Ep.#450 - Unfrosted, with Alex Smith

Dan McCoy

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

[0:04] Should have been unmade.

[0:07] That was a hot one.

[0:09] Like a hot pop tart.

[0:30] Hey, everyone.

[0:34] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:34] I'm Jay McCoy.

[0:35] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

Stuart Wellington

[0:37] Hi there.

[0:37] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:38] And joined in studio today, we have our producer who has decided to come kick the tires, check

[0:46] out how the show is being made, make sure that it's not falling apart.

[0:50] That's right.

[0:50] We are joined with by Alex Smith, a.k.a. Howell Dottie.

[0:54] Introduce yourself, bud.

Alex Smith

[0:54] Hello.

[0:55] I'm Alex Smith.

[0:56] I'm here to kick the tires, make sure everything's going good.

[0:59] Audit the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] You've been kind of an absentee producer up to this point.

[1:03] You really haven't been around much.

[1:05] We mail you the checks.

[1:06] You don't fix the plumbing.

[1:07] We still have a mice problem.

Dan McCoy

[1:09] Somewhat deliciously, Alex has not seen the movie, which will be an interesting wrinkle

[1:15] on the show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16] I mean, I think he's mainly just going to make sure that we sound good and occasionally double

[1:19] check our facts.

[1:21] Double check our facts about the movie he hasn't seen?

Alex Smith

[1:23] I've got a cool new Flophouse character that I've been working on, which is the guy who doesn't

[1:28] know what happened in the movie.

[1:30] And so he says stuff like, wait, what?

[1:33] Come on.

[1:34] I think that's my new guy.

[1:35] That's my new guy.

[1:36] I think we've had that character on the show a few times.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38] Sometimes he's been named Dan and sometimes Stewart.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40] I don't think so, actually.

[1:42] I think this is a new character.

[1:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:45] Hey, let's get into it, shall we?

[1:46] What do we do on this podcast, Dan?

[1:48] Well, it's a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[1:50] And Unfrosted was a film that, you know, usually we do something either we throw back further

[1:56] or we do something that's sort of newer to streaming or even in theaters.

[2:01] This was one that was much requested at the time.

[2:05] All that enthusiasm is done.

Elliott Kalan

[2:08] Wait on it.

[2:08] We said, you got to wait until Unfrosted is available for home viewing.

[2:11] And they said, it's not in theaters.

[2:12] It's a Netflix movie.

[2:13] And we said, not interested.

[2:14] No, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[2:15] Let's think of this.

[2:16] We're on a streaming service cycle right now.

[2:18] Yeah.

[2:19] And Netflix is not in the car.

Elliott Kalan

[2:21] They said, we have to wait until Elliot is working for Netflix to start covering only Netflix movies.

Stuart Wellington

[2:27] Oh, actually, yeah.

[2:28] That's a theme month, right?

[2:30] Back to back Netflix.

[2:31] Yeah, that's a theme.

Elliott Kalan

[2:31] This theme month is called Nuts Flicks because these movies are nuts.

Dan McCoy

[2:35] This is sort of a-

[2:36] It would be nuts to watch them.

[2:37] Super-sized Miss That movie.

[2:39] Let's say it that way.

[2:40] Yeah.

[2:41] I feel like that's a really good description.

[2:43] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:43] This movie does exist in that liminal zone, Dan, between so new we're covering it and so old we're covering it.

[2:48] But I think, you know what?

[2:49] A movie like Unfrosted had such a huge cultural impact.

[2:52] Yep.

[2:53] I feel like people are still raring at the bit to get it.

Dan McCoy

[2:57] Raring at the bit?

[2:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:59] I wanted to avoid you telling me that it's champing at the bit.

[3:03] So I just decided to go way off in another direction.

[3:05] It's pretty simple.

[3:05] You could just say champing at the bit.

[3:07] What does champing mean?

[3:08] You chomp at bits.

[3:09] It's in your mouth.

[3:10] It means chomping.

[3:11] That's the funny thing.

Stuart Wellington

[3:13] Now, normally we get right into the movie, no silly buns.

[3:16] But I think it's important that we take a second and we really talk about our relationship with Unfrosted.

[3:22] Alex, what's your relationship with those characters?

[3:24] What does it tell us?

Alex Smith

[3:26] I've heard that Jerry Seinfeld is in it.

[3:28] That's what I know.

[3:29] That's wow.

[3:29] He's not only in it.

Elliott Kalan

[3:30] He also directed it and co-wrote it with a few writers who had worked with him on Seinfeld and written a number of other things.

[3:37] This is an all-star cast in front of the camera and in the writer's room.

Stuart Wellington

[3:42] Yeah.

[3:42] Have you guys ever seen Seinfeld?

[3:44] I'm familiar with the television show Seinfeld.

[3:47] Now, wasn't Jerry, the character played by Jerry Seinfeld, wasn't he obsessed with breakfast cereal?

[3:52] Am I remembering this?

[3:53] He was.

[3:54] Yeah.

[3:54] He was.

Elliott Kalan

[3:54] I don't know about obsessed, but he was certainly very interested in them.

[3:57] I mean, I feel like he was obsessed with everything on that show.

Stuart Wellington

[3:59] Like his potential girlfriend's faults.

Elliott Kalan

[4:02] It does.

[4:03] Which is a big obsession.

[4:05] Strangely, there's nothing about girlfriend's faults in this movie, although there is some stuff about unhappy marriages in a running gag involving Walter Cronkite.

[4:12] But it does feel like while you're watching this movie, and we'll get into it, that you are just looking at the inside of Jerry Seinfeld's head at the things that he's interested in.

[4:20] Yeah.

[4:20] I mean, there's no car talk really in it, but otherwise, there's a lot about breakfast cereals.

[4:25] Frick and frack aren't in it?

[4:26] Yeah, the Tapper brothers are not in it.

[4:29] The, I mean.

Dan McCoy

[4:31] That's right, click and clack.

[4:33] Oh, click and clack, yeah, yeah.

[4:34] But.

Elliott Kalan

[4:35] Frick and frack are the bootleg off-brand UPR.

[4:38] Is it click and clack?

[4:39] Did I fuck that up?

[4:40] Yeah.

[4:40] Oh, my God.

[4:41] Oh, my God.

[4:41] Because those are like homies are going to go roast me.

[4:44] Frick and frack are on UPR, the conservative alternative NPR that will soon become the real NPR.

[4:49] Is it really click and clack?

[4:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[4:51] Really?

[4:52] Okay.

[4:52] Because those are like noises that like a car might make, and then you tap it.

Stuart Wellington

[4:55] I feel like in German, it's frick and frack.

[4:57] No, Stuart, this is a good time for you to finally get into car talk.

[5:00] For German autosprechen.

Dan McCoy

[5:03] Yeah, now that one of them has passed, you can finally get into car talk.

[5:05] Yeah.

[5:08] Who's in charge of talking about this movie?

[5:10] I'm doing the summary today, so let's get into it.

[5:11] Alex!

Elliott Kalan

[5:12] So, Unfrosted is a movie that is mostly in flashback to the 1960s.

[5:17] So, it seems very strange that the era we're flashing back from also appears to be the 1960s.

[5:23] We see a kid bundling up a bindle of 1960s stuff, an old comic book, old toys, and he goes to a restaurant to drown his sorrows in Pop-Tarts.

[5:31] We'll never learn what he is upset about, I don't think.

[5:33] If they mentioned it, I forgot it.

[5:35] And he reads the origin story on the back of the Pop-Tarts box, and he goes, huh, good story.

[5:40] But sitting next to him is Jerry Seinfeld, who tells him that story is baloney.

[5:44] I'll tell you the real story of Pop-Tarts.

[5:46] This is when that kid should have left the room.

[5:49] An old man is talking.

Stuart Wellington

[5:51] Stranger danger.

[5:52] An old man says, hey, kid, get closer.

[5:53] I'll tell you the true story of Pop-Tarts.

[5:55] An old man with a complicated relationship with younger people.

[5:58] Let's just say.

[5:59] It's true.

Elliott Kalan

[6:00] Yeah, but not that young.

[6:03] Not that young, but still young enough that it's troubling.

[6:06] Yeah.

[6:06] So, we go back from the 1960s to, I guess, earlier in the 1960s.

[6:11] It's Battle Creek, Michigan, home of the serial titans Kellogg's and Post.

[6:15] Jerry plays the character of Bob Cabana, an employee at Kellogg's.

[6:19] And he works for, and he's, we see just kind of like a lot of serial jokes for a while.

[6:25] He's walking around, different things are happening.

[6:26] Oh, yeah.

[6:27] You thought there were a lot of them?

[6:28] And this is, I should say ahead of time, this is essentially a sketch movie.

[6:31] Like, there's kind of a plot, but it's mostly a sketch movie.

[6:34] And Hugh Grant appears in a part he'll play throughout the movie as Thurl Ravenscroft,

[6:39] the real-life voice of the Tony the Tiger character.

[6:42] Yeah.

[6:43] Hugh, I, Hugh is one of.

Dan McCoy

[6:44] Wait, what?

[6:44] Yeah.

[6:45] Come on.

Elliott Kalan

[6:47] We're going through what I'm calling the Grant-a-sance, which is when Hugh Grant is just showing up in lots of things.

[6:52] And he's in lots of different kinds of movies, but playing kind of variations on the same character.

[6:57] His character in this, his character in Paddington 2, and his character in Heretic are kind of the same character, just in different modes.

Dan McCoy

[7:04] I will say two things about Hugh Grant in this movie.

[7:06] One, he is one of the things that kind of works for me in this movie.

[7:10] Like, I do find him mostly funny in it.

[7:13] And two, in a movie filled with lies, for some reason, this is the place where I'm like, that's not what Thurl Ravenscroft was like.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] It feels like one of the few times where they're really, they're edging on slandering somebody, in a way, by making Thurl Ravenscroft this guy.

[7:27] I think because they have scenes with Walter Cronkite later where they portray him as like a drunk with a bad marriage.

[7:33] And I feel like Walter Cronkite is famous enough that if you know who he is, you're like, okay, they're just making up something.

[7:39] But Thurl Ravenscroft, if you're not familiar with voice actors of the 1960s, and then you might be like, oh, they've created.

Stuart Wellington

[7:47] Did he really take a shit inside a building?

[7:50] I will always say a grim grinning ghost.

Dan McCoy

[7:52] It's kind of the same thing, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[7:53] And Hugh Grant, a big chunk of this movie, he's basically topless.

[7:59] And he looks good.

[8:00] He looks good.

Elliott Kalan

[8:00] No, he's doing great.

[8:01] I mean, he's a professional actor.

[8:02] Probably puts a lot of work into his body.

[8:03] That's fine.

Stuart Wellington

[8:04] I feel like a lot of the people in this movie, not all the material, obviously not all the material is good.

[8:09] But I feel like everybody commits.

Elliott Kalan

[8:11] Yeah.

[8:12] It was hard for me to find anyone in the movie where I was like, ugh, I wish they had had somebody else do that.

[8:17] I feel like everybody's trying to have fun.

[8:19] Everybody's doing their best.

[8:20] Some performances are stronger than others.

[8:22] But you're right.

[8:23] A lot of times they're given, let's just say, light material to work with.

[8:29] I bet this is a really fun movie to make or at least to write.

[8:34] It doesn't feel like a rigorous production.

[8:37] Anyway, getting back into the plot, there's a lot of serial jokes, a lot of jokes about serial.

[8:42] Kellogg's is run by Jim Gaffigan as Edsel Kellogg III, who I believe might be a fictional character.

[8:47] And his rival is Amy Schumer as Marjorie Post, the real-life head of the Post Company, the daughter of CW Post.

[8:54] And they meet up eventually at the Serial Awards, which are they called the Golden Bowls?

[8:59] Was that what it was?

[8:59] Yeah, I think so.

[9:00] And Kellogg's –

Stuart Wellington

[9:02] Hosted by Cedric the Entertainer, right?

Elliott Kalan

[9:04] Hosted by Cedric the Entertainer.

[9:05] Please, Stuart, if you can remember to point out the celebrity appearances because I might forget some of them.

[9:10] I already passed over the appearance of Mikey Day, Kyle Mooney, and Drew Tarver as Snap, Crackle, and Pop.

[9:15] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[9:16] Which is a fantastic, like, waste of talent.

Dan McCoy

[9:20] I like watching Alex's face as each of these new details gets revealed.

Elliott Kalan

[9:25] I will say, to put Kyle Mooney in your movie and give him almost nothing to do is strange to me.

Stuart Wellington

[9:31] He certainly makes a meal out of what he gets.

Elliott Kalan

[9:33] The little bit that he gets, yeah.

[9:34] But it is not quite at the level of Tim Heidecker being in Bridesmaids and having no lines of dialogue in the entire movie.

Stuart Wellington

[9:42] No lines of dialogue, nothing funny the whole time you're like –

[9:44] No.

[9:45] During the – okay, maybe during the credits he does something zany.

Elliott Kalan

[9:48] Maybe he has a post-credits – I mean, again, I've said this before on the podcast.

[9:50] I think maybe he showed up and they did not realize he was on set because the way he's even shot in the frame is like they don't really know that he's there.

[9:57] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:57] But anyway –

Alex Smith

[9:58] I think they cast him really well because he does have guy your friend is marrying kind of energy.

Elliott Kalan

[10:03] Yeah, I think that's fair.

[10:04] That's fair.

Stuart Wellington

[10:05] A guy who you can almost – in certain situations, you just can't describe him really.

Elliott Kalan

[10:09] Yeah, yeah.

[10:10] He smiles a lot.

Stuart Wellington

[10:11] Yeah.

[10:12] Oh, he's nice.

[10:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[10:13] He's a nice guy.

[10:14] What are his interests?

[10:15] Something, you know?

[10:16] Sports, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[10:17] Probably home brewing.

[10:19] I'm guessing like maybe golf.

[10:21] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[10:21] Yeah, or maybe he likes to grill.

[10:23] Maybe a history channel.

[10:24] Yeah, history – or maybe he reads like long – just whatever fantasy novels they sell at the airport.

[10:30] Like he's not going to take deep into fantasy, you know?

