FH Mini 10 - Detectives! w/ John Hodgman and David Rees

[0:00] Hey, it's me, John Hodgman, host of The Flop House.

[0:07] It's another episode where we don't watch a movie, and I come by for some reason.

[0:12] I'm here with our friends, Elliot Kalin.

[0:14] Hi, Elliot.

[0:15] Oh, hey, John.

[0:16] I'm glad you've taken the reins.

[0:18] Dan McCoy.

[0:19] Hi, Dan.

[0:20] Hey, could you come do this every time?

[0:21] Because I don't know what I'm doing.

[0:24] And Stuart Wellington, moving along.

[0:26] Oh, hey, how you doing?

[0:28] Great to be here.

[0:29] Oh, great to see you, or not see you, but hear you.

[0:31] And our extra special guest, my colleague, friend, and dear collaborator in a project

[0:38] that we will be discussing later on in this episode, David Rees.

[0:42] Hi, thanks for having me, John.

[0:45] That's my pleasure.

[0:46] Of course, The Flop House comes to you every week from MaximumFun.org with a discussion

[0:51] about a movie that did not do well.

[0:53] Usually, yeah.

[0:54] We sometimes do these mini episodes where we talk about whatever we want, and that's

[0:58] all I know about them.

[1:00] Dan, can you tell me what these mini episodes are about?

[1:03] Well, they're pretty freeform.

[1:05] We just do whatever we like.

[1:07] Although, John, it sounded like you were going to launch into an ad for Lucky Strike cigarettes

[1:13] or some other old-time radio sponsor.

[1:18] Right.

[1:20] Our sponsor this week is Striker.

[1:23] Are you tired of going out to the bodega to get cigarettes?

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[1:33] We believe so much in these cigarettes that we bought the factory in Germany to send them

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[1:41] By the way, don't smoke cigarettes, everyone.

[1:43] Thanks.

[1:44] Good.

[1:45] You covered it.

[1:46] Good save.

[1:47] John Hodgman and David Rees are here in large part because they have a new show coming out

[1:50] called Dicktown, and we'll get to that in a moment.

[1:52] But what I really want to talk about right now is, now, David, you probably don't recall,

[1:58] I met you once before at the wedding of our mutual friend, Mr. Brock Mahan, also Elliot's

[2:06] very close friend, and what I recall about this is we had a pleasant interaction, and

[2:12] then because it was a cash bar for some reason, I offered to buy you a drink.

[2:17] Because Brock's not made of money, Dan.

[2:19] Excuse me.

[2:20] Okay.

[2:21] I'm going to stand up for one of my oldest friends.

[2:24] If there's anything one should have at a wedding.

[2:27] Amazingly, Brock did not make a trillion dollars being a producer on Going Deep with David

[2:31] Rees.

[2:32] Yeah.

[2:33] No, we can all agree on this.

[2:34] A twice-canceled TV show that nobody watched, incredibly, that did not give him open bar

[2:38] money.

[2:39] I'll step up and say that I was waiting for a moment to mention Going Deep with David

[2:44] Rees, one of my favorite television shows of all time.

[2:46] Oh, thank you.

[2:47] I mean, all I'll say is much poorer people than Brock have had open bars, but the point

[2:52] is I was ...

[2:53] Wow.

[2:54] Name them.

[2:55] I want the names of three of them.

[2:57] Jeff, and Sally, and Max, but the point is ...

[3:03] Wait.

[3:04] Yes.

[3:05] Okay.

[3:06] Technically, it was three people that was the same wedding.

[3:07] It was a polyamorous wedding.

[3:08] Okay.

[3:09] You're right.

[3:10] Okay.

[3:11] They did have an open bar.

[3:12] I mean, the point of the story ...

[3:13] Just like they have an open marriage.

[3:14] Was merely that ...

[3:15] That was the slogan at the time, open bar, open marriage.

[3:16] An unspoken rule among throuple weddings, open bar, of course, is required.

[3:20] Yes.

[3:21] Yeah.

[3:22] Yeah.

[3:23] You've got to get the parents on board.

[3:24] Get the parents on board.

[3:25] Loosen them up.

[3:26] That's the way to do it.

[3:27] I'm ruining the day.

[3:28] You've got a lot of parents to please, you know.

[3:29] Ruining the day.

[3:30] I agreed to five.

[3:31] An open bar is a real guaranteed parent pleaser, I think.

[3:33] Depends on the parent.

[3:34] The point to be a pleaser ...

[3:35] The point of the story, such as it was, which is not much, was that ...

[3:41] You're a trust fund dilettante who requires everyone to spend as freely as you do.

[3:45] There was not an open bar.

[3:46] There's not an open bar, and I offered to buy David a drink because I had enjoyed his

[3:53] show so much, Going Deep with David Rees, and he looked at me like I was a crazy person,

[3:59] which is, to be fair, a totally reasonable reaction to that.

[4:04] Common.

[4:05] But that was our one meeting prior to this.

[4:08] That makes me ... I'm sorry.

[4:11] Maybe I was distracted because I was DJing the reception and I was really nervous about

[4:15] it.

[4:16] I think that was probably part of it.

[4:17] You did an excellent job.

[4:18] Did I say anything to you?

[4:19] I guarantee you, Dan, I asked you this while you were DJing and it really threw you off.

[4:22] That's my guarantee.

[4:23] No, no.

[4:24] We were in the bar section of the wedding.

[4:27] I am sure that you were doing a great job DJing.

[4:31] I'm sure you were distracted by it, and I'm also sure that I was deeply awkward because

[4:37] that is my default.

[4:38] Yeah, I mean, knowing Dan, you probably started the conversation by complaining that he wasn't

[4:43] playing enough B-sides.

[4:44] Yeah.

[4:45] I was like, Going Deep with David Rees, going the obvious choices with David Rees.

[4:56] I had been hired by Brock to DJ his wedding, and at the time, I was making a lot of mashups,

[5:03] and Brock had asked if I would play some mashups for the people dancing.

[5:09] I had made a couple using some songs that Brock and his wife, Ramel, really liked.

[5:14] I had made one that I thought was really terrific, that worked really well, which was Dancing

[5:19] on My Own by Robin with Girls Just Want to Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper, along with I Believe

[5:26] in a Thing Called Love by The Darkness.

[5:29] I was playing it, and someone came up to me and said, Can you just play Girls Just

[5:36] Want to Have Fun by yourself?

[5:39] I want to dispute that.

[5:41] I have nothing but warm memories of that wedding.

[5:44] I think you did a great job.

[5:45] It was a great wedding, but I have fraught memories, and I no longer speak to Brock or

[5:53] Ramel, and I'll resent them forever.

[5:56] Just kidding.

[5:57] I miss those guys.

[5:58] So, Dave, do you have any more grievances you want to air?

[6:02] I just like that Dan said he had nothing but warm memories, and he started by complaining

[6:06] about having to pay for his own drinks.

[6:07] I was not.

[6:08] No, I mean, if I had not been interrupted.

[6:09] Not a warm memory, sir, unless it's warmed by the fires of your rage and resentment.

[6:14] If anything, this was an apologia to Mr. Reese for putting him in an awkward position.

[6:21] I was probably socially awkward, too, and was probably scowling, just because that's

[6:25] how my face usually is.

[6:26] I'm sorry if you've spent a couple of years thinking I was a crappy DJ and an unpleasant

[6:30] person.

[6:31] You're not the only person who's thought that, though, so you don't have to feel bad.

[6:34] If anyone has a grievance, it's me, since I actually had requested to be the DJ, and

[6:39] they asked for mashups, and I played them what I called Monster Mash, which is a mashup

[6:43] of the Monster Mash and Suicide is Painless, the theme song for MASH, and they said, tonally,

[6:48] it didn't mix, and in retrospect, they were right, but I thought the title worked really

[6:52] well.

[6:53] Tonally, it didn't mix, and also, it sounded bad.

[6:56] Yes, oh, very much so.

[6:57] It was not danceable, which is ironic, since the Monster Mash is a song about a dance.

[7:02] Right.

[7:03] Yeah.

[7:04] And I guess Suicide is Painless is about the dance called war.

[7:07] Okay, so the point is that we're here to talk about-

[7:09] Commercial credit.

[7:10] We're here to talk about detectives today on the show.

[7:15] Well, John and David, would you please tell us about Dicktown, your upcoming program?

[7:19] Sir, John, do you want to-

[7:24] Let's coordinate our media strategy.

[7:26] Who takes the lead on this?

[7:27] Here we go.

[7:28] This is a good test run.

[7:30] All right, completely synchronized media strategy.

[7:34] I know what we do, John, alternate words.

[7:37] Here we go.

[7:38] Dicktown-

[7:39] Dicktown-

[7:40] Is-

[7:41] Our-

[7:42] New-

[7:43] Show-

[7:44] That-

[7:45] Premieres-

[7:46] On-

[7:47] FXX's-

[7:48] Anthology-

[7:49] Of-

[7:50] Short-form-

[7:51] Programming-

[7:56] Called-

[7:57] Cake-

[7:58] On-

[7:59] July-

[8:00] Ninth-

[8:01] And-

[8:02] Also-

[8:03] Available-

[8:04] Oh.

[8:05] On-

[8:06] Hulu-

[8:07] The-

[8:08] Following-

[8:09] Day.

[8:10] Wow.

[8:11] That was great.

[8:12] That was really good.

[8:13] That was really well done.

[8:14] That was a real tightrope, but you did it.

[8:21] Yeah.

[8:22] Yeah.

[8:23] You should have written the episodes that way.

[8:24] That was really successful.

[8:26] I was impressed by the following up of and with also.

[8:29] That's classic.

[8:30] Yeah.

[8:31] I was buying time.

[8:32] Beautifully.

[8:33] Beautifully done.

[8:34] And so Dicktown, if I understand correctly, it's a town where instead of people, everyone's

[8:38] a penis?

[8:39] No.

[8:41] We couldn't sell that version of it.

[8:43] They asked for something a little less esoteric.

[8:47] Here's the deal.

[8:48] David Rees and I were invited, we were invited, everyone, to come up with an idea for a short-form

[8:57] animated show for FXX's late-night anthology show, Cake.

[9:07] And we had an idea.

[9:08] We wanted to do an animated show about, a detective show, in which my character, named

[9:17] John Hunchman, is a former prodigal boy detective, a la Encyclopedia Brown.

[9:25] But now he has grown up, and he's in his 40s, and he's sad and alone, and he's still solving

[9:29] crimes for teenagers.

[9:32] And David Rees's character, David Purefoy, is my character's former high school bully

[9:38] and arch-enemy, who also has failed to thrive and is hanging around this town.

[9:44] And he has now become my driver and sort of hired muscle and unlikely friend.

[9:50] And we go episode after episode solving various mysteries for teenagers in this town.

[9:59] Check it out.

[10:00] This is a show with a lot of heart, a lot of warmth, and we knew, therefore, that FXX and

[10:07] its parent company FX and its parent company F would not be into it. And therefore, I had the

[10:15] idea... I'm sorry, David, to claim this inspiration. This is the longest word I've ever heard in my

[10:21] life. Was this the one-word description? Just kidding. Keep going. So, in any case, we had the

[10:30] idea to call it Dicktown. Dick as in detective, and also the fictional town in which the show is

[10:39] set is called Richardsville, North Carolina, and the locals call it Dicktown. And we thought that

[10:46] would bring FXX around to their subversive, provocative point of view, and it worked.

[10:56] But now, I don't like saying swear words. I don't like saying Dick all the time,

[11:02] but now we have a show called Dicktown, so it's called Dicktown.

[11:06] I think the ad campaign I saw for it where it says, she wants the D, and then parentheses

[11:12] Dicktown has not helped with the heartwarming feel that you're going for.

[11:16] You saw all those billboards that I put up?

[11:18] Yeah. I mean, you put them all up in my neighborhood, so it's really been hard to

[11:22] avoid them. And my son was like, what's that? And I said, don't look.

[11:26] There has been so much advertising throughout Hollywood, New York, Chicago, all across the

[11:33] country. I mean, people, by this point, are incredibly tired of hearing about Dicktown

[11:40] in their sponsored content on their Instagrams.

[11:43] And this is the last stop on the Dicktown tour, the D-town tour.

[11:47] And the DTT.

[11:49] I would like to say this is the sort of very hyper-specific, esoteric, not relevant to the

[11:55] zeitgeist of 2020 premise that is catnip to me. It is exactly the thing that I love.

[12:03] Well, that's because we made it in 2018.

[12:08] It takes a long time.

[12:08] The pilot is all about Charlottesville, Virginia and the United Way Railroad.

[12:13] Oh, boy.

[12:13] Now, are the mysteries solved, Encyclopedia Brown style, in that they mostly depend on

[12:20] where penguins live? Like, which pole the penguins fall in?

[12:23] Whether mules can have children.

[12:24] Trivia-based solutions?

[12:26] Yeah, exactly.

[12:28] It's a mix. It's a mystery of the week. And John's character, John Hunchman, does know a

[12:34] lot of trivia. I think there's some bird-related trivia in the pilot. And actually, there's some

[12:39] bird-related clues in the season finale. So he's a well-rounded, well-read guy. In one episode,

[12:48] he brags about his activity on Goodreads.com. But there's no replacing shoe leather, you know,

[12:54] and just elbow grease. And so there's a lot of research and interviewing suspects and driving

[12:59] around in my character's Fiero and tracking down leads and corralling people, sometimes

[13:06] bullying them into telling us what we want to know. It's a mix of investigative paradigms.

[13:15] One of the things that I always loved about Encyclopedia Brown was the solutions. And you

[13:23] would go to the back of the book after you read the mystery to find the solution. The solution

[13:28] was always like, Encyclopedia Brown knew that the car hood would still be hot if the villain

[13:39] had driven as far as he had. And therefore, the baby dancing on the car hood would have been burned

[13:46] horribly on his soles or whatever.

[13:48] Oh, yeah, the case of the dancing baby hood.

[13:50] That's right. And they always end with, and so faced with the logic that their alibi made no

[13:59] sense, the criminal confessed immediately to the crime, which it should have always...

[14:03] Bugs Meaney was sentenced to life in prison.

[14:06] And whenever I would read this to my son, I would always change it to,

[14:10] and faced with the illogic of his alibi, the criminal pushed the 14-year-old into the dirt

[14:18] and ran away.

[14:21] Well, that's like in the beginning of all the books, they'd be like,

[14:25] I forgot Encyclopedia Brown's real first name, but that his dad was the chief of police.

[14:30] What?

[14:31] Leroy.

[14:32] Leroy?

[14:33] Bad Leroy Brown.

[14:33] He was bad boy Leroy because he would actually, because he was bad. That's right. Because in the

[14:37] last book, they revealed that he was solving these minor crimes to cover up the fact that

[14:41] he was the crime king of the Midwest. And he had this network of child thieves. But in the beginning,

[14:46] he'd always be like, police chief Brown wished that he could tell the world about his brilliant

[14:50] son. I was like, well, why can't he? Hold on a second.

[14:53] Well, I mean, I don't know.

[14:57] Revealing that all of the law enforcement of the town had been subcontracted.

[15:04] I mean, better to just take credit for his son's work in a big eyes type scenario?

[15:09] I don't think so.

[15:10] No. If chief Brown, and by the way, Encyclopedia Brown's first name is Leroy,

[15:17] I just looked it up. If chief Brown had revealed that his son had solved every crime in Idaville

[15:24] for the past impossible number of years, because it's all Encyclopedia Brown time,

[15:32] then immediately there would be a call to defund the police,

[15:36] get rid of the police department, because they're not doing anything. It's all this one

[15:40] middle schooler.

[15:42] Yeah. I mean, when we say abolish the police, what we're just saying is replace them with

[15:47] Encyclopedia Brown. Let kids do it for free. Let kids do it for free.

[15:53] So to answer your question, Dan...

[15:53] Let the kids find the tampons and the milkshakes.

[15:59] That's about today's news. I didn't make that up. That's not a dictum.

[16:01] That's incredible.

[16:02] That's real life.

[16:03] I know.

[16:05] Ripped from the headlines.

[16:06] Maybe that'll be saved for season two, which comes out 2029.

[16:13] The Hardy boys also had a... Their dad was a detective, right?

[16:18] Oh, yeah.

[16:18] He was Ed Hardy, the clothing magnate.

[16:20] Oh, right. Okay. He was detecting new fashions.

[16:24] Now, my childhood child detectives of choice were the three investigators,

[16:30] and I've mentioned this to Stuart and Allie before, who were not familiar with this.

[16:35] Are either of you three investigators, men?

[16:38] Never heard of them, no.

[16:39] But that's what you called yourself and your two brothers.

[16:44] It was an Alfred Hitchcock branded series. It was one of these things where he put his name on...

[16:48] In the early episodes, he funded them, I guess, because they solved the crime for him.

[16:54] Wait, it was a TV series?

[16:57] No, no. It was a book series. It was a Hardy Boys-esque series.

[17:02] Jupiter Jones was the smart one, and then they had, I don't know, the bookish one or the tough guy.

[17:08] Two others.

[17:08] Yeah. Jupiter Jones plus two was basically three investigators.

[17:12] It was Jupiter Jones, and then John Marsh, and then Bob Stevenson.

[17:17] So only Jupiter Jones had the really interesting name.

[17:20] I think Bob Crenshaw might have been one. I don't know. It's not even important.

[17:23] I was just curious. There's this whole industry of boy detectives.

[17:27] Whether or not you made those books up or not.

[17:30] It was a fever dream.

[17:32] I had a dream where Alfred Hitchcock was bankrolling some middle school detectives,

[17:37] and one of them was named Jupiter. Did I imagine this? Yes, Dan, you did.

[17:43] Hashtag Hitchcock is cancelled party.

[17:48] I have a very vague memory of the three investigators, but I think that I kind of...

[17:53] disdained them as an off-brand imitator. A licensed Hitchcock property, if you will.

[18:00] Right.

[18:01] So that's where John lands on it. He is a hater.

[18:05] Investigator hater, yeah.

[18:07] Don't care for them. Gator hater.

[18:10] No, wait. So you hate investigators, not gators, not alligators, right?

[18:14] Because alligators are great.

[18:15] All of them.

[18:16] Really? Even alligators?

[18:18] How would you say that alligators are great?

[18:21] It's like the closest we're ever going to get to a dinosaur.

[18:23] Yeah, I'm with Elliot. I think that's true.

[18:25] I think they're cool.

[18:26] Birds, Elliot?

[18:27] Dan, don't be both pedantic and naive.

[18:32] You're being a pedant because yes, birds are dinosaurs that have evolved to be tiny

[18:36] and can fly some of the time and morons.

[18:39] Alligators, however, they've got the thing that dinosaurs really have going for them,

[18:43] which is size and teeth.

[18:46] Sorry.

[18:46] No, no, those two. That was the second thing I was going to say. Yeah.

[18:48] They got those big teeth. You can wrestle them. You can't wrestle a bird.

[18:52] You'd look like a crazy person.

[18:53] Wrestle an alligator? Do that right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. People would love it.

[18:57] I would like to take issue with the implication that you just made

[19:00] that birds are dumber than dinosaurs.

[19:05] Do you believe this to be true, sir?

[19:07] Yeah, 100,000 percent. 100,000 percent, sir.

[19:12] All right. I think you're influenced by the clever girls you saw

[19:15] in a little movie called Jurassic Park.

[19:17] That was it was it or was it not a clever girl?

[19:20] It was a clever girl.

[19:21] And have you ever seen have you ever seen a bird that one, you would consider clever

[19:24] and two, you would be so informal with as to call a girl?

[19:29] Elliot?

[19:29] You win.

[19:30] Yes, sir.

[19:31] May I say, fuck you?

[19:36] I mean, you can say I'm not quite quite sure why it applies, but.

[19:40] I I mean, I how I don't I don't know what I mean.

[19:44] I believe the standards on your show is that swearing is allowed, right?

[19:47] Yeah. Encouraged.

[19:49] All right, then how fucking dare you?

[19:52] The the the Corvid family of birds.

[19:55] We're talking about crows.

[19:56] We're talking about ravens are incredibly intelligent.

[20:00] They've been proven time and again that they're capable of manipulating things into tools.

[20:11] They remember faces.

[20:13] They hold grudges and they teach their grudges to their young.

[20:18] I consider myself a Corvette at heart and tomorrow I'm going to train my young to hold

[20:25] a grudge against your face because those are smart birds.

[20:30] That's very smart.

[20:31] It's not quite having a novelty song about how you've got to love them because they're

[20:35] the baby, but that's pretty smart.

[20:37] Yeah.

[20:38] It's not dinosaur smart.

[20:39] Those aren't dinosaurs.

[20:40] Those are Muppets.

[20:43] Pigeons can navigate by architecture.

[20:46] Go on.

[20:48] That's it.

[20:49] That's smart.

[20:50] That's it.

[20:51] That means they're smart.

[20:52] Smart microphone.

[20:53] Yeah.

[20:54] David Reese, we saw some alligators in Florida when we took a fan boat ride.

[20:59] Oh my gosh.

[21:00] What were they doing?

[21:01] Just lying around in the mud, waiting for an opportunity to eat a thing.

[21:06] Sunning themselves.

[21:07] Right?

[21:08] Yeah.

[21:09] That's what a genius does.

[21:10] The genius is like, hey, why am I busting my ass working day in day out when I can just

[21:13] lay out here?

[21:14] When the government will pay me just to stay home, I make more money with this COVID stimulus

[21:19] than I ever did at my job.

[21:21] Exactly.

[21:22] Classic alligator thinking.

[21:23] Yeah.

[21:25] Graham must hate alligators.

[21:26] You're saying when you were taking that fan boat, you actually asked those alligators

[21:30] for directions and they couldn't give them to you because they can't navigate by architecture,

[21:34] right?

[21:35] Yeah, because the swamp was filled with skyscrapers and plazas.

[21:38] There's too many buildings here and we don't know where we are.

[21:41] We're looking for an example of the Bauhaus style and the alligators could not answer.

[21:46] This is a brutalist building.

[21:48] Now, John and David.

[21:50] Quick tangent to shout out David Reese's podcast, Election Profit Makers, which is

[21:56] the number one podcast for all of your election oriented results betting needs.

[22:05] It's a weekly podcast between David Starley Kine and David's friend from middle school

[22:10] in North Carolina, John Kimball, talking about the various investments they're making on

[22:17] the political markets on predicted.org.

[22:21] There's a huge sideline to the podcast talking about the best skylines in the world.

[22:24] Let me tell you something right now, those alligators don't know what a skyline looks

[22:32] like.

[22:33] They can't even, you know what I mean?

[22:35] They assume it's just chili.

[22:37] They're only familiar with the chili brand.

[22:41] Before we move on, I do want to ask one question regarding this.

[22:45] I know you've got a pretty packed agenda, Dan.

[22:48] I have a question regarding this fan boat tour.

[22:52] Now, on your tour, as has happened on my tour, and I don't want to brag that I've got fan

[22:58] boat tour money.

[23:00] But apparently not wedding bar drink money.

[23:04] That's right.

[23:05] That's the opposite, my friend.

[23:07] I was complaining about it, but I was offering.

[23:10] You know me, Dan McCoy, open bar fan boy.

[23:15] I am an open bar fan boy.

[23:18] No, I just wanted to know whether on your tour, as on my tour, the guide used giant

[23:26] marshmallows to get the alligators to come.

[23:30] No, wait, the marshmallow shooter.

[23:34] David's face was so disgusted by the idea.

[23:37] I was told that because it was like a bigger contrast against the water, the white marshmallow

[23:44] that the alligators would come to the boat and have their marshmallow treat.

[23:50] He doesn't mean it that way, Stuart.

[23:52] The alligators were not orgasmic at the sight of these marshmallows.

[23:56] I was going to say, that's why they're so lazy, right?

[24:00] I mean, it seems to work.

[24:02] Wait, would they actually eat the marshmallows, or would they just come closer to investigate it?

[24:06] No, they loved these marshmallows.

[24:08] These alligators had a sweet tooth, or several.

[24:10] That makes me sad to think about animals eating processed food.

[24:14] We did not have the marshmallow lure.

[24:18] We were offered plastic tubs of marshmallow fluff to throw at the alligators.

[24:26] And we did that, and we just bounced them off their heads, clunk, clunk, clunk,

[24:30] over and over again.

[24:32] The alligators were like, what, what, what?

[24:34] Sorry, what's the skyline? I don't even know.

[24:36] They were so stupid.

[24:40] So, guys, I've never written a TV show.

[24:43] But was there a point when you were thinking about making the main character a dinosaur?

[24:52] There is a movie that I'm thinking of.

[24:56] Is it Theodore Rex?

[24:58] And I don't know the name of it. Say it again?

[25:01] Theodore Rex with Whoopi Goldberg, where she's partnered with a dinosaur cop?

[25:05] Is that real?

[25:07] That's a real movie, it's set in the future.

[25:09] Whoopi Goldberg's a future cop, and she's partnered with a clumsy dinosaur cop.

[25:13] And it's the movie that I believe the producers had to sue her to force her to appear in it.

[25:17] It's weird, though, because dinosaurs are from the past, Elliot.

[25:21] It is not animated. It is a live-action film.

[25:24] What kind of dinosaur is it?

[25:26] It's like a human-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex in your sneakers, I believe.

[25:30] I've been dialing up a photo so we can all...

[25:33] I don't know if that's visible.

[25:35] Oh my gosh.

[25:37] There you go.

[25:39] It looks like one of those fake movies they make.

[25:41] Yeah, it looks like a poster in the background of a movie.

[25:45] You can tell from that poster that that dinosaur has an attitude.

[25:49] You know?

[25:51] Of course.

[25:53] We are not as creative as the people who came up with Theodore Rex.

[25:56] It's all humans in our world.

[25:58] Okay, cool.

[26:00] Sorry if I ruined your promotions here, guys.

[26:04] No, it's just...

[26:06] Now we realize we have a fatal oversight in the heart of our show, but that's fine.

[26:10] We can figure that out.

[26:12] I mean, usually, Stuart, when they're promoting something,

[26:15] they don't want the host to give a glimpse of something more beautiful than it might have been.

[26:20] I really appreciate David Reese's incredibly professional segue back to promoting our show.

[26:29] Can we go back to Theodore Rex for a second?

[26:32] That is a movie that I never watched, even though I worked in a video rental place,

[26:39] when it came out.

[26:41] And I could have easily watched it five times for nothing.

[26:44] Has anyone ever seen it?

[26:46] I have only ever seen clips of it.

[26:49] I've never seen it all the way through.

[26:51] Yeah, the VHS cover fascinated me for years, but I've never seen it.

[26:55] I read the book Theodore Rex, but that's volume two of Edmund Morris' Theodore Roosevelt series.

[27:00] So that's not related to the film at all.

[27:03] It's one of those properties that gets optioned, and then 20 years later,

[27:07] they finally make something with it, and it's just like a game of telephone,

[27:10] and it just becomes something so completely different.

[27:12] They're like, Eddie, good news.

[27:14] They're finally pulling the plug on Theodore Rex.

[27:16] Oh, the story of his presidency?

[27:18] Yeah, they made a few changes.

[27:20] It's now called John Carter.

[27:25] There's a book series, or at least one book,

[27:28] about a world where there's a dinosaur that is a detective and wears a human suit

[27:33] because dinosaurs are secretly still living among us, but they wear human suits to blend in.

[27:37] I don't remember what it's called, and I have not read it.

[27:39] Is that for kids?

[27:41] No, it is not for kids.

[27:43] Just like a three-piece suit?

[27:45] Like a human mask.

[27:47] Is it self-published erotica, that kind of stuff that you see on Amazon?

[27:50] Is it like that?

[27:52] I haven't read it, so I'm going to have to assume yes.

[27:54] No, no, it was a real book from a real publisher.

[27:57] The Dinosaur Erotica is hilarious, though.

[28:00] Pounded in the butt by a velociraptor or whatever?

[28:04] That's the title, yeah.

[28:06] That was based on The Power Broker by Robert Caro, but it just went through a lot of changes over the years.

[28:12] Bobby, Bobby Cares.

[28:14] We got some good news.

[28:16] They're finally pulling the trigger on that Power Broker book.

[28:18] Oh, good, who's going to play Robert Caro?

[28:20] Ooh, he's not in it anymore.

[28:21] And when I say that Dinosaur Erotica is hilarious, I in no way mean to judge or belittle those who are aroused by Dinosaur Erotica.

[28:29] I merely just say that, to me, it is a humorous assemblage of parts.

[28:34] Look, I mean, Elliot, let's just say this.

[28:37] Even normal sex is hilarious.

[28:39] Normal sex is hilarious.

[28:41] Unless you're the person involved in it and you're super into it, it is objectively hilarious.

[28:48] I feel bad I use the word normal sex as if there's such a thing as normal sex.

[28:54] There's not such a thing as normal sex.

[28:56] All sex, I meant to say, is hilarious from what is...

[29:00] It's all a humorous assemblage of parts.

[29:03] Yeah, that's the human body.

[29:05] I forget what stand-up was it, was it Rita Rudner or someone who referred to...

[29:10] I think I've talked about this in a Flop House before and I've forgotten, but it referred to a naked man as looking like a half-decorated Christmas tree.

[29:17] And I've always thought that was such a funny line.

[29:19] And we'll think about it while I'm getting changed and I'm like, yeah, that's kind of what it feels like.

[29:24] There's a time during quarantine where I was like, I'm just going to embrace the fact that I'm 42 years old.

[29:30] And I'm not going to worry about the fact that I'm walking nude through my home wearing woolen slippers.

[29:37] I mean, you should worry about that a little bit.

[29:40] No, I'm just like, you know what, I've got a pot belly.

[29:44] I'm naked, but for footwear and I don't care.

[29:47] Is it cold where you are? Why are you wearing wool slippers?

[29:52] I'm glad you asked.

[29:55] I wear slippers because I do not like the feeling of dirt being covered.

[30:00] picked up on my feet and I have hardwood floors and yeah no matter how clean you

[30:04] get your floors you're just gonna get like

[30:06] crud on your feet so

[30:09] the detective in me just felt like something wasn't adding up with that story

[30:14] you gotta

[30:15] you gotta follow, you gotta unravel every clue

[30:18] also any detective would notice that the lint on Dan's feet

[30:23] matches only one apartment in all of Brooklyn

[30:26] and then he would be picked for the

[30:29] for the suspect immediately because he was walking around with

[30:32] Dan McCoy lint, floor lint on his feet

[30:35] I mean speaking of detectives which was originally our idea for this mini

[30:39] Anonymous

[30:40] Anonymous Rex is the name of the novel Elliot. Anonymous Rex, okay thank you

[30:45] by Eric Garcia

[30:47] to me the most hilarious

[30:49] sorry go on

[30:51] that novel is not, I don't think, related to Theodore Rex in any way

[30:54] other than

[30:55] also positing a world where humans and dinosaurs coexist but not in like a

[30:58] biblical way

[30:59] just in like a

[31:01] film noir type way

[31:04] it was it was followed by a prequel called Casual Rex

[31:08] in 2002

[31:10] and then a sequel called

[31:12] Hot and Sweaty Rex

[31:14] circling back around to uh... dinosaur porn

[31:17] yeah let's talk about Rex baby

[31:24] sorry I just wanted to close that loop

[31:28] yeah and then of course the last book

[31:30] Homerectual

[31:32] all I want to do is solve mysteries in a human suit

[31:36] I'm Anonymous Rex

[31:37] that's a song right?

[31:39] yeah

[31:41] Dan, detectives

[31:43] I am a big fan of

[31:46] Sherlock Holmes as are

[31:47] millions and millions of people over the years

[31:49] but like as a child

[31:51] he made a huge impression on me and I just loved

[31:54] when Sherlock Holmes was a child he made an impression on you?

[31:57] no when I was a child

[31:59] oh because I was going to say you're going to love Encyclopedia Brown

[32:02] all of my heroes were outdated figures when I was a child I love Sherlock Holmes

[32:06] I love Robin Hood

[32:08] but uh...

[32:08] and Prime Minister Disraeli

[32:13] Voltaire

[32:14] uh... no I just

[32:17] I loved that

[32:18] there would be these things where

[32:20] there would be dirt on someone's shoes and Holmes would be like

[32:23] oh I wrote a monograph on the different types of dirt in London

[32:28] I happen to be an expert like anything that would come up

[32:31] Holmes wrote a monograph on it whether you know like oh this is pipe ash and I

[32:35] know exactly what type

[32:36] pipe ash this is and

[32:39] look I don't I don't have a problem with it like the

[32:41] like the beauty of the Holmes stories was always that the characters were so

[32:46] like indelibly written and uh... lovable for all their

[32:51] uh...

[32:52] for all Holmes' arrogance

[32:53] but it was like kind of an early uh... example of like

[32:58] oh this character will have whatever superpower is necessary at the moment

[33:02] yeah and you know the appeal of Holmes too I think is

[33:07] uh...

[33:07] very powerful

[33:10] uh... because he presents as a highly competent and successful

[33:14] sexless weird

[33:15] and as I was a sexless weird

[33:18] growing up and arguably still

[33:21] the detective who was able to

[33:25] uh...

[33:27] live outside of society as I think most

[33:30] classic whodunit detectives do

[33:33] and connect

[33:35] connect the dots to explain how humans

[33:38] live and exist

[33:40] and yet remain apart from them that was very

[33:44] seductive to me

[33:46] I can see how humans interact with each other but I don't have to be a

[33:49] part of them

[33:50] and I'll describe what kind of

[33:52] what kind of dust is on their suit jacket or whatever

[33:56] I think that's an interesting point because like I do think that the most

[34:00] sort of lovable detectives are the ones that seem to exist

[34:05] the most apart from society like

[34:07] for instance there is a there's a reason why it is a like funny trope that

[34:11] a bunch of detectives

[34:13] live off on houseboats somewhere because that's a weird way to live

[34:17] take it away john

[34:18] yeah oh you have a thing on this do you have a type 5 on houseboats

[34:22] just that my character in dicktown

[34:25] uh... john uh... john hunchman lives on a houseboat

[34:28] same deal

[34:29] what's the name of the boat

[34:31] uh... oh that's uh... there's a big reveal

[34:34] spoiler in the penultimate episode I think

[34:37] then don't tell me don't tell me it is it is unnamed but then the name is

[34:40] revealed at the end

[34:42] that's based on travis mcgee's books right john because you were a big travis

[34:46] mcgee fan

[34:47] well it was it was two things because you

[34:50] david really wanted to create a uh...

[34:53] simon and simon type

[34:54] tv show

[34:55] right didn't you want to do it simon and simon

[34:58] inspiration something yeah guys hanging out on the water like living in that

[35:03] liminal space between the water and the land i guess is that simon and simon or

[35:07] hardcastle and mccormick miami vice he lives on a boat

[35:10] on a houseboat

[35:11] that's right a lot of that lives on a houseboat

[35:14] and travis mcgee is a famous

[35:17] essentially a detective

[35:19] uh... created by johnny mcdonald

[35:21] in the late sixties through the early eighties like twenty

[35:24] five to five hundred novels

[35:26] and he always lives on a houseboat

[35:28] as you say dan he like he lives apart

[35:31] uh... from regular society

[35:34] and in dicktown

[35:36] uh... the character that i play john hunchman

[35:40] gets a houseboat specifically because he wants to be that kind of detective

[35:44] it's like

[35:45] it's a sad aspirational

[35:47] purchase for him

[35:48] it's not what it's not that he actually lives on the

[35:51] on the limits of of uh... civilization is that he want

[35:54] he wants to pretend that he does

[35:55] so now that's that's terrific

[35:58] so is that his way uh... is that his way of uh... becoming a like a grown-up

[36:02] detective whereas he was like a like a kid detective

[36:06] when he was younger

[36:07] yeah he thought he thought this is going to be

[36:09] buying a houseboat was the next step into becoming

[36:13] uh... an adult

[36:15] who would eventually have adult clients but

[36:17] that never materialized for him

[36:20] and he just kept working for teenagers and

[36:23] ended up being weirder and weirder

[36:25] and legitimately more and more outside of mainstream society

[36:29] uh... such that he only has one friend who is david purifoy played by david reese

[36:34] the appeal of houseboats i think is

[36:37] kind of

[36:38] focused on teenagers

[36:40] like i think the older you get the more nervous you get about the idea of going

[36:43] to somebody's house that is also a boat

[36:48] in zodiac

[36:50] does robert downey jr.'s character wind up on a houseboat yeah he ends up on a houseboat

[36:54] just playing pong all day

[36:57] speaking of good

[36:58] who doesn't see that movie in a long time it's a great movie

[37:02] such a terrific movie

[37:04] yeah and there's a houseboat on it

[37:06] and the books that i've been reading a lot of in quarantine

[37:09] the jack reacher novels by lee child

[37:12] jack reacher doesn't live on a houseboat but he's a drifter he has no fixed

[37:16] address and he just travels around by a bus

[37:20] around america and his only possessions are

[37:24] a uh... folding collapsible toothbrush

[37:27] and uh... very tiny billfold he only started carrying photo ID after nine

[37:32] eleven

[37:33] so there was a time when he just carried cash and a folding toothbrush

[37:38] and when he

[37:40] his relationship to his wardrobe is very interesting

[37:43] so jack reacher if you guys ever read these books

[37:46] i've read one of them

[37:48] okay and i remember the possession i remember the most is his hands

[37:53] that are the size of christmas hams yeah

[37:56] he's six foot five he's a former military police investigator

[38:01] he was a victim of post-cold war downsizing and now he travels

[38:05] america stumbling into

[38:06] mysteries and solving them and beating the shit out of people and also shooting them

[38:09] with the toughest guns

[38:11] but he sounds like the villain of every other story right now he's a good

[38:15] guy

[38:16] but he is a drift you know he's in a houseboat of the mind he has no fixed

[38:19] address he has no real

[38:23] he you know obviously he makes love to a lot of beautiful and

[38:26] independent women but none of those relationships really last but what i

[38:30] wanted to say that his clothes because they're like why don't why don't you

[38:33] ever take me over to your place and he's like well i live on a bus

[38:36] right

[38:37] he uh... under the line that drifter

[38:40] i thought i'd take me out to like a nice dinner

[38:43] i don't have any other clothes it's just this let me tell you about his clothes this is very

[38:46] interesting elliot

[38:47] listen to this

[38:49] he does something

[38:53] to put this in context

[38:55] when i was in the nineties

[38:57] when i was living in the nineties

[38:59] i studied abroad in england

[39:02] and one of my flatmates was a british guy who came from a little bit of money

[39:06] and he said the best thing about going to istanbul

[39:09] was the clothes were so cheap that you could buy a new t-shirt every day and at

[39:12] the end of the day just throw it in the garbage and buy a new one

[39:15] so jack reacher that always stuck with me

[39:18] you'll relate to this guy dan

[39:19] this is uh... one of your

[39:23] so jack reacher does the same thing he buys his clothes at hardware stores he

[39:27] buys the most utilitarian cheap clothes that he can

[39:30] and at the end of the night if he's lucky enough to be sleeping in a bed

[39:34] he takes off all his clothes and he puts them under the mattress to press them as

[39:38] he sleeps on them you understand what i'm saying because he doesn't have an ironing board

[39:41] or a steamer

[39:42] so he sleeps on his clothes and then the next morning

[39:45] he wakes up and they're pressed and then after a few days he throws them in the

[39:48] garbage and buys a new set of clothes isn't that cool

[39:51] i mean

[39:52] he throws them in the garbage and then goes into a hardware store and buys a new set of clothes

[40:00] Mean the order probably I assume is a little different than as as reported

[40:04] But I I read the book I read I liked quite a bit

[40:08] I was like, I don't know whether you guys kind of went through this

[40:12] Progression, but when I was a much younger person, I was like much smarter. I started out younger

[40:22] You're saying you were snobbier than when you were critiquing David Reese's friend having a cash bar

[40:29] I was snobbier when I was younger and then as I grew older

[40:33] I embraced the fact that I was turning into a middle-aged man, and I'm like, yeah

[40:38] I will read these airport thrillers and I will enjoy them

[40:43] They're pretty good

[40:44] Which one did you read? I think I read the I think I read the first one

[40:47] I think I really was that kind of person with his brother. Oh

[40:52] Maybe not. I did. Here's the thing. I actually this is I went through this thing where I'm like, okay

[40:58] Which of these Lee child Jack Reacher books day and I like went down the list in Amazon

[41:03] I'm like none of this sounds familiar to me, right?

[41:07] But like that's kind of the beauty of them because like they all could be the one I read

[41:12] It becomes a sludge and you can't separate out which event happened in which novel

[41:18] Yeah, and it's more like each novel hits these beats these stations of the cross

[41:22] Reacher stumbles into a new location a

[41:25] Woman needs his help

[41:26] He gets in over his head for a while and then he just goes buck wild and kills a bunch of bad guys

[41:30] And that's yeah, that's the detective template. I mean my my mom who is no longer alive

[41:36] loved reading detective fiction and

[41:39] She read the George Simenon novels all the Agatha Christie's and all the PD James

[41:46] everything and many a time when I was

[41:50] You know sort of in the in the in the prime of my brain development

[41:54] 18 19 years old

[41:56] My mom would be reading a book and just say oh

[42:00] I've read this before totally and I would yeah, I would laugh and laugh at her my own mom

[42:06] Like how do you not know what books you've read? How can you not remember and now I appreciate as someone who is

[42:13] Now her age

[42:15] Like the these books are not meant to

[42:18] Necessarily exist as

[42:21] individual works of fiction

[42:23] but to be windows into a world that you want to revisit from time to time and

[42:28] Be and to connect with the characters that you care about and and are a consolation to you

[42:35] In in our ties and rather than stimulating

[42:38] Yeah, exactly. So and you know many a time I would wander, you know

[42:43] Through the house and see her sleeping soundly with a book propped over her closed eyes because it

[42:48] Totally calmed her down and let her sleep. So

[42:52] Yeah, I think these characters are not designed to be I mean Travis McGree

[42:57] Travis McGee grew over the course of the various novels that he was in

[43:02] for the most part, it's just like you're hanging out with your friends and

[43:06] And the friends are consoling to you especially because they are outsiders and either that's that makes you feel

[43:13] Comforted because you are also feel like an outsider or that makes you feel like if you're a middle-aged dad

[43:19] it's really cool to read about a guy who buys his clothes from the hardware store and puts it under his mattress and then throws it

[43:25] away because this this guy is enjoying a life of perfect freedom and

[43:30] And you've you've taken on the responsibilities of adulthood and you don't want them I just imagine

[43:36] Oh, sorry. I just always imagine him rinsing out his underpants in the hotel sink at the end of the day

[43:41] Yeah, he does that too. He I mean, yeah

[43:48] It's just like I feel like that is a fair price to pay for

[43:52] Total freedom is like at the end of the day

[43:54] You're still gonna have to wash out your underpants in the sink and then hope they dry by tomorrow morning, right?

[43:58] Yeah, yeah, cuz it's harder to like kick other people's butts when you're squishing around and in wet underpants

[44:05] it is

[44:06] it is interesting to me that this world of

[44:10] mercy this world of murder

[44:13] largely mostly murder is

[44:15] So sort of comforting because like I mean like it that you know

[44:20] There's the word for it cozy mysteries like Audrey is a big aficionado of cozy mysteries. I'm working from home writing

[44:27] Still for The Daily Show

[44:28] But I hear her in the other room list like watching cozy mysteries and I find that cozy because I grew up with my parents

[44:35] watching mystery on PBS

[44:38] And so

[44:43] So watch the title sequence and then as soon as over I would be like not interested and I would turn it off

[44:47] I love that title sequence

[44:49] Yeah

[44:53] Well, let me if I'm if I

[44:56] Hey, Dan. Yes, Elliot. Excuse me for a moment. Sure. Sure, Dan

[45:01] Could you could you define for your listeners who may not know the term what a cozy mystery is?

[45:07] Uh, I would think I tend to think that a cozy mystery is not so much

[45:12] So there's the hard-boiled American style, which is your Philip Marlowe's and stuff and often

[45:19] Also in an American tradition the detective is part of the police force a cozy mystery

[45:24] it's more like there is this outsider character who is

[45:30] Often eccentric and

[45:32] these mysteries will take place and say a manor house where

[45:37] there's a limited pool of

[45:41] Suspects or a small English countryside village or a train

[45:48] Like an Agatha Agatha Christie. Yes, like

[45:52] Not necessarily locked room mystery, but a but a closed environment mystery and they're not in place. They're not gritty

[46:00] Yes, they're not gritty as much as anyone dying can be charming. These cozy mysteries are that I

[46:07] Mean, that's murder. She wrote. I mean that should be a horrifying

[46:10] Ever this woman goes she's confronted with murder

[46:14] Preceded death. Yeah, and and no one puts two and two together that she's doing it

[46:20] Yeah, that she's the one link between those murders, but like her life should be and then they unending. I mean and she worked at that

[46:27] barbershop

[46:28] Slash pie shop where everyone kept disappearing

[46:31] Yeah, and she has a history of making arrows

[46:35] Yeah

[46:37] Yeah, yeah, then she and she did try I mean luckily for all of us

[46:41] She was assassinated at that presidential convention before she could set up a communist agent as president of the United States

[46:47] with her brainwashed

[46:50] but not before she was on the

[46:53] the the SS Karnak

[46:56] Which is the ship that Hercule Poirot boards in murder on the Nile?

[47:01] The 1978 movie with Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot

[47:06] Which really sent Poirot?

[47:08] into the stratosphere of American celebrity

[47:12] Oh, yeah, Poirot couldn't go anywhere after that without getting mobbed

[47:19] Judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor judge John Hodgman ruled in my friend's favor judge John Hodgman ruled in my favor

[47:27] I'm judge John Hodgman

[47:29] You're hearing the voices of real litigants real people who have submitted disputes to my internet court at the judge John Hodgman podcast

[47:36] I hear their cases. I ask them questions. They're good ones. And then I tell them who's right and who's wrong

[47:42] Thanks to judge John Hodgman's ruling

[47:44] My dad has been forced to retire one of the worst dad jokes of all time

[47:48] Instead of cutting his own hair with a flow be my husband has his hair cut professionally

[47:54] I have to join a community theater group and my wife has stopped bringing home wild animals

[47:59] It's the judge John Hodgman podcast find it every Wednesday at maximum fun org or wherever you download podcasts

[48:08] Thanks judge John Hodgman

[48:15] Listen I'm a hotshot Hollywood movie producer you have until I finish my glass of kombucha to pitch me your idea go

[48:21] All right, it's called who shot you a movie podcast that isn't just a bunch of straight white dudes

[48:26] I'm if you wide away the new host of the show and a certified BBN BBN buff black nerd

[48:31] I'm Alonzo Duralde an elderly gay and legit film critic who wrote a book on Christmas movies

[48:36] I'm Dre Clark a loud white lady from Minnesota each week

[48:40] We talk about a new movie in theaters and all the important issues going on in the film industry

[48:45] It's like guess who's coming to dinner meets cruising and if it helps seal the deal

[48:48] I can flex my muscles while we record each episode. I'm sorry. This is a podcast. I'm a movie producer

[48:54] How did you get in here if he quick start flexing bicep lats?

[48:59] chest

[49:00] Who shot you dropping every Friday on maximum fun org or wherever you listen to podcasts? I?

[49:07] Want to ask you what you think of the Houston of Poirot because that is the Poirot that I was introduced to

[49:13] First and I know it's not

[49:16] Poirot

[49:17] Thumbs down David. Hey, we can all agree is the most is the finest of the Poirot's but like what what is your feeling?

[49:23] I'm Peter Ustinov. Well, first of all, I heart I heartily disagree with your

[49:28] With your theory that David Suchet is the best of the Poirot. Okay. Well, you see the one from the TV show. Yes

[49:35] Yeah, you watch that right David? Yeah, I like my dad. Yeah. Oh, he's great

[49:41] Who's better?

[49:43] We'll get to that in a minute. Okay

[49:45] Talk about a master of suspense. I

[49:48] I spent some time this afternoon

[49:51] revisiting the Houston of Poirot's that's why it's not like I've I'm standing by all the time ready to

[49:58] cite a

[50:00] A Poirot movie that Angela Lansbury was in. I happen to be watching parts of them this afternoon.

[50:06] And so Poirot hit the cinema, the American cinema hard with Albert Finney as Poirot

[50:15] in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express with Sean Connery. I was giving, yeah, that's what I was

[50:20] giving a thumbs down to. That movie is, it's a, it's a slog. Sidney Lumet directed it. I just

[50:26] want to. Sidney Lumet directed it. It really, that movie really, watching that movie really

[50:31] makes you feel like a cigarette. It's just like so grimy and brown and everyone just looks sickly

[50:40] and shiny and there's a pallor over everything. It's like, it's incredible that it was,

[50:46] that it was released. That's exactly what I like about it though. I love how disgusting

[50:51] Poirot is in it. He's such a strange off-footing, like grimy, like gross man with all that wax in

[50:57] his mustache. I'm like, I love it. I love how, how sweaty everyone is in that movie.

[51:02] And they're rich. These are supposed to be rich, glamorous people and they're so like sweaty. Oh,

[51:06] it's great. The princess in it is incredible. Wendy Hiller is amazing in it. I will say that.

[51:12] Oh yeah. Right. Wendy Hiller. Right. Of course.

[51:15] I said I did it. It's really good.

[51:20] But you know, that movie was a huge commercial success. And so they decided like, we're going

[51:26] to make, like Poirot is going to be the new Bond. And in a brief period in the late seventies,

[51:32] they were like building a Poirot cinematic universe. And Finney would not come back

[51:38] and play Poirot. Well, a good decision as far as I'm concerned.

[51:43] I guess. Do you think that the series ended with Ross Poirot in 1992?

[51:49] Oh my God. Wowie zowie. The elusive wowie zowie.

[52:00] Who's going to solve the mystery of the person who put the spikes in the tire that derailed my

[52:04] old comment? Oh, no one is because Eliot confessed by saying that dumb thing.

[52:14] So you're saying that they were building the Poirot, the PCU.

[52:17] Peter Ustinov came in with Murder on the Nile, which was also in 1978, I think. And that was

[52:23] also a big commercial success. But Peter Ustinov basically turned Poirot into a Muppet and Murder

[52:30] on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, 1982, were these like basically dumb comedic English character

[52:39] actor romps where they got like Maggie Smith and Diana Rigg and lots and lots of other well-known

[52:50] character actors to just like take a vacation together and film these incredibly dull,

[52:57] soundtrackless, like procedurals. And they were very successful.

[53:04] I think you're right. I think they are very dull. The inexplicable thing is

[53:12] Child Dan loved these movies. Me too, Dan. Me too. Yeah. Okay. But it's probably like how I used

[53:19] to love reading Doonesbury because it made you feel like a grown-up. Yeah. Wow. Right.

[53:27] We would go visit family, friends. And then at night, you know, I would be in some older

[53:32] brother's room or something. And there would be all these big Doonesbury anthologies about,

[53:36] I don't know, Watergate and the Tet Offensive or whatever. And it's like panel after panel of the

[53:42] White House for the voice balloons coming out of it. And I didn't understand any of the references.

[53:47] And I would just read it and be like, oh, I'm such a little grown up here reading this Doonesbury.

[53:54] Yeah. Usually when I would go into an older kid's room, I would immediately

[53:57] reach for the Doonesbury. Instead of the stack of like heavy metals or something.

[54:04] Right. But I think you tune into something that is very true about sort of detective

[54:12] fiction and mystery fiction broadly defined. Because one of the sort of accepted principles

[54:19] of the police procedural on television is that, you know, if you're watching,

[54:26] I don't want to malign certain shows because I want to work on television again. But if you're

[54:30] watching a CBS police procedural, they try to keep the mystery pretty solvable. So the people

[54:39] who are watching them can feel smart. That's a charitable description.

[54:44] Yeah. No, because I think it's the same thing. It's sort of like, you know, you engage with

[54:50] mystery fiction in order to connect with a character that maybe is able to do the stuff

[54:56] that you can't do. It's aspirational in that way. They can say the things that you can say.

[55:02] They're outside of society. They live in a houseboat. They're fucking around or whatever.

[55:06] And also because it makes you feel intelligent to follow the mystery and maybe solve it before

[55:14] the character does. You know, I also want to say to that end, like the eccentricity of the best

[55:23] detectives. I mean, we are living through a time, for instance, that like the police are rightfully

[55:29] being here. We go. No, no, no. The police relevance. I get it, Dan. No, no, no. Like

[55:35] the police are rightfully being deeply interrogated as an institution. And I don't want to get

[55:40] too deeply into that. But an oft referenced character on our show is Columbo. And the

[55:48] beauty of Columbo is that he feels so outside that system. He's like he feels like a like a

[55:55] warrior from the lower classes who has power and like comes in and fucks with these rich people

[56:02] who think that they're smarter than him. Yeah. I mean, detective shows and detective

[56:08] fiction and detective movies are different from police shows because they are about one or two

[56:17] single outsiders who live away from these systems and are able to interrogate them and find a

[56:27] solution and justice for people who are wronged by those systems. You know, Lestrade in Sherlock

[56:34] Holmes is a buffoon. Like Sherlock Holmes, like one of the great one of the great innovations,

[56:43] I thought, of the Stephen Moffat. What's the other guy's name? Mark Gatiss. Mark Gatiss.

[56:51] Mark Gatiss. Sherlock Sherlock series was to openly just have Sherlock himself identify as

[56:58] a high functioning sociopath. He's not a human being as we understand it. He is essentially

[57:03] a superhero who exists outside of human law in order to impose a better form of justice.

[57:11] And the police are not not not part of that justice. Yeah, that's like Encyclopedia Brown's

[57:16] dad. He's kind of an idiot. He exists outside of human law, like Bacavity from the Cats.

[57:23] Yeah. Well, no, Bacavity doesn't exist outside of human law. He's broken every human law.

[57:27] Sorry, sorry, sorry. It's Encyclopedia Brown. You have to imagine that his dad every now and then

[57:31] brings him in and roughs him up and is like, I get a little too close, Brown. Why don't I just

[57:36] start this investigation? Got a message from Bugs Meany right here. So you are you are positing a

[57:45] world where they're in Idaville. The corruption goes all the way to the top, which is which is

[57:51] Encyclopedia Brown's dad. He's been taking money from Bugs Meany and and they are a father son

[57:58] adversarial relationship. Wow. Very much so. I mean, also, I mean, that's just making just

[58:04] making concrete the fact that every father son relationship is at heart an adversarial relationship.

[58:10] This is just applying it to legal institutions. Yeah. Encyclopedia Brown's dad is Saturn,

[58:16] whereas Encyclopedia Brown is Zeus. Yeah, yeah. He's like I should have swallowed you in your

[58:20] swaddling clothes, Leroy. If only your wife, if only your mother hadn't fed me a rock instead.

[58:32] You guys, you guys read some books of mythology.

[58:38] Wow. Basically, that's the best review of this podcast.

[58:41] You have cut them to the quick in the way that I wish I could.

[58:47] Dan, I mean, it's one of those if that's one of those that's one of those

[58:50] Chris, that's one of those attacks, though, it's like, yeah, how else are we going to learn that

[58:53] stuff? What? Yeah. First first hand source. Was I going to go go and talk to Zeus? Yeah,

[59:00] it's gonna be a book. Go to the boy next door and get a first edition,

[59:06] get a first edition of the Odyssey. Come on. So, Dan, cozy mysteries. I just want to ask,

[59:12] do you think that the difference between a cozy mystery and a hardboiled mystery is partly that

[59:18] a hardboiled mystery is is this kind of fantasy where the world is corruption and you get to

[59:23] identify with the one noble person in it? And cozy fantasy, cozy mystery is more the fantasy of like

[59:30] the world is pretty OK, but there's like some dark stuff underneath and every time it

[59:34] bubbles up, a kindly lady kind of tamps it down and brings order back to chaos.

[59:39] Do you think that they're two sides of the same coin that way or no?

[59:42] I know I I yes, I believe that. It's funny, like this is an idea that.

[59:50] In no way originated with the the television program Northern Exposure,

[59:56] but I first encountered it. Cannot wait, cannot wait to find out.

[1:00:00] Where this is going now?

[1:00:02] The first time I encountered someone saying what you said just now was through the show

[1:00:06] Northern Exposure.

[1:00:07] I remember very distinctly someone saying that the beauty of a mystery is this vision

[1:00:12] of the world where there is order, something has come along and disrupted the order, and

[1:00:17] then the detective comes along and restores order.

[1:00:20] And that is what a cozy mystery is.

[1:00:22] And a hard-boiled mystery is more of, to some degree, a power fantasy where you are

[1:00:29] like the toughest person, but it is also occasionally cynical in a way that is broadly appealing

[1:00:40] where you're like, okay, well, the world is a cesspool, but I persevere.

[1:00:46] Was Northern Exposure a mystery show?

[1:00:49] It was a show about a small town and a guy moved there from the big city.

[1:00:57] I thought it was like a soap opera.

[1:00:59] When I was a kid, watching it was a mystery because I could never quite figure out what

[1:01:02] was going on in it or what it was about.

[1:01:04] I loved Northern Exposure as a kid.

[1:01:07] They were just talking about the charm of mysteries in a scene.

[1:01:12] That description always stuck with me ever since and obviously does not originate there,

[1:01:18] but it was well put in that show.

[1:01:22] Northern Exposure was giving you some critical analysis, literary criticism.

[1:01:27] Got it.

[1:01:28] Yeah.

[1:01:29] All right.

[1:01:30] It helped that my parents were nuts for cozy mysteries, and so my dad just took to it.

[1:01:37] He was like, yes, this is it.

[1:01:39] This is the best description I've heard.

[1:01:41] This is it.

[1:01:42] Who were your parents' favorite detectives?

[1:01:48] They loved the Prime Suspect series.

[1:01:51] I think they loved Campion on Mystery.

[1:01:58] What's the very dour sort of, he's either Scottish or Northern English detective.

[1:02:06] Does anyone know who I might be thinking of?

[1:02:07] I think, is it a relatively recent show or it's an old show?

[1:02:12] I mean, it would have been when I was growing up, but new when I was growing up.

[1:02:16] There's a relatively new show where that's about a really dour, I think, Scottish detective

[1:02:21] and my wife and I started watching it and I was like, this is too bleak for me.

[1:02:27] It's like, it was one of those shows where at a certain point you expected the hero to

[1:02:30] just be like, why am I even bothering solving this mystery?

[1:02:34] Like walking away.

[1:02:35] I remember when I discovered that there was literally a mystery show from England called

[1:02:40] Rosemary and Thyme about gardeners who solved mysteries and I'm like, that sounds like a

[1:02:47] parody.

[1:02:48] Pretty cozy.

[1:02:49] Yeah.

[1:02:50] That's wicked cozy.

[1:02:51] Before we started recording the episode, the name of our mutual friend, Sam Means, came

[1:02:57] up and this reminds me of, he and I, when we both worked at The Daily Show, we would

[1:03:01] occasionally go on Amazon and just look up different mystery series to laugh about them

[1:03:06] and one of them was the one where the chef at the White House solves different mysteries.

[1:03:13] And of course, this is not a mystery series, our favorite one to look up, we would go back

[1:03:17] many times to look up the titles in the Babies and Billionaires romance novel series where

[1:03:22] every story is a different one that involves a baby and a billionaire in some way.

[1:03:28] Very specific, very specific psychological desires.

[1:03:33] Yeah.

[1:03:34] But there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of, it seems like anyone in the world, if

[1:03:38] they live in a novel, could end up solving a mystery someday.

[1:03:41] Can I ask you guys a question about a mystery movie?

[1:03:45] Mystery Men?

[1:03:46] No, different one.

[1:03:47] Oh.

[1:03:48] Because I can't remember if it's a detective movie, but I love this movie, I think it's

[1:03:53] so terrific, Gosford Park.

[1:03:56] There is a mystery in it.

[1:03:57] That's a mystery movie.

[1:03:58] Yeah, that's a mystery.

[1:03:59] But is there a detective in it?

[1:04:00] There is, right?

[1:04:03] A detective must come to the manor, it's not like they just decide to solve it on their

[1:04:07] own.

[1:04:08] But I don't, does Kelly MacDonald's character sort of turn out to be kind of the protagonist?

[1:04:14] I don't even remember, I loved that movie.

[1:04:16] No, I don't remember.

[1:04:17] I remember liking a lot, yeah.

[1:04:18] That movie is so, so good, and I think what's interesting when you guys talk about the cozy

[1:04:22] versus the hard-boiled, that movie, because it has that kind of upstairs-downstairs element,

[1:04:28] Yeah.

[1:04:29] There's all the rich people, and then there's all the house staff, and the mystery kind

[1:04:34] of turns on these unspoken relationships between those two populations.

[1:04:39] It really kind of hits that sweet spot of cozy mystery, and then gritty, kind of realistic,

[1:04:48] very not cynical, but very frank about the class distinctions that maybe is the subtext

[1:04:54] of something grittier like Columbo or something, right?

[1:04:58] It's just, it's so good.

[1:05:00] I'm sure your listeners love movies and they've already seen it, but it's interesting to think

[1:05:05] about in the context of types of mysteries and types of detective whodunnits.

[1:05:10] What's weird about the Flophouse podcast is that most of their listeners hate movies and

[1:05:14] have never watched one.

[1:05:16] Oh, wow.

[1:05:17] Oh, really?

[1:05:18] Interesting.

[1:05:19] Kind of like the hosts.

[1:05:21] What's the last movie you guys saw, what's the last movie you fellas saw in a movie theater

[1:05:25] before coronavirus?

[1:05:26] Oh, good question.

[1:05:27] Oh, boy.

[1:05:28] Cats.

[1:05:29] I can tell you exactly, but I have to.

[1:05:30] Oh, Birds of Prey.

[1:05:31] Oh, wait, no, I saw Cats a second time.

[1:05:32] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:33] I saw Cats so I could do it for the Flophouse, because I don't get to the theater that often.

[1:05:34] Oh, no, you know what?

[1:05:35] Cats was, actually, Cats was the last movie I saw, but the last movie I saw not for the

[1:05:36] Flophouse in the theater was Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[1:05:37] Got it.

[1:05:38] When they kind of re-released it.

[1:05:39] Yeah.

[1:05:40] Yeah.

[1:05:41] Yeah.

[1:05:42] Yeah.

[1:05:43] Yeah.

[1:05:44] Yeah.

[1:05:45] Yeah.

[1:05:46] Yeah.

[1:05:47] Cats was my last movie in a theater, too.

[1:05:51] It's one of those things where like, I should feel bad that that was the last movie I saw

[1:05:54] in theater, but it was exactly the right movie for me to see in the theater last, because

[1:05:58] it was such a positive experience.

[1:06:00] Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:01] I think we and all of culture agree that Cats is the last movie.

[1:06:05] Yeah.

[1:06:06] No need to make any more.

[1:06:09] Yeah.

[1:06:10] Yeah.

[1:06:11] Yeah.

[1:06:12] Yeah.

[1:06:13] Stu Wellington.

[1:06:14] What's up?

[1:06:15] Yeah, what's up?

[1:06:16] Do you have a favorite detective or mystery movie or book or anything?

[1:06:22] You know, my mom was always a big mystery fan, and I know you didn't ask me about my

[1:06:30] mom.

[1:06:31] You asked me, but my mom watches the, what is it, Midsommar Murders all the time, the

[1:06:37] show that has like a zillion episodes.

[1:06:40] But no, you know, I don't, I was more of like a, I was always more of like a war adventure

[1:06:46] fiction guy.

[1:06:47] Oh, tough guy.

[1:06:48] Like a Bernard Cornwell type guy.

[1:06:49] Yeah, I'm a real tough guy.

[1:06:50] Yeah.

[1:06:51] So that was more my, that was kind of more my vibe.

[1:06:54] Are you really aggressive at nightclubs?

[1:06:56] What were you reading?

[1:06:57] Are you aggressive at nightclubs?

[1:06:59] Exclusively.

[1:07:00] When you take me out of the nightclub, I'm a lamb, but you put me back in there, I'm

[1:07:06] a lamb.

[1:07:07] When you take me out of the nightclub, I'm a lamb, but you put me back in there, I'm

[1:07:08] a lion, and that lion is acting aggressively.

[1:07:09] Okay, got it.

[1:07:10] Gonna roar.

[1:07:11] I have to say about Stuart, I mean, I don't know whether this is because he's a bartender

[1:07:12] and it's a skill he's learned, or whether it's just who he is as a person.

[1:07:13] I've never seen someone so skillful at de-escalating any sort of aggression as Stuart.

[1:07:14] It's weird.

[1:07:15] When I first started bartending, I came straight from running a bar.

[1:07:16] I mean, I was a bartender.

[1:07:17] I was a bartender.

[1:07:25] So when I first started talking to drunk guys, I kind of treated them like they were nerdy

[1:07:48] teenage boys, and that did not go well.

[1:07:53] I was like, I'm going to fuck with these guys a little bit.

[1:07:56] Not a good idea.

[1:07:57] Because see, the problem is when you're a big tall handsome guy who always sounds sarcastic,

[1:08:02] that's the absolute first person a drunk person wants to punch.

[1:08:08] Yeah I think David Reese, you've met your match in Stuart Wellington, big tall handsome

[1:08:11] guy who always sounds sarcastic.

[1:08:13] The two of you, it's like an immovable object meets an unstoppable force.

[1:08:17] What do you bench?

[1:08:18] What do you bench?

[1:08:19] Wait, what's a lot but not so much to make David feel jealous?

[1:08:28] How fast can you do a Wednesday New York Times crossword?

[1:08:32] See that's the thing, I suffer for being tall and handsome, but at least I'm also very stupid.

[1:08:39] What I love about Stuart is he's unabashed at calling himself handsome.

[1:08:44] I think I want to start writing a series of detective novels starring a Stu Wellington.

[1:08:54] First of all, Stu Wellington is a great detective name.

[1:08:56] Yeah, it's a pretty sick name.

[1:08:58] It's pretty good.

[1:08:59] Yeah.

[1:09:00] Stuart Langston Wellington.

[1:09:01] Yeah.

[1:09:02] Tall and handsome, but stupid, but a de-escalator at heart, and I'm going to ignore the bartender

[1:09:11] part.

[1:09:12] I'm just working at a hobby store and solving crimes out of the hobby store.

[1:09:18] That's a cozy mystery for me.

[1:09:20] Oh, totally.

[1:09:21] The hobby store thing would be great.

[1:09:23] You could have models, there could be a model of a house or something, and that ties into

[1:09:30] the solution of the mystery, or a remote controlled car that you have to use or glue.

[1:09:35] You know about all these epoxies and resins and stuff.

[1:09:37] Yeah.

[1:09:38] Little tiny brushes that they use to paint their D and D feet.

[1:09:41] You could do a whole mystery about computer D and D figurines, and how one of them went

[1:09:45] missing or something.

[1:09:47] You know what I mean?

[1:09:48] Yep, I know.

[1:09:49] And Gary Gygax, like Gary Gygax, the monster manual could be in it, too.

[1:09:54] Yeah, yeah, you could do that.

[1:09:56] Stu, if I'm not mistaken, you wrote a monograph on the novel.

[1:10:00] nineteen different kinds of peter orks that are available and i did the idea

[1:10:04] that i've got

[1:10:05] don't like to bring it up on the podcast is so you're like a lot of people are

[1:10:08] written a monograph for everything that comes up

[1:10:11] uh... this year i don't know if it was a little homicides or whatever it's the

[1:10:14] uh... and

[1:10:16] and yet the the every episode of hobby store homicides was

[1:10:21] and i think that should be a confession that i

[1:10:24] managed to get without

[1:10:26] any attempt to action without even knowing there is a mystery but i think

[1:10:30] that's what the best thing is that your catchphrase is something like

[1:10:33] solving crimes isn't my job it's just a hobby

[1:10:37] uh... that's great running the hobby store is my job

[1:10:42] and i think you could really play in that space between abdication and and

[1:10:46] uh... vocation

[1:10:47] hollywood and when i went out

[1:10:49] when i saw your work life becomes a hobby yeah i don't know

[1:10:54] sharia and you could write a hobby course

[1:10:56] uh...

[1:10:58] yep

[1:10:58] would solve a mystery is your hobby and never work a day in your life dot

[1:11:04] not and i think you are not going to be good

[1:11:07] yeah used to listen to what is a hundred percent of the mysteries you don't solve

[1:11:12] wake that's true too

[1:11:15] that's true there's no i a mystery that

[1:11:18] yeah there's no i a mystery a hobby mystery series or a hockey mystery series

[1:11:27] i mean if kevin smith's producing i think it could be both

[1:11:32] i mean speaking of tall handsome people i i do have to say that you are appearing

[1:11:36] to me in too

[1:11:38] uh... boxes skype boxes uh... above and below one another you could be related

[1:11:44] david and oh okay

[1:11:46] well yeah we don't know what's that we both have

[1:11:49] coronavirus mustaches i think he's a stand-alone job to buy them both a drink

[1:11:54] i don't know what does dan doesn't like it's open bar only

[1:11:58] yeah

[1:12:00] uh... i mean he doesn't care he doesn't care how how how close a friend he's

[1:12:04] seeing get married open bar bust

[1:12:07] can i ask you a quick question about de-escalating bar fights

[1:12:11] cuz i

[1:12:12] cuz i have been in

[1:12:14] before i left

[1:12:17] before i used to live in the hudson valley

[1:12:19] and i broke tried to break up a couple bar fights

[1:12:22] when i was there

[1:12:23] and then i try and then i got involved in a melee in manhattan once

[1:12:28] to try to pull somebody off what's the key

[1:12:30] i mean if they're already going at it isn't it too late for verbal de-escalation

[1:12:34] you just kind of have to

[1:12:35] physically get in there

[1:12:37] yeah i mean uh...

[1:12:39] you know if they're already going out you really can't do anything about it

[1:12:42] i mean for the vast majority of de-escalation you get your phone out and you start

[1:12:46] yelling world star world star

[1:12:50] i usually

[1:12:51] if if it's an actual problem person at the bar

[1:12:55] uh... i usually turn to my wife who is much better at doing this and you know

[1:12:59] she'll do things like

[1:13:00] turn off the music and turn all the lights up and say she's not going to

[1:13:03] serve anybody until this asshole leaves oh wow that sort of thing

[1:13:07] uh... because she's a professional uh... you know just

[1:13:10] not just a handsome drifter like me who just bumbles through life

[1:13:15] presses his clothes under his mattress and sleeps on a mattress on his clothes

[1:13:18] yeah

[1:13:19] well you gotta keep them things crisp uh...

[1:13:22] the

[1:13:23] your wife is like we have an iron char it's like we have an iron you don't have to do this anymore

[1:13:27] you live in a house you have a home now i'm your wife

[1:13:32] like you have a dresser you don't have to keep throwing your clothes in the

[1:13:35] garbage bin walking naked to the hardware store

[1:13:38] you do walk a line

[1:13:41] you do walk a line stewart though where you're like

[1:13:45] you're both relentlessly indulgent

[1:13:48] and subtly like you're doing like psyops on the person where you're like

[1:13:53] shutting it down like i'm not quite sure

[1:13:57] well yeah what's happening redirecting the energy

[1:14:00] yeah i mean that's that's all part of it i mean

[1:14:02] it's it's similar to like any kind of a bar conversation because you can't like

[1:14:06] you don't get stuck there forever like

[1:14:08] just because some guy really wants to explain why he shouldn't feel bad for

[1:14:12] loving revenge of the nerds like

[1:14:14] hey man i got a job to do

[1:14:16] uh... how can i not have this heart-to-heart with this sad guy

[1:14:20] uh...

[1:14:20] and how does dan take that?

[1:14:23] i thought we were having a really good conversation steve

[1:14:26] i didn't realize that you felt that way about revenge of the nerds

[1:14:30] unless you report that i have never been a fan of revenge of the nerds

[1:14:34] yeah but you weren't a fan of it dan because you thought the jocks were right to beat up

[1:14:37] the nerds it wasn't

[1:14:38] it was those nerds yes

[1:14:42] turns out those nerds were the villains

[1:14:44] yeah

[1:14:46] yeah for me it was always that i i was mad that they that they cheated in all

[1:14:50] the games

[1:14:52] like clearly the rules say that you can't if you have to drink a beer and

[1:14:55] then ride a little uh... tricycle

[1:14:57] uh... you can't take a pill that prevents you from getting drunk that's

[1:15:00] not fair let's check the rule book there isn't one

[1:15:04] because this is dumb

[1:15:10] rule book says this is dumb stop it

[1:15:14] uh...

[1:15:15] guys look

[1:15:16] that wasn't a great note to end on but on the other hand

[1:15:19] well let's let's not end on it dan

[1:15:24] i set up a thing a tease

[1:15:28] who is the greatest hercule poirot in film

[1:15:31] oh shit i do want to know that who is the greatest hercule poirot

[1:15:35] in your opinion

[1:15:37] mister john hodgman

[1:15:39] speaking of tall handsome drifters

[1:15:43] kenneth brana

[1:15:44] greatest hercule poirot in cinema

[1:15:48] i shall not fuck off

[1:15:50] i shall fuck directly on

[1:15:53] for years i have had such respect for you

[1:15:57] to the degree that like you've intimidated me i've seen it and it's

[1:16:00] not his garment ruble

[1:16:02] and now

[1:16:03] i find that the emperor has no clothes kenneth brana

[1:16:07] come on i don't

[1:16:09] i don't have any clothes because i'm lying down on a mattress

[1:16:11] trying to press my underwear

[1:16:15] i'm not going to sit here in front of you dan

[1:16:22] dilettante trust fund classist open bar snob dan

[1:16:28] that is not my

[1:16:29] life but okay sure for the purposes of this podcast let's pretend that's true

[1:16:34] no i know that's not you

[1:16:36] i'm not going to sit here and tell you that

[1:16:39] the 2017

[1:16:42] murder on the orient express directed by and starring kenneth brana

[1:16:46] hercule poirot

[1:16:47] is a great film

[1:16:50] but i will say

[1:16:52] i did not expect to enjoy it as much as i did

[1:16:56] by was us

[1:16:58] utterly

[1:16:59] flabbergasted

[1:17:01] when i saw that guy's mustache like wow

[1:17:04] uh...

[1:17:06] you know if you don't think it hurt russell character but more than

[1:17:08] hercule poirot as as one i was saying that

[1:17:12] yeah well first of all hercule poirot as we know from peter ustinov

[1:17:16] and david suchet

[1:17:18] and even albert finney is supposed to be a

[1:17:20] a short stout gourmand

[1:17:24] vain

[1:17:26] shithead that everyone hates

[1:17:29] and instead we got the trailer for

[1:17:32] murder on the orient express

[1:17:34] which is a tall

[1:17:37] skinny

[1:17:38] honestly slenderman type

[1:17:41] hercule poirot

[1:17:43] with mustache that was growing

[1:17:46] into his ears

[1:17:47] walking on top of the train

[1:17:50] to the tune of believer by imagine dragons

[1:17:53] unlike those not my daddy's hercule poirot anymore

[1:17:59] and as dumb as that seemed to me i watched it

[1:18:03] there was one moment that

[1:18:06] utterly redeemed them up the movie for me

[1:18:09] which is that

[1:18:10] uh... as many as many hercule poirot books and

[1:18:14] movies as i've watched

[1:18:16] i'd never understand never understood him as a human being

[1:18:21] until

[1:18:23] kenneth brenner stepped in shit in the movie in the morning

[1:18:27] yet human shit

[1:18:30] no it was animal shit out

[1:18:32] human animals david still want to see it

[1:18:36] uh...

[1:18:39] the interesting an interesting twist if he gets on the train is steps into human

[1:18:43] shit and they're like of the that by the way the toilets are backed up the

[1:18:46] system is not working

[1:18:48] but we would really appreciate you solving the mystery and so if that's

[1:18:51] what it is have to deal with all movie

[1:18:53] and brenner's interpretation of hercule poirot as a coprophage someone who eats

[1:18:57] shit for pleasure right what's really interesting to me

[1:19:01] now that he does it for pleasure not for sustenance because i don't think there's

[1:19:04] a lot of nutritional value there. I don't want to get into another human centipede

[1:19:08] conversation steward

[1:19:10] why? because you're wrong all the time dan? the greatest detective film of all time

[1:19:15] human centipede

[1:19:18] in murder on the orange express twenty seventeen

[1:19:22] as its official title is

[1:19:25] kenneth brenner as poirot

[1:19:27] is walking to the scene of a crime early in the film

[1:19:31] not related to the train

[1:19:33] a non-train crime

[1:19:35] he steps in shit

[1:19:37] he seethes

[1:19:39] steps back

[1:19:41] and then steps in shit again with his other foot

[1:19:43] and he says it's

[1:19:45] uh... I'm paraphrasing

[1:19:47] it's not

[1:19:49] the humiliation it's the imbalance that bothers me

[1:19:53] and suddenly

[1:19:54] i understood the hercule poirot

[1:19:57] is someone who is able to

[1:19:59] sense

[1:20:00] thing around him, such that it's an invasion to his personality. And all he's trying to do

[1:20:06] is to make rational a world that is irrational. And it's basically, he's got an OCD problem.

[1:20:15] And suddenly I understood Poirot in a way that I didn't ever understand Poirot before.

[1:20:20] Like, he can't help it. He doesn't want to be this way. He doesn't want to be this shitty,

[1:20:24] vain, mustachioed asshole. He has to be this way, because that's the only way that he can deal with

[1:20:31] his anxieties. And I love that. So there. I mean, I cannot entirely go with you,

[1:20:38] but I do think that... All right, ending Skype now. Goodbye.

[1:20:43] I will say that Branagh's performance as Sir Kilpauro is probably the best thing in that

[1:20:48] movie. I did enjoy... Oh yeah, the rest is... Well, no, wait a minute. What about... Michelle

[1:20:52] Pfeiffer's great in it. I mean, Michelle Pfeiffer's great in everything. She is.

[1:20:59] But Dan, you and I, we can make peace over this. Branagh as Poirot is interesting to watch.

[1:21:06] Michelle Pfeiffer is wonderful. And everyone else is not good. Yes, agreed.

[1:21:12] Well, except for Dame Judi Dench. She's good. A virtual shaking of hands.

[1:21:17] Now, I haven't seen the movie. Does Dame Judi Dench appear as a cat

[1:21:21] and sing a song explaining to the viewer what cats are?

[1:21:27] Yeah, she appears as a cat and she goes, My name is Miss Marple. I'll see you in the next movie.

[1:21:36] What great casting that would be.

[1:21:38] So wait, what's the Windsor Show air, guys? What's the details on that thing?

[1:21:43] July 9th on Cake on FXX, and then the next day on Hulu, because FXX has a deal with Hulu.

[1:21:53] And the show is called Dicktown. It has profanity in it. But it's like a... It's not...

[1:22:03] There's dirty language and stuff, but I don't think of it as a cynical... It's not hard-boiled.

[1:22:07] It's more like a cozy... It's cozy, grimy mysteries. We have our new genre of grimy,

[1:22:14] cozy mysteries. Nobody's pants catch on fire and then get put out by a baby urinating on them.

[1:22:19] Doesn't quite get that nuts.

[1:22:21] No.

[1:22:21] Does that happen in Murder on the Orient Express, the new one?

[1:22:25] Yeah.

[1:22:25] The poo-poo train. What if they call it that? The poo-poo train.

[1:22:30] Kenneth Branagh on the poo-poo train.

[1:22:34] And then the trailer, they'd have that song, come on, ride that train. The poo-poo train.

[1:22:41] We've got also incredible friends who were guest voices on the show,

[1:22:46] including our friend Gene Gray, Zach Galifianakis, John Glaser, John Benjamin,

[1:22:50] Kristen Schaal, and others. Griffin Newman of Blank Check Podcast.

[1:22:56] Wow.

[1:22:57] It's... Lots of people came in and made it a lot of fun.

[1:22:59] Paula Tompkins and Jenny Haddad Tompkins.

[1:23:01] Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.

[1:23:02] Oh, wow.

[1:23:04] It's a... And if there's a season two, there's a role in it for all three of you.

[1:23:09] So listen to me.

[1:23:11] Yeah, okay, so everybody tune the fuck in.

[1:23:13] Yeah, we've got to get those numbers up.

[1:23:17] Listen to me, fans of the Flop House.

[1:23:18] The immediate failing of David.

[1:23:20] Yeah.

[1:23:21] Yeah, I got stars in my eyes.

[1:23:26] If you want to see... If you want to see John Hunchman and David Purefoy,

[1:23:30] the main characters from Dicktown, dealing with their new arch nemesis,

[1:23:35] Stu Wellington.

[1:23:37] Oh, I don't even know his story.

[1:23:38] Hobby detective.

[1:23:41] You better watch this thing and send in letters.

[1:23:44] Like a cool detective name, like, I don't know, like Puert Smellington or something.

[1:23:51] Whoa, that's filthy.

[1:23:53] I think... Stuart, I think you may be mixing up detectives and garbage bale kids.

[1:23:59] And cool with gross.

[1:24:01] Oh, man, I did it again.

[1:24:05] Can I ask one last movie?

[1:24:06] Can I ask one last mystery movie question of you guys?

[1:24:09] Have any of you guys ever seen a French mystery called Tell No One?

[1:24:15] Yeah.

[1:24:16] So great.

[1:24:16] Yeah, it's great.

[1:24:18] I would recommend that to your listeners.

[1:24:20] That's another movie that, like Gosford Park, I just love so much.

[1:24:24] I've probably seen that movie four times.

[1:24:28] Yeah, it's great.

[1:24:29] Totally recommend.

[1:24:30] I would recommend...

[1:24:32] Oh, I saw that movie, yeah.

[1:24:33] Yeah.

[1:24:34] I had to look it up.

[1:24:35] I couldn't remember.

[1:24:36] You had to look it up in your little book of movies that you saw?

[1:24:38] No, no, I had to look up which movie it was, because I couldn't.

[1:24:40] I was like, have I seen that one?

[1:24:42] I know of it.

[1:24:42] But yeah, yeah, I saw that one.

[1:24:43] That one was good.

[1:24:45] If your listeners are interested in modern takes on a classic Agatha Christie style cozy mystery,

[1:24:55] and also a modern take on a classic American hard-boiled film mystery,

[1:25:03] just go no further than your friend, Rian Johnson.

[1:25:07] Check out Knives Out, and then check out Brick.

[1:25:10] Two great mysteries in those two traditions.

[1:25:12] Oh, yeah, Brick, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:25:14] Yeah.

[1:25:15] Yeah, they're great.

[1:25:18] Okay, mystery movies, wonderful stuff.

[1:25:21] Mystery movies.

[1:25:21] Hey, everyone loves mystery movies.

[1:25:23] Hey, I'm John Hodgman, host of this show.

[1:25:26] Okay, great.

[1:25:27] Host of this episode of Slop House Minisoad.

[1:25:31] And it's been my pleasure to talk to my friends here about mystery movies, detectives,

[1:25:37] outsiders, hobbyists, poo-poo trains, and many other topics.

[1:25:42] I want to give a shout out to the hosts of this show, Dan McCoy, Stuart Wellington,

[1:25:48] and Elliot Kalin.

[1:25:49] Hey, you guys.

[1:25:49] Thanks so much for being on the show that you host.

[1:25:52] Meanwhile...

[1:25:52] Thank you for having us.

[1:25:54] Oh, you're welcome.

[1:25:55] And thank you for having us.

[1:25:57] By us, I mean me and David Rees, co-stars and co-creators of the new show Dicktown on

[1:26:05] FXX's Cake.

[1:26:08] Sorry, on Cake, FXX's new half-hour late-night anthology show.

[1:26:15] Dicktown episodes start cycling into Cake, whatever that means.

[1:26:19] July 9th at 10 p.m. and streaming the next day on FX on Hulu.

[1:26:27] Hey, you guys.

[1:26:27] Thank you so much for having us on the show.

[1:26:31] Thank you.

[1:26:32] I would also say thank you.

[1:26:33] That's cool.

[1:26:34] Thank you for having us.

[1:26:37] Bye.

[1:26:49] Audience supported.

FH Mini 10 - Detectives! w/ John Hodgman and David Rees

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