‘Meet the Parents’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons hosts Kyle Brandt for a weekend away to play some indoor pool volleyball and rewatch the hit 2000 comedy ‘Meet the Parents,’ starring Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Teri Polo, and Blythe Danner. Watch this episode on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel! Producer: Craig Horlbeck 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.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  What's up everybody, Chris Vernon here and welcome to a new season of the NBA and The Mismatch. And huge welcome as well to my new co-host, Dave Jacoby.

• 0:10Speaker 01

  I can't wait to link with you twice a week, every Tuesday and Friday, right here on The Mismatch to break down everything that's happening in the league.

• 0:18Bill Simmons?

  Who's playing well, who we loved, who we loathed, trade rumors, team dysfunction, we've got you covered right here. So follow us, subscribe and hit us with those five-star ratings on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:31Speaker 01

  And also don't forget to follow us on social media, that's at Ringer NBA and check out the full mismatch episodes with the two handsomest podcasters in the history of podcasting right on the Ringer NBA YouTube channel.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

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• 1:29Bill Simmons?

  in theaters, get tickets now.

• 1:32Speaker 02

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• 2:33Bill Simmons?

  The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network and you can watch all the videos and clips from this podcast and this episode on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. Kyle Brand is on there a bunch. Usually we do action movies from the 80s and 90s, but we like to mix it up. You're a man of many interests, Kyle Brand. We're doing a comedy from 2000 that's iconic. Meet the Parents is next. I milked a cat once.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Greg is spending the weekend with his girlfriend's parents. I had no idea you could milk a cat.

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you can milk anything with nipples.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me? What could possibly go wrong?

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Jake, you strictly a house cat. You can't let him outside.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  From the director of Austin Powers.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  You tried to milk him, didn't you, you sick son of a-

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller. You OK, sweetie? Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Meet the Parents, rated PG-13, at theaters Friday, October 6.

• 3:34Bill Simmons?

  All right, Kyle Brandt is here. Meet the Parents came out 24 years ago. It made a lot of money. It spawned two sequels that also made a lot of money. And it struck me, I'm older than you, but we watch the same TV shows. Yep. And there is a Three's Company kind of generation of comedy that this movie is kind of the last son of. I don't feel like there's grandsons of the Three's Company, which is basically like scenario, things go wrong, misunderstandings, things go sideways, things get worse, everything unravels. And then at the end, we kind of piece it together. And Three's Company would do this over and over again in a 23-minute episode, and this is just what they did. And it spawned a lot of imitators.

• 4:18Bill Simmons?

  And it makes me nostalgic for those shows because they don't do that anymore, really, right?

• 4:22Speaker 05

  I don't think so. I don't watch sitcoms really, but you'd get in some wacky screwball scenario. And there was always resolution in like 22 minutes of airtime. And also with Three's Company, you just, you're swapping in Focker for Ritter. There would always be like lots of fun sex play too. And like, you know, like they would hear something that sounded really dirty, but Jack would just be saying like, hey, help me fit this in here. And he's like trying to talk about like getting a couch in a room or something. And this has a lot of sex in it too.

• 4:50Bill Simmons?

  Right. Jack, Jack would be like, no, no, just move backwards and then I'll put it in. And Mr. Roper would, his eyes would be bulging out of his head and then they'd open up and they'd be like.

• 4:58Speaker 05

  Ralph Furley would run in and try to, try to help out. It's, it's, I was a little kid for those, but I still remember I was kind of watching something naughty. And it was simple. It was like part of this complete breakfast. There's a problem. There's fun characters and there's an immediate resolution. And I'm, I, I think we have some of that in Meet the Parents. I'm very excited to do this pod, Bill. I just, I paid a quick visit to the microphone fairy and I, I am ready to go.

• 5:22Bill Simmons?

  There's definitely some, there's some, definitely some Jack Tripper with Greg Focker. Right? Where it's just, you're rooting for him, but he keeps screwing things up for himself. And you don't even know, but by the time we're an hour into the movie, you're like, I don't even know why I'm rooting for this guy. He's a complete mess. He's a screw up. She probably shouldn't marry him. Um, and everybody should just move on and yet you're rooting for them for it to work out.

• 5:46Speaker 05

  Bill, was Tripper, I'm trying to, it was Tripper a smoker? I feel like everyone was in the eighties and smoking plays a big part in this movie. And I can see Tripper like burning through a Camel light outside the house or something like that. That feels on brand.

• 5:57Bill Simmons?

  He definitely hung out with Larry, who I think was wearing a smoking jacket and a smoker. So this, this was also the other old school theme about this was there's like a Jewish Anglo Saxon Protestant kind of meeting of, meeting of the worlds, right? And they, they lean into it. They do it really subversively and smartly, but it's, it's hanging over there. This is an old school. My daughter's not going to sleep in the same bed as, as her boyfriend. Kind of just like family out of the fifties. And like even this scene when he asks them to say grace and it's just religion is a part of this in a way that I feel like it would be more stumbly in 2024 than it was back then.

• 6:37Speaker 05

  Well, also, I mean, I, I don't want to speak for the Burns family, but I'm pretty sure they're Republicans and.

• 6:44Speaker 05

  I got a pretty good feeling how Jack votes. I could be wrong, but to tear from the headlines, I feel like there's some of that going on too.

• 6:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no question. Um, there's some great everyday fodder here.

• 6:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:56Bill Simmons?

  That this taps into and one of the, and we're gonna make Craig jump on a bunch of times because he just went through this with meeting the in-laws, asking for permission. You and I are, you know, years and years removed for that, but some of this stuff like, what if my last name sucks?

• 7:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:12Bill Simmons?

  Like this guy's last name is Focker. What do you do? Do you change it? Do you keep it? Do you ask your future wife to take your terrible last name? Like this is just an everyday conundrum, right? Would you, would you change the name Focker? I think for TV you'd have to, right? You couldn't be Kyle Focker.

• 7:28Speaker 05

  I don't know. There's some, there's some cojones in just owning it. Who gives a damn?

• 7:32Bill Simmons?

  Focker.

• 7:34Speaker 05

  I think especially if my name was Focker in the wake of this movie, it might actually work ironically for me.

• 7:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 05

  But no, I, I didn't have that problem. Like your name is just like right on the screws, Simmons. My name is fine. I didn't have that problem. But listen, I know people and I've worked with people who have changed their names professionally, who had names that they didn't think that hit the palate right. I think it's more common than people know, even in sports.

• 7:56Bill Simmons?

  Craig, do you like your name?

• 7:58Speaker 06

  No, I've thought about, I haven't really thought about changing my name, but I do not like my last name. As you know, Bill, very difficult to pronounce.

• 8:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, did your, your wife kept, I mean, your wife had a great name, has a great name, Liz Kelly.

• 8:11Speaker 06

  I should have taken her name. Craig Kelly sounds like a quarterback. I was, I debated doing that for a second.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  Do, was there any conversation Craig? Did it ever come up?

• 8:18Speaker 06

  No, I, and I, I don't mind that she wants to keep her name. I completely get it. I feel like that's, that's more common these days.

• 8:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I like Craig's name, but I've, I've also learned how to say it over the last five years. Now it's like, roll back.

• 8:29Speaker 05

  I like that Bill faked a little bit of foreplay where we talked about my name for a second before obviously wanted to talk about Craig's name.

• 8:35Speaker 06

  Going, yeah, yeah.

• 8:37Bill Simmons?

  Craig, just come on the Zoom for a second because I have more questions and you've

• 8:40Speaker 05

  So do I.

• 8:41Bill Simmons?

  Some of these.

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:43Bill Simmons?

  So, meeting the in-laws, what if, what if my in-laws don't like me? Right? So I met my wife's parents in 1999. It was 25 years ago. I literally don't even remember what happened. I do remember my college girlfriend where they're very like Irish family. You know, there was a huge generational difference and it was hard to connect with them. But Craig, what, walk us through your experience, meeting the in-laws. What, what was it like? What happened?

• 9:09Speaker 06

  Well, for those who don't know, I met my wife, my now wife lives at The Ringer.

• 9:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's, it's our favorite Ringer marriage. It's, it's a Ringer success story.

• 9:17Speaker 06

  Sure. Six years ago, we met and I met her parents a year after that, 2019 at some point, we went to dinner. And honestly, a little bit like Greg here, her parents are both lawyers, retired lawyers. And is the modern male nurse, the, a 25-year-old podcaster? Because there was a little bit of like, so what do you do? And I was like, I'm a, I'm a podcaster. Oh, you host them? Well, I really produce them. What does that mean? Um, so, you know.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, but sometimes they bring me on at the end to ask my take about Under Siege.

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:49Speaker 05

  You can go fast forward to the end.

• 9:51Bill Simmons?

  Sometimes I come in hot for 120 seconds.

• 9:53Speaker 06

  It went generally okay though, because luckily she worked in the same business as I did, so that, like that leveled the playing field a little bit. But I, one of the best interactions I had with her family and like introducing myself to her family is, she has three other siblings, two brothers and a sister. I'm really close with the brothers now and the sister, but brothers and I are very tight. The first day I met her youngest brother, who's, who's 23 now, so he's seven years younger than me. He claims that the first thing I said to him is, what's up, bro? And I dapped him up. I have never said, bro, earnestly in my life.

• 10:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a, I don't see you saying that.

• 10:25Speaker 06

  I don't do it. And to this day, it's been a massive fight that he initially was like, I don't like this guy's vibe because he said, what's up, bro to me? And I will, I will refute that till the day I die. Never said that.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  Craig, there's the legendary story that the first time Aaron Rodgers met Brett Favre, he said, what's up, gramps? And he denies it, but Jeff Pearlman in his book says that that's what happened and Rodgers just says, that's not true, it's not true. But you can never kind of erase the myth of that if you make the bad first impression.

• 10:51Bill Simmons?

  And that doesn't sound like Aaron Rodgers at all, like just being a dick for no reason. Kyle, what do you, what do you remember from meeting the in-laws?

• 10:59Speaker 05

  It's such a great question, and I feel like this movie has so many of the trappings. There's a couple of things that go on here that I remember from my experience. And the first one is when Greg gets out of the car and they go up to the Burns house. It is that miscommunication on the handshake hug with Blythe Danner.

• 11:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  Which they nailed.

• 11:18Bill Simmons?

  You don't know what, you don't have to greet.

• 11:19Speaker 05

  No, and I remember my wife, we did, we did the thing where we traveled. Brooke and I, my wife, traveled to Chicago to meet my mom in Chicago. And the whole ride there to the house, my wife is really concerned about, should I hug her or shake her hands? And I'm like, listen to me, my mom is gonna go for the hug. This is a familiar thing, hug her, hug her, hug her. And sure enough, my mom meets us on the curb at O'Hare. Brooke goes for the hug and my mom stuck her fucking hand out and Brooke still won't forgive me for it. And it was a fucker Blythe Danner completely, we messed it up. I don't know what my mom was thinking. I told her, like, this was the one, she went for the handshake.

• 11:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God. I remember I went to see my wife with her parents in upstate New York.

• 11:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 11:58Bill Simmons?

  And it was for the holidays and it was the first time. So I got to meet a bunch of the family, including nephew Kyle.

• 12:05Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 12:05Bill Simmons?

  And nephew Kyle was like, I don't know, maybe eight or nine. And he got in trouble at one point and we were walking around and he was sitting on the stairs and his dad was kinda yelling at him. And his dad was like, you're gonna stay on these stairs until you have an answer for what you did. And Kyle, Kyle was sitting on the stairs and he goes, but what if I don't have an answer? And my wife and I thought this was the funniest thing and it became this running joke of like, but I don't have an answer. We would do this for years and years and then he became my podcast producer eventually. So I remember more meeting Kyle than meeting her parents was a bigger thing.

• 12:41Speaker 05

  Does he have answers now for you?

• 12:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we still know.

• 12:44Speaker 06

  It's a bummer that I watched this movie when I, I don't know, when I watched this movie for the first time, I was definitely young. Twelve, fourteen, sixteen, I don't know. It hits thirty times harder after you have met somebody and got married. It has aged like wine. It's absolutely beautiful. The second you know this movie's gonna work is it's right when what Kyle's talking about, right when they meet each other. They walk in, Ben Stiller's wife goes, oh, Greg hates cats.

• 13:08Speaker 05

  The worst.

• 13:08Speaker 06

  Right.

• 13:10Bill Simmons?

  It's an undermining.

• 13:11Speaker 06

  You're in like, when somebody goes to their own parents' house, I feel like you kind of revert back to your former self, like the, the like, I am a couple with my partner thing kind of goes out the window subconsciously and you become like a child again.

• 13:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 06

  And I lived with my in-laws for, for months and months during the pandemic.

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Oh my God, did it?

• 13:26Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, and that like push and pull of like, Craig, no, I thought you said you were really hungry. And I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. I don't need to eat now, you know? That feeling, they get captured perfectly.

• 13:37Speaker 05

  There's another trapping bill that I really related to, and it's that when you go to your future in-laws or in-laws' house, that bringing of the gift, like that was really important to me when I first met my in-laws or Brooke met ours. And it's like, I did, I did what Focker did, which is like, I don't want to just bring like a bottle of wine that's boring. I want to like really sink their battleship with something really cool. And there's a lot of pressure on it and it usually doesn't go over well. And it didn't with mine either. I just, it just, they don't really care that much. Just bring the wine, I think is the lesson.

• 14:05Speaker 06

  You could do this, we could do this for hours. You could tell these stories.

• 14:07Bill Simmons?

  There's two other things with the father-in-law, like the father-in-law could be super intimidating. But then the whole, do you ask the father-in-law for permission before you, before you propose? Which is a really old school, antiquated thing. And I think, um, my, my wife's dad didn't care. I would fucking care. Like whoever proposes to my daughter.

• 14:29Speaker 05

  Right.

• 14:29Bill Simmons?

  Better, better make a stop by to old Simbo over here, but, and get my permission first.

• 14:34Speaker 06

  What's really the downside? Like, it's kind of a win-win. Like it's a great look if you do it, even if it were to go terribly and they were to say no, I feel like that becomes then an issue with your, your partner and her father then, but like.

• 14:45Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 14:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 06

  The way I went about it was I didn't necessarily ask for like permission, but I, my, the way I thought about it was like getting their blessing.

• 14:53Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's what it, that's what it really is. Like, hey, heads up.

• 14:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to be proposing. Just, just wanted to let you guys know, but it's basically a blessing.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  I, I did it. I got the blessing. I also did it several times on Days of Our Lives and was told no a few times in character. So I have a lot of experience with that.

