Ep. #321 - The Call of the Wild, w/ Jesse Thorn

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss the call of the wild.

Stuart Wellington

[0:07] Wipe out.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:42] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:43] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:46] And who's this special guest we've got with us this week?

Dan McCoy

[0:49] It's the boss, not Bruce Springsteen, but Jesse Thorne.

Jesse Thorn

[0:55] That's how I like to enter any podcast, as a mild disappointment.

[1:00] I set you up and I knock you down.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03] Here it is.

[1:04] The boss straight from E Street in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08] It's Jesse Thorne.

[1:10] Little Stevie Van Zandt.

[1:12] Think about how bummed Bruce Springsteen would be if he agreed to do our podcast

[1:17] and then found out we were talking about movies and not just, like, blue-collar stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22] Yeah, old trucks and things.

[1:24] The same thing that Stephen King would be upset about if he was a guest on the podcast.

[1:27] Here's the question.

Jesse Thorn

[1:28] Do you guys not listen to Guitar Tone Cast?

[1:32] He's a regular on that one.

[1:33] He is?

Dan McCoy

[1:34] I mean, that makes sense.

[1:35] He's in that, like, that, what is it, The Remainders?

[1:39] The, I don't know, that, that, uh...

[1:42] The Rock Bottom Remainders?

[1:43] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[1:44] Band.

[1:44] Did you know that I know the founder?

[1:46] I knew.

[1:47] She's passed away, sadly.

[1:48] But I knew the founder of the Rock Bottom Remainders literary rock band.

[1:52] Oh, I didn't know that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:53] Should I update the personal wiki I have for you on my computer?

Jesse Thorn

[1:57] I have had, I have had all of one job in radio, not counting the, like, three weeks that I was an intern on a morning radio show before I realized I could not get up that early.

[2:07] Uh-huh.

[2:08] And you and the Mad Dog just never got along.

Stuart Wellington

[2:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[2:11] You weren't wild enough for the zoo crew.

Jesse Thorn

[2:13] Yeah.

[2:14] I was literally not allowed to make eye contact with the hosts of the show.

[2:18] That was one of the rules, really.

[2:20] Oh, no.

[2:21] But on this other wonderful show I worked on called West Coast Live, which was a public radio show out of San Francisco, my boss, Kathy Goldmark, was the founder of that band.

[2:30] Like, she had had every publishing job ever before she became producer of this radio show.

[2:34] And so she was just buddies with Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Matt Groening, Maya Angelou, all these people.

[2:47] And they would just come by.

[2:49] They would just come by the radio show and to see their rock and roll friend, Kathy Goldmark.

[2:54] That's really nice.

Elliott Kalan

[2:56] Do you guys think that Bruce Springsteen ever watched Who's the Boss on TV and was like, when are they going to invite me on that show?

Dan McCoy

[3:02] I'm right here.

[3:03] Yeah, but he keeps looking in the mirror and he's like, am I the boss?

[3:08] Yeah, there's the time he actually went to set and was standing outside the door just waiting for a cue that never came.

Elliott Kalan

[3:14] Yeah, yeah.

[3:15] Maybe I'm supposed to go there.

[3:18] Maybe I'm supposed to start the idea.

Stuart Wellington

[3:20] Dan, the scenario you described is just about sad enough to be the subject of a Bruce Springsteen song.

Jesse Thorn

[3:26] He did write one song about sitting in the movie theater with a single tear rolling down his cheek as he watched Boss Baby and thought about how he hadn't been invited to be in it.

Elliott Kalan

[3:35] Well, that his childhood, he never really got to feel as carefree as a baby, you know?

[3:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] Yeah.

[3:41] Well, so for the possible new listener who's listening right now saying, what the fuck is this show about?

Elliott Kalan

[3:47] Being like, I love Bullseye, interviews with relevant and sophisticated cultural arts figures.

[3:53] So I followed Jesse Thorne to hear, but what is this with these morons?

[3:56] What do they, Dan, what do we do that they should know about?

Dan McCoy

[3:59] Well, these real dinguses watch a bad movie and then talk about it.

[4:04] Or, you know, a movie that has been either commercially or critically drubbed.

[4:09] And this week, as the announcement at the top said, we watched The Call of the Wild based on the book The Call of the Wild by Jack London.

Elliott Kalan

[4:18] Hello, hello.

[4:19] It's me, Jack London.

[4:21] He was a famous American.

[4:22] Oh, hey, Jack London.

[4:22] The most English man there is.

[4:23] Hello.

[4:25] Oi, the ripper struck a den.

[4:27] In me, Jack London.

[4:29] Yep.

Jesse Thorn

[4:29] This whole thing was a setup for Elliot's signature character.

Elliott Kalan

[4:32] Jack London.

[4:33] I'm so glad we have Jesse here because Jesse is, of course, the second native favorite son of Northern California after Jack London.

[4:41] Jack London, of course, being Northern California's favorite native son and Jesse being the second favorite.

[4:45] So you knew Jack London, right?

[4:47] Yeah, we were good friends back in the 1890s.

[4:51] In the prospect.

Jesse Thorn

[4:53] How would you rank the native children of Northern California?

[4:57] And you'd say Jack London, number one.

[4:59] Number two, Jesse Thorne, of course, because I'm the host of the least popular NPR program, Bullseye.

[5:07] Then number three, maybe Joe DiMaggio.

Elliott Kalan

[5:09] If you're asking me, the least favorite is, wait, wait, don't tell me because I hate it so much.

[5:13] But, no, I guess I don't hate it.

[5:16] Yeah, then Joe DiMaggio would be number three.

[5:18] You can hate it.

[5:19] I hate it.

[5:20] They're nice people.

[5:21] So Joe DiMaggio would be number three.

[5:22] Number four and five tied the Olsen twins because Full House was set in San Francisco.

[5:28] Sure.

[5:28] Yeah, it did have that one San Francisco shot.

[5:31] Number six is the idea of uneven terrain.

[5:34] Very popular in San Francisco.

[5:37] And number seven would be Johnny Pixar, you know, founder of Pixar up in Emeryville, Northern California.

[5:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:45] Now, I actually would like to spend just a second on the book, The Call of the Wild, up at the top.

[5:55] I read that, of course, in middle school or early high school.

[6:00] I think it was an assignment rather than something I was reading for myself.

[6:06] What's your guys' experience with the book, if any?

Stuart Wellington

[6:09] I had the classics illustrated Call of the Wild or The Call of the Wild.

[6:14] And I remember being a big fan, although I remembered very little of the plot points.

[6:21] So this movie was all new to me, you know.

Elliott Kalan

[6:23] I just got some late breaking news that there's been a change in the favorite sons and daughters of Northern California.

[6:30] Oh, cool.

[6:30] Okay.

[6:31] Mary-Kate is number four.

[6:33] Number five is Boots Riley.

[6:35] And number six is Daveed Diggs.

[6:36] And seven is Ashley.

[6:37] So the Olsen twins have – wow.

[6:39] I don't know how one was chosen over the other.

[6:43] Again, I'm not from Northern California.

[6:44] I'll have to ask my wife, who is a native of that area.

[6:46] Now, do you think they can survive this?

[6:47] Bad news for you, The Lonely Island.

[6:52] But as for Call of the Wild, it's one of those books that I kind of – I think I must have read like an abridged version of it when I was very little.

[7:00] And I never read the full book and I've always been curious about it since, for whatever reason, the Jack London book I know best is The Scarlet Plague, the book about a virus that kills all of San Francisco and not any of his better-known books.

Jesse Thorn

[7:12] Huh.

[7:13] I bought a copy at a thrift store thinking I would bring it up to my cabin and maybe one of my kids would want to read it at some point.

[7:22] And I ended up picking it up at the cabin and reading it with my daughter.

[7:27] And I had never read it as a kid and it totally rules.

[7:31] It is so cool and badass and fun and like thrilling.

[7:36] It is definitely too brutal for kids and I don't know why it's a children's book.

[7:42] Yeah, there's like a dog fight in it, like a for reals dog fight.

Elliott Kalan

[7:45] I was talking to my wife about this.

[7:47] She's a children's librarian and we were talking about how there's a lot of books that because they are old and maybe they have an animal in them, they become children's books when they were never intended to be juvenile literature.

[7:57] The same way that like I think most people read like – it doesn't have animals in it necessarily – but most people read like Hemingway or Fitzgerald in high school and then never again.

[8:06] So it's like, oh yeah, that's kids' books.

[8:08] But like it's not.

[8:09] It never was.

[8:10] Jack London was not a kid's author.

Dan McCoy

[8:12] The Call of the Wild was written for the pulps.

[8:15] The thing about the book that I kind of wanted to bring up was just that a lot of the incidents in the book are actually in the movie.

[8:25] They are softened.

[8:27] Like changes are made to make it much softer and the tone overall is much softer than the book by far because they are trying to make this a kid's film basically.

[8:38] But it's weird.

[8:40] Like a lot of the plot's still there.

Elliott Kalan

[8:41] Yeah, and they kept all the raps from the book.

Dan McCoy

[8:44] When Kangaroo Jack showed up?

Elliott Kalan

[8:46] Yeah, yeah.

[8:46] When Kangaroo Jack London showed up and was like, I'm going to write this movie.

[8:50] Good day.

[8:50] Well, here's a story about a dog and he lives down in a smelly bog.

[8:56] No, no.

[8:56] And they're like, that's not what it's about.

Dan McCoy

[8:58] Jesse's right here.

[8:59] Famed rap aficionado Jesse Thorne.

[9:02] Huh?

[9:03] And you are just butchering.

Stuart Wellington

[9:04] Yeah, he's currently transcribing Elliot's lyrics into rapgenius.com.

Elliott Kalan

[9:09] So Jesse, what kind of rapping did Jack London do?

[9:12] I apologize.

Jesse Thorn

[9:14] I like there is so much intense brutality in the book.

[9:23] Both dog like it is the story of a dog becoming wild, right?

[9:28] Like leaving the trappings of civilization behind and triumphing through pure ferality.

[9:35] And it is very strange.

[9:39] And there is like brutality of the dog and by the dog and to the dog, all of them.

[9:45] And like it is very odd to think that someone sat down and said like, okay, how can I help seven-year-olds watch this?

[9:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[9:58] Yeah.

[9:58] Should we talk about, let's talk about the specifics of the movie then, guys.

[10:01] Should we dive in?

[10:03] All right.

[10:03] Let's do it.

[10:04] So here's, it's a shocking movie.

[10:06] The first shock, the logo.

[10:08] It's 20th Century Studios.

[10:10] Huh?

[10:10] That's the 20th Century Fox fanfare.

[10:12] And yet it doesn't say Fox in the logo.

[10:14] This is the first movie I think I've seen come out from that studio since Disney bought it.

[10:18] And it was bizarre to me to see that, to see it not say Fox, just said Studios.

[10:22] It was weird.

[10:23] Then-

Jesse Thorn

[10:23] Branding-wise, Elliot, I would say the most interesting part of that to me was that when they sat down

[10:28] to decide what to do with the 20th Century Fox name, they decided we want to keep the 20th

[10:34] Century part.

[10:35] Yep.

[10:36] Because it's relevant.

[10:37] And drop the part that everyone knows.

[10:39] Well, it's weird because it's literally-

[10:40] Keep the part that's wrong, drop the part everyone knows.

Elliott Kalan

[10:43] It's literally like 100 years ago that 20th Century Studios and Fox Studios merged to become

[10:47] 20th Century Fox.

[10:49] And it is weird that they have now separated out again.

[10:52] It's, you know, a divorce after a marriage of almost 100 years.

[10:56] Sad, really, when it happens.

[10:57] But the children will be kept away and never shown in repertory theaters again.

[11:01] Thanks, Disney.

[11:02] So we start with a voiceover from old man Harrison Ford.

[11:05] He tells us it's the Alaska Gold Rush, the 1890s.

[11:08] They need big, strong dogs to pull sleds.

[11:11] Luckily, we're about to meet a big, strong dog.

[11:13] His name's Buck.

[11:14] And how would you describe the CGI used to create this dog?

[11:17] I would call it off-putting.

Dan McCoy

[11:19] Well, here's the thing.

[11:20] I don't know.

[11:22] I probably just got Stockholm Syndrome over the course of the movie.

[11:25] Like, as the movie wore on, it did not bother me all that much.

[11:30] At the beginning, like, Audrey at one point asked me, she's like, this isn't all CGI.

[11:34] I'm like, are you kidding me?

[11:36] Like, this is definitely all CGI.

Stuart Wellington

[11:39] Yeah, the part where Buck is smoking a cigar and driving a taxi cab.

Jesse Thorn

[11:45] I read about the director's background is in animation.

[11:50] He co-created and co-directed Lilo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon.

Elliott Kalan

[11:55] Stitch was his idea.

[11:57] Lilo was the other guy's idea.

Jesse Thorn

[12:00] I read him describing this as, like, they wanted to...

[12:06] They did, like, they had an actor in a mo-cap suit.

[12:09] And they did scans of a real dog.

[12:13] And then they kind of animated him up a little bit.

[12:18] Because the dog is really the protagonist, right?

[12:21] Like, in the book and in the story, the dog...

[12:24] It's about the dog.

[12:25] The owners are incidental.

[12:27] And only the fact that they happen to have gotten Harrison Ford to be one of them, you know, makes it so that that is two-thirds of the movie.

[12:37] But, like, it's about the dog.

[12:38] And he said he made him more animated-y.

[12:42] Like, you know, a little more exaggerated or hyper-real.

[12:45] In order to address the fact that they would have to animate him or else...

[12:50] Because they needed more acting than a regular dog could do.

Elliott Kalan

[12:54] I mean, it makes sense because dogs are notoriously hard to read emotionally.

[12:59] Yeah.

[13:00] Dogs are...

[13:00] If there's ever an animal that is just a stone sphinx.

[13:03] Just a...

[13:04] Yeah.

[13:04] Just a total mystery and enigma of dogs.

Stuart Wellington

[13:06] I mean, if there's...

[13:07] And if you're making a movie, if there's one animal that there is an extreme shortage of trained versions of...

[13:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:14] Okay.

[13:14] I mean, well, there's...

[13:16] This dog does do a lot of acting and also is put in danger that you would never want to do to a real dog.

Elliott Kalan

[13:22] No, that's true.

[13:23] That's true.

[13:24] And so, I had a similar feeling to you, Dan, where when I first saw him, I was like, whoa, what is this cartoon dog doing here?

[13:31] But as the movie would go on, I'd...

[13:33] And again, maybe this was partly because I was doing the dishes while I was watching it.

[13:36] I kind of forgot he was a CGI dog until there were moments when he would be very CGI.

[13:40] And I would be like, oh, yeah, that's not a real dog.

Jesse Thorn

[13:42] Ha!

[13:43] Ha!

[13:43] Right at the beginning, there are some, like, ain't I a stinker moments for the dog.

[13:49] Yeah.

[13:50] And you're like, wait, is this dog gonna tear a man's throat out later?

[13:56] Mm-hmm.

[13:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[13:56] At the beginning, the dog's a real Marmaduke.

