National Lampoon's European Vacation with Jon Gabrus

[00:00:21] Hey, look kids, there's Big Ben, there's a podcast, again. He's going in circles. He keeps having to point out the podcast. Here's the thing, this movie has a great kind of golden age of poster taglines tagline, but there was no way to do justice to it without using the exact words they use. So I want to just read the tagline. Go ahead. We love a good multi-sentence tagline.

[00:00:50] I mean, I saw it and I was just like, this tagline is appropriate. It describes the film. It's not that funny. For over 2,000 years, Europe has survived many great disasters. Now for the real test, Chevy Chase and his family are coming from America. Oh, you know, just electrifying. And using Chevy and not Clark Griswold is of the time too. I do think that's a little rude. We noticed this as well on, spoiler alert, next week's episode.

[00:01:19] Next week's episode was about Look Who's Talking. That poster similarly has a tagline that name checks Travolta and Kirstie Alley, rather than putting them above the title as like star billing. Not characters, but it's like, this was an era of like, you sneak. I think this is weirder because don't you think- It's much weirder. Isn't Clark Griswold? He's established as well. Totally. But you know what? The tagline for the first vacation is, every summer, Chevy Chase takes his family on a little trip. This year, he went too far.

[00:01:47] So they're going with the same format. And the poster is very similar, let's say. It's a flipped mirror image of him in a sort of Conan the Barbarian. Right, him in the- Frazetta stars. Familiar. Yes. Oh, you mean my Frank Frazetta calendar that I have? Actually have. Do you really? Yes, of course. Perfect. Which they abandon it for Christmas vacation. Right. They abandon the- It's still a poster, but it's him being electrocuted. It's still a painting, I was going to say. It's a famous- I can close my eyes and see all four, even Vegas. Right.

[00:02:14] And then Vegas is kind of riffing on the Christmas one where he's in a similar kind of exposition, right? A Christ post, in a way. Yes. But on the roulette wheel? On a roulette wheel. Yeah. And to me, actually, the Vegas vacation poster is iconic because it looks so exciting. It does. It looks thrilling. You know, you're like, my God, what is this? He's in Vegas, he's doing this. Ah! There's money everywhere! And yet, you're like, there's something missing. There's some weird absence. What's the void on this poster?

[00:02:43] Oh, National Lampoon has removed their name from this movie? Yeah, they sure did. In like 1998? Seven. Seven. That's a rough year for National Lampoon to be starting to go like, we actually don't think this is up to our standards. I, fuck. This might damage. Um, no, I agree with you. Like, in a modern era, right?

[00:03:06] If like, the first vacation's a hit, which it was, and you're making vacation two, the tagline would be, now for the real test, the Griswolds are coming from America. And then right below that, Chevy Chase and the biggest fucking letters you've ever seen. Yeah. And they're flexing like, you now know both the name of our star and the name of the fictional family. Right. And the Griswolds is like, they say that shit, they say it so much. They're not the Johnsons, right?

[00:03:33] Like, they get to be like, we are the definitive Griswolds in cinema history. Right. There's no mistaking them. The name is said constantly. It's a good name. It is. Throw it on the fucking poster. Clark Griswold is a fucking, it's an amazing name. I mean, Chevy Chase is an insane name. That's another thing. It's just like Chevy Chase for, for a fake movie star name. When was the first time you drove through Maryland as a kid and saw that there was Chevy Chase, Maryland, and had a fucking meltdown? I definitely had that realization.

[00:04:03] And I was like, it's not, it's not named for him. No. Right. No, no, no. I know, Griff, I know it's not named for him. I'm literally like, as a kid, I'm like, he's, I know he was famous, but he wasn't getting big cities named after him. And then I was like, oh, was he named after the city? Right. And I had no fucking, and I was just like. I think the answer is yes and no. Well, the infamous thing. It's sort of a joke, right? He, at the peak of his like immediate rocket ship fame, right?

[00:04:32] Like five episodes into SNL. He's right. His name is Cornelius Crane Chase. Cornelius Crane Chase. Jesus. He's the fourth, the third. Doesn't he have got. I'm not seeing. I'm not seeing an addendum. That's a money to name. That's a Plymouth rock. He's from a real fucking Plymouth rock, like ivory tower. Right. His grandfather was rear Admiral Miles Browning of the United States Navy. Like his family is the exact parody. The worst version of what you think. They call me the rear admiral.

[00:05:01] Oh, sweet. His nickname for his adoptive grandfather, Cornelius. While the nickname Chevy was bestowed by his grandmother from the medieval English ballad, the Ballad of Chevy Chase, which is an English ballad from long ago. So is the town named after the ballad? It must be. I was going to say. That's fucking awesome. Season one of SNL. I guess so. The Ballad of Chevy Chase, by the way, is the documentary about his downfall. Well, yes. Yeah, seriously. Yes. We are producing. Yes.

[00:05:28] The affluent area in Maryland is indeed also named for this ballad. Okay. Season one of the show when he's blowing up. And I think there's like a very early Time Magazine cover that's like, this is the new face of comedy. Understandable. Chevy Chase looking handsome as shit, wearing a t-shirt that says, yes, it's my real name. Right. And he was like, from the moment he got famous. And it isn't, we learned. Right. From the moment he got famous, he was playing this bit of like,

[00:05:57] I'm tired of answering this question. I know it's unbelievable, but yes, it's my real name, which he maintained for like 15 years. Now, here's. Which maybe tells us a lot about Chevy Chase. But here's my question. So as you may or may not know, a landmark decision of the Supreme Court in 1965 is called Griswold versus Connecticut, which protected the liberty of married people to use contraception. Interesting. It's a classic right to privacy about birth control. You know, a liberal Supreme Court decision. 67, you said? 65. 65. 65.

[00:06:26] So are the Griswolds, is that a clever John Hughes-y joke? 100%. Right? You know, about that. That is absolutely the kind of thing Raines and Hughes would do intentionally. Yes. Okay. I couldn't, I can't find, but I bet you that's true. I think it has to be. Yeah. Wow. We really covered a lot of ground about preppy, New England-y, Northeastern shit. Yeah. Chevy Chase. Imagine trying to talk about one of these vacation movies without getting into Chevy. Like, it's- Oh, if we don't acknowledge him at all? We're like, yeah, the actor's good.

[00:06:56] I don't know. He seems to have a handle on the role. We've talked Chevy a couple times on this show. So we've talked about Chevy Chase. Who's our, who's our, who's the show and who's our guest? Well, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce to Europe, baby. This is a mini series on the film. Traveler's checks. Sometimes traveler's checks clear.

[00:07:23] Uh, and sometimes they're actually part of some complicated heist involving a guy in a trunk. Not, not the cleanest plot element of this film, I guess. Well, Ben, if you want to just clip that, we can drop that in about 25 more times when we talk about this movie. True. Like, there's so many plot elements that are not the clearest. Yeah. I like that this movie just kind of feels like watching, like, four random Three Stooges shorts tied together. That's, that's, that's, yes.

[00:07:53] Like, I've heard people throw this out as a complaint about this movie, and I actually think it's kind of the movie's secret sauce. It's like, it just doesn't even care about, like, every 20 minutes we're going to go to a different country and there'll be internal conflicts. Right. Eric Idle will be our three line and apart from that. And Rusty being so fucking horny. Who's our, well, hey. It's a mini series on the films of Amy Heckerling. That's right. Called Pod Times at Ridgemont Cast. I love this. Sure. Today we're talking about her third film.

[00:08:20] Meant as sort of a rebound move after the failure of Johnny Dangerously. Why don't I sign on to a big Hollywood sequel? This is can't miss proposition. But one could argue it actually kind of dinged her career further. I think it stuck to her where they were like, she's the person who fucked up the vacation franchise. That was always the legacy I had heard. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Also, she made a terrible mistake, which was choosing to work with Chevy Chase for months. Oops. Something that always causes damage on people's psyches.

[00:08:49] Today we're talking about National Lampoon. Jesus Christ. Today. National Lampoon's European vacation. That's right. With our dear friend returning to the show. Sixth time? Holy shit. Is that right? Sean Gabrus. Let's count him off. I believe so. Sounds right. Heat. Heat. Full metal jacket. Ding. Oh yeah. Mad Max. I forget which one. Road Warrior. Too fast. Too fast. Predator. And Predator. Wow, you've had a bit of a lean with us. This is new for you.

[00:09:19] But it's such vibes. It's perfect. It is a perfect. Yeah. That's what I'd grab from the Criterion closet. Those exact five. I wanted to give like a little front porch that so frequently, and you know, we've had a couple of very long episodes together. And you guys are, well, Griffin most of all is a length queen. We know. He's constantly talking about how long his Doughboy's episodes are. And then we get Adam Perry in here fucking letting it rip. I'll repeat it all. Yeah.

[00:09:48] And you guys, and I, but I, heat, of course you could talk about heat for four hours. Right. Of course I could talk about. Justifiably long. Yes. But this is the first time I ever felt like when, you know, like, David's like, I have a hard out. I'm like, I think we'll be fine. I think we'll be fine. I think if we went, if we'll see what happened, but if we went long on this, it still wouldn't be that long. Right. It's just like, you know. Here's another thing that happened. There's only so much here. You asked to push back, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like a little later in the day. Right. David was like, I have a hard out.

[00:10:16] We're fine starting at two as long as we're done by this time. Right. And then you responded, need time to talk about breasts. And David responded, let's make it one 30 actually. The one push was, we might need the extra half an hour if we're committing to some bump chats. I mean, 10 minutes per rack. It's one sequence. So to wait, to follow Griff. Yes. We've discussed Fletch, obviously. A choice by Ben. Benjamin Hosley, our producer. Every once in a while, the dude shows up with good taste. That's nice. 100%. Yeah.

[00:10:45] We discussed the film, Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Yes. A low point for all. Sure. Not really. Yeah. No one's covering themselves in glory. Are those the only two we've done? I believe that's it. I feel like on that episode in particular, we talked a lot about, because Carpenter cites that as like a moment that kind of like killed his spirits. There is kind of a before and after in his career of like post memoirs. He seems a little heartbroken in a way that happens to a lot of popular artists, right? Like there's some failure or setback they experienced.

[00:11:14] They never totally get over. And some of our very kind, very normal Redditors I saw in the comments of that episode being like, what is their source for this? What is all this weird negativity they're throwing at Chevy Chase? Oh, that's bizarre. And I just want to say, our source for this is everyone who has ever had any interaction with Chevy Chase. Yes. Any written reporting on Chevy Chase. He is basically a famous before and after person in people's careers when they work with him. And he breaks people. He does.

[00:11:43] And we were talking about this, David, as we were prepping to do this episode a couple days ago. You were like, here's a question. Has anyone ever stepped away and gone, you know what? I actually had a really good experience with him. Who's the guy who has the anecdote? My point was like, of like, you know, when my daughter got married, Chevy called me and was like, I'm so happy to hear about, you know what I mean? Like the guy who's like, you know, Chevy's always been a mensch to me. And my counterpoint to you was in one of like a vodka fueled Harmontown seven hour run

[00:12:11] ons where Dan Harmon played voicemails of Chevy saying the N word. He also was like, and by the way, here are three very nice things that Chevy's done. Right. In the framework of it was genuinely nice. And it's hard for me to like make sense of that. Yeah. It doesn't fit into the fucking. But there's like no one in a way that's even like, well, who will Bill Murray can be temperamental, but like Wes Anderson, Sophia Copeland, not to work with him. And they're like, he's always great with me. There's no one who's like Chevy and I always get along. That's my question. Okay.

[00:12:40] So Landis, well, Landis, John Landis, hate to bring him up early, but he worked with him multiple times. Uh, Spies Like Us, Three Amigos, there might be more. Right? I'm trying to think, like who's worked with Chevy multiple, made multiple movies with Chevy? We can do some. Besides an entity of National Lampoon. Well, Ramos did it twice. Ramos did it twice. But like even shit like Vacation, four different directors. Caddyshack, the sequel had a different director. You know what I mean? Like Fletch Lives, different director.

[00:13:07] But even then, and we can do some digging here and I invite our listeners to do some digging. I don't remember ever seeing a quote from Ramos or Landis. Take it back. Fletch Lives had the same director. Okay. Richie did both. Yeah. I don't remember ever seeing a quote from any director who's like, I know he's had trouble with other people, but we get on really well. I think the best case scenario is people being like, I'm fairly good at handling him. Well, also he's like, I'm good at like, my house is storm proofed. He ends up not being worth it either. Which, you know what I mean?

[00:13:37] Like there are people who are equally prickly, but insane, you know, levels above talented. And so you're like, fuck. All right. Strap in. We're doing this. You know what man? Richie worked with him three times. What's the thing? Cops and Roberson's with Jack Palance. Yeah. So maybe Richie's the guy who is like, I always, I always had a fine time with Chevy. Like I get Chevy. But also maybe. Could be also a guy that Chevy dominates and gets hired. Possibly. We'll also never know because he's dead. Dead on the ground.

[00:14:06] Well, I tell you how. Okay. I just found a Guardian article that says that Sylvester Stallone and Chevy Chase are good friends. Oh, those two guys. Those normal guys. I believe it. Small personalities. We call those small personalities. Little. But in Philly, they opened a Rocky memorabilia shop and Chevy Chase showed up for the opening with Sly. Great. Well, Sly is my ambassador to Hollywood. So I'm able to deal with, like, I'm interacting with him a lot.

[00:14:34] I'm really, I gotta say, I'm now disappointed that Chevy never made it into an Expendables. I. That would have been fun. That would have been fun. He's tall. He's very tall. He's good at falling down. Yeah. Exactly. It's a bummer that he was such an asshole because he really can carry a comedy. This is what we're going to talk about. Because this is, all right. So Fletch. All right. Okay. Number one question. I'm posing it to everybody. What is the best Chevy Chase movie? Is it Fletch? Is it Caddyshack? Is it Vacation? Is it Caddyshack? Christmas Vacation?

[00:15:03] To me, it's a, it's a toss up. It's difficult to choose between Fletch and Christmas Vacation. Because I think- And those are the two sides of Chevy. Smarm versus affable, uh. Bumble in. Bumble in. Yeah. I want to unpack this a little bit right off the bat. I know. That's why I'm putting it out there. Because in our Memoirs of Invisible Man episode, I talked about how he basically has this unbreakable persona of smartest guy in the room, like smarming circles around everyone, making the jokes under his breath, kind of being gross with women, but everyone's sort

[00:15:33] of charmed by it. Right? Yeah. And then people responded like, you're excluding Clark Griswold, which is his kind of one- Which is not your thing. Low status role. It's his like hapless, this guy kind of gets made to look a fool over and over again. I think he gets to play both sides as Clark Griswold. He does. It's the balance. Which is the best part, is that he gets to be like a smarmy wise ass- Totally. Who then is the butt of the joke, and then is also randomly the heartfelt dad. It is the balance. But sort of successful. Quentin Tarantino, who is like the biggest fan of the cinema of Chevy Chase, and has always talked about how he's-

[00:16:03] That's a guy I can't believe hasn't brought Chevy into a movie. Right. That's the thing. Tarantino? I'm a fucking psycho and I don't want to work with him. He's savvy. Exactly. And he's like the thing I love about Chevy movies, and he'll go to bat by like, Funny Farm is a flat out five star masterpiece. I like Funny Farm. He's like the whole canon of Chevy. I like Funny Farm. Through like, 99 he's like all in the tank for, right?

[00:16:29] His big defense is like, in that era of the sort of like postmodern version of the Groucho Marx, cool wise guy, like snob versus slob comedy that comes out on National Impulse and SNL and whatever. All the other guys needed to go soft at some point and learn a lesson or show they really cared or that they were tender. And like Chevy movies, he never stops being an asshole. Like Quentin Tarantino really stands for the commitment to the smarm from Chevy.

[00:16:59] Whereas like the vacation movies are the only ones where there's a bit of balance without it feeling like he's selling out, which is an interesting tension. It is like just through quantity. You have to say his definitive movie character. Right. It is his one franchise. But like outside of that, every other Chevy performance is this is Griswold without any balance. Right. Kind of winning more often. But Ben, what's your is your answer Fletch? It was your OG pick.

[00:17:29] Yeah. And I love I adore Fletch. I can. It's so rewatchable. I feel like though I have such a soft spot for Christmas. Yes. Right. Which is just such a family classic for many. Not for me. Not for me either. I had never seen it until this year. You mentioned this off mic earlier. What did I say? You said you were Jewish. I did say that and Gabrus threatened to leave immediately. I said, let's get that on mic. I asked Griffin before I came in here. I'm like, you don't have any Jewish people recording. We actually have several.

[00:17:59] I have to make a confession, Gabrus. No, no, no. I too am Jewish. No, come on. I'm trying to do comedy in New York and I'm finding all these Jewish guys. Button in the wall. But obviously there are. Alex's movie fans and movie critics are all these intellectual funny Jewish guys. There are many Jews who grew up with the beloved Christmas comedies. I mean, we. I just did not grow up with the vacation movies at all. We were a big Christmas movie family despite being a Jewish New York family. And yet my parents had a real allergy to Chevy Chase.

[00:18:29] We were a Bill Murray household. That was the flavor of smarm that was accepted in our household. Were you watching Scrooged? Not as much. Great movie. Right. Great fucking movie. We were like certainly we were watching like Christmas story every year on on TNT and shit. I've never seen famous. Yeah. A very good film. But yeah, I remember one year family friends gifting us a DVD of Christmas vacation. And my parents being like, really?

[00:18:56] And their friends who were adults, the woman was like, yeah, we watched all the time when I was growing up. And they were like, really? You watched this? We had it in the house. That sounds funny. And they were just kind of like, I kind of hate we have a Chevy movie on the shelf. Christmas vacation is enormous in my family. It looms insanely large. I have an uncle, Uncle Mike. He has no idea how podcasts work at all. So, but he'll appreciate the shout out. He's one of the most generous laughers in my life.

[00:19:25] And he always said like, I, and he looked, he looks a little bit like Michael McDonald. He was a postal worker. He's a mailman. He had like tinted glasses and gray long hair. And he would always be like, I want to be your sidekick when you're a talk show host. Cause I'll just cackle. Cause he thought I was so funny. Hey, he, he would, it would be like the summer would be a 4th of July barbecue and we'd be standing around. No, he would say shit like, don't worry. He's just yacking on a bone or like got a little bit of that Mississippi leg hound in him. You gotta let him finish. Like he knew it by heart. Yeah. He was obsessed with it.

[00:19:55] He would laugh so hard just talking to us about it. He would have tears poured down his face, just remembering scenes. My aunt instilled a rule that he wasn't allowed to start watching Christmas vacation until Thanksgiving. Right. Because otherwise he'd be watching it every week. He'd watch it every fucking weekend. And he was, he also famously, there's a famous family story that they almost had to, they threatened to turn a plane around. He was on cause he was laughing so loud. He was ruining everyone's time. Yeah. And when I said, uncle Mike, why are you laughing so loud?

[00:20:22] He's like, my buddy was telling me about Monty Python's the Holy Grail. Oh, he was just hearing about the movie and I'm cackling. I'm like, oh, it's awesome. I just think there's basically a, like a grouping of like a Christmas story, Christmas vacation, elf. We're talking about cable classics. But especially the first, you know, like, it's just like cable TV is invented and they're like, when, what shall we put on it? And they're like, well, Christmas story and Christmas vacation. Well, we know in a month that this will play well. Yeah, exactly. Those are in there.

[00:20:49] The vacation movies in general, I felt like we're on cable all the time. Yes. They're, they're just, they're just what America wanted in the eighties. This kind of like just ribbled enough, right? Like family friendly, but also like a little spicy. Here's a confession that might surprise you, Gabrus. And David and I have been comparing notes on this. I had seen National Lampoon's vacation and Christmas vacation. I, I feel like Cloverfield style as I like to call it. Yeah. Like you've been some pieces over the years.

[00:21:18] Like I in the last 36 hours, watch both of them intentionally sitting down from beginning to end for the first time in my life. Whoa. But I was like, yeah, I've seen every scene of this. Yes. But just in like jumping in, popping in here and out. Poor guy probably kept up for the first few miles. Yes. Did you go to. And I basically, I put on, I was like, I don't think I've seen any of this. Did you go to Vegas? Have I in my life? Oh, I haven't yet in my watch through. I went. You did all five. I did all of them. I even watched the right. The remake or continuation.