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah. You're, you're all over the gamut. Well, then it has the, another everyday fodder thing. The, what if my girlfriend's previous boyfriend just brought way more to the table than I did? And I'm just in the shadow and her family loved this guy. And so that, it taps into that. It taps into the, what if people looked down on me because of my job, which Craig mentioned? When I met my wife's parents, I was writing an internet column. And I was bartending and I was writing an internet column during a time when people were going, oh, so do you get paid for that? Like it was like one of those. It was 1999. So you, it said, do you get paid by the column? Is it a job? And you just had to get, no, no,

• 15:53Bill Simmons?

  the internet, it's gonna be a thing. Like I'm in early and you had to like explain it. Yeah, it's tough. And then the other one is getting caught in an early lie during, during the interaction and then deciding whether to just cut bait on the lie or you just have to like, kind of hold on to it to the bitter end, which he does in this. But I think one of the reasons this movie is so successful and made so much money is everybody's been in this situation who's gotten married, right? There's not one person who's like, I can't identify with some piece of this. I also think the first hour is like genuinely hilariously funny.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  It is. It is.

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  It tails off in the second half, which we'll talk about. But, um, so Craig, you dove into this in your teens and then it's evolved over the years, which I think is kind of going to be the legacy of this movie. I feel like 25 years from now, it'll still be completely watchable.

• 16:41Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a bummer that I think of most people my age probably saw this movie before they got married and have not revisited it since. And I think it's, it should be a requirement that you re-watch this after getting married.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  But the funny thing is none of us have, are Meet the Fockers people. I don't think I've even seen it.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  I've never seen either of the sequels. I'm not interested in them.

• 16:58Speaker 06

  I saw it. I think I remember it being fine. It's funny. It's the same group. I mean, Jay Roach directed it. The two writers wrote the script. They got De Niro and everybody back and it made like over half a billion dollars.

• 17:08Bill Simmons?

  It made more money.

• 17:08Speaker 05

  You know what it feels like, Craig? It feels like the, the Hangover sequels to me. Like they're probably fine, but I just, I'm out on them. I don't give a shit. I want to watch the first one only. I don't care.

• 17:16Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 17:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All right, Craig, we'll bring you back later. I have another spot for you. Ben Stiller, this is right during his, it's really starting to happen.

• 17:26Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:27Bill Simmons?

  There's something about Mary was, uh, two years before Meet the Parents 2000, Zoolander's coming the next year. He has that whole, along came Paulie Starsky and Hutch, Anchorman, Dodgeball, and he's just, for 12 years, he's.

• 17:40Bill Simmons?

  Probably in the most successful comedies of anybody, would you, where do you stand on Stiller? Just big picture, because I wrote down the Michael Jordan of emasculated comedy actors. That's really what he was the best at.

• 17:51Speaker 05

  There's, there's nobody who does it better. I struggled a lot. I know we're going to get to Apex Mountain. I thought a lot about it because so the deal is 98, There's Something About Mary is this landmark movie and he blows up for me. Like I had seen the Ben Stiller Show a little bit before then, but Something About Mary was me. Cameron Diaz wins that movie. Like the takeaway from that movie is holy shit, Cameron Diaz is going to be a superstar. Two years later than now, now when he hits Meet the Parents, it's now he has two massive, huge financial movies. And then Zoolander's coming and we didn't, I mean, like years later, he's going to do the whole night at the museum thing, which

• 18:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Kids love. So I think the question is, like, I was thinking about is like, is this my favorite Stiller performance? I can't think of one that I like better. I know he does funny character work and he's like really good in dodgeball and stuff like that. But just him playing Ben Stiller, I don't think he's better.

• 18:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's this or There's Something About Mary, right?

• 18:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's just those two. And I just think he, him working with De Niro, I like just a little bit more than him working with Cameron Diaz. He would also, when this thing blew up though, like he would get a couple of times, he would host the VMAs when the VMAs really mattered, or the Video Music Awards, the MTV Awards. And one of my favorite things he's ever done was he did Mission Improbable where he played Tom Cruise's stunt double as Tom Cruise. And it's laugh out loud funny. It's unbelievable.

• 19:13Bill Simmons?

  He had a really nice rise in the 90s, right? He was on SNL for a split second and they should have kept him and they fucked it up. Did the Ben Stiller Show. Just kind of scrapped around, had this little comedy group, directed Reality Bites. And everybody liked him and I think everybody was rooting for him. He was still in Mayor's Kid. They, Stiller started to have this second, uh, his dad started to have the second run on Seinfeld. So then he was directing Cable Guy and it just was like, oh, I like this guy. This guy's going to be something. I never expected what happened to happen where he became basically like the first call. It wa- now, we have great casting whatevs for this. He was not the first call of this movie,

• 19:56Bill Simmons?

  but by the time we get to the mid 2000s, he's the first call for any movie like this.

• 20:01Speaker 05

  No, he's running it and because then you're getting in Tropic Thunder and he's running that whole thing. If anybody wants a really fun watch, there's a crazy video of Ben Stiller auditioning for Marty McFly on YouTube. And it's really weird and he looks out of place and he's obviously very young, didn't get the part. But like, I remember him starting to show up in places, like when he shows up even in Happy Gilmore, just in a few scenes. It's like an all time Dion Waiters. It's fantastic as the like handmade quality shit we're talking about. He steals those scenes and you're, I like that dude. And then even in The Cable Guy, which is just Jim Carrey chewing up scenery and he directs, he plays the twins and he has real funny moments, just tiny ones in that before he became the first name. You were rooting for him when he showed up.

• 20:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, he's almost like three people, right? Because he's like the guy in Meet the Parents, but then he's like this really fun character actor that would just pop into these comedies and be insane. And then there's this third part, because he made a movie that I really liked in 98 called Your Friends and Neighbors with Jason Patrick and Aaron Eckhart. And he's really good in that movie. And that movie is actually, I think, a really good movie. And has one of the most insane five minute scenes of any movie in the 90s. But, uh, but he always kind of vacillated between those three worlds. And you always felt like there was, somebody like Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell was like, these guys are born comedians. They're just meant to, you know, entertain a large group no matter where they are.

• 21:29Bill Simmons?

  I never totally felt that way with Ben Stiller. It almost seemed like he was like an analytical comic, like comedian where he's like, I know it's funny. I'm going to be able to play this, but he was always kind of levitating above it. Does that make sense?

• 21:41Speaker 05

  I think, I think he's very intelligent and I think you can tell that when you listen to him. I know a lot of you guys, you have talked a lot on the rewatchables about Mike Myers, how he's never just Mike Myers. He was like one time and it was So I Married an Axe Murder. Stiller wasn't- That cause he'll do the crazy Mike Myers character like in heavyweights. Or when he plays white, when he plays white Goodman, when he's in the dodgeball. But then he's okay just showing up and being like, I'm Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly. All these, I'm just Ben, there's no makeup, there's no accent and there's no wig. So I think it really worked for him because he could do both like he's, you know, he's an anchorman. He shows up for five seconds with a wig and a whip and it works. He's not Ben Stiller, but in this he is, and I think he's at his best.

• 22:20Bill Simmons?

  And I think he could have been in So I Married an Axe Murderer. Like that was definitely a Ben Stiller part, which also made me wonder if Mike Myers could have been in. Meet the Parents, which I think they offered him and he wasn't, uh, wasn't interested.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  Oh, no shit. I didn't know that.

• 22:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I screwed up.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  I'm just thinking of Stiller doing beat poetry and so I married an ax murderer. Woman, whoa, man, he could totally do it.

• 22:39Bill Simmons?

  He wouldn't have nailed the smoking, I'll tell you that. Robert De Niro.

• 22:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  Who gave one of the funniest performances of the entire eighties in Midnight Run. And then did not do a comedy again for 10 years. And was just dramas and then finally did Analyze This with Billy Crystal, which did well.

• 23:00Bill Simmons?

  And then was like, eh, I'm going to branch out a little bit. I've done it all after heat. I've peaked. I've made the greatest movie of all time that spawned, that's going to eventually spawn the Rewatchables podcast. So he's in Analyze This, Rocky and Bowwinkle, and then does this part, which he was a tiny bit young for. And I think they aged him out. I think it's a really important De Niro part like I, I, I don't. I mean, we could do this now or later, but if you're going Mount Rushmore De Niro parts. It might be one of the four for me.

• 23:31Speaker 05

  It's, he is so good in this movie. I actually think he's the best part of the movie. I think he's better than Stiller. He's fantastic. Every single little cutaway where he's just kind of shrugging or like raising his eyebrows is fantastic. But like, you know, if you start to say it's one of, it's one of De Niro's favorite parts, like, you know, the film nerds will come with you with Travis Bickle. And the deer hunter and all that shit. Yeah, I totally get it.

• 23:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying favorite for me. I'm not saying his best. Yeah, for me, I think it might be on the, I think Midnight Run, this movie.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  He. And Goodfellas, I think are my four favorite De Niro's.

• 24:07Speaker 05

  All right. So this is good. So for me, I got a different list. I mean, I just have to put Goodfellas, even though he's not the lead. I have this. I definitely have Cape Fear. I fucking love Max Cady. Like Cape Fear is huge for me. And then I would probably have, I'd probably have Midnight Run as well. It's just so good in it. That's my, because I don't like, I don't have Taxi Driver in my top four favorite. I know he's great in Mean Streets. It's like, that's not necessarily my thing.

• 24:35Bill Simmons?

  Godfather two would be the toughest cut for me. Some of De Niro's stuff as the dad, some of his quirks that I think were pretty cool. Cease smoking is a sign of weakness. Judgmental about rental cars.

• 24:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:50Bill Simmons?

  Has to bless a proposal. Believes in carrying on an airplane at all times. He thinks Puff the Magic Dragon is basically stairway to heaven. He thinks geniuses pick green.

• 25:04Speaker 05

  But you didn't pick it.

• 25:05Bill Simmons?

  Heard that before. He thinks dogs are emotionally shallow animals. He does not want you to sleep in the same bed with his daughter in your house. And he has a family circle of trust. I'm down with most of those. I Puff the Magic Dragon, maybe he loses me on that.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  Are you down with, with having your deceased mother's ashes and toasting them before dinner every night? Love you, mom.

• 25:29Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty weird. That's pretty weird.

• 25:30Speaker 05

  It's a lot, but it's a great setup when that cork goes blasting, isn't it?

• 25:34Bill Simmons?

  That's unbelievable. This movie is written by Jim Hertzfield and John Hamburg and directed by Jay Roach. There's a whole backstory that I never knew about how this was originally an indie movie made by somebody named Greg Gliena in 1992, during the height of like, I can make a movie for $30,000. And it was called Meet the Parents. But I guess it was different a lot of ways, but it was like this, you know, made it for no money. Universal bought the rights. They tried to shop it around with all these directors and I can't wait to talk about a couple of them and eventually got this movie made eight years later. What's interesting is. They basically set the other movie on fire. It doesn't exist. And I guess it was part of his.

• 26:17Bill Simmons?

  It's part of his contract where I guess he didn't realize when he, they bought the rights from him, that they're also buying the other movie and they could just do whatever they wanted with it. So every once in a while, he'll put it up on YouTube and then they'll take it down. And he's just kind of like, my movie is completely different than this movie. Why can't it exist? And he's still giving interviews about it in 2024, but it's just like gone.

• 26:40Speaker 05

  It shows up occasionally and it goes away. It's like the McRib of movies.

• 26:45Bill Simmons?

  He'll put it on YouTube and then Universal's like, that's coming down. They made a billion dollars from the three movies. Like, put, put the fucking thing on YouTube. It'd be fun to watch. So, that was a bummer. So Randy Newman's A Fool in Love was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. I don't know if you have any Randy Newman takes, but I don't know if anyone's ever outkicked their coverage more than Randy Newman.

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Go on, go on. What do you mean?

• 27:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, multiple Oscars. He's played at the end of every Lakers Dodgers game. It's just like, you would think this guy was fucking Paul Simon. It bothers me.

• 27:20Speaker 05

  Pretty much the voice of Pixar with you got a friend in me.

• 27:24Bill Simmons?

  All the songs sound the same. Like, could you have been Randy Newman if we, if you learned how to play the guitar for 20 minutes?

• 27:30Speaker 05

  Prob- probably so. You, they make him out like he's John Williams, who is like an actual wizard genius. But he just sings about, we love it. It's not my cup of tea, man.

• 27:41Bill Simmons?

  Like, if we had gone to Randy Newman for the rewatchables theme, he just would have been like, rewatchables is a podcast. They're talking movies every day.

• 27:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:56Speaker 05

  Romo with Collinsworth. We love it.

• 28:00Speaker 05

  All right. So we've shit on Taxi Driver and also Randy Newman. We're off, we're on fire. Let's go.

• 28:06Bill Simmons?

  No shots fired at Randy Newman, but I've never understood it. It's just like, he's just like phenomenally successful. Like John Williams is a whole other animal. I get John Williams. Anyway, $55 million budget for this movie. It made 330. It beat Remember the Titans opening weekend. You must have made a choice that weekend.

• 28:23Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. And I was with my girlfriend.

• 28:25Bill Simmons?

  You went to Remember the Titans.

• 28:26Speaker 05

  We didn't go to Denzel. We, no, no, no. We, we went to meet, everyone was going to meet the parents. You couldn't miss it.

• 28:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh, interesting. I think I might've done both. I didn't have a lot going on.

• 28:34Speaker 05

  Sneak into the second one for free.

• 28:36Bill Simmons?

  Seventh biggest movie of 2000.

• 28:40Bill Simmons?

  It made less movie than Meet the Fockers, which made 522.7 million dollars. And then Little Fockers, which I don't even remember coming out, made 310.7 million in 2010. That was a money grab.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  It reminds me of the Look Who's Talking movies, where then it was like, Look Who's Talking 2, and then Look Who's Talking Now, where they're having animals talk. The Fockers are eventually having babies. And I just, again, the Hangover thing, I wasn't interested. I was fine with my first one. I've never seen them. I was talking to Schreger the other day at work, and I was like, have you seen the, like, this Focker sequels? He's like, yeah, they're good. They're really good. I'm like, I'm out on those. I'm not gonna watch them. He likes them. Somebody does.

• 29:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, Schreger's a huge Streisand guy.

• 29:22Bill Simmons?

  He's like, Streisand and Meet the Fockers? I'm in.

• 29:25Speaker 05

  It's possible. I don't know. Los Gatos.

• 29:31Bill Simmons?

  This movie also did 200 million dollars in video sales just in 2001.

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 29:36Bill Simmons?

  Back in the era when you could release a movie and then make 50% of what you made on the movie in video sales. Roger Ebert, three stars. He was not a huge fan of the Austin Powers movies, but he thought Meet the Parents is funnier because it never tries too hard, which I think is fair.

• 29:58Speaker 05

  It goes pretty hard in the second act a few times. It's, but the first half, like you said, it's just simple conversations and funny little social nuances, and it's great.

• 30:08Bill Simmons?

  Today's most rewatchable scene is brought to you by The Home Depot, one of my favorite places. Spread more joy with The Home Depot's giant holiday decor. Make your home something that people want to see again and again and again. At The Home Depot, there's a huge choice of lights and trees and decorations, of course, but you can really go bigger with larger-than-life decor. When do you get your tree? What day?

• 30:29Speaker 05

  We get our tree right after Thanksgiving. But I have to tell you, Bill, last year at Home Depot, we bought an eight-foot Santa Claus that goes in front of our house. And we're like celebrities in the neighborhood because everyone's like, where'd you get that Santa Claus? Where'd you get the Santa Claus? I'm like, dude, we get it at the depot. They got it. Go get it. They love it.

