Judge John Hodgman - An Ampersand-Lopez Goof Party

Episode Date: October 28, 2020

It's time to clear the docket! Songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (FROZEN, COCO)  help with an important FROZEN 2 related dispute! They also weigh in on cases about continuity errors and group text chat participation. And much, much more!Here are some links to topics and references from the episode:Kristen and Bobby excited for Marshall Curry's Oscar win (you can find them at the end of the clip)IMDB's Goof Submission PageMake sure to watch Judge Hodgman and David Rees' hilarious show DICKTOWN at bit.ly/dicktowniwillvote.comVirtually j oin Judge Hodgman phone banking for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at bit.ly/gogetemzach. You can also phone bank for Wisconsin Voters at bit.ly/gogetemkelsey!Revisit the episode of Election Profit Makers where David Rees cries after the 2016 Presidential Election at bit.ly/whendavecries

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. I'm bailiff Jesse Thorne. We're in chambers this week to clear the docket. And with me is an autumn man, Judge John Hodgman. I am. I'm very autumnal. You're wearing a puffy vest. I'm wearing a puffy vest indoors.

I find it to be very, very self-protective. Sure. Very comforting to have my trunk covered at all times. But, you know, it's also Halloween time. Halloween is coming up this Saturday. Jesse Thorne, did you know that? I do. I, you know, I have three children here at my house, and Halloween has been an obsession the past four weeks.

It's as though I'm raising three tiny Dana Goulds. Oh, I was almost a villain laugh. We'll get you, Gould. But you're not going to be trick-or-treating during this particular Halloween season? We have a very specific trick-or-treating plan, which is that we are going to trick-or-treat over the fence with our neighbors, and then we are going to get

in the car and go to Elliot Kalin's house and trick-or-treat at his house. All right. And then try and convince our children that that is a full round of trick-or-treating. You're not going to drive by the Dana Gould homestead up in the hills oh i bet dana gould has falcon manor or whatever it is that he calls it uh falcon's lair i think it's called yes suited and booted yeah uh we are not doing trick-or-treating here in brooklyn uh however i am personally

mailing a full-size zagnut bar to every child in the United States. That is my treat and my trick for all the children of this nation. And not fun size. They only sell them full size. You know, Zagnut is the only kind of candy bar that I like, Jesse Thorne. I didn't know that you like Zagnut bars. I'm happy to hear that. Very savory candy bar.

Very savory. Not too sweet. Is the Zagnut bar a product of the of northern california is it an annabelle candy company product uh i don't know i don't know what it was originally and of course there's no way to find out except by going to this website it was launched in 1930 by the dl clark company which sold it to Leaf later on and was later acquired by the Hershey's Food Company. So that's Pennsylvania. Best known for their hockey cards.

Yeah, exactly. Pennsylvania to Pennsylvania pretty much. Annabelle's makes Abba Zabba. That's what I was thinking. Abba Zabba is pretty good. As well as Big Hunk, Rocky Road, Uno, and Look. Big Hunk is a good name for a candy bar. Speaking of Big Hunks, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, you're one.

Do you have a costume planned for the Halloween? Tired Dad. Tired Dad. You too. Tired Dad. I found an old Lucha Libre mask in the bottom of my son's closet. It's not like he was hiding it from me. It's not like that's his that's a secret

like spider-man before he gets his spider-man suit no no no it's a literally ray mask that had gone missing for a long time i just found it this morning in my son's closet and i might try to wear it but it's a little hard on my nose and i can't wear my glasses with it you remember that i must have told you what my most imaginative Halloween costume was as a child. What was that? The blob. I was the blob. Oh, that's fun.

How did you pull that off? I got into a green sleeping bag. And I made my friend Jeremy Morrison dress up as a mad scientist and pull me around in a cart. I got to go see the lucha in Mexico City last year. My wife and I went to Mexico City. Anducha in Mexico City last year. My wife and I went to Mexico City, and my friend Colt Cabana is a professional wrestler. And I emailed him and I said,

what lucha libre should I go see when I'm in Mexico City? And he said, hold on, I'll hook you up. And he got his friend El Guerrero Maya to get us like courtside or ringside seats to the Lucha. It was so like, I'm not a wrestling guy, but it was such a blast. I was, it was like old ladies, 12 year old girls and everything in between at, at the, at the fight. And it was a, it was a great time. And when we got to our hotel, I had been DMing with El Guerrero Maia.

And, um, when we got to our hotel and he wasn't able to, he lived right near our hotel i had been dming with el guerrero maya and um when we got to our ho and he wasn't able to he lived right near our hotel bragging this guy brad i was telling you i was telling you how i dressed up as the blob as a kid and you're like well i was dming with el guerrero maya yeah forget about my story so he was wrestling out of town the week that i was there yeah um but he lived like two blocks from my hotel. So he says, I'll drop some tickets off at your hotel and you guys can go, it'll be a great time. And I got to my hotel and it was like a real small, you know, like a five room hotel with one lady that ran it.

And I went up to the lady and she was welcoming us in. And she said to us in English, she said, also a man brought you these tickets. He said he was named Guerrero Maya, but he was just a man. She was so confused. Well, because she surely knew who Guerrero Maya was, right? And yet he was not in his secret identity. Yeah, the magic is in the mask, my friend.

Well, I was the blob. Let's get going. We got a lot of justice on the docket. Here's a dispute from Nick. He says, my wife Katrina and I are having an argument about the Frozen 2 soundtrack. On the Deluxe Edition soundtrack, there's a delightful song called Get This Right, where Kristoff sings about his failures in proposing to Anna. Katrina believes this song was intended to go at the beginning of the movie when Kristoff first tries to propose and fails.

I argue this was intended to be at the end of the movie, as a culmination of Kristoff's multiple failures at proposing. We need a third party to weigh in and declare one of us right. Please help us, Judge Hodgman. Well, Nick and Katrina, you're out of luck because I don't know. And why should I? I don't, I wasn't in any of those movies. Why do I know?

