The Flop House: Episode #164 - 300: Rise of an Empire

Dan McCoy

[0:00] Tonight we watched 301 Dalmatians.

[0:06] No, Stuart, it was 300 Rise of an Empire.

Elliott Kalan

[0:10] And boy did it ever.

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

Dan McCoy

[0:41] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:43] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:44] And I'm Elliot Kalin, with a little bit of a stuffed nose.

Dan McCoy

[0:47] Alright, well right off the bat, I just want to say, there's been a lot of controversy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:50] What is that?

[0:52] Whoa!

[0:52] Hey, buddy, let us settle in a little bit.

[0:55] You don't just dive into a hot bath.

Dan McCoy

[0:57] There's no time.

[0:58] Right off the bat, there's been a little controversy.

[1:00] Is this about Moe Sember or whatever?

[1:02] No, no, it's about, look, escape, parentheses, the Pina Colada song.

[1:07] Not a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:08] No, I told you it wasn't a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:10] But here's the thing.

[1:11] In my mind, as far as I'm concerned, all Tropical songs become Jimmy Buffett songs over time.

[1:17] I've got three syllables for you, dude.

[1:19] Coco Moe.

[1:20] Not a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:21] Coco Moe is just two years away from becoming a Jimmy Buffett song.

[1:25] Any song that could conceivably be played at a Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville restaurant is a Jimmy Buffett song.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] That's not how that works.

[1:32] It's the way that Xerox was a product.

[1:35] He slowly claims them.

[1:35] So you're saying Jimmy Buffett has now become a word.

[1:39] Jimmy Buffett is no longer a brand name.

[1:41] No.

[1:41] But in fact a common word like Q-tip, Xerox, Kleenex.

[1:44] Or Kleenex.

Dan McCoy

[1:45] Yeah.

[1:46] Aspren, all of these things.

[1:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47] So I'm guessing you got a lot of letters about this.

[1:49] I'm guessing Aspren is some kind of wife's butt magazine you get.

[1:54] Like a short for Asprencess.

[1:55] Princess.

[1:56] Yep.

[1:58] Yeah, it's Asprencess with the cess ripped off.

Dan McCoy

[2:00] It does sound pretty good.

Elliott Kalan

[2:01] Now, yeah, did you get, there was some chatter about this.

Dan McCoy

[2:04] There was a lot of chatter on the Facebook page.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06] But hey, you know what else there was chatter about before we get into the show?

[2:08] What's that?

[2:09] Our Yonkers show was a smashing success.

[2:11] Yeah.

[2:12] Let's thank all of our fans who came out to Yonkers from all over the country and other

[2:15] countries to see us perform.

[2:17] Yeah.

[2:18] They were really great.

[2:18] It was a great audience.

[2:19] And the armpit of America.

Dan McCoy

[2:20] They came to see us.

Stuart Wellington

[2:21] And guys, I just want to, I know I might get some flack for this, but I also want to

[2:26] thank all those fans who couldn't make it out because they aren't able to make it to

[2:30] Yonkers.

[2:30] Hey, yeah.

[2:31] You guys are great too.

[2:32] Because they're ghosts?

Dan McCoy

[2:33] You're all heroes in your own way.

[2:34] Because you're all ghosts.

[2:37] So let's.

[2:37] I mean, a lot of people made it a point to come to Yonkers.

[2:40] It seems like the only reason you went down is if you were dead.

[2:43] That concludes the.

Elliott Kalan

[2:44] Oh, okay.

[2:44] That concludes the old business.

[2:46] We covered that.

[2:47] Thanks for coming to Yonkers.

[2:48] It was a great show.

[2:49] And we hope to see you at our January show.

[2:52] We're glad you made it to Yonkers.

[2:54] Dan explained his bizarre theory that every song is a Jimmy Buffett song.

[2:58] Once he gets his sticky fingers.

[2:59] I guess We Didn't Start the Fire is a Jimmy Buffett song.

[3:01] Every tropical song is a Jimmy Buffett song.

Dan McCoy

[3:01] So like the Tiki Bird song, is that a Jimmy Buffett song?

[3:04] The Tiki Bird song is.

[3:06] I refuse to live in that world.

Stuart Wellington

[3:09] I refuse to live in that world.

[3:10] The genre is what I'm saying.

[3:11] Once he gets his like pineapple juice and gross ketchup stained fingers all over.

[3:16] That's for the cheeseburger of paradise.

[3:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[3:21] So this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[3:25] Tonight we watched a sequel.

[3:28] A squeakle.

[3:29] A squeakle, if you will.

[3:30] No, we won't.

[3:31] Because it was not a squeakle.

[3:32] There was no squeaking.

[3:33] It was called 300 colon rise of an empire.

Stuart Wellington

[3:39] You probably already know that though because when you download the episode on your talking

[3:43] box or whatever.

Dan McCoy

[3:44] Yeah.

[3:44] And then I say it in the introduction too.

[3:46] Like it's really not.

[3:46] Yeah.

[3:46] It's never a shock.

Elliott Kalan

[3:47] It's not a big.

[3:48] This is not when people find out.

Dan McCoy

[3:49] It's for people who have not been paying attention honestly.

[3:51] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[3:52] So you and Stuart.

[3:53] Tell you three times.

Dan McCoy

[3:54] Shame on you.

Elliott Kalan

[3:57] What?

[3:57] So this was a sequel to 300, a movie that Stuart and I both really like genuinely.

[4:03] And I thought it was eh, all right.

[4:05] And I'm not the biggest Zack Snyder fan but I'll admit 300.

[4:07] Visionary director is Jack Snyder?

[4:09] You don't like him?

[4:09] He is a visionary.

[4:10] That's true.

[4:11] Jack Snyder?

Dan McCoy

[4:12] Jack Snyder.

Elliott Kalan

[4:14] Jumping Jack Snyder.

[4:15] He was Jack Snyder before the change.

[4:19] Wait.

[4:19] Everybody changes his name to Zack?

[4:21] Yeah.

[4:23] Now, with Snyder's pretzels.

[4:25] Yeah.

[4:26] Now, he's the son of Tom Snyder.

Dan McCoy

[4:27] Yeah.

[4:28] As far as I'm concerned, Zack Snyder, the best thing that Zack Snyder has done is the pre-credit

[4:34] pre-credit sequence.

[4:36] No, pre-credit.

[4:36] Whatever, baby Huey.

[4:38] The pre-credit sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[4:40] Wait, I'm not a huge fan of Zack Snyder but the Watchmen credit sequence is very good.

[4:45] I was going to say the pre-credit sequence to the Dawn of the Dead remake.

Stuart Wellington

[4:49] Oh, okay.

[4:50] Yeah, your baby voice lost it near the end there.

[4:53] Yeah.

[4:53] That's okay.

[4:53] Well, that baby shouldn't have been watching.

[4:54] You get a B+.

Elliott Kalan

[4:55] It was the zombie baby from Dawn of the Dead.

[4:57] Wait, from...

[4:58] The baby was in the opening?

[4:59] No, no.

[5:00] That Dan was doing the voice.

[5:01] Oh, okay.

[5:02] Not the zombie baby from Dead Alive.

[5:03] Every baby is in an opening at some point.

[5:05] It's how you get them out of there.

[5:07] You show me a baby, I'll show you one who's been through an opening.

[5:10] It's an exit for the baby.

[5:12] It's still an opening.

[5:12] It's really an exit for the baby.

[5:14] It's not an...

[5:15] It opens, doesn't it?

[5:17] I guess it does open.

[5:18] Yeah, because it's closed.

[5:20] That's how a baby gets out of it.

[5:21] Because you know what about exits?

[5:22] They don't open.

[5:23] You're right.

Dan McCoy

[5:24] I'm going to just go.

[5:26] Please do.

[5:27] Walk.

[5:28] Walk away.

[5:28] Walking.

[5:29] Gone.

[5:30] Dan gone.

Elliott Kalan

[5:32] Okay, gone Dan gone.

[5:33] Chain rattle, chain rattle, door closed.

[5:34] Yeah, boogans, etc.

[5:35] Thundersound.

[5:36] So, 300.

[5:38] It's a stupid movie, but I find it pretty fun.

[5:41] It is high operatic cornball.

[5:44] It looks like a movie made out of heavy metal covers just tossed together.

Stuart Wellington

[5:49] And for the most part, the people acting in it understand this and are way over the top.

Elliott Kalan

[5:55] They're at the right pitch of like, yeah, goofy over the top spectacle.

[5:59] Whereas, just spoiler alert, 300 Rise of an Empire, instead of having Gerard Butler in what's still his best role by far, right?

[6:08] Better than Bad Soccer Dad.

[6:09] Soccer Dad, Bad Dad.

[6:10] The ugly truth.

[6:11] Come on.

[6:12] Yeah, so he's been bad in everything except 300.

[6:15] He is replaced here with some guy whose name I don't even know.

[6:19] Who is...

[6:20] From Strike Back.

[6:21] The guy from Strike Back.

Stuart Wellington

[6:22] Is he the guy in Strike Back who catches the nuclear weapon like a football?

[6:26] Well, I don't know what a nuclear weapon is.

[6:28] It's a nuclear weapon.

[6:29] I've heard about nuclear weapon.

Dan McCoy

[6:31] Pedantic.

[6:32] I've never seen it.

[6:33] What was his name in this?

[6:34] Mistilodonese.

[6:35] No, he's the Mysticles, which is a real person.

[6:38] The Mystic Knees.

Elliott Kalan

[6:39] No, the Mystic Knees.

[6:42] The old blues song.

[6:44] Oh, the Mystic Knees.

[6:46] Yeah.

[6:49] They sure got me.

[6:53] Look at him on Tenetlech Records.

[6:55] I'm old Jack Sparta.

[6:56] Yeah.

[6:57] Mississippi Delta Blues man who sings about ancient Greece.

[7:00] I play down at the hot gates.

[7:02] Yeah.

[7:04] Sing a little bit of the Thermopylae Blues.

[7:07] Down, down, down.

[7:08] Just 300 of us here.

[7:10] And Xerxes coming round.

[7:12] Oh, there's 300 of us here.

Dan McCoy

[7:15] And Xerxes coming round.

[7:16] You make a good point.

[7:17] Better tell my woman.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] There's some bad stuff to be found.

[7:22] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[7:24] That's every blues song.

[7:25] You make a good point.

[7:25] They all sound the same.

Dan McCoy

[7:26] The blues song's so terrible.

[7:27] The blues is bad.

[7:28] You're bad for liking it.

[7:29] If you enjoy it, you're wrong.

[7:30] Wow, that's a little far.

Elliott Kalan

[7:32] That's a little too far.

[7:33] Yeah, you're a bad person.

Dan McCoy

[7:34] Because out of the blues came something great.

[7:36] Zydeco.

Elliott Kalan

[7:37] We all love Zydeco.

[7:39] With its accordions and its whatever it does.

Dan McCoy

[7:41] Whatever else it does.

[7:42] You know, and the Knuckles.

[7:44] You play your Knuckles.

[7:45] Yeah, Sonic and Knuckles.

[7:46] Classic Zydeco duo.

[7:48] And Tails.

Elliott Kalan

[7:49] Tails broke up with the group.

[7:51] Tails blew it off.

Stuart Wellington

[7:53] Tails died.

[7:53] Go to DeviantArt.

[7:54] There's probably a Shiloh of pictures of it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:56] Of dead Tails.

[7:58] Oh, Sonic was weeping.

[7:59] Sonic in the morning.

[8:00] Sonic's all in black, black veil.

[8:02] Yeah.

[8:03] Sure.

[8:03] Because he was Tails' wife.

[8:05] Anyway, let's talk about it.

[8:06] So this is a sequel to 300, but it happens both before and concurrently and after 300.

[8:12] So it's like the Godfather part two of 300 movies, where it's bouncing around in time.

[8:17] We open, okay.

[8:19] It's a parallel sequel.

[8:20] In the last movie, it was the Battle of Thermopylae, 300 Spartans, and about a ton of other Greek

[8:25] guys.

[8:25] Well, let's not talk about them.

[8:26] Yeah.

[8:26] Versus the army of Xerxes, the Persian emperor, who-

[8:30] And his monster game.

[8:31] Who is a monster man.

[8:32] And he's got an army of monster people.

[8:34] He does have a monster squad.

[8:35] He does have a monster squad.

[8:36] And here's one of the things I love about 300, the first movie.

[8:38] Okay.

[8:39] It is bonkers, crazy-ate myth stuff.

[8:42] They are fighting an army of monsters.

[8:45] Xerxes is like 18 feet tall and talks in this low core of the earth voice.

[8:52] Everything about it is totally ridiculous.

[8:53] A guy, a rhinoceros is charging at them, and a guy throws his spear, and it's timed just

[8:58] right so that the dead rhinoceros slides right up to them, but not far enough to touch them.

[9:03] Now, do you love-

[9:04] Not enough to get dust on his sandals.

Dan McCoy

[9:06] Yeah.

[9:06] Do you love the homophobia of the original 300?

[9:08] I don't, and I'll tell you why.

[9:09] They're kind of gay monsters.

[9:11] Well, yes.

Elliott Kalan

[9:12] Well, I don't know if it's gay so much as sexually decadent, because it's implied that-

[9:17] They're gay mid-easterners.

[9:19] They're having that weird orgy of amputees and scarred women and things like that.

[9:23] I mean, let's get one thing straight.

