Blank Check with Griffin & David - Happy Feet with Caitlin Durante

Episode Date: May 10, 2020

Caitlin Durante (The Bechdel Cast) joins #thetwofriends to discuss Miller's first foray into animation with 2006's Happy Feet.

without a hot podcast we cannot truly be Penguin, can we? Right, great, perfect. Thank you for that. You got to find your heart podcast. Sure, okay. That's the only way you're going to make connections in this world. I heart podcast. I don't know.

I was going to... I heart radio. I was that radio podcast. I'm their competitor, I guess. I shouldn't... I was struggling to find a quote because most of the best quotes in this movie are tap-ta-tap-tap-tap. This movie I'm seeing written by Tom Stoppard? No.

Written by four people on this one. And this is another George Miller where he is like, I spent 20 years writing this film. Okay, George. He claims he was making the second Mad Max and a guy at a bar was like, I saw that Mad Max movie. You got to go to Antarctica. Yeah, he was like, I saw that Mad Max movie. You got to go to Antarctica. Yeah. He was like, that's like winter wasteland.

Talk about. Yeah. He truly claims that's the genesis of the movie that he spent 20 years in. First he was like penguins. And then after a while he was like, these penguins, they're overfishing. We got to talk about it. Right. Like initially he just had penguins and then.

We'll get into all this, but he says that he didn't add the environmental elements until they had started animating. But that was not part of the original. So the original thing was just dancing? I don't know what this movie was. Okay. You can talk. You can talk. Thank you so much for giving me space. This script had to be a first draft.

Like, it is a mess four credited writers that's what you think but I truly believe he spent 20 years I don't know how much of that was ideation I don't know how much of that was writing animation takes so long and it was four years in production I don't know this is

this weird thing like the Mad Max movies are like this is insane I don't know how one person thinks of this, but somehow it all feels like it makes sense. And this is the opposite where you're just like, how do you end up with these ideas? How do these ideas end up in the same box? Well, if it's four writers, I feel like each one

wrote a different screenplay and then they mash them up together into one movie. It's ampersands. They're credited as a unit. Or is ampersand the opposite? No, ampersand is you're together. So it's Miller. Yeah, credited as a unit or is ampersand the opposite? No, ampersand is you're together. Right. So it's Miller. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. And written out is so it's Miller, John Colley, of course, the writer of Master and Commander, the co-writer of that. Of course. Judy Mars,

who worked on Babe Pig in the City. Okay. And some guy called Warren Coleman, whose only other writing credit is some sort of

Australian TV show called Drop Dead Weird. Wow. Well, it sounds Drop Dead Weird. I just want to say that most of the this is maybe the longest I Need To Be quotes page I've ever seen for a movie.

I was saying this right before we started recording. Because most of the quotes are people transcribing the entire song. Oh. Songs that we know, like Kiss by Prince. They just transcribe it. With all their weird overlapping asides and butt-ins from other songs. Let's talk about eggs, baby.

What? We got to talk about eggs. I think we just got to go straight into talking about eggs, baby. This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors with massive success early on in their careers

and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they tap dance, baby. And this is a mini-series on the films of George Miller. Yes. It is called Mad Pot Fury Cast. Of course. And today we're talking about Happy Feet, which is a fascinating artifact because it is a movie that feels like it should be a bounce, that this is a blank check he should

not have been given. Yeah, it should be like what you decide to out of nowhere make a cartoon which you've never made before. And it's about penguins like You can't describe this movie to anyone in a way that doesn't sound like a dream you had. It sounds like half an idea for a 20 page kids book. I know this sounds crazy.

They're the same things but some of the penguins sing and some of them dance but the dancing is kind of like and it's Australian. There's like this whole dogma aspect of it. It's definitely about religion. But then, right, it's also going to be about overfishing once we dispense with the religion. I think there's also a queer rating of this movie.

In that it's about the father disowning him for loving the wrong way. It's the outcast thing. Sure, classic animated film problem, right? You know, you're different, being different, but you should be yourself. But watching the scenes in the way but it is it has that sort of

Billy Elliot thing where the dad's like I can't reconcile the way you're intimate right you know you express your intimate feelings this isn't how we do this

this isn't what a relationship is like which is this fucking insane movie which ends up being his biggest hit ever until until Mad Max?

No, this grossed more than Fury Road. Unquestionably. Really? This thing was so fucking huge. It was a big deal. People forget how huge this was. At the time of its release, it was one of the ten highest grossing films that Warner Brothers had ever released. What?

And that list was like... It did make $200 million domestically. In 2006? And, you know, one of the top-grossing Penguin movies. The number one, I think. Does it have any competition? March of the Penguins?

That's a surf's up. The surf was coming, right? The surf is next year. The march had just happened. Which really helped them. It did march. It did. What an alley-oop

this movie got for March of the Penguins. It was such a time for penguins. But that's what's crazy is you look at this film and you go, how did they know that they were going to make it out into theaters at peak penguins? It's just like whenever they make Two Volcanoes, it's in the air. Everyone kind of wants to talk about penguins. They just got so fucking lucky. We'll talk about this crazy movie, but it is the thing that arguably finally gives him the freedom

to make Fury Road the way he wants and he wins an Oscar it's his one Academy Award win correct? everything about this movie is crazy like he has one Oscar you're like George Miller has an Oscar and you're like oh yeah he won director for Mad Max Fury Road the big Oscars love that one no no no

best animated feature for Happy Feet wait it won? it won best animated feature film of the year. Was there not a Pixar movie that year? It was Cars. That's the thing. It was Cars. It was the first bad Pixar.

Not the first, but, you know, because they, well, I mean, I love Monsters, Inc., but they had snubbed Monsters, Inc. that year. You know, Pixar missed a couple times. I'm not saying it was the first year that Pixar lost. I'm saying it's the first bad Pixar. Sure. It is the first Pixar that is not. The three nominees.

Can you tell me the three nominees? Well, I mean, Cars, Happy Feet, 2006. Another movie I kind of like. Pretty good animated movie. It's a pretty good animated movie. Oh, is it Monster House? Yeah. Which could have won.

That was pretty charming. But I think Happy Feet had the, you know, big name director. It had made a lot of money. It had penguins. Everyone can agree on them. And critics weirdly loved it. They liked it. It was a movie where, like, I think people, critics were like, this is weirdly something we're getting behind.

Sure. 76% on Rotten Tomatoes. Yeah. It's solid. They liked it. I know it wasn't like a favorite of the year, but they liked it. Critics were into it. Especially in relation to Cars, which felt like no favorite of the year, but they liked it. Critics were into it. Especially in relation to Cars, which felt like no pun intended.

Well, no one liked fucking Cars. Well, I mean, for the record, Cars 2 makes Cars 3 look like Cars 1. We're talking about Cars 1. I know, but I'm just saying. You're just saying that because you just... It's the best of the three. And there was this feeling, I think, that it was like, oh, Lasseter's overdue for an Oscar for being such a good man, for being one of our great American men. And he won the Golden Globe.

And it kind of felt like, are they just going to give him the award even though Cars is like so mezzo mezzo because he is the last major Pixar director to not win an Oscar? And then I think it was kind of like there was this grounds of, like, let's not fucking give it to Cars. Let's give it to Happy Feet. Let's not default to Lasseter needing to win an Oscar. Sure. Yeah. And history smiles upon that decision. Sure.

It's not as bad as Good Dinosaur, though. No. Have you seen that? Yes. What a mess. Not a good movie. Yes. All right.

Introduce our guest. And it's the best of the three cars. Our guest today, from the Bextelcast and the Sledge podcast, Caitlin Durante. Hello. Is on the show. Hey, Caitlin. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Now, originally, because we had your co-host, Jamie Loftus, on for Dark Shadows. Of course. And originally, we were trying to have both of you on for the same episode. Yeah. And it was a thing where you were both in town for a New York podcast show. But only for like four hours. There was only four hours of overlap. There was like a conflict that I had. Right. It was one of you was there before the show and one of you was there after the show. But only for like four hours. There was only four hours of overlap.

There was like a conflict that I had. Right. It was one of you was there before the show and one of you was there after the show and there was no time to do both of you at the same time. Yeah. Do you feel like you got off easy skipping Dark Shadows or do you feel like that would have been an easier task than talking about Happy Feet? I want to be nowhere else in the world other than right now here talking

about happy feet. Perfect answer. They're tapping. Gotta talk about those feet. They ain't sad. Penguins. See, my brother, you know how when you're a kid, sometimes you'll just sort of go all in on one thing? I liked trains, as you know, when I was a little kid. My brother, when he was five,

was like, penguins, baby. Really? For two years, he was like, I love penguins. I know about all the kinds of penguins. I have like eight penguin toys. You know, like he was like. Was he getting like zoo books? Yeah, you know, it was partly the Central Park Zoo has the really nice penguin, you know, area, right?

So we would go there probably. But like, you know, also that thing with kids where it kind of steamrolls where it's like the relatives hear oh he likes penguins so let's just send some penguin shit his way was he reading a lot of Puffin classics I guess that's not really that's a different

I know I just corrected myself producer Rachel keeping me in check once again so I feel like I just had I knew about all the penguins before I saw this movie. I got a huge question. Yeah, sure. And he liked March of the Penguins, I think. Congrats. That's sort of the tail end. Sure. Yeah, he would have been in high school by that point, right?

Well, not high school. When did the penguins march? 2006. 2005. 2005. So he would have been late high school. You're right. Yeah, because Joey and I were the same age. But there was still the lingering, like, oh yeah, penguins. Remember those?

This is my big question, and stop me if this is too personal. Please. Did Joey have that toy that was like the ice mound and then all the penguins walk around it? Do you know what I'm talking about? No, not even a little bit. I don't think I know what you're talking about. You'll know it if you see it. We definitely had a life size inflatable emperor penguin that like sat in our room.

Inflatable? Inflatable. So like, you know how inflatable toys like will slowly sort of, and then you got to blow them back up, you know, and then at a certain point. Was it a pool toy? What toys are inflatable? It was like a flat bottom. You know, it had like flat feet so it could stand.

It was just a fucking inflatable penguin. It was very weird in retrospect. You couldn't sit on it? It wasn't a chair? I mean, you could, I guess. It wouldn't be fun. Anyway, sorry, penguins. Do you remember this kind of thing where it's like,

there's a little escalator and the penguins go up and then they all slide down? Yeah, I do remember that. I may have had that in fact. Producer Rachel validating me. Keeping me in check and validating me. And you know, there's the Mario world, Mario 64 world with penguins. Oh, there's two different ones with penguins.

You know, where you go sliding and you race them down the... So that's fun. Who doesn't love penguins? They're fat. I think it's the fatness. They're sort of rotund. Sure. That really, kids really respond to.

They move funny. They're funny. Their arms don't move. And they're birds, but they can't fly. They're unique. They're not threatening. They're not like the other birds. They're a little different. No legs.

Big feet. Long flippers. Waddly. And also, let's say it. They're very classy gentlemen because they all look like they're wearing tuxedos. They've got little tuxes. I think when you're a kid and you figure that out, penguins start really shooting up the charts for you in the animal kingdom. That's fair. I'm just, this is right. I'm trying to crack the code of like, what is it about penguins that makes them so popular?

And you're right. I mean, they are an evergreen thing. I think they're a type of animal that kids get attracted to, but they're not like cats or dogs that are like perennials. You can't own a penguin. Right. Kids always love horses. Speak for yourself. Yeah, maybe.

Hey, okay. If you cool your house down, I guess you can have a penguin. Yeah, don't tell Caitlin she can't fucking own a penguin. Did you guys, Caitlin, I don't know where you're from. I'm realizing.

Western Pennsylvania. So I don't know if you had like a penguin zoo near you. I grew up near nothing. We would like go to the zoo and there's the penguins and you go down in the Central Park Zoo,

you go down into this sort of subterranean area and you can see them swimming. But then also sometimes there are little, you know, the zoo people would come and feed them fish.

That was always very exciting. Did you not do this? Were you not a zoo kid? I did. No, we went to the zoo a lot. Zoo boy. Yeah, I went to the zoo a couple of times. Wait a second, Ben Hosley went to the zoo? Yeah, I've not a zoo kid. Okay. I did know. We went to the zoo a lot. Zoo boy. Yeah, I went to the zoo a couple of times.

