Finding Nemo with Rebecca Alter

Welcome to PODD-C, our series on the films of Pixar stalwart Andrew Stanton! This week, we're kicking off with 2003's Finding Nemo, a film that ushered in nearly two decades of Ellen DeGeneres supremacy and made millions of children remember the exact address of one "P. Sherman." Writer Rebecca Alter joins us to chat about Nemo's immaculate screenplay, the Finding Nemo attractions within Disney Parks, and the under-the-sea craze that had Nemo, Spongebob, and Shark Tale all hitting at the same time. Pixar obsessives - rejoice! Griffin really gets to nerd out here. 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.

• 0:31Speaker 03

  So just a few more days.

• 0:33David Sims?

  Yes.

• 0:33Speaker 03

  You can get it at dynasty.tv.

• 0:36David Sims?

  Dynasty.tv.

• 0:37Speaker 03

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

• 0:43David Sims?

  Oh, yeah. I was moving things around.

• 0:45Griffin Newman?

  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.

• 1:10Speaker 03

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

• 1:39Griffin Newman?

  Hey, guess what? Podcasts, I recorded one and it was three and a half hours long.

• 1:47David Sims?

  Three and a half hours long?

• 1:49Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 1:49David Sims?

  Oh, because Sandy Plankton said they only run two hours tops.

• 1:53Griffin Newman?

  Sandy Plankton? You think I would do an entire podcast and not know as much?

• 1:57David Sims?

  To Sandy Plankton, it was three and a half hours, not two. Very good. So it's the end of the movie.

• 2:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's one of the last ones.

• 2:04David Sims?

  One of the emotional lines. It does makes me cry too.

• 2:06Griffin Newman?

  There's like five different moments in this film that at very least get me right up onto the edge. On the brink of the tear.

• 2:14David Sims?

  To me, the big moment is just Crash saying his age. That's the moment.

• 2:18Griffin Newman?

  That's the one?

• 2:18David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:19Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 2:20David Sims?

  Beautiful moment. It's so beautiful.

• 2:22Griffin Newman?

  This movie, this movie is just filled with these little grace notes that are, I just think so elegant, that are like funny and charming and don't feel like they're hitting too hard.

• 2:32David Sims?

  Agree.

• 2:32Griffin Newman?

  It is, in my opinion, this is like one of those movies that should be taught in every kind of like conventional Hollywood.

• 2:41David Sims?

  Sort of storytelling lab or whatever.

• 2:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, because it's just, it is an incredible setup payoff movie.

• 2:48David Sims?

  Another thing that's filled with grace notes is the notebook of the character, the main character from Project Hail Mary.

• 2:54Griffin Newman?

  Oh, because his name is Ryland Grace. I think there's not enough discussion of the fact that Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace.

• 3:01David Sims?

  Ryland Grace, because it's a Hail Mary full of grace, I believe is the.

• 3:04Speaker 04

  No.

• 3:05Griffin Newman?

  Jesus Christ.

• 3:05David Sims?

  I think that's what Andy Weir, who's, in my opinion, a master of subtlety, is going for there.

• 3:11Griffin Newman?

  I enjoy that movie greatly, and I think I'm now forced by law to knock it down a star now that you've explained that to me.

• 3:20David Sims?

  I mean, it's just my read on it. I mean, look, why do they, why is it called Tinder?

• 3:24Griffin Newman?

  Speaking of, why is it called Tinder?

• 3:26David Sims?

  Because you get matches.

• 3:27Griffin Newman?

  Jesus fucking.

• 3:28David Sims?

  And it's one of those things that I tell people all the time and they're like, that can't be true. And I'm like, that's literally why it's called that.

• 3:34Griffin Newman?

  Unfortunately.

• 3:35David Sims?

  Came up with that name in like 2012.

• 3:36Griffin Newman?

  I am required by law to go onto the App Store and knock Tinder down a star as well.

• 3:42David Sims?

  Because famously you rated it five stars in the App Store.

• 3:44Griffin Newman?

  Perfect app. Only good things have ever come of it. In my mind, there are only a few perfect apps. Facebook. Twitter.

• 3:54David Sims?

  X, but yeah.

• 3:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:56Speaker 04

  Truth Social.

• 3:57Griffin Newman?

  Well, I-

• 3:57David Sims?

  Truth Social, very good.

• 3:59Griffin Newman?

  I count Twitter and X as two separate apps. And both of them get five stars for me. Right, it's Terminator versus Terminator 2.

• 4:05David Sims?

  Right, X, I wish I could give it six stars.

• 4:07Griffin Newman?

  That's the problem.

• 4:08David Sims?

  Cause they improved on perfection.

• 4:09Griffin Newman?

  They did. Um, I'm just saying that to invoke another Albert Brooks film.

• 4:14David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 4:14Griffin Newman?

  Everyone made a fucking meal out of, you're telling me Emma Mackey is Ella McKay? We've gone too far. No one's saying, really? In this day and age, in this economy, Ryan Gosling is Ryland Grace?

• 4:30David Sims?

  Ryland Grace.

• 4:31Speaker 04

  Oh, you can't spell one without the other.

• 4:32Griffin Newman?

  They're just very similar. It's weird.

• 4:36David Sims?

  What's the, um, uh, Rocky? The rock character's called Rocky?

• 4:39Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 4:40David Sims?

  That was also-

• 4:40Griffin Newman?

  One of our biggest movie stars.

• 4:41David Sims?

  A little on the nose.

• 4:42Griffin Newman?

  I would say now, he's maybe top 10, rent track.

• 4:45David Sims?

  What was Tony Erdman called?

• 4:47Griffin Newman?

  What was Tony Erdman called?

• 4:48David Sims?

  Sandra Huler.

• 4:51David Sims?

  You know, it'd be funny if she was just called Tony Erdman. I know that's not her name in that movie either.

• 4:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's the dad's character's name.

• 4:57David Sims?

  I know.

• 4:58Griffin Newman?

  What's her name in the movie?

• 4:59David Sims?

  It'd be funny if she was just like, hello, I'm Tony Erdman, I run space over here.

• 5:03Griffin Newman?

  Sandy Heller? Yeah.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  I do think now we need to have her singing in every movie.

• 5:09Griffin Newman?

  I agree.

• 5:10David Sims?

  Uh, look, I mean, I assumed that was a reference to, uh, you know, to Tony Erdman, right? That's Lorna Miller being cute, having her do karaoke, and I thought that was fun.

• 5:17Griffin Newman?

  And also being like, hey, you know? She does this in a movie, it kinda like knocks everyone's socks off. That's an effective move that we've identified that ninety-

• 5:27David Sims?

  It'll work.

• 5:27Griffin Newman?

  Nine percent of the audience won't have seen.

• 5:29David Sims?

  That's true.

• 5:30Griffin Newman?

  Like, we all sit there patting ourselves on the back going like, oh, interesting Tony Erdman reference.

• 5:34David Sims?

  Maybe they should do Tony Erdman in IMAX.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Wasn't there gonna be an ill-fated American Tony Erdman?

• 5:39Griffin Newman?

  Lena Dunham.

• 5:40David Sims?

  Nicholson and Dunham.

• 5:41Griffin Newman?

  Lena Dunham-

• 5:41David Sims?

  Two chillest stars.

• 5:43Griffin Newman?

  Yep. You were wrong. Lena Dunham was writing and directing, Kristen Wiig was gonna co-star with Jack Nicholson.

• 5:48David Sims?

  I didn't actually know that Wiig was involved. I mean, the weird thing about that is it's like, don't do that, but I'm like, those are the people to pick, I suppose.

• 5:56Griffin Newman?

  It's also a movie. I, I would say on paper, uh, Force Major had this, but downhill didn't nail this. Where you're like- There is a version of this premise that works as a much broader studio comedy. I would not resent you trying to remake it and just doing the more obvious version of it.

• 6:16David Sims?

  Right, maybe don't make it two hours and forty minutes long, or whatever.

• 6:19Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 6:20David Sims?

  They have the scene where they all get naked?

• 6:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, Nicholson was gonna show a lot of dick. That's what I heard.

• 6:26David Sims?

  But Tony Erbman's the one who doesn't get naked in that scene, right? Cause does he show up in the outfit, in the animal, in the beast outfit?

• 6:34Griffin Newman?

  No, that's the very end.

• 6:35David Sims?

  Yeah, that's the end.

• 6:36Griffin Newman?

  There's, she's naked and, and the younger woman that he's with is naked.

• 6:40David Sims?

  And the boss is, the boss shows up.

• 6:42Griffin Newman?

  Right, the boss is naked, maybe he's not naked.

• 6:44David Sims?

  I think Tony Erbman, yeah.

• 6:46Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that the younger naked woman, and I already resent framing it this way?

• 6:50David Sims?

  Dear me.

• 6:52Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that that actress?

• 6:53Speaker 04

  I love Tony Erbman.

• 6:54David Sims?

  So good.

• 6:55Griffin Newman?

  Do you know that that actress?

• 6:56David Sims?

  That actress.

• 6:56Griffin Newman?

  Co-wrote Malignant. And I was like, why did that happen?

• 7:00David Sims?

  Ingrid Bissou.

• 7:01Griffin Newman?

  And then I dug deeper, she is married to James Wan.

• 7:04Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 7:05David Sims?

  Dang. Wow, engaged to him in twenty nineteen. Tony Erbman came out in twenty sixteen, maybe he saw it, was like, who's this beautiful woman?

• 7:12Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm. And what movies could she possibly have in her head about monstrous skull creatures?

• 7:17David Sims?

  It is funny that she was like, you know what I've always been thinking about? What if there was face on back of face?

• 7:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 7:24David Sims?

  What if you had one extra face?

• 7:25Griffin Newman?

  One extra face.

• 7:26David Sims?

  And it does martial arts. Wow, she's in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

• 7:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:30David Sims?

  And she's in all his movies, she's in The Nun, well, he didn't make that, but.

• 7:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but she does, she has screenplay credit on Malignant, right?

• 7:36David Sims?

  She sure does.

• 7:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 04

  And that is a delightful screenplay.

• 7:39David Sims?

  It's a well-written film.

• 7:40Griffin Newman?

  Another film that should be studied in schools.

• 7:41David Sims?

  That's a great film. The only problem I have with that film is it came out in the deep pandemic and I kind of don't remember it, is I need to re-watch it.

• 7:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 7:48David Sims?

  You know, that was that Project Popcorn movie.

• 7:50Griffin Newman?

  I saw it in theaters and I overheard one of the worst post-movie conversations I've ever had. Just two bros at the urinal saying like, dude, is that like, bad on purpose? Like, he needs to have his filmmaking license revoked. Like, how do you not understand that you're making a movie that is like, literally bad?

• 8:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 8:08Griffin Newman?

  And they just kind of kept stewing in that zone.

• 8:11Speaker 04

  I have no patience

• 8:12Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 8:13Speaker 04

  for people who view things like Malignant in that way.

• 8:16Griffin Newman?

  You don't, you just don't deserve movies. It's not even you don't deserve nice things, you don't deserve movies.

• 8:21David Sims?

  I deserve all the movies, though, including the movie Finding Nemo.

• 8:26Griffin Newman?

  In my opinion, a perfect film.

• 8:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I almost think we don't deserve it as humanity.

• 8:31Griffin Newman?

  I think it's the tender of movies.

• 8:32David Sims?

  Did we deserve it in 2013? I mean, 2003?

• 8:34Speaker 04

  2003.

• 8:35Griffin Newman?

  We needed it in 2003. I don't know if we deserved it. It was like The Dark Knight.

• 8:39David Sims?

  We were in Iraq.

• 8:40Griffin Newman?

  It was the hero we needed, not the hero we deserved. We were in Iraq.

• 8:43David Sims?

  I was 17 years old. I saw this film in America. I was here on vacation.

• 8:48Griffin Newman?

  On holiday?

• 8:49David Sims?

  On holiday. I saw it by myself, I'm pretty sure, at the Regal Union Square.

• 8:54Griffin Newman?

  And I'm sure you spent the entire movie fuming.

• 8:57David Sims?

  Yeah, oh, yes.

• 8:58Griffin Newman?

  At the consideration it showed towards the Australian people.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Oh, my god, I didn't even make the connection that we can have-

• 9:05Griffin Newman?

  Why do these fucking fish want to go to Sydney?

• 9:06Speaker 04

  A David Australian corner.

• 9:08Griffin Newman?

  It's a lawless land.

• 9:09David Sims?

  I would say this movie does not make Australian humans look good.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 9:14David Sims?

  The only two speaking Australians are the dentist and the granddaughter or whatever.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Darla is like the world's most horrific child.

• 9:21Griffin Newman?

  The dentist is a fun guy.

• 9:22David Sims?

  He's kind of fun. I guess he's sort of... He's kind of the classic dentist. Like, I think the humor of that is really good, where he's like, "Ah, how you doing?", and then he just, like, tortures people all day.

• 9:33Griffin Newman?

  Now David's whipping the stereotypes back up.

• 9:37David Sims?

  Ah, well, that's what he talks like.

• 9:38Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 9:39David Sims?

  Ah, you know, mate.

• 9:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 9:40David Sims?

  Do you think the dentist should realize what's going on with Darla and stop giving her fish? I guess he doesn't know the fish talk.

• 9:46Griffin Newman?

  This is the thing I really like-

• 9:47David Sims?

  He doesn't know that, like, Alice and Janie could voice one of these things.

• 9:49Griffin Newman?

  It's the thing I really like about the Toy Story... certainly the first two... Mm, Toy Story 1 has this. This has this. Some of the Pixar movies have this, but this is a movie in which no one is consciously a villain.

• 10:04David Sims?

  Uh, yeah. Yeah. I guess you're right. Cause, like-

• 10:08Griffin Newman?

  The conflict is not-

• 10:09David Sims?

  Even the sharks are nice.

• 10:10Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  And the angler fish doesn't really have consciousness. That's, like, not a sentient fish.

• 10:16David Sims?

  Although Becca-

• 10:18David Sims?

  Good point. Like, what's up with that? Why doesn't he?

• 10:21Speaker 04

  Well, there's also, we learn that they, there exists in the ocean, petting zoos with snails.

• 10:26Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 10:27Speaker 04

  So snails aren't people, but then like little shrimps are people.

• 10:31David Sims?

  I love when a Pixar movie just has a fun joke, because they're like, that's a fun joke. And then like 20 years later, I'm like, but I don't, how does this fit into their theory of consciousness?

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, this works into the implications of like there being a Cars Pope.

• 10:43Griffin Newman?

  David, David, I can explain it. It's very easy. The witch from Brave carved 20 wooden sculptures, each of them given life.

• 10:50David Sims?

  Well aware. Do they, are they still doing that with like, you know, like Elio will come out and they're like, "All right, how do we fit this into our grand Pixar unified theory?"

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Well, Elio just exists like in present day Earth and present day space.

• 11:04David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess recently they've been kind of hitting, uh, here, Griff, let me tell you something and then we'll introduce the show. Okay. I just want to tell you one thing. Okay. I was at the bar last week with my friend Caitlin, co-host of Hits Different, my baseball podcast.

• 11:15Griffin Newman?

  Secret podcast.

• 11:15David Sims?

  It's not a secret. I want everyone to listen to it. Um, watching the Mets game and then they, they're like, "Hey, we're doing trivia." You know, "Hey, you want to do trivia?" They like, they have a sheet.

• 11:24Griffin Newman?

  This is kind of how you and I became.

• 11:26David Sims?

  This is true.

• 11:26Griffin Newman?

  Such close friends.

• 11:27David Sims?

  And I was kind of like, "Bro, you're a sports sport. We don't need trivia." Like, pick a thing, right? Like, I'm already watching, but okay. And they're like, "There's four rounds and you get to double one of the rounds." And you have to pick, we'll tell you the categories now.

• 11:39Griffin Newman?

  Like, like Daily Double, you make it double or nothing for the, had the value of the points.

• 11:43David Sims?

  Franklin Park does it too. It wasn't, the bar was, it was 99 Rogers, not Franklin Park, but same idea.

• 11:47Speaker 04

  Same region.

• 11:47David Sims?

  And so he's like, "The categories are going to be like, this one's music, this one." And then he was like, "The category three is animation." And I said to Caitlin, like, "We're going to double that one." And Caitlin's like, "Really?" And I'm like, "I'm pretty sure."

• 11:56Griffin Newman?

  You're, you're now, yeah.

• 11:59David Sims?

  And it was 20 questions. Write down every Pixar movie. No sequels.

• 12:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:04David Sims?

  So write down every Pixar movie excluding the sequels. There's 20.

• 12:08Griffin Newman?

  Did you break a sweat?

• 12:10David Sims?

  I didn't. I was like, okay, great. And I like kept going and I got 18. Do you want to know the two? I forgot. Like then I I run out of steam and I'm like, what the fuck? You know, like.

• 12:20Griffin Newman?

  Did you forget Elio?

• 12:21David Sims?

  Nope, had Elio.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Does Lightyear count as a sequel?

• 12:24David Sims?

  No, uh, yes, Lightyear counted as a sequel. He didn't want Lightyear.

• 12:28Griffin Newman?

  This is tough because I'm like, the ones that are.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Soul.

• 12:31Griffin Newman?

  Did you forget Soul?

• 12:32David Sims?

  I did not forget Soul. I'll I'll give you a hint. One is a bad and somewhat forgotten Pixar movie.

• 12:37Speaker 04

  A good dinosaur.

• 12:38David Sims?

  Bingo. Good dinosaur, which I've seen many times and yet still I couldn't grasp.

• 12:41Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say, I assumed you'd remember that one because it is the shorthand, easy punchline, bad Pixar movie.

• 12:47David Sims?

  And yet, even even then, the anonymity hurt, still hurt it. The other one is one of the most iconic Pixar franchises. The worst one, but nonetheless a huge one. Correct.

• 12:57Griffin Newman?

  You forgot Cars.

• 12:58David Sims?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 12:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 12:59David Sims?

  Just because like Cars sucks so bad that I I kept being like, and what? I had fucking Elio. I had Soul.

• 13:04Speaker 04

  Where were you? Where were you in 2006 that?

• 13:08David Sims?

  I didn't see Cars in theaters. I'll tell you that much.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  I still haven't seen it.

• 13:11Griffin Newman?

  You still, that actually boggles.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  I haven't seen it. Well, I like.

• 13:13David Sims?

  And my daughter never got into it. Like she never, she's seen it, but she never, yet, although I don't know, it hasn't really happened. I don't know.

• 13:21Griffin Newman?

  She still hasn't watched any of it.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  I love the concept of Lightning McQueen. I love the concept of Mater.

• 13:28Griffin Newman?

  Speak on this.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  And Bonnie and Luigi and Doc Holliday or whatever. Like, I love the concept of all these Cars. I just haven't seen the movie.

• 13:37Griffin Newman?

  I'm a little surprised. It feels like a thing you would hyper fixate on because there's like a lot of rabbit holes to fall down in Cars universe. Of of just lines of thinking, not even like actual things to study.

• 13:49David Sims?

  That is true.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  Well, I love those. Like, I'll watch a YouTube video where someone, yeah, does this thing where they connect it all and Cars is actually sci fi post apocalyptic.

• 13:58Griffin Newman?

  That's the stuff to me. I mean, some of that's interesting to talk about.

• 14:01Speaker 04

  No, but it's too literal, having to make it all.

• 14:03Griffin Newman?

  I just think like, in the way that, the way that you're saying like, oh, they have a petting zoo with snails. Like, what does that mean? Cars has seven things like that in every single frame.

• 14:13David Sims?

  Every frame. It's so true.

• 14:14Griffin Newman?

  Right. And it's not stuff that like Pixar people are digging into online. It's the kind of stuff that like William S. Burroughs would spiral over at a bar.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  You know what? Maybe if it was a movie called High Speed Rail.

• 14:28David Sims?

  Go on. Thank you. Exactly.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe I just don't like this car culture. Wait.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  The Biden video that came out yesterday.

• 14:39David Sims?

  Where he's like, doesn't this guy look like Obama? And he just brings a black guy on stage?

• 14:42Speaker 04

  No, but then the thing that makes it funny-

• 14:44David Sims?

  You should be standing on the other side.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Is he looks like him just enough-

• 14:49David Sims?

  Just enough.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  For it to be the funniest thing in the world.

• 14:51David Sims?

  Right, I mean, it's not like he brought out like an 80-year-old man or something like-

• 14:55Speaker 04

  No, because at first you think he's just being-

• 14:56David Sims?

  Like, what's going to happen, right?

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Yes, you think it's just gonna be like some, you know, like random person in the crowd. Biden is just being senile.

• 15:02Griffin Newman?

  He didn't bring like Aaron Pierre on stage.

• 15:06David Sims?

  Lanterns, they're gonna solve the crime with their powers.

• 15:09Griffin Newman?

  Where are the jackets?

• 15:10Speaker 04

  Mufasa?

• 15:12Griffin Newman?

  You don't need the full jumpsuits anymore. Dress like a person.

• 15:16David Sims?

  He's Aaron Pierre. Aaron Pierre was the voice of young Mufasa?

• 15:18Speaker 04

  He's young Muf- he's, well, he's like middle-

• 15:19David Sims?

  In Barry Jenkins's Mufasa.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  He's middle Mufasa.

• 15:22David Sims?

  Middle Mufasa.

• 15:22Griffin Newman?

  Right, and then-

• 15:24Speaker 04

  Because young Mufasa sings my favorite song in the world.

• 15:27David Sims?

  Which is called?

• 15:28Speaker 04

  The "I Always Wanted a Brother" song.

• 15:30Griffin Newman?

  "I Always Wanted a Brother." You don't remember that?

• 15:32Speaker 04

  The one that goes, I'm not gonna do it.

• 15:33David Sims?

  I have seen Barry Jenkins's Mufasa of the Lion King. I'll admit it, it washed over me pretty fast. It didn't, I didn't, you know, it didn't really retain much.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  I'm making you listen to the song after this.

• 15:42Griffin Newman?

  I still have not listened to that, uh, watched that film. But the trailer only had one snippet of a song. The song's, of course, written by friend of the show Lin-Manuel Miranda.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Is it the Mads Mikkelsen?

• 15:52Griffin Newman?

  No, it was just, you heard them repeat "I Always Wanted a Brother" like five times.

• 15:56David Sims?

  Ah, he always wanted a brother.

• 15:58Griffin Newman?

  So it was kinda memed.

• 16:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's one of the many hooks in that song.

• 16:03Griffin Newman?

  "I Always Wanted a Brother."

• 16:05David Sims?

  "Bye Bye" is a song?

• 16:07Griffin Newman?

  It is-

• 16:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's Mads Mikkelsen's villain song.

• 16:10Griffin Newman?

  It is a little insensitive of you to invoke hooks on the Finding Nemo episode because of course, those are the true unseen villain.

• 16:16Speaker 04

  Yes, man, like Dandie.

• 16:18Griffin Newman?

  The hook.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Or a hook like Peter Pan.

• 16:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, if he went hand fishing? Hook fishing?

• 16:26David Sims?

  I mean, sure, I've lost this train of thought, but okay.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  Picture him sticking a worm on that.

• 16:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's what I'm saying, the dentist is benevolent. He's not fucking catching Nemo, frying him up. He thinks he's just like my, my little, my little niece.

• 16:38David Sims?

  It's nice to have fish in my tank.

• 16:39Speaker 04

  He says that he saved him. He's like, there was this little baby clownfish all alone and I like rescued it.

• 16:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 16:44David Sims?

  That's a little bit of a savior complex thing where it's like- All, I mean, he was in the fucking water.

• 16:49Griffin Newman?

  He found Nemo.

• 16:51David Sims?

  Sure, okay.

• 16:53Griffin Newman?

  He saw the poster, he was like.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Oh, fish found in water?

• 16:55David Sims?

  Right.

• 16:56Griffin Newman?

  Challenge accepted.

• 16:57David Sims?

  Um, but you're right, there's no real villain. The closest thing is Bear, Bruce the Great White Shark, and he has worked to overcome his villainy.

• 17:04Griffin Newman?

  But that's like a sequence. Angler Fish is a sequence.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Uh, in 100 thrilling, perfect, funny sequences.

• 17:12Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes, exactly.

• 17:13David Sims?

  In 100 thrilling, perfect, funny minutes.

• 17:15Griffin Newman?

  There are contained.

• 17:16David Sims?

  Movie's 100 minutes long.

• 17:17Griffin Newman?

  Self-contained conflicts.

• 17:18David Sims?

  Yep.

• 17:18Griffin Newman?

  Within the larger conflict, which is just how do you get across the fucking ocean? I think this movie sets up so perfectly. The moment that Nemo's taken, you just start doing the math and you're like, how could he possibly find him?

• 17:30David Sims?

  It's sort of the Pixar magic of the, of the moving truck drives away.

• 17:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 17:35David Sims?

  And Woody is but a tiny little man.

• 17:37Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 17:37David Sims?

  How the hell's he gonna get wherever they're going?

• 17:39Griffin Newman?

  I think this is the simplest and most extreme version of that, where you're just like, I, I don't even understand how he could begin to make contact with him, to locate where he is, to scale that distance.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  I'm getting emotional at you saying that, thinking about everything that Marlin and Dory accomplished.

• 17:57Griffin Newman?

  It is the movie, the moment in this film that makes me cry without fail every single time is when Nigel recounts the news that his.

• 18:05David Sims?

  That's, that's a lovely moment. It's a lovely moment done well by Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush.

• 18:09Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 18:10David Sims?

  The Pelican Called Nigel.

• 18:11Griffin Newman?

  And Oscar nominee, Thomas Newman, kind of going hard in that moment.

• 18:15Speaker 04

  Oh, the score.

• 18:16Griffin Newman?

  His eyes widening as Nigel's story goes down in the mix.

• 18:19David Sims?

  Of his dad's heroism.

• 18:20Griffin Newman?

  And you see him pantomiming all the things that have happened and Nemo realizes how much his father loves him.

• 18:26David Sims?

  It's good stuff.

• 18:26Griffin Newman?

  It, it makes, it gets me choked up just thinking about it. Today, we're talking about Finding Nemo, which is one of the most successful movies in history.

• 18:33David Sims?

  What is this miniseries called?

• 18:35Griffin Newman?

  I'm telling you what it's called.

• 18:36David Sims?

  Please.

• 18:37Griffin Newman?

  I was talking about it with a guest who will be coming up on this miniseries.

• 18:41David Sims?

  Yes.

• 18:42Griffin Newman?

  I'm not gonna say. Uh, and I said, I've had this one locked and loaded in the chamber, no need to pitch.

• 18:48David Sims?

  Okay.

• 18:48Griffin Newman?

  This miniseries is called, and it's not gonna work when I say it out loud, but it's really gonna work visually.

• 18:53David Sims?

  It'll spell. This thing will spell.

• 18:55Griffin Newman?

  Podsey.

• 18:58Griffin Newman?

  P O D D.

• 19:02David Sims?

  Hyphen C.

• 19:03Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:03David Sims?

  I love it.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Pod C.

• 19:05David Sims?

  I mean, what else are you gonna call it?

• 19:07Griffin Newman?

  We're not gonna call it P- Poding Nemo Cast.

• 19:10David Sims?

  Right.

• 19:10Speaker 04

  Well.

• 19:10David Sims?

  Finding Podcast. Who cares?

• 19:12Griffin Newman?

  Poding Casto.

• 19:14David Sims?

  In the pod of a cast.

• 19:15Griffin Newman?

  Poding Casty. That's, that's what was pitched to me. And I said, I don't think that's what's...

• 19:20David Sims?

  Pod C.

• 19:20Griffin Newman?

  Pod C.

• 19:21David Sims?

  Great. I love it. We're discussing here on Blank Check the films.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Pod Carter?

• 19:26David Sims?

  Pod Carter.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  Named after his most famous, memorable, beloved film.

• 19:31Griffin Newman?

  You know what I also like about calling it Pod Carter? It implies that it should have been called Pod Carter of Cast, and then the of Cast was cut out.

• 19:39David Sims?

  That is fun.

• 19:40Speaker 04

  It could just be Podcaster, but then it would be impossible to tell what that even...

• 19:44David Sims?

  We can't do that.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Is.

• 19:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. Right. But also, it's, to pay respect to John Carter, it has to be the version of the title that doesn't really work.

• 19:52David Sims?

  We here are discussing, this summer, this lovely summer that we're, I assume, having?

• 19:57Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:58David Sims?

  The films of Andrew Stanton.

• 19:59Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:59David Sims?

  The, uh, six films total, I believe?

• 20:02Griffin Newman?

  Yes, two of them released in 2026 alone. Yes.

• 20:06David Sims?

  Uh, yes. A Man After Our Own Hearts.

• 20:09Griffin Newman?

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

• 20:11David Sims?

  I'm David.

• 20:12Griffin Newman?

  It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as releasing Finding Nemo, what at the time was the highest grossing animated film in history? The highest grossing film Disney had ever released in any division. And I believe it was, at the time, the sixth highest grossing film in history. I know you always get angry when I try to get you to...

• 20:33David Sims?

  I'm furious.

• 20:33Griffin Newman?

  Pull up these, what was the record at the time?

• 20:36David Sims?

  I can't.

• 20:36Griffin Newman?

  I did some research. I found fucking Wayback Machine archived box office Mojo pages. It was the sixth highest grossing film of all time.

• 20:44David Sims?

  I remember when this film beat The Lion King to become the highest grossing animated film of all time. Cause there was a big fight on the Oscar Watch forums about which was the sort of more worthy film for that title.

• 20:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 20:56David Sims?

  Like, some people are like, ah, this sucks, like, this stupid, you know, fish movie. Lion King's so good. Now the people are like, ah, Lion King's over. I remember that.

• 21:03Griffin Newman?

  Nemo's a fucking masterpiece. It also was humongous overseas.

• 21:06David Sims?

  Yes.

• 21:07Griffin Newman?

  In 2003, it made, I believe, 850 million dollars worldwide.

• 21:12David Sims?

  Yeah, sounds about right. It's the number two of, two, I think, 2003.

• 21:16Griffin Newman?

  The only movie that beats it is Return of the King, and Return of the King becomes only the second film to ever make a billion.

• 21:22David Sims?

  Can you name the animated films that since dethroned?

• 21:26Griffin Newman?

  So this is what I was, this is what I was trying to do the math on, right? Because it has the record for a year. It kind of like blows the ceiling off of what an animated film can do, especially globally. And then Shrek beats it a year later. It beats the opening weekend record.

• 21:40David Sims?

  Shrek 2?

• 21:41Griffin Newman?

  Shrek 2.

• 21:42David Sims?

  Uh, sure.

• 21:43Griffin Newman?

  Shrek 2 beats it domestically, beats the opening weekend record.

• 21:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 21:47Griffin Newman?

  Shrek 2 becomes the third highest grossing film in history at the time.

• 21:51David Sims?

  We love it.

• 21:52Griffin Newman?

  At the time, I think it was Titanic, Star Wars, and then Shrek 2 domestically.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  And of those, I know my favorite.

• 21:59Griffin Newman?

  No, I would argue this is the beginning of, I say this respectfully, the enshitification of the all-time top 10.

• 22:07David Sims?

  Yeah, it just starts to be a lot of crap.

• 22:09Griffin Newman?

  It also starts to be like every year, two movies enter the 10, so the churn becomes so fast.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:15Griffin Newman?

  Up until 2003, it felt like there was a 10 where you're like, of course, there are two Star Wars in there.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  Gone with the wind.

• 22:23Griffin Newman?

  There's Titanic. Not adjusted.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Oh, well, then it's a useless metric, not adjusted.

• 22:29Griffin Newman?

  You could look, you could compare the two lists, but it also felt like the unadjusted numbers were like, even unadjusted, ET is still bigger than most movies ever released. And then everything starts kind of like usurping. So Shrek dethroned, Shrek 2 dethrones Finding Nemo. And then I think Shrek 2 has it until Toy Story 3.

• 22:50David Sims?

  You are correct.

• 22:51Griffin Newman?

  And then basically it becomes a sequel rally. This is the thing.

• 22:54David Sims?

  Despicable Me 2 does well, but I think doesn't quite beat Toy Story 3.

• 22:58Griffin Newman?

  And then Finding Dory overtakes it.

• 23:01David Sims?

  Uh, you have Dory, but um, what about, uh, yeah, it's, no, Dory never overtook Toy Story 3. Although this is a little complicated because a lot of re-releases have adjusted these numbers somewhat.

• 23:13Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 23:14David Sims?

  Uh, but I can tell you Frozen certainly beat it. Frozen becomes the new number one. But beat Toy Story 3.

• 23:21Griffin Newman?

  Domestically?

• 23:22David Sims?

  No, worldwide. This is all world.

• 23:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 23:25David Sims?

  I don't have domestic.

• 23:26Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 23:26David Sims?

  This is worldwide. And then it's sort of like, do we count the Lion King remake?

• 23:32Griffin Newman?

  This is the big question.

• 23:33Speaker 04

  It is animated.

• 23:35David Sims?

  It's an animated. Computer graphics and animation.

• 23:39Griffin Newman?

  They tried to pretend it wasn't. I would argue it held the record, but only for a little bit.

• 23:44David Sims?

  Uh, yes, because Frozen 2. No, no, Lion King actually grows slightly more than Frozen 2.

• 23:50Griffin Newman?

  And did Incredibles 2 take over at any point?

• 23:52David Sims?

  Incredibles 2's peak was 2.

• 23:54Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 23:55David Sims?

  A second.

• 23:55Griffin Newman?

  But I do think Incredibles 2 did take the domestic for a moment. Yeah.

• 24:00David Sims?

  But then Inside Out 2 and Zootopia 2 and Nezha 2.

• 24:03Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 24:04David Sims?

  Nezha 2 is now the number one highest grossing animated film worldwide. It has made 2.2 billion dollars.

• 24:10Griffin Newman?

  And Zootopia 2 is the highest grossing American animated film. Right.

• 24:15David Sims?

  And also the best.

• 24:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But this is another.

• 24:18David Sims?

  I like that movie.

• 24:18Griffin Newman?

  This is another thing. There were very few animated sequels until Shrek 2.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  Uh, theatrically released.

• 24:26David Sims?

  Right. Shrek 2 helps break the taboo of like.

• 24:28Griffin Newman?

  Toy Story 2 was an outlier.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  Straight to video Disney sequel.

• 24:32Griffin Newman?

  Toy Story 2 was an outlier, of course, bumped up from home video to theatrical. It's massive, but it doesn't overtake Lion King. And then Shrek 2 is the first sequel to take the crown. And it does feel like the stigma is off of doing animated sequels. And then it's just everyone playing like, uh, I don't know, it's a baton race between the franchises.