[9:25] These are a racist bunch of movies.

[9:26] Yeah, it's a xenophobic series.

[9:27] These are movies about white, English-accented Greeks with relatively light hair versus monsters,

[9:35] versus Persian monsters.

[9:37] Or attacking the home lion.

[9:40] At its heart, it is about a bunch of he-men-

[9:43] It's about love.

[9:44] It's the closest we're going to get to a-

Dan McCoy

[9:46] No.

[9:46] It's a tale.

[9:47] It's hard.

[9:48] It's a tale of a boy and his dog.

Elliott Kalan

[9:50] A tale as old as time.

[9:51] Well, a couple thousand years old.

[9:53] It's about-

[9:53] It's the closest you're going to get to a he-man movie.

[9:55] It's these buff guys fighting monster men.

Stuart Wellington

[9:58] Who would be Ram Man, then?

[9:59] Who's Orko?

Elliott Kalan

[10:01] Orko, unfortunately, is not in it.

[10:02] And as we said watching this movie, it could have used a kind of wisecracking wizard.

[10:06] Yeah.

[10:07] Now, here's the problem with 300, Rise of an Empire.

[10:10] They cut out most of the monsters.

[10:12] And I think they tried to tack more towards real history to a point.

[10:17] But then they did it in a stupid way.

[10:19] So let's talk about what's going on.

[10:20] The movie opens with Lena Headey's character, Queen Gorgo of Sparta.

[10:24] And I wish she was Gorgo the British Godzilla.

[10:26] Yeah.

[10:27] Who you may remember from the movie Gorgo.

[10:29] No, I don't.

[10:30] Well, it was the British knockoff of Godzilla.

[10:33] Okay.

[10:33] And he's basically Godzilla, but he's got fins for ears.

[10:36] There's baby Gorgo, and there's mama Gorgo.

[10:38] But let's, we don't need to get into that.

[10:39] Then there's Gorgonzola, which is, of course, is a Greek cheese that fought the Persians.

[10:44] Okay.

[10:45] So she's like, hey, you guys remember that King Leonidas and all his men died?

[10:51] Let me give you some backstory.

[10:53] It seems 10 years ago, we had the Battle of Marathon, and this guy Themistocles killed

[10:58] King Darius of Persia.

[10:59] But he should have killed King Darius' son Xerxes because his eyes had the stink of fate about

[11:04] them.

[11:05] Or whatever it is they say.

[11:07] Now, his time on phrase, his eyes had the stink of fate.

Stuart Wellington

[11:10] But at this point in this opening, I guess, monologue, and we get a battle sequence, and this

[11:16] is not terrible.

[11:17] No.

[11:17] It's shot okay.

Elliott Kalan

[11:18] I mean.

[11:19] It's a, you know, it's a 300 style dumb battle sequence with lots of slow-mo and blood flying.

[11:26] It was like fake CGI blood, and the colors were all way overblown and everything.

[11:30] Like you said, it's Mortal Kombat blood.

[11:32] Yeah.

[11:32] The blood in this gets seemingly faker and faker as it goes on.

[11:35] And there are parts where it does feel like you're watching Mortal Kombat.

[11:37] And I don't know if that's because of the 3D.

Stuart Wellington

[11:40] Like they wanted to make it shinier, so it would pick up the 3D better.

[11:43] Could be.

[11:44] I don't know how that shit works.

Elliott Kalan

[11:45] Someone mentioned on the Facebook page about Dracula 3D, the one we watched last episode,

[11:49] that it was lit so brightly to compensate for the light you lose when you do it in 3D.

[11:53] Which made sense.

[11:54] Which makes sense.

[11:54] I'm surprised we didn't think about it, although it still looked like shit.

[11:57] Here, it's like they need more stuff to throw at you because it's 3D.

[12:00] And much like the Hercules movie we watched, in ancient times, apparently, there was always

[12:03] like pollen and cinders and feather and shit just flying around in the air all the time.

[12:08] Yeah, stuff that gives you a sense of depth.

[12:10] Like.

[12:11] Just happens to be in the air.

[12:12] But also, like, ancient people must have had terrible lungs.

[12:15] Like, they're just breathing in crap all the time.

[12:18] Apparently, industrialization was the best thing that ever happened when it came to clean air.

[12:22] Because ancient air was dirty.

Stuart Wellington

[12:24] Is all of Greece that we see is like black lava rocks.

Elliott Kalan

[12:28] Yeah.

[12:29] Like, why does Persia want it so bad, dude?

[12:31] It just blasted cliffs.

[12:32] Yeah.

[12:33] Against an unrelenting, unsympathetic sea.

[12:34] Because it's a crucible for forging warriors?

[12:37] I guess so.

[12:37] But anyway, she tells the tale still about how Xerxes now became emperor.

[12:43] And he took on Darius' top commander, Artemisia.

[12:48] Darius Argento's top commander.

[12:51] Thank God not.

[12:52] So, Artemisia, Eva Green's character, is your classic story in these movies.

[12:57] She is a little girl who was sold into slavery, repeatedly raped, left for dead, picked up by a Persian general, and trained to be the world's greatest badass warrior queen.

[13:08] She's basically like Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy, or like Xena, or Mara Jade.

[13:15] Mara Jade from the Star Wars extended universe.

Dan McCoy

[13:18] BloodRayne Mary, I don't know what you're...

Elliott Kalan

[13:19] Mara Jade?

[13:20] Mara Jade.

[13:21] She married Luke Skywalker eventually.

[13:23] What?

[13:24] She's the most popular addition to the Star Wars canon made by Timothy Zahn.

[13:29] I'm sorry.

[13:29] Call Star Wars canon real quick.

[13:31] Hello.

[13:32] Timothy Zahn?

[13:32] Oh, no, sorry.

[13:33] It's your brother Steve.

[13:33] Steve Zahn.

[13:34] Tell your brother Timothy, you wrote the Star Wars books.

[13:36] Dan doesn't know what he's talking about.

[13:38] You're getting an angry letter from Steve Zahn.

[13:40] I mean, as far as I'm concerned, the Star Wars canon consists of the Star Wars movies.

[13:44] No, the Star Wars canon is a canon that shoots Star Wars DVDs at people.

[13:48] Very ineffective in a siege situation, but Leonardo da Vinci invented it.

[13:53] People are really disappointed when they get episode one.

[13:56] It's terrible for Mara.

Stuart Wellington

[13:59] It's like throwing the heads of your enemies at them.

Elliott Kalan

[14:02] Yeah.

[14:02] So anyway, Artemisia is the, let's just say it, the best character in the whole movie.

[14:07] She's great.

[14:07] The only interesting character.

[14:08] And Eva Green has that type of performance you were talking about.

[14:11] She's got it.

[14:12] She is.

[14:12] She has got it.

[14:13] And by it, it is scenery chewing ham boneness.

[14:16] Yeah.

[14:16] Just total ham.

Dan McCoy

[14:17] And the willingness to have a fight slash sex scene topless.

[14:20] Yeah.

[14:21] Both of those things.

[14:22] Totally.

[14:22] Make her pop off the screen.

[14:24] Because it's 3D boobs?

[14:25] Is that what you're saying?

[14:26] That's exactly what it is.

[14:27] Yeah.

[14:28] Thank you.

[14:29] Sergei Popov.

[14:30] There's just something ineffable about her.

[14:33] It could be the fact that she's fighting topless.

[14:36] Could be.

Elliott Kalan

[14:37] Who knows?

[14:37] But anyway.

[14:38] Science will tell us.

[14:39] Sure.

[14:40] This sequence is the best part of the movie as far as I'm concerned.

[14:43] It tells the backstory of Artemisia goading Xerxes into going through a mystical rite in the cave of a hermit in the desert.

[14:50] Where he walks into a pool of magic gold liquid and walks out as the 18 foot tall chain covered totally hairless androgynous monster king that we know from the first movie.

Dan McCoy

[15:01] And the hermit says, gold, you're taking my gold.

[15:04] It's all over your body.

Elliott Kalan

[15:06] Give me back my gold.

[15:07] There's gold in them there, Xerxes.

[15:09] Why am I a hermit?

[15:10] If I have all the gold.

[15:11] Rich, Rich, I tells you.

[15:13] Rich.

[15:14] It's ancient Persian.

[15:15] He he he.

[15:16] Ho, ho, ho.

[15:17] Do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do.

Dan McCoy

[15:20] What a great character.

Elliott Kalan

[15:23] Yeah, the version of gold prospecting a hermit.

Dan McCoy

[15:25] I want to see that.

[15:27] 303.

[15:28] Hermit.

[15:29] A hermit's tale.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] A hermit's tale.

[15:33] So is it the tale of how he became a hermit or is it how he stops becoming a hermit?

[15:38] Or is it just him in his cave just eating his own scabs for sustenance?

Dan McCoy

[15:42] Telling stories.

[15:43] Him in his cave occasionally shooting his shotgun above the heads of people who come close to his cave.

[15:48] Stay away from a cave.

Stuart Wellington

[15:50] Xerxes.

[15:51] A traveler shows up and the hermit delights him with erotic adventures and tales.

[15:57] A thousand and one of them.

Dan McCoy

[15:59] What are you talking about?

[16:01] The Red Hermit Diaries.

Elliott Kalan

[16:06] Dear Hermit.

[16:07] Nobody's reading it out loud.

[16:09] Dear Hermit, I have a story to tell you.

[16:12] Well, I don't know how this guy got my address, but I'll read it.

[16:15] I live in a cave.

[16:18] I guess I'll read it in a state of undress.

Dan McCoy

[16:22] While touching myself.

Elliott Kalan

[16:24] No one can see me.

[16:25] I'm a hermit.

[16:26] Get those cameras out of here.

[16:29] Showtime.

[16:30] Call us showtime.

[16:33] Zalman Hobo Kings, The Red Hermit Diaries.

[16:37] Not even Zalman God King, I think, would be more appropriate.

[16:40] Xerxes is the God King in this one.

[16:42] So basically, at that point, the movie then shifts and it becomes concurrent with the Battle of Thermopylae.

[16:52] Themistocles is fighting a bunch of battles.

[16:55] After Marathon, when he kills Darius, he fights barrels against Xerxes.

[16:59] They fight the Battle of Artemisium, which is this big naval battle.

[17:04] They fight the Battle of Salamis later on.

[17:07] I don't think that was a...

[17:08] The Battle of Salamis.

[17:09] They're hitting each other with big salamis.

[17:11] And it's basically...

[17:12] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[17:12] I remember that from an old Three Stooges show.

Elliott Kalan

[17:15] And at this point, it just...

[17:16] It's an ancient Greece.

[17:16] It kind of becomes like a classics illustrated shitty history of the Persian Wars.

[17:22] Because it's just battle after battle, speech after speech.

[17:25] The characters are...

[17:25] Cardboards all get out.

[17:27] Occasionally, Eva Green will show up and liven things up.

[17:29] But, like, there aren't even any monster men for most of it.

[17:32] Like, are they...

[17:33] It's like the last half hour, they're like,

[17:35] Oh, yeah.

[17:35] Weren't there monsters in this thing?

Dan McCoy

[17:37] You're saying that if TNT's monster vision was interested in this movie,

[17:41] they would have to pass it over.

Elliott Kalan

[17:43] Yeah, entirely.

[17:44] Well, I mean, monster vision showed a lot of movies without monsters in them.

[17:46] What?

[17:48] They've gone way off message.

[17:49] Uh-oh, you better talk to Joe Bob Briggs.

[17:52] This wasn't in your remit, Joe Bob.

Stuart Wellington

[17:54] Yep, just send it to his hermit's cave.

Elliott Kalan

[17:58] Oh, JBB.

[17:59] He's in hermit Joe Bob Briggs.

[18:01] Today we've got lonely foo, solitary foo, talking to nobody foo, no boobs.

[18:11] It's just hermit Joe Bob is giving the ratings for that day's nothing.

[18:18] Yeah, he's telling it to the picked-over skull of the cow that he has in his cave.

[18:25] And Themistocles, because this is a movie, they have a sort of romantic, savage rivalry,

[18:32] which comes to a head when they come to a head and have sex with each other while fighting.

[18:37] She offers to have him join her because he's a brilliant general who's been outwitting her,

[18:42] and she is a brilliant generaless who is a hellcat in the sack.

[18:45] He says no.

Dan McCoy

[18:47] And a little rough sex, which does not get consummated because he denies her.

[18:51] Well, I mean, the sex is the consummation, right?

[18:53] Yeah, but I mean, look, there's no...

[18:54] I mean, clearly, the sex does not continue to either of theirs...

[18:59] To completion.

[19:00] Completion.

Elliott Kalan

[19:01] Oh, yeah, sure.

[19:01] Well, we don't know that about him.

[19:04] I guess that's true.

[19:04] As soon as he pulled out, he might have been like,

[19:06] Uh-oh, uh-oh.

Stuart Wellington

[19:08] Anybody got a Band-Aid?

[19:10] We seem clutchy.

[19:11] Wait, a Band-Aid?

Elliott Kalan

[19:12] Yeah, how do you guys do it?

[19:13] I don't like where this guy...

[19:16] I don't understand why.

[19:19] To staunch the flow.

[19:20] He's never had sex before, so he's like,

[19:22] I've got a leak!

[19:23] Ah!

[19:23] My soul essence is leaking out.

[19:25] I'm bleeding white gooey blood.

[19:27] Okay, stop.

[19:28] Stop, please.

