Blank Check with Griffin & David - Johnny Dangerously with Josh Gondelman

Episode Date: May 4, 2025

He’s the nicest bad guy in town. His last name is an adverb. And he’s got some pretty wacky bits! Sweetie pie comedian Josh Gondelman joins us to talk about 1984’s Johnny Dangerously, Amy Heckerling’s loving homage to 1930’s gangster pictures. Things we attempt to understand in this episode: the cultural legacy of Joe Piscopo; the actual joke that’s being told in the “Your Testicles and You” animated reel / is there one?; Marilu Henner’s insane memory thing; if the Danny DeVito bull scene is a parody of anything; why does Richie Rich have cent signs in his name if he’s so rich?; and most crucially - why is this movie so damned hard to see in 2025?!?! Real fans know that Blank Check started off as an investigative podcast. Maybe it’s time to bring that element back! Subscribe to Josh's newsletter If you haven't been able to find the movie maybe watch the Internet Archive version. Buy Mattie Lubchansky's Book Simplicity Listen to Griffin on The Michael Keaton Movie Mount Rushmore episode of The Big Picture Read Coolio's Obituary Watch the end of Disaster Movie Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blackjack with Griffin and David Blackjack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blackjack I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel. You lousy corksuckers, you have violated my Fargan rights. This Summoner-batching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of Fargan porkcasters like yourselves. Porkcasters? I'm a little proud of porkcasters. There you go. And treating podcasters like a little proud of Pork Carsters. There you go.

And treating podcasters like a curse word. Great, Dimitri. Thank you. I mean, the other option obviously to do here was, my mother tried to podcast me once. Once! Joe Pescapo is astonishingly good in this film. We're gonna talk about it.

You're gonna bounce on that? I'm gonna bounce on that a little bit, but he's good. It is the one time where I'm like I get it This is the only Joe Piscopo thing where I'm like I get why people were buying this I think other ones that you've seen. Have you seen wise guys? I've seen I have not seen wise guys I've seen dead heat. That's the one with treat Williams. Yeah, it's a zombie buddy. I do like a treat That's the one with Treat Williams? Yeah, it's a zombie buddy cut. I do like a treat. You look at the poster.

I love to go get a treat. I'm not joking. You're a treat boy. I like a treat. I look at the poster for Dead Heat. And I just like... It looks pretty good. This should rule.

There's like lightning and shit. Yeah. Here, I'll show you the poster, Josh. It's really good at putting you to sleep. That was my experience. I had a lovely nap while watching Dead Heat. When you see... I mean, I'll...

Like, the poster looks good. That's like cool. But Piscopo doesn't quite fit on it, I will say. And then the tagline is, you can't keep a good cop dead, which is an interesting tagline to think about, I guess. But no. You can't change two things like that. Because at that point, you might as well, it would be like, you can't die a good dead

cop. Like, at that point it's like, how much can you change before it's like a ship of Theseus idiom? I like that. Thank you for bringing up the ship of Theseus as well. I mean, because apart from that, like, yeah, what... No, you're right. How much Piscopo have you bounced off of? Well, the big thing is his four seasons of SNL.

Which aired before you were born, us? Well, the big thing is, his four seasons of SNL. Of course, yes. Which aired before you were born, just FYI, but nonetheless. But I would watch, first of all, this was the golden era of Comedy Central having SNL reruns like five times a day. Yeah. And also all the compilation like DVDs and VHSs that I would watch. When I discovered SNL, I was like, I need to watch every minute of this that is available. And because Piscopo was so often next to Eddie Murphy the biggest star that show

ever created I've watched so much Piscopo SNL and at all ages I've been like I don't get it and I feel like he became a very easy retroactive punchline but it was always framed as but in 82 we thought he was gonna be a big star. I first knew of him because The Simpsons uses him as a punchline, right? Like there's the many Simpsons flashback episodes. There's like Lisa's first word. There's the one where Homer, you know,

where they're flashing back to... There's the one where Homer is part of Nirvana. That one might come later. That 90s episode, I think it might be called. Do you know this thing that The Simpsons has started doing? I don't. Well, the characters don't age. I don't know if you're familiar with this. thing that The Simpsons has started doing? I don't. Well, the characters don't age. I don't know if you're familiar with this. There's a floating timeline.

And the show has run for 57,000 years. Right. Correct. So when they started, they'd be like, here's a flashback to Homer and Marge in high school. This would be in the 70s. Sure, of course. And now no one's age, but the show still takes place. Right, now The Simpsons are millennials.

Because they've just floated over to that. They will truly do an episode that's like, oh, that reminds me of your mother and I having problems right before you were born, Bart. And then the episode is set in 2005. So they have kind of a Kurt Vonnegut concept of time where they've always existed and will always exist. So there was an episode that happened like 10 years ago now,

probably, that was like Marge trying to get Homer to settle down and he's being drawn in by the grunge scene of Seattle. And you're like, the show is already on the air at that point. He was at Lollapalooza with the Smirking Pumpkins getting a cannonball shot into his stomach. He sure did. Homer Simpson smiling politely.

It's an incredible joke. Sorry, Piscopo punchline. So it's like, in Lisa's first word, getting a cannonball shoved into his stomach. He sure did. Homer Simpson smiling politely. It's an incredible joke. Sorry, Piscopo punchline. So it's like in Lisa's first word, Marge is always like, let me take you back to, when you were one year old and then she's like, a young Joe Piscopo taught us how to laugh. And then in the barbershop quartet episode,

she again is flashing back and she's like, a mature Joe Piscopo started to move on to Hollywood. So she's church. Oh, Piscopo like started to move on to Hollywood, right? Like, so she's just like charting Joe Piscopo's career. Great flashback. Great running bit. And so I didn't even know who that was, but I just knew him as a Simpson's line. And look, a funny name to say.

It's a funny name to say. And then you learn like, oh, well, he was on the SNL season where it was like Eddie Murphy, a one Joe Piscopo was like the distant number two. Four years. SNL's own Judge Reinhold. Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, 80 to 84.

SNL's own Judge Reinhold, you say. Took a real swing, just thinking of Beverly Hills. Now, we were talking... But I love Judge Reinhold. Our most recent episode a week ago was Fast Times, where we were talking about probably Judge Reinhold's best performance, but also an interesting guy where you're just like, this guy was just in hit after hit,

but the hit was never pinned on him. He kept being number two through five, right? In like giant culturally impactful films. What a dream career that is. Well, see, I feel the same way. I feel like you and I are aligned in this, where it's just like, it would just be nice to be along for the ride.

To be doing good work across from great people. Absolutely. That the public cares about. I don't care about being like the center of the show. But it does start to make people go like, wait, is Judge Reinhold our biggest movie star? Because he's the only through line. The common denominator in every huge movie is Judge Reinhold.

Now, I think Reinhold in his golden run was clearly adding something every time. I think Piscopo, my take on Piscopo has always been like, well, the show was really just buoyed by Murphy and Piscopo. And I'm like, no, the show was buoyed by Murphy. Eddie Murphy. And Piscopo was the second best, I'll even, I'll reframe this. Piscopo was the best at hanging in there with Murphy. He was the only guy who could almost keep pace with Murphy and be the

like sounding board off of him. Right. Everyone else was like struggling. And so I've just never gotten it. And that's only increased by like how weirdly he's turned out as like the most like a roided up Trump supporter in the world. Right. That's the other thing he got into bodybuilding.

Right. It's not, yeah. He's like so jacked and so political in a way I don't like. I don't like it. And I watched this movie and I'm strong. I agree. I agree. He was kind of the original Kumail in a way.

Well, or Carrot Top, though, also had that, right? Carrot Top got roided out. I didn't mean that as a slight against Kumail as thinking more Rogan. But it is funny that it's like, for a while, that was like a slam against those guys of like, and do you know that Carrot Top and Piscopo are ripped? Isn't that weird? That's not what we want out of comedians. And now it feels like almost every comedian is ripped.

Every comedian should comment on MMA, and they should be able to fight in a pinch. Right, and should livestream cold plunges. But it's like, okay, so like, Piscopo's big character on SNL, of course, was Frank Sinatra. Apart from that, he had a character called Pauly Herman. Now it seems like he had to really dig deep for this one because Pauly Herman's kind of a stereotypical Jersey guy

who made fun of New Jersey and was an annoying character and his big catchphrase was, I'm just gonna take a breath for this, I'm from Jersey. Okay, interesting. So you're just kind of like, there was no TV back then. You know what I mean? So people are just like, I gotta watch something, Eddie Murphy will have a funny sketch.

He's gonna do Buckwheat. He's gonna do whatever. They didn't have Rick Baker. They didn't have Nutty Professor technology. Eddie Murphy could only play one person in each sketch. And sometimes it was just that. It was an issue. It was an issue for the show. Where I'm like, oh, what's his second famous?

They're like, um, Paulie Herman. I'm like, who's that? It's like, this guy is from Jersey. He's probably, at this point, the second best Sinatra, oh, what's his second famous? They're like, um, Paulie Herman. I'm like, who's that? It's like, this guy is from Jersey. He's probably, at this point, the second best Sinatra right on SNL. 100%. We already talked about this. Hartman's Sinatra is way better.

It's so much better. But I'm like, is he even number two? I mean, like, did literally anyone else pull out a good Sinatra at some point? Karen Killam blowing him out of a water. But I'm also like, is Alec Baldwin's Tony Bennett a better Sinatra than Piscopo's Sinatra? Like possibly?

So Piscopo did him 12 times, Hartman did him 10 times. Those appear to be the only two, according to the Saturday Olive Wiki, which I do not know how comprehensive it is, the only two attempts at a Sinatra. You're also forgetting his other major recording, recurring character. The Wyners?

Him and Gail Mathias were Wendy and I want to say Richard Wyner. And like Gail Mathias is one of those things where I'm like, yes, I've seen that name in like the tablets. You know what I mean? Like where I'm like, you could tell me that that was a person on SNL. It would literally be like they walk into a restaurant, we have a reservation. What's the name?

Weiner? There wasn't a lot of TV. There was not. There just wasn't much TV. I wasn't. Even the first five seasons, which is good. I've never seen. With all the legends.

I've never seen Wise Guys, directed by Brian De Palma, Joe Piscopo and Danny DeVito above the title. Feels like a classic, if this were good, I would have seen it by now movie. Yeah, for sure. You know what I'm saying? Like sometimes movies you're like, the fact that I haven't seen it means that there's no way it's good. But I watch this and I laugh at basically everything Piscopo does. And he's doing it seriously. I feel like he's in the pocket, this is a perfect role,

he's different, it's also the right amount of him. It's the right pitch. But you said he's astonishingly good, and I would like to ask about the framing. Does that mean you are astonished that he's good at this movie? Josh is giving you a good out there. No, no, no, that is true. Because every other time I'm just like,

there is a void of comedy here and I feel like I'm losing my mind that anyone even briefly fell for this and I watch this I'm like I get why people thought he was maybe gonna translate Now that having been said this feels like the absolute ceiling of what he can do Yeah, this is a podcast called blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm good. It's a hard cock pork karst It's okay about Joe, pork karst. You did a good job, you know, it's okay. About Joe Pescapo. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks

to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce once. I mean, heckling unfortunately had a couple of bounces. This is her first one though. Yes, although it didn't cost that much money. So maybe she kind of got away with it, but certainly a bounce I think it was seen as a bounce and she had to sort of go to like a preset Sequel next to recover from this which is its own story that we'll talk about next week This is a mini series on the films of Amy heckerling. It is called pod times at Ridgemont cast

Oh, that was that's what I thought it would be. I think it had to be. And today we're talking Johnny Dangerously, her second film. Her second film, not a movie she wrote. Neither was Fast Times. A 1984 American crime comedy starring Michael Keaton and Joe Fiscavo. Danny DeVito.

Mario Lou Hamilton. Peter Porelou. Yep, Griffin Dunn. Pretty excellent cast. Yeah, it's a good cast. Griffin Dunn, Dom DeLuise. Briefly. Very briefly.

Although he gets good billing. Dick Buckus. Sure. I mean, I'm, you know, of course. You got your Ray Walston and Vincent Scavelli. What's his name? Dick Buckus. Dick Buckus?

Wow. Is that not a name you've heard before? I don't think so. I would have chuckled that in. He's a famous football player. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He played for Duh Bears. Oh, wow.

The famous, you know, the Chicago Bears of the 80s who were very, no, he was maybe earlier. Anyway. With a name like that, you have to grow up to be a football player. Yeah. Yeah, well, I think he's also like a cube. You know, like he was one of those guys who was a cube.

Oh, sure. He was just born as a cube. Right, he needs to be a football player because he's a cube. There are some like he was one of those guys who was a cube. Oh, sure. He was just worn as a cube. Right. He needs to be a football player because he's a cube. There are some other names that I didn't even clock until the end credits. The other names of people that you recognize are other just funny names. Both. But at the end, when they're trying to escape in the car and the sergeant keeps updating,

like they're now dressed like nuns in a white convertible or whatever, that Alan Hale the skipper from Gilligan's island Hale jr. There's like a lot of weird people like that And I don't know if you guys caught this when Johnny is walking down the prison the first time and it's What's his name from SC TV? Is the man who's being walked to death row. Joe Flaherty? Joe Flaherty. Yeah. Right.

He goes like, guys, we're going to get this over with or not? Funny. The priest walking next to him, delivering the last rites. Did you catch who this is? No. Jack Nance, a racer head himself. Interesting. Sure.

Like this movie is so loaded full of weird people that I've seen it twice in the last six months and they're people I missed. Our guest today returning to the show for embarrassingly only the second time. It's very kind of you to say. Well he's too nice to ever get upset about it because he's the nicest man in comedy. Josh Gondelman. Thank you so much for having me. Josh, your newest special.

Yes. Is titled. It is titled Positive Reinforcement. Just a really good snapshot of how insanely we run the show. Like, six months ago, you were like, hey, I have a special coming out in January. I'd love to come back on the show. And I was like, the soonest we can get you on is May.

And then, hold on, let me one-up you. The weirdest thing about comedy special distribution is, it is still not out. Really? Okay, so this timed out okay. This timed out great. I mean, I'm delighted to be here. When's it out, do you know?

Who can say? Who can say? What place will have it? Oh, we have a question. Okay. I think I will find out within the week. Okay. Which is, doesn't help us here, but will be good for my peace of mind.

Right. So at the time we're recording this, you don't know. Don't know. By the time this episode comes out, we probably do know. So maybe there's a pick up here. And at least we'll have a link in the episode description. Very kind. Absolutely. Well, you're the kindest.

And I feel like we talked about this the last time you were on, but you got screwed over in a game. I shouldn't say screwed over. You did Back to the Future 3. I did. An American classic and a great episode. We had, I had a great time chatting with you guys. But we bumped you around the schedule like four times.

Cause other things kept coming up, you were so amenable. And then this time I threw to you like, heckling first pick, you went Johnny Dangerously, and we just kept being like, no matter what we can't move Gondelman. This has been locked in for months. We would never move him. We can't do move Gondelman. This has been locked in for months. We can't do this to him ever again. This has been locked in for months.

You showed me the grid. I did. We were at a bar together and you went, look at this. And this was like September. Yes, truly. And it was like great. And we called it. We called the shot Dangerously.

And here we are. Is this the movie you grew up watching? I remember seeing little snippets of it on TV all the time. It feels like a TV, right? Like a cable class. The, what's his name, Moroni, the character that you did at the top. That is the thing that stuck out. Fargan Iceholes.

Fargan Iceholes is like the dominant memory of this movie for me. And I was like, I gotta see the whole thing and see like what the rest of it is about. Right, and what you quickly discovered discovered or not quickly discovered, recently discovered is this movie is almost impossible to watch legally. It is so difficult to find. Although I think a couple years ago, it was streaming. Because if you Google, is it streaming? You see people a while back being like, yeah, it's on HBO.

They said it's on Mac. Yeah. It has had windows of streaming. It is not rentable for money. It is not streaming anywhere. It has not been in print physical media since a DVD in the 90s. I bought a disc. Was this disc like made for me or something? You get this?

No. No? It was a DVD, I think. Okay. I can't even remember. It looks pretty good. This is a high grade bootleg Blu-ray I got labeled as the Fargan Ice Holes edition. I'm sorry, you Fargan Ice Holes edition.

Let me see where I got. Maybe I got a vintage DVD. You must have got a vintage DVD. I had a wandering Greek bard just recount the movie to me. That's what I had to do. I ordered it on January 27th. Yeah, it looks like it's a DVD. Yeah, I think it's just right.

It's a vintage DVD. I think I got it for like, you know, 30 bucks or something. Like I had to, you know, pay for a used coffee. But it was fine. It had also been a movie that I would like see snippets of on TV. Had probably watched all of Cloverfield Monster style, but not from beginning to end.

