Blank Check with Griffin & David - Joe Dirt

Episode Date: July 11, 2021

Dust off your mullets, because it’s the return of PORCH CINEMA with another Ben’s Choice Blank Check Spectacular! The boys talk David Spade, Kid Rock, and Direct-to-Crackle sequels, as they determine the secret ingredient to Ben-approved content - carry a mop on the poster. Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

So you're going to tell me that you don't have no black hats, no Roman candles or screaming memes? No. Oh, come on, man. You got no lady fingers, fuzz bottles, snicker bombs, church burners, finger blasters, gut busters, zippity doodahs or crap flappers? No, I don't. You're going to stand there owning a firework stand and tell me you don't have no whistling bungholes

no spleen splinters whisker biscuit honky lighters hoosker do's hoosker don'ts cherry bombs nipsy daisers with or without the scooter stick or one single whistling kitty chaser no because snakes and sparklers are

the only ones I like well that might be a problem because snakes and sparklers are the only ones I like. Well, that might be your problem. It's not what you like. It's the podcast. Okay, Ben, right off the bat, I have to ask. You took a real pregnant pause. Big breath.

Before that last line, were you trying to decide where to place the word podcast in yes yeah and i went for the easiest one but sure it was dramatic too for dramatic effect and look you bit off a lot of script there well it felt like a good moment to highlight out of this great movie joe dirt and i actually i think i would just like right here at the top hi hi i'm ben hosley hi everyone uh what is this you're listening to blank check oh with griffin say hi griffin hi griffin and uh with david i say hi david hi david David hi David I don't know leave me alone I just want to take just take a moment for everyone

our listeners to just just thank me for really the opportunity to watch this movie so I'll just pause and everyone out loud they can just say thank you Ben oh you're asking the listeners to thank you for letting them watch this movie.

Correct. Yeah. Okay. Let's take that pause. All right. Great. So I think we should keep pausing because I think there's probably some applause happening right now.

Oh, you're right. You're right. Actually. Okay. Let's hold for a pause now. Okay. Great. Okay.

Ben, also, come on. I know you don't usually host the show but be a little more gracious you're not gonna take a pause for you to say you're welcome oh you're right okay you're welcome cool great that was good okay that was good that was good yep okay so i am i'm doing a bench choice it been since Stargate, so it's been since... I always try to remember what the last Ben's Choice was, and it's always some fucking bananas thing. Yeah.

Like, I can't wait for Lincoln Center to do a Ben's Choice retrospective, and those 10 movies put together are going to say a lot. Wait, okay, so Fletch fletch yeah i'm going through under siege 2 colon dark territory of course the man who knew too little who can forget impossible clifford clifford of course yeah uh wreck it ralph and ralph breaks the internet sure so you're counting them as double feature yeah okay uh assassin's creed of course yeah a great movie about a video game that i have since played and like the movies or the movie better yeah there's there's also an interesting

theme here because uh uh under siege 2 a sequel you love to a first movie you've never seen. And you know what I want to say? I want to say this. I recently watched Under Siege 1. Yeah. Maybe we should do it on the show. Maybe. It's not bad.

Tommy Lee Jones is really good in it. A Ben blindspotting. I just think it's interesting. We sometimes have called ourselves connoisseurs of context, David. Yeah. Ben doesn't need no stinking context he just likes whatever movie he likes sometimes the less context the better yeah it was like it's like halfway into the under siege show episode we're like ben have you seen under

siege you're like what no what is that like it's not even on your radar david we didn't ask him we were like is that what happens in under siegege 1? And Ben said, like, I don't know. Who cares? We assumed. Yeah, well, it's whatever was on TBS or TNT or Comedy Central, and it was the middle of the day. And I'd watch it with the commercial breaks. And then it became my favorite thing, and I'd rent it.

And that's just, you know. Just to confirm, the other Ben's choices, of course, were Stargate and now Joe Dirt. So, Griff, that's nine. That's nine. We're almost there. We're almost there to the 10. Wow.

What a rogues gallery. Yeah. But, Ben, what is this podcast usually? Usually this is a podcast about filmographies, directors who had massive success were issued a series of blank checks early on to fund whatever kind of passion projects they want and sometimes they sometimes they wait wait hold on hold on oh fuck how could i sometimes you made it all the way sometimes they clear yes is it clear yes yeah and sometimes they bounce baby all right all right but but as david just outlined about once a year sometimes if we're lucky twice a year we let ben

make the choice and pick a movie uh completely devoid of context and uh often we have found that these movies tend to be more uh blank checks for the stars at the center of the movie than a director which is what we usually cover i would say stargate true is the exception of that except that's sort of the guarantor for the rest of Roland Emmerich's career. But this definitely fits into an interesting place in the David Spade filmography. It does. This is his blank check, right?

This is his passion project. I would argue this is his passion project, and I also just want to set one thing up on the table right here. I know I'm not hosting this episode, Ben is, but I just want to pin something on the board right here. I know I'm not hosting this episode. Ben is. But I just want to I want to pin something on the board. Much like you never having played the Assassin's Creed video game before watching that movie 20 times while your girlfriend was sleeping. Much like you having watched Under Siege 2 20 times on your porch without ever bothering to rent the first one.

Not only have you never seen Joe D dirt 2 american loser colon a crackle original but you were not even aware it existed until an hour ago yeah i had no idea i mean when you said crackle original i thought that was like the joke that we all make it is usually the joke yeah i didn't realize that crackle actually had original programming is this the only one uh it might be the only one? It might be the only one. No, look, Ben, I'm pinning it to the board. We'll come back to it later because I am the only one of the three of us who has watched Joe Dirt 2, American Loser, a Crackle original.

We'll get back to it, as you say. But why isn't it just called, I don't know, Joe Dirtier? Something like that. David, there are many things it should have been called instead. And there are many things that should have been done with that money instead of making that movie. Here's one fun fact I'll throw out. Joe Dirt 2, American Loser, a Crackle original,

no longer available to watch on Crackle. I had decided that I was going to do this. And then two hours before this record, I went over to Crackle to throw it on and found that Crackle, which used to be a Sony-owned streaming service, mostly with Sony library titles, of which Joe Dirt is one, and I think is one of their more, perhaps one of the most watched titles on Crackle, because it's a real Sony cable DVD rental, I don't know, heavyweight. A couple years ago, Sony decided to get out of the streaming service business at the time that everyone else was going all in and sold the majority of Crackle 2

do you know this David? Chicken soup for the soul Chicken soup for the soul now owns Crackle and mostly uses it for inspirational non-fiction series but there is some Sony catalog shit on there as well

but joe dirt 2 has been taken down i had to pay seven dollars to purchase wow dirt to american forever a crackle original i could not rent it it was not an option to rent anywhere i had to search around to find a service that had it for sale for seven dollars as opposed to 12 on itunes in a way i am i feel more sullied you feel dirty i feel dirty i was avoiding that work to be honest we should say it you're right and we should say it i would rather have bought a physical copy of Joe Dirt 2 on Blu-ray because then upon finishing the movie, I could have just put it out on the street. Burned it.

Removed it from my home. This is part of my digital library forever. Honestly, it probably got logged with the FBI too. Yeah, that probably got you on a watch list or whatever, and that's cool. Absolutely. And, you know, Joe dirt to american loser and we will get to joe dirt to get to at least briefly yeah and by the way crackle's name still all over this movie despite the fact that you cannot watch it on crackle but um well ben when did you first see joe dirt but that's that's kind of we got to lead off with this right yes but when did did you see it in the theater or was joe dirt a porch classic

sorry griffin go no i want i i don't want to kill your momentum there because you're coming in hot i just want to pair with that the question of what was your relationship to david spade mr spade himself yes okay all right so no i didn't no i didn't see this in a theater i saw this on a hot porch maybe hot it was summer porch was hot it was hot and joe dirt was on comedy central okay and me and my friend watched it and were like, this movie rules. This is one of those movies that it was like a federal law that it play on Comedy Central, like within 60 days of its release, basically. Yeah.

Comedy Central had like a bunch of precogs, right? And then one of those wooden balls rolled out and they said, contact Columbia Pictures, buy cable rights to joe dirt and they called them and they were like joe dirt we've never heard of that movie it was 1993 they were like just write it down the second it crosses your your freaking uh desk yeah okay joe dirt so anytime this movie was on, this was like the movie where it's like, if you come across it surfing channels, you watch it. That's what Joe Dirt was for me.

Sure. If I saw it on, I had to watch it. And my relationship to David Spade is, I've really liked him on SNL. He was always making fun of the celebs. He was always doing the talking head. Hollywood Minute. There you go.

And now here's a question. The Spade Report, yeah. Is that the only time that they've had a correspondent on Weekend Update with their own recurring segment that's sort of separate from weekend update. I mean, that can't be true, right? Just because there's been so much SNL. Like surely someone else did something like that.

Yeah, but Ben is kind of onto something here that the branding of that was so strong. And another thing that I feel like is forgotten is there was the Saturday Night Dead season, right? Where like SNL is at its lowest nbc thinks of canceling the show and lauren is like give me another year i'm gonna overhaul the whole cast right and that's the year that he fires farley he fires uh sandler he fires uh uh rock or rock leaves for in living color um the only people he keeps are molly shannon who

had been on for like half a season uh tim meadows who had just sort of joined a legend and the the third cast member he kept i believe was spade oh mckinney might have joined that season as well but in that season that is sherry o'terry uh Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, all those people coming in for the first time in the show, establishing a new identity. Spade was kept on and Spade was not really in sketches. He just did like the Spade report, but they actually made it its own segment. it wasn't even part of the weekend update desk anymore like they paid spade to like we need some continuity you're so beloved amongst our fans we're cutting sandler and farley who are proven movie stars at this point and and your best bud like your your your fellow guys and spade essentially had the like tv fun house role where it was like you have carte blanche you have eight minutes a week you do whatever you want you have your own writers it's you oversee it you don't

have to interfere with the rest of the show at all yeah this is true and then that was his last season that was his last season yes yeah yeah spade yeah so spade he was on SNL of course we all know that I liked his buh-bye that was a classic that was a good flight attendant and I love that you can keep bringing that sketch back do you know what I mean that's what's great about it

is it's like you're not squeezing it dry you know what I mean like there's just so much to juice so much juice. So much juice in that thing. He would go, and you are, right? He was the receptionist who said, and you are. That's my favorite one.

I think that's a great sketch where God comes in at the end. And I would know you from. What is he like Dick Clark's receptionist? It's something like that, right? It's some. Yes. Or maybe it's Jesus at the right it's some yes yeah or maybe it's jesus at the end phil hartman playing jesus um right gap girls was obviously a big one

for him gap girls uh sure um yeah but he was a big stand-up i feel like when you watch videos of all the happy madison guys uh busting each other's balls, which I that has been a big comfort spot for me and YouTube in the last 15 months. They all talk about the fact that Sandler was the most I'm sorry, Spade was the most successful out of all of them as a stand up. Spade was the only one who got to do Carson. That was like a big point of jealousy between like Sandler and Schneider and Farley and all of them.

Spade was kind of the one who had the most heat just as a stand-up, and then he stays on SNL the longest. He becomes this kind of elder statesman, but Spade and Farley do Tommy Boy. Tommy Boy's a hit, and then it becomes one of the 10 biggest home video movies in the history of Paramount.

