Episode #434 - Robot in the Family

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss robot in the family.

Elliott Kalan

[0:04] It's a small-vember.

[0:06] What's the opposite of a miracle?

[0:30] Hey, everyone.

Dan McCoy

[0:34] Welcome to the Flophouse.

[0:35] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:37] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:38] Dan, what do we do on this podcast usually and also today?

Dan McCoy

[0:41] Wow.

[0:42] Wow, we had so much energy before the show.

[0:43] And then as soon as the show started, Elliot just visibly got tired.

[0:48] I'm just tired of my own name.

Elliott Kalan

[0:49] Maybe it's time for a new one.

[0:50] So, Flop listeners, write in.

[0:52] It's the Elliot's New Name Contest Prize.

[0:55] I don't think there is one, except maybe that I'll use that new name legally for the rest of my life.

Dan McCoy

[1:00] I think it's probably that you remembered what we do on this podcast, which is we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[1:05] And it being small timber slash vember, we watched Robot in the Family.

[1:12] We did.

[1:13] A classic of the smaller bad movie genre.

[1:17] We've been going back a little bit, you know, reaching into the movie archives a little bit more frequently than we used to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25] Yeah, people, this one's got some notoriety, right?

[1:28] This is like a well-known bad movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30] Yeah, we are not the first ones to pick over this one.

[1:33] Although I will say, since I first saw this movie at least 22, 23 years ago, that maybe I was on the avant-garde with it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:42] First time you saw it at the IFC Center or something?

[1:45] IFC Sandwiches.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47] IFC Sandwiches.

[1:48] It was at an IFC Sandwich.

[1:49] Yeah.

[1:52] International Film Club Sandwich.

Dan McCoy

[1:54] It's not on the level of, you know, The Room or Troll 2 or Plan Night from Outer Space.

[1:59] It's not one of these, you know, super well-known as bad movies get.

[2:05] You know, no bad movies truly.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07] It's also not the level of, say, Slow Bullet, a movie that I might be the only person to have seen, it turns out.

Stuart Wellington

[2:13] Is there an IMDb or Letterboxd profile for Slow Bullet, Elliot?

[2:17] There is an IMDb profile now, I think.

Elliott Kalan

[2:19] For years ago, I tried to make one and the site rejected it.

[2:22] But I believe there is one now.

Dan McCoy

[2:24] Yeah, like zap your head.

[2:25] Spit it up.

[2:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[2:26] Yeah, I was saying –

Dan McCoy

[2:27] Yeah, the computer shocked me.

[2:29] I went, whoa.

[2:31] I was saying beforehand, this is the second time I've seen this movie.

[2:34] And Elliot said this is the third time he has seen this.

[2:36] I believe it's the third time.

Elliott Kalan

[2:37] This one used to be one of the favorites of me and my old friend Eric, who has been on the podcast before, Eric Marczak.

[2:43] We used to watch a lot of bad movies together when we were young bachelors with nothing but time on our hands.

[2:49] And this was one that we watched at least, I think, twice.

Dan McCoy

[2:53] I mean, you really do have to watch it at least twice to have any semblance of any sense of what's happening.

[3:00] Okay, so that's what I did wrong.

[3:01] Yeah.

[3:01] You just watch it twice.

[3:03] Yeah, yeah.

[3:03] I barely understood.

[3:04] It's a real puzzle box.

Elliott Kalan

[3:06] Yeah, the first time you're just taking in the sensations.

[3:08] The second time is when you can pick up on the intricately laid plot clues.

Dan McCoy

[3:12] Well, the plot itself, while stupid and weird, is very simple.

[3:18] But the fact that everyone is constantly talking over one another in this movie, I think is the big impediment to understanding.

[3:24] Sounds like a podcast, I know.

Elliott Kalan

[3:29] I mean, but this podcast, it's not an annoying person who just makes up stupid songs and comments on nothing.

[3:36] Uh-oh.

[3:37] Well, at least I don't call you guys mommy and daddy like the robot does to the adults in this movie.

[3:43] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:44] Alex, find the evidence.

[3:46] Get all the receipts.

[3:46] At least you're not coded as Jewish.

[3:49] Dad mommy and daddy.

Elliott Kalan

[3:49] Like this robot is.

[3:50] Yeah, you're right.

[3:51] I'm also not an annoying Jew.

[3:52] Like the robot in the movie is, wait a minute.

Stuart Wellington

[3:54] Yeah, speaking of Jewishness, I'm glad that this movie like really captures the feel of New York City.

[3:59] Kind of like an uncut gems type thing, right?

Elliott Kalan

[4:01] The weird thing about this movie is, okay, so when we'll get, I'll get, we'll get into the plot in a moment.

[4:04] This movie is, it's nonsensically made.

[4:08] Like it's put together, it's thrown together as if they were just trying to, as my old AP psychology professor used to say, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.

[4:17] And it feels like this movie is trying to do that by just throwing shit at you constantly.

[4:20] Yes.

[4:20] But also it is very much shot on location in New York and specifically a stretch of Broadway that I traveled very often as an NYU student going from my dorm on 14th Street and eventually my dorm on 25th Street down to the NYU campus.

[4:34] And so it's this stretch of antique shops on Broadway that when I first saw this movie, it was as if I saw someone I knew in a movie.

[4:41] Like I was like excited.

[4:42] I was like, wait, this was all shot in an area I know really well that I've walked through many times.

[4:47] And so that it is very strange that it is not a movie that where New York becomes a character.

[4:52] And yet in some ways it is because it's so shot on location.

[4:54] It's so incredibly on location.

Stuart Wellington

[4:55] And I'm sure they probably pulled all the necessary permits to film.

[5:00] Oh, you've got to believe it.

[5:01] You've got to believe it.

Dan McCoy

[5:02] I thought you were going to say they probably put a sign up that said, you know, Robot in the Family was shot here.

[5:08] Joe Pantaleano, you know, signs.

Elliott Kalan

[5:10] I would love to do that as a prank just to put a plaque on one of these buildings.

Dan McCoy

[5:14] Ugh.

[5:15] Yeah.

[5:16] Yeah, this has stars, people.

[5:18] Joey Pants, John Raleigh Davies.

Elliott Kalan

[5:20] Joey Pants was not yet a star.

[5:21] This is 1994.

[5:22] This is pre – I mean, Joe Pantaleano had been in movies, but this is pre The Matrix, Sopranos, Bound, right?

Stuart Wellington

[5:29] He's a Turkish-American antique shop owner.

[5:32] I don't think so.

[5:33] Slash inventor.

[5:34] Slash inventor.

Dan McCoy

[5:35] Yeah, this is a movie that proves that –

Elliott Kalan

[5:37] The big name in it is John Raleigh Davies, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[5:39] Oh, yes.

[5:40] Mr. Sliders.

[5:41] Oh, Joey Pants can do a bad performance.

[5:44] It's weird.

[5:45] You know –

[5:46] But he really throws himself into it.

[5:47] He throws himself into it, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[5:49] Yeah.

[5:49] In the performances, would you describe the comedy in this movie as broad?

Elliott Kalan

[5:54] I think so.

[5:55] Okay.

[5:56] I think I would.

[5:57] I think the comedy and the ethnic characterizations I would describe as broad.

[6:01] Yeah.

[6:02] Okay.

[6:02] So the biggest star in the movie is John Raleigh Davies, who plays the villain.

[6:05] Treebeard, yeah.

[6:06] But the second biggest, potentially, at this point in time –

[6:08] So one of the several people who is credited as playing the robot, Gold Digger, is named Patrick Shanley.

[6:15] And I was going to make a joke that this was John Patrick Shanley until I looked up on IMDb that other people have also credited John Patrick Shanley as being this Patrick Shanley.

[6:23] So, John Patrick Shanley, if you're listening because you were brought in by that Wild Mountain Time episode, a movie you wrote and directed, let us know.

[6:30] Were you one of the people inside that very heavy, uncomfortable-looking Gold Digger costume?

[6:34] We have to find out.

Stuart Wellington

[6:35] That would be a really cool little piece of trivia for us to honor.

[6:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:39] It seems unlikely since this is post-moonstruck.

Stuart Wellington

[6:42] Right.

[6:43] It would be a downgrade is what you're saying.

Elliott Kalan

[6:45] It would be downgrade for someone who was already writing and also, I believe, directing movies by this point.

Stuart Wellington

[6:49] Maybe – but maybe he was doing it for just love of the game, you know?

[6:52] That's true.

[6:53] As part of the local New York film community.

[6:55] Yeah, possibly.

Elliott Kalan

[6:57] Well, should we talk about what this movie is about or, Dan, do you want to preview it?

Dan McCoy

[7:00] No, let's get into it.

[7:01] No, there was something I wanted to bring up, but I think it's more effective later on.

[7:05] So let's talk about it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:06] Okay, you got it.

[7:07] Well, the movie starts with a promise that it cannot fulfill because one of the production companies is called Amazing Movie.

[7:13] This is something that will not be.

[7:16] Now, how did you guys watch it?

Stuart Wellington

[7:18] Did you guys also watch this movie, a VHS rip that's available on YouTube?

Elliott Kalan

[7:23] I believe that was the only way I could find it, other than going to Eric and watching his VHS copy of it, which I assume he still owns.

Dan McCoy

[7:29] I don't know that Criterion has put out a disc on this one yet.

[7:33] But, yeah, I mean, in a way, it's an amazing movie.

[7:35] I was amazed by it.

Elliott Kalan

[7:37] I mean, you got to say, there's a certain point where you're like, hey, they made it.

[7:41] It exists.

[7:43] They sure did.

[7:44] They put a lot of energy into it.

[7:45] And there's one, there are a couple of very good shots in it.

[7:49] There's one shot I really love later on, the one where when the wife is endlessly entertaining the sanitation workers, they don't dig up her septic tank.

[7:58] There's an empty bowl of popcorn in the foreground.

[8:00] Her hand lifts it up to reveal the sanitation workers are still there watching TV.

[8:04] And then she puts down a full bowl of popcorn, blocking them.

[8:06] I'm like, that's a good shot.

[8:08] It reveals a little bit of information.

[8:09] It's progressing a storyline.

[8:11] There's not a lot of those.

Dan McCoy

[8:13] I mean, there's effort put into this movie.

[8:16] Like, the robot costume doesn't particularly look good, but it's sort of impressive in its way.

Elliott Kalan

[8:21] It looks built.

[8:22] It looks like someone made it.

[8:23] It's got a lot of lights that go on and off on it.

[8:25] I like some of the electricity special effects.

[8:28] That's true.

[8:28] Sure, sure, yeah.

[8:30] There's some great 80s electricity effects.

[8:33] Of course, this movie is from 1994, but they are great 80s effects.

[8:37] Yep.

[8:39] So it says amazing movie.

[8:40] So we've all agreed it's an amazing movie.

[8:42] There's a little bit of an opening scene.

[8:43] Somewhere vaguely Middle Eastern-y, some robed figures with their backs to us, probably to hide the fact that they are not actually Middle Eastern people,

[8:51] are worshipping a gold mask in a case.

Stuart Wellington

[8:53] Unlike Joe Pantoliano.

[8:55] Right.

[8:55] They're worshipping a-

[8:57] Doing a sensitive portrayal.

Elliott Kalan

[8:59] Sensitively, constantly screaming in an accent portrayal of a Turkish-American immigrant.

[9:04] These figures are worshipping a golden helmet mask, which is immediately stolen.

[9:09] Someone smashes the case and takes it.

[9:11] Uh-oh.

[9:12] Robot in the family.

[9:13] Right, guys?

[9:14] Yep.

[9:14] That makes sense.

Stuart Wellington

[9:16] I like this because it asks a lot of questions.

Elliott Kalan

[9:19] Yeah.

[9:19] Movie's not going to answer them.

[9:21] No, the movie will answer some of them.

Dan McCoy

[9:24] Well, I also enjoy that.

[9:25] Well, I wouldn't say I enjoy it.

[9:27] But later on, we find out that apparently this helmet is the reason why there's strife in the Middle East, which seems to be, let's say, a wild oversimplification of the issues.

[9:39] Oh, if only it were that simple.

Elliott Kalan

[9:40] Yeah, I think so.

[9:41] If you're looking at this movie for a nuanced interpretation of the problems in the Middle East, then I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

[9:48] Yeah.

[9:49] Barking up the wrong cedar or perhaps olive tree, considering the location.

[9:53] Sure.

[9:54] So now we're introduced, now we're in New York, we're introduced to Jack, Jack Shamir, who's played by Joe Pantoliano.

[9:59] He is an immigrant who it is, I guess, eventually revealed is Turkish, right?

[10:04] Mm-hmm.

[10:04] He is inventing a robot named Gold Digger, who he describes as a hero and also a gold detector who will bring him gold.

[10:12] And so Gold Digger has three main characteristics.

[10:17] One, he can detect gold.

[10:18] Two, if he hears someone scream, he immediately calls 911.

[10:21] Yes.

[10:22] Three, he constantly babbles in a Jerry Lewis impression, constantly, nonstop talking.

[10:28] Yes, yeah.

[10:28] Sometimes it's gibberish, sometimes it's nursery rhymes.

[10:31] And he always calls his adventure daddy.

[10:34] And it turns out to be, this is actually a dream.

[10:37] It turns out this whole sequence, it's a dream, guys, because he's actually an antiques dealer who cannot pay his family's bills.

[10:43] As his wife explains, while they're waking up in some hilariously dubbed ADR VO, it's supposed to be her dialogue, but it clearly has been added after the fact and does not match anything her mouth is saying.

Dan McCoy

[10:54] Guys, what do you think about this?

Elliott Kalan

[10:55] It really set my expectations for the rest of this movie.

Dan McCoy

[10:59] Well, number one, I didn't realize it was a dream sequence.

[11:02] This is one of many things I will have missed during the course of this movie.

[11:08] Number two, this does bring up one of the things I wanted to talk about in the character of Gold Digger, which is I can only assume that all of this dialogue.

[11:17] What does he look like, real quick, Gold Digger?

[11:19] Yeah, describe Gold Digger for me.

[11:21] He looks kind of like if you took one of those wind-up robot toys, but you added a bunch of extraneous sort of like wires and doodads, just sort of like glued them on.

[11:32] And he's gold himself.

Elliott Kalan

[11:34] He has a very boxy body, much like you would expect of a robot that is clearly a costume that goes around a human.

[11:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:42] But the main thing I wanted to say about him—

Elliott Kalan

[11:43] He sounded like if C-3PO had the boxy shape of an 80s suit, you know?

[11:48] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[11:49] Yeah, yeah.

[11:50] Like if somebody was—if some kids were trying to make a costume for the Tin Man in The Wiz, but the production had to be seen from outer space.

[11:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[12:01] Yeah, he's a big guy, big gold guy.

Elliott Kalan

[12:05] His face is kind of cool, to be honest.

[12:08] It's not cute or fun, but it is kind of—

[12:11] What I wondered is—

[12:11] It looks like a sculpture, you know?

Dan McCoy

[12:13] You know, he got to the end of his sentence five minutes later.

[12:17] What I wondered was, do you think all of his dialogue, like literally all of it, was added later?

[12:23] Yes, 100,000%.

[12:25] Okay.

[12:26] It feels like they were just like, okay, now that we have the movie, you just improvise a constant stream of prattle, please.

[12:33] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[12:33] Certainly there are scenes where his dialogue is describing what's going on, and he kind of interacts with characters, but in a way where it's clear that his dialogue was not being said on set particularly.

[12:44] Yeah.

[12:45] And because it's not always—I mean, the audio levels are wildly varying, because obviously they dubbed in all the robot dialogue.

[12:50] But also, the things he says sometimes have information the other characters respond to, but very often it's just a stream of describing what's happening, or, yeah, hickory dickory dock, that kind of stuff.

[13:01] Right.

Dan McCoy

[13:01] Yeah.

[13:01] And while other people are talking frequently.

[13:04] Yes.

[13:04] Like, there's no space for dialogue when Gold Digger's around.

Elliott Kalan

[13:07] This is a movie that believes that, look, you paid for it.

[13:11] It's going to give you the full amount of visual and audio for the runtime.

[13:15] There will be no quiet moments.

[13:16] There will be constant streams of cuts, and also when you're in Gold Digger's point of view, there's little animations down in the corner that are kind of like metaphorical or allegorical descriptions of what's going on, you know, interpretation of what's going on.

[13:28] The movie is really overstimulating you.

[13:31] It's like, this is what it must feel like to be inside of my son's head, since he deals with kind of like sensory stimulation.

Stuart Wellington

[13:37] It's a lot like the new album by the grindcore band Concrete Winds, where it feels like they have compressed every possible amount of music into the tiniest amount of time.

[13:47] You're like, oh, perfect.

[13:49] If I listen very carefully, I can maybe hear a note or a melody, but for the most part, it just sounds like somebody's blasting my face off with a belt sander.

Dan McCoy

[13:57] Thank you for warning me about something that would make me feel very anxious and unhappy.

Elliott Kalan

[14:02] Yeah, because Dan, you were about to listen to that album, right?

[14:05] Yeah, I know.

Stuart Wellington

[14:05] Dan's like, oh, I'm sick of all these poser death metal bands.

[14:09] I want something that's serious.

[14:12] But the other thing about Gold Digger.

[14:13] It's a great record, by the way.

[14:14] Super good.

[14:15] Unlike this movie.

Dan McCoy

[14:15] Being someone, being a robot built in part to find gold, he's very bad at his job.

[14:21] Most of the, until the end, most of the stuff he finds that is gold is not gold.

Elliott Kalan

[14:25] That's true.

[14:25] But he does find gold at the end.

[14:27] I mean, he's not a good robot.

[14:28] He's not good at what he does.

[14:29] He's frequently told, Gold Digger, stay here and guard the car.

[14:33] And then he will wander off, allowing a police officer to give the car a ticket, which he responds to by shocking that police officer.

[14:38] That's more than once.

[14:40] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[14:41] This police officer is an interesting character, too.

[14:46] We'll get to him.

[14:47] We'll get to that.

[14:48] He's a real walking cartoon of a character.

Elliott Kalan

[14:50] And I think the same actor, I believe, also plays some of the immigrant and Orthodox Jewish characters that show up in other scenes.

[14:58] So I will mention also that the wife is played by Amy Wright, who is an actress who's been in many great things.

[15:05] You know, she's in The Deer Hunter.

[15:06] She's in Breaking Away.

[15:07] She's in Wise Blood.

[15:08] And she was married to Rip Torn for a very long time.

[15:11] And so I just imagine her shooting robot in the family during the day and then going home to Rip Torn.

[15:16] So how was shooting today?

[15:19] No, I was yelling at a robot all day.

Dan McCoy

[15:23] Which is more horrific, being with Gold Digger or Rip Torn?

[15:26] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[15:29] So they have, what, five children?

[15:32] They have a lot of children also.

[15:33] They have about five children.

[15:35] He cannot support his family.

[15:36] Their house is enormous.

[15:38] This must be the house of someone who produced the movie or something like that.

[15:42] Because they have this huge house.

[15:43] It looks like a big Long Island house.

[15:44] And the whole time I'm like, no wonder they're in debt.

[15:48] Like this house is way bigger than they should have, although they do have a lot of kids.

[15:52] And she's like, you have to stop working on your inventions and start working that antique store so you can pay for a family.

[15:57] Then that night, lightning hits the house.

[16:00] We hear Joe Pantoliano yell out, it's alive.

[16:03] And that morning, he excitedly shows them Gold Digger.

[16:06] This all makes sense.

[16:07] This all tracks.

[16:08] It's very clear.

[16:09] It wasn't a dream before.

[16:10] But then it was.

[16:11] The movie, right off the bat, is confusing you with a slightly nonlinear narrative.

[16:16] But he shows them Gold Digger, who he says is a home security robot who can also teach the kids.

[16:21] Gold Digger, of course, constantly breaking down, always singing nursery rhymes.

[16:24] He has this Jerry Lewis voice that is very annoying.

[16:27] And it made me wonder, guys, what's your experience with Jerry Lewis' work?

[16:31] Do you – what's your opinion of him?

Dan McCoy

[16:34] I don't write him off entirely because particularly some – I've seen some early work.

[16:42] I think Artists and Models was one that I thought he was –

Elliott Kalan

[16:44] Well, this is what I was going to ask you about because I recently saw Artists and Models for the first time and I found him insufferable.

[16:48] Oh, I thought –

[16:49] I was offended that Shirley MacLaine had to end up with Jerry Lewis at the end.

[16:53] I was like, she deserves so much better.

[16:55] Come on, look at her.

[16:56] I thought some of that stuff –

[16:57] She's a pixie.

[16:58] She's so charismatic.

[16:59] Come on.

Dan McCoy

[17:00] Yeah, I mean, you know, it's not my favorite stuff in the movie, but I found him genuinely funny in parts of that.

[17:06] And then, of course, later on, you know, in more dramatic roles came comedy.

[17:11] That movie that we did for the podcast, we all kind of liked.

[17:13] I forget what it was called, like The Trust or something like that.

[17:17] It was some heist movie.

[17:18] Oh, I forgot he was in that.

[17:18] He was in Sunday.

[17:19] Yeah.

[17:20] Yeah.

[17:20] Like he's good in that stuff.

[17:21] He seems like he was an unpleasant man to be around.

Elliott Kalan

[17:25] He's someone who – maybe it's because I've listened to a lot of the Gilbert Gottfried podcast,

[17:29] but they talk about him a lot, about it's just like this – someone they know was a bad –

[17:34] was not an easy guy to be around, a very bad guy in a lot of ways,

[17:36] but also that they loved him so much growing up.

[17:39] And I feel like I didn't see his stuff when I was a kid,

[17:41] and maybe by the time I saw it, it was too old,

[17:43] because I just – I find him, for the most part, very insufferable, very hard to deal with.

Dan McCoy

[17:48] I mean, certainly the more power he seemed to get over himself,

[17:52] the fewer strictures on him, the less I enjoy any of the things I've seen from him.

Elliott Kalan

[17:58] I do want to see – I want to see if I can see some of those episodes,

[18:00] that two-hour unscripted talk show that he did where they rebuilt an entire theater

[18:05] and all the doorknobs in the building had JL engraved on them.

[18:09] And I think the show lasted like a week.

[18:11] And they were like, this is not working.

[18:13] Him just for two hours with no plans.

[18:16] Anyway, the point is Jack is constantly shouting while Gold Digger is constantly talking,

[18:22] and it just really overwhelms you with noise.

[18:25] Gold Digger just wants to play.

[18:27] Jack's wife is understandably annoyed, but his son Alex really likes the robot.

[18:31] This is the one child who really gets kind of a personality.

[18:34] Yeah, because he's a kid, right?

[18:34] Yeah, you love having a robot in the family.

[18:35] Kids like Gold Diggers.

[18:37] Newsflash, we see on TV though, there is war in the Middle East over the missing sacred helmet of Suleiman.

[18:43] That's why.

[18:43] Or Suleiman.

[18:44] So that's why there's a war there because nobody – because everyone's looking for the helmet, I guess.

[18:50] Yeah.

[18:51] And so he's – it's trouble.

[18:55] So that helmet needs to be found.

[18:56] And we see – I guess these are the guys who – I'm not sure if they're the ones who stole the helmet,

[19:01] but they are two criminals who are essentially mooks.

[19:05] They're essentially like morons.

[19:06] They pulled off a relic heist, and they're talking to John Rhys-Davies over the phone.

[19:10] He plays the part of Eli, who is an evil antiques dealer.

Stuart Wellington

[19:14] And is he their neighbor and their neighbor on the same street?

Elliott Kalan

[19:19] He also – his antique store is across the street from theirs or next door – no, it's next door.

[19:23] His antique store is next door to theirs, and he also lives either next door or across the street from them.

[19:27] Okay, that's weird.

[19:29] It is weird, right?

[19:30] Especially since he seems to be much more successful than them and yet lives in the same neighborhood right next door.

Stuart Wellington

[19:36] I mean, I think he probably lives next to them so that he can bedevil them,

[19:39] or maybe it's like a keeping up with the Joneses situation where they're just like –

[19:42] that's why they can't afford their home is because they're trying to keep pace with their rival, right?

Elliott Kalan

[19:48] Possibly, possibly.

[19:49] I mean, he seems so annoyed that he has to live near them that I have to believe it wasn't his choice.

[19:54] They didn't see them in the neighborhood and move in and be like, hey, hey, hey, hey.

[19:57] You know?

[19:57] Yeah.

[19:58] But he's an almost comically evil antiques dealer.

[20:02] You know, everything about him shows a villain.

Stuart Wellington

[20:03] There's a moment at the end where he's dangling them above a pit of molten gold,

[20:08] and he's giving this villain speech, and I'm like, this is why he took this role.

[20:14] Like, he seems so excited to give this speech.

Dan McCoy

[20:16] His whole deal, right, is that, like, he's an arms dealer, and so he's like, I don't want to –

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] it does come as a surprise much later in the movie when he says that if there's war in the Middle East,

[20:27] it helps his arms business because up to that point, I think there's been no evidence

[20:31] that he is anything other than an antiques dealer who deals in stolen or counterfeit antiques.

[20:35] The fact that he's also a major dealer of armaments internationally is something that kind of comes up as a surprise.

Dan McCoy

[20:41] Well, you know, I guess – but the point is the helmet helps him both ways, you know?

[20:46] Although I'm not really sure.

[20:48] Like you said, the helmet being returned, I'm not sure how that would help cool the tensions

[20:53] because presumably there's a fight over who should have the helmet.

Elliott Kalan

[20:58] Well, I think the fight starts because – and again, this is something that is underserved in the movie,

[21:02] this Middle Eastern subplot.

[21:03] I think it is that the fight starts because the helmet is gone,

[21:06] and the countries are arguing over who has it now and who's stolen.

[21:10] Ah, yes.

[21:10] That's my assumption.

Dan McCoy

[21:12] Maybe they'd come to some sort of detop before, and now the fragile piece is broken.

Elliott Kalan

[21:17] Exactly.

[21:18] It all makes sense, guys.

[21:19] Oh, yeah.

[21:20] Clockwork.

[21:21] Okay, clockwork, much like Gold Digger, who is in the backseat of Jack's car as he drives into work.

[21:26] It's a solar-powered car, but it starts exploding because of the rain, I guess because of all the exposed wiring.

[21:31] Yeah.

[21:32] Yep.

[21:32] And the robot has to push the car to Jack's antique shop.

[21:36] And this guy helped them push the car, and he's like, okay, now pay me.

[21:39] And it's like Gold Digger electrocutes him.

[21:41] And then a cop tries to write the car a ticket, and Gold Digger attacks him.

[21:45] Let's describe this cop.

Stuart Wellington

[21:46] Well, I don't know whether it's –

[21:49] He looks like one of the Beastie Boys dressed up for a bit.

[21:52] Yes, he does.

Elliott Kalan

[21:53] That's a really good description of him.

[21:55] I don't know whether it's –

[21:56] There's something about him that says to me like this is the kind of cartoonish white guy that would show up in like a latter-day Spike Lee movie.

[22:04] You know?

[22:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:05] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:06] I'm not sure whether it was at this point or at a similar point later on where he's also trying to write a ticket for the car.

[22:11] But he's like muttering to himself about like how many infractions there are, and he's like, oh, like this is – you know, like I'm going to Hawaii.

[22:18] He seems to believe that the more infraction – like more tickets you put out, the higher your pay is the cop.

Elliott Kalan

[22:25] Hey, in Eric Adams, New York, maybe that's the way it works.

[22:28] Yeah, that is.

[22:28] But it's true.

[22:29] While he's writing it, he's like, I'm going to Hawaii.

[22:31] This is going to be great.

[22:31] Ha ha.

[22:32] Yeah, as if he's going to personally profit off of this.

[22:34] But of course, he's attacked by a robot, which stops him from writing those tickets.

Stuart Wellington

[22:39] And then sets his ticket book on fire.

[22:42] Yes.

[22:42] Oh, that's right.

[22:42] He also sets the ticket book on fire.

Elliott Kalan

[22:44] So at this point, Gold Digger, I mean, is a menace essentially in many ways.

[22:50] A rich cowboy comes into the antique store to buy stuff, but he argues with Jack's foreign brother, Eisen.

[22:58] Okay.

[22:58] And I say brother or cousin who does not speak English.

[23:00] I mean, if you say so, I'll believe you.

[23:02] All we know is there's a guy there who does not speak English, does not seem to speak any known language,

[23:07] just speaks kind of a vaguely offensive kind of fakely Middle Eastern-y sounding,

[23:12] that kind of stuff, cartoon language.

[23:16] And I don't know why this is the guy you would have minding the store when you know big customers coming in.

[23:20] I'm not sure.

[23:21] Jack seems to be just in the bathroom getting his tie and his hair ready through this entire sequence.

[23:27] But the cowboy runs out.

[23:30] Jack runs out, I think, to follow him and falls in a manhole, which is immediately covered by a plank of wood.

[23:37] Jack eventually follows and falls in the same manhole.

[23:39] They're instantly filthy.

[23:40] And the manhole doesn't lead to the sewer.

[23:42] It just seems to lead to like a two-foot drop full of grime, like essentially.

Dan McCoy

[23:47] You can't say that a lot of stuff doesn't happen in this movie.

[23:50] No.

Elliott Kalan

[23:50] You cannot say that.

[23:51] Full of stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[23:53] And then they escape only for his brother to be run over by the Texan's automobile.

Elliott Kalan

[23:59] Yes, as the Texan is leaving, having been – so John Rhys-Davies has then stolen the customer and sells him a forged antique.

[24:05] It looks like a Remington statue or something.

[24:08] And yeah, as Isaac gets out of the manhole, he is then hit by the car.

[24:12] This is not followed up.

[24:14] No.

[24:14] He's not injured the next time we see him.

[24:17] And that cowboy never shows up again.

Dan McCoy

[24:20] There's a lot of injuries in this film where the character who's been injured is not seen again.

[24:26] And you're left to wonder like, so did they die?

[24:28] Yeah.

[24:29] That's a good question.

[24:30] Are they okay?

[24:31] Like what's going on?

[24:32] For a family film, ostensibly a family film, I was often disturbed by the level of unresolved violence.

Stuart Wellington

[24:39] So at the end, were you hoping there to be some kind of like where are they now moment where shows each character like Animal House?

Elliott Kalan

[24:45] Or to have the camera just pan across a bunch of tombstones with the names of the characters on them.

[24:50] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[24:51] Tombstone, the Marvel, the supervillain, right?

[24:53] Yeah, yeah.

[24:54] Yes, tombstone.

[24:55] There's different versions of the same.

[24:56] Tombstone, the villain, the pizza.

[24:58] The prime boss who can only whisper.

[25:00] Yeah, exactly.

[25:01] Tombstone, the pizza.

[25:02] A DVD of the film.

[25:04] Yeah.

[25:04] A wrestler performing the maneuver.

Elliott Kalan

[25:08] Yeah.

[25:08] So anyway, one of the thieves, these goofy thieves, they're so hilarious, right?

[25:14] He accidentally takes a stolen statue to Jack instead of to Eli, and Jack calls the police.

[25:22] But Jack seems crazy when the police get there, though the robot recognizes that Eli's antiques are not real gold and then malfunctions.

[25:32] And the cop understandably leaves at this point, having not wanting to get in the middle of an argument between two antique dealers that involves an annoying robot that is having mechanical problems.

Stuart Wellington

[25:44] So Alex, the son, he's like, hey, look at this.

Elliott Kalan

[25:54] There's a $2 million reward for the statue that was stolen, which is the statue that was brought in by that crook.

[26:00] And Jack's like, oh, well, I know there's a secret passage between the basement of this antique store and Eli's antique store.

[26:06] Makes sense.

[26:07] If he can only find it.

[26:08] They go, they find the passage.

[26:10] For some reason, Gold Digger is with them.

[26:11] So he's just babbling nonsense the entire time.

[26:13] I think he's also – I think Jack is possibly also using a candle instead of a flashlight.

[26:18] I can't remember if that's actually how it happens.

[26:21] Jack sees the statue in Eli's basement and overhears Eli plotting with a henchman.

[26:26] But the henchman takes the statue before Jack can get it.

[26:29] And Jack sees the name Clayhand on a sculpture, and his son finds that name in the phone book.

[26:35] There is a Dr. Clayhand who Jack will have to go undercover to find out the identity of.

Dan McCoy

[26:41] So listeners at home, I'm sure you've been following along perfectly.

[26:45] There's going to be a little quiz at the end.

[26:47] And I expect that you will all get A-pluses on the plot of Robot and the Family, a movie ostensibly for children.

Elliott Kalan

[26:56] Yes, ostensibly for children.

[26:57] Well, we are about to go to the office of Dr. Clayhand, the doctor who seems to only work – just do plaster casts on people.

[27:04] He has a secretary who thinks he's a genius, a genius artist.

[27:07] Jack shows up.

[27:08] Everyone in the office is in elaborate plaster casts.

[27:11] A woman has like a torso cast with very prominent boobs and stuff like that.

Stuart Wellington

[27:16] This is the time where Jack walks in, and he has his son with him, and he's like, hey, somebody watch my kid.

[27:22] No, that's later.

[27:23] That's when they go to the auction house.

Elliott Kalan

[27:25] And I do find that moment funny when he goes, hey, watch my kid, and then just leaves.

[27:29] And Alex then walks out of the room almost instantly.

[27:31] Yeah, that's great.

[27:32] That's later.

[27:33] This doctor is also a sculptor.

[27:34] He has a love of helmets.

[27:36] He's obsessed with helmets.

Stuart Wellington

[27:37] But then again, no, or a man who makes – oh, don't worry about it.

[27:41] I'm sorry.

[27:41] I got distracted by Elton John songs.

[27:44] Oh, okay.

[27:45] Oh, I see.

[27:45] Yeah, yeah.

[27:46] As often happens.

Elliott Kalan

[27:46] He's a sculptor, but then again, no, he's a man who makes potions in a traveling magic show.

[27:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[27:51] No, I have the same problem that my brother has with it, and I believe Elliot has expressed

[27:55] the same problem where it's like, hey, man, you're writing the song.

[27:58] Just rewrite the lyric.

[28:00] If you've had a change of heart in the middle of –

[28:02] Pump the brakes, but you can go back.

Elliott Kalan

[28:04] I used to feel that way about it, but I think now he's expressing an emotional kind of

[28:08] inability to explain himself, and that's why he's written this song.

[28:12] I think it works in the end, as opposed to Elton John's other music that doesn't totally – doesn't

[28:18] Benny and the Jets have electric boots?

[28:20] Like, what is that all about?

[28:21] I don't understand.

[28:21] Now, that makes perfect sense to me.

[28:23] And a mohair suit.

[28:23] A mohair suit?

[28:24] There's boots like rocket boots?

Dan McCoy

[28:25] A mohair suit and electric boots.

Elliott Kalan

[28:27] I don't get it.

Dan McCoy

[28:28] You know, they're rock and roll boots.

Elliott Kalan

[28:30] I mean, I'm still not over the fact that –

[28:31] He's a cool rock and roll guy.

[28:32] He's got electric boots.

[28:33] Yeah.

[28:33] I'm not over the fact that they faked that being a live song when it was not.

[28:37] It was, you know, it's all in the studio, made up to sound fix.

[28:40] Oh, man.

Stuart Wellington

[28:41] Elliot hates being tricked.

Elliott Kalan

[28:43] I don't like it.

[28:44] I don't like being tricked.

[28:45] Also, can I feel the love tonight?

[28:47] Can you explain what it feels like to feel love?

[28:50] Like, you mean just petting love and it's a texture?

[28:52] I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[28:52] Elliot, it is where we are.

[28:54] That's how you feel it.

[28:55] It's where we are.

Elliott Kalan

[28:57] I guess what we're saying is Elton John is one of the worst writers of songs.

[29:00] I mean, he's not the lyricist.

[29:02] I know.

[29:03] You're right.

[29:03] He's not the lyricist.

[29:04] This is a Bernie Taupin problem.

Dan McCoy

[29:06] Yeah.

[29:06] Or Tim Rice, I think.

[29:08] Or Tim Rice, yeah.

[29:09] Yeah.

[29:10] Anyway.

[29:11] Anyway.

[29:11] Is Tim Rice related to Anne Rice?

[29:12] Stop burning.

[29:14] Good question.

Elliott Kalan

[29:16] It's a great question.

Dan McCoy

[29:17] Let's get him on the horn.

[29:18] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:19] You mean like a shofar?

[29:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:21] Yes.

[29:22] That's how we attract him.

[29:23] That's exactly what I mean.

[29:23] Blow into a shofar and see if Tim Rice shows up.

Stuart Wellington

[29:26] It's going to happen.

[29:27] Probably happened.

[29:27] I feel like Gold Digger, the robot from this movie would show up based on how he's coded.

Elliott Kalan

[29:31] Probably.

[29:32] I mean, Dan, that is – you laugh, but that is what happens on the new year, Rice O'Shauna,

[29:35] which is coming up soon, everybody.

[29:37] So get ready to celebrate it.

[29:39] Okay.

[29:39] So the doctor also sculpts.

[29:41] He has a love of helmets.

[29:42] He's obsessed with that Persian helmet, the helmet of Suleiman that was stolen.

[29:46] And Eli – and Jack is there, and he's like, oh, yeah, I'm a friend of Eli's.

[29:50] And he pretends that his foot got hurt, and the doctor goes into this, like, long, rhapsodic monologue about helmets.

[29:58] He just can't stop talking about it.

[29:59] Eli calls him while Jack is there, and the doctor learns over the phone that Jack's an enemy.

[30:03] He knocks him out, and we're going to see Jack is going to wake up with an enormous plaster foot on his foot.

[30:10] But the robot, meanwhile, is trying to teach Isaac English.

[30:13] He breaks a lamp.

[30:15] Meanwhile, the son is off investigating the basement, finds the secret passage, steals Eli's files, almost gets caught when Eli kills a rat.

[30:23] But the son, Alex, is doing so much more effective work than the hero of our movie, Joe Pantoliano, or the titular robot in the family.

Dan McCoy

[30:30] Yeah, I mean, well, the robot in the family, I – this robot causes nothing but chaos everywhere it goes until the very end of the movie where it does one thing right.

[30:40] But I – the level to which no one does anything about how this robot is amiss is nuts to me.

Stuart Wellington

[30:50] Like, Eli tries to stuff a hose in it so it squirts water out of its neck, and he waters the flowers while he's walking around.

[30:58] Yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[30:59] I mean, I feel like one person is making a – taking a stance, the villain of the movie.

[31:03] Everyone in the movie has one of two reactions to the robot, either panic or no reaction whatsoever.

[31:09] Just total acceptance of this annoying robot and most annoyance, you know.

[31:13] Or getting electrocuted by it.

[31:15] Yes, they do, yeah.

[31:16] So the doctor, he puts this enormous plaster foot on Jack's foot.

[31:19] Jack wakes up to find his foot is being fondled by the secretary, the doctor's biggest fan, in a scene straight out of Unshin and DeLue, to be honest.

[31:27] Like, that also includes a scene where a woman sexually fondles the foot of a sculpture.

[31:33] Interesting.

[31:33] And Jack tracks Eli and the doctor to a sauna at an Asian spa that we later see being raided by the police.

[31:40] So it's implied that it is a brothel.

[31:44] Again, it's a kid's movie.

Dan McCoy

[31:46] And I'm sure that that robot in the family, having been great up until this point, will not do anything racially insensitive in this Asian spa.

[31:53] Oh, Dan, I hate to break it to you.

[31:55] What?

Elliott Kalan

[31:55] I hate to smash those illusions like Gold Digger smashing a Tiffany lamp.

[32:00] But no, there are offensive Asian stereotypes.

[32:05] This is always one of the things that makes me sad because these are real Asian American or Asian actors.

[32:11] And they have to play these characters.

Stuart Wellington

[32:14] That's why Elliot is making a plea.

[32:17] Please, for all your small roles, just get AI digital dudes.

[32:22] No, no, that's also not what I'm saying.

[32:25] Elliot says this all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[32:27] Not at all what I'm saying.

[32:29] I don't want digital dudes of any kind replacing human actors.

Dan McCoy

[32:32] I don't want to cast white actors so Asian actors don't have to go through the pain of –

[32:37] Again, I guess what I'm really saying is let's not –

[32:39] Yeah, just get a shitload of Mickey Roonies in there.

Elliott Kalan

[32:42] I'm making a movie with offensive stereotypes.

[32:44] Get me a shitload of Mickey Roonies.

[32:46] Just Mickey Roonies by the shovelful.

[32:48] Bulldoze them in.

[32:49] They're falling off the truck.

Stuart Wellington

[32:51] We don't have enough food to feed all these Mickey Roonies, boss.

[32:54] Like, who cares?

[32:56] They'll feed each other.

[32:57] There's Mickey Roonies.

[32:58] They're a dime a dozen.

Elliott Kalan

[33:01] That's the great thing is you get a shitload of Mickey Roonies.

[33:04] They play your offensive parts.

[33:06] They die of starvation.

[33:07] You grind them up into dog food.

[33:08] You feed them into the next Mickey Roonies.

[33:12] You pour them into a trough.

[33:14] That's where the Mickey Roonies you're raising eat them.

[33:16] But isn't there a problem with Mickey Roonies eating other Mickey Roonies?

[33:19] Well, some of them might end up with Rooney spongiform, you know, encephalitis.

Dan McCoy

[33:23] Well, the good news is they can do the maze easier than we taught the old Mickey Roonies.

Elliott Kalan

[33:28] Yes.

[33:29] The new Mickey Roonies have some of the memories of the old Mickey Roonies.

[33:33] They already know their lines.

[33:34] That's the great part.

Dan McCoy

[33:36] John, Stuart, our friend John Holt and I, we both told Audrey about this flatworm experiment

[33:43] that we're referencing now.

Elliott Kalan

[33:45] Oh, the flatworm experience?

Dan McCoy

[33:47] That Times Square interactive show that they used to do?

[33:50] And quite reasonably, Audrey was like, no.

[33:53] You're fucking with me.

[33:54] What are you talking about?

[33:55] This is a real thing.

[33:56] Look it up.

[33:57] Flatworms, mazes.

Elliott Kalan

[33:58] Yeah.

[33:58] That means the underpinning of Alan Moore's whole run on Swamp thing.

[34:01] You know, that idea.

[34:02] Oh, man.

[34:03] What a book.

[34:04] What a book.

[34:05] Anyway, I'm sure someone will find out something bad about him at some point, but it hasn't

[34:10] happened yet.

Stuart Wellington

[34:10] So I know you're saying something bad about flatworms and I'm like, no.

[34:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:14] Yes, but I hate to tell you, they canceled flatworms.

[34:16] Nematodes also, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[34:18] To circle back, to clarify, Elliot is taking a stand against the bad stereotypes.

[34:23] I'm taking a stance against racism.

[34:25] Not any of these crazy solutions we're positing.

[34:28] No.

Elliott Kalan

[34:29] Thank you, Dan.

[34:29] Although the Mickey Rooney one seems pretty good.

[34:31] If you can get a shitload of Mickey Roonies and, I mean, let's talk about it.

[34:34] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:34] Fucking Zazz Labs listening to this episode being like, I'm getting some ideas here, folks.

Elliott Kalan

[34:39] Yeah, but no, I'm making a plea against offensive, excitable Asian stereotypes that just yell

[34:46] and run away in fear.

Dan McCoy

[34:47] Right, or Joey Pants then later on also doing like bad impressions of-

[34:51] So he's in the sauna.

Elliott Kalan

[34:52] He tracks Eli and the doctor there.

[34:54] He overhears them planning about getting the stolen helmet for the doctor in exchange for

[34:58] the doctor sculpting more counterfeit antiques.

[35:01] And in order to throw them off the scent, he puts a towel over his head and does some,

[35:06] again, made up offensive, Asian-y sounding languages and bowing, which causes some actual

[35:12] Asian people in there to say, hey, I bet that's the hitman that was, oh no, that's the detective

[35:17] who my wife hired to follow me.

[35:19] Let's kill him.

[35:20] And they chase him out in a goofy chase where they're all in towels because it was in a sauna.

[35:24] It's all bad.

[35:26] It's all bad all the time.

[35:29] So Jack shows up at the pier that he heard Eli and the doctor talking about where the helmet

[35:33] is going to be unloaded.

[35:34] Those doofy crooks who are for some reason in drag, that's their disguise, is that which

[35:38] they're in drag.

[35:39] They're looking for the crate the helmet is in.

[35:42] There are two identical crates.

[35:43] One has an X marked on it.

[35:44] One does not.

[35:45] A guard dog chases Jack off the pier into the water, which confuses the crooks so much that

[35:50] they take the wrong crate.

Dan McCoy

[35:53] Guys, how did you feel about this scene?

[35:55] It made perfect sense, right?

[35:58] There's a lot in sort of the middle area of the movie in particular that just sort of

[36:02] merged into a big pile of shenanigans.

Stuart Wellington

[36:06] Yeah.

[36:06] Again, this is a challenging work.

[36:10] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[36:11] It raises a lot of questions in you, the viewer, and also in the minds of God as to why these

[36:16] things exist.

[36:17] Yeah.

[36:17] But it does feel at times as if someone was making a Three Stooges movie and was like,

[36:22] why can't all the characters be the Stooges?

[36:24] Why do we need anyone who's not the Stooges?

[36:27] And so it's just a world full of people running around, getting chased by dogs, making mistakes,

[36:32] putting on silly costumes for no reason.

Stuart Wellington

[36:34] Like, is this when the Orthodox Jewish man and the Hare Krishna get in a fight in the

[36:38] street?

[36:39] No, that's a little later.

[36:40] That's a little later.

Elliott Kalan

[36:41] Gold Digger, he's telling gibberish stories to the sleeping children, and then he attacks

[36:45] Jack, thinking he's an intruder.

[36:47] The next morning, Jack tells Gold Digger to make breakfast.

[36:49] This, of course, ends up being a huge mess.

[36:52] He puts a TV in the microwave.

[36:53] Very unsafe.

[36:54] Do not do that.

[36:55] Don't put any metal in the microwave, especially not a television, the most sacred of all electronics.

[37:00] He puts a copy of Catcher in the Rye in the toaster, which I think is supposed to be a

[37:04] pun on the word rye, but it's not explained.

[37:07] It just kind of happens.

Stuart Wellington

[37:09] I think it's also like a little wink at the idea of, you know, murderers.

[37:13] Oh, maybe.

Dan McCoy

[37:15] Yeah.

[37:16] Gold Digger is getting, you know, something in Catcher in the Rye has activated him.

[37:20] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:21] Oh, I see that.

[37:22] Yeah, I get it.

[37:22] So in this case, the book is the John Lennon to the toasters, Mark David Chapman.

[37:27] That's what you're saying?

[37:27] Thank you.

[37:28] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[37:29] Thank you.

[37:29] If we were doing an analogy on the SATs, that would be the answer, yes.

Elliott Kalan

[37:32] And the Gold Digger is just babbling the whole time.

[37:35] It's just, it's like the movie is daring you to not turn it off at this point.

Dan McCoy

[37:41] I think that's why there's so many like just pointless shenanigans at this point because

[37:47] they're like, surely by this time, everyone's given up so we can just do whatever.

[37:51] Yes.

[37:52] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:52] The crooks deliver the crate to Eli's house, but it's the wrong, even though he has an antique

[37:57] store, it's the wrong crate and Eli starts strangling them and Gold Digger interrupts the

[38:01] strangling.

[38:02] And so Eli attacks it with a garden hose.

[38:04] As Stuart said, water sprays out of it.

[38:06] Jack has to fix.

[38:07] Gold Digger, instead of doing what he should have done, which is just let it rust, just

[38:11] let it rust and rot and become, go back to nature, you know, become a ruin.

[38:17] Jack and his son, Alex, they go to the auction house where they plan to buy the statue that the

[38:23] helmet is actually in.

[38:24] This is the moment where he goes, hey, someone watch my kid and then just walks off.

[38:28] It's great.

[38:29] Eli shows up there.

[38:31] They have a meeting with the doctor in the bathroom.

[38:34] The doctor, his pants, of course, around his ankles and he tells the doctor.

[38:38] He's running around yelling a lot.

[38:40] Yeah, because he tells the doctor the thieves mixed up.

[38:42] He doesn't have the helmet.

[38:43] Instead, it's going to go up for auction.

[38:45] Now they need to buy the statue that the helmet is in.

[38:48] And this is me putting this information together because it is not, no one states it that clearly

[38:52] in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[38:54] Was it listed clearly in the novelization by Alan Dean Foster?

Elliott Kalan

[38:59] I mean, I read the Alan Dean Foster novelization.

[39:01] That's how I was able to piece it together.

[39:03] He was working from an earlier version of the script that didn't have Gold Digger's VO slathered

[39:07] on it like a thick layer of mayonnaise or peanut butter.

Dan McCoy

[39:13] It was called A Digger of Gold when he wrote it.

Elliott Kalan

[39:16] Yeah, Digger of the Gold's Eye.

[39:18] Yeah.

[39:20] The Gold Digger leaves the car.

[39:22] He scares a Japanese toy robot salesman.

Stuart Wellington

[39:25] Do you think that one point they considered getting somebody like Mark Danielewski to do the

[39:30] novelization and have Gold Digger's lines like written in all the margins and between the

[39:34] letters of the other words?

Elliott Kalan

[39:36] Or like his words are written in a different colored ink.

[39:39] So you need to use a black light that comes with it to see the main text without Gold Digger's

[39:43] words laid over it.

Stuart Wellington

[39:45] So experimental.

Elliott Kalan

[39:46] One thing that I noticed here, you can see an NYU flag flying behind Gold Digger in this

[39:52] scene because they shot it.

Dan McCoy

[39:53] I didn't realize they were a sovereign nation.

[39:55] I was not aware that they had their own.

Elliott Kalan

[39:57] Dan, many universities and other organizations have flags that they fly outside of their buildings.

[40:01] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[40:02] And also based on how much they've expanded in lower Manhattan, it almost feels like they're

[40:07] their own nation.

Elliott Kalan

[40:08] Yeah, that's true.

[40:09] And they have international campuses, so it's like they're colonizing other countries.

[40:13] Although I think they've shut some of them down.

[40:14] But for an old NYU alum like me, it was nice to see the purple just flying, flapping in the

[40:20] breeze, establishing itself.

[40:22] In this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[40:23] Elliot snapped a little salute at home watching.

Elliott Kalan

[40:26] Yeah, he did.

[40:27] Yeah.

[40:27] I sang our college song, Hail, Hail NYU, Gentrify the World.

[40:32] Yeah.

[40:33] That's the translation from Latin.

[40:35] Yeah.

[40:35] So the robot, these little robots follow Gold Digger.

[40:38] And it's implied that they're sentient because they have subtitles that say like, our God is

[40:42] here.

[40:42] You know, our king.

[40:43] Yes.

[40:44] It's great.

[40:44] This is when for some reason we'll see a blind man, a Jew, and a Hare Krishna bump into each

[40:49] other and get mad at each other.

[40:52] And the Jew and the Hare Krishna, I don't think ever show up again.

[40:55] It's not like Gold Digger is even a part of this mix up.

[40:58] The blind guy is mugged by a slime ball and Gold Digger shocks him and then shocks the

[41:04] blind man who is cured of his blindness just in time to get hit by a truck.

[41:08] So that's the second time a character in the movie has been freed of some encumbrance and

[41:12] then gotten hit by a car and was possibly killed.

Dan McCoy

[41:15] Really worried me because I was like, surely we'll see some sort of indication of whether

[41:19] the man survived this or not.

[41:21] But no.

[41:22] No.

[41:22] We can only assume that he was cured of his blindness only to die instantly by truck.

[41:28] Yeah.

[41:28] Thanks to Gold Digger.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] That blind man is played by the same person as who played Isaac.

[41:33] The character is hit by a truck.

[41:34] That person, Jack Schoel, co-writer and co-director of the film.

[41:40] Which makes sense.

Stuart Wellington

[41:41] His performance really shows an understanding of the material.

Elliott Kalan

[41:44] Much like Martin Scorsese as the scary cab passenger and taxi driver, this was a role that had

[41:51] to be played by someone who had a deep inner understanding of the work.

[41:54] Yeah.

[41:55] So I don't know who plays the traffic cop, but I kind of wondered if that was another

[42:02] person who was involved in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[42:05] I mean, I assume that other than Joey Pants, the wife, John Rhys-Davies, everyone is friends

[42:12] and family of the writers and director of this film.

[42:15] I would think probably.

Elliott Kalan

[42:18] Yeah, probably.

[42:19] Although, like, the son, Alex, he's played by a professional actor.

[42:24] That's Danny Gerard.

[42:25] He was in the original Broadway production of Lost in Yonkers, among other things.

[42:29] Oh, wow.

[42:29] Did you see that one?

[42:31] No, I did not.

[42:31] I didn't see that.

[42:33] Unfortunately, no.

[42:34] It was 1991.

[42:35] I wish I would have loved to have seen it, but I would think I was a little too young

[42:37] for my grandmother to take me to see that at the time.

[42:42] So anyway, at the auction, Jack and Eli are in a bidding war with the statue.

[42:48] Either Jack or Alex, I lost track of it, is using some kind of electric device to make

[42:53] other people in the room jump up in the air, which causes the auctioneer to think they're

[42:57] bidding on the statue.

[42:59] And in the end, he ends up winning this reproduction statue that's not worth a lot for $125,000.

[43:05] And Jack has his eternal catchphrase, my wife is going to kill me for doing this.

[43:12] And while this is happening, Gold Digger again fights the parking cop and terrorizes him

[43:16] until he leaves.

[43:19] So Jack wins the statue.

[43:21] He puts it in his car.

[43:23] Gold Digger is in his car.

[43:24] Eli steals the car, throws the robot into the street.

[43:27] At this point, Jack calls the police.

[43:29] This is the kind of crime you can report to the police when someone steals your car.

[43:33] Like that is very much, that's theft.

[43:35] That's grand theft auto.

[43:36] It's just, that's a crime, but the police still act as if he's being crazy.

[43:41] You know, he's out of his mind by reporting this.

[43:44] Eli, of course, accidentally activates the car's massage robot hands, which strangle him

[43:49] in a malfunction.

[43:50] And this scene kind of doesn't, there's no real clear closure to this scene.

[43:54] So we just have to assume Eli got away, ditched the car somewhere, I guess.

Dan McCoy

[43:57] Just like there's no sort of closure to the scars from watching this film.

[44:01] No.

[44:02] Exactly.

[44:02] They just linger.

Elliott Kalan

[44:03] Exactly.

[44:04] You know, if you're going to make massage hands in your car, I'd rather just put kind

[44:07] of like things that move around in the back of the seat maybe.

[44:10] As opposed to hands that grab the neck of the driver.

[44:12] That seems like an unsafe way to give someone a massage while they're driving, you know.

[44:16] Good note.

[44:16] Yeah.

[44:17] No, that's a good note.

[44:18] Yeah.

[44:18] I mean, maybe if he hit-

[44:19] You have to assume, I guess, if he had hit a different button, maybe the hands would

[44:24] have given him a handjob while he's driving.

[44:26] Like, maybe that's the kind of feature.

Stuart Wellington

[44:28] That's the kind of fantasies that I come up with while watching Robot in the Family.

Elliott Kalan

[44:32] Just while you're driving, cold metal hands will just wrap themselves around your penis.

Stuart Wellington

[44:37] Yeah.

[44:37] Uncaring, unfurling.

[44:38] I'm sure there's-

[44:39] All very clinical.

[44:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[44:41] That's the old issue of heavy metal you can read that-

Elliott Kalan

[44:44] Yeah, Soryama's like, hmm, I figured something cool out.

[44:47] Or that Japanese artist who does those sexy robots.

[44:49] That's who I just said.

[44:51] Oh, that's who you just said.

[44:51] Yeah, thank you.

[44:52] I couldn't remember his name.

[44:54] At home, two sanitation workers show up and they're going to dick up their septic tank

[44:58] because I guess they haven't paid off the payments on the septic tank.

[45:02] I don't know if it's the thing they do, reposessing septic tanks.

[45:04] So they're like repo men?

[45:05] They're repo men for the sanitation company.

[45:06] I have to assume once you use a septic tank, the resale value is nil.

[45:10] Yeah.

[45:12] Just write that thing off.

Stuart Wellington

[45:13] I mean, that's probably why these guys are so easily distracted by bowls of popcorn and

[45:18] what, TV?

Elliott Kalan

[45:19] Instead, she feeds them a huge meal and eventually we'll see they're playing games with the kids.

[45:23] They watch cartoons, eating popcorn.

[45:25] Eventually they fall asleep and just spend the night on the couch at the place.

[45:29] So there's an ongoing sea story, I guess, of her having to entertain these sanitation

[45:34] workers in order to keep them from digging up their septic tank, lowering the home value

[45:40] of everyone in the neighborhood, including Eli.

[45:42] That's only going to make it matter if there's just an open pit full of human waste on the

[45:47] house next door.

Stuart Wellington

[45:49] I mean, I'm not a homeowner, so I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[45:51] As a homeowner, it would lower my home's value considerably if my next door neighbor had

[45:57] an open pit of human waste.

Dan McCoy

[45:59] Yeah.

[46:00] Most of the time.

Elliott Kalan

[46:01] Most of the time.

[46:02] Occasionally you find a buyer who wants that.

[46:04] Occasionally.

[46:05] Yeah.

[46:05] It's hard to find two to get them into a bidding war for the house that has an open

[46:09] sewage pit next to it.

[46:10] Yeah.

[46:11] It's a unicorn situation.

[46:13] Yeah.

[46:13] So Gold Digger has some adventures.

[46:16] He fixes a girl's mechanical dog toy.

[46:18] He plays three-card Monty and keeps winning and then electrocutes the Monty guys.

[46:22] Yeah, of course.

Stuart Wellington

[46:23] I mean, at this point, some of this stuff I'm like, is this before or after Short Circuit

[46:28] 2?

[46:28] Like, where are we at here?

Elliott Kalan

[46:30] I'll let Dan, do you want to do some quick internet research on that?

[46:34] I'm going to assume it's after.

Stuart Wellington

[46:35] Because it feels like cribbed Johnny 5 stuff that Johnny 5 is doing.

Elliott Kalan

[46:41] And this is also the same year as Forrest Gump.

[46:43] So it almost feels like cribbed Forrest Gump stuff.

[46:45] You know, just wandering into situations.

Stuart Wellington

[46:46] Forrest Gump would fucking roll these three-card Monty dealers.

[46:51] George Circuit 2 was 1988.

Elliott Kalan

[46:55] Yeah, so this is six years after that.

[46:56] No.

[46:57] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[46:57] And yeah, you can tell.

[46:59] Like, the quality of special effects is so much better here.

Elliott Kalan

[47:01] Yeah, yeah.

[47:02] You really feel the six years of development, for sure.

[47:05] And that racial relations are, if anything, worse than in Short Circuit 2.

[47:09] So Goldieger hands out flyers at that sleazy spa, gets arrested.

[47:14] Nobody is impressed to see a real robot, except for this one police officer who's shooting

[47:18] his mugshot.

[47:21] Jack talks to Alex, his son.

[47:23] He says, when I came to America, I did this to achieve my dreams.

[47:28] I've been letting my family down.

[47:29] I should really focus on my antique shop instead of building crap robots that are annoying.

[47:35] And Alex goes, no, you're the best dad I could ever have.

[47:37] We got to solve this mystery.

[47:39] And then everything will be okay.

[47:42] And they find the address of the foundry where Eli is going to be that night.

[47:46] And I think this is – oh, no.

[47:48] It's later that they find about the reward for the helmet.

[47:51] Meanwhile, Goldieger walks through a car wash.

[47:54] I was going to say card wash.

[47:56] Like he's washing his three-card Monty cards.

[47:57] No, it's a car wash.

[47:58] No, they'll fall apart.

[47:59] He starts short-circuiting.

[48:00] And the news announces that a robot from space has been wandering around scaring people.

[48:04] Sorry, what did you say, Stu?

Stuart Wellington

[48:06] I was going to say, if you wash your cards, even if you double-sleeve them, you can't put

[48:10] those through the wash.

[48:11] I've tried.

Elliott Kalan

[48:11] No, as someone who is constantly finding – it's so sad.

[48:15] My son, his favorite Pokemon cards, he likes to put them in his pocket and carry them around.

[48:19] Then forget they're in his pocket.

[48:21] Those cards go through the wash.

[48:22] They're almost always destroyed.

[48:24] So, yeah, don't put your cards through the wash.

[48:26] Don't put your robots through the wash either.

[48:27] They'll short-circuit, much like the movie Short Circuit.

Stuart Wellington

[48:31] Is that what happens is they put them through the wash?

Elliott Kalan

[48:33] That's right.

[48:34] They put them through the wash, and then he becomes sentient.

Dan McCoy

[48:36] So, yeah, sometimes there's an advantage.

[48:39] Depending on what you want out of a robot.

Elliott Kalan

[48:40] It's not that since cleanliness is next to godliness, that it's that being newly clean

[48:46] is God touches him and gives him the sentience.

[48:49] The effect of the cleanliness.

[48:49] Until now was man's own purview as having been created in the image of God.

[48:55] Dolphins, I don't know how they fit into the story, but they're pretty smart too.

[49:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[49:01] More amoral though from what I've heard.

[49:03] Very much so.

[49:04] Very much so.

Elliott Kalan

[49:05] I like to imagine –

[49:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:07] Yeah, dolphins.

[49:07] I went kayaking once with dolphins.

[49:09] They seem pretty cool though.

Elliott Kalan

[49:10] They are not.

[49:11] Learn about dolphin sexual habitats.

[49:13] It's rough.

[49:13] It's very rough.

[49:14] Yeah.

[49:14] Okay.

[49:15] Or sexual habits, not habitats.

[49:17] A sexual habitat would be, I guess, like if a dolphin's at Plato's Retreat.

Dan McCoy

[49:20] Dolphin Studio 54.

[49:22] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[49:23] Yeah.

[49:24] If it's –

[49:25] Porpoises for three.

[49:27] Just for dolphins.

Stuart Wellington

[49:28] Yeah.

[49:29] Oh, why is Sean Puffy Combs in the Wikipedia article for this?

[49:34] Getting into – too much real life distress.

Elliott Kalan

[49:37] Yeah, I don't like it.

[49:37] I don't like it.

[49:37] Let's go from real life, R-E-A-L, to real life, R-E-E-L.

[49:42] Oh.

[49:42] Life of the characters in Robot in the Family.

[49:45] Jack, Alex, the bad guys, they all arrive at the foundry.

[49:48] The crooks are disguised as Orthodox Jews for some reason that someone thought was funny.

[49:52] And they sell the stuff to the doctor.

[49:56] Jack gets wrapped up in chains somehow and ends up swinging, screaming from the ceiling.

[49:59] As much dignity as Joe Pants has ever had in any role, I guess.

[50:03] It is pretty wild, yeah.

[50:06] Alex and Isaac are sitting in the truck.

[50:08] Isaac seems to be reading Howard Chaikin comics.

[50:11] I don't know if it's American Flag or not, but over the shoulder, it looked like Howard Chaikin's style.

[50:15] Oh, wow.

[50:15] Yeah.

[50:15] An interesting choice for someone who has trouble with English.

[50:18] But, you know, maybe he reads it, but he doesn't speak it.

[50:22] Alex leaves and goes in.

[50:23] Eventually, he's going to end up dangling with his dad over a vat of molten gold that Eli is threatening to drop them into.

[50:29] And Eli reveals – this is when he reveals the helmet of Suleiman was stolen so he could sell weapons to both sides of the war.

[50:36] And he laughs about killing them both as the doctor is breaking open the statue to find the helmet, but he's not finding it yet.

[50:45] Gold digger shows up and babbles and babbles and does nothing as Eli is literally tormenting Jack and his son with a flame.

[50:52] He's just poking at them with a stick with flame on it.

[50:55] Yeah.

[50:56] And this is when he has that big soliloquy about his life – his view of life and his goals.

[51:02] Yeah, this is like Richard III moment.

[51:04] Yes, exactly.

[51:05] The doctor accidentally burns his hands on something.

[51:07] I don't remember on what.

[51:09] And he screams, which triggers gold diggers instinct to call 911.

[51:13] Alex yells out the address, which the person on the other line is able to hear somehow.

[51:18] Eli panics.

[51:19] He knows the cops are coming.

[51:20] He ends up melting the statue with the helmet in it to ensure that peace never breaks out in the Middle East.

[51:26] Gold digger – now gold digger is being lowered into the molten gold, but he recharges it.

Dan McCoy

[51:31] He's telling about how he detects gold, which is like, yeah, thanks, gold digger.

[51:35] We know we're being lowered into fucking gold.

Elliott Kalan

[51:38] Thanks for helping us out here.

[51:39] If your gold detector is only operating in situations where everyone knows it's gold, then maybe it's not – then you may be a bad gold detector.

[51:46] If you only detect gold when you're being lowered into a molten vat of it, you might be gold digger.

Stuart Wellington

[51:53] Yeah, I mean, I could see the gold too.

[51:55] Does that make me a gold detector?

[51:57] Yeah, I guess so.

[51:58] Well, you're a gold detector.

[52:00] You're a gold detector as well, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:01] If you're busy babbling nursery rhymes when your inventor and his son are about to be killed by John Rhys-Davies, you might be gold digger.

[52:09] This is some very niche humor.

[52:11] Jeff Fox really didn't go down that road for long.

[52:14] And then someone was like, why don't you talk about something more universal like being a redneck instead of being the robot from this one movie?

Stuart Wellington

[52:19] All right, I'll try it.

[52:21] He's like, blue collar comedy tour, why not gold collar comedy tour?

Dan McCoy

[52:26] I have too much artistic integrity.

[52:28] I only care about jokes about Gold Digger, the star of Robot and the Family.

[52:33] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:33] Yep.

[52:33] And so the police show up.

[52:35] They save everybody.

[52:36] I was going to say they shave everybody, which in this movie, why not?

[52:41] Oh, and Gold Digger, he's being lowered into molten gold, but he recharges in time to shock Eli, saving them.

[52:46] Jack assumes Eli destroyed the evidence.

[52:49] Gold Digger picks up the head of the statue that the crown, that helmet had been stolen and he keeps going, gold daddy, I found gold.

[52:55] And Jack's like, yeah, yeah, gold.

[52:57] Yeah, you're an idiot.

[52:58] Yeah.

[52:59] Now, I got to say.

[53:01] Wait, wait.

[53:01] I'll say when this scene ends, we see Eli and the doctor still alive, but covered in plaster and frozen in place.

[53:07] And Eli is muttering something about killing the doctor or killing somebody.

[53:12] And so you have to assume they're dead after this, right?

[53:14] The only way to break them out is to hit them with a sledgehammer.

[53:16] You know?

[53:17] And they'll just shatter.

Dan McCoy

[53:19] Well, just, I mean, look, I know that Gold Digger is the robot who cried gold at this point in the story.

[53:26] Like, I understand why you're a little dubious about it, but the way that they keep dismissing him when he's like, gold, I found gold.

[53:34] When they know that there might be gold hidden in a statue.

[53:39] Like, it's baffling to me.

[53:40] They're like, no, that's just plaster.

[53:42] Like, break the fucking plaster, dude.

[53:44] Check it out.

Elliott Kalan

[53:45] You make a very good point because up till now, the characters have been calm, cool, rational, logical, always looking at the clues and always putting them together.

[53:54] Like, up till now, they've been great mouse detectives.

[53:56] And here's where things seem to fall apart.

[53:58] So you're right.

[53:58] You're right to point out the logic of it.

[54:01] This is a big plot hole right here.

[54:03] Yeah.

[54:03] Put it in the goofs.

[54:04] Yeah, put it in the goofs.

[54:06] No, but you're right.

[54:08] But they'll be right.

[54:09] Don't worry.

[54:09] They get home.

[54:10] The family is together.

[54:11] The sewer guys are still there.

[54:13] A creepy old man shows up at the house.

[54:16] He is the guy from the bank.

[54:17] And this guy, this is a last minute movie almost saves itself for me because I love how openly evil this guy is.

Stuart Wellington

[54:25] Yeah, like a guy from a Needful Things shop just showed up.

Elliott Kalan

[54:28] It feels as if someone is putting on a community production of Phantasm.

[54:33] And this is the guy who's playing Angus Scrimm.

[54:35] And they're like, good enough, great.

[54:39] He says he's there to repossess everything in exactly two minutes.

[54:44] He's given them two minutes to find the money to pay off the loan.

[54:48] And Gold Digger is like, gold, daddy, I found gold.

[54:51] This really unnerves the banker.

[54:52] This is a proper response.

[54:55] Meanwhile, his henchman, who's just a guy in a suit with sunglasses, I guess it's his driver, is starting the repossession process with the kids' toys and chaining them up.

[55:04] And it's pretty funny.

[55:07] And so Gold Digger drops the head, revealing the helmet of Suleiman inside.

[55:11] Alex goes, I heard on TV there's a $50 million reward for it.

[55:14] Everyone cheers.

[55:16] The banker drives away, leaving all the toys that they're repossessing.

[55:19] You've got to assume he shook his fist to the heavens that he didn't get to do this favorite thing, which is to take a house from a family.

Dan McCoy

[55:25] It's not like they have the $50 million right then.

[55:28] And I would argue that this evil banker probably would just keep going forward with the repossession.

Elliott Kalan

[55:32] Probably would say, all right, call me when you have the money.

[55:34] Call me when you bring it to whatever country is at war right now and you get the reward.

[55:37] And over the credits, we hear audio of Gold Digger calling 911 to report they found the helmet.

[55:43] And the person at 911 who thinks it's a prank call, it's very unfunny.

[55:47] And much like the rest of the movie, it leaves us with a icky stomach and a bad taste in our mouths and a confused head.

[55:55] Because it's like, wait, so are they going to get the reward money or not?

[55:58] And also, why was Gold Digger tasked with making this call?

[56:01] I know that he has a direct line to 911.

[56:04] But why not have the wife who speaks English the best of anyone in the movie and is not a person?

[56:10] An excitable babbling idiot.

[56:13] Not a babbling robot or a guy who frequently falls into manhole covers.

Stuart Wellington

[56:18] And you can correct me here, guys.

[56:21] But when we're talking about a sovereign nation or multiple sovereign nations are offering a reward for this missing artifact,

[56:30] do you just call your local 911 to redeem that?

Elliott Kalan

[56:33] That's a very good question.

[56:34] You'd probably call the consulate of one of those countries or something.

[56:37] But again, it's robot in the family.

[56:41] And so robot in the family leaves us as it found us, baffled, questioning, unsure of the world,

[56:48] and ready for more adventures of Gold Digger.

[56:51] But I'm sorry, guys.

[56:51] There were no sequels.

[56:52] There's no robot in the family to out of the family.

[56:55] I mean, now that they're Beetlejuice Beetlejuicing.

Stuart Wellington

[56:57] That's right.

[56:59] You're right.

[56:59] They've used that Beetlejuice a hit big budget film.

Elliott Kalan

[57:03] They can easily do it with robot in the family.

Stuart Wellington

[57:04] I mean, it's right there.

[57:07] Robots in the family, huh?

[57:08] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[57:09] Oh, I thought it was going to be robot in the families.

[57:11] The husband and wife have gotten divorced and they have to share custody in Gold Digger.

[57:14] Yeah, that actually makes sense.

[57:14] Yeah, that makes sense.

Dan McCoy

[57:17] Okay, let's do our final.

Elliott Kalan

[57:18] Now I'm mentioning James Cameron goes into the meeting and he writes robot in the family and then changes it to robots in the family.

[57:24] And the executives are like, that's not the movie we asked you to do a sequel to.

[57:29] Like we're here to do a sequel to Alien.

[57:30] Oh, well then that same thing, but what I just did for robots, I do it for aliens.

[57:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:35] This is our final judgment segment where we decide, is this a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like?

[57:45] Here's my feelings on robot in the family.

[57:48] Watching it alone, this was the longest 84 or 85 minutes I've ever spent.

[57:56] And you've had major surgery, right?

[57:58] Sure.

[57:59] And it just, it is a cacophony of nonsense.

[58:05] It is irritating.

[58:08] It is constant, oppressive.

[58:11] But, so I say bad, bad in those situations.

[58:14] If you enjoy, if you get sort of a cruel joy out of making other people watch a bad movie, this might be a fun one to inflict on a bad movie party.

[58:25] Yes.

[58:26] Because, you know, if you can, if you can stand it, if you can sample a little bit and you don't immediately have a seizure, this might be something funny to show other people.

[58:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[58:34] It's like the movie equivalent of an episode of The Hot Ones where you're like, oh, you like bad movies, huh?

Dan McCoy

[58:40] Yeah.

[58:41] So that's my take.

[58:42] What do you think, Stuart?

Stuart Wellington

[58:43] Yeah, I think you're right.

[58:44] I mean, I think this is a, I would say this is a solid, what, good, bad movie?

[58:52] That's what we do?

[58:53] Good, bad?

[58:53] That's what we do.

[58:54] That you should show.

[58:56] For 17 years now.

[58:57] It's, it's, it's wild.

[58:59] Like, it is a wild experience.

[59:01] It is constant.

[59:02] There's no, like, there's no moment where you're like, oh, this is like a normal movie.

[59:07] Like, oh, this is a touchstone.

[59:08] This is, I can, I know what, this movie, this, there's no grounding moments in the whole movie.

[59:14] No.

[59:15] It is just constant, implacable, unflinching.

[59:21] Madness.

[59:21] Badness.

Elliott Kalan

[59:22] You never have your footing watching this movie.

[59:25] Yeah.

[59:25] You're always in deep water trying desperately not to get your head below the waves.

[59:29] But I agree.

[59:29] I think if you are watching a group of people who enjoy the, the, the unique pain that comes

[59:33] with watching a, a bad movie, then, then this is the one to watch.

[59:38] I mean, also, if only because you can watch it and then look up the cast afterwards.

[59:42] These are, I mean, a lot, aside, it's, you either, the cast is either the guy, it's, it's either

[59:47] the people who wrote the movie or it is real actors.

[59:51] Like, I forgot to mention that.

[59:52] So Dr. Clayhand, that's Peter Maloney.

[59:54] He was in The Thing.

[59:56] He's in, he's in a number of, of great movies.

[59:58] He's in Desperately Seeking Susan.

[1:00:00] He's in Hi Mom, like, and Greetings.

[1:00:02] Like, he's, he's, like, there's so many people in this that are either actors with really good

[1:00:08] filmographies or part, or actors who are part of the, like, New York independent film

[1:00:13] scene.

[1:00:14] And so it's a, it's, you just have to think about, like, how did this movie, how did this

[1:00:19] happen?

[1:00:19] Like, how did this thing happen?

[1:00:21] And, and what was it meant to be?

[1:00:22] And so it's a, yeah, I think it's a worthwhile, if you're with a group of people and you want

[1:00:27] to be like, ugh, ugh, like, good, bad movie, you know?

[1:00:30] You just have to be ready for just nonstop offensive ethnic stereotypes.

[1:00:36] Yes, that is the one.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:37] Yeah.

[1:00:38] Big caveat about this.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:40] Guys, can you promise me I never have to watch Robot in the Family again?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:44] I mean.

[1:00:44] I can't make that promise.

[1:00:45] I can't make that promise that, I can promise you that I won't make you watch Robot in the

[1:00:50] Family again.

[1:00:51] Okay, thank you.

[1:00:51] I appreciate that.

[1:00:52] That's great.

[1:00:52] I don't know what life will bring.

[1:00:52] I'm not going to make that promise.

[1:00:54] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:55] I might, I might need to torture you at some point in the future.

[1:00:58] And that's, you know.

[1:00:59] You have to get that.

[1:01:00] Now I know, now I know your weakness.

[1:01:02] To get the location of the, of the bomb.

[1:01:04] Yes.

[1:01:04] That's fair.

[1:01:05] That's fair.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:06] So wait, I want to mention, so wait, just about this, this actor, Peter Mahoney, Peter

[1:01:10] Maloney, and he plays doctors in so many different movies.

[1:01:13] And so he's like, he's a doctor in Manhunter.

[1:01:16] He's a doctor in, in Requiem for a Dream.

[1:01:19] And just the, I love, now I want to imagine they're all the same doctor as the one in Robot

[1:01:22] in the Family.

S4

[1:01:22] Jackie Cation.

[1:01:28] Hi, and welcome to the MaximumFun.org podcast, the Jackie and Lori show where we talk about

[1:01:34] stand-up comedy and how much we love it and how much it enrages us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:38] We have a lot of experience and a lot of stories and a lot of time on our hands.

[1:01:42] So check us out.

[1:01:44] It's one hour a week and we drop it every Wednesday on MaximumFun.org.

S4

[1:01:49] The following is a promo for Beef and Dairy Network podcast.

[1:01:52] Hello, hello, please.

[1:01:55] You have to help me.

[1:01:56] I was kidnapped and bundled into the back of a van.

[1:01:59] I was taken to the docks and beaten with chains and tied up inside a shipping container.

[1:02:04] And then I was forced to listen to episode after episode of a podcast called Beef and Dairy

[1:02:10] Network.

