Look Who's Talking with Hillary Busis

In perhaps the spermiest film we’ve ever covered, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley hang out with a baby voiced by Bruce Willis and Amy Heckerling gets revenge on Harold Ramis. As David Sims says early in this episode - Look Who’s Talking is a VERY RICH text. Vanity Fair’s Hillary Busis joins us to talk about this 1989 “forgotbuster,” a film that made a bozo amount of money and dared to ask the question, “What if baby talked??” We’re going deep on Travolta lore, grappling with Kirstie Alley’s later career, and following numerous tangents on everything from the rules of the Rugrats universe to advancements in crib safety. Look who’s podcasting! 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://www.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.

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  He's hip, he's slick, and he's only three months old. He's got David Sims's smile, Ben Hosley's eyes, and the voice of Griffin Newman. And now all he has to do is find himself the perfect podcast?

• 1:54David Sims?

  So a bunch of notes, not, not for what you did. You did good thing.

• 1:58Griffin Newman?

  That is one of the more insane taglines we have ever covered on a hobby.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  In no part of this movie is he three months old.

• 2:04David Sims?

  That's true. They pretty much leap from newborn to like-

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  Oh my god, incredible point right off the bat.

• 2:08David Sims?

  No, no, even bigger point. Now you were-

• 2:10Speaker 04

  I have a lot of child development issues with this movie.

• 2:12Griffin Newman?

  So many, many points.

• 2:14David Sims?

  We're gonna, I mean, as you're replacing-

• 2:17Griffin Newman?

  You logged it on Letterboxd last night. This is truly one of the richest texts we have ever discussed.

• 2:21David Sims?

  For like a dumb bullshit movie that like has, was a huge hit and has been a little memory hole by culture.

• 2:25Speaker 04

  I'm like watching this, my brain- Oh no, if you mention this to a 25 year old, they have no idea what you're talking about.

• 2:29Griffin Newman?

  My brain is firing on all synapses and I'm just like, I, I will never run out of things to talk about in this episode.

• 2:34David Sims?

  Now, you replaced names in the poster, right? So instead of John Travolta's smile, you said David Sims's smile. But yes, the poster says yes, John Travolta's smile. I don't know where he got that since John Travolta ain't his daddy.

• 2:46Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 2:46David Sims?

  Which this poster is misrepresenting.

• 2:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then it says he needs to find himself the perfect daddy, which is kind of the central conflict of the movie.

• 2:53David Sims?

  But like, if you watch, reading the poster, you're like, whoa, what's wrong with Travolta? Jesus, the guy's had a few bombs, but do we need to be dragging him on his own movie poster?

• 3:01Griffin Newman?

  It's also a wild choice that obviously the poster is just big old Mikey head, right? Chewing on the title.

• 3:08David Sims?

  He's chewing on the title. I think that's why the movie was a hit.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  Oh, it definitely is.

• 3:12David Sims?

  Is, is the poster.

• 3:13Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna talk about, we're gonna talk about it.

• 3:15Speaker 04

  I should bring up the poster. I am not looking at it right now.

• 3:18David Sims?

  Everyone was like, he's talking?

• 3:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:20David Sims?

  I'm seeing.

• 3:21Griffin Newman?

  It was, yes.

• 3:22David Sims?

  I'm buying. People went, probably went to the window and were like, can I have one to the baby movie? And they're like, it's not out for three months. And they were like, well, I'll be here. Like, I'll put some money down now.

• 3:31Griffin Newman?

  The four highest grossing films in North America of 1989 were in order, Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lethal Weapon 2.

• 3:41David Sims?

  Back to the Future Part Two.

• 3:43Griffin Newman?

  In 1989?

• 3:45David Sims?

  Oh yeah. Well, maybe that's, um-

• 3:46Griffin Newman?

  Did it come up to 1989?

• 3:48David Sims?

  Yeah, 1989. Now Back to the Future Part Two and then-

• 3:49Griffin Newman?

  Look Who's Talking?

• 3:50David Sims?

  Yeah. Lethal Weapon 2's sixth.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Look Who's Talking made 300-

• 3:53Griffin Newman?

  Wikipedia gave me false information, which this is the first time this has ever happened.

• 3:57David Sims?

  But once, as usual, maybe I'm looking at worldwide versus, I mean, I don't know.

• 4:00Griffin Newman?

  Worldwide, this movie was ginormous.

• 4:02Speaker 04

  I saw on Wikipedia, $300 million.

• 4:04Griffin Newman?

  That's the biggest thing is like, it was huge in the United States at the time of its release. I believe it was the single highest grossing film worldwide in the history of Columbia Pictures.

• 4:15David Sims?

  Oh, wow.

• 4:16Speaker 04

  And it was Travolta's biggest since Grease.

• 4:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I mean, everything about you cannot overstate how big this movie was. It really was just the poster, but also like, I understand Travolta's star is dinged at this moment. Kirstie Alley, at the time of this release, is on the biggest to come in the world.

• 4:31David Sims?

  Yeah, but that doesn't.

• 4:33Griffin Newman?

  The poster, giant baby head, the actors' names are not above the title. They're just in the tagline. They're just mentioning, he's got John Travolta's smile. Well, he doesn't.

• 4:43Speaker 04

  Which means that they could be in the movie or maybe not.

• 4:45Griffin Newman?

  Worldwide.

• 4:46Speaker 04

  Naming the attributes that the baby has.

• 4:48Griffin Newman?

  The movie goes out of its way, actually, in fact, to say that he has George Siegel's eyes, not Kirstie Alley's eyes.

• 4:52David Sims?

  Make that clear that that's the one thing he got from Siegel.

• 4:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's got Siegel's eyes.

• 4:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 4:56Griffin Newman?

  He does have Kirstie Alley's voice. He does, in fact, have Bruce Willis's voice. You could argue he has Kirstie Alley's smile.

• 5:02David Sims?

  I suppose so, but like, it is also, that's the other thing that's busted about the poster where you're like, Kirstie Alley's voice is kind of what she's famous for, where they're like, oh, she, he's got Kirstie Alley's eyes. I'm like, okay.

• 5:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but we know he has Bruce Willis's voice.

• 5:14David Sims?

  Anyway.

• 5:15Griffin Newman?

  The only thing that maybe could have made this movie gross more is if the poster was just Bruce Willis voices this. And there was an arrow pointing down to the baby with the sunglasses eating the, the title.

• 5:27David Sims?

  John Travolta's highest grossing worldwide film of all time is Grease. Now, obviously, that's one of those sort of box office films that have been bolstered by years.

• 5:35Griffin Newman?

  Many releases.

• 5:35David Sims?

  But that's still.

• 5:36Griffin Newman?

  But a humongous film.

• 5:37David Sims?

  Look who's talking is three. What is his number two highest grossing film worldwide in his entire career?

• 5:42Griffin Newman?

  Wild Hogs?

• 5:43David Sims?

  No, that is a low sixth, I'm guessing because it's, it's international.

• 5:48Griffin Newman?

  It didn't, right. That's a very American film. So it's not Bolt and it's not.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  It's not the Battlefield.

• 5:53Griffin Newman?

  It is Bolt. Wow.

• 5:55David Sims?

  Disney's Bolt, which made $328 million worldwide.

• 5:59Griffin Newman?

  What the fuck is that? Was viewed as a disappointment.

• 6:01David Sims?

  At the time, it was something of a disappointment. It's a movie. It's kind of like.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  He was a dog.

• 6:05David Sims?

  Yeah, it's like Toy Story, but if like the actor, the, the, the dog who's in a movie was Bud Light. You know, it's like a dog who plays like a lassie.

• 6:14Griffin Newman?

  And what if John Travolta was the dog? No, what happened?

• 6:16David Sims?

  He's like a famous dog in movies, so he thinks he's.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  It's like Galaxy Quest.

• 6:20David Sims?

  Magic.

• 6:20Griffin Newman?

  Chris Sanders.

• 6:21David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a little like Galaxy Quest.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  He's a Galaxy Quest dog.

• 6:23Griffin Newman?

  Chris Saunders, director of Lilo and Stitch, was a huge hit for Disney, develops his, like, blank check follow-up project, which was called, I want to say, American Dog? That was a very odd, interesting sounding film starring John Travolta and Thomas Haden Church.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  It's an adaptation of American Beauty, but about dogs.

• 6:40Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 6:40David Sims?

  Right. Haden Church was playing Mina Savary.

• 6:42Griffin Newman?

  It was a weird road trip movie with anthropomorphic animals riding the rails that sounded, it sounded really cool. And Lasseter takes over Disney and immediately is like, this is too weird, fires him, and basically demands rewrites to make bolt into what if Buzz Lightyear was a dog?

• 7:00David Sims?

  Right. Like, the dog is so good in the movie, he thinks he's that good.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  A superhero in real life.

• 7:05Griffin Newman?

  He's the star of a, like, dog action.

• 7:06David Sims?

  I saw it on a plane. I remember it being serviceable.

• 7:09Griffin Newman?

  One of the most wildly okay movies ever made.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  And the kid is like Miley Cyrus?

• 7:14Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 7:15David Sims?

  Susie Essman plays a smirky cat.

• 7:17Griffin Newman?

  She's good, and the cat is exactly the same as Jesse from Toy Story 2. So she's angry because she was abandoned by her owner.

• 7:22David Sims?

  I, I said The Wild Hogs was his sixth highest. I'm really, it's gonna, I'm gonna say it. It's his fifth highest because they're putting Austin Powers in Goldmember here. Obviously, he's very funny.

• 7:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a John Travolta movie we all associate.

• 7:34Griffin Newman?

  Where's Hairspray? Is Hairspray 4?

• 7:36David Sims?

  Hairspray is, so he goes, Grease, Boltz, Look Who's Talkin'. Saturday Night Fever is 4th, Wild Hogs is 5th, Face Off is 6th, Pope Fiction is 7th, and his 8th movie to gross more than 200 worldwide is Hairspray.

• 7:50Griffin Newman?

  Did Hairspray fucking collapse overseas?

• 7:53David Sims?

  It didn't do great overseas. Again, that's a-

• 7:54Griffin Newman?

  That's kind of wild.

• 7:55David Sims?

  It's not wild. That's a very American movie.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  It's about American racism, but welcome to the 60s.

• 7:59Griffin Newman?

  Good fucking songs.

• 8:01David Sims?

  Good morning, Baltimore.

• 8:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm dancing.

• 8:04David Sims?

  Although, Hairspray was-

• 8:06Speaker 04

  Travolta doesn't sing that song.

• 8:07David Sims?

  I know, I'm just singing it.

• 8:08Speaker 04

  Nikki Blonsky from the movie Hairspray sings that song.

• 8:10Griffin Newman?

  Apocalyptically bad in that movie.

• 8:11David Sims?

  Uh, Travolta is the only problem in that movie.

• 8:14Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 8:15David Sims?

  He's a disaster.

• 8:16Griffin Newman?

  I think that movie is like a 9.8 out of 10, and then it has one radioactive performance.

• 8:22David Sims?

  He's really bad.

• 8:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Michelle Pfeiffer's really good in that movie, too.

• 8:25Griffin Newman?

  You know who's good in that movie?

• 8:26David Sims?

  Everyone.

• 8:26Griffin Newman?

  Everyone else.

• 8:28David Sims?

  Everyone in that movie is-

• 8:29Griffin Newman?

  Efron rules in it, Latifah rules, Pfeiffer rules, Walken rules, Marsden rules.

• 8:33David Sims?

  Nikki Blonsky rules. You know, it's just, you look at the man's career, he's got hits. He's got hits in four different decades, man.

• 8:42Griffin Newman?

  This is, look, this is a big movie to talk about Travolta's career. This is, I'm gonna say it again, one of the richest texts we've ever covered on this show. Everything is, like, colliding in this movie.

• 8:52David Sims?

  How many Travoltas have we talked before? I'm not counting Austin Powers. So we've covered Michael, the Nora Efron film.

• 8:58Griffin Newman?

  Lucky numbers.

• 9:00David Sims?

  Lucky numbers, the Nora Ephron film.

• 9:02Griffin Newman?

  Basic.

• 9:03David Sims?

  Basic. Wow, we've really done some bad Travolta's.

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  We've not done any good Travolta movies.

• 9:07David Sims?

  That's a really good question. Maybe not. Not seeing anything that is good that we have covered. I've seen plenty of movies that are good that we have not covered.

• 9:17Griffin Newman?

  We have acknowledged, we have acknowledged several times my mother's description of John Travolta. He's so bovine.

• 9:23David Sims?

  I said that to, to my wife and she could not stop laughing out of embarrassment.

• 9:27Griffin Newman?

  By the way, people have misread that as a sort of size shaming joke.

• 9:32David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Griffin Newman?

  Assuming it was applied to late period Travolta.

• 9:34David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 9:35Griffin Newman?

  My mom would say that when I was watching Welcome Back Hotter reruns, when it was the most felt hunky version of Travolta. And I'd say, what do you mean? And she goes, I think his face looks like the face of a cow. I want to specify that her argument was, he has a cow's face.

• 9:53David Sims?

  We also covered old dogs at a live show.

• 9:55Griffin Newman?

  Of course. So once again, we've covered Travolta's four best films.

• 9:58David Sims?

  Like the good films of Travolta's we may cover someday. I suppose we could do John Woo. I doubt it. Tarantino. I don't know. We'll do Tony Scott. He did the Taking Pelham 123. One of his very, very normal sane performances, grounded.

• 10:11Griffin Newman?

  Get Shorty, we will almost definitely do.

• 10:13David Sims?

  Get Shorty will do some.

• 10:14Griffin Newman?

  In some capacity. Yes.

• 10:16David Sims?

  Do we have a Dominic Cena mini series lineup? So we can do Swordfish?

• 10:19Griffin Newman?

  They just announced the four K. Did you see that?

• 10:20David Sims?

  Oh, I'll be buying it.

• 10:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 10:22David Sims?

  I will be buying it.

• 10:23Griffin Newman?

  You will have to hack onto the internet in order to buy your.

• 10:26David Sims?

  While getting a blowjob. The scene in Swordfish where it's like, can you do this while getting a blowjob? I'm like, how's he?

• 10:32Griffin Newman?

  Now you're seeing.

• 10:33David Sims?

  He's not getting hard while with a gun to his head.

• 10:36Griffin Newman?

  More K's than you've ever seen.

• 10:37David Sims?

  I guess we could do Sylvester Stallone.

• 10:39Griffin Newman?

  Staying Alive.

• 10:40David Sims?

  Who directed Staying Alive?

• 10:41Griffin Newman?

  He's been on a bracket.

• 10:42David Sims?

  Sorry, Hillary, that we're really going off tangent here. Yes. Well, and you know what else we'll do? We'll do Terrence Malick one day. Gosh darn it. And he's in the Thin Red Line for like two minutes.

• 10:51Griffin Newman?

  Because?

• 10:52David Sims?

  Cause he was supposed to be in Days of Heaven.

• 10:53Griffin Newman?

  Correct. Listen, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 10:57David Sims?

  David.

• 10:57Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who had.

• 11:00David Sims?

  This is just the kind of movie that really gets you excited.

• 11:02Griffin Newman?

  The tangents on this episode, I'm going to call, I'm going to point at the stands, at the, at the edge of the stadium. This might be a Hall of Fame tangent episode. Just because of everything else this movie spins off into conversationally. But this is a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they talk babies.

• 11:30David Sims?

  Hey.

• 11:31Griffin Newman?

  Hey, hey. It's the main series on the films of Amy Heckerling. It is not called Look Who's Podcasting now. It is called Pod Times at Richmond Cast, but I'm gonna say Look Who's Podcasting, it's us, on this episode, talking about Look Who's Talking.

• 11:47David Sims?

  Tag yourself.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Nailed it.

• 11:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 11:48David Sims?

  I'm Joan Rivers.

• 11:51Griffin Newman?

  Right. I'm John Travolta's smile.

• 11:52David Sims?

  Yeah. Do you know Joan Rivers plays the girl baby in this movie?

• 11:56Speaker 04

  You have to stick around for the end credits scene in order to see. I did not know that.

• 12:00Griffin Newman?

  Did you watch this film?

• 12:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:02Griffin Newman?

  And you, did you see that bit, but you didn't recognize it was Joan or had you already turned off your TV and left your home?

• 12:07Speaker 04

  She does say her most famous catchphrase.

• 12:10David Sims?

  It was that. It was actually, it was raining, his hands were in his pockets.

• 12:17David Sims?

  We are here to talk about Amy Heckerling's, I would assume, most successful financially film.

• 12:22Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:23David Sims?

  Look Who's Talking, a 1989 film about child rearing and infidelity. What else is this movie about? Car, cab driving?

• 12:33Speaker 04

  It's about a lot, a bunch of New Yorkers being like, hey, I'm so busy. Get out of my way!

• 12:38Griffin Newman?

  It's about how being a flight instructor is not a sustainable career.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  So you have to drive cabs.

• 12:42David Sims?

  How you can only, how you can only give a, go to one bar of candy a day. One bar.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  It's about toupees.

• 12:48David Sims?

  Yeah, there's a little toupee sprinkled in there.

• 12:50Griffin Newman?

  We were saying this right before we started recording, for a movie that is only 35 years old?

• 12:57David Sims?

  Sure, 36 years old. It's the same age as my brother.

• 13:00Griffin Newman?

  This is one of the deadest modern casts we've ever covered, in a way where I was just like, the opening crawl starts.

• 13:07David Sims?

  Look, I mean.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  It is like an in memoriam reel.

• 13:09David Sims?

  No one can expect Abe Vigoda to still be alive. The man made it a long time.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  He did.

• 13:15David Sims?

  He made it to like 95.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  He did.

• 13:16David Sims?

  As did Olympia DeCockas, I think.

• 13:18Griffin Newman?

  As did Siegel in a way.

• 13:20David Sims?

  Olympia DeCockas made it to 89.

• 13:22Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 13:22David Sims?

  George Siegel made it to 87.

• 13:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  Kirstie Alley, not so much.

• 13:27Griffin Newman?

  Kirstie Alley was tragically.

• 13:28David Sims?

  When she died, you were like, oh, man. And she was 71 years old. You're like, wow, like time has marched on.

• 13:34Griffin Newman?

  I'm gonna say too soon.

• 13:35David Sims?

  Of course, it was too soon. I don't want people to die. Everyone should be alive.

• 13:38Griffin Newman?

  I'm glad you got that, your, your stance out there.

• 13:41David Sims?

  And of course, Bruce Willis has, you know, retired from public life due to illness. Now, Twink Kaplan, still going.

• 13:48Griffin Newman?

  Twink Kaplan's still going.

• 13:49Speaker 04

  But Joan Rivers also.

• 13:50Griffin Newman?

  Joan Rivers is gone.

• 13:51David Sims?

  Has, has, has died.

• 13:52Griffin Newman?

  Twink Kaplan doesn't get solo card billing. I think moves up to it in the sequels.

• 13:55David Sims?

  So you're saying that Twink Kaplan shouldn't be part of this conversation because she's on a split card?

• 14:00Griffin Newman?

  Just saying, in fact, she's a no card in the opening credits, my friend. I was just watching the film and seeing these great star names appear on solo cards over incredible special effects footage of sperm. And I just kept being like, dead, dead, dead, dead.

• 14:15David Sims?

  I'm just saying, they all lived, most of the cast did at least live rich lives, which included making the film Look Who's Talking as part of the rich tapestry of their life.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  And the film Look Who's Talking too. And indeed, the film, uh, Look Who's Talking now.

• 14:27David Sims?

  Are they all in now?

• 14:29Speaker 04

  No.

• 14:29David Sims?

  Like, did Vigoda make it to now?

• 14:31Speaker 04

  I think Travolta and Alley are the only ones that made it.

• 14:33Griffin Newman?

  I think Twink Kaplan's in all three.

• 14:35David Sims?

  I could see Twink Kaplan being like, yeah, sure, whatever. Like, I'll fucking do it.

• 14:38Griffin Newman?

  Well, yeah.

• 14:39David Sims?

  I want to, oh, look, I'm looking at Look Who's Talking now. Fucking George Siegel's in it.

• 14:44Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 14:44David Sims?

  And here's someone else who's in Look Who's Talking now.

• 14:46Griffin Newman?

  Abe Vigoda?

• 14:46David Sims?

  Which we will be covering on our Patreon, know Abe Vigoda. Charles Barkley?

• 14:50Griffin Newman?

  I did know that.

• 14:51David Sims?

  As himself?

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Oh, is because bark like a dog?

• 14:53David Sims?

  Oh, get out of here. These people took five minutes making that movie. If that's what they were thinking.

• 14:59Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say, like, this is a film that spawned a franchise, a trilogy of films, and a two season sitcom.

• 15:06David Sims?

  But a rapid franchise where the entire thing's contained within four years, 89 to 93. It's the George H. W. Bush era.

• 15:15Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 15:15Speaker 04

  The second movie came out a year after this one.

• 15:17David Sims?

  They were just like, go, go, go, go, go. Like.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  These babies aren't getting any younger.

• 15:20Griffin Newman?

  No. 14 months in between.

• 15:22David Sims?

  I'm Mr. Holder.

• 15:23Griffin Newman?

  Releases, right, right. The sitcom has already ended by the time that now is bombing in theaters. Is that right?

• 15:30David Sims?

  Uh, what's, what's bombing in theaters?

• 15:32Griffin Newman?

  Now really.

• 15:33David Sims?

  Oh, look. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. We'll get to now. Now, now shall be covered behind the paywall.

• 15:38Griffin Newman?

  Now behind the paywall.

• 15:39David Sims?

  Who's by who's here? Of course, Amy Heckerling did direct two, but we're here to direct, to discuss. I'm here to direct you all in the discussion of, look, who's talking?

• 15:51Griffin Newman?

  I just wanted to, it was, it was an interesting stat that jumped out my head. Amy Heckerling has created three films that spawn TV shows.

• 16:00David Sims?

  So Clueless, of course, had its spinoff show.

• 16:02Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 16:03David Sims?

  With.

• 16:03Speaker 04

  Is there a fast time show?

• 16:04Griffin Newman?

  There was a fast time show for one season.

• 16:06David Sims?

  Very ill fated.

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  But JJ pulled up in the dossier. I did not know this. Out of seven episodes, Heckling wrote and directed three. Now I'm like, I need to fucking watch the fast time show. I'm gonna do it.

• 16:17David Sims?

  There's probably an I Never Could Be Your Woman, whatever that movie's called, like Pitch at Stars right now, right? Someone's like, yeah, we could do that.

• 16:25Griffin Newman?

  I'm just like, this woman did quietly spawn franchises, you know?

• 16:28David Sims?

  Talk about spawning.

• 16:30Griffin Newman?

  In a quiet way.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  What a segue.

• 16:31David Sims?

  This movie begins with spawning.

• 16:33Griffin Newman?

  Hey.

• 16:33David Sims?

  But who's our guest? Have we introduced her?

• 16:34Griffin Newman?

  Guest today.

• 16:35David Sims?

  Okay, Jesus.

• 16:36Griffin Newman?

  The Hollywood editor at Vanity Fair.

• 16:38David Sims?

  She's a senior editor now, apparently.

• 16:39Griffin Newman?

  Senior editor.

• 16:40David Sims?

  Hollywood editor.

• 16:41Griffin Newman?

  You got that lodged in my head.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  I can't believe that you guys are fucking this up. I'm so upset.

• 16:45Griffin Newman?

  But a more important credit that you said out loud, Hillary, while David was checking my notes here late.

• 16:53David Sims?

  I was late, yes, because of a screening.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  A woman.

• 16:56David Sims?

  Cue train.

• 16:57Griffin Newman?

  Who can do it all.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:58Griffin Newman?

  Hillary Busis. Now, I.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  That is what it says on my card.

• 17:02Griffin Newman?

  I just want to call out Hillary.

• 17:03David Sims?

  Hillary Busis, doing it all.

• 17:05Griffin Newman?

  Ben, early, right? Hillary, early or exactly on time?

• 17:09David Sims?

  You seem like you're right on time.

• 17:10Speaker 05

  Exactly on time.

• 17:11Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm punctual.

• 17:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I got here at 12:05 for a noon record, okay?

• 17:16Speaker 05

  Are you seeing this? Are you watching this?

• 17:18David Sims?

  I have absolutely no patience for this. You want me to do this in front of every episode, Griff?

• 17:22Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 17:22David Sims?

  I, I welcome the debate.

• 17:24Griffin Newman?