[00:21:48] The continuation. I should say. The legacy. I've never seen that one. How is it? Have you seen it? The John Francis Daly, Jonathan Goldstein? Is it Ed Helms? Yeah. I haven't watched the first 20 minutes of it. You're like, this is cooking. This is funny. And then it, I don't know. It's biggest set pieces did nothing for me. But also. It has a little bit of stuff. Goldstein and Daly right after that, go on to do. Date Night and Dungeons and Dragons. So it's, I'm sorry. Game Night. They didn't do Date Night. Mercifully. Yeah, no, they did the better night. They did Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons.

[00:22:16] So you want to go back and be like, was this a secret masterpiece? Because these guys seem to be on theater. But it's got a couple clever, like, things. Sure. It's okay. The era that it came out in is like, I mean, it was the beginning of the dearth of comedy. I was going to say, yeah. And it's so of that peak, it's peak like the hangover era. Where the host app is now. Yeah. It's so nasty and like, just kind of puerile and gross in a way where you're kind of like, it's kind of funny. And then again, you just kind of get sick of it.

[00:22:43] I have a very distinct memory of that movie, if not bombing, at least significantly underperforming. Sure. And thinking, feeling a shiver in my body and going, oh, fucking theatrical comedies might be a little doomed. Because I was like, well, it's going to do well. Well, you were wrong. Right. Bigger and better than ever. I remember logicking out. That movie came out in August and like one or two other big comedies had flopped already that year.

[00:23:09] And I was like, that's going to do well just because there has to be one comedy hit every summer. Something, something's gotta give. And Where the Millers was kind of an example of like a couple other things that underperformed and then that weirdly overperformed in August because people are just like, I want to laugh one time. Right. Your horrible bosses are doing well for this reason. Right. And it was like vacation didn't do well. And I was like, huh, there were no comedy hits this year. What does that mean? Yeah. Wait, what was the biggest comedy hit of 2015? I'm about to find out. I'm going. I'm daddy's home. Perfect two doesn't count.

[00:23:39] Daddy's home comes out that Christmas. Oof. That's the one. Wait, you're saying daddy's home. That's 30th. We can't do better than that. Spy is above it. Do we count spy? Yeah. Okay. I like spy. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like spy is the top comedy on this list. That isn't like a cartoon and no one's talking about it, but it I enjoyed it. It was good, but no one's like, oh, and you know what? Let's get let's rip the bomb and throw on. I'm sorry. Trainwreck is above those movies. Okay.

[00:24:08] But daddy's home does come out on Christmas. Yeah, sure. There had been comedy hits that year. I don't know what the fuck I was talking about, but certainly vacation didn't do well. And comedy's doing fine. Yeah. I'm sorry. Comedy's doing fine. Comedy is legal again. Comedy is legal again. I have made comedy legal again. When they say they made comedy legal again, they mean made it not funny at all? Yeah. That seems to be what they mean. Yeah. They mean slurs are legal. Right. Ted. And slurs are comedy also. And some people are laughing. They're saying three things at once.

[00:24:36] Some very specific people are laughing in specific rooms. Ted 2, Pixels. Okay. You know, like there's movies on this. Those are a couple big budget bombs. Paul Blart, Mall Cop 2. All movies where I defend pixels, but movies where it's like, what are we doing? I defend as well. I defend pixels. But those are good. Whatever, you said I defend in whatever move you chose after those three, I was going to give you this same look of disgust. But like, you know, there's nothing wrong with doing Paul Blart, Mall Cop 2. The first one did well. We made sequels to successful movies.

[00:25:05] But at the same time, I think America's like, guys, we gave you a pass on Paul Blart, Mall Cop. I think it was also- That was like a proto meme where it's like, wouldn't it be funny if we just saw this movie? Exactly. Sure. Fucking book. But also, Paul Blart, Mall Cop 2 in my memory was a bit of another stakeout where I'm like, you waited six years to do this? Yeah, they waited a little too long. Like he hit the like iron a couple times, had a couple other hits, then bombs, then was like, I guess I got to go back to the safety net of Blart. And people were like, okay. We miss Blart.

[00:25:33] Stop doing MMA guys and guys who work in zoos. Yeah, that was what it was. It was Kevin James going like, fine, I'll fucking do Blart 2. So the king of queens bought a zoo. Right. Yes. Um, I had never seen any of these movies. Yeah. Whoa. When Heckerling got picked, I was like, all right, I'm gonna fucking watch them. Are you a fan of vacation as a concept? You don't have like a lot of vacation vibes. No, this is a rich conversational thread. Wow. Thank you for opening this door. I'll say this. You don't like traveling as an act.

[00:26:02] Well, not right now because I have all these children. Yes. And there are some people who I know with young children who are just like, I don't give a shit. I have to do that. I gotta go. Yeah. You know, for some people, obviously they gotta go see their family. Right. You know, I get that very much. But like some people are just like, I gotta go on vacation. I'll just bring the kids. You tough out the hard parts. You do the easy part. Enjoy the good parts. You know, whatever. I'm just like, no man, bringing kids on vacation is a huge hassle. You don't have any fun. So far, is my experience. And they get not much out of it. Right.

[00:26:31] And so I think, you know, we're getting close to, now my daughter would probably enjoy a vacation. Yeah. Uh, great. Extra. I mean, famously. That's a great way to phrase that. An anecdote I love to repeat on this. Buy one, get two free. Fun. That's what happened. In early 2020, we were planning to go to Orlando to do an episode about Galaxy's Edge when that was about to open. And there were two windows where it made sense to do it. February 2020 or June 2020. You so worked up about that. And we were close to pulling the trigger on February.

[00:27:01] And then I was like, fuck, the Ratatouille ride doesn't open until June. Let's wait for June. And then the world ends. Right. And David and his wife have their first child. And then like when things reopened, we sort of like started the conversation again about like, is it worth trying to talk about doing this? And David's response was, I can't go to Disney World now. I have a child. Right. Which is a very funny phrase because that's when you're supposed to go. Not when you have a zero year old, obviously. You gotta wait for them. I'm just, I'm not calling out.

[00:27:30] Disney fucking, I'm so sorry. I'm just not one of these guys. I fucking hate Disney. Yes! Someone says it! Disney, like almost everything else I like in life is ruined by the other people who like it. And I go to Disney, everyone there drives me fucking crazy. I don't disagree with this. I don't disagree with this. Even this is what I hear from everyone where everyone who likes Disney World and shit is like, it's kind of getting ruined both by the super fans and by the evil company that runs it. You know, squeezing every last drop of money out of it.

[00:27:56] But I think a lot of your frustration with traveling as a concept, which has obviously gotten more complicated as you now have 1 million children, is the like hell is other people part of it. Like you don't like dealing with the systems and crowds. I don't know if that's true. I don't mind a system. That's part of my, you are in one of the weirdest postures I've ever seen in my entire life. Gabrus is pointing out, I am. I don't even know how to explain it. I am double jointed. Yes, you are. So I can bend my arms behind my back in a really weird way.

[00:28:25] He created his own, I could describe it. He created his own gargoyle wings using his arms. That is right. I do it sometimes and it alarms people. I'm sorry. I'll say this. But it helps you get out of handcuffs frequently. Yeah. When I was nine years old, we moved, yes, we moved to England. It's just a known fact on this podcast. Been listening to the pod for a long time. I wish you guys did some bits about it as well. And my mom, yeah, my mom did not want to move to England. Okay. Like my dad got a job and it was, you know, we had to move, but my mom was very, but she

[00:28:52] was like, look, if we're going to fucking move to Europe, we are going like on vacation to Europe, right? Like if I'm going to be this close to it. Take advantage of being a train ride away from 11 countries. And so we went on vacation like cheaply. And you're a train boy. We know that. You love trains. We have that. But your mom was kind of the Audrey Griswold of the family. Yeah, she's a Jesus. Didn't want to go to Europe. Wait. Oh. Audrey wants to stay home, kiss boyfriends and eat food. Oh, she's the daughter? Yeah. I'm sorry. To me, they're just dad, mom, daughter, son. To me, they're Chase, Beverly, daughter, son. Right. Blank, blank.

[00:29:22] Philly or Philly. You can't name them by the actors because they're different every time. No. And we'll talk about it, but it's funny how much the ages change. They just morph. They morph. Anyway, by Vegas vacation it's weird because Chevy's getting a little old and like they haven't really aged. But like Galecki's younger than Rusty in this. The following movie when Chase is like four years older. I don't know. You guys hear me out. Griffin hasn't seen it, but Vegas vacation. Ethan Embry is funny in Vegas vacation. He's the best part. Nick Papageorgi. He's really good.

[00:29:51] That whole plot is, have you seen Vegas vacation? Oh, fuck. Ben's seen Vegas vacation. That one's really funny. I was laughing. I got to watch it. It's all funny. What? David? I didn't hate Vegas vacation. I was sort of surprised, but I was like, this is confident. It's okay. Because it has a bad reputation. It's the third best. So you think it's better than European? Yes. Wow. I don't think I agree with that. I think European is the worst, I think. I agree. I'll hear it out. I'll hear it out. I feel like that's a consensus.

[00:30:16] Vegas vacation just has this vibe of like the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce paid for a movie. Sure. A little bit. Yes. It's got the most like, look at all this shit you can do in Las Vegas. Yeah. There's also a desert. We didn't see it. Yeah. It's got a little bit more of that going on. But wait, when you lived in Britain, your family would do European. I had like some of the happiest fucking shit I ever did was all those vacations. Sure. But you were rusty in that situation. The pressure wasn't on you. The pressure wasn't on me, but I mean like I went backpacking in Europe with my friends.

[00:30:44] I was the clerk there. Well, that sounds like American werewolf in London. And that was great. And I like vacation. I like my, I'm more of a, let me go to a place and sit on a beach. I like to relax. Yeah. Yeah. And we know that. Whereas like, I feel like a lot of the vacations that went on when you're a kid, these is the kind of vacations you go on where it's like, all right, kids, we're, you know, going every fucking museum. We're going to every church we can find. This movie captures that pretty well. Right. That's what I like about this one. It is enriching. Yeah.

[00:31:13] Like I like, like I, it's good that I did that. I need to watch Vegas and the Goldstein Daily. The remake. Yeah. But much to my surprise, knowing this movie's reputation, this is kind of my favorite of the first three. I would never argue it's the best. And I think a lot of it. That seems like Ben looks concerned. My weird sensibility. But like, I like how angry this movie is. I like that this movie is like the most invested in the like the hell of the trip.

[00:31:43] Yes. Where it's like the multi leg that it's like kind of almost every character in this movie seems a little bit like cosmically tortured and rotten. Well, and I like that they're ugly Americans, but also what I like about the movie is that it's anti-American and anti-European at the same time. I do think it finds that balance. Well, right. Everyone is a fool, which I feel like to a lot of people, they're just like this one This movie is just like kind of like toxic from the beginning.

[00:32:09] Like it just seems sort of mean in a way that's a little like extreme on the dial. It's just a touch more boring than you want it to be. Sure. It's also, I mean, it's like highly episodic. Yes. It has like no drive. No. And you do not give a fuck about anything. No. It's hard to care about anything in the movie. It is chaos and it feels borderline nihilistic. On this viewing, the only thing I cared about was Rusty getting pussy for some reason. Like I got into it a little bit. I mean, he cares a lot about that.

[00:32:39] He's such a strange looking actor. I'm so sorry to the kid. Do you know who he is? No. He is Blake Lively's brother. What? Wow. They come from like an acting dynasty family where there are- He's not bad at all. No. I think there are like eight kids and he's the oldest and she's the youngest. Like there's a big gap between them and age. Certainly. He was born in 68 and Blake Lively was born in 87. So yeah. Huge. Straight teen year age difference. Yeah. It's funny to think about this movie in 86.

[00:33:09] What year did this movie come out? This movie came out in 1985. 85. And then like 20 years later, his sister is playing a high schooler on TV. Oh, that's great. Right? That's so crazy. His sister. Um, can I say this about Chevy Chase in this movie? Yes, you can. When the business is good, like the situational, physical comedy stuff, when it's good, it's so good. When Chevy is good, he's so good that it's frustrating. Yes.

[00:33:39] This movie, it just falls so flat. Yeah. Pretty much most of the movie. You only see like a flash of it, but you're like, you know he can do better. Totally. And he's just not given the opportunity. Yeah. Also, and I'll go as far to say, why pack, uh, tubes? What's in tubes that you need to bring with you on vacation? Sure. I do not understand. I mean, this is a big tip. It's for the physical gag of hitting the guy in the nuts. Yeah. Yeah. But why is that in the car? What? They brought posters from America?

[00:34:07] Would they intend to bring home canvas art? Like, like what do they have all those little tubes for? Sure. Like doing architecture work? Like drafting? Like, no, it's fucking crazy. Well, here's like David's getting ready to clap his hands. I feel like you had a thing to say. No, no, no. You make a point and then I want to- Yeah. To circle back to your, like, what's the best Chevy, right? For me, the revelation of Fletch and a movie that I've grown to appreciate more and more on repeat viewings being educated properly to its importance by Ben Hosley. Yeah. Right? I'd seen it once before.

[00:34:36] Ben helped me place it in a context. I've revisited it now. I like it a lot. I think that's the only movie that gets at, that starts to gnaw at the core of Chevy Chase is clearly really unhappy. Right? Yeah. There's some element of like the whole weird, like Fletch just lives under the docks and like hangs out with drug dealers, but it feels like that's where he's most comfortable. Fletch is one of the most aspirational movies in my life.

[00:35:06] Absolutely. Like I watch Fletch and I'm like that- I want to be this suave. I want to be this suave. I want to live like this specifically because I love like the beach bum lifestyle and all that shit. Speaking of which, Beach Bum, another aspirational movie. Shout out. When you guys do Harmony Corrine, I call dibs on that. I love that you're throwing that in the mix. Yes. Yes. When Harmony Corrine wins next year's March Madness. I want to say- He's definitely building up the case with his recent output. Yeah. Yes. I want to say- Aggro Drift. You don't like how that looks, Steven?

[00:35:35] We got David Lowery doing Aggro Drift. I love to have a migraine. Well, there's the new one where it was Baby Fighters. Baby Invasion. Have you seen this one? It's like in a first person shooter game or whatever. But the new one is, it's like a first person shooter game where everyone has like AI baby heads. I can't wait. It's his follow up to Aggro Drift. I haven't even seen Aggro Drift. No. I don't want to. He hasn't seen Aggro Drift. It's only playing at the body shop strip club on Sunset.

[00:36:02] I think like the Michael Ritchie who was more of a like dramedy filmmaker, right? And made these films that had like an interesting mash of tones and could capture some like actual darkness and pathos in a broader comedy. There's just like the subtle, like some of the scenes, the way he captures just like Chevy walking through spaces. It's not like textually overstated, but you're like, there's some darkness going on in this guy. Also, Chevy knows how to walk through a room and be funny, but not too much.

[00:36:32] Like he could just, he just makes funny physical choices the way he moves or looks or like reacts like. Yes. And that's like a superpower. Right. But there's like a little bit like there's something behind this guy's defensive armor of like the witty one line. Cause he's funny and good looking tan and rich. Right. Should be like happy. Right. And he just can't be. Right. And I feel like Fletch interrogates that a little bit. Right. Right.

[00:36:58] And then the first three vacation movies are kind of interesting, prismatic views of like, what is Chevy's power as a movie star? Cause I was sort of watching the first one and trying to contextualize like, huh, it feels like National Lampoon's vacation is early for Chevy to try to make the I'm a dad. Right. Switch. Right. Like it feels like he was doing that. It's not a new dad comedy. It's like, I'm a full blown family. I'm a suburban. Totally.

[00:37:26] And I think there's now more of a pipeline of like that being a stage that like comedy stars need to have in their career, at least when comedy movies still existed of like you make the family comedy switch really quickly. Whereas back then I think it was like family comedies are like fucking like million dollar duck. Or you make like cool R rated transgressive comedies. And Chevy's like straddling this line. What's interesting about the vacation franchise is that it's like kind of for grownups and kids at the same time. They're weirdly horny and angry. Yeah.

[00:37:56] It's the, it's like the four con four quadrant movie of our child. Now they are now the four quadrant movies are like American Bollywood films more or less where it's like, it's got a dance number. It's got a fight. It's got romance. It's got a, you know, it's got a song. It's IP. It's like all this shit. Right. And back then a four quadrant movie was like, there's some stuff for kids. And if I can quote the great Andy Daly, a little something for daddy. Yes. A little something for daddy. A little something for daddy. A little something for daddy. He, he was the oldest or, or he wasn't the oldest.

[00:38:23] Gary Morris was the oldest, but he was older going into SNL than a lot of the other guys were in the early twenties. He is like in his late thirties by the time of the third of the first vacation, which like in the 1980s in America isn't. You have a 12 year old that. Right. It's like totally possible. Maybe not Hollywood stars do, but like it's not. A majority of Americans. Yeah. Yes. But his persona had still so recently been, this guy is cool and gets chicks.

[00:38:50] And I was astonished in watching the movie straight through for the first time, how much of the first vacation plays like a proto American beauty where it's like this guy having some early crisis of like, I have an incredibly comfortable middle-class existence with a beautiful wife and children. And I seem so fucking angry and unhappy. And all I do is fantasize about fucking other women. That's lost in this movie. Totally. There's not, there's not, there's no, the Christine Brinkley role is not in this.

[00:39:18] So the first movie has like a lot of hapless dad stuff. And it obviously builds to the idea of like, he's going to hit a breaking point. And what we really want to see is Chevy getting so angry that he's holding John Kennedy at gunpoint. Right. But you also have this running thread of just like, this guy seems frustrated with his like very idyllic little life. Yeah, that's what, so I, yeah, it's a, it's perfect like Reagan era movie. Yeah. It's so good for exactly the reason. I was very impressed with it. Same. Reamus is a good director. I was like, but like thematically there's something interesting going on here in terms

[00:39:47] of like what it's saying about the culture. The goal of the movie is nothing. Nothing. Right. His goal is to get his family to an amusement park. You know what I mean? Like that's it. And it basically, the goal is him over and over again saying, we're going to have fun. Yes. And the more he insists upon it, the more everyone has a terrible time. The more difficult it is. Yeah. And he's like, I want you to think back to your childhood fondly. I'm forcing good memories. Which this movie, European Vacation has that too, I suppose.

[00:40:16] David, I've had it with this wacky weather. Oh no. This planet. I can't get a handle on it anymore. One day it's cool. The next I'm sweating through my clothes. What am I supposed to wear? It is genuinely annoying. It is very annoying. And I realized it's time to switch things up. Quince had exactly what I was looking for. Lighter layers, brighter fabrics and prices don't make you think twice for that range, that versatility, that flexibility is swinging between the climates. I have been quince up of late. You are quince up and out of control.

[00:40:44] And I actually, now that we're recording this ad, I'm like, it's time to load up on those polos. It's time. Those Australian Merino polos. Summertime. I already have some. Summer, summer, summer, summertime. Because they are versatile. It's okay. They're a little formal. I can basically wear them everywhere. Yes. You're actually just falling down a rabbit hole, getting excited about all the new quince products you can buy. This is real. This is real. This is true. We're capturing real emotion. This is real as hell. And passion. Yeah.

[00:41:13] So quince, obviously, is lovely because they've got really, really nice high quality stuff. But because they work directly with top artisans, they cut out the middlemen, they give you luxury prices without crazy markups. To me, that's not even the best part. That's the best part. Yes. And also the fact that everything with quince is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. Yeah, it's really good. And so I've been kind of using it a lot of late.

[00:41:39] And it's just been very reliable as the summer approaches for me to like go to the office, looking nice, not at a crazy price point. Now, you said that you're quince-ed up. Mm-hmm. Made me think, what if we start calling you the quince-ler? We should. Like the Rizzler. Or the once-ler. Hmm. Don't forget that guy. He's on my mind when I just slashing the Rizzler. I just think there's some interesting opportunity here to really rebrand Sims as the quince-ler. The quince-ler. Right. Yeah. So look. So speak for the truffletries. Yes.

[00:42:09] And just be wearing that drip. Yeah. So elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.com slash check for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash check to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash check. But, um, yeah. And so I think what's good about these movies is that his relationship with Beverly D'Angelo

[00:42:37] has a spark of realism to it. Yes. Their chemistry is existent. Forget that Richie guy. I think Beverly D'Angelo is the Chevy whisperer. I was gonna say, she is the one person who always talks fondly about working with him, still does like fucking conventions and screenings with him. That's a good point. Good for her. Like 10 years ago, ABC did a pilot for a new show with the two of them. Like she seems to have only ever had good experiences with Chevy. So I thought vacation was funny.

[00:43:05] The Randy Quaid stuff is, is interesting. It's interesting. In Christmas? In both. In the first one. In Christmas, I think he's singing. Yeah, in Christmas, that's true. Because they make him even more ridiculous. Totally, yeah. The more they dial him up, the less it's like, let's make fun of this poor guy. Yeah, he's not just white trash. Which vacation is just white trash in the vacation. Right, vacation, it's not that over the top. The first one they also make the incest joke where you're like, now this is too dark.

[00:43:35] Right, right. It's too dark for me to find this funny if he's actually doing shit with his daughter. Right. Versus the second one, he seems very well intentioned and loves his kids and everything. Well, that's just a great, great writing, great casting in that second one. When you put fucking a big bulging man in a leisure suit, you know, like all those specifics and that characterization of like, and there's my brother emptying his shitter, you know, like all that stuff just fucking hits. It's good. And they make them get all these amazing big choices and you're so happy to have that character

[00:44:04] because you're trying not to hate Chevy Chase watching Christmas Vacation. Then Randy Quaid comes in and you love him, but then you can ride with Chevy in hating him. Yes. Right. It's a classic. It's a great way to bond with people. He's so sincere. We all hate this guy. Right. But it's so funny that one of those SNL 50 documentaries on Peacock, the one about the weird year. Yes. Where it was so strange that Randy Quaid is part of that cast because he was already an Academy Award nominated actor. And for The Last of Tale. Yeah. Right.

[00:44:33] Where you're like, this guy was framed as like a serious actor. Like he was playing like funny-ish parts in like The Last of Tale and Last Picture Show and like legit movies. And it was like, why was he part of this cast? And one of the talking heads just says, Lauren just thought he was so good in Vacation. Which is, I mean, good call. Wow. A flash of Lauren having good taste. Yeah. You see it every once in a while. I mean, the thing that's interesting about season 11 of SNL that that thing points out

[00:45:01] is that Lauren's instincts on who he hired were broadly right. It's a very, very talented cast. Almost everyone came out. Yeah. Right. They all worked out. But he learns the lesson of like, no, the way I do SNL kind of has to be I create chemistry with a bunch of unknowns. Yeah. Not ready for primetime players. Yes. Because then they're all better together. Instead, I just had a bunch of guys who had no connection to each other. So there's no chemistry. And also had different backgrounds. Even if they're individually talented. Like he was like, who are people who are funny?

[00:45:30] And it was like, that's different than doing sketch comedy every week. He's also so funny, which I did not know until I watched that, that in the final sketch where they, they kill everyone. Yes. They pretend there's like a fire and everyone's and then Lorn comes and he's like, takes Lovitz and he's like, come with me, Lovitz.

[00:46:06] Yeah. And they're like, oh, when they run the cast list at the end, they all question marks their name. It's a good bet. That's Randy Quaid who's already been in movies. That's awesome. Fuck Randy Quaid. He's an asshole. He's not in this movie. He's not an asshole. He's just the world's most insane man. Well, he, I would say he's an asshole. Maybe he's an asshole. Yeah. He put out a video of fucking a woman doggy style with a, where she's wearing a Rupert Murdoch mask because he said he was being deprived of independence day residuals. Um, but he's also become a huge Trump supporter. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:34] It's not just that he called out the, uh, Hollywood Bushwhackers. It wasn't just that. Well, he also like, was like maybe handsy as a theater. Uh, like he ran a theater company with his fucking part of it too. And he was playing Falstaff. I mean, I think this is where the Star Whackers. And he was like, I met it and Falstaff would do that. The Star Whackers had a Duff protest too much thing, right? Where he's like, they're after me. And I'm like, after you for what? What exactly? Just like pedo hunters. Like, why are you thinking about pedophiles so much? It is always.

[00:47:02] You go around with the camera waiting for an excuse to punch people in the face. And claim that you're on the right side of the law. Um, no, but it is like watching the, his sequence of the first vacation. I was like, this is one of those examples of like a performance that kind of breaks an actor. He's missed in this movie. He's missed in this. And then you can tell when they bring him back for Christmas. They know they need him. But then you're also like, this becomes his persona for the rest of time. Yeah. Like he basically becomes riffs on cousin Eddie. Yeah.

[00:47:31] I, um, I wonder how do you get him in this movie? Obviously you could just be like, they're on vacation. There's a way. Yeah. But I guess I can see how they naturally were like, well, there's not room for Randy Quaid here. But where, what, well, you know what? I'm going to open the dossier. Although the dossier begins with, well, this is going to be a short one, folks. So I don't know how much there is on the, uh, the genesis of this film beyond, of course, that vacation had been a hit. Right.

[00:48:00] And so we must do it again. Vacation 2 has to happen. He's basically coming off of all hits at this point. The Benji movie wasn't a hit and over the rainbow or under the rainbow wasn't a hit. But like foul play seems like old times. Caddyshack is obviously a smaller part. He was like pretty consistently hitting at the box office. Um, yeah. Um, John Hughes has credit for the story and screenplay.

[00:48:25] Robert Klain, uh, who wrote Weekend at Bernie's, Ben, uh, gets the other credit. But Hughes says he had very nothing, nothing to do with this movie. He both wrote the original story for National Lampoon and actually wrote the first script, but basically got a like weirdly, uh, steroided story by and script credit on this, even though it was just for creating characters. They pulled so much, but they pulled so much deleted shit from his, yeah. And that they were not used in the first movie kind of bits and stuff like that. Yes.

[00:48:55] So I think that he, they just had to give it. But basically didn't consciously do any work on this movie. Yes. Obviously. Yes. Yes. It has a different tone. So, and Hughes of course does have a much more rager role in Christmas. He comes back to sort of write the ship. Right. A lot of people thus see his influence as being crucial. Yes. And Christmas is based on a different, unrelated National Lampoon story. Yeah. They were like, we gotta get back to the Hughes well. So like, oh, you wrote the story about a family Christmas.

[00:49:23] Let's retro fit that into the vacation for us. Now you're at a point where you can just make one of these movies a year. You know what I mean? And like, they, like, it's just like pick a fucking location, bring them there. It's like tin, tin in blank. You know what I mean? Just fucking take the family wherever it's the idea of like vacation, European vacation, Christmas vacation, Vegas vacation. It's like unstoppable. It's almost astounding. They only made four. That's, I guess that's kind of what I'm saying is that you would think that there'd be eight of those. Because of Chevy probably.

[00:49:51] But like, I think the first one, Chevy's weirdly detailed Wikipedia about the ups and downs of his career. That seems to have been written by maybe someone related to him. But like, they said that like, the first vacation was his highest grossing solo star movie at the time. Then like Europeans down a little bit, but not a flop. Right? So made 40. Then Christmas vacation is his biggest movie. Yeah. So then like the third one's the biggest. I would just be like, let's keep fucking pumping these. Where do you want him to go?

[00:50:21] I'm just saying. It's, that's a good question. Yeah. You want it. It's gotta be like, obviously they settled on Vegas, but that really does have the energy of Vegas was like, Hey, can we pay you to make this movie? Right. But where else could he go? Yeah. I don't know. Because in Christmas vacation, they don't even go anywhere. It is of course, they stay home. One's Christmas vacation. There's no school. They don't travel. Yeah. I guess you guys fucking out. Maybe they made a mistake. Got to spring break where they go to like San Padre Island and don't realize that it's going to be like that horny and rusty.

[00:50:50] There might've been a franchise mistake in biting off all of Europe in one go. Yeah. That's true. And like, I don't want vacation. Yeah. I don't want like an African safari. I was going to say, I don't want the Grizzles in Africa. But Australian vacation with how much we were obsessed with Australia in the eighties and nineties, that would have done. Post croc. Get Hogan on board. That's the move. Yeah. Hogan is like the Australian Grizzles. Hey mate. I've never met you before.

[00:51:15] So, um, now of course there is a strange little irony to the fact that vacation was directed by Harold Ramis. This is directed by Amy Heckerling. Harold Ramis and Amy Heckerling had a child together in a secret affair. We're going to talk about that much more on our look who's talking episode. A movie that's basically about that. Uh, yes. Yeah. And, uh, she was not that enthused about this project because of Ramis. Like, you know, like what am I following him up?

[00:51:42] But she says she liked the concept of American idiots running around destroying Europe. It definitely feels like that's the part she's in on. Yes. And Johnny Dangerously is clearly in trouble. It's testing poorly. So she has that sense of like, oh boy, I need something that's, you know, reliable. And she's made this very strong decision to not try to repeat Fast Times. Right. Like, she's talked about that she immediately got 20 scripts like that. She's at the tip of the spear of like the teen movie explosion of the 80s.

[00:52:12] Do you remember when you first watched Fast Times? I have a distinct memory of like hearing about this legendary teen comedy and then watching it and being like, was that funny? That was like a little heavier than I ever thought. It's a big part of our discussion. Well, great movie. Great movie. A wonderful movie. Don't know if it's an elite comedy. But when I was like 12, that really confused me. And when I watch it now, I'm like, this is a masterpiece. I can't believe it can hold both tones. Yes. Well, it's like you like it's I said this on the Full Metal Jacket episode.

[00:52:40] You forget that Arlie Ermey is only in it for like 15 minutes. And then the Fast Times about that is that Spicoli is a side character. But like it is funny that that movie has such a complicated balance of things that are able to coexist. And then she follows it up with two movies that are just like, no, this is silly chaos. Right. Like she's just making kind of like goofball madness movies. Yeah. Which I think part of that is her being like, I'm trying to avoid the like pigeonholing that happens to women in their careers. And there's so few female directors.

[00:53:09] And I don't want to get stuck in like one corridor. And can I make boys movies? Quote unquote. Yeah. But the other part is that like her influences are like, I love the Marx Brothers and I love these things. And can't I like she comes back hard after this with Clueless, correct? She does Look Who's Talking, which is so fucking successful. I love that movie as a kid. I can't on a rewatch. I'm curious. I can't wait to listen to your episode. Yeah. But I am very curious on a rewatch how I'd feel about it. I would be liked it a lot. We liked it a lot. She does look. She does look. She does look.

[00:53:39] She's the Ali's purple bra is like an image that I will never forget. Her hair. We talk a lot about her hair. She's so hot. She does look. She does look two. She doesn't direct look three. She does Clueless. So she does three hits in a row that are like her totally birthing something. Yeah. Whereas. And Clueless. Recently Rogan said in an interview it's the best high school movie ever made. And it could it could easily be like that movie changed me. But Johnny Dangerously and European Vacation are both her coming on to pre-existing developments. Yeah.

[00:54:08] The difference is that Johnny Dangerously. It's her being like I love fucking gangster movies. This is the kind of dream movie for me. And European Vacation is a little more like I guess that's a career move. Yeah. That makes sense. Right. Let me rinse. Let me rinse this one out of my mouth. This might shock you but Chevy Chase was not very kind about Amy Heckerling in the press after in his biography I'm Chevy Chase and you're not. He said I had problems with the director Amy Heckerling a lovely person but I didn't think her direction smacked of energy and humor.

[00:54:37] I don't he doesn't think the movie is funny. Beverly D'Angelo also doesn't think the movie is funny. She thinks it's not saucy enough like she was sort of like the script is a little too G rated. No one has she was angry that she didn't show her rack two times in this one. God bless that rack great rack. I mean as she says voice it's the sexiest voice and an insane body. I being a kid and just being like I fuck Christy Brinkley like I love when you're a kid and you're like siding.

[00:55:06] Dude your wife is so hot don't blow it. I do think that is a key part of the cultural stickiness of children who grew up watching these movies is like the weird complications of like. These movies are R rated but family friendly. But also being like the mom is really hot and she's sexualized in it. It's not just that she's sexualized. She's a sexy lady. And she has agency and their relationship is like sexually charged. Rather versus right like this sort of so much boring American humor about like frigid wives that's what I was gonna say dinner and like whatever.

[00:55:36] Where those characters are so the stores close or the Rodney Dangerfield God bless Rodney. I love him stereotype of like my wife is fucking everyone else in town but me. Is is is Beverly is Audrey Griswold wait that's not her name. She's no Audrey's the daughter. She's mom. Ellen. She's mom Griswold. Ellen Griswold. Yeah. Is Ellen Griswold the fucking tabula rasa for milf porn.

[00:56:04] I can't you know what John John Ben you want to leave John. I don't stick around. I want to say something about alien where laptop is open. Ben just swung his monitor away from us. Yeah. Beverly D'Angelo just I think you're onto something. This is her biography. I think she is the archetype that most of those videos are riffing on. Oh, no, I'm sorry. This is from the Chevy biography. This is just a quote from her.

[00:56:34] I'm going to read the quote and then I'm going to talk about it. Sure. I was living in Europe with my husband the Duke so I'm glad the second one was in Europe, but I know Chevy missed being home. Janie was pregnant. It was cold. The script wasn't that funny. That was his wife. Yeah. At one point my husband had a birthday party for me and Keith Richards was there. Everyone singing all night and Eric Idle was so hoarse that he had to ADR all his scenes in the movie. Now, I don't know about you guys. That's a fucking movie I want to see made. I was like, Beverly D'Angelo was married to an Italian Duke. There you go. Where I was like, who's the Duke?

[00:57:04] Yep. So I looked that up. Yep. And that is of course Don, sorry, Don Lorenzo Salviati, one of the fucking, you know, Dukes of Sicily or whatever the hell. She also, her romantic history, she dated Milos Forman around when he was directing her in the movie Hair. Correct. Then she marries the Duke. She's with him for a good 15 years. She leaves him for Anton Furst. Leaves him for Anton Furst, the brilliant designer who created Batman's look. Academy Award winning production designer of the first Batman. Tragically died by suicide. Tragically committed suicide.

[00:57:33] But I believe they're together at the time of his death. Jesus. Yes. And then she hitched her star to Al Pacino and had a kid with him. Which I also believe she left John Patrick Shanley for Pacino. Jesus. Basically, Beverly D'Angelo is like the queen of all babes is what I'm saying. She had twins with Pacino in her late 40s. Pacino, everyone's like, please, my love, what can I do? How do I get you? I get it. I totally get it.

[00:57:59] She's like this weird Hollywood muse who's talented in her own right, but then she just dipped around to like- Do you ask? I saw, like she has one of those weird like, oh, I never considered acting. And someone was like, you should try this. And then she was naturally good at it. Right. She worked as an animator. Yeah, she worked at Hanna-Barbera. For Hanna-Barbera. That turned into the band. Oh shit. Isn't that crazy? That's so crazy.

[00:58:27] And then right, eventually she's like, eh, I'll do like some acting and she's like in She's like a fucking busty zealig. Yeah. And she invented milf porn unconsciously. Forrest Lumps. John, five comedy points. That was good. She's still with us. She is, thank God. She still got it. It seems like, yeah, she, you know, some TV stuff. She hasn't been doing much in the last 10 years. I saw her-

[00:58:57] She's still riding high off Duke money. Isn't she in one of the Harold and Kumar movies? She's got some of that Duke money. Am I wrong in thinking that she plays like a southern brothel madam? Yes, she's in Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Thank you. To me, the, not the best. That's my favorite one. Yeah. Although, but the Harold and Kumar franchise is also one in general where I'm like, how is that going to work for me on rewatch? I really liked the first one a lot. Sure. Many times. I'm, I'm a big Guantanamo Bay defender. That movie sucks. We're talking, sorry.

[00:59:26] We're talking about the movie Harold and Kumar. Not the concept. I've never seen the film. I like the place. I love America owning land in other countries that it uses to torture people. Enhanced interrogation guys. Talk about vacation spots. Um, so Chevy and Bev both down on this movie. Anthony Michael Hall, of course, who plays the son in the first film declines, doesn't want to come back. Why? Because, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, he's, but he's also true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's right.

[00:59:55] He's doing breakfast club this year. Probably. And I think weird science both are in the same year. That's what it is. It's like, you're a leading man now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, that's, he was supposed to be the Modine role in full metal jacket. That's what it is. But he was kind of like, he turned Kubrick off with like, I don't want to play like a pencil neck again. Yeah. Or he didn't read the script too. And then he became a gym bro. I think we talk about this on the full metal jacket. Yes. We definitely do. Uh, Dana.

[01:00:21] And so Dana Barron, uh, who is the daughter in the first one, I think was down to come back. But Heckerling was like, if we have to lose one of the kids, let's hard reset. Right. Let's just. But you end up with Blake Lively's brother. And then Dana Hill is her name. Yes. Who was an actress who had like a series of health conditions. She died weirdly young. She died young. Although I'm not sure she, she had like diabetes and that was what she died of. But she also had conditions that made her small. Correct. And so she played kids. And so she's like 22 in this movie. Right. And then years after this. I thought she, I thought.

[01:00:51] She is the voice of Max Goof in Goof Troop. Oh shit. By the way, Goof Troop and Slash a Goofy movie. I, when I first saw PJ on screen, I was like, oh my God, that this, that looks like me. Representation matters. I was like, yeah, that cartoon character. The most recent one for me was Spike in the new Mario Brothers movie. I was like, oh yeah, that's my new version with the fucking aviators. Can we talk about Bulk and Skull? Of course, David. We've been waiting years to talk about Bulk and Skull. Yeah, I recently, you know, I'm sitting at work.

[01:01:21] I need to be writing for the Atlantic, which is my job. And I'm like, it's like a half hour super cut of every single Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and opening theme credits. Yeah, really burning them in all of it. You know what I mean? But I'm like, gotta get cracking on that lead. Nothing big happening at the Atlantic. Yeah, just deleting my Pete Hegseth texts. It is hilarious to me that Jeff, like, as this was all, like came by, like he's always like, and I was like, Jeff, what do you think about burrata on pizza? And he stopped. He's like, what? And I was like, I just think it's bullshit.

[01:01:50] Like, don't put burrata on pizza. Like, it doesn't belong. Like, it's just, you know, you're just eating like it's separate. Does it make it too wet? Yeah. This was all these fucking new pizza places where they're like, and we put a big glob of burrata on top. And I'm like, that's just like putting a cookie on top. This is the conversation you're having with him while he's checking his phone and his like, like, nuke plans. But to his credit, he's like, yeah, I mean, I can see where, you know, like, and he's like, do you think Prince Street pizza's good? I'm like, no! Like, you know, and start going off about that. He throws that question out to the signal group. Guys, what do you think of burrata on pizza? Anyway.

[01:02:20] That Hegseth's a Stracciatelli fan. Anyway. Balkan Skull, similar, you know. Yeah. What's the vibe? What's, why? Please remind the listeners. Okay, so Power Rangers, the cast of Power Rangers are, of course, the five Power Rangers, six once Tommy gets added, right? They're teens with attitude who can morph into martial artists who command dinosaur robots. Re-cut from a Japanese. We don't need to get into that. No, no, we're just talking about the text.

[01:02:48] What I'm saying is that you're building a show off of this martial arts footage and then casting American kids. You all have, the villains are set already and the American producers Saban and co are like, we need to add more proprietary elements. What if we have like two dumb bullies that have nothing to do with the main plot line? But are kind of their friends? Yeah. They're like in their mid thirties also maybe. Exactly! And they, it's one of those things where they're like, they cycle through Power Rangers every couple seasons. Right. We're gonna, let's get these kids out of here.

[01:03:17] They're asking for us to like pay them and shit. Yeah. They gotta go. Let's get a bunch of new teens. Bulk and Skull always involved. Like, these new teens always know Bulk and Skull. I'm just saying, they're inheriting- And then you're like, oh, like as a kid I'm like- Yeah. Sorry. My nostalgia, I'm like, right, do Bulk and Skull, they're kind of like, they're like Bebop and Rocksteady, they're bad guys. Right. So I'm like, wait, no, they're not! They're kind of out. They're not aligned with the bad guys. Right. They just live in the town. They're just there! They happen to live in the same town as the Power Rangers and dress crazy. Right, and they're just like, doh! And they're just like, doh!