Wait a second. Ben Hosley went to the zoo? Yeah, I've been to the zoo. Purdue or Ben went to the zoo. Oh, you're doing this? Well, I just, I mean, I need clarification. The Ben Dusser went to the zoo. It's true.

Hey, let me, do you want to grab it? The meat lover went to the zoo? Yeah. So can my Benny? White hot Benny? Dirt bike Benny? I just, it didn't, it didn't grab my attention. Our finest film critic bought a ticket to the zoo.

You know what I did like though, when I was there, a gorilla threw feces at the window and I found that very funny. That's a good bit. Classic. Went for the turnstile. That's a classic. Caitlin is checking her watch as I go through this. Let's speed this up if you're going to keep up. I was getting a text message on my thing.

Well, I just have one other question for you. What's up? When you went to the zoo, did they acknowledge that you graduated to a series of titles? They did not. Of course, a different one. Such as producer Ben Kenobi, Kylo Ben, Ben A. Shyamalan, Ben Sate. I know it's been a while. Ben's with the dollar sign.

Say Ben-y-thing, dot, dot, dot. Ben-glish. I'm sorry. You don't even know what it is for the last many years. Ben 19. Dot, dot, dot. Benglish. I'm sorry. You don't even know what it is. Ben 19, the fennel maker. You drink Ben Hosley. You got it. My neighbor, Ben Toro.

Beetle Vape Juice. I don't know. I'm making them up now. I feel like we haven't come up with the last three. Is that my neighbor, Totoro? Yeah. What's the Demi one? What's the Demi?

The truth about Benny? Yeah, I don't know. Oh, yeah. I don't know. A master... No, forget it. Yeah, a master Benny. Benny and the Flash?

Benny and the Flash. I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't matter. Benny and... Ben Lovett? Ben Lovett. Okay.

Love to do a pun on Beloved. I do too. I don't know. Have we pulled out of that tailspin? Yeah, I'm sorry. I fucked up the entire show. No out of that tailspin? Yeah, I'm sorry. I fucked up the entire show. No, it was great. I was not a big animal kid.

We went to the zoo a lot, but I was just never a kid who loved animals. I think there are different types of kids, and most kids have one animal they like. The animal I liked the most was the pig, and I think I picked it perversely because I never had to make contact with it. It wasn't a thing where people could be like, let's go to the zoo and see that pig you love. I could just be in the abstract like, I love pigs. I mean,

you could go to the farm, Wilbur, some pig. You could have gone there. It is some pig. That's the best pig. See that motherfucker, Babe,

on topic. That's a good point. What are you talking about? That'll do. How do you feel about Babe? I love Babe. So, you know,

when we're doing Happy Feet, George Miller's been pretty dormant for a while, but his last efforts had been in the Babe franchise. Yeah. The two Babes. Right. I might even like Babe 2, Pig in the City more than Babe. I think a fair take. Yeah.

A fair take. Very different film. He finishes out his Mad Max trilogy. Right. He does Lorenzo's Oil and Witches of Eastwick, right, which are both him trying different things. Witches of Eastwick is him being like, I don't like the studio system. If I'm making movies, I'm doing them on my own terms. I have my own company.

I work with Village Roadshow. Most of his films are distributed by Warner Brothers, but he's still always trying to retain some sense of autonomy and independence within the studio system, just sort of using them as a distributor. He produces the first Babe. Babe blows up. He goes, I don't feel like I'm He produces the first Babe. Babe blows up. He goes, I don't feel like I'm getting enough credit for Babe. Right. I was sort of shepherding the whole thing,

no pun intended. Okay. Wow. That'll do. Gets his second Oscar nomination. His Oscar nominations are so weird because it's first nomination, best screenplay for Lorenzo's Oil.

Hey, got it. Got to get a shot at the oil. Second nomination, as a producer, best picture for Babe. Sure. And then he's like, okay, you thought that was good. Let me take over, Babe. Let me do Babe, Pig in the City.

People are like, boo, get off the stage. Real ones recognize the things of fucking Masterpiece. Screenplay nom for Babe, I want to point out. Oh, okay. So two noms there. Two noms there. But he's a little bit in the wilderness after Pig in the City. Because I think people were like, this guy, if you give him too much freedom, he's going to go fucking nuts.

And so after Pig in the City, he's like, I'm ready to return to Mad Max. And he announces he's going to do Mad Max 4. I think it was supposed to be called The Wasteland at that point. Yes, I think you're right. With Mel Gibson. And it's very close to getting made in 2001 and 9-11 happens. And he gets skittish and he backs off of it. Interestingly.

And for years, it's still like percolating. And at some point, Mel is like having all his breakdowns and directing more. Yeah, Mel becomes a little more unemployed. And it becomes clear that he's probably not going to act in the movie ever. So it's still this thing of like he he's going, maybe I do it animated. Do I get a new actor to do it? Do I set it earlier? Like,

can I coax Mel into coming back? And he'll be doing interviews and people will go like, is Mad Max 4 ever going to happen? Like, it feels like this quixotic quest, right? And he's like, no,

no, it's definitely going to happen. It's definitely happened. We were going to film next year, but then Namibia, the planes changed and I can't film in this environment. Like, it was always just, like, weird interruptions coming in. And in this period where he's continually talking to Warner Brothers about trying to make a fourth Mad Max, which they would like to do, he goes, can I show you this other thing I've had?

And he's, like, meeting with them in L.A. And he's, like, I've had this Penguin script for, 10, 15 years that I've been like percolating on. And he drops it at their desk and gets on his plane back to Australia. And the story is that when he landed, they were like, we'll make this tomorrow. That they read it within the time that he was on the plane, that very long plane flight. And they were like, obviously, this movie makes perfect sense to us. And they were like, obviously, this movie makes perfect sense to us. Now, to me, I wonder if that is a symptom of this period, early 2000s, post-Pixar, animations in a big boom, and suddenly every studio is like, we got to get in on that.

We got to make our own animated films. And Warner Brothers does not have an animation division. They have no sort of like incubator. Because they had shut it down, right? They briefly, well like Iron Giant did experiment with it. So that was like that wave of every studio trying to copy Disney and do their like hand-drawn

musicals. And Iron Giant's the final nail in the coffin for Warner Brothers animation. And I think they feel too recently burned by that to try to start up a new CGI thing. And like Fox had bought Blue Sky, DreamWorks had bought PDI, which later became DreamWorks Animation.

Like all these other places were buying in-demand animation houses the way that Disney did with Pixar. And Warner Brothers was like, I don't know what to do. And suddenly a guy who they have a relationship with drops the script on their desk. And I think part of the pitch was there's this company, Animal Logic, that's a special effects house.

They're based out of Australia, and we can hire them to animate the whole movie. We don't have to build an animation studio. They essentially are an animation studio, but no one's ever asked them to animate an entire film before. And so it's kind of like a part and parcel. You don't have to develop an animation arm. Here's this thing. And I think to execs, they're part and parcel you don't have to develop an animation arm here's this thing and I think to execs they're probably like I don't know what the fucking kid's like but this thing was expensive

it's not like this was just like sure have a roll of it but don't you think to some degree they were like all this shit's expensive talking cars singing penguins what's the difference yeah you can sell people on it have you seen the animated again have you seen Delgo or whatever?

People take flyers in animated movies because they're like, sure, those things sell, right? Kids see them. And it's that thing I think that also happened when Warner Brothers tried to be getting into the DC Interconnected Universe. Where it's like, we understand that there's a market for this thing, but we also don't like it at all. Right. Where they're like, I don't know, what are these fucking kids like? What are these nerds like? And to some degree, they're sort of reluctantly

making these things with disdain because they're like, it's easy money in the bank. And what they're not counting on is George Miller being a lunatic who's like, this is my movie to say everything. That's right. This is my chance to try to work insane subjective camera movements into animated film.

The camera stuff is wild in this movie. Because obviously there is no camera, so we can do whatever he wants with it. Did you see this when it came out, Kayla? No, I hadn't seen it until three days ago. Wow. So you agreed to do this just as like, that sounds like a weird movie. Yeah. We gave you a list of a couple of options.

So do you want to do any of these? And you were happy, Happy Feet, totally. I just mostly didn't want to see one of the, like, original trilogy Mad Max movies again. I've seen them all. Not for me. Love Fury Road. But I'm so glad I said yes to this. Because what he is trying to say with Happy Feet is exactly what he tries to say and I think succeeds

at saying in Fury Road. Yeah, that's true. In a lot of ways. Because there's like this religious aspect where like Immortan Joe has this whole he's got this regime totalitarianism but like this ethos, this like

dogma. Right, this movie is also about a demagogue who's like controlling his little population this is all true but then the whole thing also is that like we ruined the world right we're in the process of ruining the world and the same like

environmental themes are very suddenly out of nowhere present in Happy Feet. Yes. It is also this thing where like what is so powerful about Fury Road is that all that stuff is in there and it's almost never stated directly through dialogue. It is almost always just conveyed through the world building and the action. Right. And the dialogue is mostly like conversational and perfunctory.

world building and the action. Right. And the dialogue is mostly like conversational and perfunctory. Right. And then this is a children's movie has like every character explaining every theme all the time. Yes, that is true. But also this film posits that penguins, when they select their mate, sing pop songs from like the 80s.

Well, every penguin has a hard song. Yeah, but those are pop songs. Right. From the 80s. It has to be a Moulin Rouge style. Right, exactly. A couple penguins duet. Jackbox-y.

And one of them singing Roxanne and one of them is singing like Big Pimpin and they harmonize somewhere in the middle. Here's a question, Professor Penguin. I genuinely want to know. You got the laptop and apparently an infinite well of penguin facts. My brother had these like flashcards of every penguin species that he would like. And he drilled you every night. Honestly. Go on.

Guess. My question is, I feel like emperor penguins are culturally sort of seen as the default penguin. Especially when you get the name emperor penguin. You're really sticking out there. They're also, they're the biggest penguins, I think. But also. Literally size one. I feel like if you ask someone, draw a penguin. You're really sticking out there. They're also the biggest penguins I think. Literally size one. I feel like if you ask someone, draw a penguin

99 out of 100 will draw something that most closely resembles an emperor. Are they the most popular species or are they just kind of have they become the default? The most populous penguin species is the macaroni penguin. What?

Shocker. 18 million macaronis. What? Shocker. 18 million macaronis. What do they look like? Turn around that screen. They're the crusty ones. They're the crusties? They're the ones who are overfishing, not humans. There's so many macaroni penguins. Do they eat macaroni?

I hope they do. They really should. That is crazy that they're the most popular and I think of them as like, oh, that's like an obscure deep cut penguin. You know those eyebrow peng like, oh, that's like an obscure deep cut penguin. You know, those eyebrow penguins. Well, that's okay. Talk about representation in media. Why are emperors favored so much in media?

This is what I was getting at. Are emperor penguins the straight white men of the penguin world? Are they just taking up 90% of the film roles but they're not actually representing that much of the population? Emperor penguins are low on the list. I think because they have such an unusual breeding thing where it takes them a whole goddamn year and it's just one egg and they gotta march. It seems very convoluted. But number one, macaroni. Number two, the chinstrap. Who is a good boy?

We like the chinstrap. Sure. He's got a little chinstrap. They're cuties. They're number two. Yeah, they're number two. I like them because strap. Sure. He's got a little chin strap. They're cuties. They're number two. Yeah, they're number two. I like them because it looks like their face is like peeking out. Like they're like an oyster.

And then you got the Adélie penguins who kind of just have those really crazy eyes. There's a rock hopper, right? You know, you got something called the Magellanic penguins. Oh, I feel like the zoo has a lot of those. Those are familiar. Sure. Right. That's a cool one.

What crazy things they are. Also, zoos, that's another message, are bad. I agree. Zoos are terrible. We should get rid of them. They're so awful. They're not terrible. They truly are.

They're bad. They're people who work at zoos who are trying to conserve and educate. And, you know, like it's a, it's a, it's a responsibility that you can, you can take on well.

And just like there are people in the Trump administration who are there to be a voice of reason. We're comparing zoos to the Trump administration? Jared Kushner is trying his hardest. Okay. So, uh, as we learn in various movies such as Happy Feet, such as

March of the Penguins, they're focused on emperor penguins. So they're to me the feminist icons of the penguins. Of course. The females go out to hunt. They lay an egg. They're like, here daddy, you take care of this. I've got work to do. Stick this under your crotch.