Why would I know anything about this? This is a trend that has been happening on this podcast where people are using this podcast as a very, very, very selective and slow speed search engine. They send me an email and it lingers around until we pluck it for the podcast from Jennifer Marmer and then we get on air and I have to go and Google Zagnut bars and the Frozen 2 making of and everything. Well, you know what? Fine. Here I go. Here I go.

I'm just going to look it up. If anyone on our podcast would know something about a song from Frozen 2, it would be me, a man with a three-year-old. All right. And a six-year-old and a nine-year-old, all of whom love watching Frozen 2 over and over and over. And certainly I enjoy Frozen 2 as well. As you know, John. Yes, of course.

I'm the number one Olaf stan. Olaf, we stan a legend. I love that all of Olaf's conflicts are about the fact that he is realizing mortality. Sort of like the end of Toy Story 3. I think all children's entertainment should be about death. Well, there we agree. But even given my extraordinary knowledge

of the frozen world of Frozen, I can't help you here. I don't know the answer. The best I could do would be Google it. Well, that's what I'm doing right now, as you can hear by my rapid David Straithairn and sneakers style typing. Let me press the enhance button on my keyboard. I'm cracking into the system right now.

And we're in. Okay, so it says here that the original songwriters for both Frozens, Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, and hang on, I'm Googling people I know. Same answer. And wait a minute. Also Googling people right here. They're right here right now.

Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, my friends, and friends of the show. Hello. Hi, Judge Hodgman. Hi. I'm with Jesse. Thanks for having us. That was quite a long road.

That introduction was quite a journey. You could have Googled people who used to spy on me because they lived, we shared the same backyard alley. So we used to be able to watch you go out and barbecue things. Yeah. Well, look, I know that we- This is exciting. This is what I tune into this podcast for.

And by barbecue things, you are speaking non-euphemistically, of course. Just barbecuing. Well, grilling. Grilling things in your outdoor space. I knew that we were next door neighbors. That's how we got to know each other. And I was so thrilled to get to know you both, Kristen and Bobby. But I didn't put it together that your windows looked out on ours or on our alley

that we we share a beautiful alley in brooklyn we shared an alley yeah yes and and your fence was pretty high so we couldn't stalk you a lot no you're welcome to There was only a little sliver of stockability, which we tried to not use very often. There was another neighbor who was a little bit more intrusive. And she may still live there, although most of the apartments in that building seem to be unoccupied at the moment for reasons that you might speculate upon. occupied at the moment for reasons that you might speculate on but it was even an academy award winning short film last year from your neighbors in your apartment building about about stalking your neighbors marshal curry yeah marshal curry and mark and elizabeth martin curry his wife produced it there are next door neighbors in our building there are old friends our mutual friends and they yes and they made a movie called the a short film called The Neighbor's Window, which won an Oscar award.

Yeah, well, I went to high school with Jimmy Stewart from Rear Window, so. I know famous people, too. Look, you know, one of the things that, I mean, you guys share a lot of, you guys have a lot of awards for your songwritings including uh one or more oscars right we need them to to feel valid yeah we have four oscars because we each won two and they are they very nicely give give us one each in case things don't work out in the future. Do you guys ever get mad that Wendy Malick has a Cable Ace award and you don't? I would not get mad at Wendy Malick. She's good in everything. She's the most angular person I've ever seen as well. Very angular. She was great on HBO's Dream On. I was going to tell a story about how a neighbor across the alley in the building where you guys used to live was somewhat intrusive

because we went to Brookline High School together and anytime I went out there she would yell at the window hey Brookline what's going on which I did not appreciate but I take it back now I take it back now because you reminded me that Marsh and Elizabeth were out of town for a while in the spring and we were sort of checking in on their apartment from time to time, and I would go into their apartment, and I would just pick up that Oscar and hold it. I was a creep. I was a real Oscar creep.

If you go back and watch them, we are so excited when they win. We knew we weren't going to win because we were up against Elton John this year. Right. And when they won, we leaped to our feet. And the camera is like, who is that

lady in the bright green dress so excited? They go all the way across and they catch us like we are their mother or something. It's like we were their family there. We were so excited. Park Slope representing. Thank you guys so much for being here. If you don't know, and you should,

Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez are the songwriting team behind all the hit songs from the movies Frozen, Frozen 2, and Coco. And there are my former neighbors. You're now back in Brooklyn, I can see on the Zoom. You're in a different location in Brooklyn, a different undisclosed location. We're in in-person school now.

Intense school. And it's intense and it's intense. It's literally N-T-E-N-T-S. N-T-E-N-T-S. And you will hear ambulances as we're talking that go by. We're all doing the best we can. So, Kristen and Bobby, you heard the question, or perhaps you did. This is a question about the song Get This Right from Frozen 2.

Katrina believes this song was intended to go at the beginning of the movie when Kristoff is first trying to propose and fails. Whereas Nick feels that it is at the end of the movie where it is intended. Do you have any insight to share on this? I'm going to give you the very short version of what I try to explain about the creating a Disney musical process. It is not, we don't just get a script and it's like, write a song here. Song goes here. Song goes here.

The story and the songs evolve together. the story and the songs evolve together. And the real quick version is like, imagine you build a giant Lego city in a huge warehouse. And you work for three months or five months. And then you invite everyone who works for Disney in to come look at your Lego city. And after they've looked at it, they all get a chance to have a baseball bat

and smash everything they don't like and then maybe at the end of that first warehouse you have like three buildings and you carefully take them to a new warehouse where you begin to build the lego city again and this happens in six iterations you're writing this musical in six or seven times. And sometimes only a song or only a story point will stay. And sometimes the whole next movie will get written around that song, like with Let It Go. In this case, we had written, here, Bobby, you could take it. Yeah, so it did come at the front of the story, but the story was completely different. So it's hard to say.

