Ep. #328 - Happy Halloween, Scooby Doo!, with Justin McElroy

[0:00] On this episode we discuss, Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo!

[0:04] That's right, it's our special annual Thanksgiving Halloween episode!

[0:30] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:39] I'm Stuart Wellington, you Shocktober freaks.

[0:42] Stuart, no, no, I think you're under a misapprehension of what time of the year it is.

[0:47] Wait, what's the name of the movie we watched?

[0:48] The name was Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo. I'm Elliot Kalin. This is actually November, this episode.

[0:54] And joining us this time is podcaster, author, YouTuber, journalist, number one sheets customer, Justin McElroy.

[1:09] What an honor.

[1:10] I am such a fan of you guys.

[1:13] You guys have got me through some real tough spells of mental health just turning through your shows.

[1:20] I can't believe I'm here.

[1:21] I can't believe I've made it.

[1:23] It looks like I've finally made it.

[1:24] Here I am.

[1:25] Looks like you made it.

[1:28] Look how far you've come, my thing.

[1:31] I like you pretending that you're not doing a favor for us.

[1:34] None of that was a joke.

[1:35] I love this show.

[1:36] Oh, okay.

[1:37] No, this is a bit Dan does where he offends the guest immediately.

[1:40] He's like, why do you like the show, idiot?

[1:44] I'm not offended.

[1:45] It's great.

[1:46] Hey, dickface, why do you like our show so much, stupid?

[1:50] I know he likes the show.

[1:51] it was very nice of him to come

[1:53] you can enjoy a favor

[1:56] like if you help a friend move

[1:57] but all their furniture is like really squishy

[2:00] and fun

[2:00] it turns out like

[2:03] oh I'm actually enjoying this

[2:05] this isn't that heavy, it's fun to play with

[2:07] that's usually what I ask my friends when I agree to help them move

[2:10] is the squishiness of their furniture

[2:11] I have two questions, I say one is the furniture

[2:14] squishy and two is it like

[2:15] just soft or is it moist

[2:17] because I'd rather not carry the moist stuff

[2:19] I can really walk this factory

[2:21] So my hands are going to be really sticky at the end of it.

[2:24] Oh, Willy Wonka's friends must have hated so much when they had to help him move.

[2:27] And they're like, just use the Oompa Loompas.

[2:28] And he's like, they're not slaves.

[2:30] They work for me.

[2:31] I can't just use them for my personal moving.

[2:33] Yeah, and they're like, why are you moving out in August of all months?

[2:36] All your candy furniture is going to melt in the truck.

[2:39] Why are you moving now?

[2:41] Well, this does bring up a key problem with the factory is that that room that's all just candy must, you know,

[2:48] just attract a tremendous amount of lint like small dead insects or live insects stuck to the

[2:56] the candy yeah he doesn't brace charlie for and did you ever hear what happened the man who got

[3:02] ever everything you ever wanted what for six months he was really worked up about flies six

[3:09] months a year it just flies flies flies flies flies it is a big problem you will not enjoy that

[3:14] time close it up go to aruba you will not like that that time and he goes charlie i know what

[3:19] you're thinking you just package that candy with flies on it and call it wonka bar buggums it does

[3:24] not work i tried it nobody wanted buggums the candy with real bugs attached to it it just didn't work

[3:30] the willy wonka company missed a trick by not selling chocolate bars called little bit of

[3:36] augustus and there's just a little bit of a goose bloop in every one just a little bit of particulate

[3:41] it's called gloopies yeah gloopies i mean you gotta believe that he's well marbled and delicious

[3:47] we're really showing our western privilege and that we're making fun of the fact

[3:54] uh that people could be eating chocolate bars with insects or augustus gloops in them and i

[3:59] think that's pretty fucked up in many parts of the world augustus gloop is a primary source of

[4:03] protein i think we need to respect that yeah uh okay well uh let me explain the premise of this

[4:10] show to anyone uh checking in for the first time and thinking oh my favorite is justin you'll be

[4:15] disappointed next time but um maybe the show the door open this is a this is a show where we uh

[4:23] watch a bad movie and then talk about it that's our um that's our mo uh but justin who knows what

[4:30] he thinks of this movie he picked it now just i wanted to ask before we got into talking about

[4:34] the movie what uh what was it about this film that made you want to talk about it with us yeah

[4:41] when i when i texted justin i was like yeah you can pick any movie in the world and like even

[4:45] before i was done sending the text message i got the response happy halloween scooby-doo well

[4:51] i was watching that was a long pause i was watching it at the time you texted me

[4:59] but it was the third time i'd watched it with my children and my rationale is this one

[5:09] i thought i'd try to do elliot a solid and have a movie that he could watch with his children

[5:14] thank you i appreciate that yeah uh secondly and i i hope that the the logic of this has been

[5:21] borne out now that you guys have watched it it wasn't just a sort of one-off because i watched

[5:25] again today it's a bizarre flick it is very strange almost every choice in this movie is

[5:32] so strange and it almost starts to feel like you know those uh that one very funny twitter uh

[5:43] writer who was doing the ai like uh an ai generated script for yeah yeah an olive garden commercial

[5:51] it feels like someone put every scooby-doo into a machine and then let the machine generate

[5:58] a script for a scooby-doo movie yeah um yeah like it was translating underselling it a bit

[6:05] because i think it's also very it's surprisingly effective in what it attempts to do but what it

[6:10] attempts to do is weirdly ambitious i feel like for a movie of this stripe and like there's you

[6:15] don't expect happy halloween scooby-doo to be a message movie but it definitely definitely is

[6:20] And there's a surprising amount of world building in this happy Halloween Scooby-Doo movie.

[6:24] And world borrowing?

[6:27] Yes, and crossover building.

[6:31] And it's also kind of a Mad Max Fury Road, which you don't expect to happen with Scooby-Doo.

[6:36] Yeah, I didn't expect road game Scooby-Doo, which it kind of becomes.

[6:40] And speaking of world building, we are introduced right away to Crystal Cove.

[6:46] Wait, Stuart, actually, I hate to interrupt.

[6:48] I just want to say it is fitting that we watched this Halloween movie in November in honor of Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, the creators of Scooby-Doo, who both died this year.

[6:56] Ken Spears just died about a week and a half ago.

[6:58] So it is in his honor that we are now going to, I guess, tear apart this movie that used his characters.

[7:04] He didn't write it, but you know.

[7:05] Justin is making a face at the idea that we're going to tear it apart.

[7:08] You guys tear it apart all you want.

[7:10] I'll be there picking up the pieces and carrying them on my shoulders back over to wherever we're shooting from.

[7:15] When Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo saw just one set of footprints, that was you carrying it.

[7:19] Yeah.

[7:19] So, yeah, the movie opens up in Crystal Cove, a town built on a large natural crystal deposit, as we'll learn later.

[7:28] It's Halloween.

[7:29] There's a Halloween parade.

[7:30] And Elvira is on the main float.

[7:35] You make it 10 seconds in before you are to one of the wilder pics of the movie.

[7:39] Y'all, this is a children's movie.

[7:42] Yeah.

[7:43] None of them know who Elvira is.

[7:45] Not a single child will know who Elvira is.

[7:49] They're going to think it's a Scooby-Doo character.

[7:51] It's bizarre that when I was a kid, I knew who Elvira was,

[7:54] since her main thing was making death jokes and having boobs.

[7:58] And yet somehow this was a character I was aware of as a kid,

[8:01] but no kid now is going to know who Elvira the Mistress of the Night is.

[8:04] And because this is a, I assume because this is a movie for children,

[8:07] they largely take away the boobs.

[8:09] So just write that down in the notes.

[8:12] Dan's mad that they de-sexified Elvira and Bill Nye.

[8:15] Dan didn't think Elvira's boobs were big enough.

[8:20] That's his big note to Warner's on this one.

[8:22] Warner's animation, I have one general note.

[8:25] This is a world note just for the whole movie.

[8:27] Elvira's known for her cleavage, and yet,

[8:30] within that note comes a secondary note.

[8:34] In the scene where Daphne and Elvira switch clothes,

[8:37] we don't see that process taking place.

[8:40] That seems like a wasted opportunity.

[8:42] For me, deviant art scholar, Dan McCoy.

[8:44] That's going to hurt our international box office for sure.

[8:47] In your own words, Elliot, that is one of Elvira's main things that has been removed.

[8:52] I'm not saying it should be in the movie, but like even in her movie, which the name I forgot.

[8:58] Elvira, Mistress of the Dark?

[9:00] Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.

[9:01] How could Dan remember that name for the movie?

[9:04] She wins over many of the townspeople by doing a burlesque routine where her boob spinner tassels around.

[9:11] like elvira knows that that is a key component to her her whole thing and uh yeah it is just

[9:17] wild that she's in this movie wild yeah she's great so she's the grand marshal and she's on

[9:23] the main float the scooby-doo gang what mystery incorporated is their name are already undercover

[9:28] in costume which is interesting for later uh trying to you know they think there's going to

[9:34] be a monster attack or they're trying to prove monsters aren't real uh just about then the bomb

[9:39] me shop explodes and a hobgoblin pumpkin headed character comes flying out and starts throwing

[9:44] pumpkin bombs and stuff uh and i know what you're thinking you're like wait a minute is scooby-doo

[9:50] crossing over with marvel comics and they're jack-o'-lantern villain yeah no wrong comics

[9:55] universe friends as you're about to find out or i mean doesn't the green goblin throw pumpkin bombs

[10:00] yeah but he doesn't have a jack-o'-lantern on his head but jack-o'-lantern uses a lot of green

[10:04] goblin's old stuff green goblin left a lot of his weapons all over new york because one he's a pack

[10:09] rat and two just in case i guess he was in the nabe and he needed to switch costumes and so

[10:14] hobgoblin jack-o'-lantern demogoblin they're all always borrowing green goblin's old stuff you know

[10:20] okay well it's scarecrow yeah it's scarecrow and you watch that and you think when i first

[10:28] watch this i thought oh this is a batman crossover nope yeah it's just scarecrow just

[10:35] you know he's like i don't just want to be a batman guy i want to be a little bit of everything

[10:41] 90 of the time i'm watching the movie with audrey and 90 of the time she loses interest

[10:47] uh almost immediately but she was on her edge of her seat for this one because she's a big

[10:50] scooby-doo fan from way back uh she actually convinced me to watch scoob a while back but

[10:56] but um but she said oh it's the scarecrow and i thought she was just joking for a while because

[11:01] i missed the fact that they're like oh from gotham but no it's actually yeah actually dr crane not

[11:07] fraser crane but what if wait a minute hold on what if fraser crane was the scarecrow's brother

[11:12] hold on a second there's a third crane brother he's not in seattle he's in gotham and he's the

[11:18] scarecrow i gotta see it happen okay so he's about he's about to attack him with a bunch of drones

[11:23] And then Fred uses a phone app that is not a trap to turn him off.

[11:27] And then they shoot him with a crossbow.

[11:29] Now, here's the thing I like about this right off the bat is now I have to assume that Batman and Scooby-Doo coexist in the same universe, which I love because I've been having some real issues with Batman lately as I come to realize that he is essentially a character who uses violence to solve a mental illness problem.

[11:44] and that his entire series is a long-running argument

[11:49] against empathy for anyone who commits a crime

[11:52] and in favor of just throwing them

[11:54] into an easily escapable asylum.

[11:55] But if Scooby do exist in that world,

[11:58] then all bets are off.

[12:00] You know what?

[12:00] Maybe Batman's the right way to handle

[12:02] because this world is nuts.