It is absolutely wild that not only does the male penguin just have to stand there, but he cannot eat for two months, which is a very strange way of doing business. Yeah. She's like, look,

I couldn't drink for nine months. That's fair, yeah. Two months without a sandwich. I couldn't have any sushi. My other question, so do other species of penguins do this or is it just the emperors? Do we know?

It's a great question. It felt like that's why March of the Penguins was about them. That it was such a unique sort of phenomenon. Let's see. But like also. The whole hook to that movie was like what an interesting dynamic. Right. Between these parents and how they have a child.

Reproduction. Let's see. Egg. I'm trying to sort of like talk about penguin porn. We should talk about it. Most penguins lay two eggs.

Emperors and king penguins with the other big boys only lay one. Okay. They lay two eggs simultaneously? I don't think you lay one then you lay another one.

Okay. I don't think you have to have them like literally parallel. Let's see. The monogamous thing is pretty typical to all penguins, which is obviously unusual for animals to be monogamous. You rarely meet a polypenguin, is what you're saying. I feel like a lot of bird species overall do a pretty monogamous thing.

They're more fond of that. Some of them might be ethical non-monogamy, but like. Right, right, right. But like a lot of them, they pair bond forever. There's a reason we say the birds and the bees as an example. Because that's how culture is supposed to be. It does seem like generally the whole, I think the emperors have, as you say, the added marching aspect. But the general vibe with penguins is they don't lay a lot of eggs.

They do mate monogamously. And it's tough out there for a penguin. You really got to, you know, those eggs are precious because you're not like laying 10,000 eggs. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah. Also, they're not scared of humans because they don't really understand what humans are. So if you go look at penguins, they will like come up to you.

Penguins. So we like them. They're cute. Another cute thing about emperor penguins, when they have babies, they look different than what they're going to end up looking like, which is typical. They've got all this fluffy stuff. It's cute. I think it is fascinating

that Miller with no animation background, right? But after Babe, some CGI expertise, right? Sure, sure. But after Babe, some CGI expertise, right? Sure, but Babe was largely animatronics with CGI sort of augmentation. But he likes tech. He likes pushing boundaries.

But he goes into a new medium. After the success of this, he starts an animation studio called Dr. D. We love it. Which then, I believe, quickly shuttered. Immediately after Happy Feet 2. But he was like, oh yeah, yeah I'm gonna be your animation guy I'm gonna spearhead like all these animated films

For you But this movie makes this incredibly bizarre choice To stylize the penguins Less than 10% Okay yeah okay Thank you I think this is very important to talk about The animation right there's no

It's just like this weird uncanny valley version of penguins. It's like the closest they could get to photorealism at the time. But it looks bad. It's like really bad. And then also, except the one thing they do do to stylize anything is they make several of the female penguins these like hourglass shape busty... They've got a little more of a body. A little buxom. They've got a bosom.

You've got some Coke bottle penguins. And they've got some hips. And it's so weird. I guess they have to differentiate them from the male penguins for some reason. But it's also this bizarre thing. I mean, that's the other problem is you have like a movie

where most of the characters are going to end up looking the same. Like any scene in which like Gloria and what's the mother's name? Memphis is the dad. Memphis is the dad. Norma Jean. Right. Norma Jean.

She sounds like fucking Marilyn Monroe. Which is why I feel like he's like, okay, it's distinguishing. You really got to have the most cartoonish voice. Right. He's doing like an Elvis thing. She's doing a Marilyn thing, a sort of breathy thing. It's a little weird.

There were scenes in the last third of the movie where visually adult Gloria and Norma Jean are standing next to each other and you can barely differentiate between the two of them. And same thing with adult Mumbles with Memphis. I agree. Let alone all the background penguins.

They give Mumble blue eyes and everyone else has like black little beady eyes. And he's got his little bow tie. I think that the eyes, when he's a little kid, when Mumbles is a baby, adorable. Oh yeah. When Mumbles is a teen, it kind of makes him look weird. He looks kind of intense. Yeah. Does match with Elijah Wood, of course, who like anytime he's on screen, especially in Lord of the Rings, you are kind of like, Jesus, what's wrong with this guy's eyes?

David's blinking like he just stared into the sun. And, you know, like Peter Jackson would do that trick where he would like shine like 40 lights into his eye to make his eyes like seem like very dazzling. Which, you know, the opposite side of that trick was if they were shooting late at night and they ran out of lights, they would just put his eyes behind the camera. For a close up. yeah um but uh like i remember walking out of fellowship of the ring and my mom being like we get it with his eyes like like was like sick of his eyes by the end of that movie um but don't you think he looks a little creepy or not creepy exactly intense yes very intense no i think creepy is the appropriate word there. But it is this weird thing of like, so you have like little details like that. Or like Norma Jean has like a heart birthmark on one of her breasts. Yeah.

It sort of looks like. Didn't even notice that. Like a biker bar tattoo almost. Right, right. But by and large, these penguins all kind of look the same. And he's doing like, working as much as he can to sort of make them like the physiology of them is pretty much exactly the same as a real

penguin looks. He's not redesigning them in any way that makes them easier to animate. Their faces are still kind of innately inexpressive because beaks are... They have very small eyes they have big beaks. Inexpressive. Like it's like a mouth that just flaps open and closed. So like for Hugo Weaving's villain penguin he it's like a mouth that just flaps open and closed so like for

hugo weeming's villain penguin he's got like a little crook in his neck right he's the only one who sort of looks any amount of difference yes there is the one chunky boy played by fat show yes yes seymour right right but he's just like they took the main penguin model and just stretched it just a little bigger right fat Fat Joe's involvement does really put this movie in 2006 though, right? That's just like, poof! It's like Fat Joe's enough of a star to be in a kid's movie. Lean back,

it just happened like a year ago. Do you know the two cast replacements that happen in Happy Feet 2? No, go ahead. Brittany Murphy passes the year before the film comes out, so they replace her with... Still remains one of the strangest and most upsetting... And then her husband died shortly after, and everyone thought something... Of toxic mold?

It turned out they had toxic mold in their shower, and both of them got pneumonia and were never diagnosed. Yeah, that is basically the accepted explanation, right? I know that that was never fully, fully confirmed. Well, because her husband was also a weird con artist, so people kept on going, like, is she tied to something? But then he died so shortly after. It was that there was, like, when they ripped open

their house after the husband died, they were like, this shower is riddled with mold. I didn't know. Insane. Super weird.

Wow. Very strange. But anyway, so she died. Who did she replace with? Pink. Of course. But of course.

Right. And you're like you know george miller was like it was really sad it was tragic she was getting ready to record she passed like a year before the film right came out we had no choice it's dedicated her memory and then fat joe is replaced with common why i don't know life's too short why make a second movie with fat joe common seems like a better Like, just the indignity of just being like, no, it's fine. We'll call you Fat Joe.

Why even bring that character back? Exactly. He's in, like, two scenes. I know, it's not like people are like, we need, wait, I need to look up his character's name. Well, no, but isn't he the father now? We need Seymour. He's got, well, this is all I know about Happy Feet 2.

Happy Feet 2 is kind of the next generation. And there's, like, a little kid who looks just like Mumbles. Doesn't Mumble have a son? Right. Who looks just like baby Mumble. Voiced by the same actress E.G. Daly who voices young Mumble in this. Sure. And then Common has a son.

The voice of Tommy from Rugrats. Right. Correct? Yeah. Who's also Dottie and Pew's Big Adventure. Right. Sure. who's also Dottie and Pew's Big Adventure.

Right, sure. But then the Fat Joe common character also has a son who looks exactly like the little version of him from this movie and is voiced by the same actor, a young rapper named Lil Peanut. All right. Happy feet. Oh, I was just going to say, so I am going to lack the technical terms to get this right. But other than like the adult and child version of mumbles who have like textured fur and when they're in the movie.

Sure. No, but you see like their fur and their feathers like individually reacting to the weather. When they get wet, they look wet and whatever. Every other penguin in this movie is essentially a model they built without a lot of texture. And then they're essentially putting a skin on it that has texture painted onto it, which is like the equivalent of wearing a t-shirt that makes you look like you

have six pack abs, which is one of the reasons all the penguins look bad because when they're moving, their body's not distorting properly. It's like you're stretching a still image. But this is the biggest problem with this movie. And this movie's strange. But it just doesn't look great.

It's like many a mid-2000s animated film. It's just a little janky. Which at the time people were like, can you believe what this thing looks like? They don't look like cartoons. I'm not wrong in thinking the dancing was motion captured right like that was part of the tech pitch

at the time was like Savvy and Glover came in and did some great tap dance and like we mapped that onto the penguin which the animation community has always hated mocap films sure right and a lot of them have been snubbed for like best animated film even when they were critically adored right right right

and so there was a whole campaign of being like, no, the movie is not mo-capped. The stars who voice the penguins didn't do mo-cap. The mo-cap is just the dancing. Because he wanted the verisimilitude of, these have to be the best tap dancers in the world. If penguins are going to tap dance, it has to be bring in the noise,

bring in the funk level steps. Also, another thing about Mble's like aesthetic is he has not lost all of his baby feathers sure which like what and why right like is that just another way to differentiate him from everyone else and give him kind of a teen energy i suppose it's interesting that the the idea of him as an outcast, right? Because penguins can only have one kid. Yes. I mean, per year, but in this movie, it's really just that one kid. Right, but the idea, right.

Right, the idea of like, this was our shot at an offspring. Our heart songs had united. I let him roll away. God, he's weird. Right. He can't sing. He's a dancer. united i let him roll away weird right he can't sing he's a dancer and it's a classic like you know kids movie just kids story trope of like the point where it's like everyone in this town does

this thing the one way or we all look this one way it's it's footloose right and then one person is born the wrong way and we like resist them and push them away until they ultimately teach us right that's handled very weirdly too. Very weirdly. Because when he's born, when Mumble is born, the movie frames it as though his feet and the way in which they behave. Yeah. It's almost framed as a disability. Right.

But then that gets dropped quite quickly after that. It takes over an hour for it to be like a form of artistic or emotional expression for him. At first it's like, does he have a neurological disorder? What is going on here? It's like a weird tick. Right, he's just sort of like stomping about. But then, you know,

as a kid it's like he has to hold it in, right? They're like, it's not cool. Don't do the dancing. But also, the central premise of what is normal for this movie is so wild and it drops you into the deep end where the movie just cold starts with fairly realistic looking top of the line technology 2006 penguins and big act nicole kim and hugh jackman recognizable stars right yeah australian you know so like george millery stars right still right but like nico Nicole came in a couple years away from an Oscar

like Hugh in peak Wolverine era and they're just fucking singing Prince to each other and removing the sexual words and replacing them with eggs and shit but sometimes not there's like a lyric where they're like I want to make love to you

and it's like he sings I'll make love to you yeah and it's like he sings I'll make love to you which has always at least when we were kids was acceptable that had come into the realm of acceptable

you could say make love to a child like it could be in a commercial you know what I mean yes but it's this very specific I'm not saying that's a good thing

I'm just saying that was that's the way it went it's this very specific now I'm googling penguin mating post Moulin Rouge thing to me where it's like a good thing. I'm just saying that was the way it went. It's this very specific penguin mating. Post Moulin Rouge thing to me where it's like every musical number is like Elephant Love Medley.

It is very Moulin Rouge. Every song is eight songs. Every song is the Shrek Swamp Karaoke. The thing I think that's funny about penguins is also that they often will just go like that.

You know, they'll just kind of stretch it out. David was doing what I can only describe as what he does when we're usually recording episodes. But then he added a... Right. He shook his head, but otherwise it was just outstretching his arms. Here they go. Here, they're going to look. See, they're going to fall.

Now it's going down. They're kind of doing like a... They kind of nibble each other. You know, they kind going to look. Now it's going down. They're kind of doing like, they kind of nibble each other. You know, they kind of like the beaks, you know, they kind of groom each other and then it's sort of like you kind of just inch your way around. First you're face to face. Do they do the thing where they do it in the movie

where like their heads kind of tilt downward and it forms a heart shape with their bodies and their beaks? It does not appear that choreographed. Like a horrific looking heart. Like an anemic, squeaked heart. Yeah, I guess it's just the old-fashioned, you know, kind of just a little penguin sandwich, right? The old-fashioned penguin sandwich?

