Blank Check with Griffin & David - 1941 with Mike Mitchell & Nick Wiger

Episode Date: February 2, 2025

He invented the summer blockbuster. He inspired millions of people around the world to “watch the skies.” And now, he has sent Griffin Newman into an existential crisis over the question “what is comedy?” Our friends Mike Mitchell and Nick Wiger of The Doughboys join us to talk about Steven Spielberg’s infamously unfunny 1941. Why IS this film - loaded with so many comedic superstars - boring as shit? Is the opening scene one of the most embarrassing exercises in hubris ever committed to screen? Would this movie be better if they just inserted the entirety of Dumbo into it? Why does Eddie Deezen keep getting banned from dining establishments? Someone has to ask these things. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank Check with Griffin and David. Blank Check with Griffin and David. Don't know what to say or to expect. All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check. Blank Check. The most explosive podcast ever made. Wait, that's what you did? Okay, so here's the thing. Is that the tagline or something? I was digging through all the trailers and the posters last night and there was one I was trying to find that was, I can't quite locate, but all of the trailers kept using these taglines that are like the most explosive comedy spectacular in history.

I just know a comedy spectacular This is the thing that's the tagline I know from one of the advertising materials I saw combined the two because a lot of the trailers kept on saying the most explosive movie ever made and the pod the Posters keep saying a comedy spectacular and one of them combined it and it speaks to the inherent issues with this movie Okay, but they're selling of it was this is so funny and so big I mean That's the movie at large, but okay, but they were just saying that as a statement and being like don't you wanna see a movie? That's really loud and expensive and has jokes in it and you're like, what's it about? And they're like don't worry about that

Uh-huh the most it's the most movie. What about this one? this one the screen will be bombarded by the most explosive barrage of... And it looks like the word shit in Japanese... Correct. ...ever filmed. Mm-hmm. So again, it's just like, right, like... Most.

Screen-filled. Like, there won't be a dull second. No, and this is one of those classic cases of most equaling best. Uh, yes, exactly. That's... I mean, that's the story of 1941, Griffin. Yes. It's the most movie ever made. And we all agree that it's probably the great American film. He took 10 minutes to do this. Yes, please? I did not take 10 minutes.

It's all excess. It's, it's spectacle. Like, it at least delivers on spectacle. But I, my question for you is, did you consciously avoid a quote from the movie because you couldn't find a line of dialogue that didn't have an Asian slur? Nick, there was a quote on the INDB page I was close to and then I realized it had an African American slur in it. Oh, very good. I think there are very few quotes from this movie.

There are very few distinctive lines that don't have something. I don't think there are really a lot of distinctive lines, period. And that's why I was like. I didn't say memorable, I said distinctive. I was just like, what are you even looking for? I don't really know what the killer line from 1941 is.

I was looking for the tagline. I was looking for this one statement. But it speaks to how this movie had six similar taglines that were used in alternation All of which are just trying to get the same point across which was big and funny Expensive there's the acroid monologue, but there's nothing in that that really couldn't like like I can even Remember specifically, you know, like when he's up on the tank and he's trying to calm everyone down during the you know Zoot suit riot. I can barely understand what he's saying during that.

Yeah, like screaming at the top of his lungs. Just his weird, like, fast autistic computer speak, right? It's like the most extreme version of, I'm dead, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm shooting at you, when I die. No. Everyone is acting... Like his, like, used car salesmanship.

Yeah, every line has the intensity of Christopher Lloyd in the Adams family Just like everyone is just shouting everything. Here's a fun question. I thought of a watch. Yes film last night if you If you were talking to someone who had seen this but had no frame of reference for Dan Aykroyd as a person How would you describe to them who Dan Aykroyd plays in this movie? He is first billed. I know it's because of alphabetical, but his face is big on the poster. He's one of the people the movie was sold on.

He's a huge fucking star at this moment. Yeah, sure. I don't think you could explain to someone what his character does in this movie in a way that really clarifies who he was amidst the 80 characters. It's hard to even know his function in the plot, like exactly. The closest you could say is like there's a 10 minute stretch where he's like concussed and is doing weird shit, but you're like that could describe almost any character in this movie during any 10 minute stretch.

He's kind of a voice of reason. Kind of? Sort of. At moments amongst the various people who are going crazy. Right? Yes, but that's also, once again, you're describing. This is a terrible challenge. I hate the challenge. I just think it's fascinating that this movie is like, we got Ackroyd, and you're like, how are you applying him?

And they're like, we don't really know. My first note was not enough slurs, so... like we don't really know. My first note was not enough slurs, so. I, um. So I, I didn't really, I got, you guys are right. I now, now in hindsight, oh wait, those were really bad. You gave it one star on Letterboxx, but only for that reason. Lack of commitment.

One star per hundred slurs. It topped out there. Hi, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David, the most explosive comedy podcast ever made. I'm Griffin. I'm David. You look very worried. This movie really bummed. Well, not bummed me out it's too strong, but I was just kind of like, I have never seen

it in full. Yeah, same. And I really just had that thought of like, it's gonna be like interesting. We all think that. Everyone thinks this. And like, there'll be like kind of, you know, a lot to excavate about. And there is to some extent, like, but it's just, I was just kind of flabbergasted by how boring it was.

Do you mind reciting the thing you texted us yesterday while you were watching it? Let me find it? Yeah Yeah, this is a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in their career such as making jaws and close encounters of the third kind sure and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want such as 1941 sure I mean a perfect example of like two mega successes followed by a No notes disaster has have you ever ever had someone who's been so, like so sure that they were making a disaster because this was like, they're gonna hate this.

I'm just gonna bomb, right? That's a good point. It's a bounce that he sees coming while he's making it, I think. What's also weird about it is we've maybe covered things that are like bounces that people see coming, but it's bounces where they're like, look, there's some esoteric uncommercial thing I've always wanted to do. And I have the cash to do it and I'm leveraging it to get this out of my system.

But this is like him making something ostensibly in the trappings of what should be a popcorn movie and just doing it incorrectly and knowing he's fucking it up. I watched this, there's an hour and 40 minute documentary on the Blu-ray which has been carried over from the laser disc. This thing has been ported over for like 25 years onto various editions and it's mostly talking heads of just like Spielberg, Zemeckis, John Milius, Bob Gale.

And he says, my operating principle on this movie was anything goes. And he was like, I don't want anyone to explain to me that it's a bad idea. We can do anything we want, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense. And I'm like, this feels like a guy who actually wants to like like, fuck up on purpose

because he's feeling the burden of being seen as a golden child. He's like running headlong into the wall, being like, what happens if I hit my head against the wall? Right. And he's like, either it works and I'm literally unstoppable, or I'm grounded in a way I maybe need at this moment. This is a mini-series on the films of Steven Spielberg. It's called Podrastic Cast.

Today we are talking about his first bounce, 1941. A World War II movie. In a manner of speaking, yes. Sadly, because our guest today would be very, very well suited to talk about a World War I movie. Go on. Well, they host the Doughboys podcast. Oh, wow.

We're one war off. We were both scratching our heads. You guys were like, huh? What? Which one's that? No, of course, the Doughboys are... were the names of the soldiers. The American soldiers. Right, and in World War II,

they were called the Action Boys with a Z, right? We should have cut... Kavris and Hodgers and Stanger on. The British soldiers were called Tommy. Okay. That was like how British soldiers were referred to, like the sort of- Interesting. In World War I, the classic British soldier was called Tommy.

What were American- Doughboys is what it was called. No, before World War II. I don't know, G.I. Joe? I don't know. Google type away. Nick Weiger and Mike Mitchell. Hi.

What's up? Hey, buddy. Thanks for having us. Of course. Can I say one thing to your listenership? First off, I'm a huge fan of the podcast, Mitch and I are both big fans of the podcast. God bless you.

Always happy to be, to guest on, always honored to guest on the show. This is the first time, I feel like every time we've guested on Blank Check in the past, I think this is the case with how you tend to schedule your show. We've been like 18 months in advance

of when the mini seriesseries comes out. It's like... Now we're close. Exactly. I was listening to the duel episode on the commute to the studio. So it's like we're very... We're almost caught up to the present with this Spielberg series.

Isn't this also kind of the first time you guys have not been on a movie that's like a really sort of big kind of weighty movie? You know the three previous movies you guys have covered. Who Framed Roger Rabbit, They Live, and Seven. on a movie that's like a really sort of big kind of weighty movie. You know the three previous movies you guys have covered? Who Framed Roger Rabbit, They Live, and Seven. Yeah. They are really good movies.

They are all at least in conversation for that director's masterpiece. If not the undisputed one, they're at least in that talk. And this is, you're getting what is, like, I don't want to say inarguably, but pretty widely considered a single worst film, you'll find very few people who put something lower. At the bottom. Right. It's like, I mean, you know, it's like how whatever, George W. Bush is a bottom five president, right?

Well... You know how people do rankings of presidents, these historians, they're always like ranking presidents? Yeah. I always think it's really weird. My well was sarcastic, I want to state that because no one laughed. You don't like George W. Bush, sure, fine. I don't like him, I love him! No, what I was going to say is... Dogface.

They were called the Dogfaces? Dogface was a nickname for US Army soldiers, especially enlisted infantrymen in World War II. Wow. Kind of insulting. Yeah. It does seem insulting. Wow. Kind of insulting. Yeah. It does seem insulting. To use my current favorite...

I didn't realize my first wife served. Well, I'm getting back at it. I'm getting back at it. First wife. To use my recent favorite word on the podcast, I do feel like this is kind of like, inarguably Spielberg's greatest folly. Mm-hmm.

Right? This is like the biggest swing and a miss and the sort of public fallout kind of like humbling moment. It is a big swing. I mean, that's the thing. It's, he's trying stuff. And yes, and my tepid defense of this movie, which I have seen before, Mitch, I don't know, had you ever seen this before? No, I've never seen it.

This is the first time I've ever seen it. I watched this movie as a child. I saw this when I was in elementary school and it, along with another Ackroyd movie, Dragnet, I don't know if y'all remember the Dragnet. Oh, worse, City of Crime. It was a comedy, yeah. That was like one of the first times I saw a comedy

with someone I thought was funny, where I was like, why is this not funny? Like I was like, I had like a nine-year-old brain of like not understanding how someone who was funny could be, was capable of being unfunny. This is why I'm so happy you guys are on for this episode. Because, I mean, as you said... Because we're experts on unfunny. ALL LAUGH

Why are these comedians not making me laugh? It's so weird. ALL LAUGH I got, the Stanley Kubrick tape... Apple tagged this as a comedy podcast. ALL LAUGH The comedian's not making me laugh. It's so weird. I got... I... The Stanley Kubrick take... Apple tagged this as a comedy podcast. The Stanley Kubrick take is I agree with maybe. Kubrick thinks it's a great movie, but just is not funny at all.

Yeah, right. You should have released it and sold it as a drama. Which I... And I'm sure you all have some of this in the dossier, but I was shocked to find that this was originally developed as a drama. But like the thing I picked up on, I watched it twice for this episode. And the thing I picked up- It's theatrical cut both times?

Yeah, I just watched the theatrical cut twice. The, I've maybe, I was realizing this, I've maybe saw the extended cut because I watched it on TV as a kid. Maybe that's the version I saw. Extended cut was the one that was largely- It was a TV mainstay. Right, and then was on home video for a while.

Now it's optional, yeah. Yeah, so I watch it, but the thing I picked up on, speaking of Kubrick that I didn't pick up on as a kid, not knowing who Slim Pickens was, once Slim Pickens showed up, I was like, oh, he's trying to make Dr you know, Dr. Strangelove. Like, this is an attempt at that sort of, that level of, you know, war satire.

Which, by the way, Slim Pickens plays a, he's a doughboy, he's a former doughboy. That's right, he is a former doughboy. He served. This is true. And he does give Wendy's four forks in the room. He does. Even though I think still this has gotten bad.

Right, even though, right, and the app isn't as good anymore. There's that scene where he keeps saying, Cigarettes are back! I don't know why my Slim Pickens impression is goofy. It was fine. No, this is a perfect movie where you're like, Why is none of this funny? And you're watching it, and you're like, There isn't like a clear like, why is none of this funny? And you're watching it and you're like,

there isn't like a clear like, well, this is obviously conceptually doomed unfunny, but just every moment there's like a black hole of comedy. I'm just kind of like, why am I not laughing? Like, this is funny. Why am I not laughing? This is a vaudevillian, you know, big, silly slapsticky stuff, why am I kind of like, is it too good in a way?

Like is Spielberg too good at staging action? And so I'm actually kind of just like watching what happens and it's not quite, you know, goofy enough. I don't know. Goofy things happen, yeah. I have a couple takes, but I, you know, the reason we're recording this closer to the date was we were trying very hard to make this an in-person record, you being on the east coast and then it didn't quite work out and there was a question of like

You guys are going to be doing a live show here in a couple months Should we wait and reschedule you for something later? And I was like, maybe we do something later as well But you guys on 1941 really feels right and watching it last night I was like there is a larger conversation to be had here without getting academic, a dumb version of this conversation. Where watching this movie genuinely makes me step back and go like, what is funny?

Yeah, right, how does something become funny? Why is anything funny? Because it's really weird to watch incredibly funny people in circumstances where you're like, I could see this being funny and things like that are not ineptly crafted, you know, and are certainly given all the resources and support they need, and there's like anti-laps

without it feeling like anti-humor, without it feeling like disastrous failed humor, it's just not fucking funny. Yeah, it's like John Belushi in a fighter know, in a fighter jet cracking a Coke bottle in half and then gargling with it and then throwing it out the, you know, throwing it to the ground. Like that could be funny. Like that could be a bit of physical comedy watching this like, okay, all the pieces are here but you're watching and it just feels abrasive or like nothing at all.

I watched the extended cut, which is two and a half hours long. I had a notes app that was right down every time When you laugh. you audibly make a sound. And I believe I had five full laughs. Four farts? A lot of farts. Farts were their own note.

I think I had five like, huh, and like two like, huh, kinda half-chuckles. Not bad, honestly. Yeah, it was a little higher than I was expecting. I will say they basically ended by the one hour mark. Like at some point the movie just wore me out. I think there were none in the last hour possibly, but the Belushi Coke bottle is one that got me.

I will say anytime Belushi is on screen, it at least resembles comedy. There's energy, sure at least resembles comedy. There's energy. It is comedy adjacent. You're like, I'm not laughing, but I get this is comedy. Whereas other scenes you're like, I don't even know what I'm seeing anymore. But wait, I do want to hear. Yeah.

So, okay, Nick, you'd already seen 1941. Yes. You had some memory of it. What did you guys admit you'd never seen? What did you guys think of 1940? Just broadest reaction. I think it's good that what Griffin was saying with the Doughboys are good guests to have on for this. I can tell you why I think it doesn't work as a comedy. You were afraid

of me waving my finger there. I'm sorry. Yeah, you're getting riled up. I am getting riled up here. Well, because he's about to say it's too woke. I'm about to give a little acroid type speech right here. Hell yeah. Ungapachka. Why why is there so much? There's too much, there's too much going on at once.

I wrote down Steven Speedberg, that's what I said, because the- Wow. Mitch! Steven Speedberg, he's going nuts, there's a million, it's that sort of thing with comedy where you're like, oh, you gotta let things breathe a little bit, no joke. There's almost not a single joke that gets to kind of breathe in the movie.

It's all so deliberate, so fast. And then also at the same time, people are falling over or yelling other lines at the same time. It's like such an insane, like maybe it's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad world or something. He was trying to like evoke that or something, but it's just too much stuff. There's a, it has, it's the unrelenting cacophony of like a, you know, the Waterworld stunt show at Universal, you know what I mean?

It just like kind of like things are just keep happening. And you can take that for 20 minutes, but if you take it for two full hours, it just, you get numb to it. Yeah, it's like every single scene has a car exploding or someone getting punched in the face or a building. People getting knocked over by cars constantly. People getting knocked over by cars, a building collapsing.

There's like Robert Stack just giving exposition outside the movie theater at a certain point. In the background, a Jeep just flips randomly. And it's just hard to like track what's happening. By the way, one of the funniest moments for me is him just going and enjoying Dumbo. That's like such a great moment. Which is a quieter moment.

Yes, yeah. The best moment in the movie is when any time Dumbo is playing and I'm watching Dumbo, locked the fucking Dumbo, being like, God, Dumbo is so good. Thinking about like, should I show my daughter Dumbo? And then being like, Dumbo is really sad. Like it really is upsetting, like the mom. And I'm like having all these thoughts about Dumbo.

The movie is by the way, you know, now like being like moving on from Dumbo. And I'm like, I'm still thinking about Dumbo. My friend Alejandro used to have a stand up bit about the reason why Atlas shrugged is so long is in the middle of the book. The main character reads another book. And he's like in great expectations, just you read the full great expectations and then on

page 500 it goes and she closed the book and said wow what a good book here's and it's like that with Dumbo where you're like Dumbo is like famously 50 minutes long. It's very short. Watching the extended cut of the movie I'm like you could have just given me Dumbo in full and I would have been people be like, let's sit down. Yeah. Look, Steven Spielberg, this is what I want to throw to you guys. I'm sort of realizing it. I look at my Spielberg rankings.

OK. I think the worst five movies he's made are his comedies. Shump, totally sober. I'm inclined to say you're right. Obviously, things like, you know, like the Indiana Jones movies are fun adventure movies. They have comic tones.

Like, so it's same with Tintin. Sugarland Express is like sort of a comedy, kind of like comedy drama, you know, caper, right? Catch Me If You Can is a comedy, but you know, it's again, like a caper movie. It's very melancholy. I was gonna say, I mean, Sugar Land and Catch Me If You Can operate on a similar register of being kind of like,

dramedy. Yeah, I'm keeping those like... With a chase structure. To me, his... Versus straight comedy. His worst films are 1941, The Terminal, Hook, Always, and... I'm sorry, The BFG. No, I agree.

And like, I mean, The BFG is a kids movie, but it is, you know, sort of a... Sucks and is for losers. Right. 1941, The Terminal, and Hook. is a kid's movie, but it is, you know, sort of a kind of... Sucks and is for losers. Right. 1941, The Terminal and Hook. Yes. But especially 1941, his two worst movies are his two, like, straightest attempts at a comedy. But I feel like you hear people say this a lot.

And maybe people disagree on his worst movies. Especially in discussing 1941. No, but I think I have the same five as you in maybe a slightly different order. When people discuss, like, Spielberg, they're like, and of course his Achilles heel is he can't do comedy. And when this came out at the time, people were almost celebrating like, thank God, this guy isn't invincible. He's got a weakness.