[12:03] If there's just a talking dog who's also a pothead

[12:08] who solves mysteries with some teens

[12:09] who don't have families,

[12:11] then like, okay, sure, maybe Batman makes sense.

[12:14] So there's, you know, there's a couple of turnarounds.

[12:16] It looks like Scarecrow's dead man switch is going to launch a huge new batch of drones.

[12:19] And then Shaggy picks up Scooby and uses him like an anti-aircraft gun.

[12:24] And he spits candy that is still fully wrapped out of his mouth.

[12:28] Yeah.

[12:28] And shoots down all of the drones.

[12:30] Yeah, they were terrified.

[12:32] They locked the doors to the mystery van, not allowing their teammates to get back in.

[12:37] And yeah, they've just been swallowing a bunch of fully wrapped candy for the last, for the credit sequence.

[12:43] easier to animate yeah yes yeah uh now here's a i wanted to bring up so as always uh it looks like

[12:51] as always with scooby-doo it looks like it's a supernatural thing it's some guy with pumpkin

[12:55] powers no it's just drones and stuff were you guys as kids ever as disappointed as i was that

[13:01] every episode of scooby-doo ended with the reassuring message that monsters and ghosts

[13:04] don't exist and it's just old men who don't want people to go to their amusement parks for some

[13:08] reason well it is my i mean just scoob breaks with that traditional tradition there is actual

[13:14] like uh supernatural stuff going on and it's my understanding that like some of the more recent

[13:19] scooby-doo versions have had actual supernatural stuff going on i'm not fully up on scooby-doo's

[13:24] modern continuity which is why one of the characters in this really threw me off when

[13:28] it turned out he was a continuing character i mean i i understand like scooby-doo in general

[13:33] i understand having affection for it in the way that i understand having affection for

[13:36] any old garbage from your childhood but let's let's stipulate that the original cartoons were

[13:42] not very good uh i mean they've done i think they have done some better versions of it over the years

[13:47] so i hear but you know i don't like it is wild to some degree that this is you know scooby-doo

[13:53] has been in syndication from the 1980s there's been so many different versions he's the longest

[13:59] running television cartoon character that there is like his his show has been on the air in some

[14:04] form or another basically without with few breaks since the early 70s late 60s and like considering

[14:11] his main when i think about him his main thing that i can think of is like this kind of shit

[14:15] brown color palette that is hideously unappealing there's no there's nothing visually appealing

[14:20] about the show and also that every episode ends with them being like uh-oh a monster

[14:25] psych kids there's no magic in the world it's just an old man in a mask

[14:28] but this this one really turned around for me partly because it's a very colorful

[14:33] show. Yeah, there's a much prettier

[14:35] looking version. I was actually

[14:37] going to say, I feel like the animation was a little bit

[14:39] like herky-jerky and

[14:41] not particularly appealing to me, but

[14:43] then I don't watch a lot of animation

[14:45] for kids. How about you daddies

[14:47] out there? I would say

[14:49] middle of the pack. I mean, it's serviceable.

[14:52] It's certainly better than a lot of the animation

[14:53] you see on

[14:54] television is

[14:56] a lot fewer frames of

[14:59] much less animation.

[15:01] For Square Enix.

[15:03] that i would say that like for me like the limited cell animation was like the animation itself was

[15:08] not good but i liked the like the brightness of the designs okay uh so they you know they've saved

[15:16] the day they start to celebrate uh they the cops show up to take scarecrow away uh velma has some

[15:23] verbal sparring with the scarecrow and he gives him a mysterious threat daphne uses a whole bunch

[15:29] of outdated slang and is behaving like she's drunk on white wine spritzers um i found that

[15:35] whole sequence surprisingly funny but at the same time i was like who is daphne supposed to be here

[15:40] like what is her personality well daddy is here's what i like about this this what i really like

[15:46] other than the fact well i'll talk about a lot of things i like one of the things i enjoy about

[15:50] this film is that i feel like one of the things that has put me off of scooby-doo to this point

[15:54] is that i feel like scooby-doo has been meta at this point longer than it has been scooby-doo

[16:00] right almost all of our scooby-doo media is like a running gag about how she you know like a brady

[16:07] bunch movie style like sort of uh it's it's usually writing this line between parody and

[16:14] and earnestness and i feel like this movie really doesn't lean as hard it's funny of its own

[16:22] creation right it what it does is it makes choices for each of these characters that is not

[16:27] necessarily referencing scooby-doo from 40 years ago but it's rather like it's making choices that

[16:33] let them be funny so in this one daphne is very strange i mean daphne is the is the oddball of

[16:39] of the group and um fred is funny not because he's referencing what a you know uh lovable uh

[16:48] doofus yeah but like he's funny for other reasons because he is his own character that is not a

[16:55] meta commentary on fred of your yield i agree that like when we were watching this we're like oh

[17:02] daphne gets to be funny in this because usually daphne i think is the biggest blank in it they're

[17:08] just like okay like well she and fred both are just like okay these are like our pretty leaders

[17:14] but I don't really know who they are.

[17:16] Yeah, and she's, what, like, effective?

[17:20] Like, she has skills and is the physical one.

[17:23] I guess Fred, too, can make traps and use apps.

[17:26] That was the thing.

[17:27] Fred kept talking about traps,

[17:29] and I was like, was that always his thing?

[17:31] Did I forget that Fred's thing was traps?

[17:34] Because I thought his thing was just being, like,

[17:37] the guy who could walk into a normal, like,

[17:40] establishment situation and have, like,

[17:43] some kind of face that is trusted as opposed to shaggy who is clearly a dropout from society

[17:48] i thought fred was just kind of like the guy who would go in to be like they can trust me i'm

[17:51] wearing an ascot it's okay no it is definitely one of those things where it's like a back to

[17:55] the future 2 situation where it's like wait was marty's thing before that he doesn't like being

[18:00] called a chicken because i don't remember that no he had fred has one of the best uh one of my

[18:06] favorite fred lines he says i want to do what i do best i'm gonna do traps

[18:11] so they decide to celebrate by going trick-or-treating they talk about how they don't

[18:18] have uh costumes which is weird because fred is wearing like a half skeleton costume i mean he's

[18:23] wearing the costume from karate kid that those kids were wearing on halloween he could just wear

[18:27] that skeleton costume uh so shaggy and scooby of course chew mouthfuls of candy and then spit it

[18:33] all over themselves and cover themselves with extra candy and become spilled halloween candy

[18:38] is their costume it's wild and then they have a trick-or-treating and dancing montage

[18:41] to an original song i'm assuming uh created for this movie um there's a few times in the movie

[18:48] where i think it's about to become a musical and then it doesn't quite become a musical like they

[18:54] faint at it and the characters sing a little bit and then it just kind of goes away and you're like

[18:58] oh okay i kind of thought you'd do like a whole number here but i guess not they then find a

[19:02] wrecked drone and a wrecked toxic waste truck and the two things combine to smear their juice

[19:09] all over a local pumpkin patch which turns the pumpkins into monsters which are heretofore known

[19:14] as jackal lanterns now why do you think they call them jackal lanterns they're not scavengers you

[19:21] know like jackal they don't have any anything like jackals i think it sounds like jack-o-lantern

[19:25] Elliot.

[19:26] Oh.

[19:26] Behavior-wise, they're a lot kind of like critters that are also zombies,

[19:32] and they can fly and drive custom hot rods.

[19:35] And they laugh.

[19:36] They've got a very gremlin-y laugh, although I guess it's a critters-y laugh, too.

[19:39] Yeah.

[19:39] But unlike ghoulies, they don't get you in the end.

[19:43] Well, actually, they kind of do later on.

[19:45] That's true.

[19:46] And are they like munchies?

[19:48] I don't really remember what the munchies used to do.

[19:50] Well, they look up women's dresses based on the VHS.

[19:55] post yeah and what about trancers were trancers like this oh man trancers are completely different

[20:01] involves uh jumping to different dimensions jack death is involved it's great uh so the rest of

[20:07] the gang and what about bad news bears are those are those they're just kind of uh racist in that

[20:13] 1970s way oh okay okay got it and what about what about little big weeks is that uh so while

[20:23] Shaggy and Scooby are watching the Jack-o'-lanterns origin story.

[20:27] The rest of the team meets the local sheriff who threatens them and then takes away the Scarecrow, obviously firm case for defund.

[20:35] They meet locals.

[20:38] Wait, wait, wait.

[20:39] Stuart, I don't know.

[20:39] I mean, if any criminal seems to be in imminent danger that should be locked up at the moment, it seems to be the Scarecrow.

[20:46] Yeah, I mean, I'm not talking about the way that they're handling the Scarecrow.

[20:49] i'm just talking about the general sheriff's overreach and his ways interacting with these

[20:54] uh helpful teenagers okay okay so uh we meet a local uh father and daughter team mike and michelle

[21:01] mike thanks also known as a family father daughter team

[21:05] they uh they thank them for saving the town and offer to buy y'all a caramel corn later on

[21:14] Well, we'll see if that ever happens.

[21:16] So you're positing that's sort of a Chekhov's caramel corn purchase offer.

[21:22] If you promise the purchase of a caramel corn in Act 1, by Act 3 we better see that caramel corn get purchased.

[21:29] Shaggy and Scooby show up.

[21:31] They try and warn the local reporters who are very excited about the saving of the town that the town is in fact not saved.

[21:36] There are a bunch of jack-o'-lanterns on their way.

[21:39] Nobody believes them because they're covered in candy and there's an owl stuck on his butt.

[21:44] Daphne then sings an original song that is very kind of stream-of-consciousness Elliot Kaelin quality.

[21:50] Let me read you from my notes.

[21:52] Let me read you from my notes.

[21:53] Daphne sings a real Elliot-style song.

[21:55] So I appreciated that part.

[21:59] Yeah, that was great.

[21:59] I felt seen by Happy Halloween Scooby-Doo.

[22:03] Now we have our next celebrity cameo.

[22:06] Bill Nye shows up, and he organizes an airdrop for the team to receive a new fancy mystery machine, Mystery Machine X.

[22:14] again i think this is a a strange thing because at one point huh bill nye was sort of a figure

[22:20] for children but but at this point in history i think he's mostly known for like appearing on

[22:26] cnn sort of like throwing his hands up at the fact that no one believes in science anymore

[22:30] but that is that of what is fascinating about it is that that is what if this movie is about

[22:35] anything yeah that is what this movie is about is about velma struggling with the limits of science

[22:42] and belief

[22:43] and where those two

[22:46] intertwine and the overlap

[22:48] of fear and science and belief.

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:51] And that's why

[22:54] Bill Nye is the perfect guy.

[22:56] I wish they didn't de-sexify him so much

[22:58] because, you know.

[22:59] I mean, you do see him as a sexy cat

[23:02] at one point. He is a sexy cat at one point.

[23:04] The sexiest animal.

[23:06] He could have been sexier.

[23:07] So the new Mystery Machine

[23:10] is like a cool automated

[23:12] like robo-car

[23:14] that has arms at times.

[23:16] So your issue with their handling of Bill Nye is similar

[23:18] to Dan's handling with their issue of Elvira.

[23:20] That a character who is just radiating

[23:22] sexuality and is known for that

[23:24] has been neutered for a child audience.

[23:26] Bill Nye largely appears in the movie

[23:28] as a hologram

[23:30] in their car.

[23:32] And you think it's a Bill Nye

[23:34] AI, but it's not that because

[23:36] he's interrupted by trick-or-treaters.