• 30:43Bill Simmons?

  I mean, there you go. Well, you'd have a tree you could put together in a few clicks like the Grand Duchess. They have that eight-foot towering sand with the opposable arms and a flame effect lantern. They have an eight-and-a-half-foot towering reindeer with illuminated flashing bells. The Home Depot for a real blockbuster holiday season. Okay, rewatchable scenes. So, I kinda like the aborted marriage proposal with the kids.

• 31:07Speaker 05

  Okay, go on.

• 31:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm just, I'm just shout, I like when the kids, the letters are wrong and he's like pushing them around and then he aborts. I, it's just solid. I just wanted to flag it. Meeting Pam's parents is the first like true rewatchable scene. That's where we get Geniuses pick green. We get some rental car shaming. We get the kitty litter revelation. We get, "He can't lift the seat, Greg. He lacks the strength in the opposable thumbs." We get the, "It's okay if you hate cats, Greg."

• 31:35Speaker 05

  That's incredible. So, how did you teach the cat to use the toilet?

• 31:38Speaker 04

  Well, that was easy, Greg. I just designed a litter box to put inside the toilet and then once he got used to it, I took it away.

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Oh, that's, yeah, makes sense.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  But I don't think he likes it very much. I mean, every chance he gets, he tries to dick, squat, and bury. I had to move all my potted plants off the floor.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Plus, you got another guy around the house to leave the seat up.

• 31:59Speaker 04

  He can't lift the seat, Greg. He lacks the strength in the opposable thumbs.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  Ah, right, opposable. Didn't think about that.

• 32:08Bill Simmons?

  The male nursing reaction. There's so much going on. It's just an elite five minutes.

• 32:13Speaker 05

  It's De Niro setting the table for how the movie's gonna go and he goes, "It's okay if you hate cats, Greg. There are things that I hate." And Greg's like, "Oh, no, I don't hate, really? Like what?" And you're like, "Ah, shit, it's tense as hell already." I hate that moment. It makes me uncomfortable, but it's so well acted.

• 32:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:31Bill Simmons?

  The car ride with De Niro and Stiller.

• 32:35Speaker 05

  Let's go. The Puff the Mag Dragon scene.

• 32:38Speaker 03

  Some people think that to puff the magic dragon means they're really, to, um, to smoke, uh, smoke marijuana cigarette.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  Puff's just the name of the boy's magical dragon.

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Are you a pothead fucker? No, no, what? No, no, no, no, no, Jack. No, I'm not, I pass on grass all the time.

• 33:15Bill Simmons?

  Dogs versus cats combo, which I want to dive into later. Puff the magic dragon. Are you a pothead fucker? If we're gonna nitpick, like, even in 2000, pretty weird to just drive in a car, listening to Puff the Magic Dragon? Like, was he a serial killer? What's going on there?

• 33:32Speaker 05

  It's very weird, and it appears that he pops in a cassette tape when he does it. It's, speaking of serial killers, that scene reminds me a lot of the scene in Something About Mary, the seven-minute abs scene with Harlan Williams, where he's sitting there. And it's just still her riding in a car with a weird guy, just making strange reactions to the guy saying strange stuff. And when he goes, well, you know, you know, the whole drug thing. No, I don't, why don't you tell me? And it's, that scene is one of the five best in the movie by far.

• 34:00Bill Simmons?

  Are you a pothead fucker?

• 34:02Speaker 03

  No, no, Jack, no.

• 34:04Bill Simmons?

  The dinner scene, which is gonna be my choice for most rewatchable, which includes Greg saying grace.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  And we thank you, oh, sweet, sweet lord of hosts, for the

• 34:20Speaker 03

  smorgasbord you have so aptly lain at our table this day and each day by day.

• 34:31Bill Simmons?

  Just completely mangling it. The urn with the remains of Jack's mother revelation. The poem, "My Mother" by Jack Burns.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  You gave me life, you gave me milk, you gave me courage. Your name was Angela, the angel from heaven.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  But you were also an angel of God, and he needed you too. Selfishly, I tried to keep you here while the cancer ate away your organs like an unstoppable rebel force. But I couldn't save you, and I shall see your face.

• 35:11Bill Simmons?

  You gave me life, you gave me milk. Selfishly, I tried to keep you here as the cancer ate away your organs like an unstoppable rebel force. And then we get the, uh, "I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?"

• 35:24Speaker 05

  Unbelievable.

• 35:25Bill Simmons?

  Probably the best line in the movie. I had, I had no idea.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  You could milk a cat.

• 35:30Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, you can milk anything with nipples.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Okay, could we change subject, perhaps?

• 35:42Bill Simmons?

  We have the you were engaged revelation and then the cork from the champagne hitting the air and breaking it. And Jinxie, no, this is just a perfect comedy scene. It's perfect.

• 35:53Speaker 05

  It's fantastic. And it has a beginning, a middle and an end, and each keeps outdoing itself. I have a question for you about Jack Burns' poem. Which do you think is a better poem? This is a would you rather? Jack Burns' poem or Reed Rothschild's poem in the hot tub? Which goes, I love you, you love me, going down the sugar tree. We'll go down the sugar tree and see lots of bees. Plain, plain, but they won't sting because you love me. That's it. And Dirk goes, holy shit, man, you fucking wrote that? Who you got? Which is a better, which is a better poem?

• 36:30Bill Simmons?

  I think I like My Mother by Jack Burns.

• 36:32Speaker 05

  It's moving for sure. It's moving.

• 36:34Bill Simmons?

  That she's an angel from heaven.

• 36:38Bill Simmons?

  That she gave him life and milk. I the the delivery of it.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:43Bill Simmons?

  I think I, what about you? What do you have?

• 36:46Speaker 05

  The bees don't sting him because they love you. That I mean, that's, that's very, very moving. And it's right as that he changes his name to Dirk. It's I.

• 36:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that is a great scene.

• 36:55Speaker 05

  Let's call it even.

• 36:58Bill Simmons?

  Next scene, borrowing clothes from your brother, from the brother.

• 37:03Bill Simmons?

  Just a fun monkey wrench. We're just in like Greg Brady's attic for two minutes and there's a little Kim poster and Ben Stiller's trying to act cool and he's like the least cool person on the planet. Just solid scene.

• 37:13Speaker 05

  That's the clothes thing is so big here because this from the second stiller shows up to the house. All right. So he doesn't have his bag. He can't smoke, which is going to make him uncomfortable. He has to say grace and the clothes thing is immediately putting him uncomfortable. Like the outfit that they put Ben Stiller in for the dinner with the most uncomfortable looking turtleneck sweater of all time and a flannel over it. You're just uncomfortable and itchy watching it. And then he turns into stoner clothes and he just looks like an asshole. I love the clothing devices here.

• 37:45Bill Simmons?

  You left out that made him sleep in the basement and the toilet didn't work. Who does that?

• 37:51Speaker 05

  Very strange.

• 37:52Bill Simmons?

  Hey, don't use the toilet. It doesn't, there's a bathroom in there, but toilet doesn't work. Don't flush it. Oh, cool. Thank you.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, what is he gonna go to the bathroom? Like, what is he supposed to do then?

• 38:00Bill Simmons?

  Sneak upstairs. Yeah, maybe Jinxie will teach him how to do it. Next scene I have is Luke Wilson bragging about himself and all the stuff he's doing right into the volleyball scene in the Spike, which includes moments like, "Yeah, I was really lucky. I was able to salvage this wood from an old Siemens chapel in the antutu." Like, it's just like genius writing about to make this guy as douchey as possible. "It took about 70 hours, which isn't bad considering I carved it all by hand from one piece of wood." And then he, he says how, he starts talking about Pam.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  And by the way, she just had the nicest things to say about you.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Really? Yeah. Oh.

• 38:46Speaker 05

  Gosh. And we had some good times together. Boy, she is a tomcat. She was a tomcat.

• 38:55Bill Simmons?

  I think I'm out if somebody says that about my future wife. I'm out.

• 38:58Speaker 05

  Ludicrous. But I, I think, in my opinion, it is the most entertaining seven-minute stretch of the whole movie when they show up at Kevin's house and Owen Wilson just runs out of the bullpen throwing 300 miles an hour. And every, I mean, the whole Q and A with Greg about, "Are you a homeowner, Greg?" Uh, you know, "What kind of, what kind of work are you in?" "I'm in healthcare." Oh, also, you know, I don't have to tell you, a lot of ventures to be made right now. And then De Niro just come in, Greg's a male nurse.

• 39:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, De Niro's, De Niro's so happy. He loves, he loves Luke Wilson so much.

• 39:28Speaker 05

  Greg's Jewish. And he has this signature handshake and they met at lacrosse camp, like,

• 39:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, lacrosse camp was a great sneak in.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  Good. Ah, it's awesome. And then it ends with volleyball. It's, it's sports and food and booze and, and weed jokes. It's, it's unbelievable.

• 39:43Bill Simmons?

  Nice shot Ice Man. We get the favorite sneaky line is our guy James Rebhorn saying, "Well, Florence Langengale over here played a little defense." It's just like under his breath. It's so good.

• 39:55Speaker 05

  I missed one shot. It was a big shot. It's fucking awesome. The volleyball scene is, and his girlfriend is high fiving with Owen Wilson and they're all like hugging. And then meanwhile, Jack is still annihilating him for being a pothead. So if I went up there, I'd have to be pretty high. Well, I bet you would, Panama Red. Every line absolutely kills. And the spike itself.

• 40:17Bill Simmons?

  You might be right. This might be the best seven minutes. I think I'm changing my answer.

• 40:21Speaker 05

  I think this is better. It's so good.

• 40:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you might be right. Luke Wilson's, he's starting 109. Greg burns everything down. Really fun visually, but it leads to De Niro who's just screaming at him, "You tried to milk him, didn't you, you sick son of a bitch?" Just out of nowhere. Greg gets caught, which I would not put as a most rewatchable scene, but it's a really solid, necessary, everything has just completely fallen apart scene.

• 40:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:51Bill Simmons?

  Which we have in all of these comedies. There's always that moment like Dumb and Dumber has it when all of a sudden they have to fight and they go in different directions and there's sad music and you just know it's going bad. Second lie detector scene and then the hidden camera ending. So we're going with, we're going with Luke Wilson's house. I think that's the right call.

• 41:10Speaker 05

  I think it is too. In so many other movies, even just the Puff the Magic Dragon scene is the funniest scene, but it's like fourth here. It's the barbecue at Kevin's with the Hopa and all that. I think that's the best.

• 41:20Bill Simmons?

  Right. Today's most rewatchable scene. That was brought to you by The Home Depot. Spread more joy this holiday season. Really go big with The Home Depot's giant, large and live holiday decor. Shop now in store, online at homedepot.com. We're going to take a break.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Truvia. Sweeteners are like movies. The best ones don't leave an aftertaste. That's why Truvia Allolos Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener is a smooth, balanced tri-blend that delivers sugar-like sweetness with zero calories per serving and no aftertaste. If you're looking for a better way to enjoy sweetness with zero calories per serving, you really need to try Truvia Allolos Plus Stevia Sweetener and Monk Fruit Sweetener. Available online and nationwide at Kroger, Target, and your favorite local grocery retailer.

• 42:16Bill Simmons?

  Coming back from the break, Craig reminded us that we were calling Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson during that entire segment.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:22Bill Simmons?

  My apologies to both Wilsons.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  I think I might've called them Russell Wilson and Carney Wilson a few times, too. Sorry, boys. That's our bad.

• 42:30Bill Simmons?

  Mookie Wilson. We just got all the Wilsons, but I'm usually good with my Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson separation. But I, yeah, I'm so excited to do the pod. I just screwed it up.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  I was too. Owen Wilson also gives us one of his signature wows when he's talking about the HOPA. It's great. Owen Wilson. Owen Wilson. We got it.

• 42:48Bill Simmons?

  You know what, Kyle Brandt?

• 42:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  Even Mahomes throws a pick sometimes.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  Even the greats make mistakes.

• 42:54Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 42:54Bill Simmons?

  Even the greats make mistakes.

• 42:56Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 42:56Bill Simmons?

  All right. What's the most 2000 thing about this movie? I gotta say, I could give you eight choices, but it's really looking down on a male nurse feels so 24 years ago.

• 43:08Speaker 05

  All right.

• 43:09Bill Simmons?

  It's this like giant, giant plot point. I feel like now if they did this, the association of male nurses would be protested in the movie and it would turn into a whole social media campaign. And back then it was just like, we're just gonna shit on male nurses for literally 100 minutes.

• 43:26Speaker 05

  One after another. And now it's like, now they're, they're, they're first responders and they're like some of the most important people in the world and the men should do that profession. See, Bill, don't ever let anybody tell you you don't have a heart because I was just gonna be like, yeah, the most 2000 thing is Denny's corn poster. And you're out here sticking up for male nurses. I think that's a totally different take and they do 50 jokes about male nurses in this.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  It never ends.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  Can you imagine being a male nurse in 2000 or 2001 after this movie? It's just, you're just fucker to everybody. It sucks.

• 43:57Bill Simmons?

  By the way, you said I stuck up for them. I laughed at all of the jokes, so I just wanted to put that there. I think the runner up for this was the little Kim poster.

• 44:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, Denny's Room in general.

• 44:08Bill Simmons?

  Denny's Room in general was 2000.

• 44:10Speaker 05

  He's got the Beasties, Lil' Kim.

• 44:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 05

  A lot going on there.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  What's aged the best?

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  The premise of losing your luggage in a movie, I think, is undefeated. I don't, I don't, I can't think of a single movie where it didn't work as a plot device.

• 44:27Speaker 05

  No, and it works for two hours.

• 44:29Bill Simmons?

  Whoever rooting for is on the defense and playing catch up from the moment it happens.

• 44:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it's immediately relatable, too. You know how many jokes they milk out of him losing his luggage? It's the reason he's wearing the bikini swimsuit still. It's the reason that he gets the dildo sent to him when they send the wrong luggage back. Plus, you get to do pre 2001 TSA jokes, and like, those always hit. It's, it's like a horn of plenty of comedy when you lose the luggage.

• 44:53Bill Simmons?

  I have to correct you on something. It wasn't a dildo. It was a $24.99 strap-on dildo.

• 44:58Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 44:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 05

  I guess a dildo and a strap-on is different, right? Because the strap-on is detachable.

• 45:04Bill Simmons?

  The strap-on dildo felt a little more sinister. The, another, more would say it's the best. The eye point, I'm looking at you.

• 45:11Speaker 05

  Great.

• 45:12Bill Simmons?

  Doing this with the fingers. I've always enjoyed that. What else do you have? I have a bunch of stuff.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  I laugh every time they say fucker, still. Especially some of them, like, one of them, one of them, Reb Horn goes like, "The animal doesn't even have opposable thumbs, fucker." And every time it hits to me, the volleyball game, they're just fuckering him. And it's such a dumb thing. Like, it sounds like fucker, and they change one letter. But I laugh when they yell and call him fucker, every time.

