Johnny Dangerously with Josh Gondelman

He’s the nicest bad guy in town. His last name is an adverb. And he’s got some pretty wacky bits! Sweetie pie comedian Josh Gondelman joins us to talk about 1984’s Johnny Dangerously, Amy Heckerling’s loving homage to 1930’s gangster pictures. Things we attempt to understand in this episode: the cultural legacy of Joe Piscopo; the actual joke that’s being told in the “Your Testicles and You” animated reel / is there one?; Marilu Henner’s insane memory thing; if the Danny DeVito bull scene is a parody of anything; why does Richie Rich have cent signs in his name if he’s so rich?; and most crucially - why is this movie so damned hard to see in 2025?!?! Real fans know that Blank Check started off as an investigative podcast. Maybe it’s time to bring that element back! Subscribe to Josh's newsletter https://joshgondelman.substack.com/ If you haven't been able to find the movie maybe watch the Internet Archive version https://archive.org/details/johnny-dangerously. Buy Mattie Lubchansky's Book Simplicity https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/739012/simplicity-by-mattie-lubchansky/ Listen to Griffin on The Michael Keaton Movie Mount Rushmore episode of The Big Picture https://open.spotify.com/episode/2mGouPiErnMYXsOewjyLmo Read Coolio's Obituary https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/arts/music/coolio-rapper-dead.html Watch the end of Disaster Movie https://youtu.be/54ymp9TqDbw?si=lGux4sNdFNmMIfxz Sign up for Check Book https://blankcheckpod.substack.com/welcome, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. http://www.patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter https://x.com/blankcheckpod?lang=en, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/blankcheckpod/?hl=en, Threads https://www.threads.net/@blankcheckpod?xmt=AQGzctAh4mbWTwYzCV1pzNT6AMV9o99EOfymi8TLR5mTde0 and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/blankcheckpodcast/! Buy some real nerdy merch https://kinshipgoods.com/blankcheck Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/s/gpcOkQr8Sv or Discord https://discord.gg/Q6YGSR3JrA For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com https://BlankCheckPod.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:02Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 0:03David Sims?

  Yep.

• 0:03Griffin Newman?

  We did a live show.

• 0:04David Sims?

  Yeah, remember?

• 0:05Griffin Newman?

  Ranking Scorsese at the Bell House in Brooklyn. We did the definitive power ranking of Martin Scorsese things.

• 0:12David Sims?

  Uh, it was so fun. Uh, it was very silly.

• 0:15Griffin Newman?

  Ben and Marie were with us and they're with us right now.

• 0:18David Sims?

  Yeah, hey.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hey, everyone, or should I say, oh?

• 0:20David Sims?

  Oh.

• 0:22Griffin Newman?

  And thanks to our friends at Dynasty Typewriter. It was livestreamed for the first time ever. But also, the replay is still up there, but only until October 30th.

• 0:31David Sims?

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 0:33David Sims?

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36Griffin Newman?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37David Sims?

  It's $20. We had a blast and the Spreadmaster really got to work.

• 0:43Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around. Laptop was on.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'd have seen you that happy.

• 0:48Griffin Newman?

  You were thrilled. You were like a pick and share.

• 0:50David Sims?

  I was locked in.

• 0:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, very locked in and you were funny.

• 0:53David Sims?

  Thank you. You were funny. You were also funny.

• 0:56Griffin Newman?

  Oh, thank you.

• 0:57David Sims?

  And if you want to see like, you know, Griffin's shine box on camera, it's the only way to see it.

• 1:02Griffin Newman?

  You might see me shine Marie's shoes.

• 1:04David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you're into that sort of content.

• 1:07Griffin Newman?

  If that gets you off.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:10David Sims?

  So once again, that's at dynasty.tv.

• 1:38Griffin Newman?

  I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel. You lousy cork suckers, you have violated my Fargan rights. This summoner bashing country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of Fargan pork carsters like yourselves.

• 1:59David Sims?

  Pork carsters?

• 2:00Griffin Newman?

  I'm a little proud of pork carsters.

• 2:02David Sims?

  There you go.

• 2:02Griffin Newman?

  And treating podcasters like a curse word.

• 2:05David Sims?

  Great, Dimitri.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Uh, I mean, the other option, obviously, to do here was, uh, my mother tried to podcast me once, once.

• 2:15Griffin Newman?

  Joe Piscopo is astonishingly good in this film.

• 2:19David Sims?

  We're gonna talk about.

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  You're gonna bounce on that?

• 2:21David Sims?

  I'm gonna bounce on that a little bit, but he's good.

• 2:23Griffin Newman?

  It is the one time where I'm like, I get it. This is the only Joe Piscopo thing where I'm like, I get why people were buying the stock.

• 2:30David Sims?

  Joe Piscopo things, other ones that you've, have you seen Wise Guys?

• 2:34Griffin Newman?

  I've seen, I have not seen Wise Guys. I've seen Dead Heat.

• 2:37David Sims?

  That's the one with Treat Williams?

• 2:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's a zombie buddy cop.

• 2:40David Sims?

  I do like a treat.

• 2:41Griffin Newman?

  You look at the poster.

• 2:42David Sims?

  I love to go get a treat. I'm not joking.

• 2:44Griffin Newman?

  You're a treat boy.

• 2:45David Sims?

  I like a treat.

• 2:46Griffin Newman?

  I look at the poster for Dead Heat and I'm just like.

• 2:48David Sims?

  It looks pretty good. There's like lightning and shit.

• 2:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:51David Sims?

  Here, I'll show you the poster, Josh.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  It's really good at putting you to sleep. That was my experience. I had a lovely nap while watching Dead.

• 2:58David Sims?

  When you, I mean, like the poster looks good, but Piscopo doesn't quite fit on it, I will say. And then the tagline is you can't keep a good cop dead, which is an interesting tagline, you know, to think about, I guess, but uh, no.

• 3:13Speaker 03

  You can't change two things like that.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  Cause at that point you might as well, it would be like.

• 3:20Griffin Newman?

  That's a good take.

• 3:20Speaker 03

  You can't die a good dead cop.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  At that point, it's like you, you, how much can you change before it's, it's like a ship of Theseus idiom.

• 3:31David Sims?

  Like, I like, thank you for bringing up the ship of Theseus as well. I mean, because apart from that, like, yeah, what?

• 3:36Griffin Newman?

  No, you're right. Look.

• 3:37David Sims?

  How much Piscopo have you bounced off?

• 3:38Griffin Newman?

  The big thing is his four seasons of SNL.

• 3:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:42Griffin Newman?

  Which I would.

• 3:43David Sims?

  Which aired before you were born, just FYI, but nonetheless.

• 3:45Griffin Newman?

  I would watch, first of all, this was the golden era of Comedy Central having SNL reruns like five times a day.

• 3:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:52Griffin Newman?

  And also all the compilations, like DVDs and VHSs that I would watch. When I discovered SNL, I was like, I need to watch every minute of this that is available. And because Piscopo was so often next to Eddie Murphy, the biggest star that show ever created, I've watched so much Piscopo SNL. And at all ages, I've been like, I don't get it. And I feel like he became a very easy retroactive punchline, but it was always framed as, but in 82, we thought he was gonna be a big star.

• 4:20David Sims?

  I first knew of him because The Simpsons uses him as a punchline, right? Like there's the many Simpsons flashback episodes. There's like Lisa's first word. There's the, the one where Homer, you know, where they're flashing back to.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  There's the one where Homer is part of Nirvana.

• 4:35David Sims?

  That one might come.

• 4:37Griffin Newman?

  That 90s episode, I think it's maybe called. Do you know this thing that the Simpsons has started doing?

• 4:42Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 4:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, the characters don't age. I don't know if you're familiar with this.

• 4:46David Sims?

  There's a floating timeline.

• 4:47Griffin Newman?

  And the show has run for 57,000 years.

• 4:50David Sims?

  Right, so, yeah.

• 4:51Griffin Newman?

  So when they started, they'd be like, here's a flashback to Homer and Marge in high school. This would be in the 70s.

• 4:57Speaker 03

  Sure, of course.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  And now no one's age, but the show still takes place.

• 5:00David Sims?

  Right now, the Simpsons are millennials.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  So they.

• 5:03David Sims?

  Because they've just floated over to that.

• 5:05Griffin Newman?

  They will truly do an episode that's like, oh, that reminds me of your mother and I having problems right before you were born, Bart. And then the episode is set in 2005.

• 5:14Speaker 03

  So they have kind of a Kurt Vonnegut concept of time where they've always existed and will always exist.

• 5:21Griffin Newman?

  So there was an episode that happened like 10 years ago now, probably, that was like Marge trying to get Homer to settle down and he's being drawn in by the grunge scene of Seattle. And you're like, the show is already on the air at that point.

• 5:34Speaker 03

  He was at Walla Palooza with the frying pumpkins, getting a.

• 5:38David Sims?

  As a grown man. Cannonball. Homer Simpson smiling politely. It's incredible joke.

• 5:43Griffin Newman?

  Piscopo punchline.

• 5:44David Sims?

  So it's like in Lisa's first word, it's Marge is always like, let me take you back to, you know, when you were one year old and like, and then she's like, a young Joe Piscopo taught us how to laugh. And then in the barbershop quartet episode, she again is flashing back and she's like, a mature Joe Piscopo, like started to move on to Hollywood, right? Like, so she's just like charting Joe Piscopo's career.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Great bit.

• 6:08David Sims?

  And so I didn't even know who that was, but I just knew him as a Simpsons.

• 6:12Griffin Newman?

  Sure. And look, a funny name to say.

• 6:13David Sims?

  It's a funny name to say. And then you learn like, oh, well, he was on the SNL season where it was like Eddie Murphy, A1, Joe Piscopo was like the distant number two.

• 6:22Griffin Newman?

  Four years.

• 6:23Speaker 03

  SNL's own Judge Reinhold.

• 6:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying 80 to 84.

• 6:26David Sims?

  SNL's own Judge Reinhold, you say?

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Took a real swing. Just thinking of Beverly Hills.

• 6:30Griffin Newman?

  Now, we were talking.

• 6:31David Sims?

  But I love Judge Reinhold.

• 6:33Griffin Newman?

  Our most recent episode a week ago was Fast Times.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  Where we were talking about probably Judge Reinhold's best performance, but also an interesting guy where you're just like, this guy was just in hit after hit, but the hit was never pinned on him. He kept being number two through five.

• 6:51Griffin Newman?

  Right? In like giant culturally impactful films.

• 6:54Speaker 03

  What a dream career that is.

• 6:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, see, I feel the same way. I feel like you and I are aligned in this where it's just like, it would just be nice to be along for the ride.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:03Griffin Newman?

  To be doing good work across from great people.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 7:07Griffin Newman?

  That the public cares about. I don't care about being like the center of the show. But it does start to make people go like, wait, is Judge Reinhold our biggest movie star? Because he's the only through line.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  The common denominator in every huge movie is Judge Reinhold.

• 7:22Griffin Newman?

  Now, I think Reinhold in his golden run was clearly adding something every time. I think Piscopo, my take on Piscopo has always been like, well, the show was really just buoyed by Murphy and Piscopo. And I'm like, no, the show was buoyed by Murphy.

• 7:38David Sims?

  Eddie Murphy.

• 7:39Griffin Newman?

  And Piscopo was the second best, I'll even, I'll reframe this. Piscopo was the best at hanging in there with Murphy. He was the only guy who could almost keep pace with Murphy and be the like sounding board off of him. Right? Everyone else was like struggling. And so I've just never gotten it. And that's only increased by like, how weirdly he's turned out as like the most like roided up Trump supporter in the world.

• 8:08David Sims?

  Right. That's the other thing. He got into bodybuilding, right?

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 8:11David Sims?

  It's not, yeah, what a weird guy.

• 8:12Griffin Newman?

  He's like so jacked and so political in a way I don't like.

• 8:15David Sims?

  I don't like it.

• 8:17Griffin Newman?

  And I watched this movie and I'm.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Strong.

• 8:19Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 8:19David Sims?

  No.

• 8:20Griffin Newman?

  I agree. He was kind of the original Kumail in a way.

• 8:24David Sims?

  Well, or Carrot Top though also had that, right? Carrot Top got roided out.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  I didn't mean that as a slight against Kumail.

• 8:30Griffin Newman?

  No, of course not.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  I was thinking more Rogan, but.

• 8:33Griffin Newman?

  It is funny that it's like, for a while, that was like a slam against those guys of like, and do you know that like Carrot Top and Piscopo are ripped? Isn't that weird? That's not what we want out of comedians. And now it feels like almost every comedian is ripped.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Every comedian should comment on MMA and they should be able to fight in a pinch.

• 8:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. And should livestream cold plunges.

• 8:54David Sims?

  But it's like, okay, so like Piscopo's big character on SNL of course was Frank Sinatra. Apart from that, he had a character called Paulie Herman. Now, it seems like he had to really dig deep for this one because Paulie Herman's kind of a stereotypical Jersey guy who made fun of New Jersey and was an annoying character. And his big catchphrase was.

• 9:14David Sims?

  I'm just gonna take a breath for this. I'm from Jersey.

• 9:16Griffin Newman?

  Okay, interesting.

• 9:17David Sims?

  So you're just kind of like, there was no TV back then.

• 9:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 9:20David Sims?

  You know what I mean? So people are just like, I gotta watch something. Eddie Murphy will have a funny sketch. He's gonna do Buckwheat.

• 9:25Griffin Newman?

  And also.

• 9:25David Sims?

  He's gonna do whatever.

• 9:26Griffin Newman?

  They didn't have Rick Baker. They didn't have Nutty Professor Technology. Eddie Murphy could only play one person in each sketch.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  And sometimes it was just that.

• 9:35Griffin Newman?

  It was an issue. It was an issue for the show.

• 9:37David Sims?

  Where I'm like, oh, what's his second famous? They're like, um, Paulie Herman. I'm like, who's that? It's like, this guy is from Jersey.

• 9:43Speaker 03

  He's probably, at this point, the second best Sinatra, right on SNL.

• 9:47David Sims?

  A hundred percent. We already talked about this. Hartman's Sinatra's way better.

• 9:50Griffin Newman?

  So much better, but I'm like, is he even number two?

• 9:53David Sims?

  I mean, there's probably someone else.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Did literally anyone else?

• 9:56David Sims?

  Will Forte probably pulled out a good Sinatra at some point.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Karen Killen blowing him out of the water.

• 10:00Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. But I'm also like, is Alec Baldwin's Tony Bennett a better Sinatra than Piscopo's Sinatra? Like possibly?

• 10:08David Sims?

  So Piscopo did him 12 times. Hartman did him 10 times. Those appear to be the only two, according to the Saturday Night Live Wiki, which I do not know how comprehensive it is, the only two attempts at a Sinatra.

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  Um, you're also forgetting his, his, uh, other major recording, uh, recurring character.

• 10:28David Sims?

  What's that?

• 10:28Griffin Newman?

  The Winers. Him and Gale Mathias were Wendy and I want to say Richard Weiner.

• 10:33David Sims?

  And like Gale Mathias is one of those things where I'm like, yes, I've seen that name in like the tablets. Like, you know what I mean? Like where I'm like, you could tell me that that was a person on SNL.

• 10:42Griffin Newman?

  It, it would literally be like they walk into a restaurant, we have a reservation. What's the name? Weiner?

• 10:49David Sims?

  There wasn't a lot of TV.

• 10:50Griffin Newman?

  There was not.

• 10:52David Sims?

  There just wasn't much TV.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  I want.

• 10:53David Sims?

  Even the first five seasons, which is good.

• 10:56Griffin Newman?

  I've never.

• 10:57David Sims?

  With all the legends.

• 10:58Griffin Newman?

  I've never seen Wise Guys, directed by Brian De Palma, Joe Piscopo and Danny DeVito above the title. Feels like a classic, if this were good, I would have seen it by now movie.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 11:08Griffin Newman?

  You know what I'm talking? Like sometimes movies, you're like, the fact that I haven't seen it means that there's no way it's good. Um, but I, I watched this and I laugh at basically everything Piscopo does.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  And Johnny Dangerously.

• 11:21Griffin Newman?

  I feel like he's in the pocket. This is a perfect role. He's never, it's also the right amount of him. It's the right pitch.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  But you said he's astonishingly good and I would like to ask about the framing. Does that mean you are astonished that he's good at this movie?

• 11:35David Sims?

  Josh is giving you a good out.

• 11:36Griffin Newman?

  No, no, no, but that is true. Cause every other time I'm just like, there is a void of comedy here and I feel like I'm losing my mind. That anyone even briefly fell for this. And I watched this and I'm like, I get why people thought he was maybe gonna translate. Now that having been said, this feels like the absolute ceiling of what he can do.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:54Griffin Newman?

  This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 11:57David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 11:58Griffin Newman?

  It's a parcock, poor cursed.

• 12:01David Sims?

  You did a good job. You know, it's okay.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  About Joe Piscopo, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce once.

• 12:17Griffin Newman?

  Amy Heckerling unfortunately had a couple of bounces. This is her first one though.

• 12:21David Sims?

  Yes, although it didn't cost that much money. So maybe she kinda got away with it, but certainly a bounce.

• 12:27Griffin Newman?

  I think it was seen as a bounce. She had to sort of go to like a preset sequel next to recover from this, which is its own story that we'll talk about next week. This is a mini-series on the films of Amy Heckerling. It is called Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  That was, that's what I thought it would be.

• 12:44Griffin Newman?

  I think it had to be. And today we're talking Johnny Dangerously, her second film.

• 12:48David Sims?

  Her second film, uh, not a movie she wrote. Um, neither was Fast Times. Um, a 1984 American crime comedy starring Michael Keaton and Joe Piscopo.

• 12:59Griffin Newman?

  Danny DeVito.

• 13:00David Sims?

  Uh, Maureen Stapleton.

• 13:03Griffin Newman?

  Peter Boyle.

• 13:03David Sims?

  Yep. Griffin Dunn.

• 13:05Griffin Newman?

  Pretty excellent cast.

• 13:06David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a good cast.

• 13:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 13:07David Sims?

  Griffin Dunn, Dom DeLuise.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  Briefly.

• 13:10David Sims?

  Very briefly.

• 13:10Griffin Newman?

  Although he gets good billing.

• 13:12David Sims?

  Dick Buckus. I'm, I'm, you know.

• 13:14Griffin Newman?

  You got your Ray Walston and Vincent Scavelli.

• 13:16David Sims?

  Dick Buckus.

• 13:17Griffin Newman?

  Dick Buckus.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Wow. Is that not a name you've heard before?

• 13:20Speaker 04

  I don't think so. I would have chuckled at it.

• 13:22David Sims?

  He's a famous football player.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 13:25David Sims?

  He played for Dub Bears.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 13:27David Sims?

  The famous, you know, the Chicago Bears of the eighties who were very, oh, no, he was maybe earlier. Anyway.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  With a name like that, you have to grow up to be a football player.

• 13:36David Sims?

  Yeah. Yeah, well, he's also like a cube, you know, like he was one of those guys who was a cube.

• 13:40Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 13:41David Sims?

  Right. He needs to be a football player because he's a cube.

• 13:44Griffin Newman?

  There are some other names that I didn't even clock until the end credits. The.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  Are there names of people that you recognize or are they just funny names?

• 13:52Griffin Newman?

  Well, both, but at the end, when they're trying to escape in the car and the sergeant keeps updating, like they're now dressed like nuns in a white convertible or whatever. That is Alan Hale, the skipper from Gilligan's Island.

• 14:05David Sims?

  Alan Hale Jr.

• 14:06Griffin Newman?

  There's like a lot of weird people like that in it. I don't know if you guys caught this. When Johnny is walking down the prison the first time and it's, what's his name from SCTV? Is the man who's being walked to death row.

• 14:22David Sims?

  Joe Flaherty?

• 14:23Griffin Newman?

  Joe Flaherty, right? He goes like, guys, are we going to get this over with or not?

• 14:26David Sims?

  Funny.

• 14:27Griffin Newman?

  The priest walking next to him, delivering the last rites. Did you catch who this is?

• 14:31Speaker 03

  No.

• 14:31Griffin Newman?

  Jack Nance, Eraserhead himself.

• 14:34David Sims?

  Interesting. Sure.

• 14:35Griffin Newman?

  Like this movie is so loaded full of weird people that I've seen it twice in the last six months and they're people I missed. Our guest today returning to the show for, embarrassingly only the second time.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Very kind of you to say.

• 14:49Griffin Newman?

  Well, he's too nice to ever get upset about it because he's the nicest man in comedy, Josh Gondelman.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 14:56Griffin Newman?

  Josh, your newest special.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:59Griffin Newman?

  Is titled.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  It is titled Positive Reinforcement.

• 15:02Griffin Newman?

  Just a really good snapshot of how insanely we run the show. Like six months ago, you were like, hey, I have a special coming out in January. I'd love to come back on the show. And I was like, the soonest we can get you on is May.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  And then, hold on, let me one up you. The weirdest thing about comedy special distribution is it is still not out.

• 15:21Griffin Newman?

  Really?

• 15:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 15:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so this timed out okay.

• 15:23Speaker 03

  This timed out great.

• 15:24Griffin Newman?

  Amazing.

• 15:24David Sims?

  When's it out?

• 15:25Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Who can say?

• 15:27Griffin Newman?

  Who can say?

• 15:27David Sims?

  What place will happen?

• 15:29Griffin Newman?

  Oh, we had a question. Okay.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  I think I will find out within the week.

• 15:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  Which is, doesn't help us here, but is, will be good for my peace of mind.

• 15:37Griffin Newman?

  Right. So at the time we're recording this, you don't know.

• 15:39Speaker 03

  Don't know.

• 15:40Griffin Newman?

  By the time this episode comes out, we probably do know. So maybe there's a pickup here.

• 15:46David Sims?

  And at least we'll have a link in the episode description.

• 15:49Speaker 03

  Very kind.

• 15:50Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely. Well, you're you're the kindest. And I feel like we talked about this the last time you were on. But you you got screwed over in a game. And I shouldn't say screwed over. You did Back to the Future 3.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  I did.

• 16:01Griffin Newman?

  An American classic and a great episode.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  We had I had a great time chatting with you guys.

• 16:05Griffin Newman?

  We bumped you around the schedule like four times. Because other things kept coming up. You were so amenable. And then this time I threw to you like heckling first pick. You went Johnny dangerously and we just kept being like, no matter what, we can't move Gondelman.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  This has been locked in for.

• 16:23Griffin Newman?

  We can't do this to him ever again.

• 16:24Speaker 03

  This has been locked in for months. We you showed me the grid.

• 16:28Griffin Newman?

  I did.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  We were at a bar together and you went, look at this.

• 16:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 03

  And I and this was like September.

• 16:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes, truly. Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  And I was like, great.

• 16:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  And we called it. We called the shot dangerously and here we are.

• 16:39Griffin Newman?

  Is this a movie you grew up watching?

• 16:41Speaker 03

  I remember seeing little snippets of it on TV all the time.

• 16:45David Sims?

  It was like a TV, right? Like a cable.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  The the, um, what's his name? Maroni, the the character that you did at the top. That is.

• 16:53Griffin Newman?

  Fargan Ice Holes.

