Blank Check with Griffin & David - Batman Returns with Emily Yoshida

Episode Date: January 27, 2019

Emily Yoshida Night Call podcast is back to discuss 1992's demented superhero sequel, Batman Returns. But was this the first movie to notice Christopher Walken talks kind of funny? Is The Penguin's black mouth ooze attractive? Who are your favorite cloud villains? Together they examine the iconic performances from Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer, Batman as the love interest, parental backlash, and chubby digits.  Check out Emily Yoshida's recent articles for Vulture

My dear penguins, we stand on a great threshold. It's okay to be scared. Many of you won't be coming back. Thanks to Batman, the time has come to punish all God's children. First, second, third, and fourth born. Why be biased? Male and female. Hell, the sexes are equal with their erogenous zones blown sky high.

Forward march. The liberation of podcast has begun. What an insane movie. I'm so glad that was one of the two that I was. I was either going to do that or I was looking for the chubby little digits speech. Is this that? I couldn't find that one. No, I wrote it down.

Why? Because I was born. No, when I picked up... These shiny flippers. When I picked up my Tiffany rattle with a smooth flipper instead of five chubby digits, they freaked. I was their number one son and they treated me like number two.

I have been weirdly, and it seems like now maybe some part of it was me getting ready to watch this movie again because this is a movie I rewatch a lot. You're a fan. And I knew we were going to do this miniseries. I was like, I will withhold and not rewatch this movie. You're edging. For a year, I knew we were going to do this miniseries. I was like, I will withhold. Sure, sure, sure.

And not rewatch this movie. You're edging. For a year, I want to edge so that it really pays off when I get to watch it again. But in the last couple weeks leading up to this episode, I've been watching a lot of Taxi. Like old, like DeVito. Old DeVito. Yeah, yeah. And it is.

Young DeVito. Young DeVito. I mean, really, like formative, like the genesis of DeVito. What are you watching it on? What's it on? Hulu. Hulu. Has every season, but they're missing a lot of episodes.

Right, I think I knew that. Maybe for licensing or what have you. Sure, sure, music. But it is, it did make me realize, like, oh, this is literally the only time DeVito has given a performance like this. Oh, you mean? In his entire career. Wait, this? Yes.

Batman Returns. Yes. No, yeah. It's crazy. Right. It's crazy right it's crazy no he's doing like it's really hard to imagine doing anything like this now he's never done a character performance like this outside of this one movie his weird sort of like you know public persona at this point is becoming sort of penguin he's like chaotic good penguin. Yeah.

Where he's just like, man, I'm going to retire, bitch. And like posting tweets of his foot. And then I saw him drinking his limoncello. Troll foot? Troll foot, yeah. And he gave this special award at a Gotham ceremony that I was at one year.

A Gotham ceremony? Fair, fair. I didn't even make that connection. To like his producing partner. You know, what's he, Jersey Films? Right, yeah. And he just got on stage, you know, and it's the Gotham,

so people are just kind of eating and not paying attention. And he just went, holy shit balls, holy shit balls, like eight times. Where everyone's just like, what's he doing?

And then he was like, I'm here to present the award. Like he just... Do you know about the... He's award. Do you know about the splatter cuts thing? Eight years ago, Danny DeVito went to Comic-Con and set up a booth. It wasn't even a panel. He just had

a booth. And everyone was like, what are you doing here? And he's like, I'm making short form horror movies now. And he was like, why can't horror movies be 90 seconds long? And he and some childhood friend of his set up a YouTube channel where they made really gory, like, 90-second horror mobisodes. And there's a video that he made to promote it that's, like, him sitting down at, like, a junket to talk about splatter cuts. And you just hear the interviewer offscreen going, like, and here we have joining us Dan DeVito, who's here to talk about splatter cuts splatter cuts are a new way of horror a short form 90 second delectable bite and he's like

wrestling to put like his mic on and then the second they ask him the first question which is like so how are you doing today his head explodes scanner style with like blood and visceral all over the place and you're just like i guess he just liked this idea and probably put $2 million into it. And you can't find any trace of those short films online anymore. No, I'm Googling and Google doesn't even know what you're talking about.

He did start his own limoncello company. The Blood Factory. Blood Factory. That's what it was. Not his limoncello company. No, the limoncello company is not called the Blood Factory.

That was, of course, he went on The View after apparently being out all night with George Clooney drinking Limoncello. Right. And went on the talk show, not hungover, but still drunk. Yeah, still very drunk. And did a George W. Bush impression. I feel like the Limoncello episode or chapter of Danny DeVito's career is a very early Twitter thing for me.

Yes. Because he was an early follow for me for some reason on Twitter. Because it used to be interesting that an actor would like debase themselves by being on that website. Yeah. Yeah. That was also like, I remember like best week ever devoting like 17 weeks to the Limoncello interview. Because it was just like, it was one of those weird, like the first times that the new media landscape had such a like slow motion chain wreck on television to dissect. Like it was like Drew Barrymore like jumping on the desk, except now we had a thousand outlets to take it apart.

Right. Hello, everybody. This is a... Women's Cello Talk. Talking to Vito. Talking Cello. Yeah. Ben, can you insert a cello

drop right there like uh yeah thank you yeah a little uh yo-yo ma yeah um no of course i'm joking this podcast is called fanny devito it's a podcast for dan devito fans i am a fanny i can't i can't deny uh stanny devito oh boy you know he was in this play like The Price last year right his Broadway debut

yeah correct yeah in which apparently he like eats a whole egg on stage at one point and it's like very dramatic and I didn't go

because it got bad reviews but I really should have gone I wanted to see him eat that egg yeah is it hard boiled he got like a Tony nom yeah hard boiled egg

he like you know peels and dramatically eats a hard boiled egg. Ten times a week, including matins. Get around. That's a lot of protein. I know,

one time I was in LA and there were a lot of posters up that he was doing the Sunshine Boys with Judd Hirsch. Yeah, yeah. So he'd never done Broadway, but I guess he would do like,

yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, no. That was West End, right? West End. This podcast is called blank check it's about filmographies directors who have massive success early on their career and are given a series of blank checks make whatever crazy passion projects they want sometimes those

checks clear and sometimes they bounce and what a greater they bounce what baby you're first born baby like they wrote this and they were like yeah we don't know who we're gonna have like Catwoman we'll meet with every famous actress in America and they're like

who's gonna play the penguin and they were like everyone was just like well Danny DeVito right who else is gonna play this but then the other thing is you have to imagine

that when he went to Warner Brothers and was like Danny DeVito's playing the Penguin they're like you know what his instincts are so on point

we're not going to question anything he's doing. And then you assume Danny DeVito shows up and plays the Penguin like Louis De Palma and is like hey come on

I'm trying to steal some money here. Right then he'll play it like Burgess Meredith he'll be like a gangster. Right. He's done that. Right instead of

playing it like Klaus Kinski. A let's make this the most horrifying character to look at in the history of cinema. There's a shot there's a shot in when he first realizes that he's being put into this campaign where he's just standing

in the middle of the office and he's still in his dirty pajamas holding a fish. All three feet of him with a dead fish. And there's just some it's so funny like it's I just burst out laughing this movie's a masterpiece

it's also one of those things where like for how much Dane DeVito like made his career playing like the scumbag he's never actually been sold as

menacing in a film sure like when he's the asshole or the villain he played a lot of villains it's always kind of a joke that he's the villain yes

because he's a tiny guy right he's a little person they do. It's always kind of a joke. He's the villain. Because he's a tiny guy. Right. He's a little person. They do that in the first episode of Taxi where he's in his little cage and it's elevated. And he's yelling at them for the whole first half of the episode. And then when he's like, hey, I'm going to come talk to you and gets out of the cage and stands. And he's little. The audience applauds.

Right, right, right. And you're like, and that is the last time anyone can ever make that joke. Because now we all know that Danny DeVito is 4'11". That is true. But at the time that he's making this,

he is a genuine movie star. You know, this is like Ruthless People, Other People's Money, like those kinds of movies like where Danny DeVito is a leading man, sort of.

Yeah. As long as he's playing like a very specific type of character. And when he's a supporting character, the movies are also huge and he's already... Twins, he just, you know, he's done Twins, obviously. And he's playing a very specific type of character. And when he's a supporting character, the movies are also huge. Twins?

He's done Twins, obviously. Humongous. And he's directed both Romama from the Train and War of the Roses at this point. Uh-huh. And Hoffa is this year. Right. Okay. And Romancing the Stone.

I mean, he's had a really incredible run for a guy who shouldn't be a movie star. A very specific type. There shouldn't be that many roles that fit him. Very specific type. There shouldn't be that many roles that fit him. Tin Man, he's great in Tin Man, the Barry Levinson movie. This is like a real spread of like different genres, different size roles. Is this the first time you guys have gotten to talk about

DeVito on a podcast? Well, yes. In terms of Endearment, it's a very small part. Yeah, that barely counts. We will talk about him again on Mars Attacks. Spoiler alert, that's a small part. That barely counts. We will talk about him again on Mars Attacks. Spoiler alert, that's a great discussion. Not about his career, so much more about his specific role there. And his billing.

Dumbo. Of course, he is Swackhammer in Space Jam. Oh, so he's a type of Swackhammer, of course. But apart from that, maybe we haven't really talked about him too much. Look, you've read the episode description. You know what's going on here, but let me make it clear. Today, we're talking Bartman Returns. He's back.

And we're talking it with the mother of blankies herself from Nightcall and Vulture, Emily Ishida. Hi. Thank you for being here. Hell here. Hell here. This movie does not give a fuck this movie is so bizarre batman shows up what like 40 minutes in i checked batman doesn't have proper dialogue until minute 40 because he has that one scene

the fight scene but that's it in between zero and four and he says like one word during that and then his first real dialogue scene is him eating the soup right minute 40. So I saw this movie before I saw the first Batman movie. I didn't see the first Batman movie for a while. I don't think I saw that till I was a teenager or something but I saw this on VHS at a slumber party. Sure. Like around the time that it came out. And I did not realize that Michael Keaton ever played Batman for a very long time because I'd only seen this movie and it was a movie about Catwoman. Right. Maybe the fourth lead in it? And there's a guy that she's like goes on some dates with and kisses at some point.

She kind of flirts with, yeah. Yeah, but that, I mean, that couldn't have been Michael Keaton, though. Put it together finally and then kind of retroactively realized the, yeah, the bizarreness of casting Keaton in this role, which I would argue works better in the first movie than it does in this movie. I would agree because the first one is more interested in him as a character. And when you're not focusing on him as much, it's odd to see Keaton filling what is more of a classic sort of like mannequin leading man role. Right. He can only be interesting.

So if you're making him be boring, what are you doing with him? Or if you're making him be boring, what are you doing with him? Or if you're making him do nothing in particular. Everything that's interesting about his character in this movie is just holding on to your memory of what they set up in the first movie. Right, but I would even argue, I mean, I like him in the first movie. I'm going to throw this out because, you know. You know, Griffin fucking loves him. I like him a lot. He's my number one guy.

And I just listened to your podcast with Cam this morning number one guy and I just the first movie doesn't work for me

at all at all interesting and I think I think he I think he is making interesting choices but those choices

would work in a different movie like a different approach to doing Batman. Like Batman Returns? No, no, actually like in the opposite direction of Batman Returns. You're saying Keaton's performance, you're saying. Right, so this movie is like getting slapped in the face repeatedly for two hours. And Michael Keaton is like whispering and you will never hear him. Sure, sure. and Michael Keaton is like whispering and you will never hear him over that.

Sure, sure. I'm not saying that I don't like this movie but I'm saying we all can agree this movie is fucking bananas and he is very consciously not doing fucking bananas even though we know he's capable of that. So here's a take. Sure, go ahead.

I think what's interesting about this movie look, it's not ahead. I think what's interesting about this movie... Look, it's not a fight. I think this movie's a masterpiece. Keaton's my number one guy. Griffin is crying blood. Sorry. I think one of the most audacious things about this movie

is it essentially puts Batman in, quote-unquote, the girlfriend role. Yes. Like, it is a movie in which Batman is fulfilling the Vicki Vale role. Yeah. And it's really about Catwoman and Penguin

and Batman is just sort of like a reflection board for the two of them for point of comparison. Yeah. You know? Sure. Like tell me one thing

he does other than that doesn't have to do with her. Like and this is a good reverse Bechdel test like for Batman. No that's my point. My point is that he exists like Vicki Vale, only to service.

