Podcast: The Ride - Unlocked: America's Favorite Leading Man & America's Favorite Sweetheart

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Please enjoy this sample of PTR: The Second Gate. Find more Second Gate episodes at Patreon.com/PodcastTheRide We try to analyze two posters by some bathrooms in Disney's California Adventure. Listen to Podcast: The Ride Ad-Free on Forever Dog Plus: http://foreverdogpodcasts.com/plus FOLLOW PODCAST: THE RIDE: https://twitter.com/PodcastTheRide https://www.instagram.com/podcasttheride BUY PODCAST: THE RIDE MERCH: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/podcast-the-ride PODCAST THE RIDE IS A FOREVER DOG PODCAST https://foreverdogpodcasts.com/podcasts/podcast-the-ride Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

five four three two one welcome to podcast the ride the second gate i'm scott gerdner joined by jason sheridan hello hi good to be back to regular names yeah yeah yeah oh we don't Welcome to Podcast The Ride, The Second Gate. I'm Scott Gerardner, joined by Jason Sheridan. Hello. Hi, good to be back to regular names. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't have to belabor these. We know what they are.

And there's Mike Glarl... No, no, no, no. I can just go back. Mike Carlson. Mike Carlson. I would prefer if you actually were like, Mike Carlson. Oh, jeez.

They kept that energy? You gotta spookify that too. Well, just it's fun. We gotta come down from spooky season, I guess, as we settle into, I was gonna say regular topics. But how regular? I don't know if you can call this a regular topic. Oh, baby, this is a micro-targeted one.

This has been on my docket for a while it's hiding in plain sight impossible to google yeah you can't even can't find it no no one's ever done any media about this this is the first thing that's ever been about it is rubbing his hands together like an evil genius like a dog at a 40s nightclub who was about to get a big steak oh perfect perfect time period for this uh i went back i found pictures i took in uh march of this year to be to as like a reminder myself of like oh let's talk about this and it we had talked about it before and then it came up again and i'm glad i could still find these pictures because again these phrases are so vague it's hard to search yeah this episode is about two posters. Two posters by the bathrooms. By the bathrooms. In Hollywood land.

The Hollywood, even I don't know the name. It's called the Hollywood Studios Backlot. What is this actual land? Isn't it down to Hollywood? Because it is now. Just Hollywood. I did find, searching some of these terms, a Yesterland article from 2015 talking about,

all right, now that California Adventure has been totally redone, here's all the stuff that doesn't make sense in Hollywood land. Here's like, okay, half of it is the golden age of Hollywood and half of it is facades, girders, and false fronts. Yeah, when's it set? When does it set why is there like art deco stuff and then schmoozies day one restaurant schmoozies still has that 90s sign and off the page doesn't make sense and then it's all about like moving past sound stages and

scaffolding to get to monstropolis monstropolis is an anachronism yeah uh a word wieners doesn't really make sense in the time period either yeah but they need a place at the end close to the entrance to sell hot dogs because well because carthay is a classy place that's the old back in time and you would think it would blend effortlessly into old classic old hollywood it does for a few steps and it does a little bit and some of the buildings actually look okay but ultimately it's a bunch of like cheesy puns and yeah ghost in here but these posters next to the bathrooms next to off the page are period appropriate for golden age of hollywood but like only this because what else around it is after is is golden age it comes right after a show like that's presented by huggies diapers it's between an animation store and a show for toddlers

yeah and then there's and then then there's a trip into the past, into the 30s, for bathrooms only. Yes. For, like, trade magazine, movie magazine facsimiles. So this has come, oddly, this has not been a topic before, even though one of them has been a PTR legend. That's what this, initially this was a throwaway joke of something that we could uh honor uh original ip it really is like like the original the california adventure ip and one of them the previously mentioned one here i'll let you do you do the second one i'll do the one that's been mentioned before because they're both from movie news it's both it's big blown up

covers of movie news magazine presumably presumably or uh who knows we actually that might be too big of a jump uh um some some entity called movie news is announcing that america's favorite leading man dot dot dot dot dot dot, dot is Hollywood's biggest star. And then there's a dashing mustachioed man with a scarf. Yes. That's one. Then. Then the other one with a woman on it says America's favorite sweetheart. Heart is underlined.

Dot, dot, dot. Only one ellipses. America's favorite sweetheart is Hollywood's biggest star. Yeah. So really, we're dealing with two characters here. America's favorite leading man and America's favorite sweetheart, who both are Hollywood's biggest star. Somehow.

Yes. They share the title. It's like best actor, actress at the Haas. We have a binary so they both get to claim the title for their respective for men and women yes i have looked at these for years for years when i've used the bathroom i always take a moment and try to decipher these posters because it is almost poetry it's like like the Voight-Kampff test in Blade Runner where they read you statements

and see how your pupils react to try and find who's a, what is it, replicant? Is that the term? Yes, replicant. And who's a human being? Like, how will human beings react to the phrase, well, America's favorite sweetheart

is Hollywood's biggest star. America, and it's, when we said we should should do this i don't think we got it right because the america hollywood thing is very confusing it would easy you could easily say hollywood's favorite leading man is america's biggest star right it's and just the idea that these are if they are magazine covers that this is news breaking scoop america's favorite leading man is hollywood's biggest star but you could also flip those you know the second part could be the first america's no hollywood's biggest star is america's favorite leading man that's it's kind of a it's a a um what's is it a palindrome when what is it when uh the word uh loops in on itself or rhymes oh like a tenant what's the what what is the word for what tenant is that's a good question oh the same forwards and backwards