• 24:52Speaker 04

  It's crazy that they did Rescuers Down Under.

• 24:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 24:55Speaker 04

  Especially when they did.

• 24:56David Sims?

  That wasn't that. Well, go ahead. He knows why.

• 24:59Griffin Newman?

  I'll tell you what the logic was.

• 25:00David Sims?

  Right.

• 25:00Griffin Newman?

  It was like Eisner and Katzenberg takeover.

• 25:03David Sims?

  Right. And they're like, we want a sequel.

• 25:04Griffin Newman?

  They're like, we should do a sequel. That feels like a thing we should do.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  To like our least beloved.

• 25:08David Sims?

  No, but I think they were just kind of like, Rescuers is one of the only ones that makes sense for a sequel.

• 25:11Griffin Newman?

  Truly. That's what's fascinating about it.

• 25:13David Sims?

  Disney movies have a pretty definitive ending.

• 25:15Griffin Newman?

  That's the thing. What's wild is they were like, it feels like good business sense to do a sequel, but also we should do a sequel that doesn't betray the integrity of the original film. So they still were making kind of like an artistically driven story. Where they're like, well, Rescuers is a book series. It feels more episodic. You can just send them on another mission. Every other Disney animated classic feels like a closed loop.

• 25:38David Sims?

  And then with someone getting married or whatever. Pinocchio becomes a real boy or whatever, you know.

• 25:43Griffin Newman?

  It was truly like people.

• 25:44David Sims?

  Captain Hook is beheaded, whatever happens in that one.

• 25:46Griffin Newman?

  People won't be insulted if we do Rescuers 2. It won't be betraying the sanctity of something.

• 25:50David Sims?

  They should do Cinderella 2 and just like she got divorced.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  Well, they did two or three even straight to video. And one of them is a crazy time one.

• 25:59Griffin Newman?

  One of them is like Back to the Future 2.

• 26:01David Sims?

  That sounds good.

• 26:01Griffin Newman?

  Shit, people like it.

• 26:03David Sims?

  Oh, they do. Oh, people like it.

• 26:05Griffin Newman?

  People, humans. I'm gonna ask our guest, have you seen any of the direct to video Cinderellas?

• 26:11Speaker 04

  Uh, I have not, but I'm sure I've watched some Jenny Nicholson or some such person recap them.

• 26:18Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. Uh, I think it's called A Stitch in Time, maybe?

• 26:22Speaker 04

  It's a something in time. And the weird thing about those.

• 26:25David Sims?

  Cinderella 3, A Twist in Time.

• 26:27Griffin Newman?

  A Twist in Time.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Weird thing about those, they came out at the same time as all of the Barbie straight to video ones, which we're also doing some very exciting things with the same IP.

• 26:36David Sims?

  This does say, unlike most direct to video sequels, this received generally positive reviews.

• 26:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, people like this one.

• 26:43David Sims?

  So it's, uh, maybe it's like, what's the fairy godmother goes back in time and like kills Hitler or whatever?

• 26:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's why they like it.

• 26:49Speaker 04

  So, yeah, focus groups were really happy about that.

• 26:52Griffin Newman?

  Um, do you know who wrote, or I shouldn't say wrote, but, but much like malignant, has a screenplay credit, part of the team on many of those Barbies, uh, 2000's animated films?

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Can you give a clue?

• 27:05Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he was played by Brian Cox in a movie.

• 27:09Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 27:10David Sims?

  Uh, uh, Robert McKee?

• 27:11Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 27:12David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Griffin Newman?

  That's one of those things where Robert McKee's story, the book that everyone talks about of like, this is everything you need to learn about like.

• 27:18David Sims?

  Ah, this, a three act structure.

• 27:20Griffin Newman?

  Studio, western, you know, popcorn screenplay structure. And they'd be like, what has this guy done? Why am I listening to this guy as an authority? And you look it up and it's mostly Barbie animated movies. Where he was like a story consultant. Today, we're talking about Finding Nemo. Our guest, Rebecca Alter.

• 27:36David Sims?

  Rebecca!

• 27:37Speaker 04

  Hi!

• 27:38David Sims?

  Is this your main feed debut?

• 27:39Speaker 04

  It's my main feed debut!

• 27:41Griffin Newman?

  And I'm gonna say, the best movie you've been asked to cover on this show.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 27:46Griffin Newman?

  I think this movie's a little better, no offense, Ben, than Look Who's Talking Now.

• 27:50David Sims?

  Okay, fair enough.

• 27:52Griffin Newman?

  It's slightly more successful. Has had slightly greater cultural impact.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  Both talking animal movies, though.

• 27:58Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:59David Sims?

  Uh, true.

• 28:00Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  I'm happy to carve, um, a lane.

• 28:02Griffin Newman?

  It feels like it is, it is an interest of yours. Is that, is that fair to say?

• 28:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:07Griffin Newman?

  This is one of your beats as a journalist.

• 28:09Speaker 04

  I guess so.

• 28:12Griffin Newman?

  Um, just other Finding Nemo records, it is still the highest grossing physical media release of all time.

• 28:17David Sims?

  Is that so?

• 28:17Griffin Newman?

  The Finding Nemo DVD is like, and part of it is just, it comes out at the peak of DVD as a medium.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  That DVD went triple platinum in the built-in minivan DVD player.

• 28:30Griffin Newman?

  True.

• 28:30Speaker 04

  In my mom's minivan.

• 28:32Griffin Newman?

  It's the accessibility of, the, the video game consoles are adding DVD players. DVD players are in cars now. DVD players are in computers.

• 28:40David Sims?

  You know what else is in cars? Cars, in the movie Cars!

• 28:42Griffin Newman?

  Um, I, I don't know if you guys caught this, a very insidious announcement. Uh, not to invoke-

• 28:47David Sims?

  The, the baby cars?

• 28:49Speaker 04

  No, home, home entertainment.

• 28:50Griffin Newman?

  That's the most evil shit I have ever seen.

• 28:52Speaker 04

  They're doing baby cars?

• 28:53Griffin Newman?

  They announced, Ben and Becca, they announced this week, that there is a Disney Junior TV show that's like Muppet Babies with the Cars characters.

• 29:01Speaker 04

  Oh, wait, but Lightning had never met them before.

• 29:04Griffin Newman?

  I love that you know this much about the chronology without having seen any of the films.

• 29:08Speaker 04

  Well, you, do you know why?

• 29:09Griffin Newman?

  Why?

• 29:10Speaker 04

  Cause I love Radiator Springs and Disney's California Adventure. It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to on earth. So I said, I need to know the lore.

• 29:18Griffin Newman?

  Fellow gentlemen of the Blank Check Podcast, there is gonna be a good amount of theme park talk on this episode. I regret to inform you-

• 29:23Speaker 04

  I warned David in advance.

• 29:25David Sims?

  I brought like a sleeping bag that I could just like curl up under, or a hammock, maybe?

• 29:28Griffin Newman?

  Pour, pour the caffeine!

• 29:30David Sims?

  Hammock on the porch?

• 29:31Griffin Newman?

  You're staying wide awake for this shit.

• 29:34David Sims?

  Question about the cars.

• 29:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:36David Sims?

  The baby cars.

• 29:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 29:37David Sims?

  Are they wearing diapers?

• 29:38Griffin Newman?

  No, they're just kinda squ- they're like-

• 29:40Speaker 04

  Because they're leaking oil?

• 29:42Griffin Newman?

  They're just like-

• 29:42David Sims?

  It's a good question.

• 29:43Griffin Newman?

  I guess. What- what's the term I'm looking for? Kawhi? Is that-

• 29:47David Sims?

  Yeah, Kawhi. I mean, like-

• 29:48Griffin Newman?

  They just make them squished and rounder and their eyes are bigger.

• 29:51David Sims?

  Their eyes are bigger. I mean, we'll see this with Finding Dory, of course, when they have baby Dory, you know, like-

• 29:55Griffin Newman?

  What is genuinely a billion-dollar idea, like, put baby Dory at the beginning of a film?

• 29:59David Sims?

  Dory Small.

• 30:00Griffin Newman?

  It saved the economy.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Can I say what I think the most consequential, uh, thing to come out of Cars is on the entire culture?

• 30:05Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  We all grew up with the Little Tykes red car, yellow roof.

• 30:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  That was a car.

• 30:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:12Speaker 04

  Sometime after Cars, they gave that car a face, like, eyes and a face.

• 30:16Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  And now kids grew up with that car being like a- like a person.

• 30:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Car that they're inside. And I don't think that would've happened.

• 30:23Griffin Newman?

  This is not-

• 30:24Speaker 04

  For Cars.

• 30:24Griffin Newman?

  Lightning Racers looks like. It- it only looks like 10% cuter than the regular Cars.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, they actually look identical.

• 30:30Griffin Newman?

  But I imagine they're gonna have little kid voices.

• 30:33David Sims?

  But is this suggesting that, like, Lightning went to Radiator Springs as a child and knew Mater? Because, like, in Cars, he's meeting them all for the first time.

• 30:41Griffin Newman?

  My understanding is that what it suggests is, who gives a shit? It's gonna make trillions of dollars. Uh, much like Muppet Babies, which doesn't really make sense as anything other than a what-if alternate universe. The series follows Lightning McQueen as he takes on fresh challenges and races around Radiator Springs alongside his old pal Mater.

• 31:00David Sims?

  Is it just kinda like, fuck it, like, it's parallel, don't worry about it?

• 31:04Speaker 04

  The new friends are thrill-seeking drag car Pipes and mud-loving monster truck Miles.

• 31:11Griffin Newman?

  Perfect.

• 31:11Speaker 04

  Which is a great name for a car.

• 31:13Griffin Newman?

  I mean, it sounds like the fucking movie cast is back. Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt. So they're all gonna have grown-up voices. They're recasting Paul Newman.

• 31:25David Sims?

  Yeah, well, he's dead. So, I mean, that is the reason to recast him, right?

• 31:29Griffin Newman?

  I'm hearing this for the first time. Finding Nemo, best selling DVD of all time. It's also, if you look at all the video game platforms of this moment, Game Boy Color, PS2, GameCube, it is like amongst the top 20 highest selling games on all of those platforms. It is just a movie that kind of coincides with like peak mainstream American media? And the tendrils of it all just like rise to the top.

• 31:58Speaker 04

  We had The Shark Tale, PlayStation 2 game, but not the Nemo.

• 32:04David Sims?

  And what happens in The Shark Tale, uh, video game?

• 32:08Speaker 04

  There was a level where you could make the Will Smith, uh, fish dance to You Can't Touch This.

• 32:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 32:16David Sims?

  Sound pretty good.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  It was pretty awesome.

• 32:18Griffin Newman?

  Was it like Parappa the Rappa style dancing? Like Dance Dance Revolution style dancing?

• 32:23David Sims?

  So I'm watching a full gameplay walkthrough here.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Uh, that's the only part I remember, but we didn't have Shark Tale on home video and we did have Nemo.

• 32:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, kinda, kinda everyone had Nemo.

• 32:34David Sims?

  Shark Tale came out, what, a year after Nemo?

• 32:36Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah.

• 32:37David Sims?

  I just remember it being one of those things where like, Nemo, which the movie we're going to talk about today, the water effects and like the, the way it looks, it's just such a staggeringly good looking movie.

• 32:48Griffin Newman?

  It still looks incredible.

• 32:49David Sims?

  I think it's maybe like the most beautiful movie Pixar ever made.

• 32:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:53David Sims?

  And then Shark Tale comes out a year later and looks like a fucking like PlayStation game.

• 32:58Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 32:59David Sims?

  And like, like the fish designs are horrendous, but all of it looks bad.

• 33:02Griffin Newman?

  But it also, like, there's like no water effects.

• 33:05David Sims?

  Right, none.

• 33:05Griffin Newman?

  There's no lighting and you're like, how do they move? And it's like, they sort of just walk upright in the water, not on the ground, not on the ocean floor.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  And they have like houses and stuff.

• 33:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes, there's a, there's a thing-

• 33:17David Sims?

  At least with ants and Bug Life.

• 33:19Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 33:19David Sims?

  Bugs Life, Bug Life.

• 33:20Griffin Newman?

  Bug Life.

• 33:22David Sims?

  Sorry.

• 33:23Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:23David Sims?

  I'm using myself. Like, they just like looked distinctive. They were, they were going for different things.

• 33:28Griffin Newman?

  And in fact, you could argue that the DreamWorks one is the more realistic looking one.

• 33:33David Sims?

  It's absolutely the more realistic looking one and it kind of pulls it off.

• 33:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 33:36David Sims?

  Ants ain't blue and ants do not have just two legs, you know, like in the, in the DreamWorks one, they have four legs and two arms. It's, you know, whatever. It sort of was okay. And then like the comparison wasn't as drastic, I guess, is what I mean.

• 33:49Griffin Newman?

  Uh, sure.

• 33:50David Sims?

  Finding Nemo Shark Tale, disaster.

• 33:51Griffin Newman?

  I, I saw a thing Andrew Stanton said that really stuck with me, which he, when, when they started working on this movie, he was like, the challenge I pose to all of you is I don't want to anthropomorphize these fish. I want to figure out the way for them to be able to convey emotions within the physiology of how they actually work.

• 34:08David Sims?

  It's a good call.

• 34:08Griffin Newman?

  And it's one of these things where you watch this movie and it's like, they create this role for themselves that they hold themselves to. And the movie really doesn't fucking cheat on it. And it makes it all the more impressive how good I think the performances are in this movie. And I speak of the voice acting, which is obviously like, this is just an impeccably cast movie that changes a bunch of fucking careers and shit.

• 34:29David Sims?

  Sure.

• 34:29Griffin Newman?

  But also the actual like character animation performances of the movie are insane.

• 34:34David Sims?

  Who's your favorite?

• 34:37Speaker 04

  The bench is so deep.

• 34:39Griffin Newman?

  It's so deep.

• 34:40David Sims?

  Deep, deep, deep.

• 34:41Speaker 04

  It's, it's impossible.

• 34:43Griffin Newman?

  I think Brooks is the reason this movie really works and we'll get into it. Watching it this time, and this is a movie I have seen more times than I can count. I was really, really locking into the Defoe performance, which I think is incredible.

• 34:55David Sims?

  Very good.

• 34:56Griffin Newman?

  Who, who are your answers?

• 34:57Speaker 04

  Oh, I was thinking more about-

• 34:58David Sims?

  Stingray teacher.

• 34:59Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 35:00David Sims?

  Fucking all day and night. The model of pedagogy. That guy is the best.

• 35:05Griffin Newman?

  Mr. Ray.

• 35:05David Sims?

  The way he diffuses.

• 35:07Griffin Newman?

  Uh-huh.

• 35:07David Sims?

  Various things. Very too. There's nothing to see here. That. And also when Nemo's trying to say, and then I mean, and he's like, all right, kid, don't knock yourself out. You know what I mean? Like, things like that. So good.

• 35:18Griffin Newman?

  This is, to your point, Becca, though, it's like, this movie has like 130 perfectly executed bits.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 35:25Griffin Newman?

  Like, any character in this movie that would be kind of just like a functional point A to point B exposition driver or whatever, they give a character game that is so efficient and memorable and charming.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:39Griffin Newman?

  Where no one in this movie feels like they're just filling a spot.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  The games are clear and distinct and they're all like, they all feel so satisfying to the creature that they are.

• 35:49David Sims?

  My other favorite is Allison Janney. I love, love, love Peach so much.

• 35:54Griffin Newman?

  But this is what we're talking about, right? Where it's just like, there's a chain of logic that is very satisfying of like, what is the personality of a starfish?

• 36:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 36:02Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, well, if she's in a tank.

• 36:03David Sims?

  She's stuck to the wall, she surveils, she's watching.

• 36:06Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then what's the superiority complex she has about that? She basically becomes the know-it-all because her job is to be on watch.

• 36:13David Sims?

  I just love the issue.

• 36:14Griffin Newman?

  And then who's the person who voices that? Well, of course, get like the fucking lady from the West Wing. That's what her personality would be. Like, all of these choices are so satisfying in a chain of logic way.

• 36:24David Sims?

  I love Vicky Lewis.

• 36:25Griffin Newman?

  Everyone's incredible in this.

• 36:27David Sims?

  Is anyone bad?

• 36:28Griffin Newman?

  No. And like Bob Peterson, who you're calling out as Mr. Ray, is one of the Pixar guys.

• 36:32David Sims?

  Oh, I know, I know.

• 36:33Griffin Newman?

  He's Roz.

• 36:34David Sims?

  He's my friend.

• 36:34Griffin Newman?

  He is Doug.

• 36:35David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 36:36Griffin Newman?

  He, of course, was the original fired director of The Good Dinosaur, the movie you can't even remember.

• 36:41David Sims?

  Ugh.

• 36:42Speaker 04

  The fired direct- oh, fired. Okay, right. Cause it was Son?

• 36:46Griffin Newman?

  Son? It became a Pete Son picture. But that is the chaos period where suddenly like every director is getting fired, every movie's being replaced.

• 36:54David Sims?

  Is Son getting a third- he's doing Incredibles 3.

• 36:56Griffin Newman?

  He's doing Incredibles 3.

• 36:57Speaker 04

  Well.

• 36:58David Sims?

  A little bit of a step down.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  It should be the next generation and it's like Jack Jack's a dad.

• 37:04David Sims?

  That would be pretty funny. Craig T. Nelson's old.

• 37:07Griffin Newman?

  David's laughing.

• 37:08David Sims?

  I'm laughing. I don't know, maybe it'll be good. It's totally not. It's totally gonna be Paddington and Peru, in my opinion.

• 37:13Griffin Newman?

  Heard the script.

• 37:13David Sims?

  I know, so that's cool. Like, my guess is it'll be something where I'm like, this resembles what I like about the, you know, all of this. But it, you know, I can, it feels a little chintzy.

• 37:22Griffin Newman?

  It's very frustrating.

• 37:23David Sims?

  It's a little frustrating.

• 37:24Griffin Newman?

  Pete Son has made, this will be the third film he directs, we're gonna talk about, a lot about Pixar director careers in this series, a thing I studied deeply. But he's directed three films. He's one of the kind of Pixar brain trust, top story guys who's worked on all these projects. And he himself has voiced so many beloved characters, like Emil and Ratatouille.

• 37:44David Sims?

  Sure.

• 37:44Griffin Newman?

  Sox, who is arguably the only good part of Lightyear.

• 37:47David Sims?

  Sox is fun.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Definitely the only good part of Lightyear.

• 37:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Like, he's, he's a really, really fun voice actor. Noted. Yeah.

• 37:54David Sims?

  He's there.

• 37:55Griffin Newman?

  Gun to your head, can you name that character?

• 37:57David Sims?

  I just remember that he's riffing on a level that's just sublime.

• 37:59Griffin Newman?

  It is. He does some shit with a pen.

• 38:02David Sims?

  I couldn't name any fucking character in Lightyear, and it's called Lightyear and stars Buzz Lightyear, and I'm still like, is that character called Buzz Lightyear?

• 38:08Griffin Newman?

  I don't, I don't want you to, um, call, uh, mental health hotlines on my behalf, but I did the other night fall down a rabbit hole of watching Lightyear videos on YouTube.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Well, it's the movie on the, about the man on which the toy is based.

• 38:24Griffin Newman?

  It's, Becca, I'm sorry, but it, this is not a movie about the toy. This is a movie about the real person Buzz Lightyear.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  The real person upon, on which.

• 38:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  The toy was based.

• 38:38David Sims?

  Squirt in this, uh, movie.

• 38:41Griffin Newman?

  Is Brad Bird's son.

• 38:42David Sims?

  I was about to say, the little baby turtle.

• 38:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 38:44David Sims?

  That's Brad Bird's son, Nicholas Bird.

• 38:45Griffin Newman?

  Who Andrew Stanton heard him speak and was like, this is our generation's thumper. Rarely do you find, he might also be the, what are you waiting for to do something incredible, I guess, kid in Incredibles, if I'm not mistaken?

• 39:00David Sims?

  Something amazing, I guess.

• 39:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I, I think that's him as well. Uh, this is the cross pollination of all these things. This is a period of time where Pixar has been super tight and focused.

• 39:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 39:12Griffin Newman?

  Basically one, like, dream team of people working on all these movies. And for the first time, it's starting to spread out. They're starting to have multiple productions running at the same time. You know, the first three movies are all directed by the same very normal man with really normal boundaries, who just loves hugging. And, uh, Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton were the first two people hired.

• 39:39David Sims?

  At Pixar.

• 39:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 39:40David Sims?

  They have their sort of initial fabled, kind of like, early, what kind of movies could we do meeting, right? Where they like supposedly.

• 39:47Griffin Newman?

  We're gonna, we're gonna crack open the dossier.

• 39:49David Sims?

  Yeah, let's crack open the dossier.

• 39:59Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 40:00David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:01Griffin Newman?

  Moooo.

• 40:04David Sims?

  Is that the Cine's cow?

• 40:05Griffin Newman?

  The Cine's cow is back.

• 40:06David Sims?

  Haven't heard from her in a while.

• 40:07Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:13David Sims?

  Okay.

• 40:13Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:18David Sims?

  Wow.

• 40:18Griffin Newman?

  The cow likes chicken.

• 40:20David Sims?

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

• 40:27Griffin 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.

• 40:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 40:39Griffin Newman?

  One of my favorite movies of the year.

• 40:40David Sims?

  Absolutely.

• 40:41Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:47David Sims?

  That is a line in the movie.

• 40:48Griffin Newman?

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

• 40:51David Sims?

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

• 40:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:55David Sims?

  Great friend.

• 40:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 40:56David Sims?

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

• 41:02Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh.

• 41:03David Sims?

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

• 41:05Griffin Newman?

  Performances, friend of the show.

• 41:06David Sims?

  Friend of the show, Zach Cherry.

• 41:08Griffin Newman?

  Zach Cherry.

• 41:08David Sims?

  Also in it.

• 41:09Griffin Newman?

  This is true.

• 41:10David Sims?

  Such a cool movie. One of the 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 MUBI.

• 41:21Griffin 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.

• 41:35David Sims?

  At Camp Miasma, yes. And you know, and then they hang out and it's regular.

• 41:39Griffin 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.

• 41:51David Sims?

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

• 42:03Griffin Newman?

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

• 42:09David Sims?

  Damn right.

• 42:14Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 42:15David Sims?

  Yes?

• 42:16Griffin Newman?

  Shop.com is giving away $1 million in Shop Cash.

• 42:20David Sims?

  Wow. Shop has all the stores you love and lets you track every order in one spot.

• 42:25Griffin Newman?

  I love that. It's very convenient.

• 42:26David Sims?

  And now, 1,000 shoppers are each gonna win $1,000 in Shop Cash just in time for the holidays.

• 42:34Griffin Newman?

  You get gifts for everyone on your list, or get yourself something a little merry and bright. Find exactly what you're looking for at shop.com.

• 42:42David Sims?

  Uh, got stocking stuffers, maybe. The sickest luxury items. Cookware, to kicks, toys to high-tech, even tinsel and tree toppers. Type in what you're looking for to instantly search every shop at once, okay? That's shop.com. You can just go, click around, find brands you love, search across all the stores, track every order in one spot.

• 43:06Griffin Newman?

  From cult favorites to the world's biggest brands, score suite deals, and checkout fast, all at shop.com. Enter to win the $1 million Shop Cash giveaway from now until November 1st. Just go to shop.com. There are so many ways to win. That's shop.com. Shopping designed around you. No purchase necessary. Restrictions apply. Official rules available at shop.com.

• 43:37Griffin Newman?

  David!

• 43:37David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 43:38Griffin Newman?

  It's not cuffing season for me, it's hosi season for me. And this year, that meant finally upgrading my new mattress from Lisa.

• 43:46David Sims?

  Lisa!

• 43:47Griffin Newman?

  It's supportive, comfortable, and just what my body needs after a long day. It makes crawling into bed on a chilly fall night feel like luxury.

• 43:54David Sims?

  Yeah, I have a Lisa too. Uh, they've got a lineup of beautifully crafted mattresses tailored to how you sleep.

• 44:00Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:01David Sims?

  Each mattress is designed with specific sleep positions and feel preferences in mind. They've got eco-friendly materials.

• 44:07Griffin Newman?

  Maybe you hear eco-friendly and you go, "Oh, but I'm gonna sacrifice comfort."

• 44:11David Sims?

  No!

• 44:11Griffin Newman?

  Nope.

• 44:12David Sims?

  They've been awarded best hybrid and best memory foam mattresses by New York Times' Wirecutter. They're featured by West Elm as their go-to mattress partner, and they work with local nonprofits across the US to donate thousands of mattresses each year to families in need. Over 43,000 mattresses donated to date. Go to lisa.com for up to 30% off mattresses. Plus, get an extra $50 off with promo code BLANKCHECK. Exclusive for our listeners. That's L-E-E-S-A.com promo code BLANKCHECK for up to 30% off mattresses plus an extra $50 off. Let them know we sent you and the survey after checkout. Lisa.com promo code BLANKCHECK.

• 45:02Griffin Newman?

  Basically Pixar is originally a computer technology company. They're like, we should have an animation division. Someone should be fucking around with this computer animation thing and seeing if there's any money there. It's of course a company started by George Lucas. John Lasseter is fired from Disney, where he was kind of constantly the guy who was next up to maybe direct a feature. The one that comes really close to happening is Where the Wild Things Are. There was animation tests you can see that's really interesting. Lasseter, like when he saw Tron was just like, this is the future. There's some future in combining these things, which Disney ends up obviously doing with like Beauty and the

• 45:43Griffin Newman?

  Beast and Lion King with their big set piece sequences using CGI backgrounds. Where the Wild Things Are was supposed to be that. He also develops Brave Little Toaster, which is taken away from him.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Which feels very spiritually Pixar.

• 45:55David Sims?

  Yeah, it's a movie with Pixar juice, even if it's right, like, kind of cheap and light on execution.

• 46:00Griffin Newman?

  And Toy Story definitely feels like a refinement of everything he was starting to noodle with. But he gets fired. He goes to this computer conference, I think it's Siggraph.

• 46:09David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 46:10Griffin Newman?

  He makes the play. They hire him to be the animation guy. He's one dude noodling, and when they finally go like, we have some extra budget to see if there's more that can be built here. Who would you want to hire? He goes to his two Cal Arts classmates, Pete Docter, who becomes the first person other than Lasseter to direct a Pixar movie, Monsters, Inc. And then Andrew Stanton's the second. That's sort of the next phase is the anointment of you guys get to make your own movies.

• 46:36David Sims?

  This is true. Um, and yeah, they were, they were pretty good. Before I open the dossier, Becca, your experience with Finding Nemo, you're slightly younger than me. Did you see this in theaters?

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And I feel like everyone I've spoken to really remembers seeing it in theaters as well. I would have been nine and I'm, I think I loved it, but it was also a time when like every year of my life, like one new landmark animated movie would come out that felt like, it was just a constant heightening because it was sort of like tail end of Disney Renaissance.

• 47:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 47:14Speaker 04

  And the early Pixar's and throw Shrek into the mix. Throw, you know, as a kid, it was huge Ice Age into the mix. Like every year there was a new animated movie that felt like the biggest thing in the world.

• 47:27Griffin Newman?

  You have basically concurrent with the decline of Disney feature animation. You have three new animation studios rising and it's still basically only like two or three animated movies a year.

• 47:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:42Griffin Newman?

  It is so different than the current landscape where we're just inundated with shit.

• 47:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. And they were like really trying shit, like in a quality, like way to one up each other. So even though I, I was, I didn't see Anastasia, I was too young when it came out. Like that was a really important VHS tape.

• 47:59Griffin Newman?

  But Anastasia-

• 48:00Speaker 04

  From random third studios joining the mix.

• 48:04Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say Anastasia is part of the kind of like nineties rush. And there's the eighties rush as well of like Don Bluth has left. Other studios are trying to see Disney's weak. Is there a chance to dethrone Disney and be the default animation studio? And then when Disney rises again, it's even more of a feeding frenzy of, Jesus Christ, they're making so much money. We should be in this business. But you look at those movies in the eighties and nineties and it's primarily either feature length adaptations of TV shows, which are sort of their own thing and are often junkier and lower budget, right? Or it's other studios trying to figure out how to crack the Disney playbook. Anastasia is very much, can we do the Disney thing?

• 48:49Griffin Newman?

  When Toy Story comes out, it's like this absolute lightning bolt of like, wait a second. Is there actually not- A one kind of formula pattern for what an American animated movie can be, while being seen as like A-level, you know, highbrow. Um, and then I think DreamWorks and Blue Sky, these other studios are all going like, "Fuck, is there a chance to like define what your own thing is?" There's new visual styles possibly, there are new storytelling styles, there are new styles of humor. Suddenly, these things don't have to be musicals, they don't have to be based on fairy tales.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  Plus, there's some stop motion entering the mix.

• 49:26Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 49:26Speaker 04

  Um, I'll also say like, even though I was like becoming aware of movies during the era that like people, that some people see as the decline of the Renaissance.

• 49:36Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 49:37Speaker 04

  Because of when they came out and, and the age of, like Tarzan is still maybe my favorite.

• 49:42David Sims?

  This is something that, as you know, I like am in media and whatever, I'm in, I'm like, I know people who are a little younger than me. And I'm like, right, Tarzan, like, I don't, I saw that in theaters, but by then I was like, ah, the juice is out of this. I mean, Emma Stefanski in our Treasure Planet episode, where I was like, right, I didn't even see this shit. And she's like, oh, I, when I saw this, I assumed it was the biggest hit of all time. Like, it was just a giant movie for us.

• 50:06Griffin Newman?

  The difference is Tarzan was a huge hit.

• 50:08David Sims?

  Tarzan was a huge hit.

• 50:09Griffin Newman?

  Tarzan like.

• 50:09David Sims?

  But to me was just like, okay.

• 50:11Speaker 04

  And Tarzan rips.

• 50:12Griffin Newman?

  Massive soundtrack.

• 50:13David Sims?

  I mean, you'll be in my heart.

• 50:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, Phil Collins.

• 50:16David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, I, I don't mind Tarzan, I've seen it since.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  He's got the invisible touch.

• 50:22Griffin Newman?

  My personal bias aside, Tarzan is like very well reviewed, right? It, it, it is, it's a massive hit.

• 50:29David Sims?

  Yes.

• 50:30Griffin Newman?

  The soundtrack is really like culturally important, but five or six months later.

• 50:35David Sims?

  Really culturally important?

• 50:37Griffin Newman?

  At the time, it was fucking humongous. We've gotten criticized for being like the Tarzan soundtrack, obviously sucks.

• 50:43David Sims?

  I'm pumping the brakes. I don't think it sucks. I just don't think it was cultural.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  It's a dog contemporary.

• 50:48David Sims?

  King level, earwormy.

• 50:51Griffin Newman?

  It was the second closest they had ever gotten to that.

• 50:53David Sims?

  I disagree.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  And You'll Be in My Heart was their last sort of like credits adult contemporary hit song of the 90s. They closed out.

• 51:02Griffin Newman?

  I don't care that much for Tarzan, but I just think these are objective facts.

• 51:05Speaker 04

  I think the tree surfing and the vine swinging looks awesome.

• 51:08David Sims?

  But I mean, like.

• 51:09Griffin Newman?

  This is my bigger point is like, big hit, totally works. There is this sense of like, is Disney back? Have they saved themselves? Five months later, Toy Story 2 comes out and it feels like the takeaway from everyone is like, Tarzan's the end of an era and this is the future. We all had fun with Tarzan.

• 51:25David Sims?

  Right.

• 51:25Griffin Newman?

  But like, we're moving past this.

• 51:27David Sims?

  Yeah, and the formula, it's no good anymore. Right.

• 51:30Griffin Newman?

  In the 2000s, Lilo and Stitch is the only Disney feature theatrical animated movie that I would say unequivocally works. That is the only one.

• 51:39David Sims?

  I know. I think Emperor's Groove.

• 51:41Speaker 04

  Princess and the Frog, is that or not?

• 51:43Griffin Newman?

  I'm saying financially, critically, and test of time.

• 51:47David Sims?

  Okay.

• 51:47Griffin Newman?

  Emperor's Groove was a disappointment at the time.

• 51:50David Sims?

  I guess so.

• 51:50Griffin Newman?

  It was, at the box office.

• 51:51David Sims?

  Financially, it was a little.

• 51:52Speaker 04

  You've heard about what they're building. They're building an Isma coaster in Villenland.

• 51:59Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 52:00Speaker 04

  They're doing a pull the lever.

• 52:02Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 52:02Speaker 04

  Cause they've downgraded from it was gonna be a Maleficent water ride thing.

• 52:07David Sims?

  What is Villenland?

• 52:10Griffin Newman?

  Here's a fun game. David, what do you think Villenland is? From saying what Becca just said, from hearing her say that.

• 52:15David Sims?

  So it's, cause I'm like really bad at this. Or is it just in Walt Disney World or is it in both?

• 52:21Griffin Newman?

  It would only be in World for now.

• 52:23David Sims?

  Cause World's larger. There's more space for stuff.

• 52:25Griffin Newman?

  That's Orlando.

• 52:26David Sims?

  But, and I know World has.

• 52:29Griffin Newman?

  It's made up of multiple parts.

• 52:30David Sims?

  Right. So I know there's like Epcot and Animal Kingdom and all this.

• 52:33Griffin Newman?

  You named two. Can you name the other two?

• 52:35David Sims?

  Is there one that's just kinda like, main Disney?

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. Could you think of what it's called?

• 52:40Griffin Newman?

  What would your guess be?

• 52:41David Sims?

  Disney World. No, I have no idea. Magic Kingdom. Yes, I did know it. I did know it. And then is like Star Wars World its own thing or is that within one of the worlds? Yeah, right. See, this is where they get me.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Think of, think of the movies.

• 52:54David Sims?

  The movies?

• 52:55Griffin Newman?

  Now, the problem is this land has changed names many times.

• 52:58David Sims?

  Okay. Uh, give me another hint.

• 53:00Griffin Newman?

  It was called Disney MGM Studios. It is now Disney Hollywood Studios.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would have accepted. I would have accepted MGM.

• 53:07Griffin Newman?

  Right. So that is them competing with Universal.

• 53:10David Sims?

  Studios. I get that. Is there another one?

• 53:12Griffin Newman?

  Epcot was Walt's dining room.

• 53:13Speaker 04

  There's two water parks.

• 53:14Griffin Newman?

  And Animal Kingdom was them competing with SeaWorld and Bus Gardens and Zoos.

• 53:19David Sims?

  Yeah, okay.