But I don't even think he reflects anything. I think she does everything on her own. I don't know. I mean, I don't want to front load all my tapes. Okay. But I think that's sort of like, you know, usually the girlfriend of Batman movie is this question of, like, could he ever have a normal life? Could he be normal? And then this Batman is Catwoman's normalcy, right? He of like, could he ever have a normal life? Could he be normal? And then this Batman

is Catwoman's normalcy, right? He's like, let's just be regular superheroes. The idea is like, this is a movie about like traumatic incidents. And she's like, no, pardon me,

I'm insane. Like, you know, she like, anytime she's like, maybe. Ben, also, could you just edit out all the times Griffin was shrieking

when Emily was criticizing the film? Just bring that low. I'm like damp with tears right now. And when a poison gas secreted out of my pores and tried to murder everyone in the studio. I think this is a movie about people reacting differently to traumatic incidents. And so they all exist as like alternate pathways for each other in a way, you know? When the movie is that movie,

it is great. Right? It is fantastic. Yeah. There is a lot of time when it's not being that movie. This movie's doing a lot of things. It's doing a lot of things.

It's doing a lot of things. Yeah. I was, you know, now I feel like I'm in an Ouroboros here because I was just listening to your other conversation about the first one. But I think that the whole thing about the nightmare imagery,

especially because this is a movie that I did see young, and then I think I've probably seen two or three times max now. Sure. But I hadn't seen it for a very, very, very long time. And so it did have that thing of there are things I know are in this movie, but I'm also, like like not sure if I hallucinated them as a child it's kind of funny that the first

Batman gets talked about as like oh like legitimacy like the legitimacy of superheroes it's like the first time we kind of dip our toe into that but it is so camp to me it is so like the only thing that is not out and out, still kind of

in the Adam West zone, for me, is Keaton's performance and the set design. Like, the production, and the fact that everything is brown. I mean, Nicholson is very much, like, of a piece with what Cesar Romero was doing. Just a more, quote-unquote, legitimate actor. Yes.

I feel like there, like, it is, like, He's a movie star. Right. I mean it's a pretty like scale like a very straight line from this to Batman and Robin. Sure. In terms of camp. Yeah. But there's something

about this camp though where it's like it does feel cursed. Like it's a cursed or like haunted or something. What's a Grand Guignol? Like, that's the thing, is it's, like, not just, like, camp for camp's sake. Like, it really is trying to, like,

make nightmare imagery and the weird dream logic of, like, what is going on here? I mean, the fact that the villain's plot in this movie is, I'm going to steal all the babies. Yeah. And that's the end game.

Well, wasn't there a thing where they just couldn't, they didn't even think of what his plot would be? Like they didn't really have an end. Right. There's like the, like kind of semi-Manchurian candidate type thing or something.

Right. They had that for a while. And that's actually like the only coherent plot I would say that goes, goes through regarding the penguin. I like that he doesn't really, I mean, he wants to be, he,

the penguin wants to be accepted and He wants to meet his parents. And all that. And I hate, not hate, but it's very stupid in Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, which are, of course, stupid movies in many ways. But where the Riddler and Two-Face have that moment where we're like, no, we can definitely mix our philosophies. Even though we're very specific, like I like everything to be a riddle. We definitely can run

Gotham together. This would be the worst Confederacy of two. And it's a thing in Batman and Robin where Poison Ivy is like, you freeze everything and then I'll grow plants out of it. And you're like, you can't do that. It's gonna be

frozen. Well, that's the other thing with this movie is then like people get this idea of like, oh, you need like you can't do that it's gonna be frozen well that's the other thing with this movie is then like people get this idea of like oh you need like two villains two A-list villains

maybe and then maybe like a sub-villain as well right but there's a key thing to the fact that like all three of these characters

are normal people quote unquote they don't have powers oh sure right and even in terms of weaponry Penguin is pushing that

but yes yeah right i mean he's he's a deformed person his umbrella right which one supposed to give you a splitting headache which one oh god i love him but they are they're these three people where it's like batman witnessed his parents. Sure. The penguin was given up by his parents and Catwoman lived through being murdered herself. Sure. Like she lived through like like very bad workplace abuse. Yeah. Yes. But the take on this character is what if he. Catwoman also

is just a 90s lady trying to live a single life. Right. That is trauma enough in this movie. She's a post. Can we talk about that for like a full hour. Her Murphy bow and her fucking answering machine. I was gonna say she's Murphy Brown. She's trying to figure out how to make enough in this movie she's a post can we talk about that for like a full hour her Murphy bow and her fucking answering machine

I was gonna say she's Murphy Brown she's trying to figure out how to make it in this crazy work but what's up with like the women in both of these movies

having stuffed animals on their beds like Vicky Vale has like a teddy bear on her bed in the first Batman it's like they're actually

very very similar characters in many ways it's just like Vicki Vale doesn't get shoved out a window. Right. And also and also Selina Kyle hates herself. Yeah Selina Kyle is more of like a weird flibber to jibbit like you know because her hair is sort of

always all over. She always looks so stressed out. She's constantly talking to herself. She's got a running narrative about how miserable her life is. Right. She does think well what's the line she says when she comes home? She's like, oh, she's like, oh, I forgot I'm not married.

Oh, honey, I'm home. I forgot, yeah, yeah. That's a really, really great exposition on no one. That's all, I feel like that's classic Daniel Waters stuff, like that very arch, Heather Z,

like, it's okay, we can fuck around and they can behave in ways that don't make sense. Well, and here's the little bit of context because this movie kind of is self-evident in terms of how it came to be.

Batman's the biggest thing in the world, and they were like, cool, let's do Batman 2. Right, right. And they hire Sam Hamm, I think, to write a more conventional Batman 2, and Burton was very hesitant to do it. He was kind of like, I don't really want to do a sequel to this thing. I already did Batman.

Right, and he got Edward Scissorhands off the ground really quickly. These three movies are three in a row, right? Three years in a row. Yep. 90, 91, 92. And that's such a personal passion project. Like his. Oh, no, no.

89, 90, 92. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Go on. I mean, that's him getting to like fully serve his own muses, make his like autobiography, you know? So I think he was kind of like, I don't know, what's there left for me in Batman Returns?

As I hear it, you know, Goober and Peters took a lot of credit for being like, we really reigned him in. Tim would come in with this wackadoo shit and we put limits on him. Right, on the first Batman. You gotta have a Robert Wall. There's the famous story of that Tim Burton

couldn't tell Jack Nicholson why Joker goes up the staircase at the end. Right. No. But Jack Nicholson was like, why am I doing this? It makes no sense that I would climb a staircase. Yeah.

And Burton was like, they're making me do this. I'm sorry. A film has to end with a tower. Literally. They were going through all the motions of what an 80s blockbuster needed to have and he was just like,

I don't know, I'll just do my shit and I'll serve whatever they want me to do and hope that it turns out okay he makes it where it says your hands it's pure

you know to his vision and it makes a bunch of money and now it's like I don't know but Warner Brothers apparently just kind of came to him and said look you can do literally

whatever the fuck you want I mean this is a true blank check where they were like here's the deal the fans want to see Penguin and they want to see Catwoman also we will not let Billy Dee Williams play Two-Face This is a true blank check where they were like, here's the deal. The fans want to see Penguin and they want to see Catwoman.

Right. Also, we will not let Billy Dee Williams play Two-Face. Right. They asked him to, because Max Schreck was written to be. Billy Dee Williams. Harvey Dent. Uh-huh. And they were like, we'll buy him out of his contract. Because at the end when he's getting electrocuted.

That's supposed to be the birth of Two-Face. And they were like, as long as you rewrite that character so it's not Billy Dee Williams anymore, and as long as you include Penguin and Catwoman, you can do whatever the fuck you want. And he does. And America revolts. It's incredible that they thought that Christopher Walken would be a more bankable Two-Face than Billy Dee Williams. And he's in kind of a career slump at this point. No, yeah.

And also just the way that they, I don't know. Billy Dee Williams is so much more like the no-brain appealing choice. Smooth, slick. If you're not racist, I suppose. Yeah, right. That's the only impediment to seeing Billy Dee Williams as two-face. Christopher Walken looks like, do you remember that, there was like that brand of like learning software. There was like a math forest and stuff.

And there's one with like some crazy professor, like a professor math or whatever. Yes, he looks like that. And he's got the wild hair. And the eyebrows. And the same kind of suit and everything. It's hysterical that they designed him that way. And they're like, of course, he's a famed industrialist. He's a businessman.

He looks like a mad scientist. But he's also like a Fantasia of like Donald Trump, like literally Donald Trump. 100%. He is literally Donald Trump. This is a Trump movie. It totally is. It's impossible to deny this. Trump has definitely.

Take it back. Cut that out. Yeah. No. I take it back. Cut that out. Yeah, no, yeah. Go on, go on, go on. David just said something that is very much not slanderous. That we bleeped out for a long time. I mean, there's a part where the jig is sort of up for the penguin. And then he's giving.

Oh, yeah. It's when Bruce Wayne does the remix of the penguin. The only moment in this movie I don't like. I was watching this with my husband. Humble brag. Sidebar. I'm going to get back to that joke of your guys's in a second okay but

what joke the Humblebrag joke oh okay oh boy but oh boy oh girlfriend

Humblebrag but well played five comedy sorry but yeah he in the scene where he holds up the CD

and and I think Alfred gives him a thumbs up. David was like college radio. Yeah. Like in the house. Alfred's wearing his cans. Yeah.

Anyway, after that scene, I guess we're going all out of order and doing a bunch of different scenes. But after that one where he then he's out and everybody is looking at each other. Everyone knows the Penguin's contempt for society. The penguin hates Gotham it turns out and then he just starts shooting at everybody with his umbrella and then runs off and jumps into a river and I just started imagining this being Donald Trump

and I just started giggling uncontrollably. It was the stupidest dumbest bad political cartoon you could imagine and yet I was hyster like, hysterical. So Donald Trump pulls a gun out of his hair and starts shooting everybody. But it's also the waddle and it's like, ah, everybody hates me!

But it does kind of feel like, I saw that scene and I was like, this is probably how things would go down if they, like, started impeaching him. Right? Like, he would just do this. He would start shooting people with an umbrella. Right, and then, like, run into the sewers. That's what he would do do this he would start shooting people with an umbrella right and then like run into the sewers that's what he would do

back to his banquet it's just incredible what's crazy is when he was running everyone was like this feels like Oswald Cobblepot's campaign were they? yeah people I remember kept saying it it's not like Wolf Blitzer

it was like reminiscent of Cobblepot's famed 1992 campaign for Gotham Mayor. David is blowing out the mic so bad. David's burning this place to the ground. That was how I did Wolf Blitzer, who now follows me on Twitter, Humblebrag. Okay.

Wolf Blitzer liked that you gave him Best Supporting Actor for Mission Impossible. I wrote his scene up for Mission Impossible. It's a great scene. But anyway, you guys can't do the my girlfriend humble brag thing anymore I want to be clear that I've never done it

you're becoming that you're becoming like the whatever CinemaSins podcast or something like it's like how dare you I need to hear this analysis no I mean but not that specifically but like a ain't it cool-esque,

like I haven't slept with anyone in a zillion years. Oh, no, no. Looks like a bit might be heading to the rafters. Well, I'm always in favor of retiring bits, to be clear. Let's be clear. One bit has just been unretired. That's true. So there is an open spot in the rafters.

Now let's break into this because I did see someone online was trying to say I don't get the bit. Can anyone explain it to me? The origin of this was I had gone through a breakup. I was very sad. I remember this. I've listened to every single episode of your podcast.

I'm re-litigating for the audience, not for you. I'm just setting a table because this is a serious discussion now about whether or not we send this bit up to the rafters, which I'm not necessarily fighting against. I'm sorry. I came, I came in today. Mother, the mother of blankies came in like with some house cleaning to do. Mama of blankies. Just killed a bit.

Sometimes mom's got to clean up. She's got to teach her lessons. Mother's off the leash. mother's off the leash mom's off the leash meow meow purr purr mom's off the leash whoa okay so the initial bit was

oh now anytime you mention your girlfriend who you have a lovely relationship with and you watch a lot of movies with. So she comes up a lot. She's in my house with me. She's involved a lot. That I would say humble

brag because the idea was I was pretending like you were insulting me by rubbing it in my face. I understand that. I think there was also just the general joke that everyone was just saying humble brag too much. Okay. That was part two of it.

Part two was everyone was using humble bag. It just became like a thing where people just say like humble brag when you just sort of said like, I have a job. Right. So the way I like to, the second, like any phrase in pop culture has been strangled to death.

I then adopt it. Yeah. Much like I have. That's how I always took the joke. Right. And then he would just always do it because you love to drive bits into the ground, obviously, until they reach the molten core.