[14:00] He's a real Beethoven.

Stuart Wellington

[14:01] Yeah, he's...

[14:01] Yeah, like, stop leaving chains of linked sausages lying around for this guy to grab and run around with.

Elliott Kalan

[14:08] He lives in Santa Clara, California with Judge Bradley Whitford.

[14:12] And he's...

[14:13] Yeah, he's a real Beethoven, a Marmaduke.

[14:14] He does whatever he wants.

[14:15] He licks big blocks of ice in the street.

[14:17] He ruins big picnic banquets until...

[14:19] Everybody loves him, though.

[14:20] Everybody loves him.

Stuart Wellington

[14:21] Everybody knows his name.

[14:21] They also know that you can't mess with him because he's the judge's dog.

[14:25] And if you mess with his dog, you're gonna get murdered, I guess.

[14:29] I don't know what they're...

[14:30] Yeah.

[14:30] You're thrown in jail.

[14:31] The judges do.

[14:32] Yeah.

[14:32] And Bradley Whitford...

Dan McCoy

[14:33] He looks like a hanging judge.

[14:35] Bradley Whitford is one of the...

[14:37] A few times in this movie where I'm like, you got, like, a name actor for this role?

[14:41] Like, he exists just to sort of, like, look disappointed at the dog in the beginning and leave him outside the house.

Elliott Kalan

[14:50] This should have been...

[14:51] I mean, he also deserves bigger roles, but to me, I was like, hmm, this should have been a Brad Dourif role.

[14:56] They got the wrong Brad.

[14:57] They got Whitford when they should have gotten Dourif.

[14:59] Okay, so one night, though, Buck's idyllic life as the bad boy of Santa Clara is interrupted when he is kidnapped.

[15:06] He's taken away by some bad men, and when he comes to, there's a mean man with a club who teaches him the law of club and fang,

[15:14] that in the world outside, idyllic Judge Brad's house, it's only violence that is the master.

[15:20] And Buck is like, ah, I'm afraid of this club.

[15:22] I don't like getting hit by it.

[15:23] Yeah.

[15:23] And he tries to escape, but he's on a boat to the Yukon.

[15:27] Jesse, you mentioned Lonely Island before?

[15:29] Mention him again, because Buck's on a boat.

Jesse Thorn

[15:32] Hey, they recorded a song called We're on a Boat.

[15:36] Uh-huh.

[15:37] And they recorded a song called The Call of the Wild, right?

[15:40] Yeah, sure.

[15:42] Why not?

Stuart Wellington

[15:43] Yeah.

[15:43] Dan, can you sing a couple bars?

Dan McCoy

[15:47] It's the call of the wild.

[15:49] Da-da-da-da.

[15:51] Da-da-da-da-da.

[15:53] Et cetera.

Jesse Thorn

[15:54] Exactly.

[15:54] I'm pretty handsome for a funny guy.

[15:58] Yeah, I have a slightly exaggerated mouth size.

[16:02] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[16:04] You're edging into anti-Semitism, Jesse.

[16:08] And now, okay, so they get to land.

[16:11] Buck slips his leash for a moment and has kind of a meet-cute with a Gandalf-bearded Harrison Ford

[16:15] when Harrison Ford drops his harmonica and Buck returns it to him.

[16:18] But they don't get to spend too much time together because Buck is soon sold to Perrault,

[16:23] a Quebecois mail carrier, and his wife, Françoise?

[16:27] I didn't—

[16:28] You can just say partner, I think it's fair.

[16:29] Okay, partner.

[16:30] An Inuit woman that is also on this mail-carrying mission with him.

[16:34] Buck joins the sled team of CGI dogs who are led by the mean Spitz, a bully dog who rules

[16:40] by fear.

[16:41] What did you guys think about Spitz?

Stuart Wellington

[16:42] Spitz is probably German.

[16:43] I remember when I was—when I read the—when I read the illustrated version, I was always

[16:49] like, man, that Spitz guy, he seems pretty cool.

[16:52] Oh, yes.

[16:53] I think he's doing well for that dude.

[16:54] Spitz McKenzie.

[16:55] But I do like—one of the advantages of doing all cartoon dogs in this movie is that you

[17:01] can make the sled dog team all unique-looking dogs.

[17:03] They don't all look the same.

[17:06] Having been to Skagway, which was very exciting to see Skagway depicted on the silver screen

[17:12] of my apartment, I've also met teams of sled dogs, and they all kind of look alike.

[17:19] I mean, they're all good boys, obviously.

[17:21] But I have expected one of the dogs to be an English bulldog.

[17:25] I'm wondering how deep into the production they were still considering, like, fuck, maybe

[17:29] we should just give them all—let's just have all the dogs talk.

[17:33] Yeah.

[17:34] You know there was a discussion at some point.

Elliott Kalan

[17:36] Should we have the dogs talk, and how radical and how much baditude should they have?

Dan McCoy

[17:40] Yeah.

[17:40] It did look weird to have—I've already forgotten the main dog's name.

[17:46] Buck.

[17:47] It seems to me like it was weird to see a buck at the head of this thing for the reason Stuart

[17:55] talked about.

[17:56] Like, it's not like there were just, like, a bunch of huskies, you know, as you might

[17:58] think, or something like that.

[18:00] But, uh—

Stuart Wellington

[18:00] And they also didn't look that big and strong, despite what the opening of the movie suggested

[18:05] was needed in the Yukon.

Elliott Kalan

[18:06] Yeah, that was the surprise.

[18:08] I think they were going visually just to help you set the dogs apart, but they really didn't

[18:12] seem like—it seemed like this was the ragtag kind of, like, uh, what, Hoosiers of the,

[18:17] uh, of the—or Mighty Ducks of the sled dog team.

[18:19] It was going to take a real charismatic guy to make them run fast.

[18:24] And we've met that guy, and his name is Buck.

[18:27] Unfortunately, at first, Buck is a terrible sled dog.

[18:29] He almost leads them off a mountain at one point, it seems.

[18:33] Uh, but he has visions of a primordial wolf spirit, which inspires him to work hard and

[18:39] be tough.

[18:40] Guys, your thoughts about the wolf spirit?

Dan McCoy

[18:42] Uh, I didn't have thoughts about the wolf spirit, but I did want to say that, like, part

[18:47] of this whole thing, this process of him becoming a better sled dog, is, um, the sled, uh, the

[18:55] male carrier's unwavering faith in Buck as, uh, you know, like, he's going to be the greatest

[19:01] dog of all time kind of feel.

[19:03] And also, he's, like, constantly talking to the dog and encouraging the dog in a way that

[19:08] makes it seem like everyone in the movie expects the dog to understand human language.

[19:13] There's a scene where the guy, like, shows, literally shows all of the dogs a

[19:17] map, and he's like, we're going to go here.

Elliott Kalan

[19:20] Dan, have you met dog owners?

Dan McCoy

[19:22] Uh, that's true.

[19:24] They do call that out in the movie.

Jesse Thorn

[19:27] There's a, there's a scene where, uh, there's a scene where the lady of that team, um, says,

[19:33] like, you know that they don't speak English, right?

[19:36] And he keeps talking to them.

[19:38] But it is, like, it speaks to the fundamental challenge of making a movie out of, uh, out

[19:44] of this book, which is, this is a book about, like, lonely people with no one to talk to,

[19:50] uh, and with a protagonist that cannot speak.

[19:53] And so you really have to figure out how are we gonna, uh, how are we gonna make clear even

[19:59] what's happening without internal monologue?

Elliott Kalan

[20:01] What you just described, Jesse, sounds like the Jim Jarmusch version of Call of the Wild,

[20:05] just like a series of lonely people and a mute dog narrator who just kind of roams between

[20:09] them.

[20:10] Uh, now, just-

Jesse Thorn

[20:11] The answer they choose is, by the way, is to have Harrison Ford break in intermittently

[20:16] for no particular reason before and after his character is introduced, while his character

[20:21] is on screen and not on screen with voiceover narration.

Elliott Kalan

[20:25] I think it's, the way, the rationalization, it's a good way to justify Harrison Ford being

[20:29] on the poster.

[20:30] Yeah.

[20:30] As if you're kind of hearing him even in the scenes he's not in.

Stuart Wellington

[20:33] Now, when, you know, when you decide to go live off in the wild by yourself, who would

[20:39] you want to narrate the story of your life leading up to that point?

[20:42] Do you think Harrison Ford, do you think Harry Ford would be, uh, your first choice?

Dan McCoy

[20:46] Uh, I want to quickly say that I think Harrison Ford does a really good job in this movie.

[20:50] Like, I think the rap on later period Harrison Ford-

[20:52] Wow, you hoping to get him as a guest or something?

[20:54] What's going on over here?

[20:55] I would love that!

[20:56] He's my nostalgic pick for my favorite actor, even though he's often very, uh, sort of lazy

[21:01] about it.

[21:02] But here he seems to be actually caring about the material, which I liked.

Elliott Kalan

[21:05] Well, here, I think the weariness that he shows in his other roles, which usually comes

[21:09] off as a, like, I can't believe I'm fucking doing this, really works for this character

[21:13] who has a world and soul weariness that he has to overcome and does overcome.

[21:18] But I would say probably Emo Phillips.

Dan McCoy

[21:20] Yeah.

[21:20] That'd be perfect.

[21:22] Or an Emo Phillips type, like a French steward, maybe?

[21:25] No, not at all.

[21:26] No, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[21:27] If we can't get Emo, one, I'll be surprised.

[21:30] And two, I don't want a FOMO to come in and pretend to be Emo.

[21:35] No, thank you.

Jesse Thorn

[21:36] I mean, who am I kidding?

[21:37] Emo works, Elliot.

[21:39] Like, you gotta paint, you gotta do better than scale, I think, to get into that.

[21:42] Oh, no, no, no.

Elliott Kalan

[21:42] We'd make it worth his while.

[21:43] We'd make it worth his while.

[21:45] But they're like, I want him to do it.

[21:46] But it's not like, he's not gonna be like, well, give me $10 million or I don't get out

[21:50] of bed, you know?

[21:51] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[21:51] But he gets good money for his weekend at Go Bananas in Cincinnati.

[21:55] He's amazing.

[21:56] He's Emo Phillips.

[21:56] Because he's amazing.

[21:57] Because he's an amazing performer.

[21:58] Yeah.

[21:58] Yeah, he's great.

[21:59] Emo Phillips rules.

[22:00] That was when Elliot decided to go off the grid.

[22:05] That's...

[22:05] Oh, I would love it.

[22:06] To your point, Dan, like, I went into this movie with the thought where I was kind of

[22:11] wondering whether Harrison Ford was even good at acting.

[22:16] No.

[22:16] Like, I really like Harrison Ford as a movie star.

[22:20] But I thought...

[22:20] I was trying to think back to different Harrison Ford movies and thinking, like, did he do

[22:24] anything or does he just have some quality to him?

[22:28] And I agree completely.

[22:29] I thought Harrison Ford was fantastic in this movie.

[22:32] He did more than he usually does and carried it off very well, which...

[22:37] And felt completely grounded talking to a CGI dog, which is...

[22:41] Yeah.

[22:42] Yeah.

[22:42] Like, very weird and awkward place to be as an actor.

[22:46] And I thought he did beautifully.

[22:48] And I thought his voice sounded beautiful in the narration.

Elliott Kalan

[22:50] Yeah.

[22:50] I also think he was really great.

[22:52] I think when dealing with Buck, he was drawing on his years working with a man in a bear suit

[22:56] in the Star Wars movies.

[22:58] Like, he's used to having a furry companion who can't be understood.

[23:02] But look, I'm gonna have a spoiler and say my summary is partly colored by my having really

[23:08] enjoyed this movie.

[23:09] And when I saw the trailers for it, I was like, why did they make this movie?

[23:13] Who did they make an adaptation of Call of the Wild for?

[23:15] And then I realized, I was like, oh, dads.

[23:18] That's who this movie is for.

[23:19] This is what I would call a kid's movie for dads, where I was like, oh, I would get so

[23:23] much more out of this than my son would, but I would make him watch this with me.

[23:26] Like, this is a kid's movie for dads.

Jesse Thorn

[23:28] Well, this was completely reshot and re-edited with input from, what's his name, the Ford

[23:33] V Ferrari guy.

[23:35] Oh, James Mangold?

[23:36] Yeah, he gets a producer credit on the movie.

[23:38] And I read that he, like, led them through a second round of shooting to, like, refocus

[23:43] the movie on Harrison Ford and make sure that it was a live action film and not an animated

[23:49] film and so on and so forth.

Elliott Kalan

[23:51] Oh, that makes sense.

[23:52] That is James Mangold, right?

[23:54] Who did Ford V Ferrari?

[23:54] That's right.

[23:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:56] Yeah.

[23:56] So this would be a lovely double feature with Ad Aster or something like that.

[23:59] Yeah.

[24:00] Yeah, exactly.

[24:00] The ultimate dad movies.

Elliott Kalan

[24:02] The ultimate dad movies.

[24:03] Yeah.

[24:04] So, like I said, he sees that wolf spirit and he learns to be hard and tough.

[24:10] And he's also, and here's the difference, he's generous to the other dogs.

[24:12] He shares his food.

[24:14] He's nice to them.

[24:15] Spitz hates that.

[24:16] But the other dogs love it.

[24:18] And Buck is now-

Stuart Wellington

[24:19] I'm really glad they make an effort to make Buck sympathetic because it's really tough

[24:24] when a dog character is introduced for the audience to side with them.

Elliott Kalan

[24:29] It's maybe the most instant reaction that any audience in the world has is the minute a dog

[24:34] enters the movie, everyone is like, that's my favorite character in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[24:38] If anything bad happens to that dog, I'm going to kill a human being.

Jesse Thorn

[24:42] Stuart, I think you may be discounting the extent to which audiences hate a stinker.

Dan McCoy

Elliott Kalan

[24:53] As shown by the fact that Bugs Bunny, a noticeable stinker, has not had like a real major effort

[24:59] until these new cartoons in H-O-Max, whereas Mickey Mouse, perhaps the most unstinker there

[25:03] ever was, is a huge merchandising sensation.

Jesse Thorn

[25:07] In the book, Elliot, this black wolf in the movie is the titular Call of the Wild, right?

[25:13] Like it is an ineffable pull on the dog's soul that it feels and is like confused by, frankly,

[25:21] like worried and confused by as it is drawn further and further from the world of man, right?

[25:27] And in the movie, what they decided to do was to put a wolf on a hill.

Stuart Wellington

[25:33] It looks like the cover of the Natanz Madrigal album by Wolver.

[25:37] I mean, I have to say, I think it's a good-

Jesse Thorn

[25:39] That's exactly what I thought, Stuart.

[25:40] I said to myself, this looks exactly like the cover of the Natanz Madrigal album by Wolver.

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] I would say, I would rather that than have them do like they did in Frozen 2, where it's literally

[25:51] just a voice that comes out of nowhere for no reason and starts beckoning Elsa into the woods.

[25:56] Give me a spear voice.

[25:57] The wild!

[25:58] Yeah.

[25:58] I'd rather have woods.