  I just, I'm building to something very specific here, okay? Yep. I get her to tell you had done a coffee order. I had placed a croissant. I go, oh, where's the croissant? You go, I'm sorry, I forgot it. You're like, well, David isn't here yet. And he just texts us, the train is running slowly. I was like, you know what? I'll go out, go back out, pick up the croissant. I arrived two times before David arrives one time. Then David arrives and immediately says, sorry, I'm late, although it's your fault, Hillary. This is what I'm building up to.

• 17:56David Sims?

  Well.

• 17:57Griffin Newman?

  That you immediately blamed your lateness.

• 18:00David Sims?

  We have so much to talk about, but to explain what I meant by that, Hillary, I told Hillary I'm seeing together. I was seeing a screening of the film Together, which premiered at South by Southwest and was snapped up by Neon, I think, right? They bought it. So it's not coming out for a while, but they're, you know, I make taste. So I guess they wanted me to taste make. No, I don't know why they showed it to me. I told Hillary this and Hillary was like, oh, I didn't go, I was gonna go, but I didn't go because I didn't want to be late for your podcast. And I was like, number one, being late for our podcast is a okay.

• 18:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's kind of a segment.

• 18:28David Sims?

  Right. Number two, you know, we could have, right, we could have had the whole day together. And then they, they made my screening 10 minutes or 15 minutes late because they were waiting for someone to show up who never showed. Godot, who I guess now works at The New Yorker or something.

• 18:42Griffin Newman?

  But you just immediately jumped.

• 18:43David Sims?

  And I assumed Hillary, but Hillary actually had not.

• 18:47Griffin Newman?

  Had not RSVP'd. I just.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  It was not me.

• 18:49Griffin Newman?

  I just want to say Hillary innocent.

• 18:51David Sims?

  Hillary innocent, David guilty, MTA, as it always is, you know, mildly guilty, but they do their best.

• 18:58Speaker 05

  And may I just add to some context, the room does smell of toasted ass croissants.

• 19:06David Sims?

  Burned into quinoa.

• 19:08Griffin Newman?

  Now, I'm glad you brought this up and we're not moving on from this because I, I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with the charge. But I think your wording's a little.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  You're pleading guilty.

• 19:17Griffin Newman?

  No, I think the wording's a little wrong.

• 19:19David Sims?

  Your honor, what, what's the word? What's wrong with?

• 19:22Griffin Newman?

  I intentionally smoked a croissant.

• 19:23David Sims?

  Oh, yeah, of course. Cajun style, you said. Did you hit the Cajun style button on your toaster?

• 19:28Griffin Newman?

  Hillary, do you know that I'm a pit master?

• 19:30Speaker 04

  It was a Creole croissant.

• 19:32Griffin Newman?

  Correct. Let's get into it.

• 19:34David Sims?

  Here's my question for the room.

• 19:36Griffin Newman?

  I like the fruit woods. That's what I tend to go towards rather than the nuttier ones.

• 19:41David Sims?

  Is it indisputable? And then we can talk about look who's talking. That John Travolta's last sort of meaningful role was Robert Shapiro in American Crime Story. Because obviously like after that, there is Gotti, but we're not counting Gotti, are we?

• 19:55Griffin Newman?

  We're not counting the fanatic.

• 19:56Speaker 04

  I was going to say that his last significant role was mispronouncing Idina Menzel's name, but that was before.

• 20:00David Sims?

  Was that before?

• 20:01Speaker 04

  American Crime Story, yeah.

• 20:02David Sims?

  Is it? Yeah. Well, because prison is 2012. Yeah, 2013, 2012, whatever.

• 20:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that was his biggest cultural moment of the last 10 years, but I agree. And you know what? I thought he was so fucking good in The People vs. OJ.

• 20:15David Sims?

  He's great. Everyone is locked in in that and it's a cast of lunatics.

• 20:18Griffin Newman?

  And I was like, this is a weird casting choice, but he's taking big swings and supporting role and whatever. And I was just like, this is going to open up new corridors if he doesn't feel the need to be like.

• 20:29Speaker 04

  And now 10 years has passed.

• 20:30Griffin Newman?

  He's not done interesting shit with him.

• 20:32David Sims?

  He's just like been a bald guy in a red box action movie for 10 years.

• 20:36Speaker 04

  Did you, did you read the block line for That's Amore, which is the movie that he has come out?

• 20:41David Sims?

  We're all excited for the Green Book guys, That's Amore.

• 20:44Griffin Newman?

  But a movie that has been shut down, that is like only half filmed and is the like center of like.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  Isn't his last name in it Amore?

• 20:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 20:52Speaker 04

  That's Amore.

• 20:53Griffin Newman?

  And it's a musical.

• 20:55David Sims?

  I'm sorry. It's Patty Amore. He falls in love with it.

• 20:58Griffin Newman?

  Played by Katherine Heigl.

• 20:59David Sims?

  Played by Katherine.

• 21:00Griffin Newman?

  Written and directed by the son of the man that Green Book was based on.

• 21:03David Sims?

  Nick Vallonga, Academy Award, two-time Academy Award winner, Nick Vallonga.

• 21:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 21:09David Sims?

  Who loves to write movies like That's Amore and tweet like, you know, whatever Bush did 9/11 or whatever he was doing.

• 21:15Griffin Newman?

  But there were like four different controversies around That's Amore and it might never be finished.

• 21:19David Sims?

  Right. Like Rust got finished, but That's Amore is not finished.

• 21:22Griffin Newman?

  They stopped filming two years ago and have never resumed.

• 21:25David Sims?

  It's just.

• 21:26Griffin Newman?

  We're going to do a lot of Travolta career context here.

• 21:29David Sims?

  I'm just going to talk for a sec and I'm sure you guys had the same experience I did. Maybe not, but I, you know, I look, I fire up this movie last night. I have to watch it. It's been a long week for me. But hey, 96 minutes of babies talking, how bad could this be?

• 21:40Griffin Newman?

  Sure, America fell for it. Why weren't you?

• 21:42David Sims?

  One second into the movie, I'm like, well, this isn't what I thought the movie was because the movie begins, well, I guess the sperm, I was like, sure sperm.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  The sperm is the thing that I remembered most about the movie.

• 21:51David Sims?

  That I sort of knew about, but no, but Kiersey Alley having an affair with George Segal. I was just like, well, I didn't know about this. I didn't know that. I thought the movie was she and Travolta have a baby. I thought it was that simple.

• 22:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 22:03David Sims?

  Now I did, I think, know that yes, this was not going to be a baby genius's style mouth replacement. The baby actually talks movie.

• 22:11Griffin Newman?

  Which I think.

• 22:12Speaker 04

  Except that there's a lot of scenes in the end of the movie where the baby's mouth is moving.

• 22:15David Sims?

  He is flapping his mouth.

• 22:17Griffin Newman?

  Which is so. Pinning that.

• 22:18David Sims?

  It is a little disconcerting.

• 22:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes, there's some interesting techniques.

• 22:22David Sims?

  But then it's sort of a Garfield style.

• 22:24Griffin Newman?

  That's how I described it.

• 22:25David Sims?

  Which of course he does have a Garfield in this crib and Hillary, you and I are going to discuss his crib.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  The baby safety in this movie is.

• 22:31David Sims?

  You would be sent to jail.

• 22:32Griffin Newman?

  It's an interior monologue that only the audience can hear.

• 22:35David Sims?

  Right. And it's mostly him going like, hey, who's this lady over here? She's got a bottle. Hey, let me add it. You know, it's basically just that.

• 22:41Griffin Newman?

  I didn't know those came in jumbo size. Re a pair of breasts. That's what Mikey says.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  And he doesn't even breastfeed. Why does he say lunch when he looks at the boob?

• 22:50Griffin Newman?

  No, we know in fact that she puts breast milk in a bottle.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  She pumps, she openly pumps.

• 22:55David Sims?

  She's a working mom.

• 22:56Griffin Newman?

  She's a bumper, Jerry.

• 23:00David Sims?

  I'm glad that Seinfeld didn't do a breast milk episode.

• 23:03Griffin Newman?

  She's a bumper.

• 23:04David Sims?

  She's a bumper. Um, and as the movie goes on, I, right. I'm like, wait, didn't Amy Heckerling, there's a whole thing with her. Where her kid found out that, you know, the dad she thought was her dad is actually not her dad and her dad was Harold Ramis.

• 23:18Griffin Newman?

  Can we just zoom out and say the thing really quickly?

• 23:20David Sims?

  Right. And then I Google it. I'm like, oh, that's what this movie is about. I forgot, you know, like I put it all together and America in 1989 was just like, one ticket, please, to all of that.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  What is so absurd about that? And the part that really leaps out to me is that Kiersey Alley's character is named Molly. Amy Heckerling and Harold Ramis's illegitimate daughter is named Molly.

• 23:39Griffin Newman?

  Can I just zoom out on this for a second and just lay this out very cleanly, right? Amy Heckerling marries Neil Israel, who then becomes, or, or at this point already has created the police academy franchise.

• 23:52David Sims?

  Yeah. So he'd already done America a solid.

• 23:56David Sims?

  Um, yes. And, and he wrote. Look Who's Talking Two with Amy Heckerly.

• 24:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:02David Sims?

  Not Look Who's Talking One.

• 24:03Griffin Newman?

  I think has a producer credit on this, possibly?

• 24:05David Sims?

  Nope.

• 24:06Griffin Newman?

  No? Okay. Um, but they are divorced by the time the second Look Who's Talking comes out.

• 24:13David Sims?

  They divorced in 1990.

• 24:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:16David Sims?

  Which, and this film came out in 89.

• 24:18Griffin Newman?

  Their divorce happens in between these two films being released 14 months apart. Okay. They are married. They have a child. I'm, I'm doing a very quick synopsis here, just so we can later unpack this more.

• 24:29David Sims?

  She married Israel in, not the country, the guy, in 1984. She had her daughter Molly in 1985.

• 24:36Griffin Newman?

  This is a great comeback movie in the lineage of what we talk about where she was basically coming off of two things that didn't help her career. And was like, I need a movie that's a can't miss hit.

• 24:46David Sims?

  To be clear.

• 24:47Griffin Newman?

  Something that makes me undeniable.

• 24:48David Sims?

  For Hillary, Johnny Dangerously, which was basically sort of like a mild flop.

• 24:52Griffin Newman?

  Passion Project.

• 24:53David Sims?

  Sort of a mild flop. And then European Vacation, which I think monetarily did okay, but nobody was happy with it.

• 25:00Griffin Newman?

  Is this kind of, it was almost a, uh, it ends with us situation. Where it was like, this movie was a hit enough to justify a sequel and yet everyone hated this one. The prerogative on Vacation Three is fix it. Her and Chevy like fight incessantly, like everything about it's a problem. She has a miserable experience. People don't like the movie. It's a success almost in spite of her. And she's like, I need something to get my agency back. Her and Neil Israel have a bit of looking at their daughter and doing voices of what they think her interior monologue is.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  Very relatable.

• 25:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. Doing this bit together, her and her comedy writer husband.

• 25:38David Sims?

  To be clear though, when Amy Heckerling says it, I'm like, no, every parent does that, Amy. You're not original, but she thinks about it as like one of its a movie.

• 25:45Griffin Newman?

  Is just being the first person to go like, that's a fucking movie poster.

• 25:49David Sims?

  But that's not what she did. Secretly what she did was I'm going to fucking get one over on Ramis.

• 25:53Griffin Newman?

  This is what's crazy about this movie. Okay.

• 25:55Speaker 04

  I'm gonna make a character based on him.

• 25:56Griffin Newman?

  Do you know any of this Ben?

• 25:57Speaker 04

  Disgusting man.

• 25:58Griffin Newman?

  This is the subtext of everything that I just said. The child that Neo Israel thought was his own was actually the byproduct of a years long affair that she had had with Harold Ramis.

• 26:10David Sims?

  Is that, is that true? Like that he thought it was his kid?

• 26:13Griffin Newman?

  I believe so.

• 26:14David Sims?

  Okay, I didn't know that part.

• 26:15Griffin Newman?

  Perhaps that ultimately led-

• 26:16David Sims?

  She certainly was raised by him and was like, that's my dad. I know that, you know?

• 26:20Griffin Newman?

  She certainly doesn't know that Harold Ramis is her father until she's-

• 26:23David Sims?

  Until she's a grown up.

• 26:23Griffin Newman?

  Right. Uh, I, perhaps it's the cause of their divorce. I don't know. We'll dig into the dossier, but they are raising the child that is secretly Harold Ramis's child. While she's pregnant, he's like, I'm going to leave my wife.

• 26:37David Sims?

  The plot of this movie is what Harold Ramis did. He was like, I'm gonna leave my wife. I know I've knocked you up. I'm gonna do it. And then he ended up with a third one.

• 26:43Griffin Newman?

  The only difference is that she wasn't a single mother at that moment, that she was married to another man and they were like, we're both gonna leave our spouses. And then Ramis instead falls for someone else and Ramis is her secret father, which she doesn't know for like 20 years. So there's this incredible, like, synthesis of Amy Heckerling being like, this is a blockbuster movie idea. Just what a simple hook. The baby talks. And also was like, my, my stature's kinda dinged. I could maybe get a huge movie star to do two days of voiceover and sell the movie on that in a way I'm not gonna get a huge movie star to agree to be the star on set every day. So that's part of the calculation. But really, this movie is her grinding her fucking axe about the Ramis thing.

• 27:26David Sims?

  And like, what a W for her. That she gets to do that and have a giant smash hit that like, you know, rebounds her career. And hey-

• 27:33Speaker 04

  It's like, it's like a Taylor Swift song.

• 27:35Griffin Newman?

  And then her husband co-writes the sequel.

• 27:37David Sims?

  Yeah, well, he's gonna get some residuals, but-

• 27:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 27:40David Sims?

  Beyond that, my main man, John Travolta, being like, can I hitch a ride to this weird train? And he also revives his career. Sort of.

• 27:48Speaker 04

  He revives his career in 1994.

• 27:49David Sims?

  Well, but it's the weird thing with Travolta, he's had so many comebacks.

• 27:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:53David Sims?

  And this is a comeback, but it's right. It doesn't make him cool.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  It is financially successful, yes.

• 27:58David Sims?

  It makes him famous again.

• 27:59Griffin Newman?

  This has always been my contention, is that like, people like to say Travolta was saved from the wilderness by Tarantino. Like, no one had thought of Travolta in 15 years. And I'm like, I think it is closer- To pre McConaissance, Matthew McConaughey.

• 28:14David Sims?

  Right, where it's like, he's still in the mix. He makes fun family movies.

• 28:19Griffin Newman?

  Had a series of rom coms that were big hits that were not respected. And I think more than anything, the industry was like, we thought this guy was going to be a serious movie star. And now he's kind of a lightweight. He is bankable. And then there's even the arc of like, Look Who's Talking is huge. The movie, like, he doesn't do anything with it. He makes two more Look Who's Talkings and like, three other bad movies.

• 28:40David Sims?

  Two, he really only makes one other bad movie, which is called Shout.

• 28:43Griffin Newman?

  White Man's Burden is shot before Pulp Fiction, but comes out after.

• 28:46David Sims?

  Very normal movie.

• 28:47Griffin Newman?

  But Look Who's Talking Now is one year before Pulp Fiction. Like, he has this arc of like, is Travolta back as bankable, even if not legitimate? That within four years, he's already.

• 28:57David Sims?

  Talking Now is the kind of movie that you make where you're like, fine, I'll, I'll be the heroin addict in that weird guy's fucking script, I guess.

• 29:04Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 29:04David Sims?

  Okay, yeah, like, whereas like, you know, whoever Tarantino was thinking of apart from Travolta, who's like, I'm not touching this thing, it's too violent, it's too weird.

• 29:15Griffin Newman?

  Like, rotted so quickly.

• 29:16David Sims?

  Travolta's like, I'm talking to a dog, I'm fine. Yeah, sure.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  I don't think that he talks to the dog, but the dog talks near him.

• 29:24David Sims?

  We'll find out what happens in that.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  That was like, the first movie I saw in movie theaters.

• 29:28David Sims?

  Is Look Who's Talking Now?

• 29:29Speaker 04

  One of them, yeah. I, I was born in 1988, so I am the same age as Bruce Willis.

• 29:34David Sims?

  Or five or six.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  Mikey, Mikey Bruce Willis.

• 29:40David Sims?

  David? Yes.

• 29:45David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 29:46Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 29:47David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:54David Sims?

  Okay.

• 29:54Griffin Newman?

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

• 29:59David Sims?

  Wow.

• 29:59Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 30:01David Sims?

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

• 30:08Griffin 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.

• 30:20David Sims?

  Yes.

• 30:20Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 30:21David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 30:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:28David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 30:29Griffin Newman?

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

• 30:32David Sims?

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

• 30:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:36David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 30:37Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 30:38David Sims?

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

• 30:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 30:44David Sims?

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

• 30:46Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 30:47David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 30:49Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 30:49David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 30:50Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 30:51David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. One that queer Paul 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 this summer and now it's on movie.

• 31:02Griffin Newman?

  Hannah Einbinder plays the 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.

• 31:16David Sims?

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

• 31:20Griffin Newman?

  What happens? 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 an example of there still being new stories to tell.

• 31:32David Sims?

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

• 31:44Griffin Newman?

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

• 31:50David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 31:55Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 31:55David Sims?

  Yes.

• 31:56Griffin 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.

• 32:16David 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.

• 32:27David Sims?

  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.

• 32:36Griffin 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.

• 32:52David Sims?

  Featuring a haunting original score by Elon Ashkery 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/listen to Dracula.

• 33:27David Sims?

  David?

• 33:27Speaker 05

  Yes?

• 33:29David Sims?

  Uh oh.

• 33:30Griffin Newman?

  It's November.

• 33:31David Sims?

  Ah!

• 33:32Griffin Newman?

  And you know what that means, the old stereotype about November.

• 33:35David Sims?

  Turkeys?

• 33:36Griffin Newman?

  One long sprint to the finish line.

• 33:37David Sims?

  Oh, of course.

• 33:39Griffin 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.

• 33:47David Sims?

  No, though, maybe we should.

• 33:48Griffin Newman?

  We might get there eventually.

• 33:50David Sims?

  I can't remember. Big red one. We could call it the Big Red Podcast.

• 33:53Griffin Newman?

  Listen, when things get complicated, not when life is easy, 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.

• 34:07David 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.

• 34:13Griffin Newman?

  And I'm awake.

• 34:14David 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.

• 34:22Griffin Newman?

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

• 34:30David Sims?

  Thank you for that voice.

• 34:31Griffin 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.

• 34:42David Sims?

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

• 34:46Griffin Newman?

  For the professionals.

• 34:47David Sims?

  Same daily drink now with the 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 CAHMB for muscle protection and zinc carnosine for gut support.

• 35:06Griffin Newman?

  Thank God.

• 35:06David Sims?

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

• 35:10Griffin 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.

• 35:18David Sims?

  Yes. So for a limited time, visit drink AG1.com/check and get a free immune support bundle, including omega three fish oil and vitamin D3 plus K2 with your first subscription of AG1 next gen or AG1 Pro. That's drink AG1.com/check. And after checkout, be sure to let them know that Belank check send you.

• 35:48Griffin Newman?

  Hillary, let's, let's do a little, uh, look who's talking history cataloging.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  I would love that.

• 35:54Griffin Newman?

  Okay. So now is the first movie you see in theaters.

• 35:57Speaker 04

  It's one of the first, the first movie I saw in theaters was the re-release of 101 Dalmatians, which was like that same year.

• 36:02Griffin Newman?

  Mine was Jungle Book. This is a thing we've talked about that culturally is gone.

• 36:06David Sims?

  Mine was Annie.

• 36:07Griffin Newman?

  For many generations, the first movie a kid would see in theaters was a re-release of an old movie.

• 36:12David Sims?

  A hundred percent. I went to that Jungle Book. I think I went to that 101. It was the course. It was like, what else are you gonna do?

• 36:17Griffin Newman?

  Right. Uh, and if you were a parent, you were like, there's going to be like three of them this year.

• 36:22David Sims?

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 36:22Griffin Newman?

  There'll be three wide release Disney, like reissues. Yeah.

• 36:27David Sims?

  Um, mine was famously John Huston's Annie. It's the first film I saw in theaters, a re-release of that.

• 36:31Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say. Um, when you saw Now in theaters, am I correct in assuming that you had not seen the first two? That this was just your parents being like, a talking dog movie for Hillary?

• 36:42Speaker 04

  I mean, I think it's like, yeah, there are, there are three children and we have to do something with them. We will take them.

• 36:47David Sims?

  Right. The dog talks, because Milo and Otis were hanging around.

• 36:51Griffin Newman?

  Comer Bound?

• 36:52Speaker 04

  Comer Bound was a big, big touchdown.

• 36:54David Sims?

  And if an animal talks, a child is there in the early 90s.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Which is funny, because this is not a children's movie. Look who's talking.

• 37:00David Sims?

  This is not. My guess is that Now has a more PG flavor, like, right? Like, they probably, like, uh...

• 37:06Griffin Newman?

  If I can sidebar here quickly, I, to my great surprise, last night, realized that I have never seen this movie.

• 37:12David Sims?

  Oh, I, I, I knew I had never seen this.

• 37:14Griffin Newman?

  The reason I find that surprising is, in my, like, parents' very overprotective media control as a child, we had the Disney Channel, and this was an era before Disney Channel had much original programming. Certainly didn't have original movies.

• 37:26David Sims?

  It was all reruns of shit.

• 37:27Griffin Newman?

  And they were just like Nickelodeon's too cynical and too dark. Like, there were all these things that they banned that were for kids, and they were like, anything that's on the Disney Channel, we assume is safe. And Disney Channel had this weird rotation of, like, left-handed, less like sequels and flops, that, that they would air all the time, that I would see so often, where, like, I have seen, I think, both Look Who's Talking Now and Look Who's Talking Two, 15 times, but have not seen them in 30 years.

• 37:56David Sims?

  And, but you have never seen this one, because this one probably was...

• 37:58Speaker 04

  I just assumed.

• 37:59Griffin Newman?

  I had also seen the first one.

• 38:01David Sims?

  But also, the Disney Channel couldn't afford this one.

• 38:03Griffin Newman?

  But Look Who's Talking Two, I remember on, like, my 11th or 12th viewing, my mom walking in and being like, "This is not appropriate for you," like, clocking, like, "This one's weirdly edgy."

• 38:13David Sims?

  Yeah, it sounds like your mom's head was really on a swivel.

• 38:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:17David Sims?

  The 12, 3 watch, she's like, "Wait a second."

• 38:19Griffin Newman?

  By now, it is like, I, in my memory, absolute kiddie shit.

• 38:23David Sims?

  It's like, yes, yeah.

• 38:24Griffin Newman?

  And Two is the midpoint, but Two has, like...

• 38:26David Sims?

  Well, but Two has a lot of, like, poop jokes, right? Like, Two is a little more juvenile, I think.

• 38:30Griffin Newman?

  Two, I remember, has crack pipe shit, which we'll get.

• 38:33David Sims?

  It was, it was 1990, it was in the news.

• 38:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right. Uh, but yes, it's more, is more...

• 38:37David Sims?

  But it's like when my mom watched me, walked in on me playing GoldenEye 007 on my Nintendo 64. It's like, are you looking through the eyes of a man holding a gun who's shooting people? And I was like, I'm James Bond.

• 38:48Griffin Newman?

  I was at, I was at a GameStop and there was a mother with two children, like a teen girl and a younger boy, probably like eight or nine, right? And the girl wanted to buy something and the boy was like on his absolute best behavior, being a little polite gentleman. Being like, mother, could I perhaps bother you? It would mean so much to me if you bought me one game. I'd love to play a game. And he hands the game to her and she's like, it's used, how much is it? Oh, it's $20. Sure, fine. And then the teen daughter walks up and is like, are you really gonna let him play a game? That's all sex and drug dealing and guns? And the mom turns around and is like, Timothy, you get right over here. It goes ballistic and then calls over the GameStop employee and it was Grand Theft Auto V.

• 39:31David Sims?

  Yeah, wow.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  That girl must have felt so proud of herself.

• 39:33Griffin Newman?

  And she was like-

• 39:34David Sims?

  How old was the kid?

• 39:35Griffin Newman?

  The kid was like eight or nine.

• 39:36David Sims?

  It's a little-

• 39:38Griffin Newman?

  Mother, it's a driving game.

• 39:40David Sims?

  Yeah, I will be following the rules. Yes, some break the rules within Grand Theft Auto.

• 39:45Griffin Newman?

  David, this kid made that exact argument and won his mom over.

• 39:49David Sims?

  Good for him.

• 39:49Griffin Newman?

  It was incredible.

• 39:50David Sims?

  Good job, kid.

• 39:51Griffin Newman?

