Ep. #340 - The Final Programme, with Joel Hodgson and Matt McGinnis

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the final program.

[0:03] The first of many movies of the ECCU, Eternal Champion Cinematic Universe.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:40] Oh, hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:42] Hey, I'm Elliot Kalin in a different garage this episode, but you're not here to talk about what garage I'm in.

[0:48] You're here because we've got a very, very special guest on this episode today.

[0:53] He's a television visionary. He's a puppetry wizard. He's a master designer of magic tricks.

[0:58] he's a heck of a nice guy you may know him best from mystery science theater 3000 or from any

[1:03] of a number of other things cinematic titanic uh tv wheel uh mystery science theater other stuff

[1:10] anyway he's my former boss and yours joel hodgson joel thank you so much for joining us hey stewart

[1:16] hi dan hi elliot thank you i'm so happy to be on the podcast or i'm i mean the flop house podcast

[1:24] that's right yeah i wanted to brand it right off the bat uh i'm so thrilled to be here and yeah

[1:32] elliot and i worked together long and hard on the first 20 episodes of mst3k that were on netflix

[1:41] and it was a blast and i'm so grateful for his help on it did an awesome job thank you he was

[1:47] the head writer man and um i couldn't have picked a better guy for the job so thanks man thank you

[1:53] So do you think it was a bonus to his resume or to have this podcast, this bad movie podcast on it?

[2:01] Or were you like, oh, this jerk trying to ride the bad movie train, riding my coattails?

[2:07] I started this.

[2:08] It unfolded in front of me in a really unique way.

[2:11] And I did think about it.

[2:14] It did pass through my mind a little bit.

[2:18] But the way I felt about it is based on Elliot's character and my friendship with him.

[2:24] And I kind of went, yeah, this is good.

[2:26] I don't feel discounted.

[2:30] I don't feel, yeah, it doesn't feel slighted at all.

[2:34] I feel like it's some kind of embellishment in a good way.

[2:38] So I didn't get that feeling.

[2:39] I saw it as a good thing.

[2:40] Oh, that's very sweet.

[2:41] I mean, this podcast, I'm sure, would not exist without the previous existence of Mystery Science Theater 2000, my favorite show ever.

[2:48] And I'll never forget the first time I met Joel, where we met at an incognito diner in New Jersey, I believe.

[2:56] And it was like we were spies that were meeting up for the first time.

[2:59] Was the diner incognito?

[3:01] Yeah, the diner was disguised as an auto repair shop.

[3:04] It was Edison, New Jersey, the Skylark Diner.

[3:07] And I've met, I've had some really important meetings there.

[3:12] I met Harold Buchholz, who is my, you know, executive producer for years on MST there.

[3:18] I met a lot of friends there and it's peculiar and I don't know if it's convenient if you're in New York City, but it was convenient for me to come up to Edison. I live in Pennsylvania, so it was easy for me, but you had to take the train and I'm sure there is a much more elegant way we could have met.

[3:34] I think I had to take a train to a bus and then walk for a while after that, but it was worth it.

[3:39] It was worth it because I was meeting one of my heroes, and it all lived up to my expectations.

[3:43] So Joel's here, and he does not have anyone with him that he brought, or does he?

[3:50] Yeah, I brought a guest, too.

[3:52] I thought it would be fun.

[3:53] I wanted to even the odds a little bit.

[3:55] You guys have all this culture.

[3:57] You have all this history, and you guys finish each other's sentences by this point.

[4:03] So I wanted to bring the guy I work with day in and day out, and he's a producer on MSD3K, and his name is Matt McGinnis, and he's right behind this wall.

[4:13] It's me! I'm here!

[4:16] Boy, that wall moved really quickly.

[4:20] Yeah.

[4:20] There must have been a monster at the end of the book.

[4:23] It's a pleasure to be here.

[4:26] Thank you so much, guys, for joining us.

[4:27] I like Joel.

[4:28] You said we finish each other's sentences, which is a polite way of saying that I interrupt the other two guys constantly.

[4:33] uh and so you guys are on here not just because joel matt thanks for being with us you're here

[4:40] not just to talk about this uh very strange movie that we're going to talk about today but also

[4:44] you are promoting something which i feel like is kind of taking advantage of our friendship in a

[4:49] in a mercenary way but okay that's fine uh what's going on with mystery science theater 3000

[4:54] oh uh we're about to do another kickstarter uh for mystery science theater and don't tell anyone

[5:01] It starts next week. When does this show, I mean, they think we're doing this live, right? The people think that we're manufacturing this right in front of them.

[5:10] Yeah, which is pretty crazy considering people, we're recording it, people start it and stop it throughout the day because it's a long show, but they still think it's live. They think that when they pause it, that we're just waiting.

[5:18] Oh yeah, it's fine for them. It's fine for them to control what we're doing, but if we try to, it's wrong.

[5:25] Once they press play, we all have to run into a studio at the microphones and be ready for when they want to listen.

[5:30] just like the people who live in your tv yeah exactly and this is recorded and so our kickstarter

[5:37] is next week and we're it's pretty fun and it's i think it's make more mst3k.com

[5:47] and it's on kickstarter and we're making new shows and the really cool thing is we're going to have

[5:55] our own online theater called the Gizmo Plex, which is kind of going to be a gathering place

[6:00] to watch, you know, for premiere shows. It's a premiere theater. So we're going to fund new

[6:08] shows to make. We'll premiere them in the Gizmo Plex, as well as you can host watch parties there

[6:15] and watch old episodes and stuff like that too. So it's going to be kind of, I mean, a little bit

[6:21] Like, because you guys are comedy nerds, I can say this and feel comfortable.

[6:25] It's going to have a little bit more of a CTV vibe to it where the mads are working to make new content that'll be in the Gizmo Flex.

[6:33] So it's a little that's a little bit a little bit of a accent that's a little bit different.

[6:39] But that's the scuttlebutt. That's what we're going to be doing.

[6:42] And and so the Kickstarter campaign. So this is going to this episode will be up on April 10th, I believe.

[6:50] right that should be the date so the kickstarter will be uh going on i think or is it a will it

[6:56] just be about yes okay so maybe yeah so go there right now maybe well this is the sort of

[7:03] definitive uh promotion yes have i taken too long promoting my pitch no no not at all not at all

[7:12] i'm just learning about it so this is fantastic this is the first he's hearing about i need to

[7:18] know what i'm going to be working on this year so i thank you joel by the way this is your job

[7:22] for the next couple years so it's good that you're hearing about it now okay thank you for inviting

[7:27] me this was great bye now matt uh as he's famous for his love of disney and disney properties which

[7:36] will come in hugely helpful as we talk about the final program from 1974 or 1973 i guess a uh a

[7:44] The British science fiction fantasy film based on a novel by Michael Moorcock that I only realized while starting to watch the movie, I tried to read at one point and could not make my way through.

[7:53] And so it was, in a way, this was a movie that Dan was – we were watching this movie, and Dan was texting me as he watched it, talking about his – the difficulty he was having following the plot.

[8:02] And I want to say to him, dude, compared to the book, this is a connect-the-dots picture.

[8:06] Like, I get it now.

[8:08] this was a movie that we were, was on a list to look at for MST. And, and Matt is the guy who

[8:16] does that. And so Matt, Matt kind of found this movie and then he kind of said, well, you have

[8:23] to look at this movie. And then we started looking at it and we were kind of amazed by it. There's

[8:30] things we saw that we couldn't kind of get over, uh, that were so kind of incredible and weird.

[8:36] and then we said oh this is the perfect thing for the flop house okay great and we didn't watch it

[8:43] until last night yeah so what we what we learned though is when we watched it all the way through

[8:49] was that when we initially watched it for mst we had only watched the the good parts

[8:55] so now we found out everything else yeah it was kind of like the ending which kind of blew our

[9:02] minds and then there were just these and the other one was well i'll just wait on the other

[9:07] things that we got enthused about but man we're really sorry this is a tough one but it was only

[9:12] 90 minutes so that's the thing we just finished watching zack snyder's justice league so i was

[9:17] like this is trim this is bright this has a certain jauntiness to it yeah it's brisk yeah

[9:24] it's super brisk i don't have to worry that martian manhunter is just going to show up that

[9:28] Any character might turn into Martian Manhunter at a given drop of a hat.

[9:31] We say it's brisk.

[9:33] It is short and a lot of very unusual stuff happens in it that you will never see in another movie.

[9:42] And yet it still manages to have that sort of like 1970s British science fiction lag.

[9:49] Like it's got a nice vibe, you know.

[9:54] it's done by the guy who did a lot of the Avengers TV show

[9:57] and did Abominable Dr. Fibes.

[9:59] It's got that, like, feeling to it,

[10:02] but also you're like, oh, man,

[10:04] how can something with so much weird stuff happening

[10:06] be so slow?

[10:07] Yeah, it certainly doesn't have 90 minutes worth of story

[10:10] for a 90-minute movie.

[10:11] So it's like 90 minutes, but it's got, I mean,

[10:13] but this would be a great episode of Night Gallery,

[10:15] you got to admit.

[10:16] Yeah.

[10:16] The thing that tricked me into it was the art direction.

[10:21] It really evoked it really evoked Zardoz to me like.

[10:25] Yes. Yeah. Like I love Zardoz. And did you know about I mean, what is a Borman?

[10:31] Was he the director, the guy who did Deliverance? Yeah.

[10:33] He finished with Deliverance and he said, I got to do a movie where Sean Connery wears a red diaper.

[10:38] He had carte blanche. John Borman after Deliverance, it was the biggest movie in the world.

[10:43] He had carte blanche to make a movie and he made Zardoz because that was his pristine vision.

[10:49] And that was the movie that he felt like he had to make.

[10:53] And it's kind of like people are really critical of Zardoz and make fun of it.

[10:59] But there are some really elegant, as a production design, there's some amazing things going on.

[11:05] And when Matt and I saw the good parts of this movie, I was feeling the same way about this.

[11:11] Like, is this the same kind of thing?

[11:13] It's that kind of, it's the 70s.

[11:16] It's like the worst time in film history.

[11:18] And then they're trying to do fantasy science fiction, and it's really hard.

[11:22] Yeah.

[11:23] Well, there was this feeling, it feels like in 70s science fiction, of like, well, no time is ever going to be as weird as right now.

[11:29] So if we're going to make a science fiction fantasy, let's just 70s it up as much as possible.

[11:33] The more 70s it gets, like the more accurate it is to this time, the more it's going to be timelessly strange.

[11:39] So, guys, let's talk about what happens in this movie.

[11:41] Oh, wait, Dan, you say what you're going to say.

[11:42] Oh, no, I just had that feeling, too, while watching it.

[11:45] like okay well this is clearly satirizing something but i don't know what yeah you're

[11:51] like disco culture clearly is a metaphor for being inside a giant pinball machine

[11:56] yeah that's actually a very sound idea i think and there's that kind of despair and he's this

[12:05] unfeasibly smart unfeasibly rich guy and he any there's more drug use than like uh the umbrella

[12:14] academy in this movie and alcohol from wall to wall drinking and taking pills right yeah it's

[12:21] one of the it's that time period in in 70s science fiction when you can tell who the hero is by who

[12:25] ingests the most chemicals yeah like that's how you know that they're okay uh so and it's so this

[12:31] is based on a michael moorcock novel now here's another mystery science theater connection he

[12:34] wrote the screenplay to it was i think journey to the center of the earth the version or it was

[12:38] either that or the land that time forgot one of the two movies that at the earth's core you mean

[12:41] at the earth's core maybe it was at the earth's core and i remember very well thank you for

[12:46] correcting elliot by the way yeah thank you all the time i remember riffing that movie and seeing

[12:50] his name come up and being like do we not do a joke about his name because he is going to be

[12:54] well known to our fans or do we not do a joke about his name because it's hard for me to think

[12:58] of a joke that is we can do on the show that's not about how his name is more cock i don't know

[13:02] i can't let's just avoid it let's just avoid it all together what is yours no thanks i'm full

[13:09] Oh, that's good.

[13:10] That is good.

[13:11] There you go.

[13:12] That's very good.

[13:13] Where were you when we were riffing that episode, Matt?

[13:15] You could do a bumper sticker, right?

[13:17] Make mine more cock.

[13:18] And so this is –

[13:23] Courtney Wigby is only one of his novels to have reached the screen,

[13:25] and once you've seen the movie, you're like, okay.

[13:27] Well, and it's part of –

[13:29] this is part of his Jerry Cornelius series.

[13:31] Jerry Cornelius is his version of like a mod, like super science fiction super spy

[13:37] who is a cynic and who's done with the world.

[13:39] And he dresses like a vampire.

[13:41] He dresses with dark painted nails

[13:44] because again, it's the 70s and he's super cool.

[13:45] Yeah, and he's like,

[13:46] there's a little bit of androgyny there,

[13:48] clearly an inspiration for like

[13:50] Noel Fielding and Jermaine Clement

[13:52] and like the Casanova comic book.

[13:55] Yeah, so very much so.

[13:58] He looks a little,

[13:58] he's got elements of Sigourney Weaver

[14:01] in his face too, the actor.

[14:02] So it's John Finch who was the star of Frenzy.

[14:05] He looks very Oliver Reedy.

[14:07] Oh my god, he was the guy from Frenzy.

[14:09] Yeah, this is the guy who they think is the killer in Frenzy and has to prove his innocence.

[14:14] There's a bunch of actors in this.

[14:15] Watching this movie, it was like, I recognize that guy.

[14:18] I recognize that guy.

[14:18] There's a lot of British actors in this that I will point out their other roles.

[14:23] And this is part of the – this character is part of Michael Moore Cox's Eternal Champion series, and we don't need to talk about that.

[14:29] So the movie begins – because I cannot spend another minute of my life talking about Elric of Melnibonet.

[14:36] I'm sorry.

[14:37] I can't.

[14:37] So we begin with a jaunty band music.

[14:40] What about Hawkmoon?

[14:41] Can you talk about Hawkmoon?

[14:42] Hawkmoon apparently was originally supposed to be the soundtrack for this movie because they're good friends.

[14:47] Hawkwind.

[14:47] Oh, Hawkwind.

[14:48] I'm sorry.

[14:48] Hawkwind.

[14:49] That's what I thought you meant.

[14:50] And the director said, I don't like them.

[14:52] And so they didn't do it.

[14:53] So Hawkmoon.

[14:54] Could have saved this movie.

[14:56] Could have saved this movie.

[14:57] So to jaunty band music, there's a lot of marching band music.

[15:00] There's some people building a funeral pyre in a rocky wasteland that we will learn is Lapland.

[15:04] And there's this mod cool dude, Jerry Cornelius, who, again, is kind of like if you crossed Mick Jagger and Patrick McGowan and the Prisoner and then threw a little bit of Robert Smith in there too.

[15:18] Oliver Reed.

[15:19] He's got an Oliver Reed vibe too.