• 16:53Speaker 03

  Fargan Ice Holes is like the the dominant memory of this movie for me. And I was like, I gotta see the whole thing and see like what the rest of it is about.

• 17:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. And what you quickly discovered, or not quickly discovered, recently discovered is this movie is almost impossible to watch legally.

• 17:08Speaker 03

  It is so difficult to find.

• 17:09David Sims?

  Although I think a couple of years ago, it seemed it was streaming. Because if you Google, is it streaming? You see people a while back being like, yeah, it's on HBO.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  They said it's on Mac.

• 17:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it has had Windows of streaming. It is not rentable for money. It is not streaming anywhere. Uh, it has not been in print physical media since a DVD in the 90s.

• 17:30David Sims?

  I bought a disc. Was this just like made for me or something?

• 17:35Griffin Newman?

  You get this?

• 17:36David Sims?

  No.

• 17:36Griffin Newman?

  No?

• 17:37David Sims?

  It was a DVD, I think.

• 17:38Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 17:38David Sims?

  I can't even remember. It looked pretty good.

• 17:40Griffin Newman?

  This is a high grade bootleg Blu-ray I got. Uh, labeled as the Fargan Ice Holes edition. I'm sorry, you Fargan Ice Holes edition.

• 17:49David Sims?

  Let me see where I got. Maybe I got a vintage DVD.

• 17:52Speaker 03

  You must have got a vintage DVD. I had a wandering Greek bard just recount the movie to me. That's what I had to do.

• 17:59David Sims?

  I ordered it on January 27. Uh, yeah, it looks like it's a DVD. Yeah, I think it's just right. It's a vintage DVD. I probably, I think I got it for like, you know, 30 bucks or something like I had to, you know, pay for a used copy, but it was fine.

• 18:13Griffin Newman?

  It had also been a movie that I would like see snippets of on TV, had probably watched all of Cloverfield Monster Style, but not from beginning to end. And then, uh, whatever it was last fall, I went on Big Picture to do a Michael Keaton Mount Rushmore episode. And I was like, I gotta fill in all my gaps. I was only able to see this through being, let onto a Plex server.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  You're gonna say on a plane. You had to fly across.

• 18:39Griffin Newman?

  I wouldn't be surprised if like you, you go to like justwatch.com and it's like book Delta.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:45Griffin Newman?

  International.

• 18:46Speaker 03

  You have to fly international.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  It would not be Delta. It would be Southwest.

• 18:50Griffin Newman?

  It'd be Southwest.

• 18:50David Sims?

  Well, this is a Fox movie. I don't understand. Why is it not?

• 18:54Griffin Newman?

  So weird. I was, Ben and I were talking to, uh, people who worked at the streaming service, uh, recently, uh, at a party. Cause we've been like, knowing this mini series was coming, we've had like emails of like, should we like nudge these places and like, see if we can get a rep screening going? Like, I don't want this to be an episode where no one has seen the movie. Uh, and it just feels bizarre because it's like a Fox movie from a major director starring a major still relevant star. And it's like a broad comedy and it's so fucking hard to watch. And we've been like, trying to see if anyone can just like, have this movie streaming in the month of May or April. And who knows if it's gonna fucking work?

• 19:35Speaker 03

  And it's also not like notably bad. Like it wasn't a hit, but you don't watch it and go like, people shouldn't ever see this.

• 19:43David Sims?

  No, it's not that, but it's not quite. Yeah. I don't, I don't know.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  It's not like a cult classic.

• 19:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:49Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's never totally been reclaimed to that level, but it almost feels like it should be like, it's kind of ready to be. I feel like it had a real like Comedy Central, like TBS rotation era in the 90s. And then I just feel like has been memory hold since then is a fascinating second movie.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  Fascinating, especially following Fast Times, which is a movie that not to, I know you talked about this last week, but a movie that I remember seeing as like a teenager, thinking it was going to be more of like a raucous laugh riot.

• 20:23Griffin Newman?

  It's a lot of what we talked about in the episode.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  It's like sincere, very, and then this is the silliest movie that's ever existed.

• 20:30David Sims?

  Very silly. It's a reaction to Fast Times. That's a good point, right? This is just like, you know, no stakes silliness, costume party.

• 20:38Griffin Newman?

  It feels like a deliberate effort on Heckerling's part to be like, I am going to immediately refuse pigeonholing. Like, you know, she talks about in the dossier that like she was just offered a bunch more teen comedies and like female led teen comedies. And like coming of age movies and sex comedies and whatever. And it just feels like a very, very strategic choice to be like, whether this works or not, I need to not make the same movie two times in a row. And we also just know that like she is a big movie dork.

• 21:10David Sims?

  We'll talk about that, of course. Like, yes, her, her influences are clear here.

• 21:15Griffin Newman?

  I also think this is the exact kind of movie that like women were not getting offered to direct.

• 21:21David Sims?

  Well, women weren't getting offered any movies, really.

• 21:23Griffin Newman?

  They weren't getting offered a lot, but I think if you look at the female directors working within the studio system in the eighties, like Fast Times is much more the type of thing that would sometimes go to a female director. And this is really, I think on paper, like a kind of boys' club comedy where you're like, this is what Mel Brooks does. This is what the Zucker brothers do. Right. There are only a couple of people who can do this kind of thing. And they all basically come from like sketch comedy or vaudeville, have their background on the stage. Yeah.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it felt, it has like an airplane quality to it, the zaniness.

• 21:57David Sims?

  Okay. All right. Well, so I think I like this movie less than you two, unfortunately, although I don't dislike it. But I found this, this, my take was I found this movie fun, but not that funny. Does that make sense? I had like a good time watching it. I, it was pleasant and high energy, but rarely did my mouth open to emit a laugh. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm not really laughing. The jokes aren't really like making me laugh. And there are a lot of jokes, whereas airplane. I'm doing this rant now because you invoked airplane. That makes me laugh. Like, you know.

• 22:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, airplane's very funny.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  See, this

• 22:32David Sims?

  The funniest.

• 22:33Griffin Newman?

  This to me is like the only movie like this, not directed by a Zucker, Abraham

• 22:41David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, Azaz.

• 22:42Griffin Newman?

  That I would say makes me laugh.

• 22:44Speaker 03

  It just wasn't.

• 22:45Griffin Newman?

  It is. It is the one where I'm like, it's not at the level of those dudes top work. But I'm like, it is below, it is above their worst work. And it is basically above, I think, everyone else who has tried to make a movie like this.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  And I, I think it is a kind of movie that I had such an affection for growing up until it became like, like this kind of movie that's like a broad genre parody, became like kind of a pastiche of sketches, like in the early aughts, and then they just stopped making them entirely and stopped making film comedies.

• 23:18Griffin Newman?

  I mean, look, this is a lot of what this episode's gonna be about, right?

• 23:21Speaker 03

  And I'm, this is a soapbox that I'll stand atop anytime.

• 23:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes. You're also, look, you are, Josh, you are a great comedian. And you have a very specific voice as, as a performer, as a writer. And it is because of that, that I'm always kind of surprised how good and versatile you are as just a straight joke writer.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 23:42Griffin Newman?

  Like, you do

• 23:43Speaker 03

  What a lovely compliment.

• 23:44Griffin Newman?

  So much good work writing in other people's voices, sometimes credit, oftentimes not.

• 23:51Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm just kind of impressed that you have like captured their voice that well for voices that can be difficult and, and specific. But also because I'm like, you are such a good example of like, you tell jokes that only you could tell that fit into your mouth and your rhythm. But you do have such a clear like appreciation of just the art of joke writing.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  I love jokes.

• 24:13Griffin Newman?

  Which this movie is like

• 24:14Speaker 03

  I mean, it was, I agree, David, the highs aren't as like high as something like an airplane. I had a few out loud laughs watching on my computer with headphones.

• 24:24Griffin Newman?

  I, right, it's my counter argument as well, which is, I laugh watching this.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:27Griffin Newman?

  I laugh out loud.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  I did laugh out loud.

• 24:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  And I think now, like, there's so much comedy that starts with like, you know, after the death of his entire family, this ex-marine deals with trauma. And you're like, that's a comedy? Like, you should see the dramas.

• 24:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. Well, also, the comedies are like, these two people are going to a bed and breakfast, but one of them is secretly an ex-marine.

• 24:50David Sims?

  He's got a gun. He can disassemble it blindfolded.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Right. You talked about it, was it with Jen DiAngelo?

• 24:56Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 24:57David Sims?

  I hate that everyone has to have a gun in a comedy.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  Such an insightful conversation, where it's like, everything is either a lighthearted superhero movie, nothing wrong with those existing, or full-on action comedy, where this, obviously, there are guns in this movie, but it's not quite the same thing.

• 25:12David Sims?

  Although, it's a good point that there are actually lots of guns in this movie, but the violence is so silly.

• 25:18Griffin Newman?

  It's Looney Tunes. It's Looney Tunes. But there are like 10 streaming comedies starring A-list stars that have come out in the last five years that were the premises either this person is in boring suburban life, but secretly, they used to be a hitman slash spy slash whatever, or this normal guy gets thrown into the high-octane world of hitman slash spy. And I'm like, Wahlberg's done three of them.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  Yes. And they're all, it's all like, um, movies that would be pitched during Michael Scott doing improv. Just like, I have a gun.

• 25:51Griffin Newman?

  And they all either like star not comedy stars, or people where like comedy is a thing they do, but like mostly star like action stars, doing comedies with guns where they have to shoot people in serious sequences.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I love a stupid, silly movie. I loved, um, The Gutter last year.

• 26:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I need to see The Gutter.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  It's so silly.

• 26:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  And I like, I, so I like, my body craves movies like this, like minerals, like vitamins.

• 26:19Griffin Newman?

  This is like such a pure comedy. Like, whether or not it works for you, this is a movie that is just like devoting all of its energy just to trying to be funny at all times, and throwing so much at the wall. And I feel like it is the kind of obvious knock against like, the Zucker-Brooks wannabes is like, if you're doing a joke every 15 seconds and your ratio, like hit-to-miss ratio, isn't good, it gets exhausting fast. And this is one where it just keeps me. I, I think it has peaks and valleys. I feel like the first 20 minutes I'm watching and I'm like, this is the greatest comedy of all time. And then it falls down and then it'll like come back up and whatever. But it, it, it holds me the whole time.

• 27:00Speaker 03

  And, and I think the story works enough.

• 27:04Griffin Newman?

  I agree with you.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  It is not a pastiche of big set pieces.

• 27:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  Kind of loosely thrown, strung together. It's not like a, a super breathtakingly original story. The characters don't have a ton of depth, but they do enough work with the story that you aren't like, wait a minute, what am I watching? Who's doing what?

• 27:21Griffin Newman?

  I agree. It also, for me, is not bogging itself down with like too much plotting where it's like, hey, I don't care about the story that much.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  We're the mob. We do crime.

• 27:29David Sims?

  They're not heavy on the, right on what's happening. It's just, he's got his brother after him. He's got Joe Piscopo biting at his heels. That's basically it.

• 27:38Griffin Newman?

  I also love, and this is like the heckering of it to me, is it's just like, this is a parody movie that it's, feels like it's wearing its love for movies on its sleeve. Like it is so in love with like identifying certain tropes of things, but also jokes you can make about like the audience's understanding of film language. Just like the early, it's basically the first fucking joke in the movie, where you have the cross dissolve from the painting to the city street with the Chiron that says New York City the year.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  1935.

• 28:10Griffin Newman?

  Crashes into it.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  And you're just like, that's shit that like requires like forethought.

• 28:16Speaker 03

  I truly watched that. I saw the car crash into 1935 and I was like, let's go.

• 28:22Griffin Newman?

  Right. Yes. This is what all movies should do this. The brutalist should have done this.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  Would have made it a little less brutal.

• 28:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 28:32David Sims?

  The brutalist could have taken a couple of notes from Johnny Dangerously. What if Piscopo was in there?

• 28:36Griffin Newman?

  Piscopo.

• 28:36David Sims?

  Just salt him in.

• 28:37Griffin Newman?

  Piscopo could have been good. You know who's really good in The Brutalist, who I forgot to mention? I feel like no one mentioned all fucking Brutalist season.

• 28:44David Sims?

  Adrian Brody.

• 28:45Griffin Newman?

  Jonathan Hyde.

• 28:46David Sims?

  It would just be so funny if you said Adrian Brody.

• 28:48Griffin Newman?

  No one gave this guy his flowers.

• 28:51David Sims?

  Jonathan Hyde is good. Yes, absolutely. I love Jonathan Hyde.

• 28:54Griffin Newman?

  I do too. And a guy who had like a fucking nineties heater run.

• 28:58David Sims?

  Well, he fucking was the one who told the Titanic to go faster. He blew that.

• 29:02Griffin Newman?

  He was.

• 29:03David Sims?

  And he's the one in The Mummy who's like, what have we done?

• 29:06Griffin Newman?

  He's the dad in The Hunter and Jumanji.

• 29:08David Sims?

  Yep.

• 29:09Griffin Newman?

  He's fucking Cadbury and Richie Rich.

• 29:11David Sims?

  He's the villain in Richie Rich.

• 29:13Griffin Newman?

  No, he's not the villain. He's the greatest ally.

• 29:15David Sims?

  Oh, I'm so sorry.

• 29:16Griffin Newman?

  John Lyricat is the villain.

• 29:17David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Lyricat.

• 29:19Griffin Newman?

  That's right. Cadbury is his butler, closest friend.

• 29:21David Sims?

  Lyricat is a villain.

• 29:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:23David Sims?

  I don't know what they were thinking.

• 29:24Speaker 03

  I would have liked to piss upon the brutalist. Hitler tried to eradicate the Jews once.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Just once.

• 29:32David Sims?

  It would be funny if in The Brutalist, one of his patrons that he like, he's like, I need, I, you know, I want to make a building or whatever, is Richie Rich. Richie Rich is like, I need you to make a Mount Rushmore of my family or whatever it is Richie Rich has. You need to design a McDonald's for my house.

• 29:47Griffin Newman?

  I want a mountain of a scent sign or some shit.

• 29:52David Sims?

  It was always weird that, right, the, the poster had the scent sign for the sea. Cause he's Richie Rich. And I'm like, yeah, but that's scents. That's not what rich people have. They have dollars.

• 30:01Griffin Newman?

  That goes back to the comics where I'm like, when Richie Rich was created, was it like impressive that he had 20 pennies?

• 30:07David Sims?

  I think it was, uh, you know, it was, it was a bigger deal.

• 30:11Speaker 03

  He has all the candy he wants.

• 30:12David Sims?

  Right. He's so rich that his middle name in the comic book is a dollar sign.

• 30:17Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 30:18David Sims?

  So that's how they get around that.

• 30:19Griffin Newman?

  Richie Dollar Sign Rich. Yeah.

• 30:22David Sims?

  Richie Rich.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Kind of like too, too short. I mean, I guess that's his whole name, short, but what the, forget it.

• 30:28David Sims?

  No, but I hear, I hear what you're saying. And I think it's important to.

• 30:30Griffin Newman?

  And it's interesting and we're, we're really thinking on it.

• 30:34David Sims?

  Yeah. Richie Rich. It's funny that they were like, all right, Macaulay needs a vehicle, right? He's going to get paid through the nose. His, his evil parents are going to be part of the, right. We talked about that.

• 30:45Speaker 03

  I like that there is so little meat on the bones of Johnny Dangerously that we're in a five minute Richie Rich.

• 30:51Griffin Newman?

  No, we're going to talk about that.

• 30:51David Sims?

  Macaulay.

• 30:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:53David Sims?

  Richie Rich. All the money's going to Macaulay. Fine. All right. And you know, then we, you know, he's, there are some kids in the movie, right? He's like, he's got friends.

• 31:00Griffin Newman?

  You got Lyricat, you got Edward Herman.

• 31:02David Sims?

  But that's what I'm saying. Right. And then they're like, right. No, now just bring us heavy hitter character guys.

• 31:07Griffin Newman?

  Everyone is so good.

• 31:08David Sims?

  Lyricat, Herman.

• 31:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 31:10David Sims?

  Jonathan Hyde, Ebersole, the dad from Carissa. Uh, is his dad, the dad from Clarissa.

• 31:16Griffin Newman?

  Is whose dad?

• 31:17David Sims?

  Is Richie Rich's dad.

• 31:18Griffin Newman?

  No, Edward Herman's Richie Rich's dad. I watched this movie.

• 31:21David Sims?

  You're right. You know what? You're right.

• 31:22Griffin Newman?

  I watched this movie two weeks ago.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Is, I haven't seen it.

• 31:25Griffin Newman?

  People kept making jokes about Elon's son being Richie Rich. And I was like, I wonder how that ages.

• 31:30David Sims?

  It's just that they have the same glasses, I think. I have not seen Richie Rich since 1994.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's not in theaters, I think.

• 31:36David Sims?

  December 21st, it sounds like it came out in 1994.

• 31:39Griffin Newman?

  Sounds right. I have not watched Richie Rich since checks. No, it's 2025.

• 31:42David Sims?

  And why, why?

• 31:44Griffin Newman?

  Because it kept getting invoked around Elon's son. And then I was sort of like, that's a funny cultural snapshot of it in like, when that character was created in the 40s or whatever, the 50s. But once again, in the 90s.

• 31:56David Sims?

  50s.

• 31:57Griffin Newman?

  That could be the hero of the movie where you're like, this little boy was given everything and he has so much money and we all love him.

• 32:03David Sims?

  Well, it's like, uh, Blank Check, you know, it's like little kids like me wanted to just see a boy who could buy any toy. Right? I guess. But also the movie is about how he's, he lives in a gilded cage, right? Like he needs friends and he doesn't have any.

• 32:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but the movie, yes, it is. But then rewatching it, the movie is really about like, look how fucking cool his life is.

• 32:21David Sims?

  He's got a McDonald's in his house.

• 32:23Griffin Newman?

  And he's right about everything. He learns no lessons.

• 32:26David Sims?

  Yeah, that seems like it is true.

• 32:26Griffin Newman?

  Blank Check, the whole point is like, what if you could figure out a way to get all the money? Whereas Richie Rich is just like, what if everything was handed to you forever?

• 32:35Speaker 03

  And you would deserve it.

• 32:36Griffin Newman?

  Right. And there's a point in the movie where his parents go missing because Lara Cat tried to bomb their plane. And they're stranded in the ocean and Richie Rich has to take over his parents' companies and he does it really well. There's no conflict.

• 32:50David Sims?

  But there's a laser, right?

• 32:52Griffin Newman?

  There's a big laser.

• 32:52David Sims?

  That shoots at the, uh, the Mount Rushmore. Cause I remember that. There's a big action scene with the Mount Rushmore.

• 32:57Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 32:58David Sims?

  Right.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is what's crazy about it. And then we're going to talk about Johnny dangerously. But my thought was always the same thing of like, fuck, Macaulay Culkin's the biggest star in America. Our number one box office draw is an 11 year old blonde boy. What vehicles do we design for him? And someone's like ripping through the library and they're like Richie Rich. Richie Rich kind of looks like Macaulay Culkin. And then it gets like fast tracked, right? Wrong. Warner Brothers had already spent years and millions in development trying to make Richie Rich with Fred Savage.

• 33:26David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, you're right.

• 33:28Griffin Newman?

  And Joel Silver at his peak, like riding high off the fucking lethal weapon and shit. Was like, I want to make Richie Rich. And then when Home Alone blows up, they were like, God damn it, we gotta kick Savage off this project ASAP.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  And we gotta do some rewrites on the Shane Black Richie Rich script.

• 33:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  It's a little rough around the edges.

• 33:46David Sims?

  Black did way too many bumps while he was writing this script. This script is manic. No, yeah, cuz anyway, look, we're moving on from Richie Rich. We're moving over to Johnny Dangerously and Josh is here. Ben's here. Ben's kind of with me, it seems like on the like, I had fun, but I wasn't that jazz.

• 34:00Griffin Newman?

  I thought you were gonna love this. Your love of Crime Wave made me think like, this is better.

• 34:05David Sims?

  Yeah, but Crime Wave is unhinged.

• 34:06Griffin Newman?

  Crime Wave is unhinged.

• 34:07David Sims?

  That's like an odd object.

• 34:09Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  And I think because I was aware of this growing up in New Jersey and, and having friends who were a fan of this movie and it feeling such like a Jersey knucklehead kind of thing.

• 34:23Griffin Newman?

  You also grew up in, in Piscopo County?

• 34:26Speaker 04

  I did, truly, yes. Piscopo country, truly, that I think I just immediately rejected it.

• 34:32Speaker 03

  The William Faulkner of New Jersey sets all his novels in Piscopo County.

• 34:37Griffin Newman?

  So we, we covered Crime Wave on this show. Josh, great joke. Five comedy points.

• 34:41David Sims?

  Extremely good Faulkner points. Five lights in August.

• 34:45Griffin Newman?

  We covered, uh, Sam Raimi on the show years ago.

• 34:48David Sims?

  Five Sounds and Furies, what?

• 34:50Griffin Newman?

  Sam.

• 34:51David Sims?

  Remember when James Franco made like eight William Faulkner movies no one's ever seen?

• 34:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes, insane, insane. We should do that on Patreon.

• 34:58David Sims?

  Nope.

• 34:59Speaker 03

  As I lay podding, let me be serious. Yakka Podcastma County.

• 35:04David Sims?

  It's just the hubris. Anyway, carry on.

• 35:08Griffin Newman?

  No, I just remember like in high school, reading Faulkner books and being like, fuck, is there a movie of this I can watch?

• 35:16David Sims?

  Sure.

• 35:16Griffin Newman?

  And people being like, I don't know, he's kind of unadaptable.

• 35:18David Sims?

  As you can tell, this is, this seems almost impossible to adapt.

• 35:22Griffin Newman?

  Most people haven't tried and the ones that have been made don't really work. They're not gonna help you.

• 35:26David Sims?

  I got it, it's fine.

• 35:26Griffin Newman?

  Let me knock three out over a weekend.

• 35:30David Sims?

  What were you going to say?

• 35:31Griffin Newman?

  Years ago, we covered Sam Raimi. His second film, a weird swerve from the first Evil Dead, which is so much more like somber and straight ahead relative to where the Evil Dead movies end up, is this movie Crime Wave, which is very much twinned with Johnny Dangerously, a movie that is directed by him and written by the Coen Brothers.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  I've never seen that. I gotta see it.

• 35:52David Sims?

  It's, it's certainly hard to see.

• 35:54Griffin Newman?

  Functionally disowned and like, just don't include in their like filmography, their biography, like any of that. I think took their names off of it.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  The Coen Brothers, you said?

• 36:05Griffin Newman?

  Coen Brothers wrote it, Raimi directed it.

• 36:07Speaker 03

  And they all are like, eh.

• 36:09Griffin Newman?

  That movie got taken away from us. We, we don't want to be associated with it. And Ben really loved it. And so I was like, Ben's gonna fucking lose his mind for Johnny Dangerously, but this is interesting.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  I was telling a friend, oh, I said, friend, a friend of the podcast, Mattie Lubchansky.

• 36:25Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  And I was like, oh, I'm doing, going to see the, the, like, Jack Phillips and we're gonna do Johnny Dangerously. And she said, was it a Ben's choice?

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 36:34Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Wow. Well, no.