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  That's a great one. Stuff Bear, nanny cameras have aged the best, because I think these exist now. It seemed kind of state of the art in 2000. Now, I feel like, I mean, this is like one of the fears of staying in an Airbnb. There could be a camera literally anywhere in the Airbnb.

• 45:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, and everyone has one on their doorbell now. But when Jack breaks out the teddy bear, it was like, science fiction, you couldn't believe it. And then, of course, Greg points it at Blaine Danner's crotch, and that's a funny side gag.

• 46:06Bill Simmons?

  Him saying, "Little Kim, she's fat." P H A T. Yeah. That made me laugh.

• 46:11Speaker 05

  The expression fat with a P H A T makes me think of like Carson Daly in T R L. Like introducing like Lou Bega or something like, "Oh, it's totally, it's fat new track." That was cool for a minute.

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  De Niro's babysitting monitoring, monitor business in general, I think was a pretty good idea.

• 46:28Speaker 05

  Definitely.

• 46:28Bill Simmons?

  I like when they have ideas in movies where you're like, "Oh, that could be a business." Terry Polo looks great in this movie. I'm just gonna shout out to her. She looks great.

• 46:35Speaker 05

  She looks fantastic.

• 46:36Bill Simmons?

  Great job by her. So, all the home movies at the beginning of the movie were actual home movies of her taken by her then-husband. And the reason they did it was because, and I can't wait to talk about this specific theme later, because I have a spot for it. But in the, in the test screenings, she tested, her character tested so poorly that they were just trying to figure out ways to make her more likable in the movie. And that was one of the reasons they put those home movies in there to make it seem like somebody you'd want to fall in love with, which I think was smart.

• 47:08Speaker 05

  Oh, plus they have the wildly talented Randy Newman singing over them. So it just really pulls on the heartstrings, right? We know that. Anytime you go with the Rand man, we love them.

• 47:16Bill Simmons?

  Randy dialed it up. So, you know, a lot of people know her from this movie. I know her from the Travolta Vince Vaughn movie.

• 47:24Speaker 05

  Domestic Disturbance.

• 47:25Bill Simmons?

  Domestic Disturbance. One of my absolute favorite, favorite, favorite Bad from Hell movies, which I, you might get a text from me at some point. "Hey, do you guys want to do, do you want to do Domestic Disturbance?" I'm, I'm not kidding. I've watched it at least eight times. I just love it. Evil Vince Vaughn and John Travolta, like right as it's starting to flip.

• 47:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:49Bill Simmons?

  When he's like, "I'll do it for 5 million." And like, "Done." And he's like, "All right, I guess I'm making domestics disturbance."

• 47:56Speaker 05

  Bill, do you think Travolta's hair might be fake in that? Do you think he might be wearing a hairpiece in that?

• 48:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we might have to do that one.

• 48:02Speaker 05

  Craig, when we get a text from Bill that says, "Guys, we're doing domestic disturbance." Like Bill's gonna be drunk off his ass, but let's make it happen. I'm ready. I'm ready to do it.

• 48:11Bill Simmons?

  It's a great one. So.

• 48:16Bill Simmons?

  There's a what's age the best hair of like, should Greg? Should this have even worked out for Greg? I think one of the reasons this movie is so rewatchable is you're watching him and he makes so many bad decisions. That part of the rewatchability of it is like, ah, like, don't flush the fucking broken toilet. They told you not to do that. He does it. Causes septic take overflow. Don't let Jinx outside. He's domesticated him, lets him outside. Don't smoke around my dad's house. He's like, fuck it. I'll have a cigarette on the roof and then I'll throw it into a bunch of leaves. Don't, he goes to the, the, the, uh, pet place and brings back a stray

• 48:55Bill Simmons?

  cat, spray paints the tail and thinks Crazy Jack, who's taught this cat all the tricks was gonna notice. Like, he's such an idiot in this movie that it makes it actually fun to rewatch.

• 49:07Speaker 05

  I would think the, the apex of his terrible decisions is while you're wearing the Stoner Brothers clothes on the roof, trying to get the cat, do you really need to light up a cig? Like, couldn't you just get back in the house? I'm not a smoker. Maybe it's easy for me to get stones, but he probably shouldn't have lit the cig. I would think not.

• 49:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, if you're doing that, you're smoking two packs a day.

• 49:29Bill Simmons?

  Like, you're smoking as you're eating dinner. You're like one of those smokers. You're having between 40 and 50 cigarettes a day. That's how badly you need a cigarette. You're gonna be on your in-law's roof, wearing your brother-in-law's sweatshirt, you know, with foliage outside. You're just gonna fucking light up. There's no way.

• 49:45Speaker 05

  Well, also, he's hammering that Nicorette gum the whole time, too. So I think like, he's a fiend for it, which is a little weird because he's a nurse, but I was watching an interview that they did, and one of the things Stiller said was, not a smoker at all in life, felt totally uncomfortable smoking, and something that you'd love, he's like, I was looking at Bob, and Bob's like the greatest movie smoker ever. And so like, I felt so insecure because me just puffing the cigarette was making me sick to my stomach, and I'm with the greatest smoker in movie history. Felt totally insecure about it.

• 50:13Bill Simmons?

  So that's amazing because I had coming up later for the Ruffalo Hannah Rubenek Partridge overacting word, the three seconds where Ben Stiller tries to smoke. This is an obsession of Chris Ryan and mine.

• 50:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. I know. I listen.

• 50:25Bill Simmons?

  When people, when people incorrectly smoke in movies and you could just tell they have no idea to do it. So he tried to do the De Niro. He brought it up and then he switched and he switched to his thumb and finger, did the Jimmy Conway, but he didn't hail the cigarette. So he did it. Everything looked right, but he just had the cigarette, the cigarette smoke just in his mouth and he blew it out. And it was like, oh, you're not a smoker.

• 50:48Speaker 05

  Um, and he, I think he's like a health guy. So I think it was really alien to him. So I, I'm sorry. I'm such like a prude. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life. Is it really difficult to learn how to smoke and like get good at it? I don't, I don't know.

• 51:00Bill Simmons?

  I, there's a rhythm to it that you would only have if you've just smoked a ton of cigarettes, I think.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:08Bill Simmons?

  And that's why De Niro, like we covered in the Goodfellas podcast, like his smoking in the, in Goodfellas is the apex. Like if you ever want to know how to smoke a cigarette, which apparently Ben Stiller studied, the Goodfellas De Niro is what to study. He, he's perfect. Uh, do you have any other what stage the best?

• 51:25Speaker 05

  Um, no, I got some other ones in the other categories that are better.

• 51:29Bill Simmons?

  The Fortune three clap award, which you created for us for most giftable moment.

• 51:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  I think it's what I sent you this morning. De Niro's face during that one moment when Greg's saying grace and he does like the triple take.

• 51:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 51:42Bill Simmons?

  I'll put it on, I'll put it on the rewatchables Twitter feed so people can see it.

• 51:45Speaker 05

  It's a very usable gif when someone tweets something stupid. I mean, it would have been really easy this week, but like if, you know, Russell Wilson is going to start for the Steelers, they're benching Justin Fields, and then the person just tweets De Niro being like, huh? Like any sort of questionable decision, even if it works out, it is really good. I'd go with that or the, this, the finger point to the eyes and go like that. But I like yours a little bit better because it's more usable on, online.

• 52:10Bill Simmons?

  The Jaguars have decided to see what they have with Mac Jones. Immediate De Niro face.

• 52:17Speaker 05

  Gerard Mayo says his team is soft. De Niro face.

• 52:25Bill Simmons?

  Great Shack Order Award. I couldn't really find one for this one. I do like when the wedding burns down, that whole, the watching, the whole, the cord like going around, setting the lacquered altar on fire. That's pretty good, I guess.

• 52:37Speaker 05

  I'm at the end of that sequence. Greg's almost a western movie-like return with the fake Mr. Jinx when he holds it out and like points his pair and it's slow mo and it's almost a fisheye and it's his hero shot. That's my favorite shot. It cracks me up.

• 52:52Bill Simmons?

  Dennis Thieves Benny Hana Award for scene stealing location. I don't know.

• 52:58Speaker 05

  That restaurant where they go and get fucked up and the live band with the payphones and the martinis is a cool spot. But this isn't a location type movie.

• 53:04Bill Simmons?

  No, I don't think we have one. Kid Cudi Pursued Happiness Award for Best Needle Drop. We do have one. Puff the Magic Dragon. Just coming in out of nowhere.

• 53:12Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 53:13Bill Simmons?

  Haven't heard that song in a while.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  I was hoping that when they would go to Denny's room, we would actually get to hear some corn. Like they would play us ball tongue or something, but that'd be too much to license. The puff the magic dragon as they're talking about smoking marijuana cigarette. That's the best. You're right.

• 53:29Bill Simmons?

  Big Kahuna Burger Award for Best Use of Food and Drinks. So there's two.

• 53:33Speaker 05

  Go on.

• 53:35Bill Simmons?

  She, when, the first day when he's hanging out with the in-laws, Blight Danner, De Niro's wife in this movie.

• 53:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:41Bill Simmons?

  She serves, it looks like pigs in the blanket, but she calls them papooses.

• 53:45Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:46Bill Simmons?

  She calls them the red hot papooses, but I'd never heard that. And I even Googled papooses. I don't even know what that is.

• 53:51Speaker 05

  I think it's a family joke. They're trying to make them, they're just so cute and so family oriented that they've made them for 30 years. I don't know what they are either.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  But those were pigs in the blanket, which as you know, David Stern's favorite cocktail app.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Right.

• 54:04Bill Simmons?

  No, for real. Every NBA party. Oh, yeah. Every NBA party, they had to have pigs in the blanket. And I was at a party once, I think it was All-Star Weekend where they didn't have them. And Stern was like chewing out somebody. He's like, I told you, there's always gotta be pigs in the blanket.

• 54:18Speaker 05

  That was his thing? It's like so unsophisticated.

• 54:20Bill Simmons?

  Love pigs in the blanket. I know.

• 54:21Speaker 05

  I mean, they're good.

• 54:22Bill Simmons?

  You like dipping them?

• 54:23Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 54:24Bill Simmons?

  So I'd go with that or the pot roast. I don't know. You pick.

• 54:26Speaker 05

  You serve me up one of those nice tall Tom Collins. I'll, I'll take it. I'm not gonna turn that away.

• 54:31Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Oh, yeah. You're right. Tom Collins should win this.

• 54:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I'm already nervous there. It's a, it's a gin cocktail with lemon juice, simple sugar. And like, it just, I would be pounding those Tom Collins, especially if you, you can't smoke and you're nervous as hell. Like I'd be, I'd be slamming them.

• 54:48Bill Simmons?

  The Brandy Booth Award for Best Performance by a Pet. We don't, normally don't have multiple candidates for this, cuz I thought Jinxie was great, but Fake Jinxie really brought it to another level. Fake Jinxie brought down the china, the wedding dress, I don't know, I think it might be Fake Jinxie.

• 55:05Speaker 05

  And convinced Jack Burns, at least initially, that it was real Jinxie. So Fake Jinxie, whatever the hell the thing's name is, with the spray painted tail. And I got some questions later about how that went down, but yes, Fake Jinxie is, gets a great nominee.

• 55:19Bill Simmons?

  All right, it's time. The Butcher's Girlfriend Award for Weak Link of the Film.

• 55:25Bill Simmons?

  Pam is an atrocious girlfriend. I, I just, I have a whole list, I don't, do you wanna start? And I can just go through my list after, like, I just can't believe what a shitty girlfriend she is in this movie, which might be the point, cuz it's a comedy, but it's kind of unbelievable.

• 55:41Speaker 05

  It's a terrible character, it's a terrible girlfriend. My wife won't watch this movie cuz she hates Pam so much. She's, she's the villain of this movie. It starts really, really early, which she doesn't tell Greg about the not smoking. She just says, don't tell him, we live together, as the front door is opening. The second the dad, dad is hugging a cat and showing love to the cat, she hits him with, Greg hates cats, idiotic. The whole thing with Kevin, the ex-boyfriend, is ludicrous. And she says, oh, it's whatever, it was a stupid sexual thing, you fucking leave when that gets said. It's so inappropriate, she never comes to Greg's defense. I think she's a, I have her as what's aged worst, I got, like, I have all kinds of Pam takes. Almost ruins the movie, really, it really does.

• 56:25Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't tell Greg what her dad did.

• 56:27Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 56:28Bill Simmons?

  Never admitted she was engaged. Didn't push to stay in the same room with Greg. Like, hey, it's my boyfriend, I'm 29 years old, dad, that we're staying in the same room. Didn't wake him up first thing in the morning, so he looked like a schmuck.

• 56:42Speaker 05

  I hate that one, you look like such a piece of shit, sleeping in all day, wake him up.

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  Didn't say, hey, we're going to my old boyfriend's house. And by the way, he's loaded. No heads up on that.

• 56:52Speaker 05

  Didn't I tell you? Didn't I? No, you didn't tell me. You think I wouldn't remember that?

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  You didn't fucking tell me.

• 56:55Speaker 05

  Idiot.

• 56:56Bill Simmons?

  By the way, he's got pictures of the two of them all over the place. Right after she said, ah, it was more of a physical thing. Oh, awesome. Here's one. Puts Greg in her robe. Talk about emasculating. Like, go up and get clothes from Denny's room.

• 57:12Speaker 05

  The worst.

• 57:13Bill Simmons?

  Like, just go up there and grab like a sweatshirt. You're gonna put him in like your flower robe. Makes Greg go up and get the clothes himself from the brother who he hasn't met yet. He's just gonna go up there, hey, I'm Greg. I need some clothes. Like, go up there and get him some fucking clothes. You're the sister. And then ditched him immediately. Like, hour 10, hour 20 mark of the movie, like, some things went wrong. Did she stand by him? No. And then she kinda leaves a half-hearted answering machine message to save the day. I thought Pam was reprehensible.

• 57:45Speaker 05

  We're leaving meat on the bone, too. She's on the same volleyball team as the old boyfriend in the pool, practically dry humping him, high-fiving him the whole time.

• 57:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why aren't you on Greg's team?

• 57:55Speaker 05

  They're having a romantic dance at the party and she goes, oh, look at Kevin. He's so lonely. Should I ask him to dance? What the fuck are you? What is this relationship? No. She's the worst. And you know what the problem is? The reason it's the real weak link of the movie is that the heart doesn't deliver for me in this movie. They're trying really hard to make it a romantic comedy with Randy Newman and all that shit. I'm not rooting for Greg and Pam. At the end, when they get back together, I'm actually pissed because she sucks so much. It doesn't work in the second half because that romantic part, it's shallow for me. I'm like, Greg, get the fuck out of there while you still can.

• 58:27Bill Simmons?

  You know, Randy Newman had another song, actually, that they didn't use for the movie. It was called, Pam is a raging bitch. She really sucks as a girlfriend.

• 58:40Speaker 05

  She's gonna fake a pregnancy to get the ring and you know it. We love it.

• 58:47Bill Simmons?

  I'll tell you another thing she did. And you'll appreciate this probably the most of anybody that I could say this to.