[15:22] Yeah, he's very Oliver Reed.

[15:22] Young Oliver Reed, yeah.

[15:24] As in the young Oliver Reed Chronicles, the TV show that used to be on.

[15:27] Well, that's where they practice all their CGI that they use later on.

[15:32] Yeah, they used in the prequels, yeah.

[15:33] And you learn where all the elements of Oliver Reed's personality come, like the building blocks.

[15:39] And he's wearing this ruffled shirt and this big fur coat.

[15:42] Anyway, while he's watching this funeral pyre in Lapland, we have flashbacks to him talking to his old professor, Professor Hira,

[15:49] who is played by, who is an Indian character, but is played by Hugh Griffith, Academy Award winner

[15:54] for Ben-Hur for Best Supporting Actor. He is one of these British actors who did a lot of

[15:59] brownface roles. And they're talking about the Kali Yuga, the worst of the eras in human

[16:04] development. It's a dark age of humanity that they're living in right now, which is coming to

[16:08] an end soon, which means the end of the world is coming. And this is the kind of thing where as in

[16:11] many 50s through 70s science fiction, people just know is happening through logical deduction. It's

[16:16] not like they point to like experiments or evidence that the end of the world is coming

[16:20] they're just like we know it like we can feel it we figured it out well i have to say before before

[16:25] we continue i'm really happy that you're doing such a detailed synopsis because like i was not

[16:30] paying that close attention so i didn't really follow midway through this we kept going i can't

[16:37] remember why we are supposed to care about this well that's a good question even i had it many

[16:43] times during the movie even while paying attention uh anyway so we find that this funeral is for

[16:47] jerry cornelius's father uh he was a famous scientist jerry cornelius it's just tossed off

[16:52] on the radio it's mentioned as a nobel prize winning scientist which is insane since he's

[16:57] not only just a young man but a young man who lives entirely on alcohol and chocolate biscuits

[17:01] uh yeah yeah my window into this movie eventually was like oh okay this is like

[17:09] british 70s buckaroo bonsai yes you know like this is like the idea like yeah that's a great

[17:16] analogy yeah it's it's barrister bonsai is what you would call it yes he's kind of like bruce

[17:21] wayne but without any of the creativity or morose well let's hold on let's again having just watched

[17:27] zack snyder's justice league let's start with the creativity of bruce wayne which is he had one idea

[17:32] i'm a bat and everything just kind of flows from that you know yeah but this guy didn't have that

[17:36] idea so yeah he didn't even have the idea of being a bat that's true plus his name is jerry

[17:40] cornelius which is a shame yeah do you guys remember when he had to train when when batman

[17:46] had to train to fight superman that was pretty wild it is yeah this isn't gonna be easy but i'm

[17:54] gonna start pushing tires over superman i'm gonna start following a lot of weightlifting accounts

[18:02] on insta so funny if it's like he's gotta start he knows he's gonna fight superman so alfred just

[18:09] becomes burgess meredith from rocky and bruce wayne's chasing chickens and running after a

[18:12] bicycle and then and and then superman just hits him in the head once and kills him it's like oh

[18:18] we went about this the wrong way okay so uh jerry cornelius uh also the i remember reading a jerry

[18:27] cornelius book and it took me a long time to get over this name is jerry cornelius which i assumed

[18:29] was like a podiatrist somewhere, like in Great Neck.

[18:32] It doesn't sound like a super spy to me.

[18:35] But anyway, a colleague of his father's, Dr. Smiles, is there.

[18:39] This is played by Graham Crowden, who almost was Dr. Who,

[18:42] but he turned the role down, and instead it went to Tom Baker.

[18:45] So imagine this guy with a really long scarf.

[18:48] That could have been him.

[18:49] Oh, wow.

[18:50] And he's tall, so it would have been a super long scarf, right?

[18:53] It would have been incredibly long, yeah.

[18:55] Which, by the way, when we were watching this,

[18:58] Audrey, like, who has never seen any Doctor Who, just said, oh, I see why people like Doctor Who now.

[19:04] I'm like, because this was their only other option?

[19:08] I don't understand.

[19:09] And she's like, no, no, no.

[19:10] She just assumed that this was, like, the kind of vibe.

[19:13] And I'm like, you know what?

[19:14] You're not wrong.

[19:15] Yeah.

[19:16] Anyway, he was also in, like, in Oh, Lucky Man.

[19:18] This guy, you'll recognize his face if you've seen other British movies from this time.

[19:22] Anyway, he's like, he's Dr. Smiles.

[19:24] He's like, your father had some valuable microfilm.

[19:26] I need you to find it.

[19:28] It's in your house, and he goes, well, I'm blowing up my house, and then gets into a helicopter and flies away.

[19:33] Jerry, we catch up to him drinking and driving on his way home, and the radio says his dad was a biophysicist, and he's a Nobel Prize winner.

[19:41] He sets off a flare in the woods, which is the signal for his butler to come get him in a boat and just meet with him.

[19:47] And the butler says Jerry's sister Christina has fallen under the sway of their evil brother Frank, who's keeping Christina drugged, and she's been sleeping for seven weeks.

[19:55] And Jerry says to him, you've got to get Christina out of the house.

[19:58] I'm going to blow up the house with Frank in it because nobody likes Frank.

[20:01] Frank is a real ne'er-do-well.

[20:03] This is a family with a lot of issues.

[20:05] Is everybody following this so far?

[20:07] So this is when the movie takes its first – this is when I think it takes its real first inexplicable turn, which is when he goes to visit General Wrongway Lindbergh, played by Sterling Hayden, who's a kind of like hippie general.

[20:19] And he wants to buy massive amounts of napalm from him, and we kind of are revealed to us through dialogue that some horrifying third world war is going on just off camera, and the Vatican has been destroyed, and all these parts of the world no longer exist.

[20:33] Amsterdam is 23 miles of white ash.

[20:36] Yes.

[20:36] That is part of the dialogue there, yeah.

[20:38] And Lindbergh seems to – I mean it's certainly Hayden smoking a cigar, and you've got to know that it was one day, and he probably ad-libbed most of his lines.

[20:46] That's what I'm guessing.

[20:47] Well, and this is where in the movie I'm like, okay, we've got ourselves a Southland Tales situation.

[20:52] This guy has no interest in telling us what's going on.

[20:56] He just thinks it's really deep if we throw a lot of stuff at the wall.

[20:58] But is this after – do you feel this could have been after Strangelove?

[21:04] This must have happened after Strangelove.

[21:06] Oh, very much.

[21:07] So this movie comes out about nine years after Strangelove.

[21:10] This is during the time – I wonder if this was during the time when Sterling Hayden – no, it was earlier, I think, when he was in Europe on his self-imposed exile.

[21:17] when he felt guilty about what he had done during the blacklisting.

[21:20] I think that was earlier.

[21:21] But, yeah, this is – it's very much – I think they were feeling like, well, this could feel like Strangelove if we bring Sterling Hayden into it and we're going to have him play a general.

[21:28] But instead of playing a general who is crazy in an uptight way, we're having a general who is a little wacko in a groovy way.

[21:35] Like he's got like a long goatee, right?

[21:38] Like I'm trying to remember what he looks like.

[21:39] Yeah, really long hair, like a huge long hair wig on.

[21:42] Yeah.

[21:43] And he's –

[21:44] Like in a ponytail.

[21:46] It's almost like they also borrowed elements from 2001 occasionally throughout this, too.

[21:51] Oh, very much so.

[21:52] There's a couple of pulls off that, you know.

[21:55] And it wants to be, yeah, it wants to be very Kubrick-y.

[21:58] Yeah, you were watching, and you're like, oh, man, this makes me think that maybe war is crazy if this wacky general's in charge.

[22:07] Maybe war's not so sane.

[22:09] Hey, you know what?

[22:09] What's so civil about war anyway?

[22:11] Yeah, it's a real catch-22.

[22:13] I'd like to see our schools get all the money and an Air Force hold a big sale to buy a fighter jet.

[22:17] And Sterling Hayden's character is like, he should be in Skidoo.

[22:20] But somehow he escaped Skidoo and he ended up in this movie.

[22:23] And you can do everything with a phone back then.

[22:27] You don't have to show anything.

[22:29] That's true.

[22:30] It's a guy with a phone barking orders and telling you everything, right?

[22:34] So there's a war.

[22:36] We're not going to show you a monitor with anything on it.

[22:39] And Jerry Penulis has gone to him to buy napalm and a computer-controlled car.

[22:43] None of this ever appears in the movie.

[22:45] So this scene is totally superfluous.

[22:47] There's no reason for it.

[22:48] Because next stop, he's got to go to a pinball bar where there's, like, the bikini girls rolling around in giant hamster balls.

[22:55] Everybody's serving Milaco Plus.

[22:58] This is the scene we saw.

[23:01] This is the first thing we saw, and we go, this is genius.

[23:04] So we love this.

[23:06] This movie is too much for us.

[23:09] Let's bring it to the flop house.

[23:10] Well, this is definitely also the scene that is the most like, oh, you can see that this guy worked on the Avengers TV show.

[23:17] Yes.

[23:18] Like with the pinball filled with human beings.

[23:20] This is a brief glimpse at the charm in Dr. Phibes, but nothing else really touches that.

[23:26] I don't know about that.

[23:27] I don't know about that.

[23:28] Well, there's some other Phibes-y moments that I like.

[23:30] So it's a supermod place.

[23:32] He goes to meet up with an assassin played by Ronald Lacey.

[23:36] You may know him best as Toth from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[23:39] And he's like this super uptight assassin who, again, does not appear in the movie after this scene, so the scene is totally irrelevant.

[23:45] And he's very stressed about pinball, and Jerry wants to buy napalm from him.

[23:50] And he says, give me a couple days.

[23:51] Jerry is picked up by a busty lady and then turns down an offer from an elderly fortune teller to have his fortune told, and a bunch of nuns are playing slot machines.

[23:59] That's the scene.

[24:00] Again, doesn't have anything to do with the rest of the movie.

[24:02] At this point, the movie is daring you to discover a plot.

[24:08] Have you ever picked up a Thomas Pynchon novel and just started reading?

[24:12] Doesn't the scientist come up in the pinball bar?

[24:17] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[24:18] Dr. Smiles shows up again.

[24:19] But then they show up again.

[24:20] I mean, he keeps coming up.

[24:21] But he keeps asking for this microfilm.

[24:23] Well, you think there's going to be the plot, but it doesn't really show up yet.

[24:26] The plot doesn't show up until the next scene.

[24:28] There's three men in dark suits, these three doctors.

[24:30] One of them, Dr. Powis, is played by George Caloris from Citizen Kane.

[24:34] So there's a little bit of movie history here as well.

[24:36] And they're meeting with Miss Bruner, a sort of super tough, super genius femme fatale lady.

[24:44] And she does not want Jerry involved in whatever they're doing, this final program they're talking about.

[24:49] Oh, no, they don't.

[24:50] No, she wants him involved.

[24:51] They don't want him involved.

[24:52] And she's got this guy with her named Dimitri who we don't know why he's there, but he's like a – we think he's like a bodyguard or a chauffeur or something.

[24:58] But she has other plans.

[24:59] He looks a lot like Matthew McConaughey.

[25:00] He's a dead ringer from McConaughey.

[25:02] He's like a Greek McConaughey.

[25:04] He's like McConopolis.

[25:04] Yeah.

[25:06] Yeah, I was going to say one thing, Elliot.

[25:09] Is this okay to interject while you're telling it, or do we save these comments for later?

[25:14] Oh, no.

[25:14] Keep interjecting, because the way I do it, the only way you're going to get a word in is if you interject.

[25:17] So this is the time.

[25:19] I was thinking about the pinball scene and how inspired that was, and it evokes this kind of use.

[25:26] The funny thing is, is the director also claims to be the set designer, right?

[25:33] Like, didn't he design it?

[25:35] Yeah, I think so.

[25:36] In the credits, it says written and directed by Robert Foost or whatever.

[25:40] They use a lot of inflatables in the movie.

[25:44] And so this is the first time you're kind of seeing that thinking.

[25:47] And, you know, it's kind of like it feels like that is a theme that goes throughout the movie is inflatables.

[25:59] So this is the first time we're seeing that.

[26:01] I just want to mention it.

[26:02] But also the nuns at the pinball machine is that kind of thing, like, it's depraved, as you can imagine.

[26:10] Yeah.

[26:10] It's the end of the world.

[26:12] This is where the world is, is that nuns are playing slots and pinball.

[26:17] This is dogs and cats living together.

[26:19] Doesn't this disgust you?

[26:20] There's fucking things to come when the little boy's playing the drum and the world's going to war.

[26:27] It's just, this is how bad, this is how thick it's going to get for you.

[26:31] You're saying that the social satire and commentary on this is pretty subtle and also measured.

[26:36] It's like when the Ewoks are playing drums on the Stormtrooper helmets and you're like, there's a person's head inside that, man.

[26:43] I mean, they probably took the head out first or else it wouldn't make as good a sound, right?

[26:50] Maybe, you never know.

[26:51] Which means you have to imagine an Ewok sticking his hand in there and pulling out a Stormtrooper head and then probably making a puppet out of it or eating it.

[26:58] I mean, he doesn't have to cut his head.

[27:01] He doesn't have to decapitate him.

[27:03] You can probably remove the helmet without decapitating a person, right?

[27:06] These are Ewoks.

[27:07] They like to do it.

[27:08] They could have just found the helmet with the head in it.

[27:11] Does anyone know if Ewoks eat meat or are they fruit eaters?

[27:14] I mean, they were literally roasting Han on a spit, right?

[27:18] When they first got him.

[27:19] But they might have thought that he was like a mangaboo, like a vegetable person, like in the Oz novels.

[27:24] So who knows?

[27:26] I mean, the Ewoks are big L. Frank Baum fans.

[27:30] Yeah, let's get Wicked on the phone.

[27:32] It's like Zardoz.

[27:33] It's like Zardoz.

[27:35] All the Ewoks know about humanity is from The Wizard of Oz.

[27:37] That's it.

[27:38] Okay, so guys, these scientists, they're not happy about it.

[27:41] But they need Jerry to get into his house to get that microfilm.

[27:47] Now, we know Jerry is planning to blow up his house, so this could be trouble.

[27:51] But that night, Jerry Cornelius, first he tests out this weird little needle gun that he has that his brother Frank also ends up having one.

[28:00] I don't know if this is a family weapon where in the future people just shoot little needles at each other, but it's like a see-through plastic gun.

[28:06] That looked pretty neat, right?

[28:07] It's like those telephones from the 90s where you could see all the machinery inside.

[28:12] Oh, those were so cool.

[28:13] It had a CO2 cartridge in it too, which was kind of a nice touch to suggest that it's CO2 powered, you know?

[28:21] So that was a cool thing.

[28:22] It's like the plastic gun that John Malkovich uses in In the Line of Fire, right?

