this an even huger hit, Elliot.

[7:01] Okay.

[7:02] I got it.

Stuart Wellington

[7:03] This is way easier.

[7:04] Instead of changing a thing about the movie, change the trailer so that it really focuses on one character's mustache.

[7:13] And then all the posters and everything are pictures of people with a mustache.

[7:18] Now you're talking.

Elliott Kalan

[7:18] Now you're talking.

[7:19] Okay.

[7:20] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[7:20] We give no other indication that there's special effects in the movie.

[7:23] It's just the trailer is a guy's mustache.

Dan McCoy

[7:26] It's all about the mustache.

[7:28] Well, that sounds like a winner to me.

[7:30] So let's move on to a little picture, you know, a small indie film called Avengers Endgame.

[7:37] Avengers Endgame.

[7:40] How are you going to make any more Avengers movies after that?

[7:43] Because they put Anthem on it.

[7:44] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[7:44] Stewify.

[7:45] How do we take it?

[7:46] Slop some stew on that.

[7:46] I mean, the thing is, we're going into this movie on a hot streak.

[7:50] Marvel has not had a single miss at this point.

[7:53] So Stew Studios has to mess it up.

Elliott Kalan

[7:56] And amazingly, Stew Studios has landed the Marvel contract from Disney.

[8:00] We just hatched it away.

[8:01] Disney decided to outsource for this one entry in the Marvel series.

Dan McCoy

[8:04] Their most important one.

Elliott Kalan

[8:06] The one that wraps up the whole series.

[8:08] Kevin Feige is like, you know what?

[8:10] We've set it up.

[8:11] There's no way to mess this one up.

[8:13] Have Stew Studios handle it.

[8:14] We can all take a vacation.

[8:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:17] Okay.

[8:17] So let's see.

[8:20] Instead of Tony Stark saving the day, we could replace Tony Stark with Harvey Weinstein.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] Now, is this a retcon?

[8:33] Certainly a bad choice.

[8:33] We were built.

[8:33] He's always been Iron Man.

[8:34] Or is this he just jumps into the last minute and saves the day?

Stuart Wellington

[8:38] Yeah.

[8:39] He's not.

[8:40] Well, and all this is built on the trailer.

[8:43] So we have to make sure people know that he's in it in the trailer.

Elliott Kalan

[8:47] Well, you changed the name of the movie from Avengers Endgame to Avengers Epstein.

[8:51] And I think they'll do a huge, it'll take a huge hit.

[8:54] A huge, a huge hit to its box office.

[8:56] The movie will not be a hit at that point.

[8:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:58] Although I think maybe people will be like, maybe this is the Avengers getting revenge and like beating up Epstein or something.

[9:05] Oh, yeah.

[9:05] No, we don't want that.

[9:06] In which case people would want to go to that.

Elliott Kalan

[9:07] Yeah, yeah.

[9:08] I wonder if, again, so this is things, changes that, Dan, do you want it to be a surprise to viewers?

[9:14] Like the opening night audiences see it and then they're like, oh, I don't like this.

[9:17] Or is this something that is, are we direct?

[9:19] Are you going to suggest the farting thing again?

Dan McCoy

[9:21] Because, I mean, it's a good idea.

[9:23] I mean, in this scenario, they had like, this is not a preexisting film that they are now like, what?

Elliott Kalan

[9:30] What do they do to my beautiful baby?

[9:32] Oh, okay.

[9:33] So this is the.

Dan McCoy

[9:34] This is the release version.

Elliott Kalan

[9:35] The official release version is now your version.

[9:38] Do you want this to be something that shows up in the trailers or do you want it to be that like halfway through the movie, all the characters just sit down and take a nap for like 17 hours?

Stuart Wellington

[9:47] I mean.

[9:48] I mean, that's going to be a hard sell for movie theater change.

[9:51] Because you're not going to have that many showings per day, too.

Dan McCoy

[9:54] Certainly, you know, if it's revealed in the trailer, you're probably going to get less money overall.

[10:02] It's going to be a bigger bomb.

[10:03] Yeah.

[10:04] You do have to rely on negative word of mouth.

[10:07] It's going to be a surprise.

[10:08] I know.

Stuart Wellington

[10:09] Instead of, it's the exact same movie, but instead of all the dialogue, it's all musical.

[10:16] So they all have to sing all their lines in every single scene.

[10:19] Yeah, yeah.

[10:20] People would hate that.

[10:21] And specifically in the trailer, you see them singing in every single scene.

Elliott Kalan

[10:24] Oh, because I would say you don't see them singing in the trailers.

[10:27] That is a shock to the audience.

[10:29] It's like the audience that went to go see Mean Girls based on the musical Mean Girls based on the movie.

[10:35] And then when the singing started, they were not ready for it.

[10:39] They did not like it.

Stuart Wellington

[10:40] Yeah.

[10:40] Tina Fey was like, I hate this.

[10:43] What?

[10:44] She went to see the movie.

Dan McCoy

[10:45] Was I involved?

[10:46] Did I do this?

[10:48] I did.

Elliott Kalan

[10:48] What if the whole movie was told from the point of view of a guy who's just, he works at like an olive garden and he's just occasionally checking in on his phone to get updates about what's going on with the superheroes?

[10:59] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:00] Yeah, instead of the whole movie, you're just hanging out with a guy who's really high explaining what happens.

Elliott Kalan

[11:06] Yeah.

[11:07] Yeah, too.

[11:08] Yeah.

[11:08] To his co-worker.

[11:09] Yeah.

[11:09] So the start of the movie, the first few moments are the last 30 seconds of the movie.

[11:14] And then you cut to this guy.

[11:16] He's high.

[11:17] He's at the olive garden.

[11:18] And he's just explaining.

[11:19] He's a patron.

[11:20] And he's explaining to the waiter what happened in this movie that he just saw.

[11:24] So the waiter is like, I've got work to do.

[11:26] Like, I'm not interested.

[11:27] I can't really listen.

[11:28] But I want to get a good tip.

[11:29] So I got to listen.

[11:29] And so it's kind of a little bit like my dinner with Andre, except he's trying to explain what happened in the last Avengers movie.

[11:35] And he's not eating dinner with this person.

[11:38] So it's the person who works there whose time he's wasting.

[11:40] Yeah, yeah.

[11:41] You could do that.

Dan McCoy

[11:42] I think it's beautiful.

[11:43] It also would take the budget way down of the movie.

[11:48] Oh, yeah.

[11:48] So, like, it's all losses at that point.

Elliott Kalan

[11:51] But not as big a tax saving.

[11:52] You still got to spend that money, some of it, you know, to write it off.

Dan McCoy

[11:55] Yeah.

[11:56] So, okay.

[11:58] How about this film?

[11:59] A little picture.

[12:01] You may be familiar with this one.

Elliott Kalan

[12:02] Every single one, are you, Dan, are you going to describe as a little movie or an indie movie?

[12:05] You can't do it for every – we know you're talking about the ten biggest movies.

[12:08] The joke works every time, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[12:10] I just had a little picture.

[12:11] I didn't make a big meal out of it or anything.

[12:13] He put all this work in, Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[12:14] Let him fucking have his laughs.