Oh, that! When you watch a lot of David Attenborough documentaries. But anyway, you know. But yes, the movie just like, I feel like there's probably five or six minutes that elapse before a line of dialogue is spoken. Yes. I think so, yeah. And you, it is very strange that this came right after March of the Penguins.

Right. Because it's funny that basically anyone who'd seen March of the Penguins can just be like, yeah, yeah, I know what they do. I know they got to all huddle up for a couple months with the eggs. The boys and the girls are going to go off and get the fishies. By complete coincidence, this documentary that performs like a blockbuster film. Narrated by Morgan Freeman or whoever, right? Gives everyone all the frame of reference they need for the opening of this movie. And a documentary that like every kid saw.

Yes. But yes, I mean the Heart Song thing is so strange because it's like, it's elastic to the point where it's like, well it's not just like maiden calls. Because it's also like this form of artistic expression but it feels like it's a somewhat supernatural thing like it's almost like imprinting in the Twilight Saga where it's like you have to find the one song and then

that's your song forever but also they sing multiple songs. They also dance. Yes. Only tap dancing make you weird. Is fucked up. Yeah. It's a good point, actually. Right. Most forms of dance are like, yeah, that's part of the routine. Right.

But like just that secondary. Okay. Heart song is primo. And do you get to tap dancing because penguins have no legs and little feet? Like, was it just him being like, well, that would look funny. It has to be. Right. They have little feet.

It's funny. It's little feet. No legs. They're happy. The feet are happy. The feet are happy. The feet are happy. What? So to me, the heart song thing was rooted in some science, right?

Because isn't there a thing with the emperor penguins where the babies can distinguish their mother's voice from everyone else? Yes. So I was like, okay, they build off that. And birds have mating calls. And you'll see those gatherings of thousands of penguins. And right, the David will be like, amazingly, they always know who their parent is, even though they all look the same.

That's just what we think, but they're just going to the wrong mate all the time. And we're just like, yeah, definitely. Those two are right. Yeah, no question. I mean, look, it's generally weird that there's Antarctica where there's nothing going on. And it's just like penguins are like, yeah, this is going to be our spot.

It's like a winter wasteland. I have never seen a penguin. I'm assuming, I mean, except in the zoo. Yeah, what are you talking about? You're just bragging about seeing penguins all the time. But, you know, like, never. You've never been to Antarctica? I've never been to Antarctica.

But you can, I suppose, go. I think it's like a whole thing. Because I went north. I went to Alaska. And you can, I suppose, go. I think it's like a whole thing. Because I went north. I went to Alaska. And there you see puffins. You went to Alaska? Yeah, you didn't know that about me. That was last year. You went to Alaska last year? Yeah, for a wedding. Did I forget about this? Oh, right.

Yeah. And then we stayed because it was like we're in Alaska. Because there's puffins. And there are puffins. And when you see puffins it is like, oh my god, it's like the little cartoon animal that you kind of think might not even be real. Well you also, that was the other reason you stayed out there because you wanted to pitch them a book

right? I'm going to make this joke work. It's almost there. It's so close. I feel like that was further not close. No, I think we're hovering. We're going to find a landing spot. Did you see a moose? Saw some moose. I've always wanted to see a moose. I've heard they're huge.

You can see these guys. Saw bears, both in the wild and not. In the wild was a little much for me. Grizzlies? No grizzlies. I saw grizzlies in like a nature preserve, but not IRL. But I did see a black bear on a hike. Like real close to me. Too close.

Did you see Russia? And what's the other thing? Well, otters. I mean, you can see them in a on a hike. Like real close to me. Too close. Did you see Russia? And what's the other thing? Well, otters. I mean, you can see them in a lot of places, but they're just so damn charming, those otters. They're pretty great. Where are the movies about otters? They're so cute. Otters feel like penguin adjacent in that they're just like innately funny

animals. They are. You're just like, I'll root for any otter. I think I agree with that. And like in Alaska, they never shut up about otter. I think I agree with that. And like, in Alaska, they never shut up about otters because like, they used to be everywhere and then they got overhunted for their fur and now they're back. And Mid Otter, great musician. Still waiting for him to do a follow-up album.

But it's like, they're tubby, they just lie on their backs, you know, and like, they're just, they seem very charming. Anyway, so I just like, penguins are in that sphere. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, the heart song, they're cool. They have a baby.

Right, the first 10 minutes are just the parents. Yes. And you see the men marching, doing the march of the penguins around the Aurora Borealis. And then they're singing to each other, but as they sing, it's like projections come out of their mouths, of their heads. Of the penguin god. Right. Also, does the Aurora Gorialis happen in Antarctica? Of course.

It's called the Aurora Australis. Oh, okay. But it's the same basic phenomenon. I see, I see. Yes. He gets so distracted belting with his bros. Sure. After it's like, no.

I mean, it's boring. They got to stand there. It's boring. Oh, don't forget he drops the egg. Which apparently comes back in a significant plot point. It rolls and everyone's like, you know what they say. If an egg rolls away, you're done. You're gonna have a bird

who tap dances. Right. And that's, I guess, like if you were a dropped kid, you're gonna have a bad life, right? That's what they're trying to say with that. Oh, I guess. So it's like when you're a parent and you drop your kid and you're like, this is, I fucked up. And the kid's just fine. And you're like, but what if I did something?

I had one glass of wine one time. And now I wonder anytime my son can't do a math problem. And then when they're like 26, you know, they have a gambling problem. You're like, because I dropped him. I did the one drop. I did it. I just dropped a bunch and I turned out fine. Your parents were like, look, honestly, every other week with you, we were just like, oops.

I rolled once off of my changing table and just onto the ground. Wow. And you remember this is recently. Yeah. We should mention that David's a big baby. He's a big baby baby I'm a baby boss so he drops the egg as you said Caitlin

and he's worried about that but the egg hatches seems to be normal well first they think it's not going to hatch which is a plot point in March of the Penguins you see sometimes the egg don't hatch and that's real sad and he's like I fucked this up I ruined this and then from sometimes the egg don't hatch and that's real sad. And he's like, I fucked this up. I ruined this. And then from inside the egg.

And someone, what's it? Brittany Murphy comes over to tap on it. Baby Brittany Murphy. And she names him. Yeah. Right. She's like, I'm not your parent. I'm another baby, but I'm naming this other baby penguin. Name him Mumbles because he can't talk that well. Guess what?

He's a fucking baby. He just was born. Give him a break. Um, 100%. And so, uh, then you have, uh,

baby Mumbles. This, to me, the high point of the movie. The cutest thing. Just pretty cute. The ad campaign for this movie was 90% baby Mumbles.

Right, the poster is the baby. Even though it's only like 20 minutes. I know. It's not like a lot. The trailers for this film were mostly just isolated musical numbers. When he's only like 20 minutes, it's not like a lot. The trailers for this film were mostly just isolated musical numbers.

When he's just like a little guy who's like, I just want to dance. I'm like, I love this penguin, I'm all in. But I remember going to see whatever Harry Potter movie it was at midnight, not knowing this film was being made. The teaser trailer comes up, which is

Robin Williams with a Speedy Gonzalez accent. Oh, my God. Singing my way. We're getting to it. No, but don't worry. The other character he plays is Barry White. But it was him singing my way in Spanish, but it was a different animated sequence. It's not what's in the movie.

They animated a different sequence sequence it's not what's in the movie they animated a different sequence just for the teaser and then when he hits the high note the camera zooms down his throat and the happy feet logo is his uvula and the whole audience was like

giggling and like loved it and I was like what we're all just accepting this what the fuck is this and it was one of those like coming next year like it was like a far away teaser and I was like I have no idea what this movie is I imagine once we get closer to the release it will make sense to me and then the trailers were still

just penguins dancing and people would say oh I can't wait to see that cute penguin dancing movie this is what I'm saying I just went what's the fucking movie about what happens to the rest of the movie? What's the matter with you? You don't like a dancing penguin? But this is the point.

Dancing Gwen? I walk into the theater and at this point in the film I'm going, what is this about? What's going to happen now? They fucking dance. Well, they hate that he dances.

They don't like that he dances. He's in the singing group and he can't sing. It's no good. But he does dance but they're just like, can't anybody can it? And Memphis is like,

don't fucking show this to people. Like, don't do this around other people. Right. You got Gloria, who's sort of like the valedictorian of the brood, right? She's the best singer. Her and Fat Joe. Although, when she like does her little, she's like, I figured out what my heart song was. Here it is.

It's like, not that good. No, it's not. Brittany Murphy, a great singer. I think she was a good singer. As an adult, yes. Gloria is, but then like when she's like a baby. I mean, it's mean to be like, kids are bad at stuff. Right, it's a little try hard.

This is like an incredibly long classroom sequence where after we've been watching Penguin Behavior for 20 minutes suddenly Professor Miriam Margolis like grinds the movie to a halt and is like I'm going to explain all of this. Right. These are the rules of our society. And she's playing like a sort of grand dame with like a

European sort of affect. Is this the other teacher that they take him to? Miss Astrakhan. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Because everyone's just trying to correct this kid's weird feet.

Yeah, he's got happy feet. Well, to them, their view in them is... Sad feet. Yeah. Bad feet, even. There's the sequence. Thank you, Ben. They think they're crappy feet.

The feet stink. There's the sequence, thank you, Ben, where he... They think they're crappy feet. The feet stink. They hit him. Where he encounters a flock of squaw, one of whom has been tagged by scientists. They are in the mafia. We should just point out they're in the bird mafia. They talk like gangsters.

The main one is voiced by Anthony LaPaglia, who's played many a mobster. I just want to point out, this is largely Australian film from an Australian filmmaker, animated by an Australian special effects house. You have four big Australian actors in it, and none of them are doing Australian accents. Right. Like, Kidman and Jackman are doing Southern. They're doing broad American accents southern Hugo Weaving is like Scottish

and Anthony LaPaglia is doing Brooklyn but what do we know about Anthony LaPaglia? One of the many things about him but what role did he not get to play that he was the first choice for? Tony Soprano he was like a go-to mobster

and he kind of I think never got over it's tough I think it never got over turning that down. It's tough. I think it was scheduling. He was busy making, you know, not The Soprano. He was like doing A View from the Bridge on Broadway or something like that. Are you aware that the plot of Analyze That is that De Niro gets hired to be a consultant on a show that is clearly The Sopranos and Anthony LaPaglia is the lead actor playing the guy who's a

very self-serious Australian actor who's a diva and keeps on halting production. Wasn't he also supposed to play Al Capone in Road to Perdition and they cut that scene? Yeah. Anyway, he's there talking about alien abduction. The thing

that's interesting about this is the only thing I want to highlight. The bird's going to treat being tagged as alien abduction. The thing that's interesting about this is, this is the only thing I want to highlight, that they're like, the bird's going to kind of treat being tagged as an alien abduction. And then someone else is clearly just leaning in and like, and they should kind of be like mobsters. Why do these two things do not

mesh? But also, this is the first scene in the movie. It's like mobsters talk about aliens. This is the first scene in the movie where they're introducing a major element. They're introducing non-penguin, right. Right. Outside of the basic pitch for this movie, they're introducing a major element. They're introducing non-penguin. Right. Right. Outside of the basic pitch for this movie, which is these penguins sing and dance. Suddenly there's this alien thing.

Right. And you're like, this scene is very menacing. It has a very different tone. You feel like they're maybe going to eat him. And when he escapes and goes back to the singing and dancing stuff, you're like, well, that has to be in there for a reason. Where the fuck is this movie going? Right, but it drops off for a long time. An hour? I would say

a long time. 30 or 40 minutes at least. And then also in that, so this scene functions to do a few things. One is that it sort of ever so slightly establishes that fish are scarce. Because the mafia, the mob boss bird is like, oh, ever so slightly establishes that fish are scarce because the mafia, the mob boss bird

is like, oh, yeah, usually I don't eat penguins, but there aren't a lot of fish right now. That's the first time they bring it up, right? But it's so, it feels like such a throwaway line and not a major plot point, which it ends up being. The vibe with

Happy Feet is that, though, right? Where they're like, they sort of, and then later they're like, remember when we said that? That's actually been going on this whole time. Right. They'll pick stuff up. But we don't see that on screen at all. The penguins are never struggling to find it.