that's what you're talking about right yeah that's a palindrome that's a palindrome isn't it we might be using the wrong word the second half of both these statements uh everything is unnecessary the second half is implicit in the first half yeah palindrome yeah second half is implicit in the first half and the first half is implicit in the second half yes it's this thing that disney does sometimes where they make something so like you recognize what it is but they've made it so generic and so inoffensive they have come up with like outsider art yeah like it's it's just a little weird i well let's let's be really because we don't have a lot to to play with here so we need to make sure that we grasp these full phrases are we sure that is there a way that this is news let's just

really stare at it america's he's america's favorite leading man this is the beginning of the story and but he's entered a new phase of his life or maybe recently it's been determined that he is also hollywood's biggest star favorite and biggest maybe there's a difference there maybe favorite is people's choice that's that's like quality it's not mathematical quantitative this is like the the most quality actor or actress it is now making the box office bucks that make him the official biggest star in hollywood so so what we're seeing is a marriage of critical quality audience fandom and the box office receipts are there like a mile teller miles teller situation didn't think a whole lot

of him or think about him before top gun maverick and after top gun maverick i'm like maybe i kind of like miles teller yeah i know it's a disturbing uh but he was i i didn't i didn't like that thought occurring to me either but you had to face it after top gun maverick but if it was if america's favorite sweetheart let's's say America's favorite number one sweetheart, how in what world wouldn't she be automatically the biggest star? She's the favorite. Yeah. Like, it just doesn't seem to me that they can be different.

I mean, unless she was in a different field, like she was a newscaster or something, and she was America's sweetheart sweetheart they'd call her that and now she's the biggest star because she's in a movie let me throw an example i'm trying to think of a real world example of this and look i think you know what's confusing is this is 30s 40s or whatever where i think those things are going to be married more like there's less of a divide between what audiences want and what they pay for and but now like uh the well he's not frequently mentioned so much as all of his weird business partners are george clooney right sure um who also acts in addition to making phone calls in a boardroom which is what

we value the most in people yeah but george colini sometimes acts in films and i feel like those often box office wise are not the biggest movies that would you not possibly call him or at least at some point in time has he been america's favorite leading man even though the movies are like michael clayton that's not the biggest film of the year but i wouldn't call him america's favorite leading man you don't think at any point george clooney has been america he might have been what give me the era um i'm thinking oceans 11 uh post the 90s action movie post like the peacemaker and batman and robin like you mean after that post during that after okay yeah uh three kings

on the way up right right this is where like if he shows up at the oscars everybody loses their shit and everybody makes the biggest deal of him and every joke at the golden globes is about him but maybe that's not awful maybe that's off of a little respected movie that he allowed to happen by breathing his star force into it. But then he did not have any of the top 10 films of the year. That seems like, I think this is the best example I could think of. Where maybe he's not, if you're not on a spreadsheet, he's not Hollywood's biggest star. Well, I think America's Favorite Sweetheart is Hollywood's biggest star. Maybe Julia Roberts fits that one. she america's sweetheart and she was a big star for a while i think she was both of these things yeah now currently we'll see they're both

going they're both in this very generic looking film that i think will not be hollywood's biggest hit but will they retain will they be anyone's favorite will this movie prove that i mean i bet it'll be relaxing i bet it'll be a calming movie it's like oh okay there's a couple movie stars and they're an exotic locale and um there's some young up and comers supporting them for take clooney out of it though do you see how maybe it's possible that America's favorite leading man is not Hollywood's biggest star? So I guess. So, OK, George Clooney fits the mold of your Cary Grant, Rhett Butler, classic Hollywood guy. Yes. So I suppose he could be cast in the role in the public's mind of America's leading man, even though that wasn't true.

It was in 2001. It was Chris Tucker. It was other people who had much bigger hits bigger movie biggest star is what i'm saying i think these maybe are could be viewed as different ideas yeah okay mark wall planet of the apes mark walberg like brendan fraser mummy returns year. You'd never at that time call Mark Wahlberg America's favorite leading man. He could have been at some point. He certainly is now. I think. The show about all his business ventures and Uncle Steve or whatever that was.

Father Stu. Father Stu. Don't forget Uncharted, a quiet, a pretty big hit, I believe. So I think that's leading man. The phrase leading man is left over from an old era. Yeah. So I think Clooney has been, they've been trying to, they cast him as that in the film media.

Yes. For a long time, even though people probably, there's bigger stars, they actually like more, even though George Clooney is a perfectly good actor and good movies. Yeah. they actually like more even though george clooney is a perfectly good actor and in good movies yeah i i think it's it's fair to say at some point if somebody said and here he is america's favorite leading man it's probably was said on a red carpet even if the receipts don't back it up i think clooney clooney may be a close one that falls into it because he had he can kind of do it all he had a television show he was doing action movies he was in more critically acclaimed movies. Then he started doing smaller movies and directing.

