Ep. #343 - North, with Matt Singer

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss North, a comedy that's got its fair share of offensive racial stereotypes.

[0:07] But hey, it was made all the way back in what the fuck?

[0:09] Nineteen ninety four.

[0:13] Yeah.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:42] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:43] Hey, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:45] Hey, it's Elliot Kalin.

[0:46] And in case you hear the pitter patter of little sounds, it's because we're getting a very rare rainstorm here in Los Angeles.

[0:52] That's right. I should be out there running around in it like Tim Robbins when he breaks out of prison in the Shawshank Redemption because we're not going to get rain again until

[0:59] twenty twenty five. But who's with us today?

[1:01] I was so excited that they were a guest that I wasn't out in the rain.

[1:03] Stuart, who's joining us?

[1:04] Oh, man, he's the what?

[1:06] Editor in chief of Screen Crush.

[1:09] Oh, I fucked it up.

[1:14] He's a longtime friend of the pod.

[1:15] I love this guy.

[1:16] We played Hero Clicks together.

[1:19] That is none other than the man who wrote the book on Spider-Man.

[1:22] That's right, Matt Singer.

[1:24] Thank you for joining us, Matt.

[1:25] Did I fuck it all up?

[1:26] Oh, absolutely.

[1:27] You really did.

[1:28] But you did mention the Hero Clicks.

[1:30] So that's that's good.

[1:31] I think I won when we played, too.

[1:33] Hell yeah.

[1:33] You fucking destroyed me.

[1:34] I think I destroyed you.

[1:35] I mean, Matt Singer is best known to the public as the guy who beat you in Hero Clicks.

[1:40] That's what it's on my resume.

[1:41] Just below Screen Crush.

[1:43] Well, during the pandemic, this will count for the one time I get to see Matt Singer per year because we didn't get to do his karaoke birthday, which is true.

[1:53] Oh, that was.

[1:55] Yeah, that's right.

[1:56] Matt has these great karaoke on my birthday.

[1:58] Yeah, Elliot hasn't come, but both Stuart and Dan have sang karaoke.

[2:02] Never been invited, I think.

[2:03] Never received an invitation.

[2:04] But I've certainly heard a lot about it.

[2:06] I may have talked about this story on the podcast before, but it was at one of your birthday parties where Dan came to the party and he brought some friends, one of whom was a friend of the podcast, Natalie Walker, who did not sing for most of the time, even though she's a talented musical theater person, a professional singer.

[2:22] And then Dan gets up there and does a duet with her of Suddenly Seymour.

[2:27] And Dan does the first verse.

[2:29] And he's great.

[2:30] Like, he is killing it as Seymour.

[2:31] We're all loving it.

[2:33] Then Natalie sings and she doesn't need the fucking microphone.

[2:36] And like the look on Dan's face, he's like, oh, like outclassed.

[2:42] Like, no, that's classed.

[2:43] But it was like we all fell over laughing.

[2:47] It was amazing.

[2:48] Yeah. And then no one wanted to sing after that.

[2:50] Everyone else was just very quiet.

[2:51] That duet with you, though, Matt, because you get up there, you sing a lot of Shirley Bassey hits and you kill it.

[2:58] Yes, sure.

[3:00] He's a yeah.

[3:02] Didn't you get offered the role of Seymour just like randomly off of karaoke?

[3:07] Yes, that did happen.

[3:09] Someone came up to us and was like, yeah, they were.

[3:12] Yeah, we were at a that was a different time.

[3:14] We were at like a bar just singing at a bar.

[3:16] Yeah, we're not in a private room.

[3:18] We're doing it at Excelsior.

[3:19] And I think you sang Thunderball on Stan Lee's bar.

[3:22] Yeah, exactly.

[3:25] Yeah, he wasn't there that night.

[3:26] But yeah, that's right.

[3:27] I sang like Thunderball or some some ridiculous thing.

[3:30] And yeah, someone came up to me afterwards and was like, you'd be perfect.

[3:33] And it was like, that's like the fantasy, right?

[3:35] That you get like everybody who gets up to do karaoke is like, hey, you're a star.

[3:40] I love the idea of big time them by being like, no, thanks.

[3:43] No, thanks.

[3:44] I would love the idea of Dan getting up and seeing suddenly Seymour and then a guy walking up to Matt Singer and going, you're perfect for

[3:49] Seymour.

[3:51] Yeah, I mean, I looked over at Matt when he got the offer and as I stared off into the middle distance, and I'm sure he lived

[3:56] an entire lifetime in those moments thinking about what would have happened.

[4:00] Yeah, yeah.

[4:02] Real sliding door scenario.

[4:04] Matt and I had like a certain North movie.

[4:07] Oh, yeah.

[4:08] At the end of this whole tale, I'll wake up back in that bar, having decided not to have taken the offer.

[4:15] Yeah, no, thanks.

[4:16] Exactly.

[4:17] Matt and I, we for viewers of James Cameron's story of science fiction documentary series from a couple years ago, Matt and I were both

[4:24] talking heads on that. They used a lot more of him than of me.

[4:27] They talked to me for a long time and used very little of it.

[4:29] But I was fast forwarding through it.

[4:31] Just wanted to watch my parts the first time through.

[4:33] And I kept being, oh, there I am.

[4:34] And I would stop and be Matt talking and he would talk for a while and I'd be like, damn it.

[4:39] What is why is Singer taking up all my space?

[4:43] OK, well, let's reset the podcast.

[4:46] I mean, first off, let's just say welcome to The Flophouse.

[4:48] I'm Elliot Kalin. Did we not do it well enough, Dan?

[4:50] No, I don't know why you're interrupting me, but you said reset.

[4:54] Let's start over. OK, take two.

[4:56] Reset in the sense that in the broadcasting sense of explaining for new viewers or listeners, in our case, what the what the hell we're

[5:05] doing, which is this is The Flophouse.

[5:09] It's a podcast about bad movies.

[5:10] We watch that movie and then we talk about it.

[5:12] Also, before we get into it, just a quick thank you.

[5:16] Max Fund Drive 2021 just ended.

[5:20] You know, considering the state of the world, it is a rousing success.

[5:26] It was a rousing success.

[5:28] And we appreciate so much that people still care about what we do when when all seems so bleak around us that people, you know,

[5:37] fight in their hearts to support a little nonsense and support our lives, really, in a lot of ways.

[5:43] So thank you to all the listeners and thank you to listeners, you know, who maybe are not in the position to be Max Fund members at this

[5:52] time due to financial hardship or other reasons.

[5:56] We appreciate all of you.

[5:57] Thank you so much. But now we watch the movie called North.

[6:03] Why? Why do we watch this?

[6:05] Why did we watch North?

[6:07] This. So this was at the request of one Mr.

[6:10] Matt Singer of USA America.

[6:13] Matt, what is it about North that you wanted us to watch about it?

[6:19] What? Well, I hate you guys.

[6:24] And I thought this would be the best way to punish you all.

[6:27] I think I gave I gave exactly I think I gave a few options.

[6:33] And I believe that this was the one that you gentlemen, this is out of those.

[6:37] This was Dan was very clear that he did not want to watch the other options.

[6:40] So North was. I can't even remember what the other options.

[6:43] Well, there was the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

[6:45] We're like, I'm not fighting that guy again.

[6:47] Yeah, I know that movie 43 was in there.

[6:51] Because, yeah, I think I think that's a really painful movie.

[6:55] I think I didn't want to do that one just because I have actually seen it before.

[6:58] So that would have been a painful repeat.

[7:01] Although I think some I think one of you, I mean, Matt, you've seen North.

[7:04] Have one of you already?

[7:05] I saw North went in the theaters when I was a kid.

[7:07] Oh, I had not seen it since then.

[7:09] So I remember seeing it.

[7:11] I remember thinking that was OK.

[7:13] Again, I was 12 years old at the time and my tastes had not yet cohered.

[7:19] You know, at that point, I still think the only movie I'd ever had a really viscerally

[7:23] negative experience with in the theaters at that point was still National Lampoon's

[7:27] Christmas Vacation. The first time that I actively disliked watching a

[7:30] movie and I was like, what am I doing wrong?

[7:32] I'm not liking this movie.

[7:34] I don't understand how I know what also features Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

[7:40] Mm hmm.

[7:41] She's a real rough period when I mean, like like other than Seinfeld, I feel like.

[7:47] And then later on, like people like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

[7:51] She's great. But there were some trouble years in there.

[7:56] OK, well, should we do a moment of silence or?

[7:59] Yeah, sure. Why not?

[8:02] I think we did. It's called Dead Air, Stuart.

[8:04] Well, part of part of the reason we watch this is, I mean, you guys can fill it in a

[8:09] little bit more than me, but it's it's like famously a movie that Roger Ebert hated.

[8:13] Right. Yes, that is true.

[8:16] Yes. Yeah.

[8:17] I mean, it's just like I was I was just trying to think of I look down the list of

[8:20] movies that you guys have done and haven't done and just trying to think of absolutely

[8:25] dreadful movies that haven't come up.

[8:27] And this was one of them.

[8:28] And yes, it is famously terrible.

[8:30] I had never seen it, even though I knew of it because it was the subject of that very

[8:36] famous Roger Ebert review where he was like, I hated this movie.

[8:39] I hated, hated, hated this movie.

[8:41] And then when he wrote a collection of or he made a collection of his reviews of bad

[8:46] movies, like that was the title of the book was I hated, hated, hated this movie.

[8:51] Yeah. He got a lot of mileage out of it.

[8:53] I just want to read the paragraph.

[8:56] He profited more of a north than anybody else.

[8:58] Roger Ebert is the champion of this one.

[9:00] Yeah, because I have it, I'll read the paragraph in question from that review.

[9:04] Now, he wrote like most of what you would call a normal review.

[9:08] And then like maybe the third to last paragraph suddenly becomes I hated this movie.

[9:14] Hated, hated, hated, hated, hated this movie.

[9:17] Hated it. Hated every simpering, stupid, vacant audience, insulting moment of it.

[9:21] Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it.

[9:24] Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.

[9:28] And I believe I may be making up a memory.

[9:32] I believe I read him like talk about that review and that it was basically like he reached a

[9:37] certain point in the review where he just kind of like broke down.

[9:40] He's like, I'm just going to write what I really feel here and then just decided, you know

[9:44] what, I'm not taking it out.

[9:46] I'm just going to go with this.

[9:47] And he won the Pulitzer for that review, but it wasn't in criticism.

[9:51] It was in the field of ruining Rob Reiner's career for a little bit.

[9:54] Oh, no, no.

[9:56] Right after this, like so Rob Reiner, like, well, I'm sure we'll talk more about it.

[9:59] He had like a.

[10:00] career for a long time. Then he had this, but right after he had The American President,

[10:04] so this wasn't the last nail. The American President is a pretty solid romantic comedy.

[10:12] The American President is the true end to his movies that people might conceivably stick up

[10:18] for, because then they had the weird graduate sequel, and they had just a couple of things

[10:27] that barely exist. If you look at his past six or seven movies, I defy you to have any memory of

[10:36] these things existing. He had an incredible directing career until North. His first five

[10:44] or six movies are all great classics. Back to Final Bangers, no skips, amazing.

[10:51] Misery, A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, Stand By Me.

[10:58] They're not in that order, but it's just one after another, hit, hit, hit, hit,

[11:03] and these classic movies, and then North. He truly was the Peter Bogdanovich of the late

[11:08] 80s, early 90s, when it comes down to it, aside from all the other stuff about them,

[11:12] but having a string of hits and then after that making movies that people didn't like as much,

[11:16] they're the same guy. It was also when he stopped working with Pauly Platt that everything fell

[11:22] apart. It's weird. That was part of it, and also Rob Reiner famously also had a contentious

[11:28] friendship with Orson Welles, and also his last name is Bogdanovich. They both wear a lot of

[11:37] ascots and kerchiefs. How have we not seen the similarities before? Only one of them

[11:42] talked so long before a screening of Targets that I went to that they had to cancel the second

[11:46] screening because they ran out of time. That was such a funny moment, seeing the handler at the

[11:52] film forum get madder and madder standing at the side of the stage as Peter Bogdanovich refused to

[11:57] stop taking questions, and the movie started, I think, 45 minutes late. Anyway, so I'm going to

[12:06] be driving this one, and I just kind of want to peel back the curtain a little bit. The last week

[12:10] has been kind of tough for me. I had some staff issues at the bar, and then I've been plagued with

[12:18] a resurgence of fairly extreme back pain, so I was just really looking to lose myself in a movie,

[12:25] you know, and unfortunately, we watched North. You're saying it didn't replicate the pleasure

[12:33] you had from The Country Bears. No, and the thing is, I was up until the point that I decided to

[12:39] watch North. I had been doing a series run of the Saw movies, and the whole time, I was like,

[12:46] man, what I wouldn't give to go back to Jigsaw's loving embrace. Put me in a death trap, buddy,

[12:52] please. Okay, so I want to say one thing about North, but as we go into it, I think the thing

[12:58] about North to remember is it doesn't start out that bad, but it is a movie that, and it has some

[13:03] good jokes in it, but it is a movie that loses its way hard, and then it does not, it falls in a hole

[13:08] and does not know how to get out of the hole, and the more it tries to climb out of the hole,

[13:12] the more it's pulling bags of manure onto itself. Like, it's just, it doesn't, it really gets into

[13:17] trouble. Okay, so I'm excited to see where that tilt happens. So, the movie opens with a long

[13:23] credit sequence in a fun kid's room filled with, like, model trains and toys and all kinds of shit

[13:29] that represents, like, different parts of the world, and you're like, man, this kid has a great

[13:33] life. Like, this kid has a very busy bedroom. Like, he lives in Mr. Magorium's Emporium,

[13:40] basically. Yep, if we could all be so lucky. We learn that that room, I believe, belongs to North,

[13:48] who is played by Elijah Wood, the original son of Northern Darkness, and he is the child of

[13:54] George and Elaine, that's right, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

[13:59] But not the characters from Seinfeld, it's just the performers.

[14:02] At first, when I saw them, I was very excited because I have trouble separating, you know,

[14:07] actors from their characters that they play, but whatever. And he's trying to get a word in,

[14:13] his parents, their lives are too busy, they don't have time for their little Northie,

[14:17] and he, like, has kind of a panic attack or something, right?

[14:21] Yeah, he, like, has a heart attack. Yeah, he has, like, a little kid heart attack.

[14:24] At the dinner table. Yeah.

[14:25] Yeah, and this is the first point in the movie where I begin to lose sympathy with our protagonist,

[14:34] and it will only continue as the movie goes on. Because I can see, look, this movie is for kids,

[14:39] let's make this clear up top, and I could see where, as a kid, this might resonate with you.

[14:46] Because, like, North's biggest problem seems to be, like, he just doesn't think he's appreciated

[14:50] by his parents. And, like, otherwise, perfect life, but doesn't feel like his parents appreciate

[14:56] him. And yeah, they're, like, having two separate conversations at one another at the dinner table

[15:02] and not talking to him. But I also, like, as an adult and not a child, throughout the movie,

[15:08] I'm just like, this kid's a little shit. Like, this kid thinks he, like, deserves so much out

[15:15] of life. I mean, he's very full of himself. He might as well have called this

[15:20] book of Henry first run through. Like, this is, he's, like, the kid who's great at everything,

[15:25] and he kind of expects to be adored by everybody. And he's just like Henry in that piece of garbage,

[15:30] where Henry is, like, an angel sent from heaven to make everybody, to touch everybody's lives and

[15:35] make them beautiful. And North is kind of like that. And North...

