Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Dangerous Bangers: Delirious (1991)

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

It's time for another installment of Dangerous Bangers. Today, Daniel submits Delirious (1991) starring John Candy for the judgment of the Dangerous Bangers Association. They touch on TV proms, bad writers rooms, the problematic '90s, and soap opera writers with magical powers - all in pursuit of an answer to the most vital question - is it a banger? Follow the show on socials: https://www.linktr.ee/QQPodcast Soren Bowie: https://twitter.com/Soren_Ltd Daniel O'Brien: https://twitter.com/DOB_INC 

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, I wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? What do I be? What was it I did? Where did all the good things the time Oh, forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien

Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer, they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here sometimes we just talk to each other. The conceit was that we would ask each other questions, so we're going to try to keep to that a little bit. Actually, you know what? This episode, we're not. We're bailing on that. We play a game on this episode.

I'm one half of that podcast. I am Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American Dad. I am a striker extraordinaire, and I have never in my life invited a girl to prom and then forgot about it. My opposite, in both chairs and in life, is Daniel sitting over here

Daniel, please say hello Hello So you asked for time to plan your intro And then you talked yourself out of it In the middle of doing it What did you think about We all sat here quietly While you

Striker extraordinaire Okay I thought that sounded cool Yeah And then once I had that I was like, there's a foothold, but I'm good. It went fine. Yeah.

It's a B-minus introduction. So you said you never invited someone to prom and forgot about it, but that's only a portion of the story. You've never been to a prom at all because you grew up in a uh uh healing pit in the middle of the woods somewhere it was very crunchy were you curious about proms and are you still curious oh my god yeah i mean prom is like the seminal event that everybody has and I never had one. Here's what prom was to me and how it appeared in movies. You invite somebody who you might end up spending the rest of your life with. You're definitely going to have sex after prom. Like that's a rule.

And so you better be ready. Under the watchful eye of like the principal and the superintendent. Yeah. Yeah, you better be ready for that. But you dress up. You bring a corsage, you take some pictures with the family of the girl because the boy's family doesn't care, it turns out.

And then you go to prom. There's that Raph Scallion who's spiking the punch. There's a big gross open punch bowl that everybody drinks from and some ne'er-do-well has spiked it. And then everybody has a fun time. The prom itself is not really the event. open punch bowl that everybody drinks from and some uh ne'er-do-well has spiked it and then everybody has a fun time the the prom itself is not really the event it's the after party just like the emmys and and and then everyone afterwards they go to a hotel or somewhere and they do it we uh didn't do it we also didn't go, I mean the after party was the fun thing, but for our

school, the big thing after senior prom was go to Wildwood, New Jersey, which was a beach town. And we all got like, you either got, you went in with a million of your buddies and got a house, or you got like little motels, which is what we did. And we played cards and then woke up and went to the beach

and some people drank, I was not drinking in high school because I was cool and uh just sort of like hanging out like a weekend away from parents was the most exciting everybody else was doing it though right yeah okay i just want to make sure that that was actually happening i think that the big thing for me with with school dances because there there there was prom and there was like the homecoming dance. And in our middle school, there were between two and four dances every year. I can't actually remember if it was one per semester or one per like half. And it prepped me for a version of adulthood

that didn't exist. Because I really thought we have so many dances in school. They must be preparing us for like, I guess adults just have dances a lot and we just don't. There are just no, like I would like one now. It would be a great time to get a bunch of my friends together.

Let's get dressed up. Let's go to some big hall and we're going to have some, like, a wedding, but without all the stuff, and it's not as expensive, and you don't have to get anyone a present. Just, like, a ball, a gala. They don't exist for normal human beings in their adulthood. I think, yeah.