[26:00] Yeah, rather than something going, ooh, in the woods and being like, huh, huh, huh?

[26:06] Ruh-roh.

Stuart Wellington

[26:06] I would go one step further and make it a little bit more like Lynchian, and in the snow,

[26:13] there would be like an end table with an old-timey telephone that would be ringing,

[26:17] and that would be the Call of the Wild.

Jesse Thorn

[26:19] And then a guy-

[26:20] That actually had a cut of this movie before James Mangold got invited,

[26:25] and it had the narration from Harrison Ford,

[26:29] but the Call of the Wild wasn't a wolf on a hill, it was emo films.

Elliott Kalan

[26:33] Oh, wow.

[26:35] Again, works, totally works for me, yeah.

[26:37] Yeah.

[26:37] I love the idea now of a David Lynch version where the soundtrack is just like,

[26:41] do-doom, do-doom, do-doom, do-doom, do-doom, ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch,

[26:45] as they're in a sled race.

[26:47] Okay, so Buck is now part of the pack, and he loves it.

[26:49] Buck is everyone's favorite.

[26:51] He even wins over Francoise when she falls into icy water and almost drowns, and he saves her.

[26:56] And that night, a jealous spits, knowing that he is no longer the MVP, most valuable pack member,

[27:01] attacks Buck, and he keeps knocking him down with these jump bites,

[27:04] Stuart, as a fighting expert, how would you rate Spitz's fighting style, which is entirely jump-based?

Stuart Wellington

[27:10] Well, I mean, he's all fucking rushed down, right?

[27:12] And you're like, dude, as soon as Buck figures out your fucking, like, one-twos,

[27:17] he's gonna destroy you, because he doesn't even block, he's just all attack.

[27:22] And of course, that's what Buck does.

[27:24] He gets a reversal on him, picks him up in the air,

[27:27] he catches him out of midair and lifts him up, and Spitz has a moment where he's like,

[27:31] oh, fuck, now he's about to ground combo me.

[27:34] And of course he does.

Elliott Kalan

[27:35] Yeah, exactly what happens.

[27:36] Buck is hurt, but the wolf spirit comes over and is like, get the fuck up and fuck up that dog.

[27:41] And Buck does it.

[27:42] And he just makes Spitz submit, and Spitz wanders off in shame, never to be seen again.

Stuart Wellington

[27:47] That's what happens in the book, right?

[27:48] There is, like...

[27:49] That's what the Call of the Wild says in the book.

[27:51] I mean, in the book, he kills him.

Dan McCoy

[27:53] Yeah.

[27:54] Whereas here, there's some of that dog acting we were talking about,

[27:57] where they give each other a look, where he's like, huh?

[27:59] You gonna stay down?

[28:00] And then the guy's like, all right, okay, cool.

Elliott Kalan

[28:03] And Spitz is wandering off and looks back sadly as if to say, I was a king once.

[28:07] And then he just wanders into the void.

Jesse Thorn

[28:09] I had my own hole in the ice to drink water from.

Dan McCoy

[28:12] And this harmonica picking up jerk.

Jesse Thorn

[28:15] The main way they express how that he's the boss is that he has a hole in the ice,

[28:19] that he won't let anyone share.

Elliott Kalan

[28:21] Now, there's something in this movie that is something...

[28:25] I mean, I like this movie again, and I like the story.

[28:27] But there's something I don't like in it, which is, I will call it the Tarzan fallacy,

[28:32] which is Buck is kind of like a pampered rich man's dog.

[28:36] But when he goes into the wild, he is the superior of everybody.

[28:40] And he immediately...

[28:41] Or not immediately, but through hard work.

[28:42] But he is recognized as special, and he rises through the ranks over dogs that are more experienced

[28:47] and more wild than him.

[28:48] And it's the same way that Tarzan, who is an English baron who is lost as a baby,

[28:53] becomes king of the apes even though...

[28:55] Why should he be king of the apes?

[28:56] There's like a hidden sort of...

[28:58] Not racial in this case because they're dogs,

[29:02] but this hierarchy of like a civilized person is still better than a non-civilized person

[29:07] in a way that made me uncomfortable as the movie went on

[29:10] when Buck is reinvigorating the wolf pack with his jeans

[29:13] in a way that makes them the Uber dogs.

[29:16] Later on, I was like, uh, I don't know if I like the message of this movie anymore.

Dan McCoy

[29:20] Yeah, I guess that part is true.

[29:22] I was going to make an argument that like the highest good that the movie presents is being wild.

[29:28] But then like, yeah, he does make some sort of super race by mingling with the wolf.

Elliott Kalan

[29:34] Which totally fits into the background of the kind of racial genetics of the late 19th, early 20th century.

[29:41] But anyway, the important thing is the next morning, Buck insists on being the lead dog in the sled

[29:46] now that Spitz isn't there and the other dogs back him up.

[29:49] And Buck starts pulling them so fast that Perrault, the mail delivery guy, is like,

[29:54] yes, this is amazing!

[29:55] And his cheers cause an avalanche.

[29:57] Are they going to be killed?

[29:58] No, because the wolf spirit shows up and is like,

[30:00] hey, Buck, there's a shortcut through an ice cave right here.

[30:03] Which was weird, because it's not like that's information Buck knew that was coming.

[30:06] Like, now it's just like there's a ghost of a wolf that's following him and telling him.

[30:09] It's genetic memory, Elliot.

[30:11] And that's the thing like, every time I'm...

[30:13] Genetic memory of mail delivery routes, Dan?

[30:14] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[30:15] I always, every time I'm playing Mario Kart, I wish a fucking ghost spirit would show up

[30:19] and show me where the shortcuts are so I stop looking like a fool.

[30:24] Of course, you're probably wondering, just to let everybody know,

[30:27] when I play Mario Kart, I always play Wario.

[30:29] No one else, only Wario.

[30:31] What?

[30:31] Yeah.

[30:32] Now...

[30:33] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[30:33] Who are you looking like a fool to in this scenario, Stuart?

[30:37] That's...

Elliott Kalan

[30:38] Toad, Yoshi, the princess.

[30:41] That's the one that hurts the most.

[30:42] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[30:43] Sure.

[30:43] The dry bones.

Elliott Kalan

[30:45] Now, these sled dogs, they were advertised back then as the original Mario Kart.

[30:52] So, but for the first time ever, thanks to Buck's super fast leading,

[30:56] they actually deliver the mail on time.

[30:58] And people...

[30:59] This is what, Skagway?

[31:00] Is this where they are now?

[31:01] I think so.

Dan McCoy

[31:02] And they deliver it in a shower of letters, right?

Jesse Thorn

[31:04] We know this is consequential because earlier in the film,

[31:08] Francois, or whatever his name is, Jean-Luc Picard says,

[31:12] he goes like, I want to try.

[31:15] I, a pro, says I want to try and deliver the mail on time, but I never have!

Elliott Kalan

[31:22] Yeah.

[31:22] And then he takes a big bite out of a baguette.

[31:24] Yeah.

[31:25] Which is weird because again, he is Québécois.

[31:27] Yeah.

[31:28] Yeah.

[31:28] Not French.

[31:29] French.

[31:29] Well, they consider something more French than Canadian.

Stuart Wellington

[31:31] He rolls out a giant scroll that has all of his life's goals written on it,

[31:34] and that's the only one that isn't crossed off.

[31:37] Every other one has been crossed off.

Elliott Kalan

[31:38] Yeah, yeah.

[31:39] Have sex in the rain.

[31:40] That was crossed off.

[31:42] Run a marathon.

Dan McCoy

[31:43] Which is why in this scene, now that he has done it, he walks off into the forest.

[31:47] He walks off into the void.

Elliott Kalan

[31:49] Well, the second closest thing.

[31:50] Anyway, people love the mail they get.

[31:52] Perrault's like, we don't just carry mail, we carry lives.

[31:54] And this was, to be honest, the valentine to the postal service that I needed right now.

[31:58] Yeah.

[31:59] There is that hidden critique of the mail is never on time in this movie.

[32:02] And I don't know what he means by on schedule since it's like, I don't know,

[32:05] it's the 1890s and you're in Alaska with a dog sled.

[32:08] How tough are they with the deadlines?

[32:10] But Buck even shows he's got a little heart by delaying the next day's mail delivery

[32:15] until Harrison Ford can give them the letter he wrote to his wife about his grief over their dead son.

[32:20] More on that later.

[32:21] But when they get to the next place, the mail route has been terminated.

[32:24] Probably the president trying to fix the election, I've got to assume.

[32:28] They're just pulling mailboxes out of the Yukon.

[32:31] The dog team is sold to these snooty dilettante gold seekers played by Dan Stevens and Karen Gillan.

[32:36] That's right, everybody.

[32:37] It's the Legion Nebula team up we were all waiting for.

Stuart Wellington

[32:40] And Dan Stevens is, he's putting out some serious Waluigi energy here.

[32:46] And it also, it feels a little bit like he's like, I need to tarnish my goody-goody image by beating up dogs.

Elliott Kalan

[32:53] He is very much the bad guy.

[32:55] He is a real Waluigi.

[32:56] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:56] Yeah, he's deliciously villainous.

[32:58] He has a villain's mustache to go with his attitude.

[33:01] But also, Karen Gillan is one of the other larger names.

[33:04] And I'm like, what?

[33:06] She shows up in two scenes to be like, maybe we should listen to Harrison Ford.

[33:11] And that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[33:12] Yeah.

[33:13] I have to say, like Jesse was saying, it wouldn't surprise me if there was a heavy edit done.

[33:18] What I would call a thin red line where the editing process removes whole storylines and even actors and things like that.

[33:26] Honestly, I thought Karen Gillan did a great job.

Jesse Thorn

[33:28] But I would have liked to have seen comedian Natasha Leggero take this one on.

[33:33] Yes.

[33:33] Like a lady in a Victorian dress relaxing on a dog sled sipping a Bellini or whatever is exactly what Natasha would have kicked butt at.

Elliott Kalan

[33:42] Yeah.

[33:43] Yeah.

[33:43] That's fair.

[33:44] Although, we wouldn't have gotten the MCU 20th century X-Men Star Wars crossover that we get when Harrison Ford tells them, you don't know what you're doing.

[33:54] You're going to kill all those dogs.

[33:55] But they don't listen.

[33:55] Excuse me, Elliot.

Jesse Thorn

[33:56] This is a PBS crossover between Doctor Who and Downton Abbey.

[34:01] Thank you very much.

Elliott Kalan

[34:03] There's got to be.

[34:04] Someone's got to have written a Downton Abbey Doctor Who crossover story, right?

[34:08] Yeah.

[34:08] They'd be fucking.

[34:09] I don't think you know that much about the Doctor.

[34:12] He's kind of a.

[34:14] He doesn't really do a lot of that.

[34:15] Yeah, but maybe he watches, Elliot.

[34:17] I mean, I don't know what he's into.

[34:18] He's got a lot of companions.

[34:19] How great would a crossover be where it's Tom Baker's Doctor and Maggie Smith from Downton Abbey.

[34:24] She's his new companion.

[34:25] And they're just traveling time and space.

[34:27] This like snooty, very sarcastic, rich old lady.

[34:31] And the craziest man who was ever on television in any way, shape, or form with a long scarf.

[34:36] What a great story.

[34:37] Someone write it.

[34:38] Send it to me.

[34:39] I'm not going to write it.

[34:39] I don't have time.

[34:40] I've got two children.

[34:41] Okay.

[34:41] Anyway.

[34:42] These rich jerks, they're treating the dogs terribly.

[34:44] Harrison Ford tracks them down and he frees Buck.

[34:47] But Dan Stevens takes the rest of the dogs away at gunpoint.

[34:49] And you know they're all doomed.

[34:51] You just know.

[34:52] Yeah.

[34:52] There's no way they're going to survive.

Stuart Wellington

[34:53] Yeah.

[34:54] Including all the other humans that are on the sled.

[34:58] They're doomed too.

Elliott Kalan

[34:59] Yeah.

[34:59] They're all doomed.

[35:00] They never show back up.

[35:01] And they leave knowing that they're doomed.

[35:04] Ford takes Buck back home.

[35:05] And he goes to a bar.

[35:07] And Dan Stevens attacks Ford at a bar saying, everybody fell through the ice and died.

[35:11] He blames Harrison Ford for it because he can't own up to his own mistakes.

[35:15] But who's there to save Harrison Ford?

[35:17] It's Buck.

[35:19] He knows where his bread is buttered.

[35:20] With the nice man.

[35:22] With the harmonica.

Dan McCoy

[35:23] Now, guys, I'm looking at fanfiction.net right now.

[35:27] And there are 22 stories that are Doctor Who and Downton Abbey crossovers.

[35:32] Great.

[35:33] Including such titles as The Housekeeper's Tale, The Madman, The Rebel.

[35:38] Wait.

Jesse Thorn

[35:38] Is that T-A-L-E or T-A-I-L?

Dan McCoy

[35:42] That's a good question.

[35:43] I didn't see.

[35:44] We've got Vera and the Dalek.

[35:46] Just guessed.

[35:47] Guess which one it was.

[35:49] Anyway.

[35:50] So, you know, God bless you out there.

[35:52] Keep it up.

Elliott Kalan

[35:53] Okay.

[35:53] Now look and see if there's any crosswords between Back to the Future and the monster cereal

[35:57] universe.

[35:58] You know, Count Chocula, Frankenberry.

Dan McCoy

[36:02] Is this your way to keep me shut up, Elliot?

[36:05] No.

Elliott Kalan

[36:05] Just to – I really like when you show the initiative to do research and I want to gratify that and

[36:11] keep it going.

[36:12] I want to encourage it.

[36:14] Buck, he knows that Harrison Ford is drinking too much.

[36:17] He takes Harrison Ford's whiskey bottle and buries it in the snow and sits on it when

[36:22] I'm calling a dog intervention.

[36:24] And Harrison Ford explains to him, oh, I had a son and he died of fever.

[36:28] He always dreamed of exploring the unmapped areas of the Yukon.

[36:32] Hey, Buck, you and me could go off and do that together.

[36:36] And they do.

[36:37] And they're canoeing through the rapids and they get caught in rapids.

[36:40] And I was like, oh, no, something bad's going to happen.

[36:41] No, the boat just springs a leak.

[36:43] And Harrison Ford goes, I guess that's the end of that boat.

[36:45] And they just keep walking.

[36:46] Harrison Ford lets –

Jesse Thorn

[36:47] There is a part where Harrison Ford has to explain to Buck what a boat is.

Elliott Kalan

[36:51] He's like, it's a boat.

[36:52] We're going to ride on it.

[36:55] Harrison Ford lets Buck share his tent.

[36:57] They're having an idyllic time.

[36:59] And they have something between a father-son relationship, a man-dog relationship, and kind

[37:04] of like two people who have just fallen in love and just can't get enough of each other

[37:07] and just want to – they just don't – never want to be apart.

Dan McCoy

[37:10] Yeah.

[37:10] There was a part later on where Harrison Ford was talking to Buck about how he and his

[37:15] wife just drifted apart after their son's death.