This is the one I had. I mean, Ben, I assume Tommy Boy is just a huge one for you. Am I wrong? Yeah. I mean, you're not wrong. That was a beloved movie. Yes. Tommy Boy, Griff, I don't know what your opinion is,

but Tommy Boy is pretty good. I think Tommy Boy rules. Yeah, I think it's great. Is Tommy Boy Farley's peak in the meters right my money absolutely i think that movie is really really fucking good because black sheep is one of those movies i've seen like once and is bad it's kind of a bummer black sheep is like we need one of these every year and i believe black she is one of those cases where they were like you have one week to deliver a script we start filming like they didn't have a premise yet it was sort of like lauren michaels hired fred wolf who co-writes this movie joe dirt and directs joe dirt to

american loser crackle original and was like you have one week to come up with something for farley and spade to do penelope spheres is going to direct it she had gotten pushed off of wayne's world 2 uh lauren wanted her shepherding something else. And they were like, we film in eight weeks. There was like nothing. The guys hated it. Spade didn't want to do it. It's a political thing, right?

They're running for governor. He's the black sheep brother of Tim Matheson as a gubernatorial candidate. And Spade is brought in to manage him to make sure he doesn't start a controversy before the campaign is over. But Tommy Boy, for what Tommy Boy's got like, it's got like Dennehy.

It's got that kind of like blue collar stuff that I like. And then it just, you know, what you do is funny. Yeah, Ackroyd is fucking great as the villain in that movie. Ackroyd's good. That's the start of Rob Lowe playing comedy asshole.

Kind of like owning his persona. Or I guess that and Wayne's World are like back to back. They're the same years. But yes, that movie is big. Then Black Sheep is a flop and both guys kind of disown it. And then it sort of feels

like that killed the buzz of the Farley-Spade comedy duo thing. And then, of course, Chris Farley dies in 97. So that really killed it. My point is the movie, right after that, Farley goes and does like two movies by himself. He does, which sucks. But like, don't you think if Farley had lived you know a few years later they probably would have done a little comeback one right you know like because the especially as you say tommy boy just endured like that thing just lived and lived so it's up there with dumb

and dumber right yeah you know like it's it's it's like really got a legacy of that era as a comedy. I might like it better than Dumb and Dumber. I like it more than Dumb and Dumber. It's not a good movie. Yeah. I mean, you know, I've seen Dumb and Dumber like twice. I got to be honest. I also think there is a genuine... I'm sorry.

Sorry, Ben. I'm so sorry. It was never my movie. I like it. It just was never my movie. It's okay. It's fine. I prefer Tommy Boy as well.

I think Tommy Boy has like a real genuine earned sweetness to it. Like an actual sentiment that comes from that movie taps into the innate sweetness of Farley, which he hadn't really gotten to use that much on SNL. It felt like it was setting a model for how he could be a movie star. I think every Farley starring vehicle after that removes that element but that's the thing it's like farley was so obsessed with being belushi and everyone talks about that right like that was his idol but like farley is like more john candy like that that's his you know he's that he's the sweet guy that you kind of feel for even though he could yeah i mean that's what's smart about tommy boy is it taps into the chris farley show energy i don't think i've ever seen ben have you

seen beverly hills ninja yes uh yeah what kind of question is that why would you waste the breath asking that yes i have i think i have seen almost heroes although i can't say i remember it that's the one i feel like that after his death yeah right with perry i feel like i saw any movie with like a friend's cast member when i was directed by christopher guess that movie is like a disaster um yeah i can't i think i've seen it but i cannot remember a single thing about it but this is all i'm trying to set up here farley goes off makes two things after that, obviously dies shortly thereafter. But the two movies he does without Spade also don't recapture the magic of Tommy Boy. Right. And none of them do as well as Tommy Boy.

Then Spade's in trouble. Right. So Farley dies. Spade's in trouble because it's like, well, he had this thing that worked so well in Tommy Boy. That's his perfect use as a movie star. That movie also taps into the sort of vulnerability behind the snarkiness of Spade, right? I think Tommy Boy's the one that gets that right where it's like, it's defensive.

He's a stick in the mud. Yeah, and he needs to loosen up. It's true. That's the perfect use of him. He's an insecure guy. You know, it taps into the emotionality at the core of it but like yeah i'm looking at spades post so so senseless before that the uh marlon wayans movie also directed by spheras yeah uh lost and found which is like a a huge bomb right like that's uh yeah

that that's like a movie that actually cost money and grossed like five cents right sophie marceau is that ross and found yes yes oh boy he kidnaps a dog to get closer to the woman and pretends that someone else has kidnapped it or something yeah and then of course emperor's new groove uh a long gestating which i think Spade is fantastic in that. Yeah. I also think that is tapped into the exact same use of Spade. It does. It does. Now, we should acknowledge this whole time he is on Just Shoot Me. That's his, you know, his safety net. That's right.

You're right. I mean, Just Shoot Me. Griff, did you watch Just Shoot Me? Ben, did you watch Just Shoot Me? Did everyone watch Just Shoot Me? I mean, it was in that hammock position where it was so often in between like two sitcoms I did watch that I like would sometimes go like, I'll just stay here and watch that. I've probably seen a good handful of episodes.

It was on Thursdays. It was on Thursdays for me. It was mostly a Tuesday show. It was with Frasier. It's just what like it had such a stacked cast it wasn't bad like it was absolutely watchable

it ran for seven years like it's just back in the day and it's like what's it about oh I don't know it's set at a fucking fashion magazine who cares who does David Spade play I don't know he plays the creep who's there why are you asking me questions like that was sort of supposed to be a like george uh a seagull comeback project laura sanciacomo right she's like a rising person after sex lies and videotape and then they like bring in uh spade to be the the fucking like uh dynamite

or whatever and he kind of takes over the show right i mean it's he just always he always has a plot in that show like half of that show is like because laura c and san giacomo is like the daughter of george seagal yeah and she's like, Dad, you know, I want to, you know, do this for myself. And he's like, oh, okay, I smoke cigars. And then there's like a B plot where David Spade is like, you know, hiding in the bathroom,

like, you know, watching ladies pee or whatever. Finch. Like, you know, like, there's just like the, yeah, Finch, right. And everyone's like, Finch.

These are like the zones of like, he's always like an annoying little twerp, right? And the question is is is he a creep or is he like the smug high status kind of like corpy guy right it's a weird spot yeah and none of this none of what we've just said none of any of the things we've talked about the sitcom snl all his movies suggest joe dirt joe dirt you don't see joe dirt it really in any of this right little guy i guess that's it like the only thing is that he's playing sort of an underdog some maybe that's it but he's usually a kind of high status incredibly confident

guy right like who needs to be taken down a few pegs, right? The X Factor we're not talking about in all of this, obviously, is Sandler, right? That Sandler already has movies before he gets kicked off of SNL, and then after SNL, his career goes into Turbo.

98 is Wedding Singer and Waterboy. Now he's a $20 million man. He's one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. What a year. And he immediately extends that umbrella, right? And starts the reputation of, here's Sandler, happy Madison. He keeps all of his friends employed.

It's true. And it's not just that he's getting all his SNL writer cronies to come in and write these movies and get big paydays, but also he's putting all these people in supporting parts. And very quickly it becomes the Sandler farm team where he's able to give these people leading man careers. And Schneider gets to do movies and Spade gets to do movies. And like, you know, fucking on Netflix, Spade's done what? Two, three vehicles?

The Do-Over is a Spade? Do-Over is a Spade Sandler two-hander, but he's essentially the lead of that. Like he's the protagonist. And then what is it? Father of the Year. Right, with Nat Faxon. And then the Ron Missy.

Yes. Yeah. He's just been fucking, you know. That's the crazy thing about the Sandler Netflix thing it's not just Sandler movies you get Kevin James movies you get you know you get like he he extended the umbrella as you put it right you know and then also what was cool recently is Comedy Central right they they had at one time the very popular daily show and then the colbert report and both of those hosts left they found a replacement for the daily show never figured out what to do with that time slot now 11 30 yeah right yeah but now it's like okay so should we give it to another white guy and they

did and that was cool the showbiz show you're talking about the showbiz show yeah for like a late night show like that was the right choice to make i just want to remind you twice in the last decade comedy central gave him the bite at the apple there was the showbiz show which was him doing hollywood minute for an entire 30 minutes oh okay i didn't even know about this and then the more recent one was lights out oh yeah where he's like sexy and suave or some right like but it's also sort of sleazy him doing his comedy dick cavett like i it's just loose unstructured conversation with old buddies of mine um that actually that ran for like a hundred episodes he did a lot of those he did a lot of you know

and like he went on conan and he was like yeah i mean we're talking to jim jeffries and it's great he has done so much fucking tv if you look at the fact that he did seven seasons of just shoot me he did a hundred episodes of rules of engagement on cbs never forget rules of engagement jesus christ i forgot about that another show where he's like i don't need to be the guy warburton's the lead i'll be the twerp i'll be the horny best friend he's the horny best friend then he was the guy they added to eight simple rules for dating my teenage daughter after john ritter died yeah and he did like two seasons of that and then two different

comedy central talk shows. He's unkillable. And I'm not saying that he needs to be killed. I sort of appreciate David Spade just kind of floating around forever. That's fine. As do I. But it is funny that he's just like, yeah, I don't know. He's just still there in his mid-50s.

Kind of looks the same. A little worse for wear. David, you say that, but you say kind of looks the same little a little worse for wear david you say that but you say that he looks the same but you also have not watched joe dirt 2 beautiful loser a crackle original i might dispute that watching them back to back yeah okay okay there is a difference yeah i mean i'm trying to think like what's a recent i mean he's like in some of the i've seen some of those sandler movies so i've seen you know Okay. There is a difference. Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to think like what's a recent... I mean, he's like in some of the... I've seen some of those Sandler movies.

So I've seen, you know... I never watched Lights Out with David Spade. He's in The Grown Ups. Obviously, he is Griffin, the Invisible Man, the Hotel Transylvania franchise. Yeah, that's a good performance. A character that has recently been the center of much controversy. Do you know about this?

Yes. There's some... Here, let me see if I can explain it quickly. See if you can get the image. Have you watched the HT4 trailer yet, Ben? No. Okay, this is a real controversy. Like, people are genuinely angry about this.

I just want to make that clear before David explains this. There's some subset of hotel transylvania fans they mostly seem to be girls who grew up with these movies like as a child or teenager like younger females who for whatever reason assumed that the invisible man in these movies was a a stone cold hottie right and uh that uh here i'm gonna put this tweet in the chat this is a character who you never see in the movies he's represented by a floating pair of horn-rimmed glasses he's voiced by david spade we all know what david spade looks like and people went bananas because the twist in hotel transylvania 4 is all the monsters turn into real people.

And so he becomes visible. Well, they all like swap powers or whatever, right? Yeah, whatever's going on. No, they turn into humans. They lose their powers. Okay, they just turn into humans. Okay, and so, right. So you see the Invisible Man for a second

and he looks like a dumpy kind of middle-aged guy with glasses. He's dorky, you know, which is what I would have assumed. Absolutely. But apparently this is shocking information right i will say i do like that this person who tweeted it uh eventually replied with please stop liking and retweeting this i don't want this to be my legacy but but like yeah right you're tweeting i sympathize you

you shared with ben the tweet ben and you've seen the image now of what he looks like i have yeah he looks like larry fine from the three stooges yeah exactly yep but with like more of a like sausage schnoz and a dad bod yeah here's a collection of many tweets of people losing their minds i was gonna ask you to read this yeah i gotta read all of them oh I want to read some of them I just think these are in all caps if I could just quickly read some of these he was supposed to be hot no from someone with a Phoebe Bridgers avatar true exactly

like I'm feeling so sick that's what I was thirsting over three crying emojis I take it back the invisible man from Hotel Transylvania isn't hot. Who said that he was? And my favorite one, avatar of Cillian Murphy from Peaky Blinders. And the tweet is just,

fuck you, Hotel Transylvania 4. Why have you done this? It's so weird. Yeah. Anyway. David Spade is in this position now there's a change.org petition to make him hot and it's got uh 20 32 000 signatures in the early 2000s sandler is clearly throwing the ball to his buddies and going yeah i can get anything you want made what's your thing and schneider goes like i don't know

i'm a gigolo i don't know i turn into a thing right right i'm an animal i'm like a hot chick and david spade comes to the table with this that is what's most interesting about this movie is it is so outside as you said everything david spade had established to be his persona up until this point in time and it's a weirdly kind of earnest film it is and also i'm pretty sure he's not from the south he is from arizona he's from arizona he is kind of right i think he is kind of like a a proud sort of dirtbag right like he grew up pretty poor he grew up like in poverty with a single mother. His brother obviously goes on to become... His brother Andy Spade was married to the late Kate Spade

and built that brand with her and now runs a bunch of different high thread count men's lifestyle brands. Oh, shit. That's true. I did not know that okay but so right they both grew up very very poor with a single mother and then david spade becomes this like you know snarky defensive comedian and andy spade becomes like the i'm like finally burnished leather goods man um and yeah this is this is a movie that fred wolf uh first wrote with matt piedmont so those

are two snl guys and then spade comes aboard and rewrites it with wolf those are the two credited writers it was going to be called the adventures of joe dirt and yeah it's sandler it it was initially at warner brothers yeah and sand is, of course, the king of Columbia, has them pick it up. And, you know, $15 million. They hire Denny Gordon, who is a TV director, mostly. But, like, a very high-class TV director. Like, one of the most in-demand TV directors who works on everything. She'd worked on Picket Fence's Chicago Hope, Party of Five, Dawson's Creek.