I mean, you're absolutely right. They don't. Why do they spend so much time prepping me for that? Maybe because, like, in the 20s or whenever, like, people were dancing all the time Like everywhere you go there was a dance hall associated with it that we went we just did a trip to Minnesota and There these underground silicone caves that we were very excited about seeing uh-huh but the the caves were like this mine originally and then it got turned into like this mafia owned dance hall and

It was awesome. Minnesota has a mafia? Oh my God. There was like a safe haven for the mafia. St. Paul was like a safe haven for the mafia. Cool. Because the entire police department was completely corrupt. And so like all these mafia members would just like, if they were like feeling the heat,

they would come to St. Paul. Yeah. And so silicone, they make glass out of. And so like there's like huge, huge, huge mines in the middle of saint paul and then they they converted it into these this like dance hall for gangsters and so there's

like by the fireplace there's still bullet holes from like a tommy gun like all the stuff that you want from like you would imagine from a cartoon gangster movie yeah that's what this is like that's what this place is and yeah there's this whole section where they're like and you can get dinner for a dollar that was very expensive then and this is where everyone danced and i was at the time i was like yeah i would like that i would like to dance with some gangsters it would be fun and i thought that's what life was i thought that's what i was being prepared for but just there are no dances i can't in fact dances sort of ended in middle school for me because that was the last time i was in public

school yeah i still remember that thrill like the thrill of like walking into the gymnasium when it's completely dark it looks different and all the boys are wearing some their dad's cologne that they stuck they snuck out and wearing giant suits that don't fit and like covered in sweat leave the gym for a second to like snarf down some fucking pizza yeah like all right i'm back in it let's go you come back number five you're like you're going behind the bleachers to put a little banaca in your mouth yeah and you're just like you're so excited you're not gonna talk to a girl all night but you're so excited by the promise of the possibility that you might um anyway i was the idea of prom was very enticing to me long after prom the same way that the olympic village is very enticing to me where i just imagine it's a bunch of people having

sex and i liked that idea for a very long time and i liked the idea of like doing something that the teachers were there and like barely holding law and order together yeah that there are like three teachers who are just in charge of making sure that the kids aren't having sex on the dance floor and that's yeah and other than that like it's more of the flies there I think I would actually love to hear from teachers who volunteered to be chaperones at proms because I I can't imagine a worse job who would want that to give up your Friday night and your entire job is to like soberly make sure these kids don't dry hump too hard on the dance floor your job yeah your job is to be a dick yeah

that sounds awful did I wonder if they got if there's like a nice little pay bump perk for that oh no i doubt it not for teachers man so you're just doing it for the love of being a narc i think they roll the dice and like they're like this teacher did it last year this teacher did it last year you're up and now you've got to sit there and it's the same way as like being a chaperone on a on a field trip i can't there's nothing to be gained from that uh you don't end up at the end of that being like, I feel like a stronger connection to these children. It doesn't happen. It just shaves years off your life.

I was a chaperone on a field trip once. You were? Yeah. It was fun. I mean, it was like... I have a lot of questions. That's what makes it feel like possibly a scam for me because my mom was a school nurse at a K through eight school that I didn't attend. And I can't remember if I was in high school or college, but she took her drama club in a bus

into the city to see a Broadway show. Your mom was a nurse who took the drama club. Yeah. She was also like the music director for the plays. And they needed, like, extra adult chaperones. She's like, do you want to do this? Do you want to go? And I'm like, yeah, I'll see a Broadway show for free and be near these students. How old were you? I couldn't remember, high school or college. Probably college.

I mean, that's a good, okay. That's a great gig for me. That's a good age. Yeah, I'll go see a show. Right. And I guess I'll be in charge of these children's lives in the city. Did they believe for a second that you were cool? No.

Those kids? No, of course not. Yeah. I mean, that's an age where that would have been really important to me. And they also knew me from like, so mom was the musical director of the plays, and the pit band was me and my two brothers so we were at that school playing in the orchestra for their musicals so they already knew me as someone whose uh authority uh completely

wilted in the the light of my mother like they knew that that i was not actually in charge they knew me as someone's son before they knew me as an adult authority figure. And they didn't like you already. They didn't dislike you. Looks like I'm not the only one from a healing pit. He was a heel. Oh my god. He was a heel.