  He was like, I would never even go to the sex stuff. And she's like, in that case, I will buy you the game. But if I walk in and there's sex stuff happening.

• 40:01Griffin Newman?

  But yes, that's, that's what it felt like. Okay, so you, do you remember when you saw the first two or did you ever?

• 40:07Speaker 04

  I mean, that's the question. I remember having seen this movie. Most of what I remember again is the opening in, in my-

• 40:13Griffin Newman?

  Which two opens the same way. So when it started, I was like, oh, I've seen this.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  That's what I'm thinking of. Maybe I've seen two and I assumed it was one.

• 40:20David Sims?

  Well, I also, I'm mentally linked to my sperm. So whenever I put it anywhere, I can see it swimming. So it was a very normal image for me.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  I was under the impression that the beginning, that that sequence was like real footage of the inside-

• 40:33David Sims?

  Oh, like as a kid, you're like, yeah, they got like a medical camera. Right, yeah.

• 40:37Griffin Newman?

  Pretty good effect.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  And realizing that it was like a puppet was a big disillusioning moment.

• 40:41David Sims?

  I think the effects are amazing, except sometimes the puppet is no good. You know, like sometimes it's fine and they're kind of obscuring him enough.

• 40:48Griffin Newman?

  But I like how weird the puppet is.

• 40:49David Sims?

  Me too. I like all of that.

• 40:51Speaker 04

  It's true that an actual human fetus does look insane.

• 40:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 40:53David Sims?

  That's right. I mean, exactly. Don't worry about real. They look weird.

• 40:57Griffin Newman?

  And in my memory too, has even more puppet.

• 40:59David Sims?

  Cool.

• 41:00Griffin Newman?

  Like reset the clock and is like, we're not going to start with the daughter being born.

• 41:05David Sims?

  Right. Sure.

• 41:05Griffin Newman?

  Right. We're going to slow this back.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  We're going to show conception because that's what you came here to see.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  It, look, let's say it is a good ending gag to have them kiss and then cut to the sperm again.

• 41:15David Sims?

  It's a great ending gag.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  John Travolta is that virile.

• 41:18Griffin Newman?

  Immediately.

• 41:20David Sims?

  Hey, yes.

• 41:21Griffin Newman?

  It's a great callback.

• 41:22David Sims?

  Yes, of course Travolta's fucking oozing tea in this movie.

• 41:26Griffin Newman?

  I run very hot and cold on Travolta.

• 41:29David Sims?

  I run, I'm realizing hot, hot, hot.

• 41:31Griffin Newman?

  I think this is both such a good movie star performance from him and such a great example of what I would call a movie star movie, where you're like, it is so much the two of them and their charisma and their chemistry in a way that sells a ton of shit that makes zero fucking sense. And in so many ways, I'm like, that is the ultimate power of a movie star. Not like you do a good job in Killers of the Flower Moon because you have a well-developed relationship with Martin Scorsese. Like that's good acting from a movie star. Movie star shit is just like nonsense that you will through charm and energy into like.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Like when he abducts the baby.

• 42:10Griffin Newman?

  There's.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  And takes it to the airplane hangar. She should have him arrested.

• 42:16David Sims?

  He could have just left a note. Why didn't he leave a note?

• 42:18Speaker 04

  He didn't even leave a note.

• 42:19David Sims?

  Just leave a note. Hey, took your baby out to hangar.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  We wanted to check out some tits.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  Beyond the fact that she doesn't have him arrested, there were 20 moments in this movie where the actions of the John Travolta character should cause the entire audience to stand up and demand a citizen's arrest. And yet, and you're like, I get, I get what you'd want this guy hanging around.

• 42:39David Sims?

  This film.

• 42:40Griffin Newman?

  Pretty fun.

• 42:41David Sims?

  Um, I'm going to open the dossier, actually. Okay. So, uh, Amy Heckerling's two films are very, as we said, uh, before this, were very difficult experiences for her. European Vacation especially was such a train wreck. Uh, and working with Chevy Chase, who, and every other project I've heard is a really stand up, normal gentleman, but apparently in that one, there was a little tension.

• 43:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 43:01David Sims?

  Uh, you know, it had broken her dang brain.

• 43:03Griffin Newman?

  I like some of the quotes that Jayja included were like, I'm not going to get into it, but I had difficulties with certain cast members. And I'm like, oh, yes. Beverly D'Angelo, notoriously difficult. Whereas everyone who's ever worked with Chevy Chase immediately walks off set and into inpatient treatment. Debates whether they want to work ever again.

• 43:24David Sims?

  Oh my God. Is there one story in history, we'll talk about this on that episode, where it's like, someone's like, I really had a, I really, he's a stand up guy, you know? And he always called me like when my, uh, you know, kids got married or like, you know, it's like some nice story about Chevy.

• 43:39Griffin Newman?

  I genuinely don't think so.

• 43:40David Sims?

  Heard anything like that.

• 43:41Griffin Newman?

  I think there are people who like tolerated him well. And I think like even Dan Harmon would be like, there were moments where he could be so kind and generous that were confusing. Like the people who complain about him the most will sometimes give him, and yet two times I saw him do something weirdly nice. No one has ever been like, yeah, we get on like a dream.

• 44:02David Sims?

  Paramount offers her a film called The Woofy Boys, which was going to team the writers of Revenge of the Nerds with the comedy duo of Michael O'Keefe, Academy Award nominee, and Paul Rodriguez.

• 44:13Griffin Newman?

  Not Academy Award nominee?

• 44:14David Sims?

  No. Uh, she doesn't make that film. Uh, it doesn't work out. It did come out, I think, and it was a flop.

• 44:21Griffin Newman?

  But it's a Dark Knight of the Soul moment where she's like, these are the things I'm getting offered. And she has made this real like career choice of post fast times. I don't want to get pigeonholed into the like female coming of age teen sex comedy.

• 44:32David Sims?

  And nonetheless, of course, she does develop the fast time television show for CBS. And that is the first time that she writes since her student film days. So I guess it does get those juices flowing a little bit.

• 44:43Griffin Newman?

  She said she liked working on the show despite the show not being a success. But I, I do have to imagine there are some degree with her of like, she makes this Johnny dangerously choice. I'm going to zag. I'm going to do something to branch out and like, uh, avoid the type casting.

• 45:00David Sims?

  She has a baby.

• 45:01Griffin Newman?

  From the industry.

• 45:02David Sims?

  She starts doing the bit with, with what's his pants.

• 45:04Griffin Newman?

  I was just gonna say though, while Giant Dangerously Bombs and European Vacation is disliked, she's watching the entire like teen sex comedy explosion, which she's opted out of. Like, I'm sure a bunch of these scripts that she rejected are now huge hits.

• 45:20David Sims?

  There's nothing as huge, though. Like, what's a movie from the 80s that she would be like, I wish I made that? Like, they all suck.

• 45:27Griffin Newman?

  I, I.

• 45:28David Sims?

  They do, they suck.

• 45:29Griffin Newman?

  I disagree with them all sucking.

• 45:30David Sims?

  Which ones suck?

• 45:31Griffin Newman?

  But I think more so.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Wait, like all the John Hughes's you say suck?

• 45:33Griffin Newman?

  David dislikes John Hughes.

• 45:35David Sims?

  Well, I actually, no, I actually wasn't thinking of those as sex comedies. Those aren't sex comedies.

• 45:39Griffin Newman?

  Then let's remove sex comedy.

• 45:40Speaker 04

  I was thinking teen movies, yeah.

• 45:41David Sims?

  Yeah, but Mike, yeah, I mean, right. I mean, sure, but John Hughes is an auteur, obviously, in his own right.

• 45:47Griffin Newman?

  I think that's the bigger thing, is that like, she's probably looking at what happened with John Hughes.

• 45:52David Sims?

  Well, she also directed a John Hughes script, European Vacation.

• 45:55Griffin Newman?

  I know.

• 45:55David Sims?

  Which she didn't enjoy, right?

• 45:56Griffin Newman?

  But it's like, should I have been doing something like this and crafting my brand in a way that is consistent?

• 46:01David Sims?

  I don't think so. Because what she says is, she starts doing baby voice with her husband and her new baby, and she's like, this is a movie, but she has the thought of like, I can see how this would be a hit, but I kinda wanna do like Mean Streets. I don't wanna do a cute family movie. It's one of those things where she's like, I'm a new mother, this is the idea I had. I think I should pursue it, but there's a side of her that's like, that's not cool. Like, that's not, you know, it's probably like, I don't wanna do the Whoopi Boys and I don't wanna do Talking Baby, but Talking Baby, it is.

• 46:33Griffin Newman?

  Look, it is a big thing, and I think it was more so in this era still than it is now, but there is a sometimes under-discussed distance between things that are successful and things that are respected by the people who green light movies, where as much as people are crass and like, we want to make hits. There is that kind of thing of like, there's the kind of hit that everyone in the industry looks down on, which she has to know, like even the best case scenario of the Talking Baby movie, I will be the person who made the Talking Baby movie.

• 47:05David Sims?

  The Critics Awards will not be flowing in for Talking Baby.

• 47:08Griffin Newman?

  And they're probably gonna offer me like other Talking Blank movies if this is successful.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  Although what is so wild about that too is you kind of, the Talking Baby part lifts right out. You really don't need it.

• 47:19David Sims?

  You don't need it.

• 47:19Griffin Newman?

  What is really fascinating is that it's maybe like 10% of what this movie is doing.

• 47:24David Sims?

  It's just a dash of seasoning.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  Maybe like, I feel like it could have been like a couple hours. He had very little to do.

• 47:29David Sims?

  They actually just mic'd a dinner that he had. It was actually, he didn't even have a script. They were just, you know.

• 47:35Griffin Newman?

  Waitress walked over and he goes, whoa, those come in jumbo size?

• 47:38Speaker 04

  Well, no, it's because lunch. Yeah.

• 47:39David Sims?

  It was how they, it was how they did the kid in Monsters thing. They just followed him around with like a boom mic.

• 47:45Griffin Newman?

  Into the toilet. Yeah.

• 47:46David Sims?

  Um, uh, the film was originally called Daddy's Home.

• 47:50Griffin Newman?

  Now, that would not have been successful.

• 47:52David Sims?

  No, no, especially not if it's the same poster.

• 47:55Griffin Newman?

  I truly, as we were saying before, like 50% of the box office is just the big baby head and look who's talking as the title in a very Honey, I Shrunk the Kids way where you're like, you've told me everything I need to know in one image.

• 48:08David Sims?

  To speak to what Hillary just said, Hackerling thinks no studio is gonna really be that interested in a movie about a woman having a baby and all her issues. Nobody's gonna care, but if you make it about a boy baby who's voiced by Bruce Willis, even if that's not that crucial, yes, that is kind of what she's doing.

• 48:25Griffin Newman?

  This is what I love about this movie.

• 48:26David Sims?

  She's Trojan horsing in a little Shiv to old Ramis as well, you know?

• 48:30Griffin Newman?

  It is like such a weirdly personal movie, but beyond that, you're also just like, there aren't even impersonal versions of this movie being made at this point. Like, who's making a movie, like a broad studio comedy that is like trying to deal with in some degree of emotional realism, the struggles of a single working mother in a big city?

• 48:52David Sims?

  Now, with Ramis, the only thing that's a little different is, is, um, that it's not like he had a fling with a third woman. The third woman he ends up with is Erica Mann, who is then his wife for the rest of his life. So who knows what happened there? Like in terms of like, who was the most in love with who during this like messy 80s?

• 49:12Griffin Newman?

  It's not a love competition.

• 49:15David Sims?

  So the parentage of Molly was a secret.

• 49:20David Sims?

  Until 1999, uh, Ramis told his daughter Violet that she had a half sister.

• 49:27Griffin Newman?

  When, when Molly was born, Ramis took Violet to the delivery room.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  She wrote about this in her memoir. There's an excerpt.

• 49:34Griffin Newman?

  Her book is very good. Right. Yes. And then there's a big excerpt from it. But so it basically doesn't go public until the memoir. Is that correct?

• 49:41David Sims?

  Right. Molly does not learn this herself until years later. A meeting is arranged between when she's 18 years old with her and Ramis.

• 49:49Griffin Newman?

  But Violet.

• 49:49David Sims?

  However, if you see who's talking, yes, there are subtle allusions to this situation in the text of the film.

• 49:55Speaker 04

  If you squint, you can find them.

• 49:57David Sims?

  Exactly. Uh, Martin Brest, this is the great quote, who is Amy Heckerling's ex-boyfriend, ex, ex-boyfriend. You know, they dated back in the film stool days, calls her up and says, it's the most profitable private joke ever.

• 50:10Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that, that is what is like incredible about this film.

• 50:14David Sims?

  Apparently, uh, Amy Heckerling would handwrite her scripts.

• 50:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 50:18David Sims?

  What a psycho.

• 50:19Speaker 04

  That's serial killer behavior.

• 50:20Griffin Newman?

  There was a really good New York Times piece about her, like 10 years ago, I want to say, as sort of like the forgotten queen of the comedy, who still lives in New York City, the Upper West Side with her mother, and stays up until five o'clock in the morning, drinking coffee and handwriting scripts. And it was sort of framed as like, why is no one green lighting Amy Heckerling things anymore?

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Oh, did they see vamps or?

• 50:42Griffin Newman?

  I think it was post vamps.

• 50:43David Sims?

  Warner Brothers, Disney and Orion all passed, but TriStar, uh, is, is interested. They think the script needs some work. Uh, they work on the script. I don't know. Who cares?

• 50:54Griffin Newman?

  Who cares?

• 50:55David Sims?

  It doesn't seem like anything. It's not like fucking, you know.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  Well, I'm just surprised they didn't see like the final version and be like, the baby doesn't even talk that much.

• 51:02Griffin Newman?

  But this, this is what I think is so fascinating is this is still an era of movie marketing where you can trick people into going to see a movie, giving them an incomplete picture. And if they still end up liking what they see, they won't take to the internet and like burn the world down. Cause the internet also doesn't fucking exist. Like the trick is get them in the theater with the talking baby thing. Hope that the grown up drama works enough that they're not angry.

• 51:30David Sims?

  Jonathan D. Crane, a producer of many Blake Edwards films, but also John Travolta's agent, gets to be the producer of this movie because he, whatever, he's interested and I guess he has some comic talent. The budget is just $8 million, $4 million of which went to Travolta and Ally and stuff. So this is a pretty cheap movie.

• 51:49Griffin Newman?

  $8 million movie that made 300 million worldwide.

• 51:52David Sims?

  Yes. But basically Crane is like, I can give you Travolta, great, and I can keep the budget low.

• 52:00Griffin Newman?

  Does he rep Ally as well?

• 52:02David Sims?

  I don't think so, but um.

• 52:03Griffin Newman?

  Both of them are Scientologists pinned in that.

• 52:05David Sims?

  Yes, he does move the production to Vancouver. I'm sure you noticed, guys, that this film, despite being set in New York, does not have that New York-y, you know, vibe.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  But there are a lot of people yelling in like outer borough accents.

• 52:17David Sims?

  Honk honk beep beep. But like, you know, I kept trying, like squinting me like, what street is this? And then I realized like, oh, this just wasn't.

• 52:23Speaker 04

  It's Vancouver Street.

• 52:24David Sims?

  Yes.

• 52:24Griffin Newman?

  Right. Anytime New York is specifically nonspecific, I'm like, this smells like Vancouver to me.

• 52:31David Sims?

  Heckling, when she realizes that Travolta is interested, kind of rewrites it a little bit. My guess is kind of gives it a little more of a Vinnie Barberino spin. I mean, she does, right?

• 52:40Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 52:40David Sims?

  And she throws in a couple of dancing things because she likes him dancing. Who doesn't? Kirstie Alley had broken out pretty recently in Cheers because she joins Cheers in 87. So like, it's only a couple of years into her Cheers run.

• 52:52Griffin Newman?

  And what year is Search for Spock? Or no, she's in Wrath of the.

• 52:55David Sims?

  She's in Wrath of the Con, which is 82.

• 52:57Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay.

• 52:58David Sims?

  And obviously she rocks in that. Now, in a 2012 interview, Ally described Travolta as the greatest love of her life. Okay. She was married when she made this movie to Parker Stevenson, but she quote said, "Believe me, it took everything I had inside, outside, whatever, to not run off and marry John and be with John for the rest of my life."

• 53:20Speaker 04

  It would have been very, look who's talking. It would have been very, look who's talking of them.

• 53:24David Sims?

  It would have been very a lot of things.

• 53:25Griffin Newman?

  Uh, is he already married to Kelly Preston?

• 53:29David Sims?

  I don't know, but I'm just going to offer this quote and the audience can make of it what they wish.

• 53:36David Sims?

  One of the ways Travolta charmed Ally during their first onscreen kiss, Travolta kept breaking out into a Barbra Streisand impression, singing Papa, Can You Hear Me From Yentl?

• 53:47David Sims?

  Mikey the baby was played by four different babies. Uh, great.

• 53:50Griffin Newman?

  Don Travolta marries Kelly Preston 1991.

• 53:53David Sims?

  Wow.

• 53:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  So he was available.

• 53:54Griffin Newman?

  So he was on the market.

• 53:56David Sims?

  Bruce Willis got a percentage of the box office for his role. He probably made estimated about $10 million for this movie.

• 54:05Speaker 04

  Incredible.

• 54:07David Sims?

  We showed him this footage of babies and he said, okay, I get it.

• 54:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I'm sure he did.

• 54:13David Sims?

  I mean, what else he got?

• 54:15Griffin Newman?

  $10 million.

• 54:16David Sims?

  But I think he improvised some stuff, you know, he had fun.

• 54:20Griffin Newman?

  It definitely feels like a guy who thinks he's funny, isn't a comedian, being like, let me just riff.

• 54:29David Sims?

  Olympia Dukakis had just won an Oscar for Moonstruck and is in this role as the lady.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  Playing the same role.

• 54:34David Sims?

  She's good at that.

• 54:35Griffin Newman?

  Where are you gonna find a man?

• 54:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, Kirstie Alley's sister Cher does not show up, but we couldn't, we wouldn't be surprised to see it.

• 54:42David Sims?

  And the visual effects are done by Todd Masters, who works at later on Tales From The Crypt and Adam's Family Values.

• 54:53David Sims?

  And the sperm was vinyl sperm and little fishing weights. And they dumped it in a tank and they had an underwater cameraman. It's fascinating. Uh, Heckling was concerned that the film would come off a little pro-life, right? You know, a little too, there's always a problem with any pregnancy movies. A problem with Knocked Up is a problem with Juno where it's like,

• 55:11Speaker 04

  In this movie, they say.

• 55:12David Sims?

  The character can't have an abortion because then the movie won't happen.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  In this movie, which felt pretty progressive for 1989.

• 55:17David Sims?

  Yes, although it's mostly Siegel being like, oh, I wouldn't want you to do that.

• 55:21Griffin Newman?

  I also.

• 55:22David Sims?

  Look at my marble desk. How the fuck did that thing get moved in there?

• 55:26Griffin Newman?

  I think there are absolute logic gaps in this movie that you could pick apart for.

• 55:29David Sims?

  It makes sense that she wants to have a baby.

• 55:31Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I think by the end of the film, you completely get her decision because there is this part of her that thinks like Siegel will eventually come back around. Like that she thinks having the baby will ultimately win him over that she clearly never. Wants to extinguish her flame for him.

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Well, nobody had written, he's just not that into you yet.

• 55:50Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 55:50Speaker 04

  It wouldn't come for 20 years.

• 55:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes, it took Greg Barron to solve that one.

• 55:54David Sims?

  Film was shot while TriStar was being purchased by Sony. Sony was afraid to even release this movie. They considered Travolta box office poison. Heckling also thinks that like, whatever they, you know, were sexist. I'm, you know, like, just kind of like, but, um, the film tested so well that it got a wide release. There was also a plagiarism lawsuit.

• 56:17Speaker 04

  Brought by a baby?

• 56:19David Sims?

  It's just something of like, hey, you had a meeting with me about my movie, which was called Special Delivery. Settled amicably, I don't know. Like, it's just one of those things where I feel like the studio.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  You can only write one from one movie about a woman. There's only one story that a woman can tell and.

• 56:34Griffin Newman?

  But I, I want to just do this quickly. Okay. John Travolta, basically like small supporting part in horror film Devil's Rain. Then Carrie, then Saturday Night Fever. He's one of the youngest people ever nominated for best actor. Then Grease. Then it's like immediately moment by moment. Uh, okay. Then he has like Urban Cowboy, Blowout, Staying Alive, which is.

• 56:58David Sims?

  Blowout's a flop, but he's good.

• 56:59Griffin Newman?

  Blowout's a flop, but he's great in it, right? Staying Alive, which is like.

• 57:02David Sims?

  Giant bomb.

• 57:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And is sort of like a point of mockery. And then immediately the run after that is so fucking bad. Like you've gone from like, obviously all of this, Welcome Back, Hotter is happening. Right? He has his like, sort of TV idol dumb, but then like.

• 57:18David Sims?

  He stopped doing Welcome Back, Hotter in the seventies. Yes.

• 57:21Griffin Newman?

  Right. So Welcome Back, Hotter, that movie run. And then it's like Two of a Kind, his other movie with Olivia Newton John.

• 57:27David Sims?

  Very bad.

• 57:28Griffin Newman?

  Perfect. The Jazzercise movie with Jamie Lee Curtis. The Experts?

• 57:33David Sims?

  I don't know that one.

• 57:34Griffin Newman?

  I mean, just look at the poster.

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Never heard about him.

• 57:36Griffin Newman?

  With a mullet.

• 57:37David Sims?

  He's going, ayy, it's him and Air Gross, the big two.

• 57:41Griffin Newman?

  Two NYC guys get jobs starting a nightclub in small town USA. They don't know it's a spy training model town in the USSR.

• 57:48David Sims?

  That film has Kelly Preston in it, so my guess is.

• 57:51Griffin Newman?

  I'm not sure where they met.

• 57:52David Sims?

  That's where they met. That's right.

• 57:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. Chain of. Gold, Chains of Gold, which I've never heard of, like you, just like.

• 57:58David Sims?

  That's a TV movie.

• 57:59Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Experts is the last thing right before Look Who's Talking. So he's coming off like a horrendous run. Then Chains of Gold TV movie in between Look Who's Talking and Look Who's Talking 2. Then something called Eyes of an Angel.

• 58:12David Sims?

  Uh, Eyes of an Angel was not, um, released, uh, in theaters until after Pulp Fiction came out.

• 58:18Griffin Newman?

  Wild, but that was made in between Look Who's Talking 2 and Look Who's Talking Now. Shout, which is his like inspirational music teacher movie.

• 58:28Griffin Newman?

  And then Pulp Fiction. Like the Look Who's Talking things were the only things keeping him relevant for 10 years, even if they didn't make him cool.

• 58:39Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 58:40David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 58:40Griffin 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?

• 58:57David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 58:58Griffin 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.

• 59:21David 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.

• 59:33Griffin 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.

• 59:42David Sims?

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

• 59:44Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 59:45David 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.

• 59:52Griffin 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.

• 1:00:06David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:00:08Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:00:10David 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.

• 1:00:26Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:00:42Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:00:42David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:00:43Griffin Newman?

  Uh, uh, who are you wearing?

• 1:00:45David Sims?

  Uh, who am I wearing?

• 1:00:46Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:00:50David Sims?

  Well, I am wearing Quince.

• 1:00:53Griffin Newman?

  Well, well, well, what a Quince, Quincy dense.

• 1:00:57David Sims?

  It's a Mongolian cashmere zip sweater.

• 1:01:01Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:01:02David Sims?

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

• 1:01:04Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:01:07David 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.

• 1:01:15Griffin 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.

• 1:01:31David Sims?

  Quince does rock. It's got high-quality staples, made with these premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere.

• 1:01:38Griffin Newman?

  Like you're wearing red?

• 1:01:39David Sims?

  14 karat gold. Italian leather.

• 1:01:43Griffin Newman?

  Mama mia.

• 1:01:43David 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 good together all season long.

• 1:02:03Griffin 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.

• 1:02:16David Sims?

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

• 1:02:23Griffin Newman?

  Oh, well, well, well.

• 1:02:24David Sims?

  Free skirts. They got garlands if you want to go Christmas mode.

• 1:02:28Griffin 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 asked where you heard about them, let them know it was blank check. It's the best way to support the show.

• 1:03:14David Sims?

  Do you like John Travolta? I'm pointing at Hillary.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  I mean, who, who doesn't?

• 1:03:17David Sims?

  I think some people don't like John Travolta.

• 1:03:19Griffin Newman?

