Ep. #272 - Pottersville

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Pottersville.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] Dan, it's pronounced Hogwarts.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:35] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] Hey, Dan, how you doing?

[0:37] All right.

Stuart Wellington

[0:39] You can't get through a single intro.

[0:42] Hey, guys, I'm Stuart Wellingden from the Flophouse podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] Hey, guys, guess who I am.

[0:47] I'll give you two clues.

Stuart Wellington

[0:48] Okay, and if we guess your true name, do we get to have power over you?

Elliott Kalan

[0:53] You get power over me, and I'll help you spin straw into gold.

[0:56] So here's two clues.

[0:58] One, I'm America's rascal sweetheart.

[1:00] And two, my name is Elliot Kalin.

[1:02] Can you guess it?

Stuart Wellington

[1:03] I think you buried the lead.

[1:05] Did I use that turn of phrase correctly?

[1:09] It's close enough.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11] Can you guess my identity?

[1:13] Rumpelstiltskin.

[1:15] Okay, you got me.

[1:16] I didn't think you were going to guess it that easily since it's such a goofy name.

[1:20] But yeah, Rumpelstiltskin.

[1:22] My family invented the stilt and also the rum.

Dan McCoy

[1:26] Apparently, your family invented stilts that have skin over them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] Yeah, and they go on your rump.

[1:32] It gets rumped.

[1:33] No, it's – oh, I see.

[1:35] Oh, that's a better explanation for my name.

[1:37] Yeah.

[1:38] Yeah, so here was the problem is that we invented coverings for stilts.

[1:41] Stiltskin, we call it.

[1:42] But it was so easily wrinkled and rumpled because of the fabric it was made out of that people called us Rumpelstiltskin.

[1:47] And it just stuck.

[1:49] And you know what?

[1:49] When you have a brand, all publicity is good publicity.

[1:53] So people are like, Rumpelstiltskin?

[1:54] Their stiltskins get very easily rumpled.

[1:56] And also, they try to steal babies by teaching women how to spin straw into gold.

[2:00] And I'm like, hey, I'm not even going to try to defend myself against those charges because that's just going to keep the rumor in the news cycle.

[2:07] But all publicity is good publicity.

[2:09] Hey, you don't like Rumpelstiltskin, but you're talking about me.

[2:13] So can I sell you some stiltskins?

[2:15] Warning, they do rumble a bit.

Dan McCoy

[2:18] My stilts are pretty good unvarnished, unmolested.

[2:22] They're fine as they are.

[2:24] What?

[2:26] Stuart.

[2:27] I think Stuart might be America's rascal.

[2:30] I don't know.

[2:31] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] Anyway.

[2:33] Well, I am a thing that you can ride around on if you're old or have trouble walking.

Dan McCoy

[2:38] No, we wouldn't ride on you, Stuart.

[2:40] Your back's too weak for that.

[2:42] Very fragile.

Stuart Wellington

[2:43] So that's the thing, guys.

[2:44] I've been waiting to give you guys a back update.

[2:46] Okay, great.

[2:47] So I've been going to the gym a little bit, chasing gains, pushing weights around.

[2:54] My back has never felt better.

[2:55] That's great.

[2:57] So FYI, Stuart's back is feeling better.

Elliott Kalan

[3:02] So I guess FYI to whatever the equivalent to Stuart's bane is, if you're going to break Stuart's back, now's the time to do it.

[3:09] It's at its peak condition.

Stuart Wellington

[3:11] I feel like, yeah.

[3:14] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:15] I'm flying so high.

[3:16] I'm like, Icarus, if Icarus bragged about his back all the time before Bane snapped him in half.

Elliott Kalan

[3:22] Oh, you know that's exactly what happened.

[3:23] Icarus was like, strap those wings on.

[3:25] My back feels great.

[3:26] And he flew too close to the sun.

[3:28] What they mean is the son of Bane's father, Bane.

[3:31] And Bane just is like, always talking about his back.

[3:34] I'm going to snap it.

[3:35] And he did.

Stuart Wellington

[3:36] That's why Bane broke Batman's back, right?

[3:38] Is because Batman was going on the news and stuff bragging about how strong his back was?

Elliott Kalan

[3:42] Well, the thing is, he's actually not called Batman.

[3:45] He's called Backman.

[3:46] Oh, okay.

[3:46] Because he's always talking about his back.

[3:47] And he has a back as strong as 10 men's backs.

[3:52] And so, because he was bitten by a radioactive back.

[3:56] And it gave him a lot.

[3:57] And he said, hmm, criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot.

[4:01] And then a back fell through his window.

[4:05] And he said, oh, I'll be a back.

[4:06] So, he's always bragging about his back.

[4:08] And he wrote a book called Backman's Guide to Back Strength.

[4:11] And Bane was like, my back's way stronger than him.

[4:13] I'll show him.

[4:13] Because it takes a lot of back strength to break someone else's back.

Stuart Wellington

[4:16] But that was the thing.

[4:17] What Backman didn't tell anybody, and Bane found out by reading a bunch of books,

[4:23] is that Backman was originally dipped into the River Styx by his mother.

[4:27] But she had to hold on to his back the whole time.

[4:30] And that turned out that was the only part of him that wasn't immortal or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[4:33] Yeah, which he didn't realize.

[4:34] Now, the big mistake was that Bane at first got Backman mixed up with Beckman,

[4:40] the man with all the powers of Beck, which, as you know,

[4:43] gives you amazing power over beats.

[4:45] And you can dance like James Brown.

[4:46] And you're kind of the Sam Rockwell of music in a lot of ways.

Stuart Wellington

[4:49] And you're also like a Scientologist.

Elliott Kalan

[4:52] I mean, everyone's religion is their own choice.

[4:55] That's not a superpower unless you are.

[4:57] I guess some people's religion gives them superpowers,

[4:59] like Donnie and Marie Osmond.

[5:03] But at first, Bane went after Beckman.

[5:07] Because Bane, he has a problem.

[5:09] He reads A's and E's as the same letter.

[5:11] Okay.

[5:12] Oh, okay.

[5:12] I'm getting real deep into this.

[5:14] Yeah.

[5:14] So what's that called?

[5:15] A diphthong or whatever?

[5:16] Where it's an A and an E right next to each other?

[5:18] And so he went after Beckman.

[5:20] And Beckman was like, but my back is normal strength.

[5:23] And Bane was like, don't try to convince me now.

[5:25] I'm going to break your back too.

Dan McCoy

[5:27] Yeah.

[5:27] Well, that was America's diphthong, Elliot Kalin, going off on a weird rant.

Elliott Kalan

[5:32] Guys, I didn't even talk about it when he went after Bickman.

Dan McCoy

[5:36] Oh, okay.

[5:36] Yep.

[5:37] Who has the power to shave.

[5:39] Uh-huh.

[5:40] I thought it was Bickpens.

[5:42] And Bicklighters.

[5:43] Or pens.

Stuart Wellington

[5:44] Pens.

[5:44] I'm glad that you extended this a little bit more, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[5:48] So, Dan, what do we do on this podcast other than waste everybody's time?

Dan McCoy

[5:52] We watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[5:56] What do we do this week?

[5:57] Well, we watched a movie that, because it's the holiday season, I suggested a movie called

[6:01] Pottersville.

Stuart Wellington

[6:02] And we just went along with it.

[6:06] Vaguely a holiday movie.

Elliott Kalan

[6:07] It's kind of Christmassy.

[6:08] It's a movie that, it's like a snowball going down a hill.

[6:11] It picks up more Christmas as it rolls along.

[6:14] Yeah.

[6:14] Until by the end, they're like, it's a Christmas miracle.

[6:16] And I was like, wait a minute.

[6:18] What was Christmassy about this movie up until this point?

[6:20] That it's winter?

[6:21] I don't understand.

[6:22] Yeah.

[6:22] And also the soundtrack is ridiculously Christmassy.

[6:26] That's true.

[6:27] They have a bunch of Christmas songs.

[6:29] Now, Dan, what brought this movie to your attention?

[6:31] Because I had never heard of it, despite it having an objectively amazing cast.

[6:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[6:35] When it first came out, there was a spate of articles about it.

[6:40] They were like, what is this movie Pottersville, and why does it have all these famous people

[6:44] in it?

[6:44] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[6:45] I remember one of the actors in the film, Ron Perlman, going on social media being mad

[6:55] that people are trashing this movie.

[6:58] Uh-oh.

[6:58] Should we not trash it then?

Elliott Kalan

[6:59] Because he was a producer on it, too, Ron Perlman.

[7:02] I like him a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[7:03] Yeah.

[7:03] I think he was complaining.

[7:05] It was that complaint of like, people are only making fun of it because it isn't some

[7:11] big budget superhero movie or some shit.

[7:13] No.

[7:14] And it's like, no, that's not why.

Elliott Kalan

[7:16] No.

[7:16] There's valid reasons to make fun of it.

[7:18] Yeah.

[7:19] It's a deeply strange movie.

Stuart Wellington

[7:21] Yeah.

[7:21] Go on.

Elliott Kalan

[7:21] It's a strange movie.

[7:21] This cast, you got Michael Shannon as the hero.

[7:24] Uh-huh.

[7:25] You got Judy Greer.

[7:26] Yeah.

[7:26] Flophouse favorite Judy.

Stuart Wellington

[7:27] In a bit of stunt casting, they cast Michael Shannon to play a non-Bigfoot.

Elliott Kalan

[7:34] Michael Shannon is playing the kind of Jimmy Stewart role.

[7:38] This is very, it's not much like It's a Wonderful Life, but in tone, I think they want it to be

[7:41] like that.

[7:42] And he's playing that Jimmy Stewart role when usually Michael Shannon plays the role of

[7:45] someone who is a serial killer.

[7:47] And so at every moment, I was waiting for the end of violence moment when, or history of

[7:53] violence moment where it would be revealed that he was actually a hitman who was

[7:57] undercover somewhere.

Stuart Wellington

[7:58] Yeah.

[7:58] There's something about Normcore Michael Shannon that makes it all the more terrifying

[8:04] and tense.

[8:05] There's a moment late in the movie where he and Judy Greer exchange a kiss, and I have

[8:11] never felt more nervous for both people in my life.

Dan McCoy

[8:14] You're afraid that he was going to bite her lip off.

Elliott Kalan

[8:16] Quite possibly.

[8:17] And I love Michael Shannon.

[8:19] I think he's an amazing actor.

[8:20] He's fantastic.

[8:21] But there is an intensity about him that the idea that that could just exist in a small

[8:25] town shopkeeper is terrifying to me.

[8:27] Yeah.

[8:27] I forgot.

Dan McCoy

[8:28] I forgot.

[8:29] I forget who it is.

[8:30] I have a friend who like has interacted with him before, and she says that he's the sweetest

[8:35] man in the world, but that that intensity is always there.

[8:37] I think that's Delaney, right?

[8:39] Delaney knows him.

[8:40] Maybe.

[8:40] Could be.

[8:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[8:41] I believe a former Daily Show writer and co-worker of us, Delaney Yeager, I believe, has met

Dan McCoy

[8:48] Michael Shannon and says he's a very intense guy.

Elliott Kalan

[8:50] Okay.

[8:50] So, the rest of the cast.

[8:52] There's Judy Greer, Flophouse favorite.

[8:54] Everybody loves her.

[8:55] There's Ron Perlman, Flophouse favorite.

[8:57] The one and only Hellboy, as far as I'm concerned.

[8:59] Christina Hendricks.

[9:00] Wow.

[9:00] Taking a big stand.

[9:01] David Barber.

[9:02] Yeah.

[9:03] I haven't seen the movie yet.

[9:04] It hasn't come out.

[9:04] Maybe he's great.

[9:04] I thought it was David Harbour.

Stuart Wellington

[9:06] Harbour.

[9:06] Yeah.

[9:06] Yeah, Harbour.

[9:07] No, no.

[9:07] He's David.

[9:08] He's also a barber.

[9:09] He's the demon barber because he's Hellboy.

Elliott Kalan

[9:11] So, he's David Harbour, the demon barber.

[9:13] Oh, okay.

[9:14] Yeah.

[9:15] Christina Hendricks, Flophouse favorite.

[9:17] Yeah, she's great.

[9:17] From Mad Men, my favorite TV show.

[9:19] Thomas Lennon, a comedy legend.

[9:21] He's in it, too.

[9:22] He's amazing.

[9:23] Ian McShane, acting legend from Deadwood, who I got to work with once on a Daily Show project.

[9:28] There's all these people in it where I'm like, oh, this is going to be, this is such

[9:30] an amazing cast.

[9:31] This is going to be an amazing movie.

[9:32] Was this an amazing movie, guys?

[9:35] Well, it depends on your yardstick.

[9:37] It depends on your yardstick.

[9:38] Now, here's the thing about this movie.

[9:40] This movie, and we'll get to it.

[9:42] I'll give you a forewarning.

[9:43] I'm going to get a little mad at the end because this movie went from, in an instant, at the

[9:47] very end of the movie, it went from very harmlessly inoffensive to incredibly offensive to me.

[9:52] We'll explain why when we get to it.

[9:55] That's a little, I'm billboarding that, that I got very mad at the end of the movie.

[9:58] That's a little teaser.

[9:59] Interesting.

[9:59] So, let's talk about what happens in this movie.

[10:01] Guys, you know what?

[10:02] Usually, this will give you a hint of what this movie was like.

[10:05] Usually, when we do these episodes, my notes on a movie can run to six pages, and I'm crossing

[10:11] stuff out because I have to decide what details are worth talking about.

[10:14] My notes for this movie are three pages long, and I think I cross nothing out.

Stuart Wellington

[10:17] And filled mainly with cartoons of Bigfoot.

[10:21] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[10:22] Or a very unconvincing Bigfoot-ish costume.

[10:26] Okay.

[10:28] What?

[10:28] It's kind of an independent film with an amazing cast.

[10:30] Pottersville is a small town.

[10:31] It's fallen on hard times.

[10:33] The mill closed.

[10:34] All these stores are shuttered.

[10:35] And the center of the town is really Michael Shannon's general store, which has been in the

[10:39] town for 200 or some odd years.

[10:41] And it's just an old-fashioned general store, literally with jars of penny candy on the counter.

Dan McCoy

[10:46] If stores are going to be shuttered in this town, I was thinking that this store would

[10:50] be first among them.

[10:52] Like, it really seems to be like the sort of store that only would be able to survive in

[10:57] a high tourism area, which this town is not.

Elliott Kalan

[11:01] No, it's very vintage.

[11:02] It's like, oh, we can't shut down the Notions store.

[11:05] Exactly.

[11:06] Like Stuart was saying.

Stuart Wellington

[11:07] The whole town, despite having fallen on tough times economically, all kind of looks like

[11:15] a L.L. Bean catalog from the 90s.

[11:18] Oh, yeah.

[11:19] And by that, I mean it's all white people.

Elliott Kalan

[11:22] Oh, that's true.

[11:23] And their clothes look great.

[11:25] Nobody looks like – I mean, nobody looks like they've fallen on hard times.

[11:28] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:28] They can afford laundry detergent, apparently.

Elliott Kalan

[11:31] And the other reason that Michael Shannon's store should be out of business is he's so kindly

[11:35] he just lets people take things and owe him money.

