Blank Check with Griffin & David - Back to the Future Part III with Josh Gondelman

Episode Date: October 18, 2020

In Back to the Future, Marty ends up in 1955, the same age as his parents. In the sequel he has to jump between that timeline and a bizarre 2015. The natural conclusion to this blockbuster trilogy? A wild western! It's a classic formula! For Back to the Future Part III, we're talking ninja turtles, the magic of Tom Wilson and Mary Steenburgen, and why ZZ Top should be in more movies. The bad boy of the internet himself, Josh Gondelman, (Desus and Mero, Make My Day) joins! Subscribe to our patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram Merch is available at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Dr. Brown, I brought this podcast back from the future, and now it's erased. Of course it's erased! It means your podcast hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your podcast is whatever you make it. So make it a good one, both of you! Yeah, that's nice. It's the last line of the movie, basically.

Right? I love your blasé, oh. To what? Oh, in response? I was trying to remember i was trying to place what this was gonna be and then i was very satisfied you were you sounded uh mildly satisfied you went oh well no but i was like it was like an oh you know oh yeah uh yeah and then he says we will doc yeah right then marty butts in shut up marty this is doc's movie let him have the last line this really is doc's movie i mean that's the thing i really admire about this one like putting this

under a microscope for this episode now that we've spent a month living in hill valley as it were right yes we had our roger rabbit episode but we spent a month really thinking about this franchise. The value of this movie mostly lies in, let's give Doc Brown a movie. Yeah, okay. So, we should introduce the podcast and we should, you know, talk to our great guests and all that. And I think you might know this already, or you

might have anticipated this, but yeah, this movie I vastly prefer to part two. This movie's great. That is so wild this movie is really good that is the most david opinion is it is it really okay okay i kind of was watching and i was like how is that not the opinion yeah i mean i feel like the opinion i know so i know i'm not i know i'm not alone and on an island i'm sure people agree with me but i i feel like back to the future franchise heads are like i just love this series i feel like most people feel like this movie's a shrug they're like oh it like kind of sucks right i mean i guess it's fun but whatever

and then i've always contended it's like the ultimate gentleman's six movie it's just like well-made charming good performance like a gentleman's eight, eight and a half. Wow. To our guest, who, of course, you're invited to speak at any time. David has been reticent to show Back to the Future Part II the respect that I believe it deserves. So I meant to rewatch the whole series before we talked. And I only was able to watch the third one.

And I listened to your podcast of Back to the Future 1, but because of the space-time continuum, the podcast of Back to the Future Part 2 has not yet been released at the time of this recording. It has not yet been released and you haven't heard it. And then you'll then hear it. And then this episode will change. Yeah, it will.

The file will update. It's going to change my tombstone, weirdly. Like the reason I die will change. Yeah, it will. The file will update. It's going to change my tombstone, weirdly. The reason I die will change. And it'll change my tombstone pizza. I bought a pepperoni. It's going to turn to a supreme. Have you ever found a garlic bread, Griff? No, I've been searching so actively.

Do you know that these exist, Josh? I'm half introducing you now. There's a line of tombstone pizzas now the main flavor varietals but the crust is coated in garlic it's a garlic bread awesome crust it sounds so fucking good and it's all i want and we we wanted to get them before we went on doughboys to review tombstone and david i mean david i feel like you looked at like three places and I looked in like 25 places. You were in Manhattan too. And I don't have a car.

Well, but Manhattan has a lot of variety with supermarkets, whereas Brooklyn less. So I looked where I could. I also, though, would look on like Instacart or whatever. I was always trying to see if any supermarket in like 25 miles had one. I looked everywhere for them. And then Tombstone slid into my DMs and they were like when this is all over we'll try to send you one when this is all over oh wait so that's that's that there was like a history you had with tombstone i mean maybe it is yeah so it was a little ominous is that why when this feeling isn't so raw anymore with me, the Tombstone social media manager?

When I come to peace with you. So you want a vaccine simply so that you can then reply to Tombstone and be like, so where's my garlic bread pizza? That's not why I want a vaccine. Is it a top three reason? Yes, absolutely. I also think the vaccine would be better covered in garlic oh my god wait a second what if it turns out that the garlic bread pizza is the vaccine and that's that's why shortage there's all these supply chain issues like that's the problem because

they can't figure out like who has antibodies who doesn't why do some young people get hit hard and old people survive and it's just like they could map it to like the four stores that are selling garlic bread pizza. That is that is one of the little New York City as somebody who grew up not in New York City. That is one of the New York things where sometimes you want something that is like that feels so basic that like everyone else in the country would have. And it will take you like it's like a three day charting like, OK, I got to take this subway to this one part of of Brooklyn. No. And I I grew up here. I'm born and raised in New York. But like when my family would go travel to other places or we'd like visit other people in different states, then I'd fall in love with some like regional junk food item or or a specific flavor that I'd never seen in New York or like fast food chains that don't exist in New York. And then I would just go crazy longing for them. But this, of course, is a podcast about film operatives,

directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Baby! I don't know. At the last second, I was like, I should put some Back to the Future spin on it.

It's a miniseries on the films of Robertson and Mekas. It's called Podcast Away. And now we're finishing out the trilogy. We're talking Back to the Future, Part 3. And our guest, one of the nicest people in the world. The nicest man on the internet. Can I say that? The nicest man on the internet? i say that the nicest man on the

internet that's very flattering thank you what if what if you had demanded that we say you're the internet's bad boy though what if you were like i'm rebranding or you don't look even more messed up as if i demanded that griffin say i was the nicest man on the internet you better say i'm nice he asked me as if it was his idea. Yes. And then you corrected my wording. He's a great stand-up. He's written for Last Week Tonight. Currently a writer on Desus and Mero.

Josh Gondelman. Hey, thank you for having me. Thank you so much for being here. This has been a long journey. We've been talking for a long time. Has been a long journey. About getting you on some episode because you're a listener and a wonderful person uh and uh we've absolutely abused your kindness in terms of constantly going like oh this thing came up would you be mine if we swapped you to

this episode i do think it was it's no problem at all and i you you guys have your own the schedule and that makes so much sense but it did it was kind of a back to the future ask. Absolutely. Span of space and time. Yeah. Right. But we did it. We're here.

We're here. At one point, you were going to be on a later episode. At one point, you were going to be on an earlier episode. You moved around the timeline. Yep. That's. But you know what? I feel I feel that it turned out exactly the way it should. Back to the Future,

part three. The podcast is what we make of it. That's what we're here for, baby. So now that we know David's opinion, and my opinion is, you know, massive fan of this franchise, I think it goes one, two, three. But I think the drop from two to three is bigger than the drop from one to two, even though one is inarguably like the perfect movie in the franchise. What is your relationship to this franchise at large and this movie in particular? I think I saw them out of order, but came to the opinion that you have,

Griffin. I think I saw two first. Like I saw it at a, at like a friend's house like we were there family friends were there for Passover and I was like man this Biff Tannen a powerful man and probably always was such and and then I saw back and then I think my dad was like well you should you should watch the first one and I was like there's a Back to the Future one like I was that young and credulous and then I watched then I watched three, so I'm way out of order. And I remember one being like the classic film, two being its own thing in the same world, also very good,

but like in a more overall ominous feel end to end. Not that there wasn't peril in the first one, but like- No, two is dark. But yeah, I just feel like visually i remember it being darker yeah and just like the theme of like the whole world is already screwed up on this timeline was like a new thing to introduce and then um and then i saw three and three is like fun i remember it be feeling like the third one of a movie, of a series of movies,

is when you just go way back in time. Because Ninja Turtles 3 came out in the early 90s. Yeah, the turtles were in time. We all know this. Ancient China? Japan, maybe? Japan. It's definitely, I think it had a samurai feel,

but now I want to check it out yes feudal Japan I feel bad for messing that up I don't think I'm a bad person for doing that you're not a bad person but I do want to give you the tagline for turtles

in time now that I've looked it up Griffin do you know it do you know the tagline for turtles in time now that I've looked it up. Griffin, do you know it? Do you know the tagline for turtles in time? I don't. What is it? Ancient Japan. Okay. Period. 1593. Period. Okay.

Without a map. Period. Cowabunga? Without a clue. Period. Without a pizza period wow i forgot that the stakes were so high in the third ninja turtles movie of course it's impossible for them to get some good za i get that they don't have a map but like is that like that's not really their biggest concern. It's not like, oh, no, we went back in time and we don't have a map. I would have left out, if I had to cut one, if I was making edits and I had to lose just a couple words for space, I would lose without a clue.

I was going to say. Think of the Ninja Turtles. I don't think of them as specifically clueless or more clueless than, say, you or I would be if we appeared in Feudal Japan. They're pretty competent characters. They're not Bill and Ted. Like, that's a Bill and Ted tagline. Yes, absolutely. It's a Bill and Ted.

Like, without a clue where they're just like, dude, are we in Feudal Japan? And that's, like, the whole vibe. I feel like Ninja Turtles are pretty known for rolling with the punches and like very adaptable. They kick on their feet. Yes. Well, they've studied martial arts. Do you think it's that they're like, it's like they're without a clue because they're without a map? Like, is it trying to like underline that?

Like, since they're mapless, the clues are gone. Yeah, but since all these guys like fucking cartographers like i don't remember that being like you know donatello having to check his compass every five minutes before they attack the foot what is this shit it's just a weird it like the movie should because it has a below tagline as well which is the turtles are back in time and that's really all you need yeah that's that's the premise of the movie we get it like i don't i don't need it to sound like a rom-com where it's like they're without a map and like they've lost a compass like you know like i don't need that and they're playing by heart right right exactly i what i like about

um without a pizza is it just makes them sound like shitty american tourists like showing up in japan being like is there a fucking dominoes around here or what? Yes. Right. Right. There's no pizza. Feudal Japan sucks. I initially thought it was great.

It is funny how like now that the Ninja Turtles has been around for so long, rebooted so many times and lasted for generations and people like care about Ninja Turtles and like the generations and people like care about ninja turtles and like the mythology and the integrity of the characters across interpretations and stuff when you go like right it was literally just a frank miller daredevil parody right and the foot soldiers are called the foot soldiers because in daredevil they're the hand ninjas and splinter is called splinter because in daredevil his name is stick like everything is just like a space balls joke and it's like if dark helmet had developed as much integrity as

darth vader and we were like well we all know originally in the timeline dark helmet it's not just it's not just that though griffin it's like you're right that it's initially a parody and then essentially they are approached by cartoon companies toy makers happy meal you know manufacturers anyone and they're just like yeah whatever give us money like they had no integrity about the brand they were like yeah do whatever you want with it well just you know go ahead sorry i'm not i'm not there was a big criticizing them i think they did a great job. You think I'm criticizing them? I always forget which one is which, but there was a big falling out between Eastman and Laird,

and one of them was like, I now see we've let things go too far. Like, had the Albert Einstein, like, we had to create the atomic bomb so that it could never be used ever again kind of thing. And he, like, sold out his part of it and was just like, I don't approve of any of this and the other guy cashes the checks and every time is like this is the best version yet so one

of them has had like this sort of lingering regret eastman has just stuck with it and is like you know did cameos in the michael bay produced remakes or whatever and laird moved to massachusetts and i guess just hangs out the other thing and i know this because the tick arc was so similar to this uh like tick only became what it became because everyone was like fuck what's the next ninja turtles take any black and white independent comic book with a slightly subversive edge and see if we can make it happen um it was the toy deal first it was a guy came to them was like i can absolutely sell toys then they made every single march merchandising deal and then they went look at all this merch we have someone should make a cartoon show so it was

essentially like an indie black and white comic book that was somewhat hard to find that then got all of these merchandising deals and then someone said oh we should find a way to make it accessible to children it's so bizarre why should kids want this tick toy you know how because the the toy comes from the toy first comes to the premise of like you know how kids love ticks right right they're covered in the tick was the tick was the same thing they had done like five issues and then the toy company was like, look at what just happened with Ninja Turtles. We could do this too.

So there's the weird thing where all the early tick merchandise that came out when the cartoon show came out has shit that's not in the cartoon show. Like the video game has characters that are only in the comics, and the toy line has characters that never appear. Like they just were like, everyone was like, it was complete a cart before the horse shit. Back to the Future, quite the opposite. We talked about this

in our Back to the Future 2 episode, but this was like the tail end of creatives getting such control over their property and their creations, where like Gale and Zemeckis have absolute control and kill rights over everything Back to the future until they die. It's one of those things where it's like it can never be remade.