• 36:37David Sims?

  You didn't choose, you didn't choose.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  No, I didn't.

• 36:41Griffin Newman?

  It's a Ben's rejection.

• 36:42David Sims?

  Right. Thinking for sure. Johnny Dangerously, I'm cracking open the dossier. Uh, and Matty's book is out soon, probably when this episode's airing.

• 36:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 36:54David Sims?

  So.

• 36:54Griffin Newman?

  And thank you to Matty for her contribution to our art show, which would have happened already.

• 36:59David Sims?

  Fast and Furious, John Hi, studio messes with it, releases botched, but nonetheless a success.

• 37:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 37:06David Sims?

  Despite all these caveats.

• 37:07Griffin Newman?

  Was not horribly botched.

• 37:08David Sims?

  And becomes a huge home video success, inspires a spinoff show that doesn't go anywhere, all that stuff. Um, and I think Universal is also like, fuck, why did we like overthink this teen movie? Teen movies kill. Let's start pumping out teen movies, right? You know, like, I don't even, like, we were being ridiculous, like,

• 37:30Griffin Newman?

  I mean, Universal becomes John Hughes's mean studio. They very smartly just like clamp down on him.

• 37:37David Sims?

  Yeah. And because Hackerling made Fast Times at Ridgeway High, as you say, Universal's like, yeah, it's a kid loses his virginity. Interested? Come on, the girl goes to school. I don't know, fuckin', they wear bikinis. Make one of these.

• 37:49Griffin Newman?

  David is miming throwing fastballs with a precision that would blow your mind.

• 37:54David Sims?

  Um, and she said, I didn't want to deal with that. You know, I don't want to spend the rest of my life dealing with bad teachers. The girl's getting pregnant, loss of innocence, et cetera. I don't want to do that.

• 38:02Griffin Newman?

  Also just smart, like, I think she knows if she does it well twice, she's never going to be able to do anything else.

• 38:07David Sims?

  You get stuck. Yeah. So Brad, Bud Austin is a producer.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  Stone Cold.

• 38:13David Sims?

  Stone Cold Bud Austin. Stone, stoned Bud, cause Bud.

• 38:17Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Oh, that's good.

• 38:19David Sims?

  Uh, Stone Bud Cold Austin. It's okay.

• 38:22Griffin Newman?

  Stone beer, cold Budston?

• 38:25David Sims?

  He watches Blazing Saddles, like Mandy and American, and laughs, I'm sure, his belly full, but is also like, oh, I want to do like a, a Golden Age Hollywood spoof, but not westerns. How about I did like, what about a gangster spoof? Making fun of, you know, roaring twenties and, you know, James Cagney movies and all that stuff, right?

• 38:44Griffin Newman?

  And here's the thing that I think Blazing Saddles and Johnny Dangerously specifically have in common. They are not primarily parodying one movie.

• 38:52David Sims?

  No.

• 38:53Griffin Newman?

  A lot of the, right, but like Airplane is taking from, what's that thing called? Zero Hour?

• 38:58David Sims?

  Airplane is a weird example where they're, they're taking the plot of a serious movie. Obviously they're parodying a larger genre, but yes.

• 39:05Griffin Newman?

  But like Young Frankenstein is like basically beat for beat son of Frankenstein in a really fascinating way. Like it's the third one. A lot of these are like riffing on one primarily, whether it's something like High Anxiety, where it's like, okay, it's using Vertigo as the main coat hanger, or they're taking something that's like more obscure that people don't know and using that as a structure to do their riff. Blazing Saddle starts as the comedy premise of like, what if there was a black sheriff? And then 27 different writers work on a cumulative. Until it turns into what it is, but it starts with a core of just a story and then grows into a, this is a way to parody a whole genre.

• 39:42David Sims?

  The parody is initially going to be called Blazing Tommy Guns. Well, literally going with blazing.

• 39:46Griffin Newman?

  That would have been terrible.

• 39:47David Sims?

  Yes. Uh, he reaches out to Michael Hertzberg, who produced Blazing Saddles and many other Mel Brooks movies. Uh, and they start cooking up a screenplay. Lots of people work on it, but different strokes creators, Bernie Kukoff and Jeff Harris, uh, are involved and, uh, they at least, Jeff Harris is a screenplay credit here and Bernie has a story credit. So they're, they're, they're involved.

• 40:10Speaker 03

  Have you, either of you read Mel Brooks's, uh, memoir, by the way?

• 40:14Griffin Newman?

  No, I have not.

• 40:15Speaker 03

  It's delightful and every chapter is like, we set out to make that kind of picture. Nobody had ever made before. It was an ambitious undertaking and we did it and it was a great success. And I have lunch with every single one of the people on the crew twice a week.

• 40:27David Sims?

  You're making the book sound terrible.

• 40:29Speaker 03

  No, it rules. It is. He's like, one of the few people that I would tolerate that level of like,

• 40:34David Sims?

  Of course.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  Hey, we really did it, guys. It's just delightful.

• 40:37Griffin Newman?

  I gotta say, and I, I mean this solely as a compliment. Mel Brooks sometimes reads to me as like one of the least interior people in history.

• 40:47David Sims?

  Sure. Maybe that's how he's survived this long, just by not, uh, looking inward and worrying.

• 40:52Griffin Newman?

  Right. I think he's so incredibly funny and in a way that feels very specific where he's like pulling at things. And then every interview he's done is just like, here's how it came about. I sat down and said, what if I make a movie with a lot of jokes?

• 41:04David Sims?

  Yep.

• 41:04Griffin Newman?

  They gave me money and I succeeded.

• 41:07Speaker 03

  It's so great. And they're like, it, it, there's so many anecdotes that are like, we tried to book this guy. He wasn't available. Then we went to the next guy and I couldn't imagine anyone better. And it's like, you just said you imagined someone better than the first guy.

• 41:19Griffin Newman?

  Right, right, right, right. There's like, I feel it was maybe his WTF episode where Maren tried to like dig into the Nazi stuff with him. And he was just like, so that's like, I feel like you did something that was like very important, like for our generation, which was like culturally reckoning with the Holocaust through comedy and like processing and defanging it. And I was like, no, I never thought about that.

• 41:44David Sims?

  Who cares?

• 41:44Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, but you do like a lot of Nazi humor. And he's like, yeah, I guess it's just a thing to make fun of.

• 41:50Speaker 03

  It's just, there's Jews and there's space. I love it.

• 41:58Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 41:59David Sims?

  Yes?

• 41:59Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 42:02David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 42:04Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 42:05David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 42:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she's reactivated because she's horny for chicken fingers.

• 42:11David Sims?

  Okay.

• 42:12Griffin Newman?

  And she's excited for the streaming debut of Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 42:16David Sims?

  Wow.

• 42:17Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 42:19David Sims?

  Remember cow and chicken? Let's look it up while you tell the great listeners about the great stuff on MUBI.

• 42:26Griffin Newman?

  Well, MUBI is a global film company bringing great cinema to the world and to you. Curating and elevating visionary filmmaking, all handpicked, always. That's what MUBI does. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

• 42:37David Sims?

  Yes.

• 42:38Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 42:39David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

  You can feel the rush now at home. There's a hole at the bottom of the lake where the movies come from.

• 42:46David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 42:47Griffin Newman?

  In the new movie from Jane Schomburn, Past and Future Guest.

• 42:49David Sims?

  Past and Future Guest, a great filmmaker, a great podcast guest.

• 42:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:54David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 42:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 42:55David Sims?

  Um, this movie rocks. It's got, of course, it stars Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson.

• 43:00Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 43:01David Sims?

  Legends, and I tip my cap, but Zach Cherry.

• 43:03Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 43:05David Sims?

  Friend of the show Zach Cherry.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 43:07David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 43:08Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 43:09David Sims?

  Such a cool movie, won the Queer Pal McCann. If you haven't heard about this movie, I don't know what's going on with you, but like, it obviously has, it was out in theaters, uh, this summer and now it's on MUBI.

• 43:19Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays a filmmaker attempting to reboot the Camp Miasma franchise, trying to track down the original final girl from the first movie to, to make some sort of legacy sequel, who's played by Gillian Anderson, who lives at the summer camp.

• 43:34David Sims?

  Yes, and you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 43:38Griffin Newman?

  What happened?

• 43:40Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's one of those Hollywood's out of ideas. No, it's very much a movie about Hollywood being out of ideas while being, uh, an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 43:50David Sims?

  It's now streaming exclusively on MUBI and you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's M U B I dot com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

• 44:02Griffin Newman?

  They got so many great movies on there to watch, but worth it for 30 days for Miasma.

• 44:07David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 44:12Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 44:13David Sims?

  Yes?

• 44:13Griffin Newman?

  He lurks in shadow. He slips into dreams. He casts no reflection. Audible presents Bram Stoker's Dracula, a new full cast audio thriller starring Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, Jonathan Bailey as Dracula, and an A-list cast, including Maggie Gyllenhaal as Van Helsing, Amy Lou Wood as Lucy, David Johnson as Dr. Seward, and many more. That is an all-star cast.

• 44:34David Sims?

  Yeah, this new full cast thriller locks Mina Harker in a battle of minds with the Count. When Mina's fiance, Jonathan Harker, Louis Partridge, vanishes in Transylvania, Mina pieces together letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony to hunt the predator stalking those she loves, only to discover Dracula's already hunting her.

• 44:54Griffin Newman?

  Joined by the enigmatic Van Helsing, Mina and a small fearless band race against time to stop this ancient terror. Using her intellect, her resolve, and a gift for drawing the unseen lines between clues, Mina may just hold the key to bring down the Count if he hasn't already found his way inside her mind.

• 45:10David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Eschery and a spatial dolby-atmos sound design, Audible's Dracula invites you to welcome literature's most shadowy figure into your home. Feel the terror of being hunted and the thrill of the hunt. Don't miss this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Audible's new full cast original adaptation. Written by Robin Ahern, now on Audible. Listen to the darkness. Go to audible.com/listen2dracula.

• 45:45Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 45:45David Sims?

  Yes?

• 45:46Griffin Newman?

  Ugh.

• 45:47David Sims?

  Uh-oh.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 45:48David Sims?

  Ah!

• 45:50Griffin Newman?

  And you know what that means. The old stereotype about November.

• 45:53David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 45:53Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 45:55David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 45:57Griffin Newman?

  Packed schedule, questionable food choices, and somehow a social calendar that got way fuller than you planned. And I ain't talking about Sam Fuller. We're not covering him yet in the podcast.

• 46:05David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 46:06Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 46:08David Sims?

  I can't remember. Big Red One. You call it the Big Red Podcast.

• 46:11Griffin Newman?

  Listen, when things get complicated, not when life is easy and when you got time for a whole routine, right now, when everything is full and something has to give one scoop, cold water. Every morning before anything else, as I like to say, scoop, there it is.

• 46:24David Sims?

  You do like to say that every morning you text me scoop, there it is. And that means I now know that you had your AG1.

• 46:31Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 46:32David Sims?

  Uh, but yeah, you're, I know you're, you're a daily AG1 user and it's basically the, uh, the glue that holds your internal organs together at this point.

• 46:40Griffin Newman?

  It's not just marketing. AG1 Next Gen is backed by four separate gold standard clinical trials. Not weekend a study.

• 46:48David Sims?

  Thank you for that.

• 46:48Griffin Newman?

  Four independent studies with key nutrient levels improved within three months of consistent use. This is the thing I like about AG1. They're not resting on their laurels. They constantly work to better themselves.

• 47:00David Sims?

  Um, yes, AG1, they've got now AG1 Pro.

• 47:04Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 47:05David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with a performance and recovery layer built in. So you've got five grams of Cre vitalis, a premium German made creatine monohydrate, and one of the most studied compounds in sports science, plus CAH MB for muscle production and zinc carnecine for gut support.

• 47:23Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 47:24David Sims?

  Next gen is the foundation pro adds what your body needs to recover.

• 47:28Griffin Newman?

  You might be having some big meals this November. AG1 is what you need to keep your gut in check. Keep things, as I like to put it, regular.

• 47:36David Sims?

  Yes. So for a limited time, visit drink AG1.com slash check and get a free immune support bundle, including omega three, fish oil and vitamin D three plus K two with your first subscription of AG1 Next Gen or AG1 Pro. That's drink AG1.com slash check. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Belank check send you.

• 48:06David Sims?

  This screenplay bounces around, uh, many studios. Heckling reads it, knows she won't be the obvious choice, but also knows she knows these movies that are being spoofed better than anybody. Uh, she knew all the references. She could go on about the genre. So let me do it. And, uh, she specifically loves James Cagney, who is, I would say the most obvious sort of inspiration for.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  And appears like there's a specifically referenced in the movie.

• 48:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. The big, uh, final, uh, show showdown.

• 48:35David Sims?

  Yes. Um, and she grew up watching him, uh, and she loves James Cagney, who is great, to be clear. You know, she just has, she has profound. Memories of watching movies like Angels of Dirty Faces in the roaring twenties.

• 48:52Griffin Newman?

  We talked about it in our Fast Times episode, but like a lot of this generation of like filmmakers coming up in the first film school generation who were raised by like TV.

• 49:01David Sims?

  Yeah, they're watching reruns.

• 49:02Griffin Newman?

  Over and over again. A lot of the guys will talk about it being sci fi movies and westerns and this and that. It feels like Heckling from a small age really kind of locked in on gangster pictures.

• 49:13David Sims?

  Her big, yeah, right. Her big memory is that, you know, at the end of these Cagney movies, he dies. Cause back in the day, you know, yeah.

• 49:18Griffin Newman?

  Top of the world.

• 49:19David Sims?

  Gangster had to die. Uh, that one's white heat. That one's fucked up. Um, but you know, even.

• 49:23Griffin Newman?

  No, I think that's normal. He's got a good relationship with his mom.

• 49:26David Sims?

  He loves his mommy. Uh, even in Angels and Dirty Faces, he goes to the electric chair. And when she was a kid, she freaked out after watching it and she, cause she was like, he's dead. And her mom had to sit her down and be like, it's a movie, you know? He didn't really die. Don't worry. But like she had to like, so like, don't worry. That wasn't like a projection of real life that you just watched.

• 49:47Griffin Newman?

  As we all learn about death from James Cagney films.

• 49:50David Sims?

  Exactly. And so this is lodged in her brain.

• 49:53Griffin Newman?

  Train moment. Right. Like literally the idea of like pulling apart the artifice of the gangster movie. Yeah.

• 49:59David Sims?

  Um, so the script is floating around. Heckling is interested. Uh, and um, she, you know, is sort of like into the idea of satirizing something that a lot of people won't even know or remember. This is pre DVDs, right? Like lots of people just maybe have never seen these movies. Um, and uh, lots of other writers come aboard and in and out. Neil Israel, who is not credited, but was credited as Amy Heckerling's husband in that she married him.

• 50:34Griffin Newman?

  I believe he gets a credit. He, in the end credits, he gets a call out as like special medical consultant.

• 50:41David Sims?

  Uh, him and Pat. Him and Pat Proft are both credited for that. That's a script doctor joke. Get it? Doctor. But Pat Proft came up with, um. Your testicles and you, that whole little segment.

• 50:54Speaker 03

  I, I would say that's one of the parts that worked the least.

• 50:56David Sims?

  She says, she says, uh, it didn't fit, but people laughed, so.

• 51:01Griffin Newman?

  It's such a weird.

• 51:03David Sims?

  It's a really weird thing in the middle of the movie.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  And not to call forward too far, but it reminds me of the, like, her comfort with that. It reminds me of kind of the opening to Look Who's Talking.

• 51:16David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:17David Sims?

  I mean, sure.

• 51:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 51:18David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 51:19Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 51:20David Sims?

  And that's her finding maybe a more, whatever, resonant or universal, like, take, yes.

• 51:25Speaker 03

  And much more apt for the movie, although still weird.

• 51:28David Sims?

  Yeah, well, it's a movie about baby.

• 51:30Griffin Newman?

  Um, it's a movie about baby.

• 51:31David Sims?

  Michael Keaton.

• 51:33Griffin Newman?

  Michael Keaton.

• 51:34David Sims?

  Had appeared in a little film about a Mr. Mom in 1983. That was Fox's biggest comedy, I think, biggest hit of the year, not just comedy, biggest movie of 1983.

• 51:46Griffin Newman?

  It was a very big hit.

• 51:48David Sims?

  So he signs a giant contract with Fox that guaranteed the next four of his five films would be Fox.

• 51:54Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 51:54David Sims?

  Yes, which is interesting.

• 51:56Speaker 03

  The classic dentist ratio.

• 51:59David Sims?

  And they say, hey, you'll have creative input. You can pick your projects, maybe you even direct a movie. In one of those classic deals, Johnny Dangerously, which actually doesn't even count as part of the deal, because it, whatever, came together at a different time. He, he doesn't make another Fox movie.

• 52:16Griffin Newman?

  I was about to say, I'm like, looking through.

• 52:17David Sims?

  It's all bullshit, like, all these things are bullshit.

• 52:20Griffin Newman?

  But I just wanna, I wanna call out, as a bit of a Keaton historian, he is like, rocketed to stardom in Night Shift, right? Gets the kind of like, Jack Black and High Fidelity, like, perfect showcase for a guy, introduced to movie audiences, hits the screen immediately and is like, we want more of that guy. Has just been like, kicking around like sitcoms and stand-up and variety shows. That's basically his first movie appearance of any kind. Then it's like straight to Mr. Mom and then Johnny Dangerously in 1984. So he's had this insane ascension of like 82, who is that guy? 83, this guy's now the leading man in a big hit.

• 53:02Griffin Newman?

  And he played like a little more of a grown up than we thought he could do. Cause in night shift, he's just playing the wacky guy. At this point, he feels like invincible.

• 53:12David Sims?

  Famously, of course, Bill Simmons, one maybe greatest pop culture take is the market corrected by Tom Hanks, which I think is true.

• 53:19Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 53:20David Sims?

  Um, but we can get to that later.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  The next four years of Keaton are really bad. Between Johnny Dangerously and Beetlejuice and Clean and Sober in the same year in 88, like 86, 87, 85, it's like Keaton's fucked it up. And this is the moment where he like, kind of loses the heat. Although I vouch for this movie a hundred percent. The next couple of choices he makes are borderline terrible.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Cause this movie, even if it doesn't like, I get it as a movie that like anything can bomb. But again, I don't want, you don't watch Michael Keaton and go, this is an embarrassing swing.

• 53:56Griffin Newman?

  I don't think so. I think he's so good in it. And I think it's doing a thing that most people could not do. But I also, I also think it's like, not what the audience wants out of him. And I think the audience is just sort of like, what is this movie? Period.

• 54:09Speaker 03

  Yeah. And, and Amy Heckerling, I'm sorry, again, sorry if I'm cutting in on, I was, I was doing a little reading about this myself. And she, she has mentioned that she thought it didn't succeed at the box office in part because of the thing they're trying to do, which is parody movies that people weren't familiar with.

• 54:24David Sims?

  It's, it's just, it's too nerdy probably, but we'll get to that.

• 54:29Griffin Newman?

  Let's call it the other thing though, is like, there is this weird like man at a time thing with Keaton, right? Like there's something about him being able to play this very heightened old style of acting, but in this kind of modern, post-modern, like sort of snarky way and whatever. The year after this.

• 54:49Griffin Newman?

  His direct follow up to this is supposed to be Purple Rose of Cairo. They shoot three weeks with him in the Jeff Daniels role and Woody Allen fires him. And reshoots the whole movie because he says he's too modern.

• 55:02Speaker 03

  Weird.

• 55:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but it that feels like a weird straight line from that to this. And it was like, oh, he didn't work like playing old timey in a sincere context.

• 55:12Speaker 03

  That's really interesting.

• 55:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 55:14David Sims?

  Apparently, uh, Keaton, this is an aside, uh, but, uh, years later, um, the Pope, John Paul the second, uh, came to the United States and, uh, like he called or his office called Keaton and was like, we'd like to meet you. And Keaton's like, I'm not a practicing Catholic guy that feels disrespectful. And then they were like, we're big Johnny Dangerously fans.

• 55:39Griffin Newman?

  Wow. Look, this is one of the best Pope comedies.

• 55:43Speaker 03

  What is he? He gives them a bunch of money once he makes it as a gangster and goes, uh, build a new gym at the Vatican.

• 55:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then Don Dalloway's weighs it like it's a little light.

• 55:52David Sims?

  And, and basically Keaton's like, look, I'll do this if my mom can come. Cause my mom is like a real Catholic who like goes to church and cares about the Pope. So can like she come with me and like get blessed by the Pope?

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Kind of a huge flex.

• 56:05David Sims?

  A kind of a huge flex.

• 56:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 56:07David Sims?

  And it's a, like, again, once again, JJ has posted a four paragraph story in the middle of the research.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Good.

• 56:14David Sims?

  I can't, I can't read it word for word.

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Pope said absolutely not.

• 56:19David Sims?

  But, uh,

• 56:20Speaker 03

  You come alone.

• 56:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Or don't come at all.

• 56:23David Sims?

  He, uh, you know, uh, met, uh, the Pope.

• 56:28Griffin Newman?

  Wow.

• 56:28Speaker 03

  Huge finish to that story.

• 56:30David Sims?

  The Pope.

• 56:30Griffin Newman?

  He met a Pope.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  I just can't imagine, I guess it's a little different now that with Conclave out in the world, but I can't imagine Pope's watching movies.

• 56:39Griffin Newman?

  No, no, it is weird to think about. It's also weird to think about like, does like Vatican City have its own like a sort of closed circuit TV system like, like when you're at a college?

• 56:51Speaker 03

  On a cruise or something?

• 56:52Griffin Newman?

  Or a cruise, you know?

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:54Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like is Johnny Dangerously just one of only four movies that Vatican City has in rotation?

• 56:58David Sims?

  Maybe, I don't know. Maybe it's.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  Do they cut the movies for the Pope and take stuff out that might offend them?

• 57:05Griffin Newman?

  He's only seen the Pope scene.

• 57:10David Sims?

  My favorite like thought is just like, do they just decide they want Michael Keaton for some star power? And then he's like, oh, I don't know. And they're like, no, we love him. Dangerously, you know, like they pick a weird one. They don't want to be obvious to be like, we love Batman.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  They must be real fans.

• 57:25Griffin Newman?

  They're also like Catholic Church can't approve of night shift. Everyone says, Mr. Mom, what's third on the list?

• 57:33Speaker 03

  He's so funny. The Pope loves Beetlejuice.

• 57:36David Sims?

  Mary Lou Henner.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  That's not what it's really like.

• 57:40Griffin Newman?

  Mary Lou Henner. And let me just check my notes here quickly. Humana, humana, humana.

• 57:43David Sims?

  Beautiful woman, obviously had just been on Taxi, the great sitcom.

• 57:46Griffin Newman?

  Nardo.

• 57:48David Sims?

  She was cast supposedly because of a red carpet photo taken of her and her on and off boyfriend, John Travolta, who she dated for much of the seventies and so on. Johnny, as she says, took me to the staying alive premiere towards the end of my Tucson, Tucson shoot for Cannonball Run two. A lot of shit being brought up here.

• 58:13Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say a lot of normal things happening in the culture.

• 58:16David Sims?