[23:38] One of them is dressed like Aquaman, who he then complains about the the the unbelievability of the Aquaman character, which means it's real.

[23:49] It's real. Bill Nye. So Bill Nye is just sitting there as a hologram in the van.

[23:53] I mean, there's no call for it. He's just Twitch live streaming direct to their van via hologram.

[23:59] And here's the thing. We live in a world where now in this show where Scarecrow is real, meaning Batman is real.

[24:07] Aquaman, Bill Nye has a lot of issues with how Aquaman could exist, which implies either one, Aquaman is not real in this strange DC Hanna-Barbera hybrid, or two, Bill Nye is always writing letters to the local newspaper saying Aquaman is a hoax and I can prove it.

[24:22] The science doesn't make sense.

[24:23] Here's my seven-minute YouTube video on how Aquaman is not real.

[24:27] Fake news, fake news, Aquaman.

[24:28] And I just don't want to believe that Bill Nye is harassing Aquaman that way.

[24:32] also think that justin brings up a good point which is like like the fact that he is not an ai

[24:36] and that he's built this for the the mystery incorporated uh teens like is he committing

[24:42] himself to always sitting there in that chair like helping them and being like it's a good question

[24:48] you know i mean you know it depends like uh there's times in our life where we just kind of

[24:55] want to hang out and like really enjoy our long distance connections as opposed to the people that

[25:00] are nearest that maybe know us too well that sometimes it's better to work on a relationship

[25:04] where there's a little bit of extra distance so people with a bunch of teens in a van yeah i mean

[25:09] that's totally normal right i mean would it be weird it would be weirder if bill nye was just

[25:13] roaming the country with a bunch of teens in a van solving mysteries right like that would be

[25:18] more questionable maybe that's it he's like he he knows that there needs to be distance if he

[25:22] wants to help them out well and he and and also he and daphne used to date and he knows it would

[25:26] weird area if you don't have uh so scooby and shaggy get tired of hitting a jack-o'-lantern

[25:33] and so shaggy sits on it and that turns into a monster pumpkin and bites him on the butt and he

[25:38] says look i've got a pumpkin butt that was cool uh the reporters and various people are being

[25:44] attacked by the jack-o'-lanterns a jewish coded reporter gets eaten by a giant jack-o'-lantern

[25:49] and then gets turned into a jack-o'-lantern.

[25:52] The ground starts to be torn apart,

[25:56] riven by earthquakes.

[25:58] Shaggy and Scooby jump into a station wagon

[26:01] with Mike and Michelle.

[26:01] Daphne manages to convince Elvira

[26:04] to take her on as a protege,

[26:06] and Fred and Velma drive away

[26:08] in the new Mystery Machine X,

[26:10] and now it's a driving movie.

[26:12] For like the rest of it.

[26:15] For a long time.

[26:16] You keep remembering, like,

[26:19] wait, this car chase is still going on

[26:21] and it is the Fury Road of Scooby-Doo movies.

[26:23] It's wild.

[26:24] They have whole conversations with one another

[26:27] from one vehicle to another.

[26:29] I honestly like...

[26:31] The beginning of the movie

[26:34] zipped along a lot more for me, honestly,

[26:36] than this long car chase

[26:38] because at a certain point...

[26:39] Oh, you mean the 45 minutes of them driving

[26:42] didn't zip along the way you expected it to?

[26:44] At a certain point, I'm like,

[26:45] get out of the car, guys.

[26:46] yeah it's like they didn't write any more movies so they're all driving very slowly to the end of

[26:53] the movie there's part of me that imagined them just the movie ending with them driving off into

[26:59] the sunset forever chased by these jack-o'-lanterns never getting out of their cars yeah it's funny

[27:03] you should mention that because the jack-o'-lanterns are hot on their tail with their own custom hot

[27:08] rods that i think are built out of the uh parade floats i can't quite tell yes yeah yeah they look

[27:13] like that it's a real it's a real monster garage special edition where they just like they took

[27:18] the like take these floats and turn them into cool monster trucks and they're like yeah we can do that

[27:22] the customer was a bunch of jack-o'-lanterns but we decided we were still going to do as good a job

[27:28] as we could hey we need this part well oh it's good we have to get that from japan a jack-o'-lanterns

[27:33] this is going to take a while uh but we kind of are chasing these teens okay we'll do as best as

[27:37] we can we had we didn't have a lot of time so the monster garage guys had to get on it

[27:41] there's the tools elliot this shows a greater familiarity with monster garage than i would

[27:47] have expected out of you i used to watch a lot of monster garage monster house was never as much

[27:52] into because there's something about having a crazy themed car that i can understand but when

[27:56] you theme your house around something it really like you're not going to want to live inside of

[28:01] a dinosaur cave every day and that's coming from me a guy who wishes he could live in a dinosaur

[28:06] cave like three days out of the week but there was a there was a monster house where it was like

[28:11] the baby's coming and we decided to make his room underwater themed so there's sharks everywhere and

[28:17] fish and i was like oh i hope this kid likes underwater stuff because this is going to be a

[28:21] bad room if he doesn't like it yeah i did that with uh my daughter uh my first daughter we made

[28:27] her uh room uh space themed and almost as soon as she could talk she informed me how much she hated

[28:35] the space and how much she wished it was princesses and so i had to have this sad

[28:42] montage of me like kicking the rocket ships down off the wall and piling in my arms the

[28:47] stupid doctor who clock just piled on top the the the starry curtains straight in the trash

[28:54] with a little scraper like scraping the stars off the ceiling

[29:01] yeah wow i did exactly that um can we take a brief diversion to just check in on matthew

[29:08] lillard real quick i want to talk about matthew lillard and this is celebratory i am not ragging

[29:14] on him whatsoever because i'm envious in a way 2002 yep matthew lillard plays the role of

[29:21] shaggy rogers in the movie scooby-doo and then matthew lillard was like you know what this is

[29:28] good for me i'm just gonna stay here if that's all right yeah and everybody can go about their

[29:33] business i'm just gonna chill here except for appearing in twin peaks the return briefly yeah

[29:39] i'm gonna dip in on david lynch's return to television and then i'm just gonna he's done

[29:43] other stuff yeah he's done other stuff but the fact that he just like even the last movie had

[29:50] will forte as shaggy and they were like certainly matthew is not gonna come back after that he's

[29:56] no it's fine i'll just come ahead back and there was like a big deal like well not big but like

[30:01] big for scooby-doo internet controversy where they're all like everyone's like why are they

[30:05] getting will forte you know like matthew liller has been playing this part since he's been putting

[30:10] in the work i mean yeah he's great and like kate mccutchey is is so she's so good as velma it's

[30:16] weird that she hasn't always been velma it's like it's that it's that sort of perfect um but i i

[30:23] just think it's fascinating matthew lillard's like that's good i'll just keep doing it it's

[30:26] pretty easy and i get money for it and it's fun to keep being this guy uh and i don't think we

[30:31] have a lot like uh unless you want to look like um uh a brett iwan or you know one of the the mickey

[30:39] lineage like you don't have this level of uh interconnectedness between a character and a

[30:47] uh voice actor that goes on for you know years and years and years and years and years uh it's

[30:52] wild that's always it's always whenever they would have like a guest star on the simpsons

[30:56] and that character would become like a fairly regular or recurring character like i imagine

[31:00] i always think it's weird that joe montana like still goes in and they're like yeah yeah fat

[31:06] tony's in this episode can you come in record three lines yeah sure okay yeah why not okay

[31:10] No problem.

[31:11] But I always thought that was weird.

[31:15] Who did Shaggy before Matthew Lillard?

[31:18] Casey Kasem did Shaggy for most of it.

[31:20] And I always thought it was weird that Casey Kasem had his own big career,

[31:24] but he was still for years the same thing, coming in and doing Shaggy.

[31:27] Is it just maybe really great to be Shaggy?

[31:31] Is that what we're going to see?

[31:32] It's like so, what a joyful connection.

[31:34] This might be a crazy question,

[31:37] But why wasn't Casey Kasem in the live-action movie, A Shaggy?

[31:41] Well, I mean, one, by that point, he was either a very old man or dead.

[31:47] I can't remember which.

[31:48] The action and the live part would have been challenging.

[31:52] Yeah, let's take a look at Casey Kasem and see how alive he was when that movie came out.

[31:58] Let's see.

[31:59] I don't think it's for you to judge me.

[32:01] He was alive.

[32:02] I think it's a totally normal question to ask.

[32:04] Okay, so.

[32:05] You did ask if it was crazy ahead of time.

[32:09] So he voiced Norville Shaggy Rogers from 1969 to 1997, then again from 2002 to 2009, it says.

[32:17] So in 2002, he was 70 years old.

[32:20] So it might have been a little strange if it was like these young people playing the rest of the characters and then a 70-year-old man.

[32:26] Yeah, it's like Ben 15.

[32:28] And if anything, what's weird about it is that Shaggy is so clearly a takeoff of Maynard G. Krebs from the Dobie Gillis show because they're basically the Dobie Gillis characters.

[32:37] Why didn't they just get Bob Denver to do it?

[32:39] I don't know.

[32:40] Look, I'm not Hannah or Barbera.

[32:42] I can't answer these questions.

[32:43] I mean the answer is probably that Bob Denver wanted too much money.

[32:45] But I don't know.

[32:47] We'll have to go into, I guess, an oral history somewhere to find out.

[32:52] It's also worth noting that Casey Kasem did voice Shaggy Rogers in the year of his death, 2014.

[32:58] Yeah.

[32:59] So that was a 72, judging from Wikipedia here.

[33:06] No, sorry.

[33:07] 82-year-old man voicing the local teen, Shaggy Rogers.

[33:15] Yeah, the directors are like, okay, Casey, just remember you're a teenager.

[33:20] Yeah.

[33:21] This is what teenagers care about.

[33:23] Is that the Charleston?

[33:26] I always kind of assumed Shaggy was a little bit older than a teenager at this point.

[33:31] I mean, they're all supposed to be teens.

[33:34] Here's something that Wikipedia says, and I wonder if it's true, that Casey Kasem was at first uncomfortable about being assigned to Shaggy.

[33:40] As he had never before portrayed a hippie character, he wanted to play Fred.

[33:43] And Frank Welker, who of course has played Fred for the entirety, I think, of the run, wanted to play Shaggy.

[33:49] But instead, CBS assigned them the other way.

[33:52] It's just like that old story about how originally Christopher Walken was going to play Han Solo and Bette Davis was going to play Princess Leia.

[34:00] And they decided at the last minute that they did not want Christopher Walken to play it or an elderly woman to play Princess Leia.

[34:07] And originally, Chewbacca was going to be played by the late Clark Gable.

[34:11] It's just amazing when you hear about who was going to play these roles.

