The ‘Shrek’ Pod

Bobby Wagner joins the show to bid farewell to The Big Picture and The Ringer at large. We look back at how he started working on the show and run through all of his favorite moments during his time as a producer (0:54). Then, Bobby finally convinces Sean and Amanda to discuss ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’ on the show and talk about why ‘Shrek’ is such a critical movie for young millennials and early Gen Z (23:40). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Bobby Wagner Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sean Fennessey?

  Exciting news, Chicago movie lovers. We're coming for you.

• 0:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Next month, we're headed to the Windy City for a live show at the historic Steppenwolf Theater, and we could not be more excited. Mark your calendars for Monday, July 21st.

• 0:14Sean Fennessey?

  Tickets go on sale next Wednesday, June 4th, at 12:00 PM Central Time, and more information will be available soon at theringer.com/events.

• 0:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Again, we'll be at the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago on Monday, July 21st, and you can grab your tickets next Wednesday, June 4th, beginning at 12:00 PM Central Time. Head to theringer.com/events for more information soon.

• 0:40Sean Fennessey?

  Hope to see you there. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like rewatching a director's entire catalog in the lead up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at statefarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch

• 1:24Sean Fennessey?

  arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime.

• 1:45Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 1:46Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 1:47Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about two old pals. I'm talking, of course, about Shrek the Ogre and Bobby Wagner. We have coordinated a very special episode this Friday because Bobby Wagner, our beloved longtime producer on the show, a linchpin of The Big Picture, a person without whom we would not have the show in its current form, is moving on from The Ringer and has moved on from our show. And so we wanted to pay tribute to him. And so we asked him, what would you like to do, Bob? What movie would you like to spend time on? What should we do to explore your truest inner self? And you have chosen the first two Shrek films.

• 2:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Sean Fennessey?

  So one-

• 2:27Speaker 02

  Okay. First of all, in my defense, thank you guys for having me. It's so great to be back here. I've missed you guys very much and I will continue to miss you guys. I love you guys too. Amanda, it was Amanda's idea to be like, you should send us off with a movie that is important to you, preferably that we haven't seen.

• 2:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Can I even find a movie that you two guys haven't seen, like neither of you guys have seen that is important enough to me? That is not just like a straight up kids movie, like a 25 minute kids movie?

• 2:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, you did. You did. You nailed one.

• 2:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and I think of it often when I think of you, but I thought you did a great job. Would you like to read the entire? Do you have the list that you sent us?

• 3:05Speaker 02

  Oh, I do have the list. Yeah. Let me find that for you guys real quick.

• 3:09Sean Fennessey?

  I thought this was a good list.

• 3:11Speaker 02

  The list was Shrek 1, 2, 3, or 4. And I believe Sean's response was that 3 and 4 are hot garbage and we can't talk about them.

• 3:19Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's true.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, the Matt Damon horse movie that you guys made fun of.

• 3:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  On the Matt Damon Hall of Fame.

• 3:26Sean Fennessey?

  I have not seen it.

• 3:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So there's one that we haven't seen.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  Well, it's DreamWorks, so we will be talking about it.

• 3:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's actually related to this movie in a very specific way.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  It is. Harriet the Spy.

• 3:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Seen it, loved it. Dynamite.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sure you saw it. Yeah. Well, I had a sister, I have a sister that's five years older than me, so that was important to her.

• 3:43Sean Fennessey?

  I do. It was one of the first books that I bought for my daughter while knowing I was not going to be able to read it to her until she was six. But I, I'm pretty sure I saw it. R.I.P. Michelle Trachtenberg, obviously. I saw it as a kid.

• 3:54Speaker 02

  Incredible movie. And then the other three that I mentioned that I knew you guys had definitely seen, but that are just young millennial iconography, which are Freaky Friday,

• 4:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  Holes and The Sandlot.

• 4:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Holes? What's Holes?

• 4:08Sean Fennessey?

  I knew you were gonna say that. I knew this was gonna happen.

• 4:11Amanda Dobbins?

  What is it?

• 4:11Sean Fennessey?

  Explain Holes, Bob. Holy shit. I've seen Holes.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Hole, Holes was like a YA novel written by this guy named Louis Sacker. It was very common to assign in like elementary school for people of my age. Like one of the first books where you read is like a coming of age story of sorts. And it was turned into a movie with Shia LaBeouf as he was like making his transition out of like the even Stevens TV movie universe into like quote unquote, real acting, I guess. Has Jon Voight in an insane performance, Sigourney Weaver pitched up to 11. I really love Holes. I think it's a fantastic, it's a masterpiece in my mind.

• 4:50Amanda Dobbins?

  He goes to camp movie?

• 4:53Sean Fennessey?

  He go, yes, he goes to camp instead of going to like juvie, more or less, for a crime that he did not commit.

• 4:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 5:00Sean Fennessey?

  And then he digs holes. You know what you do in holes? You dig holes.

• 5:04Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. And then, and then he learns about himself? Or does he break out from the camp? Or does he?

• 5:11Sean Fennessey?

  He uncovers some lore about his family. He is definitely vindic- spoiler alert for holes, everyone listening at home.

• 5:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Did John Voight do it?

• 5:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Did John Voight do it? Spoiler.

• 5:23Sean Fennessey?

  If, but if by it, you mean save Hollywood, then yes.

• 5:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'm glad you, I'm glad we all chose Shrek together. Shrek recently came up on the Gen Z episode

• 5:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 5:35Sean Fennessey?

  that you hosted and, you know, Shrek is a very, I guess, meaningful and also soon to be again relevant film.

• 5:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 5:43Sean Fennessey?

  Because Shrek 5 is coming soon.

• 5:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I, I did think while watching this, and I thought about the Gen Z conversation, Bob, I thought about your choice. I, I do think this is like a, this is a generational turning point movie. It is very significant. You made a great choice. I think this is how I know that you and I, you know, live in different times and that's okay. It's really, really good, but I know that this is so important to you and to everyone younger than you.

• 6:14Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 6:14Amanda Dobbins?

  And I know, I saw this movie in theaters, you know, like I was there. We, I lived Shrek, probably even Shrek 2. But it means something different. It hits differently to the younger people. And so it's, it's good that we're having this generational exchange with this movie.

• 6:32Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I think it's a good choice and we will dig deep into these two films and what they mean and why they continue to resonate. Before we do that though, let's just talk about your history with the show. You were not the first producer of the show. Zach Mack was the original producer of the big picture and he was with us for a short time. And then, so what is your, I don't, I honestly can't remember how you came in. How did you come in? What's your background?

• 6:53Speaker 02

  I started at The Ringer as an intern in July of 2018. It was a three-month internship. After that, we needed warm bodies. You know, we were making a lot of shows, not a lot of producers, not a lot of audio, audio people. And so I got hired full-time to work on, basically, the Ringer NBA show feed was where I was doing the most work. And then aforementioned Zach Mack left right after that, and his kind of suite of shows of mostly pop culture shows had to get passed on to some people. And I had just been brought on full-time right before that. And I got the big pick. Kaya McMullin got the watch, and Craig Horlbeck got the rewatchables.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  And all three of us are here, seven years later, still doing stuff at The Ringer. Shout out to them. And so, yeah, I started in the fall, like, right around the same time that the show went to Twice a Week. And I had done a little bit of stuff, like, filling in for Zach over the summer as he was working on other stuff. So, you know, I mentioned here on the doc that my first interview that I engineered for the show back when interviews were, like, only in-person, way pre-pandemic days, and back when that was, like, the cornerstone of the show, was with McQ for Mission Impossible Fallout, which, at the time, I mean, I liked the Mission Impossible movies just fine, but I was not, certainly not a connoisseur of them like I am now and like you guys are. So I don't even think, I was just so nervous to fuck up the recording that I didn't even

• 8:20Speaker 02

  really register McQ coming in and how relevant it was and what his relationship would be with TC heading forward. I was just there to be like, I really hope that I don't mess this up. This is the first serious recording I'm ever engineering at The Ringer.

• 8:31Amanda Dobbins?

  So you have been in charge of many recordings over the years. Does that anxiety ever go away?

• 8:38Speaker 02

  It started to go away, probably after, like, a year. But back in the day, like, we were on an old Hollywood lot that was not built to be a podcast studio, or several podcast studios. And so, I mean, I mean, I won't comment on that.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  We'll save that for JMO, actually. But I, there was like ghosts in the machine, you know? It would just stop working from time to time. The infamous CPU overload, which no one was ever sure what that actually meant. It was just like the computer just would give up sometimes and it would stop recording. And every once in a while, I'd have to ask you guys like, hey, can you guys do a pickup? If not, I'll just have to cut this line. And every single time, I have a very vivid memory of covering jam session of being like, hey, Amanda, the CPU overload happened. We lost about 15 seconds. Do you want to do a pickup? And you were just like, just cut it. I gotta get out of here. Just cut that.

• 9:33Sean Fennessey?

  And so seriously, we take our jobs here.

• 9:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, you know, I value your time, too.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  The nerves for like a normal episode would go away, but for like a big one, you know, like as we started to have Tarantino on the pod or whatever it might be. And or like if we were going onsite somewhere and interviewing someone, there's always stuff that could go wrong when that happens. So I started, I would, I started to get less nervous on a normal episode and, you know, I would save that for the episodes that really mattered.

• 9:59Sean Fennessey?

  So what was your first official episode recording with me and Amanda?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  I don't know for certain, but I think it was introducing the Oscars show, which was the first one that we'd launched that was like with all the categories and everything.

• 10:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And the clips.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  And the clips, yes. I have this very vivid memory of you came up with the show with the clip titles or with the segment titles, rather. And I was like, oh, I'll make some bumper clips for these. I'll drop some music or whatever, or I'll play an audio clip from a movie. Do you have suggestions? And you slacked me back a list of suggestions and what songs you wanted me to play underneath them, but the clips themselves, you didn't have like time codes for where these were in these movies. And I have a very vivid memory of the night before that recording, just scouring through The Intern, the 2015 movie with Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, looking for this one line where Anne Hathaway's character says, this is a problem in the big picture for the

• 11:01Speaker 02

  big pictures, big picture segment that we used to do on the Oscars show. And I must've watched the whole movie and I was simultaneously like, I'm getting paid to watch The Intern, but also if I don't find this clip, I'll probably be fired and never work again.

• 11:15Sean Fennessey?

  But I found it.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  I rolled with it.

• 11:17Sean Fennessey?

  I genuinely remember listening to that episode afterwards and thinking to myself, this fucking kid did everything I wanted. Like, he did, he nailed it. These were all the, these were all the spots I wanted. Some of them were a little easier to identify than others.

• 11:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I sent a YouTube clip of Gypsy, right?

• 11:30Sean Fennessey?

  You did.

• 11:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. To have the YouTube clips was great, but then not every one of these IMDb quotables.

• 11:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 11:38Speaker 02

  But not every one of the IMDb quotable lines or whatever is gonna have a YouTube clip for some of it. This is a throwaway line in The Intern, a 2015 movie that is like.

• 11:47Sean Fennessey?

  Even the small snatch of music from Salzation from Saturday Night Fever. Like, you nailed it. Was it the David Schreier score? And I was like, I hope he finds the right place for it. And he did, you know? That's why Bob was Bob for as long as he was.

• 12:01Sean Fennessey?

  Personal highlights from the show.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  I've assembled a list of four clips that I would like to play for you guys.