It's almost like, you know, yes, there was life in America three million years ago, but it was an ocean. It was ocean life or whatever. It was a different landscape. Ooh, that's a big stretch of a metaphor there, hun. Yeah. I would just say it was in the beginning of the movie when it was a completely different movie,

when we were looking at a lot more of a complicated arc for Kristoff and Anna and spending a lot of time having them think about, like, where am I happy and what does happiness mean? Yeah, the story was that Kristoff didn't like his life very much, I guess, in that version. He didn't like being in the castle. He didn't like wearing clothes.

He didn't like not getting to go into the forest with his reindeer and just hang around outside. He missed the woods, much like I do, as I listen to the ambulances going by right now. I want the woods. listen to the ambulances going by right now i want the woods um so i guess you know that my role here is to arbitrate who is who is right and who is wrong and katrina is making the argument that get this right was intended to be at the front of the movie and i understand that that's like saying there used to be the united states when the earth was covered in water we're gonna get a lot of

letters from the many many young earth creationists who listen to this show. I'll take it. I'll take that heat. Have them send it to Bobby. It's about 50% young earth creationists. And then it's about 50% people who believe in evolution and the hollow earth theory. That's about how it breaks down. Oh, yeah.

In any case, would it be fair to say that Get this right was imagined in your minds as a kind of table setting song and a an establishment of where a character is starting out rather than where the character is ending up would that be fair to say that is correct that's correct though i think katrina is right though i i will say along with the amazing jennifer lee and and Chris Buck, who shaped the story as well as an amazing group of storytellers. We did consider putting Get This Right at the end. So the gentleman in question, Nick, is also partially right. Because for a moment, we considered, could this drop in? Especially because we had already recorded with Jonathan Groff

and he was like, this is a bop. This is such a bop. And he wanted to keep it in. But then we realized we could write something better for him that was more integrated with the story. Got it, got it. Okay. So I think I heard Bobby say Katrina is technically right.

Kristen, you had said that Nick is also sort of right. Is there a consensus between the two of you or do I have to be the tiebreaker? Who's more right? I'm going to say if we're talking about screening one or two, Katrina is totally right. This was going to be, this was a set up the pins kind of song. Got it. For the story to knock song. Got it. For the story to knock down. Got it.

And yet there was a time that we also looked at it as like this is when the pins are down. Right. And this is the end of the story. And by the way, thank you for confirming

my long held theory that Frozen 2 is specifically a bowling metaphor. That was all, I mean, I get into all kinds of fights with people about it,

but it's all over that movie. It's clearly a candlepin bowling metaphor. I have a very quick follow-up about the structure of Frozen and Frozen 2 and how it came together. At what point did you realize that sort of the primary

or central theme and technique in the film would be using the goofy snowman sidekick and a heavy dose of dramatic irony to remind children that death is coming for them. Well, that was sort of a formula thing because that's his song, and his song in Frozen 1 also tends towards that idea.

But, and you know, we did write a different song. We wrote two other songs for Olaf, for frozen two and for the Broadway show. One was called, I'm going to live forever. The other one was called,

I'm a snowman in the world's on fire. If I'm, if I'm really honest, we use Olaf as a way to get out our own anxieties often. and the world's on fire. If I'm really honest, we use Olaf as a way to get out our own anxieties often. And sometimes having a deadline, like knowing that a movie is going to open and the movie is not at all ready and there's huge amounts of pressure on it,

feels like death is coming for us. That's why they call it a deadline. So we have Olaf speak what we're feeling and we can write our truth through him. That's fantastic. This will all make sense when I'm older. Meant a lot when we were nine months from the opening and didn't have an entire act two. Oh right, sure, for sure. And what were the two songs that you were considering writing for Olaf, aside from our joke titles for them?

We wrote one called... Unmeltable Me. Unmeltable Me, that I'm going to live forever. And then there was one called I Was Made For You, and it was much more about... Perfect. Yeah, I mean, he was literally put together, and it was all about people having purpose in life.

Something for baking. What is it? Something has an aptitude for candle making. I forget. It's really important that we do not get sued by Disney. Please don't sing any songs on this. No, we own this one. You own it?

We own it. We'll get them him back how much would we get if we sue you I mean what is it worth I'd offer you Marshall Curry's Oscar because I have access to it but you're tripping over them

already so I don't even know I'm gonna rule in favor of Katrina with a shout out to Nick because you know what you guys are partners got it it's like Bobby and Kristen, you're partners.

You got to work together on this. You can't always be right or wrong, but Katrina, you're right. Now, Bobby and Kristen, you're wonderful, funny, and wise people. And I know from previous experience that you're not going to leave this meeting and you're just going to be staring at me

through this window whether we ask you to leave or not. So will you please stick around and help us dispense some more justice? Happy to. We will. We will happily interrupt you when you're just in the middle of having the perfect punchline. Here's something from Beck. My husband and I would like to request a ruling on the definition of a continuity error in movies and television shows. I define a continuity error as inconsistency from one scene to the next. My husband also includes errors such as anachronisms, guns with too many bullets, and deviations from source material, just as some examples.

We regularly argue over this and request a definitive ruling so we can move on with our lives. All right. You know, it's a fun way to watch a movie. I'm sure you two, as people who are involved in the art and craft and the long, strenuous work of making movies, which is this huge, massive, whether animated or otherwise, a huge, massive collaborative effort, juggling tons of schedules, deadlines, as you say, dreams and ambitions that have to be called difficult decisions because of budget and everything else. It must be fun to know that your

movies are going out there so that Meg's husband can just be like, that gun has too many bullets. Here's something that's wrong about that. And I'm so much smarter than this movie. I guess people have always watched movies that way, but just now we get to hear Here's something that's wrong about that, and I'm so much smarter than this movie. I guess people have always watched movies that way, but just now we get to hear every single one of them. Before I rule on the substance of this question, do you have any amusing movie errors that you enjoy? I've been watching The Godfather with Francis Ford Coppola's sort of commentary track. And there's one really hilarious one in The Godfather where this woman, they're standing at a doorway and they're talking about,

I think they're talking to Johnny Fontaine. And Francis Ford Coppola just says, now in a second you'll see there's a woman who sort of walks by the doorway realizing that she's on camera and probably shouldn't be there. And then she just backs up. And then she indeed does.