[34:15] okay so back to the chase uh daffy's a blowtorch to cut the parade float loose from the back of

[34:21] elvira's car which then uh runs into all the jack-o'-lanterns hot rods which explode like

[34:26] mad max fury road so they get a little bit of breathing space you know they're still on their

[34:30] tail but they got a little bit of room to breathe not as much room as in the movie the chase where

[34:34] uh charlie sheen and chrissy swanson have a sex scene while being chased by the cops that's crazy

[34:38] uh so they argue about being scared whether or not it's logical or not this is when velma starts

[34:43] talking about mind palaces and it's like of course it's 2020 if you have a smart character in your

[34:49] property they have to talk about memory palaces or they have to be able to play fucking chess on

[34:54] the ceiling like i don't buy it i don't believe it i gotta know there's they gotta be able to do

[35:01] things in slow motion we just started we just started watching that show uh and we just watched

[35:06] the episode where she tears the the canopy of her bed because chess doesn't work on a bed canopy it

[35:12] only works on a ceiling yeah yeah i haven't i haven't finished queen's game yet does she play

[35:18] lionel richie who of course has the strength of being able to sit on the ceiling while playing

[35:22] like the nutty thing is like i haven't watched that movie and i just accepted that as like

[35:27] stewart's crazy joke about a thing that smart people do yeah you know i got crossover appeal

[35:33] okay um so they speed up they catch up to the sheriff and the paddy wagon that is carrying

[35:39] the scarecrow it's quite a large van to be honest with you uh and it looks even bigger on the inside

[35:46] once they get inside it's like they're inside an office building yeah there's so much room in there

[35:49] uh the sheriff then gets overtaken by jack-o'-lanterns and then oh we skip my favorite

[35:55] sheriff dial my mistake explain please no please fred fred and the sheriff

[36:00] am i talking they're like yelling out the window right yeah they're yelling out the window to each

[36:06] other and uh the sheriff said that the kids should go back uh because even though he gives

[36:11] them a hard time they're pretty much the closest thing to family he's got fred said we've talked

[36:17] eight or ten times yeah it's great oh man it's great uh yeah the the sheriff is definitely the

[36:27] uh at this point is still a wild card uh was there a previous movie because they keep referencing

[36:32] a thing there's a previous movie that he was in apparently the sheriff was in a couple of previous

[36:38] uh scooby-doo movies so they've been setting this up for a while yeah yeah oh this is a long time

[36:44] setting up we haven't gotten to but so this is this character was seen in curse of the 13th ghost

[36:48] and returned to zombie island setting up his appearance here now my question you've been to

[36:52] zombie island once you know there's zombies on it why are you returning to zombie island

[36:56] i mean that's the question that the title raises that like that's why you're like i gotta see

[37:00] what's so cool about this fucking zombie island i lost a ring on zombie island we gotta go back

[37:08] uh so they uh the pumpkins take over some construction equipment that's not gonna be good

[37:15] uh they then they then uh start interviewing the scarecrow uh somehow scooby and shaggy do

[37:23] they take their scooby snacks and then they flip over some things and land in the paddy wagon with

[37:28] velma uh bill nye gets distracted by the trigger treaters as we mentioned and the mystery machine

[37:35] starts misbehaving go on i do i do uh well you know they they you know scooby snacks obviously

[37:41] a big part of uh scooby-doo lore i why are they like there's a product out there that's named

[37:48] after this dog is that what the yes we are to believe or the product well maybe scooby is a

[37:55] brand of dog in this world not a brand a breed of dog like maybe a scooby is a kind of dog yeah

[38:01] i mean dogs are all working on their brands these days you know uh they're all entrepreneurs but it

[38:07] does seem it is a packaged product it's not something they make like but maybe they named

[38:12] him after it you know like a dog that's what scoob suggests right i i think is that he was

[38:17] named after the snack uh okay yeah okay you guys think okay real quick quick just don't even think

[38:22] about it sweet or savory i think savory yeah yeah i think well actually i don't know uh-huh i don't

[38:29] know the ones they made for kids are like graham cracker type things but kids aren't gonna eat you

[38:35] know it tastes like chicken and a biscuit that kids aren't gonna eat yeah no they need sugar

[38:39] they like kids love anything sweet and they hate anything not sweet if my kids my my children who

[38:44] like to eat literally spoonfuls of sugar yeah like they're taking medicine from mary poppins like

[38:49] it's like it's like when kids come into the bar i'm always like hey that cocktail they ordered

[38:53] put another squirt of simple syrup in it i gotta say put some complex syrup in that it's got to be

[38:59] real sweet when i i've been going the other way when i was a kid i only liked sort of like

[39:04] salty things and i got i got a i got a sweet tooth as i grew older which explains my expanding

[39:12] waistline i think but i was gonna say that's a bad time that's when we're all least biologically

[39:17] He's capable of dealing with sweet teeth.

[39:19] That's when you want your savory teeth to grow in.

[39:21] Now, I always assumed Scooby-Doo was named after Scuba-Doo-ba.

[39:24] Savory teeth is my least favorite Twisted Metal character.

[39:26] I always thought he was named after Scuba-Doo-ba, the Bruce J. Friedman off-Broadway play.

[39:33] But maybe that's not it.

[39:35] Maybe that's not the case.

[39:36] But let's say for the purposes of this moment of us talking about this show that he exists in a world where there is a famous snack called Scooby Snacks.

[39:46] Scooby-Doo as a puppy loved them, and so they named him Scooby-Doo because a dog's body, when you think about it in that case, is a machine for turning Scooby into Do.

[39:55] And that's where the name comes from, everybody.

[39:57] Stuart, what's going on in that car chase?

[39:59] Okay, so at this point, Velma, Shaggy, and Scooby are inside the armored truck, and they're interrogating the Scarecrow.

[40:05] Then the construction equipment starts to tear apart that paddy wagon.

[40:09] Scarecrow suggests that there may be a different villain, that he's not behind all these pumpkins.

[40:15] Fred saves Mike and Michelle using the mystery machine's long arms.

[40:19] And then it runs out of electric power, probably because of all that shit.

[40:22] Thelma tries to save the Scarecrow from the jack-o'-lanterns, but has to fight a bunch of them.

[40:28] And then Scarecrow puts on his suit and he does all kinds of fucking badass flips.

[40:33] He pulls out a scythe.

[40:34] Does he do that stuff in the comics?

[40:36] I mean, I always, I don't, to be honest, whenever I've seen a Scarecrow comic,

[40:42] He just uses fear gas to make people fall on the ground, and then he runs away or steals something.

[40:46] I don't think of him as a badass fighter, but everybody in this show is.

[40:49] They all have moves.

[40:50] This is the useful thing where Velma has released him.

[40:55] He is effective in helping them fight, but they set it up like, oh, Velma, I got to go get some clues from him.

[41:04] And they have this scene that is kind of like Clarice visiting Hannibal Lecter, another thing that kids—

[41:11] Yeah, that's the reference that the kids

[41:13] are looking for, too. Well, because she

[41:15] also does walk past Zaz in his cell

[41:17] and he throws a cup full of cum at her, just like in

[41:19] Silence of the Lambs.

[41:20] It would be the third

[41:23] weirdest thing in this movie

[41:25] if that did happen.

[41:26] But I don't think she actually gets any clues from

[41:29] talking to him. She already knew that he

[41:31] said that there was some other person

[41:33] in charge. She gets nothing

[41:35] from the conversation.

[41:36] But then, yeah, he

[41:38] becomes a hero and saves them,

[41:41] Mainly because he's a big fan of Elvira, it turns out.

[41:43] Yeah, which makes sense.

[41:44] The whole Mystery Incorporated plus Mike and Michelle all jump into Elvira's car.

[41:49] Mike and Michelle just keep being in this movie.

[41:52] It's super not clear why.

[41:54] He made a vague promise about caramel corn, caramel corn.

[41:59] It's like a life debt.

[42:00] He's like, I've got to follow these kids until I can get them that caramel corn.

[42:03] Otherwise, like a normal reaction would be like, I'm just going to leave these teenagers to be killed by these pumpkins, right?

[42:09] I have a daughter.

[42:11] Well, I mean, if I was somewhere with my young children, I wouldn't be like, we're in an adventure now, kids.

[42:18] Like, hurry up.

[42:19] It's like, since at any moment, Mike and Michelle could just pull off on any exit and just go into a town and not be chased by pumpkin monsters.

[42:26] Yeah.

[42:27] So the scarecrow gets overcome by the jackal.

[42:32] Did we mention Mike's in a cowboy costume?

[42:34] Oh, yeah.

[42:34] They're both dressed as cow folk.

[42:38] I forgot about that.

[42:38] Maybe dressed up as a cowpoke, he's like, I feel a sense of I'm honor bound in this like this Western way.

[42:46] Yeah, I'm inhabiting the character.

[42:48] So modern day, modern day Mike would run and save himself and his daughter.

[42:54] But old West Mike, he follows a different code.

[42:57] Yeah, he's got it.

[42:58] He's got to do what's right.

[42:59] He follows the code that when their gas, their car runs out of gas, they abandon the vehicle and run off into the woods to a spooky house up a hill.

[43:08] They prepare to fight. Fred does this, like,

[43:10] predator, like, Dutch from Predator

[43:12] thing where he makes a bunch of fucking traps

[43:14] and then he, like, lights a bonfire.

[43:16] Which Daphne

[43:18] watches while eating popcorn.

[43:20] Watches shirtless Fred

[43:21] instead of all his traps.

[43:23] These are much more violent traps, too,

[43:26] than you would expect. These are death traps.

[43:28] Yeah. They are killing

[43:30] these pumpkins.

[43:30] So Scooby and Shaggy

[43:34] then make Velma eat

[43:36] a scooby snack so they can follow her into her mind palace that i don't even know what creates

[43:43] a bond of course and you would expect that the fda would not allow this product on the market

[43:48] if it has this kind of psychotropic properties this is you're trying it's clearly like leaning

[43:54] into the drug pair references of shaggy but it doesn't map to any sort of like it doesn't map

[44:01] one-to-one to a drug experience i mean they're treating it almost like like peyote or something

[44:07] we'll all eat the same scooby snacks and we'll be bonded yeah it's very strange yeah so they

[44:13] travel through velma's memories of the uh the inciting incident um they they don't really

[44:20] figure anything out right they just like do because like apparently their consciousness

[44:24] merges enough that

[44:26] she sees the drone

[44:28] that Shaggy saw earlier

[44:30] that has the

[44:31] writing on it that will help

[44:34] crack the case. Yep. So the pumpkins

[44:36] arrive and all their

[44:38] cars just get wrecked. It's pretty crazy.

[44:40] And then Fred's traps

[44:42] murder a shitload of pumpkins.

[44:44] Then they charge and murder more pumpkins

[44:46] along with a musical montage.

[44:48] This was pretty fun.

[44:50] And then despite all that...