He can't do comedy. What's weird about it is I think Spielberg is incredibly good at putting comedy into non comedic movies. 100%. Yes! He can have such a light touch. And it's part of his magic is his balance is like even in something like Saving Private Ryan, which is like so relentless, it could be so dire, he'll have stuff like Jeremy

Davies doing like physical comedy. Yeah, that shit's funny. Where you're like, he's really good at the instincts of like, when do you like, take your foot off the gas a little? Have a little reprieve something that doesn't feel flippant to the rest of the tone all the indian-jones movies are funnier than this movie for Instensibly comedies. I'm a park is funnier than this movie. I Directed yeah, right, but it's like when he's like, you know what I want to do I want to just simplify and just do a straight comedy.

He like falls apart. Yeah, he seems to be searching for whatever, a superstructure he can't have. This movie also, I mean, this movie's real problem is, what is this movie about? Well, this is the thing to talk about. Cause I know what the movie is about. It's about a genuine historical event

that they're having fun with and supersizing What the fuck is this movie about like what am I supposed to walk out thinking? Two really interesting things I found out in this Special feature documentary right and like I think at the beginning of it Spielberg says like, you know, they liked it in Europe Uh-huh, and he's like so I go to Europe when I want to feel better about 1941 but he was like basically it felt like we made this movie that only like me Milius and the two Bobs enjoyed right like he's sort of like none of us have any shame we had such a good time making this and it felt like our big fuck you

to everything and everyone and we just had uninhibited fun right but the two things they said that stuck out to me, one is they're talking about the development of this project, which as you said, Weigert started out as a drama and then at some point transformed into a comedy. And they're talking about how the two Bobs, Zemeckis and Gale discovered this real incident that they morphed and combined with a couple other things, the idea of there being a Japanese attack on California. And they're talking about like that felt like a great starting point for a movie.

And then Bob Gale goes, I mean, in real life, the event happened in 1942. And I'm like, wait a second. So right off the bat, why the fuck is this movie called 1941? That's a fair point. It's a good point. I mean, the battle of Los Angeles did take place in 1942.

That is not the big problem, but it feels emblematic of like, you can't even explain to me why you're doing this. Why is the title of a movie a different year than when the thing happened? Why are we changing things willy nilly? The other thing was he talked about how the Robert Stack character, he originally offered

to John Wayne, that was his wildest dream. This is what I know, yeah, sure. Well, then we'll talk about this. John Wayne to do the film. Right. And he had like developed a friendship with John Wayne. They get the script to John Wayne, and John Wayne is like, you shouldn't make fun of this.

The way Spielberg put it, he was like, I'm on the phone with John Wayne. John Wayne pitched me a project he wanted to do. I was like, I actually have a script, would you mind reading it? He's like, absolutely send it over. And he's like, John Wayne, like, called me within two hours of the messenger dropping the script off.

He clearly had read it immediately. And was irate at me. He was really mad. And was like, how fucking dare you? American soldiers fought and died for this. I thought you were an American. I thought you were gonna make a movie to honor World War II. This dishonors the memory of what happened.

Don't even make this film. I'll be very disappointed if you wind up making this picture. And the way Spielberg put it was he- Oh my God, wow. Did he at least call him Pilgrim at the end? Yeah, and then he threw out some racial slurs. The way Spielberg put it, he was like, John Wayne was like, this script is a slap in the face to the US military.

And Spielberg's retort was, I don't think it's a slap in the face. I think it's a pie in the face. I have face to the US military. And Spielberg's retort was, I don't think it's a slap in the face, I think it's a pie in the face. I have respect for the US military, I just think it's fun to put pie in faces. And I'm like, there's the whole problem right there. This movie has no fucking point of view. It doesn't really have a perspective, yeah.

John Wayne's like, this is offensive because it's not taking the military seriously. And Spielberg's like, I have nothing critical to say about the military, I just think it's funny when pies go in people's faces but like right it's a going back to you know the the kind of attempt at making you know a Doctor Strangelove it's like Doctor Strangelove has a point of view like you understand what it's saying about like Cold War hysteria this one I have no

idea what it's trying to convey. Or is there like a mash? Dr. Strangelove is anti-war. Mash is anti-war. These are movies with like, 1941, I kind of agree with John Wayne. Like, I'm like. I agree with him on a lot of things, dammit. On a lot of things. Mostly his Playboy interviews.

Where I'm kind of like, well, and I guess that we can talk about how it turned from a drama to a comedy. Cause it's like, yeah, that what it's about is like a paranoid on edge nation after Pearl Harbor kind of like, you know, exploding into suspicion and chaos and all that. And the movie's like, I guess it's kind of like, yeah, these dorks. And I'm like, they're not dorks. They're freaking out and it's causing problems. Like, it's causing problems.

Like, it's scary. Something like The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, which is another movie that feels like a big influence on this. That to me is the most obvious animal. And that's a movie about paranoia that is funny. The Russians Are Coming is funny. And it's also like, that movie functions more

as social satire, where it's about like the American public reacting to something rather than like a scathing indictment of the military. Yeah. And it's like, that's a take two. Yeah. I know, and instead this movie is just kind of like, everyone's dumb. No, to me this movie is like, we have lots of money.

Yes. Also, but anyway, Nick, what are we gonna say? Oh, I was just gonna say, and Mitchell, I want to hear what you have to say as well, but like, I was just gonna say that it's 1941 is the movie, right? So it's set before like the kind of the, the outbreak of the, the full-fledged American involvement in the, you know, European and Pacific theaters.

But like, for this to work as satire, World War II would have had to be a big nothing, right? Cause it would have been like, like look at all this hysteria, these people getting worked up over, over this thing that was like this, you know, that was like this whatever that was a false alarm. But it completely, again, yeah, I kind of sympathize with John Wayne's perspective.

By the way, how much John Wayne had felt, like, towards the end of his career, towards the end of his life, Spielberg makes Close Encounters in Jaws. He hears Spielberg is making a World War II movie, and he wants him. And he gets the script delivered, reads it immediately, and then like on page five, a lady's trying to fuck an airplane.

Like... LAUGHING Hey, John. I mean, I think John Wayne, who is a fascinating figure, like had, you know, he had this whole complex... Fascinating political figure. Well, how he didn't serve, right? And he played all these servicemen in movies and stuff like that, and he, I think, had

a weird chip on his shoulder about, like, you know, being a phony actor instead of a real hero. The chip on his shoulder was like, it was a... He had, like, imposter syndrome. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And the whole thing with John Wayne is, I grew up just thinking that he was this, like, super square, right? Like, that was what I knew about him.

Then you start watching John Wayne movies, and you're like, guy really pops this guy fucking rocks the screen eats this guy up He's so good. He's one of the definitive. I don't know if he's a good actor, but he's an unbelievable movie star guys I just want to watch this guy like pour beers like this rules but um Yeah, yeah, like the zoot suit riots, which are part of this movie. Big part. And by the way, the extended cut, I was like trying to look up what the differences are. It feels like it's 90% that plot line put back in. That's like a really... Which is the main thread of the version I watched.

That's like a really interesting, charged, scary part of history, where like white soldiers started beating up black people and Mexicans and stuff in the middle of the war and patriotism is curdling. Again, and Spielberg's like, well, it's like a big set piece where a bunch of punching happens. This is great.

When I say that his take on the movie is everyone is dumb, I don't mean that in a pointed way where he's trying to comment on human fallibility or whatever. Right. It's just like going against the adage, like the comedy adage of play to the top of your intelligence. Like it's very hard to make audiences

find dumb people funny, especially played at length. And this is a movie where everyone is just low intelligence in a way that doesn't feel like it's commentary on anything. That was exactly another reason why the movie isn't funny. It's just a comedy of misunderstandings, where you're like, oh, they shoot. John Belushi shoots, treat Williams as plant. You know what I mean?

And then the Japanese submarine is out at sea lost for most of the movie. And I get that it's not a real threat and that they're just paranoid. But you're just like, the comedies of misunderstanding is bad. It's well, it's it's it's boring. There's no stakes It's more bitch. It's boring. It's exactly as movie because you get it right away What the joke is and then there's not really yeah There's your screen so much smarter than the characters into your point like page five minute five or whatever

You're like, okay, Nancy Allen really wants to fuck airplanes. Where's this going? It goes just there across 10 more scenes. She just keeps wanting to fuck airplanes. It doesn't really get heightened. There's no evolution. When Slim Pickens found the, in the Cracker Jack box, actually when the Japanese found the compass,

I was like, thank God, they're gonna go to Hollywood now. And then Slim Pickens swallows it and I was like, fuck God, they're gonna go to Hollywood now. And then Slim Pickens swallows it, and I was like, fuck, this sucks. I want them to go, I want something to happen here. That's why I actually, I liked the Zoot Suit stuff just because at that point I was like, this is fun to watch. You know what I mean?

It was- It's fun to watch. Yeah, he's a good director. That's what, the Zootseat ride saying, I'm not mad about it in sort of a, like, I can't believe he didn't remark on those seriousness. I'm just, again, I'm kind of like, well, there is something to that,

but the movie is not interested in whatever there is to that. It's not saying anything in its depiction. I mean, it obviously completely sucks out, you know, it removes the racial element from the historical thing. But like, it also is like, it's depicting it, completely sucks out, you know, removes the racial element from the historical thing. But like, it also is like, it's depicting it, but not saying anything.

But this goes back to a thing I sort of said earlier, like my tepid defense of this movie is, you watch that sequence and you watch, it begins in the dance hall, and that whole big dance contest sequence that turns into a fight. It's like, that's pretty dazzling to watch. It's an impressive bit of staging. And to contrast it with another one, 1941 versus Red One,

like two action comedies that absolutely do not work, Red One is just like a muddy... That made me mad to compare. I actually do, now I think I like the movie way more. Yeah, because Red One is like a muddy, ugly mess. There's nothing to look at in that $250 million CG goop fest that's at all appealing visually. And this movie at least has stuff where it's like, oh, OK,

he's doing stuff. I got to pitch. Yeah. 1940 Red One. Yeah, there we go. We pitched that to the rock. It's a period piece with Gall to the rock. It's bad. It's a it's a it's a period piece with with Gallum drift. That's great. Right. To your John Wayne point, Wiggs,

like a thing I kept thinking about in that whole anecdote, it makes you killed it. Bezos is fucking blowing your phone up right now. John Wayne,, in this period of time, a couple years earlier, was Mel Brooks's first choice for The Waco Kid and Blazing Saddles. Sure. I mean, John Wayne died the year this movie came out. He was also, like, very at the end of his life. He obviously suffered from cancer at the end of his life, yes.

Um, sends him the Blazing Saddles script. John Wayne reads it, calls Mel Brooks back immediately. He's like, this is the funniest thing I've ever read I could never do this movie, right? Okay, so he had good taste on but that's that he was like, you know I was again. He was like, I love the slur And I get to say all of them they're like no those are the other characters you're supposed to be a good guy to be clear I'm Slandering John Wayne. What do you say that. That is a movie that is very pointedly commenting on American racism.

And he got it for a racist old man, right? And was basically like, this script is really funny. I think it'll be a great movie. His famous line was, I won't do it, but I'll be first in line to see it. And he just was like, I think my fans will murder me. And I don't think it will help your movie I think it will like lend too much. I think it I would have fucked up the movie I think he's too right. He's too big a deal for that 100% right But like he read that script and was like I get it. I get what you're doing here Which makes like the framework of his like absolute dead-on precision?

This is the problem with 1941 on paper all the more like he wasn't just reacting to something being countercultural, you know, he wasn't just being conservative. He was like, this sucks. Do you know what John Wayne's tombstone says? That's what Leslie Neuelsen's tombstone says. My favorite tombstone of all time. His tombstone says, Feo, fuerte y formal.

Spanish for ugly, strong and dignified. He requested that. Be on his tombstone. Anyway, um... -♪ HIP HOP MUSIC PLAYING -♪ David? February. It's time for February movie preview, okay?

And I gotta say, it's a pretty interesting February we have coming up. Yeah, what do we got? The Monkey, actually called The Monkey, new film from Oz Perkins, whose long legs I loved last year, starring another one of our friends past and future guest Tatiana Mazzolani. That's right. And looks very, very funny and cool and scary. Also very intrigued by this Martin Campbell action or cleaner with Daisy Ridley.

Yeah, starring Daisy Ridley, someone I've always had very, very calm opinions about on this podcast. I'm very excited for, it feels like she's kind of ramping up her movie career again. Here's the thing. Oh, and then there's the day the earth blew up.

I was gonna say, if that weren't enough, February ending with the first original feature length animated Looney Tunes movie ever that I have heard is excellent. And here's the thing. The Day the Earth Blew Up, a Looney Tunes movie. What's awesome about all this is that there's lots of interesting,

different kinds of movies in theaters that you can go see. And with Regal Unlimited, the whole point is you sign up and seeing three, four, five, six of those movies is easy and affordable. And I find that once, you know, you have the Regal Unlimited, right, you know, sort of the option of basically like, let me pop over my theater. I have three free hours. More. That's what's nice.

You do it more. You do it more. Go see the movie. Go see the movies. Go see the movies. Sign up now in the Regal app. Yes. Or the link in the description in our show notes.

And use code blank check to get 20% off your three month subscription. And then you're going to be in the Crown Club. You're going to get rewards. You're going to build up points. You can get free popcorns and sodas and upgrades. 25% off candy on Tuesdays. 50% off popcorn, discounted tickets, oh and stuff. Go to the Regal Crown Club website and as I said it's a little deep, it's a little buried in here, there is a section where you can redeem your points for old promotional movie memorabilia like Red 1 socks. Right.

Follow the link in the show notes, go to the Regal app, click on the unlimited banner, and then follow the instructions to sign up and enter promo code blank check when prompted to receive your discount. And look, I'm just going to say it again, David, signing up for Regal Unlimited, or maybe gifting a membership to a moviegoer in your life. Sure. Great way to support the show. This is a dream advertiser. Yes. A dream partner for us. We want to keep this going. We think it could benefit everybody, especially the movies. 1941. So, in 1973, Steven Spielberg made a movie called The Sugarland Express. He had a preview screening for it at USC's film school. And in attendance was Robert Zemeckis.

Bobby Z. Who is attending film school and tracks down Spielberg and says, please watch my 15-minute short film, A Field of Honor, about a combat veteran who's gone crazy. And he'd written it with his friend Bob Gale. It won the special jury prize at the Student Academy Awards and Spielberg was blown away by it. And we covered Zemeckis years ago. That short is notably like a pitch black, hyper-political, sort of like counter-cultural satire.

Right. It is the kind of tone that this movie is going for. That's what first gets Zemeckis on Spielberg's radar. And those guys graduate as Zemeckis and Gale, the two Bobs, as you call them, they write some TV, they work on a movie called Tank about oil protesters. This is where this sort of starts. Who are going to blow up a building with a Sherman tank. Right. They have Spielberg's ear, his star just keeps on rising, he's kind of taken him under his wing as protégés, he's also introduced them to John Milius.

Yes, that's just how they meet John Milius. Spielberg once a week goes skeet shooting with John Milius, I believe? I guess so. They certainly, they go out hunting or whatever. And he introduces them and they're sort of like, how do we write a script that one of these guys will buy? And Milius had some sort of deal set up where he was guaranteed two pictures as director

and three pictures as a producer. And this is coming off the success of Patton where there was a big, let's valorize the military kind of like trend in Hollywood. So the tank thing I think starts as them being like how do we write something that would appeal to Milius and also would likely get greenlit. They're just looking to get something off the ground. Yes they were a script called The Night the Japanese Attacked. Initially it had a slur in the title. Then it was called

The Rising Sun and they were like yeah Wesley Snipes is gonna want to make a Rising Sun movie so we'll hold off on that. So it gets called The Rising Sun, and they were like, Wesley Snipes is gonna wanna make a Rising Sun movie, so we'll hold off on that. So it gets called 1941, this outrageous concept about hysteria on the home front after Pearl Harbor. It is based on three events, none of which happened at the same time. The Japanese sub being sighted off the coast of Santa Barbara in February 42, that happened.

That led to the Battle of Los Angeles, where people started shooting in the sky at probably nothing Because they thought they were being invaded in the 1943 the sort of zoot suit riots between sailors and zoot suiters who were Being seen as unpatriotic for not signing up, you know They were like anti-authority But they're like pulling all these pieces of like the whole Ned Beatty plotline of this guy getting a fucking like aircraft gun in his backyard

Did happen but not in California and in a different year, but they were just sort of like plucking me tank I'm forgetting what the take on tank was but it was some other pitch and then they bring it to Milius. He's like, yeah But what else you guys thinking in terms of war? They start talking about the Battle of California. Then it morphs into like try writing something like that. They think to write it as a drama. And then at some point it shifts into comedy. Well, Spielberg is looking to make a movie. So Spielberg made these movies, Jaws and Close Encounters. You guys like those movies? Yeah!

Yeah! I like those ones. You guys like those movies? Yeah! Yeah! I like those ones! By the way, I just want to say that I might just get Feo on my grave. Just ugly. Forget the strong and dignified. I've been holding that in for a long time. I want it. You should have fired that off right away. Jaws is probably my top 10 films of all time. You're a big Jaws guy. Love Jaws. I love Jaws.

I love Close Encounters. Actually, maybe I have Close Encounters ranked above Jaws on my personal list, but they're both like incredible movies. Jurassic Park to me is the king. I mean, that's the perfect age. I saw that movie. I just, it was.

Similar. Yeah. And, but Jaws is like going down to Cape Cod when I was younger and Jaws being on in the summer. It's like what, like the idea of movies even just came from Jaws, I feel like. And that's, so that's like, and they're the best. It's one of the best of all time.

And you know, 1941 is a movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Spielberg's thinking of how do I follow those two movies. He circled a pirate movie that was being written by Jeff Fisken that he wanted to be like an old fashioned sort of Errol Flynn movie. He exits that movie because pirate movies are just not hot. He's briefly attached to something called the bingo long traveling all stars and motor Kings.

That was made, was it not? Yeah, John Badham directs it, whatever. Sounds like a Troy McClure movie. It really does. The contabulous fantraption of whatever. It is a Robbins though, right? Matthew Robbins wrote it with Hal Barr with the Sugarland Express guys. Yeah. He also circled Magic, the haunted puppet movie with Anthony Hopkins that Richard Attenborough ends up making.

Oh, right. He was gonna make it with De Niro. Imagine how that puppet would look. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But then he was like, Attenborough did a great job with it, did a better job than me, whatever, I don't know. Instead, he's sort of thinking like, what if I do a big swerve, right?