In the pit. No extra pit. That's all the time we have today. Hold on. I'm going to wait until they calm down. There's a lot of laughter happening out there. Let's do our show. So like I said at the beginning, we're not actually going to be doing quick questions today because we were playing a game called Dangerous Bangers.

And this is a game created by Kieran Culkin, I'm pretty sure, that we stole. It's where we talk about movies that we've recommended to people our entire lives. And at this point, we haven't seen the movie in over a decade, and we're not entirely sure that it holds up. So we're going to ask the other person to watch it and just tell us, like, is this still a movie I can recommend? Yeah. The crucial ingredients are one person has to have great affection for the movie.

They loved it growing up. They haven't seen it in a while. And the other ingredient is the other person has not seen the movie at all. Yes. And I think it's also imperative to know that I rewatched my movie as well at the same time. And that's fine because I think you're still coming in it

with that seminal experience. And so you're jaded no matter what, like you cannot, not jaded, the opposite of jaded. Like you can't tell if it's a bad movie or not. Yeah. And so we'll,

we'll talk about mine a second, but I want to do Daniel's first. Um, Dana recommended to me delirious. Yeah. This is a John Candy movie from 1991. My experience with this movie is it was one of the comedy movies that I believe Comedy Central licensed for syndication and there was like a period

of time when there weren't a ton of different channels yeah growing up where I would watch the same movie over and over again because that's just like oh this is the month where Comedy Central is doing delirious or wet hot American summer or whatever other thing you you Beggars couldn't be choosers you watched what was available, so I'd seen the movie delirious 10,000 times because it was a thing that was always on and It has a really special place in my heart. And John Candy is so lovable. My memory of it is so dim now. That's fine.

I know that it's about a writer who works on a soap opera and then gets sucked into the world of his show. That's great. That's a great synopsis. Yeah. So the premise of it is that John Candy is a writer on a soap opera in New York. This is based in New York and is in love with his lead actress. And she is also like within the show, she's a very conniving and evil person, but also outside of the show, there's a lot of parallels to her natural life or her real life. And so John Candy's in love with her.

He won't kick her off the show. There's a lot of fights and the tension between John Candy and maybe his producers or his other writers. It's not clear over what they should do with these characters and whether they should keep these different actors on the show. trying to just woo this woman um he ends up in an accident where he bumps his old noggin gets a bop on the noggin and then gets transported into the soap opera the world of the soap opera which takes place in it's like a general hospital it's about a hospital that tiny town and there's all kinds of interweaving drama between all the people within this town and he gets sucked in as one of the characters he's not just like a writer in there all of a sudden he's one of the characters he realizes though throughout it that he has his typewriter with him and if he types on his typewriter the words immediately disappear

off the paper and become real in the story so like he's got his broken down car and he wants it back and so he types in like whoa uh they they the mechanic finds the radiator and then he gets a call and the mechanic's like you're not gonna believe this i found a radiator that works um that's not the the voice of the mechanic we will get into the mechanic in a second because that's that's like one of the first glaringly problematic moments of this movie and so he can write and he he becomes drunk with that power and becomes regular drunk too and then types a bunch of stuff that he doesn't remember and then it kind of comes into fruition as like the story goes on uh and by the end he does learn the lesson that this woman is

not for him and then he gets pulled back out in this wizard of oz type of moment where like he just wakes up with everybody around him. And he's like, you were there and you were there. And but he's a better person now. That's the premise. I am mortified. Really? Well, I mean, we'll talk about it.

I do have like there's I like this movie. It does feel like just hearing it out loud it feels like a rough draft of a screenplay like very basically writer of a soap opera gets sucked into his

his world that he created that's fine that's a movie do that the fact that he is a writer playing a character

in the soap opera who also has a typewriter that changes the world that's too many hats that's too much business going on it's a lot that's a whole extra layer that you don't need here's there's another element that i'm not telling you about yet which is that um early on when he's having this friction with his i think producers it's jerry orbach and this other woman who are the sherwoods and like and uh their relationship is very interesting when he's having this friction with his, I think, producers, it's Jerry Orbach and this other woman who are the Sherwoods. And their relationship is very interesting.