[01:03:45] They dress just crazy enough that they should be on a TV show. But this is why I'm bringing up the heritage because I'm like, they can never overlap with the villains because they're inheriting villain footage that was shot in Japan 15 years earlier. Although, they'll sometimes shoot secondary stuff with a different actress playing Rita Repulsa. I know. Well, no, they recast Rita Repulsa and she becomes American, but like also they would have the kids fight the Putty Patrol in non, you know, it's weird what they would do. They would do both. Yeah. It's just weird. What do you think of Bulk and Skull?

[01:04:15] I mean, I love that they're just basically personified fingerless gloves. Exactly! You know? They are leather vests as people. But why doesn't Tommy Oliver ever go like, hey, we're gonna stop hanging out with you. We're like super heroes. But I'm gonna cut your fucking head off with a magical space sword. I can command a robot dragon! Or a musical instrument that leaves the sea! But meanwhile, they're like, don't give me a noogie, Bulk and Skull. Right. That's what I don't understand! But David, in the later seasons, because it sounds like what you're saying is they start

[01:04:44] to occupy a Jim's dad role, which is like, what connection do they have to the current cast? Why is Jason Biggs' dad still hanging out with different high schoolers? Right! They don't like start to like, they don't buy the restaurant or anything, right? They just continue to hang around? I mean, I can't speak to that. And obviously fans weigh in. What do Bulk and Skull do later? Of course, I do love that Wikipedia specifies that they came with their own theme, a quote fat guy tuba sound. Like that is the classic ball grimm.

[01:05:12] We've been calling your twin boys Bebop and Rocksteady, but should we start calling them Bulk and Skull? It kind of works for them a little bit, I will say. One's a little bulkier. I mean, all babies are mostly skull-y. Yeah, a lot of skull. Skull forward. Anyway. But it's just crazy. Anyway, that's not important. What is important, of course, is that this film was shot in England at Twickenham Film Studios. I like that they actually went- And they started off with Stonehenge.

[01:05:41] That was their first sequence. But I like, it's a major feather in the cap for this movie, in my opinion. You look at the end credits. Location. Different units. Paris. Rome. They actually went to the places. Obviously some of it's faked, but they made sure that they spent some time on the ground in four different countries. I've been thinking about stuff like this so much when I watch movies now. Yeah. Randomly, we watched an episode of 21 Jump Street for Action Boys. Mm-hmm. And that's all shot in like Canada and shit, obviously. But there's a one scene where they go to an ice skating rink in this episode we watch.

[01:06:10] And I'm like, no show would say, like, we're not shooting one scene at an ice rink. Like, we will stand behind glass and pretend like we're pointing at ice or whatever. Totally. But we will put in post cold breath or something like that. But they would- And I was just like, you used to just go to places. When they- Used to make a case to want to go to places. Like, here's just a microcosm, right? This movie has an establishing shot that they probably bought from some bulk-like footage lot- Of the Eiffel Tower.

[01:06:38] Then you have a sequence atop the Eiffel Tower where they're clearly on a sound-staged Eiffel Tower balcony, right? And then I feel like the following scene after that, the Griswolds are eating outdoors at a cafe and the Eiffel Tower is in the background of the shot. And you can tell it is not rear projection. Right. Or like a map paint. They stopped and shot a scene in Paris. Yeah. Right. And I'm just like, it's not even the central focus of this. They are just sort of knowing it is actually worth the production value of having a shot where

[01:07:07] the Eiffel Tower looks real and Chevy Chase is also in the frame. Like, if you pitch this movie now, they'd be like, we'll shoot it at Epcot. Right. We'll shoot the entire thing in Bulgaria and just be Paris, it'll be Rome, it'll be- I heard the reason that Bulgaria is one of the number one film locations is because the permitting process to build structures is insanely easy. Oh, you can- Yeah.

[01:07:32] So you can just like slap up houses and castles or enemy bases, like whatever you need. You can just put shit up. That's probably- High risk. Hell yeah. Yeah. Well, same with Hungary. They'll let Laszlo Toth build anything there. They won't let him talk in his real accent. They'll have to bring the fucking computers in. Everything's computed. Brody was way more Austrian. They had to Hungary it up. Just little sliders. He was off base. Can we up the Hungarian? Yeah. Lower the Luffs.

[01:08:02] I played an engineer for a podcast for 30 episodes and I still don't know anything about any specific. You don't know any of the lingo? I only know Luffs and I'm not even positive what it means, I just am obsessed with that phrase. Luffs. One of the all-time great characters. Heckerling. Heckerling. She hated making this movie. Great. I wonder why. I was extremely miserable working on it. I figured they'd market it and put money into it and try and make it do well. Here's another quote from her. Oh my God, I despise that movie. I felt like I never wanted to do it ever again. Heckerling.

[01:08:32] Here's another quote from her. These are all different interviews. I feel like you're not supposed to bad mouth your own stuff because you're the director. You should take the blame for everything. So I take the blame for Chevy Chase and everything else. Feels like she's a... Take the blame for Chevy Chase is a very... Yeah, exactly. That is one of the best Hollywood answers I've ever heard. Look, I'm a director and I'm supposed to take all the... I'm supposed to, you know, take the blame. So I take the blame for Chevy Chase. My lead who's a piece of shit. Right. I'll take responsibility for, I don't know, how poorly Chevy Chase was raised or something. Final quote.

[01:09:01] It was a train wreck. It was impossible. Some of the people I had to work with were impossible. I wonder who. Interesting. I'd call the studio head and say, I want to come home. You should find someone else to do this. A monkey could direct this better than I could. So... Before we dig into the meat of it, I just want to throw it as an anecdote. Yeah, let's dig into the meat of it. Christopher Columbus was hired to direct Christmas Vacation, right? He talked about this recently when he was doing interviews, I feel like for no spherock. Christopher Columbus, who is by the way, the most affable person in Hollywood.

[01:09:25] I feel like is basically commonly accepted as there is no one more genuine than Chris Columbus, right? Like that is just a genuine, mensch, sweet, smart guy. And John Hughes was like one of his mentors along with Spielberg and was like... Obviously, he made Home Alone. I'm coming back. I'm writing the next Vacation movie. I think you should direct it. Gets him hired for the job. He meets with Chevy Chase. He talks to him for like... This is his recounting recently.

[01:09:54] For like 30 minutes through like his vision for the film and what he wants to do. Chevy just sits there silently and at the end of it goes, I don't get it. So you're like the director? What a great guy. And he calls up John Hughes and he's like, I know I'm torpedoing my career, but I need to quit this. I cannot explain the way he like looked through me with disdain. This guy's going to torture me. Who directed Christmas? Jeremiah? They got some guy. Like Columbus had been prepping it and everything.

[01:10:24] And he basically was like, I'm sorry. I know you put your neck out for me, but I just can't do this. And John Hughes went, not only do I totally understand, but I'm going to write another movie for you to help you get over this. And he gifts him Home Alone. Jesus Christ. Which to be clear, Columbus knocks out of the park. It's not just right. Because like Home Alone is a script. I can see someone like really fucking mad. No, Columbus nailed that.

[01:10:48] That is a tight tonal thing of like, this movie is about this six year old fucking laying waste to Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. But it has to like evoke the lovely spirit of Christmas. Like it's got to make you feel warm and happy inside. We were just like spitballing Christmas movies. It's like at the beginning of the episode, we didn't even bring up Home Alone. But that's like a perfect example of him being like, okay, I just worked on Uncle Buck. I guess he's like eight years old. This eight year old's on fire. I owe Columbus a movie. He's got a good take on Christmas. Give me six hours.

[01:11:17] I'll shit out some fucking screenplay. What a bullet dodge for Chris Columbus. Incredible. That's so fucking odd. Although, of course, maybe Christmas Vacation would have been a hit with him too. It was a hit for Jeremiah Chechik, who goes on to McBenny in June. Just sort of an interesting movie. And the Avengers with Sean Connery. Oh, that is. That's a real career. The Avengers. Oh, with Iron Man. Oh, I don't see Iron Man's name on this one. Interesting.

[01:11:43] I like that this movie just starts right out with the game show, which is so bizarre. Pig and a poke. Pig and a poke. Hosted by John Astin playing like Richard Dawson from Family Feud times a trillion. John Astin really funny. Really funny. A little upsetting when he kisses on me. It's immediately. But then you feel better now that I know. He's an asshole. I mean, the character. You feel better once you know that the actor playing the daughter is in her 20s. Yes. But you're like, right. This is a weird thing that was like culturally going on where everyone was like, yeah, the host of Family Feud's a little handsy and loves kissing women. Kisses people on the lips.

[01:12:12] And everyone watches this show. And then this movie heightens in a way that feels menacing. And it's the opening scene. Yeah. You start with this weird cartoon, them in these ridiculous costumes. Well, and I just want to say, Gabrus, thank you for being down with wearing the pig costume. I'm a little disappointed that Sims would put it on. I thought we were all going to have them on. I thought we were all going to have them on. It's fine. I get it. I'm glad Griffin's wearing the German, the lederhosen. But like, I thought we'd all be in the pig costume. Well, that was just because it's laundry day. So was Richard Dawson the handsy host?

[01:12:41] Richard Dawson would always kiss all the women on Family Feud. Okay. Come on, a little kiss for me here. For me it was, I grew up watching, sorry. You're going to have to say it. Ray Coates. Family Fortunes. Oh. Which is the British version of Family Feud, which was hosted- Hosted by Jeffrey Epstein. And he was kissing these kids. Hosted by the great Les Dennis, who's one of those guys where I'm like, any British person is like, yeah, I know Les Dennis. No American has ever heard of him. Yeah, but also you had Jimmy Savile.

[01:13:11] Why are you saying you had Jimmy- I'm not blaming you. I'm just saying there was like the ultimate creep on British television hosting panels. I wasn't saying there were creeps on British television. What are you talking about? I'm just talking about creepy guys. What the fuck? Yes, we all know about creepy guys. Let's break down and talk about creeps in Hollywood. I mean, there's only a couple. Yeah. Ben, can you put five hours on this? But here's the thing about Family Feud that's just- I'm sorry that I'm taking us on tangents again. Yeah. It's fine. It's fine. We're doing great. Steve Harvey just kind of took that show- Yeah. Like, and turned it into something else.

[01:13:40] And now no one remembers like Louie Anderson or whatever, you know what I'm right? Like everyone else is gone. We had Louie, you had Ray Combs, you had- Yeah, you had- You had Al- Richard Karn from Home Improvement. You had- Didn't you have also, what's his name, from Seinfeld? John O'Hurley. John O'Hurley. You know, Jay Peterman. Oh, right. And that's the thing, and now everyone's just like, no, Family Feud has been hosted by Steve Harvey since 1900. Like, what are you talking about? He made it his own. He used to be hosted by a baby with a mustache in 1970. And like the answer is always like badonkadonk. Yeah.

[01:14:09] Like they've always like engineered it, so- They came over with a pepper grinder full of horniness and were just like crank, crank, crank, crank, crank. Yeah. And Steve Harvey's like, what thing do you want to put on your face at night? And he's like, my wife's pussy. And it's like, oh man, that's crazy. Like, they're always so cute up. He sells it so well every time that he's scandalized. What's something men have in the morning? And it's like, morning wood. Pussy. He's like, oh, you are disgusting, brother. But it takes- It's the number one answer. It takes about 30 seconds for him to say anything. Yeah.

[01:14:39] He just, he does a little walk. Yep. He'll do like a circle. Yep. He'll be like, I don't know what the world is coming to. He does it so well every time. But also, he's a fucking machine. He's such a funny person. He is so awesome to watch. As long as you, no pop-ins. But it also feels like that show used to be like, top five answers, thing you put in your coffee. Right. And they'd be like, Richard, I'm going to say sugar. And he'd be like, okay, now how about you give me a tongue kiss?

[01:15:05] And now the show is like, top five ways you love to eat ass. And Steve Harvey's like, here we love family. Like, this is, in this network. And now, it used to be like, innocuous questions, horny host, right? Right. Now it's horniest questions, hornier answers, and the host is like, oh my goodness. Like, he just looks at the audience like, I can't believe they're saying these things. The questions are horny in a way that are pretending like, like you're a little kid and you're like, this is how you get away with bringing you.

[01:15:32] But the music has shifted to Harvey being like, I can't believe they're saying this. But Harvey, it's not like Harvey's, I wouldn't call him horny, but he respects a beautiful woman. You know, like he's got kind of that vibe to him. Exactly. Exactly. He's like, your beautiful woman comes home from work? You know, like he's that kind of guy. Yeah. I just, you know, when America finds people like this, they should. He calls women queen. Yeah, exactly. Right. I know he wrote all the Think Like a Man, whatever books or whatever. That's how a queen serves a king. Exactly.

[01:15:58] And I'm sure there's a couple things in them that are probably a little regressive if I had to look. That's always the interesting thing for those guys who refer to women as queens. It's like, but I am the king. You know I am. Right. Like, I'm not your subject. Right. It's the Prince Khaled. It is also so funny. It's the Prince Khaled. Whenever a standup comedian is like, I want to write like kind of a romance book. And I'm like, aren't you a club comedian? What the fuck do you know about like regular romance? Here's how you fuck women out of town. Right. Right. His book wasn't even like, here's how you find a wife.

[01:16:28] It's like, here's how you keep a marriage fresh 40 years in. Because women do what men like. That's his big take. Anyway, game show. Game show. Funny. Aston, I think, right, has good menacing kind of sneery energy. Yes. The joke of them accidentally like beating the stupid Princeton family is funny. Paul Bartel was like one of the best smarmy like elitist. I love Paul Bartel. I love him. One of my favorite games movies. The game of the game show makes no sense. No sense. I could not understand it.

[01:16:58] I didn't understand. Like they don't even know that the prize is European vacation, but they're willing to give up the motorcycle and something. And then they do that. And then it's like, and great. We'll be bringing in the previous champions who haven't been on the show yet. He was like, you've won. Do you want to stay in the game? Now they've been waiting for you to defeat them. Yeah. It's very bizarre. I do. I love that they all have glasses. What a shorthand for like, these are four smart people. Yeah. It is my favorite running bit in the movie is Clark constantly saying to people, we are

[01:17:27] the big champions on picking a poke. Yeah. That he starts using it when they're checking into hotels, but he starts doing it everywhere like he assumes in every country they'll know them by reputation. And then only Moon Zappa does know. Right. That's such a funny moment. I love that. I saw you. But you're like, it's such a good, like ugly American show. Yeah. Where you're like, they go to Europe thinking they're such hot shit because they won this big prize. I mean, the game is literally like, do you want more money? You greedy pigs. And they're like, oink, oink, oink. More money.

[01:17:55] We make you dress up like a cartoon and then make sounds. Yeah. Ben, any thoughts on the game show? I just feel like these movies are so important to you. Yeah. You don't want to breeze by anything. I mean, I don't think I have much more to add other than it's just, it's so unclear of how it works. Yes. Well, I'll throw something your way that you might. I like, and movies used to have full blown animated opening credits. I'm happy that the in movie game show has an animated opening credits. It's a way that you can snuck it in there. Yeah.

[01:18:24] They leave Holiday Road for later in the movie because of this, right? Holiday Road comes over some car driving action. Yes, I think so. Holiday Road. We like Holiday Road. An absolute fucking banger. The vacation song. Holiday Road. I love that. Lindsey Buckingham. That's good. This movie has a couple of bangers because I love that song. And then like the weird America song at the end is like really fun. That song rules and the end credits are really funny. Network. It's the French song when they're doing the Louvre really fast.

[01:18:54] Yes. That's a classic. I believe that. This all feels like Heckerling influence too. Yeah. She's hip. She's cool. She's got the jam on there and stuff. And like Fast Times is one of the best soundtracks in history. But I just would like to say I'm not tuning in for the songs in this movie. No, but I'm just saying like I watch, I throw on fucking National Lampoon's Vacation and that song starts playing over the credits and I'm like, oh, I know this song. Like I've heard this song before. I didn't realize this is from this movie. Sure. Which it is. Right.

[01:19:23] It was made for this movie. No, it's that Lindsey Buckingham just had it and he was like, I got this song. And they were like, well, that's like, can we have that song? That's perfect. It was just like it was left over rattling around pile. Yeah, I feel like Kilgore the crazy bloody musical we used to do at UCB. Oh, yeah. Ended with that song. The whole thing is so morbid and like gross and violent. And then at the end, it's like we take the curtain to a holiday. It's a Halloween weekend and shit. When Daley and Goldstein do the sequel thing, the things they are like bringing in

[01:19:51] is like the car from the first movie. Yeah. Like Chevy Chase is like, we've still got it. And the fucking song. That's all I've got. Well, that's what's also interesting is like the vacation franchise has spawned a bunch of like unofficial remakes and sequels. Like it's such a basic template that you're like Little Miss Sunshine is like Fox Searchlight. Yeah. It's kind of like. Yeah. Then there's like the Cedric the Entertainer Johnson family vacation. Sure.

[01:20:17] That very much feels like him walking in to Fox and being like, I just want to do my own vacation. Yeah. They wanted to call it National Lampoon's black family vacation. But they went with Johnson instead. Without a paddle. Without a paddle is like vacation meets Caddyshack. But I think like RV is like very much a vacation. Yeah. Where the Millers. Where the Millers. Where the Millers. Like a five inch. Okay. One of my favorite things to reference is in RV Joss Hutcherson as Robin Williams son. Who is of course a borrower.

[01:20:48] Yes. Like in stature. Is very sad that all the other kids make fun of her for being so short. And Robin Williams tells him an endearing story about how he used to be short. And then one year he had a five inch summer. And when he came back to school they couldn't pick him on him anymore. And I'm like, Robin Williams is five six on a good day. That's all. Yeah. He was. Yeah. Robin Williams isn't exactly towering over anybody. It's a five inch summer. I had. I had. I had like a three and a half, four inch summer and it was the summer before freshman year of college. Got it in between high school and college.

[01:21:17] Some kids grew up really. Yeah. I remember that. My dad was six five and he said his. My dad was six five and his spurt he said was when he was 19 and I was like, you know, I was like five nine or five ten in junior year high school. I'm like, I would love if I got. And then all of a sudden I went away to fucking college and I was six two and I was like, yes. I remember. I remember. I, so I went from like short and fat to tall and not fat. And then now I have the frame to just keep adding fat. That's. I put on the freshman. You and me baby. Every 15.

[01:21:47] Every year for fucking 20 years. I'm like. Sorry. I just Googled it in an RV. He claims that he had a nine inch. So I thought it was even bigger than five. So I had. That's what I had on confess fletch with John Hamm. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He got it out. Yeah. You're like, come on, John. Come on. Confess fletchy. I hit a water buffalo on the ride over. Great movie.

[01:22:20] David. Yep. You like going out to eat. Love it. I really do. You're gourmand. Mmm. Tasty. And one of the best things about living in New York is it's cultural melting pot. You got global options, Italian, Thai, Greek, Japanese. That's true. Now, let me present to you a nightmarish Twilight Zone-esque scenario. Okay. You got to pick one country and only get food from that one country. Ah! You're screaming. Yes. I don't like that idea. I like to be able to hop from world, you know, country to country. Yeah, we all want that. There's no reason to limit ourselves.

[01:22:49] And that's why it's so annoying using Netflix without VPN. Ah! Oh, it really grinds my gears. Ah! It steams my goose! Oh, tasty. Yeah. But only you can get that kind of cuisine if you're unlimited in terms of your range of options. I don't know. I was trying to tie that together. Listen, we often live in a nightmarish hellscape in which you only get to stream the content available for one country on every streaming service.

[01:23:16] But with ExpressVPN, you know what that sound was? No. A key unlocking a door. A door to great possibilities. Um, yeah. No, ExpressVPN's great. You can basically hop between countries very easily. They have servers in over a hundred. So you can gain access to thousands of new shows. Never had fun stuff to watch. They're hiding stuff from you. They're playing hide and seek. They're hiding things. And ExpressVPN is just leapfrogging over that. Like, you change your location so you can control where you want Netflix to think you're located.