And you would never notice it, but he points out this movie. Now I can never not see it. It's pretty funny. No, I don't mean to be a jerk about Meg's husband. It's fun to know about those things and find out about those things. Kristen? I like to look at just for boom mics. My favorite thing, especially with TV,

is to be like, boom mic, boom mic. We've been watching Gilmore Girls early season, and there are these times that there's a little boom mic in like Rory Gilmore's kitchen or something. I think often the aspect ratios changing between television and film is a big contributor. The one that came to mind immediately for me was probably my favorite movie of all time is Pee Wee's Big Adventure. And there's a scene in the beginning when he's in, he's out front of the bike store and he's

locking up his bike and he's pulling this big white chain out of his saddlebag or his saddle case. And it goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes and goes. And as a child, I was always so confused as to what the joke was that he was pulling it through the bottom of his saddle bag. I was like, what is this? Because you could see it coming up through the bottom and then up the top. And I was like, what is this? Is that an error or is that a joke?

I always thought it was a joke yeah exactly and then when I was you know 18 or 19 years old the movie came out on DVD in the proper aspect ratio and that was how I learned about pan and scan learned viscerally about pan and scan it was just that when they had uh when they had changed that from the filmic aspect ratio to the four to three of a television at the time a tube tv they had just the the picture had gotten taller and so the part that was cut off in the movie theater showed and that was the part where it showed how they did the effect of him pulling the chain out forever which was they just put it on they just literally physically looped it i'll tell you one that i've just been delighting recently i recently did a max fund members only feed special episode of friendly fire which is a

great podcast about uh war movies with our friend john roderick benjamin harrison and adam pranica this the movie they were covering is arguably a war movie. It's David Lynch's Dune. And that movie is covered with weirdness. Most of it is entirely intentional. But there's one of the weirdnesses that I, and I had taken a picture of the screen because I had just forgotten how silly this was. Patrick Stewart is in this movie

before he was Captain Picard. He played Gurney Halleck, one of Paul Atreides, the hero's mentors and teachers. And later in the movie, there's this pug that shows up all the time. Paul Atreides' family has this little pug, and you don't know why he's going through space with this family. But later in the movie, Patrick Stewart is going into battle, and he's got the pug.

He's got a laser sword or something in one hand and the pug in a little space baby Bjorn that he's cradling. And I took this picture. It's so funny. He's going into battle with this pug dog. And it's only recently that I realized the pug is staring directly into the camera. And as someone who if you read medallion status oh yes my book i have a real problem with spiking the camera as they say

looking directly into the camera so my pug that pug was looking directly through the camera across time and into my eyes saying shame on you so yes it's a shame you know yeah um i just there's one more thing i thought i would add to the question, which is when we're writing stories often, I we use this term called like, let's stick it under the couch cushions or let's turn over that couch cushion. If you think about it as like there's sometimes stains that something spills on your couch and you're like, OK, we have another side of that couch cushion. As long as as long as like guests are coming over, it's going to look like a perfectly fine couch. It's only if you have someone like house sitting who decides to look under the couch cushion and is like, oh, that's a red wine stain. There are definitely in many of these movies couch cushion stains that you just have to say like come on guys just flip the cushion and it'll be fine yeah yeah and like plot holes too like little plot holes and things like that you

just you know not everything can be perfectly airtight and nor do you necessarily want it to because i think that makes a fairly airless movie if everything works just so do you know what i mean i fully agree i think we need the stains we love the stains because stains are human that's i like this picture of show business that you're painting here john where on the monday after the film's premiere like the teletype is going tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick and the secretary runs into the movie mogul and says, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, the goofs are in. Well, speaking of goofs, this speaks specifically to this dispute.

So Meg and her husband have a dispute over the meaning of continuity error. I'm going to solve that for them now. I checked with Phil Morrison, the director, my friend, the director of all those Apple ads, also director of the incredible film Junebug and the forthcoming film Satan is Real when it gets to be made about the Leuven brothers. Look it up.

And Phil confirmed my understanding that I had picked up from watching him work years ago that continuity and continuity error have specific meanings in filmmaking. They have a specific definition. Continuity means continuous within itself, that the established reality of the film is consistent from wardrobe to prop placement. Anything that is established in the film can't be contradicted later in the film, visually or plot wise, et cetera. So, for example, if it's established clearly in the movie that Hellboy's gun, the Samaritan, has only six magic potion bullets and then Hellboy fires seven, that would be a continuity error.

But if it happens to be that Meg Sussman is just watching a movie and just happens to know that that kind of rifle takes such and such amount of ammo and they shoot too many. It's not a part of the plot or anything. Well, listen, Hellboy, that is what would be considered, according to canon, an IMDb. A goof! It's a goof. I love looking up the goofs on IMDb. Goofs are things like what Bobby described on the set of The Godfather. It's just a mess up. Just a mess up. The car that you can see driving in the background in Middle Earth

in The Fellowship of the Ring or that stormtrooper hitting their head as they walk through the Death Star and they're like, just leave it in. Just no one cares. It's a goof. Goofs are funny and continuity errors are sort of like nitpicky.

Yeah, that's a good distinction. The headlight fixed itself. It's that kind of thing. Right. A goof certainly does not, however, mean deviation from source material, according to the IMDB guidance page for submitting goofs that I found today to my incredible delight. So, for example, the fact that in the novel Dune, Duke Leto's mentat Thufir Hawat was never forced to milk a cat that had been duct taped to a rat and imprisoned in a steampunk machine. That's not a goof.

