FH Mini 122 - Monster Mashers

[0:00] Hi, floppers, before we start this episode,

[0:02] I just wanted to remind you,

[0:03] we are in the middle of Flop TV season two.

[0:06] That's right, the one hour internet televised

[0:08] Flophouse TV show is here for you

[0:11] the first Saturday of every month through February.

[0:14] Just go to theflophouse.simpletics.com

[0:17] and get your tickets or season pass

[0:19] for this all new Flophouse TV stuff.

[0:22] We're covering movies we've never covered before.

[0:24] We've got video segments, it's amazing.

[0:27] Just go to theflophouse.simpletics.com

[0:29] for Flop TV season two.

[0:31] This time, it's personal.

[0:33] Hey there, flopsters, this is the Flophouse podcast

[0:41] and I am your Flopster-in-Chief, Stuart Wellington.

[0:45] You saw the title.

[0:45] Yep, it's important that I get myself a new title

[0:48] because, yeah, so this is a Flophouse mini.

[0:51] Now, normally on our other weeks,

[0:53] we do full episodes where we watch a bad movie

[0:55] and talk about it.

[0:56] On these weeks, the other weeks,

[0:59] we do a thing called a Flophouse mini

[1:01] where we talk for about as much time

[1:03] but with no particular direction.

[1:06] Today, guys.

[1:07] Sounds great.

[1:08] Yeah, wonderful.

[1:09] I love it for the co-direction.

[1:10] Yeah.

[1:11] Why don't I introduce you guys?

[1:12] You guys are gonna be helping me out today.

[1:13] I'm gonna be working through some stuff.

[1:15] Again, I'm Stuart Wellington

[1:16] and I'm joined by my regular co-host.

[1:18] Why don't you introduce yourself?

[1:19] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:20] I'm gonna be helping Stuart out today.

[1:22] I'm gonna be Elliot Kalin

[1:23] and I'm gonna be helping out Dan helping out Stuart today.

[1:26] Because that's the thing,

[1:27] I know that Elliot has some very important family business

[1:30] that he should probably be spending time with,

[1:31] maybe watching his children grow up or something like that.

[1:34] Yes.

[1:35] Dan has like four movies to watch at once.

[1:39] Just on screens orthogonally around me.

[1:43] Yeah, placed in different places

[1:44] while you spin around in a desk chair.

[1:48] Yeah, Dan goes,

[1:49] give me the Epcot world country scenario

[1:52] and it's just all around him, you know, 360 degrees.

[1:54] That's what I crave.

[1:56] Constantly overwhelming stimulus.

[2:00] Uh-huh.

[2:01] Yeah, you can't get it.

[2:02] That's the name of the pornography magazine

[2:04] that you subscribe to,

[2:04] Constant Overwhelming Stimulus.

[2:06] Uh-huh, yeah, yeah.

[2:07] I mean, I do crave stimulus,

[2:08] but I usually like to hate one thing at a time.

[2:11] Yeah, Constant Singular Stimulus.

[2:13] Yeah.

[2:14] Constant Stimulus is all Dan needs.

[2:23] Yeah.

[2:25] That was from Katie Lang, Kirk, Dan, McCoy, Lang.

[2:29] Oh, that actually makes a lot of sense.

[2:31] So I hope you're picturing Dan

[2:32] as this like mojo type character

[2:34] spinning around with his little crab legs

[2:36] watching as many screens as possible.

[2:38] Yeah.

[2:39] LA is what?

[2:40] He's one of the spineless ones, yeah.

[2:41] Minor Domo?

[2:42] I'll be Major Domo.

[2:45] But Minor Domo's the like fast talking one, right?

[2:47] Yeah, I think you're right.

[2:48] Yeah, I think you're right.

[2:49] And I'd be what, Shatterstar?

[2:51] I think you're one of the ex-babies.

[2:52] You're maybe the little baby wolverine.

[2:54] Oh, my God, you gave me point.

[2:58] Yeah, that's amazing.

[2:59] Pride of place, yeah.

[3:00] Okay, so guys, as I mentioned before,

[3:02] I eluded. Kitty Pride of place.

[3:03] Continue.

[3:03] Guys.

[3:05] Oh, man.

[3:05] Someday this.

[3:06] The band has started salivating.

[3:07] Let's start.

[3:08] She's a teenager, Stuart.

[3:10] She's not a teenager anymore, Dan.

[3:12] She's a grown-up pirate.

[3:13] Come on, she's not a pirate anymore.

[3:14] She's a grown-up in the comics now.

[3:15] Yeah, but at the time you were a teenager,

[3:17] so it's fine, right?

[3:18] Is that her line?

[3:19] Yeah, sure.

[3:20] My vision of Kitty Pride is locked

[3:22] into the time that I was the same age.

[3:24] It's exactly like how I could have a crush

[3:26] at the time on Natalie Portman in The Professional

[3:28] because I was also 12 years old.

[3:31] It works out.

[3:31] Now I cannot.

[3:32] I don't want to have a crush on Natalie Portman

[3:33] in The Professional, and I don't have one anymore.

[3:35] Would not be a, okay.

[3:36] More of a black swan Natalie Portman, right?

[3:39] Yeah, for sure.

[3:40] Of course, she's a ballerina.

[3:41] She's losing her mind.

[3:42] I don't know.

[3:43] She seems like she's got issues.

[3:44] She's got an overbearing mother

[3:45] who, of course, would become my mother-in-law.

[3:47] Yeah, great.

[3:48] I can fix her.

[3:49] Okay, so.

[3:50] She thinks she's turning into a bird, hubba hubba.

[3:53] Guys.

[3:55] Guys, as I alluded to before, you gotta help me out.

[3:58] There's no structure.

[4:01] I just got a new job.

[4:03] A man with way too many jobs already.

[4:05] You already have too many jobs.

[4:06] I just got a new job.

[4:07] I got hired by Universal Studios.

[4:09] What?

[4:10] Wow.

[4:11] Because Universal Studios.

[4:12] Wow.

[4:13] Needed.

[4:14] Wow.

[4:15] Yep.

[4:17] Needed somebody to do some testing,

[4:20] some audience testing.

[4:21] Okay.

[4:22] And hired me to interview some movie experts

[4:25] so that they can start working on,

[4:28] that's right, the return of the Dark Universe.

[4:31] Oh, boy, so exciting.

[4:33] With hit movies like Nosferatu and the upcoming Wolfman

[4:37] and, did I hear rumblings

[4:39] of a Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein movie?

[4:42] The Universal monsters are back, baby.

[4:45] And so I think it's a perfect time

[4:47] for us to start talking about,

[4:48] let's make more of these movies.

[4:50] Okay.

[4:52] So.

[4:52] I'm not against it.

[4:53] I love those characters, sure.

[4:54] If you're unfamiliar with the Dark Universe,

[4:56] dear listeners, just, I don't know, Google it.

[4:59] People, you'll see some pretty funny pictures.

[5:01] Helpful.

[5:02] I'll mention, Stuart, I'll help you with this one.

[5:04] The Dark Universe was an interconnected series of movies

[5:07] that didn't exist.

[5:09] They released one of them, The Mummy,

[5:10] and they did a photo shoot of the stars

[5:12] of the upcoming films.

[5:13] And then when The Mummy didn't do that well,

[5:15] they canceled all the other movies.

[5:16] So Angelina Jolie is the Bride of Frankenstein,

[5:18] not happening.

[5:19] Johnny Depp is the Invisible Man, not happening.

[5:20] But they built it up and they made a whole logo for it.

[5:23] This was gonna be the next big interconnected movie universe

[5:26] and then it died almost instantly.

[5:26] I also think there was a Dracula one before that.

[5:30] Yeah, Leslie Nielsen.

[5:31] That was like sort of a soft launch for the Dark Universe.

[5:33] And when that failed, they were like, no, no, no.

[5:35] The Mummy, that's the real launch of the Dark Universe.

[5:37] I think that's, so that was Dracula Untold, I believe.

[5:40] Yeah.

[5:40] Featured on this podcast.

[5:42] I don't know if it's officially Dark Universe canon.

[5:45] I think they were trying,

[5:46] but I don't know if it has a Dark Universe logo on it.

[5:47] That's what I'm saying.

[5:48] I think they were like dipping a toe in

[5:50] and they're like, that didn't work.

[5:51] They're like, no, no, no, no, no.

[5:52] Forget that.

[5:53] This is the Dark Universe.

[5:54] Yeah.

[5:55] Here.

[5:56] Look over here.

[5:57] Come on.

[5:58] Dracula, no way.

[5:59] It's The Mummy.

[5:59] Come on.

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:01] So guys, we're gonna talk about

[6:02] some of these universal monsters.

[6:03] We're gonna talk about some of the movies that they're in

[6:04] and what we're looking,

[6:06] what you guys would look for in one of these movies.

[6:08] And then after a little bit of a break,

[6:10] we'll come back and talk crossover opportunities

[6:13] and merchandise opportunities.

[6:15] That's what I need from you today.

[6:17] So let's start talking about,

[6:18] who are we talking about?

[6:19] That's, let me just get,

[6:20] let's do a little roll call here.

[6:22] Sure.

[6:23] Monster roll call.

[6:24] Kanbot.

[6:25] Yep.

[6:26] Dracula.

[6:27] Tom Servo.

[6:28] We got, are we allowed to do that?

[6:29] Or is that, are we gonna get sued?

[6:31] I'll talk to Joel about it.

[6:33] Okay.

[6:34] So we got Dracula.

[6:35] Okay.

[6:36] Vampires.

[6:36] You got the Wolfman.

[6:37] So werewolves.

[6:38] Werewolves.

[6:39] Yeah.

[6:40] Frankenstein's.

[6:41] Which are Frankenstein's monsters.

[6:44] Archie.

[6:45] Archie is knocking shit off the.

[6:47] I like, Dan said that as if Archie

[6:48] was one of the universal monsters,

[6:49] like Archie Andrews, America's eldest teenager.

[6:53] Archie is Dan's cat,

[6:55] who has been knocking things off the shelf behind us.

[6:59] We have a Gill Man.

[7:00] You might know him as a Black Lagoon, creature of.

[7:06] Creature from the, yeah.

[7:07] Yep, thank you.

[7:08] Invisible Man.

[7:10] And Dr. Jekyll.

[7:11] Ralph Ellison's haunting novel

[7:12] about race in the United States, yeah.

[7:14] That's what we're talking about.

[7:15] And Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's.

[7:18] Hyde's?

[7:18] Now is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde really,

[7:21] I don't know if I would officially call that

[7:24] a universal monster character.

[7:25] Well, here's the thing.

[7:26] In the dark universe he's in it.

[7:27] And the, I believe, didn't they,

[7:31] I know that they did,

[7:32] I know that Universal did a version of Phantom of the Opera

[7:35] that is considered, that's a universal.

[7:36] That was kind of backed into the universal monsters.

[7:38] Yeah.

[7:40] But I'll allow it, I'll allow it.

[7:41] They're all, except for the creature from the Black Lagoon

[7:45] and the Wolfman, which is at least based on maybe folklore,

[7:48] they are essentially the great monsters

[7:50] of a certain strain of Gothic literature

[7:53] or science fiction literature

[7:55] that have been adapted into this shared world between them.

[7:59] Yeah.

[7:59] So the first one we're going to start with is Dracula's.

[8:02] That's a vampire.

[8:04] There's a hot new movie in the theaters right now,

[8:07] Masferatu, a movie I have not seen,

[8:09] although I've heard that the vampire

[8:12] has a mustache and a dong.

[8:13] He has a big mustache and in one scene he does have a dong.

[8:16] I mean, he has in two scenes he has a dong.

[8:17] One you see it and one he uses it.

[8:19] Okay.

[8:20] And he is essentially Dracula

[8:21] in that this was a total ripoff

[8:24] to avoid copyright on Dracula.

[8:27] And then on Masferatu, the original, almost, you know,

[8:30] like flirted with, the judge said that it had to,

[8:33] all the copies had to be destroyed,

[8:35] but it survived because people had taken copies from him.

[8:37] Yes, this is a remake of a ripoff of Dracula.

[8:40] Yeah.

[8:41] Cool, cool, cool, cool.

[8:42] So let's talk vampire movies, dudes.

[8:44] Do you have any favorite vampire movies out there?

[8:47] I mean, this is a big one.

[8:48] I feel like there's a ton of vampire movies out there.

[8:52] So what are some of your faves?

[8:53] Like a Near Dark, a Lost Boys.

[8:56] I mean, yeah, of course.

[8:58] Well, not so much the Lost Boys.

[8:59] Near Dark, yes.

[9:02] Fright Night, I like.

[9:04] Fright Night's good.

[9:05] I gotta say that the vampire has never been

[9:08] a monster that spoke to me as much as the others,

[9:09] but what do you have, Elliot?

[9:11] I've gotta say, also, I mean,

[9:13] I'm a big fan of the movie Martin,

[9:15] the George Moran movie about a young man

[9:17] who thinks he's a vampire.

[9:18] I'm a big fan of the,

[9:21] Bill Lugosi's performance as Dracula,

[9:23] even though the original Dracula is a little slow.

[9:25] The Spanish language 30s Dracula is a really fun movie,

[9:28] even though the actor is not as good as Bill Lugosi.

[9:32] Interview with the Vampire, when I finally saw it,

[9:34] I realized that movie in a lot of ways.

[9:36] So there's a lot of good vampire movies out there.

[9:37] What about the Larry Fessenden Habit?

[9:40] Did you ever see that one?

[9:41] You know what?

[9:42] I've never seen Habit.

[9:43] I mean, it's a good New York movie.

[9:44] I think you'd dig it.

[9:45] Grace Jones in Vamp.

[9:46] I've never seen it.

[9:47] Vamp's pretty good, it's fun.

[9:49] Ganja and Hess, which is a good vampire movie.

[9:51] It's more of a kind of artsy vampire movie.

[9:53] There's another one that was on the tip of my tongue

[9:58] and I'm forgetting it.

[9:58] And there's the 70s Mosferatu.

[10:00] Cronos. I mean, what about Cronos?

[10:01] Cronos is really good.

[10:02] Yeah. Alternatives.

[10:03] Kind of a vampire movie.

[10:05] Little twist on a twist on a take.

[10:06] So we talked about a lot of vampire movies that we like.

[10:09] So when making a vampire movie,

[10:11] what do we what kind of a scene?

[10:12] What scenes do we need in it?

[10:14] Like what when you're watching a vampire movie,

[10:16] what's the thing you expect to see?

[10:19] I think that the vampires,

[10:21] unless you're talking like a 30 days of night style,

[10:23] more sort of feral vampire,

[10:26] the vampires like Will Ferrell.

[10:27] Yeah, yeah.

[10:29] Vampires are a lot friendlier monster in that,

[10:35] you know, he has to be invited into your home,

[10:39] but often he'll invite you into his home and,

[10:42] you know, have a meal with you or entertain you.

[10:44] He's one of the few monsters.

[10:45] He plays with his food.

[10:46] It's one of the few. He does play with his food.

[10:48] He's one of the few monsters who has manners

[10:51] and wears nice clothes often, not always.

[10:55] I think the thing that is more important to me,

[10:57] than anything else in a vampire movie,

[10:59] is a sense of creeping dread of some kind.

[11:02] The idea that there's an ominous quality to the character

[11:06] that gets worse and worse as the other characters

[11:08] are drawn closer and closer to them.

[11:10] I feel like that's something that Near Dark does really well.

[11:13] Even though you know these are vampires from pretty early,

[11:15] there's this feeling that like,

[11:16] it's going to get worse and worse

[11:18] and the atmosphere is going to get darker

[11:21] and scarier and creepier, you know?

[11:23] And I think there also has to be some level of appeal.

[11:27] Yes. I feel like that's part of vampires.

[11:30] They're the opposite of werewolves,

[11:32] where with werewolves, it is just an out and out curse.

[11:34] There's nothing really particularly good about it.

[11:36] It is not a power fantasy.

[11:38] It's entirely a terror of,

[11:41] oh my God, if this happened to me,

[11:42] I would lose control of myself and become a monster.

[11:44] I couldn't be trusted.

[11:44] Whereas with vampires,

[11:45] there's this temptation and a seduction aspect to it.

[11:48] You know, oh, maybe I would want to live forever.

[11:50] Maybe I would want to live off the blood of others.

[11:53] There's a certain sexiness to it,

[11:55] which I think goes hands in hand

[11:56] with that kind of like manners, clothes, suaveness.

[12:01] Even the vampires in Near Dark,

[12:02] there's something seductive about like,

[12:04] they're part of this traveling family

[12:06] that doesn't play by the normal rules, you know?

[12:08] Whereas a werewolf forces you to become an outcast,

[12:10] a vampire allows you to live outside of normal society

[12:14] in a freer way.

[12:15] Although keeping in mind,

[12:16] you can never go outside during the day,

[12:18] which is a big limitation.

[12:19] That's a big limitation.

[12:22] Yeah. That's all fair.

[12:23] Now, some other things like,

[12:26] do you need to have a scene of, you know,

[12:28] somebody transforming into a vampire?

[12:31] Do you need bats and werewolves or like bats and wolves?

[12:35] Do you need mist?

[12:38] Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

[12:40] I kind of like a vampire

[12:42] that just looks like a vampire all the time.

[12:43] Unless it's like, I mean,

[12:45] I guess this actually does include-

[12:47] Are you talking about David Boreanaz's angel?

[12:50] No, he doesn't.

[12:51] No, he actively changes, Stuart.

[12:54] And when you say a transformation,

[12:55] do you mean the vampire changes from human to monster

[12:58] or you mean a person transforming into a vampire?

[13:00] Like becoming one for the first time, you know?

[13:02] Yeah, yeah, that's what you're talking about.

[13:05] Yeah, you gotta have that.

[13:06] Yeah, you gotta have that.

[13:07] You gotta have someone making the choice

[13:08] or being confronted with it or forced to do it

[13:11] and having to try to get out of it, you know?

[13:13] And in some ways, that's one of the,

[13:15] I mean, when you see the new Nosferatu,

[13:16] you see that in the new Nosferatu,

[13:18] there's like less of a sense in my mind-

[13:20] Nosferatu.

[13:22] What?

[13:24] Anyway, coming up on Nosferatu,

[13:26] the vampire stories you need to know.

[13:29] My name's Atu.

[13:32] Nosferatu, news for you.

[13:34] And Nosferatu, it's news for you.

[13:38] And I think that there's less of a feeling

[13:41] of a character being seduced to the dark side

[13:44] because the character already has a dark side to them.

[13:46] And also, Nosferatu, the character,

[13:47] is such a grotesque creep.

[13:50] It feels very little like there's a like,

[13:52] oh, who's this guy?

[13:53] Well, who's the new guy in town?

[13:55] I know that his land deal is a sham,

[14:00] a cover for other stuff in Nosferatu,

[14:02] but I did find it very funny

[14:03] that Nicholas Holt's Jonathan-esque character,

[14:07] I don't know what he's called in Nosferatu,

[14:09] is there taking at face value like,

[14:12] oh yeah, this guy wants to buy a house in London.

[14:15] This feral rat man is really interested in-

[14:19] Well, the other thing is,

[14:20] and Stuart, this will be spoiling a little bit for you,

[14:22] is that Nosferatu basically gets Holt,

[14:26] like gets him drunk or high.

[14:28] He's in a daze and he gives him a contract

[14:30] written in a language he doesn't understand

[14:32] and has him sign it kind of in a haze.

[14:34] And then later Nosferatu says to his wife like,

[14:36] well, he signed you away to me.

[14:37] He signed the contract.

[14:38] And I feel like all she has to say is like,

[14:40] bullshit, he didn't know what that contract said.

[14:42] That's not gonna hold up in a court of law.

[14:44] It seemed like one of the few vampire movies

[14:45] where they could probably get out of it by suing him

[14:49] as opposed to destroying him.

[14:50] But anyway, I think you do want those things.

[14:54] You wanna see a person confronted with a vampire

[14:58] and being tempted to join them or joining them.

[15:00] Okay, and let's keep this quick.

[15:02] Let's just fire it right off the top of your dome.

[15:05] How do we make a vampire movie fresh?

[15:08] Because there's been a bunch of them.

[15:10] There has been.

[15:11] Space, put vampire in space.

[15:13] There are space vampire movies.

[15:15] Life Force is a space vampire movie.

[15:16] There's a Planet of the Vampires, yeah.

[15:18] Yeah, I think there was a really scary episode

[15:22] of Buck Rogers with a vampire in space too.

[15:24] Oh, awesome, yeah.

[15:25] More like suck Rogers

[15:26] because he sucks the blood out of people.

[15:28] Yeah, I'd love to see that.

[15:31] How do you make it fresh?

[15:32] Here's the thing.

[15:33] So a lot of these monsters work best

[15:36] when they are metaphors for a thing,

[15:38] for something that is on the minds of the people.

[15:40] There's a movie called The Monster Show, I think it is.

[15:43] It's a monster show by Richard Scull

[15:46] where it's talking about how so many

[15:47] of these monster movies from the 30s,

[15:49] he sees as people dealing with the trauma of World War I

[15:52] and the new knowledge of how a body can be destroyed,

[15:55] what can happen to a body and the damage you do to it.

[15:57] And I feel like with vampires,

[15:59] there is some way to make it a metaphor

[16:01] for the 1% income inequality, something like that.

[16:05] There's this class that is literally preying

[16:08] on normal people and in a way

[16:10] that they're not always aware of.

[16:12] But that's a theme.

[16:13] I don't know exactly how to do it in a story.

[16:15] No, that's good though

[16:16] because I was thinking along those same lines

[16:18] and what I was thinking about was like,

[16:19] oh, often they use it as a metaphor for disease spreading

[16:24] and certainly coming off of COVID.

[16:26] And that reminded me of one of my problems

[16:28] with the new Nosferatu where it seemed to boil down

[16:31] to like, forget the science,

[16:33] listen to my crazed ravings about the supernatural.

[16:37] You got to do it this way.

[16:38] Well, that's the issue with a lot of these movies.

[16:40] It reminds me of that first Godzilla versus Kong,

[16:43] I think it was, where it was like,

[16:45] every scientist knows the earth is not hollow

[16:47] except this one scientist and he's right.

[16:50] And it's like, we should always listen to the outsider

[16:52] who doesn't agree with the scientific consensus.

[16:54] That's what you're telling me.

[16:55] But I think that's one way to do it.

[16:58] Yeah, make it about something.

[16:59] Okay, so let's move on to our next movie monster.

[17:02] That's the Wolfman, a werewolf.

[17:05] There's been a couple of these movies.

[17:06] Are there any ones that are particularly favorites of you?

[17:10] I have a higher, yes.

[17:13] I think there's more in the wolf zone that I like.

[17:15] I really like American Werewolf in London.

[17:17] Yep.

[17:17] I like the howling.

[17:18] Hell yeah.

[17:19] Dog Soldiers is pretty good.

[17:21] Dog Soldiers is good, yeah.

[17:22] Like even a dumb werewolf movie I'll enjoy.

[17:25] I saw, there was like a Terror Tuesday of Silver Bullet.

[17:29] But I was like, it's fun.

[17:32] What about Wolf?

[17:33] I've never seen Albert Finney in Wolf.

[17:36] Wait, no, no.

[17:36] Jack Nicholson.

[17:37] Yeah, Jack Nicholson.

[17:39] And Albert Finney is the detective in Wolfman, or he's a detective.

[17:42] He's trying to find the wolf in, yeah.

[17:44] Okay, Wolf.

[17:44] Jack Nicholson is in Wolf.

[17:46] Wolf, I've seen.

[17:46] That doesn't quite work.

[17:47] I saw it when I was young and I don't really remember it.

[17:50] And I still only remember the scene from the commercials

[17:52] where he's peeing on the floor in the bathroom.

[17:53] Oh yeah, there's a scene where he like,

[17:55] somebody puts their hand on his shoulder

[17:58] and he like bites it really funny.

[18:00] I thought Wolf was funny because it was like,

[18:02] it's not like publishing can't be cutthroat,

[18:05] but it's not like the most cutthroat business.

[18:07] And it's like, you really need to turn into this wolf man.

[18:09] I think it shows you Mike Nichols' view of the publishing world.

[18:13] Exactly.

[18:14] Oh, I think we also forgot probably my favorite werewolf movie, Ginger Snaps.

[18:19] Oh yeah.

[18:20] I think that might be my favorite, yeah.

[18:21] And that's, I mean, it obviously wears its metaphor on its sleeve or...

[18:26] You said that as if it was a pun.

[18:29] No, I guess you're right.

[18:29] Werewolves are famously sleeved.

[18:33] But I think it...

[18:34] Puberty and sleeves.

[18:35] I feel like that's like one of the, I feel, yeah,

[18:38] like I feel like Ginger Snaps talks about it in,

[18:40] like as a puberty metaphor in a way that like...

[18:42] As a teen wolf.

[18:44] Yeah, but I mean, well, I guess you're right.

[18:45] I guess I'm gonna say teen wolf did it first and better.

[18:49] No, I'm not saying, I'm just saying that that's like...

[18:50] I mean, and then I was a teenage werewolf did it before teen wolf too.

[18:54] Yeah, okay, I'll shut up.

[18:55] I didn't mean to.

[18:56] I'm just saying, I feel like it felt pretty fresh and novel the way Ginger Snaps...

[19:00] I will say that I think Ginger Snaps doing it as a female puberty story,

[19:04] as opposed to just a puberty story.

[19:06] And but also that Ginger Snaps does it better than teen wolf.

[19:08] Teen wolf is not the best use of werewolf as puberty metaphor.

[19:15] You know, when you go through that change,

[19:16] or suddenly you become great at basketball,

[19:18] and you have to decide how to use your basketball powers.

[19:21] Say more on that.

[19:24] But so werewolves, werewolf movies, you're asking for what?

[19:26] How we make it fresh and fun?

[19:28] Well, first off, I would say what kind of scenes do we need in a...

[19:33] What is the werewolf movie nears where you need the transformation?

[19:36] You need the transformation scene.

[19:37] It's got to be big and scary.

[19:38] You got to have a scene where someone is telling someone else to

[19:41] barricade them somewhere, or like, you know, they're begging for help.

[19:44] Don't let me out.

[19:45] That kind of thing.

[19:46] You got to have a scene where they're surfing on a van.

[19:48] That is a definite.

[19:51] You got to have them bite into a van and it sprays everywhere.

[19:53] Yeah, a scene where the person who was afflicted with lycanthropy is underestimated

[19:59] because they're...

[20:00] just a regular old human and the person doesn't realize,

[20:02] oh no, this guy's gonna turn into a wolf.

[20:05] I mean, speaking of jokes about specific movies,

[20:07] I wouldn't mind getting Griffin Dunn back in one.

[20:09] Come on.

[20:10] Yeah, get Griffin Dunn back in one.

[20:12] Sure, yeah.

[20:13] He's still a working actor, you can find him.

[20:15] Only murders in the building.

[20:17] Now let him play the werewolf.

[20:19] Yeah.

[20:20] He's getting more wolf than looking.

[20:20] There could have been a wolf in the buildings.

[20:22] Yeah.

[20:23] Yeah, only werewolves in the building, yeah, sure.

[20:25] I mean, that, to be honest,

[20:26] that is something that I would think

[20:28] would be a cool way to do a werewolf movie,

[20:30] is to do it in more of an urban setting that way,

[20:32] to even, you lose the spookiness of the woods,

[20:34] but if you've got a werewolf

[20:35] loose in a high-rise apartment building,

[20:36] that's real scary, you know?

[20:38] And also, like, the idea of, like,

[20:40] the, your, like, primitive nature coming in conflict

[20:43] with the, you know, the more urban and modern and urban.

[20:48] Okay, so, I guess that,

[20:51] would that cover our interesting take on the character?

[20:55] Maybe, and also, he's probably gonna be, like,

[20:56] a social media star.

[20:58] People see, like, there's this werewolf,

[20:59] and they're like, hey, man, you didn't,

[21:02] now he's an influencer, you know?

[21:03] I've actually seen a fair amount of, like,

[21:06] horror that's based on that general topic

[21:08] that I've liked, okay?

[21:09] Like, it's not, like, I'm not saying ugh

[21:11] just because I hate it,

[21:12] because, like, there've been movies,

[21:13] but I'm just, I'm like,

[21:15] that is, like, the first thing everyone suggests, I think.

[21:18] Yeah, I was once in a meeting with a company

[21:21] that was looking to find something new to do with Gumby,

[21:24] and they were like, we did have one idea we liked

[21:26] where Gumby is an influencer,

[21:27] and I was like, I don't even understand that.

[21:30] Like, I don't even understand what that is.

[21:31] He influences people to go inside books

[21:33] and have adventures.

[21:35] How about Gumby goes through a portal

[21:38] into the real world?

[21:39] Uh-huh, and transforms into a human.

[21:41] Into a human.

[21:42] He's gotta find Art Cloakey.

[21:44] Oh, Art Cloakey died, sorry.

[21:46] And his best friend's a horse,

[21:47] but when he comes to the real world,

[21:49] he's a person, you know, yeah.

[21:50] Okay, moving on.

[21:52] We're gonna move on to our next character,

[21:54] and that is Frankenstein's monster.

[21:57] But I will also take ideas from Victor Frankenstein

[22:00] as well, the Doctor.

[22:02] Okay.

[22:02] So, are there Frankenstein movies that you like?

[22:06] Well, Bride of Frankenstein probably the most,

[22:09] and then also Frankenstein.

[22:11] Yeah, I mean, those are, of the Universal movies,

[22:14] those are the ones that I think hold up

[22:15] the most genuinely best, those first two Frankensteins.

[22:20] Other, I mean, the Hammer Frankenstein movies,

[22:22] I like a bunch of those.

[22:23] Those got really weird as time went on,

[22:25] where it was like, Victor Frankenstein

[22:27] was just a murderer, and he's just like,

[22:29] taking brains out of one person

[22:30] and slapping them in another person, you know?

[22:32] Oddly, considering who I am,

[22:33] I've never seen flesh for Frankenstein,

[22:35] so I can't speak on this topic.

[22:37] That is weird, considering who you are.

[22:38] Rocky Horror Picture Show is basically

[22:40] a Frankenstein story, but not,

[22:42] but they don't really follow the same tropes,

[22:43] since it becomes a space vampire story, yeah.

[22:47] I remember I did see the Kenneth Branagh thing,

[22:49] I remember nothing about it.

[22:51] I remember, is it, is it, I remember Eels.

[22:54] Who falls in the thing of Eels?

[22:55] Is it John Cleese or Billy Connolly?

[22:57] Who's playing the guy who falls in the vat of Eels?

[22:59] I don't remember.

[23:00] I don't remember either.

[23:01] Either of them would have been great.

[23:03] I feel like there's a, there's,

[23:05] the Frankenstein is a little bit-

[23:06] But you like Lisa Frankenstein, sorry.

[23:08] I like Lisa Frankenstein, yeah.

[23:09] Frankenstein's a little bit harder,

[23:11] because you're dealing with a main character

[23:13] who is so much less expressive, in many ways,

[23:16] and so much less active.

[23:17] Like, the monster is not, is often in these stories,

[23:19] is not the one doing a lot of the activity,

[23:21] but the one who is acted upon.

[23:23] I mean, there's always something like,

[23:24] I, Frankenstein, which we saw for the podcast, right?

[23:27] Where Frankenstein's monster's like an action hero

[23:29] fighting demons or whatever.

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:31] But I feel like that's not the best use of him.

[23:33] You know?

[23:34] Okay, interesting, okay.

[23:35] I mean, I do think that, if we're moving into-

[23:37] Maybe Mary Shelley, if she'd been awesome,

[23:40] would have had Frankenstein.

[23:41] Yeah, she was a little more radical.

[23:42] If we're moving into ways that freshen it up,

[23:46] I mean, like, I know that Branagh's version

[23:48] was closer to the book, but no one-

[23:53] In some ways.

[23:54] In some ways, it was closer to the book.

[23:56] I do think that there's still a lot of room in a more,

[24:02] more accurate, I guess is the word I'm looking for,

[24:04] but not exactly, adaptation,

[24:07] one that he was closer to the original vision

[24:10] of the monster, where he's not in an expressive lug.

[24:14] Like, he learns-

[24:14] Yeah, he talks very well.

[24:15] That they can feel, and like,

[24:18] there is still juice to be gotten out of the horror

[24:20] of that character, realizing, like,

[24:24] well, what am I?

[24:25] What is life?

[24:26] What is my life?

[24:28] I mean, it's kind of the Barbie movie in some ways, right?

[24:31] Yeah.

[24:32] Yeah, it's a lot like that.

[24:33] The Frankenstein story in the show Penny Dreadful,

[24:40] I think, actually captures kind of

[24:41] what you're talking about pretty well.

[24:43] And it features Josh Hartnett, who, you know,

[24:47] and Eva Green, yeah.

[24:48] And that version could be all about, you know,

[24:49] being mad at your dad.

[24:51] Yes.

[24:52] This is a theme that has lasted centuries.

[24:55] Yeah, I feel like if there's anything-

[24:57] Well, that's why, that's why my thing,

[24:59] I think we even go, to freshen it up,

[25:01] we go even further back, and it's called Oedipus Stein,

[25:04] and-

[25:04] Oh, I thought you were going to go Franken-teen.

[25:07] Mm-hmm.

[25:08] Sure, again, I was a teenage Frankenstein, yeah.

[25:12] But this is Oedipus Stein, Frankenstein's monster

[25:14] is so mad at his dad, Victor Frankenstein,

[25:16] that he falls in love with his stepmom, I guess, you know?

[25:21] Victor Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth.

[25:21] If it was a modern sitcom,

[25:23] his dad would be a retired baby boomer,

[25:27] who has a home, and his millennial kids,

[25:30] who also have kids, have to move back in,

[25:33] because their life choices have fucked them up financially.

[25:36] And one of them is Frankenstein, yeah.

[25:37] Yes, one of them is Frankenstein.

[25:39] Frankenstein has to move back in with his parents,

[25:41] because he can't afford a house, yeah.

[25:42] You're not my real brother.

[25:44] Yeah, exactly.

[25:45] Okay, real spelled R-E-E-L.

[25:48] Okay, so I think we've talked a little bit

[25:51] about Frankenstein, let's move on to another monster

[25:54] called Gill-Man, the creature from the Black Lagoon.

[25:59] Not a super popular character in movies,

[26:02] I'm sure there was some kind of-

[26:03] Beautiful design.

[26:04] Retrospective during when Shape of Water was all the rage.

[26:08] Yeah.

[26:09] Mm-hmm.

[26:10] This is the character that,

[26:11] this is an original Universal character,

[26:13] I mean, Universal didn't invent Gill-Man,

[26:15] like the character was invented by human beings.

[26:17] But this is one that, I think there's less of it,

[26:20] because there's really just those first three movies,

[26:23] and then there's the Gill-Man in Monster Squad,

[26:25] there's the Gill-Man in Shape of Water,

[26:27] and there's various kind of ultra-low budget rip-offs

[26:30] of like swamp monsters that have,

[26:31] that are kind of reptilian or fish-like,

[26:33] but there's not-

[26:34] You had Abe Sapien, who's kind of a-

[26:36] Sabian Gill-Man.

[26:37] Yeah, Abe Sapien, but there's not like a real rich kind of,

[26:40] unless you're going back to like Mermen and mermaids,

[26:42] there's not really like a rich folklore to draw on

[26:45] for the Gill-Man specifically.

[26:46] Because, unless I'm wrong,

[26:49] and there's like a short story I don't know about,

[26:51] it's not based on previous existing material.

[26:54] Yeah.

[26:55] It's not based on some dude's encounter

[26:56] with a manatee or something.

[26:58] Yeah, but he fell in love with it.

[26:59] Yeah, yeah.

[27:00] I mean, but so what the,

[27:02] I think there's fewer tropes to rely on

[27:04] for the creature from the Black Lagoon,

[27:06] also because by the third movie in that series,

[27:08] they found lungs in him and they hook him up,

[27:10] he hook up his lungs so he lives on land and he hates it,

[27:13] and he ends up going back in the ocean

[27:15] and drowning at the end because he's so sad.

[27:16] Like there's less of a,

[27:19] the creature in the Black Lagoon is,

[27:21] it follows the Frankenstein model a little bit

[27:23] in being an inexpressive monster

[27:25] that to a certain extent wants to be loved,

[27:27] but doesn't know how to achieve that

[27:29] and runs afoul of human intolerance,

[27:32] but also it's a monster that kidnaps people.

[27:36] But there's less of a,

[27:37] let's say it's not as psychologically rich a figure

[27:40] as say Dracula or Frankenstein's monster

[27:43] or the Wolfman, you know, but I still love him.

[27:45] So how do we jazz him up?

[27:47] We've already had a Loverboy version.

[27:49] Yeah.

[27:52] Wait, what Loverboy version?

[27:55] Shaped in Water. Shaped in Water.

[27:55] Okay, right, right, right.

[27:56] Did you not see that movie, Dan?

[27:58] No, no, I won an Academy Award.

[28:00] It was Best Picture.

[28:01] Honestly, I zoned out, my brain went back to Frankenstein

[28:05] because I was distracted by a question I got about Flop TV

[28:08] that I shouldn't have looked at.

[28:08] I mean, if you want the Loverboy version of Frankenstein,

[28:10] it's Rocky Horror Picture Show.

[28:12] It's Loverboy.

[28:13] They cut out the scene at the beginning

[28:15] where they show Patrick Dempsey being made

[28:17] out of dead body parts before he gets a job as a pizza boy.

[28:20] Who brings pizza and more?

[28:22] Couldn't make that movie these days.

[28:24] No, what do I, how would I jazz up a modern?

[28:28] Yeah, a Gill Man.

[28:30] What are you gonna do?

[28:31] You're gonna have to make him like a genetic creation

[28:33] of some kind, you know?

[28:34] I think it's very unlikely that you're gonna find a hidden.

[28:37] Pollution creation?

[28:38] Yeah, maybe pollution creation.

[28:39] Yeah, he's more of a Judd in that way.

[28:41] I mean, I hate to say it, so many of my ideas

[28:43] are gonna go back to put this thing in an urban setting.

[28:45] You've got a Gill Man that's, or a Gill,

[28:47] like the way dolphins will sometimes get lost

[28:50] in like the Thames or something, or the Gowanus Canal.

[28:53] Like what if the Gill Man accidentally gets lost in a city?

[28:55] And it's Gill Man, it's back,

[28:58] a creature from Back to the Moon 2, lost in New York,

[28:59] but now it's in the sewers, or it's, you know,

[29:01] it's feeding off of the people in the city

[29:03] or something like that.

[29:04] Yeah, what if it's in the Ritz Garden?

[29:06] What if it's a sort of assault on a building sort of thing

[29:10] where the Gill Man is trying to,

[29:12] is breaking into an aquarium to free all of his friends

[29:17] and, you know, the humans get caught in the crossfire?

[29:19] A different version of the Gill Man.

[29:21] He's got more thinking of it, more thinking.

[29:23] There's the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book

[29:26] that has a, like, a Gill Man swarm at the end.

[29:29] Basically, it's like mating season and breeding season

[29:32] for the Gill Man in South America.

[29:33] And there's something cool about that.

[29:37] Oh, the sort of like piranha Gill Man?

[29:39] Yeah, it's the one where,

[29:42] I'm trying to remember,

[29:42] it's one of the Nemo hardcovers

[29:44] that are about Captain Nemo's daughter.

[29:45] And it's the one where one of the villains is Dr. Goldfoot,

[29:48] the character from Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

[29:50] Yeah.

[29:51] I just think it's very funny.

[29:53] Okay, now let's move on to The Invisible Man.

[29:56] Now there was recently,

[29:57] the director of The Wolfman just recently made.

[30:00] Invisible Man movie, where we have a, spoiler alert, high tech Invisible Man.

[30:05] And we've had some other variations.

[30:07] Are there other?

[30:07] That was right before lockdown, right?

[30:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[30:10] Actually, that was the first movie I watched.

[30:12] I got a premium rental and watched it in my bar.

[30:16] Yeah, because I mean, like that movie did

[30:18] extremely well, considering that basically everything shut down immediately thereafter.

[30:24] But there's there's been some other Invisible Man movies.

[30:28] Hollow Man.

[30:29] Yeah.

[30:30] Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

[30:33] Yeah.

[30:34] Are there others?

[30:35] I mean, there's the original.

[30:36] The Invisible Man.

[30:37] There's that at the very end.

[30:39] There's the Invisible Kid.

[30:40] There's the Invisible Woman.

[30:42] Like they did a lot.

[30:43] The thing with Invisible Man movies is that it started out as a universal horror thing,

[30:46] and it slowly became kind of like a series of comedies and spy movies.

[30:50] Well, it became like often like a reason for like 80s sex comedies.

[30:54] Be like, this guy's invisible.

[30:56] He can walk anywhere.

[30:58] I mean, there was an Invisible Maniac, I believe.

[31:00] Yeah, that's true.

[31:01] I do recall a maniac.

[31:02] Let me look that up.

[31:03] That sounds pretty bad.

[31:06] Is there is there any meat on this Invisible Man bone?

[31:10] Is there anything we can do with this?

[31:12] I mean, considering he has to be naked.

[31:14] There's a lot of meat on that Invisible Man.

[31:15] Arguably, yeah.

[31:16] This is the thing that so my kids for a while, the only universal horror movie that they

[31:21] weren't too scared to watch all the way through was the Invisible Man.

[31:24] And we watched it a bunch of times over and over.

[31:26] And they always thought it was very funny that he's just walking around naked the entire

[31:30] movie, like wherever he's going, he's just naked.

[31:32] You know, I mean, the thing is, like the Lee Winnow one, I liked so much.

[31:36] I thought that was really good.

[31:38] So it's hard for me to think of a fresh take the thing.

[31:42] I mean, if you're going to metaphor again, I think the whole thing about the Invisible

[31:45] Man is it's about consequences being removed and what that does to a person.

[31:49] I mean, and Hollow Man really took that far in a way that like a lot of people have problems

[31:55] with, which I understand because it's unpleasant.

[31:58] But I also I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I respect what this movie is doing is being like.

[32:04] This is how close society is to monstrosity.

[32:08] And like the Hollow Man is not the hero of the movie.

[32:11] Exactly.

[32:11] He's not.

[32:12] It holds a mirror up.

[32:13] And in that mirror, you see nothing because he's invisible.

[32:16] It's invisible.

[32:17] Yeah, that mirror, you see nothing.

[32:20] No signs of love beyond the years.

[32:23] Well, if something comes to you, Invisible Man or vampires, they also don't reflect.

[32:29] It's true.

[32:30] You hold up that mirror and there's no monsters there.

[32:33] You don't know if it's because they're invisible or if there's actually no monsters there.

[32:38] Lately, this tune is not close enough to the Beatles for us to get in trouble.

[32:42] Lately, they can't they can't attack us.

[32:44] We're going to jump on to our last monster.

[32:45] That's a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde.

[32:47] Have you seen a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde movies that you like?

[32:50] Well, let's see again.

[32:54] I'm going to say that, yeah, Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde.

[32:57] No, I didn't.

[32:58] You don't.

[32:59] It's not very good at all.

[33:01] The old old like the Frederick March, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is really good.

[33:04] The Silent One is really good with John Barrymore.

[33:07] I think it is.

[33:09] I have to say this is one that I think suffers a little bit from us living in a world that

[33:16] living in a world that no longer has as rigidly defined morals as as the world kind of once did

[33:22] in some ways where it was the I feel like it's it's a lot harder to like the Hyde has to be so

[33:29] much more extreme in order to to really get across that this is a guy operating on his worst instincts

[33:35] and right in a way that society can't contain.

[33:37] And there have unfortunately been too many stories of someone who seems

[33:41] above reproach on the surface who turns out to be a monster.

[33:45] Yeah, they don't need the serum basically is what it is.

[33:47] I mean, I wonder if there's a if there's a to do a version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where

[33:51] someone is blaming their problem on a potion or whatever.

[33:55] And then it turns out it's not the case at all.

[33:57] I mean, I blame most of my problems on a potion called tequila.

[34:04] Like, I wonder if there's something else.

[34:05] I always had a I always had a joke version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in mind where

[34:09] Dr. Jekyll is very uptight and very above reproach.

[34:12] And Mr. Hyde, it's like, look, he's got his problems,

[34:15] but he just relates to people a little better.

[34:16] He's looser.

[34:17] He's more fun to be around.

[34:18] And so Dr. Jekyll's friends are always trying to get him to take the potion,

[34:22] trying to convince him that he should become Mr. Hyde because it's more fun to be around Mr. Hyde.

[34:26] Pretty good.

[34:26] Yeah, his friends.

[34:27] I was just thinking of a sassy, like,

[34:30] T-shirt from what Stewart just said.

[34:32] Some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde themed T-shirt about tequila.

[34:35] Yeah, yeah.

[34:37] Is there is Mary Reilly a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

[34:39] I never saw that.

[34:40] I think that's Frankenstein, is it?

[34:42] No, I'm wrong.

[34:43] No, I think you're well.

[34:45] I'll look it up.

[34:45] I've never seen it, so I don't know.

[34:46] Look it up.

[34:47] All I remember is that in the commercials, they would say Mary Reilly.

[34:51] You sure would.

[34:52] So now that we've kind of done an overview of these movies,

[34:55] let's get a little word from our sponsors.

[34:58] You know, the Flophouse doesn't pay for itself, folks.

[35:01] No, it doesn't pay for if it did.

[35:02] Oh, if it didn't.

[35:04] If it did, Dan might have seen Mary Reilly and he would know.

[35:07] Yes, it is inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[35:10] So I know about you guys, but all this talking has made me a little bit hungry.

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[36:43] I think we all know someone who loves taking photos.

[36:46] Perhaps it is you, the one listening right now, who I'm talking to.

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[36:55] You take a bunch of pictures.

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[37:28] It's so easy to get to set up.

[37:31] They have different frame options.

[37:34] We have one of these.

[37:35] And it's a good way to like, I don't know.

[37:38] If you had the choice of just one or two pictures to put up, what would you put up?

[37:42] You would put up maybe a picture of your partner, if you have one, your family.

[37:48] Maybe a picture of a beloved pet.

[37:51] But you don't, you know, see the whole spectrum of your life.

[37:55] I think that when you have this digital picture frame, you're a lot more generous about like,

[37:59] oh, that's a nice moment I want to remember.

[38:02] That maybe I wouldn't put up in a frame if it was just a regular old static frame.

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[38:26] Don't forget to mention that we, The Flop House, sent you to show your support for the show.

[38:31] Terms and conditions apply.

[38:35] And I just want to mention, before we get back to some universal monstering,

[38:38] that Flop TV has come to an end.

[38:42] Mostly our television version of The Flop House that's on your computer.

[38:46] It was six live broadcasts, all talking about a different sequel.

[38:50] We had a great time with it.

[38:52] It was super fun.

[38:53] And those videos are still available for you to watch them, should you want to,

[38:57] through the end of February.

[38:59] Go to TheFlopHouse.SimpleTix.com.

[39:01] And you can still buy tickets or a season pass to view those videos.

[39:05] Binge them all.

[39:06] Why not?

[39:07] Space them out one a day.

[39:09] Whatever you want to do, as long as you watch them before the end of February,

[39:12] before they go back into The Flop House vault.

[39:14] That's TheFlopHouse.SimpleTix.com to look back on the hours of fun that we had

[39:21] telling you about movies with a number two.

[39:31] Hey, is this Jesse?

[39:33] This is Jesse.

[39:34] Hey, this is Stuart Wellington, host of The Flop House podcast on MaxFun.

[39:38] I'm calling because you've been named Maximum Fun's member of the month for February.

[39:44] Nice.

[39:44] If you don't mind me asking, what prompted you to start supporting the network,

[39:47] become a MaxFun member?

[39:49] I was trying to think of when I started listening to The Flop House,

[39:52] but I think it was something like 2014, 2015.

[39:56] Oh, wow.

[39:57] And then actually having a real job.

[40:00] in 2021. That's what allowed me to actually start supporting.

[40:04] Congratulations for having a real job and supporting my not

[40:07] real job. So, as member of the month, you're going to be

[40:11] getting a $25 gift card to the MaxFun store, a special

[40:16] member of the month bumper sticker, and a special priority

[40:21] parking spot at MaxFun HQ in Los Angeles. It's awesome to

[40:25] support you guys to support MaxFun. I get endless joy and

[40:30] entertainment. If you're a MaxFun member, you can become

[40:33] the next MaxFun member of the month. Support us at

[40:36] maximumfun.org slash join. Most of the plants humans eat are

[40:42] technically grass. Most of the asphalt we drive on is almost a

[40:47] liquid. The formula of WD-40 is San Diego's greatest secret.

[40:52] Zippers were invented by a Swedish immigrant love story. On

[40:56] the podcast, Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, we

[40:59] explore this type of amazing stuff. Stuff about ordinary

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[41:10] Incredibly Fascinating. Find us by searching for the word

[41:14] secretly in your podcast app. And at maximumfun.org.

[41:21] And we're back. As I mentioned right at the top, I just got a

[41:26] new job working for Universal handling some market research

[41:32] and I have enlisted my two favorite movie experts in the

[41:36] whole wide world. Dan McCoy and Elliot Kalin to help me. You know real movie

[41:39] critics too. I do. I know real movie critics and you know what

[41:42] I threw them all in the trash. I picked you guys up off the

[41:47] shelf and I said, I wanna play with you. So weird. The the

[41:52] next so the thing part of the thing we're talking about the

[41:55] dark universe here. That's an interconnected universe with all

[41:57] the universal monsters. One of the things that has been a huge

[42:01] part of the universal monsters history and what seems to wet

[42:06] moviegoers appetites like nothing else is crossovers.

[42:11] People love it when one thing crosses over into another

[42:13] thing. Maybe Scooby-Doo shows up. Maybe Laurel and Hardy show

[42:16] up. What the **** Who cares? So, Universal has a pretty

[42:20] deep **** catalog of other very popular franchises and I'm

[42:24] gonna run down some of these names and I wanna know what your

[42:27] thoughts are just right off the top of your dome whether or not

[42:30] you think that is has good crossover opportunities with

[42:33] our newly reformed dark universe. So starting up, this

[42:36] is the biggest one fast and the furious. How do they handle a

[42:40] Dracula? How do they handle one? Well, I mean the typical

[42:45] way steaks, sunlight, garlic. Do they have those in the cars?

[42:49] Yeah, they just say, I mean, cars have trunks. They could

[42:52] pick them up. You know, I am thinking of like you attach the

[42:55] steaks to the front of the cars like jousting. It's actually a

[42:57] good idea. That is a good idea. I feel like this is a natural

[43:00] progression for the franchise, especially because Draculas are

[43:05] also about family. When you when you turn someone into a

[43:08] vampire, they become part of your vampire family and so the

[43:10] idea of our our beloved gear heads and their family going up

[43:14] against a Dracula family. That is if anything, maybe even more

[43:17] tightly knit than our than our carboys and girls. You know, do

[43:21] we have any other any other characters any of our other

[43:24] universal monsters would do would mesh well with this. I

[43:28] don't know. I don't know if a gill man is the best fit for it.

[43:31] Probably not, but I could see so here's what I would see if

[43:34] you're gonna you're gonna bring other monsters in the boat

[43:36] based. If it's a car that turns into a boat, you can do there's

[43:41] no they had a car that turned into a spaceship. There's no

[43:43] reason you can't do that, but I think if you have Dracula turns

[43:48] one of the one of the Furiosos or whatever they're called the

[43:52] the members that they have a name like as a group, the

[43:55] Toretto family, I guess the Toretto's Dracula turns one of

[43:58] the Toretto's. They've got to replace them. Frankenstein's

[44:01] gonna drive this car. You know actually it's a good idea.

[44:03] Here's this is this is gonna seem tasteless. Paul Walker

[44:06] bring him back to life as a Frankenstein. He doesn't taste

[44:09] You're right. You're right. But I mean II said right up top no

[44:17] idea is a bad idea. This is a safe space. You said it. You

[44:20] said none were bad. Yeah. Okay. This space is safe, but

[44:23] unfortunately it's being broadcast out to the world. Yeah.

[44:26] Outer space is very unsafe. You're not gonna last long. We

[44:28] have another big franchise and this is one that is near and

[44:31] dear to Elliot Kalin's heart. That's right. The Jurassic

[44:33] World franchise. That's his favorite generation of that

[44:38] idea. Of course, the world now obviously we know Sam Neill

[44:42] already has a problem with invisible mans. Uh huh. It's

[44:44] true. Yeah. Sure. Cuz he was chasing an invisible Chevy

[44:47] Chase. It's right there. His name all over the place. Yeah.

[44:52] His name is Chase. Yup.

[44:56] I cast him. Are there what other monsters would have a good

[44:59] crossover potential CP with the Jurassic World? Oh yeah. I

[45:05] forgot what we got so far down the invisible memoirs of a

[45:08] visual. For a second. Yeah. It was like uh the Toretto family

[45:11] with dinosaurs. Sign me up. Now. So dinosaurs are in the

[45:15] Jurassic franchise. They're often in a tropical setting.

[45:18] They're in these Costa Rican islands. So that seems to me

[45:20] like a good place for a Gill man. He does not fit so much in

[45:23] the car culture unless he's driving like a big daddy Roth

[45:26] type strange, you know, car car device, but I think uh I

[45:30] think you can easily have uh you know they're investigating

[45:33] these dinosaurs and there's also they find in the lagoon

[45:36] there. There's creatures there. There's Gilman. Right. Yeah.

[45:39] Right. Or how's this for a very very boring movie? The

[45:43] invisible man. I love it already. Jurassic World. He's

[45:46] trying to get away from those dinos. So what he does is he

[45:49] turns invisible and he walks out of the park and everyone's

[45:53] happy. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's I mean. Sure. Yeah. Sounds like a

[45:56] little slice of life. Um you know. Slice of life. Little

[46:00] stripe. It's really just I mean it's kind of just like uh a

[46:03] nature program because you can't see the invisible man. So

[46:06] you just see it pan over like the landscape and see a bunch

[46:08] of dinos and stuff and then it's over um and this next

[46:13] franchise uh is a crossover of both cars and things from an

[46:17] ancient time. That's right. The back to the future franchise.

[46:20] How do they how do we handle? I mean, I feel like this makes

[46:23] sense. Marty McFly accidentally goes back to old timey

[46:26] Transylvania right there. I mean, I think we're avoiding

[46:29] there's money on the table. The fact that Marty McFly is a

[46:31] werewolf in a different. Yes. So, I think we we play around

[46:35] with that one maybe and I don't know if they switch places uh

[46:38] the the Teen Wolf and Marty McFly or Marty McFly becomes a

[46:42] Teen Wolf and he's like not again. I think like this has

[46:44] happened before. Oh yeah. He looks at the camera and he's

[46:47] like not again. The whole audience like we know what he's

[46:49] talking about. Yeah. He goes back in time to like to like a

[46:52] Romanian village in the 1800s by a wolf or 1600 even been by

[46:57] wolf comes back. Yeah, not again. Oh, well, Deja vu and

[47:01] then they you know, I also feel like the back to the future

[47:04] series as it stands kind of makes hay uh from like sort of

[47:08] evil doppelganger versions of characters through time. Uh huh.

[47:11] So, if we uh if we throw in some uh Doctor Jekyll and Mr

[47:15] Hyde, maybe uh you know, we've normally just seen like good

[47:19] characters be good through time or you know, maintain traits

[47:22] but what if like we get an evil Marty? He's taking the potion

[47:26] who takes the or an evil Doc Brown. Doc Brown. Doc Brown.

[47:31] He drank that potion and he turned into an evil Doc Brown.

[47:34] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, we're going to think a little bit

[47:36] outside the box. How about the American Pie franchise? Uh I

[47:41] hope you're listening, Chris. Uh what do we got? Yeah. What

[47:46] what can they uh I mean we've already used Dracula but I feel

[47:49] like if the the mom that they want to sleep with is a vampire

[47:53] mom. Yeah. Yeah. Count Stifler's mom. Yeah. It's part

[47:57] of her allure. Yeah. Um you can also do. We're going to spend a

[48:03] summer in our college years. What age are the American Pie

[48:06] gang at this point? I mean, now they're they're our age.

[48:08] They're in their forties. Yeah. But I guess I guess probably

[48:11] the newer movies have completely new like it's like

[48:14] the children of the the original American Piers, right?

[48:17] Except Eugene Levy's still there, right? Probably. Uh yeah.

[48:20] I mean, if it's the children of the original American Piers,

[48:23] still the granddad. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz like I mean the the

[48:26] concept of the movie franchise is not like we're like aging

[48:29] with them as they go. It's about like high school and

[48:32] you're thinking of the seven up franchise which only has one

[48:35] scene with someone having sex with a pie. Uh and that's in

[48:38] that's in thirty-four up I think. You know what? We've

[48:40] been forgetting this whole time. Thirty-five up. We've been

[48:42] forgetting the mummy and I feel like the mummy would. Oh, I

[48:45] didn't forget the mummy. We didn't talk about the mummy at

[48:47] all. It's fine. Uh we could talk about them now. They would

[48:50] kind of milk. Yeah, exactly. These horny teens wonder what's

[48:55] under those wrappings. Yeah. It's all about that. I think

[48:58] that I feel like the uh the Steven Soder uh Steven

[49:02] Soderbergh. Steven Soderbergh Mummy. Steven Summers Mummy

[49:07] film. Steven Soderbergh American Pie. Uh in any case.

[49:10] Oh my god. They're all interesting. These are all

[49:13] good choices. Yeah. The Steven Summers Mummy movie. I think

[49:15] the thing it uh I think the thing that it did that was

[49:18] most revolutionary was like looking straight at the

[49:21] audience and being like, what if the mummy was hot? Yeah.

[49:25] Yeah. Finally. What if everyone you saw on screen made

[49:27] you horny? Yeah. What if what if this I don't know kind of

[49:31] built your whole uh sexual identity around. Um okay. So,

[49:35] we've talked about American Pie. How about Shrek? How about

[49:39] it? How about Shrek? Are you offering some? No, thanks. I

[49:43] feel like I feel like I've had enough please. I feel like

[49:47] Shrek and Frankenstein could get along pretty well. Yeah.

[49:50] And our final crossover. This one, I don't believe is the

[49:52] universal property but I bet we can make this happen. The

[49:55] Muppets. The Muppets and the Muppets.

[50:00] This is, I mean, like, this is, I think that with the Muppets, you've got to stick with one of the classic gothic stories.

[50:07] You can't really, like, I mean, other than, I mean, I guess that the creature from the Black Lagoon, obviously, in Kermit, would have some things to talk about.

[50:16] But if you're looking for something for the whole cast to do, you've got to go with one of these classic gothic pieces of literature.

[50:23] This is the one that I think the most has to be a monster party movie, as they used to call them, the big ones.

[50:28] They're in a gothic location, but Frankenstein's there, Dracula's there, maybe Miss Piggy becomes the bride of Frankenstein or something like that.

[50:36] It's almost like it's some kind of a mash.

[50:37] You want to see Miss Piggy with that hair.

[50:39] Somebody who knows all the words.

[50:41] If only there was a mash of some kind.

[50:43] Oh, yes.

[50:44] You have Hawkeye and Radar from Mash.

[50:46] They're also there.

[50:47] Yeah.

[50:48] Whoa!

[50:49] Yeah, as you mentioned.

[50:50] You have all the characters from the TV show Smash, the one about a Broadway show.

[50:54] I think you could – if you have The Muppets, you have the means to bring in all those characters.

[50:59] You have The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman.

[51:01] Everybody's going to that movie.

[51:02] And you want to have –

[51:03] I want to see it now.

[51:04] I feel like you can either do it one of two ways where The Muppets characters are doing their kind of repertory version where they're playing those parts or The Muppets are on the road and they end up at a castle and all those creatures are coming to bedevil them.

[51:17] And like Gonzo turns into a werewolf or whatever.

[51:20] That sounds amazing.

[51:21] Or a fuzzier animal.

[51:23] Animal is already kind of a word.

[51:24] Animal is already a word.

[51:25] Animal is already a Mr. Hyde.

[51:27] Yes.

[51:28] That's true.

[51:29] Okay.

[51:30] So those two great –

[51:31] Sorry.

[51:32] We learned that animal is Sam the Eagle's Hyde.

[51:37] Or they give him the potion and he becomes a calm animal.

[51:41] You see the Dr. Jekyll side of him.

[51:43] That would be great.

[51:44] That's so funny.

[51:45] Okay.

[51:46] So we've talked crossovers.

[51:48] I think we have some – there's some fertile ground there.

[51:50] Let's move on to merchandise.

[51:51] Now the first one – we're running out of time, so we've got to be rapid fire here.

[51:55] The most important merchandise choice, popcorn buckets.

[51:58] What's the popcorn bucket looking like?

[52:00] Obviously Nosferatu already did a coffin.

[52:02] We're not going to be –

[52:03] Did they already?

[52:04] That's what I'm saying.

[52:05] The question is you've got to ask who has the most fuckable popcorn bucket opportunity.

[52:09] Yes.

[52:10] What's the most important – what's a Frankenstein popcorn bucket look like, Elliot?

[52:15] Frankenstein popcorn bucket, I feel like it's going to look like the slab he's on with the electrodes sticking out of it.

[52:20] If you're really going all out with this popcorn bucket, it makes a sound like thunder.

[52:25] There's like a lightning flashing on it.

[52:27] The mummy is going to look like a –

[52:29] I feel like Frankenstein's head kind of looks like a popcorn bucket.

[52:31] You could do a popcorn bucket of Frankenstein's head too.

[52:33] I like that too because then it's like you're eating his brain.

[52:35] That's what I did.

[52:36] For the wolfman, you have a lot of fur, which you always love to have like a lot of loose hair in your popcorn.

[52:41] So it's not so good.

[52:42] Especially when there's butter.

[52:43] Not good for the popcorn, but it does increase like how good it feels on your genitals if you're using it for, again, intended purpose.

[52:49] Yeah, yeah, for sex purposes.

[52:51] Ignoring that, the mummy –

[52:53] Invisible man. I feel like an invisible man popcorn bucket.

[52:55] It's a little bit hard, right?

[52:57] It's like a see-through.

[52:58] See-through.

[52:59] See-through popcorn bucket.

[53:00] You claim that you were selling them into –

[53:02] No, it's a see-through bucket, Dan.

[53:04] You don't just sell them nothing and say you have your invisible popcorn.

[53:07] This popcorn is a tactile sensation.

[53:09] You taste it and touch it.

[53:10] It's not about just looking at it.

[53:11] The price, like the margins on mine are so good though.

[53:16] It's 100 percent profit because it's not real.

[53:18] It's really emperor's new popcorn bucket in a way.

[53:20] Exactly.

[53:21] The mummy, it's shaped like a pyramid.

[53:23] Creature from the Black Lagoon?

[53:24] I don't know.

[53:25] That's a good question.

[53:26] The creature head, I guess.

[53:27] Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, half of it looks like a normal bucket.

[53:30] Half of it looks like a crazy bucket.

[53:33] Oh, man.

[53:34] We crushed this.

[53:35] Okay.

[53:36] Restaurant tie-ins.

[53:37] Restaurant tie-ins are super important.

[53:39] You need to get Matt Singer and Griffin Newman out there chomping down on them.

[53:42] You need to make them eat a lot of stuff at Denny's or whatever.

[53:44] Yeah, make the food as gross as possible for them.

[53:47] It's all green.

[53:49] All the food is green.

[53:50] We're doing naturally.

[53:51] You have green fish sticks with green fish meat in them for the Gill Man.

[53:55] You could also have green fish sticks with green fish meat for the Invisible Man.

[54:00] Or Frankenstein's monster.

[54:01] Frankenstein's monster.

[54:02] Or Dracula.

[54:03] It's all green fish sticks.

[54:04] Yeah.

[54:05] I mean, Dracula, there's a steak aspect to it.

[54:08] It's a real big steak.

[54:09] Some sort of strawberry shake too.

[54:13] It's a steak with strawberry sauce on it, which sounds disgusting.

[54:16] Oh, there you go.

[54:17] But that's the blood on this steak.

[54:19] Yeah, of course.

[54:20] Yeah.

[54:21] And the food has hair in it.

[54:23] Yeah, just like Dan said with the popcorn.

[54:24] We've done some good work.

[54:25] I think we're going to close this out on a more personal note.

[54:29] Do you guys have any personal memories of movie tie-in products that you remember fondly

[54:35] or you think have a particularly weird story on?

[54:38] For instance, me, my favorite NES game was the Gremlins 2 NES game.

[54:44] And I remember taking a – I'm sure I told this story before.

[54:48] But I took a picture of my winning screen when I beat the game and sent it into Nintendo Power.

[54:54] I was that proud of it.

[54:55] Yeah.

[54:56] After I defeated – I defeated the what?

[55:00] The spider gremlin?

[55:01] I mean the thing is it's unsurprising that my brain immediately went to Gremlins 2.

[55:06] I don't mean Gremlins 2, the new batch.

[55:08] I mean Gremlins as well.

[55:09] Comma 2.

[55:10] Because I forget.

[55:12] Whatever fast food joint was doing this, I had the entire run of the story records that told the story of Gremlins.

[55:21] I had those too, yeah.

[55:23] I think it was McDonald's thing.

[55:24] I think.

[55:25] Yeah.

[55:26] Like the really thin kind of flexi records.

[55:27] Yeah.

[55:28] Yeah.

[55:29] But it was still an impressive – I mean like those were the days of like tie-ins, man,

[55:33] where you had to do like a whole series of records that told the story of the movie Gremlins and have it at a fast food place.

[55:39] I totally remember listening to that.

[55:41] I listened to it so much that my mom would always joke around about how one of them started, Kate and Billy.

[55:49] She was a big Kate and Ally fan.

[55:53] Yeah.

[55:54] Yeah.

[55:55] I feel like I don't – there's most of the tie-ins I can think of are either cups with pictures on them from fast food restaurants or toys.

[56:01] But I think – this is before my time, but I'll just mention the classic C-3PO tape dispenser where, for whatever reason, they sculpted it where C-3PO is laying back with his legs spread and the tape roll – the Scotch tape is right in between his legs.

[56:14] Well, like that's perfect design.

[56:16] How else would you do it?

[56:17] I don't understand.

[56:18] I mean you might – at that point, you might rethink the concept of a C-3PO tape dispenser.

[56:22] No, I love that.

[56:24] Yeah, listeners, write in.

[56:26] Write emails to Dan or respond to this somewhere.

[56:29] Or all of us.

[56:30] Or all of us with some of your favorite movie tie-in merch.

[56:34] It's going to help me in my new job.

[56:36] Thank you so much for listening.

[56:37] This has been a Flophouse Mini.

[56:39] Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer, for putting this beautiful thing all together and sticking it right in your ear balls.

[56:46] I would also like to thank our network, Maximum Fun.

[56:49] You're not looking for minimum fun.

[56:50] If you're looking for minimum fun, you're in the wrong place because Maximum Fun is where we're at, and there's plenty of really great shows there.

[56:56] I'd like to thank my two co-hosts, Dan McCoy and Elliot Kalin, for helping me out with this project.

[57:01] And it also gave me an excuse when I'm like, what can I talk to – what do I have in common with Elliot?

[57:07] Universal Monsters, baby.

[57:09] Yep, right there.

[57:11] Okay, so –

[57:12] I hate them.

[57:13] Dan fucking hates them.

[57:14] So I was doing this mainly to bedevil him.

[57:17] Thanks for tolerating this irritating discussion.

[57:19] Yeah, nothing I like worse than monster talk.

[57:22] So again, for the Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

[57:25] I'm Dan McCoy.

[57:26] I've been Elliot Kalin.

[57:29] Bye.

[57:35] Maximum Fun.

[57:36] A worker-owned network.

[57:38] Of artist-owned shows.

[57:39] Supported.

[57:40] Directly.

[57:41] By you.

FH Mini 122 - Monster Mashers

Transcript

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