[10:33] So Kellogg sweeps the Golden Bowl awards but Jerry suspects that Post has something up their sleeve.

[10:39] Hmm.

[10:39] They seem oddly sanguine about losing all these awards.

[10:42] And then the next day I guess he sees two kids sneaking into the Post dumpsters and he finds out that they're eating hot goo they found in there.

[10:48] And these kids I love.

[10:50] I think they're great.

[10:50] Yeah.

[10:51] Especially the girl who plays – I don't know her name but I think her performance is so funny in this movie.

[10:57] And they're my MVPs for this movie are those kids.

[11:01] They eat hot fruit goo.

[11:02] He tastes it.

[11:03] And Jerry instantly runs to his boss and he's got – he's like Post is working on a fruit-flavored pastry.

[11:08] And this could put Post over the top.

[11:10] This could make them the top company in Battle Creek, Michigan.

Stuart Wellington

[11:13] This is definitely one of the points in the movie where I'm like, huh.

[11:17] So it's really still a movie about Pop-Tarts.

[11:20] It is a movie about Pop-Tarts.

Dan McCoy

[11:22] Although it is like – this is where it introduces kind of like – this is like the space race.

[11:26] The joke of the movie in that there – if there is one is like let's treat this race for like toaster pastries as the space race.

Stuart Wellington

[11:35] Now, space race.

[11:35] You're talking about the Boonta Eve pod race featuring Anakin Skywalker and Sebulba, right?

Elliott Kalan

[11:40] That's exactly what he's talking about.

[11:41] Yeah, he's talking about that space race.

[11:43] He's also talking about the Wacky Racers space race with the Hanna-Barbera characters.

[11:47] He is not talking about basketball.

[11:49] That would be a space jam, which is different than a space race.

Dan McCoy

[11:51] Delicious.

Elliott Kalan

[11:52] I bet again, jam, you might find it in a Pop-Tart.

[11:55] You could.

[11:56] Yeah.

[11:56] Ideally, yeah.

[11:57] I mean if you find jam in your Pop-Tart, you don't have grounds to sue.

[12:00] Keep eating it.

[12:01] If you had found human blood in your Pop-Tart, sue that company.

[12:04] Don't eat the rest of it unless you're a vampire, in which case go for it.

[12:08] Yeah.

[12:08] But taste it first to see which one it is.

[12:10] That's true.

[12:11] If you have to taste it, you got to take a bite out of it, yeah.

[12:13] Because jam and blood look relatively similar when they're delivered in a hot pastry, yeah.

[12:17] Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

[12:18] That's why you see so many.

Stuart Wellington

[12:19] They explain that in what, Sweeney Todd?

Dan McCoy

[12:22] Yeah, that's right.

[12:24] That was a cut song, though.

Elliott Kalan

[12:25] Yeah, the cut song, which is called, jams a lot like blood, parentheses, when delivered

[12:30] in a hot pastry.

[12:33] So anyway, soon it's national news that people are trying to make a pastry filling thing.

[12:38] We have this Walter Cronkite thing with Kyle Dunnigan as Walter Cronkite.

Stuart Wellington

[12:42] Okay, I'm like, who's – that was the one that I – one person I had trouble placing.

Dan McCoy

[12:45] Yes, he's wearing a lot of makeup, Andre.

[12:47] And another person that I got actual – I wouldn't say laughs out of, but the closest to me laughing

[12:53] was Cronkite.

[12:55] And I think that it was – of the comedy people, like I think he commits the straightest to what

[13:00] he's doing.

[13:01] Like in general, I think the people who are most successful in this movie are the people

[13:05] who are going full bore like as straight as they can with the material.

[13:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[13:10] I mean as often is the case with comedy.

[13:12] I actually – I thought his performance was fine.

[13:14] I did not like those jokes that much because it feels like an easy go-to to have a character

[13:18] who's an authoritative character be like, yeah, my wife says I'm drinking too much.

[13:23] It's a lot of that kind of joke.

Dan McCoy

[13:24] Yeah.

[13:24] I didn't like so much.

[13:25] I liked it when he was just like playing with the toys.

[13:28] Like he goes away and then it comes right back to me.

Elliott Kalan

[13:30] He always has a different 60s novelty type toy.

[13:33] So later on when he's using Silly Putty, that part's funny.

[13:36] Anyway, Kellogg's, they hire their detective, Sebastian Maniscalco, to take a look at what's

[13:43] going on.

[13:43] That's when Charlene's eyes perked up.

[13:44] She's like, my favorite comedian?

[13:46] And she said, I have to leave the room.

[13:48] And she came back flushed a few minutes later.

[13:51] He has spy footage from inside Post.

[13:53] They are using data from Kellogg's earlier fruit pastry research, and they're obviously

[13:58] Post spies at Kellogg to save the company.

[14:01] Jerry says there's only one option.

[14:02] He's got to work with his old colleague, Stankowski, who he calls Stan, but is soon revealed

[14:06] to be Donna Stankowski, Melissa McCarthy, who now works at NASA on the moon landing.

[14:11] But there's some moon landing jokes.

[14:13] But then he convinces her to come back with him.

[14:16] There's Amy Schumer.

[14:18] She shows the dumpster kids their experimental fruit pastry, and they say it's good, but

[14:23] it doesn't toast well.

[14:24] There's this long scene of the toaster being on fire or whatever.

Dan McCoy

[14:26] And her right-hand man is Max Greenfield from New Girl, mostly is how I know her.

[14:34] Although he's now on that CBS sitcom, The Neighbors or something like that.

[14:38] Yeah, The Neighbors.

[14:39] Neighborhood.

[14:40] Yeah.

[14:41] Huge deal.

Elliott Kalan

[14:43] Huge.

[14:43] So anyway, yeah, he's here, a right-hand man who mostly gets into trouble and she yells

[14:49] at him and stuff.

[14:50] Stan is like, hey, we need a team of radical thinkers.

[14:54] And so they introduce in a parody of the astronaut press conference that you'd see in the right

[15:00] stuff, they introduce their new invention team.

[15:04] Do you guys want me to go through who it is, or do you want to take turns naming?

Stuart Wellington

[15:07] Please do, because then I want to yell about it for a little bit.

[15:09] Okay.

[15:09] Please, yeah.

[15:09] I want to get Dan all worked up.

[15:11] Okay.

[15:12] Standards up.

Elliott Kalan

[15:13] East Coast ice cream magnate Tom Carvel of Carvel Ice Cream.

[15:17] Were you guys familiar with Carvel Ice Cream when you grew up?

Dan McCoy

[15:19] Not growing up as a Midwesterner, Stuart.

[15:21] Yeah, no.

Stuart Wellington

[15:22] But when I came out here, all everybody wants to talk about is fucking Fudgy the Whale.

Elliott Kalan

[15:27] Fudgy the Whale, Cookie Puss, yeah.

[15:28] So I grew up with Carvel, so it wasn't until I was much older that I realized this is not

[15:31] a national chain.

[15:32] And other people are not watching commercials with Cookie Puss arriving from space.

[15:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:36] When you're writing letters here at Pen Pal in Alaska, they're like, why are you fucking

[15:40] talking about Cookie Puss, dude?

[15:42] I'm like, you must get the best cookie.

Elliott Kalan

[15:43] Is that where Cookie Puss lives?

[15:45] Yeah.

[15:45] Do you ever see Fudgy the Whale in the waters off the coast?

[15:49] No, he melts.

[15:50] Off the Juno Sound or whatever?

[15:52] He melts in the water.

[15:52] Yeah, but they didn't know what I was talking about.

[15:54] Then you've got James Marsden as Jack LaLanne.

[15:57] Jack McBrayer as Steve Schwinn of Schwinn Bikes.

[16:00] Yeah.

[16:01] You've got Bobby Moynihan as Chef Boyardee.

[16:03] Okay.

[16:03] And you've got Thomas Lennon as Harold Von Braunhut, who I was talking to Dan about this before

[16:09] the recording.

[16:09] They present him as a Werner Von Braun, like kind of ex-Nazi type.

[16:13] Yeah.

[16:14] I did a little research.

[16:15] In reality, there was a Harold Von Braunhut, who here he's credited as the inventor of

[16:18] the sea monkeys, which he is.

[16:20] He did a lot of Mailer stuff.

[16:21] He was actually born Jewish and then as an adult became hugely racist and was affiliated

[16:25] with the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations.

[16:28] So they are wrong that he was German, but they're right that he was a racist.

[16:32] A racist, yeah.

[16:33] It's okay.

[16:33] And also Univac, the computer.

[16:35] And these are called their taste pilots instead of test pilots.

[16:39] Now, here's what makes me angry about this thing.

Dan McCoy

[16:43] Is this slander of Univac?

[16:45] No.

[16:46] You know, I have been accused, not unfairly, of sometimes being like the logic police on

[16:53] jokes.

[16:54] Yeah.

[16:55] But I don't think you can go.

[16:56] Well, not even accused.

Elliott Kalan

[16:57] You're an undercover logic policeman.

[16:59] I don't mean to blow your mouth.

[17:00] You know, you've got a lot of busts under your name.

Dan McCoy

[17:03] Yeah.

[17:04] I was trying to think of a logic thing.

[17:05] I'm like, I pull out an abacus.

[17:06] No, that's more just accounting.

[17:08] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[17:08] I saw that video.

[17:10] The person had recorded with their phone where you interrupt their joke and they're like,

[17:13] can I see your badge, sir?

[17:14] And you're like, you don't need to see my badge.

[17:15] Anyway, it was, you came off very bad in a tan.

[17:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[17:20] But I, here's the thing.

[17:22] Like, I just don't think you can go like this fully to fucking crazy town.

[17:26] Like, even in a movie with as little to do with reality as this, I'm like, why?

[17:31] Why is like Steve Schwinn, bicycle inventor or seller or whatever the fuck the guy.

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] Because it's all, again, this is all just the stuff that's floating around in Jerry Seinfeld's

[17:43] head.

[17:44] Yeah.

[17:44] I think that's a big part of it.

[17:46] Yeah.

[17:46] I think you're right.

[17:47] I think the thing that ties this together is not what would make any sort of sense if

[17:52] we're trying to take this plot seriously, but it's just literally what things are floating

[17:56] around in a baby boomer's head from their childhood.

[17:58] Like, I'm surprised Charles Atlas was not the guy that they had instead of Jack LaLanne.

[18:02] And I almost wonder if that they wanted Charles Atlas and then couldn't get him.

[18:05] Because I know that like the Charles Atlas company is litigious.

[18:08] I know they kept Flex Mentalo from being republished for a long time, that comic series.

[18:12] So I like, I wonder if that's the case.

[18:14] Because it feels like it's literally just, what stuff did I have as a kid?

[18:17] Schwinn bikes.

[18:18] I certainly had those.

[18:18] Yeah.

[18:19] Sea Monkeys.

[18:19] Yeah, for sure.

[18:20] Chef Boyardee.

[18:21] We ate a lot of that.

[18:22] I think that's, Tom Carvel.

[18:24] I grew up hearing his commercials all the time as a kid in the New York area in the 60s.

Stuart Wellington

[18:28] I feel like Bobby Moynihan commits to the Chef Boyardee character.

[18:30] And I think he's pretty funny.

[18:31] All of those people, I enjoyed him the most.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] He always commits to his roles.

[18:36] Yeah.

[18:36] He's a committer.

[18:37] I feel like the, it's always nice to see Jack McBrayer in things.

[18:41] Yeah.

[18:41] I've been a fan of his ever since I was a college student when I would see him at the UCB all

[18:45] the time.

[18:46] But here's what I'll say about this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[18:48] And I generally like Thomas Lennon unless he's in a weirdly racist Puppet Master movie.

Elliott Kalan

[18:53] I mean, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:54] Just the one, the specific one.

[18:56] Just the one.

[18:56] He was only in the one.

Elliott Kalan

[18:57] But I love Thomas Lennon.

[18:58] I mean, again, ever since he was a member of the state, I've been a fan of Thomas Lennon's.

[19:02] I think he's hilarious.

[19:03] But here's the thing that got to me around this point in the movie.

[19:05] And it really hit me when Peter Dinklage showed up.

[19:08] Yeah.

[19:09] Oh, yeah.

[19:09] There's a lot of people in this movie who I've not seen on screen in a little bit.

[19:12] And they have aged.

[19:13] And that's just a natural part of life.

[19:15] But there were a number of times in the movie where I would see somebody and be like, oh,

[19:19] they've gotten older.

[19:20] Like, I didn't realize that they've gotten older because I haven't seen them in things for a little bit.

Stuart Wellington

[19:23] We were also introduced to a scary milkman character played by Christian Slater.

[19:30] And he looks great.

[19:30] He looks – he's very smooth-faced.

Elliott Kalan

[19:32] He looks much younger than I would expect on the other end of it.

Dan McCoy

[19:34] But Dinklage and Slater are both in this milk mafia kind of thing.

Elliott Kalan

[19:38] Dinklage and Slater, that's that new show at USA, right?

[19:41] Yeah.

[19:42] They're lawyers, I think.

Dan McCoy

[19:44] I would watch that, actually.

[19:45] But the thing – I mean, like, again, these two people, I'm like, oh, you're coming off pretty well

[19:51] because you're just, you know, doing – you're playing this as if it's a drama.

[19:56] Yeah, they're playing the material straight.

[19:57] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:58] So, yeah, these threatening milkmen show up and Bob's like, what was that about?

[20:01] And his boss tells them, milkmen have always been a violent syndicate.

[20:05] Milk has always been a mob-type organization.

[20:07] And they're going to be mad that Kellogg's is now making a non-milk-based breakfast product.

[20:13] They're not going to like it.

[20:15] And this feels like a one-off thing.

[20:17] To be honest, you see, like, black-and-white photos of the history of milk.

[20:20] And it felt like the scene in The Jerk when they're watching the film strip of cat juggling or whatever it is.

[20:26] And it's – where it's clearly just like a one-off silly thing.

[20:29] I was like, but no, this is a tightly written movie.

[20:31] So, this plot comes back quite a few times, you know?

[20:34] Because this movie is somehow a sketch movie that does continue to remember its threads.

[20:39] Even when you're like, that's fine.