You know, just a lot of like that. Ally McBeal was a big show for her, Sports Night. Oh, sure. But what I was going to say also is after this movie, she does two more films. She does What a Girl Wants with Amanda Bynes, and she does New York Minute with the Olsen Twins. And then she just becomes like a real blue chip TV director. Now she works on fucking everything. 30 Rock.

Yeah. You know, I'm just looking down the... But like dramas she did episodes of legion and jack ryan and bloodline recently like she does it working all what a girl wants it's not not the worst movie of all time i've never seen it i know people who think it's firth kind of throwing fastballs in that one. Colin Firth is kind of like, yeah, no one told me this was a bullshit teen comedy. I am going to give my all. That's all I'll say.

Rules. J.J. Birch, our buddy who is now doing research for us on the podcast, actually went ahead and did research on Joe Dirt, which I didn't even consider was a thing he was going to feel obligated to do. I was like, you know what, JJ? I'm going to sound the alarm. You don't have to, but Joe Dirt, you know, like I got an assignment for you if you want it. And this is where we should pause for JJ to thank me for the opportunity to do research on Joe Dirt.

We should. JJ, you better fucking do it. Okay. In all, in all, let's give the pause. research. We should. JJ, you better fucking do it. Okay. In all... Let's give the pause. Sorry. All right. In all seriousness,

JJ must feel like he got away with a fucking crime being paid to research Joe Dirt. Like, I'm very happy... You pay well. I don't want to brag. We do. JJ, I was like,

JJ, what do researchers charge? And he was like, you know, this is the. JJ, I was like, JJ, what do researchers charge? And he was like, you know, this is the range. And I was like, let's go to the upper end of that range. I just want to brag about this. Pride ourselves on paying everyone who works for the podcast. It's increasing number of people on the upper end of that range or even a little bit above. But, you know, the downside of that is you have to research Joe Dirt. I bring this up just because I don't

think I would have found this on my own. And it is the thing that kind of functions as a turnkey for this movie to me that Wolf and Piedmont wrote it not as a spade vehicle, that it's sort of two things going on independently. Right. A lot of these SNL guys leave SNL go, I guess I should write features now. And a lot of them write scripts that get optioned that are liked within Hollywood, never get made. Smigel, for years, had so many scripts that could never get made, right? Like, Zohan was one of those,

where for 20 years, people were like, no fucking way, even after Sandler had become a movie star. Zohan was the toughest sell, right. Right. But this movie doesn't make sense being incubated as a Davidid spade vehicle because schneider like immediately sandler goes i'm i can make you a movie star he's like okay i get it i look funny make movies that play off of me being unlikely as the thing in the title or magically transforming

into that and being concerned and weirded out and trying to turn back what what if i were a hot chick for example only rob schneider could ask this they feel like very strategically designed movies to create a new movie star whereas this feels like spade being like i can make anything i want and you'll produce it sandler i don't know my buddies have that script it's not really on paper a good fit for me but I'd like to get that made you know it's funny because yeah because like post you know like we you know like what he's doing with Farley it's like that's his SNL thing that's his persona it's what we understand of him Joe Dirt isn't Dickie Roberts which is his next movie Ben are you a Dickie Roberts fan oh god what is that what is

that again it's the one where he's like a former child star like it's got like kind of you know a lot of hollywood jokes in it right he's uh an 80s child star who is up his career's bottomed out and he's up for a part in a big movie and the director says that they don't think he can play it because he hasn't had a normal childhood and he doesn't relate to the script so he moves in with a family wow yeah and has them treat him like their child so he can have a real childhood i just want to bring up quickly yeah when they wrote that script it was supposed to be martin scorsese and robert de niro who are considering hiring him for this movie okay okay i was like sorry doing what scorsese and de niro were supposed to appear in the films that themselves as the two guys making this movie considering hiring dickie roberts who gives him the ultimatum that he needs to learn what it's

like to have a normal childhood and then instead it becomes rob reiner and alec baldwin well you know yeah i don't know so like but i'm just saying like that one maybe is a little more what you might expect us but even that one's kind of odd i feel like you're what you're saying is right like right uh rob schneider he's like yeah the animal the hot chick put me in the stupidest shit where i'm on the poster just going like and like you know that'll be enough the poster is the whole thing the movie is rob schneider is blank and then him looking alarmed right i am yeah right i'm the hot chick right it was like so cleanly packaged dirt is fascinating in comparison spade is yeah he's not he's not

doing that he's like i have these kind of really difficult to explain sort of niche characters that i want to be that have kind of a lot going on and so i remember like being in a movie theater and walking past this poster that's david spade in a cutoff you know uh flannel holding a mop pointy sideburns yeah and it's like and i'm just like i don't get it i what what's the what's what is it i like i wasn't completely against it but i was i didn't know how to sell anyone on it i wasn't like let's all go see joe dirt because david spade he's he's like this guy called joe dirt like i just didn't know where to take it look i i did see this in theaters i remember my friend and his mom taking me because i was such an snl fanatic and such a sandler family fanatic. And they were too. Like that was the one mom

I knew who liked Sandler movies and would willingly take us to any Sandler adjacent movies. But yes, unlike something like the water boy, where I remember seeing that trailer and everyone was like, cool, I get this character. He's doing an SNL. He's doing that voice. I know that. Yeah. He's taking a big swing. There's a voice here. there's a voice here there's a look there's a setup i get it this was like what is this what is the premise there does not seem to be a hook to this movie it's just this guy i don't remember the trailer revealing the superstructure of this movie weirdly being like a forest gump-esque yarn they were just sort of like, here's this guy, Joe Dirt.

And it was like, what does he do? Who is he? It's fucking Citizen Kane. Dennis Miller is the Joseph Cotton character. Yeah. But you're missing a really important detail with this, Griffin. There's dirt in the title.

Yes. There's another detail, which I'm only now putting together as David described the poster. The poster is Joe Dirt kind of standing heroically holding a mop. Holding a mop. Who else do we know with a poster like that? Fucking Toxic Avenger, baby. Fucking Toxic Avenger.

You want to be a Ben's Choice. Hold a mop on a poster. Yes. He does famously hold a mop. I'm always a mop on a poster. Yes. He does famously hold a mop. I'm always pushing characters holding mops. Yeah. Toxie episode eventual. Yeah.

Inevitable. Look, Ben has many a choice that is kind of, it's sort of, imagine like this sort of cauldron churning away. And occasionally we like, we get some tongs and we like pull one out and we're like, Joe dirt.

Okay. Ben's choice is quite unlike Sophie's choice. It's never just two options. There are always things circulating around. There are many that we put on the spreadsheet and take it out and swap for something else. But sometimes he just types something in. Sometimes we'll just say,

we have a slot here and we'll go, Ben, there's, there's a zone here where Ben's choice would fit nicely. It's been a little while. What would you put in? And oftentimes we're kind of surprised by the choice, but it also immediately makes perfect sense. That's what I was trying to say. When Ben chose Joe Dirt, I'm like, okay, I get that that's like a cable movie. That's a Comedy Central movie. Sure.

Dirt's in the title. Sure. Then I throw this movie on. I've never seen it uh i haven't seen this had maybe caught clips you know here and there right like i'd probably seen bits uh you're welcome and like thank you and like the first you know it's like he's driving a car with a chain uh steering wheel he's attaching bottle rockets to a cow's tail i was like oh i didn't i see this is like a quadrant of ben's personality not a slice david your text was just at at 11 41 a.m this movie is a hosley manifesto exactly I just didn't realize there was so much

baked into this character that really, I guess all I knew is like, he's like a trashy guy with a mullet and he has a mop. Like,

I didn't know, as you said, Griffin, that there was this like whole life story superstructure going on, like the search for the parents.

Like, I didn't know any of that was in here, but just, there's just a lot about Joe Dirt that must speak to Ben. I mean, let's just talk about joe dirt's jobs in this movie great he goes from janitor right well rather okay he starts out sign wearer oil rig worker carnie janitor at a

school crock show performer to national sensation and author of life's garden dig it or life's a garden dig it that is cool as hell like in the sense of when i was a kid i was like i've always wanted to be a carny i've always wanted to fucking like be a croc i've gone to croc shows before man they're fucking bad that shit put your head in a gator that's fucking crazy wow i feel like you wanted to be someone that people were scared of not in a way where it's like they're scared of you because you're like a heavy who's gonna beat them up they're just kind of scared of your energy they're just like a little like i asked you're clear that guy you know what i mean like steer clear of that guy. You know what I mean? Like, ah, that guy

is, that guy, yeah, he's in another world. I'm a weird guy. Yeah. I'm okay with that assessment, David. I, much like Ben, have seen this movie many times. I saw it in theaters as I said, and I also feel like I watched it many times on Comedy Central.

I probably had not seen it in 10 years, but there was a period of time where I was watching almost every time it was on. I probably had not seen it in 10 years, but there was a period of time where I was watching almost every time it was on. I would kind of get sucked in. And I remember being kind of underwhelmed by it in theaters as such a big Sandler fan and even a Schneider fan and Spade fan, like all of them at this point in time. But it was one of those movies that like every time I rewatched it kind kind of grew for me i've always had this kind of soft spot for it and i do think just like the literal framing device of this movie i find kind of poignant but i also like the framing of this character people talk about like fucking all these

screenwriting books that give you like the hack on what you need to do to make a character likable right and save the cat shit and whatever and so often studios are counterintuitively going like we need this character to be cool we need to make him really cool and high status and awesome so the audience likes him the framing of this character and how he's introduced is so unconventional and i find it so uh intriguing immediately where it's just like, here's this weird anomalous guy, right? Unlike most movies of this era, like big character comedies with a comedian putting on a wig and doing a funny voice and whatever, right? Those movies exist in a universe where the character fits into that universe so for example like even in the water

boy if bobby boucher is the character who everyone's making fun of he still feels like he's in the right movie you know whereas like joe dirt immediately every other character in the universe this film is like who the fuck is this guy not just this guy's a loser but like are you for fucking real and what this movie essentially does is here's a guy you would see on a poster at a mall and go, that movie looks stupid. And what if we force you to actually reckon with him as a real human being with thoughts and feelings and scars? That's the thing, Griffin. I think that's why you were underwhelmed by it as a uh however how old would you been in 2001 like it's all your it's just a joke delivery system as a series of gross out gags whatever it's lacking those sandler movies the water especially the you know billy madison water boy you know those early ones right yes they have the little narrative arc of this weird guy is

gonna make good but it's a lot of sketchy stuff yeah they're good joke delivery machines the characters jump you know the supporting characters jump off the screen now it's not like joe dirt doesn't have that but it's the there's a weird soulfulness yes joe dirt yes that sort of slows it down yeah and i i will say i this is not a movie i thought it was like a masterpiece i'm sorry but like there were things like it's pretty good my mind wandered at times because it's not going for like bam bam bam bam bam and i guess i keep trying to circle back around to spade where i'm like is that spadeade's energy? But then I'm like, not really. He's kind of like a wisecracker.