Right. So the bit was obviously the genesis of it is the I have a significant other, but it also just applies to any bit of information that is personal. Right. And now it's more things where I'll be like, yeah, I got pizza the other day,

and you're like, humblebrag. I say we do an official vote as to whether or not humblebrag goes up to the rack. Well, let's retire it. I don't care, I got pizza the other day. And you're like, Humblebrag. I say we do an official vote as to whether or not Humblebrag goes up to the raffle. Well, let's retire it. I don't care. I'm down to retire it. I'm always down to retire it. You know where I stand.

Yeah, yeah. It's retired. Wow. Thanks, everybody. Wow, look at it up there. Well, I'm done. Bye. That's a weird verbal tick that's going to be tough for me to break.

Wait, you don't say it. Well, I began to do it jokingly when he suddenly is like, anyway, who's hanging out with my girlfriend? And I was like, I get to finally motherfuck him. How does your girlfriend, moment of silence, feel about it? You're talking to Griff. About the bit? Yeah.

She's never commented on the bit. Okay. She listens to the podcast. Oh, wow. I don't think she's ever commented on that specifically because she's commented on many other things. Oh, sure. That I do on my show. What on earth?

How does anyone put up with you? Yes. Yeah. Oh, so I'm not in this alone? This is what every one of your relationships is like? With everyone you know? Yeah. My girlfriend's opinion is mostly that she can't believe she's been mentioned on this fucking podcast so many times she hates it.

Yeah. It's too late now. Now that the bit has officially been retired, and now that will be known as the bit, the retired bit, because of course all other bits are back in play. how almost in a Max Trek-like moving of the chess pieces, somehow the bit got retired right when you were starting to be able to use it against me. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Congratulations. Okay, Batman Returns.

Batman Returns. This movie begins as any Batman movie should begin, with a child being thrown into the river by Paul Reuben. A child. But before the child is thrown into the river, a child is in a box at Christmas. This is a Christmas movie.

This is a Christmas movie. Without a doubt. Such a great Christmas movie. That opening, the Warner Brothers logo with the snow. Which the teaser poster was just the logo

with the snow and everyone joked that it was like, Batman doing kook. Batman doing kook. Really? They said kook. Batman's doing kook. Okay doing kook. Really? They said kook. Batman's doing kook.

Okay, that was the joke? You were like two years old when this movie came out, right? I dug into the writings of the time. Yes, I was three when this movie came out. I've still never been able to figure out how old Griffin is. I was four when this movie came out. Right, you're the same age as my girlfriend. Yeah.

May her name be respected and honored in this room. Yes. She doesn't like me to say her name on this podcast, but I've said it many times, so what am I supposed to do about that?

You can call her J-Train. The blankies, I don't mind speaking about my husband on this podcast because the blankies did a whole post on the Reddit

about us getting married, so I'm like, I guess that's public knowledge now. It's canon. Well, to be fair, you also did buy a four-page spread in the New York Times. You guys are so publicity hungry. Looking for.

There was a thread of people trying to deduce my girlfriend's identity, which was silly because it's such a fool's errand. Obviously, it's TC14. Right, exactly. Even listening to this podcast, you know that I'm now finally in a serious, committed relationship with TC-14. That's the only thing we're going to talk about. I was six years old when this film came out.

I was very aware of it. I was aware of the posters. And I maybe had even seen Batman on TV. Yeah, the Bat, the Cat, and the Penguin. And so the first three actors I ever heard of were Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, because I just committed that to memory. I was like, everyone knows that Danny DeVito is the penguin.

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 to Podcast. Are you a sports parent, rep sports, travel sports, whatever you call it? 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 weird. Like I was so young young i guess it was three maybe but but when it came out i even still had awareness of like catwoman and the penguin not just like batman as a symbol but that it seemed like a big animals cultural moment yeah that catwoman and penguin were gonna be in a movie that's like oh these are like the two like fucking weird iconic there had been the show obviously right uh which i don't think I was watching yet. But I remember, like, literally, like, on the block of my fucking preschool, there was a pizza parlor that had this poster hanging up.

Sure. And I would walk by it, and it had the same kind of effect on me as, like, oh, this is, like, the store that sells, like, the scary T-shirts with, like, the flaming skulls on them, you know? Yeah. Like, it was, like like one of those things i'd walk by and kind of like i was like into how much it upset me yeah i mean it was what was this movie rated uh it's a pg-13 okay yeah because it while it is an upsetting movie i think for children

watching this back for the first time and probably like 15 years i I would guess, if not more. Yeah, it's probably more. I was just like so struck by how much it was a movie for children. Like despite being a PG-13 movie. Its reputation, I think, is it's scary. It is scary, but it's a movie for like all of the mayhem and action in this movie is something that like could have happened in, yeah, like a Disney movie. That's the other thing. Scary Disney. I feel like this movie is like a grim fairy tale and it feels like it's about fears of children like the way it deals with scary things feels very much like how children

perceive their fears yeah and and the i think the fact that it opens with the sound of like a crying infant too right is like very upsetting to hear when you're a child because that's your only, that's the only like human that could be more helpless than you. Yeah. At that point when you're eight or whatever. And it makes me think of like,

it feels like such a off brand, like so not a Disney move to have, to depict even the sound, especially the image of a crying child. I think of like labyrinth, which has a lot of crying baby in it, which is so, it feels so dangerous and upsetting when you're a kid to see that.

Cause you're like, that baby's really crying. Like they had to make that baby sad. And, and I think also, and then the other movie it made me think of was City of Lost Children which of course like is such a

like Burton like I don't know it's indebted in many ways I think but yeah no I mean it is there are obviously

there are things in this film that are gore and grotesque like the nose biting alone oh the nose biting is so incredible

the nose biting is the scene that frightened me as a child yeah well it was also like the nose biting alone the nose biting the nose biting is the scene that frightened me as a child yeah well it was also like the era of everybody like talking about Mike Tyson still too

sure I thought it was funny it's no it's hilarious it's very funny well also just the guy is funny where he's just like

yeah what yeah he's so funny but that's like another thing that's like scary about it when you're a small child is that they lull you into the sense of security with the two of them laughing. And it's like, oh, it's just a bit, it's just a bit.

And then there's this sudden act of violence. And also all the circus imagery and stuff, which you're like as a child. You're like, well, this must be for me. But then people are biting each other's noses off. And there's this weird sexual energy going on. And it's really hard to know what to think or what ground to stand on. And all their costumes are scary. Catwoman looks like a Frankenstein.

Well, she looks like a Tim Burton illustration. In the comics, what are the difference between Penguin's henchman and Joker's henchman? Because they're kind of the same. The henchman, Jesus. In the comics, the henchman's the same. The henchman, Jesus. In the comics, the penguin is just like a mobster. He's just like a mob guy. He's not like a run for mayor and find his parents. He's just a mobster. So they kind of flopped

to those two characters in the movies because they made the Joker. The Joker is kind of a mobster. Well, the Joker, of course, we all know he's the clown prince of crime. He is the clown prince of crime. We know that. But yeah, you know, the Penguin, the idea is he's like, you know, if you've got a fat

guy in a pinstripe suit. A wet guy. A wet fat guy. He's so wet. He's so wet. But it's also like- He's a very damp boy. He's gooey.

Oh, yeah. The Penguin aspect of him feels more indebted to like the Dick Tracy thing where it's like these are not superhuman people. These are just like goons. Yeah where it's like these are not superhuman people these are just like goons yeah they're like they all have like the one identifying trait where it's like he's rat face his nose is long yeah yeah like a rat you know but like the penguin like I mean there would be the thing sometimes where it's like oh the umbrella has guns in it or whatever yeah he's got the umbrellas well there's also the freak show element which is why his henchmen are all like circus

people but that's very much key to this yeah yeah yeah right why his henchmen are all like circus people. But that's very much key to this movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because his henchmen have always been like, sometimes they're just like tough goon enforcers. Sometimes it's like the branding thing where he's got a bunch of guys with like matching emblems. But this whole idea of him being like, oh, he's like the child of the circus who somehow

took over. It's so many things. It's weird. It's actually too many things. It's a lot of things. It's like many things. Right. It's weird. It's actually too many things, I would argue. It's a lot of things. It's like this, like, Children of Paradise thing, you know? Sure.

It's also, like, obviously this movie is very, like, all of Burton's, like, German expressionists, like,

this movie, like, looks like Children of Paradise, it looks like Dr. Caligari, right, it looks like Nosferatu, like, even,

like, what you're saying, like, fucking Christopher Walken looks so scary in this movie he looks like a ghoul he looks like a ghoul and he's supposed to be like a normal person but he looks

like to speak to Emily's thing like he looks like a child's version of an evil businessman or whatever yeah but then his son just looks like an actual like he looks like Eric Trump he's Eric Trump he's just a beefcake he's a very large son he just a beefcake. He's a very large son. He is a large adult son.

Yeah he's a large adult son. Extremely large adult son. And then also this is the first movie to like be post modern about Christopher Walken being like you guys ever notice that his voice is weird? Right so before anyone started making Christopher Walken a parody of himself Christopher Walken's pretty like straightforward

in this but then they have a guy next to him just dunking on him the whole time by being like, what's with this weird guy's fucking weird voice? Sure. But he's also doing this Burton thing of the very theatrical makeup, where it's like the dark circles around the eyes that aren't

even pretending to look like something biological. It's just a heightening of creepiness. Well, it's like what happens when you just a heightening of, like, creepiness. Right. Well, it's like what happens when you take a bath in chemicals, I guess. Yeah. You come out looking a little tired. He's a tie-tie boy.

Yeah, and you go, like, you know, Batman, Joker, Catwoman, Penguin are all just, like, people who have bad things happen to them. Yeah. Like, Joker was a bad person beforehand. Sure. But it's like he lived through this, like, horrible, like, physically scarring accident. They've fallen to a vat of them. Yeah. Like Joker was a bad person beforehand. Sure. But it's like he lived through this like horrible, like physically scarring accident.

They fall into a vat of X. Right. I don't feel bad for him. I don't either. I don't either. You don't feel bad for the Joker? I don't feel bad for the Joker. I think the whole point is what he's really into is like how people cope with trauma. Right?

Right. And like a person who's already bad becomes worse. You know, Batman in this obsessive way that is just a coping mechanism becomes good. You know, question mark. I mean, he's presented as the good guy. Yeah. Catwoman is like dangling on the side and like the penguin decides to just like fully own the idea of being hated and grotesque in a totally like vindictive way. idea of being hated and grotesque in a totally like vindictive way but I think the key to this movie is like this is the movie after Edward Scissorhands which is so sort of didactic in this like I'm Tim Burton I feel weird I feel like the scissor man in a town of normal happy people

and some of them are nice and some of them are mean but I feel like I'm a different species and I don't belong here and this is the movie that's him being like, is there such a thing as a normal person? Like, I think this is a movie about the concept of there being a quote-unquote normal person. I keep on using quote-unquote. But, you know, like Michael Murphy, who is like the most normal actor

alive, a dude I love, but like who Robert Altman uses like, this guy is just like so straightforward. He is so solid. He's like really like unthreatening. He plays the mayor. Right. Like charming and handsome and steady and intelligent and all of that.

And he plays the mayor. And then he is just completely enveloped by all these like lunatics. Right. And like freaks who are all fighting about what the right way to be weird is. Yeah. Right. Yeah. How to use your freakiness for ill or good or whatever.

Right. And Shrek is like ultimately the main villain because he's the one who's like gaining from all of their infighting. Sure. Like he's the one who's like playing this all and no one's noticing that he's getting away with everything. It's at the expense of the citizens. It's very funny that

this movie is ultimately right. Like, just about a guy who's trying to chisel money from the city and build a power plant. Like, it's a very mundane scheme. Like, the Penguin's like, I'll kill the firstborns! And you're like, yeah, go ahead. Kill all the firstborns. Yeah, deal with that. But, like, Max Shrek, meanwhile, is just...

Yeah. It's like, I can stoke the fears of the people until it benefits me more and more and more and more right which is like a very I think I wish that there were more superhero

movies that kind of played with that like let the fight between the superheroes be this sort of it's more personal than it's not ideological yeah yeah yeah and it's more personal then. And ideological too. Yeah, and it's also like,

it makes sense. Like it doesn't, you don't have to do some huge like end of the world leap of logic about anything. Like that could, if people had insane powers or got regularly dumped in vats of chemicals.

And what if both their moms had the same name? I mean, I can't even imagine how people would process that. I can't even imagine how people would process that. I can't even imagine. Do you think that would work? I think Ben hates this movie. Wait, Ben, how do you know that? Wait, what?