• 53:21Griffin Newman?

  Those are the four in Orlando. There's the fucking water parks that I think Becca were on the same page. Don't fucking count. That's not a proper.

• 53:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I still haven't ever been.

• 53:30David Sims?

  The villain world is in the Magic Kingdom.

• 53:32Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, it will be.

• 53:34Griffin Newman?

  Now, why are they, why are they doing that?

• 53:36David Sims?

  Villains are probably the descendants. No, no, no, no.

• 53:39Speaker 04

  What are they competing with? Movies again.

• 53:41Griffin Newman?

  What are they competing with?

• 53:42David Sims?

  The Dark Universe, of course.

• 53:44Griffin Newman?

  Exactly. Truly.

• 53:45David Sims?

  Really?

• 53:46Griffin Newman?

  Is that Universal opened their new park in Orlando?

• 53:48David Sims?

  They've got like their monster stuff.

• 53:49Griffin Newman?

  Where they reclaimed the name Dark Universe and applied it to monster theme park. And so now Disney's like, fuck, they have a cool scary thing. We need a cool scary thing. Villenland. Now, all the rumors had been it was gonna be built around Maleficent.

• 54:04David Sims?

  Uh huh.

• 54:04Griffin Newman?

  As the centering force.

• 54:05David Sims?

  And they're sort of realizing like, hmm, maybe Maleficent's like kind of old news.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  Um, oh no, they still are doing.

• 54:11David Sims?

  Isn't that why they were thinking of?

• 54:12Speaker 04

  The Maleficent water ride.

• 54:14David Sims?

  A third Maleficent movie? Like, they're always claiming they're gonna do that.

• 54:17Griffin Newman?

  I mean, that's part of why Tron Ares happened because they also had spent hundreds of millions of dollars building a Tron roller coaster.

• 54:26David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Griffin Newman?

  And they wanted object permanence for that franchise. But interesting, so Yzma would be its own ride. It's not replacing Maleficent?

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not replacing Maleficent. Um, but this was announced after the first announcement and I think there were conversations about them actually scaling back the scary on Maleficent.

• 54:44Griffin Newman?

  This is, this is the thing. Disney's a little cowardly about getting too scary. Yzma's more funny than scary. Does she get them an easy out?

• 54:51David Sims?

  Right. Like, but then it's just like, why are you, why are you?

• 54:57Speaker 04

  And they, they love giving Patrick Warburton something to do.

• 55:00David Sims?

  Sure. Looking up Villenland.

• 55:01Griffin Newman?

  Emperor's New Groove is a masterpiece, but it was not a major hit.

• 55:04David Sims?

  Yeah, it was a minor hit at best.

• 55:06Griffin Newman?

  And it was not really appreciated at the time.

• 55:08David Sims?

  Yeah, and then, I mean, obviously.

• 55:09Griffin Newman?

  You're like Treasure Planet and Atlantis are just like complete belly flops for them.

• 55:13David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 55:13Griffin Newman?

  Home on the Range is the last hand drawn. Lilo and Stitch is the one upswing there and it's the movie that basically sneaks through the cracks and then that first CGI runs a disaster.

• 55:23David Sims?

  Right, and then you have Princess and the Frog at the end where it's like, did pretty good, people liked it, but maybe even that underwhelmed.

• 55:29Griffin Newman?

  And had the pressure on it of can this bring back the Disney Princess movie in hand drawn, it does okay, but it does well, but the next year Tangled comes out and once again it's like this is the future. Here's our model, this is what we're doing, we've redefined what our sort of Disney animated movie format is.

• 55:46David Sims?

  Um, but.

• 55:48Griffin Newman?

  So that leaves the floor open for Pixar, DreamWorks and Blue Sky.

• 55:52David Sims?

  To invent a new thing.

• 55:54Griffin Newman?

  And, and to really be like, right, it's, it's all open game and what Andrew Stanton talks about is, uh, feeling like Toy Story, Monsters Inc. and Bugs Life all shared a similar vibe. The first three, obviously, a lot of that's that they're directed by, uh.

• 56:13David Sims?

  Same Huggy guy.

• 56:14Speaker 04

  Lotso.

• 56:15Griffin Newman?

  Lotso, Huggin' Lassiter, but also that it's the one core team working on every movie. Pixar basically at this point only has enough employees to be focused on one movie at a time. And when Lassiter goes, Doctor, you get a movie, Stanton, you get a movie, they start expanding the crew and they're splitting up who's getting Peterson, who's getting Joe Raft, who's getting Pete Sohn, all these story guys. He said that to his doctor?

• 56:36David Sims?

  He was like, Doctor, you get a movie. The doctor was like, I think you should give it to one of your employees.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  But Doctor I Am movie?

• 56:40David Sims?

  That'd be good. Why wasn't Doctor Mario in Super Mario Galaxy? I'm sure that was gonna happen.

• 56:45Griffin Newman?

  I sent you a video, the theory that Doctor Mario is legally classified within Nintendo's copyrights as his own character and not Mario himself.

• 56:52David Sims?

  So it would have to be like Mario has a cousin who's a doctor.

• 56:54Griffin Newman?

  This is the way.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  That's what the dad should be disappointed about.

• 56:58David Sims?

  That would be funny.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Why aren't you a doctor like your cousin?

• 57:00David Sims?

  Why can't you be like, Doctor Mario, he's got so many pills of all colors?

• 57:03Griffin Newman?

  I send you this TikTok video that someone pointed out in the first Super Mario movie, there was an empty seat at the family dinner table where Mario's dad's like, I don't respect you being a plumber. And there's like a little nephew there whose dad is missing. And the implication is maybe, does he hate his plumber son so much because his other son?

• 57:22David Sims?

  Successful medical student.

• 57:23Griffin Newman?

  And if Mario's the last name, then his name might be Doctor like William Mario.

• 57:28Speaker 04

  This is the thing. Now, every animated movie and kids movie in a bad way is about like weird dad angst. But this is really groundbreaking and genius about weird dad angst.

• 57:42Griffin Newman?

  This movie is made by a dad working through his things versus, I think, a lot of animated movies and specifically Illumination films, and who knows why this is the case.

• 57:52David Sims?

  Right.

• 57:52Griffin Newman?

  Feel very driven by.

• 57:54David Sims?

  They've been told to be about this, yes.

• 57:56Griffin Newman?

  Well, and also people who cannot get over, my dad doesn't respect what I do for a living, which is a little limited as a story, as an emotional arc, unless you're digging really deep. Finding Nemo feels like it comes out of a very honest place, and I also think all these early Pixar movies are really defined by these guys as young fathers. You know, overgrown children, people who went into the field of animation, suddenly crossing this line of like, I have a kid and now I'm kind of like dealing with existential terror of like, wait a second, I have to be a grown up. How do I raise kids properly? What, what do I feel about how I was raised? What is the world I want them to live in? And also they're in this insane industry, working on these movies that are so intense,

• 58:41Griffin Newman?

  that take so long, and they're all kind of fighting this like concern of, am I not spending enough time with my family?

• 58:47David Sims?

  Sure. Right, right, right. And it makes sense, all these workaholics like.

• 58:50Speaker 04

  To give joy to all the children of the world, they must miss their own child's dance recital.

• 58:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 58:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 58:57David Sims?

  Soccer practice. So Andrew Stanton, I'm opening with OCA.

• 59:01Griffin Newman?

  Please do.

• 59:01David Sims?

  Born 1960, December 1965 in Massachusetts.

• 59:05David Sims?

  Hmm, heard of it?

• 59:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, he does, he has a couple of voices in this movie, but one of them is the Boston Lobsters.

• 59:12David Sims?

  Uh, born in Wellesley, uh, moved to Rockport, uh, because his, whatever, apparently his dad was sort of like Wellesley's too sort of fancy. I don't like how like rich and, rich and white it is here. Uh, his father, Ron Stanton, was an MIT graduate, founded a company called High Core, which The New Yorker says did confidential radar work for the Department of Defense.

• 59:36Griffin Newman?

  Cool.

• 59:37David Sims?

  Uh, Andrew says that Ron was a classic authoritarian figure, away from home a lot, kind of tight lipped. Gloria, the mom, puts it this way, when Andrew had done something wrong, his father never needed to say anything. He'd just come and stand in Andrew's room silently and Andrew would tell him everything. Ooh, scary.

• 59:52Griffin Newman?

  I mean, to what we were just saying-

• 59:53David Sims?

  Whereas Gloria is a fun mom. She was an actress who gave up acting to have a family and she loved, you know, to entertain and be fun.

• 1:00:01Griffin Newman?

  All of this makes a ton of sense.

• 1:00:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, he lives at the intersection of weapons, tech, and acting and fun.

• 1:00:09David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  That sort of Pixar is right in the middle.

• 1:00:11Griffin Newman?

  To your point, Becca, what a relief that the movies aren't about this.

• 1:00:15David Sims?

  Yeah, about like my parents, right.

• 1:00:17Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. My, my dad doesn't respect me being a plumber.

• 1:00:20David Sims?

  So Gloria, uh, this is all from like a New Yorker profile of him, I think for Wally is when they did this.

• 1:00:25Griffin Newman?

  There's also an incredible New Yorker profile when John Carter comes out, that we will talk about extensively in that episode.

• 1:00:31David Sims?

  Cause it's 2011.

• 1:00:32Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's right at the fulcrum point of-

• 1:00:34David Sims?

  Yeah, I think it's for John Carter.

• 1:00:35Griffin Newman?

  What's gonna happen when this movie is released.

• 1:00:37David Sims?

  So, uh, his dad introduced him to science fiction, including the John Carter novels. Uh, he was a rocket scientist, he had pulp sci-fi novels throughout the house. He dragged him to like every single sci-fi movie. He, it's not, the culture stuff isn't just coming from the mom. Uh, Stanton said, basically he was a precocious little boy with like undiagnosed ADD, who just like, wasn't quite like a child prodigy, but was clearly like very, like, very energetic and creative and like doing lots of stuff, kind of like without much encouragement. Uh, he would make little skits with a super eight camera. He had a, a show he did with his friends called The Silly Show. Sounds pretty good.

• 1:01:14Griffin Newman?

  When you watch all the vintage Pixar special features, because they were really at the forefront of DVD bonus material and showing so much of, with every release, like, here's more about like how Pixar works and pulling back the curtain, not just on the technical process.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  Which is so classic Walt's. That's so wonderful world of Disney.

• 1:01:32Griffin Newman?

  This is part of why Lassiter gets pushed into the, is he the new Uncle Walt position? But you watch those things, and I'm just gonna say this, Andrew Stanton is charismatic in a way that none of those other guys are.

• 1:01:43David Sims?

  That's interesting.

• 1:01:44Griffin Newman?

  Andrew Stanton is like-

• 1:01:45David Sims?

  He's got a little more, like, personality.

• 1:01:47Griffin Newman?

  He is just clearly, like, more of a people person versus, like, Lassiter had always felt was kind of doing an impression of an Uncle Walt.

• 1:01:54David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:01:55Griffin Newman?

  And Pete Docter, by his own admission, is a pretty introverted guy.

• 1:01:58David Sims?

  Right. He seems like a pretty reserved kind of guy.

• 1:01:59Griffin Newman?

  He's a kind of classic animator.

• 1:02:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:02:01Griffin Newman?

  I wanna just, like, draw a thing and slide it over to you rather than talk. Uh, and Andrew Stanton, I think, did a fair amount of, like, uh, school acting and such when he was growing up, which also comes across in his movies.

• 1:02:14David Sims?

  And The Silly Show.

• 1:02:15Griffin Newman?

  And The Silly Show. That he's a little bit more of a performer.

• 1:02:17David Sims?

  He went to University of Hartford for one year, but then transferred to Cal Arts.

• 1:02:21Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02:22David Sims?

  Griffin's alum.

• 1:02:23Griffin Newman?

  I dropped out, but yes.

• 1:02:25David Sims?

  So, obviously, he's part of the sort of legendary program there-

• 1:02:28Griffin Newman?

  A113.

• 1:02:29David Sims?

  That you just, uh, you know, invoked earlier, Lassiter and his old friends.

• 1:02:32Griffin Newman?

  But also, I mean, that classroom, that era is also, like, I believe Steven Hellenberg, who created SpongeBob.

• 1:02:38David Sims?

  I love that guy.

• 1:02:39Griffin Newman?

  Brad Bird is there with them at that same time, even though he comes to Pixar later. I mean, it's like 10 people in that year who went on to make an outsized cultural impact in animation.

• 1:02:49David Sims?

  He had been dating his, uh, now-wife Julie, basically since he was 15 years old. She went to Georgetown. They got married right after they graduated, basically, uh, settled in Los Angeles. Stanton worked on a sex education film starring Martin Short for Croyer Films, animated The Sperm.

• 1:03:06Griffin Newman?

  Is this The Journey of Me?

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Is this coming all the way back around to Look Who's Talking?

• 1:03:12Griffin Newman?

  I think so. I believe there's an attraction-

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  And Hardy.

• 1:03:15Griffin Newman?

  That at one point was part of Epcot called The Journey of Me.

• 1:03:18David Sims?

  The Making of Me.

• 1:03:19Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  I've seen this. So, yeah, it's a sex education short that played in the sort of-

• 1:03:22David Sims?

  Big sense. The timing lines up.

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  The wonders of the human body part of Epcot.

• 1:03:25David Sims?

  Yeah. It was, uh, Wonders of Life Pavilion. Fair enough. Uh, like many Cal Arts students, he wanted to work at Disney, was rejected three times.

• 1:03:32Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:33David Sims?

  Uh, but then he meets John Lassiter, and he had, I guess, some student films. I had these student films that were luckily entertaining enough that they showed some at festivals that also had like Luxo and Tin Toy, the early Lassiter shorts playing at them and they kind of hit it off. My favorite's the bicycle one, Red's Dream.

• 1:03:51Griffin Newman?

  Red's Dream.

• 1:03:52David Sims?

  Always liked that one.

• 1:03:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53David Sims?

  As a freaky clown.

• 1:03:54Griffin Newman?

  Stanton's stuff is really funny, too.

• 1:03:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57Griffin Newman?

  He also, I mean, I don't, time might be off on this, but I know he worked on the Ralph Bakshi Mighty Mouse cartoon.

• 1:04:02David Sims?

  I mean, the Sex Ed thing was, I think, also Bakshi Studios or maybe, or I can't remember.

• 1:04:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:04:07David Sims?

  Mighty Mouse is the new adventure.

• 1:04:08Speaker 04

  I need to think of Bakshi making something for like Epcot goers.

• 1:04:12David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:12Griffin Newman?

  This is this weird era where Bakshi's like trying to play a little more mainstream, but all the stuff he makes is just kind of subtly off and weird.

• 1:04:20Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:04:21Griffin Newman?

  Not that I think he's trying to be transgressive, but that he can't be normal.

• 1:04:24Speaker 04

  There's something inherently degenerate, like coursing through what he does.

• 1:04:29Griffin Newman?

  That Mighty Mouse cartoon is like that and is fascinating. I highly recommend looking it up. But Stanton, I think, had writing credits on the whole season and was pretty involved in that, yeah.

• 1:04:37David Sims?

  Can you watch the shorts? Are those available?

• 1:04:40Griffin Newman?

  They must be somewhere, but Mighty Mouse is one of those things where I could not even tell you who has the rights. I'm like, are the Mighty Mouse rights owned by like Crest toothpaste through some weird conglomerations?

• 1:04:54David Sims?

  So he is hired as Pixar's second ever animator.

• 1:04:57Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57David Sims?

  Obviously Pixar has been taken under the wing of Steve Jobs at that point. Andrew, happy-go-lucky, they say, relied on humor to get by. He works on Toy Story, obviously. He's, that's his first Oscar nomination. He's one of the many credited writers of Toy Story.

• 1:05:13Griffin Newman?

  So let me just unpack this a little bit. Cause A, I think he is, he's, as I said, he's a very charismatic guy. He's very sociable. There's a story I'll tell later in this episode. That's kind of a thing that makes him as a filmmaker. Um, but he is an incredibly anxious, somewhat cynical person. He talks about like the constant battle between those two forces within himself.

• 1:05:35David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Griffin Newman?

  And trying to, probably the battle between like his mom and his dad, you know? Being someone who is avuncular and outgoing and sociable, but is constantly kind of like wrestling with these concerns inside of his head. Everyone at Pixar says that like Woody is him.

• 1:05:54David Sims?

  That's interesting. He says, Stanton, he says he's Sid.

• 1:05:59David Sims?

  I can give you the quote.

• 1:06:00Griffin Newman?

  So he, Ben.

• 1:06:02David Sims?

  He, he, he came up with the character. He was, he was the guy who wrote Sid, essentially.

• 1:06:06Griffin Newman?

  And that Sid is the reflection of what he was like as a teenager.

• 1:06:10David Sims?

  He liked to break his toys and then like remake them into new things.

• 1:06:13Griffin Newman?

  Right, as creative projects.

• 1:06:15David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:06:15Griffin Newman?

  Which is back to this point I'm making of like Sid doesn't know he's a fucking villain in Toy Story. Andrew Stanton's always said this, he's like Sid's a creative kid who just hasn't gotten an art school yet. He doesn't have an outlet, you know?

• 1:06:28Griffin Newman?

  The, the kind of like myth-making here is within Pixar, they're sort of like, I guess we need to bring in an outside screenwriter, a Hollywood screenwriter. A number of people take passes at Toy Story in years of development, including a similarly normal person, Joss Whedon. One of the fake Cohens, I can't, it's not E. Tan Cohen, but maybe it's the other Joel Cohen spelled differently.

• 1:06:53David Sims?

  Fine.

• 1:06:53Griffin Newman?

  There were like four or five credited screenwriters on Toy Story who are mostly-

• 1:06:56David Sims?

  Joel Cohen.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  There we go.

• 1:06:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:06:58Griffin Newman?

  Mostly other kind of like Hollywood spec script punch-up rewrite guys. And they kept having people come in, they'd pay them to work on the script for like a couple of months. They'd fix a couple of things, but other things wouldn't be fixed, they had never really solved it. Disney wasn't giving them more budget. And the sort of like myth-making part of this is that Andrew Stanton goes like, can I just like try and see if I can do a pass? And Stanton sort of holes away with the script and is the guy who like finally fixes everything and cracks everything.

• 1:07:26David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:07:27Griffin Newman?

  And makes it cohesive. And Pixar realizes like, oh fuck, we have a screenwriter here. We have a guy in-house who knows how to do this stuff.

• 1:07:36Griffin Newman?

  Especially after the infamous Black Friday screening.

• 1:07:38David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:07:39Griffin Newman?

  Where there was the very dark, very cynical version of the movie after-

• 1:07:43Speaker 04

  Where Woody was like an asshole originally.

• 1:07:45Griffin Newman?

  Yes, Katzenberg had kept saying like, I think there's a future with edgier, funnier, darker, more adult animated movies.

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  And little did he know.

• 1:07:53Griffin Newman?

  He basically gets there with Shrek. Shrek is what he always wanted to make. But he kept pushing Pixar past their natural instincts. And so there's the screening they show of the story reels right before it goes to animation. That's like a disaster where Disney's gonna pull the plug on the movie because they're like, this lead character is like- A complete asshole. This movie is just unpleasant to watch and they beg for three days to rework the film. And I think Stanton does a lot of the story heavy lifting and they do the just like, fuck it, let's get back to the exact movie we want to make. They green light that conditionally and the film ends up happening as it is. But there is this kind of like Stanton's attitude mirrors Woody very much of constantly

• 1:08:37Griffin Newman?

  being frustrated but wanting to put forward the face of like, I got this under control. I'm looking out for all of you.

• 1:08:43David Sims?

  Right, right, right. Well, that makes sense.

• 1:08:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46David Sims?

  So Jim Morris says he's the best sort of genius for story structure.

• 1:08:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:08:51David Sims?

  That's one Pixar guy. Michael Arndt, that guy, you know, says that he's kind of good at being harsh in a story. Like he'll, he'll say the thing that's not working or whatever, like he's more blunt.

• 1:09:03Griffin Newman?

  I saw him saying in an interview that that was a big thing from Steve Jobs, who, you know, in this era is still very hands on with Pixar, that he was just like, people would get really turned off by how blunt Steve Jobs was, but he was just kind of ruthless in identifying what is the problem and what is the thing that needs to get done.

• 1:09:23David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:09:23Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:24David Sims?

  Some of the other credits before Nemo, obviously, he's also a co-director and writer on Bugs Life. He's also the voice of Bug Zapper, Bug One, and singing Grasshopper Two.

• 1:09:34Griffin Newman?

  Uh huh. In, in the Disney parks, there is an attraction that is now called, closed called Tough to Be a Bug that took place inside the tree in Animal Kingdom and had a giant animatronic hopper that they didn't need to remove when Kevin Spacey got canceled because Kevin Spacey refused to do the recording. Andrew Stanton did it instead. Andrew Stanton does a weirdly good Kevin Spacey impression.

• 1:09:58Speaker 04

  And that was already one of the scariest things in Disney parks without Kevin even doing the voice.

• 1:10:04Griffin Newman?

  True.

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  And it has been replaced by a horrible Zootopia attraction.

• 1:10:08David Sims?

  Right, interesting.

• 1:10:09Griffin Newman?

  Tough to be an animal.

• 1:10:11David Sims?

  He's the voice, oh, sorry.

• 1:10:12Griffin Newman?

  No, I was just gonna say, co-director in animation can mean a number of different things. Sometimes it means that two people are directing a film equally. In this era of Pixar, it's sort of the junior director thing. Lassiter taking him on as co-director for A Bug's Life was sort of to train him to be able to make his own film. But he is, by all accounts, kind of the main screenwriter of A Bug's Life. And also, when Toy Story 2 is saved from direct-to-video and reworked, he is the guy who does that. So, across those first three movies, he is like the main writer guy.

• 1:10:45David Sims?

  Um, right, right. So, Toy Story 2, he's got the credit. Of course, he's the voice of Ham in Buzz Lightyear, Star Command: The Adventure Begins. Can't say I knew that.

• 1:10:52Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's just in the opening. This is the thing, he's a really good performer, and he would often do sound-alike voices for when the stars didn't want to come do something like a ride or a commercial or whatever it is. He is the voice of Zerg canonically in Toy Story 2.

• 1:11:06David Sims?

  He is.

• 1:11:07Griffin Newman?

  That is him. He's the real Zerg voice, obviously with a bunch of modulators on him.

• 1:11:11David Sims?

  So, finding the most been swimming around in his head. Interesting, he has some words there.

• 1:11:15Griffin Newman?

  Mm.

• 1:11:16David Sims?

  It's about a fish. Uh, since Toy Story, he says, he'd always wanted to do the ocean. He was fixated on a child in his dentist's water, uh, fish tank, which was embedded in a wall.

• 1:11:25Griffin Newman?

  When he was a child, he would look at the fish tank.

• 1:11:26David Sims?

  Yeah. Which was a weird way to see humans. What's the movie about? What's, what makes me care? He says he's on a walk, uh, with his five-year-old son Ben, and he has the terrible anxiety, uh, that he realized that his terrible anxiety was making him a bad father. Like, that he kept being like, "Careful," you know, like...

• 1:11:43Griffin Newman?

  That he was like, pulling him from running into the street and all the sort of things, and he went like...

• 1:11:47David Sims?

  You should do that.

• 1:11:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, but, but it was the intensity of his worry that he felt, right? And he was like, "Here's my day, I have a, you know, a day alone with my son, and I'm gonna have no good lasting memories of this because I spent the entire day concerned about everything he was doing." And not actually connecting to him. And that's the real, like, germ of the idea. I wanna make a movie about that.

• 1:12:11David Sims?

  He also had seen an early cut of Lion King. And apparently remembers just slamming on it, says like, sort of shows what I know. He hated the idea of the sort of circle of life of like, ah, we're all just part of this grand chain and we're all, you know, it's all helpful. He likes the Bambi idea of like, it's a real scary predatory world. And he's like, Nemo is set in the Bambi world.

• 1:12:34Griffin Newman?

  This is another thing that I really give him specifically credit for changing in the language of American movies, because I really think it starts with Toy Story. Animated movies in which characters talk like grownups.

• 1:12:47David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:12:48Griffin Newman?

  Where you're not dealing with kind of like mythical, representational, voices of reason, cosmic evils. And so much of the comedy in this movie is just that it's funny that two fishes are talking in this casual way, and that they are so recognizable as personality types. But I think, right, he's, he's speaking to a very specific human anxiety rather than kind of like a larger just so stories type of lesson.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, without tipping too far into the like shark tale, like, A, I'm swimming here, which I'm just gonna guess they say.

• 1:13:21Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:13:21David Sims?

  If they don't say that, it missed opportunity. Arkham and fucked up.

• 1:13:25Speaker 04

  They do sound like grownups, but and not in that DreamWorks way, which is a different thing.

• 1:13:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I think, I think it's that the DreamWorks movies start really iterating on other things in pop culture.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:36Griffin Newman?

  In a kind of, uh, post-modern, uh, meta textual, self-referential kind of way. And what Stan sort of identifies is like, an audience will laugh if a character suddenly reminds you of a type of person you know. Not an archetype in sitcoms, you know, but like a type of person with a specificity. Um, yeah.

• 1:14:01David Sims?

  Um, so Finding Nemo, uh, he settles on clownfish because he sees like a coffee table book and finds them arresting. I mean, it's obvious, like, it's a great idea.

• 1:14:11Griffin Newman?

  He saw a picture of two clownfish coming out of an anemone, and it looked like they were sort of hiding. And he was like, and it looks like a parent and a child.

• 1:14:19David Sims?

  He presents an hour-long pitch to Lassiter. Lassiter's a longtime scuba diver, because he was hugging the fish down there, too.

• 1:14:25Griffin Newman?

  Unfortunately.

• 1:14:27David Sims?

  And Lassiter says, "You had me at fish."

• 1:14:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30David Sims?

  And then he's like, "How about a hawk?"

• 1:14:33Griffin Newman?

  The other part of that story is-

• 1:14:35David Sims?

  Bring it in, buddy. Anyone else wanna join?

• 1:14:38Griffin Newman?

  Stanton, the worrywart, planned an hour-long pitch that involved him doing all the voices-

• 1:14:42David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 1:14:43Griffin Newman?

  And sound effects, and he had audio cues and-

• 1:14:45David Sims?

  Lassiter's like, "Fish, that's a great idea."

• 1:14:47Griffin Newman?

  We can sell fish.

• 1:14:48David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:14:48Griffin Newman?

  Truly.

• 1:14:49David Sims?

  They're colorful.

• 1:14:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  We also can't stress enough how big SpongeBob was at the time.

• 1:14:54David Sims?

  That's true.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  Everyone loved underwater. We were underwater crazy.

• 1:14:58Griffin Newman?

  Let's call out, though, this is, it's a little bit of parallel thinking. Like SpongeBob premieres in 99. There's four years in between.

• 1:15:05David Sims?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:15:05Griffin Newman?

  But the lead time on animation is-

• 1:15:08David Sims?

  This is around 2000, I think, when this movie goes into production, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:11Griffin Newman?

  SpongeBob was immediately a hit, like, right out of the box. I think that was a little bit of them getting lucky with timing. Another thing, I think I saw Jim Morris say this, that was unique about this movie, is so often, they would come up with a big idea at Pixar, and then they would all sort of brainstorm together, and then they'd hire an outside screenwriter, or three or four people would noodle on it, and they'd keep iterating and adding things to it, until they finally got to something vaguely resembling a script. Stanton literally just sat down and wrote a script for this one.

• 1:15:39David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:15:40Griffin Newman?

  It is, like, right after A Bug's Life.

• 1:15:42David Sims?

  It's different from the prior, yeah. I know there's other people now, like, other people credited and all that, but he had a screenplay.

• 1:15:47Griffin Newman?

  But, but in a kind of complete vision way, it gets changed in, in regards, but it was a, like, "Here's the arc of my story, here's what it's about, here are the major beats."

• 1:15:57David Sims?

  However-

• 1:15:58Griffin Newman?

  Beginning to end.

• 1:15:58David Sims?

  The problem was the tank story. Like, he had the search for Nemo stuff, I think, much more set. But the tank story kept derailing the narrative, is how the other Pixar guys put it, in the sort of initial pitch.

• 1:16:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. How does that not feel like you're cutting away to an inactive thing?

• 1:16:14David Sims?

  Exactly, right. The original script, also, The Loss of Marlin's Wife, was communicated with three flashbacks in her first through the film, and only in the third, we've talked about this on this podcast before, only in the third act, do you see that it was like this barracuda attack or whatever.

• 1:16:27Griffin Newman?

  Allow me to restate this.

• 1:16:28David Sims?

  Please do it now, because it's like, basically, like, audiences were like, "What the fuck, right? Like, why is he so stressed out?"

• 1:16:32Griffin Newman?

  It is the most important thing in Andrew Stanton's career, and it swings back in a- Different way in John Carter and a way we need to talk about. So this is the thing that needs to be established. He, as a guy who now, in the time between Toy Story and Finding Nemo, has gotten really serious about screenwriting and read the books and studied other movies and really tried to understand screenwriting as an art form, was obsessed with movies that are able to do this as a storytelling device. Isn't that fun when a movie can kind of slowly tease out information and backfill it in multiple flashbacks? And so he just, that was the shape he conceived in his head of, the movie starts with Nemo waking Marlin up, his first day of school, and yada, yada, yada, and across the film you start to get these flashbacks

• 1:17:17Griffin Newman?

  until you finally at the end realize, oh, his wife was killed by a barracuda, all the other eggs were destroyed, Nemo's the only son he has left. And they would play the story reels for audiences, which are basically, it's usually, sometimes it's Pixar animated, sometimes it's the final cast actors and the voices, lightly animated storyboards, usually with temp music. Just so before they do the expensive part of actually starting animation, they can feel the flow of the movie.

• 1:17:46Griffin Newman?

  And they play it and people are just like, we hate Marlin. He sucks.

• 1:17:51David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Griffin Newman?

  This guy drives me crazy. And by the time they explain why he has this level of neuroses, it's too late. The audience isn't on board. Right. And he keeps trying to crack it and he can't. And then he's just finally like, what if I just put all this stuff at the top?

• 1:18:05David Sims?

  Yeah, and it makes sense.

• 1:18:06Griffin Newman?

  I just do it.

• 1:18:07David Sims?

  It's also really helpful for me because I can just not watch that with my daughter. Just skip right past it.

• 1:18:11Griffin Newman?

  It, but as you said, he was like, everyone was concerned, that's too scary. You can't frontload it in a movie. And he said, like, that's Bambi. Bambi exists and Bambi survives.

• 1:18:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:21Griffin Newman?

  As a beloved film.

• 1:18:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:18:23Griffin Newman?

  I think you need to like, look the scary thing in the eye. And the second he did that, the movie worked. The other thing that happens is.

• 1:18:30David Sims?

  Story. I don't know if you know, if that's what you were gonna say, but to him it's story. What are you gonna say?

• 1:18:36Griffin Newman?

  There was a different actor cast.

• 1:18:38David Sims?

  Well, we'll get to that. Let's get to that. Okay. The other thing for him is Dory.

• 1:18:41Griffin Newman?

  But I just want to say, he has a TED Talk around the time of John Carter, where he shares the storytelling lesson he learned there of not trying to out clever yourself as a storyteller, that it's important for audiences to have the emotional information they need to understand what's going on with the characters.

• 1:18:57David Sims?

  That makes sense. Yeah.

• 1:18:58Griffin Newman?

  And, and very often, if you try to be smart or stylish in your sort of devices, you actually, uh, it, it's cutting your nose.

• 1:19:08Speaker 04

  You're alienating the audience. You could just as easily, because with this, from the very beginning, you're like, Marlin has suffered.

• 1:19:14Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  You know, you're rooting for him.

• 1:19:17David Sims?

  It's an incredibly devastating thing, and you understa- it works perfectly.

• 1:19:21Griffin Newman?

  It is so.

• 1:19:22David Sims?

  Elizabeth Perkins crushing it.

• 1:19:24Griffin Newman?

  That's the other thing. Like, Elizabeth Perkins is great. Within 30 seconds, you understand the dynamic of their marriage. A scary thing happens. You see his anxiety. Like, it's just.

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  And it also introduces you to, like, in Finding Nemo and in the ocean, it's like, danger at every turn. These fishes' lives are very precarious. Like, we're gonna encounter a lot of scary creatures.

• 1:19:45Griffin Newman?

  There were actual stakes from the beginning. It's not just that this kid is lost. It's like, the mother dies, as do hundreds of eggs.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  At least hundreds of fish every day die in the ocean.

• 1:19:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:57David Sims?

  Dory, to him, kind of takes the film to another level. She bridges the two main characters. He was inspired by the structure of the novel Cold Mountain for this.

• 1:20:07Griffin Newman?

  So Dory's the Renee Zellweger character?

• 1:20:09David Sims?

  That's what I assume he means by that. Uh, David Reynolds, who's a Conan writer and had worked on other Pixar movies, and Bob Peterson, who.

• 1:20:17Griffin Newman?

  Mr. Ray.

• 1:20:17David Sims?

  Right, who hadn't written a movie for Pixar yet, but it's in the mix. Exactly. Like, uh, those are the other credit screenwriters. William H. Macy, first cast as Marlin. Uh, they wanted someone with a lighter touch, uh, is, uh, the cited reason.

• 1:20:33Griffin Newman?

  As Stan has always put it.

• 1:20:34David Sims?

  This is never revealed until there's like a Pixar book that reveals it, right?

• 1:20:38Griffin Newman?

  So Stan always talked about the fact that they had originally cast a dramatic actor, and it felt like it made the movie too heavy. He cast a. Guy who was funny but comes from a dramatic background and that he felt like he was playing the anxiety too real and too weighty and it fought the comedy of the movie. And he always kind of in a gentlemanly way, never named who the actor was, but then said, when we brought in Albert Brooks, he didn't need to play anxiety. That's his natural state and he could riff all these jokes on top of it and it worked. The book, The Pixar Touch.

• 1:21:10David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:21:10Griffin Newman?

  Is the one that finally puts William H. Macy as the name. It's never really been verified, but it's basically been commonly accepted. That's who it was. It makes a lot of sense to be like, Andrew Stanton thinks, well, wouldn't like, uh, William H. Macy's character from Fargo.

• 1:21:27David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:21:28Griffin Newman?

  In an animated movie be the correct version of this, but that's a very dark movie where you kind of want to watch that guy suffer.

• 1:21:34David Sims?

  Um, totally. Um, Albert Brooks had, was making The In-Laws.