Dan McCoy

[12:16] Why will you never let me have my laughs?

[12:22] I want to have mother hot.

[12:23] You will not have your laughs as far as I'm around.

[12:26] You may be familiar with this film.

Elliott Kalan

[12:28] Stuart, you know that Dan's doctor said if he has too many laughs, it could be fatal.

Dan McCoy

[12:33] Yeah, yeah.

[12:34] We got Jay and her.

[12:34] But he can't find out about it for some reason.

[12:36] It's the opposite of Gene Wilder's mom.

[12:39] Yeah, exactly.

[12:40] Did you ever hear that story?

[12:41] What?

[12:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[12:41] It's very sad.

[12:43] It is very sad, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:44] Gene Wilder's mom – she had a heart attack or something?

Elliott Kalan

[12:48] I don't remember what it was, but something where her health was really precarious.

[12:51] And the doctor was like – Gene Wilder, when he was a child, was like, Gene Wilder, if your mom is ever unhappy, she could die.

[12:58] You have to keep her happy all the time forever.

Dan McCoy

[13:01] You have to make her laugh.

[13:02] The most important thing for you is to make her laugh.

Elliott Kalan

[13:04] Make her laugh all the time.

[13:06] And that's a huge responsibility to put on a child's shoulders.

[13:08] It's to be funny when you're just not feeling it.

[13:09] And she lived forever, right?

Dan McCoy

[13:10] And that's why Gene Wilder is hilarious but also looks a little sad at all times.

Elliott Kalan

[13:15] At all times.

[13:16] The doctor was like, my studies have shown that laughter is the best medicine and the only medicine.

[13:22] So you need to keep her laughing.

Dan McCoy

[13:23] Dr. Patch Adams on the case.

[13:25] And that laughter should be provided by a child who has more responsibility put on their shoulders than any child should.

[13:32] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:32] Look, I know you can do this.

[13:34] Your name is Wilder.

[13:35] I've never met anyone as wild as you.

[13:37] If anyone can pull this off, it's you.

Stuart Wellington

[13:39] You are wild to the nth degree, my friend.

[13:42] You're wild at heart.

[13:43] Okay.

[13:44] Well, let me return.

Elliott Kalan

[13:46] So what's this little movie, Dan?

[13:47] What's this little indie film we've never heard of?

[13:50] What's this sleeper, this cult hit, cult beloved, underground, guerrilla filmmaking indie, you know, no labels movie.

Dan McCoy

[13:58] God damn it.

[13:59] What I was trying to set up is you might be familiar with this picture because the director has already appeared on this list.

[14:05] And the film is Titanic.

[14:07] Oh, Jimmy Cams.

[14:08] Titanic.

[14:09] Yeah.

[14:10] Yeah, Titanic.

Elliott Kalan

[14:12] Well, I think we saw the version of Titanic that's not a big hit and it involves a lot of talking mice.

[14:17] Oh, that's right.

[14:17] It involves a dog-faced octopus.

Dan McCoy

[14:19] That's a lot of changes.

[14:20] Those are the only changes.

Elliott Kalan

[14:22] The only changes.

[14:23] Because otherwise, it's very historically accurate.

[14:26] That's what they say in the beginning of the movie.

[14:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[14:28] Yeah.

[14:28] You got to make one big change.

[14:30] One big change.

[14:31] I would say Billy Zane shoots Jack.

[14:37] Jack dies.

[14:39] And I can get away with it, too.

[14:40] I'm a rich man and you're nothing.

Stuart Wellington

[14:42] Yeah.

[14:43] It happens like halfway through the movie and then the back half, you just have to watch Billy Zane and Joe had life and then he survives.

Elliott Kalan

[14:49] Yeah.

[14:49] I was similarly, I think if you replaced Leonardo DiCaprio with the marionetted corpse of John Carradine, I think that would make the movie less successful.

[14:57] Certainly wouldn't capture that teen girl audience.

Stuart Wellington

[14:59] You can only use this once, though.

[15:02] You can't use this for every movie we do.

[15:04] Your trump card.

Elliott Kalan

[15:05] Do I want to save this solution for another movie?

[15:07] Let's see.

[15:10] Just imagine Kate Winslet, her arms outstretched, you know, or being drawn naked by the marionetted corpse of John Carradine, you know?

[15:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:20] Well, if you can get the family's permission, I think you've cracked it.

[15:26] Here's another film that I will say nothing about the size of.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] Dan, make us feel like it's a little thing and then it'll be revealed to be a big thing.

Dan McCoy

[15:35] Part of a large franchise, a franchise that is very popular, so I'm led to believe.

[15:40] This is a film called Star Wars The Force Awakens.

[15:44] Oh.

[15:45] The first of the Disney, let's call them legacy sequels.

[15:49] Why not?

[15:51] For the Star Wars franchise.

Stuart Wellington

[15:54] Okay, have there been any non-successful financially Star Wars things?

[16:00] Shows?

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] There's certainly been Star Wars things that were less successful than they would like.

[16:04] I think that Solo was considered not a hit in the way they wanted, but it made money, you know?

[16:09] But in terms of shows, it's hard to know because those shows were released through Disney Plus, so I don't know what the – there's no way of knowing how the viewer numbers actually affect the money they make.

[16:20] So like Acolyte and stuff like that, it's hard to know what is actually a success or not.

Dan McCoy

[16:25] Here's a question, a legit question about the industry.

[16:30] Yeah.

[16:30] Do you think part of the –

[16:32] The steel industry.

[16:33] Yeah.

[16:33] Yeah, the steel industry.

[16:36] Why so hot?

[16:37] Yeah.

[16:37] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:38] Hopefully tariffs will bring it back, right guys?

Dan McCoy

[16:40] Well, they say he who smelt it dealt it.

[16:43] Is that about smelting?

[16:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[16:45] Yeah.

[16:45] He who smelt the steel then deals the steel.

[16:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:49] No, I'm wondering, is part of the problem with stuff like that, them getting out of their – over their skis and announcing like we have this huge idea, you know, like we're going to make this many Star Wars movies and there's going to be a whole like slate of them.

[17:05] Over here, they're going to be like one-offs, like a Star Wars story.

[17:10] And then there's going to be the main line and like they outline the plans rather than just taking each success as it comes.

[17:17] Or in this modern world where so much of it is about like fan excitement, is that the way to go even though you end up with egg on your face?

Elliott Kalan

[17:24] I think that the two things are – I think those are both two sides of the same coin is that it is for the rush of fan excitement at an announcement at San Diego or something like that that they then fuck themselves over, pardon my French, by promising a slate of stuff that doesn't get a lot of thought put into it and also promising the release dates, which I think is part of the real issue.

Stuart Wellington

[17:46] That's why I'm going to see the new Mahershala Ali Blade tomorrow, right?

Elliott Kalan

[17:50] Exactly.

[17:51] Is they say like these movies are coming out on these years.

Stuart Wellington

[17:53] Guys, how is it so hard to make a fucking Blade movie?

[17:56] It should be awesome.

[17:57] It's not.

Stuart Wellington

[17:57] They made three of them already.

Elliott Kalan

[17:59] They made three.

[18:00] Like it can't be that difficult.

Stuart Wellington

[18:02] Do you think they keep working on it every time they're like, already did it?

[18:06] Already did it in part two.

[18:07] Already did it in part three.

[18:08] They're like, but what if the vampires had a mouth that looked kind of like a crazy vagina?

[18:12] They're like, already did it.

[18:13] You did it in part two.

Elliott Kalan

[18:14] I wonder if part of the –

[18:16] What if we had a trinity?

Dan McCoy

[18:17] Had it in the third one?

[18:19] Yeah.

[18:20] I wonder if part of the problem specifically with Blade is that they're so insistent on everything being interconnected.

[18:26] Because if there's a character that really should be sort of off on his own world and not like be like, oh, I guess that there's vampires running around in Marvel World 2.

[18:35] Like it is Blade.

Elliott Kalan

[18:36] I will say in the comics they've tried really hard to make Blade a bigger player.

[18:40] Like he was a member of the Avengers for a little bit and the vampires took over the world or whatever.

[18:44] And it did feel like Blade was punching above his weight class in some ways that his stories are best told when he's sneaking in the shadows with Hannibal King or whatever and he's up against some vampire somewhere.

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] Well, that's like kind of the joke on Venture Brothers with Jefferson Twilight being like vampire hunter.

[19:01] And most of the time he's like, I can't do anything.

[19:03] I just fight vampires.

Elliott Kalan

[19:05] But I think to get back to what I said before, announcing these release dates means that there's now a lot of pressure on production, development, all those things to hit real hard schedule benchmarks.

[19:17] Yeah.

[19:17] And it means you don't have enough time to really do the best work necessarily.

[19:20] There was a – I remember reading about the rise of Skywalker, whatever the last Star Wars main movie was, where they were like, yeah, well, we had the release date.

[19:30] It was called The Last Jedi.

[19:32] No.

[19:33] It was not.

[19:34] I don't recall anything else.

[19:36] Okay.

[19:36] Where they were like, we had the release date before we had the script.

[19:39] And so everything was backdated from – they couldn't be like, hold on, this script isn't ready yet.

[19:43] They had to be like, no, go into production.

[19:45] And Marvel has – Marvel thought they had made a virtue of that where they're like, when we go into production, we don't have a finished script.

[19:51] And then we just reshoot 30 percent of the movie.

[19:53] And I think that was one of those things where they thought they had discovered a new production mode that worked really well.

[20:00] And instead, they just kind of like got lucky for a long time with the properties they're working with and I think with the people they're working with.

[20:07] Yeah.

[20:07] But they found that magical combination for a little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[20:11] But I think –

[20:11] I would imagine they also probably hadn't – this is just a guess, but I feel like they probably burned out a lot of the people that they'd worked with specifically.

[20:21] Yes.

[20:21] The post-production people, the visual effects people who were like, this fucking sucks.

Elliott Kalan

[20:26] They burnt out the post-production people.

[20:27] They burnt out the directors.

[20:29] They burnt out the actors to a certain extent.

[20:31] Like I think they – but I think with Star Wars specifically, Dan, I think it's also an issue of they – and this is not fun or funny.

[20:37] But I think the – as much as it hates me to admit it because I loved that Star Wars world when I was younger.

[20:42] The Star Wars world is not really as big as the Marvel Comics world.

[20:46] Like Marvel Comics, you can do that for a little while because there's so many characters doing so many different things.

[20:50] Star Wars really doesn't have that much stuff in it for a thing that feels like it has a lot of stuff in it.

[20:57] Which is why every other one seems to take place on Tatooine.

Dan McCoy

[21:00] If they had truly done what it seemed like they were going to do at the start when they're like, oh, we're going to do all these like standalone things.

[21:07] Like if they'd really done it, they could have just like invented new characters within that world and had stories rather than like the problems.

Stuart Wellington

[21:16] Just pick up the tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina and just do all those things.

Dan McCoy

[21:19] We're just like circling the same goddamn characters over and over again.

[21:23] But anyway, the film was –

Elliott Kalan

[21:25] Where's Grand Admiral Thrawn?

[21:26] Star Wars The Force Awakens.

Dan McCoy

[21:28] Ruin that movie.

Elliott Kalan

[21:29] Ruin that movie.

[21:32] Thrawn got brought into the Clone Wars show, didn't it?

[21:34] Yeah, yeah.

[21:36] That's one of the two things from the Zahn novels that's canon, right?

[21:39] It's Thrawn now and the name Coruscant because George Lucas couldn't come up with a better name.

[21:44] He's like, damn it, that's such a good name.

Stuart Wellington

[21:45] Well, I think obviously what they should have done with Force Awakens is instead of Rey and all this shit, it's got to be Kyle Katarn.

[21:56] Bring Kyle Katarn from the Dark Forces game.

Elliott Kalan

[21:58] You know what?

[21:59] Or Dash Rendar from Shadows of the Empire.

[22:01] Bring him in, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[22:02] Oh, sick.

[22:03] The timeline doesn't match up, but it's still cool.

Dan McCoy

[22:05] I don't know who these characters are, so I'm going to assume these are great ideas.

Elliott Kalan

[22:09] Dan, you have a whole world of Star Wars to get into and you'll be like, there's not really that much in this Star Wars world.

[22:15] So what can we do to Star Wars?

[22:16] What was it?

[22:17] Force Awakens.

[22:18] Force Awakens.

[22:18] So that's the one.

[22:19] It introduced the new generation of heroes.

[22:21] Rey, Finn.

[22:23] Poe.

[22:27] What's the?

[22:27] 88.

[22:28] Or IG-88.

[22:29] No, what's the?

[22:30] BB-8.

[22:31] BB-8.

[22:31] Thank you.

[22:32] I was thinking of IG-88.

[22:33] The badass bounty hunter droid.

[22:36] Yeah.

[22:37] So how do we make it bad?

[22:38] How do we bomb it?

[22:39] Let's see.

[22:40] Hmm.

[22:42] Hmm.

[22:42] Let's see.

[22:44] Let's see.

[22:45] Let's see.

[22:46] I mean.

[22:47] Let's see.

[22:48] Let's see.

[22:48] Fill time.

[22:49] Fill time.

[22:49] Fill.

[22:50] Vamp.

[22:51] Vampires?

[22:52] Yeah.

[22:52] Actually, I'd love to see a Star Wars movie with the vampires in it.

[22:54] That'd be great.

Stuart Wellington

[22:55] Yeah, there was a really good old, like, Buck Rogers with vampires that I liked.

[22:59] Space vampires.

[23:00] They're cool.

[23:01] Count Ducula?

[23:02] Yeah.

[23:05] I feel like.

Elliott Kalan

[23:05] What if we introduced Count Ducula to the Star Wars universe?

[23:08] Would that work out okay?

[23:09] No, that sounds pretty cool.

Dan McCoy

[23:10] I don't think it would hurt it at all.

Stuart Wellington

[23:12] I guess probably not, actually.

Dan McCoy

[23:15] Is there some way of making the first J.J. Abrams film the last J.J. Abrams film?

Stuart Wellington

[23:21] Yeah.

[23:21] I mean.

[23:23] Let's see.

[23:23] I know the fans got really mad when, like, Luke Skywalker died.

[23:28] Could we just have him, like, get exploded right at the beginning?

Elliott Kalan

[23:32] Well, I think it was not even him dying so much as him being an unhappy guy.

[23:36] Yeah.

[23:36] That he wasn't.

[23:37] And who seemed like a big grump who said, oh, that stuff's bad.

[23:41] I did a bad job.

[23:41] Might be too much of me.

[23:43] Yeah.

[23:43] The fans said.

Stuart Wellington

[23:44] They're like, can't he be just, like, a badass samurai wizard and be, like, cool about it?

[23:51] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:52] I think, what if, you know what?

[23:56] Maybe this would make it a bigger hit, but this is similar to that Olive Garden idea.

[23:59] You just set the whole movie at that space diner from the prequels.

[24:02] And you're just hanging out there.

[24:05] It's like the bear, but it's in Star Wars.

[24:07] Actually, I love it.

[24:07] This would be a great idea.

[24:08] Let's.

[24:08] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[24:09] Oh, I thought it was, like.

[24:11] But it would be very punishing on a certain group of the audience if you keep, like, acting like, oh.

[24:16] And now we're going to.

[24:17] Go on the adventure.

[24:18] We're going to go leave.

[24:19] And then they're like, oh, wait.

[24:20] We got to do this first.

[24:21] They just keep not leaving the diner.

Stuart Wellington

[24:23] Or when the characters that we are invested in who are like, oh, we're going to go on an adventure.

[24:27] And they leave through the front door, but the camera stays.

[24:30] And then it's the new people who come in.

[24:32] You're like, oh.

[24:34] All right.

[24:35] We're going to get to the fireworks factory.

[24:36] Maybe you hear something on the space news about the characters we heard about earlier.

[24:41] Man, this is actually pretty good.

[24:42] Space news.

Elliott Kalan

[24:43] The capital planet of the universe is destroyed.

[24:46] No one's that upset about it.

[24:47] Moving on.

[24:48] You know.

[24:49] Yeah.

[24:49] Actually, is that space diner on Coruscant?

[24:52] I think it is, yeah.

[24:53] So it would have been destroyed when the First Order, is that what they're called?

[24:57] When they blow up that planet, you just see that kind of, like, that furry alien.

[25:01] It's beard flapping in the wind as the planet's about to be destroyed.

[25:05] So that space diner got blown up, right?

[25:07] Dexter Jetser's diner.

[25:08] Dexter Jetser's.

[25:09] This is the saddest thing I've talked about now.

Stuart Wellington

[25:11] He also made that.

[25:12] That diner was in operation before the rise of the Empire.

[25:16] So, like, they might have shut it down.

Elliott Kalan

[25:18] I think if there's any business that's going to survive, it's going to be a greasy spoon diner, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[25:24] I don't know.

[25:24] I feel like the Empire is built on, like, bullshit, like, delivery apps and stuff.

[25:31] And that stuff's really bad for diners.

Dan McCoy

[25:33] Well, guys, we've used up our daily podcasting allotment of talking about Star Wars.

[25:40] So we're going to move on.

[25:40] Oh, thank goodness.

[25:41] We're done.

[25:41] Oh, thank God.

[25:42] To Spider-Man No Way Home.

[25:44] Let's shift gears to something not nerdy.

Stuart Wellington

[25:49] Spider-Man No Way Home is the choice.

[25:52] Which one's this?

[25:52] That's the one with all the Spider-Men.

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] Oh, there's, like, three Spider-Men and six villains, and they're all flying around.

Stuart Wellington

[25:58] I think it's pretty easy.

[25:59] Instead of having them all, all three Spider-Men kind of show up from different timelines, that they accidentally get morphed together, and they're like a blob with all their arms and legs sticking out.

Elliott Kalan

[26:11] To be honest, there is an internet video where someone did that with animation, and they're just kind of flying around as a blob.

Stuart Wellington

[26:20] Yeah, I think it's good.

[26:22] I think it would be unsuccessful as a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[26:24] As a Spider-Man movie, I think it would be unsuccessful.

Dan McCoy

[26:28] Yeah, people wouldn't want to take their cues.

[26:29] Especially since, like, so much of it is like, oh, all these Spider-Men are such cuties.

[26:34] And then you turn them into a blob of arms and limb.

Elliott Kalan

[26:39] If it stopped being an action movie, and instead it was about these three Spider-Men, they all have to pretend to be the same person, and it's more of a, like, farce where they're running in and out and have to switch the costume off.

[26:52] It's like if Mrs. Doubtfire was three people each pretending to be Mrs. Doubtfire, and they have to keep switching off, and they don't remember what the previous one promised and things like that.

[27:01] I think you could do it like that.

[27:02] It's called, like, Spider-Man, which one's the Spider-Man?

[27:06] You know, something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[27:07] I got it.

[27:08] It's really easy.

[27:09] All we do is we take, when Tobey Maguire shows up, it's emo Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3, and he's got, like, the hair flip.

[27:17] Again, I would like it.

[27:18] I think audiences would not like it.

Elliott Kalan

[27:20] How about this?

[27:21] We go even further.

[27:21] Instead of Tobey Maguire showing up, it's Emo Phillips playing the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man.

[27:26] That doesn't get more emo than that.

Stuart Wellington

[27:27] And when Emo Phillips comes on, they're like, hey, Tobey Maguire, and he answers to it.

[27:32] I'm Tobey Maguire.

Elliott Kalan

[27:35] I was a Spider-Man in the early 2000s.

[27:40] And then instead of Andrew Garfield, it's actually, what's his name?

[27:45] Garfield the Cat?

[27:46] Garfield the Cat.

[27:47] No, but people would love that.

[27:48] They'd go crazy.

[27:48] There's a Spider-Man cat in the Spider-Verse movies.

Stuart Wellington

[27:50] Oh, and for the ad for the trailer, we just used the trailer that they got rid of, of Spider-Man saving somebody by putting a web between the Twin Towers.

[28:00] The Twin Towers.

Stuart Wellington

[28:00] The Twin Towers.

[28:00] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[28:01] Instead of Andrew Garfield, it's Andrew Jackson.

[28:04] Oh, yeah.

[28:05] Yeah, yeah.

[28:05] And I think people wouldn't like that at all.

Dan McCoy

[28:06] Merged with President Garfield.

Elliott Kalan

[28:09] Yes.

[28:09] It's Andrew Jackson and, and, and, and, and President, and James Garfield, I think his first name was.

[28:15] They're, they've been merged together, but they're still Spider-Man.

[28:18] And again, they still answer to the name Andrew Garfield.

[28:20] Yeah, yeah.

[28:20] Yeah.

[28:21] So we're still merging something.

[28:22] Now I really want to see Emo Phillips playing Tobey Maguire, playing Spider-Man.

[28:25] Yeah.

S4

[28:26] Or playing Tobey Maguire in Seabiscuit, playing Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys.

Elliott Kalan

[28:30] What about Babylon?

[28:32] Babylon.

[28:33] Any role that, I mean, Emo Phillips would have been great in that role in Babylon.

[28:37] Like, I'm at, like, if, if ever there's a guy you do not want to go into a weird dungeon

[28:42] basement to watch someone eat rats with, it's probably Emo Phillips.

[28:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[28:46] Wait, that happens in Babylon?

Elliott Kalan

[28:48] Yeah, you don't remember that?

[28:49] They go into that dungeon basement and that guy's, the guy in the mask is just eating rats.

[28:52] I haven't seen it.

Dan McCoy

[28:52] Oh, you, because you don't want to take sides in the Great War between me and him.

[28:55] You don't want to waste your time.

Elliott Kalan

[28:56] I'm waiting for us to do Babylon on the podcast.

Dan McCoy

[28:58] No, it's never going to happen.

Elliott Kalan

[28:59] Dan, would we ever do Babylon on the podcast?

[29:01] Do you like it too much?

Dan McCoy

[29:02] I both like it too much and it is, like, a long movie.

[29:05] It's a very long movie, yeah.

[29:08] Hey, let's take a break and for a word from our sponsors.

[29:12] You know, the Flophouse is, of course, what makes it run is listeners like you who become

[29:18] members at MaximumFun.org.

Elliott Kalan

[29:21] It doesn't run on Duncan.

[29:22] It runs on listeners.

Dan McCoy

[29:24] But also, this episode in particular is sponsored in part...

[29:27] It's not Ben Affleck.

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Elliott Kalan

[31:22] Thanks, Dan.

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Stuart Wellington

[33:53] This is actually, guys, this is a good news, bad news situation.

[33:57] The bad news first, we have a show scheduled in Chicago on November 16th, and it has sold out.

Elliott Kalan

[34:05] The good news.

[34:06] Good news for us.

[34:07] That's good news for us.

[34:08] Bad news for anyone who doesn't have tickets.

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] The good news is that we have added a late show on November 16th at Sleeping Village in Chicago, Illinois.

[34:18] You can come see us talk about a little movie called K-9, a movie where Jim Belushi hangs out with a dog a bunch.

[34:27] It's going to be a really fun time.

[34:30] It's, you know, it's a late show, so things are going to get, Dan said, certified nasty.

[34:36] I don't know who's certifying it, but I guess I'm in.

Elliott Kalan

[34:38] Oh, the Chicago nasty department.

Stuart Wellington

[34:40] Yeah, yeah.

[34:40] Yeah.

[34:41] The show's at 930 on a Sunday night, November 16th.

[34:46] I hope to see you there.

[34:48] It's going to be a fun one, folks.

Elliott Kalan

[34:50] And in case you can't make it to that show, there's a new opportunity for you to see us in Chicago, as Stuart just said.

[34:56] You can do that.

[34:57] But in case you can't make it and you still want to see our faces as we're talking and not just listen to our voices, well, I've got good news for you because Flop TV Season 3 is on the air.

[35:09] Flop TV is going right now.

[35:12] We started September 6th with the first episode in Flop TV Season 3.

[35:16] That is The Adventures of Pluto Nash.

[35:18] And we're going to be going back in time, decade by decade, every episode.

[35:23] So October 4th will be our next episode.

[35:25] We're talking about Jack Frost, the movie where Michael Keaton is a jazz musician, I think, who dies and comes back as a snowman.

[35:32] It's going to be amazing.

[35:34] Every first Saturday of the month from September through February, we're going to be appearing live on your computer screens doing Season 3 of Flop TV.

[35:42] It's going to be so much fun doing movies that we have never talked about before as full episodes and which are Flop classics.

[35:50] We're going to be talking about Xanadu.

[35:51] We're going to talk about Zardoz.

[35:52] We're going to talk about Dr. Doolittle, the Rex Harrison version.

[35:55] And we're going to talk because there's a rule, only one Eddie Murphy movie per season.

[35:58] We're already doing Pluto Nash.

[35:59] And finally, we're going to end the season with Plan 9 from Outer Space, perhaps the most famous bad movie of them all.

[36:05] How do you get tickets to this?

[36:06] Well, it's easy.

[36:06] Go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[36:09] That's theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[36:12] And then join us in your own home as we show up on your computer every Saturday, first Saturday, every month, not every Saturday, but the first Saturday of each month.

[36:22] But let's say you miss the first episode.

[36:24] It's okay.

[36:24] Getting a ticket to that episode gets you an access to the recording for that episode, and those recordings are going to stay up.

[36:29] Through the end of the series until the end of February.

[36:33] Why not get yourself a six-show bundle?

[36:35] That's the season pass.

[36:37] Six episodes for the cost of five.

[36:39] What a deal.

Stuart Wellington

[36:42] If you want to feel like you're stealing one show from us, that's literally what you're doing by buying the bundle.

[36:47] Living your dream.

[36:48] Living your dream of stealing content from us.

[36:50] Reaching into our pocket and stealing a show.

Elliott Kalan

[36:53] Reaching into my children's mouths and pulling the food out so you can watch that show for free.

Dan McCoy

[36:57] Accentulated benefit to people.

Elliott Kalan

[37:00] Flop TV, season three.

[37:03] The first Saturday of every month through February.

[37:07] And you can watch the recordings however many times you want through the end of February.

[37:11] Join us, won't you?

[37:16] You guys want to try and do this promo with British accents?

[37:18] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[37:19] Let's do it.

[37:20] Okay, Iffy, you go.

Dan McCoy

[37:22] Oi, bro.

[37:23] This is TV Chef Fantasy League.

[37:26] Fantasy League.

Elliott Kalan

[37:28] Okay, Sierra.

[37:28] We take cooking competition shows and treat them like fantasy sports.

[37:32] Like a newscaster.

[37:34] Very posh.

[37:35] Right now, we're doing the Great British Bake Off or the Great British Baking Show if you're

[37:38] listening from the U.S.

Dan McCoy

[37:40] Oh, that was really soothing.

Elliott Kalan

[37:41] You chose like a prim and proper.

[37:43] Thank you.

[37:43] Yelton Abbey.

[37:44] Thank you.

[37:45] Okay, Iffy, I think you have the best accent.

[37:46] You want to take us home?

Dan McCoy

[37:47] Subscribe to TV Chef Fantasy League on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

[37:55] Better than my Boston one.

S4

[38:01] Hi, everybody.

[38:02] It's Ellen Weatherford.

Dan McCoy

[38:04] And Christian Weatherford.

S4

[38:05] People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

Dan McCoy

[38:09] But we can judge a snake by its ability to fly or a spider by its ability to dive.

S4

[38:14] Or a dung beetle by its ability to navigate with the starlight of the Milky Way galaxy.

Dan McCoy

[38:19] On Just the Zoo of Us, we rate our favorite animals out of 10 in the categories of physical

[38:23] effectiveness, behavioral ingenuity, and, of course, aesthetics.

S4

[38:27] Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, musicians, comedians, and more join us to share

[38:32] their unique insights into the animal kingdom.

Dan McCoy

[38:35] Listen with the whole family on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[38:43] Let's get back to this Stuster's millions.

[38:49] Here's a film that was a big hit.

[38:52] Yep.

[38:52] Inside Out 2.

[38:54] The sequel.

[38:55] Inside Out 2.

[38:55] Inside Out.

Elliott Kalan

[38:57] Okay, so here, I think this is easy.

[38:59] You take that main character, that girl whose name I don't remember what it was, and you

[39:03] turn her inside out.

[39:05] This time, it's not that you're going, it's not that it's about her emotions, that she,

[39:08] her body has been turned inside out.

[39:09] Her organs are on the outside now.

[39:11] It's horrifying.

[39:12] It's disgusting.

[39:12] Is she going to be able to make it to the hockey championships now?

[39:15] Probably not.

[39:16] It's, I think it would really horrify a lot of children.

[39:19] Talk about a box office bomb.

[39:20] Stuart, what do you think?

Stuart Wellington

[39:20] I haven't seen this one.

[39:22] So is this the, is this what happens after that lady gets the baby cut out of her stomach

[39:27] by that evil French lady?

Elliott Kalan

[39:28] You're thinking of the movie Inside, not Inside Out.

[39:31] Yes.

[39:31] Oh, okay.

[39:32] But I will say-

Stuart Wellington

[39:33] But I mean, they do take somebody's insides out in that movie.

[39:35] Yeah.

[39:36] That's technically he's correct.

[39:37] Right, yeah.

[39:38] That's very true.

[39:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[39:39] So, I mean, Inside Out would be a better name for the movie Inside than, uh, and Inside

[39:43] Man, maybe that baby is a little, is a boy, in which case Inside could also be called Inside

[39:48] Man.

[39:48] Uh, so, but I think if you add-

Stuart Wellington

[39:50] That is one of my favorite things about that very gross movie is the occasional shots of

[39:55] a unhappy baby getting like bumped.

Elliott Kalan

[39:59] Yeah, I don't, that's, I feel like that's kind of where the movie goes a little too far at

[40:02] times.

[40:03] Baby's like, no, thank you.

[40:05] Um, but I think if you added that plot element to Inside Out too, it certainly would make

[40:09] it hard for it to be the hit family film that it was.

[40:11] Okay.

[40:12] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:12] So, turn Riley Inside Out.

[40:14] This is an easy one.

[40:15] Yeah, this is an easy one.

Elliott Kalan

[40:16] Turn Riley Inside Out and Riley's mom is pregnant and while she's at hockey camp or wherever she

[40:19] is, uh, her mom is being attacked by someone who's trying to cut the baby out of her belly.

Stuart Wellington

[40:24] Yeah.

[40:24] Yep.

[40:25] We're changing only a single thing.

[40:26] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[40:28] Uh, okay.

[40:29] Well, uh, yeah.

[40:30] Here's a movie that I was sort of dismayed to find on this list.

[40:35] Of highest grocers.

[40:36] Again, this is not adjusted for inflation.

[40:39] This is just in pure today's dollars.

[40:42] No, it's a Jurassic World.

[40:44] Jurassic World is right up there.

[40:48] Um, how are you gonna?

Stuart Wellington

[40:50] Who did this one?

[40:50] Is this the Steven Spielberg one?

[40:53] What?

[40:53] No, this is Trevorrow.

[40:54] Oh, that's Last World.

[40:55] Okay.

[40:56] Lost World.

Elliott Kalan

[40:56] Yeah, that's Lost World.

[40:57] Jurassic Park, The Lost World.

Stuart Wellington

[40:58] This is the first of the Chris Pratt trilogy.

[41:01] Oh, I didn't see this one.

Elliott Kalan

[41:02] Because this is not adjusted for inflation.

[41:03] Because the first Jurassic Park, if you adjusted for inflation, made so much more money than the

[41:07] Jurassic World movies.

[41:08] Yes.

[41:09] Okay.

[41:09] But, uh, I mean, if you adjusted for inflation, the list would be like Gone with the Wind, Snow White, that kind of stuff.

[41:13] So, uh, it sounded like I said Snow White.

[41:16] Like, Tom Waits is Snow White.

[41:18] Where's Papa?

[41:19] Where's the wolves?

[41:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:21] If you adjust for inflation, then Where's Papa is at the top of the world.

[41:24] It dwarfs them off.

[41:26] Yeah, yeah.

[41:27] Train coming at camera.

[41:30] Workers leaving the factory.

[41:31] The Apple Dumpling Gang.

[41:32] Oh, shit.

Elliott Kalan

[41:34] That happened.

[41:35] Oh, man.

[41:35] People love the Apple Dumpling Gang.

[41:36] Yeah, if you adjust for inflation, it goes, it goes, Where's Papa?

[41:40] The Apple Dumpling Gang.

[41:41] What about Bob?

[41:42] Top three movies of all time.

[41:43] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[41:45] I love that all questions.

[41:48] Apple Dumpling Gang's a question, right?

[41:49] Yeah.

[41:50] The Apple Dumpling Gang?

[41:51] Like, what the fuck?

[41:53] What?

[41:53] That's not a name for a game.

[41:54] Apple Dumpling Gang.

[41:55] I was like, I don't know what this movie's about, but I gotta fucking find out.

Elliott Kalan

[41:58] I gotta find out how this gang is somehow made out of Apple Dumplings.

[42:02] Yeah.

[42:03] Dan, I can, it is hard for me to think of a more disappointing feeling for a dumpling

[42:08] if I take a bite into it than apple.

[42:10] I'm just gonna say it right now, you know.

Dan McCoy

[42:11] Yeah.

[42:12] Your famed hatred of fruit.

[42:15] Yeah.

[42:15] Oh, yeah.

[42:16] I have some dumplings.

[42:16] I love dumplings.

Elliott Kalan

[42:17] What is this?

[42:18] Oh, apples.

[42:19] Don't give this to me.

[42:20] What a horrible gang.

[42:22] What criminals?

Dan McCoy

[42:23] You would prefer something like what I had for lunch today, potato and onion pierogi.

Stuart Wellington

[42:29] Oh, that sounds wonderful.

[42:30] I would love that.

[42:31] Yeah, because you're taking like a starch and then you're stuffing it full of more starch,

[42:34] baby.

Dan McCoy

[42:35] Then sauteing it in butter.

Stuart Wellington

[42:38] Yeah, on a bed of rice.

[42:40] Yeah.

[42:42] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[42:42] They call it death by starch.

Stuart Wellington

[42:45] No, you're getting extra energy.

[42:46] That's what starch is, man.

[42:48] Well, it's because Dan, you're running a marathon later, right?

[42:50] That's why you're carb loading, starch loading like that?

[42:51] It was because we were-

Dan McCoy

[42:53] Yeah, he's playing in a peewee soccer game.

[42:54] It was genuinely because we had a taping in the middle of the day with a guest and I'm

[42:59] like, I gotta eat something beforehand.

[43:01] What is pre-made here at the store?

Elliott Kalan

[43:02] What'll make me sleepiest?

[43:04] Some pierogi.

[43:06] That's gonna keep me awake.

[43:07] Okay, so what are we talking about?

Stuart Wellington

[43:09] Jurassic World.

[43:09] I never saw this one.

[43:12] Should I?

[43:13] How about-

[43:14] I mean-

[43:15] You like dinosaurs.

[43:15] There's dinosaurs in it.

[43:16] So what I would say is instead of dinosaurs, you swap them out with like, I don't know,

[43:22] like ducks?

[43:24] Yeah, just giant ducks.

[43:26] Yeah, I think that could work.

[43:27] No, normal ducks.

[43:28] They don't have to be giants.

[43:29] Ducks.

[43:29] Normal sized ducks.

[43:30] Normal sized ducks.

[43:30] And they're like, hey, we're trying to do Jurassic World, but like, we don't-

[43:34] Dinosaurs are too dangerous, so we're just doing ducks.

[43:36] We cloned a bunch of ducks.

Elliott Kalan

[43:37] Look, I've got news for you guys.

[43:39] All birds are dinosaurs, so ducks are dinosaurs.

[43:42] So if they said, welcome to our dinosaur theme park, and it's all ducks, they're not lying.

[43:45] That's literally true.

Stuart Wellington

[43:46] Yeah, if we release Jurassic World and people come to us with a lawsuit, we're like, technically

[43:51] we're right.

Elliott Kalan

[43:52] Talk to a paleontologist.

[43:53] These are all dinosaurs, living avian dinosaurs.

[43:56] So I think-

[43:57] But I think you still do it like Chris Pratt is still training the ducks to track, I guess,

[44:02] or whatever.

[44:03] There's still, you know, people are still rolling around in giant balls.

[44:06] You know, dodging ducks.

[44:07] Yeah, sure.

[44:07] I think we can do that.

[44:08] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:09] Love dodging ducks.

[44:10] Okay, here's one.

[44:12] Duck dodgers.

Elliott Kalan

[44:12] Yeah.

[44:13] They're literally duck dodgers.

Dan McCoy

[44:14] Now, this is not the original cell animated version.

[44:17] This is the CGI also animated version, no matter what they say.

[44:21] The Lion King.

[44:23] The Lion King.

[44:23] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[44:24] Well, they figured out how to do it, is you make it about Mufasa and you make it super

[44:28] boring.

[44:28] Oh, they already did it for you.

[44:30] They already did it for us.

[44:31] But also, what are we going to do with this Lion King to make it not a hit?

Stuart Wellington

[44:34] Well, you should try and make the animation look like it's just AI generated.

[44:38] Oh, wait.

[44:40] Make it so like there's no emotion on the animal's faces?

[44:43] You should cast like a real dud like John Oliver in one of the roles.

[44:47] Wow.

[44:48] Just kidding.

[44:49] Just kidding.

[44:49] He's funny.

[44:50] He's a funny.

[44:51] Our old beloved worker.

[44:53] Our old pal, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:54] Great guy.

[44:55] Legitimately great guy.

Elliott Kalan

[44:56] No reason to hit him.

[44:59] Let's see.

[44:59] So, how would you take it?

[45:00] I mean, once again, if you replace any of these characters with the marionetted corpse of

[45:05] John Carradine, and I feel like right off the bat, it makes it harder.

[45:08] Oh, yeah.

[45:08] You've been saving that one.

[45:08] If it's all ducks and it's called the Duck King, but it's still the same story, I think

[45:12] that's great.

[45:13] And also, all the animals are ducks.

[45:14] So, like, Scar is a duck, Mufasa is a duck, and the wildebeest that kill Mufasa are

[45:18] all ducks.

[45:19] It's like just ducks, ducks, ducks all the way.

[45:21] Timon and Pumbaa are ducks.

[45:22] When they're eating bugs, they're eating other ducks.

[45:24] You just make it all ducks.

[45:25] Yeah.

[45:25] But not Disney ducks.

[45:27] Not Disney ducks.

[45:28] Well, that's the thing.

[45:29] Real ducks.

Dan McCoy

[45:29] I'd be the one guy in the theater.

[45:30] I'd be sitting in the middle, like, wondering when fucking Scrooge was going to show up,

[45:34] and so angry when it didn't happen.

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] You're worrying when fucking Scrooge shows up?

[45:38] So, when one of the characters finally has sex with him, Scrooge?

[45:40] Yeah, man.

Dan McCoy

[45:42] No, fucking Scrooge is the name of the character.

[45:45] It's the horny version of Scrooge McDuck.

[45:47] You don't want to know if he fills his money.

[45:49] Scrooge McDuck fucks.

[45:50] No, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[45:51] He's having sex in his money bin, and the people he's having sex with are like,

[45:54] we're ducks.

[45:54] They're like, it's so uncomfortable having all this cold change pressed into my back.

[45:59] No, I love it.

Stuart Wellington

[45:59] That's the only way you can blast, yeah.

[46:01] Yeah.

[46:02] There's always talking about blasting recently.

[46:05] Sorry.

[46:05] Has there been a lot?

[46:07] I'm a human red-blooded man, Dan.

[46:10] I'm sorry if my physical needs make you uncomfortable.

Dan McCoy

[46:14] I think they're remembering the previous episode that we just recorded.

[46:18] There was also-

[46:18] Was I talking about blasting on that one?

[46:19] There's a little cum talk in that one.

[46:20] That's okay.

Stuart Wellington

[46:22] Hey, this is 18 plus.

[46:25] Yeah.

[46:26] Yeah, come on.

[46:26] There's no children allowed.

Elliott Kalan

[46:28] So I will say, what else can we do with The Lion King other than make them all ducks,

[46:33] something we've already talked about?

[46:34] What if instead of it being realistic-

Dan McCoy

[46:40] This is actually a really hard one.

[46:42] It's a tough one.

[46:43] Yeah, because the movie itself is already not good.

Elliott Kalan

[46:45] Instead of it being realistic, lifelike animals that are CGI,

[46:49] what if it is live-action people,

[46:51] and they just are wearing t-shirts with the name of the animal they're supposed to be written on it.

Stuart Wellington

[46:55] Right, like it's a community theater version of The Lion King.

[46:58] Exactly, but they're not acting the animal's motions.

Elliott Kalan

[47:00] It just has written on them like elephant.

[47:03] Yeah.

[47:03] And they just walk around like a normal person.

[47:05] And you don't cast known actors.

[47:08] No, it's all amateurs or unknowns.

[47:11] It's all discover-

[47:12] It's all unknowns.

Dan McCoy

[47:12] And this is, of course, because of the lawsuit from people who are like,

[47:16] this live-action Lion King isn't actually live-action.

[47:19] You just animated in a more realistic style.

[47:22] So you're like-

Elliott Kalan

[47:23] They go, okay, we'll give you a live-action version.

[47:24] And they go down to like, I don't know, like a local,

[47:28] what's a place where you could find a bunch of people, like a Costco,

[47:31] and they just round up a bunch of customers,

[47:33] and they're like, come and be in this movie, okay?

Stuart Wellington

[47:34] It's basically, we're doing like a,

[47:36] I think you should leave type sketch at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[47:37] I guess this isn't, I think you should leave type sketch.

Dan McCoy

[47:41] Okay, well, here's one that's, I think, a little hard,

[47:43] because the movies already are pretty ridiculous.

[47:45] Because that last one was easy.

[47:47] Yeah.

[47:47] Pretty ridiculous.

[47:48] Furious 7.

[47:50] Furious 7.

[47:51] What can you do to-

[47:52] Easy.

Dan McCoy

[47:52] No cars.

Stuart Wellington

[47:53] Take the cars, click on them, drag them to the trash can,

[47:55] drop them in there, empty trash.

Elliott Kalan

[47:57] Now, are they running around pretending they're in cars and going-

[48:00] Vroom, vroom.

[48:01] Yes.

[48:02] Like that?

Dan McCoy

[48:02] Yeah, okay.

[48:04] I would love to see, I mean, those actors.

[48:07] I just don't think of Vin Diesel as strong as the man is, as much of a runner.

[48:12] So just like running around.

[48:14] He's a lifter.

[48:15] He's not doing a lot of cardio, I think.

Stuart Wellington

[48:17] Yeah.

[48:17] Yeah, yeah.

[48:18] Well, everyone, they can't afford the cars,

[48:20] so they just treat them like they're in cars,

[48:22] and they're making the sounds,

[48:23] and they're like running next to each other on the highway.

[48:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:27] I think that could do it.

[48:28] What if instead of it being a Furious 7,

[48:29] it was called Curious 7,

[48:31] and it's Curious George is the leader of the Toretto family now?

Stuart Wellington

[48:34] I think you're turning into a kid's film,

[48:36] and kid's films make dollars.

Elliott Kalan

[48:38] That's true.

[48:38] They make a lot of money.

[48:39] That's true.

[48:40] But he swears all the time.

Dan McCoy

[48:42] I think you're right.

[48:43] Oh, okay.

[48:43] I think that taking the cars out is the only way to ruin that.

Elliott Kalan

[48:47] I mean, if that's the case,

[48:49] then like Star Wars, let's take out the spaceships.

[48:51] Okay, Jurassic Park,

[48:52] let me take out the dinosaurs.

[48:53] I don't think that'll kill Star Wars.

[48:55] You don't need spaceships.

Dan McCoy

[48:57] You just need them aliens, those critters.

Stuart Wellington

[48:59] There's like no spaceships in like Andor, right?

[49:03] Isn't Andor just like people hanging out?

[49:05] They're constantly flying around spaceships.

[49:06] Okay, I got to watch Andor.

[49:07] It's just slightly more realistic.

[49:09] Got to watch that show someday.

[49:11] All right, we got one last.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] You're like Andor is mostly about a therapist

[49:16] in the Star Wars universe, right?

[49:17] And he just talks to his clients in his office.

[49:19] No, you're thinking of in treatment,

[49:20] but that's not about Star Wars universe.

Stuart Wellington

[49:22] Right, yeah.

[49:23] It's just Laura Dern making bad life choices.

[49:26] Oh, no, I'm thinking of Enlightened.

[49:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:29] You're mixing up your slightly less celebrated HBO shows.

[49:34] It's a great show.

[49:35] I'm going to say anything about the quality.

Stuart Wellington

[49:37] You know, Mike White hit it big with White Lotus,

[49:39] but he has a deep filmography.

[49:41] He's got other stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[49:41] What about whenever the characters in Star Wars are-

[49:44] Chuck and Buck with Chris Weitz.

[49:46] Whenever they hear something,

[49:48] they remember an old TV show

[49:50] that they saw when they were a kid

[49:51] because they watched so much TV.

[49:53] Yeah, yeah.

[49:53] It's called Star Wars Dream On.

[49:54] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:56] As long as we're making it out of HBO shows.

[49:58] Yeah, I love it.

[50:01] Okay, well, we've got one final one here,

[50:04] and that is a legacy sequel.

[50:06] It's called Top Gun Maverick.

[50:10] It's made Bop-O-V-O, guys.

[50:12] Bop-O-V-O.

[50:12] Take away the planes.

Elliott Kalan

[50:13] They just fly with their arms outstretched,

[50:15] and they spit missiles out of their mouths.

[50:16] You can't keep stealing my cool ideas.

Stuart Wellington

[50:21] I'm going to say, let's see.

[50:26] Tom Cruise is still in it.

[50:28] Mm-hmm.

[50:28] Okay.

[50:29] Sure.

[50:30] Oh, in the beach football scene,

[50:32] they all have to wear shirts.

Elliott Kalan

[50:34] You think that would do it?

[50:35] That alone.

[50:36] That alone would do it.

Stuart Wellington

[50:38] Would be enough.

[50:38] People would hate it.

[50:40] They'd write in.

[50:41] Or, wait, that they specify that the enemy in the movie

[50:49] is like China or something,

[50:51] and then the movie will do super bad overseas.

Elliott Kalan

[50:53] Yeah.

[50:54] I think what if instead of it be-

Stuart Wellington

[50:56] Instead of like unnamed nation that they're fighting.

[50:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:59] Instead of the young people doubting that old Tom Cruise

[51:02] still has what it takes,

[51:03] and then he proves them wrong,

[51:04] what if he proves them right?

[51:05] He does not have what it takes anymore,

[51:07] and he's just blowing up the wrong planes,

[51:09] crashes his jet,

[51:10] and he has to deal with the fact

[51:12] that he really doesn't have it.

[51:13] He lost whatever skill he had, you know?

Dan McCoy

[51:15] Yeah.

[51:16] He just explodes immediately.

[51:18] He just explodes.

[51:19] He gets to that plane,

Elliott Kalan

[51:20] and he's like,

[51:21] let me teach you a thing or do whippersnappers,

[51:23] takes off,

[51:23] immediately explodes in midair,

[51:24] and the rest of it is a very realistic funeral

[51:27] for the character of Maverick.

Stuart Wellington

[51:28] It's an hour and a half of just footage

[51:30] slowly panning over his wreck.

[51:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:37] Well, good news, everyone.

[51:39] You did it.

[51:40] Your tax fraud worked.

[51:43] Yeah.

[51:44] You're the winners.

[51:45] Everyone's a winner here on the Flop House.

Elliott Kalan

[51:48] Nobody loses, yeah,

[51:49] except the person who listens.

Dan McCoy

[51:51] Speaking of listening,

[51:52] thank you, listeners.

[51:53] Thank you for supporting us.

[51:56] Check out other great shows

[51:57] on the MaxFun network

[51:59] over at MaximumFun.org.

[52:02] Thank you to Alex Smith,

[52:04] our producer.

[52:05] He goes by the name

[52:06] Howell Dottie

[52:07] on the internet

[52:08] where he does

[52:09] a lot of his own

[52:11] great creative projects.

[52:13] Check those out,

[52:13] please.

[52:15] And for the Flop House,

[52:16] I've been Dan McCoy.

[52:17] Hey, it's me,

[52:18] Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[52:20] And I'm Elliot Kalin

[52:22] saying,

[52:22] bottom of the morning to you.

Stuart Wellington

[52:24] Why are you doing a voice?

[52:25] Why are you doing a weird voice?

[52:29] Bye, all.

Dan McCoy

[52:36] A worker-owned network

[52:37] of artist-owned shows

[52:39] supported

[52:40] directly

[52:41] by you.

FH Mini 137 - Stuster's Millions

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