But as he's fighting them, it's clear that they've gone out to another writer. They've got this other guy who they're also using to write some of the script. So when he's in the story, he's contending with this other writer who's in the real world who is writing some of the action and stuff that's supposed to happen like they want to kill this woman off the show so he's constantly trying to save her um and he's doing it by like writing himself is like because he knows she's going to die in this horseback somehow and he's like and uh i'm also like a really good horseback rider now and then he is yeah um it's a lot it gets very convoluted but it it's uh the nice thing

is that the movie moves so slow yeah that it's real easy to keep up it's and also in my memory the one of many possibly problematic things in this movie is the actress that he is wooing in the beginning, by the end of his journey in the fictional world, he is, as I recall, more than willing to kill her off when he gets back to the real world. Yes, he does kill her. Like he writes her out of the show. Yeah. Because he learns something from his delusion somehow. It's not like he interacts with this actress's character and is like, this person is bad, so I'm going to fire the

woman who plays her. Also, I'm in a coma right now. And that's what I've learned in this coma. Very interesting, problematic, difficult decision. And the other one is he meets a character in his coma,

Mariel Hemingway, who is new in town and falls in love with her character. And then when he gets brought back to life, falls in love with the actress playing that character. That shouldn't be either. Yeah, so let's get the problematic stuff out of the way so we can talk about like the actual movie but like what kind of sucks about it is that when he's got his typewriter and he realizes what he can do within this world the first thing he does is he forces this woman to fall in love with him like we just which one Merrill Hemingway no the the dramatic actress so this woman the woman who plays the evil woman is actually from she's like she was like this institution in um soap

operas she was this woman who had been on something like general hospital or all my children for years and so she's a perfect casting for this but he as soon as he realizes this power and there's this woman who in the real world will not give him the time of day he's like i'm gonna make her have sex with me uh that's the vibe sure um he does it he's pretty gentle about it like he like going to make her have sex with me. That's the vibe. Sure. He does it. He's pretty gentle about it. Like he like tries to make her fall in love with him. But he's also writing like his across the page or his action lines are like, and then she falls in love with him. It's like he's forcing the emotions of people who are within this world real, which is it's tough.

real yeah which is it's tough um um but then there's uh another element which is he at one point he has this mechanic who they had on the show a while back and he and he's like he finds out that his car because how he gets the bop on the head is a car accident and he knows that he wakes up in a real hospital but the hospital is the hospital that of the universe that he created and part of the thing that he needs to do to escape is he needs his car back and so he's trying to get that back but the woman meryl hemingway is like oh no i talked to less and it's not ready and he's like less we got rid of him years ago oh we got a lot of phone calls about less smash cut to less coming out from underneath a car, and he's in full drag.

And, yeah, he's a mechanic who wears women's clothes and women's makeup. Why do I have to say it like that? He wears dresses and he wears makeup. And he comes out and answers the phone and still has kind of like a voice like he's a mechanic. But then there's also mirrors all over the place inside his mechanic shop and flowery like vines growing over the mirrors and things like that. And then there's some really weird like Silence of the Lambs stuff he's doing in the mirror.

Like he's like kissing himself and like touching his breasts and stuff like that in a way where it's like, oh, we're just doing a joke about trans people. Yeah. And that's tough. Certainly. But it was 1991. So they would play people who are trans as like that was the joke. Like we added a guy to our show who thought he was a woman.

How about that? That's all you needed. The fact that they did get phone calls at all is surprising to me, honestly, that they added that to the story. Yeah. So those are the elements that are that are. And then also the Meryl Hemingway at the end. So Meryl Hemingway, he's introduced to her at the very beginning of the story. She's an actress who wants to play the part.