  And I guess the picture made the front page of the some news, the LA Times calendar section. And she got cast in Johnny Dangerously off someone seeing the picture. I guess I'm being like, what a babe.

• 58:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I just, she also, she has the right look.

• 58:32David Sims?

  Yeah, she does. Sure. Piscopo had just finished SNL and Piscopo was kind of like, it's Keaton's movie and it's Mary, you know, Mary Lou and Maureen Stapleton and Peter Boyle. Like it's a cameo for me. Like he's very like, you know, what's the word? Humble about it.

• 58:53Griffin Newman?

  But the poster, they got a box around his name. It's a box. It's a box in the credit.

• 58:58David Sims?

  He does get it.

• 58:59Griffin Newman?

  Piscopo as Vermin.

• 59:00David Sims?

  As Vermin. And of course he's, he's the, he's, his face is as big as Keaton's on the poster.

• 59:04Griffin Newman?

  Have you guys seen the trailer for this movie?

• 59:07David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, no, I watch it every day. Actually, I watch it when I wake up. I watch it before I go to sleep. No, why would I see the trailer?

• 59:13Speaker 03

  David likes to wake up dangerously.

• 59:16Griffin Newman?

  He lives dangerously. He sleeps dangerously. He has it running in headphones while he sleeps. The trailer for this movie is very cool because it falls into the category I love of trailers that had footage shot only for the trailer. The trailer is a projectionist booth and it says like this theater right now.

• 59:36David Sims?

  Oh, fun.

• 59:37Griffin Newman?

  Piscopo walks in as Johnny Vermin and like holds the projectionist hostage and basically sells you on the movie.

• 59:44David Sims?

  Okay. And that's them trying to cash in on Piscopo.

• 59:48Griffin Newman?

  That's what I'm saying. I'm like, the trailer is like Joe Piscopo presents his new movie Johnny dangerously. He does the one stroke. It's good.

• 59:57David Sims?

  He followed this up, of course, with Wise Guys and that's kind of the end of that for Joe Piscopo. Like Hollywood pretty quickly is like, okay, you're sort of a footnote. All the other big stars, of course, Stapleton, Boyle, DeVito, Jack Nance, you mentioned Carl Gottlieb's in this. Griffin Dunn is, this is in between American Werewolf in London and After Hours. So Griffin Dunn is, you know, he's working.

• 1:00:24David Sims?

  And he is, obviously his sister Dominique Dunn was murdered in 82. So that's, he's in the middle of that. While this is being filmed, a very famous, you know, shocking Hollywood murder. And he is good in the movie, but he's the least like comic, I guess.

• 1:00:45Griffin Newman?

  I love him.

• 1:00:46David Sims?

  I mean, I love Griffin Dunn. I know he's a big guy for you.

• 1:00:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he's very endearing.

• 1:00:50David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Griffin Newman?

  But there is, I think it's a disservice that the thing they give him, like the big comedic angle is like, he's so horny.

• 1:00:59David Sims?

  Yeah, it's an interesting, I think he maybe doesn't play the horniness enough in a way. The joke is funny.

• 1:01:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:01:07David Sims?

  It's, yeah.

• 1:01:08Speaker 03

  I think the payoff is less funny than the setup.

• 1:01:11David Sims?

  He plays like the righteousness well, you know, like the kind of, yeah.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  As the like, the do gooder kid brother.

• 1:01:18Griffin Newman?

  I think he doesn't really get jokes in this movie. He doesn't get like moments to score. It's one of the, I mean, he's kind of like got the thankless role in a certain way.

• 1:01:30David Sims?

  And he's kind of the guy, right? Who bursts into the movie being like, everyone stop having fun.

• 1:01:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. But I also think he's like really good at playing the, the kind of comedic pitch of the character, if that makes sense. Like he's doing a good parody of this type of role. And the, the kind of obliviousness and the sort of wet behind the ears naive like, wow, what a great big world, uh, kind of thing.

• 1:01:54David Sims?

  What's the last time you directed a movie?

• 1:01:56Griffin Newman?

  It's been a while. He's sort of had a, another wind as an actor.

• 1:01:59David Sims?

  Uh, we're, and right, we're not counting the Joan Didion, it's the accidental husband. Right. Okay. Um, he's a good director or I like, I'm a big fan, obviously of some of his movies. Addicted to love and practical magic, to be clear. Johnny dangerously, uh, budget $9 million, shot in LA on sound stages. Might surprise you to hear a lot of this movie was filmed on soundstage.

• 1:02:21Griffin Newman?

  It's just another one of the jokes I love immediately in the opening narration is like all the immigrants moved to New York City in what felt like a two block stretch.

• 1:02:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  Which I'm like, oh, they're making the joke right off the bat about like, this is like the backlot in New York City street that every studio has. That looks big as long as you never go past these two blocks.

• 1:02:39Speaker 03

  It's fun. I loved all that little framing stuff at the beginning, saying, uh, my mother, she had this way with words. And she just goes, the lower east side really sucks. I just liked it.

• 1:02:51Griffin Newman?

  Right out of the gate, this movie has like 15 jokes I like, like rat a tat tat, like right away. Yeah.

• 1:02:58David Sims?

  Everyone had fun making this movie.

• 1:02:59Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 1:03:00David Sims?

  Um, but.

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  Did you say good?

• 1:03:02Griffin Newman?

  Good.

• 1:03:05David Sims?

  Henner, this is Merrily Henner's quote. You know, you're in trouble when the rap party lasts until 6:30 in the morning and the director shows up with a dog collar around her neck. Go off, Amy. Uh, and you sit around and watch a gag reel of the shoot. It's the kiss of death. It means you had way too much fun making the movie and too much of the energy dissipated before you actually got it on screen. When I finally got to see the film, I was in shock. 90% of the fun we had was missing from the movie. So everyone's having a good time, but maybe they're not figuring out how to cut that all together. I don't know. Henner says that Heckling was maybe talked out of some of the zany stuff she wanted to do, uh, but Henner seems to be very unhappy with the movie. The movie tested poorly.

• 1:03:48David Sims?

  And so I think they did mess with it a lot, uh, trying to figure out how to kind of, you know, soften it, I think for the audience a little bit. Heaton dies in the original, uh, incarnation of the film.

• 1:04:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, interesting. So was the whole framing.

• 1:04:02David Sims?

  And audiences hated that.

• 1:04:04Griffin Newman?

  That makes sense.

• 1:04:04David Sims?

  So they made it slapstick and, you know, yeah, did the framing device.

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  The framing device feels note-y.

• 1:04:11Griffin Newman?

  It does. Like, we need to start the movie, letting you know that this guy's good.

• 1:04:15Speaker 03

  He's gonna be fine.

• 1:04:16Griffin Newman?

  That he's gonna be fine and he's gonna make it to the other side.

• 1:04:19Speaker 03

  And that we're watching a thing that's like an old timey thing. We're not just starting in 1910.

• 1:04:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  We're in 19, we're starting in the future and he's looking back. That's why we're in the past.

• 1:04:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. You start in the very modern 1930s. So the audience isn't thrown off.

• 1:04:33David Sims?

  There was also, there was a thought to film the film in black and white and Heckling decided to do color and somewhat regrets that decision, but I don't know. The color is not, this movie is like visually exciting and bouncy.

• 1:04:48David Sims?

  Weird Al Yankovic, the great Weird Al Yankovic, of course, does the, the song, uh, This Is The Life. And I think you did a good job.

• 1:04:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, this is maybe a moment where Josh and I are like, couldn't be more in, and you guys are pushing back a little bit.

• 1:05:02Speaker 03

  Although the version I saw, I found that out later, the version I saw started with Let's Misbehave, because, which, I, cause I saw like a rip of the video version.

• 1:05:11David Sims?

  A contract dispute between the film's producers and CBS Records, who I guess own the Weird Al catalog. And so his song was not included in the VHS release of the film. It was instead replaced by Let's Misbehave.

• 1:05:25Griffin Newman?

  Which they use in the end credits.

• 1:05:26David Sims?

  Has been restored to the DVD release.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  Okay, uh, cause even in the Piscopo trailer, they call out, the announcer says, opening song by Weird Al.

• 1:05:35David Sims?

  So that is kind of.

• 1:05:37Griffin Newman?

  Weird Al was big.

• 1:05:37David Sims?

  I'm, that, it must be really.

• 1:05:39Speaker 03

  As big as they pretend he was in the movie about Weird Al.

• 1:05:42David Sims?

  I Love Rocky Road, which I feel like was his, one of his first big ones.

• 1:05:47Griffin Newman?

  Tangent coming.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  Yeah, comes out in 83, so just a year, so it's like, he's just started being a big deal.

• 1:05:53Griffin Newman?

  This is Tom Green and Road Trip. This is them going like, we're the first movie that gets to bottle Weird Al and put him on the big screen.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  We're gonna ride that lightning.

• 1:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02David Sims?

  We, and he, and he, it was lightning.

• 1:06:04Griffin Newman?

  So let's go, okay, so wait, I Love Rocky Road had happened, had My Bologna happened?

• 1:06:07David Sims?

  My Bologna is on the same album as I Love Rocky Road.

• 1:06:11Griffin Newman?

  But I think that was the Dr. Demento track that put him on the map in the first place.

• 1:06:14David Sims?

  So maybe that comes first.

• 1:06:15Griffin Newman?

  What about Another One Rides the Bus?

• 1:06:17David Sims?

  That's earlier. So the whole thing with My Bologna, I think it's like, he does the original, Ben has a scathing look on his face.

• 1:06:23Griffin Newman?

  I'm thrilled with what's happening.

• 1:06:24David Sims?

  I love Weird Al.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  I just can't believe that just.

• 1:06:27Griffin Newman?

  How quickly, yes, I'm trying to stop this.

• 1:06:29David Sims?

  The whole thing with My Bologna, right, is the original version of his, the one he did in his bathroom with a squeeze box, right, uh, to get the acoustics.

• 1:06:36Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:06:37David Sims?

  And that's the one that Dr. Demento plays. And then he does Another One Rides the Bus, which is an EP. And then he does his first full album in 1983, and that has, of course, I Love Rocky Road.

• 1:06:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:50David Sims?

  Which, which you may or may not know, is a parody of Joan Jett's, uh, I Love Rock and Roll.

• 1:06:54Speaker 03

  Okay, I thought that was an original.

• 1:06:59Griffin Newman?

  Josh, you, you made the embarrassing mistake of thinking that I Love Rock and Roll was a parody of I Love Rocky Road.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah. No, it's a common mistake.

• 1:07:07David Sims?

  Ben, what's your favorite Weird Al song?

• 1:07:09Speaker 03

  Uh, The Coolio.

• 1:07:11David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:11Speaker 03

  Amish Paradise.

• 1:07:12David Sims?

  That is really good.

• 1:07:13Griffin Newman?

  His biggest hit.

• 1:07:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15David Sims?

  I love Weird Al. I love that he's still just doing it.

• 1:07:17Griffin Newman?

  Okay, wait, I want to figure out what else is on that first album.

• 1:07:19David Sims?

  Okay, well, I can tell you that, and I think this is true of a lot of those early Weird Al albums, you know, it's half original songs, half parodies.

• 1:07:26Griffin Newman?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:07:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so I'm not, I'm not gonna get your.

• 1:07:29David Sims?

  I Love Rocky Road, My Bologna and Another One Rides the Bus. Do you want me to tell you the other?

• 1:07:33Speaker 03

  And then.

• 1:07:34David Sims?

  Two parodies?

• 1:07:35Speaker 03

  This is the original version of Nothing Compares to You was on this.

• 1:07:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, people forget that.

• 1:07:40Speaker 03

  He wrote it.

• 1:07:42David Sims?

  Prince, right.

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  Adapted it.

• 1:07:44David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah. Uh, he's also got Ricky, which is a parody of Mickey, and, uh, Stop Draggin' My Car Around, which is a, uh, parody of the Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty song Stop Draggin' My Heart Around. And then there is, um, a song called Happy Birthday that apparently is noted here as a style parody of Tonya K. Don't know what to tell you. And then a bunch of original songs, you know? And then In 3D is the next album, and that is a little more like, pretty much all parodies, a couple of original songs. That's got Eat It.

• 1:08:18Griffin Newman?

  Does it have Like a Surgeon or is that where?

• 1:08:21David Sims?

  No, it's got The Brady Bunch, which is a parody of The Safety Dance. Wow. Maybe I should go deep on Al.

• 1:08:29Speaker 03

  I, um, he's probably said this other places, but he.

• 1:08:32David Sims?

  Like a Surgeon's on his third album, of course, which is called Daredevil.

• 1:08:35Griffin Newman?

  Great.

• 1:08:35Speaker 03

  I.

• 1:08:35Griffin Newman?

  Right, that's the big one.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  I did a Wait Wait where he was the special interview guest.

• 1:08:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  Very intimidated.

• 1:08:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  And.

• 1:08:41Griffin Newman?

  But he's so sweet.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  He was so lovely.

• 1:08:43David Sims?

  Right, he's so lovely.

• 1:08:44Griffin Newman?

  The second nicest man in comedy behind Josh Diamond.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  That's right. Don't come for my crown, Al, because it will not go well for you. But he said his, one of the like white whales of parody was he reached out to Prince about doing a parody and Prince said like, no, thank you. And he respected his wishes.

• 1:09:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  But the, the one that he had pitched, and I'm sure he said this other places, was for UHF, they wanted to do a song called 1999, but like as a Ron Popeil, like all it, it costs is three installments of 1999.

• 1:09:15Griffin Newman?

  Funny.

• 1:09:15Speaker 03

  And I was like, that's why you're the king.

• 1:09:17Griffin Newman?

  That's why he's the king. I've always liked that about him, the gentlemanly sort of like, I don't need to legally clear this, but I won't do it unless you're cool with it.

• 1:09:25David Sims?

  I think it is Coolio, right? Where, where he had the experience of Coolio being like, fuck that guy. And him being like, well, I don't want, ever want to like bum anyone out. So I'll always clear. But then Coolio later was like, I don't know what my problem was. The song is good. Like, I think I was just too famous. I was like going insane.

• 1:09:42Griffin Newman?

  Didn't like Amish Paradise outsell Gangsta's Paradise?

• 1:09:46David Sims?

  Here's the real question.

• 1:09:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:09:48David Sims?

  Is Coolio a good rapper? Is Coolio good?

• 1:09:51Griffin Newman?

  Huge question.

• 1:09:52David Sims?

  Because like Gangsta's Paradise is great.

• 1:09:54Griffin Newman?

  He did pass away recently, right? We're speaking of the dead.

• 1:09:56David Sims?

  Yes. He died in 2022. And I think Coolio is a celebrity we all enjoy. We all enjoy gentle.

• 1:10:03Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm gonna say this, great hair. I couldn't have loved him more as a celebrity in the 90s.

• 1:10:09David Sims?

  I mean, Coolio is where it's like Keenan and Kel, where they're like, obviously our first choice to do the theme song is Coolio. Like, you know, like that is the king of children.

• 1:10:16Griffin Newman?

  I see that opening and I go like, got it. So he's the most important musician alive.

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  But Gangsta's Paradise was also like a big.

• 1:10:22David Sims?

  This is a good song.

• 1:10:23Speaker 03

  Good song, big, nominated for a bunch of Grammys.

• 1:10:26David Sims?

  Right. Big hits. Yeah. And obviously it was Dangerous Minds.

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:10:30David Sims?

  And Dangerous Minds, the movie. And like, but like, is Coolio good?

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  It's a great question. I think he's kind of more a novelty act.

• 1:10:38David Sims?

  He's corny, but then he had like a long career with a lot of albums. And I do feel like it, early on, was he a little more?

• 1:10:46Griffin Newman?

  My Soul was the album I owned. I had My Soul.

• 1:10:50David Sims?

  My Soul is his third album that's post Gangsta's Paradise. And that's got Ooh La La.

• 1:10:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56David Sims?

  Good song. And See When You Get There, where he's sampling Paco Bell's Cannon.

• 1:11:00Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 1:11:01David Sims?

  And it's one of those things where I'm like, well, that doesn't sound that cool.

• 1:11:04Griffin Newman?

  No, but it sounds good. It's maybe more Goodyo than Coolio.

• 1:11:10David Sims?

  I'm changing my name to Coolio. I no longer care about being cool.

• 1:11:15Speaker 03

  I don't know if I get to assign these, but five weird album.

• 1:11:18Griffin Newman?

  Is anything more cool than not caring about whether others think you're cool?

• 1:11:22David Sims?

  Do you think Coolio was saying that at like, sort of to the media?

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:27David Sims?

  No, Ben, what's your, what's your?

• 1:11:28Speaker 04

  I was just gonna say, looking at someone's like record collection, if they had a later Coolio or early Coolio album, I would be like, this is a weird ass person.

• 1:11:39Griffin Newman?

  Well, there's just something about to invite you over to my place.

• 1:11:43David Sims?

  I remember like having friends who owned Gangsta's Paradise, the second album, which is obviously the big breakup. But right after that, I don't know if I'm like, let me hit up Virgin Megastore.

• 1:11:53Griffin Newman?

  When you say late Coolio album, what's your cutoff point? Are we talking Coolio.com?

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  I have no idea.

• 1:11:58David Sims?

  His fourth album is called Coolio.com.

• 1:12:00Speaker 03

  I love that era of things. Albums were called like, I think Trick Daddy had an album called like www.thug.com.

• 1:12:08David Sims?

  It was just for like a year or two, right? Where it was just like, websites are new.

• 1:12:12Speaker 03

  And then like iParty, wasn't it like iParty.com or like every?

• 1:12:16Griffin Newman?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:12:17Speaker 03

  I just love that idea when everything was like, we have to be named after the internet.

• 1:12:20David Sims?

  Not to invoke, you know, Mr. Kelly, but also R. Kelly's, uh, fourth album was called TP2.com. People forget. Uh, yeah, after Coolio.com is how cool.

• 1:12:32Speaker 03

  I like.

• 1:12:33Griffin Newman?

  Is that a cutoff point for you, Ben? Does that count as a late album?

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  I'm literally sore.

• 1:12:38David Sims?

  Cut off is like a speck at this point.

• 1:12:40Speaker 03

  Like Ben is so far. Ben is like tapping out, gasping for air. The taps are getting fitter.

• 1:12:46David Sims?

  I think as much as I am famously hip hop Sims, I think I am not up enough on Coolio's like emergence, right? As like an artist to know if he ever had much cred, right? You know what I mean? Because the whole thing with Gangsta's Paradise is like, the sample is so good. Right?

• 1:13:03Speaker 03

  And the, the, uh, LV singing that bridge in the chorus is just like, it just go, it's so, yeah, it's great.

• 1:13:11David Sims?

  But he's not bad. Rappin', he's alright.

• 1:13:15Griffin Newman?

  Let's also acknowledge, like, him being eight-year-old Griffin Newman's idol doesn't lend him a ton of cred.

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  I was very young and surprisingly very white at the time. And so it is like the kind of thing where I'm like, yeah, similar to you, Griffin, where I was like, this is cool, which probably means it isn't cool.

• 1:13:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. The fact that I liked him is kind of a strike against him, that he was kind of the king of Nickelodeon. I do, this is somewhat embarrassing to admit. I remember seeing an ad during probably a Nickelodeon show for his album, My Soul, and thinking to myself, I really want that, but my parents don't respect hip hop. They'd never buy it for me, not saying it out loud. And then months later, finding it under the tree on Christmas.

• 1:14:00Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:14:00Griffin Newman?

  And citing it as evidence that Santa Claus was real.

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  Oh, and, and respected hip hop.

• 1:14:06Griffin Newman?

  I doubled down on Santa for like a couple more years because of Coolio.

• 1:14:11David Sims?

  I refuse to believe that my parents thought to get me.

• 1:14:14Griffin Newman?

  How did they know? I distinctly remember being too embarrassed to tell them.

• 1:14:18Speaker 03

  You thought Santa read your thoughts?

• 1:14:20Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:14:21Speaker 03

  And then was like, I got him.

• 1:14:23Griffin Newman?

  Cause I definitely didn't put it in a list.

• 1:14:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:14:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I was like, Santa, not only is Santa real, he can read minds.

• 1:14:29Speaker 03

  That is pretty good deductive reasoning.

• 1:14:32Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. Santa's got cerebro and he knows I like Coolio.

• 1:14:36Speaker 03

  He knows when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.

• 1:14:38Griffin Newman?

  I mean.

• 1:14:38Speaker 03

  He knows your favorite hip hop artist.

• 1:14:40Griffin Newman?

  If he knows when you're sleeping, when you're awake, when you're good or bad for goodness sake, a reason, you know, to believe that he might also know which hip hop artist you like. Yes.

• 1:14:52David Sims?

  It's interesting though, because I read about him and it's like, yeah, he, uh, it's, he was asthmatic. So he grew up kind of like sheltered and didn't go out much, uh, and like went to the library a lot apparently and played board games. But then he did, you know, uh, serve a little prison time for larceny and was addicted to crack in the eighties for a little bit. So like, he had hard times in his life. And then, but I do think he kind of always was a little corny.

• 1:15:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18David Sims?

  A little corny.

• 1:15:19Griffin Newman?

  A little corny.

• 1:15:20David Sims?

  Uh, which is fine.

• 1:15:21Griffin Newman?

  Can I swing back to the, the Mary Lou Henner point?

• 1:15:24David Sims?

  Uh, that's interesting. You don't want to do 10 to 15 more in cooler. Yeah. Mary Lou Henner.

• 1:15:28Griffin Newman?

  Trust me, we will get back to.

• 1:15:29David Sims?

  Mary Lou Henner saying like, basically like, we all had so much fun, but I don't see it on screen.

• 1:15:34Griffin Newman?

  There is this. You hear that a lot. I feel like especially with comedies where people are like terrible, shoot, great movie. If you're having too much fun, something's wrong. The energy's not getting captured in the right place. Um, and I even feel like a lot of times when, when stars have finished filming a comedy and are talking to the press and they're like, we had so much fun filming it that I don't think it's going to turn out well. Like they're trying to own the joke of it. Um, Mary Lou Henner also famously, uh, autobiographical memory.

• 1:16:05David Sims?

  Yes, she has hyperthymesia, uh, which is essentially a sort of super memory of like being able to recall like all of her life experiences in detail.

• 1:16:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I've like, watched the, I think it was the 60 Minutes segment where she sort of came forward with her experiences with that, which was not public about for a while. And they talked to other, uh, people who have experienced this. And the thing that is like not discussed as much is like, oh, you can ask Mary Lou Henner any specific date and she will tell you like the weather and what she wore and everything. The thing they don't talk about is like, it is emotional as well. That not only do you like recall the detail of everything, but you feel it as you think it. And like in that 60 Minutes special, there are women who are just like, I like still can't get over my high school breakup because I wake up every morning and it feels like it just happened. It is like that present

• 1:16:58Griffin Newman?

  to me. So the idea of the Johnny Dangerously rap party outtakes real being played while Amy Heckerling wins, wears a dog collar. And Mary Lou Henner is like, this movie's not going to be a hit. Being a thing she wakes up with every morning and feels deeply, but you also, she's coming off one of the best sitcoms of the seventies and the eighties. And she's starting to do movies. And then like the movie career that I think she should have had, like immediately kind of doesn't happen in the wake of Johnny Dangerously. It's not like this movie's designed to make her a star, but I also think like her looking back on it harshly probably is like the momentum stops here.