[19:29] Stop right there.

[19:31] Please stop.

[19:32] But we do see him clutching a cape to his crotch,

[19:35] so maybe he's just kind of trying to mop up.

[19:36] Yeah.

[19:39] There's like more and more fighting,

[19:41] and at a certain point, we're like,

[19:43] so did they forget that Lena Hetty was telling this story?

[19:45] Mm-hmm.

[19:46] Because then we get to the Battle of Salamis,

[19:48] where they're fighting on a bunch of ships,

[19:50] and it just becomes a video game.

[19:51] You're just behind a CGI Themistocles on a horse

[19:54] as he rides around across ships,

[19:56] slashing guys and going through fire.

[19:58] Mm-hmm.

[19:58] And then he's having a...

Stuart Wellington

[19:59] Complete with like shots of zooming in on Artemisia across the sea,

[20:05] and then cutting back to him,

[20:07] and then he decides to go on a different route.

[20:09] It's garbage.

Elliott Kalan

[20:09] Yeah.

[20:10] And it looks like you're watching someone play Shenmue.

[20:13] Remember that game?

[20:13] Yeah.

[20:14] Yeah.

[20:14] Was that Dreamcast that was for?

[20:16] Yeah.

[20:17] Anyway.

[20:18] Remember Mario Kart guys?

[20:21] Remember that one?

Dan McCoy

[20:21] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[20:22] This was a lot like Mario Kart.

Elliott Kalan

[20:23] Mario Kart?

[20:23] Yeah, yeah, because he kept throwing shells at people.

[20:25] Yeah.

[20:25] Shells?

[20:26] There's bananas?

Stuart Wellington

[20:28] Banana peels?

[20:29] Oh, tons of banana peels, Dan.

[20:31] All right.

[20:32] Is Dan okay?

Dan McCoy

[20:33] He's just trying to relate to you guys.

Stuart Wellington

[20:34] I think he's having a stroke.

Dan McCoy

[20:36] Trying to relate to us, to the young people.

[20:39] Yeah.

[20:39] Banana peels.

[20:41] Joust?

[20:41] You guys remember Joust?

Elliott Kalan

[20:43] I don't like where this...

[20:44] Again, this is just old video games now.

[20:47] So there's a big battle.

[20:48] There's a big battle, and they're fighting,

[20:50] and then you hear Lena Hetty.

[20:51] You haven't heard her narration.

[20:52] Oh, there's also a part in the middle

[20:53] where one of the characters starts telling them

[20:56] mystically is Artemisia's backstory,

[20:57] so it's a nice nested flashback where you're like,

[21:01] all right, so what is going on here?

[21:03] Now, after this point...

Dan McCoy

[21:04] Yeah, you feel like you need to diagram this movie

[21:05] a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[21:06] Off camera, the Battle of Thermopylae happened.

[21:08] Now this is after the Battle of Thermopylae.

[21:10] Artemisia and Themistocles have met up

[21:12] for their final duel,

[21:13] and they've got swords to each other's necks,

[21:15] and you hear Lena Hetty,

[21:16] a wind rustled,

[21:19] caressed her hair like a lover's hand,

[21:21] blah, blah, blah.

[21:22] And you see that Lena Hetty is standing

[21:23] on an approaching ship with a bunch of Spartan soldiers,

[21:27] because she's the queen of Sparta and whatever,

[21:28] and it's like, wait,

[21:29] so the whole movie was her telling them a story

[21:32] as they got to this battle,

[21:33] but she was narrating the battle that was happening

[21:35] that they hadn't gotten to yet,

[21:37] and then they end...

[21:38] Seems like it, dude.

[21:39] Artemisia forces Themistocles' hand,

[21:41] he kills her after offering to let her go,

[21:43] and the Spartans...

[21:44] Much to our groans of consternation.

[21:46] Yeah, because she's the best character,

[21:48] and the Spartans come and attack everybody,

[21:50] and that's the end in Western civilization

[21:51] to save from the evil monster Persians.

[21:55] I would have liked this movie more

[21:56] if Artemisia had killed Themistocles...

[21:59] Oh, totally.

[22:00] ...killed everybody else,

[22:01] then gotten into a spaceship,

[22:02] and had a bunch of space adventures.

Stuart Wellington

[22:04] Yeah, I mean, as I said while we were watching it,

[22:06] you could easily do a crossover

[22:07] between 300 and Stargate,

[22:09] and it wouldn't be weird.

[22:10] It would look totally normal.

[22:11] Because they both have the same villain, too.

[22:14] Because Xerxes looks like a...

[22:16] a Gwawuld is what they're called, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[22:19] Now I really like...

[22:20] Dan.

[22:20] Now I really want to see this movie, though,

[22:22] where there's this awesome assassin Persian princess...

[22:25] And I would feel like...

[22:26] Well, she's actually Greek.

[22:27] She just works for the Persians.

Elliott Kalan

[22:28] Oh.

[22:29] Yeah, yeah, no, but she's this awesome assassin.

[22:31] And if it was a crossover of Stargate,

Stuart Wellington

[22:33] she could have sex with James Spader.

[22:35] It would be really rough and creepy.

[22:36] In a car crash.

[22:38] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:39] What are these Stargate 300 crash crossovers?

[22:42] It's called a Star Crash.

[22:44] No, Star Crash is a different movie.

[22:46] Whoa, that doesn't happen in Star Crash.

[22:47] You'll be very disappointed.

Dan McCoy

[22:48] And then she's James Spader's secretary,

[22:50] and he spanks her when she gets the...

[22:52] Don't be creepy.

[22:53] What?

[22:53] Let's just do another...

[22:55] Oh, but...

[22:56] Don't be creepy.

[22:58] And then he'll be...

Elliott Kalan

[22:58] Artemisia's tough.

[22:59] And then he'll blacklist everybody.

[23:01] He'll blacklist everyone.

[23:02] Yeah, he'll wear a fedora around.

[23:03] She's tough.

[23:04] And be puffy on the cover of magazines.

[23:07] So, here's the thing.

[23:09] This is a very boring movie for a lot of it.

[23:12] But it's got this one performance in it

[23:15] that's really exciting.

[23:17] You wonder, like,

[23:17] why didn't they make this just about her?

[23:19] Why did they have to make the Greeks the heroes?

[23:22] Why couldn't they have made her the hero?

[23:24] I mean, she loses in the end, but...

Dan McCoy

[23:25] But, I mean, that's just like...

[23:27] You write a movie,

[23:28] and you don't necessarily know

[23:29] what's going to go on with the casting.

[23:31] Like, the thing is, like,

[23:33] they got lucky with the casting of her

[23:35] and apparently did not know how to cast anyone else.

[23:38] I guess, but her character is even written

Elliott Kalan

[23:39] more interestingly than the other ones.

[23:41] Like, instead...

[23:42] It's the old villain has more fun thing.

[23:45] Like, the hero gives a lot of speeches about

[23:47] we need to be free men, democracy,

[23:50] united Greece to have freedom and liberty,

[23:53] but he never really seems to believe any of it.

[23:55] He's just kind of, like,

[23:56] yelling things at his men

[23:57] to get them to fight all oiled up and shirtless.

[23:59] Meanwhile, she's written in a way

[24:01] that it's like,

[24:02] yeah, okay, she has a motivation.

[24:04] Like, she was thrown away by the Greeks.

[24:06] Now, she wants to get revenge,

[24:07] but also she has a lust for power,

[24:09] and she likes to use people.

Stuart Wellington

[24:10] And she had the...

[24:11] And she, in a way, like,

[24:13] rose Xerxes to power,

[24:14] and she even has the opportunity

[24:16] to, like, go against his wishes,

[24:19] which is cool.

[24:19] Like, she is a more interesting character.

Elliott Kalan

[24:23] Everything about her is more interesting

[24:24] than this guy who is just

[24:26] battle after battle, speech after speech,

[24:28] but we don't give a shit about him, you know.

[24:30] He has nothing to interest us

[24:32] other than, in theory, he is a hero.

Stuart Wellington

[24:36] No, I'm totally with you.

[24:37] And telling it from her perspective

[24:39] would tie it closer to the original 300

[24:42] with the idea of the hero dies at the end.

[24:46] Yeah.

[24:48] But it felt so much like

[24:50] when you take the 300 story

[24:52] and you change...

[24:54] Well, we...

[24:54] I mean, you're not taking the exact story,

[24:56] but when you're taking that era of time

[24:58] and then you just change all the things

[25:00] that would conveniently make

[25:02] a more positive movie,

[25:04] like, instead of having them

[25:05] sacrifice their lives, you know,

[25:07] for no appreciable effect,

[25:10] instead they have the...

[25:12] They have the good guys winning

[25:14] at the end of the day.

[25:15] I mean, they did...

[25:16] The Greeks did win that battle

[25:17] in real life.

[25:18] No, I know, but if...

[25:20] And there's even, like,

[25:21] a boss fight at the end,

[25:23] which 300 never had that moment

[25:26] of, like, release, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[25:28] It's not like...

[25:28] Xerxes and Gerard Butler

[25:30] didn't have, like,

[25:30] a hand-to-hand combat scene.

[25:32] Which...

[25:32] Aside from that,

[25:33] they only met once.

Stuart Wellington

[25:33] Gerard Butler would have been fucked

[25:34] because Xerxes has that giant magic axe

[25:36] that he's carrying in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[25:38] Yeah, that he just cuts

[25:38] people's heads off with.

[25:40] Where did he get a horse

[25:41] big enough to carry him around?

[25:43] Because he's so huge.

[25:44] Well, he must have bred it.

[25:45] It's like a destrier,

[25:46] you know, some kind of

[25:46] dreadnought horse or something.

[25:48] Sure.

[25:48] One of those horses that

[25:49] they used to breed

[25:50] in medieval times

[25:50] that were strong enough

[25:51] to carry a man in armor,

[25:53] but they were so expensive

[25:54] you never actually

[25:55] rode him into battle.

Stuart Wellington

[25:56] Was that the medieval times

[25:58] in New Jersey or...

Elliott Kalan

[25:59] Yeah, yeah,

[25:59] the medieval times in Bayonne, yeah.

[26:00] Sure.

[26:03] They took a movie

[26:04] that was goofy as I'll get out.

[26:05] Yes.

[26:06] Removed the stuff

[26:07] that made it fun and goofy.

[26:08] Most of the stuff

[26:09] that made it fun and goofy.

[26:10] Except for a little bit.

[26:11] And then took it for granted

[26:12] that the audience

[26:12] was just along for the run.

[26:13] There was a lot of, like,

[26:15] goodwill fumes from 300

[26:16] that this movie used up.

Stuart Wellington

[26:17] Yeah, I hate to say

[26:18] that, like,

[26:19] basing the original 300

[26:20] on Frank Miller's graphic novel

[26:22] in some ways was a benefit

[26:24] because they managed

[26:25] to throw in a ton of extra shit

[26:27] like the weird

[26:29] Temple of the Oracles

[26:30] and all that other weird stuff

[26:32] that at least added

[26:33] flavor and character.

[26:35] Yeah.

[26:35] Like hermit caves.

Elliott Kalan

[26:36] But also...

[26:37] Well, that's the first...

[26:38] The best part of it

[26:39] is in the beginning

[26:39] they have the hermit cave

[26:40] and stuff,

[26:40] but it felt like

[26:41] while we watched the movie

[26:42] I said,

[26:42] this feels like we're watching

[26:44] if ancient Greeks

[26:45] had had movies

[26:46] and they made a movie

[26:47] about this,

[26:48] this is the movie

[26:48] they would make.

[26:49] Heroic bare-chested Greeks

[26:51] fighting monster men

[26:52] who use evil magic.

[26:54] And then the movie, like,

[26:55] forgot about all that stuff.

Dan McCoy

[26:56] What were you saying, Dan?

[26:57] I said this while we were

[26:58] watching the movie,

[26:59] but also, too,

[27:00] I feel like this movie

[27:02] actually suffered from

[27:03] not being an adaptation

[27:06] of a comic.

[27:08] And adaptation.

[27:08] And adaptation of a comic

[27:09] in that the first 300

[27:11] kind of took advantage

[27:13] of its fakeness

[27:14] in the backdrops

[27:17] to really mirror

[27:18] the panels of a comic strip.

[27:21] Like, it had a certain

[27:22] two-dimensional quality,

[27:23] like, and all the action

[27:24] progressed along

[27:26] a two-dimensional line

[27:27] that made it very easy

[27:29] to follow.

[27:30] Whereas this movie

[27:31] had the fakeness

[27:32] of the CGI backgrounds,

[27:34] but it was untethered

[27:35] by that kind of, like,

[27:36] comic panel look.

Stuart Wellington

[27:37] That's what you meant

[27:38] when you were saying

[27:39] it's 2, 3D.

[27:40] Yeah, it's,

[27:41] it's, like,

[27:42] it's weirdly...

[27:42] That third dimension

[27:43] was not time, by the way.

Dan McCoy

[27:44] No, no, no.

[27:45] I mean, like,

[27:46] it,

[27:47] when I say it's 2, 3D,

[27:48] it doesn't mean it makes

[27:50] it look more realistic.

[27:51] I just mean that

[27:51] the stylization is...

[27:54] Is worse.

[27:55] Yeah, yeah.

[27:56] Like, it's not as clear.

Elliott Kalan

[27:58] You know?

[27:58] I mean, it also doesn't help

[27:59] that, like,

[28:00] the visuals were really

[28:01] murky and dark,

[28:02] and somebody would turn

[28:03] from a human

[28:04] to a CGI figure

[28:05] back to a human

[28:06] within a,

[28:06] back and forth

[28:07] within a couple seconds,

[28:08] and the camera's

[28:08] always spinning around.

[28:10] Ah, you know these

[28:11] young kids with their movies

[28:12] with the cameras

[28:13] moving around

[28:13] and the people

[28:14] jumping all over

Stuart Wellington

[28:14] and the wushu and whatnot.

[28:16] Kind of like that

[28:17] last Hercules movie

[28:18] we watched,

[28:18] where they seemed to just

[28:19] hit the bullet time button

[28:21] at random points.

[28:22] Yeah.

[28:22] Like, you're watching

[28:23] your friend play Max Payne

[28:24] and you're like,

[28:25] dude, you're doing it

Elliott Kalan

[28:26] totally wrong.

[28:28] But it's,

[28:29] I really wanted to like

[28:29] this movie

[28:30] because I liked

[28:30] the first one,

[28:31] and I had heard

[28:32] that Eva Green

[28:33] had a nude sex scene

[28:34] in it,

[28:34] so I said,

[28:35] okay, sure,

[28:35] I'm on board.

[28:36] Maybe a bunch of monsters

[28:37] cut people's heads off,

[28:38] but alas,

[28:40] the monsters were missing.

Dan McCoy

[28:41] Yeah, we're there already,

[28:43] but let's do

[28:44] Final Judgments.

[28:45] This is a good,

[28:46] bad movie,

[28:46] a bad,

[28:47] bad movie,

[28:47] or a movie you kind of liked.

[28:48] I say it's a bad,

[28:49] bad movie.

[28:50] I was bored by it

[28:52] almost more than,

[28:54] like,

[28:54] this is in the,

[28:55] like,

[28:56] 80th or 90th percentile

[28:57] of Flophouse movies

[28:58] I was bored by.

[29:00] I don't know

[29:00] what that number means.

[29:01] Yeah.

[29:02] You know.

[29:03] Do you have a calculator?

[29:05] Where's the,

[29:05] you got a smoke sheet?

[29:06] Is more bored

[29:07] or less bored?

[29:07] Yeah, I'm running the numbers.

[29:08] I had Nate Silver over in here.

[29:10] No, more bored.

[29:11] This is one of the,

[29:12] Mordor?

[29:12] Yeah, Mordor.

[29:13] Mordor.

[29:14] It looks like Mordor.

[29:15] I want to take this movie

[29:16] and throw it

[29:17] into Mount Doom

[29:18] in Mordor

[29:19] because that's the only way

[29:20] we can rescue the world

[29:22] from the evil of this film.

[29:23] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[29:25] Well, you better be ready

[29:26] to have Golem

[29:26] bite your finger off

[29:27] because I'm not ready to do it.

Stuart Wellington

[29:28] Why don't they just

[29:29] have the eagles

[29:29] drop it off for us?

[29:31] Yeah, there's a lot of questions

Elliott Kalan

[29:32] in those Lord of the Rings stories.

[29:34] Why doesn't they,

[29:35] the old one,

[29:36] why don't they just

[29:37] hand the ring to Tom Bombadil

[29:38] and let him lose it

[29:39] in his couch somewhere?

[29:40] No one will ever find it

[29:41] in his magic hermit cabin.

Stuart Wellington

[29:44] Because that's not

[29:44] what he's for, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[29:46] He's there to sing songs.

[29:47] He's too busy

Stuart Wellington

[29:48] banging Goldberry

Elliott Kalan

[29:49] and hanging out

[29:50] with Fatty Lumpkin.

[29:52] My favorite part

[29:53] of the books

[29:53] is when they're like,

[29:54] why don't we just

[29:55] give the ring

[29:55] to Tom Bombadil?

[29:56] He's like,

[29:56] eh, he'll just forget it

[29:57] somewhere.

[29:58] Like, Tolkien introduced

[30:00] this godlike character

[30:01] and then he had to realize

[30:02] like, uh,

[30:03] I guess I'll make him

[30:03] like a real doof

[30:04] so that they can't

[30:05] trust him

[30:06] because otherwise

[30:07] he solves every problem

[30:08] in the whole thing.

[30:10] Yeah, it's a bad man movie.

[30:13] It was really boring

[30:14] and disappointing.

[30:16] And I have to say

[30:16] that like,

[30:17] there's a good movie,

[30:18] like there's a good

[30:19] straightforward history movie

[30:20] to be made about

[30:21] the Persian Wars

[30:22] and there's a good

[30:23] over-the-top crazy movie

[30:25] and this was neither of them.

[30:26] And it just makes me wonder

[30:28] when they finally make

[30:29] the movie about

[30:30] the Battle of Cannae

[30:30] that I want them

[30:31] to make so badly,

[30:32] how is it gonna be?

[30:33] Good or bad?

[30:35] Hollywood?

[30:36] The choice is yours.

[30:37] You want that to be

[30:37] over-the-top

[30:38] and crazy monster movie, right?

[30:39] I mean, either way,

[30:40] either over-the-top

[30:41] or I'd love to have

[30:41] a realistic version of it

[30:42] because that battle

[30:43] was horrendous.

Elliott Kalan

[30:43] I would love to see

[30:43] like a super over-the-top

Stuart Wellington

[30:45] like Waterloo

[30:47] with like monster French guys

[30:49] and Napoleon on a dragon.

[30:53] Napoleon is 12 feet tall

[30:55] and breathes fire.

[30:57] And a grim nonplussed Wellington

[30:59] driving a fucking steam carriage

[31:01] or something.

Elliott Kalan

[31:04] It's called like Waterloo 2.0.

[31:06] Awesome.

[31:07] I mean, that's the other thing though

[31:08] is once things are

[31:09] a certain amount of time

[31:10] in the past,

[31:11] it's okay to just make stuff up.

[31:13] So there's a bunch of movie ideas

[31:17] that my old writing partner

[31:18] Brock and I used to have

[31:19] that were like

[31:20] just set in the idea of

[31:22] Really cool, whatever.

[31:24] Just set in the idea of

[31:25] the past.

[31:26] Like as long as it was

[31:27] a long time ago,

[31:27] you could throw it in.

[31:28] And I feel like there's movies

Dan McCoy

[31:30] that could do that type of thing

[31:31] that don't.

[31:33] Before I move on to letters,

[31:35] we should do some plugs.

[31:38] Okay.

[31:38] Or a plug.

[31:40] I don't know that there's more

[31:41] things to plug

[31:42] than this one thing.

[31:43] Who cares?

[31:44] The one thing that we should plug

[31:45] is we've got

[31:47] another live show coming up.

[31:49] Not right away,

[31:50] but in January.

[31:52] But it's going to sell out,

[31:53] so buy your tickets.

[31:54] And it's at the Bell House

[31:55] in Brooklyn.

[31:57] It's the opening night

[31:58] of Podfest 2015

[32:00] here in New York City.

[32:01] It's January 9th.

[32:03] Yeah.

[32:03] At 10 p.m.

[32:04] Yeah, the doors open

[32:05] at 9.30,

[32:06] shows at 10.

[32:08] Cost is $10

[32:09] if you buy ahead of time,

[32:10] $12 at the door.

[32:12] Buy it ahead of time,

[32:12] save two bucks.

Elliott Kalan

[32:14] Then give that money to us.

Stuart Wellington

[32:16] Put it in our tin cups.

Elliott Kalan

[32:18] In our tin cups?

Stuart Wellington

[32:20] In our tin cups.

Elliott Kalan

[32:20] In our DVD copy of tin cups?

[32:22] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[32:24] That's about all there is to say about it.

[32:25] Well, that was enthusiastic.

[32:27] We're also going to plug

[32:28] something for comic book fans out there.

[32:31] I'm not sure why.

[32:32] You should hustle down

[32:34] to your local comic book retailer,

[32:36] bang on the counter,

[32:39] and say,

[32:39] Shopkeep,

[32:40] I would like to pre-order

[32:42] a copy of the

[32:44] Flash Gordon Holiday Special

[32:45] available from Dynamite Comics.

[32:48] Now, why would they want to do that?

[32:49] Because it features

[32:50] three stories

[32:51] for the price of one,

[32:52] and each story is written by...

Dan McCoy

[32:54] That's weird, three stories.

[32:54] There's three of us.

[32:56] Seems like a weird coincidence.

Stuart Wellington

[32:57] That's the thing, Dan.

[32:58] We each wrote a story

[33:00] in this thing.

[33:00] What? I did?

[33:01] Each focusing on a different holiday.

[33:04] So it's really great.

[33:06] It's a special one-shot issue.

[33:09] You don't need to have read

[33:10] anything beforehand,

[33:11] but you should,

[33:11] because that Flash series

[33:13] is really great.

[33:13] The Flash Gordon series

[33:14] is really good, yeah.

[33:15] And if you do not have

[33:17] a local comic book shop,

[33:18] which is sad,

[33:18] I feel bad for you,

[33:20] you should instead

[33:21] go on to the internet,

[33:22] which is everywhere,

[33:24] and...

[33:25] Even in your house.

[33:26] Yep, even in that pocket computer.

[33:27] It's watching you right now.

Elliott Kalan

[33:28] Open your mouth,

[33:29] that's internet in there.

Stuart Wellington

[33:32] And go on

[33:33] and pre-order it

[33:34] from the Dynamite website.

Elliott Kalan

[33:35] So that's the

[33:36] Flash Gordon Holiday Special,

[33:37] number one,

[33:39] and get tickets now

[33:40] for the January 9th show,

[33:42] The Flophouse Live.

[33:44] Oh, uh...

[33:44] New York City Podfest 2015

[33:45] at the Bell House

[33:47] in Brooklyn,

Stuart Wellington

[33:48] New York.

[33:49] Earth.

[33:49] You gonna plug

[33:50] your Twitter account?

Dan McCoy

[33:51] No, I just remember

[33:52] there's another thing

[33:53] I should mention.

[33:55] I had a brief guest spot

[33:57] on Wham Bam Pal,

[33:58] one of our fellow

[34:00] MaxFun Network shows,

[34:02] talking about something

[34:04] that I've talked about

[34:05] many times

[34:06] on this show,

[34:08] Return of the Living Dead.

[34:10] Merkins, then, I guess.

[34:12] So, you've probably

[34:13] heard me talk about it already

[34:15] if you're a fan of this show,

[34:16] but if you want to know

[34:17] what it sounds like

[34:17] when I'm talking,

[34:18] when I'm not being interrupted

[34:19] by Ellie and Stu,

[34:21] check out Wham Bam Pal.

Elliott Kalan

[34:22] That was a little pointed.

[34:24] Sounds great.

[34:24] Do you have anything else

[34:25] to plug, Elliot?

[34:27] I plugged that book

[34:28] that I had an essay

[34:29] in last episode,

[34:30] Never Can Say Goodbye.

[34:32] I have an essay in that.

[34:33] Plug up your fucking pie hole.

[34:35] Wow.

[34:36] But since...

[34:36] Wow.

[34:37] Plug that thing.

[34:37] Slate even plugged it for you, huh?

[34:39] Yeah, and Slate ran an excerpt.

[34:41] Yeah.

[34:43] So, Dan,

[34:44] how did you feel

[34:45] about 300 Rise of an Empire?

[34:48] I already said I didn't like it.

[34:50] Oh, well,

[34:50] was it a scarily spookanying

[34:51] or a snorkelly stupefying

[34:54] or was it a giddly good groke?

[34:57] Giddly good groke?

[34:59] That's the classification.

[35:01] Sure.

Stuart Wellington

[35:02] So he's got you.

[35:03] What kind of a groke is it?

Elliott Kalan

[35:04] For this theme month,

[35:05] which is...

[35:05] Is it a fazzleberry?

[35:07] November.

[35:08] No theme.

[35:09] Noid-vember.

[35:10] This month,

[35:11] we celebrate the noid.

Stuart Wellington

[35:13] Okay, so...

[35:13] Or rather,

[35:14] the avoidance of him.

[35:15] Hide those fucking pizzas.

Elliott Kalan

[35:16] He ruined some.

Stuart Wellington

[35:19] Excuse me,

[35:20] I am a hunter of pizzas.

Elliott Kalan

[35:24] The pizza will hide.

[35:26] The hawk looks

[35:27] where the hawk would hide.

[35:29] He looks in the attic.

[35:30] He looks in the belfry.

[35:31] I look where the pizza would hide

[35:33] in the basement,

[35:34] in the cellar.

[35:35] In the wooden pizza oven.

[35:38] I mean, America...

[35:39] I would not call myself

[35:42] a pizza hunter.

Dan McCoy

[35:45] We've done a lot.

[35:46] We've done a very good job

[35:47] of avoiding the noid

[35:48] over the past decade.

[35:49] Or 15 years.

[35:50] Or 20 years or so.

[35:51] Well, you gotta thank

Elliott Kalan

[35:51] the National Security State

[35:54] for that.

[35:54] Yeah.

[35:55] Yeah, enjoy your surveillance, dude.

[35:56] If it's worth being noid-free

[35:57] to have all your emails

[35:58] read by the NSA,

[35:59] have a fucking drone

[36:00] watching you every day

[36:01] brushing your teeth

[36:02] through the bathroom window.

[36:03] Yeah, enjoy your pizza, dude.

[36:05] Keywords,

[36:05] pepperoni.

[36:07] Pizza.

[36:09] It comes in 30 minutes or less

[36:10] where your pizza

[36:11] is not free,

[36:12] just like you.

[36:14] Actually, guys,

[36:15] look this up.

[36:16] Wow, that was a stretch,

[36:16] but I like it.

[36:17] Yeah, I know.

[36:17] That's just like,

[36:18] it's just like George Orwell

[36:19] said in 1984,

[36:20] Big Brother is feeding you

[36:22] pizza.

[36:24] Two plus two equals noid.

[36:27] Yeah.

[36:29] Hey, man.

Dan McCoy

[36:30] And then they put your face

[36:31] in a cage where noids

[36:32] eat it off.

[36:34] Just ruin it.

Stuart Wellington

[36:35] Yeah.

[36:35] Hey, wake up, pizzas.

[36:39] She pizzas.

Elliott Kalan

[36:41] Wait, she pizza?

[36:42] She pizza.

[36:44] That's when pizza's cousin

[36:46] got a transfusion from him

[36:47] and became she pizza.

[36:48] Okay.

[36:49] I'm just saying.

[36:49] It's got lamb on it.

[36:50] It's time for Occupy pizza.

[36:53] Sounds good.

Dan McCoy

[36:55] Does the noid even exist?

Elliott Kalan

[36:56] Has anyone ever seen this noid?

[36:58] And yet,

[36:59] I've got to take my pizza off

[37:00] when I go to the airport?

Dan McCoy

[37:02] Yeah,

[37:03] it's a false flag.

[37:04] Yeah.

[37:04] Noid.

[37:06] So,

[37:07] it's time to read

[37:08] a few letters

[37:09] from you,

[37:10] the listeners,

[37:12] to write letters

[37:13] to us,

[37:14] the hosts.

[37:15] Seems like a weirdly

[37:16] stilted introduction

[37:17] as if you're expecting something.

[37:18] No,

[37:18] I'm just gonna

[37:19] go right in.

[37:20] Dive right in.

[37:21] So,

[37:22] this first letter

[37:23] is from Brian,

[37:24] last name

[37:25] withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[37:26] Brian wrote us a letter.

[37:29] Letter number one's

[37:30] from Brian today.

[37:31] Hey,

[37:32] Brian,

[37:33] quit frying.

[37:34] In your hate

[37:35] for guys who don't

[37:36] read your letters

[37:37] because Dan's gonna

[37:38] right now

[37:39] read the letter

[37:41] and how.

[37:42] It's your letter,

[37:43] Brian.

[37:44] Hey,

[37:44] stop crying.

[37:45] Brian,

[37:46] this day's for you.

[37:48] Are we at the chorus yet?

[37:49] Letter number one.

[37:51] Maybe it'll be fun.

Dan McCoy

[37:53] Maybe it'll be done soon.

Elliott Kalan

[37:55] But let's make it last forever.

[37:58] This letter

[37:59] together.

[38:01] Those are three words

[38:02] that don't really rhyme,

[38:04] but I pretended they did

[38:05] for Brian.

[38:07] P.S.

[38:09] Dan.

Dan McCoy

[38:09] Brian was filmed

[38:10] in front of a live studio audience.

[38:12] So,

[38:12] this letter goes like this.

Elliott Kalan

[38:14] Whatever happened to

[38:15] predictability?

[38:16] Oh, boy.

[38:16] The milkman,

[38:17] the letters page.

[38:19] Brian's thing

[38:20] for us.

[38:21] I,

[38:21] he goes.

[38:22] Everywhere you read.

[38:23] He writes.

[38:24] There's a letter.

Stuart Wellington

[38:25] Full house.

[38:26] I read.

Stuart Wellington

[38:26] Boom,

[38:26] boom,

[38:27] do,

[38:27] do.

[38:28] Never met Brian before.

[38:30] Who cares?

[38:31] Do,

[38:31] do.

[38:32] Boom,

[38:32] boom,

[38:33] boom,

[38:33] boom.

Elliott Kalan

[38:33] Letter from Brian.

[38:36] Night court.

[38:37] Night court.

[38:38] In night court.

Dan McCoy

[38:39] Boom,

[38:40] boom,

[38:40] boom.

[38:41] So,

[38:42] uh.

Elliott Kalan

[38:43] Brian's letter.

[38:46] Do,

[38:46] do,

[38:47] do,

[38:47] do.

[38:48] Brian's letter.

Stuart Wellington

[38:49] Okay.

[38:50] So,

[38:51] so the podcast just sang a bunch of old TV themes.

[38:54] Thank you for writing the letter.

Elliott Kalan

[38:57] Unsubscribe.

[38:58] Sitting at your computer and write a letter.

[39:01] Your fandom's true.

[39:03] You're a pal and you wrote a letter.

[39:06] Do,

[39:06] do,

[39:07] do.

[39:07] And if you sent a letter,

[39:10] invited everyone you knew.

Dan McCoy

[39:12] What would we do?

[39:14] See,

[39:14] your letter would be for us.

[39:16] Without letters.

[39:18] What would we do?

[39:18] Brian's letter reads.

Elliott Kalan

[39:20] Well,

[39:20] there's a time for Brian and a time for letters.

Stuart Wellington

[39:22] I like it when you guys get right to the point.

[39:24] And don't bullshit around his silly songs.

[39:27] So,

[39:27] this letter goes like this.

[39:28] Show me that letter again.

Elliott Kalan

[39:31] Show me that letter.

[39:32] Don't waste another minute on this song,

[39:36] bit.

Dan McCoy

[39:37] Okay,

[39:37] so it goes like this.

[39:38] I recently acquired a role as a monster in a major motion picture.

Elliott Kalan

[39:42] Whoa,

[39:42] I wanted to hear about that.

[39:43] Why did you wait so long?

[39:44] I hope it's the next 300 movie.

Dan McCoy

[39:46] 300 Rise of Monsters.

[39:48] I'm concerned slash excited.

[39:50] It may eventually get viewed.

[39:51] It's called 300.

Elliott Kalan

[39:52] A Hermit's Tale.

[39:53] Greeks versus Draculas.

Dan McCoy

[39:54] I'm concerned slash excited that it may eventually get viewed for the show.

[39:59] I don't want to specify anything about the movie,

[40:00] but I know that I personally have no acting chops.

[40:04] Despite me being 6'7 and 170 pounds,

[40:08] it is unfortunately not a movie about Slender Man.

[40:11] Anyway,

[40:12] hopefully I'll have a reason to contact you guys once the movie comes out

[40:14] and you make fun of the stupid monster in it.

[40:17] Brian,

[40:17] last name with help.

[40:18] Now,

[40:18] come on.

[40:19] I want to know what the movie is now.

[40:20] Be more confident about yourself.

[40:20] The stupid monster in it?

[40:22] That's you.

[40:23] That's you,

[40:23] man.

[40:25] Right?

[40:25] Be happier.

[40:26] Yeah,

[40:26] yeah,

[40:27] yeah.

[40:27] No,

[40:27] he might be playing a stupid monster.

[40:29] Yeah.

[40:29] No,

[40:29] like a,

[40:30] like what?

[40:31] I mean,

[40:31] most monsters aren't super smart.

[40:34] Like a prankster.

[40:34] I'm a monster.

Stuart Wellington

[40:36] Dar,

[40:36] dar,

[40:37] dar,

[40:37] the beast master.

Dan McCoy

[40:40] Mark Singer,

[40:41] everybody.

[40:42] Like a King Kong.

[40:43] Like a big ape.

[40:44] King Kong's pretty smart for a monster.

[40:46] Yeah.

[40:46] I mean,

Elliott Kalan

[40:47] more like Gilman.

[40:48] Gilman is dumb as a bag of rocks.

[40:50] Yeah.

[40:50] All right.

[40:53] Don't get me started on the Metaluna mutant.

[40:55] He's got a big brain,

[40:56] but he's stupid as hammers.

[40:59] But this guy is more than...

[41:01] Hammer Man,

[41:02] though.

[41:02] Super smart.

[41:03] And not a monster.

[41:04] He's a heroic rapper with magic shoes.

Dan McCoy

[41:07] This guy's taller than six and a half feet.

[41:11] Okay,

[41:11] yes.

[41:12] And he is,

[41:12] he is,

[41:13] he weighs less than I do.

[41:14] Yeah,

[41:15] he's real skinny.

[41:15] So let's,

[41:16] I mean,

[41:16] he must be playing like a pumpkin head or a scarecrow man or something.

[41:19] He's a...

[41:20] Like a Skeletor.

[41:21] Essaying.

Stuart Wellington

[41:22] Yeah,

[41:23] I mean...

[41:23] He's writing an essay?

[41:24] Yeah,

[41:25] maybe he's like a,

[41:25] like a ant or something.

[41:27] Like a real monster.

[41:28] Right,

[41:28] yeah,

[41:29] yeah,

[41:29] an ant or an ant or a...

[41:30] A spindly monster.

[41:31] Yeah,

[41:31] like an insect monster,

[41:33] pumpkin head,

[41:34] as Elliot said.

Elliott Kalan

[41:34] Yeah,

[41:35] some kind of spindly monster.

[41:36] I know,

[41:36] do you look like a pumpkin head,

[41:37] Brian?

[41:37] A long legs.

Dan McCoy

[41:38] A what?

[41:39] A daddy long legs monster?

Stuart Wellington

[41:41] Yeah,

[41:41] yeah,

[41:41] sure,

[41:42] yeah.

[41:42] Well,

[41:42] that's not a spider,

[41:42] that's an insect.

[41:43] Yeah,

[41:43] no,

Dan McCoy

[41:44] I'm not,

[41:44] I didn't say it was a spider.

[41:46] Yeah,

[41:46] but the implication was clear.

Elliott Kalan

[41:47] I don't think...

[41:48] And I was pretty offended by it.

[41:50] I'm sorry,

[41:51] guys.

[41:51] It's not Danny long legs.

[41:52] Don't apologize to me,

[41:53] apologize to the daddy long legs and his children.

[41:56] They lost their mommy long legs in an accident.

[41:59] He's a single dad,

[42:00] just like on Full House.

Dan McCoy

[42:01] Whatever happened to predictability?

[42:04] The milkman,

[42:05] the paper boy,

Elliott Kalan

[42:06] the evening TV.

[42:07] Ah!

Dan McCoy

[42:08] What a weird song.

Elliott Kalan

[42:10] It doesn't make sense.

Dan McCoy

[42:11] What they're really angry about.

Stuart Wellington

[42:13] Why don't they just throw a fucking Beach Boys song in front of that show?

[42:16] I hope,

Elliott Kalan

[42:17] that'd be terrible.

[42:17] Probably Kokomo.

[42:18] My favorite,

[42:19] though,

[42:19] is still the Perfect Strangers song,

[42:21] which is so grandiose for that show.

Dan McCoy

[42:23] Standing tall on the wings of my dreams,

Elliott Kalan

[42:28] which is a lot for a show about a goofy guy with a funny accent to live up to.

[42:32] Yeah,

[42:33] all right,

[42:33] well...

[42:33] And it's got that plaintive harmonica at the end.

[42:36] Oh,

[42:36] it really touches your heart.

Stuart Wellington

[42:37] As they run up to the Cub Stadium,

[42:40] right?

[42:40] Yeah.

[42:41] Wrigley Field?

[42:42] Yeah,

[42:42] Wrigley Field.

Dan McCoy

[42:44] So...

[42:45] Wrigles-ly Field.

[42:47] Rob Wriglesfield.

[42:48] By Barnabas Wriglesby.

[42:50] This next letter...

[42:53] Okay.

[42:53] Talk slower.

[42:55] Goes like...

[42:56] Stretch.

[42:56] Like...

[42:57] This.

[42:59] Oh.

[43:00] It's from Finn,

[43:01] last name withheld,

[43:02] who writes,

[43:03] Last night,

[43:04] I had a dream in which I was...

[43:05] It's a shark man.

[43:07] I had a dream in which I was visiting an elderly relative.

[43:10] Dan,

[43:10] Stuart,

[43:11] and Elliot were hanging out in her kitchen.

[43:12] Dan explained that the three of you had started a private detective slash mercenary business

[43:17] together called N-Y-U-M, which stands for Not Your Usual Mayhem.

Elliott Kalan

[43:22] It's pretty good.

[43:24] It's pretty fantastic.

[43:25] The goal...

[43:25] And you say it,

[43:26] yum.

[43:27] Because it's delicious.

Dan McCoy

[43:29] The goal in Stuart's words was to make some money,

[43:32] kick some ass,

[43:34] and maybe get to ride in a helicopter.

[43:38] Dan explained that things were,

[43:41] quote,

Dan McCoy

[43:41] off to a slow start,

[43:43] and the current gig was organizing my aunt's utensil drawer.

[43:48] I mean,

[43:48] it seems like a small job for mercenaries.

[43:50] New York utensil manipulators.

[43:52] That could be our name, too.

[43:53] Other yum jobs.

[43:55] That included gutter repair and walking someone's dog.

[43:59] Stuart and I talked about...

[44:00] I don't know if we really count as mercenaries.

[44:02] Exactly.

[44:03] We're more handymen.

[44:05] Stuart and I talked about Gene Wolfe novels,

[44:07] and it was only after I woke up

[44:08] that I realized Elliot had been wearing a flak jacket

[44:11] and aviator shades the entire time.

[44:13] He looked pretty cool.

[44:14] Thank you.

[44:15] That's from Finn.

[44:16] Last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[44:19] Yeah,

[44:19] you'd be our,

[44:20] you'd be like,

[44:21] we'd call you specks or something.

[44:22] Yeah,

[44:23] or brains or something.

Elliott Kalan

[44:24] I'd be brains,

[44:25] but straight,

[44:25] or like nerd a bottom or something.

[44:27] Nerd a nerd?

[44:28] But strangely,

[44:28] I'm the only one of us

[44:29] who's been in like

[44:30] a real military combat situation,

[44:32] which is weird.

[44:33] You don't know anything about me, dude.

[44:34] You didn't shoot anybody.

[44:36] No,

[44:36] I did not shoot anybody.

[44:37] I shot a lot of bullets, though.

[44:38] Yeah.

[44:39] At targets.

[44:40] Mm-hmm.

[44:40] And I was very worried

[44:41] I'd lose control of the guns.

[44:43] were bears.

[44:44] Those targets

[44:45] were target superstores.

[44:47] Yeah,

[44:47] the famous...

Elliott Kalan

[44:47] Afghani...

[44:47] Oh,

[44:48] you know that guy

[44:50] who was shooting up

[44:50] all those target superstores?

[44:52] Shh!

[44:52] Wink!

[44:55] You're right,

[44:55] Stuart,

[44:55] I don't know anything about you

[44:56] because that part of your record

[44:57] has been redacted.

[44:59] Exposed.

[44:59] Exposed on order of the president.

Dan McCoy

[45:02] Sure.

[45:03] Okay,

[45:03] so this next letter

[45:04] is really long.

[45:05] What I know is you have

Elliott Kalan

[45:05] that plaque that says

[45:06] from a grateful universe.

[45:09] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[45:10] Yeah,

[45:10] I haven't shot as many bullets

[45:11] as you

[45:12] because knives aren't bullets,

[45:14] dude.

[45:14] I shoot them by throwing them.

Dan McCoy

[45:16] You're a regular Drax.

[45:18] So,

[45:18] I'm looking at this

[45:19] and it's a three-page long letter.

[45:22] I would like to discourage people

[45:23] from writing three-page long letters.

[45:25] Well,

[45:25] don't read them then.

[45:25] Well,

[45:26] this is a pretty good one.

[45:26] Okay.

[45:28] So,

[45:28] it goes like this.

[45:28] So,

Dan McCoy

[45:28] we should settle in or...

[45:30] Dear Stuart,

[45:31] Dan,

[45:32] and Elliot,

[45:32] in the order I imagine you

[45:33] standing on an imaginary staircase,

[45:36] after listening to your recent episode

[45:37] on Gangster Squad,

[45:39] I was surprised that you made no mention

[45:41] of the fact that the movie was based,

[45:42] albeit loosely,

[45:43] on a comic book property,

[45:44] especially since your entire podcast

[45:46] seems to reference that comic book

[45:48] and its characters

[45:49] using catchphrases,

[45:50] animal sidekicks,

[45:51] names,

[45:51] etc.

[45:53] I refer,

[45:53] of course,

[45:54] to the old FC Publications characters,

[45:57] the Peerless Pranking Peaches.

[46:00] I'm attaching a scan of the cover image

[46:02] from issue 32

[46:03] of the Flop Cat Comics title,

[46:05] Prankster Squad,

[46:06] one of the many FC titles

[46:07] which featured the Peerless Pranking Peaches,

[46:10] by that time simply known as

[46:11] the Original Peaches.

[46:13] Also below is an excerpt

[46:14] from Hal Finkelstein's chapter

[46:15] on The Peaches

[46:16] from his book

[46:17] Floozies,

[46:17] Flopcats,

[46:18] and Fedoras,

[46:19] the best forgotten age of comics,

[46:21] which is now unfortunately

[46:22] out of print.

[46:23] It goes,

[46:24] quote,

[46:25] it was in 1952

[46:26] that Flop Cat Comics

[46:27] editor-in-chief,

[46:28] Mort Flegel,

[46:29] decided to team up

[46:30] three of his

[46:30] poorer-selling characters

[46:32] into one team.

[46:33] Duke Wellington,

[46:34] the dapper detected,

[46:35] had been a moderately

[46:36] successful crime strip,

[46:37] featuring the adventures

[46:40] of a blue-blooded,

[46:41] cravat-wearing sleuth

[46:42] and his trusty feline sidekick,

[46:44] Sir Mittens Mewington III.

[46:47] Laughing boy Stan McCoy,

[46:49] Hoover's happiest G-man,

[46:51] took a more slapstick slant

[46:52] with the lead character

[46:53] who employed an arsenal

[46:54] of gags, jokes,

[46:55] and light-hearted hijinks

[46:56] to capture criminals.

[46:57] And Quentin Elliot

[46:59] Devereux Kalin,

[47:01] or QED Kalin

[47:02] boy investigator,

[47:04] was a backup feature

[47:04] that even at the time

[47:05] was seen as a cheap

[47:06] Encyclopedia Brown knockoff,

[47:08] despite the fact

[47:08] it predated Encyclopedia Brown

[47:10] by 19 years.

[47:12] In teaming

[47:13] these three characters together,

[47:14] first as the

[47:15] peerless pranking peaches,

[47:16] then after a threatened

[47:17] legal action

[47:18] from pranking Pete's

[47:19] perfectly peerless peach soda,

[47:21] a popular soft-drinking

[47:22] hair oil today,

[47:23] simply as the original peaches.

Elliott Kalan

[47:25] A popular soft-drinking

[47:25] hair oil?

[47:26] Hair oil.

[47:27] Ah, yeah, words.

[47:28] Okay.

[47:29] Legal would give

[47:30] FC Publishing...

[47:30] I hadn't interrupted you

[47:31] in a while,

[47:31] so I decided to make fun of you.

[47:32] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:34] Legal would give

[47:34] FC Publishing

[47:35] its most successful franchise.

[47:37] Soon the original peaches

[47:38] were featuring

[47:38] in over 15

[47:39] Flop Cat Comics titles

[47:41] from the crime-themed

[47:42] Prankster Squad,

[47:43] the horror title

[47:44] Fiendish Tales

[47:45] from the Flophouse

[47:46] of Horribleness.

[47:47] Horror title?

[47:48] Oh, horror.

[47:48] Horror.

[47:49] Okay, sorry.

[47:50] Yeah.

[47:50] Jesus Christ.

[47:51] Use context clues, guys.

[47:53] Use context rams, guys.

[47:55] It seemed, readers,

[47:57] your history

[47:58] is later now.

[47:59] You know?

[48:00] Did not get enough

[48:01] of the trio's mix

[48:02] of intrigue, humor,

[48:04] and educational adventure.

[48:05] In his autobiography,

[48:07] That Was Something I Did,

[48:08] Mark Flegal remembers,

[48:10] In those days,

[48:10] the original peaches

[48:11] were everywhere.

[48:12] You couldn't pass

[48:13] a street corner

[48:13] or school playground

[48:14] without hearing

[48:15] a group of kids

[48:16] argue over which of them

[48:17] had to pretend

[48:18] to be QED Kalen.

[48:20] Which of them

[48:21] got to be QED Kalen?

[48:22] At the height

[48:23] of their popularity,

[48:24] the peaches would go up

[48:24] against gangster

[48:25] Mickey Cohen,

[48:26] open a house painting

[48:27] business with Frankenstein,

[48:29] fight over starlet

[48:30] Mamie Van Dorn,

[48:31] Wait, what do you say

[48:33] about Mamie Van Dorn?

[48:33] Fight over starlet

[48:34] Mamie Van Dorn,

[48:35] and famously,

[48:36] sock Fidel Castro

[48:37] in The Kisser.

[48:38] But their success

[48:39] could not last.

[48:40] Public taste was changing,

[48:41] and by the early 60s,

[48:42] the current trend

[48:43] was for spandex-clad

[48:44] superheroes.

[48:45] Despite Flegel's attempt

[48:46] to cash in on the craze

[48:47] by having a magical

[48:48] leprechaun genie

[48:49] named Shazam O'Neill

[48:50] bestow superpowers

[48:51] and outlandish costumes

[48:53] on the trio,

[48:54] it seemed the peaches'

[48:54] days were numbered.

[48:56] In 1963,

[48:57] Rothenberg Rutherford,

[48:59] Then a day later,

[49:00] then the day after that,

[49:02] who portrayed Duke Wellington

[49:03] on the original

[49:04] Peaches Pelican

[49:05] patrolling an excitement hour,

[49:07] shot himself in the head

[49:07] 17 times,

[49:09] and the show was canceled.

[49:11] Oh no.

[49:11] How do you do that?

[49:14] And the peaches

[49:15] were explicitly cited

[49:16] in Dr. Herbert Wormstrung's

[49:18] Seduction of the Simple-Minded

[49:20] for leading lifestyles

[49:21] which were,

[49:21] according to Wormstrung,

[49:22] in opposition to

[49:23] all things decent

[49:24] and completely contradictory

[49:25] to wholesome living.

[49:27] That's, okay, fair.

[49:29] That's fair.

[49:29] Suddenly, parents were asking

[49:30] if the original peaches

[49:31] were indeed suitable role models

[49:32] for their impressionable offspring.

[49:34] After all,

[49:35] despite many references

[49:36] to girlfriends,

[49:36] fiancées,

[49:37] and eventually even wives,

[49:39] none ever appeared

[49:40] in the peaches'

[49:40] mini-adventures,

[49:41] and the three men

[49:41] always seemed happiest

[49:42] in their own company.

[49:44] By 1969.

[49:46] I mean, we talk about boobs

[49:47] a lot, I don't know.

[49:48] The original peaches

[49:49] were all but forgotten.

[49:50] Not only their spinoff character,

[49:52] the reformed jewel thief

[49:53] and feline philanderer,

[49:55] Franklin Leopold Oscar

[49:57] Prentice Cat,

[49:58] better known as the Flop Cat,

[50:00] remained in the public eye

[50:01] thanks to a national

[50:01] advertising campaign

[50:02] for a topical hemorrhoid cream

[50:04] which used the Flop Cat

[50:06] as a mascot.

[50:07] Although this proved

[50:08] to be a blow

[50:09] to the character's

[50:10] cult credibility,

[50:11] the original party animal

[50:12] was cited by Robert Crumb

[50:14] as a major inspiration

[50:15] for his character,

[50:16] Fritz.

[50:17] Crumb said,

[50:18] I was originally

[50:18] going to call it

[50:19] Fritz the dog

[50:19] and then I saw this ad

[50:21] for hemorrhoid cream.

[50:23] In the late 80s,

[50:24] visionary British comic scribe

[50:25] Adam Moorcock,

[50:26] a self-confessed

[50:28] Peaches fan,

[50:30] penned the 12-part

[50:30] deluxe limited maxi series

[50:32] How Peels the Peaches,

[50:34] a dark reimagining

[50:35] of the characters

[50:35] which proved extremely

[50:37] controversial with fans.

[50:39] Wellington,

[50:39] once a suave

[50:40] and cultured

[50:40] man-about-town

[50:41] was now a beer-and-boobs

[50:42] obsessed blue-collar

[50:43] everyman.

[50:45] The always upbeat McCoy

[50:46] Real Jim Belushi type.

[50:48] The upbeat McCoys

[50:50] reveal the separate

[50:50] I'm looking for a

[50:51] Jim Belushi type.

[50:53] Crippling depression,

[50:54] his trademark quips

[50:55] and little laughs

[50:56] replaced with mournful sighs

[50:58] and nihilistic fatalism.

[50:59] And as for QED Kalen,

[51:01] the boy with the computer brain,

[51:03] traits that once seemed

[51:03] endearing were now

[51:04] simply insufferable.

[51:06] Instead of a sharp-witted

[51:08] repository of useful facts

[51:09] and figures,

[51:10] it became a trivia-obsessed

[51:12] bore,

[51:13] constantly quoting

[51:14] obscure data,

[51:15] referencing long-forgotten

[51:16] movies,

[51:16] bursting into song

[51:17] in inopportune moments,

[51:18] and trying the patience

[51:19] of all but the most

[51:20] indulgent of fans.

[51:22] So that was the excerpt.

[51:24] People like to listen to us.

[51:25] I don't know.

[51:26] It seems...

[51:27] And that was from

[51:28] Nul Rurn.

[51:31] Vows from name withheld.

[51:33] Well, I have to say

Stuart Wellington

[51:34] that you did a great job

[51:36] with that letter, Dan.

[51:38] Thanks.

[51:38] That you wrote.

[51:39] There was a lot of

[51:41] vocal gymnastics

[51:42] that normally

Elliott Kalan

[51:44] would be a problem

[51:45] for you.

[51:46] Normally,

[51:46] and I want to say

[51:47] to whoever wrote that letter,

[51:48] that was a very funny letter,

[51:49] but you almost killed Dan.

[51:50] Mm-hmm.

[51:51] If he had read that

[51:52] in a normal state,

[51:53] his tongue would have

[51:54] jumped down his esophagus

[51:55] and strangled his esophagus.

[51:56] He would have choked

Dan McCoy

[51:57] on his own vocal voice.

[51:58] If I had read that

[51:59] in a normal state,

[52:00] it would be not

[52:01] being surrounded by U2

[52:03] where I could have done it.