[01:23:45] Which is also fun because it's kind of sneaky. Oh, it's fun to be an SB. You can fire up the app and click one button to change locations. It works in all your devices. Phones, laptops, smart TVs, tablets, whatever. It works in all the streaming services. We're just focusing on Netflix because it's fun to pick on them. Yeah, Disney Plus, BBC, whatever. And it's got blazing fast speeds. You can stream in HD with zero. So easy to use. It's truly a one button click. There's so many other reasons to use a VPN. We like to focus on streaming because this is a podcast about watching stuff.

[01:24:12] But it also helps to have security, privacy, and the internet. Did you know Alvin and the Chipmunks is found in almost every country, but that's not America right now. But on what service? What a great example. You're talking about the first live action film? The Tim Hill picture? Yeah, the Tim Hill picture. Okay, so here's a great specific. Imagine you are stuck in a nightmarish hellscape where you cannot watch the first live action Alvin and the Chipmunks. Yeah. That's the sound of Express VPN opening up the door.

[01:24:41] And now you can pick which country you want to pretend you're watching it in. Hmm. What? No, I'm just looking around. How did you land on that as the example? There's a... I'm just looking around and I'm not allowed to say how. Okay. Like Godfather Part 2 is on South African Netflix. This is fun. That's crazy. This is fun. This is like streaming tourism, you know? Right, exactly. Pulp Fiction is on Canadian Netflix. You get to feel like you're globetrotting. Fargo. Mm. Coming up. The TV show. Oh, okay. It's on Canadian Netflix. Listen. It goes on and on. Express VPN. Express VPN. Be smart.

[01:25:10] Stop paying full price for streaming services and only getting access to a fraction of their content. Get your money's worth at expressvpn.com slash check. Don't forget to use my link at expressvpn.com slash check to get an extra four months of expressvpn for free. Alvin! The first chunk of it is set in Jolly London. The first chunk of it is set in Jolly London.

[01:25:36] Well, first we set up, of course, that Rusty is horny as hell and the only thing he cares about is figuring out how to get laid in some capacity. And he kind of wants to be a pop star, but he doesn't want to sing. Right. He just wants to like walk through and use a video. He wants to act like hot shit. He loves MTV. He loves MTV. Meanwhile, Audrey's thing is that she has a boyfriend, so she wants to stay skinny for the boyfriend. It's pretty thin. And her boyfriend is the bully from Karate Kid. Yeah. Sure. Or the bully from just one of the guys. Exactly. Or the bully from Cobra Kai. Yes. Or the redemptive bully from Cobra Kai.

[01:26:06] Like the preeminent bully of the 1980s in American cinema. Great fucking guy. Like just like a mensch, right? Yeah, he was a great person by all accounts. Yeah. But at this time, he was such a good shorthand for like, cause he's just fucking toe head kind of smarmy looking face. Right. He looks like he's gonna be true. And he owns it. He looks like the kind of guy you don't want your daughter kissing at dinner. Right. But I feel like a lot of guys like this would play this part one time and being like, I refuse to play it again. And this guy was like, look, I'm in movies. Right.

[01:26:35] You wanna keep paying me to do this, I'll do this. I look a specific way, you know what I mean? Right. I get it. I look like a bad guy. Yeah. And it's had his like, you know, full arc now coming back with Cobra Kai. But yes, all she wants to do is kiss. She hates the idea of going to Europe and being away from the kissing and everyone makes fun of her for eating too much. Right. A very sensitive plot line. Yeah, exactly. Very, very. Well, especially the actor is like suffering from diabetes and they have to like force feeds. Like she has cake down her mouth. I know. It's fucking weird. I do like this lighter fluid gag.

[01:27:02] I think that's like, this is like kind of, it's not very funny, but it is exactly like Vegas vacation. Sorry, vacation movie specific. Oh, you're saying about the grill. Yeah. They don't realize that both of them have been putting it on the whole time. Like while he's looking at the instructions, she's putting it on when she's not paying attention. He's spraying it on like it's little shit. But I love the commitment to like Chevy having to remain on screen for five minutes with the ash outline around the goggles.

[01:27:26] Yeah, that's, look, I just like, so this movie has four sections, London, Paris, Germany, Rome, right? Like those are the four. And it feels like they spent a good half hour on each figuring out what stereotypes they should do. Uh huh. Right. Like for sure. An easy, like 20 minutes on like, okay. It's just interesting to me that for London, they more pick up on like dirt bags. Yes.

[01:27:51] Versus like, it's not what you think maybe of like the most obvious stereotype of like, oh, like posh people drinking tea and shit. They do a queen bit. They do a queen bit. They do a people in England are weirdly nice. That's the interesting zag. Yeah. Like you expect that they'll be big timing the Griswolds and looking their nose down at them. Right. And instead they're excessively polite. Like none of them are not, you know, like they are existent stereotypes. They're just not quite the ones you would have figured. Especially of the time.

[01:28:19] But it might be my favorite bit in the movie is him continually damaging people's cars and then being like, oh, don't worry about. Right. Take this back to New York with you. When they give him, he gives him the bumper. Right. They put it in the car. Add it to the collection. And Mel Smith. Yes. Who is a- Legendary sketch guy. Brilliant British comedian. He died a while ago, but you know- Great look on him. Right. Very funny as the hotel manager, but right, they're not doing the, oh, like, you know, do behave like far too fancy thing.

[01:28:47] No, instead he's this like cockney sort of cheat. They're not doing the well I never, which is the most obvious thing to go to, which I give them credit for doing. I'm like, they're doing kind of weird acts. And to be clear, this is not sensitive or, right, or three dimensional. But they're avoiding the most overplayed version of the bit, which is they walk in and they don't know how to hold the teacup and everyone's like, eww. Right. I don't want to be already jumping back, but the four dreams on the plane- Okay, actually, I forgot about the dreams. No, no, no. What are the dreams? Okay, okay.

[01:29:15] They are very, like, it's a very, it's a very funny, simple, ham-fisted way to just establish your character's interiority. Slay out the characters. Just notice, like, this is a runner in Heckerland. She's really good at these dream sequences. You have Spicoli on the beach. Sure. Right. You have, look who's talking, has incredible dream sequences. Right. Her, like, projecting images. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, so in this one, it's Beverly D'Angelo dreams of meeting the queen, but in her dream, Princess Di wants to fuck Jimmy Chasers. And that's exciting to her.

[01:29:44] Such a funny, specific, and she's into it. In Rusty's dream, he's a pop star on the Rusty World Tour and kind of just walking around like sexy dancers. And it's very, this also feels like Heckerling because it's a very specific, it's almost like- Kind of new wavy. Ballroom. It's very progressive. Yeah. And then, Audrey is, wants to be in the fucking Homer Simpson hell feeding machine kind of thing. And then, what was Chevy's dream? Ah, Chevy's dream.

[01:30:13] Oh, Chevy's dream is sound of music. Right. That he wants to go back to his German family. Right. And he's in full lederhosen. Which is maybe a joke they need to hit more. Yes. It's a little under- I also think Chevy's dream should have a European woman in it. Yes. Right, but he's not as horny in this. He's less horny. He's only horny and not to move backwards again. But for his wife. He fucking makes his wife do- Do a sex tape. But what, she does Let's Misbehave? Yes. Right. And then he fucks her on camera. Yeah.

[01:30:43] So- And then it gets distributed in theaters. This is a plot of the film. This is undeniable. What I like about Vacation is- He's so horny for her in this. What I like about Vacation is- Their relationship is genuinely sexual. Yeah. And she's hot and he's- Chevy Chase is hot. Yeah. Uh, he's- You understand why they both with each other. Yep. He still, yes, he still has the flirty fantasy. He has the dream of the dalliance with Christy Brinkley. He takes her to the Moulin Rouge. Right. Well, no, no, that's in this one. I'm just saying in the first movie. Oh, oh, yes, yes.

[01:31:12] But then like his wife takes him back without too much fuss. There's just the stability to it that actually kind of feels realistic to me. Yeah, right. She's like, you fucking asshole. Like, it's sort of like, right. This one, it's a little off. Like, I think it's truly, it's what Heckerling and Beverly D'Angelo, you know, in between like having dinner with the Duke or whatever are saying of like, no one figured out what the formula was. Right. They just had to do another one. And so obviously you have the general formula of like, look, funny things will happen to them on vacation.

[01:31:42] But it's been downgraded from R to PG-13. And everyone's lost a little bit of like what their bit is. But the first one is such a straight line of they're just trying to get to Wally World. They get a road trip to a, to a theme park and the worst things get the more insistent he is that they need to get there and have fun. Right. Whereas this, it's just like, they try that with this. We won a trip, which I like that it's like they're being given something. So you're not like, how the fuck can they afford this? Well, it's also like they get to be poor.

[01:32:08] They get to be poor and they get to constantly be disappointed by their treatment for a grand prize win. Right. And that's kind of, that's a fun kind of inside baseball thing. Totally. It's like a good setup of dynamics in my opinion, but it is a nasty one. Yeah. Right. I just want to quickly call out a woman named Jeanette Charles, who is the actress who plays Queen Elizabeth in Beverly DeAngelo's fantasy sequence. Yes. She just left us last. At the age of 96. At the age of 96. And I want to list some of her credits. Right. She played the queen a lot. Right.

[01:32:37] In The Naked Gun from the Files of the Police Squad, she plays Queen Elizabeth the second. A big role. In Austin Powers and Goldmember, she plays Queen Elizabeth the second. Yeah. In Nancy Meyers, the parent trap, she played Queen Elizabeth the second deleted scene. She was often referred to as quote, the queen's most famous lookalike. What a life. We have talked about in the past, I think especially doing the Indiana Jones episodes recently,

[01:33:04] certain character actors who have the misfortune of looking like Adolf Hitler and talk about a William Zabka analog. They're like, look, you can work forever. Yeah. Here's your fucking monkey's paw. But your monkey's paw is, you're going to be gluing on that mustache a lot. We, on Action Boys, we all stumble across a character actor that we're like, this guy is in everything. Let's look at his resume. And then when you read his IMDB, it's like, he plays like Big Dale, beef, chunk, bar tough, bouncer, you know?

[01:33:33] And it's just like this big, heavy set guy who's in like, got to be in 50 movies as assorted bikers, you know? And you're like, oh, hell of a career. What a fucking life Jeanette Charles got to have of just like jumping into comedies and being like, oh, hello, and just like hitting them with the sword on the shoulder. These are my favorite careers to like wrap my head around. Like when you find someone's like, yeah, I stand in for so-and-so in all their commercials and I make the residuals. And you're like, what? You're like, you make six figures a year without ever being seen on camera and you just have

[01:34:02] to have the same haircut as the lady whose commercial it is? Nice work if you can get it. Yeah. Your fake flow. Yes, dude. Your overflow. Faux flow. Faux flow. We're both good. We're both good. We both got there. It's good alts. We have options. Ben, you can use these in the edit however you need. We'll do a little line-o-rama in honor of Apatow. Okay. So first proper stop. Yes. Is Jolly Old England. Is England. So right.

[01:34:31] So the gags are, as we said, there's the queen gag, which they get in via fantasy. Uh, the, that the hotel is shitty, which I'm sure in England in the eighties, by the way. Yes. Like I'm sure any like regular ass part of that fun gag is that the name is like the Westminster arms luxury suite resort or whatever. And it's just like a hostel where they have to share a fucking hallway bathroom and you get into full cartoon shit in Christmas vacation. I feel which like starts to have like Looney Tunes logic of like who can survive what level of physical. Yeah.

[01:35:01] Right. And I think like the first one is a little more grounded in physicality. And this one, like Heckerling sort of building a bridge that maybe pays off better in Christmas vacation of like Chevy getting into the bed and the bed immediately collapsing. Like he's in a Looney Tune. Yeah. Very funny. I like Robbie Coltrane. RIP. Uh, Robbie Coltrane is great. Uh, I mean, again, playing a big old galoot, you know, who's causing trouble walking in on Bev in the, in the bath. Yeah.

[01:35:29] Um, but the other gags are, uh, hard to get out of a roundabout. These feel like American impressions of England. Yeah. Driving, driving on the wrong side. Driving on the wrong side and then not getting out of the roundabout. It's a crazy, like it must've been to try to map the first movie on it so much. The fact that it's driving through Europe is like less of a vacation than you think to win a prize. Right. And you get to rent a car and drive through Europe. You're like, wait, that's frustrating. They must've locked in like this is one of the four cornerstones of the franchise.

[01:35:59] They have to be in a car. Yeah. Right. There are not a lot of shots of them in the car though. It's weird. You would think you would have like some of those, like, like, I love that, like in the Wally world one where it's like the direct on and Chevy's driving and it's like, clearly he's just trying to hold it all together. Yes. We don't get any of that. Yeah. We get, we, we establish Eric idol in this as the guy who's, who I could runner. I love him in this. Yeah. Yeah. He's funny. Right. He says flesh wound. Uh, you know, he quotes his own, uh, his own gag, which is always fun.

[01:36:29] Eric idol. I think has always been the member of Monty Python. The most just kind of like, you want me to do something? I'll fucking do it. Like he's pretty eager. Absolutely. Name drop time. I went to a party at drew carries house as a friend of a friend and Eric idol was there. And I was like, man, I thought drew carry was going to be the most interesting, famous person here at drew carries house. And it's not Eric idol hanging by the bonfire cracking like eight people up. Like just truly just fucking bidding. Yeah. I like him.

[01:36:56] It is one of those things that's so fascinating within the structure of Monty Python. When those guys talk about how they came together and they were like, Oh, there were like a couple overlapping circles of like two different university sketch groups. And then this and that. And then like the time we went in to pitch the show to the BBC was the first time we had ever presented ourselves as like that specific group. Yeah. It's like Jones and Terry Jones and Michael Palin are one thing. And Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric idol art.

[01:37:25] No, but the fascinating thing. Yes. Correct. Yeah. But also when they talk about it, they're like, well, like Palin and Jones would write together and Chapman and Cleese would write together. Palin and Jones are Oxford Chapman and Cleese are Cambridge. Not to be an idol, which is right by himself. Yeah. He was always like, I just did stuff solo. I basically, I know this one basement psycho named Terry, who I think should join us too. I mean, honestly, he's making fucking cutouts of feet that stomp on people. It's like, we'll let him stay next to us sometimes.

[01:37:56] That's that shit's funny though. I'll say it's. I love it. Still pretty good. Holy grail is like one of the funniest movies of all time. And I, even the later ones are bangers, but holy grails. I love. I love Arthurian legend. So it's like, oh, sure. Yeah. I'm with you that I think holy grail is the best. Cause I just like them more in pure joke mode. Yes. Like I love life of Brian, but like, I honestly don't need any plot. Sure. But meaning of life is like a sketch movie. Yeah. Meaning of life is weird. I don't love that movie, but I love things.

[01:38:25] I think I liked the weirdness. It's also, I think I love it. It's scary different, which is a true sketch movie. Well, that's right. That's a pure. Fun Monty Python sketches. Right. What could be wrong with that? Because you've already set up the bit of, oh, the British men are being weirdly polite and nice about their cars getting fucked up. So he's the third beat of that. But then he's doing this really good job of like not being passive aggressive, but seeming not okay. Yeah. Like he's bleeding out of his knees. Like I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.

[01:38:55] And when he picks his arm up and the blood comes gushing out is very fucking. But there's something like a little damaged in him. Yes. Um, the big set piece is them knocking over Stonehenge like dominoes. Which was obvious, but like. It's right there. It's satisfying. Have any of you been to Stonehenge? I just went last year. Did you try? It was a little underwhelming. Stonehenge is one of those things that's a little underwhelming.

[01:39:20] But here's the thing that was crazy is that they, when I went, it was, it was barricaded. It was Ted Lasso's wedding, right? You, when I, so I still, I went when you still could go near it, but now. That's why the effects. I think people just throw some on it and shit. The episode was dropped late because they had to comp Ben in at the last second. Truly though, they used to just let people drive up to the fucking thing. That's what we did. I mean, like, and like hang out and smoke cigarettes like underneath the fucking Stonehenge.

[01:39:47] Yeah, they used to like put Griswold fucking back his car and knock him down like fucking dominoes. I would love to fucking, uh, candy flip at Stonehenge. The others? Hell yeah. Just lie in the middle on a fucking heroic dose of mushrooms and fucking channel druidic powers. Oh my God. As you, you know, the fucking sun lines up. It sure is. Dude, we got time that with the peak. Let's go. Let's go back. All right. Fuck yeah. The thing with Stonehenge that you I'm sure realize is like, it's like an hour and a half from London.

[01:40:17] It feels like it should be like, you know, you have to go through an ancient portal to get there. And instead you're like, oh, it's like in the suburbs. Just off the fucking highway. Yeah. And so you go there. Like in England, they get Stonehenge. Here we have like the world's largest cow or whatever. I was going to say, it's basically the distance from like Times Square to medieval times New Jersey. Right. Like you go there and you're like, look, I get it. Like these are very old and it's crazy that they're here and Lord knows what they were for. That's cool.

[01:40:45] But then you're kind of like, okay, so I looked at them. I think I'm done. Like you don't feel like you're communing with me. Let's call out. They're very old, but I think they've had some work done. It's good work. It's classy work. Yeah. It's Wagovi. It's the Paul Rudd work, but it's a little touch up here and there. The one thing I did learn from going there that I had never heard before is that what you're seeing on the surface, there is so much more underground. Whoa. Yeah. Like an iceberg.

[01:41:14] Well, that just means that they're like, that all adds layers of complication to how did they do that? Exactly. Cause they dragged it from fucking whales. And so what you're seeing is actually almost twice as big. That's fucking great. Well, now there's like the new meme that the pyramids go down like a thousand meters below the surface. Now, too, people believe like, oh, this is just something people are saying. Yeah. Like talking people like must be true. Yes. Yeah.

[01:41:37] That's a good thing that will have to be debunked or someone will bring a gun to the pyramid and be like, where are the children? Kids in here. Yeah. Basement of the pyramid shit is going to be so exhausting. There is no basement in the pyramid. That's actually, I think we should encourage this. I think we should get the pedo hunters to go to the pyramids because they'll just get like lost in there and try. Right. Like this is good. Yeah. No one's in there. Just put a funnel, funnel them in there.

[01:42:05] This guy was buried with his child bride. Yes. It's time. Tootin common. You are canceled. Right. You had like 18 wives. Right. Was he himself a child? Yeah. We have to unpack all of it. So are there other London things we need to address? No, I think we base. There's not a lot of meat on these bones. Okay. Paris. Yeah. Begins with them losing. I like the small bit of them being like, no one helps us carry our bags. Sure. And Mel Stewart just going like, mom.

[01:42:36] I also think all of there's, there's, I'm sorry. There's the polite people in the scumbags, as you said. Right. Every British scumbag in this section, their accent is like when I do a British accent and you go, what is that? No one sounds like that. When I do my like, hey, is it for boys? No one sounds like it. It's just insane. Is it for bulls? You need help with your bags, innit? My BFG voice. Is it fuzzy wimples? Now, my favorite gag in Paris.

[01:43:06] Well, hmm. It's a good question. I like the rude waiter. Again, route one. Very obvious. But look, it's route one because everyone wants to stop there. Yeah. Like subtitled insults to a Chevy going like, uh-huh. And smiling. That's funny. Is it England or here that has the horny couple that is kissing? That's Paris. That's Paris. Where, um, uh, Rusty is like, his hands are boobs! Right? Like you're like that he's- Which is another kind of Parisian stereotype that it's- Right.

[01:43:35] And Chevy's like, yeah, standards are different here. He's gonna pork her! Yeah. He's not gonna pork her, Russ. I like that bit of him being like, they're gonna go all the way here at the table. Chevy is always good when he's trying to even things out. Yes. When he's trying to be like, well, that's just how they do it here. Like, that's usually funny. It's also- One of my favorite Chevy line deliveries in the vacation movies that I think is kind of like a archetype of his delivery is in, um, Christmas Vacation when the woman's like,

[01:44:05] and you see the line goes all the way up the stocking. Yes. And he's like salivating. And he's like, you see the line goes all the way up the stocking, Russ? Hi, Russ! Yeah. Like he has like those two levels of awareness that he can play with. Well, he's got an interesting relationship with Rusty in terms of being like, is it time for me to like teach my son how to be a man? Yeah. Where you have the like sharing a beer moment in the first one. Right. Where Rusty like downs the beer too fast. Right. In this one, Rusty's like, I get it. I'm a grown up. I have a job. Let me fuck. Yeah. And he's like, cool it.