• 1:17:37David Sims?

  For sure. I mean, she doesn't become a movie star at all. Josh, what's your Mary Lou Henner take?

• 1:17:42Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I was just gonna say, it, the, she doesn't have a ton of fun to do, kind of in the same way that Griffin Dunn doesn't.

• 1:17:51David Sims?

  Right. That's true. This is also the, the most thankless of the big roles, probably. And she looks good.

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  I feel like they let her deliver more jokes, but this, but she's more often the subject of the joke than she gets to make it.

• 1:18:04Griffin Newman?

  She does get to make some.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 1:18:05Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  But they give her, it's a lot of like, it's a, right, about her, people talking about her. And, uh, and, and I think it's like a little slight compared to even some of the small, like, um, Johnny's, Johnny and Tommy's mother gets like a lot of great jokes.

• 1:18:21Griffin Newman?

  It also feels like Mary Lou disappears for like the middle 40 minutes of the movie.

• 1:18:26David Sims?

  She doesn't really matter in the plot a lot. She kind of just pops in and out.

• 1:18:31Griffin Newman?

  She comes back at the end and is like, oh, Vermin's trying to make me his girl. Here's information. And you're like, where have you been for the last 40 minutes? Like the, the whole her getting in with Vermin thing.

• 1:18:41David Sims?

  It's like, I can tell you everywhere that I've been in the last 40 minutes.

• 1:18:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, I know it's true. Happens entirely off screen.

• 1:18:46David Sims?

  And one day CBS will make a, a movie about, a TV show about my condition.

• 1:18:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:51David Sims?

  Unforgettable.

• 1:18:52Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:18:52Speaker 03

  She now sees the future.

• 1:18:54Griffin Newman?

  She has a credit on and then also.

• 1:18:55David Sims?

  She was like a consultant.

• 1:18:56Griffin Newman?

  Plays the, her mother or some shit. Yeah.

• 1:18:59David Sims?

  Interesting. I mean, I, her big thing after this is Evening Shade, right? Like that's her sort of, like she eventually ends up back in TV. But she does not become a movie star. She isn't like, she's in Noises Off.

• 1:19:10Griffin Newman?

  She's in stuff. She's in LA Story.

• 1:19:12David Sims?

  Yeah. She's in LA Story, which is good.

• 1:19:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:15David Sims?

  But it's specific, you know?

• 1:19:17Griffin Newman?

  But yes, this was, it is this era where like, if you're on a good TV show and you got the it factor, they're gonna give you like two or three shots to be a movie star.

• 1:19:26David Sims?

  And a couple of bites of the apple.

• 1:19:27Griffin Newman?

  And if it doesn't work and you go back to TV, it does kind of feel like a concession in a way that is so hard to think about now.

• 1:19:34Speaker 03

  It's so different.

• 1:19:34Griffin Newman?

  Relative to like DeVito in this, where you're like, of that taxicast, that is the guy I would least bet on.

• 1:19:43Griffin Newman?

  To become a leading star.

• 1:19:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Griffin Newman?

  Right? And like, this is the era where you're just like, DeVito doing like this level of thing and Johnny dangerously makes so much sense. But the ascension from being like, of course, DeVito, great character actor to one of the biggest value adds in a supporting role to DeVito makes movies, like constructs vehicles around himself, directs and writes and stars in his own films. It's just kind of wild.

• 1:20:12David Sims?

  This is still his supporting king era for sure. He basically is rude gambler in this movie. Like from Mars Attacks.

• 1:20:21Griffin Newman?

  But I think his.

• 1:20:22David Sims?

  No, he's funny, but it's just like, he's just dropping in to do a couple funny scenes.

• 1:20:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. Right. Which is like very similar to his terms of endearment role.

• 1:20:28David Sims?

  Yep. Obviously something like Romancing the Stone is a little more filled out, but he's a supporting player still.

• 1:20:34Griffin Newman?

  Romancing the Stone feels like it is supposed to be the same size role as this. And he starts over delivering so much that he becomes more important in the movie. But if you actually clock him, he doesn't have that much screening time. And that feels like people being like, fuck, do we start to like write these movies around him?

• 1:20:51David Sims?

  Uh, I love DeVito. I never want to lose the man. Uh, like, can we get 10, 20, 30 more years of Danny DeVito?

• 1:20:59Griffin Newman?

  Let's put some air tags on him.

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  He's 80.

• 1:21:02Griffin Newman?

  I'm not a person.

• 1:21:03David Sims?

  DeVito's 80.

• 1:21:03Speaker 03

  That's fucking crazy.

• 1:21:04David Sims?

  And he's still just doing Sonny.

• 1:21:06Speaker 03

  And, and the Jersey Mike's commercials.

• 1:21:09David Sims?

  Wow.

• 1:21:10Speaker 03

  I don't get super invested in like celebrity relationships, but that brief period where it was public that he and Rhea Perlman had separated for a short time. I remember being like, oh, love isn't real.

• 1:21:22David Sims?

  That was a little shocking.

• 1:21:23Griffin Newman?

  But then they like got back together. Now they're sort of like together with distance.

• 1:21:27David Sims?

  They've got a Tracy Let's Carry Coon thing going on. You don't believe in boundaries.

• 1:21:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:34Griffin Newman?

  But that was, that's just like one of the most perfect celebrity couples of all time. Yeah.

• 1:21:38David Sims?

  Did you hear Carrie Kuhn on WTF?

• 1:21:40Griffin Newman?

  I haven't listened yet.

• 1:21:41David Sims?

  So I haven't either. Fran, last night I saw Fran, she was telling me, you gotta listen. And she was like, yeah. Uh, she was like, Carrie just is keeps being like, my old husband with his DVDs. Like that. She's not like, oh, I love DVDs. That she's like, Tracy's crazy.

• 1:21:55Griffin Newman?

  The clip of her on Fallon promoting Ghostbusters colon Frozen Empire, when I feel like was the first time she really started publicly talking about the physical media collection. And she's like, doing it in this sort of like, screwball comedy, like affectation voice, where she goes, my husband has 10,000 Blu-rays. And every time I hear her say it, it's just like full body shivers. Like, why is this the sexiest thing I've ever heard?

• 1:22:21David Sims?

  Coolest.

• 1:22:22Griffin Newman?

  She is.

• 1:22:23David Sims?

  Coolest.

• 1:22:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:24David Sims?

  All right. So Donny.

• 1:22:25Griffin Newman?

  10,000 Blu-

• 1:22:26David Sims?

  Johnny Dangerously.

• 1:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Johnny Dangerously.

• 1:22:28David Sims?

  It's about, uh.

• 1:22:30Griffin Newman?

  You open with Kelly's pets.

• 1:22:32David Sims?

  You got this, you got this framing device. Yeah.

• 1:22:35Speaker 03

  But I would call it kind of in the unfrosted vein.

• 1:22:38David Sims?

  It's Clifford-esque as well.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right.

• 1:22:42David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:22:43Griffin Newman?

  Did you ever get unfrosted?

• 1:22:44David Sims?

  I, we've talked about this. Your memory is gone.

• 1:22:47Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry. I, it is. The unfrosted framing device is the most insane shit in the world.

• 1:22:51Speaker 03

  No reason for it. Although I think maybe the best joke in the movie is the little kid sitting at the soda fountain and going, two Pop-Tarts leave the box.

• 1:22:59Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that is funny.

• 1:23:01David Sims?

  I, I just couldn't hate unfrosted. But I mean, the whole movie is, why does this exist? Certainly.

• 1:23:09Speaker 03

  A question even Jerry Seinfeld himself cannot answer and has declined to.

• 1:23:12Griffin Newman?

  I think part of my, I can't hate unfrosted is getting back to your original point. It's like, we don't get this kind of shit anymore. Uh, like, I don't find the majority of this funny, but I like that he made it. Whereas everyone else is like, why spend this much time and energy making something this stupid? I'm like, this is what our country was founded on.

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  I wish he spent more time and energy making something that stupid because it feels like, and there is, I think there's a, there's something to be done with a genre parody of this genre of a company existed, which is so many movies now are that. And I think there's, there is a genre parody in there, but I don't think Jerry Seinfeld. Thought about that or cared to do that?

• 1:23:55Griffin Newman?

  That was irrelevant.

• 1:23:55Speaker 03

  He was just like, I like Pop Tarts. This is funny to me.

• 1:23:58Griffin Newman?

  But you're right that the Clifford's framing device is the same thing of like, we want to tell the audience, this guy is okay before the movie starts. The one reason I don't bump on this is I do think Keaton's performance is so funny in the wraparound, being the kind of like G-Shocks guy. And there are even just some little throwaway gags of him doing the Price sticker gun on the

• 1:24:18Speaker 03

  On the animals, yep.

• 1:24:19Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff like that where I'm just like, this movie has like a level of like comedic invention.

• 1:24:26Speaker 03

  And there are, I love, I like that there are jokes in that and it's not just like a dry setup. The kid

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:24:32Speaker 03

  is stealing a dog and he goes, he likes stealing and the kid goes, beats paying for it. And it's like, that's a cute little joke.

• 1:24:38Griffin Newman?

  This movie just for me is on the right line of like, something like the Friedberg Seltzer movies, which are so overzealous in their attempt to have like no down moments. And yet nothing is actually really a joke. There's something that resembles a joke every two seconds, but if you look at it, you're like, that's just them doing the thing and pointing at it, or someone getting kicked in the nuts, right? Whereas this is like trying not to go more than five seconds without something funny happening, but that can be like a visual gag, a written gag, it can be a reaction, it can be the way someone says something. Like it feels versatile enough in the way it is exploring, how can you make a movie funny?

• 1:25:17Speaker 03

  Right. Some just genre cues of like, oh, where you're going to look at this thing that kind of blows out the convention and yeah.

• 1:25:25Speaker 04

  A term I feel like we should be using for this movie is wacky.

• 1:25:29Griffin Newman?

  It is a very wacky.

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  I'll give you wacky.

• 1:25:30Speaker 04

  Yes. There's a lot of wacky moments, but wacky isn't necessarily like laugh out loud funny.

• 1:25:37Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 1:25:38David Sims?

  One could say that that's how we feel about it, you and I. But then again, but then I love Weird Al, who is wacky.

• 1:25:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Well, I'd say he's more weird.

• 1:25:49David Sims?

  What's, what's, what's giving you that feeling about him?

• 1:25:51Griffin Newman?

  His basic temperament.

• 1:25:54David Sims?

  So, Ja, we flashback to the 19 teens and he's a newsboy.

• 1:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Trying to steal the, the pair, or no, he's trying to steal a puppy.

• 1:26:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:03Griffin Newman?

  And John gave just.

• 1:26:04David Sims?

  With the framing device. Let's move on.

• 1:26:06Griffin Newman?

  I used to be bad like you. Let me tell you how I got good.

• 1:26:09David Sims?

  He's a kid. He's a newsboy in New York City. He's a good boy. He's played by, uh, by Byron Thames, uh, who, uh, has got a, you know, a little face.

• 1:26:19Griffin Newman?

  He does indeed have a little.

• 1:26:21David Sims?

  Doesn't really look like, uh, but is most famously the, uh, parent of Hudson Thames.

• 1:26:27Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:26:27David Sims?

  Who is the voice of Peter Parker in lots of things, I will say.

• 1:26:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:26:32David Sims?

  A little fact I have for you there.

• 1:26:33Griffin Newman?

  He's connected to the Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher. I'm just seeing sister in law of.

• 1:26:40David Sims?

  Oh, well, he must have, uh, he married Trisha Fisher, who is the son of Eddie Fisher and the half was the half sister of Carrie Fisher. Different, uh, mommy. He's a good little newsboy. His mother, in my opinion, may be the comedic powerhouse of the film, Mary Stapleton. So fucking funny.

• 1:27:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:01David Sims?

  Is, this is right when she's just like won an Oscar, like she wins an Oscar for Reds and it won as 82, right? Let's see, 81. So she's just won an Oscar and she's like, yeah, let me at Johnny dangerously. I'll have fun.

• 1:27:12Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm just gonna like play this as straight as I can. Like the joke is giving everything to gravitas.

• 1:27:17David Sims?

  They are very funny.

• 1:27:19Griffin Newman?

  Her like opening scene, uh, after the, the street, but her coming home to the apartment, them giving her the cigarettes. Oh, well, I've been considering trying, but this finally pushes me over the edge. And then the reveal that she's 29 years old.

• 1:27:34David Sims?

  Happy 29th birthday, mom.

• 1:27:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:37David Sims?

  Um, so she's there. She's the mommy, uh, and, uh, Johnny's dad is dead of, he was a criminal.

• 1:27:45Griffin Newman?

  They have a photo on the desk of him in the electric chair.

• 1:27:50Griffin Newman?

  Funny, this is what I'm saying.

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  This one got banned.

• 1:27:54David Sims?

  And, you know, you've got, you've already got like young Danny Verman, right? Is, is a character. You've got the brother, obviously, who's a good boy.

• 1:28:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:28:04David Sims?

  And you've got Roman Maroni, the nightclub owner who played by Richard Dimitri.

• 1:28:10Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:28:11David Sims?

  Who is a malapropist.

• 1:28:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then Peter Boyle is Jaco Dundee.

• 1:28:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:17Griffin Newman?

  Who of course has the same initials as Johnny Dangerously. I always think young Griffin Dunn is Lucas House.

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  Yeah, he does look like Lucas House. Yeah, yes, he does. But it's Troy Slaton.

• 1:28:29Griffin Newman?

  Who became a lawyer?

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Who was on Cagney and Lacy as one of their children, I guess.

• 1:28:36Griffin Newman?

  He ran for a judge of Los Angeles Superior Court in 2022.

• 1:28:42David Sims?

  He was also on Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

• 1:28:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, I'll tell you what he lost. His campaign for judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

• 1:28:51David Sims?

  What the fuck is Parker Lewis? That was on TV for a while.

• 1:28:53Griffin Newman?

  Parker Lewis Can't Lose was like the rip off of Ferris Bueller. It's basically a TV show that's just trying to do Ferris Bueller. And then I think Hughes and Paramount were like, fuck that. We could put Ferris Bueller on TV and they did that and no one liked that.

• 1:29:08Speaker 03

  Was, was there like fourth wall breaking in Parker Lewis Can't Lose?

• 1:29:12Griffin Newman?

  I think so. I think that it might've been a little bit of a Clarissa.

• 1:29:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:29:15Griffin Newman?

  Let me explain it all. Yes.

• 1:29:18Speaker 03

  He's like a cool teen.

• 1:29:20Griffin Newman?

  Well, cause that's, that's of course, it's a, that's a Bueller. Bueller tells us it's time to leave the theater.

• 1:29:26David Sims?

  Um, sure.

• 1:29:27Griffin Newman?

  The surrealism was toned down in the series final season, going as far as having Parker acknowledge this by breaking the fourth wall and canceling one of the show's transitions.

• 1:29:36David Sims?

  That sounds okay. Did Peter Boyle always look like that?

• 1:29:40Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:40David Sims?

  He just always looked like that, huh?

• 1:29:42Griffin Newman?

  Came out looking like that.

• 1:29:43Speaker 03

  He almost seems like he was a baby like that and then never grew the rest of his hair.

• 1:29:48Griffin Newman?

  I would agree.

• 1:29:49David Sims?

  Like here, I found a picture of him with hair and I don't like it. I don't like it at all.

• 1:29:52Griffin Newman?

  How much hair? How much hair are we talking?

• 1:29:54David Sims?

  Well, here is Peter Boyle as an actual young man with hair.

• 1:29:59Griffin Newman?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:00David Sims?

  There's his hair.

• 1:30:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:02David Sims?

  And then here is Peter Boyle.

• 1:30:05Speaker 03

  Forty minutes later.

• 1:30:08Speaker 03

  Believe it.

• 1:30:09David Sims?

  With, I think, a little bit more like, you know, the hair is starting to go a little bit. He's combing it. He's got a big part and he's a handsome guy, but it is funny that he looked like Frankenstein.

• 1:30:19Griffin Newman?

  He did.

• 1:30:19David Sims?

  And of course, that is why he played Frankenstein, young Frankenstein. But like, even in this, he's good as a gangster.

• 1:30:26Speaker 03

  If they.

• 1:30:27David Sims?

  But I'm like, motherfucker looks like Frankenstein.

• 1:30:29Speaker 03

  If they remade Young Frankenstein now, it would be Austin Butler in the worst bald cap you've ever seen.

• 1:30:34Griffin Newman?

  And he'd be tracked.

• 1:30:35Speaker 03

  And then he would show up at the, he'd show up at the Oscars like, when he's accepting the Oscar.

• 1:30:40Griffin Newman?

  Fuck, he can't drop it.

• 1:30:42Speaker 03

  Genius. God. He spent all his time with Frankenstein's family.

• 1:30:47Griffin Newman?

  Peter Boyle has maybe one of the blockiest heads, like.

• 1:30:52David Sims?

  One of the most, Hollywood, Hollywood's great noggin.

• 1:30:56Griffin Newman?

  Just like such acute angles on his skull, right?

• 1:31:00David Sims?

  Just like, I feel like that should be.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  It's all straight lines.

• 1:31:02David Sims?

  A Ripley's Believe It or Not museum you can go to. It's just like Hollywood's greatest noggin. And it's just like heads revolving on sticks like.

• 1:31:09Griffin Newman?

  When you see him with hair, it looks wrong. You're just like, the amount of forehead that guy had was part of the charm.

• 1:31:15Speaker 03

  You can't, you can't contain that with hair.

• 1:31:18David Sims?

  Uh, anyway, yes. So you got, um, you know, will he enter a life of crime? He has to support his family.

• 1:31:24Griffin Newman?

  His mother has a series of conditions, the prices of which keep going up. It starts out as very Ron Pompey 1999.

• 1:31:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, 1999, this for, uh, now only or this week only.

• 1:31:34David Sims?

  Right. Well, cause like Boyle is like, oh, you do this, I'll give you 50 bucks. He's like, no, no. And then it's like, right. Your mom has this operation. It's 49.95 this week only. So, right. He's gotta do it.

• 1:31:44Griffin Newman?

  He helps smuggle weapons into the club using the newspapers. It's weird. The more we talk about it, it's almost as if you're realizing that every joke in this movie is good.

• 1:31:53David Sims?

  It sounds funny said aloud. And I, again, I liked this movie. I was like, it's funny.

• 1:31:59Speaker 04

  Like the electric chair picture is funny when you describe it, but when I watch it, I'm like.

• 1:32:06Griffin Newman?

  See, there are a bunch of movies like that that I watch and I'm like, I like that they made this.

• 1:32:11David Sims?

  Like what?

• 1:32:12Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't make me laugh. This is a good question.

• 1:32:14David Sims?

  What?

• 1:32:15Griffin Newman?

  I mean, definitely, I'll say this, like, a lot of the weird Michael Keaton eighties and nineties around the good ones are like that where I'm like, nothing in this is making me laugh and it should be funny. I like this cast. I like this premise.

• 1:32:29David Sims?

  Gung ho.

• 1:32:30Griffin Newman?

  Gung ho is weirder because I think gung ho is very affable and is also so culturally regressive that you're like, gung ho is the best of this era, but also the most conceptually fucked.

• 1:32:42Speaker 03

  This, this movie, Johnny Dangerously, we've talked about the character already, but they did, they did the, have the incredible foresight to make the guy with the nearly inscrutable accent Greek.

• 1:32:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:52Speaker 03

  And you're like, all right, we can still laugh at that.

• 1:32:54Griffin Newman?

  You know, thank God.

• 1:32:55Speaker 03

  That's fine.

• 1:32:56Griffin Newman?

  And I'm allowed to do my impression in the opening. No, like the dream team is one of those, speechless is one of those.

• 1:33:03David Sims?

  Fucking heard of these.

• 1:33:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:33:05David Sims?

  I'm also, I think, kind of like, can we get to grown up Keaton, please?

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 1:33:09David Sims?

  See this kid?

• 1:33:11Griffin Newman?

  Which is another reason probably why it's worth starting the movie with the framing device of like, get Keaton on screen immediately.

• 1:33:17David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:33:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:18David Sims?

  How to describe the rest of Johnny Dangerously? Cause it's not, again, like at this point, the plot begins to fall away. You're like, yes, he has the rivalry, rivalry with Piscopo. And yes, he has the rivalry with his brother.

• 1:33:29Griffin Newman?

  I want to name another thing I like very well that I think, I like very much that I think is executed very well by Hecarion. These sort of, okay, Johnny's gonna help prove himself as a little boy and like endear himself to Peter Boyle and the mobsters, which he does by the gymnastics routine, knocking out all the gangsters. I think it's fun. That's like Hecarion also doing like musical number.

• 1:33:55Speaker 03

  Keyword fun.

• 1:33:56David Sims?

  I didn't hear a NY at the end of that.

• 1:33:59Speaker 03

  That sequence, that sequence fun more than funny. I agree.

• 1:34:02David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:02Speaker 03

  But it is a delightful little combat set piece.

• 1:34:06Griffin Newman?

  I think they're putting the bucket on his head and sliding across the bar like a missile is funny.

• 1:34:12David Sims?

  Is there an argument for like?

• 1:34:17David Sims?

  This movie is sort of so well made, looks good. She, she understands the sort of cinema she's referencing, right? It's almost too well made. Then like, that's almost hurting the comedy a little bit just because it is kind of so jazzy and like, do you know what I mean? Like high production value.

• 1:34:37Griffin Newman?

  Exact thing I think I like about it though. In a lot of ways like that it, it does feel like it's not that it's approximating the kind of movie it's parodying. Well, it's that it is creating sort of an equivalent movie of its own right. If that makes sense.

• 1:34:56Speaker 03

  Yeah. I think maybe my favorite joke in the movie is he's listing all the relatives. He never knew he's walking with Mary Lou Henner and he's listing like, I got a brother I never knew. I never knew my father. And it's just like, cut to they're in different locations and it like really made me laugh.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  It's like an editing joke. Like, right, there's stuff like that, that I like where she is playing with the form.

• 1:35:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:22David Sims?

  Ben and I are looking at each other.

• 1:35:24Speaker 03

  I laughed out loud at that.

• 1:35:25Griffin Newman?

  We had a dog, ran away, never knew him.

• 1:35:27Speaker 03

  Yep. It's so funny to me.

• 1:35:29David Sims?

  The, the funniest line to me was it could shoot through a school. Like that really made me laugh. That was like the one time I was like, that's a fucking funny line.

• 1:35:36Speaker 03

  So dark too now, but I still laughed really hard.

• 1:35:39Griffin Newman?

  We talked about this in our 1941 episode with the Doughboys.

• 1:35:42David Sims?

  Which that's a good example of a movie that's overwhelmed by its scale and production value.

• 1:35:48Griffin Newman?

  Saying that there's this.

• 1:35:48David Sims?

  Far worse than Johnny Day.

• 1:35:50Griffin Newman?