They can never do some crappy spinoff without them. Like they just have the ultimate end all be all say. And it does make this movie kind of unique that it's like here is a major 80s franchise that has its third installment come out in 1990. And there has never really been serious talk of doing anything major again. You have comic books, and you have video games, and you have an animated series, and you have stuff that's all treated as, like,

out-of-canon silliness that Bob Gale himself oversees and, like, stamps off on or helps write. But this is this one franchise that's kind of been, like, beautifully locked in ember, you know, without this threat of it being revived uh ghostbusters was a similar one where like ramus akroyd reitman murray all had complete kill rights nothing could go forward without all four of them approving and murray was always the hold up and

the other guys wanted to do stuff and then when Ramis died and it was only three of them, no one's ever really written about this, but there was some deal negotiated with Bill Murray, I think because they had him at Ramis's memorial service. And they were like, can we just write you a check and you'll let us make stuff without you? They've always said, you want to get to Bill Murray, you get him at a funeral, he's putty in your hands. Right. But it's this wild thing.

People were like, why does Ghostbusters 3 not get made? Why don't they just make it without him if he doesn't want to make it? It was like, they couldn't make it unless he gave them

permission to make it. And he gave so little of a shit that he wouldn't even say, I don't care, just make it without me which is so funny because bill murray had that period where he famously did anything like was borderline tricked into doing garfield right right it's it's so bizarre but like i can't wait to work with the

coen brothers and they were like yeah yeah it's gonna be great truly one of the amazing stories of how a thing got made right that they gaslit him into believing that that's what was happening. But I don't think they gaslit him. I think he just asked no follow-up questions and did the most cursory read. I mean, I think he's even admitted he didn't read the script until he showed up in the recording studio. He just saw the cover page and said, man, I really like those Coens. How much would it rule if now, as a lark, the Coen brothers made a Garfield movie? Right, they should do it.

They should take it over. But in canon. It should be a sequel to Tale of Two Kitties. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Full continuity. The other Garfield thing, that this is like maybe apocryphal, but it came to mind because you were talking about

how they own the rights so outright, is that when Garfield, when the Garfield suction cup things and the rear windshield of cars were really big, Jim Davis saw them getting too popular and demanded they be pulled from the market because he was worried that Garfield was like jumping the shark and people were going to be sick of it. Wow.

And then, of of course that never happened he was kind of right like garfield still fucking exists and makes like you know hundreds of millions of dollars like what did garfield do today now i'm looking it up i'll tell you okay so it's a monday so he's not happy. He's pissed, David. Uh-oh. You're not getting Garfield at his best today. I'm going to read you the Garfield comic from today. It's three panels. Panel one, Garfield is looking straight at us. He's got a crazy grin on his face, and he's thinking, because he doesn't speak he just thinks right he's stuck

in the middle with you is playing right and he's thinking ready to train and then the second panel is basically the exact same picture except he's holding his hand up his paw and he says let's start with some sustained breathing exercises okay guys okay panel three's coming up hard cut garfield is asleep he's on his back and the only thing he's saying is the letter z do you get it the breathing exercises are snoring because he's asleep i've got three words for you about Garfield. Still got it. Yeah, no, I think I can honestly say Garfield has not lost any edge. That is exactly as funny as Garfield was.

I mean, I swear to God, the whole thing, like, I know people mock it, but like I looked at the Sunday panel. Every single panel is the same. Like, he just doesn't even bother. It's literally just John looking at Odie and occasionally drinking coffee until Garfield comes in like panel eight to do a joke. It's crazy.

It's kind of the masterful thing about Garfield is that it's called Garfield, but you don't see the Garfield until the eighth panel. Well, you know, I assume both of you saw Garfield minus Garfield when that was a big deal on the internet. And it was kind of incredible. For listeners who don't know, it was this like early blog phenomenon. Right, that's early like Tumblr, right. Right. Someone would take Garfield strips and then just remove Garfield from the strips. So they pretty much just be comics of John Arbuckle

talking to himself about his loneliness. Which, of course, because Garfield doesn't speak, that was always what was happening. But the strips trick you into thinking there's a conversation. The subtext of John's life laid bare by the absence of Garfield, though, is really tragic. It was incredible. It became like this Dan Clowes-esque,

really brutal, head-on exploration into depression. And Jim Davis fully approved of it. And they published a book of the Garfield minus Garfield strips that Jim Davis was like, yeah, this is great. This is the best my comics have ever been.

Jim Davis seems like he rules. I don't know if he does. I also think it's kind of an open comics industry secret. I've heard that Jim Davis is kind of a collective of like 40 people now. Like Shakespeare. Yes. Right.

Yes. Our two greatest authors ever. Right, over who did what. Yes. Yeah,'ll argue for years over who did what. Yes. Yeah. Garfield is really just an oral history at this point. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Kind of a Homeric thing. Yeah. It's Homeric. Exactly. It's really just being told and retold generation to generation. You know, we have a saying in our family. Use sports. Don't let sports use you hi it's jeff

merrick from 32 thoughts the podcast are you a sports parent rep sports travel sports whatever you call it if you're like me you know that one of the great joys of having your kid or kids play sports is travel you know our families use sports to see different parts of the world meet new people and stay in a number of different places. Recently, we've started using Airbnb. The kids love it because it feels like a sleepover at a new friend's house, while my wife and I enjoy more space, a proper bed, and mostly a washing machine. That really comes in handy for baseball trips. Trust me.

In fact, it was on a baseball trip last summer when my wife sent me a text after the first night saying, Do you think we could do this? Look, if you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you've probably wondered the same thing. Could our place be an Airbnb? And now that our kids have also discovered the joys of skiing, in addition to travel hockey and travel baseball, we're on the move even more. Well, our house just sits there. Why not make a little extra money to cover some costs, right? We have friends who travel south every winter and they Airbnb their place. Why not? Look, if you want to make a little extra cash, and who doesn't

need that these days? Maybe your home could be the way to make it happen. Find out how at Airbnb.com. It's interesting that you said, Josh, that you saw two first, then one, then three, because I had the distinct thought watching this one. And this is definitely the one I've seen the least and haven't seen in the longest amount of time. the one i've seen the least and and haven't seen in the longest amount of time uh like oh this is really a franchise that is dependent on you seeing them in order because it's so much about the echoes and the repetitions of the exact same things over and over again you know it it has that like i keep on using this but it's true it's it's structured like a fucking herald where you like repeat the same three beats over and over again and and heighten them in this way that like you're saying like the

the hacky thing about improv class is people are always like oh the lazy third beat is you just go to space you just do the same scene you've done the first two times but you go to space because you've run out of stuff most franchises third movie suddenly they travel through time back to the future starts out with time travel. Starts out traveling through time. And weirdly does the opposite, where it's like, this is the one that's kind of the least time travel heavy. That mostly just kind of parks itself in one genre. Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. And just does like a mapping game. There's not like a lot of back and forth with time. We go back in time. We're stuck back in time. We got to get back to the future. Yeah. Yeah.

You just got to get back to that future. Doc Brown never made a Lloyd team. Sorry. Doc Brown never made a Lloyd team. Which is weird because that's in the name. It's right. Named after him. Not named after him.

He had a triple ground show, but he never made a Lloyd team. Christopher Lloyd had a Triple Ground show. Griff, you can always one-up my jokes. It's a suggestion of an occupation! Ben, you haven't been able to say anything while we talked about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who I believe you petitioned a court to be adopted by, right? Like that was something you did. Your adjunct member?

An adjunct turtle? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to name my first kid either Bebop or Rocksteady. I haven't decided yet. Of course. Right, right. Number two. I can't wait for the species reveal.

Like, is the kid a warthog or a rhinoceros? It could go either way. But yeah, yeah. Back to the Future 3. Ben, do you care about this one? Do uh yeah yeah back to the future they ben do you care about this one do you care about back to the future three men uh my thoughts on back to the future three are i always thought it was corny that it was like yes and like the wild west like you could do anything while you're like going like to this old time it is dusty but you didn't care it's dusty i like that but yeah i i'm re-watching now i i

like some of it biff is a you know wow this version of biff is crazy it is the thing every time i re-watch the franchise is what i'm trying to say it's very dirty okay it's wild that's like one thing that really stuck out with me but all right sorry griffin can i throw out a theory did tom wilson do too good of a job in these sequels to the detriment of his career like by being just so scary and like nasty also that he makes such wild choices in every interpretation that he actually kind of is the most transformative across like Biff to old Biff to Griff to 80s Biff to Mad Dog Tannen. And I saw people on our Reddit saying that they didn't even know that it was the same actor in this, that they knew obviously was meant to be like a a tannin ancestor but that he is different enough in this because you watch the range of what he does in this and you're like it's very bizarre

that he didn't really go on to have like a sitcom that's that's what i'm saying constant like funny villain or whatever it is he should have had a good character actor career it makes no sense to me that he didn't have a sitcom i I mean, he popped up in sitcoms that I maybe never hit. And obviously he was so good in Freaks and Geeks. Amazing on Freaks and Geeks. But that's just six episodes. Like, it's not like that he's in every part of that show. And like, he does a lot of voice work.

But it's just weird that considering these movies are such big hits like yeah no one was calling like or maybe they were and maybe didn't well i have no idea like i know he seems like a pretty happy guy he does he's a stand-up i and i've heard that the people who've done stand-up with him i believe his reputation is like solid dude to work with like right pretty you know one of the nicest guys in the world yeah that's one of those guys i've heard from people hey yeah i had this cool experience being in these three huge movies that rules like what a nice way to right what a nice way to think of a career right by all accounts there's no bitterness on his part and i think he does very well as a stand-up and he does very well doing voiceover and stuff i saw that he's like a regular on spongebob he just does a lot of like

supporting spongebob characters i mean i think he does fine but you also just go based on everyone else in this franchise you know and even just like um why am i forgetting his name the actor who plays uh principal strickland and all the different stricklands uh james tolkien right who's also i i like his uh cameo in this one a lot. Great. But he is an example of, like, he was, like, you know, an 80s, like, New York cop character actor who gets in this big movie. And then he had a run of other shit where he's in, like, the He-Man movie where people were using him as this kind of, like, hard ass in other family films. For sure. And Tom Wilson is just kind of, like, he doesn't do anything like this again. Then Freaks and Geeks is 10 years later, and he's so good in that.

But obviously that show isn't watched at the time. It feels like if it had been, he probably would have then had a second wind. But he's just so goddamn good in all three of these movies. He is. I think that everyone's good in these movies. i'm trying to think of like a weak spot in the back to the future cast and there isn't really one like the elizabeth shoe slash uh claudia wells you know girlfriend role is always underwritten but like that's kind of it right like the only weird thing is that crisin Glover doesn't come back.

Yes. Rewatching them, Shue is the performance that sticks out to me as being just a little bit too big. But I also can't really blame her because she's sliding in on two. And what they give Jennifer to do in these two movies sucks. Yeah. movies sucks yeah like at least in the first one claudia wells gets to like play a real teenager having like charming scenes with her boyfriend versus the sequels where she just falls asleep on a bunch of different surfaces much kind of kind of like the garfield of the back to the future universe very much she hates monday she hates monday she loves there's a whole

lasagna subplot that they cut because she faints into a giant pan of lasagna that was one of the scenes that deleted scenes oh boy um but right like even flea's good like even good job by flea yeah everyone's good i mean it also gets back to this thing i i said in our episode for two, which is like, I think this franchise is fundamentally so much more character based than other franchises. You know, it's so much about the dynamics and the relationships and even with the different timelines and the different time periods. It's so much about how those things echo and what these people mean to each other and all of that in a way that's just like, you know, it's hard for actors to make this type of impression in an inflated franchise

that has so much world building to do and so many payoffs to handle. Whereas this, all the payoffs are interpersonal. Right. Yeah. And this movie does have that nice, like, oh, this feels like a nice season finale, like a series finale. Like it just puts a nice bow and leaves everyone in a place where you feel happy and good about the fact that you're probably never going to see them again. But also it's that kind of season finale or series finale where if it got renewed, you'd be like, I get where they'd pick up here.

You know, like it feels it feels like the end of this franchise. of this franchise but i was reading some review that kind of said that it felt like it could be the first episode of like a sci-fi procedural which it did feel a little like quantum leapy uh in which i loved quantum leap you know what i mean like it did feel like the most like we got to go to a time solve a problem and then move move on right i think i like that that it's sort of back to the first movies thing of like there it's really hard to travel through time. And, like, we're going to need to do all this stuff to engineer that happening again. Whereas 2, obviously, is having so much fun traveling through time as much as it can. It's also, I mean, I remember as a kid seeing the covers, like, at the video store and feeling like, oh that all this franchise is is it just like each

movie is a different set of costumes you know right yeah like it's the it's the magic treehouse or whatever and it's like oh the next one they're going to go to medieval times the next one this like i didn't understand there's no reason you would know from the box that it is about these sort of like the intricacies of of the family history you know and trying to correct timelines and all this sort of stuff and this is the one that like you have the looming specter of the gravestone you know doc brown's death date uh and knowing that the train is coming but then most of the middle section of the movie is just like, well, we just got some time to kill. Yeah. Let's just be in the Old West.