  When I dislike him, he drives me insane.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  You think some suppressive persons don't like?

• 1:03:25Griffin Newman?

  You're right. Those people aren't in touch. They're overloaded with.

• 1:03:28David Sims?

  I'm watching this movie.

• 1:03:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30David Sims?

  And I really have the realization of like, I love John Travolta. He fucking is working his terms on me so hard in this movie. It really is.

• 1:03:39Griffin Newman?

  When he is good, I find him undeniable. When he is bad, few people annoy me.

• 1:03:43David Sims?

  When's he bad? I mean, like, I believe you, but like, well, what's an example?

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  He just gave like 50 examples.

• 1:03:48David Sims?

  Well, he's not bad in those movies. Those movies are bad.

• 1:03:51Griffin Newman?

  I would say.

• 1:03:51David Sims?

  He's fine.

• 1:03:53Griffin Newman?

  Most of the movies that we have covered him on in the show, I do not like him in Basic. I do not like him in Lucky Numbers.

• 1:03:57David Sims?

  Basic is a really out of pocket performance.

• 1:04:00Griffin Newman?

  Like him in Michael. Those are all him trying weird things and I think really not working.

• 1:04:04David Sims?

  I don't mind him in Michael. I forget where I sort of settled on him.

• 1:04:08Griffin Newman?

  He's not terrible in it, but I don't think he totally works. I obviously love old dogs, but must acknowledge this performance and that is demented. I think his hairspray performance is like a war crime.

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  That is an all time low.

• 1:04:21David Sims?

  Hairspray is just a mistake, I think, on everyone's part. Like, he shouldn't have been. I get why they thought of him. I get why he wanted to do it, but it doesn't make any sense.

• 1:04:29Griffin Newman?

  But like I, Gene Hackman's recent passing at the time of this recording, I watched Get Shorty. I, I do think that is my single favorite Travolta movie star performance.

• 1:04:38David Sims?

  Uh, Get Shorty?

• 1:04:39Griffin Newman?

  He is extraordinary in that.

• 1:04:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:04:41Griffin Newman?

  And it is such like quiet, controlled work that is just charisma and presence. When, when he works, I'm just like, you can't argue with this. But he sometimes just has the absolute weirdest instincts.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  I mean, and sometimes those work for it. Like Robert Shapiro in, in The People versus OJ Simpson is a crazy, that's a crazy performance that he's giving. But it, and like his like very frozen like Easter Island face. Like, but it works.

• 1:05:08Griffin Newman?

  And he's making like very big expressions and like playing the eyebrows. Yeah.

• 1:05:13David Sims?

  You know what friggin' stinks? Phenomenon. He's, Phenomenon's not a good movie.

• 1:05:16Speaker 05

  That's a bad movie and he's kind of bad in it.

• 1:05:18Speaker 04

  I confuse Phenomenon with Michael.

• 1:05:20Griffin Newman?

  They're kind of.

• 1:05:21Speaker 04

  They're the same movie.

• 1:05:22David Sims?

  No, no, no, no. Michael is sort of a, well, Michael's a comedy version. Phenomenon is like Flowers for Algernon with E S.

• 1:05:28Griffin Newman?

  It's very serious and saccharine. He has a brain disorder. He's got brain illness that gives him magic powers.

• 1:05:34David Sims?

  He's a regular guy.

• 1:05:36Griffin Newman?

  But is killing him.

• 1:05:36David Sims?

  And then he gets, he gets like hit by lightning or whatever and he.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  And then he becomes a genius.

• 1:05:40David Sims?

  Becomes a super genius. He gets like all kinds of magic powers and it slowly kills him.

• 1:05:44Griffin Newman?

  My parents took me to see that movie in theaters and I thought the title was Menomina.

• 1:05:48David Sims?

  Yeah, that's what the title is. The title is Menomina.

• 1:05:51Griffin Newman?

  That's what I thought. And then when they were like, no, it's Phenomenon. And I was like, oh, so on the Muppet Show, they're saying Phenomenon? So then when I would watch the Menomina sketch.

• 1:06:00Speaker 04

  It's just misunderstanding turtles all the way down.

• 1:06:03Griffin Newman?

  A hundred percent. But yeah, no, I just, I think he's a very strange movie star. And it's also like, it is interesting that like, once Pulp Fiction happens, he has like a pretty fucking, like bulletproof run for a number of years there. Even shit like Phenomenon getting to a hundred million dollars.

• 1:06:20David Sims?

  Well, it's called Menomina.

• 1:06:22Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 1:06:23David Sims?

  No, I would not say that he has a bulletproof run, Griffin. That is not true. But I would say that Get Shorty was a hit. White Man's Burden was not. I would say that was Phenomenon. Oh my, this guy's obsessed with how White Man's Burden was shot before Pulp Fiction.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  That is his burden. Remind you of that fact.

• 1:06:39Griffin Newman?

  New man's burden.

• 1:06:42David Sims?

  Michael and Phenomenon, I feel like are both movies where it's like they, they make money but aren't popular. Broken Arrow is a.

• 1:06:48Griffin Newman?

  They both make like 97, 100, right?

• 1:06:51David Sims?

  Yeah, like somewhere in there.

• 1:06:52Speaker 04

  He doesn't like totally hit the bottom until about a year.

• 1:06:54David Sims?

  Right. No, but I'm saying like Broken Arrow is similar where it's like, it's a hit, but you kind of wish it was bigger. Face Off, everyone's happy again, but. Let's not forget Mad City, She's So Lovely.

• 1:07:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:07:04David Sims?

  You know, where it's like starting to get, Face Off is a hit. Civil Action doesn't do well, is sort of mildly respected. I like that movie.

• 1:07:12Griffin Newman?

  General's Daughter is a weird hit.

• 1:07:14David Sims?

  Primary Colors also doesn't do well, but he's good in it.

• 1:07:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18David Sims?

  But you know what I mean?

• 1:07:18Griffin Newman?

  But you're right, no.

• 1:07:19David Sims?

  And then, but then General's Daughter, which is a sick movie that sucks.

• 1:07:22Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:07:23David Sims?

  Right, right, they kind of cruised to 100 mil.

• 1:07:25Griffin Newman?

  Makes like a boilerplate 100 mil in the middle of the summer.

• 1:07:28David Sims?

  And then, of course, what happens here in 2000? I'm seeing he made some very normal movies, Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers.

• 1:07:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Right.

• 1:07:33David Sims?

  And then.

• 1:07:34Griffin Newman?

  Wheels completely off the wagon.

• 1:07:35David Sims?

  And yet, he keeps being a star. You would like, that should be so hobbling to make Battlefield Earth and Lucky Numbers, where it's like, all sides of you are despised, right? But then it's like, all right, Domestic Disturbance is bad. Swordfish kind of made money.

• 1:07:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52David Sims?

  Basic did okay.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  Like, he's still gonna be a movie star.

• 1:07:56David Sims?

  Ladder 49 did okay.

• 1:07:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58David Sims?

  You know, like.

• 1:07:59Griffin Newman?

  He's become like.

• 1:08:00David Sims?

  He's kind of hobbling along all the way to Wild Hugs, where people are like, he's back, sort of.

• 1:08:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, he enters a period of being a, a B-list movie star with A-list recognition. Like, he's consistently getting a movie to like 50 or 60 million dollars without a lot of respect.

• 1:08:16David Sims?

  Someone who plays well overseas, so you can always get some money on your international rights.

• 1:08:20Griffin Newman?

  I've heard that crews love him, that the studios love him, that he's very amenable, you know?

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  The opposite of Chevy Chase.

• 1:08:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:29David Sims?

  That's cool.

• 1:08:29Griffin Newman?

  But yeah, 2007, when he has Wild Hugs and Hairspray.

• 1:08:33David Sims?

  Wig makers love him.

• 1:08:35Griffin Newman?

  There was that moment.

• 1:08:36David Sims?

  His E-reader meter operators love him.

• 1:08:38Speaker 05

  What are you talking about? He wears a wig.

• 1:08:40David Sims?

  Oh no, the guy's hair is au naturel every single time.

• 1:08:43Griffin Newman?

  David, the only reason he chose to shave his head is because he was inspired by his good friend Pitbull. End of story. How many times does he need to say this?

• 1:08:53Griffin Newman?

  We all know how much hair he had. He just thinks it would be cooler to look like pit bull.

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  If we're talking about hair, we should really talk more about Kirstie Alley though.

• 1:09:00David Sims?

  So Kirstie Alley.

• 1:09:01Griffin Newman?

  Kirstie Alley's hair deserves above the title billing in this movie.

• 1:09:04Speaker 04

  It's so gorgeous in this movie.

• 1:09:04Griffin Newman?

  It is a special effect in and of itself.

• 1:09:07David Sims?

  It is so large and yet not in that eighties way of like, oh, she's got this big done up hair. No, it's no.

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  I feel like you would touch her and it would be like, feel like real hair.

• 1:09:16Griffin Newman?

  It feels like they're trying to tamp it down and it's fighting.

• 1:09:19David Sims?

  My Seinfeld bit, to invoke George again, where he's like, how big is her hair? And he's like, big. And he's like, if I stuck my hands in it, would it, would it, would I be able to get it out?

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's big, but not in a Jewish way.

• 1:09:31David Sims?

  Here's my, I'm gonna call you out, Griffin, but not in a like accusatory way, but I, I feel like you don't like Kirstie Alley because you're such a Shelley Long head. Because when we did our Wrath of Khan commentary, I remember you kind of kept being like, yeah, but she was no Shelley Long. Sam and Diane was better than Sam and what's her name?

• 1:09:49Speaker 04

  Kirstie Alley didn't tell Shelley Long to leave the show.

• 1:09:51Griffin Newman?

  No, she did. No.

• 1:09:53Griffin Newman?

  I feel like I had, I for years didn't watch the Rebecca era because I felt such solidarity and I.

• 1:10:01David Sims?

  Shelley Long being what, rich and famous?

• 1:10:03Griffin Newman?

  Sam and Diane being the greatest romance of our time.

• 1:10:05David Sims?

  We're talking about Cheers, just so you know.

• 1:10:07Griffin Newman?

  Our time being 35 years ago. I, when we did the Trek commentaries, I want to say I had maybe only recently finally gotten through the Rebecca years. And I just feel like the show like is kind of a shadow of itself at that point.

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  Well, she's coming in in like season six.

• 1:10:22Griffin Newman?

  But also her run is longer. Like that's the wild thing is the show runs so long where I'm just like, the show's kind of running on fumes. I think she's good on the show. I don't totally like the way they write that character.

• 1:10:33Speaker 04

  Well, they didn't know what to do with her.

• 1:10:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:10:34Speaker 04

  She was like, she's like a boring straight man for like a while.

• 1:10:37Griffin Newman?

  But they also do the weird like, look who's talking thing where they're like, she's obsessed with a rich man who will never leave his wife for her.

• 1:10:44Speaker 04

  That's just the vibe that Kirstie Alley gives off.

• 1:10:46Griffin Newman?

  That was her thing. Um, so I, I think at the time of the Trek commentaries, I was holding it against her a little more while trying not to feel like I was explicitly holding against her. Watching her in this, I was just like, Kirstie Alley's fucking good.

• 1:11:00Speaker 04

  She rocks in this movie. She's so charming. She's so watchable.

• 1:11:03David Sims?

  I enjoy her in this movie.

• 1:11:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:04David Sims?

  I'm trying to think like, so what, obviously I guess I like her the most as Saviq in the great film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I really enjoy her on Cheers.

• 1:11:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, I was a very good performer.

• 1:11:14David Sims?

  I was a Veronica's closet watcher as a kid. I think that's probably how I first knew of her.

• 1:11:18Griffin Newman?

  Maybe the single least surprising thing I've ever heard about you?

• 1:11:21David Sims?

  Did I open the closet? I took a peek. I took a peek.

• 1:11:26Griffin Newman?

  He checked out the rack.

• 1:11:27David Sims?

  Uh, no, it's just like, I watched any sitcom.

• 1:11:30Griffin Newman?

  The rack on the closet, I'm saying, like the coat, like.

• 1:11:32David Sims?

  Yes, not her boobs. Uh, no, I watched any sitcom.

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  You just keep the TV going. You just like keep NBC on or whatever.

• 1:11:38David Sims?

  So I watched Just Shoot Me. I watched fucking, what was the one with, uh?

• 1:11:41Griffin Newman?

  Suddenly Susan?

• 1:11:43David Sims?

  Suddenly Susan. I watched this.

• 1:11:44Griffin Newman?

  Right. Caroline in the city.

• 1:11:45David Sims?

  And they all had the same kind of vibe where it's like, it's Manhattan. We're yelling at each other, you know, right?

• 1:11:49Griffin Newman?

  Grace Under Fire.

• 1:11:50David Sims?

  Grace Under Fire. Grace Under Fire at least. Oh, well, Spin City's good.

• 1:11:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Is it? Spin City.

• 1:11:55David Sims?

  Spin City's good.

• 1:11:56Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:11:59David Sims?

  That's what I look, any theme song where it's just that saxophone goes, jackhammers your ear for 30 seconds.

• 1:12:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Also, any sitcom where like, once a scene Richard Kind could run in and be like, what's wrong with the fax machine?

• 1:12:11David Sims?

  I mean, truly, SimCity is all flamethrowers. And then the Sheen Locklear era, it's not like it's bad, but it really does feel, uh, wrong that they're there.

• 1:12:24Griffin Newman?

  Fucking Boatman?

• 1:12:25David Sims?

  Yes, Boatman. Kind. Oh, Ruck?

• 1:12:28Griffin Newman?

  Or no, oh, was it?

• 1:12:28David Sims?

  No, it was on our list, you freak.

• 1:12:30Griffin Newman?

  But wasn't, oh, no, Carla Gugino was on it at the beginning?

• 1:12:32David Sims?

  Yeah, but she gets written out fast. They don't have, uh, they don't have any room for her really, but it's, uh.

• 1:12:37Griffin Newman?

  I was confused because of course Karen will share scenes with Michael Boatman on our list, one of the few actors of that era to be on two shows simultaneously.

• 1:12:43David Sims?

  Boatman was riding the boat, uh, between shows.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  That's why they call him that.

• 1:12:46David Sims?

  You're forgetting Connie Britton, of course.

• 1:12:47Griffin Newman?

  Connie Brit.

• 1:12:48David Sims?

  The great Barry Bostwick of Rocky.

• 1:12:50Griffin Newman?

  The great Barry Bost.

• 1:12:50David Sims?

  And such. And, uh, Alexander Chaplin, who is very funny on that show, uh, and, uh, Bradley Cooper's ex-wife, Jennifer Esposito. Speaking of, uh, people like, cut that out.

• 1:13:02David Sims?

  Um, so, uh, but, um, Kirstie Alley, did you like Veronica's Closet? Before we talk about the film, I just really need to get you on the record about Veronica's Closet.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  I never, I never watched Veronica's, I never watched Veronica's Closet. Um, I, I was still like pretty exclusively watching Nickelodeon, I feel like at, at this moment.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  Ninety-seven, so you're, you're not maybe ready for the, uh,

• 1:13:24Speaker 04

  Yes, I'm, I'm very, very young.

• 1:13:26David Sims?

  Uh, Veronica.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Um, but no, but I loved, I loved her.

• 1:13:29David Sims?

  She owned like a Victoria's Secret style, right? Like it was like a lingerie brand, yes.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  Okay, so that makes, oh, that's why they call Veronica's Closet, I see. What, what, what clever wordplay? I knew Kirstie Alley mostly from It Takes Two, the Olsen Twins movie.

• 1:13:43David Sims?

  Yes, yes, we discussed this. You were in It Takes Two, girl. I was a two of, again.

• 1:13:48Speaker 04

  You say this like you can't be both. They were not concurrent.

• 1:13:52David Sims?

  I know, and yet.

• 1:13:53Griffin Newman?

  Cause guess what?

• 1:13:53Speaker 04

  I was a big Olsen Twins person.

• 1:13:55Griffin Newman?

  I was both.

• 1:13:56David Sims?

  You like Two of a Kind?

• 1:13:57Griffin Newman?

  Get you a Griff who can do both.

• 1:13:59David Sims?

  I like Two of a Kind and It Takes Two.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  They're completely different.

• 1:14:01David Sims?

  That's what I'm saying, but I liked both, it's not a competition.

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  Two of a Kind is also the name of a John Travolta, a bad John Travolta movie, yes.

• 1:14:07David Sims?

  But a perfectly serviceable sitcom.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  Wonderful, Christopher Seber.

• 1:14:11David Sims?

  That's the thing, I was watching and they'd be like, what are the twins up to? And I'm like, let's get off the twins. What's going on with Seber and Sally Wheeler?

• 1:14:19Speaker 04

  Is there an excuse to let him sing? Like, let's figure it out.

• 1:14:22David Sims?

  Christopher Seber is, and I want this on the record, and I hope against hope that Christopher Seber listens to my podcast, which I'm sure he does not, one of the greatest American comic actors alive. I'm, I love this so much.

• 1:14:33Griffin Newman?

  Agree with you.

• 1:14:34David Sims?

  Lord Farquad himself.

• 1:14:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:14:36David Sims?

  Basically, if they're like, we are doing a Broadway musical with like an insane sort of villain role, he's ideal for it. He was Justin, Death Becomes Her.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  It was very fun in the prom.

• 1:14:45Griffin Newman?

  Playing the Bruce Willis part?

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47David Sims?

  Yes, I didn't see, so I can't speak to it.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  He was, he was good, he gets like a showcase second act, like 11 o'clock.

• 1:14:53David Sims?

  Sounds like the kind of thing he would mash into the upper deck.

• 1:14:57Speaker 04

  That?

• 1:14:57David Sims?

  No, I think it's still, I think he's still on it, right?

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  I can't, I would think that he would stick around until at least Tony season.

• 1:15:03David Sims?

  Yeah, he's in the show, um, they, they might have now.

• 1:15:06Speaker 04

  Sold you a ticket?

• 1:15:07Griffin Newman?

  I think so. I saw him do Into the Woods.

• 1:15:09David Sims?

  Mm-hmm. Who is he in Into the Woods?

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  He was the prince.

• 1:15:12David Sims?

  Right?

• 1:15:12Griffin Newman?

  But my, my memory, he was the wolf, am I wrong about this?

• 1:15:15David Sims?

  Was he double cast? He was.

• 1:15:16Speaker 04

  That's the brilliance of the casting.

• 1:15:18David Sims?

  Yeah, it's both.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  It's like how Captain Hook is also Peter Pay, or also Wendy's dad.

• 1:15:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes, okay, so that's what, I saw him crush that. And a production with Vanessa Williams.

• 1:15:27David Sims?

  Yeah, 2002 Into the Wolf.

• 1:15:29Griffin Newman?

  And I want to John Cullum was the narrator. Yeah.

• 1:15:32Speaker 04

  Laura Benanti with Cinderella.

• 1:15:33Griffin Newman?

  We might have been at the same time.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  It's possible.

• 1:15:35Griffin Newman?

  He, of course, was Lord Farquaad in Trent.

• 1:15:37David Sims?

  That's for sure.

• 1:15:38Griffin Newman?

  Why are we doing the whole Christopher?

• 1:15:39David Sims?

  Cause he fucking, he rules in a, he's not in this movie and he's never actually.

• 1:15:43Griffin Newman?

  He's not a thing.

• 1:15:44David Sims?

  Kirstie Alley.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  The connection is so tenuous.

• 1:15:46David Sims?

  Yeah, it is pretty tenuous. I love Christopher.

• 1:15:48Speaker 04

  Anyway, Kirstie Alley, going back to her, she made an Olsen Twins movie with Steve Guttenberg.

• 1:15:53Griffin Newman?

  That's why.

• 1:15:54Speaker 04

  Where this began.

• 1:15:54David Sims?

  Sure, sure, sure, sure.

• 1:15:55Speaker 04

  Um, and also Drop Dead Gorgeous. It's a big touchstone for a millennial woman.

• 1:15:59David Sims?

  And she's great in that. She's an incredibly funny actor who unsurprisingly Hollywood, right? Oh, didn't have too many parts for, uh, I think she was a little weird.

• 1:16:10Speaker 04

  Her, her later in life activities would suggest.

• 1:16:12David Sims?

  Mm hmm. She was right. One of those people where her celebrity became about more than her.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  Well, she was, she was a tabloid punching bag for like the last 20 years of her life.

• 1:16:23David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  In a way that seems to have really like warped her brain. She made several shows about being fat and being in Hollywood at the same time.

• 1:16:30David Sims?

  But they would have really, no, they would have subtle titles like Fat Actress though.

• 1:16:34Speaker 04

  Or Kirstie Alley's Big Life.

• 1:16:37David Sims?

  At least that one's trying to put some sugar on it.

• 1:16:40Griffin Newman?

  Look at this. Like, Look Who's Talking is a massive success in 1989, right? And she is also two years into a run on America's Favorite Sitcom. Then she does Madhouse, which I feel like is a movie that came somewhat recently for reasons I forget with her and John Larriquette. And Sibling Rivalry, a Carl Reiner flop. Then Look Who's Talking Two, Look Who's Talking Now, and then Village of the Damned, which is a pretty thinkless role in a bad movie we've covered. And then the next year, it's like It Takes Two. Like, I'm a little fascinated by, for all the spilled ink of like how hard it was for TV stars to make the jump to movie star in the eighties, the nineties and the early 2000s, there were these cases like her and Ted Danson,

• 1:17:24Griffin Newman?

  where like they do it. They have a big hit. And then they cannot sustain it in any way.

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  Just have to keep making Look Who's Talking until you fade back to TV.

• 1:17:34Griffin Newman?

  Right. You make Three Men and a Little Lady and then they're just like, no, go back to TV, you fucking piece of shit.

• 1:17:41David Sims?

  Oh, Kirstie Alley's good in this film.

• 1:17:43Griffin Newman?

  I think this is kind of her best performance.

• 1:17:46David Sims?

  She's good in the movie.

• 1:17:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48David Sims?

  She's sobbing. She'll always be sobbing.

• 1:17:50Griffin Newman?

  But I, I think this is like the best showcase of what I think she's good at.

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, cuz she, you know, it's not like it's requiring great range.

• 1:17:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:17:59Speaker 04

  But she's really good.

• 1:18:00Griffin Newman?

  I also think it's like a role, it's obviously not like this is one to one with Heckerling, right? In like the circumstances of this woman's life.

• 1:18:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, she's an accountant. She doesn't write movies.

• 1:18:09Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 1:18:09Speaker 04

  Totally different.

• 1:18:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. And she's not married to some cock who's writing Police Academy sequels. But, um, but I'm like, I, I think it's part of what was underlying for me in watching this is like, her Cheers character feels like it is very much written by men. Who are like, you know, it's some like career obsessed woman who's like going gaga over rich guys. And it's like an erotic mess. And then this feels like the same character, but written like intelligently and compassionately.

• 1:18:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:18:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:18:36Speaker 04

  To, to some degree. I mean, it's got, it's got 80s politics.

• 1:18:39Griffin Newman?

  There's insane shit.

• 1:18:40David Sims?

  There's a couple, right. There's a couple of moments that hit a little.

• 1:18:43Speaker 04

  There's so, there are so many times where she talks about how disgusting she looks. Because of, you know, like her weight and just also like the difficulties of being a single mother. But it does feel like that, uh, that like Roger Ebert quote about Ally McGraw in Love Story, where she has the disease that just makes you more beautiful. Like single motherhood, just like, she's like radiating like health and good humor.

• 1:19:03Griffin Newman?

  And she is part of Dolly Parton.

• 1:19:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:06David Sims?

  Yeah. She.

• 1:19:07Speaker 04

  She lost that baby weight very quickly.

• 1:19:09David Sims?

  If she ever had it. I mean, she lost it in that she went, I'm throwing a pillow across this, the room. She plays Molly Jensen.

• 1:19:16Griffin Newman?

  This movie?

• 1:19:16David Sims?

  CPA.

• 1:19:17Griffin Newman?

  Opens with sperm.

• 1:19:19David Sims?

  This movie opens with the jizz.

• 1:19:20Speaker 04

  Can't emphasize that enough.

• 1:19:22David Sims?

  She has an affair with one of her clients, Albert, played very well by George Segal, who's a great slimeball.

• 1:19:28Speaker 04

  I gotta like wipe the screen every time he shows up. Yeah.

• 1:19:30Griffin Newman?

  And he is the CEO of the Chubby Charlie's franchise? This is like a thread I was trying to make sense of.

• 1:19:35David Sims?

  They briefly mention it.

• 1:19:37Speaker 04

  It's not very explored.