• 1:21:43Griffin Newman?

  Comes out the same summer.

• 1:21:44David Sims?

  Bunch of sessions around The In-Laws, essentially. He said, he said 11 sessions of four hours each. That's all he had to do.

• 1:21:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52David Sims?

  It doesn't sound like that much to me.

• 1:21:53Griffin Newman?

  The other thing he said is that, uh, he basically would never, uh, read what was written on the page, but then would improvise for like 20 minutes.

• 1:22:03David Sims?

  He's really good.

• 1:22:04Griffin Newman?

  He's like, you can't get him to say the same thing twice. He doesn't want to do line readings.

• 1:22:08David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:22:09Griffin Newman?

  But he, because he's a writer and a filmmaker in his own right, would look and be like, what's the thing that needs to be conveyed in terms of story information in this line of dialogue? And then now I will give you 20 iterations of the funniest ways that could happen. He's a really funny guy.

• 1:22:24David Sims?

  And, and good governor.

• 1:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:22:28David Sims?

  And a good, uh, what's he becoming Secretary of Labor or Commerce or something?

• 1:22:33Griffin Newman?

  In the country in which he was born and raised.

• 1:22:37David Sims?

  We assume, we assume.

• 1:22:38Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. What if he's a dirty Ruski? What if that was cut? Out of Ellen McKay.

• 1:22:43David Sims?

  He's becoming president. He could be like Canadian or something. A Canadian's in the room with us right now.

• 1:22:47Griffin Newman?

  A Canadian's in the room with us right now.

• 1:22:48David Sims?

  Hi Becca.

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  Hi.

• 1:22:49David Sims?

  Okay, uh, Brooks comes up with the clown thing. He comes up with the joke, like the he can't do jokes.

• 1:22:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:55David Sims?

  That was Brooks's idea.

• 1:22:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:22:57David Sims?

  Um, Stanton's watching Ellen, the sitcom Ellen.

• 1:23:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes.

• 1:23:02David Sims?

  Much better than the talk show Ellen.

• 1:23:03Griffin Newman?

  Late 90s, yeah.

• 1:23:04David Sims?

  Uh, and she kinda, you know, the Ellen delivery thing of like she changes her mind five times into a sentence.

• 1:23:11Griffin Newman?

  Saw one line where she changed the topic seven times and turned to his wife and said, I think that's story. Now Dory was written to be male.

• 1:23:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:19Griffin Newman?

  And speaking of this kind of like, interesting coming in and saying, how do we break the mold of what a Pixar movie is? A little bit, right? That he felt like Toy Story, the two Toy Stories of Monsters Inc., Monsters Inc. were all buddy pictures. All had Randy Newman scores. All had a kind of similar design language, sense of humor. And that he really felt like, we need to start stretching out what these movies can be so it doesn't start to become formulaic.

• 1:23:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:23:46Griffin Newman?

  And I think, there's a, there's a way in which you can see Finding Nemo is a buddy picture because it is Dory and Nemo on this journey together. But the nature of Dory as a character prevents it from feeling like that.

• 1:23:59Speaker 04

  I, I think they're going on a sort of buddy journey. And I think it's like, one of my favorite things about the movie, especially in the context of what Pixar was before, is I love when the goofy one, funny one, stupid one is a girl. Uh, I think that was really missing in a lot of kids entertainment as the time, at the time.

• 1:24:21David Sims?

  It was seen as like retrograde at some point or like, and they stopped doing it.

• 1:24:24Griffin Newman?

  It was just like. That girls need to be like perfect love interests.

• 1:24:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, for the girl to be the hilarious, comic relief, silly, stupid one.

• 1:24:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:32Speaker 04

  Is so awesome. And I still love that when that happens in like, an ensemble sitcom or something like today, cause it still is semi-rare. And so Dory, I think is like huge.

• 1:24:43Griffin Newman?

  I, I give him super credit for just being like, oh, Ellen would work for this, even if it is not how I conceived this. Obviously, you know, it's Pixar's fame. Famous for when they picked a subject being like, let's do a ton of research. And let's find story discoveries from learning about the real thing. And certainly they did a lot of that with a bug's life. He replicated that model here. He found the thing about certain fish have like five second memories.

• 1:25:09Speaker 04

  I feel like that was already a joke about goldfish.

• 1:25:11David Sims?

  The old goldfish memory thing.

• 1:25:13Griffin Newman?

  And he was like, that's kind of an interesting character challenge. And it's could so easily be that's a character you meet for five minutes in one of many segments of the movie.

• 1:25:21David Sims?

  It's like one bit in the movie, right?

• 1:25:22Griffin Newman?

  Right. It gives himself like a real fucking tough challenge to, how do you make that the other character in the dynamic and not have it be annoying?

• 1:25:29David Sims?

  You know who's pretty funny?

• 1:25:30Griffin Newman?

  Ellen DeGeneres?

• 1:25:31David Sims?

  Dory.

• 1:25:32Griffin Newman?

  Dory rules.

• 1:25:33Speaker 04

  Dory's amazing.

• 1:25:34David Sims?

  It's a great bit.

• 1:25:35Griffin Newman?

  But I.

• 1:25:35David Sims?

  Dory's so, and Ellen is so funny in this movie. It's crazy.

• 1:25:38Griffin Newman?

  So funny, but like, how does it not? To write that character and perform that character where it's not frustrating that she's the obstacle in the movie. Because the actual goal of the film is get to Nemo. But then the person who's joining him in that goal.

• 1:25:53David Sims?

  She's kind of not helping.

• 1:25:55Griffin Newman?

  Has her own dilemma.

• 1:25:56David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:57Griffin Newman?

  It makes it all the more satisfying when she can push through things.

• 1:25:59David Sims?

  Sure.

• 1:26:00Griffin Newman?

  It makes every like win she has like so much more heartening.

• 1:26:03David Sims?

  But I mean, without her, Marlin is a pain in the ass. So what were you gonna say, Becca?

• 1:26:07Speaker 04

  Oh, just not to skip ahead, but one of the big moments that breaks my heart.

• 1:26:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:13Speaker 04

  Like as a kid, when he abandons her.

• 1:26:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:16Speaker 04

  Oof.

• 1:26:16Griffin Newman?

  But to your point, Becca, to have this character be female, to have it be an entirely a romantic relationship between male and female adult characters. They do not, I'm gonna say this on the record. Marlin and Dory do not.

• 1:26:31David Sims?

  I regret even saying that.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Not only that, but you don't even want to ship them.

• 1:26:34Griffin Newman?

  You don't want to ship them.

• 1:26:35David Sims?

  No, not really.

• 1:26:35Griffin Newman?

  This is a great point.

• 1:26:36David Sims?

  They'd be a nightmare couple.

• 1:26:37Griffin Newman?

  You don't want to ship them. It's closer to being a surrogate parenting relationship.

• 1:26:42Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:26:43David Sims?

  Sort of.

• 1:26:43Griffin Newman?

  Which is why it helps Marlin have a narrative within the film, an emotional arc of he's in trying to. Keep Dory safe, realizing the things he's fucked up with Nemo?

• 1:26:55David Sims?

  He's realizing his parenting mistakes, but he is also, Dory is also helping him overcome, like, you know, like, his anxiety, his sort of, um, his executive function problem of kind of like never making choice. Just keep swimming, man. Like, sometimes you need someone who's just like, kind of positive energy. We gotta keep going, you know? Like, he'd never make it to Nemo without that energy.

• 1:27:16Griffin Newman?

  And even with her condition, there's, the fact that she is an adult means that he talks to her a different way than he talks to Nemo.

• 1:27:23David Sims?

  Right. He can't be quite as patronizing.

• 1:27:24Griffin Newman?

  And when she pushes back on him, he, he listens a little bit more.

• 1:27:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, he learns to trust.

• 1:27:31Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Dory rules.

• 1:27:33David Sims?

  Dory's good. Ellen's great. I love to order her lunch. Just, that's what I love to do.

• 1:27:39Griffin Newman?

  I mean, this, this is...

• 1:27:41David Sims?

  And get it right every time.

• 1:27:42Griffin Newman?

  This is the movie that saves her career.

• 1:27:44David Sims?

  It, it transforms her career.

• 1:27:47Griffin Newman?

  The talk show premieres this fall after this movie is released, so obviously it was already in the works.

• 1:27:53David Sims?

  Yeah, but she, you know, she has the, the failed second sitcom.

• 1:27:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:27:58David Sims?

  2001 to 2002, which was called The Ellen Show.

• 1:28:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:01David Sims?

  Which is like, that's the one where it's like, she is gay. Like, it's like, is like baked into the show versus the first sitcom. Like, that is a revelation that comes late in the show.

• 1:28:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:11David Sims?

  And that had like Jim Gaffigan in it and stuff and Martin Mull, and it was like a big CBS show and it flopped.

• 1:28:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:17David Sims?

  And it was kind of the thing of like, right, was Ellen kind of just, you know, she had Ellen, she had the show. Like, she was, she was important culturally, but like...

• 1:28:26Griffin Newman?

  But they were also like...

• 1:28:27David Sims?

  That's kind of it.

• 1:28:28Griffin Newman?

  They were putting her in movies. Mr. Wrong's obviously a disaster, but she's in Ed TV.

• 1:28:32David Sims?

  Funny in Ed TV.

• 1:28:32Griffin Newman?

  She, she...

• 1:28:33David Sims?

  She has a line I think about all the time.

• 1:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Which one?

• 1:28:35David Sims?

  Can I say it?

• 1:28:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:37David Sims?

  It's so funny. It's just a good line. It's like Rob Reiner comes in and he's like the mean bot, the mean seat owner, network guy.

• 1:28:44Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:44David Sims?

  And there's something to do about like, you know, he's like, if you do, if this happens, I'll get you more money. And she's like, could we get coffee filters? We've been using a yarmulke. And it feels like something Ellen might have made up because it's just such a specific image. But they just have this socky on.

• 1:29:01Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:29:02David Sims?

  Anyway.

• 1:29:02Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 1:29:03Griffin Newman?

  Sorry. She was so big in the 90s. And the arc of what happens to her is really fascinating to study now because there was just like years of speculation of she's gay, right?

• 1:29:16David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:16Griffin Newman?

  We're just not saying it.

• 1:29:18David Sims?

  Right. This like short haired lady with pants.

• 1:29:20Griffin Newman?

  There's the Larry Sanders episode that happens like two years before she comes out. Where the whole premise is Rip Torn's character is pressuring Larry to be like, if we could get Ellen coming out.

• 1:29:33David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:29:33Griffin Newman?

  That would be a big boon for the show.

• 1:29:34David Sims?

  So Ellen's kind of winking at it within that show.

• 1:29:38Griffin Newman?

  And within the episode, I feel like they never say it. They never put a name to it. And then the twist in that episode is that her and Larry sleep together and he's like, I think maybe she's not. But, but much like the Seinfeld contest episode, they're never saying the word. So it was enough in the ether that she's even making jokes about the fact that she's not acknowledging it. And then they do an episode where she comes out. The character is gonna be gay and Ellen's gonna come out. It's the front page of fucking Time Magazine.

• 1:30:06David Sims?

  The puppy episode?

• 1:30:07Griffin Newman?

  Yep, I'm gay with her sitting crisscross applesauce.

• 1:30:10David Sims?

  No, she was doing a little fun, uh, fun Neil.

• 1:30:13Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you're right.

• 1:30:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:15David Sims?

  Becca knows.

• 1:30:15Speaker 04

  She's doing a gayer stance in crisscross applesauce.

• 1:30:19David Sims?

  Ellen, she's the best.

• 1:30:21Griffin Newman?

  But that episode.

• 1:30:21David Sims?

  I love Ellen.

• 1:30:22Griffin Newman?

  That episode is huge in the ratings. Yep, I'm gay makes headlines. Right. It's one of these things where like she gets this huge bump of visibility and then everyone sort of applauds her and then immediately is like, but obviously we can't like sell car commercials on a gay show. All the sponsors go away, the listeners.

• 1:30:39David Sims?

  Good point.

• 1:30:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. The viewership drops.

• 1:30:42David Sims?

  I'm just gonna get canceled.

• 1:30:43Griffin Newman?

  The show's basically canceled within a year of her coming out.

• 1:30:46David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:46Griffin Newman?

  And the attitude is like, thank you for your bravery, but obviously you're not part of the popular culture anymore. And then she talks about for years fighting to be like, uh, hosting the Emmys or hosting SNL when she didn't have anything to promote, trying to just get herself back out there as a comedian after all the offers had dried up.

• 1:31:06David Sims?

  Ellen, she ran a bookshop?

• 1:31:07Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:08David Sims?

  Was it a bookshop?

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  What?

• 1:31:10David Sims?

  Ellen.

• 1:31:11Speaker 04

  True?

• 1:31:12David Sims?

  Ellen Morgan, the character in Ellen.

• 1:31:14Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:31:14David Sims?

  Was it in a bookshop? Yeah.

• 1:31:16Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:31:16David Sims?

  It was called Buy the Book. Funny.

• 1:31:19Griffin Newman?

  But this is the movie that launches the second half of her career. That reintroduces her in undeniable kind of way.

• 1:31:26David Sims?

  Does she make a lot of movies after this?

• 1:31:28Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:31:28David Sims?

  Because she's doing the show.

• 1:31:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30David Sims?

  So the only movie she made after this in which she's not playing herself.

• 1:31:34Griffin Newman?

  Is Finding Dory.

• 1:31:35David Sims?

  Is this film called Finding Dory.

• 1:31:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37David Sims?

  In which she played Dory.

• 1:31:38Griffin Newman?

  She did play Dory.

• 1:31:40David Sims?

  And that's it. And she's never made one since.

• 1:31:42Griffin Newman?

  She did more specials.

• 1:31:44David Sims?

  She did some stand up.

• 1:31:45Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:45Speaker 04

  Like any movies?

• 1:31:47David Sims?

  No movies.

• 1:31:48Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Yeah. It's just a story from then on.

• 1:31:50David Sims?

  I think about that tweet all the time. Becca, you know what I'm talking about of like, like the loss of her, of her talk show.

• 1:31:56Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:57David Sims?

  Where she's like, she would have extracted.

• 1:31:59Speaker 04

  The balance of the universe is off.

• 1:31:59David Sims?

  Right. She would have extracted everything usable out of Hawke Tua. And like discarded her like a carcass. Like Hawke Tua got to like have a whole year because Ellen wasn't there to just kind of be like, here is Hawke Tua. We've presented her to you. We've asked all the questions and now she can go.

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're like Ellen extraction machine.

• 1:32:16David Sims?

  Yeah, right. Like that's how it used to be. It was like, there's a funny video of you ordering a donut in a weird way. Come talk to Ellen for an hour and then never be seen again.

• 1:32:25Griffin Newman?

  But it also is just fascinating that Ellen went from being like Hollywood like threw me out. They like said, thank you for your bravery and then like closed the door on me. And then she's the voice of one of the most famous and beloved animated characters of all time to the highest grossing animated films in history.

• 1:32:40David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:32:41Griffin Newman?

  And becomes like the voice of reason for every mom in America. Like has a 20 year run of just being like, she kind of controls this like sliver of the national conversation. Of just like, I'm deciding which viral people get elevated. I'm deciding like what the new style and throw pillows are at Target.

• 1:33:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is interesting that Ellen show starts and then this rise of like viral videos and social media starts and she immediately becomes, yeah, the curator of that for moms.

• 1:33:16Griffin Newman?

  And dancing, she invented dancing?

• 1:33:18Speaker 04

  There's an Ellen bit in-

• 1:33:20David Sims?

  Before then, people just stood.

• 1:33:21Speaker 04

  In the famous Jay Nirvana sequence, yes?

• 1:33:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I've heard you're afraid of clowns. No, Ellen, that's not true. And then the clown pops up out of the Jack in the Box.

• 1:33:32Speaker 04

  So there's a movie?

• 1:33:33Griffin Newman?

  There's a movie.

• 1:33:34David Sims?

  I just-

• 1:33:34Griffin Newman?

  You're right, she's in-

• 1:33:35David Sims?

  Is she coming back? Or is that, because I know she had, she had like a recent-ish special in the last five years.

• 1:33:41Speaker 04

  She did a documentary about gorillas.

• 1:33:43Griffin Newman?

  David, much like Alec Baldwin, she said goodbye to public life. On her last tour, she said, this is the last time you'll ever see me.

• 1:33:48David Sims?

  And wasn't her, I didn't watch the special, but wasn't the special kind of like, yeah, I'm rich. I live in a spaceship.

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  That's the one that had the clapper that went for like two full minutes.

• 1:33:57Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:33:57David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:33:59Speaker 04

  Like, it looked like it was edited to be, she said something very self-congratulatory and then people, they, and they kept it all in the edit of the special and everyone claps for like an hour.

• 1:34:08Griffin Newman?

  It's also her addressing the Mean Ellen stuff. It was like around that time she starts doing all this press and it becomes very clear that she never, ever got over the anger of how everyone in the industry responded to her coming out. That even when Finding Nemo and the show bring her back to prominence, she kind of held on to this spite forever. Of like, everyone commended me for doing a thing that was culturally important and also every job dried up.

• 1:34:34David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:34Griffin Newman?

  It's just fascinating, like this movie, so much hinging on that choice to cast her.

• 1:34:41David Sims?

  It was the right choice?

• 1:34:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:43David Sims?

  Uh, but as we sort of said, like every casting decision in this movie is pretty spot on. Even Alex, young Alexander Gould.

• 1:34:51Griffin Newman?

  He's quite good.

• 1:34:51David Sims?

  The voice of Nemo.

• 1:34:52Griffin Newman?

  And he's the kid from Weeds.

• 1:34:53David Sims?

  That's right, he was the kid on Weeds. I remember that. He had a little bowl cut. His mom was dealing weed.

• 1:34:58Speaker 04

  He looked like a little, like a little Nemo. Nemo's just a round little guy with a pair of eyes.

• 1:35:02David Sims?

  Weeds. Talk about a show that its entire premise is defunct now.

• 1:35:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:07David Sims?

  She's like, I'm selling weed. I'm gonna get in trouble with the law.

• 1:35:11Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:11David Sims?

  You know, like, oh, now the cops are after me because I sell joints.

• 1:35:15Griffin Newman?

  Now you can just go to the store.

• 1:35:16David Sims?

  Now you can just go to the fucking store.

• 1:35:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:28Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:35:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:29Griffin Newman?

  This episode is brought to you by XYZ Films and the acclaimed new documentary, Capturing Bigfoot.

• 1:35:34David Sims?

  Hmm.

• 1:35:35Griffin Newman?

  On October 20th, 1967, Roger Patterson captured 59 seconds of film showing a creature walking through the Northern California woods. I wonder if you can log that on Letterboxd?

• 1:35:45David Sims?

  It is an iconic video.

• 1:35:47Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:36:10David Sims?

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

• 1:36:21Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:36:30David Sims?

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

• 1:36:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:36:33David Sims?

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

• 1:36:40Griffin 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.

• 1:36:54David Sims?

  I'm something of an expert in cryptozoology.

• 1:36:56Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:36:59David 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.

• 1:37:14Griffin Newman?

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

• 1:37:30Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:37:31David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:37:32Griffin 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.

• 1:37:52David Sims?

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

• 1:38:12Griffin 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.

• 1:38:28David Sims?

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

• 1:39:03Griffin Newman?

  David?

• 1:39:03David Sims?

  Yes?

• 1:39:04Griffin Newman?

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• 1:39:08David Sims?

  When I was younger,

• 1:39:09Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:39:10David Sims?

  I really would have benefited from a bank that did not charge me fees anytime I did anything, basically, which is, I feel like, what I was always dealing with.

• 1:39:18Griffin Newman?

  Chime! That's where chime comes in. Chime!

• 1:39:21David Sims?

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• 1:39:34Griffin Newman?

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• 1:39:36David Sims?

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• 1:39:42Griffin Newman?

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• 1:39:43David Sims?

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• 1:39:56Griffin Newman?

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• 1:39:57David Sims?

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• 1:40:12Speaker 05

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• 1:40:37David Sims?

  My Nemo begins with Nemo's mom getting shumped bits by Barracuda. What do you think? A plus? Good?

• 1:40:42Griffin Newman?

  I mean, I do think it's an incredible opening. It also felt jarring as a Pixar obsessive seeing this opening weekend. They played Knick Knack, which was an older short being reissued.

• 1:40:53David Sims?

  Is that the one in the snow globe with the jackhammer?

• 1:40:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:40:56Speaker 04

  And the sexy lady in the other snow globe.

• 1:40:58Griffin Newman?

  But because of woke, the sexy lady in the snow globe used to have big naturals. And I think when they re-released it for Nemo, they made her a little more flat chested. And I have been writing angry letters to Disney every day of my life since then.

• 1:41:15Griffin Newman?

  I want my snow globes horny.

• 1:41:18David Sims?

  Like those early Pixar movies, right? They, that's what they would do. They would show the old shorts.

• 1:41:22Griffin Newman?

  They would alternate because there was not as.

• 1:41:25Speaker 04

  Jerry's, Jerry's game and for the birds.

• 1:41:28David Sims?

  Right. They didn't have the, the young kids making their own shorts in, within Pixar yet.

• 1:41:32Griffin Newman?

  It wasn't as consistent a pipeline. So sometimes they'd be like, we don't have a short ready. Let's throw up one of the old guys on.

• 1:41:38David Sims?

  Get Knick Knack out of the fucking box.

• 1:41:39Griffin Newman?

  Knick Knack rules.

• 1:41:40David Sims?

  They never did Red's Dream though, cowards.

• 1:41:42Griffin Newman?

  They didn't.

• 1:41:43David Sims?

  That's the one they never put on there.

• 1:41:44Speaker 04

  No kid wants to see that on a big screen.

• 1:41:46Griffin Newman?

  It's a sad movie.

• 1:41:47David Sims?

  The clown's really scary.

• 1:41:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a bit creepy and it's in like a black void.

• 1:41:51David Sims?

  Yeah, that's why I liked it.

• 1:41:52Griffin Newman?

  It's about a fucking unicycle, Ben. It's a movie about a unicycle who's sad that he can't get a clown to sit on his face.

• 1:41:58David Sims?

  That's insane.

• 1:41:59Speaker 04

  That sounds like a parody of a Pixar concept.

• 1:42:01David Sims?

  He wants to juggle, right? He wants to learn how to juggle with his two little pedals.

• 1:42:05Griffin Newman?

  Oh, you're right.

• 1:42:06David Sims?

  Yeah, but there is a clown in it, and it is weird.

• 1:42:08Griffin Newman?

  Where does he sit?

• 1:42:09David Sims?

  Well, there's only one place to sit on a unicycle.

• 1:42:11Griffin Newman?

  Find the lie. Um, but Knick Knack plays, then we got our fucking jump in Luxo Junior guy. And then the movie like just kind of cold open, straight like mid dialogue. I remember that feeling jarring. It does feel like a tonal shift against the other Pixar movies that ease you in to a reality.

• 1:42:33David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Griffin Newman?

  I mean, the opening line of this movie is wow, right? You're seeing.

• 1:42:38Speaker 04

  And you're already saying that because you're looking at this digitally animated ocean.

• 1:42:42David Sims?

  That's also true. It is quite gorgeous. I saw this film by myself. I remember I was here on vacation. I had to fill some time and I went to like a midday screening at Regal Union Square and it was all kids.

• 1:42:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:55David Sims?

  Because it was the summertime.

• 1:42:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:57David Sims?

  And I felt a little weird. I was 17 years old.

• 1:43:00Griffin Newman?

  But you'd go see a matinee and the theater would be filled with fucking girls.

• 1:43:03David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:43:03Griffin Newman?

  I saw this movie multiple times in theaters and that was part of its success was Pixar had become enough of a name brand that even people who didn't grow up with Pixar, like people who were in college when Toy Story came out were like, I guess I gotta go see the new Pixar movie.

• 1:43:18David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:43:19Griffin Newman?

  The track record was just so fucking strong at this point. The opening was humongous. And then it just played throughout the entire summer.

• 1:43:27David Sims?

  It didn't go away.

• 1:43:28Griffin Newman?

  This was the summer that everyone assumed Matrix Reloaded is the juggernaut.

• 1:43:31David Sims?

  Right. And that was May and this came out like a week later.

• 1:43:34Griffin Newman?

  A week later.

• 1:43:34David Sims?

  Or whatever. Yeah.

• 1:43:35Griffin Newman?

  And then by like two months in, it was like this has zoomed past Matrix and it keeps playing throughout the entire year, which obviously can't happen.

• 1:43:43David Sims?

  Zero architects, so I don't know why that happened.

• 1:43:45Griffin Newman?

  Just kids. Um.

• 1:43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, they need a Merovingian fish.

• 1:43:49David Sims?

  Oh, that would be fun, a French fish.

• 1:43:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:43:52Speaker 04

  Well, there's a shrimp.

• 1:43:53David Sims?

  Yeah, the shrimp chef. He goes Jacques, you know, he's done or whatever.

• 1:43:58Speaker 04

  Sweet. Sweden la.

• 1:44:00David Sims?

  Yeah. Who voices him?

• 1:44:01Griffin Newman?

  That's Joe Raff.

• 1:44:02David Sims?

  Love it.

• 1:44:03Griffin Newman?

  There's also Wheezy.

• 1:44:04David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:05Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:44:05Griffin Newman?

  There's many, many voices.

• 1:44:06David Sims?

  Is Wheezy dead?

• 1:44:08Griffin Newman?

  Well, Joe Raff is dead sadly. Do you know what happened? Joe Raff was working on the movie Cars.

• 1:44:14David Sims?

  No, what happened? I'm sorry.

• 1:44:16Griffin Newman?

  He was working on the movie Cars, which I think he was maybe co-director on.

• 1:44:19David Sims?

  Yeah, I think that was where he was rising up too, right here.

• 1:44:22Griffin Newman?

  What's the worst way he could have died?

• 1:44:23Speaker 04

  Run over my car.

• 1:44:25Griffin Newman?

  Car accident.

• 1:44:25David Sims?

  That's really sad.

• 1:44:29Speaker 04

  So who else died is the 399 eggs in Coral?

• 1:44:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes. And then... Never forget about the 399.

• 1:44:36David Sims?

  I do feel like they have, like, that's why they do it as well. Because like fish do have hundreds of children.

• 1:44:42Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:44:42David Sims?

  So they have to come up with this kind of plotty way that he's like, it's like a one father, one son.

• 1:44:47Speaker 04

  It's like how Judy Hopps has like a hundred siblings.

• 1:44:49Griffin Newman?

  But it's, it's what's...

• 1:44:51David Sims?

  Do not get me started on that.

• 1:44:54Griffin Newman?

  It's what's really smart about the setup, I think, too, where you're like, what is the only circumstance in which a parent would be this obsessive over a one child? And it's where they make these choices of like, when is the characterization being dictated more by the behavior of fish versus the behavior of humans? And with Marlin, they find this exact midpoint where you're like, well, if fish has hundreds of children, they couldn't be this helicopter-y. But if he has a traumatic event that gives him only one child, then is he just like a neurotic parent in the early 2000s? I also think to my point of just like this thing that Stanton was able to identify of how to make animated characters be grownups. Like, this is a movie in which Nemo's the title character, but Nemo is the third lead.

• 1:45:39Griffin Newman?

  The two leads are grownups. True. And same with Monsters, Inc. and Toy Story and A Bug's Life that all have kids in them, but the kids are supporting. And the grownups talk like modern grownups. And when we enter into this scene, what's immediately kind of comfortable about it is that it has the vibe of a couple who have been looking at houses all day.

• 1:46:01David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 1:46:01Griffin Newman?

  Right? That you, you feel the, where their in-jokes are, how they needle each other.

• 1:46:06David Sims?

  And I key a couple, yeah.

• 1:46:07Griffin Newman?

  The satisfaction of, you know what? You're right, this place is good. And then how immediately that paradise is destroyed by this Barracuda.

• 1:46:16David Sims?

  That's the villain of the movie, Griffin.

• 1:46:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:18David Sims?

  Barracuda.

• 1:46:19Griffin Newman?

  Barracuda.

• 1:46:20David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:20Griffin Newman?

  Barracuda.

• 1:46:21David Sims?

  Anyway, years later, cut to Nemo lives. He has fucked up Finn.

• 1:46:26Griffin Newman?

  I know we're just hyperfixing on the first scene of this movie a lot.

• 1:46:28David Sims?

  Let's move past it.

• 1:46:29Griffin Newman?

  But...

• 1:46:30David Sims?

  In my opinion.

• 1:46:31Griffin Newman?

  For how large the trauma of the barracuda, and as you said, like many parents who are just like, I just don't show this scene to my kid. It is funny that when you look at, the barracuda is still cartoonish looking. Like has like a big goofy googly eye.

• 1:46:43Speaker 04

  It's like a scary cartoon.

• 1:46:45Griffin Newman?

  It's also like a perfect kind of trauma by implication where you see the moment where she clocks the barracuda.

• 1:46:53David Sims?

  I know, and then she looks down.

• 1:46:54Griffin Newman?

  He notices it because she's no longer riffing with him. He's inside the anemone.

• 1:46:59David Sims?

  You are fixating on this.

• 1:47:00Griffin Newman?

  He peeks out.

• 1:47:01David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:47:01Griffin Newman?

  There's perfect fucking acting of her eye line changing to the barracuda and trying to game out if she can make the move to protect the eggs.

• 1:47:09David Sims?

  How's she gonna protect them? She's just one fish.

• 1:47:11Griffin Newman?

  And then Marlin gets hit by the tail blackout. You don't see her die. You just have him wake up to her not being there and only the one egg with the crack.

• 1:47:20David Sims?

  Egg in the fins.

• 1:47:21Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:47:22Speaker 03

  The crack is why he has a.

• 1:47:24David Sims?

  One assumes that's the bum fin reasoning.

• 1:47:27Griffin Newman?

  He's lucky.

• 1:47:28David Sims?

  I don't think those eggs can really crack because they're like jelly, but like who cares?

• 1:47:31Griffin Newman?

  Lucky fin.

• 1:47:33David Sims?

  Yes, so they live in an anemone.

• 1:47:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:47:35David Sims?

  Marlin and Nemo.

• 1:47:36Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:37David Sims?

  Uh, and Nemo wants to start school. I guess it's sort of a September, uh, because the year's starting.

• 1:47:42Griffin Newman?

  He's been eager to start and Marlin keeps holding him back. He has to remember to brush his anemone.

• 1:47:46David Sims?

  Clownfish live. Eight, six to 10 years in the wild, 10 to 20 in an aquarium.

• 1:47:53Speaker 04

  Oh, should've kept him at the dentist.

• 1:47:55Griffin Newman?

  Well, Dory will get to the aquarium.

• 1:47:57David Sims?

  Um, yeah.

• 1:47:57Griffin Newman?

  It's a thing that, that Satan said also when he saw that picture of them poking out of the anemone and said like, oh, what about clownfish? Then he looked into it and he was like, clownfish live in anemones and rarely leave. That he, there was like a gift in researching the species of, oh, they live in this weird like security net that also can sting them and try not to leave the bubble. I think it is a really smart characterization choice. They dialed in the exact right amount of anxiety that Marlin can have because there's an insufferable version of this movie where Marlin is like Bo is afraid.

• 1:48:34Griffin Newman?

  Where he is so terrified.

• 1:48:35David Sims?

  He sees at every corner.

• 1:48:37Griffin Newman?

  Right, that he, he literally doesn't want to leave the anemone. There's something in the fact, and even just the way he's doing bits with Nemo at the beginning, where it's like, he wants to think of himself as a funny guy. He wants to think of himself as not being too uptight.

• 1:48:51David Sims?

  Easygoing dad.

• 1:48:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, the neighborhood dads like know him already.

• 1:48:54Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:48:54Speaker 04

  Once he gets to the drop off.

• 1:48:56David Sims?

  This is true.

• 1:48:56Griffin Newman?

  Everyone tries to relate to him like a normal person, and then he just always puts a little too much in it. He always gets a little too wound up.

• 1:49:03David Sims?

  Can't tell the joke. And no one's mean.

• 1:49:05Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:49:05David Sims?

  But I like when he's fucking up the joke, they're just like, ugh. You know, like they're, all the dads are just like, can we stop?

• 1:49:10Griffin Newman?

  Pity. The one guy just goes, for clownfish, he's not very funny. And then the other guy goes, pity.

• 1:49:16David Sims?

  Uh, it's a jellyfish, a seahorse, and I'm trying to think the dad.

• 1:49:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  It's the type of fish of the one who says, I'm obnoxious.

• 1:49:24Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Which is Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle.

• 1:49:26Speaker 04

  Which might be a yellow tang.

• 1:49:27David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:29Speaker 04

  Or an angelfish.

• 1:49:30Griffin Newman?

  I think that's.

• 1:49:30David Sims?

  No, no, so Dory is a blue tang.

• 1:49:32Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, but here I am speaking about a yellow tang.

• 1:49:34David Sims?

  Oh, oh, yeah, no, you're right, there's that birdfish that's a yellow tang.

• 1:49:37Griffin Newman?

  In fact, you're saying something different, David, and this is why you should listen to women.

• 1:49:39Speaker 04

  Oh, no, Bubbles, Bubbles is a yellow tang.

• 1:49:40David Sims?

  Yeah, Bubbles is a yellow tang.

• 1:49:41Speaker 04

  So these might be angelfish. Oh.

• 1:49:44David Sims?

  Not to be confused, though, with pootie tang.

• 1:49:46Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 1:49:46David Sims?

  Pootie tang is in the film, but you have to look for him.

• 1:49:49Griffin Newman?

  Let's also say we've invoked Bubbles, but we're not yet getting to the root of the matter. We will do that later.

• 1:49:53David Sims?

  Okay.

• 1:49:57David Sims?

  Willem Dafoe is an angelfish.

• 1:50:00Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 1:50:00David Sims?

  Uh, Bubbles is a yellow tang.

• 1:50:02Speaker 04

  So what's the kit?

• 1:50:04David Sims?

  A butterfly fish.

• 1:50:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:50:07David Sims?

  The others are a flapjack octopus, which is those octopuses with like the cute little legs that kind of go like.

• 1:50:12Speaker 04

  She is adorable.

• 1:50:14David Sims?

  And, uh, a seahorse. So it's not a jellyfish, it's an octopus.

• 1:50:17Griffin Newman?

  Her one tendril shorter than the others, but you never notice when she twirls them like this.

• 1:50:21David Sims?

  Jellyfish in this movie are like anglerfish in that they seem to lack a consciousness, AKA eyes.

• 1:50:28Speaker 04

  Well, jellyfish in real life.