No, the mom isn't like, ah, it was tough finding, right, you know, out in the ocean today. Like in the beginning of Moana, for example, they're like, all the fish are gone. We've been fishing and the traps are turning up empty and our coconuts are diseased. Like that establishes visually what's going on. And you do have to consider those coconuts.

You must consider the coconuts. You must consider the coconuts. Consider their leaves. It's actually true. I always fuck this up. It's better if it's leaves, but it's trees. Oh, no. This is why I fuck it up.

It's consider the coconut, consider the trees. And then the second one is the trunks and its leaves. And its leaves, yeah. Anyway, I've considered the coconut thoroughly. But yes, this movie does not really consider the coconut, the coconut being overfishing, that much. It just kind of peppers in occasional references. And then you'll get, like, when they go back to the Hugo Weaving character, him sort of constantly talking about the great Gwyn, this god who has a plan for them.

They should invest all of their belief into the fact that everything he's doing is for a reason. And if they're being punished, it's because they're not showing him enough loyalty. And he thinks that the happy feet the tap dancing right is angering the great gwyn right it's an offense yeah right which is also where another thing that comes in and out yeah sure but like the religiousness right sometimes it's just sort of the more vague footloosey like hey look communities can be insular we're different sometimes gets a little more like sometimes it's like sometimes it's like, you are spiting God. You have to believe me. I promise you, God hates this.

And then his dad is like, oh, I can't have a son who God hates. Like that relationship feels very like Boy Erased to me. Nicole Kidman. But then sometimes it's not that at all. Sometimes they just use the metaphor in like eight other ways. Nicole Kidman. Do you think she drew from Boy Erased? Do you think she was drawing from Happy Feet?

She was like watching it on her phone being like, right. Right, right, right, right, right. It is just funny that there are multiple kids animated movies that are like, falling in love is simple. It's just one person and it's just magic and when you find them, bang, that's it. Right, because you don't want to talk about sexual attraction. You have to be like, there's a

magical force that unifies two people and a baby is born. Anyway. Okay, so that scene also. Yes, yeah. It also sort of establishes something that I guess Mumble's going to use later on, which is the idea of appealing to their better nature. Right. So it sets that up. But again, that's dropped off on, on like that doesn't come back again until

the end of the movie. And then yeah and then it's like we've got this sort of like Randy Quaid from Independence Day except instead he's in the mafia. Yeah. He's like aliens. Yes. This is all true.

And then I feel like after this little sequence which involves him like falling into a crevice and escaping the squaws right I just love saying squaw it feels like this

chunk of the movie essentially through to the first hour is doing like an expedited riff on the Lion King sure where it's like

he's a threat to his kingdom he is ostracized he goes off on his own. He gets lost. Then he finds his weird group of wacky comic relief friends. That's the thing. The next big thing is that, right, he's as a teen.

There's a leopard seal attack, and he's sort of separated, and he meets the Amigos. But wait, before that. Sure, sure. Because I've beat by beat been like what is happening so suddenly mumble has been in love with Gloria his whole life very suddenly his whole life and there's

like this whole horny sequence where all the other males are singing to Gloria yeah right because she's sort of the bell of the ball she's the bell of the ball and mumble can't sing so he's like well I don't have a chance with her. And then they like banish him because he's singing too shitty. Yeah, his singing.

I mean, to be fair, his singing is pretty intolerant. I don't enjoy it. No. If it is a singing based community, I would want him out. But they sort of mock him and like bully him. Yeah, it's mean to him. And then he ends up on this like ledge and then he tap dances and it breaks the ice.

And he's just sort of stuck floating. Well, then you have the seals, right? That's when the seals knock him around. That's when he runs into the Latinx penguins. Or Spanish. I mean, the biggest save you can do for what's happened with Robin Williams

You're like the cotillion. Right. Exactly. Let's say let's just say they're European. Right. But I don't know. I agree. I don't think you can really pull that off.

It is kind of incredible not to sully the name of the dead. No. And also, like, it's it's from his 80s sort of stand up person. I was going to do a million voices. Right. You know, people talk about Robin Williams, and when anyone does a Robin Williams impression, part of a Robin

Williams impression is randomly going into, quote-unquote, black voice, Mexican voice, and gay voice, right? It's always like, you know, it's like he said, oh, baby, come on to me. Oh, wow, I don't know about that. And then you go back to like, oh.

Like it's always that rotation. I just love doing that. And I even remember like when I started doing stand-up like 10 years ago. Mumblebrain. Mumblebrain. I was going to say. You finally landed one. Thank you.

All right. Yeah, when you were doing stand-up a while ago. When I was doing stand-up a while ago, I'm only pointing out it was 10 years ago to talk about a cultural shift. Sure. But in, like, 2009. Yeah. I remember people saying, like, oh, this guy's great. Have you seen him before? He does, like, amazing impressions.

About you? No, no. About Robin Williams? No, not about me. About other comics, right? Oh, okay, sure, sure. Who? Who were like on the open mic scene. They'd be like, this guy does incredible impressions. And I'd say like, what impressions does he do?

And they'd go like, you know, like Asian voice. Wait, they would just say that? Yes. I have that specific memory. And I remember people saying things like that. That's a very specific conversation. And it was a thing where it used to just be like, oh, that's an asset. If you can do impressions of the other races, which is a thing that it used to just be like, oh, that's an asset if you can do impressions of the other races,

which is a thing that Robin Williams drove straight into the fucking stratosphere. It became America's favorite for doing. It's interesting to think about how when we were kids, we were all similar age.

We were not guaranteed Robin Williams in every animated film we saw but it was definitely a possibility and if he was in it as kids we were like i know that that's the genie right like when he's in fern gully they're just like you know just do your thing like come on like and then the robin williams type is just a type in animated movies but he often would just be in the movie right and then this movie is, no, he's doing two characters. The characters aren't Robin Williams.

Each character is kind of one of his go-to. Right, so they're like, can you be in our animated movie? And he's like, huh, yes, of course. Just did robots. Dreamworks is robots. And they're like, sure, and can you do, right, some of your stand-up personas?

How about you do that? And he was like, great, yes. But like silo two of the personas off. Sure, yeah. Have them in scenes together. Where it's just you as two different cultural types that you are not. And then he's also the narrator, which the narration comes in and out in really sporadic times in the movie. The narration is completely unnecessary. So unnecessary. But then it sort of

implied that the narrator is Lovelace, which is kind of like in Aladdin how the merchant at the beginning is also Robin Williams and is maybe the genie in disguise. Boy, oh boy. So you've got the amigos who are just

some penguins, are Just Some penguins Who become his bros And they like the dancing The other voice actors I believe are Exclusively people who should be Playing characters with those accents Like Carlos Alcaraz Yeah exactly

100% But also Robin Williams As Ramon Apparently he also plays someone called Cletus I don't remember a Cletus 100% but also Robin Williams yes as Ramon or Ramon apparently he also plays someone called Cletus I don't I don't remember a Cletus

he's got three characters well if you include the narrator four geez it's a weird thing where he's like first and eighth build in this movie

he's got like multiple separate billings in the opening credits and then they meet quickly they meet Lovelace a rockhopper penguin with a six pack ring around his neck and then they meet quickly. They meet, um,

lovelace, a rock hopper penguin with a six pack ring around his neck. Right. Who's his own type of religious leader. Who's basically like more of like an outsider cult leader type, right? Like kind of like a revival tent guy. Right. Right.

And he's all about the pebble. You got to bring a pebble to him for one pebble. You get any question? Because the thing about— What is this fucking— We're like halfway through. There's still plenty more. Because with these penguins, their breeding is that the penguins with the—

the males with the biggest, the stoniest nest— We love a stony nest. The females are attracted to the nest with the most— I can put an egg right here. Yeah. Perfect. Right. I love my stony nest.

Which is very logical, I will say. That's like, it's just building a home, right? It's like, I'm a good provider. I built you a great old

rocky nest here. Right. But he's like, I'm a messiah and I need my payment is pebbles for my, so he's just like, and he has so many ladies.

He's got a little entourage. He's got, he's got little groupies. Yeah. Right. So that's the logic entourage. He's got the most pebbles. Yeah, right. I believe the Don Bluth, the Pebble and the Penguin, also about pebble hunting penguins, right?

There's a Disney nature documentary too that came out within the past couple of years that I think largely features this type of penguin. Disney's Penguins, I believe it was called. I did see it in the theaters. And how was it? I didn't like Ed Helms as a narrator, I'm going to be honest. I like him as a comedic persona generally, but wasn't a fan of his narration really.

That is where all of those Disney nature documentaries fail. Yeah. Because Tim Allen did one about chimpanzee. Which I was so fucking amped for chimpanzee. Same. It looks so great from the trailer, and you watch the movie, and it's a bunch of Tim Allen doing the grunt bits. He ruins it. Yeah. He ruins it. Yeah. He ruined it. So weird.

Wait, can we backtrack for a second? So Mumble has been like banished or he feels unwelcome so he leaves his community. But he still has like parents who love him? Sure, I mean his dad not very understanding but it's

true. They want him to be around they're not banishing him explicitly but they go through the Lion King motion without there being the same kind of tragedy there's no tragedy there's no reason for him to exile himself well he just kind of goes on like a sort of rumspringa he meets some new

people and then when he comes back he's like plan A I'll lip sync to Ramon syncing my way but this is what's so crazy is I remember watching this in the theater for the first time and even watching it last night but real Spanish you know

right watching it last night for the first time since I saw it in the theaters I was like right so this is I remember the end is super weird but I guess this is the next hour of the film is them slowly making their way back, facing multiple dangers. He bonds with his seven Mexican timones and pumbas. And then he comes back and he teaches them all a lesson about acceptance and he saves the day, right? He teaches them a lesson by first trying to hide his difference.

All of what I thought would take up the rest of the movie takes up 15 minutes. Then there's just another act and a half. Before the hour mark, he does his fake Cyrano routine with Ramones singing for him. Then they're like, you fucking freak! Now we're casting you out!

But then he tap dances to Boogie Wonderland. And she loves him now. She loves him. That worked for her. She's so resistant. The elders are still like, nuh-uh,

this is not acceptable. Yeah. But we also, okay, we skipped another part where, did we? Yes. So as he's still hanging out

with his little, his shorter friends, he sees this large piece of, quote, alien human machinery and he's like wait a minute there's a big bulldozer-y kind of thing and he's like is this what's eating our fish or something

which sort of like kind of so that's like the inciting this happens like over 40 minutes into the movie that feels like an inciting incident of one of the three different storylines that is unfolding in this movie. And then he goes back to it and he's like, but there's aliens out there. They're real. And I'm going to go out there and figure out what's up.

It's true. Which confirmed for me that there wasn't going to be real aliens. You were still hoping like these squaws just got nabbed by little green men. Yeah. I had a whole different movie in my mind. So just like a cartoon fake bird in a fake movie talking about aliens. You're just immediately like, guys, I think aliens are real. Great because it was going to show up any minute now.

No, it is funny to think that, right, it's like he's an outcast. He leaves. He comes back and then he leaves again. Yeah. That is a very strange story structure and the first time it's sort of like he leaves on a whim and he comes back with like half a plan of like I'll do the one song and then take it from there

definitely go and Gloria's like I should come with you and he's like no I'm gonna humiliate you to keep you away from me cause like god forbid there be a female character with any sort of you know narrative significance at least a few times in every piece of dialogue. Caitlin,

there's no room for the woman in the film to speak more. Robin Williams has five different characters that all need to speak in this one scene. But this is when his dad disowns him. Because Hugo Weaving... This is when they're like, okay, you're not good. Now they're like, actually, now, please leave.

And then now, for the first time, an hour into the movie, he's like, I have things to prove. Because at that point you're like, is it solving the fish problem? Is it proving that aliens are real? Is it making tap dance happen? I got these, this weird. The soda can. The soda can thing. Well, this is when they go back to Lovelace.