• 1:19:38Griffin Newman?

  But it sort of seems like he is the owner of a Chuck E. Cheese-esque chain.

• 1:19:42David Sims?

  Right. He's a lunatic because he's, his office has a marble desk and like, he's getting in like, I don't know, like Navajo paintings or something. Is crazy. It's like a joke, like rich guy with no taste.

• 1:19:56Griffin Newman?

  I think the characterization in his office and the arc of his office evolving is really good. That like this guy.

• 1:20:03Speaker 04

  He wanted more of the interior decorator.

• 1:20:05Griffin Newman?

  The guy has money, but no taste and just keeps on buying big things. And he has like a 50s diner jukebox corner of his office. But then he's also like, but I appreciate ancient art and like local crafts people. It made me like long for a time where this was like charmingly insane rich people.

• 1:20:24David Sims?

  Oh, like this is the kind of rich person we have.

• 1:20:26Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like, oh, this grossly rich man who has $5 million and buys nice desks.

• 1:20:32David Sims?

  It's not.

• 1:20:32Griffin Newman?

  Rather than like buys countries.

• 1:20:34Speaker 04

  A daughter named Astrid.

• 1:20:35Griffin Newman?

  Spaceships. Yeah. Expensive desks, I should say, a daughter named Astrid.

• 1:20:40David Sims?

  He knocks her up, promises to leave his wife for her, but then she catches him with another woman. His interior decorator of all people.

• 1:20:49Speaker 05

  In a dressing room.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, wild vintage shopping with Twin Caplin.

• 1:20:52David Sims?

  He hits her with a line that is so brutal and well-written by Amy Heckerling that I have to wonder if Harold Ramis said it to her, which is like, I'm in my selfish era, essentially, right? Like, you know.

• 1:21:02Speaker 04

  And that feels transcribed.

• 1:21:03David Sims?

  It really does. And it really does feel like the kind of thing a bananas 40-something divorced guy would say where it's just like, I know I like knocked you up, but like, I want to have fun right now. Like I'm allowed to be single, you know? Like that's his brain and he's rich, obviously, which is.

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  I wondered also if the stuff about like his, his wife being into like past lives, is that like a Ghostbusters like dig? Or am I?

• 1:21:26David Sims?

  That's a good question.

• 1:21:27Speaker 04

  Am I taking an extra leap there?

• 1:21:28David Sims?

  His first, his first wife who we never see, right, is a kook. We sort of, you know.

• 1:21:32Speaker 04

  She's like a new age type and like that very 80s way.

• 1:21:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes. But I, not to jump all the way to the end, but I love the like, the final stage, George Segal, after that relationship falls apart where he's just like, I've never gotten to be alone. I need to know what it's like.

• 1:21:47David Sims?

  Right. That's his new form of selfishness.

• 1:21:49Griffin Newman?

  And then his additional like, the, the being a father stage of my life is over. I need to move on to something else.

• 1:21:56Speaker 04

  Your daughter's nine.

• 1:21:57Griffin Newman?

  She's nine and 11.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  That's a really good line, too.

• 1:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:01David Sims?

  So I'm watching this movie and I, and of course, we're occasionally cutting to her uterus and baby is in there going, hey, what's going on? I'm in like a uterus or something?

• 1:22:11Griffin Newman?

  Am I wrong in, right, in thinking that the first line of dialogue comes from a sperm is

• 1:22:16David Sims?

  It's sperm being like, I got it.

• 1:22:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I made it.

• 1:22:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:19Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then you have like fetus puppetry.

• 1:22:22David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Which I will say, I think basically every, I'm not proud to say this, I'm gonna say this. Every line puppet fetus Bruce Willis says, I found funny. At that stage, I'm like, I get the gimmick of here is her outer life drama and here's the baby inside being like, I gotta move into a bigger place. Like all of that shit, albeit hacky, and a lot of it's just the charisma Bruce Willis, who I love, was working for me.

• 1:22:51David Sims?

  So Hillary, you've been pregnant.

• 1:22:54Speaker 04

  I have.

• 1:22:54David Sims?

  Not to dox you on air.

• 1:22:56Griffin Newman?

  Forgot to mention that in your credits and the introduction.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  Well, it is the most defining quality of

• 1:23:01Griffin Newman?

  Well, no woman.

• 1:23:01Speaker 04

  My identity. Yes.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  Of course. Right. Yes. That's, that was you doing it all. No, you've, you've had a baby. I thought.

• 1:23:07Speaker 04

  I've in fact had two babies.

• 1:23:08David Sims?

  You've had two.

• 1:23:09Griffin Newman?

  David, please don't cut short your accomplishments.

• 1:23:12David Sims?

  I thought.

• 1:23:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, I get from this administration, I get a stipend for each additional white child I have.

• 1:23:20Griffin Newman?

  Do you guys know the world's really bad?

• 1:23:22Speaker 04

  Oh, but they're Jewish.

• 1:23:23David Sims?

  Your babies are Jewish and Italian.

• 1:23:24Speaker 04

  You're right.

• 1:23:26David Sims?

  They're not gonna be leading our great white future that are Mr.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  Tell that to Nick Valalonga that Italians don't count anymore.

• 1:23:32David Sims?

  Hey.

• 1:23:36David Sims?

  I, I'm watching this movie and I was kind of like, oh, is this gonna be a pregnancy movie? Like, is it gonna be? Because now I'm realizing, one, I didn't know what this movie was. Like, I thought this movie was something completely different.

• 1:23:44Griffin Newman?

  That's the moment when I realized I had never seen this before.

• 1:23:47David Sims?

  What am I in for?

• 1:23:49Griffin Newman?

  Cause it jumps basically from her being like three months pregnant to the baby is born, right?

• 1:23:53David Sims?

  That's the thing. It's not a pregnancy movie. I was a little let down. I was kind of hoping for some good gags about like, uh, the, the pains of being pregnant, but there's not much apart from like.

• 1:24:03Speaker 04

  Stuff, pregnancy jokes, I feel like all of those tropes are so well worn that I actually appreciated how little of Movie is about.

• 1:24:08David Sims?

  Exactly. Maybe she was like, there's nothing here for me.

• 1:24:11Speaker 04

  Like it has her throwing up, like it has her like eating.

• 1:24:13David Sims?

  She can't fit into her clothes.

• 1:24:14Speaker 04

  Oh, she's so fat now. Yeah.

• 1:24:15Griffin Newman?

  Here's just a real Griffin opinion, though. I was just so into that puppet baby.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  And all his creepiness.

• 1:24:20David Sims?

  So you want more of him?

• 1:24:21Griffin Newman?

  That I'm just like, and I like the game of like cutting inside outside.

• 1:24:25David Sims?

  Wait, so music is building and a chair is being panned over. Puppet baby is gonna be in Avengers Doomsday. He's on the puppet baby from Look Who's Talking. What I'm seeing here that the puppet has aged weird. It's been 38 years.

• 1:24:41Griffin Newman?

  The chair thing was such a bungle, in my opinion, and yet has gifted us one of the most incredible meme structures that I think will never get old. They've made it so fucking easy for us to put anything on the back of a chair and laugh and laugh and laugh.

• 1:24:57David Sims?

  So I'm watching this movie and I'm like, the hell is Travolta? Like, and I'm not even like, I need to see him. I'm just like, I thought he was in this movie.

• 1:25:04Griffin Newman?

  You thought he was the father. You thought the movie was.

• 1:25:07Speaker 04

  Misled terribly.

• 1:25:08David Sims?

  And then, of course, she goes into labor, right as Siegel is breaking up with her for good. And she gets in a New York City yellow taxi cab.

• 1:25:15Speaker 04

  As we all know also, labor begins immediately.

• 1:25:17David Sims?

  Of course. It's like, whoa, I'm in labor.

• 1:25:19Speaker 04

  I gotta go right now.

• 1:25:21Griffin Newman?

  And you have some New York tough guy jokes of like her trying to get a cab and the guy being like, I'm late for a meeting.

• 1:25:26David Sims?

  Right? Yes. The guy, hey, I was here first lady. So she gets in the cab and Travolta, I'm locked in right away because he does play perfectly. The ah shit of pregnant ladies in my cab, but also the heroic kind of like, I will hell or high water, get her to the hospital.

• 1:25:41Speaker 04

  I feel like the way that he drives is not entirely necessary.

• 1:25:44David Sims?

  What? He's gotta get through all the stuff.

• 1:25:46Griffin Newman?

  He drives like he dances.

• 1:25:48Speaker 04

  Through the construction site. Yeah, there's no other way.

• 1:25:50David Sims?

  It's right. He's dancing through the raindrops like only John Travolta can.

• 1:25:52Griffin Newman?

  It is kind of crazy that Look Who's Talking ostensibly has two car chase sequences.

• 1:25:58David Sims?

  It does. Well, because it has that structure.

• 1:26:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:26:01David Sims?

  Where every half hour, they're kind of like, we need something kind of exciting.

• 1:26:05Griffin Newman?

  Something bigger has to happen.

• 1:26:06David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. So.

• 1:26:07Speaker 04

  Every half hour, but the movie is 90 minutes long.

• 1:26:09David Sims?

  Yeah, it's 90 minutes long. Hell.

• 1:26:10Griffin Newman?

  Three times.

• 1:26:11David Sims?

  You had two babies. I have been pregnant for two.

• 1:26:14Speaker 04

  You've been present.

• 1:26:16David Sims?

  I've been present for the delivery of three babies, but two, two deliveries. Can you just get Demerol injected into an IV when you're in labor? I don't think so.

• 1:26:25Speaker 04

  You know, in 1989, she possibly is.

• 1:26:28David Sims?

  I thought the whole point of the epidural was like, that's so we don't pump drugs into your veins.

• 1:26:35Speaker 04

  It is so.

• 1:26:36David Sims?

  I'm just, this was a specific point you guys probably have no.

• 1:26:39Speaker 04

  This is one thing that I feel like nobody cares.

• 1:26:41David Sims?

  Hey, you want some Demerol? And she's like, ah.

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  And that's obviously going to affect the baby so much more than an epidural, which doesn't make you high. It just numbs you and this is like, this is.

• 1:26:50David Sims?

  He's fucking injecting morphine in there.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  Yes. Well, and then that leads to the joke where the baby is high and that made me uncomfortable.

• 1:26:56Griffin Newman?

  The greatest joke in the history of movies.

• 1:26:57David Sims?

  Obviously.

• 1:26:58Griffin Newman?

  This baby is wavy gravy.

• 1:27:00David Sims?

  Obviously.

• 1:27:00Griffin Newman?

  He's looking at his hand and it's blurring.

• 1:27:02David Sims?

  As, as comic screenwriting, I'm all the way on the board. I was just wondering, like, I think if my wife had been like, hey, this whole labor thing is a real, like, I don't feel so good. Do you have any Demerol?

• 1:27:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, put some like fentanyl right in my eyeball.

• 1:27:18Griffin Newman?

  I just imagine you putting your arms around your wife in labor and going, honey, just imagine how funny it would be if the baby started acting stoned inside of you. Do it for that. Do it for the bit potential.

• 1:27:33David Sims?

  Things about the pregnancy that I do feel like are very specifically 80s, like the Lamaze jokes. Yes. Many, many jokes about Lamaze breathing.

• 1:27:39Speaker 04

  John Travolta brings it up. He doesn't have anything to do with this pregnancy.

• 1:27:42David Sims?

  Did it. Hey, everyone learning to breathe.

• 1:27:44Griffin Newman?

  George Segal keeps complaining that she isn't keeping her body tighter while being pregnant.

• 1:27:48David Sims?

  Right. Oh, my. My wife only gained 22 pounds.

• 1:27:51Speaker 04

  Her reliance on Dr. Spock.

• 1:27:52David Sims?

  Her, of course, who was a hero to them all and her correct calling out of his left wing progressive politics, which is part of why my mom's generation loved Dr. Spock. No offense to Dr. Spock.

• 1:28:02Speaker 04

  Uh, fun, fun fact about me as a child, I thought that Dr. Spock, the baby guy in Spock from Star Trek. I guess this is not unusual.

• 1:28:08David Sims?

  Why wouldn't you?

• 1:28:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:28:09David Sims?

  One and the same.

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  I think I believe that until. I believed it maybe for too long, but.

• 1:28:14Griffin Newman?

  Especially when a fellow Vulcan is on screen, as he's mentioned.

• 1:28:17Speaker 04

  Anyway, I've never seen a Star Trek, but we can.

• 1:28:19David Sims?

  Um, but we were probably both raised with Spockian technique.

• 1:28:23Speaker 04

  Likely.

• 1:28:24David Sims?

  Right, but we don't even write yet.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  Where it's like, put the baby directly on their stomach to sleep, fill their crib with the choking hazards and suffocation hazards.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Do you guys know that you can't put anything in a crib right now?

• 1:28:35Speaker 04

  It has to be empty until they're a year old.

• 1:28:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:28:37Griffin Newman?

  Like, I did not know this.

• 1:28:38David Sims?

  Okay, right, okay, this is what I was wondering.

• 1:28:40Speaker 04

  This is uncommon, unless you've had one, there's no reason for you to know that.

• 1:28:43David Sims?

  We all, as parents.

• 1:28:44Griffin Newman?

  When did this shift?

• 1:28:45David Sims?

  In the early 90s because of SIDS.

• 1:28:48Speaker 04

  And there's, and it has had a very immediate, like, yes, and yeah, positive impact, like, so many fewer kids die now.

• 1:28:55Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 1:28:56David Sims?

  Um, but.

• 1:28:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm, I'm glad I got through right before that I was born in there with a busy crib.

• 1:29:02David Sims?

  That is the thing.

• 1:29:03Griffin Newman?

  Before, before crib culture went all woke.

• 1:29:06David Sims?

  Exactly. If you, and we're probably the last generation this will happen to, because now, you know, people who are older, their parents will have also done face up to wake up. But our parents were like, I put you in your crib, right, with an encyclopedia Britannica, like, you know, the entire cast of Sesame Street. Yes, exactly.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  Like open claims, yeah.

• 1:29:24David Sims?

  And you're like, so like when your grand, you know, when your parents are babysitting your kid, you're like, just put them fucking on their back in an empty crib, please. And they're like, not one pillow on their face, please, let me, I, I did it with you, nothing was wrong. Can't put a goddamn thing in there.

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  Wild.

• 1:29:39David Sims?

  Uh, so when she puts her baby right in his crib that has a Garfield toy in it and stuff, I was laughing.

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  There's also scenes where she's just holding him in the cab, she's not even using a car seat.

• 1:29:49David Sims?

  Absolutely. She just pops into that cab. I don't even, does she put a seatbelt on? Who even knows?

• 1:29:54Griffin Newman?

  She's a busy lady in the city.

• 1:29:58Speaker 04

  It's the go-go 80s, there's no time for safety.

• 1:30:00David Sims?

  Arrested.

• 1:30:02Griffin Newman?

  Taxes to do.

• 1:30:05Speaker 04

  Chubby Checkers is very lucrative business.

• 1:30:09Griffin Newman?

  Never explain what Chubby Checkers is.

• 1:30:11David Sims?

  But you can, you can put it together.

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:30:14Speaker 04

  I assumed that it was like a Johnny Rock, it's like 50s style, like, theme restaurant.

• 1:30:18David Sims?

  That could be true. It could be something like that.

• 1:30:20Griffin Newman?

  Definitely a mascot character you see.

• 1:30:22David Sims?

  Only you would clock the mascot character.

• 1:30:24Griffin Newman?

  She breaks it.

• 1:30:25David Sims?

  Sure, right.

• 1:30:26Griffin Newman?

  It's like a big mascot.

• 1:30:27David Sims?

  I remember her smashing the thing.

• 1:30:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I also, I'm sorry, it's Chubby Charles, which I only correct because I kept being like, is this a dig at Chevy Chase? That the more they say it, the more it sounds.

• 1:30:38Speaker 04

  We know about Amy Heckerly.

• 1:30:39Griffin Newman?

  Right, the more they say it, there's the scene where her boss is chewing around, she's like, I don't want the Chubby Charles, and she keeps saying it and it starts to sound like Chevy Chase.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  That's a conspiracy theory I can get behind.

• 1:30:50David Sims?

  I also want to note that her doctor, her OBGYN, oh, well, two OBGYNs are from The X-Files and also Twin Peaks. Don Davis plays the OBGYN who's like, your doc, your clock is ticking.

• 1:31:01Griffin Newman?

  Major Briggs and cigarette smoking.

• 1:31:03David Sims?

  And then cigarette smoking man is, is the actual guy who gives her the Demerol, which maybe it's cigarette smoking man. Exactly. Maybe he's being nefarious. Trying to create a breed of stoned babies.

• 1:31:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, talk, stone talking.

• 1:31:15David Sims?

  Exactly. It's super weapons to combat alien invasion.

• 1:31:18Griffin Newman?

  Babies who can sell you wine coolers.

• 1:31:19David Sims?

  She has the baby and Travolta is there.

• 1:31:24Speaker 04

  They mistake him for the father, much as you did before you saw the movie.

• 1:31:27Griffin Newman?

  He is merely the cab driver, but then they tell him to gown up.

• 1:31:30Speaker 04

  Comes inside the hospital.

• 1:31:31David Sims?

  This is what I'm saying. The next act of the movie is, it's like three things. It's like she's embarking on. Right. She's embarking on single motherhood and the baby has an internal monologue. She's kind of dating around and trying to find like someone, you know, who can be in her life. Also Travolta's just kind of hanging out.

• 1:31:49Griffin Newman?

  Right. This is the part of the movie that even more than the baby talks is a complete creation.

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  Oh, and we're also supposed to find it charming when he uses her address to commit fraud. So then Abe Vigoda can be in the nursing home.

• 1:32:00Griffin Newman?

  Let's just once again, step backwards and explain the arc of John Travolta's character in quick.

• 1:32:05David Sims?

  He's a cab driver slash flight instructor?

• 1:32:08Griffin Newman?

  Right. Right. He's a cab driver whose real dream is to teach people how to fly.

• 1:32:13David Sims?

  He's from New Jersey.

• 1:32:14Griffin Newman?

  But that doesn't pay the bills.

• 1:32:15David Sims?

  He's from Inglewood, New Jersey.

• 1:32:17Griffin Newman?

  His close relative is his grandfather, who he wants to get played by Abe Vigoda.

• 1:32:21David Sims?

  Yeah, but by an aged Abe Vigoda.

• 1:32:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:32:24Speaker 04

  Not as aged as he would become.

• 1:32:26Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, he's got like 30 years left on the clock at the time they're filming this movie.

• 1:32:30David Sims?

  But he's, you know, it's a gum heavy performance from Vigoda.

• 1:32:34Speaker 04

  I, I think you watch, you watch this movie and you understand why his death was misreported so many times.

• 1:32:39David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:40Speaker 04

  He looks like he's not long for this world.

• 1:32:42David Sims?

  I'm shaking him awake every morning. Are you still in there? Okay, okay, okay. You're still going. Good job, Abe.

• 1:32:47Griffin Newman?

  You watch this movie and you're like, oh, so it was a posthumous release, right? You're like, this guy hasn't even made one appearance on Conan yet.

• 1:32:54David Sims?

  That's true.

• 1:32:55Griffin Newman?

  This guy's not even a one.

• 1:32:56David Sims?

  Conan is but a twinkle in the eye of Lorne Michaels in 1989.

• 1:33:01Griffin Newman?

  He's talking inside Lorne Michaels' belly.

• 1:33:03David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 1:33:05David Sims?

  Please, Griffin, his balls.

• 1:33:07Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  It's so dark in here.

• 1:33:09Griffin Newman?

  I like the idea of Lorne Michaels pulling a junior with baby Conan O'Brien, a creepy puppet with the hair.

• 1:33:15David Sims?

  I think, oh, grow, I can't do more.

• 1:33:17Griffin Newman?

  Doing the string dance. John Travolta drops Kirstie Alley off at the hospital. They assume he's the father.

• 1:33:23David Sims?

  Yeah, they get him all scrubbed up, right.

• 1:33:24Griffin Newman?

  She's so drugged out, she does not remember that he's there. Then like a week later, seemingly, he shows up at her place. She's like, eh, what are you doing here? Lets him in, is like, how did you find my address? I can't find my purse. Someone stole it at the hospital, only in New York. Minutes later, he reveals, I have your purse. That's why I'm here. That's why I know your address. I'm bringing it back to you. I'm sorry, right?

• 1:33:52Speaker 04

  He got in right under the wire, right before Giuliani would clean this up, take Travolta's and the people like them off the streets.

• 1:33:59Griffin Newman?

  It is a weird series of information being revealed, like the order is strange. But you're like, oh, this is like why he has a reason to see her again. It's a bit of a me cute. And then she like kicks him out and you're like, okay, so where does the movie go from here? And then a couple of days later, she's in her lobby and he's like pulling mail out of her mailbox?

• 1:34:21David Sims?

  Yes, he's sort of right. That's, I don't know how he's fishing it out really, but I guess he sort of gets something in through the little mail vent.

• 1:34:28Speaker 04

  They teach you at flight instructors school, how to commit mail fraud.

• 1:34:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, shimming it out through the vent.

• 1:34:33David Sims?

  So he can pretend his father has Manhattan residency to qualify him for some kind of home. He's using her address to do this. He doesn't know one other fucking guy?

• 1:34:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. He's like, I need to get.

• 1:34:43Speaker 04

  Not in Manhattan.

• 1:34:45Griffin Newman?

  In the good home in the New York, in New York City, but I'm outside city limits, so I have to fake your address. And she was like, why would I let you commit mail fraud? And he's like, I brought you to the hospital and brought you your purse back. And she's like, not enough. He offers babysitting in exchange and she says, yes, absolutely. I will let you watch my child solo.

• 1:35:05Speaker 04

  This man I've met twice.

• 1:35:06Griffin Newman?

  Many times. A man I just met fishing mail out of my mailbox.

• 1:35:11David Sims?

  The fact that she has a mother, played by Olympia Dukakis.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Academy Award winner.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  Academy Award winner and a wonderful actress who I once shared an elevator with at the old UCB building that we used to record this podcast in, which also had a lot of audition.

• 1:35:23Griffin Newman?

  She must have gone to Ripley Greer Studios.

• 1:35:26David Sims?

  And I, I took a very silent and respectful elevator ride with her and was like in the presence of a legend. She'd fucking come over all the time. She loves the baby. And yet she's like, nah, cab driver. Hey, ring, ring, ring. Where are you? I gotta go on another date.

• 1:35:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it seems like they just live in like Queens or something. They could be there really easily.

• 1:35:43David Sims?

  He lives in Jersey. Like how, I mean, like it's like, this is where I'm sitting. He's not even close.

• 1:35:47Griffin Newman?

  In that same elevator ride, didn't she throw water in John Mahoney's face? You were respectful, but she stoically threw water in his face, right? Go on.

• 1:35:56David Sims?

  That's wonderful.

• 1:35:58Speaker 05

  I like her and the husband.

• 1:35:59David Sims?

  The husband is so funny.

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  Who is Amy Heckerling's father?

• 1:36:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  Oh, wait, really?

• 1:36:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:03Griffin Newman?

  Real dad.

• 1:36:04Speaker 05

  Cool.

• 1:36:04Speaker 04

  Amy Heckerling's family is all over this movie.

• 1:36:06David Sims?

  He's just.

• 1:36:07Griffin Newman?

  Deeply personal.

• 1:36:08David Sims?

  The gag with him is so funny. They're all like, it's a family of accountants, right? They've all got adding machines at all times and all he seems to want to do is use his adding machine.

• 1:36:16Speaker 05

  Or read accounting magazines.

• 1:36:18Speaker 04

  Oh, when he's laughing at the accounting trade magazine, I loved that. I ate that up too. That's a good gag.

• 1:36:23David Sims?

  I think all of that is funny. I think because Dukakis is such a pro, like she elevate, that material is very hacky. You know, in the wrong hands, right?

• 1:36:31Speaker 04

  Oh yeah. Where Kirstie Alley is like, Nick, how could it get any worse? And then she's like, honey, I'm coming over.

• 1:36:36David Sims?

  Lou Heckerling is, uh, is the dad.

• 1:36:38Speaker 05

  He looks like a Lou.

• 1:36:40David Sims?

  He's got two film credits. Look who's talking.

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  Look who's talking too. There you go.

• 1:36:45David Sims?

  Yeah. So.

• 1:36:46Speaker 04

  Did he get back end also?

• 1:36:47David Sims?

  Yeah, he better have.

• 1:36:48Speaker 05

  Oh, speaking of 80's shit.

• 1:36:49David Sims?