[15:38] Doesn't he come up with an intricate plan to kill a guy, though, or something?

[15:43] Well, North doesn't. Henry does.

[15:44] Henry does, right?

[15:45] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Henry does. And then there's

[15:47] Book of Eli. Eli's a pretty good kid. But North is... I haven't seen that one. I don't know who

[15:53] Eli is. I think Eli is Denzel Washington in that.

[15:57] Well, is there a better kid?

[15:58] He's like a book. That's true.

[16:00] Who wouldn't be proud to have Denzel Washington as his son?

[16:03] That's true. Yeah.

[16:04] So, but yeah, North is, he's, like, he's the kid who should be, like, the kid everyone hates in a

[16:10] movie. Like, he's good at everything. And other parents use him as an example to shame their own

[16:14] children, you know.

[16:16] He definitely is cruising for a wedgie at some points in this movie, for sure.

[16:21] Yeah, I mean, and we learn a little bit about his background, because this is around when

[16:25] our narration begins. And it's read kind of, like, lazy, book-on-tape narration style by

[16:31] Bruce Willis. Like, yeah.

[16:33] I feel like Bruce Willis went to see Blade Runner and was like,

[16:36] I can be sleepier in my voiceover. I see you, Harrison Ford, and I raise you two Zs.

[16:41] This is all the more confounding, because when Bruce Willis appears on screen as various

[16:46] characters, like, he's fine. Like, he's fine in this movie.

[16:49] We get a panoply of different accents and performances.

[16:54] Every shade in the Bruce Willis rainbow.

[16:56] Well, the movie's not good, so there's a ceiling to how good Bruce Willis can be in it.

[17:01] But the difference between the energy he puts into when he's on screen

[17:04] and his voiceover is stark. Like, it sounds like he was, like, flying home

[17:09] on an international flight. They called him in the airport.

[17:11] And he's like, yeah, I can tape it. Fine.

[17:12] Here's my theory. Here's my theory. Okay.

[17:15] They had Bruce Willis. They shot all the scenes.

[17:17] They said, this is great. But you know what?

[17:19] We really need a voiceover to tie this all together.

[17:21] Let's get Bruce to do it. Bruce is so charismatic.

[17:23] He's a wise ass. You know, he's Bruno.

[17:25] He's back. And so they call him up.

[17:28] Unfortunately, modern-day, bald, sad Bruce Willis has fallen through a time window into

[17:33] back then Bruce Willis' house. He gets the call.

[17:36] He says, yeah, I'll come down to the studio.

[17:38] And he's like, is this an action movie for the Hungarian market?

[17:41] I'll do it. And I wear an exosuit, but it's in CGI,

[17:45] so I never have to actually put it on. And so they got him to do it.

[17:50] Because it was while watching this movie that it really struck me.

[17:52] I was like, oh, I've gotten so used to emotionless Bruce Willis that seeing,

[17:56] like, wiseacre Bruce, like, moonlighting-style Bruce Willis is a shock to me.

[18:00] It's strange to me to see him, you know, to see Hudson Hawks

[18:03] suddenly appearing when I expect Unbreakable, you know?

[18:06] So North is having a rough time. He, like, is fucking up at acting and baseball,

[18:10] things that he normally excels at. And it's all because of the, about not being,

[18:16] not, I guess, being appreciated enough by his parents.

[18:18] So he wanders off of the baseball pitch that he's playing on,

[18:21] and he goes to his special place, which is a mall furniture showroom.

[18:25] And he sits down in a recliner, and he starts to, like, ponder this.

[18:31] I guess this is a special place, and he's pondering his situation.

[18:35] And that's, of course, where he runs into Bruce Willis dressed up as the Easter Bunny.

[18:39] This is Bruce Willis number one, because this movie is trying so hard

[18:43] to be the Hudsucker proxy, is what I realized, like, halfway through it.

[18:47] It wants to be, like, a real goofy, whimsical, like, eccentric movie.

[18:51] And it is not. It doesn't know how to pull it off.

[18:54] With racial stereotypes from old Hollywood.

[18:56] Yeah, I mean, there's some of that in the Hudsucker proxy, too.

[18:58] Not as much, but, like, the minute Bruce Willis shows up,

[19:02] up till now, it's been a little cartoony.

[19:04] And then Bruce Willis shows up in an Easter Bunny costume.

[19:06] And North never asked the big question, which is,

[19:09] what mall hires an Easter Bunny to hang around?

[19:12] Like, that's not a holiday people do that for.

[19:14] I imagine, like, a mall Easter Bunny, and, like,

[19:18] the kids come and sit on his lap, and he's like,

[19:20] you're getting eggs. Everyone's getting eggs.

[19:22] Don't ask for anything else.

[19:24] And I love that this Easter Bunny character,

[19:27] he's, like, so into character that he is eating a carrot wall off shift.

[19:32] It seems like he's on break, right?

[19:33] Yeah. He offers one to North.

[19:37] But we've already, like, by this point, there's, like,

[19:40] it's already starting to, like, drop these just absolutely terrible, like, jokes.

[19:44] Like, they're supposed to be jokes, but they're just the hackiest, terrible jokes.

[19:49] Like, when you were saying, like, okay, North,

[19:51] he's being neglected by his parents, so he's screwing things up.

[19:55] And, like, previously we've seen him do Fiddler on the Roof really well.

[20:00] I guess that's kind of cute, okay, whatever.

[20:01] And then, like, well, what play could he mess up?

[20:05] And it's like, Hamlet, and he's like,

[20:07] to be or not, a line, just like the worst, happiest.

[20:12] It is pretty hacky, I will say.

[20:13] It is like commercial-level hacky,

[20:16] like that's the sort of thing that like,

[20:17] oh, he should have gotten a better insurance or something.

[20:20] I will say, one of the fun things

[20:22] about writing things for children

[20:23] is you can use hacky jokes,

[20:24] because the kids don't know it.

[20:25] Like, so you can reuse stuff.

[20:27] There was, I remember working on

[20:28] the Who Was show for Netflix,

[20:30] and it was like, to do like a joke rap about this

[20:33] would be pretty hacky, but it's for kids.

[20:35] They don't know that, so we can do it.

[20:37] And it reminds me of the other day,

[20:39] I was so proud of my son.

[20:40] He was reading a book, and he got to a part

[20:41] where a character said, what am I, chopped liver?

[20:43] And he got up, and he ran over to me

[20:45] to share this joke with me.

[20:46] He showed it to me.

[20:47] He was like, look at what this guy said.

[20:49] He said, what am I, chopped liver?

[20:51] And I was like, I don't remember

[20:52] when I first heard that for the first time.

[20:54] Like, this is a special moment.

[20:55] You're hearing this, one of the hackiest things

[20:57] a person can say in a story.

[20:59] Like, and he's experiencing it as a new, amazing phrase.

[21:03] You know, so.

[21:04] It's a strange thing, too,

[21:05] because, you know, chopped liver's pretty good.

[21:07] It is.

[21:08] I mean, that's the real, that's the problem

[21:09] with that joke.

[21:10] If it was like, what am I, chopped liver?

[21:11] Yeah, I wish.

[21:12] It's delicious.

[21:13] Put it on like a cracker or something.

[21:15] Rest in peace, Sammy's Romanian.

[21:17] I mean, come on.

[21:17] Yeah, this bad joke did not inspire laughter out of me.

[21:21] It did inspire me to think,

[21:22] why are they producing Hamlet in this school?

[21:26] It seems like a lot for these children.

[21:28] It is.

[21:29] I don't know.

[21:30] I will say, the level of joke is, it's not.

[21:31] Though it does reflect his current indecisive state, right?

[21:36] Lair's, you know what?

[21:37] I forget about it.

[21:37] The subtext, it's a great joke.

[21:38] It's perfect.

[21:39] There's no other play that would have worked.

[21:41] I suddenly like the whole movie now.

[21:43] It's not that every joke is bad in this movie.

[21:45] It is that the big jokes are pretty bad to me.

[21:48] And there are a lot of little jokes.

[21:49] There's a part near the end where Alan Arkin, as a judge,

[21:51] pulls out a timer, and we'll get to that.

[21:53] And he goes, that's the clock from my house.

[21:55] And that made me laugh more than anything else in the movie.

[21:57] It was just, this is a side where the judge

[21:58] is just making sure they know that that's his clock

[22:00] that he brought from home, you know?

[22:01] I liked the part where Jason Alexander

[22:03] talking about how he's a pants inspector.

[22:06] So it's like, who do you, did you forget who I am?

[22:08] And he pulls out a little thing

[22:09] that says inspected by number six.

[22:11] It says, I'm number six.

[22:12] And I like that joke.

[22:13] That was pretty good.

[22:14] I feel like there's potential in the idea

[22:15] of a pants inspector that they don't really,

[22:17] they don't dig into it as much as I would have liked.

[22:20] It's just like a psychedelic later.

[22:21] I mean, as long as we're talking about the writing,

[22:23] I just want to mention,

[22:24] this is Alan Zweibel did this from his children's book.

[22:28] And he, you know, was a very famous SNL writer

[22:32] during the early years.

[22:33] And he was, he wrote for Gary Shanling show.

[22:37] So he's capable of writing very funny stuff,

[22:41] but North is not a good movie.

[22:43] I would call him one of the top boomer generation TV

[22:47] and probably movie writers.

[22:49] Like of all of boomer writers,

[22:51] Alan Zweibel is right up at the top.

[22:54] And this, you know, everyone has the,

[22:55] and he's on, he comes on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast

[22:58] every now and then, they always ask him about North.

[22:59] And he's like, we were just doing something nice.

[23:02] Why do people have to be mean?

[23:03] They're doing something nice.

[23:04] And I was like, yeah, yeah, he's probably right.

[23:06] And then I watched the movie again and I was like,

[23:07] oh boy, they, no, this is not the nice thing

[23:12] that they, around the time later on

[23:15] when someone is trying to murder North on camera,

[23:17] I was like, this is not, this doesn't work for me.

[23:20] So continue Stuart.

[23:22] Sorry, I'm jumping ahead.

[23:23] Yeah, so North, he gets the seed of an idea

[23:27] and he gets, he enlists the aid

[23:29] of his weird journalist friend Winchell

[23:32] to come up with the plan of becoming

[23:35] kind of like a kid-free agent

[23:38] and like shopping himself around

[23:40] to prospective adoptive parents.

[23:43] Which like, as a premise, like I could see someone

[23:46] being like, oh, that's a fun premise.

[23:48] Everything that has spun out of it in the film is pure evil.

[23:52] But like the idea of like a free age,

[23:54] like a kid trying, like a sports figure

[23:58] trying to get like picked up by a different parents.

[24:01] You know, there's something there.

[24:02] Yeah, it's a very funny idea

[24:04] that unfortunately just opens up a can of stereotype worms.

[24:09] And as the Winchell storyline develops,

[24:11] it becomes just straight like, it just becomes not,

[24:15] yeah, it's not kid movie appropriate,

[24:18] or but it gives John Lovitz an opportunity

[24:21] to be in the movie a lot.

[24:23] John Lovitz shows up as Winchell's often used attorney

[24:28] who is going to handle the case for North's emancipation.

[24:32] Yeah, he literally appears,

[24:34] he's chasing an ambulance in his car

[24:36] and then he sees North on the street

[24:37] and screeches to a stop.

[24:38] And it's like, yeah, that's the level of the movie

[24:41] is that the lawyer is literally chasing after an ambulance.

[24:43] That's what they had, you know.

[24:45] Worked for the Marx Brothers

[24:46] in like brain donors or something, right?

[24:48] Well, okay, you got a lot to unpack there.

[24:52] I mean, the biggest thing being

[24:53] that that's not a Marx Brothers movie.

[24:55] I mean, it's definitely a Marx Brothers pastiche.

[24:57] I mean, that's a movie I remember loving as a kid

[24:59] when it would be on HBO

[25:00] and I have to watch it again to see if it holds up at all.

[25:03] But yeah, anyway.

[25:04] I'm curious too.

[25:05] Okay, so.

[25:06] I don't know, I think there's something weird going.

[25:08] But just the whole thing about North,

[25:12] yes, I agree, the idea could work.

[25:14] But like, what we've seen so far is like literally,

[25:17] North had one dinner conversation

[25:20] where he wasn't the center of attention.

[25:22] And it's like, that's it, I'm out of here.

[25:24] I'm leaving forever.

[25:26] That's one of the big things is they seem to,

[25:28] for some reason, they needed to make an argument

[25:31] as to why North's parents should pay attention to him.

[25:33] Well, the only way is if he's gotta be

[25:35] the best kid in the world.

[25:36] Because otherwise the audience might think

[25:37] North is not worthy of their attention.

[25:40] It's a better story if it's just a regular kid.

[25:42] If he's not the best and the smartest and the most amazing.

[25:45] It's just like a regular kid.

[25:46] Arguably a regular kid needs more attention.

[25:49] Yeah, exactly, yeah, thank you.

[25:50] If a regular kid was just like,

[25:52] my parents aren't paying, and all these people,

[25:54] and then the joke is that everyone in the world

[25:56] is competing for the attention to be the parents

[25:58] of like, just a kid, just some kid.

[26:00] As opposed to North, who is already famous, it seems.

[26:05] Okay, so the judge ruled by Alan Arkin,

[26:11] who as everyone has addressed, is a funny performer.

[26:15] He is, I mean, he is doing his best

[26:17] Christopher Lloyd in this movie.

[26:19] Alan Arkin is, he can really calibrate,

[26:21] and he is going big here.

[26:22] He's going as big as possible.

[26:24] But it works, he's a judge, he's barking things, people.

[26:27] He rules in favor of North because North's parents

[26:29] are both in a catatonic state, I guess,

[26:32] when they got the news.

[26:34] When they find out the news, they go into shock.

[26:38] But they're like strapped to a board in the courtroom.

[26:40] And Alan Arkin's like, his parents

[26:42] won't even pay attention.

[26:43] And it's just a sign like the movie's

[26:44] trying so hard to be like, fun and cartoonish.

[26:47] But you're like, yeah, and wacky.

[26:48] But it's like, this is seriously,

[26:50] this is a terrible thing that's happened to his parents.

[26:53] Like, try to get them out of their coma,

[26:56] and see what they're gonna do.

[26:57] Yeah, North seems unconcerned by the fact that they are,

[27:00] yeah, they are unable to talk or move.

[27:04] Yeah, later on, where he's like,

[27:05] my parents haven't even tried to contact me.

[27:07] It's like, yeah, dude, you saw them.

[27:09] They're like, you're like suspended animation.

[27:12] They're like, Mrs. Freeze.

[27:13] Later in the movie, there's a press conference

[27:15] when Ben Stein makes them an exhibit at the Smithsonian,

[27:18] and they're encased in glass in a coma.

[27:20] So it's like, yeah, they're not getting in touch

[27:22] with you, North, that was covered by the news.

[27:24] It's, yeah, I guess it's a real,

[27:27] North's in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones.

[27:29] The judge, in addition to ruling in North's favor,

[27:31] adds a ticking clock, everybody.

[27:33] North only has until Labor Day to pick new parents,

[27:37] or decide to go back with his original parents,

[27:39] or else he goes to an orphanage.