[28:27] Yeah, I guess so.

[28:29] That one shot little needles, too, right?

[28:31] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:32] That's Jerry Cornelius.

[28:33] Yeah, yeah.

[28:34] Now, okay, how different would In the Line of Fire be if instead of Clint Eastwood, it was Jerry Cornelius?

[28:39] Is this guy playing Jerry Cornelius?

[28:40] It would be very different, right?

[28:42] If instead of Clint Eastwood, it was Jerry Cornelius?

[28:44] It would, and I mean, I feel like Eastwood would have no time for the shenanigans of this movie.

[28:50] No.

[28:51] Because how different would the final program be if it was Clint Eastwood playing the part instead of John Finch?

[28:57] Again, very different.

[28:59] I don't think it would have been that different.

[29:00] It still would have been pretty boring.

[29:01] You think Clint Eastwood would still be wearing the ruffled shirt, dark fingernails?

[29:05] I mean, it'd be fun to look at, like a lot of the final program is.

[29:10] Yeah, that's true.

[29:11] I mean, how much do you think Clint Eastwood could ad-lib a better plot into the script?

[29:16] Vera, yeah.

[29:18] So speaking of how kind of boring the script is, we get a discussion, again, a flashback discussion between Jerry and his professor about how there needs to be a merging of science and spirituality,

[29:28] or chaos will erupt.

[29:29] It's unclear, again, what this means and continues to be.

[29:33] Ms. Brunner shows up.

[29:35] She's read Jerry's books, and that's from before Jerry lost faith in all knowledge.

[29:39] And she says she's a computer programmer who's trying to find the program for immortality.

[29:44] And to finish her work, apparently she needs his dad's microfilm.

[29:47] They all go on foot to the house, leaving behind Dimitri,

[29:50] Ms. Brunner's devoted assistant, so we think.

[29:52] Suddenly, uh-oh, red photo negative, red photo negative,

[29:55] visual effects, video effects, the house is

[29:57] blasting them with light that is supposed to cause

[29:59] pseudo-epilepsy. And Jerry

[30:01] somehow leads them through it by going up ahead,

[30:03] pressing a button on his watch, coming back and getting

[30:05] them, and the lights never stop.

[30:07] So I don't know what pressing the button on his watch did.

[30:09] Do you guys have any explanation of what he's doing

[30:11] in this scene? Filling time.

[30:13] It seems like they are filling

[30:15] time quite a bit.

[30:16] I'm pretty sure that I was reading the

[30:19] Wikipedia summary for this movie

[30:21] while the scene was going on to try and figure out

[30:23] what was that scene really does give you pause because it's very noisy and and and in some ways

[30:30] it's kind of inspired um in kind of a weird alphaville kind of way like this is where there's

[30:37] these blasts of lights that that that is a deterrent to keep you from getting you know to keep people

[30:43] away right like a moat and so it's shooting these balls of light and if you watch it it will give

[30:49] you epilepsy or will will it kill you or just like just really like screw you up only one way

[30:56] to find out let's get to that house very good so anyway but i thought that was kind of a i thought

[31:01] that was one of the things that was actually fulfilled in kind of a good way like i felt

[31:08] like it was pretty seamless and it was a simple idea it's just light and sound yeah it wasn't a

[31:13] big uh big dip in quality to realize an idea like this so go ahead yeah uh the it's so this but this

[31:22] is just one of many traps that they're gonna have to go through they get into the house

[31:25] which is and are these traps designed by his father or are they designed by frank this is a

[31:30] question that's not answered jerry seems to know his way around so i'm guessing they were designed

[31:34] by his father the cornelius family seems like an interesting family uh there's yeah i'd rather

[31:40] watch a movie about just them it feels like uh it's very like mod gothic you know yeah there's

[31:47] some hint that jerry is in love with his sister shadows yeah it's very dark shadows uh frank

[31:52] seems to be uh possibly also the same there's very it's very um like if edgar allen poe was

[31:59] like groovy like hey guys like what if what if the raven like what if the raven what if the raven

[32:06] turned on like wouldn't that be cool nevermore baby i feel like it diminishes the menace quite

[32:15] a bit if he says nevermore baby and then slips on some shades and you hear like a guitar guitar lick

[32:21] so uh jerry and miss brunner for some reason leave the three doctors behind the three doctors

[32:26] immediately screw something up and have to escape from some poison gas they escape to a chest puzzle

[32:31] Now, that was 5G with the gas and everything.

[32:35] That was a great-looking scene, too,

[32:37] and that ballroom really felt like 2001.

[32:41] It was really evoking that vibe of...

[32:43] It did bother me, though, that in the sort of shot

[32:48] where they're getting off the elevator and going into that room,

[32:51] that behind them you can clearly see there is no ceiling,

[32:53] and when they cut back, there is a ceiling.

[32:56] And I know that's not valid information or useful in any way,

[33:00] but it bothered me.

[33:01] So I wanted to bring that up.

[33:02] I'd like to make that canon.

[33:04] I'd like to read that in an aspect of the house that's meant to throw off intruders.

[33:08] Is that pieces of it will swivel around or change shape while you're in there.

[33:12] You can't put anything past House Cornelius.

[33:14] They do all sorts of crazy things in there.

[33:16] They have a Starbucks in their house.

[33:18] And it's like, where are the customers coming from for this Starbucks?

[33:20] It's in a private home.

[33:22] This doesn't make any sense.

[33:23] They're just wacky.

[33:24] They're just wacky that way.

[33:26] Yeah.

[33:26] One of the bedrooms, the whole floor is a ball pit.

[33:28] Can you believe that?

[33:29] Like, this is goofy.

[33:30] Come on.

[33:31] What are they thinking?

[33:31] And you know what kind of chairs they have?

[33:34] Let me give you a hint.

[33:36] It's a bag, and it's filled with beans.

[33:38] It's a beanbag chair.

[33:41] Oh, no kidding?

[33:41] Wow.

[33:42] That's disgusting.

[33:44] Well, that's the thing.

[33:46] It's a bag of cooked beans.

[33:48] Like refried beans?

[33:49] It's baked beans and refried beans in a bag.

[33:52] Of the Bush's baked variety?

[33:53] Yeah, and the bag is a trash bag.

[33:54] It's just a trash bag full of baked beans that they put on the floor.

[33:57] Now, here's a question.

[33:59] Investing this aside, do you think it would be more comfortable to sit in a beanbag chair full of refried beans than, like, just a regular beanbag chair?

[34:06] I mean, you'd need a lot of refried beans to fill that space because it's essentially a liquid mush at that point.

[34:10] Yeah, I mean, let's blue sky this.

[34:11] Yeah, exactly.

[34:12] All right.

[34:13] Let's say we've got infinite refried beans.

[34:15] Or you throw in a little bit of rice, and I'm sure you've got a little bit of a stronger foundation.

[34:19] I know that if you just had beans that weren't refried, because let's face it, they put a lot of stuff in refried beans right now.

[34:27] Yeah.

[34:29] Oh, another rant of Joel's against modern refried beans.

[34:32] I've heard it before.

[34:33] If you've got regular beans, I think they're going to function way better.

[34:37] If you want that beanbag chair kind of feel, I think so.

[34:41] You don't want – the refried beans are going to make your beanbag chair behave like Stretch Armstrong ultimately.

[34:47] Well, that's exactly what I want.

[34:50] Yeah, it feels like a feature, not a bug.

[34:52] I want to be able to do a snow angel in my beanbag chair.

[34:56] I finally feel what it feels like to be wrapped in the warm embrace of Stretch Armstrong after all these years of yearning for it.

[35:01] We call it memory beans.

[35:04] No matter how far his arm stretches, they just can't seem to get all the way around me.

[35:09] Finally.

[35:12] You could find on Alibaba, though, a Stretch Armstrong beanbag chair that's just like really upsetting looking and too big.

[35:20] And it's kind of in the...

[35:23] It's the size of like a barber chair.

[35:25] Yeah, where you could go, it's $2,500.

[35:27] Like, I could maybe get that.

[35:30] It's like, it wouldn't break me.

[35:32] It's a lot of money to spend on a chair.

[35:33] But man, people would talk.

[35:35] Yeah.

[35:36] Yeah.

[35:37] I think I will get this stretch aim string that they have on here.

[35:40] Now I want to hear Elliot compose a torch song for Stretch Armstrong

[35:45] in the time he doesn't get to spend with him.

[35:47] I'll think about it.

[35:50] I'll think about it.

[35:50] I'm distracted by the fact that I just said stretch arm string,

[35:52] which makes me think of like an Elaine Stritch version of Stretch Armstrong where it's just her legs kick up really high, I guess, while she's singing Torch songs.

[35:59] Stretch heartthrob.

[36:01] So if anyone wants to mock up, I guess, Elaine Stritch singing Torch Strong to Stretch Armstrong, let's do this.

[36:08] Okay, it all rhymes.

[36:09] Not the Kickstarter.

[36:10] Yeah, that's the Kickstarter.

[36:11] Forget Mystery Science Theater.

[36:13] This is what we're kickstarting right now.

[36:14] Okay, they go through a bunch of traps.

[36:16] They've got to solve a chess puzzle on a wall, and a blade comes out, but they get through.

[36:20] It leads them to an inflatable maze.

[36:22] They're like children just running, just lost in this place.

[36:25] And Jerry finds them and saves them.

[36:27] Yeah, the inflatable hallways.

[36:29] Oh, yeah.

[36:30] It looks great.

[36:31] And all the different colors and stuff.

[36:33] Can I stop you, Elliot?

[36:34] To me, this feels like that moment where, again, it's 2001 inspired.

[36:43] Like, that changed the movies because I think it was kind of like we collaborate with the youth

[36:48] who are taking drugs and drinking while they watch these films.

[36:52] So this is part of their experience.

[36:55] We owe this to them that, you know,

[36:58] it doesn't really have to hold up as a real movie.

[37:01] It's an environment.

[37:02] They'll go in this black room, a theater,

[37:04] take their drugs and marijuana and watch these, and it'll work.

[37:09] Like, don't you think that was that?

[37:11] It seemed like that was kind of part of this.

[37:13] I think very much around this time,

[37:15] there were a lot of experience movies where it's more,

[37:18] You're meant to experience it more than to like draw a plot narrative from it.

[37:22] I have to imagine the big – this is – I'd like to bring us all back to the year 1968.

[37:26] It's the opening weekend of 2001 A Space Odyssey, and Stanley Kubrick, of course, master perfectionist as he is, is inspecting all the theaters to make sure that the audience are up to his standards.

[37:35] And three young people come in, blasted out of their minds off of acid, and he says, no, no, no, no.

[37:43] I don't think so.

[37:44] And then Arthur C. Clarke is there, and he goes, wait.

[37:46] Let them in.

[37:48] Let them watch the movie.

[37:49] And Stanley was like, I put a lot of work into this movie.

[37:52] I don't want people just using it as a color and light show.

[37:55] And Arthur C. Clarke goes, no, no, no.

[37:56] I've got a feeling about this, Stanley.

[37:58] And then they go in and they're like, whoa, this is amazing.

[38:05] And Stanley Kubrick is like, this is amazing.

[38:11] This is visionary.

[38:11] Yeah, you're right.

[38:12] And now I'll take credit for this forever.

[38:14] And that's the way it happened, guys.

[38:16] That's the story, yeah.

[38:18] I could see that.

[38:19] History's fascinating.

[38:20] All the way up to Cheech and Chong movies, right?

[38:23] Well, when Stanley Kubrick's Up in Smoke came out, that was a big thing, yeah.

[38:29] I mean, the idea that, oh, we don't have to make a real movie.

[38:32] They certainly did use that for Cheech and Chong movies.

[38:35] That's really cool.

[38:36] Yeah, I mean, and Arthur C. Clarke's The Corsican Brothers.

[38:39] Okay, no, this is why we do this, Joel.

[38:41] This is not really—I hate to pull back the curtain too much.

[38:44] This is not really for people who want to know what happens in the final program.

[38:48] But speaking of what happens in the final program, Jerry finds the butler.

[38:51] What happens in the final program?

[38:52] I'm just about to tell you.

[38:54] Jerry finds the butler who is dying.

[38:55] The butler has failed to get Catherine out.

[38:57] Frank found out about it, poisoned the butler.

[38:59] Jerry finds Catherine asleep.

[39:01] There's slash marks on her arms.

[39:03] There's drugs all over the room.

[39:04] It's a bad scene, as Jerry Cornelius might say.

[39:07] Frank bangs on the door.

[39:08] And Jerry has – there are a couple lines Jerry Cornelius has in this movie where he swears really casually in a way I didn't expect.

[39:15] And he goes – Frank goes, who's in there?

[39:17] I'll kill you.

[39:18] And Jerry goes, you know it's me, Frank, and you're shitting yourself.

[39:20] And it's such a Toast of London type line.

[39:24] And Jerry and Frank have a needle gun fight as Frank talks about how great drugs are basically.

[39:30] Frank shoots Jerry, and Jerry thinks he's shooting at Frank, but he shoots Christina.

[39:36] Oh, no.

[39:37] Her fate, I'm not sure whether she dies or not.

[39:40] The whole Christina plot kind of disappears from this point.

[39:43] It's just a motivation for Jerry to go after Frank.

[39:46] But Bruner catches up to Frank, beats him up, and she says, we'll give you drugs if you get us the microfilm.

[39:51] She forces him to open up their dad's safe, but Frank traps them behind some glass because there's so many traps in this house.

[39:57] It's a regular Franco trap house, and they just – and Frank escapes with the microfilm.

[40:03] And that's when –

[40:04] Bum, bum, bum.

[40:05] Bum, bum, bum.

[40:06] Now it's the hunt for – it's Star Trek III, the search for Frank.

[40:12] Jerry wakes up in a sort of minimalist nursing home where there's only one bed in the middle of a huge empty room.

[40:17] This is some more kind of very 2001 stuff.

[40:19] You didn't mention who the actor who plays Frank is, and you've listed extensive credits for everyone else.

[40:24] I have no fucking idea.

[40:25] I just thought you would tell me because I was feeling lost.

[40:27] Frank is played by Derek O'Connor, who I know him best as Bob Hoskins' partner in Brazil.

[40:32] But, Stuart, you would know him best as—

[40:35] Oh, my God, you're right, yeah.

[40:36] You would know him best as Ralph in Hawk the Slayer.

[40:38] That's right.

[40:39] Oh, shit.

[40:40] Oh, he's also in Deep Rising, it says here.

[40:43] Oh, shit.

[40:44] And he's in Time Bandits.

[40:45] Captain Atherton?

[40:46] Yeah.

[40:46] Wait, so he's in lots of stuff.

[40:50] He's another one of these actors where, like, I saw his face and I was like, I know him from stuff.

[40:54] I was like that with almost everyone in this movie, yeah.

[40:58] Yeah.

[40:59] He's in, let's see, what other stuff is he in that you might know?