And then, whatever it was, last, I went on big picture to do a Michael Keaton Mount Rushmore episode. And I was like, I got to fill in all my gaps. I was only able to see this through being let onto a Plex server. You're going to say on a plane. You had to fly across. I wouldn't be surprised if you go to justwatch.com

and it's like book delta, international. You have to fly international. It would be March 15th to April 2nd. It would be Southwest. This is a Fox movie. I don't understand. Why is it not... It's so weird. Ben and I were talking to people who worked at a streaming service recently at a party.

Because knowing this mini- mini series was coming, we've had like emails of like, should we like nudge these places and like see if we can get a rep screening going? Like I don't want this to be an episode where no one has seen the movie. And it just feels bizarre because it's like a Fox movie from a major director starring a major still relevant star. And it's like a broad comedy from a major director starring a major still relevant star. And it's like a broad comedy. And it's so fucking hard to watch. And we've been like trying to see if anyone can just like

have this movie streaming in the month of May or April. And who knows if it's gonna fucking work. And it's also not like notably bad. Like it wasn't a hit, but you don't watch it and go like, people shouldn't ever see this. No, it's not that, but it's not quite... Yeah, I don't know. It's not like a cult classic. Right.

It's never totally been reclaimed at that level, but it almost feels like it should be, like it's kind of ready to be. I feel like it had a real, like, Comedy Central, like, TBS rotation era in the 90s. And then I just feel like has been memory hold since then. like Comedy Central, like TBS, rotation era in the 90s. And then I just feel like has been memory hold since then, is a fascinating second movie. Fascinating, especially following Fast Times,

which is a movie that not to, I know you talked about this last week, but a movie that I remember seeing as like a teenager, thinking it was gonna be more of like a raucous laugh riot. A lot of what we talked about in the episode. It's like sincere. And then this is the silliest movie that's ever existed. Very silly. It's a reaction to Fast Times. That's a good point.

This is just like, you know, no-stakes silliness, costume party. It feels like a deliberate effort on Heckerling's part to be like, I am going to immediately refuse pigeonholing. Like, you know, she talks about in the dossier that, like, she was just offered a bunch more teen comedies and, like, female-led teen comedies and, like, coming-of-age movies and sex comedies and whatever. And it just feels like a very, very strategic choice to be like,

whether this works or not, I need to not make the same movie two times in a row. And we also just know that like she is a big movie dork. We'll talk about that. Of course. Like, yes, her influences are clear here. I also think this is the exact kind of movie that like women were not getting offered to direct. Well, women weren't getting offered any movies, really. They weren't getting offered a lot. But I think if you look at the female directors working within the studio system in the eighties, like fast times is much more the type of thing

that would sometimes go to a female director. And this is really, I think on paper, like a kind of boys club comedy where you're like, this is what Mel Brooks does. This is what the Zucker Brothers do. Right, there are only a couple people who can do this kind of thing, and they all basically come from, like, sketch comedy or vaudeville, have their background on the stage. Yeah. Yeah, it felt... It has, like, an airplane quality to it.

The zaniness. Okay. All right, well, so I think I like this movie less than you two, unfortunately, although I don't dislike it. But I found this, my take was, I found this movie fun, but not that funny. Does that make sense? I had like a good time watching it. It was pleasant and high energy,

but rarely did my mouth open to emit a laugh. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm not really laughing. The jokes aren't really like making me laugh and there are a lot of jokes. Whereas airplane, I'm not really laughing. The jokes aren't really like making me laugh. And there are a lot of jokes. Whereas airplane, I'm doing this rant now because you invoked airplane. That makes me laugh.

Like, you know, ha ha ha. Yeah, airplane's very funny. See, this to me is like the only movie like this, not directed by a Zucker, Abraham or Brooks that I would say makes me laugh. It just wasn't laughing. It is the one where I'm like, it's not at the level of those dudes' top work,

but I'm like, it is above their worst work, and it is basically above, I think, everyone else who has tried to make a movie like this. And I think it is a kind of movie that I had such an affection for growing up until it became like, like this kind of movie that's like a broad genre parody, became like kind of a pastiche of sketches, like in the early aughts,

and then they just stopped making them entirely and stopped making film comedies entirely. Look, this is a lot of what this episode's gonna be about. Yes. And I'm, this is a soapbox that I'll stand atop anytime. Yes. You're also, look, you are, Josh, you are a great comedian. And you have a very specific voice. As a performer, as a writer.

And it is because of that, that I'm always kind of surprised how good and versatile you are as just a straight joke writer. Thank you. That's very good. What a lovely compliment. You do so much good work writing in other people's voices, sometimes credit, oftentimes not. Where I'm just kind of impressed that you have, like, captured their voice that well, for voices that can be difficult and specific,

but also because I'm like, you are such a good example of like, you tell jokes that only you could tell, that fit into your mouth and your rhythm, but you do have such a clear like appreciation of just the art of joke writing. I love jokes. Which this movie is like a f-ing- I mean, I agree, David, the highs aren't as like high

as something like an airplane. I had a few out loud laughs watching on my computer with headphones on. Right, it's my counter argument as well, which is I laugh watching this. Yeah. I laugh out loud. I did laugh out loud.

Yeah. And I think now like there's so much comedy that starts with like, you know, after the death of his entire family, this ex-Marine deals with trauma. And you're like, that's a comedy? Like you should see the dramas. Right.

Well, so the comedies are like, these two people are going to a bed and breakfast, but one of them is secretly an ex-Marine. He's got a gun. He knows how to use it. He can just assemble it blindfolded. You talked about it, was it with Jen D'Angelo? I think so.

I hate that everyone has to have a gun in a comedy. Such an insightful conversation, where it's like everything is either a lighthearted superhero movie,. Such an insightful conversation, where it's like everything is either a light-hearted superhero movie, nothing wrong with those existing, or a full-on action comedy, where this... Obviously there are guns in this movie, but it's not quite the same thing. Although it's a good point that there are actually lots of guns in this movie,

but the violence is so silly. It's a loony test. But there are like ten streaming comedies starring A-list stars that have come out in the last five years that where the premise is either this person is in boring suburban life, but secretly they used to be a hitman slash spy slash whatever, or this normal guy gets thrown into the high octane world of hitman slash spy. And I'm like, Wahlberg's done three of them. Yes, and they're all, it's all like movies

that would be pitched during Michael Scott doing improv. Just like, I have a gun. Absolutely. And they all either like star not comedy stars or people where like comedy is a thing they do. But like mostly star like action stars doing comedies with guns where they have to shoot people in serious sequences Yeah, and I love a stupid silly movie. I loved um the gutter last year. Oh, I need to see the guy It's so silly. Yes, and I like I so I like my body craves movies like this like minerals like right

This is like such a pure comedy. Like whether or not it works for you, this is a movie that is just like devoting all of its energy just to trying to be funny at all times and throwing so much at the wall. And I feel like it is the kind of obvious knock against like the Zucker Brooks wannabes is like, if you're doing a joke every 15 seconds and your ratio like hit to miss ratio, isn't good,

it gets exhausting fast. And this is one where it just keeps me. I think it has peaks and valleys. I feel like the first 20 minutes I'm watching and I'm like, this is the greatest comedy of all time. And then it falls down and then it'll like come back up and whatever, but it holds me the whole time. And I think the story works enough.

I agree with you. It is not a pastiche of big set pieces kind of loosely strung together. It's not like a super breathtakingly original story. The characters don't have a ton of depth, but they do enough work with the story that you aren't like, wait a minute, what am I watching? Who's doing what?

I agree. It also, for me, is not bogging itself down with like too much plotting words. Like, hey, I don't care about the story that you aren't like, wait a minute, what am I watching? Who's doing what? I agree. It also for me is not bogging itself down with like too much plotting where it's like, hey, I don't care about the story that much. We're the mob, we do crime. They're not heavy on the right on what's happening. It's just, he's got his brother after him. He's got Joe Fiscafo biting in his heels.

That's basically it. I also love, and this is like the heckling of it to me, is it's just like, this is a parody movie that it feels like it. I also love, and this is like the heckling of it to me, is it's just like this is a parody movie that it feels like it's wearing its love for movies on its sleeve. Like it is so in love with like identifying certain tropes of things, but also jokes you can make about like the audience's understanding of film language. Just like the early, it's basically the first fucking joke in the movie where you have the cross dissolve from the painting to the city street with the chiron that says

New York City of the Year and then the car crashes into it. And you're just like, that's shit that like requires like forethought. I truly watched that. I saw the car crash into 1935 and and I was like, let's go! Right, yes, this is what I, all movies should do this. All movies. The Brutalist should have done this. All movies. Would have made it a little less brutal.

Yeah. The Brutalist could have taken a couple notes from Johnny Dangerous. Like what if Piscopo was in there? Piscopo. Just salt him in. Piscopo could have been good. You know who's really good in The Brutalist who I forgot to mention, I feel like no one mentioned all fucking Brutalist season? Adrian Brody. Jonathan Hyde. It would just

be so funny if you said Adrian Brody. No one gave this guy his flowers. It's funny that you said it. Jonathan Hyde is good, yes, absolutely. I think he's incredibly good in the Brutalist. I love Jonathan Hyde. I do too. And a guy who had like a fucking 90s heater run. Well, he fucking was the one who told the Titanic to go faster. He blew that. He was. And he's the one in the mummy who's like, what have we done? He's the dad in the hunter in Jumanji.

Yep. He's fucking Cadbury in Richie Rich. He's the villain in Richie Rich. No, he's not the villain. He's the greatest ally. Oh, I'm so sorry. John Lerriket is the villain in Richie Rich. Oh, that's right, Lerriket.

That's right. Cadbury is his bud bird closest friend. Lerriket is a villain. Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking. I would have liked to just go on the Brutalist. Yeah. Hitler tried to eradicate the Jews once. Just once.

It would be funny if in the Brutalist, one of his patrons that he like, he's like, I need, I want to make a building or whatever, is Richie Rich. Richie Rich is like, I need you to make a Mount Rushmore of my family or whatever it is Richie Rich has. You need to design a McDonald's for my house. I want a mountain of a cent sign or something.

It was always weird that, right, the poster had the cent sign for the C, because he's Richie Rich. And I'm like, yeah, but that's cents. That's not what rich people have, they have dollars. That goes back to the comics where I'm like, when Richie Rich was created, was it like impressive that he had 20 pennies?

I think it was, you know, it was a bigger deal. You have all the candy he wants. Right, he's so rich that his middle name in the comic book is a dollar sign. Right. So that's how they get around that. Richie dollar sign rich. Right. Yeah.

Richie Rich. Kind of like too short. I mean, I guess that's how they get around that. Richie Dollar Sign Rich. Right. Yeah. Richie Rich. Kind of like too short. I mean, I guess that's the whole name, short, but what's that? No, but I hear what you're saying. I think it's important to... No, no, no. It's good and it's interesting and we're really thinking on it.

Yeah, Richie Rich, it's funny that they were like, all right, McCauley needs a vehicle, right? He's going to get paid through the nose. His evil parents are going gonna be part of the... Right, we talked about that. I like that there is so little meat on the bones of Johnny Dangerously that we're in a five-minute Richie Rich stagress. No, we're gonna talk about that.

Macaulay. Richie Rich. All the money's going to Macaulay. Fine, alright. And, you know, then we... You know, there are some kids in the movie, right? He's got friends. You got Larraquette, you got Edward Herman. No, but that's what I'm saying. Right. And then they're like, right, now just bring us heavy hitter character guys in their 50s. Everyone is so good.

Larriket, Herman, Jonathan Hyde, Ebersole, the dad from Clarissa is his dad. The dad from Clarissa. Is whose dad? Is Richie Rich's dad. No, Edward Herman's Richie Rich's dad. I watched this movie. You know what? You're right.

I watched this movie two weeks ago. Is, I haven't seen it since. People kept making jokes about Elon's son being Richie Rich. Oh, sure. And I was like, I wonder how that age is. It's just that they have the same glasses, I think. I have not seen Richie Rich since 1994. Yeah, it's not in theaters, I think.

December 21st, it sounds like it came out, 1994. Sounds right. I have not watched Richie Rich since Chex. No, it's 2025. And why? Because it kept getting invoked around Elon's son. And then I was sort of like, that's a funny cultural snapshot of it. In like when that character was created in the 40s or whatever, the 50s.

But once again, in the 90s, 50s, that could be the hero of the movie where you're like this little boy was given everything and he has so much money and we all love Well, it's like blank check, you know, it's like little kids like me wanted to just see a boy who could buy any toy Right, I guess but also the movies about how he's he lives in a gilded cage, right? Like he needs friends and he doesn't have any yeah, but the movie yes it is But then rewatching it the movie is really about like look how fucking cool his life He's got a McDonald's in his house. And he's right about everything he learns no lessons.

Yeah that seems like it. Blank check the whole point is like what if you could figure out a way to get all the money? Whereas Richie Rich is just like what if everything was handed to you forever? And you would deserve it. Right and there's a point in the movie where his parents go missing because Larriket tried to bomb their plane and they're stranded in the ocean and Richie Rich has to take over his parents companies and he does it really

well. There's no conflict. But there's a laser, right? There's a big laser. That shoots at the the Mount Rushmore. Right. Remember that. There's a big action scene with the Mount Rushmore. Correct. Well, this is what's crazy about it and we're going to talk about Johnny dangerously, but my thought was always the same thing of like, fuck, Macaulay Culkin's the biggest star in America. Our number one box office draw is an 11 year old blonde boy. What vehicles do we design for him? And someone's like ripping through the library

and they're like, Richie Rich, Richie Rich kind of looks like Macaulay Culkin and then it gets like fast-tracked, right? Wrong. Warner Brothers had already spent years and millions in development trying to make Richie Rich with Fred Savage. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

And Joel Silver at his peak, like riding high off a fucking lethal weapon and shit, was like, I want to make Richie Rich. And then when Home Alone blows up, they were like, God damn it, we gotta kick Savage off this project ASAP. And we gotta do some rewrites on the Shane Black Richie Rich script. It's a little rough around the edges. Black did way too many bumps while he was writing this script.

This script is manic. No, yeah, because anyway, look, we're moving on from Richie Rich. We're moving over to Johnny Dangerously and Josh is here. Ben's here. Ben's kind of with me. It seems like on the like, I had fun, but I wasn't that jazzed. I thought you were going to love this. Your love of crime wave made me think like this is better crime. Yeah, but crime wave is unhinged.

Crime wave is unhinged. That's like an odd object. Yes. And I think because I was aware of this growing up in New Jersey and having friends who were a fan of this movie and it feeling such like a Jersey knucklehead kind of thing. You also grew up in Piscopo County. I did, truly, yes. Piscopo country, truly. That I think I just immediately rejected it. The William Faulkner of New Jersey

sets all his novels in Piscopo County. So we covered crime wave on this show. Josh, great joke. Five comedy points. Extremely good Faulkner, five Faulkner points. Five lights in August. We covered Sam Raimi on the show years ago. Five Sounds and Furies, what? Sam.

Remember when James Franco made like eight William Faulkner movies no one's ever seen? Yes, insane, insane. We should do that on Patreon. Nope. As I lay potting for any series. Yucca podcasma county. It's just the hubris. Anyway, I carry on. No, I just remember like in high school reading Faulkner books and being like, fuck, is there a movie of this I can watch? Sure.

I don't know. He's kind of unadaptable. As you can tell, this seems almost impossible. Most people haven't tried and the ones that have been made don't really work. They're not going to help you. I got it. It's fine. Let me knock three out over a weekend. What were you going to say? Years ago, we covered Sam Raimi. His second film, A Weird Swerve from the First Evil Dead,

which is so much more somber and straight ahead relative to where the Evil Dead movies end up, is this movie Crime Wave, which is very much twinned with Johnny Dangerously, a movie that is directed by him and written by the Coen brothers. I've never seen that. I gotta see it. It's certainly hard to see. That they have functionally disowned, and just don't include in their filmography, their biography, like any of that.

I think took their names off of it. The Coen Brothers, you said? Coen Brothers wrote it, Raimi directed it. And they all are like, eh. That movie got taken away from us, we don't wanna be associated with it. And Ben really loved it. And so I was like,

Ben's gonna fucking lose his mind for Johnny Dangerously, but this is interesting. I was telling a friend, oh, I said a friend of the podcast, Matty Lubchinsky. And I was like, oh, I'm going to see the Blank Jackfellows and we're gonna do Johnny Dangerously. And she said, was it a Ben's choice?

Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. Well, no. He didn't choose it. He didn't choose it. No, I can see that. It's a Ben's rejection. Right, I can see that. It's a Ben's rejection. Right, I can see that.