• 1:50:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:30Speaker 04

  Definitely don't have a brain.

• 1:50:31David Sims?

  They don't have a brain. My daughter has endless questions for me about jellyfish, which I fully sent, because we go to the aquarium all the time.

• 1:50:38Griffin Newman?

  I was gonna say like four times. Times a day you go to the aquarium.

• 1:50:40David Sims?

  It's the best place on earth, but like where she is, she has really reasonable questions of just like, why and how? Like, why do they exist? And then what's, what is this? Like, where's, and I'm like, how do they eat? How do, and I'm like, I don't really know, man. They're weird. Jellyfish are weird. You ever been sung by jellyfish? Question for the room?

• 1:50:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:50:57David Sims?

  Me too.

• 1:50:58Speaker 04

  It really hurts.

• 1:51:00David Sims?

  Sucks. Fucking sucks.

• 1:51:02Speaker 04

  You ever get peed on?

• 1:51:02David Sims?

  Uh, yeah, but not for that reason, just for fun.

• 1:51:05Speaker 04

  We packed sand on it. Oh, sorry, I fully wasn't.

• 1:51:09David Sims?

  Fine. I think, I think peeing doesn't really work and sand possibly does, right?

• 1:51:13Speaker 04

  A bit more.

• 1:51:14David Sims?

  Yes. Peeing is one of those classic, like, uh, old wives tales things.

• 1:51:19Griffin Newman?

  It, it does feel like as much as he's trying to break out of a, a sense of a Pixar formula that was starting to codify at this point. This is the most traditional Pixar move of now let's do eight minutes of basically blackout gags of what's funny about fish.

• 1:51:35David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:51:36Griffin Newman?

  Like Toy Story has this, the second Andy leaves the room and you're like, what's every character's game?

• 1:51:41David Sims?

  Yep.

• 1:51:41Griffin Newman?

  I feel like certainly Monsters Inc. has this with Mike and Sully walking through Monstropolis the first time.

• 1:51:47David Sims?

  Totally.

• 1:51:47Griffin Newman?

  And you're like, okay, well, how does a monster city work? You have all of this, which also feels like it's him knowing you have to counterbalance the trauma of what just happened in the movie. It's nice that, that they have a nice dynamic, but also kids need to feel comfortable now.

• 1:52:02David Sims?

  It's very economical.

• 1:52:03Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:04David Sims?

  You get right to Nemo going away without it feeling rushed, you know, getting, you know, in trouble and kidnapped.

• 1:52:10Griffin Newman?

  I mean, like, Nemo was taken at like minute 14, and I think Dory enters at minute 16. Like, he basically gets both of those things set up within the first 15 minutes of the movie.

• 1:52:19David Sims?

  Uh, of course, right. Their school is, uh, that they will ride on the back of a manta ray and he'll tell them things about fish.

• 1:52:26Griffin Newman?

  A teacher named Mr. Ray.

• 1:52:27David Sims?

  He's just so good.

• 1:52:28Griffin Newman?

  Who likes, uh, diffusing conflict.

• 1:52:31David Sims?

  Right. Who's right. Very, very good at handling interpersonal, uh, inter, interficial.

• 1:52:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's cool to have a teacher who's also sort of also the bus.

• 1:52:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. Great. Great point. Uh, and the other parents are commanding Marlin for seeming kind of chill.

• 1:52:46David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:52:46Griffin Newman?

  Even if he's not funny.

• 1:52:47David Sims?

  But then Nemo, he puts. Which is a little too far. He's encouraged by the other boys.

• 1:52:51Griffin Newman?

  But what also happens, he finds out that the day he's finally letting his son go to school also is the day they're going to the drop off.

• 1:52:58David Sims?

  Yes.

• 1:52:58Griffin Newman?

  The dads are giving him credit.

• 1:52:59David Sims?

  The edge of the reef.

• 1:53:00Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you seem pretty chill.

• 1:53:01David Sims?

  A drop off!

• 1:53:02Griffin Newman?

  I was stressed out. Right. And then that's, I regret it. I never should have let him do this. He runs out, he embarrasses Nemo in front of his friends, and Nemo feels the need to rebel. He's gonna touch the butt.

• 1:53:12Speaker 04

  He's gonna touch the butt.

• 1:53:14Griffin Newman?

  Classic comedy.

• 1:53:15Speaker 04

  And it's also nice to have the comedy there, because that's hilarious if you're a kid, and it helps diffuse the situation a little bit, which is very scary.

• 1:53:23Griffin Newman?

  It is an acting moment that I love in this film. Nemo's silent performance of challenging his father to touch the butt. And they play it like Nemo is in like an FBI standoff, where he won't break eye contact, and he just taps it really quickly and intensely.

• 1:53:39Speaker 04

  Which is squishy little face.

• 1:53:40David Sims?

  I love the kid going...

• 1:53:42Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:42David Sims?

  It's really funny.

• 1:53:43Griffin Newman?

  But there's also such a loud smack sound when he hits the butt. There's so much force on it. And his point is proven. He's ready to swim back to his father, unfortunately. A big bad dentist.

• 1:53:56David Sims?

  Right. The deep sea divers come. One puts Nemo in a Ziploc bag. The other one, really rudely, takes a picture of Marlin.

• 1:54:03Griffin Newman?

  A detail I love is that when the flash goes off on Marlin, Marlin reacts by turning sideways and his eye goes wall-eyed, so it's like the pose in the photo is what a fish would look like versus a cartoon fish.

• 1:54:15David Sims?

  Never thought about that.

• 1:54:16Griffin Newman?

  It's a really quick gag.

• 1:54:17David Sims?

  Right, because fish's eyes go this way, but in the movie, they have to look this way.

• 1:54:21Griffin Newman?

  He becomes flush and pointing out, right. I remember reading a fucking like screenplay guidebook that was showing how all Hollywood movies fit into, you know, certain storytelling formulas. And it tried to argue that the dentist is the antagonist of this movie, which is wrong. The antagonist of this movie is Marlin's anxiety.

• 1:54:43David Sims?

  Yes. Right. That is what needs to be overcome and defeated.

• 1:54:45Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:54:45David Sims?

  I mean, also, Nemo does get captured in that. It does suck. It's a problem. No one's villainous.

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:54:51Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 1:54:51David Sims?

  But it is.

• 1:54:52Speaker 04

  The same as these creatures just doing what they're want to do.

• 1:54:56David Sims?

  Right.

• 1:54:56Speaker 04

  Um, all through the ocean. Like, the seagulls are, they're not villains, but they're not... They're not sympathetic.

• 1:55:03Griffin Newman?

  You could argue that the obstructions that almost feel malevolent in the movie are not circle of life, but like just the survival of the fittest mechanisms, right? Of just, this is the ecosystem of how fish survive in relationship to each other. But there's also, like, the reason why the tank stuff doesn't feel stagnant is Gil is able to kind of teach Nemo the thing that Marlin's afraid to teach him. That Marlo- Marlin is so-

• 1:55:32David Sims?

  Philip Marlin.

• 1:55:33Griffin Newman?

  Philip Marlin. Marlin is so terrified by what he perceives as Nemo's weakness because of the lucky fin, that he wants to teach him how to live a life devoid of risk and is over-correcting. And Gil is someone who similarly is like scarred, uh, and empowers Nemo to feel like he has the ability to actually do things.

• 1:55:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. We'll get into his initiation ritual, but I love that. They give him that little thing to feel brave.

• 1:56:01David Sims?

  Ah, ee, ah, oh, oh, oh. Um, okay, so Marlin bangs into Dory, trying to find Nemo.

• 1:56:07Griffin Newman?

  Like immediately.

• 1:56:08David Sims?

  Bangs into Dory immediately. She, uh, can't help him.

• 1:56:10Griffin Newman?

  Perfect character introduction. Well, I, of course, I know right this way. And then while he's following her, she starts doing the panicked looking over her shoulder. Who's this creepy guy? And then she does the aggro like, you, what, you got, you got a problem, huh? Huh?

• 1:56:26David Sims?

  It's a tossed off joke. Obviously, it then becomes the premise of an entirely new movie.

• 1:56:30Griffin Newman?

  It runs in my family, at least I think it does.

• 1:56:32David Sims?

  I think it does. Where are they? Makes me laugh so hard every time.

• 1:56:37Griffin Newman?

  And then it's just a two-shot that holds for like 10 seconds of silence.

• 1:56:40David Sims?

  I'm laughing thinking about it.

• 1:56:41Griffin Newman?

  And then she looks back and she goes, hi, I'm Dory.

• 1:56:43David Sims?

  She can't remember!

• 1:56:45Griffin Newman?

  That it's one, it's one run on thought.

• 1:56:47Speaker 04

  The timing is so good.

• 1:56:50Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:56:51David Sims?

  Where are they? It's just so fucking funny because- It's like you never need to explain it. The whole movie then explains it. Her dad is fucking pattern baldness, blue tang or whatever.

• 1:57:03David Sims?

  We'll get to that.

• 1:57:04Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. But, uh, the movie's been moving so fast up until this point that when you have that sustained two-shot of just letting the, the joke rhythm of Ellen, uh, drive the movie, it feels like a nice reset point.

• 1:57:18David Sims?

  Uh, Dory and him then, pretty much the next thing is the Sharks, right?

• 1:57:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're running to Bruce.

• 1:57:25David Sims?

  This is the one thing in the movie that always felt an eensy bit cute to me.

• 1:57:32Griffin Newman?

  The entire Shark dynamic?

• 1:57:34Speaker 04

  I don't love-

• 1:57:35David Sims?

  The, uh, the self-help, uh, therapy speaks stuff.

• 1:57:38Speaker 04

  I don't love the trope of characters, same with Wreck-It Ralph, in, uh, a group therapy or in like a blank anonymous.

• 1:57:45David Sims?

  Overdone.

• 1:57:46Griffin Newman?

  It's not my favorite. Now, can I play devil's advocate and say, this was pretty early in that? It is wildly overdone now.

• 1:57:53David Sims?

  I remember not liking it in 2003.

• 1:57:56Griffin Newman?

  We must acknowledge that the Sharks were kinda the immediate breakout characters. Bruce was big. Bruce had a big summer.

• 1:58:03Speaker 04

  Well, Bruce looks awesome.

• 1:58:05Griffin Newman?

  Well, Dory's a movie star. Dory's like a leading lady. Like, Dory is like-

• 1:58:10Speaker 04

  Dory's first on the call, she's-

• 1:58:11David Sims?

  She's an ingenue.

• 1:58:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:12Speaker 04

  No, but one of the big posters was-

• 1:58:14David Sims?

  Yeah, of course, Bruce's big face. I love, of course, that it's the great Barry Humphries, Dame Edna, uh, herself.

• 1:58:19Griffin Newman?

  Playing Scary.

• 1:58:21David Sims?

  Uh, and then Eric Bana and who's the third one?

• 1:58:24Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. So the third Shark in this dynamic is played by Bruce Spence. Now, here's what's interesting about this guy, and, and hold on to your seats. He played the gyrocopter pilot in The Road Warrior, AKA Mad Max 2.

• 1:58:39Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 1:58:40David Sims?

  Whoa.

• 1:58:41Griffin Newman?

  He's also Teyon Meadon in Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith.

• 1:58:44David Sims?

  This very year, he is the train man, because Matrix Revolutions is out in just a few months.

• 1:58:49Griffin Newman?

  David, he was arguably the king of the box office in 2003.

• 1:58:52David Sims?

  Except he got cut out a little in the rings.

• 1:58:55Griffin Newman?

  Entertainment Weekly did a little sidebar in their 2003 Year in Review where they said he was the highest grossing actor because he had Matrix Revolutions and Finding Nemo, and if he had made the cut of Return of the King, I think he would have had $2 billion in box office.

• 1:59:10Speaker 04

  Wow. It's like how Jonathan Bailey was king of the box office last year.

• 1:59:15David Sims?

  Uh, now, now- Why is that? Well, apart from, oh, because Jurassic, was that last year?

• 1:59:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:21David Sims?

  Was that but last year?

• 1:59:22Griffin Newman?

  It was.

• 1:59:22Speaker 04

  It was but last year.

• 1:59:23David Sims?

  That he saw a dinosaur?

• 1:59:24Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 1:59:25David Sims?

  And went, oh, cool.

• 1:59:26Griffin Newman?

  He cried.

• 1:59:28David Sims?

  Can I say? Then he was the scarecrow. Yes, Ben. I like the shark house.

• 1:59:31Griffin Newman?

  Thank you. I like that they live around bombs.

• 1:59:36Speaker 04

  The bombs are awesome.

• 1:59:38David Sims?

  The bombs are cool and them being blown up is cool. It is funny that Ben's like, attached to chains. Not just bombs, my friend. Let's not forget, and I like a shipwreck too.

• 1:59:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:59:50Griffin Newman?

  I also feel like, what is it? Chum and what's the other shark's name?

• 1:59:54David Sims?

  Uh, Crunch or Crush? Let me find out.

• 1:59:56Speaker 04

  Uh, Anchor. Anchor, Chum and Bruce.

• 1:59:59Griffin Newman?

  Anchor and Chum.

• 1:59:59David Sims?

  Yeah, oh, Crush is the turtle. Right, yeah.

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  And Anchor is a hammerhead.

• 2:00:03Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yes, and Chum has the hook through his face. They just feel like very Ben characters.

• 2:00:09David Sims?

  Definitely.

• 2:00:09Griffin Newman?

  Specifically Anchor and Chum.

• 2:00:11David Sims?

  They should get their own movie. But, uh, yeah, like the joke, obviously, right is they, they don't eat, uh, fish anymore. What will they be eating? Doesn't really come up.

• 2:00:19Griffin Newman?

  Kelp or some shit. But I just think this was-

• 2:00:22Speaker 04

  Like real vegans.

• 2:00:23David Sims?

  I think sharks need like a tremendous amount of food to operate, right? Like-

• 2:00:27Griffin Newman?

  I think this is incredibly well staged action sequence.

• 2:00:31Speaker 04

  It's so good.

• 2:00:32David Sims?

  It's incredibly well done. Yeah, and the, the bombs exploding, uh, Dory's, um, the, Dory's blood coming out of her nose. And then the way his eyes change, like, it's so cool.

• 2:00:40Speaker 04

  Shark eyes.

• 2:00:41David Sims?

  Yes. He just starts tripping, oh, that's good. And they're like, no, no, mate, don't do it, mate. You know, that's really funny.

• 2:00:47Griffin Newman?

  I think like several points in this movie, in a film that you would not classify as an action film. Stanton kinda like pulls off a fish version of an Indiana Jones sequence. Where even just like Bruce leading them through the establishment of the mines in the sea, right? Like, all the sort of visual stuff it needs to teach you that's then gonna pay off in the sequence. The missile silo that they can hide out in, how they can activate that to get rid of Bruce. Which then even has the comedy within it of Anchor and Chum. Jumping in between Bruce's bites to apologize for his behavior. And it's just all like he keeps- Teaching you things that don't feel like overstated setups that pay off in very satisfying ways,

• 2:01:31Griffin Newman?

  where then you can just have action happen with real tension because you know this is a universe in which death can happen. Characters can die in this movie and still get jokes in. Ben's laughing at how excited I am.

• 2:01:42Speaker 03

  Dory is so funny when she forgets that they're being chased and then launches the missile so that they go back towards the shark.

• 2:01:53Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. This is, oh.

• 2:01:55David Sims?

  Any Dory joke like that works.

• 2:01:56Griffin Newman?

  We should call this out too. This is the other thing is that Dory can read English even though she can't remember things.

• 2:02:01David Sims?

  32 Allie Way.

• 2:02:02Griffin Newman?

  That's the reason that Marlin has to stick with her because the only thing they have to lead them towards Nemo is the address written on the back.

• 2:02:10David Sims?

  42 Allie Way, Sydney.

• 2:02:11Speaker 04

  During this is when they find the goggles.

• 2:02:13Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:02:13Speaker 04

  The diver's goggles, he clocks them.

• 2:02:16Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:02:16Speaker 04

  We learn she can read English because she sees the sign that says escapé.

• 2:02:21Griffin Newman?

  Yes, right, right. This kind of perfect, like, he's stuck with her because she can do a thing that he can't do even if she doesn't understand what she's doing. And she's constantly getting it wrong. But then in this like chain of events, it's like going after the goggles and the snap of the elastic band is what causes her to bleed, which is activates Bruce.

• 2:02:43David Sims?

  Yeah, she's so good even just doing the kind of, I'm fine, I'm fine, you know, like the.

• 2:02:47Griffin Newman?

  This is also a character design that should not be.

• 2:02:51David Sims?

  Like a plausible nosebleed coming out of it.

• 2:02:54Griffin Newman?

  These things, she's so fucking narrow. Her face is basically a pencil when head on, right?

• 2:02:58Speaker 04

  With eyes sticking out either side.

• 2:03:00Griffin Newman?

  Right. And she's just got like a nose bump in a mouth.

• 2:03:03David Sims?

  There's a lot of blue tangs at the Brooklyn Aquarium, the New York Aquarium.

• 2:03:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:06David Sims?

  And my daughter says like, Dory, there she is.

• 2:03:09Griffin Newman?

  This is an incredibly difficult, actual species to get a motion out of.

• 2:03:12David Sims?

  I got no notes.

• 2:03:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:14David Sims?

  I got no notes on any of the animation in this movie. I think it's perfect. I think it's the apex of Pixar.

• 2:03:18Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:18David Sims?

  I really do.

• 2:03:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:19David Sims?

  I mean, maybe Ratatouille, like Ratatouille has such a beautiful kind of like approach to all of its things.

• 2:03:27Speaker 04

  I think this is a better movie.

• 2:03:28David Sims?

  Well, that's, okay.

• 2:03:31David Sims?

  Everyone relax, we're all saying stuff.

• 2:03:33Griffin Newman?

  This is the five star tier for me, right? The two Toy Stories, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, uh, Ratatouille, Incredibles. Those are the ones at the very, very top of the heap for me. Those are like, perfect movies in my opinion. I do think Stanton is the guy within Pixar who starts getting most fascinated by the idea that in computer animation, you can simulate a camera in a way that you can't in hand drawn. And he pushes that really far in Wally, where Wally is really selling the illusion of there is a human operator. Like, Wally has delayed zooms and shit like that.

• 2:04:11David Sims?

  I know this is basically spoiling our list, but do you like this more than Wally? Where are you there? I'm not sure where I am.

• 2:04:19Griffin Newman?

  I, I think Wally's a little bit more imperfect than this film.

• 2:04:23David Sims?

  Right, right.

• 2:04:23Griffin Newman?

  The ecstatic highs of Wally. Also, you just have to like, think about, when that movie got announced, and it was like, Andrew Stanton is making a robot rom-com in the style of silent films? I lost my fucking mind. When it was like, he's making a Robot Buster Keaton movie? It, it felt like they had designed a film specifically for me.

• 2:04:46David Sims?

  Um, that makes sense. Becca?

• 2:04:49Speaker 04

  Huh?

• 2:04:49David Sims?

  Wally or Nemo?

• 2:04:51Speaker 04

  Oh, Nemo. Like, Wally is, like, I love Ratatouille so much, so that's not far behind Nemo, but, Wally, I have a harder time with the things that are imperfect about it.

• 2:05:01David Sims?

  But you think this is Stanton's best film, maybe, but Wally's more of a great, this, look, this is the debate, this is the grand debate we'll have over these six weeks, I guess.

• 2:05:09Griffin Newman?

  It's like a Godfather versus Apocalypse Now situation, where you're like, every-

• 2:05:13David Sims?

  Oh, that's interesting. I don't find that a tough situation anymore. I recently re-watched Apocalypse Now and was like, I think, I think I can see, like, this movie has left me.

• 2:05:24Griffin Newman?

  It's a messy film.

• 2:05:24David Sims?

  It was such a big movie for me as a teen, obviously it's incredible.

• 2:05:27Griffin Newman?

  I also think like, the most ecstatic things that movie can accomplish are part and parcel with its messiness.

• 2:05:34David Sims?

  Right, totally.

• 2:05:34Griffin Newman?

  Which feels the same as Wally to me.

• 2:05:36David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:36Griffin Newman?

  Where I'm like, Wally is like, a couple steps off of being perfect for me, but if it was perfect, it maybe wouldn't be able to achieve the weird things it's able to pull off. But this film, it feels like Stanton is with really fucking limited technology at this time still. And this shit's so fucking expensive to do and they talk about the methods they had to develop and the strategies of how to stop it from costing like $500 million. How do you continue to visually maintain the relationship between the characters and the water they're in?

• 2:06:08David Sims?

  Right, right, right, right.

• 2:06:09Griffin Newman?

  Like in Shark Tale, it's just characters floating. In this, they're like, we can't in every shot show the bubbles or the waves of their fin motion. We can't always show the distortion of, you know, the thickness of the water at this point at different levels in the darkness or whatever. But they choose their battles really well. There are all these insane hacks they do where basically they create one texture surface, which is the surface of the water whenever they're peeking their heads up above. And then they copy that and put a different layer on top of it to make it the ocean floor. So basically, the sand and the water are the same element, but one is fixed and one is in motion. Similarly, they couldn't figure out how to make the anemone.

• 2:06:51David Sims?

  Anemone.

• 2:06:52Griffin Newman?

  And the Monsters Inc. team, which was working on the other side of the studio, had cracked the fur thing.

• 2:06:57David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:06:58Griffin Newman?

  And someone went, oh, if you take a ball of fur and then like size it up like crazy so every strand is really thick.

• 2:07:04Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:07:06Griffin Newman?

  Then the anemone is just overgrown hair. So there's stuff in like animation that's like when you hear stories about Sam Raimi figuring out a hack for like how to pull off a special effect in a cheap way, that this movie is using to like insane effect because none of it feels like shortcuts. And it's just so painterly and beautiful. And even just the fucking, the lighting on this movie.

• 2:07:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wanted, I wanted to bring up the lighting, especially because we're in a crisis in 2026.

• 2:07:32Griffin Newman?

  The color palette.

• 2:07:33Speaker 04

  To see a movie where it's so thoughtfully done.

• 2:07:36Griffin Newman?

  So vivid and beautiful. And Pixar is like, a big part of their process is what they call the color scripts, where they do these pastel kind of storyboards, not of every shot, but basically of every sequence to look at the color tones of the movie.

• 2:07:52Speaker 04

  Which is like a classic Disney 50s type thing as well.

• 2:07:56Griffin Newman?

  To establish the moods of like, when is it brightest and when is it coldest and when do you need to establish a tone of things feeling ominous versus sad, you know? And I think this movie uses the like depths of the ocean to convey those things. Things get brighter when they're closer to the surface.

• 2:08:14David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:08:14Griffin Newman?

  Um, where you see more reflection of the light.

• 2:08:17David Sims?

  And obviously, the whole anglerfish sequence, you know, is such a bravura demonstration of all that, you know, that the light on the anglerfish is so cool.

• 2:08:25Speaker 04

  So they get away and pretty quickly, they're swimming down to retrieve.

• 2:08:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. When they get away from Bruce, that's when they come across the anglerfish.

• 2:08:35Speaker 04

  They don't get a second to rest.

• 2:08:37Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:08:37David Sims?

  Um, yeah.

• 2:08:39Griffin Newman?

  It's breakfast.

• 2:08:39David Sims?

  You know how male anglerfish reproduce?

• 2:08:42Griffin Newman?

  How?

• 2:08:43David Sims?

  You know, right?

• 2:08:43Griffin Newman?

  They suck their own dicks?

• 2:08:46Griffin Newman?

  I'm taking a guess.

• 2:08:47David Sims?

  They're little and they fuse to the, the, the girl anglerfish and like melt into her and just leave behind their balls. And then the, the, the female anglerfish uses the balls to like make an, make it laic.

• 2:09:00Griffin Newman?

  Do they come and get the balls back?

• 2:09:02David Sims?

  No, they die. That's the end for them. They're, they're, they mate, they die mate. You know, they're just like, ah!

• 2:09:07Griffin Newman?

  Go out on top.

• 2:09:08David Sims?

  Exactly.

• 2:09:09Griffin Newman?

  I mean, nice work if you can get it.

• 2:09:11David Sims?

  And it's one of those like, cla- dimorphous and things where like the woman is like, the, the, the woman.

• 2:09:15Griffin Newman?

  The woman.

• 2:09:16David Sims?

  The female anglerfish is like 10 times bigger than the male or whatever.

• 2:09:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, the ocean floor stuff brings up like, deep sea is as scary and unknowable as outer space.

• 2:09:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:09:29Speaker 04

  The creatures that are in it are alien. This one looks like an H. R. Giger alien. Like, it's terrifying.

• 2:09:36Griffin Newman?

  This is a great call. I mean, James Cameron taught us about the aliens, uh, of the deep and the ghosts of the abyss.

• 2:09:43David Sims?

  Ghosts of the abyss, aliens of the deep. That's right.

• 2:09:44Griffin Newman?

  I, I think it is very smart that this movie avoids.

• 2:09:48David Sims?

  Yeah, they can't go down there.

• 2:09:48Griffin Newman?

  If you were to anthropomorphize the deep sea creatures more, it would feel like this is a bad neighborhood in a way that was coded very dangerously.

• 2:09:57Speaker 04

  Leave that shit for Shark Tale.

• 2:09:59Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:09:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:10:00Griffin Newman?

  It makes it much easier to just be like, this is basically outer space and we don't understand the rules of what's happening here. These characters don't have faces that you can like, understand or talk to.

• 2:10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, I feel like if, if it had a voice, it would be too scary for kids.

• 2:10:14Griffin Newman?

  Totally.

• 2:10:15David Sims?

  Um.

• 2:10:15Griffin Newman?

  It'd be like breathing heavily.

• 2:10:16David Sims?

  It's already kinda scary.

• 2:10:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:18David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:10:18Griffin Newman?

  And it's, right, it's selective which characters can't speak. It's the ones where even just being around them is potentially a danger, you know?

• 2:10:27David Sims?

  Yeah. So to move on from the, you know, from this, like, pretty quickly, we are also in the tank, right? Like, around this time is when we're sort of cutting over to the tank.

• 2:10:38Griffin Newman?

  I was looking, I feel like the tank basically comes in 30 minutes in. We stay with just Marlin and Dory for a while. Uh, no, excuse me, it's right after the Bruce sequence. Cause the bomb goes off, it cuts to the two birds and the one who thinks the other one farted. It's a really good tension relief gag.

• 2:10:56Speaker 04

  And a really good way to bridge ocean worlds and silly dentist worlds.

• 2:11:00Griffin Newman?

  So the tank comes in minute 25.

• 2:11:03Speaker 04

  Cool. And the tank is like, we've already, at this point, we've already been introduced to like 12 incredible characters.

• 2:11:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:09Speaker 04

  Let's throw in a whole, perfect, little, chamber piece sitcom ensemble.

• 2:11:15Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:11:15Speaker 04

  Of characters who are going absolutely stir crazy.

• 2:11:18David Sims?

  You got Gil.

• 2:11:19Speaker 04

  In this tank.

• 2:11:20David Sims?

  Willem Dafoe.

• 2:11:20Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:21David Sims?

  Willem Dafoe, Baby Jane Doe! Sorry, I'm being a Catherine Lenosa.

• 2:11:25Griffin Newman?

  Baby Cheeto?

• 2:11:26Speaker 04

  Baby Jane Doe!

• 2:11:28David Sims?

  Baby Jane Doe! There's a Baby Jane Doe! In The Pit, uh, season two.

• 2:11:31Griffin Newman?

  Oh, I haven't watched The Pit.

• 2:11:32David Sims?

  Early on, uh, there is a abandoned baby.

• 2:11:34Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 2:11:35David Sims?

  And, uh, Catherine Lenosa.

• 2:11:37Speaker 04

  Uh, who's gonna look over this Baby Jane Doe?

• 2:11:39David Sims?

  He's like, there's a Baby Jane Doe!

• 2:11:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, this sounds good.

• 2:11:42David Sims?

  Yeah, it rocks.

• 2:11:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44David Sims?

  And like, pit fandom, which is very normal, not toxic at all, totally regular, uh, one of the recurring jokes about this season is like, they're always like, predictions for finale, uh, Baby Jane Doe, you know, uh, saves the day, you know, like, she will, uh, have laser vision, you know, that they keep being like this abandoned baby.

• 2:12:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, someone was like, I've seen the ending and just, I won't spoil it, but don't look up Baby Jane Doe and rocket launcher.

• 2:12:07Griffin Newman?

  I, I don't say this lightly.

• 2:12:10David Sims?

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 2:12:10Griffin Newman?

  But just, three shows I don't engage with, in the last four months, I've just been reading insane headlines about the way the fandom is treating these actors.

• 2:12:18David Sims?

  Totally. Like, it's broken containment on like, right, like, that you are reading about it.

• 2:12:21Griffin Newman?

  Fandom needs to die.

• 2:12:22David Sims?

  It really does.

• 2:12:23Speaker 04

  It's really what's happening in pit world.

• 2:12:27Griffin Newman?

  The shit that was happening to the heated rivalry guys, I'm like, this isn't good, but I'm not surprised because this is a show that's driven on a sort of Team Edward, Team Jacob, over obsession with.

• 2:12:38David Sims?

  But blankies are great. And we like that. We love your money! And your fandom.

• 2:12:43Griffin Newman?

  Easy, easy, easy, easy. But then like the pit shit that's been happening and then there was the fucking Percy Jackson kid was like, I can't go to prom.

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, because they're harassing whoever.

• 2:12:53David Sims?

  I can't go to prom.

• 2:12:54Speaker 04

  Whoever he takes to prom, the fans are gonna send death threats.

• 2:12:57Griffin Newman?

  He was basically like, the fans have like tracked down every girl in my high school class and is sending death threats, saying like, you better not go on a date with him because he belongs to me.

• 2:13:08David Sims?

  Oh, my god.

• 2:13:09Griffin Newman?

  Everyone needs to chill the fuck out.

• 2:13:11David Sims?

  But it's the internet and it's the way the algorithms feed it and all that. It's so crazy.

• 2:13:15Griffin Newman?

  But Pitt is the last show I would expect to have that.

• 2:13:18David Sims?

  Of course.

• 2:13:19Griffin Newman?

  And I just keep reading these insane things.

• 2:13:21David Sims?

  I think that's why it took everyone by surprise.

• 2:13:22Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:13:23David Sims?

  Where they're like, it's like a sober hospital procedural. And everyone's just like, I can't believe that Robbie did that. It's like, he's a fictional character.

• 2:13:32Griffin Newman?

  But then they're like angry at which actors aren't coming back when it's not.

• 2:13:37David Sims?

  They're being, they're being real normal about everything.

• 2:13:40Griffin Newman?

  This group.

• 2:13:41David Sims?

  Okay, so we got Gil.

• 2:13:42Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then it's like sitcom fucking all-stars, right? It's like Brad Garrett.

• 2:13:48David Sims?

  He's the Pufferfish.

• 2:13:48Griffin Newman?

  We have Alison Janney from The West Wing.

• 2:13:50David Sims?

  We love her.

• 2:13:50Griffin Newman?

  Steven Root from News Radio. Brad Garrett from Everly Loz Raymond, obviously. Vicky Lewis, also from News Radio. Austin Pendleton is Gergel.

• 2:14:00David Sims?

  He's, I mean, he's, he's a guy. Theater actor, million movies, you know, we love that.

• 2:14:05Griffin Newman?

  Max from The Muppet Movie. And then Joe Rampf is Jacques. But immediately everyone has their bit.

• 2:14:11Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:14:11David Sims?

  He's clean.

• 2:14:12Griffin Newman?

  Nemo wakes up and sees all the scary imagery of the like aquarium toys and everything. You feel like, okay, so this is gonna be like analogous to him being in prison now. And he's stuck with a bunch of scary inmates. And then immediately it's like, no, this is like a mental hospital.

• 2:14:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's cuckoo's now.

• 2:14:28Griffin Newman?

  They all have conditions.

• 2:14:29David Sims?

  They're so sweet.

• 2:14:29Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:14:30David Sims?

  Right. So, okay, let me try. So Gil is scarred and he's kind of babble, you know, hearted.

• 2:14:36Speaker 04

  And we learned he also has a bad fin.

• 2:14:38David Sims?

  He's got a bad fin too.

• 2:14:39Griffin Newman?

  They basically.

• 2:14:39David Sims?

  And it never stopped him.

• 2:14:40Griffin Newman?

  I don't know if you've noticed this, the scarring pattern on his face is basically one to one with Platoon.

• 2:14:46David Sims?

  I was about to say it's Platoon, right?

• 2:14:47Griffin Newman?

  They give him the same scars. Um, Defoe plays it so straight, but also I think it's incredibly warm in this movie.

• 2:14:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's this alternate father figure.

• 2:14:57David Sims?

  I know. I want, I want Gil to believe in me.

• 2:15:00Griffin Newman?

  He's so good because you're just like, there's a universe in which they go like, the joke is, you're really intense.

• 2:15:05David Sims?

  He's the drill sergeant.

• 2:15:06Griffin Newman?

  You play it really seriously.

• 2:15:08David Sims?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:08Griffin Newman?

  And at the end, you show a little bit of warmth, but even from the beginning, he's playing the vulnerability of this guy.

• 2:15:13Speaker 03

  It's important too, that he was the only fish that ever lived in the ocean.

• 2:15:18David Sims?

  Yeah, he is the, the, the rest of them are tankies.

• 2:15:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:21David Sims?

  Um, Brad, uh, the, the puffer fish, so he, he sometimes he goes puff mode. I guess that's his problem.

• 2:15:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:27David Sims?

  He doesn't really have any other problems.

• 2:15:28Griffin Newman?

  He's got like a hair trigger anxiety response.

• 2:15:31David Sims?

  Right, right, right.

• 2:15:31Griffin Newman?

  It's, it's the equivalent of having like panic attacks or whatever.

• 2:15:34David Sims?

  I guess Peach, Peach is kind of maybe the most balanced, but she's a bit of a gossip.

• 2:15:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:15:38Griffin Newman?

  And a know it all.

• 2:15:39David Sims?

  Yeah, uh, Bubbles loves bubbles.

• 2:15:41Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:15:42David Sims?

  Uh, he's obsessed with the bubbles.

• 2:15:43Griffin Newman?

  He's OCD and he's obsessed with the little treasure chest that releases bubbles and trying to keep them in there.

• 2:15:47Speaker 03

  One of the great fish tank toys.

• 2:15:50Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:15:50Speaker 03

  If not, I think the top.

• 2:15:52Griffin Newman?

  Or I guess, no, uh, Gurgles is the one who's OCD and is the knee freak.