• 12:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, this is so nice. I thought we were doing them. And this is, oh, great, you have them. Okay, go ahead.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  I do, I do have them. So I'm gonna play a couple of clips for you guys here. The first two, I think, are the two happiest moments of Sean's life, like, non-Alice category.

• 12:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  In like, the last 25 years. So I'm gonna play those first two for you here.

• 12:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I know what this is.

• 12:32Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 12:34Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the 92nd Academy Awards and Bong Jun Ho. We did it. We did it, everybody. Parasite wins Best Picture. Amanda, how are you feeling?

• 12:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm really glad we dressed up.

• 12:53Sean Fennessey?

  We dressed up.

• 12:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I was feeling bad about that decision, but now we have something to celebrate.

• 12:56Sean Fennessey?

  We could have been in jeans and a t-shirt.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  That was, that was a good one.

• 12:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  That was a great night. That was a great night. It was, it was weird vibes to be, that was the first time I was like, working it deep into the night on a Sunday night at this like, old Hollywood lot. That is like, definitely haunted. But it was all worth it because Parasite won. I think my favorite part of that clip is that you can hear the people who are like, shooting it on video.

• 13:20Sean Fennessey?

  I remember Sean Yu in particular.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Sean Yu just yelling, "Yeah!"

• 13:25Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that was fun. So intriguingly, that was the last time anyone was happy. I think that was late February of 2020, pandemic hit.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  February 10th, 2020 was the date on that bad boy.

• 13:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yep, and downward spiral for five and a half consecutive years. I'm glad we're all together for that, though. That was a truly great moment. What else?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  That was, okay, here's the second, here's the second clip here.

• 13:47Sean Fennessey?

  There are only six reviews for this product.

• 13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 13:50Sean Fennessey?

  On their website. They're all five stars. Congratulations to them. Subscribe to Fiesta.

• 13:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, Sean made it in.

• 13:56Sean Fennessey?

  Fiesta in a bottle.

• 13:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Fiesta in a bottle. I tried it. Did you guys try it?

• 14:02Sean Fennessey?

  Not yet.

• 14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 14:03Sean Fennessey?

  You have completed your jury service.

• 14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  I fucking told you that you wouldn't have to go. I told you.

• 14:09Sean Fennessey?

  We fucking did it!

• 14:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I told you!

• 14:11Sean Fennessey?

  We did it!

• 14:14Amanda Dobbins?

  You're so happy. I've never seen you so happy. I'm happy for you. That was really memorable.

• 14:20Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  My scheme worked.

• 14:24Speaker 02

  I don't think I've ever heard that. You like ate eight drinks in, in your garage, basically.

• 14:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Doing the like movie liquors.

• 14:32Amanda Dobbins?

  And this was like definitely we'd, we'd eaten, we'd done all the liquors. That sounds like that was canned margaritas, which was towards the end of this experiment.

• 14:41Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think that was actually maybe Delola.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Fiesta in a bottle. Oh, yeah.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  That's J Lo's drink.

• 14:47Amanda Dobbins?

  V8 juice, not good.

• 14:49Sean Fennessey?

  Anyone who hasn't heard that episode, we did a movie star liquor taste test where we spent three hours in my garage one afternoon, and I think the middle of August, drinking and potting all afternoon.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  I think it was July 31st because it was for Amanda's birthday.

• 15:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it was my birthday.

• 15:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that's right. It was your birthday.

• 15:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It was, I think it was one of our great moments. Many of my fondest Bob memories. I still, I can't see Miles Teller's, what's the drink called?

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Long drink. You know, I went to Fenway this past weekend to see a Red Sox series. I saw a bunch of people drinking long drink.

• 15:20Amanda Dobbins?

  You were there? What game were you there?

• 15:23Speaker 02

  In Boston?

• 15:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  I was there on Saturday and Sunday.

• 15:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I was there on Saturday afternoon.

• 15:28Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, no.

• 15:28Amanda Dobbins?

  How did I not know you were at Fenway? Fuck.

• 15:31Speaker 02

  In Boston?

• 15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I saw the Dobbins shirt.

• 15:34Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 15:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Damn it, Bobby. I didn't know. I was there with all my in-laws. But they had Long Drink?

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, they had Long Drink. I saw some people carrying it around in the conference.

• 15:44Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. Well, I'm really sad that I missed you at Fenway. I did meet, I met a listener, by the way. Shout out to that listener. He was an Orioles fan. I don't know how it turned out for him. Um, I, that sucks, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna regather it. I had a great time. It was my first time at Fenway. You-

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Great Park.

• 16:02Amanda Dobbins?

  At the Long Drink, because the Long Drink was like at the end of the taste test.

• 16:05Speaker 02

  I liked it.

• 16:06Amanda Dobbins?

  And we were, no, Bobby was like, how can I invest?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Like Capitalism Bobby came out after like three hours of drinking.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Many people about Long Drink. I said, Long Drink, here's my email if you want to send me some stuff.

• 16:18Sean Fennessey?

  Is Miles Taylor still? Is he still like involved in that project?

• 16:23Speaker 02

  I think so. I mean, I, I don't know. I'm just saying yes.

• 16:26Sean Fennessey?

  Another dub for Miles.

• 16:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:28Sean Fennessey?

  Eagles, Super Bowl, Top Gun Maverick.

• 16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 16:30Sean Fennessey?

  Long Drink.

• 16:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Sean Fennessey?

  What a run.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  The Gorge.

• 16:32Amanda Dobbins?

  The Gorge.

• 16:33Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you know, we all have lows.

• 16:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, are there more?

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Over the gates of hell to get to Anya Taylor-Joy's face. Yeah, there are two more here.

• 16:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Here's, the next one is my favorite Amanda moment in the history of the pod.

• 16:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no.

• 16:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, no, I think I know what this is.

• 16:48Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 16:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 16:49Sean Fennessey?

  And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Oscar nominations, the zone of interest, Sundance.

• 16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I stand by this.

• 16:55Sean Fennessey?

  And Hillary Clinton, of course.

• 16:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I asked you guys to stay offline, you know? I asked you. I told you not to post. And look, here we are, once again, somehow roped into the same-ish box as Hillary Clinton. I am, I'm, that's what I'm angry about. I, as I said, I was not angry about the nominations. I understood. I didn't agree with all of it, but I am fucking angry that somehow I had to deal with Hillary Clinton again. Hillary Clinton, go do something. Like, honestly, we have problems. Well, I'm, I'm serious. Like, multiple horrific conflicts in the world, climate change. Like, if, if it needs to be a girl boss thing, then like pay equity, maternal health.

• 17:43Amanda Dobbins?

  The fact that, the fact that it takes six months to get a kind of college appointment. I'm still paying taxes on tampons. Like, there are a lot of issues. But not this. Show me the lie.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  There was no lie. I think that I-

• 17:57Amanda Dobbins?

  And by the way, nothing has changed. She's done jack shit. Takes three months to get a mammogram appointment. You know what I'm saying? Welcome to your 40s. Jesus.

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Just incredible. I think right after that clip, right where I stopped it, I said, that was the greatest moment in the history of the big picture. And I stand by that. I said, that was some really good stuff.

• 18:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you for your support, Bob.

• 18:17Speaker 02

  I knew that was coming the moment the tweet hit. When that tweet was posted, I was like, we are gonna have an incredible episode today.

• 18:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I told myself, I was like, I was in the drive on the way there. I was like, I'm gonna keep it together. They're not gonna get me into this.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Good stuff.

• 18:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And then they got me into it.

• 18:32Speaker 02

  For anyone who doesn't remember, the context for that was that Hillary Clinton tweeted about Barbie not getting enough nominations at the Oscars.

• 18:38Amanda Dobbins?

  And she was like, same, girl. You know, what's it feel like to lose to a man and get more votes or whatever?

• 18:46Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know if we, I don't know if she actually did the shoulder waggle that you were just rocking there, but maybe the head bob.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Honestly, she probably did. Okay, the only moment that could ever hold a candle to that, of course, my, probably the most talked about turning point in the history of the big picture. This is my final clip for you guys.

• 19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  There is a lot of sameness in the tent. We're doing a lot of Western vistas. We are doing a lot of like, rich, outdoorsy, neo-Western stuff here. Where Fargo is just like the whitewashed Great Plains. I said, not Great Plains, right? Minnesota, land of lakes.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Chris, Fargo's in North Dakota.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Sean is just glaring at Chris. This is like angry Sean body language. I'm just gonna narrate this breakdown in real time. Nostals flaring.

• 19:32Speaker 03

  Where's Rango set?

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Also in the American West.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  That was, it's like-

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Also in the life of the mind.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  And that's a frog who's a sheriff, right?

• 19:40Speaker 02

  He's not a frog.

• 19:43Speaker 02

  He's not a frog. He's a gecko.

• 19:44Speaker 03

  Is he sheriff?

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Is that like a top, top 10 frog sheriff movies? Where's Rango?

• 19:57Speaker 02

  This is a shameful podcast. I think we need to stop and delete this.

• 20:06Amanda Dobbins?

  So good. It's nice that you could laugh now.

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Still hurtful. Still hurtful.

• 20:15Speaker 02

  You got everything you bargained for, you know, that made the show what it became. That moment tapping into that absolute insanity, that zaniness.

• 20:24Speaker 03

  You were in the room for that.

• 20:25Speaker 02

  Sheriff, right? I was. For some reason, we were shooting that on video. This was like five years before we ever started doing video stuff. But we decided that that episode for Deacons needed to be captured on video.

• 20:37Amanda Dobbins?

  For breakouts or something?

• 20:39Speaker 02

  I guess for breakouts and that breakout is easy to find on YouTube. That is the Roger Deakins Hall of Fame episode in which we ran through every episode or every film that Roger Deakins worked on to try to narrow it down to 10. This was an early Hall of Fame, early in the concept of us doing this on the show. And Deakins is obviously a legend and so he had worked on so much stuff and so many Coen Brothers movies and you just could not, you had a really hard time getting rid of any of the Coen Brothers movies.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  You were getting so mad.

• 21:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And it was a real like take my ball and go home moment, you know? Like there have been a few of those. It's like, that was the funniest one, obviously Avengers Endgame. That was a tough one.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  That was a tough one, yeah.

• 21:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I can't remember, there was another one recently where it was just like, you quit on us?

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

• 21:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, what, what was going on there?

• 21:24Speaker 02

  I just really thought Chris let me down on that one. I just was like, I need you to bring the same energy that I'm bringing to this. And then he didn't want to. And then I had to be like, will you, Zach, you know, Amanda's husband betray Amanda? And he was like, I'm not gonna do that.

• 21:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I was eight months pregnant.

• 21:39Sean Fennessey?

  But yeah, it was tough. Anyhow.

• 21:41Amanda Dobbins?

  That was funny. Did Fargo stay on the list?

• 21:44Sean Fennessey?

  I honestly can't remember. I don't think it did. I don't think it did.

• 21:48Amanda Dobbins?

  My dad was trying to guess 25 for 25 entries the other day. And he was like, what about Fargo? Well, dad, that was 1996. His other guesses were.

• 21:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Barry Levinson's Ten Men, which I told him was released in the 80s. And then he's like, I guess the Godfather films are too old, right? I was like, okay, goodbye, dad. Oh, and then finally, Michael Hannah key is the white ribbon, which spoiler alert is not on the list.

• 22:13Sean Fennessey?

  I kind of wanted it on. And God, shout out Knox for just the big Knox for saying that. I think the white ribbon would make for a very chill 25 for 25 episode.

• 22:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, Fargo not on the list because it was released in 1996.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Not on the Deacons Hall of Fame and not on the 25 for 25.