[37:18] And I didn't expect him to end it with, and now you're my wife.

[37:22] Yeah, yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[37:23] He's like, but even before that, we had a sort of arrangement.

[37:27] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:28] My grieving wife and I have an understanding.

[37:32] There's a moment where they're out in the wilderness, and it's beautiful there.

[37:35] And Ford tells Buck, your ancestors used to roam here, and mine, back when we were wild.

[37:39] And I was like, your ancestors, Harrison Ford?

[37:43] Yeah, in Santa Clarita, California, where they shot this movie.

Jesse Thorn

[37:47] Yep.

[37:49] Where they obviously shot this movie.

Dan McCoy

[37:52] If we go back to the cradle of civilization, maybe?

[37:54] Yeah, maybe.

Stuart Wellington

[37:55] Maybe.

[37:56] There's a lot of scenes where characters like go outside, and it's snowy, but they're like – there's

[38:01] no breeze, and it doesn't actually look that cold.

[38:04] It's that kind of a – it's that kind of a cold winter spot, right?

[38:07] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[38:08] There are many scenes of transportation – there are many like long montages of them cruising

[38:14] the dog sleigh through the Alaskan wilderness that really look like they were painted by the

[38:28] painter of light, Thomas Kincaid.

[38:31] Yeah.

[38:31] Like if you told him – yeah, a master.

[38:32] A true master.

[38:33] A true master.

[38:33] Like if you told him like take this still photograph we took of a hill in Santa Clarita and really

[38:40] northern lights it up.

[38:43] That's pretty much what – like there is no – none of the movie outside of Harrison Ford's

[38:49] face looks like something you could actually touch.

[38:52] Yeah, that's fair.

[38:53] I assumed that – even then you're going to need a – sorry, what did you say, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[38:57] I was just going to talk about how I assumed I was going to see the crowd from the pod

[39:01] racing scenes of Star Wars behind every corner, but you know, it's not that important.

Elliott Kalan

[39:05] No, no.

[39:05] I just wanted to warn our audience, even then you're going to want to get Harrison Ford's

[39:08] permission before you touch his face.

[39:12] Consent is important.

[39:13] But it is – it does feel like there is a version of this movie.

[39:16] I'm sure they've made multiple versions of this movie over the years.

[39:19] I've never seen the 30s one, which apparently this one takes some elements from,

[39:22] but there's a – I guarantee you there's some version of this movie that was shot in the

[39:26] 60s where they really went to Alaska and they really had real dogs and everybody hated

[39:31] making it and – but I kind of wanted a little bit of that in this.

[39:35] Like it doesn't have a – it loses a sense of reality that I would have liked to have

[39:39] seen or either that or I would have liked them to go all the way and just make this an

[39:43] animated movie.

[39:43] Like there's no reason this couldn't be like a regular 2D Disney hand-drawn animated movie.

[39:49] And then you get some songs.

[39:51] Maybe the dogs talk a little bit.

[39:53] Like you go as far as –

[39:54] Josh Gad gets a paycheck?

[39:55] Yeah.

[39:56] Josh Gad is like the goofy dog from The Sleds.

[39:58] Like, hey, Buck.

[39:58] Hey, you know.

[39:59] We got to – you know.

[40:00] Hey, you know.

[40:01] What's going on?

[40:02] Oh, that's Spitz.

[40:03] And Spitz is what like – it can't be Jeremy Irons again.

[40:06] Spitz would be like Willem Dafoe, I guess.

Jesse Thorn

[40:07] Cut to a stack of screenplays on Elliot's desk, all of which just over and over say,

[40:12] Josh Gad colon, hey, you know.

[40:15] Hey, hey, you know.

Dan McCoy

[40:19] Well, I mean like this is a thing that we talked about when we were watching it here

[40:23] that like if – like they could take this basic exact screenplay and exact tone and if – yeah,

[40:32] if Disney had made it like sometime around like Beauty and the Beast or something,

[40:38] everyone would be like, this is great.

[40:40] You know, it's – it really – it feels like it should be that.

Elliott Kalan

[40:44] I wonder if they pitched originally as an animated movie and they said, guys, Balto exists.

[40:50] The animated Alaskan sled dog movie is taken.

[40:54] We can't do it again.

Dan McCoy

[40:54] We're never going to erase Balto in people's minds and hearts.

[40:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:58] They're like, well, why don't we just buy up all the prints and DVDs of Balto and pretend

[41:01] it never existed?

[41:02] You know, like we did with –

[41:03] Can't cost more than five bucks.

[41:05] Like we did with Shazam, the Sinbad Genie movie that did exist, but we erased it from the

[41:10] permanent record forever.

[41:11] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[41:12] But Jesse, you know what I'm going to say?

[41:13] The thing that's a little bit of a bummer about the middle ground that they chose in

[41:18] how they present the film to me is there are a lot of things in the movie that work.

[41:26] You know, we talked about Harrison Ford.

[41:28] He's wonderful.

[41:29] Like I would just watch Harrison Ford and his elderly man, giant ears and nose, big David

[41:37] Letterman beard.

[41:38] Like I would love to watch that.

Stuart Wellington

[41:39] And totally ripped body.

[41:40] I know.

[41:40] Because it's where he's swimming and he comes up and I'm like, what the?

[41:43] Yeah, he's in great shape.

Jesse Thorn

[41:45] All that dude does is puff J's and do pull-ups.

[41:49] Yeah.

[41:51] So like there's a lot of great things about it, but like thematically, I think it is really

[41:57] poorly served by not having something you can sink your teeth into.

[42:02] And that was probably not the turn of phrase I should have used because it sounds like I'm

[42:07] doing a pun here.

[42:09] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[42:09] You're the modern day Gene Shallott.

[42:11] Just go run with it.

Jesse Thorn

[42:12] The fact that there's no grit in the movie, and there really is almost no grit in the movie

[42:17] other than Harrison Ford's face.

[42:19] Yeah.

[42:20] Is not just a bummer because I like to watch a gritty movie or whatever.

[42:25] You know, like the screenwriter of this also wrote Logan, which I'm going to alienate 60%

[42:31] of the listeners, but I thought stunk.

[42:34] And was very gritty, but like, but there's something about the theme that is served by grittiness,

[42:41] right?

[42:41] Like the story is him descending into animalistic brutality, right?

[42:48] And like that, and that these human beings are drawn into it by their greed outside of Harrison

[42:54] Ford's character.

[42:55] And they like destroy each other and that he has to, that Buck has to learn to live freely

[43:02] within this new set of more brutal and terrifying, but ultimately more satisfying rules as an animal,

[43:09] right?

[43:10] Rather than as a, rather than as a, a, a false human, you know, in the judge's household.

[43:16] Right.

[43:17] And like, none of that means anything.

[43:19] Like none of him getting hurt and sick and being under threat and being beaten into submission

[43:27] by a club.

[43:28] Like none of that means anything in the context of a movie for seven year olds.

[43:32] So either make it just like sweet and pretty, which you could do or, or give it something.

[43:40] That was, that was the bummer part to me about like the, the painted on Northern lights in

[43:45] every scene.

[43:46] It's like, I just want to see one thing go wrong.

[43:49] And I actually watched, um, what's that called?

[43:53] Uh, Benji.

[43:54] I watched Benji not that long ago, like maybe like nine, nine months.

[43:58] And it is boring and homemade.

[44:00] Like this is original Benji.

[44:02] It is the most 1978 independent film you could ever watch.

[44:07] But I think that quality of having an actual dog on screen where, where it does the wrong

[44:14] thing a lot draws you in, in a way that having this perfect, but slightly hazy because they're

[44:23] not quite good enough at the CGI dog on screen does.

Elliott Kalan

[44:28] I think that's, I think that's true.

[44:30] And also there is a, I did get a sense from it that like, yeah, for a movie that is about

[44:34] a civilized dog being forced into primordial savagery to survive, everything comes a little

[44:40] easily to Buck.

[44:41] Like he never, it's like, oh, he's working real hard, but he's not really pushing himself

[44:46] to work hard.

[44:47] Like he, everything is kind of dealt with when a problem comes up, it's kind of dealt

[44:51] with right away.

Jesse Thorn

[44:51] And he feels consistent in a way, like it almost feels like he is ennobling his surroundings

[44:56] rather than being drawn into them and being transformed, which I think like in some ways the book is

[45:04] sort of like, uh, it is almost a satire of the idea of like, uh, of, of a character learning

[45:11] and growing, right?

[45:12] Because he is receding into his essential nature rather than expanding and becoming fancier

[45:18] and cleverer.

[45:20] And in the movie, it feels like he's kind of a, he's kind of a very friendly, handsome, big

[45:29] guy who goes into all these different situations and is like, uh, Hey guys, let's do it my way.

[45:37] Uh, I'll make two holes in the ice for you to drink water from.

[45:41] And everybody's like, yeah, you are the best.

Elliott Kalan

[45:44] Let's just say it.

[45:45] Buck is in this movie.

[45:46] Buck is the Ferris Bueller of dogs.

[45:48] Everyone loves him.

[45:49] He never has to try very hard.

[45:50] He gets whatever he wants.

Stuart Wellington

[45:52] And for, I mean, this movie lifts, uh, like the trajectory and plot points directly from

[45:58] the, the recent, uh, the first plan of the apes movie from the recent batch.

[46:03] Uh, and Buck is very much like a Caesar type character and he ends up like leading a bunch

[46:07] of wolves.

[46:08] And there's even a moment where he like catches a stick in his mouth instead of getting hit.

[46:13] And I remember being like, when I saw that plan of the apes movie, I was like, Oh fuck.

[46:18] Yeah.

[46:18] Beat him up Caesar.

[46:20] Uh, but in this, you know, it hadn't, it didn't have that emotional impact.

Elliott Kalan

[46:23] No, cause he's already, he's already triumphed over everything all the time.

[46:27] Uh, so Buck and Ford, they find an old prospector's cabin.

[46:30] They decide to stay a little bit, especially when Harrison Ford finds some gold nuggets in

[46:34] the river while skinny dipping.

[46:35] This is when we see his hot dad bod better than dad bod even.

[46:38] This is a, this is like, I mean, he is, is he a dad?

[46:41] Anyway.

Jesse Thorn

[46:42] Elliot, how could you tell those were gold nuggets that he found?

Elliott Kalan

[46:46] Was it because they were like, they were like gold.

[46:48] Yippee.

[46:49] Yahi.

[46:49] Hoo.

Jesse Thorn

[46:50] Like highly polished, like refined.

[46:53] Like it truly looked like he found something that had been like spray painted high gloss

[46:59] gold seven times.

Elliott Kalan

[47:01] I mean, I'll give, I'll let the movie get away with that.

[47:03] That's, you know.

[47:04] In case somebody wondered if it was brass that he found or whatever.

[47:08] Yeah.

[47:09] Uh, there's some, yeah, a trumpet got shattered in the cold and the pieces are just in the

[47:14] water.

[47:14] Uh, they keep panning for gold.

[47:15] It was like, he's like, I found diamonds.

Jesse Thorn

[47:16] And he like lifts an engagement ring out of the river was basically what it was like.

[47:21] Yeah.

[47:22] Wait a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[47:22] They're panning for gold.

[47:24] And again, they're panning for gold and getting nuggets, which is, if I'm going to go with

[47:27] Jesse, that's not how panning for gold works.

[47:29] You get dust when you pan for gold.

Jesse Thorn

[47:31] I liked the idea that at the beginning of his pan for gold, he couldn't see the like two

[47:35] and a half inch diameter nuggets that were in his one inch of water.

Elliott Kalan

[47:42] And Buck catches the eye of a sexy lady wolf, but she runs away when he tries to meet with

[47:46] her.

[47:47] Uh, but he wins over the wolf pack when, hey, guess what?

[47:49] He saves a wolf from drowning in the river.

[47:51] That's what Buck does.

[47:51] He saves people from drowning.

[47:53] Show us something different that Buck does.

[47:56] And Neptune hates him.

Dan McCoy

[47:59] The wolves all have these reaction shots like, okay, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[48:03] Like, it's pretty, it's almost, you're almost at the point of a wolf wearing sunglasses and

[48:07] like lowering the sunglasses to look over them at Buck.

[48:11] Uh, now Bucky runs with the wolves.

[48:12] Harrison Ford is like, you know what?

[48:13] I've been cleansed by this experience and this adventure.

[48:16] I should go home.

[48:16] He says goodbye.

[48:18] But before he can leave, who's going to return?

[48:20] It's Dan Stevens.

[48:22] The guest.

[48:22] But he's no guest this time.

[48:24] He's an invader.

[48:25] He shoots Harrison Ford and he threatens Buck.

Stuart Wellington

[48:27] How bummed were you guys that Dan Stevens didn't show up with fucking Spitz with him, right?

[48:32] Shouldn't they have shown up together?

Elliott Kalan

[48:34] I mean, that would have been the more Hollywood way to do it.

[48:37] Yeah.

[48:37] If it's all of Buck's enemies are now banded together.

Stuart Wellington

[48:41] And then Spitz has like a monologue, like a Richard III monologue where he's like,

Elliott Kalan

[48:45] cast out and ignored.

[48:47] Now I shall have my day.

[48:49] Well, you'd have the part where Dan Stevens is like, I meant to have my whole family die

[48:53] in the ice.

[48:54] It was all part of my plan.

[48:55] You fell right into my fingers.

[48:58] He threatens Buck with a club that hated club, but Buck fights back.

[49:01] He's not afraid anymore after cringing for maybe like a millisecond.

[49:05] He shoves Dan Stevens into a burning cabin to die horribly.

[49:09] Viking funeral.

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:11] And Harrison Ford dies in Buck's paws after a touching goodbye.

[49:16] And now with his voiceover from Beyond the Grave, he explains that Buck has started a new

[49:20] pack.

[49:21] He's had babies with a sexy lady wolf.

[49:23] They even stare down a bear together.

[49:25] And the VO tells us-

[49:26] It's a very like glass unicorn Red Bull moment.

[49:29] Yeah.

[49:29] Because he just chugs that Red Bull down.

[49:30] And then the bear is like, I don't want any part of this.

[49:33] That's why I give him a glass unicorn.

[49:34] This dude's wild.

[49:35] And the VO tells us how after going from master to master now, Buck is his own master.

[49:41] And he, as he followed some primordial urge from the wilderness.

[49:46] And then title, the call of the wild.

[49:48] As if the title was trying to prompt Harrison Ford about what phrase he was supposed to end

[49:52] the movie on.

[49:54] And that's the end of the movie.

Jesse Thorn

[49:55] Yeah.

[49:56] That ending is an example of a phenomenon throughout the film, which is like every 15 minutes or so, there's just a brief scene where someone says out loud what's like what's happening and what the themes are.

[50:10] And each one of those things, like some of them seem to have been part of the added in voiceover parts.

[50:17] Some of them are scenes that are between Harrison Ford and Buck, where Harrison Ford explains the themes in Buck's life to Buck like a psychoanalyst.

[50:28] And it was, and they all have this goofy grand eloquence that is so unearned, so profoundly unearned.