You don't like Batman Returns? Do you not like Batman Returns? All right, guys. Dig in. It's going to come clean. Okay. I hadn't seen this since, I think, the first time I saw it. Okay.

It's been that long. 92. On a porch somewhere. somewhere. So maybe not. As a child. As a child, yes. I found it boring. Kind of. Really? It's not a boring movie.

I gotta tell you. That's the one word I'm surprised to hear. I found it boring. I don't know. You know there's like penguins in this movie and shit. I know, I know. And it's silly and penguins in this movie and shit i know i know and it's silly and all that yeah i just couldn't get into it i don't know what it was about it i would say the only thing that i really liked is sewer penguins and that there's no real justification for it but i like got on board of that justification it's like the zoo right that's the only justification

right right because of chemicals but i like that that is the thing that for me is good right well how how did not every child who saw this movie and i think i believe every child of our generation did see this movie yeah how did we just not run like dupont and everything out of town when we became voting citizens. We've been raised to fear chemical plants so badly. Also Sonic the Hedgehog. Ferngully. Why are we not more woke about the environment?

Because we're like, wow, that's kid stuff. So there's not really a man made of a cloud of chemicals who's terrorizing the last rainforest. Right. What's his name again? The Tim Curry character?

Yeah, the villain of Ferngully. Look it up, David. No, that is the other key piece to this movie ending up as insane as it is, and we've mentioned him offhandedly, is Daniel Waters, who wrote Heathers, which was this like spec set. Hexus.

Hexus. That's his name. Hexus. Hexus. That's his name. Hexus? Oh, oh, in Ferngully? Yeah, baby. I'll see that in a second. He's pretty cool. He's a fucking cloud of gas

with a mean face. Who are your favorite cloud villains? If you had to rank Galactus Cloud, The Nothing, Hexus, Parallax, and Green Lantern. These are a lot of bad villains. Are they great? Yeah.

All the great Cloud men. What I was going to say is. Go ahead, please. Heathers, which was like this sort of like lightning rod spec script that daniel waters like was like i'm not gonna uh let sell the rights because i will only let this movie be directed by uh stanley kubrick that was his stance when he wrote it yeah and it's this movie where he poured like all of his fucking anger in the world into like one script that's like this very odd like tangenty over stuff. It is the most Baroque of the teen comedy.

Yeah, certainly. I think. And I was talking about this for other reasons. I was just like, I feel like the last one that was really allowed to be that written,

you know, was Cruel Intentions. One of my favorite movies. But like it has that same thing where it's like every line is a line yeah where you say no one talks this way these aren't even remotely teenagers but like who cares it happens more in tv now i feel like but but but yeah and so when i when i remembered that he had done this too i was just like it works slightly differently when you have danny devito just yelling all of those extremely written lines for example blast your erogenous zone sky high i mean you can imagine

one of the heathers saying that sure and what you're saying is it works differently in that this time it works perfectly yes exactly no it is No, it is just such a weird choice. It's someone they would never let near a film like this today. And he was just allowed to pick whoever the fuck he wanted. And Sam Hamm had written this Batman 2 script that was more conventional. He still gets a story credit, I think, just because of a couple elements. But this really was a movie that was written by one person who was not someone who ever worked within the studio system again. Yeah, it's true.

I think because of this, and it's also a film that is like, what you're saying about how you wish more superhero movies were like this, it's like it has no conventional narrative structure. It's not building towards the same sort of inciting events or conflicts. It's just like a lot of stuff happening.

And that's kind of why I found myself just being distracted. I mean, most of this movie just was like looking at my phone. Because it's too much stuff. I just couldn't. There's no through line to follow in it. But I have a bigger problem with that. Because at least when there's no through line to follow and Batman Returns, something insane is going on on screen.

Like penguins are wearing hats or whatever. Correct. And in Batman 1, I feel like there are moments, very long periods of time where I have no idea what is happening. They're just letting Nicholson run and they aren't cutting a single second

of his performance, I don't think. And that's when I really start to wander because I'm like, what are we doing again? Why are we here? But there are scenes like that in this movie. I don't think. And that's when I really start to wander because I'm like, what are we doing again? Why are we here? But there are scenes like that in this movie. I don't know. At this point, it will have been last week's episode, but David, you and I just got out of glass.

Like we saw an advanced screening of Glass and came right here to record. And we're a couple of glass holes here. We just saw a glass trapeze. Have you seen Glass? I didn't. Today was the first screening, I believe. You haven't broken the glass yet.

I haven't seen the glass yet. I haven't seen any of these new I haven't seen the Shyamalanisans. I'm not necessarily here for it. But whatever. I'm glad you guys haven't had a good time. Wait, did you like it? Yeah, it's great.

Okay. No one else likes it to be clear. I like splits. I don't like splits. Splits are great. And this really worked for me, but I will say I think there's a commonality between Batman Returns and Glass in terms of these two guys being like, cool, I can do anything I want to do. Yes.

I'm just going to make a movie that's sort of like a freewheeling like free associative essay on the idea of heroes and villains and whether those archetypes mean anything and how society is trying to rein us in and just work against every fucking expectation of what this movie should be or how a movie

works okay let's talk about Batman Returns but I think my point here is they both come out of that sort of like, now you have a brand, you have a director who has a... I get that he's off the leash. A track record of success.

We've made that clear. Yes, yes. He got to do whatever he wanted. He made Batman. Yeah. The man made Batman. Yeah. He gets to do whatever he wants.

Right. And he gets to do it with Batman, which is the crazy thing. Right, well, not only that, they want him to do whatever he wants because it worked last time. And it keeps on getting bigger and people love this Burton thing, whatever the fuck it is. He made a Scissorman movie and that did well. People thought it was romantic.

Teenagers thought it was romantic. It was like a teen idol movie. At this point, no one can make sense of why he's connecting. Sure. We're going, Emily. Hit me. I was just thinking about Edward Scissorhands, which I haven't seen in a long time.

But I was kind of thinking about, this is a theory that I have, but I can't really back it up, and I certainly haven't seen enough of Tim Burton's later movies to really be able to back it up. You haven't Peregrined yet? I have not Peregrined. You're not one of the Extraordined yet? I have not Peregrined.

You're not one of the extraordinary children? A peculiar children. I have very small eyes. Your eyes are small. Your shadows are light. You've never been to Wonderland. I went to your wedding. You were a regular bride, not a corpse bride. I'm very much alive.

Your weenie is unfrankened okay please cut that Al Frankenweenie is that anything Al Frankenweenie it's gotta go is that a thing sure I have a theory

that Tim Burton perhaps understands women the least of any. Of any people? I don't know if that's a theory. I think that's written in the sky. Like, yes, 100%. But I think it's Waters that, like, so Catwoman is an incredible character. And I think she's become, like, this sort of it me icon for a lot of women who have grown up

who saw her as a child and then are like oh now I get what she was going through in that but it is a I think the only reason it works on that level is because of Waters and Pfeiffer obviously but I don't think

I think that's why it feels remarkable in this movie because I can't think of another time you had like a female character, even in a really heightened sense. Yeah. Who felt like a person. I disagree with you. Beetlejuice. Yeah.

Beetlejuice to me. Kind of. Winona and Beetlejuice. I think she's great. I think she's great in it, but I feel like. I also think Geena Davis. But also she's a girl. Yeah, she's great. I think she's great in it, but I feel like I also think Geena Davis in Beetlejuice. But also, she's a girl.

Yeah, she's a girl. And I think it's easier to write a kid or an adolescent versus a woman. I know, but I love Catherine O'Hara in Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice to me is the one that beats it. I love Beetlejuice. Okay. I mean, that's fair.

That's why this was a theory. But everything else, it's not a theory. I mean, that's fair. But that's why this was a theory. But... Well, but everything else, it's not a theory. I agree with all other bird movies. It's fact. Yeah. Like, if you look at, like, Ed Wood, which is a movie I adore. I think it's a wonderful movie, but it doesn't really have any women of, like, dimension in it.

Jessica, Sir Jessica Parker is, like, a shrew. She's just there to be a rain on the party. Patricia Arquette is an unrealistic saint. She's like a Mary Sue. She's like a nice... Right. She's just there to be a rain on the party. Patricia Arquette is an unrealistic saint. She's like a Mary Sue. She's like a nice. Right. She's Winona and Edward Scissorhands. Yeah, Winona and Edward Scissorhands, which was written by a woman, but yeah.

Right. She's a beautiful little ice cold shrew. And they're always blonde. Like, I don't know. I feel like this is a thing. It's like little corpse boy, Lord of Darkness. Tim Burton is like, how can I communicate how I don't understand women? I'll make them all blonde and angelic and the opposite of...

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm the same as you guys. I went through a very long period of really being into Burton, especially that early stuff. I had Burton on Burton. It was one of the first film books I ever read. especially that early stuff. I had Burton on Burton.

It was one of the first film books I ever read. Was really into all that, but I think the tough points have become more clear to me. And besides just the common accusations of whatever, it's all just Lux, and it's just kind of a shtick that he's just playing with over and over and over again. That I don't care about as much, but I think that there are parts

where his unwillingness to engage with humanity is more of a problem than it is at other times. Well, right. And then I think, and we'll talk about it more and more, but the budgets and the CGI just get him further and further away from it. That's an issue. Right.

This is his last fully tactile movie of this size. I guess so. It's a little tactile. Because we're half and half, Mars Attacks, all the aliens are CGI. I remember

liking Sweeney Todd. Sweeney Todd's great. I saw it in the theaters. I like Sweeney Todd a lot, but that's great. I saw it in the theaters and then that's it. I like Sweeney Todd a lot but that's also a very CGI movie. I mean he wants to do that like 300 style

with no sets and instead it's like a couple of rooms. It's got some sets. But that's a good movie but it's working with you know a story that's not as

material. Yeah. See for me what I like about this film is I think Sweeney This feels like maybe the only

one of his movies where he's trying to figure out his own obsessions like this feels to me like maybe the only one of his movies

where he's not just like jamming on his fetishes right and he's trying to maybe get to the core it is very much like just somebody

sitting on the couch like talking to their analyst and like I mean an analyst not like a therapist right let's draw symbols out here very much like just somebody sitting on the couch, like talking to their analyst. Right. And like, and I, I mean an analyst and not like a therapist. Right. Let's draw symbols out here.

Yeah. Because rather than like the Edward Scissorhand model of the Burton film, where it's just like, poor me, I'm the victim. You don't get how sad and lonely I am. Let me make a movie about how I'm the noble hero. He made it.

That's like the epitome. Right. Yeah. He made hot topic, the movie. I mean, they're ripping him off or whatever, but it's the urtext for so much. But then people go back to him now

and they go, here's a script. It's perfect for you. It's about an outsider who the world doesn't understand. Whereas this movie is just like no one feels good, right? No, except maybe the mayor, as you say. Right, and he's dissecting different sides of how these people end up in these ways. But then the the mayor there's that great thing where where like uh michael murphy

starts complaining about max shrek and how much he hates him what insincere bastard he is yeah and it's just like well if you're so virtuous then why the fuck are you like sitting in this guy's pocket like everyone's either lying to themselves or to somebody else yeah you know grant morrison has this rant that he went on, the comic book writer, where he's like, Gotham makes no sense. It's stupid. Yeah. The city makes no sense. Who would live there?

It's the worst. It's like overrun with crazy supervillains and gangsters. So many alleys. Yeah. It's all alleys. And so when he was writing Batman, he was like, I'm trying to make Gotham seem like a real place because it's insane. Right. so when he I think he was writing Batman he was like I'm trying to make Gotham seem like a real place because it's insane

right but I don't think that anytime I watch the movies I'm like man if I was like 22 I'd be like I'm gonna live in Gotham

like Gotham's crazy yeah yeah it's the place you live and you're like hey man like I did it I lived in Gotham

also she has a nice apartment she's got a nice apartment the Murphy bed I don't think she even needs she has a nice apartment. She's got a nice apartment. The Murphy bed, I don't think she even needs. She's got like, it could just be on the floor. She's got some neon art. Like she's like doing okay.

And many cats. Hell here. Can we talk about the plot of Batman Returns? Yeah. But also this, this whole weird thing. How?

Yeah. Basics. Basics. Sure. Um, Catwoman in the comics has always just been a lady who dresses up like a cat she is a cat burglar right it's just her branding they went back to that for ann hathaway too which is boring yes well i like ann hathaway in those movies but obviously those are those nolan movies are right everyone's got to be a person super literal yeah but they're not even, oh, whatever.