Yeah. And like an asshole. And he's like a zinger guy. Right. So like, but is this just some weird, like he's in a bit of a low moment. He wants to try something different.

Or is this just like the passion thing he had to get out? I don't know. It's not written for him as we said right no no although he was you know he jumped on and he helped it happen but yeah yeah um i think he liked the script uh he made it clear that no one was gonna fucking green light a movie with him after uh lost and found and he was sort of in a zone where it's like i don't know i guess he's a sitcom guy i guess i'll ride that for the rest of his life sandler says like what do you want to do he goes joe dirt he goes i'll produce that spades like you don't have to and sandler's like okay you know i think unlike schneider who perhaps was

like i'll take everything you got give me all the goodwill you have sandler spade was like i don't want you ruining your cachet on me but like sandler was very much behind this movie this is you know fairly early days of happy madison branching out into other other people's vehicles uh schneider was only the only other person who was kind of in line before spade but um yes i i think because i did the other night uh couldn't sleep I did a marathon of all the American Pie movies. And that was sort of making me think about that wave of like the Farrelly Brothers comedies and the American Pie movies as like the most high profile ones. But even like the shittier tiers of that, it was like building comedies around a couple. You won't believe this fucking thing that happens scenes. Right. around a couple you won't believe this fucking thing that happens scenes right right like in r-rated movies it's like he the fucking they come in the beer he fucks the pie there's there's jizz in the hair right it's like those fucking like visual gross out insane set piece scenes and i feel like this movie has a couple of those like there are two sequences that are sequences there

are two set pieces that are built around poop right there are two sequences that are, sequences, there are two set pieces that are built around poop, right? There are two plot threads that are built around Joe Dirt being embarrassed by his proximity to poop. Like, you know, mistaking poop for something else. I got poo on me! That shit, despite it currently being my virtual background, him eating a burger of fries off a big chunk of space poop,

that's the stuff for me that is like oh okay whatever and i think when i was 12 seeing this movie in theaters i was like this is less funny than the other versions of this i've seen in other movies even at 12 you were like all right i feel pandered to right right but but the thing that fucking works for this movie is a lot of the dialogue and just the general like kind of soulfulness and the interrogation of this character. The kind of aw shucks energy of it. The way it starts with him on the back foot and people being mean to him. Yes. And you're like, what's your fucking problem?

Like this guy's fun. And what's endearing about this guy right off the bat. Right. This movie starts with like three minutes of people just fucking dunking on this guy at his workplace, right? He's treated as some weird curio. Like he gets shoved hard. Right, he's getting bullied by adults as an adult man.

Yeah. Working as a janitor in an office, right? And Dennis Miller, in probably the best use of Dennis Miller as a quote unquote actor ever actor ever this is like the only way to use dennis miller in a movie kind of an outstanding uh use of him he's he's fucking great he's he is like so in the pocket like yeah he's kind of in the pocket he is and like he's in the pocket with the obvious miller-esque like slams but i also think he plays in the pocket with the obvious Miller-esque like slams.

But I also think he plays well the arc of this guy against his better judgment starting to get emotionally invested in the Joe Dirt thing. Because it's set up that it's like he's Dennis Miller, right? To some degree, he's playing himself. I know the character's name isn't Dennis Miller. He's playing a radio host who's a shock. Like a daytime talk show host. I was going to say, he's doing the Dennis Miller

comedic persona, but he's kind of framed as like a local Howard Stern, right? Who has like a very avid listenership, but also is like bringing people in to make fun of them. Is this whack pack kind of guy where it's like,

if I find some lunatic i'll put him in mike and i'll like give them the stage but take every possible shot i can at this person at their expense um he just can't get over how this guy looks that his name is joe dirt yeah i mean you know he was born without the top of his skull so they put a mullet wig on him. So he does kind of look like a dang ass freak. Right. There's that. But here's the thing that's key for me.

When they bring him on and they're mocking him to his face, Joe Dirk both understands that he's the butt of the joke, right? He's not someone so craven for attention that he's willing to debase himself. He's just kind of like, look, I've been me my whole life. Most people don't like it. Everyone makes fun of me. I stand tall. Like he's got this not defensiveness, but this pride in himself where it's like, you're not going to change me.

I understand. I'm hip to it. I get that you're poking fun, but i understand i'm hip to it i get that you're poking fun but like i'm not hiding it you know there's there's a weird kind of like i don't know stoicness to his sense of self yeah well it's also he knows who he is yeah and he's like you're gonna learn how hard of a life he's had. He lived in the woods by himself for many years. So he's gone so far. It's like he's like, I've lived through whatever you say.

It's like I've already had to go through so much adversity and you can't hurt me. You know, like there is like there is something about his persona that I Yes. Yeah. I know what you're saying. You can't hurt me thing. And I think like this is another thing. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think Dennis Miller plays well. Is that a lot of before he gets emotionally invested in this guy, he immediately has this kind of perverse respect for the guy that the guy like can just take it you know right because they're they're giving it to him right and yeah exactly right so he starts saying like what's your fucking deal man what's your story joe dirt right tell me what's up i'm going to now read okay okay

go ahead no no what were you going to do well please that just this quote that jj dug up about the origins of the character this is from teen tribute jj he goes deep sometimes i like it yeah i just like this quote because this seems to you he's a compilation a bunch of guys i met growing up you see him in hockey games and nascar monster truck rallies at the 7-eleven he's a guy cruising along puffed up a little bit arms out thinks he's tough not much going on i find those guys funny so it was like let's make the best weirdest version we can think of and make him a nice guy huge you know what i mean like this is the thing that jj says like in his all the interviews he's like i wanted him to be nice

because that's not something i'd done before like everyone thinks of me as only being a smarmy guy and also probably to a degree lost and found was like the worst over correction of too much smarm and then right and then creep too much shoot me he's just too horny right right but he could have to read that this is the most ben hosley quote oh my god we gave him we gave him a funny haircut in a stupid outfit and had him say dang a lot. That's the recipe for success. Just say dang a lot. Like, so literally the word dang,

a Ben Hosley fave. Let's be honest. Also, also the co-writer grew up in Montana and he worked on oil rigs and in carnivals and a bong shop. Hell yeah. Right, right. So,

so, so, you know, they're, they're, they're dipping into just like it's kind of like how baby boy you know singleton's just like what's up with that guy no one makes a movie about this guy right right and like this is that's what this is the other thing it reminds me of in

that sense is uh roman j israel s choir where it's like make an entire movie about the guy you walk past and go what's his life yeah like who's this middle-aged guy with like weird like 90s head foe you listen to a walkman who is this guy right right he's holding like 18 reams of paper like who is wearing a suit like is he going to work what is he homeless like what's the deal good movie uh so something else i wanted to say i think that is so genius about this, this choice with the character is it also makes it really easy for, I think certain, like some kinds of audiences to just laugh at him.

Yes. You know what I mean? Like where they are like, look at this loser. Like it, I feel like it has, like it can play a lot of different ways too. Yeah.

But I think the trick the movie's trying to pull is the thing that ends up being the arc of the movie of like, you start getting this like Truman Show-esque menagerie of watching different groups of people huddled around the radio, just like on the edge of their seats, totally invested in the saga of Joe Dirt.

Yeah, and like for 90% of the movie, every time they cut to one of these people, it's at one of the most embarrassing low points in of Joe Dirt. Yeah, and like for 90% of the movie, every time they cut to one of these people, it's at one of the most embarrassing low points in a Joe Dirt story. And you're seeing groups of people at a nail salon, at a bar, at a construction site, whatever, going like, this fucking idiot, are you kidding me? Like, they're just like clowning on him.

Like, everyone is laughing at him. And then not to jump ahead, but there's this turn where everyone is like- Jump ahead. By the way, jump ahead no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no but but i do like that like everyone's like oh fuck i actually care for joe dirt he has lived a tragic life i i gotta i gotta say this there's a twitter account called that's at joe dirt that just tweets joe dirt quotes a lot of shit'll buff out you know like a lot a lot of that over and over again anytime it tweets i got the poo on me anytime which seems to be like a few times a year yeah

drill faves it yeah and it's the only tweets that drill faves you can look at drill likes famed twitter account drills likes they're only joe dirt pooped from 2012 all the way to 2018 they're all yes i got poo on me anyway i got the poo on me. Joe Dirt. Joe Dirt. God. He starts out, he's played by Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle as a little boy. Oh, my God. Yeah, what's that? Eric, Eric Perr Sullivan?

Is that his name? Yeah. Eric Perr Sullivan? Yeah, what a funny name that guy. Whatever happened to that guy? Eric Perr Sullivan. He still works. I did an audition with him years ago.

Huh. He's 30 years old now yeah uh i don't know yeah he hasn't done a movie since uh 12 the joel schumacher movie which you definitely auditioned for no that's the one beat you out no we did a chemistry test together and then he got hired and i didn't but i additioned with him which was nice uh uh yeah sweet dude a couple years or he was everywhere yeah he he was funny he's a cute kid he was like the weird kid though right yeah yeah he had like his ears stuck out and he had kind of right odd energy he's very funny on malcolm in the middle but he's got a whole chunk of movie here where it's little boy Joe Dirt, as you said. He was born without the top of his skull. So his mama put this mullet wig on him. And then as he grew, the wig fused into his skull. And now he cannot remove it.

An incredible detail. A funny joke. detail a funny joke his parents leave him at or or rather they leave they lose him at the grand canyon as we think at the beginning of the movie that's that is his understanding he gets lost at the grand canyon and then is now on his own as a kid. I will say, I'd never seen this movie before. I assumed that he had been left behind. Yes. Right? It's kind of...

He's obviously not... This isn't a Home Alone thing. He's being abandoned. I know he's going to take a long time to learn that, but I sort of... There's no helicopters. There's a tragedy to that scene.

There's no sirens. There's no sirens. There's no floodlights. No one's searching for him. But this is like another Ben Hosley archetype, I feel like, which is a hobo kid. Yes, absolutely.

A little urchin. Now this is jumping ahead a little bit, which, no, no, no, we're not gonna do we'll jump back but i just want to say this before i forget because this was not included in jj's notes i found one thing that he was not able to find um jj is fucking embarrassed right now after having 36 ish hours to turn this around yes um yeah what'd you find i just sent a link to you guys a photo uh this film originally stunt casted joe dirt's parents in the movie uh wow they are played by uh caroline aaron uh uh nora effron stock company favorite and fred ward and a good one scene performance but do you

recognize the two people in this picture well we got bucey as the dad yeah yes he's wearing a cutoff flannel now who is this is the mom roseanne oh my god wow it's roseanne spade really wanted roseanne she agreed but with a ton of demands kept on demanding rewrites reschedules they kept on pushing it back, her filming. Because of that, she shows up on set, she starts doing the part, and then she quits. Yeah. Well, she wouldn't have been the right...