• 22:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, it didn't make the Hall of Fame?

• 22:33Speaker 02

  I don't think it did.

• 22:34Amanda Dobbins?

  You just kept talking about like the white vistas.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:37Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, all the snow.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  Coming over the mountain.

• 22:40Sean Fennessey?

  Well, it's a communicating about the internal lives of the characters, you know, that's really his art. That's what he does.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Chris was so mad when he tried to take Sicario off that list.

• 22:49Sean Fennessey?

  I thought he was actually gonna turn in his resignation letter. Yeah, it's been noted before to us by many people that that obviously was the turning point of the whole show. Like it is the, I don't know what the fuck was in the air that day, but we were like, I guess this is what it is now. And this is what everyone wants. And I'm happy to give the people what they want, which is me having mild emotional breakdowns about meaningless things. That's.

• 23:08Speaker 02

  I think what was actually in the air was that we started putting full sized water bottles in the studio. And I think all three of you had to pee a lot.

• 23:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I was really, really desperate to pee. And like, we still were never taking a break, no matter what.

• 23:21Sean Fennessey?

  And normal pods would just be like, can we stop down for five minutes? No problem. But for whatever reason, I learned this from Bill. Bill's like, you'll sit there for two and a half hours and you will not move. And if you move, we're gonna have a big problem. And he wouldn't actually say that, but that was the vibe.

• 23:33Amanda Dobbins?

  There was like a closed energy of like no breaks, no windows that we had for a while there.

• 23:41Sean Fennessey?

  There was no air conditioning.

• 23:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Before video and that really, that that did bring something special, you know, so.

• 23:49Sean Fennessey?

  Just an amazing collection of clips from two weird 40-somethings being observed by a 20-something who maybe, maybe sees his future. You know, maybe you were looking down the, down the telescope towards your path.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think that I, part of the reason that we, I feel like I have gotten along so well over the years is that I'm a 20-something, sort of like trapped, I'm a 40-something trapped in a 20-something person's body, you know? I'm a grouch, I'm cranky about things, I'm perfectly nice to the people around me, but I have kind of washed opinions and takes about things, and I feel like that's slotted well in with you guys.

• 24:28Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you've just segued magnificently to Shrek, washed opinion. So, let's talk about it. Now, you've put together like a lot of thoughts around the film, why it matters to you, why we're gonna talk about it, what it means in the context of 21st century movie history. I think it's a great pick also because we've been doing 25 for 25, and we just did a conversation about Spirited Away, and so animated films and this being such a huge breakthrough for DreamWorks, so...

• 24:56Amanda Dobbins?

  You wanna let the people know that Shrek is not on 25 for 25?

• 25:00Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't make it. I hope this, this episode suffices, cuz it's not on the list, it's not on the top 100, it's not on the top 300, not on the top 500. Is it in your top 25 movies of the century, Bobby?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Definitely not, but it is in the one for one of Bobby leaving episodes.

• 25:17Sean Fennessey?

  So, in a way, it's more prestigious than 25 for 25.

• 25:21Amanda Dobbins?

  It's perfect programming.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  I chose Shrek mostly, well, because you guys probably wouldn't wanna watch Spirit's Talon of the Semirhan, but I think that it's a movie that's like incredibly important to opening up the world of animation to people of my age, along with the Miyazaki movies ironically, beyond just Disney and Pixar, Disney Pixar movies. I think it was DreamWorks in that era of the turn of the, the 21st century was the first time that I really remember like watching feature-length movies that were animation, and Shrek is just, I mean, we're gonna talk more about each movie individually, but Shrek is this almost intoxicating blend of like...

• 26:07Speaker 02

  Voice performances that are really, really going for it while also just like it's it's maximalism. It's animation maximalism. There's like a million characters, million fairy tale characters, a lot of jokes like way too fast for my young mind to ever comprehend. And um, yeah, I just think that it carries such an important legacy. When I hear from listeners of the big picture, they're like, you guys got to let, you gotta let Sean and Amanda know how important Shrek is because you guys have dumped on it a couple of times. Over the years, you've dumped on this franchise and I feel like part of my role on the show since I started was standing up. Having a backbone.

• 26:44Sean Fennessey?

  Speaking for Gen Z.

• 26:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Speaking for the youth, yeah.

• 26:45Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, of course, for your generation, Gen Z.

• 26:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  Speaking for the generation behind me to come, yes.

• 26:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I am going to say like this is, I know that technically you maintain according to the dates that you're a young millennial. And I, I do think.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  I remember dial up, you know?

• 27:04Amanda Dobbins?

  This is another piece in my argument that you are like technically Gen Z, that this means so much to you, but it's fine. You can be a bridge. You can be.

• 27:12Speaker 02

  I go whichever way the wind goes. No, you can't pin me down.

• 27:14Amanda Dobbins?

  That's fine. Can you set the scene for us? How old was Bobby? Where was Bobby in your life when you saw Shrek for the first time?

• 27:23Speaker 02

  God, I was only five when the first Shrek movie came out.

• 27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  All right.

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Um.

• 27:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I was in high school.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  I definitely.

• 27:30Sean Fennessey?

  I was a sophomore in college.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  These, this age range, like this or this exact date range is the, the, the date range where like our ages are so dramatically.

• 27:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  Yes, it's the craziest gap. Uh, yeah, I was five. So, and I saw it in theaters. Um, and I was immediately hooked, but I honestly don't have that vivid of a memory of going to see it in the theater. I have a lot more of a memory of just putting the DVD in repeatedly, not just at my own house, but that would be just the thing that you would do when you would go to someone else's house for the first two hours of your five hour playdate or whatever, you'd watch Shrek. And then you'd play the Shrek video game, which came out a few years later. And um, yeah, it was just incredibly re, not to borrow a phrase of the Ringo Podcast Network, but rewatchable movie. Um, it, the jokes never got old and I, I think that's for a number of reasons.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  Probably the biggest reason is that just Eddie Murphy of the whole situation, like this is my gateway to Eddie Murphy, like one of the. Greatest comic forces in American history, if not the greatest comic force in American history. It's funny to say it that way. Now, sort of backtracking his career, being surrounded by people who are, have much more first-hand experience with his earlier work, and becoming familiar with just like how important his role on SNL is, not just to people who are older than me, but like literally to the foundation of The Ringer. Like Eddie Murphy making Bill Simmons laugh at a young age is like the reason that we're all here doing what we're doing in a lot of ways.

• 29:00Sean Fennessey?

  It's true.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  And it's crazy. Yeah.

• 29:03Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think, I mean, that was part of the narrative at the time when the movie was released was, why did it take so long for Eddie Murphy to have a part like this? And he and Mike Myers being two comic powerhouses with SNL pedigree. But, you know, the movie is fairly strange, I would say. I think you've like located something that makes a lot of sense, which is that there's, there's a kind of meta-ironic quality to the like upending of the fairy tale story, right?

• 29:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 29:36Sean Fennessey?

  That's the whole point of the movie is like, we're doing almost like the, like airplane, but for fairy tales, but animated, you know, that there's like, it's like a joke a minute, everything is like, plays on words or plays on character expectations. It's not the first time this has happened. The two movies that I thought about as I was revisiting this were Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where it was just like breaking rules about where characters could be and where they could live and who could talk to each other and who couldn't and who could coexist. And then the other one-

• 30:03Speaker 02

  It was a huge movie for me, by the way. I have a vivid memory of putting that into the VHS a lot when I was a kid.

• 30:08Sean Fennessey?

  They have a lot in common, for sure. And they both were kind of like at the vanguard of a certain kind of like animation style. Anyway, the other one was Clerks. Wouldn't think-

• 30:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Sean Fennessey?

  Five-year-old Bobby watching Shrek would be able to watch Clerks and enjoy it. And you wouldn't. But 10 or 12 years later, you might because this like pop culture overload sensibility-

• 30:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, yeah.

• 30:29Sean Fennessey?

  You know, and every joke being a joke about a joke that's inside of a joke and it having its own weird rhythms and its own odd relationship to music and our expectations of what characters are supposed to do in a movie and who they actually are. They felt, they felt very tied together for me and I saw Clerks, you know, not quite at five, but I think I was like 12 when I saw it.

• 30:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 30:48Sean Fennessey?

  And then really imprinted on me and I really liked that writing and style. And I think a lot of kids, you, I mean, you made an amazing observation here in your notes that I think is right on. That I think that this informed a kind of like internet tonality.

• 31:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right? Like, explain what you were going for when you were identifying that.

• 31:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. My grand theory about Shrek is that it's the first time that the movies and the memes truly became one. It's like the singularity for shitposting on the internet about movies and movie characters. And I think that that is why Shrek, literally the face of Shrek, endures in so many different meme formats to this point. The entire meme spectrum, this seems like a ridiculous thing for me to.

• 31:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's very smart.

• 31:27Sean Fennessey?

  I think that's true.

• 31:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very smart.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  But it, it's like, there's the like, you know, I would say like twee 2012 style memes where it's like the facial expressions that Shrek is making in the movie are, are like, you know, my feeling when this happens, style memes. All the way down to like the deep fried me on 35 milligrams of THC at the function. And my face falls off Shrek memes, like all of these different things are covered by the Shrek experience. And, and I think a huge, huge part of that is that the computer animation style of this movie is incredibly uncanny and weird and kind of fucked up in some ways. Like, it looks weird. When you look at Shrek for too long.

• 32:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  It's kind of upsetting, especially in the first one, when they were just kind of at the vanguard of this style of animation.

• 32:17Sean Fennessey?

  I, I.

• 32:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Sean Fennessey?

  I had a hard time looking at the first film when we revisited last night.

• 32:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I was like, wow, this is really ugly. Yeah.

• 32:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's very ugly.

• 32:24Amanda Dobbins?

  But in a way that is sort of uncanny valley in its own way. No, I think the meme thing is very smart, Bobby. And again, like plays into my understanding of this is really like the cultural bridge between people our age and people your age. Because we learned about this very like meta self referential pop culture infused, like just mile a minute type of, of storytelling from, you know, Tarantino and.

• 32:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Kevin Smith, I guess you want, and like, and even, you know, the, like, Aaron Sorkin, everything in the 90s was like-

• 33:00Sean Fennessey?

  The TV shows, yeah.

• 33:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, you know, you talk really fast and you show off how much you know, and that's how you relate with other people.

• 33:06Sean Fennessey?

  Stand-up comedians were like this as well.

• 33:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, exactly. And so, it's, you know, a form of humor that we got in, in movies or TV shows, and that then you guys digest through, you know, and it is very cleverly using references that you would have at five, which is every single other fairy tale. That's kind of like your pop cultural library at this point. And then, teaching, giving the language to the younger kids, and then you just put it on the internet, and make some glorious memes. And then, and then it's helpful because, you know, it helps me understand memes, because you're using the same, like, building blocks that we were, but just to do funny things on the internet. It is amazing, I had never seen Shrek 2 before, but I have seen all the memes, you know?

• 33:52Amanda Dobbins?

  So, it was like, it's like, it's funny, it's like, when you watch, like, a film from the 40s, and you're like, oh, that's where they got this. But it was like, me for Shrek 2 with the internet, being like, oh, there's Puss in Boots, you know? Oh, I see it.