How about a comedy? Milius, I think was sort of initially gonna direct this movie. John Milius, who's obviously a very chill and normal guy who was kind of older, I feel like, than the rest, maybe a little older than the Spielberg De Palmas, but was sort of friends with all of them. There was a chain of sort of, Coppola mentored Milius. Right, Milius co-wrote Apocalypse Now. Right. Yeah, yeah.

And Coppola kind of stamped him and verified him, and then he kind of took Spielberg and Lucas under his wing and into Palma. There was this chain in the way that Milius. But then they pass him. Yes, they all do. I mean, Milius' best known movie is Conan the Barbarian, if you've heard of him.

But all those guys talk about Milius as like the greatest writer amongst all of them. Weiger took a banana out of his pocket. I thought he was happy to see us. And in fact, there was a banana in his pocket. And now he's eating a banana. We were enjoying your guys' convo. You were doing a better job than we could ever

do talking about this movie. And we looked at each other and we nod. And we took out food. And we started eating. We decided while you're on your John Milius tangent, we're like, we're going to deploy Chekhov snacks. So Mitch grabbed his Kind Bar. And I grabbed my banana.

And we're having a great time. But at least today... Yeah, we're having a great time. And Jemmy's sitting on the couch, by the way, for all the real heads. We should credit Jemmy in the title of the episode as the third guest. Jemmy is Emma's dog for people who aren't regular Doughboyz listeners, Emma, our producer. So...

Oh, but what I was going to say is Milius has this deal at the time. Right. Right? Set up at MGM. So he brings the script to MGM. So, uh... Oh, but what I was gonna say is, Milius has this deal at the time, right? Set up at MGM. So he brings the script to MGM. The first note is, you gotta change that fucking title, right? That's when they changed the title. And the head of MGM at the time reads it and is like, I don't get this, absolutely not. Passes on it.

Then a year passes, and when Spielberg's like, I don't know what to do next, which I get, I understand how, if you make Jaws when you're in your 20s and it is the biggest movie in history, then you follow it up by making this incredibly personal movie that is going over budget and over schedule and everyone thinks it's gonna be your folly. And then that succeeds wildly.

You're like, what the fuck do I do now? And you're reading a script like Magic that is good on paper, but you're like, is this too small? How do I outdo myself? What feels like it's living up to the expectation I've set for myself? It is safer to do the thing that on paper seems more dangerous in a certain way. He's drawn to two things.

He likes the Ferris wheel sequence. His Spielberg brain immediately is sort of like, I, that'd be fun to do. Because he's originally just reading it as a friend of the camp. Yes. But then, secondly, more importantly, he's like, yeah, what if I did something wild and funny? You know, like, I didn't approach it like as an experiment, but I thought it'd be a great opportunity, he says,

to break a lot of furniture, see a lot of glass shattering. It was basically written and directed as one would perform in a demolition derby. Yes. I mean, he's sort of saying his mistake right there, where he's basically leading with the spectacle. Right, but it's like, this is his metal machine music, where he's like, what if it's all antagonistic and extreme

and it's just chaos? He doesn't have a passion project, so this becomes the clearest thing for him to do. And Close Encounters felt like, this is my most personal movie, this is the most personal film I'm capable of making at this point. So he's like cashed in that chip already and it's worked.

This was the other, the reason I'm winding up this whole thing is when Spielberg signs on, he goes, they go to Columbia, because he had just done Close Encounters with them, to say, this is the next movie I wanna make. And in the year that it passed, the now head of Columbia was the guy who had passed on the movie at MGM.

And he rereads the script. And he's like, I still think this isn't good. I stand by my assessment this isn't good, but I guess if Steven Spielberg wants to make it... But it wasn't a Columbia movie, it was a Universal movie. So then he had a first look deal at Universal still left over from Jaws and the budget was getting so big that he went to Universal and convinced them to team up on it. And Universal

ended up getting the bigger piece of it, but it was a co-production. But I just like that everyone involved was like, we said no to this movie two years ago. We stand by that you haven't fixed it. But I guess if Spielberg sees something in it, that there's something we're not getting. So everyone's kind of going into this movie being like, bad idea. It makes total sense why everyone would say yes to it, given his recent track record. And also makes total sense why he would feel a bit of hubris, you know, like it's like I understand absolutely how everyone arrived at this.

It's a good just to return to the Ferris wheel real quick, which I think is a good another good sequence like it's like, you know, again, there's there's stuff to there's stuff purely from a visual standpoint that's that's that's very engrossing in this movie I mean just even just a high angle shot he does To connect the you know the people in the Ferris wheel cart to the ground It's just like that you know like that we're talking one perfect frame. I mean, it's like that. That's it's a good shot You know, but I feel like the Ferris wheel be coming on board from its hinges and rolling down the boulevard. That feels like something Ben would like. Ben, am I correct there? Oh, this is what a great instinct, Weiger.

Did you like 1941, Ben? Yeah, we haven't checked in with your opinion. Well, okay. So I wanted to be comprehensive, right? Going into this. So you started from watching 1900 and worked right up to 1940. I started with year one. Oh, fuck.

Good, good. Better joke, better joke, better joke. No, it's okay. I stepped on it. But I'm familiar enough with the Ferris wheel and to answer your question, Wiggs? 100%, man. Hell yeah. Now, I think Wiggs is onto something here, which on paper, this should be your kind of

movie. Like you loved Crime Wave, the Raimi movie that Raimi's kind of disowned. That is similarly all kind of like live action cartoon, like people bunking each other on the head. Like yelling. And chaos. Very slapsticky, yeah.

Right, done at a very small budget, but like at this kind of manic pitch the entire time. This movie has elements that feel like they should be fucking catnip to you. Yeah, and even just like the kind of porch-esque quality of it, right? Yeah, a big TV movie. But no, this could just not grab my interest. It's a real like eyes sliding off the screen thing. That's how I felt watching it.

The thing I said to you, I already forgot. Oh, that you texted. Yeah. Was, I'm watching 1941 right now and it's such a slog. I think it's ruining my day. Definitely that and not just Sunday with three children. This anecdote I really like. Spielberg's making Close Encounters.

He's talking to Francois Truffaut, one of the great filmmakers and an idol of Steven Spielberg who's in the film. Just be clear, he is actively developing this script, overseeing rewrites while he's making Close Encounters. Truffaut says, and this is Spielberg quoting him, I like you with kids, you are wonderful with kids, you must do a movie with just kids. And Spielberg's like, well, yeah,

I've always wanted to do something like that, but I've got to finish this, and then I'm gonna do 1941, it's just this movie about the Japanese attacking Los Angeles. And Truffaut just apparently said, you are the child. It was like, you're making a huge mistake. So Truffaut was right. And he takes Truffaut's advice and it's like, yeah, I guess I'll knock out a kind of like Raiders ET double bill after this. Just kind of fucking level it out. That's the thing about Spielberg where you're like, oh, 1941, what a bomb, how do you follow that up?

It's like, I don't know, Raiders of the Lost Ark and ETs. So maybe just go and like suck his dick. But this is, well, gladly, but this is what is fascinating to me. Talking about this movie, just like the weirdness of it treating World War II like it was a canard, right? Like this movie tries to like wag the dog World War II or like the thing that like Dr. Strangelove does

where it like creates an incident that never happened, right? Based around like the Cold War and the missile crisis and paranoia and all this sort of stuff. He's like riffing on a thing that we know turned out horrifically. For like most of the planets. Yes, bad. Right, and then the movie he does right after this is a like adventure serial where the villains are the Nazis

set during the exact same time period. True. And he finds the right way to thread the needle. And of course, like post Schindler, he said like, I couldn't do another Indiana Jones movie where the villains are Nazis because I took it too seriously at that point, and I didn't want to make light of it. But you're like, fucking Last Crusade and Raiders have this balance on like, somehow keeping in mind the enormity of the tragedy

and the villainy and all of that sort of stuff, without it being distracting. Whereas this movie you're just like, hey, can we just remember what's going on in the background here? Yeah, I... You're right. Uh... There's so much to say. I mean, he also tried to make this movie called Growing Up. I'm just gonna kind of move past that.

We can talk about it later. Okay. Was Growing Up the original sort of fable, man? Yeah, people sort of think that. Zemeckis and Gale wrote it for him, because he was like, do you want to write a movie about kids for me? And they said like, it kind of,

it was like a nerd versus jocks thing. It wasn't like a sensitive like divorce movie. And that they like got some money and Spielberg was like casting kids and Caleb Deschanel, the cinematographer was like, this fucking sucks. This script is ass. And like, I don't think you have a good idea here.

And Spielberg is like, yeah, forget it. I won't do this. And ET is what he sort of settles on later. Yeah. Anyway, instead he decides to do this gigantic, you know, overwhelming, expensive movie. Even though this is a comedy about, again, nothing in particular. It just screams like money.

It's crowd, sets, explosions, like you're saying. It's like that Armageddon commentary where, you know, the iconic DVD commentary for Armageddon where Ben Affleck is like three sheets of the wind. And like in the first scene, there's the helicopters taking off behind Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck on the oil rig. And Ben Affleck's like, that just costs $250,000. Like, it doesn't need to be there.

It's not part of the plot. There doesn't need to be a helicopter picking off right now. And that's just $250,000, like, right behind us, just, like, drowning us out. That's what this movie is all the time. This movie feels like that is the explicit purpose of every scene.

Like, the center of every scene... Loud yelling!...is the most expensive thing that's happening in the explicit purpose of every scene. Right. Loud yelling. Like the center of every scene is the most expensive thing that's happening in the scene, not just as a background element. But also, who is the star of this movie is great. Great question. Because I walked into this movie. I loaded this movie up being like, well,

Belushi is kind of the star, right? And it's like, no, Belushi is just punctuation. It's a classic acroid Belushi two-hander. And I'm watching it. And like an hour and 20 minutes in, I was like, Jesus Christ, are they never gonna interact in this movie? There's the point where they're both on the same street, but I think Akkaroid's knocked out

and Balushi's on the other end, and I'm like, but they're physically in the same space, are they finally gonna link up? And then they like go off in opposite directions. And at the end of the movie movie they salute each other in coverage. They literally never appear in the same shot. It is so insane to make a Belushi acroid comedy in 1979 and go, what if they never talk to each other? That's, that was, it, it, I feel like it has that problem of like a caddy shack or something,

which by the way, I love Caddyshack, of course. Caddyshack's pretty good. But the Wally is maybe, and Wally doesn't do a bad job, that guy Wally, I'm like, the young guy, he's my cat's name, I love the name. I just am like, this is maybe the main character of the movie, right?

This is the character who wins the dance contest? Yeah, yeah, so it's kind of the zoot suitor. Yeah, and he's the closest thing there is to a lead, but even he's kind of hard to track, and he seems like a peripheral character the way he's introduced. The extended cut is mostly adding in the meat of his story. Because he's in a I Want to Hold Your Hand. He's in the Zemeckis movie I Want to Hold Your Hand,

which is the year before this. This carries over Wendy Joe Sperber and Eddie Deason and a lot of early Zemeckis stock company people that we talked about when we did that series. I think he's pretty good in this. I'm actually surprised that he didn't do too, I mean, he'd worked consistently, but nothing really huge.

Never got famous, did kind of just fizzle out. He does, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe it's just sort of like there's other guys like him. Yeah, but they talked about, like, as the script was getting unwieldy, Gail and Zemeckis were like, we should identify a kind of like central viewpoint character that you can go back to with like an emotional through line to track as we're like cutting across all these storylines.

Sort of. Sort of. Sort of. Look, he's not bad, but in the like cacophony of this movie, it doesn't like help clarify the movie. And you're also like, this isn't that gripping against the scale of the other shit happening. And Universal famously like freaked out like six weeks before this movie came out. And we're like, this thing is unwieldy and Their expectations are another Spielberg blockbuster

You need to cut 30 minutes out and they cut 30 minutes out like last second and unsurprisingly They cut down the 30 minutes with the least famous person right right the so so he is he is the most boring though I mean like it also is like I do want to see more believe I want to see the other people but it just doesn't Yeah, he's the most vanilla character but but but although vanilla is a flavor but the the he's like he's like the most like just kind of straight lace like you know, like the closest thing the movie has to protagonist but even the way he's introduced in the diner he's Glenn Miller's in the

mood is is playing and he's doing like you know, the jitterbug like he seems crazy there the way that you're onboarded to this character because they're but they're making like he's washing dishes They're doing a little hobbit dishwashing song and and I don't even know if you're supposed to like you You know you're supposed to like him like and then the other guy who's making breakfast is like dropping whole eggs with shell Onto the flat top and it's just like what what is going on here? Everyone's just back on shit that happens in the first 15 minutes of this movie It is disorienting because because you cannot find a handle

of, like, what am I supposed to be focusing on? Let's also just acknowledge the cold open of this movie is, like, I feel like one of the most infamously hubristic moments. It is the thing where, like, Spielberg talks about, everyone wanted to take him down a peg. They were looking for, like, a way to ding his armor. Everyone's going into this movie.

The expectations are unreasonable. Even if it had been good but not great, people would have had their knives out. And the opening scene of the movie is Spielberg parodying himself. Yeah. And people just take out machetes. And they're just like, fuck this so hard right off the bat. Look, we talked about this a little

before we started recording. And I did my first thing that I wrote down, of course, is the about this a little before we started recording. And I did that. My first thing that I wrote down, of course, is the first thing that happens in the movie. But I was like, would the jaws parody annoy me today? Like if it was a different director that was parroting his own movie. And I don't know if I maybe would even like it. I can't tell, but it is, there's a lot of hubris from, from Spiel but I... Yes. It doesn't bother me that much, I guess. But also, is that through the lens of me being a child that was raised on Jaws and loving Jaws?

I don't know. It's... I think it plays pretty... It, like, feels pretty obnoxious to, like, parody your own thing. It feels a little, you know... I understand as a way to start the movie, it's a little off-putting. Yeah. I was just saying, I gave it points for being hornier. It is a little hornier. It's the same actress, right?

Way hornier. It's the same actress. And part of this is maybe the weird Zemeckis thing. Because Zemeckis is, as we uncovered, maybe the horniest man alive. But like horny in a very like old school, kind of like a GI Like a sort of busty lady pinned up in his locker or whatever where he's like check a load His horny vibe did I say this in our here episode I don't know that I I was

Communicated to by by someone who had worked with some Angus on developing a project that didn't happen in the last five years and said that they had a meeting with him for three hours and the only two things he wanted to talk about were boobs and special effects. What did he want to say about boobs? Everything, apparently. I don't understand. But like had no like story notes, casting ideas.

He's just like, I'm thinking big boobs for this one. But just like, you know what I like? Areola's. By the way, if there was like, if the shark was there and his fin got bigger after seeing the girl or something, I would have liked something like that. Like give me the naked gun. That's already funny. That's already a better bit.

Give me the naked gun version. Why? Why? Why are you holding backwards just a halfway point? Spielberg is too smart and I think Zemeckis and Gale are too smart to actually do the great naked gun shit where it's like, yeah, this should have no rocks in its brain. Like it should be so dumb. Can I open a little naked gun tangent here? I do a yearly rewatch of the trilogy. The first, second and third funniest movies ever made

Did that pretty recently right naked gun two and a half Which is the first one that David Zucker directs solo? But Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams were still producers and writers on it. So they were all involved Comes out after ghost which Jerry had directed solo had been this big transition, I'm a serious filmmaker movie that's a huge blockbuster and an Oscar nominee and winner and everything. Naked Gun 2.5 parodies Ghost. It is like the only other example I could really think of of the exact same thing you're saying, Mitch. Right, making fun of your own movie.

Doing it that closely after, right? There's the slight bit of difference of like, this is David kind of ribbing his brother, right? So it's not quite the same director, but Jerry's still involved. It's not the cold open, it was the trailer for the movie. It doesn't feel galling. It feels like kind of funny that it's like,

this guy who went serious is cutting himself back down to size. And also it's within a framework where that is what is expected. If you're going to make a naked gun movie after you've made a best picture nominee, you have to make fun of yourself, right? Like everything needs to be on the table. But watching that and thinking of other spoof movies and everything, it hit me while watching 1941 last night, is there a fundamental rule that if you're spoofing something

It has to cost less money than the real thing. You're spoofing. It should look a little jankier. Yeah It should look better. I think that I think that's that's kind of like just kind of like a sketch comedy sort of great rule Yeah, and I feel like you know You guys have worked in the same kind of like sketch comedy doldrums that I have and especially like You know 2000s video sketches Yeah, there is a level where the production value is so bad that it actually fails to function as a parody I think of like a lot of like what if Wes Anderson directed blank videos that are bad Where you're like if you can't successfully approximate his style, the satire doesn't work.

But yet, you need to get within spitting distance. And like Mel Brooks movies, Naked Gun movies, like all of them hit the right balance of like, this is done with genuine craft, they approximate the thing just enough, but it doesn't feel like you're thinking about how much it cost. There's almost like a... Yeah.

Did this cost more than any other war movie that had been made up until that point? I mean, that's a fair point. It's kind of the last action hero sort of issue too, right? It feels like kind of too... And last action hero works better than 1941, but it kind of feels too expensive to be parodying, to be a parody. Yeah, there's kind of like a weird,

like double uncanny valley with parody, because it's like, there's also, you can though have like a TikTok where someone has like a paper bag over their head and that kind of works. But then once you start making it feel like a real thing, it needs to have a certain level of, fidelity behind it to feel like a parody,

but then you go too far and then it stops feeling like it's any fun at all. Dead on. Right. Because you can get away with nothing or you can get away with getting fairly close, but you can't go over and ideally you want to exist in that like middle space, which is really hard to hit. And you're right.

Precisely. That whole sequence of her going up on the periscope, like it looks great. It looks impressive. It looks impressive, it does, yeah. But then the payoff is like a Japanese man being like, Hollywood, like seeing the girls blood. And truly doing like Borat horny noises at her. You're just like, oh, okay, cool, great.

Right, because the bit is you start with the same actress doing the same night swim scene from Jaws. And then they're kind of mimicking the music and then they're just doing the music. Right. John Williams score for 1941 kind of goes. It kind of goes. Yeah, I bet. He showed up.

It was ear warmed into my head last night when I was trying to fall asleep. But rather than a shark, the thing that pops out of the water is this German submarine and she's riding on the periscope and it feels very ph phallic and as you said, these soldiers all come out. The Jaws opening is just this classic like, man, look at the fucking Spielberg magic. They couldn't get the shark to work.

