Pod Insights Pop Culture Happy Hour Our Favorite Movies On Tubi About this episode The streaming service Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of movies, TV shows, and original properties. They’re all free to watch, provided you’re willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi-philes to recommend some great movies that you can find on the service: Hundreds of Beavers, Color Out of Space, Petey Wheatstraw, and Mambo Italiano.
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0:20 Stephen Thompson? Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of TV shows, movies, and original properties. They're all free to watch, provided you're willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi files to help us sift through the thousands of offerings. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we are recommending some great movies that you can find on Tubi.
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2:00 Stephen Thompson? Joining me today is freelance music and culture journalist, Rihanna Cruz. Hey Rihanna. Hey, Stephen. Also with us is Jordan Morris. He's a writer and the co-host of the podcasts, Jordan Jesse Go and Free With Ads. Hey, that's an appropriate name. Hey, Jordan.
2:13 Speaker 03 Hey, great to be here.
2:14 Stephen Thompson? It is great to have you. So if you haven't used Tubi, it's an ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox. It's got a deeply eclectic catalog that includes thousands of movies, a few of which we are discussing today. Jordan and Rihanna, we wanted to have you come on and share a few of your favorite Tubi finds. We're specifically focusing on movies. Jordan, I'm gonna start with you. Give me your first pick.
2:39 Speaker 03 Okay, so my first pick is Hundreds of Beavers. And like any good movie on Tubi, when you're describing it to people, it should sound like you're making it up as you go.
2:50 Stephen Thompson? Yes.
2:51 Speaker 03 So it is a black and white slapstick comedy with video game logic.
2:59 Speaker 03 It is not from the 20s. It came out in 2024. It is made for, I believe, $150,000 by a indie filmmaker, Mike Cheslik. It was filmed in Michigan and rural Wisconsin.
3:13 Stephen Thompson? Woo.
3:14 Speaker 03 The pride of Wisconsin.
3:15 Stephen Thompson? One of the prides of Wisconsin, Jordan.
3:17 Speaker 03 One of the many prides, one of the many prides of a beautiful state.
3:22 Speaker 03 So it is the story of a farmer who is plagued by beavers, played by members of the crew in these bad mascot outfits. They're not going for realism at all. It's all like, very cartoony, very slapstick. And it's just farmer for two-plus hours trying to kill as many beavers as possible. It looks like a Charlie Chaplin movie, and it's just one of those like, beautiful things that you would never see on Netflix. Peacock would never. It is so funny. And yeah, and I love that like, websites like Tubi are the places where this kind of thing thrives, you know? It's something a little weirder. It's something for, you know, somebody who wants something a little more off the beaten path.
4:07 Stephen Thompson? And we should note here, like, this movie was not Made for Tubi.
4:10 Speaker 03 No.
4:11 Stephen Thompson? It's just that Tubi is often a home for more esoteric titles.
4:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:15 Stephen Thompson? This qualifies as an esoteric title.
4:18 Speaker 03 And something else I like about Tubi is that they do have a lot of great classics. Like, the last time I checked, Tubi is the place where you can watch The Apartment.
4:26 Stephen Thompson? The Hundreds of Beavers of their day.
4:29 Speaker 03 Of course, yes.
4:32 Speaker 03 And yeah, and I think that's why it is such a fun website, because it feels like you're browsing a video store in the 80s or 90s, you know? You know, it was kind of what streaming was when it started. And now, it feels like, you know, when you go on a streaming site, they just kind of push their latest originals and maybe they have some weirder stuff, but it's buried kind of deep within the algorithm. But yeah, Tubi just has this feeling of like, what is this? Hundreds of what? Okay. You know, you can just press play as long as you're fine with a bunch of car insurance ads that are a little louder than the movie.
5:06 Speaker 04 I get the same six, like, progressive and like, trivago ads on loop.
5:13 Stephen Thompson? Right. Well, it's, it's like anybody where you watch something kind of esoteric on cable somewhere and it's like, wow, Sky Rizzi really bought into this one.