Maybe we'll have a gunfight. Maybe we won't. Yeah. But there's stakes to this that I don't—I like this, or maybe it's just that I like the stakes. It feels more personal. I feel like Doc is sort of the, he's a character finally, which he, he's so good in one,

but even in one, like he's more just kind of like sidekick plot motivator, you know, exposition guy, right. You know, he's kind of like, you know,

sort of a tool for the movie. Interiority. Right. Right. Yeah. And this, right. He's kind of more of,

and like Lloyd so obviously knows who he's playing and is so ready to give you more doc. Like, it's not like they're like, you know, foisting a plot on him that doesn't. It's just it's so clear how much Lloyd loves being this character. So he's so sort of delightful doing more than just being like great Scott and being surprised and yelling about science. Like, you know, it's just nice to see him be cute. I love that added dimension because it feels like, because Doc, he, I mean, the movie starts out with Doc caring about the rules so much, right? And like, don't go back and get me. Let me live here. It's fine.

And for him to then like mess with the rules by like falling in love, like such a human thing, it's like really sweet and clearly establishes like this means a lot to Doc, a guy who's like always thinking about the big picture ramifications of time travel. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's where the stakes become very clear in the movie because it is, you know, I go on and on about this, but like, especially for big franchise movies, I feel like the fact that you do have the character at the crossroads like that, that you have Doc Brown kind of fighting himself, that they're not just like, oh, we have to figure out how to get the car to work again. But it's really this like, I don't know if I like the premise of these movies anymore. Like the characters within the franchise are fighting against the entire idea of the franchise.

And I also think in this weird way where like Back to the Future Part Two is very much about sequels and trying to like revisit the first movie and make it again and all of that sort of stuff. This one is very much the like, is it natural to keep a story going? You know, do you start to punish the characters by continuing to pull them through it and doc brown over and over again just keeps on saying like i never should have invented in the first place like this whole thing's a nightmare it's made everything worse the first movie never should have happened it's like you have it's triumphant when the delorean is destroyed in my opinion yeah yeah it feels like an important course correction there's a thing i saw on the blank check subreddit that kind of blew my mind uh and i'm gonna paraphrase it because it's long

uh but sg standard i want to give credit is the username and they pointed out obviously this is a franchise that is so defined by the lack of crisping glover in the last two movies right it's like sure especially considering that he's the dilemma in the first movie you have to imagine that he would have been a key part of all three of these films you know uh you know at the very least like the seamus mcfly thing would be replaced with something entirely different and probably a more emotionally substantive in that place. And part two would be a lot more about him. And I think they make the right decision, the decision that like Rise of Skywalker should have made, which is write the movie around the fact that the guy is missing. Like make a movie about the absence of this character who matters

rather than pretend that you still got him. But Crispin Glover's whole sort of friction with Bob Gale and Bob Zemeckis on the first movie was that he hated the fucking ending. And he hated that at the end of the day, it's about, look, the house is nicer, the dad's successful, he's famous, Biff works for him, like, everything's shiny,

Marty has the nice car. It's a very yuppie 80s materialistic sort of happy ending, which Zemeckis has always contended is satirical. And Chris McGlover was like, we should have an ending. This is a movie for families, and the kids are going to see, that isn't so beholden to those ideals that that should be more about the value of what these people mean to each other and then two and three kind of even though they become defined by the fact that crispin glover doesn't do them are like addressing his complaints for the first movie like back to the future 2 is all about marty trying to prioritize materialism right find the way to use and money corrupting the world into a dystopian. Everything.

Right. Yes. Right. Right. It just destroys everything. And Back to the Future Part 2 is like, we're just going to slow down and make this all about relationships. It is exclusively. Yes.

Three. I'm sorry. Three is just the like, this is just about what these people mean to each other. And if you're with the person that makes you happy, then that's the happy ending, not the nicer house. Even when your life's work is destroyed. Right. What you, what's important

is that you found this relationship and you've abandoned this like hyper productivity driven sense, which is like what Doc, if Doc was defined by anything, right? It was, he was defined by his his work earlier on in the franchise. And so for him to give that up and go like, what's important is I found this person and we have a family and now I'm going to come back to 1985 and see my friend Marty and my life's work gets destroyed and I'm happier than I've ever been.

Yeah, right. It's the one thing that hit me watching it this time. I know we're going all out of order. But like... In the theme of the... Yeah, the effects of the future. Yeah. There's no way they could do this

because they didn't have Crispin Glover. But it makes me realize, like, the best ending for this movie would be when he goes back to his parents place with jennifer that it's not the timeline from the end of the first movie it's not the yuppie successful novelist you know that it's not that they're rich but that his parents are happy together like it feels like you need one last ripple effect of of the status quo of his home life that isn't just they're all really successful now but you can't pull that off emotionally without having the act yeah i also wonder if

that well would still be fun because like you don't want to repeat the stakes and it's hard to know exactly how you're not repeating the stakes but i mean it would be better if glover was around certainly the other thing is that and i'm not the only person to observe this i'm sure like marty himself does not actually have a lot to do in either of these sequels he's kind of just like experiencing the sequels like he's moving through them but like his personal stakes are kind of low so it's kind of what you're complaining about griffin right like it's sort of like right you know doc brown uh you know in the second movie it's just kind of apocalypse is what you have to deal with in the third movie doc is is the center point but like marty you know fox is always good because he's he's a delightful actor like and he he knows what he's doing. But Marty is just kind of like, oh, my God, like, through two movies.

Yeah, I mean, two, you have, you know, his dad's life's at stake. You know, his mom's happiness is at stake. Like, he does, he's more personally invested based on the relationships around him. But he does become a more sort of passive character. I mean, he's always been a pretty reactive character, and it's the reason why they shoehorn in the chicken stuff so hard. I mean, they've openly talked about it.

Which I don't love. It feels very like we have to give him this thing that he's overcoming or learning to suppress in his own life, right? And they pay it off at the very end. And it does feel very like, oh, we have to put this hero on a journey and this is what it is. Right. That's the problem, is it so transparently seems like exactly what it is actually doing. Like you can see it as a storytelling move rather than anything organic, especially because I stood corrected because I didn't remember the chicken being in the first movie at all.

But in fact, Biff does say it to him once, as Nicole reminded us. But he doesn't, Marty doesn't exactly, like, blow his top over it, although he does fight Biff. It's an atomic bomb. Like, it's not a self-destruct button for him. Whereas this, it, like, fully becomes his kryptonite. And for these two movies, and I feel like especially this one, because Marty has so little to do, it's all just about this like, are you yellow-bellied thing? Which, for me, bumps only because it's not something inherent to the things we liked about the guy in the first movie like it's a the best kind of sequel writing is you find something that was there all along and you deepen it you know but this feels like such an artificial deepening um it does feel like what

he needs to come to terms with is his fear of his future and becoming his parents, which his parents suddenly just becoming like the suburban ideal doesn't really solve that, you know? Right. Because now it's just like, well, they're good. I'll be fine. I got the car. I mean, the weirdest part is that he has siblings. Like when they come out in three, you're like, right, he has siblings. Right. I guess they're doing fine, too. Great. I mean, yeah, whatever. No, no. I just I read Wendy Jo Sperber was like nine months pregnant when they were shooting, too. So they shot a scene with his brother in the alternate like hell 1985 where he's drunk and he's yelling about Biff. And it's a pretty good scene. But they found that people were more worried about what happened to the sister if you saw the brother.

So then they cut both of them out. And by the time they shot this, a couple months later, she was able to go to set. But it does feel like they're pretty much totally dropped for the better part of two movies. Which is fine. You know, they're not the most compelling characters. Especially in this one, I don't know what we would need to see from them either. Like how they would fit or how we'd want them to fit. like in love with all the time travel possibilities the opening of this one is so interesting to me just because like first back to the future you have like the the opening with the clocks and the wall the amplifier and then almost immediately you go into power of love marty skateboarding

across town being the fucking coolest kid 80s teen movie shit right second movie you start with the ending of the first, and then you have that big credit sequence where you're flying in the clouds, and the Silvestri score is playing at full blast, and it feels so triumphant. And then this one, you start with, you're seeing the same scene for the third time, Doc Brown celebrating after the DeLoreans disappeared. So it's like, the third time you've seen this, and the second time you've seen the new addendum of Marty showing up. And then it goes to that like very kind of quiet, weirdly melancholy opening credit sequence where it's the new theme that he wrote for this. What's kind of like the Clara romance love theme.

It's not the exciting back to the future stuff. And it's just the brown mansion at night, like during the rain, you know, like quiet him sleeping. It's like a very muted step down from a movie that was so bug nuts, bananas. And then it's and then after that opening sequence, it is it's like a while before anything cool happens you know like it's it gets very expositiony very quickly where like marty and doc are like explaining this all this stuff that's happened in other times and you know marty's catching doc up doc's warning marty and so it's a lot of like um like winding the clock so that so that exactly so that we clock so that all the cool stuff can just kind of, like, happen in perpetuity for the rest of the movie.

Right. There's, like, 10 to 15 minutes straight of chalkboard scenes. Sci-fi shit. The other two Back to the Future movies give you, like, half an hour of just cool shit happening before there's a great Scott moment and someone has to explain what's at risk. And this, it's like you have that subdued opening. Then you find out that Doc Brown is dead. You know, you see the tombstone, like everything's very kind of like small scale and insular and quiet and just sort of peace setting, not in the same way that Gale and Zemeckis usually do, where it's like

so fun that you don't realize the pieces are being set up. This is very transparently, as you said, like clock winding. And then minute 17 is when the car goes. Like, but it's it's pretty much 15 straight minutes of like vegetables. Not that they're not charming. No, but you're right. You're right. It's a slow start. You're right. Yeah. They're so watchable and charming, but it's also like, okay, remember back to the future. We're going to do one, but it's different now. And then they tell you why it's different. And then, then they go to that parking lot and then you can see like, oh, it's about to be action time. Yeah. Yeah. And I do. I mean, I just love, just love uh the the smash cut the like match cut uh with the indians on the drive-thru theater to them like charging after him like it's fun to see him put on the the

tacky pink cowboy outfit yeah and just like you do get a little amped when you're like oh this might be like fun to for them to play in this territory it is fun wait what is this it is fun this is a great movie it's fun robert zemeckis made definitely a western with christopher lloyd and michael j fox in a flying train it's got a shootout it's got comedy drinking it's got all kinds of uh you know it's got romance it's got oscar winner mary steenburgen it's great this is a great movie it's so much know, it's got romance. It's got Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen. It's great. This is a great movie. It's Zemeckis.

It's so much fun. It's so much fun. I mean, that's like, it's like, there's just so much fun stuff that happens, which I love in a movie generally. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's such a wonderful trick to. Josh, are you telling me you love fun i love fun but i mean what is this this is such a basic thing to say but like in a when you watch like a fast and furious movie you get the impression that they were just like what cool thing could we do next and this this had that appeal to me it It feels like, let's do a bunch of fun stuff in a row, if that makes sense. Yeah, no, Gil and Zemeckis talk about, like, that's how they would write these movies together,

where they would just come up with a bunch of flashcards that weren't, what are the important story beats? They are, what are fun things we would like to see happen in this movie? And then they hold themselves to, we have to earn all of these things, figure out a story that supplies all of them. But they definitely write like the fun scenes first. I also think they're just so good at character comedy that like even when things feel a little homeworky, they just write such good telling sort of character moments and then they just cast exactly the right actors

and they find exactly the right comedic pitch where everything's really nice i also just think like in terms of is there anything else that back to the future three could have been david and i massive defenders of iron man three of course we both contend is the best marvel movie and which a lot of people don't like and i i feel like one of the reasons i love it that i feel like other people dislike it is that the suit is out of commission for most of the movie right because it just really feels like at that point in terms of stories where iron man is the one guy at the center avengers movies are obviously their own fucking thing it's like the suit had become too powerful.

He had too many versions. There was like so little threat or tension when he had this stuff, you know, at his disposal. And it's great that it's like, oh, three is him having to like jerry-rig stuff from Home Depot to figure out how to break into a home. And it's also I think the best decision this movie makes is like minute 20, they fucked everything up. out of commission like doc brown couldn't fix it in the old west marty drove it back but then got the gas tank like punctured so now they have no fuel they have no way to get there they have no equipment you know no technology to fix it and it's just sort of like, oh, there's such a narrow window back to the first movie of how we could even possibly get this car to work. There's one possible minute that we could make this happen. And we're going to make it happen either by an inch or we're going to fall

off a cliff. And that's a really, really good story decision because you have to scale it back after two. And it's great. And I think really the Marty journey that's more important than the chicken stuff, the Marty stuff is him letting go of trying to make sure Doc doesn't fall in love. He wants Doc to not fall in love so they can complete their journey as friends back to 1985, which is the mission he thought he was on. But the mission he's really on is letting Doc live his human life.