The people, those actors are, like, great. Those are great choices. That's great casting. Yeah. Fred Ward's particularly good. I mean, even just looking at this photo it looks so broad like what both of them are doing and it's so stunt casting whereas i feel like caroline aaron and fred ward play it pretty straight which you need to because that scene is just kind of

depressing that seems kind of sad and fred ward is really good in it in that like he's really good at playing a douchebag who barely understands that he's a douchebag right you know what i mean like he kind of believes what he's saying where he's like ah come on right um but yes uh uh rosanne and gary bucey shot then rosanne quit and rather than trying to talk her back into coming back and finishing she just said fucking reshot it um so yes he's like a kid riding the rails right and then sleeping in the woods and he comes across a meteorite one one night right that's the transition from child joe dirt to adult joe dirt is space poop gotta say did not see that coming didn't see it coming well because you you know in a life you have significant moments david i think seeing a meteorite hit the ground would

would be one of those for anybody yeah that'd be a big boy right right so the meteorite's like his best friend he has it in a red wagon he drags it behind him he eats uh fast food off of it and then he goes to get it like appraised they tell him in fact it is a frozen chunk of uh space poop from an airplane right yes yeah um which that's not a thing though right planes are planes dropping poop like that isn't that a thing like that planes i think it's not usual but like it's happened that like a plane might accidentally dump its waste you know from the sky or whatever and like frozen it's called blue ice yeah oh uh yeah uh they're not allowed to do it but like you know it's happened that it's like leaked out or

whatever and like smashed a hole in your house or whatever. Fucking disgusting. Wow. Hey. Ugh. So after the appraisal, this movie just jumps, right? It's just jumping around. Like, it's this guy's life. So now we're in Silvertown. And this is where he meets Brandy. And I feel like where exactly?

What's the location, David, that he meets Brandy first and the dog Charlie? Yeah, David, describe it. What would you say it is? The location. It's a small town. No, but they're there. What's happening? Where are they?

What are they on? What are they standing on? Please just put me out of my misery. A porch, David! A dang-ass porch. Dog's got his nuts frozen to a porch. I'm sorry. They're on a porch, of course. Yeah! Damn! What a fool I was

to forget your favorite aesthetic. But it's meet cute a la Joe Dirt is dog with long balls has gotten them frozen to the planks of a porch joe dirt meets the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life begs her to go get warm water and a spatula i would just want to say we kicked out this episode being like you know this movie's kind of like low bits, not very sketchy and kind of a little more soulful. And now we're just like, so after the space poop is the dog.

This is the front loading. This is the front loading. This is the section of the movie where Joe Dirt just takes L's and then it cuts to Dennis Miller coming up with a quip on the L and then everyone in America laughing at the double embarrassment. whip on the L and then everyone in America laughing at the double embarrassment. Uh, it's like, also it's just, this is right.

The producers are like 30 pages and they're like, yeah, fine. We get it. Sandler. Okay, sure. Good.

$15 million. Go, go make it. Yeah. They stop reading at the dog balls and they say, let's go. Yeah. Uh,

this is Brittany Daniel, who, uh, was best known before this for being a double mint twin. Her and her sister were both models, her identical twin. And then they did the Sweet Valley High TV show together. And then her sister kind of retired. And this is the beginning of Brittany Daniel's like comedy career.

And then she goes on to be in like the Wayans Brothers movies. She was in a relationship with king and ivory waynes for like 15 years yeah um but she was on that show girlfriends the kenya barris show right didn't he create that um uh well no game which is that which is the girlfriend's spinoff um which uh which aired on the cw for i want to say like oh no that's it it dared on the CW for I want to say like oh no that's it it aired on the CW for three years and then on BET for like another six or whatever

it didn't go away yeah what else did she do she was on Sweet Valley High like you say I don't know her that well you know what she's been on Blackish she's done some some Kenny Barris shows and she's been on Alwaysish um she's done some some kenny barris shows right right and uh she's been on

always sunny a lot right she's in joe dirt too is she not she was a return she is yes uh there are four returning cast members in joe dirt too from i recall five and you'd be surprised by who didn't return and who did but we'll get to that uh later um but but she's like you know this is that tricky fucking thing to do like the the sandler wife becomes such a thankless part at a certain uh point you know the thing with the sandler wife though is it's like not only are the parts thankless but it's usually occupied by like oscar nominated movie stars where you're like what is Salma Hayek doing? Like, what is this?

Right. It used to work better. Having fun, right? That's the answer. This Brittany Daniel, like Bridget Wilson in Happy Gilmore. No, Bridget Wilson's in Billy Madison and then Julie Bowen's in Happy Gilmore.

Like those are the good ones where it feels like they actually get to like have, I don't't know comedy themselves yeah more sitcom energy not sure like what's this movie start doing like sizzling up the screen going like oh what do you come on you you did a thing that's oh there's a deer you know like i think those parts once they become oscar actresses start to feel more like the according to jim wife whereas like the three i just mentioned i feel like push back against their heroes a little more but also have like a genuine dare i say it again sweetness to them they're sweet but also like they're kind of just there to play like julie julie bone rules

and happy gilmore she's there to have fun like you know obviously she's playing kind of the straight man but like you know she busts balls she's got jokes like you know that yeah anyway britney but britney daniel she's all right i don't know like jamie presley i feel like is probably more the the breakout female uh character you have to imagine this directly leads to My Name is Earl. That she doesn't get cast in My Name is Earl if not for this. Her masterpiece.

I mean, that is a wonderful performance. She won an Emmy for it. I mean, I know this is hacky. Say it. When Jamie Presley appeared in this movie, I truly for a second Googled to make sure that it was her. Because I saw her and I was like, that's Jamie Presley appeared in this movie. I truly for a second Googled that to make sure that it was her. Cause I saw her and I was like,

that's Jamie Presley. And there was something in the back of my mind. It's like, are you sure that's not Margot Robbie? They look exactly the same. It's pretty wild. They look like, I mean,

and obviously I know Margot Robbie is like a good 10 years younger. Right. And that's why it's not Margot Robbie. I know Margot Robbie's age is a slightly controversial topic, but she's certainly not in her 40s. Like she's not Jamie Presley's age. So I was like, okay, there's no way that Margot Robbie,

an Australian teenager or whatever, was in Jo Derp, but it looks just like Margot Robbie. Like Jamie Presley at this point in time is the age roughly that Margot Robbie has been in movies. Yes, I agree. There's that weird

Margot Robbie, Samara Weaving, Jamie Presley, and then there's I think the girl on Sex Education where people make the grid of the four of them. They look very similar. You're talking about

I don't fucking know her. Amy Lou right you're talking about um i don't fucking know you're amy lou wood is that her no i don't know i'm just looking at emma mackie i yes emma mackie oh she looks like oh she does look like they could all play the same character five years apart from each other right yeah if you ever needed that done yes uh anyway okay yes he meets britney daniel yes so okay and then i guess we should we should also talk about then kid rock being in this movie and how he's a fucking piece of shit in this movie and he's a fucking piece of shit in real life right but i mean only in 2001 is kid rock stunt casting crucial to a movie right like how crucial is that window crucial he was a huge part

of the marketing campaign they were like it's his film debut and just like if you're like if i am struggling to explain to someone like what joe dirt is yeah i'm like you know kid rocks in it and they probably be like okay okay i think i. Kind of placed a heavy. Here's the thing I want to say, guys. I want you to tell. Do you want to say bah with the bah, the bang the bang? I didn't want to say that. I didn't want to say that.

I want to say that I moved to England. Do you want to be a cowboy, baby? I don't want to be a cowboy. I moved to England in 1995. What? Oh, my God. What? I moved to England in 1995 What? I returned Oh my god What? I returned from England in 2008 There's certain things that I missed

Sure Like Matchbox 20, missed it Wow You know, there's certain American pop culture phenomenons That didn't travel at all And so when I came back, it was over Kid Rock, I missed the whole thing i never really knew i of course i've like heard a couple of the songs i missed the whole how much

were you guys as kids from the northeast hearing about kid rock in 2000 like to what extent did you have to think about kid oh total total crossover the devil without a cause. All over MTV. And at the same time, I mean, but this was like a time where it was like, so much of popular music was just fucking garbage. Right.

It's a tough time. It was the rap rock thing crossing over with country. In a way, he was building off of like the Eminem breakthrough. Yeah. But he was building off of like the m&m breakthrough um yeah but but he was he was huge i mean whereas now he's still a big deal but in a very specific region of the country right his audience is narrower now right yes yes he was mainstream zeitgeist pop culture which peaked with him dating pamela anderson them going to

the vmas and bragging to everyone on the red carpet that they had just fucked in the limo that was like yes the pinnacle of it it was it was that it's this movie it's uh it's fucking that he was on the simpsons like that was what i would watch the simpsons religiously and occasionally there would be a guest star would pop in yeah where the simpsons is clearly like roll out the red carpet we got kid rock this guy is in every fucking scene i like this isn't a one minute cameo like this we are building an episode not only was kid rock on the simpsons joe c was on the simpsons joe c uncle cracker Simpsons. Joe C, Uncle Cracker, like they got them all in there.

And I would just be watching and I'd be like, I don't get the jokes. Like I don't know who, I know like I've heard of Kid Rock, but I don't get like, is that a thing Kid Rock does? No, this was like,

you know what I mean? This was a victory lap performance for him. Like I believe this was both after The simpsons and after his breakthrough album yeah this is because that's like late 90s the simpsons episode is 2000 and this is 2001 right this was a is is he ready to take over movies as well but also it's like this is the exact movie you put him in yes right but he was like having the kind of trajectory where it's like he could have had a fucking Sunday morning cartoon show like Little Fucking Rock, Little Kid Rock or Baby Rock.

Right. Yes. He was beloved for a moment. And now he's just a fucking terrible human being. Yeah. He seems like kind of a shithead. Slurs at concerts on stage. I don't want to. Right. We don't need to go there. He seems like a a shithead. Slurs at concerts, on stage, in front of everyone. I don't want to, right. I don't want to get in trouble here. We don't need to go there other than just... Seems like a real shithead.

I just want to throw out this bizarre factoid. Do you guys know that, and I don't know if this has changed in the last five or so years, but for the better part of the 2010s, Kid Rock was far and away one of the highest-selling recording artists still. Even though he had popped out of the mainstream and recording artists still, even though he was, you know, had popped

out of the mainstream and was only playing straight country at that point. He was one of the highest selling artists in America. And it was because Kid Rock did not release his music digitally. He was the one guy who like wouldn't go to iTunes. It was just physical album sales and his audience overlapped directly with like people who still want to buy CDs from Walmart.

And the margins are so much better on CDs than they are on digital that he was just selling like more records than anyone else because no one else was actually moving

physical records that's insane for him yeah good for him it's well uh but also didn't he play like he's like plays like the republican fucking conventions and shit oh he's the worst but like he's the worst devil without a cause went diamond that thing sold 11 million copies that's the album that's the bigawadaba album? That's the big one. But I bring that up just because that is kind of why he's still been able to retain this prominence within the sort of like Trump adjacent circles. Because he just got so big within his narrow zone.

Anyway, he plays, this character's name is Randy, is that right robbie i believe is his name yes uh dick not my favorite part of the movie i gotta be honest yeah but like there needs to be like a central bully like right i mean that's what the obstacle from brandy one thing i really like i think people know that I'm a big fan of comedic repetition. I do like that without fail, every single time Robbie enters the movie they play, ain't seen nothing yet. Oh, OK, sure. He always has the exact same entrance song, which I like. Entrance songs are funny. Yeah.

But yeah, he's whatever yeah so and then also there's drunk dad and the whole business with the train and the harming of the dog which just really sucks um makes me mad i hate that the dog gets hurt that's not cool but also the kind of thing you would not expect to happen in a movie like this. Like just kind of too dark, too upsetting. Right. Too real. Like the rug doesn't get pulled or whatever. You know, yeah, that's true.