He had to design a sequence where you don't see the shark. It's all suggestion. You're like that sequence costs so little money to construct. The moment the submarine starts coming out of the water and she's like straddling the periscope, you're like that sequence costs so little money to construct true the moment the submarine starts coming out of the water And she's like straddling the periscope. You're like too expensive too expensive too complicated not funny You know it's like you have made something more technically complex than the thing you're parodying There's another bit of self-reference in this as well right is because I believe it's is it the actress from duel the the gas station Operator yes, so yeah also in this is, because I believe it's, is it the actress from Duel, the gas station operator? Yes!

Yeah, also in this. The snake slayty. The snake slayty, and it's when Felucci fills up his plane and then, right. Like I'm almost kind of... I'm astonished this movie doesn't have a close encounters parody as well. That sequence is kind of funny. I think it... The plane, like, you know, the, the, the gas are up and then like, the, this, you know,

the, the gas going everywhere. It's kind of funny. Yeah, I guess the nozzle, the unwieldy nozzle kind of, like, you know, being similar to the snakes, I guess that's what it's trying to reference. I don't know, maybe. Yeah, that part's okay. I just like to see him so half-heartedly being like, -"It's kind of funny." Um... I was sort of chuckling. Yeah. But also, like, Spielberg says this

on the fucking laserdisc where he's like, this is something only dual diehards will pick up. But I'm like, right, at the time of this release, dual is a TV movie. If you caught it on television. Right. It's not like you can go check out the VHS. That's like not a thing that most people are going to pick up on. Can I just read my full 1941 laugh list? Okay, go ahead.

One. Reveal of Japanese soldiers disguised as X-Mistries. Oh, sure. Which is cut, it's cut in the in the version I saw. That's, that's, that's, yeah. That's an extended cut. Okay, and then I found out in watching this making of, that's a direct lift from a Marx Brothers movie that he was like, I want to do the Christmas tree bit. Number two, I wrote almost everything Slim Pickens does. I think this is the most wholly successful performance, but also like sub-subplot.

He's just Slim Pickens, that guy's fucking funny. But to Mitch's point, there's kind of like a clearer comedic game in his little section that makes sense, we'll circle back to this. Number three, I did put down Belushi with the Coke bottle. Got an out loud Ha for me number four Eddie Deason revealing the ventriloquist dummy Insane by the way, it's the way it's revealed. It's really weird to it. I have a question for you guys

Please because you said he almost did this movie magic and then I was like was this a nod to that To be it must be right and then I was like, was this a nod to that movie? Had to be. It must be, right. Had to be. Oh, wow. Because the other thing is they wrote the script where the two guys in the carousel were supposed to be

Aben and Costello? Art Carney and Jackie Gleason. Oh, that's who it was, the honeymoon. Sure. And they even wrote it as like, one guy's a mailman and the other guy's a like, they wrote it in the script that way, then they have Spielberg on board.

They're like, we can get anyone they want. They reach out to Jackie Gleason's agent and they relay back, Jackie Gleason refuses to ever work with Art Carney again. Oh, damn. Okay, right. Well, Jackie Gleason was a bit of a tough customer. And I wanna hold your hand had come out at this point.

And Spielberg was like, where did you find this fucking Eddie Deason guy? Rewrite it and make it Deason in an old guy. So it's Deason and the mayor from Jaws. But I don't think he would have given Art Carney a ventriloquist dummy. I think you're dead on that that was like a weird him making jokes about movies he didn't direct.

But again, it just kind of feels like, you know, it's just, well, let's throw more props at this and more explosions and more, yeah. let's throw more props at this and more explosions and more. Yeah. I'm not going to laugh at it. The physicality at the reveal of you see a blanket next to him and it slowly rises. And then the head lifts up. I gave a half chuckle at Belushi as old man eating spaghetti. The weird cutaway to Belushi's cameo as a second non-speaking character. I gave a half chuckle to water coming out of the dummy's nose

at the end of the film. That's pretty good. That was good. Yeah, that's pretty funny. And then two full laughs at the dummy getting its own credit in the end credits. Yeah, that was good. And the explosions during the credits,

which are the most I laughed in the entire movie. Joe Flaherty getting the whiff in the credits of all these people. And Joe Flaherty's good. I think he's good in this. He kind of crushes his seat. He's great. But let's also say, in terms of this movie...

RIP Joe Flaherty, recently defunded. Recently passed. Yeah. And treat. Be unfunny in a way that almost defies logic. This is a movie that has four cast members from Stripes, three cast members from Laverne and Shirley. Bunch of SNL people.

Two SETV people, two SNL people. It is pulling from all the groups of the peaks of comedy, both commercial and in snob circles at the time. On top of 10 dramatic film legends, including Toshiro Mifune? Yes. His only movie that he spoke English in or whatever. Every other American film he made, he was dubbed over by Paul Freeze, who I believe is the ghost host from... Or the narrator from The Haunted Mansion ride.

Right. Victor Freeze, of course, was Batman's enemy. Fell in a bunch of ice cubes. Right. He's sort of a tragic figure because his wife Nora Freeze. Of course. Wait, they dubbed over him? Over Mr. Freeze? Yes, they did. They would dub over to Shiro Mifune in every other American film he did. His English dialogue.

This is the only American studio film in which he actually speaks. I heard that he yelled at all the extras, he got them in line for the movies. IMDb trivia says that he got all the extras in line for the movies. The IMDB, IMDB trivia says that he like got all the extras in line and was like, that's not how soldiers act. And like got them acting like soldiers. Oh, yeah. That's cool. If he yelled at me, I would melt into water. Gail said by the end of filming, those men

would have died for him. Hell, yeah. But like, now my wife walked out, because she didn't watch any of the movie. But she came outside when I was watching it once. And she, you know, she came outside when I was watching it once and she, you know, she came to the living area during the credits. And this is when she was packing her bags.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Just signed a new lease. We're very happy for the so. So like every like third card or whatever, there's just like a random explosion that comes up and she watches it and she does laugh at it. Cause she's like, why the fuck are things exploding during the credits?

But it's kind of a microcosm for the movie as a whole, right? You're just watching it as like, why are there inexplicable explosions every like, you know, like every like four seconds? Like what is going on exactly? I have, I have one thought on the credits as well. First of all, there's two thoughts here. One, the dummy is sentient, because it notices things

before the guy from Critters notices things. I forgot his name already. Eddie Deason? Eddie Deason. Eddie Deason. Who didn't have as big of a career as I thought, either. I'm surprised by that. He was in a lot of stuff in the 80s.

Specific career. Very specific. We covered him when we were doing the Zemeckis movies, but he was this discovery. And they were like, he's just like this and no one else is like this. You put him on screen and he goes. And then he started getting bigger opportunities and people were like, oh, he can't memorize dialogue.

He can't take direction. He can't hit marks. You can sort of just let him like spin out. But it was hard for people to figure out how to put him in any other context. I love watching him spin out. He is very, when I first heard his voice, I was like, what is this character? And then I was like, oh my God, it's just,

it's Eddie D, it's the guy from Quirters, Eddie Deason. He famously was also the voice of Mandark on Dexter's laboratory. Oh yeah, all right. It's Dexter's enemy. Yes. His rival, the sort of grimes to Dexter's. Correct. And he's probably old enough where his entire childhood,

like, was pre-D's nuts. So he avoided that, right? That's a great point. That's a really good point. Yeah. He is very active on Facebook, and he is often posting about how he- Never a good sign. He is often posting-

Get ready. Yeah. He's often posting about how he's been banned from local LA diners because the waitresses got uncomfortable by his compliments. He's one of these. With the dummy? You're not allowed to tell a lady to smile anymore. I'm hoping the dummy is the one doing, which by the way, the dummy is credited in the end credits the dummy.

Yeah, he got a full laugh out of it. Good gag. I should mention that as one of his laugh lines. Oh, that's what was on your, sorry about that. Yeah, but just be clear, two of the laugh lines were things that happened during the credits. Right, which you have to, especially if the director's commentary

is two and a half hours later. I'm gonna read something from the dossier that I do think underlines what we're saying, which is Zemeckis and Gayle are like, look, our script was cynical. It was like a dark movie, like a dark comedy. And then Steve comes in and, you know, his tone is very different and it becomes more

of a screwball comedy. And Spielberg's like, yeah, I was just trying to max out visual gags. My role models were Hell's a Poppin' with Red Skeleton, Preston Sturges' Screwball Comedies, you know, basically kind of like, there shouldn't be, like every, something should be happening every second, right, like that's sort of, to me that's,

if you think that of a Preston Sturgis movie, you're reading it wrong. But like obviously Preston Sturgis movies, the dialogue is very fast, there's lots of jokes. I get that. But they are so intricately set up. Incredibly. That the big laughs come from like,

oh my God, you put all the pieces in place perfectly and for 15 minutes It's been leading to this very clear understandable sort of like conflict or whatever it is I mean here are a couple things he said in this retrospect Yeah, loony tunes becomes the thing he's referencing Yes, Chuck Jones in during development and says Chuck I want you to come up with the wildest visual gags you can. And like Chuck Jones comes up with a gag that's sort of

like an explosion of the moment where Tim Matheson drops the bomb and it's rolling towards the speech, where the bomb is sentient and it's like rolling through the town on Main Street and driving everyone crazy. And it's like five minutes of the bomb rolling everywhere in town. And Spielberg was like, I don't know how to achieve this. And he was like, it was a great sequence

and it would have been great in animation, but I couldn't even begin to figure out how to film it. And then he says, and this interview is from maybe the early 90s or the late 80s. He goes, you know, today you probably could figure out a way to do it with CGI computer generated imagery, right? It's a new concept. What a time capsule that he was like, oh I used insider lingo, right? the other thing he said was he was like at the time people complained that the movie was too loud and too chaotic and

Cacophonous and I look at it now and I'm like it's no different than playing doom. Oh Spielberg the gamer and then he went like like. By the way, not true. Doom is very like kind of quiet and freaky. Crotidian. Yes, exactly. Spire. But no, but he was like, yeah, I don't think the movie is that different from one of the CD-ROM games

that kids would play. Dear god. Well, he was right about current Doom is very similar, but he didn't have a pre-copy of Doom 2016 or whatever. Classic Doom isn't that chaotic. Yeah, there's, I mean, whatever, there's some... There's demons. Yeah, there's demons, you know, but it's like,

there are moments of just walking down corridors, you know? Doom is like Skinnamorink. The first Doom is like liminal horror. Yes, much better pace. There's moments of quiet in it. It is, it feels much better than that. Right, which this movie has no moments of quiet. Wait, there's also a BFG in Doom.

But it has its own name. The big F gun, yes. A B-F-J? B-F-J. Is Quake... Is Quake just like kind of goth Doom? Is that all Quake really did to Doom? Huge question.

I guess it's got some more Lovecraft in it too. Yeah, kind of like a little more. Like it's a little more Elvator. Yeah, but it's. Right. But yeah, it's kind of, I mean, the big Quake thing was a fully 3D engine. It was like this kind of two and a half D thing they were doing with Doom and Wolfenstein.

Right, with Doom you can't actually, right, you're strafing and stuff. That's the difference, okay. You still have quick. Anyway, this is the most interesting thing Spielberg says. Okay. I, so he says, I sort of saw the movie, 1941, as a big Hollywood musical,

like an old-fashioned golden age musical, and I had talked with John Williams about doing like eight big, big band numbers, like big, big numbers. And the Zoot, you know, the Jitterbug contest is kind of the only thing that remains of that concept. And he's like, I kind of regret not making it just a big musical.

Now that's one of those things I hear where I'm like, that is a good idea, but you're insane. Like if that's your idea, then that's a different movie and you should make that movie. Start from square one. Exactly. Now he frames it as... It really just sounds like they're like, oh that's a different movie and you should make that. Start from square one. Exactly. Now he frames it as... It really just sounds like they're like, oh, could we have explosions and musical sequences

and like boobs and yeah, money and you know, it's just, they're throwing everything in there. He frames it in this interview as I didn't have the courage of my convictions at that time to follow through on that. And then he's like, you know, I had this anything goes principle. And basically at the beginning of Temple of Doom, I do the type of musical number I wanted to do in 1941. There is one other movie Spielberg has made

that was originally developed or at least temporarily developed as a musical and then he welched on it for the same reasons where he's like, I got scared. I didn't know if I could tackle it. I took all the songs out. Do you know what movie that is? Correct. No.

Do you know what it is, David? I feel like I do, and I'm gonna be annoyed when I... I'm gonna guess. It is, spoilers, the other movie I put on the same tier as this in Spielberg's filmography. Correct. Correct. Which is also left with one song where the daughter sings on the ship. Which is a nice sequence.

But I believe five songs were written for that movie. I mean, it just similarly said, I got freaked out by doing it. And you hear this thing across his career that he always wanted to make a musical. And I do think it's fascinating that when he finally did it, he was like, if I start with West Side Story. Right, I'll just make one of the most famous musicals

of all time, and then I'll just fucking nail it. I'll just like do all the other stuff real good. But he kept toying with trying to make his own original musical and then being like, I don't know, I don't know if I can pull it off. Yeah, that's interesting. You'll like his West Side Story, I'm a big fan. I think it is one of the most like jaw dropping

incredible movies ever made and Griffin thought it was okay I like it quite a bit which gets framed as me hating it I think you up yes, I think some of it is extraordinary I think Ansel Elgort is kind of the Achilles heel of the movie which feeds into a bigger Spielberg failing to identify good young leading men thing that hits the last 10 15 years of his career What's he been up to? Yeah, what's he been up to? Where'd he go? Hey, hide. Hey, Ansel! Where's the boy at?

Ansel, come on! Mitch, you like the Spielberg West Side Story? I like it quite a bit. I'm probably in between Griffin Sims, I would say, is probably where I live on it. I'll say this. Great place to be.

Because this made me think of it. It's empty right now. There's no one here. I'd go in perfect. I'd fit in perfectly with a little puzzle piece. I... Jump through the screen. I, um...

The... My question to you, this is kind of a hot take, that the dance sequence in this, the punch fight dance sequence, if that came out this decade, would it be amongst one of the best dance sequences in the last ten years? This is the fucking thing with Spielberg

You're like I feel like we talk about this we use this as like a gauge or descriptor a lot but the types of movies were like if you were at a bar and This was playing on TV or projected on the wall behind you with the sound off and you're catching glimpses of it You're like does this rule right? Do I need to watch this and the second you actually lock in and watch it sound on as a movie, you're like, this is a mess. But if you just looked over your shoulder while you were drinking and saw that staging for 15 seconds, you'd be like, oh, so this is one of his masterpieces.

It looks rad. And again, you know, I don't want to belabor Red One. But if you took the Krampus set piece in Red One, the slap fight. Krampus Schlacht? If you did Krampus Schlacht, and you removed that and instead substituted this jitterbug dance contest. Like it'd be like, hey, you know what?

At least Red One has blank. At least that sequence is cool. So yeah, I think you're right. But I did feel very like, it does feel like a proto West Side story. Like even the scoring there, the John Williams kind of simulacrum of like a Louis-West Side story. Like even the scoring there, the John Williams kind of simulacrum of like a Louis Prima sort of a big band

number is kind of Leonard Bernstein-y. It is kind of like, I don't know. That's one of the few times in the movie where I feel like everything just kind of comes together. Hot take better than any dance sequence in La La Land, for instance. Yeah, I mean, La La Land is a good example. No, I mean, like, you know, that's, that's,

I don't feel like that's a film that's like, its choreography is mind blowing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got some cool shit. But that's fine. But also La La Land is- I think that is the failing of almost all modern movie musicals.

Yeah, I think La La Land's even right. I mean, that's why Better Man, which is out in theaters right now, probably gone by the time it releases. Yeah, I was gonna say, it. Probably gone by the time she releases. It might be gone by the time we finish recording. Better man. It came out three days ago.

Exactly, is really trying to solve those problems of like, you know, it's like, how do I shoot a musical sequence in a movie? Do I just have a wide so you can see all the dancing and see the sort of choreography altogether? That's boring though, it's static. Or do I cut into the action a bunch and now I'm like, you know, messing up the rhythm of the songs. And's boring, though. It's static. Or do I cut into the action a bunch, and now I'm, like, you know, messing up the rhythm of the songs? Yeah. And of the, you know, of everything.

And Better Man does really good stuff. The CGI goop layer, though, doesn't help the Better Man. No, not at all. I saw Better Man. I saw Better Man. I saw that TIF, and I don't hate Better Man, weirdly. It's a very confusing movie, but I do think that this dance sequence feels so much more

authentic and real than almost anything I've seen. It's a huge set. It's a huge crowd. Yeah. I think you're spot on. And it's the thing I always complain about is I see modern movie musicals and I either feel like the choreography was sort of an afterthought. It was the last piece of the puzzle and the one they didn't devote enough time and practice

and thought to. Or the dance has been worked out and the one they didn't devote enough time and practice and thought to or The dance has been worked out and we can't see it. There is not confidence in the way it is shot and cut We're just not getting to see it You know and in its sort of full form and it feels like it's always either or and it's part of what like makes you Wish that Spielberg had made five musicals in his career where you're like, the way he treats action and the basic staging and blocking of like dialogue scenes shows such an understanding of how you should approach a musical and you'll get those moments that are static. But also to your point Mitch, there is the moment in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull where like the Russian spies or whatever are like circling them and he's at the diner with Mutt Williams.

And Mutt starts a fake fight between the preppy college guys, RIP Mutt, a true hero. Not canonically dead, of course. I know, I know. He had the courage that John Wayne lacked. Yeah, John Wayne, that yellow-bellied coward. But do you know the moment I'm talking about where Mutt basically-

Fakily, sure, yeah, starts the fight at the diner. He starts a fight between like the preppies and the bikers so that there's a distraction they can break out and I'm like, that's like a version of Spielberg almost trying to do the same thing he does in the Zoot Suit Weekends visually that he is able to contain within like 25 seconds

where you're like there is an economy and a cleanness to that. Oh, he's the best at that. Totally. Yeah. Whereas this is the one time I feel like almost in his entire career where he's not doing the incredible Spielberg math of how do I simplify the sequence as much as possible.

His greatest skill set is to like show up on the day and go like, how do we make this the fewest number of shots? How do we like find the way to like convey this information as quickly and cleanly as possible and with a little bit of charm and wit? David. You know what I love? How about Quince?

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I have to raise money! 1-800-Flow25. Wait a second. I have to raise money! 1800flowers.com slash check. I will say that, so there's the, the, and I don't know how sequential we're going here, but the, the, I don't think we can because I don't remember the sequence. Like, it's too boring. It's not a coherent sequence of events.

It's just like a bunch of shit that happens. I mean, there's big sequences, right? But they don't really knock onto each other that importantly anyway. So Belushi going into the city, and you know, like his plane is pursuing the other plane with the horny airplane lady and the guy who's trying to seduce her.