It's not a good movie in particular. I think Anne is fun in that movie. Sure, she's fun. Annie gives good performance in that movie. But I think this is his weird, like, I think this is one of the things I would find very upsetting as a child when I watched this movie. And once again, in the, like, you know,

the reason why children's stories used to be scary, because kids like to be scared. They want to grapple with these things that seem too big to comprehend. The idea that she is someone who literally survives being murdered. That she's not someone who survives a murder attempt.

That she fully dies and comes back to life and is just like... Cat slicker. Cat slicker a lot. And there's not even any attempt to make any literal sense of that. I know. But this is the thing. It freaked me out when I was a kid. This is the thing that's incredible about it now is like she

she's thrown out the window by her boss. Right. Who was also like verbally abusive to her. Right. Because she spoke up and he started to think she might be a threat to his status yeah right uh because she knew about the chemical plant not being a chemical plant or whatever but when she comes back and then they like you know it's kind of great they do the whole coming back to the apartment thing again this time with her is this as a corpse ride basically held here she drinks her milk right she drinks her milk which is i mean

this whole sequence I feel like I've watched more times than the rest of the movie because I feel like they have the clip of it online and it's just

very very fun but she the thing that that makes her snap and not just be undead is hearing the message like on her machine

that's an advertisement for perfume that's saying if you wear this perfume like your boss might invite you on like a sexy date and machine that's an advertisement for perfume that's saying if you wear this perfume like your boss might invite you on like a sexy date and then that's when

she screams and like right realizes she was murdered and is like I'm gonna sew really hard I do love that she gets out her sewing machine

but that's the thing it's funny this movie is like we don't have to explain how she came back to life we do have to explain that she sewed her own costume

we need that explained go on I'm sorry no but i i think that that's that feels more real like the moment even though she's like a woman who was brought back to life by cats licking her that yeah the thing of her snapping because of this dumb ad feels that is a moment of reality, I think, in this otherwise. It's like the rest of the sequence, again, was watching with my husband. He was going in and out, but he was like,

wait, what? Why is she doing this? What's going on? He had missed the part with the message recording and everything, but it is like, as an actor, I imagine you would be like, what's my motivation in this exact

moment uh yeah it's uh but i i don't know i really appreciated that bit well i think that that's sort of the key to the whole thing is like you know she's this person who was like miserable felt like a failure also hated herself. I think that's important because that feels different. That makes her character immediately feel different within the context of a superhero movie. Not only anybody up until that

point, but honestly since then. When is the last person in a superhero movie who hates themselves? Never happens. Villains are always like joyous in their like miserableness. Yeah. And the heroes,

even if like it's Peter Parker who's like, oh, good, good date. Like he, what would you like? No. Eugene, oh,

I want to date some good girl. You're telling me Peter Parker wants to date a girl? What is it? Spoilers for the next Spider-Man movie twisted burp

twisted but yeah I I feel like there's never that that issue of self-doubt

is you never have the space or the real estate to explore and that's just self-doubt but someone who actively hates themselves

yes now a lot of that is, I think, I mean, it's very telling, the things she says where like, honey, I'm home, all right,

if I had anyone to come home to. She hates herself because she feels like she's failing against the model of what a woman should be as society is selling it to her.

Because it's the early 90s. Right. And the perfume ad and the boss wanting you and all these things, she feels like. But even besides that, she hates herself on like,

this is, maybe I'm just like putting my cards out here too much but like she she like the first thing we see her do is where she's just

she's said something like they're in the meeting and she's pouring the tea or whatever and as soon as they leave she just starts like like making fun of everything she just said

in that scene like oh I hope you like you know it's just like self mocking in a way that is like, again, like that's dark. Like that's a dark thing to see somebody do. And you definitely almost never see that happen.

Even with a person who's bad or sad in a superhero movie. Yeah. I guess my, my reason is just that all the things she's criticizing herself, being so hard on herself for doing are a failure to be whatever she thinks she should be. Yeah. That's a stupid thing to say.

I should have said this instead. This is what my home life should be like. This is what my work life should be like. This is how I should be. And then after she is literally murdered. Yes. She's just like, I don't know. Nothing fucking matters anymore.

She's liberated. Well, nothing matters. She's murdered. And then here's an ad telling her that she's not wearing the right perfume. Yeah. And that's just like, fuck don't know, nothing fucking matters anymore. She's liberated by... She's murdered and then here's an ad telling her that she's not wearing the right perfume. And that's just like, fuck all of this. I literally got murdered trying to be whatever you're

asking me to be. Right, and then they add in this weird nine lives thing where it becomes like, cool, I could just die nine more times, so let me do whatever the fuck I want. You know? She becomes like a nihilist and a hedonist and is just trying to like live the best version of her life.

Which is being a weird Frankenstein cat lady. Sure. She likes cats. She goes back to work. She goes back to work. Why? Which I love. To fuck with Max Schreck. She wants to spook him. That's a joy. That's a joy for her

spooking him cause he's like Selena I can't do you must have forgotten what happened to you yeah I think he says

Selena wow wow wow is Christopher Walken here cat woman what are the guys of penguin is Kevin Pollak here

Batman now while that's all happening He's a penguin. Is Kevin Pollack here? Batman. Now, while that's all happening. Christopher Walken is slipping into Randy Newman very quickly. Yes, he is. You've got a friend in me. She's got a friend in Oswald Cobblepots. She does. Who's a flippered man.

Unlikely allies. He's a flippered man who was thrown into the sewers and he ended up, of course, in the who was thrown into the sewers and he ended up of course in the abandoned zoo portion of the sewers all rivers lead

to the abandoned zoo with also with all those hydraulic lifts that rise squarely someone on the reddit said this

but it's true like I love that Burton has so much respect for the long opening credit sequence always yeah you know

prominent credits for everybody. He loves it. No, nothing's happening on screen. And also setting a tone. I mean, he knows he's got like, the music,

obviously, big overture. Yeah. Great score. Like, I mean, all, most of the superhero movies now have that though.

They have like a, Oh no, most superhero movies do it at the end. Cause you need to have your mid credit scene. That's true. But, you know, they have them a oh no most superhero movies do it at the end because you need to have your mid credits seen that's true but you know

they have them at the beginning they have the I think they do them at the beginning for for the X-Men movies yes because it's like going through the DNA

I mean X-Men is it apocalypse that has the time tunnel with the swastikas yes is that apocalypse and it blows apart yeah that's

the swastika that appears on screen when it says 20th Century Fox is immediately a swastika. I forgot about that. That's so incredible. So the penguin, yeah, he ended up in the sewers. He's been chilling out there for, what do we figure, 30 years? 20 years? They say 33 years.

I thought it was like 15. I am the same age as the penguin yeah right so I'm 32 I'm getting to penguin I'll be penguin aged

in about 4 months we are penguin aged together Emma penguin and Jesus oh right that's the Moses kind of thing this is our Jesus here

it was totally a Moses he's a Moses him going down the trash river he's like bizarro Moses and the opening of the movie is all Max Shrek which I'm sure audiences were like I can't wait for Batman Returns

the first 10 minutes Max Shrek Christopher Walken having board meetings against Michael Murphy as the mayor is there a reason their mascot is like a Felix the cat besides the fact that she's going to be Catwoman I have no idea but it's so great yeah i love it it's very strange yeah it's so great

yes it's great you don't like it you didn't like it no fair enough i mean i gotta say i can't argue with that imagine if like general electric was like our yeah our logo should be a revolving cat head statue that's like perpetually grinning our logo should be a revolving cat head statue that's like perpetually grinning. Our logo should be whatever superhero the assistant to our CEO is going to be. Will turn into. I saw this Asbury Park character. Let's make it a cat, but as gruesome. Let's make that our brand.

You're right. It's sort of a Coney Island freak kind of logo. Yeah, totally. It's great. Anyway, so Max Shirk gets kidnapped and then Penguin's down there and he's like, of course, I look at everyone's poop and so I know everything about you. I also am a millionaire, apparently, for being a sewer man. That's crazy.

Money works differently in the sewers, Ben. You should know this. I just love that that's the opening gambit. Very different. Also, the opening of this movie is fully aligning itself with Penguin in the way the first one does with Batman. Well, it makes you think that you're watching a movie about the Penguin. Right.

We kind of are. And then it is more of a Catwoman movie in the latter half. It is never a Batman movie. No, but they mirror the thing in the beginning of the first batman where they're all the newspaper headlines where they're like is this true half bat half man like there's this sense that people have been whispering about the penguin and they don't know whether or not there's like any fact to it right and rather than it being like an embellished version of the real guy the real guy's 10 times worse than what they're thinking about. He does look like the sketch of the Batman.

Right. The circus found his baby bassinet. Yes. Right? And they raised him to be a sideshow attraction. Right. And then he sort of convinced them all to move to the sewer with him and lead an uprising. Obviously. Because he wants to know

his bloodline. He wants to know where he came from. He needs a crew in order to help him find out who his mom and dad were. You know what the best part of this movie is? It's just the penguin sitting in the Hall of Records reading books. Birth certificates. And Batman's like,

Batman looking through the window. Like, what the fuck? Christmas Eve and you're like licking a quill pen I mean he's at the library I won't disturb him I love the penguin so much it's the best

just imagine imagine now both of them should have won Oscars oh god so he so so Shrek helps him find his parents he kind of

blackmail shrek because he's got the uh the um reconstructed shredded papers right a lot of tape and you know and spare time like right like that's yeah uh and uh i guess selena's sort of in the background batman's done nothing. No. And then there's that scene like 20 minutes in when the Red Triangle gang is doing something where Pat Hingle's like, turn on the signal. Right. And you see the signal and you see the shot that we both love so much. The background on my phone.

Michael Keaton just has been sitting, Bruce Wayne has been sitting in a chair just waiting for the signal. He has nothing else. And the lights are off in the house. He's an empty vessel of a human being. And he finally sees it. He's like, oh, waiting for this. He has nothing else. The lights are off. He's an empty vessel of a human being. And he finally sees, he's like, okay,

great. I get to go. Yes. But that's minute 15. Right. Batman proper enters minute 20. And you have him fighting some of the guys. And he says one word when commissioner Gordon is like, where are you going?

And he's like elsewhere. Like he says like, whatever. I counted. There's literally, he says one word. Yeah. Then you have a couple more scenes

of like quick glimpses of like him sitting at a computer looking at something, not saying anything. At minute 40, he's like, Alfred, what's up with this?

This is cold. And the first line that Batman says in his own movie is just complaining about, it's a vichyssoise, it's supposed to be cold. Right. Great.

Yeah. I mean, Alfred keep on relitigating the first movie, which I love. Also, they go into Vicki Vale in a way that I don't feel like they need to. Right. I mean, I guess the last shot of the first movie, when she's like, oh, I guess he's never going to come meet me in the cab. That was the end of their relationship. Yeah. Yeah. meet me in the cab like that was the end of their relationship but yeah but then the other thing is that like

that's like the one piece of real fan service is that like everyone fucking complained about the fact that Alfred let Vicki Vale into the Batcave so they felt like

Tim there's only one thing you need to address in this movie otherwise audiences are gonna be yeah fans were like so fucking angry about that really

I mean that doesn't surprise me Alfred would never do that like it's his job to like protect the sanctity and the secrecy of the Batcave he really likes Vicky he does like Vicky

you think she's a nice lady she is a nice lady you can never trust a girl Alfred's a fucking cock like that was like people were like protesting yeah right

in the streets yeah I remember because I was four months old um your parents took you to a Batman protest rally and made a clever sign for you In the streets? Yeah, I remember because I was four months old. Your parents took you to a Batman protest rally and made a clever sign for you and put it on Instagram. I'll tell you, if anyone was furious about Vicky Vale being allowed into the Batcave. Do your dad. Griff, Griff, Griff.

I mean, this is unbelievable. Do you see that? Alfred let Vicky Vale into the Batcave. What are these guys thinking? If my dad was famous, I would be on Mad TV. It's so true. I wish your dad was president. That is unbelievable.

I love your dad. What was I going to say? So yeah, and then yeah, Selena gets shoved out a window, turns into Catwoman. All right. And then yeah,

is there any more plot? It's all these people like bouncing off each other. There's the mayor plot. There's the, I guess that's the sort of spine of the story but then there's also

Bruce Wayne falling in love with Selina Kyle I guess I guess so that's the only other thing he does in this movie yes

I like that they suss each other out pretty quickly that scene at the Shrek ball where they just look at each other and they're like

oh yeah right of course right the Shrek ball where they just look at each other and they're like, oh, yeah, right. Of course. Right. Obviously. Shrek. Like the movie. Don't take Shrek along. Jesus.

His office is like the outside of a Shake Shack. Is that your notes? Are you about to show us something? No, yeah. The Shrek department store. Yeah. You mean Shake Shrek? Yeah. Good. Shrek Shrek department store. You mean Shake Shrek? Yeah.