He's like, well, I actually got it from way out there beyond the seal. Because he's been saying this is a necklace that was bestowed upon me because I rule. It's like a talisman. Like a religious artifact. And so Mumble, rather than being like, all right, fun fact, don't care, is like, I guess my answers will also be available

if I go on that same journey. Even though there's nothing about Lovelace's behavior that suggests that Mumble should be like, this is the guy I want to mimic. I'm just trying to unpack all this. I'm sorry. I know for a

kid, they're just like, yeah, sure, he goes somewhere else. It's fine. He's like, this alien, what he interprets to be like an alien artifact that is stuck around his neck

is now suddenly choking him. Before it was fine, I don't know what changed. Nothing's really changed. Yeah, he ate too many pebbles.

They all went to his neck. Yeah, fair enough. But I do think, in terms of like, the story beats this movie is hitting, so many of them are so classical, right?

Yeah. And like, finding Lovelace choking is sort of like the story beats this movie is hitting, so many of them are so classical, right? Yeah. And like finding Lovelace choking is sort of like the Wizard of Oz like man behind the curtain moment where it's like, oh, this guy is just kind of like a weak, scared little man. And then rather than that being the reveal of like, oh, maybe all these ideologies are false. They're like, you're part of the skeleton crew now. Come with us. Help us find the answers we need. Like, it doesn't sort of remove Lovelace of any power. They're still kind of using him as a compass.

Because they need Williams on board, I guess. Right. To do jokes. But there's already another character. The thing made $200 billion. Huge. Who am I to judge? It is bizarre.

And eventually they go to the Forbidden Shore. And that's where they find the fishing boat. Right. Yeah. Right. With all these orcas. Yeah. Which I don't like.

It's too cute. We were talking about it, you know. It seems like the orcas are almost helping him. Because there's all these sort of like synchronized they're sort of batting them back and forth. Yeah they're doing like a sea world kind of show. It's weird. I also think it always gets weird in talking animal movies.

When some animals can't talk? It's true. What's the logic there? Why can't Sharptooth talk in Land Before Time? Because he's bad? He can talk. The others talk. But we'll get to it eventually. But the end of the movie when they're just all fucking chowing down on fish.

When they're throwing fish in the air and eating the shit out of them. I'm like, so did they just not have any interiority, these fish? This is a great question. I mean, there are some animals, obviously, right? That scientists are like, these animals kind of seem to have some sort of level of thought going on and others are you know all instinct the only other thing i know about happy feet too is that matt damon and brad pitt play krill yes so it feels like he's saying no even the little things are alive and they have their own little weird quirks in finding nemo all species speak right

there's no nonverbal. Even the krill, too. Yeah. Right? They all talk. Well, and like the whale doesn't speak in English, but Dory communicates with the whale. Right. Of course.

Shouldn't the plants talk? Great. Wow. This is a great curveball throw. The movie should throw it in late because this movie is understuffed. This is why he's our finest film critic. And we're submitting that question for the Pulitzer this year.

But I will say, yeah, so this is where the movie takes full on swing into nightmare when he's put in the zoo. Yes. Right? Right, right. He decides I'm going to swim towards the boat because I need to come back with an answer. I need to figure out what's going

on here. I need to solve this. Suddenly there is so much narrative urgency to we need to come back with an answer. I need to figure out what's going on here. I need to solve this. Suddenly, there is so much narrative urgency to, we need to solve the fish problem. And you're like, right, the fish problem? Yes, but the banishment is like. The fish problem and also like the let's figure out what the aliens are. Right. And his punishment essentially is, you know, zoo imprisonment. Which I think a lot of movies do this kind of thing where it's like oh the main characters are

misinterpreting a thing as a different thing. I mean it's almost like the aliens in Interstellar. But as we said they show you human technology so early on that you're like I'm way ahead of them. I know these are fucking humans. We're not going to see some almond aliens. No I know.

Well Ben clearly did. You didn't think you not going to see some almond aliens around here. No, I know. Well, Ben clearly did. You didn't think you were going to see live action human beings? That's the thing that is... And I also just didn't think he was going to go to the zoo. It just seems like it's too far away in a weird sort of way. You know what I mean? Because he swims towards the boat. Right.

He gets caught in the net. Then they use some horrifying looking hook. Hook to peel him off. And then he keeps swimming after the boat for, where do they end up? Australia? Like, where does he end up? Cut to black. He wakes up.

And then there's narration that's like, he swam farther beyond anyone could imagine. And then suddenly he's either in LA or on the coast of some Australian city. All possibilities, all solid ideas. With the dialects in this movie, who knows where they are? But just that scene where he's all dazed and drugged and out of his mind. It feels like the Truman Show,

like him touching the walls and recognizing the painting. And trying to communicate with the people but also not knowing what they are. One of the penguins is like just like hypnotized. The thing about all of this is this is a great- Oh, what's the penguin?

It keeps on saying, Dave, Dave, the fish are great, Dave. Right. This is a great idea for a movie. Yeah. I just don't know if it's a great idea for like five minutes at the end of a kid's movie You're just like,

I can't believe this is going here. And the first moment when, and especially considering this is like two years before WALL-E, the first moment when, an hour and a half into this movie, he swims towards the glass and you see the reflection of a human face. And you're like, am I imagining things?

You're like, is this like really realistic CG? And then they cut back to the ultra angle and you're like, no, they're just real people in this movie. What if Billy Elliot, it's like, what if Billy Elliot, 90 minutes in, got, like, captured and imprisoned by CGI penguins

for 10 minutes, and then he danced for them, and they were like, oh, oh, you're one of those. Ah, get him out of here. This insane... Get some scientists. But then there's like, there's a good amount of time that's just him losing his sanity. Yeah, it's only a few minutes, but for this movie, it just feels... It is twice as's a good amount of time that's just him losing his sanity. It's only a few minutes,

but for this movie, it just feels... It is twice as long as the amount of time they spend showing the UN making planet-changing decisions. That montage is all of 45 seconds, and it's gavel, gavel, speech, news broadcast. What if there had been a penguin UN in this movie? That would have been fun. You could have had all the species. You can't spell penguin without UN.

Good point. Wow. Happy Feet 3. I mean. But that's what's so crazy is you go into like sort of two montages that are narrated. One of him losing his mind, hallucinating his friends there, hitting the wall. Throwing fish against the wall to feed them. Seemingly becoming borderline suicidal or

the very least like brain dead like he says like he lost his mind yeah right and then he just has this one little tap comes out because there's a little girl's tapping on the glass she's making the beat which you're not supposed to do but in this movie saves his life yeah they always say don't tap on the glass. And this girl is practicing. It's because they don't want the penguins to start tapping. They don't want to acknowledge their intellectual dancing capabilities. So he does the dancing and they're like, of course, we should have realized that this penguin belongs in the Antarctic because he dances. All of this happens within less than 10 minutes from the moment he swims towards the boat to then him getting noticed.

The girl leaving, bringing back her mom, a bigger crowd. Then it's filmed. It goes viral. The entire world comments on it. They place a locator, a tracking device on him, bring him back home so they can figure out if it's his species or not. Right. Because they're like, if penguins are dancing, they must be trying to tell us something.

Okay, here's the other crazy part about this. So they bring him back. He shows up to his community. He just arrives. He's like, all right, the aliens, they're real. They are taking our fish, da-da-da. And they're like, what's that weird thing on your back? He's like, I don't know, but I think it's to help them find me.

And then they're like proof alien technology. Right. And then meanwhile, Noah's like, I don't know what's happening. But then the thing starts beeping and then some humans, some live action humans show up. But they had just dropped him off. Wouldn't they already be right there? They're at the opposite cliff. Time is a very sort of fungible object in Happy Feet. I don't really know.

But their arrival is enough for people to be like, turns out aliens are real, let's do a dance. Because he gets into this logical argument with Hugo Weaving where he's like, you know, like, we shouldn't work with the aliens. It's like, I thought you said aliens weren't real. And he's like, they're not, and that's why we shouldn't work with the aliens. It's like, I thought you said aliens weren't real. He's like, they're not. And that's why we shouldn't work with them. And then everyone starts to recognize he's a liar.

And they're like, well, if this guy's lying, maybe we should fucking tap dance. And I guess the concept is it's all it's been within them all along. They're all good dancers. Well, because cut back to like a half hour or so earlier when he comes back he tries to sing the song that ramon's actually like singing he has this moment of confidence in the tap and then the whole community gets on board they all they're like actually this tap thing is cool they all start dancing and then it's not until like noah the evil you know, the religious zealot alien or penguin is like. He makes them feel shame.

Right. And then his dad is like, you are you're dumb. And then that's when he leaves again. But there's a moment where like every the community is on board. That's the other thing that has to happen within this 10 minute strike is he comes back. And before he sells everyone on tap dancing, he's like, where's my dad? They're like, you don't want to see what's happened to your dad. And you're like, is the dad like half

dead? Has he been like attacked? Is he drinking now? What's going on? No, he's just sad in a cave. Yeah, he's just sitting in the cave. And he goes, son, I ain't ever done right by you one day your entire life. And then he's just like, I love you. I'm glad you're back.

Let's fucking tap dance. Jackman like putting some spit on the ball. He wants some real English on that final line reading. Another thing I wanted to- But it's just like immediately. The dad has done all of the emotional work of coming to terms with his son in the time the son was gone. The son arrives and he's like,

I'm glad you're here. And not a moment too soon. I fully accept you. You don't have to say anything. The other moment you have to have is where Fat Joe shows up and it's sort of like when you return to your hometown kind of like, oh my

childhood crush. Are those all yours? And it's like, are they together? And it's like, no! Just kidding. We're teachers now. Our students. I thought that that was all her kids. They're her students. I mean, you know, they are her children.

So you thought that they had like coupled and had a bunch of babies together. Yeah. And then also started a school to teach only their biological children. What then stuck out to me later is when they kiss, I'm like, oh my god, she's cheating. On Fat Joe, no less. The fattest of the duos. This is where like...

Because jealous ones do still envy. Sure. That was his album. It's good to have him play someone that you might be envious of. What a great title. Jealous ones still envy. When he's in the zoo, and he's good to have him play someone that you might be envious of. What a great title. Jealous ones still envy. When he's in the zoo and he's trying to yell at the zoo goers. Right. Who, by the way, half of them are stylized to look like they're from the 50s or 60s.

Yes. And then everyone else is modern. They're weird, like, babe pig in the city humans where they're like very heightened yeah like they're very made up the performances are very big someone like gets on his cell phone he's like have you heard about this these dens and penguins and it's like it reminds me of the hula hoop montage from hudsucker proxy i'm like this hula hoop's out of control these penguins are tap dancing extra X-Tree, X-Tree. The flashes almost are like

the kind of like where they would take the light bulb out and throw it. Right. It's got that vibe. It's like crazy Dutch angles like fading into each other.

I just feel, I think we shouldn't feed the penguins. I think we should. It is just one, it's sort of like, okay, so there was this one

dancing penguin from a zoo. Okay. The scientist decided to return him to his habitat. Okay. And the penguins danced for the people. Sure. And it was filmed.

Okay. And this prompted the UN to be like, fishing as a concept, we just gotta ban it. Ban it. No fishing allowed whatsoever. Just the leaps where you're like, I can take this if I can take this leap. From A to Z.

How are you filling in these gaps? Have you seen the UN? It's a mess. It's a tangled bureaucratic nightmare. They solve that fully before they even put him on the helicopter to go back and make good with his dad. He's like, by the way, no big deal. I've changed the entire fabric of the world. To solve a problem.

I've changed the entire fabric of the world. To solve a problem. The global economy. To solve an issue that the penguins are having, which is like fish scarcity, that we barely even knew was a conflict in the film. Right. And the ecological threat of it. But also there's the one moment in one of the meetings where the woman says like, well, I think we should just do nothing. Like she just cleanly states like, why should we change anything we're doing? It'll cost money.

No, the point I want to make though is when he's in the zoo box and he's like yelling at them like fish, fish, fish. And then it cuts to the other side of the glass and it's like, just the worst sound in the world. And you go, oh, I guess that's what this movie has all been building up to narratively is his superpower is because he figured out how to tap dance and not sing. He's the only penguin who can communicate to the humans.