Yes, exactly. Right, right. And that fits in well with the bigger franchise. Like, it's Marty trying to fix his family thing. Like, to some degree, Doc Brown is now family to him. Doc Brown's kind of his real dad in a way. So, right. And also the only friend we ever see. Yes. Yes. Inarguably. Right. Like his second best friend is needles and that guy sucks.

It's also, it's weird that his, he has like a girlfriend, which is like when you're in high school, that's like a move that you need like a certain amount of social fluency to do. And then his best friend is an old man. Right, right. Like his birthday parties must be so weird. It's this thing that like, the more rewatching these three movies has really stuck out to me of like right so like you see his band at the beginning but otherwise you never see him socializing with other kids and there's this thing where like every time he ends up anywhere everyone likes him like he's very popular in the 50s he's very popular in the old west he's very likable he's a likable guy but he but he's also like not a particularly sociable guy he weirdly only cares

about his girlfriend and this old man and everyone else he like doesn't really care about and it is like he has such a like he has so much emotional investment a i feel like this movie is him realizing oh fuck i actually really do care about doc like this is such a doc and marty buddy movie wherein the other two i feel like they're just like obviously we understand that for some reason they're friends but the movies just jump into we have to solve this shit together and this one is marty having to kind of let go of his friend and be like i want you to be happy i have to accept that my status quo of you being the guy I can go visit who lives in a garage isn't what might be best for you. Or for Marty. It might be good for Marty to like go to college and like meet some people his own age. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't just time travel

with an old man forever. Eventually you have to settle down in some year or another and live your life chronologically. That's a good take. I'll say the 100-year-old thing hit me more this time around. I know I said I never really felt like I liked this as a kid, this movie, but it was interesting to think about how the franchise was like all right let's do the hundred year old version of this town and like right thinking about like the legacy of like families who like are all from like the same town and stuff like i

don't know it was interesting i feel like it made me think of my own family because like i have i grew up in a really old house and i've had relatives in my town throughout like the history and whatnot you grew up in a monster house we should mention a monster house because it it's relevant to zemeckis. Your house also does have the spirit of an old lady in it, right? Yes, of course. But it is like, it's more fun that it's an old tannin than if it was just some other surly gunslinger, right? Right, in the same way that it's fun that like, oh man, Strickland's the marshal like it's so much about the sort of like uh how much we cannot run away from whether it's nature or nurture who our family is like traits that just get passed on from generation to generation right um all that discovery stuff is fun for me in the same way that

i like that i forget her character but leah thompson's character in this movie looks like lorraine because it's like well i don't know but like people are attracted to people who look like they're like there's edible shit you know yeah but it is bananas it's weird it's made it's made all the weirder because because he's playing shakes right yes that is right that is the decision where you're like look i understand how you talked yourself yourselves into this like gail and zemeckis but it's sort of unlearning the lesson of back to the future one to have them just be married in this one even if they're playing different people yes for sure it it's like what is that echoing in a way that we can learn from and then it's right like as griffin was saying it's like sometimes you just want to

fuck your mom right right like i do i think there's something to like faces reoccurring in families you know sure and like people going for types that remind them of what they grew up with and things like that but it's that being that one-to-one yes and makes it weird and we already have the mardy mcfly type it's mardy mcfly right he's there he's in the scene right right i'm realizing it either needed to be crispin glover and leah thompson or it needed to be michael j fox and elizabeth shoe yes like it would have worked with that. I mean, no. I mean, it would work more maybe, but not really. Because you still would then have the question of like, well, wait.

Did their kid, does their ancestor turn out to be a McFly or a Shue? I forget. Parker. Yeah. Like, is this like fucking like royals in the 19th century where like they're all really just they're all over europe but they're really all just related to each other so inbred i also just forgot how little she has to do in this movie like leah thompson yeah yeah yeah she doesn't get much right you have that,

the opening, I just always remember the mirroring of the wake up. Don't worry, you're in blank. I'm in blank! Like, scene. But then after that, she just kind of like, looks sad a lot. Like, she just says a lot of like, well, it's what we have. And it's also like, I feel like

she's pretty invested in trying to realistically play like an Irish immigrant. You know, like, I feel like she's pretty invested in trying to realistically play, like, an Irish immigrant. She's doing the accent. You know, like, escaping harder times. Yep. Right, and I think there's, like, a real kind of melancholy, like, an honest melancholy, like, hard-fought spirit within her. And then Michael J. Fox is kind of doing, like, do-do-do-do-do-do. I don't know if he has a strong take on Seamus.

No, and he's fun. And like, as you said, like, Michael J. Fox rules in these movies. But he's very much doing, it's both of them repeating what they did in Back to the Future Part 2, where Leah Thompson is just like, I'm going to go so much deeper and sadder into this character in playing that alternate 85 version. And Michael J. Fox is like, cool, I get to wear six different costumes. And even as that, his intro to the Wild West and his family ends, she's like, Seamus, you can't bring him in here, right?

We're going to bring a curse to our family. And that doesn't feel like it pays off super well. No, she's just kind of the worrier. And Seamus is just kind of the worrier and seamus is just kind of incredibly steady it's one of the things that makes him a little uninteresting is he just sort of like shows up to go like well you know i've always believed yeah well who cares what i say and then whistles and walks away right there's a bad mcfly and he's dead so i'll just tell you about the mistakes he made and like that will reflect the decisions you need to make about improving yourself, which is fine.

I don't care. We're in the Wild West. They're shooting. Did I mention that the train is, you know, time travels and flies? It's a time train, David. Yeah, this is a good movie. It's probably sort of one best picture. I don't know what one that you're dancing with wolves. It's the best time train I've. Yeah, this is a good movie. It's probably should have won best picture. I don't know what one that year, Dances with Wolves.

It's the best time train I've seen. I'll say that. Yeah. Look, we'll get to the time train when we get to the time train. But it does feel like you have that trickle in line. All in due train. I apologize. No, don't apologize.

Five comedy points. Five comedy points, Josh. Thank you. And I apologize still. You get five comedy points for the apology as well. Thank you, and I apologize still. You get five comedy points for the apology as well. Thank you. You have the Strickland line in the first movie

where he says, like, no McFly has ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley, and no one ever will, right? Right, right. And Marty says, history is about to change.

It fucks with the game a little bit, and as much as Marty has, like, a real character struggle it is this idea of i don't want to be tied down to what a mcfly has always been i want to be my own person it fucks with that to then have she must be like no i'm pretty well adjusted what is his job even is he like a farmer i guess they have a farm right i don't know he's like the town therapist like he just seems so balanced you know like it's it's not once again it's not fox's failing but it

just feels like they never came up with a hook for that character outside of well we we still have this technology where we can have two michael j foxes on screen at the same time and and yeah because it is so much about the shadow of the family history. It's like, well, my brother was a piece of shit. And my son, who you're meeting right now, is the first American McFly. You've heard stories about him. I'm the one who is just super okay. Yeah. What's the problem with him? He's just chilling. He doesn't seem cursed at all no he seems great yeah he's he's married to his mom he's got a sweet baby he's he's shooting little uh

rodents to to feed his fam he's doing family he's doing well no fam he calls him fam water he he came up with that in in california i didn't feel right when I said it, but I think it is authentic to the character. He invented fam. He invented hashtag squad goals. He was very like ahead of his time. Just an old timey, one of those cameras that like poof, and then there's smoke and it's sepia toned.

It's a tintype. You see them chiseling in hashtag squad goals. So Marty wakes up. Yeah, what are we doing he's chased by a bear the minute i saw the bear i just want to mention the bear i just thought about like that job in hollywood like the guy who wrangles the bear you know where it's like we're gonna need a bear you call like the one guy right like there can't be a lot of guys that one bear right there's that one bear bart the bear There's that one bear, Bart the Bear, who has, like, 20 major bear credits. Like, almost every major bear in a movie was Bart the Bear until, like, 1996.

You think when other bears go into the casting office and they see Bart there, they're just like, ah, fuck. Fuck. I thought he was busy. I thought he was working on something. My agent told me he was out of stage shooting a thing. Well, and also, I mean, Bart the Bear haunted Gandolfini for years. Like every time he'd just be like, they're going to give it to Bart. There's a Bart the Bear 2 who has no relation to Bart the Bear, just fucking stole his name.

That sucks. And also is in movies like he did Evan Almighty. He did We Bought a zoo he he was in an episode of scrubs bart the bear too yeah bart the bear is the is in this bart the bear's big final credit was the edge like he does the edge in 97 does meet the deedles in 1998 and retired i'm saying edge was really the high note edge is the high note because he's like the third lead but no uh it's uh it's a black bear in this movie that's chasing him not a grizzly so so whatever is some other bear someone had i'm sorry i know this is a tangent can i just very quickly read through the character names i won't even read through the titles just the character names

that bart the bear played over the course of his career please yeah the bear yeah the bear uncredited the bear uncredited the bear uncredited bear uncredited bear uncredited the bald-headed bear the kodiak bear bear the bear the bear bear uncredited the bear the bear walking Thunder in the movie Walking Thunder, Bear Uncredited, Bear, parentheses, as Bart in Homeward Bound 2, Lost in San Francisco, in Les Amants du Rivier Rouge, a TV miniseries in France, it's The Bear Attacking Children and Fighting with Arie Schweig. And then his last two credits are The Bear and The Bear. He back to the old stuff you know back to his roots right right one thing one thing that i

love about that is that he's either bear uncredited or the title role of the film yes right bear bear uncredited was i angelina jolie's breakthrough performance, right? Bear accredited, yes. He's got a lot. I mean, there's Clan of the Cave Bear. Yeah, classic. There's The Bear. Clan of the Cave Bear with Daryl Hanna. Yeah, The Bear. The Bear was a big one.

That, I think he actually is top building. I'm not joking. Really? Yeah, because I mean, that movie is really just about a bear. Like, the bear is the only character. David, you are absolutely right. Bart the Bear, first billed as the Kodiak Bear.

Yuke the Bear, second billed as the Bear Cub. What a career for a bear. So, Chucky Cairo, third billed as Tom. Wow, Chucky Cairo got fucked in those negotiations. He's behind two bears? Can you imagine Chucky Cairo's agent calling him up and being like checky baby i got great news for you okay okay checky you are the top build human in this movie now okay question when sure you don't pop bill checky i got your top billing i'm the

top build actor in this movie you yes you are the top billed actor in this movie? Yes, you are the top billed human actor in this movie. You keep saying human actor, which I... There are two bears in front of you, but Checky, I mean, who's going to get billed? Two bears. Two bears. Two bears. It's one of them, Bart. Of course, yeah, Bart got first billing, right?

He's above the title. Okay. He respects Bart. He respects Bart. This other bear, he doesn Okay. He respects Bart. He respects Bart. Third billing. This other bear, he doesn't give a shit about. He doesn't. No.

Uke doesn't give a shit about Uke. Do you know what the tagline is for the bear? I don't know. There's a bear. You'll never believe. John Jaka knows the bear. Yes. It says, he's an orphan at the start of a journey, a journey to survive.

And then at the bottom of the poster in a box, it says, since its release in the rest of the world earlier this year, the bear has smashed virtually every box office record and now ranks as one of the most successful films ever released. All right. Big brag. successful films ever released all right big brag it's like a real mouthful of a thing to brag about on a poster i know i know i mean this is just like a fancy way of saying anything like this did well in europe it's like okay fine i'll go see it it made two million dollars in america the smash hit sensation that's been taking over the world instead it's just like listen listen to me since it's released in the rest of the world like it's such a serious talk all right i take it back it made 29 million dollars in america that's not okay for a movie starring a bear

and also starring a bear and the bart the bear had was mostly most of his deal was on the back end so this was huge for him. He was a canny negotiator. That's yeah. Everyone says that about Bart the Bear. He also he was notable in the industry at that time. He had the biggest cave of any actor. I can't believe I started all this.

It was like the Will Smith cave. Like a double decker cave. He got the most salmon out of everyone absolutely yeah his writer was ridiculous before david unfortunately derailed this podcast with this bear side tangent uh ben you make a good point it's this thing i feel like we keep coming back to which is just like these movies being made at the exact right point where like the year and the clean amount of time that they're traveling to always has like the most

resonance. And in that way where it's like 1985, 1885, 100 years apart on the nugget, it's like, right, that is when this town would have been formed. That's when his family would have had their first generation hitting the ground. It's the beginning of that family legacy, all these family legacies, the clock tower being built. Like, there's just kind of this beautiful symmetry to it. I agree. You're seeing the origin of the Hill Valley mythology. I don't think it hits for kids as much though like i don't i feel like that's

like a thing that definitely really more interests me just like right now so i i do like it as a choice but this like feels less and less like a thing that's enjoyable for kids and more about the franchise maybe well i think gail and zemeckis grew up loving westerns yes michael j fox loves westerns and they were like oh we'll make a western like what we grew up loving and i think children of 1990 were just kind of like yeah that's the only place they're going to are you're not going to feudal japan all right your funeral buddy i'm feudal Japan or out. And they better not have a map, by the way. I'm just making that clear. No map.

No clues either. Don't give them a single clue. And by God, if I see a slice, a single slice of pizza. Oh. Oh. No, that's the conflict. That's the reward we want at the end of the movie. One single slice for a job well done.

If I see so much as a grease soaked paper plate i'm trying to think because city slickers is like the year after right like the western there's is there's a revival right after this yeah because you've got dances with wolves you have the the the uh the sort of fancy western on its way back and And Unforgiven. Which is this year. Westerns win Best Picture. And Unforgiven is in a couple years. And like, but the western right now, even like, because this is probably coming out

before Dances with Wolves, is a very uncool genre in the 80s. No one wants westerns in the 80s, right? Like, that's just not the thing. No. So that's... No the thing no so that's no no i mean right you have the silverado uh young guns like i feel like young guns was the one successful one yeah right but it was so much the like oh we're doing the anachronistic brat pack western and silverado was sort of like grew in in reputation. Lonesome Dove is the year before this. But you're right. There's sort of a Western resurgence

that happens right after this. This movie doesn't get set in the West based on studio notes. It only happens because these guys love Western movies and they have a blank check to do whatever the fuck they want. And this is the first Zemeckis movie.

I mean, like, I Want to Hold Your Hand is obviously sentimental for Beatlemania. It's not like, you know, 1941. Like, he does these throwback-y movies. But this is the first one that feels sentimental. Which I feel like is a thing that is going to define a lot of his future movies. Like Forrest Gump. Like The Polar Express. Like, you know, He's kind of a sentimental

filmmaker now. But this is the first one where it really feels like he's sort of wistful about a bygone age. He's kind of saying goodbye to something he created. It's this sort of weirdly sweet movie, which yes, no studio would be like,

yeah, for the third one, just kind of, yeah. You should just really just say a wistful goodbye. Right. And also up until this point, he's a pretty satirical filmmaker. Like it's always been this thing that makes him. He's got a bit of a cynical, yeah, exactly, 100%. Right. And this movie doesn't feel cynical.

At all. No. At all. It's got none of it and i feel like that's always this thing that makes zemeckis so unreadable but also interesting is it's like well he's like the ultimate boomer but but it also feels like he has so much contempt in him he's like constantly towing this line before this between this like sort of nostalgic embrace and wanting to call out the ugliness that we tend

to gloss over. And like Back to the Future is one of those movies where people analyze like, what is he saying with like Marty McFly inventing rock and the dad becoming successful novelist at the end? Or is he saying anything, you know, and two is going so far in the other direction. And then this is just like, you know know the time train at the end is uh this the moment where i'm like this really feels like a disney movie and i don't say that derisively like the story of their struggle to get this movie set up the first back to the future set up anywhere because people thought it was too cute and sweet despite it being about mom fucking and then this one is like this is kind of them making their like 50s or 60s live action disney adventure film you know

there's something about it even in the stakes of the gunfights and the comedy and whatever this movie feels go ahead go finish yourself i'm sorry no just because it's not a movie where anyone's going to dive dysentery you know it's not a movie where anyone's going to die of dysentery, you know? It's not. It feels like a theme park-y kind of, I know what you mean, like animatronic, right? Like it's funny, but like a lot of the set pieces like Biff, you know, being, you know, trying to start fights or things like that. Like they feel very safe and very amusing. And there is no sense.

The principal character thing is so weird. Like that feels so kiddish. It's a kid's movie. But it's not for kids either, though, because it's not cool at all for its time. It's not very cool. It's not very cool. Except for the time frame. How benign the gun stuff is really stuck out to me.

Like, there are people shooting guns all over the place. Like, Marty McFly is, like, given a gun as a gift because he's so good at shooting guns. And that feels not—and how that's played as just, like, that's still not that perilous, even though the stakes are death. Like, it just feels very, in 2020, that like, my eyes went a little bit wide at like how casual the gunplay was. Right. It's very much like, this is a Western, so there will be guns. But you're right. You're right. But it's also weird that it's a movie that's like on one level fundamentally obsessed with death. Like it's people trying to prevent deaths that are locked in like the time continuum. Right. And on the other hand, it's like you never feel like anyone's going to die from a gunshot. violence you know you feel more threat going over the ravine than you do in the fights as much as this movie is centered around like this sort of high noon or high 10 shootout i do like that bit

about liking killing before after breakfast very funny a little that's the best part you get what about monday also the other though it's like what about mond Monday? Monday will be fine. You can kill him Monday. Like that whole conversation. Really funny. And all that stuff though, I mean, I think part of that feels like the whole movie is based around them trying to avoid that gunfight, right? So he sets the gunfight knowing I'm not going to be there then. So like there is just the danger of like this

pistols at 7 a.m., 10 paces in the town square. You're just like, oh, that's never going to happen. So, it does kind of, like, evade that and you don't get the nerves of, like, oh, I hope that Marty McFly doesn't get shot in this duel. So, there are two big deleted scenes from the franchise that have been on all the, like, releases they've done over the years that were cut because audiences found them upsetting like this is actually upsetting it doesn't fit in with this movie and it's kind of the same sequence happening twice in two and three uh it's just interesting that both times they made this miscalculation but in two, it's – and you get the glimpse of this after Biff has returned from the 50s so that they – the car isn't missing anymore, old Biff. And he's given the almanac to his younger self. There's the shot of old Biff hiding behind the DeLorean as he sneaks away.

And then you never see him again and what they shot is he starts writhing in pain and then he like holds up his hand and it's the the prom thing where he can see through his hand and you watch him slowly disappear from existence but like tom wilson's really playing the suffering of it and the idea is that somehow the ripple effect of what he did resulted in you know him not living to this point or at least a painful tearing apart of time right right and he was like audiences just found it really upsetting and they were also confused as to what exactly that was the cause and effect of. And we were like, we don't know. It's just something must have happened. So they cut that out. But then the even weirder example is there is a scene they shot that's burned into my memory,

having watched it whenever the first DVD release came out of this movie, where after that standoff with Marshall Strickland and his son and Mad dog and his gang uh you know what he sort of says to his son like discipline look see their discipline it always works there's some scene that's supposed to happen after later that night where they chase him down and murder him in cold blood in front of his son and his son sits there over his father's dead body as they laugh and ride away and like that's why he's in the movie because it was supposed to be aside from being like a cute little thing that it's like oh look they've always been the sort of authority figures in this town they've always been the disciplinary figures it's also supposed to be like oh this is how you know

that mad dog's actually a threat. And that he's actually dangerous. And this is why your principal is a fucking asshole. Right. And the scene just, like, does not feel like it belongs in a Back to the Future movie. Sometimes this doesn't feel like the kind of movie that needs one scene of jarring violence to recontextualize everything else you're seeing. No. to recontextualize everything else you're seeing. No.

No, it's like literally the little boy holding his father's bloody, you know, body, screaming like, help, help, as they ride away. And it like lingers on it for a while. I also, I mean, that character, the little boy is the father of Principal Strickland, right? Because otherwise Principal Strickland right because otherwise principal strickland is 87 years old yeah sure in the 50s i believe yes that's yeah i mean i can't keep track of all the timing all the generational stuff but yes there could be he's carried on discipline

like and he you know all right passed it down right it's a tradition we maintain order right right right the strickland's like discipline the tannins like bullying the mcfly's like being cowards that's the thing these movies are about these inescapable legacies doc brown is just one guy always well it's this weird thing they've talked about, like they developed all this backstory for Doc Brown, but then they liked it being kind of mysterious. But that he comes from a lot of money, like he was this great legacy family and he was the black sheep, like weirdo science kid. And then there's that thing where his house burned down that he now lives in the garage of what used to be the Brown estate. And it's unclear if he did that on purpose for the insurance money or if something went wrong. But it always was one of

those corners I find kind of interesting of just like, who was he when he was like 20? What were his parents like? I love that like, cool, aloof high school Marty McFly is at the same level socially as like that translates to adult who's burned down his family estate. Right. Like blue blood, black sheep. Yeah. Son. Yep. And that that's like as cool as one cool high school kid. Cause like you're never that cool when you're 16. So Griffin, would you want, would you want like a young doc story? Yeah. There's, you know know there's the video game they did some years ago that's pretty fun uh that like gail wrote and they got a lot of the original people back to do the voices uh and that's about marty going back to young doc brown during the

prohibition it's like a gangster story like a 30s gangster story with like i forget what his name is but like you know uh uh triggers tannin in the pinstripe suit is like bootlegging in the town it's pretty fun and it's like doc brown who's so scatterbrained as like a 20 year old i think he works as a patent clerk and he like doesn't believe in himself as an inventor and everyone just thinks he's a fuck up and marty going back in time is the person who encourages him to like believe in himself as an inventor and everyone just thinks he's a fuck up. And Marty going back in time is the person who encourages him to like believe in his ideas and try to become an inventor

rather than just approving other people's inventions. It's a nice little game. It's a nice little game. That's sweet. Yeah. I think they also adapt as a comic book. So things that are cool that happen in this movie. B-T-T-F-3, if you will.

B-T-T-F-3. if you will. B-T-T-F-3. Doc Brown invents the first ice cube maker. Water is dirty. Fucking dirty as all get out. Everything is dirty. Everything is dirty. Yes. A lot of dirt.

Spitting out buckshot when he's eating dinner, right from the game. Oh, yeah. Griff, do you have more? Marty maybe invents the moonwalk uh taking another piece of pop culture away from african americans uh that's that's one moment not even because of the michael jackson association but that's like the one moment that feels a little bit like too shitty time travel comedy you know like i feel like back to the future always toes the right line of not doing like take my word for it no one will ever buy a pablo picasso painting

like i i feel like they do just the right amount of clint eastwood jokes in this they just get away with it but something about the moonwalk thing just feels a little bit like too cute for me yeah there's stuff like that that feels like they're just trying to be like well we should you know we should do some of the fun tropes of the first movie again right like just just to kind of like give the audience some relief like give you know i don't know but the big thing we should talk about is clara that's that's what i was going to say like you know yes there's lots of cute little things but she's sort of the one successful new character that the sequels introduce right like two doesn't really try to introduce a new character i mean sort of new versions of characters

right right yeah but like clara it's not like clara is a you know incredibly complicated character and sort of Elizabeth's true. New versions of characters. Right. Yeah. But, like, Clara, it's not like Clara is a, you know, incredibly complicated character. Like, no one in this movie is particularly nuanced. But, like, she's just a very sweet winning character from minute one. And, like, you know, just gives the whole thing a little bit more weight.

Mary St. Virgin is, like, one of the most sincere actors alive, right? We love her so much in this kind of movie. Book Club. Well, Book Club. Obviously Book Club as well, yes.

The upcoming Book Club 2. Elf. Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist. The Clubbing. Yes, yes. She's great in everything. She's always great. I haven't watched Zoe's Extraordinary... Is it goodbing. Yes. Yes. She's great in everything. I haven't watched, uh, Zoe's extraordinary. Is it good? It's fun.

I wish the musical stuff were a little more, felt a little more like in, in stride. It does feel like, and we're gearing up to do a musical. Sure. Right. Right.

Um, but it, but it's like pretty cool. I, I like kind of dipped in and out while my wife watched the whole thing. And she was like very very very taken with it and I enjoyed all of it that I saw yeah and just like oh right she just was great

on like four seasons of Last Man on Earth like she's just great in everything she's always great she's a really smart casting choice for this and you don't realize like obviously Christopher Lloyd is just such a skilled actor and he was so much in this

vein at the time playing like high energy lunatics you know uh that like to see that first scene where they start talking about science and christopher lloyd just like completely shifts gears and he's still Doc Brown. It's not like he drops all recognizable qualities of the characters. But you're like, this is the first time Doc Brown has had like a human conversation with another person. Really? And I think it's more impressive because she doesn't like come out of nowhere. They call the shot at the beginning when they say like his beloved Clara.