I'm thinking for sure. Johnny Dangerous, I'm cracking open the dossier. And Maddie's book is out soon, probably when this episode's airing. Yes. And thank you to Maddie for her contribution to our art show, which would have happened already. Fast Times are a John High.

Studio messes with it, release is botched, but nonetheless a success. Yeah. Despite all these caveats. Was not horribly botched. And becomes a huge home video success, inspires a spin-off show that doesn't go anywhere, all that stuff.

And I think Universal is also like, fuck, why did we like overthink this teen movie? Teen movies kill. Let's start pumping out teen movies, right? You know, like, I don't even, like we were being ridiculous. Like, you know. I mean, Universal becomes John Hughes's main studio.

They very smartly just like clamp down on him. Yeah. And because Heckerling made Fast Time's Original and High, as you say, Universal's like, yeah, it's a kid loses his virginity. You interested? Come on. The girl goes to school. I don't know, fucking, they wear bikinis.

Make one of these. They're lobbing scripts at her. David is mining, throwing fastballs with a precision that would blow your mind. And she said, I didn't wanna deal with that. I don't wanna spend the rest of my life dealing with bad teachers, the girls getting pregnant, loss of innocence, et cetera.

I don't wanna do that. Well, isn't it just smart? I think she getting pregnant, loss of innocence, et cetera. I don't want to do that. Well, it's just smart. I think she knows. If she does it well twice, she's never gonna be able to do anything else. You get stuck. So, Bud Austin is a producer. Stone Cold. Stone Cold Bud Austin. Stone, Stoned Bud.

Cause Bud. Oh, sure. Oh, that's good. Stone Bud Cold Austin. It's okay. Stone Beer Cold Budston? He watches Blazing Saddles like Mandi an American and laughs, I'm sure his belly full,

but is also like, oh, I want to do like a golden age Hollywood spoof, but not Westerns. How about I did like, what about a gangster spoof? Making fun of, you know, roaring twenties and you know, James Cagney movies and all that stuff, right? And here's the thing that I think Blazing Siles and Johnny Dangerously specifically have in common. They are not primarily parodying one movie.

No, it's the soup. Right, but like Airplane is taking from, what's that thing called, Zero Hour? Airplane is a weird example where they're taking the plot of a serious movie Obviously, they're parodying a larger genre But yes, but like young Frankenstein is like basically beat-for-beat son of Frankenstein in a really fascinating way Like it's the third one a lot of these are like riffing on one primarily

Whether it's something like high anxiety where it's like, okay It's using vertigo as the main coat hanger or they're taking something that's like more obscure that people don't know and using it as a structure to do their riff. Blazing Saddle starts as the comedy premise of like, what if there was a black sheriff? And then 27 different writers work on it cumulatively until it turns into what it is. But it starts with a core of just a story and then grows into a,

this is a way to parody a whole genre. The parody is initially going to be called Blazing Tommy Guns. So they're literally going with blazing. That would have been terrible. Yes, he reaches out to Michael Hertzberg, who produced Blazing Saddles and many other Mel Brooks movies. And they start cooking up a screenplay.

Lots of people work on it, but different strokes creators, Bernie Kukoff and Jeff Harris are involved, and they at least, Jeff Harris is a screenplay credit here and Bernie has a story credit. So they're involved. Have you, either of you read Mel Brooks' memoir by the way? No, I've not.

It's delightful and every chapter is like, we set out to make that kind of picture nobody had ever made before. It was an ambitious undertaking, and we did it, and it was a great success. And I have lunch with every single one of the people on the crew twice a week. You're making the book sound terrible. No, it rules. It is.

He's, like, one of the few people that I would tolerate that level of, like, -"Hey, we really did it, guys. It's just delightful." -"Yeah, of course." I gotta say, and I mean this solely as a compliment, Meltbrook sometimes reads to me as, like, one of the least interior people in history. Sure. Maybe that's how he's survived this long. Just by not looking inward and worrying. Right. I think he's so incredibly funny

and in a way that feels very specific, where he's, like, pulling at things. And then every interview he's done is just like, here's how it came about. I sat down and said, what if I make a movie with a lot of jokes? They gave me money and I succeeded. It's so great. And they're like, there's so many anecdotes that are like,

we tried to book this guy, he wasn't available. Then we went to the next guy and I couldn't imagine anyone better. And it's like, you just said you imagined someone better than the first guy. Right, right, right, right. There's like, I feel it was maybe his WTF episode where Marin tried to like dig into the Nazi stuff with him.

And he was just like, so that's like, I feel like you did something that was like very important like for our generation, which was like culturally reckoning with the Holocaust through comedy and like processing and defanging it. And I was like, no, I never thought about that. Who cares? And he's like, but you do like a lot of Nazi humor. And he's like, yeah, I guess it's just a thing to make fun of.

It's just there's Jews and there's space. Right. I love it. David, can you help me out here? OK. What do you need help with? My jaw's on the floor. Uh-oh. I just got to lift it up. David, can you help me out here? Okay. What do you need help with? My jaw's on the floor. Uh oh.

I just gotta lift it up. Thank you. I needed the help because my jaw has been dropping at some of these overpriced wireless plants. Yeah, look, I mean, some of these monthly bills and unexpected overages can really hurt. And getting a summer bod, because summer's around the corner, Griff, is out. Getting your savings bod is in. overages can really hurt. Yeah, bye-bye. Yeah, maybe his third best character. There are premium wireless plans out there for just 15 bucks a month.

All these plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text. All of them are delivered on the nation's largest 5G network, and you can use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan. You can bring your phone number, your existing contacts, ditch overpriced wireless, get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just 15 bucks a month No, I heard this pitch. I went this is too good to be true. You're all fell down I fell on the floor well first it was falling on the floor in a negative way because

Some of these wireless plans and their prey we've covered that right and then I got this one It was so good. My job fell on the floor with joy. Yes, right and I'm going okay, but where's the wire? I go how I'm gonna, OK, but where's the wire? I go, how I'm going to be tethered to this thing. I couldn't believe it. I was running hoops through it like a magician going, I'm going to catch the wire must be invisible. Right. But I'm walking around. I swear to God, I'm walking around with a cellular telephone. This thing is 100 percent wireless. And the bills are jaw-droppingly good. Um, fantastic.

It is fantastic. I'm saying hello to Mint Mobile. Here's the thing. Sometimes when I've been on rival wireless cellular providers, I'm walking around saying, uh, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? When I'm using a Mint Mobile phone, I'm walking around saying, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? When I'm using a Mint Mobile phone, I'm walking around saying, you can hear me. It's not a question. I know they can, because I can hear them. This year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. Get your summer savings and shop premium wireless plans at mintmobile.com slash check. That's mintmobile.com slash check. Up from payment of $45 for a three month,

five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price options are available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile phones is that you can't play jump rope with them. Because there's no wire. Right. But here's the thing, you save so much money on Mint Mobile, you can buy as many jump ropes as you want. This screenplay bounces around many studios. Heckerling reads it, knows she won't be the obvious choice, but also knows she knows these movies that are being spoofed better than anybody.

She knew all the references. She could go on about the genre, so let me do it. She specifically loves James Cagney, who is, I would say, the most obvious inspiration for Johnny Dander. And appears like there's a specifically referenced in the movie. Yeah, the big final, uh, short showdown. Yes. Um, and she grew up watching him, uh, and she loves James Cagney,

who is great, to be clear. You know, she just has, she has profound... memories of watching movies like Angels of Dirty Faces in the roaring 20s. It was sort of transformative for her. We talked about it in our Fast Times episode, but like a lot of this generation of like filmmakers coming up in the first film school generation who were raised by like TV. Yeah, they're watching these rerun movies. A lot of the guys will talk about it being sci-fi movies and westerns and this and that.

It feels like heckling from a small age really kind of locked in on gangster pictures. Her big memory is that, you know, at the end of these Cagney movies he dies because back in the day, you know, you know, gangster had to die. That one's White Heat, that one's fucked up. But, you know, even... No, I think that puppy's normal.

He's got a good relationship with his mommy. He loves his mommy. Even in Angels and Dirty Faces, he goes to the electric chair. And when she was a kid, she freaked out after watching it. And she... Because she was like, he's dead. And her mom had to sit her down and be like, eh, it's a movie, you know. He didn't really die, don't worry about it.

But she had to like, sort of like... Don't worry, that wasn't like a projection of real life that you just watched. As we all learn about death from James Cagney film. Exactly. And so this is lodgedagney film. Exactly. And so this is launched in her brain. Train moment. Exactly.

Right, like literally the idea of like pulling apart the artifice of the gangster movie. Yeah. So the script is floating around, Heckerling is interested, and she, you know, is sort of like into the idea of satirizing something that a lot of people won't even know or remember. This is pre DVDs, right?

Like lots of people just maybe have never seen these movies. And lots of other writers come aboard and in and out. Neil Israel, who is not credited, but was credited as Amy Heckerling's husband, in that she married him. He works on it. He gets a credit. In the end credits, he gets a call out as like special medical consultant.

Him and Pat Prof. Him and Pat Prof are both credited for that. That's a script doctor joke. Get it? Doctor. But Pat Prof came up with your testicles and you, that whole little segment. I would say that's one of the parts that worked the least for me. She says it didn't fit, but people laughed, so it's faded.

It's such a weird point. It's a really weird thing in the middle of the movie. And not to call forward too far, but it reminds me of, like, her comfort with that reminds me of kind of the opening to Look Who's Talking. Oh, yeah, interesting. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah. And that's her finding maybe a more, whatever, resonant or universal, like, take, yes.

And much more apt for the movie, although still weird. Yeah, well, it's a movie about baby. It's a movie about baby. It's a movie about baby. Michael Keaton had appeared in a little film about a Mr. Mom in 1983 that was Fox's biggest comedy, I think biggest hit of the year, not just comedy, biggest movie of 1983. It was a very big hit.

So he signs a giant contract with Fox that guaranteed the next four of his five films would be Fox. Interesting. Yes, which is interesting. The classic dentist ratio. And they say, hey, you'll have creative input. You can pick your projects. Maybe you even direct a movie.

In one of those classic deals, Johnny Dangerously, which actually doesn't even count as part of the deal because whatever came together at a different time. He doesn't make another Fox movie. It's a specific kind. I was about to say, I'm looking through. It's all bullshit. All these things are bullshit. But I just wanna call out, as a bit of a Keaton historian,

he is rocketed to start a midnight shift, right? Gets the kind of like Jack Black in High Fidelity, like a perfect showcase for a guy, introduced to movie audiences, hits the screen immediately and is like, we want more of that guy. Has just been like kicking around like sitcoms and stand up and variety shows.

That's basically his first movie appearance of any kind. Then it's like straight to Mr. Mom and then Johnny dangerously in 1984. So he's had this insane ascension of like 82, who is that guy? 83, this guy's now the leading man in a big hit. And he played like a little more of a grownup than we thought he could do. Cause in night shift, he's just playing the wacky guy. At this point, he feels invincible. Famously, of course, Bill Simmons, one maybe greatest pop culture take,

is the U.S. market corrected by Tom Hanks, which I think is true. Correct. Yes. But we can get to that later. The next four years of Keaton are really bad. Between Johnny Dangerously and Beetlejuice and Clean and Sober in the same year in 88, like 86, 87, 85, it's like Keaton's fucked it up. And this is the moment where he like kind of loses the heat. Although I vouch for this movie 100%.

The next couple of choices he makes are borderline terrible. Because this movie, even if it doesn't, like, I get it as a movie that, like, anything can bomb. But again, I don't want, you don't watch Michael Keaton and go, this is an embarrassing swing. I don't think so. I think he's so good in it, and I think it's doing a thing that most people could not do. But I also think it's, like, not what the audience wants out of him.

And I think the audience is just sort of like, what is this movie, period? Yeah. And Amy Heckerling, I'm sorry, again, sorry if I'm cutting in on... I was doing a little reading about this myself, and she has mentioned that she thought it didn't succeed at the box office in part because of the thing they're trying to do, which is parody movies that people weren't familiar with.

It's just, it's too nerdy, probably. But we'll get to that. Let's call it the other thing, though. Is like, there is this weird like man at a time thing with Keaton, right? Like there's something about him being able to play this very heightened old style of acting, but in this kind of modern, post-modern,

like sort of snarky way and whatever. The year after this, his direct follow-up to this is supposed to be Purple Rose of Cairo. They shoot three weeks with him in the Jeff Daniels role and Woody Allen fires him and reshoots the whole movie because he says he's too modern. Weird. Yeah. But that feels like a weird straight line from that to this.

And it was like, oh, he didn't work like playing old timey in a sincere context. That's really interesting. Yeah. Apparently Keaton, this is an aside, but years later, the pope, John Paul II, came to the United States and like he called, Or his office called Keaton and was like, we'd like to meet you. And Keaton's like, I'm not a practicing Catholic. I feel disrespectful.

And then they were like, we're big Johnny Dangerously fans? Well, look, this is one of the best Pope comedies. What is he... He gives them a bunch of money once he makes it as a gangster and goes, uh, build a new gym at the Vatican. Yeah. And then Dom Dalloway weighs it, like it's a little light. And basically Keaton's like, look, I'll do this if my mom can come,

because my mom is like a real Catholic who goes to church and cares about the Pope. So can she come with me and get blessed by the Pope? Kind of a huge flex. Kind of a huge flex. And it's like, again, once again, JJ has posted a four-paragraph story in the middle of the research. I can't read it word for word.

Pope said, absolutely not. Uh... But, uh... You come alone. Yeah. Or don't come at all. He, uh, you know, met, uh, the Pope. Wow. He met, uh, the Pope.

He met a the Pope. I just can't imagine... I. He met, uh, the Pope. He met a, the Pope. I can't, I just can't imagine, I guess it's a little different now that with Conclave out in the world, but I can't imagine Popes watching movies. No, no, it is weird to think about. It's also weird to think about like, does like Vatican City have its own like a sort of closed circuit TV system? Like like when you're at a college. On a cruise or something?

Or a cruise, you know? Yeah. Right, like is Johnny Dangerously just one of only four movies that Vatican City has in rotation? Maybe, I don't know. Maybe it's a- Or do they cut the movies for the Pope and take stuff out that might offend them?

He's only seen the Pope scene. Or Pope. My favorite- He just watched his other Pope with like other sims with Pope. My favorite thought is just like, do they just decide they want Michael Keaton for some star power? And then he's like, I don't know.

And they're like, no, we love him. He's like, how did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that?

How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? How did he do that? Well, they're also like this. Catholic Church can approve of night shift. Everyone says Mr. Mom, what's third on the list? Um. He's still putting the Pope loves Beetlejuice.

Mary Lou Henner. That's not what it's really like. Mary Lou Henner, and let me just check my notes here quickly. Humana, humana, humana. Very beautiful woman, obviously had just been on taxi. The great sitcom of taxi. Nardo. She was cast supposedly because of a red carpet photo

taken of her and her on and off boyfriend, John Travolta, who she dated for much of the 70s and so on. Johnny, as she says, took me to the Staying Alive premiere towards the end of my Tucson shoot for shoot for Cannonball run to a lot of shit being brought up here. I was gonna say a lot of normal things happening in the culture. And I guess the picture made the front page of the some news, the LA Times calendar section and she got cast in Johnny Dangerously off someone's seeing

the picture. I guess I'm being like, what a babe. Yeah, she also she has the right look. Yeah, she does. Sure. Piscopo had just finished SNL and Piscopo was like, it's Keaton's movie and it's Mary Lou and Maureen Stapleton and Peter Boyle like, it's a cameo for me. He's very humble about it. But thele, it's a cameo for me. He's very, what's the word, humble about it.

But the poster, they got a box around his name. It's a box. It's a box on the credit block that says, Joe Piscopo as Vermin. As Vermin, and of course, he's face is as big as Keaton's on the poster. Have you guys seen the trailer for this movie? Yeah, I know, I watch it every day, actually.

I watch it before I wake up, I watch it before I go to sleep. No, why would I see the trailer? David likes to wake up dangerously. He lives dangerously. He sleeps dangerously. He has it running in headphones while he sleeps. The trailer for this movie is very cool,

because it falls into the category I love of trailers that have footage shot only for the trailer. The trailer is a projectionist booth and it says like this theater right now. And then Piscopo walks in as Johnny Vermin and like holds the projection as hostage and basically sells you on the movie.

Okay. And that's them trying to cash in on Piscopo being on. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, the trailer is like, Joe Piscopo presents his new movie, Johnny Dangerously. He does the one stroke, it's good. He followed this up, of course, with Wise Guys, and that's kind of the end of that for Joe Piscopo.