  There's this weird line we were discussing. It's 18 times as long. There's this weird line we were discussing where I'm like, if you're gonna parody something and do a style parody, you have to kind of get close to approximating the production values. If you're not getting them and it looks so cheap, then it doesn't work. Unless the joke is that you made it for $2. But then if it looks better than the real thing, then it stops being funny as well. There's like an uncanny valley parody line that I do think it helps that this is like, doing an homage parody to a B movie genre, that it doesn't have to be like. An epic, which I feel like History of the World, part one is like a kind of like turning

• 1:36:32Griffin Newman?

  point movie for a lot of people in Brooks is like, is this when he goes over the hump?

• 1:36:36Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:36:36Griffin Newman?

  And it's part of that, that he's trying to parody like epics. And in doing that inherently, the movie gets too big versus like Spaceballs, he's like safely below the George Lucas line.

• 1:36:48David Sims?

  But I mean, I think I don't like Spaceballs as much as some people. I think also partly because, right, it's, it's a little, I mean, he never, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles are like, he never topped that. It's my only issue with doing him on our show with Brooks, Mel Brooks, is like, I, there's plenty to say about some of the later stuff, but for someone to just like, kind of fucking nail it so hard with his like first three movies, essentially, it's tough to then be like, and then he, you know, made like 10 more movies.

• 1:37:19Speaker 03

  I mean, the next big success, right? Cause Producers was very early as well.

• 1:37:22Griffin Newman?

  Producers at the first one.

• 1:37:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And so then, and then the next big, the biggest success after the early wave, right? Was the Producers musical, which is like, right. It's like one of the great, most decorated musicals of all time.

• 1:37:32Griffin Newman?

  I contend that like high anxiety, silent movie and History of the World are all interesting to talk about.

• 1:37:38David Sims?

  They're totally interesting to talk about and they, and they have good stuff in them, but obviously they're, you know, they're competing with something almost impossible.

• 1:37:46Griffin Newman?

  The insane thing is that he made two of the greatest comedies of all time in the same year, that he like hit a height early on in his career and did two of them so close together. They both come out in 73?

• 1:38:00David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, what a crazy motherfucker. Young Frankenstein is 74 and I think Blazing Saddles is too, yes. They're both 74. Yeah. Um, anyway, so.

• 1:38:09Griffin Newman?

  You get to adult Johnny. Well, basically he endears himself to the mobsters. They make him one of them and he owns it. And you immediately set up this dynamic of like him walking down the street, people selling I Hurt Johnny shirts, everyone loving Johnny, but there is this kind of like Superman Clark Kent conceit of like.

• 1:38:26Speaker 03

  Just within his household.

• 1:38:27Griffin Newman?

  I'm Johnny Kelly at home. I'm Johnny dangerously in the streets.

• 1:38:30David Sims?

  And the whole town, the whole neighborhood is in on it.

• 1:38:33Griffin Newman?

  Except.

• 1:38:33David Sims?

  Except for, in on keeping it from his mother and brother.

• 1:38:37Griffin Newman?

  The closest people in his life. Cause the other side of it is the other mobsters don't know that he's the brother of the DA.

• 1:38:44David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:38:45Griffin Newman?

  Although that arc is just starting.

• 1:38:46David Sims?

  Of course, his brother goes to law school and gets married because he wants to get laid. Uh, as Maren Stapleton calls him out.

• 1:38:54David Sims?

  Um, and, uh, becomes a lawyer, right?

• 1:38:56Griffin Newman?

  And they show him this weird testicle cartoon.

• 1:38:59David Sims?

  Which, yeah, Josh already said it, but yeah, the one thing where you're just like, what?

• 1:39:02Griffin Newman?

  And it's such a, like, such a big swing set piece where it's like, it's an animated kind of film strip-y sort of thing. And you're just like, could have done without it. It's also, I don't totally get the inner logic of the joke where the bit is that like, he's supposed to be the good kid and the more that Johnny goes bad, he feels a responsibility to his mother to make sure that his little brother stays on rails, right? Suddenly he's so horny and hot and bothered about his girlfriend that he doesn't want to go to law school and Johnny takes it upon himself to talk him into going to law school. And you're like, okay, cool comedy setup premise here. Johnny's got to do something to scare him off of just running away and marrying his girlfriend.

• 1:39:44Griffin Newman?

  He needs to stay in law school. And you're like, what is the comedic like effect of this? And then Johnny take him to a room where he has a projector where he shows him an animation that explains that the more you use your testicles, the more they die. Yeah. Where I'm just like, who made this movie and to what end?

• 1:40:03David Sims?

  The joke of the movie within the movie is not clear.

• 1:40:07Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's not like he shows them like a movie about like STDs, right? And it's not like he makes up like a fake mythical story. You're like, who produced this film? Why? Where did Johnny get this? Yes.

• 1:40:24Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:40:24David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:25Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary Capturing Bigfoot. On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:40:42David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:40:43Griffin Newman?

  Footage that became the most analyzed and debated in history. 59 years later, a reel of 16 millimeter film discovered in a safe changes everything. Capturing Bigfoot. Reveals the untold story behind the world's greatest mystery told for the first time by Patterson's own son and the people who were there. This is a story about family legacy, broken friendships, and how far people will go to protect a secret.

• 1:41:06David Sims?

  Of course, you got the classic, what they call Patterson Gimlin film everyone knows, a Bigfoot out in the woods, like the famous Bigfoot picture. This has other stuff shot by him that no one's ever seen. That's what makes this movie different.

• 1:41:18Griffin Newman?

  But we're also talking brand new 4K scans of the original film taken from the Patterson family archives that some historians have called the best rendering of the footage ever seen.

• 1:41:26David Sims?

  I feel like we've all seen that footage as like grainy.

• 1:41:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:41:30David Sims?

  You know, that you see, you know, whatever you see it in a documentary for two seconds. But this is restoring it and making it look much more clear.

• 1:41:37Griffin Newman?

  There's also a companion podcast, the Capturing Bigfoot Podcast, which goes deeper into the legend and lore of Bigfoot and the Patterson Gimlin film, featuring weekly episodes with experts in cryptozoology, urban legends, and filmmaking.

• 1:41:51David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:41:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, of course, yes, but that's more of a hobby.

• 1:41:55David Sims?

  Yeah, this podcast, Capturing Bigfoot Podcast is hosted by the director of the film, Mark Evans, and it's available for free on YouTube and Spotify with exclusive episodes and content available on Patreon to members of the Capturing Bigfoot Society.

• 1:42:11Griffin Newman?

  Capturing Bigfoot is now available to rent or own on Amazon Prime Video. Learn more about Capturing Bigfoot at capturingbigfoot.com.

• 1:42:27Griffin Newman?

  David.

• 1:42:27David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:42:28Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:42:30David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:42:31Griffin Newman?

  I'm doing like an impression of a red carpet correspondent, asking who you're wearing right now.

• 1:42:35David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:42:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well, what a coincidence, Quincy dance.

• 1:42:42David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip sweater.

• 1:42:46Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  It's a sort of a brown. Would you agree?

• 1:42:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's like, maybe like a, what would you, a chocolate?

• 1:42:52David Sims?

  Sure, I have been seated next to people wearing this item of clothing and they have brushed against me, not to brag, and gone like, so soft.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  Oh, a soft boy. But listen, the best pieces in your closet are the ones that you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where I'm shopping for myself and everyone on my list.

• 1:43:16David Sims?

  Quince does rock, got high quality staples, made with these. Premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere.

• 1:43:23Griffin Newman?

  14 karat gold.

• 1:43:26David Sims?

  Italian leather.

• 1:43:28Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:43:28David Sims?

  All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays. These cashmere sweaters, like the one I'm wearing, start at just $60. Lineup doesn't stop there. You've got premium down jackets, wool outerwear, cashmere accessories, everything your loved ones need to stay warm and look put together all season long.

• 1:43:48Griffin Newman?

  And everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen so you can give luxury quality pieces without the luxury price tag.

• 1:44:01David Sims?

  So yeah, obviously I'm wearing Quince sweater right now. I've got Quince bedding at home. Ooh, they've got Christmas stockings.

• 1:44:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:44:09David Sims?

  They got tree skirts.

• 1:44:10Griffin Newman?

  Garlands.

• 1:44:11David Sims?

  If you want to go Christmas mode.

• 1:44:13Griffin Newman?

  Your tree deserves to be dressed in Quince as well. And when it comes to gifting, Quince has a lot more than clothing. Think fine jewelry, leather bags, the aforementioned hotel quality bedding, chef-grade cookware, and five-star luggage. Basically, plenty of ways to find something special for everyone on your list. If you want to give the gift of quality this holiday season, download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's a year. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. Ding dong. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:45:00Speaker 05

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• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  Can we also talk about his apartment? The aesthetic of it? It's so crazy. It is kind of vaporwave, I have to say.

• 1:45:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  It's very just like white.

• 1:45:45Griffin Newman?

  He lives in a jazz club.

• 1:45:46Speaker 04

  He, well, but it's, I don't, I don't know. It's, it's almost like, it feels like Saved by the Bell coded. Does that make sense?

• 1:45:53Speaker 03

  It's like if, if Zack Morris were Scarface.

• 1:45:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. There is a funny joke. I think maybe one of the few times where I did laugh out loud. He has like an apartment where multiple women who apparently live with him.

• 1:46:08Griffin Newman?

  Nice, Johnny dangerously.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  Such a playboy.

• 1:46:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:46:10Speaker 04

  The women are all wearing, they're, they're very exposed, sexy. But he, the brother does some kind of thing where he's like, uh, no, I don't want to go to tits. I mean, college, you know, that kind of like thing.

• 1:46:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:21Speaker 04

  I think that's a funny little moment.

• 1:46:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:24Speaker 04

  I like.

• 1:46:24Griffin Newman?

  I'm going more fun.

• 1:46:26Speaker 04

  I like.

• 1:46:28Speaker 03

  When we should go joke by joke, say fun or funny.

• 1:46:31Griffin Newman?

  When Johnny meets Mary Lou Henner.

• 1:46:33Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:46:34Griffin Newman?

  And he's like, oh, and you got these. And he looks down her breasts and then he says, I like those in a woman.

• 1:46:41Speaker 03

  I like that joke too.

• 1:46:42Speaker 04

  It's a good joke.

• 1:46:43Griffin Newman?

  Here's another thing I think Heckerling gets, and this is a thing through like trying to watch through the full Keaton filmography and for the first time really digging into these like non-existent 80s and 90s comedies. Michael Keaton is an actor you cannot like cover in closeups. He is a full body actor.

• 1:47:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure, sure, sure.

• 1:47:01Griffin Newman?

  He is so much about like his weird convulsions and like mannerisms and about how that interacts with the other person he's in the scene with. And like, there was something classical enough about Heckerling's understanding of like comedy framing and timing where she's just really smart about like basically always shooting him from the waist up at least, only giving him a closeup if it's sort of like a parody of an emotional revelation. But you want to watch like long sustained two shots and like roving shots where you're watching him interact with shit in real time, because the whole magic trick of Keaton is just like that he's got this broken metronome, that he has the weirdest timing in the world and this sort of off rhythm. And you need to see that engage with like other people in his space in real time.

• 1:47:47Griffin Newman?

  So there's even just shit like him coming into Maureen Stapleton's apartment saying, "Hey, Ma, what you cooking?" He says, "Beer."

• 1:47:56Speaker 03

  And he's stirring the pot.

• 1:47:57Griffin Newman?

  Hot beer. And he goes, "Oh, with noodles. That's a good idea." And then like while she's talking and setting up plot stuff, he's in the background and he pulls down the clothes and all the laundry collapses on him. Like this sort of sustained, like, you want to watch Keaton just go through the sort of like mousetrap setup of these sets and the gags and everything.

• 1:48:18Speaker 04

  I found it humorous.

• 1:48:21Griffin Newman?

  I'm laughing. I'm laughing the whole time.

• 1:48:24Speaker 03

  I laughed. I laughed. "What are you cooking? Beer?"

• 1:48:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes, funny. With noodles. Beer with noodles.

• 1:48:30Speaker 04

  The runner of the mom always has a new weird sickness.

• 1:48:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:48:34Speaker 04

  And the doctor.

• 1:48:35David Sims?

  Even though she's strong as a bull, like on screen, really.

• 1:48:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. What did he say? It would, she's, she didn't have saliva, like salivary gland. And Michael Keaton goes, "It'll be good to see her spit again."

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  That's good.

• 1:48:50Griffin Newman?

  It's good. Yeah. I, I think this movie is like really good at parodying the sort of like weird sentiment of movies like that, you know, like parodying the emotional beats. I also think I'm trying desperately to remember where I heard this. And I feel like it was some podcast interview recently where someone with a background in comedy was talking about the difference between comedy and drama as an actor, which is a thing that people discuss a lot. And I thought this was one of the best ways I'd ever heard someone identify the difference, which was, I almost want to say this was connected to the SNL 50th and it was some SNL cast.

• 1:49:26Speaker 03

  I feel like Alec Baldwin is always talking about this.

• 1:49:29Griffin Newman?

  This is what this person said.

• 1:49:30David Sims?

  Very normal guy.

• 1:49:32Griffin Newman?

  You guys watching the Baldwins?

• 1:49:34David Sims?

  No, but I'm just hearing that it's normal.

• 1:49:36Griffin Newman?

  It's America's most normal TV.

• 1:49:37David Sims?

  People keep texting me, like, right, a clip from it where they're like, "Check out this normal clip of like a normal thing happening on that normal TV sort of a normal guy."

• 1:49:46Speaker 04

  Is she still doing the accent?

• 1:49:47Griffin Newman?

  I do.

• 1:49:47David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:48Griffin Newman?

  They were saying, whoever this is, and hopefully one of our listeners will find the interview I'm thinking about, that like, the fundamental thing is you want to play it real, in both cases. They were like, the difference between comedy and drama is that you still play it real, but you make those shifts a lot faster and a lot more dramatically, right? So it's like, in comedy, you might have to go from placid to like, furious in one line, and you need to find the way to like, earn that ramp up in a way that is unrealistic. And that is a thing I think Keaton is very good at. Like, he is so bizarre, he has so much energy, that there's never anything in him, to me, that

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  feels like he's pushing or reaching. Like, it's part of the magic of Beetlejuice, of just like, this guy's somehow making it feel natural to be a ghost that changes voice six times in five words, right? And similar, I think he's very well suited for this kind of comedy, which he didn't do a ton, where he has to like, parody a leading man, and do his kind of like, somewhat ironic version of the actual emotional plotty scenes, but then swing to a big joke, to go from like, romantic to angry to tough to sensitive. It's, I, I think he's very, very good in this. I'm obviously just in the bag for him.

• 1:51:09David Sims?

  You love the movie so much.

• 1:51:10Speaker 03

  And I'll say this, Griffin and I are maybe overselling this movie.

• 1:51:15David Sims?

  I, I, I do wonder, right, if people like, now have to make the effort to find this movie too. Can't just, you know, uh, fire it up.

• 1:51:23Griffin Newman?

  And I don't think, I don't think this is like, a hidden treasure lost to history necessarily, but I was delighted the whole time watching it. I can count probably on one hand, the number of jokes that I'm like, that doesn't work for me, and there are so many jokes.

• 1:51:38David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:38Griffin Newman?

  And so many of them worked, and, and so like, the rhythm of the jokes, I find so-

• 1:51:43Speaker 03

  Comforting.

• 1:51:44David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:51:44Speaker 03

  In a way. And like even, even the quality, like I watched like the rip on like whatever internet archive. And that being extra grainy and from VHS, I think maybe David, to your point, added to it.

• 1:51:57David Sims?

  Well, I could see that.

• 1:51:58Speaker 03

  This feels old timey.

• 1:51:59David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:59Speaker 03

  It doesn't feel like watching something new. And, and so it gives you that distance, like when you watch a Marx Brothers movie, not that it's at that level, but you go, this is a.

• 1:52:08David Sims?

  This is like a new Marx Brothers movie, Josh.

• 1:52:13Speaker 03

  No, but it, it gives you, you're not like, oh, this is modern and they're trying to be modern.

• 1:52:18Griffin Newman?

  Well, you also, I think this movie is so lovingly made. It makes sense that this is a genre that Heckerling like grew up idolizing. And there's this part of like, well, maybe she couldn't like, she has too much of like,

• 1:52:32Griffin Newman?

  an off kilter comedic sensibility to ever make a straight gangster movie. But by doing a parody, she's also able to actually get at everything she loves about gangster movies. In a way where like, it's, I feel like a lot of people talk about this being an issue in the Mel Brooks divide. Is like, he clearly loves westerns and Universal monster movies and Hitchcock films. By the time you get to Spaceballs, you're like, I don't think Mel Brooks cares about Star Wars. I think he has identified good bits to do within this, but I don't think it means anything to him in the same way. As much as when he was riffing on movies that he grew up loving. And there was this aspect of like, oh my God, I can't believe I got them to build a castle. And now I'm lighting it in black and white and like all that sort of shit.

• 1:53:17Griffin Newman?

  And I think the Zucker's had a similar love for like the sign, kind of be trash that they would parody. In Top Secret and Airplane and Naked Gun, like they love these kind of just like programmer genre movies.

• 1:53:31David Sims?

  I sent you the Alec Baldwin tweet. That's really funny.

• 1:53:33Griffin Newman?

  Okay, let me look up the Alec Baldwin tweet. That's really funny.

• 1:53:36David Sims?

  So Johnny dangerously, so we got Piscopo. Have we talked enough about Piscopo as Danny Vermin? That's really funny.

• 1:53:44Griffin Newman?

  Can I read this out loud?

• 1:53:45David Sims?

  I think you can. I think you can because her accent is fake. So I think it's okay to parody it.

• 1:53:48Griffin Newman?

  This tweet is from at Charlie on here. Alec, colon. In 1983, I was hospitalized because my roommate's cat gave me an asthma attack. I'm deathly allergic. Hilaria petting their five cats, colon. My horse been so funny.

• 1:54:07Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that is a

• 1:54:09David Sims?

  The vibe of the show.

• 1:54:10Griffin Newman?

  It's not the vibe. That is the A plot of episode two. The A plot of episode two is being like, you know, our life is crazy. Nine months out of the year, we live in a giant 15 bedroom Manhattan apartment. It's too small. We can't all fit.

• 1:54:27Griffin Newman?

  Their apartment has stairs and it's this constant thing of like, we love this city so much. We're staying in this tiny apartment. I'm like, I'd love for you to talk to some of my friends.

• 1:54:37Speaker 03

  You've never met a person.

• 1:54:40David Sims?

  In his defense, he does have countless children.

• 1:54:44Speaker 03

  But that's also, that's recent.

• 1:54:46David Sims?

  I know, I know, I know. I can't explain any of it.

• 1:54:48Speaker 03

  This is a problem that they brought on themselves.

• 1:54:50David Sims?

  Correct.

• 1:54:50Speaker 03

  Since the start of the pandemic.

• 1:54:52David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:53Griffin Newman?

  They also have like four cats and four dogs, right? And he's like, when I first moved to LA, my agent let me stay on her couch and she had three cats. And I got sent to the hospital. I'm deathly allergic and now we have four cats. And the A plot of this episode is it's the weekend where we go from the city to the Hamptons.

• 1:55:09David Sims?

  Of course. He lives in the Hamptons in the summertime or whatever.

• 1:55:12Griffin Newman?

  We have to figure out the seating charts for the three vehicles that will transport the two of us, our seven kids, our eight pets and two nannies. The nannies are referenced a lot, are never seen on screen.

• 1:55:24David Sims?

  Of course.

• 1:55:24Griffin Newman?

  Never.

• 1:55:25David Sims?

  I just like to think about like the sort of the guy who has to produce this show, right? Like the guy whose job it is to like film this shit.

• 1:55:30Griffin Newman?

  Looking up the credits here, a Satan.

• 1:55:32David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:55:33Griffin Newman?

  Beazlebup.

• 1:55:34David Sims?

  But like, just like the guy who's like, oh yeah, you know, I went to film school. Like, you know, he's just like, how do we craft a narrative out of, well, I guess this week we'll do the

• 1:55:42Speaker 03

  You think his

• 1:55:43David Sims?

  Cars to the Hamptons will be the A plot.

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  You think his agent called and was like, how do you feel about getting yelled at a lot?

• 1:55:50Griffin Newman?

  Baldwin just keeps saying, don't put me in a car with the cats. And Hilarious is like, let's see how the seating chart shakes out. And then you see her drawing it and it's like a car, Alec, and then like four little cartoon pets.

• 1:56:04Speaker 03

  He's like trying to murder her.

• 1:56:07Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna have a fucking ass. Yeah. And she's like, please, I'm gonna repeat it. Don't put the cats in the car. And she's like, there are a lot of moving pieces. I don't know how things are gonna hold. And then it comes to him and the cats.

• 1:56:21David Sims?

  So this sounds like pretty good TV. I just like, the whole premise of the show is him being like, I need money. I need so much money. I have so many children. I need money right now. And someone's like, do you want to sell your spleen? And he's like, maybe. I don't know. Do you want to look at it? Like this is the whole show, right? 50 bucks, all you look at my spleen.

• 1:56:39Griffin Newman?

  But then half of every episode is him weighing the death of.

• 1:56:43David Sims?

  Right. This horrible, truly horrible thing that happened to him that I don't really want to make light of, or even really, you know, think about.

• 1:56:49Griffin Newman?

  That's why the contrast.

• 1:56:50David Sims?

  To him.

• 1:56:51Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  Obviously, he was like, but, but still like, it, it must be a horrible thing for him to have to.

• 1:56:57Griffin Newman?

  Correct. But the show is trying to simultaneously be John and Kate plus eight and the staircase. That's what's insane about it is half of every episode is him like struggling from PTSD and being like, I have to go back to court. And it's not like an offhand reference. It's like deeply invested and then wacky music plays and it's like, here I am in the car with the cats. It's the most deranged TV show that's ever existed. Giant dangerously, the great American comedy.

• 1:57:25David Sims?

  Where are we left? Where have we left off? I don't know.

• 1:57:28Speaker 03

  The kid, the kid went, the brother went to law school. He's now the assistant DA working under Danny DeVito, the corrupt DA.

• 1:57:34Griffin Newman?

  Of course.

• 1:57:35Speaker 03

  Fun.

• 1:57:36Griffin Newman?

  Who has a crush on Johnny.

• 1:57:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, that, that's like a weird little moment.

• 1:57:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I mean, look, we talk about this, but basically any comedy you watch from 1980 to 2012.

• 1:57:48Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:57:49Griffin Newman?

  Has some level of homophobic joke.

• 1:57:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, gay panic.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  And I'm like, this actually registers about as low on the scale as these movies do.

• 1:57:58Speaker 03

  It's the Greek accent of homophobia.

• 1:58:00Griffin Newman?

  It is. It is. Like, the joke is just sort of like, I wouldn't have expected that guy is gay, but is almost kind of dumb without judgment. I'm not forgiving it, but it feels like the least critical. Whereas like, there's no sort of like recoiling in ooh to this. But Peter Boyle survives multiple assassination attempts.

• 1:58:23David Sims?

  Comedically.

• 1:58:24Griffin Newman?

  Decides to step down. You have the robot, Dimitri, you have his toilet being exploded. I like him holding, Ben is smiling. You have to admit, this is a funny bit. He's got the chain handled. He thinks it's his dork, as he puts it. And then once he realizes his penis is still intact, he decides it's time to retire and hand it over to Johnny, which is sort of where things escalate now. His brother has gotten out of law school.