And so you know that she's coming and you know that they're gonna resist it so she has to be so winning and so it has to feel so authentic and organic that that you you along with marty like give up uh trying to be like no no no no no right you have to undo this because this means doc's gonna die and also the the the second uh did polar the second like elevation of like he's there doc's gonna die in a week he doesn't even know who clara is and yet he will be buried by his beloved clara like that's how fucking charming this person's gotta be yeah it's a one week romance and doc has already said he's already said like oh it doesn't matter i don't know any claras so it doesn't matter right i don't i don't believe in love you can't fall in love with someone that quickly right like it's a pretty

beautiful setup in that way you know where they just lock you in to understand the timeline and the consequences and you don't think there's any way you would buy them uh but she just is so fucking good such a smart casting choice i always liked that she got on the poster and like above the title billing which apparently was a last second decision for them like it was in the last couple of months they revised the poster and said like you know what let's add her on there um but aside from the symmetry the niceness of months, they revised the poster and said, like, you know what, let's add her on there. But aside from the symmetry, the niceness of, like, the first movie is one, the second one is two people, the third one is three people. Right.

It also feels like she makes herself the third most kind of important character in terms of agency in this franchise. Well, Biff, I think Biff has to be number three because he got all the biffs you got all the biffs though yeah what i'm saying is i feel like the clara of biff biff everyone else is so beholden to the timeline you know even though biff is the one who disrupts it with the the fucking book i'm saying like clara is very much an independent thinker she feels like your your big third hero alongside marty i had always figured she got on the poster just because she has an oscar like that that kind of just kind of gets you extra weight in terms of the poster but that's cool good for her i was looking through like a back to the future book

and it had like all the different drafts of the posters and how they were planning on doing totally different things for the two and three posters. Like, it's one of the best ideas this franchise had. The final poster for the first movie, they landed on, like, two months before it came out. There are, like, 80 different poster designs that are all good and taglines that are good but none of them would have had the same impact and it probably the movie would not have been such a big hit and then for the second one they were like we don't want to repeat the same image and then they landed on it at the last second because they were like fuck nothing else working we'll just do the same thing but with them coming out of the car with the future clothes and then three was the same thing

and they added her at the last second right i'm looking originally it was going to be the bear it was going to be the bear it was going to be the bear was the third bart was just gonna just gonna have the whole poster marty doc bart i'm seeing i'm seeing one griff like one concept art where he was like on a watch like marty is sitting on a stopwatch essentially right he's like kneeling on it. I get it. I have a, I have a little segment I want to do at the end of this episode about,

about the posters that could have been. Wow. Okay. I'm excited. Just a little segment. Just a little seggy. No, I get you.

I get you. Just a little seggy. Yeah. But, but I, I think it is, you know, the fact that she is such an honest actor

helps this character avoid being manic pixie dream teacher especially because as you said josh they've called their shot like the movie is telling you in advance you have to believe that this is that great of a love that could you know move mountains mountains in that short a time. And it also just is so nice where you're like, Doc and Marty are friends, but Doc is always kind of just talking at people. Like, Doc is always just kind of monologuing his own understanding of what's going on around him and thinking out loud. And then when Clara, like, asks him about science,

it's like, oh, this is the first time he's, like, slowed down and spoken at a normal human volume yeah like it's the first time like right aren't urgent when he says like i'm a student of all sciences you're kind of like i guess he is like you hadn't thought about that before right and that he's assumed this defensive position his entire life you know like you know on top of him being this disgraced member of his, like, elite blue blood family, also the fact that he's, like,

constantly having to outrun Libyan terrorists and shit. Like, he's very much this renegade outlaw scientist, and it feels like he has no allies in the town to the degree that his only friend is a kid who likes his gadgets. You know, but Marty never seems interested in science.

He never gets the fourth dimension thing. The thing about, though, Doc being an old guy is they get away with it being chill for kids and fun. But now it's about, like, love and this old guy, like, fucking. You know, it's weird. That's what I always remembered as a kid just being like i don't know if i want to know about this adult romance i wasn't into it you didn't want to think about doc brown getting some no fair enough it's so chaste though they like kiss

it's very chaste on their horses under the stars and there's like a shooting star that flies by them. It feels like so, so Disney. It's also so sweet when Doc, just to see Christopher Lloyd, see her on the train at the end of the movie and light up. Like, you know, he just plays that so perfectly. feels like to some degree the conception of this movie was let's like give christopher lloyd a gift for doing all the heavy lifting on these last two films right and also because now we probably doomed him to playing this type of character for the rest of his career like let's this is the one circumstance in which we can get a studio to give us tens of millions of dollars to have christopher lloyd be a romantic lead as an adult elderly man you know yeah it's nice he's just such a good fucking actor he's great he is even just like the final time train speech the thing i butchered at the beginning of this is so like and if you dream it you can make. You know, it's like so like when you wish upon a star kind of stuff. But he really, you feel like he believes what he's saying at all times.

It's a very earnest movie. Very earnest, right? From top to bottom. I mean, this is a movie where taking one shot of whiskey makes you fall unconscious because it's a great scene. That joke got me. That joke gets you. How many drinks has he had? And they go, that's the first one.

The whiskey does, though, like, smoke when it, like, spills out. So, like, they're making that whole, like, it's so strong joke, which is really funny, too. Right, right, because it's, like, the Wild West. So, like, God knows what they're actually drinking. But, like, Christopherd is one of the funniest physical actors like i mean he's got yes adam's family values coming up a couple years after that like he can sell just falling over like that better than anyone oh man what a feinty

franchise it really is just they rely on the feints so much but but they're always good they have good but you know what those are things when i saw these movies when i was a kid i figured people fainted all the time i figured that calling someone a chicken was like a fucking slur because the way sure that it's treated in this movie i was like geez you really can't call someone that like there were all these lessons i learned from this movie that don't matter marty mcfly reacts to being called a chicken is almost as if someone had called him Karen. The worst thing you could ever call a person.

And then a few years later, you get that memorable scene in Pulp Fiction. Does Marcellus Wallace look like a chicken? And I think that really drove it home. Yeah. Yeah. What if Doc showed up at the end of Back to the Future 1 and he's like, Marty, it's your kids. One of them's a Karen. We got to get to the future right now.

She was at the mall yelling at someone. She's a Karen, Marty. Can we talk about the biggest performance in this movie, the most important performance in this movie? Sure. A little three-person collective I call ZZ Top. I don't know what other people call them, but I like to call them ZZ Top.

That's what you call them, right? For the listeners, it is ZZ Top. It's not someone else. Griffin is calling ZZ Top. Nope. No, I'm calling ZZ Top. I'm not calling Elizabeth Shue ZZ Top. Yeah, it'd be weird.

I just want to be clear about that. Lee, the other guys in the car at the end, the other guys in the truck at the end. I could be calling him ZZ Top, but I'm not. I refer, of course, to Billy Gibbons and the other two members of ZZ Top. Dusty Hill, and hilariously, as everyone knows, Frank Beard, the drummer, who doesn't have a beard.

He's the one who doesn't have a beard. The beardless one. The only problem with ZZ Top being in this movie is that you just wish they were in all three. That this movie had pulled the same trick with them where they play different instruments in different time periods. That'd be fun. The ZZ top song gets billing in the opening credits which huey lewis does as well it was like a rare time where right if you wrote a big song for a movie you get opening billing yes um it was i don't know why

maybe it's like the top gun soundtrack star I'm trying to remember like what movie would have kicked that off where it's like like Ghostbusters Ghostbusters right like it is such an 80s thing like I are the tiger the Rocky movies do it you know Batman has a songs by Prince credit he did a whole album yeah

no but I'm just saying in the opening credits like this has that thing where it's like double back written and performed by ZZ Top like the opening credits gives you the title of the song yeah oh double back this must be this song i'm it's gonna be an all-time classic is it the legend go ahead go ahead go ahead no no no i want to hear what you're saying is it lame to say that zz top is like a genuinely great group and I have several of their albums and I actually listen to them Ben Wayne yeah yeah okay great

cool thank you thanks cool thank you very much John Glazer has that my dead dad was in ZZ Top bit that is probably one of my five favorite comedy bits of all time it's one of the things I've been most influenced by in my entire life. It has made it almost impossible for me to take ZZ Top seriously.

Because every time I see them, I hear them, I think about them, the first thing that comes to mind is, you guys all suck. The baseline for Tush sucks. I just constantly think about that final moment where he reads the list of insults to them. If people haven't heard it, look it up. It was on the Invite Them Up album. He wrote a book called My Dead Dad Was in ZZ Top that included that as an essay. But it is a bit in which John Glazer's father has died.

And when he goes to settle his estate estate he finds a box containing letters that reveal that his dad was the original keyboardist for zz top and the letters outline how he ended up leaving the band and it's it's the it's the greatest it's the greatest but i just i always i always think about that apparently zemeckis was a big zz top fan asked them to be like the huey lewis for the movie because two doesn't have any original songs. And the Huey Lewis songs were so big in the first one. And you have Huey Lewis doing a cameo. You have like there's a music video for Power of Love that has Christopher Lloyd and Huey Lewis in it.

Like they were really all in on the synergy of that. So he was like ZZ Top would be a fun one for the Western thing. They asked if they could come visit set. And then when they were on set, they were like, can you please put us in the movie? Their whole argument was we look we look picture ready, like you can just put us in front of the camera. So they were not planned to be in the movie. And, you know, there's the thing where, like, if you're shooting concert scenes or club scenes or party scenes, anything with music in a movie and you have that many extras and there's dialogue over it, they never actually play the music for real unless it's just like the close up shot of the instrumentation or

whatever, because it's an editing nightmare with continuity of just different versions of the song having to stitch together takes. There's this one moment that i'm just obsessed with and as a kid i feel like from the first time i saw this movie on vhs i rewound it over and over and over again um because there's famously the thing at the end with the time train where one of doc brown's kids points at his dick which i feel like has now become a big urban legend and memed a lot. The kid like, like with his hand does like a come here gesture and then points directly at his penis. And then I think grabs it.

And the thought is that he was telling his parents off camera that he had to go to the bathroom, but the kid looks like a little stinker and it ends up being this like, Hey, get a load of this. Like it feels very like beetlejuicy in like a provocateur moment i'm trying now i'm watching i've of course i've heard this before but i'm trying to remember it's is it the second kid i'm looking i'm watching it's the littler kid it's the littler kid who

looks devilish verne oh right right but but the moment that i've always been obsessed with is it's like the the mayor of hill valley comes back after the fight has been, you know, at least put off for a couple of days. And he's like, OK, everybody. OK, everybody, let's get back to partying or whatever. And then ZZ Top does that move where they spin their instruments. Yes. Classic. Which I guess is something from their live performances that Zemeckis thought would be funny to have them do in this movie.

So they jerry-rigged these things to make the drums and the guitars spin around. But then when they stop the spinning and they start playing again, it is so clear that they are not playing their instruments that he told them, like, you can't play it for real for sound reasons. And they're so bad. For professional rock stars who had been together for, like, almost, you know, 20 plus years at that point, they are so bad at miming their instruments that their hands are, like, inches away. he's strumming on the guitar just goes like this he just opens and closes his palm in front of the spring of the strings and the other guy just kind of goes like like this like he just kind of wiggles it but they both are like it's it's so clear like they weren't supposed to be in the movie there wasn't much rehearsal time they pitched it to him zemeckis said why not they spent more energy trying to get the spinning rig going they put put them on camera. They got two takes. And I'm seemingly the only person who's ever, like, even watching it today, I rewound it six times.

I find it so funny how off the mark they are. I noticed it today for the first time. It's very funny. It's great. Right? They're way off. It's almost, like, purposefully bad. It looks like actors playing musicians who have never held an instrument before.

And so it's weirder that it's guys who are not actors who play instruments for a living. Because they just can't fake it. They can't act. They can't act. And David, I guess ZZ Top is just so fucking real. They can't give you no bullshit. Oh God, it's so cool. And they swing the guitars around though i'm watching it again now this is i'm just having a blast and it's

cutting to like bob gale explaining something about cc top i guess about whatever like rigs they you know had to wear to spin the guitars um god cc top should be in more movies they should like be in the MCU or something. Are they still hanging out? Do they like Trump or something? Am I going to get bummed out right now? I shouldn't even. No.

Hold on. We can't. Let's not. Let's just say they do have real Trumpy faces. But we can't. We can't judge a ZZ Top by their cover. Wait a second. Wait a second.

They're so close to Ted Nugent. I mean, I feel pretty confident. David, David, November 9th, 2018. Headline, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons fires his opener for wearing a Make America Great Again hat. There you go. There you go. I was wrong. All right.