You do have the cutaway to the dog fucking another dog to the, what's that song? Well, well, well, yippee, yippee, yippee. Like that's what you expect in a movie like this. oh well well you be oh you be a like that's what you expect in a movie like this and then right to end that sequence with an old yeller turn is like a little jarring but it's it's kind of telling you what the movie's trying to do yeah now what happens next is like a thing i think should happen more often in movies with the character which is they just hop a train ride the rails uh yeah that's true yeah that is true and so we have to spend a bunch of time letting the telling the the story of how he got a fucking hemi and there's this like um the old lady who sells it to him is just like Frank about how she shot her husband.

He gets in a balloon. The balloon takes him to then an oil rig where he works. Well, OK, look, let's just underline this a little bit. Joe Dirt's job is he's like a walking sign for like a dental place. Right. And then the dental place on top of their establishment has a hot air balloon in the shape of a molar. Within the span of two minutes,

he has this conversation with this woman who admits to murder, gets deeply invested in Joe Dirt's quest for his parents, decides that she will sell this car to Joe Dirt for $40.

And then immediately upon getting the car, his boss comes out and says, storms are coming, put some bricks in the hot air balloon. He instead gets in the hot air balloon and the hot air balloon flies away. And he's cast away like, I don't know, the Wizard of Oz?

Like the wizard himself. Right, like Oz the Great and Powerful. Yeah. James Franco himself. I just want to say the reason he leaves Brandy is because he has this complex where he just believes Brandy is too good for him. Despite the fact that he's clearly in love with her. It's not even like she'd never go for me.

It's like I debase her, you know, like they're best friends, but he's resigned to the idea that she's going to marry someone like Robbie instead. Despite the fact that she says to him, what happens if you leave and I end up marrying someone like Robbie instead? Like she doesn't want that. But he overthinks. And he he he talks himself out of it and he gets caught in the balloon and then he meets Kicking Wing. Is that is that the next? Yeah.

Yes. That's Adam Beach? Yeah. Yes. That's, uh, Adam Beach, his character. Sure. Um, you,

uh, is a firework salesman, but not a good firework salesman. One would argue he's not good at all. Adam Beach, who I think of is mostly a serious actor, uh, had been in movies like Squanto,

Warrior's Tale and smoke signals right smoke signals was the big breakthrough one yeah yeah uh he's kind of funny in this he's yeah i like his energy yeah yeah yeah this is a fun character i mean right because he is himself well put yes the woman who uh sells joe dirt the heemi also tells him that her husband used to be a, what's it, a forensic artist? Yes. Is that the right name of that thing? And that, like, if he has a memory of his parents, he might be able to find them.

You know, if he's starting to get people give him advice on ways he might be able to track down his parents. But so he decides, oh, I need to find an actual tracker. on ways he might be able to track down his parents. But so he decides, oh, I need to find an actual tracker. So he goes to Kicking Wind, who he imagines is a Native American tracker, but has told him that the business was so bad that he got into fireworks instead.

No one wanted a tracker anymore, but he's a really shitty firework salesman because, as we dramatically showcased in the opening of this episode, very limited in his inventory yeah what he carries he's got none of the good stuff but they end up instead spending a bunch of time just blowing shit up with fireworks which is fucking great and fun don't you love to see that guys the art of fireworks yeah yeah there's nothing better than shooting off fireworks

and then blowing up stuff with like gasoline. That's fun as hell. Right. Then they find what they believe is an atom bomb buried in the desert. Right. And then what do you do with that, Griff? Blow it up. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Then Chicken Wing, like Wile E. Coyote style, turns into a Dustin Ash version of himself. And when the wind comes, he blows away. It's Dustin Ash perfectly shaped in his figure that then blows away. Then you realize that was a dream sequence. He is in fact passed out,

but they're going to go get this bomb appraised. I guess they want a finder's fee, right? Well, no, no. They're going to use the bomb. Oh, I'm sorry. He's going to strap it to himself. Yes. And he's going to go to this Grand Canyon tour bus company

who will have the records of his parents visiting on that day so he could start to pick through the names and start to track these people down. So he's threatening everybody at at this this this uh bus depot whatever and he's like i'm gonna hit this atom bomb with a hammer if you don't give me the info well guess what it wasn't a bomb it wasn't a bomb you'll never that's a bunch of dang poop it was a poop silo i got the pooo. I got the poo on me.

He got the poo on him. Let's be honest. This is the wrong number of Joe Dirt thinks he's found something valuable turns out to be poop in a movie. You can't do it two times. You can do it one time or you can do it three times. This is my argument, Ben. They need to do it one more. If they're doing it twice, they need to do it at least one more time. I think that's a fair argument.

So, Griff, you don't think this scene is like the sort of cathartic scene in Best Picture winner Slumdog Millionaire where he's got a lot of poop? But they only do it one time. That's the point. It's a comedy rule of threes. I think Danny Boyle saw this movie

and went like, hmm. Comedy rule of threes is that one time is an occurrence, two times is a coincidence, I think Danny Boyle saw this movie and went like, hmm. Comedy rule of threes is that one time is an occurrence, two times is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. Right. They need to let this shit be a pattern, baby. They do. They need to let this shit be a pattern, baby. I'm trying to think of some other.

Well, there's OK, there's the Buffalo Bob guy. Right. Well, hold on. Hold on. Don't worry. I got all of this written down. All right. I made sure to do my homework, but I wanted to talk about, there is a moment here because essentially where we're at now is the end of day one of his conversation, right?

On the radio. Dennis Miller. Yes. And he's reflecting and we have a dave matthews band drop now i feel like that is there's a little tiny window of time where i guess that was the thing right but another one i actually bring it back i think i i actually don't mind dave matthews band they're not i'm not a passionate about them but i also think sometimes you know they get a little too much you know they're kind of uh

the butt of jokes right and you know it's like they're in there dave matthews dave matthews has been in a couple movies yeah he's in the movies and all that but that is i just want to say that's another one that never made it to britain every time they had a record they would fucking try to sell english people on it and i don't know why but i think what like the energy could not transfer but anyway dave matthews band i think you're right ben this is this is their window is this around the same time that dave matthews gets in trouble for his tour van dumping a bunch of poop into a river? The poop. It's a good question.

Only because we're talking about the amount of poop reveals in Joe Dury. It's true. The poop bus incident happened in 2004. So, okay. It's a few years later, but not long. Not long. Yeah. Yeah.

800 pounds of poop. That was one of those things where just headline writers had a field day with that fucking thing. Because it was just like Dave Matthews releases his worst album yet. You know, drops another one. Good stuff. Yes. Okay. Good stuff.

Yes. Okay. So this whole, this whole carnival scene where we, we meet Jamie Presley and it's the very like, you know, two trashy people like just having to hook up. Right. But then it's sort of,

is that whole like country music, you know, exaggerated trope of like people sleeping with their cousins and their sisters kind of stuff the easy kind of redneck joke yes but complicated by the fact that joe dirt because we haven't really gotten into this has this very weird spotty memory of like he can't remember his parents what they look like and he can't really remember uh he cannot at all remember his name because dirt is not his real last name they call him joe dirt and his family he has this memory of his sister in the back seat mocking him and saying that's

why you're not a blank and he can't remember what the last name is. So it's all kind of foggy for him. He sleeps with Jamie Presley after there's a significant eye fucking sequence set to who do you love? Right. Mm hmm. And then after sleeping together. What's the thing that reminds him at first? It's just like something she says that brings back the flashback and then he

like drops her off and he has this stupid scene where in the mirror where he's talking it through he's like did you ever have a brother did you ever go to the grand canyon that's yeah something like that and he's like come on man that's your sister in there you have to treat her right and then it cuts again to the the shack shaking and their moans of pleasure. So then you go back out to Dennis Miller. This is the thing I want to acknowledge quickly. The way that Dennis Miller and Fred Wolf is the other guy at the radio station, right? But also the groups of people listening to this story over the radio relate to it is

not as if they are hearing this guy telling his story as if they are seeing the movie because there are multiple points in which they go like, wait a second, wait a second. Didn't you eat off of that space poop? And it's like, are you implying that he described that part? Look, you guys are overthinking, Jodra. I'm going to I'm going to call you guys out. You are now officially overthinking. They talk about how good Brandy's ass looks.

That's a thing that Dennis Miller mentions. What do you mean you haven't seen brandy and then this is a game this is a joke that only works off of the editing of the imagery like the stark like hard cut to outside the house they're having sex again and they're and it's it's sister brother sister sex and they're all like ah and he's like i'm kidding i'm kidding or yeah yeah but joe dirt paints paints with the brush i mean exactly you just have to imagine joe dirt on the radio being like ah and then we were going at it and it was like ah you're my sister he's a florid storyteller but yes he reveals that he wasn't he did in fact clear that uh she was not his sister and then they tried to have sex again, and then it wasn't good for him anymore. So then he pretended she was a sister.

And then Jojo claims he was just kidding. Anyway, that's Jamie Presley's sex show, the movie that five years later gets her an Emmy. Look, she's good in this and great later on. Right. She's like the girl from Poison Ivy before this. Yeah, she's... Right, right, right. Right.

And then Poison Ivy 4 or whatever. And then after this, she does Not Another Teen Movie. Mm-hmm. Tom Katz. And she does Tom Katz, sure. But, you know, this and Not Another Teen Movie

are the two things where it's like, oh, she's funny. Then My Name is Earl, she's great. And then she just does 800 episodes of Mom. She's been on mom for a long time yeah yeah i think she's uh and she won an emmy she won an emmy okay so let's just skip over the buffalo bob stuff and only to say that it's fucking sucks yeah and david and i were talking a little bit before we started recording. There's also a lot of homophobic jokes in this movie. And it is so just emblematic of comedies.

And we've brought this up on the show in the past, talking about Ace Ventura. But there's just this time that I guess, because this is kind of late, I would say, really. Because to me, I always think 90s movies. But not really, right? 2000s too, I guess. It's really until

the early to mid 2010s, unfortunately. But this is another movie that treats any woman who likes sex too much as kind of crazy. And yes, everyone is constantly

making jokes about Judge Dirt being gay. There's this Buffalo Bob sequence that sucks that I do feel like we obviously talked a lot about this in our silence of the lambs episode but it is one of those things where it's like

that's so much of the tricky reputation of silence of the lambs is less what's in that movie and more movies riffing on it to this degree with like zero humanity to it and just turning it into this boogeyman kind of thing buffalo bill jokes 10 years late like it's just it's just turning it into this boogeyman kind of thing Buffalo Bill jokes 10 years late it's just like it's been done it's weird how long the sequence is too like it's not like a throwaway gag it's like mad TV sketch just like

blown out and just terrible and you just want it to fucking end now I don't Ben what is next Ben what did you want to skip over to well so but I think the the one little detail we'll pull from that sequence is it's really hilarious that for the rest of the movie joe dirt's photo reference of his parents or their butts that's true that's an effective joke but are we moving on to walk-in that's right is that the next thing yes yeah yes he is i mean talk like we're talking in the pocket walk-in is fucking crushing and i mean

this is i love him this is when walk-in's really hitting his stride of i'll be a weirdo in your comedy for 10 minutes it's the year before catch me if you can gets him that oscar nom which sort of like it's not like he stops doing these kinds of movies but like vaults him back to seriousness a little bit but right now a walk-in is just kind of chilling it's like yeah you want 10 minutes of walking you can get it right like wayne's world 2 i feel like is the first one to really use him like that and then you know he starts hosting snl more regularly he's in my opinion the best SNL host of all time and

then right yeah he starts increasing where it's like oh every other year he'll do a small part in a comedy like this to it becoming he does eight comedies a year like this just becomes his fucking thing I believe this is the same year as

more cowbells so we're kind of at like peak comedy wow in a certain way wow yeah i i think more cowbell happens may 2001 is my memory so like a month after this is that the most popular sketch of of all time i'm pretty sure it is i think probably i think it is i think it's the most known sketch that is that at this point has ever existed um i there's a really good argument for that i will say i recently went onto the snl youtube page and did sort by most popular because i was curious uh what the most viewed snl sketches are uh i don't know where more cowbell comes in here but i feel like that's an example of it was on youtube through so many illegal means before then that right it you know it got all those views on other

seeds like rolling stone put it ninth in their greatest sketches of all time list i'm looking and ahead of it it's like matt foley is number one right uh motivational speaker what else buckwheat you know dick in a box wayne's world uh point counterpoint you know jane you ignorant slut stefan chopping broccoli and white like me white like me is one of those sketches where it's like that's a crucial sketch in the history of comedy but it's not like a sketch that people watch all the time i don't know i don't know a lot it's great but you know you know what i mean griffin like you know it's not a it's it's it's old snl and it's like something you it's like well you should check that out that's when snl was really like powerful and like you know but

like i think more cowbell might be a little more well known at this point. Almost everything I just said. Yeah. Partly just cause you know, it's a long show. People get younger. Can I just quickly say the top five most watched sketches on the SNL YouTube account.