  Him adding up his back end.

• 1:36:52Speaker 05

  The, um, adding machines. The, her misleading that it was a sperm donor.

• 1:36:56Speaker 04

  Oh, right.

• 1:36:56David Sims?

  Oh, sure. Right. She has this cover story of, right. I didn't get knocked up by a married.

• 1:37:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm just a woman who can do it all.

• 1:37:02Speaker 05

  Like, well, you must be a lesbian or something.

• 1:37:04Speaker 04

  The most 80's, she's like, this is, this is something that you would only do if you were very ugly or perhaps a lesbian.

• 1:37:10David Sims?

  Right. And Travolta also hits her with the, are you a lesbo?

• 1:37:13Speaker 04

  It comes up a few times.

• 1:37:14David Sims?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 1:37:15Griffin Newman?

  Well, let's also remember like 15 years earlier, the Mary Tyler Moore show starts in which a woman is single and lives in an apartment. And people were like, well, this is the snuff.

• 1:37:27David Sims?

  What is this sick pornography on our?

• 1:37:30Speaker 04

  The idea that she would want to pay for herself on a date is like so ludicrous.

• 1:37:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:37:37David Sims?

  Right. He has to say to her like, hey, she likes to get pissed on during sex. You know what I mean? Like the guy, Travolta's like, let me, let me take you aside for a second and tell you, this lady won't pick up the check.

• 1:37:48David Sims?

  Note that we're talking about all this stuff in the movie and that we're not remarking on the fact that there is a baby in the movie who Bruce Willis's voice comes out of his brain every few minutes.

• 1:37:57Griffin Newman?

  Is ostensibly the thing the whole movie was.

• 1:37:59David Sims?

  And it's what Hillary said, you don't need it.

• 1:38:00Griffin Newman?

  No, it's what the movie was sold on, both in terms of selling it to the studio and selling it to the audience, both to great success. And yet it sounds like in Heckling's telling of it, they were just like, look, you're not going to get controlled performances out of babies. We bring babies on set, we let them do what we want. We don't have video playback. We look at the footage, we find the footage that we think is interesting, we cut it in, we show it to Bruce Willis and we're like, Bruce, you got anything to say here? Like, I assume they had lines written for the babies, but she was also like, we can't impose lines on them and expect them to hit the marks or get the facial expression we want.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  Maybe the slightly, I mean, by the time the movie is over, he's like two years old, which in the movie, in the world of the, the world of the movie has no idea what a baby does at different ages.

• 1:38:46David Sims?

  How old is he? Cause his first word.

• 1:38:48Speaker 04

  He doesn't talk yet.

• 1:38:49David Sims?

  I know, Hillary.

• 1:38:50Speaker 04

  Baby, you know this, a baby can't jump until they're like two and a half.

• 1:38:54David Sims?

  I, yeah, I mean, I, I remember that's the kind of like, I remember one doctor's visit where they were like, does your daughter like kick a ball? If you give her like a soccer ball? And we were like, we're not that kind of family. That situation just hasn't arisen. But you know, like the obscure checkmark.

• 1:39:10Speaker 04

  But no, the conceit of the movie doesn't work if the baby can actually talk in its own baby voice.

• 1:39:15Griffin Newman?

  Right. Which I remember, and we'll talk about look who's talking to next week, being a little confused by that as a child where he is like toddler aged and is still dubbed by Bruce Willis.

• 1:39:26David Sims?

  That happens. And so in the second movie, he's still, it's still internal monologue.

• 1:39:30Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:39:30Speaker 04

  But he's of an age where he should be able to talk.

• 1:39:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. By look who's talking now, they are just played by child actors, they speak in their own voices.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  It's the dogs.

• 1:39:38Griffin Newman?

  Only the dogs talk.

• 1:39:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:39Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:39:39David Sims?

  It's of course DeVito and Keaton.

• 1:39:41Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:39:42David Sims?

  Diane.

• 1:39:42Griffin Newman?

  Yes, but there's a bit of a like Rugrats-y thing where you're like, is it like Angelica being the one who speaks both languages? That like at this point might be, there's an internal monologue and an external monologue?

• 1:39:55David Sims?

  You are getting at the weirdness of Rugrats, right? Where Angelica has crossed the liminal barrier.

• 1:40:01Griffin Newman?

  Right, where you're like, is Angelica close switching?

• 1:40:03Speaker 04

  No, she's bilingual, yeah.

• 1:40:04Griffin Newman?

  Or is she like in some ghostwriter state where she can walk both worlds?

• 1:40:09David Sims?

  Rugrats is so funny because it's like Chucky kind of seems older than Tommy.

• 1:40:13Speaker 04

  Well, he is, he's canonically two.

• 1:40:15David Sims?

  Okay, and Tommy's one?

• 1:40:16Speaker 04

  And Tommy's one.

• 1:40:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Tommy's also bald as fuck. This guy hasn't grown anything.

• 1:40:20David Sims?

  That guy is Travolta level bald.

• 1:40:22Griffin Newman?

  Right, and Tommy's just like t-shirt diaper. Chucky dresses like a little gentleman. He has a t-shirt and short.

• 1:40:29Speaker 04

  Well, he has a very fastidious single dad who takes a lot of time to pick those outfits out.

• 1:40:34Griffin Newman?

  He has shoes with laces. Tommy's walking on barefoot. Tommy's a goo goo gaga bullshit.

• 1:40:39Speaker 04

  Tommy doesn't even wear pants.

• 1:40:40Griffin Newman?

  No, at all.

• 1:40:41David Sims?

  But that's my question, it's like, does Chucky talk a little bit?

• 1:40:44Griffin Newman?

  No, only Angelica and Suzie.

• 1:40:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, because they're three.

• 1:40:47David Sims?

  And then there's Phil and Lil.

• 1:40:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:40:49David Sims?

  Yeah. How old are they?

• 1:40:50Speaker 04

  They're only 18 months.

• 1:40:51Griffin Newman?

  I feel like they're right, they're the midpoint.

• 1:40:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, Tommy's the youngest. Well, then Tommy has a little brother.

• 1:40:55David Sims?

  Then there's the little one.

• 1:40:56Speaker 04

  Which is confusing.

• 1:40:56Griffin Newman?

  Okay, so then Dill is born and Dill can't even speak in a way that the babies hear. The babies hear Dill go like, "Baa."

• 1:41:03David Sims?

  Okay, it is coming true, your tangent call out.

• 1:41:07Griffin Newman?

  Thank you.

• 1:41:08David Sims?

  This is really...

• 1:41:09Griffin Newman?

  And then do you know what happens?

• 1:41:10David Sims?

  It's so similar to when Linus got rerun in Peanuts, where it's like Linus was the baby in Peanuts. Linus is introduced as a baby. By the time the rerun shows up, Linus has aged up to the same age as the other characters of Charlie Brown, but they haven't aged.

• 1:41:24Speaker 04

  Right, but then... Wait, Linus wasn't the same age as them?

• 1:41:26David Sims?

  No, Linus is introduced as a baby.

• 1:41:28Speaker 04

  Oh, because Lucy is the same age as him.

• 1:41:29Griffin Newman?

  But that's why Linus was so obsessed with the blankie because he was a baby. But then I think ultimately this is like a nice discovery that makes the character richer, that him being an older child still reliant on the blankie gives him more of an internal conflict.

• 1:41:42David Sims?

  No, of course, that's iconic Linus is that he has the blankie and, right, he can't get over it. And I guess like he's still supposed to maybe be a little younger than like Charlie and Lucy and Schroeder and Pepper and Patty and Pigpen.

• 1:41:53Speaker 04

  They're not twins, like you'd have to be.

• 1:41:54David Sims?

  But this is what I'm saying, but Charlie and Lucy at all don't age.

• 1:41:57Griffin Newman?

  No, I must, I must just call out, I must just connect these dots.

• 1:42:01David Sims?

  Shermie. We have all of our friends.

• 1:42:03Griffin Newman?

  We all love Shermie.

• 1:42:04David Sims?

  Violet.

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:42:06David Sims?

  Woodstock is the bird.

• 1:42:07Griffin Newman?

  Frida. Um, I must...

• 1:42:09Speaker 04

  Are you naming actual Peanuts?

• 1:42:10Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:11Speaker 04

  Or just like children in Park Slope schools.

• 1:42:13Griffin Newman?

  Both. I must connect these dots. In the third and final film of theatrical Rugrats trilogy, Rugrats Go Wild.

• 1:42:22David Sims?

  It went wild.

• 1:42:23Griffin Newman?

  The new hook.

• 1:42:24Speaker 04

  It's a crossover with The Wild Thornberrys.

• 1:42:25Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. The new hook, much like Look Who's Talking Now, is for the first time we can hear the dog talk.

• 1:42:33Speaker 04

  Because Eliza Thornberry famously can talk to animals.

• 1:42:36Griffin Newman?

  And who plays the voice of the dog?

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  Bruce Willis?

• 1:42:39Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 1:42:43David Sims?

  Episode's over.

• 1:42:44Griffin Newman?

  It's all connected.

• 1:42:47David Sims?

  It's all.

• 1:42:48Speaker 04

  Incredible stuff.

• 1:42:49David Sims?

  This is a Wendy's. You're right. You're right. It's all connected. I mean, Willis.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  And that movie was, check notes, gigantic financial flop.

• 1:43:00David Sims?

  Willis, you know, it's funny with him that, right, that he has multiple like voice performances. Cause he's also in Beavis and Butthead, right?

• 1:43:10Griffin Newman?

  And like. Uh, Over the Hedge.

• 1:43:13David Sims?

  Who can forget?

• 1:43:14Griffin Newman?

  Where he replaced Jim Carrey. Cause Jim Carrey said, I'm a method actor. I can't do this process of one animation record session every four months. What am I supposed to do in between the sessions? I swear to you, that is what he said to Jeffrey Katzenberg.

• 1:43:29Speaker 04

  What has he been doing to prepare for Sonic then?

• 1:43:32Griffin Newman?

  Well, he's just like.

• 1:43:33David Sims?

  Uh, looking at his bank account and being like, hmm, little love.

• 1:43:36Speaker 04

  Maybe never mind. Yeah.

• 1:43:37Griffin Newman?

  His argument was basically like, once I start prepping a character, I cannot let go of it until production wraps. Whereas animation, you work on it for like three years and every six months, they're like, we got a couple of new lines.

• 1:43:49David Sims?

  Right. And Willis was just like, over the hedge. Great. What's about a hedge or something? Let me hit that microphone.

• 1:43:54Griffin Newman?

  It's just funny. He has a great voice. Put a microphone in my bathtub.

• 1:43:58David Sims?

  I got, I love Bruce Willis's voice.

• 1:44:00Griffin Newman?

  I do too.

• 1:44:00David Sims?

  It's just funny that, right, that he had the little side gig.

• 1:44:02Griffin Newman?

  Well, it's always felt like that is like the one vestige of his sort of like past history of being first and foremost a comedy star. That the more he became an action star and like audiences rejected him doing comedy, it's like, if it's just my voice, they'll let me be funny Bruno. Um, but this was a big thing when Jim Carrey finally agreed to do Horton here as a who they promised him like we will

• 1:44:25Speaker 04

  He was like, you must airlift me to the jungle of Nool.

• 1:44:28Griffin Newman?

  Well, first off, they got him agree to do the movie because he was already filming Yes Man. And he was so deep in character.

• 1:44:34David Sims?

  Right. That's how I got him to give me 50 grand and make me a turkey sandwich.

• 1:44:38Griffin Newman?

  You could send him any script during the production of Yes Man and he had to sign on.

• 1:44:41David Sims?

  Just like when he was doing Liar Liar, the man couldn't lie. You could get anything out of him.

• 1:44:46Griffin Newman?

  He couldn't lie. Uh, no, they like promised him on Horton here's a clue that they wouldn't do any pickups. That they were like, we will do one week of recordings with you and you say whatever you want and then you can shed the character of Horton that has been weighing on you so heavily.

• 1:45:02Speaker 04

  Well, he is an elephant.

• 1:45:03Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:45:04David Sims?

  Yeah, heavy. Think about it.

• 1:45:06Griffin Newman?

  100%.

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  He was the elephant in the room.

• 1:45:07David Sims?

  Yeah, I've never seen the animated Horton here's a who is it any good?

• 1:45:11Griffin Newman?

  No, it sucks and is for losers.

• 1:45:14David Sims?

  Noted.

• 1:45:15Speaker 04

  There's like no good Dr. Seuss adaptation.

• 1:45:17David Sims?

  Well, apart from, I guess, the original Grinch cartoon.

• 1:45:21Griffin Newman?

  Theatrical, yes, right.

• 1:45:22David Sims?

  How's the Lorax movie?

• 1:45:24Griffin Newman?

  Um, I've never seen it. I've heard quite stinky. Yeah, I think all the theatricals are bad.

• 1:45:29David Sims?

  Cause my daughter loves the Lorax book.

• 1:45:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, there's an animated shorter that.

• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  Oh, is she a narc and a school?

• 1:45:35David Sims?

  Yeah, she's a big Wonsler fan.

• 1:45:37Griffin Newman?

  All the like Chuck Jones half hour Seuss adaptations are good.

• 1:45:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:41David Sims?

  Uh, sure.

• 1:45:42Speaker 04

  You can't make a Dr. Seuss adaptation that's longer than 25 minutes.

• 1:45:44David Sims?

  No, his books kind of are a little short.

• 1:45:46Griffin Newman?

  And hand drawn animations, the best style, because you just, it's a one to one with the, right?

• 1:45:50David Sims?

  Yeah. Uh, isn't there a new Cat in the Hat movie coming though with like fucking, you know?

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  Bill Hader's in it.

• 1:45:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:56David Sims?

  What's up with Hader? Come on the pod, Hader. Let's come on the pod, Hader.

• 1:46:02Griffin Newman?

  Look who's talking. I, there are like three phases of Mikey as a character, right? There is, uh,

• 1:46:08Speaker 04

  fetus.

• 1:46:09Griffin Newman?

  In utero Mikey, which for me 10 out of 10 comedy gold.

• 1:46:12David Sims?

  Yeah. And then there is right infant Mikey.

• 1:46:15Griffin Newman?

  There's baby section where I feel like all of the jokes are bad. Like I, I'm sitting there the first 30 minutes and I'm like, God, I, I was feeling the way you were feeling about Travolta. Well, I don't deny Travolta's performance this at all, but the way you had the total reassessment of like, God, do I love Travolta? Does Travolta just make me so happy? The first like 30 minutes of the baby sounding like Bruce Willis, I was just like, God, I miss Bruce. I love Bruce. Bruce means so much to me. What a charmer. And then there's like a midsection of it just feels like the absolute laziest first past jokes of him going like, hey, where are we going?

• 1:46:52David Sims?

  To be fair.

• 1:46:54Speaker 04

  Well, the thing about it.

• 1:46:56David Sims?

  When you're an infant, I guess that probably is mostly like, I'm being picked up again.

• 1:46:58Speaker 04

  I think that you can probably also relate to this experience of you have a kid, you spend, you know, a year wondering like, what's going on in that head of yours? And then they start talking and it's like, banana, banana, banana, banana. Like, that's what they've been thinking this whole time.

• 1:47:12David Sims?

  That, that, it's just that. I see that. I see that. What is that? That, that, that, that, that. That's all they're thinking.

• 1:47:17Griffin Newman?

  This is what I found.

• 1:47:18Speaker 04

  They're very simple.

• 1:47:20David Sims?

  Mother.

• 1:47:20Griffin Newman?

  This is what I found funny and frustrating is like, okay, in utero, we understand the comedic potential there, right? When he's out as a baby, they just have like no take on him comedically, considering that's the genesis of this project is like, let's narrate what we think our daughter is thinking right now, right? When he gets into like his weird non-speaking toddler age, I think it gets good again and feels like this is where the gimmick kind of makes sense, where it's him interacting with Travolta and it's all based on their connection.

• 1:47:52David Sims?

  Yeah, because now you are all in on that.

• 1:47:55Griffin Newman?

  Right. And you're like, there's a little tension to the idea that the baby is just like, Mom, I want this guy to be my dad.

• 1:48:01David Sims?

  And she can't hear it.

• 1:48:02Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I'm like, now it's good again. Now I'm in.

• 1:48:05David Sims?

  She.

• 1:48:06Griffin Newman?

  And I think he has good jokes again. I also think the few times they let babies interact with each other.

• 1:48:11Speaker 04

  I think those are funny.

• 1:48:12Griffin Newman?

  That works.

• 1:48:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:48:13Griffin Newman?

  Anytime it's like, cause it's like, oh, baby just doing commentary on adults. I'm like, it's starting to get a little like, well, this, there's an interesting interpersonal drama going on and then the baby just makes like a one liner. Anytime it's the bit of babies being like, hey, how's it going?

• 1:48:30Speaker 04

  It's like, how do you, do you like my new haircut? I felt that whole back and forth.

• 1:48:32David Sims?

  That's cute.

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  That exchange is very cute.

• 1:48:33David Sims?

  Don't make me wear the lambs. Ah, I look like such a loser in the lamb shirt.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  And I think like heckling was smart about like getting this footage of babies and then being like, you know, it'd be funny is if with the footage we have, they were saying this. When you were saying like, there's weird lap flip stuff of sometimes towards the end, his mouth is moving. It feels like they, she just let them talk and say whatever.

• 1:48:53David Sims?

  Yeah, they're talking to a toddler.

• 1:48:54Speaker 04

  And then she was looking at who was talking.

• 1:48:56Griffin Newman?

  Totally. And then dub it over with whatever. There are moments at the end where it feels like the dubbing is almost syncing up where you're like, did the kid actually say a proper sentence?

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  I looked, I looked for who was talking.

• 1:49:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:08David Sims?

  But then I sat my ass down and listened.

• 1:49:10Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:49:13David Sims?

  But yes, the middle section of the movie is what we described. And then it starts to barrel towards, you're like, right. So she's got to get with Travolta.

• 1:49:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:22David Sims?

  And.

• 1:49:23Griffin Newman?

  Who, by the way, has just been like.

• 1:49:24David Sims?

  Hanging out.

• 1:49:26Griffin Newman?

  But no, go. No, because the early negotiation is like.

• 1:49:29Speaker 04

  She's paying him.

• 1:49:30David Sims?

  Great question. 1989 Manhattan accountant.

• 1:49:34Griffin Newman?

  George Segal makes a joke where I think he says 10 bucks an hour. Where he's like, what is she paying you all double it?

• 1:49:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:39David Sims?

  Sounds about right.

• 1:49:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:42Speaker 04

  He's making an assumption. I don't know if he actually knows. Yeah.

• 1:49:44David Sims?

  And he makes an assumption frequently in the film.

• 1:49:49Speaker 04

  You're so, you're so enlightened.

• 1:49:52Griffin Newman?

  David is being wise as hell in this episode.

• 1:49:58Griffin Newman?

  The early negotiation, which feels like a classic movie setup is like, here's the handshake deal. 10 letters get sent to me in exchange for five babysitting appointments. And I'm like, okay, so this movie is going to track.

• 1:50:11Speaker 04

  I'm going to pretend to be your boyfriend until the spring dance.

• 1:50:13Griffin Newman?

  Totally. It's going to track five babysitting appointments. And by the end of it, they fall in love. And instead, the movie does this crazy time jump of what feels like it is at least a year.

• 1:50:22David Sims?

  The movie kicks into a montage and I'm like, yeah, sure. We're in a montage again. It time has passed a little bit. And then hard cuts to, yes, like a toe headed toddler.

• 1:50:30Griffin Newman?

  Looks like Macaulay Culkin and Travolta has seemingly been there every single day.

• 1:50:34Speaker 04

  Which is so, because it seems like she never stopped working, right? So he's essentially this kid's nanny. Like he's.

• 1:50:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:50:39Speaker 04

  He's spending nine hours a day.

• 1:50:40David Sims?

  He throws the kid in the trunk, doesn't, you know, 12 hours on.

• 1:50:43Griffin Newman?

  He's barely getting to teach anyone how to fly.

• 1:50:45David Sims?

  Right. Right. Once in a while he sprinkles in some flight lessons.

• 1:50:48Griffin Newman?

  Is this the movie that made Travolta get into flying planes?

• 1:50:52David Sims?

  Or did he? Or is it just that he's like, hey, you know what I love?

• 1:50:56Griffin Newman?

  This is my big question.

• 1:50:57Speaker 04

  I think it's a chicken and egg thing. I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't write it in because he was already into flying planes.

• 1:51:02Griffin Newman?

  Quite possibly. I'm gonna try to carbon date this, but go on.

• 1:51:04David Sims?

  John Travolta earned his private pilot's license at the age of 22.

• 1:51:08Griffin Newman?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:51:08David Sims?

  So he's been in.

• 1:51:09Speaker 04

  Just around the same time as he entered the Church of Scientology.

• 1:51:11David Sims?

  Yes, and possibly was entering other things. We don't know. And.

• 1:51:15Griffin Newman?

  We have no comment on what he was entering. We couldn't be more vague about that.

• 1:51:21David Sims?

  If he was 22, that's like 74. So it's like early in like Welcome Back Hotter Time or whatever. You know, it's not, he's not even.

• 1:51:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Well, so then that definitely must have been a thing to appease him.

• 1:51:30David Sims?

  Probably.

• 1:51:31Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31David Sims?

  Um, I mean, again, this movie was produced by his agent. Like, I think a lot of things were done to appease him.

• 1:51:37Speaker 04

  If he had, if he had been into like trains, they would have had him be an amateur train conductor.

• 1:51:42David Sims?

  Subway conductor.

• 1:51:43Griffin Newman?

  That's my favorite thing about Travolta's plane obsession is unlike Harrison Ford, when Travolta flies planes, he wears a little, uh, pilot outfit. Have you seen that?

• 1:51:51David Sims?

  Yeah, because he, well, because he owns a jet.

• 1:51:53Griffin Newman?

  Right. And he's got wings and he puts on a hat.

• 1:51:56David Sims?

  Like Ford flies little, little planes or whatever.

• 1:51:58Griffin Newman?

  Right. He does it.

• 1:51:59Speaker 04

  Ford only flies, flies planes that he can crash.

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  He flies very crashable planes.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  Right. And he does it dressed like.

• 1:52:04Speaker 04

  May not apply with.

• 1:52:05Griffin Newman?

  Dressed like the character from Shrinking or whatever. I just like that, like Travolta's like, I want to be a pilot. Like, he does the full, like, catch me if you can. Do any kids want to come up and visit? I'll give them peanuts and pretzels.

• 1:52:20David Sims?

  Uh.

• 1:52:21Griffin Newman?

  Little wingpens.

• 1:52:23David Sims?

  I mean, obviously there's the kind of rom-com-y, although Heckling apparently doesn't like this movie being called a rom-com, but it, you know, it sort of is one.

• 1:52:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:31Speaker 04

  It's more about their relationship than it is about the baby.

• 1:52:33Griffin Newman?

  I also think for the element of the film that is like the most constructed, right? Not referencing her own life. I do think it's kind of an interesting emotional setup for a movie, which is like woman who just had a child, who's like parentage she is obscuring, trying to figure out how to date someone as a new single mother, specifically through the prism of, I'm not just trying to find a boyfriend, I'm trying to find a father. Like, I think that's a good setup and a thing that people were making fucking movies about.

• 1:53:01Speaker 05

  And then goes on some of the worst dates of all time. Those guys are good bad.

• 1:53:06David Sims?

  Yeah, it's one kind of finicky weirdo and one guy who yells at the waiter and then two pay.

• 1:53:11Speaker 04

  It's the episode of Sex and the City with the freak show. Does this resonate with you?

• 1:53:16Speaker 05

  Of course, of course.

• 1:53:17David Sims?

  I feel like the montage of three to four bad dates pretty much always hits. Like, I always like that. Just like, let's bring in some funny actors to do like stupid stuff.

• 1:53:27Griffin Newman?

  I like that you have some more expressive heightened heckling cutaways that like really show off kind of more directing style of like, there's the control freak guy who gives the notes about the silverware and the glass of water and whatever. And then she cuts to him noting Mikey's organization of socks.

• 1:53:45Speaker 05

  Like, shows them all older. Like, what if we got together?

• 1:53:49Griffin Newman?

  How would they apply as father, whatever their weird quirks are?

• 1:53:52Speaker 04

  The dream, the dream sequence of if she married Travolta and she was just pregnant constantly.

• 1:53:56Griffin Newman?

  Is great. That sequence is so much fun. And then what's the one that ends with the scanners-esque head explosion?

• 1:54:03David Sims?

  No, no, she had explode seagull.

• 1:54:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 1:54:05David Sims?