• 34:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, it's interesting too, because it was, these movies are made, you know, by old Gen X and young boomers, you know, like, those are the people who created, who wrote the scripts, adapted the book, the directors of the films, they're not elder millennials, they're not even young Gen Xers, the people who wrote and directed this movie are all in their mid 60s now, and they were already kind of 20 years down the road on their careers in Hollywood. And so, it's interesting that they were able to locate a sensibility that would appeal so intensely to five-year-olds, and that would carry them through 25 years. You know, we haven't even mentioned that Puss in Boots, like, that's also a franchise that continues on, like, there have been now, I think, six Shrek-related films, and the seventh is coming.

• 34:50Sean Fennessey?

  So, it has kind of, just every three to four years, there is a new Shrek movie, and it never expired, even though, if you got into it at five, you're like, I guess I just kind of have to see everything that they do. Do you still have that relationship to it? Do you still feel like you have to see every Shrek-related object?

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I mean, I definitely have seen the first four because I was contemporary with them. But I know Puss in Boots, The Last Wish, which came out somewhere in the haze of the pandemic in my mind, like late pandemic era.

• 35:20Sean Fennessey?

  I think it was 2022.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I never watched it.

• 35:25Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, it's good.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I heard that it was like a pretty well liked and um, I just, I never got around to watching it. And something about the Puss in Boots like franchisification, like they, he, that character occupies like the minions territory. Where it's like, we've clearly hit something that is like unbelievably addictive to children. This cat who talks in Antonio Banderas's voice, which honestly, the first time he comes on the screen, it's genuinely really funny.

• 35:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really good.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Especially since, well, and this is another link between Spy Kids and Shrek is Banderas, who just from a very young age, I was like, that guy is the epitome of cool. That guy is my guy forever.

• 36:06Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 36:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. And that I just like, didn't quite respond to as much as the original Shrek films, but uh, yeah, so I, I'm not like, I don't necessarily have like season tickets where I will just show for any Shrek product. Like I will for, you know, maybe the Mission Impossible movies or whatever, but um, yeah, it, it endures, I think. And I do think there are a lot of people who are like that. And for that reason, anxiously awaiting Shrek five, having seen the trailer and are getting a little bit worried about like this much of an advancement in the technology is now going to take us too far away from what the original Shrek is about. It's not gonna look right.

• 36:49Sean Fennessey?

  Crude animation and awkward fart jokes from a Scottish ogre.

• 36:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I spent some time on.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  I mean, kinda, yeah.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  I spent some time on Shrek Reddit this morning.

• 36:57Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 36:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, which has a hundred and ten. Yeah, which has a hundred and 10,000 subscribers.

• 37:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:02Amanda Dobbins?

  So it's a vibrant community. Um, and.

• 37:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's not our okay buddy Shrek, you know, like, you know, the okay buddy.

• 37:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's still, it's just our Shrek. And they are, they seem very concerned about the animation style of Shrek five.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:17Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, that is the job of a subreddit devoted to Shrek is to be upset about, and you know, we saw what happened with Sonic the Hedgehog. When the people voiced their concerns.

• 37:28Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Community spoke and the studio listened.

• 37:31Amanda Dobbins?

  But it does seem to be a hot mud issue.

• 37:34Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't say it's keeping me up at night, but um, I'm glad that there are people that care out there. What uh, the thing that jumped out to me when I was watching it was the music and the fact that this is clearly a movie made by a bunch of Gen Xers. Where I think there's just like an Eels song in the middle of this movie. You know, obviously the

• 37:49Speaker 02

  There sure is.

• 37:51Sean Fennessey?

  The two Smash Mouth songs, Rufus Wainwright on the soundtrack, John Cale in the movie performing Hallelujah.

• 37:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Blocked out that there's just an entire, like the entire song, Hallelujah montage. And then like 2001 came back to me so profoundly in that moment, like

• 38:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 38:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, you know, and then I remember like some kid covering Hallelujah at like a school assembly, you know, but and it was definitely, it was not because of Jeff Buckley or anything else. It was because of Shrek.

• 38:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 02

  That is, I mean, that rules.

• 38:21Sean Fennessey?

  I'm not sure if that rules.

• 38:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, again, and we know how I feel about people singing. And then this person is just up there, just like at the school assembly.

• 38:29Speaker 02

  So I was incredible Joan Jett needle drop in this movie when he's doing WWE, like fighting a bunch of knights.

• 38:36Sean Fennessey?

  And I can't remember, does that, does this, does this predate Freaks and Geeks? Because that Bad Reputation was the theme song for Freaks and Geeks. And so I was wondering like, were these contemporaneous? Was it a coincidence? But that song like had a real second life.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  It's like Freaks and Geeks was 99. So it looks like this was after that.

• 38:55Sean Fennessey?

  It was after.

• 38:55Speaker 02

  Just having a moment.

• 38:56Sean Fennessey?

  The, the music in general is really strange, but actually really effective for subverting your expectations of an animated movie. Like this is not, there are no Disney princesses singing

• 39:08Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 39:09Sean Fennessey?

  Beautiful harmonies in this movie. And in fact, the one Disney princess archetype is in fact at nighttime, an ogre.

• 39:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:17Sean Fennessey?

  And I think there's something really cool about the way that the movie kind of consistently upends your expectations of what a story should be. I don't know if it's sophisticated, but it's fun. And I think it like

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Can I say the, the I'm a believer needle drop, like the Smash Mouth?

• 39:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Cover of that song. First of all, it hits way earlier in the movie than I ever remember. It just is like, here we go. We're, we're off to the races. I think that that was probably the peak of the serotonin levels in my brain and it's been all downhill since then. The first time I saw that.

• 39:46Sean Fennessey?

  So that hit and you were like, this is perfect. I feel so, I feel everything inside of me right now.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, that was like the, the Layla in Goodfellas for four year olds.

• 39:57Amanda Dobbins?

  You really, you can't overestimate to people who weren't there. And I guess at this point, it's like Jack, but like you cannot understand how big a chokehold Smash Mouth had on the public as like off of this movie.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  You could make the argument that they are the 2000s band, like they are the band of the 2000s for better and for worse.

• 40:20Sean Fennessey?

  But here, I'm okay. So here's the thing, I was, I was there for this. Trust me. Their first album, Fushu Mang, comes out in 1997. So they were a kind of buzz bin, post-grunge, where should music go pivot point kind of a band. And they were, they seemed like kind of a joke. Their lead singer, I think Paul Delisle is, was his name, he passed away, had that like croaky, grony thing. He was like a bigger guy. He had spiky hair. He was wearing like Oakleys. But if you listen to the band's first single, which is Walking on the Sun,

• 40:55Sean Fennessey?

  it's basically a non-conformist, anti-capitalist

• 40:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 40:59Sean Fennessey?

  document. But that's weird to say because it's a silly song with a silly music video. But they were like a pretty traditional alternative rock band. And they had success with that album. Then they put out Astro Lounge, their second album. That second album had All Star on it, also a hit. And then I, in my mind, in like 2000, 2001, I'm sure I wasn't spending a lot of time thinking about this, but I was like, oh, they had their moment and it's over. Like you could have thought this is kind of the arc of the alternative rock band in the mid to late 90s. They had one album, maybe two, maybe they got a second hit and then see you later. So for you to frame them, and I don't think you're wrong to frame them this way, but for you to frame them as like a 2000s band, I'm like, this is a 90s band to the core. And yet.

• 41:39Speaker 02

  It's not that I think that they are like, they, they are a night, like they are a 2000s band necessarily in the sense that they're like creating music in the model of like whatever the 2000s came to be in terms of like how the music industry changed and that sort of thing. I think that they sound like the 2000s felt to someone who was growing up in that time period. Like this song, maybe that just is because of Shrek, but they're sort of like, their energy, they're like.

• 42:06Sean Fennessey?

  You know, fuck it like we're just we're having fun no matter what we're singing about kind of energy that that characterizes the songs. I think does sort of align really well with like that time period in my mind. They also, you know, to the to the point of memes like they understood the power of posting too. I mean, they they were having Twitter feuds with the Oakland Athletics in the mid 2010s still, you know, like this is a band that understood the power of like the internet and the internetification of entertainment.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  For better or for worse.

• 42:37Sean Fennessey?

  They were sort of thrust into it. I made a mistake. The lead singer's name was Steve Harwell. Paul Delisle was the bassist and the songwriter in the band. But I wonder if they didn't have the Shrek moment, would they even care about getting involved in internet fights?

• 42:50Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 42:51Sean Fennessey?

  Like, did the Shrek-ification of Smash Mouth transform everything?

• 42:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But they leaned into it. And they also, you know, being not one, but two songs in Shrek

• 43:01Amanda Dobbins?

  is like is like peak sellout, you know, and then you're just riding away, which also has a real early 2000s feel of feel to me.

• 43:11Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just jam all these bands on a soundtrack album?

• 43:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And also, like, everything is just is kind of TRL popped, corporate it out before things absolutely fall apart in the mid 2000s.

• 43:22Sean Fennessey?

  What was on the soundtrack for Shrek 2? Did Smash Mouth make a return? I know that Counting Crows famously had a song, you know, the opening song.

• 43:30Amanda Dobbins?

  It's unmistakable.

• 43:30Sean Fennessey?

  Accidentally in love. Smash Mouth was left on the cutting room floor. I'll never forget the moment I heard Nick Cave's voice singing a song. It was like a saloon piano player singing a Nick Cave song in Shrek 2. I'm like, we are truly through the looking glass here culturally. This could not be any more weird. Anyway, Shrek 1, massive, massive success. $270 million internationally. As you said, brought back Eddie Murphy in a big way for a new generation. Plays to adults pretty, pretty calm, like, pretty smartly. So I saw the movie in theaters too. Imagine me being in college, going with the boys to go see Shrek. Like what a deranged behavior that was. I'm sure we'd had like 14 natty lights.

• 44:13Amanda Dobbins?

  It happened.

• 44:14Speaker 02

  That sounds sick.

• 44:15Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched it last night before bed, like, went into bed. And I, you know, said to Zach, I was like, well, I was like, you seen Shrek? He's like, yeah, more than once. Donkey, man. And I was like, I don't even know what to, you know, but I guess.

• 44:27Sean Fennessey?

  It just took over. Yeah, it just took over. There's no denying that it was for us too, even though we were not, we're not little kids. Like, it was just dominant in the culture for that time.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Sorry, I was so distracted by looking up the soundtrack for, for Shrek 2. We got Holding Out For A Hero by Fru Fru. Changes David Bowie. I mean, come on.

• 44:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Funky Town.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  That's great stuff.

• 44:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 44:47Speaker 02

  That is awesome stuff. Live in La Vida Loca, covered by Banderas and Eddie Murphy. Just great stuff.

• 44:55Sean Fennessey?

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• 46:11Sean Fennessey?

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• 46:53Sean Fennessey?

  That's LinkedIn.com/thebigpicture. Terms and conditions apply. So Shrek one comes out. It's a mega success. It wins the first ever Best Animated Feature Academy Award.

• 47:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:08Sean Fennessey?

  Which is fascinating to go back and think about.

• 47:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 47:11Sean Fennessey?

  And-

• 47:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Who are its competitors?

• 47:13Sean Fennessey?

  Well, let's go back and take a look at the 2002 Academy Awards. Shrek, Jimmy Neutron, boy genius.

• 47:22Amanda Dobbins?

  What happens in that?

• 47:23Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, wow.

• 47:25Amanda Dobbins?

  One sentence summary, Bob, go.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  I don't remember which one that is, but the one sentence summary of Jimmy Neutron is that he is a boy genius with a gigantic head and he is confronted with science related problems. I honestly think that you could have a whole mini series doing just Amanda's Science Corner for Jimmy Neutron.

• 47:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that would go really well.

• 47:46Sean Fennessey?

  Jimmy Neutron in the movie, I believe there's an alien invasion and Jimmy has to save his parents.

• 47:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 47:52Sean Fennessey?

  The other contender was Monsters, Inc. Now, wow.

• 47:56Speaker 02

  Monsters Inc. probably earned that one.

• 47:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 47:59Sean Fennessey?

  Monsters, Inc. losing is fascinating, especially because Pixar would go on to run this category. They've won, I think, north of 10 times in this category. And Monsters, Inc. I think is still widely considered one of their best movies. Actually, we just watched it in our house and it's still, it's really good.

• 48:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a classic.

• 48:16Sean Fennessey?

  And- But that is, that is a testimony, I think, a very discreet testimony to what a phenomenon Shrek was that at this time, when they decided to finally do this, this is like a, this is a big movie year. This is like a big, uh, you know, obviously it's in the aftermath of nine 11 and it's the right when the Fellowship of the Ring starts and this, the beautiful mind won and it was a very, I remember it as a very noisy Academy Awards. And so for Shrek to have that spot was a big deal. Very quickly, the sequel is put into, into motion. What should we say about Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz?

• 48:56Speaker 02

  Are you guys familiar with the backstory of Mike Myers' role as Shrek? Like, how much do you know about how he got?

• 49:02Sean Fennessey?

  Why don't you tell us? I do. I know, I know the whole story.

• 49:05Speaker 02

  Well, it was cat. So it was originally going to be directed as like a normal animated movie, not this like weird uncanny valley dream works style. And it was gonna be directed by Steven Spielberg. He was the person who originally optioned this book that it is very loosely based on.

• 49:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, William Stevens.

• 49:22Speaker 02

  Characters are based on.

• 49:23Amanda Dobbins?

  William Stevens, a legend.

• 49:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, uh, the movie was proceeding. Spielberg had decided not to direct it, I guess, but the movie was proceeding and it was going to be voiced by Chris Farley. And then Chris Farley died during the production of the movie and Mike Myers was interested, I think from prior to when Farley got cast and then wanted to come in and take over as in the role. And like very late in the production process, made this like crazy choice to give the Shrek character a Scottish accent, which he didn't have when he was performed by Farley, because he wanted to distance his own performance from the performance that Farley had given when he was originally going to voice it over. And in doing so, created like a whole lot of new work for the animators. And they spent like almost like half a million dollars on refitting the visuals to match his

• 50:09Speaker 02

  like Scottish accent or whatever. And to be honest, like, I actually can't imagine the movie with Shrek just doing a normal voice. I can't imagine him not having a Scottish accent. And it is such a huge part of why it is just inherently funny from the jump that he is talking like this.

• 50:26Sean Fennessey?

  It's particularly strange when you hear about what Myers' relationship is to that accent. But Farley was apparently five days away from completing his voice performance, which was going to be completed before the animation was done. And they changed the animation style a couple of times. They had attempted to do it in more of like a, I think originally more of like a motion capture style, and then that proved too difficult. And so they moved to just the traditional computer animation style. But so Farley can't finish it. Meyer steps in. Myers really likes the character. He records the entire track in a normal American accent. I think he does another one in a Canadian accent.

• 51:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 51:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which of course, Mike Myers is from Canada. That doesn't really work. And then at the last minute, he says he wants to try the Scottish accent. Now, under normal circumstances-

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Which is something that you said to me before that first episode of The Big Picture that I produced, and I counseled you not to do that, so.

• 51:17Sean Fennessey?

  If only I had gone down that route. I would have felt more comfortable in my true voice. But you'd be like, that's a really quirky choice by a comic actor, but it's something that you might hear the comic actor does from time to time, except for the fact that Mike Myers had done this twice already.

• 51:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, well, I don't mind it.

• 51:33Sean Fennessey?

  I don't mind it either, but it's really weird when you're like, his most famous roles are Scottish guys.

• 51:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, it's very strange. It's like, it's weird, but don't you think that brings our generation in a little bit? Because we remember So I Married an Axe Murderer.

• 51:45Sean Fennessey?

  That's it.

• 51:45Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  That's it. So I Married an Axe Murderer, obviously, he, his character's father is a Scotsman. You know? Heed!

• 51:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Bring my purse!

• 51:54Sean Fennessey?

  No! It's like, an orange with a toothpick. You know, like all that.

• 51:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Have you seen So I Married an Axe Murderer? Does that, has that made it to you?

• 52:01Speaker 02

  No, I haven't.

• 52:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my God. Dude, you gotta watch it.

• 52:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It is so... Maybe you won't laugh at all, and that would be really funny, too. But like, I don't think I've ever laughed more during a rewatchables than when you guys did So I Married an Axe Murderer. And it wasn't anything you were saying. You just played the clips, and I started giggling.

• 52:18Sean Fennessey?

  The clips. Okay, so just to set the scene for those of you out there listening who have not seen Sorry Married to an Axe Murder. I believe the first time that we see Mike Myers' father in the film, played by Mike Myers in old man makeup. He is sitting on his couch. It's Saturday night. He's about to watch a soccer match and host his son and his best friend. His wife, played by Brenda Fricker, is dusting their wall, which is the Scottish Hall of Fame. And he is singing the Bay City Rollers Saturday Night, and he's saying, S A T U R D A Y, night! It's like the funniest fucking thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And then obviously, five years later, he brings this voice back for Fat Bastard.

• 53:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Sean Fennessey?

  So Fat Bastard in Austin Powers 2.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  That I'm familiar with. That made it, that made its way to me as a kid, so.

• 53:07Sean Fennessey?

  And Fat Bastard, what could play better to a young boy than Fat Bastard? Just some magical film creation. So he's like, okay, I've already done two classic Scots in my movie performances, and now this ogre needs to be Scottish. And yet somehow, like in the mythology of ogres, it just kind of tracks, even if it's not factually accurate.

• 53:25Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, in, I guess this is like Brigadoon inflected, but like, all fairy tales take place somewhere in Scotland in my mind, even though I think many of them are of Germanic tradition. You know, obviously Scandinavia's got a big hold there. So, but yes.

• 53:40Sean Fennessey?

  Classics major.

• 53:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Scotland, like Scotland is where it's happening. I'm just immediately primed to laugh because I know that it's Mike Myers doing it. I know, rewatching it, I do think he's sort of the unsung hero of this, of this movie.

• 53:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mike.

• 53:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, Eddie Murphy is amazing and so funny, but Mike Myers has to be kind of like the straight man and get you emotionally involved.

• 54:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's a real performance.

• 54:05Amanda Dobbins?

  A Scottish ogre. And you do buy all of it. So I think he's quite good. Would love to talk about Cameron Diaz.

• 54:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 54:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, you know, that's her voice.

• 54:16Sean Fennessey?

  She plays Fiona.

• 54:17Amanda Dobbins?

  She showed up. She talked into a microphone.

• 54:20Sean Fennessey?

  She, you, you despise Cameron Diaz?

• 54:23Amanda Dobbins?

  No, Charlie's Angels is one of the great moments in cinema history.

• 54:27Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Bobby, you, you did not see The Counselor before you saw Shrek. So what was, what were your feelings on Cameron Diaz when you saw this film?

• 54:36Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I don't know that I was even registering. Who, I don't think I really cared who voiced who until I had watched Shrek like forty times. And I was like, I'd like more of this donkey guy. That guy's pretty funny. Um, I, I think she does a good job. Your contention was, Amanda, that she's mailing it in?

• 54:55Amanda Dobbins?

  No, there's not like a lot of there there, but there's not a lot of there there to Fiona in this film. So.

• 55:00Sean Fennessey?

  Not until Shrek two.

• 55:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Not until Shrek two. So it's not really her fault. Also, just to take it back to, um, movie star liquor taste test. We did like her wine. It was late in the game, but we thought that the Aveline wine was, was pretty good.

• 55:14Sean Fennessey?

  That's a collab with Benji Madden?

• 55:17Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think that's hers. It's the collab with Catherine Power, who also makes Merritt the makeup, which started a long and fruitful.

• 55:23Sean Fennessey?

  I thought they bought that winery together. No, it's not the whole thing.

• 55:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Did they?

• 55:26Sean Fennessey?

  The Madden, didn't she get married to a Madden?

• 55:29Amanda Dobbins?

  She did, but he's been written out. It's now her wine in the marketing.

• 55:32Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, okay. But is he still in the picture?

• 55:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I think they're together.

• 55:35Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, that's nice.

• 55:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 55:36Sean Fennessey?

  Good.

• 55:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Anyway, the wine was good. We liked it.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Yes, you, I remember you guys liking it very much. I, I was a little kind of mixed on it. Not my kind of wine.

• 55:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Wine person?

• 55:45Speaker 02

  I like red wine, but I like it to be a little more dry.

• 55:48Amanda Dobbins?

  But is, is this about like macros?

• 55:51Speaker 02

  No, no. I think wine, wine is okay. As far as alcohols go, it's like decent for macros. I mean, it's relatively sugary, but red wine has some good effects.

• 56:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Talk to me about Shrek's, uh, bulking, cutting and bulking routine.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  I think he came out of the womb like that. I don't think he has to work too hard to get like that. I will talk to you about the, the second movie, how he's built is a, is a fascinating, also a deeply upsetting stretch of the movie when he's turned into like a normal looking guy. And they're like, this is supposed to be the hottest guy on earth. And it's, he's like a very upsetting looking man. I mean, I don't think that really worked.

• 56:30Sean Fennessey?

  He does look a bit like a bulking and cutting influencer though.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  He does. He looks a little bit like the mountain.

• 56:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Or like leftovers, leftover steroids, which is another thing that you taught me, which is when the men are like large but slightly mushy. It's because often they stopped doing their treatments.

• 56:46Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm really glad that on my way out here, I'm leaving you with some building blocks. I'm leaving you with some really important knowledge about HGH usage.

• 56:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Bobby, you'd know I will always text you with questions. It's like, this relationship is not over.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's another one of the core tenets of being the producer of the big picture is that I'm just awake all of the time and I'll answer text messages at any hour of the night.

• 57:08Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, there's like girl creatine now, right? You know, that that market has opened up.

• 57:13Speaker 02

  I've heard about this. I, I recently learned about it in relation to Jennifer Lopez, but I don't know as much about it. Can you teach me what's?

• 57:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I just saw on the internet that an influencer that I follow and like, and I mostly use her recommendations for like garbage bags and stuff on Amazon. Uh, but she was posting a certain brand of creatine that I, uh, recognized as like, I, you know, I recognize.

• 57:35Speaker 02

  Oh, so it's just creatine. It's not like a separate supplement. It's also creatine.

• 57:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, no, it's, and it's like, it's like shaped like the jars, you know, like the GNC jars, but it just then has peak labeling and it says creatine. And I was like, oh, wow. The approach, like this has made it over to girl internet. So here we are.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Where does this fall on the alignment chart with girl Lira? Which was like a bit that we did on the pod for like two years.

• 57:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, you can definitely only buy girl creatine with girl Lira. And I think it is like, uh, also super, what's the word? I'm like, like the exchange rate is not what you want, you know?

• 58:08Speaker 02

  You're paying a premium because of this girl.

• 58:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 58:11Speaker 02

  I see. I see. When was the last time you took a scoop of creatine, Sean?

• 58:15Sean Fennessey?

  It's been a while.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Right before holding those dumbbells out for thirty straight minutes.

• 58:19Sean Fennessey?

  No, no protein powder for me.

• 58:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I don't really believe in it either. I've started doing other, I mean.

• 58:24Sean Fennessey?

  I think I actually have a reasonably good protein inflected diet. So I'm not terribly concerned about that.

• 58:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm trying to find natural sources. I do now, Bobby, because of you do the magnesium for sleeping and it's helping.

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 58:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 58:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Magnesium glycinate. I'm not a doctor.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  You're not.

• 58:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Just, you know, covering my legal bases.

• 58:44Sean Fennessey?

  I realize this is in the spirit of the big picture and everything that you've been a part of on this show, Bob, but Shrek two? How do we get back? How do we get back there? Show me, show me a transition.

• 58:51Amanda Dobbins?

  So his build, his build, it was about, it was about his Shrek two build.

• 58:56Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 58:56Amanda Dobbins?

  When he turns two.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Well, the answer to how he gets to that is that in the first movie, we see a little bit of a window into his diet, which it sounds like he's eating a lot of rats, which I guess is a lot of lean protein, but I found that to be a very upsetting scene. But it was romantic between them when they share the rats. So that's how we get there.

• 59:13Amanda Dobbins?

  He's barbecuing.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  No communicable diseases in those rats. Like presumably if you eat a rat, whatever a rat is carrying, you're ingesting. That seems like a little dicey for that ogre. I know he's an ogre, but still.

• 59:22Amanda Dobbins?

  What's the world that they live in? Like, what's the name of, like, is it Never Neverland? Is it, that's Peter Pan.

• 59:30Speaker 02

  I don't really know that they specify, they specify where they're going, the kingdom of Duloc in the first one and then far, far away.

• 59:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Do we have a lot of history? Are there communicable diseases there?

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 59:42Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 59:42Speaker 02

  You think they've kind of wiped everything out?

• 59:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't, I mean, I, I'm just wondering, we like, we don't, you don't hear about any plague and it is sort of like.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  They have much more of a pro vaccine disposition.

• 59:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Renaissance inflected. I, I mean, that would be nice. Um, I, they have, they don't mention anything about hand washing and all the rules. So maybe.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  But no masking culture, obviously.

• 1:00:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Maybe germs are not a concern.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  Although those, those knights do have those, those face shields.

• 1:00:08Amanda Dobbins?

  But that's to protect your eyes and your other stuff.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  And your mouth. Yeah.

• 1:00:12Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, didn't matter for Shrek. He was straight up dropping the tombstone. Like he was doing WWE moves. It was incredible. Uh, I, I don't know. You think it's like a Maha screed Shrek? This is what America could be if only you would sign up.

• 1:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  For what?

• 1:00:29Speaker 02

  I don't think that's the case.

• 1:00:30Sean Fennessey?

  I don't know. You could live in a fairy tale existence if you didn't get vaccinated. I don't know. Whatever the fuck the movie's trying to tell you.

• 1:00:36Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I think they have vaccines. Every, I think everyone, uh, you know, went along with it. And so now that everyone's healthy.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, they, what they do clearly have in the second movie is they have a supplement culture because Fairy Godmother runs a factory of wellness products and, and love products that she sells to people to get rich.

• 1:00:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, sure, because Fiona's from LA.

• 1:00:57Speaker 02

  The second movie being, yeah, exactly. The second movie being about an, her being an Angelino is, is very funny to me. I think that's a pretty good bit.

• 1:01:04Sean Fennessey?

  Does Goop predate Shrek 2?

• 1:01:07Amanda Dobbins?

  What year is Shrek 2?

• 1:01:08Speaker 02

  2004.

• 1:01:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, no, Shrek 2 was first.

• 1:01:11Sean Fennessey?

  When, when did Goop launch?

• 1:01:12Amanda Dobbins?

  I want to say 2007 or 8.

• 1:01:14Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:01:15Speaker 02

  Oh, it sounds an awful lot like Shrek 2 invented Goop.

• 1:01:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:01:19Sean Fennessey?

  Shrek 2, I think it did invent Goop.

• 1:01:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, Cameron Diaz and Gwyneth Paltrow are good friends. I don't think Gwyneth Paltrow has seen Shrek or Shrek 2 though. She did have small children around this time, but you know, she doesn't watch the Avengers movies. So I don't think she's doing that for her friends.

• 1:01:35Sean Fennessey?

  Gwyneth, it's Cameron. I'm working on a film right now. It's called Shrek 2. There's a plot line for my character related to supplements and I had some thoughts. Maybe you could have a business built entirely around Fiona and Fairy Godmother's lifestyle. You say what?

• 1:01:53Sean Fennessey?

  Cameron Diaz should have gotten, um, Charlie Rose's show.

• 1:01:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I, that would have been great, actually. I would watch, they, they should give her an interview show. I would watch every single one.

• 1:02:04Sean Fennessey?

  What is she interested in? What's she about?

• 1:02:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Wine. Uh, once for Goop, she did a crunchy vegan salad. Uh, and it didn't, it didn't seem like it had enough dressing for my taste. What else?

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Uh, she's interested in retiring early.

• 1:02:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, vacations or spending time with her family.

• 1:02:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that sounds very helpful, healthy. I like that. Maybe she should have a supplement company.

• 1:02:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that's it. I think that's all I know about Cameron Diaz.

• 1:02:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. We neglected to mention John Lithgow as Laura Farquad in the first film, Command.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  We didn't really talk much about Farquad and the whole Duloc situation. What's your take on that? Um, the song that introduces Duloc, Duloc is a perfect place.

• 1:02:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Welcome to Duloc. That's just some of the funniest shit I've ever seen in my life. I still crack up every single time I see that.

• 1:02:53Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, do you know the muffin man? The muffin man? The muffin man is funny. That's, it's so, it's very funny.

• 1:02:58Sean Fennessey?

  The gingerbread man. Commitment to the bit was, was, that was a notable moment in the movie for sure. Back when we saw it. I, I was more partial to Robin Hood and Vincent Cassel.

• 1:03:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Sean Fennessey?

  Why was Robin Hood French? I'm not sure. Is, was Robin Hood a French story? I feel like it's an English story. And yet he's sort of inexplicably French.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Traditionally, it's represented by the English, but I have no idea if it's originally French.

• 1:03:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure. Cause it's Prince John, Sir His, very big in our house right now.

• 1:03:24Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Sir His is Knox's best friend.

• 1:03:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  A, a, like borderline Lothario stealing money from rich people to give to other people is a very French ass thing to do though. So I, I appreciated the joke, even if I didn't get it when I was five. That's another thing about these movies, especially the first one. It's like way more adult humor than kid humor. The, the kid humor is confined more to like the lot, the Eddie Murphy line readings and the visual gags and all of those sorts of the physical humor.

• 1:03:53Amanda Dobbins?

  And stuff.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. But the actual script itself, there's like a lot of more adult jokes. There's like a lot of sex jokes in the first movie. And, uh, I don't think I really realized any of that until coming back to it as an adult.

• 1:04:05Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think most people realize that Vincent Cassel's 2001 to 2002 is extremely goaded.

• 1:04:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:04:12Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he appeared in the film Shrek as Monsieur Hood.

• 1:04:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:18Sean Fennessey?

  And then he appeared in 2002 as Diego in Ice Age, another DreamWorks Animation classic that I've never seen.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  Legendary performance. He's the saber tooth tiger.

• 1:04:29Sean Fennessey?

  And he followed that up immediately with Gaspar Noz's Irreversible.

• 1:04:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Sean Fennessey?

  One of the most challenging films ever made. A truly dark journey into the despair of relationships in this world. Um, so that's, that's cool.

• 1:04:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Sean Fennessey?

  Good job by him.

• 1:04:45Amanda Dobbins?

  He's doing it all, you know?

• 1:04:47Sean Fennessey?

  Then 2004, he's in Ocean's 12.

• 1:04:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Trust me. I knew that that was coming.

• 1:04:50Sean Fennessey?

  Francois Toulour.

• 1:04:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, Shrek two is slicker, better animated. I thought a little bit less fun. I think it's, I agree. It's good, but it's missing some of the manic, joke a minute, Zucker Abrams style that I like about the first one.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  I do think it's just broadly dumbed down. Like, I do think that they were thinking about the franchise-ification potential of the franchise. And franchise-ification potential of the franchise, that's good stuff by me right there. They were thinking about stuff like, uh, you know, Puss in Boots being marketable. They were thinking about stuff like, how are we setting ourselves up to have like a million different characters that can broaden this world? And that's fine. I think Shrek two is still a phenomenal movie, start to finish. I just think that it starts to lean away from what I think is authentically like really entertaining and rewatchable about the first one, which is like just that small set of characters and the relationships between them.

• 1:05:53Speaker 02

  Um, but then again, there are people like, I was, I was at a bar last night watching a Knicks game with some friends. And one of the people, when I told him that I had to go home to watch Shrek one and two, he was like, Shrek two is my Empire Strikes Back. I think it's the greatest sequel in movie history.

• 1:06:10Sean Fennessey?

  But that implies that it somehow is like this hinge.

• 1:06:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:06:15Sean Fennessey?

  In the story.

• 1:06:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Where it's just the same story, but a little more Fiona. I was gonna ask you, what, what is the central conflict in Shrek's three and four? What are they working through?

• 1:06:26Speaker 02

  Couldn't tell you.

• 1:06:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  Don't remember.

• 1:06:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Because it does feel a little bit like a retread of the, it's on, it's what's on the inside that counts. Uh, which, listen, in their early 2000s was an important message to be giving to young children.

• 1:06:42Sean Fennessey?

  Now we don't say that. Now it's about what's outside. Are you beautiful? Do you have a nice house? What kind of watch do you have? What is the name of your podcast? These are the things that matter in our society today.

• 1:06:53Amanda Dobbins?

  I did watch both of them. No, with like, you know, parent 2025 eyes. And I was like, oh, well, in general, this just seems like too fixated on appearance, you know? Like, if, if you made it now.

• 1:07:04Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 1:07:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It would just be more about like, it doesn't, well, then you couldn't make this story. But, um, it doesn't matter what the people look like. We have other things to worry about.

• 1:07:13Sean Fennessey?

  When I, so I did watch 45 minutes of it with my daughter last, last night, the first film and. She obviously was infatuated with Fiona.

• 1:07:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:07:21Sean Fennessey?

  Which is very clever design by them to actually put a princess in, even though she's not the traditional princess, but still she is, so you could draw on young girls. But she was most interested in the female dragon.

• 1:07:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sick.

• 1:07:33Sean Fennessey?

  The reveal that the dragon is actually in love with Donkey and that she's pink. Yeah.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  Great bit.

• 1:07:39Sean Fennessey?

  And she was very scared of the dragon all the way up until that moment when you get the close up of the dragon, looking at Donkey and she's sort of like.

• 1:07:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:07:47Sean Fennessey?

  Drawn to him.

• 1:07:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:07:48Sean Fennessey?

  And then she was like, that's probably the coolest dragon that's ever lived. You know, she was really, really in it. So there's like a series of these like upended expectations in both. In the first two films, I think they both do a really nice job of that.

• 1:07:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Speaker 02

  So you think that Alice, if pressed on it, would rate this dragon on a list, a power ranking, above or below Smaug?

• 1:08:05Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, you can't believe the kind of content we're gonna get out of me and Alice revisiting the Hobbit films with Chris, the three of us holding hands for nine consecutive hours, watching those films. Director's cut's probably more like 10 and a half hours. I think it's gonna be good stuff. The biggest dragon in our house right now is the dragon from the end of Sleeping Beauty, which is Maleficent's transformation.