[27:42] And then there's like some comments about how,

[27:44] be like, you know, living in an orphanage is terrible,

[27:47] and it's a little bit weird.

[27:49] And so they-

[27:50] But the ticking clock is the whole summer.

[27:52] He has like, he has like an entire summer to do this.

[27:56] And it seemed like he goes to like four places,

[27:58] and it seems like he spends like three days,

[28:01] and the entire summer has just evaporated.

[28:03] Well, they make it, he does spend a lot of time

[28:05] walking in Alaska during the first

[28:09] of the very offensive sequences,

[28:12] where Brownface Kathy Bates, the Inuit mom,

[28:15] is taking him to push an elderly person,

[28:17] Ava Goddard and Brownface, onto an ice float to die.

[28:20] So like, they spend-

[28:21] In a ceremony that is officiated by

[28:23] Richard Belzer and Brownface.

[28:25] Yeah, I mean, officiated is, I would say he's more the,

[28:27] he's more like the air traffic controller of the thing.

[28:30] I just keep everyone on schedule.

[28:31] But yeah, it's, I think that eats up a lot of that summer.

[28:34] I think that's how they explain that.

[28:36] That's how we're supposed to interpret.

[28:36] Okay, because that's the thing that's so funny.

[28:38] It's like, you have to do this by the end of the summer,

[28:41] and he goes to one place, and I'm just like,

[28:43] okay, he was there for literally a day.

[28:44] All right, fine.

[28:45] Then he goes to the next place,

[28:46] and it seems like he's there for a day.

[28:48] And then he's like,

[28:49] I've only got 12 hours left to find my parents.

[28:52] It's like, we just started this.

[28:53] You have all summer.

[28:54] What's happening?

[28:55] One thing I like about Alan Arkin's performance is he,

[28:57] even as he's declaring this,

[28:59] seems to be like, also shocked at how arbitrary

[29:02] and unfair it is.

[29:03] He's like, he's like, he's telling him,

[29:05] but you only have till Labor Day or else

[29:07] you're gonna go in an orphanage.

[29:08] And the way he says it is almost like

[29:10] he's getting this perverse delight

[29:12] out of doing the wrong thing,

[29:14] and he knows it's wrong.

[29:15] Like, that's his,

[29:16] I would rather watch the movie

[29:17] where Alan Arkin's judge goes home

[29:19] and is following North's progress,

[29:20] like on a map in his house.

[29:22] And it's just like, oh, running out of time.

[29:24] I should have given him more time.

[29:26] Your delivery of Alan Arkin's delivery

[29:28] made me think that maybe he was just reading

[29:29] the script off of cue cards for the first time

[29:32] while doing it.

[29:33] Like, you'll have to be in an orphanage?

[29:34] That can't be right.

[29:35] What kind of shitty movie is this?

[29:37] It's possible.

[29:37] It's very possible.

[29:38] Yeah, Alan, Rob, I'll be in your movie for sure

[29:41] with your track records.

[29:42] No questions asked.

[29:42] Just, okay, I'm a judge.

[29:44] Okay, put the robes on me.

[29:45] Well, you're so good, Alan.

[29:46] You're such a good improviser.

[29:47] Let's just have you,

[29:48] we want to get your first take.

[29:49] Let's just, don't even read the script ahead of time.

[29:50] You got it.

[29:51] And as he's reading, he's like, what?

[29:52] Should I do a hair and makeup?

[29:53] They're like, nope.

[29:54] Your hair looks crazy already.

[29:58] What's that you're carrying?

[29:59] Is that an?

[30:00] old cattle yet bring along why not

[30:03] the courtroom scene also has what another one of i thought the the worst

[30:07] hackiest jokes which was like the pet we've already established the parents

[30:10] are comatose

[30:12] and there there's there on these boards in the courtroom and

[30:15] uh... you know like alan arkin is like all right we'll go ahead defense and

[30:19] that and uh... and uh... lawyer for the for the parents who i don't think it's

[30:23] i don't recognize and i don't think he's like a good things just like

[30:26] your honor the defense rests

[30:29] uh...

[30:30] so that

[30:31] you can see it as a lot like they've been almost need likes a like a drummer

[30:35] on screen doing like a little and he's assisting is if it was like the march

[30:39] brothers doing that joke i would laugh at how i would laugh at how corny it is

[30:42] and they're getting away with it but like

[30:44] i guess that's when you see a lot of it is the march brothers are like you know

[30:48] like it do it do it like airplane right there's like so many jokes that it's

[30:52] matter if one

[30:54] next couple and then there was a lot of stars are the greatest movie comedians

[30:57] of all time i mean that's the other thing is that the other half the same

[30:59] joke in the hands of of of the greatest comedy performers on film short

[31:03] okay so uh... north and his lawyer john levitt set up and office to receive

[31:08] parental applications and they come flooding in everybody wants a piece of

[31:12] that north

[31:13] and uh...

[31:15] he starts flying around to visit prospective parents

[31:18] and those first parents

[31:19] are located in

[31:20] texas america

[31:22] and they are cartoonishly texan

[31:25] played by dan akroyd

[31:27] and reba mcintyre babies the most texas person you can think of that's right

[31:32] dan akroyd

[31:35] now apparently it was supposed to be john candy and then he dropped out not

[31:39] that that's more

[31:41] texan because he's from canada but uh... just as he's from the same place dan

[31:45] akroyd is from canada i mean they're from different parts of canada

[31:48] who would be the most texan person

[31:50] you can imagine

[31:51] i mean like if ever a part called for modern-day mcganney

[31:54] but i don't know what he was doing in nineteen ninety-four you know

[31:57] i mean i don't know if you like

[31:59] i feel like uh... i feel like burt reynolds or somebody right

[32:04] sam shepard

[32:06] that would be amazing if it was sam shepard

[32:10] and he's just so he's delivering all the same lines but so dry so crusty

[32:16] uh... really so funny now luckily i mean reba mcintyre's here and reba i feel

[32:22] like reba injects a fair amount of life to it like maybe it's just as i love her

[32:26] in these like crazy

[32:27] like uh... like musical theater

[32:31] rich person cowboy outfits

[32:33] uh... and she's obviously uh... you know a great singer

[32:37] now reba comes off very well

[32:38] in this movie this sequence comparably

[32:42] to the rest of the movie yeah it's kind of fun there's singing there's dancing

[32:46] he gives uh... dan ackroyd gives uh... elijah wood north of the houston astros as a

[32:51] gift

[32:51] uh... that's fun

[32:53] i think i think this this definitely is the if this was the starting point and

[32:57] then the movie heightened in in humor from this point on

[33:00] the movie you'd be like okay that was a that was a fun start now it's getting

[33:03] but unfortunately this is like the best of the of the parent ones

[33:06] it's maybe it's just because

[33:07] the stereotype of a rich texan is not one that makes my tummy hurt

[33:11] compared to the other ones

[33:15] so uh... he pretty quickly susses out that these texans are just trying to

[33:19] they just want north to replace their large dead son

[33:23] i guess they have a son that they overfed

[33:26] there's some weird stuff in this scene it's not as offensive but it is weird

[33:30] they're force feeding him they're like they really want him they talk about how

[33:35] he has to

[33:36] uh... he has to grow his

[33:38] we have to stretch your stomach and pretty soon your capacity will

[33:42] for food will grow and grow it's like somebody was trying to write a

[33:46] screenplay based on a Roald Dahl book but didn't like it consider that like

[33:50] dark comedy of it and we're just like no it's just normal comedy right

[33:55] a couple pages from a

[33:56] oh yeah sorry sorry you say

[33:58] yeah I was just going to say their old son could eat a lot so they're trying to

[34:01] replace him

[34:02] and so they need to I guess fatten up north and then they sing the song they

[34:06] sing which is sort of cute that they go into a whole

[34:09] the musical number is fun

[34:11] it's about their dead son being trampled in a stampede it's just very bizarre

[34:15] I'm not saying it's good or bad

[34:16] just very I don't know just

[34:18] like there's it's almost a lynchian quality of strangeness that's happening

[34:22] it is it is if this was a scene in nothing but trouble instead of the scene

[34:26] where

[34:27] Chevy Chase imagines that Dan Aykroyd's nose is a penis for some reason

[34:30] you'd be like okay yeah I guess this makes sense the family's obsessed with

[34:33] their dead kid and they're trying to replicate them in some way this is the

[34:36] kind of thing that that those weirdos would do in what was the name of that

[34:38] town

[34:39] uh... Valconvania yeah Valconvania but instead it's in north

[34:42] where like uh...

[34:44] like Alan Zweibel got hit in the head with a Grimm's Fairy Tales book and had to

[34:47] inject this kind of like strange force-feeding a child element to it

[34:51] otherwise other than that

[34:53] best best family scene in the movie

[34:55] best of the parent auditions in the movie so right before the musical number

[34:59] this is where north runs into uh... this is the the second appearance by Bruce

[35:04] Willis and that's when we're starting to figure like you gotta assume something's

[35:07] up like he must be traveling down the what like seventy seven steps to sleep

[35:12] like he is traveling on a he's on a dream journey to unknown Kadath

[35:16] uh... and he bumps into Bruce Willis who is now a ranch hand who does not go by

[35:20] the same name he just has never met north he again is speaking with a let's

[35:25] say questionable uh... texas accent

[35:27] uh... and uh... he gives north a little bit of advice of which i don't remember

[35:32] at this point

[35:33] uh... i don't know

[35:35] uh... he just helps him decide that this is the right family this isn't the right

[35:38] fit maybe should move on that he he wants to be loved for himself and not

[35:42] not as a replacement

[35:43] or as a member of the replacements which they should have made north

[35:46] so that they could make a joke where he's like

[35:48] just because i'm a member of the replacements doesn't mean i want to be a replacement for

[35:51] your son and then the replacements show up and play some of their hits

[35:54] yep

[35:56] about dead sons being trampled in stampede yeah i mean they play the same song i

[36:00] guess but like replacement style i mean if they're not allowed to be on

[36:03] saturday night live replacement style means very drunk

[36:06] yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah

[36:09] so uh... of course

[36:11] despite a musical number north says no he turns them down

[36:15] and uh... we get a glimpse of what's going on back home there's like a full

[36:19] on like kid revolution it's like this like

[36:22] nickelodeon

[36:23] fucking nightmare

[36:24] where the kids are now in charge parents have to do whatever they say and winchell

[36:29] is at the heart of it and his uh... and his i guess muscle is john lovett's the lawyer

[36:35] winchell is the brains behind the operation and they're raking in the

[36:39] bucks i don't know

[36:40] it is very strange this winchell character like

[36:44] i hated him from the moment he showed up not realizing he was supposed to be the

[36:48] villain just because he

[36:50] i found the performance sort of off-putting but that's because

[36:53] well i don't you know i'm harsh he's a kid

[36:58] but allow me to explain that i

[37:00] i do not like movies where the only joke of a character appears to be like

[37:04] this child is acting as if an adult and an adult might you know this is a great

[37:08] like

[37:09] yeah i think you said that that goes that's it's that's slightly worse than

[37:13] rapping grannies right

[37:15] i mean to be honest that is in my ranking of like

[37:20] jokes i do not like the number one pretty much i mean other than jokes that

[37:23] are

[37:24] harmful to people

[37:24] the number one is like

[37:26] i didn't expect that character to sound like that kind of person to sound like

[37:29] that's like rapping grannies really adult sounding kids

[37:33] sensitive bikers like any of that garbage you know that's that's uh...

[37:36] personal pet peeve of mine

[37:38] that being said because you like to judge books by their cover right

[37:41] yeah exactly i like i like people i cuz i i just i don't like the idea that it's

[37:44] like you don't conform to my expectations about what you would sound

[37:47] like

[37:48] uh... that being said

[37:49] i do love the moment in uh... in

[37:51] gentlemen's prefer blondes where they ask that with the two that with the two

[37:55] ladies ask the kid how old he is and he goes old enough to appreciate a fine

[37:58] woman

[37:58] appreciate a beautiful woman and that's the only line he pretty much has

[38:02] it's like that that character got turned into a

[38:05] into the the villain of the movie so it is a lot of like uh...

[38:09] like this is the character that feels the most like cohen's-esque to me

[38:13] this kind of like fast talking

[38:15] old-timey reporter kid who turns into lex luther basically

[38:19] uh... yeah so uh... north's next stop is to hawaii

[38:25] where the governor of hawaii and his wife are making a big pitch for north

[38:29] to join their family and we get uh... we're treated to a uh... series of jokes

[38:35] all about hawaiian culture

[38:38] i mean like parasailing and poi and stuff like that it's not

[38:41] it's it's you know

[38:42] not that i want them to do a real in-depth look at what it's like to live in hawaii but

[38:46] it is like tourist hawaii

[38:47] i will say though in the other

[38:51] scenarios that come later like it feels like

[38:54] the thing that

[38:56] makes north think like these are not the parents for me

[38:58] are all like

[39:00] uh... stereotypes specific to

[39:03] that culture

[39:04] whereas here in hawaii the thing that bothers him is not like

[39:08] culture-related it's just that they want him to

[39:12] uh... be like the

[39:13] tourism

[39:14] uh... ad for hawaii and it's like a coppertone

[39:18] coppertone takeoff where like his shorts are being pulled out by an octopus so

[39:24] his butt crack is visible he keeps talking about his crack

[39:30] this is the strongest memory i have from seeing the movie the two strongest memories i have

[39:33] from seeing the movie as a kid were

[39:35] him saying

[39:36] my crack

[39:37] and as a kid i'd never use the word crack to talk about my butt and so it was just like

[39:41] it felt very weird to hear him say what about my crack over and over again

[39:46] it's just like and it's not funny it's never funny you know

[39:49] it seems like it must have been a different word and because it is sort of

[39:53] a movie for kids someone made them change it what can he say that won't get

[39:58] us an R rating or a PG rating

[40:00] thirteen or whatever

[40:01] he's like well he could say crack okay say crack over and over but it is not a

[40:04] very clearly says turd cutter

[40:07] can you not say that i would like to say is a practice is we have a list of

[40:11] acceptable words there's

[40:13] class

[40:14] divide

[40:15] crevice

[40:16] crack you know what crack is fine i want to go farther down the down the list

[40:20] ship and robin is like alan maybe we should with crevice and i was like no

[40:23] crack has more comedy case let's go with that one can we have a lot of shit

[40:28] split can we do that

[40:31] uh... in in can we

[40:32] i mean in north defense that billboard is weird it's like it is very weird

[40:36] it's very bizarre

[40:39] you know they're like here you go here's a billboard of your tush right up on the hill

[40:43] you're the coppertone baby so creepy to watch because it's like a motorized billboard

[40:48] too like the the octopus keeps pulling down north's pants to continually

[40:53] reveal his crack

[40:54] but if you look at it in a certain way the octopus is constantly pushing up

[40:59] those pants so you don't have to see his little butthole

[41:02] maybe his bathing suit is too big and the octopus is like let me help you here

[41:05] yeah yeah yeah crack half empty or is the crack half full that's right you have to look at it that way

[41:10] now i want to see the outtakes now where like stewart's saying they're using the other words

[41:13] and he's like my balloon not

[41:15] yeah it is

[41:17] and i mean in in uh... octopus defense it is a

[41:21] crackin

[41:23] wow save those jokes for north too

[41:27] uh... jordan

[41:28] don't edit that out

[41:29] accentuate it please think the crackin is more of a squid but i still appreciate it