  And they actually, right, they had to think about, because they were like, we don't want that to be too scary.

• 1:54:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:11David Sims?

  So they like filled his head with little balloons and stuff, right? Yeah, like to make it a little more goofy. I like that scene.

• 1:54:17Griffin Newman?

  I do too. I think this movie is very well directed.

• 1:54:19Speaker 05

  It's also funny that Travolta feeds his family garbage.

• 1:54:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:23David Sims?

  Oh, right, right, yeah. The, uh, the, the cut ahead to the future when they're about to bone and she's like, no, I don't want my child to be raised by like a grease ball or whatever.

• 1:54:32Speaker 04

  By a dumpster diving.

• 1:54:33David Sims?

  Right. And he's like, if you peel the lettuce, the first layer of the lettuce from the garbage off, it's perfectly good. Hillary, I didn't actually ask you this. Did you like this movie?

• 1:54:43Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, I enjoyed it. It's a breezy watch. Like, I, I, so comedies can age very poorly. But I think that this honestly is not, I don't know.

• 1:54:54David Sims?

  No, this is a good movie.

• 1:54:55Speaker 04

  Nobody's gonna be mad after they watch this. It's fine.

• 1:54:56David Sims?

  I'm, I'm assuming, uh, you know, the next two movies are bad. I am pretty like.

• 1:55:02Griffin Newman?

  Six-year-old Griffin would disagree with you.

• 1:55:03David Sims?

  Right, but I'm pretty satisfied that this is like, I was like, this is a really entertaining movie.

• 1:55:08Speaker 04

  But it's entertaining.

• 1:55:09Griffin Newman?

  And the Trojan horse aspect of it is so fascinating where it's like, she used this as a disguise to make a movie about other things she found interesting, which is the primary beat of this movie. Ben, we had our art show recently. And we had an installation where we built a porch, a replica of your childhood porch you used to watch movies on. And we do like an artist's present Marina Abramovich thing where you'd sit on the porch watching VHSs and people would come up and talk to you. And I saw someone on the Reddit side that they had walked in and heard you in the middle of having a really good conversation explaining why Michael Mann is better than the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

• 1:55:41David Sims?

  Sounds correct.

• 1:55:42Griffin Newman?

  And your line that they walked in on was, "When I watch a Michael Mann movie, I can tell this was made by one person. Marvel movies aren't made by one person." Which is such a good concise distillation of, I think, what so much of our podcast is about, right? That like, movies are made by many people and they're collaborative process, they're impacted by all these things, and yet, basically, the single greatest calculus we use for whether or not we think a director is interesting and worth devoting an entire series to on this show is, do the majority of the movies feel like they're a reflection of that person? For better or worse, that like, there is something individual and personal about them. And for this being a movie that has so many weird like, calculations of like, "I need a hit," and like, "Talking baby, that just feels like a box of a slam dunk, even if

• 1:56:27Griffin Newman?

  I'd rather be doing something edgy or whatever," everything about this feels like it was made by one person. And it has like, some weird like, 90s, 80s studio note, script note bullshit in it. But yet, I'm just like, the way everything is like, shot, the cohesion of the tone of performance for a movie that is very strange, even just like, the rhythms and like, the shot structure, the editing and whatever, I'm just like, this is a weirdly personal movie for her, wrapped it up in like, a big, high-concept comedy, that also feels like she's like, getting to make it the way she wants to. I was so pleasantly surprised by that.

• 1:57:04David Sims?

  I agree. I think it's partly because she's a smart director, she's working with a low-ish budget. So, my guess is, whatever she wants to do, as long as you're not costing the studio money, yeah, go for it. Like, we don't give a shit about this movie like that much.

• 1:57:15Griffin Newman?

  We talk about like, the, the danger of taking the talking horse movie, right? Where it's like, this trap that people fall into, where it's like, "Hey, we know there's your personal project you wanna make, but that's kinda risky. There's this really hot script about a talking horse, and if you sign onto this, this thing is a can't-mish hit, and then you'll have the cachet to make." Whatever you want. And what happens is they make the talking horse movie dispassionately. The movie bombs and then your box office poison.

• 1:57:41Speaker 04

  And so the secret is make the talking horse movie as the personal movie.

• 1:57:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, and obviously part of that-

• 1:57:46David Sims?

  Make it about some shit that happened to you.

• 1:57:48Griffin Newman?

  Is that she started it.

• 1:57:49Speaker 04

  Make it personally implicating Harold Ramis for being an asshole.

• 1:57:52Griffin Newman?

  Like, no pun intended, she was able to incubate it holistically from the beginning. But I'm just like watching this and my mind is blown by like, she figured out how to do that. The exact trap that most people don't survive. And she made it into her biggest hit.

• 1:58:08David Sims?

  Um, agree. Good, good job, Amy. And she kind of rescued her entire career. And because of that, we get Clueless, which is the sign the person I am today.

• 1:58:16Speaker 04

  And so if, if for no other reason, yeah, you have to appreciate Look Who's Talking for giving us Clueless.

• 1:58:21David Sims?

  There's no way she's getting the money to make an Emma reboot in, you know, maybe because it was a teen movie like, like studios would be a little more interested, but we're, you know, it's like, it's just like, thank God she made this because she gets to make clues.

• 1:58:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Is this her meeting with Twin Caplin or was she already friends with Twin Caplin?

• 1:58:37David Sims?

  Great question.

• 1:58:38Griffin Newman?

  Because Twink later becomes-

• 1:58:39David Sims?

  We love Twin Caplin, of course.

• 1:58:40Griffin Newman?

  A regular in all of her movies and also becomes like a co-producer on her movies.

• 1:58:45David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, they're very, they're very close, but I don't-

• 1:58:48Griffin Newman?

  Trade of ally.

• 1:58:49David Sims?

  Don't think she, uh, had made a movie with Heckler Ling before. But you're right that she goes on to produce some of her movies and she's such a funny actor.

• 1:58:57Griffin Newman?

  She's, she's Kirstie Alley's best friend, but will end up being one of the teachers in Clueless.

• 1:59:00Speaker 04

  We can consider this, yeah, Miss Geist's origin is that first she was a hard charging accountant in the go-go eighties. And then, you know, she decided to go do something-

• 1:59:08David Sims?

  Beverly Hills.

• 1:59:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, do something a little more rewarding.

• 1:59:10Griffin Newman?

  She decided to come in, if you know what I'm saying.

• 1:59:12David Sims?

  Wallace Shawn. There's no way that Hillary would know what you were saying because Hillary has not seen a Master Builder, the Jonathan Demme film.

• 1:59:18Griffin Newman?

  Really? That's weird. Hillary, I thought you worked in entertainment journalism.

• 1:59:22Speaker 04

  It's a terrible blind spot.

• 1:59:23David Sims?

  Hillary, just to tell you this, because I do like to tell people sometimes, there's a Jonathan Demme film that is a, a Master Builder, the Ibsen Play, starring Wallace Shawn.

• 1:59:31Speaker 04

  Okay. I was thinking Master Builder like Legos, but that makes more sense.

• 1:59:33Griffin Newman?

  What, what a difference in names.

• 1:59:35David Sims?

  Uh, what, what a difference that a Master Builder.

• 1:59:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, rather than the Master Builder.

• 1:59:39David Sims?

  Right. And, uh, uh, there is a scene in this film, Ben, you never saw it, right? Cause you weren't on that episode. Where Wallace Shawn is sitting in a hospital bed and someone knocks on the door.

• 1:59:50Griffin Newman?

  He's in hospice care at home.

• 1:59:51David Sims?

  Yeah, sure. Right. That's it. Someone knocks on the door and he goes, come in. And it is the most, it's like foghorn sound you have ever heard.

• 2:00:00Griffin Newman?

  It is the most bizarre line to deliver in the history of cinema. And it feels like he accidentally clocks the lens in the middle of saying, and then looks panicked that he did that.

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  Uh.

• 2:00:11Griffin Newman?

  Come in.

• 2:00:12David Sims?

  Come in. It, it really sounds like you're being right, told to go to an air raid shelter. Anyway, that's why he said that.

• 2:00:21Speaker 04

  Thank you so much for that detailed explanation.

• 2:00:23Griffin Newman?

  Important decade of dreams.

• 2:00:25David Sims?

  Decade of dreams. Um.

• 2:00:27Griffin Newman?

  Other stuff to talk about.

• 2:00:28David Sims?

  Travolta tries to have sex with Kirstie Alley. She's like, I'm so into it and you seem great, but I just don't want, you know, you, you know, loser in my life anymore.

• 2:00:37Griffin Newman?

  Is it after the flight, after he takes her in the plane?

• 2:00:40David Sims?

  Yes. And then it's like, and then of course, right, the, right, the rom com misunderstanding, this is something I was trying to say before, must happen of like, hey, you told me you were artificially, turns out it's George Segal. Hey, how could you lie to me? I'm off the jersey. I'll see you later. Bye. Gonna be out of the movie for 10 minutes.

• 2:00:58Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing I like, that before that, the like obstruction from them getting together, isn't like, oh, she doesn't realize until the last five minutes that she's been in love with Travolta the whole time.

• 2:01:08Speaker 04

  I love Josh.

• 2:01:10Griffin Newman?

  Right. They make that connection in the halfway point. She has that like nightmare flash ahead sequence, right? And then is just like, wait a second, I can't just be motivated by, do I like a guy? I'm on this father quest and starts almost doing this kind of like classist judgment of him, combined with him being a lunatic and a weirdo.

• 2:01:30Speaker 04

  And with him stalking me.

• 2:01:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I think also the other unspoken part of it is like, her son does have this strong bond with.

• 2:01:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:01:39Speaker 04

  Although I do also, I do also take some umbrage at the scene where John Travolta is listing off all of Mikey's favorites. And like a two year old child doesn't have, doesn't care about Michael Jackson.

• 2:01:50Griffin Newman?

  I mean, once again, how old is this kid?

• 2:01:52David Sims?

  He's his favorite fucking singer. He's in love with you.

• 2:01:54Griffin Newman?

  Michael Jackson.

• 2:01:55David Sims?

  Yeah, him on Riley.

• 2:01:58David Sims?

  Um, there's a scene, there's two scenes in this movie that if I describe them to you, the listener and you, the guest and you, the host, you'll be like, that sounds sweet. That sounds really sappy. And they are the scene in which John Travolta sort of gives some friendly advice, fatherly advice to the kid before he's like, not going to see him again for a while. And Kirstie Alley listens in on the baby monitor.

• 2:02:20Griffin Newman?

  Let's also acknowledge that when he first comes over.

• 2:02:22David Sims?

  Let me keep talking. Let me, let me finish my point, Griffin. Shush. And then the second thing is the caper at the movie, which is that the kid's first words are data, which we've already.

• 2:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Which I think is a slam dunk.

• 2:02:32David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:02:32Griffin Newman?

  Like the reason you write the whole screenplay.

• 2:02:34Speaker 04

  You see it coming.

• 2:02:35David Sims?

  Look who's, who's talking. Look who is talking.

• 2:02:37Griffin Newman?

  Super effective.

• 2:02:38David Sims?

  And.

• 2:02:39Speaker 04

  And if I'm Kirstie Alley and I'm pissed that his first word is mama, but that's a separate conversation.

• 2:02:42David Sims?

  Kid always says data first because it's easier to say, right?

• 2:02:45Speaker 04

  This is actually a true thing scientifically.

• 2:02:48David Sims?

  Easier for your mouth to say. But both of those scenes sound so sappy, but Travolta makes them not sappy. And the scene where he's talking to the kid on the baby monitor is actually quite funny and light while still being sweet and like heartwarming. And of course, I'm sure the tech are like too, master of tone here, like, you know, calling her a master of tone in a movie that starts with come.

• 2:03:10Griffin Newman?

  But I mean, that's sort of the argument for it where you're like, the movie should collapse at that moment.

• 2:03:15David Sims?

  And, and those scenes are really sweet, as is the scene where Kirstie Alley of court tends to Abe Vigoda when he's had too much candy and become a monster.

• 2:03:24Griffin Newman?

  He started punching people because he eats too much chocolate.

• 2:03:27Speaker 04

  But there is a reciprocal aspect. It's not just her realizing that he's a good caregiver. It's him realizing that she cares enough about him too. Like it's not, it's, it's.

• 2:03:35David Sims?

  It's all good screenwriting. Now what were you trying to?

• 2:03:37Griffin Newman?

  The thing I was going to say, David, before you so rudely cut me off from rudely cutting you off.

• 2:03:42David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 2:03:43Griffin Newman?

  A double rude was, I think that's like built very deliberately and well in the movie that like, when he comes over to bring back her purse, he starts talking to the kid like a grown up and she sort of catches it coming out from the bedroom. It's the bit where he's explaining the coffee and puts the breast milk in the coffee, but it's sort of like, fuck, he like engages with my kid. Like a real person, which we talk about all the time, David. It is like a big movie star test that like if people, if movie stars are good with kids, it somehow immediately makes them feel even shinier. I think part of it is like the extreme skill challenge of like how hard it is to act with a child,

• 2:04:26Griffin Newman?

  but also that you kind of like can't fake the charisma. And if you like are nice to a kid and it seems genuine, then everyone likes you more. Like it's more endearing. Um, I, I think that's like, I, I genuinely think it is a huge part of Dustin Hoffman fucking winning the Kramer versus Kramer Oscar.

• 2:04:43David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:44Griffin Newman?

  Beyond all the emotional scenes in that movie is just that like half of it is him making breakfast with the kid. And you're like, fuck, he's good with this kid.

• 2:04:50David Sims?

  He is.

• 2:04:51Griffin Newman?

  And Travolta is.

• 2:04:51David Sims?

  Bad at breakfast.

• 2:04:52Griffin Newman?

  Travolta is good with.

• 2:04:53Speaker 04

  Well, he learns.

• 2:04:54David Sims?

  Yeah, he learns to fry an egg or whatever. What a feminist hero he is.

• 2:04:57Speaker 04

  You know, he needs to get an award for being able to feed his kid one time.

• 2:05:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And also he was married to one of the greatest villains in Disney, Melissa herself.

• 2:05:05David Sims?

  Exactly. The most evil lesbians. Uh, yes.

• 2:05:09Griffin Newman?

  Travolta is just from second one, good with the baby.

• 2:05:13David Sims?

  He's great with the baby.

• 2:05:14Griffin Newman?

  Where you like.

• 2:05:15David Sims?

  All the scenes where he's dancing around with him and stuff. It's so cute.

• 2:05:17Griffin Newman?

  It makes the premise work. And I think you're right. It's like super endearing. Now he also does shit that is insane. She falls asleep, is like, watch the baby for a little bit while I take a nap. He decides to take the baby out on the town.

• 2:05:31Speaker 04

  Doesn't say, do anything to indicate where they've been.

• 2:05:33Griffin Newman?

  Disappears for hours. And then she's like, oh, I'm so angry at you. I called the cops on you. I'm only gonna let you babysit my son 87 more times.

• 2:05:43Speaker 04

  While I go to my aerobics class.

• 2:05:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then there's the similar fuck up of like, I get it. It's a complicated, there's a lot going on in her life at that moment. The moment in this film that strains credibility for me the most is her leaving Mikey with Abe Fogota. After he's just gone fucking Rocky Balboa.

• 2:06:02David Sims?

  They have been talking about Fogota.

• 2:06:04Speaker 04

  The orderly is also in the room. There's another adult there.

• 2:06:07David Sims?

  An animal who escaped the pen and was like brutalizing people. And then she's like, one candy bar and they're like, mistake, we, no big deal. It's fine that he punched a nurse and he can watch the baby for a while. Honestly, do you want a cup of coffee?

• 2:06:24Speaker 04

  Well, because the mistake actually was that the orderly doesn't speak English.

• 2:06:27Griffin Newman?

  That he just says, no problem.

• 2:06:28David Sims?

  Very odd scene.

• 2:06:30Griffin Newman?

  Right. And that also Abe Fogota is so horny. Even in the middle of showing family photos, if a hot, young, 87-year-old piece of tail walks down the hallway, he's got to throw his and chase after.

• 2:06:43David Sims?

  Blood is up. Yeah, I don't know, man.

• 2:06:46Griffin Newman?

  Which then leads to a surprising set piece, like a movie where you're like,

• 2:06:50David Sims?

  Again, the feeling of like, we need one more set piece. Right, right. Is that he gets into the cab.

• 2:06:55Griffin Newman?

  The kid escapes from the retirement home.

• 2:06:57Speaker 04

  I feel like that entire, like, the entirety of, like, Baby's Day Out is based on that sequence in this movie.

• 2:07:01Griffin Newman?

  I mean, yes. Rival studio executives' eyes lit up.

• 2:07:05Speaker 04

  And it's like a baby in a car.

• 2:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Look who's driving now. It is kind of a funny bit that he gets in the back of a car that's being towed, and so it appears that he's driving.

• 2:07:14David Sims?

  This is so that he can say Dana. And she's like, hey, you know what? I'm with you. Cut to jizz, cut to birth of a girl. Blow the credits. Like, we're truly, it's kind of like, okay, okay, okay, okay.

• 2:07:26Speaker 04

  Kirstie Alley, a liberated 1980s businesswoman who has never heard of the birth control pill. But we're not gonna bring that up.

• 2:07:33David Sims?

  Kirsty, Travolta, pull out. Come on, I know you got it in you.

• 2:07:38Griffin Newman?

  I like, look, they clarify what is actually happening very quickly and that there are some time jumps happening within edits. But if the movie were to end four minutes earlier, you could read it as the second John Travolta kisses Kirstie Alley, he comes in his pants.

• 2:07:57Griffin Newman?

  Instead, they then cut to a delivery room, and you're like, okay, some leaps have been made.

• 2:08:00Speaker 04

  Look who's just in.

• 2:08:02Griffin Newman?

  Who's just in now?

• 2:08:03David Sims?

  Who's talking? This is the kind of movie where I'm like, it's great for Blank Check because we can do a bunch of tangents and still not go that long because it's 90 blessed minutes, and it's not a lot of action, really.

• 2:08:15Speaker 04

  It's not streaming, you gotta buy it, you gotta rent it.

• 2:08:17David Sims?

  I bought it on iTunes.

• 2:08:20Griffin Newman?

  I got an out-of-print Blu-ray.

• 2:08:22David Sims?

  Griffin is off mic, telling us that he has an out-of-print Blu-ray of just the first one?

• 2:08:27Griffin Newman?

  The 30th anniversary, this was fairly recent, 2019, and still out of print. Yeah, so then I had to buy a DVD trilogy box set for two and three, which is also.

• 2:08:36Speaker 04

  What are some of the special features we're talking?

• 2:08:38Griffin Newman?

  It's a great question. On this one.

• 2:08:41David Sims?

  For Look Who's Talking Now, I see an apology.

• 2:08:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh, this has a, this has a heckling commentary, which I missed. Maybe we'll give Look Who's Talking a second watch. I think the DVDs have, uh, checking here, nothing.

• 2:08:54Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:08:55Griffin Newman?

  Absolutely nothing.

• 2:08:56Speaker 04

  There were no deleted scenes because everything hit.

• 2:08:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:08:59Speaker 04

  Nothing was left.

• 2:09:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I did read some interesting, uh, Look Who's Talking 2 has one of those like weird fabled. The TV cut of the movie has 20 extra minutes in it.

• 2:09:11Speaker 04

  It's longer?

• 2:09:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes, they would do this if movies were like too short. In order to fill a larger programming block, the studios would offer to cut back in deleted scenes to allow the film to, uh, justify more ad breaks.

• 2:09:27David Sims?

  Right. Yeah. And, uh, right. Most of the scenes are stupid, right?

• 2:09:31Griffin Newman?

  And Look Who's Talking 2, they sound insane.

• 2:09:33David Sims?

  In 2010, did you know that Neil H. Moritz of Fast and Furious tried to reboot this movie?

• 2:09:37Griffin Newman?

  It makes perfect sense. I had the thought.

• 2:09:38David Sims?

  With Travolta and Ali as the grandparent.

• 2:09:40Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 2:09:41Griffin Newman?

  I had the thought while watching this.

• 2:09:42Speaker 04

  That bums me out.

• 2:09:42Griffin Newman?

  It is crazy they have not revived this. Like four years later, they hired Jeremy Gerilich, who wrote, uh, the breakup and a lot of other studio comedies to write it. And then nothing has happened since then.

• 2:09:53Speaker 04

  Well, like Baby Geniuses was a pretty big bomb. Like maybe Talking, our audience for Talking Babies, I think, was stated, or our appetite for it was stated.

• 2:10:02Griffin Newman?

  It's been a while.

• 2:10:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:10:04Griffin Newman?

  And I feel like you could reset the table with a good Look Who's Talking movie.

• 2:10:08Speaker 05

  Okay. I think I have a pitch.

• 2:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:10:09Speaker 05

  Give it to me. It's like a prequel.

• 2:10:11Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:10:11David Sims?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:10:12Speaker 05

  Look Who's Talked. And it's set like generations ago and you can make it old timey.

• 2:10:19Speaker 04

  Look who has been talking.

• 2:10:20David Sims?

  Yeah. And when you say it, what?

• 2:10:25Griffin Newman?

  I think more needs to be said.

• 2:10:27David Sims?

  You can't just be like, who, so, but then what do, what is?

• 2:10:29Griffin Newman?

  Who are the central characters in this?

• 2:10:31Speaker 05

  Going back generationally.

• 2:10:33David Sims?

  I understand, Ben.

• 2:10:33Griffin Newman?

  In this family, in this family.

• 2:10:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, like it's the baby, but you know, or Christie Ali's ancestors.

• 2:10:41David Sims?

  And what do they do? Apart from talk.

• 2:10:43Speaker 05

  The baby talk.

• 2:10:44Griffin Newman?

  Pick a time.

• 2:10:45Speaker 04

  Time period.

• 2:10:46David Sims?

  So it's sort of like 19th century.

• 2:10:48Speaker 05

  Cause I liked the hath, so let's set it in the Renaissance.

• 2:10:50David Sims?

  Okay. Ah, and the kid's like, ah, that Mona Lisa sure looks like she's following me around.

• 2:10:55Speaker 04

  You can't make this movie too far ago, like in the past because of maternal mortality rates.

• 2:10:59David Sims?

  Yeah, it would be a little grim and it'd be like, oh.

• 2:11:01Speaker 04

  And infant mortality, to be fair.

• 2:11:03David Sims?

  Hope I dodged that dysentery or whatever.

• 2:11:05Griffin Newman?

  Right, a baby's born and suddenly becomes the fifth oldest person in the town.

• 2:11:09Speaker 05

  But I like that then if it's set in Italy, he still's got that accent.

• 2:11:12David Sims?

  Oh, that's true. He'd be like, mamma mia, dysentery.

• 2:11:15Griffin Newman?

  God, he's saving the pitch. He's winning his back in the room. It's one of these things that like, you're like, I can't believe they haven't rebooted it yet. I can't believe they haven't remade it yet in a sort of modern studio thinking where you're just like, if you're just looking through the books, right? And you're like, wait a second, these movies made like $400 million 30 years ago and we haven't done anything since and the premise is so clean. But as you said, I do feel like these movies are completely forgotten now. I think basically everyone younger than us doesn't know they exist.

• 2:11:48Speaker 04

  I think you're entirely.

• 2:11:49Griffin Newman?

  I think we were the exact generation of kids who were born right as they were coming out and saw them on TV and anyone five years younger than us is just like, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

• 2:11:58David Sims?

  I texted so like various friends being like, hey, did you know what this movie was about? Like, you know, with what I, you know, like the Harold Ramis stuff. And all of them were like, you know, I've never seen it. Like even the ones who are sort of aware of it.

• 2:12:09Speaker 04

  Even the ones who were like in their 30s?

• 2:12:10David Sims?

  Even your Esther Zuckermans, who's a little younger than us, Hillary.

• 2:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Okay, Esther could write an entire book about this movie.

• 2:12:16David Sims?

  She could.

• 2:12:16Speaker 04

  There's a lot to say.

• 2:12:17David Sims?

  Esther was kind of like, yeah, that wasn't actually one of our movies. So it was never in the rotation and so it's been forgotten. This whole movie feels like it's been memory holed. Obviously Heckling makes Clueless after it, so that becomes her 90s masterpiece. Yeah, I don't know. Travolta makes Pulp Fiction after it. So that's his, you know, his great era begins later.

• 2:12:37Griffin Newman?

  But yet this is.

• 2:12:38David Sims?

  Here's the alley, went on to fat actress.

• 2:12:41Griffin Newman?

  This is just crazy.

• 2:12:42Speaker 04

  Or a couple of stops along the way.