That's not a goof in David Lynch's Dune where that happens. That's intentional David Lynchian weirdness. Now the IMDb guidance page for submitting goofs is an incredible document. You should all check it out you can almost as you read it you can almost feel on your face the heat of the author's seething frustration with all the nitpicks and pedantry that have been submitted for their approval in

the past and it's always like no cars can be registered in different states it's okay if there's an oregon plate that just goes on and on. But my favorite line in goof guidance is, quote, a goof must be both relevant and interesting. What is interesting is difficult to define. But it can help to think of it like this. If you met someone at a party and wanted to impress them, would this goof do the trick? Right.

So, yeah. When we have parties again. so yeah when we have parties again so when we have parties again say you were in a nightclub in ibiza so here's what i ask of all the listeners to do when we get to have parties again i really want you to try this out i want you to pick out an imdb goof and go to a party and just start impressing people with lines like, you know the movie Pitch Perfect 2? No, that's right.

The last movie John Hodgman ever starred in. Well, here's something relevant and interesting. Quote, the aerial shot of Copenhagen contains marks for Poland, Germany, and the UK on the horizon. But Poland and Germany would not be visible as they're behind this point of view. Only the north of Scotland might be in the field of vision on the far left of this angle. End quote. Yes, I know that would impress you.

What's that? Crab dip? No thanks. I'm trying to be more crab conscious. That's a goof. By the way, 25 out of 27 IMDB users found that goof interesting. So what do I know?

We should have a goof party. A goof off. That's a goof party is the only party where you could impress someone with goofs. Let's take a quick break. More items on the docket coming up in just a minute on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Hello, I'm your Judge John Hodgman.

The Judge John Hodgman podcast is brought to you every week by you, our members, of course. Thank you so much for your support of this podcast and all of your favorite podcasts at MaximumFun.org. And they are all your favorites. If you want to join the many member supporters of this podcast and this network, boy oh boy, that would be fantastic. Just go to MaximumFun.org slash join. The Judge John Hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week

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ace award non-winners chris the judge john hodgman podcast is also brought to you this week by the folks over there at Babbel. Did you know that learning, the experience of learning, causes a sound to happen? Let's hear the sound. Yep, that's the sound of you learning a new language with Babbel. We're talking about quick 10-minute lessons crafted by over 200 language experts that can help you start speaking a new language in as little as one, two, three weeks. Let's hear that sound. Babbel's tips and tools are approachable, accessible, rooted in real life situations and delivered with conversation-based teaching. So

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spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Hodgman. Rules and restrictions apply. Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez. Really rubbing it in. Yeah, well, you know. That Wendy Malick. Is it too late to win the Cable Ace Award? Do they still have them?

Brian Benben was nominated but did not win. If you're wondering, initially I was going to say Brian Benben, but I thought I'd better look that up. He didn't win. Look, awards mean nothing. So it means nothing to me, Bobby. Do you both have the EGOT or is it just Bobby? I'm sorry. Just Bobby. I've got a go- the EGOT or is it just Bobby? I'm sorry.

Just Bobby. I've got a Go-Go. You got a Go-Go? I've got a Go-Go. No, it's not sensitive at all. I'm really proud of his awards. And I also know that I was very much involved behind the scenes of all of them. I bought a Blockbuster Entertainment Award on eBay.

I've only got a noggin. A noggin? Yeah. Neighbors Oscar Grammy nominee. blockbuster entertainment award on ebay i've only got a noggin a noggin yeah neighbors oscar grammy nominee i mean john we won that webby that's true yeah so neighbors oscar webby potential grammy nominee i think that's where uh medallion Status' audiobook is currently in. If you're a member of the Recording Academy, let me just say for your consideration. That's all I'm allowed to say.

So there we go. I have two Metro Santa Cruz Woody awards, so not bragging. I'm pretty chill too. What do you get? Santa Cruz Woody. That just sounds dirty. I know. Is it a surfing wagon?

Yeah, what is it? A Woody is the type of station wagon that you use classically to go surfing in. Right. With wood trim on it, you know, from the late 50s, early 60s. And the Metro Santa Cruz is the now defunct alternative newspaper, one of the two now defunct alternative newspapers of Santa Cruz, California. You drive a Woody with a bushy alternative newspapers of Santa Cruz, California. So it's a true. Go bananas loves. With a bushy blonde hairdo.

Yeah, exactly. It's a journalism award? No, it was an award for being the best radio host in Santa Cruz. Although, to be fair, the way we did it is the newspaper was free. So we just got a huge pile of them, them cut out the thing marked our name in best radio personality passed them out at the dining hall collected them and then brought them to the metro santa cruz the wood the so like the woodies are the golden globes of santa cruz awards yeah ballot fraud is real john but wait i don't understand why a car would be an award for a radio.

Just help me make that leap. I mean, it's the same as why is an astronaut the award for an MTV? Touche. Touche. Hang on. Jennifer Marmer's popping up in the chat here to say, she won local hero in that same paper. Similar tactic.

Wow. That's great. Double Woody winners here in the Max Fun family. Shout out to the editor of the Metro Santa Cruz, Steve Palopoli, who was like, yeah, I mean, it's fine with me. I think it's fun. Okay. Here's something from Jason. My friends, Erica, Bill, and Michael have an ongoing group text chat. In early June of this year, Michael asked the group to settle a bet as to whether a cheesecake is a cake or a pie. Oh, boy. I know what you're thinking, but that's not the dispute. Bill and I gave our opinions and a vigorous debate ensued.