Which, God bless her. God bless her. Tim Matheson. Tim Matheson. Right, the straight arrow. He has two fucking Animal House actors. He does, yeah. Oh, you bless her. God bless her. Tim Matheson. Tim Matheson. Right, this straight arrow. He's two fucking Animal House actors. He does, yeah. Oh, you're right. As horny as the Jaws opening is, I wanted the movie to be more horny, so I was happy

with the horny plane stuff. That is fun. So they're like, that whole- The titan. It's kind of a titan. The plane titan. The playing titan. Yeah. Yeah. So they're, yeah, the birthing sequence at the end is really unsettling. After she pretends to be a guy's dead son for an hour. The movie's wild, man.

Anyway, so there's the two, there's like the dogfight, right? The plane pursuing the other plane Through the city and like his sense of geography like he uses the Roosevelt Hotel See like sign is like kind of a landmark and like there's like four consecutive shots where you're seeing the Roosevelt Hotel I think that's whatever the sign is Like like from four different angles just so you can get a sense of like where all the anti-aircraft Batteries and where all the civilians on the ground and where the planes are in relation to each other and it's just like this guy Is just the fucking best at this like this is so he makes this he this this the 3d

Environment is represented a 2d plane in a way that makes complete visual sense to anyone who's watching it So yeah, yeah, you do have stuff like that where she's like again This is just like really exceptional craft. Which by the way, there is a moment in that where I got annoyed where they're like, we're gonna take Hollywood to Highland. And I was like, you're at Hollywood in Highland. When you remember when the tank guys yelling that,

it fucking annoyed me. Geography. Right, right. Sorry. To the point of what Sims just said, no, no, no. What's crazy is that like he can't stop himself from doing that shit, from the constant geographical centering, giving the audience the visual information to understand the relationship between images.

Story-wise, he is almost pointedly doing the opposite. You saying it's hard to recount this movie in order, it feels like there is very little relationship between scenes in this movie in order, it feels like there is very little relationship between scenes in this movie. And like I understand part of it is that it's doing this kind of tapestry, like 10 different plot thread stuff, but it's like actually hard to keep track of any level of cause and effect in this movie. And part of it is, I just realizing this as we were saying it, like there are like six

different fundamental misunderstandings in this movie. Right. Like unlike something like a lot of these sort of like satirical war movies, right? Where you're like, the Russians are coming. There's like one thing of like a Russian shows up in town and they think it's an invasion.

You know, like Dr. Strangelove, one wrong call is made kind of shit this movie just keeps stacking up Misunderstandings really in her. I mean some interact and some don't a lot of them don't yeah exactly So you're like the submarine thing kind of is a self-contained story and it sort of has nothing to do with Belushi Who's just on his shit? Thinks he's being attacked because Tim Matheson is trying to get laid Because Nancy Allen only wants to fuck inside a plane.

Right. And then there's like the Warren Oates character who's kind of like the Sterling Hading character from Dr. Strangelove. Right, loves violence. But we barely see him. Yes. And he's like only spoken of for a while and then when he shows up,

it's kind of like an hour into the movie and you don't care. Right, and you're like, they're right, everyone's right that the Japanese do want to attack California, but also the Japanese have no understanding of geography, so you have this whole misunderstanding based on where they are. So it's like everyone reacting to a threat that is real,

that they're misunderstanding, but also the people who are the threat are fucking up their threat. The threat is also not real, but of course it is real, in that World War two is real. Yes, right and will be a thing just not here, right? This ties into the treat Williams character. I didn't know if he was a Good guy. I was like, is he gonna come up with a girl at the end of the movie and then he's an ass He's somewhere between Bluto and the hillside strangler.

He's like, he's either like a fun villain or the worst man in the world. He's like, he's kind of, he sucks. Yeah. He's kind of right. Just a straight up sort of sociopath bully. Like, I mean, treat Williams is fine at that, but you're kind of like, what's this character doing here? Bob Gale was saying that one of their big ideas they had

when they were like, Spielberg's saying, like, keep on coming up with more, more and more. And they were like, you know what's a funny setup? A guy desperate to lose his virginity in the middle of warfare. Yeah, sure. And I was like, okay, and they were like, so we had this whole scene written

where they're like hiding out under tanks, trying to fuck Because the guy's so worried he's gonna die before he loses his virginity. Yeah, and then as he's explaining it I realized he's talking about the treat Williams In the movie there's the reveal of the tank moving and her running away in terror because he's been trying to sexually Assault her and it's not just that he's been trying to sexually assault Yeah And it's not just that he's been like a pushy creep the whole movie that moment is like he has grabbed her and pulled her Under a tank and she is like running away and pulling her skirt back up

And i'm like, how did this go from this being a character? You're kind of rooting for to get laid. Well, I will say that's a thing like yeah him being like a rapier bluedo Right. Yes, but but my understanding is I didn't watch the extended cut my understanding the extended cut Well, I will say that's a thing like yeah him being like a rapier blue to race But but my understanding is I didn't watch the extended cut my understanding extended cut there is a scene where he fucks a pie right Yeah, there's also a big like glory hole scene right like buying on girls in the shower Yeah, and then a woman comes out and yes Into a what is it in bed? An eclair. An eclair in the wild.

They eat dog clam eclairs. Right. Yeah. There's also a scene where Retreat Williams is looking for hair gel. Oh, interesting. And he finds it, right? On the ear of a friend.

It's a fact, it is. Belushi's comb. It's just one of those things where America was like, there's this great sequence with the hair gel. Everyone loves it. And I'm like, so what's the sequence? Like, he jerks off and comes on his ear and it sticks there. And I'm like, it doesn't do that.

That's not a thing that happens. It is so funny. That's never happened to anyone in the history of society. They talk about the Fairly Brothers. Come as a glue. The Academy Award winning Fairly Brothers. Yeah. Talk about. Well, just one of them.

Did they not, did Bobby not have any credit? That's insane. Poor Bobby. They talk about how when they were filming that on the day, Stiller was spiraling over the logic glue. This doesn't make any fucking sense. Why would it go all the way like just vertically into my ear? And you're like, that's not how like come holds. It looks wrong. Like what are you talking about?

And there's the moment earlier where he like comes she knocks on the door and he's like, oh hold on and it's like He's looking for where the cum went so he could clean it up. And in that moment He turns 360 degrees and you see there's nothing on his ear and they were like stiller was freaking out over this and we were just Like Ben you gotta trust us. It's funny and I feel like there's so many stories about stiller They're right something like that and it being like he's freaking out over nothing, right? He's overthinking it But this one I'm kind of with him. Yeah, he was right and yet the results were undeniable Yeah, she put that fucking cum in her hair and that moved me two hundred million dollars Yeah, because everyone at every office was like you gotta see what this fucking hair gel is

I remember my mom and dad were just laughing so much at that moment I saw it with my mom and dad and sister and they were just going nuts I was like that's fucking gnarly like like that was The poster for the movie was her in a red dress in like a Marilyn Monroe, seven year old pose with the hair flipped up. And every article in review I remember about that movie is like, you're not gonna believe what happens in the hair gel scene.

You have to see it for yourself. By the way, another issue, Treat Williams not a virgin. He there's the bad. No. He's not a virgin at all, rest in peace Treat. But like he's like. He's a Chad. He's a Chad. He doesn't read as, but like he's like he's a Chad he's a Chad

He doesn't read as I mean, I guess you could buy it as like oh, it's all you know It's all show with him and he's think actually right like covering up for a bit doesn't make any sense We're game a telephone of like this thing getting like so far away from the original idea Have you guys seen used cars these meccas movie that he made shortly after this with Kurt Russell? I've never seen Used Cars. I've never seen it, but I think it is maybe playing at the Vista right now. It's worth seeing. It's far better than this movie. It is incredibly funny and it is the exact tone this movie is going for.

That's the thing. This movie is close to that movie in like just manic tone. But Used Cars is about something really stupid, which is used car salesmen across the street from each other basically getting into like a prank war. And this movie is about World War II. And it's sort of like the tone is all wrong and maybe there's a way to make it right for 1941 that they just didn't figure out. But with Use Cars, it's like, yeah,

just simplify a little bit and then I can root for people and think they're stupid. Without spoiling it, Use Cars also builds to one big set piece like, yeah, just simplify a little bit, and then I can, you know, root for people and think they're stupid. Without spoiling it, Use Cars also builds to one big set piece that is like a logistical production like Wowzer, right? And that maybe was not really expensive because the movie didn't cost that much, but certainly is like a big to do. And it like earns pulling off this one sequence where the movie at that point has been so

moderate in scale that you're like laughing at the excess of it because it's so out of nowhere you can't believe suddenly this movie's heightening to this level versus like 1941 starting at that point right he also Spielberg in in this fucking documentary I'm quoting 8,000 times says like you know he's like I'm proud of the movie I had fun making it, I should have let Zemeckis direct it. Their voice and their sensibility was like, they're on the page and I didn't get it

and I didn't have a take and they were much angrier and more political and like they maybe could have pulled it off, but there's the incredible like ripple effect of like, want to hold your hand bombs Which they make while they're sort of developing this script comes out before this this bombs And then people are like oh those guys are trouble I want to hold your hand is great, right? but it's like a flop and then they write Spielberg's first flop and they wanted to make Back to the Future next

and Spielberg was gonna produce it and they were like, if you produce our next movie, we will seem like your cronies and no one will ever take us seriously on our own. So Zemeckis like puts out, I'm a director for hire. I need to just do a studio job and like impress people. Gets Romancing the Stone, over delivers on Romancing the stone.

Romancing the stone is a success. And then that leads to him getting to make Back to the Future with Spielberg as producer and everyone like trusting that he's his own guy. If they had directed 1941, it probably would have been better than this. But I don't think it would have, like we would have not had the next 10 to 15 years

of Zemeckis we got, I'm guessing. Wow. Yeah, and I also, like, I don't know if like a stronger directorial voice, I haven't read the script, but a stronger directorial voice or a more dialed in directorial voice to what the script is going for necessarily compensates

for the problems in the script. Which I think is the main issue with this movie. It's just a little overstuffed and the narrative is hard to track. Griffin, going back to Treat Williams real quick, did you feel seen up on screen, seeing a character who's defining characteristic as he hates eggs?

Ha ha ha ha ha! Does hate eggs. Wides, to a degree you can't imagine. Wow. Every time the egg shit was called out, I like physically held a thumbs up to the screen, which I was not doing at any other point in the film. I'm like, I hate that I'm rooting for this guy that I'm relating to. But he's right about eggs.

Zemeckis figured out the Treat Williams character with Biff. He basically, who else hates manure? The manure bit at the end is the same payoff as the eggs bit at the end. He ends in a pile of it. And also Treat Williams. And he's like similar, a date rapist, who you like in Back to the Future,

you enjoy his comeuppance, he's vindicating. And in this one, I guess Treat Williams also gets kind of like assaulted by the lady is kind of what his comeuppance is. A little bit, but then like that's a good point of like this the Wally character feels like Crisping Glover in back to the future with like less of a take. Yes way less of a take right? Yeah Here's the thing. I want to throw it just like into the the conception of this movie, right? And and like the idea that like Zemeckis maybe would have directed this better, but should this not have been directed by anybody.

Wiggs and Mitch, have you had this experience as well? Because I was thinking this while watching it, of like reading scripts that come across as like potential jobs or just like things that are like floating around the industry that you get your eyes on and you're like, oh my god, this is so funny. This is the funniest script I've read in a long time. And then the movie comes out two years later, it's a disaster, but the movie isn't really that different from the script.

And you like, the realization I've had sometimes of like, there are certain things that are funny on paper that just immediately fall apart if they are realized. Where you're like, this is funny in mind's eye, and the second you have real people doing it in front of like a proper set you can't stop thinking about the fact that like oh World War two is happening like shit like that I know what you're describing I can't think of a specific example every week with we write the doughboys episode that's true the script are great fully scripts are

really really good yeah yeah you have Rosenthal do a pass, and then you're like, this is the best one yet. Yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about just with auditioning and stuff, and for me it's always more like, oh, this kind of, this works. This is like, it seems like the person gets this

or something, and then when you see it made, you're like, ooh, something was lost in translation or whatever, but I can't think of it. But I think it's also very often with like kind of high concept special effects comedies where I read it and I'm like, this one's actually well written. It has good jokes and good structure. And then like the execution of those things is so fine

for like how it stays funny but within stakes. Like the one I kept thinking of while watching this, a radically different movie, but like The Sitter, the Jonah Hill David Gordon Green movie, was like this really hot script, and it was like, oh my God, there are like 10 incredible lines on every page of this thing.

And then you watch it as a movie, and you're like, it's less funny the second they're actual kids. Yeah. Sure, yeah. You know, cause you just can't stop thinking about like, is this like child abuse? Right, yes. I know, I you just can't stop thinking about, like, is this like child abuse? Right. Yes. I know, I'm trying to think of a specific version of that,

but I mean, I know that there's been so many instances of it. And I do have a couple in my head and I'm not going to say them, but because I don't, I'm not going to say them. But I remember, I just remember when like year one was coming out, you mentioned it earlier. Perfect example. How excited everyone was about that movie, and cast was great and then that movie just fell apart basically

I mean, but that was like the hottest script Yeah, like the hottest people were old comedy legend directing it new comedy stars starring in it Right and it's like first like new project after knocked up year one It kind of feels like an old Mel Brooksie movie You know caveman Like this script is funny on paper, but it's one of those scripts where you're like cool It'll take 60 million dollars to mount right because it needs like giant sets and extras and whatever and you watch it And it just like falls apart in real time. Can I throw it a theory? Yeah, is the number one cursed?

Okay, okay, let's movies with wow 1941 I don't read one well read one sure yeah but that's three look up movies with the number one like you know what I mean transformers one I like that movie but was a big flop. Didn't do well. Transformers one is one of those movies where it's like, you know, it starts out with like, Oh, I'm just like a ordinary transformer working in the mines. And I'm like, he's a fucking robot that turns into shit. Like it's such a weird thing. And then that's the thing by the last 10 minutes you're like, is this a perfect diamond cut screen?

Did you guys see Transformers 1? I did not. Can a 1 be in the title? 1917, see it's 1917, there's no 1. There's no 1, no, it doesn't line up with a 1. Yeah, that doesn't count. How about this for recent bomb? Horizon and American Saga Chapter 1.

Wow, good movie. Certainly a big flop. But a big flop. Air Force One is the only title that's coming to mind. Well-liked hit that has stood the test of time and has won in the title. And I'm a huge fan of the airplane when a certain president is aboard, the current one, by the time this episode drops. Ready Player One. Finally.

Wow. I'm a huge fan. Yeah think it would be great fight over. I think Ready Player One is a terrific film, but a lot of people don't. Yeah. And it's one of the- Loaded Weapon One? Hmm.

I'm saying that's a flop. I've never seen it. I wonder if it's any good. I have seen it. I remember it making me laugh when I was like 13. It's just funny that it's Emilia S. Cvez and Samuel L. Jackson. You're like, oh, so it's like an action movie? They're like, no,'s just funny that it's Emilio Escives and Samuel L. Jackson. You're like, oh, so it's like an action movie. They're like, no, no, no, it's a parody.

And I'm like, but those guys could just be in an action. Right. Yeah. They could have actually been alternate casting in any of the buddy cop movies of the previous five years. So are they funny? And I guess I've never had the question answered for me. I mean, Samuel L. Jackson can pretty much do anything. Agreed. That movie must have been Emilio getting jealous

of Charlie. This is the thing of his fucking brother. Yeah. That he was like, I can fucking make fun of serious movies too. You can do hot shots, I'll do this. Yeah. A Weiger series bad. It starts to fall apart. There's a ton of good ones. You got Godzilla minus one. You got Good One, one of my favorite movies last year Dalmatians I'm not the biggest one fan, but it is a good movie. It's a good pretty good. All right, you fuck Yeah, this is terrible I want to say about John Belushi who we've talked about but you know Never cover. Well, obviously because he's made a lot of movies. Yeah. Yeah

He was as we've you know, Spiel he's made a lot of movies. Yeah. He was... As we've... Spielberg was, like, obsessed with SNL. He knew, I guess, you know, like many people, that it, like, had a lot of juice. And he was, like, kind of a groupie for the first season. He went to almost every taping. Can I say... Wow! Did we talk about this in our group text?

Okay. So... That's, like... That's, like, much publicized. It is kind of dorky of him. Okay. So that's like much publicized. I think it is kind of dorky of him. Yeah. Much publicized that during like those first five seasons, he would go to almost every taping. He was hanging out. And he was like entranced by the production and like the machinery and everything. What's crazier is that I have heard from people who currently work on SNL that he still goes to

more episodes than he doesn't. Yeah. That's wild. That he'll just show up and they'll be like, yeah, he like took his... And he's like giving Dismukes notes. He's standing in the back. No, he like doesn't interact with anyone. He's just like, I love watching this happen. I mean, good for him.

If I was Steven Spielberg, I would like to, I would just do the things I wanted to do. Totally. Wait, was he at the infamous taping depicted in Saturday Night? Was he in attendance at that real taping? I'm not actually sure about that. I mean, that taping was so crazy. Everything was falling apart. Actually, I heard that there is a moment where Sammy Fabelman

is in the background. I'm telling you. I'm telling you. There was a duel role like Belushi. Now playing a duel role like Belushi. In one shot, he's actually playing Sammy Faberman. If you look really closely, it's eagle-eyed viewers watching Reitman's Saturday Night,

you can see an actor dressed like Steven Spielberg is laying one of the famous bricks... In those final seconds before George Carlin's monologue. I finally did it. Matthew Reese, kind of a curveball as Carlin, not bad. Kind of good. Yeah. This is the thing, I'm gonna say this.

I think I fully hate that movie. Fair enough. And I try to reserve throwing the H word out at films. But that movie drove me insane. I think it basically has like 10 borderline great performances in it. Yeah, there's some good performances in it, there's some bad ones too. But I did think this watching 1941 last night

where I'm like, if they announce tomorrow that Steven Spielberg wanted to make a movie about any version of the first five years of SNL, even just having seen Saturday Night, I'd be like, sign me the fuck up. Sure. I will say, I'm seeing here in the notes that Steven Spielberg was the guy who told Agent Burde to do the Rasta dance.

Oh boy. He also told Ashley Simpson to do lip syncing. Told Ashley Simpson, right, just lip sync it. And he did give a picture of the Pope to Sinead O'Connor. He did. Those are the only three times he's ever given notes. Yeah, he was just like, hey, do you want this? He actually gives a picture of the Pope to every musical guest.