And he's charming on talk shows. And he's handsome. Here's the thing. Here's the issue. He's traditionally handsome. Which is, I believe, why he was cast in this role. Some of these other people aren't as traditionally handsome. Even a Tom Hanks isn't as handsome as George Clo clooney even though tom makes way more success but i bet you would say

like oh george clooney's a better leading man than tom hanks it's a very it's an idea from the the era right for some reason leading man does imply that look look i think to be the favorite leading man or america's favorite sweetheart attractiveness does have to enter into the picture. Because that's the old style way of thinking it. Tom Hanks is by far America's number one leading man, I think, for the last 30 years. But Geppetto, think about it all. Geppetto, The Terminal. It's all...

Mr. Rogers movie. Mr. Rogers movie. Walt. The moped one. Larry Crown. Larry Crown. Yes. Charlie Wilson's War.

Charlie Wilson's War. But he's made so many birds bigger movies that have made more money than than george yeah but this this poster is more the golden age of hollywood when people knew knew these stars on the big screen or movie magazine he's got the affectations got a pencil thin mustache a big so big scarf, and some streaks of gray. So this is like America's most inoffensive hot man. That's sort of what people, like that's what they're saying more than like leading man in the sense that it's going to open a movie. Well, that might be true, but I think you might be dehumanizing and devaluing what could be great on-screen work from this unnamed man in the

poster who kind of offensive implies that maybe the stuff isn't good i'm just saying george doesn't really have an edge i would say george is a perfectly charming guy and i like watching him in a lot of movies but he's not edgy he doesn't feel like he's got a dark side he doesn't know have like a collateral in his thing. Does he? Does his G overplay like a murderer? Is that the American? I've never seen.

I've never seen the American. At some point, we're not. Look, George Clooney was an example. We're not talking about George. We're talking about this guy. This guy. This guy in this poster. Who kind of looks like Clark Gable.

But you brought up a good example, and I'm trying to deconstruct what people might mean by leading man. Yes. To understand what the poster is getting at. Well, my fear is that you're staying on George Clooney because you love the fucking tequila thing so much. No, it's nothing to do with the tequila thing. I haven't talked about tequila.

I'm talking about the films of George Clooney. Nothing to do with tequila. I think you have to go back further. Let's go back further. I'm just afraid of where we're heading. Let's go back further. Jason's right. Jason, yes.

I think you have to go back further, especially if you look at America's sweetheart, because she has, I don't, I was staring at that picture, and I'm like, I'm not quite sure if she, she kind of looks like Mary Pickford. She kind of looks like Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable.

Betty Grable, who I was reading her Wikipedia, and I never knew this this i was looking at her filmography i was like i i know this name i know this face i don't know if i've seen any of the these movies but i think she was like the julia roberts of her time like her movies grossed a massive amount of money yeah um so yeah would they was sweet sweetheart has been how long has sweetheart been around as a phrase that's that's an old phrase right i couldn't tell you offhand i guess i should have done research into the entomology of the word sweetheart and i knew this is an episode about atoms we're like we have like four things here. So probably I should have done that work.

She's a real sweetheart. She's a sweetheart. She kind of looks a little baby face. Sweetheart isn't Marilyn Monroe necessarily. No, this is before that. This is a more innocent time. She kind of has the puffy sleeves, which due to fashion being cyclical are now back in fashion.

Sweetheart, there's a lot there's a little less like a va va va voom in sweetheart yes she is more of a girl next door she's even she's more in judy garland mode i would say yes in the hair i think this is your this is your little sister this is not the sex object so we can't this is right maybe something we know about the body of work of these this unnamed person in this poster but she has some level of maturity because it appears she is sitting in front of a makeup mirror with like little jars ornate jars and a spritzing bottle you know she does she's in front of little jars. Little jars. We can gain a lot of information from the little jars.

The little jars. The little jars. She's got a little, looks like an expensive bracelet on. We're in the woods now. Okay, so what can we glean from the little jars on the poster outside of the bathroom? How old do you think America's sweetheart is? She's possibly under 18, I think.ica's sweetheart is she's possibly under 18 i think i don't think she's well under 18 it's hard with old movie stars too sometimes you go

they're either like 15 you don't know or they're like 15 especially the late like ladies sometimes you don't know because they would they would make them up in such a way to make them look older lauren bacall um when she first started like starring in roles opposite humphrey bogart was like 18 years old and like in key largo 100 huh he was 100 he was like uh at least 12 years older than her probably more yeah and she has a level she does seem older but then you watch like some of the first movies you're like oh you are 18 years old sure um i will say this about america's favorite sweetheart the pose is a little bit like she's cool she's kind of cool she's like hey what are you doing what are you up to she's not like oh my gosh like i'm nerd like she's very comfortable it looks like in whatever her her

uh sitting in front of little jars casual casual talk to her at a party. She puts you at ease. You're intimidated to be talking to her. Right. Okay, so Jason's a club reporter and he works for Movie News. And he goes in there and he's got his reporter, his club reporter outfit on and he's very nervous to talk to America's Favorite Sweetheart.