If he had been normal, he never would have made an impression. He just would have squawked. But you also then have to take the leap that they are so blown away by his tap dancing that they then go, there has to be some message being conveyed here. Right. And research everything going on in the penguin ecology. Now here's. Dance is a nonverbal way of communication. Sure.

It's true. It's a universal language. Here's some other facts about this film. The end of the movie is they solve everything. Everything's perfect. But Happy Feet 2's coming though. Yeah. Some things are gonna get

fucked up for that, right? And you zoom out to the world and a feather flies by. Yeah, you zoom out way out. Way out. The world's a marble. Yeah.

And then we see a feather. Don't know what that's supposed to mean. It's directed by George. Aliens? Aliens. Gonna pop it in that Men in Black bag. Here's some other things.

Yeah. They showed this movie to Prince to gain his approval for using the song Kiss. Yes. some other things. Yeah. They showed this movie to Prince to gain his approval for using the song Kiss. Yes. A great song. And he loved the movie so much that he wrote them

a song. The Song of the Heart I believe it's called. Right. Prince who notoriously did not say yes to many things. Right.

Openly volunteered. Originally he was like Happy Feet, no. I'm not letting you do my song. And then he saw the thing. He loved the song so much. He wrote it within one week of watching the movie.

He's like, here's an extra song for you. And won a Golden Globe. Not since Batman has a movie spoke to me so fully. Yes, weird that it was snubbed at the Oscars. You know, the Oscars are weird about the pop songs sometimes. Do you remember that his Globe win, he was stuck in traffic. It was one of the early awards given out

and they accepted it. And then he showed up like 40 minutes later and they let him give an acceptance speech 40 minutes later. It was great. So you got that. What are some other facts about this movie? Savion Glover, he was taught to walk

like a penguin and given a penguin apparatus on his head. Taught by who? A penguin? Probably like Lovelace. Yeah, Mumble. Lovelace is an EVP at Warner Brothers. Sibion Glover, you must walk like me. Even doing an impression of it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Don't do it. David, maybe you can fact check this, but IMDB said that this is the highest grossing movie that Nicole Kidman has ever been in. I think that's 100% correct. Well, now that Aquaman is swept in, I would guess that that's no longer true, but it might be her second highest grossing film. I Kidman has ever been in. I think that's 100% correct. Well, now that Aquaman is swept in, I would guess that that's no longer true, but it might be her second highest grossing film.

I think up until that point. Right. She was in Batman Forever. That's another big hit for her. Gross, less than happy feet. I believe. I mean, it obviously came out, you know, 10 years prior. Right.

Let's see. Let's see Nicole Kidman's top five movies. Number one, Aquaman with a bullet. Number two, Happy Feet. Number two, Happy Fe movies. Number one, Aquaman. With a bullet. Number two, Happy Feet. Number two, Happy Feet. Number three, Batman Forever. Number four, The Upside.

Wow. What? This year, last year, Kevin Hart, Bryan Cranston, remake of inspirational French drama, Laying to Trouble. Bryan Cranston's in a wheelchair. Kevin Hart has to take care of him.

That was a high grossing movie? $180 million domestic. Wow. Number. $115 in January. Number dumped three years after it was filmed. Number five. Just go with it. The Adam Sandler movie. Wow. Number six, The Others. Those are her

six hundred million grossers in the US. That's crazy. But if you sort by worldwide, guess what jumps into the five? Two movies jump into the five. Moulin Rouge. No, not Moulin Rouge. Okay, something that's disproportionately well overseas. Correct. Two movies

jump, though. Recent or older? One directed by a friend of the pod. One directed by a friend of the pod? Is it a movie we've covered on the show? No. He's been on the show multiple times. Oh, Golden Compass? Correct. Okay. Which was a bigger hit internationally.

Right. And the other is a great film. A great film that we both love and I'm sure Caitlin likes too. Maybe not. I don't want to speak for Caitlin.

Oh, Dogville. Made $500 million in China. Yeah. I don't know. It's a great film that you and I love.

Yeah. And maybe me. Let me think about it. I hope you like it. Is she a main character? She's the villain. Paddington! Paddington.

Which made 76 domestic, but 258 worldwide. You said you don't want to make an assumption. I did spy. To answer your question, yeah. David. There he is! He's such a... I am obsessed with

Paddington. Here's the thing I feel like people don't talk about. He's a very nice bear. But he'll give you a hard stare. He will! He'll give you a hard stare if he has to. And if you're good and polite everything will be right. You got Moulin Rouge, Cold Mountain, kind of a big hit overseas. The Interpreter

did okay overseas. She's made a lot of movies. She has. And only one of them outgrossed Happy Feet. I just think it's important to point out, this movie is so colossal that after this, not only are they like, 100%

you get to make your Mad Max, unlimited budget, take your time, whatever it is, recast it, younger actor, you're good to go. But they also go, hey, George Miller, do Justice League. And this is right before the writer's strike is about to happen, when studios are like trying to stockpile scripts as fast as they can. Batman Begins has come out. The Dark Knight has not. And Warner Brothers is like, we're going to set up a second Batman franchise. We're going to do a different parallel Batman on

screen at the same time. They hire George Miller. He works on this movie for like a year. Justice League colon mortal. They cast it. They're an active pre-production. The plug gets pulled at the absolute last second. Because of the writer's strike among

other things, correct? Well, I mean they were trying to get it done before the writer's strike, among other things, correct? Well, I mean, they were trying to get it done before the writer's strike, and I think they thought the script was like 10% less good than it needed to be. But also, apparently, Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan complained. And were like, you're just going to put some other fucking Batman? It was a dumb idea. Some random 20-year-old named, let me look at this, Arm and Hammer? Oh, Armie Hammer was cast? Arm and Hammer at the age of like 20 or 21 was cast as Batman.

You can read the script if you want. I believe it was written by people, Kieran and Michelle Mulroney. Adam Brody was The Flash. Yes. Common was Green Lantern. That's right. Hugh Kee Barnes, a.k.a. Morton Joe, was Martian Manhunter. That's right.

And Megan Gale, who plays Valkyrie in Fury Road, was going to be Wonder Woman. That's right. Hugh Kee Barnes, aka Morton Joe, was Martian Manhunter. That's right. And Megan Gale, who plays Valkyrie in Fury Road, was going to be Wonder Woman. That's right. Like, he rolls over a lot of the things. But then a bunch of other, like, Tessa Palmer and Zoe Kazan

were supposed to be in it. I think Jay Baruchel was supposed to be an actual lord. Another thing that happened is that in July, it was supposed to start filming in July 2008. Guess what came out in July 2008?

The Dark Knight. Right. And I think after that, it was like, you know what? This is fine. And they were like, please don't do this. But then it was like, they really had the clout after The Dark Knight comes out. Anyway, instead, Warner Brothers pivoted to a surefire hit,

a Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film. Yeah. I'm not kidding. Yeah, truly. That was the move they did. Let's slow down. Right. Yeah. And anyway, but let's play the box office game. So this movie, I remember this very specifically.

This movie was number one for three weeks in a row. That's true. With the same movie at number two for all three weeks. And every week people went, that movie's gonna beat Happy Feet. Right. And it kept on suplexing Casino Royale. Correct. Casino Royale was the number two movie. They were released at the same time.

They basically grossed the same amount of money. Like, Happy Feet was just always a little higher, and Casino Royale is one of those highest grossing never number one movies. And Casino Royale was so beloved, the word of mouth was so good that they were like, this weekend it's gonna jump up, and it's gonna take over Happy Feet.

And Muffles was like, hold my fucking beer. I own you. So those are the top two films. Happy Feet debuted to $41 million on November 17th. It was a sort of Thanksgiving movie. And Casino Royale debuted to $40 million. And Happy Feet ends up at two and change? No, just under two, I think.

$198 million. And Casino Royale was like 190? Let's find out, Griffin. 167. A pretty, actually pretty good. But number three at the box office was the big comedy, breakout comedy of the year.

The big breakout comedy. I haven't checked in with this movie recently. I'm sure if I watched it now there would be no issues in the harsh light of day with this movie recently I'm sure if I watched it now there would be no issues you know in the harsh light of day with this one sounds like there would be some issues this movie kind of ruined culture for like a 10 year

window yeah this movie you could point the finger at it uh Borat yeah I think it is just so wild to think that like I grew up in Britain. Yeah. Okay. Wait a second, what?

All right, all right, all right. And I had grown up with Ali G, with Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G. You had been making learning for glorious benefit of Nation of Kazakhstan forever. Right, Borat had been this sort of side character. And he had done an Ali G movie that had hit in Britain, but obviously not overseas. Ali G was a very cult figure.

Had his HBO show. That movie was a scripted Ali G. Yeah, it's a scripted what if Ali G was the prime minister type, you know. And King Ralph, if you will, sort of situation. Yeah, 100%. It was not a respected film. Even if it was a hit, people were like, this is garbage. People weren't golf clapping.

I believe Charles dances the violin. Ali G in the house. And he was like, I'll do a spinoff. I'm going to do Borat. And everyone was like, oh, Borat, sure, okay. Because the HBO show runs for two seasons, and it's very beloved, but it was never like a massive cultural hit. Right.

But when Borat came out, all of the world was like, we've been waiting for this. It was so weird. This is what we wanted. I remember thinking that's so weird. We wanted a mockumentary on a fictional Kazakh journalist. I'm sorry, the whole world said very nice. Or my wife. Or my wife.

Where is my wife right now? Because it's done like three ironic loops. Is it funny right now? I think it's back to being the funniest thing in the world. But remember when it was like it was it was from Borat and then you're like got sick of it and then it was from and then just saying it became funny again. Then it was from the guy down the hall of my

dorm. And then like that got overdone. But are we now just back to like my wife? Like we're like I think so. I think it's number one funny. Do you have any Borat takes you want to weigh in on Borat? An Oscar-nominated screenplay. Is that true?

Yeah, it's true. It's a densely written film. Oh, for sure. No, but on the Bechdel cast, we have a gimmick where we do instead of My Wife, but this is based on a gravestone from the movie The Rock, Michael Bay's The Rock, where it says his wife, so we always do his wife. His wife. His wife.

Is that real? Yeah. Great movie. Can I just, can I throw out two things I find fascinating about Borat before we move on from Borat? One, Todd Phillips,

the only man brave enough to tame retired bit himself, was hired to direct the Borat movie, filmed the Borat movie for multiple weeks, and was like, this is too movie, filmed the Borat movie for multiple weeks and was like, this is too dangerous. I can't do this. Quit the film. Larry Charles takes over.

He gets a producer credit. He gets an Oscar nomination. He gets an Oscar nomination. He gets a story credit. Yes. But the man who was so twisted, he put us in the mind of someone who laughs at the things that make us cry. Couldn't handle fucking

Borat. What if Borat came back right now? Perfect timing. Number two thing, I think Borat's another really fascinating box office thing where the hype... Right, because it was low-budget studio film based off a cult TV show. Then the hype went through the fucking roof

and people were losing their minds. Then Fox got really scared that the expectations were getting too high because it was the same year as Snakes on a Plane where the internet was blowing up about something and then no one went to see it. So the weekend before it came out, they were like, never mind,

we're not releasing it wide. It's not going out. They released it in like 800 theaters. Right. And it still made $26 million. That's what's insane. They were like, let's limit the theater count so we won't look like we're underperforming if we don't. And instead, every single screen sold out.

It was like one of the biggest per screen averages ever. The next weekend, they put it on 2,000 screens and it was number one again. Crazy number three of the box office. Number four is the kind of movie about what if you signed a sort of mystical contract to take on a role in society. Mr. McGuigan's Wonder Emporium? No. God, but you got to give me points for that guess. Sure.

But you sort of spiritually signed this contract through the act of murder. Is it the Santa Claus 3? Colon. It's called the Escape Clause? That's right. And who's the villain? Jack Frost played by Martin Short. That's right.

Yes. Yeah. I don't know anything else about that movie, but I know that it's about a clause in his Santa Claus contract, which he, of course, unwittingly agreed to through murdering Santa Claus. Is it a good movie? He's getting really tired. He's burnt out.

There's time travel. I know that. Time travel? Oh, so it's getting really tired. He's burnt out. There's time travel. I know that. Time travel? So it's kind of like a Nits and Wonderful Life. Uh-huh. Maybe. But it does follow

the trend of the third movie of a sequel having time travel elements because we do that with Ninja Turtles. We do that with others that I can't remember. Harry Potter.