Disappointingly, Erica remained silent throughout the exchange. silent throughout the exchange. Despite gentle periodic reminders that she should take a stand, she's taken the cowardly approach and has not divulged her opinion. Recently, a dispute arose as to whether a corndog is a tamal, and yet again she failed to reveal a point of view. Honesty is an important pillar of friendship, and I worry what effect continued silence will have on the group dynamic. I'm asking Judge Hodgman to order Erica to reveal her true opinions on these and future dumb disputes and disagreements. All right, first of all- Hodgman, you haven't talked for 20 seconds, you liar. What kind of honesty is that? I know. Well, all right, we'll get to all of the levels of Jason's wrongness.

I thought we were friends. But first of all, I noticed you pronounced what I would have said tamale as tamal. Is that the correct pronunciation? Tamal is the singular. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Whoa. So if I said a true thing, which is you just reminded me of the frozen tamales I have at

my house that I'm going to have for dinner tonight. Yum, yum. That would be okay. You'd be fine. And then we'd be like, we didn't put frozen tamales I have at my house that I'm going to have for dinner tonight. Yum, yum. That would be okay. You'd be fine. And then we'd be like, we didn't put any tamales in frozen. Frozen three, maybe. You know what? Put one tamal in frozen three.

That's right. One tamal. Don't even flip the cushion on that one. That's great. That was an amazing, amazing, amazing amazing i don't even know how to make a bowling metaphor for what you just did that was great great great great so but here john we're talking to the people that thought of the ballrooms with no balls these people are geniuses that's right unmeltable me though you would have had the wrath of DreamWorks on you, wouldn't you? No, it's mostly, not exclusively, but mostly about minions.

Right. Unmeltable Me was to set up how Olaf had a permafrost, so we didn't have to animate his own personal flurry through an entire movie. Oh. And they realized they didn't need an entire song for that. Right. Now there's just a line where Anna says,

like, enjoying your new permafrost? Yeah, we'll just call that a goof. We'll just put in one line to keep off the... Sometimes you write a whole song and you find out that it was a goof. Yeah, just put in a line to explain how we didn't want to animate this thing just to get the goof patrol off our backs.

That's right. So, okay, here's the thing bobby and kristin you may or may not know i made a decision a long time ago a couple of years ago that i was no longer gonna hear these is a hot dog a sandwich types of disputes uh and that's why jason's being so defensive like this is the dispute isn't whether or not a cheesecake is a cake uh i i don't want to hear them anymore because they're usually just a trap usually laid by some guy usually named jason or something who just wants to show how clever he is by proving a pizza is a taco or something similarly offensive and now this time jason

proved he's so extra extra extra clever by hiding his food fight inside the bogus trojan horse of shaming his soon-to-be ex-friend Erica for not texting him back fast enough. But you know what? I'll take the bait. Kristen and Bobby, let's do this. Is it cheesecake, a cake, or a pie? Oh. Sometimes it has a crust, right?

Sometimes it has like a little graham crackers or something on the bottom. It's always going to have a crust on the bottom. Otherwise, it's just a custard. But some cakes have that already. Some cakes have the graham cracker bottom. To me, in order for something to be a pie, it has to have a hard pastry shell that you've put some sort of wet something inside of. Yes.

Which is why sometimes chicken pot pie isn't really chicken pot pie. It is always wet, and it is gross. Sometimes they just try and bake a bunch of pastry on top of chicken stew. And I'm like, that's not chicken pot pie. No, that's a chicken pot crumble. Yes, exactly. Exactly. That's why he's Judge John Hodgman.

All right, so we're in agreement that cheesecake is a cake jesse thorne do you agree or disagree yeah cheesecake is a cake made in a pie like manner right and a corn dog is it a tamal is it tamal oh come on give me a freaking break this is both of these go directly to your overarching ruling in the hot dog sandwich debate, which is it doesn't matter what flow chart you make. If the answer is obvious, the answer is obvious. Thomas Tamales, right by Maximum Fun headquarters in Westlake, Los Angeles. Pick up some tamales. And you came back with corn dogs. I'd have to punch you square in the nose.

Square in the nose is where I'd punch you. I'm not a puncher, John, but I'd have to. Jesse Thorne would never punch one of his employees in the nose. Is that right, Jennifer Marmer? No, I wouldn't send one of my employees to get me tamales either. No, that's right. That's not how things work at MaxFun. Egalitarian. So I think that Erica is not writing back to Jason

because A, she knows she's correct. Cheesecake is a cake and a corndog is a corndog and is distinct from tamales. Also, she probably values her time. That was my point to this question, which is, okay, is Erica a working mom in a pandemic? Because a working mom in a pandemic cannot even find time to go to the bathroom.

They have lost hours and hours of sleep just trying to procure groceries and antibacterial wipes. Then chances are they have some sort of sick pet. I'm just feeling it for Erica. Erica does not have time to answer these disputes. She needs a yoga class. I'm 100% with you, but I am going to venture a guess that Erica and Jason and their friend group who share this text chat may not necessarily be parents. They may actually be people in their 20s. Here's why I'm the world's greatest detective. A, they have what is called a friend group, which none of us ever had. B, they have a regular text chat, which is also a thing for younger people as a person in my 30s i know exactly what you're talking about john when you're in your 20s you have a group of friends

that's like people who all go to central perk to sit together and enjoy a cup of coffee in your 30s you have singular friends and those are people who you spy on in their alley that's exactly right now so you understand in your 40, you don't care anymore. And in your 50s, you never go outside. Take it from my high school buddy, Jimmy Stewart. There you go. Well, to be fair, both of his legs are broken because he fell out of that window

at the end of rear window. So I appreciate that people like what they like, right? There are people who really enjoy coming up with pointless semantic debates to argue endlessly. And it goes back to the whole history of Judge John Hodgman has involved them in some of them quite famously and charmingly, like the two guys who used to fight about if a machine gun is a robot or not. And that's fine. Jason, you can like what you like and have this fun on your text chat. It's not for me anymore, but it's fine that you do it. But what I've discovered is that the people who do like to bring up these sort of semantic debates around is a hot dog, a taco or whatever, they tend to be young people in college or younger people whose college are not too far in the rear view mirror and who desperately want to be back in college and feel that special collegiate illusion that time is endless and all you have to do is think about these dumb things to fight about and everyone has to care about what you think, which is done, over. We all know that that's over with now. Also, let's face it, it's mostly dudes who fight about this stuff. So for Erica, for whatever reason, whether she is a harried mom in a pandemic, whether she has other responsibilities, whether it's that she's not a mom, but she knows she's right and she values her time. She's over this, Jason and friend group.