[52:04] U2 is here?

Elliott Kalan

[52:06] Whoa!

[52:06] And I still

[52:07] haven't found...

[52:09] Get out of here.

[52:09] Like an angel, this guy.

[52:10] Get out of here, Bono.

[52:11] There's Bono over there.

[52:13] Bono, Edge,

[52:14] other members of the band

[52:15] whose names I don't know,

[52:15] get out of here.

Dan McCoy

[52:16] Get out of here, Bono.

[52:17] You put your songs

Elliott Kalan

[52:17] on my phone

[52:18] without me asking for them.

[52:19] That was bullshit.

[52:20] Let me just tell you that.

[52:22] That was like

[52:23] if he slipped $20

[52:24] into your underpants

[52:26] while you were wearing them.

[52:27] And he was like,

[52:28] pretty nice, right?

[52:29] I gave you $20.

[52:30] No, but you put your hand

[52:31] in my underpants.

[52:32] CDs cost $20 now?

[52:33] That seems like a double.

[52:34] Thanks, Obama.

Dan McCoy

[52:36] Seems like you had

[52:37] two benefits there.

[52:39] $20 and a hand

[52:40] on your pants.

Elliott Kalan

[52:40] I don't want Bono's hand...

Dan McCoy

[52:42] No, it's not in a good place, though.

[52:44] Oh, okay.

[52:45] Like you're talking...

[52:46] Wait.

[52:47] You're talking the butt.

[52:49] Look, let's leave it up

Elliott Kalan

[52:50] to the listener's imagination.

[52:51] Whatever you're part

[52:52] of your bathing suit area

[52:53] you least like

[52:54] having touched by Bono.

Stuart Wellington

[52:55] So when you stick a hand

[52:56] between somebody's butt cheeks,

[52:57] it's called a wedgie, I think.

[52:59] Yeah.

[52:59] No, no, it's called Bono.

[53:00] You go flappity, flappity.

[53:02] We established this lifestyle.

Elliott Kalan

[53:05] I didn't like it then

[53:06] and I don't like it now.

[53:09] I want to apologize

[53:10] to all the listeners

[53:11] on regards of decency.

Stuart Wellington

[53:14] I want to apologize?

[53:14] I want to get a good pot apology.

Elliott Kalan

[53:15] Well, you jumped all over.

[53:17] Wow, wow.

[53:18] Hoist on my own butard.

[53:21] Yeah.

[53:22] Hot.

[53:23] Hard.

[53:25] So...

[53:25] Dan, are you okay?

[53:28] Now's the point.

[53:29] You seem to be descending

[53:30] into madness.

[53:32] And I don't mean

[53:32] the good madness,

[53:33] the English ska band.

[53:35] No.

Dan McCoy

[53:36] I looked upon

[53:37] something out of

[53:38] a Lovecraft tale

[53:39] and now...

[53:41] But you couldn't come up

[53:41] with a specific reference,

[53:42] could you?

[53:42] No, I couldn't.

[53:44] Couldn't even say

[53:44] Necronomicon.

[53:45] The Dunwich.

[53:46] There's some kind of

[53:48] lurker on the doorstep.

[53:49] I'm done with this witch.

[53:51] Dunwich.

[53:51] It's about a tan witch.

[53:53] She's Dun-colored.

[53:54] Dun-colored, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[53:56] So now this is a part...

[53:57] Yeah, I'll take a Dunwich.

[53:58] It's a sandwich

[53:59] but it's got a...

[54:01] It's a fish man.

Dan McCoy

[54:03] Yeah.

[54:04] It's all tentacle based.

[54:05] That's the Innsmouth look.

[54:06] All right.

[54:07] So...

[54:08] What are we doing?

[54:10] We recommend a movie

[54:11] that we actually liked

[54:13] in opposition to the movie

[54:14] that we watched tonight.

[54:15] Wait, here on the podcast?

[54:16] Yeah, that's...

[54:17] We recommend a movie we liked.

[54:18] Yeah, this is the

[54:19] recommendation segment

[54:19] of the podcast.

[54:19] Do we like movies?

[54:21] Sometimes.

[54:22] We love that.

[54:22] Elliot, why don't you

[54:23] recommend something?

[54:23] Don't we hate movies

Elliott Kalan

[54:24] just like the title

[54:25] of our podcast?

Dan McCoy

[54:26] No, that's a different podcast.

[54:27] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[54:28] How did this get made?

[54:30] Hold on.

[54:31] The Dissolve podcast?

[54:34] Slate Culture Crabs?

[54:36] What's there?

[54:36] What's your podcast called?

[54:37] Yeah, WTF.

Dan McCoy

[54:39] Slate Culture Crab Festival.

[54:40] That's what it's called.

Elliott Kalan

[54:41] So I thought it was...

[54:42] Yeah, WTF dudes.

[54:43] Hey, who charted?

[54:44] Hey, welcome to Night Vale,

[54:46] you know?

[54:46] Am I right?

[54:47] Yep.

[54:48] Yeah, dude.

[54:49] Doug loves movies.

[54:51] Keith and the girl.

[54:52] And my brother,

[54:53] your brother and him.

Dan McCoy

[54:55] Well, that's a...

[54:56] That's not...

[54:57] Wait, what?

[54:58] It's a long podcast

[54:59] that's on our network.

[55:00] Well, I mean,

[55:00] we're not talking...

[55:01] Oh, sorry.

[55:02] Let's talk.

[55:03] Didn't mean to step

[55:04] on anyone's toes.

Elliott Kalan

[55:05] Let's talk about other podcasts.

[55:07] We're not tarring anything.

[55:08] We're just naming podcasts.

[55:08] We're just mentioning things.

[55:10] We're naming things

[55:10] and doing make-em-ups.

[55:12] Mm-hmm.

[55:13] Let's do some listicles.

[55:15] Dan's got...

[55:15] Yeah, we're doing an audio...

[55:17] We're doing some buzzfeed listicles.

[55:18] It's an audio listicle.

[55:19] We're buzzing.

[55:19] We're buzzing and we're feeding.

[55:22] You're on the buzz house.

[55:23] Okay.

[55:23] We can still salvage this podcast.

[55:25] I don't think so.

[55:26] Let's just talk about our...

[55:27] Let's give it a...

[55:28] Let's give her a free shirt.

[55:29] Let's give it a clean edit, Mark,

[55:30] and here.

[55:32] So I'll start.

[55:33] Here's a movie I like

[55:35] that I saw recently.

[55:36] It's a movie called The Plumber,

[55:39] and it's a movie that Peter Weir

[55:40] made for Australian television.

[55:42] Christopher Plummer.

[55:43] Yeah, it's the story

[55:43] of Christopher Plummer

[55:44] and how he started as a plumber.

[55:46] No.

Stuart Wellington

[55:47] I was actually talking

[55:49] about Peter Weir movies yesterday,

[55:51] and I didn't realize

[55:52] he directed Picnic at Hanging Rock.

[55:54] Yeah.

[55:55] Yeah.

[55:55] That's one of his...

[55:56] That's my favorite of his.

[55:57] Top films.

[55:58] And Master and Commander?

[56:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:01] And other shit.

[56:02] Directed many...

[56:03] I mean, directed those

[56:03] roughly 35 years apart.

[56:05] And Master at Hanging Rock

[56:07] and Picnic at the Edge of the World.

[56:09] No, but I'm saying...

[56:09] He's had a really long...

[56:10] The Commander's Picnic

[56:10] at the Edge of the World.

[56:11] He's had a really long career,

[56:13] but you don't...

[56:14] You don't hear about him a lot.

[56:14] He's not someone you think of

[56:15] as like,

[56:16] oh, the new Peter Weir

[56:17] movie is out.

[56:18] Yeah, exactly.

[56:18] But he's been making movies

[56:19] consistently for many years.

[56:22] But this is one he made after...

[56:24] Green Card.

[56:25] He directed Green Card, right?

[56:27] I think he did, yeah.

[56:28] That's a weird one for him.

[56:29] Yeah, the movie that introduced

[56:30] Gerard Depardieu to America

[56:31] so that he could become

[56:33] our father, the hero,

[56:35] and eventually bogus.

Dan McCoy

[56:36] It was sad when America realized

[56:38] that Gerard Depardieu was bogus.

[56:40] Totally bogus, in fact.

[56:43] And they said...

[56:43] And like Frankenstein's monster

[56:45] from Monster Squad,

[56:46] they said,

[56:47] and threw him away.

Elliott Kalan

[56:50] And they said,

[56:51] they kicked him in the nuts

[56:51] and said,

[56:52] Gerard Depardieu has nads?

[56:54] Just like in Monster Squad.

[56:56] He's got a wine-soaked pouch

[56:58] between his legs.

[57:01] That's too descriptive.

[57:02] That's where he keeps his wine.

[57:03] Too descriptive.

[57:03] His scrotal...

[57:04] It's a wineskin, yeah.

[57:08] Oh, man.

[57:10] Of course,

[57:10] his name means

[57:12] Gerard of Pardieu.

[57:15] Now...

[57:15] Pardieu.

[57:18] So, the movie is called

[57:19] The Plumber.

[57:19] It's a movie that

[57:20] Peter Weir made

[57:21] after Picnic at Hanging Rock

[57:22] for Australian television.

[57:23] And the thing about it is

[57:24] it's ostensibly a thriller.

[57:27] This couple...

[57:29] One is a...

[57:29] This guy is a professor

[57:30] at an Australian college

[57:32] in Sydney, I think.

[57:34] And his wife

[57:35] is an anthropology grad student

[57:37] who's working on her master's.

[57:38] Maybe it's a doctorate.

[57:40] And one day

[57:40] this guy who says

[57:42] he's the plumber

[57:43] for their university housing

[57:44] comes in and he's like,

[57:45] oh, you've got a problem

[57:46] in the bathroom.

[57:47] I've got to go in there

[57:47] and fix it.

[57:48] And the wife is like,

[57:49] we never called you.

[57:50] I didn't call the plumber.

[57:51] He goes,

[57:51] you've got a big problem.

[57:52] This place is going to flood.

[57:53] It's these old buildings.

[57:54] And the plumber is this

[57:55] very talkative,

[57:57] very overbearing,

[57:58] blue-collar guy

[57:59] who wears on his sleeve

[58:00] that he hates elites,

[58:01] hates intellectuals.

[58:02] He considers himself

[58:03] like a folk singer,

[58:05] man of the people.

[58:06] And there's something

[58:06] very creepy

[58:07] and overbearing about him.

[58:09] And without him

[58:10] ever doing too much

[58:11] that's openly threatening,

[58:13] you get this very creepy

[58:14] vibe from him

[58:15] and so does the wife.

[58:16] And nobody will listen to her

[58:17] that this guy is dangerous

[58:19] as he continues

[58:20] to come in every day,

[58:21] screw up their bathroom

[58:22] more and more,

[58:23] and kind of impose himself

[58:24] on her life more and more

[58:26] until she's forced to

[58:27] do what she can

[58:29] to get him out of her life.

[58:30] And it's one of these movies

[58:31] where like,

[58:31] looking back on it,

[58:32] there's no scenes

[58:33] that are like scare scenes,

[58:35] but there's this level

[58:35] of thriller paranoia

[58:37] that lasts throughout

[58:37] the whole thing

[58:38] that Peter Weir does.

[58:40] And it's almost like

[58:41] if he said,

[58:41] I'm going to take

[58:42] a similar feel

[58:43] to Picnic and Hanging Rock

[58:44] and I'm going to make

[58:45] a sitcom about a woman

[58:46] and a crazy plumber,

[58:48] but I'm going to treat it

[58:49] like it's this

[58:49] suspense thriller

[58:51] with an almost eerie

[58:52] overtone to it.

[58:53] And I really liked it a lot.

[58:54] So,

[58:55] The Plumber,

[58:56] directed by Peter Weir,

[58:57] and starring

[58:57] a number of Australian

[58:59] soap opera actors

[59:00] of the time.

[59:01] Natalie Imbruglia?

[59:02] Nope.

Dan McCoy

[59:04] That is the one

[59:05] Australian soap opera actor.

[59:06] This is not a name.

[59:07] Keith Ledger?

[59:08] One of those

[59:08] Hemsworths?

[59:11] There aren't

[59:11] soap operas too?

[59:12] And Thor's?

[59:13] I feel like there's

[59:13] the one that no one

[59:15] talks about.

[59:16] There's like the third one

[59:17] no one talks about.

[59:18] I feel like he's

[59:18] a soap opera guy.

[59:19] They have a sister

[59:20] that's going to be

[59:20] female Thor, right?

[59:22] Yeah, Lady Thor.

[59:24] Wait, her name is

[59:25] Lady Thor Hemsworth?

[59:26] She's the low Thor

[59:27] of the Thor people.

[59:29] She Thor.

Elliott Kalan

[59:29] So, The Plumber.

Dan McCoy

[59:33] So, I'm going to

[59:34] recommend a movie

[59:35] that needs no

[59:36] recommendation.

[59:37] So, don't recommend it.

[59:38] But it's a movie

[59:38] that I watched,

[59:39] re-watched recently.

[59:41] Eraserhead.

[59:42] It's about a guy

[59:43] who has a baby.

Elliott Kalan

[59:45] That's pretty much

[59:45] what it's about, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[59:46] It's a bunch of yucks.

Elliott Kalan

[59:49] Really?

[59:49] Eraserhead and

[59:50] Three Men and a Baby

[59:51] have the same synopsis.