• 2:15:55David Sims?

  And then, and then, uh, Deb, I just love, uh, the idea that she's, uh, obsessed with her own reflection.

• 2:16:01Speaker 04

  This is my sister Flo.

• 2:16:02Griffin Newman?

  Who she thinks is a liar.

• 2:16:04David Sims?

  So funny.

• 2:16:06Griffin Newman?

  She told Nemo not to trust Flo.

• 2:16:07Speaker 04

  It's really good.

• 2:16:08Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and then, uh, Jacques is just, uh, a high status, uh, elitist Frenchman.

• 2:16:15David Sims?

  He's kind of good, actually.

• 2:16:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, shock, shock worlds.

• 2:16:17David Sims?

  So they all want out though, right? Like they all want out of the tank and they have like, uh, you know, uh, a sort of developing plan that Nemo fits into.

• 2:16:27Griffin Newman?

  He's dropped into a great escape situation where it's like, there have been years of failed plans. They keep on trying things that don't work and Nemo feels to them like he offers some new opportunities, specifically in the fact that he's small.

• 2:16:39David Sims?

  Right. Right.

• 2:16:40Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:16:41David Sims?

  You can go into the filter and put the stone in the fan and all that stuff.

• 2:16:45Griffin Newman?

  But speaking to how complete the kind of vision of this movie was when Stanton wrote it, the major changes you hear about in the film are taking out things that were Gildding the Lily, rather than needing to figure out how to ultimately get to things. So like, you know, unwinding the flashback structure.

• 2:17:07Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:17:07Griffin Newman?

  He originally had Gil be more of a, I don't know whether to trust this guy or not, character. He played him more scary up top.

• 2:17:16Speaker 04

  Sure. Yeah.

• 2:17:17Griffin Newman?

  There's a scene where Nemo gets Gil to open up and talk about what happened to him and how he ended up in the tank. And he tells this whole story about his family that went missing and where he came from. And then Nemo finds out later in the movie that Gil has been lying. It's like a Joker, do you want to know how I got these scars thing? And that every detail that Gil told him is in a picture book that's in the dentist's waiting room.

• 2:17:39David Sims?

  Oh.

• 2:17:40Griffin Newman?

  That he hears a kid read. And he was just like, we don't need this.

• 2:17:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:17:43Griffin Newman?

  Just let Gil be actually invested in helping this kid.

• 2:17:47Speaker 04

  Yep. This movie is already stuffed to the gills.

• 2:17:50Griffin Newman?

  Right, right. There were originally two seagulls.

• 2:17:52David Sims?

  How many comedy points there?

• 2:17:54Griffin Newman?

  One trillion comedy points. No, one trillion.

• 2:17:56Speaker 04

  I know, oh, you comedy points.

• 2:18:01Griffin Newman?

  You're in debt.

• 2:18:04Griffin Newman?

  There were originally two seagulls, or not seagulls, what is it, pelicans?

• 2:18:07Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:18:08Griffin Newman?

  Right. So the one who ends up trying to eat them was originally a fully developed character. And there was kind of a good and bad pelican. And Nigel's trying to protect them and this other one's trying to eat them. And they were just like, none of this is necessary.

• 2:18:22David Sims?

  Because they already have the seagulls.

• 2:18:23Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:18:23David Sims?

  That's their thing.

• 2:18:24Griffin Newman?

  But I love Nigel as a character as just this kind of like, Geoffrey Rush just playing fucking warm, right? Just playing like a lad who just loves coming in because he likes dentistry.

• 2:18:37David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:18:37Speaker 03

  It's funny how they all know about dentistry. Yeah.

• 2:18:40Speaker 04

  It's awesome.

• 2:18:41Speaker 03

  They've been in this tank all these years.

• 2:18:43Griffin Newman?

  But they're stuck. Nigel comes and visits of his own accord.

• 2:18:46David Sims?

  He likes to hear the dentist update.

• 2:18:48Griffin Newman?

  What's the gossip?

• 2:18:49Speaker 04

  It's funny because it's like, they are out, they are watching the dentistry like television. They are so invested.

• 2:18:57Griffin Newman?

  Right. But for them, it's also like studying their captor to be like, where are the vulnerabilities?

• 2:19:03Speaker 03

  What's genius about Nigel too, is you immediately recognize that is how they are gonna get out of there.

• 2:19:09Griffin Newman?

  This is what I'm talking about. It's like, there's such intentionality of this story that anytime a character's introduced, you're like, what's the function they're gonna serve?

• 2:19:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:19:18Griffin Newman?

  And anytime you're shown a visual element, you're sort of like, oh, right. He could keep people in his beak.

• 2:19:24David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:19:25Griffin Newman?

  And none of it, it's all what everyone, you know, talks about being the ideal of what you want to achieve in dramatic storytelling, and especially in like, film narratives is surprising but inevitable. How can you in 90 minutes pay off the things that felt like they were, they had to happen, but yet when they happened, they don't feel de rigueur?

• 2:19:45David Sims?

  You really locked into this movie.

• 2:19:47Griffin Newman?

  I, I've seen.

• 2:19:47David Sims?

  You've seen it so many times.

• 2:19:49Griffin Newman?

  I've seen so many times. Yeah. I truly, I, this is one of my go-to, I can't sleep movies. This is like a real comfort movie for me. And, you know, we were talking about, we did our Edge of Tomorrow episode on Patreon, which I guess will have just come out or recently come out.

• 2:20:06David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:20:06Griffin Newman?

  And we were talking about how you will often identify a sleep movie and watch it like, literally every night for like, a couple of months.

• 2:20:14David Sims?

  Pretty much.

• 2:20:15Griffin Newman?

  And then you kind of like squeeze all the juice out of it and you move on to something new for a while.

• 2:20:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:20Griffin Newman?

  Nemo has just been in the rotation for 20 years for me.

• 2:20:24Speaker 04

  I probably haven't seen this movie until I rewatched it yesterday in over 15 years or something. And it was like, I know every word.

• 2:20:32Griffin Newman?

  Every line, every scene.

• 2:20:34Speaker 04

  A lot of the lines are also so catchy, so sticky. This is like full of just these effortless feeling catchphrases.

• 2:20:40Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:20:40Speaker 04

  Uh, it's not like donkey catchphrases.

• 2:20:43Griffin Newman?

  No, they're not dumb jokes and so much of it is the specificity of.

• 2:20:47Speaker 04

  So memorable.

• 2:20:47Griffin Newman?

  The actor makes a really interesting choice in the rhythm of their line delivery, or the character, the design of the character that is saying that thing, and the animation of what they do when they're saying it.

• 2:21:00David Sims?

  So where did we leave off?

• 2:21:01Speaker 03

  Well, we've done the.

• 2:21:02David Sims?

  Tank for a while, the Dory thing.

• 2:21:05Speaker 03

  They escape the angler fish.

• 2:21:06David Sims?

  They escape the angler fish.

• 2:21:07Griffin Newman?

  We go from the tank to the angler fish.

• 2:21:09David Sims?

  And then it is when basically like Dory doesn't absorb the directions of like, avoid the jellyfish and they go into the jellyfish.

• 2:21:16Speaker 04

  No, so.

• 2:21:16Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:17David Sims?

  Or is this Marlin's fault?

• 2:21:18Speaker 04

  It's Marlin's fault.

• 2:21:19David Sims?

  Right, she, she sort of remembers that they shouldn't do it and Marlin's like, what are you talking about? This is the right way.

• 2:21:24Speaker 03

  Oh, because the, the like, uh, school of fish.

• 2:21:27Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:27David Sims?

  They're like, they don't like him.

• 2:21:29Speaker 03

  Where they keep impersonating.

• 2:21:30David Sims?

  That's John Ratzenberger.

• 2:21:31Griffin Newman?

  That's John Ratzenberger.

• 2:21:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we're gonna get back to them.

• 2:21:33Griffin Newman?

  The grumpy Gus.

• 2:21:34Speaker 04

  In an amazing way.

• 2:21:35Griffin Newman?

  He's like, Mar, you have Marlin.

• 2:21:37David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, you have Marlin dejected that they lost the goggles, right? And that's when Dory introduces the just keep swimming to cheer him up. That she's also invested in him.

• 2:21:48David Sims?

  Cheers me up.

• 2:21:49Speaker 04

  She was able with the angler fish, because he used the light like a reading light. She was able to do P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

• 2:21:56Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:21:56Speaker 04

  They've lost the goggles, but this is for the first time she's learning to remember.

• 2:22:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, which I just think is so elegantly done that it's a gradual thing rather than at one moment, suddenly, you have your payoff moments with her. You have the like, her making the emotional plea to him that like, when I'm with you, I remember things. And you have the moment where the whole Nemo thing comes flashing back to her.

• 2:22:20Speaker 04

  She's so proud of herself right now for she's like, I've remembered the address.

• 2:22:24Griffin Newman?

  It's incremental. You give her little victories, so it's not just like at one point in the movie, suddenly she's fixed.

• 2:22:28Speaker 04

  And because her, well, A, she repeats the, she repeats it a hundred times, but also like because the remembering the address is something so, um, emotionally important to her, that like, I won't remember the address of a house I grew up in, but I'll remember P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney until like, I die, probably.

• 2:22:47Griffin Newman?

  And especially her riffing on it and her turning into the songs. Ask me again and I'll tell you, P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way.

• 2:22:53Speaker 04

  So they get to this trench, uh, and the trench looks dark and scary. Marlin.

• 2:22:58Griffin Newman?

  Sorry, I was pulling up to remind myself where I was. Instead, I just got the scary sounds of the trench.

• 2:23:03Speaker 04

  And Marlin is obviously like, "Well, we don't want to go through the dark scary trench. We need to go over." A fish who she had asked for directions earlier told her.

• 2:23:10Griffin Newman?

  It's the school of fish. It's the final thing. After they've been making fun of Marlin and he's like, "Fuck these guys," then they're like, "One last thing," but it's after he's swum off, so only she's there to hear it, and they don't know that she can't remember.

• 2:23:23Speaker 04

  Oh, right. That is then. I thought this happened later in the movie, but I'm getting them confused with the school of fish in the end, who we'll get to. We're also a big silver school of fish.

• 2:23:31Griffin Newman?

  But the clockwork kind of precision of just like, there aren't any cheats in the story.

• 2:23:36Speaker 04

  They are so funny.

• 2:23:37Griffin Newman?

  They're so specific, like the conflicts they find themselves in, why they're there, why there isn't an easy out, why they need to fight to work through the thing. Like, if Marlin wasn't offended by them mocking him because he's so self-serious, then he would have heard the thing about the trench.

• 2:23:54Speaker 04

  Right. And he doesn't like asking for directions. She's very friendly. She doesn't mind going up to anyone.

• 2:23:59Griffin Newman?

  His stubbornness screws them.

• 2:24:00Speaker 04

  They do the like, "Hey, is this fellow bothering you?"

• 2:24:03David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:04Speaker 04

  Lady. So they play a game of charades to cheer her up, and then because, and so we've seen that they can move in this really fun way, and then they do a big arrow, because they tell them they need to get to the EAC. Oh, right.

• 2:24:17Griffin Newman?

  They show the Sydney Opera House.

• 2:24:19David Sims?

  They show the little waves. They show the opera house. They turn into Marlin, and then they do like a sad face Marlin, which is pretty funny.

• 2:24:25Griffin Newman?

  They do a mocking impression over his shoulder.

• 2:24:27Speaker 04

  They are very funny.

• 2:24:29Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:24:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, so they give them the directions.

• 2:24:31Griffin Newman?

  Right. Swim, uh, uh, through, not over.

• 2:24:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. He doesn't trust her, so they get, he distracts her. He's like, "Look, a shiny thing."

• 2:24:40Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:40Speaker 04

  And they go over.

• 2:24:41David Sims?

  The jellyfish fucked them up.

• 2:24:42Griffin Newman?

  The jellyfish fucked them up.

• 2:24:43Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:24:44Griffin Newman?

  This is, the sequence-

• 2:24:45David Sims?

  But then they're woken up. I mean, we cut to the tank, and then when we cut back to them, they're woken up on the turtles.

• 2:24:49Speaker 04

  But it's so scary, intense, and so beautiful.

• 2:24:53Griffin Newman?

  It's another camera decision where he said they animated this whole sequence, and he was like, "It looks too neat and clean and perfect. There isn't tension to this." And the guy who was head of camera on the movie was like, "Let me try something," and he clicked twice to zoom in. Like, literally just did that.

• 2:25:09David Sims?

  Sure.

• 2:25:10Griffin Newman?

  And did it kind of like arbitrarily?

• 2:25:12David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:13Griffin Newman?

  And Stanton was like, oh, if the compositions are asymmetrical, if the jellyfish's bodies are cut off.

• 2:25:19David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:25:19Griffin Newman?

  And it feels like there's just this weird environment that you can't see his full bodies. And so all of the camera placements within the sequence, which is a lot more quick cutty, are all kind of a little disorienting.

• 2:25:30David Sims?

  How did they stop the camera from getting wet?

• 2:25:33Griffin Newman?

  Really good question. It's a fun sequence.

• 2:25:36David Sims?

  Fun. But we're getting to the turtles. Turtles, okay? In my opinion, the most positive representation of a Californian in the world.

• 2:25:45Griffin Newman?

  This is a really good take.

• 2:25:47David Sims?

  Like, of that kind of like, the surfer dude thing. Andrew Stanton, a Massachussettsan, although he's probably lived in California for like decades at this point.

• 2:25:55Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:25:55David Sims?

  Doing like a surfer dude accent, like, oh, man, yeah, you know, right? But it's like, the whole point of Crush is he's just like, I'm 100 years old, or 150, or whatever he is. Look at me, I'm fucking chilling.

• 2:26:09Griffin Newman?

  There's nothing annoying about this guy.

• 2:26:11David Sims?

  No.

• 2:26:11Griffin Newman?

  He's not forcing his worldview on you.

• 2:26:12David Sims?

  Not at all.

• 2:26:13Griffin Newman?

  But the more you talk to him, the more you're like, this guy's got it fucking figured out.

• 2:26:17Speaker 04

  He's like, you know, when there's like cool teen, like when there's cool Jesus for teens. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:26:22Griffin Newman?

  Crush is cool Jesus.

• 2:26:24David Sims?

  Uh, you think he's kind of like a youth pastor, but like a really nice youth pastor?

• 2:26:27Speaker 04

  He's like the cool Jesus, he's the cool hippie Jesus that the youth pastor is talking about.

• 2:26:31David Sims?

  Yeah, I guess like a youth pastor wishes he could be Crush.

• 2:26:34Speaker 04

  But he is show, he's demonstrating an extremely different parenting style.

• 2:26:39David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:26:40Speaker 04

  Right? Marlin is being exposed to, it is actually healthy.

• 2:26:45David Sims?

  Much less helicopter-y kind of parenting.

• 2:26:47Griffin Newman?

  He'll find his way.

• 2:26:48Speaker 04

  A way to teach your kid, a way a kid learns to be safe in the world is to fail or fall off the swing and then figure it out.

• 2:26:57Griffin Newman?

  In their choices and feel like it's based on experiences rather than rules being placed around them.

• 2:27:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and feel to have a sense of adventure that feels safe.

• 2:27:07Griffin Newman?

  And just the whole idea of like, you know, locating the EAC as a real phenomenon, then being like, man, okay, so turtles, would they be like surfers?

• 2:27:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:16Griffin Newman?

  If they're literally just in the flow of this.

• 2:27:18Speaker 04

  It's sort of like a highway.

• 2:27:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:27:20Speaker 04

  Like, when you see the fish that are merging on.

• 2:27:23David Sims?

  But it also is skydiving.

• 2:27:25Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:27:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 2:27:26Griffin Newman?

  Right, right.

• 2:27:27Speaker 04

  Oh, when Squirt gives their big, like, skydiver, like, okay, we're gonna have a great jump today.

• 2:27:31Griffin Newman?

  Totally. Um, I mean, incredible performance from Stanton. It's another one of these early examples where here's a role that they earmark of like, well, at some point we'll hire like a celebrity to do it. And he would do it in all the story reels and the presentations.

• 2:27:47David Sims?

  Much like Brad Bird doing Edna Mode or whatever, right?

• 2:27:49Griffin Newman?

  Well, that's the opposite story where they hired, much like William H. Macy, it's never been named, but everyone believes it's Lily Tomlin.

• 2:27:57Speaker 04

  Makes sense.

• 2:27:58Griffin Newman?

  That he hired Lily Tomlin and she was doing the records and he kept on giving her really specific directions of being like, no, I think it's more like this and it's more like this. And Lily Tomlin literally, excuse me, I got myself into a tongue twister. Lily Tomlin literally goes, I think you should just do this.

• 2:28:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. Why don't you do it then?

• 2:28:16Griffin Newman?

  Right. And then he just does it.

• 2:28:18Speaker 04

  Edna was born.

• 2:28:18Griffin Newman?

  Right. Um, this was the opposite where when they were-

• 2:28:21David Sims?

  Edna Mode.

• 2:28:22Griffin Newman?

  When they were in the early stages, everyone around Stanton was just like, you should just fucking do this.

• 2:28:27Speaker 04

  He's like a Hawaiian shirt guy. Well, all the Pixar guys at this point in time are Hawaiian shirt guys.

• 2:28:31Griffin Newman?

  This is a little prepier.

• 2:28:33David Sims?

  He's, I, I- He's got that New England thing going on.

• 2:28:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but this is outside of himself, but he just like, he fucking found the character. No one's gonna do it better than-

• 2:28:41David Sims?

  Should I have a Hawaiian shirt here?

• 2:28:42Griffin Newman?

  No, absolutely not. That would be a fucking nightmare.

• 2:28:47Speaker 04

  I think you're wearing a baseball shirt and it's awesome.

• 2:28:49David Sims?

  I'm, I'm in my Mets era.

• 2:28:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's-

• 2:28:50David Sims?

  I keep buying jerseys.

• 2:28:51Speaker 04

  Um, so the other thing, as we've been saying about how all the character choices make sense for the type of animal.

• 2:28:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:58Speaker 04

  This type of, um, more relaxed parenting style, not only that they're surfers and what, and whatever else, but it's also because they hatch their eggs really far away.

• 2:29:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:09Speaker 04

  And Marlin goes, how, how do you trust that they'll come and swim all this way in the big, big ocean and find you?

• 2:29:16Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:29:16Speaker 04

  And it's like, oh, when they're ready, they'll, when you know, you know, you know?

• 2:29:20Griffin Newman?

  But it's finding those gifts of like, you do research on different species and you go, oh, that's interesting. That's an interesting character detail.

• 2:29:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:29:28Griffin Newman?

  Rather than forcing things onto characters, you find these discoveries. I want to mention that in between- Right before Marlin waking up.

• 2:29:37Speaker 04

  Oh, we have tank stuff.

• 2:29:38Griffin Newman?

  Yes, you have the first attempt to tank escape.

• 2:29:40David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:29:41Griffin Newman?

  Which is genuinely like pretty upsetting.

• 2:29:42Speaker 04

  That's also an Indiana Jones type.

• 2:29:44David Sims?

  I really like that it's a moment for Gil.

• 2:29:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:29:48David Sims?

  To be like, I pushed the kid too hard, or like, I was being crazy, like, thinking this would work.

• 2:29:52Griffin Newman?

  Also that he's only been dealing with other adults. And that he's pushing Nemo to the same extent. He's the opposite of Marlin, where rather than not letting him do anything, he's making Nemo do too much.

• 2:30:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he pressures him. The plan is, because Nemo's small, he's gonna swim into the filtration system and jam one of those little tank pebbles into the rotating thingy, the motor, to jam it, and then the tank will get gunky. They will all have to be put into little bags while the dentist cleans it. We get a really fun visual where he's explaining how the plan is gonna work. And talk about the camera placement, it's like this POV of these bagged fish rolling across the highway.

• 2:30:33Griffin Newman?

  Stan, I think, talks about it as the Fincher sequence. He's like, this is my homage to the Fight Club, here's how we're gonna infiltrate.

• 2:30:41David Sims?

  Yeah, right.

• 2:30:42Griffin Newman?

  You know, talking through it and all the crazy camera movements and whatever.

• 2:30:45Speaker 04

  It's really fun.

• 2:30:46Griffin Newman?

  It is a really smart plan.

• 2:30:48David Sims?

  It's a good plan, but it has this assumption to it that I do like that it's like, there's a fish logic.

• 2:30:54Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:30:54David Sims?

  Of like, humans will only do one thing.

• 2:30:56Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:30:56David Sims?

  And they don't realize that like, yeah, a human can just fucking go on Amazon and buy like a new filter.

• 2:31:01Griffin Newman?

  But I like that Nemo gets close. Like, it's not like it's a total failure.

• 2:31:05David Sims?

  No.

• 2:31:05Griffin Newman?

  But, but it is so scary.

• 2:31:07David Sims?

  Scary.

• 2:31:08Griffin Newman?

  That it does actually set Marlin back, not Marlin, I'm sorry, Gil. It makes him question everything to a degree where he's just like, these are the lies I'm telling myself so I can survive in this fucking tank. We're never getting out of here.

• 2:31:20David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:31:21Griffin Newman?

  And it flips the dynamic where Nemo is gonna have to console him, basically.

• 2:31:24David Sims?

  Well, yeah, because Nemo finally does it because he hears about his dad's heroism.

• 2:31:28Griffin Newman?

  Well, I'm sorry, let's just run through, because I need to, I need to get through this. Because you have this lesson with the turtles, right? And they, they send them off the EAC, but they start spreading the message.

• 2:31:41David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:31:41Griffin Newman?

  This is a sequence that they talk about, is just like, kinda Pixar at their best.

• 2:31:45Speaker 04

  It's so fun.

• 2:31:45Griffin Newman?

  Where one night, they were like, fuck, we gotta solve this story problem. How can Nemo possibly receive a word that his father is looking for him? At this point in the movie, wouldn't he just give up? How do we stop the character from just conceding? And they're just like, well, what if it's a fucking like game of of radio, right? What if it's a chain of conversation? And then what are the opportunities for characterization and all of those things? Because all these have to be like a four second gag.

• 2:32:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:32:15Griffin Newman?

  Of what's funny is, oh, our swordfish like upper crust British fencers.

• 2:32:21Speaker 04

  So fun.

• 2:32:22Griffin Newman?

  And they basically just like write this all in one night, all do the voices. These are all Pixar people. It's all like Peterson and Stanton like repeating different, you know, archetypes and cultural stereotypes. And it's like a really fun journey that just feels like a fun story exploration. But then you get to Nigel hearing it, Nigel recognizing it, being like, I gotta tell this. I know, little clownfish. But you can tell that he's like, this is gonna mean a lot to this kid. I gotta tell him right away, flies through with urgency. Nemo immediately is like, what? Actually, no, not possible. He's immediately heartened and then rejects it as like, that is not a thing my father could do.

• 2:33:04Speaker 04

  That my dad would never battle a shark, like let alone even like Sandy Plankton's dad wouldn't even battle a shark.

• 2:33:12Griffin Newman?

  If you told him, your dad is just swimming really far to get to you. Even that would test his.

• 2:33:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:33:19Griffin Newman?

  His, uh, his notion of his father.

• 2:33:21Speaker 04

  Uh, but this is a beautiful moment because he Nigel says some identifying features about Marlin.

• 2:33:27Griffin Newman?

  Hello, sport fish trout tuna.

• 2:33:28Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. His name's Marlin.

• 2:33:30Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:33:31Speaker 04

  So, um, and then.

• 2:33:32Griffin Newman?

  You said he fought a shark. I heard he took down three. And you just, you just fucking like Spielberg shot pushing on Nemo's face and his eyes widening. Right. As he realizes the expression of his father's love in a way his father could never say to him. The understanding of what his father has gone through to try to get to him.

• 2:33:53Speaker 04

  I just find incredibly emotionally overwhelming.

• 2:33:55David Sims?

  I think you're right. I think you're right. I think it's very emotionally, it's very beautiful.

• 2:34:00Speaker 04

  And so Nemo makes up his mind, he's gonna try the plan again. Gil wouldn't have wanted to push him.

• 2:34:06Griffin Newman?

  He disappears in a cut. Like Nigel's telling the story, all the other fish in the tank are so excited for Nemo, and then they realize he's missing and he's already gone back up the pipe. It's like, hearing of his father's bravery has emboldened him to believe that he can do things as well.

• 2:34:21David Sims?

  Uh, we should also, of course, we, around now is when Nemo, I mean, when Marlin and Dory get sucked into a whale. And Dory speaks whale to the whale.

• 2:34:29Griffin Newman?

  That's right after this, and that changes, that changes humanity forever. It changes the world.

• 2:34:34David Sims?

  Everyone just could not stop talking about it.

• 2:34:36Griffin Newman?

  It was, it was seismic.

• 2:34:38David Sims?

  It is so funny, having, I've seen Finding Dory so many times now because my daughter vastly prefers it to Finding Nemo. And, uh, and that movie I think is pretty fun, and we will talk about it on this show.

• 2:34:50Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:51David Sims?

  But the way that they're just like, well, Dory has to speak whale, that should be crucial, actually. The fact that Dory doesn't know where her family was, that's the emotional arc of the movie. That throwaway line, like in the first movie.

• 2:35:01Speaker 04

  Where did Dory learn just to read?

• 2:35:03David Sims?

  Correct. Like, they're basically like, what are the things about Dory? Now that is the spine of Finding Dory.

• 2:35:08Griffin Newman?

  I like that movie a lot. Everything that drives me crazy in it is the checklisty sequels.

• 2:35:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, I hate that in prequel type things.

• 2:35:16Griffin Newman?

  Like, I hate that they bring the turtles back, even though I love Crush. And it just feels like they're like, guys, you have to bring the turtles back. We need to sell like turtle merch, you know?

• 2:35:26David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:35:27Griffin Newman?

  There's stuff like that that's really annoying.

• 2:35:28Speaker 04

  Turtle talk we'll get into as well.

• 2:35:30Griffin Newman?

  We'll get into turtle talk.

• 2:35:32Speaker 04

  But whale.

• 2:35:34Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:35:35Speaker 04

  The whale.

• 2:35:35David Sims?

  The whale, uh, speaking whale.

• 2:35:37Speaker 04

  Is just, that is one of the most biblical, ancient, important.

• 2:35:43Griffin Newman?

  Go off.

• 2:35:43Speaker 04

  Uh, archetypes in myths and sagas and legends is our heroes get swallowed by a whale. You just have to do it. Pinocchio, one of the greatest animated films of all time.

• 2:35:54Griffin Newman?

  True.

• 2:35:54Speaker 04

  Swallowed by whale.

• 2:35:55David Sims?

  Yeah. I think it's some of the best decor.

• 2:35:59Griffin Newman?

  Inside of a whale?

• 2:36:01David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:02David Sims?

  Baleen.

• 2:36:04Speaker 04

  That's their little teeth things?

• 2:36:06David Sims?

  Yeah, they're like filters.

• 2:36:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, which is so funny because you think of them as being sort of soft and small, but they're so packed in and hard when Marlin's trying to escape.

• 2:36:13Griffin Newman?

  But anyway, they- Taste buds being so pronounced that the fish can hang on to them.

• 2:36:18David Sims?

  Fun.

• 2:36:18Speaker 04

  That part, I do not like Marlin rubbing up on the taste bud.

• 2:36:22Griffin Newman?

  And also the water coming, like as-

• 2:36:24Speaker 04

  Flowing against the, where the whale is swimming. It's so interesting.

• 2:36:28Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:29David Sims?

  Whales are crazy.

• 2:36:30Griffin Newman?

  Them having this fight where Marlin's like really reaching a breaking point with Dory of being like, you keep thinking you can do, you know, you can speak to whales, you can read, you can do all this fucking shit. And meanwhile, it's just the whale approaching them so fucking slowly.

• 2:36:43Speaker 04

  Right, and because of the weird perspective and lighting and all the tricks in the water, she's going like, "Hey, little fella."

• 2:36:49David Sims?

  I don't think that's a little fella.

• 2:36:52Speaker 04

  That's Pyicon.

• 2:36:53Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's Pyicon.

• 2:36:54Speaker 04

  He is such a Pyicon because he is helping them.

• 2:36:57Griffin Newman?

  It's interesting that Way of Water inverts what you're talking about where the villains go inside the whale and do something terrible.

• 2:37:03David Sims?

  Take their immortality juices.

• 2:37:05Speaker 04

  Well, that's a lesson about- Whales are something grander and more sacred than us, and we, we can't be trying to mess with it.

• 2:37:14Griffin Newman?

  True. I do like that the whale basically becomes a location, right? That it's like-

• 2:37:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:19David Sims?

  Where they have a fight and they talk it out.

• 2:37:20Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:37:20David Sims?

  But I like Becca's thing of like, right, also this kind of like, they're passing through a siege perilous here.

• 2:37:25Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:25David Sims?

  The biblical thing of like that they are transformed by being expelled from the whale.

• 2:37:30Griffin Newman?

  Right, and that, and it's much like Nemo's character growth happening in him listening to Nigel's story. Like just really elegant show, don't tell stuff through action. It's just such a fucking perfect piece of screenwriting when Marlin is yelling at Dory-

• 2:37:48David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:37:49Griffin Newman?

  For trying to come up with a solution for how to save themselves.

• 2:37:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:52Griffin Newman?

  And he's just saying no to everything she's fucking doing, and then he finally breaks and says, my favorite line, "You think you can do these things, but you just can't, Nemo."

• 2:38:02Griffin Newman?

  And, and what I love about it is you see the shock on her face, the reaction of why he called me Nemo. She can't quite comprehend it, but then it cuts back to him and he looks so fucking embarrassed. Like, he realizes what he just said.

• 2:38:16David Sims?

  Her name's Dory.

• 2:38:17Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that, well, that's the only reason.

• 2:38:19Speaker 04

  She's like, who's Nemo? I thought your kid is Harpo Chico Fabio.

• 2:38:22Griffin Newman?

  Fabio, yes, yes. But that, he like, he gets it the second it comes out of his mouth. What?

• 2:38:30David Sims?

  Harpo. Just laughing about Dory.

• 2:38:33Griffin Newman?

  It's another classic comedy thing, anytime she confidently says the wrong name and he just has to go, Nemo. He just has to correct her so fast.

• 2:38:42Speaker 04

  So, Nemo was a very fun word to say. It's awesome that it's said like a trillion times in this movie. It's a really cute, fun name.

• 2:39:01David Sims?

  Of course, Nemo himself escapes all by himself. Like, you know, Marlin does not rescue Nemo.

• 2:39:07Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:39:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:39:08David Sims?

  He's there for Nemo when he comes out of the, you know, into the harbor.

• 2:39:12Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:39:13David Sims?

  Out of the sink.

• 2:39:14Griffin Newman?

  But also, Dory is correct. Like, Dory gets them out of the fucking whale.

• 2:39:17Speaker 04

  Dory's been talking to the whale this whole time. Whales don't speak-

• 2:39:20David Sims?

  He talks like this.

• 2:39:21Speaker 04

  And I think whales don't speak the same language as all the other fish, because they're, again, like the tulcun, sort of like on this elevated plane of intelligence. The same way that we can't speak the same language of whales, but whales do have language.

• 2:39:33Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:39:33Speaker 04

  So that's sort of what's happening here in my mind. She's communicating with the whale. The whale is like, you need to do the counterintuitive thing, which is fall down into my throat so that I could then blow you out. I've driven you to Sydney. I'm dropping you off.

• 2:39:45Griffin Newman?

  Which is also what teaches Marlin to trust Nemo in Nemo's escape. That she's doing the counterintuitive thing. Why would you go deeper into the whale? And Nemo similarly is not trying to swim up out of the net.

• 2:39:58David Sims?

  No, he's gotta swim down. That's how we're gonna escape this thing.

• 2:40:01Speaker 04

  He learns about swimming down also because, um, yeah, when, when the fish have to get scooped out, uh, usually to be sent to their doom at the hands of Darla. It's in a little net, and if a lot of them are in the net, they can-

• 2:40:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:40:15David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:16Speaker 04

  Break it.

• 2:40:16David Sims?

  And, and Nemo, you know, the big transformation is he, he, he knows what to do. He persuades Marlin to let him do it. Marlin- You know, lets him do it.

• 2:40:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:26David Sims?

  Marlin has the wherewithal to let him do it and they escape.

• 2:40:30Griffin Newman?

  It's the story thing I love across the Toy Story movies that also feels very influenced by Indiana Jones, where you set out like, here's the clear plan. This is what needs to happen and, and the order of actions that will get us to the other side of this thing. And then immediately shit goes wrong and your characters have to improvise, but it's like a heist movie, where you're so trained into how this is supposed to go, that it's exciting every time they have to veer off of the plan. And the movie is telegraphing the all drains lean to the ocean thing so loudly throughout, as like, if they can just get there, then they're in the clear, they're safe.

• 2:41:08Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:41:08Griffin Newman?

  It is a thing the Pixar people have talked about, that there were a lot of incidents after this movie came out of kids flushing fish down the toilet.

• 2:41:17David Sims?

  It's like, they're not gonna, they're not making it to the harbor, Ben.

• 2:41:20Griffin Newman?

  They thought that was the humanitarian act.

• 2:41:22Speaker 04

  Oh, no.

• 2:41:23Griffin Newman?

  Fish sales went way up after this movie, of course. And like aquarium attendance, I feel like permanently went up after this movie.

• 2:41:30David Sims?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:41:30Griffin Newman?

  But there was a lot of kids trying to free fish by, by flushing them down.

• 2:41:34Speaker 04

  I do think there's a very beautiful of its time, sort of Y2K fruitiger era. Vivid, blue and orange, like aesthetic to the whole thing that feels like it was big at the time.

• 2:41:49David Sims?

  Let's go Mets.

• 2:41:50Griffin Newman?

  I also like calling this the fruitiger era.

• 2:41:53Speaker 04

  Is that how you say it? Fruitiger era?

• 2:41:55Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 2:41:55Speaker 04

  Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 2:41:56David Sims?

  Yes, I know what you're talking about.

• 2:41:57Speaker 04

  Like that one Windows background.

• 2:41:59Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Also a little fruitopia.

• 2:42:02David Sims?

  I miss it.

• 2:42:02Speaker 04

  Oh, fruitopia I miss. That is like crushing squirt vibe.

• 2:42:06Griffin Newman?

  Yes, that's true.

• 2:42:07David Sims?

  I miss my like Windows 98.

• 2:42:09Griffin Newman?

  Bring it back.

• 2:42:10David Sims?

  Bring it back.

• 2:42:11Speaker 04

  Also a good reason for them to be clownfish is the blue-orange contrast is the best contrast. So...