Good. Shrek Shrek? Two dollars. Thank you. But yeah, there's so many, to go back to the camp thing, because the party scene

made me remember this. I think one of the images is just like embedded in my memory from this movie is when the floor blows up and the penguin comes up in the rubber ducky boat. The inexplicable rubber ducky penguin comes up in the rubber ducky boat.

The inexplicable rubber ducky boat. I love the rubber ducky. But there's something about that aerial shot of him, a penguin man. Go on. Riding a duck. In a summer blockbuster, you say? In a summer blockbuster. During the dead of winter. In a fancy blockbuster you say? In a summer blockbuster. Set during the dead

of winter. In a fancy grown up party. Yes. Where adult things are happening. Sure. It feels like

the only thing I could write I was like trying to pinpoint the feeling of it. It feels like a tarot card. It feels like a lost tarot card.

Also he is a short little man. Why is everyone just like oh no we must just stand here and do nothing. Also, he is a short little man. Why is everyone just like, oh no, we must just stand here and do nothing. Also, what are they screaming at though? They're just screaming because he's ugly. He's crazy looking.

Here's black goo coming out of his mouth. His parents put him in a cage. He's kind of handsome. He's got a nice smile. He out of his mouth. His parents put him in a cage. He's kind of handsome. He's got a nice smile. You know what he's doing with his hair? Are you into that? His teeth, though, have the golem teeth. In the flashbacks in Lord of the Rings,

when he's eating the fish and becomes bad, and then he's like, I'm eating the fish. I'm sorry, let me just... He wears Victorian pajamas. Excuse me. Let me pause. Well, he's still wearing the outfit he had on as a baby, which is now stretch and tatter to its ends.

Can I just pause the conversation for one second? All four of us find it attractive that he's constantly spitting up black bile, right? We talked about how we all secretly want to fuck Beetlejuice. We all like the black bile that's dripping out of his lips. Well, spoiler alert to skip to the end, but when he is face down, they make a point to make sure that the black bile is coming out of his mouth in clouds

as the penguins look down at him in the water. It's my favorite part of the whole movie is when the penguins march him into the sea. I imagine them just thinking like, you know, so ends the reign of the whole movie is when the penguins march him into the sea. Yeah, Harmonia. And I imagine them just thinking like, you know, so ends the reign of the penguin. Like, ups and downs. He made us a lot of sewer money. Got us involved in some heady schemes.

Got a little crazy at the end there. Right, at the end there, I don't know. He might have overshot, you know, but all great men. But he represented our interests. He was going to make the whole city cold. I love cold. He throws that out and they're like I don't know.

It doesn't come up again. Crank up the AC. My nightmare. Like a lunatic. It's perfect. I am the penguin. In my office, I'm the penguin. We're blowing out the mic so much because we have to do the David.

Do the penguin. David O. Boyd. This is why this movie is getting slapped in the face repeatedly, though. It's just all these very long lines that David O. is doing that he's just yelling. His delivery choice in all of them. It's like all guitar solos. Yes, basically. And as Ben said, there all of them is just... It's like all guitar solos. Yeah,

basically. And as Ben said, there's the scene where Max Trek's like, I guess I'll make you the mayor. Wow. Not bad.

And they bring him up, right? He's like a very problematic He lures him up with... Candidate. True. I mean, he talks specifically

about how he wants to just grow people. We'll get to that. We gotta get to that. You know, lures him up with a fish. He's half eating a fish. Then he bites someone's nose. He holds a raw fish in two hands and then bites into the stomach.

So the fish guts are just pouring out. He's like not done eating his fish. So he's like very confused. He's holding on to the fish. His motivation in that entire scene where they bring him into the campaign office. They're talking like branding with him. But he's not sure whether to keep eating the fish or not. That's his main concern.

It's incredible. Then he bites someone's nose and blood spurts everywhere. And after that, everyone's like, anyway, like to continue with our conversation. Like they are like, my God, this man's a freak. Only when they hear the soundtrack where he's like, ah, Gotham's for losers. They're like, what?

What a scandal. So I want to actually, this is making me think of another question I had. And be honest and don't answer quickly. Okay, sure. He's Letters Joker,

David DeVito's Penguin. David DeVito's Penguin. I mean, you said think about it, but I thought about it for years. Right. I mean, as far as Agents of Chaos go, I like the Joker better. I mean, I... But I love

the Penguin. It's a tough choice. As much as I dislike everything that the Joker has come to represent in the online Discord, Very annoying. Well, he did it for the lols well he did it for the lulz Joker did it for the lulz I think yes I mean he just wanted

some men I don't know if you've heard but some men just want to watch the world burn yeah weird flex but okay what's up I'm sorry

what's going on well Joker is a little bit twisted oh okay that's good thank you that's good but I really do like that performance despite everything twisted oh okay that was good thank you that was good

but I really do like that performance despite everything love it there are moments in that performance that are just sublime and you can't

no matter the context no matter what happens it's a wonderful performance but as far as like an agent of chaos as far as like making you feel like you're losing your mind

while you watch the movie yeah see that I'm on board with right right when you're watching DeVito you're like I're losing your mind while you watch the movie. Yeah, see that I'm on board with. When you're watching DeVito, you're like, I can't believe this is allowed. Your skin's like crawling. He's like, I'm watching a movie. This is a charismatic movie star.

This is a very good performance in a movie. Right, yeah. And also like, you know, the Joker, but yeah, the flip side of that is the Joker genuinely, he's just like, right, I do just want it to be crazy all the time. The Penguin is a little more like, he's upset because he's a penguin. Right, right.

Well, even think about... He's got that going on. Think about the difference. Anytime you're looking at him, you're like, this guy does not like that he is a penguin. Think about the difference between henchmen, like the Nolan Joker. It's really scary to see clowns shooting at people. In this movie, they're just doing jazz and just kind of dancing around. Like the Nolan's Joker. It's really scary to see clowns shooting at people. In this movie, they're just doing jazz hands and just kind of dancing around.

And you're like, am I scared? What is happening? I mean, that's the classic old Batman thing. The henchmen who just, right, like Mr. Freeze's henchmen have to wear like Eskimo suits at all times. Like even in the summer. They need Vincent Scavelli as an organ grinder. They're not fighting. They're not fighting Batman. They're just kind of

standing there waving their head around. They're like riding motorcycles and wearing skeleton hands and going, ah. Dude,

the skeleton hands are cool. No, they're not. I don't like skeleton hands. They are good performers. Wait a second. They got showbiz

in their blood and they just want to give us a nice show. That's true. Oh, God. Let me say some things I like about the Penguin. Okay? Go on.

So there's the Trump thing, right? Where it's like, here's a rich guy, born rich, son of a rich man, never figured out how to be high class. And also, oh, he's neglected by his parents. Right, right, right. His father hates him. Mommy and daddy. Right. He's entitled to all this money, but all he wants, the way that people talk about

Trump where they're like, all he ever wanted was to be a celebrity. He wanted celebrities to like him. Sure. He performatively dips everything in gold because he thinks that's what a fancy person's supposed to do. Like he's not even nouveau rich, but he can't do it in a way to get the others. It's the Mulaney joke that he's a hobo talking about what he would do if he was rich. Right.

Is Donald Trump. Right. Right. Is Donald Trump. Right. Right. And so like what's Penguin's driving force is like I'm trying to figure out like where I came from and why I was thrown away. And then like is there a way where I can now affect the role and resell myself as the kind of fancy leader that people want me to be. Where when he can't do it within like polite society of Gotham, it becomes the mayoral campaign. Well, and the adoration of the people quickly fills in the void too.

That's the point. Like Shrek is like, I can use him to my own means because he'll be in my pocket and he'll give me the tax cuts I want. And then he will just love the fact that he's able

to draw crowds and they don't care how grotesque he is because they've gotten into the idea that he represents the people. But he has one fatal flaw. Which is? Anytime he sees a woman, he's represents the people. But he has one fatal flaw. Which is?

Anytime he sees a woman, he's like, I want to fucking fuck you. Just like that. Literally. I want to squeeze your boobs right now. You're giving me all the signals. That's what he's like around any woman. He gets so angry when Catwoman friend zones him. There's an aggressive friend zone scene this way

where he's like, I'm so angry, I'll fly away. And then he's like, on an upside down umbrella. The umbrella starts turning into a helicopter. But the one thing in this movie that is totally fantastical

is the idea that when they play the tape back that the people actually turn on them. Right, right. Because we've seen in real life. Oh, he's not what

he appears to be, which is a little penguin. Right, but what he's speaking to, much like Trump, is just like the anger of the people who are just like, this isn't fair. Yeah. So he would find some way in

reality to warp that to be like, you'd be yelling at you too if you were me. Yeah, well, Penguin tells it like it is. Right, but then this movie takes this crazy third act twist, which talking about where he ranks in like the pantheon of villains, this is a thing that no other movies do, okay? You have like

the like, oh, I'm just an agent of chaos. I just want things to go crazy. You have the like, this is an order for me to steal all the money. I'm Mr. Freeze. I need these diamonds, right? It's like all, it's a heist. It's a theft type thing. Diamonds power his free suit. You know this. Which is the Dr.

Octopus thing of like, I need to steal these cores to build my experiment, right? Or you have the people who are just like, I want power. I want to be in charge. Or revenge. Right. Sure.

Personal vendetta. Catwoman is more like a personal vendetta. But that's what I like about Penguin, is that like, he's on the sort of power quest, but it was driven by other people. And then once that falls apart, he's like, you know what?

Just fuck everybody. Right. I'm out for revenge against normal people. I'm in a pointed way just trying to get back at everyone in the world. My end game is just to murder people. And this like vindictive thing of talk about things that are upsetting to children I'm just going to steal all the babies.

Yeah. Which is like biblical. You know like put blood on the door like all the first it's the plague it's so upsetting and there was yeah there was famously this thing where they just didn't know what to do in the last act right yeah when they were writing it right but i like that it just becomes like he just is pure evil sure Like there's no like end that he's trying to get to. There's no gain for him. Right.

It's not even that he philosophically likes the idea of people descending into chaos. Right. He just wants like to fucking make people miserable. Well and I feel like

a lot of superhero movies kind of do this and other movies too do this in some way where you have somebody who's like maybe there's some shade

of redeemability with them. They are able to experience acceptance or love or something. Yeah. And then when they lose it, they go all the way. Sure. Which is,

it's like that, but I feel like, I feel like, yeah, not, I want to say it's political, but not in like a, like it's commentary on politics.

Like, even though we can kind of read that today like that, but I mean, it is political in that it's like, but not in, like, a, like, it's commentary on politics. Like, even though we can kind of read that today like that. But, I mean, it is political in that it's, like, I feel like it speaks more to, like, systems and people. And, like, it's more of a sociological thing than, like, a one man's journey type of thing. Which is what I think this movie is all about. Yeah. And there is the element of, like, as you said, like, it fills a void in him.

They dress him up nicer. People start to take him seriously as, like, as you said, like, it fills a void in him. They dress him up nicer. People start to take him seriously as, like, a man of high society. But he still is, like, so bruised by, like, a cat woman. You were giving me all the signals. Like, he still, like, is miserable. Like, he never gets happy. He gets, like, a little rush of it, and he needs more and more and more and more. And so at the end, it's just, like, there's no fucking way this ever works.

Like, there's no way I'll ever feel normal. I'll ever feel like I got my fair shake. Like, I'm on even footing with the people of Gotham with their chubby little digits. Chubby digits. So, a couple things about this. One, in terms of Batman not really having anything to do in this movie. One, in terms of Batman not really having anything to do in this movie, famously, his plotline was supposed to be largely centered around Robin. Right.

Who they cast Marlon Wayans as. Marlon Wayans was playing Robin, and it was like— That would be so much stuff, though. He took in a street orphan who then was fixing his car, and then he started to train him, and then at the end he became Robin. And they were like, too much, too much, too many plot lines. We already essentially have four main characters. By removing that, Batman just becomes like the love interest. Which is kind of interesting and then

occasionally just a piece of iconography for people to react strongly to. I like that his biggest action set piece in the movie is the penguin controlling him with a remote control. Like the biggest Batman action sequence in the film is him with a remote control. Like, the biggest Batman action sequence in the film is Batman with zero agency looking like a terrorist. Yeah.

I love the way the tech looks, too. Yeah. It looks great. Yeah. It looks really good. And the weird, like, pen car that his car turns into. But even just the exaggerated nature of how he's controlling it. Oh, that it's a theme park ride.