She's just the only one who did anything. Everyone else just folds it up up puts it in their pocket You should rip up a picture of the two popes on doughboys see what happens You should you should wait have a pope month. Yeah Conclave Yeah, don't boys go to the Vatican and an invisible force throws them out You try to cross the border and you're just like expelled What would Vatican month be called? Oh boy. This is the pun master

Is there like a McDonald's in the back like is there? Vatican City sparrow there's got to be something Yeah, Vatican's pretty good Vatican City's pretty good. Vatican's pretty good. Vatican's good. Vatican shitty. Wait a second. Vatican shitty's pretty good. Is there actually a Sbarro's of the Vatican City? There's no way there's a Sbarro's. No. There's gotta be some.

I haven't seen Conclave yet. Do they show a Sbarro or anything like that? Yeah, they get a big pizza in Conclave. I mean, Two Popes actually does have a pizza sequence. Oh, right. Two Popes, yeah, where Hopkins says, that's my pizza. That's a real sequence in the Two Popes. I'll say, I did hear a rumor about the Vatican City Sabaro's.

What's that? That I just established may or may not exist. I heard a rumor that someone I know went there and they looked in the marinara tank and they were doing a Jaws parody inside of it. Oh, wow. And then they went back the next day and in the marinara they were doing a parody of the opening of 1941.

I hear that the sparrow at the Vatican City is where they store all the holy water. Yeah, I've heard that too. For the entire world. That's wet. Remember that joke is that it's wet. Yes, no, he knows. He knows.

We all know the joke. And you guys should listen to Griffin Sparrow episode of Doughboys for a moment where I was making dinner, I think, while I was listening to it. And I started to have that moment with comedy podcasts sometimes where I'm like, am I having like a panic having like a Panic attack or a brain event or have they just been talking about fucking water for a half hour? Like it feels like you've lost your mind sounds like you hate us, which is the right no I love it

It was so funny which by the way my reaction to anything Saturday night live does is like most comedians is that they can do no Wrong. I love Saturday night. Of course Saturday night live and everything about it is great You text us every Saturday night. You're like, my review, A+. It's another one for the record, books boys. 10 out of 10. The streak continues. Yeah, no, but real quick, sorry. I just, I heard at the Vatican, I remember the Vatican City Sparrow, that in the pasta water where they the tortellini's that the the shape of water guy hangs out in there

The fish guy Wikes I was coming up with a Sally Hawkins take and I think you had the better one I was drafting it my jerks off in the tortellini Fully baptized in the sparrow. He's hardcore Catholic now. He's like a JD Vance, like late in life conversion. Right. He's weird about it.

Right. He keeps saying ecumenical. And you're like, relax. Do you think, so go on a Saturday Night Live, do you think Saturday, do you think it is like the most bulletproof of all shows still? Because I still do think that people are not as critical as I know comedians are of it.

Like, it... Yeah, I mean, publicly, what are you talking about? It gets so much shit, though. It does get shit, but I think... Yeah. I think you're right, Mitch, that like, I will hear people say like, oh my God, SNL is so irrelevant.

Like, why is that still on the air? And I'm like, you clearly don't engage with it anymore, right? You cannot deny that this show has basically stayed culturally important for like The first like 20 years of SNL. It's like oh, they're obviously peaks and valleys I would say they've basically remained kind of center of the culture for like 25 years uncontested and it's also kind of one of the culture for like 25 years uncontested. And it's also kind of one of those like, well, why don't you go do a better one? And no one's ever like, whatever.

No one can pull it off. And also this movie is kind of, you want this movie to be an SNL feeling movie. It should be. And it's not. That's probably the kind of anarchic feeling Spielberg wants. And that's why, just to finish my point about John Belushi, that character was a minor character

in the script and they kind of beef it up once they cast him. That character was only supposed to enter into the film basically at the point where he lands on the ground. He was supposed to just be a last act. Here's one final element of chaos. Cast Belushi there like, we got to thread Belushi through the first two thirds of this. Belushi and Ackroyd are both doing SNL. They can only do three days a week of filming. And Belushi, I don't know if you guys know this,

was very interested in using the drug cocaine all the time. Does JJ have a citation for that? And Spielberg, I think probably because Belushi died so young and so on, you know, it has always just been like, it was wonderful working with him, it was a great time. But I think on set, he was a bit of a nightmare, and at one point Spielberg yelled at him, you can't do this to me, for $350,000, you gotta show up on time.

Because Belushi was always late to set and didn't know his lines. But that's how Animal House was made, right? Where he had two to three days off per week, and he would shuttle back and forth and was like delirious. Right. And it comes out the year before this, and it's like a revolutionary.

He's amazing in it. It's like culturally like shattering. Right? Do you guys like Belouche? I love him. Yeah. I mean, I think he's like a, I think all of us, he's like a little bit before our time.

Yeah, very much so. But I think if you watch his, you know, totemic like performances, it's like, OK, this guy had the juice his, you know, totemic like performances, it's like, oh, okay, this guy had the juice and you know, obviously life tragically cut short. It was interesting to see a movie that I, like I see Belushi doing stuff that I haven't seen before with 1940.

Well, not that he did something different, but I'm saying like, oh, this is just footage of him I haven't watched, because I'd never seen the movie. And it was like, I get it, you know what I mean? I get why he was a star. And and that's a bit like as I said before Every time he's on screen it at least resembles a comedy Which you can't say for like John Candy and Dan Aykroyd and the other wildly funny people in this movie who are all basically at the peaks of their careers Belushi is the only one who like

Actually has that level of juice. To your point there are basically if you're like discounting small supporting roles there are four Belushi like movies. Even in Animal House he's in a lot less of it than people remember but it's Animal House, 1941, Blues Brothers, it's five I'm sorry, Continental Divide Neighbors. In Neighbors which I've never seen. Those are the five movies where like, Belushi's above the title, his face is the biggest on the poster. I was such a big SNL kid,

I discovered SNL when I was like eight or nine and the video store across the street from us had a bunch of VHS's of the first five seasons of SNL. So I was like rabidly watching first five seasons SNL and it was like canonized for me in this massive, massive way. And like my father was such a big Belushi fan, he showed me Animal House and Blues Brothers way too young. And I was sort of like raised at the altar of this guy.

I remember at some point when I was young, my father sang to me, and then you know, Steven Spielberg made 1941, which was this big flop. And I was like, what's that? And he was like, it's like a war comedy with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. And I was like, what's that? And he was like, it's like a war comedy with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. And I was like, oh, so it's the best movie ever made. And he was like, no, it sucks and it's not funny.

And I was like, how is that possible? But I think that's like the way in which this was received in a way that also doesn't help this movie upon release is like the idea of like, oh my God, Spielberg is gonna work with the most exciting people in comedy, like the idea of like, oh my God, Spielberg is gonna work with the most exciting people in comedy, like the people who are fucking burning down the institutions.

And the first, these trailers that I was searching for that fucking tagline I wanted, the first teaser trailer for this movie, which is a year before the film comes out, was by All Accounts directed by John Milius, and I would say is funnier than the entirety of the finished film is, is John Belushi landing a plane and then doing direct address to the camera, sort of like war ad, like I'm out there fighting for you.

I need to enlist you to come see my movie next year. Like it's, he's pitching next Christmas and it's just Belushi doing straight to camera chaos. And if you see that trailer, and it says, like, from the director of Jaws and Close Encounters, one year from now there's a John Belushi comedy, and then you sit in the theater a year later, and this is what you get?

Like, the poster is, like, his giant, caricaturized head. 20 minutes of him total, maybe, in the movie, right? Maybe, maybe. And a lot of it is silent like it's just Him driving a plane, but like that's what they were leading with yeah Well, what else are you gonna fucking lead right second trees or trailer the second teaser trailer shows? Never what a model set of the loss of Los Angeles. Yeah, and then a big 1941 letters numbers rise out of the ground and then it just does like Superman flying credits of every cast member Yes, which you go into the list of like Ned Beatty Christopher Lee

Giving you all the names and then says like the most explosive comedy event in the year Those first two trailers show combined zero seconds of footage of the movie and all they're doing is get ready This is gonna be the biggest shit of all time combined zero seconds of footage of the movie and all they're doing is get ready. This is going to be the biggest shit of all time. Like they like put a fucking target on their back. Yeah, they did. They also meant to make it for 12 million and it cost 31, which is so much slower than I even thought it was honestly.

I guess with 1979, that's quite a bit, right? But it's a lot of money. Over a hundred million. It basically made its money back domestically, barely. And that's it. It made some more worldwide. So I don't think it was a total disaster, but it made Spielberg look bad because Jaws had gone over budget and over schedule.

And now, you know, close encounters, they kind of fucked around, right? Exactly. And like kind of made it seem like a low budget movie and turned into a really big budget movie. And so by Raiders is when he's like, I need to demonstrate that I can contain a budget. Which he does. Because those two were like, you can get away with it

if you keep making one of the highest grossing movies of all time. And then this time it's like, if you're just breaking even, you're done with your shit. When it came out, like I said, it basically turned to profit. Pauline Kael did like it. Pauline Kael is like one of his earliest fans. But then it turns on him by raiders.

Turns on him for raiders. The next movie, she's like, fuck this, it's kiddy bullshit. But largely critics hated it. And, you know, like you said, Griff, like they had just set themselves up for disappointment. Like, you know, the audiences were just, I think, expecting the funniest and biggest movie. And it's like, you're not getting funny.

I guess you're getting big. Yeah, but the big isn't funny. No, and it feels like you're being yelled at. Yeah, very strange. That's insane to turn on over Raiders. So, I mean, like I... Yeah, Pauline Kael was basically like Raiders. She was just like, boring.

This is like schematic. He's like lost the plot. And she was the one person who when Sugarland Express came out, her review is like, this is one of the greatest debuts by a filmmaker ever. He's gonna be one of the great American filmmakers. Like, called it, dead on. And then by Raiders, she's like this fucking kid playing with

his stupid toys yeah yeah John Candy is like barely in this movie but he does have in this but he does have like one of the few hard jokes that worked for me Griffin which is the when Dan Ackroyd gets knocked out he gets hit in the head and John Kennedy's like oh he always had a glass head. Yeah, I like that glass head But there you go. There's also he also has the the bit where him and uh, who was the actors named John McRae? Yeah, I'm a great job. It was an NFL player. How McRae is a baseball player. What am I talking about? Frank Frank Yeah, they get he gets stood on his face and and he looks like a black man and then he throws flour. The flour part is like, why is he throwing flour at him anyways?

And then they laugh at each other while Candy's panicking because they look like they're doing opposite minstrel. It's like a very weird bit that goes on for a while. It's weird. He's also in used cars. I actually liked that there was like a per- because he's like, to the back of it, he tells Kane to go to the back of the tank. And I think I actually liked that there was like, a guy particip- even though it's white

people who wrote this joke. I'm like, there's a man participating in this, these kind of racy jokes, which before it's like, we're pointing and laughing at like, the movie is pointing and laughing at people. That he's more active. But it's like, it's one of those things where it's like, I'm not even framing it as like a punching down, like punching up thing. It just so often in this movie, you're like,

I don't understand who the target of the joke is, right? And like for how much Spielberg would cite the Marx brothers and like Looney Tunes and these things that had this sort of like Chaotic a million things are happening and nothing's too big moments All of those things have a very simple like a Nate setup of like the Marx brothers usually go into Fancy places they're at opera houses, right or like dinner parties and you surround them with a bunch of well Well, I never and you're like wait

I want to see those people be taken down. Yeah, right Right. It's funny to see Margaret Dumont to get taken down a bit Bugs Bunny can be an asshole to a hunter Yeah, because a hunter is pointing a gun in his hole Yes, and he has to like fight to survive right and that way it's funny when he like is a stinker This movie is like everyone's just yelling at everyone and doing shit. And you're like, I don't know, like, I have no perspective on who I'm supposed to be. I don't want to say who I'm supposed to be rooting for,

but just sort of like who any joke is at the expense of. Why did John Cady throw flour at him? It doesn't even make, we don't know. It doesn't even make sense. That whole, and again, yeah, you're not sure who like, who's supposed to be the butt of this joke. And then within that tank though, there's all sorts of shit like that happening.

Like there's also Dan Aykroyd who's like, yeah, Dan Aykroyd puts a sack of oranges over his head. And then he puts the two oranges on his eyes and is like, I am a bug. And that's the sort of things like, if that's in the script, I like, I have no idea how they reached that point. But like, it's probably just not. There's no way it's in the script. Yeah, so it's probably just not in the script, I have no idea how they reached that point. There's no way it's in the script.

It's probably just not in the script, right? So Spielberg is just pointing a camera at a funny guy and saying, I don't know, something funny. So it just feels completely random. I mean, it's very funny to think of me as interior. You cut back to interior tank off the bug and it cuts back to whatever else. Here's a great encapsulation of the movie for any listeners who did not bother to watch it, right? There are like eight major plot threads just within this one thread of the tank, guys, right?

You have John Candy and Frank McCray doing this like race swapping play, right? Then you have Dan Aykroyd in the back. This is all in the last like 20 minutes of the movie when it's reaching a fever pitch for a movie that starts at a fever pitch, right? Then you have Dan Aykroyd in the back. This is all in the last like 20 minutes of the movie when it's reaching a fever pitch for a movie that starts at a fever pitch, right? So like Candy McRae are doing this. Aykroyd is directly behind them with oranges on his eyes going, I'm a bug. And then immediately after that, the tank runs through the walls of a paint factory into giant vats of colored paint, making like huge colored explosions. And you're like, there is too much going on. This is far too,

and none of it has to do with anything else. I can't keep track of it. And this is just one of the strings. And then we're like cutting back to like Tim Matheson, like trying to stop. Like in a fucking in a plane or Ned Beatty, like blowing up his own house or whatever. Yeah, you know, like shit where you're just like,

We didn't even talk about the Ned Beatty. Well, because like, what's going on with that? I don't know. Yeah, it's just like... I want to shout out Greg Jean, I think is his name, who did the miniatures on this movie. He's a legendary miniature guy he'd done Close Encounters because, I mean, Spielberg says this, like, they did the most incredible job,

like making Hollywood Boulevard, like the details on all these buildings are amazing. Like, it's an incredibly masterful technical achievement, like what they're doing, all in the service of the bullshit you're talking about, and blowing it all up. Greg Jean, I also want to say, did Star Trek The Next Generation's miniatures. He built the ships. And there's a famous, my favorite episode of Star Trek, one of my favorite episodes is Cause and Effect, which is the episode where they get stuck in a time loop because a ship keeps coming out of a black hole and crashing into them. And like then the day, it's a Groundhog Day episode. And when that episode ends, they avoid the ship and it turns out that the USS Bozeman

and Kelsey Grammer is the captain and he like calls in, he's like, hello, how are you doing? And it turns out he's from like 80 years ago, he's been stuck in a time loop for 80 years. And the USS Bozeman is NCC 1941 as homage to this film. Wow. There you go. And when Kelsey Grammer falls into the time warp,

does he go, oh my Lord. It's just so funny that it's Kelsey Grammer. It's like Frasier era Kelsey Grammer Wearing an old thank you for recognizing what I was getting. It was very good. Thank you anyway David yes, if I know one thing about you, okay It's that you're tired of figuring out what's for dinner every night after night, especially on those busy weekdays When you walk into the studio every day and you go, I'm so tired. I go don't even finish the sentence

I know the one root cause of that problem busy weekdays. I just had a busy weekdays No, I'm saying it's you trying to decide what to make for dinner night after night busy weekdays How do you make my weekdays less busy? These issues are linked. I go, how are the twins sleeping? You go, great, no problem there. I'm sleeping through the night. Yes. I have to feed my family.

You have more mouths to feed them. And that is true. Although they just eat. They don't eat lovely meals. But I have to make lovely meal and I get home and my time limit is my time window is limited and it is hard to just kind of you know Find a magic recipe in the fridge every single day. What a compelling personal it is sort of experience this is yeah I mean if you really want to get into it I do like it's 530 right and dinner's got to kind of be on the table because everyone's going to bed around 7 right?

Podcasting has ended 15 minutes before that That's that is why I honest anyone who listens to the show might notice that I'm a little but look It's easy to find time to eat well I go because you can get 50 wholesome hassle free meals to choose from every week to get delivered right to your door These hello fresh ready-made meals that go from fridge to fork Yeah in just three minutes one two three minutes journey. I like fridge to fork. Yeah. In just three minutes, one, two, three minutes. That's the journey I like, fridge to fork. It's the same high-quality ingredients in a restaurant or the flavor you expect from HelloFresh,

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screenplay right and and he was like, once we were commissioned to write this movie, we just started doing a ton of research and looking into all the things that happened in this area, in this time period, interesting, weird stories from the war that we could fold into the script and the way that the Beatty thing is based on something that happened.

They were looking for real life inspiration. And he was like, I found out about this incredible thing. I'm going to speak about this very quickly and probably get a lot of the major details wrong, but just try to do a quick overview. Oh, amazing. Cool. There's, yeah, get ready. There's this thing called the Boeing Wonderland, which was when the Boeing company was making all the war planes, all their factory plants where they were being constructed and housed. They were worried were going to be targets by the Japanese to be bombed or whatever.

So they built faked, paper-detailed, forced perspective miniature towns. A pretend town named the Boeing Wonderland. Atop the roof of this plant so that anyone flying overhead would think it was just another suburban neighborhood. And it was basically a thing that only worked from the vantage point of someone in a plane from a reasonable distance that far above. And he was like, this is such an interesting thing. I can't believe this is real.

People don't know about it because it was like kept top secret at the time and like wrote it in as a whole plot thread and was like, we had this scene where they're like touring the town. And then we decided like, it was just one thing too many in the movie and I'm like that sounds more interesting than 90% of the shit that ended up in the movie. This is the whole thing it's just like maybe that should just be a movie. Totally. Like rather than whatever this is before...

And then 30 years later we get Welcome to Marwen. A better movie. Is Welcome to Marwen better than 1941? Yes or no? This is really difficult. Have you guys been welcomed to Marwin? Yeah. Can you weigh in on this? I mean, Nick lives in Marwin Call to be clear. This is one of the action figures. This is true. I think I'd rather... I think I'd rather rewatch think I'd rather re-watch 1941 than Marlin. That's fair.

I like 1941. That's my big... I... How much do you like it, Mitch? Like, as we're winding down here. A C. I think it's a C. Right, so you're saying kind of like... It's over the border of enjoyable for you. You give it the lowest passing grade.

It's not like a great movie, but you don't mind. I want to watch the extended cut, because... Because the... By the way, what happens to Hollywood, Holly, what's his name, Slim Pickens? He's just kind of dropped from the movie. I mean, that's the other interesting thing he said is that Spielberg wanted Slim Pickens in the film as a reference to Doctor Strange. Of course. Explicitly, right?