She turns around, kind of strikes this pose and is just like, what do you got for me big boy so she's like that's the vibe i'm getting from her yeah wait a minute i was with you on the on the that she seems chill from the posture but then the what you put in her mouth was what do you got for me big boy yeah that's a little more may west that's very aggressive i feel all right what would be a friend what do you what do you want to know down to earth and she says what do you got for me big boy I think she's gonna do but I think she's gonna needle you

a little bit because she notices that Jason is a little nervous so she's gonna give it like this playful she's it's it's old times this is some this is what somebody in the olden days would say this isn't necessarily what I would write for a character now I hear what do you got for me big boy and that's flirtation that's she wants the fuck co-reporter jason sheridan well maybe but she knows that he's intimidated because she's america's sweetheart and of course he has little crush on her because everyone in america does we all do right we all did even before she became hollywood's biggest star so she's playing into that she's kind of needling him and she's like gonna make it she's like i have the power

here because she's a big star she's america's favorite throw him off he's gonna do a worse job she shouldn't that's the she's not putting him at ease i think she would say i was with you on the character until the dialogue the dialogue doesn't fit the character you painted look at the poster hold jason be quiet for me for a second you'll have time to cover port i'm just saying look at this photo and and then really i want you to sit here and i want us to sit in silence while you look at this poster and you look at the character and and imagine the dialogue i just said and see if you can imagine her saying it because i really think when she she's got her head on her shoulder and she's really leaning into it

she's really kind of like very very casual i think big boy is not a stretch that would come out of her mouth i think she uh is on her way up but she she knows she's gotta sell the movie and i gotta get this story to print by 5 p.m okay so i think there's news goes out it famously prints on wednesday night movie news uh needs to go to press okay so i think she what did she say to you give me the line of dialogue she says to call i break the ice to meet you as a cub reporter in her dress in her dressing room what do you got for me sport see that's in the same vein as what i said i think it's a lot less because of the big boy big boy is like like what and when it's what do you got for me that's like whip it out show me show me your hog what do you want to know what do you want to know

what do you want to know kid puts you on the level i think that's correct i think big boy is aggressive scott what do you think the line would think that's correct i think big boy is aggressive scott what do you think the line would be that she would say to jason i don't know this is really specific here you have to be it has to sound before we did this episode i did not think of what a sample piece of dialogue would be i think maybe she calls me sport maybe kid maybe even though she's probably younger than me but she sees I'm sweating Because she's got the high cards Here because she's America's favorite

Sweetheart Which is possibly breaking as Hollywood's Biggest star as we speak I think the listeners need to vote on all of our dialogue And see whose piece of dialogue They think is most appropriate to this poster I think you need to Join in Scott Well is she kind of like deconstructing Whose piece of dialogue they think is most appropriate to this poster? I think you need to join in, Scott.

You have to put yours. Well, is she kind of like deconstructing her own myth? Is she kind of like, is she being a little standoffish and like, so you think you know everything about me, do you? Try me. That's okay. That's good. A little challenge.

I think I'm just trying to get a quote to give to the American people, the viewing public, and all our ships at sea. Is that your opening line? Just the facts, ma'am. I'll be like, Joe Friday, just the facts. I'm Jason Sheridan from Movie News,

and I'm just trying to get this information to our boys overseas, ma'am. I also don't think you're the kind of reporter who's trying to dig up scandal. Because remember, this is the time where we didn't know. We didn't know what people were getting into. And maybe it was better that way, you know? We didn't know about people's special salad dressing and diving under the car. And who's spitting on who. now we know every tawdry detail

but there was a time where we let these people live this isn't la confidential magazine this is movie news if you want to talk off the record i'll meet you at the frolic room okay next to the pantages but then maybe we end up with a blind item, not with a... Right. I think you're there to... You're putting her on the cover of movie news, which we haven't maybe talked about what is the prominence of movie news. Is it just a trade magazine, or is this Rolling Stone?

Is this the moment where you made it? Where like, I'm on the cover of movie news? Me? made it where like i'm on the cover of movie news me i grew up uh staring at the covers thinking the people on movie news were gods and now i am one i mean i think if they have the budget for multi-colored backgrounds you know back then all this stuff has to be done practically yes so they gotta they gotta have hair and makeup there they gotta have wardrobe there and we're doing like a shoot for these covers you know yeah one that probably the big dogs your your your lives are have color but maybe not every yeah this it's not a rag you're right if uh if they're committing to the color it's not a rag but it might not be the most it might not be color throughout but maybe the front and back

cover are color yeah i think you're right i think i think inside maybe only this the most special stories yeah yeah or or something big but you know when the war happened maybe some war photos i'm gonna write up what i think the interview how it goes i'm gonna write a little one page wow here for just we'll post it when we post this okay for the interview between jason and america's favorite sweetheart do you think the the um stars these big stars when they're dealing with movie news are they excited and uh or nonchalant when dealing with it or are they scared like head of hopper is calling the gossip columnists are calling you're i think this is a probably a general mag like this is a very easy one this isn't going to be like you're not going to get it's not going to be a gotcha

thing this is like people this is yeah we're like celebrating and endorsing celebrity right yeah they might have contacted the you know their own people might have put all this together yes this might be a breezy profile where the first few paragraphs are just like they walked in and they ordered a croissant and a latte yeah it's the old we have to know what the what the famous people were eating that day what better way to get into their heads what are they having at jones on third okay the headlines itself is what tells me what the magazine's like because it's the most generic thing you've ever read yeah there would be they would be trying to sell it based on some sort of tawdry detail it's not about their life it's not about their personal life it's not about a marriage or a divorce

yeah we might not know anything about these people right there could be look i don't want to go making assumptions but based on equivalent people at the time uh could be a lot of divorces happening with leading man um it could be could be a drunk she could have the judy garland style pill sure applied by studio there could be very dark things going on there are for sure dark things going on yes it's the old hollywood there's got to be something with each other they might have brought like she might have broken up his marriage or something yeah possible yeah do you think they know they definitely know each other they for sure know each other they've or like it was a huge deal when they met but do you think they've like i don't know have yeah are they have they hooked up yeah is that we're gonna say have they

done it are they uh an item or a secret item or do they hate each other like judy garland and uh uh mickey rooney do they hate later on oh yeah they fucking despise i think a lot of people hated mickey rooney mickey rooney was out of his mind I don't know that it started that way. Sure. Yeah, I think that they for sure know each other. But yes, I think they probably worked with each other. If they're the two biggest stars. I mean, can you think of like who are the two biggest stars now that have never worked together?