That it's like a coin-operated supermarket thing. Yeah. I think all of that is rad. Marlon Wayans got paid more money than any of us ever will in our life to not be in this movie. And Merchandise Spotlight, they made a Robin action figure

that looks like Marlon Wayans, but they painted it white. Because it was late enough in production that they were just like, oh, fuck. Oh, God. So there is a Robin action figure. Everyone's like, why are there Robin toys?

Robin's not in the movie. It's the suit design that they had built for him. I'm finding it. By 1992, manufacturing standards, not a super accurate likeness, but it notably has a high top fade. It is a white, peach color Robin with a high top fade. Trying to find it. Is it this one? Is it this one? Correct.

If you can find a close up of the face, it's like Marlon Way. You can tell. Remember when nothing had to make sense though with superheroes? These movies were for children. Even though they made lots of money and critics had to pay a little attention to them. They were goofy movies for kids. And you say, even though they made lots of money and critics had to pay a little attention to them.

They were goofy movies for kids. And when Joel Schumacher takes it in the even goofier direction, no one was like, what a shame. Everyone was just like, yeah, that makes sense. Logical end point. Powering a suit with diamonds. He looks like kid in play.

But also, Rumpelstilzkin doesn't make any sense like all these things are just speaking to like these elemental fears yeah you know yeah um which is i don't know i mean i i i like that about these more even though i feel like they don't they really it's not the thing that annoys me is not that they don't make any sense. I think it's more the feeling of watching them, aside from like kind of cool nightmarish imagery. But I'm talking about all the mayhem and all the insane action stuff feels, I think, just too disorienting for me now. Like it's just not, it doesn't, it doesn't feel like a childlike nightmare to me, nor does it feel like a competent action scene.

It just feels like a lot of, like, and I feel like any time it slows down, any time there's, like, a conversation between two characters, it is properly deranged, and in a way that I can read and follow. But all of his style of action, I also want to maybe float that Tim Burton sucks at action directing.

Not his strong suit. Not his strong suit. I mean, I just can't think of action. He would never, I don't think he would probably say he would. But I think it's sort of instructive to see. But it is funny to think that, right, he made two Batman movies and invented these kinds of movies without them really having action sequences. No, he likes gags. and invented these kinds of movies. Without really knowing how to do that. Without them really having action sequences.

No, he likes gags. He likes set up payoff. Right, and Batman just sort of stomps around very slowly and sort of goes like, punch. So stiffly, yeah. Like, yeah. He has the batarang that goes like, do-do-do-do. But they give him enough time to sit there and be like, oh, I'm going to program it to hit this guy, this guy, this guy. It's very... The fact that while the penguin is controlling his car,

he has the time to take out a blank CD-R, like a Memrex from a multicolored 10-pack, and then insert it in and just be like, I'll need this recording for later. Is there any Catwoman stuff we wanted to say before we get to the box office? I do like that they keep track of the counting of how many times she's dying throughout the movie.

I mean, I just... I guess I want... I do like that they keep track of the counting of how many times she's dying throughout the movie. I mean, I just, I guess I want, I know that guys always talk about this movie as being like this sexual awakening for them when they're young. And I feel like there's some weird, and I haven't quite wrapped my head around what it is yet, having just watched it for the first time in a long time. But there is some kind of version of that that I think happened for a lot of girls but it's like different. It's like a kind of aspirational thing but also not. It's like both cautionary and aspirational at the same time.

I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, she's so good. I was telling, when I was waiting for you guys to come back from Glass. Glass. Two Glass holes to come back from Glass. I was just talking you guys to come back from glass, glass, two glass holes to come back from glass.

Um, I was just talking about like her performance is so subtly good in a lot of ways. Like she, there is a moment where she like, I can't remember what the action is, but it's something like she punches through a wall or she's like breaking open some box or something.

and the way she does it and it's like shot from behind also I don't think that this movie objectifies her at all no matter how kinky her costume is

like it's very costume is kinky but she's not they're not doing the sort of pan up her legs and ass or whatever and they're always

sort of presenting her as a threat above all else yeah or just like this well also Batman isn't afraid to say like eat floor

like this isn't something where there't afraid to say, eat floor. This isn't something where there's some lady she has to fight. There's a moment where she does this move and it's like, it's totally physically cat-like, but not in a way, not in a cat's way, like the musical.

It's in a way that- It would be good if she was like Rumpelteazer. Sure. She's not doing like this i'm doing i might be the like which hallie berry does the right she does a lot of that uh but but there's something it's just like more just uh where do i put my weight in my body as i am like half inhibited and inhabiting the the role of a cat which is like interesting and cool and i i i noticed that way more this time around

and I was very impressed with that. It's a very physically precise performance and especially in a movie like this. I think the same thing of DeVito though, which is kind of crazy because like, as I said, I've been watching all this Taxi recently and his whole kind of thing is that he just sort of like gets angry and flails around.

And it's amazing how often in Taxi he's like pointing in the wrong direction like the camera's not picking up on him. You get the sense that's just like this guy's a ball of energy just let him do whatever he wants and just try to capture it and then in this you know I get the sense that Burton was probably very meticulous on set but between

the makeup and the costumes and the angles and their sort of gesture and all the different physical acts, there's just, like, constantly this relationship between them and the sets and the lens to, like, make these perfect sort of tableaus. And with both of them, it's crazy because they're wearing these things

that must be, like, such extreme physical impediments. Yeah. So aggressively uncomfortable and hot. Right. She came in pretty late to this movie because it was supposed to be a net banning. Then she got pregnant. Then Sean Young broke onto the Warner Brothers lot

wearing a homemade costume trying to get the role. And people never stopped making fun of her for that. And then Michelle Pfeiffer got it and jumped into it. And she, in interviews will always talk about how like impossible it was so she's just like the first day was like

I can't act in this right move I can't essentially cut her out of the suit once a day so she could like go to the bath yeah like it was like horrible right and she's in these insane high heels she's got these razor blades on her fingers and she like had to learn how to actually use the whip like all this stuff

that's just like and she was in this point where she was huge because she had had the Married to the Mob, Tequila Sunrise, Dangerous Liaisons, and then Fabulous Baker Boys. Well, that's earlier. Scarface is. Yeah. But like that Fabulous Baker Boys is like the greatest, one of the greatest female performances in a movie, in my opinion. And so I think, but then after that, that's 89.

This is 92. 92 sure and in between she just had like frankie and johnny like she hadn't had a hit right so i do think she was on a slight downswing like she did kind of need uh you know to be in the zeitgeist again yeah i love michelle pfeiffer yeah it worked i mean this like really bumped her up for the rest of the decade yeah i mean she kind of starts working less and less in the 2000s. But up until this point, and after this. Through to like. White Oleander.

White Oleander. She's in at least a movie a year. Right. She works. Yeah, and she was a big star. Fucking, you know, One Fine Day. We stan two legends. Yeah.

That movie rules. Another movie I watched at a slumber party. That's a real slumber party movie. Can I tell you guys about my first experience watching this movie? Please. It's not really a good story. It doesn't have a three-act structure.

I will always associate this movie with being at a slumber party where, for whatever reason, because this is just the kind of thing that happened to me and I could not explain why, I watched this movie in the living room of my friend's house. There was a wall of couch cushions down the middle of the room. I had to sit on one side of the wall

and all the rest of the girls were on the other side of the wall. That's just the kind of thing that happened to me when I went to a slumber party. Regularly? Yeah. It makes walls? So my memory of this is just sort of like sitting on like a bare carpeted floor

and like all the girls are like on the other side of the wall. Why are you not on the I don't understand. I'm very upset by this. Are you being victimized like actively or is it just like passively? I think I was just giving off like please make fun of me and torture me vibes as a child.

But you would get invited and then they would invite you to sort of. Yeah, I would be invited to a somber party. But then things would always take a turn once the parents went to bed. Build that wall. Suddenly they'd start chanting. This is why I was such a goody two-shoes because whenever parents were around, everything was fine and I felt safe. And whenever parents went away, I was like, oh, no, I'm going to get like. They treated you like a penguin.

Yes. This is why I, I, I, I, I feel so much for, that's why you were such close friends with Vincent Schiavelli. It's all kind of,

it's my guy making sense. Now he's your number one guy. Let's see the box office. Okay. Wait, final thoughts. Come on. Bruce Wayne,

big ass fireplace rules. Right. You can burn a fucking tree in that thing there's more colors in this movie than there were in the last one and I'm grateful to it for that maybe because it's a Christmas movie but I think I don't know let's talk about the ending because there are a couple interesting things that happen in the ending I mean it ends with

the four main characters standing off in the Gotham Zoo a snow fallen Gotham Zoo, a snow-fallen Gotham Zoo. And there's not a final action sequence. You have this... There's the electrocution, right? But what I'm saying is, you have

a penguin gives his big patent speech, and then all the penguins take to the streets with their missiles taped to their backs. Oh, sure, right. But then when they end up in this, like, sort of, like, four square,

they just sort of talk to each other. Right, yeah. Like, there are acts of violence within it, but it's not a fight sequence. And Bruce is essentially in this point in his life

where he's like, you know what? This is stupid. Like, I don't want to, like, who cares? Right, this great- Also, his mask rips off so easily.

I love it. It's bad. It's so strange. As a a kid I didn't like it I hate it I like how weird the rip is how he still has like on one side

of his face I also love when they cut back to him right before he rips it off he doesn't have the eye black around his eyes

we talked about this on this podcast to the extent that I recorded it on my phone to just like double check it and it's great

it's really weird. But he's sort of trying to save Catwoman, which she just sort of scoffs at the notion of. She's sort of half tempted, I think. But then she wants to kill Max Schreck. She wants her revenge. And he shoots her, kills most of her lives. This is where I think Batman starts. I don't know.

I understand the argument that Batman sucks because he's a billionaire and a cop basically but I think this is where his like I think it's easy enough to forget that about him when he's Michael Keaton Batman because Michael Keaton Batman is such a weirdo and he's so like he hates being a millionaire

not that it's like oh I hate being a millionaire I'm a good millionaire but like still it's like I think it's easier to overlook that that kind of i don't know for me not great aspect of batman being a superhero but but i think when at the end when he's trying to assure cat women that the man who tried to murder her will be like taken care of into justice like the justice the billionaire industrialist right yeah he's like yeah don't worry the law will take care of this yeah right

and she understandably I think is like no no I don't think they will yeah I mean he doesn't

I think he doesn't want her to be a murderer and of course she is upset earlier when Penguin kills the beauty queen yes she is which is another scene

where you're like oh boy okay but yeah of course she's got to fucking murder Max Schreck kills the beauty queen character. Yes, she is. Which is another scene where you're like, oh, boy. Okay. But yeah, of course she's got a fucking murder Max Shrek rules. Yeah.

And a big taser explosion. She kisses him with a taser. Right, that was supposed to birth Two-Face. And then

when they were test screening it, people loved Catwoman so much that they shot this thing at the end, this final shot. Where she looks up. Right. The end of the movie was just supposed to be, you know, Bruce Wayne takes the cat into

the car, says Merry Christmas, Alfred. And then the camera pulls up to the skyline and they couldn't get her back. So that's a weird animatronic dummy. Oh, weird. For the back of her head. There's a whole special feature on how they tried to replicate it and it didn't work so they ended up building a robot.

Why didn't they just use a person? They did and the shape wasn't right. It's so strange. On the DVD, they show all the evolution of the different attempts and they did one with a stand-in and there was a problem with it

that I don't fucking remember. Can we just rewind really quick just because when Shrek gets electrocuted he turns into a really good charred corpse. Oh it's so good. Because his eyeballs are not burnt so they're just sitting there in a burnt skeleton's head

and his hair still looks the same. It's wild. It's really good. They wanted to make a Catwoman movie for a long time. There was a period of time where Tim Burton said that he was going to do it. It's wild. It's really good. They wanted to make a Catwoman movie for a long time. There was a period of time where Tim Burton said that he was going to do it. It was part of the thing of him stepping down from Batman Forever,

which he got a producer credit on that one. He wanted to make a third one. He was like, guys, now I get the sequel thing. If they're all like this, I'm down to make as many as you want. And they were like, you can't make these ever again. Absolutely not. There was the big thing where they had a Happy Meal promotion for this movie and parents protested because they were like, this is making it seem like it's a kid movie.

My kid ran out screaming or I had to pull my kid out. It is a child's movie. Yeah, but parents were so furious about it. There were like local protests and shit. These things were not so clearly delineated back then. It's like there's a lot of Wild West as far as like what was a child's movie and what was not. So their thing was – right. And that was – back then there were also more like this is a family movie.