Harry Potter. And yet others. I'm sure your listeners will tweet at me. It also has the Santa has to fight bad Santa thing. Because it's like Jack Frost hates that he never rose to an elected position. He never got the chance to murder Santa himself. So he exploits the fact that Tim Allen's like, I'm burned out. I could use a vacation.

Shows him the escape clause loophole, and then because he knows they won't accept him being Santa, he builds an evil bad robot Santa, where they're like, this looks like Tim Allen, but he's an asshole. He keeps on complaining about the fact that he can't use the N-word, what's up with this guy? And then I think the two Santas have to

fight. Can you give me the sort of three taglines from the Santa Claus three, the Escape Clause poster? Number one is just billing. Naughty v. Nice. No, it's Santa Claus versus Jack Frost. Okay. Formal. Okay.

Number two. I'm sure you can't, but it's pretty good. It's not? It's Naughty versus Nice? No. I could have sworn. What? Twas the fight before Christmas.

I mean. I mean. I mean. It looked like a boxing match poster. Right. And you've got both of them sort of have a fist up. Yeah. You know, both of them are sort of like contemplating. But they're also treating it like it's like Pacino, De Niro, Heat. Like finally

we're going to get to see weirdly made up Martin Short and Tim Allen punch each other. And then weirdly they were like, let's tag one more tagline on right at the bottom. Frost Bites, November 3rd. You really needed that? And then there's a teaser poster. His time at the North Pole is

about to go south. Wow, clever. It's just so funny that this and that are in theaters in fucking November. They can't wait till Christmas. They're like, we got to get the Christmas movie out in November. It's almost always the first week of November. So weird.

Because their whole thing is, if you release it right before Christmas. Maybe it can bounce back for Christmas, right? Well, no. And also, December 26th, no one will go see it. The day after Christmas, no one wants to see a Christmas movie. Right. So you have to get your business leading up to it. It peaks on Christmas Day, and then you're out.

All right, number five of the box office is not a movie that I like at all, but it is genuinely the kind of movie that a studio would just never make anymore. Mr. McGorham's Wonder Emporium. No. It's a comedy, like kind of a meta comedy. Stranger than fiction. Stranger than fiction. Which is written by...

What's his name? Zach Helm, the writer and director of Mr. McGorm's Wonder Emporium thank you Stranger Than Fiction, Will Ferrell he's hearing a narrator narrate his life yeah I don't like that movie that very much

I only saw it once, I don't hate it but I remember being kind of excited for it and then kind of not quite loving the execution but there was like a buying frenzy. And every big actor joined the cast of that movie. And they were like, this thing's a surefire hit. Who else is in that one? The queen graced us with her presence.

Ms. Latifah herself. Of course. And like, you know, Sony made that. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And then they were like, I don't know. I'm surprised this underperformed.

This movie about a man who's in a book it made 40 million dollars that's not bad scene maggie jill and hall right complaining about taxes i remember that scene right some other movies flushed away horrible movie horrible movie saw three not good but excited for spiral but had time travel in it because it's the third of a thing also men in black three yes you're right about uh saw three because that's where they have to be like, why the fuck did we kill the guy basically in movie two? Why did we give him cancer? This is terrible.

So let's have a flashback, I guess. I was making a joke, but yeah, I'm sure that does happen. Saw 3 is the one with all the flashbacks, right? Because he's dead in Saw 3. I think that's probably the reason it happens is by the third movie they go like oh fuck we put ourselves in a bad position it would be easier to make a third movie if we could go back and change this thing

that happened in the first or second movie and they're like let's make the movie about them going back and making this film easier to write are you excited for Spiral from the Saw book? I'm very ready to open the book did you see the trailer for the Chris Rock Saw movie? no get ready alright Chris Rock Samuel L. Jackson,. Did you see the trailer for the Chris Rock Saw movie? No. Get ready. All right.

Chris Rock, Samuel L. Jackson, Max Minghella, the trio. They're taking on Saw. Very bizarre. I've talked about this before, but the press release when they announced that Chris Rock was going to executive produce and star in a new Saw film, there's this quote from the head of Lionsgate that is, when Chris Rock came in and pitched us his terrifying new vision for the future of the Saw franchise we were chilled to our core it's something like that but I just

picture the Lionsgate executive lying awake in bed at three o'clock in the morning can't get it out of my head his wife just going honey what's wrong because Chris Rock came in this morning and god I don't even have to say this he pitched us his terrifying new vision for the future of the Saw franchise. Some other films you've got, Babel. Oh. Babel. Yeah. Any of your YouTube movies?

How's that? Aged. Oh, is that the Brad Pitt's in that? He is. He is. He's in it. Cate Blanchett's in it. Rika Kuching.

Yeah. It's a movie, of course, about the fact, a tragedy, a drama. We can't talk to each other. We can't talk to each other. If only we could learn how to tap dance, we could cross language barriers. You've got The Departed. Oh, yeah. Good one.

Best picture winner. You've got Let's Go to Prison debuting this week. Not a hit. Bad movie. That's the Bob Odenkirk movie, right? Directed by Bob Odenkirk. Yeah. debuting this week, not a hit. Bad movie. That's the Bob Odenkirk movie, right? Directed by Bob Odenkirk. Yeah, a film that is mostly about trying to not get sexually assaulted in prison.

But it's a comedy. Anyway, Happy Feet, we did it. And after that, there were no more Happy Feet movies, right? That was it? Just the flip of it being like, we hand you Justice League, that goes down. They're like like please put all your energy into Happy Feet 2

and he clearly says I'll do Happy Feet 2 if you finally let me make the Mad Max movie and that Happy Feet 2 is like the thing that gives him the chance the leverage to make Fury Road at the scale that he wants it's insane

it is funny to think that right they were like were like, fine, you can do Mad Max. That's the hit. Right. Happy Feet 2. Give us some money in the bank. I mean, a five-year wait for a sequel to Happy Feet, which does not demand a sequel? Animation takes so long,

especially if you don't have a studio up and running. This movie does not pass the Bechdel test, right? I doubt it. There are two female characters. You're forgetting the very, very fancy teacher. Oh, well, there's two teachers. Right, there's two teachers, right. But they don't talk to each other.

If anyone would interact, I guess it would be Gloria and Norma Jean. I think the teacher and Gloria have a brief conversation. Oh, that is true. But probably about her son, right? To contextualize that. And then when she's like, I know what a heart song is, like when she's a baby.

To contextualize that, it's all about, I need a heart song so that I can find a male lover so it doesn't pass the Bechdel test. Do you guys want to see a picture of Robin Williams with a life-size Lovelace?

Oh, please. This is one of my favorite sub-genres, a premiere photo. Whoa. That's so much bigger than I thought. It's also one of those classic Wikipedia, we have the rights to this image only, so his eyes are half closed.

Here's what I love about these types of photos. Oh, ha, lovelies. There is no Warner Brothers theme park. It's not like they built that costume so that they can ship it over to Orlando. It's bigger than life size. You're right. It's also weird that he has a sweater. Humans don't need sweaters.

I think Happy Feet 2 has a bunch of sweater shit. There's a sweater thing. Because all I know is the logo for Happy Feet 2 is wearing a sweater. Yes. There's like a sweater on the two. I got that from the trailer as well. But you know what I'm saying? You're right. They built this giant walk around Lovelace costume and it's never going to be put at

Universal Studios. It exists only so that Robin Williams can stand next to it at a red carpet. And then just goes into storage? It's also just so funny that this is George Miller's full look every time. I know. How do you describe it?

He looks like he's about to invent Flubber, right? You know what I mean? He's got like the round glasses. He's got sort of like a suit with no tie. And he's got the long hair that's sort of swept back. But oftentimes he's wearing like a very loud, colorful shirt. Yeah, right. Right.

The glasses on the- It's something about the big round glasses that make him look like a very loud, colorful shirt. Yeah, right. Right. The glasses on the. It's something about the big round glasses. But also that they're always on the necklace thing. He's got the strings. He's always got the strings hanging off. Yeah. It's just, I don't mind his look. But you know what I mean?

I think it rules. What do you think, Ben? And it's also like I was watching all the like behind the scenes Mad Max documentaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the first like 10 years of his career, he looks normal and pretty cool. Like on the Mad Max set, he's just like some dude wearing a leather jacket. And then he starts looking like. He looks like an out of work conductor who's really let himself go.

What a weird guy. He's a weird fella. I love him. I kind of love him. A lot of happy feet doesn't really do it for me, but that's okay. Yeah. I love him I kind of love him I love him Happy Feet doesn't really do it for me but that's okay yeah I mean I will say

Caitlin like you seem like you're pretty mixed on all the old feetsies oh I'm heavily anti-Happy Feet heavily anti-Happy Feet yes

from a screenwriting standpoint alone it is it's kind of an abomination yeah I kind of I was watching it going like, what the fuck is this?

And then the last 15 minutes kind of won me over just in the audacity of just how big they go so fast. Can I ask? There's nothing like it. Do you think that they wrote the dances like in the screenplay? Like how do you write dance? This has come up on the show before. Can you write a dance? I mean, it probably depends.

Probably not to that extent. Shimmy to the left, shimmy to the right. Probably not. You'd leave that up to the choreographer to figure it out. But you'd be like, yeah, now the character does this type of dance. You put it down as a character name, like Mumbles Left Foot, and then the dialogue is tap, tap. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

And then the next line is Mumbles Right Foot. You know, the Reddit has figured out that we're doing Miller because of my habit of vlogging everything I watch. Well, and I've complained about this. I think it's good because it tips off the diehard fans to what they want to watch and rent and stuff. And I think our fans can go suck a lemon. Fair enough.

This is the fourth film we've covered that Prince wrote an original song for, along with Batman, I'll Do Anything, and Showgirls. Hmm, there's a Prince song and Showgirls? That's the one I didn't know about, so I'm struggling. Wow. The Mount Rushmore films.

Are there any, I mean, outside of Prince's own films. Rip-o-god-zip-a, I don't know. Okay. Some weird song. Outside of Prince's movies, are there any other movies that Prince wrote songs for? I don't fucking know. I have to look this up right now.

Well, hopefully at this point, Prince has won our March Madness bracket and we'll be doing a miniseries on the films of Prince. He's on the ballot. He's on the ballot. Caitlin, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you for having me. Thank you for talking feet. People should listen to Bechdelcast, although I can't imagine they aren't already.

But they should if they're not. Appreciate it. One of the best. And you have another podcast, Sludge, about how our fucking healthcare system is a nightmare. Yes. Yes, yes I do. Check that out. And that's a fiction podcast? That's like sort of a hypothetical science fiction? It's actually where

it's largely me dancing on the podcast. Gotcha. What if there's a podcast where we just don't know how to talk so we have to only dance into the microphone? That's like our version of Happy Feet is every penguin mates with another penguin

by broadcasting their own podcast. You find the podcast that matches yours and then one brave penguin doesn't know how to podcast so he just holds a mic up to his feet and does some soft shoe. What a weird movie. $200 million.

Insane. Insane. A very bizarre film. I can't believe it exists. Next week Happy Feet 2. what a weird movie yeah 200 million dollars insane insane a very bizarre film I can't believe it exists next week happy feature we're right back at it get excited so tune in for that

Caitlin thanks again for being here thank you uh social media oh sure at Caitlin Durante on Twitter

and Instagram you can go to my website CaitlinDurante.com hells yeah um thank you all for listening please remember to rate, review, subscribe thanks to Andrew Grudo for our social media and Instagram. You can go to my website, caitlyndurante.com. Hells yeah. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate,

review, subscribe. Thanks to Andrew Grudo for our social media, Joe Bowen, and Pat Reynolds for our artwork, Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Go to blankies.right.com

for some real nerdy shit. Tune in next week for Happy Feet 2. And as always, fuck, I was trying to land the puffin joke. Oh, God god I give up

they're not good landers puffins can't land you know what I'm gonna do after this I'm gonna do some puffin oh there's the joke I tried I don't know I tried to save you and you're just gonna abandon me

no I don't vape oh right smoke weed sounds like another mumble brag to me abandon me? No, I don't vape. Oh, right. Smoke weed. Sounds like another mumble brag to me. Oh!