• 1:08:26Amanda Dobbins?

  So I always found that to be the most frightening part of all the Disney movies. Shout out Alice, that she's really into it.

• 1:08:31Sean Fennessey?

  It is really scary. It's beautiful.

• 1:08:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Sean Fennessey?

  The animation in that sequence is incredible, but yeah, she digs that part.

• 1:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, that's cool.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  There's a great gag, I can't remember if it's three or four, at the Shrek movies, where Donkey and the dragon then start a family and the babies that they have are just donkeys with wings that blow fire. Just a funny, it's a funny bit.

• 1:08:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't, I was gonna show this to Knox and then we had some behavior issues and so I had to parent. But I was telling him about the movie he was gonna watch and I was like, well, it's about a green friend named Shrek. And then he has a friend who's a donkey and I don't remember the donkey's name. Turned out it was Donkey. And then they have to go on some adventures and he immediately was just like, tell me more about this donkey. So even without having seen the movie, he was like, we will see a movie with a donkey?

• 1:09:24Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Does the donkey talk? Is he a nice donkey? You know?

• 1:09:27Sean Fennessey?

  These are all good questions.

• 1:09:28Amanda Dobbins?

  It's it's but I was I was like, wow, there's something in the in the DNA of the story where it doesn't even doesn't have to be seen to work.

• 1:09:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this is a Jeffrey Katzenberg joint and one of the reasons Myers said he wanted to make this movie was because he wanted to work with Jeffrey Katzenberg, you know, the producer and executive who oversaw this sort of second golden age of Disney and who launched DreamWorks Animation, one of the three founders of DreamWorks.

• 1:09:54Amanda Dobbins?

  And the demise of the Democratic Party, but that's okay.

• 1:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  He has also done some unfortunate things in recent times around Joe Biden. Nevertheless,

• 1:10:03Sean Fennessey?

  the idea that a star would want to work with an executive who's not an animator and not a writer, but has this kind of macher producer quality, you know, this like, he's like the Irving Thalberg of animated movies from 1987 through to 2015, is really fascinating. And I think that those things that you were just identifying, that there's like some appeal to all of these little choices that triggers in people's minds, is sort of a trademark of Katzenberg's that over and over again, even though he doesn't get credits on these movies in quite the same way, he is seen as sort of like, author is too strong a word,

• 1:10:44Sean Fennessey?

  but a really, really meaningful driver of what these movies turn out to be. This one might be the most impressive because it's the most original, even though it's based on fairy tales. It doesn't really, you know, it's a book, but as Bob said, it's like a loose adaptation of a book. It could have gone in any number of different directions. There are many writers on this. Like, for example, I know Terry Rosio has a writing credit on this movie and Terry Rosio has written like a number of great films. He was a writer on Aladdin, he was a writer on The Mask of Zoro, speaking of Antonio Banderas, he wrote a bunch of Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He was like a very depended upon hand by Disney for many years for writing, cracking these stories. But you get the idea that Jeffrey Katzenberg is very comfortable talking to someone like Terry Rosio about what he wants in the movie and what's going to work. This is like something that we know

• 1:11:29Sean Fennessey?

  but don't necessarily talk about and you and I have a lot of admiration and respect for the creator and the artist. Jeffrey Katzenberg is not an artist and yet there is a kind of artistry to him knowing what little kids are going to want in a movie and maybe even what increasingly grown adults are going to want in a movie like this.

• 1:11:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Because you can you lock them in at age five and then have them for a lifetime, Bobby. Do you have tickets for Shrek 5 yet?

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Not yet.

• 1:11:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  I will acquire them, though.

• 1:11:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you think it's-

• 1:12:00Sean Fennessey?

  Is it winter? When is it?

• 1:12:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Will it be like a thing with a group of, you know, like-minded and like-aged individuals for you?

• 1:12:08Sean Fennessey?

  Shrek 5 is not coming out till December 23rd, 2026.

• 1:12:11Amanda Dobbins?

  What?

• 1:12:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. It's so, it's 18 months away.

• 1:12:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. So they were just hyping it?

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  Thirty and a half years old, sitting in that movie theater.

• 1:12:21Sean Fennessey?

  Solo?

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  Crazy for Shrek.

• 1:12:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Life comes at you fast, big guy.

• 1:12:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, it sure does. It sure does.

• 1:12:25Sean Fennessey?

  Will you get a Shrek popcorn bucket?

• 1:12:28Speaker 02

  Uh, I thought you were gonna ask me if I'll get a Shrek tattoo to memorialize this final appearance here on the big picture.

• 1:12:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you have any Shrek merch as a kid?

• 1:12:36Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I mean, again, I know I mentioned, briefly mentioned the video game. I played the video game a lot, so no merch.

• 1:12:43Sean Fennessey?

  What did you have to do?

• 1:12:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, what happened to the video game?

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  It was largely set in the world of the second movie, so Far Far Away. And you kind of have to just basically do a lot of the things that they do in the sequences, like the action, quote-unquote, "action" sequences of this movie. So, um, you know, getting into Fairy Godmother's factory. The prison break sequence, which obviously it's really funny timing that we're doing this because it references Mission Impossible with the Mission Impossible theme song, Needle Drop. Um, things like that. You know, you gotta, you gotta fight the knights. You gotta ride Donkey when he turns into a horse. Things like that.

• 1:13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And like, what's the goal? Like, what's the princess in the castle?

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Uh, I honestly don't remember. I think to defeat Fairy Godmother, I guess.

• 1:13:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, sure. Yeah. Jennifer Saunders, a true legend.

• 1:13:33Speaker 02

  Memories of playing that on GameCube.

• 1:13:34Sean Fennessey?

  I did not realize that was her until I watched this movie. But it makes sense. I mean, you look at John Cleese and Julie Andrews and Jennifer Saunders. And it's that old thing that, you know, non-animated films do, where they're also just like, let's just draw in as many British people as possible.

• 1:13:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Rupert Everett?

• 1:13:49Sean Fennessey?

  To get Rupert Everett.

• 1:13:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is again, I, you know, when I saw Wicked and I thought the donkey was Rupert Everett and not Peter Dinklage, I had another moment watching this where I'm like, I don't want to get my hopes up. Is it actually Rupert Everett this time? And it was. So that was pleasing to me.

• 1:14:03Sean Fennessey?

  Would Wicked Part 1 have been significantly better if it were Rupert Everett doing the goat voice?

• 1:14:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, he's a goat?

• 1:14:10Sean Fennessey?

  He's a goat.

• 1:14:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Um. Yes. I trust him to, no, because I don't care about that.

• 1:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  What if it were Mike Myers doing the Shrek voice?

• 1:14:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Honestly, yes.

• 1:14:20Speaker 02

  Now we're talking.

• 1:14:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:21Speaker 02

  Now we're talking.

• 1:14:23Sean Fennessey?

  Mike Myers should just do the Shrek voice all the time.

• 1:14:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Wicked is not like unrelated to what we're doing here. And there are a lot of Wizard of Oz references in Shrek 2. Um, but I, it's, you know, bringing all the like Fantasyland fairy tale things together, but in a slightly different way. I gotta say, I respect Shrek's approach more.

• 1:14:42Speaker 02

  He's gonna cry himself to sleep tonight on his huge pillow. You gotta get into So I Married an Axe Murder. You got, are you guys familiar with the fact that, so, um, when Spielberg came to Rachel Zegler for, uh, for the remake of West Side Story, she was in a high school production of Shrek the Musical, which is an adaptation of Shrek for the stage. And she told Spielberg, I will do West Side Story, but I would like to finish it out with my high school stage troupe. And he was like, yes, you can do that. So they delayed the start of filming for West Side Story because Spielberg closed the loop on loving Shrek.

• 1:15:21Sean Fennessey?

  Have you ever seen any clips from Shrek the Musical on stage? It was on Broadway.

• 1:15:26Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:15:26Speaker 02

  Out of control, man.

• 1:15:28Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I mean.

• 1:15:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You didn't go? Oh, no.

• 1:15:31Sean Fennessey?

  No, I didn't go.

• 1:15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What is they, what are they dancing to?

• 1:15:34Sean Fennessey?

  Deeply upsetting. I, I, the guy's outfit who's dressed as Shrek is the latex and the makeup. This guy got in the chair every night and put on all this makeup to be Shrek for 14 months. I guess 12 months it ran, 2008 to January 2010.

• 1:15:49Speaker 02

  He's like Colin Farrell making The Penguin, you know, we're gonna give him an Oscar just cuz.

• 1:15:53Sean Fennessey?

  But every night, six nights a week.

• 1:15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And then he's like breakdancing, this is really, that's, that's not what you want. Who did Rachel Zegler play in Shrek?

• 1:16:01Speaker 02

  I'm not, I think Fiona.

• 1:16:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's not really a great part, you know, so maybe.

• 1:16:05Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe she was donkey.

• 1:16:06Amanda Dobbins?

  That, I think she could be good at that.

• 1:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  She was a little, she's a bit wee for Shrek.

• 1:16:11Speaker 02

  Well, you never know. We could bulk, we could bulk Rachel Zegler up.

• 1:16:15Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, the suit.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  Get her on some girl creatine.

• 1:16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Shrek the Musical, I didn't know that existed. Wow.

• 1:16:22Speaker 02

  Now you do.

• 1:16:23Sean Fennessey?

  Do you think Rachel Zegler would be a more surefire thing at the box office if she took girl creatine?

• 1:16:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I think if she were in Shrek 5, no problem, you know?

• 1:16:33Speaker 02

  Maybe she is.

• 1:16:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's true. But this seems bulletproof.

• 1:16:36Speaker 02

  Who's in the cast of Shrek 5 as we get down to the end of this conversation?

• 1:16:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Cameron Diaz back? I mean, they have to have all of the people.

• 1:16:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm wondering who the new voices are. Maybe they're not sharing that with us yet. Well, you know, Chris Meladondri, who runs Illumination, took this over. So this is now kind of, I don't know if it's officially under the Illumination banner.

• 1:16:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  But he is the one who is managing it.

• 1:16:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Energy like coming.

• 1:16:58Speaker 02

  Guys, I have some huge news for you about the cast of Shrek 5. There are four people who are confirmed on MTV.

• 1:17:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Tell us, tell us.

• 1:17:04Speaker 02

  The first three people are Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, and Eddie Murphy.

• 1:17:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 1:17:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Number four.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  As you suspected, number four is a little movie star named Zendaya.

• 1:17:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Stop it.

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  I swear to God.

• 1:17:17Sean Fennessey?

  They announced this in CinemaCon.

• 1:17:20Amanda Dobbins?

  I.

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Do you know who she plays?

• 1:17:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Their daughter?

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  Fiona and Shrek's daughter.

• 1:17:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Good for her. Good for everyone. She is a legend.

• 1:17:29Sean Fennessey?

  So is she an ogre? Or is she a human? Or does she have the same affliction that Fiona has to, has to deal with? Like what?

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  But I think that Fiona has gotten rid of the affliction. I think that she is just an ogre, her fullest form with her true love, Shrek.

• 1:17:46Sean Fennessey?

  Did they explain how she had like ogre qualities even though she was born of?

• 1:17:50Amanda Dobbins?

  A spell.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Oh, a spell was cast.

• 1:17:52Sean Fennessey?

  But the spell, they went full spell? They were like, we're going permanent spell?