• 1:58:46David Sims?

  Right. The conflict is his brother on one side, Piscopo on the other. He's got a rival.

• 1:58:51Griffin Newman?

  He's become the kingpin. Piscopo's looking for the crown. Right.

• 1:58:55Speaker 03

  Good, good use of the one PG 13 F word.

• 1:58:59David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:59:00Griffin Newman?

  What is the one fuck again?

• 1:59:01David Sims?

  Because of course they say Fark.

• 1:59:03Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 1:59:03David Sims?

  The bird goes. The parrot, right?

• 1:59:05Speaker 03

  You missed fuckface.

• 1:59:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:59:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fun.

• 1:59:08David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, so what's funny then? There's the, um, I don't know. Lucky cigarette case. Uh, it's always protecting people. That's kind of a running bit.

• 1:59:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's also, I mean, is, is kind of the, the plot device of how they know how to identify. I mean, it ultimately absolves him of the crime.

• 1:59:26Speaker 03

  Because, uh, Danny Verman has taken the cigarette case, which smells like gum because Johnny doesn't smoke. And he's used, that is his marker as he's now the kingpin.

• 1:59:36Griffin Newman?

  I also, I like, like DeVito's bribery scene being done like Price is Right. Like him unveiling the options of how he can be bribed on the stage.

• 1:59:46David Sims?

  Right, right. That's funny. DeVito's funny generally. He plays the sort of crooked DA, uh, who hires Griffin Dunn and doesn't want him to do his job.

• 1:59:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. Dies in a horrible bull accident because he's handed a red jacket.

• 1:59:58Speaker 03

  That must be a parody of something specific, right? It's like a malt, it must be a malt liquor commercial.

• 2:00:03David Sims?

  Such a complicated joke, the bull.

• 2:00:05Speaker 03

  And he says death by commercial. That was the, the.

• 2:00:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you're right.

• 2:00:09Speaker 03

  The newspaper, there must have been a commercial because his, what are you drinking? And he says malt liquor. And then he's holding this red smoking jacket that was.

• 2:00:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:15Speaker 03

  And a bull runs into the bar and gors him to death.

• 2:00:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm wondering if it's a Billy Dee Williams Colt 45 thing. Cause that would have been the time of that campaign.

• 2:00:25David Sims?

  Hmm, I was trying to find something about this, but I can't.

• 2:00:27Speaker 03

  I was a little mystified by it, although I did think the setup was funny.

• 2:00:30David Sims?

  It is a parody of Schlitz, uh, malt liquor commercials, uh, featuring Richard Roundtree.

• 2:00:37Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. Shaft himself.

• 2:00:39David Sims?

  Shaft himself, which we're, we're right, like, uh, a bull would crash through the wall when you ordered a Schlitz. Yeah. I mean, I'm watching one right now and there's a bull. No one does it like the bull.

• 2:00:51Griffin Newman?

  It's funny because it's like.

• 2:00:53David Sims?

  Tagline.

• 2:00:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's a gag where you're like, I don't quite get the setup here.

• 2:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:00:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:58Speaker 03

  Him going, what am I drinking malt liquor? I'm like, that must mean something.

• 2:01:01Griffin Newman?

  It's one of the only things in this movie that feels like specific to the era in which it was made is not like kind of a timeless gag.

• 2:01:08David Sims?

  Is it ever a good idea to do a commercial parody in a movie?

• 2:01:11Griffin Newman?

  In a movie?

• 2:01:12David Sims?

  I'm trying to think, like, no, right?

• 2:01:14Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:01:15David Sims?

  I mean, like, you can do like the Wayne's World thing of like parodying the notion of commercials.

• 2:01:19Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:01:20David Sims?

  Right? Like of the talking to camera kind of thing.

• 2:01:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:22David Sims?

  But, yeah.

• 2:01:24Griffin Newman?

  I, in, in the wake of the great Gene Hackman's death, I watched, uh, No Way Out, A Blind Spot, and his career I'd never seen before, uh, Young Costner vehicle. And that has the crazy sex scene where Kevin Costner cannot wait to get home to have sex with Sean Young. So they fuck in the back of a limo and the limo driver is like, whoa, and Costner's like, thumbs up, you like what you see, kind of, and they just go really far in the back of the limo. And I was watching and I was like, holy shit, this is what Hot Shots Part Deux is parodying.

• 2:01:56David Sims?

  Like, many years later, you, you see the original.

• 2:01:59Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that was a scene I had just always found funny for decades and was like, yeah, this is just insane for a guy to fuck in the back of a limo while this guy's here. Like, it worked not being a parody? And, and then I watch it and I'm like, Hot Shots is only like heightening this 10%. But versus this, you're watching and you're like, I know this is referencing something that I don't have.

• 2:02:20Speaker 03

  If it hadn't been for the malt liquor and the death by commercial on the newspaper, if he had just held up a smoking jacket and then a bull came in, I would have been like, that's a funny, long way around way to assassinate someone.

• 2:02:30Griffin Newman?

  No, but you're, I didn't even ping like, oh, this must be something I'm not getting. I was just sort of like, ah, can't win them all.

• 2:02:38Griffin Newman?

  Johnny dangerously taking a lot of shots.

• 2:02:40David Sims?

  Um, I'm glad we solved that Schlitz mystery, actually. That is interesting. Yeah, I don't know.

• 2:02:47Speaker 04

  The brother gets married, he's so horny, he, he wants to fuck in the janitor's closet, but he overhears that his brother is Johnny Danger.

• 2:02:56Griffin Newman?

  His capoe is just put it together.

• 2:02:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:58Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:02:58Speaker 03

  And then he runs out.

• 2:02:59Speaker 04

  And then the janitor shows up and that just, I don't know.

• 2:03:03Speaker 03

  Another weird little moment.

• 2:03:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:05Griffin Newman?

  But they basically make the deal, like, you know, Griffin Dunn's like, I'm not gonna rest until I put you in jail. And then they have their sort of fistfight bargain and Johnny takes the fall. And then it's like, I'm gonna go clean.

• 2:03:20David Sims?

  Right. I'll go legit.

• 2:03:21Griffin Newman?

  I'll go legit.

• 2:03:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:23Griffin Newman?

  So then the rest of the movie, the last half an hour.

• 2:03:25David Sims?

  Boys to go legit.

• 2:03:26Griffin Newman?

  How does Johnny get out?

• 2:03:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:03:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. While also Piscopo is trying to stage a coup and wants him dead.

• 2:03:32David Sims?

  Um, and you've got funny stuff, or I should say more like fun stuff, like Piscopo cutting the brakes on, uh, Griffin Dunn's car. That seems kind of fun.

• 2:03:44Speaker 03

  For her writing his name.

• 2:03:45Griffin Newman?

  Well, that, that happens earlier.

• 2:03:47David Sims?

  That's earlier?

• 2:03:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's earlier. That's at the beginning of his career.

• 2:03:50Speaker 03

  Afterwards, Johnny is framed for the murder of like the head of.

• 2:03:54David Sims?

  Right. Cause that's right before DeVito dies. That's right.

• 2:03:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's the beginning of Griffin Dunn's career. Yeah.

• 2:03:59David Sims?

  Um, yeah, the sort of last half hour, right? Is like, you know, uh, Johnny being like, I'm innocent. And there's, we were building to the big fight at the movie theater.

• 2:04:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I mean, I think one of the gags in this movie that does not work is, uh, the Irish janitor lady who speaks entirely in actual slur.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:04:18Griffin Newman?

  It is more jarring because you have a really good bit of a guy who says curse words incorrectly. And you're so used to that. And then in the last 20 minutes, you're introduced to a character who just speaks in like unbroken slur chain. But I do like her later scene with Maureen Stapleton, where Maureen Stapleton tries to appeal to her because she ends up being the one witness who can like, support the case and is like, look, we have a lot in common. I also love like the degree to which Johnny is like idolized and respected when he finally goes to jail, that like, the warden is so thrilled to have him there and he's high fiving everyone. He has the line where he's like, ah, pops, you still in here?

• 2:04:56Speaker 03

  But also his father is not dead after all.

• 2:04:59Griffin Newman?

  That Johnny has somehow immediately made the gangster version of the prison uniform that he has the high collar. David is very seriously mulling over whether or not these jokes are funny.

• 2:05:10Speaker 03

  Exonerates, they, they exonerate him?

• 2:05:13David Sims?

  I think I was most, I was really losing steam in the last act of this movie.

• 2:05:16Griffin Newman?

  I like the Ray Walston bit.

• 2:05:17David Sims?

  What's the Ray Walston bit?

• 2:05:19Griffin Newman?

  He's a blind newspaper man.

• 2:05:20David Sims?

  Oh, I did like that bit. And then he.

• 2:05:22Griffin Newman?

  He gets hit with a stack of newspapers. His vision's bad.

• 2:05:25David Sims?

  Unblinds, but is now dead.

• 2:05:26Griffin Newman?

  Then he's dead. Then another one.

• 2:05:28David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:05:29Griffin Newman?

  And then the third stack is, I can see and I can hear. Who am I?

• 2:05:33David Sims?

  Which he's funny.

• 2:05:35Griffin Newman?

  He's very funny.

• 2:05:35David Sims?

  And I do like her, right, giving a little high five to a, you know, a Fast Times cast member. Like, it's nice to see him.

• 2:05:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:05:42David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:42Griffin Newman?

  And Vincent Scavelli is in here very briefly as well. Yes.

• 2:05:46David Sims?

  He would have been a good goon. Like, get him up higher in the cast list.

• 2:05:49Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I agree.

• 2:05:51Speaker 03

  Should we explain the Joe Piscopo bit that we've alluded to seven or eight times?

• 2:05:55Griffin Newman?

  It's so simple, but I just find it very effective. And it's just Piscopo playing it with full intensity.

• 2:06:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:06:01Griffin Newman?

  Which is anytime someone does something that he finds disrespectful, he says, "A blank did blank to me once," takes a beat and then goes, "Once," holding up the one finger.

• 2:06:14Speaker 03

  My favorite iteration was Hung on the Hook.

• 2:06:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:17Speaker 03

  They, Michael Keaton picks him up and hangs him on a coat hook on a door and slams the door and he goes, "My, I forget, his father, my, my grandfather hung me on a hook once." And I was like, that's good.

• 2:06:27Griffin Newman?

  The specificity of everything has happened to him one time.

• 2:06:32David Sims?

  This is, right, it's like, is Piscopo funny? No. But does he have kind of like some gravitas in a way? Is that why he succeeded?

• 2:06:42Griffin Newman?

  This is where I give Piscopo credit. I don't think that joke is funny on paper.

• 2:06:47David Sims?

  Right, that's what I'm saying.

• 2:06:48Griffin Newman?

  If I read this in the script.

• 2:06:49David Sims?

  It's like a little funny.

• 2:06:50Griffin Newman?

  I think a lot of these jokes I would find funny on the page and then are performed well. That's one where I'd be like, you guys are really reaching for a running bit for this guy.

• 2:06:58Speaker 03

  Four or five times.

• 2:07:00Griffin Newman?

  On paper, it's not funny. And I think Piscopo is putting a degree of gravitas on it that does make it work for me. Where like, his increasing intensity with his sort of like haunted threat of, "Don't let this happen again." And then it just builds to like, he keeps getting interrupted before he gets to finish the sentence. I wanted to pull up the exact line. When Marie Stapleton goes to appeal to the janitor, she, she says, "We have nothing in common. What do I have to talk to you about?" And Marie Stapleton says, "We have a lot in common. We both scrub floors, we're both swell lookers, and neither one of us is Chinese." I think that's a funny line.

• 2:07:36David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, that's pretty funny.

• 2:07:42Griffin Newman?

  David's really, I'm winning him over in this one.

• 2:07:45David Sims?

  But I now feel like I'm being a scold about this movie that I'd like thought was enjoyable. I just could immediately tell why I was like, why I haven't heard of this movie. You know what I mean? Where I'm like, Amy Heckerle made a gangster comedy with Michael Keaton. Why haven't I heard of that? I can understand why I maybe didn't get to see it, but like, why don't I know about that?

• 2:08:05Griffin Newman?

  I get why it wasn't a hit.

• 2:08:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:07Griffin Newman?

  Cause it's a movie made for weird doors.

• 2:08:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:10Griffin Newman?

  And but I had always thought it had more of a like, oh, that's like an interesting like swing they took that just didn't work at all. Where in rediscovering it for the, my big Keaton watch through last year, I was just like so pleasantly surprised by how consistently funny I found it. And once again, watched it last night for the second time in six months and was like, still laughing out loud at it. And part of it is the pleasure of like, I watch all three Naked Gun movies every year like clockwork. Every year I'm like, it's time to, to check in and do the full Drebin trilogy, right? There are jokes in those movies that like live in my brain forever that I think about on a daily basis. But there are so many jokes that I do just end up getting surprised by some of them every time.

• 2:08:52Griffin Newman?

  And like most great comedies, if you've seen them a bunch, you're like, oh, here's that bit I like. It is rare to have a movie that is this dense with jokes, which if you find the jokes as funny as Josh and I do, this is a movie you can return to and be like, I forgot that one.

• 2:09:07David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:09:07Griffin Newman?

  Because the bench is so deep.

• 2:09:09David Sims?

  Yeah. Which is why I love Airplane as well and like all those Zazz comedies and stuff. Because right, there's always a new one that you're like, I haven't, I haven't given this one love recently.

• 2:09:18Speaker 03

  The heights also are not as high as Naked Gun and Airplane. I think that's the big thing where like the, the one that feels like a home run swing is the testicle educational film. And you're like, swing and a man.

• 2:09:29Griffin Newman?

  It doesn't have like the iconic set pieces, but even just like this, I'm looking at the, I'm, I'm scrumming through the movie as we're watching. So I can call out some of my favorite bits, but as we're talking, but um, the um, uh,

• 2:09:44Griffin Newman?

  The grapevine passing of the information that Vermin's big play is gonna happen at the Savoy Theater. And the message is retained perfectly until the mumbling guy. And then it's said to Johnny and he immediately corrects it.

• 2:09:56Speaker 03

  And then the guy goes, that's not what I said.

• 2:09:58Griffin Newman?

  And he goes, yeah, but I know this grapevine.

• 2:10:00David Sims?

  That is, that, that is pretty funny.

• 2:10:03Speaker 03

  The, the nodding, the, all the gangsters nodding and then one guy going, no more nodding. It's like this, that, just the speed and density. It's like a lot of singles and doubles, which is like, it is, that is a tone that I love and miss. And it's done lovingly and not cynically. Like, it's not like, not another, uh, war movie or whatever those, you know.

• 2:10:25David Sims?

  Not another war movie is one they never attempted.

• 2:10:27Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:10:28David Sims?

  That would be interesting.

• 2:10:29Griffin Newman?

  Freeburg and Saltzer come back. We're ready to tackle Private Ryan, 1917.

• 2:10:33David Sims?

  They're like, no, no, we're not even doing that. We're doing all those like Iraq movies, nobody liked. We're doing like Stop Loss.

• 2:10:41Griffin Newman?

  The rendition.

• 2:10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:10:43Griffin Newman?

  Anything Wahlberg. Yeah, the whole Wahlberg, yeah.

• 2:10:45David Sims?

  Not another Marky Mark movie would be kind of funny.

• 2:10:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Freeburg Saltzer could do a good Berg Wahlberg.

• 2:10:51Speaker 03

  You would have to observe the Wahlberg things so keenly.

• 2:10:54Griffin Newman?

  Well, this is, right, this is the thing about talking about this as a dying art form, right? I think it was with our, our, our texter with the Doughboys. Mitch sent us a scene from the end of Epic Movie. And was like, or maybe Eva Anderson sent it to me and was like, I'm obsessed with this. This is insane. And we watched it and we were all like, this is really fucking funny. But is it funny now because we're so deprived of these types of movies that even seeing Reminder of the worst example from 15 years ago? Now feels refreshing or does this almost work as its own out of context anti comedy?

• 2:11:29David Sims?

  I'm looking at the Wikipedia, apparently Epic Movie ends with Borat? Or are you not talking about that part?

• 2:11:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm talk, I'm sorry, I'm talking about Disaster Movie, which ends with a parody of I'm Fucking Matt Damon.

• 2:11:43Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:11:43Griffin Newman?

  It is a parody of a comedy sketch.

• 2:11:45David Sims?

  Apparently, uh, the Guru Shitka is involved.

• 2:11:48Griffin Newman?

  Hellboy is in it.

• 2:11:50Speaker 03

  This, I think this is tipping towards anti comedy.

• 2:11:53Griffin Newman?

  No, it is, but like.

• 2:11:54David Sims?

  Apparently chipmunks get crushed to death by a cow.

• 2:11:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:11:57David Sims?

  This doesn't sound funny.

• 2:11:59Griffin Newman?

  This is what's funny about it.

• 2:12:00Speaker 03

  I'm just saying, this didn't even sound fun.

• 2:12:01David Sims?

  Doesn't even sound fun.

• 2:12:03Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna post this on social media, okay? What's funny about it is, I think if you've seen the full movie, which I have not. This is just like lazily calling back every pop culture character that's existed in the movie up until that point. If you only watch this one scene out of context, you just cannot guess who's coming next because you're just like, oh, terrible puppets of the chipmunks. And then it switches to like Hancock, you know, like all these things, like the randomness of it is just genuinely kind of shocking because you're seeing all these characters for the first time if you haven't watched the movie. But it is just recognition comedy, right? It is done with no point of view. They are not like approximating the things they're parodying well. So much of the Friedberg Seltzer thing was like,

• 2:12:47Griffin Newman?

  they had trailers out parodying scenes from trailers for movies that hadn't come out yet. Like they were like, our movie's coming out in August, Hancock's coming out in July, we need to parody Hancock. So they would just parody the trailer scene so that they could strike while the iron was so hot. So this is like, you don't even have a real frame of reference for what you're parodying. And that's like the worst end of it, right? And I feel like the Doughboys always talk about like, why'd the parody movie die? The comedy movie died is a bigger thing, a thing we've talked about a lot. The parody movie feels like a thing that is really tricky to imagine ever coming back again because it feels like this kind of thing has become such a like short form comedy basis.

• 2:13:29David Sims?

  It's mocking the macro culture, which doesn't exist as much. It was murdered, you're saying? Someone killed it?

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  I think so.

• 2:13:35David Sims?

  By like Friedberg and Seltzer?

• 2:13:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really think so. But I also think like, you had like, SNL could parody things and you'd have like, shows that didn't last as long, like the Ben Stiller show that could do like more cinematic parodies. But the idea of doing these things with like a proper movie budget was rare and hard. You'd get like MTV Movie Awards segments and Oscar openings and shit like that. But now like SNL has this like film unit that can turn stuff out so fast, not to mention like the rise of websites like College Dreamer and Funny or Die that were also doing, what if blank was a horror movie instead and doing it with reasonably good production value and with good actors? Where just like the idea of, oh, fuck, you need to string like 40 of these together.

• 2:14:20Griffin Newman?

  To justify it being feature-length versus like, why wouldn't we just do one five-minute sketch of this?

• 2:14:25Speaker 03

  I mean, Key and Peele, right, is another touchstone for like

• 2:14:27Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:14:28Speaker 03

  outstanding genre parody.

• 2:14:29Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:14:29Speaker 03

  With great attention to detail.

• 2:14:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was like, the standards of doing this on TV and the internet, there became so many more places that did them, and it became a lot easier for them to do it well. Where the idea of having to go to the movies to see this makes no sense, especially when the movie versions of it happening simultaneously were dogshit. I do find it interesting that like, we have the Naked Gun reboot coming out this summer.

• 2:14:52Speaker 03

  Who's, who's Drebin?

• 2:14:53Griffin Newman?

  Liam Neeson is Drebin.

• 2:14:54Speaker 03

  Which is very fun.

• 2:14:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Which feels like the smart, like, the Liam Neeson thriller of 2025 is the equivalent of the kind of cop procedural show that Naked Gun was parodying at the time. It's Akiva Schaefer directing it, who is the right guy to do that.

• 2:15:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:15:12Griffin Newman?

  At the time we were recording this, it has no trailer. It has an August theatrical release date that I'm hoping stays, and does not go to streaming.

• 2:15:19Speaker 03

  Oh, god.

• 2:15:20Griffin Newman?

  Pamela Anderson is playing the Priscilla Presley equivalent.

• 2:15:23Speaker 03

  Great.

• 2:15:24Griffin Newman?

  Paramount has it, and they just announced that the fucking Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Kendrick Lamar movie is going to Paramount Plus.

• 2:15:29Speaker 03

  I know, yeah.

• 2:15:30Griffin Newman?

  Which I'm just so desperate for like, a fucking live-action comedy, pure comedy, to be released in theaters and make some amount of money. I want to believe, perhaps naively, that if there was a movie that came out with the right people attached, that was actually funny, everyone would go. As much as I complain about the lack of successful theatrical comedies, there isn't an obvious thing in the last seven years where I'm like, that was put in theaters and no one went.

• 2:15:56Speaker 03

  All, all of my favorites of the recent years, I thought, were like, maybe a little too niche to have that breakout.

• 2:16:02Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:16:02Speaker 03

  Loved Dick's the Musical, had a great time, but like, I understand why that did not gross a hundred million dollars.

• 2:16:08Griffin Newman?

  824 had their like, getting behind Julio, and like, Dick's the Musical, and like, trying to do the smaller, can we build this up kind of thing. But it's like, Naked Gun feels like there's a moment here for this to be recaptured.

• 2:16:20Speaker 03

  My favorite comedies recently, you know?

• 2:16:23David Sims?

  Free Guy.

• 2:16:24Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:16:25David Sims?

  Wolf's.

• 2:16:25Griffin Newman?

  The family plan, the man from Ohio.

• 2:16:29David Sims?

  I Googled comedy movies of the 2020 and were trying to find the most cursed answer.

• 2:16:32Speaker 03

  It really, it like hurts my feelings to hear you.

• 2:16:35Griffin Newman?

  There have also been good ones that got like punted to streaming.

• 2:16:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:16:40Griffin Newman?

  Eurovision.

• 2:16:41Speaker 03

  Barben Star.

• 2:16:42Griffin Newman?

  Barben Star.

• 2:16:42David Sims?

  Barben Star is an amazing movie.

• 2:16:44Griffin Newman?

  Barben Star and Palm Strings were supposed to go theatrical and got fucked by the pandemic.

• 2:16:47Speaker 03

  Palm Strings, I was agree.

• 2:16:48David Sims?

  Same with the King of Staten Island, which is less good than those movies, but you know, you know, that was supposed to be a theater movie.

• 2:16:53Griffin Newman?

  But the Naked Gun thing, I'm just like, if that were good, it feels like it is correctly positioned at the right moment to make people go like, oh, right, this is fun.

• 2:17:04David Sims?

  People like comedies, dude. One of Them Days just did really good. Like, people will go see a comedy.

• 2:17:08Griffin Newman?

  One of Them Days is so good.

• 2:17:09David Sims?

  Yeah, like, people go see a comedy.

• 2:17:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:17:11David Sims?

  No Hard Feelings obviously did pretty good, you know, a couple years ago.

• 2:17:13Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I'm all.