Thank you, Billy Gibbons. So, all right thank you billy gibbons so all right plot stuff guys i mean he gets dragged by biff oh yeah yeah that's no good there's there's docs cool there's docs cool gone oh yeah i like all of's inventions it's the best joke in dare i say it a million ways to die in the west oh jesus comedy fucking hell you're canceled for bringing that up it's got one it's got one good joke where seth mcfarland is like running away from liam neeson or something and he hides out in a barn and then turns around and it's christopher lloyd working on the delorean and he's like oh duh and then puts the tarp on top of it this is like a terrible joke i think it's funny i like it you just like back to the

future and you're an easy fucking mark admit it correct correct the easiest oh god i mean i'm watching it and i'll say lloyd is committed i'm watching the clip that's what's fun about it right lloyd's like he basically still looks the same is good right and it's nice that they got a real the real christopher lloyd instead of having someone dressed as him where you only kind of see that yeah that would blow jacket right or like some epic movie shit where it's like a mad tv cast member playing him i hate to dig into this but that's another example of a movie where it's like seth mcfarland has a certain mcfarland has this big hit with ted and they're like well what do you want to do and he's like i want to do a western comedy like again hollywood would never be like oh that sounds like a great idea. They let him do it. Cause he just made a hit, but like, it's so funny how many of these guys just go to that. Well, they're like, well, I love a Western. Let's let's we can, we can do it. We'll

do this genre, right? It'll be a hit. There's a certain type of nerd who loves Westerns. Uh, I also think you're not mentioning the crazier part of a million ways to die in the West, which is Ted is this humongous hit. And he's like, okay, it's a comedy Western. And they go, great.

Who are you thinking for the lead? You want to bring Wahlberg back? Is there anyone else? He's like, no, I'm the guy now. He really, he really,

uh, put himself front and center in a way that like, um, unless he was already making zillions of dollars for the, the company, they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about, dude? He hosted the Oscars. I know. It's a wild thing. It's also wild that like... I forgot about that.

He made so much money for Fox, right, with his shows. Sure. And then he is like, I'm finally ready to make a movie. Here you go, Ted. And it feels like that's the kind of thing where the studios go, look, been so big for us whatever it takes to make you happy and fox was like fuck you that sounds dumb like we're not making your goddamn teddy bear movie and then universal made it and made so much goddamn money and he was like smell you later well now i'm a universal movie guy universal here we go two more movies coming and then Ted too bombed and a million ways to die in the West bombed.

Yeah. Ted too bombed. I mean, and then he was like, okay, I guess I'll bring back cosmos and I'll do a Star Trek show that I will pretend as a comedy, but immediately reveal is not a comedy.

It's just Star Trek. Yes. Right. That everyone was like, it's a parody. And he's like, I told them it was a parody. so they would let me make it. And after episode two, there are no more jokes ever again.

It's literally just him being like, I get that they don't want to make Star Trek like I love it, which is just like people on a ship, you know, having adventures episode by episode. But damn it, I'll do it. Like, I don't care like i'll just he like tricked them into doing yes but but also also even if it were still a parody it were what he sold them originally the pitch of it's a star trek parody and i get to play captain kirk this time right it's wild like wait a minute you're a tv star and he's like yeah i am now i because i just decided i am and i fucking sing yeah dude right that's it yeah and i'm gonna be america's 21st century sinatra you are yeah i am fuck you who says no american dad is still on

nominated album i had a grammy nominated album called Music is Better Than Words. You did? Yes, I did. Yeah, I'm Seth MacFarlane. Nothing I've done makes sense. Does Seth MacFarlane have the biggest blank check in show business? Tell me how many albums he's released, Griffin. Just guess a number.

Six. Six albums. How did you know that? I had a feeling. Five seemed Six albums. How did you know that? I had a feeling. Five seemed too few. Seven seemed too many. Yeah, seven's gauche. Seven's deadbeat.

Seth MacFarlane, it feels less like a blank check than a heat check. Does that make sense, David? I know you're a basketball guy. Thank you. We are two basketball fans. It's exactly what it is. Because he, even with the bounces, like, he still always has the, you know, the constant revenue stream of the two cartoons. So, yeah. So, he'll just, every so often, he'll throw one up.

Like, you know, you know what I mean? Like, well, sci-fi show. Like, you know, like, you know, jazz albums. And I don't know. Like, are the jazz albums successful? Maybe they are. Like, what's the ceiling of success on a jazz album anyway? You know, it's not like these things need to sell like a billion records, right? Like, you know, he's found.

That's the thing. It's like, I bet Seth MacFarlane's jazz albums are amongst the highest selling jazz albums in the last 10 years. Just because he got more press than any other jazz album does, right? Yeah, I don't. Look, look, we should wrap up the episode. We can't get into the economics of jazz album releasing in the 21st century. I feel like it's just, there's a lot to dig into. I don't have a lot of research on this.

It's a fascinating topic. You're right. We can't get into it. That's absolutely Patreon content. Right, right. We do all six Seth MacFarlane jazz albums back to back. Yeah. What have we announced we were doing?

Every week. No, it goes on the main feed. Every week you do the top five Billboard Jazz albums after you do the box office game. Right, right. Yeah, let's check the Billboard Jazz charts right now. We announced we're doing a Seth MacFarlane miniseries, except main feed is just the albums

and Patreon is the movies. Man, I mean, Jesus. The fucking number one. You know who's number one on the Billboard Jazz chart right now? Seth MacFarlane. No, Frank Sinatra. Good for him. Really?

He's fucking killing it. Number two is Nora Jones. Number three is Miles Davis. They don't fuck around. It's just the Kings. Michael Buble is fourth. And number five is Louis Armstrong. It's five people.'re like sure there you go

well like okay here's the thing i'm looking at chart positions for his first album music is better than words u.s billboard 200 peak position 111 peak position on the Billboard 200 all around. Peak position on the jazz chart, two. Number two. It didn't hit the number one spot, though. But it probably was Sinatra. I was going to say, it's probably not a modern-day artist who's beating him. He's probably just constantly in Sinatra's shadow. He came at the king and he missed.

He did. That's how Seth MacFarlane thinks of Seth MacFarlane. Like, I'm just constantly in Frank Sinatra's shadow. Like, what an image of yourself. He's living Heechuk. He's Dion Waiters. He is Dion Waiters. Josh, do you know, we'll win a ring this year.

No matter what, because he's on both teams that are in the finals this year. No. Oh, right. I forgot that. He started. This was still the season where he took that edible on the flight and freaked out and got suspended. Yes. He started the year on the heat, took an edible, freaked out on an airplane, got fired, and now plays for the Lakers.

This is the year of Dion Waiters. He won 2020. He won 2020. What a victory. Good job, Dion. I know. For the listener at home, Griffin just fled the Zoom call once you guys started talking about basketball. Without a word.

Yeah, just disappeared. I'm sorry I hijacked your podcast where you guys know things and are funny and smart just to talk about the NBA Finals. It's quite all right. I love to talk about the NBA Finals. Griffin's back. Not the first time, won't be the last. I used that moment when I would have nothing to contribute as an opportunity to get the thing I wanted for the final segment.

I do want to point out, because you made your Sinatra joke, Josh, on Seth MacFarlane's Wikipedia, he points out that he trained with Sally Sweetland, who worked with Sinatra as a vocal coach, and he bought frank sinatra's microphone that he used on most of his albums oh that's just creepy records on and uses for live

shows that's that's weird he used it for live shows i believe it would it would be better if he recorded peter griffin's voice in that microphone. I wish. And he records on analog tape. Wow. The jazz? Or family guy? Seth MacFarlane is the Christopher Nolan of modern jazz. He wants everything the way he grew up with it.

He's the Tim Heidecker I think you should leave. Who's Dave Ronk? Yes. Or whatever. Anyway, Griff, back to I think you should leave. Right. Who's Dave wrong? Yes. Or whatever. Dan. Anyway, Griff, back to the future part three. Is there anything else we want to talk about except for the final train sequence, which is so good? Doc buries a car, which is cool.

You just appreciate that he buried something. Yeah, I think that rules. Right. Right. that he buried something. Yeah, I think that rules. Right, right. I also just like that it's such a, like a tiny little clever time travel thing

of like, oh, if you're trapped in the past, you can just leave something in a place where no one will find it for a hundred years and write them a letter. Similar cute time travel thing. Marty showing up, Doc saying, who dressed you like that? And Marty saying, you did.

Always fun. Like a cute little joke. Always fun. Yeah, so Ben ben if you had a delorean you could bury jeans go 100 years in the future unbury the jeans there they'd be a hundred year old jeans and then bring them back to the present those would be worth so much yeah those are yeah hyper buried jeans it'd be great um but yeah no i just love the final train so maybe i'm just a sucker for trains but i'm just into you are repeating the stakes yeah yeah yeah you look

yes the stakes are fun uh it's you know it's the classics of mecca stuff of just like it excels because it's so well defined you understand exactly what needs to happen, how, at what moment, where everything is in relation to everything else. They've gone over it so many times. And it's once you have like Clara on the side of the train, it feels like them riffing on Buster Keaton, too, like them doing the general thing. I also love that they keep the hoverboard in play, but they don't overuse it in this movie you re-establish it at the beginning when you have that shot of him like napping with his feet up on the hoverboard and then they hold off on it for long enough that you forget that it's even a tool and it's so exciting when they're able to use that to save a life at the end

um but it's sweet i remember as a kid genuinely believing that doc and clara had died that they had gone over the cliff uh and thought oh this franchise just ends on a very bittersweet note boy gets his four by four loses his best friend um but uh but the end stuff is nice i mean it's like right you you have the needle scene and then you have the lovely uh doc brown coda yeah both of those scenes work for me i just like marty being chill being like why would i race that asshole like i just that's a nice little coda to that and then the time train i'm just so into the time train what no i'm sorry what do you want to say about i was just gonna say it super works like it is the like it is the

even more believable than anything in the wild west when he's like, I don't have to like race these dudes. You get the feeling of like, oh, he's like made that progress that we're we're supposed to where this is. We're buying in that. This is his evolution as a character. As much as the chicken stuff is not very gracefully worked into these two movies. It does pay off there like that is the moment you want of of that much shoehorning um but just the everything about the time train rules uh doc and clara's outfits rule that they name their kids jewels and verne

rules the clara's last name uh ravine changing to eastwood ravine love that love that did you see that david uh yes yeah no that's yes i love i love all those little jokes yeah love how many times the ravine changes name but the final eastwood gag is really good uh but just that final like the train looks cool when it comes in and you see all the gears moving and then the moment when you realize the train can fucking fly when it goes into the hover wheel position yeah it's cool also when the delorean gets hit by the train and then they like end up going back like i love the logic it's like cartoon logic of like no like police have shown up like no one's been called to the scene trains just go through hit stuff and keep going i think that's very funny right it it enters the greece

pantheon of a film that ends with a non-flying form of transportation taking flight yes the the best pantheon here's a little a little thing i want to do because i forgot to do this in our three hour episode on the first movie for god's sake that episode was i will put it slightly longer than the film back to the future it was an hour longer yeah uh so i was looking this was like the book that came with the the 30th anniversary blu-ray set there's a new set coming out now uh i will rebuy these movies for like the fifth fucking time um but uh they have all these rejected poster concepts in here, which are all good, but it just made me think like, this is just such a fucking striking image.

It's such a good image. And so much of it is just the colors and the posing and his expression. You don't, it doesn't really tell you what you need to know about the movie, but it definitely makes you intrigued. It draws you in.

And I heard Zemeckis say like, the best thing a poster can do is sell you on the mood of a movie and the poster definitely does that these other ones do not and it also feels like i feel it would have made its legacy far more of like teen comedy rather than what's thought of as like family you know sci-fi uh comedy adventure kind of movies so this one is like marty let me turn off my virtual background so you can see this um but i'll describe them as well so it's like marty hanging 10 on like a clock and his family and his friends are like on there right he's like holding on to it like he's surfing the clock. And the tagline is, Marty McFly has broken the time barrier, and he's got just one week to get it fixed.

Yeah, okay. I mean, it's a little convoluted. It feels a little bit like the text on the front of like a, not a Goosebumps book, but the adventure analog of that. Yes, yes. Great take. Great take. Absolutely. Okay, so this is the next one it's it's the one i think you were talking about uh david where he's trapped like in the clock um so you can see here he's in like the face of the clock looking at his his parents uh shocked and the tagline is, 17-year-old Marty McFly got home early last night. 30 years early. I mean, it's not wrong. He did get home 30 years early.

The point of this segment is I want to underline how close movies come to not becoming iconic. Yeah. Even, you pointed this out on the original Back to the Future episode a couple weeks ago, but Back to the Future as the title is like kind of a bit, right? Like until you see the movie, you can only really imagine. And as someone who worked for five years on a TV show whose name was a bit, people don't remember it until it becomes a thing that is like part of their regular life like people when i worked at last week tonight people would be like oh i love that show this week with john oliver like just got it wrong constantly because the name is a bit not like an intuitive description of a thing oh now i want to find what it was because it's like a legendary story that uh they hated the title oh you're talking about the like spaceman from mars thing right right yes.