• 58:55Bill Simmons?

  She no sells some of his content when they're with the parents.

• 58:59Speaker 05

  Talk about this. Yes. I hate that.

• 59:01Bill Simmons?

  Like, let's say, for instance, either of us had experience being on a studio show where you're setting up material and making, making a joke.

• 59:10Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 59:11Bill Simmons?

  And you kinda need some help from the other people on the desk, right? To sell the point. You have a little punchline, you hit something and you need someone to be like, oh.

• 59:20Speaker 05

  A little buy-in.

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, buy-in, they're laughing. He's doing stuff when he's meeting them at the dinner and she's fucking no-selling him left and right. And the only thing she does to try to sell him is like, so Greg, how's your job?

• 59:33Speaker 05

  So great.

• 59:33Bill Simmons?

  What? You're his girlfriend, you've just spent nine hours with him, why are you saying it that way? She sucks.

• 59:39Speaker 05

  Phil, this is so good. This, the no-sell is worse to me than if she had gone back to having sex with Kevin right in front of him. The no-sell is so personal and so violating. Here's the setup. Greg had just crossed the threshold to get in the house. He's really nervous around Jack. They tell the story about Jinxie can't flush the toilet. Greg says, you know, plus then you got another guy around who will put the toilet seat down. That's not a bad joke. That's a perfectly fine ice-breaking joke. And she does nothing. And if you've ever been on live TV and you decided to take a shot, maybe put yourself out there a little bit and someone does nothing, you never forget it, trust me.

• 1:00:15Bill Simmons?

  We'll leave it at that. What's aged the worst?

• 1:00:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Uh, we mentioned Bed-Stow or smoking. Like, I mean, this goes to the Pam discussion again. Why did she like Greg and why didn't she just stay in Kevin? She explains it later in the movie as, I was never in love with Kevin, I'm in love with you. And it's like, really? You haven't shown one sign that you're in love with him, other than you got a little frisky with him in the bedroom there for five seconds. But, uh, what, like, it seems like you just should have been with this douchebag.

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  Well, you, you were going skydiving, scuba diving, riding horses with this really rich guy with blonde hair. And now you just, you're in love with the chain-smoking nurse who like, doesn't have any balls? It's a little bit strange. Yeah, you're right. I don't know why, I don't, I don't know why he's with her. I guess he's with her because she's hot, but I, I'm not sure exactly what's in it for her.

• 1:01:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, I, I mean, it begs the question, what was wrong with Owen Wilson? Like premature ejaculator?

• 1:01:08Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:01:10Bill Simmons?

  Trying to think like, like weird sex hangups or

• 1:01:13Speaker 05

  All right.

• 1:01:13Bill Simmons?

  Maybe too rough like, like it feels like it had to have been something. He talks about how she was a tomcat, maybe couldn't handle it. I don't know.

• 1:01:21Speaker 05

  My take on Pam is that I think Pam is great at sex, like great. Okay. Because obviously Kevin's character, the tomcat, that's a hell of a description. She's constantly looking for it from Greg.

• 1:01:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  And also like, why else is really Greg with her? Like she's really obnoxious, non supportive and cold. I think it is, it is fantastic with her and God bless her for it.

• 1:01:45Bill Simmons?

  And Greg's seen a male nurse. He's, he's used to, he's a giving lover.

• 1:01:49Speaker 05

  That's true. He's used to the body. He's, he's comfortable with that. I also have another take on, on Pam. Bill, it's kind of an interesting one relating to Terry Polo. I think she is, the character is terrible. I think she does a really nice job in this. I think she's beautiful. I think she's got huge star potential. It didn't really work out. Like she didn't become Sandra or Julia.

• 1:02:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:08Speaker 05

  Didn't even really become Ashley Judd. I, she also got caught up in that 2000s, like Maxim Hot 100 list, number 33 Terry Polo, which was never great. She also decided in, uh, around oh four to pose nude for Playboy.

• 1:02:23Bill Simmons?

  Really weird move. I, I didn't like at a time when Playboy just wasn't cool anymore.

• 1:02:28Speaker 05

  No, but fully nude and not like some controversial thing when they found old pictures of her. She went, I saw a clip of her on Ellen being like, yeah, it was really freeing and I loved it. That's fine, but like, I thought she had big potential. Like I would have had Terry Polo's stock coming out of this. Like this one could be a massive leading lady and I don't know. The, the Playboy thing was surprising to me.

• 1:02:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. If she was going to do the naked thing, she should have just done like some sort of like erotic thriller or something. Like done, done a movie that like is self-serving, like, like that actually helps your career. I don't, in 2005, for anybody to think a Playboy spread would help their career. That's like nuts.

• 1:03:04Speaker 05

  No, 1985, it would help. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe she did it for money or something. Who knows? But like, I was surprised to see that.

• 1:03:12Bill Simmons?

  Uh, what's aged the worst? Getting in early on wireless IPOs?

• 1:03:17Speaker 05

  Things just skyrocketed.

• 1:03:19Bill Simmons?

  Things are rocket ship. Looking down on marijuana use?

• 1:03:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  Now you walk through New York City and you're just walking through a haze of marijuana at 7:15 in the morning, trying to get some coffee back in 2000. It's accusatory.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, and it was this whole thing about like Ben's gonna tell about Denny, that Denny's, you know, puffing the magic dragon as if like, Denny was like a pedophile or something like, no, it's just, it's just weed. Like it's every kid does it. It's okay.

• 1:03:45Bill Simmons?

  Saying bomb in an airplane?

• 1:03:48Speaker 05

  All right.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  The whole airplane part?

• 1:03:52Bill Simmons?

  Yelling at a flight attendant?

• 1:03:53Speaker 05

  You and I were texting. Did you, did you watch this in the rewatch? Did you watch it on a plane?

• 1:03:57Bill Simmons?

  I actually did. And they kept all the bomb stuff in there. Yeah, I was surprised.

• 1:04:02Speaker 05

  Oh, I thought they would take that out. He's screaming bomb on the plane. Maybe they did and then they put it back.

• 1:04:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no, it was in there. I was surprised because I was doing the research. I watched it twice. I was doing the research the first time I watched it and it was saying how it got taken out on airplanes, but on my airplane, it was, it was on there. Um, yeah, the whole, I mean, just all of the pre nine 11, anytime there's an airplane scene, it's always hilarious. Like people just waltzing in last minute, buying a ticket, just coming in, trying to check giant suitcases.

• 1:04:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, the security guys are always like, hey, pal, you know, back of the line. It's not like that now. They got submachine guns and stuff.

• 1:04:38Bill Simmons?

  Any other what's aged the worst for you?

• 1:04:41Speaker 05

  Um, you know, there's a really interesting moment in technology here. This is the rare movie that has scenes that are built around cell phones and also built around payphones that we're right at the precipice.

• 1:04:53Bill Simmons?

  Vortex. I like this.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  It's right there. In the first scene when the kids are doing the proposal, Pam gets a call on her cell phone. But at the party scene, both Jack and Focker are at payphones dueling. So it was like, it was like two ships passing in the night. It's a rare movie that has both.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that would have been good for what was the most 2000s thing about this movie?

• 1:05:14Speaker 05

  Yeah. Jack calling in to check his messages and having a passcode on it? That's something we used to do.

• 1:05:21Bill Simmons?

  I think the last time anyone used a payphone was in 2009 when House and I were in Portland on my book tour. And House ate so much food at the seafood restaurant that he went to go to the bathroom and just ended up sitting in the, standing in the phone booth and then sitting in it just to like regroup. And we found him in a phone booth. And I think that was the last time anyone's used a phone booth. Has any, have you seen a phone booth in the last 10 years?

• 1:05:47Speaker 05

  I haven't.

• 1:05:48Bill Simmons?

  He might have killed it.

• 1:05:49Speaker 05

  I saw the movie Phone Booth in the theater.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, maybe that killed phone booths. It's either that or House.

• 1:05:55Speaker 05

  Kiefer Sutherland had a gun on House the whole time after the seafood.

• 1:05:59Bill Simmons?

  Craig, what's, Craig, what's your generation's relationship with phone booths?

• 1:06:03Speaker 06

  If I go to London, there's people taking photos in one for Instagram.

• 1:06:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Speaker 05

  Craig, have you ever put a quarter in one and made a call?

• 1:06:11Speaker 06

  No, I have, I have never put a quarter in a phone booth and made a call. I actually one time as a kid, used a payphone inside of a basketball gym as a joke in front of my eight-year-old friends to call 911, thinking it wouldn't work. And it actually did work.

• 1:06:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, it works.

• 1:06:24Speaker 06

  And the police came, yeah. So I learned that the hard way.

• 1:06:27Bill Simmons?

  And on that note, we're gonna take a break.

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

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• 1:07:17Bill Simmons?

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• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  All right, coming back. Was there a better title for this movie? I'm gonna say no. Meet the Parents, really strong.

• 1:08:07Speaker 05

  Right on the nose.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Can you dig it a word for most memorable quote? I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me? Pretty tough to top, right?

• 1:08:14Speaker 05

  I think that's, I mean, the one that makes me laugh the most is she was a tomcat. But in terms of the script is, you know, you can milk anything with nipples. I have nipples, Greg. Can you milk me is the best line in the movie.

• 1:08:26Bill Simmons?

  The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford hottest take a word. I have one. Do you have one for this?

• 1:08:31Speaker 05

  I do. Yeah. Meet the Parents is a horror movie. It is just get out, but the boyfriend's a white guy. Greg is basically tortured the whole time. There's a secret layer in there. Blythe Danner is like this kind of witch and the girlfriend is terrible and goes to burn him in the end. There's the idiot brother. They've put, I feel like Owen Wilson is like under some kind of spell. And that's why he's so weird and still single.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  He's like the Lakeith Stanfield's character.

• 1:09:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do. And I think that like, there's only missing a scene where Greg and goes and finds all the pictures of all the other boyfriends who have been by and who have been put on the lie detector. I think they were all given the Tom Collins. They were all given the same talk and it's just, it's get out with the white boyfriend. This is a horror movie with Randy Newman music and it's just hiding right there in plain sight.

• 1:09:22Bill Simmons?

  Great take. I mean, you could even take that take another level and say Jordan Peele came up with get out because he was watching Meet the Parents and was like, what if?

• 1:09:31Speaker 05

  I think he stole get out from, from Meet the Parents and he just tweaked a few things, but it's pretty much the same deal.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  That's a great take. So mine is a. I'm a dog guy, as you know.

• 1:09:43Speaker 05

  Oh, here we go.

• 1:09:43Bill Simmons?

  Dogs only. I've never had a cat. Don't like cats. I think De Niro's defense in this movie of cats over dogs is the best argument I've ever heard for cats over dogs. He basically says, dogs are emotionally shallow animals that are very easy to break. Cats make you work for their affection. They don't sell out the way dogs do. I'm like, you know what? Those are some great points. Dogs are emotionally shallow animals. He was like, you yell at a dog, they put their tail between their legs. You can break a dog. You can't break a cat. I'm like, eh, solid points.

• 1:10:19Speaker 05

  They put their tail between their legs to cover their genitals.

• 1:10:23Speaker 05

  And it's so perfect. And when Greg's like, you know, it's like, he's happy to see you. And he goes, you need that kind of reassurance, do you? And he goes on this great monologue. Bill, I also am a dog owner, never owned a cat. And every time he says that, I'm a little bit like, holy shit, that brings up some interesting points. You know what?

• 1:10:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Speaker 05

  It reminds me when I was young and the first time I saw Reservoir Dogs and Mr. Pink is going on about no tipping. I was like, ah, he's kind of making a point there. And then you grow up and see like, oh no, that's not cool. But as a kid, I'm like, you know, there were some shots fired for sure. I still like dogs, but Jack Burns, like, he's going for it. And I hear what you're saying. Well, you got a cat because of listening to it.

• 1:11:01Bill Simmons?

  No, never. Some good casting modifs for this. So Steven Soderbergh brought this to Universal 95 and tried to get it made when it was as the remake after they had the rights.

• 1:11:12Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:11:13Bill Simmons?

  And dropped out to do Out of Sight. So that's one. Spielberg wanted to direct and produce with Jim Carrey as Focker and maybe Al Pacino is the dad.

• 1:11:27Bill Simmons?

  I was having coffee with Focker a half an hour ago.

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  That fell through.

• 1:11:35Speaker 05

  Pam's got a great ass. Oh, that's good.

• 1:11:40Speaker 05

  Oh shit, Pacino. Yeah, I guess. Sure. It's De Niro, Pacino. That's, that's just fucked me up. I didn't know that was a thing.

• 1:11:49Bill Simmons?

  So then Jim Carrey stayed and was gonna do it and actually contributed to, you know, some of the thinking behind some of the scenes in the movie, but then he left. And the filmmakers tried to get Mike Myers and he turned it down. Maybe. Unclear. Research was conflicting on this because Jay Roach directed him in Powers. And then Jay Roach cast Stiller. As soon as they were for sure that Carrie was out, but it was supposed to be a Carrie movie, which is a great fork in the road. I don't think it works as well, right?

• 1:12:19Speaker 05

  Different movie. It's a lot more hijinks. I can see him up on the roof and the fire and the cat. And he's doing his physical comedy thing. Stiller's better doing awkward humor. He's the Michael Jordan of awkward humor. And Jim Carrey would have been a funny movie. They made the right choice. I, I think he's way, way better with Stiller in this, sitting at that dinner table doing that prayer.

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  Supposedly the, the script with Carrie was way more physical stuff, way more on that like.

• 1:12:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like he comes to the table singing day by day, but he's talking with his ass cheeks while he's like, I don't need that. I want the awkward. It's interesting. The Spielberg thing's crazy too. My version of it where it's a horror film, hell, I went like, I went like the Fincher version of it. And the basement is like Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and it's super dark and scary. And the Spielberg version would probably have adultery between the parents because he always goes there. But I think we landed on the right guy.

• 1:13:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think we did too. So here's another one. Naomi Watts was initially cast as Pam. And then they backed out of it and gave it to Terry Polo. And she said in an interview that the producers told her they didn't think she was sexy enough. Which is bonkers.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  Tough beat.

• 1:13:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because Naomi Watts is really good looking. Like I'm surprised that was the reason. So who knows what happened there. The backup choice if De Niro said no to Jack Burns. Christopher Walken.

• 1:13:39Speaker 05

  Uh, well.

• 1:13:40Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. It's basically Wedding Crashers, right? We got, we got it in Wedding Crashers, so we know what it is.

• 1:13:46Speaker 05

  Are you a pothead fucker? The dog's covered his genitals. I, you know, you know who they should have cast as not as, not as Jack? Who they should have cast as Pam? It's fucking sitting right there and they couldn't have gotten her. But Gwyneth is Pam. Gwyneth.

• 1:14:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, well, I thought of that too. Yeah, her mom is.

• 1:14:05Speaker 05

  Fucking mom and you're gonna play De Niro's daughter and it's a quick, she would have been great.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  I had that as a casting couch thing where if Gwyneth was Pam? And then Terry Polo was the sister getting married, is this just a better movie?