[44:52] There's so many points in the movie where they're like,

[44:54] i guess we got to fight some pumpkins and they're just massacring these pumpkins like they could

[44:59] easily take out all of them and then at a certain point they go up more pumpkins we got to get out

[45:04] of here and i never i'm never quite sure how they make do that mental math but you got to keep the

[45:08] story moving i guess and there's that giant pumpkin that's the size of like an elephant yeah i think

[45:11] they're mostly afraid of that big pumpkin yeah uh so despite all their efforts they're surrounded

[45:16] uh velma admits that she is frightened and she then charges into the alpha pumpkin's mouth

[45:22] then an app shuts down all the pumpkins turns out that they're all drones and that the alpha

[45:28] pumpkin is like a drone factory that like captures people and then takes their stuff and puts it on

[45:33] a new jack-o'-lantern and then keeps them in a crappy little like uh cell it's like it's an

[45:40] elaborate way of making you think that people are being turned into pumpkin monsters when the

[45:45] pumpkin monsters would be just as effective if they didn't try to convince you that they were

[45:50] turning people into pumpkin monsters okay they're just eating people justin if you if justin if

[45:55] you're captured by the alpha pumpkin what of what of your garments would they take to put on a

[46:00] jack-o'-lantern to make us think oh fuck justin's now a jack-o'-lantern yeah i don't a hawaiian

[46:05] shirt would be the one my woodworking goggles they would fly out wearing those we'd say it's

[46:13] a mackle lantern we gotta get out of here yeah that guys it's a flop house listener i have uh

[46:19] made uh and i would say a not infrequent situation is me listening to the podcast with little to no

[46:26] familiarity of the film that you are describing but i am listening to this discussion as both a

[46:33] viewer of the film and a listener and this has got to be one of the ones that sounds the most

[46:39] this has got to be way up there on like seward is saying these things yeah as if like well and

[46:46] then you know the alpha pumpkin has been transforming them and the velma is in the

[46:51] mind palace with shaggy and their consciousness is formed it is indescribably strange yeah well

[46:57] the amount of times i had to pause the movie to be like okay i gotta write some sentences

[47:03] hearing it described back to me like really has sort of undone like a a lodestone of like

[47:13] scooby-doo in general where i'm just like okay wait hold on why does the villain

[47:18] need to convince everyone else that something supernatural is happening

[47:22] yeah yeah it's never been adequately answered in 50 years of scooby-doo

[47:29] uh productions it's i mean i think what i uh it's it's basically just a means to get these

[47:37] incredibly charismatic characters shaggy a cowardly hippie scooby-doo a cowardly dog

[47:44] velma a smart nerd daphne a blank a sociopath whose mask hides nothing behind it and and fred

[47:52] who's kind of you know a lumbering lunkhead with a sweater on it's just to get those guys in action

[47:57] and traps it's just to get them in action and hope that they eventually run into the three stooges or

[48:02] perhaps sunny and share or tim conway or someone else that you'd see on tv in the 1970s you know

[48:08] it's wild because you see you see in the character select screen you'd see fred and you'd be like

[48:12] he's a bruiser he's just gonna go in there he's gonna hit big but he's gonna be slow but you

[48:17] wouldn't expect him to be a trap character but whatever man you know it's cool sometimes games

[48:21] change it up it is funny seeing like those old celebrity scooby-doos because you have the same

[48:25] sensation like when you're watching an old muppet show where you're like i guess this person was

[48:29] popular at one point i don't know who they are like you know sometimes you get a mark hamill

[48:34] and then sometimes you get someone you're like okay they were a dancer i guess i don't know

[48:38] along with elvira they will in late in the almost at the end reference a celebrity crossover that

[48:45] literally no child will enjoy or appreciate it's there's a phyllis diller nod yeah absolutely

[48:52] bizarre no reason to think that a child would enjoy that so what would the what would be the

[48:56] like modern day equivalent if scooby-doo was doing with celebrities now they did that would be like

[49:00] i don't know who they are they teaming up with judge judy or are they teaming up with jim parsons

[49:05] like who would it be i actually have an answer for this because they uh the current series or at

[49:12] least the most recent series it's is called scooby-doo and guess who uh which is each

[49:18] Episode is with a new

[49:20] Celebrity

[49:22] So just recently we have

[49:24] The premiere episode was

[49:26] NBA basketball legend

[49:28] Chris Paul

[49:29] And then there's the ghost of Abraham

[49:32] Lincoln is in the next one

[49:34] That doesn't seem like a real guest star

[49:37] I have to say

[49:38] I mean that's a pretty big get

[49:40] I don't know

[49:41] If it says ghost of Abraham Lincoln himself

[49:44] In the credits then yes that's a huge get

[49:46] but yeah this is the yeah so we've got the next one is wanda sykes and then it's sherlock holmes

[49:52] and then it's ricky gervais and then it's what a woman and and then it's pin and teller gonna

[49:59] tell everybody to be atheists yeah is it ricky gervais as himself it's gotta be guys i'm gonna

[50:05] tell you the i'm gonna i'm just trying to tell you that's ricky gervais and then wonder woman

[50:09] and then pin and teller and then urkel from family matters wait but it's urkel or it's jaleel white

[50:15] No, it's Oracle.

[50:16] It's the character Oracle.

[50:17] Then Jim Gaffigan.

[50:18] Okay.

[50:18] And Weird Al.

[50:19] And Sia.

[50:23] Yep.

[50:23] I love the idea.

[50:24] No, this is good because it's like Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Gang.

[50:27] They're like the man thing in the Marvel comics who's the guardian of the nexus of all realities.

[50:32] So who knows what could pop out of Barbarian, Howard the Duck.

[50:34] The Scooby-Doo gang can meet anybody in any reality at any point in time.

[50:39] No, that's pretty – one week they're hanging out with Jordan Peterson, and the next week it's them and Justin Bieber, and the next week it's them and Rick Moranis.

[50:50] I guess these are just all Canadian people.

[50:51] Hold on.

[50:52] There's no end to your mind, guys.

[50:53] I'm losing it over here, guys, because then we've got what's described as comedy rocker Kenan Thompson.

[51:00] Comedy rocker.

[51:02] Comedy rocker.

[51:03] Batman, Whoopi Goldberg, Halsey.

[51:07] Halsey.

[51:09] And then Mark Hamill, and then The Flash, and then George C.K., and then Steve Buscemi.

[51:19] Wait, Steve Buscemi's in it?

[51:21] And then we check in with Jeff Dunham.

[51:24] And then Mark is going to take a real quick spin over to see Matty Ziegler from Dance Moms.

[51:33] And then he's head over the horizon, it's Jeff Fox.

[51:37] Followed up by Malcolm McDowell.

[51:42] What?

[51:43] Malcolm McDowell.

[51:45] So it sounds like they literally put the names of every human being in the world in a hat.

[51:52] And they just pick them out.

[51:55] Including some of our fictional characters.

[51:56] Including some fictional characters.

[51:58] Guys, while investigating a werewolf attack on Broadway, the gang runs into actor and voice talent Christian Slater,

[52:05] who joins him on this heartbreaking song-filled musical mystery

[52:09] centered around the prom night that changed his life forever.

[52:12] And then it's finally Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[52:15] Ooh, heartbreaking.

[52:16] Holy shit.

[52:18] Season two just kicked off, though.

[52:20] Make sure to get in there.

[52:21] You're going to meet Casey Musgraves and Morgan Freeman.

[52:26] Oh, wow.

[52:26] A team-up I never expected, but welcome.

[52:29] This week we're teaming up with Billie Eilish,

[52:31] and next week it's Odysseus.

[52:32] And the week after that it's Arsenio Hall.

[52:35] And then the week after that, it's Adam of Adam and Eve fame.

[52:38] Actually, it's Kristen Schaal and Joey Chestnut.

[52:43] Joey Chestnut.

[52:44] Wow.

[52:48] Man alive.

[52:50] I'm so mad about Chainsaw.

[52:53] If it continues in this direction, it's going to be eventually Matthew Lillard.

[52:58] And it's going to be Ouroboros.

[53:01] The Shag will eat his own tail.

[53:05] that's when the earth explodes yeah okay so the sheriff reveals his crazy plan it turns out the

[53:11] sheriff's the villain no big surprise um so the sheriff's the villain he has a crazy plan

[53:16] to spend millions of dollars to slowly become a local sheriff and be mean to some teenagers and

[53:21] then steal some crystals and well because he was millions well because he was a he was a rich guy

[53:26] who the kids unmasked and and got in trouble yeah so that justifies his uh spending it's a

[53:33] revenge plot i'm not saying the sheriff didn't win the lottery and decide that he was going to

[53:36] spend that millions to get concerned about is that the sheriff had illegally stolen the money or

[53:41] something so they tried but he but can i say like he's already failed once at this like i'm gonna

[53:47] have a supernatural scam thing like why if he's gonna have revenge on the kids why don't you show

[53:53] up and shoot him hey look look scorpion keeps getting caught by spider-man but every time he

[53:57] breaks out of jail he puts that damn tail back on and just tries to hit spider-man with it like

[54:01] people do people get stuck in cycles you know yeah yeah because after a while you're like

[54:07] i spent so much time on learning how to use this fucking scorpion tail

[54:11] yeah i want to try and do something different he's like i'm too old to learn a new employment

[54:16] skill this is just what i want to change his he didn't want to change his twitter handle

[54:20] why do you think i'm still a comedy writer it's so hard for me to get at scorpion one

[54:25] uh so they track the sheriff's phone they try to catch him but uh oh the scarecrow's already got

[54:33] him uh his car has been abandoned um they wander and it's just implied that the scarecrow has taken

[54:38] him to torture or kill him like he's just gone in the scarecrow's clutches yeah so they then

[54:44] wander down the street with elvira they happen upon a halloween party they argue with the host

[54:49] who keeps inviting them and they keep trying to come up with excuses for why they shouldn't go to

[54:53] the party at this point in the movie i was like why is the movie still happening yeah why aren't

[54:58] they just joining this party why are they so resistant to being at this party shaggy and

[55:02] scooby see a snack station so they start to drool so much their drool becomes a river and then they

[55:07] stand up surf all the way to the snack station elvira reveals that she realizes daphne's uh

[55:15] whole reason for trying to be mentored by elvira is that so that she could take elvira's clothes

[55:21] and be Elvira for Halloween.

[55:22] So Elvira gives Daphne her wig,

[55:25] which is actually a monkey,

[55:26] and then wanders away.

[55:28] Well, also, let's be clear.

[55:31] At first, they're like,

[55:32] hey, was your plan to take Elvira's clothes

[55:35] for a costume?

[55:36] And then it becomes implied

[55:39] that it's more like a single white female situation.

[55:42] Not if she wants to steal Elvira's life.

[55:44] That's when they mention Phyllis Diller.

[55:45] They say, we went on three mysteries with Phyllis Diller

[55:47] before we realized it was Daphne.

[55:51] So Phyllis Diller's body is just in a freezer somewhere while Daphne was running around with her clothes.

[55:57] But yeah, I think the moment when Elvira takes off her wig and it's revealed to be a big ape that sits on her head was, I think, when the movie kind of entered a new realm for me.

[56:06] Yeah, bald Elvira wanders off and sort of gives an outro to the movie.

[56:12] Yeah, a little Crypt Keeper outro. Her head turns around and she's got a scary face.

[56:16] Famously red-haired Cassandra Peterson suddenly walking away bald for some reason.

[56:21] Yeah, because they have to have the reveal where her neck twists all the way around like an owl, and she has a weird alien face on the back of her bald head.

[56:31] Again, not for kids.

[56:33] No.

[56:34] Not a good fit for children at all.

[56:35] The movie, in the last five minutes, it kind of gives a glimpse of what this movie could have been if it was even crazier.

[56:43] The movie is like, it's writing this thing where it's like, yeah, I guess it's Scooby-Doo, but it's a little sillier.

[56:50] And then the end is just like, hey, you know what?

[56:51] This is what you could have been watching.

[56:52] Just conquers.

[56:53] Yeah.

[56:54] A glimpse of the madness is Happy Halloween, Scooby-Doo.

[56:58] So what's the next part of the podcast, Dan?

[57:01] Well, we got to make our final judgments on this movie, whether it's a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie you kind of liked.

[57:08] I will say, so if you were a bigger Scooby-Doo fan, like, Audrey was eating this up.

[57:15] So I have to assume that if you like Scooby-Doo, this is like the Citizen Kane of Scooby-Doo films.