[20:40] I need to know more about that.

[20:41] And yet they don't pay off.

Dan McCoy

[20:43] It remembers its threads, but it doesn't pay off.

[20:44] There's a – later on, there's a sentient ravioli that I'm like, oh, this is going to –

[20:49] Yeah.

[20:50] You know, scoop in at the end and like do something, like save somebody or whatever.

Stuart Wellington

[20:54] I'm watching Alex's confusion when he hears sentient ravioli.

Elliott Kalan

[20:58] And also the milk stuff gets taken care of off-camera, basically.

[21:03] Like the president takes care of that off-camera.

[21:04] We'll get to the president, John F. Kennedy, played by Bill Burr.

[21:07] But that will come later.

[21:09] There's a – so the lab gets to work.

[21:11] We get a brief appearance by Aparna Nancharla as a scientist who is just handling the computer.

[21:17] Great to see her.

[21:17] I don't mind seeing her in a movie.

[21:19] She's great.

[21:19] There's lots of jokes about the brand taste pilots.

[21:23] It goes on for a long time.

[21:25] And Amy Schumer is getting suspicious.

[21:26] Hugh Grant shows up.

[21:27] He wants to use the lab as his rehearsal space for a production of King Lear.

[21:32] And Stan and Thurl did not get along.

[21:35] Uh-oh.

[21:35] Thurl is going to be a thorn in their side.

Dan McCoy

[21:37] This is breaking down.

[21:38] He's like –

Alex Smith

[21:39] That really seems like something you could leave out of.

[21:43] Yeah, you would think.

Elliott Kalan

[21:44] No, no.

[21:44] You would think.

[21:45] You'd think.

[21:45] But again, this is like a Seinfeld episode.

[21:48] All the storylines are going to come together.

Stuart Wellington

[21:49] I think it's important that each taste pilot gets a fully realized arc in this movie.

[21:54] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[21:54] Also, I don't know if you're aware, Alex.

[21:57] Stuart dosed your drink with mushrooms before you came over.

[22:01] So what you think is the plot of this movie is not actually a plot.

Elliott Kalan

[22:05] Stuart's right that each of the taste pilots does get an arc for the most part.

[22:09] I don't remember Carvel getting it, but I'm not even going to go into that.

[22:11] Like Jack Lane, the fact that people can see his dick through his pants so he has to make other pants.

[22:16] I'm not going to get into that.

[22:17] The sentient ravioli that Thomas Lennon and Chef Boyer D make, I guess we'll touch on that because it keeps coming up.

[22:22] He shows up for a final gag.

Stuart Wellington

[22:23] I think it's pretty important.

Elliott Kalan

[22:25] Yeah.

[22:25] So the five cereal families meet in the back of a grocery store at night.

[22:30] Right.

[22:30] And they –

Stuart Wellington

[22:31] We get Andy Daly as what the Quaker Oats guy.

[22:35] As the Quaker Oats guy.

[22:35] I did like that gag.

[22:36] He's funny.

Elliott Kalan

[22:37] I mean, again, Andy Daly's hilarious.

[22:39] Like there's – that's a good gag.

[22:40] And also he's hilarious.

[22:42] You know, I'll watch anything with him in it.

[22:43] I've worked with him and he's super great to work with.

[22:45] So there's a lot of funny people in this.

[22:48] At a certain point, you get over the idea that the Quaker Oats guy is actually the guy who runs Quaker Oats.

[22:54] Yeah.

[22:56] So she says, we've got this new toaster pastry.

[22:59] It's going to be on shelves next week.

[23:00] And Bob and Stan are like, we've got to stop this.

[23:02] There's only way to do it.

[23:03] Cut off the supply of sugar to post.

[23:06] So they go to Puerto Rico to meet with El Sucre.

[23:09] And he controls all the sugar.

[23:11] He's like a drug dealer.

[23:13] He briefly watches a ventriloquist played by Tony Hale who makes fun of his grout and the bad grout job on the tiles.

[23:20] So, of course, he's taken out his dummiest shot.

[23:22] Okay.

[23:22] I thought that was kind of funny.

Dan McCoy

[23:23] That was a good gag.

[23:24] Where you hear the shot off screen, you think he's been shot, but the dummy has been shot.

Stuart Wellington

[23:28] And then he immediately shows up and starts making fun of the grout job.

[23:32] It's pretty funny.

Elliott Kalan

[23:33] The one thing that he shouldn't make fun of, yeah.

[23:35] They say they'll buy all the sugar that El Sucre is bringing on.

[23:39] And it's implied that, uh-oh, now they're on the hook for all the money for this sugar.

[23:42] They're going to be in trouble.

[23:43] But that doesn't really matter.

[23:45] It doesn't matter.

[23:45] Now Post can't make anything.

[23:47] But Christian Slater is the milkman.

[23:49] He's threatening Bob.

[23:50] The taste pilot inventions, they all misfire.

[23:53] They just haven't done what they're supposed to.

[23:54] The dumpster kids, they invent Rice Krispie Treats, which is something the movie never really picks up on.

[24:00] That that's something –

[24:01] Yeah, the dumpster kids.

Elliott Kalan

[24:01] I mean, the movie mentions it.

Dan McCoy

[24:03] Some off-brand garbage pail kids.

Elliott Kalan

[24:06] The dumpster bottom kids.

Stuart Wellington

[24:08] Yeah.

[24:08] Yeah, yeah.

[24:08] That's the – we have garbage pail kids at home, right?

[24:11] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:12] Aw, dumpster kids.

[24:14] That's – you want garbage pail kids and your grandpa is like, I got you what you wanted for your birthday.

[24:19] Dumpster bottom kids.

[24:20] Oh, man.

[24:21] They just teach about being thrifty and recycling.

[24:23] I don't like this.

[24:24] They're not gross at all.

[24:27] And the kids tell them you got to combine the things that you have.

[24:31] So Bob and Stan combine the taste pilot's ideas that eventually helps them to invent the Pop-Tart.

[24:37] Everyone celebrates with a party where they dance the twist.

[24:40] Oh, right.

[24:41] We were inventing the Pop-Tart.

[24:44] That's right.

Dan McCoy

[24:45] Lost track of the –

Elliott Kalan

[24:46] They still don't have a name for it though.

[24:47] Or is this one they call it a Trat Pop?

[24:49] I can't remember.

[24:50] No, it's later.

[24:51] Okay.

[24:51] So Post needs sugar.

[24:53] So the only place to get it is from Cuba.

[24:54] So they go to Soviet Russia to pitch to Khrushchev, played by Dean Norris.

[24:58] Played by Hank Schrader.

[24:59] Hell yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:00] And his interpreter is the actress from the Borat sequel, right?

[25:06] Yes, it is.

[25:07] Oh.

[25:07] And Bodies, Bodies, Bodies.

[25:09] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:09] Yeah.

[25:09] It's Maria Bakalova who's our interpreter.

[25:12] And she's – again, she's funny.

[25:14] They're fine.

[25:15] I would say –

Dan McCoy

[25:15] It's an all-star cast.

[25:17] It's amazing how much talent has been thrown at this crap.

[25:20] This is another case of –

Elliott Kalan

[25:21] And like it looks good.

[25:22] Like the movie looks good.

[25:23] I would say the movie looks a little made-for-TV-ish.

[25:26] But that's fine.

[25:27] It's a sketch movie.

[25:28] It doesn't need to look great.

Dan McCoy

[25:29] You know.

[25:29] It looks fairly pretty but also flat.

Elliott Kalan

[25:32] Yeah.

[25:32] It's colorful but flat.

[25:33] It's all floodlit the way that like a network television show is.

[25:36] You know what I'm saying?

Stuart Wellington

[25:38] I mean check it.

[25:39] But I think – didn't Conrad Hall do the cinematography?

[25:41] I do think it was actually a notable –

Elliott Kalan

[25:44] Conrad Hall, he had been hit on the head with a coconut beforehand.

[25:46] It was a notable cinematographer.

[25:47] So they called him the Prince of Lightness beforehand.

Dan McCoy

[25:49] I'm going to look it up while you guys keep talking.

[25:51] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[25:51] The cinematography, Dan, it's by Bill Pope.

[25:54] Oh.

[25:55] Who – he's worked with a lot of people.

[25:56] We're with the Sam Raimi.

[25:57] We're with the Kowskis.

[25:59] We're with Edgar Wright.

[26:00] Did a lot of music videos.

[26:01] This was the cinematographer on Darkman.

[26:04] Yeah, the fucking Matrix.

[26:05] Yeah.

[26:05] On Darkman?

[26:06] Did a lot of stuff.

[26:07] Let's see.

[26:07] Here's his filmography part of Wikipedia.

[26:09] Spider-Man 2.

[26:09] Army of Darkness.

[26:10] Oh, Spider-Man 2.

Stuart Wellington

[26:11] One of the best movies ever made.

[26:12] Awesome.

Elliott Kalan

[26:12] Dan, your favorite movie, Blank Check.

[26:14] The remake of Bedazzled, another of Dan's favorites.

[26:17] Scott Pilgrim.

[26:19] The Spirit, former Flophouse movie.

[26:21] Oh, sure, yeah.

[26:22] The Jungle Book remake that Jon Favre did.

[26:24] Another Flophouse movie, Alita, Battle Angel.

Dan McCoy

[26:26] I mean the problem with The Spirit was not that it looked bad.

[26:29] It was everything else.

Elliott Kalan

[26:30] Another Flophouse movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Quantumania.

[26:32] So Bill Pope now has a number of movies in the Flophouse, not because of his work on them.

[26:36] No.

[26:37] Yeah.

[26:37] No, we got to get him in here.

[26:39] Oh, he did the pilot for Freaks and Geeks.

[26:41] He did the pilot for Maximum Bob.

[26:42] Zero effect.

[26:43] I like zero effect.

Stuart Wellington

[26:44] Oh, he did zero effect with Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller.

[26:45] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[26:46] Yeah.

[26:47] So anyway.

[26:48] Clueless.

[26:48] So he sent a lot of stuff.

[26:50] He sent a lot of stuff.

[26:51] Great work.

[26:51] Man, we can't take him down.

[26:53] No.

[26:53] No, let's not take him down.

[26:54] Wouldn't want to.

[26:54] Not even try.

[26:55] You know who we should take down?

[26:56] Whoever made the decision to present Khrushchev as if he was kind of like a grumbling kind

[27:00] of beast of a man.

[27:02] When, if anything, Khrushchev made, say what you will about, you know, the problems

[27:05] of Soviet Russia and some of the problems he did.

[27:07] Oh, and I will.

[27:07] I would say at least he took a step forward in denouncing Stalinism in his secret speech,

[27:12] you know, to the Congress.

[27:13] Anyway, so Khrushchev says, I'll give you sugar.

[27:17] So back to the Pop-Card movie.

[27:18] So Bob, he says, I'll give you sugar in exchange for, they pitch him a couple ideas for Soviet

[27:22] cereals.

[27:23] And then he says, I'll give it to you if you have sex with me.

[27:25] And so it's implied that Amy Schumer does.

[27:27] Bob is kidnapped by the milkmen, their leader, Peter Dick.

Stuart Wellington

[27:30] Amy Schumer playing what noted feminist icon in some ways.

[27:34] Yes.

[27:34] Has to sell her body for sugar.

[27:37] Okay.

[27:37] Just to clarify.

Elliott Kalan

[27:38] This is a movie that I would say does not have politics on its mind, which means it stumbles

[27:42] at certain points for that reason.

[27:44] Later on, as we'll get to, there is a big parody of January 6th, which is not trying to make

[27:49] a point about January 6th.

[27:50] It's just like, here, this is like a thing that happened.

[27:53] And so it's like, it's weirdly.

Stuart Wellington

[27:54] Oh, are you saying that the way that they use workers desiring what unionizing and fair

[27:59] wages being January Sixers is complicated?

Elliott Kalan

[28:03] It also, and it also, yeah, it's also taking a, it's the idea of, of a brand mascots unionizing

[28:08] is a joke in it.

[28:09] And I don't think that it is an anti-union message so much as them not caring.

[28:12] Or, or thinking about it, you know, it feels, it feels tone deaf as opposed to like, let's

[28:16] take the unions down.

[28:17] Anyway, Bob's kidnapped by the milkman's led by Peter Dinklage.

[28:21] He of course forces Jerry Seinfeld to walk through a barn full of farting cows, which is too

[28:25] much for Bob.

[28:26] And he quits the project.

[28:27] Meanwhile, there is a living ravioli loose in the lab that was created as a combination

[28:33] of Chef Boyardee's work and, and the sea monkeys.

[28:38] The White House sends a helicopter to pick up.

Stuart Wellington

[28:40] It does kind of feel like the worst version of the Manhattan Projects.

Elliott Kalan

[28:45] Oh, the Manhattan Projects, the comic book?

Stuart Wellington

[28:46] Yeah.

[28:47] Oh, okay.

Dan McCoy

[28:47] I was like, I was like, I don't know the, like the nukes were probably the worst.

Elliott Kalan

[28:50] Yeah, the worst version of the Manhattan Projects was probably the one that killed all those

[28:53] Japanese people.

[28:54] But yeah, it's still the.

[28:55] I'm talking about the comic.

[28:56] You're talking about the Jonathan Hickman comic, the Manhattan Projects.

[28:58] Yeah.

[28:59] So the White House sends a helicopter to pick up the Kellogg's people, takes them straight

[29:03] to President Kennedy, played by Bill Burr, says they need post to be defeated.

[29:08] Do you think, do you think that's a hair piece?

[29:12] No, I think that was his real hair, Stuart.

[29:14] I think that was his real thick brown hair.

[29:14] And he normally wears a bald cap.

[29:15] That's what I was going to say.

[29:17] Because he knows it makes him more relatable as a blue collar guy if he's bald, if he wears

[29:22] a bald cap.

[29:22] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Stuart Wellington

[29:23] Okay.

[29:24] I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[29:25] I thought I was going crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[29:26] Well, and also, he originally, so a lot of people don't know, Bill Burr originally started

[29:28] as a comedian named Bill Furr.

[29:30] And the idea was that he had this thick head of hair.

[29:32] Yeah.

