Ep.#436 - Dear David, with Hallie Haglund

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.

[0:13] Just go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff.

[0:21] 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.

Dan McCoy

[0:33] On this episode, we discuss Dear David.

Stuart Wellington

[0:36] I've heard of a Dear John, but Dear David is ridiculous.

Elliott Kalan

[0:41] I was thinking of a Dear John thing, too, just because I know it's one of Hallie's favorite shows.

[0:45] Oh, it is.

Hallie Haglund

[0:45] It's so good.

[0:46] It's so good.

[0:56] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[1:13] Oh, hey there, Dan. It's me, Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15] Well, howdy, folks. It's me, Elliot Kalin.

Hallie Haglund

[1:19] I don't see you much around these parts.

[1:23] I'm Hallie Hatton.

[1:24] Perfect. No notes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31] You did it.

[1:31] I love that you got so caught up in the character that you forgot the objective of the line.

Hallie Haglund

[1:37] I lost myself in it. That's what happens.

Dan McCoy

[1:40] Yeah, yeah.

[1:41] I mean, it reminded me of when I would go into Hallie's office, and after a while, she'd go,

[1:45] Go on, get.

[1:47] Get.

[1:47] Go on, now. Get.

[1:49] Poking me with a stick she had there.

[1:53] Hey, this is a podcast where we—

[1:56] Guys, did you guys see that Reba McIntyre is a new show out?

Stuart Wellington

[1:59] I did. I saw ads for it in the New York City subway.

[2:02] What's it called again?

[2:03] It's like—

[2:03] So-and-so's place, right?

[2:05] Guys, it's called Happy's Place.

[2:07] That's right.

[2:07] I'm conflicted because I, of course, want more Reba McIntyre TV shows.

[2:12] But the problem is, is growing up, there was a local kids' show where a clown hobo character

[2:20] and his frog sidekick introduced cartoons, basically.

[2:25] It was called Happy's Place.

[2:26] He was Happy the Hobo.

[2:28] And so I can't see these ads and not be like, this feels like stolen valor, Reba.

[2:33] I was—

[2:34] I mean, she does—

[2:34] Don't impress me much.

Elliott Kalan

[2:36] She does play a hobo that introduced cartoons.

[2:38] That's not a Reba McIntyre song, Hallie.

[2:40] I was hoping.

[2:41] No, no, no.

[2:43] So close to—

[2:44] Reba McIntyre.

[2:45] You know what they say, Jolene.

Dan McCoy

[2:47] Introducing the podcast's premise within—

[2:49] Should have been a cowboy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:50] Am I right?

Dan McCoy

[2:54] Wasn't Don the maid of Honky Tonk Angels, right, Reba?

[2:57] Oh, God damn it.

Stuart Wellington

[2:57] Mm-hmm.

[2:58] Yep.

[2:58] Full of some prison blues.

[3:00] Yeah.

[3:01] This is a Reba McIntyre podcast.

[3:03] Living in America.

[3:04] Right, Reba?

[3:04] I mean, don't even—

[3:05] Like, I love the show Reba.

[3:07] I watch the shit out of it.

[3:08] But I still, like, to this day, I can't get over how, like, self-aggrandizing the opening

[3:14] credits song is.

[3:15] It's like, you know, she's a single mom who works too hard.

[3:18] Wake up in the morning with a cup of ambition?

[3:19] No, you're messing up my bit, Elliot.

[3:21] Sorry.

[3:22] So it's okay.

[3:23] You know, she's a single mom who works too hard.

[3:25] I got Elliot to apologize, by the way.

[3:27] I know it didn't work when I tried to shut you down.

[3:29] So she's a single mom who works too hard.

[3:31] She loves her kids, and she'll never stop, you know, like, giving hands on the heart of

[3:35] a fighter.

[3:36] I'm a survivor.

[3:37] But I'm like, have you watched the show?

[3:38] She's, like, kind of a jerk to everybody.

[3:41] I mean, she, you know, but fair is fair.

[3:43] She doesn't work too hard.

Elliott Kalan

[3:43] She was a man, Stuart.

[3:45] Yeah.

[3:46] Actually, he got me.

[3:47] Okay, lock me up.

[3:48] Yeah, what if she was, what if she was Heba McIntyre?

[3:50] You would not have this problem.

[3:52] You'd say, what a strong, dominating man.

Stuart Wellington

[3:55] Guys, take me away.

[3:57] And as again, because it's Friday, I won't get out until Monday.

[4:00] So I deserve, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[4:01] So Dan, what do we do on this podcast other than talk about Stuart's specific grievances

[4:05] over the Reba McIntyre theme song?

Dan McCoy

[4:08] I can't see it at home, but there's almost a spit take.

[4:12] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[4:17] Normally, it's just us three knuckleheads, but we're glad to have Hallie back for Halloween.

[4:21] Star of the show, yeah.

[4:21] Halloween.

[4:24] The spooky season.

[4:25] While I'm branding it, right?

Elliott Kalan

[4:26] It's both the spookiest and most adorable time of the year.

Dan McCoy

[4:29] Yeah, we are deep into Shocktober, and so we're watching horror movies, and this time we—

[4:35] Are we?

[4:35] Yeah, well, this one's questionable.

[4:38] It counts.

[4:39] It counts.

[4:40] It counts.

Dan McCoy

[4:40] It counts.

Dan McCoy

[4:40] It counts.

[4:41] It counts.

[4:42] It counts.

Dan McCoy

[4:42] It counts.

[4:43] This was called Dear David.

[4:45] Guys, real quick.

Stuart Wellington

[4:45] Do you think we're going to get haunted by a ghost that makes us pee our pants for making fun of this movie?

Elliott Kalan

[4:52] Oh, no.

[4:53] I didn't think about that.

[4:54] We're all kind of approaching that age where we're going to be peeing our pants anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[4:58] Yeah, I feel like at this point I'm like, okay, well, this is different.

[5:01] I haven't done this in a long time.

Hallie Haglund

[5:02] Guys, I have two children.

[5:04] I pee when I go for a run.

Elliott Kalan

[5:07] I mean, I push them out of my body.

Hallie Haglund

[5:08] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:09] You're still carrying around the damage of human reproduction.

[5:12] Exactly.

[5:13] Meanwhile, your husband, his penis hasn't changed noticeably as far as I can tell.

Hallie Haglund

[5:17] His penis only leaks when it's diseased.

Elliott Kalan

[5:19] He pees his pants just for fun at this point.

[5:21] Yeah, just for the challenge.

[5:26] A lot going on.

Dan McCoy

[5:27] So, Dear David, this is from BuzzFeed Studios, and that's not a joke.

[5:33] That's a thing.

[5:33] This is a movie about a BuzzFeed writer based on a BuzzFeed writer's Twitter thread.

[5:38] Based on a true story, Dan.

[5:40] A true Twitter thread.

Elliott Kalan

[5:41] Based on a true Twitter thread about a haunted apartment.

Stuart Wellington

[5:44] Well, I liked Zola, and that was based on a Twitter thread.

[5:47] Is this the same?

Dan McCoy

[5:48] Yeah, but the thing is, Zola, I'm sure there was—

Stuart Wellington

[5:51] Does this movie also feature a montage of penises?

Dan McCoy

[5:54] I'm sure there was some level of embellishment in the film Zola, but that was, you know, grounded.

[5:59] I mean, the life of Emil Zola was nothing like that.

[6:02] It was grounded in our reality, whereas this movie has, you know, a kid appearing in dreams and doing monster things.

Stuart Wellington

[6:12] It specifically says it's based on a true story, and I'm like, okay, I guess we got fucking evidence that ghosts exist.

[6:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:19] It's true.

[6:20] You're David.

[6:21] Did it.

[6:21] I mean, it's not even the first ghost movie to say it was based on a true story, to be honest.

[6:26] Amityville Horror has been pretending to be based on a true story for, you know, almost 20 years now.

[6:30] Yeah, but this was on Twitter.

[6:31] I'm still allowed to make fun of it, Elliot.

[6:32] You can't lie on Twitter.

[6:34] Can I ask—

[6:35] Everything on Twitter.

[6:36] It's all true.

[6:36] I have a real question.

[6:37] It would get a community note if it was wrong.

Hallie Haglund

[6:38] I have a real question.

[6:39] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[6:40] Yeah.

[6:40] Hallie Haglund, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

[6:42] Yes.

Hallie Haglund

[6:44] Which part of this was actually, like, how much—it was the Twitter thread while he was tweeting, but was a guy really tweeting, like, my house, my apartment is being haunted.

[6:56] Here are the things I'm doing.

[6:57] Like, which part of it was part of the story?

Elliott Kalan

[7:00] I don't know.

[7:00] I did not care enough to research.

[7:02] Dan, you're usually, like, Encyclopedia Brown over here, so—

Dan McCoy

[7:04] No, I mean, I did limited research on this.

[7:07] I think that the—I think it's based on a true story in that this guy tweeted that he was being haunted by a ghost kid in his apartment, and he said that some of these things—

[7:19] They should have called this movie Ghost Kid.

[7:20] —happened, like, his cats would act weird, and, like, a chair would move and stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[7:24] Yeah, because cats are totally normal all the time.

Dan McCoy

[7:26] And it became a popular thread, and I think that that is all what is true.

Stuart Wellington

[7:32] And they didn't change his name, and I'm assuming, in reality, his boss isn't played by just—

Dan McCoy

[7:37] And they didn't change his comics to better comics.

Stuart Wellington

[7:41] Are those the actual comics?

[7:42] Can I be a bully for a second?

[7:44] Can I be a bully for a second?

[7:45] Yeah.

[7:46] Just for a second.

Elliott Kalan

[7:47] Wait, guys, we're entering the bully zone.

[7:49] This is the one place where it's okay to be a bully.

[7:51] After we leave the bully zone, it is not a bully.

[7:53] Thank you, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[7:54] Finally a safe space for bully people.

[7:55] I'm not a fan of this guy's art style.

[7:57] No.

[7:58] I'm not a fan of the style and the content, which is, like, stripped-down cartoons as memes or, like, Twitter jokes style.

Dan McCoy

[8:07] Yeah.

[8:08] Nothing appeared to be funny in these cartoons, and they seem to be sort of the—

[8:13] I mean—

[8:14] It's the bully zone.

[8:15] He can say whatever he wants.

[8:16] We are in the bully zone.

[8:17] It's lazy.

[8:17] We've got another couple seconds in the bully zone.

[8:19] There were lazy, like, repeated frames of just, like, you know, like, he has this digital art, and then he would just, like, double up on the—I don't know.

[8:25] I just didn't like it.

Stuart Wellington

[8:26] Like, I'm willing to accept that, you know, not all art is for me.

[8:30] You know, I—

[8:31] Yeah, sure.

[8:31] It should be because I'm a straight, white, middle-aged man.

Elliott Kalan

[8:34] All art should cater to my experience.

[8:37] You are the default basic prototype of a human, sure.

Dan McCoy

[8:39] No, we—OK, we should get out of the bully zone because we'll get a ghost kid after us.

Elliott Kalan

[8:44] Yeah, we don't want a ghost kid after us.

[8:45] I will say, while we're still in the bully zone, yeah, it's—the comics are more about a recognizable feeling than they are a joke.

[8:51] And that maybe translates better when you are scrolling through a feed online than when it is being shown full frame in a movie.

[8:59] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[9:00] Yeah.

[9:00] I found it very hard to read.

[9:02] There was a lot of reading involved in watching this movie.

[9:05] This movie was almost a book.

[9:07] It went by very fast.

[9:08] I didn't read half of the comics.

[9:10] I couldn't—it was hard for me.

Elliott Kalan

[9:12] There was a lot of comments scrolling along the screen, a lot of tweets being put up on screen.

Stuart Wellington

[9:16] And I'm like, what is this, a production of Dear Evan Hansen?

Dan McCoy

[9:19] I apologize for being mean about it.

[9:21] I think it's because I went—

[9:24] Well, we got out of there.

Elliott Kalan

[9:25] We actually just—guys, it was a trick.

[9:28] We left the bully zone a minute ago.

[9:30] Oh, my God.

Dan McCoy

[9:31] I said so many horrible things.

[9:33] And horrible things.

[9:34] Yeah, things about Tor Johnson.

[9:35] Yeah.

[9:36] No, I went and I looked for comics by the actual guy to just confirm that these are—

[9:42] Are you stalking him, Dan?

[9:43] I just was curious.

[9:44] He's the ghost, Dan.

[9:45] Are these the actual comics?

[9:46] And they were.

[9:46] You know, like, it's the same stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[9:48] I mean, I've seen these around before.

[9:50] Yeah.

[9:51] Look, if they can use the real Freddie Mercury audio tracks in Bohemian Rhapsody, then they can use his real comics in the movie.

[9:57] The actor doesn't have to redraw the comics, Dan.

[10:00] It's okay to reuse them, you know?

Dan McCoy

[10:01] I mean, especially because this is put out again by BuzzFeed Studios.

[10:05] Yes, they own it.

[10:05] They're like, what do we have?

[10:07] What do we have lying around?

[10:08] I think this guy wrote some tweets.

[10:10] Have they put out anything else?

Hallie Haglund

[10:11] Have they done anything else, BuzzFeed Studios?

[10:13] Yes.

[10:13] That's a good question.

[10:14] They have?

Dan McCoy

[10:15] Yeah.

[10:16] I don't know what else.

[10:17] Like, Listicle the movie?

[10:19] Well, there was that.

Hallie Haglund

[10:21] They were doing an Amazon show, weren't they, about the Hulk Hogan thing?

[10:26] But then it never got put on the air.

[10:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[10:28] Maybe—I think the Brutalist is from BuzzFeed Studios.

Elliott Kalan

[10:33] I'm not sure about—

[10:34] It wasn't Infinity Pool a BuzzFeed Studios production?

[10:37] Yeah, yeah, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[10:38] I'm not sure about other movies.

[10:40] I know that—

[10:41] Tantene?

Elliott Kalan

[10:42] Was that a BuzzFeed movie?

[10:43] There's a TV show called—

[10:45] Teton.

Elliott Kalan

[10:45] Teton, sorry.

[10:48] Tantene would be a different thing.

[10:49] Tantene would be a different thing.

[10:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[10:50] There's a TV show called Worth It that Audrey watched for a while that's about food that

[10:54] was a BuzzFeed Studios thing.

[10:56] Gross.

[10:57] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[10:58] Gross.

[10:58] Gross from what the—I'm guessing the—I could be wrong, but the implication to me from just

[11:04] the title is whether or not this food that is probably unhealthy for you is worth it.

Dan McCoy

[11:08] No.

[11:09] Okay.

[11:09] You're actually wrong.

[11:11] They—no, they go to—they—

[11:13] They have similar food, although sometimes they stretch the definition of, like, what's

[11:19] the same kind of—

[11:20] Of food?

[11:21] No.

Dan McCoy

[11:21] Like, they stretch what is the same food, but they eat food at different price points.

[11:26] Ah.

[11:27] And they're like, okay, like, this is great, cheap fried chicken.

[11:31] This is, like, the fancy, like—

[11:32] So it's like consumer reports.

[11:33] —chicken.

Dan McCoy

[11:33] —chicken.

[11:34] Like, what's worth it here?

[11:35] Like, what's the best that we had?

[11:37] You know, it's like a zippy, like—I think it's like a 15-minute—it's fine.

[11:42] Now, obviously, I want to make two points.

Elliott Kalan

[11:44] Obviously, we have a lot to say about Dear David.

[11:46] We're just brimming with comments about it.

[11:49] But also, obviously, if anyone from BuzzFeed Studios is listening, we would be happy to do

[11:54] work for you in exchange for money.

[11:55] So don't take this—don't take this us feeling like we're superior.

Hallie Haglund

[11:58] We're just trying to get the word out about your studios.

[12:01] Yeah, yeah.

[12:02] Consider this—

[12:02] No press is bad press.

[12:04] All press is good press.

Elliott Kalan

[12:05] This is promotion.

[12:06] You're working for exposure right now.

[12:08] Mm-hmm.

[12:08] So anyway—

[12:09] Yes.

[12:10] Let's talk about the movie Dear David, shall we?

[12:12] So we start with a title that explains that in 2017—that's right, everybody.

[12:17] We're going back in time seven whole years.

[12:19] Gotta go back in time.

[12:21] All right.

[12:21] Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

[12:22] To 2017, a more innocent time when the president was a madman as opposed to living in a time

[12:28] where the president is just an old man.

[12:30] And Adam Ellis is documenting—

[12:33] Gary Oldman?

[12:34] Gary Oldman cannot be president.

[12:36] He's not an American citizen, I don't think.

[12:37] But he wasn't born in America.

Hallie Haglund

[12:39] He disappears into a character.

[12:41] Yeah.

[12:42] Could be him.

Elliott Kalan

[12:43] That's true.

[12:43] Like a Dave-type situation?

[12:45] Mm.

[12:46] A Dear David-type situation?

[12:48] Anyway.

[12:48] Oh, okay.

[12:48] It says that in 2017, Adam Ellis documented strange happenings on Twitter, and it became

[12:54] a viral sensation.

[12:55] I, of course, am an old man, so I was not aware of this viral sensation until I saw the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[13:00] But then—

[13:01] Do you think they were planning on naming the sequel to this movie Meet Dave, and they're

[13:04] like, fuck, that movie already exists?

Elliott Kalan

[13:07] Yeah, probably, yeah.

[13:09] What if we called it David Duchovny?

[13:10] No, that's a person.

[13:12] Yep, not allowed.

Dan McCoy

[13:13] They were going to do the sequel?

[13:14] It was going to be Meet Dave?

[13:16] Yeah, because—

[13:17] You got to meet him in the first movie.

Elliott Kalan

[13:18] You don't really meet him much, to be honest.

[13:20] Yeah, that's the thing.

[13:21] Well, we're not introduced to him, I guess.

[13:22] Thanks for backing me up, Elliot.

[13:24] Yeah, no, I'm with Stuart on this one.

[13:25] Maybe it's just because he's wearing glasses now.

[13:27] Anyway.

[13:27] Yeah.

[13:28] The year—but then we don't go to 2017.

[13:30] We go to 1996, New York City, and a guy who runs a store of some kind, he's super excited

[13:36] about the internet.

[13:37] He feels like there's so much potential there for the future because tens of millions of

[13:43] people are using the internet.

[13:45] And their son, David, loves computers.

[13:48] He's always in the basement.

Hallie Haglund

[13:49] Was it even—I don't even think it was a million people.

[13:52] I think he was like, 900,000 people are on the internet.

Elliott Kalan

[13:57] Oh, I thought he said like 39 million people.

[13:59] I can't remember.

[13:59] Maybe I only—

[14:00] There's only one way to solve it.

[14:01] We got to watch Dear David again.

Dan McCoy

[14:03] One of the strangest things in a strange—I mean, this is a thin movie, but it has some

[14:07] very strange stuff in it—that in this year of our Lord, they think that they have to promote

[14:15] the idea that the internet is huge.

[14:17] Like, this feels like a leftover from like fear.com or something where they're flashing

[14:23] back and they're like, there's going to be so many people online, and our kid is obsessed

[14:28] with it.

Elliott Kalan

[14:29] I think they're trying to establish the idea that David and his family are like early adopters

[14:34] of the internet.

[14:35] But it also, again, does not seem like you need to do that.

[14:38] It seems totally unnecessary.

[14:40] But you also learn that David's mom is not happy about the stuff that she is being exposed

[14:45] to online.

[14:46] She doesn't like that David is sitting in the basement with no lights on, bathed only in

[14:51] the glow of the screen.

[14:52] That's right.

[14:53] In a giant black void.

[14:54] This giant monitor glow.

[14:56] And he's like a kind of a pale, creepy kid, classic kind of horror movie creepy kid.

[15:00] And David posts like a picture that he drew, I guess, which almost instantly online

[15:05] trolls start insulting him and then say, why don't you kill yourself?

[15:08] That's the end of this chilling scene.

[15:11] Because I hate to break it.

Stuart Wellington

[15:12] Yeah, they're really mean about that picture.

[15:14] Because like, I mean.

[15:16] It's the best picture in the movie, to be honest.

[15:18] And the other thing is, it's like, it's better that your art caused a reaction, you know?

[15:24] It's better than if they just scrolled past it and cared, right?

[15:26] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[15:26] I mean, David should have just typed back, hey, you're talking about it, aren't you?

[15:30] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[15:30] This is what Andy Warhol went through.

[15:34] Also, I feel like.

[15:35] Is that what Andy Warhol went through?

Dan McCoy

[15:37] Ghost Andy Warhol.

[15:39] I feel like this gets really muddy later in the movie where then like, David is made

[15:44] out to be some sort of demon creature that possesses people.

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] He's a vengeful.

[15:48] He becomes a vengeful spirit, you know, as so happens.

[15:51] He's like one of those sadikos.

[15:52] Yeah.

[15:53] We're also left with the assumption, oh, he must have been driven to suicide from trolling.

[15:59] And that's why.

[16:00] But that's not what happens in the movie at all.

[16:01] Well, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:01] That's what I'm saying.

[16:02] He doesn't become a vengeful spirit.

[16:04] He appears to have been something beforehand, but we'll get to it.

[16:07] Yeah.

[16:07] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[16:09] That's the end of that.

[16:10] Now it's 2017.

[16:11] And I like the lesson they're doing here is it's not like the internet was a nice place

[16:14] and it was ruined by trolls.

[16:16] They were always there.

[16:17] Like, they were the first ones, you know.

[16:19] Now it's 2017 again.

[16:21] And there's this guy, Adam.

[16:23] He is addicted to his phone.

[16:25] He's commuting from Queens to Manhattan to the BuzzFeed offices.

[16:27] He cannot get his face off of this phone.

[16:30] The only time he stops is when he's underground on the subway because this is 2017.

[16:32] It hasn't been wired for Wi-Fi in the subway yet.

[16:35] I was just in New York City.

[16:36] They solved that problem.

[16:37] Everyone's glued to their phones while they're in the tunnel too.

[16:39] It's really a better way to live.

[16:41] Right, guys?

Stuart Wellington

[16:42] Well, I mean.

[16:44] He's complaining because his busking didn't earn him much money.

[16:47] When Ellie was saying Showtime and flipping around.

Elliott Kalan

[16:49] There used to be an era.

[16:51] When you walked onto a subway train and you shouted, Showtime, Showtime, press play on

[16:54] a boombox and then almost kicked people in the face, they would notice.

[16:57] And now they don't even notice anymore.

[16:58] Have you ever seen somebody get kicked?

Stuart Wellington

[17:00] I've never seen someone get kicked.

Elliott Kalan

[17:01] I've seen video of it, but I've never actually seen it in person.

[17:03] No.

[17:03] I've seen it almost happen in person.

[17:04] That's fake news then.

Dan McCoy

[17:06] I want to say, if you have to take the subway long distances, I say, God bless having phones.

[17:14] And it's not wired for Wi-Fi as much as I would like.

[17:17] There's still plenty of dead spots.

Elliott Kalan

[17:19] All right.

[17:20] Yeah.

[17:20] It's just there's a thing called a book that people used to use.

Hallie Haglund

[17:23] I read books on my phone.

[17:25] I have the Libby app.

[17:27] Okay.

[17:28] Fair.

[17:28] Yeah.

[17:28] And that's mostly what I do on my phone these days.

Elliott Kalan

[17:31] Okay.

[17:31] That's a fair point.

[17:32] You know what?

[17:32] As long as you're reading books on your phone, Dan, I'm okay with it.

[17:35] No.

Dan McCoy

[17:35] What about short form erotica?

Elliott Kalan

[17:39] It's a book.

[17:39] I mean, you compile enough that into a book.

Dan McCoy

[17:41] What about the Inside Out video game?

Elliott Kalan

[17:45] There's an Inside Out video game?

Dan McCoy

[17:47] Yeah.

[17:47] You shoot memories at other memories to eliminate them.

[17:49] Just like in the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[17:51] Yeah.

[17:51] Just like in the Martin DuPont song, Inside Out.

[17:54] Okay.

[17:54] Anyway.

[17:54] So this guy's addicted to his phone, but he works at BuzzFeed.

[17:57] It's okay.

[17:57] He's a cartoonist.

[17:58] Like my shirt.

[18:00] Inside Out.

Hallie Haglund

[18:01] Just like my clothes.

Elliott Kalan

[18:05] So he's a cartoonist, and there are all these trolls being like, your art sucks.

[18:10] And his coworkers are like, don't respond to them.

[18:12] Don't engage with trolls.

[18:14] Don't do it.

Stuart Wellington

[18:14] I feel like the majority of people are like, oh, man, so real.

[18:17] Or like, I love this.

[18:18] But then there will be like one person will say something, and it'll really stick in his craw.

[18:23] Ain't that the way?

Hallie Haglund

[18:24] Ain't that the way, people, though?

Elliott Kalan

[18:26] Yeah, I agree.

[18:26] You think it would be easy to just ignore that.

[18:29] But then you see like a, let's call him man decoy, who has a lot of trouble not engaging with people online who create even the smallest of criticisms.

[18:38] Again, this is a totally hypothetical person.

Stuart Wellington

[18:42] Dan's going to choke you until you pee your pants tonight.

Dan McCoy

[18:44] Look, now that I'm medicated, I have better emotional regulation, executive function.

[18:50] It's all going up for old man decoy.

[18:54] That's what man decoy is doing better, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[18:56] And so Adam's boss, Justin Long, in a role that we have to assume was shot over the course of a day, maybe a day and a half in one location.

[19:05] But I will say also, the most fun thing in the movie, in my opinion.

Dan McCoy

[19:08] By far.

[19:09] The movie comes to life during the four minutes or so scattered through the film that he's on screen.

[19:15] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[19:16] Is he supposed to be Jonah Peretti?

Elliott Kalan

[19:19] Is that a BuzzFeed person?

Hallie Haglund

[19:21] Yeah.

[19:21] Are they related to Chelsea Peretti?

[19:23] Yes, their brother and sister.

[19:24] And their dad is a big mogul who bought them each an internet site.

[19:31] Great.

Elliott Kalan

[19:31] Famous people had a rich dad?

Hallie Haglund

[19:35] I think I'm right.

[19:36] Well, yeah.

[19:37] I think.

[19:38] Now I got to look it up.

[19:39] I'm afraid.

Elliott Kalan

[19:40] I don't know who he's supposed to be.

[19:41] They never give him a name.

Dan McCoy

[19:42] I was worried about writing misinformation.

Stuart Wellington

[19:44] Well, if we're going to be in the bully zone, we might as well get our facts straight.

Elliott Kalan

[19:47] No, the thing is, we're not in the bully zone, but we haven't yet gotten to the AstroTurf zone where we can just kind of say made up stuff, you know, the fake news zone.

Dan McCoy

[19:55] Right now we're in the wooly bully zone.

Elliott Kalan

[19:57] Uh-oh.

[19:59] I got to tell Hattie about it.

[20:01] Yeah.

[20:01] This thing I saw.

Hallie Haglund

[20:03] No, I'm right.

[20:04] I'm right.

[20:05] I'm right.

[20:05] Okay.

[20:06] So, wooly bully, Dan, what's that?

Elliott Kalan

[20:08] That song's literally about just seeing a really wooly bull, right?

Dan McCoy

[20:11] Let's see.

[20:12] Well, the lyrics, I think.

[20:13] Like a Highland cow.

[20:15] Wooly bully.

Elliott Kalan

[20:18] Those are the only lyrics I recall about.

[20:20] No, I got a thing you saw.

[20:21] It had two big somethings and a wooly jaw.

[20:25] And then they dance.

[20:26] Well, now I got to check this out.

[20:27] You got to do some research on this one.

[20:29] Yeah.

[20:29] That'll give me time to talk about the movie.

[20:30] So, Justin Long is like, Adam, your reach is not enough.

[20:33] And your humor needs to be more about the painful aspects of life.

[20:38] It needs to be more painfully truthful.

[20:40] And Adam's like, ugh, I'm going to lose my job if I don't do that in this cutthroat world of online cartooning

[20:45] at BuzzFeed if I don't get my reach.

[20:47] And he complains to his boyfriend, whose name is Kyle?

[20:51] Kevin?

[20:52] Kyle?

[20:52] Kyle.

[20:53] And all Adam ever talks about in this movie is either his job or ghosts.

[20:58] And Kyle, meanwhile, is like, hey, can I meet your parents?

[21:02] Hey, my mom is having surgery.

[21:04] And Adam is-

[21:05] My mom is having a hysterectomy.

[21:07] And he goes, hey, I want to meet your mom.

[21:09] And Adam goes, my mom is too crazy.

Dan McCoy

[21:10] Guys, this is-

[21:12] I'm sorry.

[21:13] This is very important.

[21:13] I think I need to do a dramatic reading of the lyrics.

[21:16] Of the lyrics to Wooly Bully?

[21:17] Okay.

[21:17] Not the whole thing, but I'll go up through the first-

[21:19] Yeah, let's not be crazy.

[21:21] Yeah.

[21:21] I'll go up through the first chorus.

[21:23] Here we go.

[21:24] Uno, dos.

[21:26] One, two.

[21:27] Tres, cuatro.

[21:28] I, Wooly Bully, watch it now.

[21:31] Watch it.

[21:33] Here he comes.

[21:34] Here he comes.

[21:35] Watch it now.

[21:37] He getcha.

[21:38] Maddie told Hattie about a thing she saw.

[21:42] Had two big horns and a wooly jaw.

[21:45] Wooly Bully.

[21:48] Yeah, drive.

Elliott Kalan

[21:54] You could write a hit song about anything back then.

[21:56] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[21:57] Do you think that they wrote the lyrics for that first?

Elliott Kalan

[22:00] And they were struggling to find the right melody.

Dan McCoy

[22:04] A perfect melody for this.

Elliott Kalan

[22:06] Yeah, it's actually a poem set to music.

[22:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:09] I was trying to explain oldies music to my son, and I was like, yeah, you don't have a lot of songs now where someone with a deep voice is just going,

[22:17] boo-do-boo-do-boo, in the background, and then goes, yeah, at different points.

[22:22] He's like, did they used to do that?

[22:23] He goes, people loved it.

[22:24] They loved it so much.

[22:25] Yeah, yeah.

[22:25] It was huge.

Stuart Wellington

[22:25] Yeah, yeah.

[22:26] Let me introduce you to the works of Cypress Hill.

Elliott Kalan

[22:30] Yeah, when I was talking about oldies with him, that's what I went with Cypress Hill.

[22:35] He's like, that's impossible, Daddy.

[22:38] You can't be insane in both the brain and the membrane.

[22:41] Yeah.

[22:42] It happened.

[22:43] That song was based on a true story.

[22:44] Speaking of based on a true story, dear David.

[22:46] So anyway, these two teens, we cut away to two teens.

[22:50] They are trolling people online.

[22:51] It is so cartoonish.

[22:53] The dialogue is so after school special.

[22:55] Oh, my God.

[22:56] Hey, man, I don't think we should do that.

[22:57] Come on.

[22:58] Don't you want to be funny?

[22:59] And they—

Stuart Wellington

[23:00] And I like when he's like, oh, I'm sick of this.

[23:02] I'm going to go watch Riverdale.

[23:04] Yeah, they do say that.

Dan McCoy

[23:06] They literally say that.

[23:07] They got to place it in time, you know?

[23:09] Yeah.

[23:10] They might as well have been being like, we're in the bully zone.

[23:12] We can bully here.

[23:13] Yeah.

[23:14] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[23:15] On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog, dude.

[23:17] Like, we can be bullies here.

[23:18] But they're contacting—

[23:19] But this is important.

Stuart Wellington

[23:20] Yeah, this is important because this is where we learn the ghost rules.

Elliott Kalan

[23:22] This is where I meet Dear David.

[23:24] Dear David is a prophet that reaches out.

[23:26] He will answer two questions, but not three.

[23:28] And then they are mean to him.

[23:30] And he warns them that—he goes, how am I going to die?

[23:33] Or whatever.

[23:34] And he goes, you're going to die wetting yourself in bed.

[23:36] And he's like, ugh, whatever.

[23:38] That night, Adam is out at drinks with his friends.

[23:41] It comes out that he forgot that his boyfriend is going out of town

[23:44] to help his mom through her hysterectomy operation.

[23:46] I mean, that's shitty partner behavior, honestly.

[23:49] Adam is a bad boyfriend the whole movie.

[23:52] He does not deserve to win that—

[23:54] And Kyle seems to be such a nice guy, you know, so thoughtful.

[24:01] He deserves better than Adam.

[24:03] That is for sure.

Stuart Wellington

[24:03] The thing is, some guys will invent crazy ghost stories

[24:06] just to get out of going to therapy, you know?

[24:09] Mm-hmm.

[24:09] Exactly.

[24:10] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[24:10] We'll literally invent crazy ghost stories.

Dan McCoy

[24:13] Well, you know, later on, David puts a grinder back on his phone

[24:19] to, like, break them up.

[24:20] And I was like, wouldn't it be wild if he made this whole thing up

[24:23] just as an excuse?

[24:24] Like, no, a ghost put a grinder on there.

Elliott Kalan

[24:26] I swear I'm not back on a grinder.

[24:28] It was a ghost.

[24:29] Well, I better lay the groundwork.

[24:31] I better start pretending I'm being haunted

[24:33] just in case Kyle finds my phone and sees that grinder is still on it.

[24:37] Also, the idea that David, the 1996 kid ghost, is like,

[24:42] I'm going to get him.

[24:43] I'm going to put grinder on his phone.

Hallie Haglund

[24:44] But, well, also the idea that, I'm sorry, if Kyle saw him on Grindr,

[24:50] that means Kyle was on Grindr.

Elliott Kalan

[24:51] Well, he says that a friend of his saw him.

[24:53] Oh, okay.

[24:53] Which means that Kyle was looking at Grindr.

[24:55] But he was away from home, helping his mom through her hysterectomy.

[24:58] He just needed to, like, lose himself physically for a moment.

[25:01] He needed to leave his body by expressing his body with a stranger.

Dan McCoy

[25:05] We don't know what agreement they have.

Hallie Haglund

[25:07] He needed to celebrate his ability to still conceive,

[25:12] to still spill his seed.

[25:14] Exactly, yeah.

[25:14] Because his mom lost her seed catcher.

Elliott Kalan

[25:19] He needs to have a seed catcher.

[25:21] This is why you're not a doctor, Hallie.

Dan McCoy

[25:25] I've got bad news.

[25:26] It's about your seed catcher.

[25:28] What?

Elliott Kalan

[25:30] Hallie's a urologist.

[25:31] Don't worry.

[25:31] We've done tests.

[25:32] You should still be able to spill your seed.

[25:34] What?

[25:36] Hallie Hallie Haglund, biblical urologist.

[25:41] Well, anyway, guys, get ready.

[25:44] It's about to start laughing.

[25:45] Stop laughing and start screaming.

[25:46] Because we have our first real scare scene where that bully that was bullying Dear David online,

[25:51] he's lying in bed.

[25:52] Suddenly a ghostly hand just kind of shoves itself in his mouth and is choking him,

[25:56] and he wets himself and he dies.

Dan McCoy

[25:57] It's not even that ghostly a hand.

[25:59] It's just a hand.

[26:00] This is the first scare of the thing.

[26:01] It's just, like, literally a hand comes out.

[26:04] To be honest, when I first saw it, I thought it was his own hand.

Hallie Haglund

[26:06] I thought that hand was scary.

[26:08] I said, that's what I did.

[26:11] Yeah, it is the scariest thing in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[26:14] But you're scared of hands, Hallie.

[26:15] That's the thing.

Hallie Haglund

[26:17] Crippling fear.

Elliott Kalan

[26:18] Whenever people accidentally call you Hallie Handlund, you go,

Hallie Haglund

[26:20] give me away from me.

Stuart Wellington

[26:23] There are five worms on the end of my arm.

[26:26] Oh, no, I found myself in the glove department.

Elliott Kalan

[26:31] How do I escape?

[26:34] Well, Hallie, I made some hamburger helper for dinner.

[26:38] So, that night, Adam, he's lonely.

[26:42] He's depressed.

[26:42] He engages with some trolls.

Hallie Haglund

[26:44] Ah, a mouse!

[26:45] But the kind that you use for a computer.

Elliott Kalan

[26:47] Because your hand uses it.

[26:48] Use your hands.

[26:49] Yeah.

[26:51] So, anyway, that night, Adam engages with some trolls.

[26:53] He calls a torrent of memes saying, die in a fire,

[26:57] which gets Dear David's attention.

[27:00] Which, again, is this supposed to be a red herring,

[27:02] the idea that maybe David died in a fire?

[27:04] That's not what happened.

[27:06] And Dear David goes, why are you so mean?

[27:07] That's how he always starts.

[27:08] And Adam ignores that.

[27:10] Good question.

[27:10] And goes to bed.

[27:11] The next day, he sees a chair rocking on its own in his room.

[27:16] And then a news story.

Stuart Wellington

[27:18] I do like that he sets up his own bedroom like it's a hotel room

[27:22] that just has a single chair pointed at the bed.

[27:24] Yeah, just in a corner points at the bed.

[27:28] Then he sees a news story.

[27:29] Well, that's for the cucking.

Elliott Kalan

[27:33] And I'll sing you to sleep after the cucking with a song I wrote just for you.

[27:41] He sees a news story about a teen found dead in his bed.

[27:43] The next night, he is obsessed with reading replies to his work again.

[27:48] It's all he cares about.

[27:49] What's his reach?

[27:49] What do people think?

[27:50] He has an ominous walk home.

[27:52] And then while sleeping again, the rocking chair starts rocking.

[27:55] And he briefly glimpses a ghost boy in the chair.

[27:57] Hallie, did you scare you?

Hallie Haglund

[27:58] No, I was eating a salad.

Elliott Kalan

[28:01] I missed the first.

[28:02] The least scary thing to eat.

[28:04] And so you felt protected.

[28:05] Yeah.

[28:06] You felt like you were doing something good for your bowels.

[28:08] Yeah, exactly.

[28:10] So at work, he hears a buzzing and he seems to have been-

[28:14] A buzz feeding?

[28:15] He's being fed a buzz.

[28:17] And he seems to have been transported to the old store from the beginning where the mom's-

Hallie Haglund

[28:22] Bodega.

[28:22] I think we can say it was a bodega.

[28:24] It was a bodega.

Elliott Kalan

[28:25] I guess it's a bodega.

[28:26] It looks more like a drugstore to me.

[28:27] It looks like a bodega to me.

[28:29] All right.

[28:29] Well, we can agree to disagree.

[28:30] Let's call it a bodega.

[28:31] I mean, you're right.

[28:32] When I said store, a bodega is not a store.

[28:34] So that was a good correction.

[28:35] That was good.

[28:36] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[28:39] Felicity.

[28:40] Yeah.

[28:41] Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[28:42] I prefer Spessa Spin City.

[28:44] Starring Michael J. Fox.

[28:45] What?

Hallie Haglund

[28:46] I prefer Spessa Felicity.

[28:49] Starring.

[28:50] There you go.

[28:50] Oh, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[28:52] She cut her hair and then America fell out of love with her.

[28:55] No, thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[28:56] Not since Samson has someone's hair been such the key to their power.

[29:00] Yep.

[29:01] That's why they call Carrie Russell America's Samson.

[29:04] Uh-huh.

[29:06] So at work, he's in Paris.

[29:07] She was the face of Samsonite for a while.

[29:09] Yeah.

[29:10] Yeah, he was.

[29:10] So she's been transported to the bodega where the mom is like, have you seen Dear David?

[29:15] Have you seen David?

[29:16] Ask him two questions, but don't ask him three questions.

[29:19] Then suddenly he's in Dear David's dark basement.

[29:21] He gets attacked and then he realizes he's back at his desk.

[29:23] Oh, what a chilling hallucination he's had.

[29:26] What a daydream.

Stuart Wellington

[29:27] I get that there's like they decide to include some rules.

[29:29] Don't be a bully and don't ask him more than two questions.

[29:32] But like it's pretty fucking lame, right?

[29:35] Yes.

[29:36] Compared to like The Ring or like Candyman.

[29:39] I was wondering.

[29:41] Gremlins.

[29:42] You know, I look.

[29:43] It follows.

Dan McCoy

[29:45] It follows.

[29:46] I'll make an admission that if the film is less than compelling, sometimes I miss things.

[29:53] I was like, did I miss some reason why you can only ask two questions and no more?

[29:58] No, there's no reason.

Elliott Kalan

[29:59] No, just because they were told that was the rule.

Hallie Haglund

[30:01] Yeah, that's the thing.

[30:02] I mean, at least the thing about the bullying like makes sense.

[30:06] There's a reason behind it.

Elliott Kalan

[30:08] It kind of makes sense.

[30:09] But once you learn David's backstory, it really doesn't make sense.

Stuart Wellington

[30:12] Maybe David was super into Japanese gift-giving ceremonies.

Hallie Haglund

[30:17] I feel like we don't actually know David's backstory.

[30:21] We got a lot of versions of David's backstory.

Elliott Kalan

[30:23] Oh.

[30:24] So you're saying it's like a last year at Marianbad type thing where like you figure out what's

[30:28] real and what's not real.

[30:29] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[30:29] It's a real Rashomon.

[30:31] We got some unreliable narrators in this.

Elliott Kalan

[30:33] That's for sure.

[30:34] I feel like we've got some unreliable filmmakers in this one.

Stuart Wellington

[30:39] Oh, yeah.

[30:40] You earned that smile.

Elliott Kalan

[30:42] You earned that devilish look right there.

[30:44] Yeah.

[30:45] So that night, there's a bunch of stuff.

[30:47] He has his co-worker, Evelyn, comes over to keep him company.

[30:50] It doesn't matter.

[30:50] They find a camera on the floor.

[30:52] I was not sure if that was something he owned or if it was like a ghostly appearing camera.

Dan McCoy

[30:56] Well, what's for sure is the cats didn't want him to pick it up.

[30:59] I do remember that.

Elliott Kalan

[31:00] No, and the cats don't want him to pick up the camera.

[31:02] This leads to nothing.

[31:03] Yeah.

[31:04] It never comes back, right?

[31:05] No, it never comes back.

[31:06] Unrelated.

[31:07] Adam researches David online and considers tweeting about his apartment being haunted,

[31:11] but he's like, I'm not going to do that.

[31:13] And he ignores his boyfriend's messages, but then he has a montage of like happier memories

[31:17] of being with his boyfriend.

[31:19] And at this point, I'm not quite sure why he's ignoring his boyfriend's messages,

[31:22] except that he's a bad boyfriend.

Hallie Haglund

[31:23] I mean, the message was really gross.

[31:26] He was just talking about how his mom couldn't take a shit because she was afraid she'd burst

[31:31] her stitches.

Elliott Kalan

[31:32] Yeah, but then all you have to write back is like, ugh, that sucks, you know, or something

[31:35] like that.

[31:35] You know, your poor mom.

[31:37] I mean, LOL, poop emoji, sick emoji.

[31:40] D-I-A-F.

[31:41] GIF of Stephanie from Full House going, how rude, you know?

Dan McCoy

[31:44] Yeah, it seemed like he was just in like a flow state of like looking up ghost stuff.

[31:49] He's like, not now, Keith.

[31:51] I'm busy.

Elliott Kalan

[31:52] Kyle.

[31:53] Kyle.

[31:54] Yeah.

[31:55] So later that night, does the rocking chair start moving again?

[31:59] You better believe it.

[32:00] And the ghost boy is like, Adam, I'm just a follower.

[32:03] And Adam wakes up scared.

[32:04] And then there's some Scrabble tiles that have been arranged.

[32:07] Is the implication that David is speaking to him that way too?

[32:12] Uh-huh, yeah.

[32:12] It's like, David, figure out what your fucking thing is as a ghost.

[32:15] Like, are you in a camera?

[32:16] Are you a rocking chair kid?

[32:18] Do you Scrabble tile?

[32:19] Like, what's your deal?

Hallie Haglund

[32:20] But he did, he put D-I-A-F.

[32:22] So it's back to the bullying thing.

Elliott Kalan

[32:24] Yes, it's back to the bully because it was all D-I-A-F memes earlier.

[32:27] And he's back to that.

[32:28] But it's, even that, David kind of loses interest in that.

Stuart Wellington

[32:31] This was my first, this was my first interaction with this acronym.

[32:35] I'd never.

[32:36] I'd never heard of it.

Elliott Kalan

[32:37] So apparently it stands for Die in a Fire.

[32:39] I'd never heard of it before.

[32:39] I mean, the movie makes that pretty clear.

[32:41] I mean, maybe they made it up for the movie.

[32:42] Is it a real thing?

[32:43] Or did they just make it up for the movie?

[32:44] Hallie, go to know your meme.

Dan McCoy

[32:46] Look at them.

[32:46] I'd be like, don't I give fucks?

[32:50] Wait, is that?

[32:50] No, that doesn't work.

[32:52] No, die in, oh, D-I-A.

Elliott Kalan

[32:56] Die a new?

[32:57] It would have been enough?

[32:58] Oh, no, it's a real thing.

Dan McCoy

[32:59] It's a real thing, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[33:01] Don't it act.

[33:02] So we're the ones who are out of touch.

[33:04] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:05] Dan, it's a fright.

[33:10] Sure is.

[33:11] It sure is, yep.

Hallie Haglund

[33:12] And it's so gonna be a fine.

Elliott Kalan

[33:20] I wish that's what it said before.

[33:24] So Adam's like, I gotta get away from this ghost.

[33:26] So he moves all the way one floor up to the apartment above his own apartment.

[33:30] This is a stupid thing to do.

[33:32] Y'all, this is New York City, guys.

[33:33] Come on.

[33:34] That doesn't happen.

[33:34] No, it doesn't happen.

[33:35] But also, the idea is like, I gotta get away from this ghost.

[33:38] Luckily, ghosts can't use stairs, I think.

[33:41] So ghosts are notoriously leaden and bound to the floor.

Dan McCoy

[33:45] If there's one thing I know, it's like ghosts can't pass through walls or ceilings.

Elliott Kalan

[33:49] Nope, he's safe.

[33:50] So he goes there.

Stuart Wellington

[33:51] He's like, I'm really stressed out with this ghost and this potential breakup that's going on.

[33:56] I think I'm gonna do the most stressful thing possible and move apartments.

Dan McCoy

[34:01] Maybe that was his middle ground.

[34:03] It's like, well, it'd be too stressful to really move, but if I can just move some boxes upstairs.

Elliott Kalan

[34:07] Well, I wish the movie then showed that he had an overlapping month so he could just take his time moving stuff.

[34:12] He didn't have to do it all in one day.

[34:13] I mean, that's the way to do it, right?

[34:15] It's worth the money.

[34:16] It's worth eating that extra month's rent just to not have the stress of it.

[34:20] Come on.

[34:20] You can't just eat that rent.

[34:21] Just eat it.

[34:22] Just eat that.

[34:22] Just shove it in your mouth.

[34:23] Eat it up.

[34:24] Yum, yum, yum.

[34:25] So he does it there.

[34:27] The ghost, of course, follows him, and he starts tweeting about this ghost, and his boss loves it.

[34:33] And he writes a BuzzFeed article, and his readers are like, you should perform an exorcism.

[34:36] So he and his coworker kind of do a pretty half-assed exorcism, and he tells his coworker, I've been avoiding calls from Kyle because I don't know how to respond when he says I love you.

[34:46] He keeps saying I love you, and I just don't know what the proper response is to that.

Dan McCoy

[34:50] And, you know, I got to say, it is a half-assed exorcism.

[34:54] On the other hand, and forgive me because I'm not Catholic, they do manage to get one of those things that, you know, has smoke that comes out of it.

[35:02] A sensor?

[35:02] Swing around.

[35:03] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[35:04] So they went to that trouble.

[35:06] They do get a sensor and, like, a holy water dispenser, too, right?

[35:09] Yeah.

[35:09] They went to a church supply store.

Dan McCoy

[35:12] What, do you get that?

Elliott Kalan

[35:14] Christ Co.?

[35:15] Yeah.

[35:15] Do you have to go to the Vatican for that?

Dan McCoy

Elliott Kalan

[35:18] They cut out the scene where he flies to the Vatican to ask the Holy Father.

Stuart Wellington

[35:21] I mean, I haven't seen a Catholic version, but I see, like, down the street from my apartment, there's, like, Judaica stores.

[35:29] Sure.

[35:29] You got to buy them somewhere.

[35:30] So I'm assuming there's a Catholic version of that.

[35:33] Yeah.

[35:33] 100%.

Elliott Kalan

[35:33] Of course.

[35:34] They don't make it themselves.

[35:36] You know, you got to buy them somewhere.

Dan McCoy

[35:36] They don't make those, you know, offertory plates and stuff.

[35:40] Yeah, you need that shit.

[35:42] Offeratory?

[35:43] Yeah, for your offerings.

[35:45] I just never heard the word offeratory.

[35:47] You got to tithe.

[35:49] Yeah, when you tithe.

[35:50] You got to tithe.

Elliott Kalan

[35:52] You got to tithe this.

[35:56] So, I'm imagining instead of the Got Milk campaign, it's the Catholic Church and their ad present got tithed.

[36:04] And it's just different silly little scenarios where somebody has to tithe.

[36:08] Just a dollar bill over there.

[36:09] Yeah, yeah.

[36:09] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[36:10] All the kids today are talking about tithe pods.

[36:13] Why aren't they talking tithe bowls?

Elliott Kalan

[36:16] It's a hot new craze that's sweeping the internet, tithing a tenth of your wages to the church.

[36:28] Kids are loving it.

[36:30] It's called the Tithe Challenge.

Dan McCoy

[36:33] Unfortunately, kids don't have that much of the way of wages, so it's not that effective.

Elliott Kalan

[36:38] Yeah, it's mostly gum that they're giving to the church right now.

[36:41] A lot of gum.

[36:41] But a tenth of all their gum.

[36:43] So, it's nighttime.

[36:44] There's a spooky glowing mist under the door as Dear David tries a different way to get at Adam.

[36:51] That's a classic Dracula tactic.

[36:53] And the cats are like, I don't like this.

[36:55] Also, the fact that David's already in the apartment.

[36:58] So, I don't know why this is the mist under the door as if he's trying to get in.

[37:01] I thought he was in the internet.

Stuart Wellington

[37:02] What the fuck?

[37:03] Where is this ghost?

[37:04] You'll find out.

[37:04] Where does he live?

Elliott Kalan

[37:06] I really needed it answered.

[37:08] What's this ghost's home base?

[37:10] Yeah.

[37:11] That's the kind of note you get from executives.

[37:13] Un-housed ghost.

[37:14] I worked on a TV show once where some characters were licking a toad that they found in the forest to get high.

[37:21] And one of the executive notes was, wait, so they just reach into a bush and pull out that toad?

[37:26] So, does this toad just live in that bush?

[37:28] We're going to need some more information about this.

[37:32] It's like, yeah, the audience is really going to bump on that.

Stuart Wellington

[37:34] You need to have a fucking Breaking Bad cold open of this fucking frog leaving its house, kissing its wife on the cheek,

[37:40] being like, going back to work.

[37:42] I hope nobody licks my ass.

Elliott Kalan

[37:45] Another lick, another dollar.

Dan McCoy

[37:47] Cain toads come from Australia, not anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[37:50] And so the ghost David shows up and Adam's like, what do you want from me?

[37:55] And David's like, that's two questions.

[37:57] And then hits him with a typewriter.

[37:58] And he wakes up.

[37:59] He's constantly having bad dreams of waking up.

[38:01] Adam listens to a recording of the haunting.

[38:03] He hears a noise downstairs, wanders around in the dark.

[38:06] It turns out it's Kyle.

[38:07] He's back.

[38:08] Kyle's back.

[38:08] His mom's hysterectomy is done.

[38:10] He's going to be there again.

[38:11] They have a very tense conversation about Adam's bad communication skills.

[38:15] And Kyle.

[38:16] And his ass fucking moved while he was out of town and didn't tell him.

[38:19] That's blunkers.

[38:19] Yes, he didn't tell me that you moved apartments.

[38:21] And this is when Kyle's like, and my friend found your picture on Grindr.

[38:24] And Adam's like, I took it off of Grindr.

[38:26] I haven't been on there in a long time.

Stuart Wellington

[38:28] I feel like that initial suggestion that this whole thing is just him trying to explain why he's back on Grindr and not get busted for it.

Dan McCoy

[38:36] Also, prior to all that stuff, he's just like, and by the way, you've been haunted by a ghost.

[38:42] And I find out via Twitter.

[38:45] I found out via Twitter online.

Elliott Kalan

[38:46] Yeah.

[38:47] So while I was away, you moved, got haunted, and went back on Grindr, and you didn't tell me any of this?

[38:52] He's like, oh, oh, oh.

Hallie Haglund

[38:54] You guys, Kyle fucking sucks, okay?

[38:57] Kyle is the worst part of this movie.

[38:58] Wow.

[38:59] Oh, really?

[38:59] So tell me, because he is certainly a boring character.

[39:01] So annoying.

[39:03] He's just like all, like, I don't, I get why, what's the main guy?

[39:07] Adam.

[39:08] I get why Adam's not into it.

[39:09] Alex, like, get off my dick.

[39:11] I know, seriously.

[39:12] And then, what's the thing with like, I think that until you sort your shit out, I should move out.

[39:19] And then he hands him his key, and it's like, he moved apartments.

[39:23] That key is to nowhere.

[39:24] Don't worry about it.

Elliott Kalan

[39:26] That's a move key.

[39:27] Symbolic.

[39:29] Yeah, it's true.

[39:30] That's a good one.

[39:30] Maybe it's the key to his heart.

[39:32] Yeah, is that a key to your fucking dresser?

[39:35] Here's the key to our sex handcuffs.

[39:37] Just take them for now.

[39:38] I won't be using them.

[39:39] But you'll need them on Grindr.

[39:40] I mean, that's a big deal.

[39:41] The key to the city that you got.

[39:42] I don't want it anymore.

[39:44] For defeating the penguin, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[39:46] Yeah.

[39:47] I mean, if he was given that key by Eric Adams, it's basically worth it.

[39:50] Yeah.

[39:50] Yeah, it's like a crypto key.

[39:51] From the trash.

Elliott Kalan

[39:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:54] So do you think he's going to be the first?

[39:56] In Turkey, in the harbor.

Elliott Kalan

[39:57] Is he going to be the first mayor of New

[39:58] York to ever just disappear and no one knows what happened to him?

[40:04] Based on.

[40:04] Because he would not be the first mayor of New

[40:06] York to flee the country when the law starts looking at him.

[40:10] He would be the third mayor of New

[40:11] York, at least, to do that.

[40:12] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[40:13] Storied history.

[40:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[40:15] Hey, for more about mayors who had to flee the country because of the

[40:17] law, listen to the 99% invisible breakdown, the power broker.

[40:21] Ooh.

[40:21] We talk about it there.

[40:23] Anyway.

[40:23] Synergy.

[40:24] Yeah.

[40:25] Log girls.

[40:26] So Kyle dumps Adam and Adam is still tweeting about the haunting.

[40:29] He's losing touch with his friends.

[40:30] His whole life is just about this haunting.

[40:32] Just tweeting about it.

[40:33] This is when he goes home.

[40:35] He does the thing that all of us would do if we know a ghost is in our

[40:37] apartment watching every move.

[40:38] He gets ready to start masturbating.

[40:41] But his laptop camera turns on and he's like, oh, man.

[40:44] Oh, what?

Stuart Wellington

[40:44] That's probably why he's so stressed out.

[40:46] He just needs to crank one out.

[40:48] Right, guys?

[40:48] Yeah.

[40:49] It's hard to do it.

Elliott Kalan

[40:49] I haven't been able to do it since I've been haunted.

[40:50] It is hard to do it when you know that there's a ghost kid watching you all the time.

[40:53] Yeah.

[40:54] So is that your nightmare?

Hallie Haglund

[40:55] Really takes the flame out of things, right?

Elliott Kalan

[40:59] You know what I mean?

[41:00] I don't know what that's a play on words on.

Stuart Wellington

[41:04] Real boner kill.

Elliott Kalan

[41:05] Oh, and also, yeah.

[41:06] Yeah.

[41:06] Some kid with a flat head sees you.

[41:09] She did a hand motion where her finger was pointing up and then drooped.

[41:13] And I wasn't sure what that was.

[41:14] I guess that's a softening erection.

[41:15] Yeah, it's a boner.

[41:16] There's a ghost there.

Stuart Wellington

[41:18] Yeah.

[41:18] By a ghost.

[41:19] So, Dan, is this your ultimate nightmare that you are jacking it to some internet porn

[41:23] and then the ghost turns your camera on, I guess, so that you're live streaming on the

[41:28] cam site he's using to masturbate to?

[41:32] Do I get a cut?

[41:33] I mean, that's part of it is I'm like, yo, yo, yo.

[41:36] Like, did he already have an account?

[41:38] Yeah.

[41:38] Is he making coins and shit for whatever they, whatever tokens?

Dan McCoy

[41:42] I guess David must have set up an account.

[41:44] Set up a cam account for him.

[41:45] He's always setting up accounts for him.

Elliott Kalan

[41:47] Yeah, he's constantly setting up accounts.

[41:49] He's sending stuff through his.

[41:51] He's less a ghost and more of an identity thief at a certain point.

[41:54] Anyway, then his phone starts playing back things that he said that are, you know, conversations

[41:58] he's had, but his follower count is blowing up because of this haunting.

[42:01] That night.

Stuart Wellington

[42:02] And probably because of the camera situation.

[42:05] Sure, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[42:06] He's not afraid to bear all online.

[42:08] This is when David ups things a little bit.

[42:11] He literally drags Adam out of bed and drags him through the vermin-filled bodega and then

[42:16] into, I say glaring at Hallie, and then down the steps into David's basement.

[42:21] And that's when we see, Adam witnesses a scene where David's dad catches him looking at inappropriate

[42:27] online content and he gets mad at him.

[42:30] So David starts strangling his father and David's mom, in order to stop him, hits him in the

[42:35] head so hard that the top of his head just breaks off.

[42:38] Yeah.

[42:39] Which is hilarious.

[42:40] This is a very funny thing to have happen.

[42:42] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[42:43] And then he somehow manages to survive in a coma for 20 years.

[42:47] For 20 years.

[42:47] With a huge chunk of his head missing.

[42:50] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:50] Yeah.

[42:51] Yeah.

[42:51] I mean, I'm not a head scientist.

[42:52] Weren't there like microchips and shit in his head or am I thinking it's something else?

[42:57] Oh, maybe that's later.

[42:58] That's later.

Dan McCoy

[42:58] Maybe you fell asleep while watching this movie and started dreaming something.

[43:02] Possibly.

Elliott Kalan

[43:02] It is a, it is a, it is a, so this is, I guess, and this is, I assumed at the time this

[43:07] is David's origin story, you know, which means that the why don't you kill yourself, that

[43:11] doesn't mean anything.

[43:12] The dying of fire, that doesn't mean anything.

Stuart Wellington

[43:14] No, he was just learning, he was learning the ways of being an internet jerk, I guess.

[43:18] Yes.

[43:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[43:19] And he was being radicalized by the internet.

[43:21] Yes.

[43:21] He wasn't, he wasn't victimized.

Stuart Wellington

[43:23] He was radicalized.

[43:24] Yeah.

[43:24] That's the real horror story here, guys.

Elliott Kalan

[43:25] Yeah.

[43:26] It's an American horror story.

[43:27] Yeah.

[43:27] And Ryan Murphy, listen to us.

[43:31] And Adam.

[43:32] Why don't you make a show about this?

[43:34] I think he's made 10 million shows about this already.

[43:36] He's made so many shows all about this, yeah.

[43:38] This is what feud Betty and Joan was all about, being radicalized on the internet.

[43:43] Not bad.

Stuart Wellington

[43:44] I gotta say, not bad.

[43:46] Put two stars, put two big stars in a show.

[43:48] It is okay.

[43:48] You don't like it.

Elliott Kalan

[43:49] Any show that puts fake words in the mouth of Olivia de Havilland to the point where she

[43:53] has to take them to court, I'm not in favor of.

[43:55] You know, rest in peace, Olivia de Havilland, a true queen of Hollywood, one of the last

[43:59] links to the classic era.

[44:01] You know, I don't want anyone to get her mad.

Stuart Wellington

[44:02] I mean, I'm not saying it was tasteful.

[44:04] Yeah.

[44:05] I will never tar Ryan Murphy with the tasteful brush.

[44:09] Not like my nudes.

Elliott Kalan

[44:12] Stewart's nudes are very tasteful.

[44:14] Extremely tasteful.

[44:15] I would say he shouldn't just tape them up on the walls of subway stations.

[44:20] But you know, if you're going to tape up self-nudes on it.

[44:21] He wants to get the word out.

Stuart Wellington

[44:23] You know, how are you going to do it?

[44:24] Yeah.

[44:24] I'm trying to do some street-level marketing.

[44:26] For your body?

[44:28] Yeah.

[44:28] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[44:29] All right.

[44:30] Okay, that's fair.

[44:31] Doi?

[44:32] So Adam wakes up in the rain.

[44:34] He takes a shower.

[44:35] And when he comes to the shower, the phrase D-I-A-F is written on the mirror in steam.

[44:40] Oh.

[44:41] At work.

[44:41] Adam's just getting weird and distant.

[44:43] He's just getting paranoid.

[44:44] He can't relate to people.

Stuart Wellington

[44:45] Again, at this point, we know that David isn't a sympathetic anti-bully person.

[44:53] He's bad.

[44:54] He's a bad thing.

[44:55] Yeah.

[44:55] So the whole him harping on the D-I-A-F thing is really weird.

[45:00] Yeah.

[45:01] It doesn't really get to-

Dan McCoy

[45:01] No, you're mean.

[45:02] You're killing people.

Elliott Kalan

[45:04] Yeah, good point.

[45:06] Yeah.

[45:06] It certainly seems that David is the real villain in this movie about an evil ghost.

[45:12] And Adam's boss is like, let's take this haunting project even bigger.

[45:17] And Adam begs Kyle to help him find out who uses the Dear David handle.

[45:20] He's like, can't you hack it or have one of your hacker friends do it?

[45:23] And Adam then brings in a sort of-

[45:26] Okay, here's where there's two characters that should have been one character.

[45:29] Oh, yeah.

[45:29] He brings in this sort of millennial psychic who just wanders around his apartment and is like,

[45:33] Oh, yeah.

[45:33] Oh, there's bad energy in here.

[45:35] The apartment's not haunted.

[45:37] You're haunted.

[45:38] And you got to find out the truth about David.

[45:40] He starts doing some online research.

[45:41] He decides to use the internet to research the ghost that's been haunting him for weeks

[45:45] that he didn't think to research on the internet, even though his internet job is all about using the internet.

[45:50] He does some online research until a note is slipped under his front door,

[45:54] which leads him to a meeting in a coffee shop with an internet ghost psychic detective.

[45:58] Sleuth.

[45:59] Internet sleuth.

[46:00] Internet sleuth.

[46:01] And this sleuth and that millennial kind of medium, this should have been the same character.

Hallie Haglund

[46:08] They should have not been in it at all.

[46:10] They were ridiculous.

[46:11] They were like, how do we just, it seems like we painted ourselves into a corner and we need some information provided,

[46:17] but we haven't written a character who could provide that information.

Dan McCoy

[46:19] We've painted ourselves into a corner by adapting this ghost tweet thread.

Elliott Kalan

[46:24] By thinking a thing that is not a story and doesn't have a story on it.

[46:27] And here's where-

Stuart Wellington

[46:27] I do like when the medium is in his apartment and is like, I'm getting really bad energy from your computer.

[46:33] I'm like, no shit.

Elliott Kalan

[46:36] This movie, as Dan mentioned very earlier, it's a thin movie.

[46:40] There's not a lot going on in this movie.

[46:41] This is maybe the least amount of movie I remember us having in a movie at the Flabbas for a while.

[46:47] But it's also, there's no structure to anything.

[46:49] Things just kind of happen and wander along.

[46:53] And so even the scares, there are times where I'm like, I mean, Night Swim was kind of similar in some ways.

[46:57] It was like a series of the same scare over and over again.

[46:59] And you're like, are you going to like heighten this in some way?

Stuart Wellington

[47:03] Or when an actor like Justin Long comes up, we're like, oh, thank God, this is an actual actor.

[47:09] It feels like a movie for a moment.

Dan McCoy

[47:10] I can briefly cling to this life boy.

[47:13] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:14] Yeah, he is a real life boy, isn't he?

Dan McCoy

[47:16] I didn't.

[47:17] I combined a couple of different things, like a life raft and a buoy.

[47:23] Lifesaver, that's what I was looking for.

[47:25] Lifesaver.

[47:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:27] How are you guys celebrating life boy this year?

[47:31] Yeah, life.

[47:33] That's a life boy and his message of life for all of us.

[47:38] Speaking of lifesavers, I just want to take a moment to mention, there's a joke in the Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers where a woman falls out of a canoe and she says, throw me a lifesaver.

[47:46] And throw me the lifesaver.

[47:47] And Groucho takes out a packet of lifesavers and starts throwing them into water.

[47:50] My kids find this so funny, but they also are always like, wait, they had lifesavers then?

[47:55] And that really gets to them.

Hallie Haglund

[47:57] I mean, that was the biggest surprise.

[47:59] That's what I thought when you told me that joke just now.

Elliott Kalan

[48:01] It's a shock for modern audiences to be like, they had this candy in the 30s?

[48:05] Yeah.

[48:06] But that's why, you know, the classics never go out of style.

Stuart Wellington

[48:09] Did it taste the same or did it taste like sawdust?

[48:12] I'm sure it tasted like sawdust and petroleum jelly.

[48:15] It tasted like a bunch of twigs and herbs.

Elliott Kalan

[48:17] Made out of cocaine.

[48:19] Actually, that's true.

[48:20] Back then, it probably tasted better.

[48:21] It'd be like real pork fat, you know, boiled in cocaine.

[48:24] Yeah, sure.

[48:26] So anyway, it's all butter.

[48:28] It's just slathered with butter.

Stuart Wellington

[48:29] Don't make them like that anymore.

[48:30] Lard.

Elliott Kalan

[48:31] None of this.

[48:31] Lard.

[48:32] Lard.

[48:32] Oh, yeah.

[48:32] Lard.

[48:33] Instead of corn syrup, it's just the sugar and the cocaine would just get mixed together,

[48:36] you know?

[48:36] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[48:37] I mean, it earned the name Lifesaver at that point.

Elliott Kalan

[48:40] It saved a lot of lives.

[48:41] During the Depression, people didn't have that much to live for.

Hallie Haglund

[48:44] You could get by on the calories of one Lifesaver a month.

[48:47] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:48] What a better time.

[48:48] Yeah, it's made of pemmican.

[48:51] Pemmican has been a big subject in the house lately because my younger son is like,

[48:55] I want to try some pemmican.

[48:57] That's what I should have for my snack at school.

[48:58] Who sells pemmican these days?

[49:01] I think you might have to put some work into making that.

[49:03] I don't know that you can just hop on down and do your shows.

[49:06] What is pemmican?

Stuart Wellington

[49:06] Is that the shit where you like keep in your armpit while you march and then it like softens

[49:11] up?

[49:11] I don't know about that.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] But it's like a mix of like jerked meat and like berries and, you know, and nuts and things

[49:19] like that.

[49:19] Like it's a-

[49:20] Like suet.

[49:20] It's like a trail mix type of thing, but it's all like grossly mushed together.

[49:25] Yeah.

[49:25] Like a power bar or something.

[49:27] Yes.

[49:27] It's like a 19th century power bar or 18th century even.

[49:30] Yeah, yeah.

[49:32] So-

[49:33] Pemmican recipe.

[49:34] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[49:34] Dried meat, tallow, and sometimes dried berries.

[49:38] Tallow.

[49:38] Meat and raw doesn't require refrigeration.

Elliott Kalan

[49:40] Lean beef.

[49:41] Okay.

[49:42] I really don't get enough tallow in my current diet.

[49:45] Gotta eat some candles.

[49:47] And it's tallow-ween.

[49:48] You know, it's the time of the year.

[49:49] So he's doing this online research and the ghost sleuth, online sleuth is like, hey, look,

[49:54] you should search online for a mad woman named Loopy Linda.

[49:56] This sounds like the kind of shit Loopy Linda's always pulling online.

[49:59] Yeah.

[49:59] And he finds videos of this woman, Loopy Linda, who's a mental patient.

[50:03] And these videos, pretty well edited, right?

[50:06] Considering it is a security camera feed from the padded room of a mental hospital, the fact

[50:10] that it has multiple angles and close-ups.

[50:12] Multiple angles, close-ups.

[50:13] It's pretty impressive.

[50:15] It's very impressive.

[50:16] And she's being told that she murdered her husband and put her son in a coma.

[50:21] And she goes, no, I fought the devil.

[50:22] I fought the devil.

[50:23] And then Adam sees a story that was briefly mentioned earlier in the movie as the sort

[50:27] of thing BuzzFeed should be on top of, about a David who woke from a coma after 21 years.

[50:33] Could it be the same David?

Hallie Haglund

[50:35] Wait, I have a question though.

[50:36] Yes.

[50:37] So are we to believe that what we saw in the dream before where David was the one who actually

[50:45] killed the dad is true?

[50:46] Or are we to believe that the mom actually killed them both?

Elliott Kalan

[50:49] I think it is giving the movie too much credit to think it's being ambiguous.

[50:52] I think that what happened, what we're being told is David was trying to kill the dad.

[50:57] She attacked David and then she was blamed for both crimes.

[51:01] And she maybe has now believes that David is possessed or a demon or something like that.

[51:06] Or who knows.

Dan McCoy

[51:06] There's rare places that I'm going to compliment this movie.

[51:09] But I did kind of, I gave it a little credit.

[51:13] I'm like, oh, that coma detail.

[51:15] Like I really didn't think that that was going to be tied in.

[51:18] That was kind of fun that it was the same guy.

[51:20] I am going to be, I'm going to do the opposite.

[51:22] All parts of the buffalo this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[51:24] I'm going to say as soon as he mentioned it, I was like, well, this is going to be part

[51:27] of the plot at some point.

[51:29] Okay.

[51:29] But I'm glad, but look, we can, we can, we can.

Dan McCoy

[51:32] I thought it was successfully played off as a joke because Justin Long, like it was introduced

[51:36] with Justin Long being like, you could make all these like lists off of this coma guy.

[51:40] Like 21 restaurants you go to after you get out of a coma in New York.

[51:44] Anyway.

Stuart Wellington

[51:46] Number one, Sabaro.

[51:49] Number two, Times Square Applebee's.

[51:52] I was going to say the exact same thing.

[51:53] Get those fucking dollaritas, baby.

Elliott Kalan

[51:56] Number three, Guy Fieri's American Cafe.

[51:59] You have to go back in time for that one.

Stuart Wellington

[52:01] If you've been in a coma that long, one sip of a fucking dollarita would blow your mind.

[52:07] I mean, it would blow your mind at that point.

Elliott Kalan

[52:09] I was going to say, especially if a lot of your head is not there anymore, then very much

[52:12] so, yeah.

[52:13] Yeah.

[52:13] So, so Adam goes to the hospital.

[52:16] He is told by a, at first, very helpful receptionist that David died a few days earlier.

[52:22] And then the guy's like, who are you again?

[52:24] And he goes, oh, I'm being haunted by his ghost.

[52:26] He steals that guy's security badge, sneaks into the records for David Johnson, which leads

[52:31] him to the address of David's doctor.

Hallie Haglund

[52:35] But also the morgue thing.

[52:37] That the body has disappeared from the morgue.

Elliott Kalan

[52:40] Oh, that's right.

[52:40] I forgot about that.

[52:41] The body has disappeared.

[52:42] And he goes to the doctor's house, just walks right in.

[52:45] The door is open, just walks in.

[52:46] I don't even think he rings the doorbell or knocks.

[52:48] I can't remember.

[52:49] And, uh.

[52:49] I think the door is open.

[52:51] That's why he's so specific.

[52:52] Oh, I see.

[52:52] And he finds the doctor, Dr. Landers, hanging, dead, uh, and, uh.

Stuart Wellington

[52:57] In the, uh, at the top of the stairs in a pretty nice foyer.

Elliott Kalan

[53:00] It's got stained glass.

[53:01] Yes.

[53:02] There's stained glass.

[53:02] I mean.

[53:03] The wild thing is.

Hallie Haglund

[53:04] That looked like a Ditmas Park sort of situation.

Elliott Kalan

[53:06] That looked like a Ditmas Park house.

[53:08] Where else in New York can you have a house like that?

[53:10] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:10] And there's a thing.

[53:11] This is a moment.

[53:13] What a dream to live in Ditmas Park.

[53:15] Oh, yeah.

[53:16] And it's just a hop, skip, and a jump from Hinterland's bar.

[53:18] It's lovely.

[53:19] True.

[53:19] The, so he sees the body hanging.

[53:22] And then her eyes open up and he goes running out.

[53:25] And I'm like, wow, this is based on a true story.

[53:28] This happened.

[53:29] And you know what?

Elliott Kalan

[53:31] And he doesn't, her eyes open and he doesn't say, oh, let me help you.

[53:34] Let me call 911.

[53:35] You're not dead yet.

[53:36] And he just runs.

[53:38] What an asshole.

[53:38] He's like, oh, you got this.

[53:39] Okay, you're fine.

[53:40] Oh, you're fine.

[53:41] Okay, I'll see you.

Dan McCoy

[53:42] Since we were getting some specific about New York stuff, I do want to say that at the

[53:46] very beginning.

Elliott Kalan

[53:46] Well, because we're talking about Ditmas Park.

[53:48] Yeah.

[53:48] A neighborhood in Brooklyn most people are not familiar with.

[53:50] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:51] At the beginning of the movie.

[53:52] That's where they shoot a lot of movies.

[53:54] When he was going to work and using the subway.

Elliott Kalan

[53:55] It's like living in a suburb in the heart of New York.

[53:58] It's amazing.

[53:59] You could have a full freestanding three-story house.

[54:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[54:01] We live near it.

[54:04] I've seen it.

[54:04] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[54:05] I say for the listeners.

[54:06] The listeners who live in places like Alaska, Texas, Kuala Lumpur, Australia, Brazil, they

[54:11] don't know Ditmas Park.

[54:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[54:13] Hey, if you're catching up on movies and you're watching Shiva Baby because you're like, I'm

[54:17] going through a real Rachel Sennett phase.

[54:20] Shiva Baby shot in Ditmas Park.

Dan McCoy

[54:22] Great.

[54:23] Great stuff.

[54:23] Anyway, the point is, it's just going to get less and less interesting what I'm about to

[54:28] say the longer we go.

[54:30] No, I just, at the beginning of the movie, I wanted to say.

[54:33] You're delaying now.

Stuart Wellington

[54:34] Now you're the one who's delaying now.

[54:36] I wanted to say.

[54:36] He's trying to build up anticipation again.

Dan McCoy

[54:38] I wanted to say because it was demanded of me that I was watching the beginning when

[54:42] he was going to work and Audrey saw the very beginning and she kept being like, this geography

[54:48] makes sense.

[54:49] Yeah.

[54:50] He went out that exit and that's the exit he would come out of in the subway.

[54:54] So damning with more faint praise, dear David, good New York geography, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[55:01] Danning it with faint praise that's damning as in Dan McCoy.

[55:04] But you say this, the movie may not be based on a true story, but it is based on a true

[55:08] commute and you cannot take that away from it.

[55:10] Exactly.

[55:12] They did the work.

[55:14] They did the work of figuring out how you would get from basically Queens to Manhattan,

[55:18] right?

[55:19] Yeah.

[55:19] So, okay.

Dan McCoy

[55:22] So if you're coming to the city, you can use it as a guidebook.

Elliott Kalan

[55:26] So Adam, he's like, I'm going to do this.

[55:29] He caffeinates himself, watches a movie on TV, trying to stay awake, falls asleep instantly.

[55:34] When he wakes up, David is on the TV and he tries to get Adam to cut his own wrists.

[55:38] He's like using his ghost powers to control Adam's arms.

[55:42] And when Adam wakes up, his arm is all cut up.

[55:44] At work, Evelyn is pissed at Adam for sending her insulting DMs.

[55:49] Have we mentioned Evelyn yet?

[55:50] Yeah, yeah.

[55:50] That's the coworker who like helped him with the exorcist and stuff like that.

[55:54] And Kyle calls and he's like, it was easy to find out who has that dear David handle.

[55:58] Nobody does.

[55:59] It doesn't exist.

[55:59] You've got to let it go.

[56:01] And then he's at work and his coworker's like, hey, can you see, tell me what you think about this article.

[56:05] And the article is 10 reasons to kill yourself at work with pictures of Adam killing himself.

[56:10] And he's so mad.

[56:10] He's like, this is fucked up.

[56:11] And he has a big blow up.

[56:12] He starts shouting at him on the office.

[56:14] Yeah, it's fucked up.

[56:14] You used AI to create these images of me.

[56:16] This is 2017.

[56:19] So it's like, did he pose for these pictures?

[56:21] At no point was he like, how'd you get those pictures of me doing that?

[56:24] He just is like, this is crazy.

[56:25] Also, like, dog, you're being haunted.

Stuart Wellington

[56:26] Just assume everything fucked up you see is ghost related.

[56:29] They had Photoshop.

Elliott Kalan

[56:30] Especially because when he sees the article, it really says top 10 reasons to be yourself at work.

Hallie Haglund

[56:35] Yeah, which like, what would those reasons be?

Elliott Kalan

[56:39] I mean, I feel like the subplot of this movie is this other character who is holding on so tightly to their job,

[56:45] even though they should be fired.

[56:46] And this is just more evidence that she does not know what she's doing.

Stuart Wellington

[56:48] Yeah, what are those top 10 reasons?

[56:50] Dan, what are some reasons you should be yourself at work?

Elliott Kalan

[56:52] Dan, you've never tried to be anyone else than yourself at work.

[56:55] What other reasons?

Dan McCoy

[56:56] Yeah, it's only been to my benefit.

[57:00] Yeah, number one, keeps expectations low.

Elliott Kalan

[57:04] Number two, don't get called on to do work.

[57:06] They don't trust you.

[57:07] Number three.

[57:08] What?

Dan McCoy

[57:12] These are lies now.

[57:14] These are getting into lies territory.

[57:15] Number three.

Elliott Kalan

[57:16] Fading into the background memes.

Dan McCoy

[57:20] Okay, no, Dan is a great worker.

Elliott Kalan

[57:22] You should hire him.

[57:23] So, Justin Long, he comes out and he's like, hey, everybody, everything's fine.

[57:27] You should go home.

[57:28] Take it easy.

[57:28] To be honest, he handles the situation pretty well, I think.

[57:32] Yeah.

[57:32] I think he's a really good boss in this moment.

[57:34] He de-escalates.

[57:35] He does not get things worse.

[57:36] He sends the troubled employee out, checks that everyone else is okay.

[57:40] This is a – he's been set up as kind of a shallow guy, but he does a good job bossing here.

[57:44] So, good on you.

Hallie Haglund

[57:44] I feel like this was Jonah Peretti's editorial influence.

[57:49] Oh, perhaps.

Elliott Kalan

[57:50] Let's see where the boss is bad at his job.

[57:51] Make him good at his job.

[57:52] Yeah.

[57:53] So, we'll put this in the cheers column instead of the jeers column.

[57:57] Yeah, because everyone knows your name.

[57:58] And at home, Kyle is mad.

[58:00] He's like, Adam, why did you send me these abusive emails?

[58:04] And Adam is like, David's taken over my feed.

[58:07] He starts posting anti-David cartoons where he's attacking David, and he's drawn David with part of his head missing, and people do not like it.

[58:14] The comments are not good on this one, which I understand.

Dan McCoy

[58:17] Stop bullying this headless ghost.

Elliott Kalan

[58:19] Yeah.

[58:20] I want to mention Justin Long being like, well, your work was supposed to become more relatable, and I don't think the audience can really relate to the feeling of being haunted by a semi-headed ghost.

[58:30] And he throws David's rocking chair down the stairs, and he's like, I'm in control now.

[58:34] He's not in control.

[58:36] David goes in and starts erasing Adam's work as he is doing it.

[58:39] No, his art, that's how he expresses his soul.

[58:42] And Adam asks a third question, which I think is just why –

Stuart Wellington

[58:44] Scott McLeod would be shitting himself if he saw this part.

Elliott Kalan

[58:49] Scott McLeod.

[58:50] But I'm trying to make – understand and reinvent comics.

[58:53] Stop.

[58:53] No.

[58:56] I reread Understanding Comics again recently.

[58:59] Oh.

[58:59] Great book.

[59:00] Just a fantastic book.

[59:02] I've been going back –

Stuart Wellington

[59:03] I wasn't a huge fan of his somewhat recent follow-up, Sculptor.

[59:07] Did you read that one?

[59:07] Sculptor, I didn't – I liked the art a lot, and I liked the storytelling.

Elliott Kalan

[59:10] I didn't love the story, you know.

[59:11] Yeah.

[59:12] But he's still a master craftsman, but it just wasn't the story for me.

[59:15] But Zot, great series.

[59:17] Can't deny it.

Stuart Wellington

[59:18] So if Scott McLeod is listening, we're not – you're mainly in the cheers category.

[59:22] No.

Elliott Kalan

[59:23] Still with stewards.

[59:24] Only partly in the jeers for that one.

[59:26] Only partly for Sculptor.

[59:28] Okay.

[59:29] And Adam ends up – oh, so this is when he asks David a third question, which triggers

[59:36] David's new ability to turn Adam into a living video game that he can control with a controller.

[59:42] I forgot about this.

[59:43] And it's like Dave – he controls Adam and makes him light himself on fire, but it's

[59:47] like he's both a video game character and also himself.

[59:50] But it's not like a computer animated video camera.

[59:52] It's live action footage of him moving like he's a video game character.

Dan McCoy

[59:55] I could have – like if this was where the movie was going to go, I could have used more

[59:58] of this earlier in the film.

[1:00:00] This is pretty late in the movie to get this silly.

[1:00:03] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:03] I agree.

[1:00:05] Adam ends up back in David.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:06] What do you think of the video game sequence, Halle?

[1:00:08] Were you – did this speak to your video game experience?

[1:00:11] As a gamer, yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:12] Yeah.

[1:00:14] No.

[1:00:14] I was confused about why there was like two of them now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:19] Yes, that you're seeing both the like Dear David version of it and the real version of

[1:00:25] it.

[1:00:25] It was very confusing.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:27] It was kind of – it was like who is seeing this video game version?

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:30] But he's also – but –

[1:00:32] And he's doing it for real.

[1:00:33] But there are also two Adams.

[1:00:35] Yes.

[1:00:36] There was like a – and so that confused me.

[1:00:40] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:41] And you're just trying to enforce ethics in the gaming and journalism industry, right?

[1:00:44] Yeah.

[1:00:45] That's why you're worried about it.

[1:00:47] Yeah.

[1:00:48] So Adam, he ends up back in David's basement.

[1:00:51] And people from Adam's life are like, you suck.

[1:00:53] You're not good enough.

[1:00:54] You know, you'll never be good enough.

[1:00:55] And then there's an evil version of Adam.

Hallie Haglund

[1:00:56] I just read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

[1:00:58] So I do know about games.

[1:00:59] I don't appreciate the jokes as if because I'm a woman, I don't know about games.

[1:01:04] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:05] I mean, the joke is more that you're just not – you don't play them though.

Hallie Haglund

[1:01:08] I've written for a video game.

[1:01:10] I know, but that's not – okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:12] Sorry.

[1:01:12] I apologize.

Hallie Haglund

[1:01:13] I brought a fresh perspective as someone who didn't know anything about games.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:17] The new Mortal Kombat or –

[1:01:19] No.

[1:01:19] Yeah, yeah.

[1:01:20] She was coming up with – she was assigned to the Babalities for the new Mortal Kombat.

[1:01:23] That's pretty cute.

[1:01:24] Different ways to have the characters turn into babies.

[1:01:26] Oh, that'd be cool.

[1:01:28] Yeah.

[1:01:29] Okay.

[1:01:29] Sorry.

[1:01:30] Back to the game.

[1:01:30] And they're like, Hallie, you're on friendships.

[1:01:32] And you're like, okay, well, what if he like reaches down his throat and pulls his intestines out

[1:01:38] and it's like there's poop spraying out?

[1:01:39] And they're like, no, no.

[1:01:40] Again, we want friendships, not fatalities.

Hallie Haglund

[1:01:44] I don't get any of this because I don't play this video.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:48] It's fine.

[1:01:49] It's fine.

[1:01:49] So anyway, there's an evil Adam who's like, you're always going to be alone.

[1:01:53] Evelyn and Kyle, they show up to check on Adam because they haven't heard from him.

[1:01:57] And they see his apartment is on fire.

[1:01:58] And they shout for him.

[1:02:00] And he hears them shouting, which gives him the strength to believe in himself.

[1:02:03] But now he has to fight grown-up David, the ghost monster.

[1:02:07] And again, this is a little late for this monster David to be showing up.

[1:02:10] And Adam, luckily, he manages to take this ghost of a comatose child who's missing part of his head

[1:02:17] and beat him to death.

[1:02:19] So Adam does win this fight.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:21] Yeah.

[1:02:21] But he does it through like also, I guess, claiming his own self-esteem.

[1:02:27] Like during this scene, there's a lot about like, you know, I'm not going to let the internet tell me how to feel about myself.

[1:02:36] People do love me.

[1:02:37] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:39] He's realizing that he can be the troll in his life.

[1:02:42] He doesn't need other people to troll him.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:44] I mean, it's always been kind of messagey, but it gets real messagey at the end here.

[1:02:48] Yes, very much so.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:49] Anyway, Adam is about to escape the burning apart when a blast knocks him out.

[1:02:53] And Evelyn and Kyle pull him to safety.

[1:02:55] And Adam tells Kyle he loves him, which feels like a little too little too late.

[1:02:58] Like if he's got to drag you out of a burning building for you to say you love him, then this is not the man for you, Kyle.

Hallie Haglund

[1:03:04] Kyle should consider himself lucky he got anything.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:08] People know that like stuff has been happening because, for instance, his co-workers, like the bad messages she supposedly got,

[1:03:17] got changed to good messages.

[1:03:19] But that confused me because I'm like, well, he doesn't remember sending any messages.

[1:03:23] So why did that happen?

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:24] I mean, Dan, when I've had a couple in me, I'm sending all kinds of crazy shit to people in my contacts.

[1:03:30] That's true.

[1:03:30] Look.

[1:03:31] I've done that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:32] He's been haunted for days.

[1:03:34] He's got all this built-up sperm in him from not being able to masturbate for a while.

[1:03:38] So he's liable to tweet and text any positive thing to somebody.

[1:03:41] Yeah.

[1:03:41] You're saying how much that hurts for a guy.

[1:03:44] Yeah.

[1:03:44] I mean, a lot of people don't understand how much that hurts for a guy.

[1:03:48] It needs to be much like toxic gas.

[1:03:50] It needs to be vented periodically.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:52] I just like the idea that when you get really horny, what you do is you send out really nice messages to people.

[1:03:58] Like they're just like, you've been killing it at work.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:02] Maybe I just, maybe my sexuality just triggers something different in me than you.

[1:04:05] Maybe you have a more grim kind of, kind of, kind of dark sexuality.

[1:04:09] But I get off on phrasing people.

[1:04:10] Dan's dark passenger takes over.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:11] Well, it's very mysterious.

[1:04:13] It's a very mysterious sexuality, Elliot.

[1:04:16] It's mysterious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:17] It is mysterious.

[1:04:19] And it should remain that way.

[1:04:20] And Kyle manages to save David's cats also.

[1:04:24] And everyone apologized to each other.

[1:04:26] But as Adam is being taken away in an ambulance, there's kind of flashes of David's face in the reflection in the window,

[1:04:33] which I don't know if it was implying that he's still haunted or David lives in him now.

[1:04:36] He is still haunted.

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:37] That David killed, David lived in him.

[1:04:38] That the real Adam died.

[1:04:40] And now David inhabits him.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:41] You think that's what it was?

Hallie Haglund

[1:04:42] And this is a true story.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:44] It is a true story.

[1:04:45] So in real life, that guy is now an evil ghost, is what you're saying.

[1:04:48] And it ends then, it goes to a woman who's on a Twitch stream.

[1:04:51] And she's like, this Adam stuff is all fake.

[1:04:53] It's so dumb.

[1:04:54] And these snarky commenters are telling her to like, to say three questions.

[1:04:59] And she goes, okay, I will.

[1:05:00] Dear David, you suck.

[1:05:01] Why are you so dumb?

[1:05:02] Why are you such so crappy?

[1:05:04] Oh, so fugly.

[1:05:06] So fugly.

[1:05:06] That's right.

[1:05:06] And then her screen glitches.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:08] She doesn't even see his fucking picture.

[1:05:10] How does she know he's fugly?

[1:05:12] And then she says, no.

[1:05:13] That's the important thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:13] It undercuts her message.

[1:05:15] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:15] Her second question was, for real?

[1:05:19] Remember?

[1:05:19] Just the number for real?

[1:05:21] Yeah.

[1:05:21] Yeah, that's right.

[1:05:21] For real?

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:21] And there's screen glitches.

[1:05:24] Or even sick burns.

[1:05:25] She suddenly, her body is taken over and she smashes her own face into the table in front

[1:05:29] of her until it's a real pulpy mess.

[1:05:31] This was a little bit too harsh for me.

[1:05:33] And this feels so much like a scene that was tacked on at the end because they felt they

[1:05:36] needed more gore.

[1:05:37] And I was like, too far, guys.

[1:05:39] Too far.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:40] I'm going to say something nice about whoever wrote this, which is that they've never.

Hallie Haglund

[1:05:44] Are you in love with this person or something?

[1:05:47] No, I'm going to say.

[1:05:48] Dan wrote the movie.

[1:05:48] I forgot to tell you.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:49] I'm going to say that they have never entered the bully zone in their life because whenever

[1:05:53] they try and write someone being a bully online, it is so absurd.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:59] It reminds me of a—so my sons have really gotten into the idea of roasting each other

[1:06:03] and they'll have kind of roast battles in the back of the car.

[1:06:06] And the roasts are mild.

[1:06:08] These are mild roasts.

[1:06:11] My older son, he'll be like, you know, when your mom is so dumb, you know, he'll do those

[1:06:16] kinds of stuff, but they never quite work.

[1:06:18] And then my younger son will just turn to him and go, you're the stupidest person in the

[1:06:21] world.

[1:06:22] And it's so intense.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:25] He just says it so seriously.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:27] And I'm always like cringing like, ooh, rough.

[1:06:30] I wish.

[1:06:32] No, I—

[1:06:33] Harsh but fair, right?

[1:06:34] Harsh.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:35] I like to imagine Gabriel being like, you're talking about our mother.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:42] That would be really funny.

[1:06:43] We have the same mom.

[1:06:46] But yeah, so that's—and that's Dear David.

[1:06:48] The ghost lives on and is just going after random streamers.

[1:06:53] Maybe they smash their face against David.

Hallie Haglund

[1:06:54] Maybe they added the scene at the end because they were trying to clarify for people who had

[1:07:00] confusion like some of us did as to whether or not David lived on through Adam.

[1:07:05] They were demonstrating David lives on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:08] That he lived on.

[1:07:08] David lives on, yeah.

[1:07:09] Yeah.

[1:07:10] Yeah.

[1:07:11] Okay.

[1:07:11] That it's not easy to kill a ghost.

[1:07:13] So this—I think the ending of the movie kind of reminded me of something.

[1:07:17] I think this is going to lead us directly into final judgments.

[1:07:19] So, Dan, do you want to set up final judgments for everyone?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:22] Oh, so it's not going to lead us.

[1:07:24] I'm going to lead it, and then this will be the beginning.

[1:07:26] Okay.

[1:07:27] Let's offline about this later, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:29] I don't know if we need to work this out on camera.

[1:07:31] So this is final judgments.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:33] This is the section where we decide if this is a good movie, a bad movie, or a what movie?

[1:07:39] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:41] Right?

[1:07:41] I got a mark.

[1:07:42] I mean, to be honest, those categories are a little better than we usually have.

[1:07:44] Shocktober ones.

[1:07:46] Was it totally scarifying, totally snorifying, or frighteningly funny are the special Shocktober categories that everyone hates but me?

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:53] So what I was saying is that the ending of this movie, specifically the sequence where this woman who's a streamer ends up smashing her face into her keyboard,

[1:08:04] brought to mind a movie that I think does a much better job of capturing the alienating feel of living most of your life online.

[1:08:13] There's a movie called Cam.

[1:08:14] Yes.

[1:08:15] Which is fucking great.

[1:08:17] It was directed by the same guy who directed How to Blow Up a Pipeline a few years ago.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:21] Did you say it's called Ham?

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:23] Cam.

[1:08:24] Ham?

[1:08:25] Like camera.

[1:08:25] Cam.

[1:08:26] Cam.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:26] It's about-

[1:08:27] Cam, like your favorite character from Modern Family.

[1:08:29] Oh.

[1:08:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:30] And it's about a young Cam girl who's very ambitious and successful.

[1:08:34] A young Ham girl?

[1:08:36] You know, he's-

[1:08:39] You're getting so low asleep lately.

[1:08:41] A young Ham girl.

[1:08:42] There's something about-

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:43] This is bad.

[1:08:44] There's something about Stuart when he wears glasses that makes me want to go after him even more.

[1:08:47] Now I get it.

[1:08:48] I get it now.

[1:08:49] I accept it.

[1:08:51] But yes.

[1:08:51] It's about a Cam girl.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:52] So she's a Cam girl.

[1:08:53] She's very-

[1:08:54] She's successful.

[1:08:55] And then she discovers somebody is-

[1:08:57] seems to be impersonating not only like using her account, but like is her on the internet.

[1:09:03] And she's trying to figure out why this doppelganger of hers exists in the digital space.

[1:09:08] It's great.

[1:09:10] And it just like thinking about the ending of this movie mimics some stuff from Cam.

[1:09:15] And it just really highlighted the fact that this movie does not know what it's doing.

[1:09:20] It's like they throw in a few scares here and there.

[1:09:22] But like it feels-

[1:09:23] Even to the title is wrongheaded.

[1:09:26] Like calling it Dear David does not indicate it's scary or about a ghost.

[1:09:32] Yeah.

[1:09:32] It's calling to mind a Twitter thread, which if you're already interested in the Twitter

[1:09:38] thread, like you don't need the name.

[1:09:40] Like call it scary ghost thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:41] There's also like a YA rom-com movie called Dear David that exists already.

[1:09:47] And the title works much better for that.

[1:09:49] That's actually what I watched.

[1:09:51] Oh, no.

[1:09:53] So I'm going to say this is snorifying.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:55] Snorifying.

[1:09:56] Yeah.

[1:09:56] I also say it's snorifying.

[1:09:57] This is our friend Kevin Marr, who has the show Kevin Geeks Out, does a thing called

[1:10:02] The Kindest Cut, which is just, you know, taking a movie and like only including the stuff

[1:10:11] that you want to see in that movie, like the funny stuff, you know, and often it's enough

[1:10:16] to kind of give you an idea of the plot.

[1:10:18] This is a movie that would really benefit from The Kindest Cut because there is like some

[1:10:22] wacky stuff in here that's really funny and weird and wrongheaded.

[1:10:27] And if you cut this movie down to like seven minutes, I would be amused by it.

[1:10:31] But otherwise, it has so much nothing going on that I have to say snorifying.

[1:10:37] What do you guys think?

[1:10:39] In LA, on the other coast.

[1:10:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:41] Yeah.

[1:10:41] I am also going to call it snorifying because for all the reasons you guys said already,

[1:10:46] like this just not very much happens.

[1:10:48] And it feels very weird that it feels like it's being very like, why am I blanking on

[1:10:56] the word?

[1:10:56] Very, like it's sticking very closely the details of.

[1:10:59] Erotic.

[1:11:00] Yeah.

[1:11:00] Very erotic.

[1:11:00] It's sticking closely, I assume, to what happened in the Twitter thread because otherwise you

[1:11:05] would have invented some more interesting things to have happen.

[1:11:08] Right.

[1:11:09] It's, I don't know why it's showing such fidelity, it seems to it, but it's, it's such a, the

[1:11:13] haunting is so low level.

Hallie Haglund

[1:11:14] Is that the word that escaped you all?

[1:11:16] It was not.

[1:11:16] Fidelity?

[1:11:17] It was not.

[1:11:17] Hard for you to recall that word?

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:21] Allie, it was one time.

[1:11:23] One time.

[1:11:25] But the, it feels like there's just not a lot going on in this movie.

[1:11:28] It feels like this.

[1:11:29] I feel like after, when I watched Night Swim, I was like, this movie doesn't really have

[1:11:32] the scares I'm looking for.

[1:11:33] And then I watched this and I was like, Night Swim, I'm sorry.

[1:11:37] You, you, you know, you were doing what you needed to do.

[1:11:40] But Dear David is, it's like kind of barely a movie.

[1:11:44] It's, and which is, is too bad because I like watching movies.

[1:11:48] Hallie, what do you think?

Hallie Haglund

[1:11:49] Yeah, I liked the, the premise of this movie.

[1:11:52] I, I can't tell if you guys, I, it didn't seem messagey to me that there would be a horror

[1:11:57] movie about someone who's like a vigilante against, uh, internet bullies.

[1:12:02] I thought that was intriguing and like a good idea.

[1:12:04] And then just, they just didn't do anything with it.

[1:12:07] Uh, it made me feel like anytime I write something, I'm trying way too hard.

[1:12:12] Cause this.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:14] Well, that was the thing that was baffling to me about.

[1:12:16] Nothing I read.

[1:12:18] About this movie.

[1:12:19] I'm like, this was a movie that they were like, yeah, let's go ahead and make it.

[1:12:24] That's the part that confuses me about this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:26] I wouldn't be surprised.

[1:12:27] Well, I wouldn't be surprised.

[1:12:29] You never know what, what's going on behind the scenes.

[1:12:30] If they were like, we have a release date set for this movie.

[1:12:33] So go make it.

[1:12:34] And they don't really have time to do much with it.

[1:12:36] Like there's always, I, I will say, I'll give our proviso that we use sometimes where

[1:12:40] it's like, you don't know what, what's going on behind the scenes with movies.

[1:12:43] The creative people who make movies are often undercut or handcuffed or, or, or

[1:12:48] held back or hurt by production difficulties, scheduling difficulties, the people they answer

[1:12:53] to money wise.

[1:12:54] So you never know.

[1:12:55] I don't want to, I don't want to go from, I don't want to be a real troll bully and be

[1:12:58] like, everyone who made this movie sucks.

[1:13:00] They're really bad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:01] We just said Buzzfeed.

[1:13:02] I think we made fun of Buzzfeed studios.

[1:13:04] That was it.

[1:13:04] That was the only thing.

[1:13:05] Exactly.

[1:13:05] And we made fun of those cartoons.

[1:13:06] But that's, hey, that's pretty mild bullying, honestly.

[1:13:09] But you never know.

[1:13:10] But it is.

Hallie Haglund

[1:13:11] Are you guys trying to be so nice just because of this movie in particular?

[1:13:15] Or is this your new thing that you guys.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:16] I think we're just kind of nicer in general now.

[1:13:17] But it is, it is baffling to me that this movie was made.

[1:13:20] Like, or they didn't, that someone didn't see the script and say like, can we add some

[1:13:24] more ghost stuff in this?

[1:13:25] Like, can we make this scarier or like funnier or like more exciting?

[1:13:30] But you never know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:30] It's like, are they worried that like people are going to show up who are like, oh, I was

[1:13:34] a fan of the Twitter thread and there's changes and I don't like it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:37] Like, do you think that's going to happen?

[1:13:39] I mean, I wonder if, or it may be also just the fact that I wonder if Buzzfeed was like,

[1:13:43] stick with what we own.

[1:13:44] Don't change anything about it.

[1:13:46] I don't know.

Hallie Haglund

[1:13:46] Well, given the fact that none of us have researched the Twitter thread, we actually don't know

[1:13:50] if there is a lot of fidelity to the Twitter thread.

[1:13:53] But I bet it did sell.

[1:13:54] I bet it sold because of Zola, Stuart.

[1:13:58] I feel like they probably were like, maybe it sold even around the same time.

[1:14:02] And they were like, that did so well.

[1:14:03] Let's buy this one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:04] Ellie, do you think we could sell a movie based on our chore from years ago?

[1:14:07] Oh my God.

[1:14:09] Buzzfeed Studios.

[1:14:11] I forget what I said about Dear David.

[1:14:13] It's great.

[1:14:14] Why don't you buy our script?

[1:14:15] Oh, wow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:18] It's intellectual property theft.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:20] To quote Mr. T. Tiger, it's great.

[1:14:23] Okay, you say it.

[1:14:24] I know, he says they're great still.

S5

[1:14:31] This season on The Adventure Zone, Abnibals.

[1:14:34] Get ready for a brand new crime-fighting trio.

[1:14:37] Here to protect the anthropomorphic muscular animal citizens of River City.

[1:14:42] Featuring Justin McElroy as Axol Isle, the firefighting axolotl.

[1:14:46] Clint McElroy as Roger Moore, the debonair cow of mystery.

[1:14:51] Griffin McElroy as Navy SEAL, the raw SEAL that has never served in the armed forces.

[1:14:56] And Travis McElroy as every other swole critter in River City.

[1:15:00] This swear-free Saturday morning cartoon-inspired story airs every Thursday on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jordan Morris

[1:15:11] I'm Emily Fleming.

[1:15:12] And I'm Jordan Morris.

[1:15:14] We're real comedy writers.

[1:15:15] And real friends.

[1:15:17] And real fucking cheapskates.

[1:15:19] We say, why subscribe to expensive streaming services when you can stream tons of insane movies online for free?

Hallie Haglund

[1:15:27] As long as you're fine with 25 randomly inserted super loud car insurance commercials.

Jordan Morris

[1:15:32] On our new podcast, Free With Ads, we review streaming movies from the darkest corner of the internet's bargain bin.

Hallie Haglund

[1:15:40] From the good to the weird to the holy shit, look at Jean-Claude Van Damme's big old butt.

Jordan Morris

[1:15:45] Free With Ads, a free podcast about free movies that's worth the price of admission.

Hallie Haglund

[1:15:49] Every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org or your favorite pod spot.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:56] Hey, you know what?

[1:15:57] We've got a sponsor this week.

[1:15:59] And that sponsor is named Factor.

[1:16:02] And, you know, I love what they're putting down here in the ad copy because I'm a guy with a lot of sweaters.

[1:16:10] And Factor reminds us that sweater weather is here.

[1:16:13] And it pairs perfectly with savory fall foods.

[1:16:18] When you're having a sweater.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:20] When you're having a sweater.

[1:16:21] When you're having a sweater on your body.

[1:16:23] You're putting down on a sweater because you're a moth.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:25] You want to have some savory fall foods.

[1:16:29] And Factor's fresh, never frozen meals pair perfectly with your busy fall schedule.

[1:16:35] And you know what?

[1:16:36] For whatever reason, and I know the reason, I just have a bunch of like Halloween-loving freak friends.

[1:16:42] And also we've got Plop TV going on.

[1:16:46] October is always filled with stuff.

[1:16:48] Yeah, Dan's swamped, guys.

Hallie Haglund

[1:16:51] Stuffed like a cornucopia.

[1:16:52] Yeah.

[1:16:53] On a Thanksgiving table.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:54] So if you don't have a lot of time.

Hallie Haglund

[1:16:55] Oh, but that's in November.

[1:16:57] Sorry.

[1:16:57] Still the fall.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:58] You know, you can have a cornucopia anytime.

[1:17:01] Yeah, yeah.

[1:17:01] It doesn't just have to be in Movember.

[1:17:04] When it comes to meals, everyone wants the same thing.

[1:17:06] Options.

[1:17:07] That's why Factor offers 35 wholesome meals every week.

[1:17:11] So you'll always find something you love that suits your lifestyle.

[1:17:15] From easy breakfasts and smoothies.

[1:17:17] That's a lot of meals for one week.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:18] That's five meals a day.

[1:17:20] You should not be eating that many meals.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:22] Perhaps it's for a family, you know?

[1:17:24] I mean, I think that's the options of meals.

[1:17:26] Perhaps it's none of your business, Elliot.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:29] You know what?

[1:17:30] I shouldn't be mealshaking.

[1:17:31] I shouldn't argue with the sponsor.

[1:17:32] Policing other people's food habits.

[1:17:34] Thank you.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:36] From easy breakfasts and smoothies to delectable, delectable even.

[1:17:40] Midnight snacks.

[1:17:41] Factor has over 60 plus add-ons.

[1:17:44] There's no prep, no mess.

[1:17:46] Just delicious meals that feature premium ingredients like filet mignon.

[1:17:50] You like that, Elliot?

[1:17:52] Filet mignon?

[1:17:52] Yeah, protein.

[1:17:53] I do.

[1:17:54] Shrimp.

[1:17:55] Shrimp.

[1:17:55] I like that also.

[1:17:56] Shrimp's great.

[1:17:57] And blackened salmon delivered right to your door.

[1:18:00] Sounds good.

[1:18:01] Ready in just two minutes.

[1:18:02] You'll savor every last bite.

[1:18:05] I've had some of these factor meals.

[1:18:07] I, unlike Elliot, love to cook.

[1:18:10] But also, like Elliot, sometimes maybe I don't want to cook.

[1:18:16] Just because you love something doesn't mean you want to do it all the time.

[1:18:19] And factor meals is a great option.

[1:18:21] These meals were delicious.

[1:18:23] I enjoyed them.

[1:18:24] So if you want to enjoy them too, you can go to factormeals.com slash flop50

[1:18:28] and use code FLOP50 to get 50% off your first box and 20% off your next month.

[1:18:34] That is code FLOP50 at factormeals.com slash FLOP50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month.

Hallie Haglund

[1:18:42] Is factor brought to you by the same people who made Fear Factor?

[1:18:46] Because I wouldn't need that.

[1:18:47] No.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:48] No, no.

[1:18:49] This is nothing to be afraid of.

[1:18:50] I think I've told the story before about how I didn't get to eat too many of our factor meals

[1:18:54] because my wife kept taking them to work for lunch.

[1:18:58] I'd be like, I'll have this today.

[1:19:00] Oh, it's gone.

[1:19:00] Oh, I took that for lunch.

[1:19:02] She liked them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:04] So Elliot had to eat sawdust.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:06] Yeah.

[1:19:06] Look, I had to make my own pemmican and get old lifesavers.

[1:19:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:12] I have a little plug to do now that we're in the plug section.

[1:19:15] Oh.

[1:19:16] If you are listening to this, you still have a little bit of time to go support Jiggle Studio,

[1:19:22] a studio gym space opening here in Brooklyn, New York,

[1:19:26] that my wife and I are opening with some friends.

[1:19:30] This is our first time branching out from just doing bars.

[1:19:33] Instead, we're doing a workout space that's going to be classes like yoga, Pilates.

[1:19:40] There's going to be burlesque class, dance classes, and then Charlene's patented hangover helper class.

[1:19:48] It's a ton of fun.

[1:19:49] She's patented.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:51] If I say it on a podcast, it's patented, right?

[1:19:53] Yeah, yeah.

[1:19:54] Just take that class, put it in an envelope, mail it to yourself.

[1:19:56] That'll be fine.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:57] Thank you.

[1:19:57] That's what I'm doing right now.

[1:19:59] The myth, Elliot.

[1:19:59] If you get a chance, head over to Kickstarter and look up Open Jiggle Studios,

[1:20:04] and you can learn all about it.

[1:20:07] There's plenty of cool merch.

[1:20:08] You can sign up in advance for classes if you live in the area.

[1:20:13] And yeah, you can help our dream come true.

[1:20:15] The Kickstarter is going really well so far, and we're pleased with all the great support.

[1:20:20] So thanks, and Open R Gym, please, Jiggle Studio.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:24] I also want to make sure people remember that, as Dan mentioned,

[1:20:27] we are still doing Flop TV Season 2.

[1:20:30] It's going on right now for six months from September through February,

[1:20:35] the first Saturday of each month, we are live streaming a one-hour kind of TV version of the Flophouse,

[1:20:42] and then that video gets archived, and you can watch it whenever you want,

[1:20:46] if you have a ticket to it.

[1:20:48] It's the first Saturday in every month.

[1:20:49] The next episode we're doing will be November 2nd when we're talking Caddyshack 2,

[1:20:54] because this season is all about sequels.

[1:20:56] We had a lot of fun with Robocop 2, had a lot of fun with Break-In 2.

[1:20:59] We are ready to be hurt, to not feel good after watching Caddyshack 2.

[1:21:04] But the theme song says, I'm all right.

[1:21:07] I mean, the theme song to Caddyshack, I don't know, the Caddyshack 2 theme song is,

[1:21:11] I won't be all right.

[1:21:13] Yeah.

[1:21:14] Wow.

[1:21:15] We went too far this time.

[1:21:17] Nobody asked for another.

[1:21:20] Wow.

[1:21:21] Making it was kind of a crime.

[1:21:23] Who knows?

[1:21:23] Maybe we'll think it's great.

[1:21:24] So that's November 2nd, 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern time.

[1:21:30] We'll be broadcasting live.

[1:21:32] But if you can't make it, that's okay.

[1:21:33] Your ticket gets you access to the video.

[1:21:36] If you go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, you can buy tickets or season passes.

[1:21:42] What does the season pass get you?

[1:21:43] We'll get you five shows for the price of six.

[1:21:45] And it means you have access to all these videos.

[1:21:48] You can watch them at your leisure through the end of February when the videos will be going back into the Flophouse vault.

Hallie Haglund

[1:21:56] You said five shows for the price of six.

[1:21:58] Did I?

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:59] Yeah.

[1:21:59] I'm sorry, that's six shows for the price of five.

Hallie Haglund

[1:22:01] I just wanted, I didn't want anyone to not do it because they thought they were overpaying for it.

[1:22:06] What a terrible deal.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:07] Thanks, that would be a bad deal.

[1:22:08] Sorry.

[1:22:09] Season pass gets you six shows for the price of five shows.

[1:22:12] It's like an extra.

[1:22:13] So go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com to watch Flop TV season two.

[1:22:18] We've been having so much fun with it.

[1:22:20] Audiences have been loving it.

[1:22:21] We've been getting good audiences.

[1:22:22] We want you to join them and have that fun.

[1:22:26] And while you're going to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, also make a note to yourself to go to your local comic book store where the first issue of my run of Harley Quinn from DC Comics should be out on comic store shelves now unless it's sold out already.

[1:22:40] That's Harley Quinn number 44, writing by me, pencils and inks by Mindy Lee.

[1:22:47] The art looks amazing.

[1:22:48] And I'm very proud of how it's coming out.

[1:22:50] The first issue comes out October 23rd, which happened already when this episode comes out.

[1:22:55] So it should be on comic store shelves now.

[1:22:58] Issue 44 of Harley Quinn, written by me.

[1:23:00] But first, go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com and get tickets for Flop TV season two.

[1:23:07] And now, back to the rest of the show.

[1:23:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:10] Yeah.

[1:23:10] Shut up.

[1:23:11] Shut up, Elliot.

[1:23:12] It's time for letters.

[1:23:14] It's time for you to shut up and our listeners to say something.

[1:23:19] And then we say stuff back.

[1:23:21] Oh.

[1:23:21] It's sort of a back and forth.

[1:23:22] Then you can talk again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:24] Dan turned into such a troll all of a sudden.

[1:23:27] He's really Dear David-ing me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:28] No, I just got a Twitter message from Dear David.

[1:23:33] He says he's following you now.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:35] I got inhabited by a ghost.

[1:23:38] This first letter is from Ben, who writes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:42] Gentleman.

[1:23:42] A rat?

[1:23:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:45] You went to two different animals.

[1:23:46] Interesting.

[1:23:47] A lot of animals were named Ben.

[1:23:49] At least two.

[1:23:53] Ben G.

[1:23:54] Oddly, the Ben in Ben and Me, though, wasn't the mouse.

[1:23:58] That was Benjamin Franklin, of course.

[1:24:00] That is ironic.

[1:24:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:02] Of course.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:05] There was a cartoon and everything.

[1:24:07] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:07] And of course, there's the tale of Despero, which is a mouse, but not named Ben.

[1:24:11] Yeah.

[1:24:12] Well, if we're going to open it up, there's Mrs. Frisbee.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:15] Yeah.

[1:24:15] You might be thinking, yeah, Rats of Nim.

[1:24:17] Fival goes west.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:18] You might think Rats of Nim is actually Rats of Ben, but it's not.

[1:24:22] No, it's not.

[1:24:22] It's a different word.

[1:24:23] Easy mistake to make.

[1:24:24] Fival, not Ben.

[1:24:25] No.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:26] Mickey, way different than Ben.

[1:24:29] Very different.

[1:24:29] Two syllable.

[1:24:30] Different letters, different sounds.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:33] Anyway, so Ben.

[1:24:34] Brown Jenkin could be a Ben.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:37] We don't know what his first name is.

[1:24:38] So you bring up Ben 10.

[1:24:40] That is a Ben, not a mouse.

[1:24:42] Again, that's a boy.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:43] The funny thing is, the original Ben was neither a mouse.

[1:24:47] It wasn't a mouse.

[1:24:48] It was a rat or a bear.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:50] What do you mean the original Ben?

[1:24:52] What?

[1:24:54] The beginning of recorded history?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:55] The way this whole started out, we somehow migrated to mouse.

[1:24:59] We were like listing mice.

[1:25:00] I just think it's funny.

[1:25:01] Anyway.

[1:25:04] I'll keep this short and sweet.

[1:25:05] Good, because we didn't.

[1:25:06] Nope.

[1:25:07] My other favorite movie series is On Cinema at the Cinema.

[1:25:11] One of the reoccurring gags is that it's obvious that Tim Heidecker's character rarely

[1:25:15] watches the movies they review.

[1:25:17] I'm curious if there was ever a time in your podcast history where you believed one of your

[1:25:22] castmates hadn't actually watched or finished the movie y'all were discussing.

[1:25:26] I mean, Stuart frequently doesn't finish the movies.

[1:25:31] Well, do the credits count?

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:33] There was that time where Dan fell asleep during the movie.

[1:25:35] Yeah.

[1:25:35] That was awesome.

[1:25:36] That was great.

[1:25:37] When was that?

[1:25:38] I don't remember, but he was snoring.

[1:25:40] I was like, should we wake him up?

[1:25:41] No, this is funny.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:42] I think there were more than one occasion.

[1:25:47] There was a Transformers movie and the Robocop remake, if I recall correctly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:52] These Transformers are so long, dude.

[1:25:54] And for every like two seconds of Anthony Hopkins getting blown up by a Decepticon or TJ Miller

[1:26:00] getting killed like off screen.

[1:26:02] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:03] I mean.

[1:26:04] You've got to sit through a character explaining the laws about statutory rape so that it doesn't

[1:26:09] get arrested for having an underage girlfriend.

[1:26:11] Something that it's weird to have in a blockbuster science fiction action movie.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:14] Yeah, it was a weird part of that movie.

[1:26:16] That does happen.

[1:26:16] Yeah.

[1:26:16] Yeah, it's not a joke.

[1:26:17] That's an actual part of the movie.

[1:26:18] That happens.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:19] That happens.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:20] Which one was it?

[1:26:20] Was that a plot point when those two little robots were like, yeah, we can't read?

[1:26:25] And I'm like.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:30] Well, at least one of those times, I think I was sick.

[1:26:32] So that mitigates it a little bit.

[1:26:34] Sure, sure.

[1:26:35] Of course.

[1:26:36] You know, it's less fun to do the show this way than back when we could watch the movie all

[1:26:41] at the same time together.

[1:26:43] Like, that's the most fun way to obviously watch a bad movie.

[1:26:46] But I guess the one advantage is that should I fall asleep, I then feel an obligation to

[1:26:52] go back and actually watch the movie rather than if we're all watching it together, we're

[1:26:56] just like, we're not going to go back and let Dan watch the rest of this movie.

[1:27:00] We're just going to barrel ahead and Dan will be surprised by to learn what happened after

[1:27:06] he settled off to dreamland.

[1:27:08] I don't know why I'm talking about myself in the third person so much, but.

[1:27:11] I don't think I have other suspicions though about you guys.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:17] No?

[1:27:17] Not related to the podcast.

[1:27:19] Yeah.

[1:27:19] No.

[1:27:20] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:22] All right.

[1:27:23] Well, moving on then.

[1:27:24] This letter is from Jared who writes,

[1:27:28] Dear Peaches.

[1:27:31] What did Hallie do?

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:33] Hallie whispered Kushner as if she was afraid saying his name out loud when he would appear

[1:27:38] in the room.

[1:27:39] Summon him.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:40] Okay.

[1:27:41] Well, we got two questions here.

[1:27:42] They're both short and sweet.

[1:27:44] Dear Peaches, do you think Slimer has a smell?

[1:27:48] I always assumed ectoplasm was odorless, but surely all those hot dogs have some effect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:53] You gotta smell like hot dogs, right?

[1:27:54] If he's lucky.

[1:27:55] If he's lucky, he smells like hot dogs.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:57] And his original name was Onionhead.