[41:02] Of course, yeah, he's in the first movie of Daredevil.

[41:05] First movie.

[41:06] There's only one.

[41:06] Why am I saying the first?

[41:07] You probably know him.

[41:09] End of Days?

[41:10] Dan, you know him best, of course, as Dean Reed from How to Make an American Quilt, and he's in lots of stuff, but this is his second appearance in a Flophouse film.

[41:20] Anyway.

[41:22] That's a great quality, and I did recognize him, and they kind of cast him as this kind of character-y type character.

[41:29] Pretty gross.

[41:29] He comes off as like kind of a pretty – he's like if Richard Keel was shorter, like I feel like, and he's got a real bad guy quality about him.

[41:40] He looks like a guy who's strung out on drugs in the future of the 1970s.

[41:42] So Jerry Cornelius wakes up in this nursing home.

[41:46] They tell him he had an accident at a carnival, and he has another flashback about his professor that doesn't really matter.

[41:53] Ms. Brunner picks up Jerry Cornelius and takes him to eat at a restaurant that's ringside at a kind of milk-slash-mud wrestling pit.

[42:01] This is more kind of like wacky, the future is decadent type stuff.

[42:05] And there's a very long scene where Jerry is bantering with a waitress played by Sandra Dickinson, who was Trillian in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV show.

[42:13] And she's got kind of like a Harley Quinn type voice.

[42:16] And it's a cigarette girl box of, like, water or wine or…

[42:22] Well, yeah, it's like she's presenting wine, like, the equivalent of wine.

[42:26] But it's like, here's some, like, toxic waste from the Champagne region of France or whatever.

[42:33] Like, it's a joke.

[42:35] It's a joke. It's hilarious.

[42:37] Counterculture jokes. Yeah.

[42:39] Also, the music that they use was what is

[42:42] is that really tough oompa kind of music that's to evoke.

[42:46] Like, this is funny, though.

[42:48] We're not really willing to put the time in to make this fun.

[42:51] Like, yeah, like it's the actors.

[42:55] The actors are going to make you believe what what's going on is interesting.

[42:59] And when they look over their shoulders and they'll laugh at it,

[43:03] This was where I began to hate this movie.

[43:05] I began to go, why are you doing this?

[43:10] Because it's so lazy.

[43:12] It's that, again.

[43:13] It's like putting the Wallace and Gromit theme over 1984.

[43:16] It's not doing it any favors.

[43:18] It doesn't work.

[43:19] Yeah, and it's that thing, too, where you run into it.

[43:22] Like, anytime they do a movie about stand-up,

[43:24] they always just, there's very few of them

[43:27] that actually use real stand-up that's funny.

[43:30] And they indicate it's funny because they have the audience laugh at it.

[43:35] So that was really discouraging.

[43:37] But that music plays throughout this scene.

[43:39] It's a really long scene.

[43:41] And it's supposed to be funny because they're ordering toxic waste to drink like wine.

[43:47] Yeah.

[43:48] And I also feel like I was watching it being like, okay, this is the most basic thought in the world.

[43:57] And I've said it many times on the Flophouse.

[43:59] I'm like, oh, in a better movie, that might have worked.

[44:01] Like, if you just sort of, like, tossed away that line,

[44:05] like, if it was just, like, a moment in a comedy

[44:06] and didn't, like, everything feels very leaden

[44:09] when they try and do comedy.

[44:10] Yeah, if it was a villain in, like, RoboCop 5

[44:14] ordering Toxic Waste to drink,

[44:15] I'd be like, oh, cool, that makes sense.

[44:17] Sure, sure.

[44:18] Or it is a poor step-cousin to the restaurant scene in Brazil

[44:24] where the woman keeps offering him, like,

[44:26] pepper and then explodes you know because there's been a terrorist attack now do you think they

[44:32] they shot this scene in a it's in like a club with a milk mud wrestling ring now i know that

[44:38] adam sandler likes to shoot his movies wherever he wants to go on vacation do you think that they

[44:43] were just like we're already going here we might as well shoot a fucking scene here let's see if

[44:47] people sign the release and then we'll just shoot it it's possible i mean we'll have to look into

[44:52] how many milk mud wrestling clubs there were in london at the time um probably a lot probably a

[44:58] lot and you know that chris claremont was right there watching it the whole time oh that's for

[45:03] the people who know about chris claremont x-men writer x-men legends uh sexual peccadillos true

[45:07] nasty boy anyway so um they so miss brunner's there they both want to find frank him for revenge

[45:13] her for the microfilm and they kind of come to an agreement that they're going to do this uh they go

[45:18] to jerry cornelius's apartment it is a mess she calls a computer for information while he goes

[45:23] and takes a ton of his freezer is just overflowing with biscuits what we would call cookies and what

[45:29] in england they call biscuits and he's he uh there's liquor bottles everywhere he has a coffee

[45:34] vending machine in his apartment because again these are the cornelius's they like they're just

[45:38] like the starbucks in their house they love to be able they had loved it to pay money for coffee

[45:42] somehow somehow this is the most average place in the whole movie like it's got its quirks but

[45:50] like there's still something kind of real and boring about it yeah well he still has like a

[45:54] couch you know he has furniture it's filled with bottles too isn't the whole idea that every counter

[45:59] is lined with empty booze bottles in this scene yeah that because he lives in a sort of uh a dr

[46:05] Garganzo, Raoul Duke, constant haze of chemicals, but mostly liquor.

[46:11] And he quotes the Spanish Inquisition sketch.

[46:14] So again, you know it's a comedy because they have a joke from a funny thing in it.

[46:19] And Jerry hits on Ms. Brunner's assistant and is lightly rebuffed and, as in Norwegian

[46:25] Wood, crawls off to sleep in the bath.

[46:27] He's brushing his teeth very angrily.

[46:30] With his foot in the sink.

[46:32] Yeah, and he looks in a very uncomfortable posture.

[46:35] And he sees in the mirror reflection that the assistant is now playing piano naked, and he watches this for a little bit and then again crawls off to sleep in the bath.

[46:43] And we see the assistant at first it seems like is about to have sex with Miss Brunner, but as it becomes clearer later on, she is going through some sort of process of consuming and absorbing the assistant into her own body, which is represented by her holding her fist in the air while choral music plays, kind of like divine choral music.

[47:03] This is one of those things where it was just an inkling I had that I had to look up the description later to find out if that was actually happening.

[47:08] Yes, Joel Hodgson, you had a question.

[47:10] I mean, I'm just kind of trying to reiterate with my hand what happened in the movie because there is this kind of effect that happens where it's shudders.

[47:24] And I didn't catch that in the least.

[47:28] Like, that's what's amazing.

[47:29] i didn't get that but that that actually makes sense somehow so you're saying she's somehow got

[47:37] a way to absorb people and we we know that that comes later but so you're saying she's starting

[47:43] that process yes yeah i think so i mean i was a little confused because normally when i make love

[47:49] to somebody my body shudders in that weird stop stop thing and angelic music plays right yeah i

[47:55] thought that was like i thought that was like just a stylistic showing of like the ecstasy of

[48:01] sex or sex to see if you will but um yeah i did not get that at all that's that's what i thought

[48:07] was the joke at first was that it was yeah it was a joke about how good this this erotic moment is

[48:12] and because they couldn't leonard cohen's hallelujah i assume was not maybe hadn't been

[48:17] written yet so they couldn't play that so they went right it was inspired by this scene that's

[48:22] That's what it was. Leonard Cohen saw this movie and he misunderstood what was going on in the scene, so he went and wrote that song and he said, someday two superheroes are going to do it in a big metal owl to this song.

[48:31] So the next morning, the assistant is gone. We now know that she's been eaten, but it's unclear at the time.

[48:39] They go to a train station because Ms. Brunner's computer said that Frank would be there, and he is. It takes a long time for this to happen.

[48:47] He's picked up by Dr. Baxter, who is a former colleague but now enemy of Jerry Cornelius' late father.

[48:54] And Dr. Baxter is played by Patrick McGee, who is a big, big actor in a lot of stuff.

[48:58] But you might remember him best as the author in Clockwork Orange who gets beaten up by Alex and the Droogs.

[49:04] So here he's a bad guy, though, and that one he was a victim.

[49:07] They drive off and they follow him.

[49:10] Frank talks to Baxter for a little bit.

[49:12] Frank wants to sell the microphone, but he doesn't know what's on it.

[49:17] And Frank thinks he killed Jerry Cornelius, but Baxter is like, oh, I just saw him.

[49:20] I think he's still alive.

[49:22] I think I just saw him the other day or earlier.

[49:24] Cue dart gunfight and foot chase while Jerry and Frank are running through a junkyard, which I guess represents modern society or something, to some jazz music.

[49:34] Miss Brunner kind of seduces Dr. Baxter and then absorbs him in the exact same way, fist upraised, choral music playing.

[49:43] There was jazz music?

[49:44] Jazz music during the chase, I believe, if I'm remembering it correctly.

[49:48] I only remember the oompa music.

[49:49] Maybe I was so—maybe my mind had blocked out the marching band music at that point.

[49:53] It was just playing other things I might enjoy more.

[49:55] You sounded so disturbed, too.

[49:58] Like, I missed jazz?

[50:00] I'm just shocked.

[50:01] That's why around the Mystery Center, the other guest said he was known as Jazz McGinnis

[50:05] because he just always had to tell us about jazz.

[50:07] He'd be like, you know who also riffs?

[50:10] Coltrane.

[50:11] And we'd be like, yeah, we get it, Matt.

[50:12] We get it.

[50:14] the other thing i was thinking about is this movie for a science fiction fantasy film doesn't have a

[50:21] single establishing shot showing you where you are or what yeah where in context you are there's

[50:30] there's that one scene where he's walking in a city and there is a there is kind of a process

[50:37] shot of a bunch of cars stacked up and that's the only time they do any kind of special effects

[50:44] um photography to indicate a sense of place and i think if they would have used that more this

[50:51] would have been a better movie i think that's a clearer movie and that scene that that shot it

[50:57] wasn't until i read the wikipedia entry that i realized that was a shot of trafalgar square

[51:00] and it was supposed to be showing that it's full of detritus but it's yeah that's the only shot

[51:04] where i was like it's like oh well this is yeah this is an establishing shot and i still don't

[51:07] know where it is or what's going on i just thought it was like the first step into like the wally

[51:11] universe where like we had just put trash everywhere oh yeah well this is wally is the

[51:16] sequel to the final program yeah yeah okay well and there's the when he's chasing uh when jerry's

[51:20] chasing frank he chased him into a large building and we get like a helicopter shot right where the

[51:26] the camera like you see them run in and then you can see through the courtyard frank like run from

[51:32] one door to another that actually is a great shot that's actually cool yeah uh so jerry shoots frank

[51:38] uh killing him the frank plot line is now over uh and we're off onto the microfilm plot line the

[51:46] final program of the original plot of title bruner takes the microfilm and jerry just starts drinking

[51:52] his whole family is gone and so rightfully he's he's about to get drunk and then miss bruner is

[51:56] like and and he talks to miss brunner and he seems to know that she eats people like it's it just

[52:02] comes up casually in conversation i was like oh okay so that's you knew that was happening you

[52:06] didn't try to stop it or anything like that you just felt that was all right okay uh and she says

[52:10] come to lapland come with me to see duel the most complex computer in the world and he's like i've

[52:16] seen it steven spielberg the truck's chasing a guy like i understand i don't i don't need to see it

[52:21] again i saw it uh but instead they they're gonna go to lapland wherever lapland is in relation to

[52:26] them it is a mere hot air balloon right away because they step into a waiting hot air balloon

[52:30] and and just head over there they they toss the muppets out and but it's it's one of these it's

[52:38] like they're trying to there was something about in the early scene when he gets into a helicopter

[52:42] and just flies off there was something a little surprising of like what and it's like they're

[52:45] trying to pick up on the fumes of that and they're like how do we heighten from helicopter hot air

[52:49] balloon that'll seem whimsical there's a lot of uh misplaced whimsy or mimsy in this and i wish it

[52:55] was the last mimsy to be honest so anyway elliot yeah don't do that sorry i was just i i wanted to

[53:05] be gene shallot for a moment that works you could just tell him not to do it when matt tells me when

[53:10] matt tells me it works for a couple minutes okay uh they show up at a kind of pod in lapland where

[53:15] the three scientists are and they're like what is jerry doing here we don't want him here our

[53:18] experiment is at a crucial moment and they there's so much this whole scene this whole sequence is

[53:24] full of so much science fiction techno mumbo jumbo gobbledygook that i love so much because it's like

[53:30] there's there's just so much made-up science language but uh they're the jerry goes off and

[53:35] finds there's that like a it's a vintage submarine at an underground dock and talks about how he used

[53:40] to have a submarine too and it turns out this is a secret nazi lab that was left over after world

[53:45] war ii and jerry and they they're continuing i guess the experiment that was started there

[53:50] and jerry's like oh the world's about to end soon and they show him that dimitri uh the assistant

[53:54] that was left in the car earlier is living in a kind of glass bedroom uh well remember too earlier

[53:59] he does say in the lemon grove or whatever it was there's a the only line i remember is when he says

[54:07] the world is ending i'm gonna go watch it on television which also seemed like another one

[54:12] of those just like oh the future's so dismal because of television and stuff yeah yeah there's

[54:19] There's a line later where someone says something about, like, the Third World War or something like that.

[54:24] And he's like, it's already going on.

[54:26] Just people get distracted by the commercials.

[54:27] And it's like, that's almost a satirical idea, but it's not really.

[54:31] You're getting there.

[54:32] Yeah.

[54:33] It's baby steps.

[54:34] Baby steps.

[54:35] Evolutionary steps, as we'll see later in the movie.

[54:37] Anyway, they showed Jerry Dool, which is a kind of hilariously small computer.

[54:42] It's like the size of a paper shredder, which would be accurate for now.

[54:45] But back then, it's a very unimpressive looking computer.

[54:48] With a fucking title plate on it that says,

[54:51] Most Advanced Computer in the World, Do Not Touch.

[54:54] The only thing I can compare that to is when I was recently an audience member on Jeopardy!

[55:00] And they had us wait in the Wheel of Fortune set for a while.

[55:02] He brings this up every episode, guys.

[55:04] And the Wheel of Fortune was under a thick layer of plastic sheeting.

[55:08] And there was a sign that said,

[55:10] Do Not Touch Wheel Under Any Circumstances.