[29:32] And he got a bad haircut.

[29:34] It never worked.

[29:35] He bombed every night.

[29:35] He got a bad haircut one night and he was like, I'll just shave the rest off.

[29:38] And he did amazing.

[29:40] He killed.

[29:41] And so from that point on, he realized he was a reverse Samson, as it's known in the scientific

[29:45] literature.

[29:45] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[29:46] The hair actually made him weaker as a comedian.

Stuart Wellington

[29:48] Yeah.

[29:49] Interesting.

[29:49] Cool, cool, cool, cool.

[29:50] A little background.

Elliott Kalan

[29:51] That's a little bit.

[29:52] So that's from my segment Behind the Burr, where I tell you stories about Bill Burr's

[29:56] history.

[29:56] Yep.

[29:57] Anyway.

[29:58] Behind the Burr.

[29:59] Yeah.

[30:00] How did Bill Burr's name get attached to the thistles that get stuck to your socks when

[30:05] you walk through a forest?

[30:06] Stay tuned for the next episode to find out.

[30:09] Like and subscribe.

[30:10] So the president is like, the Russians are working with Post.

[30:13] We got to stop them.

[30:13] I'll help you with the milkmen.

[30:15] But the milkmen, they make inroads by convincing Thurl Ravenscroft to unionize and cause trouble

[30:21] for Kellogg's.

[30:23] There's a NASA style test of the Pop-Tart.

[30:25] It's successful, but it ends in an explosion that kills Jack McBrayer's character.

[30:29] And he has a full cereal funeral, which involves his coffin being floated in milk and cereal and

[30:35] the different mascots.

[30:36] Don't worry.

Dan McCoy

[30:37] This takes forever.

[30:38] I gotta say.

[30:39] It's very long.

[30:40] It didn't make me laugh, but this is like the, you know, again, one of the moments that

[30:44] threatened to make me laugh.

[30:46] When they're, you know, like slowly pouring cereal and milk into the hole.

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] I think it's like, if this was a sketch on a TV show, I think I'd be laughing at it.

[30:55] But by this point, I was like done with cereal jokes.

[30:58] I was like, I've seen them.

[30:59] We've had a lot of cereal jokes in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[31:01] And we, I guess we also forgot to mention that in the testing scene where Jack McBrayer's

[31:07] character explodes, we see a friend of the podcast, Ronnie Chang.

[31:11] Ronnie Chang, yeah.

[31:12] Oh, that's right.

[31:12] Ronnie Chang shows up very briefly.

[31:13] He's funny.

Elliott Kalan

[31:14] And he's funny.

[31:14] Yeah.

[31:14] He does like three lines, but he's really funny, you know.

[31:19] So Kellogg and Post, they meet up at night and they have a rendezvous that almost turns

[31:23] romantic, but it's interrupted by the, again, the living ravioli.

[31:25] The living ravioli.

[31:27] That is peeking around.

[31:29] They need, oh, that's right.

[31:30] They need a product name.

[31:31] So now we go to, of course, Don Draper and Roger Sterling as played by the original actors,

[31:36] John Hamm and John Slattery.

[31:39] And we do a Mad Men parody where they're trying to sex up the product.

[31:44] It's, it's really, it is really like just a, it's directly a reference to the Belle Jolie

[31:47] campaign in the Mad Men series, right?

Stuart Wellington

[31:50] Yeah.

[31:50] Like.

[31:51] Yeah.

[31:51] It, it's great.

[31:52] It's great to see Mad Men written by people who aren't as good as Mad Men writers.

Elliott Kalan

[31:57] It really, well, it, you know, it's, it's, I was surprised the movie just went directly

[32:01] into direct parody.

[32:03] Like it's not even just a reference and they're doing a scene.

[32:05] It's just a direct parody of that show.

Stuart Wellington

[32:07] Well, again, like things probably bouncing around Jerry Seinfeld's head.

Dan McCoy

[32:10] They did slip very naturally back into those characters.

[32:12] I'll say that.

Elliott Kalan

[32:13] Oh yeah.

[32:13] I mean, it's great to see him.

[32:14] Yeah.

[32:14] I mean that, to be honest, it was true that like John Hamm still got Don Draper, but even

[32:19] more so like John Slattery, he can do Roger Sterling.

[32:21] It seems like without even thinking about it, like he does it so naturally.

Stuart Wellington

[32:24] I mean, of all the days to be on set, that's the day I would have picked.

[32:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:28] And like the moment where.

[32:30] And they'll win a day on frosted sweepstakes.

Stuart Wellington

[32:33] And that like the banter between John Hamm and Melissa McCarthy was funny where they're

[32:38] like kind of flirting and kind of, I don't know.

[32:40] I thought that was good.

Alex Smith

[32:41] I'd want to be there for that serial funeral.

[32:43] That sounds really cool.

[32:44] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[32:44] Cause you'd have all the costumes and everything.

[32:46] A lot of celebrities there.

[32:47] I mean, that's when like every now and then at the Daily Show, you'd have to dress up a

[32:50] correspondent in a funny costume and you'd see them walking through the hallway and you'd

[32:53] be like, this is what it feels like to work on a television show.

[32:56] Like in the movies, there's always a Roman centurion walking around the back lot, you

[33:00] know?

[33:01] They haven't made Roman movies in years, but there's, I mean, except for a gladiator too,

[33:04] I guess.

[33:05] But there's always a Roman centurion in the back lot of a movie studio.

[33:08] So they need a name.

[33:09] They call them the dumpster kids.

[33:10] They end up with the name Tret Pop.

[33:13] And.

Stuart Wellington

[33:13] It's an acronym for, or something from all there.

Dan McCoy

[33:17] Well, it's not a palindrome because it's not the same backwards and forwards, but if you

[33:20] reverse it, it'll be Pop-Tart, which is why.

[33:23] Oh.

[33:24] We'll see that later on.

[33:25] It pays off later on.

Elliott Kalan

[33:26] It pays off later.

[33:27] So it's called a Tret Pop.

[33:28] They fire all the mascots.

[33:30] And on the day that the FDA is supposed to certify that they can sell Tret Pops, the FDA guy

[33:36] is played, of course, by Fred Armisen.

[33:38] They throw Ravenscroft in a.

[33:40] Unfortunately.

[33:41] In a QAnon shaman style version of the Tony the Tiger costume.

[33:45] Yep.

[33:45] He leads the mascots.

[33:46] He leads the mascots in a January 6th style protest to stop the certification.

[33:52] And it's one of those things where it's like.

[33:53] Yeah.

[33:53] Was it really obvious to you guys?

[33:54] Because it only kind of slowly dawned on me how close they were parodying that thing.

[33:59] Because I saw his costume.

[34:00] I go.

[34:01] Okay.

[34:01] It looks like the QAnon shaman.

[34:02] Yeah.

[34:02] As soon as they say we got to stop the certification, I was like, oh.

[34:04] So they're really going all the way to doing a January 6th parody.

Dan McCoy

[34:07] That's all it is.

[34:08] And as you say, it's not political.

[34:10] It's just like, hey, remember this thing that happened?

[34:12] Yeah.

[34:12] And, you know, I'm sure like at the time I wouldn't have found it funny.

[34:17] And now I certainly don't find it funny.

[34:20] Like, it's just gotten less and less funny over time.

Stuart Wellington

[34:23] Well, I just think I couldn't tell.

[34:24] Yeah.

[34:24] Dan doesn't like his heroes from January 6th.

[34:27] Yeah.

[34:27] That's.

[34:28] You got me.

Elliott Kalan

[34:30] A lot of people don't know that if you play a lot of the episodes backwards, you can hear

[34:34] Dan saying subliminally, release the heroes, pardon the heroes.

[34:38] Yeah.

[34:38] But I was surprised.

[34:41] I couldn't tell.

[34:41] I was like, is this tasteless to me or is it not?

[34:44] Because I think January 6th is going to turn out to be a pivotal moment in American history

[34:49] in a bad way.

[34:50] You know, not in a good way.

[34:51] It's not like that was what shook America out of its super and got us to clean up our

[34:55] eggs.

[34:56] No, but like there was that incident had a chance for America to be like, this isn't

[35:01] us.

[35:01] We've got to change things.

[35:02] And instead people were like, that was weird anyway.

[35:04] But I think, but it was, it was one of the things where like, I don't love that they're

[35:08] making light of it, but also I don't hear a lot of people talking about it.

[35:11] And I have certainly written things.

[35:12] If my third volume of Maniac of New York ever gets finished, you'll see that I have

[35:16] kind of my, like a play on that in there.

[35:19] So it was one of those things where it's like, well, at least I'm-

[35:21] With serial mascots, right?

[35:22] With serial mascots.

[35:23] Yeah.

[35:23] So at least I'm seeing this event reverberating in the culture in some way, as opposed to

[35:28] it being forgotten about.

[35:30] You know?

[35:30] So I couldn't tell.

[35:30] I couldn't tell.

[35:31] This is the least relevant way for it to be represented in the culture.

Stuart Wellington

[35:34] I mean, we'll find out if the new Naked Gun reboot features a 10-year-old 6-bit.

Elliott Kalan

[35:40] That would be, that would be amazing.

[35:42] The only, they're like, the only way we can handle this material is in, is in parody movies.

[35:46] It's the only way, you know?

[35:48] So they, but they managed to, Bob just takes the stamp and stamps their certification.

[35:53] They did it.

[35:54] Pop-Tarts get on the shelf.

[35:55] Walter Cronkite's announcing the product on the news, but his script, he uses some Silly

[36:00] Putty on it, and it messes up the script.

[36:02] So he reads it backwards off the Silly Putty, and it says Pop-Tarts.

[36:05] So that is now the new name.

[36:06] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:07] That long walk was really worth it.

[36:10] Setting up-

[36:11] That sucks.

[36:12] That sucks really bad.

[36:13] It kind of does, yeah.

[36:14] Yeah, it's really-

[36:15] Name.

Elliott Kalan

[36:16] It really, there are a number of things in the movie.

[36:19] I think this movie is most successful with the one-off jokes.

Stuart Wellington

[36:22] It's good that they hadn't, they hadn't, like, trademarked Trap Pop, huh?

[36:27] And they could just switch over.

[36:29] Yeah, just naturally.

[36:30] Yeah, yeah.

[36:30] Even though, even though it sounds too close to Pop Art, which leads us to yet another cameo.

Elliott Kalan

[36:36] We'll get to that.

[36:37] We'll get to that first.

[36:37] We'll say that the Pop-Tarts launch the same day as Post's Country Squares, which is their

[36:44] competing product.

[36:44] And of course, Pop-Tarts sell out.

[36:46] And this is a, they, earlier they're talking about it as a pastry dingus.

[36:50] And then this scene, it feels like such a play off of the Hudsucker Proxy scene where

[36:55] the hula hoop gets, becomes popular.

[36:58] And where they refer to it as an extruded plastic dingus.

[37:00] And it's like, it just very, I wonder if that was, now that we know that the cinematographer

[37:04] worked so closely with Sam Raimi, maybe those were his ideas for how to do it.

[37:07] Maybe he's riffing off his own work in it, which is kind of fun.

[37:11] Bob fills us out on what happens next.

[37:13] Jokes, jokes, jokes.

[37:13] Everyone has joke kind of like what happened to them.

[37:16] But Bob goes on the Johnny Carson show and is shot by Andy Warhol because Pop-Tart sounds

[37:23] too close to Pop Art.

[37:25] And Andy Warhol is so close.

[37:26] Played by Andrew Rannells, of course.

Stuart Wellington

[37:27] Played by what?

[37:28] Of course.

[37:28] Who's that?

[37:29] Played by Andrew Rannells, of course.

[37:31] One of the original cast of Book of Mormon.

[37:35] I think that's Dan Levy.

[37:38] Dan Levy as Andy Warhol.

[37:38] Oh, you're right.

[37:39] You're fucking right.

[37:41] They look so similar when they have big blonde rings and glasses on.

Elliott Kalan

[37:45] No, that's Dan Levy from Schitt's Creek playing Andy Warhol.

[37:48] And of course, it's funny because in real life, Andy Warhol was shot and paralyzed.

[37:53] But so, you know, again, the movie is-

[37:55] It is pretty funny, actually.

[37:56] Again, the movie is riffing off of history in a way that is maybe oblivious, you know,

[38:01] to the implications.

[38:03] So Bob finishes the story.

[38:04] He's telling it to that kid in the restaurant.

[38:06] The kid's parents come and get him.

[38:08] And the kid is like, oh, wow, mom and dad.

[38:12] We never know what his problem was, why it solved.

[38:15] Oh, no, you know what?

[38:16] They say they're going to buy him something.

[38:17] I forgot what it is, though.

[38:18] And Bob says goodbye to him and the living ravioli peeks out of his pocket.

[38:24] And he's like, did you see that, mom and dad?

[38:26] But they didn't see it.

[38:27] And then we get credits.

[38:29] There's no credit in the scenes.

[38:30] And your favorite thing happens, Elliot.

Dan McCoy

[38:31] They all do a dance over the credits.

[38:33] Don't-

[38:34] So there's-

[38:34] What?

Elliott Kalan

[38:34] There are some bloopers, but it is mostly all the characters in the different scenes

[38:38] dancing together to us the same song.

[38:41] And as Dan knows, and as Flaw Plus listeners know, I hate this.

[38:43] I hate this shit.

[38:44] I always hate it.

[38:45] I don't like it.

Dan McCoy

[38:46] Someone was having fun without you.

Elliott Kalan

[38:48] It always feels to me like they are trying to make me feel good by showing how they're

[38:54] throwing a party and I get to watch it.

[38:56] And it's like, oh, great.

[38:57] I mean, Barbie Star, a movie I really love, they do the same thing at the end.

[39:00] And I'm like, fuck this.

[39:01] Don't like it.

[39:02] I don't like it at all.

[39:03] But also because it's such fake fun.

[39:05] I don't really think that they just let loose and had fun dancing for the movie.

[39:09] I think that they were told, like, we're going to do this thing at the end.

[39:12] We're going to shoot some B-roll of us dancing.

[39:14] We're going to shoot B-roll of us dancing.

[39:16] Everybody look like you're having a good time.