[01:44:31] And then Galecki in Christmas seems like seven years younger. Yeah. He's like a child. He is definitely younger than Hall and Lively, but also looks even younger than he is. Right. And is played like a little boy. Yeah. And he's just like, dad, don't be horny around me. Again, in Vegas, the joke by Ethan Embry becomes mistaken for a Greek millionaire and basically like has his own side movie where he's having adventures.

[01:44:57] Because he uses a fake ID to gamble and then wins a jackpot and becomes like a whale. But then his name is Nick Papagiorgio. So like Mr. Papagiorgio, the usual. And he's like, you got it. He's got like a yellow suit. By far the best shit in the movie. Like hanging with all old guys the whole time. They're getting back. It's all like he gets to have old timey Vegas. It is a bit I basically always find funny, which is like guy gets too deep into a character he created circumcisedly. Into a bit. Exactly. That's always funny.

[01:45:24] But then Vegas Vacation also has Beverly D'Angelo is romance by Wayne Newton, which is deadly. So bad. It's so bad. I will give the Clint Howard dealer that absolutely ruins. It's Wallace Shawn. Oh, Wallace Shawn. I get those two. I flip those two guys so frequently. I'm so sorry to my ball. It's a difference between this and this. Bingo. Yes. There's a line in Vegas Vacation where Wallace Shawn says, why don't you just give me half your money?

[01:45:52] I'll take you out back, kick you in the nuts and we'll call it a day. Because Chevy just keeps losing money to him. And they keep playing dumber and dumber games. That's kind of a good line. So France, what else happens? The dog going off the Eiffel Tower is pretty funny. Another like, you know, it's going to happen, but it still hits. Ben seems a little dispirited though. You're kind of like, yeah. The camcorder is getting stolen. Like, got to get that ball rolling. Right. I do like the, right.

[01:46:21] How slow the build is on like the French guy saying like, take off your shoes. Get in the fountain. And then running off. Oh, I wasn't in France. Right. Waiting like 40 minutes until you pay it off with the poster of like, this thing is in theaters already. The wet woman or whatever. Yeah. You have like Rusty getting like embarrassed by the embroidered beret. Oh yes. Yes.

[01:46:48] I mean, anytime you would go on vacation with your parents, it was always that thing of when you hit that certain age, you're like, can I hook up with the girl on this trip? I know a lot of our guys talk about this all the time and I relate to it so hard is like being awkward guys. Right. And then going on a vacation with your family and being like, no one knows me here. What if I catch the glance of the most beautiful woman in the world and I'm starting from nothing? Yeah. No baggage. You know nothing about me.

[01:47:15] And we just have some like doomed romance over two days. Like, I do think it's like a good setup to have Rusty on the movie where they're going to be making the most stops. Yes. To just be losing his fucking mind with horniness. It's hyper realistic. Totally. Like, it's just like, you know, I mean, like that vibe is so real. Yes. It doesn't happen as well for, it happens better for Rusty than it ever did for me. Absolutely.

[01:47:42] But I've definitely been on like a family vacation where another family that my mom's friends with, they come and one of the daughters who's kind of like a cousin to me so we can never hook up, but she brings a friend from school. The possibilities. All of a sudden I'm like, okay, okay, anything can fucking happen. Right. And then I just spend six days standing near her in the pool like not saying anything. Your mind is- And then going home and being like furiously masturbating while my parents are asleep in like the bathroom or something.

[01:48:08] Your mind is suddenly reeling with the possibilities of how you can fuck this up by doing nothing. Right. The frequency in which I would be like, I think I'm attracted to this girl. I think she might even be into me. Right. What I should do is absolutely nothing for the entire week. Say two words to her over the next five days and shake. And I'm like, famously a gabber. Physically vibrant. Yeah, I'm famously talkative. Right. Very funny. And I am even as a kid and I just- A woman will come over and I'm like-

[01:48:36] And just stand there just pissing in the pool looking at her. But like, I like, first of all, like Beverly D'Angelo making the big plea to like, wouldn't it be nice if we just like stayed in and had like a private night? And Chevy's like, no, I got to show you a night out in the town. Hard cut to like Moulin Rouge show. This like bad flash dance riff. And he's trying to frame it as like, this is this country's legacy. Yeah, it's art. The worst modern striptease. And being like, here, this is culturally important. Right.

[01:49:04] And then Rusty in the corner, like being like, I have money. I can pretend to be an American playboy. Yeah. The, uh, there's that vacation vibe of like when you go someplace where the, like, when you're in your twenties, you get wasted on every vacation. Sure. But then for me, like I went to Munich and we'll get to this when we talk about Germany. I went to Munich Oktoberfest for my bachelor party and now getting wasted is, is you're participating in culture. Right. It's like going to Amsterdam and like, yeah, I love smoking weed. It's like, well, I went into Amsterdam, you know, you got to smoke weed.

[01:49:33] When in Rome. You got to go to the red light district. Get wasted as the Romans do you? Right. Exactly. You've literally also made a career out of it. It's like you did a show that is that premise. That is true. Yeah. Oh man. Great show. Check it out. Check it out. Where's, where's it now? Streaming on max? Still on max. Yeah. We don't, we are not, uh, making a, we don't cost enough to get canceled. Okay. Yeah. Um, let's get them successful enough that Zazz lives. Like get this off my fucking platform. Sell it to ketchup. Dream come true. I got ketchup entertainment come through.

[01:50:03] Um, can I give you some cinema con news? Yeah. Number one, this will depress you a little bit. John Wick five. I've gotten seven texts about this. I could tell that's what people were responding to. Number two, Donnie Yen will be directing a spinoff about his character. Okay. That was previously announced, but he's now directing it. I like that. I'm like any excuse for Donnie Yen to get to make a big American movie. Number three, now you see me three has been officially titled. Now you see me. Now you don't. Okay. Now you three me. Not now you three me.

[01:50:33] They fucked this up. Exactly. Obviously two should have been. Now you don't. They're scrambling to fix their mistake, but it's the same. It's the same. Uh, what other movie? Bad boys. But in, in, in fucking up last time, they're now correcting and missing a new opportunity that won't exist for the four. You can't be. Now you three me. Yeah. They can't be. Now you four me. Anything is possible. You know what? You're right. Anything is possible. I went to Italy to shoot the movie little hours that my friend, RIP Jeff Behnat directed.

[01:51:03] And while there, me, Pally and Nick Offerman had a day off. Behnat knew the area so well cause they were shooting there for so long. He's like, you got to go to this little restaurant. It's like a more or less a deli. And it was like one of the best meals I've ever had. We were there for like three hours. We're eating guy. Guy comes up on a 80 year old guy comes up on a Vespa with a prosciutto leg, takes it. The guy cuts it off and hands it to us. We're just eating out of his dirty hands. We're eating this prosciutto. It's so good.

[01:51:30] But this guy, his favorite movie was now you see me too. Hell yeah. And Dave Franco is in the little hours. Oh, yes. This guy had been, and I was like, it's so funny. And he's like, my favorite American movie. And he's telling, and he's in broken English talking about now you see me. He's like, they are magicians and thieves. And I'm like, I do actually like these movies. And I, and I go like, you know, Dave, this guy is, he's cause he's showing me clips from the movie on his iPad. Like a child. Like, isn't this cool? I'm like, okay.

[01:52:00] I go, you know, this guy's in this movie. He's like, I know he came into the restaurant and I brought it up to Dave. Dave's like, yeah, no, he's a big fan. I was like, that is such a funny thing to travel overseas is now you see me. Now you overseas me. We should do that. We, we had a little, uh, we, we did a blank check anniversary, uh, art show recently for our 10th anniversary. And we, a bunch of, uh, the people work on the show with us. We went out and got dinner and then we were like, let's come back here to the office

[01:52:27] and like get some beer and like project shit on the wall and watch music videos and do karaoke and whatever. So we went to the bodega around the corner to get beer and the one on, um, yes. Yeah. And like a bunch of us walk in and the guy behind the counter is like, are you guys like a family or something? Cause there was like our editors kids were with us, but it was like a weird combination of people, right? All in sync. And Marie was like, this isn't a busy area at night too, where we are. Yeah.

[01:52:54] And Marie was like, uh, we, we work together and he was like, oh, all in the same office. And she was like, we do a podcast. And he goes, oh, what's the podcast? He goes, it's about movies. And he goes, oh, you know what movie you should do an episode on? Do you remember what the first two were been? No, I can't remember what they were, but it was like a thing. This is the worst tangent of all time. No, I'm telling you it's going to pay off. Okay. It's like this. Okay. He goes like, you should do an episode on like Shawshank Redemption or something. Sure. And which she was like, oh yeah, we might do that someday. You know?

[01:53:23] And then he was like, you should do an episode on like Unforgiven. And she was like, or he was like, have you done that? We were like, no. And he's like, come on, you haven't done Unforgiven. You haven't done Shawshank Redemption. You haven't done any movies. I think Usual Suspects. Oh, Usual Suspects was one. Sure. And then one of them was something like Shawshank or whatever. And he was so frustrated. He was like, what movies have you done? And they turned around and he went, oh, I know which one you should do. Tokyo Godfathers. Hey, the third movie. The Satoshi Kon. And we were like, we have done this. Wow.

[01:53:50] He takes a fucking, he goes, all right, I missed these two over the plate pitches. Let me fucking swing way the fuck out of here. That's the whole run. He did like three IMDB top tens. And he was like, I don't understand what show could exist for this long and not cover those two movies. And then his third was Tokyo Godfathers. That's like being in a small Italian town and the guy who carries the leg. Now you see me. Do. Right. Do. That's my number one favorite.

[01:54:18] Speaking of, no, let's do Germany first. Yeah. Oh, well, of course, they go to the Moulin Rouge and there's lots of boobs. Ah, yeah. Right. Boob chat is the tables open for boob. I will say the the aerobics aesthetic. I am of the age that that works for you. It still works. And whereas I it feels dated to me, it feels like some of the vintage. Yeah. Ben's making the same face. But I like that throw. I love that.

[01:54:45] And whatchamacallit, the substance. I was like, I'm back. Yeah. I'm so back. Yes. It felt very substance. The bunge of steel imagery. Yes. Right. I was so into it when it came out when that I was like, the movie is absolutely disgusting. And I was like, kind of hot, though. Right. And everyone's like, really? I was like, yeah. Demi Moore and Quali are beautiful women in this very fun aesthetic that I like. So it's fun to see that at Moulin Rouge.

[01:55:13] Also, it is funny because that feels so American, like that exercise tape thing. And that's like what they're doing at Moulin Rouge. Right. Yes. And Rusty's in the back with fucking. Well, that's a good bit. I'm just a guy with a prostitute. That's what happens here. It starts with like a seedier riff on like French can-can girls. And then it goes to something that is so clearly like tacky 80s modern American. And he's still trying to claim it's like culturally important. Right. It's just French theater essentially. That's a good bit. It's okay. It allows like seven or eight pairs of breasts to appear on screen. In a PG-13 movie.

[01:55:43] In a PG-13 movie. Yeah. I thought it was whatever. But in Germany, West Germany, the Berlin Wall has yet to fall. Oh my God. Just FYI. I just got from Marie. The two other movies were Goodfellas and Eternal Sunshine. Oh, okay. So at least Eternal Sunshine is drifting towards Indy. It's a good pick. Yeah, it's a good pick. But then Tokyo Godfathers 3 was interesting. And you know what? We're never going to fucking do Eternal Sunshine. Probably. Well, yeah. I mean- I don't think so.

[01:56:08] His latest movie being unreleasable doesn't help matters. Yeah. I mean, it's just like- The rare film to get Zazlav'd by someone other than Zazlav. Yes. His Pharrell musical. Oh my God. It's like they just made it and watched it and were like- Nevermind. Forget it. It was finished! Whoops! Yeah. And then we're like, are you writing off for tax purposes? Nah, we're just taking a loss. Now, the- I love when Chevy shows up in the Lederhosen.

[01:56:35] There's such an attention to detail that he has his clothes folded up and he gives them to Beverly D'Angelo and she puts them in a bag. I'm like, that is so unnecessary in this movie, which has zero continuity, zero thought. Uh-huh. And it's like, they have to do this elaborate moment where he presses that. It's like, what? The kids aren't even the same from the first movie. We don't give a fuck about what happened to his outfit, you know? But- Yes. It's also a funny bit that he's so excited about like connecting with his heritage and his family and everything. And they misread the door.

[01:57:04] This German family is just really fucking nice. We're looking for sex. Yes. Yeah. And then you just, he never connects with the real relatives that they clearly have been corresponding with. That gag is great. Yes. Like what's, what does the lady say on the way out where he's like, who are these? And she's like, fucked if I know, but it's not fucked, but it's something like that. It was, that's funny. But they just continue to have this conversation in languages that they don't understand. And then just being funny. And when you come to the States, you have to stay with us. Yeah. And then like Audrey's even like, it's just so nice to have someone who can listen, like a family member who will listen to me.

[01:57:34] And it's like, she's just nodding, handing off fucking phallic ass sausage. I was going to say a really funny gag is when she sees the sausage, she's like, I miss my boyfriend. Huge albino curved sausage. Yeah. It's like, it's so couldn't look more like Zopka's pal. A Zopka's dick. David. Mm. You know what that is? A telephone. It's not me introducing an ad read character.

[01:58:02] It's me doing an impression of my mother who true facts. I've called three times during the most recent episode record. Wait, your mom was calling too? Yeah. My grandmother was calling as well. Look, they all want me on the phone. And sometimes I got a busy job grinding out these movie discussion episodes. Oh, turning the big crank. My calloused hands. Our job is so hard. Now here's the thing. I love them. I love my mother and grandmother. Sure, good.

[01:58:29] But sometimes I'm too busy doing bits or guessing box office stats. And I need another way to show them and tell them that I love them. And it has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Who said that? Many people. But what about a picture frame, a digital picture frame that can cycle through images? We're talking hundreds of thousands of words. So many pictures. No, I mean, literally, rather than the one. You might get to a million words. Lots of pictures. You might do it. What I'm saying is this Mother's Day, give them a call. Do place the call. Do place the call.

[01:58:59] But also, maybe, gift them an aura picture frame for the moments when you're not able to pick up the phone. Aura Frames. Aura Frames. Was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Simstep. It was featured in 495 gift guides last year. That's a very specific and large number. So close to 500. I know. So the next time you need to call your mom, you can also send her a new pic. That's what you can do. You could be like, hey, guess what I did? I went to Machu Picchu, boink, and put it on her frame. Here's a good idea.

[01:59:27] Because I did, the folks at Aura Frames were nice enough to send over a couple samples. I got one here on my desk, but I also gifted one to my grandmother. And the next time she calls during a record, I should take a selfie of myself. Right, being like, this is what I'm doing. On microphone. Check this picture frame. Shop it right over, ship it right over to that Aura Frames. Aura has a great deal for Mother's Day for a limited time. Listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get a $35 off, plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver Mat frame. The Carver Mat.

[01:59:57] Very nice. That's AuraFrames.com, promo code check. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. I have a quick Oktoberfest story that involves breasts as well. So I think it fits perfectly. Because obviously, young Rusty hooks up with a lady at Oktoberfest. Who opens her shirt. Yes. Then he hears the German police raid sound. And they go, someone's gonna get hung.

[02:00:26] And he goes, oh no, dad. Right. Which he's correct about. Yeah, he's not wrong. Chevy has done a- He's caused a trouble at Oktoberfest. A traditional German dance so poorly. Yes. He's knocking everything over. It got into like slapstick fist fight. Yes. And then it turns into like, I love them when a movie fight just escalates and it's like, we just gotta punch someone else. It's got an arbitrary someone stands up and decks someone in a crowd. Like, I'm always here for that. I don't say this as a criticism. It is the number one element in this movie that feels like a Chevy pitch. Yeah. Where he's like, here's my idea.

[02:00:56] I wear Lederhosen, do like five minutes of comically bad dancing and then start fist fighting people. Yeah. And it's, his pitch was probably for 11 minutes and they had to cut it down. Right. It's so long. It's very long. And it doesn't like height, it doesn't heighten in any interesting way. The game makes no sense too. Why would they invite a bystander to participate in a complicated- In a choreo. In a choreo. Yeah. Without teaching it to him or anything. Right. And then kind of being mad that he's not good at it. It's like crazy. Cause it's also like- And then they're speaking English too.

[02:01:24] They're like, we need to volunteer from the crowd. Right. It's like, this is getting crazy. It's not like the bit is like, oh, he dances poorly and knocks over a fire pit and he sets their church on fire and that's why they're angry. Yeah. They're like, you have done such disrespect to our culture by dancing poorly. And I'm like, maybe on you to invite a fucking noob on stage. Yeah. Right. You brought this upon yourself. I went to Munich Oktoberfest for my bachelor party. Congrats. Humble Rick. This was the first time me and my brothers ever went to Europe because my dad had died

[02:01:54] with only ever having gone to Germany where his stepfather was from and did a trip with him. So we were like, when our dad died, we were like, all of us have to leave the country for a bachelor party. Yeah. Shake on this right now. That'll be a thing that will at least have three brothers trips out of the country. And my younger brother, we did Amsterdam for his bachelor party. But we go to Munich Oktoberfest day one, six guys by Liederhosen by leather. I still have it like leather straight up real Liederhosen. You wear it every single day. You're there. It's awesome. My youngest brother was like 26.

[02:02:22] He's like, I can't pay 200 euros for this. And me and my buddy, one of my other buddies were like, fuck it. You're not going to be one. You're not going to be not in Liederhosen. So we just laid out like another 200 euros for him. Is it comfy? It is a little comfy. Interesting. It is a little comfy. Yeah. It's airy to have like just the straps and shorts. And we go to, so you go to these tents and you party in these tents. You drink beer all day long. And not just like a little muck.

[02:02:49] No, you get a liter of beer, a full 40 ounces. It's like a little espresso cup. Yeah, exactly. You get a 40 ounce. A liter is about 36 ounces. You get a giant fucking stein. Now, Fest beer is a little lower alcohol content because they know people are fucking jamming them down. Oh, sure. So like what in America we have Oktoberfest, it's like Marzini. Their Fest beer is more like light, smashable, crushable beer. Got it. And the big thing you do in these tents is you stand up on a table with a full beer and hold it up.

[02:03:16] And the entire crowd shuts down and looks at you while you go to chin a beer. And if you chin it, everyone is happy. If you fail, they freak out. They throw pretzels, shoes. That rules! They boo you. I love this. They scream at you. So on day one, and each tent is... Because it's like you're wasting their time if you don't do it. And you demanded our attention. Yes. And based on your guys' knowledge of me as a person, do you think I might... How'd you do?

[02:03:45] I'm a consummate performer and insane consumer. I think this is a space in which you would really excel. And I go... And so each tent is like a brewery's tent. So we're in like the Augustiner tent. I stand up and do this. I fucking chin a full beer. It's 36 ounces. The crowd is going apeshit. I'm able to do it. I get off the table and my knees buckle. I'm like so... Because there's so much fucking adrenaline and alcohol at the same time. I was like, oh no. And the cheering. The adoration. Yeah, everyone's cheering. I'm like, this is better than improv.

[02:04:14] I can't believe I found something better than improv. So that's day one. And we're like, the rest of the time, we're just fully participating in this thing. We go to the Hofbrau tent, which is the crazy tent. That one has the most security. It's the one where people get the most fucked up. It's sort of for the younger, less cultural, more bachelor party. Lots of Australians who've managed to travel wherever there's alcohol. And first up, a fucking... Like a guy who looks like Jason Statham, but with more blood vessels popped.