[41:34] yeah dan the real crackins are more like squids you're right the real ones that exist in the sea

[41:39] thanks for fact checking stewart on that one thanks balen greyjoy

[41:43] okay now uh... now

[41:44] uh... jordan take and i want you to after stewart said crackin put in a

[41:49] soundbite of liam neeson saying release the crackin

[41:51] and then with dan

[41:52] uh... put in a put in the same soundbite but instead of crackin have liam neeson say

[41:56] pedant so can you get liam neeson to do that for us that'd be great thank you

[42:00] he's probably busy getting revenge on somebody right now you'll track him down

[42:03] so north wanders off he bumps into bruce willis who is now like some kind of

[42:07] ogee beach bum uh... who's like kind of like a weird beach hippie

[42:11] uh... and he's got a metal detector he's got a metal detector

[42:15] uh... they also walk by those guys like the guy that used to do the

[42:19] like the aerobics show on ESPN out of nowhere they're like the guys do you

[42:23] remember watching that show no

[42:25] i had i had a lot

[42:26] i had i had i was not really that into fitness

[42:29] when i was you know i was as you can as i'm sure you can all tell just by

[42:32] looking at me i was i loved

[42:35] fitness and fitness shows as a child the fact that you're a beast now yeah sure

[42:38] yes i'm ripped and shredded that's you know it's a podcast so they'll just have to

[42:41] trust me but i think you know

[42:43] you are as close to ripped and shredded as someone who regularly eats all of the

[42:47] novelty tie-in food items of denny's can be

[42:51] that this may be your last podcast appearance since probably the dune

[42:55] breakfast at denny's is gonna turn denny's into doonies for a month and it's

[42:59] all every item on the menu is gonna be dune themed and you're gonna have to eat

[43:02] them all

[43:02] eat like giant sandworm

[43:04] yeah you won't go brokaw

[43:08] from these deals

[43:09] i mean i don't know if denny's would do a joke based off our bit that tom

[43:13] brokaw loves doonies you mean doonies

[43:16] yeah doonies doonies has like the maker sausage and it's like a

[43:20] sandworm of sausages tied together and you're gonna have to eat it

[43:24] oh and you know it's gonna be spiced

[43:27] well now you know how

[43:30] i guess i have to put these chips into this maw dip okay

[43:35] i've been

[43:38] well now you know how i keep my incredible figure despite eating all

[43:41] that as i watch body by gilovic

[43:45] such random nonsense in this movie like that guy there has to be someone i can't

[43:51] be the only person who's going to be listening to this podcast who knows that

[43:54] it's just like this ripped israeli guy who hosted like a fitness show on ESPN

[43:59] for like 20 years and he's just randomly in the movie

[44:03] they're just there for bruce willis to make a joke about how it's

[44:06] why waste your time working out

[44:08] right right it yeah it's all it's like a very long way to go for that one which

[44:13] is having spent like the last year spending a lot of time stretching and

[44:18] working out and trying to get in shape only to have my back collapse on me and

[44:22] then i'm stuck watching north i kind of agree with bruce willis

[44:25] yeah now to get back to the important stuff

[44:28] matt how are you going to deal with when you sit down at doonies having to order

[44:31] the gum jab burger which is a hamburger with chewing gum on it you're not even

[44:36] supposed to swallow that but it's supposed to it's a test whether you

[44:40] whether you can survive the pain of of eating it just like the original gum

[44:44] jab bar how are you going to handle that what's your strategy

[44:47] I don't know it's going to be bad it's going to be real bad

[44:50] I'm getting nervous I'm starting to sweat just sitting here thinking that

[44:53] someone might actually do this after this

[44:56] make a doon menu. Elliot every time you say doonies

[45:00] I think of like a doon version of the goonies. I mean they're not that

[45:05] different. Doonies have the same cast and they got to get the spice to save the doon ducks

[45:09] yeah and in the doonies you also wash down your meal with a

[45:14] hearty glass of navigatorade

[45:17] yeah yeah yeah it just took me a while to figure that one out

[45:23] or a glass of men tea yeah sure

[45:26] now the other thing is the gum jab burger is also at

[45:29] mcdonald's

[45:30] that's right multiple restaurants are doing doon tie-in menus deal with it

[45:34] Matt you got to eat them all. That's what I have to, I have no choice

[45:40] that was the deal you made with the devil

[45:44] you would make a living as a film critic but in exchange you'd have to eat all the

[45:47] movie tie-in food

[45:48] yeah so meanwhile back at home

[45:51] did we ever figure out exactly where North lives? Anytown USA

[45:55] Anytown USA. Is it like New Jersey or something?

[45:59] I think he does live in New Jersey because they, but then he's

[46:02] again at New Jersey later but he's in upstate New York. Anyway he goes to Bowcraft

[46:06] Amusement Park

[46:06] so like he's in New Jersey because as everyone knows in the commercials

[46:10] Bowcraft Amusement Park it all began over 50 years ago rides and games straight as

[46:13] narrow

[46:14] rides and games for kids in every age something

[46:17] park and a video arcade damn I can't remember the jingle for Bowcraft

[46:20] Amusement Park and I watched it so many times as a kid

[46:22] and that's not Action Park right? No Action Park is a very different

[46:26] place than Bowcraft. Did you guys ever go to

[46:28] Action Park? Yes. Oh yes. Action Park is where you would go when the

[46:32] summer camp didn't have the money for Dorney Park

[46:34] Did I already, I feel like I must have recommended

[46:37] Class Action Park here on the show before the

[46:40] the documentary about it that has Hodgman doing the narration

[46:44] I haven't, you might have. I haven't watched it and I've been meaning to because I want to see if

[46:49] I recognize much of it. You know when I watched it I was like

[46:52] okay I like walked into it thinking like oh I'll know what this is you know it's

[46:56] dangerous park whatever like I mean I'll

[46:58] I had a sense like oh it's a it'll be a funny documentary about a dangerous park

[47:01] I was not prepared for how dangerous the park is

[47:06] I mean the amazing thing is though and it's not like it's not like

[47:09] that came out later at the time everyone knew that Action Park was a

[47:12] dangerous place to go like we would talk about it all the time about what what

[47:15] the the latest injury was. Yeah did you guys did you guys ever go?

[47:19] Yeah yeah yeah. Did you ever get injured? I mean is that why

[47:23] yeah is that why you have that crazy road rash scar? I would check it out

[47:26] it was you could always tell which rides were the dangerous ones like if a

[47:29] like if a water slide had a loop in it you knew not to go on that

[47:33] that's not a safe ride. So I would avoid those but I actually I

[47:37] lost my glasses on one of like the slides it was like such a wild

[47:41] like ride that my glasses blew off yeah on the ride and I

[47:45] came out and I was like 12 years old going oh dang it and then

[47:48] I was lucky somebody found them. Oh okay I thought you were gonna buy the

[47:52] buy the t-shirt I lost my glasses at Action Park. Sorry Stuart. I feel like I

[47:56] feel like that's the sort of thing that the

[47:57] teens working the rides would be super sympathetic about.

[48:01] Yeah yeah oh great glasses okay nerd yeah sure.

[48:04] Yeah my my wife Charlene went a couple times and she said her favorite part was

[48:08] at the end of like the tube slide as soon as that you come out of like the

[48:12] tube and you're riding on the inner tube the kids working there would just

[48:16] get out. Yeah because they got to get they don't have that many tubes they're

[48:19] going to give it to the next person. Oh man. Yeah. She'll tell that story way

[48:23] better. The trips there were usually a lot of daring each other to go on things

[48:26] and then not you know. The reason I bring out that it's

[48:29] Bowcraft though is purely as an excuse for me to talk about a different jingle

[48:32] from commercials from the New Jersey region and that's for the Westchester

[48:35] County Fair. Rides and attractions non-stop action

[48:38] shows animals fireworks too about the most fun thing you can do. So

[48:41] Bowcraft Amusement Park and the Westchester County Fair are both tied

[48:43] together in my mind as the jingles for places to go.

[48:47] So not beautiful Mount Airy Lodge. Well of course there's beautiful

[48:51] Mount Airy Lodge because all you have to bring is your love of everything.

[48:54] Beautiful Mount Airy Lodge. So that's for that was my

[48:58] latest edition of regional northeastern commercial

[49:02] regional northeastern location commercial roundup.

[49:06] Okay so come back next time when we'll tell you about ha

[49:09] Raceway Park. Back Home the Kids Revolution has kind of

[49:14] swayed entirely in favor of the kids. I think we get kind of a state of

[49:19] what's going on while Winchell and John Lovitz are

[49:22] getting massages and treats. I think they're

[49:26] getting like sodas and I think John Lovitz gets

[49:30] the sex on the beach. Now what is now straight you're a

[49:33] bartender what is a sex on the beach? I don't really know what's in it.

[49:37] You know what? Like used condoms and sand?

[49:40] Yes sand. You know to be honest it's one of those drinks that

[49:44] I feel like Dan could probably answer this better than me

[49:47] because every time I somebody asks for it I just say that we don't have the

[49:50] right ingredients but I think it's probably

[49:52] we don't have like peach schnapps or some shit but it's like rum peach schnapps

[49:56] and like I don't know pineapple juice Dan do you know?

[49:58] That is not one that

[50:00] I mean, I do a lot of tropical drinks, but I know which ones to stay away from, and that was one that I don't know.

[50:05] Call myself a bartender.

[50:06] Yeah. Now, what's a fuzzy navel, though? Is that the same thing, or is that something different?

[50:10] That is peach schnapps and, I believe, orange juice, but I'm not sure.

[50:14] Now, what's a Harvey Wallbanger? Is that the same thing?

[50:17] Jesus Christ, stop asking all these, like, stupid-ass drinks I learned and have since forgotten.

[50:22] These are the drinks that, like, got mentioned on sitcoms when I was a kid, so I never knew what they were.

[50:27] What about a slow, comfortable screw against the wall? Like, no thanks.

[50:33] I say, get out of here. Get out of here.

[50:34] That hurt the back, Stu, has no patience.

[50:37] Literally, the only drink I know what it is is a screwdriver, only because in that one episode of Faulty Towers,

[50:42] the guy is yelling at John Cleese about what a screwdriver is.

[50:46] That's also why I know that there's grapes and nuts in a Waldorf salad.

[50:50] So, the next family that North visits is, arguably, this might be one of the lowest points of the movie.

[50:58] He goes to Alaska, which is this Hoth-like tundra, and the family is, I'm guessing, an Inuit family,

[51:07] played by Graham Greene and Kathy Bates, and the grandfather is played by Abe Vigoda,

[51:12] and they live in, like, a big igloo that has, like, all the comforts of an American home,

[51:19] but, like, disguised in, like, ice and shit.

[51:22] It's like an American 50s suburb, but everything's made out of snow and ice.

[51:27] It's like the Flintstones, if the Flintstones was set in, like, yeah, in, like, an Inuit village.

[51:32] It's, like, cartoonish, like, igloos, and everything is made out of ice.

[51:38] And there's a guy, like, mowing the snow as they walk by him, and that was the one joke in the whole sequence,

[51:42] where I was like, that's kind of a funny idea, but...

[51:44] There's even, like, a random joke where they, where, like, I didn't even notice it the first time I saw this,

[51:49] because, God help me, I've now seen this movie twice in, like, the last couple months,

[51:52] like, where the plane, like, skids, and there's, like, a joke about, well, while we're skidding,

[51:59] we'll show you another feature-length movie.

[52:01] It's, I mean, it's not funny when I say it, and it's not funny when I swear it's in the movie.

[52:07] They're literally sitting in the living room of this igloo, and they just whistle the Andy Griffith theme for a little while,

[52:12] and I'm just like, this is entering Tim and Eric level, like, non-humor, where, like,

[52:17] is the joke that this is just an awkward moment for North to sit through?

[52:20] Like, I don't know.

[52:22] So you would think that North would be put off by the cold or the other things,

[52:27] but no, he's put off by the tradition of putting their elders out on an ice floe to die.

[52:34] I mean, the only thing less accurate than that is the fact that Kathy Bates, I mean, also playing an Inuit when she is not,

[52:40] is doing a sampler cross-stitch of penguins, which is nuts.

[52:44] Those are Antarctic birds.

[52:46] Why would an Alaskan have anything to do with penguins?

[52:50] Dan, answer me this.

[52:51] Answer me.

[52:52] Tell me.

[52:53] I'm mad about it.

[52:54] I mean, penguins are pretty cute.

[52:55] I could see having penguin decor.

[52:56] That's a good point.

[52:57] My son loves penguins, and he lives in Los Angeles.

[52:58] Okay, yeah, fair point.

[52:59] Okay, yeah, penguins are great.

[53:01] So, yes, there's one Native American actor and two white actors,

[53:08] and it seems weird because it's like, well, you knew good enough to cast Graham Greene movie,

[53:14] but you didn't go with that any further.

[53:17] But also, yes, setting the elders out to die on an ice floe, you know, I looked into this just to, like, you know.

[53:27] To see if it was a viable option for your family?

[53:29] Yeah, and the widespread practice of doing this is a complete myth.

[53:37] There were some Inuit who, in times of famine, would, you know, like, leave the elders behind because they were unable to feed them,

[53:47] and they were the oldest.

[53:48] But as a larger cultural thing, this is just a racist stereotype about the Inuit people.

[53:56] You're saying that in real life they wouldn't take a number and then wait until Richard Belzer called their number

[54:01] and push them off onto an ice floe with a lazy plane of TV.

[54:04] I don't mean that the north thing is inaccurate.

[54:07] I'm talking a larger stereotype.

[54:09] No, but that's also that, like, it's a larger stereotype that's not true, that the only root of it you're saying comes from tragedy,

[54:16] comes from personal tragedy of famine, but it is through the filter of history and humor.

[54:23] It's become, like, the goofiest way to insult a culture.

[54:28] I will say that the one part of this that made me laugh is Abe Vigoda.

[54:33] Everyone keeps saying that he's fine with it, and it's clear that he's not fine with it.

[54:37] And as he floats off, he goes – he's like, if your policies change in the next week, come find me.

[54:43] And Kathy Bates is like, what did he say?

[54:45] And I sort of enjoy this, like, last-ditch effort, like, hey, I'll be cool if you want to bring me back.

[54:52] But anyway, Abe Vigoda dies.

[54:55] Well, we don't know that.

[54:56] Maybe they bring him back at some point.

[54:57] Maybe he bumps into a ship and he leads a mutiny, and now he's a pirate captain, you know, who's going around the seas.

[55:02] Maybe he turns into, like, a –

[55:03] That's your north fanfic?

[55:04] Yes, yes.

[55:05] Well, he turns into an ice monster.

[55:06] He goes back in time, and he attacks the terror and the other ship that were stuck in the ice, right?

[55:10] Or he turns into an ice monster, and he goes back in time and attacks Chris Elliott and Cabin Boy.

[55:14] There's so many ways that Abe Vigoda could have gone.

[55:16] This is also – I remind you, this is four years after Dances with Wolves came out,

[55:19] and America briefly had decided to treat Native Americans like people and not cartoon characters.

[55:24] So by the time of North, it is – it's just out.

[55:27] Indigenous is back to, like, a fictional character.

[55:29] Anyway.

[55:30] He bumps into another Bruce Willis.