[39:18] But I don't think it would be one thing if it was like actual footage.

[39:21] Jared Sheinfeld shooting at their feet.

[39:22] Yeah, exactly.

[39:23] Making them dance.

[39:24] If it was actual footage of a party that they had where they were having a good time, I'd

[39:27] be like, you know what?

[39:28] That's kind of fun to see that.

Stuart Wellington

[39:30] Yeah, like some like steadicam footage or a handheld footage of the rat party.

[39:35] Exactly.

[39:35] Where they're all ripping huge lines, right?

[39:38] Just getting fucking crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[39:40] There's a movie that did that and I don't remember which one it is.

[39:43] But isn't it or like that – was it Book Club or one of those with Mary Steenburgen

[39:48] where like at the end I think they are showing pictures from the rat party and Ted Danson

[39:52] is in one of the pictures and there is something nice about like, oh, her husband showed up

[39:54] for the rat party for a movie.

[39:56] Oh, that's awesome.

[39:57] Yeah.

[39:57] Hell yeah, Book Club.

[39:59] But here it just feels fakey to me.

[40:00] So anyway, the movie ends as it began, bright and colorful, very loud, meaning nothing,

[40:06] having no relevance to the world that we live in.

[40:09] Guys, that's unfrosted.

[40:11] That's the story of how the Pop-Tart was invented, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[40:13] Yeah, the true story.

[40:15] I got to say, I got to give you credit, Elliot.

[40:16] You blazed through that adventure in Outdone.

[40:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:20] I could have done it even shorter, but I had to make sure to mention all the taste pilots,

[40:24] you know?

[40:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[40:26] Let's do our final judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or

[40:31] a movie we kind of liked.

[40:33] Alex, why don't you start off with...

Stuart Wellington

[40:35] Now you're into it.

Alex Smith

[40:38] I got to do the, I got to do the, like the Miss That Movie thing.

[40:42] Yeah, yeah.

[40:43] It's the Miss That Movie.

Stuart Wellington

[40:44] So Miss That Movie is something that regularly happens on our minis.

[40:48] If you're not listening to our minis, what are you even doing with your life?

[40:50] What's your problem?

Dan McCoy

[40:51] Regularly.

[40:52] I think we did three of them.

Stuart Wellington

[40:53] First off, Elliot, fuck off.

[40:57] I think he's asking for another one.

[40:58] Yeah, he's just begging for it.

[41:00] He's gagging for it.

[41:01] Yeah, let's do it.

[41:02] What is it?

[41:05] Should, wait.

Alex Smith

[41:06] I think one is gotta not have missed it or something.

[41:09] I missed it.

[41:10] Sad I missed it.

Stuart Wellington

[41:12] Had to not miss it.

[41:13] Yeah.

[41:14] Had to not miss it.

[41:15] That means you literally, upon hearing this, immediately ran out and watched the movie.

Alex Smith

[41:21] Wow.

[41:22] You know what?

[41:23] I actually hate having to go first on this because, because you guys have described a lot of stuff that almost made you laugh.

[41:29] You've described a lot of stuff that sounds like it kind of sucks.

[41:32] Like we did it.

[41:33] But then also a lot of people that I like who are funny.

[41:37] So I'm gonna give this a, what do you call it?

[41:39] Like a tentative or it's conditional on your all's thing.

[41:45] But I think I'm sad I missed it.

[41:48] I think I'm sad I missed it.

Stuart Wellington

[41:49] So Alex was sharing with me today while we were walking around midtown Manhattan.

Alex Smith

[41:54] It's always bad when Stuart says something like that.

[41:57] It starts like that.

[41:59] It's always bad.

Stuart Wellington

[42:00] No, but Alex is saying that when he edits the episodes, he often puts the movie on so that he's watching the movie while we're talking about it.

[42:10] Yeah.

[42:11] So he didn't have that opportunity this time.

[42:14] Are you going, do you think when you edit this episode, you're going to be watching Unfrosted?

[42:17] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[42:17] It's basically what I was setting up.

Alex Smith

[42:18] Actually, I will.

[42:19] Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

[42:21] Okay.

[42:21] So yeah, you had to not miss it.

Elliott Kalan

[42:23] Yeah.

[42:23] And you can pick up.

[42:24] I think there are a few famous people that we missed in mentioning and you can pick them up.

[42:28] Yeah, just insert it into the episode.

Dan McCoy

[42:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:30] Just have that.

[42:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[42:32] A really low voice.

[42:34] Okay.

[42:35] Well, I'm going to say this is a bad, bad movie in that overall, you know, I didn't enjoy it.

[42:42] I wouldn't recommend it.

[42:43] But it's a weird experience because it's like, it's not terrible.

[42:49] Like, they threw a lot of talent at this thing and everyone's trying.

[42:54] But none of the jokes are quite funny enough and they aren't presented in quite a funny enough way to make up for the fact that this is a completely irrelevant movie where you're like, why does this exist?

[43:07] Why did you think you had to make 90 minutes of this thing?

[43:09] Like, this is a movie where I'm like, I almost wish that like Quibi was back because it's like, if this movie was like broken up into Quibi-sized chunks and you watched it that way, I'd be like, each one I'd be like, oh, this is, you know, amusing enough that maybe I'll check in again.

Stuart Wellington

[43:25] Maybe, maybe with Unfrosted, Quibi could work this time.

Dan McCoy

[43:30] Yeah.

[43:31] Yeah.

[43:31] And a Pop-Tart is kind of a quick bite, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[43:34] It's even more of a quick bite than the shows that were on Quibi.

[43:37] Yeah, sure.

Dan McCoy

[43:37] But, you know, like I think that Seinfeld probably was like, it's like a Pop-Tart.

[43:41] It's like a treat.

[43:42] It's like a little confectionery.

[43:44] But unfortunately –

Stuart Wellington

[43:44] That's not a bad Seinfeld impression right there.

Dan McCoy

[43:46] Well, it's kind of a bad – but it's more like a Pop-Tart in that it has no nutritional value and it will make you sick because you have too much of it.

[43:54] Yeah.

[43:54] So that's what I say.

[43:55] What do you say, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[43:57] I was about to do a Seinfeld impression, but I feel like we'd get hit with some legal issues because it would be too close.

[44:04] Be kind of right in his voice.

Elliott Kalan

[44:06] Be fraudulently misleading people into thinking that Jerry Seinfeld had appeared on the show.

Stuart Wellington

[44:10] So, yeah, that's the thing.

[44:12] Like, it took me so long for my brain to accept the reality of what I was watching that I was genuinely watching a movie about Pop-Tarts that is not factual.

[44:25] It's – but it's also not like a metaphor.

[44:29] It's just this movie about Pop-Tarts.

[44:32] And it's not funny enough for it to really justify that.

[44:37] It's just really strange.

[44:39] And, I mean, I guess I'm glad that a lot of funny people got paid.

[44:43] But, no, I would say this is a firm bad, bad movie unless – is there a way – I find it just so – it's a curious movie.

[44:54] Yeah.

[44:54] But I think it's bad, bad.

[44:56] It's just like – it's so strange.

Elliott Kalan

[44:59] I am going to – after my description of the movie, after my summary, I think this is going to sound a little contradictory.

[45:07] And certainly I don't see it quite the same way as you guys.

[45:09] In some ways, this is a movie I kind of like.

[45:11] And I'll tell you why I said that.

[45:12] I don't think it's super successful at everything it does.

[45:15] But I want to judge it on a different standard than a regular movie.

[45:19] And I think the problem with this movie is partly that it is trying to be a movie with something of a story, but it should be a sketch movie.

[45:26] And at heart, it wants to be a sketch movie.

[45:28] And it's really hard to do a good sketch movie.

[45:30] It's almost – it's nearly impossible.

[45:32] There's very – you want to think about it –

[45:33] Kentucky Fried movie.

[45:34] I mean even Kentucky Fried movie has like long stretches of crap, you know.

[45:38] And when you think about it, other than Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it's hard for me to think of a sketch movie where I'm just like, I love it.

[45:46] Scene after scene, banger after banger.

[45:48] Like you watch Holy Grail, the first six scenes in a row, I think, are just classic solid like genius sketches.

[45:54] And that's really hard to do.

[45:55] And you have to be the funniest sketch group potentially in the history of the world to do it.

[46:00] And so I think it's – I will – I'm giving the movie credit for being exactly what I think you guys in a way are faulting it for being, which is like empty calories that mean nothing and are just kind of like, what about this?

[46:12] What about this?

[46:13] Is this funny?

[46:14] Try this thing.

[46:14] And I think it is – even on that level, it's not always successful.

[46:18] But I found myself – even though I wasn't like holding my sides as they split with laughter, I found myself enjoying it more than I thought I would going into it.

[46:28] And it was nice to see like a lot of funny faces doing funny things.

[46:32] And, you know, it's a – it's like not really a movie.

[46:36] I guess that's what it comes down to.

Stuart Wellington

[46:37] The thing is that ultimately I like the idea of a sketch movie even if it's not going to work.

[46:42] But I feel like they like laser focus in on the serial – serial and 60s jokes so much.

[46:49] So much.

[46:50] That it wears thin so quickly for me.

Elliott Kalan

[46:52] I agree.

[46:53] Here's my pitch.

[46:55] If Jerry Seinfeld had come to me with this, I would have said, I think what you have here is not –

[46:59] What would that sound like, Dan?

[47:02] Hey!

[47:03] Was that Ray Romano?

[47:04] Hey!

[47:07] Oh, shit.

[47:08] No, Dan.

[47:08] Okay, Dan.

[47:08] You're Jerry Seinfeld.

[47:09] Do it for real.

[47:10] You're bringing it to the sumi.

Dan McCoy

[47:13] Elliot.

[47:14] I can't do it.

[47:15] That was great.

[47:16] That's better.

Elliott Kalan

[47:17] Okay, Stuart.

[47:18] Bring me this project.

Stuart Wellington

[47:19] Okay.

[47:19] You might have to redact this, Alex, because this is going to be too close.

Dan McCoy

[47:23] A movie about cereal.

[47:26] Delicious.

[47:27] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[47:28] Alex, you're Jerry Seinfeld.

[47:29] We're only two people who have no Jerry Seinfeld.

[47:32] Get you to me.

Alex Smith

[47:34] What's the deal with you not making this movie that I wanted to make?

Elliott Kalan

[47:39] I think the problem was having Midwestern and Southern Gentiles trying to do a Jewish Long

[47:46] Island impression.

[47:47] So Jerry Seinfeld comes to me with this.

[47:48] I would have said, I don't think you have a movie here.

[47:50] I think you have the seeds for the beginning of a sketch TV show.

[47:53] I would pitch it to him.

[47:54] I would call it Boomer Vision.

[47:55] And it would just be like sketches about stuff for people who grew up in the 50s, 60s, 70s,

[48:00] 80s.

[48:00] Don't set it just in the 60s.

[48:02] But the idea that like, here's a sketch show that's about the different things that are

[48:05] floating around in our parents' generation's dumb heads that they can't let go of.

[48:10] And it's why they have so much trouble moving forward with the times or recognizing that

[48:13] they're not the center of human civilization.

[48:16] And I think there could have been some really funny sketches in here for that show.

[48:18] But I know what you're saying.

[48:19] Like for a movie, you're like, you get to a certain point about, and it's not that long.

[48:24] It's like 37 minutes in and you're like, oh, they're still talking about cereal, huh?

[48:28] Still doing cereal jokes, you know?

[48:30] But I did kind of like it overall.

Alex Smith

[48:30] I really like the idea of hiring a bunch of Gen X and millennial actors and comedians

[48:35] to perform on the Boomer comedy show so that they still feel sort of alive.

Elliott Kalan

[48:39] I think that would be, I would love it.

[48:41] I mean, I also, now I want to, this is, maybe this is the show that I want to make is

[48:45] the show about that show where it's like the young people who have to work,

[48:48] not young, they're millennials.

[48:50] They're not that young anymore.

[48:51] It's about the Gen Z people who work on the show.

Alex Smith

[48:53] I'm still pretty young.

[48:54] The 30 Rock about the Pop-Tart movie.

[48:57] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[48:58] And again, the best thing about 30 Rock is that it is about the show, a show about the

[49:02] making of a bad sketch show.

[49:03] Like it is very clear to us that this is a bad show or a dumb show they're making.

[49:06] And I love that.

Alex Smith

[49:07] Can I ask a question that maybe I'm asking this kind of late in the process here, but.

[49:11] This is a podcast.

[49:12] We talk about bad movies.

[49:13] Yeah, yeah.

[49:14] Question.

Elliott Kalan

[49:14] I'm Dan McCoy.

Alex Smith

[49:15] That's Ellie Kalen.

[49:16] That's who I'm Dan.

[49:17] Yeah.

[49:17] But do, do, is it known?

[49:20] Is this something that like Pop-Tart came to Jerry Seinfeld to do?

[49:24] Or was it something that he wanted to do?

[49:26] And then he had to clear all of the cereal brands and stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[49:29] I think that my guess is that he probably had to clear it.

[49:32] Okay.

[49:32] You know, I don't think, you never know.

[49:34] I mean, there's so much brand IP stuff right now.

[49:37] Like.

[49:37] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:37] Like every sketch on a Saturday Night Live episode.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] I was, well, but even, even the fact that like, I know that Kellogg's has been going around

[49:45] saying, how do we make movies out of our mascot characters?

[49:48] Like what's our shared universe?

[49:49] So you never know.

[49:50] It's possible that they came to him and he said, this is what I'm interested in.

[49:53] But I wouldn't put it past Jerry Seinfeld to see the other movies that are being made

[49:57] about how products came about.

[49:59] The Flaming Hot Cheetos one and the Air Jordan one and being like, hey, you know what product

[50:04] I'd like to say that about?

[50:05] Pop-Tarts.

[50:06] Because he has a bit about Pop-Tarts in his act.

[50:08] And so I couldn't, I wouldn't be surprised if that just came out of his natural interest

[50:11] in breakfast foods, you know?

Alex Smith

[50:13] Because it really does sound like the kind of thing, like it sounds like it could be a

[50:17] 90 minute ad for Pop-Tarts, except for the fact that there are other cereal brands in it.