[11:38] And he says that he writes their name in a big ledger.

[11:40] I'll get you when you have money.

[11:41] It's okay.

[11:41] I'll get you when you have money.

Stuart Wellington

[11:42] And at first when he says that, I'm like, oh, he's like a Leland Gaunt.

[11:46] This is a fucking needful things.

Elliott Kalan

[11:48] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:48] He's going to come back and steal their secrets and wishes.

[11:51] Because casting Michael Shannon is one of those things where you're like, you can't fool

[11:55] me.

[11:56] He's a bad guy.

Elliott Kalan

[11:57] You're waiting for the other shoe to drop the entire movie.

[11:59] I was waiting for a post-credits scene where he's just got bloody hands and everyone in town

[12:04] is dead around him.

[12:05] And he goes, not again.

[12:07] Not again.

[12:08] I've done it again.

[12:09] But that didn't happen.

[12:10] Okay.

[12:10] And he works with Judy Greer, who just works with him.

[12:14] And it's clear that she's got a little bit of a crush on Mikey Shands.

[12:17] Yeah.

[12:18] And why not?

Stuart Wellington

[12:18] The sexual tension between the two of them is so palpable right away.

Elliott Kalan

[12:22] It is.

[12:22] It's palpable in a real unemotional New England sort of way, where it's like there's a glance

[12:29] and you know that if this movie didn't end the way it did, then at some point 30 years

[12:33] from now on their deathbeds, they might hold hands.

[12:36] Yeah.

[12:37] And that would be the extent of their passion.

Dan McCoy

[12:39] This movie obviously sets her up to be the true love interest of the movie.

[12:42] Yet, up until the moment that they kiss at the very end of the movie, spoilers, there's

[12:49] no romantic plot really between them.

[12:53] Well, no.

Elliott Kalan

[12:53] She asks him over to watch a movie with him at home at one point.

[12:58] But I think she's also worried he's going to kill himself at that point because he's

[13:00] so sad.

Stuart Wellington

[13:01] Do you think that was also an attempt by the movie to subvert expectations?

[13:06] Like casting Michael Shannon to play a normal dude, did they cast Judy Greer, who is often

[13:11] cast as either the best friend or like, I don't know, the shrill ex-wife, to cast her in

[13:17] the lead, the romantic lead in this case?

[13:19] Do you think that was the attempt for the movie to like mess with you?

[13:23] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[13:23] This movie's a real mindfuck of a movie.

Stuart Wellington

[13:25] Yeah.

[13:26] That's what I'm trying to go for.

Elliott Kalan

[13:27] It's always subverting expectations.

[13:29] Also in town, Ian McShane, he's a local hunter and drunk who has his own moonshine and is

[13:34] kind of the villain of the movie, but the movie doesn't seem to realize that.

[13:37] So, Michael Shannon, he comes home early from work one day, only discover that his wife,

[13:42] Christina Hendricks, is a furry.

[13:44] Which they don't really seem to understand what furries are in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[13:49] Before we get to that, I feel like this movie uses that fucking movie shorthand.

[13:53] It uses two bits of movie shorthand that bug me.

[13:56] One is a guy who's like, I'm going to go home early is shorthand for, you're going to find

[14:01] out something that's going on.

Elliott Kalan

[14:03] No one ever goes home early in a movie and finds that their wife is delighted that they're

[14:06] there.

[14:07] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[14:08] And then the other one is the idea of a movie that begins with a man's wife cheating on

[14:15] him and has the weird fantasy of like his life exploded, like his life and responsibilities

[14:20] exploding around him.

[14:21] And how could he pick himself back up?

Elliott Kalan

[14:24] Well, here's the thing.

[14:24] In real life, people do not ever find out things about their marriages that they don't like.

[14:30] And marriages never fall apart.

[14:31] So it's such a science fiction-y, crazy idea that the only way for someone to respond to

[14:36] it in a movie is for their entire life to be shattered and to literally lose their sanity

[14:40] and dress up in a gorilla costume and run around.

[14:43] Because it's just a thing that's, it's kind of like how, it's like in real, all these

[14:47] movies about aliens, but no one's ever really encountered an alien.

[14:50] If they did, their heads would explode.

[14:52] Similarly, there's all these movies about-

Stuart Wellington

[14:53] Why is Elliot winking when he says that thing about no one's ever encountered an alien?

Elliott Kalan

[14:58] Well, they haven't found us yet.

[15:00] Oops!

[15:01] The, it's, they, yeah, these movies treat it as if when someone's marriage is in trouble,

[15:07] one, they would never know about it ahead of time.

[15:08] It's always a shock and a surprise, and, which just shows bad communication.

[15:12] But also that, two, the, that, it's like there's no way of, there's no way of surviving

[15:18] it without having a clear mental break.

[15:21] And Dan, I guess what I'm dancing around is, Flophouse listeners know that you had a

[15:25] separation sleep.

[15:26] You did not have a mental collapse, which led to you doing insane, crazy things.

[15:30] You didn't have like a falling down type scenario.

[15:32] You're a regular human being, and you were like, this is difficult, but I, you know, I

[15:35] have to live through it.

Dan McCoy

[15:36] I mean, if you stop the sentence at mental collapse, I think you might be wrong, but I

[15:41] did not run around in a Bigfoot costume, as we will find out that Michael Shannon does

[15:47] later on in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[15:48] But to be fair, Dan, you are always kind of on the edge of a mental collapse.

[15:51] That was, that's, you know.

[15:53] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[15:56] Well, that was a real pick-me-up, Ellie.

[15:59] Get your cup.

[16:00] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[16:01] I'm just saying that you're, it's a, it's a film trope that's not, it's the same way

[16:04] that a woman can have an upset stomach without being pregnant, and someone can cough into

[16:09] a handkerchief without dying of consumption.

[16:11] Like, that's just what happens in the movies.

[16:13] So, Michael Shannon's come home.

[16:15] Christina Hendricks is a furry.

[16:16] She likes dressing up as a bunny.

[16:17] She's having a non-sexual affair with Ron Perlman, the town sheriff, who dresses like

[16:22] a wolf.

[16:22] There's apparently a furry club, and there's nothing sexual about it.

[16:26] They just like to hang around each other and rub up against each other in furry costumes.

[16:30] Now, here's the thing.

Stuart Wellington

[16:31] Now, I am not...

[16:33] Oh, weird.

[16:33] Is Ellie gonna go on a weird soapbox against furries?

Elliott Kalan

[16:36] No, well, that's the thing.

[16:37] The thing is that, like, the movie kind of wants to have it both ways, I think, where there's

[16:42] a scene later where it's kind of implied, like, it's okay for them to be furries, but

[16:45] every scene up to that point, furry is just an out-and-out punchline, and it's not a fetish

[16:49] that I happen to share, but there are people who have it.

[16:52] And, like, the idea that it's...

[16:54] I guess it's a famous enough fetish that you can make fun of it, but it is not so well-known

[17:00] that it's normalized, but it felt very icky to me the entire time that it was, like, seen

[17:05] as...

[17:06] Yeah, it's super icky.

[17:06] It's just a weird thing.

[17:08] Yeah.

[17:08] The movie treats...

Dan McCoy

[17:09] The way the movie treats it, not...

Elliott Kalan

[17:10] The movie...

[17:10] Yeah, not the fetish itself, which, whatever, I don't care, no one's getting hurt, but the

[17:14] way the movie treats it.

Dan McCoy

[17:15] The movie treats the very existence of furries as a joke in and of itself.

[17:19] Yes.

[17:19] Is the problem.

Elliott Kalan

[17:20] Yeah.

[17:21] And it bugs me, because it's like, make up some silly fetish of your own.

[17:26] Don't use a real thing.

[17:27] Like, if it's going to be a joke, make something up so you're not making fun of real people.

[17:31] But, uh...

[17:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:32] Unfortunately, this...

[17:33] I think it's...

[17:34] I mean, the fetish is what is the catalyst for the whole plot of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[17:38] That's true.

[17:39] Well, maybe they shouldn't have made this movie, I guess is what I'm getting at, but...

Stuart Wellington

[17:42] Whoa.

[17:42] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[17:43] It's also weird that they're gonna...

[17:44] Final judgments.

[17:45] I do find it strange that if they're going to do this, if they're going to have, like...

[17:50] This break up the marriage, that they make it so very clear that it's non-sexual.

Elliott Kalan

[17:56] Well, it's like...

[17:57] I was wondering who this movie is for, because it's like a movie for grown-ups that seems like it is chasing a PG rating.

[18:04] Yeah.

[18:04] Because, like...

[18:05] Yeah.

[18:05] At every turn...

[18:06] That's why it landed on PG-13.

[18:08] Yeah.

[18:08] I guess you're right.

[18:09] Everyone's favorite rating.

[18:11] It's like a...

[18:13] It feels like the movie doesn't know what the tone is supposed to be, and it's something I want to get at.

[18:17] This is a weird movie, not necessarily plot-wise.

[18:19] The movie plot is...

[18:21] There's not a lot of plot in this movie.

[18:22] You could do this movie in 22 minutes, probably.

[18:24] But everything about the movie...

[18:26] Like, the way it's shot and paced and the score, it feels very strange and claustrophobic and artificial.

[18:31] And it's like they think they're making a Coen Brothers movie, but it doesn't have a sense of life about it.

[18:36] But the score is like a Hallmark movie.

[18:39] It's just like the most cartoonish...

[18:40] I think Stuart, while he was watching...

[18:42] Yeah, Mickey Mouse-ing around.

[18:43] Really Mickey Mouse-ing up.

[18:44] Stuart texted us and was like, this score is working overtime.

Stuart Wellington

[18:48] And it's like...

[18:48] When you said that this movie could have been done in 22 minutes, I think it kind of has.

[18:53] Wasn't that like the plot of the second episode of The Simpsons?

Elliott Kalan

[18:57] Yeah, basically that he gets mistaken for Bigfoot, yes.

[18:59] Oh, yeah.

[19:00] There's actually more incident in that because they go camping, he gets lost, he gets captured by scientists.

[19:05] Like, there's more in that than there is in this movie.

[19:07] But did the tone of the movie feel like weirdly...

[19:11] Like everything was in a snow globe packed with foam peanuts to you the same way it did to me?

[19:17] Just airless, you know?

Dan McCoy

[19:18] Yeah, well, I mean, I noticed it had a very strange manner of being shot, too.

[19:24] There was a lot of extreme close-ups.

[19:26] Yeah.

[19:26] Which I think makes it more insulated, like you say, like insular.

[19:31] There's just a lot of tight shots on Michael Shannon's face.

Stuart Wellington

[19:34] Yeah, just like you were never really here.

Elliott Kalan

[19:39] And like, it's not shot poorly.

[19:41] It's just shot in a way that does not serve the material.

[19:43] Like, it's not ugly.

[19:45] But it's like, it feels like someone watched a lot of like Barry Sonnenfeld's movies from the early 90s, late 80s and was like, got it.

[19:52] That's how you shoot a movie.

[19:53] But without really knowing why you do it that way in certain times.

[19:57] Okay.

[19:57] But here's the important thing.

[19:58] We've danced around it enough.

[19:59] Michael Shannon shattered at his wife's kind of infidelity but really at keeping the secret.

[20:03] Gets drunk.

Stuart Wellington

[20:04] And more than that, she says that she thinks they should take a break.

Elliott Kalan

[20:08] Oh, right.

[20:08] She says she's looking for excitement and she can't find it in her life with him.

[20:12] The only excitement she has is dressing up like a bunny and just kind of playfully patting the sheriff in a wolf costume.

[20:18] And so Michael Shannon, as we've mentioned, there's only one response to this.

[20:21] His mind shatters.

[20:23] He gets drunk.

[20:23] Puts on a gorilla costume.

[20:25] And then blacks out.

Stuart Wellington

[20:27] Because his thinking is, he's like, if she likes patting Ron Perlman, I will make myself look like Ron Perlman.

Elliott Kalan

[20:35] Yeah.

[20:35] In order to catch a furry, I must become a furry is what he says.

Stuart Wellington

[20:39] I mean, that's kind of what he, there's, leading up to that, there's a scene of Michael Shannon being drunk, which was a very exciting moment because I'm like, here's where he's going to snap.

Elliott Kalan

[20:50] No, you were hoping for a kind of Nick Cage and Mandy type performance there for Michael Shannon.

Stuart Wellington

[20:55] Yeah, and I mean, I think, I think this is the most excited he seems in the whole movie.

Elliott Kalan

[20:59] Yeah.

[21:00] To say that Michael Shannon sleepwalks through the movie, I think is maybe a bit of an accurate statement possibly.

Dan McCoy

[21:05] Are you suggesting, Stuart, that Michael Shannon took the role because he wanted to run around in a Bigfoot costume?

Stuart Wellington

[21:10] I 100% think that's why.

[21:12] Uh, there's, this is the closest Michael Shannon gets to that moment that he gets in most movies where, most movies, there's at least one scene where it looks like Michael Shannon's eyes are just going to fly out of his head.

[21:24] Uh, and this is about, I mean, this happens early on in the movie.

[21:29] Yeah.

[21:30] So it's a, it's a bummer that you have to go through the rest of the movie without that kind of, uh, what, thunder from Big Trouble in Little China moment.

Elliott Kalan

[21:37] Yeah.

[21:37] You got to assume that Michael Shannon has a checklist.

[21:39] He has a bucket list of things he wants to do on this earth.

[21:41] And it's like, okay, act on the stage.

[21:44] Yes.

[21:45] Nominated for an Oscar.

[21:46] Yes.

[21:46] Work with Werner Herzog.

[21:47] Yes.

[21:48] Run around in a Bigfoot costume.

[21:50] Why is no one giving me this opportunity?

[21:51] I don't understand.

[21:52] Am I going to have to self-finance this project?

[21:54] And this movie comes along.

[21:55] Now, here's the other thing.

[21:57] The gorilla costume is not that furry.

[21:59] It's, when you're a furry, I think it's really the plush aspect of it.

[22:02] Yeah.

[22:03] That really gets people, the softness.

[22:05] This costume looks pretty rough.

[22:06] And I do not think it's going to win over Christina Hendricks.

[22:09] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[22:09] But, I mean, he's learning.

[22:10] He's new to the, uh, the lifestyle.

[22:12] But, you know, he wants her back.

[22:14] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:15] The, to paint a word picture, the, uh.

[22:18] No, no.

[22:19] Paint us a real picture, Dan.

[22:20] Use paint.

[22:21] Okay.

[22:22] Well, I'll have to unpack my easel.

[22:24] But, all right.

[22:25] Okay.

[22:26] Uh, no.

[22:27] It's, the costume is one of those, um, camouflage costumes that's, like, made to look like sort of swamp moss.

[22:36] And that's what he's wearing on his body.

[22:38] Like a Gilly suit?

[22:39] Yeah.

[22:40] I don't know what that means.

Stuart Wellington

[22:41] That's what, like, cool snipers wear.

Elliott Kalan

[22:43] All right.

[22:43] Yeah.

[22:44] Yeah, like Gilly, the Kristen Wiig character on Saturday Night Live.