[55:17] that's happened so many times so many times and i just wondered what people's excuses were for

[55:22] why they had to touch the wheel at that moment i think too that in this in the laboratory

[55:29] they really step up their game as far as art direction goes and this is when this is again

[55:36] where matt and i was watch this is when we happened to watch it the first time and said

[55:40] wow i'm really enthused about this movie because zardoz did this really elegantly as well where

[55:48] there's um uh kind of a the simple society and then there's these sci-fi elements that kind of

[55:56] are in pockets throughout the the you know the kind of pastoral farm community and this had the

[56:05] same this had the same kind of vibe where you hit this pocket and i thought it i thought it was

[56:10] pretty nice looking throughout the rest of the movie it was kind of like a peak yeah yeah i think

[56:16] so too but now what i like also is that it's it's kind of got a mod style to it but the secret lab

[56:21] looks like something that people threw together in a pre-existing room which i really liked as

[56:25] opposed to every x-men villain has a secret lab that looks like it was built by a crew of hundreds

[56:32] and i'm just like was mr sinister really like using an electric screwdriver like installing

[56:38] all these panels to cover up all the wiring.

[56:40] There's no way that Apocalypse hired a contractor to do this.

[56:44] So was he really lying down underneath the counter,

[56:48] wiring up all of his big computers and stuff?

[56:50] But this looks like a place...

[56:52] I can't believe comic books anymore.

[56:54] Tying up the cables so he doesn't trip on them

[56:56] or they don't get confused.

[56:57] The scales will fall over my eyes on this one.

[56:59] They know that Apocalypse is like,

[57:00] ugh, I need more zip ties to get these cables into bundles.

[57:04] And he goes to the store and he doesn't have a credit card or like – so I guess maybe he needs cash to pay for this.

[57:12] So like is he going and like pawning ancient Egyptian artifacts or something like that?

[57:16] Like what does Apocalypse have that's valuable?

[57:18] I have to assume.

[57:18] Yeah.

[57:19] Good point.

[57:19] And then suddenly he's got to prove the provenance of it.

[57:22] So either that or he's out there busking, hustling to get that bag.

[57:26] Again, a movie I would rather see.

[57:28] Yeah, you've got this immortal mutant, Apocalypse, who has wires that for some reason go from his elbows to his torso.

[57:34] And a big belt buckle that says A, and he's just playing a violin on a subway platform to get enough money to pay for these zip ties for his cable bundles.

[57:42] Anyway, they take him – so Miss Brunner writes goodbye on the wall of Dimitri's room, and it fills with gas.

[57:48] And they take Jerry to my favorite room in the whole place, which is the brain room.

[57:51] It's just fake brains in fish tanks with liquid and wires going into them.

[57:57] And they're like, oh yeah, we're harnessing all the knowledge of these brilliant brains so we can feed all human knowledge into this computer and then feed it back into the head of the perfect immortal person, which seems like an extra step that maybe they don't need, but I don't know.

[58:10] And they're like, we can't seem to crack feeding all the knowledge into a human brain, so here's a solution.

[58:15] Two human brains.

[58:18] Two brains.

[58:19] And it's like, that wasn't your first solution?

[58:20] Like, I don't understand.

[58:21] You've already got a bunch of brains.

[58:23] Like that's literally how life works is that human knowledge is distributed throughout multiple brains.

[58:27] So the idea that like – wait, I got it.

[58:29] Two brains.

[58:30] There's a real Elon Musk quality of it where it's like I'm a genius.

[58:33] You know how people should travel in cities?

[58:35] Tunnels.

[58:36] How come nobody ever thought of this brilliant idea before?

[58:38] It isn't so good on rediscovering human civilization one invention at a time.

[58:42] So they explain to Jerry Cornelius in more interesting words than this that his dad built a kind of prism chamber.

[58:49] He built it in Lapland because Lapland gets six weeks of uninterrupted sunlight, and the non-setting sun puts all this solar radiation that's going to be stored up in this prison.

[58:58] We're going to put two people in there at just the right moment.

[59:01] Then we're going to combine them into a double-brained, self-regenerating, immortal superperson.

[59:07] I'm going to mention they throw the word hermaphrodite around here.

[59:10] It's kind of a problematic word for them to be using here.

[59:12] It's not really necessary for what they're talking about.

[59:15] They were going to merge Miss Brunner and Dimitri, but now Miss Brunner wants to use Jerry.

[59:20] And who wouldn't? Why wouldn't you want to be one half of an immortal super being that is an alcoholic addicted to chocolate biscuits who cannot get through a single day without pissing off everybody around him and is just kind of like mopey all the time?

[59:35] He didn't think about it very much either when she asked him. He just kind of went, OK.

[59:40] Yeah, it is worth noting, too, to really reiterate the fact that he's an alcoholic.

[59:45] He has like a small kind of wet bar in the dashboard of his car.

[59:50] So and he just pops pills into as well when he's drinking.

[59:54] So, yes, very much like not even like a textbook alcoholic, like kind of like a comic strip.

[1:00:01] It's kind of a custom built bar on the dashboard of his car.

[1:00:05] Yeah, like it like Andy Cap is like, bro, you need to cool out for a little bit.

[1:00:09] go home to your wife dude have some hot fries go home sleep it off have 40 years of a comic

[1:00:17] script that's not funny and get back that is there is like i i don't know enough about the

[1:00:24] origins of handicap but i it's like i assume it's built off of that like uh some some the love of

[1:00:31] the dad from mr doolittle from my fair lady where it was like english drunks lower class english

[1:00:37] trunks are hilarious like we this is the this is the new part of culture the same way that there

[1:00:42] was like that hillbilly culture craze in america for a while it's like the lockhorns too for

[1:00:47] british people like right like handicap and his wife can't get along yeah except for there's more

[1:00:56] implication the handicap is perhaps violent i don't know well with the lockhorns i always assumed

[1:01:01] that that is a message that is being sent by the united states government secretly to aliens or

[1:01:07] demons that have threatened the earth and it's that the they've said you need to send us messages

[1:01:12] in the lockhorns or else we're going to destroy your planet and it's like every day we got to

[1:01:16] have another lockhorns ready for them it's the only thing that it's the only thing that tells

[1:01:19] them the message of what's going on like it wouldn't surprise me if the if the news tomorrow

[1:01:23] was like oh it turns out kgb agents were sending messages through the lockhorns for for 50 years

[1:01:28] to their american sleeper agents uh kind of a new appreciation for the lockhorns wow you know it's

[1:01:34] There's no pogo, right?

[1:01:35] Come on.

[1:01:35] I mean, it is no pogo.

[1:01:37] Don't slam pogo around Dan.

[1:01:39] It's not even a beetle bailey.

[1:01:40] Now, here's the thing about beetle bailey.

[1:01:43] Uh-huh, go on.

[1:01:44] Tell me about beetle bailey.

[1:01:46] So beetle bailey is the brother of high, from lowest, from high and lowest, right?

[1:01:51] Like that's how, that's where they come from.

[1:01:53] Yes, that's true.

[1:01:53] So is it, I'm trying to come up with some, I guess the analogy would be that like beetle bailey is to high and lowest as perfect strangers is to family matters.

[1:02:03] Does that mean anything to anybody?

[1:02:04] Should that be on the SATs?

[1:02:06] I mean, it means something.

[1:02:07] Okay.

[1:02:08] I don't know what it means, but—

[1:02:11] It means it's past L.A. Spend Time.

[1:02:13] I could sculpt it out of mashed potatoes and say, this means something.

[1:02:17] Guys, I have this yarn board of spinoffs that I wanted to show you that proves that High and Lowest and Family Matters take place in the same universe.

[1:02:24] Okay, so guys, Dimitri, he escapes.

[1:02:28] He attacks Jerry.

[1:02:29] They fight.

[1:02:30] there's a couple funny lines that jerry has here that again he is he is a hero who is very okay

[1:02:35] with openly talking about how he he is bad at fighting and it's just it is just aggressive

[1:02:39] and he has a line he goes help miss brunner i'm losing which i think is which to me was a funny

[1:02:43] line you know they're constantly like tripping falling over things the pieces of the set that

[1:02:49] are there all fall over very easily like yeah yeah if there's a can in that room it's not full of

[1:02:53] anything was was it that fight scene or was it one earlier where there was that exchange with like

[1:02:59] Like, oh, I'll staple your balls to the inside of your thighs.

[1:03:03] I don't have any.

[1:03:04] Everybody has thighs.

[1:03:05] Yeah, that's earlier.

[1:03:06] That's earlier.

[1:03:07] There's a couple of wisecracks.

[1:03:09] This fight, Stuart, you're right, reminds me of the fight, Mystery Science Theater Connection, in the episode Future War, which seems to take place in an empty cardboard box warehouse.

[1:03:16] They need things for them to bump into, but don't want to fill those things.

[1:03:21] Okay, Miss Brunner shoots Dimitri, but they've got to hurry to pull off this experiment.

[1:03:25] They put Jerry in the chamber.

[1:03:27] He's kind of out of it.

[1:03:28] Ms. Brunner comes in in a kind of see-through nightie, and the scientists bicker a lot.

[1:03:32] And Jerry and Brunner have kind of like – it's not quite wrestling, and it's not quite sex, and it's not quite a fight.

[1:03:38] They just kind of roll over each other over and over again while they talk.

[1:03:41] They have a tumble.

[1:03:42] Yeah, they're just tumbling.

[1:03:43] And the screen gets all psychedelic, and the brains are not happy about it, the brains in the jars.

[1:03:50] And the scientists are like, ah, we're in pain, and they're falling down, and I'm not sure why.

[1:03:54] And the lab is a mess when it's all done.

[1:03:56] And you see that one of the scientists, his shirt is just gone.

[1:03:58] He's just not wearing it anymore.

[1:03:59] I'm so glad somebody else noticed that.

[1:04:00] Okay.

[1:04:01] I was like, what scenario was going on where either his reaction was that he ripped his shirt off or somehow the solar radiation energy just tore his shirt off.

[1:04:10] But everyone else's shirts are fine.

[1:04:12] Well, also, like, all the scientists, like, after the end of this are, like, all but one are, like, dead on the floor.

[1:04:17] But you don't actually see them injured, per se.

[1:04:21] They're just in pools of blood.

[1:04:23] So you're not really sure what happened.

[1:04:24] Lots of blood.

[1:04:25] Like almost too much blood for a person.

[1:04:27] Now, you have just ushered in a new age of humanity.

[1:04:31] All the scientists are dead.

[1:04:33] There's blood everywhere.

[1:04:34] Is this a circumstance when I can touch the Wheel of Fortune?

[1:04:37] I got to refer you to the sign.

[1:04:42] It says under no circumstances.

[1:04:44] I apologize.

[1:04:45] I know that you'd have more luck touching the actual Wheel of Fortune that will move us out of Kali Yuga and into the next age of spiritual and human development than touching that one.

[1:04:55] And I guess you're going to have to talk to – it's not a Merv Griffin production, I don't think.

[1:04:59] I don't remember who makes Wheel of Fortune.

[1:05:01] But you're going to have to talk to them, but under no circumstances, it says.

[1:05:04] Yeah, that's too bad.

[1:05:05] The door opens.

[1:05:06] We get a double vision point of view shot.

[1:05:08] That's right.

[1:05:09] It's another thing like Westworld where you see the point of view of a superior being, and it looks worse than normal human vision.

[1:05:14] It's weird.

[1:05:16] It's walking through the lab.

[1:05:17] It finds Dimitri, and Dimitri says, are you the messiah?

[1:05:23] And you hear Jerry's voice say, I don't know.

[1:05:25] Let's just say it's the end of an age.

[1:05:28] And then we see Jerry, and he's very clearly not the messiah.

[1:05:30] He is the caveman from altered states, but kind of like hunched over and with too much makeup on.

[1:05:36] And he goes, see you around, sweetheart, in a Humphrey Bogart voice.

[1:05:38] And then just kind of –

[1:05:40] We have to stop right here.

[1:05:42] Let's digest.

[1:05:44] This is the thing that –

[1:05:47] This is when the movie broke you for sure?

[1:05:49] matt and i saw okay and it was a bit troubling and it was one of those things i mean i think that

[1:05:57] there's confusion in this movie but there were a few moments of wind windows of like really

[1:06:03] and a really exciting idea but that was so fucking weird he says that and then we later

[1:06:13] later matt and i kept like trying to remember exactly what he said like did he say 23 skidoo

[1:06:21] uh i got a snort in the back of my truck like we couldn't remember it was like here's looking at

[1:06:30] you kids but it could have been anything right well it was it was more so that it was a humphrey

[1:06:34] bogart impression like we were so thrown off by that that we couldn't remember the actual line

[1:06:38] and we just kept thinking to ourselves like why was it a humphrey bogart that's one of the things

[1:06:45] that dates this movie so much is even more than like his clothes is that that was the research

[1:06:50] that was the time of the humphrey bogart resurgence when like humphrey bogart stuff was really cool

[1:06:54] for young people because he was considered the most counterculture of the classic hollywood

[1:06:59] stars so like you gotta bring that back that's why like uh like um play it again sam like stuff

[1:07:04] like that exists was because it was like oh yeah bogart and like uh so but it's it dates it more

[1:07:09] than anything that at that moment this guy who's supposed to be like a counterculture figure is

[1:07:14] like humphrey bogart impression that'll show i'm cool and like jokey you know and the kids will get

[1:07:19] it it is also so strange this creature that he turns into because you know that jerry is is

[1:07:27] supposed to be this like ultra cool you know drugs and partying like but also brilliant guy

[1:07:36] miss bruner is this like you know seductress who is also like a praying mantis like eats

[1:07:45] those she mates with and you kind of expect once they emerge at the end into this super being that

[1:07:52] It's going to be this kind of like beautiful androgynous like Tilda Swinton, David Bowie, like everyone's struck by how gorgeous.

[1:08:01] I was expecting like the things at the end of Dark Crystal.

[1:08:04] Yeah, but instead it's like, oh, here's a caveman who talks like Humphrey Bogart.

[1:08:10] It's the ultimate apex of human evolution is a caveman who talks like Humphrey Bogart and walks with a sort of like jaunty kind of like shuffle and has bad vision, needs glasses.

[1:08:21] And they put a lot of work into that, because it was a really seamless makeup. Even his body was misshapen, and there were a lot of prosthetics all over his body, and that was really well done. And the idea that, yeah, like you said, Elliot, it's like the accumulation of all human knowledge. The thing it must do is let you know that it's seen an old Humphrey Bogart.