• 1:17:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Spell was until you have your true love's kiss, you won't be your real form. And then Shrek is her true love.

• 1:18:04Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So they kiss and then her real form is, is Shrek-ness, you know? So they can be together. But that's what love does.

• 1:18:12Sean Fennessey?

  Biologically, can two humans give birth to an ogre? Like, have we explored this on Science Corner or elsewhere?

• 1:18:19Speaker 02

  They're, they're, they're two ogres.

• 1:18:21Sean Fennessey?

  But then they were also under a spell? I'm talking about her parents.

• 1:18:24Amanda Dobbins?

  No, like Julie Andrews and John Cleese.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  Oh. Like, her parents were humans. So they just gave birth to a true spirited ogre?

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I believe if we want to really get into the biology of it, no, they gave birth to a human and then the spell was cast on her to turn her into an ogre at night.

• 1:18:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Because the ogre is her true self.

• 1:18:41Speaker 05

  But her father was not just a normal human. You remember Fairy Godmother alludes to the fact that she did a favor for him. And at the end of the film, he's turned back into a frog.

• 1:18:50Sean Fennessey?

  A frog, yes.

• 1:18:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Gen Z coming through with the lore.

• 1:18:54Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good point, but does a human and a frog making, having sex create the, an ogre's true spirit?

• 1:19:02Amanda Dobbins?

  We don't know the genetic details of this world, you know? We don't know whether they have germs.

• 1:19:08Sean Fennessey?

  This is, if you don't get vaccinated, you fuck a frog and then you give birth to an ogre. Like this, this, these movies are dangerous.

• 1:19:15Amanda Dobbins?

  But ogres are good.

• 1:19:17Sean Fennessey?

  Are they, though? They're eating rats.

• 1:19:19Amanda Dobbins?

  In the Shrek universe.

• 1:19:20Sean Fennessey?

  They're, they're actually quite grouchy.

• 1:19:22Amanda Dobbins?

  This movie is about accepting ogres. I, listen, pot and kettle on that one.

• 1:19:25Sean Fennessey?

  No, this is my favorite moment of watching this with Alice.

• 1:19:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:19:28Sean Fennessey?

  I was, we're like 15 minutes into it and

• 1:19:33Sean Fennessey?

  God, she's the best.

• 1:19:36Sean Fennessey?

  Donkey has arrived.

• 1:19:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:38Sean Fennessey?

  And he's in Shrek's house. And I was like, Alice, do you understand what's happening in the movie right now? And she's like, yeah, Shrek needs space. Donkey won't give him space.

• 1:19:51Amanda Dobbins?

  This is.

• 1:19:53Sean Fennessey?

  And I was like, yes, that's exactly right, sweetheart.

• 1:19:56Amanda Dobbins?

  By the way, I need some space has come on heavy. Montessori really, really, really coming through.

• 1:20:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 1:20:02Amanda Dobbins?

  In.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Shrek needs space.

• 1:20:05Speaker 02

  Ogres are like onions. Ogres are not like cake. Is really, a really great, I love that line.

• 1:20:11Sean Fennessey?

  It is good.

• 1:20:11Speaker 02

  I think that's so funny.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  This is, I was gonna say a beautiful pair of films. I don't know if I actually believe that. I think there's something a little bit rickety and weird about these movies, but I like them.

• 1:20:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that they are useful cultural artifacts.

• 1:20:23Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:20:23Amanda Dobbins?

  And they did make me laugh.

• 1:20:24Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:20:25Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's fine.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  What would you compare them to culturally? Is this like the work of Jackson Pollock?

• 1:20:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, what is other sort of like, you know?

• 1:20:35Sean Fennessey?

  Cy Twombly.

• 1:20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Guys, hey, yeah, no, garbage version of a form of an art form that then helps you, reflects the moment that it came from. Because this, I mean, 2001, weird ass year in every single way and a real cultural turning

• 1:20:55Sean Fennessey?

  Absolutely.

• 1:20:55Amanda Dobbins?

  So this being the lasting cultural artifact makes a lot of sense.

• 1:21:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think it's, this is going to seem like a strange comp, but I think it's correct. The first season of The White Lotus and like

• 1:21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, in pandemic.

• 1:21:06Sean Fennessey?

  The aftermath of

• 1:21:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:21:07Sean Fennessey?

  You know, the pandemic and DEI and, you know,

• 1:21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:13Sean Fennessey?

  All the kind of panic culturally around that time and a writer just having like just the right voice to kind of excite people and annoy them by what they've done. Like this movie weirdly

• 1:21:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:21:24Sean Fennessey?

  unlocks an idea about fairy tale and the vision of self in a pre Instagram world. That, you know, it's

• 1:21:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:31Sean Fennessey?

  It is, it is kind of crushing, I think, don't you think?

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  I think that the message, the underlying message of the movie being, obviously it is couched in the aesthetic view of yourself and your self-confidence, but I think the underlying message being find a way to be the most authentic version of yourself and find someone who wants to be the most authentic version of themselves is actually a really nice message and I think holds the movies together through all of their, you know, all of their out of the side of their mouth jokes, all of that sort of like joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, all of that quickness. It's not actually irony poisoned like most animated movies and most superhero style kid entertainment is these days. It's pretty sincere based on the scale that we have and the rubric that we have now for our childhood entertainment.

• 1:22:19Speaker 02

  And I think that that is, I think that's nice. I think that's why I endorse.

• 1:22:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's a beautiful sentiment. Before we go, Bob, um, do you, do you, what, what Bob highlights did you want to circle? Since he's given so much to this show over the years.

• 1:22:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Man, I mean, I really, I, I think about long drink every single time, every single time I have some protein, I think of Bob. Every single time.

• 1:22:48Amanda Dobbins?

  I watch a baseball game. I think of Bob. I think you guys have really brought me back to the sport of my youth.

• 1:22:54Sean Fennessey?

  That's nice to hear.

• 1:22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Isn't that?

• 1:22:55Speaker 02

  Baseball's so fucking back.

• 1:22:57Sean Fennessey?

  Baseball's big time back.

• 1:22:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's so great. And let's see. Um, I guess I'll think of you when I watch Miyazaki, which is increasing. Porco Rosso, you know, is something that you, that you both gave to my life, whether I wanted it or not. I don't know.

• 1:23:12Speaker 02

  I think the Miyazaki episode was one of my favorite episodes to do because for the same reason that you guys mentioned in the Spirited Away 25 for 25, that it could be me, you, Charles and Andy all having something tying us together. Um, the, for the generations of the new masculinity coming together to talk about Spirited Away.

• 1:23:35Speaker 02

  And Miyazaki is really nice. Amanda, our biggest win was Top Gun Mav. We held out forever and always.

• 1:23:41Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:23:41Speaker 02

  We doubled down.

• 1:23:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, you know what? And then when we saw, uh, what Dead Reckoning together and the, in that beautiful theater and when Tom Cruise does the motorcycle off the thing and I just like basically held your hand like Kelman Louise. That was really nice. I'll always think of that and think of you.

• 1:23:58Sean Fennessey?

  You're like, that's the thing from the trailer.

• 1:24:00Amanda Dobbins?

  They're doing it. It was very fun.

• 1:24:02Sean Fennessey?

  I'll always think of when Bob and I saw the Beekeeper together and I was vibrating at a high intensity and I got home and immediately I saw that Bob smashed the one star button on Letterboxd and he absolutely broke my heart.

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  Two stars, two stars.

• 1:24:13Sean Fennessey?

  Was it two stars? I thought it was one star. I remember being like, come on, man. You betrayed me. Uh, Bob is-

• 1:24:18Speaker 02

  I had fun.

• 1:24:19Sean Fennessey?

  It, it was very fun and also politically insightful. Uh, Bob is my baseball brother for life. I think we will probably be texting about the Mets until we die. Um, you are like just a tremendously important part of the history of the show and there, you got us out of a lot of pickles over the years. You helped me solve and troubleshoot a lot of problems. Dealing with extremely famous people and talking to them is complicated business. You acquitted yourself wonderfully every time. I could always trust you in the room or over Zoom with people. Also, the pandemic was really crazy.

• 1:24:50Amanda Dobbins?

  You held us together.

• 1:24:51Sean Fennessey?

  It was really hard for us to make the show and the show kind of in the aftermath of that Deacons thing obviously transformed pretty significantly during the pandemic. We've heard that from a lot of people over the years and you, uh, you helped carry us through that. So we are forever grateful to you and we wish you greatness in the future.

• 1:25:07Amanda Dobbins?

  We will miss you.

• 1:25:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:25:09Amanda Dobbins?

  We are sad, but happy for you.

• 1:25:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. And, uh, come back for Shrek Five Pod.

• 1:25:16Speaker 02

  Book it 18 months from now. That is all really nice. Thank you, guys. I really do appreciate it. It has been an utter delight. Like, my time at The Ringer has been more than I could have ever bargained for when I first started here, anxious during my McQ interview. It has been so fun, like, to get to be able to watch movies for a job is such a treat, such a pleasure. You know, Sean, you say this all of the time, but like, a lot of us here may never work on another show that's like this ever again, where it's like, we get to hang out with a bunch of people that we like, talking about things that we like most of the time, when we're not having existential crises about the box office. One of us here can relate to that more than anyone else.

• 1:25:56Sean Fennessey?

  Who are you referring to? Was that you doing that?

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  The big... I do. I do have existential crises about the box. I care a lot about these corporations, as you know. You know, to the big-picture listeners, like, you all are so delightful. It doesn't always have to be like this when you have a big audience. Of course, there are people who are complaining about this and that, but when I meet people, you know, at movies or whatever, everyone is so kind and supportive of what we've done. And, you know, I don't take that lightly. It's always been, you know, something that's important to me, to work really hard and try to make the best version of the show that is possible. You guys work incredibly hard to make this show for listeners, and so I always felt like I needed to try to reach that level as well and contribute as much as possible. So, yeah, it's surreal that it's been this long and that it's ending,

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  that I, when I first started working with you guys, I was 22. It's like, actually, very upsetting for me to think back on like, the 22-year-old version of myself, like, trying to represent myself as well as possible. You know, even though I won't be producing the show, I won't be working at The Ringer, you can all rest assured knowing that I will see you at the movies.

• 1:27:01Sean Fennessey?

  Nice. I love it. Well, Bobby, thank you for everything again. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. What are we doing next week?

• 1:27:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, God, I have no idea. Let's see. Hold on. Wait for it. Oh, movie draft. Chaos Central.

• 1:27:18Sean Fennessey?

  So we are doing the 2000 movie draft.

• 1:27:22Amanda Dobbins?

  And you're gonna do the order one last time, right?

• 1:27:24Sean Fennessey?

  That will be Bob's final appearance.

• 1:27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, with the Top Gun hat?

• 1:27:27Speaker 02

  I will do the order with the Top Gun one final time.

• 1:27:30Sean Fennessey?

  One last time.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  And then we'll have to find a way to get Jack Sanders a Top Gun hat.

• 1:27:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, we can, I tried to get one for Knox one year, but.

• 1:27:37Speaker 02

  That's what I said.

• 1:27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  We'll, we'll talk about licensing at a later date offline.

• 1:27:42Sean Fennessey?

  The movie draft we're doing is 2000 and I don't mind saying that we're bringing back the crew from the 1999 movie draft. So this should be intense, chaotic. I expect full bloodlust from Rob Mahoney coming for your neck and I hope people enjoy it. We'll see you then.

• 1:28:16Speaker 06

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