[50:22] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:22] Man, the Doughboys need to get Seinfeld on to do like a snack or whack with Pop-Tarts or some

[50:26] shit.

[50:27] Yeah, they should.

Dan McCoy

[50:29] Um, hey, hey guys, this podcast is sponsored and what is sponsored?

[50:37] Has sponsored.

Elliott Kalan

[50:38] And it had sponsored too.

[50:39] It had sponsored, but it's no longer not sponsored.

Stuart Wellington

[50:44] If you say it's Kellogg's, I will flip my label.

[50:46] No, you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[50:47] Oh, Stuart, this is, no, this is the, hold on.

[50:49] I'll just say there's a daily show I did where we ended the act with a joke that I made about

[50:53] China trying to undermine America.

[50:55] And I was like, what are you?

[50:56] Bank of America.

[50:57] And then literally it goes, the daily show is brought to you by Bank of America.

[51:00] And this was not a planned joke.

[51:02] It was just like they had happened to just buy a sponsor spot with a commercial bump.

[51:06] And that joke was the one that went before it.

[51:08] Oh, it was great.

[51:08] I have a DVD of that somewhere.

[51:10] It's incredible.

Dan McCoy

[51:11] Well, this podcast is sponsored in part by Squarespace, your way to set up a unique presence online.

[51:17] If you...

Elliott Kalan

[51:18] I guess a Pop-Tart is kind of like a square space for food filling.

Dan McCoy

[51:22] It is a square space in which filling is held.

[51:25] If you, you, the listener, is offering services, you need a website.

[51:28] Squarespace gives you everything that you need to ply your trade and get paid all in one place

[51:34] with professional on-brand invoices and online payments.

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[51:53] intuitive drag-and-drop editing, beautiful styling options, and visual design effects.

[51:59] No experience required.

[52:01] Head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[52:05] And when you're ready to launch, use offer code FLOP, F-L-O-P, to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Stuart Wellington

[52:15] The Flap House is also brought to you by Aura Frames.

[52:18] You know, guys, Mother's Day is coming up.

[52:21] We all got mommies.

[52:24] And...

[52:25] We do got mommies.

[52:25] I don't like how you said it, but...

[52:26] Yeah.

[52:27] Thing is, the thing my mom loves more than anything other than, like, the thing she loves more than anything

[52:34] is a phone call from her baby boy, Stuart Wellington.

[52:38] And when she's talking to me, she loves looking at pictures of me.

[52:41] And a great way that you can give her pictures of you is by sending her an Aura digital picture frame.

[52:48] They're great because you can take an entire digital library of photos and you can preload it

[52:53] and send that picture frame to your parents.

[52:56] And you know what?

[52:57] That's great because I've done this for a couple of my older...

[53:01] My father-in-law and my parents.

[53:03] And the thing is, they're not particularly good with technology.

[53:06] So if I can do that all in advance, then they don't have to worry about it.

[53:09] I know Dan has done that as well.

[53:11] He's also got an Aura frame in the other room.

[53:13] And every once in a while, I'll see a picture of myself at Dan's wedding.

[53:16] And I'm like, oh, yeah, I do love Dan McCoy.

[53:21] The Aura frames were named the Best Digital Photo Frame by Wirecutter

[53:24] and is featured in 495 different gift guides last year.

[53:28] So the next time you need to call your mom and you want her to be looking at pictures of you,

[53:32] why don't you send her an Aura frame preloaded with pictures of all the fun times you're having.

[53:40] So Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day.

[53:41] For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off,

[53:48] plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Matte Frame.

[53:53] That's A-U-R-A frames.com.

[53:57] Promo code FLOP.

[53:59] Support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

[54:02] Terms and conditions apply.

[54:04] T's and C's.

[54:05] Do you guys think that Aura would like it if we pointed out that it's a perfect gift for your MILF,

Elliott Kalan

[54:09] your mother you'd like to frame?

Stuart Wellington

[54:12] I mean, we can try it.

Dan McCoy

[54:13] We can – I mean, I don't know if they –

[54:15] I'll pitch it to them.

[54:17] I'll pitch it to them as a new slogan.

[54:18] That's true.

[54:20] Allie, do you have any personal plugs before we move on to letters?

Elliott Kalan

[54:23] Boy, do I ever have personal plugs.

[54:25] You betcha, Dan McCoy.

[54:26] By the time this episode comes out, you know what's also going to be out is my new children's picture book,

[54:30] Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House, featuring art by Tim Miller, my collaborator from Horse Meets Dog.

[54:35] This is my third children's picture book.

[54:37] It is the first one that I think is not just a sketch but is a full kind of real story.

[54:42] It tells the story of Sadie Mouse, a mouse who's tired of being a good mouse and doing chores

[54:46] and decides she's going to do all her chores the wrong way so that she never has to do them again

[54:50] and she wrecks her house as the title promises.

[54:53] Sadie Mouse Will Wreck the House.

[54:55] That Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House, go to your local independent bookstore.

[54:58] Just pick it up off the shelf.

[54:59] If they don't have it, ask them to order it.

[55:00] That's great value.

[55:01] They'll do it for you.

[55:01] Right there.

[55:01] Yeah.

[55:02] Great value.

Dan McCoy

[55:02] But before you leave the store, pay for it.

[55:05] Yeah, you should pay for it.

Elliott Kalan

[55:05] Yes, of course.

[55:06] Don't just pick it off the shelf and walk out.

[55:07] Yeah, you've got to pay for it.

Stuart Wellington

[55:08] Unless you're in one of those stupid stores where you can just like pick things up and walk through the door

[55:13] and it automatically charges you.

[55:15] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:15] There is a book called Steal This Book that's not this book.

[55:18] This is Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House.

[55:19] Okay.

[55:19] That's on bookstore shelves now.

[55:21] Also on shelves in another kind of bookstore, a comic book store, are issues of Harley Quinn,

[55:26] my series from DC Comics.

[55:27] I'm writing the main Harley Quinn book.

[55:29] It's been super fun.

[55:30] She is fighting gentrification in a very chaotic and not particularly effective way

[55:35] and her arch nemesis is falling in love with her.

[55:39] And are they going to get together?

[55:41] She's already with Poison Ivy, but maybe this real estate developer, Althea Clang, will be able to win her away.

[55:48] We'll find out.

[55:49] I'm going to be on this book for a while and I'm bringing in just a lot of story points that are going to continue to come together and bounce off each other in different ways.

[55:59] The funny thing is I'm writing an issue right now, but I have no idea of how far ahead I am of the issue that is out now.

[56:04] I think the one that's out about to come out and will be out when this episode is released, I think, is one in which Harley Quinn has to face her greatest nemesis, her own brain, which is trying to take control of her body.

[56:16] And I think introduces my new favorite characters on the book, these two preexisting DC characters, Mayfly and Gun Bunny, who are two ladies with guns that are kind of assassins.

[56:25] I teamed them up and they're now friends called the Gun Buddies and they're best friends who take hits.

[56:29] Sounds great.

[56:29] And they're, you know, they're really fun and they're very supportive of each other.

[56:33] That's cool.

[56:33] So that's Harley Quinn on comic book store shelves now.

[56:37] And of course there's my other podcast, Smart List Presents Clueless, the game show podcast I do with Sean Hayes, and that's still going strong too.

[56:45] So if you like very short podcasts about puzzles and games and riddles, that's the one to go to.

[56:50] The episodes are very short.

[56:51] You can listen to like three or four of them in an hour.

[56:54] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

[56:54] It's very short there.

[56:55] That is short.

[56:55] You can listen to three or four flop houses in an hour, but you'd have to listen to them so fast it would melt your brain.

[57:01] I have two very quick plugs.

[57:03] I just want to mention that the bar that my wife and I inherited.

[57:07] When our friend passed away, Commonwealth Bar in Brooklyn is going to be reopening next week, which will be two weeks ago when this episode airs.

[57:14] So you can go now.

[57:15] So if you're in Brooklyn, you should go.

[57:17] Can't do the math.

Stuart Wellington

[57:17] Hold on.

[57:18] You should go and support.

[57:20] Does this episode drop on the 2nd of May?

[57:23] Oh, it's a story.

[57:24] Maybe not.

[57:24] If you're around for Derby Day, come visit.

[57:26] Go to Commonwealth.

Elliott Kalan

[57:27] See if it's open.

[57:28] If it's not, come back in a week.

Stuart Wellington

[57:29] Yeah.

[57:30] I mean, it's going to be open.

[57:31] And then finally, if you like Stuart Wellington and you like watching me nerd out about nerdy things,

[57:36] you can go over to my Twitch channel.

[57:38] I'm once a week.

[57:39] I do half of those things.

[57:40] My Twitch channel is Stuart Wellington.

[57:42] And that's my name.

[57:44] And I hang out usually for about two hours.

[57:46] And I build and paint like Warhammer stuff.

[57:48] And I yap.

[57:48] And it's a lot of fun.

[57:49] So come visit me.

S5

[57:57] Good evening.

[57:58] Thanks for tuning in to 101.1 Max Fun.

[58:02] It's midnight here on Host to Coast.

[58:04] And we've got Sarah from Michigan on line one.

S6

[58:07] Hi.

[58:07] I'm calling in for some help.

[58:09] I used to love reading.

[58:10] But between grad school, having kids, and the general state of the world, I can't seem to pick up a book and stick with it anymore.

S5

[58:16] Sarah, this is an easy one.

[58:18] Just listen to Reading Glasses, a podcast designed to help you read better.

[58:22] Bria and Mallory will get all the pressure, shame, and guilt out of your reading life.

[58:26] You'll be finishing books you love in no time.

S6

[58:28] Great.

[58:28] That sounds amazing.

[58:29] Also, I do think my husband is cheating on me with Mothman.

[58:32] Can you help me with that one?

S5

[58:33] Ooh, I don't think they cover that.

[58:34] Reading Glasses, every Thursday on Max Fun Fun.

[58:40] WrestleMania is the biggest.

[58:42] And busiest.

[58:43] Time of the year for wrestling.

[58:45] And the Tights and Fights podcast is more important than ever.

[58:48] We have so many questions to explore.

[58:50] How can you understand John Cena's motivation as a bad guy?

Elliott Kalan

[58:53] Why is a car crash actually a great expression of friendship?

S5

[58:57] You mean friendship, right?

[58:58] Of course.

[58:59] Whether you're a long-time wrestling fan or coming back after a break, Tights and Fights has you covered.

[59:04] This WrestleMania and every weekend after on Maximum Fun.

Stuart Wellington

[59:08] Tights and Fights podcast.

[59:13] Tights and Fights.

Dan McCoy

[59:20] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

[59:22] This first letter is from Adrian, last name withheld.

[59:27] And Adrian writes,

[59:28] Hey, Peaches, I was wondering who your favorite characters are that have your job.

[59:34] Maybe you like them because they let people get an understanding of what you do.

[59:38] Or maybe it's in a setting that you wish your job was like so hijinks could happen to you.

[59:43] Like Elliot writing for shows, children's books, or comics.

[59:47] Stuart with his bartending and fitness influencer lifestyle.

[59:50] And Dan, going to the Alamo to watch films all the time.

[59:54] Love you.

[59:55] Whoa.

[59:55] Adrian, last name withheld.

[59:56] Now, let me say two things.

[59:57] First off.

[59:58] Right off the top.

[59:59] I haven't been to the Alamo in a while because they were on strike.

[1:00:03] And as a union man, I was boycotting in solidarity.

[1:00:07] Thank you for doing that, Dan.

[1:00:08] Congratulations to them.

[1:00:10] They're back at work.

[1:00:11] They won reinstatement of the fired workers that they were striking over and other issues.

[1:00:17] So, perhaps now I shall return.

[1:00:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:20] Were you a Regal or an AMC guy in the meantime?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:23] I had been going to Regal in the meantime.

[1:00:25] Our friends over at Blank Check had a discount code for them.

[1:00:29] Ooh.

[1:00:30] Okay.

[1:00:31] And number two, I am still a writer.

[1:00:33] At least half of writing is not getting paid for the writing that you do.

[1:00:37] And I'm in that phase.

[1:00:37] You don't have to get paid for it to be a real writer.

[1:00:39] Right now.

[1:00:39] It all takes is to put words down.

[1:00:40] Yeah.

[1:00:41] That being said, I'm mostly a podcaster right now.

[1:00:43] So, I guess.

[1:00:44] Alex Incorporated?

[1:00:46] Yeah.

[1:00:46] Alex Incorporated.

[1:00:47] I'm a real Alex Incorporated.

[1:00:49] I guess it's not a movie, but I'm going to go with Steve Martin in Only Murders in the Building

[1:00:55] because like him, I'm sort of a tightly wound man.

[1:00:59] There's a certain warmth there, but a lot of Don't Touch Me energy as well.

[1:01:04] So, what do you say, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:07] Yeah.

[1:01:08] Let's see.

[1:01:08] I was going to say Alex Incorporated.

[1:01:12] Yeah.

[1:01:13] Brian Brown and Cocktail.

[1:01:16] Yeah.

[1:01:17] That's probably the closest.

[1:01:18] I mean, I feel like there's got to be some cool bartenders and things, but I don't know.

[1:01:25] Bar owners?

[1:01:26] I don't know.

[1:01:28] Sam Malone's?

Alex Smith

[1:01:29] Well, yeah.

[1:01:30] I think most bar owners in movies are the worst people in the world.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:36] They're usually not.

[1:01:36] They're usually not the good guys.

[1:01:37] Oh, wait.

[1:01:37] Just like Stuart.

[1:01:38] Roadhouse.

Alex Smith

[1:01:39] Roadhouse has a good bar owner.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:41] Thank you.

[1:01:41] I'm the guy from Roadhouse that hires, not the remake.

[1:01:46] I'm not as cool as Jessica Williams.

[1:01:47] I am the weird guy who hires Patrick Swayze to protect his business.

[1:01:51] Man, yeah, that's awesome.

[1:01:52] Thank you.

[1:01:53] Alex, that was great.

[1:01:55] Yeah, you know what?

[1:01:56] Hey, I'm here to help.

[1:01:58] Speaking of, producer Alex, is there a way?

[1:02:00] Do you see yourself?