[02:04:44] Stands up with two liters on the table and everyone's like, oh my fucking God. Oh my fucking God. And he chins him back to back. That's like drinking a six pack of beer in like 11 seconds. The crowd goes fucking apeshit. I could not believe it. It was insane. So I'm like, there's no way no one to top that. Yeah. Next thing you know, you start hearing quiet and people start clapping and you look over and two fat, bespectacable twins are standing up on a table with leaders.

[02:05:14] And they are identical chunky twins with little glasses. And they look like fucking Cenobites. They like... Butterballs. Two butterballs. They cheers each other and then fucking chin it. And the crowd erupts. And then we're sitting at the table and every, you know, Justin Tyler is a good friend of mine. Also a comedy nerd. We're like, what's the third beat? Right. How do you heighten this? How do you heighten this? Because it's heightened perfectly so far. Yeah. And then all of a sudden the crowd starts getting quiet and starts chanting and we look over

[02:05:41] and it's like a five foot ten beautiful blonde woman in a djindal. Like that things that hoist your titties up like to a shelf. The lady leader hosen. Yeah. The lady leader hosen. It's called the djindal. It's just St. Pauli girls that famous. And she stands up there with a liter of beer and everyone is like, it's just heteronormativity is everyone's like, oh, like Tex Avery cartoons. Like this is going to be a meat. This is the third beat. Right. She starts chugging it. The crowd starts going apeshit, but then she starts slowing down and we're like, will

[02:06:11] the crowd turn on a beautiful woman? Short answer. Yes. Pretzels start fucking flying. Everyone is like, boo, you're fucking boo. You know, like she just like quit and put it down on the table. No, she wins. She is slowing down. She powers through it. She pulls her tits out and drop, pulls her top down, breasts out. That's why this iconic scene with Moon opening her shirt is like, I remembered this. She drops her wonderful big naturals out.

[02:06:39] The crowd goes all the way back. Yeah. She chins the finishes, chin the beer does like the curtsy and then puts her breasts away. And we're like, oh, like the crowd, like the vibe shifted everywhere. This crowd is so rabid. Germany's no good guys. They start pretzeling her when she's slowing down. Not when she was like, I quit. I'm sorry. I give up. No, when she, it's when she seems like she might not do it. When she was on track to not finish, they started throwing food at her. The crazy, the craziest thing I remember about this tape that this tent to is that the tables

[02:07:08] were for seven people. Yeah. And to get a table is like ideal. Cause then you can like have a server. Yeah. So you got to get there super early. We were six people. One random Brazilian guy ends up at our table with us and he shows up and he has like a tucked in shirt. And we have a picture of the beginning and the end, he has like a hat. That's a huge fake keg with like a tap on it. His eyes are crossed. His shirt is ripped and he has like blood and food all over himself. It's like, this is what happens if you hang out with the Gabers family for like seven hours.

[02:07:37] And then anyone else you've ever met in your life. It's just so obvious that the good European countries like where Italy, France, France, but you know, where they like, they just know how to drink. Yeah. And then like all the bad ones, like England and Germany, people are just like, ah, like they're just maniacs. In England, they're like, they're like, only go too far. Right. I only had a hundred beers last night. Is there a way we can make them colder and flat, warmer and flatter so they go down smoother? The first time I had a cascale, I'm like, why the fuck does this exist? Then you drink it and you're like, oh, I could have a hundred of these. And it's like, of course, mate.

[02:08:07] Yeah, exactly. We're not, we're here from four to 1am. The London thing of like almost all bars close at 10pm, but also, okay, I'm sorry. But also like, please drink outside. Yeah. Like a recipe for people to be like, I got to keep like loading now because the cutoffs coming earlier than I wanted. And also I'm already in the street stumbling around. Well, the thing about the economy of drinking in England is it's like, you like, see, right. You get off work. You go to the pub, you start chugging beers. Right.

[02:08:35] And like might be outside if you want to smoke, especially right. You do that until closing time. Then you are, as the Brits would say, pissed. Yes. On the piss, man. You are fucking on the lash. And then you're like, let's get a fucking kebab. You just stumble into the old, no, Nando's is closed. You're stumbling to the only businesses that are open, which are kebab shops. So you're like pile meat into a bowl. But like 11 45 PM in London is like night of the living dead.

[02:09:03] Like it's all the streets are overrun with people who've been kicked out of bars. Or you go to a club because clubs are allowed to be open. And those believe me are not very cool. Wait a second. But last night in Soho made them seem really nice and trendy. Yeah. I went out drinking in Scotland by myself on a Saturday night. Sounds fun. I was in Glasgow. No. I'm sorry, what? Carry on.

[02:09:26] I was in a bar and I've experienced like being in a bar with like a lot, a lot of drunk people, but it's like, you know, like a trashy bar in midtown with like a lot of underage people. I have never been in a crowded bar where every single person has been drinking since like fucking eight in the morning. Like career drinking. I, I, from, from like six foot five fucking Oak men to like five foot one women

[02:09:54] and like mega mini skirts are a fucking like cross side. Mega minis. There had been, you know, that sport, I think it's called hurling. They just basically whip a wood like lacrosse ball at each other. Yeah. And they use like a cane. Like it's not like they use like, it's like drunk high life for like, you know, Highlanders, you know, is what hurt. Like Scotland's a crazy fucking place for that shit. Like when I was in Glasgow, I went to go get drinks and I was like, this is fucking terrifying.

[02:10:20] Well, I truly was a little scared by the end of the night and had to get out of there. I'm referencing that I famously in Newcastle where I went to college, which is not Scotland, but it's the English city closest to the Scottish border. I got called a poof for, which is a slur for gay people for wearing a coat. It was like 22 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It was not warm. Let's make it clear. Let's make it clear. A guy I did not know was like, you know, hitting me on the show. I'm like, what? And he was like, you poof, you're wearing a coat. And I was like, should I not? What is the plan here?

[02:10:49] I just want to clarify. It is both a slur for gay people and the last name of a very respected long neck Jedi. Oh, of course. Rie Ariel Puff. The Phantom. I'm glad we brought that. But I maybe should not show this. It just has two meanings. The word has two meanings. My father was a working class Englishman. I was raised in South London. And his brother, his older brother, my father was the fourth, so the third son, was such

[02:11:15] a infederate alcoholic that his mail was delivered to the pub, which is the thing that was one of those things that I was told as a kid. And I was like, that can't be like a grown up. I checked and I was like, you know, I feel like I remember that uncle, you know, bad memory this mail delivered to the pub. That's like not true. That's a family bit. A hundred percent. They carved a mailbox. It's true. I think it was truly the postman was like, well, I know where I'll find him. Like, you know, here's your fucking mail.

[02:11:41] The one thing I like, I mean, I like a lot of stuff about drinking culture and because I've played rugby my whole life in America, I hang out with a lot of Brits and Aussies and stuff. But I like the pub. You like rugby. I love rugby. And I love the pub culture of loyalty to our pub. Yes. That's what I like a lot too is that it's like a home team. You just make a fucking spot your public house and that's where you go. And that's like, you're like, oh, I can go there alone and I'll probably run it.

[02:12:08] You know, it's like McManus was for like a decade where I'd be like, okay, I'm out. I'm getting out of something else. I bet you I know someone at McManus. You know, there's a community there. Yeah. Listeners might be noticing that we're avoiding talking about the Italy section of the movie, which becomes weirdly plotty. Yeah. The Italy section of the movie stinks. I really, I was losing interest in the movie. I just like don't care about this movie trying to put actual stakes on anything. This is where the sex tape thing becomes like gets resolved to like, and there's a lot of that.

[02:12:37] There's a lot of business with seeing the poster storming off Clark getting stuck in the business end of this weird, complicated travelers check scam that also involves a hostage in the trunk. And then D'Angelo has to come back and save him. I, I, the guy who plays the thief who like tries to flirt with Beverly. This guy is doing work. Victor Lanou. He is very enjoyable. Yes. Um, but I, I just, I could not give a fuck. I didn't.

[02:13:02] And again, I don't, I'm not this guy always, but like, just like pig in a poke, what the fuck is I, this is what I say on action boys all the time. If the, if the robbery went well, what was the plan? Why do they need that guy? Understand their scam. You don't understand. They seem to have the money and the guy and the guy, they know who he is. They could just leave with the money. Give the Griswolds five days on the walkout and everything is fine. They're basically like robbing this traveler's checks place while he walks in, but have already said it's the perfect crime.

[02:13:30] If we can figure out someone else to pin it on, you're like pin what? Leave the guys tied up. And instead they're like, we're going to give him too much money. So it looks like he stole everything and then put the guy who works here tied up in his trunk and give him the car so that people blame him for the crime. I hate that we're talking about. But then they get back. They go back to try and get the car. Yeah. The beetle or whatever it is. Why do the bad guys follow?

[02:13:55] Because they're like, go to the hotel and we'll get the car back from you because I guess they want the car back, but they're just using it to help. So he can transport the body, but then they fuck up by going shopping. The shopping sequence, that's the best part of Italy. Yes. I'm glad you said something. It's the one good part. The outfits are great. They all look fucking incredible. Yeah. I love when, cause Chevy has it on the plane ride home too. He has like that, like weird. Oh, you know what? I like that bit too.

[02:14:21] I guess it's at the very end, but the, well that we'll talk about that. Yikes. But the, the sped up Chevy trying to have multiple meals on the plane and they keep on taking it away before he gets to start eating it. That's solid travel humor. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. Oh, we, we skipped over in France, but the sped up Louv thing is a lot of fun. Yeah. A lot of fun. Yeah. And that like, that's a, a semi relatable human element that they're putting in, which

[02:14:45] is this like notion of the dad, like viewing, uh, tourism as a competitive sport when he's like shitting on the young honeymooning couple. Yeah. And he's like, we saw like 40 things today. They haven't seen anything. And DeAngelo's like, I would love to just stay in this hotel and fuck. And we're exhausted. Um, even, even there's that moment too, when they're like, wow, dad, look, ancient ruins. He's like, keep moving. And it's like the kids are even enjoying sightseeing and he won't let it happen. He's like checklisting things over actually absorbing anything.

[02:15:14] Um, what was I going to say? Uh, vacation and these movies do not naturally have a way to end. Right. Vacation kind of cleverly builds up to Wally World is closed. There's a destination. Chevy has the nervous breakdown. Right. It goes on a little long in my opinion, but it's a, it's a, you know, it's a It's a, it's a clever sequence. But that movie, it's helped by the fact that they're going to one place and they come up with a kind of funny twist on what happens. They get to that place. Christmas has the big explosion and shit. Yes.

[02:15:41] You know that, that again, like they, they do a good job figuring out a punchy ending. This one sucks. This movie doesn't know how to do that apart from a Statue of Liberty. Yeah. Getting knocked over. Yeah. I think that's what they thought their big moment was. Right. Which you're like, okay. But it is such a wild moment. To clarify, at the very end of this film, Clark is looking for the bathroom on the plane. He accidentally opens the door to the cockpit, gets tangled in the steering gear. Yes. And then. Causes the plane to nosedive.

[02:16:10] Right as it's flying over Ellis Island. Into the Statue of Liberty. Which then like its arm gets turned upside down in the movie basically ends with Clark's going, oopsie. Yeah. So. And then I do think the montage of photos over the credits is very funny. This is the thing. Like that ending is so insane because you're just like, well, wait a second. If that happens, he's getting dragged to Guantanamo Bay. Right. Right. Right. Like he's not getting out of this.

[02:16:36] You could just have the ending of like Clark out the window going like, look, Statue of Liberty, aren't you folks happy to be back in America again? And then cutting to images of like gross American shit. Which I thought was fun. Like tacky American shit, which is really funny. The Statue of Liberty thing happens so fast and is so extreme. And it's like, it feels frightening. It's out of, right. It's out of reality with everything else. And it doesn't, even the like the gag itself doesn't look great. No. It doesn't also look that good.

[02:17:04] I will just want to shout out that the, my local, my pub was the Lonsdale in Newcastle. Hell yeah. And I just looked it up and this is the fate of so many English pubs. It's something that the movie World's End is about. It's been bought by Green King, which is one of the many pub chains. And I assume it's still basically fine inside, but they ruin these places by kind of giving them this so interesting and so unique to the UK. Like it's not really a thing here. Of course not.

[02:17:32] But like in England, it's like there are pubs everywhere. Right. You know, as there have been since like the 10th century or whatever. Right. And like, right. You know, like everything else is just getting gobbled up. We have all these like tacky corporate pubs in New York. Yeah. That are just called like the point on the right or whatever. O'Shaughnessy's. And you're like, this isn't owned by like real Irish people. But you're also like, it's not part of a like McPub chain that is literally like a corporate logo stomped onto 40 locations.

[02:18:00] I want to look up my London local, the Pineapple seems to be still, right. It's a great name. Still doing fine. Yeah. I might see you down at the Pineapple. But the thing with the Pineapple. Welcome to the Pineapple. And the Dartmouth Arms, which is my other favorite pub where I live near, is like they got a little gastropubby because like that's what happened in North London. That's what you have to do. It was like pubs started to have good food. Yeah. But there wasn't really anything wrong with that because you were like, well, the food's good. Yeah, right. You know, and like they're still serving beer and it's still a good vibe in here. It's just like they fucking hired a chef. Yeah. It's nice.

[02:18:29] I'm not going to bitch that the food got better here. Well, some people do. But yes. Well, in England, that would like, you know, someone might have like a flavor that would fucking shut their body down. What is this garlic? I once introduced Ben to Peter Kaye's legendary garlic bread bit, which is one of the most famous like comedy routines in England, which is him making fun of his family, his parents, his northern Bolton parents eating garlic bread for the first time. You're like garlic bread, garlic bread. If I do it, it's not funny at all. But everyone in Britain knows it.

[02:18:59] Britain only discovered garlic in like 1997 or something. It's crazy. They were like going all over the world, killing people for spice and never got garlic. They just sold it to other people, I guess. Should we do the box office game? We should. Yeah. I mean, we should say this movie did okay, but it's definitely seen as like a disappointment. Especially since it's going PG-13, you'd think they might be like growing their audience instead of losing it significantly. Now, sequels used to be more expected to do worse. Right.

[02:19:27] But like Christmas grows is the biggest of them. I do think it was seen as like this succeeded based on love of the first one rather than anything Heckerling did. It's also, it's July. It's July 26, 1985. There's a comedy in theaters with Chevy Chase. Right. You're going to get people to show up. But like Chase comes out of this with another win under his belt. It's almost kind of held against Heckerling that like she misunderstood the assignment and the movie worked in spite of her.

[02:19:54] Which I just think all of it's interesting in building up like the psychology of her going into Look Who's Talking, which is like, do I want to make a talking baby movie? Eh, I do want to make something that's a hit that I own that's undeniable. I'm going to dispute you on that. Now, Fletch is the same year, right? Okay. And so Fletch is kind of, it's a solid hit, but also well received. So a month ago, Fletch has come out. Fletch is in fact, where is it in the box of, it's 14, but you know, it's been out for a couple months.

[02:20:18] Post this, Spies Like Us, which does pretty good, but like is not as well remembered as some. Three Amigos, which is now liked, but was a bomb. Yes. Funny Farm, you guys are sticking up for it, but also underperformed. I love all three of these movies. And then post that, Chevy starts to scramble. Caddyshack 2, which is a disaster. Although tiny part, but yes, disaster. Fletch lives, which is also a disaster. And then Christmas Vacation is the sequel he makes where it's like, well, that worked. Right, he's back on Supergirl.

[02:20:48] But that's also his last hit, probably like ever. Right, and it is one of those. Like his 90s output is obviously really terrible. I feel like for a guy who had such a bad reputation, but a good number of hits, and had flops as well, like was up and down. Even when I earlier said like all of his movies were basically hits until Vacation. No, he had flops. He had ups and downs. Under the rainbow and shit. Right, exactly. His average was strong enough that in this era of like, he is a $6 million movie star. Right. He doesn't command $20 million.

[02:21:19] He costs $6 to make a movie that costs $20. That makes $60 or whatever. Right, that's worth it. Right. That's like on base, and maybe he's tough to deal with, but who gives a shit? I do feel like when the talk show happens. Right. And like people are watching. The bubble is burst with the talk show. Everyone's like, this guy sucks. It's wild. Well, there's something about a guy who's an asshole. That's the big thing. Who's always playing an asshole. Yes. You can do as a little suspension of disbelief that, wow, Chevy's really good at playing an asshole.

[02:21:47] Then when he plays himself in the Chevy Chase show and you're like, oh no, he's not acting at all. Right. He's an asshole. This guy can't hide it. Yeah, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I like fucking whatever is Ty Webb less. I like Clark Griswold less now. It's an interesting two-pronged thing of you're watching him without the distance of a character and being like, this isn't so charming if it's real. Right. If a guy's an actual prick, it's not fun.

[02:22:13] The second part of it is part of the fun of Chevy Chase is his so confidently going through these things. And watching the talk show, he's so quickly dying inside and unhappy that you're like, this isn't fun if he's not even having fun doing it. Right. And it's starting to make him look pathetic. But also the first episode is Goldie Hawn, who he had done two movies with. And it's like, great, pair him up. His first guest, a big comedy movie star who's one of his scene partners and they just have no chemistry together.

[02:22:41] And you're like, oh, none of these people like him. None of the other people in Hollywood like him. It's a forgotten thing about Conan. Yeah. When everyone zooms in on how bad, you know, Conan did in the first year, not the show, but the ratings or whatever. Well, one reason he survived was the Chevy Chase bomb so hard that it was like, eh, maybe we need to give the youngsters a shot. And here's another thing that was quietly working for Conan. Guests he had on who had hosted SNL were like, I remember you. You were great. Sure.

[02:23:11] Right. I liked you when you were the writer in the background. The other thing Conan had going for him is he's like one of the great comic presences and is so funny and it's like genuine. But it's this weird like imbalance of like- The best. He's the best. He's the fucking best. He's the best. I hate that he's doing a travel show that's on Max. How dare he? That's really good. But him just like windmill dunking at the Oscars after like 30 years of like being available for that job is just like great. And him wrote to Kennedy Center. Yeah.

[02:23:40] Well, he did that so perfectly. Genius. The way he like threaded the needle of like how do I do this in what is probably your last Mark Twain Awards. Right. But I'm like I was, you know, my teen years- Before it goes to Matt Wright for whatever. John Voight. So funny. He's so funny. On Twitter. Yeah. Like he's getting it for his tweets. My like teen years I was like why won't they let Conan host the Oscars? Right. Why won't they let the weird guy host? It's so much better to have him host at the point in his life where he has nothing to

[02:24:10] prove and now also seemingly might just be the de facto host for the next five years. Yeah. He might've accidentally did it like he would've nailed it. Yeah. It was fantastic. Yeah. He kind of, you know, but I just think there's an Oscar presentation that the movies didn't fucking get me going. Having Conan there was a fucking victory. I just think it's an interesting flip that like you have Chevy and Conan at the same time

[02:24:33] and you're like, oh my God, like ABC has hired a movie star for 20 years to host a talk show. This is humongous. And NBC responded with a fucking comedy writer. Yeah. The discrepancy is so great. And then like any celebrity who has dealt with Conan prior to him getting the show through SNL is like I always liked you. Yeah. And you're like, huh? America doesn't know this guy, but people with stature are approving him. Meanwhile, Chevy is interviewing people he starred in movies with.

[02:25:02] And has zero chemistry. And you're just like, huh, he's kind of just tolerated. So this film opens number one, $12 million. It got very bad reviews to be clear. It makes 40. It ends up at a domestic total of 49 million dollars. Not bad. Not bad. Number two, the box office is one of the big hits of the summer. We've covered it on this podcast. In 1985. It's been out for a month. Is it back to the future? There you go. There we go. It's the biggest hit of the year. Good movie. Yeah. Excellent film.

[02:25:31] You like it? I haven't seen it. What about this kid? I've only seen three. Yeah. Because you love West. I've only seen the Broadway show and three. Number three at the box office is a legendary flop on animated film. Is it The Black Cauldron? Disney's The Black Cauldron. Yeah. Wow. Have you ever seen it? I never have. I'm almost, I'm, I can safely say I don't think I've ever even heard of it. It is probably the nadir of Disney sort of like in terms of cultural impact. It is.

[02:25:59] I think it's like inarguably, what's wild about it, Gabrus, is it is like an adaptation of a fairly recent expansive fantasy novel series. Yes. That Disney bought and we're sort of like, we're going to do our like middle earth. And then we're going to try to appeal to boys, which is always the Disney thing of like, can we get boys? What was the book called though? It's called The Book of Three. Right. The whole group of it is called The Chronicles of Pride Day. I remember. It's like, it's like young adult high fantasy.

[02:26:28] I remember seeing the movie when it, not when it came out, but watching a VHS when I was young being like, this doesn't work. And then years later in my like school library, finding the book of three going, this looks fun and 60 pages in being like, this is The Black Cauldron. It's interesting. That's so weird that it's based off of this. I'm so embarrassed to say that I am such a fucking, any port in the storm for high fantasy Sure. That I'm going to seek out Black Cauldron. You need to watch this. I'm going to seek out Black Cauldron. I'd be very curious to hear your opinion. I have long wanted to watch it. I've always heard that it's kind of also like weirdly scary, right?

[02:26:57] Like it's got kind of a little too intense for- It is. One of the famous anecdotes about it is it's the movie that they're working on at Disney when Tim Burton gets hired out of CalArts and they're like, perfect. We got this weird, creepy guy. He can do some of the monsters and he submits the stuff and they were like, Tim. All right. That's fucking cool. Do you like, what's it called? I just read it last year because Sean Clements told me to read it. The Blade itself, the first law book. Yes. You're into those. Clements got me into those years ago too. That trilogy by Joe Abercrombie and then the three that take place in the same world. So awesome.

[02:27:27] The standalones or whatever. Yeah. And if you're an audio book guy, the guy who reads those books, Steven Pacey is fantastic. The way he does Glocka who has a speech impediment because he has his teeth pulled. Right. But then he also has internal thought that's better. He does like two different versions of it. It's so fucking cool. Cool. I'm going to try to keep this quick. I went down a weird rabbit hole. The man who directed The Black Cauldron. Yeah. One of the two directors, I believe his name is literally Richie Rich. He is Richard Rich.

[02:27:55] And he brags about the first animation director to have no experience in animation. He was like a music guy who then became like a development executive at Disney who then they let direct and had never animated once in his life. And I think he co-directed that and Fox and the Hound, which was sort of the nadir for Disney commercially. Yeah. And then much like Don Bluth, he like spun off and was like, I don't need Disney. I can make my own thing. And he made like the Swan Princess for New Line, which was kind of a mess. Right.

[02:28:23] He has largely backed into doing like extensive biblical animated adaptations. But I was going through his INDB and I found that he had made a movie about the prophet Muhammad. And I'm like, how the fuck did he do this without being arrested? And I found a review that our friend, past and future guest Dana Stevens, did of this movie, which I think came out in like 2003. Yeah. He did an animated prophet Muhammad movie that is animated from the perspective of the prophet Muhammad, who has no dialogue.

[02:28:53] It's an animated like fucking Nickel Boys where it's you seeing other characters talk about Muhammad so that he can tell the story without showing him on screen. Right. Because using his image is like just one of the weirdest movies I've ever discovered existing. Put on your 3D Muhammad glasses right now. Yeah. And it's like animated like a shitty Disney movie. Number 4 at the box office. He also did the King and I animated film. Yes. Which is also a cursed film.

[02:29:20] Number 4 at the box office is a sequel to a film that John covered on our show. This is where LA is probably getting hot, huh? Is it Predator 2? No. That is a fun of course movie in which yes, the Predator comes to LA and gets in the middle of a gang war and Danny Glover's stressed out. Is it Beyond Thunderdome? It's Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. That's, I love that one. Yeah. Very fun movie. We covered it on our show of course. The only movie that ever had the courage to go beyond Thunderdome. No one's done it since.

[02:29:50] Number 5 at the box office is a western that a lot of people really like. I saw it and was underwhelmed. Silverado. I just remember you being underwhelmed. Larry Kasdan's Silverado. I fired that up being like I'm going to have the best time and I was like. It could be hoot and holler. Do you like Silverado? You ever seen it? I saw it when I was a kid and I think I liked it but I think I would want to, I'm on a Costner kick right now. We all are. Hey man. We just did No Way Out on Action Boys. I just watched that after Hackman Pass. I'd never seen it. A very not horny movie about very straightforward people.

[02:30:19] It's so, and I'm listening to the big clock now, the book that No Way Out is based on. It's fucking very interesting. Yeah. And it's been. Because the twist, there was a previous movie adaptation as well, right? There's two. There's an American one and a French one. The twist in No Way Out is unique just to that version of the story. Is that correct? The twist that he's investigating himself? Yes. That's like the whole conceit of the movie is that he, a guy who. Oh no, I'm saying the very end twist of No Way Out. Oh, the very end of the twist. Which we won't spoil. Which we won't spoil. Yeah, it's crazy. It's unearned, it's bananas, there's no teasing.

[02:30:48] It's insane things I've seen a movie do in the last 90 seconds. It almost makes me like it. It's, and again, I keep coming back to improv. Yes. But it really is, reminds me of like the last beat of a Harold where you're like, we were in space all the time. It's begging for a blackout. Yeah. It's like if I do something loud enough, will they have to black us out? We just have to get at, the red light has been on for like eight minutes. The booth is not, the booth is behind the wheel. Yeah, let's get the fuck out of here. Yeah. Oh yeah, I'm on a crazy Costner kick. I loved Horizon and of course, and so I want to rewatch Silverado. You know what movie is good, Gabrus?

[02:31:18] It's Horizon Chapter 2. I haven't seen it. Saw it at Santa Barbara. They played it at a fucking film festival. Oh! I made a trip out there. I'm so jealous. It was really good. I'm so fucking jealous. I enjoyed the first one so much. I think this one's a lot better. Oh, that is, it has to be. Yeah. Cause I will say this, a movie that is as slow and as long as Horizon that ends with To Be Continued is bananas. It's like fucking, what's the Miles Morales Spider-Man movie? I mean, yeah.

[02:31:44] I was like, when that ended with To Be Continued, I heard kids in the crowd boo at AMC. Hey, John, don't worry. They announced today that the next movie is coming out in only two years. It's a long strike delay. It's interesting. It was just so funny when they were like, ah, the strike means we're delaying that one. Oh, the strike? It would be out in six months. Our original release date if not for the strike. You're like, you have a title page and nothing else. Spider-Man's going to be in it. We know that. We know that. Also at the box office, Cocoon. Sure. Old guys. Rambo, First Blood Part 2. I'm sure you've never covered that one.

[02:32:14] That's not what you like, right? Not really. Can we win this time? One question. Can we win this time? I love, I could talk for hours about First Blood and First Blood Part 2 being like the dichotomy of like American art where it's like the first movie is like PTSD, right? Soldier coming home. High drama. Anti-cop. High drama. So good. Dealing with like soldiers coming home and bringing the war home with them. All this intense, heavy shit. And the second one's like, they still got soldiers of Vietnam.

[02:32:44] Go there with a bow and arrow and kill everybody, Sly. Wouldn't it be great if one of us was so yoked and could take care of all of their problems? God, he is so fucking diced into. It's insane. The vein poppage is off the charts. He's vascular AF. He looks like grilled chicken. He's so fucked. His hair is bananas. Like it's so crazy. Fires an M60 at Sensei Kreese. I guess he looks more like rotisserie chicken because he's bronze. He's pretty glazed up. Yeah.

[02:33:13] He's balsamic. Have you covered, I have to go in a second, this film, a film I really like, Clint Eastwood's anti-Western, Pale Rider, which is sort of Unforgiven before Unforgiven. Like it's another clever anti-Western. It's just a little less seen. Is that the one where he is maybe the devil or that's something else? That's like the man in black or something. What's that one called? No, I know what you're going for. Yeah. He basically is sort of deaf. Yes. Like in that movie. Am I wrong in thinking? No. No, this doesn't make sense. Because is it out at the box office at this point in time?

[02:33:43] What? Why are you bringing up Pale Rider? It's number eight. Okay. That was my question. That's what I'm saying. You did the box office game. In the end credits montage, they show an image of some Clint Eastwood Western poster. I believe it is Pale Rider. It is. It looked like it to me. Although there's a lot of Clint Eastwood posters out there. It might be Josie Wells or whatever. No, because Josie Wells has got the two guns. I don't know. Number nine in the box office, St. Elmo's Fire. That's a movie that's bad in my opinion. Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire. Yeah. That's a bit of a gas leak movie. It has its fans.

[02:34:13] Yeah. I've never rewatched it. It's fucking stupid. I've never been inspired to. Number 10 is a movie I don't know. It's a romantic comedy called The Heavenly Kid. Oh. Starring Lewis Smith, best known for his role in The Heavenly Kid, Wikipedia tells me. Huh. About like a greaser who dies playing chicken and comes back as an angel.

[02:34:38] Is Teen Angel the ABC sitcom loosely adapted from The Heavenly Kid? Why do I know The Heavenly Kid? I don't know. I feel like The Heavenly Kid was, it sounds so fucking, the premise sounds so fucking, I mean I think it's, what's the, fuck, why can't I think of it? The angel movie with. Heaven Can Wait. Yes. Yeah. It's kind of, like, yeah, you're not gonna get to go to heaven until you help this other kid by being his guardian angel. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:35:05] There was an ABC TGIF sitcom with a very similar premise that maybe was just unofficially riffing on this. Fair enough. That I was a fan of. That was an Al Jean Mike Rice show, I believe. Yeah. I don't think it was very good though, no offense. Well, I disagree with you. Fair enough. I'm sure my opinion as a seven year old would hold up perfectly. Uh, looks like that one had the great Ron Glass though, I love him. He was the big floating head in the sky, I believe. Oh, sort of the Zordon. Yeah, kinda. But imagine, but in the sky. Sure. Yeah. Instead of a tube.

[02:35:36] Yeah. Have you ever seen the, uh, the semi-recent big budget American Power Rangers movie, Gabrus? Of course. With Brian Cranston. David and I will talk about this a lot. Cranston is so fucking good as Zordon. Locked in. I'm like, this would be funny. And then by the end of it, I was like, I care a lot about this. It was like, this rocks rolls. Yeah. But like, Cranston, you're just like, oh my God, he is playing Zordon with like gravity and grace.

[02:36:06] He's good, man. He's good. What did I just see him in that he really, oh, the studio. The studio. Yeah. Oh, he's having fun in the studio. Yeah. I've only seen the first episode of the studio, but I enjoyed it. I also love Han. She's so fucking funny. So hot. She's always good. She's so hot. She's doing this bit where she's a fully different style every time. Yeah. She seems a little Pascal inspired, perhaps. She's Pascal. I mean, Cranston is like, there's so many guys that Cranston's kind of doing. But I also just love, like Rogan knows, like Marty's a good actor.

[02:36:34] Like you don't have to just have Marty do one scene where he's just like, ah, I'm a Marty. You can give him three moods like over the course of an episode. When they reveal like Marty, he's like, Marty's crying in the background. It's so fucking funny. I have said this many times. He is, you know, perhaps our finest kind of like major film artist within the like the studio system. Right. Still getting to operate at that level. Right. And he's getting up there in age.

[02:37:01] And I want as many Marty movies as we can get while he's still around and in good form. I also don't want him slept on as an actor. I'm like every time he's ever acted in something, he's so fucking good. And I'd love it if he could throw in like two more supporting performances. He's great in his fucking like daughter's tick tock. He's always, always gets the joke. Oh yeah. He's always like, what's the one guilty by association, which is like a totally mediocre De Niro blacklist movie. Okay.

[02:37:31] In which he plays like a blacklisted film. Guilty by suspicion. Thank you. Yeah. I've never seen that. So fucking. He's amazing in quiz show. I watched a couple of, I watched a couple of amazing taxi driver. Yeah. I watched a couple of Marty's docs early, his early docs and he's in them so much. Good. So like Italian American is really good. And I forget the other one that's about journeys to know the guy, his friend who's crazy. Oh yes. They're just interviewing him in his house. That one is fucking. I wish I could pull the name of it. It's fucking awesome. Yeah.

[02:38:00] Marty Marty hang out with Marty. Let's have Marty on the show. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, next week on blank check, look who's talking with Martin Scorsese. The baby talks. Travolta, you know, he's something about him. Look who's talking to has a joke that's burned into my head. I can't hear it. Is Damon Wayans Jr. going, oh, that's Mr. Toilet Man. Eat your doodles and your peepees. I've been saying that. I've been saying that for 35 years. John, I am so excited for David to meet Mr. Toilet. Mr. Toilet. Mr. Toilet Man. Eat your doodles and your peepees. Any scary.

[02:38:29] The movie here is, well, I've successfully potty trained a child. Hell yeah. Not to. This movie might hit close to home. Yeah. But, but I witnessed the stages of potty training. Yeah. If that makes sense. In my memory. Nobody told me that that's how it works. A film. That it's sort of like, oh, they get good at one thing and then they get good at the other. A film I have not seen in probably 30 years, if not more. Sure. In my memory, look who's talking to is almost a potty training thriller first and foremost. Yes. Well, then I'm, I'm, then it won't be triggering for me because I'll kind of be like, okay, I did. You made it to the other side.

[02:38:59] I mean, I'm going to have to do it two more times. Whatever. I rewatched recently Martin Scorsese's American Express commercial where he's getting his photos developed and he's going through them and giving him notes. I just want to go back to that era of life. I'm sorry. Everything about it. I want back there. We had it figured out. We did. There's a moment in it where he's, it's photos from his grandchild's birthday party, I think is the bit or his son's birthday, his nephew, whatever. And he holds it up to the guy behind the counter at like a fucking seven 11. And he goes, see here, he's the antagonist, but where's the, or he goes, see here, he's

[02:39:28] the protagonist. Where's the antagonist? He's missing from the frame. The whole commercial is so funny. His commercial, Wes Anderson's commercial obviously is amazing too. All those and my son. All of that. But I just want to go back to an era of, you had to walk around town to get all your shit done. I'm going to the, you know, to the photo place to get my photos that I, from vacation. And then I'm going over to the dry cleaner and then I'm going over to the baker. Cause I got to get a loaf of bread and then the butch, you know, let's just do that again. And then, oh shit. I have to get a candle made. Right.

[02:39:58] Where's my fucking candlestick maker. I watched a woman walk with a disposable camera in her hand to a Dwayne Reed Walgreens at the desk that says photo center above this and say, do you guys develop this? And the guy behind the counter goes, no. Right. He's like, you do, you don't have like a USB drive for me or whatever. Right. That's so fucking crazy. That's so depressing. And she was just like, that's what I assumed thought it was worth a shot. Man. She didn't even make a fuss.

[02:40:27] She's like, yeah. She's like, I just, I had to take the shot. Young people don't know about getting doubles. Oh, dude. Hey, my opinion, triple's his best. Hey, you got three. Like it was such a routine in my life that my mom's like, oh, we got to go to, it was in Britain. The chain's called snappy snaps. We got to go snappy snaps. And you can go there and they'd be like, yeah, here are your photos. See you later. You got to go twice. You got to drop off and pick up. Yes. What the hell? And now we just look at these all day. But holding on my telephone. He's holding.

[02:40:57] He just pulled his tits out. Look at these beautiful tits of mine all day. We're all just holding these. You can't keep your eyes off them. The Sims be cussed. With his double jointed, he's able to go around the back of his head and grab his tits in like a Janet Jackson level kind of poster. It's like the stranger except his hands aren't normal. I will never forget when I was about 11 years old doing this as I've been doing all my life and the kid sitting next to me, Nicky, I believe his name was, going, the fuck are you doing? And I was like, what?

[02:41:26] And he was like, people can't do what you're doing. When I just saw it, it was like unsettling. It was unsettling. It was like watching when actors film. Everyone can do this and no one can do this. This is what's crazy though. I've been sitting across from you for 10 years until this moment I never considered, oh, you're doing it a weird way. I watched you do that over and over. To be clear for the listener, I'm realizing we should describe this.

[02:41:50] I put my arms behind my back with my arms behind my head and I can move them to essentially below my shoulders. Yeah, and your elbows drop down like behind you. Right. I can basically, and both of these are positions people can do, but they can't move between them. They would need to unclasp their hands and redo their, you know what I mean? It's one smooth move, Matt. Hey, Gabriel, is there anything you want to pluck? Yeah, actually several things if that's cool. Please. Of course, for movie fans, I got the Action Boys podcast, actionboys.biz. Yeah.

[02:42:19] Free.actionboys.biz, so you don't have to pay for Patreons. You just get a sniff and see if you get hooked. I love sniffing. Just tickle the balls. The aforementioned Ode to Engineers of Gino Lombardo. I did a 30 episode series of the Gino, a three 10 episode series, and I put it all on physical media that you could buy as a USB that looks like a cassette. Oh, so you ended up doing this. I found it out. Yeah. Hosley helped me, sent me down a direction, but I got to shout out Brent Morris and Josh Richman, the two guys who helped me produce. He was amazing.

[02:42:47] Josh kind of was the impetus. He goes, hey, if this tariff shit hits, getting these things from China is going to cost you a fortune. Order them now. Yeah. So I was not prepared, but now I got the product. Come get them. Come get them at Gino.Gabris.com. Gino, my all time favorite CBB character. Thank you. He's one of my favorite things to do ever, and he's 5% different than the real me.

[02:43:09] And finally, this episode is coming out late enough that I can announce Adam Pally and I are swinging the camera in the other direction or flipping the coin. And we are hosting a wellness podcast called Staying Alive. And it's about us interviewing wellness experts and other comedians and what they do to stay alive. And it's directed by Sylvester Stallone. Yes. Yeah. That's what I really like. He's got a hold on the title. Speaking of Travolta. Hey, can we win this time, pal?

[02:43:39] My daughter, Sistine, has got a podcast. You gotta listen. I'm glad this timed out well. This is so awesome. We've been looking for a while to find a good episode. Yeah. When we didn't this time. No, I think it did. Schedule-wise, this worked out great for everyone. Movie-wise. There was kind of a, hey, you want to do European vacation? You were like, sure, I've seen European vacation. I'm a big fan of the vacation. I'm a Christmas vacation freak. And then, weirdly enough, the first time I really hooked up with my now wife was during the movie Loser. Okay, go off. Well, wait a second. Yeah. We were in college.

[02:44:09] We were friends for a long time. You were a loser? Yeah, I was a bit of a loser. Okay. We were friends for a really long time, then we both were single. One night, we have this night where we watch Almost Famous. And it's a beautiful fucking evening. Yeah. We are next to each other on her bed, and we're like, just trying not to touch each other. Philip Seymour Hoffman on the phone. You're getting emotional. Yeah, it's so, and we're loving this movie, and the movie's so rich. We do not hook up. Sure. The mood's not right.

[02:44:37] It's, but it's this powerful moment. Yeah. And the next night we put on- Something unspoken happens. Yes. And the next night we put on Loser and hook up like fucking crazy. Oh, you see Biggs and you're like, let's go! And we, in hindsight, we were like, should we retcon this that we just tell the story is only Almost Famous? Because that's a beautiful touching thing. But no, of course, we fucking fuck to Loser. Wow. Wow. God bless. So Heckerling's been a big part of my life. So Heckerling's been a big part of my life.

[02:45:03] And also, Alicia Silverstone saying Calvin Klein in Clueless gave me like a teenage erection that has yet to go away. Hey, we'll get to both of those things. Says who? Calvin Klein. I mean, yes, formative crush. Formative queen. We'll get to both of those and we'll get to Mr. Potty, but next week first, we must interrogate who is talking. We must look upon. We must look upon. He who speaks. Yes. This is back when Bruce was doing consensual movie roles. It's gonna be fun. Poor Bruce. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

[02:45:33] Tune in next week for Look Who's Talking. And as always, I'm so sorry we have had Lindsey Buckingham here in the studio waiting to do a segment talking about the creation of Holiday Road and we just don't have time. So instead of heart out, our apologies to Lindsey Buckingham. What's up with that? I don't know. We. We.

[02:46:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hosley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas. And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel. With additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minnick.

[02:46:31] Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to BlankCheckPod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at Blank Check Pod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. We are watching our YouTube channel. We will refer to you in our YouTube channel. Let's see, you check out, a little bit more at subscribe. Thank you.