• 2:42:18David Sims?

  Did you know if you ate a clownfish that it would be gross because they're covered in a special mucus to protect them from the anemones that they live in?

• 2:42:24Griffin Newman?

  Anemone, anemone, anemone.

• 2:42:26David Sims?

  All right, kid, don't knock yourself out.

• 2:42:28Griffin Newman?

  Um.

• 2:42:28David Sims?

  No, and then we're done. Like, I mean, right? Like, it's like.

• 2:42:31Speaker 04

  We skipped over, right, you think you're in the clear when he escapes.

• 2:42:35Griffin Newman?

  Well, the tank gets super fucking dirty.

• 2:42:37David Sims?

  I mean, yeah, sure.

• 2:42:38Griffin Newman?

  Austin Pendleton's freaking the fuck out. Can't you see that we're all surrounded by shit? Which they cut him off.

• 2:42:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, she goes, "Shh," because the dentist is coming in. And he takes his Reader's Digest into the bathroom.

• 2:42:47Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:42:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, is that when that happens, or?

• 2:42:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes, yes. And the kid in the waiting room is reading the Incredibles comic. I don't know if you noticed that.

• 2:42:54Speaker 04

  And there's a little Buzz Lightyear in the toy chest.

• 2:42:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, but the thing they didn't account for is that he would just buy some new high-tech cleaner and install it while they were sleeping.

• 2:43:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:43:05Griffin Newman?

  That he doesn't need to take that out, or he took them out but put them back in really quickly.

• 2:43:09Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:43:10Griffin Newman?

  So they wake up, the tank is clean, all hope is lost. Right. Um, it does not know that, uh, Dory and Marlin have gotten so close.

• 2:43:18Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. And today is the day that Darla is coming and she's gonna take Nemo and shake him until he dies.

• 2:43:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it, it, you know.

• 2:43:27David Sims?

  She even gets her hands on him. I mean, she's got him for a sec there.

• 2:43:29Speaker 04

  She gives him a hearty shake.

• 2:43:30David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:31Speaker 04

  She's like the opposite. I think a lot of like the depiction of Australia in this was just prob- this and, you know, Kangaroo Jack were like my only exposure to Australia.

• 2:43:39Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:43:39Speaker 04

  In, you know, the first decade of, of life, uh, and it so goes against the lovely, intelligent children of Bluey.

• 2:43:47Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:43:47Speaker 04

  Darla makes it seem like the children of Australia are monsters.

• 2:43:52David Sims?

  I do think it's vital in Bluey that Bluey is a relatively obnoxious child.

• 2:43:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, but she's not like, Darla is like.

• 2:43:59David Sims?

  Oh, no, Darla's much worse. But I mean, like, I mean, I just.

• 2:44:03Speaker 04

  Wait, at one point, uh, someone, a character with an Australian accent calls Dory Bluey at one point.

• 2:44:08David Sims?

  Well, she is blue.

• 2:44:09Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, she is blue.

• 2:44:10David Sims?

  Uh, but you know, in Bluey, like, one of my favorite episodes of Bluey, a hugely controversial episode, is the one where.

• 2:44:16Griffin Newman?

  Ellen comes out?

• 2:44:17David Sims?

  Where, the puppy episode. They're all puppy episodes of Bluey. Uh, is the one where Bingo, you know, first they both turn into Blueys, right? Bingo turns into Bluey, like Bingo paints herself blue.

• 2:44:28Speaker 04

  I don't know about this.

• 2:44:29David Sims?

  Oh, it's so good. It's called Mini Bluey.

• 2:44:31Speaker 04

  Awesome.

• 2:44:32David Sims?

  I'll tell you in one second. So Bingo turns herself into Bluey and Bluey's like, this is what it's like if you're Bluey. And essentially it's like, you need to be more obnoxious. Like you are not, like you are the good sister. I'm the more annoying sister.

• 2:44:42Speaker 04

  It's like blah, blah, blah.

• 2:44:43David Sims?

  Don't listen to dad when he tells you to do something right. Ignore people, be a little bossy, make weird noises, yada, yada, yada. And they do that for a while and then Bluey's like, this is boring. How about I be Bingo? And so they both turn into Bingo, right? They, Bluey, and then, you know, they're being nice and helpful and the dad goes, this rocks. Result, this is great.

• 2:45:01Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. You're making my life easier.

• 2:45:04David Sims?

  Like Bluey gets upset and they, you know, they have to resolve like, you know, the, you know, Bingo's like, I'm also annoying. Like Bingo helps.

• 2:45:11Speaker 04

  Bingo is a much sweeter kid.

• 2:45:13David Sims?

  But, but like Bingo is basically like, of course, like they think that, but like, I'm also annoying and weird and demonstrates how. But then the episode does, does end with the dad being like, but it did kind of rock when she was being Bingo, right? And a lot of fans don't like it because it's like, it's not an example of amazing parenting. Like the dad never really apologizes.

• 2:45:31Speaker 04

  It can't be these perfect parents all the time.

• 2:45:33David Sims?

  That's why I love it.

• 2:45:34Speaker 04

  The issue with the Bluey parents is they're too perfect. So we need these moments. Anyway. Where, where are we in this?

• 2:45:40Griffin Newman?

  Here's the thing I like in the movie, and I like this just when movies can give me this feeling. Where you feel like it's wrapping up and you're like, it's a shame I've been having fun. I guess if it's time to end, it's time to end, but I could watch some more of this. And there's basically a fake out de numact, right?

• 2:45:56Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:45:57Griffin Newman?

  Darla's here ticking clock. It's coming to a head. Marlin and Dory have made it like basically right.

• 2:46:04Speaker 04

  In Nigel's mouth, which was another moment of learning to trust because.

• 2:46:08Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:46:08Speaker 04

  He's like, you need to hop in my mouth for me to.

• 2:46:11Griffin Newman?

  Simplified, this is the only thing the other Pelican needs to accomplish is just being a, a basically non-speaking rival for like three minutes.

• 2:46:20Speaker 04

  And they're all like lads who are perched above a fish and chips stand.

• 2:46:23Griffin Newman?

  We also need to call out the Mine Seagulls, who we haven't even talked about yet.

• 2:46:26Speaker 04

  Right. Which were also, you say Bruce is a breakout star. The Seagulls were huge.

• 2:46:31Griffin Newman?

  Him, mine, yes.

• 2:46:33David Sims?

  Yeah, Seagull, mine, mine?

• 2:46:35Speaker 04

  It's so funny.

• 2:46:36Griffin Newman?

  It's just another really good identification of like, what do seagulls feel like to us when we see them? Right.

• 2:46:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, so, and also, uh, Nemo's playing dead.

• 2:46:48Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:46:48Speaker 04

  Uh, so that he'll get flushed down the toilet, and that's what Marlin and Dory come in on. So they think-

• 2:46:54Griffin Newman?

  The dentist is scooping, is scooping him to give to Darla. Gil's final advice is to play dead.

• 2:47:01Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 2:47:01Griffin Newman?

  Uh, he wants to get to the drain. Um, but yes, there's like this tension of, uh, Nigel getting Marlin, Dory to the window. They make it there just in time to see what they think is Nemo dead on the counter. So they give up. Nemo wakes up. Gil recognizes the panic of this moment and does what is potentially the sacrifice of load me into the volcano. Another thing we've set up in the movie that doesn't feel like it's gonna be a sort of mechanic for action.

• 2:47:30Speaker 04

  Right. It was just sort of a fun gag that they could make the volcano.

• 2:47:33Griffin Newman?

  Right. That's just part of the ritual, but then we've shown that like, it's not actually dangerous. But of course, yes, you could launch yourself from that.

• 2:47:40Speaker 04

  So they all work together and they launch Gil, um, over to the dentist's tool tray.

• 2:47:45Griffin Newman?

  Right. Who uses basically the tools to break Nemo's bag to be able to let Nemo flip into the drain of the dentist's bit sink. Uh, but it's too late in the sense that Marlin and Dory think it's too late.

• 2:47:58David Sims?

  Yes, they think he's dead.

• 2:47:59Speaker 04

  So Nemo is flushed to sea.

• 2:48:01Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:02Speaker 04

  And Marlin and Dory are back in the ocean. And Nigel also thinks Nemo's gone. And it's like, I'm sorry.

• 2:48:10Griffin Newman?

  I'm sorry. I truly am. His second, "I'm sorry, truly am" really gets to me.

• 2:48:16Speaker 04

  The gravity of it.

• 2:48:17Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And then he just fucking flies away.

• 2:48:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:48:19Griffin Newman?

  And Marlin has his lowest moment of just like, I mean, genuine, uh, grief.

• 2:48:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's crossed the ocean. He came so close. His son is dead. And he's like, Dory, we're going our separate ways.

• 2:48:31Griffin Newman?

  He's not even angry at Dory at this point.

• 2:48:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:48:34Griffin Newman?

  But it's just like, I, I, it's over. It's fucking over.

• 2:48:38Speaker 04

  The beautiful thing about like, I don't wanna keep forgetting when I'm with you with this relationship I'm able to remember. And he's like, I don't wanna remember.

• 2:48:45Griffin Newman?

  When I'm with you, I'm home.

• 2:48:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:48:47Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. She makes her big plea and it falls on deaf ears because he's just going through too fucking much, which leaves her alone. This is where you're like, I felt like the movie was about to end, but now they're all split up again. Where's the movie even going? What moves does it still even have? And it's, oh, Nemo can bump into Dory and Dory cannot understand what that means.

• 2:49:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:49:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's true.

• 2:49:08Speaker 04

  So at first, Nemo very sweetly is like, oh, like, are you lost?

• 2:49:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, right, right.

• 2:49:13Speaker 04

  It's very cute. He sees, he's just escaped from like the most perilous situation ever. He's seen more than any little baby fish should.

• 2:49:20Griffin Newman?

  But he wants to take care of her. He wants to help people.

• 2:49:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's immediately like, okay, like, I'll help you. He sees she's in distress.

• 2:49:25Griffin Newman?

  Right. And once again, like, if Marlin had listened to Dory's plea, he would have been reunited with his son in five minutes.

• 2:49:32Speaker 04

  Much sooner, yeah.

• 2:49:32Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 2:49:33Speaker 04

  So Marlin goes away, there's these crabs who are fun.

• 2:49:37Griffin Newman?

  Dory doesn't remember. You have the moment of like, Nemo? That's a nice name.

• 2:49:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, oh, really funny.

• 2:49:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Perfectly played.

• 2:49:45Speaker 04

  Uh, and then what is it that helps her remember again?

• 2:49:48Griffin Newman?

  Um, it's like a flashback.

• 2:49:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, but what prompts it?

• 2:49:52Griffin Newman?

  What triggers the P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sidney? Cause she has the moment where it all comes flooding back. Her like Kaiser Soze moment. I'm trying to remember what the verbal trigger is. Um.

• 2:50:04Speaker 03

  I don't remember.

• 2:50:05Speaker 04

  Okay, well, so that, the fact that we're forgetting is very meta- No, no, it's meta-textual that we don't remember and it will come to us in a, in a flashback and it'll be like a parallel and whatever.

• 2:50:14Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:15Speaker 04

  So that happens. Uh, she remembers and they need to find Marlin.

• 2:50:21Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Right. And Marlin's just sort of following the school of fish.

• 2:50:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:50:26Griffin Newman?

  I mean, you could argue he's borderline suicidal at this moment.

• 2:50:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he's, there's this big school of fish and they're all like, hey, watch where you're going. They're like really dour.

• 2:50:34Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:50:35Speaker 04

  Um, he's sort of caught up in that. They briefly reunite.

• 2:50:39Griffin Newman?

  It's the pipe. I'm sorry. It's the pipe where the crabs are looking to catch the fish.

• 2:50:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, that come out.

• 2:50:44Griffin Newman?

  And it says Sidney on it.

• 2:50:46Speaker 04

  Oh, right, Sidney.

• 2:50:47Griffin Newman?

  She sees that, she reads it.

• 2:50:48Speaker 03

  There you go.

• 2:50:49Griffin Newman?

  And P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sidney comes back to her.

• 2:50:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then she's like, oh, Nemo. And she's hugging him.

• 2:50:54Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:54Speaker 04

  With her little fins.

• 2:50:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:56Speaker 04

  Uh, there's this big school of fish.

• 2:50:58Griffin Newman?

  And, and, I'm sorry, but just incredible Ellen DeGeneres line delivery. She does her similar like seven thoughts in one sentence. She goes, you're dead and you're not- And your father, your father. She has her one kind of scolding.

• 2:51:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, while she's like squishing his face. It's really cute.

• 2:51:14Griffin Newman?

  She's really good.

• 2:51:15Speaker 04

  But we see this school of fish where they've just reunited.

• 2:51:19Speaker 04

  Up above on the shore, there's a fishing trawler that's going to-

• 2:51:23David Sims?

  This is right, the net.

• 2:51:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's gonna drop a big net and scoop up all of these fish.

• 2:51:29Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. And Nemo's the only one who can basically save everybody.

• 2:51:33Speaker 04

  Right. Oh, no, because Dory gets caught up in it.

• 2:51:35Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:51:36Speaker 04

  And Marlin is now, even though he just, he realizes his mistake from abandoning Dory. He's not gonna lose her again. So it's like, we need to get her out of there and free all the fish. Nemo goes inside and Marlin has just got his son back and he's like, you cannot do this. But then it's like, you know what?

• 2:51:52Griffin Newman?

  This is going to work. You need to trust me to.

• 2:51:54Speaker 04

  You, I know that you can.

• 2:51:56Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, and it's, you've already had their moment of reunion. So it's, what's impactful is that Marlin has just gotten him back. And he so quickly accepts that he needs to trust him and let him go for another moment.

• 2:52:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. So he schools all the fish, huh?

• 2:52:16David Sims?

  So true.

• 2:52:17Griffin Newman?

  This also, yes.

• 2:52:19Speaker 04

  Swim down.

• 2:52:20Griffin Newman?

  This is based on a real event.

• 2:52:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 2:52:22Griffin Newman?

  That Stanton read about in the news.

• 2:52:24David Sims?

  There was some event where a school of fish seemed to somehow figure out how to beat a net.

• 2:52:30Griffin Newman?

  To break the net.

• 2:52:31David Sims?

  Right.

• 2:52:31Griffin Newman?

  Which is another great, like, oh shit, if you're telling me that happened for real.

• 2:52:36David Sims?

  Or at least someone claimed it.

• 2:52:37Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:39David Sims?

  Movie's over, right? I mean, like, then we end up back at, back at the school and all that.

• 2:52:44Griffin Newman?

  Excuse me, my opening quote, another moment that makes me cry. Where he's looking at Nemo, who has succeeded in freeing all the fish, but he's lying kind of knocked out at the bottom of the ocean floor, at least this tier of the ocean floor, right?

• 2:52:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, this, this is brutal.

• 2:52:57Griffin Newman?

  And you have the mirroring of him going to Nemo and cradling him like the egg. And then to console him as he's like half awake, you know?

• 2:53:07David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:07Griffin Newman?

  He tells him the Sandy Plankton thing.

• 2:53:10David Sims?

  Right. Yeah, it's a lovely moment. To me, the lovely moment is when he gets information.

• 2:53:15Griffin Newman?

  When he gets the what?

• 2:53:15David Sims?

  When he, when he's like, "How old are you?" And Crush goes, "150, dude." Like, that just makes me cry.

• 2:53:21Griffin Newman?

  But see, it's the payoff of it for me.

• 2:53:23David Sims?

  The payoff's good, too.

• 2:53:23Speaker 04

  Both are.

• 2:53:24Griffin Newman?

  Both are incredible.

• 2:53:25Speaker 04

  Both are so sweet.

• 2:53:27Griffin Newman?

  But the fact that he's able to tell him that and that he knows that and that he understands the value of having experiences and learning things for yourself. And that's what he like yells at Nemo about, which is so funny. His genuine frustration of why do you still give a shit about Sandy Plankton?

• 2:53:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:53:44Griffin Newman?

  Is both very funny and very emotional.

• 2:53:45Speaker 04

  Albert Brooks saying the name Sandy Plankton to very important SpongeBob characters.

• 2:53:52Griffin Newman?

  Yes, good call.

• 2:53:54Speaker 04

  And he just delivers it in a really funny way. It's very sweet.

• 2:53:57Griffin Newman?

  And then you cut forward basically to their new found family unit.

• 2:54:02David Sims?

  Right, they're back, back at the Anemone before he's there.

• 2:54:04Speaker 04

  And now it's Marlin jumping on Nemo because he's excited for him to go to school.

• 2:54:11David Sims?

  There's also a made credit scene where the tank, the, the tank gang does escape. Which is.

• 2:54:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:54:16Speaker 04

  Oh, and Squirt's an exchange student now.

• 2:54:18David Sims?

  Oh, that's right. Hey, man, best, I just want to say this right now.

• 2:54:22Griffin Newman?

  Also, but.

• 2:54:23David Sims?

  Okay.

• 2:54:24Griffin Newman?

  It was part of the reason why I was so concerned when they announced they were even making a sequel.

• 2:54:28David Sims?

  Yep.

• 2:54:29Griffin Newman?

  Is this movie does end just perfectly.

• 2:54:31David Sims?

  It does, but it's not like The Monsters Inc. ending where you're like, "I truly don't know what you do."

• 2:54:35Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 2:54:36David Sims?

  Finding Nemo does end with like, "They live in the ocean, Dan, our friends. They could have another adventure."

• 2:54:40Griffin Newman?

  It's Nemo swimming back to hug him and say, "I love you," and then swimming off and Marlin saying, "I, I love you too, son." At a distance, you know, that he says it to himself, kind of. Yeah.

• 2:54:52David Sims?

  It's good. And he says, "Go have an adventure." And Nemo says, "Okay."

• 2:54:56Griffin Newman?

  But the last line is, "Yeah, I love you too."

• 2:54:58David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:00Speaker 04

  Right, it's also, right before Nemo got, right before Nemo got taken away, he said, "I hate you."

• 2:55:06Griffin Newman?

  Exactly.

• 2:55:06Speaker 04

  With like, full force to his dad.

• 2:55:08David Sims?

  Guys, I hear you. I love this movie. I will say, it does not quite activate my parent buttons in the way you guys seem to be so.

• 2:55:14Speaker 04

  That is interesting.

• 2:55:15David Sims?

  But like, not in like, a way where I'm immune to it.

• 2:55:17Speaker 04

  Does it activate your child of a parent button? Is it more like, the opposite identification?

• 2:55:22David Sims?

  I just like it because it's about fish and Dory's so funny.

• 2:55:24Speaker 04

  It's pretty awesome that they're fish.

• 2:55:26David Sims?

  But I think all of the stuff you're saying is very well done. Like, I'm not, you know, but it doesn't, this movie doesn't like, rubs me the rubble.

• 2:55:32Speaker 04

  It's about how secure attachment styles are formed.

• 2:55:36Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:55:37Speaker 04

  In the crucial early years of life.

• 2:55:39Griffin Newman?

  Yes. I also need to correct myself. He does the swim back, "Love you," but then he just says, "Bye dad," while on Mr. Ray, yelled at at a distance. And then Marlin says, "Bye, son," very quietly to himself. The end. Beautiful. Fucking Robbie Williams, beyond the sea.

• 2:55:55Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, baby.

• 2:55:57David Sims?

  Obviously, famously, if you see this movie, what's the, what's the language where "the end" is "slut"?

• 2:56:04Speaker 04

  What?

• 2:56:05Griffin Newman?

  What?

• 2:56:06Speaker 04

  So, there's a language right there, and it comes up on the screen, it just says slut?

• 2:56:12David Sims?

  And that became an old, like, Twitter, YouTube, of like, the end of YouTube, but then it just goes slut.

• 2:56:20Speaker 04

  Well, then, wouldn't that happen in like, a hundred movies?

• 2:56:23David Sims?

  Yes, but it's just especially funny in Nemo. Also, most movies don't say "the end" at the end anymore. It's Swedish.

• 2:56:30Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:56:30David Sims?

  It's Swedish.

• 2:56:31Speaker 04

  That is awesome.

• 2:56:33David Sims?

  Uh, I will find it now.

• 2:56:34Speaker 04

  Slut.

• 2:56:35Griffin Newman?

  Do you know, speaking of languages, this is only the second movie ever that was dubbed into Navajo.

• 2:56:43David Sims?

  That's amazing.

• 2:56:44Speaker 04

  Whoa.

• 2:56:45David Sims?

  Here we go. See, here's the ending, water.

• 2:56:48Griffin Newman?

  Looking at the shot.

• 2:56:49David Sims?

  You know.

• 2:56:49Griffin Newman?

  And that's, it does just say slut. In fact, it does just say slut.

• 2:56:56David Sims?

  Best Supporting Actress of 2003. Here were the Oscar nominees. I want to say this right now. The nominees were Renee Salwager for Cold Mountain, who won unbelievably.

• 2:57:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:07David Sims?

  Shore Agadaslu for House of Sand and Fog. Lovely nomination. Meteorium. Patricia Clarkson for Pieces of April. Better in The Station Agent, but still pretty good.

• 2:57:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, that's a weird one where that movie doesn't exist, but there was a moment of, hey, Patricia Clarkson's always been good. She has two great performances this year. Let's give her a lifetime kind of.

• 2:57:25David Sims?

  You pick. And the Pieces of April, she has cancer or whatever. It's a little more.

• 2:57:29Griffin Newman?

  But a totally forgotten movie that she's very good at.

• 2:57:31David Sims?

  She's good. Marcia Gay Harden in Mystic River. Kind of an odd nom. She's not bad in it.

• 2:57:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:37David Sims?

  Holly Hunter in Thirteen. A very good performance because she's a good actor in a very sort of overawed movie.

• 2:57:43Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:44David Sims?

  Ellen DeGeneres is better than all of those performances, like by far. Like, it's not even a question.

• 2:57:48Griffin Newman?

  Did BAFTA nominate her?

• 2:57:49David Sims?

  No, they nominated Eddie Murphy. I think they flirted with it, but like she might have made a long list or something. She got a couple of, like she won the Saturn, but the Saturns are, you know, a little, she got a couple of Critics Award, you know, like Chicago nominated her.

• 2:58:03Griffin Newman?

  A lot of critics saying like, this is the time to finally do this.

• 2:58:07Speaker 04

  And this still has not happened.

• 2:58:09Griffin Newman?

  It still has not happened.

• 2:58:10David Sims?

  A vocal performance? No.

• 2:58:12Speaker 04

  There are very few that are at, at the level that deserve it.

• 2:58:15David Sims?

  It is the kind of transformative performance that I think the Oscars, especially when you hear those five names.

• 2:58:20Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:58:21David Sims?

  No offense to them.

• 2:58:21Griffin Newman?

  No, but that's like a pretty.

• 2:58:23David Sims?

  Good actors all.

• 2:58:23Speaker 04

  Well, the empty circus nom was also a big thing at the time, right?

• 2:58:26Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, yeah, that was also a big thing.

• 2:58:28David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:30Speaker 04

  But that's also like motion, like.

• 2:58:31David Sims?

  We did get an Oscar for an animated film, obviously. It was nominated for screenplay, like sound and music, I think.

• 2:58:39Speaker 04

  The music, the score is beautiful.

• 2:58:41David Sims?

  It's Newman's Best Score.

• 2:58:42Griffin Newman?

  I was going to ask you, because I know sometimes you can be a little snarky about Newman.

• 2:58:46David Sims?

  He, he has a thing that he does.

• 2:58:49Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 2:58:50David Sims?

  And I enjoy the thing that he does, but I do feel. That he, you know, you kind of know what you're getting with a Newman score.

• 2:58:55Griffin Newman?

  I think this is his best score. I agree with you. It is a secret power of this movie, just that even though he and Randy Newman are part of the same lineage, that all the Pixar movies musically sounded so similar and this one starts so differently. And when you hear the opening strands of the Thomas Newman score over the, the anemone house hunting scene at the beginning, you're immediately like, oh, Thomas Newman's whole thing he does all the time, sounds like the ocean.

• 2:59:23David Sims?

  It does.

• 2:59:23Griffin Newman?

  There is no better fit for his style.

• 2:59:26David Sims?

  It's a hundred percent.

• 2:59:27Griffin Newman?

  Than this.

• 2:59:27David Sims?

  Obviously, Lord of the Rings won that year and that is very, very, very good music.

• 2:59:31Griffin Newman?

  But had Howard Shore already won for the first?

• 2:59:34David Sims?

  But you have to give it to him for return. It has the, the beacon lighting. Like it just, it has the most like bravura shit he ever did.

• 2:59:42Griffin Newman?

  They didn't give it to him for Two Towers?

• 2:59:44David Sims?

  No, they didn't.

• 2:59:45Griffin Newman?

  Who won a No Two?

• 2:59:46David Sims?

  Let's find out.

• 2:59:47Griffin Newman?

  Cause also the Hours.

• 2:59:48David Sims?

  Let's travel through time to the Oscars.

• 2:59:50Griffin Newman?

  I keep being corrected that the Hours didn't win and wasn't nominated.

• 2:59:53David Sims?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, right, that, cause that's the Frida year. Golden Fall swipes it from glass.

• 2:59:57Griffin Newman?

  Interesting. Um, I think this is.

• 3:00:00David Sims?

  Incredible year because Catch Me If You Can is also nominated. Uh, the wonderful, uh, Elmer Bernstein score for Far From Heaven and Thomas Newman's very nice Road to Perdition score.

• 3:00:09Griffin Newman?

  I, I love that score.

• 3:00:10David Sims?

  Very nice.

• 3:00:11Griffin Newman?

  But this feels like a real, they fucked themselves by not giving it to Thomas Newman, the year where it made the most sense. And now they're just constantly living in the shadow of how many nominations they've given him.

• 3:00:22David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:00:22Griffin Newman?

  And the idea that he's maybe never going to have a moment as clear cut as this one again.

• 3:00:26David Sims?

  I wonder.

• 3:00:27Griffin Newman?

  Um, the score's incredible, script's incredible. I, I feel, and I feel like this is the point you're making.

• 3:00:34David Sims?

  What was that?

• 3:00:35Griffin Newman?

  Even with the anti-animation, you know, stigmas. This is a year where like,

• 3:00:43Griffin Newman?

  Wally becomes a breaking point in 2008.

• 3:00:45David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:00:45Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about in that episode that as much as Dark Knight, I would argue, leads to the expansion of the ten.

• 3:00:50David Sims?

  It's, it was part and parcel.

• 3:00:52Griffin Newman?

  But this is a year where people were really like. Do we have to nominate Finding Nemo? And it felt like the conversation couldn't get traction, even though everyone sort of sensed like, this feels as important as Beauty and the Beast and sort of signaling a change in the industry, on top of it being such a seismic success. In a year without Lord of the Rings, where you didn't have a more obvious blockbuster film, maybe this would have gotten in. But even with the anti-voice actor prejudice, I feel like fucking Ellen DeGeneres was like seven or eight on the list.

• 3:01:24David Sims?

  Might have been.

• 3:01:25Griffin Newman?

  And part of that's just how weird and kind of weak that supporting actress field was. But you're right, it does feel egregious that she couldn't beat any of those five.

• 3:01:37David Sims?

  I agree.

• 3:01:38Speaker 03

  I was transitioning, but then I wanted to interject quickly. I never saw this movie before.

• 3:01:42Griffin Newman?

  What? That's insane.

• 3:01:44Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 3:01:45Griffin Newman?

  I knew when I was talking-

• 3:01:46Speaker 04

  But it's the wettest movie.

• 3:01:47Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 3:01:48Griffin Newman?

  It is the wettest film. When I was talking about how adults would go see this film, you were giving me a look like you were holding something back.

• 3:01:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. Uh, it's so sweet. I loved it.

• 3:01:58David Sims?

  I guess it makes sense that you weren't in the market for Finding Nemo at the time.

• 3:02:02Griffin Newman?

  You were, you were just enough older than us and you've also talked about your sort of like teenage, like fuck the mainstream.

• 3:02:09David Sims?

  I only saw it because I was like a nerdy film fan. Like, like, right, I had no reason to see it otherwise.

• 3:02:15Speaker 03

  2003, that summer is when I graduated from high school.

• 3:02:18Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:02:19David Sims?

  Pretty cool.

• 3:02:20Speaker 03

  Now, I will say, I'm somewhat similar to Dory.

• 3:02:24Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:02:24Speaker 03

  Because at that point, I had already really dove headfirst into a lifestyle that has led to memory loss.

• 3:02:31Griffin Newman?

  Ben has written this out. He's reading from a prepared statement. I'm not, I'm not making fun of you for that. I just think you're, I want people to know the level of intentionality with which you're speaking right now.

• 3:02:42Speaker 03

  But I think it's, it's long, long-term memory.

• 3:02:48Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure.

• 3:02:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:02:49Griffin Newman?

  The short-term stuff you remember, the bits.

• 3:02:51Speaker 03

  Uh, but we should, I think, yeah, let's introduce the podcast.

• 3:02:55Griffin Newman?

  Oh, sure. This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

• 3:02:58Speaker 03

  Swish.

• 3:03:00David Sims?

  I want to point out, as I'm sure Griffin, you already know, that every Pixar movie before this one had come out in November. That was the Pixar spot.

• 3:03:07Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 3:03:08David Sims?

  And originally, this was planned for November 2. But possibly because of sort of the aesthetic of the movie, right? Summer. The summery vibe of it. Perfect summer movie. They're like, no, May 30.

• 3:03:20Griffin Newman?

  There are also a couple of other things that factor into that, right? One is, I think they didn't want to, this not getting stuck in a rut thing, we've talked about. The other thing that's happening around this time is Lassiter goes out and poaches Brad Bird, who now is sort of orphaned after Warner Brothers Animation has collapsed. And part of that was, we're worried about repeating ourselves. We need to get someone else in to shake this up and change the pattern. And they talk about a little bit like Lilo and Stitch being seen as the secondary film.

• 3:03:51David Sims?

  Redheaded stepchild or whatever.

• 3:03:52Griffin Newman?

  While Treasure Planet was the main focus.

• 3:03:54David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:03:55Griffin Newman?

  That everyone was so fucking amped up about Incredibles. And it was like, we got Brad Bird, he's a genius. The script is perfect.

• 3:04:01David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:04:02Griffin Newman?

  We're making an action film, it's a little bit older. That Nemo's sort of slipping through the cracks a little bit is seen as less exciting and less sexy. But there's also this thing that Disney is sort of pushing on Pixar, which is, if the movie comes out in May, we can sell merchandise in May.

• 3:04:19David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:04:20Griffin Newman?

  Have the home video release come out around Thanksgiving.

• 3:04:22David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:04:23Griffin Newman?

  Make it the number one Christmas gift and do a second wave of merchandise in December.

• 3:04:27David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:04:27Griffin Newman?

  Which basically Eisner pushes on them as like, it's big to be a Hollywood, a holiday film. But now that we know that Pixar is basically a proven brand and the movie's going to hit no matter what, we'll make more money on these characters if you release earlier. And most of the Pixar movies swing to summer after this. Famously. What were you gonna say?

• 3:04:47David Sims?

  No, what were you gonna say? Famously what?

• 3:04:50Griffin Newman?

  There's the original Pixar deal after Toy Story where they sign them up for five films.

• 3:04:54David Sims?

  Yes.

• 3:04:54Griffin Newman?

  They'll be an autonomous company, but Disney has distribution rights and will own the characters in perpetuity.

• 3:04:59David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:05:00Griffin Newman?

  And those five films are supposed to be Monsters Inc., Nemo, um, uh, Incredibles, Cars, and Bugs Life. I forgot the first one chronologically. Where they get fucked on this deal is they said, "Sequels don't count." "We want you to make Toy Story 2 right away, but sequels don't count. That's going direct to video." Right. When they up it to theaters, Lassiter goes, "So that's one of our five films." And Eisner goes, "No, we get that for free because it was meant for video." What a jerk. That leads to the tensions between Pixar and Disney that made people think- They almost break up. When they're done with the fifth film, which is gonna be Cars, they're gonna leave.

• 3:05:42Griffin Newman?

  Every film was more successful than the previous film. They kept out grossing themselves. And everyone around Eisner at Disney was like, "You gotta do what you, anything you can do to make good with Pixar now, because we can't lose them." Right. And what Eisner kept saying was, "They're gonna fail at some point. One of these movies is gonna flop, and then we're gonna own their asses." Because they're not gonna have negotiating leverage. And he was really confident that Nemo was the one. Well, he was wrong. He kept saying to people, "This one's not as commercial. Fish aren't gonna sell as much merchandise. Even if it's just down a little bit, they're weaker and they'll come begging us." Yeah, it was their biggest hit, yeah. And that basically, like, puts the death knell on Eisner.

• 3:06:24Griffin Newman?

  It's a big part of why he's pushed out of the company, that he fucks that up with his arrogance. And that's a little bit, I think, why they wanted to go to summer, um, to see, like, if, I, I, whatever. But the other part of the story is that it was seen as the secondary film. Uh, no one was confident about it. There were these big fucking, like, CinemaCon and licensing, uh, you know, conventions where they have to go and sell these movies years in advance in order to get people on board with them for merchandise and for, you know, the theater partners and whatever. And there was one of these where they didn't have enough footage to show, or it wasn't in a good enough state. And the movie had a bit of a stink around it because Eisner kept shit talking it.

• 3:07:06Griffin Newman?

  And they need to go combat it. And they sent Andrew Stanton out, and he basically performed the movie for 40 minutes, similar to the pitch that he did for Lassiter. And everyone walks out of that being like, "That's the fucking biggest hit." That shit, the way he told the story and did all the voices and the emotions and everything.

• 3:07:23Speaker 04

  It's like Nigel telling the story to Nemo.

• 3:07:25Griffin Newman?

  Truly. And you can see it on, it's on the DVD and the Blu-ray and the fucking iTunes extras. There's like a supercut of the moments of him doing that.

• 3:07:34Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 3:07:35Griffin Newman?

  But he basically just kind of willed this movie into not being totally disregarded because Disney kept trying to like, slide it over and anyone who was engaging with it was like, it feels like this thing has the juice.

• 3:07:49David Sims?

  It opens to seventy million dollars?

• 3:07:52Griffin Newman?

  Two million, I guess.

• 3:07:53David Sims?

  Biggest in their career, in their time so far. Monsters Inc. did sixty-two. Ends at three, thirty-nine domestic, eight seventy-one worldwide. It's made more now with re-releases and stuff.

• 3:08:02Griffin Newman?

  The three-D re-release, uh, which Stan oversaw is what convinced him to finally do Finding Dory, but it also added basically another hundred million dollars to the gross.