There's got to be a couple. But do we have stars? I mean, there's only a handful of stars left, I suppose. It's not like, but is, yeah, is there any, they're all in Ocean's Eleven. The Rock and Tom Cruise have not co-starred in a movie. I guess The Rock is a little bit off on his own island. Yeah. And I guess Tom is, lately. Isn't that, I think The Rock is Hollywood's biggest star, but not America's favorite leading man.

Well, only because he's too jacked to fit in the mold of what you think of a leading man. Yes. I don't think there's anything romantic about The Rock. America's favorite leading man, I don't think you would ever call The Rock dashing. You'd say he's cool, but I don't think he's

I think a lot of people are attracted to The Rock, though. Is that a, yeah, I guess so. yeah jack i think you can present him as dashing isn't he wearing a suit in red is he in red notice which one are you like in jungle cruise are you like oh if the oh the rock could sweep me up onto his boat and take me on a river adventure i think some people are but they're not presenting him in the movie like that. But also movies are very like, big movies are very sexless now. There's not a lot of.

Yes. So there's not even a lot of that anymore. Is there, what's The Rock's sexiest scene? Is there a scene with The Rock where people would go, where a woman might go like, oh my, like, oh, that rocks. I don't think so. Well well he's shirtless and stuff and that's enough right certainly of course he's an attractive man but like i just don't think he's

like you don't think of like sensuality like but cluny you think sensuality yeah i'm trying to think what out of sight scene is sexy you know i can think of why there's a scene just you know all you your favorite movie disclosure oh yeah yeah oh well of course yes oh but there's no question with michael douglas obviously the rock okay here's a sexy scene from a movie and i'm trying to see what oh is it ballers oh there's a sexy scene out ballers with the rock where he's making out here in the bed that's madness this is not an iconic scene. Maybe it is to someone, but like. He's presented.

There's also years of footage of him. The Ballers scene. Nothing hotter than the Ballers. Who's he with in the Ballers scene? I gotta look it up. I actually, for leaving or not, I haven't watched Ballers. My question is, as we are, I'm wondering what time we started doing this. As we finish 10% of the episode, yes.

Have we thought about this more than the Imagineers? Yes. I'm sure the person constructing these posters and designing these posters thought of them plenty. This opens around the same time as Tokyo DisneySea. And I think I've said this before on the show that if you walk around tokyo disney sea every little plaque every little poster is packed with jokes and information

and lore stuff that you really felt like people poured over and were excited about and it's dense and you could spend just a day at tokyo disney going through and looking at that stuff and going oh that's a cute little that's funny they wrote the whole newspaper right the whole newspaper you go through all of it this is like this is just like the auto like auto when you open up like a a program that just puts text on a screen well and it's very like to use a current thing it's like ai art of yes it does like both of these people are just all right put the top five actors and the top five actresses yeah into a visual blender and that is what so that if you were if you fuzz your eyes like oh yeah that might be clark gable sure right and then yes on top of

it it doesn't it's barely anything it doesn't mean anything it's meaningless no even look i as a thought exercise wondered about picking these and now i do believe there's duality to america's favorite leading man and hollywood's biggest star but this is no head this headline is nothing right why not selling any copies with that what do you mean is america's like i even got it wrong america's favorite is hollywood's it's jargon why like why not a joke write a joke on it yeah why couldn't this be funny wieners is a joke whether you like it or you think it's crass or not it's a joke the issue is not that you wouldn't find it funny the issue is you might be offended by it i might be offended by it i don't you think has anyone

ever walked by a ward wieners And gone Oh my Probably You the first time Like a Christian Me And then A bunch of Christian people A bunch of like

Nuns A bunch of nuns Went to California Adventure They were all there They were so excited A nun group trip Yeah They're walking over

To go on To see the Aladdin show And then they see that And then they go And then they were offended and left well now they know this is the golden age of hollywood which nuns at the time would probably complain about the coarsening of hollywood that's true now we forget that and we look at it

as like everything was very squeaky clean you know right but award wieners is even too they wouldn't say that in an old movie no that part is not one of the 30s parts. Cary Grant never said wiener on screen. Who's the first ever to say wiener on screen? Probably a hot dog guy in like a baseball movie.

Like, do they say it in Damn Yankees? Guys selling hot dogs? Peanuts, wieners. Could be. Peanuts, wieners. Who said it first? I wonder if even

the person's family know. Do you realize your grandfather is the first person to say wiener on film? That guy should have a poster. First actor to say wiener. Does Babe Ruth yell at it when he meets the little rascals? Did Babe Ruth meet the little rascals? I believe he did. Really? did babe ruth meet the little rascals i believe he did really i believe a lot of baseball players

in the early days of baseball uh moonlit in other jobs uh in the off season because it did not pay enough like being in movies you mean uh being in movies or like having a day job i mean obviously babe ruth made a lot of money but he would go i'm not seeing any proof that babe ruth was in the little i swore he met The Little Rascals. I swore I've seen footage of him meeting The Little Rascals. You also just suggested that most baseball players met The Little Rascals back then.