That's what it is. Right, right. Ned Tannen was the name of the executive at Universal who wanted them to call it Spaceman from Pluto or whatever it is after the book. I'm going to look it up exactly because it's so funny. He wrote this memo that is so demented that Steven Spielberg responded to it by being like,

that was a very funny joke. And the guy couldn't call it out. I couldn't be like, I was serious because Steven Spielberg had just been like, well, okay, like, you know, it's Sid Sheinberg. That was Sid Sheinberg who was their supporter. Ned Tannen was a guy who worked at Universal and I think fucked over Zemeckis on I Want to Hold Your Hand, which is why the Tannen family has that name in the movies. You're right, Griffith.

Spaceman from Pluto. And he's like, I think this title's no good. It doesn't sound like a genre movie. I think it needs a better title. We should call it Spaceman from Pluto. movie i think it needs a better title we should call it spaceman from pluto you'll just have her refer to him as a spaceman from pluto instead of like darth vader or whatever that joke is and so that's how you get that into the movie and then it sounds like an old-fashioned science fiction flick so problem solved and spielberg replied with like great joke memo and sig schaefer just was like didn't bring it up again spielberg like

laid it on thick he said like sid we as you know no time is more stressful than the couple of weeks leading into production of the movie for that i must thank you for giving us such a great laugh in the offices of back to the future you really helped take the like he just fucking embarrassed the guy so hard because he was like that's the only way he'll back down from this uh other taglines i'm just going to speed around through these this poster is just the three feet of of george and lorraine and marty like it uh where is it here uh oh yeah there they are and it's standing there marty mcfly has just come between the most unlikely couple in high school. His parents. Like, it makes you realize how hard it is to sell the premise of this movie because it is Guy tries to not fuck his mom.

Very take my wife, please. But it's like, fuck my mom, please. Exactly. Please don't fuck my mom. Or no, I guess he is saying to his dad. Shainberg's other suggestion for the title was fuck my mom, please. Yes. We've got a PGg movie called fuck my mom please um let's do the box office game yeah all right this is the one back to the future not

to make 100 million is that right it makes 88 domestic that's right uh 244 worldwide yeah so that's the thing like i don't even know if universal uh would have been like let's definitely make a fourth anyway right like i know the movie's kind of wrapping up here but like it wasn't a huge enough thing for them to be like bobby have you got any other ideas like you know first one was the highest grossing movie of its year someone did the math it would have made like 900 million it was right it was like a hit beyond all measure yes right second one's a huge hit but a major drop off and then the third one like performed okay and i'm sorry i found the one other tagline i want to call out go ahead uh marty mcfly's

dropping in to surprise his parents the surprise is that it's 13 years before he'll be born all right that's so sweaty we get it it born. All right. That's so sweaty. We get it. It's earlier. All of these are so sweaty. Yeah. That's so sweaty. Wait, the time one, I just love that the poster

and the tagline they ended up with don't allude to the parent shit at all. It's just like, who's this young kid who can travel through time apparently? Yeah, that's cool. He doesn't need to. Why does he want to see his parents?

Right, right. Kid hangs out with parents is like such a weird pitch for a movie. Yeah, it also just made the mistake like of the Matrix movie, you know, like, you know, the back to back sequel thing where they're really close together. You don't get to build up anticipation. I think that rarely works. Like, it's not usually what people want. No, and people were very critical of the fact, like, I remember as a kid reading old Mad magazines, they would do so many bits in, like, those couple of years about, like, oh,

Hollywood's so bankrupt, they put the trailer for the next movie before the first one's even ended. Like, everyone was ragging on the fact that there was the preview and the uncredits of this. It saved them a lot of money doing it this way and obviously like cast availability. But then no one really attempted it again until Matrix, then Pirates of the Caribbean. And now obviously it happens somewhat more often.

Lord of the Rings, you know, Marvel movies shooting back to back. But it's still often not the best strategy. All right, so it opens number one. Now the thing, Griffin, is that this is the week before Total Recall. Ooh. Wow.

So some of these movies were in that box office game. But number one, Back to the Future Part 3. Okay, but that was some time ago as well. It was. Number two, it's just these movies are kind of obscure and I remember us talking about them. Go ahead. What is it? I'm sorry.

Just what's the weekend again? What's the opening weekend gross on Back to the Future? May 25th, 1990. It opens at $23 million. Okay. Number two was number one before. It's two movie stars, a man and a woman, build above the title with their first names. Bird on a Wire?

Bird on a Wire. Mel and Goldie. Mel and Goldie mel and goldie um which i've never seen uh me neither i've also never seen it number three at in the box office is one of the biggest hits of 1990 was it the biggest i think no because the biggest movie in 1990 as far as i know is home alone yeah correct well no it's actually not if you go worldwide do you know what's number one if you go worldwide oh boy mr worldwide over here suddenly i'm talking about pitbull but come on all right griffin thank you

for saying that you're welcome you're very welcome josh i knew you would like that joke i don't know if i'd make it i don't know if i i don't know if i'm empowered to assign comedy points but if i were i would assign of course you are are you kidding me it means the world to me griffin that's five comedy points to you buddy was josh right is it ghost is the number one movie he said it i only said it because david said it already yeah okay it's just wild to think that ghost was the biggest movie i mean obviously Ghost was a phenomenon. Anyway, but this is the third biggest. So those two are the top movies in 1990.

This is the next one. Another colossal star-making phenomenon, the likes of which we'll never see again. Pretty Woman. Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts. And number four worldwide that year is Dances with Wolves. And number five is Total Recall. Back to the Future Part III is sixth biggest movie of the year.

Okay. Number four is, this is the one that I remember just talking about. You know, you got a comedy star. He's on the poster making this expression. Oh, boy. Can you, for the listener at home, maybe describe what I'm doing? He's kind of...

He looks nonplussed. But I'm holding my hands out. Holding my hands out. What am I supposed to do here? Exactly. He's a comedy star that we all know and love. He has a job that some might consider an untrustworthy profession. Interesting. Okay. Is this a lawyer movie? No. And in fact, the job he has...

Oh, I remember this coming up. Okay. Okay. Is this that Joee pesci movie no it's not joe pesci the job this character has is a job that robert zemeckis made a movie about we actually talked about it already oh it's cadillac man it's cadillac man robin williams tim robbins fran Drescher, the trio. We love them. If you can't trust a car salesman, who can you trust? That is the tagline to Cadillac Man, a movie about a used car salesman played by Robin Williams

that I have never seen. Have either of you seen Cadillac Man? I have not. I have. It's good. I believe you. Tim Robbins is like robbing the story, shows up with a gun because him and Fran Dresser are dating and they like broke up.

And then Robin Williams is exposed to be a real scumbag. I love it. Right. I will say the top tagline, if you can't trust a car salesman, who can you trust? Pretty ordinary. The bottom tagline, a comedy about the near death of a salesman that's kind of funny hey good it's fun hey some drama humor some arthur miller humor

um i like number go ahead what were you gonna say griff no i just i like it i'd like it i approve i give it some comedy points number five at the box office griffin uh is a and like a you know i'm i'm four years old so i'm not seeing movies yet you know what i mean so like just these these things just fly over my head it's a disney movie it's an action film uh it stars one of your favorite actors um i've never heard of it it's a keaton movie no no no no um but like since i feel like you tried to watch all the movies this actor was in maybe you've seen this one it's not cd martin it's not bill murray it's not city slickers it's not cd martin bill murray it's not a comedy actor although some people think he could be pretty funny sometimes. Oh, oh, it's a Nicolas Cage movie. It is.

It's a guarding test movie. It's not guarding tests. It's military. It's like, uh, I don't think they're in the middle, but like they're flying military, uh, equipment. And I think they're having like an adventure in South America. Is it the one with Tommy Lee Jones? Tommy Lee Jones is in it. Sean Young is in it. It's like one of the few Nicolas Cage movies I haven't seen pre-direct-to-video run. Do you know the name?

It's called, is it called like The Yardbirds or something? Birds? You got birds right. Yeah. It's Firebirds. Right. something birds you got birds right yeah it's fire birds right i that was like i was trying to watch all of his movies circa 2010 or whatever it was and that one was so hard to find it like doesn't exist um yeah i it's maybe it's on disney plus it was a disney movie i hope so i hope it's i hope it's spotlighted i hope they revive it as a disney

plus series weird box office game firebirds i don't know wow do you know what the tagline is for firebirds you want me to tell you the tagline or are you gonna tell me i'm gonna tell you the best just got better that's it yep the best just got better cage jones young the best just got better okay you know fine it feels like you could they had that lying around and they're like whenever we get stumped by a movie we'll just throw this on one that we and it'll probably apply absolutely in a tagline pile that could apply to any any movie yeah they're like they're like the guy who wrote the script comes in he's like so it's about like these helicopter pilots and they go to south america the guy's like jesus i gotta get to lunch look could you say that with

this film the best got better and the guy's like i don't know i guess so and he's like great we're gonna do that one get out of here the magic is back again? I don't know. Just take something from the drawer. I don't know what to do. The magic was already back. How do I top the magic is back? I don't know. Magic is back again? Any tagline in the fridge that doesn't have a name written on it,

you can take. Just pull one of them. Ben, I just want to say that number six at the box office this week is a movie we will definitely do as a Ben's Choice one day. And we already talked about this franchise. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Hell. One.

The original. The first one. The first one. Wow. You've also got The Hunt for Red October. You have Joe vs. the Volcano. Great movie. You got Tales from the Dark Side, the movie.

Good movie. And you have spaced invaders another like never seen it disney thing i've never heard of what the fuck is this it's the director of angus my beloved undersung teen comedy you're right angus rules and i tried to watch that movie because i was such a fan of angus i was like what if patrick reed johnson secretly got this beautiful career and that movie's kind of dog dog shit what about uh baby days out baby's day out though did you do like that movie that movie's kind of fun right he's a baby kind of fun it's it's like the highest grossing film in the history of manila or something manila is just a city wait we're just i don't know i think we there's griffin i swear we've

had this conversation before this is some day we absolutely have yes okay the episode's over josh thank you so much for being on the show yes josh thank you truly a pleasure i had so much fun we had such a gentleman and one of the reasons we abused your kindness and bopped you around the schedule so much as we were just like he's an ace in the hole when whatever episode we get him on he's gonna make good josh was booked on the first episode of this show we've just been fucking him over for six years to talk about the first 10 minutes of the phantom menace that's what it was it was the real kind of jimmy kimmel matt damon kind of bit we've had going that no one knew about no this was so fun and I so appreciate

you having me on thank you of course I'm a fan of the show as I mentioned before people should watch Desus and Mero which rules absolutely they're the best they're so funny and people should rate review and subscribe and

go to blankies.right.com for some real nerdy shit. Check out our Shopify page for some real nerdy merch. Go over to our Patreon, patreon.com backslash blank checka, where we're talking about the Alien franchise and doing some other fun stuff. Thanks to Ant Fraguto for social media, helping make this show run. Thanks to Lee Montgomery for our theme song. Joe Bowen, Pat Rounds for our artwork. Tune in next week for Death Becomes Her.

And as always, Baby's Day Out was the most successful film in Calcutta. Calcutta. Okay. It was big in India, but specifically in calcutta calcutta okay it was big in india but specifically in calcutta it played at the largest theater for over a year and they said that baby's day out was more successful than star wars that's i mean then stomp star wars it's a very oh oh oh oh sorry stop no that i was like weird rubric but i don't know what what american culture ports to india i'm sorry i'm sorry i've i just i know the episode's over i've just discovered something i have to share go ahead please baby's day out was remade under the title Sisindri.

And then there was a Malaysian remake of that remake titled James Bond. No! That can't be real. Yes, you're right. James Bond. They just

called it James Bond. james bond plot description following the bankruptcy of their local business five friends go into hiding on only to stumble upon a baby who changes their life it sounds like in the remakes a lot changed there was a lot going on no character named james bond in this cast with with the podcast long over may i put in a tiny plug for my podcast as well? Of course. Oh, please. It's a great time to do that with the podcast being over because I'm bad as being a host.

I didn't ask you. No, no problem. I just, I didn't mean to force it, but I was like, as long as we're doing little stuff at the end. It's called Make My Day. It's a comedy game show with one guest every week who's the only contestant. So they're guaranteed to win. And at the end, they they win a 100 donation to the charity of their choice that's all it's great thank you that's why you're the nicest guy on the internet because you actually

put work into making people feel better okay so we said it josh you could put the gun down you can call off your guard pointing a gun at the zoom call. Like two hours and 15 minutes. We've all had lasers pointed at our chests this entire time. I've got a lot of laser guys. Unbelievable.