These are the only five sketches with over 50 million views. Okay. Number one, porn teacher, porn teacher. A sketch I barely remembered. I rewatched is kind of wonky is like, uh, uh,

an Amy Schumer. It's an Amy Schumer sketch where she's a teacher who like pulls the bad boy in class for like, uh, a one-on-one session that turns into like a porn sketch. It's like the classic teacher seduces kid trope. And then the joke is that Aidy Bryant is a kid in this sketch from the class whose mom hasn't come to pick her up yet

and acts like a real kid in the classroom who's weirded out by why they're acting this way. It is not a great sketch. I imagine it's the most viewed because it has porn in the title. The number two most watched snl sketch is the hermione has big boobs sketch with lindsey lohan yeah well that was i mean that's up there for similar reasons but yes that was a huge huge sketch 64 million number three is black jeopardy with tom hanks which is maybe the best snl sketch the last 10 years i think almost inarguably um 63 million views number four is spider-man kiss which is

andrew garfield hosting emma stone just in that sketch on the set of spider-man they just kiss a lot and they got stands you got stand uh stans are pumping that one up. And then number five is Star Wars Undercover Boss with Adam Driver. That one, YouTube is addicted to asking me to watch that again.

Where I'm like, I saw it once. I got the joke. It was well done. It was fine. Like, I never need to see it again. Christopher Walken is a guy who clearly used to be part of the mob, is now in witness protection, working as a janitor in a school, and he keeps on kind of slipping up. It's a really good comedy use of Walken because it's like, this guy seems like the king of New York, right?

Like, he seems like a character from nabal for our movie and joe dirk keeps on being like where did you say you were from right and he's like kansas all right kansas yeah not new york i mean it's a good fit walk-ins terrible yes um but uh he just has a couple scenes that he just kind of kills playing it with like walk in crime gravitas. It's just funny to see him with his hairdo in like cover all saying that he's from Kansas. And then there's a a lab experiment gone wrong in a science class. All the kids pass out. He's a hero. He goes and pulls them out one by one, but he doesn't want the credit. He goes and pulls them out one by one, but he doesn't want the credit. Everyone knows that he saved them, but he denies it and says that Joe saved them, even though Joe denies it as well, because he doesn't want the attention. No, but Joe Dirt's a little slow. He doesn't get it.

He goes on the news. He gives him all the credit. And then mafia guys come and try to put a hit out on him. And you think he's dead. You think he's dead. And you're sad because he he and joe like they had a real connection you know and joe is so distraught he think he brought this on his good friend and then he's talking up his wife and they're gonna be reunited in heaven and yeah you know and he starts going know, like more to descriptors of like her body.

Right. And like, you know, her lips and it's getting a little more sexual. And then this movie pulls on rewatching a real weird move, which is that he just gets a boner. Yeah. So then you think, OK, this is the joke of like where weirdly sometimes when people have passed away they still get erect sure but it's not that at all naked gun joke to me but what it is as as you're teeing up here is that he faked his own death and he's not doing a very good job faking it well not only that he just got a boner for what david spade was saying to him yeah which is crazy it's wild very wild

problem so yeah it's all this is no i mean as far as logic goes that all checks out for me no questions no questions anyway he's gonna move on um to the gator farm. And this whole thing is just so dumb. Like, I don't even know what's going on with this section because the owner is supposed to make an impression, but you're just really not clear on what her thing is. Her thing is that she's kind of just like a jaded woman. Yeah. That she's kind of just like a jaded woman. Yeah.

That she's kind of just been like chewed up by life. Has lost any joy. Owns a gator farm. Joe Dirt gets, I don't know, swung around by a gator. I mean, I remember this being a big trailer moment. Oh, yeah. All right. So we're back to silver town

uh kid rock kind of sends him away because he has this note from brandy where she has discovered who his parents really are yeah and is trying to keep that away from him, we think. Because they suck. Because they suck. Right. But when Kid Rock reads the note, it hits Joe Dirt's ear as, I don't want you here. Right. Get away from him. He thinks Brandy is the problem. Yeah.

He, at this point, appears on TRL, right? That's when he shows up on carson daily well because right he's now become the sensation right because it's sort of in between right the radio and the end of the movie like so right now he's like a folk hero right which i i love because he this is where he's ended his story on the radio right now right i like that it's like become a saga that he's been invited back multiple days, and people have really gotten into it. Right. And then this

is like the Forrest Gump thing, where he becomes this sort of folk hero. People are writing about him. He's going on TV shows. They're merchandising his catchphrases. Life's a garden. Dig it. Goes on TRL. There's a mullet monthly that he's on the cover of. Also, there'sullet monthly that he's on the cover of also there's a dang

magazine that he's on the cover of which i paused and noticed it says the magazine for men with very little purpose in life is funny is it after the alligator attack that he has the he remembers his last name and that's when he calls brandy and then she tells him i found them but they're dead yes so he knew their last name at that point but then didn't think to look for them because he thought i missed i missed my window how many movies are there from again this narrow window yeah where carson daly does a cameo is himself, and they're on TRL. There's so many fucking... Well, Griffin, I mean, not to spoil, but the box office game we've done before. I know.

Because it's the Josie and the Pussycats one. I remember. This is a huge weekend for Carson. It's probably why we are doing Joe Dirt, is I said Joe Dirt, and Ben was like, oh, hell yeah, we got to do Joe Dirt. It inceptioned it into his brain four years ago. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what happened. TRL, his mom calls in.

Right. Okay, goes to Simi Valley. You really feel for him. These people fucking suck. They're fucking bad people. They are. It's a bummer that when he is like connecting trying to connect with them they're talking about these fucking clown figurines and it's like he gets emotional

he's doing kind of a good job with like this very silly character but it's making you feel for him spade underplays it to his credit. He underplays it. He goes pretty small with it. Right. It could be a full kind of far scene where we built to this and then the parents are these like comically evil people

and whatever. He gets past them too. But no, yeah, sort of slows it down. Fred Ward, like I said, really good. But I'll also say like there is a thing I feel like later Happy Madison movies

in particular struggle with, which is trying to, like, mesh their sort of, like, sentimentality with the ribald, goofy comedy. And, like, I think of something like Click where I don't like the part of Click

that is a comedy. I think Click starts working when it gets more emotional, but it don't like the part of click that is a comedy i think click starts working when it gets more emotional but it can't find the bridge between the two from my opinion i know people love click and then like something like grown-ups is like just fucking silly goof around movie and then it has moments where like the girl takes the car his daughter and drives into a tree because she wants to go visit grandma in heaven that are like where the fuck is this coming from and joe dirt is able to maintain a tone where these things can coexist which i don't think is faint praise like i i think that's actually deceptively difficult

to do i think you got to give denny gordon some credit there but the scene yes as you said fred ward's really good caroline aaron's really. Spade underplays it. And I just think the characterization here is good of just like, oh, the realization of these people are just looking for press. They're plugging their website. They slip up. He catches them on a thing, which makes him realize they never really searched for him. They left him there on purpose. They're already being defensive about it. But look look it worked out so well for you right they're only here to uh to to cash in on his fame now yeah and now joe dirt is like this national tragedy uh he goes to the bridge he's ready to end it all yep he is but yep yep but but Brandy shows up and

she's now a known name too. She's part of the sensation too. Because the cop is like, you're Brandy? Oh, why didn't you say that sooner? You know, like, come. You gotta come. Right? Yeah. They reunited the love of each other's life

and everything is great, except a cop for some reason fucking rodeos him with a bungee cord. Yeah, he's got a bungee lasso to try to pull him off from jumping, even though he now feels like he's been talked down. But that, in in reality causes him to trip then he falls over the side of the bridge the bungee goes down he goes up he hits his head on the bridge knocked out right wakes up and who's there all of our friends from the movie kicking wing yeah he's a successful firework uh guy now and he's been able to use the money to open yes he's got yeah exactly you got uh you got clint you know uh

walking he's back he's got his name is now gert b frobe just a great name that's right the name of the actor who played uh goldfinger that's who Gert Frop is. And now Rosanna Arquette has fallen in love with him through meeting because of Dirt. Like, Dirt has improved all these people's lives even before he became a national hero. It's just the classic scheme of these kinds of movies where it's like right at the end, it's like everyone's like,

well, I'm glad to have known you, Joe Dirt. Yeah, he helped everyone. He gave them good advice. He made them realize what they wanted in life. He helped bring people together. But unfortunately, his head was re-injured in the bungee lasso incident. Right.

Which gave Brandy an opportunity to update him with a more modern wig. And that is that he has tight little dreadlocks. Well, you can't win them all. No, you can't. You certainly can't. I guess it's an upgrade.

Look, I don't have too much more time, Griffin, but before we play the box office game, you got to give us just a little sprinkle of dirt too. You just got to shovel a little sprinkle of dirt too you just gotta shovel a little dirt i insist you start running the clock because i don't want to think about it for that

much okay right yeah that's the thing is like it's one of the look obviously any ip is ip now right so like it's not shocking that there was a joeoker, but there's something kind of tragic about the fact that this thing doesn't exist. Almost truly doesn't exist. This is the most interesting thing about it. Not just in our jokey way. The most interesting thing about this movie is their kind of depressing selling point for the film was it's the first straight-to-digital sequel. Boy. Right?

Don't brag. Right. And it's on, like, America's least favorite streaming service, right? That they don't even know exists. That, like, sounds like a cereal thing.

Like, it doesn't sound... Anyway, yes, it's on Crackle. The first web address to do a sequel to a movie. And I think Spade had wanted to do this for a while. This was the movie of his

that had sort of like goodwill uh you know he was like people come up to me ask me if i'll do another joe dirt sony has the rights i mean i ben just ben probably went up to him because sony had the rights and they didn't want to do it they didn't think it was valuable enough so then the crackle i kept mailing him dirt just like in the mail over the years i think the crackle play became uh we have the streaming service it hasn't broken through we're trying to produce more original content this is the time when they're doing like that fucking startup tv show and shit they're like we could make this for ten dollars and put it on there and it's at least a name thing that might drive people to crackle uh you asked if there were other crackle originals uh i believe there are two other crackle

original movies both of which were written directed by fred wolf fred wolf became like the the the in-house at crackle before uh chicken soup for the soul bought them out the crackle man yeah you're talking about uh mad families which seems to be a uh a uh charlie sheen comedy correct uh that david spade was involved with uh i'm seeing i'm trying to see what the other maybe drunk parents wasn't for crackle maybe that was drunk parents was not for crackle okay uh drunk parents was uh that was just for the good folks at vertical entertainment and direct tv cinema yes um of course but uh joe dirt uh two uh american loser beautiful loser loser beautiful loser I'm sorry I'm sorry

I'm sorry I'm sorry I am ashamed it's just interesting to think about that that was like this depressing bragging point

of like we're the first web sequel to a movie and it was like oh that's really low rent it's not even direct to video and now like the week we're recording this it just leaked out

that they're gonna do a fucking wedding crashers 2 for hbo max with the whole cast with rachel mcadams academy award nominee returning commissioner evan sussard van the brand like and that's not seen as a step down in any way disney plus is doing fucking major sequels everything's changed the thing is right wedding crashers 2 is probably going to have like an 80 million dollar budget by hbo and then whereas joe dirt 2 i think had a uh you know whatever uh a candy candy wrapper budget they just everything was candy wrappers i'm guessing it was a budget of like under 1 million dollars this thing looks worse than most web series I have been part of or seen. It truly feels like a movie where they only got one take of everything.