[1:02:01] Before we talk to Elliot and Elliot Hall.

Alex Smith

[1:02:03] When have I really seen myself portrayed on film?

[1:02:08] Aside from Don't Worry Darling.

[1:02:10] My favorite joke of all time.

[1:02:12] When the nurse wife comes home to see the schlubby podcast producer wasting away under a lamplight all day.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:21] Alex's wife saw the movie in advance and was like, this movie really spoke to me.

[1:02:26] I think you should watch it.

[1:02:27] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex Smith

[1:02:29] Something about this just made me feel represented.

[1:02:33] I don't know what it was.

[1:02:34] But, yeah, I don't know.

[1:02:36] Is there a, I guess, I mean.

[1:02:39] You're a musician.

[1:02:40] A musician as well.

[1:02:41] Okay, aspiring musician.

[1:02:43] So, yeah, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:44] You don't have to.

[1:02:44] As long as you're putting words on the paper and strumming those instruments.

[1:02:48] You don't have to get paid to be a musician.

[1:02:49] Yeah.

Alex Smith

[1:02:51] Aspiring musician, this is easy.

[1:02:52] Purple Rain.

[1:02:53] Purple Rain.

[1:02:54] Yeah, yeah.

[1:02:54] I can see that.

[1:02:55] Yeah, you guys.

[1:02:55] You know?

[1:02:56] I get it.

[1:02:56] My dream is to premiere a song that the rest of my band hasn't even heard yet.

[1:03:01] And have everyone in the room just stop and watch it happen and go, that was the best thing we've.

[1:03:07] And know before they've even heard the song before that it's the best song they've ever heard in their whole life.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:13] But this is the pivotal moment that changes their life.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:16] Also, this is characters that we do relate to or we want to be?

[1:03:20] Either one.

[1:03:20] What was the question?

Dan McCoy

[1:03:21] I think they left it wide open.

[1:03:23] They're like, does it, I take it to relate to, but it's kind of also like, does it represent your field well?

[1:03:31] Does it inform people?

[1:03:32] Or is it like how you wish your field actually was like, kind of?

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:36] Oh, I see.

[1:03:37] I think, well, then it might be, maybe it's the same, maybe it's the same answer for, I don't know.

[1:03:41] I guess the writers, because I took it as who's the person who does my job in fiction that I would like to, that I wish I did it that way.

[1:03:50] And so I'm a writer.

[1:03:51] That's what I do for a living.

[1:03:52] I'm a writer.

[1:03:53] You all know who I am, how I make my living.

[1:03:55] I can catch your shark for this much.

[1:03:58] I can catch it and write about it for a little bit more.

[1:04:02] It's Peter Benchley.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:05] So that's what I want to be.

[1:04:06] He writes about sharks.

[1:04:07] Man, if it's anything in the water, that dude's all over that.

[1:04:10] Sharks, giant squids.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:11] He knows he knows he's not to do comedy essays.

[1:04:13] That's his grandfather's stuff.

[1:04:15] So I think the first writer that came to mind, honestly, was Ford Prefect, who is a roving reporter for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[1:04:22] Yeah, yeah.

[1:04:23] His beat is so much more about party life than mine would be.

[1:04:27] But I like the idea of going around different planets and writing about it.

[1:04:29] And who else is a traveling writer that has adventures?

[1:04:31] That's right.

[1:04:32] Jessica Fletcher.

[1:04:33] So I think aside from the fact that you are constantly surrounded by death and wherever you go, murder follows, I think you'd want to be Jessica Fletcher, right?

[1:04:42] Because she has so many adventures.

[1:04:43] She's a successful writer.

[1:04:44] People respect her.

[1:04:45] And she gets to live the work in a way that most writers don't.

[1:04:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:50] She's got that quiet sass.

[1:04:52] There's like a twinkle in the eye.

[1:04:53] Yeah, yeah.

[1:04:54] Just like Elliot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:55] Quiet sass.

[1:04:56] You know me.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:58] The second and final letter is from-

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:01] Hey, Elliot's just saying what Elliot is thinking.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:03] This is from Linnea, last name withheld.

[1:05:07] Quigley?

[1:05:07] Probably.

[1:05:08] Who writes,

[1:05:09] Hi, Floppies.

[1:05:10] I don't actually understand a lot of your references and jokes.

[1:05:13] Neither do we.

[1:05:13] As I myself am not-

[1:05:14] I'm Linnea Quigley.

[1:05:16] As I myself-

[1:05:18] I bet she would understand.

[1:05:20] Yeah.

[1:05:20] So many.

[1:05:21] Yeah, probably very much so, yeah.

[1:05:23] As I myself am not into movies that much.

[1:05:25] But I stick around for your immaculate vibes along with your wonderful guests.

[1:05:30] So, as a person who has seen fewer movies than the average American, I was wondering, are there any movies that you have seen that you consider unremarkable, average, or even below average, but have somehow ingrained themselves into your mind for years to come?

[1:05:45] My movie is Hannah, 2011.

[1:05:49] It's a decent movie.

[1:05:50] I wouldn't say spectacular, but good.

[1:05:53] It holds no particular sentimental value.

[1:05:55] But for whatever reason, I've rewatched it several times and have pressed to name my, quote, favorite movie.

[1:06:01] I would say Hannah.

[1:06:02] Not for any grand reason, but because it has stuck with me for all these years for reasons I can't explain.

[1:06:07] Eric Bana's in that, right?

[1:06:09] Yes, I think he's got confused.

[1:06:10] Did he get confused?

[1:06:10] You're thinking of Eric Bana.

[1:06:13] He probably got confused.

[1:06:14] Yeah, whenever her name was said.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:16] Yeah, they say Hannah and you go, no, it's Bana.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:20] I've watched movies that I considered better than Hannah, movies I enjoyed more than Hannah, but the fact that Hannah is still in my mind over 10 years later cements it into favorite status.

[1:06:29] I've since realized that I don't gauge favorites in media based on if I liked it a lot in the moment or even if it was well executed, but how it sticks with me regardless of quality.

[1:06:39] Then my heart says it's made for me.

[1:06:41] So do you have a movie like that?

[1:06:43] And by what scale do you gauge what your favorites are?

[1:06:46] So as someone who has watched too many movies and was also unsupervised a lot as a child, like a lot of the movies, there are a lot of unremarkable movies that stuck in my brain simply because for whatever reason they're on television a lot.

[1:07:01] Like I think I saw Brewster's Millions like 20 times despite each time being like, I'm sure this will get funny at some point and it never happened.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:11] That was the toy for me.

[1:07:12] That was the movie that was always on TV and every time I'm like, I don't know why I'm watching this.

[1:07:15] Problematic choice.

[1:07:16] It doesn't work.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:18] And then there are movies like I was, you know, I couldn't sleep recently.

[1:07:24] You know, you may have noticed there's a lot of stress in the world.

[1:07:26] I was like, oh, you know what's on Amazon Prime, a movie that I watched a lot as a kid just because it was on is Feds.

[1:07:33] I watched Feds.

[1:07:34] Yeah.

[1:07:35] It's sort of like a pleasant movie with not that much conflict about, you know, two ladies who are friends who are in the FBI training program.

[1:07:45] It's Mary Gross and Rebecca De Mornay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:47] Mary Gross, right.

[1:07:48] From True Beverly Hills.

Alex Smith

[1:07:51] I remember we taped that off one of those like Showtime preview weekends.

[1:07:55] And so I watched that a few times.

[1:07:56] Making the most out of your dollar.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:58] I like it.

[1:07:58] It's pleasant.

[1:07:59] But I mean in terms of like favorite movies, you know, I still I think would put, you know, my perception of quality higher in my like, oh, what's my favorite?

[1:08:08] But it's kind of a mix.

[1:08:09] Like because I do think that my favorite movies aren't necessarily like the ones I'm like, oh, this is like the best movie.

[1:08:18] But, you know, like I would go to something like I don't know whether it's still my favorite.

[1:08:23] But I remember watching Heather's over and over and over again when I was like a teen.

[1:08:30] And that was kind of it for me at the time.

[1:08:34] I don't know what it would be now.

[1:08:34] But that's one that comes to mind.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:36] You also watch just one of the guys a lot as a teen.

[1:08:38] But just the one part.

[1:08:40] Just the ending.

[1:08:42] You're like, I've seen everything up till now.

[1:08:44] I don't need to worry about what happens here.

[1:08:44] Yeah, I get the gist.

[1:08:45] There's like an old guy who's apparently a teenager.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:48] An old guy who's a teenager.

[1:08:52] Yeah, I would say, I mean, again, like I'm kind of in the same boat.

[1:08:55] And it's hard for me to be like, I don't know.

[1:08:57] It's hard for me to be like, this is a.

[1:08:59] I would just say the movie that I watch the most that if I'm like that I think about the most and will watch in its entirety if I have the opportunity is The Guest.

[1:09:09] The Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett movie with Dan Stevens.

[1:09:13] There's just everything about it is like calibrated exactly for my brain.

[1:09:18] It's not so exciting that I get too worked up, but it's not too sleepy that I can't.

[1:09:24] It won't keep me enthralled.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:26] I find, you know, I would say that we've talked about this movie before, so it's not a surprise, I guess, or it's not a new thing.

[1:09:32] But like Teen Wolf probably falls into that category for me of like, this is not a good movie.

[1:09:37] Like this is a bad movie, but I've watched it so many times.

[1:09:40] We watch it so often when I was a kid that it's just stuck in my head.

[1:09:43] But also my head just things stick in that are dumb.

[1:09:46] I saw the movie Getting Even with Dad with Macaulay Culkin and Ten Danson once in the theaters.

[1:09:50] And yet I remember big chunks of it for no reason.

[1:09:53] I don't know why.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:54] Does he ever get even with Dad?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:55] He does get even with Dad.

[1:09:56] Oh, thank God.

[1:09:57] But I think Teen Wolf is the one where it's like, oh, well, this is a part of me, even though it's objectively not good.

[1:10:02] It's objectively not a good movie.

[1:10:03] It's stupid.

[1:10:04] I don't like it.

[1:10:05] When it comes to favorite movies, I got to, you know, just say, what movie do you enjoy the most?

[1:10:09] You know, what movie brings you the most pleasure when you watch it?

[1:10:12] And that's how I decide what my favorite is.

[1:10:14] And I got my top five favorites, which, you know, for listeners know.

[1:10:18] High fidelity moment here.

[1:10:19] Number one, it's got to be taken to Pelham 1, 2, 3, the original.

[1:10:22] Number two, Shadow of a Doubt.

[1:10:24] Number three, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek.

[1:10:26] And then number four and five is probably Singing in the Rain and Wizard of Oz, which, again, like, these are not ones where I'm like, oh, these are my guilty pleasures.

[1:10:33] These are obviously like, these are really good movies.

[1:10:35] Those last two are great movies.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:37] I really thought he was going to say Fast Five was going to be on there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:40] But I can't help it if my taste runs towards beauty, you know, towards magnificence.

[1:10:47] I can't help being a genius.

[1:10:51] But it's purely because, like, if I'm thinking about what movie, when I'm watching it, do I get literally the most visceral pleasure out of?

[1:10:59] Like, it's those movies.

[1:11:00] And that's probably Wizard of Oz.

[1:11:01] Like, I think there's probably no movie that I find as magical as Wizard of Oz.

[1:11:05] So, like, maybe that's my favorite.

[1:11:07] But, you know, but I don't know.

[1:11:09] It seems like it's too common a movie to mention.

[1:11:11] So, maybe that's why Pelham gets the top spot.

Alex Smith

[1:11:14] I'll just say something that has popped into my brain a few times as we've been talking about this.

[1:11:17] If we're talking about a movie that we acknowledge is not super good, not better than all the other movies out there, has great vibes, is fun to watch, and you kind of want to watch it all the time.

[1:11:29] You feel at home when you're watching it.

[1:11:30] I know this is true for me.

[1:11:32] And I know you guys appreciate this one as well.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:35] But Don't Tell Her It's Me is, like, is that movie.

[1:11:40] We saw that in the theater recently.

[1:11:43] Have you ever seen it in a theater?

[1:11:44] Was that a Ridiculous Sublime?

[1:11:46] Yeah, it was a Ridiculous Sublime.

[1:11:47] And, like, it wasn't a riff show.

[1:11:49] We were just watching it straight with, like, an engaged audience.

[1:11:53] And it was so fucking awesome.

Alex Smith

[1:11:56] That sounds great.

[1:11:57] I did host a riff show of it one time on the screen.

[1:12:00] But mostly I've watched it just on TV.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:04] It's one of those things where I'm like, is this Stockholm Syndrome?

[1:12:06] Or, like, have we been wrong?

[1:12:07] Because, like, this audience is, like, mostly people who had never seen it before.

[1:12:11] And they were going nuts for it.

[1:12:13] It honestly, like, played really well.

[1:12:15] In a legitimate, sincere way.

Alex Smith

[1:12:17] Yeah, yeah.

[1:12:18] I mean, people were like, it's dumb.

[1:12:20] I went nuts for it the first time I saw it.

[1:12:22] Because I was, like, in college.

[1:12:24] So, like, I think, yeah.

[1:12:25] I think it is that.

[1:12:27] It is all that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:28] It's guaranteed entertainment, right?

[1:12:30] Is that what the box says?

Dan McCoy

[1:12:32] It is perfect for Ridiculous Sublime where, like, the idea is, like, it is not one or the other.

[1:12:37] Like, you can't separate the fact that it is dumb from the fact that there is stuff that works in it for real.

[1:12:43] Like any movie featuring Eric Roberts.

[1:12:48] Let's talk about our recommendations.

[1:12:52] Movies that maybe would be a better way to spend a little time than Unfrosted.

[1:12:57] And speaking of Ridiculous Sublime, that's a Nighthawk series.

[1:13:01] I went to another series at the Nighthawk.

[1:13:04] A regular series that they do called The Deuce where they show movies that showed in 42nd Street theaters.

[1:13:11] Sort of during the heyday of, like, all of the movie theaters being there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:15] Dan, are you the programmer at Nighthawk?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:17] No, that's our friend Christina.

[1:13:18] We had her on the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:19] Yeah, yeah.