They had to take side work, like being in The Little Rascals shorts. I mean, he would go play games in Japan. Like, they would put together to play Japan. But you're saying that he had to make ends meet? He had to act in a little rascal show? Okay, hold on, hold on.

He was a global star. Like, he would get endorsement deals and stuff, but other baseball players would have to get jobs. What are you saying? No, this is just a painting of Babe Ruth with some kids. Not the little rascals. I thought we had it here. It's just someone's painting.

I know. I'm seeing an eBay listing, and it has Little Rascals and Babe Ruth But I don't think they're in the same place Wait wait wait Okay okay Hold on hold on Babe Ruth made a cameo appearance in the film Speedy Wait a minute that's not a Little Rascals

It'd be called Our Gang Presents Sweetie Lou Gehrig made a cameo appearance within Babe Ruth's cameo appearance What? Okay wait no that's just in the film Speedy Oh my god what Was Babe Ruth's cameo appearance? What? Okay, wait, no. That's just in the film Speedy. Oh, my God. What was Babe Ruth in The Little Rascals? I mean, this would have popped up fast, wouldn't it?

Babe Ruth, Little Rascals. Baseball. How about, like, baseball players, Little Rascals. Jason, did you meet Babe Ruth when you were little? I meet Babe Ruth and forget. Look, stock footage from those fucking, what's his face? The documentary. Okay, here's an our gang, because we know our gang was the name of it before the Little Rascals.

Yeah. Okay. Giants vs. Yanks. Hal Roach presents his rascals in Giants vs. Yanks. Okay. Hold on. You think maybe. I just have to watch this 28 minute video to see.

Let's report back on this later. Bugle Nose Davis. What? Squealer, his kid brother. You found a way to make this an endless episode. It's a silent film. It's a silent film, so I'll have to be announcing we should play yeah we should do more silent film analysis on this audio medium

okay so they're at the baseball okay I think they're not at a real baseball stadium though I think is it the little rascals or not though oh it's our gang it is our gang and it said his little rascal so whoever created it the guy's name the Ken Burns documentary

Has a lot of old Black and white footage It's possible Hal Roach presents His rascals In So that's how they were built Before they were just

The little rascals Okay Look it's not on Babe Ruth's IMDB 1920 Scott this is a hundred years old This is 1923 This is a non-viral tweet Like you want to feel old do you know his

gangs saying our and his rascals our gangs his rascals yanks do you do you realize that's 100 years old yeah uh yeah that sounded i would have i would have guessed 110 years old um you're gonna have to find this jason on your own he has to do it i'll re-watch the whole ken burns all 12 hours to see do you think somewhere in ken burns baseball there's a shot of the little rascals and babe ruth together i think so maybe he just met them off like not even in a short it could have been a he might have been a big fan of our game yeah and he just wanted to meet them. Yeah.

If that happens, Elvis and the Beatles. They shook. Elvis and the Beatles met, and there wasn't anything big, you know? Yeah. There's a photo of it, though. That's true. But there might be a photo on the Ken Burns thing. Was there a photo of when the original Elvis and the Beatles met?

You know? His gang. His gang. Oh, no. Our gang. His rascals. his rascals. His rascals. This is where I'd like the listeners should just,

maybe they already are. They're just running through a list, like credits in their head of all the rides we've never talked about as we're yelling about his. This is in a theme park, though. This is not. In a theme park. This is better than the Munsters.

It's closer, yes. This is in Cali. And you,'s closer, yeah. This is in California. And you, listener, can go see these in California Adventure. You can drag your friends and significant others behind a wall. Because that's where you have to go. It's kind of like a... It's a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired designed wall. Yes.

It's a very good... I find the bathrooms of high quality. Yeah. And they are Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. inspired right so that's pretty cool sure they are notable bathrooms i would say and then behind this wall you can see these characters please tweet at us if you're hanging out with them we want to see you trying to make heads or tails of america's favorite leading man america's favorite and maybe it'll provoke a discussion with the people you're with in the park you know uh like do you think they knew each other did these people kiss is it possible to be america's favorite leading man and hollywood's biggest star and the other side of that conversation might be like huh should we uh you want to do

different things today yeah i mean i would be very interested yeah try it and see what happens a person cannot live on papa steve alone when you're done looking at papa steve come to these yeah that's really when i was going through in my head what is a more obscure topic than today's topic papa steve is in there because that's our that's another episode about a california adventure poster but it's also a real man who lived a life and we got to talk about his life these people are not real they don't have names there's no one's ever written about this or talked about it anywhere there's a good chance that they somebody frantically came into imagineering one day and said do we have any stock photos of actor looking people and they went uh i guess they

looked it up they had two things all right we need these posters because it kind of looks blank there uh okay whatever america blah blah type type type type type print out that's it this might have been not even a full day of stress that's what i'm in the year 2000 trying to jam this this was repurposing two things they may have had or like drawing over act they might have like right gotten shots of the people in the tower of terror pre-ride yeah and drawn over them like okay we got a head start there's like a girl in a you know in a bow and a dress let's just kind of just like age her up and then like give the guy a mustache great print it done yeah because yeah why not why Imagineers like to make little fun things. This is really at the heart of, like, I think a lot of this show is thinking, well, these places are special.

