FH Mini 122 - Monster Mashers

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hi, Floppers. Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you we are in the middle of FlopTV Season 2.

[0:06] That's right, the one-hour internet televised Flophouse TV show is here for you the first Saturday of every month through February.

[0:14] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff.

[0:22] We're covering movies we've never covered before. We've got video segments. It's amazing.

[0:26] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com for FlopTV Season 2. This time, it's personal.

Stuart Wellington

[0:37] Hey there, Flopsters. This is the Flophouse Podcast, and I am your Flopster-in-Chief, Stuart Wellington.

[0:44] Gave himself a title.

[0:45] Yep. It's important that I get myself a new title because—

[0:49] I don't remember voting Stuart in as Flopster-in-Chief.

[0:49] Yeah, so this is a Flophouse mini. Now, normally on our other weeks, we do full episodes where we watch a bad movie and talk about it.

[0:56] On these weeks, the other weeks, we do a thing called a Flophouse mini where we talk for about as much time but with no particular direction.

[1:06] Today, guys—

[1:07] Sounds great.

[1:08] Yeah.

[1:08] I love how to predict no direction.

[1:10] Yeah.

[1:10] Why don't I introduce you guys? You guys are going to be helping me out today. I'm going to be working through some stuff.

[1:14] Oh, good.

[1:15] Again, I'm Stuart Wellington, and I'm joined by my regular co-host. Why don't you introduce yourselves?

[1:19] I'm Dan McCoy. I'm going to be helping Stuart out today.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21] I'm going to be Elliot Kalin, and I'm going to be helping out Dan, helping out Stuart today.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25] Because that's the thing. I know that Elliot has some very important family business that he should probably be spending time with, maybe watching his children grow up or something like that.

[1:34] Yes.

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

[1:40] Just on screens orthogonally around me.

[1:43] Yeah, placed in different places while you spin around in a desk chair.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48] Yeah, Dan goes, give me the Epcot world country scenario, and it's just all around him, 360 degrees.

Dan McCoy

[1:54] That's what I crave, stimulus, constant, overwhelming stimulus.

[2:00] Uh-huh.

[2:00] That's the name of the—

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

Elliott Kalan

[2:02] That's the name of the pornography magazine that you subscribe to, constant, overwhelming stimulus.

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

Dan McCoy

[2:07] I do crave stimulus, but I usually like to take one thing at a time.

Stuart Wellington

[2:11] Yeah, constant, singular, stimulus.

[2:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:14] Okay.

[2:15] Constant stimulus is all Dan needs.

[2:23] Yeah.

[2:24] Mm-hmm.

[2:25] So, yeah.

[2:26] That was from Katie Lang, Kirk, Dan, McCoy Lang.

Stuart Wellington

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

[2:31] Yeah.

[2:31] So, I hope you're picturing Dan as this like mojo type character spinning around with his little crab legs, watching as many screens as possible.

[2:38] Yeah.

[2:39] He's one of the spineless ones, yeah.

[2:40] Minor Domo.

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

[2:43] It's—

[2:44] 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?

Elliott Kalan

[2:50] I think you're one of the ex-babies.

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

Stuart Wellington

[2:54] Oh, my God.

[2:56] You gave me points.

[2:57] Yeah, that's amazing.

[2:59] Pride of Place, yeah.

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

[3:02] Kitty Pride of Place.

[3:03] Continue.

[3:03] Guys.

[3:04] Oh, man.

[3:05] Someday this—

[3:06] Dan just started salivating.

[3:07] Let's start.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[3:13] Oh, really?

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

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

Stuart Wellington

[3:15] Yeah, at the time, you were a teenager, so it's fine, right?

[3:18] Is that a line?

[3:18] Yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[3:19] I don't know if the rules are.

[3:20] My vision of Kitty Pride is locked into the time that I was the same age.

Elliott Kalan

[3:24] It's exactly like how I could have a crush at the time on Natalie Portman in The Professional because I was also 12 years old.

[3:30] See?

[3:30] It works.

[3:31] Now I cannot.

[3:32] I don't want to have a crush on Natalie Portman in The Professional, and I don't want one anymore.

[3:35] It would not be a—

[3:36] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

[3:39] Yeah, for sure.

[3:40] Of course.

[3:40] She's a ballerina.

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

[3:41] I don't know.

[3:42] She seems like she's got issues.

[3:44] She's got an overbearing mother who, of course, would become my mother-in-law.

[3:47] Yeah, great.

[3:47] I could fix her.

[3:49] Okay, so—

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

[3:51] Hubba hubba.

[3:53] Guys.

Stuart Wellington

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

[3:58] There's no structure.

[4:00] I just got a new job, a man with way too many jobs already.

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

[4:05] I just got a new job.

[4:06] I got hired by Universal Studios.

[4:09] What?

[4:10] Wow.

[4:10] Because Universal Studios needed—

[4:12] Wow.

[4:13] Yep.

[4:16] Needed somebody to do some, like, testing, some audience testing.

[4:21] Okay.

[4:22] And needed—hired me to interview some movie experts so that they can start working on—

[4:27] That's right.

[4:29] The return of The Dark Universe.

[4:31] Oh, boy.

[4:32] So exciting.

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

[4:37] Did I hear rumblings of a Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein movie?

[4:41] The Universal Monsters are back baby.

[4:45] Mm-hmm.

[4:45] And so I think it's a perfect time for us to start talking about, 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.

[4:54] Sure.

[4:54] If you're unfamiliar with The Dark Universe, dear listeners, just, I don't know, Google it.

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

[5:01] Helpful.

Elliott Kalan

[5:02] I'll mention, Stuart.

[5:03] I'll help you with this one.

[5:04] The Dark Universe was an interconnected series of movies that didn't exist.

[5:08] They released one of them, The Mummy, and they did a photo shoot of the stars of the upcoming films.

[5:13] And then when The Mummy didn't do that well, they canceled all the other movies.

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

[5:18] Not happening.

[5:18] Johnny Depp is the Invisible Man?

[5:20] Not happening.

[5:20] But they built it up.

[5:22] They made a whole logo for it.

[5:23] Yeah.

[5:23] This was going to be the next big interconnected movie universe.

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

Dan McCoy

[5:27] I also think there was a Dracula one before that.

[5:30] Yeah, Leslie Nielsen.

[5:30] 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.

Elliott Kalan

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

[5:40] Yeah.

[5:40] Which I think—

[5:41] Featured on this podcast.

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

[5:45] I think they were trying, but I don't know if it has a Dark Universe logo on it.

Dan McCoy

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

Elliott Kalan

[5:55] Look over here.

[5:57] Come on.

[5:57] Dracula, no way.

[5:58] It's the Mummy.

[5:59] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[6:00] Yeah.

[6:01] So guys, we're going to talk about some of these universal monsters.

[6:03] We're going to talk about some of the movies that they're in and what we're looking—what

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

[6:08] And then after a little bit of a break, we'll come back and talk crossover opportunities and

[6:14] merchandise opportunities.

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

[6:17] So let's start talking about—who are we talking about?

[6:19] That's—let me just get—let's do a little roll call here.

[6:22] Sure.

[6:22] Monster roll call.

Elliott Kalan

[6:24] Cambot.

[6:25] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[6:26] Dracula.

[6:27] Tom Servo.

[6:27] We got—are we allowed to do that, or is that—are we going to get sued, Elliot?

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

[6:32] Let's—yeah.

[6:33] Okay.

[6:33] So we got Dracula.

[6:34] Okay.

[6:35] Vampires.

[6:36] You got the Wolfman.

[6:37] So werewolves.

[6:38] Werewolves, yeah.

[6:40] Frankensteins, which are—

[6:41] Monster.

[6:42] Frankensteins, monsters.

[6:44] Archie.

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

[6:47] Dan said that as if Archie was one of the universal monsters, like Archie Andrews, America's

[6:51] oldest teenager.

[6:53] Archie is Dan's cat who has been knocking things off the shelf behind us.

[6:58] Yeah.

[6:58] We have a gill man.

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

[7:06] Creature from the—yeah.

[7:07] Yep, thank you.

[7:08] Invisible Man.

Elliott Kalan

[7:10] And Dr. Jekyll—

[7:11] Ralph Ellison's haunting novel about race in the United States.

[7:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[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 a universal monster character.

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

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

Dan McCoy

[7:27] And the—I believe—

[7:30] didn't they—I know that they did—I know that Universal did a version of Phantom of the

[7:34] Opera that is considered—that's a universal—

Elliott Kalan

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

[7:38] Yeah.

[7:39] Mm-hmm.

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

[7:41] I'll allow it.

[7:41] They're all—

[7:42] Okay.

[7:42] They're all—

Elliott Kalan

[7:42] Except for the creature from the Black Lagoon and the Wolfman, which is at least based on

[7:47] maybe folklore, they are essentially the great monsters of a certain strain of gothic literature

[7:53] or science fiction literature that have been adapted into this shared world between them.

[7:59] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[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, Nosferatu, a movie I have not seen,

[8:09] although I have heard that the vampire has a mustache and a dong.

Elliott Kalan

[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.

Dan McCoy

[8:19] Okay.

[8:19] And he is essentially Dracula in that this was a total ripoff to avoid copyright on Dracula.

[8:27] And then on Nosferatu, the original almost, you know, like flirted with the—

[8:32] The judge said that it had to—all the copies had to be destroyed, but it survived because

[8:36] people had taken copies for them.

[8:37] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[8:37] This is a remake of a ripoff of Dracula.

[8:40] Yeah.

[8:41] Cool.

[8:41] 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.

[8:51] So what are some of your faves?

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

[8:56] I mean—

[8:56] Oh, yeah.

[8:57] Dan, you go first.

Dan McCoy

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

[8:59] Near Dark, yes.

[9:02] Fright Night, I like.

[9:04] Right, dude, it's good.

[9:05] I gotta say that the vampire has never been a monster that spoke to me as much as the

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

Elliott Kalan

[9:11] I've gotta say, also, I mean, I'm a big fan of the movie Martin, the George M. Rowe movie

[9:15] about a teen—

[9:16] I've actually never seen that.

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

[9:18] I'm a big fan of the—Bell Lugosi's performance as Dracula, even though the original Dracula

[9:24] is a little slow.

[9:24] The Spanish-language 30s Dracula is a really fun movie, even though that Dracula—the actor

[9:29] is not as good as Bell Lugosi.

[9:31] Interview with a Vampire, when I finally saw it, I really liked that movie.

[9:35] In a lot of ways.

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

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[9:41] You know what?

[9:41] I've never seen Habit.

[9:43] 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.

[9:48] It's fun.

Elliott Kalan

[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, and I'm forgetting it.

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

[10:00] Kronos?

Stuart Wellington

[10:00] What about Kronos?

[10:01] Kronos is really good.

[10:02] Yeah, an alternative kind of vampire movie.

[10:05] Yeah.

[10:05] A little 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, what scenes do we need in it?

[10:14] Like, when you're watching a vampire movie, what's a thing you expect to see?

Dan McCoy

[10:19] I think that the vampires, unless you're talking like a 30 Days of Night style, more sort of feral vampire.

[10:26] The vampire is…

[10:26] Like Will Ferrell, yeah.

[10:28] A, yeah.

[10:29] Vampire is a…

[10:30] It's one who's a lot.

[10:30] Friendlier monster in that, you know, he has to be invited into your home.

[10:38] But often, he'll invite you into his home and, you know, have a meal with you or entertain you.

Elliott Kalan

[10:44] He's one of the few monsters…

[10:46] He plays with his food.

[10:47] It's one of the few…

[10:47] He does play with his food.

[10:48] He's one of the few monsters who has manners and wears nice clothes often.

[10:54] Not always.

[10:54] I think the thing that is more important to me than anything else in a vampire movie is a sense of creeping dread of some kind.

[11:02] The idea that there is a…

[11:03] There's an ominous quality to the character that gets worse and worse as the other characters 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, there's this feeling that, like, it's going to get worse and worse.

[11:18] And the atmosphere is going to get darker and scarier and creepier, you know.

Stuart Wellington

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

[11:27] Yes.

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

Elliott Kalan

[11:30] They're the opposite of werewolves 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, oh, my God, if this happened to me, I would lose control of myself and become a monster.

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

[11:45] Whereas with vampires, 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, which I think goes hand-in-hand with that kind of, like, manners, clothes, suaveness.

[11:59] Even the vampires in Near Dark, there's something seductive about, like, they're part of this traveling family that doesn't play by the normal rules, you know.

[12:08] Whereas a werewolf forces you to become an outcast, a vampire allows you to live outside of normal society in a freer way.

[12:15] Although, keeping in mind, you can never go outside during the day, which is a big limitation.

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

[12:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:22] That's all fair.

[12:23] Now, some other things, like, do you need to have a scene of, you know, somebody transforming into a vampire?

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

[12:35] Do you need mist?

Dan McCoy

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

[12:40] I kind of like a vampire that just looks like a vampire all the time, unless it's like, I mean, I guess this actually does include, like, a Nosferatu.

[12:48] Are you talking about David Boreanaz's angel?

[12:50] No, he does.

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

Elliott Kalan

[12:53] And when you say a transformation, do you mean the vampire changes from human to monster, 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 or being confronted with it, or forced to do it, and having to try to get out of it, you know.

[13:13] In some ways, that's one of the, I mean, when you see the new Nosferatu, you see that in the new Nosferatu, there's, like, less of a sense in my mind.

[13:21] Newsferatu.

Dan McCoy

[13:22] What?

[13:22] Newsferatu.

[13:23] Newsferatu.

Elliott Kalan

[13:24] Anyway, coming up on Newsferatu, the vampire stories you need to know.

[13:29] My name's Atu.

[13:32] Newsferatu, news for you, and newsferatu.

[13:36] Newsferatu.

[13:37] And I think that there's less of a feeling of a character being seduced to the dark side because the character already has a dark side to them.

[13:46] And also, Nosferatu, the character, is such a grotesque creep.

[13:49] Yeah.

[13:50] It feels very little like there's a, like, oh, who's this guy?

Dan McCoy

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

[13:55] I know that his land deal is, you know, a sham, a cover for other stuff in Nosferatu.

[14:02] But I did find it very funny that, like, Nicholas Holt's Jonathan-esque character, I don't know what he's called in Nosferatu, is, like, there, like, taking it face value.

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[14:20] Well, the other thing is, and Stuart, this will be spoiling a little bit for you, is that Nosferatu basically gets Holt, like, gets him drunk or high.

[14:28] He's in a daze.

[14:29] And he gives him a contract written in a language he doesn't understand and has him sign it kind of in a haze.

[14:34] And then later Nosferatu says to his wife, like, well, he signed you away to me.

[14:37] He signs the contract.

[14:38] And I feel like all she has to say is, like, bullshit, he didn't know what that contract said.

[14:42] Like, that's not going to hold up in a court of law.

[14:43] Like, it seemed like one of the few vampire movies 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.

[14:53] You want to see someone, you want to see a person confronted with a vampire and being tempted to join them or joining them.

Stuart Wellington

[15:01] Okay.

[15:01] And let's keep this quick.

[15:02] Let's, like, 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.

[15:11] There has been.

[15:11] Space?

[15:12] Space?

[15:12] Put vampire in space?

[15:13] There are space vampire movies.

Elliott Kalan

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

[15:16] That's true.

[15:16] There's a planet of the vampires.

[15:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:19] I think there was a really scary episode of Buck Rogers with a vampire in space.

[15:24] Oh, awesome.

[15:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[15:25] More like suck Rogers because he's sucking 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 when they are metaphors for a thing.

[15:38] Yeah.

[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] The Monster Show, The Harsh by Richard Skull, where it's talking about how so many of these monster movies from the 30s, he sees as people dealing with the trauma of World War I and the new knowledge of how a body can be destroyed.

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

[15:57] And I feel like with vampires, there is some way to make it a metaphor for the 1% income inequality, something like that.

[16:05] There's this class that is literally preying on normal people and in a way that they're not always aware of.

[16:12] But I don't know.

[16:13] But that's a theme.

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

Dan McCoy

[16:15] No, that's good though because I was thinking along those same lines.

[16:18] And what I was thinking about was like, oh, you know, often they use it as a metaphor for disease spreading and, you know, certainly coming off of COVID.

[16:26] And that reminded me of one of my problems with the new Nosferatu where it seemed to boil down to like, forget this science.

[16:34] Listen to my crazed ravings about the supernatural.

Stuart Wellington

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

Elliott Kalan

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

[16:40] It reminds me of that first Godzilla vs. Kong, I think it was, where it was like, every scientist knows the earth is not hollow except this one scientist.

[16:49] And he is right.

[16:50] And it's like, so we should always listen to the outsider who doesn't agree with the scientific consensus.

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

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

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

[16:59] That's important for now.

Stuart Wellington

[17:00] 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, particular favorites of you?

Dan McCoy

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

[17:19] Hell yeah.

[17:19] Dog Soldiers is pretty good.

[17:20] 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.

[17:30] Yeah, that one's pretty fun.

[17:32] What about Wolf?

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

[17:36] Wait, no, no.

[17:37] Jack Nicholson.

[17:38] Yeah, Jack Nicholson.

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] And Albert Finney is the detective in Wolf in, or I think he's the 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] 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 where he's peeing on the floor in the bathroom.

Stuart Wellington

[17:53] Oh, yeah.

[17:54] There's a scene where he like, somebody puts their hand on his shoulder and he like bites it really funny.

Dan McCoy

[18:00] I thought Wolf was funny because it was like, it's not like publishing can't be cutthroat, but it's not like the most cutthroat business.

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

Elliott Kalan

[18:10] I think it shows you Mike Nicholson's view of the publishing world.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

[18:21] Yeah.

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

[18:26] Not really 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.

[18:37] I feel.

[18:38] Yeah.

[18:38] Like, I feel like Ginger Snaps talks about it in like as a puberty metaphor in a way that.

[18:44] Yeah.

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

[18:46] I guess.

[18:46] Teen Wolf did it first and better.

Elliott Kalan

[18:49] No, I'm not saying.

[18:50] I'm just saying that that's.

[18:51] I mean, I was a teenage werewolf did it before Teen Wolf, too.

[18:54] Yeah.

[18:54] Okay.

[18:55] I'll shut up.

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

Stuart Wellington

[18:56] I'm just saying.

[18:57] I feel like it felt pretty fresh and novel the way that Ginger Snaps.

[19:00] I will say that.

Elliott Kalan

[19:00] I think Ginger Snaps doing it as a female puberty story as opposed to just a puberty.

[19:05] story.

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

[19:09] Teen Wolf is not the best use of werewolf as puberty metaphor.

[19:14] Hmm.

[19:15] Interesting.

[19:16] Okay.

[19:16] You know when you go through that change or something, you become great at basketball and

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

[19:21] Say more on that.

[19:24] But so werewolves, werewolf movies.

[19:26] You're asking for what?

[19:27] How we how we make it fresh and fun.

Stuart Wellington

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

[19:34] movie?

[19:34] Here's where you need the transformation.

Elliott Kalan

[19:35] 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 barricade them somewhere or

[19:43] 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 just is a definite.

[19:49] Classic where wolf's rope.

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

[19:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[19:54] A scene where the person who is afflicted with lycanthropy is underestimated because they

[19:59] are just a regular old human and the person doesn't realize, oh no, this guy's going to turn

[20:03] into a wolf.

Dan McCoy

[20:05] I mean, speaking of jokes about specific movies, I wouldn't mind getting Griffin Dunn back

[20:09] in one.

[20:09] Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[20:10] Yeah.

[20:10] Get Griffin Dunn back in one.

[20:12] Sure.

[20:12] Yeah.

[20:13] He's still a working actor.

[20:14] You can find it.

Dan McCoy

[20:15] Only murders in the building.

[20:16] And you now let him play the werewolf.

[20:19] Yeah.

[20:19] He's getting more wolf in looking.

Elliott Kalan

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

[20:22] Yeah.

[20:23] Only werewolves in the building.

[20:24] Yeah, sure.

[20:25] I mean, that, to be honest, that is something that I would think would be a cool way to do

[20:29] werewolf movie is to do it in more of an urban setting that way to even you lose the spookiness

[20:34] of the woods.

[20:34] But if you got a werewolf loose in a high rise apartment building, that's a little scary,

[20:37] you know?

Stuart Wellington

[20:38] And also like the idea of like the, the, your like primitive nature coming in conflict with the, you

[20:44] know, the more.

[20:45] The more modern world.

[20:46] Yeah.

[20:47] Modern and urban.

[20:48] Okay.

[20:49] So, uh, I guess that will, will, would that cover our interesting take on the, on the character?

Elliott Kalan

[20:55] Maybe.

[20:55] And also he's probably going to be like a social media star.

[20:58] People see like there's this werewolf and they're like, Hey man, now he's an influencer,

[21:03] you know?

Dan McCoy

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

[21:06] Skinfluencer.

[21:06] Or that's based on that general topic that I've liked.

[21:09] Okay.

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

[21:11] Cause like there've been movies.

[21:13] Yeah.

[21:13] But I'm, I'm just, I'm like, that is like the first thing everyone suggests.

[21:17] Yes.

[21:18] I think.

Elliott Kalan

[21:18] Yeah.

[21:19] I was once in a meeting with a company that was looking to find something new to do with

[21:23] Gumby.

[21:24] And, uh, they were like, we did have one idea we liked where Gumby is an influencer.

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

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

Dan McCoy

[21:31] It influences people to go inside books and have adventures.

Stuart Wellington

[21:35] How about Gumby goes through a portal into the real world and transforms into a human?

[21:41] Into a human.

Elliott Kalan

[21:42] He's got to find Art Clokey.

[21:44] Oh, Art Clokey died.

[21:45] Sorry.

[21:46] And his best friend's a horse, but when he comes to the real world, he's a person, you know?

[21:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[21:50] Okay.

[21:51] Moving on.

[21:52] We're going to move on to our next character and that is Frankenstein's monster.

[21:56] But I will also take ideas from Victor Frankenstein as well.

[22:00] The doctor.

[22:02] Okay.

[22:02] So, uh, are, 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.

Elliott Kalan

[22:11] Those are, I mean, those are, of the universal movies, those are the ones that I think hold

[22:15] up the most genuinely best.

[22:17] Those first two Frankensteins.

[22:18] Mm-hmm.

[22:18] Um, other, I mean, the, the Hammer Frankenstein movies, I like a bunch of those.

[22:23] Those got really weird as time went on where it was like Victor Frankenstein was just a,

[22:27] he was just a murderer and he's just like taking brains out of one person and slap on him

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

Dan McCoy

[22:32] Oddly, considering who I am, I've never seen flesh for Frankenstein.

[22:35] So I can't speak on that topic.

[22:37] That is weird.

Elliott Kalan

[22:38] That is weird considering who you are.

[22:38] Rocky Horror Picture Show is basically a Frankenstein story, but not, but they don't really follow

[22:42] the same tropes since it becomes, it becomes a space vampire story.

[22:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

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

[22:49] I remember nothing about it.

Elliott Kalan

[22:51] I remember, uh, 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.

Dan McCoy

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[23:02] I feel like there's a, um, there's the Frankenstein is a little bit.

[23:06] So you're like Lisa Frankenstein.

[23:07] Sorry.

[23:08] I like Lisa Frankenstein.

[23:09] Yeah.

[23:09] Frankenstein's a little bit harder because you're dealing with a main character who is

[23:13] so much less expressive in many ways and so much less active.

[23:17] Like the monster is not, is often in these stories 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 I, Frankenstein, uh, which we saw for the podcast, right?

[23:27] Where Frankenstein's monster is like an action hero fighting demons or whatever.

[23:30] Yeah.

[23:30] Um, but I feel like that's not the best use of him.

[23:33] You know?

[23:33] Okay.

[23:33] Interesting.

[23:34] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[23:34] I mean, I do think that if we're moving into.

Stuart Wellington

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

Dan McCoy

[23:40] She was a little more radical.

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

[23:46] Uh, I mean, like I, I know that Brano's version was closer to the, the, the book, but no one

[23:52] saw it or watched it.

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

[23:55] Uh, I do think that there's still a lot of room in a, uh, more, uh, more accurate, I guess

[24:04] is the word I'm looking for, but not exactly, uh, adaptation.

[24:07] One that he was closer to the original vision of the monster where he's not in an expressive

[24:13] lug.

[24:14] Like he learns to think and feel.

[24:16] And like, there is still juice to be gotten out of the horror of that character realizing

[24:23] like, like, well, what am I?

[24:25] What is life?

[24:26] What is my life?

Elliott Kalan

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

Stuart Wellington

[24:31] Yeah.

[24:31] It's a lot like that.

[24:32] The, um, the, the, the Frankenstein story in, uh, the show Penny Dreadful, I think actually

[24:40] captures kind of what you're talking about pretty well.

[24:43] Uh, and it features Josh Hartnett who, you know, and, and, and that could be all about,

Dan McCoy

[24:49] you know, being mad at your dad.

[24:51] Yes.

[24:51] This is a theme that has lasted.

Stuart Wellington

[24:54] Yeah.

[24:55] I feel like if there's anything, uh, that's, that's why, that's why my, my thing, I think

Elliott Kalan

[24:59] we even go to freshen it up, we go even further back and it's called Oedipus Stein.

[25:04] And.

Dan McCoy

[25:04] Oh, I thought you were going to go Frankenstein.

Elliott Kalan

[25:08] Sure.

[25:10] Again, I was a teenage Frankenstein.

[25:11] Yeah.

[25:11] Um, but this is Oedipus Stein is about Frankenstein's monster is so mad at his dad, Victor

[25:16] Frankenstein, that he, he falls in love with his step-mom, I guess, you know, uh, Victor

[25:21] Frankenstein's wife Elizabeth.

Stuart Wellington

[25:22] In a modern sitcom, his dad would be a retired baby boomer who has a home and his millennial

[25:29] kids who also have kids have to move back in because their life choices have fucked them

[25:35] up financially.

Elliott Kalan

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

[25:37] Yeah.

[25:37] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[25:37] One of them is Frankenstein.

Elliott Kalan

[25:39] Frankenstein has to move back in with his parents because he can't afford a house.

Stuart Wellington

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

[25:44] Yeah, exactly.

[25:46] Okay.

[25:47] Real spelled R-E-E-L.

[25:49] Uh, okay.

[25:49] So we, uh, I think we've talked a little bit about Frankenstein.

[25:52] Let's move on to another monster called Gilman, the creature from the Black Lagoon.

[25:59] Uh, not, not a super popular character in movies.

[26:03] I'm sure there was some kind of retrospective on, uh, during when Shape of Water was, uh,

[26:08] all the range.

[26:09] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[26:10] This is the character that, uh, this is an original Universal character.

[26:14] I mean, Universal didn't invent it.

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

[26:17] But, uh, this is one that I think there's less of it because there's really just those

[26:22] first three movies.

[26:23] And then there's the Gilman and Monster Squad.

[26:25] There's the Gilman and Shape of Water.

[26:27] Mm-hmm.

[26:27] And there's various kind of ultra low budget ripoffs 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 got Abe Sapien who's kind of a-

[26:36] Yeah, Abe Sapien.

[26:37] But there's not, there's not like a real rich kind of, unless you're going back to,

[26:40] like, Mermen and Mermaids.

[26:42] Right.

[26:42] There's not really, like, a rich folklore to draw on for the Gilman.

Dan McCoy

[26:45] Well, because, unless I'm wrong and there's, like, a short story I don't know about,

[26:51] it's not based on-

[26:52] No, no.

[26:52] It's an original film.

[26:53] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[26:54] Yeah.

[26:54] It's not based on some dude's encounter with a manatee or something.

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

Elliott Kalan

[26:59] Yeah, yeah.

[27:00] I mean, but, so, but, so what the, I think there's fewer tropes to rely on for the, for

[27:05] the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

[27:06] Also, because by the third movie in that series, they found lungs in him and they hook him,

[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 and drowning at the end because he's so sad.

[27:16] Like, there's, there's a, there's less of a, the Creature from the Black Lagoon is, is,

[27:20] it follows the Frankenstein model a little bit in being an inexpressive monster that to

[27:26] a certain extent wants to be loved but doesn't know how to, how to achieve that and runs afoul

[27:30] of human intolerance.

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

[27:35] But there's less of a, there's less, let's say it's not as psychologically rich a figure as,

[27:40] say, Dracula or Frankenstein's monster or the Wolfman, you know, but I still love him.

Stuart Wellington

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

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

[27:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:52] Wait, what lover boy version?

[27:55] Shape of Water.

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

Elliott Kalan

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

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

Dan McCoy

[28:00] It was Best Picture.

[28:01] Honestly, I zoned out.

[28:03] My brain went back to Frankenstein because I was distracted by a question I got about

[28:06] Flop TV that I shouldn't have looked at.

Elliott Kalan

[28:09] I didn't want the lover boy version of Frankenstein.

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

[28:11] It's lover boy.

[28:13] They were, they were.

[28:14] They cut out the scene at the beginning where they show Patrick Dempsey being made out of

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

[28:20] Who brings pizza and more to World of the Housewives.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[28:28] Yeah, Gilman.

Elliott Kalan

[28:30] What are you going to do?

[28:31] You're going to have to make him like a genetic creation of some kind.

[28:34] You know, I think it's very unlikely you're going to find a hidden.

[28:36] A pollution, pollution creation.

[28:38] Yeah, maybe a pollution creation.

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

[28:41] I mean, I hate to say it.

[28:42] So many of my ideas are going to go back to put this thing in an urban setting.

[28:45] You've got a Gilman that's some, or a Gil, like the way dolphins will sometimes get lost

[28:49] in like the Thames or something or the Kiwanis Canal.

[28:52] Like what if the Gilman accidentally gets lost in a city and it's Gilman, it's Black, back,

[28:57] a creature from Black Loom 2, lost in New York, but now it's in the sewers or it's, you know,

[29:01] it's, it's, it's feeding off of the people in the, in the city or something like that.

[29:04] Yeah.

[29:04] It's what is in the Ritz Carlton.

Dan McCoy

[29:06] What if it's a sort of a assault on a building sort of thing where the Gilman is trying to,

[29:12] is, is breaking into an aquarium to free all of his friends and, you know, the humans get

[29:18] caught in the crossfire.

Elliott Kalan

[29:19] Again, this is a different version of the Gilman.

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

[29:23] There's, there's the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen book that has a, like a Gilman swarm

[29:29] at the end.

[29:29] Basically there's like, it's like mating season and breeding season for the Gilman in South America.

[29:34] And there's something cool about that.

Dan McCoy

[29:37] Oh, there's sort of like Piranha Gilman.

Elliott Kalan

[29:39] Yeah.

[29:39] It's the one where, I'm trying to, it's one of the Nemo hardcovers that are about Captain

[29:44] Nemo's daughter.

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

[29:49] and the Bikini Machine.

[29:50] The Bikini Machine.

[29:50] Yeah.

[29:51] Which I think is very funny.

Stuart Wellington

[29:53] Okay.

[29:53] Now let's move on to The Invisible Man.

[29:56] Now there was recently the director of The Wolfman just recently made an Invisible Man movie

[30:00] 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.

Dan McCoy

[30:16] Wow.

[30:16] Yeah, because I mean like that movie did extremely well considering that basically everything shut

[30:21] down immediately thereafter.

Stuart Wellington

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

[30:28] Hollow Man.

[30:29] Yeah.

[30:30] Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

[30:32] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[30:34] Are there others?

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

[30:36] The Invisible Man.

Elliott Kalan

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

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

[30:40] I think that's from the Invisible Man.

[30:41] There's the Invisible Woman.

[30:42] Like they did a lot.

[30:43] The thing with the 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.

Dan McCoy

[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.

Elliott Kalan

[30:58] I mean there was an invisible maniac I believe.

Stuart Wellington

[31:00] Yeah.

[31:00] It's true.

Dan McCoy

[31:01] I do recall a maniac.

[31:02] I can look that up.

Stuart Wellington

[31:03] That sounds pretty good.

[31:04] Do that.

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

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

Elliott Kalan

[31:12] I mean considering he has to be naked, there's a lot of meat on that Invisible Man bone.

[31:15] Arguably, yeah.

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

[31:21] they weren't too scared to watch all the way through was The Invisible Man and we watched

[31:24] it a bunch of times over and over and they always thought it was very funny that he's

[31:28] just walking around naked the entire movie.

[31:30] Like wherever he's going, he's just naked, you know?

Dan McCoy

[31:33] I mean like the thing is like the Lee Winnell one I liked so much.

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

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

[31:42] The thing – 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, yeah, I respect like what this movie is doing as being like this

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

Elliott Kalan

[32:08] Well, and like the Hollow Man is not the hero of the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[32:11] Exactly.

[32:11] He's not.

[32:12] It holds a mirror up and in that mirror you see nothing because he's invisible.

[32:16] It's invisible, yeah.

[32:17] In that mirror you see nothing.

Elliott Kalan

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

[32:23] Well, if something comes to you –

[32:24] No 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.

[32:34] You don't know if it's because they're invisible or if there's actually no monsters there.

[32:38] Okay.

Dan McCoy

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

[32:42] Legally.

Elliott Kalan

[32:42] They can't attack us.

Stuart Wellington

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

[32:46] That's a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde.

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

Dan McCoy

[32:52] Well, let's see.

[32:55] Again, I'm going to say that – yeah.

[32:57] Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde?

[32:59] No, I didn't.

[32:59] You don't.

Elliott Kalan

[33:00] It's not very good at all.

[33:01] No.

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

[33:06] The silent one is really good with John Barrymore I think it is.

[33:10] I have to say this is one that I think suffers a little bit from us living in a world that no longer has as rigidly defined morals as the world kind of once did in some ways.

[33:23] Where it was the – I feel like it's a lot harder to – like the Hyde has to be so much more extreme in order to really get across that this is a guy operating on his worst instincts and in a way that society can't contain.

Dan McCoy

[33:37] And there have unfortunately been too many stories of someone who seems above reproach on the surface who turns out to be a monster.

Elliott Kalan

[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 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where someone is blaming their problem on a potion or whatever and then it turns out it's not the case at all.

Stuart Wellington

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

[34:00] It's called tequila.

Elliott Kalan

[34:03] Like I wonder if there's something – I always had a joke version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in mind where Dr. Jekyll is very uptight and very above reproach.

[34:12] And Mr. Hyde is like look, he's got his problems but he just relates to people a little better.

[34:17] 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, trying to like convince him that he should become Mr. Hyde because it's more fun to be around Mr. Hyde.

Dan McCoy

[34:26] Pretty good.

[34:26] Yeah, his friends are mad.

[34:28] I was just actually thinking of a sassy like t-shirt from what Stuart just said, some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde themed t-shirt about tequila.

[34:36] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:37] Is Mary Riley a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

[34:39] I never saw that.

Dan McCoy

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

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

[34:43] No, I think you're – well.

Elliott Kalan

[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 Riley.

Stuart Wellington

[34:51] We sure would.

[34:52] So now that we've kind of done an overview of these movies, let's get a little word from our sponsors.

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

Dan McCoy

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

[35:02] Oh, boy.

Elliott Kalan

[35:03] If it did, Dan might have seen Mary Riley and he would know, yes, it is inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[35:09] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

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

[35:14] So I'm going to do a little bit of an ad from one of our sponsors, and that is our sponsor, HelloFresh.

[35:21] HelloFresh is a meal delivery system.

[35:25] They send you the meal and you put that thing together and you make it yourself.

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[35:56] So, like, if something that might be keeping you from it would be being concerned that you don't have as many options, there are so many options now.

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[36:31] Just go to hellofresh.com slash flop10fm.

Dan McCoy

[36:37] The Flop House is also sponsored in part by Aura.

[36:41] That's A-U-R-A.

[36:42] Aura Frames.

[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.

[36:50] But those photos are just wasting away on their phone.

[36:54] Like, I know how that is.

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

[36:56] You're like, oh, great picture.

[36:57] And you never look at it again.

[36:59] Not even to the degree that you would if you had old-fashioned prints and, like, a photo book.

[37:06] You just forget that these photos exist.

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[37:20] And they know what they're talking about.

[37:21] They've been out there cutting wires for years.

[37:24] Cutting wires and telling you which digital frames are the best.

[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.

[37:46] 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, 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.

[38:05] But you still want to see it.

[38:07] And that's the great thing about having a digital frame.

[38:10] And right now, you can save on the perfect gift that keeps on giving by visiting AuraFrames.com.

[38:16] For a limited time, listeners can get $20 off their best-selling Carver mat frame with code FLOP.

[38:22] That's A-U-R-A frames.com.

[38:25] Promo code FLOP.

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

[38:31] Terms and conditions apply.

Elliott Kalan

[38:34] And I just want to mention before we get back to some universal monstering that FLOP TV has come to an end.

[38:42] Mostly our television version of the Flophouse 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 through the end of February.

[38:59] Go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, 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] Spray some out.

[39:08] One a day.

[39:09] Whatever you want to do, as long as you watch them before the end of February, before they go back into the Flophouse vault.

[39:14] That's theflophouse.simpleticks.com to look back on the hours of fun that we had telling you about movies with the number two.

[39:29] Hey, is this Jesse?

Stuart Wellington

[39:33] This is Jesse.

[39:34] Hey, this is Stuart Wellington, host of the Flophouse podcast on MaxFun.

[39:38] I'm calling because you've been named Maximum Fund'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, become a MaxFun member?

John Hodgman

[39:49] I was trying to think of when I started listening to the Flophouse, but I think it was something like 2014, 2015.

[39:57] Oh, wow.

[39:57] And then actually having a real job in 2021 was what allowed me to actually start supporting.

Stuart Wellington

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

[40:09] So as member of the month, you're going to be getting a $25 gift card to the MaxFun store,

[40:15] a special member of the month bumper sticker, and a special priority parking spot at MaxFun HQ in Los Angeles.

John Hodgman

[40:24] It's awesome to support you guys, to support MaxFun.

[40:27] I get endless joy and entertainment.

[40:31] If you're a MaxFun member, you can become the next MaxFun member of the month.

[40:35] Support us at MaximumFun.org.

[40:38] Most of the plants humans eat are technically grass.

S4

[40:43] Most of the asphalt we drive on is almost a liquid.

John Hodgman

[40:47] The formula of WD-40 is San Diego's greatest secret.

S4

[40:52] Zippers were invented by a Swedish immigrant love story.

John Hodgman

[40:56] On the podcast, secretly incredibly fascinating, we explore this type of amazing stuff.

S4

[41:02] Stuff about ordinary topics like cabbage and batteries and socks.

John Hodgman

[41:07] Topics you'd never expect to be the title of the podcast.

[41:10] Secretly incredibly fascinating.

S4

[41:12] Find us by searching for the word secretly in your podcast app.

John Hodgman

[41:17] And at MaximumFun.org.

Stuart Wellington

[41:22] And we're back.

[41:23] As I mentioned right at the top, I just got a new job working for Universal, handling some market research.

[41:32] And I have enlisted my two favorite movie experts in the whole wide world, Dan McCoy and Elliot Kalin, to help me with this.

[41:39] You know real movie critics, too.

[41:40] I do.

[41:40] I know real movie critics.

[41:42] And you know what?

[41:42] I threw them all in the trash.

[41:44] I picked you guys up off the shelf and I said, I want to play with you.

[41:50] Weird.

[41:52] So part of the thing, we're talking about the dark universe here that's an interconnected universe with all the Universal Monsters.

[41:59] One of the things that has been a huge part of the Universal Monsters history and what seems to wet moviegoers' appetites like nothing else is crossovers.

[42:10] People love it when one thing crosses over into another thing.

[42:13] Maybe Scooby-Doo shows up.

[42:15] Maybe Laurel and Hardy show up.

[42:16] What the fuck?

[42:17] Who cares?

[42:18] So Universal has a pretty deep-ass catalog of other very popular franchises.

[42:24] And I'm going to run down some of these names and I want to know what your thoughts are just right off the top of your dome whether or not you think that has good crossover opportunities with our newly reformed dark universe.

[42:35] So starting up, this is the biggest one, Fast and the Furious.

[42:39] How do they handle a Dracula?

Dan McCoy

[42:41] How do they handle one?

[42:43] Well, I mean the typical way, steaks, sunlight, garlic.

Stuart Wellington

[42:48] Do they have those in the cars?

[42:49] Yeah.

[42:50] I mean the cars have trunks.

[42:52] They could pick them up.

Dan McCoy

[42:53] Now I am thinking of like you attach the steaks to the front of the cars like jousting things.

[42:57] It's actually a good idea.

Stuart Wellington

[42:58] That is a good idea.

[42:59] I feel like this is a natural progression for the Fast and Furious franchise.

Elliott Kalan

[43:03] Especially because Draculas are also about family.

[43:06] When you turn someone into a vampire, they become part of your vampire family.

[43:10] Oh, yeah.

[43:10] And so the idea of our beloved gearheads and their family going up against a Dracula family that is, if anything, maybe even more tightly knit than our carboys and girls.

Stuart Wellington

[43:21] Now do we have any other characters?

[43:23] Any of our other universal monsters would mesh well with this?

[43:28] I don't know if a gill man is the best fit for it.

Elliott Kalan

[43:31] Probably not.

[43:32] But I could see.

[43:33] So here's what I would see.

[43:34] If you're going to bring other monsters in.

Dan McCoy

[43:36] Unless you're doing a speedboat-based spin on it.

Elliott Kalan

[43:38] If it's a car that turns into a boat, they had a car that turned into a spaceship.

[43:42] There's no reason you can't do that.

[43:44] But I think if you have Dracula turns one of the Furiosos or whatever they're called.

[43:52] The members that – they have a name like as a group?

[43:55] The Toretto family?

[43:57] I guess the Toretto's.

[43:57] Dracula turns one of the Toretto's.

[43:59] They've got to replace them.

[44:00] Frankenstein's going to drive this car.

[44:02] That actually is a good idea.

[44:03] This is going to seem tasteless.

[44:05] Paul Walker, bring him back to life as a Frankenstein.

[44:08] He drives it.

[44:08] It does seem tasteless.

[44:10] You're right.

[44:11] You're right.

[44:12] Correct.

Stuart Wellington

[44:14] But, I mean, I said right up top, no idea is a bad idea.

[44:19] This is a safe space for sharing.

[44:20] He said it.

[44:20] He said none were bad.

Dan McCoy

[44:22] Yeah.

[44:22] Okay.

[44:22] This space is safe, but unfortunately it's being broadcast out to the world.

Stuart Wellington

[44:26] Yeah, outer space is very unsafe.

[44:27] You're not going to last long.

[44:28] We have another big franchise, and this is one that is near and dear to Elliot Kalen's heart.

[44:32] The Jurassic World franchise.

Dan McCoy

[44:35] That's his favorite iteration of that idea.

[44:38] Of course, the world.

Stuart Wellington

[44:39] Now, obviously we know Sam Neill already has a problem with invisible mans.

[44:44] Uh-huh.

[44:44] It's true.

[44:45] Yeah, sure.

[44:45] Because he was chasing an invisible Chevy Chase.

[44:48] As read in the memoirs.

[44:48] It's right there in his name all over the place.

[44:50] Yeah.

[44:52] His name is Chase.

[44:53] Yep.

[44:56] I cast him.

[44:57] Are there – what other monsters would have good crossover potential?

[45:01] CP with the Jurassic World of Perl Red Shots.

[45:04] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:04] I forgot what – we got so far down the invisible – memoirs of a visual manhole.

Stuart Wellington

[45:08] For a second, James was like, the Toretto family with dinosaurs?

Elliott Kalan

[45:12] Sign me up.

[45:13] Sounds pretty good.

[45:14] Now, so dinosaurs are – in the Jurassic franchise, they're often in a tropical setting.

[45:17] They're in these Costa Rican islands.

[45:19] So that seems to me like a good place for a gill man.

[45:22] He does not fit so much in the car culture unless he's driving like a Big Daddy Roth type strange, you know, car device.

[45:29] But I think you could easily have – you know, they're investigating these dinosaurs and there's also – they find in the lagoon there, there's creatures there.

[45:38] There's gill men.

[45:38] Right.

[45:38] Yeah.

[45:38] Right.

Dan McCoy

[45:39] Or how's this for a very, very boring movie?

[45:43] The Invisible Man.

[45:44] I love it already.

[45:44] In Jurassic World.

[45:46] He's trying to get away from those dinos.

[45:48] So what he does is he turns invisible and he walks out of the park.

Stuart Wellington

[45:52] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[45:54] That's –

[45:54] Sure, yeah.

[45:56] Sounds like a little slice of life.

[45:57] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[45:59] Slice of life, little stripe, you know?

[46:01] It's really just – I mean, it's kind of just like a nature program because you can't see the Invisible Man.

[46:06] So you just see it pan over like the landscape and see a bunch of dinos and stuff and then it's over.

Stuart Wellington

[46:11] And this next franchise is a crossover of both cars and things from an ancient time.

[46:18] The Back to the Future franchise.

[46:20] How do they – how do we handle – I mean, I feel like this makes sense.

[46:24] Marty McFly accidentally goes back to old-timey Transylvania.

[46:27] Right there.

Elliott Kalan

[46:28] I mean, I think we're avoiding – there's money on the table on the fact that Marty McFly is a werewolf in a different movie.

[46:32] Yes.

[46:33] It's true.

[46:34] So I think we play around with that one maybe.

[46:36] And I don't know if they switch places, the Teen Wolf and Marty McFly, or Marty McFly becomes a Teen Wolf and he's like, not again.

[46:43] I feel like this has happened before.

[46:45] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[46:45] He looks at the camera and he's like, not again.

[46:48] The whole audience is like, we know what he's talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[46:49] Yeah, he goes back in time to like a Romanian village in the 1800s, bitten by a wolf or 1600s even, bitten by a wolf, comes back.

[46:58] Yeah, not again.

[46:59] Oh, deja vu.

[47:00] And then they –

Dan McCoy

[47:01] I also feel like the Back to the Future series, as it stands, kind of makes hay from like sort of evil doppelganger versions of characters through time.

[47:11] So if we throw in some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, maybe – we've normally just seen like good characters be good through time or maintain traits.

[47:22] But what if like we get an evil Marty who's taking the potion who takes the –

[47:27] Or an evil Doc Brown.

[47:28] Doc Brown makes perfect sense.

Elliott Kalan

[47:30] Doc Brown, he drank that potion and he turned into an evil Dr. Hyde Doc Brown.

[47:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[47:34] Okay, now we're going to think a little bit outside the box.

[47:37] How about the American Pie franchise?

Dan McCoy

[47:41] I hope you're listening, Chris.

[47:45] What do we got?

[47:45] Yeah, what can they –

Elliott Kalan

[47:47] I mean we've already used Dracula, but I feel like if the mom that they want to sleep with is a vampire.

[47:53] Stifler's mom.

[47:54] Yeah.

[47:54] Happens to be –

[47:56] Count Stifler's mom.

[47:57] That's part of her allure.

[47:59] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:00] You can also do –

[48:02] We're going to spend a summer in our college years.

[48:05] What age are the American Pie gang at this point?

Elliott Kalan

[48:07] I mean now they're our age.

[48:08] They're in their 40s, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:09] But I guess probably the newer movies have completely new –

[48:13] Like it's like the children of the original American Pie-ers, right?

[48:17] Except Eugene Levy's still there, right?

[48:19] Probably.

Elliott Kalan

[48:20] Yeah.

[48:21] I mean if it's the children of the original American Pie-ers, he's still the granddad.

Stuart Wellington

[48:24] Yeah, because like –

[48:25] I mean the concept of the movie franchise is not like we're like aging with them as they go.

[48:30] It's about like high school and maybe college-age shenanigans.

Elliott Kalan

[48:32] You're thinking of the 7-Up franchise, which only has one scene with someone having sex with a pie.

[48:37] Yeah.

[48:37] And that's in 34 Up, I think.

Dan McCoy

[48:40] You know what?

[48:40] We've been forgetting this whole time.

[48:41] 35 Up?

[48:42] We've been forgetting the mummy and I feel like the mummy would fit right in –

[48:45] Oh, I didn't forget the mummy.

[48:46] We didn't talk about the mummy at all.

[48:47] It's fine.

[48:48] We could talk about them now.

[48:50] They would fit right in here.

[48:50] They're kind of milf.

[48:51] Mummy, I'd like to.

[48:52] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[48:53] These horny teens wonder what's under those wrappings.

[48:56] Yeah.

[48:56] It's all about that.

[48:58] I think that – I feel like the Steven Soderbergh.

[49:01] Steven Soderbergh.

Stuart Wellington

[49:05] Mummy.

[49:07] The Steven Soderbergh American Pie.

[49:10] In any case, they're all interesting.

[49:12] These are all good choices.

[49:14] The Steven Soderbergh movie, I think the thing it – I think the thing that it did that

[49:17] was most revolutionary was like looking straight at the audience and being like, what if the

[49:22] mummy was hot?

[49:24] Yeah.

[49:24] Yeah, finally.

Dan McCoy

[49:25] What if everyone you saw on screen made you horny?

[49:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:29] What if this – I don't know, kind of built your whole sexual identity around?

[49:34] Okay, so we've talked about American Pie.

[49:36] How about Shrek?

Dan McCoy

[49:38] How about it?

Stuart Wellington

[49:39] How about Shrek?

[49:40] Crossovers with Shrek?

[49:41] Are you offering some?

[49:41] No, thanks.

Elliott Kalan

[49:43] I feel like – I feel like – I've had enough to leave.

[49:47] I feel like Shrek and Frankenstein could get along pretty well.

Stuart Wellington

[49:49] Yeah.

[49:50] And our final crossover.

[49:51] This one I don't believe is the universal property, but I bet we can make this happen.

[49:55] The Muppets.

[49:56] The Muppets are not a universal property.

[49:58] And the Muppets.

Dan McCoy

[50:00] This is – I mean like this is – I think that with the Muppets you've got to stick

[50:04] 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

[50:11] Black Lagoon obviously in Kermit would have some things to talk about.

[50:17] Yeah, because it's not easy being green.

Elliott Kalan

[50:18] Yeah, sure.

Dan McCoy

[50:18] If you're looking for something for the whole cast to do, you've got to go with one of

[50:21] these classic gothic pieces of literature.

Elliott Kalan

[50:23] This is the one that I think the most has to be a monster party movie as they used to

[50:27] call the big ones.

[50:28] They're in a gothic location, but all the – Frankenstein's there.

[50:31] Dracula's there.

[50:33] Maybe Miss Piggy becomes the Bride of Frankenstein or something like that.

[50:35] It's almost like it's some kind of a mash.

[50:36] You want to see Miss Piggy with that hair.

[50:38] Somebody knows all the words.

[50:40] Yeah.

[50:40] Exactly.

[50:41] If only there was a mash of some kind.

[50:43] Oh, yes.

[50:43] Miss Piggy's in there, yeah.

[50:44] You have Hawkeye and Radar from MASH.

[50:46] They're also there.

[50:47] Whoa!

[50:49] Yeah.

[50:49] As you mentioned, you have all the characters from the TV show Smash, the one about a Broadway

[50:52] show.

[50:53] But I think you could – if you have the mummy – if you have the Muppets, you have the means

[50:58] and all those characters.

[50:59] Yeah.

[50:59] You have the mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman.

[51:01] Everybody's going to that movie.

[51:02] And you want to have like –

[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

[51:07] their kind of repertory version where they're playing those parts or the Muppets are on

[51:12] the road and they end up at a castle and all those creatures are coming to bedevil them,

[51:17] you know?

[51:17] Yeah.

[51:18] And like Gonzo turns into a werewolf or whatever.

[51:20] That sounds amazing.

[51:21] I guess Fozzie would be –

[51:21] Fozzie or Animal.

[51:22] Animal's already kind of a werewolf.

[51:24] Animal's already a Mr. Hyde.

[51:27] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[51:28] Okay.

[51:29] So those are some great –

[51:31] Sorry.

[51:32] We learned that Animal is Sam the Eagle's Hyde.

Elliott Kalan

[51:36] Those are the two.

[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] Yeah.

[51:43] That would be great.

[51:43] That's so funny.

Stuart Wellington

[51:44] Okay.

[51:45] 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 –

[52:02] Did they already?

[52:03] That's what I mean.

[52:03] We're not doing popcorn.

Dan McCoy

[52:04] The question is you've got to ask who has the most fuckable popcorn bucket opportunity.

Stuart Wellington

[52:10] What's the most important – what's a Frankenstein?

[52:13] Popcorn bucket look like Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[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] You know?

[52:21] If you're really going all out with this popcorn bucket, it makes a sound like thunder.

[52:25] It's like a lightning flashing on it.

[52:27] The mummy, it's going to look like a tune.

Stuart Wellington

[52:28] I mean I feel like Frankenstein's head kind of looks like a popcorn bucket.

Elliott Kalan

[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 really good.

Dan McCoy

[52:35] Of course, for the Wolfman, you have a lot of fur, which you always love to have a lot of loose hair in your popcorn.

[52:41] So it's not so good.

Elliott Kalan

[52:41] Especially when there's butter.

Dan McCoy

[52:42] 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.

Stuart Wellington

[52:49] Yeah, yeah, for sex purposes.

[52:51] Yeah.

[52:52] Ignoring that.

[52:52] Invisible man.

[52:53] 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.

[52:57] A scam.

Elliott Kalan

[52:58] See-through.

[52:59] See-through popcorn bucket.

[53:00] You claim that you're selling them.

[53:03] 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] Because popcorn is a tactile sensation.

[53:09] You taste it and touch it.

[53:10] It's not about just looking at it.

Dan McCoy

[53:11] I mean, the price, like the margins on mine are so good, though.

Elliott Kalan

[53:16] It's 100% profit because it's not real.

[53:18] It's really Emperor's new popcorn bucket in a way.

[53:20] Exactly.

[53:21] Mummy, it's shaped like a pyramid.

[53:23] Creature from the Black Lagoon?

[53:24] I don't know.

[53:24] That's a good question.

[53:25] The creature head, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[53:27] Dr. Jack and Mr. I, half of it looks like a normal bucket, half of it looks like a crazy bucket.

[53:33] Yeah.

[53:33] Oh, man, we crushed this.

[53:34] Okay.

[53:35] 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.

Elliott Kalan

[53:44] Yeah.

[53:44] Make the food as gross as possible for them.

[53:47] It's all green.

[53:48] All the food's green, you know, naturally.

[53:50] Like, you have green fish sticks with green fish meat in them for the Gill Man, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[53:55] You could also have green fish sticks with green fish meat for the Invisible Man.

[53:59] Or Frankenstein's Monster.

[54:01] Frankenstein's Monster.

[54:02] Or Dracula.

Elliott Kalan

[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] Like, it's a real big steak.

[54:09] Some sort of, yes, strawberry shake, too.

[54:13] It's a steak with strawberry sauce on it.

[54:15] Oh, there you go.

[54:16] Which sounds disgusting.

[54:17] You know, but that's the blood on this steak.

[54:19] Yeah, of course.

[54:20] So, I think we have—

[54:22] And Wolfman, the food has hair in it.

[54:23] Yeah, just like Dan said with the popcorn.

Stuart Wellington

[54:24] Yeah.

[54:25] I think we're going to close this out on a, like, 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—

[54:46] I'm sure I told this story before, but I took a picture of my, like,

[54:50] winning screen when I beat the game and sent it into Nintendo Power.

[54:54] Oh, cool.

[54:54] I was that proud of it.

[54:55] Yeah.

[54:55] After, you know, I defeated—

[54:58] I defeated the, what, the Spider-Gremlin?

Dan McCoy

[55:01] I mean, the thing is, you know, it's unsurprising that my brain immediately went to Gremlins 2.

[55:05] I mean, I don't mean Gremlins 2, the new batch.

[55:08] I mean, Gremlins as well.

[55:09] Comma, T-O.

[55:10] Because, I forget, you know, like, whatever fast food joint was doing this, I had the entire run of the, like, story records that told the story of Gremlins.

Elliott Kalan

[55:21] I had those too, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:22] I think it was a McDonald's thing.

[55:24] I think.

[55:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:24] Like, the really thin, kind of flexi records.

[55:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:27] Yeah.

[55:28] But it was still an impressive—I mean, like, those were the days of, like, tie-ins, man, to do, like, a whole series of records that told the story of the movie Gremlins and have it at a fast food place.

Stuart Wellington

[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.

[55:52] She was a big Kate and Allie fan.

[55:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:54] Yeah.

[55:54] I feel like I don't—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 a C-3PO.

[56:09] Is laying back with his legs spread, and the tape roll—the scotch tape is right in between his legs.

Dan McCoy

[56:14] Well, like, that's perfect design.

[56:15] How else would you do it?

[56:16] I don't understand.

Elliott Kalan

[56:17] I mean, you might—at that point, you might rethink the concept of a C-3PO tape dispenser.

Stuart Wellington

[56:23] No, I love that.

[56:24] Yeah.

[56:25] 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.

[56:31] 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.

[56:54] And there's plenty of really great shows there.

[56:56] I'd like to thank my two co-hosts, Dan McCoy and Elliot Kalen, 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?

[57:05] What do I have in common with Elliot?

[57:07] Universal monsters, baby.

[57:08] Yep, right there.

[57:10] Okay.

[57:11] And I hate them.

[57:12] And Dan fucking hates them.

[57:14] So I was doing this mainly to bedevil him.

Elliott Kalan

[57:16] Thanks for tolerating this irritating discussion, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[57:19] Yeah, nothing I like worse than monster talk.

Stuart Wellington

[57:21] So again, for the Flophouse, I've been Stuart Wellington.

Dan McCoy

[57:24] I've been Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[57:26] I've been Elliot Kalen.

Dan McCoy

[57:28] Boo!

[57:29] Bye.

[57:35] Maximum Fun.

John Hodgman

[57:36] A worker-owned network.

[57:37] Of artist-owned shows.

[57:39] Supported.

[57:40] Directly.

[57:41] By you.

FH Mini 122 - Monster Mashers

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