5:21 Speaker 04 Yes.
5:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:22 Stephen Thompson? And you just wind up seeing the same Sky Rizzi ad twice in the same commercial break or whatever.
5:27 Speaker 04 Yeah.
5:27 Speaker 03 So yeah, there's a little bit of that for sure. And yeah, Hundreds of Beavers is just a great example of like, you're just flipping around, you're like, what is this? I think I've heard of this.
5:35 Stephen Thompson? Now, Rihanna, you are also a Hundreds of Beavers fan, correct?
5:38 Speaker 04 I saw it in theaters, actually. I saw it at like, a local independent theater in Los Angeles. Shout out to Lumiere Music Hall. I was the only person in the screening. It was just me. But that's the beauty about Tubi picking up these movies, you know, and curating their catalog is that browsing on it and picking, you know, a random movie, it feels like you're getting like a curated screening. It's a movie that feels like it should be given to you by somebody else. And that's like, you have to watch Hundreds of Beavers.
6:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's like something someone showed you in like, a dorm room your freshman year of college. Like, someone had a V. VHS tape that was hand labeled. And I always think about when I'm browsing on Tubi. I think about when I was a kid and we would go to Kmart. If we would behave, there was a bin of VHS tapes by the cash register. And it was like random cartoons. It was a lot of Godzilla movies.
6:40 Stephen Thompson? A lot of public domain.
6:41 Speaker 03 A lot of public domain, like celebrity workout tapes. And I'm like, Tubi is, if that bin became a website.
6:51 Speaker 03 But I do agree with Rihanna. It's like, it's kind of a curated madness, you know?
6:55 Stephen Thompson? Curated madness. I'm here for it. All right. So Jordan, you recommended Hundreds of Beavers. Rihanna, give us your first recommendation.
7:02 Speaker 04 All right. So something I think that is amazing about Tubi, as we've been talking about, is its recommendation algorithm specifically. I mean, maybe it's because I use Tubi all the time. It's my number one streaming service, but it knows me so well in a way that I really, really love. And so a couple of years ago, it thrust this movie into my feed and is really like one of the most me movies I've ever seen. It's called Mambo Italiano. And it is basically like a 2000s gay rom com, kind of similar to like But I'm a Cheerleader. This character Angelo is the son of Italian immigrants, one of whom is played by Paul Servino,
7:47 Speaker 04 and is trying to come out as gay to his parents while also dating his Italian best friend Nino, who doesn't want to come out of the closet. And so high jinks ensue. Things have changed slightly in the landscape of like gay movies and gay content since the first time I watched it. But I thought at the time it was refreshing, and it still is, to have a gay movie that felt A, real, but also Healthy.
8:16 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
8:17 Speaker 04 It's a very healthy movie. It's very sweet. Honestly, like, my mom's Italian, and it made me really connect to those characters. I saw, like, real lived-in quirks saturated in this movie. It's really, really sweet. It's shot so lovely. It's really oversaturated in technicolor. It kind of plays like a sitcom a little bit, like, the humor is very sitcom-esque. The blocking is very sitcom-esque, but it's funny, and that's the thing. It's like, I think it's Paul Sorvino's best role. He plays Angelo's dad. He's hilarious. I need more people to see this movie because it spoke to me, and it's very underseen.
8:58 Speaker 03 You had me at D, but I'm a cheerleader comparison.
9:00 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:01 Speaker 03 That's great.
9:02 Speaker 04 Well, I watched it, and I was like, that feels like the closest conduit. Like, it's very, like, plotted by the books, 2000s rom-com, but I really loved it. It feels like the characters have real motivations. It feels like it reflects real life, honestly. And I love a coming-out-of-the-closet comedy, and this checks off all my boxes.
9:24 Stephen Thompson? So one thing I love about this pick, kind of in relation to Jordan's first pick, is like, Jordan's first pick is an esoteric movie that gives you exactly what its title suggests.
9:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:35 Stephen Thompson? Your first pick is a movie that sounds generic in one way, but you would never necessarily glean what it's about from the title.
9:45 Speaker 04 Right.
9:45 Stephen Thompson? The title might as well be, "That's a more a."
9:50 Speaker 04 Exactly.
9:51 Speaker 03 "The moon hit my eye."
9:53 Stephen Thompson? Right, exactly. So like, that title, I would look at that title and be like, okay, I know what that is.
9:58 Speaker 04 Right.
9:59 Stephen Thompson? But I would not think what you just described. So that's a good example of a movie that a lot of people who would enjoy that movie are gonna miss it because the title suggests something it's not.
10:10 Speaker 04 Well, right, and the poster is like a terribly photoshopped, like, classic 2000s comedy font. Like, I don't really know even why I clicked on it, like, how it found me. But that's the thing, like I said earlier, like, Tubi's algorithm is honestly really good and really based because it gives me things that I-
10:30 Stephen Thompson? You just used the word "based" unironically in the year 2026. I'm very impressed.
10:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, it is based. It is based. Tubi's algorithm's based.
10:40 Speaker 04 So yeah, Mambo Italiano, great flick.
10:42 Stephen Thompson? Nice. All right. Thank you, Rihanna. All right, Jordan, hit me with, with your second pick.
10:46 Speaker 03 Yeah. So I don't think we could do this segment without mentioning at least one Nick Cage movie. I would say that Nick Cage's movies compose probably 30% of Tubi's content. So there's a lot.
11:00 Stephen Thompson? As opposed to only 15% in the actual world.
11:03 Speaker 03 Right. Yes, exactly. So slightly overrepresented on Tubi. The man loves to work. My favorite Nick Cage movie currently on Tubi is Color Out of Space. And this is a cosmic horror, body horror movie. I think it's based on an H.P. Lovecraft story. Nick Cage as a alpaca farmer.
11:26 Stephen Thompson? Of course.
11:27 Speaker 03 And again.
11:27 Stephen Thompson? Typecast. Typecast as always.
11:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, that old chestnut. A kind of psychedelic meteor lands on his property and things go bananas from there. There's a lot of like great gore. There's a lot of like great practical makeup effects. It's really trippy. It's really funny and weird. It's very shocking. And it's definitely one of those Nick Cage movies, like I'm thinking of Pig. I'm thinking of The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. He's always fun to watch, but sometimes the movie around him isn't matching what he's doing, you know? And occasionally, like the movie meets him where he's at and it just works.
12:10 Speaker 04 That sounds awesome.
12:11 Speaker 03 You know, funny, it was directed by Richard Stanley, who was the original director of The Island of Doctor Moreau, starring Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando. He was booted off the movie. It's a whole wild story.
12:26 Stephen Thompson? That was a misbegotten film.
12:27 Speaker 03 Yes, a famous bomb. And yeah, and this is his like movie back and it's like wild and Cage is just Cajun all over the place. He's at 10, but the movie is also at 10. And I think that's why it works so well. It's just a hoot. If you're looking for kind of a midnight movie, if you're looking for something to watch with other horror sickos, The Color Out of Space is a great choice.
12:52 Speaker 04 Sweet.
12:53 Stephen Thompson? All right, Color Out of Space. Rihanna, you got one more pick. Give it to me.
12:58 Speaker 04 All right. I think we'd be remiss to talk about Tubi and not talk about its repository and support of black cinema.
13:07 Speaker 04 They have 2B originals made by creators who like very clearly have no money, but have a vision that they want to put out into the world. I've seen many of these movies, Sugar Mama, et cetera, et cetera. But it also has a really large catalog of vintage blaxploitation movies. 2B is really great at holding these genre flicks and kind of giving them space to shine. And so I bring you today, the 1977 Rudy Ray Moore movie, Petey Wheatstraw. AKA Petey Wheatstraw, the devil's son-in-law.
13:43 Stephen Thompson? And Rudy Ray Moore, he was Dolomite.