[57:20] uh i liked a lot of the silliness i gotta admit like at a certain point the movie started dragging

[57:27] for me which is crazy because it is only 70 minutes long and so much crazy stuff is happening

[57:33] at all times but there came a point where i'm like all right i know that the the ending to

[57:40] this is not going to make any sense let's just get to the solution of the mystery um but i guess

[57:46] marginally look if this is your thing it was fun i kind of liked it but it's borderline

[57:53] what do you guys have to say uh i would say also that i kind of liked it i'd give it a more

[58:00] full-throated recommendation than dan did i would say it does drag a little in the four hours or so

[58:05] that they spend driving on the road but that's just based on reality they said crystal cove is

[58:10] this far away from the nearest town we cannot have them drive less because people are gonna

[58:14] be like wait a minute there are no towns that close to crystal cove they've got to be on the

[58:17] road longer than that and i totally understand not wanting to end up in the goof section of imdb

[58:21] but otherwise as someone who is not a fan of scooby-doo it was fun to see a scooby-doo thing

[58:26] where i was like oh there's like a lot of funny jokes in this and but like dustin was saying it's

[58:31] not all meta jokes you know there's some but it's not all like them just undercutting what what a

[58:38] scooby-doo should be and until we get that gritty realistic reboot of scooby-doo a la detective

[58:43] pikachu then this is the best we're gonna get so i say i kind of liked it yeah it's basically

[58:48] that adventure brothers episode um i uh i think i'll i'll join you guys i'll say it's a movie i

[58:54] kind of like i will say that trying to write a plot summary for this movie was like pecos bill

[59:00] trying to lasso a fucking whirlwind uh but stuff stuff certainly happened yeah and justin i i think

[59:13] you might be the most positive well it's just you know as you watch enough animated films as a

[59:19] parent that um so many of them are and elliot contests this so many of them the work has not

[59:27] been put into not even making it something adults can enjoy but just like a functional piece of

[59:34] entertainment but when you stumble on something like that it's almost kind of a nice surprise

[59:39] Like we turned it on around Halloween because, I don't know, Scooby-Doo.

[59:42] It's a new Halloween movie and whatever kids – they watched Scoob and enjoyed it, which doesn't speak well of their character.

[59:50] But they have two parents.

[59:51] I'm only half of their parents.

[59:53] The whole time they were clapping and laughing at Scoob, you would turn to your wife and say, this is your – these are your genes.

[1:00:00] This is your genes.

[1:00:01] This is not my genetics.

[1:00:02] It's like – it's just kind of a relief when you find something that's like, oh, somebody actually tried on this.

[1:00:08] like somebody actually put the work in and made this like made some good jokes in here i i i can

[1:00:12] watch this 30 times and not be driven mad um uh so yeah on that on that basis i i i i think it's a

[1:00:20] quality piece of of entertainment you're not going to go in uh getting your guts busted constantly

[1:00:27] as an adult but if you go in a little in the right frame of mind there's a lot of fun fun stuff going

[1:00:33] on it is surprisingly uh there's a lot of adult comedies that do not deliver as many laughs

[1:00:38] as this as this film does i will say that it we're we're uh in a stage in hollywood where

[1:00:44] uh actually funny comedies are are pretty hard to come by so uh this this will have to do

[1:00:50] this this will have to do screams the quote on the box

[1:00:54] this will have to scooby-doo

[1:00:58] in a world bereft of truly funny adult comedies this will have to scooby-doo

[1:01:04] that's the name that's the name of the next film this one

[1:01:07] congratulations you've won a ticket to attend an exclusive opportunity in a relaxing environment

[1:01:21] with two lovers wow well this sounds like a sort of proposition of sorts but really

[1:01:27] it's an ad for our podcast wonderful it's a show we do here on maximum fun where we talk about

[1:01:33] things that we like and things that we're into i'm rachel mcelroy and you just heard griffin

[1:01:37] mcelroy and we are excited for you to join us as we talk about movies and music and books things

[1:01:42] like sneezing or the idea of rain can you get news or information you can use absolutely you

[1:01:51] cannot because we're here to talk to you about pumpernickel bread you can find new episodes

[1:01:56] on Wednesdays. So catch the wave. I can remember as a child thinking it was odd that here was this

[1:02:06] can full of meat. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on my show Bullseye, David Letterman on shame,

[1:02:12] regret, and canned hams. Is this the best delivery version of pork? That's this week

[1:02:21] on Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR. The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace.

[1:02:28] With Squarespace, you can turn your cool idea into a new website. You can blog or publish content.

[1:02:34] You can sell products and services of all kinds and much, much more. And Squarespace helps you

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[1:02:56] Head to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:03:08] Now, Dan, I had an idea for a website, and I was hoping that, inspired by today's movie, and I was wondering if Squarespace, you think, could help me.

[1:03:15] uh probably but let's hear it okay so this is a this is a business website it is called

[1:03:20] www.nonster.com that's n-o-n-n as in no as in non not a monster how many times this happened to you

[1:03:28] you hear a story about a ghoul ghost monster gremlin or other miss fantastical being somewhere

[1:03:35] in our great nation you get in your van you get your friends together you get your talking dog

[1:03:40] with you you head to that location to see this cool monster of yourself only for it to turn out

[1:03:44] to be some dude who has plans for a public park and wants to buy it and turn it into

[1:03:49] an oil refinery.

[1:03:50] So he's scaring people away by pretending to be like, you know, the Pittsburgh Palooka

[1:03:55] or something like that.

[1:03:55] What a disappointment.

[1:03:57] I wish I'd saved the time, energy, and the drive.

[1:04:01] Isn't the Pittsburgh Palooka the nickname of the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania?

[1:04:03] That's a good point and very topical.

[1:04:08] Okay, so instead let's call him the Boise Boogeyman.

[1:04:10] So you go all the way to Boise and not a boogeyman, just some dude.

[1:04:15] I wish that there had been a website out there, a kind of Snopes legend-denying website that told me when it was a monster, what I'm calling a nonster or not monster.

[1:04:26] Now, I know there's some difficulty here because monster and nonster sound very similar.

[1:04:30] Be sure that you are putting in nonster with an N as in Norville, not a monster with an M as in Morville, which is what you would say if you wanted more of a ville.

[1:04:39] this isn't enough town give me more of it

[1:04:42] whereas Norville is what you'd be saying if you're talking about

[1:04:44] Norville Jones the main character from the Miracle

[1:04:46] in Morgan's Creek starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton

[1:04:48] now www.nonster.com

[1:04:50] it's your place

[1:04:52] for both public crowdsourced

[1:04:54] comments on what are real monsters and what

[1:04:56] are not and what basically

[1:04:58] what are a real monsters and what are

[1:05:00] nah real nonsters

[1:05:02] so we have people all over the place

[1:05:04] it's like it's like ways but for

[1:05:06] monsters and nonsters and they send in their

[1:05:08] reports and you can just look it up tip tap tap that's you typing in the monster's name

[1:05:12] on the keyboard and up it turns out that uh the san antonio uh psycho uh i thought it was some

[1:05:19] kind of toxic waste created humanoid chud nope it turns out it's just some guy who is trying to sell

[1:05:25] his minor league baseball team to a different city and wants it to seem that the stadium is

[1:05:31] haunted i don't mean to split hairs here but you just said humanoid chud and now aren't chuds always

[1:05:35] humanoid isn't that part of the description that's like saying atm machine that's a very good point

[1:05:41] and you know what forget the whole website you just figured out that you just figured out that

[1:05:45] i don't know what i'm talking about i mean that's why we have these kind of rap sessions right so i

[1:05:48] can poke holes and like find out if there's any mistakes or you know no i appreciate it i appreciate

[1:05:53] it so when i said instead of humanoid chud maybe i should have said some kind of um uh some kind of

[1:06:00] uh leonid leonid chud kind of lion based cannibalistic i don't know i don't know if

[1:06:06] it would work but it's over now you know we're past that's true we can't change the past and

[1:06:11] i'm just monday morning quarterbacking at this point yeah so uh anyway that's www.nonster.com

[1:06:17] website i am now officially canceling because stewart has pointed out that i'm the wrong person

[1:06:22] to run it dan maybe you want to take this on but squarespace i think it's the company to help you

[1:06:26] well that was certainly an effective ad for squarespace stewart do you have a jumbotron for

[1:06:32] us i do have a jumbotron garbage warlocks alex and ian dive headfirst into the raging dumpster

[1:06:42] fire that is seasonal anime join them as they uncover hidden gems discuss how a snake girl

[1:06:50] would wear a onesie and hand out awards to the best shows at the end of every season with almost

[1:06:58] two years worth of episodes there's plenty of goofs and random tangents to dive into look for

[1:07:05] the protagonist seat podcast on youtube itunes or wherever you get your podcasts

[1:07:13] now when they say seasonal anime they mean do they mean anime that comes in seasons like tv

[1:07:18] seasons or do they mean like a very akira christmas that kind of stuff that is a question

[1:07:23] that is not explained i can't answer it but maybe i mean maybe there is like fall anime

[1:07:29] summer anime maybe that's it yeah yeah like like happy fourth of july project echo like that kind

[1:07:37] of stuff yep yeah okay all my anime references as you can tell are 30 years old yeah yep uh yeah

[1:07:45] But Ranma Half is now Ranma 43 and a half, right?

[1:07:48] I guess.

[1:07:50] It's been a long time.

[1:07:52] I don't know.

[1:07:53] Yeah, yeah.

[1:07:54] Happy Dragon's Balls giving everyone.

[1:07:56] So I have another Jumbotron.

[1:07:58] This is a message for Nathan, and this message is from Sarah.

[1:08:02] And Sarah writes to Nathan.

[1:08:04] She says, happy 40th.

[1:08:06] You're one of my oldest friends, and now you're also old in capital letters.

[1:08:10] I'm so glad we've remained friends all these years, and I'm inspired by how much you've accomplished.

[1:08:14] You're truly the Stuart Wellington to my Elliot Kaelin.

[1:08:17] John is obviously Dan, which means Ellis must be the Flophouse house cat.

[1:08:21] It's perfect.

[1:08:22] Love and hugs to you both.

[1:08:23] Sarah.

[1:08:24] Have a sweet.

[1:08:26] That's a sweet message.

[1:08:27] And I wish I knew who all these people were so I could see who we, you know, track toward, who we match up with.

[1:08:35] Yeah, I will only map, yeah.

[1:08:36] Yeah.

[1:08:37] So, guys, you know, Sharko and Hippo is still available.

[1:08:43] Stuart still owns some bars.

[1:08:45] I mean, Sharko and Hippo, for people who are just checking in, is a book that I wrote.

[1:08:48] It's not—otherwise, that sentence that Dan said, though true, would seem completely incomprehensible.

[1:08:53] Well, here they'd be like, what is that?

[1:08:56] Then they'd Google it, and hopefully the first Google result would be the book you wrote and not something, I don't know, weird?

[1:09:01] No, probably it would be nonster.com telling you that Sharko and Hippo are not real monsters.

[1:09:06] They are, in fact, the stars of my new children's book, Sharko and Hippo.

[1:09:08] But Sharko and Hippo, it's available in bookstores everywhere.

[1:09:11] get it through your local independent bookstore and of course hinterland's bar still barring

[1:09:15] along after all these years i'm casey casem and minnie's bar which is barring after slightly not

[1:09:20] as many years but it's still barring i'm casey casem dan are you also casey casem i'm also casey

[1:09:28] casem and elliot is casey casem and back to the show all right uh well next we move on to letters

[1:09:39] and the first letter

[1:09:41] is from Marlena

[1:09:43] last name withheld

[1:09:45] who writes

[1:09:46] Marlena Dietrich

[1:09:47] one of the great legends

[1:09:48] of the screen

[1:09:49] it's an honor

[1:09:49] to get a letter from her

[1:09:50] she writes

[1:09:52] I just listened

[1:09:53] to your recent episode

[1:09:55] with Mike Rice

[1:09:56] and I thought

[1:09:57] I'd share the story

[1:09:58] of why that's a big deal

[1:09:59] for me

[1:10:00] so here's the tale

[1:10:01] of how a brief encounter

[1:10:02] with Mike Rice

[1:10:03] made me accidentally

[1:10:05] and hopefully temporarily

[1:10:06] ruin the Simpsons

[1:10:07] for myself

[1:10:07] I think his name

[1:10:08] might be pronounced Reese

[1:10:10] Yeah, I was confused too.