• 2:17:14Speaker 03

  Two movies that I would describe as very fun.

• 2:17:16Griffin Newman?

  At the time we're recording this, One of Them Days is the third highest grossing film of the year. And I just feel like there has not been a lot of talk of studios being like, oh, we should make like 10 of these a year.

• 2:17:26Speaker 03

  I think there's some talk.

• 2:17:27Griffin Newman?

  This movie cost under $10 million.

• 2:17:29Speaker 03

  There's talk. I hope there is.

• 2:17:30David Sims?

  There is.

• 2:17:30Speaker 03

  She, I mean, they were, they're really great. Kiki Palmer and SZA, both really funny.

• 2:17:35Griffin Newman?

  Fantastic.

• 2:17:35Speaker 03

  Um, the Cat Williams scene's really funny.

• 2:17:38Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's all good.

• 2:17:39Speaker 03

  He is funny.

• 2:17:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:17:41David Sims?

  You know what Cat Williams is really good in?

• 2:17:43Griffin Newman?

  What's that?

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  Norbit.

• 2:17:44Griffin Newman?

  Really? That one's kind of good and everything.

• 2:17:46David Sims?

  He's really funny in Norbit. The whole joke in Norbit is that he and Eddie Griffin are former pimps who then start to run a legitimate business, but they start to run it like pimps because they can't stop being pimps.

• 2:17:58Speaker 03

  Extremely of an era where like pimp was kind of a cultural reference of like, a cool guy.

• 2:18:04David Sims?

  With a hat.

• 2:18:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, big hat.

• 2:18:05David Sims?

  Wearing like a red or blue suit.

• 2:18:08Speaker 03

  Women like him by his, by their own volition.

• 2:18:13Griffin Newman?

  Uh, I mean, Cat Williams' entire early career was, is this guy a pimp or not?

• 2:18:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:18:18Griffin Newman?

  Is he implying that he used to be or is still currently? I'm like very close upon the trigger on Cat Williams at the Barclay Center next weekend from the time we're recording.

• 2:18:27Speaker 03

  What's, what's the date?

• 2:18:28David Sims?

  Cry for help.

• 2:18:29Griffin Newman?

  Uh, by the time this episode comes out, I will have gone or not. It is March 22nd. Are you interested?

• 2:18:36Speaker 03

  I am not disinterested.

• 2:18:38Griffin Newman?

  We can talk off, Mike.

• 2:18:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:18:39Griffin Newman?

  Here's what I was gonna say. There have been a couple other spoof movies announced in development, but I do find it fascinating that all of them are taking the same approach, which is let's reboot the legacy spoof movie brands.

• 2:18:52Speaker 03

  What are the other ones?

• 2:18:52Griffin Newman?

  They announced that the Wayans Brothers are coming back to scary movie.

• 2:18:55Speaker 03

  Oh, scary movie, yeah.

• 2:18:56David Sims?

  I mean, I'm a little anxious about that, but yes.

• 2:18:59Speaker 03

  Same. Cause I, I think again, those, the first one I remember really enjoying as a young person.

• 2:19:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:06Speaker 03

  And then I think they became kind of those pastichey things of like,

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:19:10Speaker 03

  that you just have to have seen 14 movies to understand what's funny.

• 2:19:14Griffin Newman?

  So they only did the first two, but two is already becoming that. And is, was made on such a accelerated timeline that it is like parodying the stuff from six months earlier. And then David Zucker takes over from that point. Um, but right, that's the big deal is like they're coming back for the first time since two. And then I have heard things about Hot Shots, which kind of makes sense to do a Hot Shots Legacy sequel that is parodying Maverick.

• 2:19:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:19:43Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like there is one other one.

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  I feel like they needed to do that right away, though. That's already kind of receding.

• 2:19:48Griffin Newman?

  There's another one I'm forgetting.

• 2:19:53Speaker 05

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• 2:20:27David Sims?

  Johnny dangerously, you know, Verme gets arrested, governor pardons Johnny, everything works out.

• 2:20:32Griffin Newman?

  We'll have a little fun with it, David.

• 2:20:34David Sims?

  Big sequence in front of the movie theater screen.

• 2:20:37Speaker 03

  Well, I like the shot of him falling through the screen.

• 2:20:39David Sims?

  That's cool.

• 2:20:39Speaker 03

  That's fun.

• 2:20:40David Sims?

  Is that the roaring twenties that they're watching? I can't remember which movie it is.

• 2:20:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yes, it is.

• 2:20:44David Sims?

  But it's one of those. It's just roaring twenties, it's the big shootout on the steps. The film.

• 2:20:49Griffin Newman?

  The guy because I'm having to change the disguise of the car and their costumes ripping off the car like it's wallpaper.

• 2:20:56David Sims?

  Shelf paper.

• 2:20:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, shelf paper, which is like so funny why they made that tight, why they referenced shelf paper earlier.

• 2:21:02David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 03

  To seed like, I love shelf paper. And then they're using it to camouflage the car.

• 2:21:06Griffin Newman?

  Intentionality, like this movie is like holistically, like building its bits for maximum impact later.

• 2:21:12David Sims?

  Film got bad reviews.

• 2:21:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:21:14David Sims?

  Uh, Janet Maslin says that Heckling brought a sense of fun.

• 2:21:19Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:21:20David Sims?

  Uh, and sort of, yeah, you know what? She did say that. Uh, but she found the movie wound down as it went along, eventually descending to a lowest common denominator of dopey adolescent gags. But she was like medium on it, but most others did not like the movie. And it opened somewhat confusingly Christmas time.

• 2:21:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that is very bizarre.

• 2:21:46David Sims?

  And it made $3 million at the domestic box office in its opening weekend. It did make it to 17.

• 2:21:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:21:53David Sims?

  So on a $9 million budget, it basically, uh, you know, like broke evenish.

• 2:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:01David Sims?

  I don't want to spoil the box office game, but there's something important about the box.

• 2:22:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay. Well, I'm excited, but I do think this is that kind of like follow up movie where everyone's like crossing their arms and going like, see, Amy, you should have just stuck to your thing. Like, why did you say no to all those scripts we sent you?

• 2:22:16David Sims?

  Do you want to do the box office?

• 2:22:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, let's do it. I'm very curious what this interesting thing is.

• 2:22:18David Sims?

  Christmas time, December 21st, 1984.

• 2:22:22Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:22:22David Sims?

  It's opening number nine at the box office. So it's not in the top five. What's number one at the box office? A huge comedy.

• 2:22:28Griffin Newman?

  Something interesting is happening.

• 2:22:29David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 2:22:30Griffin Newman?

  Beverly Hills Cop is number one.

• 2:22:31David Sims?

  That's correct. And as Amy Heckerling said, I was so depressed when the movie came out. My ex boyfriend had a movie come out that day too, called Beverly Hills Cop. And his, she's wrong that it came out that day. It had been out for a couple of weeks, but the point is.

• 2:22:44Griffin Newman?

  Was beaten at the box office.

• 2:22:45David Sims?

  Uh, and his feeders were full and mine were empty. And I was just so miserable. As we covered on our Martin Brest episode, they, those two had a thing when they were young.

• 2:22:53Griffin Newman?

  I, at film school at FI, I thought I saw Martin Brest in one of the scenes. I don't think he is credited, but there is a one line role. And now I want to see if I can find it. I almost want to say it's in the courthouse that I could have sworn was young Marty.

• 2:23:10David Sims?

  Not seeing anything in particular as I Google it, but I don't know. Um, but so Beverly Hills Cop is number one. Beverly Hills Cop. Do you like Beverly Hills Cop, Josh?

• 2:23:19Speaker 03

  I find it, this might be controversial, fun.

• 2:23:21David Sims?

  I mean, I would sort of agree that it is actually such a plotty movie and it's like kind of a straightforward cop movie that it is less about the laugh out loud stuff, but.

• 2:23:29Speaker 03

  And it, it really runs on Eddie Murphy's charm. It, I also kept waiting for a twist and it's like, nope, we know it's the bad guy. We go right at him.

• 2:23:38Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:23:39Speaker 03

  Which is.

• 2:23:40Griffin Newman?

  Although I do kind of appreciate that it's just like, this guy sucks and he is right about him and he's just gathering the evidence to back up the case.

• 2:23:46Speaker 03

  Which I just, I like assumed it was a slightly different kind of movie, but it's like, it is very fun. Very fun.

• 2:23:53Griffin Newman?

  But it is weird to watch today, as much as I love it and be like, that movie like shattered the culture.

• 2:24:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:24:01Griffin Newman?

  Right. Like people were losing their fucking minds and you're like, it is a pretty standard cop movie that one guy is just like wheeling into being funny.

• 2:24:09David Sims?

  Number two at the box office is another film we have covered on this podcast.

• 2:24:16Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:24:16David Sims?

  Quite recently.

• 2:24:17Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:24:18David Sims?

  It's a science fiction film.

• 2:24:19Griffin Newman?

  The science fiction film?

• 2:24:20David Sims?

  A bit of a disappointment.

• 2:24:22Griffin Newman?

  Is it?

• 2:24:22David Sims?

  Been out for two weeks.

• 2:24:23Griffin Newman?

  The motion picture Dune?

• 2:24:23David Sims?

  Doo.

• 2:24:24Griffin Newman?

  There's an interesting, I mean, the AFI mafia of like, uh, Stuart Kornfeld, Brest, uh, Hekkerling connecting to Lynch and Brooks.

• 2:24:35Speaker 03

  There's just a, we were building a little bit of a constellation.

• 2:24:37David Sims?

  We're, we're in the mid eighties right now, although Hekkerling will be, you know, will be moving forward. But yes. Number three. So we've covered a lot of these because like we've done these box offices recently. So number three is a buddy crime, uh, comedy film that, uh, that was sort of a flop with two major movie stars.

• 2:24:53Griffin Newman?

  Is this the one, I feel like someone texted us about this recently that we didn't give it enough attention. It's an, it's not The Fortune, which I feel like is what I guessed last time. Is it the Kirk Douglas one?

• 2:25:06David Sims?

  No.

• 2:25:07Griffin Newman?

  What's that one called?

• 2:25:08David Sims?

  I don't know.

• 2:25:08Griffin Newman?

  Tough guys? That's not wise, guys.

• 2:25:11David Sims?

  Maybe.

• 2:25:12Griffin Newman?

  It was a bit of a flaw.

• 2:25:13David Sims?

  I don't know what you're talking about because I'm talking about this movie here.

• 2:25:16Speaker 03

  David tapping out with Ben listening to stories about Weird Al Force.

• 2:25:21David Sims?

  Film's called My Bologna. No, it's, uh, come on. It's Burt Reynolds.

• 2:25:24Griffin Newman?

  And Clint.

• 2:25:25David Sims?

  And Clint Eastwood.

• 2:25:26Griffin Newman?

  Heat.

• 2:25:26David Sims?

  It's a movie called City Heat. It's a big disappointment. Throwbacky kinda similar to Johnny Danger. There are two throwbacky guys in hat movies, you know, like it's like, ah, come on. And then number four is an ambitious science fiction film that we've covered on our Patreon, a sequel.

• 2:25:43Griffin Newman?

  Twenty ten?

• 2:25:45David Sims?

  Twenty ten, two thousand and ten. We make context. So it's like, hey, kids, do you want to see flawed, ambitious sci fi or like goofy gangster shit?

• 2:25:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Number or, or fucking they're like, well, let's go see Beverly Hills Cop.

• 2:25:58Speaker 03

  They're all gonna go see Beverly Hills Cop.

• 2:25:59David Sims?

  Number five in the box office, you could also see this. It's a film that, uh, had actually come out in nineteen forty, but is currently in theaters.

• 2:26:06Griffin Newman?

  Gone with the Wind?

• 2:26:07David Sims?

  No, the kids film.

• 2:26:08Griffin Newman?

  Wizard of Oz?

• 2:26:09David Sims?

  Animated film.

• 2:26:10Griffin Newman?

  Snow White?

• 2:26:11David Sims?

  No.

• 2:26:11Griffin Newman?

  No, that's, that's in the thirties.

• 2:26:13David Sims?

  Huh huh huh. If I believe it is Disney's second film.

• 2:26:18Griffin Newman?

  So then it's a Pinocchio?

• 2:26:19David Sims?

  Pinoc- Pinocchio.

• 2:26:21Speaker 03

  Beverly Hills Cop, I'm sorry to, to digress from Pinocchio, but Beverly Hills Cop being number one, while Johnny Dangerously is number nine, kind of underscores the Murphy Piscopo, uh, dynamic there.

• 2:26:31Griffin Newman?

  I wasn't even thinking about that part of it. You're like, Murphy is like breaking records as the star of the movie and Piscopo is bombing as like the funny villain.

• 2:26:41David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:26:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:42David Sims?

  Yeah. So, uh, that's your top five. You've also got Starman, another film we've covered. You've got a new entry that's opening above Johnny Dangerously called Protocol, which is a, uh, Goldie Hawn comedy written by Buck Henry about a cocktail waitress who gets sucked into like an assassination plot or something.

• 2:27:02Griffin Newman?

  Sounds like something she would do. Yep.

• 2:27:05David Sims?

  You've got the Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola's big, uh, epic flop.

• 2:27:09Griffin Newman?

  It's a lot of things flopping. I mean, I feel like when we do these earlier.

• 2:27:13David Sims?

  You got fucking Beverly Hills Cop.

• 2:27:14Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I feel like when we do these earlier box office games, you, it was, it felt like a healthier time of the cineplexes where multiple movies could be succeeding simultaneously. And this is a rare example of like Beverly Hills Cop is just sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

• 2:27:29David Sims?

  You've also got, uh, opening at number 10 new this week, uh, a little sequel. Called Breakin' Two.

• 2:27:38Griffin Newman?

  Electric Boogaloo.

• 2:27:40Speaker 03

  A movie remembered, I think, as a meme.

• 2:27:42David Sims?

  Yeah, movie remembered for its, yes, for its subtitle only.

• 2:27:46Griffin Newman?

  I like, I like when Johnny break dances in this one.

• 2:27:49Speaker 03

  Like that too.

• 2:27:50David Sims?

  I'm seeing that the film received mostly negative reviews from critics.

• 2:27:52Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. Cowards.

• 2:27:54David Sims?

  Uh, yes, Lucinda Dickey and Adolfo Chavardu Quinones and Michael Boogaloo Shrimp Chambers are the stars of that picture.

• 2:28:05Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you should start an ASMR channel where you just list the cast of Breakin' Two.

• 2:28:09David Sims?

  And just get like quieter and quieter.

• 2:28:11Speaker 03

  David Nam's famous breakdancer.

• 2:28:13David Sims?

  Also opening this week, there's a lot of flops. There's a movie called Mickey and Maude, which is a Blake Edwards Dudley Moore, like mega bomb. And you've got a 20th century Fox movie called The Flamingo Kid, which stars.

• 2:28:26Griffin Newman?

  Matt Dillon.

• 2:28:26David Sims?

  A young Matt Dillon and a younger Hector Elizondo. So as you know.

• 2:28:32Speaker 03

  Gary Marshall.

• 2:28:33Griffin Newman?

  Hector Elizondo.

• 2:28:33David Sims?

  Hector Elizondo, which is about, I don't know, some kind of flamingo kid. Oh, the interview about the flamingo kid. Thank you.

• 2:28:39Griffin Newman?

  Is he like a kid who works at like a fucking country club or some shit?

• 2:28:42David Sims?

  Boy or something. But it's the first film to get a PG 13 rating, which.

• 2:28:47Griffin Newman?

  Wow, wow.

• 2:28:49David Sims?

  Been existed. And now it was not the first released because a couple more had come out. It was the first that the MPAA certified with a.

• 2:28:57Griffin Newman?

  Got it.

• 2:28:58David Sims?

  And yeah, that's what's been in the box office when Johnny dangerously comes out now. So the film doesn't do very well.

• 2:29:03Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I found who I think is Martin Brest and I'm going to screenshot it and I want to solve this mystery, but it's when Griffin Dunn goes in for his first day at the DA's office. And he has one throwaway line and I feel very confident that is Marty Brest from, from us seeing cameos in his own work.

• 2:29:21David Sims?

  I just don't know.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  And no one looks like.

• 2:29:23David Sims?

  Can't prove this.

• 2:29:24Griffin Newman?

  But I just, I found the moment and I will screenshot it and it's a mystery to be solved later, perhaps across our series. We'll see.

• 2:29:31Speaker 03

  I like, I think, I like that you're transitioning to one of those podcasts that solves a mystery.

• 2:29:35Griffin Newman?

  I mean, look, we just got back from the iHeart Podcast Awards and those seem to be burning up the charts. We need more mystery. That's how this show started. Decade of dreams. We were trying to solve what the Phantom Menace was about. We've lost the mystery angle. This show needs to go back to being a whodunit.

• 2:29:53Griffin Newman?

  And I'll tell you who done it. Amy Heckerling. She made a movie that is funny.

• 2:29:57Speaker 04

  I agree.

• 2:29:58Griffin Newman?

  Jokes.

• 2:29:59David Sims?

  Well, what do we think of her next movie? National Lampoon's European Vacation?

• 2:30:04Griffin Newman?

  I have never seen it.

• 2:30:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:05Griffin Newman?

  You have been watching through the Vacation movies for the first time, David.

• 2:30:08Speaker 04

  Huh.

• 2:30:09Griffin Newman?

  Huge Totemic series for you.

• 2:30:11Speaker 04

  I mean, I love Chevy.

• 2:30:13Griffin Newman?

  I feel like this is almost universally.

• 2:30:16David Sims?

  Nobody really likes this.

• 2:30:17Griffin Newman?

  Right. It's like the least liked installment.

• 2:30:19David Sims?

  Everyone likes the first one in Christmas. This is the one people are less into.

• 2:30:23Griffin Newman?

  And even like Vegas is out of steam, but I feel like people, I have heard people say, my, my best ring growing up, Derek Simon, whose family loved the Vacation movies were like, European Vacation is like noxious.

• 2:30:35Speaker 04

  I mean, the last time I watched it was 13. I remember having a good time.

• 2:30:38David Sims?

  Josh, do you have a Vacation take or do you care for this film?

• 2:30:41Speaker 03

  They were movies. I think I saw Vacation and Christmas on TV. I remember wanting to see Vegas in theaters, but being a child had no agency to do so, so I missed it entirely. And it's also like, one of those things are, the more you hear about Chevy Chase, the less I'm like, I gotta go watch his old stuff.

• 2:30:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Jumping ahead, it's just an interesting arc of like this movie that really puts her on the map that like does okay at the time, but grows immediately. Right? Then her like swerving to something totally different that doesn't work. Then it's like, what's my safety net? Make a sequel to a hit with a big star. That is a sure thing. I think she views that as like a failure in her eyes that she like, didn't get the reins around that thing successfully. And it was obviously successful enough to keep the series going, but it's like the least loved entry, which leads to her going into Look Who's Talking, being like, I need an undeniable hit that everyone has to give me credit for. Like, I need a thing that is me that like, they can't take away from me.

• 2:31:42David Sims?

  Uh, we'll talk about that next week, though.

• 2:31:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She successfully sponsors her own franchise.

• 2:31:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:47Speaker 04

  A lot of her movies became TV shows too.

• 2:31:49Griffin Newman?

  A lot. I mean, Clueless, Fast Times, Look Who's Talking becomes Baby Talk.

• 2:31:54David Sims?

  Uh, but they didn't make a Johnny Dangerously show.

• 2:31:56Griffin Newman?

  No, they did make a CSI loser.

• 2:32:00David Sims?

  Where what? They?

• 2:32:01Griffin Newman?

  They investigate teenager bags.

• 2:32:05Speaker 03

  They found him at the Iron Maiden concert.

• 2:32:06Griffin Newman?

  At the Iron Maiden baby. Uh, Josh, thank you for being here.

• 2:32:10David Sims?

  Are we just good?

• 2:32:12Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 2:32:13David Sims?

  Is that song fun or is it funny?

• 2:32:15Griffin Newman?

  Guys, guys, truly, we cannot burn this here because it's gonna have to be half of our

• 2:32:19David Sims?

  Yeah, we're gonna need to do some real weedus digging.

• 2:32:22Griffin Newman?

  I think that might be the most weedus has ever been discussed on a podcast episode is our loser episode coming in a few weeks. Josh, your special?

• 2:32:33Speaker 03

  Someday, somewhere.

• 2:32:35Griffin Newman?

  Hopefully out by now.

• 2:32:36Speaker 03

  It will be called, it is called Positive Reinforcement. Thank you so much for having me.

• 2:32:41Griffin Newman?

  You're the king of positive reinforcement. I mean, Twitter is now a hellscape, but it's a thing I always love that you would do where you just kind of post like, I have a free 45 minutes. Who needs positive reinforcement?

• 2:32:53Speaker 03

  I do it. I have a newsletter now that I do some pep talks in, which is fun.

• 2:32:57Griffin Newman?

  Substack where?

• 2:32:58Speaker 03

  Substack, currently. It's joshgondelman.substack.com. It's called That's Marvelous, which of course cribbed from the big Lebowski, Philip Seymour Hoffman, rest in peace. But it's pep talks and jokes. And that's where all the Josh Gondelman related information is. I'm on Instagram and Blue Sky and fucking whatever.

• 2:33:13Griffin Newman?

  I just love that people would say like, I've had a rough day. Can you throw me something? And you would always be specific. It was never just like,

• 2:33:19Speaker 03

  I tried to be specific.

• 2:33:20Griffin Newman?

  Cheer up, the weather's nice.

• 2:33:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you heard a bird sing lately?

• 2:33:24Griffin Newman?

  Right. It was always like, this is well thought and considered. And if you didn't know someone, you would like, look at their profile and find the first thing you compliment them on. You're, you're a very genuine, kind, thoughtful person. The Johnny dangerously of jokes. And by calling something the, as someone the Johnny dangerously of blank, I mean,

• 2:33:44Speaker 03

  Fun more than funny.

• 2:33:47Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say my highest compliment.

• 2:33:48Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 2:33:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Next week, we will be embarking upon a European vacation. Pack accordingly. And as always, we've recorded a Johnny dangerously episode once. Once.

• 2:34:09Speaker 04

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostly. Our creative producer is Marie Bardi Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lain Montgomery and the great American novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon Blank Check special features for exclusive

• 2:34:51Speaker 04

  franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.

• 2:35:04Griffin Newman?

  Gaming this out. I got two options. I'm just running it in my head.

• 2:35:09Griffin Newman?

  This movie has a lot of good lines.

• 2:35:10Speaker 04

  I feel like you gotta do one of those like, one time.

• 2:35:14Speaker 03

  Oh, I like that one.

• 2:35:15Speaker 04

  I kinda like that.

• 2:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Don't blow it. Don't blow it, Ben.

• 2:35:18Speaker 04

  You got Episcopo? Is that his last name?

• 2:35:20Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is Episcopo.

• 2:35:21Speaker 04

  How do you not know his last name?

• 2:35:23Speaker 03

  Let's get into it!

• 2:35:24Speaker 04

  Sorry. He hasn't, he hasn't, uh, stuck in my mind.

• 2:35:27Speaker 03

  Hey!

• 2:35:28Griffin Newman?

  Save it for the mic. Ready?