[1:27:59] So do you think he smells like onions because of that?

[1:28:02] Or do you think it was just...

[1:28:03] Uh, what?

[1:28:04] That was the name of the puppet.

[1:28:06] It was Onionhead.

[1:28:08] It wasn't named Slimer until, like, what?

[1:28:10] The animated show?

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:12] Dan's pulling out all his first date information.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:15] Well, I'm looking at Elliot for help and he's giving me none.

[1:28:18] You think that the man who's in charge of a Ghostbusters property would, like, know something

[1:28:22] about...

[1:28:22] I'm not an encyclopedia Ghostbusters, eh?

[1:28:24] Like, what is it?

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:25] Yeah, well, anyway...

[1:28:26] I know on-screen canon.

[1:28:28] I don't know behind-the-scenes nicknames, you know?

[1:28:30] But I do assume that Slimer smells like John Belushi, since Slimer is somewhat based on

[1:28:35] the idea of John Belushi.

[1:28:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:36] Oh, so you do know some trivia about Slimer.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:39] The idea of John...

[1:28:41] Based on the idea of John Belushi.

[1:28:42] Based on the vibe.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:44] Okay, well, we can move on to the second question, which will hopefully prove less contentious.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:49] No, well, I will go on the record saying, yes, I do think Ghosts smell.

[1:28:51] But continue.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:54] Also, why do old comics show someone wearing a barrel to signify they're broke?

[1:28:59] Wouldn't a barrel cost more than clothes?

[1:29:01] Sorry if these questions are too emotional for the show.

[1:29:04] Well, the first one, actually...

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:05] Yeah, I think it's...

[1:29:06] I'm worried about this next one.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:08] I mean, I assume that these are barrels, you know, from a time when barrels were used

[1:29:12] more frequently and these are discarded barrels.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:15] That's what I was going to say.

[1:29:16] There was a time when it was a lot easier to get your hands on a waste barrel.

Hallie Haglund

[1:29:19] These aren't crate and barrel, crate and barrel.

[1:29:22] No, no.

[1:29:22] Yeah, those would be expensive.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:24] Yeah, I mean, people were still shipping...

[1:29:26] Back when, like, barrel rights were, like, spread out across the ground.

[1:29:29] Like, you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a barrel right.

[1:29:32] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:33] Exactly.

[1:29:35] And they'd be mad you were wearing one because that's a barrel wrong.

[1:29:38] That's not how you're supposed to use that barrel.

[1:29:40] But I think, yeah, it is from a time when things were shipped in wood more often than they are now.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:45] Now, the suspenders you used to suspend that barrel over yourself, those, that was...

[1:29:50] You have to pay for those.

[1:29:51] That's the problem.

[1:29:53] But...

[1:29:53] What do you use, like, leather straps?

[1:29:54] Leather, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:55] It looks like leather.

[1:29:57] Yeah.

[1:29:57] I mean, that's strong enough probably to hold up a barrel.

[1:29:59] If you use, like, something that's too delicate, it's just going to snap and the barrel fall down and everyone will see you.

[1:30:04] Yeah.

[1:30:04] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:05] If it's elastic, though, you get to go, like, woo, woo.

[1:30:09] When the barrel zooms up and down on you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:10] Or, like, yeah, get Strega Nona to give you some of her fucking spaghetti.

[1:30:15] Make the straps out of?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:17] Yeah.

[1:30:18] Spaghetti straps, Elliot.

[1:30:19] That is right.

[1:30:20] I forgot spaghetti strap dresses started with actual spaghetti.

[1:30:24] That's true, yeah.

[1:30:26] Model.

[1:30:28] Back when Strega Nona chic was all the rage in Paris, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:31] Okay.

[1:30:31] Well, this has been a surprisingly angry letter section.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:34] I don't know why we're so mad at each other.

[1:30:35] It's David who's done this to us.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:37] Let's move on to recommendations.

[1:30:41] Movies that we watched recently that we might recommend.

[1:30:46] I'm going to, for the spooky season, I'm going to recommend a horror movie.

[1:30:49] I'm going to.

[1:30:50] Buckle your freak belt.

[1:30:51] I'm going to specify that in this case, I'm recommending what I think was a good, bad horror movie.

[1:30:58] This is not, you know, I'm not saying this is a quality film necessarily, but it was fun to watch.

[1:31:03] I watched Flesh Eater from 1988, a movie that was written and directed and kind of stars the guy who was the original cemetery ghoul in Night of the Living Dead.

[1:31:17] The one that appears after he says they're coming to get you, Barbara.

[1:31:21] And so he was like, hey, I can make a zombie movie too.

[1:31:26] And he also is in this zombie movie as I guess the same ghoul.

[1:31:32] Oh, cool.

[1:31:33] In the movie in a lot of ways.

[1:31:35] Not cool, ghoul.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:36] Oh, okay.

[1:31:37] That makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:38] The movie in a lot of ways feels like just a remake of Night of the Living Dead, but like sleazier, like more unmotivated.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:49] Night of the Living Dead.

[1:31:50] But at least he has Return of the Living Dead or around that level?

Dan McCoy

[1:31:54] There's more unmotivated nude scenes in this.

[1:31:57] Like there's more like weirds, like, you know, there's like child death in this.

[1:32:02] This feels like a real like low budget, you know, programmer.

[1:32:07] But it's also really silly.

[1:32:09] Like if you're looking for a movie that will have you sort of scratch your head and saying what at the screen every few minutes, you know, dial up Flesh Eater.

[1:32:19] You might enjoy it.

[1:32:20] How do you watch this one?

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:21] I saw it on Tubi.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:22] Tubi.

[1:32:22] It's a Tubi treasure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:25] To keep with the spooky theme, I'm going to recommend a terrifying little tale called His Three Daughters.

[1:32:32] Ooh.

[1:32:33] Oh, no.

[1:32:34] It's about three daughters reconnecting while their father passes away in the next room.

[1:32:39] Oh.

[1:32:40] It's not spooky at all.

[1:32:41] It's very sad.

[1:32:42] But it does star Carrie Coon.

[1:32:45] Ugh.

[1:32:46] Natasha Lyonne.

[1:32:47] Ugh.

[1:32:48] And Elizabeth Olsen.

[1:32:50] They're great.

[1:32:51] All three of them are great.

[1:32:53] And it is, feels like a very New York story.

[1:32:57] I love a kind of a single location movie where you really get a feel of the apartment that they're in.

[1:33:04] And watching their, like learning about their relationship as it unfolds through dialogue.

[1:33:09] It feels very much like a play put on screen, but in a good way.

[1:33:14] I thought it was really charming and sad and great.

[1:33:18] And I liked watching those three actresses.

[1:33:21] His three daughters.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:22] I thought we were going to continue with the Halloween spooky movies theme.

[1:33:26] But, you know, I'll return to it even though it seems like we're not doing that this time.

[1:33:31] I'm giving Stuart unnecessary criticism.

[1:33:33] There's no reason for it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:35] Because I'm wearing fucking glasses.

[1:33:36] He loves it.

[1:33:37] Look at his face.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:38] It's the glasses.

[1:33:38] He loves it, yeah.

[1:33:39] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:40] I have an Elliot be mean to me kink.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:43] Not a Dan be mean to me.

[1:33:45] No, no, no.

[1:33:46] So, do you like being dominated by a guy who's smaller than you?

[1:33:50] That's the thing.

[1:33:52] So, I watched a movie recently.

[1:33:54] Is it a movie from the Czech Republic or at the time Czechoslovakia?

[1:33:58] Yes, of course it is.

[1:33:59] But it's kind of like a fun Halloween-y type movie.

[1:34:01] It's called The Girl on the Broomstick.

[1:34:03] It's from 1972.

[1:34:03] It's kind of like a Czechoslovak version of the kinds of supernatural fantasy comedies that Disney would put out in the, like, 60s and early 70s.

[1:34:13] And this girl, Saxana, she's at a school for witches.

[1:34:18] And she has to, and she wants...

[1:34:21] She's at a school for witches.

[1:34:25] She goes to the regular human world and has to figure out how to cast the spell that will make it so that she doesn't have to return to the witch world before she wants to.

[1:34:35] And there's a lot of goofy stuff that happens and a lot of silly things with magic going awry.

[1:34:40] And it's kind of like a short, fun, kind of like silly movie.

[1:34:43] Very colorful and very light, but still has some of that Czech edge to it, you know.

[1:34:50] So, I really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:34:51] It was just a fun movie to watch that has a Halloween-y feel, but is not scary.

[1:34:56] And that if my kids would read subtitles, I would show it to them.

[1:35:00] But I think that they probably will not.

[1:35:02] So, that's The Girl on the Broomstick.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:04] You should just get Bong Joon-ho to come over and explain to your kids why they should watch movies with subtitles.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:10] Oh, yeah.

[1:35:10] That's a good idea.

[1:35:11] Yeah, call it Bong.

[1:35:12] I'll just call it Dial-a-Bong and get Bong Joon-ho to come over.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:17] Howie?

[1:35:17] Text.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:17] Maybe text.

[1:35:19] Yeah.

[1:35:19] Oh, yeah.

[1:35:20] I don't know, you guys.

[1:35:21] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:22] Oh, no.

[1:35:23] We sent her into a spiral.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:26] I guess a movie I've been thinking about a lot recently is the original Scenes from a Marriage.

[1:35:32] Have you guys watched that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:34] I've actually never seen it.

[1:35:35] The Ingmar Bergman.

[1:35:35] No.

[1:35:36] I've never actually seen it.

[1:35:36] I've been meaning to it for a long time.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:38] It's very long, but it's really good.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:39] It was a TV miniseries, right, originally?

[1:35:41] Was it?

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:41] I think so.

[1:35:43] But I don't know.

[1:35:45] It was like eight hours or something.

[1:35:48] So that makes more sense.

[1:35:50] But it's-

[1:35:50] And you watched it all the way through.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:52] You didn't know how long it was.

[1:35:52] You're like, I'll go to bed when this is over.

[1:35:54] Oh, no.

[1:35:55] Suddenly the sun is up.

[1:35:56] Your kids are like, mommy, we need to go to school.

Hallie Haglund

[1:35:58] No.

[1:35:58] Still watching.

[1:35:59] I watched it.

[1:36:02] No, but one of the big themes that they revisit is this, the husband being disappointed with how he's turned out.

[1:36:12] He always thought he'd be great.

[1:36:13] And then he doesn't wind up being great.

[1:36:16] And his wife is sick of hearing him complain about it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:18] So you're saying I would find myself represented in this movie?

Hallie Haglund

[1:36:22] I'm saying I've been thinking about it a lot.

[1:36:26] Oh.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:28] Allie, maybe you should plug your newsletter.

Hallie Haglund

[1:36:30] Oh, sure.

[1:36:33] Check out my newsletter that hurts my feelings on Substack.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:39] This household always rushes to read Allie's newsletter whenever it's done.

Elliott Kalan

[1:36:44] The same thing here.

[1:36:45] When it shows up in my email inbox, I read it right away.

[1:36:48] I never let it sit.

[1:36:50] And it's always really good.

[1:36:52] Hilarious and also brutally honest.

Hallie Haglund

[1:36:55] Brutally.

[1:36:55] Really got to start being careful about the—my audience in Eagle Rock is growing.

[1:37:01] So I've had a few texts that say, I feel famous when they've read my newsletter.

[1:37:10] So, yeah, got to find some new content to hurt my feelings.

[1:37:15] So give it to me, guys.

[1:37:15] You've got to start driving to—

[1:37:16] Give it to me.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:17] You're driving to nearby cities and have your feelings hurt elsewhere.

[1:37:22] Exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:23] I feel like you're going to go through the thing that a lot of memoir writers do, where they

[1:37:27] write a memoir that's about their life and people love it.

Jordan Morris

[1:37:29] And then the next book is about like, well, I traveled the country trying barbecue at all

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:34] the national parks.

[1:37:36] They have to come up with some reason to be doing things.

Hallie Haglund

[1:37:39] I'm going to be a real Canouse Guard figure.

[1:37:43] That's how you pronounce that, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:45] Yeah.

[1:37:45] Not to be confused with Mouse Guard, the comic book about mice.

[1:37:48] None of them are named Ben.

[1:37:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:37:50] My Struggle by the Mouse Guard.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:55] Well, that's another Shocktober for the books.

[1:38:00] As always, we're really happy.

[1:38:01] The movies.

[1:38:02] The movies, too.

[1:38:04] We're always happy that Hallie joined us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:07] Hallie turned and smiled at me like, Ed, you see what I did?

Dan McCoy

[1:38:12] The energy always is great with Hallie here.

Hallie Haglund

[1:38:16] Thanks for having me, guys.

[1:38:18] I always love to be here.

[1:38:20] Yay.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:22] What do I say at the end here?

[1:38:23] I say thank you to Maximum Fun.

[1:38:25] Yeah.

[1:38:25] Do that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:25] Thanks to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:38:27] Our network.

[1:38:28] Why not try some of the other Maximum Fun shows?

[1:38:30] There's a lot of great ones.

[1:38:31] Why not thank our producer, Alex Smith, who makes this sound good?

[1:38:33] I will thank him.

[1:38:34] Yeah, Dan, you should.

[1:38:35] And remember, Dan, to tell people that they should check him out online as Howell Doughty,

[1:38:39] the name under which he makes his music.

[1:38:41] He has a new album out now, which is called I Need Some Help, right?

[1:38:45] Mm-hmm.

[1:38:45] Yeah.

[1:38:46] Dan, you should tell them about that.

[1:38:47] You might mention that.

[1:38:48] It's great.

[1:38:48] Another thing you should probably mention is that if people like this show, why not give

[1:38:51] us a review on wherever you listen to podcasts?

[1:38:54] That would be a great thing to do.

[1:38:55] A positive review would really help us spread the word about the show.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:57] Or, you know what?

[1:38:58] Like, hey, tell one person in real-life meat space that you think might enjoy this thing.

[1:39:05] Hey, I love this podcast.

[1:39:07] Maybe you'd like it as well.

[1:39:08] If everyone did that, you know, I mean, only a small fraction of people would actually

[1:39:14] listen to that advice.

[1:39:15] But that's still a lot.

[1:39:17] So thank you if you do that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:19] If only 1% of all the people in the world listen to this show, that's still hundreds of millions

[1:39:26] of people, right?

[1:39:26] Or like tens of millions of people.

[1:39:27] That would be astounding.

[1:39:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:29] A lot of pressure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:30] I'd have to get better at it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:32] I'd have to be a little funnier, right?

[1:39:33] Yeah.

[1:39:34] We'd all have to be funnier and better.

[1:39:36] I'd have to really step up our game.

[1:39:36] Yeah.

[1:39:37] You know what?

[1:39:37] Don't tell anybody about this show.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:41] No.

[1:39:42] No, do I rely on it.

[1:39:43] Anyway, this has been great.

[1:39:46] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:48] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:39:49] I've been Elliot Kalin saying, see you at the next episode of Flop TV.

[1:39:53] And I've been Hallie Haglund.

[1:39:55] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:57] Bye.

[1:39:58] Boo.

[1:40:00] It's a ghost at the end.

[1:40:02] All right.

[1:40:03] Wait, you guys don't remember?

Hallie Haglund

[1:40:12] One, two, three, four, roll it up a little more.

[1:40:15] Five, six, seven, eight.

[1:40:17] Sorry, boys.

[1:40:17] It's coffee break.

[1:40:19] No.

[1:40:19] What are we rolling up?

[1:40:20] Your shirt.

[1:40:21] Your shirt.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:22] Why are you rolling?

[1:40:23] I don't understand.

[1:40:24] Yeah.

[1:40:24] It was like a, yeah.

[1:40:26] How far are you rolling this shirt?

Hallie Haglund

[1:40:28] Just right until the point.

[1:40:30] And then it's coffee break.

Dan McCoy

[1:40:32] Oh, I see.

[1:40:33] Maybe this is a Colorado thing.

[1:40:34] No, I don't think so.

[1:40:36] Wait.

[1:40:36] What is this?

[1:40:37] This is a thing that people did to tease boys?

[1:40:39] To tease the boys.

[1:40:41] Yeah.

Hallie Haglund

[1:40:41] Girls do it to tease boys.

[1:40:43] Oh.

[1:40:44] Yeah.

[1:40:44] Interesting.

[1:40:45] You know, all the things are the same still.

[1:40:48] My five-year-old is now going, hey, mom, want me to count to 100?

[1:40:52] One, two, skip a few.

[1:40:54] 99, 100.

[1:40:56] And it's like, I can't believe these things are so timeless.

[1:40:58] How did they pass on?

[1:40:59] It never goes right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:00] And then she did a jab and then like wrote her Heelys out of the room.

[1:41:03] And you're like, oh, fuck.

[1:41:06] Maximum Fun.

[1:41:07] A worker-owned network.

Hallie Haglund

[1:41:08] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:41:10] Supported.

[1:41:11] Directly.

[1:41:12] By you.

Ep.#436 - Dear David, with Hallie Haglund

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