[1:08:50] is so wrong and and at the same time it was chilling it's it was chilling to me and i don't

[1:08:58] know exactly why i think i think so this is this is an example much like the movie cats of an of a

[1:09:04] perfect execution of a flawed concept i think where like they i think i think the director

[1:09:11] watched this and was like this is exactly what i am going for there is no compromises

[1:09:15] he's a he's a kind of caveman he knows humphrey bogart that he's going to wander out and say it's

[1:09:21] a very tasty world we're going to have a more psychedelic lights in a sort of psychedelic

[1:09:25] version of a looney tunes end ring around the screen and and then he was bugs bunny that's what

[1:09:32] was so weird yeah is that he's almost he's almost being as flip as bugs bunny it's like i thought i

[1:09:40] took a lap that albuquerque you know it seems like the supreme being is talking like bugs bunny now

[1:09:47] yeah yeah and he just kind of saunters into oblivion but he's walking on water right he's

[1:09:53] walking on water and it's this kind of murky um it's kind of this murky world that's ahead of you

[1:10:00] that isn't at all we're not inside the building anymore it's like a primordial swamp that he's

[1:10:07] walking out into so that doesn't track either no yeah i mean never have i wanted to be in a

[1:10:15] like a festival critic screening of a movie as i would have wanted to be in a movie theater in 1973

[1:10:22] hearing the reaction in the end well i have to say too when when i first watched this like

[1:10:31] generally i look at the movie like by myself and decide if it's something i want to have joel take

[1:10:37] a look at too and like so you mentioned like her see-through nightie and there's kind of like a lot

[1:10:44] of nudity in the third act and i remember telling joel like i found this really weird movie but i

[1:10:50] don't think it's right for the show like it has a fair amount of nudity in it and it was like oh

[1:10:55] well how much like maybe maybe we can cut around it i was like well in the end shot it's just like

[1:11:00] a butt like for the whole thing yeah yeah yeah i don't think we can cut around it

[1:11:06] so it's a uh yeah i think that it was this is when it first started i was like oh yeah i had

[1:11:13] a similar thing i was like i could see why they would do this as a mystery science theater movie

[1:11:16] and then yeah it was throughout it it was it was a little too grown up and then yeah it's just a

[1:11:19] caveman's butt walking away i i have to admit that the i guess when we get to final judgments i'll

[1:11:25] elaborate on this but like when they all the stuff of that secret lab is really playing directly to

[1:11:31] my tastes and that but then as soon as he comes out and he's a humphrey bugart spouting caveman

[1:11:36] i was like say humphrey bugart as like a ghost yeah as i talked we talk a lot about ghosts in

[1:11:41] my family and also boogers so there's a side in me humphrey bugart is i mean now he is humphrey

[1:11:47] bugart right you know let's be honest it's been long enough yep yeah he's legally you have to

[1:11:52] You have to refer to him that way.

[1:11:54] Let's call a spade a spade.

[1:11:55] Sam Spade.

[1:11:56] Thank you.

[1:11:56] Now, while we were talking, I was looking up the IMDb trivia about this movie.

[1:12:03] Apparently, Timothy Dalton was originally supposed to play the Jerry Cornelius role.

[1:12:07] What?

[1:12:07] And they were hoping that Vanessa Redgrave would play Miss Brunner.

[1:12:11] And I wonder if they'd be able to pull it off.

[1:12:13] Also, this is trivia.

[1:12:15] According to Michael Moorcock, who visited the set, George Cloris was very baffled by the script,

[1:12:20] which seems like not shouldn't be trivia should be just taken for granted that whoever was in

[1:12:25] the movie was baffled by it also audiences were but uh but do you think that they would that

[1:12:31] having those having an actual james bond not yet but eventual and a red grave would have carried

[1:12:36] this movie or not i think it would have stepped up the intensity of both of those characters

[1:12:41] yeah that's yeah i uh yeah they all they both seemed kind of like oh these are people that

[1:12:48] i understand why i didn't quite know who they were like they're fine but okay it's interesting

[1:12:55] for a movie to not give us a single likable character okay it's kind of audacious so now

[1:13:01] fantasy casting okay but what if it was paul rubens and cindy lopper do you think they would

[1:13:06] have been able to carry sign me up okay sign me yeah i do okay here's another one here's another

[1:13:10] one that's an interesting pairing paulie shore and agnes moorhead do you think they'd be able

[1:13:14] to pull it off wow that's actually pretty cool yeah i'd be curious this felt this movie felt to

[1:13:21] me like it was rocky horror without the music or fun you know what i mean it was kind of like

[1:13:29] recreating life and it had that kind of cavaliers uh 60s vibe like uh everybody's uh you know

[1:13:38] sexual sexual norms are out the window now let's just have fun with it and it kind of felt like

[1:13:45] that as well that kind of alt uh sci-fi fantasy vibe is is throughout this movie as well but

[1:13:51] what i thought was so hard was they never had a moment where jerry cornelius was not

[1:13:59] um just depraved and not just didn't care about anything so how do you have a movie with that

[1:14:07] that or is this for final our final judge well and you know what let's yeah let's go into it yeah

[1:14:11] i just found that really hard like when does he stop being flipped like every fight he's in he's

[1:14:19] joking like it doesn't matter if i'm alive or dead it doesn't matter if the world's alive or

[1:14:25] dead like like that kind of it it almost can't you almost can't relate to it as a normal person

[1:14:34] and go why is why should i care you don't you're rich and you don't care so what is what are we

[1:14:40] supposed to do with that yeah he's like not cool enough to be a cool cynic and he's not like or to

[1:14:46] be a romantic cynic and he's not it's not like like the arc of the movie is to show him that

[1:14:51] life is worth living as long as you have the chance to become an immortal two-brained humphrey

[1:14:56] bogart quoting caveman yeah like although he does say he actually you know what he does say he walks

[1:15:01] out and he says he says it's a very tasty world like maybe that is that's his arc is that like

[1:15:06] he realizes this is what i need i needed to be covered with hair i needed to have knowledge of

[1:15:10] all humphrey bogart maybe he's never seen a humphrey bogart movie yeah and he's never seen

[1:15:14] anything he really connects with and all human knowledge included like in a lonely place and

[1:15:18] stuff like that and now he's like i get it there are people out there like me not like me i have

[1:15:23] two brains and i'm a caveman but like me and so finally i can i can live in this world whereas

[1:15:28] there before there was no one like me a nobel prize winning alcoholic scientist who's in love

[1:15:32] with his sister possibly and has a co2 needle gun all right all right all right ellie shut up we

[1:15:38] gotta get these we gotta get our special guests out of here so let's do our final judgments uh

[1:15:43] fast uh which is where we say if it's a good bad movie a bad bad movie or a movie we kind of like

[1:15:49] you know good bad you know movie yeah you know have fun watching because it's so bad you know

[1:15:54] you know uh but like i don't think that these categories work unfortunately no joel and matt

[1:16:00] you should know that almost every episode the categories don't match up really well

[1:16:05] yeah i i want to say that like my experience of this is like i i i'm mildly glad i saw it but the

[1:16:13] pleasures of this movie for me are all kind of like like pop culture nerd intellectual where i'm

[1:16:19] like okay let me try and parse where this fits into like culture like okay that's got this

[1:16:26] counterculture thing and it's like mod english but it also fits into like this particular

[1:16:33] counterculture like uh trend within science fiction writing and it's got that vibe of like

[1:16:40] the avengers or like even like hammer films or whatever so like trying to place it and trying

[1:16:48] understand the currents of culture that put this nonsense in front of my brain is kind of where i

[1:16:55] found the fun in it but uh what do you guys think i i agree i think that um it's an artifact it's

[1:17:04] this kind of like confection i'd never heard i've never heard of this movie ever or seen an image

[1:17:12] from it and and it was that thing where again because when matt and i kind of jumped through

[1:17:20] it you know it's kind of like we'll watch it and we'll go let's go downstream and we'll go 10

[1:17:25] minutes down and watch some more and each time we were watching it there was something kind of

[1:17:29] interesting going on and and then we go oh this is great and we didn't know what the rules were for

[1:17:36] the flop house and we were going can we watch the movie should we watch the movie and so we

[1:17:41] didn't watch it we thought maybe we were going to watch it all together so we didn't watch the

[1:17:46] whole thing and then last night we watched the whole thing so it was kind of like that but

[1:17:50] but i feel the same way and it's it's kind of like um like um like dan was saying it's kind

[1:17:56] of like this it's fun to see the connection that how this movie seems other movies together

[1:18:03] that were trendy and that they were kind of borrowing things from so it's almost like a

[1:18:09] composite drawing of a bunch of other movies with a little with a narrative that's strung together

[1:18:15] that isn't working because nobody gets excited about rich people that are bored yeah like it

[1:18:23] just can't work so that was what yeah i guess that's my take on it unless you're tennessee

[1:18:27] williams yeah that's true and you're writing about them yeah uh i mean i guess the only thing

[1:18:33] i can say is that out of all the movies i've seen this was one of them yeah you know i love that

[1:18:42] reaction from the movie is it yeah yeah i think it is you're quoting the was it i didn't even

[1:18:48] realize out of all them what was it what did they do all the movies we've riffed this is one of them

[1:18:54] or out of the movie all the movies you'll see this year this is one of them i think that's

[1:18:58] Oh, that's like the tagline for the movie, right?

[1:19:00] Yes.

[1:19:01] Oh, okay.

[1:19:02] We'll follow up with you.

[1:19:03] Come on.

[1:19:04] We'll come back later.

[1:19:05] Come on.

[1:19:06] Go ahead.

[1:19:07] Think of something original.

[1:19:08] Stuart, what did you want to say?

[1:19:09] I mean, I have a limited amount of patience for, like, 70s surreal weirdo stuff.

[1:19:13] I mean, I like The Visitor, and The Visitor is pretty cool, and that's, you know, weird.

[1:19:18] The Visitor's great.

[1:19:19] Yeah, I mean, this just didn't have—it felt, like, alternately like it was trying too hard,

[1:19:26] And it wasn't trying to let me like or let me like any of the characters at all.

[1:19:31] So, yeah, I'm not a fan of the final program.

[1:19:34] I'm glad it's the last one.

[1:19:37] You know what I mean?

[1:19:37] Elliot, I swear, if you do another Mimsy joke.

[1:19:42] I learned my lesson.

[1:19:45] I'm not doing any more jokes about Mimsies.

[1:19:47] So I feel like my reaction to this is a little different than you guys.

[1:19:52] This is a movie that I actually kind of liked a little bit.

[1:19:55] it is slow it makes no sense uh and you're right the characters give you nothing to latch on to

[1:20:02] and the story is not that interesting but i'm a real sucker for 70s science fiction stuff and

[1:20:07] 70s kind of weirdness stuff and like i said that any i'm a fan of almost any movie where you go to

[1:20:14] a hidden scientific base and it looks like it was thrown together with duct tape and zip ties and

[1:20:19] they just give you a bunch of scientific mumbo jumbo about the new the next stage of humanity

[1:20:24] and then there's a lot of weirdness that happens

[1:20:26] when he comes out as a caveman

[1:20:27] that was a disappointment to me

[1:20:29] that was not a pleasant surprise

[1:20:32] but there were

[1:20:33] for all the things in it that I

[1:20:35] didn't necessarily like there were a lot of things

[1:20:38] that hit the like

[1:20:39] the stuff I like and I just felt that

[1:20:42] I like the kind of mix of

[1:20:43] kind of mod science fiction

[1:20:46] made out of 70s stuff and also

[1:20:48] just every now and then seeing

[1:20:49] a real run down train station

[1:20:51] just kind of like a crappy train station

[1:20:53] so i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend it to anybody but i would say the part of me that genuinely

[1:20:58] likes sardaz i think also genuinely likes this movie a little bit also too like sometimes we

[1:21:04] think about the best like matt and i will think about the best context for a movie and this movie

[1:21:10] would be really cool if you had it running like during a party yes yeah like that would win you

[1:21:16] would win if you had it running if there was no expectation like you don't have to do anything

[1:21:22] And people say that about the new Cats movie too, that it would actually be fantastic if it's just playing on the TV during a party.

[1:21:29] I would say Cats rewards a close viewing in hilarity.

[1:21:34] But I think the way that you guys first watched the movie I think is the right way to watch it where you're just skipping around in the movie because the scenes don't really matter and you just see a bunch of neat stuff and hopefully you'll get some science mumbo jumbo in there.

[1:21:51] But the movie did make me feel good about my decision to not throw myself into the oeuvre of Michael Moorcock and get lost in his dozens of novels about the same hero reverberating throughout history.

[1:22:03] Stu, rebuttal?

[1:22:03] We'll talk about that another time, Elliot.

[1:22:06] I don't think this is the place.

[1:22:07] I want Matt to have a shot at going back at his remark.

[1:22:11] You can use the same one, which is the headline for Mystery Science Theater.

[1:22:16] You can use that.

[1:22:17] No, what I'd like to do is personally apologize to the MST3K fan base, who are a lovely group of people.

[1:22:24] Please don't let my ignorance inhibit you from donating to our Make More MST3K Kickstarter campaign.

[1:22:32] That's right, guys.

[1:22:34] I promise I'll be less ignorant in the future.

[1:22:36] Let's hear about this Kickstarter campaign.

[1:22:38] Let's hear again.

[1:22:39] Where can we find this Kickstarter campaign, and how can we contribute to it, and what can we get from it?

[1:22:43] Joel?

[1:22:43] MakeMoreMST3K.com.

[1:22:47] It's on Kickstarter.

[1:22:48] We're making new shows.

[1:22:51] It's like the one we did six years ago.

[1:22:54] It's new shows and its own online theater called the Gizmo Plex and lots of amazing rewards.

[1:23:03] And we're working with our Kickstarter guru, Ivan Asquith, who's brilliant.

[1:23:08] And we're happy to be working with him again.

[1:23:11] Yeah.

[1:23:11] I know.

[1:23:12] I'm going to be contributing.

[1:23:12] And if you're like me, and I know I am, do as I do.

[1:23:15] Now, that's two MST lines back to back.

[1:23:19] There you go.

[1:23:19] Okay, so.

[1:23:20] Those are two classics.

[1:23:21] I don't want to hear it.

[1:23:21] To be really strict, it was, I think, also the Firesign Theater.

[1:23:25] Yeah, yeah, that too.

[1:23:27] If you're like me, I know I am, right?

[1:23:28] Yeah.

[1:23:29] Yeah.

[1:23:29] So, yeah, I mean, so I'm stealing from Mystery Science Theater, stealing from Firesign Theater.

[1:23:34] No, we've taken so much, you guys.

[1:23:36] There was an episode.

[1:23:38] We're going to take more.

[1:23:39] I feel like this has been my life experience with Mystery Science Theater is the thinking something is funny and not knowing why and then hearing the original.

[1:23:46] And there's one episode, Joel, where you're just like, you know, everyone knows fun's where the fair's at.

[1:23:51] And I was like, what?

[1:23:52] And then eventually hearing, what is it, we're all bozos on this bus and being like, oh, okay, that's what that's from.

[1:23:59] So if you want more of that rich tapestry of jokes, pokes, riffs, and gifs, then just go to, what is it, bringbackmst3k.com?

[1:24:08] I'm sorry, I apologize, don't listen to me

[1:24:11] makemoremst3k.com

[1:24:13] thanks you guys, I had so much fun being here

[1:24:15] thank you guys, thanks so much for coming on

[1:24:17] this has been great, we're so glad to have you on

[1:24:20] hey kid

[1:24:25] your dad tell you about the time

[1:24:28] he broke Steven Dorf's nose

[1:24:29] at the kids choice awards

[1:24:31] in dead pilot society

[1:24:33] scripts that were developed by studios

[1:24:35] and networks but were never produced

[1:24:37] are given the table reads they deserve.

[1:24:40] When I was a kid, I had to spend my Christmas break

[1:24:42] filming a PSA about angel dust.

[1:24:44] So, yeah, being a kid sucks sometimes.

[1:24:46] Presented by Andrew Reich and Ben Blacker.

[1:24:50] Dead Pilots Society, twice a month on MaximumFun.org.

[1:24:55] You know, the show you like,

[1:24:56] that hobo with the scarf who lives in a magic dumpster.

[1:24:58] Doctor Who.

[1:25:03] Yeah.

[1:25:07] hey jakey hey helen hey you've got another true false quiz for me yep our trivia podcast go fact

[1:25:13] yourself used to be in front of a live audience true turns out that's not so safe anymore correct

[1:25:18] next unfortunately this means we can no longer record the show false the show still comes out

[1:25:24] every first and third friday of the month correct finally we still have great celebrity guests

[1:25:28] answering trivia about things they love on every episode of go fact yourself definitely true and

[1:25:34] And for bonus points, name some of them.

[1:25:36] Recently, we've had Ophira Eisenberg plus tons of surprise experts like Yardley Smith and Suzanne Summers.

[1:25:42] Perfect score.

[1:25:42] You can hear Go Fact Yourself every first and third Friday of the month with all the great guests and trivia that we've always had.

[1:25:49] And if you don't listen, well, then you can Go Fact Yourself.

[1:25:52] That's the name of our podcast.

[1:25:54] Correct.

[1:25:54] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Storyblocks.

[1:26:00] Yeah, it is.

[1:26:00] now more than ever storytellers and content creators are challenged with producing more

[1:26:05] video content at a higher quality than ever before keep up with the growing demands for

[1:26:10] modern video content without sacrificing your vision with stock media from storyblocks storyblocks

[1:26:17] is dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service

[1:26:21] with an ever-growing library that has over 1 million high quality stock assets including 4k

[1:26:29] slash hd footage after effects and premiere pro templates music images sound effects and more

[1:26:36] they have affordable subscription plans and tools and with storyblocks unlimited all access plan

[1:26:42] you can get unlimited downloads of everything in their library and even if your subscription ends

[1:26:48] everything you've downloaded is yours to keep you know if you make video stuff sometimes you just

[1:26:54] need some stock footage of i don't know a guy across the street or something that you don't

[1:26:59] you know like you don't want to steal something you don't want to get something uncopyrighted

[1:27:03] you're putting this out in the world this is your uh creation you want to buy stock footage

[1:27:08] uh alex mentioned before for the last live flop house show on zoom i made a video uh about where

[1:27:16] i sang a song about how i had to pee and we're having intermission because i gotta pee and uh

[1:27:20] i gotta tell you great high quality high def images of things like a clown dancing that i put

[1:27:27] in the background um but anyway so if you want to explore their library and subscribe today you can

[1:27:34] go to storyblocks.com slash flop that's storyblocks.com slash flop hey dan you know the flop

[1:27:43] house is also supported in part by libby i'm going to tell you guys a little story so this is a true

[1:27:48] story from my life i'm recording this right now from my in-laws house in northern california

[1:27:52] two days ago my family were driving up here in our car it's a six hour drive on a good day

[1:27:57] and what happened this most recent time traffic bad traffic suddenly we're crawling through

[1:28:03] downtown walnut creek no thank you normally in this situation my kids you should stay in the

[1:28:08] car instead of crawling that's true problem that's a good point anyway normally i'll probably listen

[1:28:12] to all the uh the talk radio you can normally listen to right yeah yeah so i'm going to continue

[1:28:16] with the ad now we'd only listen we'd already listened to the moana soundtrack probably 17

[1:28:20] times normally in that situation my kids would be throwing a full-on rebellion but not this time

[1:28:25] why one word libby libby is a free reading app created by overdrive that lets you borrow ebooks

[1:28:32] and audiobooks from your library on your phone tablets candles computer if it's electronic

[1:28:36] you can borrow things on it with libby all you need is a valid library card from your library

[1:28:40] and even if you don't have a library card currently you can read samples of any book you see it works

[1:28:45] just like your physical library.

[1:28:46] With Libby, you can borrow available books you want to read,

[1:28:49] and they return themselves automatically after your loan expires.

[1:28:52] I wish my physical library worked that way.

[1:28:54] My fines would not be so high.

[1:28:56] So we're driving up north, and each time the kids are getting restless,

[1:28:59] we just hit the Libby.

[1:29:00] Bam, House on Pooh Corner.

[1:29:01] Boom, Marvelous Land of Oz.

[1:29:03] Kapow, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

[1:29:05] Also, they have picture books even, probably all kinds of grown-up books.

[1:29:08] I don't know.

[1:29:08] I don't get to listen to grown-up books anymore.

[1:29:10] It's two.

[1:29:11] It's a great e-book and audio book service,

[1:29:13] and you don't feel the guilt that comes with patronizing,

[1:29:15] let's say, a huge corporation that treats its warehouse workers like dirt

[1:29:18] because it's all through your local library.

[1:29:21] So download Libby in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store

[1:29:24] to start borrowing and sampling e-books and audio books today.

[1:29:28] I recommend it.

[1:29:29] Yay.

[1:29:30] Boom.

[1:29:31] And you know what that sound is?

[1:29:33] That's an incoming j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-j-jumbotron.

[1:29:37] I like that last j that came a little bit after the other ones.

[1:29:40] Yep.

[1:29:42] This message is for Tom.

[1:29:44] This message is from Sarah.

[1:29:46] This April, Tom and I celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary.

[1:29:51] Since we can't travel, I wanted to ask the Peaches to give my sweetheart a shout-out.

[1:29:58] Tom, you're the bee's knees, my snickerdoodle,

[1:30:03] and I can't imagine being stuck at home with anyone else.

[1:30:06] Also, from our house cat to yours,

[1:30:11] Ra-Row.

[1:30:12] Or,

[1:30:13] Bow-Ma-Mow.

[1:30:15] That was a sweet message.

[1:30:18] Thank you.

[1:30:19] Yeah.

[1:30:19] That was very sweet.

[1:30:21] And you're named after

[1:30:22] one of the best cookies.

[1:30:24] Tom?

[1:30:25] No, no.

[1:30:27] The Snickerdoodle.

[1:30:29] The pet name.

[1:30:30] No, Tom's are pretty good, too.

[1:30:31] Tom's of Maine Cookies.

[1:30:33] It's made out of beeswax or something.

[1:30:34] Oh, yummy.

[1:30:35] Yeah.

[1:30:35] You want to give me a plug

[1:30:38] before we move along?

[1:30:39] Were those Tom of Finland cookies?

[1:30:40] Hold on a second.

[1:30:41] Check it out.

[1:30:42] Just Google that.

[1:30:44] Google it right now.

[1:30:45] Before you do that, I have one thing I'd like to plug.

[1:30:48] My comic book, Maniac of New York.

[1:30:49] New issues are still coming out.

[1:30:51] Issue three comes out April 14th.

[1:30:53] It'll be in comic stores.

[1:30:54] And if you can't make it to your local store, they're sold out.

[1:30:56] You can also get it on Comixology.

[1:30:58] But as always, support your local comic book store.

[1:31:01] Yeah, and if you're running away from the maniac in New York,

[1:31:05] why don't you come to Hinterland's Bar or Minnie's Bar and say hi

[1:31:10] and buy some stuff thank you you're welcome um so let's move on to letters from listeners like you

[1:31:20] like you uh i got a couple of letters here and i can't remember whether i pulled them up on my phone

[1:31:27] or on so it looks like it's time for a song because we got a couple of letters and it might

[1:31:34] be long till dan pulls them up on his device wouldn't it be nice if he did it ahead of time

[1:31:41] but hey i'm sure he's a busy guy doing stuff like watching tv and reading old comics thinking about

[1:31:49] things nobody cares about that's right dan's a busy guy once he missed part of a movie because

[1:31:55] he was cutting a mango up he could have paused it but he didn't he's a busy guy he doesn't have time

[1:32:02] for all of that stuff no dan's so busy he doesn't have time for what you might call the very basics

[1:32:09] of producing a podcast that he's been doing for almost a decade and a half that's right he's dan

[1:32:16] he's a busy guy he's a busy guy he's a busy busy busy busy busy busy busy guy busy guy starring

[1:32:23] dan mccoy as himself created by chuck lorry thank you i i did have it pulled up i just couldn't

[1:32:30] remember whether it was on my phone or my computer and then i chose the wrong one but anyway sometimes

[1:32:36] dan has two screens open it's a second screen experience and dan doesn't know what screen to

[1:32:44] look at this modern world's so full of screens everybody knows what i mean hey guys does this

[1:32:52] look green i'm pointing to a toe that i stubbed the other day hey dan's got too many screens

[1:32:59] dan's got too many screens is brought to you by rolled gold pretzels wow all right thanks it's a

[1:33:06] big one so all right here's the first letter it's from marissa last name with hell so what screen

[1:33:11] were they on just so that our audience gets closure what um it was on my phone but then once

[1:33:16] i was using my laptop i decided to go with it greetings peaches any longtime flop house devotee

[1:33:24] knows that the show's deep sea plot

[1:33:26] is the discussion and celebration of newspaper

[1:33:28] comic strips and their characters and

[1:33:30] lore. Yeah.

[1:33:31] We did plenty of that already in this episode.

[1:33:34] Yeah. Recently,

[1:33:36] thanks to the Flophouse Facebook group, I was

[1:33:38] introduced to the current Farsight-esque

[1:33:40] single panel iteration of Heathcliff.

[1:33:42] Example, on the day I'm writing this email,

[1:33:44] today's Heathcliff features

[1:33:46] the eponymous cat standing in the living room,

[1:33:48] hands folded behind his back

[1:33:50] facing a birdcage. The bird

[1:33:52] appears to be speaking to Heathcliff.

[1:33:54] the caption shows up shows us what the bird is saying i have friends who are bees my burning

[1:34:02] desire to know what the flop house fellas think about this bizarre racy new heathcliff gave me an

[1:34:06] idea a spin-off podcast perhaps a series of minis perhaps an ipod-y style donors only only bonus

[1:34:13] miniseries where the three of you unleash all of your comic strip thoughts feelings and arcane

[1:34:19] knowledge into the world what strips do you think would provide the most fodder for such a series

[1:34:24] what are your thoughts on peter gallagher's heathcliff remember to save some of the good

[1:34:29] stuff for the spinoff podcast okay love and thanks for everything marissa last name withheld i will

[1:34:35] say about heathcliff specifically just make sure you don't give up too much you got to keep some

[1:34:39] behind the paywall yeah put it on your premium when i was a kid uh i don't know whether like

[1:34:47] this version of heathcliff was always like this like when i was a kid i remember heathcliff and

[1:34:51] i was like oh this is like off-brand garfield i'm not interested in this you know i'm a kid i like

[1:34:58] uh really obvious things like a cat that talks about how he likes food and hates mondays but

[1:35:05] now that i'm an adult i don't know whether the surrealist heathcliff is new or it's always been

[1:35:11] the case but i i get a kick out of it i don't understand it uh but that's the joy yeah um

[1:35:19] i don't know if i was going to do a flop house style one one of the most inexplicable inexplicable

[1:35:25] ones to me is fred bassett which i don't think i've ever detected a joke oh no fred bassett is

[1:35:30] just about a depressed dog yeah yeah so that would be uh a good one i think uh stewart or would you

[1:35:39] just talk about how attractive you find the mom and roses i find her very attractive dan she knows

[1:35:45] it i send her letters all the fucking time it's become a problem i mean the mom the mom and rose

[1:35:51] rose is if resembles your actual wife in a number of ways from her tough attitude to her to her red

[1:35:58] hair yeah curly red hair yeah yeah well i don't know i feel like i feel like it might be helpful

[1:36:05] to for a show you know to sustain uh you know a show we might want to pick something with

[1:36:10] really deep narratives so i don't know like uh like the slylock fox uh

[1:36:17] or like uh or like funky winkerbean we talk about funky winkerbean a lot on this show

[1:36:23] that's because you know we love it it's dan's favorite comic strip i feel like i feel like

[1:36:28] funky winkerbean is famously on the internet at least the comic that gets the most of that type

[1:36:32] of flop style coverage because it's so inexplicably sad yeah when it's mostly meant to just do jokes

[1:36:39] about band teachers you know but uh i think i want to mention first off who am i attracted to

[1:36:45] on the comics page the mom in the family circle but after the haircut you know the one i'm talking

[1:36:49] about when they cut their hair to make it she cut her hair to make a little more modern uh i think

[1:36:54] my thoughts on heathcliff are you said family circle is that the same thing as family circus

[1:36:59] oh sorry i meant family circus family circle is a magazine which is i'm also sure of is full of hot

[1:37:03] moms but i i don't look too much uh the uh the thing about heathcliff i wanted to mention is

[1:37:09] that when i was a kid i would actually skip the main comic strip and just read the last panel

[1:37:13] where readers would send in their stories about how weird their cats were at home that was more

[1:37:18] entertaining to me than the actual comic strip but uh this this just goes to speak about how like

[1:37:24] there are a lot of comics that last for a long time on inertia and so i think maybe i would

[1:37:30] cover mama the comic strip about uh a mom and her son and there's no jokes in it and it's not

[1:37:38] a pleasant to look at strip and it's i've as even as a kid i was like why is this here like why is

[1:37:44] this in here i don't understand this uh either that or um or that prince valiant strip where

[1:37:48] there's there's almost no there's no dialogue balloons it's just it's just illustrated pictures

[1:37:54] and as a kid i could not i it was it was something that i was so baffled by i wouldn't i wasn't

[1:38:00] understand what i was supposed to get out of it yeah like mark trail or something um i feel like

[1:38:04] trail had great nature tips i feel like i would i feel like we should do it uh based on that comic

[1:38:10] strip caroline in the city well that's actually not a real strip stewart that's uh yeah but she

[1:38:16] made the strips on the show so like would they just throw them in the fucking trash

[1:38:21] like yes they did they didn't want anything they publish them that would have been a great amount

[1:38:25] of like they would be perfect synergy yeah tie-in yeah well what you're really what you're learning

[1:38:29] is that you could have hung out outside of her

[1:38:31] apartment and just picked up the old strips from the

[1:38:33] garbage, and you'd have priceless

[1:38:34] pieces of art. Wait, they shot that in her

[1:38:37] apartment? Yeah, they shot it

[1:38:39] in her Leah Thompson's actual apartment

[1:38:41] that she bought with her Howard the Duck royalties.

[1:38:43] And it's just...

[1:38:45] Yeah, I mean, we should get in touch

[1:38:47] with her and just ask her what she did with all that original art.

[1:38:48] Wait, so she bought the apartment with her royalties.

[1:38:51] So if she bought the apartment

[1:38:53] with her royalties, she then decided

[1:38:54] to, what, subsidize the

[1:38:57] mortgage on the apartment by

[1:38:59] shooting it there so she could charge the production extra money yeah that makes sense

[1:39:04] oh man yes that's how they get you know it's overhead they they say it's overhead and they

[1:39:08] pay themselves you know yeah also she stole all her clothes from that show and also the theme song

[1:39:13] and i don't even know what you're going to do with that theme song but she just walked away with it

[1:39:16] one day and she just keeps it at her house which is that apartment no yeah i mean it'd be weird to

[1:39:21] walk off set if you're just walking back into your own apartment though you know what i mean

[1:39:24] that's that's fair i guess yeah really the hard i guess she just stopped them from taking the

[1:39:30] things out of her apartment yeah that's actually true yeah uh okay so let's move on to the second

[1:39:38] and final letter of this uh particular episode dan before we do that i have two i have two other

[1:39:44] songs about the two screen uh problem before i have two parody songs i'll do one now and one

[1:39:49] after this letter so this first one of course you'll remember what the source of it is whatever

[1:39:53] ever happen to the letters from the listeners i thought they were on my laptop but maybe they're

[1:39:57] on my phone ah everywhere you look everywhere there's a letter or maybe it's on another screen

[1:40:05] now anyway so that was the first one i'll have another one after this letter interrupted dan

[1:40:09] for that one okay thank you um so i mean i'm always glad i interrupted dan i get a little

[1:40:14] endorphin boost each time yeah that explains it uh this is from james last name withheld

[1:40:20] who writes... James L. Brooks?

[1:40:22] It's James L. Brooks.

[1:40:24] His name is James

[1:40:26] A.T.G. Peach.

[1:40:27] After hearing the recommendation

[1:40:30] for Stewart's performance as

[1:40:32] Tube Man in Psycho Gorman,

[1:40:34] I went looking for his IMDb.

[1:40:36] Psycho Gorman.

[1:40:36] Gorman?

[1:40:39] I don't know.

[1:40:40] I recognized the title

[1:40:46] Snatchers from the pod, but was surprised

[1:40:48] by another title I don't recall ever hearing

[1:40:50] discussed that is the 2005 movie the wiggles sailing around the world this film features

[1:40:57] stewart wellington the role of friendly pirate crew yeah is there a reason this hasn't made it

[1:41:02] to recommendations before and should i expect the usual level of gore from this as i do in all

[1:41:07] wellington vehicles keep flopping me matey's james last name withheld you know i've been i've been

[1:41:14] explain yourself this has come up a lot uh i get asked this a lot on social media at the bar

[1:41:19] on the street at the grocery store and uh the the short answer is if i made this movie i do

[1:41:28] not remember it so i i mean 2000 what was that 2005 that was a kind of weird time to be a stewart

[1:41:37] okay so i i can't steward a steward yeah yeah me steward pankin that's it i don't know any other

[1:41:44] stewards it was a weird time to be steward pankin like do i have a career anymore i don't know where

[1:41:51] am i uh so i mean long story short i don't think it's me uh you might want to watch it and if it's

[1:41:58] me send me you can tweet at me you can send dan an email at uh dan at gmail or whatever i don't

[1:42:04] remember what his email is uh-huh i'm just looking to sorry i'm distracted because i'm

[1:42:10] looking to see what stewart pankin was doing in 2005 this is this is important this is important

[1:42:14] stuff look uh he was on two episodes of curb your enthusiasm which i guess started in 2005

[1:42:22] or no this is in 2005 he was in great these episodes okay uh and so stewart uh so you're

[1:42:29] saying that you don't have any hilarious behind the scenes anecdotes about your time with the

[1:42:32] wiggles i don't i mean again i there might be some out there there might be accounts out there but

[1:42:38] i don't remember them at this point so who knows maybe if i get maybe if i get hit on the head with

[1:42:44] another coconut i'll remember them that's how it works remember if you get hit too many times

[1:42:51] you'll lose all your memory forever i got that from an episode of charles in charge uh-huh yeah

[1:42:56] yeah yeah so stewart pankin seems to have uh 161 credits yeah um some of them you know that just

[1:43:06] this year so he's doing okay you know if you thought that after not necessarily the news

[1:43:11] and uh nearly departed uh that was the end of stewart i mean the fact is you were stewart

[1:43:18] pankin's acting is just a side hustle he got rich off of panko which is what he invented

[1:43:23] And he's just been living pretty

[1:43:25] Yeah

[1:43:26] I mean they are the superior

[1:43:29] Breadcrumb for frying

[1:43:31] So thank you Stuart Pankin

[1:43:34] For toiling away in your

[1:43:35] Garage lab

[1:43:37] To get us the exact best crumbs

[1:43:40] For frying it

[1:43:41] Yeah okay well

[1:43:45] That was great so now we're gonna do

[1:43:48] Recommendations

[1:43:48] I've got my last song

[1:43:49] oh okay okay this goes do-wop do-ba-do-way do-wop do-ba-do-way which of dan screens has

[1:43:57] the letters questions on it okay that's the last one okay uh thank you rockapella for stopping by

[1:44:04] um rockapella that's when i do an impression of rockapella

[1:44:07] uh the thing that we do now is we recommend movies movies that might uh be more immediately

[1:44:16] um rewarding than the final program uh i haven't seen a lot recently but i did watch uh the

[1:44:24] spongebob squarepants movie from 2004 2004's uh spongebob movie you finally caught up with it huh

[1:44:33] a trim 87 minutes love that shit and uh um you know i i didn't i didn't grow up with spongebob

[1:44:45] uh i love that every comment you have now is secondary to the runtime which was your main

[1:44:51] selling point but you're saying audrey did she grow up with it uh yeah she's she's all uh like

[1:44:57] nine years younger than me she's not like uh hugely younger but she's definitely of a different

[1:45:02] enough generation that she grew up with spongebob so like a december may romance or

[1:45:07] december yeah well he's not robbing the cradle he's just robbing the middle school

[1:45:10] uh-huh um let's not uh belabor this part of it too much but she has introduced me to spongebob

[1:45:18] okay um as a pleasant funny thing to watch uh toss on the television and uh a lot of great

[1:45:26] jokes i like that uh the the spongebob has sort of continued the older style of cartooning where

[1:45:34] or cartoons where i feel like post simpsons like and post you know reduced cell animation things

[1:45:42] got really like um tight and uh not as expressive like there's a lot of silly stuff on the simpsons

[1:45:50] but even so they stay on model a lot whereas like a show like spongebob is like we're gonna

[1:45:56] push the character design in crazy directions we don't care we don't care if this is on model

[1:46:02] like we're gonna have a scene where spongebob and patrick slowly uh you know dehydrate and it's uh

[1:46:10] crazy how uh weird they look and uh i just like that it has that zany quality that i think

[1:46:17] got lost somewhere along the way with some cartoons and i i found it so dan if you had

[1:46:24] to cast spongebob squarepants using only the members of the flop house who would play whom

[1:46:29] okay well i am squidward okay obviously i'm glad you didn't make us point that out thank you i

[1:46:39] think that elliot probably is spongebob although he's a little more like deliberately irritating

[1:46:46] than spongebob spongebob only annoys through like the goodness of his heart whereas elliot's more

[1:46:51] are a little stinker um and i guess you are mr crab oh stewart would be that that who's that

[1:47:01] that uh that starfish is always hanging out with with spongebob oh patrick oh yeah

[1:47:05] yeah yeah yeah that's the right answer dan you did it uh what do you want your prize

[1:47:11] if patrick had mr crab's job uh-huh yeah okay so what do you guys got well i was gonna recommend

[1:47:20] 2004 spongebob movie but i guess i mean it's kind of like an asshole right you know do you think

[1:47:26] that was guys a serious question do you think that was the biggest zag in terms of a recommendation

[1:47:32] on the flop house or has there been a bigger one i don't i think that's one to open up to the fans

[1:47:38] fans do you remember a bigger zag than that one zag a technical term meaning surprising

[1:47:44] recommendation yeah all right uh let's see i'll recommend since we're recommend uh recommended

[1:47:52] shorties today right it's all about shorties do you mean kids movies or short movies short movies

[1:47:58] although you can watch this with a kid if the kid is pretty grown up and has a refined sense of uh

[1:48:03] taste that's right i'm recommending another shutter movie that's a movie you can see on

[1:48:09] shutter it's a movie called slacks that's because it's about a pair of killer genes

[1:48:15] and not just because they look good it's because they kill people now it's like and that's with

[1:48:20] two x's two x's spelling yep uh and it is and i'm not just recommending this uh another shutter

[1:48:27] movie because they sent me a gift basket full of shutter treats uh i appreciate that they respect

[1:48:33] that i'm a cool influencer um but uh yeah so slacks is i mean it's a movie about a killer

[1:48:42] pair of jeans set in like a like an old navy style i don't know is that is that a big box store is

[1:48:49] that a small box store i don't know it's a medium size box yeah it's a medium size box so i mean

[1:48:55] and it plays container store i guess would be like all those sizes of boxes in one store everything

[1:49:00] yeah the so it you know it plays with some pretty uh pretty straightforward satire on like retail

[1:49:07] culture and hipster culture and that stuff that stuff we've kind of seen a million times before

[1:49:12] but it um the performances are all pretty fun the uh and it's it's super colorful maybe i was just

[1:49:19] excited after watching justice league to see a movie that has a ton of colors in it um and it's

[1:49:25] uh it's shot really well and it's fun to watch uh and it's super short so slacks

[1:49:31] uh and i'm gonna recommend a movie that i guess i mean i don't really remember the runtime it

[1:49:37] didn't strike me as being super long i'm gonna check it out real quick so okay so that's imdb

[1:49:43] and okay so this i'm gonna this movie is recommendation is in honor of your biscuits

[1:49:47] on this one good thanks yeah make sure i'll get my biscuits ready for a possible busting

[1:49:52] uh and they're ready okay so this one it's in uh recommendation honor of the late joan micklin

[1:49:57] silver who passed away at the end of last year uh you may remember her from crossing the lancey

[1:50:02] or hester street uh which is one of my favorite uh carol kane performances anyway i watched a

[1:50:08] movie of hers i hadn't seen before it's called between the lines and it's a kind of ensemble

[1:50:12] comedy drama from the 70s about a countercultural newspaper that is outgrowing its uh its position

[1:50:21] as a counterculture newspaper, basically,

[1:50:23] and how that affects the people who work at the paper.

[1:50:25] It's very 70s, but in a different way

[1:50:27] than the final program is very 70s.

[1:50:29] Hour 41, Elliot.

[1:50:32] Ooh, hour 41.

[1:50:33] So you're going to want to watch this in three parts.

[1:50:35] But the movie's also...

[1:50:38] Well, what you've got to do is you've got to mess up

[1:50:40] a ton of dishes, like order some kind of meal

[1:50:42] that comes with all kinds of sauces and shit.

[1:50:45] So you just fuck it all up,

[1:50:46] so you'll have extra time to watch your movie.

[1:50:48] You're going to want to keep burning the rice,

[1:50:50] So you've got multiple pots to scour out so you can have enough time to watch it.

[1:50:54] It's also in a lot of ways relevant to this modern world of kind of scrappy startups selling out to big tech corporations and what that means for people.

[1:51:01] I feel like it goes one-to-one in some way.

[1:51:03] And it's got a great cast.

[1:51:04] It's got Lindsey Krauss, Gwen Wells, John Hurd, Bruno Kirby, Michael J. Pollard.

[1:51:08] And Jeff Goldblum is especially great in it as this kind of like – he's this rock critic who's kind of like if Kramer from Seinfeld was like a young, cool guy.

[1:51:17] And this is, I'm just going to say it, top drawer young sexy Jeff Goldblum.

[1:51:20] Oh, no.

[1:51:21] You're going to want it.

[1:51:22] So anyway, it's called Between the Lines.

[1:51:25] It's funny and serious, and it's on Canopy right now, I believe.

[1:51:28] So if you, like me, enjoy Joan McClendon Silver's stuff and you haven't seen it, try Between the Lines.

[1:51:34] Not Between the Lions, which is a PBS show about reading, starring the lions from the public library in New York.

[1:51:41] This is Between the Lines.

[1:51:42] Wait, are they characters?

[1:51:43] Are they characters on that show?

[1:51:44] They are puppets on the show.

[1:51:46] Oh, that makes sense.

[1:51:47] That makes sense.

[1:51:48] Of Patience and Fortitude, the two lions.

[1:51:50] Thanks for proving you know the names.

[1:51:51] So we got those two shorties and a medium style.

[1:51:58] Yeah.

[1:52:00] Great.

[1:52:02] I guess that makes one big movie burger that you can eat.

[1:52:08] Yep.

[1:52:10] Just get a shorty, stick a meaty inside there, get another shorty, and that's your movie

[1:52:15] witch.

[1:52:16] Sorry, Muscles is biting me now.

[1:52:18] He's saying, well...

[1:52:20] This episode sucks, Stuart. Stop it.

[1:52:22] If people didn't know that your cat's name is Muscles,

[1:52:24] then the grammar of that sentence would really baffle them.

[1:52:27] Okay, well, we don't want to anger Muscles further,

[1:52:34] lest he consume Stuart.

[1:52:35] He's going crazy.

[1:52:36] Oh, he is actually going crazy.

[1:52:40] Let me get a screenshot of that,

[1:52:41] so maybe I can send it out with a...

[1:52:44] Oh, he's such a crazy boy.

[1:52:46] He's saying, I'm the star of the show now.

[1:52:48] Put me on the air.

[1:52:49] I'm the mama.

[1:52:50] Anyway, let us say goodbye for another episode.

[1:52:58] Thank you so much to our guests, Joel and Matt, for being here.

[1:53:03] A dream.

[1:53:04] What a treat.

[1:53:05] Thank you to Jordan Cowling for producing the show.

[1:53:09] Thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:53:10] Go over to MaximumFun.org for other great podcasts on this great podcasting network.

[1:53:17] And if you have the chance, let people know about the show.

[1:53:22] Tweet about it.

[1:53:24] Review it on iTunes.

[1:53:25] But for now, I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:53:29] I am Stuart Wellington.

[1:53:31] My name's Elliot Kalin.

[1:53:35] I don't know why we're all talking a little bit like the movie phone guy, but not exactly like the movie phone guy.

[1:53:44] But okay, I'll run with it.

[1:53:47] This has been The Flophouse, rated R. Goodbye.

[1:54:05] Uh, y'all ready for this?

[1:54:12] For this?

[1:54:13] Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.

[1:54:15] Maximumfun.org

[1:54:22] Comedy and culture.

[1:54:23] Artist owned.

[1:54:24] Audience supported.

Ep. #340 - The Final Programme, with Joel Hodgson and Matt McGinnis

Chapters

Transcript

Description