[1:10:12] Because it's spelled Rice.

[1:10:14] Yeah, I looked up the pronunciation of that name

[1:10:19] and the internet said Rice, but I don't know.

[1:10:22] I could be wrong.

[1:10:23] Let's call him Mike Simpsons.

[1:10:26] Yeah, Mike Simpsons.

[1:10:27] This brings me to a few winters ago.

[1:10:30] My dad and I went to the Museum of Modern Art

[1:10:32] for a showing of a silent comedy, something we both love.

[1:10:34] When the couple next to us took their seats

[1:10:37] and started talking to each other,

[1:10:38] i tensed with recognition that's a simpsons writer i whispered to my dad i was certain it was mike

[1:10:44] simpsons whose voice i had been listening to in commentaries for all those years i surreptitiously

[1:10:50] googled to match the face of the name and yes it was definitely him there wasn't time to do or say

[1:10:55] anything since the movies began shortly after i did enjoy finding out what jokes mike uh simpsons

[1:11:01] laughed at though i'm a pretty reserved and somewhat socially anxious person so i knew needed

[1:11:07] i knew i would need my dad's prompting to tell mike that i was a huge fan after the screening

[1:11:12] unfortunately my dad is even more reserved than i and when i asked if i should say something he did

[1:11:17] not encourage it so i didn't say anything a decision i regretted pretty much instantly after

[1:11:22] leaving the theater this regret was compounded when my mom and friends i told assured me that

[1:11:27] he probably would have been flattered and not annoyed by the intrusion the regret icing on the

[1:11:31] cake was realizing that i had actually been wearing my bart man sweatshirt to the screening

[1:11:36] now i said i'm an anxious person and i have trouble compartmentalizing so instead of just

[1:11:41] having a twinge of regret when i listened to the commentaries i had soured the entire experience

[1:11:47] of the simpsons for myself i couldn't casually watch an episode without thinking of what a

[1:11:52] mistake i'd made as time has passed i've started to watch again but never with the same fervor and

[1:11:56] joys i used to have well there might be other reasons uh so it was a big step wow big dig on

[1:12:02] the show dan it's certainly it's hard for a show to maintain consistent quality over 30 years and

[1:12:09] four million episodes but come on dan i watched till very recently so it was a big step when i

[1:12:15] listened to your episode with mike as a guest and didn't feel any psychic pain maybe i'm back on my

[1:12:21] way to wholeheartedly loving my favorite show again the next step is wearing all my various

[1:12:26] simpson shirts again thank you peaches for being part of the healing process marlena last name

[1:12:32] withheld i just uh you know wanted to share that that moment of healing sure the flop house is here

[1:12:39] for you it weighs big and small yeah and you know what if you ever run into him again introduce

[1:12:44] yourself as as as longtime listeners may remember i have long regretted that i never sent ray

[1:12:49] harryhausen a fan letter uh because i was always like i'll get around to it and then of course he

[1:12:53] was an old man and he passed away uh but the way to do it uh just a tip for next time is not to do

[1:12:59] it the way my grandma does where there was more than one occasion where she and i would be at the

[1:13:04] theater me and my grandmother who i love and wallace sean from princess bride would be in

[1:13:08] the audience and she would ask me who he was and what his name was mere seats away from the man

[1:13:14] himself and i would try to surreptitiously say oh that's that's wallace sean what what's his name

[1:13:19] his father was the editor of the new yorker what's his name and it was that it was always

[1:13:23] excruciating and then after the fact i found it pretty funny and also famously kind of a grumpy

[1:13:28] man so i'm sure yeah i'm sure he did not enjoy having someone having an old woman loudly near

[1:13:34] him question who is who he is i have uh long try to encourage people that like if you see someone

[1:13:40] whose work you enjoy i don't care how famous they are i i think everyone always likes to hear i like

[1:13:47] the things you make that's a little even especially if you're having a kind of a bummer day i think

[1:13:51] that's all i can't imagine a situation where i wouldn't want someone to be like good yeah you're

[1:13:56] good now my as long as you don't know the cd bend their ear i think i agree with you yeah yeah the

[1:14:02] cd underbelly of that advice is that one time i was at the lax and i saw john c mcginley and i

[1:14:09] thought i'm gonna go over there and say hi john c mcginley i love john c mcginley we're in line

[1:14:13] at the thing

[1:14:15] you know in the TSA line so like

[1:14:17] we kept serpentining

[1:14:19] past each other and I had all these opportunities

[1:14:21] I'm gonna do it now

[1:14:23] and afterwards I was kicking myself

[1:14:25] like damn it should have said something to

[1:14:27] John C. McGinley and as I was

[1:14:29] boarding my plane I realized in my

[1:14:31] head I was John C. Riley

[1:14:33] and if I had gone up to him

[1:14:35] if I had

[1:14:37] gone up to him I would have said

[1:14:39] Mr. McGinley

[1:14:40] Mr. McGinley I'm sure you get this all the time

[1:14:43] which i doubt he does because his name is john c reilly uh uh i i would have been stoked to

[1:14:49] get john c mckinley too but it was i saved myself that jumped into some like scrub scenes and stuff

[1:14:55] yeah that's why it's always a good idea as the letter writer said to google the person to just

[1:15:01] to make sure you got everything right i would say judge the vibe see if they're in a good mood i i

[1:15:05] did see adam scott at uh tootsie the broadway show of tootsie and uh afterwards like i was

[1:15:14] very close to him and if i had been one person closer i would have told him how much i love

[1:15:19] piranha 3d which is not ironic uh but he he kind of looked like he was he was keen on getting out

[1:15:25] of there and not being impossible he saw tootsie there's no way that's why i was probably still

[1:15:30] laughing you would have been the second best part of his night after seeing tootsie well i mean it's

[1:15:36] it's kind of famous among broadway hounds that he was lobbying very hard for the lead role in tootsie

[1:15:40] and did not get it and he went to every show just to scowl through it and think about how much better

[1:15:45] he would have been in that role uh that was the guy that was the guy from uh crazy ex-girlfriend

[1:15:52] right who actually played it yeah i think so yeah yeah yeah yeah rachel bloom okay uh that's not a

[1:15:59] guy and it's not the person who is in tootsie that's the star of crazy x go right second and

[1:16:04] final uh letter of the evening or morning whenever you listen uh amy last name withheld writes amy

[1:16:12] adams again hugely impressive yeah i'm writing to ask if you could all name a pet after any

[1:16:18] character from a movie what name would you choose thanks for the great podcast amy last name

[1:16:23] withheld uh i gotta say my last two cats have been named after um old movie stars uh not necessarily

[1:16:34] their characters in one case named after the character that came to be identified with them

[1:16:39] my first cat lulu was named after louise brooks who was uh often called lulu because of her

[1:16:46] character in uh pandora's box and uh and we we called her that because early on uh lulu did not

[1:16:54] make any noise and we thought is this cat mute um and so a silent film star uh came to my mind

[1:17:03] um and archie is named after archie leach which is carrie grant's real name uh but the but uh guys

[1:17:13] do you have characters for movies you would name your cats after or dogs or pets of any kind sure

[1:17:18] i mean the main reason why i think charlene's not going to let me ever buy a dog or adopt a dog is

[1:17:24] uh because i would 100 name them after the most noble of all the jedi that's right key doggy

[1:17:29] mundi or key doggy doggy or dog addy mundi i don't i haven't decided which one i want to go

[1:17:35] or rodney doggerfield dog me doggerfield that's already taken and also not a character that's a

[1:17:42] the actor. I'm talking about the character

[1:17:44] Key Addie Dye. It's kind of the character he played

[1:17:46] eventually, you know. That's true, yeah.

[1:17:48] Anybody else?

[1:17:50] Probably, you know, The Thin Man

[1:17:52] is one of my favorite movies. Of course, I'd

[1:17:54] name it after the titular Thin Man,

[1:17:56] Claude Winant. So my dog, Claude

[1:17:58] Winant, or maybe it's a fish or a cat,

[1:18:00] that's what I'd name him.

[1:18:02] Or her. Claude Winant.

[1:18:04] Sorry, Clyde Winant.

[1:18:05] Probably Teddy KGB

[1:18:08] from Rounders.

[1:18:12] Because the pet's accent is outrageous.

[1:18:16] I'll splash the dog food whenever I want.

[1:18:20] Now, it seems like it would be fun to have a dog named Teddy KG.

[1:18:25] Sure.

[1:18:25] It would be good now that I think about it.

[1:18:27] I came up with that in the moment, but I think it would be powerful.

[1:18:30] Sometimes it's the best ones.

[1:18:31] So, I mean, Scooby-Doo tells us, as we've postulated that, a dog is named after—

[1:18:36] That'd be a good one, too, Scooby-Doo.

[1:18:37] Scooby-Doo is named after—dogs are named after the foods they like best.

[1:18:41] So I guess if I had a dog, he'd be named pill-wrapped in cheese.

[1:18:44] Okay.

[1:18:49] Does that mean I have to start calling my two-year-old old Pringles?

[1:18:52] Yes.

[1:18:52] Because that's her whole thing.

[1:18:54] Carpet Pringles, get over here.

[1:18:57] Earlier before recording this, my family and I, we went out to play some baseball at the local rec center.

[1:19:04] And just the family.

[1:19:05] And my younger son, the two-year-old, was holding a rice cake.

[1:19:09] And every time a tiny grain of rice cake would fall on the ground, he would scrabble for it.

[1:19:14] That was the one he wanted to eat the most.

[1:19:15] And I'd have to pull it from his hand and throw it away.

[1:19:17] And he literally has a whole rice cake in his hand.

[1:19:19] It's like each grain in the dirt is what he wants to eat.

[1:19:22] What a country, am I right?

[1:19:25] In this economy?

[1:19:29] So now the last segment comes, and that is recommendations.

[1:19:34] movies that maybe you know would be an adult human would fully enjoy rather than or watch it as a

[1:19:42] watch it as a movie marathon along with happy halloween scooby-doo uh sure i want to recommend

[1:19:49] um i'm glad justin is here for this i may be recommending this in part because justin is here

[1:19:55] yesterday a friend of ours um had a tom arnold marathon on twitch of three movies released all

[1:20:05] i believe in 1996 he had carpool uh the stupids and big bully that was tom arnold's big year i

[1:20:12] guess when they're really trying to make him happen and uh i only saw in full the stupids

[1:20:19] which is the one i cared about because as a big uh my brother my brother and me listener i've heard

[1:20:25] it referenced many times and i gotta say it was very funny i laughed a lot it's it's really good

[1:20:32] the stupid holds up it is fantastic yeah what a film i think it was not appreciated because as

[1:20:40] the title would suggest it is very stupid but it is stupid in a smart way like they have really put

[1:20:46] a lot of work into creating a house of cards that pays off by the end of just like idiotic

[1:20:55] misapprehensive misapprehensions and like i don't think everyone in it is doing a great job like i

[1:21:01] kind of feel like mrs stupid is playing stupid more than like tom arnold i believe with my full

[1:21:08] heart and soul that he is this stupid character but uh jesus it's a hard one to recommend to

[1:21:15] people because they might watch and be like what is wrong with you but i was watching it and being

[1:21:19] like i can't imagine anyone not laughing at this there's an actor named bug hall in it yeah plays

[1:21:26] buster stupid okay yeah bug hall it's hilarious you and i had a uh we watched the entire uh bug

[1:21:34] hall omnibus because i watched little rascals with my kids last week so those are all the all

[1:21:39] the bug hall movies now he played alfalfa in that one now that is all the bug hall film oh he's uh

[1:21:46] oh he's he's in a bunch of other movies it turns out as a as a more of a grown-up i didn't realize

[1:21:49] this bug hall i like atlas shrugged part two apparently he's in max landis is in it as a

[1:21:56] graffiti artist oh damn you must have loved that it's a john landis directed film oh yeah uh john

[1:22:02] landis he doesn't murder anyone in this one right no he does not murder how many people died during

[1:22:05] the making of The Stupids, didn't it?