Like Hollywood pretty quickly is like, okay, you're sort of a footnote. All the other big stars, of course, Stapleton Boyle, DeVito, Jack Nance you mentioned, Carl Gottlieb's in this, Griffin Dunn is, this is in between American Werewolf in London and After Hours, so Griffin Dunn is, you know, he's working, and he is, obviously his sister

Dominique Dunn was murdered in 82, so that's, he's in the middle of that while this is being filmed, a very famous, his sister, Dominique Dunne, was murdered in 82, so that's... He's in the middle of that, while this is being filmed, a very famous, you know, shocking Hollywood murder. And he is good in the movie, but he's the least, like, comic... I guess... I love him.

I mean, I love Griffin Dunne. I know he's a big guy for you. Yeah, he's very endearing. But there is, I think it's a disservice that the thing they give him, like the big comedic angle, is like, he's so horny. Yeah, it's an interesting, I think he maybe doesn't play the horniness enough in a way. The joke is funny.

Yes. I think the payoff is less funny than the setup. He plays, like, the righteousness well. Right, yeah, yeah. Like, the kind of, yeah. As the, like, the do-gooder kid brother. I think he doesn't really get jokes in this movie. He doesn't get, like, moments to score.

It's one of the... I mean, he's kind of, like, got the thankless role in a certain way. A little bit. A little bit. And he's kind of the guy the thankless role in a certain way. And he's kind of the guy, right, who burst into the movie being like, everyone stop having fun. Right, but I also think he's like really good at playing the kind of comedic pitch of the character, if that makes sense. Like he's doing a good parody of this type of role and the kind of obliviousness

and the sort of wet behind the ears, naive, like, wow, what a great big world kind of thing. What's the last time he directed a movie? It's been a while. He sort of had another wind as an actor. Right. We're not counting the Joan Didion. It's the accidental husband. Okay. He's a good director. Or I'm a big fan obviously of some of his movies. Addicted to love and practical magic, to be clear.

Johnny Dangerously, budget $9 million, shot in LA on soundstage. It might surprise you to hear a lot of this movie was filmed on soundstage. Just another one of the jokes I love immediately in the opening narration is, all the immigrants moved to New York City in what felt like a two-block stretch. Yeah. Which I'm like, they're making the joke right off the bat about like, this is like the back lot in New York City street that every studio has that looks big

as long as you never go past these two blocks. It's fun. I loved all that little framing stuff at the beginning, saying, my mother, she had this way with words and she just goes, the Lower East Side really sucks. I just liked it. Right out of the gate, this movie has like 15 jokes I like. It's so silly.

Like Ratatatat, like right away, yeah. Everyone had fun making this movie. Good. But. Did you say good? Good. Good. Henner, this is Mary Lee Henner's quote.

You know you're in trouble when the wrap party lasts until 6.30 in the morning and the director shows up with a dog collar around her neck, go off Amy, and you sit around and watch a gag reel of the shoot. It's the kiss of death. It means you had way too much fun making the movie and too much of the energy dissipated before you actually got it on screen.

When I finally got to see the film, I was in shock. 90% of the fun we had was missing from the movie. So everyone's having a good time, but maybe they're not figuring out how to cut that all together. I don't know. Henner says that heckling was maybe talked out of some of the zany stuff she wanted to do,

but Henner seems to be very unhappy with the movie. The movie tested poorly, and so I think they did mess with it a lot, trying to figure out how to kind of, you know, soften it, I think, for the audience a little bit. Heaton dies in the original incarnation of the film. Oh, interesting. So, it was the whole framing device. And audiences hated that. That makes sense.

So, they made it slapstick and, you know, yeah, did the framing device. The framing device feels note-y. It does. Like, we need to start the movie, letting you know that this guy's good. He's gonna be fine. That he's gonna be fine, and he's gonna make it to the other side. And that we're watching a thing that's, like, an old-timey thing. We're not just starting in 1910.

We're starting in the future, and he's looking back. That's why we're in the past. Right, you start in the very modern 1930s. So the audience isn't turned off. There was also, there was a thought to film the film in the future and he's looking back. That's why we're in the past. Right, you start in the very modern 1930s. So the audience isn't turned off. There was also, there was a thought to film the film in black and white and Hackerling decided to do color. And somewhat regrets that decision, but I don't know.

The color is nice. This movie is like visually exciting and bouncy. Weird Al Jankovic, the great Weird Al Jankovic of course does the song, This Is The Life, and I think you did a good job. Yeah, I was gonna say, this is maybe a moment where Josh and I are like, couldn't be more in and you guys are pushing back a little bit. Although the version I saw, I found that out later,

the version I saw started with Let's Misbehave, because I saw a rip of the video version of VHS. A contract dispute between the film's producers and CBS Records, who I guess own the Weird Al catalog, and so his song was not included in the VHS release of the film, it was instead replaced by Let's Misbehave. Which they use in the end credits.

Has been restored to the DVD release. Okay, because even in the Piscopo trailer, they call out, the announcer says, opening song by Weird Al. So, that is kind of- Like Weird Al was big. It must be really- As big as they pretend he was

in the movie about Weird Al. I love Rocky Road, which I feel like was one of his first big ones. This is a good tangent coming. Yeah. Comes out in 83, so just a year, so it's like he's just started his first big ones. This is a good tangent coming. Yeah. Comes out in 83. So just a year, so it's like, he's just started being a big deal.

This is Tom Green and Road Trip. This is them going like, we're the first movie that gets to bottle Weird Al and put him on the big screen. We're gonna ride that lightning. Yeah. And he, it was lightning. So let's go, okay, so wait, I Love Rocky Road,

it happened, had My Bologna happened. My Bologna is on the same album as I love Rocky But I think that was the doc Demento track that put him on the map right? So maybe that comes first what about another one rides the bus that's earlier So the whole thing with my Bologna, I think it's like he does the original Ben has a scathing look on his face I'm thrilled with weird out. I just can't believe that just how quickly yes I'm trying to sell the whole thing with My Bologna, right, is the original version of it is the one he did in his bathroom

with a squeeze box to get the acoustics. And that's the one that Dr. Demento plays. And then he does another one, Rides the Bus, which is an EP. And then he does his first full album in 1983. And that has, of course, I Love Rocky Road, which you may or may not know is a parody of Joan Jett's I Love Rock and Roll. Okay, I thought that was an original.

Josh, you made the embarrassing mistake of thinking that I Love Rock and Roll was a parody of I Love Rocky Road. I did, yeah. No, it's a common mistake. Ben, what's your favorite Weird Al song? The Coolio. Oh, yeah.

Amish Paradise. Amish Paradise, that's really good. His biggest fan. Yeah, yeah. I love Weird Al. I love that he's still just doing it. Okay, wait, I wanna figure out what else is on that first album. Okay, well, I can tell you that,

and I think this is true of a lot of those early Weird Al albums, you know, it's half original songs, half parodies. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. Okay, so I'm not gonna get the original. So we've got I Love Rocky Road, My Bologna, and another one, Rides the Bus. Do you want me to tell you the other two parodies. Sure, sure. Yeah. Okay, so I'm not gonna get the original. So we got I Love Rocky Road, My Bologna, and another one rides the bus. Do you want me to tell you the other two parodies?

This is the original version of Nothing Compares to You was on this. Yes. Right, of course. People forget that he rode out Prince. Prince, right, covered it. Adapted it, yeah. He's also got Ricky, which is a parody of Mickey,

and Stop Dragging My Car Around, which is a parody of Mickey, and Stop Dragging My Car Around, which is a parody of the Stevie Nicks Tom Petty song, Stop Dragging My Heart Around. And then there is a song called Happy Birthday that apparently is noted here as a style parody of Tonio K. Don't know what to tell you. And then a bunch of original songs, you know? And then in 3D is the next album, and that is a little more like pretty much all parodies, a couple original songs. That's got Eat It. Does it have Like A Surgeon or is that layer?

No, it's got the Brady Bunch, which is a parody of the Safety Dance. Wow. Maybe I should go deep on Al. I, um, he's probably said this other places, but he... Like a surgeon's on his third album, of course, which is called Dared, he's stupid. Right, that's the big one.

I did a wait-wait where he was the special interview guest. Very intimidated. But he's so sweet. He was so lovely. He's so lovely. The second nicest man in comedy behind Josh Gondick. That's right. Don't come for my crown, Al. Because it will not go well for you.

But he said, his, one of the, like, white whales of, of parody was he reached out to Prince about doing a parody, and Prince said, like, no, thank you. And he respected his wishes. But the one that he had pitched, and I'm sure he said this at other places, was, uh, for UHF, they wanted to do a song called 1999, but, like, as a Ron Popiel, like all it costs

is three installments of 1999. That's funny. And I was like, that's why you're the king. That's why he's the king. I've always liked that about him. The gentlemanly sort of like, I don't need to legally clear this, but I won't do it unless you're cool with it. I think it is Coolio, right?

Where, where he had the experience of Coolio being like, fuck that guy, and him being like, well, I don't ever wanna bomb anyone out, so I'll always clear. But then Coolio later was like, I don't know what my problem was, the song is good. I think I was just too famous, so I was going insane. But didn't Amish Paradise outsell Gangsta's Paradise? Here's the real question.

Is Coolio a good rapper? Is Coolio good? Huge question. Because Gangsta's Paradise is great, obviously. Is Coolio a good rapper? Is Coolio good? Huge question. Because like, Gangsta's Paradise is great. He did pass away recently, right? We're speaking of the dead. A few years ago.

Yes. He died in 2022. And I think Coolio is a celebrity we all enjoy. We all enjoy gentle, old Coolio. I'm going to say this. Great hair. I couldn't have loved him more as a celebrity in the 90s. I mean, Coolio is where it's like Keenan and Kel,

where they're like, obviously our first choice to do the theme song is Coolio. Like, you know, like that is the key of a children's brand. I see that opening and I go like, got it. So he's the most important musician alive. But Gangster's Paradise was also like a big- Gangster's Paradise is a good song.

Good song. It's a great song. Big, nominated for a bunch of Grammys. Of course, big hits. Yeah. Huge. And obviously it was- What was the movie? Dangerous Minds. Right. Dangerous Minds. Right.

Dangerous Minds, the movie. And like, but like is Coolio good? That's a great question. I think he's kind of more a novelty. He's corny, but then he had like a long career with a lot of albums. And I do feel like early on was he a little more real? My Soul was the album I owned.

I had My Soul. My Soul is his third album that's post-Gangsta's Paradise. And that's got Ooh La La. Yeah, good song. And see when you get there where he's sampling Paco Bell's Canon. And it's one of those things where I'm like, well, that doesn't sound that cool.

No, but it sounds good. It's something made more goodio than coolio. Goodio. If I... Wow. I'm changing my name to coolio. If I... Wow. I'm changing my name to goody-o. I no longer care about being cool. I don't know if I get to assign these but five weird out points.

Thank you. Is anything more cool than not caring about whether others think you're cooler? Do you think Coolio was saying that at like sort of to the media? Yeah. No, Ben, what's your take? I was just gonna say,

looking at someone's record collection, if they had a later Coolio or early Coolio album, I would be like, this is a weird-ass person. Well, remind me not to invite you over to my place. I remember having friends who owned Gangster's Paradise, the second album, which is obviously the big breakup. But right, after that, I don't know if I'm like, let me hit up Virgin, Megastore.

When you say late Coolio album, what's your cutoff point? Are we talking Coolio.com? I'll tell you, I have no way that this fourth album is called Coolio.com. I love that era of things. Albums were called, like, I think Trick Daddy had an album called like www.thug.com. Dude, it was just for like a year or two, right?

Where it was just like, websites are new. And then like, iParty, wasn't it like ithug.com. It was just for like a year or two, right? Where it was just like websites are new. And then like I party, wasn't it like I party.com? Or like every, oh God. I just love that idea when everything was like, we have to be named after the internet. Not to invoke, you know, Mr. Kelly, but also R. Kelly's fourth album was called tp2.com. People forget.

Yeah, after coolio.com is how cool it makes it. I like that. Is that a cutoff point for you, Ben? Does that count as a laid out? Literally, sure. For Ben, the cutoff is like a speck at this point. Like Ben is so far behind. Ben is like tapping out, gasping for air.

The taps are getting fatter. I think as much as I am famously hip hop Sims, I think I am not up enough on Coolio's like emergence, right, as like an artist, to know if he ever had much cred, right? You know what I mean? Because the whole thing with Gangsta's Paradise is like the sample is so good, right?

And the LV singing that bridge in the chorus is just like, it just goes, it's so, yeah, it's great. But he's not bad rapping. He's all right. Let's also acknowledge, like, him being eight-year-old Griffin Newman's idol doesn't lend him a ton of cred points. I was very young and surprisingly very white at the time.

And so it is like the kind of thing where I'm like, yeah, similar to you, Griffin, where I was like, this is cool, which probably means it isn't cool. Right. The fact that I liked him is kind of a strike against him, that he was kind of the king of Nickelodeon. I do, this is somewhat embarrassing to admit, I remember seeing an ad during probably a Nickelodeon show for his album, My Soul, and thinking to myself,

I really want that, but my parents don't respect hip hop. They'd never buy it for me. Not saying it out loud, and then months later, finding it under the tree on Christmas, and citing it as evidence that Santa Claus was real. Oh, and respected hip hop. I doubled down on Santa for like a couple more years because of Coolio.

Because you were like, I refuse to believe that my couple more years because of Coolio. I refuse to believe that my parents thought to get me Coolio as the record. I distinctly remember being too embarrassed to tell them. You thought Santa read your thoughts? Correct. And then was like, I got him. Because I definitely didn't put it in a list. Right.

Yeah. I was like, Santa, not only is Santa real, he can read minds. That is pretty good deductive reasoning. Thank you. Santa's got cerebral and he knows I like Coolio. He knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows your favorite hip-hop artist. If he knows when you're sleeping, when you're awake, when you're good or bad for goodness sake, a reason, you know, to believe that he might also know which hip hop artists you like.

Yes. It's interesting, though, because I read about him and it's like, yeah, he was asthmatic. So he grew up kind of like sheltered and didn't go out much and like went to the library a lot, apparently, and played board games. But then he did, you know, serve a little prison time for larceny and was addicted to crack in the 80s

for a little bit. So like he had hard times in his life. And then, but I do think he kind of always was a little cornea. Yeah, a little cornea. A little cornea. Which is fine. Can I swing back to the Mary Lou Henner point? That's interesting.

You don't want to do 10 to 15 more in cool air. Yeah, Mary Lou Henner. Trust me, we will get back to cool air. Mary Lou Henner saying like, basically like, we all to Coolio. Mary Lou Henner's saying basically, we all had so much fun, but I don't see it on screen. It's her take. You hear that a lot. I feel like especially with comedies

where people are like, terrible, shoot great movie. If you're having too much fun, something's wrong. The energy's not getting captured in the right place. And I even feel like a lot of times when stars have finished filming a comedy and are talking to the press and they're like, we had so much fun filming it that I don't think it's going to turn out well, like they're trying to own the joke of it. Mary Lou Henner also famously autobiographical memory.

Yes, she has hyperthymesia, which is essentially a sort of super memory of like being able to recall like all of her life experiences in detail. Right. And I've like watched the I think it was a 60 minutes segment where she sort of came forward with her experiences with that, which was not public about for a while. And they talked to other people who have experienced this. And the thing that is like not discussed as much is like, oh, you can ask Mary Lou Henner any specific date and she will tell you like the weather and what she wore and everything. The thing that I'm talking about is like,

it is emotional as well. That not only do you like recall the detail of everything, but you feel it as you think it. And like in that 60 minutes special, there are women who are just like, I still can't get over my high school breakup because I wake up every morning and it feels like it just happened. It is that present to me.

So the idea of the Johnny Dangerously rap party out takes real being played while Amy Heckerling wears a dog collar and Mary Lou Henner's like, this movie's not gonna be a hit. Being a thing she wakes up with every morning and feels deeply, but you also, she's coming off one of the best sitcoms of the 70s and the 80s, and she's starting to do movies,

and then the movie crew that I think she should have had immediately kind of doesn't happen in the wake of Johnny Dangerously. It's not like this movie's designed to make her a star, but I also think like her looking back on it harshly probably is like the momentum stops here. For sure, I mean, she doesn't become a movie star at all. Josh, what's your Mary Lou Hennert take?

Oh, I was just gonna say, she doesn't have a ton of fun to do kind of in the same way that Griffin Dunn doesn't. Right. That's true. This is also the most thankless of the big roles, probably. And she looks good. I feel like they let her deliver more jokes, but she's more often the subject of the joke

than she gets to make it. She does get to make some. Totally. Right. But they give her, it's a lot of like, it's a, right, about her, people talking about her. And I think it's like a little slight compared to even some of the small like Johnny's, Johnny and Tommy's mother gets like a lot of great jokes.

It also feels like Mary Lou disappears for like the middle 40 minutes of the movie. She doesn't really matter in the plot a lot. She kind of just pops in and out. She comes back at the end and is like, oh, Vermin's trying to make me his girl. Here's information. And you're like, where have you been for the last 40 minutes?

Like the whole her getting in with Vermin thing. She's like, I can tell you everywhere that I've been in the last 40 minutes. Well. I know it's true. It happens entirely off screen. And one day CBS will make a movie about, a TV show about my condition. Yes, unforgettable, right?

She has a credit on and then also like a consultant plays Her mother or some shit. Yeah. Yeah, interesting I mean I her big thing after this is evening shade, right? Like that's her sort of like she eventually ends up back in TV, but she does not become a movie star She isn't like she's in noises off stuff. She's in stuff, she's in LA Story. But that movie's not very good. She's in LA Story, which is good. Yeah.

But it's specific, you know. But yes, this was, it is this era where like, if you are on a good TV show and you got the it factor, they're gonna give you like two or three shots to be a movie star. In a couple of bites at the end. And if it doesn't work and you go back to TV, it does kind of feel like a concession

in a way that is so hard to think about now. It's so different. Relative to like DeVito in this, where you're like of that haxie cast, that is the guy I would least bet on to become a leading star. Yeah. Right?

And like, this is the era where you're just like, DeVito doing like this level of thing and Johnny Dangerously makes so much sense But the ascension from being like of course DeVito great character actor to one of the biggest value adds in a supporting role to DeVito makes movies like constructs vehicles around himself Directs and writes and stars in his own films. It's just kind of wild. This is still his supporting king era for sure. He basically is rude gambler in this movie. Like from Mars Attack.

But I think his... No, he's funny, but it's just like he's just dropping in to do a couple funny scenes. Right, which is like very similar to his terms of endearment role. Yep. Obviously something like Romancing the Stone is a little more filled out, but he's a supporting player still. Romancing the Stone feels like it is supposed to be the same size role as this, and he starts over-delivering so much

that he becomes more important in the movie. But if you actually clock him, he doesn't have that much screen time. And that feels like people being like, fuck, do we start to like write these movies around him? Uh, I love DeVito. I never want to lose the man. Uh, like can we get 10, 20, 30 more years of Danny DeVito? Let's put some air tags on him. He's 80.

I'm not a person who's 80. That's fucking crazy. And he's still just doing Sonny. And, and the Jersey Mike's commercials. I don't get super invested in like celebrity relationships, but that brief period where it was public that he and Rhea Pearlman had separated for a short time, I remember being like, uh-oh, love isn't real. That was a little shocking.

But then they got back together. And now they're sort of like together with distance. They've got a Tracy, let's carry coon thing going on. You know, they don't believe in boundaries. Yeah. Yeah. But that's just like one of the most perfect celebrity couples of all time.

Yeah. Did you hear Carrie coon on WTF? I haven't listened yet. So I haven't either. But Fran, last night I saw Fran, she was telling me you gotta listen. And she was like, she was like Carrie just keeps being like,

my old husband with his DVDs. Like that she's not like, oh, I love DVDs. That she's like, yeah. She was like, Carrie just keeps being like, my old husband with his DVDs. Like, she's not like, oh, I love DVDs. That she's like, Tracy's crazy. The clip of her on Fallon, promoting Ghostbusters colon Frozen Empire, when I feel like it was the first time she really started publicly talking about the physical media collection.

And she's like doing it in this sort of like screwball comedy, like affectation voice. Where she goes, my husband has 10,000 Blu-rays. And every time I hear her say it, it's just like full body shivers. Like why is this the sexiest thing I've ever heard? Because she's the coolest. She is.

The coolest. Yes. 10,000 Blu-rays. Johnny Dangerously. Johnny Dangerously. It's about... You open with Kelly's pets. this you got this framing device, right? Yeah But I will call it kind of in the unfrosted vein. It's Clifford esque as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're absolutely right

Yes, did you ever get unfrosted? I we've talked about this your memory is go on I'm sorry I it is the unfrosted framing device is the most insane shit in the world. No reason for it. Although, I think maybe the best joke in the movie is the little kid sitting at the soda fountain and going, two Pop Tarts, leave the box. Yes, that is funny. I just couldn't hate unfrosted.

But, I mean, the whole movie is why does this exist, certainly. A question even Jerry Seinfeld himself cannot answer and has declined to. I think part of my I can't hate unfrosted is getting back to your original point. It's like, we don't get this kind of shit anymore. Like, I don't find the majority of this funny, but I like that he made it.

Whereas everyone else is like, why spend this much time and energy making something this stupid? I'm like, this is what our country was founded on. I wish he spent more time and energy making something that stupid. I'm like, this is what our country was founded on. I wish he spent more time and energy making something that stupid, because it feels like, and there is, I think there's a, there's something to be done with a genre parody

of this genre of a company existed, which is so many movies now are that. And I think there is a genre parody in there, but I don't think Jerry Seinfeld thought about that or cared to do that. And I think there is a genre parody in there, but I don't think Jerry Seinfeld thought about that or cared to do that. That was irrelevant. He was just like, I like Pop Tarts, this is funny to me. But you're right that the Clifford's framing device

is the same thing of like, we want to tell the audience this guy is okay before the movie starts. The one reason I don't bump on this is I do think Keaton's performance is so funny in the wrap around Being the kind of like g-shocks guy and there are even just some little throwaway gags of him doing the price sticker gun on the head There's stuff like that where i'm just like this movie has like a level of like comedic invention and there are I love I like that there are jokes in that and it's not just And there are. I like that there are jokes in that.

And it's not just, like, a dry setup. The kid is stealing a dog and he goes, you like stealing, and the kid goes, Pete's paying for it. That's a cute little joke. This movie just for me is on the right line of, like, something like the Friedberg-Seltzer movies, which are so overzealous in their attempt to have, like, no down moments,

and yet nothing is actually really a joke. There's something that resembles a joke every two seconds, but if you look at it, you're like, that's just them doing the thing and pointing at it or someone getting kicked in the nuts, right? Whereas this is like trying not to go more than five seconds without something funny happening, but that can be like a visual gag, a written gag. It can be a reaction. It can be the way someone says something. Like it feels versatile enough in the way it is exploring

how can you make a movie funny. Right, some just genre cues of like, oh, you're gonna look at this thing that kind of blows out the convention and yeah. A term I feel like we should be using for this movie is wacky. It is a very wacky texture. I'll give you wacky.

There's a lot of wacky moments. But wacky isn't necessarily like laugh out loud funny. It's true. One could say that that's how we feel about it, you and I. But then again, I love Weird Al, who is wacky. Yeah. Well, I'd say he's more weird. Interesting.

What's giving you that feeling about him? His basic temperament. So, John, we flashback to the 19 teens and he's a newsboy. The kid's trying to steal the pair. Or no, he's trying to steal a puppy. And John Gaines gives him the weapon. The framing device. Let's move on. I used to be bad like you.

Let me tell you how I got good. He's a kid. He's a newsboy in New York City. He's a good boy. He's played by Byron Thames, who has got a little face. He does indeed have a little face. Doesn't really look like that, but is most famously the parent of Hudson Thames,

who is the voice of Peter Parker in lots of things, I will say. Oh, interesting. A little fact I have for you there. He's connected to the Eddie Fisher, Carrie Fisher. I'm just seeing sister-in-law of Jodie Fisher. Oh, well, he must have, oh, he married Tricia Fisher, who is the son of Eddie Fisher,

and the half was the half sister of Carrie Fisher. Different mommy. He's a good little news boy. His mother, in my opinion, maybe the comedic powerhouse of the film Marie Stapleton. She's phenomenal. Who is so fucking funny. Yes.

This is right when she's just like won an Oscar. Like she wins an Oscar for Reds and one is 82, right? Let's see, 81. So she's just won an Oscar and she's like, yeah, let me at Johnny Dangerously, I'll have fun. Right, and I'm just gonna like play this as straight as I can. Like the joke is giving everything to Gravitar. They are very funny. Her opening scene after the street,

but her coming home to the apartment, them giving her the cigarettes. The ashtray. Oh, well, I've been considering trying, but this finally pushes me over the edge. And then the reveal that she's 29 years old. Yeah, happy 29th birthday, mom. Yeah.

So she's there. She's the mommy. And Johnny's dad is dead of he was a criminal. They have a photo on the desk of him in the electric chair. Funny! This is what I'm saying! This one got Ben. Photo on the desk of him in the electric chair. Yeah! Um. Funny! This is what I'm saying! Kind of funny.

This one got Ben. Kind of funny. And you know, you've got, you've already got like young Danny Vermin, right? Is a character. The rival newspaper boy. You've got the brother obviously, who's a good boy. Right.

I always think- And you've got Roman Maroney, the nightclub owner who played by Richard Dimitri. Oh, oh sureri who is a Malapropist. Yes, and then Peter Boyle is a Jocko Dundee who of course has the same ambitions as Johnny Dangerously. I always think young Griffin Dunn is Lucas House.

Yeah, he does look like Lucas House. Yes, he does. But it's Troy Slayton. Who became a lawyer? Who was on Cagney and Lacey as one of their children, I guess. He ran for a judge of Los Angeles Superior Court in 2022. He was also on Parker Lewis Can't Lose.

Well, I'll tell you what he lost. His campaign for judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court. Uh, what the fuck is Parker Lewis? That was on the TV for a while. Parker Lewis can't lose was like the ripoff of Ferris Bueller. It's basically a TV show that's just trying to do Ferris Bueller. And then I think Hughes and Paramount were like, fuck that, we can put a Ferris Bueller on TV and they did that. And no one liked that. Was, was there like fourth wall breaking in Parker Lewis Can't Lose? I think so. I think it might have been a little bit of a Clarissa,

let me explain it all. Yes. He's like a cool team. Well, because that's of course, that's a Bueller. Bueller tells us it's time to leave the theater. Sure. The surrealism was toned down in the series final season going as far as having Parker acknowledge this by breaking the fourth wall and canceling one of the show's transitions.

Um, that sounds okay. Uh, did Peter Boyle always look like that? Yes. He just always looked like that, huh? He came out looking like that. He almost seems like he was a baby like that and then never grew the rest of his hair. Yes. I would agree. Like here, I found a picture of him with hair and I don't like it.

I don't like it at all. How much hair? How much hair are we talking? Well, here is Peter Boyle as an actual young man with hair. There's his hair. Yeah. And then here is Peter Boyle 40 minutes later. I believe all.

With I think a little bit more of like, you know, the hair's starting to go a little bit, he's combing it, he's got a big part, and he's a handsome guy, but it is funny that he looked like Frankenstein. He did. And of course that is why he played Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein.

But like even in this, he's good as a gangster. But I'm like, motherfucker looks like Frankenstein. If they remade Young Frankenstein now, it would be Austin Butler in the worst bald cap you've ever seen. And he'd be tracked. And then he would show up at the Oscars like, uh, when he's accepting the Oscar.

Look, he can't drop it. Genius guy. He spent all the time with Frankenstein's family. Peter Paul has maybe one of the blockiest heads. One of the most Hollywood's greatest noggin. Just like such a cute angles on his skull. Right? I feel like that should be all straight lines.

A Ripley's believe it or not, you see, we can go to it's like Hollywood's greatest noggin. So it's just like the heads revolving on sticks. When you see him with hair, it looks wrong. You're just like the amount of forehead that guy had was part of the charm. You can't you can't contain that with hair. Uh, anyway, yes. He got, um, you know, will he enter a life of crime? He has to support his family.

His mother has a series of conditions, the prices of which keep going up. It starts out as very Ron Pompe 1999. Yeah, 1999. This for, uh, now only or which keep going up. It starts out as very Ron Pompey, 1999. That joke is good. Yeah, 1999. This, for now only or something, this week only. Right, well, because like Boyle is like, you do this, I'll give you 50 bucks. He's like, no, no. And then it's like, right, your mom has this operation. It's $49.95 this week only.

So right, he's got to do it. He helps smuggle weapons into the club using the newspapers. It's weird, the more we talk about it, it's almost as if you're realizing that every joke in this movie is good. It sounds funny said aloud. And again, I liked this movie. I was like, it's funny. Like the electric chair picture is funny

when you describe it, but when I watch it, I'm like, mm-hmm. I was like, yeah. See, there are a bunch of movies like that that I watch and I'm like, I like that they made this. Like what? It doesn't make me laugh. This is a good question. Like what?

I mean, definitely I'll say this, like a lot of the weird Michael Keaton 80s and 90s around the good ones are like that where I'm like, nothing in this is making me laugh and it should be funny. I like this cast. I like this premise. Gung Ho. Gung Ho is weirder because I think Gung Ho is very affable and is also so culturally regressive that you're like, Gung Ho is the best of this era, but also the most conceptually fucked. This movie, Johnny Dangerously, we've talked about the character already,

but they did have the incredible foresight to make the guy with the nearly inscrutable accent Greek? And you're like, all right, we can still laugh at that. That's fine. Thank God. And I'm allowed to do my impression in the opening. No, like the dream team is one of those, speechless is one of those.

Never even fucking heard of these. Yeah, exactly. I'm also, I think, kind of like, can we get to grown up Eaton, please? Sure. And see this kid. Which is another reason probably why it's worth starting the movie with the framing device of like,

get Eaton on screen on movie. Sure, sure, sure. How to describe the rest of Johnny Dangerously? Cause it's not, again, like at this point, the plot begins to fall away. You're like, yes, he has the rivalry with Piscopo. And yes, he has the rivalry with his brother. I wanna name another thing I like very well

that I think, I like very much that I think is executed very well by Heckerling. These sort of, okay, Johnny's going to help prove himself as a little boy and like, endear himself to Peter Boyle and the mobsters, which he does by the gymnastics routine knocking out all the gangsters. I think it's fun. That's like Hackerwing also doing like musical number. I would say I didn't hear it. And why I agree that sequence, that sequence fun more than funny.

I agree. Yeah. But it is a delightful little combat set piece. I think they're putting the bucket on his head and sliding across the bar like a missile is funny. Is there an argument for like, this movie is sort of so well made, looks good. She understands the sort of cinema she's referencing, right? It's almost too well made. Then like that's almost hurting the comedy a little bit just because it is kind of so jazzy and saying, right, it's almost too well-made, then that's almost hurting the comedy a little bit

just because it is kind of so jazzy and like, do you know what I mean? Like high production value. It is the exact thing I think I like about it though, in a lot of ways. Like that it does feel like, it's not that it's approximating the kind of movie it's parodying well,

it's that it is creating sort of an equivalent movie of its own right, if that makes sense. Yeah. I think maybe my favorite joke in the movie is he's listing all the relatives he never knew. He's walking with Mary Lou Henner and he's listing like, I got a brother I never knew. I never knew my father. And it's just like cut to they're in I never knew. I never knew my father.

And it's just like cut to they're in different locations. And it like really made me laugh. Is it like an editing joke? Like, right, there's stuff like that that I like where she is playing with the form. Yeah. Ben and I are looking at each other. I left out loud at that.

We had a dog ran away, never knew him. It's so funny to me. The funniest line to me was, it could shoot through a school. That really made me laugh. That was the one time I was like, that's a fucking funny line. That's so dark too now,

but I still laughed really hard. We talked about this in our 1941 episode with the Doughboys. Which, that's a good example of a movie that's overwhelmed by its scale and production value. Well, this is what we were saying that there's this- And it's far worse than Johnny Dane. There's this weird line we were discussing. It's like 18 times as long.

There's this weird line we were discussing where I'm like, if you're going to parody something and do a style parody, you have to kind of get close to approximating the production values. If you're not getting them and it looks so cheap, then it doesn't work. Unless the joke is that you made it for $2. But then if it looks better than the real thing then it stops being funny as well there's like an uncanny valley parody line that i do think it helps that this is like doing an homage parody to a b-movie genre that it doesn't

have to be like an epic which i feel like history of the World Part One is like a kind of like turning point movie for a lot of people in Brooks is like, is this when he goes over the hump? Sure. And as part of that, that he's trying to parody like epics and in doing that inherently the movie gets too big versus like Spaceballs, he's like safely below the George Lucas line. But I mean, I think I don't like Spaceballs as much as some people. I think also partly because, right, it's a little...

I mean, he never... Young Frankenstein in Plays and Saddles are like, he never topped that. It's my only issue with doing him on our show, with Brooks, Mel Brooks, is like, there's plenty to say about some of the later stuff. But for someone to just like kind of fucking nail it so hard with his first three movies, essentially,

it's tough to then be like, and then he made like 10 more movies. I mean, the next big success, right? Because producers was very early as well. Producers were the first one. Yeah, and then the next big, the biggest success after the early wave, right, was the producers musical,

which is one of the most decorated musicals of all time. I contend that like high anxiety silent movie and history of the world are all interesting to talk about. They're totally interesting to talk about and they have good stuff in them, but obviously they're competing with something almost impossible.

The insane thing is that he made two of the greatest comedies of all time in the same year, that he like hit a height early on in his career and did two of them so close together. They both come out in 73? Yeah, well what a crazy motherfucker. Young Frankenstein is 74 and I think Blazing Saddles is too. Yeah, 74. Anyway, so what happens at this point? You get to adult Johnny. Basically he endears himself to the mobsters.

They make him one of them, and he owns it. And you immediately set up this dynamic of him walking down the street, people selling I Heart Johnny shirts, everyone loving Johnny. But there is this kind of Superman Clark Kent conceit of like... Just within his household. I'm Johnny Kelly at home. I'm Johnny Dangerously in the streets. And the whole town, the whole neighborhood is in on it.

Except for... In on keeping it from his mother and brother. The closest people in his life, because the other side of it is the other mobsters don't know that he's the brother of the DA. Right. Although that arc has just started. Of course, his brother goes to law school

and gets married because he wants to get laid, as Maureen Stapleton calls him out. That arc has just started. Of course, his brother goes to law school and gets married because he wants to get laid, as Maureen Stapleton calls him out. And becomes a lawyer, right. They show him this weird testicle cartoon. Which, yeah, Josh already said it, but yeah. The one thing where you're just like, what? And it's such a big swing set piece where it's an animated kind of film strippy sort of thing,

and you're just like, could have done without it. It's also, I don't totally get the inner logic of the joke, where the bit is that like, he's supposed to be the good kid, and the more that Johnny goes bad, he feels a responsibility to his mother to make sure that his little brother stays on rails, right? Suddenly he's so horny and hot and bothered about his girlfriend that he doesn't want to go to law school, and Johnny takes it upon himself to talk him into going to law school. And you're like, okay, cool comedy setup premise here.

Johnny's gotta do something to scare him off of just running away and marrying his girlfriend. He needs to stay in law school. And you're like, what is the comedic effect of this? And then Johnny takes him to a room where he has a projector, where he shows him an animation that explains that the more you use your testicles, the more they die. Yeah.

Where I'm just like, who made this movie and to what end? The joke of the movie within the movie is not clear. Because it's not like he shows him a movie about STDs, right? And it's not like he shows him like a movie about like STDs, right? And it's not like he makes up like a fake mythical story. You're like, who produced this film? Right, why? Where did Johnny get this? And yes.

David? Yep. You hear the news? Nope. This week something big happened. What's up? Well, not literally this week I mean like this same week years ago. Ah in history

I'm saying in history you pick any day you pick any week There's some historic moment that might have changed our understanding of the past and shaped our world today perhaps also to be fair that probably was Some big stuff that happened this week. It feels like news it feels like we're living in unprecedented times. And honestly, what I wouldn't give for precedent. Could they be precedented? Could we get precedented for a moment? Now if I can pivot off of that to tell you, the History This Week, the official podcast

of the History Channel, brings these stories to life. Not the dumb bits we were doing, days from the past. Stories of yesteryear. And speaking of dumb bits that we're doing, these stories might have happened a long time ago, far, far away, but they are not Star Wars stories. These are real historical stories, no bits. They interview experts, often people who are there to witness historical moments.

History this week is a cinematic experience, it's a chance to understand the past by hearing it for yourself. This new season they've got, kicks off with the story Camp Century, which is the US military's hidden base, carved deep into the ice of Greenland. What?

So American Greenland today being discussed, but we're talking about the history of this. The US even tried buying Greenland just after World War II with a bag of gold. They went Wario on it. And do you know that Greenland is actually pretty icy and Iceland is pretty green? That's a good point. History, this I'm sure they mentioned that.

Hopefully that's one of the episodes. History this week has recently covered a lot of stories that connected today. Time the universal health care almost passed under President Harry Truman. Real-time life gunslingers and inspired Red Dead Redemption. Hey. And how Tesla was a man with big dreams before he became a car, he even played pool. He turned into a car? Well, Ben, this is why you gotta listen to podcasts.

You get some clarification on some of your misunderstandings. Now, so if you wanna experience and understand what happened 10 to 100, 1000 years ago, check out History This Week every Monday, wherever you get your podcasts. History This Week. And can I get your podcasts. History This Week. And can I say, you know who helps the sponsor of next week's episode? Precedented Times.

David! Mm? Bring bring bring bring! You know what that is? A telephone? It's not me introducing an ad read character, it's me doing an impression of my mother. Who true facts, called three times during the most recent episode record. Wait, your mom was calling too?

Yeah, my grandmother was calling as well. Look, they all want me on the phone. And sometimes I got a busy job grinding out these movie discussion episode turning the crank my calloused hand our job is so hard Here's the thing. I love them. I love my mother and grandmother but sometimes I'm too busy doing bits or guessing box office stats and I need another way to show them and tell them that I Love them and it has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Who said that? Many people.

But what about a picture frame, a digital picture frame that can cycle through images? We're talking hundreds of thousands of pictures! No, I mean, literally, rather than the one. Get to a million words. You might do it. What I'm saying is this Mother's Day, give them a call. Do place the call, but also maybe gift them an Aura picture frame for the moments when you're not able to pick up the phone.

Aura Frames. Aura Frames. Was named the best digital photo frame by Wirecutter. It was featured in 495 gift guides last year. That's a very specific and large number. So close to 500. That must have really hurt them. So the next time you need to call your mom, you can send her a new pic that's what you can do you could

be like hey guess what I did I went to Machu Picchu boink and put it on her frame here's a good idea because I did the the folks that were a friend were nice enough to send over a couple samples I got one here on my desk but I also gifted one to my grandmother and the next time she calls during a record I should take a selfie of myself right being like this is what I'm doing microphone picture frame shop it right over ship it over right over to that aura frame aura has a great deal for Mother's Day for a limited time listeners can save on the perfect gift

by visiting aura frames calm to get a $35 off plus free shipping on their best-selling Carver mat frame the Carver mat very. That's AURAframes.com promo code check. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Can we also talk about his apartment? The aesthetic of it. It's so crazy. It is kind of vapor wave, I have to say.

Yeah. It's very just likewave, I have to say. It's very just like white. He lives in a jazz club. He well, but it's I don't I don't know. It's almost like it feels like Saved by the Bell coded. It's like if if Zack Morris were Scarface. Yeah, yeah. There is a funny joke.

I think maybe one of the few times where I did laugh out loud, he has like an apartment where multiple women who apparently live with him. I guess he's such a playboy. Yes. The women are all wearing, they're very exposed, sexy, but he, the brother does some kind of thing where he's like, uh, no, I don't want to go to tits. I mean college, you know, that kind of like thing. I think that's a funny little moment. Yeah. I go to tits. I mean college, you know that kind of like thing. Yeah, that's a funny little moment

Yeah, I like I'm going more fun. I like When we should go joke by joke say fun or funny when Johnny meets Mary Lou Henner. Yes And he's like, oh and you got these and he looks down her breasts and then he says I like those in a woman Here's another thing I think heckerling gets and this is a thing through like those in a woman. I like that joke too. That's a good joke. Here's another thing I think Heckerlin gets, and this is a thing through like trying to watch through the full Keaton filmography and for the first time really digging into these like non-existent 80s and 90s comedies. Michael Keaton as an actor, you cannot like cover in closeups.

He is a full body actor. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. He is so much about like his weird convulsions and mannerisms, and about how that interacts with the other person he's in the scene with. And there is something classical enough about Heckerling's understanding of comedy framing and timing, where she's just really smart about basically always shooting him from the waist up at least, only giving him a close-up if it's sort of like a parody of an emotional revelation. But you want to watch like long sustained two shots and like roving shots where you're watching

him interact with shit in real time because the whole magic trick of Keaton is just like that he's got this broken metronome, that he has the weirdest timing in the world, and this sort of off rhythm, and you need to see that engage with like other people in his space in real time. So there's even just shit like him coming into Marine Stapleton's apartment saying, hey mom, what you cooking? She says beer.

And he's stirring the pot. And he goes, oh, noodles, that's a good idea. And then like while she's talking and setting up plot stuff, he's in the background and he pulls down the clothes and all the laundry collapses on him. Like this sort of sustained, like you wanna watch Keaton just go through the sort of like mousetrap setup of these sets

and the gags and everything. I found it humorous. Pfft. Ha ha ha ha. I'm laughing, I'm laughing the whole time. I laughed at, where do you cook in beer? That got me. Yes, funny.

With noodles, beer with noodles. The runner of The Mom always has a new weird sickness in the doctor. Even though she's strong as a bull on screen, really. What did he say? It would, she didn't have saliva, like salivary gland. And Michael Keaton goes, it'll be good to see her spit again.

That's good. It's good, yeah. I think this movie is like really good at parodying the sort of like weird sentiment of movies like that. You know, like parodying the emotional beats. I was, I think I'm trying desperately to remember where I heard this. And I feel like it was some podcast interview recently where someone with a background in comedy was talking about the difference between comedy and

drama as an actor. So that thing that people discuss a lot. And I thought this was one of the best ways I'd ever heard someone identify the difference, which was, I almost want to say this was connected to the SNL 50th and it was some SNL cast. I feel like Alec Baldwin is always talking about this. This is what this person said. Very normal guy.

The most normal. You guys watching the Baldwins? No, but I'm just hearing that it's normal. It's America's most normal TV. People keep texting me, like, right, a clip from it where they're like, check out this normal clip of like a normal thing happening on that normal TV, check out this normal clip of, like, a normal thing happening on that normal TV show to the normal guy. Is she still doing the accent?

Kind of. They were saying, whoever this is, and hopefully one of our listeners will find the interview I'm thinking about, that, like, the fundamental thing is you want to play it real in both cases. They were like, the difference between comedy and drama is that you still play it real, but you make those shifts a lot faster and a lot more dramatically, right? So it's like, in comedy, you might have to go from placid

to, like, furious in one line, and you need to find the way to, like, earn that ramp up in a way that is unrealistic. And that is a thing I think Keaton is very good at. Like he is so bizarre, he has so much energy that there's never anything in him to me that feels like he's pushing or reaching. Like it's part of the magic of Beetlejuice of just like this guy's somehow making it feel natural to be a ghost that changes voice six times in five words, right? And similar, I think he's very well suited for this kind of comedy,

which he didn't do a ton, where he has to, like, parody a leading man and do his kind of, like, somewhat ironic version of the actual emotional plotty scenes, but then swing to a big joke to go from, like, romantic to angry to tough to sensitive. It's, I think he's very, very good. I'm obviously just in the bag for him.

You love the man so much. And I'll say this, Griffin and I are maybe overselling this movie. I do wonder, right, if people now have to make the effort to find this movie too. Can't just, you know, fire it up. And I don't think, I effort to find this movie too. I can't just, you know, fire it up. And I don't think, I don't think this is like a hidden treasure lost to history necessarily, but I was delighted the whole time watching it.

I can count probably on one hand the number of jokes that I'm like, that doesn't work for me. And there are so many jokes. And so many of them worked. And so like, the the rhythm of the jokes, I find so comforting in a way. And, like, even the quality, like, I watched, like, the rip on, like, whatever Internet Archive, and that being extra grainy and from VHS, I think maybe David, to your point, added to it, because I was like, this feels old-timey.

It doesn't feel like watching something new. And so it gives you that distance, like when you watch a Marx Brothers movie, not that it's at that level, but you go, this is a... This is like a new Marx Brothers movie, Josh Garland. No, but it gives you... You're not like, oh, this is modern and they're trying to be modern. Well, you also... I think this movie is so lovingly made. It makes sense that this is a genre that Heckerling like grew up idolizing.

And there's this part of like, well, maybe she couldn't like she has too much of like an off kilter comedic sensibility to ever make a straight gangster movie. But by doing a parody, she's also able to actually get at everything she loves about gangster movies in a way where like it's I feel like a lot of people talk about this being an issue in the Mel Brooks divide is like he clearly loves Westerns and Universal monster movies and Hitchcock films by the time you get to space balls You're like, I don't think Mel Brooks cares about Star Wars

I think he has identified good bits to do within this, but I don't think it means anything to him in the same way as much as when he was riffing on movies that he grew up loving and there was this aspect of like, oh my God, I can't believe I got them to build a castle and now I'm lighting it in black and white and like all that sort of shit. And I think the Zuckers had a similar love for like the sign kind of be trash that they would parody in Top secret and airplane and naked gun like they love these kind of just like programmer Genre movies. I sent you the Alec Baldwin tweet. That's really funny. Okay. Let me look up the Alec Baldwin. It's really funny. So Johnny dangerously. So we got piscapa. We talked enough about piscapa as Danny vermin

It's really funny. Can I read this out? So we got Piscopo. Have we talked enough about Piscopo as Danny Vermin? It's really funny. Can I read this out loud? I think you can. I think you can because her accent is fake. So I think it's okay to parody it. This tweet is from at Charlie on here. Alec, colon. In 1983, I was hospitalized because my roommate's cat gave me an asthma attack.

I'm deathly allergic. Hilaria petting their five cats, colon. My horse being these so funny. I mean, that is a... The vibe of the show. It's not the ride. That is the A plot of episode two. The A plot of episode two is being like,

you know, our life is crazy. Nine months out of the year, we live in a giant 15-bedroom Manhattan apartment. It's too small. We can't all fit. BLAIR LAUGHS Their apartment has stairs, and it's this constant thing of like, we love this city so much, we're staying in this tiny apartment. I'm like, I'd love for you to talk to some of my friends.

You've never met a person. Although, in his defense, he does have countless children. But that's also, that's recent. I know, I know, I know. I can't explain that yet. This is a problem that they brought on themselves... Correct. ...since the start of the pandemic. Yeah.

They also have like four cats and four dogs, right? And he's like, when I first moved to LA, my agent let me stay on her couch, and she had three cats, and I got sent to the hospital. I'm deathly allergic, and now we have four cats and the a plot of this episode is it's the weekend where we go from the City to the hampton course he lives in the Hamptons in the summertime or whatever We have to figure out the seating charts for the three vehicles That will transport the two of us are seven kids are eight pets and two nannies

The nannies are referenced a lot, are never seen on screen. Of course, of course. I just like to think about like the sort of, the guy who has to produce this show, right? Like the guy whose job it is to like film this shit. Looking up the credits here, a Satan? Yeah, right. Beaselbub?

But like, just like the guy who's like, I, you know, I went to film school. You know, there he's just like, how do we craft a narrative out of, well, I guess this week we'll do the, you think the cars to the Hamptons will be the A plot. You think his agent called him's just like, how do we craft a narrative out of, well, I guess this week we'll do the... You think his agent... The cars to the Hamptons will be the A plot. You think his agent called and was like,

how do you feel about getting yelled at a lot? Right. Baldwin just keeps saying, don't put me in a car with the cats. And Hilaria's like, let's see how the seating chart shakes out. And then you see her drawing it and it's like a car, Alec, and then like four little Don't put the cats in the car and she's like there are a lot of moving pieces I don't know how things are gonna hold

Sounds like pretty good TV. I just like, the whole premise of the show is him being like, I need money. I need so much money. I have so many children. I need money right now. And someone's like, do you want to sell your spleen? And he's like, maybe. I don't know. Do you want to look at it? Like, this is the whole show, right?

50 bucks, I'll let you look at my spleen. But then half of every episode is him weighing the death of Pamela Upton. Which is so sad. There's a truly horrible thing that happened to him that I don't really want to make light of. Or even really think about. But that's why the contrast. And it didn't just happen to him. Obviously he was like...

But still, it must be a horrible thing for him to have to process. Correct. But the show is trying to simultaneously be John and Kate plus eight and the staircase. That's what's insane about it. Half of every episode is him struggling from PTSD and being like, I have to go back to court. And it's not like an offhand reference. It's deeply invested and then wacky music plays

and it's like, here I am in the car with the cats. It's the most deranged TV show that's ever existed. Giant Dangerously, the great American comedy. Where are we left off? I don't know. The kid, the brother went to law school, he's now the assistant DA working under Danny DeVito, the corrupt DA. Of course.

Fun. Who has a crush on Johnny. Yeah, that's like a weird little moment. Yeah, I mean, look, we talk about this, but basically any comedy you watch from 1980 to 2012... For sure. ...has some level of homophobic joke. Yeah, gay panic.