• 2:12:43David Sims?

  She opened the closet.

• 2:12:45Griffin Newman?

  But this is far and away Heckling's biggest hit.

• 2:12:48Speaker 04

  Maybe that says more about movie going audiences than the quality of the movie.

• 2:12:52Griffin Newman?

  But this is her only movie to make 100 million domestic and it flew past that.

• 2:12:56David Sims?

  It flew past it to 140 domestic and made 300 worldwide.

• 2:13:00Speaker 04

  It does help to make a movie that's ostensibly a family movie. Like, I'm sure that a lot of parents were taking their kids to this thinking that it would be a kid's movie.

• 2:13:07David Sims?

  Despite it being PG 13.

• 2:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Is that it?

• 2:13:10Speaker 04

  Oh, it's PG 13. That makes sense.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  Yeah, it opens with sperm.

• 2:13:15Speaker 04

  Well, you don't see them coming from a penis.

• 2:13:17Griffin Newman?

  You know what? I'll say even the third one is PG 13.

• 2:13:20David Sims?

  Active imagination.

• 2:13:21Griffin Newman?

  The third one is PG 13 for quote off color language.

• 2:13:26David Sims?

  The film came out October 13th, 1989. Number one at the box office. It opens at $12 million and then it has insane legs.

• 2:13:34Griffin Newman?

  It just rides out the whole holiday season, basically.

• 2:13:36David Sims?

  It is number one at the box office for five consecutive weeks, making basically the same amount of money every week.

• 2:13:42Griffin Newman?

  That's like, it was like the Barbie of its moment.

• 2:13:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:47Speaker 04

  Its cultural impact was similar.

• 2:13:49David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:50Griffin Newman?

  The tie-ins were insane.

• 2:13:51David Sims?

  Number two at the box office is also new. It is a horror film.

• 2:13:58Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:13:59David Sims?

  It is a sequel.

• 2:14:00Griffin Newman?

  Well, in one of the big franchises?

• 2:14:02David Sims?

  In one of the big three slasher franchises. It is the fifth film.

• 2:14:06Griffin Newman?

  Is it The Dream Child?

• 2:14:08David Sims?

  That is not what it is.

• 2:14:09Griffin Newman?

  Fuck.

• 2:14:10David Sims?

  But that film did come out, I believe, 89. So you're in the right ballpark.

• 2:14:14Griffin Newman?

  You must tip your hat and admit it was a gentleman's guess. That's all I'm asking of you. Okay, is it? Thank you. Is it The Curse of Michael Myers?

• 2:14:23David Sims?

  It is Halloween 5, The Revenge of Michael Myers. Of course, the curse is the sixth one.

• 2:14:30Speaker 04

  As everyone knows.

• 2:14:30David Sims?

  The insane one that's like, Michael Myers is who he is because a cult worships him.

• 2:14:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:37David Sims?

  Or whatever.

• 2:14:38Griffin Newman?

  Is that the red one?

• 2:14:40David Sims?

  The sixth one is the red one.

• 2:14:41Griffin Newman?

  That's the reddest of all.

• 2:14:42David Sims?

  The fifth one is the one with Jamie, played by Danielle Harris.

• 2:14:46Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:46David Sims?

  Who has her fans in the scream queen, scream queen world.

• 2:14:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:14:51David Sims?

  The sixth one is the one that hilariously ends with Donald Pleasence off mic being like, "Oh, you're like killing me or something. Who knows what's going on?" Like, because they like couldn't figure out what the ending should be. Get away from me.

• 2:15:03Griffin Newman?

  That rules.

• 2:15:04David Sims?

  Yeah, we'll do him someday.

• 2:15:05Griffin Newman?

  Maybe the movie should get worse again.

• 2:15:07David Sims?

  When you're watching Halloween's four, five and six, you're like, hey, man, there's nothing wrong with being a four out of 10 movie. You know what I mean?

• 2:15:14Griffin Newman?

  Or Alan Ross Perry's opinion, a 15 out of 10.

• 2:15:18David Sims?

  Number three at the box office is a thriller that was also a bit of a comeback for a 70s Oscar nominated star.

• 2:15:28Griffin Newman?

  It's a thriller.

• 2:15:29David Sims?

  Who had taken a bit of a break.

• 2:15:30Griffin Newman?

  We're taking a break.

• 2:15:31David Sims?

  But there are no babies talking in this movie.

• 2:15:33Griffin Newman?

  Is it Sea of Love?

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  It's Al Pacino in Sea of Love.

• 2:15:36Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is a big thing that David and I bond on as we both hold the importance of Sea of Love as a comeback moment for Pacino.

• 2:15:43David Sims?

  Pacino was back.

• 2:15:44Griffin Newman?

  People don't talk about it, but quietly, that was his big swing back.

• 2:15:47Speaker 04

  You could say that Sea of Love was the name of the title sequence for Look Who's Talking.

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:53David Sims?

  Very true.

• 2:15:54Griffin Newman?

  Hillary? 100 comedy points.

• 2:15:57David Sims?

  100 come points.

• 2:15:58Griffin Newman?

  It's a comedy, but I don't want that.

• 2:16:01David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 2:16:02Speaker 04

  I don't accept this.

• 2:16:02David Sims?

  Fine, return them. They're good at all major stores. Excuse me, I have 100 come points from Blank Check. Yes, yes, of course. Welcome to Bed Bath and Beyond. Does that still exist, Bed Bath and Beyond, or is it gone?

• 2:16:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it does.

• 2:16:14Speaker 04

  I mean, not an industry city, but.

• 2:16:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you can buy bath bombs for sure. Let's admit it, one of the come of your products around.

• 2:16:20David Sims?

  Number four.

• 2:16:21Griffin Newman?

  How else would you describe what a bath bomb does?

• 2:16:24David Sims?

  I know, not that way, honestly.

• 2:16:26Speaker 05

  He's coming.

• 2:16:26Griffin Newman?

  I would say coming.

• 2:16:27David Sims?

  Number four at the box office is another thriller, not one that I know. A star and a guy who is more of a TV star. Yeah, he plays an airline mechanic sent to prison when framed by crooked police officers.

• 2:16:41Griffin Newman?

  Drama or comedy TV star?

• 2:16:43David Sims?

  Drama.

• 2:16:44Griffin Newman?

  Is it a Selig?

• 2:16:45David Sims?

  Tom Selleck.

• 2:16:46Griffin Newman?

  It is.

• 2:16:46David Sims?

  Who the fuck is that? You're, well, good guess.

• 2:16:49Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. This is the beautiful mind in here.

• 2:16:51David Sims?

  Yeah, it's, it's a something mind.

• 2:16:53Griffin Newman?

  Okay, is it called like hijack?

• 2:16:57David Sims?

  It's called, it's a Peter Yates film, so kind of a real director.

• 2:17:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:01David Sims?

  Uh, director of Bullet, obviously, and other, you know, good movies. It's called An Innocent Man. Not a movie I know. Uh, it looks like, uh, Tom Selleck plays an innocent man and you've got F. Murray Abraham as someone called Virgil Cane. I bet that's a nice guy. Think that guy's nice, Griffin?

• 2:17:18Griffin Newman?

  Virgil Cane was a man, right? Isn't that the name of the fucking guy in the?

• 2:17:23Speaker 05

  Band song?

• 2:17:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:24David Sims?

  Yeah. Well, there you go. That's, I mean, it's a rich gumbo, obviously. Uh, number five at the box office, dropping from number one the week before. So a bit of a steep drop for this film, which is a very chill and normal movie about a cop who's not weird, going to a country where he fits in just fine.

• 2:17:41Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry, can you restate that one more time?

• 2:17:43David Sims?

  It's a, it's a, it's another thriller. I mean, it's October, I guess. Another like R rated thriller. It's about, it's just, um.

• 2:17:50Griffin Newman?

  A country?

• 2:17:51David Sims?

  It's a, what if a US cop went to a foreign country to solve a crime? And he has to like, get used to their underworld and their way of doing business.

• 2:17:59Griffin Newman?

  It's not like Black Rain.

• 2:18:01David Sims?

  It's Ridley Scott's Black Rain with Michael Douglas. And also I'm seeing here a little co-star called Cocaine is here. Uh, second build, number two on the call sheet is, uh, Coke, Bricks of Coke.

• 2:18:14Speaker 04

  Kind of surprised, not one, but.

• 2:18:16David Sims?

  That is a movie where Andy Garcia gets decapitated on screen with a katana. Spoiler alert. Uh, good movie. You should watch it. It will still rock when that happens.

• 2:18:28Speaker 04

  Wait, why is it, why is the rain black?

• 2:18:30David Sims?

  Uh, I don't think it is. It's just one of those movies where they're like, wow, Japan is so crazy. And you're like, relax.

• 2:18:36Griffin Newman?

  Ben, you should, uh, Google the, uh, poster for Black Rain, which looks like if someone did the world's longest line of cocaine and then sneezed onto a one.

• 2:18:43David Sims?

  What I'm saying. Number six at the box office, uh, new this week is my mother's favorite movie of all time.

• 2:18:51Griffin Newman?

  Fabulous Baker Boys?

• 2:18:52David Sims?

  The Fabulous Baker Boys, a great movie. Uh huh. Do you like the fabulous Baker Boys?

• 2:18:57Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 2:18:58David Sims?

  Hillary, you would love it.

• 2:19:00Speaker 04

  Why are they so fabulous?

• 2:19:01David Sims?

  They are Jeff and Bo Bridges.

• 2:19:02Griffin Newman?

  Give her the pitch.

• 2:19:03David Sims?

  Jeff and Bo Bridges play slightly washed up lounge act, double, double act, uh, piano bar guys. Michelle Pfeiffer plays like the new lady they hire for her act who sort of gets in the, in between them romantically. She got an Oscar nomination. My mother was charmed and watches it anytime it's on TV. Her two favorite movies are that and I know where I'm going.

• 2:19:25Griffin Newman?

  Did you?

• 2:19:25David Sims?

  The power and press burger movie.

• 2:19:27Griffin Newman?

  Did you folks see Bill Maher's segment?

• 2:19:30David Sims?

  No.

• 2:19:30Speaker 04

  No, absolutely not.

• 2:19:32David Sims?

  No, no.

• 2:19:33Griffin Newman?

  Look, I usually don't fall for the trap.

• 2:19:35David Sims?

  What did Bill Maher do now?

• 2:19:36Griffin Newman?

  He did a segment complaining about since when are they called sex workers? Which is, let me say.

• 2:19:42David Sims?

  I love how he's mad about like language thoughts that happened 10 years ago. You know what I mean? It's like, that's not even new.

• 2:19:48Griffin Newman?

  He got angry watching the Oscars and hearing all the winners from a Nora constantly thank the sex worker community.

• 2:19:53Speaker 04

  And so for a month, he's been thinking about.

• 2:19:55Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 2:19:56David Sims?

  Doing.

• 2:19:56Griffin Newman?

  I'm also like a little funny for Bill Maher, someone who perhaps has helped that industry thrive.

• 2:20:03David Sims?

  Again, no comment. No, I don't know.

• 2:20:06Griffin Newman?

  I don't know. Allegedly. Um, but he like calls out the, uh, in his mind, weird history of how many actresses have won Oscars for playing sex workers? Or been nominated and he lists a bunch and one of the ones he included was Michelle Pfeiffer in the fabulous Baker Boys. And he had like 20 other inclusions in that where I'm just like, what do you think sex work is?

• 2:20:31Speaker 04

  You would think he would have a, a set definition.

• 2:20:33Griffin Newman?

  I would think he of anyone would have the clearest definition, but he.

• 2:20:38David Sims?

  I think, I, I think maybe she's a former escort in that movie. Maybe there is something to that.

• 2:20:43Griffin Newman?

  He just starts getting really fungible with some of them.

• 2:20:45David Sims?

  Well, I'll just say that if this segment.

• 2:20:47Speaker 04

  He's like Olympia to caucus.

• 2:20:48David Sims?

  Is him going, new rule, you gotta give me more than a week to get used to a new phrase. Like this is his.

• 2:20:57Griffin Newman?

  And everyone's like, Bill, it's been a decade.

• 2:20:59David Sims?

  And he's like, we did this with homeless and now it's unhoused. And I'm just like, can you relax?

• 2:21:04Griffin Newman?

  I'm like, who gives a shit?

• 2:21:05David Sims?

  You are on television.

• 2:21:06Griffin Newman?

  Shut the fuck up. No one is policing you.

• 2:21:10David Sims?

  Bill Maher. So Fabulous Bakers Boys number six, Parenthood is number seven. Sort of also, if you want a slightly more mature film about parenting.

• 2:21:19Griffin Newman?

  A slightly more mature film with the world's catchiest diarrhea song.

• 2:21:24Griffin Newman?

  That movie's good.

• 2:21:24Speaker 04

  There's a lot more pregnancy, there's a lot more pregnancy movies than like actual parenting movies.

• 2:21:28Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is true.

• 2:21:30David Sims?

  Interesting. Well, there's obviously there's lots of movies where parenting is a plot element, but like movies about parenting.

• 2:21:37Speaker 04

  I think it's probably because working with child actors, it's not, you know, at the top of anybody's list, but.

• 2:21:42David Sims?

  That's right.

• 2:21:43Speaker 04

  Pregnancy has a natural arc also.

• 2:21:45David Sims?

  It does.

• 2:21:46Speaker 04

  It has a beginning, it has an end.

• 2:21:47Griffin Newman?

  But even like Tully, whatever that was, five years ago was treated as a bit of a novelty.

• 2:21:52David Sims?

  Tully was interesting, right? Because it was, it was about right, early motherhood and how it breaks your brain and it's not in enough movies and all that. Yeah.

• 2:22:00Griffin Newman?

  That movie just shouldn't have a twist.

• 2:22:02David Sims?

  No.

• 2:22:02Griffin Newman?

  I give that movie a full star higher rating.

• 2:22:06David Sims?

  Oh, wait, the camera's moving again. I'm hearing somebody, Tully has been added to the cast of Avengers Tuesday.

• 2:22:13Griffin Newman?

  Which one?

• 2:22:14David Sims?

  Who knows?

• 2:22:14Speaker 04

  It is really unfortunate when like novelists and screenwriters learned about postpartum psychosis, because that just really gives you an easy out.

• 2:22:21David Sims?

  Right, that you can just do a twist. Right. Number eight of the box office, Uncle Buck.

• 2:22:26Griffin Newman?

  Ben.

• 2:22:27Speaker 05

  Love. One of my faves.

• 2:22:29David Sims?

  My roommate, my former roommate Molly's favorite movie. Speaking of my people in my life's favorite movies.

• 2:22:35Speaker 04

  Amy Heckerling's daughter Molly.

• 2:22:37Griffin Newman?

  I have to unfortunately credit an anonymous poster who I can't remember, but just the commenter on some fucking movie website 10 years ago said, why does Uncle Buck have the mise en scène of a 1940s Fritz Lang Fox noir? And it has stuck in my brain forever. That movie is like weirdly moody and darkly lit in a way that I give two thumbs up.

• 2:22:59David Sims?

  Number nine of the box office, When Harry Met Sally. Heard of it?

• 2:23:02Speaker 04

  No, still hanging in there.

• 2:23:03David Sims?

  Hanging in there after 14 weeks. And new at number 10. Possibly the greatest film ever made by this filmmaker who's made a couple of movies and some other stuff going on with him. Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors.

• 2:23:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, definitely one of his best. A couple of things I want to call out here from the

• 2:23:21David Sims?

  But it's new this week in 66 theaters. Here's the alley's character probably would have gone to seen it. Travolta, I don't think so.

• 2:23:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes. A couple of things I want to call out.

• 2:23:29Speaker 04

  Travolta wants things with explosions.

• 2:23:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:31Griffin Newman?

  This was conclusively Columbia's highest grossing film overseas. They had never had a film perform this well outside of America. It usurped Kramer versus Kramer.

• 2:23:42David Sims?

  Wow.

• 2:23:43Speaker 04

  Well, it must be really easy to dub the baby in other languages.

• 2:23:45Griffin Newman?

  This is the other thing I wanted to build to. Travolta gets credit for this idea that he was like, you should stunt cast the baby in every country. So every country, they found some kind of Bruce Willis analog where they're like, who's a beloved sort of rap stallion, cool, bad boy, funny star. And you could put their name above the title and it's a fucking really smart business strategy.

• 2:24:09Speaker 04

  You're minting money.

• 2:24:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes. It was like the key to this movie's success. All of that to say, it is very funny that when Heckerling was first pitching the movie to Sony, according to JJ's notes here, her first suggestion for the voice of the baby was Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers.

• 2:24:25David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. Well, you know, she's still got a little old school in her.

• 2:24:28Griffin Newman?

  Right. And their note was like, he is funny. Can we get someone that people also like care about?

• 2:24:38David Sims?

  Come one, come all.

• 2:24:39Griffin Newman?

  As she puts it, I was missing that he needed to be funny and cool.

• 2:24:43David Sims?

  And look who's talking to, of course, Willis is joined by Roseanne Barr.

• 2:24:47Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Roseanne Barr replaces Joan Rivers.

• 2:24:49David Sims?

  And then Damon Wayans plays like a kid at the school, at nursery school or something.

• 2:24:53Griffin Newman?

  He's, he's Mikey's best friend. And then you also have what I remember being the best performance in the film, Mel Brooks as Mr. Toilet.

• 2:25:01Speaker 04

  This is a talking.

• 2:25:02David Sims?

  There's a lot of potty training stuff and look who's talking to him.

• 2:25:06Griffin Newman?

  And I just want to repeat.

• 2:25:07Speaker 05

  I've been in those trenches.

• 2:25:09Griffin Newman?

  In my memory from 30 years ago, Look Who's Talking To might be the funniest movie ever made.

• 2:25:16Speaker 04

  If Mel Brooks is voicing a toilet.

• 2:25:18Griffin Newman?

  I'm laughing already.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  Pretty good.

• 2:25:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:20David Sims?

  In Toy Story, is he, is he a chair?

• 2:25:23Griffin Newman?

  No, he's Melaphent Brooks.

• 2:25:25David Sims?

  Oh, he's the elephant. That's right.

• 2:25:26Speaker 04

  It's like him and Carl Ryan or there's like a whole bunch.

• 2:25:27David Sims?

  Right. I'm trying to remember who was which.

• 2:25:29Griffin Newman?

  Right. She.

• 2:25:31David Sims?

  Carol Burnett.

• 2:25:32Speaker 04

  Carol or Carl Rhino?

• 2:25:34Griffin Newman?

  He's Carl Rhinoceros. Good pull Hillary.

• 2:25:37David Sims?

  They're in the closet.

• 2:25:38Speaker 04

  I didn't actually remember. I was just thinking puns.

• 2:25:40Griffin Newman?

  Betty, Betty White is a teething ring. She's bitey white.

• 2:25:43David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:44Speaker 04

  That was a little more tortured.

• 2:25:46David Sims?

  And it's a little, it's interesting just because Betty White didn't really work a lot at that age. So it's sort of interesting that she made the cast list there.

• 2:25:52Griffin Newman?

  You know what remains one of the funniest things in the world?

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Salute to Betty White. She did it.

• 2:25:57Griffin Newman?

  Like a hundred million dollars in every bit of like media machinery being devoted to Betty White's 100th birthday. And then her dying one week before that. When like every magazine in the country was like, congrats, Betty, you made it to 100 and then she died.

• 2:26:12Speaker 04

  Do you think it was pointed?

• 2:26:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She was like, fuck you. You don't control me.

• 2:26:16Speaker 04

  I don't need this.

• 2:26:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I won't conform to your narrative.

• 2:26:18David Sims?

  Ben has just sent a text. We can buy an autographed LaserDisc of Look Who's Talking for the low, low price of $911. Never forget.

• 2:26:29Griffin Newman?

  Autographed by whom?

• 2:26:31David Sims?

  Kirstie Alley.

• 2:26:31Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:26:32David Sims?

  Amy Heckerling, uh, some other people.

• 2:26:35Speaker 05

  Twink.

• 2:26:36Griffin Newman?

  Twink.

• 2:26:36David Sims?

  Twinks on there.

• 2:26:37Griffin Newman?

  Twink Kaplan signs her name with an exclamation point.

• 2:26:40Speaker 04

  As she should. What's her actual name?

• 2:26:42Griffin Newman?

  That's a really good question.

• 2:26:43David Sims?

  Yeah, it's probably not twink.

• 2:26:46Speaker 04

  It was a different time.

• 2:26:49Speaker 05

  Short for some.

• 2:26:50Griffin Newman?

  Her real name was Bear Kaplan.

• 2:26:53David Sims?

  I don't get it.

• 2:26:54Griffin Newman?

  This is a joke about Twinks versus Bears.

• 2:26:56David Sims?

  Oh, I get it. Yeah, obviously.

• 2:26:58Speaker 04

  Naming different.

• 2:26:59David Sims?

  This is making. I'm not finding a real name for her.

• 2:27:01Griffin Newman?

  I'm not either.

• 2:27:02Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 2:27:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:27:04Speaker 04

  That's a surprise.

• 2:27:04Griffin Newman?

  Was born in Pennsylvania. Uh, Hillary, thank you so much for being on the show.

• 2:27:10Speaker 04

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:27:10Griffin Newman?

  Long overdue. Uh, anything?

• 2:27:12Speaker 04

  Well, the listeners don't know who I am, but.

• 2:27:14Griffin Newman?

  Hey, wrong.

• 2:27:16Speaker 04

  I have it all, including their attention.

• 2:27:18Griffin Newman?

  You have it all.

• 2:27:19David Sims?

  She occasionally got a film credit as Theodora Kaplan, so some people think that might be her.

• 2:27:23Speaker 04

  Some people, the truthers.

• 2:27:25Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:27:25Speaker 04

  There's a community.

• 2:27:26Griffin Newman?

  The Kaplan truthers. Yeah. Uh, Hillary, is there anything specific you want to plug?

• 2:27:32Speaker 04

  Oh, um, I mean, come to, come to VanityFair.com where I am editing things every single day.

• 2:27:37Griffin Newman?

  Thank God for that.

• 2:27:39David Sims?

  Yes, absolutely. Um, thank you. Hillary finally got on the show. It's been, it's been far too long.

• 2:27:44Griffin Newman?

  Far too long.

• 2:27:45David Sims?

  Hillary's been really mad at me that she hasn't been on the show.

• 2:27:46Speaker 04

  You have all the power here.

• 2:27:48Griffin Newman?

  Do you miss?

• 2:27:48Speaker 04

  It's your choice.

• 2:27:49Griffin Newman?

  I distinctly remember meeting you for the first time, Hillary, even meeting you too late, having too many mutual friends and having heard of you and being a fan of your writing for a while. But, uh, after you, we were at the same screening of Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

• 2:28:04David Sims?

  Ah.

• 2:28:04Griffin Newman?

  And you just standing up and.

• 2:28:06David Sims?

  Say that after you entered the multiverse.

• 2:28:08Griffin Newman?

  After, after you entered the multiverse of madness, which has the end credit sequence as shocking as Joan Rivers voicing a baby at the end of Look Who's Talking.

• 2:28:15David Sims?

  Clea appears.

• 2:28:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And I just remembered you standing up and going, am I supposed to know who that is?

• 2:28:21David Sims?

  Classic Hillary.

• 2:28:23Speaker 04

  That does sound like me.

• 2:28:24Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was really good. It was, it was a distinctive moment. Um, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Uh, tune in next week for Look Who's Talking 2.

• 2:28:36David Sims?

  Yep. Made at a Scream 2-esque pace. It came out literally 364 days later or whatever, like so fast.

• 2:28:44Speaker 04

  They're Irish twins.

• 2:28:45Griffin Newman?

  They're Irish.

• 2:28:46David Sims?

  They're Irish twins.

• 2:28:47Griffin Newman?

  The movies are Irish twins.

• 2:28:49David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:28:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:28:49David Sims?

  14 months later. Okay.

• 2:28:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yep. Uh, and I just want to, uh, and as always, uh, read, uh, an important quote here from the dossier. Special effects artist masters on the most difficult shot to pull off. Quote, "It was my first use of visual effects. We called them electronic effects. We had one shot that took us 115 takes to get. It was little Mikey playing with his placenta. It required 12 puppeteers. People were hanging upside down."

• 2:29:20David Sims?

  What a, what a, what an achievement.

• 2:29:22Griffin Newman?

  Worth it.

• 2:29:28Speaker 05

  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 Bardy Salinas and our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J. Birch. Our theme song is by L.A. Montgomery in 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 franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

• 2:30:13Speaker 05

  Follow us on social @BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions.