[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, What's a sailor to expat? All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Well, I don't even know what that was. I can't believe you picked that. Why don't you pick the piano on the head?
[00:00:43] The bit is that Eddie Valiant says check the probate and then he starts talking about probates but the specifics around what he's saying make it clear that he thinks it's a prostate. And then Eddie Valiant says not probate, not prostate uidia probate. He restates the word.
[00:01:01] Right, but you were saying look let's just move along. This movie has several iconic lines but they do not work particularly well within this stupid format that we have landed on over five years.
[00:01:13] I'm not bad. I just podcast that way. I'm saying none of these are real good. I think drop the podcast on his head is funny. I'd like to drop a podcast on your head. What do you see in the guy? He makes me podcast. That's not anything.
[00:01:30] That's what I'm saying. These things don't sound like anything. At least the prostate probate thing. It's already P words. I'm not bad. I was just recorded that way. You could try and do a Jessica Rabbit, like a spin on her iconic line.
[00:01:45] That's far too long of a walk. I would never take a walk that long for a bit. Okay. Have to replace multiple words? Unbelievable. Introduce the show Griffin. I just want to quickly clarify. I am in fact not bad. You are someone who will take a long walk.
[00:02:05] And you are yes. That is what I see in Roger Rabbit, that he makes me podcast. Hello everybody. My name is Griffin Newman. I'm David Sims. That time you were right on cue. I snapped. I pointed. You said your name.
[00:02:21] So you're going to call me out for not being on cue and then you're going to call me out for being on cue. That's how you're going to kick it off?
[00:02:28] No, I was celebrating. I was saying, man, look at the Griffin Newman school of picking up cues is working already. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David.
[00:02:40] It's about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers are giving a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Very nice.
[00:02:52] I'm going to run my shitty Roger Rabbit impression into the ground. I think your Roger Rabbit is fine. I think it's pretty good. I think it's fine. Yeah, I think it's fine. This is a main series on the films of Robertson Maccas.
[00:03:06] It is not called who potted Roger Casbit, which a lot of people wanted. No, that was stupid. It's called podcast away because he made a movie called Cast Away. It's clean. It has cast in the title. But today we are talking about who framed Roger Rabbit.
[00:03:25] The movie that we were sort of arguing in our Back to the Future episode. We've covered filmmakers who have one hit that's so big they're kind of going to get a blank check for the rest of their lives.
[00:03:37] So Maccas is in that category where it's like he did a couple in a row that were so big that it's never getting revoked. He has three of the movie we're talking about, like Back to Future Roger Rabbit and Forrest Gump.
[00:03:51] But also, right, the back to back of Back to the Future and Roger Rabbit is crazy. One of the only things I could equate it to is Inception After Dark Knight.
[00:04:04] Where people were like, oh, and now Warner Brothers lets him do whatever fucking thing he wants until he comes back to do another Batman movie. And then when that was a blockbuster on its own, people were like, oh, this guy's never getting the checkbook taken away.
[00:04:16] I also contend the fact that Back to the Future 2 was a well-regarded sequel just even strengthened it even more. And then he wins a fucking Oscar and does wild shit for the rest of his career.
[00:04:28] But this one, this is one of those movies that just is like a miracle. It is. It is a miracle. And also it couldn't happen like five years before or after it came out.
[00:04:41] Like five years before the tech isn't there, five years after Disney's like, oh, no way, this is too weird. I'm going to pull our guests into the conversation before introducing them because that's what I'd like to do.
[00:04:53] But one of our two guests was saying that often when he has to do things to prepare for podcasts, it feels like homework and how much this was the antithesis of homework. That was me. What? I said that.
[00:05:15] Yeah, I definitely, you know, anytime you remember me, especially in my own podcast, but anytime you're guessing on something and it's like, hey, you got to listen to this album, read this book, watch this movie, et cetera.
[00:05:26] It always is like a little bit of, OK, well, I have to do this obligation, which is fine, whether you enjoy it or not. But here just like minutes in, I was like, this is fucking great.
[00:05:38] I had been probably two decades, probably 20 years since I'd seen this movie, which I've seen maybe twice before. And just rewatching it, I was like, man, this is unbelievable how dazzling this is to look at
[00:05:52] and how compelling it is as a story and how great the performances are all around. Just a fucking, just like this is fucking great. I'm having the time of my life.
[00:06:03] Our other guest had a shocked face at our first guest saying he'd only maybe seen it twice before. Have you seen this film a lot more often? I'm going to drag you into speaking before we introduce you.
[00:06:17] Yes. First of all, I don't like homework. I've never liked homework. Hey, in the words of Blink-1982, work sucks. I know. So because of that, I consider this homework. I didn't watch it. It's going to be a rough episode. Oh boy.
[00:06:32] No, of course I watched it. I love the movie. I've watched it plenty of times. I actually, the last time I watched it before I watched it for this podcast was only a few weeks back.
[00:06:47] It was on, I think it was either on TV or I just had it. But Nick, like you, I think up just a few years ago, I hadn't seen it for like 10 years or so. It was like a long stretch since I had seen it.
[00:07:00] And then when I watched it, I was like, oh, this is just one of the top to me. I mean, is this saying too much already? Like a top 25 movie of all time. I love it. David, you previously said it's your pick for the best film of 1987.
[00:07:15] David keeps very detailed spreadsheets of every year. 88. Oh, 88. I'm sorry. He keeps very detailed spreadsheets of every year and what he would nominate in every category at the Oscars for every year based on what he's seen.
[00:07:29] That's not like an off the top of the head. I guess that would be my favorite movie. It's like a sick thing that I do to be clear. I know that's not like, you know, I know that's aberrant behavior, but I do.
[00:07:40] And it is my number one of 1988. And I think it's a mech as his best film. I think it'll be most people's best film if they made something like this. It's just one of those things where you're like, this is magic. Yeah.
[00:07:52] You know, no one strikes twice on something this sort of accomplished and ambitious and like just like purely entertaining. It's staggering. It's so daring.
[00:08:03] And just the achievement alone makes me wonder a little why it feels maybe this is just my sense as someone who's less of a movie. I'd say the least movie buff of the four of us. Hmm.
[00:08:17] It feels like it kind of fell out of the collective consciousness a little bit. And if I'm wrong about that, I feel like I don't see who framed Roger Rabbit referenced as much as maybe some other films of the era.
[00:08:28] I have a couple of thoughts in regards to this, but now I feel like I can finally introduce you guys, ladies and gentlemen from the Doughboyz podcast. Platinum Play Club level guest, Nick Weiger. Wow. Mitch, Mike Mitch Mitchell. I don't get platinum. I'm just I'm just a regular.
[00:08:45] I said, but guests were both level guests. The two of you, the title, applied to both of you. All right, fair enough. You know, we also you're wrong about Mitch. Well, we we plan these episodes far in advance. We have many series plan off far in advance.
[00:09:02] We when we knew we were doing Zemeckis and we knew we were going to be recording from home and thus doing more Skype episodes and long distance guests. We reached out to you guys immediately and said like take your pick of any Zemeckis movie on the list.
[00:09:15] And I feel like both of you came back with Roger Rabbit as a consensus pretty quickly.
[00:09:19] And I'll say, Mitch, I've been like tempted to watch this movie so many times over the last six months because so many times it has felt like that would really hit the spot right now. But I've sort of been holding off an edging waiting for maximum impact.
[00:09:32] I wanted to make I wanted Roger Rabbit to get me there if you know what I'm saying. But it is just kind of such a miraculous film.
[00:09:44] And in the sort of like weeks and months leading up to this, not watching the movie, I was sort of doing a lot of digging around the context of this film because David or kind of source of context.
[00:09:56] And I feel like there are a bunch of weird X factors that resulted in this movie turning out as well as it did that could not be replicated. As David said, five years earlier, five years later, not just the technology but the circumstances of Hollywood at the time.
[00:10:13] The like daring of it. Yeah. Now like imagine Disney allowing something like this through the net now like they never would.
[00:10:21] That's even even I mean your time frame was so specific and I think you know correctly so because you know once once a little mermaid and beauty and the beast are on the scene like the same thing.
[00:10:32] There's no way they're going to they're going to go back to this. Why that's the cornerstone of my argument is that little mermaids the following year. And that is the last time like once they've reestablished that. Yeah.
[00:10:45] There's no need for them to take this sort of risk ever again. And it's like the 1980s were that period where Disney was like teetering on the edge maybe going under there was that fear of like much like the rescuers.
[00:10:58] Much like the rescuers they were on the verge of going under. No, thank you. Thank you. But I feel like people talk about that Disney wasn't viewed as a legitimate studio their animation department was like a shell of what it previously was.
[00:11:13] And you know I think there was this thought that like Disney might only be an experiential company it might just be the theme parks they might not really be an entertainment company anymore.
[00:11:23] And the thing that's keeping them afloat at this point just to give you an idea of where Disney is like. It's biggest hit in the 80s before this splash on the family side is what like Tron like Fox and the Hound like it's really like they had nothing.
[00:11:40] Right. You're talking their biggest hits are movies that underperformed. Right.
[00:11:45] And then like on the touchstone side on their grown up side they had actually had hits they'd had like the color of money and like Good Morning Vietnam like movies you don't realize were Disney movies like because they were touched stone.
[00:11:57] Like Eisner and Katzenberg come in they come from Paramount and their first thing is sort of like let's make Disney capable of making adult films because that's how well we know how to make and they like signed Bet Midler to like a four movie deal
[00:12:12] and they have like a run of Bet Midler comedies that people forget were very successful. He always talked about like Splash. Save Disney Splash save Disney there are these movies they talk about the save Disney but they were not really Disney movies. Right.
[00:12:27] And Splash I feel like is the most indicative of that where it was like it got rejected everywhere else in town people thought it was low rent that it was a Disney movie that it was a sitcom star that it was directed by a different sitcom star and then it was this big breakout hit but still like Disney as like a family
[00:12:44] entertainment brand was not really in a great position. It's in a terrible position like as you say next year they have Little Mermaid they also have Honey I Shrunk the Kids the next year. Yeah. Those two things are really like putting the Disney stakes back but not in 1988.
[00:13:00] Was Dick Tracy Disney. Yes but that's 91 or 90. Dick Tracy is it Disney. Yes absolutely Disney. Interesting. It was oh yeah it was a touchstone yeah 1990.
[00:13:14] Yeah because that was a big Katzenberg like we're going to beat Batman they had the ride ready to go they had sequels lined up like he was so confident that was going to be their big superhero franchise.
[00:13:25] I love Dick Tracy I mean I'm sorry for going on this tangent but I've loved Dick Tracy but the as a kid the hardest I ever laughed as kid maybe in my entire life where there was a drive in movie theater we're driving down in Lakewood California and it was showing a double feature of Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Dick Tracy
[00:13:46] and some mischievous teen had rearranged the marquee so it said Honey I Shrunk Tracy's Dick. I laughed so hard. I mean that is really good. It was very funny. Wayne Wang the great Chinese American filmmaker his debut film was called Chan is Missing.
[00:14:10] What am I talking about Joy Luck Club. Yes Chan is Missing yes. My father has a similar marquee story that is someone rearrange it to say Wayne Chang's Wang is missing. That's good.
[00:14:26] That's the problem with digital marquees you can't rearrange the letters no anagram fun to be had nightmare for Bart Simpson. Absolutely nightmare. I just watched on the waterfront for the first time and I was surprised.
[00:14:41] I was surprised by how much the bad guys look like Dick Tracy villains they all look like like so many of those guys are like are so monstrous looking they look like like flat top or like whatever no face they look like these they look like the fucked up monster creations in the Dick Tracy movies which I loved.
[00:14:58] I feel like there was some sort of I feel like it could have been a big it could have been a big superhero because I feel like kids did but then it was like weirdly adult that movie right wasn't there like an issue with like it's too big.
[00:15:10] It's too grown up that movie it was it was a hit like it did well.
[00:15:14] Yeah I guess it didn't do well enough to and also there's a whole weird thing where like Warren Beatty owns it and right is very very fussy about it but like you guys know about the Dick Tracy TV special. Do you know about this TV special.
[00:15:28] Do you know about this match. Not as well but I think I've heard of it but please do do do do tell me very quickly for our listeners Warren Beatty like had the rights to Dick Tracy personally.
[00:15:39] Not Disney Beatty is the one who controlled them and there was some sort of stipulation that the rights would revert back to whoever the publisher is if he stopped being in development on further Dick Tracy movies.
[00:15:55] So Warren Beatty has spent like the last 30 years claiming that he's a month away from making a Dick Tracy to like he always claims like I'm about to do it and he keeps on getting called into core and they keep on trying to argue and he'll hold up on that.
[00:16:09] And be like look I wrote Dick Tracy to on a napkin I'm making it and it finally hit some point where they were like you have to pull the trigger on something so he made a TV special that aired one time at like 3am unannounced on Turner Classic movies that was Leonard Malton interviewing
[00:16:27] Warren Beatty in character as Dick Tracy about the history of Dick Tracy but in order to hide the fact that he's now 30 years older than he already was too old to play the character of the original movie.
[00:16:40] He's in shadows the entire time so it's just you cannot see his face it's Warren Beatty in complete shadows in a yellow trench coat. Now you can see his face but they are it was also shot by Chivo Griff. Yes, it's shot by Emmanuel Lubezky.
[00:16:55] It's like the most over-plotting. Academy award winning right yes that's cinematographer. I've seen this special and I believe you sent the special to me most likely if I had a guess. It's so wild.
[00:17:08] It's demented it ends with Dick Tracy receiving a phone call from the police on his like Dick Tracy watch and being like I gotta go and Leonard Malton being like oh and then he leaves. Dear God. It's really weird.
[00:17:21] Do you know what's here's what's crazy to me that so Dick Tracy and a little mermaid both to me feel much older than who framed Roger Rabbit Roger who frame Roger resting feels like a newer.
[00:17:34] I mean like there's so much to say about it just even in the opening cartoon how amazingly cool opening short is of with with Roger. What's the what's the baby's name baby baby Sherman is it Sherman. Sorry sorry sorry. Him watching that like that cartoon looks fantastic.
[00:17:55] It looks it looks amazing and it looks to me it looks better than like any of the animation a little mermaid I'm sorry. Absolutely absolutely true.
[00:18:04] The little mermaid I love the little mermaid but it looks really chintzy compared to like even Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast or whatever because like they didn't have the money like or and it wasn't like a guaranteed thing when they were making it.
[00:18:20] I'll dig into the opening with some context but in the shortest version of it is the book comes out in 1981. The book is incredibly weird. It's called who censored.
[00:18:34] Yeah, who censored Roger Rabbit right and it's it's a lot more meta in like a Deadpool kind of way than this is sort of knowing and playing with the tropes like.
[00:18:45] Is it more of like a gum shoe novel like it's written like a sort of like from the perspective of like you know I don't know you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, but I think it's also less of a sort of like noir pastiche.
[00:18:58] It's a little more like harder edged. It's more violent. It's more sexual. I know there's a thing in the book where like the characters the cartoon characters when they speak they have thought bubbles speech bubbles above their head and then they use the speech bubbles as weapons.
[00:19:14] Yeah, they're not because they're not cartoon carry they're like comic characters right in the book right and I and then and there's also I like Roger Rabbit gets the. The inciting incident is Roger Rabbit himself gets murdered, at least from what I read about it.
[00:19:28] So it's just it's got some it's one of those things where they made some some huge changes in the adaptation. This is a this is a very loose adaptation undoubtedly for the better.
[00:19:38] Yeah, it feels like very much a thing where Disney just kind of went like oh fuck that's a good idea. We should pay this guy for this idea and then write an original movie based on this idea. You said it's more it's more Deadpool like.
[00:19:52] I think yeah, I mean I think it's a little more like sort of like edge lordy kind of shock factor.
[00:19:58] Yeah, so so Roger's like Eddie my balls my ball they're itchy or I don't know what that scene where Eddie pegs Roger and then people write pieces saying like is this progressive or are they just going for shock like is this woke or.
[00:20:16] But the book also like wasn't very I think popular or successful really was one of those things like.
[00:20:22] Galaxy Quest is one of these things where like someone wrote the script that is like actor ends up on a spaceship and Dreamworks got Senate and they were like this script is terrible but this idea is so good we will pay this person $250,000 to fuck off.
[00:20:39] And then they just hired new writers and said like don't even read it here's the premise write a movie based on this premise and Roger Rabbit feels like it was that but it was the previous head of Warner Brothers in 1981 who buys it right after the publication because they're in such weird a weird transitional state.
[00:20:56] This is not Warner Brothers Disney I'm sorry. And they're looking for like what could be a new blockbuster what could be a big franchise animations faltering live actions faltering this could be both in one hit.
[00:21:07] Zemeckis wants to do this project as early as 1982 but they go like you're a flop master no way we're letting you near this you're like three strikes in a row.
[00:21:17] I want to hold your hand right he made two cars they would count 1941 against him because they were like you wrote the only unsuccessful Spielberg movie. Everything you touch turns to shit.
[00:21:29] So he makes romancing the stone in order to prove that he can make a hit his first movie that he doesn't write.
[00:21:36] Then off of that he finally gets to make his passion project back to the future and then he goes back and is like come on come on. But you know he was the second choice right?
[00:21:46] Who's the first choice Terry Gilliam Wow Wow which which is makes sense because he was the Monty Python guy competing with the other guys.
[00:21:57] And he's combined with like he can do comedy he can do like animation right like I get why they thought about him and time bandits was like a straight up mainstream hit.
[00:22:09] Right I don't think I don't think I would like the Terry Gilliam Roger I mean do not either. I'm glad we got this is a mech is one a big foot would kill Judge Doom or something. I'm the filmography than Monty Python shores. I know there is.
[00:22:25] Oh I can't make the damn joke. Well I came in big foot joke. I liked it. I enjoyed the big foot joke.
[00:22:33] The thing about Gilliam was not only does he turn it down he turned he said he turned it down because he thought it would just be too hard. Like and he later said like I was just being lazy like I never should have turned that movie down.
[00:22:50] It does feel I mean watching it it feels extremely hard even the even the animated short which we touched on it's just like it uses so much for for a traditional hand drawn cell animated short like there's so much like shifts of perspective and you know 3D rotation shit that I'm just like God the amount of craft to be able to execute this and make this look as good as it is.
[00:23:12] It's just it's it's staggering.
[00:23:14] That's what I want to get into because there's kind of a mini blank check within this blank check of a movie which is just that opening because you have the other main author of this movie is Richard Williams who was the animation director got and has his own sort of weird.
[00:23:30] Filmography but. Eisenberg I'm sorry Eisner and Katzenberg have taken over.
[00:23:38] Zemeckis comes back being a newly minted like hot director wants to do it and in retrospect it's like yeah it feels like there are few people who would have had the exact right combination of skill sets to pull this off. It is so complicated that like.
[00:23:55] I don't blame Gilliam for saying he's too lazy to do it. Few people would be capable of taking.
[00:24:02] Keeping mindful of the math of this movie on a technical level while also keeping your eye on the story and the performances like you have to have this weird kind of Zemeckis II like.
[00:24:15] Rube Goldberg brain which clearly exists in his storytelling style but also as the years go on it becomes more and more obsessed with like technical wizardry.
[00:24:26] You need to be someone who is excited enough about that that you can keep track of that because every one of these sequences it's this thing that Zemeckis does which is like do the effect. That's four times more difficult. Yes.
[00:24:41] Call as little attention to itself as possible so that it just sells to people the reality of well this is so natural it must be real.
[00:24:50] Yeah it's you know like there's a version of this with a bunch of locked off shots and you know and where it's just like oh okay this is it's kind of easy to see how they executed this and then in contrast the way they pulled this off it's just like the cameras in motion so much there's so much action over life.
[00:25:10] There's a lot of overlapping you know layered between the live action and the animation it's just every every shot looks like a challenge.
[00:25:19] It's long takes it's complicated blocking it's like he does not compromise his shooting style at all he's still having this like constantly moving camera and as you said there's this constant like passing back and forth of objects animated characters interacting with live action live action interacting with animation.
[00:25:37] Right. So it's like he's going to go back and forth within any scene. Yeah live action character holding an animated tool or weapon and vice versa I mean that happens a lot and it's just it's just the degree of difficulty all this it's it's really something.
[00:25:53] How many movies from the 80s are you like I don't know how they did this or like you're still yeah.
[00:25:58] The transition of the of the fridge when the fridge falls on Roger Rabin they open the fridge and and then baby Herman or Sherman baby Herman walks off set and that to me I mean like that opening sequence like I said the cartoon is amazing but then when they segue into the live action stuff it just is it's mind blowing it's
[00:26:19] so it's so good.
[00:26:21] It's like a Wizard of Oz moment it's still one of those things where it's like people still believe erroneously Wizard of Oz was the first movie in color because it lands that transition so impactfully that it feels like this must have been the first time anyone did it right because it feels like a revolution and people had done animation live action mashups before it's gone on back to like Gertie the dinosaur like the first animated character ever Windsor McKay would like screen things where he interacted with Gertie.
[00:26:49] Wags what you are you are at the premiere for that weren't you Wager. All right two years older than you the same generation. Kind of Gertie the dinosaur lunchbox. You worked on the Gertie the dinosaur video game right. It was so crannos Gertie the dinosaur.
[00:27:13] Hand cranked video games. Coleco vision what's an early video is Coleco vision early enough why. Coleco is a pretty good poll I mean television same sort of generation as all that Atari that pre Nintendo era it's all kind of the same same era.
[00:27:29] I thought it was on a Nickelodeon RPG system where you had to as David said crank in different directions based on which way you want the character to move.
[00:27:40] When Eisner and Katzberg come on they're like well first of all our animation department is almost insolvent and they knew they wanted to bring Disney animation back to its like former luster but that was going to take many years.
[00:27:57] Little mermaid was in development for so long there's so many pieces animation just takes a lot they are at this point doing the great mouse detective right which is sort of like the first effort at bringing things back. But that one doesn't totally hit. No no.
[00:28:12] This was like first and foremost for them they were like this is a movie that allows us to keep our animation studio open we need to give them something to work on.
[00:28:21] We want to take some more time to figure out what our next big animated movie is going to be but we can start this like now.
[00:28:30] And it gives a reason to keep paying the rent to keep the lights on on these studios to keep these people under our employment.
[00:28:39] It also was like for Katzberg and Eisner a way to sort of like reestablish the Disney brand it was something so tied into like the history of animation and legacy and also gives them like a new character.
[00:28:54] Like Roger Rabbit was sort of the first successful new character Disney had had in a long time. The kids like Roger Rabbit. They should be weird. I mean he rules to be the movie or the character.
[00:29:09] Like do our kids into the character of Roger Rabbit who's kind of like I don't know how to describe Roger Rabbit. I mean he's funny. He's annoying.
[00:29:21] He's kind of annoying right like that which I sort of appreciate about him but I think as a kid I was like why does anyone put up with this guy.
[00:29:27] Yeah I mean I think that's that's kind of the the greatness of the character in the context of this narrative which is that you get why Bob Hoskins character is so fucking annoyed with this rabbit.
[00:29:39] It's completely relate to him and it's not like hey that's there's a version of this movie where where Bob Hoskins feels like the adult who can't have any fun. Which he is at some level but yeah exactly. No but you're right you're right.
[00:29:54] I have a take on what Bob Hoskins character supposed to be in this and I don't know if I should save it for later if you want to hear it now. No let's do it now.
[00:30:02] My take on Bob Hoskins character is that he is a person who was who was rejected by Hollywood so his so his so I mean that's not that deep right.
[00:30:14] A lot of people probably think this but no no no but I get where you're going with this right. If this is a movie about the industry which it is right.
[00:30:22] Yeah it's a movie about the industry this guy this is a guy who doesn't like to laugh anymore so he's like a jaded person who works in the industry and then at the end of the movie.
[00:30:29] He basically learns how to like laugh again he does the big performance that saves the day and he kisses Roger on the lips. And that's basically him like not giving up on that town not giving up on that dream basically is kind of the way I see it.
[00:30:42] Perfect yes I totally agree. Nailed it it's the thing that happens to people who want to go into the entertainment industry is either you want to do that because you're a monster who is looking for power or because you love stuff.
[00:30:54] Like you're like I love movies and TV shows and performing I'd love to do that. The three of you are monsters looking for power. Okay. Why are you and I definitely have a Roger Rabbit Eddie Valiant relationship. We're at once both grumpy and annoying.
[00:31:15] I remember I came over and you hid me in your sink one time. They do songs Benny the cab.
[00:31:24] I mean Roger is just defined by like the the handcuffed gag his best gag right where he's like you could have done that anytime and Roger's like no only when it was funny and they're like the best line. It's the best line.
[00:31:40] It gets me so so every single time like I'm like that kind of like perfect screenwriting that gives you a little flutter where you're like oh that's that's that's the character like I get everything that's charming and annoying about this.
[00:31:54] Well I think the other interesting thing about Roger is that he's the dilemma like in this movie he is positioned as he is the conflict his existence is the conflict his proximity to Eddie in all scenes is the conflict.
[00:32:09] So the character has to be annoying in a way that like these classical kind of animated comedy characters like Mickey and Donald and goofy and bugs and Daffy and porky whoever aren't where it's like you have these archetypes of like the cool com collected in charge like you know run circles around everyone kind of like Mickey Bugs thing you have to put upon like a rassable low status fighting for respect.
[00:32:36] Daffy Donald thing and then goofy and porky fall into that thing of like well intentioned but always kind of like struggling to stay one step ahead and Roger's actually like an impediment to most people around him like he makes things worse.
[00:32:50] Is he also like I feel bad saying this but is he a cuck like is he into that like I feel like it kind of is brushing up against that with the whole Jessica Rabbit thing where like he wants the photos and he's upset but then he's making you know is there like a whole other layer like the Roger Jessica dynamic is very.
[00:33:16] I hadn't thought about it and that way until this rewatch. I'll let Nick answer this.
[00:33:26] He I mean he is like you know I don't think he revels in being humiliated which which to me like it seems like he it seems like he is he is genuinely you know distraught by the the allegations of infidelity.
[00:33:42] So I yeah I don't know but but maybe maybe that's maybe that's what's going on there.
[00:33:46] It's just he kind of gives her a break and you're like well he's forgiving he loves her you know he answered then that that's the the the bright read on it they just have their dynamic is slightly under explored in the movie and I was sure I was thinking about it more this time around.
[00:34:02] But also Jessica always talks about him as if he's an alpha.
[00:34:05] I mean I know that's one of the jokes of the movie but she always makes it seem like a like you will not believe how much of a man he is and be like he's kind of an innocent.
[00:34:18] I have to get involved in these things to keep him clean you know yeah I agree with that I.
[00:34:24] It is it is that sort of thing of the to me he is just that sort of guy who is respected for how good he is you know when when Betty Boop is like she's so lucky to be with Roger you know that right joke that this we just seen this beautiful woman and
[00:34:40] and well this beautiful cartoon woman and she's she's lucky to be with Roger and I think that's I think it's going on like that sort of show business aspect of like someone who is like a like a Bob Hoskins or something like a guy who right who
[00:34:56] who who who you would be really attracted to just because of their talent or something but also especially in comedy like how many wildly successful people in comedy do we know who like don't know how to tie their shoes.
[00:35:08] Sure you know who can't make pasta that's what I always say right David's go to is is comedy boys who can't make pasta right yeah.
[00:35:18] I legitimately worked with someone a very well known very extremely talented comic who I watched them backstage have their manager assist them putting their belt on right it's and it's kind of like you know I just let everybody know it was me.
[00:35:36] So yeah that archetype definitely exists. Yeah I guess Roger Abbott kind of is that he does seem like someone was like well how can you function really all you know how to do is perform and we even when he's allowed to just sort of like be himself
[00:35:52] like in that bar scene he's still just like on he's still performing there's no distance between him his on screen persona and who he is in the reality of this world.
[00:36:04] And he's kind of a savant I mean he has no strategy he has no impulse control I mean it's one of my favorite bits in the entire movie is the Shave and a haircut two bits thing where it's just like he is so beholden to comedy and that he literally was like created to do comedy
[00:36:20] that it's the only impulse he has at all times. One of my favorite moments in the movie is when he's when he's watching Goofy and he's like Goofy he does it better I don't know the exact line but he takes a hit better than anyone or whatever he says.
[00:36:36] Oh my God I love that scene I love him watching Goofy in admiration and all.
[00:36:39] He has a reverence for which it's I mean that's so cool and it is such a thing that you see or whatever like you know like real comedians love other comedians and in an environment and that part just that those little aspects of the movie are so every I mean all the little details in the
[00:36:57] movie are so amazing and it's and I mean and it's also we haven't touched on it but it's kind of an allegory for race in America and the tunes basically are non white represent non white people. There's a lot of stuff like that.
[00:37:13] Yes it's a ghetto there's a second classism thing and also the movie is so overtly about like capitalism and like capitalism you know leading to the decline of like public trust and services within America what we sacrificed.
[00:37:31] The whole red car thing is what happened I mean yeah the movies plot is basically like Chinatown.
[00:37:37] And like right that's all real like the auto companies and the tire companies like bought L.A.'s red car company and put it out of business like they think that's a real thing that happened in the 30s and 40s.
[00:37:51] And it really was there was a point you know because it's a joke in the movie where Eddie's like it's like why who needs a car.
[00:37:57] We get the best public transit system in the world and it's like there was there was true at some point that would like L.A. had a renowned public transit system and trolley system that was completely dismantled.
[00:38:09] And they also reference when they're talking about building the freeway which I was on this rewatch I was I didn't realize that the freeway reveal was like his villain monologue at the end of the film.
[00:38:20] I thought that came earlier on but I was like oh this doesn't this doesn't happen until like the last 10 minutes where we get we get his true motivation.
[00:38:28] But so much of what he says is like a grim reflection of what reality ended up being which is like no one will even remember that neighborhood when they're driving through it at you know 65 miles per hour you know whatever that line is.
[00:38:41] Right it's the destruction of like Los Angeles as a town in exchange for will be able to build so many shops you'll be able to get anywhere within 15 minutes.
[00:38:50] It's crazy that this movie filled with like with Mickey and Daphne and Donald and all these cartoon characters has like such a heavy message like that like Chinatown has but this one even hits closer to home because I think it is like the number one problem with L.A.
[00:39:07] It's the transportation system and how much traffic there is so it's just so crazy that there's this heavy thing at this it's basically just like this plot device but it's it's real and also there's a thing with Betty Boop.
[00:39:21] I was just thinking of this when she's when she's the a waitress in the movie and it's yeah it's that's got it. It's the equivalent of silent movie stars basically right. And that's I mean it's so fantastic.
[00:39:37] That scene moves me to tears I was choked up watching it last night as I have been before and it's not just that I like Betty Boop and like the end the implications that you're talking about but like it's that she's the only tune that Eddie is nice to like Eddie is so hostile especially in the first half of the movie and he's like
[00:39:57] he's really sweet to her in a way that almost suggests like that they have something going on like you know there's this kind of like this kind of like old flame thing and like it's such a touching little moment.
[00:40:09] It is his line delivery on you still got it Betty is just like unreal. I mean we have to talk about Hoskins. I mean David by one of my favorite performances. Yes, yes, go ahead.
[00:40:22] You're really trying to figure out the DNA of this movie in especially when it comes to the all the fucking. I'm sorry that I brought it up twice.
[00:40:30] I don't know if you know what I mean right like there's it's not a ferocious energy exactly but there's like a warm sort of relationship there.
[00:40:38] But also last night like this was one of my most rented movies as a child I feel like this was one of my default if I'm at the video store my parents are like hurry up and I couldn't pick something.
[00:40:48] I would always just reach for this and be like I'll still enjoy Roger Rabbit for the 12th time but I don't think I'd seen it maybe five or six years and just watching it closely last night. I was surprised by how frequently it is overtly sexual.
[00:41:07] It's very horny. The booby trap there are things like that they're like those are things where you're like Disney would never allow that now.
[00:41:14] Is that a rabbit in your pocket are you happy to see me which I remember laughing at as a kid not realizing it was a boner joke. Right well because because that's like a joke you hear as a kid and you don't get.
[00:41:24] Yeah, you just want to just like it's a joke. Yeah, there's like Jessica says like you're the best I ever had even better than Goofy right damn Goofy's fucking. We know Goofy fucks he has a kid.
[00:41:40] He's the one right like he had his kid called his Goofy's from Jessica Rabbit. Maybe I mean Max he's a handsome guy right like he's you know maybe maybe just have huge tits.
[00:41:56] Max is Jessica Rabbit son that would reveal that would be but there's just so much shit like that and like Joanna Cassidy when she catches him with Jessica. Jessica is panicked down.
[00:42:07] Yes, this whole sort of like you can't keep it in your pants but it ties back into that whole like oh this is like unseemly it's disgusting that you would fuck a tune. Right. There's so much fucking in this movie. But not impossible right.
[00:42:22] It's more just like oh well come on right yeah. Well because Jessica Rabbit's review is for it's a tune review for humans. Yes. Like and it's full of a bunch of just horned up human men who wanted to look at the forbidden fruit of this sexy animated woman.
[00:42:38] It's a cotton club thing. It's like all the performers are black and the entire customer base is white. It's like it is a forbidden fruit thing. It really amours home that the tuned like standing in it for a different race basically. Right.
[00:42:54] And the industry is all white people obviously right there and all the money is going as anyway. I was saying though Mitch about like Eddie Valiant being this guy who's been like broken down by the industry and forgets why he even wanted to be part of it before.
[00:43:07] And Roger I guess being sort of like a savant who doesn't even understand what he's doing and has been able to sort of just like coast through it blithely. Like he's gotten the sort of lucky path. Oh yeah. It's solely off of talent.
[00:43:23] Two sides of the coin for sure. Right but it's also like this movie barely even traffics and metaphor. Like down to the fact that the red car thing is just literally a thing that happened.
[00:43:31] It's more just sort of like using this sandbox to comment on actual power dynamics that happen and not just in America but also specifically I think the weirdness of show business.
[00:43:45] And I think this film is really keyed into the unsavory side of Hollywood that always exists running counter to the idea of it being this like dream factor. That just gives joy to people all over the world.
[00:43:59] And there's no greater distillation of that than this point in time when Hollywood is sort of just like popcorn. It's just like movies are miracles and everything's wonderful and it's people singing and dancing.
[00:44:11] And then you would hear all these terrible stories about like the horrible things that were happening to people and children on you know performance enhancing drugs and sexual assault.
[00:44:20] And like Eddie Mannix who Bob Hoskins later played these like fixers you know who are like cleaning up movie stars crimes. Like it's so keyed into that push and pull and the tunes are just representing like the brightest sort of happiest output of it.
[00:44:38] But the way that humans talk about tunes throughout the movie not just like Eddie having his contempt but that scene when the first scene with Maroon.
[00:44:50] When he calls Eddie into his office and Dumbo flies up to the window and he like makes his crack about like I got him on loan for Disney. They work for peanuts. Like he's so dismissive of them you know they're like circus freaks to him.
[00:45:04] Yeah. And that which is also you also just and it's a great example of just like these little jokes that they just work in that are that are like little pun jokes that work great but are treated in that the character treats it like it's a real it's a real thing.
[00:45:17] There's no winkiness going on or whatever you know. Yeah. So it's a medicine Gail have this like comedy principle that in watching all these interviews and listening to commentary tracks for these episodes I've heard and Gail didn't write this movie but you know.
[00:45:32] Zemeckis is storytelling sensibilities very much tied into his development with Gail. They're like our ethos for comedy is we don't really have jokes like everything that everyone says they believe 100 percent and we encourage our actors to play it as truthfully and as like honestly as possible.
[00:45:51] I said the same word two times but the joke comes out of the circumstances being treated that way. And this is like the ultimate version of it's one of the reasons why he's so right for this project is you have things like what happened to that guy a tune killed his brother dropped a piano on his head where when it's first introduced you're like this is just an incredible joke because
[00:46:14] you're just great joke. Yeah. And then it ends up being a major plot to drama absolute right. Well Joanna Gleason like right. The two scenes where they explain it where it's played so dramatically as if it were the tragic backstory in any noir film but the comedy only comes out of the fact that it's like oh I guess people would actually die if you dropped a piano on their head.
[00:46:36] Yeah.
[00:46:39] I mean we give it up for Jessica Rabbit. I mean everyone always talks about how Jessica rabbits a very sexy character etc etc but Dolores she doesn't she rules she doesn't get enough. Yeah good character. Love Joanna Cassidy in general. Blade Runner she's got a lot of like great poppins you know great like supporting roles in the 80s.
[00:47:00] We never hit Bob Hoskins when you wanted to give him love because he is he's great. Well we got to talk about Hoskins first I want to write I want to run through Griff and I'm sure you'll have some to some of the people that they wanted for this role because obviously yes Hoskins is not the first choice like which is it's the magic of this movie because like back to the future is a case where the movies a miracle because they so nearly made all of the wrong decisions and everything got saved at the last time.
[00:47:25] Other than the Hoskins decision Roger Rabbit's a miracle because you can't believe they approved all these first draft ideas like it feels like everything should have been noted to death but it speaks to the level of desperation that Disney was at that they felt like this gives us a reason to keep the animation studio going it makes us a place with a little more edge so high profile filmmakers want to work with us.
[00:47:46] They got Spielberg on board because they knew he would be able to manage all of the rights and they knew he was such a classic cartoon fan and that got some Mac is back in the fold once they finally you know we're ready to go with this movie Disney's thought was well of course you have to hire one of the
[00:48:02] biggest leading men in Hollywood.
[00:48:04] I want to run it down I want to do you can chime in if there are ones I'm missing by Harrison Ford is the is their first ask that's who's built it once which you can see because he could sort of deadpan you know serious thing against all the comedy but he just only one who could possibly work from the right he costs too much then Chevy chase which makes sense for the time like Chevy chase still a big comedy
[00:48:31] star he would play it to you would play to goofy you would just be too smart me probably right on the joke I think he's modern and he's too winky.
[00:48:41] You got Bill Murray who doesn't get it because Bill Murray is impossible to like offer roles to but I guess I could see that but again he would be too smart me I feel like and too modern they both have the cynical sort of like yeah you know post Vietnam edge to them and I think they both would be embarrassed to be in that
[00:49:01] movie like the magic of Ghostbusters is that Bill Murray keeps on selling out the fact that he's in the movie Ghostbusters which works for Ghostbusters but wouldn't work for this great griff that you nailed it that's perfect.
[00:49:14] Eddie Murphy who turns it down because he doesn't get the concept and says he regrets turning it down he says it's like the only role he regrets turning down interesting.
[00:49:24] I mean he I feel like in the 80s like if any Murphy and really always like if Eddie Murphy's in your movie it just kind of becomes an Eddie Murphy movie like I don't know if he could like kind of just like be seamlessly apart I mean I'd watch it like Eddie Murphy is one of those things where especially in the 80s.
[00:49:42] It's kind of intrinsic like you know like it would be interesting to see that.
[00:49:46] I like him better than like Chevy Chase and Bill Murray but right the thing with Eddie Murphy is that like I never Eddie Murphy to me is such a is always such a likable character in my mind and yeah and not to not to say that not to say Hoskins isn't like a book because he is.
[00:50:04] But like he has to be prickly. He's prickly and yeah and I don't know if Eddie would have been as good with with that sort of sort of thing.
[00:50:12] I also remember reading that he what like if he took the role he was insisting on being in Norbit prosthetics. Which might have been a distraction. He always brings those he brings them to. Yeah. I believe he's playing a Chinese character in Norbit.
[00:50:29] I don't know why I'm correcting you on that. Yeah I'm sorry for not remembering Norbit vividly. Like which racism he's doing in Norbit. Why would you be shocked if I reveal that I've been in Norbit prosthetics this whole time.
[00:50:43] And all the time he know me I'm a very thin man. I would be surprised because that's an incredible level of effort. I would not expect it from you.
[00:50:53] It's also like we talk a lot David about like movies using movie stars well versus misunderstanding them and how if you're casting a movie star you want to be weaponizing something in their persona and in the audience's relationship that they already have to that person.
[00:51:10] And Eddie Murphy's persona at that point in time was closer to being Roger Rabbit. Like Bill Murray and Cheddy Chase. You know they were comedy stars they were mostly reactors like they run circles around people and they clown on other people around them right.
[00:51:27] Harrison Ford is obviously much more of a straight man but Eddie Murphy's the dilemma in his movies. Like you know 48 hours and trading places in Beverly Hills Cop all three of those characters are the dilemma.
[00:51:39] The only movie he's made up until this point where he's kind of playing the straight man is coming to America but in that one he's also the innocent.
[00:51:48] I was watching Nutty Professor last night and it's it's it's crazy to me that Eddie Murphy at the same time plays like this heavy set guy so emotional and like so real and you really feel for this character.
[00:52:00] You really feel you really feel for Sherman that's Sherman right and then and Sherman we got Sherman and Herman so he's he's like he plays that very real but then at the same time. He's making like the movie is making like extremely mean jokes about fat people.
[00:52:17] But at the same time he's really making you feel for the character it's such a crazy it's that movie is that movie is great. His performance in that movie is outstanding. I think that is like maybe I don't know.
[00:52:30] Best performances may be strong because he has a lot but like it's up there. He like won critics awards for that movie like fairly deservedly I'd say because of what you're saying Mitch like he weirdly taps into like the pathos of Sherman clump.
[00:52:45] And I think that there is I think there is some realness there with with Eddie Murphy that I think that he is like kind of a misunderstood guy in a lot of ways and I think that he could do it.
[00:52:56] But but again I still know one that beats Hoskins in my mind so far from this list. It might be as simple with with Murphy is he was just to you just would have been too funny. I think that's a big part of it.
[00:53:08] I have a whole a whole theory. Do you have other people on your list David.
[00:53:12] I mean the rest of this list is one of it's one of those like casting article not the ones I just read but then there's a whole list where I'm like get out of here like some of them make sense like oh Robin Williams Jack Nicholson.
[00:53:23] I ever heard Clint Eastwood. Yeah that's interesting. Yeah the one on this list that kind of popped for me was Wallace Sean. I don't know if seriously considered Wallace Sean but that's interesting. He's he's of a similar profile. Here's my whole thing with Hoskins.
[00:53:43] It's it's the blessing and disguise of all a list actors turning it down because I think they probably above all else this movie seemed very risky to them like this scene. It seemed like a movie where if this doesn't work this is embarrassing.
[00:53:57] You look silly talking to a rabbit for 90 minutes.
[00:54:00] If the technology doesn't work if the tone isn't lined up all of that but I also feel like the star of this movie is the premise like the movie cannot handle the weight of someone bringing their movie star reputation into it and you filtering it through what this person does best and what we're used to seeing them do in films and even things like Eddie Murphy being too young.
[00:54:23] You know or like beyond all of that the fundamental breakthrough I had watching it last night is knowing how difficult this movie was to make none of those guys would have put up with this shit.
[00:54:37] Like you think about how menial making this film was just take after take of lining up the geometry of like maintaining the eye lines and what you have where you have to grab what when and shit like the scene which I feel like is quiet.
[00:54:53] It's definitely the most technically complicated when the weasels come into his house and he's hiding Roger in the sink and there are all these multiple gags where it's like he's got this fake
[00:55:05] handcuff on that's rigged to make it look like it's being pulled by Roger they have like a pipe underneath the sink that will spring up to spit water in his face.
[00:55:16] They have like dishes being thrown the weasels are picking up different objects they're also holding physical guns like all this shit.
[00:55:23] Imagine Harrison Ford being willing to do like that many rehearsals that many tapes like being given that many notes like the story I've heard about Eddie Murphy is post nutty professor once he realized oh I was able to do these scenes where I was the only person in them and I was just sitting there with other stand ins for eye lines that he rarely does most of his footage in his movies now.
[00:55:50] Like he has stand ins who do anything other than a direct shot and actors who have worked with Eddie Murphy or like I barely met him and he just comes in and does his coverage.
[00:56:01] And like no one else would put up with this other than some of Bob Hoskins who a Mitch fits better into what you're saying is like you believe this guy is broken has like given up he's got such a coiled rage inside of him which you really need.
[00:56:16] But also it's like you need someone who is grateful enough for this opportunity to be the lead of an American blockbuster that they will put this amount of back breaking work into making the movie work when so often you're acting against nothing.
[00:56:33] Nothing yeah it needs to be someone who's hungry. It's also weird back then right like yes.
[00:56:38] Like now I feel like with these Avengers movies and you know where it's like so commonplace to be acting alongside tennis balls but like in the 80s that's like bizarre to be doing right like that's not something people be used to kind of having to like develop techniques for the first time Prado approaches an actor while the movie around him is developing techniques for how to make the film around him.
[00:57:01] It's it's like impossible work and there's also the fact that he just doesn't look like he should be in a movie.
[00:57:11] You know like Bob Hoskins is such an unlikely movie star that the whole time you're just like not only can I not believe that Disney put their most expensive production ever on this guy's furry potato shaped shoulders but that any like Hollywood studio was willing to put him in a movie.
[00:57:31] And as the leading man in the center of the poster. We also have to give up for the fact that he is canonically Super Mario like he's true remains the man to have played that character until someone else finally takes the role right.
[00:57:46] I mean this is Captain Lou Albano erasure but that's fair. That's true. I forgot I mean it didn't forget about Lou Albano but you know.
[00:57:55] There's yeah I have a lot of respect for for his his work as Super Mario even though he doesn't he did not personally for sure.
[00:58:04] Yeah it's and that's what I mean he that speaks to what it was Star was after this movie right right right you could put him as the lead.
[00:58:14] I mean he's not even Italian they just sort of cast him where they're like that well he looks like the little guy like we know that's enough. Can I quickly say that David also had some Charles Martinette erasure there to. Very rude to Charles Martinette.
[00:58:27] I was digging into Hoskins last night and I found a quote that said he didn't know that Mario was based on a video game until halfway through filming when his son asked him a question about it. Fuck that rules. That's great.
[00:58:41] I mean the movies is just that I've read about like the production. I mean I'm sure you know all about it but it's that movie seems like an insane cluster fuck. Can you just imagine like Bob Hoskins reading that script thinking it's like a spec.
[00:58:56] That it's an original idea based on nothing. I don't know it's some fucking plumbers in a dinosaur tube movie. The story I know apart from all the many stories where he's just like I hated it like was I'm on I would just get drunk all the time.
[00:59:12] Like it was awful is like there were some crew members who would smoke weed on the beach or something like at night and one night he like walked by and he was like you guys smoke and reefer like I want some of that and like joined in with them and they were at every Hoskins story and in Britain especially he is such a Uber legend is that he was like.
[00:59:32] Awesome kind of like a genuine man of the people working class guy dad was a truck driver type you know like beloved on sets you know professional type act you know everyone loves Bob Hoskins.
[00:59:44] And he's one of those guys where he literally just kind of like stumbled into it like he right like you read like his life before the age of like 27 was like he was a plumber he were to zoo like I'll just like all these odd jobs he was literally a plumber I think the zoo one I made up.
[00:59:59] But he was a plumber he was a window cleaner.
[01:00:02] He's very Paddington asked in fact right and then I think it was a thing where he was like he stumbled into an acting class and then he never thought he was going to pursue it professionally and then he took a friend to an audition and they thought he was in line so they said you next and then he got cast in a Shakespeare in the park and it was just sort of like British Shakespeare but yeah yeah yes that is literally the story someone just handed him a script and was like get on stage you're all right.
[01:00:28] You hear stories like that and I'm always just like man that friend must have been like God damn it like my friend.
[01:00:36] But he just was like a natural and you also kind of can't teach that level of personality you know it's just like this is a guy who's clearly like lived you know as like experienced things and then right he does like pennies from heaven which leads to his like 80s crime movie run where he does.
[01:00:57] What's my father on Good Friday. And then he gets Oscar nomination for that. The weirdest. That's why he's at the level where they can offer him this right.
[01:01:07] He makes this British crime drama that's sort of like a breakout like an art house breakout and he wins every best actor award other than the Oscar. Like he wins the Golden Globe. He wins the BAFTA. He wins everything he wins most critics awards.
[01:01:23] Like he was very much in line to be some odd British character actor who somehow won a one off Academy Award. You know who we lost the Oscar. Right. Awards right.
[01:01:37] And he's always been like like look it was honored to be nominated but like I had the better performance that you made like. No disrespect to Paul Newman but come on. Wow.
[01:01:50] But that's so good and Mona Lisa it puts him in that position where it's like he's just been this guy who almost won an Oscar at the moment where every other A list actor has turned this movie down.
[01:02:00] And they were like I don't know Hoskins and the fact that he looks like a guy who's actually in a noir movie that he's not bringing any movie star baggage to it that he's coming out of this like gritty crime sort of like patina that he had been in and that he's just at service of the film and also like fully committed to figuring out
[01:02:20] the abilities of the technology. It's it's like it couldn't have worked with anyone else or even someone even him under different circumstances wouldn't have worked the same way.
[01:02:34] Well David talked about his cry moment and Mike I have a cry moment and my cry moment is when when Hoskins turn when he when he decides to make try to make everyone like he's got to be silly and save the day. Oh yeah.
[01:02:49] When he turns on the the carnival or the what's it called the merry-go-round and starts singing and dancing that to me that's my cry moment that like it's my favorite part of the entire movie when he's making the weasels laugh themselves to death.
[01:03:03] Is that seated at all beyond beyond beyond that shot on the. I love that. Because on the desk you see the one shot of him in the still photograph with his brother his late brother as a circus performers and then that's basically it.
[01:03:17] That's all the hint that he has is it there's a picture above that of his family in the circus. Oh that's right.
[01:03:25] It's like the exact same moves to mech as does and back to the future where all of the backgrounder given on Doc Brown is photos on the wall in the opening credit sequence.
[01:03:34] And he does the same thing here where it's like the only Eddie Valiant back store you get pretty much is photographs. Right. But it's so well done. I also get worked up with that.
[01:03:46] I agree that that scene is great because because he's so sincere about it as he is in everything in he does in this movie. It's such a sincere performance and it wouldn't work. The movie doesn't work without it.
[01:03:58] The one that really gets me is the scene when he gets the camera from Joanna Gleason has developed the photo roll which is from the vacation he went on with her and his brother. Oh yeah.
[01:04:09] And he's looking at the photos while drinking which is what then turns into the big Zemeckis camera move where you get all the backstory from the photos.
[01:04:16] But like his his turn from the looking at the photos you're seeing him smile for the first time in the entire movie. And then he just becomes overcome with grief at the loss of his brother.
[01:04:28] That's the other thing is like not only is so much of the movie him acting against characters who aren't actually on set with him like animated characters.
[01:04:37] There's so much of the movie that is Hoskins like Eddie Valiant in a room with no one else having to drive the story where it's like detective stuff where he likes to be like.
[01:04:46] Looks frustrated and then he notices something out of the corner of his eye and then he picks it up and looks more closely.
[01:04:53] And then he has the aha moment on his face and then he needs to have that turn of like determination of I know what I need to do next.
[01:04:59] And that's the hardest fucking shit to do as an actor because it's like so unnatural and it's all indication in the way that like acting teachers try to beat out of you like don't indicate just feel it.
[01:05:11] But that's like a movie like this calls for unnatural shit where it's like you need to telegraph to the audience exactly what you're thinking because this is a 10 second shot where you need to express four different emotions that advance the plot through your face and close up.
[01:05:28] Even if you pull this off no one's going to they're not going to nominate you for an Oscar.
[01:05:33] Like you know what I mean you're not going to your performance is never going to be lauded like it should be because it's I mean he's so so so good in it.
[01:05:42] And also like as much as he did have a boost to his career after this if you're serving the movie well you're not going to be the guy who pops off of this. Like this is not a movie that makes you into a conventional leading man.
[01:05:54] It maybe makes you more bankable because you've been in a hit but it's like you're going to play grumpy you're going to play irritable the whole movie.
[01:06:02] You're not fun like Rogers the character they're going to make merchandise off of he's the character the kids are going to like for so many years they were trying to make sequels to this movie and a lot of them didn't have valiant in them.
[01:06:13] Like it was like if this thing became a franchise it would have been Roger as the franchise. That's my favorite kid in the world a kid who's like who loves Eddie Valiant. That's got their crush Eddie Valiant that they sleep with.
[01:06:26] David you had an observation when we were texting beforehand and you're talking about how this film reflects Hollywood like I did was it correct me if I'm misstating but I think you said this is maybe the best film ever. Made about Hollywood.
[01:06:48] I was reflecting on that same and while I was watching it where I'm like is there a better one and I'm like you know because there's like you know the bad and the beautiful right like this sort of like classic you know 50s Golden Age Hollywood movies that are you know about like how the industry but like you know they.
[01:07:04] Roger Rabbit is so clever and so rose tinted and so like nostalgic but it's also so weirdly clear eyed about how nasty the industry is sure and how like unforgiving it is to like you know like the things like the Betty Boop scene that inform me saying that but also things like Eddie doing the big performance at the end where it's like there's still some sort of love of.
[01:07:34] What everyone's here to do like you know that sort of carries through the entire movie like and.
[01:07:40] I think that's why I make that I make that statement I'm Griffin like what's the I feel ridiculous making it because like surely there are there are so many movies about Hollywood.
[01:07:52] I mean I think you're kind of right because it feels like the movie that gets at the most sort of a static truth of what Hollywood is and I think it is that weird combination of like.
[01:08:04] Zemeckis and Disney and Spielberg as a triumvirate allows you to capture the magic of Hollywood and the like G whiz the movies and that sort of like rose tinted Golden Age like don't we just love people putting on a show for us kind of thing.
[01:08:21] But the very specific place in time this movie has made it the fact that Disney doesn't really have anything to lose that they want to make an impression that Zemeckis has this like wind underneath his wings to really like go for stuff allows the movie to have that very like clear eyed view of the the ugliness of the industry as well.
[01:08:42] And I don't know if there's another movie that has that holds both in such equal balance. Now Nick your response was that the you had something at the other end of the spectrum. You if you said right I can't remember.
[01:08:55] Oh that's right yes yes yeah but like if Roger Rabbit is at one end.
[01:08:59] Yeah I think I think the you know in terms of movies that are about Hollywood like yeah if you Roger Rabbit is the best then I think that you know the it runs the what's the word I'm looking for.
[01:09:14] Spann the spectrum the spectrum spectrum that's what I'm looking for the spectrum runs like from from from Roger Rabbit at one end to at the other end Argo which to me is like.
[01:09:26] I saw Argo at a at the arc light in Hollywood which is like the most LA movie theater and it was so clearly filled with people who are in the industry or adjacent to the industry.
[01:09:39] And I just like the the self aware laughter the knowing laughter that I'm in on the joke laughter at a lot of their Hollywood references like was just like so.
[01:09:50] I just I just feel like that's not what the sort of thing you get from watching Roger Rabbit which isn't trying to be like like wink at the audience and be like if you know about the WGA.
[01:09:59] You know it's more just like representing this is how Hollywood set works this is kind of a shorthand for what you might see it you know an executive doing when he's.
[01:10:09] Reviewing dailies like this is just sort of presenting the stuff in a way that's accessible to the audience and isn't like you know condescending towards them or trying to in to you know.
[01:10:22] Expect some sort of knowledge from the from the audience all that I just like how like accessible a movie about Hollywood is to someone who would like never have been on a movie set.
[01:10:32] Like you just sort of like you get all of it it's just communicated so effectively.
[01:10:36] I love how wild how little exposition this movie has both in terms of setting up its fairly complicated plot and mystery and also in terms of movies like this always do so much like we don't trust the audience table setting of like. Yes.
[01:10:52] This is a thing that people sit down in theaters and watch for 90 to 120 minutes like the movie is so good at conveying all the rules of itself to you and both the imagined rules that they've created for this fantastical world and also the rules of like this is how things worked in this time period.
[01:11:11] This is how show business works and I also feel like this movie has none of those moments that something like Argo has where you're like come on guys you know that's not how it works. Yeah, like you make movies for a living you know that would never happen.
[01:11:28] It's like a perfectly easy movie to watch like you know it's enjoyable but like it is crazy to reflect on Argo and you're like right they made a movie about like the Iran hostage crisis and all that that you know in the seriousness of this and the ultimate take away of Argo is kind of like.
[01:11:44] Yeah, you know guys we just here in Hollywood we love the movies like that's such a weird move and the Oscars responded by being like.
[01:11:55] Then you did it best picture of the year like congratulations Ben you're back you know you're back your Batman like that's it you're going to be Batman like.
[01:12:03] I know that that's a real thing that happened like I know it's based on a true story it's just wild that sometimes when you watch Hollywood distill everything into like you know when it comes down to it it's just about making stories that people love.
[01:12:18] Right. Yeah I just don't I can't think of another movie that's able to hold both truths at the opposite ends of the spectrum simultaneously you know it's like either movies are just fully selling the lies that Hollywood tells itself, or they're just wallowing and like the CD truth, the underbelly.
[01:12:41] And it just feels like this movie is weirdly clear eyed about everything and it helps also that Zemeckis is such a nostalgic filmmaker but he's always had that slightly cynical edge I mean it's this thing about him being like the ultimate boomer but he's always sort of trying to approach things with like a little bit of a.
[01:13:03] Mad magazine ask like satirical deflation and this is the movie where I think he balances those sensibilities the best that's the other thing with this movie is it doesn't feel like a noir parody it just feels like a proper noir film.
[01:13:22] Yeah, but it's not right it's not winky in the way that could be annoying like you're like like I don't know like dead when dead men don't wear plaid which is not a bad movie but you know what I mean like where it's just like okay I get it this is a total pastiche I get it.
[01:13:35] It's it's not a pastiche really which is so.
[01:13:38] I mean right there's a back to the future three interview like from a making of thing where Spielberg is like the great thing about these guys is it's not just a good back to the future movie it's actually a great western like this could stand up there with my darling Clementine and I've always called bullshit on that I'm like.
[01:13:55] Yeah, the future three is a much better back to the future movie than it is a western right it's just a back to the future movie with Western trappings but this is the one where that actually applies where it's like that he made a pretty fucking good noir movie even if you take all the tunes out of it.
[01:14:12] And it actually has like a mystery that you're kind of trying to solve with a satisfying reveal.
[01:14:17] It doesn't feel like as much as the the highway stuff doesn't really is barely even foreshadowed I mean you're just sort of seeing the clover leaf signage and stuff and you see the what do you call it that the there's the discussion of the train train cars and all that.
[01:14:33] But it's that thing I think we said in the use cars episode that like some mech is super power is pointing at checkoffs gone and convincing you that it's just decoration on the wall.
[01:14:47] And there's so much of that where he like has plot set up disguised as jokes that you accept as well that that isn't something that's going to pay off later that was just for that one gag here or is just sort of world building or whatever it is.
[01:15:03] And the movie works on those grounds and then you add in the tune stuff into it and like all of its themes become more resonant and also it just becomes this fucking magic trick movie where you still cannot process how they made it.
[01:15:18] Where would you rank this as far as noir is go when you say this is is this in like your top five film noir or.
[01:15:27] I'm Griffin Newman I would rank it in my top five noir but I feel like that answer is weighed by the fact that my biggest complaint with most noir is is not enough tunes Roger Rabbit not involved.
[01:15:40] Like I like detour but there's no giant mallets over the head and detour. I do love many and noir it's I have never been asked to consider whether Roger Rabbit would crack my five wars I don't know.
[01:15:56] I love it as a Hollywood movie more than I love it as a noir but I think it is I agree with you Griff that it's it's a great noir.
[01:16:06] Can I can I say just to talk about the Donald vs. Daffy piano scene just because of course it's just one of the best scenes in the movie and you also get to see like two sides of Daffy you see like you see like Daffy going to like berserk Daffy mode where his hair is insane and that that that
[01:16:27] that entire scene is just is fantastic and then I want to talk about on the opposite and I want to talk about the saddest scene in the movie which is the shoe getting put in the dip. Oh for fucking shoe. We haven't even talked about judge doom.
[01:16:41] We haven't talked about judge doom. Yeah we got a lot still talk about we might put it put a kettle on the iron David this might be a 12 hour episode.
[01:16:52] This is not going to be a 12 hour episode 11 11 deal put the kettle on the iron David it's 11 where would I put a cat.
[01:16:59] I guess put a kettle on the iron David Spielberg is like that's the other thing with this movie is this movie could only be made with the participation of Spielberg at this point in time because it's like this is the only time Warner Brothers and Disney characters ever appeared on screen at the same time which could only
[01:17:19] happen because Steven Spielberg was so powerful every single person in Hollywood wanted to be owed a favor by Steven Spielberg.
[01:17:27] So studios would work against their best interest in exchange for an IOU from Spielberg but the terms of it are so specific where it's like Daffy and Donald have to have the exact same number of words they need to be visible on screen for the same number of frames
[01:17:45] like everything they do on screen is completely symmetrical in terms of like their close ups are timed to the same degree they're mostly in two shots same with the bugs and Mickey moments.
[01:17:58] Yes when he's flying out the window and at the very end like there were all these rules that had to be established for how they would allow the characters to coexist but it feels fun it doesn't feel like contractually reigned in.
[01:18:10] Wouldn't that be annoying in most movies and wouldn't those cameos kind of like bum you out and so like it's it's it's underrated how hard it is to pull that off like to pull off a Mickey mouse bugs bunny like what you know what I mean like those little moments.
[01:18:25] Look here's a movie that I know you and I love David and has been the cause of some controversy on the Doughboys podcast but compare this to Wreck-It Ralph right which is the closest someone has kind of come to trying to do a like Roger Rabbit.
[01:18:40] It's new characters plus the original characters and you're riffing on the entire medium sort of thing and the appearances by known characters in.
[01:18:51] Wreck-It Ralph are so small except for Wreck-It Ralph to when suddenly Disney characters have primary supporting roles but in the original it's like well Mario was off grounds Sonic appears as like a PSA on a screen you know.
[01:19:06] Like it's a lot of supporting or lower tier characters are in small appearances they could only really use the villains and not the heroes and things like that.
[01:19:14] Every time a canonically important video game character is on screen in Wreck-It Ralph I do think it kind of underlines the fact that the Wreck-It Ralph characters are not really video game icons that their creations for the film.
[01:19:30] You're being reminded that Wreck-It Ralph is not is an analog for Donkey Kong due to his adjacency to Zangief. Right it's something also like the studio 60 problem of like the second studio 60 on the sunset strip acknowledges that SNL exists. Fucking worst decision they ever did. Baffling creative decision.
[01:19:53] Do you like that decision or are you all in on studio 60 in general? No I like that decision because I think it's insane of course.
[01:20:01] It's insane and I feel like it's a trap that most movies fall into when you're trying to like create new legacy media right and put it in a world alongside the things we know you get so confused by like well if Donkey Kong exists is Wreck-It Ralph not just like a thinly veiled parody of Donkey Kong is he less popular than Donkey Kong is he a rip off like all this shit.
[01:20:24] And I was watching it trying to come up with some take as to why it works in this movie and I don't know what it is but it is so wild that this movie like Roger Rabbit can coexist with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and you buy it you accept it.
[01:20:40] He is different enough from them talking about the archetypes and how he doesn't fit into them cleanly that it doesn't feel like he's a double beat of some other character that already exists.
[01:20:49] Right and he's also kind of a schmo like it's acceptable because like you don't buy you buy him as like a sort of be list Mickey Mouse or right like he's not supposed to be a star. Benny feels iconic like Jessica feels iconic baby Herman feels iconic man.
[01:21:07] He's pretty cool the introduction of Benny feels like the introduction of the Batmobile and you're like this character hasn't even been set up and it feels epic like it's not even the payoff of anything.
[01:21:17] It's suddenly just a door opens and Benny the cab comes out and you want to fucking our city in another car. Yeah he rules back of a police car.
[01:21:25] What about when he drives another car later he drives the car so he drives a car the car drives a car when he gets in a car and drives the car I mean it's great so good.
[01:21:38] But there's that scene where Eddie talks to baby Herman outside of his office and it's the second time we've met baby Herman like you meet him in the opening cartoon then you get to see what he's actually like in real life the second day call cut.
[01:21:51] And even so your third time seeing baby Herman it still feels like whoa this scene is huge I can't believe baby Herman is in this movie.
[01:22:01] I got a 50 year old sex drive and a three year old dinky I believe is that the line it's something along those lines. And there's also when he walks off the set after Roger blows the take he like sticks his finger up a woman's dress.
[01:22:15] There's that thing where he walks between her legs he walks between her legs and kind of grabs yeah kind of whatever he kind of flops around yeah.
[01:22:22] There's an infamous thing when Jessica is falling out of the window that her dress flies up and when it was released the atrically it looked like she wasn't wearing underwear.
[01:22:30] And Disney denied that it was a deliberate thing but a lot of animators think that they snuck it in. Is that like the dicks and little mermaid or like the cloud that's a sex and the Lion King like all those weird little.
[01:22:44] Yeah I think it is and it's one of those things they've like corrected on home video release. They like painted underwear on her.
[01:22:51] Yeah I remember reading about it because it was like the the laser disk release was when consumers noticed it because you could frame you couldn't frame by frame of VHS. But you could frame by frame a laser desk and people were like whoa what's going on here.
[01:23:03] Yeah and it was in clear equality. I mean Richard Richard Williams was this guy who was sort of this like outside or British animator whose whole thing was like I think the art of animation can be pushed so much further than what anyone's doing.
[01:23:18] And very briefly I think I've talked about too many times on this podcast but like you know animation is 24 frames per second.
[01:23:25] Even like the most vivid animation like Disney level animation is usually shot on twos which means you're only doing 12 drawings a second and you're photographing each drawing two times and that's still enough to create the persistence of vision that you know makes motion look like it's happening.
[01:23:41] Richard Williams was a guy who was like you do everything on ones.
[01:23:45] Like you just do everything as clearly as possible and the stuff that you were talking about Wyger where it's like the perspective shifts and like you know inanimate objects moving in space and all these sorts of things that like the second CGI was created.
[01:23:59] That opening everything in the kitchen would have been CGI other than the characters. It's like the ballroom and beauty and the beast. They're like there's no reason to hand draw the ballroom especially if we're mimicking this big crane shot.
[01:24:11] If that's like a set structure it's easier just put it in a computer and have the computer spin around this environment or these objects the birds and rescues down under the stampede and Lion King you know anything that's like quantity or large spaces or a non organic material vehicles things like that.
[01:24:33] That opening sequence is just he had been for years trying to make his big passion project. He would take jobs in order to self finance his movie. The Thief in the Cobbler. Yeah which people believe Disney stole for Aladdin.
[01:24:49] The designs in Aladdin are very similar to Thief in the Cobbler. It's not based off the Aladdin myth but there's like the the Sultan in Aladdin is like identical to Thief in the Cobbler.
[01:25:00] The villain looks like Jafar but his whole thing was like I'm going to make this on my own terms in a way no studio will allow. I'll direct some commercials. I'll direct like the Ziggy Christmas special.
[01:25:12] Like he did all these for hire jobs in order to self finance his movie which he never finished really. It got taken away from him by rights holders and then Harvey Weinstein bought it and he finished it with shitty animation and dubbed voices over it added songs.
[01:25:27] It was never supposed to have any dialogue. You can see people who have sort of reconstructed on YouTube and it's incredible but that opening sequence is Richard Williams being like Disney is giving me the most money anyone has ever put towards animation.
[01:25:40] Like this was classified as the most expensive animated film of all time because they put so much money into the animation because it was such a hurdle to have it coexist with the live action.
[01:25:51] That opening sequence is just him showing off and also him like stretching his arms and going like finally I get to do this shit. And even to the degree of like the number of knives that are flinging towards Roger through the air and the gleams off of them.
[01:26:07] The fact he's animated how sharp they are and how shiny they are and they keep on spinning around not just going straight and you have all these camera moves in it.
[01:26:15] It's just like wild fucking shit but I also think it was kind of done by this rebel outlaw crew consciously put in a bunch of really fucking horny shit into the movie.
[01:26:27] It's funny in the beginning when they were when the director so mad at Roger for having birds around his neck because it was a great take. And then he just then he just improvised he improvised birds instead of stars.
[01:26:38] Why would you be so upset about the birds instead of stars? And then at the end of the movie when the bricks fall in the star the callback to the stars going around his head is great.
[01:26:46] Also, I mean you got a as a filmmaker you got to accept the happy accidents. You know maybe it's not what you storyboarded but the birds work the birds play. Do you guys know who that director is at the beginning of the movie? No, Joel Silver. Wow.
[01:27:03] Every time I watch it I'm like who's this character actor who's so good they cast who's like a Joel Silver type. It's actually Joel Silver doing such a good job of playing a Hollywood asshole. That's so funny.
[01:27:17] All those like little touches of like I mean just even when the Patty cake thing and then he Roger Rabbit flips it into a movie basically. He does like the little flip book animation. Oh yeah. It's so great.
[01:27:30] I mean there's just all the little movie like movie touches and nods to just movie history and stuff. And the fact that all the voices are a lot of the original voice, the people who did the voices in the first place right? Isn't there a lot of...
[01:27:43] Yeah, right one of the last Mel Blanc performances. It might be the very last. I mean yeah. It's right at the end.
[01:27:50] And there's so many background characters who are like deep cut animation nerd picks that like jumped out to me where I'm like oh that's like the clown from like the old Fleischer Brothers shorts.
[01:28:03] Like things where you're like there's no reason for them to license it other than that adds verse a millitude that in any of these group shots you're combining sort of like iconic cartoon characters.
[01:28:16] Characters who just look appropriate because they actually have that history even if they aren't known by name to most people. And then these new characters and part of it is that you have that tapestry.
[01:28:28] Like it's one of the reasons why I think you buy all the characters that this movie's created is because you have so many different art styles on screen at the same time. Yeah.
[01:28:39] Yeah and I think the other element of that and this is Griffin you touched on this I think very well earlier but it's just that there isn't a clear like one to one of Roger Rabbit is blank. Benny is blank. Jessica Rabbit is blank.
[01:28:57] It's not like there's a clear existing analog. You know because I think a lazier version of this movie would have been Roger Rat and it just would have been Mickey Mouse. You know what I mean it just would have clearly been Mickey Mouse.
[01:29:08] Mickey Mouse doesn't exist in this world and we're just going to pretend that this is our Mickey Mouse stand in. Are you pitching the Weigur version of this Roger Rat? I've been trying to get Roger Rat off the ground for a while. Not a lot of takers.
[01:29:21] I've been trying to do that and I've also been trying to reboot the Ziggy Christmas special again not a lot of luck. Not bad. Christmas special not bad. Let's talk about Judge Doom and the Dipsy. I was going to say we have to talk about Doom.
[01:29:35] Because we were talking about the different moments that like make us tear up but I also feel like this is a big seminal like this movie scarred me I still am haunted by this imagery movie. Right. Yeah. I can't believe they killed that fucking shoe.
[01:29:49] People will pick different images or different moments for me it's definitely the shoe moment is the one that has always upset me the most. I think part of it is very upsetting.
[01:29:59] I said to David it feels like this movie's version of the like look into your heart Miller's crossing scene. Like the thing that makes it so upsetting isn't just that it's so violent but also that like the shoe is pleading for its life you see experiencing pain.
[01:30:16] Oh it's heartbreaking. It's just like an animal being killed and but they're doing it in a way that you know it's just a cartoon but it still just it hurts your heart for something that's just on screen for just a few seconds and it gets fucking wiped out.
[01:30:31] I mean just a great introduction to the this most evil man on he feels like the most evil guy on earth.
[01:30:38] Well and also the the status of tunes within this reality whereas that their cops all around you know and he is and this this is a shoe he is just executing in cold blood with no consequences. No one cares.
[01:30:52] It's just like no one gives a shit but and it's also like the shoe hasn't even as far as I can tell hasn't even done anything wrong it's just sort of there right. The box got knocked over.
[01:31:00] All the shoes fell out he picked that one randomly and just killed it for sport. If he had feels like murder it feels like he yes it feels like he should be in trouble for that right like it doesn't feel right. You would think so. It's abuse.
[01:31:13] I mean it's one of those scenes where I just now like it freaked me out when I was a kid and now when I watch it I have to like go away inside.
[01:31:21] Yeah if that makes sense like yeah I just have to be like this is a scene from the film Roger Rabbit and that's what I'm watching and that that's why this is not like a thing that I need to be worked up about. I have to detach.
[01:31:34] I got to disconnect myself from because when I was a kid just thinking of the just saying the things that stuck with you the shoe for sure and in Judge Doom is it judge it's Judge Doom. Judge Doom.
[01:31:47] But also like the other is the baby the car and the bullets I really like the bullets or maybe a little bit problematic now but the bullets always stuck with me too but the shoe the shoe scene is just like for a little bit of a time.
[01:32:02] The little kids seeing that moment it just it makes it feel like the it's oh this is like the real deal.
[01:32:09] This is intense Roger Rabbit could be destroyed in this movie and you don't want to see Roger Rabbit get dunked in the dip it really raises the stakes of the entire movie.
[01:32:18] Yeah they had to show a character getting dipped early to for you to understand what was going on.
[01:32:23] And like the fact that the color of the shoe bleeds into the dip and then when he takes his glove out it's like pink colored like it's like you know they're. Essence is dissolving to God I also feel like.
[01:32:37] These types of cartoons that this movie is riffing on pointedly don't have physical stakes right like people can get hit by an anvil and they spring back to life you can run into a wall and then inflate yourself back up there's something so upsetting about seeing a cartoon character actually be destroyed especially in a way that acknowledges that
[01:33:00] they're like kind of made out of paint because it feels like it's a betrayal of the rules that we've all accepted for a century.
[01:33:09] Well no one they even say it might be Judge Doom but who says something like like they thought there was no way to kill a tune right or they thought there was no way to like like it's basically.
[01:33:21] Yeah these would otherwise be immortal so then if you think about snuffing out an immortal life. Yeah I mean that we're like a battle of helms deep elves getting killed shit it's just like holy shit the stakes of dying.
[01:33:33] That's like of non-existence for something that would have otherwise been around forever that's a completely different level of just like you know mortal death.
[01:33:41] Also other than Judge Doom spoilers like the worst cartoon characters we meet in this movie are kind of chaotic you know like the most menacing cartoon character we meet is probably the gorilla bodyguard.
[01:33:56] Bouncer at the club but most of them seem to exist just to give other people joy in one way or another so there's something so upsetting about like why are you murdering a child like the shoe just wants to make you laugh.
[01:34:10] Yeah the evil cartoons are in cahoots with with evil people like the gorilla or like the the weasels weasels yeah yeah.
[01:34:18] To think that like Mickey Mouse could be dunked in dip is just terrifying by the way but right I want to say that Tweety Bird is a real motherfucker in this movie. Well I was gonna say addendum some of them are agents of chaos.
[01:34:31] What's Tweety Bird makes me laugh. He I mean he's funny but he's funny. He sends valley to his death basically. I guess you can't die in two towns. That's something I feel like in two town right yes yeah hey Tweety.
[01:34:47] The fact that he has familiarity with Tweety it's like much like the Betty moment where he speaks to her with a sense of longing in that moment it's like oh this isn't a random occurrence he doesn't just recognize Tweety as a fan they've been through this shit before.
[01:35:02] And that's a funny point because Tweety knows him and David it makes me start thinking is there some sort of situation where valley is fucking Tweety at some point.
[01:35:13] I think it's fair to ask questions this is a very unusual world and like I say he greets him with familiarity I mean I don't know why not.
[01:35:23] It's another thing I love that they all know him that he used to be like toon town was his regular beat he was a friend of toons.
[01:35:31] Right right he he has that line where he said we used to have fun doing we thought it was like funny you know we thought it was a lot of fun. I love how he says that with like total disgust.
[01:35:42] Right he was even if it was somewhat condescending he was friendlier to toons than most humans were. Clearly all have this affinity for him whenever he shows up.
[01:35:52] And his brother's death yeah made him made it made him go a little crazy and that but to talk about toon town in general.
[01:35:59] We just I just want to talk about it for a second because it's insane as soon as they go into town it's insane and I love it in the fake Jessica rabbit is fucking insane.
[01:36:08] I mean Bob there's two crazy parts the two craziest parts of movies Bob Hoskins driving the car and then and then and then Bob Hoskins going into toon town for the first time which is just the flip of the movie where it's just this
[01:36:23] insane cartoon world is the Wizard of Osmo when they're in the tunnel and it's so dark and the end of it is just like a boarded door and the Sylvester music is just like rising and rising and ominousness and then it just opens and it's like a fucking musical number with the trees singing.
[01:36:38] It's incredible. I would have thought that that that that song smile darn you smile I would have thought like I'm surprised that doesn't come up more I'm surprised that isn't a song that has a little bit more staying power.
[01:36:50] I mean I always ask for it back when I would go to the club I would I would ask people to put on. I could get a smile darn you smile but it usually fell upon deaf ears.
[01:37:01] I'm not sure what the titles of the song actually called but like that's that's the part I know of it but like it is it is a thing of just like going back to Judge Doom.
[01:37:08] You get his menace and his malevolence when you see a you know a valiant driving into Toontown and it's just like pure just like joy and like wonder around him. And the fact that he's bracing himself.
[01:37:23] Yeah exactly yeah yeah and and and Doom just wants to like just erase this like I'm almost literally erase it via the dip.
[01:37:31] The movie is so good at holding off Toontown for that long and the way that everyone speaks of it and the fact that the movie itself takes place in such a seedy vein makes you think that Toontown is going to be in some way gross.
[01:37:47] You know you're like well this movie's already transposing cartoon characters into like a hard-nosed world. Toontown is going to be like some sort of ghetto it's going to have crime.
[01:37:57] It's going to be chaos and then the fact that it's so cheery it does really hammer at home and that's where it's just like Hopkins is acting off of nothing.
[01:38:07] Hoskins sorry it's like acting off of nothing like at that point in the movie you're like he's just in a blue screen environment talking to walls. Anthony Hopkins is acting off of nothing and Thor Griffin that's what you're thinking of right no acting.
[01:38:22] I want to go back to Doom for a second there the casting of Christopher Lloyd is so wild especially like coming right off of Back to the Future where this guy's just fully minted as like the lovable lunatic like he's this guy who's so like high wire energy.
[01:38:43] He's such a like sort of like lunatic. Right he's so cheerful. He's very cheerful and innocent even like Reverend Jim in Taxi is like a real innocent character. And then in this to just make him like like a human vulture like the Grim Reaper. Yeah.
[01:39:02] And all the weird makeup they do on him he's got that weird nose and that weird chin and I noticed they also like paint his jawline on to make his face look thinner.
[01:39:11] But in a movie where all the other humans are like you know they're not filling in Bob Hoskins bald spot like they're not making anyone look super glamorous in this movie. The fact that he's so artificial looking.
[01:39:26] Yeah puts you off like it makes you ill at ease before you even start to suspect that he might be a tune because that doesn't feel like a rule that's even been established.
[01:39:36] So I feel like the shoe moment is the one child scarring moment and then the other moment is his eyes right. Like the other moment the freaks kids out did that freak you guys out. Yeah. Yeah and the hair and the buzz saw.
[01:39:50] I remember the eyes really getting me when I was a kid and now when I watch that I'm like this is great this rules like it's so cool. Yeah it just rocks.
[01:39:59] But I also think like the fact that you never see him in full cartoon mode the fact that it's only cartoon elements coming out of this rubber skin. Yeah.
[01:40:10] Even when like Mickey comes in at the end and says like I wonder who he really was there's something that that lingers with you that makes him so horrifying where it's just like who the fuck was this guy like they don't really answer the mystery.
[01:40:23] I do I do wonder I do I do want to I do want to see the tune version of like the full tune version of him. I want to go full tune I want to see full tune. Wow. I need it.
[01:40:37] So people who auditioned and it's crazy again that Lloyd isn't the first choice considering that he worked on but but like Tim Curry apparently auditioned and was too scary. Yeah.
[01:40:47] Which is one of those tapes that I would love to see where like people are watching it like now this is this is just fuck that. And like no one's going to be able to handle this. And then who's Christopher Lee turned it down. Right.
[01:41:00] Which is another one I'd love to see Christopher. I mean Christopher Lloyd's perfect in this movie. But this also kind of feels like Christopher Lloyd giving a Christopher Lee performance for most of the movie. That's fair.
[01:41:12] The reason why you need Christopher Lloyd for this is because I don't know that Tim right exactly the end is like yeah what he pulls off that few actors. Could what's surprising is how scary he is up until that point. I mean he murders a shoe.
[01:41:29] He murders a shoe. No but he does seem legitimately scary and he is and that turn at the end is so like I mean I just feel like no one goes as big as Christopher Lloyd really he just can just explode.
[01:41:44] It sounds like for this part they open the audition page up to just L's. Lee and Lloyd I mean Lee and Lloyd they should have had a double act. They would have been great together.
[01:42:02] I'm happy to never see another Roger Rabbit but I'm also sad to never see another Roger Rabbit I want both I want to never see a sequel and I also would love to see what the sequel would have been so.
[01:42:13] Definitely a ton of scripts that have been written over the years there was one that seems like it got closest to getting made called the tune platoon that would have been a prequel. Of Roger and the tunes fighting in World War One.
[01:42:26] I mean I don't mean to bring him up but you know who worked on the Roger Rabbit sequels right like in the 90s. Who. JJ Abrams. Wow. Then Spielberg you know protege. Wow. It like definitely like was helped helped in developing the movie you're talking about Griffin.
[01:42:45] Still want to see a Mitch. JJ could have done it as much earlier. He could have done it.
[01:42:51] I've read reviews of tune platoon scripts that made it sound good but it certainly feels like a thing that they just struggled with for years and years and I also think the deal structure was very weird on this movie especially in terms of getting Spielberg involved.
[01:43:08] And Spielberg made like a bananas percentage of the gross of this film. Like as a producer he had one of the richest first dollar deals that I think anyone's ever had.
[01:43:21] And it was sort of a thing where Disney retained all of the marketing merchandising rights to Roger as a character and they just went off and did like we'll do three more theatrical Roger shorts.
[01:43:34] We'll do like a lot of Roger merchandising will put him in the theme parks.
[01:43:38] Like that was the area where they could make more money but I always heard that there was an issue where like it's so expensive to make the scripts that were written were even more ambitious than the first film and they would always crunch the numbers and go there's no way we can make this and not lose money because
[01:43:56] between Zemeckis and Spielberg we end up giving away like 60% of the grosses or something like that. It should have just done it. They should have just done it.
[01:44:07] It also just feels like this is I mean there's a toon town in Disneyland and Disney World and it just feels like this sort of thing of like Disney knows to hold on to it like I mean the idea of toon town anyways is a good Disney property is like oh this wacky place that kind of kids like I guess.
[01:44:26] But it does it does feel strange that I'm just like what is the relationship to do young kids still watch Roger Roger Rabbit.
[01:44:34] Do they even know who he like you guys were saying early on is like so I like Roger Rabbit himself when I was a kid but like what does he even represent to people now I don't know because I feel like nerdy people nerdy film fans probably love them but then do what like to a younger generation.
[01:44:53] Do they even know he exists you know what I mean. I don't feel like this is a film that that Gen X parents are showing their kids.
[01:45:01] I could be wrong but I don't feel like this is a what this is along the lines of some of the of like you know even others in mechas is I feel like back to the future yeah you're you know you're seeing your screening that but I don't feel like necessarily that there it's being made a point to pass this down generationally.
[01:45:16] I'm just assuming I don't know.
[01:45:18] Yeah I don't know because like right I'm the youngest of the four of us and I certainly feel like this movie was presented to me as like this is a movie that all kids need to see you know but I don't know how much that extends past like maybe a generation or two beyond.
[01:45:34] Like I know my sister certainly saw it. My sister's 10 years younger than me. Yeah but she had you for her brother. Right and she and she loved it but I also feel like this is my bigger question. I feel like she loved it.
[01:45:49] We watched it a number of times.
[01:45:51] It feels like it was a film that was one of her favorites at a certain age but I also feel like I had curated a lot of the context for her in terms of what I was watching all the time and my big question is like because this movie doesn't over explain itself so many of not just the best jokes but the best plot points are based on trust in the audience's
[01:46:15] knowledge of how cartoons work and I wonder if cartoons have changed in terms of their basic language the types of humor in a way where these things aren't as known as a given to young children but also that I feel like my generation, our generation vaguely was like sort of the last to have to inherit older cartoons.
[01:46:41] You know it was still a time where there was like a lot of reruns happening you were still seeing like Looney Tunes on Saturday morning and 60s Hanna-Barbara cartoons and then even like Cartoon Network when they start in its 24 hours they're filling up so much of their programming with that sort of legacy stuff but I feel like from 2000 on there's just enough new cartoons that kids are never seeing older things.
[01:47:06] That their understandings of these characters and these tropes are so much more limited that even something like what you were bringing up Mitch the fake Jessica Rabbit is so the kind of joke that was repeated in like so many text Avery cartoons that you would see where it's like you know here comes the woman she turns around and her face is like a dog like literally or whatever it is you know.
[01:47:31] The rules of like the being able to throw a hole up into a wall and then be able to transport through it like all these things I don't know if they make sense anymore.
[01:47:43] I'd be very curious as a man who probably will now never have children but like raising kids with this movie. Shut up. What are you talking about? I don't know. In this landscape? Yeah in this landscape. Roger Rabbit made you realize this?
[01:47:57] No, no, no the pandemic made me realize this. But I'm saying- Who was Roger Rabbit admitted? No I used to think man I can't wait to show my children Roger Rabbit someday.
[01:48:07] That was my largest sort of incentive for wanting to have a family was being able to sit them around the fireplace show them some Roger.
[01:48:16] But I don't know. I feel like the movie just works fundamentally but I'm curious if it's one of those movies that still plays even if you don't understand the things it's riffing on or if it's a movie where we're slowly sort of like eradicating its context from the collective consciousness.
[01:48:36] That's the real question. I think you could be right yeah. Kids watch Looney Tunes. No, no that's the question. Do kids watch Looney Tunes? Yeah. 100% do. I don't think they do.
[01:48:46] Because like the piano falling on your head gag which we've touched on a bunch like I feel like a lot of contemporary eyes you grew up on Peppa Pig and Paw Patrol. Right.
[01:48:54] And then maybe you don't have any context for that being a thing like you're just like oh that would kill somebody you don't even understand it's a joke.
[01:49:00] Totally but even like the best of modern children's animation stuff like Adventure Time or whatever has such a different temperament has such a different relationship to its medium.
[01:49:12] I just think there was like 40 years where everything was trafficking in that vocabulary of like the rules of cartoon physics and violence. And then those 40 years of entertainment kept being replayed over and over again to later generations.
[01:49:28] And now people, I think kids just watch whatever premiered on Netflix that week not to be like the cranky old man about it but... Kids today. I'm sure they watch. They don't even know about a spinning bow tie gag.
[01:49:40] I mean the new Looney Tunes on HBO Max I think are really good and have done a really good job of threading that needle between like modern sensibilities and the classic rules.
[01:49:51] They don't feel like they're trying to update them but who knows I feel like the people watching those are me aren't kids. Right. I know what we're going to do. We're going to just make a short of Roger Rabbit eating Jessica Rabbit's ass or vice versa.
[01:50:08] That'll get millennials on board. Kids don't relate to Roger Rabbit. It's because they think he isn't down with eating ass. Griff, Griff this just flashed. I have a news break for you Griff. What? Forky just won an Emmy. What? Forky asked a question. Wow.
[01:50:30] One outstanding short form animated program. Forky my favorite modern cartoon character. Congrats to Forky. Just speaking of cartoon characters. This is like a real life Roger Rabbit moment. The Forky's up at stage in the Emmys winning an award.
[01:50:44] I hope he waddled up to that podium and they had to lower the mic all the way down. I don't want Forky to get COVID though. They got to be careful. Forky safe.
[01:50:54] Well this is the other thing I wanted to say so we'll do a merchandise spotlight sometimes on this show, a segment that is very unpopular that I constantly have been trying to push up a hill for five years. And because you guys are the dough boys,
[01:51:09] I thought oh can I do like a merchandise spotlight based on fast food tie-ins? Like this movie must have had fast food tie-ins but I started digging into it and the tie-ins it had at the time skewed kind of more adult.
[01:51:24] Like they had a promotion with McDonald's and a promotion with Coca-Cola and they animated an entirely new ad that was like Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit going through Drive-In. But it felt like their promotion was just the cups have Roger Rabbit on them now.
[01:51:40] Like the adult super sized soda cups have Roger Rabbit on them now. There weren't toys. Interesting. There wasn't anything like that. It feels like the movie was pitched a little bit more as like you know an all ages thing
[01:51:53] rather than trying to send it straight down the family lane because I think they were trying to overcome the perception that if it's animated no grown-up is going to go see it. They wanted it to seem like a cool movie.
[01:52:05] But then over the years there were multiple times where Roger Rabbit was included in like a Happy Meal promotion but it was always when they would do those sort of like the best of Disney promotions
[01:52:18] where it was just sort of like this month's Happy Meal is like the five biggest Disney characters and Roger Rabbit would be included with like Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Minnie, Roger or it would be like the 10 most famous Disney movies of all time.
[01:52:35] You know and it would be like Pinocchio, Cinderella, Roger Rabbit. Like they were really kind of putting him on that pedestal of we're doubling down on this character being one of our legacy characters. Mitch just changed his virtual background to uh, Rabbit. Yeah.
[01:52:51] Now he's petting it very aggressively. Mitch no, Mitch you're going to hurt it. You don't know your own strength. But even like Toontown was building this like area of Disneyland that was themed around Roger in that environment which over time has become Mickey's Toontown
[01:53:08] and even though it has the Roger Rabbit ride still in it it doesn't really relate to that movie anymore. Like it feels like there was a brief window where they were very committed to making Roger Rabbit like a Disney legacy character even down to the shorts
[01:53:23] and then I think it's once the Renaissance happened, once like Little Mermaid hit and Beauty and the Beast hit, they were like oh we don't want the funny character anymore. We have these big sweeping romantic musicals that are taken seriously.
[01:53:37] We don't need some guy who's only going to work in like shorts and commercials. Yeah, I was surprised on that note. I was surprised by how unceremoniously it was presented on Disney Plus. It was just like you like it's just kind of like right next to like
[01:53:52] you know the Apple dumpling gang rides again or whatever. It's just like it's not even like that it has its own like crazy splash page and I don't know. I mean sometimes I feel like these streaming services try to call a little bit more attention to some things
[01:54:03] and it didn't feel like that at all. Well, this is just another thing in our library. Watch it if you want. It's just like quietly a beautiful 4K transfer that's on there that looks excellent. Yeah, it looks great.
[01:54:14] Do you know one of the things I remember is the car as a plush toy. I remember the there was a plush toy of that car and I think it's like even maybe still exists in some form
[01:54:23] but like at Disney if it's just some shitty toy in Tune Town still. I mean I found there was like a limited amount of merchandise for when the movie came out and I found like a licensor catalog from a year or two later
[01:54:36] from like 1990 that Disney sent out that was like 80 different Roger Rabbit items. Like two years after this movie they were hitting it hard and they just clearly were invested in trying to make this character stick around. I do think there's something kind of beautiful though
[01:54:52] to the fact that the character like as much as it's a bummer because I think Roger Rabbit rules and he deserved to stick around. It's nice that he's kind of crystallized and those shorts are good which they would release before other Disney films.
[01:55:07] I know one of them was before Honey I Blew Up the Kid and I forget where the other one. And then one of them ended up going straight to video it never got released but they were like all really good and they were sort of the farm team
[01:55:19] used to develop people who then later went on to direct the Disney features. Like Rob Minkoff who did The Lion King directed the first two Roger shorts I think. Oh wow. You're right he directed the first two. Was one of those a roller coaster?
[01:55:35] Tommy Trouble and roller coaster rabbit and then there was Trail Mix Up which is from the guy who went on to direct Mulan so another. Wow. Yeah. Can you watch them anywhere? Are they available? I'm gonna watch some of these shorts. I have to measure they're on YouTube
[01:55:53] but it feels like they've never gotten a proper release. No if you buy the 25th anniversary Roger Abba Blu-ray apparently they're on that and I do have that. Okay. So I suppose I could. Wow. I remember some other merch. I remember my dad bought the baby Herman condoms.
[01:56:10] Bringing your dad into this? Yeah really? My father who's passed away he bought the baby Herman condoms. Rest in peace dad. Sometimes you gotta use your dad as a punchline. You gotta do it. You gotta look for the joke you just, yeah.
[01:56:32] Especially if the punchline revolves around his penis being small. Right right of course that's huge. My father like son. Is there anything else we want to discuss before we play the box office game? Any scenes we've forgotten? The only thing I wanted to mention is that
[01:56:46] the guy who's been on the show for a while and he's been on the show for a while and he's been on the show for a while and the only thing I wanted to mention is that I do think in the legendary Mickey Bugs duo appearance
[01:57:02] Bugs puts Mickey to shame. Like I don't even, I feel like Mickey's easy to beat up on because he's kind of like a non-character especially now but like Bugs is being the cool Bugs Bunny that we know and Mickey's lines are just like
[01:57:17] hey Bugs you better tell him. Like he's not doing it. What is Mickey contributing? Like he's like exposing himself. Yeah, he's like the coolest movie star of all time. No one has ever been cooler on screen than Bugs Bunny and he just drips personality
[01:57:31] and Mickey at this point is like a wet fucking blanket. Mickey just immediately goes into like beta mode like he's just like I'll just bounce off of whatever Bugs says I guess. Well I gotta just say that both of them though
[01:57:45] Daffy and Donald just put both of them to shame. I mean the PNLC is just... Oh it's just a better scene. That seems great. I have a moment that I think is great is the moment where there's... I'm looking up his name right now.
[01:58:00] Oh Angelo, so like a guy like Angelo they establishes a dick and then... Oh at the bar? At the bar and Bob Hoskins is like I don't like tunes or whatever and puts his head down and like shoves an egg in his mouth or whatever
[01:58:13] and then he's like that guy's gonna sell you out and then Judge Doom comes in and the guy doesn't sell Roger out. You think he's gonna sell him out? He doesn't sell him out that moment rules. Angelo approves to be a good guy and he likes Roger enough
[01:58:27] that he's not gonna even sell him out. It's awesome. All the human casting is so good. Like the guy who plays Maroon is so fucking good. The Marvin Ackmee guy is so good. Like these people don't have a lot of time to make impressions. They do, yeah. Yes.
[01:58:41] But they also look like faces from like the 1930s. Right. Yes. 100%. And like this movie is like a hop and a skip from like Barton Fink. Like from like similar satires of that era of Hollywood. Like that's basically like the Coen brothers
[01:58:58] could look at this and be like, oh we could use that guy. You know what I mean? Like it's that vibe. It's just such a good movie that there's like nothing to really critique. Of course you can critique how some of the
[01:59:11] the graphics have aged a little bit or whatever when he's driving this car but it still looks fantastic. I mean it's just, it's the, I can't even find much more to say just because I love the movie so much. Yeah. I have literally one critique. Wow.
[01:59:24] There is a moment on the studio lot where there's a saxophone player playing for the cast of Fantasia. Why are I noticing this too? It's not a real saxophone sound. It's a synth saxophone. Wow. And I feel like use a real saxophone. Double read. But double read.
[01:59:42] Double read. Is that also the fact that like maybe it is like a little electronic tune sounding saxophone or something? But it's a human in the human world playing the saxophone, playing a human saxophone. Yeah. So that it should sound like a real saxophone. I got it.
[02:00:01] They should be ashamed of themselves. I noticed it too. It's excusable. I noticed it too. You sucked. I just want to quickly say, I mean I feel like it is easy to underrate Jessica as a character because she feels so much
[02:00:18] like she exists for the sort of eye candy of it and for sort of the running gag of why is she with this guy. But so much of the plot is actually driven by her and she's a character that's constantly revealing new dimensions to herself in terms of
[02:00:35] you're constantly struggling to get a read on what her drive is what her her strategy is. But she's always sort of four steps ahead of everyone else. And I think they're so good about Kathleen Turner's amazing in it. But I also feel like
[02:00:55] there's the thing where she knocks out Roger and Eddie takes that as proof that she's like actually trying to hurt Roger and then he asked her why she did it and she said, well I want to knock him out so no one else could hurt him. Yeah.
[02:01:08] And I think the thing where like she acts more like a human than any other tune enough that she feels closer to an equal to Eddie and that he's constantly kind of tempted by her sexually but then there are these constant reminders
[02:01:21] that she still operates by totally upside down tune logic. Right. The bullets as well. I wanted to shout out the bullets. The bullets are great. That was my favorite gag when I was a kid. And they also get such a hero's entrance.
[02:01:36] And a new character gets like a movie star entrance. Which is it's also that sort of thing of like these old bullets that get their screen time again. It's kind of touching. Right. So let's play the box office game. Let's play the box office game.
[02:01:53] Guys we're going to talk about the top five at the box office the week this movie came out. Griffin's going to show you a guess. You guys can guess as well if you wish of course it came out so the movie was a huge hit. Yeah.
[02:02:07] June 24th 1988 opened to 11 million dollars and made 150 which is you know it's just not how things work anymore and was so you know it was a it was a I feel like it was a hit beyond whatever they imagine.
[02:02:21] Yeah it was the highest grossing film in a really long time it totally revitalized Disney both their live action and animation. 100% so huge. And then they would never take this kind of risk ever again. Right. I went to see this movie opening weekend
[02:02:35] really part with this as a sleepover a sleepover event perhaps my first ever sleepover. So Nick you were like chaperoning a bunch of children on the sleepover. All right. I was a young boy and I remember the movie being sold out I remember it like
[02:02:50] we couldn't see it and we had to see our compromise movie and the compromise movie I have in my head is possibly being one of the box office top five I suppose to give hints what am I what do we do?
[02:03:02] I'm going to give you some hints and if any of these so Roger Abbott number one 11 million dollars that's that's number one movie number two movie is another big comedy of this year with a big $11 million that's even bigger than the opening weekend of Tenet. Huge. Exactly.
[02:03:21] Was John Candy in the movie? John Candy is oh he is isn't well no no he's not in this movie no way I am confusing it with another movie with this star no no John Candy is it not Scrooge not Scrooge it's not like
[02:03:36] at this point he is still a comedy star is it a Robin? No but he's about to transition into mainstream stardom I feel like we recently discussed this movie Griffith. Any Murphy? Hanks. It's a Hanks. It's not big no big is bigger. It is it's big it's big.
[02:03:55] It's big. Wow. Which has been hanging around for a month you know just kicking ass. Like a huge huge hit. Now this is crazy to me because like in my head I remember seeing Big as a kid and Who Framed Roger Abbott so this
[02:04:10] is like a big summer movie. It's a big weekend. We talked about it in our Back to the Future episode as a movie that should fundamentally not be able to handle its premise. Right right exactly yes another sort of fire type that's right that makes sense.
[02:04:29] So number two is big I thought Big might be the movie Nick but apparently not so. No it wasn't big. Number three at the box office is one of those movies it's a comedy with the actor you just named me Mitch yes. Oh it's an idiot.
[02:04:50] Oh it was great outdoors. Great outdoors there you go. Wow. So great outdoors is one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater so this is so that maybe is just not right. Well that makes sense I mean all these
[02:05:08] movies are coming around the same time I mean great outdoors has been out for a few weeks. I have never seen the great outdoors. Do you guys have great outdoors takes? I loved it as a kid and then a lot of people think it kind of sucks
[02:05:21] as a kid I really in the raccoons are like the raccoons which like I think if you were making the movie and the raccoons were inserted into it like you'd hate the raccoons but I loved it as a kid. Annette Benning's film debut The Great Outlaw. No way.
[02:05:37] The first movie yeah. Isn't that crazy? She's like famous like three years later like I feel you know what I mean she's like in the grifters right away after that. I also I feel like he's like as a movie star is incredibly weird because he never really
[02:05:55] figured out what his leading man persona was but he also abandoned doing characters pretty early on. Like he sort of went to playing every man roles but you're like what is his energy you know? Yeah am I supposed to root for Dan
[02:06:12] Ackroyd or not like that's sort of the weird thing about him in the 80s like is he the everyman? He's just too focused on his vodka brand. Of course he already got about it. He just dreamed of skulls. He was starting the distillation process.
[02:06:26] He's the skull guy right? Yeah. There's still skull yeah. Alright next movie it was number one the previous week it's taken a big dip compared to these the other you know comedies back in the day when comedies would just play weeks and weeks basically making
[02:06:42] the same out of like. It's taken a big dip? Who directed this movie? Judge Doom? Griffin that was excellent. Very good. Thank you. I loved it. Thank you I leaned all the way into my web cam. That's your favorite punchline mode just leaning all the way into the
[02:06:56] camera. Alright this is one of those action star action star and funny man movies right? Like uh oh like this is a mismatch. Is it red heat? It's red heat. Wow! How did you do that? Shorts and anger and my brain is broken. Jim Beluche of course.
[02:07:15] This is the only thing I can do. Wow Griff I'm impressed. You weren't even like another 48 hours first you went straight to red heat nailed it. I went straight to red it was a feeling look a lot of times it's a feeling
[02:07:25] but it's like I have like a mental map it's like there's a web in my head and I think about like when things happen in relation to other movies and people's careers and events you know it's like everything's itemized this way.
[02:07:38] This to me though is insane that it was number four I mean I can't believe that that movie was ever in the previous week. You have been number one in the previous week. I mean Shorts and Eggers big at that point. Directed by Walter Hill who made
[02:07:51] both 48 hours and another 48 hours so you weren't that far off Nick. It's also like you look at like Belushi and Ackroyd three and four at the box office people were like so unwilling to give up the 70s Sardine live thing that they'll take a Belushi brother.
[02:08:11] I was about to say I mean wrong but right there they're just like look if it's a Belushi. Sure that's my point there like we don't even care any Belushi at this point please we're not ready to move on. I just love that it's also Shorts
[02:08:23] and Eggers he's like a Soviet cop right or something he's like you know and he's in uniform and he has a gun and Belushi has a cup of coffee instead of a gun even though I think he's also a cop right like he would have a gun
[02:08:37] but he's like a Chicago cop he loves eating a hot dog or some shit. They'll just pull a cup of coffee on you. All right number five Griffin it's a franchise that we have discussed so much during this lockdown over text message. Is it Crocodile Dundee?
[02:08:54] But which one is it? Two? It's Crocodile Dundee two. Wow. David and I have been talking about Crocodile Dundee and Paul Hogan's filmography a lot despite the fact that still neither of us have seen any Crocodile Dundee move. I've seen the first one on TV like
[02:09:12] when I was a kid that's about it. I keep saying to David like fuck it I'm gonna do it I'm gonna watch all three Crocodile Dundee's tonight and I keep on not doing it. There was a big gap between two and
[02:09:23] three but I watched one and two pretty obsessively as a kid. Really? It's the origin of the that's not a knife this is a knife. Yes I mean I understand there had to be a 13 year gap between two and three though because they had to
[02:09:36] take that long to figure out the new thing. I mean that's not something you can just think about like you know like I like tossing ideas around like they had to really workshop that. It's also it's just the phenomenon I'm so fascinated by of like him landing
[02:09:51] here this movie being like this Australian culture clash fish out of water movie and everyone being like oh my god Australia's biggest comedy star they're finally giving him to us and Australia was like he's like maybe in our top ten. Right take him.
[02:10:06] Like we weren't trying to present this guy as being our represent he's fine. Griff I have to read the tagline for crocodile Dundee to you. Okay you have to hear this it's very important okay so you know in the first poster for the first movie I
[02:10:21] believe he's sort of pulling the skyscrapers apart he's like right oh it's me. Like it's tall grass. Right right exactly the second movie he's standing atop the skyscrapers he's like a giant he's like ten times bigger than the Empire State Building he's got his knife and it
[02:10:37] says the tagline is the world's favorite adventure is back for more pause much more that's it that's that's a whole tagline he's back for much more. Is the female lead on the poster with him for two? Yep he's he's he's you know he's
[02:10:54] grabbing her he's got him in his arms. Because he marries her between one and two and I feel like he very much front and centered her on the sequel. It's just wild for me that they were like what should the what should the
[02:11:05] premise of the sequel be and they're like I don't know he's just he's still crocodile Dundee like that's it. Like you know he's just still in New York. My guess would have been big great outdoors Roger Rabbit all sold out, crikey go CCD too.
[02:11:22] So Nick we're done with the game but what was your movie? Not on that list and perhaps a perhaps a bomb or perhaps I'm misremembering the weekend but the movie we saw instead of who framed Roger Rabbit was Willow. Wow. Willow seems earlier to me.
[02:11:40] Maybe it had been in theaters for a while. You know movies a movie would come out in May and still be in theaters in August it was a different time. Willow will be like 84. Willow is in the top ten it's number eight. Wow.
[02:11:54] So yes Willow was hanging around you've also got Bull Durham little too grown up for you I would imagine. You've got big business. Oh my god that's a popular over here. It's crocodile Dundee's pissed off. Keep that in. Who's the food delivery? Wait what's big business?
[02:12:17] Big business is Lily Tomlin and Beth Middler. That's one of the Disney movies you were talking about. Another Lily Tomlin, Beth Middler it's a very weird film. It's fun. So why did they fake a crocodile Dundee sequel? Was there any point to that just
[02:12:34] to go back to that for a second? What do you what? What do you tell you remember there was like a thing where they're like yes it was for a fucking Australian tourism they pretended like they were rebooting crocodile Dundee with Danny McBride but it
[02:12:47] was actually they were teasers for a Super Bowl commercial right Australian tourism. Just remake it if you're going to do it. Don't pretend. Was Paul Hogan involved in those at all? I think he wasn't at all Crocties more like they were pretending that McBride
[02:13:07] they were pretending that McBride was playing Hogan's half-American son and then like every big Australian movie star was in those ads with him like Margot Robbie was in them Chris Hemsworth. I think Hogan wasn't. Can I share very very quickly the really funny crocodile Dundee 2 anecdote? Please.
[02:13:29] I know we've gone long but this is just such a good story that I think you guys would appreciate. Colin Quinn was hired to have like one line in crocodile Dundee 2 as like an up and coming you know sort of like New York comedian.
[02:13:42] His role is credit as onlooker and mansion. I think he literally had one line and they gave him the script and he regret it and he's like 24 whatever and he's like this script is fucking garbage. You know what I could use? He could use like a sidekick who's
[02:13:56] like a street wise New Yorker and Colin Quinn did a rewrite of crocodile Dundee 2 and then when he went to set handed them the script and was like hey I thought you guys might appreciate this. I feel like your movie could use. That's so good.
[02:14:10] And I think they maybe took away his line. I think he's now in the movie non-speaking but it's one of the best movie star stories of just like being a young actor and being like oh you know I'll appreciate if I rewrite the movie
[02:14:25] and make myself the second lead. That's great. That's great. That's great to take then he's back for more much more. I mean Colin might have been right. Right. You know. I would love to see that version. Yeah. Yeah me too. That'd be way better.
[02:14:44] Yeah Bull Durham, big business, Funny Farm, Willow and the Presidio. Funny Farm. Funny Farm pretty good. Yeah you got like you got Chase Ackroyd and a Belushi in the top 10. Like the shadow of 75 SNL lasted for a long time. Funny Farm I remember being on
[02:15:03] Siskel and Ebert's top 10 list and me being as a kid being like I can't, just how did this happen? It's it's but it's a comedy those movies don't go on top 10 lists and like not understanding that sometimes a critic just you know likes the movie like that.
[02:15:17] You're right. Ebert called it a miracle and Siskel said it was the best Chevy chase in all time and compared it to like a Preston Sturgis movie. Yeah. That's incredible. Did they both put it on their separate 10s? I believe so that's my memory.
[02:15:31] Yes they did and the wildest thing is like it was a movie that got buried by like big and Crocodile Dundee 2 and like you know Roger Rat but you know like it was a movie that did not succeed at all. Like it was the end of Chevy
[02:15:45] Chase is a comedy big shot I feel like is around me. I've been watching a lot of TV shows like The Warrentine as like one of the most relaxing shows out there. It's like my version of I think what other people turn to Bob Ross
[02:16:00] for but I watched this one where they were like it was their movies of the year. They're like under sung hidden gems or something like that and they called out this comedy that I had like never heard of. I'm forgetting what it even was
[02:16:15] now but it had like a couple big actors in it and it was a high level movie that I've ever seen and it's like a movie that has any right to be and it's clearly like the emergence of a major new comedy director this
[02:16:29] director who wrote and directed it. I think that's what it is. High risk. Yes. Gregory Heinz. James Brolin. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Anyway anyway anyway right. Cleveland little it's a weird cast Anthony Quinn and the movie is like a big hit. It's like a big hit.
[02:17:15] It's like a big hit. I think it's a great cast Anthony Quinn anyway Nick. Thank you so much for doing the show. What a delight thank you. Thanks for having us for such a great movie great such a film anytime you guys want a
[02:17:33] movie just let us know you get first round pick. The King's a podcasting we've set it before but you guys Dave and I constantly talk about how you guys are the absolute And by crib I mean steel.
[02:17:48] But it's truly we want to do this for a long time. It's a bummer that, you know, a pandemic is the thing that finally made podcast crossovers happen. But also it's it's one of the few silver linings I feel like
[02:18:01] of this whole thing is that we've gotten to be text chain buddies and done these appearances. You guys came on our show. It was a delight to a couple of episodes, much beloved or thrilled to come back to return the favor up here on your show.
[02:18:15] So, so fun and everyone get out of our Twitter mentions. We did each other shows. Yeah, it's happened. Yeah, you never did it. OK, we did the shit ever again. Stop bothering us with your engagement in the things we make. And by the way, not proctologist.
[02:18:36] I forgot the joke already. I was trying to do the callback to the very boy. All right. All right. Let's wrap it up. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to And for good for help with the show and social media.
[02:18:52] Go to our Shopify page for merch. Go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit. Tune in next week for Back to the Future part two because this really is a miracle run and on our Patreon doing the alien franchise commentaries.
[02:19:15] And as always, Who Framed Roger Rabbit gets five forks. Hey, five forks. Platinum Play Club, right? Right. A hundred percent. Platinum Film Club, for sure. Wagga and I think four and a half forks. The saxophone wasn't real. Listen. Yeah, you got to talk for that.
[02:19:39] I take it back. Absolutely.