And I'm like, this actually registers about as low on the scale as these movies do. It's the Greek accent of homophobia. It is. It is. Like, the joke is just sort of like, I wouldn't have expected that guy is gay, but is almost kind of dumb without judgment. I'm not forgiving it, but it feels like the least critical. Whereas, like, there's no sort of, like, recoiling an ooh to this.

Um, but Peter Boyle survives multiple assassination attempts. Yes. Comedically. Decides to step down. You have the robot, Demetri. You have his toilet being exploded. I like him holding... Ben is smiling! You have to admit this is a funny bit!

He's got the chain handled and he thinks it's his dork, as he puts it. And then once he realizes his penis is still intact, he decides it's time to retire and hand it over to Johnny. Which is sort of where things escalate now. His brother's gotten out of law school. Right, the conflict is his brother on one side, Piscopo on the other. He's got a rival. He's become the kingpin. Piscopo's looking for the crown.

Right. Um... Good use of the one PG-13 F-word. What is the one fuck again? Because of course they say, Fark a lot. Oh, sure. The bird goes... The parrot, right. You missed, fuckface. I mean, F word? Okay. What is the one fuck again? Because of course they do say fart a lot. Oh sure. The bird goes.

The parrot, right. You missed fuck face. Yeah, that's good. It's like, ah, that's fun. Yeah, so what's funny then? There's the, I don't know, lucky cigarette case. It's always protecting people. That's kind of a running bit.

Yeah, it's also, I mean, is kind of the plot device of how they know how to identify. I mean, it ultimately absolves him of the crime. Because Danny Vermin has taken the cigarette case, which smells like gum because Johnny doesn't smoke, and that is his marker as he's now the kingpin. I like, like, DeVito's bribery scene being done like Price is Right. Like him unveiling the options of how he can be bribed on the stage.

Right, right. That's funny. DeVito's funny generally. He plays the sort of crooked DA who hires Gryffindun and doesn't want him to do his job. Right, dies in a horrible bull accident because he's handed a red jacket. That must be a parody of something specific, right? It must be a malt wicker commercial. right? It must be a malt liquor commercial. It's such a complicated joke, the bowl.

And he says, death by commercial, that was the... Oh, you're right. ...the newspaper. There must have been a commercial. Because he says, what are you drinking? And he says, malt liquor. And then he's holding this red smoking jacket. And a bowl runs into the bar and gores him to death. I'm wondering if it's a Billy Dee Williams, Cult 45 thing.

Because that would have been the time of that campaign. I was trying to find something about this, but I can't. I was a little mystified by it, although I did think the setup was funny. It is a parody of Schlitz malt liquor commercials featuring Richard Roundtree. Interesting, Shaft himself. Shaft himself, which, where, right, like a bowl would crash through the wall

when you ordered a Schlitz. Yeah, I mean, I'm watching one right now, and there's a bowl. No one does it like the bowl. It's funny, because it's like... Is the tagline. Right, that's a gag where you're like, I don't quite get the set up here. Yeah.

Yeah. Him going, what am I drinking, malt liquor? I'm like, that must mean something. It's one of the only things in this movie that feels specific to the era in which it was made is not kind of a timeless gag. Is it ever a good idea to do a commercial parody in a movie? In a movie?

I'm trying to think. Like, no, right? No. I mean, you can do the Wayne's World thing of parodying the notion of commercials. Correct, yes. Right, of the talking to camera kind of thing. Yeah. But, yeah. In the wake of the talking to camera kind of thing. Yeah.

But, yeah. In the wake of the great Gene Hackman's death, I watched No Way Out, a blind spot in his career I'd never seen before, a young Costner vehicle, and that has the crazy sex scene where Kevin Costner cannot wait to get home to have sex with Sean Young, so they fuck in the back of a limo,

and the limo driver is like, whoa, and Costner's like, thumbs up, you like what you see, kind of, and they just go really far in the back of the limo. And I was watching and I was like, holy shit, this is what Hot Shots Part Deux is parodying. Like many years later, you see the original scene. Right, and that was a scene I had just always found funny for decades and was like, yeah, this is just insane for a guy

to fuck in the back of a limo while this guy's here. Like, it worked not being a parody. And then I watch it and I'm like, Hot Shots is only, like, heightening this 10%. But versus this, you're watching and you're like, I know this is referencing something that I don't have the content for. If it hadn't been for the malt liquor and the death by commercial on the newspaper,

if he had just held up a smoking jacket and then a bull came in, I would have been like, that's a funny long way around way to assassinate someone. No, but you're right. I didn't even ping like, oh, this must be something I'm not getting. I was just sort of like, ah, can't win them all. Dying dangerously, taking a lot of shots.

I'm glad we solved that Schlitz mystery, actually. That is interesting. Yeah, I don't know. The brother gets married. He's so horny, he wants to fuck in the janitor's closet, but he overhears that his brother is Johnny Dangerously. His compo has just put it together. Yeah.

Right. And then he runs out. And then the janitor shows up, and that just, I don't know. Another weird little moment. Yeah. But they basically make the deal. Like, you know, Griffin Dunn's like, I'm not gonna rest until I put you in jail.

And then they have their sort of fist fight bargain. And Johnny takes the fall. And then it's like, I'm gonna go clean. Right. I'll go legit. I'll go legit. Yeah. So then the rest of the movie, the last half an hour. He's trying to get his boys to go clean. Right. I'll go legit. I'll go legit. Yeah. So then the rest of the movie, the last half an hour... He's trying to get his boys to go legit with him.

How does Johnny get out? Right. Right. While also, Piscopo is trying to stage a coup and wants him dead. And you've got funny stuff, or I should say more like fun stuff, like Piscopo cutting the brakes on Griffin Dunn's car. That seems kind of fun. Her writing his name. Well, that happens earlier. That's earlier?

Yeah, that's earlier. That's at the beginning of his career. Afterwards, Johnny is framed for the murder of like the head of whatever internal affairs. Right, because that's right before DeVito dies. That's right. That's the beginning of Griffin Dunn's career. Yeah.

Yeah, the sort of last half hour, right, is like, you know, Johnny being like, I'm innocent. And there's, we were building to the big fight at the movie theater. Yes. I mean, I think one of the gags in this movie that does not work is the Irish janitor lady

who speaks entirely in actual slurs. It is more jarring because you have a really good bit of a guy who says curse words incorrectly And you're so used to that and then in the last 20 minutes you're introduced to a character who just speaks in like unbroken slur chain But I do like her later seen with marine Stapleton Where marine Stapleton tries to appeal to her because she ends up being the only witness who can like support the case and is like Look, we have a lot in common. I

the one witness who can support the case, and is like, look, we have a lot in common. I also love the degree to which Johnny is idolized and respected when he finally goes to jail, that the warden is so thrilled to have him there, and he's high-fiving everyone. He has the line where he's like, ah, pops, you're still in here, huh? But also-

Right, his father is not dead after all. That Johnny has somehow immediately made the gangster version of the prison uniform that he has the high collar. David is very seriously mulling over whether or not these jokes are funny. Exonerates he... They exonerate him. I think I was really losing steam in the last act of this movie. I like the Ray Walston bit.

What's the Ray Walston bit? He's a blind newspaper man. Oh, I did like that bit. And then he goes... He gets hit with a stack of newspapers, his vision's back. He unblinds, but is now deaf. Then he's deaf. Then another one.

Then the second stack defends him. Right, right, right, right, right. And then the third stack is, I can see and I can hear, but who am I? Which, he's funny. He's very funny. And I do like her, right, giving a little high five to a, you know, a Fast Times cast member.

Like, it's nice to see him. Yes. Yeah. And Vincent Scavelli's in here very briefly as well. Very briefly. He would have been a good goon. Like, get him up higher in the cast list. I agree. Should we explain the Joe Piscopo bit that we've alluded to seven or eight times?

It's so simple, but I just find it very effective. And it's just Piscopo playing it with full intensity. Yeah. Which is, anytime someone does something that he finds disrespectful, and it's just Piscopo playing it with full intensity. Yeah. Which is anytime someone does something that he finds disrespectful, he says, a blank did blank to me once, takes a beat and then goes once,

holding up the one finger. My favorite iteration was hung on the hook. Yeah. Michael Keaton picks him up and hangs him on a coat hook on a door and slams the door and he goes, my, I forget what his father, my grandfather hung me on a hook once.

And I was like, that's good. The specificity of everything has happened to him one time. This is, right, it's like, is Piscopo funny? No. But does he have kind of like some gravitas in a way? Is that why he succeeded briefly? This is where I give Piscopo credit. I don't think that joke is funny on paper. Right.

That's what I'm saying. If I read this in the script. Or it's like a little funny. Like I think a lot of these jokes I would find funny on the page and then are performed well. That's one where I'd be like, you guys are really reaching for a running bit for this guy. Four or five times. On paper, it's not funny. And I think Piscopo is putting a degree of gravitas on it that does make it work for me.

Where like, his increasing intensity with his sort of like haunted threat of don't let this happen again, and then it just builds to like, he keeps getting interrupted before he gets to finish the sentence. I wanted to pull up the exact line. When Maureen Stapleton goes to appeal to the janitor, she says, we have nothing in common. What do I have to talk to you about? And Maureen Stapleton says, we have a lot in common. We both scrub floors, we're both swell lookers, and neither one of us is Chinese.

I think that's a funny line. Yeah, that's pretty funny. David's really, I'm winning him over in this one. But I now feel like I'm being a scold about this movie that I'd like thought was enjoyable. I just could immediately tell why I was like, why I haven't heard of this movie. You know what I mean? Where I'm like, Amy Hecker Lee made a gangster comedy with Michael Keaton. Why haven't I heard of that?

I can understand why I maybe didn't get to see it, but like, why don't I know about that? I get why it wasn't a hit. Because it's a movie made for weird doors. Yeah. But I had always thought it had more of a like, oh, that's like an interesting like swing they took that just didn't work at all.

Where in rediscovering it for my big Keaton watch through last year, I was just so pleasantly surprised by how consistently funny I found it, and once again, watched it last night for the second time in six months, and was still laughing out loud at it. And part of it is the pleasure of, I watch all three Naked Gun movies every year like clockwork. Every year, I'm like, it's time to check in and do the full Drebben trilogy, right? There are jokes in those movies that live in my brain forever

that I think about on a daily basis, but there are so many jokes that I do just end up getting surprised by some of them every time. And most great comedies, if you've seen them a bunch, you're like, oh, here's that bit I like. It is rare to have a movie that is this dense with jokes, which if you find the jokes as funny as Josh and I do, this is a movie you can return to and be like,

I forgot that one because the bench is so deep. Yeah, which is why I love Airplane as well and like all those Zazz comedies and stuff, because right, there's always a new one that you're like, I haven't given this one love recently. The heights also are not as high as Naked Gun and Airplane. I think that's the big thing where like the one that feels like a home run swing is the testicle educational film,

and you're like, swing and amen. It doesn't have, like, the iconic set pieces. But even just like this, I'm looking at the... I'm scrubbing through the movie as we're watching, so I can call out some of my favorite bits, but as we're talking, but, um... The, um... Uh...

The grapevine passing of the information that Vermin's big play is going to happen at the Savoy Theater and the message is retained perfectly until the mumbling guy and then it's said to Johnny and he immediately corrects it. And then the guy goes, that's not what I said. And he goes, yeah, but I know this grapevine. That is pretty funny. The nodding, all the gangsters nodding, and then one guy going, no more nodding. It's like this, just the speed and density.

It's like a lot of singles and doubles, which is like, that is a tone that I love and miss, and it's done lovingly and not cynically. Like it's not like, not another war movie or whatever. Those, you know, not another war movie is one they never attempted. That would be interesting. Free Burgon Seltzer, come back. We're ready to tackle Private Ryan, 1917.

No, no, no. We're not even doing that. We're doing all those Iraq movies nobody liked. We're doing like Stop Loss. The Wohlberg. Yeah. Anything Wohlberg. Yeahition. Yeah. Anything Wohlberg. Yeah. The whole Wohlberg.

Yeah. Not another Marky Mark movie would be kind of funny. Yeah. Freeberg Seltzer could do a good Wohlberg. You would have to observe the Wohlberg thing so keenly. Well, this is the thing about talking about this as a dying art form, right? I think it was with our text art with the Doughboys. Mitch sent us a scene from the end of Epic movie and was like or maybe Eva Anderson sent it to me and was like I'm obsessed

with this this is insane and we watched it and we were all like this is really fucking funny but is it funny now because we're so deprived of these types of movies that even seeing a reminder of the worst example from 15 years ago now feels refreshing? Or does this almost work as its own out of context anti-comedy? I'm looking at the Wikipedia. Apparently, epic movie ends with Borat. Or are you not talking about that part?

I'm sorry, I'm talking about Disaster Movie, which ends with a parody of, I'm fucking Matt Damon. Uh-huh. Nope. It is a parody of I'm Fucking Matt Damon. Uh-huh. It is a parody of a comedy sketch. Apparently the guru shit-ca is involved. Correct. Hellboy is in it. This, I think this is tipping towards anti-comedy. It is.

Apparently chipmunks get crushed to death by a cow. Yes. This doesn't sound funny. This is what's funny about it. I'm just saying. This doesn't even sound fun. Doesn't even sound fun. We're gonna post this on social media, okay? This doesn't sound funny. This is what's funny about it. This doesn't even sound fun. Doesn't even sound fun. We're gonna post this on social media, okay?

What's funny about it is, I think if you've seen the full movie, which I have not, this is just like lazily calling back every pop culture character that's existed in the movie up until that point. If you only watch this one scene out of context, you just cannot guess who's coming next because you're just like, oh, terrible puppets of the chipmunks.

And then it switches to like, Hancock, you know? Like all these things, like the randomness of it is just genuinely kind of shocking because you're seeing all these characters the first time if you haven't watched the movie. But it is just recognition comedy, right? It is done with no point of view. They are not like approximating the things

they're parodying well. So much of the Friedberg-Seltzer thing was like, they had trailers out, parodying scenes from trailers for movies that hadn't come out yet. Like they were like, are movies coming out in August? Hancock's coming out in July. We need to parody Hancock. So they would just parody the trailer scene

so that they could strike while the iron was so hot. So this is like, you don't even have a real frame of reference for what you're parodying. And that's like the worst end of it, right? And I feel like the Dumbways always talk about, like, why'd the parody movie die? The comedy movie died is a bigger thing, a thing we've talked about a lot.

The parody movie feels like a thing that is really tricky to imagine ever coming back again because it feels like this kind of thing has become such a like short form comedy It was murdered. It's mocking the macro culture which doesn't exist as much. It was murdered you're saying someone killed it? I think so. By like Friedberg and Seltzer? Yeah, I really think so.

But I also think like you had like SNL could parody things and you'd have like shows that didn't last as long like the Ben Stiller show that could do like more cinematic parodies. But the idea of doing these things with like a proper movie budget was rare and hard. You'd get like MTV movie award segments and Oscar openings and shit like that. But now like SNL has this like film unit

that can turn stuff out so fast, not to mention like the rise of websites like College Dreamer and Funny or Die that were also doing what if blank was a horror movie instead and doing it with reasonably good production value and with good actors, where just like the idea of, oh, fuck, you need to string like 40 of these together to justify it being feature length versus like, why wouldn't we just do one five minute sketch of this? I mean, Key and Peel, right, is another touchstone for like, outstanding genre parody with great attention to detail. Right. It was like the standards of doing this on TV and the internet, there became so many more places that did them and it became a lot easier for

them to do it well. Where the idea of having to go to the movies to see this makes no sense, especially when the movie versions of it happening simultaneously were dog shit. I do find it interesting that we have the Naked Gun reboot coming out this summer. Who's Drebben? Liam Neeson is Drebben.

Which is very fun. Yeah. Which feels like the smart, like, the Liam Neeson thriller of 2025 is the equivalent of the kind of cop procedural show that Naked Gun was parodying at the time. It's Akiva Schaefer directing it, who is the right guy to do that. At the time we were recording this, it has no trailer. It has an August theatrical release date that I'm hoping stays and does not go to streaming.

Pamela Anderson is playing the Priscilla Presley equivalent. Great. Paramount has it. And they just announced that the fucking Matt Stone, Trey Parker, Kendrick Lamar movie is going to Paramount Plus. I know, yeah. Which I'm just so desperate for like

a fucking live action comedy, pure comedy, to be released in theaters and make some amount of money. I want to believe, perhaps naively, that if there was a movie that came out with the right people attached that was actually funny, everyone would go. As much as I complain about the lack of successful theatrical comedies, there isn't an obvious thing in the last seven years where I'm like, that was put in theaters and no one went. All my favorites of the recent years I thought were like maybe a little too niche to have

that breakout. Totally. of the recent years I thought were like, maybe a little too niche to have that break out. Love Dicks the Musical, had a great time, but like, I understand why that did not gross $100 million. 824 had their like, getting behind Julio and like, Dicks the Musical and like, trying to do the smaller, can we build this up kind of thing. But it's like, Naked Gun feels like there's a moment here for this to be recaptured.

My favorite comedy is recently, you know, Free Guy, Wolves. The Family Plan, The Man From Ohio. I googled comedies for the 2020 and we're trying to find the most cursed answers. It really, it like hurts my feelings to hear you. There have also been good ones that got like punted to streaming. Yeah, for sure. Eurovision. Barbin Star.

Barbin Star. Barbin Star is an amazing movie. I mean, Barbon Star and Palm Springs were supposed to go theatrical, got fucked by the pandemic. Palm Springs, I'll say. Same with King of Staten Island, which is less good than those movies,

but you know, that was supposed to be a theater movie. But the naked gun thing I'm just like, if that were good, it feels like it is correctly positioned at the right moment to make people go like, oh, right, this is fun. People like comedies, dude. One of them days just did really good. Like, people will go see a comedy. One of them days is so good.

Yeah, like, people go see a comedy. Yes. No hard feelings obviously did pretty good, you know, a couple years ago. I feel like I'm all... Two movies that I would describe as very fun. At the time we're recording this, One of Them Days is the third highest grossing film of the year. And I just feel like there has not been a lot of talk of studios being like,

oh, we should make like 10 of these a year. This movie cost under $10 million. No, there's talk. I hope there is. There is. I mean, they were really great. Kiki Palmer and Cesar, both really funny. Fantastic.

The Cat Williams scene's really funny. It's all good. It's funny. Yeah. You know what Cat Williams is really good in? What's that? Norbit. Really? Cat one's kind of good in everything. He is funny. Yeah. You know what Cat Williams is really good in? What's that? Norbit. Really?

Cat Williams is kind of good in everything. He's really funny in Norbit. The whole joke in Norbit is that he and Eddie Griffin are former pimps who then start to run a legitimate business, but they start to run it like pimps because they can't stop being pimps. Extremely of an era where like, pimp was kind of a cultural reference of like a cool guy.

With a hat. Yeah, big hat. Wearing like a red or blue suit. Women like him by his, by their own volition. I mean, Cat Williams' entire early career was, is this guy a pimp or not? Yes. Is he implying that he used to be or is still currently? I'm like very close to pulling the trigger on Cat Williams

at the Barclay Center next weekend from the time we're recording. What's the date? It's the day of the cry for help. By the time this episode comes out, I will have gone or not. It is March 22nd. Are you interested?

I am not disinterested. We can talk off mic. Here's what I was gonna say. There have been a couple other spoof movies announced in development, but I do find it fascinating that all of them are taking the same approach, which is, let's reboot the legacy spoof movie brands. What are the other ones?

They announced that the Wayans Brothers are coming back to scary movies. Oh, a scary movie, yeah. I mean, I'm a little anxious about that, but yes. Same. Because I think, again, those... The first one, I remember really enjoying as a young person. Yeah. And then I think they became kind of those pastiche things of like...

Right. That you just have to have seen 14 movies to understand what's funny. So they only did the first two, but two is already becoming that. And is... Was made on such a... A rapid turnaround. Accelerated timeline that it is like parodying the stuff from six months earlier. And then David Zucker takes over from that point. But right. That's the big deal is like,

they're coming back for the first time since two. And then I have heard things about hotshots, which kind of makes sense to do a hotshots, legacy equal that is parodying Maverick. And I feel like there is one other one. I feel like they needed to do that right away. That's already kind of receding. There's another one I'm forgetting.

Spring is here and you can now get almost anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. What do we mean by almost? You can't get a well groomed lawn delivered, but you can get chicken parmesan delivered. Sunshine? No. Some wine? Yes. Get almost almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.

Order now. Alcohol in select markets. See app for details. Johnny Dangerously. You know, Vermin gets arrested, Governor pardons Johnny, everything works out. We'll have a little fun with it, David. Big sequence in front of the movie theater screen.

I like the shot of him falling through the screen. Yeah, that's cool. That's fun. Is that the roaring 20s that they're watching? I can't remember which movie it is. But it's one of those. The pictures of Roaring 20s is the big shootout on this. The steps.

The film... The guy gets them having to change the disguise of the car and their costumes ripping off the car, like it's wallpaper. The shelf paper. Yeah, the shelf paper. Which is so funny why they made that tight, why they referenced shelf paper earlier.

Oh, yeah. To see, like, I love shelf paper, why they referenced shelf paper earlier to seed like, I love shelf paper, and then they're using it to camouflage the car. Intentionality. Like, this movie is like holistically building its bits for maximum impact later. Film got bad reviews. Okay. Janet Maslin says that heckling brought a sense of fun. Mm-hmm. Fun.

And sort of, yeah, you know what? She did say that. But she found the movie wound down as it went along, eventually descending to a lowest common denominator of dopey adolescent gags, but she was like medium on it. But most others did not like the movie and it opened somewhat confusingly Christmas time. Yeah. 1984 is very bizarre.

And it made three million dollars at the domestic box office in its opening weekend. It did make it to 17. OK. So on a nine million dollar budget, it basically, you know, like broke even ish. Yeah. I don't want to spoil the box office game, but there's something important about the box office game. Okay, well, I'm excited. But I do think this is that kind of, like, follow-up movie where everyone's, like, crossing their arms and going, like, see, Amy, you should have just stuck to your thing.

Like, why did you say no to all those scripts we sent you? Do you want to do the box office game? Yeah, let's do it. I'm very curious what this interesting thing is. Christmas time, December 21st, 1984. Okay. It's opening number nine at the box So it's not in the top five. What's number one of the box obviously huge comedy something interesting is happening Sort of Beverly Hills cop is number one. That's correct

And as Amy Heckerling said I was so depressed when the movie came out My ex-boyfriend had a movie come out that day to call Beverly Hills off and his she's wrong that it came out that day It'd been out for a couple weeks, but the point is made. Was beaten at the box office. And his feeders were full and mine were empty and I was just so miserable. As we covered on our Martin Brest episode,

those two had a thing when they were young. I, at film school, at FI, I thought I saw Martin Brest in one of the scenes. I don't think he is credited, but there is a one line role, and now I wanna see if I can find it. I almost wanna say it's in the courthouse that I could have sworn was young Marty.

Not seeing anything in particular as I Google it, but I don't know. But so Beverly Hills Cop is number one. Beverly Hills Cop! Do you like Beverly Hills Cop, Josh? I find it, this might be controversial, fun. I mean, I would sort of agree that it is actually such a ploddy movie,

and it's like kind of a straightforward cop movie, that it is less about the laugh out loud stuff. But Eddie... It really runs on Eddie Murphy's charm. It... I also kept waiting for a twist, and it's like, nope, we know it's the bad guy, we go right at him. Right.

Although I do kind of appreciate that it's just like, this guy sucks, and he is right about him and he's just gathering the evidence to back up the case. Which I just, I like assumed it was a slightly different kind of movie, but it's like, it is very fun. Very fun. But it is weird to watch today, as much as I love it, and be like that movie like shattered the culture.

Yes. Right. Like people were losing their fucking minds and you're like, it is a pretty standard cop movie that one guy is just like wheeling into being funny. Number two at the box office is another film we have covered on this podcast, quite recently. Okay.

It's a science fiction film. The science fiction film? A bit of a disappointment. Is it? It's it out for two weeks? The motion picture of Dune? Dune! There's an interesting, I mean, the AFI mafia of like Stuart Kornfeld, Breast,

Heckerling connecting to Lynch and Brooks. There's just a, we're building a little bit of a constellation here. We're in the mid-80s right now, although Heckerling will be, you know, we'll be moving forward, But yes. Number three. So we've covered a lot of these because we've done these box offices recently. So number three is a buddy crime comedy film that was a flop with two major movie stars.

Is this the one? I feel like someone texted us about this recently that we didn't give it enough attention. It's not The Fortune, which I feel like is what I guessed last time. Is it the Kirk Douglas one? No. What's that one called? I don't know. Huff Guys?

That's not Wise Guys. Maybe. It was a bit of a fuck. I don't know what you're talking about, because I'm talking about this movie here. David tapping out with Ben listening to stories about weird Al Thors. Film's called My Bologna. No, it's, come on, it's Burt Reynolds.

And Clint Eastwood. And Clint Eastwood. It's a movie called City Heat. It's a big disappointment. Throwback-y kind of, similar to Johnny Dangers. There are two throwback-y guys in hat movies, you know, like it's... Guys in hat movies! And then number four is an ambitious science fiction film

that we've covered on our Patreon. A sequel. 2010? 2010. 2010, the year we make contact. And then number four is an ambitious science fiction film that we've covered on our Patreon. A sequel. 2010? 2010, 2010, the year we make contact. So it's like, hey kids, do you wanna see flawed, ambitious sci-fi or like goofy gangster shit?

Yeah. Number, or fucking they're like, well, let's go see Beverly Hills Cop. They're all gonna go see Beverly Hills Cop. Number five in the box office, you could also see this. It's a film that had actually come out in 1940, but is currently in theaters. Gone with the Wind?

No, the kids' film. Wizard of Oz? Animated film. Snow White? No. No, that's in the 30s. I believe it is Disney's second film. So then it's a Pinocchio?

Pinocchio! Pinocchio! Beverly Hills Cop, I'm sorry to digress from Pinocchio, but Beverly Hills Cop being number one while Johnny Dangerously is number nine kind of underscores the Murphy-Piscopo dynamic there. I wasn't even thinking about that part of it. You're like Murphy is like breaking records as the star of the movie and Piscopo is bombing as like the funny villain. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that's your top five. You've also got Star Man, another film we've covered. You've got a new entry that's opening above Johnny Dangerously called Protocol, which is a Goldie Hawn comedy written by Buck Henry about a cocktail waitress who gets sucked into like an assassination plot or something something Sounds like something she would do

You've got the Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola's big epic flop It's a lot of things flopping. I mean, I feel like when we do these earlier Except you got fucking Beverly Hills Cop I feel like when we do these earlier box office games You're copping or you're flopping It was it felt like a healthier time of the cineplexes where multiple movies could be succeeding simultaneously. And this is a rare example of like Beverly Hills Cop is just sucking up all the oxygen in the room.

You've also got opening at number 10, new this week, a little sequel called Breaking 2. Electric Boogaloo. A movie remembered, I think, as a meme. Yeah. Movie remembered for its, yes, for its A movie remembered, I think, as a meme. Movie remembered for its subtitle only, I think. I like when Johnny breakdances in this one. I'm seeing that the film received mostly negative reviews from critics.

Cowards. Yes, Lucinda Dickey and Adolfo Chavardu-Quinones and Michael Boogalalu Shrimp Chambers are the stars of that picture. Maybe you should start an ASMR channel where you just list the cast of Breakin' Two. And just get like quieter and quieter. David Names, famous break dancers.

Also opening this week, there's a lot of flops. There's a movie called Mickey and Maude, which is a Blake Edwards, Dudley Moore, like mega bomb. And you've got a 20th Century Fox movie called The Flamingo Kid, which stars a young Matt Dillon and a younger Hector Elizondo. So as you know, it's a Gary Marshall film. Hector Elizondo.

Hector Elizondo, which is about, I don't know, some kind of flamingo kid. Oh, the interview about the flamingo kid. Thank you, Josh. Is he like a kid who works at like a country club or some shit? He's like a cabana boy or something. Yeah, he's a cabana boy. But it's the first film to get a PG-13 rating,

which has just been existed. Well, well, well. And now it was not the first released because a couple more had come out. It was the first that the MPAA certified with a... Got it. And yeah, that's what's been in the box office when Johnny Dangerously comes out now, so the film doesn't do very well.

Okay, I found who I think is Martin Breast, and I'm gonna screenshot it, and I wanna solve this mystery, but it's when Griffin Dunn goes in for his first day at the DA's office, and he has one throwaway line, and I feel very confident that is Marty Breast. From us seeing cameos in his own work. I hear ya, I just don't know.

I can't prove this. But I just, I just don't know. I can't prove this. But I just, I found the moment and I will screenshot it. And it's a mystery to be solved later. Perhaps across our series. We'll see. I like, I think, I like that you're transitioning to one of those podcasts that solves the mystery. I mean, look, we just got back from the I Heart Podcast awards and those seem to be burning up the charts. We need more mystery. That's how this show started. Decade of dreams.

We were trying to solve what the Phantom Menace was about. We've lost the mystery angle. This show needs to go back to being a whodunit. And I'll tell you whodunit. Amy Hackerling, she made a movie that is funny. I agree. Jokes. Well, what do we think of her next movie,

National Lampoon's European Vacation? I have never seen it. You have been watching through the vacation movies for the first time, David. Huh. Huge totemic series for you. I mean, I love Chevy. I feel like this is almost universally.

Nobody really likes this one. Right, it's like the least liked installment. Everyone likes the first one in Christmas. This is the one people are less into. And even like Vegas is out of steam, but I feel like people, I have heard people say, my best friend growing up, Derek Simon, whose family loved the vacation movies,

were like, European vacation is like noxious. I mean, the last time I watched it was 13. I remember having a good time. Josh, do you have a vacation take or? I'm here for this film. They were movies, I think I saw Vacation and Christmas on TV. I remember wanting to see Vegas in theaters, but being a child, I had no agency to do so,

so I missed it entirely. And it's also like one of those things where, the more you hear about Chevy Chase, the less I'm like, I gotta go watch his old stuff. Yes. Jumping ahead, it's just an interesting arc of like this movie that really puts her on the map that like does okay on the map,

that does okay at the time but grows immediately, right? Then her swerving to something totally different that doesn't work, then it's like, what's my safety net? Make a sequel to a hit with a big star that is a sure thing. I think she views that as a failure in her eyes, that she didn't get the reins around that thing successfully. And it was obviously successful enough to keep the series going, but it's like the least love entry, which leads to her going into look who's talking being like, I need an undeniable hit that everyone has to give me credit for. Like I need a thing that is me that like they can't take away from me.

We'll talk about that next week though. Yeah, she successfully spawns her own franchise. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of her movies became TV shows too. A lot. I mean, Clueless, Fast Times, Look Who's Talking becomes Baby Talk. But they didn't make a Johnny Dangerously show.

No, they did make CSI Loser. Where what? They... They investigate teenager bags? They found him at the Iron Maiden concert the Iron Maiden, baby Josh, thank you for being here. Are we just good? David is that song fun or is it funny guys guys truly we cannot burn this here because it's gonna have to be To some real weedetus digging. I think that might be the most Wetus has ever been discussed

on a podcast episode is our loser episode coming in a few weeks. Josh, you're special. Someday, somewhere. Hopefully out by now. It will be called, it is called Positive Reinforcement. Thank you so much for having me. You're the king of positive reinforcement. I mean, Twitter is now a hellscape,

but it's a thing I always love that you would do, where you just kind of post like, I have a free 45 minutes, who needs positive reinforcement? I do it, I have a newsletter now that I do some pep talks in, which is fun. Substack? Substack, currently. JoshGondelman.substack.com, it's called That's Marvelous,

which of course is cribbed from the big Lebowski, Philip Seym's joshgondelman.substack.com. It's called That's Marvelous, which of course, cribbed from the big Lebowski, Philip Seymour Hoffman, rest in peace. But it's pep talks and jokes, and that's where all the Josh Gondelman-related information is. I'm on Instagram and blue sky and whatever. I just love that people would say, like, I've had a rough day, can you throw me something?

And you would always be specific. It was never just like, I tried to be specific. The weather's nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you heard a bird sing lately? Right, it was always like, this is well thought and considered, and if you didn't know someone,

you would like look at their profile and find the first thing you compliment them on. You're a very genuine, kind, thoughtful person. The Johnny Dangerously of jokes. And by calling someone the Johnny Dangerously of blank, I mean... Fun more than funny. I was going to say my highest compliment. Thank you.

Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Next week, we will be embarking upon a European vacation. Pack accordingly. And as always, we've recorded a Johnny Dangerously episode once. Once. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas.

And our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit.

Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social at blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. Gaming this out.

I got two options. I'm just running it in my head. This movie has a lot of good lines. I feel like you got to do one of those like one time. Oh, I like that one. I kind of like that. Don't blow it. Don't blow it, Ben.

You got a Piscopo? Is that his last name? Yeah, it is Piscopo. How do you not know his last name? Let's get into it! Sorry, he hasn't stuck in my mind. Hey, hey! Save it for the mic.

Ready?