Dan McCoy

[22:47] And then, as we said, he's wearing a gorilla mask, which he pulls out of his, I guess, Halloween stock of, uh, stuff that he has in his store.

Elliott Kalan

[22:55] It's that period when it's almost Christmas, but there's still some Halloween stuff on sale.

[22:59] Yeah.

[22:59] Because the gorilla masks didn't fly off the shelves the way he thought they would.

[23:02] Here's the hint.

[23:03] Here's the hint, Michael Shannon.

[23:04] Stock the whole costume.

[23:06] Not just the mask.

[23:07] Yeah.

[23:07] Nobody wants to go as gorilla basketball dunk mascot every year.

[23:11] I know you think that's the best costume.

[23:13] A gorilla mask, you got a basketball uniform, and then you jump off of a catapult, trampoline, whatever, to do dunks.

[23:19] People love it in the middle of a basketball game.

[23:21] They do not love it on Halloween.

[23:23] Sorry, Michael Shannon.

[23:24] I know you think they do.

Stuart Wellington

[23:25] Maybe he was thinking those kids would just put on the mask and put on, what, like a button-down shirt and a tie and go as Monkey Man and O'Brien?

[23:34] Yeah.

[23:34] Kids' favorite comic book character.

Elliott Kalan

[23:36] Which is connected to here because Ron Perlman played Hellboy, and Monkey Man and O'Brien started as a backup series in the original Hellboy miniseries.

[23:44] Stuart, you've opened a beautiful web of connections here.

[23:48] Monkey Man and O'Brien, the series that never quite got off the ground, despite having the amazing art of Art Adams.

[23:54] Guys, can we talk about how amazing Art Adams is?

Stuart Wellington

[23:56] He's great.

[23:57] He manages to do cheesecake artwork that doesn't make you feel totally creepy.

Elliott Kalan

[24:01] Not totally, but the fact that it's always a cheesecake woman who's fighting a big monster helps a little bit, I guess.

[24:07] That certainly helps, yeah.

[24:08] Okay.

[24:09] So Maynard wakes up to find that the whole town thinks that it saw Bigfoot running around, and he remembers these flashes of running around and drinking out of a fountain in the shape of a little boy peeing, and everyone –

[24:20] I have to say, this scene goes on bafflingly long.

Dan McCoy

[24:23] It's like the movie does not expect us to put two and two together.

[24:25] Exactly.

[24:26] It's a series of close-up of Michael Shannon's face, and then like ten different scenes of him remembering Bigfoot running around.

Stuart Wellington

[24:37] It's very Chaz Palminteri at the end of Usual Suspects.

Elliott Kalan

[24:40] Except if that went on forever, and then he called other people into the room and was like, hold on a second.

[24:45] Help me put these pieces together.

[24:46] Wait a sec.

[24:47] And then the text verbal is Kaiser Soze just flashed on the screen over and over again.

Dan McCoy

[24:54] The subtext of this movie is Michael Shannon's really stupid.

[24:57] His character or the actor?

[24:59] His character Maynard.

Elliott Kalan

[25:00] Because I was going to say, that's some weird shade, dude.

[25:02] Yeah.

[25:03] He's clearly not.

[25:04] He's a brilliant man.

[25:05] Okay.

[25:05] Here's my guess.

[25:06] Michael Shannon loves running around in that Bigfoot costume that he kept making them shoot more and more footage of him, and they're like, we've used up so much film shooting him as Bigfoot.

[25:14] We've got to find a way to use some of it in the movie.

[25:17] We just have so much – and so they kind of tried to other side of the wind it and use all the footage they could into these choppy moments.

[25:23] Okay.

[25:24] So the town is hopping now.

[25:26] Everyone is excited that Bigfoot is here.

[25:28] This could revitalize the town.

[25:29] This could make the town famous.

[25:30] Even Maynard's wife, Christina Hendricks, is really excited because the implication, I guess, is that she wants to have sex with Bigfoot.

[25:36] Like that Bigfoot is like the ultimate furry because he's furry on the inside as well.

[25:40] Yeah.

[25:41] I don't think that's how anatomy works.

[25:43] No, but a human can only be furry on the outside wearing a costume.

[25:46] But on the inside, they're always going to be a human, not an anthropomorphic animal.

[25:50] But Bigfoot, he's an anthropomorphic animal on the inside, his soul, and also on the outside.

[25:55] So it's like, oh, finally, the ultimate, the alpha and omega.

Stuart Wellington

[25:59] Yeah.

[25:59] I mean, I don't know that much about squatches, but you're probably right.

[26:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:03] I mean, I think more than anything she's just excited.

[26:05] I only know about butternut squatches.

[26:07] Oh, boy.

Stuart Wellington

[26:08] She's happy that there's excitement in her life and in her town.

[26:10] I mean, I think she even says this is the most exciting thing to happen in our town in 10 years.

Dan McCoy

[26:15] I just had a flash on the implication of this maybe being that Christina Hendricks, her porn is Harry and the Hendersons.

Stuart Wellington

[26:25] I'm sure it is for somebody, Dan.

[26:27] Yeah, probably.

[26:28] Yeah.

[26:29] Yeah.

[26:29] It's got John Lithgow in it.

[26:30] I mean, come on.

Elliott Kalan

[26:31] It doesn't get sexier than that.

[26:33] That's why everybody loves that, what's that movie he made with Brian De Palma?

[26:38] Raising Cane.

[26:39] Raising Cane.

[26:40] Thank you.

[26:40] That's why Raising Cane is, people think, is so sexy.

[26:42] And you see all those women dressing up in sexy Dr. Lizardo costumes on Halloween?

Stuart Wellington

[26:47] I mean, my love of Raising Cane certainly is why I often frequent Raising Cane's Chicken Fingers for a chain restaurant whenever I'm in the Midwest.

Dan McCoy

[26:56] I thought you were going to say Raising Cane Conventions.

Elliott Kalan

[27:01] Oh, Cane Con?

[27:01] Yeah, it's pretty cool.

[27:03] Oh, yeah.

[27:03] Are you guys going to be at Cane Con this year or are you going to sit it out this time?

[27:06] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[27:07] Yeah, and I'll show up with my copy of Cane by Gene Toomer and try and get it autographed.

Dan McCoy

[27:12] I like to imagine that at Cane Con, like 90% of the people are there thinking it's a Citizen Cane convention and everyone else has to explain to them like, no, no, no, no.

[27:21] This is Raising Cane Convention.

Elliott Kalan

[27:22] Actually, the thing is 90% of them are there thinking it is an industry convention for makers of canes.

[27:27] So you've got elderly people, you've got cane manufacturers, you've got candy cane companies.

[27:31] Uh-huh.

[27:32] But the big thing is always when John Lithgow gives his state of the industry speech at the end of it where he talks about how the cane industry, meaning Raising Cane, is doing.

[27:40] And he talks about not a lot of Raising Cane remakes this year, haven't rebooted Raising Cane yet.

[27:44] Yeah.

[27:45] And he just goes, he always, the big moment is at the end when he announces that year's DVD sales for Raising Cane.

[27:50] People love it.

[27:54] Oh, Cane Con is fun.

[27:55] You should go to Cane Con.

[27:56] It's in Richmond, Indiana, right up by Earlham College.

[28:00] If you're staying there, do not expect a quick breakfast at the Holiday Inn.

[28:04] Let's just say that.

Dan McCoy

[28:04] Oh, wow.

[28:05] Yeah.

[28:05] This is a little inside talk from our trip to Earlham where we did a live show just recently.

[28:10] We had the slowest breakfast ever.

[28:13] That's the background.

Elliott Kalan

[28:14] That's the background.

[28:15] If you've ever been to a Holiday Inn, ordered breakfast, and then you've waited so long for the food that the restaurant has closed before it is delivered to you.

[28:22] That's the experience we had.

Stuart Wellington

[28:23] I mean, I think you're being charitable by calling it a restaurant, Elliot.

[28:27] I feel like it was a lobby.

[28:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[28:31] Good one.

[28:31] And what we needed was a real.

Stuart Wellington

[28:33] It may have taken forever for our food to show up, but at least they were out of all the things we wanted to order.

Elliott Kalan

[28:39] Good point.

[28:40] Good point.

[28:41] Of the three things left, it took them a while to really perfect them.

[28:44] Okay.

[28:45] So this town is famous now.

[28:47] The name of the town?

[28:48] I almost forgot it, but it's the name of the movie.

[28:50] It's not Forgottersville.

[28:52] No.

[28:53] A famous TV monster hunter, Brock, what was his name?

[28:56] Brock Masterson or something like that?

[28:59] He is played by Thomas Lennon.

[29:00] He's Australian and he's a real prima donna.

[29:03] We soon learn that he's not really Australian.

[29:05] He's just pretending.

[29:06] And this is – at start, he helicopters into town and says he's going to catch this squash.

[29:12] Now, at first, this is a strangely understated performance for Thomas Lennon, a man who has done some large performances in the past in various mediums.

[29:21] You know, this is Mr. LePan.

[29:23] But at first, he's very – and what I realized is like, oh, he realizes he has to get bigger throughout the movie and he's being a professional about it.

[29:30] And I really – I was impressed by Thomas Lennon's devotion to this part.

Dan McCoy

[29:34] Yeah.

[29:34] I do want to say before we go too far away from it, I think this movie really overestimates the amount of revitalization someone seeing Bigfoot would bring to a town.

[29:45] Yeah.

[29:45] Like there is so much Bigfoot tourism all of a sudden.

Elliott Kalan

[29:49] There's a moment where these guys are selling Bigfoot merchandise and they're like, did you know Bigfoot exists in every culture in every language?

[29:57] And they say it a couple times in the movie and it's like, there's no damn way that that is true.

Stuart Wellington

[30:01] Every language and every culture has a Bigfoot.

[30:04] Come on.

[30:05] Did you know that the fifth element is Bigfoot?

Elliott Kalan

[30:08] Oh, I had no idea.

[30:09] Oh, wow.

[30:10] Did you guys – did you know Kaiser Soze?

[30:12] Bigfoot.

Stuart Wellington

[30:13] Wow.

[30:14] I mean, there was some foot-related stuff with Kaiser Soze, so that would make sense.

Elliott Kalan

[30:19] That's true, yeah.

[30:20] Did you know at the – in Cisne King when he says Rosebud, what he was actually saying was Rose Bigfoot?

[30:25] Oh, okay, yeah.

[30:26] Because he was talking about his –

Stuart Wellington

[30:27] You got to slow it down like Mumbles or whatever in Dick Tracy to figure that one out.

Elliott Kalan

[30:33] Yeah, exactly.

[30:35] Play it backwards.

[30:35] It's backwards masked.

[30:37] So, yeah, the town is instantly revitalized.

[30:41] There's lots of people.

[30:41] It gets the attention of this guy.

[30:43] Now, I'm just going to say this right now.

[30:44] Thomas Lennon is playing the exact same character James Corden plays in Smallfoot, a fakie TV nature hunter who wants to –

Stuart Wellington

[30:51] Thanks for a reference I will not understand at all.

Elliott Kalan

[30:55] This is for the parents in the audience is that both of them are television hosts who will want to fake an experience with Bigfoot in order to get raised.

[31:05] They're going to take a lot of ratings and save their career.

[31:06] And it works a little better here than in Smallfoot.

[31:10] I'm just going to say that.

[31:11] And I think maybe the reason is because Thomas Lennon never sings a parody of Under Pressure.

[31:16] That's all about how his ratings are down and he needs to find a Bigfoot to save his career.

[31:20] Kids love that.

[31:21] Kids love Under Pressure and they love talk about TV ratings and people's careers in an industry they don't care that much about even though they love watching TV.

[31:29] Okay, but guys.

Stuart Wellington

[31:30] So this is a relatively short movie and I feel like this is the point where they must have just realized like, oh, we need to fill this.

[31:38] Let's just mainly – like Michael Shannon is not the main character anymore.

[31:42] The main character is not Thomas Lennon's character.

[31:43] Yeah, this is when I texted Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[31:46] I texted the guys and I was like, who's the protagonist of this movie?

[31:50] Because he – yeah, he's gone for the whole middle section.

Elliott Kalan

[31:52] Not the whole middle section.

[31:54] Every now and then they check on him and Judy Greer and Judy Greer is like, hey, you okay?

[31:57] And Michael Shannon is like, I'm fine.

[31:58] And then they go back to Thomas Lennon.

[32:00] Yeah.

[32:01] So first Thomas Lennon and the cops, they go – the whole town, they go to hunt for Bigfoot.

[32:05] They find a dead deer and Thomas Lennon is like, oh, Bigfoot killed this deer.

[32:08] And then he plays a Yeti hunting song on his acoustic guitar and he dedicates to Nelson Mandela.

[32:14] This is a part of the movie where I was genuinely like, okay, I'm laughing at this part.

[32:18] That he's like, I did write a song about it and everyone in the town loves him.

[32:21] And he's like, I want to dedicate this song to Nelson Mandela.

[32:23] And then gets choked up and then plays this dumb song about Yetis.

[32:27] And Ian McShane interrupts by parodying Quint in Jaws, scratching his fingers on a chalkboard and says, hey, if we want to be really famous, we can't just see Bigfoot.

[32:36] We've got to catch Bigfoot, which I kind of assumed was what Thomas Lennon was going to do anyway.

[32:40] I don't know what he's adding to that.

[32:42] But they say – he says, well, we'll think about it.

[32:46] Thomas Lennon goes to shoot his show in the woods in a scene that goes on forever.

[32:50] And they're trying to fake a Bigfoot encounter and then Michael Shannon runs out in his costume and scares everybody.

Stuart Wellington

[32:55] Now, this scene features the film crew working on the show.

[33:00] And I just want to point out that one of my bartenders, Mickey, auditioned for one of those roles.

[33:04] Really?

[33:05] And he didn't get it.

[33:06] Oh, how much better this movie would have been if Mickey had been one of those dudes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:13] Tom Lennon, now I want to have like an I Was There Too type interview with him about the audition process for Pottersville.

[33:19] Did he read with Michael Shannon?

[33:20] Like how did it happen?

Stuart Wellington

[33:22] I didn't get any information about that.

[33:24] But he did have to react to Bigfoot, pictures of Bigfoot over and over.

[33:32] React to this.

Dan McCoy

[33:33] Now I'm just imagining people with big flashcards and being like, blah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:37] What do you think of this?

Dan McCoy

[33:39] It's a Bigfoot.

Elliott Kalan

[33:40] Okay.

[33:41] We need a bigger reaction.

[33:42] It's a Bigfoot.

[33:43] Give me a reaction as big as his foot.

[33:45] And go.

[33:46] Anyway, the ultimate thing that happens is Thomas Lennon, he wants to leave because he's scared of Bigfoot.

[33:52] Oh, it's real.

[33:53] I saw what looked like a man in a gorilla suit run right by me.

[33:56] It means Bigfoot is real.

[33:57] I got to get out of here.

[33:58] But the producer says, no, this could save your career if you catch Bigfoot.

[34:02] You're going to team up with Ian McShane.

[34:04] Sheriff Ron Perlman wants to come along too.

[34:06] And then most of the movie at this point is just him hanging out in the woods, kind of getting to know each other and bonding over their moonshine liquor.