Every single moment of it from the positioning of the camera to the performances feels like a one take. There are like eight name actors with billing in the opening credits and everyone else with a speaking role in this movie feels like they won a contest or Fred Wolfe owed them a favor. Like their main motivation as actor is don't look into the lens. And a lot of them fail to clear that threshold. plot of the film in short is joe dirt is married to brandy he has the mullet wig again i should mention actually the this movie has a nesting doll structure where the opening is dennis miller talking to two guys outside a garage i'm sorry dennis miller's back okay that's back. Wow. It's with Dennis Miller and Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken returned. He really will do anything. Yeah. God.

Damn. I'm seeing Warburton. He called in some favors from some of his other pals. Warburton's the big new character. Brittany Daniel's in it. Adam Beach is in it for a moment. For a moment. Yeah.

Other than that, I don't think there are any other returning characters Kid Rock did not return he is replaced with Mark McGrath from Sugar Ray playing clearly the same character that they just changed the name of and said this guy's even worse in voiceover once they knew they couldn't get Kid Rock back. Dennis Miller's not hosting a radio show. He is outside a garage talking to two guys. They're swapping Joe Dirt stories. He goes, Joe Dirt, I actually know that guy. They go, no way.

He goes, yeah, I used to have a radio show. I interviewed Joe Dirt. How else would they know who Joe Dirt was if not for the story of that radio program? But they're like, really? He's like, yeah, I got another joe dirt story i can tell you then it flashes back to joe dirt sitting on a park bench forrest gump style a bus pulls up and he sits and talks to the lady next to him and tells him his story just flat out forrest gump parody now that goes into the third level which which is Joe Dirt telling his own story. The basic thrust of the movie is it's dog shit. Yes, it's so

annoying. The basic thrust of the movie is Joe Dirt's married to Brandy, they live in a trailer, they have triplets. There's an extended birthing sequence in which everyone in the hospital comes to take a look at Brandy's vagina while she's in labor. That's maybe comedically the high

watermark of the entire film and i don't mean that as a compliment um then he's got the triplets mark mcgrath lives next to him at the trailer park is always threatening to steal his wife he's depressed because he's poor his daughters find out that he's a loser and that everyone else thinks that he's lame because they come to see him work where he's a lumberjack because seemingly his fame from the first movie has completely evaporated. And he's so embarrassed that his daughters don't think he's cool anymore. Then he gets caught up in a storm and like Wizard of Oz style. He's caught up in a hurricane. He lands in his trailer on top of a guy who's crushed underneath it. Wicked witch of the West style. And they go like, that was the meanest, toughest biker. You saved us. You should take his magic boots. run by Patrick Warburton that he has time traveled back to 1965,

the year of his inception. This sounds like you're describing a hallucination. Yep. And then the movie is Joe Dirt has to live through 1965 to 2001 trying to catch up with the events of the first movie and along the way fucks with the timeline and creates most of joe dirt so he also like they do this why why is that the angle why

why did they do this he forms leonard skinner he creates the mullet there's a long sequence with walk-in that's largely deprived of jokes where he crosses over with him when he's a mobster. It's got 10 times more gay panic jokes, 10 times more homophobic slurs, a lot more trans panic shit. It sucks ass. It eats piss. It's fucking garbage.

It looks bad. It isn't funny. Patrick Warburton plays two characters. I couldn't track whether they're meant to be the same because at one point it's revealed that the biker gang is actually just in his mind, but then he reappears as a guardian angel in a suit who's trying to teach Joe Dirt lessons,

but mostly makes gay jokes at him. And he's also a figment of his imagination. You gotta stop. You gotta stop. I hate this. They should have just done a sequel where Joe Dirt is being Joe Dirt and it's the modern times and he's like, oh man, these millennials

and like, that would have been fine. You know what I mean? Get Marin. Have him go on fucking WTF. Wait a second. Joe Dirt Locks the Gates would be way better. I mean, they should just do that as an episode you don't have to make that a movie

the big set piece of this movie is that Joe Dirt gets like his nuts kicked into his body and then he goes to a doctor who uses tongues to pull them out but he pulls them out too far and then he's got like long droopy balls where everyone can see them because they're like coming out of his pants and his hospital gowns hitting the floor. He goes to take a shit on an airplane and his balls get stuck in the plane toilet. And then there's a scene that is like beat for beat the same as the zipper scene from something about Mary, where increasingly more and more people come in to see what's wrong and then scream.

Um, anyway, the movie ends with Joe dirt, remembering that when he went back to 1965, he bunch of bought a bunch of comic books for 10 cents, buried them under a tree. He digs them up and then he becomes a millionaire. Um,

um, that sounds awful. I think we should, uh, pause for you to apologize just describing that movie i am so so sorry it is terrible uh i will say i cannot think of the last time i watched a movie where every single minute of it i was fighting against the impulse to just turn it off and take a nap instead like Like, just every moment, I was just thinking, like, I

wish I was sleeping instead of this. I will say this. This is the greatest compliment I can give Joe Dirt to Beautiful Loser a Crackle original. I got, like, eight emails done that I had been putting off for

weeks, if not months, while watching this movie, because once I realized there was still an hour left because this movie is one hour and 50 minutes long, it's 20 minutes longer than the first Joe Dirt. I was just like, OK, I'm not quitting at this point, but I'm so desperate to not be giving this movie my full attention. And let me send a bunch of emails that I've been viewing as a nuisance up until this point. Good, good. I'm glad it inspired that, at least. That's great. Good job, Joe Dirt 2. It's a fucking garbage movie.

I hate it. Beauty or whatever it's called. I do want to say this. I think that we should make the trope of sequels, right? Electric Boogaloo. I think that now we should also add a crackle original. Yes. Yes.

Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. I will say beautiful loser is also a funny subtitle. Yeah, it is. I put,

but I don't get whatever. Look, I enough. Let's wash that out of our mouths. Joe dirt is pretty fun. fun yeah and it's got some it's got just a nice energy yeah and i was kind of taken with it to my mild surprise ends with a fucking cheap trick song as joe dirt rides off in a hemi with his newfound family they shoot fireworks into the sky what a triumph um the box office griffin so i remember this one

pretty vividly not just because we've covered it before but because everyone thought josie was going to be a big hit and it bombed really hard and opened lower than all the other new releases this was one of them and the other one i remember kingdom come open lower than kingdom come not a bad movie uh-huh um and it also opened lower so joe dirt opened number four with eight million dollars and ends up grossing 27 um but uh it also opened but we'll get to number three there's another new entry, but number one, Griffin holds over great movie, charming kids adventure.

The spy kids, right? It's spy kids, baby. Yeah. Which I love. I recently rewatched. Yeah.

I did a big Antonio Banderas article at the Atlantic a couple of years ago. And I rewatched that one and I threw it on, and I realized, like, oh yeah, he's barely in it after, like, the first ten minutes, but even that, he's great. He's good, yeah. Number two, look, it's a detective movie.

It's a sequel. It's a long-cam spider. I told you I remember this weekend. You remember it vividly, yes. And the number three, new this week, comedy okay from across the pond oh bridget jones bridget jones's diary right so it opened lower than bridget jones joe dirt uh uh kingdom come and the holdovers and the holdovers, including number five, which is a biopic, R-rated biopic, with a big star. What else to say about this? It's about drugs. I don't know what else to say except that it's about drugs.

Blow? It's blow. Yeah. What number is Josie? Josie is seven wow number seven really brutal four million four and a half wow like people thought it was it eked out it beat the second weekend of pokemon 3 the movie jesus it did it managed it managed to elbow by that that that was its accomplishment but joe dirt i feel like you know it cost 15 it made 30 you know like it did not like sandler level business but it did enough business that everyone was probably like great and then it you know it'll play on cable

forever these all of these movies from this era just became so profitable between cable and DVDs. Like, this is also the era of DVD sales just being fucking humongous. And movies like this suddenly became so profitable. It's one of the reasons comedies have died theatrically, is that when the DVD market fell out, it was not replaced with the same numbers in streaming. fell out it was not replaced with the same numbers in streaming um you know i'm looking at spade's career this is his high point as david spade right which we agree you know obviously like with farley that's a little different right because dickie roberts is like an outright bomb i would argue yeah i remember being one of the lowest grossing number one movies ever.

Yeah, but that's the thing, Griffin. It was number one. It was number one. Six million dollars. It was number one. Yeah, you know, Dickie Roberts made 22. Okay, okay. Black Sheep made 32.

Tommy Boy made 32. You know, he really just, that's where he landed. That was his zone. Sure. Sort of the low 30s and then a long cable career and now we've discussed David Spade's career we really gotten into it we dug dirt

we sure did Ben do you want to take us out yeah boy alright thank you to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for doing the artwork. Yeah. Thank you to Lane Montgomery and the new... Great American Novel.

Great American Novel for our music. Thank you to Alex Barron and AJ McKeon for editing. Thank you to JJ Bursch and

Nick Loriano. Nick Loriano, thank you. I'm sorry, those are new. I know, you're doing all right. I haven't heard it. Right, we're all rooting for you, Ben. I know. Well, hey, I'm like a Joe Dirt in a sense.

And thank you to Marie Barty for doing our social media. Hell yeah. You should go check out ourify for some real nerdy merch did i cover everything guys uh reddit for some real nerdy shit reddit for some real nerd reddit for some real shit yeah check out our patreon for blank check special features um and um yeah and then we're gonna do next week space jam 2 yes next week the plan is space jam 2 and uh watch it on fucking hbo max or in theaters now i guess yes uh and then we're gonna do old m night shambhala is old and then we're going to do Old M. Night Shyamalan's Old and then we will of course return to David Spade with

Hotel Transylvania 4 time to check in and then of course John Carpenter will finally begin to spool up March Madness winner but we got we got a block of one offs baby and guys

we got a little dirty yeah we got a block of one-offs, baby. Yeah, we got a little dirty. Yeah, we got a little dirty. Whatever. Guys, thanks for letting me do this. It's always a delight. What's next? What's next? What's the next Ben's Choice?

That's the only question. Do you have one off the top of your head or do you want to save it? We ask you, point blank, is there a title that comes to mind right now? Hmm. What is on

my, like, list? Well, fuck. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. All right, Ben, I gotta go, uh okay okay wait i i because i have a list all right here okay the list so um tank girl i think it might have to be tank girl next time Tank Girl's a good one as long as that director isn't you know

smoking for or we do my dad the long promised Robert Hosley episode where's Papa the culture is only less and less ready for a where's Papa episode.

I will say, but maybe, maybe, maybe we'll consider it. We'll consider it. Take us out. Or the Simpsons movie. Oh,

I mean, it's just an interesting consideration. Interesting. There's a lot. There's a lot to talk about. Yeah. Okay. But that we'll leave it at that.

We'll leave it at that. But we're going to leave you because that's the it's the end of the episode and then i just have to do that whole thing that you do which is as always uh don't put your no i shouldn't say that And as always, you should make your movie posters and the character hold them up.