• 1:14:19Speaker 05

  Let me, let me add another one. To, to build up on Kevin and how rich he is and how perfect he is. What if Brad Pitt is Kevin? And he's doing the, this, this old Siemens chuckle in, in Nantucket, like Owen Wilson is amazing. But I also think it's really funny if, if Kevin is like, unappropriately good looking too. So that would have worked as well, but now we're just dream casting.

• 1:14:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, speaking of dream casting, De Niro turned down any given Sunday to do, um, meet the parents.

• 1:14:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Bill Simmons?

  The inches are all around us. I don't know how he would have done that. And then, this isn't a casting with it, but Phyllis George is James Rebhorn's wife. Phyllis George from, or Prosperous Musburger NFL Today, married, brief Celtics owner, John White Brown, who almost destroyed the Celtics and caused Brett Robach to leave and whose daughter is now a CNN anchor, Pamela Brown.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, if you watched any CNN on election night and I don't know if you did or not, but she was everywhere. She's very talented, very good. And then Phyllis George just showing up. I don't think a lot of people know who Phyllis George is if you're young enough, but she was iconic, like landmark broadcaster.

• 1:15:27Bill Simmons?

  I was trying to think, who's Phyllis George now?

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  Um, shit, it's hard. I mean, listen, at those studio desks, like there's, there's not a lot.

• 1:15:36Bill Simmons?

  Cause, cause the thing is, it was a studio show that was being watched by like 35 million people every Sunday. Cause we only had four channels. So I, she's way more famous than I think any talking head sports person now.

• 1:15:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, you turn on Amazon on Thursday night and then Carissa Thompson is at the desk.

• 1:15:54Bill Simmons?

  Right. She's like Carissa on, yeah, Chris at times 10.

• 1:15:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. And because there was like three channels and it was massive. Like she's, she's a total legend.

• 1:16:03Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of legends, Best That Guy Award. So Rebhorn's already won this a couple of times. I just want to point out, as you know, we keep track of actors who have been in rewatchables movies and De Niro has added to his total. Rebhorn from 1992 to 2000 has now been in seven rewatchable movies. Basic Instinct, My Cousin Vinny, Son of a Woman, Independence Day, The Game, Talented Mr. Ripley and Meet the Parents. I think that's the best that guy run anyone's had.

• 1:16:33Speaker 05

  All movies that matter. I have it written down right here, Bill. It says, what's your favorite Rebhorn? Like, what do you got? What's your, what's your, I know mine. What's yours?

• 1:16:43Bill Simmons?

  Great question. For me, it's Talented Mr. Ripley.

• 1:16:47Speaker 05

  Oh.

• 1:16:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What do you have?

• 1:16:50Speaker 05

  The Game. The way he sets up the game and then later, when he gets kidnapped and he's at the zoo with his family, he's awesome in that movie. It's an important part, too.

• 1:16:59Bill Simmons?

  He's kind of James Rebhorn in every movie, but this tapped into comedy James Rebhorn, which I, which I appreciated.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  You gotta crash the net up there, fucker. Rebhorn's really good.

• 1:17:11Bill Simmons?

  You know, speaking of the rewatchable standings.

• 1:17:15Speaker 05

  Where we at?

• 1:17:15Bill Simmons?

  Since we did Meet the Parents.

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  De Niro pulling into a tie with Pacino at 13.

• 1:17:20Speaker 05

  Oh, this is great. This is everything.

• 1:17:22Bill Simmons?

  Still leading with 15. Pacino, De Niro, this is how it should be. Both tied at 13 and Denzel's at 11 and then Hanks, Damon and Stallone at 10.

• 1:17:32Speaker 05

  Is there a glaring De Niro that hasn't been done? Like, I know you guys, you've done, even ones that maybe aren't that mainstream, you've done Ronin a couple of years ago. Like, I wonder what's sticking out there? You haven't analyzed this, if you care. I mean, it's a big, successful movie.

• 1:17:46Bill Simmons?

  We haven't analyzed this. Um, yeah, there's one.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, we haven't done Raging Bull, but I don't even know if Raging Bull is a rewatchable, even though it's one of the great movies, but it's not a movie you're like, I'm gonna sit down and crank out some Raging Bull. Yeah, we've kind of gone through most of the De Niro catalog.

• 1:18:03Speaker 05

  We're not gonna do the, the fan pod where he stalks Wesley Snipes or whatever the fuck that is. It's not a good movie.

• 1:18:08Bill Simmons?

  So Van wants to do the fan.

• 1:18:11Speaker 05

  The fan.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  Loves the fan. Yeah. He thinks the fan's, the fan's great. And Chris Ryan would never turn down Tony Scott. So I don't know if the fan is. Maybe that'll come into play.

• 1:18:21Speaker 05

  Wow, Juan Primo getting killed in the shower. Look, man, I respect it. Go get it. I'll listen. I listen even movies I haven't seen sometimes. That's how big a fan I am.

• 1:18:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, we appreciate it.

• 1:18:30Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  The question is, does Rebhorn win this? Because we also have Tom McCarthy, who played Scott Pendleton in season five of The Wire, the reporter, and then became a really good director. And it's crazy that he had this old acting side because he became, I think, one of the better directors we've had the last 10 years. He plays Dr. Who's the guy? Dr. I'm blanking. The guy who's getting married.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  Dr. Bob.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Dr. Bob.

• 1:18:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:59Bill Simmons?

  Or you can call me Bob M.D.

• 1:19:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:04Bill Simmons?

  But super douchey. But I, so it's either him or Rebhorn. But I, I feel like Rebhorn's earned it.

• 1:19:09Speaker 05

  And here's why. Like, to you, and I'm sure it's his CR and fantasy, he's James Rebhorn. People don't know James Rebhorn's name. I think generally in the public, they Nike him and they recognize him. I don't think he's James Rebhorn to the, to the public. May he rest in peace. I think it's Jimmy Rebhorn.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  Dion Waiters Award is obviously going to go to Owen Wilson. But I want to make a case for Drugstore Counter Guy?

• 1:19:33Speaker 05

  Judith Friedlander?

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  Yep. Or bitchy flight attendant?

• 1:19:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. Flight attendant's good.

• 1:19:41Speaker 05

  I, it's, listen, we can make a case. My question for you on Dion Waiters is with all these shows that you've done and all these episodes, because I think this is an all-time Dion. It's like one of the greatest ever. Do you have a favorite, like, number one all-time Dion in any of the shows that you've done?

• 1:19:57Bill Simmons?

  Uh, there's too many. Yeah, I can't.

• 1:20:00Speaker 05

  Let me throw some out.

• 1:20:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, too many to count.

• 1:20:03Speaker 05

  I, I can't think of a better ever Dion than, for me, my personal favorite is Drexel in True Romance. Like, just unbelievably captivating, tiny screen time, and then Chris Walken in the same movie.

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  Floyd was a better Dion in that movie.

• 1:20:15Speaker 05

  There's three. Floyd, Walken, Drexel.

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:18Speaker 05

  All of those guys are unbelievable. And then, of course, I know you guys did this recently, given the screen time and given the impact, uh, multiple Migs and all, all-time Dion Waiters. He might be the, he might be the goat.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  Migs was a great one. What it, in the, uh, I think Boogie Nights had one of the all time classics was Floyd Gondoli. Who just came in for the one scene.

• 1:20:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, Phil.

• 1:20:43Bill Simmons?

  He liked the simple things, you know.

• 1:20:45Speaker 05

  Philip.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  Butter in his ass, lye pops in his mouth.

• 1:20:48Speaker 05

  I like what people on film fucking, okay, that's I just, that's me.

• 1:20:52Bill Simmons?

  We've had a lot of them. I, I, I would like to go through all the movies and just see the entire list of Dion Waiters. Craig was always talking about, do we do a bracket? Craig, we, should we do that?

• 1:21:03Speaker 06

  A hundred percent we should.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  We do the March Madness bracket with all the Dion Waiters?

• 1:21:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, we should pick our top 64 internally and then put it out there for a vote.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  Cause Superbad, who won in Superbad?

• 1:21:16Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 1:21:17Bill Simmons?

  That was another good one.

• 1:21:19Speaker 05

  Well, Bill, you have one of the categories. Coach Finstock won for Teen Wolf. Fantastic.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  Coach Finstock was out of his mind.

• 1:21:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's a great Dion Waiters.

• 1:21:28Speaker 06

  Superbad is probably Joe LaTruglio. I don't know.

• 1:21:32Bill Simmons?

  We'll have to go through. Um, recasting couch director city. So I feel like we could do better with the younger brother. And I was thinking, young Seth Rogen is sitting right there. I don't know if he's in the Apatow universe yet. Maybe he's a struggling actor comedian. He would have been the right age. You could have totally seen him in the attic as a stoner. It would have been fun to have young Seth Rogen in a movie 24 years later. And I just felt like that was a good one.

• 1:21:57Speaker 05

  It would have been great. And I'm, I'm, I'm meeting you 50% of the way there. When this movie came out, this guy was playing all these roles. I went Seth Green.

• 1:22:06Speaker 05

  I love him.

• 1:22:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Seth Green would have been great too.

• 1:22:08Speaker 05

  He's right there.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  That's good. Romo Collinsworth or someone else for the director's commentary? Know if you have any thoughts? I, I was thinking, uh, this movie cries out for Romo.

• 1:22:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:22:24Bill Simmons?

  The urn just broke, Jim. I think Jinx, Jinxie might take a dump on Grandma's ashes. She's gonna do it, Jim.

• 1:22:32Bill Simmons?

  Romo's been good this year. I must want to take him out of the category, but.

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  But no, you can't take him out. I will go, I will zag though, and I'm gonna go, um, I'm gonna go Scott Hanson, uh, breaking down this movie. We go to the Burns house where Gaylord Focker is in for 48 hours of commercial free torture for his psychotic father asshole fiance. Wow.

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  That is great. Scott Hanson.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, but Scotty's in the red zone breaking it down.

• 1:23:02Speaker 06

  The witching hour where relationships become marriages or divorces.

• 1:23:08Speaker 05

  That's exactly right. He put his nuts in a vise for pleasure for 48 hours. Scott, you're the man.

• 1:23:16Bill Simmons?

  I kinda just want to do Ryan Ruco every week for this too.

• 1:23:19Speaker 05

  Go on.

• 1:23:20Bill Simmons?

  Cheeksy on the ashes, you bet.

• 1:23:25Bill Simmons?

  Half ass internet research. De Niro came up with the idea for the polygraph test scene.

• 1:23:31Bill Simmons?

  This is a bummer. So the sister was played by Nicole De Huff,

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  who tragically died at age 30 in 2005. She had pneumonia. They thought it was bronchitis and something bad happened and she died.

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  The girl who gets hit by the volleyball? She died?

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  Oh, that sucks.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if that's why she wasn't in the sequel, but, um, cause she died after that, but, uh, yeah. So there you go. Jinx the cat was played by two five-year-old Himalayan cats named Bailey and Misha.

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  Most of the scenes were done by Misha. So Jim Carrey came up with the idea for the Focker surname. That was his contribution. Yeah.

• 1:24:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:24:12Bill Simmons?

  De Niro loved Mr. Jinx and would play with the cat between scenes and kinda shoehorned him into a couple more scenes. I like that when De Niro likes anything, it just seems funny to me because he just seems like the most boring guy who ever lived. Like you forwarded that COVID. Tell them about the COVID thing.

• 1:24:29Speaker 05

  So I'm looking around YouTube just for interview, interviews of this and in 2020, Hoda Kotb got the cast together for one of those meetups that we would do during the pandemic. And it's, it's Terry Polo and Blight Danner and De Niro, Jay Roach, and sure enough, Ben Stiller. And it's like, I don't know if De Niro was under contractual obligation to be there, but Hoda's all smiles and she's like, Bob, the scene that I love is when you read the poem at dinner. It's so funny. What do you remember about that scene? And he'd be like, I don't really remember it. Oh, okay. And then they like Stiller would try to jump in and like rescue it and be like, well, what I remember, like De Niro contributed nothing.

• 1:25:13Speaker 05

  And even Jay Roach was like, Bob, I remember you really liked Mr. Jinx. You liked the cat, remember? And he's like, I, I, I don't, I don't remember the cat.

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  He is probably the worst late night guest of all time. De Niro.

• 1:25:26Speaker 05

  Rough, like way worse than Harrison Ford, way worse.

• 1:25:29Bill Simmons?

  It's funny because people would always give Belichick shit about like his press conferences and stuff. To me, like real life De Niro is, is a way worse hang than press conference Belichick. Like I, I have him as like a minus 300 in the finals against press conference Belichick.

• 1:25:44Speaker 05

  Cause at least Belichick is trying to withhold tactical information from the press. Bob, we're like, hey, did you like the cat on the set of the movie? Bob, just fucking lie and say you like the cat. I, I don't really remember the cat. Like, what a dick.

• 1:25:57Bill Simmons?

  He's such a labyrinth because he hit this stage and was right after this movie where he's just doing five movies a year and grabbing paychecks left and right. Like, like, like he was like completely broke, but he wasn't. And one of the reasons we know he's not broke, other than that, he like basically helped build up Tribeca and owns like a shitload of stuff there. But he's one of the founders of Nobu. Like he was the big investor. He started Nobu, which I think is the most successful restaurant empire that we have.

• 1:26:23Speaker 05

  Crazy fancy expensive sushi restaurant.

• 1:26:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think he owns like 25%, one third of that. I have no idea why he just makes, I, I don't understand anything about De Niro. And I love the guy and he's one of my favorite actors, but I, I think off screen he's super weird.

• 1:26:38Speaker 05

  Well, I think part of the press for this movie is I don't, I don't think he's like super proud of this stuff. I, I think he's still like.

• 1:26:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:26:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, like I, I know I did analyze that, but, and I have to contractually do these appearances, but I still am doing Mean Streets and Taxi Driver. And I don't think he embraces it. And it's like, fine, I guess he's really funny in the movie. I don't really give a shit how he is on the junket, you know?

• 1:27:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's another funny thing about the research for this is he just kind of stayed away from Ben Stiller. Because he wanted the characters to be uneasy with each other. So they didn't really hang out a lot in the set. So then you get in the interviews. It's like, Ben, what was it like to work with Robert De Niro? It was like, oh, you know, total pro. But it's clear like it's not like crazy fun to be in a movie set with Robert De Niro.

• 1:27:22Speaker 05

  No, Stiller says in that reunion special, he's like, look, he was my favorite actor growing up. He was my idol. I loved him. And like, and this is in a Zoom with De Niro. He's like, Bob wasn't that nice. And I'm just gonna say it now 20 years later. And like, he knows it, and I know. And then De Niro kind of smiles. But like, I don't know if he's doing the method thing, or if he's just kind of a dick and like, doesn't want to interact with the other people, or somewhere in between.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  But then the other part is Scorsese loves him. And he's like, I want De Niro in all my movies. So he, this feels like the Belichick thing. It's how like, Belichick has like, the seven people that really like him.

• 1:27:55Speaker 05

  Right. And it's, I mean, do you think Belichick and Brady like each other?