It's free willy. Whereas now like family movies are also adult blockbusters. Like all movies are made for eight-year-olds. It all got blurred together. Which means that all the adult movies are made for a year made for all your uh so uh tim burton i think was like cool i'll just make catwoman catwoman will be its own thing you don't care about maintaining that brand i can like run to my heart's content and i think they never totally got a script they wanted well they, Daniel Waters wrote that incredible script that they loved. And the studio read it and was like, not only are you not allowed to make this movie, don't even look at us again.

I don't want to see your face darken this door, Daniel Waters. So then Burton quit. And then I think they were still going to try to make some cat one movie with Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer eventually quit. And then it became like Ashley Judd. Like it went through like all the sort of actresses of the 90s until it ended up at Halle Berry it's insane that it

man it was it was gonna be there's some Waters has explained what his Catwoman script was and it sounds amazing yeah it's like she goes to some city that's like patriarchy city and she has adventures she goes to like the opposite of Marwen yeah I mean

right and his thing was that he turned it in the day Patman Forever came out and they were like this is not what we're looking for there's also I found I think it like surfaced in a couple years ago that John August did a script for a Catwoman movie and he like

has a screen that he put up too that was like from late 90s. I think that's when it was supposed to be the Ashley Judd. Yeah. It also sounds kind of good. She goes to somewhere called Oasisburg, which is like Las Vegas to Gotham's New York City. It's a resort

area in the middle of the desert run by superheroes and the movie has great fun making fun of the whole male superhero mythos. They end up not being very good at all deep down, so she has to turn into Catwoman again. Yeah, it sounds great. A town run by jerky male superheroes?

The Catwoman has to do battling? Yes, please. It's like Vegas? Yes. That sounds demented. Okay, so box office game. I almost blew it on Doug Loves Movies because I thought this movie had grossed less than it did. I think probably just because of the reputation of it was a disappointment.

It was such a big drop off from the original. It's crazy. I don't remember it. As a kid, it felt like the biggest movie of all time. It's weird to learn that it was such a disappointment. Well, just like the first one just kind of made like everyone happy by being just sort of like middle of the road in terms of its weirdness right and balanced out with enough normalcy yeah and this one i think people didn't know what the fuck to make of it there are also

few sequels like this that just like deviate this far from the original change the aesthetic so much like he like warps a lot of the style from the first one. The 1940s aspect of it is sort of gone. It's a weird film. Anyway, David Bach's off it. June 19, 1992. It opens to $45 million.

I think it was the biggest. It was the biggest opening weekend of all time. Adjusted for inflation, I suppose, that would be $97 million. It's amazing how much weekend of all time. Adjusted for inflation, I suppose, that would be 97. So it's amazing how much weekend inflation there's been in general. Yeah. Number two is the word of mouth. What was the final total?

It was 215? No, no, no, no, no, no. 162. It was not a big hit. Right, because the original did 400. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was a disappointment.

Right. Yeah. There's no question. What did the original do at the time? 260 or something? Oh, yeah. Here we go. I'm sorry. This is important. 251. Okay. 251. So this made, yeah, like a lot

less. Yeah. Number two is the word of mouth comedy hit of the summer. Of 1990. That maybe no one, I assume this was sort of a surprise hit. It's made $55 million. It's going to make $139 million. It stars a lady.

A great lady of comedy. A great lady of comedy? Mm-hmm. Is it Bette Midler, by the way? No. From 1992. Correct. Huh.

And is she the only person above the title? Oh, yeah. Not only is she the only person, only her first name needs to be above the title. Oh, of course. The film is called Sister Act and Whoopi is the star. That's right. What do we think of Sister Act? I've never seen it.

What? Yeah, never seen it. I don't remember anything about it. Sister Act 2, I've seen. I've seen it. I've seen both of them. Yeah. 2 is better.

They're both good, though. Maggie Smith. it. I've seen both of them. 2 is better. They're both good though. Maggie Smith. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't someone weird direct 2? Did Bill Duke direct Sister Act 2? You don't have to yell at me. I think the great Bill Duke directed Sister Act 2 back in the habit.

Sister Act 1 was directed by Emil Ardolino. He did Dirty Dancing. And Sister Act 2. It was directed by the great Bill Duke. Back in the Habit was directed by Bill Duke. Yep. Great movie. Number three is a robust adult male thriller.

It's a sequel, but it has a new actor. It's a sequel, but it has a new actor. Robust. It's a lot of talking. A lot of guys talking in the room. Being like, we got to talk business and policy. Is it a lot of talking. A lot of guys talking in the room being like we gotta talk business and policy. Is it a Jack Ryan movie? It's a Jack Ryan movie. Is it clear and present?

No. And the other one I always forget is called. It's about the IRA. Sean Bean is in it. He's the villain. Patriot Games? That's right. There we go. Harrison Ford is Patriot Games. All of them. Theyot games. That's right. There we go. Harrison Ford is Patriot games. All of them. They're playing.

It'd be great if someone in the movie actually said like, they're playing Patriot games. Bureaucracy has a name and that name is Jack Ryan. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. The rare sequel that starts with Jack Ryan retiring where you're just like, are,

have we only just done one of these? We, he's already retired. What if the third Batman movie was called Batman retires? And he's just like have we only just done one of these? He's already retired. What if the third Batman movie was called Batman Retires? And he's just like I gotta be honest

this Catwoman thing fucked me up. I don't know if I'm on the right side of this whole coin. Number four is a comedy two big stars. We all saw one of these

stars last night at the New York Film Critics Circle. They came up on stage? They presented an award. Debra Winger? No. Steve Martin? Yes. Is it up on stage? They presented an award. Debra Winger? No. Steve Martin? Yes.

Is it House Sitter? That's right. Never seen House Sitter. I haven't seen House Sitter. It's fun. It's a Frank Oz film. I've seen House Guest with Sinbad. Right, and Phil Hartman. But I've never seen House Sitter. I like House Sitter. Are they house sitting? Is that the idea?

She is sort of a con artist where she pretends that she's house sitting and he comes home. That sounds like more than a sort of a con artist. She is a con artist who pretends that she's house sitting when people go away, their vacation homes. And then he comes back and then they have, she starts a relationship with him so she can stay there. I've seen it a while ago. I remember it being pleasant. Okay. Number three. Number five is a ago. I remember it being pleasant. Okay. Number three.

Number five is a three. Number five is a three? It's a three. Lethal Weapon? Yeah. Lethal Weapon three. Starring? Mel Gibson, Dan Glover, and scribbled in Joe Pesci, who's trying to get in frame.

He's in between their two shoulders. Have you seen this poster? One of my favorites. I haven't. I don't think so. Joe Pesci, he must have been. Emily's sick of us. Here we go. I'm joking.

Do you think Joe Pesci was calling his agent like every day being like, I want you to stay on Batman in case DeVito quits? Right, right, right. We are the stalking horse. Do you think those are his fingers? No, absolutely not. Those are little Vienna sausages. Those are some pudgy little

digits. They don't have nails. I just love this poster because Gibson and Glover are just playing it 100% straight, which makes it all the funnier. And John Pesci! Don't forget me! Little Joey

Pesci! Oh, boy. I've seen all the Lethal Weapons, but I really don't remember any of the sequels. I think I've only seen one in four. Four is alright. Four is overstuffed. I don't say that badly. It's just interesting how many people they were pushing into that movie. Yeah, because it's got Jet Li.

It's got Chris Rock. Right. Who else is in it? The Pesh, the Russo. When did Four come out? Like, 98? Yeah. The gang's Chris Rock. Right. Who else is in it? The Roos. When did Ford come out? Like 98? Yeah. The gang's all here.

We love them. Oh, yeah. The gang's all here. Chris Rock just does some of his stand-up routines. Literally just does stand-up in the movie. There's a bit where Joe Pesci's like, I can't get my cell phone to work. Chris Rock's like, what's the deal with these cell phones? That's what it is.

He just does his Letterman set. Well, because he was the biggest stand-up comedian since prior. We just gotta get this guy in movies right now! He's gonna be a movie star, right? Yeah. You didn't like that I did that? You've been yelling a lot, David. I'm losing my voice, too.

Luckily, we're recording another episode tomorrow! Yay! Yay! Yeah. How do you guys feel about the decision to do Burton so far

well we're still in the good Burton you're still in the good part so I really genuinely cause the I'm not like Griffin where I haven't seen almost any of these movies

in a long time yeah you know what I mean like I mean Batman Returns maybe I've seen more more but like

I had not seen Edward Scissorhands in close to 20 years same goes for like Pee Wee. You don't drink the juice on the reg? Don't really drink the juice on the reg. I went on a date with my girlfriend. I'm dead silent.

You could hear a pin drop. To see it like in a park a few years ago. I feel like it's very easy to see Beetlejuice frequently. I feel like I probably see at least half of Beetlejuice once a year. And you've said it two times and that's enough. That's okay. I want him to be here. I'd like to see him. It'd be fun. People were very unhappy when he arrived and nothing funny happened.

Almost as if I hadn't planned out how that bit would end. Anyway, so yeah, I'm dreading the coming times. We've only had to record one bad one. We've largely been going in somewhat order. Right, but Planet of the Apes I think is going to be soon for us.

Just in terms of chronology. I mean, that is dead last bottom of the barrel for me. I haven't rewatched it since it came out. Truly boring. More of a slog than that one. Real slog. It does have apes. It's good. I'm so out on the entire,

I've never seen any of the new ones that everybody says are good. What about the old ones? No. I don't have apes. I've seen Burton movies recently, although not a lot. I feel like the last one I saw,

what would it have been? Did you see them big eyes? No, I didn't see big eyes. Did you see them dark shadows? No, I didn't see dark shadows. You probably saw Alice in Wonderland.

No, I've never seen Alice in Wonderland. All right. It must be Sweeney Todd. Yeah, it's probably Sweeney Todd. Unless you saw Peregrine for some reason. No, I didn't. No. It was probably Sweeney Todd.

Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. And you liked it. That's 10 years ago. I liked it. 12 years ago. Maybe that's a good place to leave.

Call me Old London. Put you in a pod. London. Sweeney. I have to get it out now because our guests, they won't be able to do this in front of Sweeney. Oh, our guests for that episode. But how did you learn how to do that accent so well?

Oh, boy. He seems pretty good at it, actually. I was like the whole time, like, he locks right in. And he's not, like, you're an actor, and so it would make sense if you could do an accent. I'm classically trained. But David is. I'm no actor. I'm no actor.

But did you do research for that accent? How did you learn how to Did you pick it up somewhere? I picked it up in London, mate. On a vacation? What do you do? Like a holiday? Like a house swap? What did you do? Study abroad.

You were there, what, one semester tops? Right. You stayed a little extra. I'm willing to commit more to this bit now that I've yoinked the other one out. I will go all in for this one. Order has been restored. This is how things are supposed to be. David, wipe your tears away with

Patreon money and answer me. I literally loaded the Patreon to make sure there was one question. Are you wondering if it's still worth it? Still a 2k. It's got to be over. David, Are you wondering if it's still worth it? Still a 2K. There we go. It's got to be over. David, please look at that number and answer me one question.

Where did you learn how to do that accent? I was going to say, I was actually just the other week in London on vacation. Was it your first time? It wasn't my first time. You must not have known anybody there. I was actually there for a wedding of one of my closest friends because I grew up in London. What?

No. Thank you all for listening. Thank you for being here, Emily. You're the mother of blankies. You're the best. I'm trying. I met your mother last night. That's true.

You were the mother of Mother of Blankies. The mother of Mother of Blankies. And I told her that, and she said, please stop yelling. She was very loud. I was drunk, and I was like, you don't understand. You're the mother of the Mother of Blankies. She was like, I'm proud of my daughter. She's still not really.

She's visiting right now, and I'm pretty sure she still doesn't know what I'm doing right now. I said it several times to her. And she's like, so why are you watching Batman today? Yeah. Yeah. So hi, mom. Hi, mom. Thank you all for listening.

Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to Antford Goodall for social media. We've been so loud this episode. I'm trying to be very like NPR. No, don't do that. Give me more work. Talk about how you've been talking. Oh, my God.

Relax. Relax. Uh-oh. Thank you. Prince of crime. and no don't do that i know give me more work talking how you've been talking oh my god relax relax oh prince of crime thank you to angie for good over our social media thank you to pat reynolds and joe bowen for our artwork lean montgomery for our theme song go to blankies.reddit.com for some real nerdy shit go to t public for some real nerdy shirts remember to sign up for BlinkCheck special features on Patreon and as always an hour ago Ben texted me we should end the show with and as always parentheses sing kiss from a rose

except that's not from this movie that's from Batman Forever fuck