[55:33] This Bruce Willis basically just reminds him time's running out.

[55:36] He wasted too much time walking across the Alaskan tundra.

[55:40] I guess it was – it had the same emotional weight as that scene in Interstellar where Matthew McConaughey realizes that his daughter has grown up.

[55:49] And, what, tied?

[55:51] And he starts crying all over the place.

[55:53] When they leave Alaska, that's when they says it's been eight weeks.

[55:56] And it's like – this has, like, literally been, like, 14 minutes of screen time that he's spent eight weeks.

[56:01] It's like, what is happening?

[56:03] It's a lot like in Flight of the Navigator when the kid comes back,

[56:06] and he finds that his family doesn't live at the house anymore because it's the future now.

[56:09] Yeah.

[56:10] And, like, you get that twist in your gut where you're like, my parents abandoned me.

[56:14] Yeah, exactly.

[56:15] So North then jumps on a plane, and he goes to, I'm guessing, like, Middle America to meet with some Amish parents played by Kelly McGillis and Carl from Die Hard.

[56:25] And I was like, that's Carl from Die Hard.

[56:27] And Kelly McGillis, of course, a reference to Witness.

[56:31] I'm sure all the kids watching were like, oh, that R-rated thriller.

[56:35] It's the Amish woman that Harrison Ford fell in love with, and that's the joke.

[56:42] Anyway.

[56:43] I've never seen that.

[56:44] Who's the Witness in it?

[56:45] You've never seen it?

[56:46] Who is Kelly McGillis?

[56:47] I've never gotten around to it.

[56:48] Isn't it Lucas Haas, a very young?

[56:51] You're asking me, the guy who asked the question.

[56:54] There are two other people on this Zoom call, Elliot.

[56:56] Oh, good point.

[56:57] But no, Witness, if you've not seen it, that is a very good movie.

[57:00] Should I see it?

[57:01] It's marginally better than North.

[57:03] I will say that.

[57:04] OK, that's fair.

[57:05] That's fair.

[57:06] Witness is one of those movies that growing up I would hear a lot about, but I was too young to see it.

[57:09] And by the time I grew up, it was like, I don't need to.

[57:12] I don't need to dig back, I guess.

[57:14] Nobody talks about it anymore.

[57:15] If you want to learn about the Amish experience, obviously the movie you turn to is Kingpin starring Randy Quaid.

[57:21] Exactly.

[57:22] Something where they – I mean he spent years living with them to favor that role.

[57:27] With John Popper and the rest of the Blues Traveler.

[57:30] So North then runs away.

[57:34] His next family is what appears to be some kind of like a Chinese royal family,

[57:39] and they show him a selection of haircuts, and he says no, no, no, and he runs away.

[57:44] Yeah, this is a parody of The Last Emperor, this little section here.

[57:48] Another childhood favorite.

[57:50] This is their two favorite movies, are Witness and The Last Emperor.

[57:54] This whole sequence is done like rapid fire, getting in the shitty offensive jokes as quickly as possible so they can get through it.

[58:01] They're like, what other races have we not hit yet?

[58:03] Got to go to Zaire.

[58:04] That's where we're going next.

[58:06] He turns down an African family out of concerns that being around topless women would distract him from his homework,

[58:12] which is whatever, man, fuck off.

[58:16] He turns down a French family because the only options on television are Jerry Lewis movies.

[58:22] And this is one of these things.

[58:23] This is a stereotype of the French that I remember knowing as a kid.

[58:26] Before I really knew who Jerry Lewis was or had seen any of his work, I knew that, oh, yeah,

[58:31] French people are weird because they think Jerry Lewis is funny and his stuff is not funny,

[58:35] and saw this joke in the movie and got it.

[58:37] I understood the point of the joke, and it just seems like such a blast from another time.

[58:41] Does anyone talk about the French and Jerry Lewis anymore?

[58:44] No, of course not.

[58:45] Probably France one time gave Jerry Lewis an award and that was it.

[58:50] It was just – I don't know.

[58:51] It's such a strange time capsule of a time when this is what people knew about France

[58:57] and also Jerry Lewis was considered like just the worst old hack stuff.

[59:03] As opposed to now where he's remembered as a mean man who was very cheap and mean to everybody.

[59:07] But didn't he invent the little monitor that you can watch?

[59:12] He said he invented video playback where you would have a video monitor attached to it.

[59:17] But I remember saying that to somebody as if that was an achievement and they were like,

[59:21] so he attached a TV to the camera?

[59:23] Great.

[59:24] Is he the guy who is saying great balls of fire?

[59:31] No, that's Jerry Lee Lewis.

[59:33] That's a different Jerry Lewis.

[59:35] They're brothers though.

[59:36] Yeah, they are brothers.

[59:37] They have the first name but different – same first name, different middle names.

[59:40] That's the other part, yeah.

[59:42] So North ends up in upstate New York to meet with the Nelsons, a very traditional what?

[59:51] American nuclear family played by John Ritter, Faith Ford, and I don't know who plays the son.

[59:59] But the –

[1:00:00] The Daughter is played by future Ms. Colin Jost.

[1:00:03] That's right, Scarlett Johansson.

[1:00:05] Ms. Colin Jost.

[1:00:06] Mrs. Colin Jost.

[1:00:07] It's not future Ms. Colin Jost or Ms., but there's no Ms. Colin Jost, unless there's

[1:00:15] some kind of accident where they're going to Jeff Goldblum's lab and he's going to teleport

[1:00:20] them from one tube to another, and instead they come out mixed into one person.

[1:00:24] Then maybe it would be Ms. Colin Jost.

[1:00:25] I don't know.

[1:00:26] Is that going to happen, Dan?

[1:00:27] Is Jeff Goldblum still looking into that technology?

[1:00:29] Well, I mean, I think he sort of dissolved at a certain point, so no.

[1:00:34] That's a good point, probably.

[1:00:35] And then he just focused on piano playing after that.

[1:00:38] Yeah.

[1:00:39] Yeah.

[1:00:40] So, meanwhile, Winchell is back home.

[1:00:43] He is now super rich.

[1:00:45] He has a whole skyscraper.

[1:00:49] He has an office that is filled with fucking early 90s arcade cabinets.

[1:00:54] I could not tear my eyes away from fucking NBA Jam, Terminator 2, that game with the

[1:00:59] guns.

[1:01:00] Terminator 2.

[1:01:01] Did I miss any?

[1:01:02] That Terminator 2 game, I played it so many times in the lobby of the Lowe's movie theater

[1:01:08] in East Hanover, I guess it was.

[1:01:11] So seeing that video game, I was like, I know it well, Terminator 2 game with the two Uzi

[1:01:16] guns.

[1:01:17] I know it really well.

[1:01:18] You know, somewhere in that office, there's either an X-Men the arcade game or TMNT the

[1:01:22] arcade game.

[1:01:23] Oh, yeah, the two screens.

[1:01:24] You can play four people.

[1:01:25] What the hell?

[1:01:26] I don't even have that many friends.

[1:01:27] And I bet he's got it rigged up, too, so there's the button underneath.

[1:01:32] You just press it to give yourself extra lives whenever you want to live in the dream is

[1:01:37] Winchell at this point, although the implication is that John Lovitz is the one who plays these

[1:01:41] games.

[1:01:42] Yeah.

[1:01:43] We never see.

[1:01:44] That's true.

[1:01:45] The kid never plays them.

[1:01:46] That's you know, yeah.

[1:01:47] Lovitz is always on these games playing in the background of scenes whenever Winchell's

[1:01:50] doing his evil, evil manipulations of video.

[1:01:54] Yeah.

[1:01:55] Winchell likes the look of opulence.

[1:01:56] That's why he's got Richard Simmons playing on one of his TV monitors at all times.

[1:02:03] He's got arcade cabinets around.

[1:02:07] Winchell confuses me because he starts off as a simple newspaper man who gets on board

[1:02:13] with North because it's a great story for his school paper.

[1:02:18] But then, over time, I guess it's the Citizen Kane thing they're going for.

[1:02:22] He just grows addicted to the power.

[1:02:25] So newspaper to power is the thing, but I think there is one pretty overt Kane reference

[1:02:33] as well.

[1:02:34] But again, as a child, I would be like, why does this kid want to cause so much trouble,

[1:02:42] so much so that, I think we talked about it before, by the end of the movie he's sending

[1:02:47] people out to assassinate North.

[1:02:49] He's also the puppet master controlling this whole scheme, but we never see his parents

[1:02:55] and we have no idea.

[1:02:57] Why does he care so much about this plan of, I will destroy the parents of the world?

[1:03:07] Why does this kid care?

[1:03:08] He seems to be doing just fine.

[1:03:09] Well, and if it was a funnier movie.

[1:03:10] If he has no parents, then maybe that could be his motivation.

[1:03:13] But if it was a funnier movie, you wouldn't need that reason.

[1:03:16] It would just be like, oh, it's funny that this guy is becoming a power-mad villain,

[1:03:21] but it's not.

[1:03:22] So it would be great to know why he's doing this, other than he's that kind of older-than-his-years

[1:03:29] kid that everybody hates and ends up becoming an advisor to President Trump at some point

[1:03:35] in his life, because he wants to take it out on the world.

[1:03:39] So meanwhile, North's parents...

[1:03:41] And also, I have to say, with the casting, they were like, can you get us the next Macaulay

[1:03:45] Culkin?

[1:03:46] Okay, we'll get you a blonde kid who looks like, if you squint, he looks like a Culkin.

[1:03:49] Okay, we'll bring him in.

[1:03:50] And I will say, this kid, with the material he's given, he gives it his all.

[1:03:54] I don't know him.

[1:03:55] I don't know if he's still an actor, but I think he does a fine job considering they

[1:03:59] give him some kind of thankless material.

[1:04:01] I looked him up.

[1:04:02] He had more child roles, but this was, I mean, he did not make the transition to adult actor.

[1:04:08] He did not turn out to be Nicky Cox.

[1:04:10] So North's parents finally wake up, and Winchell's like, uh-oh, this is going to disrupt all

[1:04:15] my plans, because they want this kid back.

[1:04:18] So he interviews them, and then he takes their interview where they are pleading for their

[1:04:22] child to come back to them, and he doctors that shit, and has it sent over to the Nelsons,

[1:04:28] who were playing a very exciting game of Clue, and then they all give each other a hug before

[1:04:33] bed.

[1:04:34] And then North gets that doctored tape, and he watches it, and it is doctored to make

[1:04:39] his parents very much say things like, we don't want Hugh.

[1:04:44] We don't want Hugh.

[1:04:47] Like they clearly don't want him based on this tape, and so North is like, I don't know,

[1:04:54] my original parents don't want me, but for some reason, their not wanting me kind of

[1:04:59] makes me want them.

[1:05:00] Isn't that weird, guys?

[1:05:01] Yeah, they're negging him.

[1:05:02] Yeah.

[1:05:04] It's weird how that happens sometimes.

[1:05:06] And so the Nelsons, who are perfect in every way, they are tossed out like yesterday's

[1:05:10] trash.

[1:05:11] The thing about the Nelsons, they're supposed to be like your classic white upper middle

[1:05:17] class, tight-knit family that you see in TV shows, I guess.

[1:05:22] They're the Cleavers.

[1:05:23] They're the Cleavers, yeah.

[1:05:24] Even Ward, you know.

[1:05:25] Or to put it in my generation's parlour, they're like a real family ties, and they are presented

[1:05:33] as so objectively or subjectively perfect that it's super creepy.

[1:05:39] Like I kept waiting for the thing where it turns out that they're going to eat North

[1:05:42] or something like that, or like they're Satan worshippers.

[1:05:45] They do it so far over the board that every time John Rutter's like, well, North, I think

[1:05:51] we really want you to be a part of this family, it was just like, I don't know, this is really

[1:05:54] creepy.

[1:05:55] Of all the families, they're probably the ones that I was most scared by.

[1:05:59] But that could have been a funny joke if that's what happened, but instead, literally, like

[1:06:04] Stuart is saying, North just decides to leave, and I think they even say something like,

[1:06:09] we don't know why you're leaving, and North says, neither do I.

[1:06:13] They don't even provide an explanation, he just leaves, like you're saying.

[1:06:17] He's like, well, my parents hate me, I guess I'll go find them.

[1:06:19] The other thing about this too is like, they are trying to, I guess as Stuart was saying,

[1:06:26] comment on the perfect family you'd see on television, but the problem is making them

[1:06:32] the one perfect family, it really does underline all the other racial stereotypes, whereas

[1:06:38] North's like, here, this is what I wanted, a good old-fashioned white family like I see

[1:06:42] on TV that just sits around in the suburbs, and it's like, come on, North.

[1:06:47] A white family that plays Clue and goes to Beaucraft Amusement Park, I mean, they've

[1:06:50] got rides and games for kids of every age.

[1:06:53] But it really is, yeah, the movie is not saying like, here's our play on the perfect family,

[1:06:58] the movie is like, this is the perfect family, as opposed to all those Inuits and Africans

[1:07:04] who are crazy and weird, and it's like, eh, it's a movie, you know, come on.

[1:07:08] Winchell is not happy with this, so of course he dispatches his assassin to kill North.

[1:07:15] North gives the assassin the slip in the mean streets of New York.

[1:07:19] North has decided to go to New York, he's running out of time, so he's going to lose

[1:07:21] himself in the underbelly of the city so that the judge can't send him to an orphanage.

[1:07:26] Even New York is a stereotype.

[1:07:27] It's like, it's 1994, but it's like a stereotype of like, you know, it's like Travis Bickle

[1:07:31] is like around the corner, he's like wandering Times Square, and there's like prostitutes

[1:07:36] and like seedy porn theaters.

[1:07:37] It's like that scene in Last Action Hero where the guy gets murdered for his sneakers outside

[1:07:42] the movie theater.

[1:07:43] Exactly.

[1:07:44] Yeah.

[1:07:45] So he gives the assassin the slip, and then he just finds an I Love New York sweater on

[1:07:50] a bench in the park, and he puts that shit on immediately disguised.

[1:07:54] Well done, Agent 47.

[1:07:55] I was like, well, North hates New York, so that can't be it.

[1:08:00] So he then runs into Adam, a previously unseen kid character who's dressed as like a deep

[1:08:07] throat figure.

[1:08:09] We saw him in the background of some of the scenes with Winchell, but I don't think he

[1:08:11] was ever given a name or dialogue before this point.

[1:08:14] Right.

[1:08:15] So Adam here reveals Winchell's plan to North and hands him the original undoctored tape,

[1:08:21] but it's a VHS tape, so he's going to have to find a VCR to play that shit.

[1:08:25] And Adam has disguised himself by putting on like a top hat, right?

[1:08:28] So it's like, I've got to be conspicuous, I'll be a kid in a top hat walking around

[1:08:31] Central Park at night.

[1:08:33] Totally, totally conspicuous.

[1:08:34] I'll just be the littlest hobo.

[1:08:36] Sure.

[1:08:37] He's going to blend right in.

[1:08:38] So North then escapes on a truck while the killer chases him and shoots at him.

[1:08:45] The killer finds what appears to be a blood-covered hat, that must be North's blood, and assumes

[1:08:52] that North has been killed.

[1:08:53] Of course, North is not killed, that was Borscht squirting out of a Borscht truck that he was

[1:08:58] riding in, and he hides in a convention center where Bruce Willis shows up again doing stand-up

[1:09:04] comedy and it is just as hilarious as you would imagine.

[1:09:08] And this is another one where he's telling, the joke he's telling, it's what, it's the

[1:09:11] smoke detector?

[1:09:12] The National Association of Smoke Alarm People, NASA.

[1:09:17] And he's telling a joke about a couple having sex and then talking if they're going to smoke

[1:09:22] after sex, or like saying, do you smoke after sex?

[1:09:24] And it's like, this is the second time the word sex has been used in this kid's movie.

[1:09:28] Like what's going on here?

[1:09:29] Come on, guys.

[1:09:30] Even in the 90s, when sexual health was on everybody's lips, and it had to be because

[1:09:35] of what, you know, what the world was, it still was like, it's a little weird to have

[1:09:39] it be that joke that he's telling.

[1:09:41] They used up all of their edgy material with the two mentions of sex, which is why they

[1:09:45] had to say crack 10 times instead of smoking.

[1:09:50] So Bruce Willis lets him into his dressing room, and I'm like, oh shit, this is going

[1:09:59] to be like...

[1:10:00] like a very special episode but it's not he's cool guys

[1:10:03] it doesn't get gross

[1:10:05] and then he right because when bruce willis signed on to the movie he said

[1:10:08] well at least one of my characters turns out to be a sexual predator right

[1:10:11] because i'm not doing the movie and rob reiner said

[1:10:14] we're working with zwei bell we just can't find a way to make it work with

[1:10:17] the tone of the movie a movie where an assassin is sent after a boy and thinks

[1:10:21] that he has shot him in the head we just can't make it work for one of your

[1:10:24] characters to turn out to be a sexual predator and bruce said

[1:10:26] that's it

[1:10:27] i'm walking

[1:10:28] luckily

[1:10:30] old bruce willis from the future was there and he said

[1:10:33] i'll take the part

[1:10:34] bruce willis in competition with his future self said oh no no no i've got it

[1:10:37] i've got it i'll do it i'll do it you just wait around here old bruce willis

[1:10:40] until it's time for you to fall through the time portal again

[1:10:42] and young bruce willis played by joseph gordon levin is like what about me

[1:10:47] what about me? i was going to say this is the looper sequel we never got

[1:10:52] looper 2 super duper looper and it all takes place on the set of north

[1:10:57] do you think when ryan johnson approached bruce willis for that bruce willis was like before i

[1:11:01] agree to joseph gordon levin playing me

[1:11:03] i'm gonna need to see some of his past work and he's watching third rock from

[1:11:06] the sun and he's like i wish my hair looked like that

[1:11:10] yep that's what it was

[1:11:12] okay uh... so uh...

[1:11:14] he gets some good advice from bruce willis uh... he gets a ride to the

[1:11:18] airport unfortunately he can't fly because

[1:11:20] they've already received the newspaper and he's presumed dead so they can't let

[1:11:24] him fly

[1:11:25] uh... kids start chasing him because they realize that if he surfaces that it

[1:11:30] will ruin their new world order

[1:11:33] uh... and then he ends up on a fedex truck with another bruce willis

[1:11:37] this was i think the laziest of the bruce willis' to have this bruce willis

[1:11:40] show up at the end but then when he's dropped off at home it's not bruce willis

[1:11:43] it's a completely different guy

[1:11:45] yes

[1:11:46] yeah he gets on one fedex truck and is driven there and then he gets off and it's

[1:11:50] another driver that was very strange i didn't understand that at all

[1:11:54] i mean put that down in goofs dan on the imdb i'll goof it up

[1:11:58] so he gets delivered to his parents house he arrives at his parents house and his

[1:12:02] family is not there

[1:12:03] instead he runs into winchell and they have this kind of showdown where you

[1:12:07] kind of see

[1:12:08] how much they've changed since their paths have diverged

[1:12:11] it's like in that dan abnett novel riders of the dead where the two cousins

[1:12:15] go to war and then after a disastrous battle one of them ends up spending time

[1:12:20] with some kislevite horse lancers

[1:12:22] and uh... some winged lancers and he kind of realized actually the truth of

[1:12:27] being noble and fighting it's not all just like this

[1:12:30] uh... like the fancy armor and weapons it's actually you know honor and whatnot

[1:12:34] whereas his cousin gets captured by the the barbarian tribes of the north

[1:12:38] and he becomes a worshiper of zinch the changer of ways the great deceiver

[1:12:43] and he gains all these mutations and he becomes this powerful chaos lord

[1:12:46] only to die at his cousin's blade at the very end it's amazing

[1:12:49] it's basically the plot of manhattan melodrama

[1:12:53] so uh... he then realized that in order to reunite with his parents he has to go

[1:12:58] i got a little confused here it's weird winchell tells him

[1:13:02] you have to go

[1:13:03] to where your parents are at your special spot and the judge had said your

[1:13:06] parents have to hug you

[1:13:08] when the deadline reaches i actually didn't remember him saying this earlier

[1:13:12] but it's like you have to be in your parents arms

[1:13:14] when the deadline reaches or else you have to go to the orphanage and i don't know

[1:13:17] why winchell is like he's kind of like taunting him a little bit but i don't

[1:13:21] know why he is

[1:13:22] i don't know why winchell is telling him this thing like in a movie where none of

[1:13:25] it makes sense this is the scene that made the least sense to me

[1:13:27] where it's as if the villain is like

[1:13:29] i give up here's what you need to know to win goodbye he's trying to set him up

[1:13:34] he's trying to get him to run out there and get blasted by his assassin

[1:13:38] he's got his assassin but tell him to go somewhere where his parents aren't and send the assassin

[1:13:42] after him exactly cover your bases winchell he wants his parents to see him get blasted

[1:13:46] it's pretty normal

[1:13:48] and winchell is just in a corner masturbating at watching parents seeing their child die

[1:13:52] because he's that evil

[1:13:54] that's that was the subtext uh... so he's that evil and also he's that age when he

[1:13:58] cannot keep his hand off his dick he's just discovered it and he just cannot get

[1:14:01] enough of it yeah who needs an arcade stick when he's got a stick of his own to play with

[1:14:06] so he's about to reunite with his stick

[1:14:09] an arcade stick

[1:14:12] that's what those are called i don't know why in that horrible thing you just said

[1:14:15] that's what really got to me it was probably an arcade stick

[1:14:18] i also like the idea that he's already got a video game salami why not hit his own you know

[1:14:23] they do totally different things but i guess once you start masturbating anything that

[1:14:29] is like vaguely penis shaped goes out the window you're like who needs this i can't

[1:14:33] i mean i mean i mean maybe there is a joystick that works with an up and down motion on the

[1:14:38] shaft of the stick i don't know most of them you kind of push forward and pull back but

[1:14:41] oh man i don't know

[1:14:43] matt's looking for an exit

[1:14:48] so he's just about to reunite with his parents they got to go in for that legal hug when

[1:14:54] the hitman is waiting and he shoots and that gunshot wakes north up from his sleep he was

[1:15:02] just dreaming he's sitting in that giant chair that he was sitting at earlier he had clearly

[1:15:08] fallen asleep after his talk or possibly before the talk i don't care with bruce willis

[1:15:14] before and he realized this whole movie that you watch was all a dream all that racist

[1:15:19] shit that's in his head i mean yeah i mean the fact is if a little kid doesn't know only

[1:15:25] knows what the media has told him about types of people that he has not himself encountered

[1:15:29] so maybe that is an excuse for the racism in the movie that this kid is actually racist

[1:15:33] it's not and that rob reiner should run out at that point on screen and say see it's not

[1:15:37] me who's racist it's north who's racist i mean sure i thought his story was something

[1:15:42] that needed to be told for some reason even though there's barely any like personal development

[1:15:47] by anyone in it it's just somebody then the moral is i guess be happy with what you have

[1:15:52] yeah and he's like anyway it's like when bruce when brad pitt reads beats up bruce lee and

[1:15:56] once upon a time in hollywood it was that character's fantasy it isn't actually intended

[1:16:01] to be real yeah yeah yeah uh except that that's the reason but then why would his fantasy

[1:16:06] does he wreck that lady's car which hurts his career i don't understand stewart hold

[1:16:10] on a second because he needs it he needs to justify why his career is wrecked by things

[1:16:15] that are not direct or kind of his fault but also kind of cool right okay now how do you

[1:16:20] explain the fact that they continue to torture the the manson family even after the manson

[1:16:24] family have long stopped being a threat and are now the victims of what leonardo dicaprio

[1:16:27] and brad pitt are doing i'm not excusing the whole movie well i mean rob reiner's not excusing

[1:16:33] the whole movie i know that this woman is now blind and is drowning in a pool leonardo

[1:16:39] caprio did not need to set her on fire as well but look it's leonardo caprio who's mean

[1:16:44] not quentin tarantino certainly this he doesn't approve of everything his characters do for

[1:16:49] her for our more sensitive listeners let me assure you that stewart is deep in the well

[1:16:55] of irony right now yeah okay uh so bruce willis is there and he's like oh this kid's still

[1:17:03] sleeping i guess i'll give him a ride home uh and north sees his parents they're happy

[1:17:07] to see another another another moment where stewart was worried this might become a a

[1:17:11] very special episode but he just gives him a ride on it's okay again bruce willis's desire

[1:17:15] in this ironic fantasy joke to be a sexual predator on film is not borne out thank you

[1:17:20] everyone for your restraint again this is not something i'm saying the real bruce willis

[1:17:25] wants is something that this fictional version of bruce willis that we've created purely

[1:17:29] for the existence of a bit that's what he wants anyway so rob reiner runs out in the

[1:17:33] podcast now and goes it's not it's not the flop house hosts who are gross it's this fictional

[1:17:38] version of bruce willis anyway go see the american president it'll have to last you

[1:17:46] the next few decades because i'm not gonna make anything else good i'm gonna look up

[1:17:50] his movies and see what see if there's any i mean he made like primary no he didn't make

[1:17:54] that that's mike nichols never mind uh so credits credits roll baby everybody's happy

[1:17:59] there you go that's an okay movie oh no he's in it never mind he didn't direct it got sorry

[1:18:04] continue okay so that's the end of the movie that's the whole thing north gets back with

[1:18:08] his family he realizes mistake all along hugs his parents and that's the end they they miss

[1:18:13] him because of because of course they would he's been gone all day and he gets the wrong

[1:18:18] message which is when he needs their attention he just needs to disappear for a while so

[1:18:22] okay the last rob reiner movie that i have any memory of existing is the bucket list

[1:18:29] in 2007 i forgot that was a rob reiner now let let us let us go through his next one two three

[1:18:36] four five six seven movies and i'll ask you whether you have any memory or knowledge of

[1:18:42] this movie there's a movie called flipped in 2010. gotta assume it's about house buying and selling

[1:18:47] uh yeah or some kind of parkour championship oh there's i was gonna say it's like the flipper

[1:18:52] reboot yeah yeah flipper's cool now he's flipped there's a tv movie called eight then there's the

[1:18:59] magic of bell eight and a half yes before the the whole movie is is is is martell must be only

[1:19:06] trying to find a half uh it's a movie about uh california's proposition eight uh okay but uh

[1:19:13] we got the magic of bell isle that has uh morgan freeman in it do not recall don't know that this

[1:19:19] this feels like a movie that a poster that would be in the background of a movie where

[1:19:23] morgan freeman plays an actor yeah like i don't i don't know there's a i don't know anything about

[1:19:27] it there's a film called and so it goes big stars here michael douglas and diane keaton

[1:19:34] do not recall this film being charlie um and then what do we got after being charlie we got lbj

[1:19:43] and shock and awe wait is being charlie the sequel to that uh charade remake that

[1:19:48] jonathan demme made the truth about charlie yeah they're unrelated it's uh i do vaguely

[1:19:54] remember this lbj lbj toronto when it came out woody harrelson is in it so that one i

[1:20:00] have vaguely heard of the rest you could have made them all up and i would have

[1:20:04] had no idea being charlie sounds like the next iteration of charlie kaufman

[1:20:07] square we just make a movies about him himself

[1:20:10] just completely

[1:20:11] he's like i'm not even under pretending the movie is about anything else is no

[1:20:14] more of us yeah yeah there's nothing

[1:20:17] anyway let's all remember rob reiner's early movies and uh... remember and

[1:20:20] fondly was but forget here's the thing that

[1:20:23] the end of this movie

[1:20:24] so this is a big comedy movie right lots of lots of gags lots of jokes you'd

[1:20:27] expect it to end on some kind of a big joke

[1:20:30] it ends on like

[1:20:31] the the nearest whimper of literally you're looking at their

[1:20:35] house and you hear them go

[1:20:37] okay north get into your pajamas we'll make you something to eat north goes okay

[1:20:40] and that's the end of the movie

[1:20:42] like fade to black fade to black it was like

[1:20:45] did they i was watching it and i was like did they lose the end of the movie

[1:20:49] like did they lose the last five seconds i also feel like

[1:20:52] uh... like jason alexander like he delivers the final and i don't remember

[1:20:57] what exactly it is but

[1:20:58] he delivers it as if he thinks that there's more to come like what he does

[1:21:03] yeah realizes the end

[1:21:05] yeah i just got trailing off

[1:21:07] not not quite as expecting a big moment like kevin mccallister shoveling dirt

[1:21:11] on the grave of the web and it's

[1:21:13] like at the end of home alone

[1:21:15] yeah like the original ending of home alone where the parents drive up just as kevin is

[1:21:19] burying the man x-rated cut that only played in europe

[1:21:23] just like when i was a kid and everyone was like oh yeah there's an

[1:21:26] r-rated wiley coyote cartoon where he catches the roadrunner and kills him

[1:21:29] and i was like i gotta see this cartoon

[1:21:31] turns out it doesn't exist as why would you make it that's not the point of the

[1:21:34] wiley coyote cartoons he would catch him eventually

[1:21:37] you know what you're talking about they're dumb

[1:21:38] you actually found that videotape and then a boulder fell on top of your head

[1:21:43] well i mean yeah

[1:21:45] i saw the roadrunner run into the video store where the tape was and i ran after him

[1:21:48] but it was just painted on a rock so i just flattened against it

[1:21:51] not the country a rock

[1:21:52] but the uh... you know uh...

[1:21:54] okay well let's do our final judgments whether this is a good bad movie a bad

[1:21:58] bad movie or a movie

[1:22:00] you kinda like uh...

[1:22:02] at the beginning i almost thought oh maybe this is a good bad movie because

[1:22:05] like

[1:22:07] first i don't know like this is a short movie it's less than ninety minutes long

[1:22:11] although it feels interminable like the first thirty minutes i'm like oh i could

[1:22:15] see

[1:22:17] enjoying this is a good bad movie just because it is so

[1:22:20] poorly calculated like you're kind of baffled that it exists

[1:22:24] but then like it gets both more offensive and just more boring

[1:22:29] uh... and you know i was having

[1:22:32] a lot of trouble paying attention by the end so i would not recommend anyone watch

[1:22:36] this it's bad bad

[1:22:37] uh...

[1:22:38] anyone else raring to go

[1:22:40] uh... no i would also call it a bad bad movie it's not very good

[1:22:45] yeah i mean i had

[1:22:46] i don't know like it was i was not particularly enjoying it

[1:22:50] uh... and then

[1:22:51] he got to texas and i'm like

[1:22:53] okay maybe we're gonna see some actors that i have affection for doing some

[1:22:57] kind of fun stuff

[1:22:59] and then it all went down it all got worse so no thanks

[1:23:04] it takes a it takes a very steep drop it doesn't start from a high point but

[1:23:07] after those yeah those first twenty minutes it takes a very very steep drop

[1:23:11] and then i don't know about you guys but when when he wakes up at the end and it's

[1:23:15] all a dream like i get actively angry like uh...

[1:23:20] but he does find in his pocket the magic coin that cowboy bruce willis gave to

[1:23:25] him which otherwise plays almost no role in the entire movie so that's right maybe

[1:23:29] it wasn't all a dream although clearly it was it doesn't make any sense i don't

[1:23:33] understand i do think i do think it is kind of funny because it is all a dream

[1:23:37] like when you look at it again when you re-watch it you're like okay so this

[1:23:41] what actually happens in this movie is

[1:23:43] this self

[1:23:44] pitying overachiever

[1:23:47] has uh... one bad dinner

[1:23:49] he goes to the mall he takes a nap and he goes home that is the sum total of the events of this movie

[1:23:54] he takes a nap and everybody just walks by this sleeping kid and is like

[1:23:59] fuck it

[1:24:00] they close the mall around him

[1:24:03] we're turning off all the lights

[1:24:04] easter bunny bruce willis you're gonna lock up when you go tonight from the mall yeah yeah i'll go

[1:24:09] don't disturb the unattended child who's sleeping in the mall let's leave him be

[1:24:14] don't turn on the shopping mall robots tonight

[1:24:16] yeah

[1:24:18] when i worked in a mall we did have that rule

[1:24:21] if there's any children sleeping in your store you have to let them continue

[1:24:25] because you know children are like sleepwalkers if you wake them up it could kill them you just have to let children sleep as long as you can

[1:24:30] wait is that

[1:24:31] is that what would happen to the guy who falls asleep and then becomes sleepwalker

[1:24:35] the superhero

[1:24:36] no when he falls asleep it allows sleepwalker the superhero to enter the waking world

[1:24:40] but what if you wake him up does he die or does sleepwalker die

[1:24:44] i think sleepwalker just gets pulled back into the dream world so he doesn't die

[1:24:48] what would happen to the sleepwalkers from the movie sleepwalkers

[1:24:52] i mean they do die eventually that's true

[1:24:55] well we all die eventually elliot i'm also not sure why they're called sleepwalkers

[1:24:59] since they're cat people so it doesn't

[1:25:00] uh... they play that song sleepwalk a lot in the movie

[1:25:05] uh... i don't know if that's why they got their name

[1:25:07] monsters are often their names are denoted by what classic

[1:25:13] instrumental rock they play

[1:25:16] i think it's because they were like can we be cat people and they're like nope

[1:25:20] no we can't call them cat people there are already movies called that

[1:25:23] uh... this is a movie that to be honest a movie about a kid who

[1:25:28] is mad at their parents goes and takes a nap and then comes back that's basically

[1:25:32] the movie little fugitive which is a great movie

[1:25:34] like that's a fantastic movie

[1:25:37] and but it's a movie about a kid wandering around like coney island

[1:25:41] basically and then returning home and it's like

[1:25:44] i wish they'd made that movie but instead they filled it with all the

[1:25:47] the whimsical stuff but here's the thing north sometimes gets a rough shake and i

[1:25:50] just want to point out

[1:25:52] on the goofs section of north's imdb page it says factual errors

[1:25:56] despite providing an extensive definition of borscht the movie fails to

[1:25:59] acknowledge the fact that it's a soup so it's mostly liquid and unsuitable for

[1:26:03] distribution via cartons

[1:26:06] i'm sure inside those boxes there were cans of borscht so let's take out

[1:26:10] somebody go on imdb and say this is incorrectly labeled as a goof

[1:26:13] this is a perfectly good explanation for why you would have

[1:26:15] crates of borscht because inside the crate

[1:26:17] there's borscht in some other container it's not like

[1:26:19] cans of soup are just delivered in enormous cans

[1:26:23] you have boxes of cans of soup plus it's all a dream anyway so as far as north

[1:26:28] knows again anything that's bad you can just blame north in the movie so north

[1:26:33] doesn't understand the concept of borscht

[1:26:35] every one of these goofs like for here it says

[1:26:38] when north's alaskan family is walking their grandfather to the shore the

[1:26:41] ceiling of the studio of the scene is filmed in his dream

[1:26:45] it's north's dream in his dream it was taking place in the studio it's all north's dream

[1:26:49] he thought alaska had a ceiling north was an idiot what can you say

[1:26:53] errors in geography when north is being chased to a new york airport he passes a neon eagle

[1:26:56] on the wall the seagull is in the los angeles airport north doesn't know airport signs it's

[1:27:00] north's dream rob reiner jumps out on the imdb page it's north blame north i'm fine

[1:27:05] it's i didn't make the mistakes north did

[1:27:07] yeah all my critiques about

[1:27:10] i think rob reiner just sent me a text that says

[1:27:12] all the critiques about bruce willis' accent are bullshit

[1:27:15] that's how north believes he talks

[1:27:19] i love the idea of the director thanks for the text i better respond to him

[1:27:23] a director saying the movie is all a dream so that he can blame the character

[1:27:26] for the problems of the movie like we did the best with what we could we were

[1:27:29] stuck with north's dumb dream okay we tried to make it into a good movie

[1:27:34] blame north

[1:27:35] you try to make a movie out of a ten-year-old's dream it's not easy

[1:27:38] it's not easy

[1:27:40] it's not easy

[1:27:50] we have wasted

[1:27:52] this world

[1:27:53] our magic put a storm in the sky that has rendered the surface of our planet

[1:27:57] uninhabitable

[1:28:00] beneath the surface

[1:28:02] well that's another story entirely

[1:28:05] in a city built leagues below the apocalypse survivors of the storm

[1:28:09] forge paths through a strange new world

[1:28:12] some seek salvation for their homeland above

[1:28:15] others seek to chart the vast undersea expanse outside the city's walls

[1:28:20] and others still seek

[1:28:22] what else?

[1:28:23] fortune and glory

[1:28:25] dive into the ether sea

[1:28:27] the latest campaign from the adventure zone

[1:28:29] every other thursday on maximumfun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts

[1:28:36] the twenty twenty one pin sale has begun

[1:28:39] thank you so much to everyone who participated in the max fun drive

[1:28:43] this is the last year for a while that we'll be doing pins for max fun drive

[1:28:46] and the fifth year that we'll be selling pins and donating all proceeds to charity

[1:28:51] the past year proved what we already knew

[1:28:53] that having access to the internet at home is a necessity for work

[1:28:57] school

[1:28:58] health care

[1:28:59] and keeping in touch with family and friends so the proceeds from this year's

[1:29:02] pin sale will go towards everyone on a non-profit working to bridge the digital

[1:29:07] divide we're grateful that with your support we'll be able to help low-income

[1:29:11] folks gain access to affordable computers internet services and digital

[1:29:15] literacy programs the sale will run until may twenty eighth folks at the ten

[1:29:20] dollar monthly level and above will have access to all of the pins from the drive

[1:29:24] that's thirty eight pins one from every show on the network we also have a

[1:29:28] special twenty twenty one max fun drive pin that all members can purchase go to

[1:29:32] maximum fun dot org slash pin sale for more info and to learn more about

[1:29:37] everyone on and support them directly you can go to everyone on dot org

[1:29:47] the flop house is sponsored in part by square space with square space you can

[1:29:53] turn your cool idea into a new website you can blog or publish content you can

[1:29:58] sell products and services of all

[1:30:00] kinds and much much more. And Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful

[1:30:04] customizable templates created by world-class designers

[1:30:08] with everything optimized for mobile right out of the box

[1:30:11] a new way to buy domains and choose from over 200 extensions

[1:30:15] and free and secure hosting. So

[1:30:19] go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial

[1:30:23] and when you're ready to launch use the offer code flop

[1:30:26] to save 10% off your first purchase of a website

[1:30:30] or domain. Hey Dan, I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if Squarespace

[1:30:34] would be able to help me

[1:30:35] with setting it up. I bet they would but

[1:30:38] lay it on me. I bet they could do. It's called aremykidsdreamsracist.com

[1:30:42] and it would be your place on the internet where for a small fee or maybe

[1:30:46] a membership, maybe it's a membership in case your kids have a lot of dreams

[1:30:48] you would type up a description of your kids dreams

[1:30:52] you would send it to our dream analysis experts and they would tell you

[1:30:55] whether your kid has, you know, whether there's some

[1:30:59] subconscious is not treating people like equals the way they should or is

[1:31:03] churning through kind of outdated or offensive cultural stereotypes

[1:31:08] and ethnic stereotypes. So we would share these dreams

[1:31:11] around the office and laugh at them like can you believe how racist this kid is but

[1:31:15] you don't have to worry about that. It's never gonna come out in public

[1:31:17] that's just the kind of stuff any place that looks at personal, you know, if you don't

[1:31:20] think that the people who

[1:31:21] are developing your photos at the mall

[1:31:24] aren't looking at your pictures and laughing at them. Of course they are.

[1:31:28] So that's aremykidsdreamsracist.com

[1:31:31] and it's probably going to be brought to you by

[1:31:34] Mattel. So do you think

[1:31:38] Squarespace would be able to make that into a website?

[1:31:41] Probably. I mean it's an interesting

[1:31:44] pivot for Mattel but yeah. They've been wanting to move out of the toy space into

[1:31:49] the kids psychology space

[1:31:51] for quite some time.

[1:31:54] I haven't pitched it to Mattel yet but I figured I'd get the website up and running slap their

[1:31:57] name on it and see if they have a problem with it.

[1:32:00] Yeah. Stewart, I mean it's better to ask for forgiveness than

[1:32:04] beg for permission, right? Exactly, yeah. I believe, Stewart, you have a Jumbotron to

[1:32:09] read then

[1:32:09] Elliot has one as well. What's that coming from the sky? It's a

[1:32:12] JoJo JoJo Jumbotron. I can hear that Jumbotron siren in the background.

[1:32:18] Okay,

[1:32:21] Stewart and Stephanie is a scripted narrative podcast that reverses the

[1:32:27] gay best friend trope, exploring the friendship between a hopelessly single

[1:32:31] straight man

[1:32:32] and an impulsive gay woman as they navigate the world of modern dating.

[1:32:37] It's like a reverse Will and Grace except it's not on TV

[1:32:41] and you can only listen to it. If nothing else,

[1:32:45] fans of The Flophouse will enjoy how the name reminds them

[1:32:49] of Stewart Wellington. I know I'm excited about it so

[1:32:53] search for Stewart and Stephanie on iTunes

[1:32:56] and subscribe. And Elliot,

[1:33:00] I believe you have a personal Jumbotron. I've got a very personal Jumbotron.

[1:33:05] This is a message for Joel and it's from Will and the message is

[1:33:08] happy birthday Joel from Will. Thank you for being my brother and for making it

[1:33:12] through a rough 2020

[1:33:14] and thank you for introducing me to this podcast which has helped us both

[1:33:16] understand our personalities.

[1:33:18] I'm a Dan, you're an Elliot, and we're both aspiring Stewarts.

[1:33:21] Dune Tom Brokaw forever. And in case you're a Joel and you have a brother

[1:33:25] who's named Will and you're not sure if this is for you or not,

[1:33:27] Joel's birthday is May 24th so

[1:33:30] if you're a Joel who has a brother named Will and your birthday is May 24th

[1:33:34] then happy birthday from your brother.

[1:33:37] Happy birthday. Y'all got any personal plugs before we move the show along?

[1:33:43] Hey guys, Maniac of New York continues its rampage through the comic book stores and

[1:33:48] also the streets of

[1:33:49] fictional New York and by streets I mean subway system. Maniac of New York

[1:33:52] number four should be on store shelves now if it hasn't sold out yet

[1:33:55] and number five, the final issue of this first

[1:33:59] series comes out on June 9th and then

[1:34:02] maybe there will be more in the future. So that's

[1:34:05] number five on June 9th and then maybe more in the future.

[1:34:09] Maniac of New York from Aftershock Comics. It's

[1:34:12] a comic. Go buy it in the comic book store. Yeah, it's great.

[1:34:15] That's it. That's all my plugs.

[1:34:19] Okay, well let's

[1:34:23] move on to letters from listeners.

[1:34:26] Listeners like you. Hey,

[1:34:30] how you doing? Oh, you know. It's me, Dan McCoy. Oh, cool.

[1:34:33] Loser. Letters. Okay. Rich,

[1:34:38] last name withheld, writes. What was that about?

[1:34:42] Why was Dan's letter intro so awkward? There was something creepy about what

[1:34:47] just happened

[1:34:48] or am I wrong? Was I alone in feeling like Dan was being kinda weird with

[1:34:54] the letters? Is it possible Dan slept with the letters

[1:34:58] and now things are kind of weird between them but he's trying to play it off

[1:35:03] by seeming like it's not weird, like he's not awkward but becomes more

[1:35:07] awkward because it is awkward. Dan, I think you gotta tell us what happened

[1:35:12] between you and the letters.

[1:35:14] Letter segment. Thank you.

[1:35:17] So moving on to the letters. This is Rich, last name withheld,

[1:35:20] who writes. So we have a general rule in our house. If you want to recount an

[1:35:25] interesting dream you've had, you need to do it in 30 seconds or less.

[1:35:30] Otherwise it just turns into a sequence of sentences like

[1:35:33] so I was in your house but it wasn't really your house,

[1:35:37] etc. For example, I had a dream this week I was watching televised curling

[1:35:42] but the name of the sport had been changed from curling to Jonathan Frakes.

[1:35:46] They even had Jonathan Frakes doing color commentary

[1:35:49] leading to sentences like if they want to keep the hammer

[1:35:53] they really need to Jonathan Frakes that into you

[1:35:57] Jonathan Frakes. What is

[1:36:00] your most memorable celebrity-based dream that can be recounted

[1:36:04] while staying within the 30 seconds of interest rule.

[1:36:07] Thanks for being a bright light in my life during an otherwise awful year.

[1:36:11] Rich, last name withheld. I forget dreams right away

[1:36:16] and you guys may as well so I

[1:36:19] you know if you can't remember any

[1:36:22] I would say probably the one that springs to mind is

[1:36:26] the most recent which obviously is gonna be

[1:36:29] walk into dangerous horny territory because you know pandemic and everything

[1:36:34] but there was a there's a there's a

[1:36:37] well explain how the explain how those concepts are related

[1:36:40] I don't know that you know

[1:36:42] viruses horn Stewart up

[1:36:45] it's one of the side effects of COVID

[1:36:49] Mr. President there's a new COVID variant that makes people intensely horny

[1:36:54] I'm just trying to blame it's like Rob Reiner blaming everything on a kid

[1:36:57] Rob Reiner jumps out it's Stewart's dream everybody don't blame him

[1:37:01] I'm a good guy, I'm liberal, come on!

[1:37:06] but there's a picture going around the internet a little bit ago

[1:37:12] of Glenn Howerton and Christina Hendricks

[1:37:16] that is very horny and I don't know

[1:37:19] seeing it a couple times just burned in my brain I had this very intense dream

[1:37:23] where Christina Hendricks kept touching me and I was like

[1:37:26] ma'am ma'am what is happening

[1:37:29] so that was my most recent celebrity dream

[1:37:35] Stewart signing off

[1:37:38] from the world or?

[1:37:42] yeah I I've been trying to wreck my brain I don't have one if you guys don't we

[1:37:45] can move along but I just wanted to get that I liked the Jonathan Frakes curling

[1:37:48] I'll admit that that was the

[1:37:50] primary enjoyment from the letter for me

[1:37:54] these days I forget my dreams pretty much as soon as I wake up too but there

[1:37:58] celebrity dreams I guess that I remember one is just I remember

[1:38:02] dreaming that I'd somehow become the head writer for a show hosted by Milo

[1:38:05] Yiannopoulos

[1:38:06] and he was yelling at me where's the script and I was like I hate you why am

[1:38:09] I working on this show

[1:38:11] how did I get into this how why would I ever agree to work on this

[1:38:15] and the other was actually had a dream last night the night before recording

[1:38:18] this

[1:38:18] where a where a certain comedian who has been who is

[1:38:23] whose offset behavior had gotten him canceled but who

[1:38:27] previously had a done a you know big TV show and stuff like that

[1:38:31] he had decided that he needed to make a movie that was his statement on race

[1:38:34] relations in America

[1:38:35] and it was me watching the movie being like nobody needed this

[1:38:39] why did he why are people in this movie why did he why do you feel the need to

[1:38:42] make this movie

[1:38:43] and everything about the movie was super tone-deaf and so

[1:38:46] I guess I only have dreams about celebrities who are problematic

[1:38:49] celebrities

[1:38:49] I don't wanna I don't wanna deal with and they show up in my dreams so don't blame me

[1:38:53] Rob Reiner help me with this don't blame me it's my dream

[1:38:57] yeah you process all your problematic faves through your dream

[1:39:00] these strange dreams yeah I mean otherwise my dreams I remember seem to

[1:39:04] be me

[1:39:04] hanging out with people I haven't talked to in a long time and as almost like my

[1:39:08] subconscious reminding me like these are friends of yours and you should get in

[1:39:10] touch with them what are you doing

[1:39:11] you haven't talked to them in a long time which is a handy thing for a dream to do you know

[1:39:15] thank you I'm not I don't remember my dreams these days very much either so I

[1:39:20] I don't

[1:39:21] I the only I don't think he counts the spider-man count as a celebrity

[1:39:25] I have dreams I think so okay okay

[1:39:28] yeah I do have spider-man dreams

[1:39:33] I do sometimes have dreams that involve spider-man and like swinging around with

[1:39:36] spider-man

[1:39:37] still to this day so you're not spider-man but you're like friends with spider-man

[1:39:40] no I'm like his sidekick that's amazing

[1:39:43] I'm me but I can swing with him oh awesome

[1:39:47] do you have a costume or you're just wearing street clothes street clothes

[1:39:50] okay but I have web shooters yeah I mean that's amazing that sounds like a great dream I'd love to have that

[1:39:55] they are very pleasurable dreams when they happen I have far too many dreams

[1:39:58] where I am doing a

[1:40:00] that I haven't done in years and the work needs to be done right away

[1:40:03] and I don't have it ready like that's most to the dreams I remember yeah

[1:40:07] yeah I mean I used to have bartender stress dreams all the time where it's like four

[1:40:11] in the morning and people keep coming in and I'm like no we're closing but they

[1:40:14] don't listen

[1:40:15] it's basically the movie mother but

[1:40:18] played out in my dreams. That's the part that the scariest part for me in the movie mother is

[1:40:24] when she keeps telling him not to sit on that sink and I keep sitting on it and it breaks off the wall

[1:40:28] makes me so I got so this so tense the same way that this the scariest part in

[1:40:33] the movie phone booth to me is when he's in the phone booth and he's on the phone

[1:40:36] and there are people outside the booth trying yelling at him and it's like my

[1:40:39] attention is being pulled in too many directions at once this is very

[1:40:41] stressful

[1:40:42] yeah yeah man well we have another letter and it's from Chris last name

[1:40:48] withheld

[1:40:49] mm-hmm who writes games Garth Brooks alter-ego dear Chris Maloney

[1:40:55] dear time-traveling Dan McCoy I'm a donor and playing an old episode I was

[1:41:00] surprised to be accused of trying to skip the maximum fun drive pitch

[1:41:04] especially since I was listening to an episode from an old maximum fun drive

[1:41:08] not only did you fail to catch me on an actual attempt to skip out of the pitch

[1:41:12] you unfairly subjected me to extra time travel power should only be used for

[1:41:17] good never for evil

[1:41:19] would you like to apologize for treating me so poorly of course this is in

[1:41:23] reference to we did some dynamic insertions before our old episodes who

[1:41:29] Matt is doing some face face takes these ways it it just means that we put in old

[1:41:37] reminders and old programs about the drive but I would like to take this

[1:41:42] opportunity yes to apologize to you a dedicated supporter for the accusation

[1:41:47] and thank everyone again for their their their support of the network and

[1:41:54] of our show in particular but I'm I'm sorry Chris you got caught up in my net

[1:42:01] of danger and intrigue

[1:42:05] yeah I don't know why did the sentence so I just I just went on

[1:42:14] all right well now let us recommend some movies to you things that will

[1:42:19] almost certainly be more rewarding than watching North I haven't watched

[1:42:23] anything that like I I loved lately I you know I was watching a lot of stuff

[1:42:28] that I'm like oh this you know this appeals to me as my interest like I

[1:42:33] watched that Liam Neeson movie honestly if I'm like I'm not expecting a lot out

[1:42:38] of the late period Liam Neeson action movie and I got it

[1:42:42] honestly but so I'm gonna go further back to something I didn't watch

[1:42:48] recently but I remember loving and that is out of the past the classic film noir

[1:42:54] it's got Robert Mitchum Robert Mitchum Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas what a

[1:43:00] cast directed by Jacques Turner who did cat people which was invoked earlier in

[1:43:07] the episode I walked with a zombie great director a very poetic feeling film noir

[1:43:14] if that's your sort of thing Stuart why don't you give a recommendation sure I'm

[1:43:20] gonna recommend a movie that was kind of partially recommended when we had Barbara

[1:43:26] Crampton on I just watched her new movie Jacob's wife which is a vampire movie

[1:43:31] kind of a like a suburban monster story kind of a play on Salem's Lot or Fright

[1:43:38] Night with like a kind of a splash of the Santa Clarita diet thrown in there

[1:43:44] and Barbara Crampton is the lead and her husband is played by Larry Fessenden and

[1:43:51] they're both great and Barbara gives a great performance if you like kind of

[1:43:56] small but also kind of bloody thoughtful horror movies give it a shot I I posted a

[1:44:03] dumb picture of me pretending to talk to a big cartoon of Donald Duck on the

[1:44:10] Flophouse face the Flophouse Instagram story and Barbara Crampton replied to it

[1:44:17] with a little laughing emoji so I'm glad that she continues to follow and check

[1:44:24] in doesn't seem to regret it yet yeah I'm glad and I'm glad that her new movie

[1:44:28] has been getting such good reviews Elliot what do you have I'm gonna

[1:44:33] recommend speaking of bad parents like in North I'm gonna recommend a movie

[1:44:37] about a real bad dad as regular listeners may know I am still hip deep

[1:44:42] in the Criterion Channel's check new wave collection of movies took a break

[1:44:47] to watch a different movie that was not a check new wave movie that was a

[1:44:50] mistake so I ran right back to my beloved check new wave and I want to

[1:44:54] recommend the cremator directed by George hers and I pronounce the names

[1:44:59] and starring Rudolf Krasinski and this is a movie set in Prague in the 30s the

[1:45:05] movie is from 1969 but it's set in Prague in the 30s where this cremator

[1:45:09] the guy's a professional crematorium worker he is slowly losing his mind as

[1:45:16] he becomes obsessed with this kind of strange combination of Tibetan Buddhism

[1:45:20] and Nazism as the Nazi Party is emerging as more and more of a force and

[1:45:25] threatening the country more and more and it's a very Alfred Hitchcock II type

[1:45:29] of movie as this guy descends into violent madness under the influence of

[1:45:36] these things believing the whole time that he is really doing the best that he

[1:45:41] can to protect his family which leans to horrifying results for everybody but

[1:45:46] it's a really cool-looking movie it's super creepy and super suspenseful kind

[1:45:52] of from moment one like there's a lot of movies where there's suspense scenes and

[1:45:56] and creep scenes and then kind of like breathers and this one is not it's just

[1:46:01] it's just straight creepy for the entire two hours and I thought it was really

[1:46:06] good it's a movie that Czechoslovakia entered for the Academy Awards for best

[1:46:10] foreign language but it was not accepted as a nominee probably because it was too

[1:46:14] scary so that's the cremator and Matt as a professional film critic you get

[1:46:21] the headliner slot would you like to recommend actually my not legally

[1:46:28] allowed to recommend Jim Carter but okay well let me hold on let me find

[1:46:32] something else really quick my my recommendation I also watched on the

[1:46:38] Criterion Channel but a very different movie it is multiple maniacs which is

[1:46:44] John Waters first I don't think it's his first movie but it's like his first

[1:46:48] sound feature with like sync sound and everything I had never seen it I'm a

[1:46:53] John Waters fan and I saw that on there and it's great it's a little rough

[1:46:59] around the edges but I mean that's kind of it's not the glossy polished corporate

[1:47:05] product we expect from general exactly exactly so yes but I mean in his movies

[1:47:11] that always you know that that adds a lovely texture and this one I mean it's

[1:47:15] it's it's a variation on a theme it's sort of a kind of a kind of a dry run

[1:47:21] for pink flamingos and in some ways and divine is the star and is great and it's

[1:47:26] just you know it is the the shock trash kind of stuff you you want from John

[1:47:32] Waters and I just thought it was quite horrifying and delightful and I don't

[1:47:38] want to spoil the end of the movie but a giant lobster is involved just randomly

[1:47:43] out of nowhere which I thought was really really wonderful so yeah I was

[1:47:47] like this is totally awesome if you like John Waters movies and you've never seen

[1:47:50] it it's totally it's very much on par with all of his other great stuff so

[1:47:56] yeah it's on and it's on Criterion Channel and it looks amazing like

[1:48:00] apparently the I remember like the movie was very hard to find for years

[1:48:03] and years because it was so obscure and he made it like on I think 16 millimeter

[1:48:08] like and just supposedly for like decades like the movie was like sitting

[1:48:13] in his attic or something and the Criterion Collection restored it it

[1:48:17] looks like astonishingly good for that sort of thing and sounds really good and

[1:48:22] yeah it's really it's a it's a fun time on the Criterion Channel so yeah multiple

[1:48:27] maniacs nice and that was that was start that was doing the groundbreaking

[1:48:31] work that eventually led to 10,000 maniacs they just started with multiple

[1:48:35] and they were so can we have more than one maniac it went maniac multiple

[1:48:38] maniacs 10,000 maniacs and now the sky's the limit when it comes to maniacs and

[1:48:43] I mean everything and how are and how are you going to keep those all those

[1:48:47] maniacs in line that's right maniac cop or maniac cop too yeah I want to know

[1:48:54] how all those maniacs you know afforded a maniac mansion because that you know

[1:48:59] like it seems like you wouldn't be able to hold down a job to buy a big mansion

[1:49:02] but just just to clarify can you see all those maniacs so they're there's will

[1:49:07] make their oh they're all invisible maniacs okay yeah that's that must be it

[1:49:11] yeah that's that's why they can dance on the like they've never danced before as

[1:49:14] maniacs on the floor because they're invisible so it doesn't matter they can

[1:49:17] dance like nobody's watching because they can't see them and where are they

[1:49:19] gonna go out dancing that's right New York City a home of the maniac of New

[1:49:22] York oh that's right glad we can get this around to a plug for me but anyway

[1:49:28] we don't need to speak of plugs so Matt thank you so much we want to get you

[1:49:34] back to your family I don't care about getting Elliot back to his family this

[1:49:37] is his job but you as our special guest before we go is there anything you want

[1:49:43] to plug at all well people can read screen crush that's where I'm working

[1:49:49] most days screen crush yet calm you mentioned at the very beginning with my

[1:49:56] spider-man book that is still available it's called spider-man

[1:50:00] I should really know the name of my own book. I think it's from Amazing to Spectacular, right?

[1:50:04] Spider-Man from Amazing to Spectacular, yes. Spider-Man from Amazing to Spectacular.

[1:50:07] The Definitive Comic Art Collection. That's a very long title.

[1:50:10] And I was...

[1:50:11] Yeah, it's like a history of Spider-Man comics.

[1:50:14] By coincidence, I was looking at that very book with my children this morning.

[1:50:18] I was like, they were up, it was way too early on a Sunday,

[1:50:22] and I said, do you guys want to look at pictures of Spider-Man in this book?

[1:50:24] And they said yes, and so we were just flipping through it and having a great time,

[1:50:28] just looking at pictures of Spider-Man. But it's a good book to read, too.

[1:50:31] They were not reading it. They were just, you know, picture-looking at it.

[1:50:35] Well, I drew all the pictures.

[1:50:38] They say Steve Ditko and John Romita and all those folks, but really, it was me.

[1:50:43] Wow, that's really impressive.

[1:50:44] You're welcome, is what I'm trying to say.

[1:50:47] Well, thank you once again to our listeners for listening and supporting us.

[1:50:52] Thank you to Maximum Fun. Go to MaximumFun.org

[1:50:57] to check out all the other great shows on the network.

[1:51:01] I listened to several of them myself, and tweet about us, spread the word.

[1:51:07] If you like the show, try and share it with others.

[1:51:11] Don't push it on other people. Maybe they don't want to listen to it. That's fine.

[1:51:15] There's a reason I refuse to read my kids' Green Eggs and Ham,

[1:51:19] because the lesson of that book is if someone says no, keep pushing it until they break down,

[1:51:24] and I say no.

[1:51:25] So with The Flop House, if you say, hey, you'd like this podcast, and they say no thanks,

[1:51:28] just say, okay, go about your business, sir, and just cut off all ties with that person.

[1:51:33] Yeah, but we appreciate it that you thought to try.

[1:51:38] But anyway, for The Flop House, I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:51:42] Hey, and I'm Stuart Wellington, and real quick, I want to do an extra double thank you to Jordan Cowling

[1:51:47] for handling all this stuff, producing our show, making it sound much better than it sounds right now.

[1:51:54] Yeah.

[1:51:56] I'm Ellie Kalin. Sorry. I didn't know Stuart was done yet.

[1:51:59] I'm also Ellie Kalin.

[1:52:01] And I'm Matt Singer. I was told to say my name last.

[1:52:04] And I'm Rob Reiner, and if you didn't like anything in this episode, it's North's dream.

[1:52:08] It's not these guys' fault. Look, they didn't know what they were saying.

[1:52:11] It's North. Blame North. It was North's fault.

[1:52:14] As Rob Reiner is being pulled away by the insane asylum attendants in the white coats.

[1:52:17] It was North, I tell you. North! North!

[1:52:23] I put that up mostly because it looks so empty behind me.

[1:52:36] Okay.

[1:52:38] Now it's full of bison.

[1:52:40] Okay.

[1:52:42] And bison.

[1:52:48] Maximumfun.org.

[1:52:50] Comedy and culture.

[1:52:52] Audience supported.

Ep. #343 - North, with Matt Singer

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