13:45 Speaker 04 He was Dolomite, he was the Human Tornado, he was Disco Godfather. We have to mention avenging Disco Godfather.
13:53 Speaker 04 I love Disco Godfather. I almost recommended Disco Godfather, but Petey Wheatstraw, I think is, is a little bit more wacky. Deeper cut. Yeah. Petey is a stand-up comedian and has beef with another duo of comics named Leroy and Skillet. Basically Leroy and Skillet are in debt to the mob and need to make up their money through putting on a stand-up show. But Petey is a much more popular, he's much funnier, he's having an event on the same night. Leroy and Skillet ask him to move the event. Petey says no, they kill him. And this is where things get a little wonky, right? And we get the title involved because Petey goes to hell, meets the devil, AKA Lucifer. Oh, that's good.
14:37 Stephen Thompson? Oh, boy.
14:39 Speaker 04 Yeah. Promises Petey his life back under one condition. He marries the devil's quote-unquote ugly daughter to give him a grandson. And then he goes back to Earth. He has like the devil's cane, which causes havoc. Every single thing I could tell you about this movie does not do it justice. Like, I could sit here and be like, it's not really a comedy, it's a surreal, almost Lynchian horror. He has his own funky theme song, Petey Wheatstraw. It's awesome. The first scene in the movie is Petey Wheatstraw delivering like a rhyming prologue as what he does in Dolomite. He just rhymes and delivers these like lovely sayings.
15:22 Speaker 04 There's a graphic reenactment of Petey Wheatstraw's birth, in which he comes out as a fully-sized child. There's some genuinely horrifying images in this movie.
15:33 Speaker 04 And yet, it's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I love Rudy Ray Moore movies. I think he is one of America's most innovative and forward-thinking gifts to the cinematic medium, frankly. And I think Petey Wheatstraw is the clear example of that.
15:50 Stephen Thompson? So cult cinema, if you are a cult cinema person, if you are of a certain age and traded VHS tapes with your dirtbag buddies, we are recommending Tubi.
16:02 Speaker 04 Oh, yeah.
16:03 Stephen Thompson? As a medium, as a source.
16:05 Speaker 03 But again, you can watch The Apartment on there. You can absolutely go on there and watch The Apartment.
16:10 Stephen Thompson? That's right. This is not Troma.com. This is not like specifically just cult cinema.
16:15 Speaker 03 And I do think it is like really great for a certain kind of movie lover who wants to watch The Apartment, but also wants to watch Petey Wheatstraw.
16:24 Speaker 04 Right. And that's what I love about it, is that like, I watch a lot of B and C-tier genre movies. Like, I could search the word shark on Tubi and have 30,000 shark movies at my disposal to watch. I love that. And that's why I love the platform so much.
16:40 Speaker 03 Nick Cage is on Tubi a lot, but just below him is Ian Ziering.
16:44 Speaker 04 But I could see an Ian Ziering movie, and then I could go on Letterboxd or whatever and search up like some five-star foreign flick that I've never seen, and that'll be on Tubi as well. And if you could get over, you know, the Sky Rizzi ads.
17:02 Stephen Thompson? The Sky Rizzi of it all.
17:03 Speaker 04 Every 20 minutes. Like, it's a beautiful watch. And I don't know, I love the free ad-supported television streamers because they give me like the feelings of scrolling on cable, you know, and flipping through the channels.
17:15 Stephen Thompson? It's basically just free basic cable.
17:16 Speaker 04 Yeah. And everything at my disposal is so epic and awesome.
17:21 Speaker 03 They don't just have one beaver, they have hundreds of beavers.
17:24 Speaker 04 Hundreds of them.
17:25 Stephen Thompson? All right. Well, we want to know, what are your favorite movies that you have found on Tubi? Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/PCHH. That brings us to the end of our show. Rihanna Cruz, Jordan Morris, thanks so much for being here.
17:39 Speaker 04 Thanks for having us.
17:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is a blast.
17:41 Stephen Thompson? This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, Kayla Latimore, and Mike Katzif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Cummin provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next time.
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