[1:13:19] You might remember.

[1:13:20] I was just saying, seems like there's a lot of Dan-centric material going on at Nighthawk.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:24] Although this is programmed by the two guys who run The Deuce.

[1:13:26] I do not know their names.

[1:13:27] I apologize.

[1:13:28] But they're very entertaining.

[1:13:29] Danny Deuce and Donnie Deuce.

[1:13:31] The Deuce Broys.

[1:13:33] We saw The In-Laws from 1979 starring Alan Arkin and Peter Falk.

[1:13:39] And I walked out of it and I was texting Elliot about how, like, you know, when we were growing up, there was a lot of talk about, like, oh, you know, if you want to study a comedy screenplay, study Tootsie.

[1:13:51] And Tootsie's never been my movie.

[1:13:53] Like, I don't think it's a bad movie.

[1:13:55] No, you're not in it.

[1:13:56] You didn't write it.

[1:13:56] You didn't direct it.

[1:13:57] No, I didn't.

[1:13:57] Unfortunately, I don't get any residuals from Tootsie.

[1:13:59] Elliot looks mad right there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:01] It's like, what movies is Dan walking around claiming are his movies?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:05] I'm saying I don't go for that one so much.

[1:14:08] But I watched The In-Laws and, like, after the first couple of scenes, I'm like, fuck Tootsie.

[1:14:13] This is the movie that should be, you know, looked at for, like, screenplay.

[1:14:17] Because, like, immediately, immediately, like, within the first couple of scenes, you're like, what's going on?

[1:14:24] I'm intrigued by what's going on.

[1:14:25] You're introduced to Peter Falk and Alan Arkin and you know what these guys' deals are.

[1:14:30] Like, you know how funny it's going to be when they get together.

[1:14:34] And it's weird because it's like these two guys both kind of with deadpan energy.

[1:14:40] But Peter Falk is playing a guy that you don't know whether he's a lunatic or not.

[1:14:44] But he's very chill about it the whole time.

[1:14:46] And Alan Arkin is a guy.

[1:14:48] That's basically Columbo, right?

[1:14:50] Yeah.

[1:14:50] Yeah, he's basically playing Peter Falk.

[1:14:51] And Alan Arkin is this guy who is super tightly wound, freaking out internally the whole time.

[1:14:57] But it's, like, it's all internal.

[1:14:59] He's, like, completely deadpan.

[1:15:01] And watching them go through adventures together is so funny.

[1:15:05] You know, everyone was laughing, like, through the entire film.

[1:15:08] It is a movie from the late 70s.

[1:15:10] There's a little bit of unfortunate sort of, like, cultural stuff in there.

[1:15:14] But if you can get past that, I don't think there's a lot of, like, ire or, like, malice in it.

[1:15:20] It's just, you know, not great.

[1:15:22] Some whoopsies, yeah.

[1:15:23] But it's very funny.

[1:15:25] And those two guys are, like, just naturally charismatic, just sitting and breathing.

[1:15:30] So I recommend that.

Alex Smith

[1:15:32] I love the thought of Dan bursting out the double doors of the theater and going,

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:37] fuck Tootsie, immediately walking out of the house.

[1:15:40] Yeah, yeah.

[1:15:40] There's a reporter jotting this down for the headlines.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:44] Dan to Tootsie, drop dead.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:50] I am going to recommend a movie that I had been wanting to rewatch for a while,

[1:15:55] and I finally got around to it.

[1:15:57] It's 2000's Sexy Beast, written and directed by Jonathan Glazer.

[1:16:03] Oh, that's a good movie.

[1:16:04] I hadn't seen it since it first came out.

[1:16:07] And what, I was, what, 20 years old at that point?

[1:16:11] And I remember watching it being kind of put off by how artsy it is

[1:16:16] and how, like, dreamlike at points.

[1:16:19] You want it to be more fartsy.

[1:16:21] Well, I think I was expecting it to be more of a straightforward crime movie.

[1:16:27] And I, obviously, there's the, like, the big centerpiece, flashy performance by Ben Kingsley,

[1:16:33] which got him a Best Supporting Actor win, right?

[1:16:38] But watching it again, like, it's so, like, Ray Winstone is so great,

[1:16:42] and I want every piece, every article of clothing he wears.

[1:16:46] And it's just such, like, I don't know, like, I identify so much more with this guy who's, like, trying to retire,

[1:16:52] and, like, his old friends are like, no, like, keep doing this shit.

[1:16:57] Like, I don't know.

[1:16:58] I think it's great.

[1:16:59] It was a really fun rewatch.

[1:17:01] And it's always fun to rewatch a movie that you hadn't seen in so long,

[1:17:05] and you kind of thought it was one thing,

[1:17:08] and watching it as an adult, it feels so much different.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:12] Kingsley was nominated, but he lost, and you'll be happy about this, Stuart,

[1:17:17] to Ian McKellen for The Fellowship of the Rings.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:19] Ooh, well, yeah, it's hard to beat the goat.

[1:17:23] Speaking of which, there's a goat character.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:25] He was playing a goat in that movie?

[1:17:26] I know there's a goat character in Wicked.

Alex Smith

[1:17:28] That Sexy Beast has the, I think, the best portrayal of it being really hot at the very beginning of the movie.

[1:17:36] And he's so happy about how hot it is.

[1:17:38] It's so good.

[1:17:38] I'm not that guy.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:39] I'm like, oh, I don't want to be there, but I appreciate how much he's into it.

Alex Smith

[1:17:44] Yeah, enjoying being cooked is so good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:46] Well, and the way that, like, Ray Winstone's voice sounds like if you had to make, like, a Weber grill have a voice.

[1:17:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:56] Which one do you want to go?

[1:17:57] Yeah, Elliot, you start talking.

[1:17:58] I'll go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:59] Alex is going to do next.

[1:18:00] Yeah.

[1:18:00] So I watched a documentary.

[1:18:03] Ooh.

[1:18:05] That actually, I remember, had come out in the theaters when I was in college,

[1:18:08] and I don't know why I didn't go see it, and I finally saw it.

[1:18:10] And that documentary is called Dark Days.

[1:18:12] And it's directed by Mark Singer, and it is about the people who were living in an abandoned underground Amtrak tunnel in New York in the 1990s.

[1:18:21] And it's one of these documentaries where there's no narration.

[1:18:23] It's just people talking to the camera and footage of people going about their lives in this very kind of, like, both bizarre but also strangely normal subculture

[1:18:34] because they're living in a tunnel, and they have to make their own kind of makeshift homes and things like that and hustle for survival.

[1:18:40] But at the same time, they're just people, and they have, you know, regular moments of life, and they're dealing with their mistakes that they've made in the past and what brought them to this place.

[1:18:49] And I really liked it a lot.

[1:18:51] The people in it are really engaging, and the way it's put together felt like it was, like, not a – it's not trying to force what's going on into a narrative necessarily.

[1:19:02] There is kind of an end point at the end, but there's – before that, it is not trying to – it's not reality TVing the thing where it's like,

[1:19:11] and now this person's going to deal with this person in this way.

[1:19:14] There are two stories in it that two of the people in it tell that are heartbreaking, that are just so incredibly horrifying.

[1:19:21] And so I wouldn't watch it if you're someone who is easily upset necessarily by people in turmoil, but I thought it was really good.

[1:19:30] And –

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:30] Is this the movie about people living underground in New York City?

[1:19:33] Yes.

[1:19:34] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:35] Yeah.

[1:19:35] And there's one scene in it – but there is – having said that, there's one scene in it between two guys, one who is cooking a meal and the other one who is – finds it disgusting that the guy just leaves his pots and pans all over the ground where the rats are running around.

[1:19:46] That is very funny to me.

[1:19:48] And it has some very funny lines in it.

[1:19:49] And so there's funny moments in it.

[1:19:51] There's some really heartbreaking moments in it.

[1:19:54] But overall, I just thought it was – it was really good.

[1:19:57] You know, so it's called Dark Days.

[1:19:58] And I think it's available on Tubi, America's favorite streaming service.

Alex Smith

[1:20:03] Alex?

[1:20:03] I'm going to – I'm going to just pick a random recent watch from my movie night where we watch a lot of like straight-to-video 90s, early 2000s stuff.

[1:20:15] This was a TV movie from the 90s that I think was like made for German television is something that somebody said, but I don't know if that's true or not.

[1:20:23] But this is a David Hasselhoff movie from 1996 called Gridlock where he plays a rogue helicopter pilot for the New York Police Department.

[1:20:37] And he's like keeps getting in trouble.

[1:20:40] And it's a knockoff of Die Hard in the sense that like literally like every beat of the movie is trying to replicate something that happened in Die Hard.

[1:20:49] There's literally like a scene where he is trying to get back in the building by using the fire hose and like kicking the glass.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:57] And there's all those scenes where John McClane's flying a helicopter.

Alex Smith

[1:21:00] Well, that's the really funny thing about it is he's a helicopter pilot who keeps getting in trouble because he doesn't listen to his boss, his boss, whatever you call the commissioner or whatever.

[1:21:10] And what that means for a helicopter pilot, because helicopters can't do a lot of like rogue shit.

[1:21:17] They can't really do it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:18] So what it means is he keeps—

[1:21:19] They would crash.

Alex Smith

[1:21:20] He keeps landing it, getting out, and then like breaking into a hostage situation to like solve the—

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:27] So you're saying the helicopter pilot aspect of it is not really that germane to what's going on.

Alex Smith

[1:21:31] Well, and then when they punish him for stopping a hostage scenario, they just stick him back in the helicopter and they go, all right, watch traffic.

[1:21:39] And I'm like, what was he doing?

[1:21:41] What was he supposed to do before?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:43] That's way worse.

[1:21:44] There was a helicopter pilot once who didn't listen to orders and he didn't shoot on some people they wanted to, and they put him in the running man game.

[1:21:51] So like it could be really bad if you're a helicopter pilot who disobeyed orders.

[1:21:55] You might end up on national TV running for your life, you know?

Alex Smith

[1:21:57] Against buzzsaw.

[1:21:58] But it's a really funny little like experiment in recreating Die Hard at a very low budget to where there are like four or five action sequences that happen on this same ledge on the same building.

[1:22:12] Like they keep going back to the same ledge.

[1:22:15] It's a really fun watch.

[1:22:15] The ledge is a character basically.

[1:22:17] The ledge is the third character after Kathy Ireland.

[1:22:21] Kathy Ireland is his girlfriend in it.

[1:22:24] So it's very 1996 is what you're saying.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:27] Hey, well, that's it.

[1:22:29] That's the last thing that we do on the show.

[1:22:31] Other than Alex is here, so I can thank him in person.

[1:22:36] Alex, thank you for producing the show.

[1:22:37] You guys are welcome.

[1:22:39] You're welcome.

[1:22:39] Oh, thanks.

[1:22:40] And also thank you for being here because I don't have to send you notes about like what happened in the show at all.

[1:22:44] You know it.

[1:22:45] You're here.

[1:22:46] You know every inch of it.

[1:22:47] Do you have anything you want to plug, Alex?

[1:22:49] Oh, yeah.

Alex Smith

[1:22:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:22:50] I'll plug some stuff.

[1:22:51] I have – let me plug three things real fast.

[1:22:55] One is a podcast I do called The Big Howl and Possum Podcast.

[1:22:59] It's an absurd little funny comedy podcast that I do with a character that is a huge talking possum.

[1:23:08] Okay.

[1:23:08] And it's a very absurd show.

[1:23:10] It's a short podcast.

[1:23:11] It's like 30 minutes long.

[1:23:12] And I think it's very, very funny.

[1:23:14] And I think listeners to this show will enjoy it.

[1:23:17] So check out The Big Howl and Possum Podcast.

[1:23:20] I have a Twitch stream.

[1:23:21] I stream three times a week.

[1:23:23] We watch like a lot of different kinds of stuff on there, game shows, TV movies, stuff like that.

[1:23:28] And that is twitch.tv slash bighowldotty.

[1:23:32] And then –

Dan McCoy

[1:23:32] I've been a guest on a couple of those.

[1:23:33] It's fun.

Alex Smith

[1:23:34] It's a good time.

[1:23:36] So check that out.

[1:23:38] Come watch me over there.

[1:23:39] I stream on Monday nights, Wednesday nights, and Friday afternoons.

[1:23:42] And then my music, Howl Dottie.

[1:23:45] I write and produce songs that are oftentimes funny but not always purely comedy songs.

[1:23:53] And you can find those anywhere you listen to music.

[1:23:57] Anywhere?

[1:23:58] Anywhere that you listen to music.

[1:24:00] Like an old gramophone?

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:01] Yeah, your fucking Victrola.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:03] Alex is a wonderful musician, which has also been very helpful to us too because we can be like,

[1:24:09] Alex, can you make us music for a thing?

[1:24:11] Yeah.

[1:24:11] And he said, yes, we can.

[1:24:12] I can.

Alex Smith

[1:24:13] Yeah, I just wrote a bunch of tunes for the new Flop Tales adventure that's available.

[1:24:18] Flop Tales.

[1:24:18] Yeah.

[1:24:18] Flop Tales, yeah.

[1:24:20] Available on the bonus feed.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:22] But we got a heart out today, so let's just say thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:24:28] Go over to MaximumFun.org.

[1:24:29] Check out the other great podcasts on our network.

[1:24:32] And catch us next time.

[1:24:33] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:36] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:24:37] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:24:38] And we've been joined by –

[1:24:39] Alex Smith, a.k.a. Howl Dottie.

[1:24:42] Bye.

[1:24:43] I was expecting Elliot to talk a bunch when he knew we had a heart out.

[1:24:48] That would have been like me.

[1:24:53] All right.

[1:24:58] Let's get into that.

[1:25:00] Yeah, Elliot, I got to go to his funny bone.

[1:25:02] I got him.

[1:25:03] He got him, yeah.

[1:25:04] My funny bone is so –

[1:25:05] My funny bone is crying, yeah.

[1:25:14] Maximum Fun.

[1:25:15] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:16] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:25:18] Supported.

[1:25:19] Directly.

[1:25:20] By you.

Ep.#450 - Unfrosted, with Alex Smith

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