[1:22:07] If it even died, he covered it up effectively.

[1:22:09] Wait, and there's a cameo in it

[1:22:11] according to Wikipedia from director Costa Gavras,

[1:22:14] so that's pretty amazing.

[1:22:15] David Cronenberg is in it as well.

[1:22:18] There are a lot of directors' cameos.

[1:22:20] And, you know, I'm not recommending

[1:22:22] The Little Rascals, but I do want to say

[1:22:24] that Donald Trump is in The Little Rascals

[1:22:25] as the father of the rich kid.

[1:22:27] Oh, right.

[1:22:27] And there's an outtake where he reaches over

[1:22:30] and steals this lady's popcorn.

[1:22:32] And it's clearly, like, improvised.

[1:22:35] he like reaches over and steals his lady's popcorn and eats some of it and it's like oh that's a

[1:22:40] funny outtake okay fine put that in there's a different outtake and then they cut back to this

[1:22:44] one and they showed donald trump spitting the chewed up popcorn onto the person sitting in

[1:22:50] front of them and saying this popcorn really is terrible that is not improvised that is just how

[1:22:55] what he was doing with this human life and they caught it on film and they just put it put it uh

[1:23:01] put it in the outtakes

[1:23:03] he was really a terrible person

[1:23:04] it's not like power drove him mad

[1:23:08] he was always a bad person

[1:23:10] he sucks always

[1:23:11] the wikipedia list of celebrity cameos for the stupids

[1:23:14] it makes me want to see it because it's almost like a Scooby Doo series

[1:23:17] because it's like you got Jenny McCarthy

[1:23:18] okay it was made in the 90s

[1:23:19] then you've got Atom Egoyan, Norman Jewison, Robert Wise

[1:23:22] Guillaume Pontecorvo

[1:23:24] John Landis is really calling in all of his

[1:23:27] director buddies to be in the stupids

[1:23:29] a lot of very very strange jokes in it that you would not expect yeah that sounds great uh it's

[1:23:37] funny you mentioned david cronenberg i'm gonna recommend a movie called possessor or possessor

[1:23:43] uncut which is directed by the son of uh david cronenberg brandon cronenberg uh it is a nice

[1:23:51] little gross thriller it's kind of like if you took a laser disc of a christopher nolan movie

[1:23:56] and kind of like pressed your thumb on it to slow the whole thing down it's a high concept about an

[1:24:03] assassin who using technology transfers her consciousness into somebody else's brain and

[1:24:10] then uses them to kill people um and it's super slow and gross uh and i liked it a lot so possessor

[1:24:19] stuart i want to say if i uh that's what i would have recommended i just watched it that's what i

[1:24:25] would have recommended if i decided if i hadn't decided to throw caution to the wind and recommend

[1:24:29] yeah uh should i go next sure i'm gonna recommend a film drama from the early 70s uh i'm gonna

[1:24:39] recommend a movie called cinderella liberty starring james conn and marcia mason with eli

[1:24:44] wallach in a supporting role and this is a movie that i had been wanting to see for a number of

[1:24:48] years because i could not understand the title cinderella liberty and it turns out uh it's

[1:24:53] because that's the name just two different words it's just two different words to throw together

[1:24:57] uh no it's it's what they call when you are on shore leave uh in the navy but you have to be

[1:25:02] back at midnight so you don't have a full night you just have to be back at midnight uh james

[1:25:07] khan is a sailor who has shore leave and in seattle and falls in love with a essentially a

[1:25:14] prostitute uh who has a teenage son and finds that his records have been lost by the navy this is the

[1:25:21] 70s it's literally a paper file that they can't find and so he's stuck there and can't be put on

[1:25:25] another ship and he forms a relationship with her and it is a real like uh you know sometimes funny

[1:25:32] sometimes serious character study of these characters and i liked it a lot and it was

[1:25:35] fun seeing james conn playing a character who is not like a blustery you know tough guy you know

[1:25:42] yeah uh and so i liked it a lot it's directed by uh mark rydell who also directed one of dan's

[1:25:48] favorites for the boys starring

[1:25:50] Bette Midler so

[1:25:51] so that's Cinderella Liberty

[1:25:54] Justin what would you like to recommend

[1:25:55] you know there's so many I only

[1:25:58] get to do this show once and I've

[1:26:00] seen so many movies that I'd like to recommend

[1:26:02] you know what I mean you could

[1:26:04] come back

[1:26:04] I don't know at the start of the show you were

[1:26:08] pretty pretty sincere about not

[1:26:10] having it back on yeah

[1:26:11] yeah you're you're I think you that decision

[1:26:14] has been made now I want to recommend Velocipastor

[1:26:16] you guys seen Velocipastor

[1:26:17] I've only seen clips from it, and I've yet to see the whole movie,

[1:26:20] and it seems, yeah, bonkers.

[1:26:22] It's bonkers.

[1:26:24] It's really interesting because it starts out seeming like it's going to be

[1:26:28] sort of an intentionally bad camp thing, and there is some of that,

[1:26:33] and then there are some jokes that just work earnestly,

[1:26:36] and then the strangest thing about this film is that every once in a while

[1:26:39] it will just pick up competence and put it over its shoulder

[1:26:45] and just be a competent movie for, like, 15 minutes

[1:26:48] and then just drop it again.

[1:26:50] And it's almost like the director is teasing you, like,

[1:26:53] oh, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I know how to, I could do a good,

[1:26:56] there's, like, a love scene in this movie that is so wildly effective

[1:27:00] and, like, romantic and sweet and erotic,

[1:27:03] and it's, like, what the hell?

[1:27:04] Wait, if you could, you know how to do it.

[1:27:07] Why are you not doing it?

[1:27:08] It's, like, I don't want to, I don't want to.

[1:27:10] It's a movie about a pastor that turns into a velociraptor

[1:27:13] and eats criminals.

[1:27:15] so that's the movie i'm making i could make a good movie but i'm gonna make this movie and it is uh

[1:27:20] uh really really enjoyable it's like again it's like 70 minutes long it's about a about one happy

[1:27:27] halloween scooby-doo uh worth of time to watch uh but i i got a big kick out of it i've seen it a

[1:27:32] few times now i really think i would love for that to be the new measurement of time that becomes the

[1:27:37] official ones that scientists doing like cosmos type tv shows will say billions of happy halloween

[1:27:43] scooby-doos ago our our universe was created yeah that's that uh is that is velocipastor the

[1:27:50] movie where a car explodes but they just wrote car explosion fx on the screen yeah yeah good stuff

[1:27:58] a micro budget too it was made for basic i think eighty thousand dollars i mean it is yeah very

[1:28:05] impressive the director uh brendan steer i think his name is has uh gotten a uh large cash investment

[1:28:14] for his next uh film uh so i'm i'm which apparently has some connection to velocipastor

[1:28:22] it's called outback dracula so i should i should get on velocipastor so i'm called up for when

[1:28:29] outback dracula yeah watch velocipastor because he will probably show up in outback dracula which

[1:28:34] uh according to the press release shifts uh the madness to 1880s australia where a psychic lesbian

[1:28:39] school teacher teams up with the world's greatest adventurer to find her missing girlfriend and

[1:28:43] defeat dracula and his golden army of the undead so do not miss this i mean that is the plot of

[1:28:49] quickly down under they're just ripping it off um so uh before we do our quick closing stuff

[1:28:57] justin do you have anything to plug i know that you have a book about how to podcast coming out

[1:29:01] and I know this because even when will this episode be out uh Saturday well after Halloween

[1:29:06] Saturday yeah I this uh I I've even though I already have a podcast myself I pre-ordered

[1:29:13] your book and I'm looking forward to thank you reading it you'll learn a few things Saturday

[1:29:18] November 21st this is coming out you say we're doing a live show tonight oh if you go to live

[1:29:24] dot the mcelroy dot family that's m-c-e-l-r-o-y we're doing a live streamed show you can get

[1:29:32] tickets for 10 bucks uh sawbones uh my medical history podcast to do with my wife sydney

[1:29:37] is going to be there and uh it's going to be fun and please uh go watch it live dot the mcelroy

[1:29:45] dot family it's tonight yeah you guys are the best in the biz having seen you guys uh do live

[1:29:52] shows over the last couple years uh you guys have gotten like so uh tight and professional at it

[1:29:58] that it uh makes me wonder what we're even trying to do over here

[1:30:02] yeah i mean i i have tickets for the streaming show i'm looking forward to it um thank you so

[1:30:09] much even if you don't come folks i really can't emphasize that enough just please buy

[1:30:13] watch it or don't it's up to you uh well anyway uh before we go i would like to say thank you to

[1:30:20] network maximum fun that carries our show the flop house and a couple of shows by justin and

[1:30:29] his extended family all a family full of podcasters uh just like the partridge family except for not

[1:30:37] singing and but the partridge family was full of podcasters that's true and i'd like to thank

[1:30:43] jordan cowling uh for editing the show and making it sound better than it ever did when i produced

[1:30:48] it and uh i'd like to thank our guest justin for being here my pleasure and uh so for the flop house

[1:30:57] i've been dan mccoy i've been stewart wellington i'm elliot calen and continue to be and that's

[1:31:03] justin mackaroy i'm justin mackaroy do i say this is that's a weird thing to have against you

[1:31:08] yeah you can give us the post-mortem afterwards how we're doing okay charlene that was weird

[1:31:15] I'll do a now mortem

[1:31:17] Hey Charlene

[1:31:18] Okay now that's

[1:31:20] Am I not supposed to do

[1:31:21] Now that was a weird thing

[1:31:22] For a guest to do

[1:31:23] 100%

[1:31:23] Yeah that's on

[1:31:24] That's on Justin

[1:31:25] The first thing was on us

[1:31:26] But that

[1:31:26] The second thing was on Justin

[1:31:27] You listeners

[1:31:31] Can see that right

[1:31:32] Bye

[1:31:32] I've got to pee so bad

[1:31:35] This is the end of the show

[1:31:36] I'll end it

[1:31:36] And this has been Flophouse

[1:31:38] Keep reaching for the stars

[1:31:40] Okay well we'll let you go

[1:31:41] Bye

[1:31:45] uh yeah i'll do the intro and then we'll do the show okay good order

[1:32:00] i'd head to the outro right after that though

[1:32:04] i don't want to take your business so many burns okay

[1:32:08] maximumfun.org comedy and culture artist owned audience supported

Ep. #328 - Happy Halloween, Scooby Doo!, with Justin McElroy

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