• 1:28:00Bill Simmons?

  I like, what would they talk about after? Like, if they were at dinner, would they run out of stuff to talk about in 20 minutes?

• 1:28:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think they would. So I think Scott, Marty and Bobby are like tighter than Tommy and Billy. It's just complicated relationships.

• 1:28:13Bill Simmons?

  Because the other weird thing is De Niro was in that whole like cocaine, late 70s, 80s, early 80s, like in a lot of the John Belushi stuff. He would hang out with John Belushi and Robin Williams. And I was always like, can you imagine De Niro hanging out with John Belushi and Robin Williams, like two of the most volatile comic forces we've had in the last 50 years? And like, there's De Niro with them, just like, smoking cigs and laughing at their jokes. I just wish there was videotape. Yeah, you're very funny. You're a very funny person. So the MPAA would not allow them to use the name Focker unless filmmakers could find an actual person who had the name Focker, which they did.

• 1:28:52Speaker 05

  And there's people out there.

• 1:28:53Bill Simmons?

  They thought it was like, had to have an X rating because it was too close to fucker.

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  The movie inspired a cat toilet training product called Litter Quitter, which sold well, apparently. Oh, you mentioned Terry Polo, like a weird 2000. She also had that there's this whole like, she filed for bankruptcy in 2014 thing with her too.

• 1:29:15Speaker 05

  And she did all those, the sequels and everything?

• 1:29:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Hmm. Who knows? All right. One more break and then we're gonna do Apex Mountain.

• 1:29:27Bill Simmons?

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• 1:30:12Bill Simmons?

  All right, ripping through this Apex Mountain. Ben Stiller, we litigated already. It's somewhere between here and Zoolander, I think. It's, we're in, we're in like Apex Mountain range. You can see the top of the mountain.

• 1:30:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:30:24Bill Simmons?

  De Niro, no. Nicorette gum in a movie?

• 1:30:28Speaker 05

  I think it has to be. It's a huge part of it and they name it by the, by the brand name.

• 1:30:33Bill Simmons?

  In-law movies. So older people would make the case for The In-Laws with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk, which I think is considered a true seventies comedy classic. My dad, my dad's best friend, Roy Anderson. It's his favorite movie and forever and ever he'd be like, you see The In-Laws yet? You see The In-Laws yet? And I find it's super funny. It's great. So I think it's probably those two in the finals, but it's old. It's a movie out of the seventies. Terry Polo, I'm gonna say yes.

• 1:31:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, definitely.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  How about septic tank disasters in a movie? Can you think of a bigger one?

• 1:31:07Speaker 05

  I can think of clogged toilets, like Dumb and Dumber and like a lot of shit humor, but not quite like this one.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  Did you have any septic tank experience in your childhood or life?

• 1:31:20Speaker 05

  I didn't. I told a story on the radio once that I was house hunting, trying to find a place to live in Hermosa Beach when I was about 28 years old and I went to an open house and I had to use the bathroom because it had a bender the night before and I clogged the toilet and I had to, I didn't know what to do and it was like an open house and the owner was walking around, so I just left. I just left and never came back to the house and I don't know what happened. I told that story on the radio years ago and people still ask me about it. I'm giving the sped up version now, but I didn't know, I couldn't go up to owner and be like, hey, do you have a plunger? Like, I just couldn't. So I left and I don't know what happened, what happened to the house or the owner, sorry.

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

  That's a plumbing story. That's not a septic tank story. I enjoyed it just as much though.

• 1:32:00Speaker 05

  It's septic adjacent.

• 1:32:02Bill Simmons?

  You clogged an open house in Hermosa. Amazing.

• 1:32:06Speaker 05

  That's right. Why, have you? Do you have a septic tank story?

• 1:32:09Bill Simmons?

  I do, actually. The lady, the lady who lived next to us when my mom remarried in Connecticut, had a septic tank that occasionally would overflow and have issues and we had this dog, B, who used to, uh, the goal in his life was if the septic tank in this place overflowed or had some sort of spillage or anything, he was getting over there and rolling around at it. And then he would just show up back home, like, sorry, guys, did it again. And we just have these pictures of him just covered in septic tank. It's disgusting, by the way, when those things overflow.

• 1:32:45Speaker 05

  And so B would come back covered in shit and you would yell at B and its tail would go between its legs to cover its genitals and you'd just break it.

• 1:32:52Bill Simmons?

  Cause he's an emotionally shallow animal. Yeah, that's what happened.

• 1:32:55Speaker 05

  They sell out.

• 1:32:57Bill Simmons?

  Uh, little Kim posters, definitely Apex Mountain. How about smoking meal nurses?

• 1:33:02Speaker 05

  It has to be. I mean, I don't know. I don't know any.

• 1:33:06Bill Simmons?

  The Mountie strap on dildo for $24.99? 100% yes.

• 1:33:11Speaker 05

  Did they move product because of that? Like, I, I, I had, Bill, you usually Google crazy stuff for this show. I did not Google it.

• 1:33:16Bill Simmons?

  I made a point of not Googling Mountie strap on dildo. Uh, kitty litter in a movie?

• 1:33:24Bill Simmons?

  It's way up there.

• 1:33:27Bill Simmons?

  It has a whole shitting on the ashes scene.

• 1:33:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's a movie where a cat shits and I can't think of it, but yeah, I mean, it's that's it's not even litter. It's actually like a burned up old grandmother. So yeah, it's that's that's up there.

• 1:33:39Bill Simmons?

  Do you think this was the peak for Atlantic American Airlines?

• 1:33:45Speaker 05

  Do you ever fly Atlantic?

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  What's their lounge? Yeah, they have a good lounge?

• 1:33:48Speaker 05

  Lot of points.

• 1:33:50Bill Simmons?

  I think subtle lacrosse camp jokes, 100% the best that's ever been done in this movie. And then lie detectors.

• 1:34:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, what's like, there must be some 80s movies where they use them like in earnestly, like to figure it out like, but this is, this is what you think of. It's the, it's the poster. The lie detector is the poster of the movie. And it made 300 million bucks or something.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  Basic Instinct has some pretty good lie detector stuff.

• 1:34:16Speaker 05

  And there's the debate about can you beat one? And like she can.

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  Essential part of the plot. That was the only one that's like.

• 1:34:22Speaker 06

  It's gotta be Apex Mountain for, for cats in movies, right?

• 1:34:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Apex Mountain for cats, period. Great performance by the cats.

• 1:34:31Speaker 05

  Good cat.

• 1:34:32Bill Simmons?

  Also.

• 1:34:34Speaker 06

  It's a central storyline.

• 1:34:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, great defense of cats over dogs. Probably the best ever done, other than Mallory Rubin just babbling on about how great cats are. This is way better than that.

• 1:34:45Speaker 05

  The low point for cats in movie would be the movie Cats, actually.

• 1:34:50Speaker 05

  So we're off on that too. Sorry, Taylor Swift. She was in it.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Or I would say the low point for cats is the last season of The Sopranos when Paulie's the cat staring at the painting of Christopher and Paulie's getting freaked out. And I think he finally he's, he's the cat, they're the fucking devil tone.

• 1:35:09Speaker 05

  Gets totally weirded out. Also, great cat in, in Pet Sematary, a movie that scared the shit out of me as a kid. Spooky a movie one was last week, but great cat in Pet Sematary.

• 1:35:19Bill Simmons?

  Cats creep me out. I think they're creepy. Cruze Hanks.

• 1:35:25Bill Simmons?

  For the Ben Stiller part, I'm gonna make the case for Hanks, but I think Cruise is a more fun movie.

• 1:35:30Speaker 05

  Okay. You guys got into this during the Halloween pod where Craig was like running in like a referee. It has to be the lead role, right? This movie has two leads. It can't be a side character. Alright, make the case.

• 1:35:42Bill Simmons?

  It's more of a Hanks part. I think he was really good at these kind of parts in the eighties. He did this a bunch of times in different ways and Bachelor Party, he's basically got, that's an in-laws movie, which features one of the funniest scenes ever when he's playing tennis. But um, I think he would have played, had trouble playing it as like an emasculated one. Cruise trying to do this would have been way funnier. Cruise trying to be funny with scenes with De Niro, but I think it's Hanks.

• 1:36:07Speaker 05

  It would be weird if it was Cruise because there's dialogue about Maverick and Iceman. So like that would be his whole-

• 1:36:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, right. It's like crossing the beams. Yeah, so he's out.

• 1:36:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, and he'd be playing volleyball again, and you know that he's not doing volleyball again. So it's gotta be Hanks. Put one in the Hanks score ledger.

• 1:36:23Bill Simmons?

  Racehorse, rock band wrestler, fantasy team name. Probably something Focker related.

• 1:36:28Speaker 05

  Um, I got a, for a horse, I got a Bolivian Wormwood, which is the horse in Kevin's kitchen. I think it works nicely in here. I was, the Bolivian Wormwood is my horse.

• 1:36:38Bill Simmons?

  The Siemens Chapel?

• 1:36:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, and then tuck it.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  Picking nits. Well, Pam's sister got engaged and then married in two weeks? Who does this? I don't, literally don't know one person who's ever done this.

• 1:36:52Speaker 05

  Especially in an old fashioned family where the father's an asshole and has all these tests you have to pass. That doesn't make sense.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're getting married two weeks from today. Greg was gonna get engaged without ever meeting Pam's parents? Who does that?

• 1:37:07Speaker 05

  They've been together 10 months and they've never met and they're extremely hands-on parents. Doesn't make sense either. I had that as well.

• 1:37:13Bill Simmons?

  And they're living in New York City and the family's in Oyster Bay? Isn't that like an hour and a half?

• 1:37:18Speaker 05

  No, they're in Chicago. They live in Chicago. They fly to New York. Oyster Bay, I think it's on Long Island.

• 1:37:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, you're right. They live in Chicago. I fucked that up. Keep that in Craig so people can know.

• 1:37:30Speaker 05

  Keep it in Craig.

• 1:37:34Bill Simmons?

  So little kids would just never be able to keep a marriage proposal secret before, during, or after? And even after, they'd be like, what happened? He was supposed to propose? That, one of those eight-year-olds would have fucked it up.

• 1:37:45Speaker 05

  And they did fuck it up. They can't even spell marry me Pam. It's basic shit. You know why? Cause Pam's probably a terrible teacher, like she's a terrible girlfriend.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:37:55Bill Simmons?

  Greg becomes the second usher after knowing everyone for two minutes.

• 1:37:58Speaker 05

  Stupid.

• 1:37:59Bill Simmons?

  And they don't like him. It's like, hey, will you be the second usher guy, male nurse we don't like?

• 1:38:04Speaker 05

  They, they ask him that 10 seconds after Rebhorn's like, you didn't want to go for the MD? Like, the dynamic is really weird. Fuck her.

• 1:38:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have two more. Do you have anything?

• 1:38:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, okay. So Greg's bag didn't show up. It got lost. You wake up the next morning or the second you get home and you drive to Target and you buy some sweatpants and some underwear and some socks. It's ludicrous that he's borrowing the entire family's clothes. He even is going into Denny's fucking underpants. You are not borrowing another guy's underpants. It's, that would not happen. You go and buy the clothes, you buy the socks.

• 1:38:39Bill Simmons?

  It's a great point. He's up at 7:30 in the morning, going to the nearest department store.

• 1:38:43Speaker 05

  That's, that's not realistic. Even back then, when you didn't have Amazon, there's all kinds of stores. You just need basic sweatpants for a little while. It's, it doesn't make sense.

• 1:38:51Bill Simmons?

  And you can't say that he didn't have the money because later in the movie, he spends like a thousand dollars to change his flight. So he definitely has enough money to go to freaking TJ Maxx.

• 1:39:00Speaker 05

  Palette of Nicorette. I think that stuff's pretty expensive. Like he buys, he wants the expensive bottle of champagne. Like he can buy some Russell Athletic sweats to get it through.

• 1:39:08Bill Simmons?

  Terrible job by him. Um, why don't they have a sign on the toilet in the den? Don't flush it. Just put a fucking sign on there. So remind people.

• 1:39:17Speaker 05

  You know why? Because it's a test.

• 1:39:18Bill Simmons?

  Fixing the toilet. You're retired, Robert De Niro, Jack Burns.

• 1:39:22Speaker 05

  And all the boyfriends that have come through for Pam, Jack has the same test as the toilet test and he sees if they can listen.

• 1:39:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you think it's a test?

• 1:39:29Speaker 05

  On video. Like it's all get out. It's all video. It's all secret cameras.

• 1:39:33Bill Simmons?

  That's a great point.

• 1:39:33Speaker 05

  He lays a trap for the boyfriends and Greg failed it. I think he doesn't essentially.

• 1:39:38Bill Simmons?

  Because if he could, if he could create stuffed animal cameras, he could probably fix a toilet.

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  Definitely.

• 1:39:45Bill Simmons?

  Would be my guess.

• 1:39:46Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:39:47Bill Simmons?

  Um, dying Jinxie's tail is so stupid. It just has to be mentioned as a nitpick. Craig, did you have any nitpicks?

• 1:39:53Speaker 06

  Well, I actually, other than the, other than the spray paint, one of my, this is like a semi hot take was I actually, I think every single move Greg Focker makes in this movie is defensible.

• 1:40:03Speaker 05

  Is defensible?

• 1:40:03Bill Simmons?

  Can you come on the Zoom for this so we can see you as you make this terrible?

• 1:40:06Speaker 05

  Lay it out, Craig.

• 1:40:09Speaker 06

  Look, other than the cat spray, which is where I draw the line, you can't do that. Funnily enough, Liz's family has a cat named Jinx that I don't have a great relationship with. I'm not a big cat guy and I might be half allergic, but look, the champagne pop into the urn accident. Nice call to get the champagne. The flower gift at the beginning, really thoughtful gift, honestly, like amazing gift. If you think he is an actual florist.

• 1:40:34Bill Simmons?

  It's a great plant.

• 1:40:35Speaker 06

  The volleyball spike, that's what they wanted him to do. It was bad timing and he, it was an accident. I thought it was a great athletic play. Flushing the toilet at four in the morning, you forget it was your first night. It's four in the morning, you're delirious, it's instinct, you flush the toilet, big deal. Letting the cat out as it's clawing at your leg, you're not a cat guy into the backyard. Maybe you think it's a side yard, he's safe in there. And then even smoking the cigarette on the roof. He's having the worst weekend of his life and he was up there looking for the cat anyway. He found the cigarettes, he thought he'd stop for a smoke. I defend everything he did until he sprayed the cat's tail.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  You know, the volleyball spike, we probably should dive into here for a second. Why weren't her hands up? What is she just like, her hands are just in the water?

• 1:41:17Speaker 06

  They were mad at Focker for not going up there to defend the spike on the other side. Same thing.

• 1:41:22Bill Simmons?

  Just take a second, why was there so much blood from a volleyball spike? Cause it insinuates a broken nose, but it was then you, you look at it eyes. So where was the blood coming from? Like that sounds like stitches in the emergency room.