• 3:08:13David Sims?

  Something else convinced.

• 3:08:14Griffin Newman?

  We'll talk about it.

• 3:08:15David Sims?

  It's number one at the box office on May thirtieth. Number two is the film that was number one the week before. No.

• 3:08:22David Sims?

  Matrix has been out for, I think, three-plus weeks.

• 3:08:24Griffin Newman?

  Okay, let me go through May in my head. So the, the opening movie of the summer is X2: X-Men United.

• 3:08:29David Sims?

  That is number seven.

• 3:08:30Griffin Newman?

  Then Matrix comes out the following weekend?

• 3:08:32David Sims?

  Matrix Reloaded is number four. And, and no, I think it was two weeks between them.

• 3:08:37Griffin Newman?

  Okay, and then the next May blockbuster?

• 3:08:40David Sims?

  Huge comedy.

• 3:08:41Griffin Newman?

  Oh, oh, it's Bruce Almighty.

• 3:08:43David Sims?

  Got a yo-yo, that's the earth.

• 3:08:44Griffin Newman?

  Like, also opened at seventy million?

• 3:08:46David Sims?

  Huge, huge hit.

• 3:08:47Griffin Newman?

  This month was through the roof.

• 3:08:48David Sims?

  America was at, just doing great.

• 3:08:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:51David Sims?

  And movies were doing great. America was actually doing horribly.

• 3:08:53Griffin Newman?

  You basically had four consecutive seventy million dollar opening weekends.

• 3:08:57David Sims?

  I remember it so well. It was my IMDb pro era.

• 3:09:00Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:09:00David Sims?

  My mom got a subscription for work.

• 3:09:02Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:02David Sims?

  And so I had it, and I had such good box office imagery and stuff, and like,

• 3:09:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:06David Sims?

  I just remember like Bruce.

• 3:09:07Griffin Newman?

  Right.

• 3:09:08David Sims?

  Terrible movie.

• 3:09:09Griffin Newman?

  Uh, yeah, awful.

• 3:09:10David Sims?

  It's a bad movie.

• 3:09:10Griffin Newman?

  But it was the biggest comedy opening weekend of all time.

• 3:09:13David Sims?

  Yep.

• 3:09:13Griffin Newman?

  Matrix had a five day, so it's, three day was a little smaller, but it opened over a hundred if you count the five day. Nemo's the biggest animation opening in history.

• 3:09:22David Sims?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:09:22Griffin Newman?

  X-Men was the biggest superhero opening.

• 3:09:24David Sims?

  Yeah, you got Pirates coming down the pike in later summer.

• 3:09:27Speaker 04

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 3:09:28David Sims?

  Oh, those crazy pirates.

• 3:09:29Griffin Newman?

  Bad Boys Two.

• 3:09:30David Sims?

  Bad Boys Two, Terminator Three.

• 3:09:32Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:32David Sims?

  Um, but yeah, uh, number three at the box office, opening against Nemo. Slightly underwhelming in its opening, but I think it kind of legged out a pretty good gross.

• 3:09:41Griffin Newman?

  Italian job.

• 3:09:42David Sims?

  It's Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron in the Italian job.

• 3:09:44Griffin Newman?

  Was a sleeper. It made it to a hundred.

• 3:09:46David Sims?

  In my memory. It's pretty fun.

• 3:09:49Griffin Newman?

  It's fun.

• 3:09:50David Sims?

  I've not seen it in 20 years.

• 3:09:53Griffin Newman?

  It looked like dog shit and everyone was like, why would they remake this? And then it kind of was a word of mouth.

• 3:09:58David Sims?

  It was seen as kind of like a national crime.

• 3:10:00Griffin Newman?

  This is offensive.

• 3:10:00David Sims?

  Yeah, there was like, you're making one of our things.

• 3:10:02Griffin Newman?

  You already did get Carter. Why are you kicking us even further?

• 3:10:06David Sims?

  I find the British obsession with the Italian job a little insane. Like that movie is basically like boring until the end, which does rock.

• 3:10:14Griffin Newman?

  Okay.

• 3:10:14David Sims?

  Like the, the, the stuff with the minis is great. That's mostly not the movie.

• 3:10:18Griffin Newman?

  Interesting.

• 3:10:19David Sims?

  Uh, but it's pretty fun.

• 3:10:21Griffin Newman?

  Mm hmm.

• 3:10:22David Sims?

  Do you like the Italian job with Mark Wahlberg and Edward Norton and Charlize Theron and Mos Def and whoever else?

• 3:10:26Speaker 04

  Can't say I've ever seen it. I remember it being huge and, uh, back when Canada's Wonderland was Paramount Canada's Wonderland. There was, um, an Italian job coaster where you were riding in the Mini Coopers.

• 3:10:38David Sims?

  Uh, sounds fun.

• 3:10:39Griffin Newman?

  David, Canada's Wonderland, a theme park that used to be Paramount branded and is not anymore, has like 10 rides that are all clearly connected to Paramount movies, but they lost the license and now they're just generic.

• 3:10:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. So Top Gun is now like Flight Deck.

• 3:10:52Griffin Newman?

  Right. And the, and the Italian job one is called like Stunt Track or some?

• 3:10:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. And Tomb Raider is called.

• 3:10:59Griffin Newman?

  Like Temple Explorer.

• 3:11:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:11:01Griffin Newman?

  There was a Wayne's World coaster at one point called the Hurlinator.

• 3:11:04Speaker 04

  Okay. That I don't know about, but that's awesome.

• 3:11:07Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. I'm trying to think what the other ones are, but that park is very funny for that reason.

• 3:11:10David Sims?

  Yeah. The Italian job is called Backlot Stunt Coaster.

• 3:11:13Speaker 04

  Big icon of the park instead of like the Disney castle is like the Paramount Mountain.

• 3:11:17Griffin Newman?

  And now they're just like, it's a mountain.

• 3:11:19Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 3:11:19Griffin Newman?

  Um, but yes, the Italian job roller coaster still has Mini Coopers. And they were like, it's just one of those chase sequences from any Hollywood movie.

• 3:11:28David Sims?

  Yeah, I see it right here. Well, you're not gonna change them.

• 3:11:30Griffin Newman?

  No.

• 3:11:30David Sims?

  Um, number five of the box office is a film you see many times, many, many, many times.

• 3:11:36Griffin Newman?

  It's specifically one of my movies?

• 3:11:38David Sims?

  You don't like it, but you've seen it. Maybe you like it. You don't love it.

• 3:11:42Griffin Newman?

  I don't love it, but I've-

• 3:11:42David Sims?

  Your sister loved this movie.

• 3:11:44Griffin Newman?

  I do think this movie's very good. This is way up on the list of the movies I have seen most in my life.

• 3:11:50David Sims?

  Why?

• 3:11:50Griffin Newman?

  Because my sister Romilly, past and future guest, longtime sister,

• 3:11:54David Sims?

  Yep.

• 3:11:54Griffin Newman?

  was not a kid who obsessively watched the same thing over and over again.

• 3:11:58Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:11:58Griffin Newman?

  Other than this one film, which for seven years was in constant rotation, is Eddie Murphy's Daddy Day Care.

• 3:12:05Speaker 04

  Daddy Day Care! Oh, yeah. We've spoken about this because this was a similar thing where it's like, I was watching this genuinely every single weekend.

• 3:12:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:12:13Speaker 04

  At my friend's house. It's like, we're gonna have a sleepover.

• 3:12:15Griffin Newman?

  It's Daddy-

• 3:12:16Speaker 04

  We're gonna watch Daddy Day Care.

• 3:12:17Griffin Newman?

  I think Daddy Day Care is very funny, but it could be Stockholm Syndrome. It is a movie I will defend as like, no, that one's actually well-written and it has a good cast. But also, I've seen it so many times that if I didn't find it funny, I wouldn't have been able to survive.

• 3:12:32David Sims?

  Um, number six, opening this weekend, new, is my favorite Eliza Dushku horror franchise,

• 3:12:40Griffin Newman?

  Wrong Turn?

• 3:12:40David Sims?

  Wrong Turn.

• 3:12:41Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:12:41David Sims?

  Um, which Wikipedia calls the first installment in the Wrong Turn series. It's like, let's relax.

• 3:12:46Griffin Newman?

  What's your second favorite Eliza Dushku horror franchise? Out of curiosity.

• 3:12:50David Sims?

  Um, all those other ones she's done.

• 3:12:53David Sims?

  Uh, I do love Dushku, though. Who doesn't love a little Dushku?

• 3:12:55Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, douche it up.

• 3:12:56David Sims?

  Uh, number seven is-

• 3:12:57Griffin Newman?

  Are you a douchebag? What do you say you self-identify as a douchebag?

• 3:13:00David Sims?

  Huge douchebag.

• 3:13:01Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 3:13:01David Sims?

  Number seven is X2. Number eight is The In-Laws, so that's with Albert Brooks, right?

• 3:13:05Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, bombing at the same time.

• 3:13:06David Sims?

  Big bomb.

• 3:13:06Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 3:13:06Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, huge bomb.

• 3:13:07David Sims?

  Number nine is another bomb, but a great film, Down With Love.

• 3:13:10Griffin Newman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:13:11Speaker 04

  Love.

• 3:13:12David Sims?

  And number 10 is, uh, probably the most important cultural text of 2003, the Lizzie McGuire movie.

• 3:13:17Griffin Newman?

  Yep.

• 3:13:18Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 3:13:19Griffin Newman?

  I made the mistake of opening against X2.

• 3:13:22Speaker 04

  What a summer that was. The summer of the Lizzie McGuire movie.

• 3:13:25Griffin Newman?

  Hey Now, Hey Now, this is what dreams are made of.

• 3:13:27Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:13:28David Sims?

  The only risk in taking-

• 3:13:29Speaker 04

  Sing for me, Paolo.

• 3:13:29David Sims?

  An adventure is not taking it at all.

• 3:13:32Griffin Newman?

  I have a very defined-

• 3:13:33Speaker 04

  Sort of the Finding Nemo message.

• 3:13:34Griffin Newman?

  A real kind of defining memory of all the girls in my grade going to see Lizzie McGuire movie, uh, that Friday, opening day. Same day that X2, X-Men United, came out. And the girls were angry that none of the boys wanted to go see Lizzie McGuire. And I, quite a big fan of the X-Men. And I remember the girls in my grade basically being like, "If you come see the Lizzie McGuire movie with us, someone will make out with you."

• 3:14:03David Sims?

  Did anyone?

• 3:14:04Griffin Newman?

  No, I didn't go see it. Of course, I went to X2 X-Men United.

• 3:14:07David Sims?

  X-Men, the X-Men are united in this film.

• 3:14:09Griffin Newman?

  I was like, "I'm sorry, you don't understand what you're up against here. You have no leverage in this conversation."

• 3:14:15David Sims?

  X2 was a pretty exciting day. That was pretty cool.

• 3:14:17Griffin Newman?

  I was like night crawlers in this one.

• 3:14:19David Sims?

  I know, and it was just kind of that thing of like, the first one worked, so they're gonna get to be a little like more off the leash with this one.

• 3:14:25Griffin Newman?

  You could promise me that Jessica Alba would make out with me and I wouldn't go see the Lizzie McGuire movie right now.

• 3:14:30David Sims?

  Woman herself.

• 3:14:31Griffin Newman?

  Can we talk about theme parts, please?

• 3:14:34Speaker 04

  So, a couple of very important things. It was revolutionary at the time, Turtle Talk with Crush. So Epcot has the second largest research aquarium in the countries within Epcot. It is something that Disney does not take enough advantage of. It's a wonderful little aquarium.

• 3:14:51Griffin Newman?

  And I think of Interest to David, was basically seen as on the chopping block in the early 2000s. All this educational, scientific shit is lame. We gotta get characters back in here.

• 3:15:00Speaker 04

  They have rescue manatees there, so they decided-

• 3:15:03Griffin Newman?

  The fact that they had a blockbuster fish movie saved all this shit.

• 3:15:06Speaker 04

  The Seas is now gonna be rebranded as The Seas with Nemo and Friends. And one of the great attractions there is Turtle Talk with Crush.

• 3:15:15Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:15:15David Sims?

  That's where I've seen videos of this.

• 3:15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's really, at the time-

• 3:15:19Griffin Newman?

  It was live puppeteering, basically, Ben. They had an animated model that could do crowd work. So the audience would be there-

• 3:15:25David Sims?

  It's like, "Your name's Griffin, wow, electrical beast."

• 3:15:28Griffin Newman?

  They'd make jokes about the guy wearing the silly hat.

• 3:15:30Speaker 04

  It's so cohesive, because you're looking at all these fish tanks at the aquarium, and then you go to one that's like a fish tank, but it's a screen and it's Crush and he makes jokes with all the kids and it's fun. There's also a little ride where you're riding in shells and the characters from Nemo are being projected onto windows into the real tanks.

• 3:15:47Griffin Newman?

  But then there are also some sculptures and you're seeing real fish. It's like, they kept using Nemo characters as the bait to get children to engage with real aquatic life.

• 3:15:57Speaker 04

  Uh, there's also-

• 3:15:58David Sims?

  That sounds very nice.

• 3:15:58Speaker 04

  Don't want to talk about it because it sucks, but they reskinned Disneyland, the um, the submarine voyage ride with Nemo's stuff.

• 3:16:05Griffin Newman?

  I could not disagree more. This is one of my favorite attractions.

• 3:16:08Speaker 04

  I want to skip over that.

• 3:16:09Griffin Newman?

  It is one of my safe spaces.

• 3:16:11David Sims?

  It's now called Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage.

• 3:16:14Speaker 04

  Convince elevator pitch.

• 3:16:16Griffin Newman?

  You go into a submarine that is on tracks. They make you feel like it's free floating, but you're genuinely underwater. And then it is a technical marvel where you are going around in a loop while the Thomas Newman score soothes my anxiety. And you see a combination of real fish and like incredible projection where it looks like real animation is happening outside the window of the submarine.

• 3:16:40Speaker 04

  I'm gonna be honest, you're selling me.

• 3:16:42David Sims?

  But what was lost?

• 3:16:44Speaker 04

  Nothing was lost. It was just already kind of like a dull experience, but you're right. Adding the IP onto it doesn't.

• 3:16:51Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it was, it was more like.

• 3:16:52Speaker 04

  It's a unique ride mechanic.

• 3:16:54Griffin Newman?

  A big fake octopus attacks you and you have like a Jacques Cousteau style narrator just telling you about it.

• 3:17:01Speaker 04

  It's just funny because it's so, uh, to most people, it would be very anxiety inducing. You're going into a small claustrophobic capsule and going underwater.

• 3:17:08David Sims?

  How many people are on the sub?

• 3:17:10Speaker 04

  No, it's a very slow moving line.

• 3:17:12Griffin Newman?

  Yeah. Um, but it's, you all have your own seat. The, the seats face in opposite directions. Everyone has their own little hole they get to look at. Um, I think I would find it anxiety provoking. Did it not have my good friends and the Thomas Newman score and the vibes and the colors? Maybe that's why I like it so much.

• 3:17:30David Sims?

  It's 12 minutes.

• 3:17:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:17:32David Sims?

  That seems very long.

• 3:17:33Griffin Newman?

  I love these rides that are just like.

• 3:17:36David Sims?

  I'm not anti.

• 3:17:36Griffin Newman?

  Shit's gonna slow down. You just get to stay seated. Nothing's gonna happen to your tummy. These are nice kind of refresh points in a theme park day.

• 3:17:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:17:44Griffin Newman?

  Of like, I can just vibe out here.

• 3:17:47Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, and it's less overstimulating than like a Small World or something.

• 3:17:50Griffin Newman?

  Yes, I never skip it.

• 3:17:52Speaker 04

  The last thing I want to bring up, because I think it is one of the great achievements of the 21st century at the theme parks, which is at Animal Kingdom. Finding Nemo the Musical. I think this is a really, really significant piece of theme park entertainment.

• 3:18:08David Sims?

  The Big Blue and Beyond?

• 3:18:09Speaker 04

  No, this is the re- so a few years ago, they were like, we need to cut down the runtime of Finding Nemo the Musical. Just looking, so I understand the context. That's a bastardized version.

• 3:18:17Griffin Newman?

  Forty minutes and now it's like twenty minutes?

• 3:18:19Speaker 04

  This was the first time Disney worked with, uh, Robert and Kristen Lopez.

• 3:18:23Griffin Newman?

  This is what's interesting about this, David.

• 3:18:25Speaker 04

  So they got them off of Avenue Q to be like, you need to write a Finding Nemo musical.

• 3:18:30Griffin Newman?

  David is hearing, he's holding up big foam fingers and an appendage.

• 3:18:33David Sims?

  My sign is so far away, Ben. My stop sign.

• 3:18:35Speaker 04

  The way that the stage uses the vertical space for these underwater creatures.

• 3:18:41Griffin Newman?

  It's some Julie Tamor style. You see the puppeteers visibly, but the puppets are in different ways worked around their bodies.

• 3:18:48Speaker 04

  The, the Nigel puppet is the most impressive, biggest thing I've, outside of the King Kong musical. It's like that Nigel puppet is jaw dropping and the song that they do for the turtles is so good. It's like a Beach Boys type thing and it's just awesome.

• 3:19:06Griffin Newman?

  I also think Not My Dad is a great song.

• 3:19:07Speaker 04

  Oh, Nemo's where, where's, well, first it's Where's My Dad and then it's Not My Dad.

• 3:19:11Griffin Newman?

  Right. When Nigel tries to tell the story.

• 3:19:12Speaker 04

  Um, in the big blue world. Like, these songs are genuinely for theme park entertainment. It is an excellent family musical. I don't understand why they've never tried to do it on Broadway.

• 3:19:23Griffin Newman?

  The Lopez over, the Lopez is over-delivered on a theme park musical, which made Disney go like, oh, fuck, we gotta have these people work on everything, which leads to obviously Frozen and Coco and all these other things.

• 3:19:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:19:32Griffin Newman?

  I have never understood why they've never attempted to transfer this to Broadway. Cause even just like the visual approach, they, they cracked the code on how to make these characters work on stage. They cracked the puppets, the songs are good. I'm like, if you just doubled this length, and I'm sure they would just write more songs.

• 3:19:49Speaker 04

  Easily. And there's so many good songs packed into it already.

• 3:19:52Griffin Newman?

  This thing would be a huge fucking hit. And instead of ever transferring it, after like fifteen years, they were like, let's make it shorter.

• 3:19:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:19:59Griffin Newman?

  And now it's like a fifteen minute, like, greatest hits, a bridge version.

• 3:20:02Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, but I will never stop.

• 3:20:04David Sims?

  Is that just to move people through? Like, why a bridge?

• 3:20:07Speaker 04

  Maybe kids' attention spans nowadays and also probably some equity thing with the performers. Like, this is a really, especially Crush's song.

• 3:20:15Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:16Speaker 04

  For a guy to be singing that, it's, it's tough on the vocal cords.

• 3:20:19David Sims?

  It looks like Crush's song is called Go With The Flow.

• 3:20:21Speaker 04

  It absolutely is.

• 3:20:22Griffin Newman?

  But, but David. Theme parks love having shows like this that are successful because they're people eaters. They take pressure off the lines for the rides.

• 3:20:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:20:30Griffin Newman?

  If you can get someone to sit down for 40 minutes and if you can-

• 3:20:34David Sims?

  I understand.

• 3:20:35Griffin Newman?

  Pack a house.

• 3:20:36David Sims?

  I understand.

• 3:20:36Griffin Newman?

  And this was one of the few shows that people were like, this is actually good. It's not just kind of like a shitty restaging of, you know, there was the Aladdin-

• 3:20:44David Sims?

  I know Becca has to go. I was gonna say, you guys could just keep going. I feel like you guys could do this for another hour.

• 3:20:49Speaker 04

  Oh god, I really do need to go soon.

• 3:20:52David Sims?

  Have you ever been on Podcast The Ride?

• 3:20:54Speaker 04

  No, cuz I haven't been in-

• 3:20:56David Sims?

  How does that not happen?

• 3:20:56Speaker 04

  Well, we've spoken about it, but then like, I don't know when I'm gonna be in LA next.

• 3:21:00Griffin Newman?

  Podcast The Ride and Doughboys are the two that it feels like you have been inevitable on for years. And the schedules never line up.

• 3:21:07Speaker 04

  This is the beginning of my, like, life's wish triple crown.

• 3:21:12David Sims?

  Right, like, I feel like for you, like, being on Blank Check is an enjoyable lark, but like, it's a mere stepping stone to Podcast The Ride where you belong.

• 3:21:18Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, you misunderstand. I love Blank Check.

• 3:21:21David Sims?

  Well, that's very nice of you.

• 3:21:22Speaker 04

  It's, it's-

• 3:21:23David Sims?

  I love everything you do.

• 3:21:24Speaker 04

  A masterpiece of podcasts. It's a dream to be on the podcast that I like so much.

• 3:21:31David Sims?

  Yep. Is there no other Nemo theme park stuff?

• 3:21:33Speaker 04

  Well, there's Crush's Coaster in Paris, there's a simulator in Disney Sea, but-

• 3:21:37Griffin Newman?

  Oh, Crush's Coaster, yeah. Crush's Coaster is, it's very good. It is the exact kind of ride you hate. It's a shell that's moving fast and spinning. You're in an indoor roller coaster.

• 3:21:48David Sims?

  It's a mousy type ride?

• 3:21:49Griffin Newman?

  They play the kinda surf rocky, yes. Hey, I like that you knew the term.

• 3:21:52David Sims?

  Right, isn't that what they're called? Tiny mous- wild mous?

• 3:21:56Griffin Newman?

  Uh, it's very fun. It's in the sort of-

• 3:21:58David Sims?

  Doesn't sound fun to me.

• 3:21:58Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, but you would, you would hate it.

• 3:22:00David Sims?

  It's not like bullshit.

• 3:22:00Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:22:01David Sims?

  What was the other thing you said?

• 3:22:02Griffin Newman?

  But they play the Thomas Noonan, like, surf rock score. The environment's very fun. They have lights and colors.

• 3:22:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that's in, um, the, the bad part of Disneyland Paris, right?

• 3:22:10Griffin Newman?

  Although it's just now-

• 3:22:11David Sims?

  Wrong side of the joke.

• 3:22:12Speaker 04

  They rebranded it. Now they have Olaf there.

• 3:22:14Griffin Newman?

  They have Arendale.

• 3:22:15Speaker 04

  And children get to learn about death by watching Olaf power down in front of them.

• 3:22:18David Sims?

  Oh yeah, right, I saw that.

• 3:22:19Griffin Newman?

  Falls down on a boat.

• 3:22:20Speaker 04

  Which is so Parisian. It's so the ennui of make, they made an animatronic for Disneyland Paris who, who dies in front of you.

• 3:22:27Griffin Newman?

  Yes.

• 3:22:28David Sims?

  I will say Crush's Coaster doesn't look that intense. I'm watching a-

• 3:22:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a family coaster.

• 3:22:32Griffin Newman?

  Right. This is the other thing- Disney, nothing is that intense.

• 3:22:34David Sims?

  I know, nothing is that like hell raising.

• 3:22:36Griffin Newman?

  But that is as close to being a thrill ride as Disney gets, basically.

• 3:22:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, no, oh, disagree.

• 3:22:43Griffin Newman?

  Well, what do you put higher?

• 3:22:44Speaker 04

  Well, even at that park, Indiana Jones is way more intense.

• 3:22:48Griffin Newman?

  I made the mistake of getting, my brother was living in France at the time, and I took him to Disney, and he showed up with his backpack and his laptop, because he said, "I'm gonna have to just do some work at some point."

• 3:23:00David Sims?

  Sounds like your brother.

• 3:23:01Griffin Newman?

  And so he was really worried about the security of his laptop. And he was like, "This thing isn't gonna go upside down, right?" And I was like, "No, it's Disney. Nothing goes upside down." He was very angry at me at the end of that ride.

• 3:23:11David Sims?

  Does it go upside down?

• 3:23:12Griffin Newman?

  It does. It's the Mind Cart roller coaster.

• 3:23:13David Sims?

  I'm watching it.

• 3:23:14Griffin Newman?

  It does one loop.

• 3:23:15Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 3:23:16David Sims?

  One little, one little saucy loop.

• 3:23:18Griffin Newman?

  He was holding on to his backpack for dear life.

• 3:23:20Speaker 04

  I will plug vulture.com.

• 3:23:22Griffin Newman?

  Sure.

• 3:23:23Speaker 04

  And that's pretty much it, I think.

• 3:23:26Griffin Newman?

  What do you mean?

• 3:23:27David Sims?

  Popcorn bucket?

• 3:23:28Speaker 04

  They've canceled, they've canceled my ass!

• 3:23:31Griffin Newman?

  It's bullshit.

• 3:23:31David Sims?

  That's bullshit.

• 3:23:33Speaker 04

  The man, the man didn't want me speaking truth about Devil Wears Prada bucket shaped like a bag.

• 3:23:38Griffin Newman?

  We tried to fucking-

• 3:23:39Speaker 04

  Michael Jackson bucket shaped like a hat. They don't want me revealing these stories.

• 3:23:43David Sims?

  Force change.

• 3:23:44Griffin Newman?

  And I'll say, tried to force the issue through Critical Darlings.

• 3:23:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, we really did. So actually, let a writing campaign-

• 3:23:51David Sims?

  Buried.

• 3:23:51Speaker 04

  Co- comment on all of Vulture's social media saying, "Bring back the popcorn bucket reviews."

• 3:23:55Griffin Newman?

  The bucket still exists. I came in today asking Becca to do a bucket trade, because I never got the Fantastic Car from Fantastic Four First Steps. And I said I would promise to trade her the F1 popcorn bucket that was supposed to be part of the Critical Darlings Oscar nominees segment, "You're in Review." And Becca has made it clear that she does not want the F1 bucket.

• 3:24:14Speaker 04

  I have five Melania buckets on my desk. I don't know what to do with them.

• 3:24:18Griffin Newman?

  Those things. Talk about being worth negative comedy points.

• 3:24:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, well-

• 3:24:21Griffin Newman?

  The Melania bucket.

• 3:24:22Speaker 04

  They make me laugh.

• 3:24:23Griffin Newman?

  Okay, well then that's all that matters.

• 3:24:24David Sims?

  Does Lee Cronin's The Mummy have a bucket?

• 3:24:26Speaker 04

  I don't know, I don't, look, I'm off, I'm off the beat. They, they pulled me off the case.

• 3:24:30Griffin Newman?

  It's an injustice, and let's just-

• 3:24:31David Sims?

  What if it was just Lee Cronin?

• 3:24:33Griffin Newman?

  That would be good.

• 3:24:33David Sims?

  Just to honor his-

• 3:24:34Griffin Newman?

  Lee Cronin's the popcorn?

• 3:24:36David Sims?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:24:37Griffin Newman?

  Um, let's make it clear to our listeners. Let your voices be heard.

• 3:24:41Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 3:24:41Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Becca, previously on the masthead chief popcorn critic.

• 3:24:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:24:46Griffin Newman?

  Popcorn bucket critic. And we want this reinstated. We want the coverage back.

• 3:24:51David Sims?

  Bring back Buckets.

• 3:24:52Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, but in the same way that you should all, um, join Blank Check Patreon, you should,

• 3:24:57Griffin Newman?

  This is a good plug.

• 3:24:58Speaker 04

  Uh, subscribe to a magazine.

• 3:25:00Griffin Newman?

  Subscribe to a magazine?

• 3:25:01David Sims?

  I'm a, I'm a New York Magazine subscriber.

• 3:25:03Griffin Newman?

  Hashtag Bring Back Becca's Buckets.

• 3:25:06David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:25:07Speaker 03

  And on the day of the release of this episode, June 21st, over on Patreon, Robocop 2 is coming out.

• 3:25:14Griffin Newman?

  Oh, a movie I love as much as Finding Nemo.

• 3:25:16David Sims?

  A movie, a commentary where we're kinda like, this isn't very good, the whole time.

• 3:25:21Speaker 03

  David, can we, can we take that again?

• 3:25:22David Sims?

  We reveal our deepest secrets.

• 3:25:24Griffin Newman?

  I get pretty worked up. I don't want people to think I'm apathetic on that episode.

• 3:25:27David Sims?

  You get pretty worked up.

• 3:25:28Griffin Newman?

  I get pretty worked up.

• 3:25:29David Sims?

  But I think we're even-handed and fair about its flaws.

• 3:25:31Griffin Newman?

  I try not to be an asshole.

• 3:25:32David Sims?

  Right, we're not just like shitting all over it, we're just kinda like, mm, that's not right.

• 3:25:36Speaker 03

  My cousin shows up randomly that we've never talked about before and he kinda looks like me, like...

• 3:25:42David Sims?

  Oh, you're, you're doing like fun sweep, sweep kinda stuff, yeah, right.

• 3:25:45Griffin Newman?

  Uh, Joe Biden's the guest.

• 3:25:46David Sims?

  Urkel, Urkel appears.

• 3:25:48Griffin Newman?

  Right. We, it, we have Urkel, Stefan Urkel,

• 3:25:52David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:25:53Griffin Newman?

  Steve Urkel,

• 3:25:54David Sims?

  Steve Urkel.

• 3:25:55Griffin Newman?

  And the Urkel bot all appear on the episode.

• 3:25:57David Sims?

  Urkel bot is there.

• 3:25:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, take us out.

• 3:25:59Griffin Newman?

  Um...

• 3:26:00David Sims?

  And when AJ recently plugged Urkel in our, uh, group chat.

• 3:26:03Griffin Newman?

  No, did he?

• 3:26:04David Sims?

  Yeah, he did.

• 3:26:04Griffin Newman?

  This is another thing I've been thinking. Inter Stanton and AJ kinda look similar.

• 3:26:08David Sims?

  Yeah, sure, sure.

• 3:26:11Griffin Newman?

  Got some AJ vibes.

• 3:26:12David Sims?

  Yeah, a little bit. I mean, you're just talking about like a guy in a half zip with like hair. I mean, like, not, not to insult AJ, it's kinda like a normal looking guy.

• 3:26:19Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:19David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:20Griffin Newman?

  AJ's very handsome, but he looks like the default video game avatar before you make any...

• 3:26:24David Sims?

  He's your sim before you start doing stuff.

• 3:26:30David Sims?

  Sorry. Sorry AJ, you're very good looking.

• 3:26:33Griffin Newman?

  I, I prefaced it with very handsome.

• 3:26:34David Sims?

  Everyone we employ is good looking. JJ especially, stupid sexy JJ.

• 3:26:38Griffin Newman?

  It actually sucks. I hated spending a weekend with his fucking hot ass. I'm gonna stand next to him.

• 3:26:44David Sims?

  And former employee Nick texts me after meeting Ben being like, what's his skincare routine?

• 3:26:49Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:50Speaker 03

  And I want to know the secret?

• 3:26:51David Sims?

  I was like, Nick, why would I know?

• 3:26:54Speaker 03

  I mean, that is funny that he asked you, but-

• 3:26:56David Sims?

  Like, ask Ben. I don't fucking know what he does.

• 3:26:58Speaker 03

  Here's my secret. I don't do shit.

• 3:26:59David Sims?

  Yeah, that was my, that would have been my guess.

• 3:27:01Griffin Newman?

  AJ and his family came into the city and we got lunch with AJ and his son. And he was telling me that he's, he's into SNL now. AJ's son who's like eight, I think.

• 3:27:11David Sims?

  Sure.

• 3:27:12Griffin Newman?

  And so I was asking him about like which sketches he likes and which cast members he likes. And I was like, do you like Colin Jost? And he went, who's Colin Jost? And AJ went, the guy where where he comes on screen, you point and go daddy.

• 3:27:24David Sims?

  Dude, dude, someone at one of our live shows texted me like, I think Colin Jost is here.

• 3:27:30Griffin Newman?

  AJ is blind Colin Jost.

• 3:27:31David Sims?

  Like, that's just AJ.

• 3:27:33Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, so Colin Jost, Andrew Stanton, AJ McKeon, all on a spectrum. I just want to establish this at the beginning of the mini series.

• 3:27:40David Sims?

  You guys are huge. Colin Jost came coming unannounced to sit in the, no, that's AJ.

• 3:27:45Griffin Newman?

  I overheard Colin Jost talking about making edits to a Patreon episode? Why is he doing that?

• 3:27:51David Sims?

  I'm gonna pee. Take us out.

• 3:27:53Griffin Newman?

  Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. I'm very excited to be talking about the films of Andrew Stanton. I mean, a few filmmakers we have ever covered or will ever cover more conform to the intro of this show. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear Wally and sometimes they bounce baby John Carter. In three films, that's the whole fucking premise of this podcast. That's all. I just, I'm very excited to be doing this. And I'm very excited that we're gonna talk about Toy Story 5 on main feed and I'm very excited. And I'm glad that David's in the bathroom when I'm saying this, so he doesn't get jealous, that Forky's getting married in Toy Story 5.

• 3:28:38Griffin Newman?

  Forky's wedding. Forky's wedding, Ben. Forky's gonna make Karen Beverley an honest knife. Tune in next week for Wally. With David Erlich. A man who has seen that film 800 times, I think approximately. And as always. Forky is getting married.

• 3:29:04Griffin Newman?

  Okay, I'm just, I'm making these edits here, David. You're gonna have to be Nemo.

• 3:29:10David Sims?

  Okay.

• 3:29:10Griffin Newman?

  Okay?

• 3:29:11David Sims?

  Yeah.

• 3:29:11Griffin Newman?

  I think that's the lighter lip.

• 3:29:12David Sims?

  I've been born for that role.

• 3:29:13Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:29:13David Sims?

  What do you mean? It's not a lighter, you have to be Marlin.

• 3:29:16Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 3:29:16David Sims?

  If you're not Marlin, it's a disaster.

• 3:29:17Griffin Newman?

  Correct.

• 3:29:18David Sims?

  I mean, I think you should just do your Marlin line that you've been doing on this show for 11 years.

• 3:29:23Griffin Newman?

  Which is the...

• 3:29:24David Sims?

  It's like...

• 3:29:24Griffin Newman?

  You think you can do these things, but you can't, Nemo!

• 3:29:27David Sims?

  You've said that so many times on Blank Check.

• 3:29:29Griffin Newman?

  I think it's one of the best lines of screenwriting.

• 3:29:31David Sims?

  Well, it's also like, clearly your Brooks is like locked into that line, like as well.

• 3:29:35Griffin Newman?

  Yeah, it's my activator.

• 3:29:36David Sims?

  Right.

• 3:29:36Griffin Newman?

  Yeah.

• 3:29:37Speaker 03

  Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin.