Ep.#431 - Wish

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hey, everybody. Remember FlopTV, the one-hour online video version of the Flophouse podcast that we produced last year?

[0:06] Well, I'm excited to tell you it is coming back.

[0:09] FlopTV 2, the sequel, will be broadcasting live to your computer screen the first Saturday of every month from September through February.

[0:17] We're talking only about sequels this season.

[0:20] RoboCop 2, Breaking 2, Highlander 2, Caddyshack 2, Ski School 2, and Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the Ooze.

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[0:57] FlopTV 2, everything you loved about FlopTV, but again.

[1:02] On this episode, we discuss wish.

[1:05] It'll make you wish you were watching a different movie.

[1:08] Guys, this episode writes itself.

[1:10] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] I'm Dan McCoy.

[1:37] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:40] And hey, you probably heard my voice earlier talking about FlopTV 2, the sequel, coming soon to your computer screen.

[1:46] And maybe you'll hear about it more later.

[1:48] I just can't stop talking about it.

[1:49] So guys, what is this podcast that we do, and what does it do, and who are we?

Dan McCoy

[1:56] No, no, no.

[1:58] Hey, Dan.

[1:58] Don't confuse.

[2:00] Look, at this point in our life cycle as a podcast, I'm sure we're picking up very few new listeners with this specific episode.

[2:06] And losing many, yeah.

[2:07] But let's not confuse those people right off the bat.

[2:10] I am Dan McCoy.

[2:14] And this is...

[2:15] No!

[2:15] Oh, sorry.

[2:17] One more time.

[2:20] And I'm the Flophouse.

[2:21] And this is Elliot Kalin.

[2:22] Okay, close enough.

[2:24] Well, close enough is good enough.

[2:27] So this is a podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[2:28] Hey, close enough only counts in hand grenades, horseshoes, and this podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] As Dan always says, measure once, cut twice.

Elliott Kalan

[2:37] It's hard to cut it the second time.

[2:39] It's wrong in a couple different ways.

[2:41] Because the first cut is the deepest, is the thing.

[2:42] Yeah.

[2:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:45] This is a podcast.

[2:46] Oh.

[2:48] Thank you.

[2:48] Okay.

[2:49] Where we watch a bad movie, and then we talk about it.

[2:52] In this case, this is more of a movie that was sort of created with a general sort of, you know, lack of care.

[3:01] Just sort of a, oh, look, wishes in theaters.

[3:03] Well, it did okay, but certainly not enough considering the budget.

[3:09] Not enough to make money.

[3:10] Yeah.

[3:11] Yeah.

[3:11] And it was a Disney movie, right?

[3:13] A Disney movie.

[3:14] You don't do a lot of these.

Elliott Kalan

[3:15] This was the Disney movie that was intended to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Disney as a studio.

[3:20] And I would say it fails to reach that.

[3:22] Oh, that explains part of it.

[3:22] That is a high bench to have to clear.

[3:24] Yes.

[3:25] The company that until the recent couple of years was synonymous with children's imagination and the magic of wonder.

[3:32] To celebrate 100 years of that is a big, big thing to have to do.

[3:36] And you could say that kind of went the opposite direction, decided to underwire.

Dan McCoy

[3:40] I have heard some theories that perhaps the weight of that did it no favors.

[3:46] Perhaps there was more sort of general meddling and reworking and blandening because this was supposed to be their big centennial release.

[3:55] I don't know.

[3:56] It's possible.

[3:56] Who can say?

Elliott Kalan

[3:57] What I was told by my insights.

[3:58] This was originally a hard R movie.

[4:00] Yeah.

[4:01] It was originally a hard R movie.

[4:02] It was by the makers of Infinity Pool.

[4:04] Yeah.

[4:04] And they decided the last minute.

[4:05] They'd already filmed it and everything.

[4:07] They decided, wait a minute.

[4:08] What do we do?

[4:08] It was about to go to the theaters.

[4:09] And they had to literally drive a van to catch up with the previous van that had the film reels in it.

[4:13] So they could stop it from getting into the theaters.

Stuart Wellington

[4:15] Mexico was originally Aslan Rex from Ravenloft.

[4:22] Powerful Lich King.

[4:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:24] And his phylactery keeps getting bigger.

[4:27] My source inside Disney told me that up to the release, there was a lot of positive word of mouth within the studio.

[4:35] They were like, this is going to be great.

[4:37] It's coming out great.

[4:38] So I'm curious about the movie because from a technical standpoint, there's a lot of really cool animation things in it.

[4:45] But from a story and a music and a character standpoint, there's a lot of moments in the movie where you're like, why is this happening?

[4:51] Like, what's going?

[4:52] It's not that I'm confused about what's going on.

[4:54] It's because I don't know how this thing relates to that thing.

Dan McCoy

[4:56] Yeah.

[4:57] And I'm trying to, like, I don't know whether we should save the look of the film for later or should we talk about it now because you brought it up.

Elliott Kalan

[5:05] I mean, let's talk about it.

[5:06] I mean, when the trailers first came out, I was like, I want to see this movie because there are aspects of it that look beautiful.

[5:11] You know?

[5:12] But it doesn't – they're trying to meld traditional kind of painted backgrounds and colors and textures with CGI three-dimensional stuff.

[5:21] And it doesn't – there are times when I think it looks gorgeous and there are times when it really does not work for me.

Dan McCoy

[5:26] Yeah, I agree.

[5:29] To me, the part of the movie that I came closest to liking was the look of the film.

[5:34] But I feel like they kind of half-ass it.

[5:36] They, like, don't commit to, like, we're going to do it like a throwback.

[5:42] The backgrounds look beautiful.

[5:44] The backgrounds that were, I think –

[5:45] The backgrounds look gorgeous, yeah.

[5:46] Like, traditionally done.

[5:47] And then they put some sort of layer of digital something to merge it together.

[5:51] Sugar.

[5:52] Digital, like Baker's sugar.

[5:53] Yeah.

[5:54] Well, the digital sugar is what I liked least about it because it does feel to me like they put, like, a Photoshop sort of storybook filter over everything, even though it looks good.

Stuart Wellington

[6:05] It reminded me a little bit of – man, what were those?

[6:08] There's a couple, like, video games that were, like, part hand-drawn, part digital, or they had the look of, like, a hand-drawn thing.

[6:15] Yeah.

[6:15] Like, Cuphead, that kind of stuff, or –

[6:16] Well, no, that was – it was more of, like – it was – they did one – it was, like, a story game, and it was, like, one based on The Walking Dead and then one based on the –

[6:25] I think the Fables universe.

[6:28] The Grateful Dead.

[6:30] I can't remember.

[6:31] The Grateful Dead.

[6:32] But it was that sort of thing where it was, like, everything has, like, a hard black outline.

[6:35] Mm-hmm.

[6:36] Yes.

[6:37] So it has the illusion of being hand-drawn.

Elliott Kalan

[6:40] And it has the illusion of being hand-drawn, but it has the heaviness of kind of an attempt at realistic CGI.

[6:46] Like, I found that the characters move kind of slowly.

[6:49] Well, that was –

[6:50] There's a part later where they are floating up in the air on books that are flying.

[6:53] They're standing on them.

[6:54] And it was moving so slowly, and I was like, dude, we've seen a Disney movie with flying books in The Sword in the Stone, and the books move around fast, and they look cool.

[7:03] You know, they look great.

Dan McCoy

[7:03] Well, that's what – yeah, I wanted to get at, which, like, I love the backgrounds.

[7:07] The characters, like, which are fully CG are – they feel like the blandest sort of, you know, typical Disney designs for the most part, like what we've seen before.

[7:17] And I swear to God that the character animation has been getting worse over the years.

[7:24] Like, there's just – like, there's no liveliness in these characters.

[7:28] They don't move particularly differently from one another.

[7:31] Well, there's a lack of exaggeration.

Elliott Kalan

[7:33] I think in a lot of animation in general, and I don't want to speak ill of animators because my assumption is that this is a direction that's been given, is that there's been such an attempt over the past 20 years to replicate reality in animation rather than –

[7:47] Like Rick and Morty.

[7:48] Yeah, exactly.

[7:49] Yeah, the world we live in.

[7:50] This is more movie animation than TV animation, I guess.

[7:52] But, like, there were times when I – I remember seeing Cars 3 in the theater with my kids, and there were times when it just felt like I was just watching a truck driving down a road, like a real one.

[8:00] And I was like, well, I don't really want to watch a movie about a real truck driving down a real road.

[8:04] Like, I wanted to look at a cartoon.

[8:05] Unless it's dual.

[8:06] Unless it's – no.

[8:07] If I'm – I should preface this.

[8:08] Unless it's the hitcher.

[8:08] If I'm watching an animated film about talking cars, then I don't want to see a real truck – I mean, where it's Fury Road.

[8:14] I want to see real trucks doing that stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[8:16] What if you just made a mistake and you accidentally took your kids to the hitcher?

[8:21] That'd be a hard mistake to make.

[8:23] It's not a new movie.

Dan McCoy

[8:24] Yeah.

[8:25] Elliot's like the real-life version of the meme.

[8:27] He's like, I'm going to tell my kids this was Cars 3.

Elliott Kalan

[8:31] But I think there's a – well, when we did Gnomeo and Juliet or Sherlock Gnomes, whichever one we did a while back, there were times when it was like, wow, the textures.

[8:38] These gnomes really look like they're made out of real ceramics.

[8:41] And it's like, yeah, but that's not why I go to an animated movie to see a character that looks like it's made out of ceramics.

[8:44] That's what kids care about in a cartoon.

[8:46] Yeah.

[8:47] And I think the character animation does err on that side of how would a real person move?

[8:52] And it's like, well, how would like an exaggerated person move?

[8:54] Like, how would a funny person move?

Stuart Wellington

[8:55] Yeah, so you're not really getting much like – aside from the bevy of characters that all look like the kid from How to Train Your Dragon, it's like a million of mop-top kids with giant noses and super skinny bodies.

Elliott Kalan

[9:10] There's also a ton of characters, and it does not need to be that many characters.

[9:13] There's like a – the main character has a whole gang of friends who each have one kind of personality trait that –

[9:18] Monica.

[9:20] Joey.

[9:21] Don't forget Phoebe.

[9:22] Phoebe, exactly.

[9:25] That monkey.

[9:26] What was his name?

[9:27] Marcel?

[9:28] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[9:29] There's Ross, of course.

Elliott Kalan

[9:31] Not familiar.

[9:32] Who can forget Ross?

[9:34] No.

[9:35] No, but like she has that gang where it's like one of them is always kind of sneaking around, and one of them is kind of a dumb guy, and it was like – and one of them is kind of a – is a very judgmental, short gay boy, and it's like I don't know why these characters are all here, you know?

Dan McCoy

[9:47] Well, can I tell you something about this?

[9:48] I looked up trivia, IMDb trivia about this.

[9:52] And IMDb, not necessarily like the best source, but I believe this one.

[9:56] And these characters were sort of loosely intended to mimic the personalities of the dwarves, with one of them being grumpy, one of them being sneezy, et cetera.

[10:07] And if I had not read this trivia, I would never in a million years have believed that these characters have any personality, let alone the exaggerated personalities of the seven dwarves.

Elliott Kalan

[10:19] It shows you – I mean, when Disney is at its best, and its best is – it's hard to achieve.

[10:25] When it's at its best, it can take characters like the dwarves from Snow White and so quickly imbue them with personality and so quickly give you that feeling of like, I know this character, and this is a funny character.

[10:37] Like, and yeah, this movie does feel like blander.

[10:40] It feels generic.

[10:41] There are times when I'm watching it where I'm like, this feels like another company trying to make a Disney movie, which is kind of the worst thing you can say about a Disney movie, I guess.

[10:47] Yeah.

[10:48] Well, now that we've gotten you all excited about it –

Stuart Wellington

[10:50] And you mentioned Sword in the Stone, and I remember as a kid, how many times – like, every time I got to see the fucking Wizard Duel.

[10:57] Yeah.

[10:58] Every time I was like, edge of my seat, gripping the chair.

[11:03] And that's her one scene.

Elliott Kalan

[11:04] She's not in the rest of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[11:05] And it's not like one of like the big, like, canonical Disney classics even, but like it's got so much spirit.

[11:12] Like that scene is great, like the Mad Men of them.

[11:14] Right.

[11:15] Anyway, enough grousing.

[11:17] Let's get into the plot.

[11:19] Let's do some carousing.

[11:20] Dan, pop those brewskis.

[11:23] Woo!

[11:24] Okay.

[11:24] So, as if to signal to the audience, like, this is a throwback to the Disney films of yore, we open with a storybook.

Elliott Kalan

[11:34] I think that's exactly why they're doing it, Dan.

[11:36] No, I'm not being sarcastic.

Dan McCoy

[11:39] Oh, it sounded like you were.

[11:40] I'm telling – well, I'm being sarcastic about the transparentness of the, like, effort to associate it with beloved properties of the past.

[11:50] But so, we hear a story being told about a dude who really knows how important wishes are.

[11:57] He becomes a sorcerer to protect, quote-unquote, wishes, which immediately I'm like, I don't know what that means to protect a wish against what?

[12:06] Disillusionment?

[12:07] Distraction?

[12:08] Like, what are we talking here?

Elliott Kalan

[12:10] Maybe there was a wish thief or something that was running around, like a wish eater or something.

[12:14] His name is Magnifico, by the way.

Dan McCoy

[12:16] Yeah, Magnifico.

Stuart Wellington

[12:17] The wish eater's name is Magnifico?

[12:18] No, no.

[12:19] He kind of is.

Elliott Kalan

[12:20] No, the king who protects the wish.

Dan McCoy

[12:22] The king who's slash sorcerer is Magnifico, played by Chris Pine.

Stuart Wellington

[12:27] Oh, man.

[12:27] As Charlene overheard it and thought it was Jason Alexander, and when I told her it was Chris Pine, she's like, that's fucking bullshit.

[12:33] He's too pretty.

[12:34] Let someone else do this shit.

Elliott Kalan

[12:36] I mean, the whole thing about Magnifico is supposed to be a handsome guy, right?

[12:38] Yeah, he is a pretty guy.

[12:40] And also, their voices don't sound at all the same.