Stuart Wellington

[50:39] Yeah, it feels very much like a dad has sat me down and he's telling me a story and I'm like, dude, I know what you're, I know what you're getting at.

[50:46] Just because you're saying it slowly doesn't mean it's important.

Elliott Kalan

[50:49] And where would you rank this in the Harrison Ford voiceover pantheon?

[50:53] Better or worse than the Blade Runner studio cut voiceover?

[50:58] I like both versions of Blade Runner.

Jesse Thorn

[51:00] Call me crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[51:01] I enjoy them all.

Dan McCoy

[51:02] I'm on record by preferring the version with the voiceover.

[51:06] So, I mean, I know that he's not doing much in that, but I mean, I still feel like that feels appropriate to the character.

[51:15] What, in Blade Runner?

[51:17] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:17] I mean, well, Blade Runner also does the necessary thing of explaining to you what's happening in this movie where the scenes make no sense and don't go together.

[51:25] Yeah.

[51:26] You know, but, okay, so let's call it a draw then.

[51:29] Call the wild Harrison Ford, Blade Runner Harrison Ford equals.

Dan McCoy

[51:33] Equal in esteem.

[51:34] Let's do our final judgments whether this was a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of liked.

[51:42] Guys, if I was like 20 years old, say, I don't think I'd like this movie.

[51:48] But if I was seven, I would like this movie.

[51:52] And now at 40, I also like this movie.

[51:55] And I think, you know, like seven, it might have been just like lower standards and like seeing a cute dog having adventures.

[52:04] And now a lot of it is, ironically, since one of the problems with this movie as a Call of the Wild adaptation is its lack of brutality.

[52:14] What I enjoy about it is it's kind of a throwback to a gentler, slower style of family film that maybe I'm just nostalgic for.

[52:25] But I think that, you know, Harrison Ford does a great job.

[52:28] I'm glad that they didn't really Hollywood up the plot points all that much, even though, you know, they did somewhat.

S6

[52:36] And, you know, I thought it was fun.

Dan McCoy

[52:39] When Harrison Ford was about to get shot, I could see that this was going to be the scene where it happened, where Dan Stevens was going to show up.

[52:47] And I was like gripping Audrey's like leg, Audrey, who had lost interest long ago.

[52:53] But I was like, no, no, Dan Stevens is going to shoot Harrison Ford.

[52:58] And so the movie got me.

Elliott Kalan

[53:00] Yeah, I actually liked it a lot.

[53:01] I think I would have had the same trajectory as you, Dan, that as a kid I would have liked it.

[53:05] As a young man I would have been like, ugh, this middle brow, gentle adaptation of a book.

[53:10] I don't need it.

[53:11] But now it's a movie that goes down real smooth.

[53:15] And like, especially for a kid's movie, it's what you can say Call of the Wild may not really be the best material for a kid's movie.

[53:21] But also for a kid's movie, I don't need something that is super gritty and raw or anything like that.

[53:27] And certainly as someone who is also not a fan of Logan, like I don't need the Logan version of this where Buck is like cursing and like ripping people's heads off and stuff like that.

[53:39] There was something about this movie just being a movie where I could be like, oh, I'm watching it and I'm finding this pleasant.

[53:46] And by the end of it, oh, you know, I feel good about Buck.

[53:49] You know, digging into it, into some of the like, like I was saying, some of the cultural subtext of it.

[53:55] That's not a great idea.

[53:56] Don't do that because you're going to be unhappy with it, maybe.

[53:58] But as a viewing experience, when I finished watching it, I was like, oh, this is the rare Flophouse movie where I wish I had watched this with my son.

[54:05] Because I think he probably would have enjoyed it.

[54:07] Some of the dog stuff might have been a little scary for him.

[54:10] But that's just him and dogs, you know.

[54:12] Maybe that would any movie with a dog.

[54:14] He might have felt that way about.

[54:15] Although he did watch Oliver and Company recently.

[54:18] And that's with dogs in it.

[54:20] And he liked that.

Dan McCoy

[54:21] But yeah.

[54:22] What about All Dogs Go to Heaven?

Elliott Kalan

[54:24] I've actually never seen that.

[54:25] I've only ever seen little bits of it.

[54:27] And they're only the hell bits.

[54:28] And it's kept me from wanting to ever watch that movie.

[54:30] Because I don't need to see dogs going to hell.

Dan McCoy

[54:32] Also, Elliot, Sammy liked Oliver and Company mostly because it was an adaptation of Oliver Twist, which, of course, is his favorite novel.

Elliott Kalan

[54:40] Well, that was the second reason.

[54:41] His favorite, the reason I liked it most is because he's such a big Billy Joel fan.

Dan McCoy

[54:44] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[54:45] It's like, finally, my two favorite things, Disney movies and the Bard of Long Island.

[54:50] They're in one place, finally.

[54:52] But yeah, I actually liked this movie quite a bit.

[54:55] Okay, guys.

[54:55] Stuart, Jesse, tell me why I'm wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[54:58] Oh, I don't know.

[54:59] I mean, I'm going to say I actually think this is a bad, bad movie.

[55:03] Oh, wow.

[55:04] But I don't, like, I'm not, I ain't mad at it.

[55:05] It's just like there's so little there.

[55:08] It feels, it feels very, like, rewritten.

[55:14] It's not going to stick in my brain.

[55:16] And, and there's, I mean, there's no grit at all.

[55:18] Like, I don't need it to be like fucking Cormac McCarthy or anything.

[55:22] But, but like, I don't know.

[55:25] Like, it, it, it would have felt nice.

[55:27] It would have been nice if it felt like any of these characters were anywhere other than a soundstage or in a nice part of California.

Jesse Thorn

[55:33] Yeah, that's true.

[55:34] I have watched a lot of really terrible children's movies and almost exclusively.

[55:39] Like my, I have three children, the oldest of whom just turned nine.

[55:44] And my media diet has really dwindled to like one comforting half hour television program at the end of the day before I fall asleep.

[55:54] And movies I have to watch for work and for my NPR show, which are tend to be, you know, fancy indie movies, first cow or something.

[56:03] And I have no complaints about that part of my life.

[56:06] That's great that I get to do that for work.

[56:08] And then kids movies that often, unlike Elliot, I haven't been able to trick my children into watching kids movies that I want to watch very often.

[56:17] Um, so Elliot is just hanging out watching Marx Brothers movies and the adventures of Robin Hood and stuff.

[56:23] And like, I tried.

[56:23] The adventures of Robin Hood was a big hit.

[56:25] Big hit with Sammy.

[56:25] I tried to get, I tried to get my kids to watch, uh, I tried to get my kids to watch, uh, Singing in the Rain and failed.

[56:32] Um.

Elliott Kalan

[56:32] Oh, another, another favorite in the family.

[56:34] The two-year-old loves it.

Jesse Thorn

[56:35] It's a hoot.

[56:35] Yeah.

[56:36] Uh, but I couldn't get him, I couldn't get him to go for it.

[56:38] So I've seen a lot of like, uh, I've seen a lot of just boring, lame ass kids movies.

[56:43] And this movie is definitely better than those.

[56:46] It, like, you know, it's a two-star movie.

[56:49] It's not a total failure.

[56:51] Harrison Ford is wonderful.

[56:53] It's a, I like watching dogs, but I do, I do think it's a bad, bad movie.

[56:59] Like even it is ultimately betwixt and between, like they should have made a choice.

[57:04] Either we're going to make a beautiful children's movie, uh, that's very sweet, or we're going to make a movie with a little bit of zip to it.

[57:13] It doesn't have any zip to it other than Harrison Ford's face, as I mentioned.

[57:17] Um, and it isn't very beautiful.

[57:19] Like it really does, as Stuart say, everything looks like somebody just, uh, somebody just used a stock animation for Northern Lights on top of a shot of a, of a hill in Santa Ana.

[57:33] And you know who I'm going to blame for that?

Elliott Kalan

[57:35] This is going to be, this, I'm sorry to interrupt.

[57:37] This is going to be controversial.

[57:38] The cinematographer on this is Yanis Kaminsky.

[57:40] And I am totally going to blame him because the last 12 years, 15 years of his movies have been kind of that same glossy, very, very post CGI, uh, soft look.

[57:53] And like, he, he does all of Steven Spielberg's, or most of Steven Spielberg's most recent movies, and they all have that same kind of like, fakey studio look.

[58:01] Yeah.

Jesse Thorn

[58:01] And I'll say I watched a few of those, um, Disney live action reinterpretations of classic Disney cartoon movies.

[58:10] I saw a lady in the tramp and I saw beauty and the beast.

[58:13] And, um, those.

Elliott Kalan

[58:15] If it's got an ampersand, you'll watch it.

[58:16] Yeah.

[58:17] Those like also have.

[58:18] If it's two things with an and in the middle.

[58:20] Those also have.

Dan McCoy

[58:20] Well, he runs, uh, ampersandfan.com.

Jesse Thorn

[58:23] Fan percent.

[58:24] Those also have things to recommend them.

[58:25] Like, uh, beauty and the beast has those wonderful songs and the, the Harry Potter lady is fantastic in that movie.

[58:30] And Dan Stevens in that one too.

[58:32] Yep.

[58:32] But the aesthetics of them are such a garbage pile.

[58:35] And I will admit that they are worse.

[58:37] It's the, a worse version of the same thing.

[58:40] This kind of like everything looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.

[58:44] Uh, but like everything has that weird softness to it in order to accommodate the fact that they can't quite make the dog look right.

[58:52] Um, and, uh, so it's hardly the worst, but, but it's a, it's a bad, bad movie.

[58:59] Like if I watch it with my daughter cause she wanted to watch it, I would have been grateful that it wasn't total garbage.

[59:04] Uh, but having watched it by myself, because my wife wanted to watch it because my daughter wanted to watch a Harry Potter movie last night for big kid movie night instead.

[59:14] Um, I was, I was bummed that I had wasted that piece, that chunk of my life on it.

Elliott Kalan

[59:19] Yeah.

[59:20] Welcome to the flop house, my friend.

[59:21] Welcome to the flop house.

[59:23] It's all about wasting chunks of your life.

[59:25] Mm-hmm.

[59:27] Wow, a real split decision here.

[59:28] So I guess we're going to have to leave it up to our, uh, guest judge, Harrison Ford.

[59:32] Uh, Harrison Ford, what do you think?

[59:34] Is this a movie you kind of like or a bad, bad movie?

Stuart Wellington

[59:36] It's weird that it's all Bradley Whitford because he was the judge in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[59:38] Uh, yeah, that's true, but he's not a judge in real life.

[59:40] Unfortunately, Harrison Ford, who is a judge now on the federal bench.

[59:43] Uh, so judge Ford, what do you think?

[59:46] Uh.

[59:47] All right.

[59:47] Well, thanks, Harrison.

[59:48] I guess that's, it's noncommittal.

[59:50] I guess we'll just have to live with a split decision on this one.

Dan McCoy

[59:53] It was a pretty good Harrison Ford growl, I gotta say.

Elliott Kalan

[59:56] Thank you.

[59:57] Thanks.

Dan McCoy

[59:58] Um, so.

[59:59] Oh, one thing I wanted to mention.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:01] Actually, this is a bit that I forgot I was going to do.

[1:00:03] I, I didn't, I had, I had forgotten that Call the Wild.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:06] Sorry, should we put in our forgotten bits theme?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:09] Yeah.

[1:00:10] That, uh, Harrison, no, this is me saying what you guys were all saved from, that Call the

[1:00:13] Wild is very similar to the plot of Dune in that it's about an outsider who comes into

[1:00:18] a more savage wilderness and becomes the leader of a, becomes part of a tribe and then the

[1:00:24] leader of that tribe.

[1:00:24] And so I was originally going to start doing the plot as Tom Brokaw for those Flophouse

[1:00:28] fans who love Tom Brokaw describing Dune, but I forgot to.

[1:00:32] So.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:32] Okay.

[1:00:33] Well, don't do it now.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:35] Throw that into Werner Herzog's cave of forgotten bits.

[1:00:38] I mean, it seems like it would take a lot of, a lot of setup for that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:43] But what kind of Flophouse bit doesn't involve a lot of setup?

[1:00:46] True.

S5

[1:00:51] Schmanners.

[1:00:53] Noun.

[1:00:53] Definition.

[1:00:54] Rules of etiquette designed not to judge others, but rather to guide ourselves through

[1:00:59] everyday social situations.

S6

[1:01:01] Hello, Internet.

[1:01:02] I'm your husband host, Travis McElroy.

S5

[1:01:04] And I'm your wife host, Teresa McElroy.

S6

[1:01:06] Every week on Schmanners, we take a look at a topic that has to do with society or manners.

[1:01:11] We talk about the history of it.

[1:01:12] We take a look at how it applies to everyday life.

[1:01:15] And we take some of your questions.

[1:01:17] And sometimes we do a biography about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view

[1:01:22] etiquette.

[1:01:23] So join us every Friday and listen to Schmanners on MaximumFun.org or wherever podcasts are found.

S5

[1:01:30] Manners, Schmanners.

[1:01:31] Get it?

S7

[1:01:34] If you're looking for a new comedy podcast, why not try the Beef and Dairy Network?

[1:01:40] It won Best Comedy at the British Podcast Awards in 2017 and 2018.

[1:01:45] Also, Ireland.

[1:01:46] There were no horses in this country until the mid to late 60s.

[1:01:50] Specialist bovine arse vet.

Jesse Thorn

[1:01:52] Both of his eyes are squid's eyes.

S7

[1:01:53] Yogurt buffet.

[1:01:54] She was married to a bacon farmer who saved her life.

Jesse Thorn

[1:01:58] Farm-raised snow leopard.

S7

[1:02:02] Snow.

[1:02:03] Download it today.

[1:02:03] That's the Beef and Dairy Network podcast from MaximumFun.org.

[1:02:08] Also, maybe start at episode one or, weirdly, episode 36, which for some reason requires no

[1:02:13] knowledge of the rest of the show.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:15] So we've got a couple of sponsors.

[1:02:19] I would offer for Jesse to not be here for this, but there's just only two, so I'm forcing

[1:02:24] them to sit around.

[1:02:26] Elliot, do you want to take the sponsor for once?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:30] Sure, I'll take the sponsor.

[1:02:31] Today's Flophouse is brought to you by, you guessed it, Squarespace.

[1:02:35] Look, Squarespace is the place for you to go to, to create your own website.

[1:02:40] I've been meaning to do it for a while to create my own website.

[1:02:42] In the future, we're all going to live on the internet.

[1:02:43] We're all going to need our own websites.

[1:02:45] You should get and start, go out there, start making your own website, and Squarespace

[1:02:48] makes it so easy.

[1:02:49] Your website will be beautiful.

[1:02:50] Let's say you got a cool idea.

[1:02:52] I have cool ideas all the time.

[1:02:53] They just disappear into the ether because I don't get around to make them into websites.

[1:02:56] I should do Squarespace.

Jesse Thorn

[1:02:57] Well, technically, Elliot, we have seen that pile of screenplays on your desk.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:01] Yeah.

[1:03:01] Most of my cool, well, I need to make Josh Gad, hey, what, .com.

[1:03:05] Your place for screenplays that involve Josh Gad being like, hey, guy, hey, over here.

[1:03:10] So I'm going to take that cool idea.

[1:03:11] I'm going to use Squarespace to make it into a website.

[1:03:13] I can blog on there.

[1:03:14] I can publish my content.

[1:03:15] I can sell all my products.

[1:03:17] My Josh Gad, hey, hey, guy, hey, t-shirts and services if you need me to put that into your screenplay.

[1:03:24] It does even more.

[1:03:25] And here's how Squarespace makes the difference.

[1:03:27] Because they've got their templates.

[1:03:29] You can customize them.

[1:03:30] They look great.

[1:03:31] So your website looks professional.

[1:03:33] You don't even need to code to do it.

[1:03:35] World-class designers designed this website and these templates.

Jesse Thorn

[1:03:38] This is something that on Jordan, Jesse, Go, Elliot, we really like to emphasize.

[1:03:42] There's a lot of provincial designers out there designing templates.

[1:03:46] And if you want world-class designers, and I'm not even talking about state fair blue metal,

[1:03:52] blue ribbon type designers, but international.

[1:03:56] Olympics level.

[1:03:57] These designers, these designs, they work in Senegal.

[1:04:04] They work in Milan, Italy.

[1:04:10] That's in Italy.

[1:04:11] It's the fashion capital of the world.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:13] Name another place where it works.

[1:04:14] Give me another place.

[1:04:15] Sorry, I'm all out.

[1:04:16] But the point of the story is.

[1:04:19] Look, when Carmen San Diego goes somewhere, she knows that her website is going to work

[1:04:24] there because it was designed by a world-class designer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:27] Yeah, she could go to Milan or, wait, wait.

[1:04:31] Senegal.

[1:04:31] She could go to Senegal.

[1:04:32] But it also works in Senegal.

[1:04:34] Wait.

[1:04:35] Okay.

[1:04:35] Now just get me done.

[1:04:36] I want to say Cleveland.

[1:04:37] No, just Milan and Senegal.

[1:04:37] No, that's wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:40] Let's say you want your website to work on a mobile device and also on a computer.

[1:04:43] It does it right there for you.

[1:04:44] You don't have to worry about that.

[1:04:45] Right out of the box.

[1:04:46] It does it.

[1:04:46] And you can use it to buy domains.

[1:04:48] You can choose from over 200 extensions.

[1:04:50] Free and secure hosting.

[1:04:51] It sounds amazing.

[1:04:52] I had a website that I want to talk to you guys about.

[1:04:55] It's called www.primordialspirit.com.

[1:04:58] Sometimes we have trouble getting in touch with our primordial spirits.

[1:05:02] Buck was lucky enough that he just wandered by where he lives, the Yukon.

[1:05:06] But I've yet to find mine.

[1:05:09] And I want to find it.

[1:05:10] My primordial spirit.

[1:05:10] I don't even know what it looks like.

[1:05:11] It probably looks and sounds like Emo Phillips, to be honest.

[1:05:14] But I want to make sure.

[1:05:16] Primordialspirit.com matches you with primordial spirits, shows you where they live.

[1:05:20] Maybe they're in your area.

[1:05:21] Maybe they're not.

[1:05:23] In fact, well, we have one where it's just in your area.

[1:05:24] That's called Primordial Spirit Friend Finder.

[1:05:27] And that gets a little...

[1:05:28] That's just for adults.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:29] Elliot, will this primordial spirit help me find all the shortcuts in Mario Kart so I stop looking like a real jerk?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:36] I can't promise anything, but yes, I promise you that that is the case.

[1:05:39] Hey, Stuart, take off your headphones for a second.

Jesse Thorn

[1:05:42] Elliot, Dan, I was watching Stuart play Mario Kart the other day.

[1:05:46] And this guy looked like a real jerk.

[1:05:49] Tell me about it.

[1:05:50] This guy looked like a jerk like you wouldn't believe.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:54] Oh, Stuart's putting his headphones back on.

[1:05:56] Okay.

[1:05:56] Hey, guys.

[1:05:56] Okay.

[1:05:57] What's up?

[1:05:57] What happened?

[1:05:57] Nothing.

[1:05:58] I was just talking about how with Squarespace, you can finally make the website you deserve.

[1:06:02] Just go to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:06:06] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:06:13] That's squarespace.com slash flop.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:15] Now, before we move on, Jesse, I just want to say I appreciate that during the thinking of places bit, your restraint.

[1:06:25] I know that you're famously unwilling to talk about San Francisco.

[1:06:28] So I appreciate that you held that line firm today.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:33] I want to mention also, so yes, we're recording this the day after we did our live online The Boy Next Door screenplay reading with our good friends of the podcast,

[1:06:42] Hallie Haglund, Jenny Jaffe, Natalie Walker, and Jordan Morris filling at the last minute and really helping us out.

[1:06:48] And that will be up on our YouTube page in case you missed it at some point in the future.

[1:06:53] I think it just went up to the end.

[1:06:54] It's there now.

[1:06:54] Oh, it's there now.

[1:06:55] Well, then some point in the past when you're listening to this.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:58] Also, I think this comes out like two weeks from now.

[1:07:02] What, is the YouTube link going to expire?

[1:07:04] No, no, no.

[1:07:04] Did we not do it yesterday?

[1:07:05] Is YouTube going to shut down?

[1:07:07] Yeah.

[1:07:08] All your favorite creators are going to be out of work, Dan.

[1:07:10] Yeah.

[1:07:11] If we sound tired, it's because with the intro, outro, and just the fact that a reading takes longer than a movie,

[1:07:21] I think it was a two-hour and 40-minute marathon getting through that script.

[1:07:25] But I had a blast.

[1:07:27] I really had fun doing it, and people seemed to enjoy it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:31] I had a really great time.

[1:07:32] But right now, Dan, I don't think anybody has to explain why they sound tired.

[1:07:37] Oh, that's true.

[1:07:38] I feel like everyone sounds tired right now.

[1:07:40] That's the condition right now.

Jesse Thorn

[1:07:42] I can add to that, Stuart.

[1:07:43] I don't think Dan needs to explain why he sounds tired.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:49] Yeah.

[1:07:50] Between my tendencies towards depression and sleep apnea, I, you know, speaking of everything going on in the world,

[1:07:57] I woke up this morning thinking, like, hey, why the hell do my neck and shoulders feel so fucking bad right now?

[1:08:07] Uh-huh.

[1:08:07] Did you figure it out?

[1:08:08] It might be because I've been carrying stress in them for the past five months.

[1:08:11] Yeah.

[1:08:12] So that's the only part where we'll reference the outside world.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:16] No, we're going to reference it one more time because late September, my new book, Sharko and Hippo, comes out.

[1:08:22] That's right.

[1:08:22] It's a kid's book by me with an all-new set of characters, Sharko and Hippo.

[1:08:27] Anyway, the art is by Andrea Cerumi, who did a great book called Accident that I love,

[1:08:31] and Sharko and Hippo is coming out in late September to bookstores near you.

[1:08:36] Order them through a bookstore and then have it delivered to your door because, you know, of what's happening in the outside world.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:42] So this Sharko and this Hippo, are they sort of an Island of Dr. Moreau Marx Brothers duo?

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:48] Without the Island of Dr. Moreau part, yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:50] Okay, great.

[1:08:52] Hey, let's read some letters from you, the listeners.

[1:08:57] This one is from John from Milwaukee.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:00] What's that call out there?

[1:09:02] Do I hear something coming through the snowy waste?

[1:09:06] Why, it's Perot, the dog sled mailman bringing the letters bag to the flop house.

[1:09:12] Sometimes our letters come from far away, far away in the frozen north.

[1:09:17] The Yukon, where letters sometimes go and sometimes come from.

[1:09:21] That's how mail works.

[1:09:23] Letters come from and go to the same places sometimes.

[1:09:27] All the way from Senegal to Milan.

[1:09:31] But in this case, it's the Yukon, where these letters are coming from.

[1:09:35] And here comes that dog sled of letters down the track to the flop house.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:41] Yeah, it feels weird to be annoyed by those letter songs right now with the way, what's going on with the Postal Service.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:47] Yeah, they need all the encouragement they can get.

[1:09:50] I'm trying to do my part, yeah.

[1:09:51] Come on.

[1:09:52] Yeah, thanks.

[1:09:52] Thanks, Elliot.

[1:09:54] So this first letter from John says, my wife and I recently watched—

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:58] So John, that's the full name?

[1:09:59] No last name withheld?

[1:10:00] Just that's the full name, John?

Dan McCoy

[1:10:01] Well, earlier I said John from Milwaukee.

[1:10:04] Kind of forgetting the bit for a second.

[1:10:06] But yeah, John, last name withheld.

[1:10:07] Yeah, it's John from Cincinnati.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:10] Oh, wow.

[1:10:11] It writes and says, does anyone know what was going on in my show?

[1:10:13] Because I sure don't.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:15] David Milch hasn't responded to any of my texts.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:19] He must be bedridden again.

[1:10:21] He must be busy dealing with all of his debts.

[1:10:24] Anyway, continue.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:25] John says, my wife and I recently watched Green Room and enjoyed it.

[1:10:29] But even greater was, near the end of the movie, the presence of the Dragonlance book, Dragons of Spring Dawning, was on the console of the van.

[1:10:38] I read the hell out of that series in middle school and bought it for my sixth grader for Christmas.

[1:10:43] What aspect of your real life appearing in a film were you excited to see?

[1:10:48] I remember it's not a film.

[1:10:54] Don Draper's tumblers.

[1:10:59] I guess they're more like rocks glasses.

[1:11:00] I guess they're more like rocks glasses.

[1:11:01] Were this sort of, you know, obviously because of the time period they were mid-century modern.

[1:11:07] But also because mid-century modern was big because of Mad Men at that time period.

[1:11:12] I also had these tumblers, these sort of throwback tumblers with squares etched into the sides of the glass.

[1:11:19] So that's the one I remember.

[1:11:21] What about you guys?

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:22] That's not that far from being like, I was really excited to watch Gremlins 2 because I had a full set of the Gremlins 2 trading cards I bought because of how much I love Gremlins 2.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:33] It's true.

[1:11:33] I think you got it, Stu.

[1:11:34] I think you got it.

[1:11:35] It was, I mean, I, we had them before we started watching Mad Men.

[1:11:39] Let's just.

[1:11:39] Who hasn't dreamed.

[1:11:40] I liked them back when they were cool.

Jesse Thorn

[1:11:44] Who hasn't dreamed of capturing the depths of sadness reflected in Don Draper's compulsive drinking?

[1:11:52] Well, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:56] Like I mentioned earlier that I got excited when in the movie The Call of the Wild, they go to Skagway because, what, two years ago, Dan and I and some assorted friends went to Skagway.

[1:12:09] That was really fun.

[1:12:11] Other than that, I don't know.

[1:12:12] Like, I was really excited when I saw the 40-year-old version of the theater and I saw some of the miniatures that Steve Carell's character was painting.

[1:12:20] And I'm like, oh, wow, I have some of those.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:23] I think I'm going to have to say anytime I see certain parts of New York specifically that I am well acquainted with in movies, I'm like, hey, I know that place.

[1:12:32] A movie that I love, The Landlord, was shot around my old neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

[1:12:37] And there is a big Coca-Cola sign on a pizza place that was still standing for most of the time that I lived there.

[1:12:44] And I was like, oh, wow, that sign's been up there for like 50 years.

[1:12:47] This is amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:48] It was like when you saw Squid and the Whale and you're like, oh, I juiced in that book.

[1:12:52] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:53] Look, that diorama also reminded me of my parents' divorce when I would go visit it as a young man.

[1:12:59] But the time, weirdly, that I felt that way the most was there's a very bad movie called Robot in the Family starring Joe Pantoliano and John Riz Davies about it's like a robot that can find gold.

[1:13:11] It doesn't make any sense.

[1:13:12] But a lot of the movie, for whatever reason, was shot around this stretch of antique stores on Broadway between 14th Street and like 10th Street in Manhattan.

[1:13:22] And that was literally the street I walked.

[1:13:24] Those blocks I walked almost every day as an NYU student from my dorm to the classrooms.

[1:13:28] So when I watched this movie, I was like, I know that whole block.

[1:13:32] This is amazing.

[1:13:33] And I was like, I could have walked through this movie possibly.

[1:13:38] I could be a robot in the family.

[1:13:40] It was very exciting, even though the movie itself is terrible.

[1:13:44] Don't see it.

Jesse Thorn

[1:13:44] The literal version of this for me, 100%, is the movie Sister Act, which was shot like six or eight blocks from my childhood home.

[1:13:55] And seeing...

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:55] And also Whoopi Goldberg taught you how to sing.

[1:13:57] Yeah, that's true.

Jesse Thorn

[1:13:59] Yeah, she told me actually that R&B hits of the 1960s were gospel songs, which was an unusual attack to teaching singing.

[1:14:08] But, you know.

[1:14:10] And I mean, it's like when that professor...

[1:14:13] I had a music professor named Harold Hill.

[1:14:15] And he taught me that all I had to do to play the trombone was think that I knew how to play the trombone, which also similarly unusual technique.

[1:14:23] But yeah, like seeing the church by my house with fake graffiti on it to make it look more scary.

[1:14:30] And the Irish bakery by my house and so on and so forth.

[1:14:33] That was like absolutely thrilling when that movie came out when I was 10 or 9 or however old I was when that movie came out.

[1:14:39] But the more metaphorical version is my stepmother, when I was in my late teens, said she had heard about this new Bill Murray movie that she thought I would really like.

[1:14:52] And this was like right after like Operation Dumbo Drop or whatever.

[1:14:56] Was that the one that had Bill Murray in it?

[1:14:58] There was two or was Larger Than Life?

[1:15:00] No, Larger Than Life.

[1:15:01] Larger Than Life, yeah.

[1:15:02] This was right after Larger Than Life.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:04] Operation Dumbo Drop was like what?

[1:15:05] Danny Glover?

[1:15:06] Yeah, maybe so.

[1:15:06] Danny Glover.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:07] I think maybe Dennis Leary was in it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:09] Yeah, I think Dennis Leary was in it.

[1:15:10] As like a 17-year-old, I did not yet understand.

Jesse Thorn

[1:15:15] Like Bill Murray was two years out of my demographic in terms of how good he was before his career revival.

[1:15:22] And it turned out to be Rushmore that my stepmother was telling me I should go see.

[1:15:28] And like besides just being insufferable, another thing I related to Max Fisher about was that like I was also a poor kid who went to a really fancy private school and fit very awkwardly.

[1:15:42] And also I was the president of a lot of different clubs.

[1:15:47] And.

[1:15:49] This makes a lot of sense.

[1:15:51] Yeah.

[1:15:52] I actually had auditioned for Rushmore.

[1:15:55] I went to Arts High School and they came and auditioned in their like search.

[1:15:58] But I didn't even get to say a line that I was too tall.

[1:16:01] They like I walked in.

[1:16:02] They said, sorry, you're too tall.

[1:16:03] And I walked out.

[1:16:05] But I was I think it was the first time that I had seen a movie and like really directly related to themes in the character.

[1:16:15] And it was shocking to me.

[1:16:18] Like there were aspirational characters, you know, like I don't know.

[1:16:21] Maybe I thought I would like to be more like.

[1:16:24] I don't know.

[1:16:25] I was going to say Pee Wee Herman, but that's probably a bad thing to want to be like.

[1:16:29] Pee Wee Herman is an asshole.

[1:16:31] The man is not an asshole.

[1:16:32] I've met him.

[1:16:33] He's a really nice man.

[1:16:34] The character is an asshole.

[1:16:37] Yeah.

[1:16:37] But like, but in terms of like seeing things from my life on film in an emotional sense directly, that was the first time.

[1:16:47] And it's odd to admit that it was Rushmore, which is obviously a very stylized movie where the protagonist is not always sympathetic.

[1:16:56] Never sympathetic.

[1:16:58] Some might say.

[1:16:58] Me, in fact.

[1:16:59] Well, it depends on whether you had almost all of those experiences.

[1:17:05] Whether your actual dad was a Vietnam veteran who was scarred by his experience there.

[1:17:11] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:14] This next question is from Lena Lastnamewithheld, which is pleasingly alliterative.

[1:17:21] It is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:21] I just want to mention something I never knew about Operation Dumbo Drop looking up now is that it was set during the Vietnam War.

[1:17:26] What?

[1:17:27] Yeah.

[1:17:27] It's a kid's movie that's set during the Vietnam War with soldiers transporting an elephant through South Vietnam.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:35] I'm assuming listening to like Leonard Skinner songs and.

Jesse Thorn

[1:17:39] Yeah.

[1:17:40] That's when I.

[1:17:40] Probably.

[1:17:40] Yeah.

[1:17:41] Yeah.

[1:17:41] That's when I first found out that my dad was a vet.

[1:17:43] I asked him if he had gone through anything like that in the 60s.

[1:17:46] He said, let me tell you.

[1:17:48] Uh-huh.

[1:17:48] About my time on the carrier in that giraffe.

[1:17:51] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:54] Showed you pictures of his friend who's an elephant.

[1:17:57] Um.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:00] Lena writes,

[1:18:01] Dear Peaches, I am writing to you in spite of Dan's advising anyone who intended to write you a letter to, and I quote,

[1:18:08] go to hell in the last episode because I am in desperate need of your sage wisdom.

[1:18:14] My younger brother, 18, has recently become obsessed with slasher films.

[1:18:18] He talks about them constantly, analyzes their themes, gives his opinion on the merits of various sequels,

[1:18:24] and recommends movies he thinks you'll like.

[1:18:27] He even wrote a research paper about the gender politics of the genre.

[1:18:30] The problem is, he hasn't seen any of the movies he proclaims to love.

[1:18:36] Not one.

[1:18:37] He watches a lot of, like, horror review channels on YouTube, I guess, which is where I think he picked up this interest,

[1:18:43] but he never seemingly took the initiative to watch any of the movies he was hearing these guys talk about,

[1:18:49] and has just absorbed their taste of these movies into his own personality through osmosis.

[1:18:54] I can't begin to tell you how aggravating it is to be told how interesting the way the third Halloween movie subverts the formula of the franchise up to that point

[1:19:05] is by someone who hasn't seen a single fucking Halloween movie and has no idea what the fuck he's talking about and obviously is just parroting someone else's opinion down to the word.

[1:19:15] My question to you is, how do I get him to cut it out?

[1:19:18] Calling him out on his ignorance doesn't seem to work, and neither does cutting mockery.

[1:19:23] Believe me, my parents and I have tried both, but the man is without shame.

[1:19:27] He's not embarrassed in the slightest by the very silly thing he's doing.

[1:19:30] It's terrible.

[1:19:31] Can anything be done?

[1:19:32] What would you do if it was your little brother?

[1:19:35] Please advise.

[1:19:36] He's driving me nuts.

[1:19:37] Yours and flop.

[1:19:38] Lean the last name without.

[1:19:39] We're kind of cutting into the McElroy's business here.

[1:19:42] This is more of an advice letter.

[1:19:45] You're right.

[1:19:45] We're not allowed to do that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:46] Forget it.

[1:19:47] Let's not.

[1:19:48] Sorry, Lean.

[1:19:49] I can't do it.

[1:19:50] It's a zero-sum game, gang.

[1:19:52] I like this turn.

[1:19:53] Flophouse up.

[1:19:54] Magelroy's down.

[1:19:57] Everyone's got their thing.

[1:19:58] You can't do anything else.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:00] If they ever talk about movies, they have to stop immediately, I think.

Jesse Thorn

[1:20:05] It seems like the best strategy, like this might not be the most practical strategy, but

[1:20:09] it might be the most effective strategy, is wait until he's not a 17-year-old.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:15] Yeah, that was going to be my advice.

[1:20:18] Yeah, just let him be dumb for a while.

[1:20:22] And then hopefully he won't be dumb in the future.

[1:20:25] Because also, I think that if you argue with people too much, because humans are stupid

[1:20:30] and our brains are broken, often people tend to dig in even more at that point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:37] That's pretty cool.

[1:20:37] I was going to say, just keep sending him little, send him little like GIFs of those horror

[1:20:43] movies.

[1:20:43] So over time, he'll have to watch all of it, even if he's watching them in short clips.

[1:20:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:50] That's what you're doing with Critters GIFs to us, even though we've seen Critters.

[1:20:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:55] Critters, Critters 2, various Japanese animation, et cetera.

[1:21:01] Oh, and Full House.

[1:21:02] I think the entire series of Full House.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:05] I think, yeah, probably the only real thing to do is to just wait it out.

[1:21:09] I'm curious why he hasn't watched any of the movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:13] Yeah.

[1:21:13] I don't think that's the pleasure he probably gets out of it.

[1:21:16] This is not to, you know, not become a therapist or a psychologist all of a sudden.

[1:21:21] Because again, that's the McElroy's thing.

[1:21:23] I'm guessing it's more that he gets pleasure out of sounding smart about a topic or like

[1:21:29] figuring something out.

[1:21:31] Yeah, it's almost like-

[1:21:31] Even if he doesn't like the topic he's figured out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:34] It's almost like you want to introduce something to him that he can be smart about, that he also

[1:21:37] actually likes engaging with the main primary thing at the same time.

[1:21:42] But I definitely like, when I was younger, I definitely would be very opinionated.

[1:21:46] about things that I had only heard about and not seen.

[1:21:48] Because that's part of being a young man is assuming that you need to have an opinion

[1:21:53] on everything, knowing that your opinion is based on nothing.

[1:21:57] And then pushing that opinion harder to try to make up for the fact that deep down,

[1:22:00] you know that you're a fraud.

[1:22:01] That's basically what being a young man is all about.

[1:22:05] And an older man.

[1:22:06] And an older man.

[1:22:07] A man of all kinds.

[1:22:08] A man of all seasons is one who knows that he is a fraud and cannot be the thing that

[1:22:12] he thinks he's supposed to be.

[1:22:14] Yeah, a fraud that walks on forth.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:16] Four legs at birth.

[1:22:18] Two legs.

[1:22:19] Yeah, you know it.

[1:22:21] Three legs eventually.

[1:22:22] That's how it goes, right?

[1:22:23] Three legs eventually.

Jesse Thorn

[1:22:25] Like, yeah, what walks on the four legs at birth and three legs eventually?

[1:22:30] It's me, the Sphinx.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:32] When the Sphinx is telling its riddle while trying to answer an email at the same time.

Jesse Thorn

[1:22:41] By the way, Elliot, what would you say is the most Sphinx-like animal?

[1:22:48] As you claimed earlier on in the show, dogs or perhaps Sphinxes?

[1:22:54] That's a good question.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:55] Yeah, Sphinxes are closer to Sphinxes than dogs.

[1:22:58] In terms of leagy animals, you've got to go with a cat, right?

[1:23:01] Yeah.

[1:23:01] Because a cat always has a look on its face like you have just failed to answer a question

[1:23:05] properly that it has asked you.

[1:23:06] Yeah, also Sphinxes have the head of a cat.

[1:23:09] So it's those two things.

[1:23:11] Well, they have the body of a cat.

[1:23:12] Oh, body of a cat.

Jesse Thorn

[1:23:13] Face of a person.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:16] The head of a cat on the body of a person is a fetish, which I'm not going to deny.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:21] Well, I feel like if you were to tell a Sphinx that it had a face like a cat, that would

[1:23:26] be a severe insult in Sphinx culture.

[1:23:29] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:29] Now, then there's also, you've got your Assyrian-type characters who are, there's Sphinxes

[1:23:35] where it's like a lion's body with wings or an ox's body.

[1:23:39] And then the head of a man with a long beard.

[1:23:41] And those always seem like-

[1:23:42] Those are really cool.

[1:23:43] I'm going to run into them in the real world and I'll think they're going to say something

[1:23:45] really smart.

[1:23:46] Instead, they just go like, maah.

[1:23:48] Because that's my experience with Bison.

[1:23:50] I always think Bison are about to tell me something really wise.

Jesse Thorn

[1:23:52] Elliot, I'm going to let you keep going in just a second.

[1:23:54] I just wanted to let Stu and Dan know what happened is I had to go to the bathroom.

[1:23:58] So I just brought up mythological stuff so Elliot could do his thing for a while and cover

[1:24:03] for us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:05] Now, the interesting thing is the Minotaur.

[1:24:07] I think traditionally-

[1:24:08] But now I don't want to-

[1:24:09] So I think another thing that Lena can do with her brother is to start introducing things,

[1:24:16] is to start talking to him about it, really engage him on this topic of horror movies,

[1:24:19] but slip in every now and then something that doesn't exist that you're making up and see

[1:24:22] what, and not as making fun of, but to see how he reacts to it and what his opinion is

[1:24:28] suddenly on this thing that doesn't exist.

[1:24:29] And I want you to keep seeding it that way until eventually you're having a conversation

[1:24:33] where both of you are talking about things that don't exist all the time.

[1:24:36] And you know it, but he doesn't know it.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:39] And I want you to write down his opinions on all of these fake movies and, you know, send

[1:24:43] them to us in the future.

[1:24:44] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:45] So we can laugh and laugh at the thing we once were.

[1:24:49] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:50] Um, pardon me, I burped off my-

[1:24:52] Let's go to-

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:54] I like that you undid it by telling us about it, though.

[1:24:56] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:58] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:58] Uh-huh.

[1:24:58] He's bragging that he's drinking bubbly drinks again, huh?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:01] That's why they call him Seltzer McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:04] I'm rich in gas.

[1:25:06] Uh, let's go to-

[1:25:07] Oh, look at Jupiter over here, huh?

[1:25:10] Yeah.

[1:25:10] Look at Bespin over here.

[1:25:11] Yeah, come on.

[1:25:13] Let's go to, uh, the final segment in the show, which is to recommend movies-

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:17] I guess I'll just break up the shale in Dan and get some of that sweet gas out of there.

[1:25:22] Movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:23] Recommend movies we saw, uh, often recently, but not necessarily, that we liked.

[1:25:28] Um, I will recommend-

[1:25:29] I saw-

[1:25:30] I finally got around to the, uh, Netflix Will Ferrell movie, Eurovision Song Contest, the

[1:25:37] story of Fire Saga, which I had been kind of interested in just because I like goofy

[1:25:44] comedies and, uh, your vision is certainly funny on its own.

[1:25:49] Um, but-

[1:25:50] And it's got Dan Stevens in it.

[1:25:52] Yeah, well, that's-

[1:25:53] I was gonna-

[1:25:53] Yeah, the connection, the Call of the Wild connection is Dan Stevens, and I'll get back

[1:25:56] to him, but, um, you know, I had been kind of Will Ferrell'd out, at least in terms of

[1:26:02] the man-child comedies he usually does, uh, but I found this to be a, you know, a better

[1:26:10] application of that, a sweeter application of that.

[1:26:14] Um, like, it- it- there's a kindness in the worldview of the movie that I kind of wasn't

[1:26:19] expecting.

[1:26:19] Now, don't get me wrong, uh, Will Ferrell was not the best thing about the movie.

[1:26:23] The best thing by far, I think, was Rachel McAdams, um, as the equally goofy, but somehow

[1:26:28] simultaneously grounded, uh, character of the- the two leads.

[1:26:34] Um, I think she's terrifically funny, uh, like, almost all of the time, and, uh, and she just

[1:26:41] somehow finds the way to act a totally weird character.

[1:26:45] And Dan Stevens is in it, as Stuart says, uh, as the person who would normally be the villain

[1:26:50] of this type of movie, but I think what they ultimately do with this character is sort of

[1:26:54] touching and heartbreaking and sweet as well.

[1:26:57] And, uh, I really enjoyed it.

[1:26:59] And it's got singing in it, which I always like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:02] Does- does Dan Stevens get pushed into a burning cabin in the revision song contest also?

Dan McCoy

[1:27:07] I don't want to spoil it, Elliot!

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:09] I mean, there is fire in the title, right?

[1:27:11] Yeah.

[1:27:11] Uh, I'm gonna recommend a movie that just went up on Shudder recently called Host.

[1:27:16] Uh, it is the first of probably- I don't even know if it's the first, but I'm sure it's

[1:27:20] one of a slew of, uh, horror movies that's made on a micro-budget during quarantine, during-

[1:27:27] in a post-COVID time.

[1:27:29] Uh, and it is about a group of 20-somethings who are, uh, set up a Zoom call to hang out with

[1:27:37] each other, and the theme for their Zoom call is they decide to have a seance, and it goes

[1:27:43] just about as well as you would imagine.

[1:27:45] Uh, it's nice and short.

[1:27:47] It's under an hour.

[1:27:48] Uh, they do some fun stuff with, uh, the limitations of a Zoom call.

[1:27:53] Uh, but the thing I think that makes it work is that the- the- the stuff that happens before

[1:27:59] things get scary, uh, is- is engaging, and the stuff that happens after things get scary

[1:28:05] is also engaging, so it manages- I think the whole thing manages to work.

[1:28:09] So if you're looking for a short slice of horror that, uh, is also topical, I guess, uh, check

[1:28:16] out Host.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:17] Uh, before we move to the next recommendation, just very quickly, there is a not zero percent

[1:28:22] chance that I said the story of Ice and Fire saga would give me the name.

[1:28:26] I- if I did, I was obviously thinking of Song of Ice and Fire, but there is just fire.

[1:28:32] There's no Ice in Eurovision.

[1:28:34] Anyway-

[1:28:35] No- no, no Yngwie Malmsteen.

[1:28:37] Uh, Elliot, you look like you're about to go, so why don't you go?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:40] Sure, uh, this movie, The Call of the Wild, I said, I'll recommend a movie with Wild in

[1:28:44] the title, so I'm gonna recommend Ah, Wilderness.

[1:28:47] This is the 1930s version of the Eugene O'Neill play, Ah, Wilderness, starring Wallace

[1:28:51] Beery and Lionel Barrymore, and, uh, one of my favorite actresses of the time, Aileen

[1:28:56] McMahon.

[1:28:57] Uh, and it was- the script was adapted by Albert Hackett and Francis Goodrich, who wrote The

[1:29:01] Thin Man, one of my favorite movies.

[1:29:03] And it's kind of a, uh, another kind of goes-down easy movie in a lot of ways.

[1:29:07] It's a little slice-of-life story about a young man who has just graduated from high

[1:29:11] school in 1906.

[1:29:12] He's about to go to Yale, and he has, uh, to be kind of saved from himself and his thinking

[1:29:18] of himself as a sophisticated man of the world who understands more than regular people, as

[1:29:23] he makes a couple of bad decisions and is pulled out of the kind of thing that nowadays would

[1:29:28] not have been a problem, but back in 1906 would have ruined his life beyond measure, namely

[1:29:32] going on a date with a woman that he shouldn't go on a date with and saying some things that

[1:29:36] might upset people.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:38] Uh, I- I want to give a little factoid that is of no interest to

[1:29:42] anyone but me.

[1:29:42] I played said young man in the community theater production of All Wilderness, uh, when

[1:29:49] I was 17.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:51] Uh, this is a- yeah, thank you.

[1:29:53] I'm glad- I'm glad you could bring that personal perspective to it.

[1:29:56] Uh, it's- it's very much a kind of picture of that mythical small town turn-of-the-century

[1:30:02] America that didn't really exist, but which, uh, is a, uh, uh, I don't know, something that

[1:30:09] a lot of, uh, jerks, uh, yearn for, or return to.

[1:30:13] Uh, but it's kind of like if our town didn't have any of the metaphysical, uh, talk of the

[1:30:18] cosmos in it.

[1:30:19] But I, uh, really enjoyed it.

[1:30:21] It's just a charming little movie.

[1:30:22] Uh, Wilderness.

Jesse Thorn

[1:30:23] Jesse, what have you got?

[1:30:24] Well, I'm gonna first recommend a book.

[1:30:27] Uh, Elliot Kalin, I went- I went over to his house the other day.

[1:30:31] We're quarantine buddies.

[1:30:33] And, uh, I was in a- I was in a real mess.

[1:30:36] My life has been a really horrible mess lately.

[1:30:38] And I just- I asked him if he could loan me a book, uh, that would not make me sad at all

[1:30:44] and would be interesting the whole time.

[1:30:46] Um, and he loaned me a book called The Devil's Candy, which is, uh, about the making of the

[1:30:52] film of The Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian De Palma's film.

[1:30:55] And it is as absolutely engrossing and fascinating as a behind-the-scenes book could be.

[1:31:03] The movie was ultimately a huge debacle, both critically and financially, but, like, involved

[1:31:09] all of these brilliant, amazing people.

[1:31:13] Uh, you know, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis and, uh, Steven Spielberg is in there.

[1:31:17] And it is a story- it is a book about, I think, the same thing that The Flophouse is often about,

[1:31:25] which is that making a movie is so complicated and has so many moving parts that even if you

[1:31:33] bring together a bunch of brilliant people, um, it is so easy to just get it wrong.

[1:31:41] And, um, it's a very sympathetic book to everyone who is involved in the story, even the- even

[1:31:46] the executives who are mostly just kind of doing executive meddling.

[1:31:51] Um, but, like, I think- I think the easy read of it is that it's-

[1:31:55] It's the story of how executive meddling can ruin a film, but I think it really is the

[1:32:00] story of how a film can just go wrong.

[1:32:04] And it's, uh, very sweet in a surprising way and- and funny.

[1:32:08] And it, like, it shows you the fascinating stories behind every- you know, one of the most

[1:32:14] interesting subplots of the book is the assistant director who is a protege of De Palma's trying

[1:32:22] to make his name by getting a perfect shot of a Concord landing with, uh, with the skyline in the

[1:32:29] background and the sun in exactly the right place. And he has to do, like, months of calculations by

[1:32:34] hand to figure out when the sun will be in the right place and so on and so forth. And he nails it. It's the

[1:32:39] perfect shot. He wins a hundred dollar bet with Brian De Palma. And there's, uh, it's mentioned in an article in American

[1:32:45] Cinematographer Magazine. And all the credit goes to the cinematographer of the movie who was not present.

[1:32:51] Um, and it is- it is a- it's a really, like, it's full of those fascinating stories of every kind of person. Like, people who worked on studio movies in the 50s and people who are like totally go-go 90s and they're trying to make the ultimate 80s movie. It's a great book. Um, so thank you, Elliot, for that recommendation to me.

[1:33:13] And I pass it on to- I pass it on to America via the Flophouse. Um, I will also recommend a movie. Uh, it is probably my favorite movie. Um, and I'm always glad to recommend it, especially to comedy fans and practitioners of whom I know there are many who listen to the Flophouse. Um, uh, it's called A Thousand Clowns. Um, it was made in the early to mid 1960s as the 1960s were just starting to trend towards the

[1:33:43] countercultural 1960s where that idea was just being invented, um, before Flower Children and so forth. It's based on a play that won- I believe it won a Pulitzer, um, won some Tonys as well. And it's a story about, uh, a comedy writer, uh, who is probably 40-ish, um, who is unemployed and he has quit writing on a children's show because it was beneath him. But with him lives his, uh, his

[1:34:13] young teenage nephew, uh, 13-year-old kid who, uh, for reasons that are explained in the film goes by many different names. Uh, it turns out his, uh, his uncle just lets him pick a new name whenever he feels like it. Um, but, uh, this kid is being investigated- this kid and his uncle are being investigated by Child Protective Services, uh, basically because the uncle is unemployed and the kid is often out of school.

[1:34:37] And the kid is sort of brilliant and precocious, uh, but never shows up for anything. And they're worried that it is an unsafe environment for the kid.

[1:34:46] Uh, and the uncle is so resolutely anti-establishment and irreverent and amazing and charming, uh, as only, you know, Jason Robards could be like, it is a spectacular, hilarious, amazing performance.

[1:35:02] But you realize that the central conflict of this film is not this man against the establishment, uh, but this man against himself.

[1:35:11] That he has to, he has to take responsibility for his own life.

[1:35:14] That just because he is anti-establishment and a comedy and a hilarious, charming man doesn't mean that he has to, that he doesn't have to take responsibility for the effect that his choices have on others, especially ones, the people that he loves.

[1:35:29] And it makes me cry every time, um, even though it is definitely a comedy.

[1:35:34] Um, and it's full of hilarious stuff, full of wonderful performances.

[1:35:38] Uh, Martin Balsam, uh, was nominated for an Oscar for it.

[1:35:43] Um, he plays the guy's brother, um, and, uh, uh, the.

[1:35:48] And won.

[1:35:49] And won.

[1:35:50] Thank you, Elliot.

[1:35:50] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:51] One, one best supporting actor.

Jesse Thorn

[1:35:52] And, uh, and there's a wonderful performance by the teacher from Boy Meets World, um, who's like, uh.

[1:35:58] Mr. Feeney.

[1:35:59] Yeah, Mr. Feeney.

[1:36:00] William Daniels.

[1:36:01] Yeah, he's like 35 years old.

[1:36:02] John Adams.

[1:36:03] Um, he plays the kind of hard ass, uh, or relatively stickler, uh, child protective services guy.

[1:36:09] And it's, it was actually written as the character is actually based on Gene Shepard, um, who is the legendary radio host who was also probably.

[1:36:19] I really thought you were going to say Gene.

[1:36:21] Yeah.

[1:36:23] Who is the most, probably most famous for Christmas story.

[1:36:26] Right.

[1:36:27] But, um, uh, the playwright and, uh, Gene Shepard's relationship, they were very close friends.

[1:36:33] And, uh, uh, the movie was ended by Gene Shepard because of this play.

[1:36:35] Because it was essentially a guy who allowed his brilliance and charm and humor to get in the way of taking responsibility for his own life.

[1:36:45] Um, anyway, it's a beautiful movie.

[1:36:47] Uh, for many, many years, it was really hard to watch.

[1:36:50] It would come on Turner Classic Movies sometimes.

[1:36:52] There was, uh, uh, uh, VHS that sold for $75 on eBay.

[1:36:58] Um, but it has just been re-released on Blu-ray, a beautiful new Blu-ray that's $19.

[1:37:05] And if you are the streaming type, um, I won't say what tube you can go to, to watch it on in relatively high quality.

[1:37:16] Um, because I think everybody involved should get paid.

[1:37:20] Um, but, uh, yeah.

[1:37:22] And in conclusion, uh, the kid, the 13-year-old, um, uh, he's played by an actor named Barry Gordy, who as a younger child was the voice of the song, All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.

[1:37:35] Uh, and as a man was the voice of one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:40] And in between...

[1:37:41] Donatello.

[1:37:42] Yeah, and in between was the...

[1:37:43] The best one.

Jesse Thorn

[1:37:44] And in between was, uh, became a lawyer and president of the Screen Actors Guild for quite a long time.

[1:37:49] The best one.

[1:37:50] So, there you go.

[1:37:51] A Thousand Clowns, it's called.

[1:37:52] There are no clowns involved.

[1:37:55] Uh, there are no clowns involved in the film.

[1:37:57] But there is a part where he leans out the window of his tenement apartment and says,

[1:38:01] Rich people!

[1:38:02] Everybody out on the street for volleyball!

Dan McCoy

[1:38:05] Which is a lot of fun.

[1:38:06] And, and no clowns were hurt during the making of the film because of...

[1:38:10] I cannot promise that.

[1:38:12] That's why they're not in the movie.

[1:38:13] They were all hurt.

[1:38:13] Oh, oh.

[1:38:13] They didn't want to show it.

[1:38:14] Yeah, they were all injured.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:15] That would have been like, uh, yeah, that would have basically made it a snuff film.

[1:38:19] I mean, they were, they were injured being driven to set.

[1:38:22] They just put too many clowns in that car.

Jesse Thorn

[1:38:23] It was one of those things like, uh, like that Rip Torn thing where Rip Torn beat the crap out of Norman Mailer or whatever.

[1:38:30] Oh, wow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:30] Oh, have you seen that footage?

[1:38:32] It is brutal.

[1:38:33] It is terrifying.

[1:38:33] Oh, because it's in the movie.

[1:38:34] Oh, man.

[1:38:35] He hits him in the head with a hammer from behind the performance back.

[1:38:37] There's one, that movie, Thousand Clowns, uh, there's, it's, it's an amazing movie.

[1:38:41] And as I mentioned, there's a performance in it.

[1:38:43] He's only in one long scene.

[1:38:45] Gene Sacks plays Jason Robert's boss who comes to win him back.

[1:38:48] And it is the most amazing scene of a man who is a, who is a performance, a person who is a monster, an emotional monster, and just wants people to like him, but is a bully and is terrible.

[1:38:59] It's an amazing, that's, that one scene I always think is amazing.

Jesse Thorn

[1:39:02] Yeah, he plays like the children's host that he used to work for.

[1:39:05] And what's beautiful about it is he is like a monster in that all he lives for is the approval of others.

[1:39:11] But it also like, it's very sympathetic.

[1:39:14] Like it, you understand that this is a sad man and that show business is sad.

[1:39:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:22] Okay.

[1:39:23] Well, I got a piece and let's wrap it up.

[1:39:25] Jesse, thank you for being with us.

[1:39:27] Is there stuff you would like to plug?

[1:39:30] I know you yourself have many shows.

Jesse Thorn

[1:39:32] Yeah.

[1:39:32] I own a podcast network called MaximumFun.org with a lot of great shows.

[1:39:36] The only one I would steer clear of is called The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:40] Jesus.

[1:39:41] We walked right into the prestige, guys.

Jesse Thorn

[1:39:48] I do, I do host and co-host three shows.

[1:39:51] I do an NPR arts and culture interview show called Bullseye, of which I'm very proud.

[1:39:59] And if you like interviews with figures from arts and culture, including many, many filmmakers

[1:40:04] and folks involved in film.

[1:40:07] Recently, we've had Steve Buscemi was on the show.

[1:40:10] That was a wonderful interviewer, a wonderful interview, a great, great actor, and also a

[1:40:15] great director.

[1:40:16] And Kelly Reichert, who directed First Cow.

[1:40:18] I mentioned First Cow.

[1:40:20] First Cow totally rules.

[1:40:21] What a great movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:23] Yeah.

[1:40:23] I keep putting it off, but I need to, I just need to set aside some time.

Jesse Thorn

[1:40:27] What's great about it is it's so totally not a homework movie.

[1:40:29] Like, it's so fun and yeah, it's great.

[1:40:32] But anyway.

[1:40:33] Well, it's about the first cow to be elected president.

[1:40:35] Yeah.

[1:40:37] And as you mentioned, Elliot, our mutual friend, Jordan Morris, with whom I've been friends

[1:40:42] since we were 19 and 18, and I was his RA in college.

[1:40:46] And I do a show called Jordan Jesse Go that is a silly bullshit comedy show of which, which

[1:40:54] has existed now.

[1:40:55] It's now in going into year 14, I think, something like that.

[1:41:00] Trump does.

[1:41:01] Year ahead.

[1:41:02] And it's, you know, it's liked by people who like that sort of thing.

[1:41:06] And then I also do a show with...

[1:41:08] And we've all been guests.

[1:41:09] Yeah, exactly.

[1:41:10] You guys have all been guests.

[1:41:11] You're on the Max Fundrive episode this year, or at least Dan and Stu are.

[1:41:15] So you can go listen to an episode with one of the peaches.

[1:41:19] And I also do a show called Judge John Hodgman that's a comedy version of the People's Court

[1:41:23] with the wise and hilarious John Hodgman as the judge.

[1:41:27] And, you know, in recent years, he's really backed off the key element of his comic character,

[1:41:34] which was bullying Elliot.

[1:41:35] So I've sort of had to take it on instead.

[1:41:39] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:40] Doing a bang of that.

[1:41:41] He does occasionally shift to me when he sees me, but he's also gotten a lot nicer over the years.

[1:41:47] That's weird.

[1:41:48] He's nothing but nice to me, guys.

[1:41:50] I know, because you're the cool one.

[1:41:51] Yeah, he wants you to like him.

[1:41:55] I won't like him.

[1:41:56] All right.

[1:41:57] Well, thank you to all of you for listening.

[1:42:03] You know, go forth and spread the word however you may like.

[1:42:07] But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:42:11] Hey, thanks Dirty D McSee. I've been Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:15] I'm Elia Kay. No, I don't know.

[1:42:19] I want to say thanks also to listeners.

[1:42:21] Thanks to Jordan Cowling for editing this mess into Professionability.

[1:42:25] I'm Elliot Kalin. And Jesse, what's your name?

[1:42:28] Jesse Bellar. See ya!

Dan McCoy

[1:42:41] On this episode, we discuss Call of the Wild.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:45] Technically, the Call of the Wild.

[1:42:47] But why start being pedantic now?

Ep. #321 - The Call of the Wild, w/ Jesse Thorn

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