Let her be in your friend group. Let her like what she likes, which is not writing back to you. And let me like what I like, which is saying don't come on my podcast again trying to trick me into talking about cheesecakes and cakes and pies. CK and C and P. Very good. Very good. Let's take a quick break. We'll be back with our guests, Kristen Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez in a moment. Lopez and Bobby Lopez in a moment. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more

is a valuable and enriching experience. One you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S-T-O-P-P-O-D-C-A-S-T-I Were you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it

but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go call s-t-o-p p-p-a-d-i it'll never fit no it will let me try if you need a laugh and you're on the go try s-t-o-p p-p-d-c-o-o ah we are so close stop podcasting yourself a podcast from from MaximumFun.org. If you need a laugh, then you're on the go. Welcome back to the Judge John Hodgman podcast. Judge Hodgman, Kristen, Bobby, we have a couple of letters this week commenting on recent rulings.

First of all, we heard from longtime MaxFun listener and supporter G.J. Charlotte III. Right. So Bobby and Kristen, last week we heard a dispute between a daughter and her mom who were fighting over the mom's request that when she dies, and she's in good health now, she's in her 60s, very healthy, but down the road when she passes, she would like her daughter to flush her ashes down a toilet at Walt Disney World. And I was like, which, where in the Magic Kingdom? She's not even in the Magic Kingdom.

In a hotel, like maybe the Yacht Club Hotel. Do you know that one? Have you visited Walt Disney World? we know it well. And I heard this, I heard this last week, the day we recorded this.

This was a great episode. Oh, so you know it. I didn't do hear it, but I didn't? We usually listen together. I listened in the morning, sorry. Oh god. It must have been one of those mornings you woke up.

I was like, how did I not hear this one? Because we are stans. We are Judge John Hodgman stans. Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that. We look forward to it every single week. And apparently you looked forward to it more. Yeah, sorry. Kristen and Bobby are to Judge John Hodgman look forward to it every single week and apparently you looked forward to it more yeah sorry kristin and bobby are to judge john hodgman as i famously am to olaf the snowman from frozen good analogy

we stand a legend god bless you well thank you for listening so promptly bobby you may have heard the moment while during the taping where I got mad at myself because I had not thought beforehand to consult our listener, G.J. Charlotte III, who is a third generation funeral director and whom I've met in person at MaxFunCon several times. And guess what? He wrote in, and here's what he had to say about flushing cremains, just for your information. he had to say about flushing cremains just for your for your information cremated human remains aka cremains have several consistencies that's creepy one is granular think kitty litter way way to maintain the dignity of the human experience uh the other is powdery like in ashes and here's the thing the ashes will float on top of the water and not sink

gj says this came up when a client tried to sprinkle his loved one in a pond and the ashes left a slick on top of half the water they then proceeded to run their boat back and forth through the spreadings to sink them but then when they came out of the water the boat was covered in cremains and they rinsed their boat off and the whole affair was a mess. That does sound horrible. So on balance, Kristen and Bobby, if you're thinking about this, I don't know whether you would like to do the Yacht Club or some other part of Walt Disney World,

but flushing cremains between clumpy litter consistency and floating ashes, I think flushing cremains is not probably a good idea i'm thinking the lagoon like they the lagoon where the big alligators all live there it's got a nice big surface i think it gets it it gets you know the ashes to just float on top of but for a while until like a big afternoon thunderstorm comes. Because the lagoon is very close. It connects the Yacht Club and the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian as well as the Epcot. But the mom wanted her remains to go down the drain into the water treatment and then be recycled as water to water the flowers. Yeah, she didn't want to feed no gators.

She wanted to water the flowers. Yeah, she didn't want to feed no gators. She wanted to water flowers. I say we mix it in with some gator meal. I didn't realize she wanted to water flowers. Well, that's a completely other thing. Like, why don't you just go right to the... The flowers. Or the reservoir. You're going to love this episode, Kristen,

when you finally get around to it but i'll tell you what the gj suggests another method which is mixing the cremains with epoxy which i guess is something that you know how to do if you're a funeral director he says quote it's easier and less suspicious to drop a quote-unquote stone into a body of water than scatter a small powdery bag over its surface. So I don't want to spoil anything for you, Kristen, but my recommendation to this mom and daughter was that when the mom passes away, and I hope that's not for many, many years, and I hope that it is as peaceful as possible. And she is cremated. That the cremains be mixed with a bag of pennies. And the daughter dropped the pennies at subsequent visits to Walt Disney World into the wishing well next to the castle.

But now I'm thinking maybe she should just mix up the cremains with epoxy and get some custom-made epoxy mom pennies made. You know what I mean? Like in a mold like laser now i'm thinking she should mix it up with some epoxy and just redo her bathroom well maybe redo it maybe re-caulk a bathroom at the yacht club that would maybe be another option all right but anyway that's just a follow-up on that and we have one more follow-up to go and then yeah we have a correction to make regarding the movie Monster House, as mentioned in our recent episode, Brush with the Law. Right. A longtime listener named Robert Petler, and I'm saying his last name for a reason. He wrote in to say that he was listening while jogging and literally stopped in his tracks.

Oh, Bobby, were you listening while you were jogging? No, that would not have happened. I don't think that's the traditional way that Judge John Hodgman listeners take in this piece of culture. Not this one. Good for you, Robert. Listening while jogging and then literally stopped in his tracks when I mentioned Monster House. Because he is married to one of the writers of Monster House. Now, as you may recall, listeners,

I mentioned that that movie was written by Dan Harmon of Community and an animated show that is not Dicktown by me and David Reese. It's written by Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab. So, Kristen and Bobby, here's a movie trivia which writer of monster house is robert petler married to you want to guess the other dan harman is it no it's he's got a he's got a wife right um and i want to say her rob sch Hmm? His wife is something. Petler. Oh.

Oh. Right? Hmm? Hmm? Here. Kristen, you're right. I was a setup. It was like a riddle.

It's Mrs. Petler. The surgeon, it was a riddle, like where the surgeon couldn't work on her son because she was unprofessional or something. I don't even know what it was. It was a trick question because there was a third writer or something. I don't even know what it was. It was a trick question because there was a third writer that I didn't know about, Pamela Petler. Pamela Petler.

Pamela Petler was that final writer brought in after Dan and Rob Schrab had turned in their draft and moved on with their lives. And I truly, truly feel terrible and I apologize for Pamela Petler erasure. Because there are so many people who work on scripts who don't get recognized as working on scripts. And that was a really bad thing for me to do.

So I apologize. I'll point out that Pamela Petler also contributed to the screenplays of The Corpse Bride and the new Addams Family animated movie. You could have an all Pamela Petler Halloween movie festival this weekend if you wanted. At Dana Gould's house. I like that Pamela Petler is a goth doctor for scripts. Goth doc. I like that she has a lane here.

Yeah. You can just bring her in at the end to goth it up a little bit. It's not spooky enough. Yeah. Let's Pamela Petler this thing. Yeah, sprinkle some of that cozy goth over this. So Kristen and Bobby and Jesse, as we head into Halloween weekend, aside from your Pamela Petler film fest, are there any Halloween traditions or movies or TV shows that you're

going to watch this weekend? We usually dress up as Ghostbusters because our house looks a little bit like the Ghostbusters fire station. And also because we bought the costumes like five years ago and they're always there. We hang out a sign sometimes, just the Ghostbusters sign. It makes it look even more like it. Guess what, you guys?

Based on that description alone, I have triangulated your address. Get ready for me to look into your windows. And maybe I'll watch you watching one of my favorite scary movies, The Strangers. Kids, don't watch The Strangers. Adults, watch The Strangers. It's scary. You could watch us listening to you. I've spent most of my life assiduously avoiding all scary movies,

but I did watch that movie, The Lighthouse, last year, where Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe fart and go insane. And, man, is it amazingly good. It is spectacularly good. Like it is so, you can't imagine how successful a film can be on its own terms until you have watched The Lighthouse, a movie about two men drinking lamp fuel,

going insane, farting on each other, and fondling ivory mermaids. It is truly... And then they get cursed by a seagull. Oh, my goodness, it is an amazing movie. And they talk in a crazy old-timey talk the entire time, perfectly credibly. Oh, it is wonderful.

I can't wait to watch that movie and be like, hmm, that brand of lamp fuel is not actually available lamp fuel shortage caused a different kind of insanity the glass refilled itself right i kind of feel like in its own way the lighthouse in that movie the lamp in the lighthouse which is kind of a light giving godhead in the cosmology of the film is sort of like in its in its own again in its own way in the context of the film kind of a an analog or or at least the flip side of olaf's role in the frozen films of course i knew it i knew it and look you know lighthouse And look. Lighthouse lamp. We stan a legend.

Jesse Thorne puts a button on it. We're all button putters oners. We all have buttons that we want to put on this thing. I got 15 other buttons that I want to put on this discussion of the thing, but I'm going to let it stand. I'm going to let it stand with our stan of Olaf. And by the way, we stan the legends, Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert, aka Bobby Lopez, living over there in the Ghostbusters house. I'll see you later.

I'll watch you listening to my podcast twice a day. Bobby gets up early to do it first. I'm going to listen to this one. Thank you so much for being with us and helping us to spend so much justice today. Thanks for having us. I really appreciate it. And I also really appreciated the moment that you almost called me Kristen Ampersands Lopez. And I'm going to go with

that from now on. Kristen Ampersands Lopez. I'm sorry about that. No, no. We haven't heard that. I haven't heard that. And that was brilliant. And I'm going with that from now on. That could be that. I mean, I'm sure you guys already have an LLC or a loan out company, but that could be your corporation. Kristen Ampersand Lopez. You'll maybe change it up. I'm into it. Do you have anything coming up or an issue cause or a product that you want to talk about?

Obviously, everyone needs to vote. Everyone needs to vote. Get out and vote. And we've got something that's going to be coming out very, very soon. everyone needs to vote. Everyone needs to vote. Get out and vote. And we've got something that's going to be coming out very, very soon, but we're not allowed to say that we're involved yet. But it's been announced.

But we can't talk about it. And it'll be on Disney+. But we must obey the mouse, because the mouse feeds us. Or they'll flush us down the toilet. Oh, is it a reboot of Flushed Away? Anyway, it's been the most fun project we've worked on in a really long time

and it's coming out soon. And if you like superheroes, you will like this. Ah, well, watch the skies for Disney Plus announcements involving Kristen Ampersand-Lopez. That's like your Bennifer joint name now, as far as I'm concerned.

Ampersand-Lopez. I'm into it. The docket is clear. That's it for another episode of Judge John Hodgman. Our thanks to our friends Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Bobby Lopez for joining us today. Our producer is the ever capable. What was it that you won, Jennifer?

Local hero? The great local hero, Jennifer Marmer. Follow us on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman. We're on Instagram at Judge John Hodgman. Make sure to hashtag your Judge John Hodgman tweets, hashtag JJHO, and check out the Maximum Fund subreddit at MaximumFund.reddit.com to discuss this episode. Submit your cases at MaximumFund.org slash JJHO, or email Hodgman at MaximumFund.org. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman podcast. We'll talk to you next time on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.