Originally, he was going to be in one shot, non-speaking. Which is, like, very hubristic in the same way we're talking about him, like, referencing his own movies and pointing at the best example of what he's trying to do through a visual reference to one of the actors. And Gale and Zemeckis very smartly were like, hey, Slim Pickens is one of the best character actors alive. Right, you might as well use him.

You might as well use him. This entire plot line didn't exist. Uh-huh, so that's why it's kind of separate from the movie. Milius suggested, they were like, we should come up with something for Slim Pickens to do. And they were like, what if there's a who's on first situation, this guy's. Oh, I swear. Right, you can do

this whole thing, and it's like, this is the strongest comedic idea in the entire movie. It is the thing they came up with last. He's funny. Basically, reverse engineered from having the actor, but it's also the only comedic idea in the entire movie. It is the thing they came up with last. He's funny. Basically reverse engineered from having the actor, but it's also the only comedic setup in the movie where I'm like, the game is really clear to me, the stakes are really clear, the interplay is clear, the sort of like culture clash between the two of them.

He plays it so well of like being terrified, but also feeling like what is the patriotic thing to do to how to stay in my ground and then like interrogating him with prune juice because Throat is pretty funny. It's funny. It's like funny and it's like they landed on a by mistake at the last How do they not have them come in at the end? Yeah, it's like an extended sketch That's just like a like self contained in an abandoned It doesn't even actually impact the plot because it's like the compass, they don't get it out of him.

So they figure out to use, they're like tracking the radio to figure out where Hollywood is, right? They should have had him at the end. They should have, from a toilet perspective, you should have seen the compass coming out of his asshole, I think. That would have been good. You mentioned, I think that's a great solve.

I think we should have seen. Nickel boys, but from a toilet perspective. POV shot from a toilet of a compass falling out of a man's asshole What if you do an upside-down nickel boys and you shoot an entire movie perspective of? Spielberg's like it has to be in the movie. They're like the film is unreleasable. Yeah, you have a Naked asshole shitting on the camera. It's now like an x-rated film I don't care if you got a if you got a brown compass falling on the camera. It's now like an X-rated film. I don't care.

If you got a brown compass falling on the camera at the end, I think that that's pretty good. Yeah. No, I'm just like, you could build the entire movie out of this. Like there is something better about like, just like a small town guy gets abducted by confused Japanese soldiers

and they have this weird standoff within a sub. That's the thing though. There's half a dozen plot lines in here that probably would make a funny 90 minute, you know, not as big budget movie. And maybe you can like to put two or three of them together and weave it into like a silly farce. And this is just too much. I've never, Sims, I've never seen you this with, like, you're like, you're just like, we just need, it sounds like you want to end this movie itself and end this episode is just too silly for it.

Really, you've never seen him like that? Every time we've done the podcast, you're just force-wrapping my daily existence. I must end this episode, but no, no, I, but I kind of, that's how I felt about the movie though. The whole time I was just like, and I think- It's a real bosta, guys, let's wrap it up. Yeah, but I also just feel like I don't usually like these kinds of movies. They're not usually good.

No. Anytime anyone's like oh, I want to do like my take on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad. I'm like have you watched It's a Mad, Mad, Mad? It sucks. Yeah, also not very good. Like is there one of those... It has some funny stuff. Like you know as all these things do. Rat Race has some funny stuff. Rat Race is pretty good actually. Rat Race, directed by Jerry Zucker. Yeah rat race It's a map and my world gets a lot of juice just out of being the first time someone tried that and you can even feel

It now like living in the present and having watched all the things that have attempted to do it It has a certain energy from like the novelty and the ambition of what they're pulling off Yeah, and it also just like, it cast a wide net, they correctly got all the funny people, they let all of them do their funny things, but it is like an incredibly long misshapen movie. It's like three hours long! Yes.

You're just like, alright, enough already. I think it's also trying to be funny in a different way. Like this is confused about what funny it's supposed to be in mad mad mad world It doesn't it isn't like the thing that's gonna make you like fall over laughing But it is like it knows the type of humor it is I guess and this one it just feels confused You also know what you're watching. It's like oh, they're all trying to get the money like it's like okay I get there's there's a big W with money underneath it They're all trying to get so the setup is incredibly simple and it's just like now we'll just have sketches And they're all on the road, which means they can run into other funny people

But you have the main five threads and you understand them in relation to each other because they're all working towards the same end Goal weirdest thing about that movie is it sort of like Spielberg following up close encounters even more seriously It is Stanley Kramer's follow- to Judgment at Nuremberg. Like that he was like, I'll do something silly after this. Right, starring Spencer Tracy. Which this, you know, should be. And instead it feels like whatever, like it feels like an epic in search of, you know,

more jokes or a plot or a point. I don't like it. I don't either, but I don't hate it. No, I don't hate it. It is just like, it is a confounding object. But I found it like a point. I don't like it. I don't either but I don't hate it It is just like it is a confounding like a chore. I did as well You know, they kind of like okay not helped by the extra 30 minutes. I committed to yeah I want to like that. I want to watch that now I want to watch the extended version is that is it not maybe you're gonna give it a B minus Maybe you're gonna like that even more Sims. Which one did you watch? I

Watch the regular version. Mitch, I also feel like you, especially your sort of take on a lot of modern cinema is kind of like, I'm crying out for a Spielberg here. Like as much as, you know, 1941 is flawed, you're just recognizing like, there's craft. And like, that's something that's just missing unless, you know, it's Red One, obviously,

which is the best crafted movie. No, I still haven't seen Red One. You still haven't seen it... I'm gonna watch it. This is reductive, but movies are things that you look at and listen to. And at the end of the day, this is directed by Steven Spielberg. The DP, whose name I forget, but like, had just shot a ton of like, you know, great movies.

And... Let me double-check. William Fraker. Yeah. Legendary DP. And, you know, it's got a John Williams score. I mean, there's... It at least check. William Fraker. Legendary deep. And, you know, it's got a John Williams score. I mean, it at least has that going for it. Which is good. The John Williams score is genuinely good.

It's got a lot of Aaron Copeland in it. And it's... Exactly. I feel like it's on the right side of making... It's got a really strong, hummable theme. Like, the score is more in tune with the humor this movie is attempting than the movie itself. The theory of this film's humor. Yeah but it's I mean it's like it is fascinating as a sort of like we'll talk about sometimes like people like who seemingly walk straight into a cultural cancellation where it's

like oh there's some part of them that wants to be caught. Spurlock? Well, that's the most extreme version of it, right? All right, I'm sorry, Mark. We know, we know, we know, we know. You know. But there's also the version of people

who will self-sabotage a career because they can't handle the pressure. Is there someone in particular you're thinking of? Well, you know what? This is the first credited screen appearance. He only appears at the very end as the only... I clocked him. Of Mickey Rourke.

And he is someone who talks that way about his 90s. I basically behaved in a way of like, get me out of fame. But even just what he picked, like the projects he took on and how he behaved on set was partially that like he could not handle the pressure of everyone being like you're the new De Niro. You have it. Yeah, right like we're all looking at you And I think it's not quite the same thing but like kinds of kindness I remember when you walked out you were like this is your guess being like I need to fight back against the idea that I'm Like automatic prestige right your ghost being like I am not the next Tim Burton.

Fuck you, Jesus Christ. Right, I want to make people angry at me again so I can like reset the table and still feel transgressive. I do think the way Spielberg talks about the making of this movie and the decision making process and being like, I just like want to not hold myself to any standard is like almost consciously him trying to get his biggest flop out of the way so he can move on from it. I like that.

Yeah, maybe there's something to that and again he follows it up with his, you know, kind of his two biggest hits, right? Apart from, I mean, I don't know. And like Raiders is arguably his tightest movie ever. It is, it's his tightest movie in every way and it's storyboarded to hell and it came in under budget and on time and all that.

And it's him being like, I learned my lesson, I'm a good little boy. Right. Before we play the box office game, is there anything else you guys noted in this bloated ass movie that we have not touched on? Sims, I want to say this, that as much as I say I do like it and I appreciate it, I did pause the movie and read the entire Wikipedia for Dumbo during the movie. Hell yeah. Much better movie. And then read the entire Wikipedia for Trumbo, because it just reminded me of Trumbo.

Yeah, sure. So I was very distracted and took like an hour break. I thought the second half of the movie, I thought once it gets to the Zoot Suit riot, is basically when I was like, that was more when I was on board. And all the big spectacle and the house sliding off the Goonies, is it the Goonies cliff?

It's cool. I know David is always very skeptical about the notion of fan edits and the fan edit community. I am, yes. One of our listeners recently emailed us, and I scanned through it, I haven't sat down and watched it, but we have our infamous, infamous battle about which half of the holiday is good

and which half is bad. Yes. And a listener emailed him and was like, I agree with your take. So here is my cut of the holiday that is just the Kate Winslet half of the movie where Jude Law and Cameron Day has never appeared on screen. That cut itself is an hour and 10 minutes, which speaks to how bloated that film is. But even at the end where the two like cross over,

he cut around any time that he... Oh, so you don't even see them? You never see them. Okay. But this sent me down a rabbit hole of similar fan edits and there's one guy I found on Reddit, I've been meaning to pass this along to you, Mitch, who is advertising that he did a cut of Romulus

where he took out all the dumb fan service callbacks. Wow. Wow. That's interesting. Took out that, took out all the lines, and people were like, this is a lot better. I would watch that just because. So then I messaged this guy to get a link to it, and he was like, I have a couple other edits you might be interested in,

and one was a similar cut of Solo, where he did a similar take out the dumb fan edit shit, or the dumb fan service shit, and streamlined the story. Which, right, there's not too much of. And he did a cut of Miami Vice that he called Miami Nice where he was like, can you combine the superior aspects of the directors and theatrical? And I'm like, this guy seems really interesting.

I like all of his thought experiments. What I want someone, maybe this guy to do next is do a cut of 1941 where you just put in the entirety of Dumbo. It's a clean... It's a pretty light lift. Yeah. I'm just watching, like, the elephant, the mom elephant caress Dumbo while she sings Baby Mine, and I'm just like, animation is so beautiful.

And then I'm thinking about, like, in 1941, this must have felt, like, really revolutionary to watch something like this. Yeah. And then we're not like, in 1941, this must have felt like really revolutionary to watch something like this. And then we're not watching Dumbo anymore. And I'm like, boring, like back to this shitty movie. You can obviously go, you can certainly go full frame with some of the Dumbo. You've got some wides of the screen with the theater watching it. You've also got some reaction shots of Robert Stack.

I wonder if you have enough to sustain the full movie just between kind of, you know, cutting through existing. I think you probably could. It would be funny if we just cut back to Robert Stack like 80 times, just like, still good. Yeah. I was reminded, my thing is I was reminded of how good Robert Stack is in Beavis and Butt-Head

Do America. He rules. So funny. He's so funny. He's good in this. He's like the funniest part. Airplane like two years later. So good in Air movie too. I like him. He's good in this. He's like the funniest part. He's so funny in Airflare.

He's so funny in Airflare. Immediately after this figure out how to use him in comedies properly, he's pretty good in this. He's good in this, but he actually just sort of seems like a serious person who's trying to clean up the mess. Totally. And you're like, I support you Robert Sack, but right, Airplane gets the straight arrow joke with him much better.

I want to call out the fan edit Redditor's username straight cuts no chaser and if they tell me that they don't want me saying their username on Mike then I will have this cut out. Sure, I'm sure they would be happy. I have one, I just have, I have one last, just two last thoughts basically. One, I liked that it was, I liked that it was lighthearted

because there's sirens going off and it's about the destruction of Hollywood which is like, if it was a dramatic movie watching that this week, it probably would feel like too hot. Yeah, I swear. Yeah, the timing is hot. The timing is good. The other Spielberg movie we watched this week is Always, which is entirely about forest fires. Oh, jeer lord.

And guys trying to extinguish in planes flaming trees. It's just a weird, too, Spielberg to watch in a very tragic week for the Los Angeles era. So I was happy that it was lighthearted. I, the end there, I want to ask you guys this. He's like, 42 is going to be an even bigger year. Were they angling first? Was that a sequel angle?

It feels like it, Christ. It feels like it. That would be, and they could watch Bambi. They could watch that movie. That was, yeah. That's just the, the movie is just like the guys who didn't go overseas are just like, should we watch a movie?

And they go watch Bambi. What an amazing franchise set up to just be like, yeah, we can make one for every year. Yeah, Jesus, we got these years on the line. Yeah. All right. I have 38 years ahead right now. Go ahead.

I have two more quick things. One is, and you all may have the factual answer there, but like, so in this one is fictionalized where the land of Hollywood land is busted off by John Belushi's plane, right? Right. The famous Hollywood sign used to say Hollywood land. Well, my understanding is, because I always,

what I learned is that the land was destroyed by the Rocketeer. So do you know which is true? Oh boy, that Rocketeer. You're a Rocketeerist. Yeah, I'm a Rocketeerist. Yeah, right. Yeah, no, it was definitely Billy Campbell.

Is that the Rocketeer? Yeah. Okay. I feel like in the movie Hollywoodland. The Ben Affleck movie. Adrian Brody. And Adrian Brody, right. Yeah. Where they use the like, the crumbling of the land as, like, a metaphorical...

Darkness. Right, the darkness is so great, this place isn't even a land anymore. It's just an idea. But I feel like they explain in that what actually happened to the letters. What did happen? I think Adrian Brody, Adrian Brody in that movie, as Laszlo Toth takes it down as an architectural experiment. Yeah, he does. He pours water on it.

Yeah, yeah. He runs his hang along. There's a Brody verse that is slowly building up. His village character, unfortunately, is going to pop into the... Only one man who can stop it. I have a buddy who... Private Royce from Predators? Sure. Or what about the mean record executive from Cadillac Records?

I'm just trying to get like... Yeah, exactly. I think it's Arthur. It's definitely chess. It's chess. I have a buddy who confronted the Rocketeer outside of a hotel and he said that he didn't believe that he was the reason that the land went down and he punched him. The Rocketeer punched him.

That's crazy, yeah. I'm kind of with the Rocketeer there, honestly. Yeah. I mean, like, even if it was a thing that he, like, was made up, like, still... You don't confront... Leave the man alone. He's an, yeah. I'm kind of with the Rocketeer there, honestly. Yeah. I mean, like, even if it was a thing that he, like, was made up, like, still... Just don't confront. Leave the man alone. He's an old man, you know? Did you read that op-ed where the Rocketeer said he was voting for Trump?

Yeah. Really disappointing. Yeah. I mean, I guess I should have seen it coming from, like, an Art Deco 30s, like, here, who's, like, kind of Ayn Rand-coded. And it's also just, like, I don't know, he's an old man and like what's he done recently

outside of Dancing with the Stars, you know? And punching the guy. I have one more. I have one more thing. I heard that he almost did a movie a few years ago that he was gonna do, Red Rocket was actually gonna be Red Rocketeer. Oh yeah, I did read that.

He just didn't wanna show dick on screen. Sean Baker insisted. What was your other thought? Yeah, what's read that. He just didn't want to show dick on screen. Sean Baker insisted. What was your other thought? Yeah, what's your other thought? My other thing, going back to Trumbo, fun fact, the Wikipedia. Of course, let's please go back to Trumbo. We've got to go back to Trumbo.

The Wikipedia entry for Trumbo was written in a bathtub. All right. Yeah, of course. There you go. The page itself is wet. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, Los Angeles has an idea to help battle the fires in the future. Uh-huh. They're going to build a bunch of Sparrows.

Jesus Christ. That's good. You know, I actually heard, I heard, I went to Sparrow last week because I was just like, we're dealing with fires out here and it's like, you're kind of like, I just want some trashy food to kind of comfort me. And it's great. All these fast food workers are still on the job. God bless them. So I went to the Sabaro at the Fox Hills mall to get myself some comfort food. And they're boiling the marinara back there in the marinara is Trumbo with a typewriter in the screenplay. But he's got a mustache and a chef's hat on. He's like, hey, I'm writing my screenplay.

I'm Italian Trumbo over here. Also, I know we finished, we moved on from our Adrian Brody little sidebar. I don't want to offer spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen The Brutalist yet. You know my favorite scene was in that movie? When they go to Italy and the old guy pours the marinara on the marble that is really That was that was very touching and very sensitive culturally I found From sparrows, of course, you see them go to the bar. I was asked for a cup of marinara Yeah, I want to one of those hydrants that wasn't working

And I followed with the I followed it back as we're at guess we're gonna end up Sparrow oh boy, Oh boy, that's an issue. That was part of the issue. I'm really glad you gave us the time to answer, Nish, rather than just telling us. My only last thought is that, and this sums up this movie to me, this sums up this movie to me is that when they do the credits, I know we've talked about the credits a lot, but when they do the credits, and maybe we've talked about the credits a lot, but when they do the credits,

and maybe we've said this already, the explosions we mentioned. Before the explosions, yeah. Every character they show is just like, ah, they're all screaming. Just fucking scream. It's like Dan Ackerman, that's his clip of everyone screaming.

There's no clip of anyone being quiet in this movie that you can find. And can I actually just say one more thing before we play the box office game? Yeah, I think you need to. I forgot to bring this up earlier, but Weiger, when you were saying that this movie has the manic energy of the Waterworld stunt show, which can sustain for 20 minutes, but not like a full two hours, did you hear the rumor that Universal is going to replace that with

a Saguaro World stunt show? Again, for any listener who doesn't know what's going on, please listen to Doughboys every week, a wonderful podcast, especially Griffin's Sparrow's episode. The Super Nintendo adaptation of Sparrow World actually has an amazing soundtrack. It does, yeah. So this film came out, this actually is weird. This film came out at Christmas time I don't think this is a particularly good

Christmas movie that teaser trailer Is nailing the wreath at the end when he knocks his house into the yeah, it's kind of like a very light Christmas movie I also think that like before Spielberg You know basically created the modern blockbuster with Jaws in a Summer release Christmas was the number one most desirable release Christmas is much more wide open you're right It was the best all of these movies are big. So it's opening number three. Okay, which is pretty like decent but you know as it wasn't like the success they hoped for a Number one of the box office is kind of the biggest play of the year.