[1:02:11] And I absolutely loved every second of it.

[1:02:15] Please, you have to tell me where I can listen to more episodes.

[1:02:19] The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is a multi-award winning comedy podcast, and you can find it

[1:02:24] at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:29] We are sponsored in part, the Flop Us, that is, by Squarespace.

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[1:03:52] So go to squarespace.com for a free trial.

[1:03:56] And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase

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Stuart Wellington

[1:04:06] Hey there.

[1:04:07] This is a message from another one of our sponsors, Factor.

[1:04:11] Factor makes ready to eat, no mess meals, limited prep, ready to eat in just under two minutes.

[1:04:19] Wow.

[1:04:19] I don't know about y'all, but it can sometimes be tough to plan and keep up making food all

[1:04:27] the time.

[1:04:29] It never ends.

[1:04:29] You need it every day.

[1:04:30] That's the problem with food.

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[1:04:32] You constantly need it.

[1:04:33] And Factor is here to help with that.

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[1:04:58] you work out all the time and you're a maniac, they can help you with that stuff too.

[1:05:02] All that information is available.

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[1:05:22] That's code flop 50 at factormeals.com slash flop 50 to get 50% off your first box plus

[1:05:31] 20% off your next month while your subscription is active.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:37] And I believe we have a j-j-j-jumbotron.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:40] We do have a ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju-ju.

[1:05:47] Jumbo-tron.

[1:05:48] This message is from Patrick Flynn, someone Dan and I have podcasted with before.

[1:05:54] It's been not at the same time.

[1:05:55] And he says, do you like comedies?

[1:05:58] Do you like thrillers?

[1:05:59] Do you like the feeling that you're adulting wrong and nothing you ever do is good enough?

[1:06:03] Sure, we all do.

[1:06:04] The Ferberizing of Coral is a new comedy thriller short film about new parents sleep training their infant

[1:06:09] who find their worst fears and anxieties crying out to them through the baby monitor.

[1:06:14] Need more?

[1:06:15] How about the voice talents of one Clint McElroy and comedian Najin Farzad?

[1:06:19] Join our Seed and Spark campaign now and help this film get made.

[1:06:23] So go to linktr.ee slash feverizing movie for all our social media and fundraising info.

[1:06:31] And to be clear, the title of it is The Ferberizing of Coral, but it appears the link has a typo in it.

[1:06:36] Sorry, Patrick, to point this out to you.

[1:06:38] But it says linktr.ee slash F-E-B-E-R-I-Z-I-N-G-M-O-V-I-E.

[1:06:46] Sounds good.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:48] And I believe we're still doing Flop TV, if I'm not mistaken, and will be for some time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:54] Yes, that's right, Dan.

[1:06:55] You're not mistaken for once in your misbegotten life.

[1:06:57] We are doing Flop TV.

[1:06:59] In fact, we've just started season two.

[1:07:01] Let's promote some of our own stuff.

[1:07:02] Flop TV season two has started and it continues.

[1:07:05] A week after this episode is released, we will be releasing episode two live on October 5th, Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific.

[1:07:15] And we're going to be talking about Break-In 2, Electric Boogaloo.

[1:07:19] That's right.

[1:07:19] It's all sequels this season.

[1:07:21] And we're going to the sequel whose subtitle is known the world round, even to people who haven't seen it and don't know that Break-In was a movie.

[1:07:29] But they know there's a Break-In 2, Electric Boogaloo.

[1:07:32] It's going to be super fun.

[1:07:34] The first episode that we did about RoboCop 2 was just really fun.

[1:07:38] If you go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com, that's T-I-X for ticks, you will find links to buy tickets and season passes.

[1:07:48] And if you buy a season pass, even if you missed that RoboCop 2 show, you got access to the recording.

[1:07:53] The recordings of all these shows are going to be up through the end of February, the last month of the season.

[1:07:59] And so it's really worth getting that season pass even if you missed the episodes.

[1:08:04] But don't miss the next one.

[1:08:05] We're going to be live on your computer screen October 5th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific, Flop TV Season 2, talking Break-In 2, Electric Boogaloo.

[1:08:16] Who's doing the summary for this one?

Dan McCoy

[1:08:17] I'm doing the summary for this one.

[1:08:18] I've seen this movie a couple times.

[1:08:20] And I've got to admit, I've never seen the original Break-In.

[1:08:23] Despite, spoiler alert, enjoying Break-In 2, I've never gone back to see Break-In because I think it is that famous subtitle.

[1:08:32] You're like, well, there's an electric boogaloo in this one.

[1:08:34] Why would I have regular Break-In if I could have an electric boogaloo?

[1:08:38] That sounds exciting.

[1:08:39] I've seen the movie twice.

[1:08:40] I'm not really sure what that means, but I love it.

[1:08:42] I'm an electric boogaloo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:42] The funny thing is, well, the guy, Boogaloo, I think he's in the first movie too.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:46] Oh, right.

[1:08:47] Well, yeah.

[1:08:48] Don't worry, guys.

[1:08:49] I think it's my responsibility to catch everybody up before we do the episode.

[1:08:54] Okay.

[1:08:55] He's electric.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:57] Boogaloo.

[1:08:58] Boogaloo.

[1:08:58] Yep.

[1:08:59] You haven't seen it.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:01] It's electric.

[1:09:02] Boogaloo.

[1:09:03] Boogaloo.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:03] So go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:08] Should we move on to letters from listeners?

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:11] So guys, do you prefer the electric slide to the cha-cha slide or to Cotton Eye Joe?

[1:09:18] What's your favorite of the-

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:19] Cotton Eye Joe is a hard last.

[1:09:21] Hard last.

[1:09:22] Same here.

[1:09:23] I just don't want to hear this long.

[1:09:24] No.

[1:09:25] Chicken dance?

[1:09:26] What about chicken dance?

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:30] I'm just trying to figure, I'm planning a wedding reception.

[1:09:32] I want you guys to get out and dance.

[1:09:34] I'm just trying to figure out what's going to get your bodies moving.

[1:09:37] Just as your side business.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:38] I like chicken dance, but I don't like the chicken part of it.

[1:09:41] I like the da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

[1:09:45] I like that part.

[1:09:45] I don't like the part where you're actually going da-da-da-da-da-da-da, and you've got to do all the moves.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:49] Yeah, because my wedding reception playlist is just Promiscuous by Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland, and that's it.

[1:09:57] And I just, I need more songs.

[1:09:59] Okay.

[1:09:59] Well, what about Maneater by Nelly Furtado produced by Timbaland?

[1:10:03] Okay.

[1:10:03] Yeah.

[1:10:04] Man.

[1:10:04] Okay.

[1:10:05] Yeah.

[1:10:05] I mean, it'll be easy to find it in my catalog.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:07] I was telling Audrey recently, the first time I saw the cha-cha slide was during my brief period in Savannah, Georgia, working in the gift shop for a riverboat tour company.

[1:10:23] And they're like, oh, you should take the riverboat tour as part of your sort of onboarding so you know what that is.

[1:10:28] And I went on it, and there are people doing this thing.

[1:10:31] And I was like, did I miss something?

[1:10:34] They all know this dance.

[1:10:35] And Audrey was making fun of me because she's like, the lyrics tell you what's in the dance.

[1:10:38] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[1:10:39] But like, they don't really.

[1:10:41] There are moves in there that like, I'm like, I don't know what like cha-cha real smooth or whatever.

[1:10:46] Cha-cha real smooth, now Charlie Brown, yeah.

[1:10:48] Yeah, like I'm not like, that doesn't mean anything to me that I can translate into movement.

[1:10:53] But everyone seemed to know it.

[1:10:54] And I was like, oh man, I missed a day at school or something.

[1:10:57] I don't know what's going on.

[1:11:00] Anyway, so that was Tales from My Past.

[1:11:03] And now let's move on to another popular segment.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:05] Don't worry, everybody.

[1:11:06] Since then, Dan knows that Cha-Cha Slide's super good.

[1:11:09] Invite him to your wedding reception.

[1:11:11] He'll tear it up.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:11] He's like Napoleon Dynamite.

[1:11:12] He's just practicing in front of his mirror every day.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:16] Let's answer some letters from listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:19] Dan, is that what you're going to do?

[1:11:20] I know you're speaking at a Harris Walls fundraiser.

[1:11:23] Is that what you're going to do?

[1:11:24] You're just going to get up and dance just like Napoleon Dynamite does for Pedro?

Dan McCoy

[1:11:28] Yeah, you're going to do that.

[1:11:29] I got dance in my blood.

[1:11:30] I got to do it.

[1:11:32] No, no, no.

[1:11:32] You have Dan's in your blood.

[1:11:34] There's lots of little Dan's that are floating through your body.

[1:11:37] That's how it works.

[1:11:38] That's how it works.

[1:11:39] This letter is from Scott.

[1:11:40] Last name withheld.

[1:11:41] Who writes,

[1:11:43] Not much to comment other than I'm a long-term fan.

[1:11:45] You might say this is more of a question than a comment.

[1:11:48] All right.

[1:11:50] I'm a huge fan of Jordan Peele's Nope, but there's some ADR in it that personally annoys me.

[1:11:55] It doesn't ruin the movie or anything, but I'm irritated by how unnecessary I find it.

[1:12:00] Is it the moment when someone just off-camera goes, Nope?

[1:12:03] Well, Scott does not oddly specify what the ADR is, which I find to be.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:09] Well, what he's trying to do, this is clever, guys.

[1:12:12] This is some street-level marketing where he's trying to get people to go and watch Nope again so that they will find that part.

[1:12:20] It's clever.

[1:12:21] You almost tricked me, but I would watch that movie anyway because it's great.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:24] Yeah, the last name withheld is Peele, actually.

[1:12:29] He's irritated by it, though.

[1:12:31] And there's a moment in Goodfellas.

[1:12:32] Now, here he clarifies, the bye-bye asshole cop at the very end, which is probably an even pettier nitpick.

[1:12:39] Anyway, is there any ADR you can recall that you turn your nose up at, even if it's not all that egregious?

[1:12:46] Scott, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:48] I'm going to do the opposite.

[1:12:51] I'm going to say one of my favorite bits of ADR, and that is from, I think it's from the first Fast and Furious,

[1:12:57] when we have our first street race, and some guy is upset that these cars are racing through the streets,

Dan McCoy

[1:13:02] and he goes, goddamn street racers!

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:06] I love it because it's such a summary of what this movie is.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:09] Yeah, I mean, I apologize that I don't have a specific answer that has lodged my brain,

[1:13:17] but I do think ADR is often very funny, and I think it's funny that, to me, it falls into three categories.

[1:13:24] Number one, it is the sort of stuff that, I think it was Patton Oswalt will talk about being hired to do on an animated movie,

[1:13:34] where they're like, we just need more jokes.

[1:13:35] If some character's back's turned, think of a joke to throw in there.

[1:13:38] So there's terrible, not-that-funny extra jokes that have been added to beef something up.

[1:13:44] There is the ADR that is there to explain something that is already clear,

[1:13:49] but someone along the line was like, we need to clarify this.

[1:13:52] So it's like, oh, here we are here, you know, like sort of ADR.

[1:13:56] That's the guy.

[1:13:57] Yeah, and then there's kind of my favorite ADR, which is someone along the line was like,

[1:14:02] I don't know, the scene seems to be missing something, so they just need more noise.

[1:14:07] It's like, someone was like, hey, what's that guy doing?

[1:14:10] You know, kind of ADR.

[1:14:12] But is there anything more specific that lies in your brain?

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:14] Well, I think, so there, you left out one kind of ADR, which I do want to talk about.

[1:14:18] But it is, Dan did an amazing job of theming this letter to the movie today,

[1:14:23] because the movie today is, it opens with such a huge amount of terrible ADR dialogue.

[1:14:29] That's just, again, it's like they put a coat of paint over something in the hopes that it would seem real.

[1:14:34] But it just feels like-

[1:14:35] And maybe we should say-

[1:14:36] It's just tossed onto it.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:38] Additional dialogue recording, that's what it stands for.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:40] That's when they add more dialogue later.

[1:14:42] But the other kind you haven't talked about, really, is when they have to take something out,

[1:14:46] usually a swear, and they record a new version.

[1:14:50] And so like-

[1:14:50] Oh, yeah.

[1:14:51] When I was a kid, we used to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off a lot,

[1:14:54] but we had the taped off of network television version of it that my parents had taped off TV.

[1:15:00] And so there were all these-

[1:15:00] So me and my sister and my brother, we would repeat lines to each other from it.

[1:15:04] They'd go, Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a piece of coal in his fist,

[1:15:09] in one week you would have a diamond.

[1:15:11] And of course, in the original, it's up his ass.

[1:15:13] Or when Alan Ruck is pretending to be the police sergeant on the phone or whatever,

[1:15:19] the dad, he goes, pardon my French, but you, sir, are a moron.

[1:15:23] And we just always thought those were very funny.

[1:15:25] So that's one that I'll take with me for the rest of my life is those ones.

[1:15:29] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:29] It's like the coming to America where everybody's yelling at him when he's on the balcony,

[1:15:34] and they're like, hey, buddy, forget you.

[1:15:36] And he's like, forget you too.

[1:15:38] That's great.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:40] This is from Tim, last name withheld.

[1:15:43] Tim the Toolman Taylor, a fictional character made by Tim Allen.

[1:15:47] Dear Floppers, I need to hypercharge my washing machine.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:51] All the 90s kids will get that.

[1:15:53] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:53] Tim actually writes, dear Floppers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:56] Something only 90s kids remember.

[1:15:58] Shows from the 90s.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:00] Yes, I'm finally writing in.

[1:16:02] You know me, the handsome Brooklyn playboy that no doubt caught your collective eye

[1:16:06] while Griffin Newman was explaining about Garbage Pail Kids.

[1:16:09] I've been doing the unthinkable and listening to your oldest episodes,

[1:16:12] and some of the humor is really offensive to me.

[1:16:15] Specifically, the mockery of the wonderful website, Aquafan.com.

[1:16:18] Okay.

[1:16:20] I'm writing to inform you.

[1:16:21] This really is a blast from the past.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:23] Yeah.

[1:16:24] That's Aquafan.

[1:16:25] No, I'm Obi-Wan.

[1:16:26] That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:29] At the start of this letter, I started getting nervous.

[1:16:31] I'm like packing up everything.

[1:16:32] I'm like, oh, I'm canceled.

[1:16:33] Finally, time to get out of here.

[1:16:36] Somebody found all the bad stuff I said.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:38] Yeah.

[1:16:38] Why did you leave so much stuff in my house?

[1:16:41] I know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:42] Because I got to fit it all in my bindle so I can ride the rails for the rest of my days.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:47] Luckily, you've got one of those Mary Poppins carpet bags where it just is infinitely big inside,

[1:16:52] so you can put all this stuff in.

[1:16:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:54] Well, Tim continues.

[1:16:54] I'm writing to inform you that there's been a development on the Aquafan.com front.

[1:17:00] Oh, cool.

[1:17:00] Okay.

[1:17:01] The site, once infamous for advertising itself as the premier site for underwater sex aficionados

[1:17:06] and fishing for underwater sex experiences in its one and only post, has been shut down.

[1:17:12] Another star that shone too bright, too hot, too fast.

[1:17:16] The website now reads,

[1:17:18] Aquafan used to be one of the oldest and most original underwater porn sites.

[1:17:23] We featured tons of scenes of the hottest underwater sex videos and erotic girls swimming in the water.

[1:17:30] Unfortunately, that site no longer exists as there was a lack of interest from underwater porn lovers in that product.

[1:17:38] It's a fucking shame.

[1:17:40] So, in the meantime, we suggest...

[1:17:41] Blame the customer.

[1:17:42] That's the issue here.

[1:17:44] So, in the meantime, we suggest checking out some of these great sites we've been working on that we think you will definitely enjoy.

[1:17:50] It then links to a variety of grown-up websites that Dan will likely recognize.

[1:17:55] Best wishes, Tim, last name with hell.

[1:17:57] Like a hot-air balloon fan?

[1:17:59] Did we get tricked into a jumbotron?

[1:18:01] Hold on.

[1:18:02] Yeah.

[1:18:02] Tim bought Aquafan from the previous owners.

[1:18:05] Yeah.

[1:18:06] So funny.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:06] And links to what?

[1:18:07] Wifespots.blogspot.com?

[1:18:09] That's a Dan-approved site?

Dan McCoy

[1:18:12] Mm-hmm.

[1:18:12] One of the many.

[1:18:14] Yeah, it's funny that this victim-blaming...

[1:18:19] Not victim.

[1:18:20] This customer-blaming Aquafan post claims that Aquafan used to be filled with...

[1:18:27] all this Aquafan porn.

[1:18:30] Because, as we recall, it just had the one post asking whether anyone had ever tried underwater sex.

[1:18:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:36] I mean, maybe...

[1:18:36] That was years and years ago.

[1:18:38] Maybe it evolved into something else.

[1:18:40] I don't know.

[1:18:40] It could have been easily converted into an Aquafina fan site at some point.

[1:18:46] Easily.

[1:18:46] But they didn't do that.

[1:18:49] But, you know, I like...

[1:18:50] Now this...

[1:18:51] What I like is that site has now become like when I watch an old Looney Tunes cartoon.

[1:18:55] And there's a reference to some famous person that nobody has thought about in 60 years.

[1:19:01] It's like that's...

[1:19:01] Now we have one of those in our own podcast.

[1:19:03] And it's this reference to this...

[1:19:04] Yeah, it's pretty great.

[1:19:05] ...underwater sex fetish fan site.

[1:19:07] Yeah.

[1:19:07] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:09] Let us move on to our final segment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] I'll be sure to tell the story to my kids when they ask me again why I'm not letting them be a guest on the podcast at the moment.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:16] Our final segment on the show is when we recommend movies that won't grate on your nerves constantly in the way that, say, Robot and the Family might.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:26] Do you know what I'm going to recommend?

Dan McCoy

[1:19:28] True, true.

[1:19:29] I'm going to recommend a movie from 1981.

[1:19:32] I saw a screening of it recently.

[1:19:35] It's a Fulci picture.

[1:19:37] It's called The House by the Cemetery.

[1:19:40] Miss Economy?

[1:19:41] I watched it with some friends.

[1:19:47] And afterward, my friend Tom turned to me and said literally the same thought that I had been thinking throughout the movie, which was,

[1:19:55] this movie is like if Edgar Wright's Don't trailer was made into a full movie.

[1:20:00] Like, it actually existed as a full movie.

[1:20:02] Because it had sort of like that similar vibe of like, I don't know why all of these elements coexist in this one film or how they do.

[1:20:09] And there was like sort of weird jump cuts.

[1:20:11] There's like a scene where a man like stabs a bat that's on the back of his hand.

[1:20:16] And it cuts quickly to him and his wife having a romantic moment.

[1:20:21] Seemingly none the worse for wear, which was delightful.

[1:20:25] But it's also a movie that for all sort of the silliness of it has some moments of real tension.

[1:20:32] And one moment where I like yelped embarrassingly loudly in the theater.

[1:20:39] It's been a long time since a horror movie actually elicited that kind of response from me.

[1:20:43] But The House by the Cemetery from 81 did.

[1:20:47] I did a big scaredy cat yell in the middle of the screening.

[1:20:53] And I had a great time watching it.

[1:20:54] So that's what I recommend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:56] I'm going to recommend a cute little rom-com called Rye Lane that came out I think like a year ago.

[1:21:03] It follows two singles, two young singles, Dom and Yaz, who are both getting over recent breakups.

[1:21:12] And it mainly focuses on a single day where the two of them end up spending the day together and kind of working through their various relationships and things like that.

[1:21:23] In some ways, structurally, it has some things in common with something like the Before Trilogy by Richard Linklater.

[1:21:31] But there's a lot of fun style choices both with how the movie's shot and also it's just super – like a very colorful trip around London.

[1:21:43] And it's really fun and cute and I liked it a lot and I would recommend it.

[1:21:48] So Rye Lane.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:50] Speaking of fun and cute, here's a movie that is neither of those things.

[1:21:54] I recently watched a movie that I remember seeing the trailers for when it came out.

[1:21:58] I never got around to seeing.

[1:21:59] That was 23 years ago and it's a kind of modern noir called The Deep End with Tilda Swinton.

[1:22:06] Perhaps you're familiar with that.

[1:22:07] Where Tilda Swinton is a woman who already seems to be super stressed by being a mom while her husband is away as the captain of a ship somewhere out in the ocean.

[1:22:19] And her son is – her older son who is about to go to college is entangled with a seedy club owner or perhaps he's a drug dealer.

[1:22:30] He's the kind of – he's a nightclub owner, the kind of person you don't really want your son to be involved with.

[1:22:34] That guy ends up dead.

[1:22:37] She finds his body and assumes that her son must have done it and begins to be blackmailed by someone who knows that her son and that guy were in a relationship with each other.

[1:22:46] And her relationship then with the blackmailer takes some surprising turns.

[1:22:52] And it's a movie that is somehow incredibly tense even though – and there's a feeling of threat to it even though there's not a lot of on-screen threat.

[1:23:02] And Tilda Swinton's performance in it is so incredibly controlled.

[1:23:06] But at the same time, it always feels like there's all these emotions under the surface.

[1:23:10] It's just – she's just really fantastic in it.

[1:23:12] So I recommend –

[1:23:12] It's like she's good at that stuff, right?

[1:23:15] It's almost like she's really good at it.

[1:23:17] So if you're looking for a kind of modern noir, not super modern because, again, the movie is nearly a quarter of a century old.

[1:23:24] But if you're looking for –

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:25] So there's no like robot boots and flying cars and shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:28] No, there's no flying cars and robot boots.

[1:23:30] But if you're looking for a solid noir that's in color, try The Deep End.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:35] That's like a pretty current movie for an Elliot recommendation, right?

[1:23:39] Yeah.

[1:23:40] 23 years?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:41] Yeah, 23 years as opposed to 73 years, which is my usual, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:45] Or more than that, 83 years often, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:48] Whoa, man.

[1:23:50] Another small member in the books.

[1:23:54] What book is that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:56] What books are these?

Dan McCoy

[1:23:57] I don't know.

[1:23:58] Someone, I think, tweeted or Instagram messaged recently saying that –

[1:24:05] It said, buy more followers.

[1:24:08] Yeah.

[1:24:10] Yes, I'm interested.

[1:24:11] No, they said that this is the 10-year anniversary of this theme month.

[1:24:17] I don't –

[1:24:17] Oh, God.

[1:24:18] I didn't check on that.

[1:24:20] I forgot to.

[1:24:21] But if so, amazing.

[1:24:24] You know, but it's always sad when it goes.

[1:24:27] But the only bright spot on the horizon is that Shocktober.

[1:24:33] Shocktober.

[1:24:33] Is about to come around the corner with the spookifying scares.

[1:24:37] We got some hot stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:38] Do we got anything on the slate you want to announce?

Dan McCoy

[1:24:43] We're going to do, I believe, Night Swim and Dear David, I think, is the name of it.

[1:24:50] And for that latter one, we've got Ms. Hallie Haglund on the books.

[1:24:55] The star of the show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:56] Back again.

[1:24:57] Star of the show.

[1:24:58] I feel like Shocktober means more now.

[1:25:00] We used to do more horror movies during the year.

[1:25:02] Yeah.

[1:25:02] Now we do less.

[1:25:03] So now Shocktober really means something.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:04] There's only good horror movies being made these days, right?

[1:25:07] You know, you joke, but when I was looking at possible Shocktober movies, I was actually surprised by how bare the cupboard seemed in terms of really tasty ideas.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:18] I feel like the general average in terms of quality of horror movies is very high at the moment.

[1:25:26] Maybe that's a combination of there not being as many movies being released into theaters and things like that.

[1:25:33] But I feel like for so many years of our lives, horror movies were kind of schlock for the most part, and there'd be a really good one every now and then.

[1:25:41] And I feel like the ones that get made are often very good, you know?

[1:25:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:45] Yeah.

[1:25:45] And I think that studios know that, like, oh, this is still something that's profitable for us in a way that, like, has maybe increased the average, too.

[1:25:54] Yeah.

[1:25:54] Who knows?

[1:25:56] Anywho.

[1:25:57] Yeah.

[1:25:57] Before we go, we should thank Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:26:01] We should do that.

[1:26:01] Dan, go ahead and do that.

[1:26:03] Thank you, Alex.

[1:26:04] Thank you for editing us, for cleaning up our audio, for making us sound good, and for also being a delightful person in your own right.

[1:26:13] You can find Alex's work under the name Howell Dottie.

[1:26:16] He does music.

[1:26:17] He does Twitch streams.

[1:26:18] He does other stuff.

[1:26:20] He's got some great merch over at the Howell Dottie store.

[1:26:24] Look into all of that.

[1:26:25] Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:26:28] MaximumFun.org has a lot of great other comedy and culture podcasts.

[1:26:33] I'm sure there's something else there that might strike your fancy.

[1:26:36] But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCloy.

[1:26:39] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:41] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:26:44] Bye.

[1:26:45] Bye.

[1:26:46] Cheers.

[1:26:47] Cheers.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:54] You know, I know we do a lot of normal episodes of the podcast.

[1:26:57] Let's just do a silly one, right?

[1:26:59] Let's do it.

[1:27:00] Yeah, let's do it.

[1:27:00] Let's do one for us.

[1:27:01] It's just for us.

[1:27:02] Let's do one just for us.

[1:27:03] Yeah.

[1:27:04] And if it's good, you know, if it's good, we'll release it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:07] You'll do an oops, all silly episode.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:09] Also release it is the way it works.

[1:27:12] That's the secret with the Flophouse.

[1:27:14] Yeah.

[1:27:16] Maximum Fun.

[1:27:17] A worker-owned network.

[1:27:19] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:27:20] Supported directly by you.

Episode #434 - Robot in the Family

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