[34:14] And there's just kind of culture clash between this prima donna city slicker Thomas Lennon and this backwoodsman Ian McShane.

[34:22] And yeah, Michael Shannon, at a certain point, you're like, did he have another commitment?

[34:27] And he had to go make Nocturnal Animals and they had to write around him?

[34:30] Like, what happened?

[34:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:33] Now, guys.

[34:34] And so much of this at this point is like, is Thomas Lennon's character doing silly things and everybody just kind of like making fun of him for it?

[34:43] Yeah.

[34:44] Like, I don't know.

[34:45] It just doesn't.

[34:46] It's not funny.

[34:48] No.

[34:49] It's like every Saturday Night Live sketch where you just have one character who's wacky and everybody else like comments on.

[34:57] Why is he doing that?

Dan McCoy

[34:58] He's trying desperately to enliven this.

[35:01] Like, he's got his big silly Australian accent on and he's yelping and running around.

Stuart Wellington

[35:07] His plan is to capture Bigfoot.

[35:10] Okay.

[35:11] I'm just laying this all out.

[35:12] He's going to capture Bigfoot.

[35:13] This will save his career.

[35:16] Oh, yeah.

[35:16] And then he will no longer have to be Brock Masterson, Australian guy.

[35:20] And then he can go back to making movies.

Elliott Kalan

[35:23] It's a little unclear how he's going to gracefully exit the persona of Brock Masterson and go back to his real life.

[35:30] And I mean, it might just be he continues to be Brock, but he's Brock as an actor now.

[35:34] But it is – he is saying like, oh, I'll catch Bigfoot and then I can stop doing this show, which is not really how Hollywood works.

[35:40] Once you've had a big success, they want you to keep doing that again.

[35:43] So like the worst thing he could do is catch Bigfoot because everyone would be like, do it again.

[35:48] Get Nessie.

[35:49] Catch Nessie now.

Stuart Wellington

[35:50] Catch the Oka Pogo.

[35:52] And people really like it when you like pull the wool over their eyes like that.

[35:56] I mean, I guess this is effectively like an Ali G, Sacha Baron Cohen type thing maybe if he spun it right.

[36:02] I feel like that would be the right way to spin it and not like a, what, I'm still here, Joaquin Phoenix type thing.

Elliott Kalan

[36:09] Yeah, that was – well, that's clearly the wrong way to spin it since it really hurt his career for a long time.

[36:13] But he's recovered from it, Joaquin Phoenix.

[36:16] And the director of I'm Still Here, Casey Affleck, oh, people love him.

[36:21] He's hugely popular.

[36:22] The Academy Award winning actor that is not mentioned in ads for his movies.

[36:26] Oh, yeah, the Academy Award winning actor that is – seems to – it seems – well, let's not get into it.

[36:31] It's like he's one of these guys where it's like, hmm, well, I guess we'll just allow it and we'll just not like him very much.

[36:38] And we'll just allow him to get away with things.

[36:40] But anyway, let's not – we don't have to talk about that.

[36:42] Look, I work in this industry.

[36:43] I don't want to hurt my career.

[36:44] Let's keep talking about Bigfoot.

[36:46] Let's talk about this movie that we're punching down on because the people who made it haven't made that much other stuff.

[36:50] Okay, so Bigfoot fever.

[36:53] Uh-oh, at this point.

[36:54] It's starting to tear the town apart.

[36:55] Everyone is so hungry for fame that they've forgotten what the important thing is about Pottersville, which is ripping off Michael Shannon's store by taking things and never paying him.

[37:05] That's what really holds this town together.

[37:07] And Michael Shannon starts to worry what's going to happen to him if he gets found out.

[37:10] And Judy Greer finds his gorilla costume since he has hidden it in the one bag in his store.

[37:16] She starts to worry about him.

[37:18] Uh-oh.

[37:19] There's a lot of fighting, blah, blah, blah.

[37:22] There's a lot of hunting.

Stuart Wellington

[37:23] And she's revealed at this point that she is not a fan of the idea that somebody is dressing up as Bigfoot.

[37:30] I think she thinks that that's...

Elliott Kalan

[37:33] Yeah, she...

[37:33] She's not...

[37:36] What were you going to say, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[37:41] She just says she clearly...

[37:42] She seems to be the only person who understands that this is just somebody in a costume, not an actual Bigfoot creature.

[37:49] Yes.

[37:49] And that she is ready for this Bigfoot shenanigans to be over.

[37:53] And by the way...

Elliott Kalan

[37:53] My guess is I think she's the only person in town who does not have a gas leak in her house.

[37:58] Very open to this.

Dan McCoy

[38:00] Dan, what are you saying?

[38:01] By the way, what?

[38:01] By the way, we kind of glossed over this, but Michael Shannon seemed to grasp the advantage of having a Bigfoot in the town very quickly.

[38:09] Because almost immediately, he decided to continue going out as Bigfoot, even though the first time was just a mental breakdown.

[38:18] But the second time, he made a decision to go out as Bigfoot again.

[38:21] Well, that's the thing.

[38:22] And I feel like it's pretty unmotivated, actually, in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[38:25] No, I don't know.

[38:25] That's his character choice because he thinks that this is a way he could get his wife interested in going back to her normal life.

[38:30] That's like, first it's a mistake.

[38:32] Then he goes, well, maybe this will help me get my wife back.

[38:33] And then he's in too deep.

[38:35] Oh, man.

[38:36] He thought it would be just one last Bigfoot.

[38:38] And then he's out of the game.

[38:40] He's out of the Squatch game.

[38:42] But no, no, no.

[38:43] He's in too deep and he's got to keep going.

Stuart Wellington

[38:45] I was really hoping there would be scenes where Michael Shannon is wrestling with the two sides of his identity at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[38:52] And it's illustrated by him wrestling with Bigfoot.

Stuart Wellington

[38:54] Where does the Shannon end and where does the Squatch begin?

[38:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[38:58] Here's the thing.

[38:59] Guys, the lesson in this movie, you start by playing Bigfoot, but it always ends with Bigfoot playing you.

Stuart Wellington

[39:05] Oh, wow.

[39:06] I didn't know that.

[39:07] That's a strange knowledge.

[39:08] You miss 100% of the Bigfoots you don't take.

Elliott Kalan

[39:13] You don't have to be Bigfoot to work here, but it helps.

[39:16] I guess so.

[39:17] Look, God put me on Earth to do a specific number of Bigfoots.

[39:21] At this rate, I'll never die.

Dan McCoy

[39:24] That was when Bigfoot was carrying you.

[39:29] Hey.

[39:30] That's why those footprints in the sand were so big.

[39:33] Guys.

Elliott Kalan

[39:33] Hang in there.

[39:34] And it's Bigfoot hanging from a branch.

Stuart Wellington

[39:36] Guys, I came here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all out of Bigfoot.

Elliott Kalan

[39:40] Hey, guys.

[39:41] Welcome to Bigfoot Park.

[39:45] All right.

[39:46] You know, the troubles of a Bigfoot don't amount to a hill of Bigfoots in this world.

[39:53] This is my new favorite game.

[39:54] This is the beginning of a beautiful Bigfoot.

[39:56] Now, you're probably asking yourself, did I shoot six Bigfoots or only five?

[39:59] Well, with all the Bigfoots, I kind of lost count of my Bigfoots.

[40:03] So, act yourself.

[40:05] Do you feel lucky, Bigfoot?

[40:06] Well, do you?

[40:10] We're going to need a bigger foot, et cetera.

[40:12] So, the hunters think they found, I guess, a collection of Bigfoots or possibly aliens

[40:17] dropping off Bigfoot as a prisoner on Earth, the prison planet.

[40:21] This is a theory that Thomas Lennon floats at one point.

[40:23] Which I was kind of in the end.

[40:24] I was kind of hoping that would be this.

[40:25] But it turns out it's just a convention of furries that are there to welcome Bigfoot

[40:29] in what actually, to be honest, looks like a ridiculously pleasant winter carnival.

[40:36] Yeah.

[40:36] They've strung lights in the trees.

[40:37] There's this warm glow about everything.

[40:39] They're having a great time just kind of dancing.

[40:41] I was like, oh, this looks like really fun.

Stuart Wellington

[40:43] Until Ian McShane starts pointing a Luger at people.

[40:46] And I'm like, where did you get that gun?

[40:49] Is that part of your weird World War II memorabilia collection?

Elliott Kalan

[40:53] Ron Perlman and Thomas Lennon, they fall into it.

[40:56] I mean, Ron Perlman's already a furry.

[40:57] Thomas Lennon's into it, but McShane is like, get out of here.

[41:00] Points that gun at them.

[41:00] Get out.

[41:01] We're going to catch this squash.

[41:03] And Michael Shannon goes out in his costume.

[41:05] And Ian McShane is about to shoot him with that real gun.

[41:08] And then Thomas Lennon shoots him with a tranq dart first.

[41:11] Ugh, saving his life.

[41:13] They strap him to the front of a car and drive him into the center of town.

[41:17] And Thomas Lennon gives a speech where he's like, I've made the greatest discovery

[41:19] in human history.

[41:20] Which is overblowing it slightly, even if it was a real Bigfoot.

[41:24] Like, I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that it would not really change human

[41:30] civilization that much to find Bigfoots.

[41:33] People would be like, oh, that's cool.

[41:34] And they'd go about their lives.

[41:36] I don't think it would be that exciting.

[41:37] But Judy Greer unmasks Maynard in front of everybody.

[41:41] And it's almost like Clark Kent with his glasses, where it's like, how do people not

[41:45] see this as a man in a gorilla costume?

[41:47] It's so clearly a mask.

Stuart Wellington

[41:48] They trust him up.

[41:50] Like, they had to get really close to him to tie him up and put him in the back of

[41:53] that.

Elliott Kalan

[41:54] Yeah.

[41:54] You have to imagine they would see the seams.

[41:56] They'd see the part where the mask separates from the neck of the costume.

[41:59] And you can see Michael Shannon's white skin and his brown hair underneath it.

[42:03] And they'd be like, oh, this Bigfoot's got some weird skin condition, I guess, that his

[42:06] skin comes off in segments.

[42:08] And then there's another person's skin underneath.

[42:11] The Bigfoot has a weird thing where his hands look like big gloves that don't attach to the

[42:15] sleeves of his arms.

[42:16] And underneath, you just see, I guess that's the white of fat.

[42:19] That's the blubber he uses to keep warm in the winter, since his thick hair is not quite

[42:24] enough in the coldest of the winter nights.

[42:26] But anyway, Bigfoot, everybody.

[42:28] Now, you may smell high karate on him.

[42:31] That's actually natural Bigfoot musk that is not a cologne.

[42:34] And you may notice that he has a copy of Forbes magazine in his back pocket.

[42:40] Now, a lot of people don't know that Sasquatches have a natural pocket in the back of their

[42:45] rear.

[42:46] And also that they love to read Forbes because they want to know who the wealthiest people

[42:50] in the world are.

[42:51] The Sasquatch, they have an interest in capitalism, of course, as we all know.

[42:54] Now, you may also realize that he is wearing a Kansas City Royals cap on his head.

[42:59] That's natural Sasquatch behavior.

[43:01] Sasquatches, they love baseball, but they love local teams.

[43:04] And even though we're not close to Kansas City, they like the Kansas City Royals have a big

[43:09] following in Kansas City and not too many other places except with their Kansas City transplants.

[43:13] Now, you'll notice also that-

[43:15] Oh, boy.

[43:16] He is holding a toothbrush and he's sticking the toothbrush into his neck to get out a mouth

[43:20] that is inside of his face.

[43:22] It's not because it's a person wearing a mask.

[43:24] It's because that's how you get to a Sasquatch's teeth is through their trachea.

[43:27] It's the only way you can brush his teeth.

[43:29] And yes, question from the back, I know what you're going to ask.

[43:31] Yes, Sasquatches know how to brush their teeth.

[43:33] Dental care is very important, as we all know, because they eat deer that they kill in the

[43:38] woods, as we've seen earlier.

[43:40] Yes, another question about Sasquatch.

[43:41] You're wondering why he's wearing a shirt that says, this isn't a beer belly, it's a gas tank for a

[43:45] sex machine.

[43:46] Yes, well, Sasquatches, as we know, have a great sense of humor and often spend time in

[43:49] Fort Lauderdale during spring break.

[43:51] That explains that.

[43:52] Thank you.

[43:52] Clearly, the Sasquatch.

[43:53] Went somewhere else and bought some tourism souvenirs.

[43:56] We got great tourism souvenirs in the Sasquatch store over at Maynard's General Store.

[44:00] Hey, we haven't seen Maynard in a while.

[44:02] I wonder where he is.

[44:03] You know what?

[44:04] He's about the same height as the Sasquatch.

[44:06] That's kind of weird.

[44:07] Anyway, and the Sasquatch was kind of moaning in a way that sounded like Maynard's voice,

[44:11] but without moving his lips.

[44:12] Again, the mouth inside of his head.

[44:14] He has two mouths like an alien.

[44:16] We had a theory that he was an alien that was dropped here as a prisoner of a sort.

[44:19] We're not sure about that.

[44:20] We'll ask him when he wakes up.

[44:21] Since we know he can speak English, since he was moaning something that sounded like,

[44:24] I'm Maynard.

[44:25] Let me go.

[44:26] But who knows?

Dan McCoy

[44:27] This isn't the Ziggy pitch.

[44:28] You don't have to fill up 17 minutes of...

[44:32] Maybe Gawker will pick this bit up.

Elliott Kalan

[44:34] Look, the movie's almost over.

[44:35] Greer unmasks Maynard.

[44:37] Judy Greer unmasks Maynard and Michael Shannon.

[44:38] Everyone is angry at Michael Shannon.

[44:40] Thomas Lennon sues the town for fraud.

[44:43] He's so mad.

[44:44] And all the townspeople are mad at Michael Shannon because he fooled them.

[44:48] And Judy Greer says, hey, his store is the center of our town.

[44:52] Let's look at this ledger where he wrote down everyone's names so that they could pay him back.

[44:55] The ledger is empty.

[44:57] He was never going to ask them to pay it back.

[44:58] He was just doing it from the kindness of his strange hitman in disguise heart.

[45:03] And then Maynard goes on live TV and is interviewed about it and talks about he just wanted to help the town and give people hope.

[45:09] And everyone's like, oh, yeah.

[45:10] And there's a reporter who appears a couple times and the joke is just that she has a Latin name that she says with an accent.

[45:17] And it's one of these things where it's like, this is not really a joke.

[45:20] It's kind of weird to keep hitting this so hard.

[45:23] Everyone apologizes to Maynard in a real ripoff of the scene from It's a Wonderful Life.

[45:28] Ron Perlman, I think, even says, here's to Maynard, the richest man in town.

[45:31] And people are like, it's a Christmas miracle.

[45:33] Oh, it's great.

Dan McCoy

[45:34] This is the only reason why this place is called Pottersville, I guess, is because they reenact this It's a Wonderful Life thing.

[45:39] Even though Pottersville was the evil version of that town.

Elliott Kalan

[45:42] So it makes me wonder, is this set in the Pottersville universe where George Bailey did kill himself, was never born or died when he was a kid, and it turned to evil Pottersville?

[45:55] Did that evolve into this town?

[45:58] Because then I kind of think it's...

[45:59] Yeah, so what is it?

[46:00] What happened?

Dan McCoy

[46:02] Yeah, it's the same universe.

[46:04] Guys, I gotta admit something.

[46:06] They got a picture of Mr. Potter up in City Hall.

Stuart Wellington

[46:08] Plus, I've never seen It's a Wonderful Life.

[46:10] Now, I'm assuming it is, the name is like sarcastic, right?

[46:17] It's like Born to the USA or something.

Elliott Kalan

[46:19] I mean, for much of the movie, it kind of is.

[46:22] Most of the movie is about how George Bailey's life did not live up to his hopes for it.

[46:26] He's had to really compromise.

[46:28] And then at the end, it's like, no, I do like these things, and I'm important.

[46:31] Without me, the world would fall apart.

[46:32] So I'll carry these disappointments.

[46:34] I'll carry them on my shoulders like my own cross, and I'll suffer, and I'll allow the world to scourge.

[46:40] Change me so that it can live on and be better.

[46:42] And at the end, everyone's happy.

[46:43] But it's kind of a dark movie for a lot of it.

[46:44] But it makes me wonder, is the movie even darker?

[46:47] Is all the stuff at the end where George Bailey's like, Merry Christmas, you wonderful old savings and loan?

[46:51] Is that all going through his mind as he drowns after jumping off the bridge?

[46:55] And actually, his life is like, oh, that's all just what he...

[47:00] It's a real Owl Creek Bridge type thing.

[47:02] Where all that stuff is just his last moments of fantasy.

[47:05] But in reality, in real life, what happened next was George Bailey's body was fished out of the river at Bedford Falls.

[47:12] And Potter took over the town, leading to Pottersville starring Michael Shannon.

[47:16] Oh, no.

[47:17] Leaving the town uniquely susceptible to a fake Bigfooting.

Dan McCoy

[47:22] So George Bailey's life really was important, because without him, we got this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] There's a different version of this called Bedford Falls, where Bigfoot's running around, and people are like, Bigfoot, Bigfoot.

[47:32] And elderly Jimmy Stewart is like, wait, open your damn eyes, it's clearly Maynard in a costume.

[47:36] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[47:38] Well, I can't believe how you're so excited about this Bigfoot.

Elliott Kalan

[47:42] Anyway, Christina Hendricks, now, she's really turned on by Maynard's importance to the community.

[47:46] And she's excited.

[47:47] And she's like, hey, maybe we can get back together and you can put on that gorilla costume again.

[47:51] And Maynard says, no, I don't think we're right.

[47:53] I think we should split up.

[47:54] And then he asks out Judy Greer.

[47:56] He says, hey, should we still have that movie at your house?

[47:58] Because earlier on, she was like, want to have a movie at my house?

[48:01] We can make popcorn.

[48:02] And it's so clear that she's saying, like, you should come to my house so we could do it.

Dan McCoy

[48:05] By the way, the scene where Maynard rejects Christina Hendricks' character is like, it happens like right after everyone's like, you're the richest man in town.

[48:16] And they're all just still standing around.

[48:18] And it feels like the most awkward thing to me.

[48:21] I'm like, I'm going to break off our marriage while everyone in town looks on.

Elliott Kalan

[48:25] Well, they were going to find out about it eventually, right?

[48:27] It's a small town.

[48:28] But you're right.

[48:29] It's weird that he doesn't say, hey, let's step into the back room or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[48:33] No, he wants to publicly shame her.

Elliott Kalan

[48:36] And now here's the moment where, okay, this movie, I haven't loved it.

[48:39] I found it a little weird.

[48:40] I found the furry joke stuff off-putting.

[48:43] Yeah.

[48:43] Here's where the movie made me really angry in just, like, a sentence is they go, there's a TV report and it says, like, Thomas Lennon, you know, Brock Masterson or Brock, whatever his name is.

[48:56] Brock's lawsuit has been dropped.

[48:59] As it turns out, it's been revealed he is not Australia.

[49:02] He's actually actor Lenny Abramowitz from Coney Island.

[49:06] Oh, right.

[49:06] And they fire him and it was like, oh, and now he's fired from his job and he's an exile from – he's a fraud himself.

[49:13] And it was like, oh, I get it because he's fucking Jewish.

[49:16] That's what it is.

[49:17] He's Lenny Abramowitz from Coney Island.

[49:20] So he's a stupid New York Jew who thought he could fool all these good-hearted Christians, kick him out, burn him at the stake.

[49:26] And it made me so mad.

[49:28] I got so mad.

[49:29] And I know that they were probably just like, Lenny Abramowitz is a funny name.

[49:32] Like, let's do that.

[49:33] But it was like – this became a Christmas movie in the most hateful way in one sentence where it was like, we love it.

[49:40] Christmas is great.

[49:40] We're all pals.

[49:41] This is wonderful.

[49:42] Get this Jew out of here.

[49:44] Get this idiot – get this asshole lying Jew who tried to cheat all of us out of here.

[49:48] This New York Jew.

[49:50] Get him out.

[49:50] And I was like, movie, I hate you now.

[49:52] It was like I had never turned on a movie so quickly since the movie Hell in the Pacific, which is a great movie until the very end when it just kind of craps out and stops.

[50:00] But this – I like – I was like, you know, a movie, I don't particularly like you, but you're not hurting me in any way.

[50:05] And then they were like, Lenny Abramowitz from Coney Island.

[50:07] And the guy goes, that doesn't sound like an Australian name.

[50:09] And it's like, fuck you, dude.

[50:10] There's Jews in Australia.

[50:11] Like, go to hell.

[50:12] He could be Australian, asshole.

[50:14] Like, I'm sorry.

[50:15] I'm sorry for the swearing.

[50:16] Dan, put an explicit language warning on this one.

[50:18] Okay, yeah.

[50:19] But it just made me so mad.

Dan McCoy

[50:21] Nearly 300 episodes, I watched.

[50:23] Please.

Stuart Wellington

[50:24] Yeah, and I mean, Elliot, but don't worry.

[50:27] Thomas Lennon's character also gets choked out by a security guard in that same sequence.

[50:32] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[50:33] Well, once it's clear that he's Jewish, like since he's less than human, just beat him up.

[50:38] Throw him away.

[50:39] It just made me so mad.

[50:40] It was like – and it's just – it's one of those things where I'm sure they did not mean to be like, this guy's Jewish.

[50:47] Kick him out of our Christmas movie.

[50:48] But it just shows how like – it's similar with the furry thing.

Stuart Wellington

[50:51] It's super thoughtless.

Elliott Kalan

[50:53] Yeah, it's thoughtless.

[50:54] This furry stuff will be funny.

[50:55] Oh, you know what?

[50:56] We'll give him a silly Jewish name and then we'll beat him up.

[50:58] And it's like, oh, come on.

[51:00] Think about what you're doing, dudes.

[51:01] Especially in like a Christmas movie.

[51:03] Look, guys, maybe I'm just sensitive because I'm already getting ready for that time of year when I have to deal with everyone else's Christmas junk.

[51:09] And I'm going to have my son asking me Christmas questions I don't want to deal with as we mentioned in previous episodes.

[51:14] We went to a thing yesterday in L.A. called the Elves Fair.

[51:18] And I was like, I don't want to go to this.

[51:21] But it turns out it was like a – it's like a Renfest type thing.

[51:24] Oh, cool, cool.

[51:24] So it's like Legolas's.

Stuart Wellington

[51:27] It was what?

[51:27] It was like a bunch of Legolas's.

[51:29] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[51:29] Exactly.

[51:30] Tons of Legolas's.

[51:31] But they did have one kind of like –

Stuart Wellington

[51:32] And Sammy's like, dad, dada, dada, can you buy me some Lembus bread?

[51:39] And you're like, no, if you eat that shit, you won't have room for dinner.

Elliott Kalan

[51:43] But they did have one guy who's kind of like a medievally pagany kind of like nature Santa Claus.

[51:48] And I was like, Sammy, we are not walking over to that guy.

[51:51] Forget it.

[51:51] If he called himself Merlin, yes, let's talk to him.

[51:54] Give him 100 tickets.

[51:56] Each ticket costs me a dollar.

[51:57] But sure, give him 10 tickets just to talk to him.

[51:59] So he can give you a present that I could buy you in the store for $1.50.

[52:02] But yes, talk to him.

[52:03] But if he calls himself Santa Claus, get out of here.

[52:05] We're not doing this.

[52:06] But maybe that's why I'm just sensitive about it, guys, because I know I'm entering the Christmas corridor of the year.

[52:12] It just makes me so mad.

Stuart Wellington

[52:13] You're bracing for that stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[52:15] Yeah, exactly.

[52:16] I'm ultra sensitive to it right now, like a particularly thin condom.

[52:20] So anyway.

Dan McCoy

[52:22] I've often said you're like a particularly thin condom.

[52:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:26] But guys, aside from that one Jew who was rightfully kicked out of the public square and exiled from the community, sent back to Coney Island where he belongs.

[52:34] Look, go sell some cheesecake to somebody.

[52:37] The town opens a Bigfoot museum and the Vaynerd and Judy Greer kiss.

[52:42] And then I think it's implied that they hear a real Bigfoot roar at the end.

[52:46] But I couldn't quite figure out what the sound effect was.

[52:48] I had to literally rewind to watch it again because in the background you hear kind of like, ah, and they look off to the side with surprised looks on their faces.

[52:56] And then it cuts to credits.

[52:57] And I was like, I know from filmic grammar that the joke is maybe there is a real Bigfoot.

[53:03] But it's done in such a half-assed way that I was like, did someone slip and fall because it's getting icy out?

[53:08] Like what happened?

Dan McCoy

[53:09] Yeah, it's as abrupt a cut as the end of an American Werewolf in London.

[53:14] Like it just, boom, credits.

[53:16] Yeah.

[53:16] There's no moment where they like look at each other like, did you hear that?

Stuart Wellington

[53:19] Uh-huh.

[53:20] They didn't go, here we go again.

[53:22] Yeah.

[53:23] And then put on baseball caps.

[53:26] Yeah, I think they were going for, I think Pottersville was going for like end of the Sopranos type thing.

Elliott Kalan

[53:32] Oh, I see.

[53:33] I get it.

[53:33] That's why they're playing Don't Stop Believing at the same time.

[53:36] I understand.

[53:37] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:38] All right.

[53:39] So guys, we've gone surprisingly long considering that.

[53:43] Do we go longer than the movie yet?

[53:45] Not this time.

[53:46] Okay, let's fill it up.

[53:47] I'm sure the episode will be, but.

[53:49] But we should do our final judgments.

[53:51] Is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie you kind of like?

[53:54] I'm going to go to Stuart.

[53:56] What do you have to say?

Stuart Wellington

[53:57] Oh, I'm going to go to Elliot.

[54:00] Oh, okay.

[54:00] What's Elliot going to say?

Elliott Kalan

[54:02] I think it's time for a Dan-o-gram.

Dan McCoy

[54:05] Okay, I guess I'll start then.

[54:10] This is a weird one.

[54:12] It sags a lot in the middle.

[54:14] Like a lot, a lot.

[54:17] It's just, I'm not entertained at all by the Thomas Lennon character's antics.

[54:22] And I'm just confused by why the movie sort of grinds to a halt there.

[54:26] So it's pretty bad.

[54:29] But at the same time, I kind of enjoyed watching it because it was so baffling and strange.

[54:35] And I don't know.

[54:37] I don't know who thought this plot was great, let alone why all these great actors decided to sign on.

[54:42] So I'll give it a marginal good-bad, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[54:46] Yeah, I don't know.

[54:49] Like the first 15 minutes, I got kind of excited for what seemed to be like a fun, good-bad movie.

[54:55] And then it just kept, like it's so monotonous.

[54:57] Yeah.

[54:58] And it just didn't do it.

[55:00] I don't think this is a fun one to watch with people.

Elliott Kalan

[55:05] Yeah, it has that promise in me.

[55:08] I had the same experience you guys were having.

[55:10] In the beginning, I was like, okay, this is going to be weird.

[55:13] This is going to be, but I didn't find it that unpleasant.

[55:16] But then it just kept, then it really started to, for a movie that's less than an hour and a half long, it really drags.

[55:22] And then at the end, they just decided to flip the bird to My Heritage and My Faith.

[55:28] So I didn't like that part.

[55:30] But there were times in the beginning of the movie where I'm like, you know what?

[55:34] I could see this becoming almost a movie I kind of like, and it just didn't.

[55:38] I'm almost more the disappointment from that, from it not fulfilling that.

[55:42] I'm going to make it bad, bad.

[55:43] But it's one of those movies where like, honestly, I could see you watching this with an elderly member of your family on Christmas when you've run out of things to talk about.

[55:52] And everything would be fine.

[55:55] Yeah.

[55:55] As long as they were, you didn't have to answer too many questions about furries afterwards.

S4

[56:04] Hey, if you like your podcast to be focused and well-researched and your podcast hosts to be uncharismatic, unhorny strangers who have no interest in horses, then this is not the podcast for you.

[56:14] Yeah.

[56:14] And what's your deal?

[56:16] I'm Emily.

[56:17] I'm Lisa.

[56:18] Our show's called Baby Geniuses.

[56:19] And its hosts are horny adult idiots.

[56:22] We discover weird Wikipedia pages every episode.

[56:25] We discuss institutional misogyny.

[56:27] We ask each other the dumbest questions and our listeners won't stop sending us pictures of their butts.

[56:32] We haven't asked them to stop, but they also aren't stopping.

[56:34] Join us on Baby Geniuses.

[56:36] Every other week on MaximumFun.org.

John Hodgman

[56:46] I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

[56:47] And I'm Judge John Hodgman.

[56:49] If you live on the West Coast of North America, we're coming your way.

[56:53] That's right.

[56:54] Judge John Hodgman is taking justice to the West Coast on tour.

[56:57] Starting where?

[56:58] Vancouver, British Columbia, January 15th.

[57:01] Then to Seattle, Washington on the 16th.

[57:04] Portland, Oregon on the 17th.

[57:06] San Francisco, California on the 18th.

[57:09] And Los Angeles, California, the City of Angels on January 22nd.

[57:14] Tickets are on sale now.

[57:15] You can find links to all of the shows at MaximumFun.org.

[57:19] And if you're going to be in one of those cities and you have a dispute we can try on stage, send it to us.

[57:26] Just go to MaximumFun.org slash JJHO or email Hodgman at MaximumFun.org.

[57:34] I'm ready to judge you on the road.

[57:38] Take that, Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road.

[57:44] Hey guys, it's Dan with a solo ad read.

Dan McCoy

[57:51] Now listen to me.

[57:51] I just spent five minutes recording a solo ad read into the wrong microphone.

[57:57] That's right.

[57:58] I was sitting here yammering to myself to one of two microphones, the wrong one, the one that was not optimized on my digital recorder.

[58:08] So that's work out the window.

[58:12] And you're going to get a less good solo ad read because of it.

[58:16] I had a whole theme song that I started with.

[58:20] I talked about coffee for no reason.

[58:22] It was a beautiful thing.

[58:25] And now it's lost to the winds.

[58:28] Oh, oh, the things I've seen.

[58:32] Death ships off the coast of whatever.

[58:34] Just like Blade Runner.

[58:36] I don't know that if Elliot or Stuart were here, they could recite the whole fucking monologue.

[58:40] But I'm not that guy.

[58:42] I'm the guy who's sitting here angrily kicking himself because he just did the stupidest thing possible.

[58:51] And talked into the wrong microphone.

[58:54] Yes.

[58:55] How does it happen?

[58:58] But apparently I should have had the coffee earlier in the solo ad read.

[59:05] Ah.

[59:06] Anyway.

[59:08] Let's take my bitterness and fuel it into commerce.

[59:14] Listen.

[59:15] You know what's not smart?

[59:17] Job boards that overwhelm you with tons of the wrong resumes.

[59:20] Oh, so many bad resumes.

[59:22] I'm drowning in bad resumes.

[59:24] They're attacking me like they're the blob and I'm a thing that the blob eats.

[59:29] But luckily there's a smarter way to hire at ZipRecruiter.

[59:32] ZipRecruiter's powerful matching technology finds the right people for you and actively invites them to apply.

[59:38] Now, I know what you're thinking.

[59:40] What if ZipRecruiter invites a vampire to apply?

[59:45] Because if a vampire isn't invited to apply, it won't apply for your job.

[59:48] That's just the way vampires work.

[59:50] Now, I'm sure that ZipRecruiter has some sort of mechanism to filter out vampires.

[59:55] I haven't talked to them about this.

[59:56] But, you know, if they're compliant with all local rules and regulations, I'm sure that that's not a problem.

[1:00:04] Look, it's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is rated number one by employers in the U.S.

[1:00:08] This rating comes from hiring sites on Trustpilot with over 1,000 reviews.

[1:00:12] And right now, our listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Flophouse.

[1:00:19] If you love this show, show your support to it and to ZipRecruiter by going to ZipRecruiter.com slash Flophouse.

[1:00:33] Guys, can you feel it?

[1:00:36] I'm faking it.

[1:00:36] I'm faking the energy.

[1:00:38] I had it before.

[1:00:39] It was a thing of beauty.

[1:00:42] It was a joy forever.

[1:00:45] You know, these things are like usually an organic descent into madness.

[1:00:51] Now I'm pushing the madness.

[1:00:53] Now I'm forcing the madness through me.

[1:00:56] The madness is being pulled out of me with forceps and I can't do it.

[1:01:01] Let me get some of this coffee.

[1:01:06] That's what people like to hear, right?

[1:01:07] Slurping.

[1:01:08] People tune into podcasts for slurping.

[1:01:12] Coffee fully.

[1:01:14] Let's talk about Squarespace, shall we?

[1:01:17] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website.

[1:01:19] To sell products and services of all kinds, promote your physical or online business,

[1:01:24] announce an upcoming event or special project, and much, much more.

[1:01:29] What else?

[1:01:30] Who knows?

[1:01:31] What do people do on the internet anyway?

[1:01:33] Aside from putting out stupid podcasts.

[1:01:35] What?

[1:01:36] I don't know.

[1:01:37] You figure it out, all right?

[1:01:39] Why are you coming to ask me what to do with your Squarespace site?

[1:01:42] You figure it out.

[1:01:43] Okay?

[1:01:45] Jesus.

[1:01:45] Like, I don't have enough problems.

[1:01:47] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:01:48] You know I've got problems.

[1:01:50] Squarespace does all this thing.

[1:01:54] Squarespace does the things that I said before.

[1:01:57] By giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers.

[1:02:02] Powerful e-commerce functionality that lets you sell anything online.

[1:02:07] Analytics that help you grow in real time.

[1:02:09] Built-in search engine optimization.

[1:02:12] Nothing to patch or upgrade ever.

[1:02:15] Ever.

[1:02:17] Ever.

[1:02:18] And 24-7 award-winning customer support.

[1:02:22] Make it stand out with a beautiful website from Squarespace.

[1:02:26] Head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:02:29] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:02:38] Now, come on, guys.

[1:02:39] Here's the thing.

[1:02:42] Here's another thing.

[1:02:43] There's no Jumbotrons this week.

[1:02:45] And you know how that makes me feel?

[1:02:47] It makes me feel lonely.

[1:02:48] I'm already alone.

[1:02:49] I'm literally alone in my apartment talking to myself.

[1:02:54] And now I got no Jumbotrons either.

[1:02:56] What's that all about?

[1:02:58] If you want to get your message out to the world via the Jumbotron, you can do it by going to MaximumFun.org slash Jumbotron.

[1:03:07] Toss a few dollars our way, and you can get a personal message or a business message out to our listeners.

[1:03:13] And you can see just by the way I talk, you know, like how effective a pitch man I am.

[1:03:20] I am – my dulcet tones are like the Pied Piper, luring people into commerce or, you know, if you've got a personal message.

[1:03:33] What better way to get across your love than the monotonal sounds of a 40-year-old man sitting alone with his cat?

[1:03:45] What more could any woman or man or non-binary person ask for in a love message than to have it delivered by me, Dan McCoy?

[1:04:00] Huh?

[1:04:00] All right.

[1:04:02] Enough of this banter.

[1:04:04] Let's get back to the show.

[1:04:05] Do we have anything to plug?

[1:04:06] I forget.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:07] Well, we have our live show in January.

[1:04:09] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:10] So we should plug that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:11] We should plug that on January 26th, Saturday at 8 p.m., we'll be in Wisconsin.

[1:04:16] That's right.

[1:04:17] The University of Wisconsin-Madison has us three knuckleheads coming by.

[1:04:21] We're going to do a live taping of our show.

[1:04:24] We haven't decided on the movie yet, have we?

Dan McCoy

[1:04:26] I don't think yet we have.

[1:04:29] But we will announce it when we do.

[1:04:31] We usually try and do a bigger movie at our live shows just so there's a bigger chance that people may have actually seen what we're talking about.

[1:04:39] So that's right.

[1:04:40] Pottersville.

[1:04:41] Yeah.

[1:04:42] So I don't know.

[1:04:44] We'll have to think of whether there's been any particularly bad blockbusters lately.

[1:04:49] Mm-hmm.

[1:04:49] Oh, that's weird.

[1:04:50] Hollywood never makes bad blockbusters.

[1:04:52] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:53] So that's Saturday, January 26th at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

[1:04:57] Tickets, I think, are still available.

[1:04:59] You can – if you go to union.wisc.edu and go to their events and activities calendar, you'll find us in January.

[1:05:07] Buy some tickets, why don't you?

[1:05:08] And let me just plug again for myself.

[1:05:10] My book, Horse Meets Dog, is out there.

[1:05:12] Great gift for kids.

[1:05:14] Christmas is coming up or Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate.

[1:05:17] So why not – even if you don't have a holiday to celebrate, what if you're an atheist, what if you're Jehovah's Witness and you don't celebrate holidays?

[1:05:24] That's fine.

[1:05:24] Still buy a copy of the book.

[1:05:25] Give it to a kid.

[1:05:26] Throw it in a fireplace.

[1:05:27] I don't care as long as you pay for it and I get some of that sweet dollars.

[1:05:31] But I'd prefer you buy it and give it to a child or read it to a child, not throw it in a fireplace.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:37] I don't know.

[1:05:38] I mean it looks pretty burnable.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:39] It is very burnable.

[1:05:40] It's made of paper.

[1:05:41] And so it's incredibly flannable.

[1:05:43] If you get the room to 451 degrees Fahrenheit, it will burst into flame on its own.

[1:05:48] And so just don't do that.

[1:05:50] But Horse Meets Dog, in stores now.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:53] Thank you for answering that literary question for me too because I was always like, I bet books burn way lower – at way lower temperatures than 451 degrees Fahrenheit.

[1:06:06] But I didn't know that it was when it would burst into flame sort of on its own.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:10] I'm not sure if it's – it's the temperature at which paper burns.

[1:06:14] Okay.

[1:06:14] So the flame has to get it to that heat.

[1:06:18] But I'm sure if it was in a room, it would burst into flame at that heat.

[1:06:21] But that's the temperature at which it burns.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:24] So that wouldn't happen in my home because, as you know, I always keep my home at a cool 98 degrees.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:32] Oh, no, no.

[1:06:33] Stuart, you don't know.

[1:06:33] The inside of your mouth is a blistering 98.6 degrees.

[1:06:37] Bleh.

[1:06:37] I used to love those commercials.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:39] Is that why that band is named 98 degrees?

[1:06:41] Because that's the temperature of the inside of a human mouth?

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:44] Yeah.

[1:06:44] I mean that's the temperature of a human body.

[1:06:46] So it's the hottest you can get and not be unhealthy.

[1:06:49] But I used to love those ads for whatever it was, dentine ice or something or where they'd be like, the inside of your mouth is blisteringly hot.

[1:06:56] And it's like, well, that's the temperature it should be.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:59] Yeah, I'm not walking around the whole day like, ow, ow, ow.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:02] Yeah, with mouth blisters.

[1:07:04] My tongue is so sweaty.

[1:07:06] But it's kind of like those commercials where they're like, do you have low T?

[1:07:09] You can't play basketball the way you once could.

[1:07:11] And it's like, well, they're aging.

[1:07:13] That's what the thing is.

[1:07:14] Like, when they're dealing with his age.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:17] Let's move on to letters.

[1:07:19] Okay.

[1:07:19] Let's do it.

[1:07:19] Let's move on to letters.

[1:07:21] Letters from listeners.

[1:07:22] Listeners like you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:24] It's the most letterful time of the year.

[1:07:30] All the letters are flying and everyone's dying.

[1:07:33] Don't open those letters.

[1:07:36] They're full of germs.

[1:07:38] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:39] Oh, wow.

[1:07:40] That was nice.

[1:07:41] Pretty truncated.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:41] It was a real warning.

[1:07:42] It was a real warning about, I guess, D, about sterilizing your mail before you open it.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:50] This first letter is from Tom, last name with help.

[1:07:54] Thomas Lennon.

[1:07:55] Uh-oh.

[1:07:56] Look, I'm a big fan.

[1:07:57] Just because I didn't like this one movie, I'm still a fan.

[1:08:00] He says, what it do, Floposaurus Rexes?

[1:08:03] A few years back, I finally rewatched Poltergeist as an adult and realized that I had generated

[1:08:08] false memories about how the movie played out.

[1:08:10] For whatever reason, as a child, I was certain that when the tree tries to eat the kid, being

[1:08:15] partially swallowed by hardwood, crushed and broke his legs.

[1:08:19] This, of course, did not happen in that PG-rated movie.

[1:08:22] Uh-huh.

[1:08:22] I have a similar false memory about Jurassic Park, namely that the boy child has his legs

[1:08:27] crushed and broken when in the upside-down car being stopped and stepped on by the T-Rex.

[1:08:32] Everybody lock up your legs.

[1:08:34] This is how a leg killer starts.

[1:08:37] But this false memory didn't last as long because, of course, it didn't go as long without

[1:08:41] getting back into Jurassic Park.

[1:08:43] Jurassic Park is fucking rad.

[1:08:45] Also, let's just not try and figure out why they both involve little boy's legs being broken.

[1:08:52] I'm sure there's some kind of Freud shit going on there, but I'm going to go ahead and not

[1:08:55] poke that bear.

[1:08:57] Anyway, my question.

[1:08:58] Have you ever generated any false memories about a movie after having gone a long time without

[1:09:03] seeing it?

[1:09:04] If so, what were they?

[1:09:06] You guys are great and wonderful and thanks for doing podcasts in my ear holes.

[1:09:08] Love you.

[1:09:09] Tom, last name withheld.

[1:09:12] Have you generated false memories about movies?

[1:09:15] I thought this was an interesting letter, so I decided to read it, but I actually don't

[1:09:18] have an answer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:19] Thanks for your thinking behind that, Dan.

[1:09:22] I have.

[1:09:23] So I don't.

[1:09:24] The closest thing to that is that for a long time, I thought that Anthony Edwards was the

[1:09:29] supporting player in Outbreak and not Kevin Spacey.

[1:09:33] And I think it's just because he looked a lot like Anthony Edwards in it.

[1:09:37] As I think I mentioned on the podcast before, that when I was a kid, another kid described

[1:09:42] the movie High Spirits to me and described it in a brutally violent way.

[1:09:47] I wonder what was going on in that kid's head, and I wonder if this is the same person as

[1:09:50] the letter writer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:09:52] Maybe not.

[1:09:53] Well, I mean, if you look at the VHS box art for High Spirits with painted on Steve Guttenberg

[1:10:00] and Peter O'Toole, you're like, this has got to be fucking brutal.

[1:10:04] No, actually, so this is an interesting question, but you know, I have never misremembered anything

[1:10:12] in a movie ever.

[1:10:13] And if you go through our back catalog of the podcast, you will see that that checks out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:19] Certainly never anything that involves the injuring or mutilation of a character.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:24] No, I mean, of course not.

[1:10:25] I think I already said nothing ever, so I guess I don't know why you're being specific.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:30] Here's my question.

[1:10:31] Here's something.

[1:10:32] The movie Baby Secret of the Lost Legend.

[1:10:36] Now, I have a memory as a kid of two of the characters in that trying to have sex and

[1:10:41] the bait and the dinosaur keeps interrupting them.

[1:10:44] Is that a real scene?

[1:10:45] Do you guys remember this movie?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:46] No, I think that's a scene from that Punisher and Wolverine crossover with the dinosaurs

[1:10:51] where Punisher and Wolverine try to have sex with that sick Jim Lee artwork.

[1:10:58] I mean, it's amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:59] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:11:00] It was Savage something in the Savage Times in the Savage Land or whatever it's called.

[1:11:02] Yeah, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:04] I mean, I think they're in like Brazil or something.

[1:11:06] Like, that's wild that they, I don't know, whatever, man.

[1:11:09] Like, what's Punisher doing with fucking dinosaurs, dude?

[1:11:14] Punishing them, I suppose.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:16] The Punisher doesn't punch people, Dan.

[1:11:18] You know what the Punisher does.

[1:11:19] I said punishing.

[1:11:20] Oh, punishing.

[1:11:20] I thought you said punching.

[1:11:21] Okay.

[1:11:22] No.

[1:11:22] I retract what I said.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:23] The Punisher has like big old guns for everything.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:26] Yeah, exactly.

[1:11:28] So, people write into the Flophouse for the Baby, the Last Dinosaur Mystery because I'm not

[1:11:34] watching that movie again.

[1:11:35] So, tell me if I remembered it incorrectly.

[1:11:37] Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:38] This next letter is from Jessica, last name withheld.

[1:11:41] Jessica Lange.

[1:11:43] Wow, legend.

[1:11:45] I thought you were going to go rabbit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:47] Interesting.

[1:11:47] I mean, I was going to go with like an actual person instead of a cartoon.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:53] Okay.

[1:11:54] I didn't know there were such strict rules.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:56] Well, I mean, Stuart decided to recognize a true legend and icon of the screen as opposed

[1:12:01] to what the sex character that you imagine all the time, this animated lady.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:06] Yeah.

[1:12:07] Anyway, Jessica writes, I love horror movies and while some have definitely scared me or stuck

[1:12:13] with me a long time, they don't give me nightmares.