Someone made this place. And so every item in the place must have intention, and it must be special, too. It's ordained. That's certainly what I assumed when I was younger. There's a reason for everything. It's not like the real world where things kind of happen haphazard and chaotic, but something like this teaches us that maybe things are haphazard and chaotic in that world, too.

And maybe even because when budget crunch enters into it and people just having to get the job done, maybe not everything is like a special gift from the heavens the way the the best of imagineering is you know so i think it was a recent guest andrew grissom shared a a film critic posted on instagram like you know people talk asked me about writing about movies and what is your thought process and they came up with like three C's it's like what context was this happening in what is the content what were the

filmmakers trying to say and like everything they think about when a movie like what are the messages intended or otherwise I think what you're thinking you're remembering is what I said about the Transformers ride that's what I was thinking you're remembering is what I said about the Transformers ride. That's what I was thinking you were remembering. But I saw this like around the same period of days when I was thinking about this episode.

And I started to apply these ideas to this poster. Oh. And it's like, what are we, what is this communicating to us? What is this meant to communicate? Is it just meant to be, because you kind of go in and out of the bathroom pretty quickly it's just meant to be a fleeting touch is did they ever think that anyone would really focus on this for 45 minutes to an hour yeah you know and it's now what people are doing with this episode they're what is the content what were the hosts going through who is it for at the time how brazen were they that they thought

yeah this would be this could be something to talk about for a while or are they not in a good place are they should i be concerned about these podcast hosts are they unraveling after five years i felt great i honestly i was doing this and like the scary tree simultaneously and i was having a ball you're working on these episodes. I think you would put these posters up in your house. I would. I did go to eBay and Etsy to try and find because so many people now with decent like printers, you can just print out like a poster.

If you got a good photo of it, even on like an iPhone, you could potentially get a little print made up probably. I could blow it up and frame it. Well, what we need to do is put you in the favorite leading man. Well, of course. I mean, there are tasks. Somebody's not going to do it. Someone in the audience, if you want to put Jason in that leading man poster, just give

him a little mustache. America's favorite sweetheart. Mm-hmm. One thing I like to think of And I don't think I'm like this is a fantasy of mine I like to imagine because of the time That these had to be approved by Michael Eisner

Yeah possibly They had to go across his desk and he had to go Great moving on And maybe the kind of Limited information As with our 45th president he just wants to seek colors right and only a few words because he's very busy because we're doing things like you wouldn't believe right and maybe that's where eisner was at too so this has these have the usa today effect

of just like no don't maybe they maybe there was more information maybe they named these people maybe there was a big backstory and somebody's like no it's never gonna get approved yeah michael's gonna get stressed get confused he's gonna say i don't know who that is any word i don't know who that is this might be like a litmus test like if you're saying show it to eisner but what if we could show it to like people who were imaginary you said if we we show this to Tony Baxter or we show this to Bob Weiss and just said, do you know what this is? Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

And what does this mean to you? Tony probably not because he wasn't around so much for that. I don't sense a lot of him in California Adventure. I would be shocked though if he like knows every fucking square inch of everything. That's very true. And has like, tells you like, here's an hour.

He would do like an hour just on like how we could fix the poster. yeah yeah uh-huh i would be excited to like yeah or a roadie like anybody you know yes please because it could be amazing if someone commented on these also another guy very eloquent at expanding ideas outwards and like really honing in on stuff you know it's funny what you just said about eisner that he gets confused i sent you guys one shot from a lilo and stitch oral history it might have been vulture i apologize if it wasn't vulture i don't know where it was but that what i sent you guys the part about how katzenberg wanted to make oh yeah west side story

but with cats yes and they set up and we wanted to do it with leonard bernstein it's bernstein uh and so they flew out and did a big presentation and then it became clear like oh he just sent people he's not even here and they don't want to do this at all and this is a big fiasco uh the only instance of poor katzenberg judgment i could think sure but they basically there was another part of it where um they really wanted to make lilo and stitch away from eisner's influence because the one of the directors one of the main people involved was like i know what happens when and you have to do these fucking screenings and you end up just like basically they told a story

where he was clearly like so so stressed in 94 and they're screening the lion king for eisner and he uh he's watching the movie and then he just like looks down he just looks down for a while i'm not at his phone at the time but just like maybe he was doing something but he clearly had so much on his plate that he looked down and then looked back up and missed a whole scene of the movie what he looked down for was mufasa appearing in the clouds so then the film he entirely did not ever have eyes on cloud mufasa so when the movie ended and everybody's giving notes he's like i mean what happened with we felt like i just didn't connect that like why how what made him want to go back and and save the kingdom well when the mufasa appeared well i didn't get that at all i don't think you communicated

that which is like a window into we actually think eisner is like a kind of a sharp he did things that we like so we think of him as a good executive yeah that happened yeah uh to to further um that excerpt is from there is an oral history there's a whole book about the making of lilo and stitch that is at newly oh that's all from the book so that's from the book so that makes me go well what was the fucking production of lilo stitch like that they got a book out of it i never considered it well the whole point of it becomes all right if you go do it cheap and in florida where nobody's watching they still had the studio tour for the theme park adjacent studio uh and to where it was by the time when eisner would just go like what's this lilo and stitch

thing oh it's gonna be cool you'll like it as opposed to having to run every beat of it by him which would have fucked up the movie right yeah i saw another notable thing i never it never dawned on me but now i can perfectly see it from like the stills they posted was like the first disney movie in a long time that had watercolor backgrounds oh yeah yeah and if you look at it it's like oh yeah that is really beautiful and striking yeah this is kind of watercolor these posters it kind of is a little bit or it's like photoshop 99 uh whatever watercolor filter um i think there's one challenge that we should take on because if we are like we're grabbing this ip we're fleshing it out more than the imagineers cared to or got to and we can apply to it kind of anything that we want i think a big thing i think they need names

i think we could be the first to name them and i don't want to put you on the spot but i think maybe if we all just hover around if we stare at them uh uh and just kind of toss some words around well here's what i think and you guys tell me if you think i'm wrong i think we should be as lazy as they were in making the copy so i say rita garland and carrie butler i think that's good and that is that is you read about movie stars where it's like yeah his real name was ronald mush and they they changed his name to carrie grant like they would just come up with like oh we're not gonna call you rebecca claude no your name is now gloria graham i like that your format is half of actresses real names and then one and the other one is actor and character that's true that's true which you could You know It could be

It could be Rita Gale Sure But Garland I don't know I do like the laziness Of Garland Certainly

You could go Yeah you could say Nathaniel King That's good Sure Okay I mean I don't

I don't see any reason Though At the end of the day To not go with What you said Because in the spirit of the day to not go with what you said because in the spirit of you're right with the thought exercise of doing it like them so now you know America's favorite leading man Kerry Butler is Hollywood's biggest star and America's favorite sweetheart Rita Garland is Hollywood's biggest star

yeah right and they don't make them like that anymore don't make them like they used to never will again oh boy hollywood peaked in 1930 blah all the all the numbers just merged together because this does not exist in a specific year right and if you could hear them walk by you, you would hear any amount of like liquid squishing in a bottle or pills clacking together. What was that first word? Liquid. Oh, liquid.

Squishing. I thought you were using liquid. I kind of got a little tongue-tied and tried to rush past it like a pub reporter trying to make his coffee deadline. I thought you were like imitating, like sloshing or something. Are we done? Can we be? this this because this cannot be over this cannot be over an hour right this episode over an hour yet no okay well great

yeah we could be done we should do you have any other thoughts though uh i think listeners if you have any stories about these posters if you know anything about the creation for you they do not i mean look i you go with friends or you go with partners or family members and you're like oh we gotta take a picture next to that surely there must be someone out there going like i gotta get a picture next to hollywood's if we just not just a little longer though like jason who would you say your favorite leading man of all time is and your favorite america sweetheart is all the time what's his face uh who i i bought the bucket from um i always forget it now oh yeah robert blake

what's the what is the game speaking of our game joseph cotton i love joseph cotton hasn't that he's your leading man though uh he he was a leading man a number of roles leading man third man he's the leading kind of the sinister leading man in uh shadow of the dallas just to just to do let's let's to take score in the recent past you forgot your favorite ice cream place ever on disney property you forgot the name of your favorite actor of all time yeah uh the sands keep moving through the hourglass i don't know what to tell you here's a question what's your favorite name of you of you what's what's your favorite name that is your name jason yeah you're fine you're fine scott do you have an answer for this uh oh yeah no my favorite

uh uh like of all time uh leading man of sweden i'd have to go florence pugh and harry styles okay harry traditional traditionally good looking i do like florence pugh i think she's terrific actor makes very interesting choices for the roles she takes. Okay. I didn't see the movie. I haven't seen that one. Yet. Yet. I haven't seen that one yet.

Yet. Do you have a favorite, Mike? Cary Grant and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Is that right? That would be an interesting pairing. I'm not saying they're paired. I'm just saying they're two different eras. Those are my two tops.

I'm not sure that Jennifer Love Hewitt was ever America's favorite sweetheart or Hollywood's biggest star. Certainly not Hollywood's biggest star. There is a For Sure magazine cover where Jennifer Love Hewitt is referred to as a sweetheart. A sweet? That's not what I said. I said America's favorite. All right.

We're going to find this. I'm going to get this thing over an hour if it kills me. Oh, come on. God damn. Well, look at the sword I can wield is ending it. You survived! You survived, Podcast The Ride!

The segregated wish. Thank you for subscribing. And I'm going to barrel through. Keep subscribing and go to Club 3. You get a bonus. We're going to talk about Kingdom Hearts over there. Oh, shit. There's a maxim with Jennifer Love Hewitt where it says America's sweetheart has a naughty secret. But that's not quite America's favorite It doesn't say America's favorite

Was Shelley Duvall America's favorite sweetheart? Because I really like her movies Look it up Jason The proof is just that anyone ever Wrote it down Because if that's the proof then we're all America's favorite Like then Jason is America's favorite sweetheart

Well of course he is Well I'm podcasting's little sweetheart. That's true. Can't argue with that. I hate how much people are going to start saying that. That's going to be fucking everywhere in the comments. Here you go, fam. Start using it.

Oh, man. Wait, we're done. We're done. All right, I'll turn it off. Looking on your phone. 55 minutes. Yeah.