[12:42] I think that's also funny that she got Chris Pine's and Jason Alexander's voices.

[12:45] She's like, is this Duckman who's playing the handsome sorcerer king of this kingdom?

Dan McCoy

[12:50] Who is that?

[12:51] Is that Harvey Firestein?

[12:52] What?

Elliott Kalan

[12:55] Gilbert Gottfried recorded this before he died?

[12:57] That's what you're telling me?

Dan McCoy

[13:00] Late June foray.

[13:01] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[13:02] I mean, she could do anything, though, Dan.

[13:04] Yeah, she's true.

Dan McCoy

[13:06] So, yeah, he wants to protect wishes, question mark, what that is, I don't know, and occasionally to grant them.

[13:13] And so, he and his wife establish a wish island where people can live under his wish protection.

Elliott Kalan

[13:18] A fantasy island, if you will, yeah.

[13:20] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[13:21] And so, we come out of the storybook to learn that this story is being told by our heroine, Asha, Ariana Juboz, who is talking to her grandfather, who presumably knows all of this already because he lives on Wish Island.

[13:33] I'm not really sure why she is.

Elliott Kalan

[13:35] Maybe he just showed up.

[13:36] Maybe he just got there.

[13:38] Or he has dementia.

[13:39] She's like, you know this.

[13:40] You live on Wish Island.

[13:41] Grandpa.

[13:41] If you get lost, you have to be able to tell people Wish Island.

Dan McCoy

[13:44] He's been there all his life.

[13:45] He's been there all his life because at some point we learned that he made his wish when he was 18 that has not been granted yet.

[13:50] Guys.

[13:51] Now he's a grandpa.

Stuart Wellington

[13:52] I think it makes sense because old people like hearing and telling the same fucking stories.

[13:58] That's true.

[13:58] They do like it.

[14:00] Fair enough.

Elliott Kalan

[14:00] He is about to reach his 100th birthday, too.

[14:03] So, it's like if that wish was given to Magnifico that long ago, how old is Magnifico supposed to be?

[14:08] Good question.

[14:09] Maybe his magic.

[14:11] Again, probably a witch.

Dan McCoy

[14:13] Anyway, so there's a wish ceremony that night.

Elliott Kalan

[14:16] This magic is kind of the gathering of wishes.

[14:19] You could say that.

[14:21] Legally.

[14:23] Can't throw me in jail yet.

[14:25] Not until the Republicans get into office.

Stuart Wellington

[14:27] Yeah.

[14:27] And then it's kids court all over again.

[14:29] L.A.

[14:30] You're under arrest for not singing enough songs.

Dan McCoy

[14:36] Why can I suddenly not remember the guy who plays Saba's name?

Elliott Kalan

[14:40] Oh, that's Victor Garber.

Dan McCoy

[14:42] Victor Garber.

[14:43] Hell yeah.

[14:44] So, a lot of musical.

[14:45] Not the heir to the Garber's baby food fortune.

Elliott Kalan

[14:47] Not the same as Gerber's.

[14:48] Different company.

[14:49] Yeah.

[14:50] Not as big.

Dan McCoy

[14:51] Two members of musical royalty already in the cast.

[14:57] And it's his birthday, Saba, the grandfather.

[15:00] 100th birthday.

[15:01] And Asha's like, there's a wish ceremony tonight, so it's your birthday.

[15:08] He's got to finally, finally grant your wish.

Elliott Kalan

[15:10] Hey, Saba, it's your birthday.

[15:12] Going to grant a wish like your birthday.

Dan McCoy

[15:16] So, Asha runs off to her job as a tour guide, question mark?

[15:22] Or she's onboarding new Wish Island citizens?

Elliott Kalan

[15:26] It's funny because they show up at Wish Island and my assumption is they're already into it.

[15:30] But it's almost like she's selling them on the idea so that they'll stay.

[15:33] So, she's like a real estate agent for Wish Island.

[15:36] Or the city of Rosa is what it really is.

[15:38] It's not really called Wish Island.

[15:39] City of Rosa.

[15:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[15:40] She's like a hype man for the whole city.

[15:43] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[15:43] She sings a song that kind of reiterates for the third time what we already know about the island.

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] And it is such a ripoff of the opening song from Encanto in the kind of like the tone of it, what it's trying to accomplish, the fact that she's like awkward while she's singing it and getting interrupted by things.

[15:59] This movie, the songs in this movie, I'll just take a moment because it's the first song.

[16:01] The songs in this movie are trying so hard to be Lin-Manuel Miranda or Disney classic type songs at different times.

[16:07] And they're cramming so many lyrics into every line of every song.

[16:12] And it was really bothering me.

[16:13] I saw this movie in the theaters when it first came out with my kids.

[16:17] And this stuff didn't bother me as much because of the magic of the movies.

[16:20] And I was probably spending a lot of time telling my kids to like stop fighting over the popcorn and stuff.

[16:23] So, I wasn't paying as close attention.

[16:25] But this time the songs really got to me that they like the lyrics.

[16:28] And this is coming from me, a guy who makes up dumb songs where there's too many lyrics for a meter.

[16:32] You know, like the lyrics are just crammed in there.

Dan McCoy

[16:35] Yeah.

[16:35] No, I would agree that these are not of a high level, particularly in the grand tradition of Disney songs.

[16:43] Like there's a couple of moments.

Stuart Wellington

[16:44] Yeah, give me a classic.

[16:46] What's a classic Disney song?

Dan McCoy

[16:47] Well, the one that is evoked at the end when you wish upon a star, for instance, is or I mean, but even like, I don't know, from like less known, not less known, but like less huge ones.

[16:58] Like Peter Pan has a bunch of great songs.

[17:02] You're not talking about how the Red Riders, not that one.

[17:06] Not that one.

[17:06] That's not.

[17:06] But like, think of a wonderful thought.

[17:09] Any happy little thought.

[17:10] I'm not going to sing anymore or Disney will come after us.

Elliott Kalan

[17:13] Be Our Guest is an amazing song.

[17:15] Be Our Guest.

[17:15] You know, like Beauty and the Beast is an amazing song.

[17:17] Those are both from the same movie.

[17:18] But like The Circle of Love is a great song.

[17:21] Yeah.

[17:22] Under the Sea, right?

[17:23] From Little Mermaid.

[17:24] Under the Sea is a great song.

[17:25] Kiss the Girl.

[17:25] Poor Unfortunate Souls is a great song.

[17:26] Even from like Hunchback of Notre Dame, that Hellfire song, that what's his name?

[17:30] Yeah, the super hot one.

[17:31] Yeah.

[17:32] Yeah.

[17:32] That's a sexy song.

[17:33] That's a great song.

[17:34] Like Disney songs are among the best songs in any movies.

[17:38] They're not the best song ever written for a movie.

[17:39] In my opinion, that's probably Over the Rainbow.

Stuart Wellington

[17:42] Oh, I thought it was Everybody Wants Some from Better Off Dead.

[17:46] I was sure you were going to go with that Dokken song.

[17:49] Yeah.

[17:49] Dokken's Dream Warriors.

Elliott Kalan

[17:51] Yeah, yeah.

[17:51] Because even Freddy is like, who are those guys?

Stuart Wellington

[17:54] Who are those guys?

[17:55] Man, they're crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[17:56] But Disney songs, again, it's a high benchmark to reach.

[18:00] Like there are a bunch of great songs in Moana.

[18:01] There's a bunch of great songs.

[18:02] Like the thing I think that made Encanto a success were the songs in that movie.

[18:05] You know, so it's – but these ones are not quite at that level.

[18:09] Yeah.

[18:10] These are more along the lines of like whatever songs are probably in the Fox and the Hound that I don't remember.

[18:14] You know, or the Aristocats, you know.

[18:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[18:17] Everybody Wants to Be a Cat.

[18:19] That's in the Aristocats.

Elliott Kalan

[18:19] Name another song from the Aristocats, Dan.

[18:21] That's the only one I can.

[18:23] But at least that one has one that I remember.

[18:26] Are there any songs in the Black Cauldron?

[18:28] Probably not, right?

Dan McCoy

[18:30] I don't think so unless there's like a zombie marching song that I'm forgetting.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] But there must be songs in like Home on the Range, right?

[18:37] I've never seen that movie.

Dan McCoy

[18:38] I've also never seen Home on the Range.

[18:40] Brother Bear.

Elliott Kalan

[18:41] Road to El Dorado.

[18:42] Road to El Dorado.

[18:43] That's not a Disney movie.

[18:44] That's pretty much.

[18:45] Like Treasure Planet.

[18:47] I bet that has songs in it.

[18:48] I've never seen it.

[18:49] You know?

[18:49] Yeah.

[18:50] I gotta watch these.

[18:51] Atlantis.

[18:52] Never saw that one.

[18:53] I gotta see it.

[18:54] Dan, you're making me really want to see all the Disney movies I missed when I had no reason to.

Dan McCoy

[18:57] Yeah.

[18:58] I think I saw Atlantis and it has some interesting animation but it's pretty dull.

[19:04] Didn't Mike B. Nuller or somebody get involved in the design?

[19:06] Yeah, he did some design work for it.

[19:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[19:08] What about Dinosaur?

[19:09] Do you remember that one?

Dan McCoy

[19:10] Was that an animated one?

[19:12] It was a CGI animated one, yeah.

[19:14] Yeah, only vaguely.

[19:16] Okay.

[19:16] But let's get back to Wish.

[19:18] What movie are we talking about?

[19:19] Wish?

[19:19] All right.

[19:19] There's a movie.

[19:20] A little movie called Wish.

[19:21] What movie are we talking about?

[19:22] It's about wishes.

[19:24] Not just a singular wish.

[19:26] Wishes in general.

[19:28] So, she visits her friend in the castle.

[19:32] This is her friend that I am told is supposed to be the doc of the group because she has glasses and she's sensible.

[19:38] I see.

Elliott Kalan

[19:39] But her job is to make cookies in the shape of Magnifico's face for Magnifico to eat.

Dan McCoy

[19:45] And this is where we learned that Asha has an interview to be the apprentice to the king slash sorcerer.

[19:51] And we meet some other characters including Simon who has had some sort of light extinguished in him because of the lack of the granting of his wish.

Elliott Kalan

[20:01] They are all less than 18.

[20:03] So, creeps back off.

[20:05] And so, they haven't yet given their wish.

[20:06] At 18, you give your wish.

[20:07] And Simon is over 18 and gave his wish.

[20:09] And since then, everyone is like, you're dumber and more boring than you gave your wish.

Dan McCoy

[20:14] You seem narcoleptic now.

[20:16] Yeah.

[20:17] And then there's Gabbo who is supposed to be annoying but I found him so viscerally unlikable that I wanted something to kick him right out of the film.

[20:28] Perhaps Judge Doom to show up with a bag of dip.

[20:32] Thrown in some dip, right?

Elliott Kalan

[20:35] Irritating.

[20:35] And he's not irritating in a like manic way.

[20:37] He's irritating in a like I'm sarcastically judging everybody.

Dan McCoy

[20:40] Yeah, like why are we friends with this guy sort of way.

[20:43] Yeah, he's mean to everybody.

[20:46] Anyway, she goes to her interview.

[20:47] There's Bazima.

Elliott Kalan

[20:48] There's Safi.

[20:49] There's a bunch of other.

[20:50] All memorable.

[20:51] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[20:53] There's a guy who's allergic to lemons so he sneezes on a cookie.

[20:57] That makes him the sneezy of the group and that's the only thing I recall about that guy.

[21:01] That's Safi.

[21:01] Man, you guys did a great job.

[21:04] These are not memorable characters.

Stuart Wellington

[21:05] It just kind of washed over me.

Elliott Kalan

[21:07] Yeah.

[21:07] That character, Safi.

[21:08] So he's voiced.

[21:09] I only found this at efforts.

[21:10] He's voiced by Rami Youssef, the comedian and the star of Rami.

[21:14] And it's one of those things like this part is so small.

[21:16] Why did you bother getting someone who's a name person to do it?

[21:19] Like, you know.

[21:20] Ching, ching.

[21:22] What?

[21:23] Was that money sounds?

[21:23] Like that's money sound.

[21:24] Well, I know why he would do it.

[21:26] I don't know why Disney didn't save a couple bucks and throw some money to a less famous person.

Stuart Wellington

[21:29] If they throw it to him, then he's, you know, they get the Rami Youssef bump.

[21:34] Good point.

[21:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[21:36] So she goes in for an interview and meets King Chris Pine who sees her.

[21:41] That's his name in the movie.

[21:43] She's fiddling with a magical book and he says, don't touch that, dangerous, whatever.

Stuart Wellington

[21:48] Magical book, the Bible.

Elliott Kalan

[21:52] She is so over the top nervous and anxious, like in the way that I guess all female main characters have to be now to balance out being beautiful.

[22:01] That like, well, if this character is beautiful, she better be like an anxious, nervous mess all the time.

[22:04] And not be able to talk about anything other than how she makes it.

[22:07] Do you think the main character is beautiful, Ellen?

[22:10] What?

Stuart Wellington

[22:10] What?

[22:10] LA, do you think the main character is beautiful?

Elliott Kalan

[22:13] Yeah.

[22:14] Let's explore this.

[22:15] I mean, she's drawn to be a beautiful young girl.

[22:17] It's not that I'm attracted to her.

[22:19] Okay, man.

[22:20] Sure.

[22:21] If I'm into any Disney princess, it is Pocahontas.

[22:25] Have you seen her?

[22:26] She is beautiful.

Dan McCoy

[22:27] I'm enjoying passing this on only because I did that cartoon sex presentation for a lot of our live shows.

[22:33] Oh, I don't recall.

[22:34] Reacted as if I was saying like, hey, I find all of this stuff to be my thing.

[22:39] When like, whatever, it's your thing.

[22:41] That's fine.

[22:41] It's not necessarily mine.

[22:43] I'm just talking about it.

[22:44] But it's not your thing.

Stuart Wellington

[22:44] It's not your thing, but it's not not your thing.

[22:46] I feel like Dan is more of just like a, he's like an Uatu the Watcher.

[22:50] He catalogs it all.

[22:52] But he never interacts.

Dan McCoy

[22:54] I've got an Anthony Lane-like fondness for Mrs. Incredible.

[22:58] I just don't then, you know, write in the pages of The New Yorker about how horny I am for her and how everyone's erections are going to spring up their popcorn buckets or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[23:08] I think it was Michael Kupperman who wrote a parody of that where he made it look like a real thing where he talks about having to run into the men's room and jack off.

[23:17] And put it up on Twitter and people were like, I can't believe he wrote that in The New Yorker.

Dan McCoy

[23:23] I love it.

[23:24] Anyway, so she's fumbling this interview a little bit because she's so nervous.

[23:29] But then she talks about losing her father.

[23:32] And that makes-

[23:34] He's a philosopher who always looked at the stars.

[23:36] Yeah.

[23:37] That makes Magnifico bond with her over his own loss, which is never really defined from the past.

Elliott Kalan

[23:43] No, there's some undescribed trauma that led him to escape to this island and create it as a kind of refuge for refugees.

Stuart Wellington

[23:50] And become a vengeful sorcerer king.

[23:52] Yes, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[23:52] Well, become a control freak.

[23:54] Become like, we've got to like, I have to protect everyone, you know, like either by like making them, you know, taking their wishes or granting their wishes.

[24:03] Yes.

[24:05] But-

[24:05] Speaking of wishes.

[24:07] Yeah, let's talk about it.

[24:08] He takes her into the wish room where he shows her everyone's wishes floating around in like little bubbly sort of snow globe-y things.

Elliott Kalan

[24:15] They're like little, they're almost like memory holograms, you know, where you're like, you look at it and it replays the wish over and over again.

[24:22] That's a visual.

[24:23] Yeah.

[24:23] A wish you will.

[24:24] In that I wish you will.

[24:25] Yeah, it's the sort of thing that-

[24:26] Go a little faster, Dan.

Stuart Wellington

[24:27] It's the sort of thing that I've seen in movies, I don't know, a million times.

[24:32] Wow.

[24:32] A million.

[24:33] You've seen a lot of movies.

[24:33] I've seen a lot of movies, guys.

[24:35] Just check my letterbox.

Elliott Kalan

[24:36] And later on, when Chris Pine, spoiler alert, he turns bad.

[24:41] Later on, when he turns even more bad, he's picking up wishes that are explicitly the plots of other Disney movies and then destroying them.

[24:48] And I'm like, so is this movie saying like, I'm destroying previous Disney movies?

[24:53] You don't need them anymore.

[24:55] Interesting.

Dan McCoy

[24:56] I mean, I think that, you know, spoiler alert, it's a Disney movie.

[24:59] It ends happily.

[25:00] It seems like those wishes are freed when he is, you know, vanquished.

[25:05] But anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[25:06] I guess he's not destroyed.

[25:07] I will say, though, the use of Disney past in this movie I found less egregious than in Ralph Breaks the Internet, where all the Disney princesses are like, whatever, we'll do whatever.

[25:17] We got to make Ralph the star of all Disney?

[25:19] Sure, we'll do it.

[25:20] And it was like, Snow White, Cinderella, come on, like, you're bigger than this movie.

[25:23] What are you doing?

[25:24] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[25:24] They are big.

[25:25] It's the pictures that got small.

[25:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[25:27] I mean, they're postage stamps, very small pictures.

Dan McCoy

[25:30] He, you know, is inclined to give her the job at this point.

[25:33] And she asked the king to grant her grandfather's wish.

[25:38] But Magnifico is like, oh, the wish is too vague.

[25:42] He wants to inspire the next generation.

[25:43] But inspire them to what?

[25:45] Something bad like revolt?

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] And the wish is literally just the grandfather playing the mandolin and people enjoying it.

[25:51] Like, his wish is really just, I want to play the mandolin so well, people like me, you know.

[25:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:54] He didn't say that, though.

[25:55] He said he wants to inspire the next generation.

[25:58] Fair.

[25:59] Which is, in Magnifico's defense, a very vague wish.

Elliott Kalan

[26:03] And it is also a hard wish to grant because if there's anything the next generation is probably not interested in is a hundred-year-old man's mandolin playing.

Dan McCoy

[26:11] Yeah.

[26:12] This was in my notes.

[26:13] I think it's obviously a weird justification he offers.

[26:19] It's more about his wanting to make sure that he has an iron grip on power than anything else.

[26:23] But, you know, from the standpoint of a wish, it's like, you live on a wishing island.

[26:28] You couldn't come up with a less vague wish than I just, I want to inspire the next generation.

[26:33] With music.

[26:34] Something specific, guys, you know.

[26:37] Make it easier on the wish master.

Stuart Wellington

[26:40] I want to fucking play the mandolin a bunch and have young people be like, sick.

[26:44] Yeah.

[26:44] Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

[26:46] And do a big rip off their vape pens.

Elliott Kalan

[26:53] So Asher realizes –

[26:55] I will say, for the record, there are no vape pens present in the movie.

[26:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[26:58] Oh, lame.

[27:00] Asher realizes that the king is just keeping a bunch of wishes he doesn't intend to grant.

[27:05] And she's like, well, if you're not going to grant them, why not give them back?

[27:08] These are like essential parts of these people.

Elliott Kalan

[27:10] Because also, when you give your wish to him, you forget it.

[27:14] All you know is there's a special part of you, this thing you desire more than anything else, that exists as an idea somewhere.

[27:19] But you don't know what it is.

[27:20] You no longer have it in you, which is a weird aspect of it.

[27:25] Because then it's – well, then it's one, why are you missing it so badly if you don't know what it was?

[27:29] But also, why would you give up even the knowledge of it, you know?

Dan McCoy

[27:32] Well, I think it's not less that you're missing it, but like it's some essential part of you that you have given away.

[27:37] You're giving part of your soul or your heart.

[27:39] Yeah.

[27:40] But so this is where –

[27:41] If only.

Stuart Wellington

[27:42] Only Magnifico could just take that away from me.

[27:45] Wow.

Dan McCoy

[27:46] Well, we'll unpack that.

[27:47] Maybe in the mini.

[27:49] We're not going to unpack it.

[27:50] No, I don't think so.

Elliott Kalan

[27:52] Unless it pays us $150 for the hour.

[27:55] Or 50 bucks, rather.

[27:56] Wow.

Stuart Wellington

[27:56] That's a pretty affordable therapy.

[27:59] Well, I'm not accredited.

Dan McCoy

[28:00] Yeah, that's what – yeah.

[28:01] As non-accredited therapists, this is how we understand the competition.

Stuart Wellington

[28:05] You guys can write me prescriptions for medication, right?

[28:08] We can.

[28:09] We can write them.

Elliott Kalan

[28:10] We can write them.

[28:11] I can prescribe you consumer goods that are available over the counter.

[28:15] Oh, cool.

[28:15] So retail therapy.

[28:16] I can be like, you need a new hairbrush.

[28:18] That kind of stuff.

Dan McCoy

[28:19] Or like a sleeve full of Oreos will cure your depression.

Elliott Kalan

[28:23] Yes.

[28:23] Yeah, exactly.

[28:24] But for how long?

[28:25] Not that long.

Dan McCoy

[28:26] No.

[28:26] But you know.

[28:27] If they're double-stuffed.

[28:27] It's better than a placebo.

Elliott Kalan

[28:29] Now I'm imagining Stuart pouring a package of Oreos into the sleeves of his shirt.

[28:33] This is what Dr. Dan said.

[28:35] It isn't working yet.

Dan McCoy

[28:36] Oh, Amelia Bedelia.

[28:38] So, yeah.

[28:40] This is where we learn that the king is like sort of over-paternal.

[28:42] This control freak.

[28:44] He's like, better – like unrealized wishes cause people pain.

[28:48] Better I keep them safe and they forget about it.

[28:51] And she does not like that.

Stuart Wellington

[28:54] And he's got like daddy vibes too, right?

[28:56] He's like a handsome gray-haired guy with a little Van Dyke.

[28:59] Yeah.

[29:00] Like, yeah.

[29:00] Like, he's kind of drawn as like – he looks kind of like an handsome hero guy.

Dan McCoy

[29:04] He looks like, you know, a cartoon Chris Pine.

[29:06] He's a –

Stuart Wellington

[29:07] With a definitely less crazy beard.

[29:10] Because current Chris Pine has this amazing beard.

Dan McCoy

[29:13] I'm not saying off-hours Chris Pine where he's, you know, wandering around in like a huge cardigan.

[29:19] Yep.

[29:20] Like a v-neck shirt.

[29:22] If only.

Elliott Kalan

[29:23] I mean, it squares with the one time I saw him in person.

[29:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:26] I'm talking about, you know, he's in character.

[29:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[29:29] Anyway, at the evening ceremony –

[29:31] This guy is a real character.

[29:32] The wish ceremony.

Stuart Wellington

[29:34] Send his ass to TBS.

[29:36] Wait, is it TBS or USA?

[29:38] It's USA.

[29:39] USA was where characters were welcome.

[29:40] TBS would not allow him in yet.

[29:41] Very funny.

Elliott Kalan

[29:42] They'd say you have to wait in Mexico until we start welcoming characters.

[29:48] Anyway.

[29:48] Let me read the checklist of what we're looking for.

[29:49] Are you very funny?

[29:51] No, but I'm a character.

[29:52] I heard characters are welcome.

[29:53] That's USA.

[29:54] This is TBS.

[29:55] I'm offended.

[29:57] Offended.

[29:58] Mm-hmm.

[29:59] And then he's like, TNT, will you help me?

[30:00] Are you drama?

[30:01] We should know because we do no drama.

[30:04] Mm-hmm.

[30:04] What about FX?

[30:05] FX, will you let me in?

[30:06] No, we have the movies.

[30:07] We don't need any more.

[30:08] We're holding them hostage.

[30:09] What about Arby's?

[30:10] Feels like it.

[30:11] We have the meats.

[30:11] You're not meat.

[30:12] You're an animated figure, so we don't need you.

[30:13] We're going to do a hostage exchange.

[30:15] Meats for movies.

[30:18] Yeah, that's the charity that I do.

[30:21] I'll trade movies for meat or rice versa.

[30:23] I don't care.

[30:23] Yeah, you got to get those meats off the streets.

[30:25] Now, is that a charity or is that just the barter system?

[30:28] I mean, it's a charity for me.

[30:29] I get something out of it that I like.

Dan McCoy

[30:31] You're losing your beloved meats.

Elliott Kalan

[30:33] There's always more meat where that came from, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[30:36] That's ominous.

[30:37] Okay.

[30:38] Anyway, so at the evening wish ceremony, the king tells her that she will obviously not

[30:43] be his apprentice, but he is going to protect Saba and her mother's wishes forever.

[30:48] By never granting them.

[30:51] At dinner, she tries to tell her family about all this, but Saba gets mad because he's like,

[30:55] why would you tell me about a wish that I've forgotten?

[30:57] And I will now know that I'll never have.

[31:01] And so she runs off to sing a song about her feelings, and she makes a wish on her star

[31:07] in the song for, quote, something more than this.

[31:11] So I guess the whole family is vague wish makers.

[31:13] They can't be specific about their wants.

Elliott Kalan

[31:16] The lyrics in these songs are very vague.

[31:18] And when we get to the song, You're a Star, whatever it is, then we're in the middle of

[31:23] something where it's like, none of this even makes sense.

[31:25] Like, this is just nonsense verbiage, you know?

[31:27] But she wishes for something more than standing there with a goat at her side.

[31:32] Her goat, Valentino?

Dan McCoy

[31:34] More than this.

[31:37] There's something more than this.

[31:41] Right?

[31:41] Yeah.

[31:42] No, yeah.

[31:42] That's pretty good.

[31:44] Roxy Music, Avalon.

[31:45] I mean, that song's not Avalon.

[31:47] It's off the album Avalon.

[31:48] It's off the Avalon album.

[31:49] Of course, yeah.

[31:50] More than this is what it's called.

Stuart Wellington

[31:51] Man, that album sleeve looks sick.

[31:53] It's like a dude with a fucking falcon, and then you listen to it, and you're like,

[31:57] this isn't falcon music.

[31:58] No, it's not at all.

Dan McCoy

[32:00] The adultest of contemporary music, but I like that album a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[32:02] And then the movie they made, Welcome Home Roxy Music, also not what I expected to be.

[32:07] Welcome Home Roxy Car Music.

Dan McCoy

[32:09] Yeah.

[32:10] Also the movie.

[32:10] Featuring music by the cars.

[32:12] The Barry Levinson movie, Avalon, is not a very good adaptation of that album either.

Elliott Kalan

[32:16] No, a lot of development work went into changing that.

[32:19] Yeah.

[32:19] They just had the name in the end.

[32:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:20] Anyway, so her wish causes a magical light to go across the island, and the king is like,

[32:24] what's up?

[32:25] Someone's using magic.

Elliott Kalan

[32:26] And everybody loves this light.

[32:28] Nobody can talk about anything other than this light, and they think the king did it.

[32:31] And he's like, I didn't do it.

[32:32] Stop talking about it.

[32:33] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:34] Turns out the light is from a magical anthropomorphic star that's fallen to earth, and the star plays

[32:41] with Asha and her pet goat for a while, sprinkling stardust around that gives plants and animals

[32:47] the ability to speak.

Elliott Kalan

[32:48] I would call this star a kind of R2-D2 type figure.

[32:54] Yeah.

[32:54] You know.

[32:55] Yeah.

[32:55] Kind of like a minion.

[32:56] Yes.

[32:57] Like a minion, but not as bonkers and manic.

[33:00] And it's not like the genie from Aladdin, because it has no personality other than kind of being

[33:04] kind of like a baby, like an innocent baby.

[33:07] It's cute.

[33:07] That's a little mischievous.

Dan McCoy

[33:07] I mean, like in a movie that is low on memorable characters, the star would, you know, in my

[33:17] power rankings would be, you know, one of the higher characters.

[33:20] I mean, but not as high as Valentino, right?

[33:22] No, Valentino.

[33:23] Which one is that?

[33:25] Voiced by Alan Tudyk.

[33:26] The goat?

[33:26] The goat.

[33:26] Voiced by Alan Tudyk?

[33:28] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[33:29] No, the goat.

[33:30] Veteran voice actor, Alan Tudyk.

[33:32] The star.

[33:32] Magnifico.

Elliott Kalan

[33:34] Of other Disney movies.

Stuart Wellington

[33:35] Resident Alien himself, Alan Tudyk.

[33:38] King Candy himself.

[33:39] King Candy himself.

[33:41] The man with two dicks.

Elliott Kalan

[33:42] Now, not my favorite Disney movie, but it's pretty good.

[33:46] The man with two dicks.

[33:47] Yeah.

[33:48] That was the last one that Walt worked on before they froze him.

[33:51] Yeah.

[33:51] It really shows that he was losing it a little bit.

[33:53] Yeah.

[33:55] So.

[33:56] See our dicks.

[33:57] See our dicks.

[33:58] We have two dicks.

[33:59] That was a big song at the time.

[34:01] It's weird that they.

Stuart Wellington

[34:01] It's really weird.

[34:02] Yeah.

[34:03] It's really weird that they made a movie about the director, the voice actor.

[34:08] But it makes sense.

[34:09] Yeah.

[34:09] It seems crazy until you start watching it.

[34:11] Then it all makes sense.

[34:12] So I get a question.

[34:13] It's better than it sounds.

[34:14] Yeah.

[34:14] If they had made the star character like a genie from Aladdin type character, who should

[34:23] have been the big personality voice?

[34:25] Who are we talking?

[34:26] Are we talking Kevin Hart?

Elliott Kalan

[34:28] Kevin Hart?

[34:28] I probably.

[34:29] There's a time when it would have been Chris Tucker.

[34:31] There's a time when it would have been.

[34:34] Has Kevin Hart done a voice in a Disney movie?

[34:37] I.

[34:38] Yeah.

[34:38] I don't know if he has.

[34:39] He's.

[34:39] I want.

[34:40] You know what?

[34:40] I'm going to look up Kevin Hart voice acting.

[34:42] But I think.

Dan McCoy

[34:42] Maybe if he's scripted, it would be fine.

[34:45] I've been seeing him do like the Olympic stuff recently.

[34:50] Like with Kenan as his co-host.

[34:53] And like Kenan's great.

[34:55] When Snoop Dogg came on, he was.

[34:57] Snoop Dogg's great.

[34:57] He was great.

[34:58] When John Cena came on, he was funny.

[35:01] Kevin Hart is floundering in this show.

Elliott Kalan

[35:05] I forgot.

[35:06] Kevin Hart's done a bunch of animated stuff.

[35:08] So yeah.

[35:09] He might.

[35:09] I bet you they would have had him or someone like him.

[35:12] Him or the younger version of him.

[35:13] You know.

[35:15] Anyway.

[35:16] Although with the general kind of blandness of the movie, maybe it would be like Colin

[35:18] Jost or someone like that.

[35:20] You know.

Dan McCoy

[35:21] They sing a song at this point saying that it's possible.

[35:25] The fact that.

[35:25] Why is it possible that they can all talk now?

[35:27] Because they're all the same.

[35:29] To borrow a quote from Carl Sagan.

[35:31] We are all made of star stuff.

[35:34] Asha.

[35:35] These mushrooms.

[35:36] This star.

[35:37] All star stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[35:39] Valentino.

[35:39] The talking goat.

[35:40] Now that he's talking.

[35:42] And I'm like, whatever, man.

Dan McCoy

[35:43] Fine.

[35:44] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[35:44] This is the most.

[35:46] I just read a book.

[35:48] I just read a Carl Sagan book.

[35:50] And I'm super excited.

[35:51] And I want to explain it to you.

[35:52] But I don't really understand the book that I read type of song.

[35:55] Like it is.

[35:56] Nothing's connected.

[35:57] They're like, hey.

[35:58] You wondering how animals can talk because a magic star came down?

[36:00] Well, we're all made of star stuff.

[36:02] So you know what?

[36:03] You're a star.

[36:04] Believe in yourself.

[36:04] And I'm like, what is this song about?

[36:06] Like what is going on?

[36:08] And they're like.

[36:10] A deer will have like a California surfer dude type voice.

[36:13] And things like that.

[36:14] None of it makes any sense.

[36:15] Classic character.

[36:16] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:16] I love Stu's sad shaking his head.

[36:19] Like, you know, he's just resigned to.

Stuart Wellington

[36:22] What I'll say is I feel like of the songs, this one has stuff going on.

[36:27] Yeah.

[36:27] I agree.

Dan McCoy

[36:28] There's certainly a lot of stuff going on.

[36:29] It's all disconnected.

Stuart Wellington

[36:30] It helps that it's a lot of animals so they can be slightly more cartoony than the humans in the movie that move herky jerky like they're in an episode of Reboot or something.

[36:42] Yeah.

[36:43] I think too.

[36:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[36:45] So Asha and the star realize that they shouldn't just waste this magic giving goats the voice of Alan Tudyk, even though that's a fun thing to do.

[36:54] They should go to the castle, get those wishes.

[36:57] And meanwhile, the king feels threatened due to his past trauma and almost uses the forbidden book of forbidden magic.

[37:06] But the queen is able to talk him down.

[37:08] For now, Asha takes the star to the castle and confides with her friends that she has a star.

[37:16] And this is revealed to them via a chicken dance number, a bunch of chickens doing the thing conducted by the goat.

Elliott Kalan

[37:25] Yep.

[37:25] The goat is directing them.

[37:27] Again, the magic has allowed them to express their inner dancers.

[37:31] Oh, okay.

[37:31] Like a chorus line or something?

[37:34] Yeah.

[37:34] Yeah, very much so.

[37:34] It's a big Broadway-type dance number.

[37:36] It's the kind of thing that Disney would often do to finish a big song in their movies.

[37:40] But here it just kind of happens in a closet.

Dan McCoy

[37:43] Yeah.

[37:44] I mean, on the one hand, I don't want to argue with it because it's something that's happening that has a little bit of fun.

[37:49] On the other hand, it's like, why is this?

[37:52] No.

Elliott Kalan

[37:52] Dan, I feel like we didn't scratch the surface of that song, I'm a Star, and how nonsense it is.

[37:56] So I just want to read some lyrics to you.

[37:58] Okay, please.

[37:58] So here's the part where they say, see, we were all just little nebula in a nursery from supernovas.

[38:03] Now we've grown into our history.

[38:04] We're taken wise right out of mystery closure.

[38:06] Now we're taken in all the star exposure.

[38:08] And you're like, what?

[38:10] What did any of that?

[38:10] And later on, they start all singing about how he goes, here's a little fun allegory that gets me excitatory.

[38:16] This might sink in in the morning.

[38:17] We are our origin story.

[38:19] And it's like, nope, didn't.

[38:21] I don't know what's going on in this song.

[38:22] And each verse is a different animal or tree or mushroom that is like, hey, Asha, let me explain it to you.

[38:28] Here's some more nonsense that doesn't make any sense.

[38:30] So it's as if you took the whole movie of cats and crammed it into one song.

[38:36] And it made even less sense.

Stuart Wellington

[38:38] So it's a song where, yeah, they keep attempting to explain, but it keeps getting stranger and more esoteric.

[38:44] Yes.

[38:44] But she does not react in a way – she doesn't act like it's nonsense.

[38:48] She gets it pretty much right away.

[38:50] She's like, oh, I understand.

Elliott Kalan

[38:51] Yeah, that's why magic.

[38:52] Okay.

[38:52] Yeah, we're all stars.

[38:54] Having you saying that story does open up, right, because it feels like reading a book written by a warlock about magic.

[38:59] If you've ever read like an occult nonfiction book.

[39:01] All the time.

[39:02] It's like they're always like, allow me to explain.

[39:04] And then they say something that makes even less sense and is even more complicated.

[39:08] And they're like, a way to understand that is – and then they say something that is even harder to understand than what they just said.

[39:12] So it's kind of like that.

[39:15] So Asha sneaks around.

[39:17] But Dan, the occult book that you wrote was great.

[39:18] What?

[39:19] That book you wrote of occult spells, that was great.

[39:21] That was very clear.

[39:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:23] The snackronomicon.

[39:29] Yeah, nacho lithotep.

Elliott Kalan

[39:31] The crunching chaos is a big part of that.

Dan McCoy

[39:36] So Asha sneaks around trying to get at those wishes.

[39:41] She causes all these sorts of magical hijinks.

Stuart Wellington

[39:44] She doesn't.

[39:44] The star just starts blasting shit all over the place.

Dan McCoy

[39:47] Well, I mean, I think the blame is shared.

[39:49] Anyway, meanwhile, the king is outside downstairs making a speech.

[39:53] About how there's an unknown magic user putting everyone at risk.

[39:56] He needs information.

[39:58] Her best friend, the baker, downstairs notices –

Elliott Kalan

[39:59] He says, we want information.

[40:01] And Patrick McEwen says, you won't get it.

[40:03] And then he says, by hook or by crook, we will.

[40:07] Yeah, well –

[40:07] I am not a wish.

[40:08] I am a free star.

[40:10] Kids love this shit.

[40:11] They love it.

[40:13] They're like, are you a number?

[40:15] Good question.

[40:16] I am not a number.

[40:17] Next question.

[40:17] Any follow-ups?

Stuart Wellington

[40:18] Is there like a weird giant white bubble that falls and sucks you in?

Dan McCoy

[40:22] Oh my god.

[40:22] Those are wishes.

Elliott Kalan

[40:23] I'm so glad you asked.

[40:24] Yes, that's a giant wish that absorbs you.

Dan McCoy

[40:27] Yeah.

[40:28] The wish overtakes you.

Elliott Kalan

[40:29] I mean, if your wish is to be absorbed by a giant white bubble, then you're in luck.

[40:33] You got it, baby.

Dan McCoy

[40:36] Get in line.

[40:37] No, look.

[40:38] There's like sparks and stuff coming out of the tower.

[40:40] The band Sparks?

Elliott Kalan

[40:41] Elliot's favorite band?

[40:42] This movie would have turned around immediately if sparks had shown up and done a song in it.

Dan McCoy

[40:47] Oh, would have been great.

[40:49] So to distract the king from the hijinks happening behind him, the baker asks a question, and then that leads the citizenry to ask a bunch of questions.

Elliott Kalan

[40:58] They're questioning the whole system that they live under.

[41:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:00] Yeah, the king is confronted with what all dictators fear, a questioning citizenry.

Stuart Wellington

[41:10] So it's time for the iron fist, right?

Elliott Kalan

[41:14] He's like—

[41:15] Danny Rand?

[41:16] Who can channel all of his power to make his fist onto a thing of iron?

Stuart Wellington

[41:20] I mean, that's the thing.

[41:21] I didn't care for Asian martial arts until a white guy with a mask started doing it.

Dan McCoy

[41:27] I'll just let you guys tire yourselves out a little bit.

Elliott Kalan

[41:29] No, Dan, I'll never get tired of talking about the iron fist.

Dan McCoy

[41:31] I'll let the lead run and—

Elliott Kalan

[41:33] Anyway, the city of Kunlun.

[41:35] It's a magical city that only appears every now and then.

Dan McCoy

[41:38] No, at this point, Magnifico gets angry.

[41:39] He's like, is all you care about is wishes?

[41:42] And I'm like, man, you built a whole wish-based society.

[41:44] You are at fault here.

Elliott Kalan

[41:46] Why does everyone at the crayon factory talk about the crayons all the time?

Dan McCoy

[41:52] He goes and he sings a petulant song about how he wants unquestioned love.

[41:58] And I gotta say, Chris Pine—

Stuart Wellington

[41:59] Yeah, is this Pine's voice?

Dan McCoy

[42:00] Yeah, he was a pretty good singer in Into the Woods.

[42:03] And here he feels like he's struggling with this song.

Elliott Kalan

[42:05] Oh, who's he playing Into the Woods?

Dan McCoy

[42:06] He's one of the—

[42:07] One of the princes.

[42:08] Prince's, yeah, he sings Agony.

Elliott Kalan

[42:09] I mean, his performance in Agony is really fun.

[42:11] Yeah.

[42:12] They do that song really well in that movie.

Dan McCoy

[42:14] One of the few things that movie does well.

Elliott Kalan

[42:16] Yeah, yeah.

[42:18] I think this song, he's trying his hardest.

[42:21] This is a tough song.

[42:22] He has to keep—because it's also like they keep interjecting slang into it.

[42:25] He has to change attitude between—

[42:28] Yeah.

[42:28] From one line of lyrics to the next.

[42:29] And it's a long song.

Dan McCoy

[42:30] A lot of it is sort of like speaks sung to—

[42:34] Yes, Rex Harrison style.

Elliott Kalan

[42:36] I will say this is one of the catchier songs to me in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[42:39] I mean, there's some verve going on because, you know, we've got one of the more energetic voice actors at least.

[42:45] Yeah.

[42:45] But anyway, Asha manages to escape, but only with Saba's wish.

[42:50] And she takes it to him.

[42:52] He reabsorbs it into his body.

Elliott Kalan

[42:55] A little creepy, yeah.

[42:56] Yeah.

[42:57] Kind of existence style, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:00] And they're happy for a moment, but then the king shows up and tells Asha she's been turned in.

[43:06] And at this point, he crushes her mom's wish in his hand and monologues about how all the time he was protecting these wishes,

[43:13] but he didn't realize all the power that they could give him.

Elliott Kalan

[43:15] Because when he crushes it, he absorbs it, existence style.

Dan McCoy

[43:19] And the star distracts the king.

Elliott Kalan

[43:22] When you go out for dinner, when they say, do you want this existence style?

[43:27] Do you ever say yes?

[43:28] I've never said yes.

Stuart Wellington

[43:29] Well, they bring the bread out, and then I just mush it in my hand, and I absorb it.

Dan McCoy

[43:33] Yeah.

[43:33] I mean, well, my problem is I'm afraid I'm going to get like a soup that I'm going to need to assemble.

[43:38] And I don't like making models.

[43:40] It's not my thing.

Elliott Kalan

[43:41] You don't want deconstructed food.

[43:43] You want the cook to do the work, not you.

[43:45] I see Stuart's face like, look, man.

Dan McCoy

[43:47] You know, we're different people.

[43:48] I can, you'll enjoy it.

[43:50] My problem is.

[43:50] You can have my soup.

Elliott Kalan

[43:51] When I eat a chicken or a duck, like, you know me, I eat the bones.

[43:54] I crunch them, and I suck the marrow out.

[43:56] And then if the waiter is like, oh, you were supposed to make a gun out of that, I'd be like, uh-oh.

[44:00] That's the problem.

[44:01] Maybe my tummy will do it.

[44:04] I'll poop it out.

[44:05] Can I poop out the gun?

[44:07] Yes.

[44:07] The bathroom is over there.

Dan McCoy

[44:09] So, the star distracts the king enough for them to escape.

[44:13] Ash sends her family off the island in a boat, but stays to help the citizenry.

[44:17] And honestly, like, it seems like it should be easier to help them, especially at this point,

[44:22] when Magnifico is not, like, super powerful, because she's got a wish-granting star on her side.

[44:28] Like, there's so much in this plot that I'm like, you have a fucking magic star.

[44:32] Just, like, cut through the knot here and do what you got to do.

[44:37] You think the-

[44:38] Let some more animals talk.

Elliott Kalan

[44:39] Yeah.

[44:40] The ability to kind of warp reality by letting animals speak, you think, would play a greater part in the solution of the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[44:47] I'm surprised more of the animals aren't like, stop eating us.

[44:54] Wouldn't that have been crazy if that's what happened in this Disney movie?

[44:57] It would be, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[44:59] Hey, you know what?

[44:59] Maybe you don't put us into zoos, because we can talk.

Stuart Wellington

[45:02] Yeah, yeah.

[45:03] Like a staunch, like, vegan message in this 100 years of Disney movie.

Dan McCoy

[45:08] So, anyway, back at the castle, the king is crushing people's wishes left and right to take their power.

[45:15] Yeah.

[45:16] And this new power-mad version of Chris Pine can no longer be talked down by his wife.

[45:21] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[45:22] She used to be the only break on his megalomaniacal tendencies, but now it doesn't work anymore.

Dan McCoy

[45:29] So, he has a big rally where the betrayer of Asha is revealed to be Simon, who—

Elliott Kalan

[45:36] You calling it a rally makes me so wish that they had made more of a Trump parallel out of it.

[45:40] Yeah.

[45:40] It'd be like, you know, you see this, these people running around with wishes or stars.

[45:45] What's the star doing?

[45:46] I don't—I shouldn't say this.

[45:47] Okay, I'll say it.

[45:48] I shouldn't say this.

[45:49] Mm-hmm.

[45:49] Do we need stars?

[45:50] Why can't the sky be dark all the time?

[45:52] Mm-hmm.

[45:52] Why can't we have the sun all the time?

[45:53] I shouldn't say it.

[45:54] Stars are lazy.

[45:55] The sun's lazy.

[45:56] Okay, I said it.

[45:56] I said it.

[45:57] You know.

[45:57] Hannibal Lecter!

[45:59] I can't just—

[46:00] I think it is so funny that Hannibal Lecter has become the thing that he has to bring up in every speech.

Dan McCoy

[46:05] Has he?

[46:06] Again, I've been not paying attention out of a—

[46:09] He brings it up a lot.

Elliott Kalan

[46:09] The late, great Hannibal Lecter, he used to say.

[46:12] And then he'd be like, Hannibal Lecter, not a nice guy.

[46:13] He wants you for dinner.

[46:15] It's like, why is this—why are you talking about this?

Dan McCoy

[46:18] I do appreciate, Elliot, that despite him being an oft-imitated man, you chose just to imitate the cadence of his voice and not—

[46:24] Yeah, I don't need to do his actual tone of voice.

[46:26] I don't need to do that.

[46:27] Yeah.

[46:28] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[46:29] I do find his cadence very funny, though, because it is a voice that says, I don't know what I'm saying now, and I don't know what I'm going to say next.

[46:37] It is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

[46:39] There's like a delight in his own voice.

[46:41] Oh, well, that's where that thought was going, you know?

Dan McCoy

[46:44] Yeah, if he was just like a weird monologist, that would be an alternate reality I could live with.

Elliott Kalan

[46:50] I mean, he's essentially Professor Erwin Corey at that point, you know, an American comedy legend.

Dan McCoy

[46:55] Anyway, so Simon has given Ash up in return for his wish being granted.

[47:01] He could no longer live a life without his wish.

[47:04] He was too despondent.

Elliott Kalan

[47:06] Maybe because his friends kept telling him, ever since you lost your wish, you've been a real piece of shit.

[47:10] Yeah.

[47:11] You've been a real dumbass ever since you lost your wish.

[47:13] Why'd you do that, idiot?

[47:14] And he's like, everyone does it.

[47:16] I don't understand.

[47:16] Why did it affect me so much more than everyone else?

Dan McCoy

[47:20] I don't know, dumbass.

[47:23] Ash sends a talking mouse to the queen.

[47:25] Check out Wish for Brains over here.

Elliott Kalan

[47:26] It gives away his wish, can't think straight.

[47:28] Oh, yeah, it sends the talking mouse over to talk to the queen.

[47:30] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:30] Yeah.

[47:32] All the friends gather in the baker's sort of hidden room where she goes.

[47:37] Central perk, yeah.

[47:38] Yeah.

[47:39] To her friends gather.

[47:40] And she sings a song to explain the plot up till now to them, kind of.

[47:45] Yeah, that's more.

[47:46] The queen shows up.

Stuart Wellington

[47:47] And they do like some light show stuff.

[47:49] Yeah, they do some shadow stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[47:52] Honestly.

[47:52] This is like the serious, we're getting ready for a rebellion song.

[47:56] This is not, again, not one of the worst songs, I think, in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[47:59] No, it's got like a, you know, like a drum thing.

[48:01] It's more driving, more excitement.

[48:03] But they could have done a lot more with the shadow puppet idea.

[48:05] I feel like this is like such a visually potentially interesting idea that they do not do much with.

[48:10] But the queen also shows up to join the revolutionary song.

[48:13] I wanted to say.

[48:14] Sorry, Elliot.

[48:14] What were you going to say?

Elliott Kalan

[48:15] I was looking up, I was doing some research about these songs earlier, just reading Reddit boards about them.

[48:21] And they were, one of the people, they were like, compare this song to a kind of similar feeling song, which is I'm going to make a man out of you.

[48:28] I was going to say that.

[48:30] Yeah.

[48:30] And just how great that song is and how this one is.

[48:33] And what they were pointing out was the lyrics are so literal that there's not a lot of metaphor or kind of like physical examples or things.

[48:40] It's kind of literally saying, I thought this and now I know this.

[48:44] Don't get fooled by that because this is what happened.

[48:46] And it just feels very, it doesn't do a lot on a poetic level, you know, compared to that song, which is a great song.

Dan McCoy

[48:52] Yeah, that's a good point.

Elliott Kalan

[48:53] Mysterious is the dark side of the moon.

[48:54] Come on.

[48:55] It's great.

Dan McCoy

[48:56] So the queen is on their side.

[49:00] She sneaks Asha's friends into the wish chamber.

[49:02] And meanwhile, Asha is going to try to distract the king away from the castle.

Elliott Kalan

[49:07] The only person who has magic is not going to be the one who goes to the wish chamber.

Dan McCoy

[49:10] Yeah, none of it makes sense.

[49:13] Out in the woods, the star turns a stick into a magic wand for Asha.

[49:16] And yet again, I'm like, well, why can't you just solve everything, you fucking useless wish star?

Stuart Wellington

[49:22] You really were getting mad at this cute star that earlier you loved.

[49:25] Yeah, it just makes like a little giggle and covers its mouth.

[49:28] And you're like, that's not an answer.

Elliott Kalan

[49:29] The star is cute.

[49:32] The star is cute.

[49:32] I mean, she's like, star, don't be inconspicuous.

[49:35] The star puts a big handlebar mustache on his face and kind of creeps around.

[49:40] But it is true that like, he's like, oh, by the way, I can give you this magic wand.

[49:43] Hey, it turned an apple enormous.

[49:45] And then she's trying to use it and she can't figure out what to do with it.

[49:47] And it's like, star, just do it for her.

[49:48] Like, where are you going?

[49:49] Like, I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[49:50] Yeah, I feel like this is just like something that would have been such an easy fix on the screenplay level.

[49:57] Just add some bullshit rule, like some guardrails, something that restricts the star's seemingly unrestricted power to explain to us why.

[50:08] But none of that work is done.

[50:10] So I'm here yelling at a children's movie.

Elliott Kalan

[50:14] I wish I could watch it with you and see you yelling at a children's movie.

[50:17] Wish.

[50:18] Asha, just, yeah.

[50:19] Oh, that's my wish.

[50:20] It turns out that's what it was.

[50:21] That's what Magnifico took for me.

[50:22] It's just an image of Dan shaking his fist at a TV over and over again.

[50:27] I mean, the wishes are basically just GIFs, right?

[50:30] They're basically just GIFs inside of snow globes.

Dan McCoy

[50:33] Yeah.

[50:35] So she's doing this.

[50:36] Asha's friends are doing some unfunny shenanigans, trying to open the roof of the wish chamber to let those wishes free.

[50:43] They managed to do it, but surprise.

[50:45] Oh, a reveal.

[50:46] It's not actually the king who has chased Asha.

Stuart Wellington

[50:49] It's Simon in, you know, he's been cloaked in one of, in sorcery.

Dan McCoy

[50:55] Spell, yeah.

[50:56] Yeah.

[50:57] But this threat on her is resolved almost immediately when a talking bear leaps on him.

[51:04] One of her woodland friends.

[51:06] Yeah.

[51:07] And he's left to presumably be beaten up by a bunch of bunnies who show up looking angry back at the castle.

Elliott Kalan

[51:14] And the bear has the hilarious cartoon name of John.

Dan McCoy

[51:19] Well, that, again, is a reference, I guess, to Little John from Robin Hood.

[51:24] Robin Hood, because he's a bear in the Disney.

Elliott Kalan

[51:26] And I know he mentions, he calls Bambi, he goes, a dear Bambi.

[51:29] But it's like, at that point, like, stripped of its context, it means nothing.

[51:32] It's just, it's just nothing.

[51:34] It's nonsense.

[51:35] No, I agree.

Dan McCoy

[51:35] It's not a reference.

[51:37] I mean, like, at least, you know, I don't know.

[51:39] Give him a little, like, Robin Hood-style hat that he made out of a leaf or something.

[51:43] Thank God.

[51:44] Give him a little hat.

[51:44] Or a little hat.

Elliott Kalan

[51:44] Or something.

[51:45] Yeah, like, or something, you know.

[51:46] Or I guess that's, that's, that's not Little John who has that.

[51:48] That's, what's his face?

[51:49] Who's the monk?

[51:50] Friartuck?

[51:51] Friartuck.

Dan McCoy

[51:52] Yeah.

[51:52] I'm going to mix that up.

[51:53] He's like a, what's he, like a mole, I think?

[51:56] Friartuck?

[51:58] Oh, what?

[51:58] A mole.

[51:59] Oh.

[51:59] Not like a mole for, like, the other side.

[52:02] I was going to say.

[52:02] Like, he's not working for the sheriff.

[52:04] I was like, I think Friartuck sold out Robin Hood.

[52:05] I think he's like a.

Elliott Kalan

[52:06] He's like a mole, right?

[52:07] I think that's the animal he's supposed to be.

[52:08] Like a rich sauce with a lot of, a lot of ingredients.

[52:11] Mm-hmm.

[52:11] Okay.

[52:12] Can you name some of those ingredients?

[52:13] Yeah.

[52:14] Uh, pepper.

[52:17] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[52:17] Uh, yeah.

[52:19] Famously, a dark chocolate sauce.

[52:20] Yeah.

[52:21] That's one of the.

[52:22] Opponents.

[52:23] Anyway, back at the castle.

Elliott Kalan

[52:24] But it doesn't have real moles in it, right?

Dan McCoy

[52:26] No, no, no.

[52:28] Not anymore.

Stuart Wellington

[52:29] But sharks.

[52:30] Sharks.

[52:31] What I'm suggesting is.

[52:32] What if it does?

[52:35] I'm asking for a 10% stake.

[52:37] 20 million dollars.

[52:39] I'm calling it mole mole.

[52:40] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[52:43] So back at the castle, Magnifico recaptures all the wishes and the star in like a magic net.

[52:48] He's gone full evil.

[52:50] He zaps his wife.

[52:51] He's yelling things like, the wishes aren't yours to free.

[52:53] Does he have his magical staff yet?

[52:56] Uh, I believe so.

[52:57] At this point, yes.

[52:58] He has the staff.

[52:59] Uh, Asha arrives too late.

Elliott Kalan

[53:01] He is full of forbidden magic.

[53:02] He has become suffused with forbidden magic.

[53:04] He's just an evil guy now.

[53:04] Yeah.

[53:05] Awesome.

Dan McCoy

[53:06] Magnifico sucks the wishes and the star into his staff.

[53:10] Uh, and he proclaims, there will be no more wishing on stars ever again.

[53:14] And he clouds up the sky.

[53:15] And he traps the citizens in these sort of like magic thorn tendrils.

[53:19] And he zaps Asha around.

[53:21] Oh, things look bleak.

[53:23] For our heroes.

[53:24] There's no way they're coming back from this.

Elliott Kalan

[53:26] Uh, but suddenly she remembers.

[53:28] I was like, I was like, I was like a bold decision for a Disney movie to just have the villain

[53:32] win because there's no way the heroes can get out of this.

[53:35] It's impossible.

[53:36] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[53:36] You think this is it for Asha, but there's a whole brim full of Asha left.

[53:40] She remembers.

[53:41] Wow.

[53:41] That all people are stars from that.

[53:44] Oh, right.

[53:44] And so he starts singing, even though, uh, he's trying to crush her with his magic and

[53:50] stuff.

[53:51] And the citizens join in and that weakens him enough to free the star and the cane, uh,

[53:56] the cane, the staff sucks him in.

[53:58] Does she like whip out some shurikens?

[54:00] Cause those are stars.

[54:02] Those are stars.

[54:03] Good point.

[54:04] Stars you can throw.

[54:06] Simon.

[54:07] Uh, so he's defeated.

[54:08] He's in the cane.

[54:09] Simon, apologizes.

[54:11] Staff.

[54:11] Apologizes.

Elliott Kalan

[54:12] He's in like a little, he's in kind of like a little,

[54:14] mirror lens.

[54:15] Right.

[54:16] And there was part of me that was like, are they implying that he's going to become

[54:19] like the mirror in snow white that talks to the, you know, that could be what they're

[54:24] trying to evoke.

[54:25] When he's in the mirror for so long, he loses any aspect of his personality and he's just

[54:29] that face.

Dan McCoy

[54:30] Could be.

[54:31] Uh, Simon apologizes for betraying Asha in favor of his wish and they all, Simon.

[54:36] Yeah.

[54:36] And they all forgive him, uh, uh, way too easily for my liking, especially considering

[54:41] that the queen is like immediately like, see ya.

[54:44] But, uh, her husband who arguably like a lot of his actions were influenced by bad magic.

[54:51] It was not.

Stuart Wellington

[54:52] Oh man.

[54:53] You know, the neighboring countries are like, there's no sorcerer there anymore.

[54:57] Time to invade.

[54:59] Time to invade Rosas.

[55:00] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:01] Uh, but anyway, the star leaves Asha with a magic wand so she can be the town's fairy

[55:05] godmother, uh, where she'll presumably just grant wishes willy nilly devaluing any sort

[55:12] of human efforts.

Elliott Kalan

[55:13] It's like, yeah, that's a better system to just have a teenager with the ability to grant

[55:16] whatever wish she feels like at the moment.

Stuart Wellington

[55:19] Teenagers are just like sociopaths though, right?

[55:21] So yeah, it's fine.

[55:22] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:24] And, uh, the star has to return to the sky, uh, in time for Geppetto to wish on it, presumably.

Elliott Kalan

[55:30] Um.

[55:30] I mean, which I have to assume is hundreds of years later.

[55:33] Yeah.

[55:33] If not longer.

[55:34] Like, but maybe it's the same.

Stuart Wellington

[55:35] All the characters we have seen up to this point are not but dust on the ground.

[55:41] Except for Magnifico who resides for eternity, uh, trapped inside of a mirror.

[55:46] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:46] In some ways he has the last laugh.

[55:48] He will continue to exist when everyone else goes back to being just star stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[55:51] I feel like there's a certain amount of madness that comes along with being trapped inside

[55:55] a mirror forever.

[55:56] Mm.

Stuart Wellington

[55:57] Mm.

[55:57] One of the great British ska bands.

[55:59] That's okay.

[55:59] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[56:00] Yeah.

[56:01] Uh, and, uh, to finish off the movie, Asha tells the town people and the audience to

[56:06] just keep wishing and sends them out into the lobby to buy Disney merchandise.

[56:11] Uh, but.

Stuart Wellington

[56:11] But that's a good, that's a good point because when I pulled this up, I watched it at home.

[56:15] I didn't see it in the movie theater.

[56:17] Mm-hmm.

[56:17] Uh, but when you pull up the, like, screen for the movie in between the, like, name of the

[56:24] movie and the play button, there's a big thing that's like, buy merch.

[56:28] Like, I took a, uh, took a screenshot.

[56:30] Oh, really?

[56:31] But it, like, literally says, like, uh, wait, let me pull it up.

[56:34] And during the credits, I assume you guys-

[56:35] It says, enjoy access to merchandise.

[56:37] Enjoy access to merchandise.

[56:38] Visit the shop tab to learn more.

[56:40] I'm like, I love access to merchandise.

[56:41] Enjoy access to merchandise.

Elliott Kalan

[56:43] For too long has my access to merchandise been barred by forces beyond my control.

[56:48] The, uh, I don't, I assume you guys didn't watch the credits, but during the credits, images

[56:52] of-

[56:52] Well, watch some of it, yeah, yeah.

[56:53] Images of past Disney characters show up.

Dan McCoy

[56:55] Yeah, and the stars.

[56:56] And then at the end, we see Saba playing When You Wish Upon a Star in his mandolin.

[57:01] He got his wish to inspire future generations and also to spit on the graves of Lee Hartley,

[57:06] Hartley and Ned Washington, the actual composers of that song.

[57:10] I'm sure I said it wrong, but at least I'm saying their names rather than-

Elliott Kalan

[57:13] No, but that's, no, no, that's true.

[57:14] If you buy the sheet music from that song now, it says composed by Sabino.

[57:18] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[57:18] Yeah.

[57:19] Yeah.

[57:19] Uh, and it says under that, it says, you remember the guy from Wish?

[57:23] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[57:24] And then under that, it says, you know, the movie Wish?

Stuart Wellington

[57:27] Yeah, I didn't, you know, I didn't realize what this, I didn't realize the whole hundred

[57:31] years of Disney connection here.

[57:33] So the, at first I'm just like, why are they just showing me old Disney shit in the credits?

[57:38] But that makes sense now.

Elliott Kalan

[57:39] Even knowing that, it's kind of a weird thing to do because it's not, I, you know, they,

[57:44] Disney has done a lot, a lot more meta stuff recently than it used to, but it feels like

[57:48] if any time you were going to do a meta thing about the characters from Disney movies coming

[57:52] together or something or why they exist, it feels like this is the movie to do it and

[57:55] they don't go very far with that, you know?

[57:57] Although if they had, I'm sure we would do in the podcast and I'd be like, I hate this stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[58:00] Yeah, yeah, we'd be like, why are we watching Kingdom Hearts the movie?

Dan McCoy

[58:04] I do think this is arguably, as you say, a Pinocchio prequel, just like focusing, like,

[58:10] what's the origin story of that star?

[58:11] I gotta know.

[58:12] But anyway, let's do final judgments whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie

[58:18] or a movie we kind of like.

[58:19] I want to say off the top.

[58:23] I went to like the very negative New York Magazine review and I was looking, I disregarded

[58:31] the great advice to never read the comments.

[58:34] I was reading the comments.

[58:35] There were a lot of people who were like, like, why are you hard on this?

[58:38] It's a movie for kids.

[58:39] And I get it on the one hand and we've been very hard on a movie for kids.

[58:45] Like if kids enjoy it, that's great.

[58:48] I'm happy that they're having a good time.

[58:50] If like adults enjoy it, it's great.

[58:52] I'm happy they're having a good time.

[58:54] For me, you know, this podcast is nothing if not highly personal opinions on things.

[59:03] I am someone who like really likes a lot of Disney stuff.

[59:08] I know that the company has its negative sides too, but it has a history of some beautiful

[59:14] artistry.

[59:16] And I love a lot of Disney movies.

[59:18] I love a lot of Disney animated movies specifically.

[59:22] Like this movie was just so damn bland.

[59:24] And I'm just, I just want it to be held higher standard.

[59:28] That's all.

Stuart Wellington

[59:28] Yeah, you were talking about how much you love that one song from Peter Pan, that one

[59:32] song from Dumbo.

[59:34] Nope.

Dan McCoy

[59:35] Yeah.

[59:36] Yeah.

[59:36] So I, you know, like, I like a lot of Disney stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[59:39] You're a big fan of that one centaur in Fantasia.

[59:40] You're like, why'd they cut out that centaur?

[59:42] The one that.

Dan McCoy

[59:43] We don't.

[59:44] I don't even know what you're talking about.

[59:45] There's a scene.

[59:46] There's a scene in the centaur.

Elliott Kalan

[59:47] There's a servant centaur in Fantasia who is very much a kind of like black slave girl

[59:53] caricature and she has been very rightfully snipped out of the source, the current prince

[1:00:00] of that movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:00] What about the, what about the priest and a little mermaid that gets a boner?

[1:00:04] Is that still in there?

[1:00:05] I think that's, I don't think that was intended.

[1:00:07] I mean, you would too, right?

[1:00:08] Have you seen Ariel?

[1:00:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:10] Yeah.

[1:00:10] I'm more of an Ursula kind.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:11] Anyway.

[1:00:11] I mean, have you seen Ursula?

[1:00:14] Ursula.

[1:00:14] Vafavum.

[1:00:15] Zoftig.

[1:00:15] Come on.

[1:00:16] And the tentacles?

[1:00:17] Yes, please.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:18] I think Ursula's coded not to be interested in you, Stuart.

[1:00:21] That's why I like Ursula.

[1:00:25] Anyway.

[1:00:26] Yeah.

[1:00:27] I like, I'm just saying we don't cover a lot of Disney stuff because honestly, it usually

[1:00:32] has a base level of competence, but this one was not very good in my opinion.

[1:00:38] I say bad, bad.

[1:00:39] Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:41] Yeah.

[1:00:41] You know, every once in a while a movie comes along that really shakes the preconceived expectations

[1:00:47] that I might have going in.

[1:00:50] You know, we watch this movie and we call, we watch the movies for this show and we call

[1:00:54] our show The Flophouse.

[1:00:55] So we already go in thinking that we're going to be watching potentially a bad movie.

[1:00:58] And you know what?

[1:00:59] This was a bad movie.

[1:01:01] I didn't enjoy it very much.

[1:01:02] It was kind of boring.

[1:01:03] It didn't look particularly good.

[1:01:05] I felt everything looked really flat and moved kind of slow.

[1:01:08] And it was kind of like a pale imitation of the things that came before it.

[1:01:12] The music was not particularly great.

[1:01:15] Even the vocal stylings of the various talented cast members did not shake me out of my disappointment.

[1:01:22] I was not a fan.

[1:01:24] Bad, bad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:25] I'm also going to say it's bad, bad.

[1:01:27] I will say when I saw it in the theaters, I was much more forgiving of it.

[1:01:30] Maybe it cast a little bit more of a spell on me.

[1:01:32] But watching it this time, I was like, this doesn't really work for a lot of different reasons.

[1:01:37] And it's too bad.

[1:01:38] Like you guys are saying, Disney as a corporation is one thing.

[1:01:41] I'm not a big fan of their corporate behavior.

[1:01:44] But there's a lot of Disney movies that mean a lot to me.

[1:01:47] And I would want the celebration of the centenary of that studio to be something really special.

[1:01:52] And that's hard to do.

[1:01:53] And for whatever reason, they lack in this the special elements that make those movies so memorable and so magical, for lack of a good word.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:02] And I'm sure all of the people involved in this movie have made better movies in the past and will make better movies again.

[1:02:08] Oh, for sure.

[1:02:08] Like very talented artists, all of them.

[1:02:11] I just, you know, not for me.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:13] And I would say the idea like, why should you criticize this?

[1:02:16] It's for kids.

[1:02:17] I kind of understand that because as a parent, I'm always looking for junk my kids can watch while I'm trying to get something done.

[1:02:22] But at the same time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:24] Like a bunch of dogs dressed up as civil servants or whatever.

[1:02:28] Yeah, okay, sure.

[1:02:30] I don't know what that is.

[1:02:31] Paw Patrol.

[1:02:31] Okay, yeah, sure.

[1:02:32] Yeah, that one I'm glad they moved off of that one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:35] But I will say, I was like, Bluey?

[1:02:38] Does he work as a mailman?

[1:02:39] But is he like at the DMV?

[1:02:42] What is Bluey?

[1:02:43] What's Bluey?

[1:02:43] Do you think the dog's playing poker?

[1:02:46] But I was going to say that in some ways, we should expect more especially out of entertainment for children.

[1:02:51] Because even though their standards are lower, the need for them to see and experience things of quality and to establish an understanding of kind of like what is possible when you connect with great art is even bigger.

[1:03:04] You know, if you raise a kid on crap, then they're not going to have a hunger when they're an adult for better things.

[1:03:09] And I say better things knowing it sounds snobby.

[1:03:11] But like a hunger for things that connect with them.

[1:03:12] You're talking about the Pamela Adlon show.

[1:03:14] Yeah, the sitcom.

[1:03:15] Yeah, exactly.

[1:03:15] They're not going to want to watch FX's hit show, Better Things.

[1:03:19] But you want a kid to have the experience of seeing something where they're like really touched by it.

[1:03:25] And I've seen my kids experience that watching movies.

[1:03:27] And so it's always a little disappointing when they watch something and they're like, that was okay.

[1:03:33] You know, even – I mean when I took – my kids really want to see this movie.

[1:03:35] And after they saw it, I don't think they ever talked about it again, which means it didn't make much of an impression.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:40] Yeah.

[1:03:40] It's like the first time Dan saw Porky's, right?

[1:03:44] Like –

[1:03:44] It really meant something to him.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:45] I don't want you to say go on, but I'm curious what you –

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:50] You know, just like to see the light in his eyes and the excitement, the quickening of his footsteps when he's realizing what's possible.

[1:03:57] The quickening of his pulse.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:59] I want kids to go to the movies or watch movies with a feeling, this is going to be really fun.

[1:04:04] This is going to be great.

[1:04:05] Rather than, okay, I'm just watching something, you know.

[1:04:08] Yeah.

[1:04:10] Hey, do you have a favorite episode of Star Trek?

S5

[1:04:17] If you do, you should also have a favorite Star Trek podcast.

S4

[1:04:21] Greatest Trek is about all the new streaming Star Trek shows and it's a great companion to The Greatest Generation,

[1:04:26] our hit show about back catalog Star Trek that you grew up with.

S5

[1:04:30] It's a comedy podcast by two folks who used to be video producers,

[1:04:34] so it's a serious mix of comedy and insight that fits right into the Maximum Fun Network of shows.

S4

[1:04:39] And Greatest Trek is one of the most popular Star Trek podcasts in the world.

S5

[1:04:43] So if you're following Lower Decks, Prodigy, or Strange New Worlds,

[1:04:46] come hang out with us every Friday as we roast and review our favorite Star Trek shows.

S4

[1:04:51] It's on MaximumFun.org, YouTube, or your podcatching app.

Justin McElroy

[1:04:56] From the twisted minds that brought you The Adventure Zone, Balance, and Amnesty, and Graduation, and Ethersea,

[1:05:05] and Steeplechase, and Utrace, and all the other ones,

[1:05:09] the McElroy brothers and dad are proud to reveal a bold vision for the future of actual play podcasting.

[1:05:17] It's called The Adventure Zone vs. Dracula.

[1:05:22] Yeah, we're going to kill Dracula's ass.

[1:05:24] Well, we're going to attempt.

[1:05:25] We haven't recorded all of it yet.

[1:05:27] We will attempt to kill Dracula's ass.

[1:05:29] The Adventure Zone vs. Dracula.

[1:05:31] Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D 5th Edition rules set,

[1:05:36] and there's two episodes out for you to listen to right now.

[1:05:38] We hope you will join us.

[1:05:40] Same bat time, same bat channel.

[1:05:42] I see what you did there.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:45] Hey there.

[1:05:45] It's a very tired, I did not sleep last night, Dan, coming at you with some plugs.

[1:05:52] First off, I'd like to say, hey, we're able to do this show only because of the kind support of listeners like you,

[1:05:59] folks who have become sustaining members of Maximum Fun.

[1:06:02] Your monthly pledge keeps us going and is by far our main source of support,

[1:06:06] but also we do have sponsors.

[1:06:08] And this week, the Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace,

[1:06:12] the all-in-one website platform for you to stand out and succeed online.

[1:06:16] Whether you are just beginning your business or managing a growing brand,

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[1:06:47] You get a device, they'll optimize it for you.

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[1:07:17] So if this interests you, go to squarespace.com for a free trial.

[1:07:23] And when you are ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[1:07:33] And also, hey, it's summer.

[1:07:36] Did you notice?

[1:07:37] It's summer outside.

[1:07:38] Summer.

[1:07:39] Inside, it's also summer.

[1:07:41] But you don't feel it as much.

[1:07:43] And because it's summer, you don't want to be slaving over a hot stove or firing up the oven.

[1:07:48] And why are you putting fire in your oven?

[1:07:50] That's not how it works these days.

[1:07:52] I mean, maybe for some of you.

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[1:08:20] Choose from six menu preferences to help you manage calories, maximize protein intake, avoid meat, or simply eat well-balanced meals.

[1:08:28] Now, I've talked about a factor before.

[1:08:29] I'm a fan of cooking.

[1:08:32] You may have seen my Slop House Twitch streams with Stuart.

[1:08:36] But even someone who enjoys cooking also enjoys taking a little time off once in a while.

[1:08:42] And Factor has pre-made meals that suit my food snobbiness.

[1:08:48] They're delicious.

[1:08:50] Even the lower calorie choices that I chose were delicious.

[1:08:54] So, if this interests you, why not head to factormeals.com slash flop50 and use code FLOP50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month.

[1:09:04] That is code even.

[1:09:07] Hey, let's do our personal plugs.

[1:09:22] Elliot, why don't you kick us off?

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:25] Sure.

[1:09:25] I'd love to mention some personal things I'm doing.

[1:09:27] If you like podcasts, and I know I do, maybe go over to the 99% Invisible feed when you're done with this one and listen to my monthly episode with Roman Mars where we're breaking down the book, The Power Broker.

[1:09:39] Very excited about it.

[1:09:40] We do it once a month.

[1:09:41] We're going to go through the entire book 100 pages at a time.

[1:09:43] And in October, on October 7th, he and I are going to interview Robert Caro live on stage at the New York Historical Society.

[1:09:50] I'm super excited about it.

[1:09:51] It's a dream come true.

[1:09:52] At the same time, maybe you don't like podcasts.

[1:09:54] That's cool.

[1:09:55] Maybe you like comic books instead.

[1:09:56] Why not try Hercules from Dynamite Comics, my current series, a Disney character.

[1:10:01] It's incredibly relevant to this episode where I am continuing the story of Hercules, Meg, Phil, Zeus, all your favorite characters from the Disney Hercules movie, in an all-new adventure with some new mythological characters, a new villain, all sorts of stuff.

[1:10:15] It's adventure, but it's also funny.

[1:10:17] And I just handed in the last script just a couple weeks ago, and I think I wrapped it up okay.

[1:10:24] I was enjoying it.

[1:10:25] I was enjoying writing it.

[1:10:25] I hope you enjoy reading it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:27] And I'd like to do a little plug for some friends of the podcast, and the plug goes like this.

[1:10:35] From the origins of chess to the battlefields of Gettysburg to dungeons to dragons to Indiana graveyards full of bajencoed vampire Stuart Wellingtons whipping plus five tennis balls at each other.

[1:10:49] This is the story of tabletop.

[1:10:51] This is the story of tabletop triumph, even in our digital age.

[1:10:57] Game Masters, the comic book history of role-playing games, takes readers on an incredible journey from the mists of the past to the screen-lit present, showing not just how these games work and why we love them, but what they can tell us about ourselves.

[1:11:14] This is a Kickstarter campaign for a comic book by a friend of the podcast, Tom Fowler, friend of the podcast, Fred Van Lenti, and Bill Crabtree.

[1:11:25] It's great stuff, and you should check it out.

[1:11:28] Just go over to Kickstarter and look up Game Masters, the comic book history of role-playing games.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:34] And I want to remind people that if you're interested in keeping on top of all things Flophouse, we have a newsletter called Flop Secrets.

[1:11:43] If you go to flophousepodcast.com, there's a little field on the front page where you can put your email in to subscribe to hear all our news, what's going on with us.

[1:11:57] I include fun things that make it fun to read as well.

[1:12:01] This last one that went out, I did a last chance mailbag where I answered a mailbag question that otherwise might have never been gotten to.

[1:12:09] So if that's something that you're interested in, that's the kind of thing that's also in there.

[1:12:13] Also, I used this last newsletter to announce another newsletter, my personal newsletter, which I just am about to start.

[1:12:23] Probably will have gone out at least one by the time that this is published.

[1:12:28] If you go to danmccoyinterests.com, you can sign up for that.

[1:12:39] It's called that.

[1:12:39] And it's safe for work, right?

[1:12:40] Yeah, so the reason is that URL is I called my thing Dan McCoy special interests because it's kind of playing off the idea.

[1:12:50] I got this late in life neurodivergent ADHD diagnosis.

[1:12:56] And a lot of people with divergences have these special interests that they're more obsessed with, more fixated on.

[1:13:04] And I thought that was kind of a lens to look through some pop culture stuff.

[1:13:10] It's not heavily about that.

[1:13:13] It's more funny pop culture stuff.

[1:13:17] Also, some personal essays.

[1:13:19] So check that out.

[1:13:19] That's great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:20] I'm looking forward to it.

[1:13:21] To get a little glimpse every, what, every three days into the mind of Dan McCoy?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:25] No, I think I'm going to do it every other week when I'm not doing the Flop Secrets newsletter.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:30] Yeah, that's if we just let people into the Flophouse group chat to get just occasional drawings, screenshots of things, general things that I am very happy to have access to.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:43] That's Dan McCoy's special interests.

[1:13:45] I'm sorry that sometimes my method of reaching out is to send a random image of some sort.

[1:13:52] I appreciate that you guys, you know.

[1:13:54] I love it.

[1:13:55] Yeah.

[1:13:56] Endure and mostly enjoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:58] Yeah, I'm just glad it's no longer just the image that you made of yourself where the eyes and the mouth were kind of like ripped out and replaced with some other image.

[1:14:05] I forget.

[1:14:06] It was very, very disturbing to me.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:07] Oh, I don't remember that.

[1:14:09] But it sounds like something I –

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:11] It was like a mishmash of a picture of you and I think that picture of the woman who painted the bottom of her boobs to look like Garfield's eyes.

[1:14:17] Oh, right.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:18] Right.

[1:14:19] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:20] Mishmash, I think, is the technical term of that work of art.

[1:14:24] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:25] And there should be, unless I fell down on the job, there should be a mention at the top of this episode of Flop TV, our upcoming returning season of our monthly online live show that we do where it's like a one-hour version of the podcast but in your face in front of you.

[1:14:42] And we shoot some videos for it and we do lots of fun stuff.

[1:14:45] Anyway, we're going to be starting the first Saturday of each month starting in September.

[1:14:50] It's all sequel movies, RoboCup 2, Break-In 2, Ski School 2, Caddyshack 2, all sequels.

[1:14:57] It's going to be super fun.

[1:14:58] Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events for more information and a link to the ticket page.

[1:15:04] And you probably heard all this information at the top of the show, but I'm going to say it again.

[1:15:07] So it starts the first Saturday in September and it's the first Saturday in each month going forward for six months.

[1:15:13] Now these episodes, I should mention, you can get individual ticket passes or a season pass.

[1:15:19] The episodes will be available to watch throughout the entire run.

[1:15:23] We're going to leave them up online.

[1:15:24] So if you don't buy until episode three is up and you get a season pass, you can still watch episode one and two in that pass.

[1:15:31] You're not going to be missing anything, but you should probably buy your tickets early anyway.

[1:15:36] Don't forget, come on.

[1:15:37] Flexible.

[1:15:38] But it can fit your schedule.

[1:15:39] You can watch it when ifs.

[1:15:40] After we do it live, the video will be up online for you to watch at your leisure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:45] You can watch it whenever.

[1:15:46] You know, when you're at work, when you're driving, when you're on the toilet.

[1:15:49] In the bath.

[1:15:50] At church, when you're with your parents.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:52] When you're taking a bath with your parents at church, yeah, and using the toilet, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:55] That's called baptism.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:58] Yeah, but you're not using the bathroom in it, right?

[1:16:00] Yeah.

[1:16:01] I mean, if you're a little baby, maybe.

[1:16:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:05] Let's move on to letters from listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:07] Flop TV season two, if you're a little baby, you might poop in the baptism bath.

[1:16:11] That's the slogan, right, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:16:12] Mm-hmm.

[1:16:13] Yeah.

[1:16:13] Yep.

[1:16:14] Thank you for ruining that easy ad break for Alex.

[1:16:19] Let's do letters from listeners now.

[1:16:22] This is from Derek, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:16:27] Hey, Peaches, my friend Kyle took his car to the mechanic the other day and sat in the waiting room while they worked on it.

[1:16:32] When it was done, he went to pay.

[1:16:34] The guy gave him a-

[1:16:35] All checks out.

[1:16:36] The guy gave him a-

[1:16:37] Yeah, no lies so far.

[1:16:40] The guy gave him a really odd look.

[1:16:42] Confused, he got into the car, started it, and shortly after, the Flophouse podcast started playing.

[1:16:48] Elliot was ranking and arguing over which gremlins were sexiest.

[1:16:53] He is not sure he can go back to that mechanic again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:56] I stand by my rankings.

[1:16:58] If he thinks that way, I'm the one who said those things.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:02] Anyway, is there a more embarrassing Flophouse episode that could have been playing in this situation?

[1:17:07] I struggle to think of one.

[1:17:09] Is there a podcast that you listen to that you would be absolutely mortified to have someone else hear a short out of context clip of?

[1:17:18] Keep on flopping in the free world.

[1:17:20] Derek, last name withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:21] Honestly, I don't think there's anywhere I'd be more embarrassed than someone hearing a clip from this out of context, this series.

[1:17:27] But I think I was a-

[1:17:29] I still listen to it sometimes, old episodes.

[1:17:31] I was a big fan of the Gilbert Gottfried Amazing Colossal podcast.

[1:17:34] And there are certain things in that where I definitely don't want it to turn on my car and have that start playing in case there's someone else there.

[1:17:40] Like, just stories he tells that are disgusting.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:43] I mean, I wouldn't want anyone to hear me listen to, like, the Joe Rogan experience.

[1:17:48] But you don't do that.

[1:17:50] Let's clarify.

[1:17:50] I don't do that.

[1:17:51] Yeah, let's clarify.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:51] Okay, actually, that's a good question.

[1:17:53] He didn't specify podcasts you actually listen to.

[1:17:56] Right.

[1:17:56] In that case, there are a lot of podcasts I would be mortified to have someone walk in and hear a short out of context clip.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:01] I would say, I mean, an easy one is my dad wrote a porno just because, you know, the nature of the material.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:11] I'm looking through my thing.

[1:18:12] Like, I guess Savage Lovecast gets kind of explicit at times, but I don't care about that.

[1:18:17] I'd be more embarrassed by, like, you know, and, you know, love to the people behind these podcasts.

[1:18:23] They're on my list.

[1:18:24] I listen to them.

[1:18:25] I'm not saying anything other than, like, my own sense of vanity.

[1:18:29] But, like, I don't know, if some, like, really, like, fucking nerdy thing came up from the comics canon or something or, like, something that just, like, revealed, like, the depths of, like, my esoterica on my podcast, like, then I would feel exposed to the world.

[1:18:45] Yeah, I can see that.

[1:18:46] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:47] Although I think, I mean, deep down, everybody just really wants to be seen for who they are, Dan.

[1:18:53] So maybe deep down, although it's a little scary, you just want people to hear all your nerdy podcast obsessions.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:00] I said earlier, everybody wants to be a cat.

[1:19:02] Oh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:03] So when you said everybody wants some, you meant everybody wants some being a cat time?

[1:19:09] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:11] Did we all answer that question?

[1:19:13] Yeah, we did.

[1:19:14] Just move on, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:15] Even if we did, who cares?

[1:19:17] Come on.

[1:19:17] Who gives a rip, you know?

[1:19:19] We owe these people nothing.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:20] Good point.

[1:19:21] Well, we kind of, okay.

[1:19:22] Pete, last name withheld, writes.

[1:19:24] The retailer from Star Wars Minute?

[1:19:27] Good guy.

[1:19:28] We don't know.

[1:19:28] Could be.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:29] Dear Peaches.

[1:19:30] Or Pete Pan.

[1:19:32] Some people call him Peter Pan.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:34] I would like to keep this simple.

[1:19:36] Oh.

[1:19:36] If you could be a, and he will, if you could be a quatto on anyone living or dead.

[1:19:43] Normal.

[1:19:43] Normal question.

[1:19:44] While they were alive.

[1:19:45] Who would you attach yourself to?

[1:19:48] Please keep on flopping through the hard times.

[1:19:50] Pete, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:53] Uh, okay.

[1:19:54] I mean, mine's pretty easy.

[1:19:56] Uh, Anthony Bourdain.

[1:19:57] Uh, I just want to travel the world with Tony B.

[1:20:01] See what I've got some bad news for you?

[1:20:04] Well, when he was alive.

[1:20:05] When he was alive, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:06] No, I just, he was, he seemed like he was, he was not enjoying traveling the world.

[1:20:09] That's true.

[1:20:09] Maybe you'd cheer him up.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:10] You could.

[1:20:11] Uh, yeah, I feel like I would have turned everything around.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:14] That's true.

[1:20:15] Yeah, that's what he needed.

[1:20:16] It was a gross, a man growing from his body.

[1:20:20] Uh, I think similarly.

[1:20:21] RIP, do a real one right there.

[1:20:23] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:24] Yeah.

[1:20:24] I think similarly, I think maybe like Orson Welles would be fun to be attached to for much

[1:20:28] of his life.

[1:20:29] You know, have an adventure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:29] Yeah, another guy who was totally normal and had no problems.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:35] Yeah.

[1:20:36] I mean, nobody has no problems.

[1:20:38] I know.

[1:20:39] I was thinking about this.

[1:20:40] I was like, I don't, I don't know that I want to be attached to anyone.

[1:20:43] No, of course not.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:44] I mean, Dan, we have to buy into the premise that we want to be attached to someone's belly,

[1:20:47] which we don't.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:47] I don't want to be attached to anyone that I like too much.

[1:20:50] Oh.

[1:20:50] Because, like, then I'm worried about the burden that having a little version of me attached

[1:20:56] to them.

[1:20:56] Dan, you're not a burden.

[1:20:58] And, well, I mean, if I'm attached to you as like a tumor man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:01] No, I understand having to manage Dan's emotions all the time while he's attached to your tummy

[1:21:05] could be a bit much sometimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:08] But also, like, I'm going to learn something about them that I don't want to know.

[1:21:11] Like, that's part of the problem.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:12] Yeah, what it smells like when they use the bathroom.

[1:21:14] That's for sure.

[1:21:15] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:16] So, maybe it smells like cookies or something.

[1:21:21] I don't know.

[1:21:22] So, Dan, who's supposed to smell like cookies?

[1:21:23] What if I was just attached to it like a dog?

[1:21:26] So, okay, so you're being scraped along the ground all the time.

[1:21:29] Sure.

[1:21:30] Yeah, I mean, it'd probably be on the back of the dog.

[1:21:32] A tall dog.

[1:21:33] Yeah, it's a super, yeah, it's a marmaduke.

[1:21:34] It's a tall dog that's on two legs a lot of the time, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:37] I love the idea that Dan's like, yeah, I don't know.

[1:21:39] It'd be unpleasant to learn unpleasant things about someone.

[1:21:41] So, I guess I'll just be a human body sticking out of an animal.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:46] I mean, actually, like, dogs are pretty generally in good spirits.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:52] Yeah, I think it's the chill quality of the lifestyle that appeals to me.

[1:21:56] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:56] The chill quality of the lifestyle.

[1:21:57] Have you met dogs, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:21:59] Get mad at the – there's plenty of chill dogs.

[1:22:03] Plenty of them out.

[1:22:04] I'm on board.

[1:22:05] I mean, I've heard of snow dogs, but I've never heard of chill dogs.

[1:22:09] Let's recommend movies for fun.

[1:22:11] So, Snow Dogs is a movie about?

[1:22:15] Let's recommend movies that we saw that, you know, might be a better use of your time than, say, Wish.

[1:22:22] Stuart, I want you to go first.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:24] Yeah, I'm going to recommend a movie now.

[1:22:26] This is one of my classic Stuart Wellington totally not biased reviews.

[1:22:30] I'm recommending a movie that I saw at Fantasia Fest last week in Montreal.

[1:22:36] Sacre bleu, that's because they speak French there.

[1:22:42] I'm going to recommend the latest movie from friend of the podcast director, Steve Kostansky.

[1:22:48] You might know him as the director of PG Psycho Goreman, which features the voice talents of one Stuart Wellington.

[1:22:55] Well, if you like that, buckle your freak belt because his new movie, Frankie Frico, just had its world premiere at Fantasia Fest, and it is great.

[1:23:08] It is a hyper-focused, weird joke of a movie that is basically like if Goonies Goes to College was mixed with, like, gremlins.

[1:23:17] Goonies go to college?

[1:23:19] Goonies are – do the Goonies go to college?

[1:23:21] I mean, I assume that they do.

[1:23:22] They have all that money from those gyms that they found and whatnot.

[1:23:27] I can't be the only person to confuse Goonies and Goolies, right?

[1:23:31] You cannot be.

Dan McCoy

[1:23:32] I'm sure someone's grandma did it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:34] Yeah, they're like, Mom, can I get – Grandma, can I get a DVD of Goolies?

[1:23:40] And she gets them Goonies, and they're like, what is this fucking garbage?

[1:23:43] I think more likely the opposite is my guess.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:47] Anyway, Frankie Frico.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:48] Frankie Frico is a celebration of a very specific era of full moon video.

[1:23:54] If you ever had the experience of, like, renting a weird movie on VHS from your local video store,

[1:24:02] and on that VHS there was an even weirder trailer before it, and you're like, what the fuck is this movie?

[1:24:08] I've never heard of this.

[1:24:09] That's what kind of Frankie Frico feels like.

[1:24:11] It's very silly.

[1:24:12] It is about a nerdy guy who is obsessed with being less of a nerd, so he calls a party line with a little gremlin,

[1:24:19] and then that gremlin brings his friends over to his house and trashes the place, and it causes him all kinds of problems.

[1:24:25] It's great, and you might recognize a couple of voices in that movie, like me, like Dan, like Elliot, and other people.

[1:24:32] It's great.

[1:24:33] Check it out.

[1:24:34] Frankie Frico rules.

[1:24:35] Again, totally unbiased review.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:37] I don't know if I'm going to recognize other people.

[1:24:39] You might.

[1:24:40] That might.

[1:24:41] Well, thank you, Stuart.

[1:24:43] I think your parents did voices for the movie, Dan, so you might recognize them.

[1:24:47] Oh, wow.

[1:24:48] That would be wild.

[1:24:52] I'm glad that Stuart got a chance to promote that movie, and I'm also glad that he did not recommend the movie I was going to recommend.

[1:24:59] Looks at notes.

[1:25:00] Frankie Frico.

[1:25:01] What?

[1:25:02] Turns out Dan wasn't listening.

[1:25:03] Is it dildo heaven?

[1:25:04] No, it's not dildo heaven.

[1:25:06] Dildo heaven, disappoint.

[1:25:07] It was fine.

[1:25:08] It was an experience.

[1:25:08] So what is that?

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:08] All I know is Dan sent a text that says, I'm going to see this, and the title screen said dildo heaven.

[1:25:12] I said, I don't even want to look up what this is.

[1:25:14] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:15] You're like, Sammy, don't look at my phone.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:17] It was a weird Wednesday screening.

[1:25:19] This is Doris Wishman's last movie.

[1:25:22] Oh, okay.

[1:25:23] She actually appeared.

[1:25:24] You may have seen a clip of her on Conan O'Brien with Roger Ebert.

[1:25:27] She was there to promote dildo heaven at the time.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:30] I never, I didn't see it, not see that interview, and I'm going to look it up after this morning.

[1:25:33] Yeah, you should look it up.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:35] It's, you know, I mean, if you're a fan of, like, truly bottom of the barrel filmmaking, where, like, Doris Wishman was, like, a beloved figure in sexploitation and starting out in nudie cuties in the 60s.

[1:25:50] Like, it seems like she only forgot more about traditional film grammar as she went on.

[1:25:56] Like, this last movie of hers is baffling in a delightful way.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:00] I mean, she was very elderly, too, by that time, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:26:02] I must imagine, right?

[1:26:03] Well, yeah, but that doesn't necessarily mean she has a diminished capacity.

[1:26:06] Like, in this case, though, the film was, like, bizarre.

[1:26:08] Okay, Biden.

[1:26:11] It's okay.

[1:26:11] But just to clarify, this is not my recommendation.

[1:26:15] Oh, so it's not, so why are you talking about it?

[1:26:17] It's all dildo.

[1:26:18] I set it up.

[1:26:19] Stuart couldn't resist saying the words dildo heaven, I think, is the main thing.

[1:26:24] I don't even think it's available.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:26] Seems like a redundant phrase.

[1:26:27] Yeah, can't blame me.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:29] I think, yeah, I think I saw a screening, and the rights are not out there for people to see it otherwise.

[1:26:34] So, don't even try and watch dildo heaven.

[1:26:36] Watch instead, from 1978, my birth year, The Manitou.

[1:26:40] Stuart and I went out and saw this together.

[1:26:41] Oh, wow, The Manitou, really?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:43] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:44] What a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:46] That movie gets wild by the end of it.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:48] Yeah.

[1:26:48] Oh, you think so?

[1:26:50] I thought it was pretty normal.

[1:26:51] So, let me give, so people understand what we're talking about.

[1:26:55] Let me give a very short premise of the film.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:00] Give us your Manitou cents about this one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:02] I was like this close to doing that for the mini this week.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:06] The movie is about a woman who has what seems to be a tumor on her neck, but it turns out is the fetus of a reincarnated Native American medicine man, like an evil, megalomaniacal medicine man from the past who's like 500 years old at this point.

[1:27:29] And despite some valiant efforts at a certain amount of 1970s progressivism, the movie cannot overcome an inherent racism in the premise of this.

[1:27:43] In addition to, I will warn people if they're sensitive to such things, the man playing the good medicine man that we meet later on is a Syrian actor, I found out later on.

[1:27:55] But anyway, the movie is wild.

[1:28:02] And Burgess Meredith.

[1:28:03] Burgess Meredith gives a one-scene performance that is amazing.

[1:28:07] It is genuinely one of the best comic performances that I've ever seen.

[1:28:11] He just comes in, does this one scene, feels like he's in a totally different movie because he's so real at the same time as being funny.

[1:28:17] He's finding all these jokes and just like the way he reacts to things.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:20] I love the moment like the people all just sit down.

[1:28:23] He's like, oh, I guess sit down if you want.

[1:28:26] It's so funny.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:28] Tony Curtis also is giving a very committed, silly performance that's very enjoyable.

[1:28:36] All the while wearing bell bottoms and like a leather jacket.

[1:28:40] Yeah.

[1:28:40] And as Elliot alluded to, the ending of the movie is just madness.

[1:28:46] Like I don't want to spoil any of it for anyone.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:48] You don't want to, other than to say it's not necessarily going exactly where you think it's going to go in terms of what you're going to see on screen.

[1:28:55] You know, how they're going to deal with this problem.

[1:28:57] But.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:58] Yeah.

[1:28:59] So be aware that it has some problems that may, you know, strike on some modern sensibilities.

[1:29:07] But it's also such a singular movie.

[1:29:10] I don't know.

[1:29:11] It's a lot of fun to watch.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:13] I'm going to recommend a movie that's also a lot of fun to watch, but in a different way.

[1:29:17] And it's a very different kind of movie.

[1:29:18] But it also starts with The M.

[1:29:20] In its title.

[1:29:22] And that is.

[1:29:22] Okay.

[1:29:22] The More the Merrier.

[1:29:24] This is a comedy from 1943 starring Gene Arthur and Joel McRae and Charles Coburn.

[1:29:29] And he won an Academy Award for his performance in this.

[1:29:31] And it's about the ideas.

[1:29:33] It's Washington, D.C. during World War II.

[1:29:35] The city is full.

[1:29:36] There is not enough housing for people.

[1:29:38] And so Gene Arthur has to rent out half of her apartment to Charles Coburn.

[1:29:42] He in turn rents out half of the half that he rented from her to Joel McRae.

[1:29:47] And there's a lot of kind of screwball people running into each other.

[1:29:50] And getting confused.

[1:29:52] But also a romance that comes up between our younger leads.

[1:29:56] And it's actually a very sweet romance.

[1:29:58] And the movie is very funny.

[1:30:00] George Stevens directed it.

[1:30:01] He's a director who I always think of because he directed like Shane and stuff like that.

[1:30:05] I always think of him as being like a stodgy director.

[1:30:08] But I forget that he made a lot of different kinds of movies.

[1:30:10] And this movie moves real fast.

[1:30:12] It's really fun.

[1:30:13] The jokes are really funny.

[1:30:15] And so I really enjoyed it from beginning to end.

[1:30:17] And that's The More the Merrier.

[1:30:19] If you want to watch an old comedy, this is a really good one.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:24] Well, I think that is going to be it for this episode.

[1:30:29] Before we go, thank you, of course, to Maximum Fun.

[1:30:33] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out other podcasts on the same podcasting network.

[1:30:39] Become a member.

[1:30:41] If you like to support this podcast, other podcasts, thank you to Alex Smith, our producer.

[1:30:48] He goes by the name Howell Doughty all over the internet.

[1:30:53] Just all over it.

[1:30:54] Yeah, just all over it.

[1:30:55] He just provided the use of one of his songs for a trailer I cut for Flop TV Season 2.

[1:31:00] It works really well.

[1:31:01] It's great stuff.

[1:31:04] If you want to check us out around the web, like I said, go to flophousepodcast.com.

[1:31:08] You can sign up for the newsletter.

[1:31:10] We have an Instagram page.

[1:31:11] Those are probably the best places to follow us these days.

[1:31:14] But that's it.

[1:31:15] For the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:31:17] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:19] And I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:31:21] Bye, sucker!

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:22] I don't know.

[1:31:26] On this episode, we discuss Wish.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:38] What?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:42] You're right, Stu.

[1:31:43] That was a banger.

[1:31:44] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:46] Seemed a little muddled.

[1:31:48] Let's try one more.

[1:31:49] Do it again.

[1:31:49] Yeah, yeah.

[1:31:50] On this episode, we discuss Wish.

[1:31:54] What?

[1:31:56] I think the second time was way better.

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:00] No, it was better.

[1:32:01] It was better, yeah.

[1:32:02] I guess that's what we're doing.

[1:32:02] Do you want me to record an alternate just in case?

[1:32:05] Yeah, you should do an alternate.

[1:32:06] I don't know.

[1:32:07] I mean, I kind of nailed two in a row.

[1:32:11] Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:12] A worker-owned network.

[1:32:13] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:32:15] Supported.

[1:32:16] Directly.

[1:32:17] By you.

Ep.#431 - Wish

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