Sort of, it's a big sci-fi movie. It's a big sci-fi movie. We've covered it on our Patreon. In 1979, we've covered it on our Patreon. Is it 2010? No. The year we make contact? No. Is it Star Trek the Motion Picture? That's what it is. Okay, there we go. Star Trek the Motion Picture,

which of course was a television show. They were gonna make Star Trek Phase Two. And then Star Wars came out and they were like, fuck, this needs to just be a movie. These are movies now. And Star Trek The Motion Picture arrived and did well, but was also disappointed. But it's also like, almost like if they announced tomorrow

that they were green lightinglighting a $200 million NYPD Blue movie with the original cast. Literally, yes. I mean, maybe, okay. It's not, I'm trying to think of a better analogist. The X-Files is kind of a good analog, I guess. But they've already done movies of that. It would be the X-Files if X-Files didn't have

two movies and a revival. Yeah, like, or, yeah, I don't know. I mean, some kind of big cult show. Yeah, it just speaks to how massive the Star Wars Close Encounters effect was, combined with, like, Trek being the original cult show that lingered. Real quick, Simms, I know you've covered on the Patreon, people have heard your take, but Simms, as a Trekky,

what do you think of Star Trek's motion picture? I am a huge fan and huge defender of, as it was known at the time, Star Trek the slow motion picture. I think it just rocks. Or the motionless picture. Or the motionless picture. I've been, I saw it when I was a kid and I was just very taken with it. It is objectively boring and it is objectively kind of like not very good at,

like the Star Trek stuff, like it doesn't really have a really good handle on Kirk and Spock and stuff. It's a great mood piece. But it's such a cool, weird, moody movie, and all the visual effects are so cool, and I love the story, and I always will defend it. But Khan is, you know, episode, you know, Star Trek II, Wrath of Khan,

is them figuring everything out. Like the formula for these movies, Kirk and Spock's dynamic, everything. I mean, I love, I love that movie. I wanna shout out a little bit while we're talking Star Trek, Nicholas Meyer, who is the director of Star Trek 6, the undiscovered country.

And of Rath of Khan. And of Rath of Khan, yeah. But Nicholas Meyer, when I was on the, during the WGA strikes, he was out on the picket lines like every day. I'd see that guy all the time. And he's like, you know, he's a, I believe he was born in the 40s, so, like, you know, he's still out there.

Yeah, he's like in his late 70s. He rocks. I mean, I love him. God bless him. Two things. Rocking at me, kind of. Um... Uh... David, do you have the Star Trek, the motion picture soundtrack on vinyl?

No, I have, um, Wrath of Khan on vinyl. Okay, I bought it, and then a better version came out. I'll give you the old version, the less good version. Second thing, this episode's coming out on February 2nd. Yesterday, February 1st, on our Patreon, we finished the Jelly Trilogy Contest. And we're about to start the next generation. We're about to start doing all the Picard movies. Wow! Very excited for that.

All four of them, there's only four. But then we have a little treat for number, for movie five. We can say it. Yeah, Galaxy Quest. We're tacking Galaxy Quest on. Why not? Why not? Now, but listen to this, Box Office game, guys.

1941 is opening number three. No, I'm just saying, I didn't know this until now. This is devastating for 1941. Number two at the Box Office, new this week, opening against 1941, is one of the best comedies of the 70s. And like a shot out of a cannon, holy shit, like movie star moment.

Is it The Jerk? It's Steve Martin and The Jerk. That is devastating. So like that movie is what, 85 minutes long or whatever? You know what I mean? And like so fucking funny. A guy who had never been in movies before probably cost what, five million dollars?

Yeah, exactly. Costs no money. Yeah. And just like, it cost four million dollars and made a hundred. Right. And it's just like two generations of comedic geniuses, Carl Reiner and like Steve Martin, just building a perfect comedy out of nothing. Right. So like that's tough for 1940s. Yeah. I can just go see The Jerk.

Yeah. That's much better. Yeah. Number four, The Box Office. And Jerk handily outgrossed it. Yeah By far. Yeah number four is also a kind of 1941 esque movie, but it's a very serious war Masterpiece. Hmm, but it's also an out-of-control Is it apocalypse now?

Wow, so you can also just go see the real thing. Oh my god. That's yeah Just fucking go see apocalypse now if you want to see a bloated amazing war epic. Yeah, okay number five Can I quickly interject here? Isn't it weird that? Billy Corgan doesn't sing about 1941 in 1979. That's a great like the movie It is we should he should be like great. No, Mitch. Yeah, cool, cause. Hot take, that movie is good. Something like that. I give it a C. Corgan's hard to do.

That's a little Corgan, right? Ah! Ah! 1970. Just keep doing that, right? Weiger and I will do it occasionally. That's good, Mitch. Yeah, that was good.

That was a good Corgan. Corgs. But he should have sang about 1941. It's his favorite year, but he should have sang about another year Yeah, let's go see 1941 like that should have been in the song. Yeah, let's go see in that you for the one It's only Cartman Get some cheesy poofs Yeah, you know what he's just saying like Cartman too. Honestly, he should why didn't you say like Cartman? Big take like what if Rick Rubin started doing that. Why didn't he sing it like Cartman? Can I do it on a big take?

What if Rick Rubin started doing that when he's brought in as a big budget producer for a new record? He's like, you should sing it like Cartman. That's my one note. More butters, less timid. I feel like South Park has strayed away from its real core, which is Cheesy

Poofs. I feel like they barely mention Cheesy Poofs anymore. I have not seen South Park in like 15 years. I'll tell you what you haven't missed. Cheesy Poofs coming. Oh shit. Number five, I just wanna, so you know, we've got Star Trek, The Jerk, 1941 apocalypse now. Number five is a hit movie, but it's also a number movie.

Much like now. So 1941's even getting outboxed in the number title realm. Is it a year as well? No, it's just a number. It's just a number. Is it 10? Blake Edwards 10? Blake Edwards is 10 with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek.

Another dare I say it, and I know this term has been retired, but I think it applies too directly for this film. It is a big tiddied hit. 10 is a big tiddied hit. Big tiddied hit. Ten is a big tiddied hit and is another low blow to open against two comedies that are really sticking with the culture. I've never seen Ten. I've neither. I just know it's got big boobs in it.

You guys seen Ten? I saw it many years ago. I remember it being like kind of like- Mitch is like, now wait a second, it's One and then Zero? That's what I put into Google? Mitch has turned into Zemeckis here. You've seen it, thank you. I saw it many years ago, I think I remember,

because I knew I liked Dudley Moore. And so I think I might have been too young for the comedy, but the right age for the Raunch memory serves. Right, right, of course. It's always the right age for the Raunch. It. Right, right, of course. It's always a right age for the raunch. It's funny that the setup for that movie is Dudley Moore, who is two foot negative six inches,

is married to Julia Andrews. Statuesque woman. They go on vacation, and he sees a younger woman who is so fucking hot that the movie is basically like, cheat on your wife! And Blake Edwards was married to Julie Andrews. Also at the box office, we've got And Justice for All, the Pacino movie.

Oh, sure. You're out of order. Which is silly. Yeah. But, you know, not bad. No, but still. You've got the film Starting Over, which is the Burt Reynolds sort of romantic dramedy with Jill Kleberg.

That's a good movie. Pretty good movie. Kind of one of his more serious, like actually pretty good movies. You've got The Rose with Bette Midler, which was her kind of breakout Mark Rydell film. Playing not Janis Joplin. Playing a Janis Joplin-esque diva. You've got The Black Stallion with Mickey Rooneyoney in the like late in life Oscar nom Mm-hmm never seen me neither actually yeah, I saw the Carol Ballard did the remake right? It's Carol Ballard

Yeah, I saw that no that's this one. That's this one. Oh wait that who did the I? Don't fuck there's the 90s black stallion Yes, there is yes, I tell Ballard did the original just about a Uh, yes, there is yes. I Carol Ballard did be your is it just about a Horse like what is it? Can I can I look I I know I flopped with my r1 movies cursed earlier Like I know that didn't that didn't take how about this? our horse movies cursed Interesting Like because there's always with horses

On a horse Spirit, Starris Horse in the title Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmerian We don't like War Horse you and I both put that pretty low on our spirit ranking Yeah, I'm not a big fan of War Horse What's the best movie with the horse in the title? Dreamer

Never saw Dreamer But that's my favorite line in the movie Hamlet 2 Oh sure When he's introducing Kim... What's your name? What's your fucking name? Oh. Elizabeth Shoe. Yes. And he's like trying to get the kids excited about Elizabeth Shoe and they're like they don't know who she is. He's like Dreamer with the fucking horse! It always makes me laugh. Spirit? I haven't seen

Spirit running free or whatever the recent one was called. The original Spirit is very well animated and a bit of a snooze. I've been thinking about showing Spirit to my daughter because it seems kind of chill. I was gonna say yeah It's a perfect like that age movie But no, I think why girl you might have redeemed yourself with this take. Hidalgo? Do we like Hidalgo? No one likes Hidalgo I said sea biscuit right off the bat. You didn't respond to a sea biscuit. Oh sea biscuit interesting Sea biscuits like as good as you can get.

That's like the ceiling for a horse movie. And that movie's mostly not about the horse. Yeah, but does anyone give a shit about, what was the other fucking, the Malkovich one called? They made a Secretariat movie. Secretariat. Oh yeah, that one's even worse. Seabiscuit's not bad.

Seabiscuit's all right. Seabiscuit's pretty good. Number 10, The Box Office is. This is a pretty good take, Wags. It looks like it's a re-release of a George Office is... This is a pretty good take, Wags. It looks like it's a re-release of a George P. Cosmata's movie called Sin or Restless starring Raquel Welsh. This is not important.

Weird. Anyway, that's The Box Office game from 1941. I just think it illustrates how badly its lunch is getting eaten by better movies. And like next week, Kramer versus Kramer comes out. Wow. Which is like one of the biggest It certainly is up there and it wins Oscar and all that so it's sort of like I've never seen Kramer I think it's coming to the Vista never seen it. I know It's good. It's dated, but it's like a very watchable movie. I think the sequel is better

Go ahead Kramer versus Kramer versus Matt Locke versus infinite Someone's behind on Doughboyz. Oh, am I? I am because I got addicted to Bandsplain. I transmuted the joke a bit. You've been addicted to Bandsplain. Yeah, I'm listening to her Britpop series. I turned it to verses, of course,

and Mitch's original joke, the purity of it, is that they meet. They don't fight, they meet. I appreciate you, Griff, even making a joke off of that joke, which I think no one liked when I said. That's a good joke. It's a good joke. I like it the more it has to be explained.

How about Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer and then a Seinfeld movie underneath it? How's that? That's fine. Right. Yeah. I think we just all agree that's fun. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. You could do Kramer versus Kramer versus Kramer versus the Laugh Factory

So are just water Hoffman and Streep doing in that movie while they're there they're like on the stand Okay, right. Uh-huh, and she's like crying about the wall with the clouds in the boys bedroom, right? Then we just cut to Richards. No, they're on stage, all of them are on stage at the laugh factor. But she's like on the witness stand. And then Michael Richards. So it's just like the movie is just happening. And saying slurs. And Dustin Hoffman's like, aren't you supposed to be defending me?

You know what's still crazy? Michael Richards doing that shit. Can I say? It's so crazy. I at least once a year watch the Seinfeld on Letterman. Oh, we were just talking about that. He's a good guy. He's a real bit of TV. Stop laughing, it's not fun.

Stop laughing, we were just talking about this the other day. Probably with the similar people you were talking to about it, I'm sure. Yeah, probably. I watch it so much. It's so fascinating because it is like the last moment culturally Where the news travels slowly enough right the studio audience hasn't heard it right? They haven't actually heard it So what about it? No, no, okay? Okay? Okay? That's the thing

They start laughing because they think it's a comedic setup, right? And you're like today if that happened it would hit the internet so fast Yeah And you're like today if that happened it would hit the internet so fast Yeah that the night before anyone going in to see Letterman would have heard this already and This like taping happening 12 hours after the event. That's was a little too fast for people to have contact I was saying it's the last new laughs at Kramer Kramer never gets up more The new new fresh laughs never happen with Kramer ever again after that moment. That is, wow. That is, I think that's right.

It's the truth. It's the truth. I think, no, I think it's right. It was worth it. We are done. We're done? We're done with 1941. Guys, thank you so much.

You guys did a great job. Thank you, thank you so much for having us. Of course. Just, it's great. I'm so glad you're doing the first half of Spielberg's filmography. And yeah, it's really always, again, always such a treat to come on the podcast. I think we'll do it. We'll do an in-person episode this year.

I think so too. If you guys are in New York at some point this year, it'd be great to finally cut it up. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. It almost happened. It's gonna happen. So hopefully.

You guys got some live shows scheduled in the area and we have our designs on it and hopefully by the time Yeah, we know far enough out on the schedule what we can It'll be it'll be in person to commemorate you guys joining the five timers club. Oh, that's fun Do we get jackets like SNL? Do we get jackets or anything or no? Fuck? Yeah, I guess we'll get some jackets fuck We're gonna do a pizza tour in Connecticut, we're very excited also It's oh we have a big text that blank dough We're blanks where I we get to get your movie takes We bought we bother you and ask you for your movie takes every day on the day

Well and vice versa and especially the takes we don't want to say on Mike. I will say I did a show with Tammy Sager Great person upcoming guest on our show everything works out But I did a show with her and she came up to me backstage and said what are the three most recent texts in blank dough? That was the first thing she said I want to see what the last three texts were And was it you guys explaining the end of the brutalist to me because it was pretty helpful Honestly, it made me like the ending that was Pete performance from the blank dough thread when we're all talking about That was pretty it was the it was the throw-out a makers in there. Yeah, absolutely. It was it was us at its peak. Yeah Um, can I shout out someday? We'll create the mutual million dollar Patreon tier where you get to read that text.

Yep, yep, that sounds good. We will only ever make it public if it's one million dollars per person. You get to join the thread. You can't participate. Right, you can watch. Read only. Yeah, exactly.

Can I shout out Griffin real quick? Griffin, I don't know if you have a Steelbook-related nickname yet. I would pitch the Man of Steel, but you know, you could also be a Green Book riff for the Steel Book. I don't know it's a whatever you want to run with there. I like Man of Steel books. Yeah the Man of Steel books. You like that over the Steel Book? The Steel Book, unclear what it's referencing and what it's referencing is a bad movie. The Man of Steel book

connected me with like the site you sent me to did not feel like an actual retailer but the Ninja Scroll Blu-ray which the Steel Book which was in very limited release and my pre-order got canceled I was like Griffin yeah I'm in the jam here you got to help me out here. Right you had pre-order from Crunchyroll and they ran out. And I went to my Blu-ray message boards and was like, this seems to be a recurring problem. I'm going to dig into who people say.

Because at this point, everyone else had sold out of it. And the URL you sent me was like- I think I sent you to Bull Moose. Yeah. Whatever it was, it was like one of those weird, like, Estonian sites that like illegally streams NBA games, you know, that you find. That's just like, it was such a weird vent, like website that actually delivered and actually had, you know, I ended up getting my steelbook. So I really appreciate that.

You got your steelbook? I did, yeah. Yeah, this is why... The way you told me... This is why Natalie's had a go-bag long before the fire started. The way you confirmed that the steelbook had arrived successfully and delivered was you took a picture of your hand holding it and just wrote in all caps, Griffin Newman has a 10 inch cock.

And I said that is the coolest way anyone has ever been given credit for knowing which e-tailers to get steel books from. I stand by that. Exactly. A deeply dorky thing. No, but it was, it was a, I was happy to do that Mitzvah, and you guys are the best. It's always a treat. Griffin is hung like Seabiscuit. Alright. Let's start there.

I'm seeing here, Seabiscuit had a famously small penis, for a horse. God damn it. He could run real fast. I called him Sea Peanut in the locker rooms. Anything you guys want to plug outside of Doughboyz at large? 1941, you should check it out. Yeah, check out 1931. Plug 1941.

Yeah, Doughboyz podcast about chain restaurants. Me and Mike Mitchell, Sims and Griffin have both been on if you haven't listened to Good Jumpin' On, points available in recent memory. And people should watch Mitch's show on Peacock. Twisted Metal, Mitch plays Stu in Twisted Metal. Twisted Metal is really funny and it's got a lot of good action. You know what? It succeeds as an action comedy in a way that 1941 doesn't. So I would strongly agree with that.

And season two is coming out sometime this year? Season two is coming out sometime this year, yes, for sure. Yeah. It needed more candy. Also... Oh, go ahead, sorry, Gareth. No, no, what were you going to say? We talked about this a little bit, but 1941 needed more candy.

It needed more candy. It needed more candy. No, I was just going to say, not to force your guys' hand, you've had Sims and I on the show a couple times, the person you've got to get on Doughboys is Mr. Ben Hosley. Wow. That is true. Wow. I think there is a real kind of heater of an episode untapped.

I mean, it would be a huge honor. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, let's make it happen. He's got opinions. Ben, you were great on, I loved your PTR episode. So yeah, definitely next time you're in LA, we'll figure it out.

Yeah, well, yeah, come on. All right. I mean, it's not gonna be fun for you, Ben, but come on, come do it. All right, it get something through. Thank you guys for doing this. Thank you all for listening. Tune in next week for Let Me See, another stinker from Steven Spielberg, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah.

It is just, I say it at the beginning of that episode, it's one of the greatest comeback movies of all time, if not the undisputed greatest. We recorded that episode with the great... Brian Michael Bendis. Wow. Yeah, legendary comics writer. Yeah. An Indiana Jones super fan. So tune in for that. As we said, next generation Picard Trek movies coming up on Patreon. That's right. We'll start off with generations. But also February 11th doing Spielberg TV movies. Yeah, something evil. And Wicked. Yeah. Isn't that what? Savage.

Savage, not wicked. Anyway. I had wicked on the brain. It's kind of just a, yeah, damp ending. But, yep, that's true. And as always, that ending was so damp. I briefly mistook it for a Saborius. It's like, should I put pepperoni on it?

Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha. -♪ Hahahaha. -♪ Hahahaha. -♪ Hahahaha. -♪ Hahahaha. Sims, when's your out?

Oh, whatever. Great question. Okay. I mean, I'd love to be done by in two hours, but we'll see. I mean, this movie is less... Casey just laughed at that. Yeah. God damn it. Come on.

This movie is not weighty enough, you know. I think there's plenty to discuss obviously, but it's not like a wow, but wait a second, where it's like fucking Jaws and you're like, did we forget one of the 10 most famous movie sequences of all time or whatever? The Jaws episode we forgot to talk about, like half of his teeth. We only covered the top half. What's the quote? Fuck, I'm trying to find it.

Oh my God. It starts with like a dog nod, doesn't it? Oh yes it does. Oh, yes it does. Very much so. We're gonna talk about that, Emma. A subtle tip of the cap. Very subtle.

More horny though. I like that. I like that aspect. Is it a little hornier? This is gold, Griffin! We're missing this great gold! Hold on, hold on. That's true, that's true. We're recording it.