[1:12:15] For some reason, the only movie that has ever given me nightmares is the 1990 classic horror

[1:12:20] comedy Tremors.

[1:12:22] I have no idea why this movie gives me nightmares every time I watch it because there's absolutely

[1:12:25] nothing scary in this movie.

[1:12:27] Peaches, have there ever been a movie that has given you nightmares even though there was

[1:12:31] nothing about it that scared you?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:33] Just want to point out that Tremors is awesome.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:37] So Jessica, she has a postscript for Elliot.

[1:12:41] My all-time favorite movie is Clue.

[1:12:43] So every time Elliot says, to make a long story short, I always add it too late.

[1:12:46] That has nothing to do with the question.

[1:12:47] I just thought Elliot should know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:49] Oh, that's very nice.

[1:12:49] I'm glad to hear that.

[1:12:50] That's a hilarious movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:51] Guys, when Tremors came out and I watched it all the time, my little brother and I would

[1:12:57] play a game where there were Tremors under the floor of our basement and we couldn't

[1:13:03] touch the floor.

[1:13:03] Did you guys play that game?

[1:13:05] No, but that sounds fun.

[1:13:06] Yeah, it was really fun.

[1:13:07] It does sound fun.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:09] What about you guys?

[1:13:10] Have you ever had nightmares from non-scary movies?

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:13] I mean, I remember seeing Return of the Living Dead Part 2 at a young age and watching it

[1:13:19] now, it is not scary.

[1:13:20] It's hilarious.

[1:13:21] But I guess I was scared at the time and it gave me nightmares.

[1:13:24] And I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast, but I don't find the movie Mother

[1:13:29] to be scary, but that is the closest approximation to my bartending stress dreams in a movie I've

[1:13:37] ever seen.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:38] Is people not getting off the bar and it crashing?

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:40] Yeah.

[1:13:41] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:41] Well, the idea of the bartending stress dream of always, it's just before four and people

[1:13:48] keep coming in and they won't leave and I have to change a keg and when I come back, somebody's

[1:13:53] pouring their own beer.

[1:13:55] That's basically the movie Mother in my head.

[1:13:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:58] That scene in Mother where they will not stop sitting on the sink and they keep getting back

[1:14:02] on it when she's like, that makes me so anxious.

[1:14:07] That movie, I love that movie so much.

[1:14:08] It makes me so uncomfortable.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:10] For me, because I have sleep apnea, I rarely sleep deeply enough to dream.

[1:14:18] I mean, for whatever reason, I dream when I'm coming out of sleep a little bit.

[1:14:24] But I very rarely remember having nightmares.

[1:14:28] I get stress dreams about stuff that actually happens in my life, but I don't think I get

[1:14:32] affected by movies that way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:35] Yeah.

[1:14:36] Most of my nightmares have been based on, have been not necessarily based on real life events,

[1:14:40] but have been not based on movies.

[1:14:43] Like, I've had a couple nightmares that were so horrifying that I feel like I can't tell

[1:14:46] anyone about them because it would be admitting that those things came out of my head and

[1:14:51] my own imagination.

[1:14:52] And I'm not Clive Barker where I'm like going to brag about that stuff.

[1:14:55] I'm a functioning member of society who doesn't want to sign people's blood or whatever.

[1:15:00] But, I mean, Clive Barker is probably a fine person.

[1:15:02] But I will tell you, I once had a nightmare that involved the hobo character from the

[1:15:07] Twilight Zone episode, the five characters in search of an exit, which is kind of a creepy

[1:15:12] episode, but it's not like scary.

[1:15:14] And if you'd like, I can tell you a story about Elliot passed as a little kid and a dream

[1:15:20] I had.

[1:15:21] When I was in kindergarten, I had a hernia operation because who knows my body was very frail.

[1:15:26] And I remember so vividly the dream I had.

[1:15:29] You were a power lifter as a kid, right?

[1:15:32] Well, the problem was I thought I was a power lifter, but I just wasn't ready for it yet.

[1:15:35] And when I was competing once, I did like a deadlift that was just too intense.

[1:15:40] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:41] Yeah, you just crushed a quart of milk and you're like, I'm doing this.

[1:15:44] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:46] But I had, when I was under for that operation, I remember so vividly dreaming that the operation

[1:15:52] was going on in a big Viking longboat that was going over a waterfall.

[1:15:55] And straddling the waterfall like a colossus was the Tin Man from Wizard of Oz and he was singing

[1:16:01] to us.

[1:16:02] And it was so frightening to me because I was like, I'm already having surgery done and the

[1:16:06] Tin Man could crush me at any moment.

[1:16:08] Like, this is so frightening.

[1:16:10] And I've never been scared of the Wizard of Oz.

[1:16:11] And I just, that dream has always stuck with me.

[1:16:14] You know, I think I was four at the time.

[1:16:16] And it's like, that moment of fright of like, this thing could crush me right now and I couldn't

[1:16:20] do anything about it.

[1:16:21] It's still very vivid to me.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:23] Can I briefly, this is not movie related, but briefly tell you the dream that has haunted

[1:16:27] me the most?

[1:16:27] Yeah, sure.

[1:16:28] I had a dream that like years ago.

[1:16:31] Dreams in the Flophouse by H.P.

[1:16:33] Lovecraft.

[1:16:33] Yeah.

[1:16:36] I had a dream that years ago that I, along with some other people, murdered someone and

[1:16:41] then covered it up and that it has like haunted me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:46] I can't believe, I can't believe you're talking about this on the podcast, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:49] Dan, that wasn't a dream.

[1:16:51] No, no.

[1:16:52] No, but it's like haunted me ever since.

[1:16:53] Like, the thing was like, I woke up and then it was one of these things where I was just

[1:16:58] like, is that memory false?

[1:17:01] Like, did I kill someone?

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:03] Arthur, why are there all these leaves in my bed?

[1:17:05] Yeah.

[1:17:06] Is it real or did Weapon X implant that in me?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:08] Yeah.

[1:17:09] So I like walked around for a day with like this horrifying, like disquieting guilt.

[1:17:14] Like, I was just like, oh.

[1:17:16] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:16] I had the opposite experience where I had a dream that I killed a friend of mine and they

[1:17:22] found me guilty.

[1:17:24] And it was, and one of the exhibits that was on the table in the courtroom was his skin.

[1:17:28] They had skinned him and just folded it up like laundered sheets and put it on there.

[1:17:33] And they found me guilty and sent me to life in jail.

[1:17:35] And I was like, that's it.

[1:17:36] My life is over.

[1:17:37] I'm going to spend the rest of my life in prison.

[1:17:38] And I woke up and was like, I'm going to jail.

[1:17:41] No, I'm not.

[1:17:41] Wait a minute.

[1:17:42] That was a dream.

[1:17:43] It was the best I've ever felt in my entire life.

[1:17:46] It was like, ah, I have my whole life ahead of me.

[1:17:48] This is wonderful.

[1:17:49] It was so great.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:51] This last letter is from Catherine, last name withheld.

[1:17:54] Of Aragon.

[1:17:55] David Jones.

[1:17:55] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:56] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:57] Oh, same person.

[1:17:59] Catherine America?

[1:18:00] Of Aragon.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:02] Oh, okay.

[1:18:03] I thought you were doing a weird pun.

[1:18:06] I have a brief story.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:06] Catherine America is Captain America's aunt.

[1:18:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:10] Several years ago, I came across a small zither in a secondhand store.

[1:18:16] To my surprise and delight, it turned out to be a tie-in product for the movie The Third Man.

[1:18:21] Oh, cool.

[1:18:21] It was a learn-to-play-music type instrument with sheets of music you could slide under the strings, including such zither classics as Mary Had a Little Lamb, Auld Lang Syne, and of course, the theme from The Third Man.

[1:18:34] I purchased it and gave it to my brother.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:35] A similarly uneasy classic song.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:38] Yeah.

[1:18:38] I purchased it and gave it to my brother, the person who first told me about the movie, and it's all zither score.

[1:18:44] That Christmas morning, all activity came to a stop as we all tried to figure out who the target market was.

[1:18:50] Children who enjoy zither music and gritty post-war thrillers?

[1:18:54] My question is this.

[1:18:55] What is your favorite movie tie-in product?

[1:18:57] Thank you for all that you do, and apologies to Dan for writing zither so many times.

[1:19:01] Oh, no, I did it again.

[1:19:03] Zither's not such a hard word to say.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:06] I just want to say, one, I love The Third Man.

[1:19:09] Anyone who's listening to this who's never seen The Third Man, go watch it.

[1:19:12] It's such an amazing movie.

[1:19:13] It's so good.

[1:19:14] And the score is so good with all the zither in it.

[1:19:18] I guess my favorite movie tie-in is whatever huge heaping of crappy food Matt Singer has to eat.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:26] Your favorite thing is the thing that will slowly kill our friend Matt Singer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:30] I don't want him to die, but I still think it's hilarious that every time they announce a movie tie-in meal menu, he's like,

[1:19:37] Oh, I've got to do it.

[1:19:38] Oh, no.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:39] And the hordes of people on Twitter who are cheering for this.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:45] I think you need to explain it a little more in that if a movie comes out, The Incredible Hulk has a full menu at Denny's or something like that.

[1:19:53] Or like green waffles and all this other crap.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:56] I mean, that's what's happening with the Grinch tie-in menu is all the green shit.

[1:20:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:02] And so Matt Singer goes out and he eats everything on those menus.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:05] In one sitting, he eats everything.

[1:20:08] And it's all for an article, I guess, over at Screen Crush.

[1:20:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:12] Yeah.

[1:20:13] He's really killing himself.

[1:20:14] So it's all worth it.

[1:20:15] Very little pay off.

[1:20:16] Yeah.

[1:20:17] But I kind of miss when it seems like those meals are really the only big movie tie-ins left that I see, at least, other than like merchandising for children's movies.

[1:20:25] And I remember when we were young, it was like every big movie had tie-ins.

[1:20:29] And I think about the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves cereal that came out.

[1:20:33] And everything had so much tie-in stuff.

[1:20:36] And now the best you can get is a bag of oranges.

[1:20:39] They'll slap a picture of BB-8 on it.

[1:20:41] That's supposed to be a movie tie-in.

[1:20:43] I don't know.

[1:20:44] What do you guys think?

Dan McCoy

[1:20:45] I remember I had a full set of the smaller records, the ones with the big hole in the middle.

[1:20:51] I forget which 33s are those.

[1:20:53] Is that what they are?

[1:20:55] I had a full set of Gremlins records that just told the story of the movie Gremlins.

[1:21:01] I remember those.

[1:21:01] Yeah.

[1:21:02] I don't remember where they came from.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:03] Did they come with a little picture book, too?

[1:21:06] I think so.

[1:21:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:09] There were two picture books that told the story of Gremlins together, and I think they came with those.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:13] I remember playing that so many times that my mom would always quote the beginning of one of them, which was,

[1:21:22] Kate and Billy.

[1:21:23] So that was my mom's all-purpose, just like exclamation.

[1:21:30] That, and she would also call meat roast Nebri after the Dark Crystal.

[1:21:34] So that's how you'd be a good mom, I guess.

[1:21:36] Cool mom.

[1:21:37] Cool mom.

[1:21:39] Yeah.

[1:21:40] I'm trying to remember.

[1:21:41] I loved, I was always chasing a full set of the Gremlins 2 collectible cards.

[1:21:47] Those were awesome.

[1:21:49] And I mean, Ecto Cooler.

[1:21:50] I mean, come on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:52] Sure, yeah.

[1:21:53] It's a beverage.

[1:21:55] How can you not?

[1:21:55] It exists.

[1:21:56] I remember at the time Last Action Hero came out, I think there was a series of cut glass mugs featuring scenes from Last Action Hero.

[1:22:04] That McDonald's or Burger King had.

[1:22:07] And looking back, it's just like, I really want to see those again.

[1:22:10] I'm going to have to look them up on the internet.

[1:22:12] Because that seems like a crazy thing for someone to have had to have made.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:16] Yeah.

[1:22:17] These are not, this is not a movie tie-in, but this just sparked a memory of my mom has these beloved Dairy Queen Christmas glasses that they put out when I was young.

[1:22:30] Had to bring out Christmas again.

[1:22:32] And we went to Dairy, it's the season.

[1:22:34] And we went to Dairy Queen so much to get like a full set of these little glasses.

[1:22:38] And my brother like found a bunch of extra on eBay like a few years back and gave it to her.

[1:22:43] But I just found it so funny that my mom was so intent on collecting a set of these little glasses.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:49] And were you guys going to DQ just for the frozen treats or were you also going for the brazier hot stuff?

Dan McCoy

[1:22:54] I think it was frozen treats.

[1:22:57] Cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:58] I mean, that's their signature dish.

[1:22:59] That's their signature item is the frozen stuff.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:02] Get some dilly bars.

[1:23:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:07] And every time Dan would go up to the cashier and say, is there a Dairy King?

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:14] They're like, sir, you're 12 years old.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:19] So thanks for all those letters.

[1:23:21] And now we should move on to our final segment, which is recommendations.

[1:23:25] Movies that we watched that we would suggest you watch instead of Pottersville.

[1:23:30] What are you doing, Dan?

[1:23:31] What do you see lately?

[1:23:32] I went to see an Ida Lupino double feature at the Film Forum recently.

[1:23:39] And the second movie I would not particularly recommend.

[1:23:42] It was Artists' Ampersand Models to distinguish it from Artists' And Models.

[1:23:48] The Tashlin movie.

[1:23:48] The Dean Martin movie?

[1:23:49] Yeah.

[1:23:50] There was an earlier one.

[1:23:51] Don Martin movie?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:52] The Don Martin movie.

[1:23:54] Mr. Phone Bones Great Adventure.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:56] There was an earlier unrelated one that had Jack Benny.

[1:23:59] And it had like, it was interesting.

[1:24:01] They had like a weird cameo from Rube Goldberg was in it at one point.

[1:24:05] And they had this long puppet sequence.

[1:24:07] It had these interesting sequences, but it was kind of a boring movie in general.

[1:24:11] So I'm not going for that one, although, you know, if it's on TCM, maybe.

[1:24:16] But the first one was Anything Goes.

[1:24:19] And I will say that Anything Goes is not a great adaptation of the stage musical.

[1:24:24] Because they cut a bunch of the Cole Porter songs.

[1:24:27] Apparently, it was a combination of the Hayes Code not liking his saucy lyrics.

[1:24:32] And Bing Crosby, who played the lead, wanted more like crooner numbers he could do.

[1:24:38] It makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:39] Because the movie, the songs in, I mean, those are Ethel Merman songs in Anything Goes.

[1:24:44] They're big, brassy numbers.

[1:24:45] Yeah.

[1:24:45] And that's not what, and Bing Crosby was more about seducing the microphone.

[1:24:49] Real intimate.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:51] Yeah.

[1:24:51] But, I mean, you know, Cole Porter, possibly the greatest songwriter.

[1:24:56] I don't know.

[1:24:58] Yeah, yeah.

[1:24:58] Him or Mozart or Beethoven.

[1:25:00] Yeah, sure.

[1:25:01] I wouldn't call those songs.

[1:25:03] What would you call them, dude?

[1:25:05] They're musical compositions.

[1:25:08] They're not songs.

[1:25:09] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:10] Well, I guess I see how you won the hair-splitting competition this year.

[1:25:12] Okay, anyway.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:15] With the sharpest razor.

[1:25:18] No, I, you know, I wouldn't replace, like, those beautiful songs with other songs.

[1:25:23] Like, that's a bad thing.

[1:25:24] The plot itself is cut down a fair bit, and it ends in a big...

[1:25:31] Like, racist by today's standards, Chinese number.

[1:25:34] Mm-hmm.

[1:25:35] So, I give that warning about the movie, but a lot of...

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:38] I mean, racist by any standards.

[1:25:39] They just didn't care back then.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:40] Yeah.

[1:25:41] Yeah.

[1:25:42] I do give the movie a lot of credit, though, because, like, what remains of the farcical plot

[1:25:47] is very funny and well done.

[1:25:52] And there's...

[1:25:54] I'm looking it up.

[1:25:55] I think his name is Charles Ruggles.

[1:25:57] Yeah.

[1:25:58] Charles Ruggles plays Moonface Martin, the gangster in the movie that drives a lot of the plot.

[1:26:04] And he is very funny.

[1:26:06] It's a very...

[1:26:07] It's a classic comic performance.

[1:26:10] And so, I liked anything he goes.

[1:26:13] Solid movie.

[1:26:14] Not a great adaptation of the musical.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:17] Cool.

[1:26:20] I have...

[1:26:22] A movie I'm going to recommend is a movie that is in...

[1:26:25] Probably isn't in theaters anymore.

[1:26:27] But it is in now when we're recording it.

[1:26:30] But when you're listening to it, it won't be.

[1:26:31] And that's the new Suspiria movie.

[1:26:36] Oh, man.

[1:26:37] I love that shit.

[1:26:39] I saw it in the theater twice.

[1:26:41] It's super long.

[1:26:42] It's, like, two and a half hours.

[1:26:43] Although, I didn't feel it.

[1:26:47] It's, like, artsy.

[1:26:49] It's fucking wild.

[1:26:51] Yeah.

[1:26:51] It's really great.

[1:26:52] I'm not a huge fan of the original.

[1:26:55] Like, I like it.

[1:26:55] But, you know, I don't...

[1:26:57] It's Dario Argento.

[1:26:58] I've talked about it.

[1:27:00] Or my relationship with Dario Argento's work.

[1:27:03] And, yeah.

[1:27:04] I just love it so much.

[1:27:06] It creates this world that I just like being in.

[1:27:09] And, yeah.

[1:27:11] It's great.

[1:27:12] Go see it.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:13] Yeah.

[1:27:13] I would have recommended this this week.

[1:27:15] But I figured Stuart was all over it.

[1:27:17] So, I didn't.

[1:27:18] But I think it's kind of a masterpiece.

[1:27:20] Yeah.

[1:27:20] It's so good.

[1:27:21] I would have recommended it.

[1:27:22] But I haven't gotten to see it yet.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:23] It's also the movie that, like, I've talked to multiple people who have, like, walked out of it.

[1:27:29] Yeah.

[1:27:29] Which seems crazy to me.

[1:27:31] But whatever.

[1:27:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:33] To each his own.

[1:27:34] It's a divisive movie, which I think is to its credit.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:38] People have compared it to Mother, which seems strange to me.

[1:27:42] Because, like, I can clearly get why people would not like Mother.

[1:27:47] Yeah.

[1:27:48] Mother is such a big swing.

[1:27:51] And I guess Suspiria is too.

[1:27:52] But, like, it's not.

[1:27:56] It's.

[1:27:56] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:57] The movie I would compare Suspiria to is.

[1:27:59] And I know that, you know, the director is obviously not a good man.

[1:28:05] But I would compare it to Rosemary's Baby, kind of.

[1:28:08] Because it has a similar way of approaching horror.

[1:28:12] Like, it's not horror that's about a lot of thriller-style tension or big shocks.

[1:28:17] Even though there are a couple of, like, very, like, shocking sequences.

[1:28:22] But it's about creating disquiet.

[1:28:25] Yeah.

[1:28:25] And, like, an unease with you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:29] I really want to see it.

[1:28:31] And I can't wait.

[1:28:31] I can't wait until we hear an Academy Award nomination for Dr. Lutz Ebersdorf.

[1:28:41] What do you got, Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:42] I'm going to mention a movie that I actually watched on a plane.

[1:28:45] But I was not lowering my expectations at all.

[1:28:47] I just happened to be on a plane.

[1:28:50] And that's a movie.

[1:28:51] It's a movie I wanted to see anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:53] It was something shot in 70 millimeter, I hope.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:55] Yeah.

[1:28:55] Yep.

[1:28:56] Yep.

[1:28:56] And it's called Avatar.

[1:28:59] So.

[1:29:00] Which I have seen people watching on planes.

[1:29:02] And I'm like, all right.

[1:29:03] There was the same plane ride.

[1:29:04] There was one guy who was watching nothing but Marvel movies.

[1:29:07] And I'm like, all right.

[1:29:08] I guess it's, you want to watch it on this tiny screen.

[1:29:10] Sure, go ahead.

[1:29:11] But this movie I'd really want to see.

[1:29:12] I really wanted to see.

[1:29:13] And so I was excited that it was on this plane.

[1:29:15] It's called Blindspotting.

[1:29:16] And it's a movie.

[1:29:17] Oh, cool.

[1:29:17] There's Daveed Diggs.

[1:29:19] And it's all about a guy who he's served a short term in prison and is at the very end

[1:29:25] of his probation period.

[1:29:27] He has three days until he's done with probation.

[1:29:28] He works at a moving company with his longtime childhood best friend who is white but grew

[1:29:34] up in the bad part of Oakland.

[1:29:36] And so kind of thinks of himself as honorary black, I guess.

[1:29:41] And there are a number of different things happen in the movie that all tie together.

[1:29:44] And I kind of like don't want to say too much about it except that Daveed Diggs' character

[1:29:49] is kind of constantly being challenged to not get into situations that will hurt his chances

[1:29:56] of finishing his probation.

[1:29:57] Not through his own fault, but just because of the way that things are going on in Oakland

[1:30:02] right now.

[1:30:03] And it's about gentrification.

[1:30:04] And it's a little bit about the way people interact with the police there and the way

[1:30:08] the police interact with people there.

[1:30:10] And something about this movie, the trailer makes it look like it's super intense.

[1:30:14] Like the trailer makes it look like it's a movie about a police shooting that starts

[1:30:18] tearing someone's life apart.

[1:30:19] And it is a little bit about that.

[1:30:21] And it was listed on the airplane as genre crime, which is not the case at all.

[1:30:26] And so I want to tell people like it's also a really funny movie.

[1:30:31] And it's really a character movie about this guy, his relationship with his best friend

[1:30:36] and the people around him.

[1:30:37] And it builds to a very intense, powerful climax.

[1:30:41] But it is not a nonstop forcing you to confront things movie.

[1:30:46] And it's also not a movie that feels like, oh, I have to watch this because it's about

[1:30:50] things that I approve of or something like that.

[1:30:52] It's not a movie that feels like homework.

[1:30:53] It's a really fun, entertaining movie that I really, really liked a lot.

[1:30:57] And does Daveed Diggs rap in it?

[1:30:59] Yeah, of course he does.

[1:31:00] He's amazing at rapping.

[1:31:01] But in a way that feels, it's just really good.

[1:31:04] And I really liked it a lot.

[1:31:06] So Blindspotting.

[1:31:07] That's the movie.

[1:31:08] Go see it.

[1:31:08] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:09] And that's a contemporary release, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:12] This is a movie that came out this year.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:13] Yeah.

[1:31:14] Well, Elliot and I peed in a fountain at the same time.

[1:31:16] And so we switched to recommendations.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:18] So Stan's recommending black and white movies and I'm recommending new movies about black

[1:31:21] and white issues that aren't exactly black and white.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:24] Okay.

[1:31:26] I wish everyone at home could have seen the little head cock that Elliot did.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:31] And also I put my hand on, I put my fist on my hip like, you guys know what I'm talking

[1:31:34] about.

[1:31:34] Let's get real, everybody.

[1:31:36] And also Wayne Knight has a small part in it.

[1:31:39] So for anyone who's been wondering what Wayne Knight's up to these days, he's in it.

[1:31:42] This is another one.

[1:31:43] The cast in the movie is really fantastic and everyone's really good at it.

[1:31:46] So Blindspotting.

[1:31:47] I can't say enough good things about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:50] Well, guys, thanks for embarking on this Pottersville journey with me.

[1:31:55] I almost said Potty'sville there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:57] Now, how would Potty'sville have been different?

Dan McCoy

[1:31:59] How would that be a different movie?

[1:32:00] I feel like that's a weird Pixar movie about talking potties.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:05] Here in Potty'sville, we've got a dirty job to do, but we love doing it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:09] But then what would happen?

[1:32:10] This is the court mandated movie we made so that we could teach children how to go to

[1:32:15] the bathroom.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:16] It's like, would it be like a toilet falls off the back of a truck and has to find its

[1:32:19] way to its new home or it's a town where everyone's a toilet and I don't know what

[1:32:24] the name is.

[1:32:24] Hi, my name's John.

[1:32:28] And someone goes, and something bad happens and the toilet goes, oh, crap.

[1:32:32] Like that's the kind of stuff that happens.

[1:32:33] And of course, John Ratzenberger plays it, does a voice in it.

[1:32:37] But yeah.

[1:32:37] Yeah.

[1:32:37] Who's the voice of the main toilet?

Dan McCoy

[1:32:39] Dan?

[1:32:41] Well, I think that Pottersville's Ron Perlman should do that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:45] Oh, wow.

[1:32:45] Interesting.

[1:32:46] A young everyman type voice.

[1:32:48] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:49] Here's the thing about Ron Perlman in Pottersville.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:51] I feel like Tom Holland was listening to this episode and was like, he's going to say me.

[1:32:58] And then picked up his iPod and threw it in the river when he said it.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:02] Tom Holland, if you're listening, write in, man.

[1:33:05] You know, we love you.

[1:33:06] Yeah, yeah.

[1:33:06] Shoot us some webs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:07] Either Tom Holland, the actor or the screenwriter.

[1:33:11] And director, write in.

[1:33:12] If you're the Tom Holland from Spider-Man, write in.

[1:33:14] If you're the Tom Holland from Fright Night, write in.

[1:33:16] We don't care.

[1:33:16] We like both of you.

[1:33:17] If you're the country Holland, do it.

[1:33:19] Write in.

[1:33:20] Yeah, sure.

[1:33:21] If you're just named Tom, write in.

[1:33:23] Unless you're the Tom from the movie Peeping Tom, don't kill us with a camera with a sharpened leg.

[1:33:28] Don't do that.

[1:33:29] But so what I like, here's something I'll say for the last about Pottersville is that, Dan, just made me think, is that Ron Perlman clearly wants to do comedy.

[1:33:37] He seems to really enjoy doing comedy.

[1:33:39] And he's a really funny performer.

[1:33:41] And I wish that there was more straightforward comedy stuff for him to do.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:45] Yeah, yeah.

[1:33:46] You know, guys, I think I deserve a little bit of credit because we did a whole episode on this movie.

[1:33:52] And I didn't talk about the Bigfoot pizza from Pizza Hut once.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:57] So I guess we should give you some credit.

[1:34:00] You want to pay it back?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:01] I will take it in pizza from Pizza Hut.

[1:34:05] In Fluxbox?

[1:34:07] Except for my credit.

[1:34:09] I'll take a bunch of stamps on my Pizza Hut reading club card or whatever.

[1:34:14] So I get a personal fan pizza.

[1:34:16] Book it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:17] Now I imagine Stuart lives in a world where pizza is currency.

[1:34:20] So he's like, just give me a dollar and a slice of pizza.

[1:34:23] And he has to put that in a wallet and then fold it into his pants pocket.

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:26] Uh-huh.

[1:34:26] Yeah, it's the YA novel I'm working on.

[1:34:28] Yeah.

[1:34:29] The upper crust get pizza with as many toppings as they want.

[1:34:35] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:36] This is a weird dystopian world.

[1:34:41] Anyway, thanks to Maximum Fun for having us on their network.

[1:34:44] Go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:34:46] To check out other shows on the network?

Stuart Wellington

[1:34:48] Yeah.

[1:34:49] There's probably a bunch that are better than this one.

[1:34:51] Oh, for sure.

[1:34:53] For sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:55] And, uh...

[1:34:55] Go listen to Switchblade Sisters.

[1:34:56] Better show than this.

[1:34:58] Okay.

[1:34:58] And if you like, but if you crazily like this show, why not write us a review on iTunes or wherever you're listening to your podcasts?

[1:35:06] Why don't you tweet about us?

[1:35:08] Hashtag TheFlophouse.

[1:35:09] Why don't you tweet at us?

[1:35:11] At TheFlophousePod.

[1:35:13] Leave a message on our website if you want.

[1:35:16] Leave a comment on this episode.

[1:35:18] Yeah.

[1:35:18] The best thing for me to do would be to write a review, you know, on iTunes or something.

[1:35:22] Or tell a friend, hey, you've got to listen to this thing or I'll stop being friends with you.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:25] If you write a comment on the website, don't do what one guy did and get really mad at me that I had theoretically deleted his comment, which is not true.

[1:35:35] I just take a long time to approve comments to make sure they aren't spam.

[1:35:39] So just know that your comment may be delayed if you write a comment on the website.

[1:35:44] Don't come at me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:45] Let's not kick over that nest of hornets.

[1:35:47] Don't even bother Dan with it.

[1:35:48] Just go to iTunes and write a review of us there.

[1:35:50] Or tweet about us, Facebook about us, Instagram about us, Periscope about us, Vine about us, Friendster about us, MySpace about us.

[1:36:00] Is there a thing where it's like you can text your mom about us, whatever you want to do.

[1:36:06] Send an email to your, send a Blue Mountain e-card to your grandma about us.

[1:36:11] They love those.

[1:36:12] Just whatever electronic way of communication you use.

[1:36:15] Just talk about the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:16] Send an e-vite that is just an invitation to listen to the Flophouse.

[1:36:20] Oh, that's a good idea.

[1:36:21] Anyway, for the Flophouse, which we've been talking about a lot, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:26] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:36:28] Over here, Elliot Kalin saying, have a happy holiday if you celebrate a holiday or not.

[1:36:34] Just have a good December.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:35] Ugh.

[1:36:36] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:39] I don't see why that ugh was justified.

[1:36:43] That seems like a bit much.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:47] I mean, normally I recommend like, you know, some stretching and warming up, but I think we're pretty warm, guys.

[1:36:54] Yeah, let's just jump right into this thing, huh?

[1:36:56] Let's just jump right in.

[1:36:57] Let's just jump right into the one that is Pottersville.

[1:37:00] Great.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:00] On this episode, we discuss Pottersville.

[1:37:06] Let's do that over here.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:08] Yeah.

[1:37:12] Professional.

John Hodgman

[1:37:15] Maximumfun.org.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:17] Comedy and culture.

[1:37:18] Artist owned.

John Hodgman

[1:37:19] Listener supported.

Ep. #272 - Pottersville

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