• 1:41:35Speaker 05

  It was an absolute gusher and it also makes me think if it was Hanks, then we'd have another Hanks volleyball scene. And that would be kind of fun.

• 1:41:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:41:46Speaker 05

  That's funny.

• 1:41:47Speaker 06

  You want to get into volleyball logistics, Rebhorn seems like a good six foot at least. Stiller's tiny, why is Stiller at the front?

• 1:41:52Speaker 05

  Why is he at the net? You're right.

• 1:41:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, Stiller should have been in the back as like a setter.

• 1:41:58Speaker 05

  The best shot of that whole scene, maybe my great shot, Gordo is after Focker spikes it, they go to a shot of him and he's so fucking happy, he has this shit eating grin on his face.

• 1:42:08Speaker 06

  Coming out of the water.

• 1:42:09Speaker 05

  He finally made the play and then she's just gushing blood and Blight Danner jumps into the pool in her clothes.

• 1:42:15Speaker 06

  No, that's a, that's a really underrated moment.

• 1:42:17Speaker 05

  It is.

• 1:42:18Speaker 06

  Great call.

• 1:42:19Bill Simmons?

  Craig, stay on for the rest of this. Sequel, prequel, prestige, TV, all black cast or untouchable? They made two sequels. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sid Goldberg, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Nell, Byron Mayo, Harley Mays, evil Lafayette Ramon Raymond? This is getting long. Long Legs or Philip Baker Hall?

• 1:42:40Speaker 05

  I did Philip Baker Hall already as Jack, so what do you think?

• 1:42:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, I was thinking Philip Baker Hall as Floyd Gondoli, as the Doc, as the Rebhorn character. You could talk me into it pretty fast.

• 1:42:50Speaker 05

  Oh, alright. I was thinking of him as Jack. Jack is like, you, look.

• 1:42:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, as the dad?

• 1:42:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. I like Tom Collins and I like Butter Up My Ass and Have A Seat in The Jerusalem Tulip. I like people on film fucking. It's that easy. You're right. I think you should go for the Jack role.

• 1:43:08Bill Simmons?

  He's, Greg, I want you to meet some of my friends that are the future stars of this business.

• 1:43:14Speaker 05

  This is the talent.

• 1:43:17Bill Simmons?

  Just want to ask her who gets it. I think it's De Niro.

• 1:43:20Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:43:20Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:43:22Speaker 05

  Well, it should be, I know Fantasy talks about this sometimes, like, it should be an Oscar for Best Comedy and they should win it for 2000 for the best comedy. The movie is awesome and it should win for Best Comedy of the Year.

• 1:43:32Bill Simmons?

  This is why the Oscars suck.

• 1:43:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:43:34Bill Simmons?

  We've been saying this, I think since Grantland, like, best horror film, best comedy, best action film. You can even give them as Oscars the day before and make the Oscars smaller, but they should, the whole point is to commemorate the year in movies so that people can look back and be like, oh, 2000, that's when Meet the Parents was the best comedy.

• 1:43:55Speaker 05

  I just saw this, that Ryan Reynolds had this take where he was saying, just this week, he's like, it is such a shame that Eddie Murphy does not have an Academy Award for The Nutty Professor. That is one of the greatest performances in any role ever.

• 1:44:04Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:04Speaker 05

  And they just don't have it because it's a zany comedy and they shouldn't.

• 1:44:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Alright, probably an answerable questions.

• 1:44:12Bill Simmons?

  Did De Niro's stuff that he did in this movie lead to the creation of Simply Safe? Home protection, cameras.

• 1:44:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, probably. It's that and the, uh, what is the nocturnal activity movies? That's, those are bad.

• 1:44:27Bill Simmons?

  Paranormal?

• 1:44:28Speaker 05

  Yes. Paranormal activity, yeah.

• 1:44:31Speaker 06

  Do you think that Jack, having fought in Vietnam and is a CIA guy? Don't you think he would have smoked cigarettes? I'm surprised he didn't.

• 1:44:38Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. That's a great point.

• 1:44:40Speaker 05

  He's seen some shit, hasn't he?

• 1:44:41Speaker 06

  He's smoking cigarettes in Vietnam for sure.

• 1:44:43Bill Simmons?

  They need to have him look down on cigarettes, though. But you're right. I, De Niro should smoke in every movie. That would just be, I would have that in the contract. Who would name their kid Gaylord Focker?

• 1:44:54Speaker 05

  It's gotta be a junior or second or third or something, right?

• 1:44:58Speaker 06

  And I think they address it in the, in the sequel, but I can't remember why. And then Jack jokes that the parents must be hippies or something to name their kid that, which they kind of are.

• 1:45:05Speaker 05

  Is Dustin Hoffman's name Gaylord in the movie?

• 1:45:08Bill Simmons?

  He's like Gaylord Senior?

• 1:45:10Speaker 06

  I should check.

• 1:45:11Bill Simmons?

  Um, did this movie destroy the future of male nursing? Let's talk it out. Maybe it came back like 10 years later.

• 1:45:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, like, we need as many nurses as possible. I just keep going. My, you know what I think about sometimes, Bill? I think about people right now who are just normal, nice women going through their lives, not bothering anybody, and their name is Karen. And now they're looked at as some sort of racist, elitist asshole. They never hurt anybody. I have an Aunt Karen. She's a wonderful woman. And now it's like, haha, Karen. I didn't do anything. Some guy who was a nurse in 2000 is just helping people or helping the elderly.

• 1:45:44Bill Simmons?

  Taking strays.

• 1:45:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Taking in strays, like putting catheters in old guys. Now you're like, haha, male nurse. It sucks. It's unfortunate. I don't like it.

• 1:45:53Bill Simmons?

  Any other anecdotes from you guys?

• 1:45:55Speaker 05

  I got one. Um, so they stopped the, uh, the lie detector scene, like kind of in the middle of the scene, and it's just getting good. Like, he's asking Greg, like, have you ever watched pornographic movies?

• 1:46:06Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:46:06Speaker 05

  And I'm like, I wanna know, what else did he ask him? What does he have? Like, does he, is this 2000? Is he like, did you vote for Bob Dole in the last election? Do you like the Patriots' sixth round draft pick, the quarterback from Michigan? Like, I wanna know what he gets into. What is, what are your politics?

• 1:46:24Bill Simmons?

  Have you had sex with more than 10 women?

• 1:46:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:46:27Bill Simmons?

  They, they could have thrown that in.

• 1:46:28Speaker 05

  Above or? Below 10 women like what other drugs have I want to get into that stuff and it made me think of like what I would ask if I was Jack and then my daughter's boyfriend was there I'd you gotta get into that some of stuff.

• 1:46:39Speaker 06

  One unanswerable question that I had is this movie has such a lovely like late 90s, early 2000s aesthetic. It looks great, the clothes, the way the home looks. I don't know why they didn't make this a holiday movie. They should have made this a Christmas movie. Because it would have been replayed for years and years and years.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  Great call.

• 1:46:55Speaker 06

  You have a tree, you have a Christmas scene and it gets played 10,000 more times every year.

• 1:47:01Bill Simmons?

  So the fix would be instead of the sister getting married in two weeks. She's engaged and they're gonna celebrate it over Christmas. And Greg's going there for Christmas anyway and he's got the gift and the flowers and.

• 1:47:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:47:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right. This movie doesn't have a season.

• 1:47:17Speaker 05

  The reunion zoom that I keep referring to, the question was asked, would you guys come back for a fourth movie? And you know, Stiller and De Niro are like, ah, maybe. And Terry Pollo is like, yes, I would. It would be, it would be like a Focker family Christmas. Like that would be the special that they would do.

• 1:47:32Speaker 06

  The name of the movie, probably.

• 1:47:33Bill Simmons?

  Terry Pollo is like, I'm in, I'm blind in.

• 1:47:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, anything, just to, I think it's called the Merry Fucking Christmas and like you bring them back and it's. But then it's like, you know, then the Fockers do Hanukkah too. So there's something for everybody. That's a great idea, Craig.

• 1:47:48Bill Simmons?

  FYI, Meet the Grandparents is sitting there for Netflix. Like I just fucking crush. There's no way like 80 million people aren't watching that.

• 1:47:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:58Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it's Meet the Fockers crossed with the Menendez brothers because they, you know, the Menendez brothers did so well for them. They figured out how to work the Menendez.

• 1:48:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's where the Fockers shoot Jack with a shotgun and kill him and then go sit courtside.

• 1:48:10Bill Simmons?

  Menendez's. I think that would work.

• 1:48:11Speaker 06

  Imagine what they'd do to Jinx. Yeah.

• 1:48:13Bill Simmons?

  Best double feature choice, Meet the Fockers. Andy and Red's want to know what would happen the next day. Meet the Foxer Fockers. Uh, what piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I could offer you Jinxie's collar. I could offer you the burned down lacquered altar. I could offer you the antique polygraph machine, the suitcase.

• 1:48:33Bill Simmons?

  Anything?

• 1:48:34Speaker 05

  I'm so, I'm so boring and domesticated at this point. I want that fucking tulip in the pot. I want that plant. I want to have that thing. And I like that Greg says, uh, yeah, they say if you just water it steadily for six months, it'll bloom. It's like six months of watering. I want that thing. I want it.

• 1:48:52Speaker 06

  I'll take the urn. Can I have that? Can I put it back together?

• 1:48:54Bill Simmons?

  Yes. Oh, the glued back together urn? That's a good one. Coach Finstock wore a best life lesson. Don't lie to your in-laws and don't marry Pam.

• 1:49:01Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:49:02Bill Simmons?

  And then who won the movie? Uh, Robert De Niro. I think we all agree on that one.

• 1:49:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was tempted to give it to Owen Wilson for stealing it, but De Niro is so good in it. I think he's better than Stiller even. He's perfect. I'll give it to Stiller. Or I'll give it to De Niro.

• 1:49:14Bill Simmons?

  All right, Craig, even though you've been on three different times, give us your, uh, big picture take.

• 1:49:19Speaker 06

  I, I just think this is one of like the tightest comedy scripts ever. And I didn't, I didn't, I think when I saw it when I was younger, you don't really realize how good it is. Watching it again, I am like, man, there is no fluff. This movie is so expertly crafted. And I also think, I don't think this movie ages poorly in really any way. It's pretty remarkable that this movie is just jokes for like a hundred minutes. And it's like, sure, the male nurse thing, there's like one slight Jewish barb, but in general, this movie is like pretty politically correct. There is nothing wrong with it and it is still incredibly funny, which I think is just another sign of really, really good writing that, I mean, you can show this movie now. It's not, it doesn't even feel that dated. All of the issues that are going on in that movie could, could happen today. Technology doesn't really change that much of it.

• 1:50:02Bill Simmons?

  I agree.

• 1:50:02Speaker 06

  I just think it's like airtight.

• 1:50:04Bill Simmons?

  A timeless comedy and it obeyed the Craig rule of, uh, what's it? Under a hundred minutes? What is it like 97?

• 1:50:11Speaker 06

  Nowadays, I'm under two, two hours is fine, but back in the day, you know, under an hour 45 is what gets me, gets me excited.

• 1:50:20Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking of Craig when I saw that movie. What's that movie called with Demi Moore?

• 1:50:23Speaker 06

  Substance.

• 1:50:24Bill Simmons?

  Where she gets the plastic surgery substance?

• 1:50:26Speaker 05

  I don't know. Yeah. Not seeing it.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  And I saw, started the movie and I'm like, I wonder how long this is.

• 1:50:30Speaker 06

  It's like two 24.

• 1:50:31Bill Simmons?

  Two hours, 24 minutes. I'm like, God, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Really? This is two hours and 24 minutes for a plastic surgery horror movie?

• 1:50:39Speaker 06

  I'm going to Wicked this weekend for a screening. It's two hours and 40 minutes. Wicked.

• 1:50:43Speaker 05

  Two 40?

• 1:50:44Bill Simmons?

  What are we doing?

• 1:50:45Speaker 06

  That's like the Godfather.

• 1:50:47Bill Simmons?

  What are we doing?

• 1:50:48Speaker 05

  Holy shit.

• 1:50:49Speaker 06

  It's like, I know you gotta squeeze in all the songs, but it's, it's part one. It's wicked part one.

• 1:50:54Speaker 05

  I think that's longer than the Broadway show.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  Rebel Ridge, which I really liked, was like two, two fifteen?

• 1:51:01Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:51:02Speaker 06

  It's crazy.

• 1:51:02Bill Simmons?

  How is that movie not ninety-four minutes? It's like, it's like cut and dry, easy plot. I liked Rebel Ridge, but man.

• 1:51:09Speaker 05

  I think Naked Gun is eighty-seven minutes, man. That's all you need. Shit.

• 1:51:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Craig?

• 1:51:14Speaker 06

  It forced you to write better, I think, when you had limitations like that.

• 1:51:17Speaker 05

  Talk about it.

• 1:51:17Bill Simmons?

  The happiest Craig is, is when we have a rewatchables movie that's a hundred minutes or less.

• 1:51:22Speaker 06

  Well, it's like, we just did like Body Double. It's like an hour forty-eight. It's, it's, it's lovely.

• 1:51:28Bill Simmons?

  Kyle Brandt, great to see you as always. One of these days, we're gonna do one of these in person, cause you have to pop out from LA from time to time.

• 1:51:34Speaker 05

  We're gonna do it. And Bill, I, I, I love to pass on these anecdotes. A few months back, I was at, was something called the Sports Emmy Awards. This big fancy award show in midtown Manhattan and New York City, and everybody's there. It's black tie. And I'm presenting, presenting with Nate Burleson and I. We're out in the crowd. It's one of those people where like, you're in the aisle with the microphones. And as we're in commercial, I feel somebody tap me on the elbow. And I turn and it's like a very, very successful executive in sports media. And he goes, I gotta tell you, man, I really, really love your work. And I go, oh, thank you. That is so cool. And he goes, especially, especially the Roadhouse episode was really like the best.

• 1:52:10Bill Simmons?

  He was just like, hey, Rich, just rewatch. Wow.

• 1:52:13Speaker 05

  Unbelievable. And I get that all the time. It is always about the rewatchables, which I'll take, but I'm like, guys, I do do other things that put food on the table, but love the fans. Lot of rewatchables.

• 1:52:24Speaker 06

  They're like, thank you for dedicating your life to Steven Seagal. Thank you so much.

• 1:52:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, we almost, we almost did Seagal for this episode, but we put it, we backburnered it.

• 1:52:32Speaker 05

  We did a hard pivot to everybody listening, and it was a good one, but we'll get back to it. We had something locked and loaded. There will be justice served, shall we say?

• 1:52:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's coming. All right. This was produced by Craig Horbeck. You can watch Kyle Brandt on Good Morning Football, and you're still doing the CBS Hits a bunch, right?

• 1:52:50Speaker 05

  Hits for the NFL Today, yes. But most importantly, I appear on the Rewatchables podcast with Bill Simmons and Craig Horbeck. You guys know where to find me.

• 1:52:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. Say hi to our guy, Shreks. Good to see you. Have a great weekend.

• 1:53:19Bill Simmons?

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• 1:53:48Speaker 04

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