[59:52] A man who's

[59:53] unprepared to take care

[59:54] of a child

[59:55] has a baby.

Stuart Wellington

[59:55] There's a ghost

[59:56] in the background

[59:57] of Eraserhead?

Elliott Kalan

[59:58] You didn't notice?

[59:58] There's a ton of weird

[59:59] shit flying around

[1:00:00] in the back of that movie.

[1:00:01] Yeah.

[1:00:02] There's the angel

Dan McCoy

[1:00:02] with the big cheeks

[1:00:03] and the radiator

[1:00:04] who sings that weird song.

[1:00:06] Yeah.

[1:00:06] And then the sperm

[1:00:07] fall on her

[1:00:07] and she's stomping

[1:00:08] on him with her

[1:00:08] high-heeled shoes.

[1:00:09] Yeah.

[1:00:10] It's a weird

[1:00:11] dream of a movie

[1:00:12] that is both

[1:00:14] unpleasant and

[1:00:15] unforgettable.

[1:00:17] Sort of hilarious

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:18] in another way.

[1:00:19] Oh, it's really funny.

[1:00:20] But it's scary and gross.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:22] So, if you want to

[1:00:23] have a real nightmare

[1:00:24] of an experience,

[1:00:26] watch Eraserhead.

[1:00:27] And the most recent

[1:00:28] Criterion DVD release

[1:00:30] has a bunch of short

[1:00:32] David Lynch films.

[1:00:34] I have not been able

[1:00:35] to watch all of them yet

[1:00:36] mostly because

[1:00:37] The Granny is like

[1:00:39] half an hour long

[1:00:40] which to me is

[1:00:41] pretty long for a short film.

[1:00:42] Well, The Granny?

[1:00:43] Or The Grandmother,

[1:00:44] I think it's.

[1:00:46] But I've watched

[1:00:47] the other ones.

[1:00:47] That's the length of

Dan McCoy

[1:00:47] a television show.

[1:00:48] I know.

[1:00:49] I just haven't had time.

[1:00:50] How many half-hour shows

[1:00:50] do you watch?

[1:00:51] I was trying to watch it

[1:00:53] on the same night

[1:00:53] I watched Razorhead.

[1:00:55] So, I could not get to it.

[1:00:56] Well, that's a fool's errand.

[1:00:57] But I did watch

[1:01:00] The Alphabet

[1:01:00] was a great

[1:01:02] five-minute short

[1:01:04] that's creepy

[1:01:05] and inexplicable.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:08] It's also a great way

[1:01:09] to form words.

[1:01:10] Yeah.

[1:01:11] You know, for communication

[1:01:12] whether speaking or writing.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:13] Yeah.

[1:01:14] The Alphabet.

[1:01:15] Try it today.

[1:01:15] For math,

[1:01:16] I recommend numbers.

[1:01:18] Oh, yeah.

[1:01:18] You can't go wrong.

[1:01:19] That's your top choice

[1:01:20] You're recommending

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:21] the TV show Numbers?

[1:01:22] Num the three-ers.

[1:01:24] Yep.

[1:01:25] You're recommending

[1:01:25] Murder by Numbers

[1:01:27] with Sandra Bullock.

[1:01:30] Or just the police song

[1:01:31] Murder by Numbers

[1:01:33] that it was based on.

[1:01:35] It's weird

[1:01:35] that that police department

[1:01:36] decided to release an album

[1:01:37] that I guess

[1:01:39] after Ferguson

[1:01:40] they had to do something

[1:01:40] to get their popularity back.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:44] So, erase her head.

[1:01:46] Okay.

[1:01:46] Erase her head?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:48] Yes.

[1:01:49] What's she going to eat with?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:50] This is my secret message

[1:01:53] to kill somebody.

[1:01:54] Erase her head.

[1:01:56] You know what I'm talking about.

[1:01:57] Barry.

[1:01:58] Wink.

[1:02:00] Wink.

[1:02:00] Barry Wink Wink?

[1:02:02] Yes.

[1:02:03] So, I'm going to...

[1:02:04] Famous baby

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:07] Barry Wink Wink.

[1:02:10] One of the top babies

[1:02:11] in the country.

[1:02:12] But anyway,

[1:02:12] you were saying, Stuart,

[1:02:13] you had a movie to recommend?

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:14] So, I'm going to recommend a movie.

[1:02:15] I'm going to recommend a movie

[1:02:16] called Witching and Bitching.

[1:02:18] I think that's the English title.

[1:02:21] The Spanish title is,

[1:02:23] I believe,

[1:02:25] Las Brujas

[1:02:26] de Zaguramurdi.

[1:02:28] I'm going to fuck this shit up.

[1:02:29] You already did.

[1:02:30] So, this is the most recent movie

[1:02:33] by Spanish director

[1:02:35] Alex de la Iglesia.

[1:02:38] Alex of the Glacier.

[1:02:40] Yep.

[1:02:42] I've seen a couple of this guy's movies,

[1:02:44] but I'm not a big, crazy fan.

[1:02:49] He's one of the Spanish directors

[1:02:50] from the same school

[1:02:52] as Iñárritu

[1:02:54] and Cuadón

[1:02:56] and...

[1:02:58] My brain is totally...

[1:03:00] So long takes.

[1:03:02] But he's made a lot of movies.

[1:03:06] He made...

[1:03:07] His early...

[1:03:08] Oh, he did The Last Circus.

[1:03:09] He got a fair amount of notoriety

[1:03:11] for movies.

[1:03:12] His debut,

[1:03:13] Axiom Mutante

[1:03:14] and The Day of the Beast.

[1:03:16] And then,

[1:03:17] kind of more recently,

[1:03:18] I saw 800 Bullets,

[1:03:19] which was quite good.

[1:03:21] And his movies are...

[1:03:22] And Witching and Bitching

[1:03:23] is similar to

[1:03:24] a lot of his movies

[1:03:26] in that it's...

[1:03:27] It manages to balance

[1:03:29] the intended tone of the movie,

[1:03:31] in this case,

[1:03:31] kind of like a horror movie,

[1:03:32] with a lot of silliness.

[1:03:36] The plot is

[1:03:38] a couple of guys,

[1:03:39] a couple of desperate guys,

[1:03:40] steal jewelry from a pawn shop.

[1:03:44] And in their escape attempt,

[1:03:46] they end up

[1:03:47] in a famous witch town

[1:03:50] in Spain

[1:03:51] near the border of France.

[1:03:53] And of course,

[1:03:54] they run afoul

[1:03:55] of a coven

[1:03:56] of cannibal witches.

[1:03:59] And they...

[1:04:00] There's some obvious

[1:04:02] horror beats

[1:04:03] that come up

[1:04:04] and they get wrapped up

[1:04:05] in this big...

[1:04:06] They get wrapped up in

[1:04:08] and the detectives

[1:04:09] that are following them

[1:04:10] get wrapped up in

[1:04:11] a big ritual

[1:04:12] to find some chosen one.

[1:04:15] But it manages to be

[1:04:17] a fairly effective

[1:04:18] horror comedy.

[1:04:21] And it...

[1:04:23] The conclusion

[1:04:24] ends up running

[1:04:24] a little bit long

[1:04:25] and not every single beat

[1:04:27] hits,

[1:04:28] but it manages to be

[1:04:29] charming enough

[1:04:30] that it works.

[1:04:32] And of course,

[1:04:33] like a lot of his other movies,

[1:04:35] it manages to feature

[1:04:36] a conclusion

[1:04:36] where both like

[1:04:38] the villains have lost

[1:04:40] and the good guys have won,

[1:04:42] but they're all

[1:04:42] kind of happy

[1:04:43] at the end.

[1:04:44] And it has a very...

[1:04:46] It has a very jovial tone.

[1:04:48] So, yeah.

[1:04:50] Check it out.

[1:04:52] All right.

[1:04:53] I think I will.

[1:04:53] You guys didn't interrupt me

[1:04:54] at all.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:55] We were both riveted.

[1:04:56] We were both riveted by it.

[1:04:59] Riveted with exhaustion.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:00] That too.

[1:05:01] And very tired.

[1:05:02] And yet,

[1:05:03] somehow I seem to find energy

[1:05:04] to interrupt Dan.

[1:05:05] I don't know what it is.

[1:05:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:06] It's weird.

[1:05:07] It's like,

[1:05:07] you know,

[1:05:08] like if a car

[1:05:09] was on your child,

[1:05:10] you'd have the strength

[1:05:11] to lift it up.

[1:05:12] Do not ever joke about that.

[1:05:14] You have the energy

[1:05:14] to interrupt you.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:14] That boy is a treasure

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:15] and a joy.

[1:05:17] Are you threatening him?

[1:05:18] What,

[1:05:19] like the tire is on him

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:20] or like it's...

[1:05:22] Just any part of the car.

[1:05:23] It's crushing him?

[1:05:24] No.

[1:05:24] Okay.

[1:05:25] Like it's just

[1:05:26] kind of touching him?

[1:05:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:28] If he's in a car.

[1:05:29] Crawled under the car,

[1:05:30] maybe.

[1:05:31] Oh,

[1:05:32] well,

[1:05:32] then I'll just go get him.

[1:05:33] Yeah.

[1:05:33] Like a baby's day out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:36] Classic.

[1:05:36] Pretty boring day.

[1:05:38] Officers,

[1:05:38] we got a classic

[1:05:39] baby's day out scenario.

[1:05:41] There's a baby on the loose.

[1:05:42] He's causing hijinks,

[1:05:44] almost getting hurt,

[1:05:44] but then not.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:46] Yeah.

[1:05:47] He's like a real

[1:05:47] Mr. Magoo of babies.

[1:05:49] I said I'd never deal

[1:05:50] with something like this

[1:05:50] since the jungle

[1:05:51] to jungle scandal.

[1:05:54] All right.

[1:05:55] Well,

[1:05:55] thank you for listening

[1:05:57] yet again.

[1:05:58] Who knows why

[1:05:59] you keep tuning in,

[1:06:00] but we appreciate it.

[1:06:00] I certainly don't.

[1:06:03] For the Flop Out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:04] 300,

[1:06:05] Rise of Empires

[1:06:06] Empire.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:07] Rise of Anne Empire.

[1:06:08] Rise of the Empire.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:09] Rise of Anne Empire.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:11] The Empire Strikes Back.

[1:06:13] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:06:16] You are.

[1:06:17] I am Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:19] And I will always be

[1:06:21] Elliot Kalin

[1:06:21] to my eternal shame.

[1:06:22] Never forget it.

[1:06:24] Good night, everyone.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:31] High and Lois.

[1:06:32] High,

Dan McCoy

[1:06:33] high and Lois.

[1:06:36] Oh,

[1:06:37] Trixie is sitting

[1:06:38] in the sunbeam.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:41] Because people

[1:06:42] wanted to know

[1:06:43] what's Beetle Bailey's

[1:06:44] sister up to.

[1:06:46] I forgot that was

[1:06:47] a spinoff.

[1:06:48] Yeah.

[1:06:48] Wait,

[1:06:48] which one?

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:50] No,

[1:06:50] but which one

[1:06:51] was Beetle Bailey's

[1:06:52] sister?

[1:06:53] Lois.

[1:06:53] Lois,

[1:06:54] okay.

[1:06:55] Is High a person?

Dan McCoy

[1:06:56] High is the husband.

[1:06:57] Yeah,

[1:06:57] okay.

[1:06:58] It's like short

[1:06:59] for Highland

[1:06:59] or something.

[1:07:00] Is there a High and Lois

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:02] where they get a letter

[1:07:03] about Beetle Bailey

[1:07:04] being killed in the war?

[1:07:06] I mean,

Dan McCoy

[1:07:07] Yes,

[1:07:07] there is.

[1:07:08] He's still alive.

[1:07:08] Wait,

[1:07:09] he's still alive?

[1:07:10] Beetle Bailey serves

[1:07:11] at Camp Swampy,

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:12] which is back

[1:07:13] on American soil.

[1:07:14] No,

[1:07:14] no,

[1:07:14] no.

[1:07:15] No,

[1:07:15] all those stories

[1:07:16] are from before

[1:07:16] he shipped off

[1:07:17] and died.

[1:07:17] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:18] I thought he got killed

[1:07:19] from friendly fire

[1:07:20] in Camp Swampy

[1:07:21] because he couldn't

[1:07:22] peel potatoes

[1:07:23] fast enough.

[1:07:24] Sarge shot him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:25] The general half-track

[1:07:26] was too busy

[1:07:27] chasing Miss Buxley

[1:07:29] around the desk

[1:07:29] and his gun went off

[1:07:30] and shot Beetle Bailey

[1:07:31] through a window.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:32] Sarge shot him

[1:07:33] for insubordinate answer.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:35] It was actually Sarge's dog

[1:07:36] who did it.

[1:07:37] He was killed

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:38] for treason.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:42] He was stealing secrets

[1:07:43] for the Chinese.

[1:07:45] Actually,

[1:07:45] much like Jacob's Ladder,

[1:07:47] all the Beetle Bailey

[1:07:48] comic strip

[1:07:48] is happening

[1:07:49] in Beetle Bailey's mind

[1:07:50] in the moment he's killed.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:51] It's like an incident

[1:07:52] in Isle Creek Bridge.

[1:07:53] Exactly,

[1:07:54] yeah.

The Flop House: Episode #164 - 300: Rise of an Empire

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