There's this character that they weren't even going to add to the show that he was like adamant that they don't add because he thought she was boring and then all of a sudden she's in that world and he's like how did she get here oh those fucking sherwoods fuck me again like they're writing her in and then he realizes that she is very interesting and starts to like as he's distancing himself from this woman who is clearly not for him he's sort of being more attracted to meryl hemingway but he's doing it the same way like he's saving her from yeah from disaster by writing himself as like this superhero basically and so she's falling in love with that as well and then he gets out of his coma and he meets her in real life and he's like hey we did all we were

good like we were good together in my weird coma fantasy. And she's like, okay, great. Right. The fictional character of you and me as a god really worked when you did exactly what I told you to do. So will you go to dinner with me now? And Meryl Hemingway is somebody who, it was great to see her in this movie, because somebody who I remember from my childhood

and always thinking even in my childhood, like, that person looks like Skeletor. That person is so weird. Got very defined cheekbones. Yeah. She's also someone that, in the same way that young Daniel thought dances would be a bigger part of life, I thought she would be a bigger part of Hollywood because I watched Delirious 10,000 times and I watched the season premiere of SNL the first year that Will Ferrell and Sherry Oteri and Molly Shannon and Chris Kattan came on. She was the host of the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. So, so 90s Daniel was like, what a star. What a huge, she's going to be on the cover of magazines forever. She will be. And she might be dead.

I don't actually know where she is now. That's like, that's part of the institution of Hollywood as well, is that you get to a certain age as a woman and they're like, and now we have to shut you away. But Meryl Hemingway is somebody who, same thing. We're like, I think she was on some procedural when we were kids too. And she seemed like the biggest star there was. And even as a child, I was like, I don't see it. Because I was so haunted by her face.

She has a very unique bone structure that I couldn't get past when I was young because it looked so alien to me. And yeah, I thought, surely this woman is like she will be everywhere she's she's an institution and then yeah just fucking fucked off just disappeared from the from the face of the earth um there's some things i want to talk to you about this great you should watch it again because now you are a television writer yeah and that's john candy's job in this show it opens with him in a suit going to work he's a writer who goes to a job where he wears a suit yeah it's amazing that's not why we get into this business and he goes in he and immediately so Jerry Orbach is his his heel

Jerry Orbach and this other woman and I don't know the name of the actress but they are the Sherwood's and I think that their brother and sister and The dynamic of it is definitely that these are the writers and he is the producer like anytime that there's any like butting heads and stuff he's talking about like Anytime that there's any like butting heads and stuff, he's talking about like people on the show that he wants to save, how the show could be bigger and better and like that kind of stuff. And they're like mired in the small details. And they're always like in their little office, like eating lunch or whatever. And it's like it's so confusing as a writer to see these interactions. And also at one point he calls himself the producer.

And I'm like, what? What are we doing? How much time do we spend in the real world before he gets into his coma? And also at one point he calls himself the producer and I'm like what what are we doing? How much time do we spend in the real world before he gets into his coma? Yeah, probably like 20 or 30 minutes. That's too much It's a lot There's a whole the whole introductory sequence is him with his cable out What yeah, there's like as the credits are rolling and as we're like doing these panning b-shots of New York and everything As the credits are rolling and as we're doing these panning B-shots of New York and everything, it's all intercut with a voiceover of him on the phone with the cable company.

And him, you don't even see John Candy, just inserts of his hand banging on a cable box. And he's getting real angry because the cable company won't tell him when they're going to be there. Like that old chestnut. I would have loved if we got a chance to learn how to write movies in the 90s like everyone else did. Just make a couple of bad movies. Here's a budget. Go figure it out. And this is not the fault of this particular movie.

It's so slow. Movies from this era are so slow. The movie I had you watch as well, I rewatched it last night, and as I'm watching it, I'm like, there's a lot of fat to trim here. I will one day write a book about 90s movies when I completely figure out

what exactly we were doing with that decade because it's, to me, the most fascinating 10 years of movies i can conceive of it's so wild it's so weird it's so lawless i briefly considered bringing back uh obsessive pop culture disorder uh because i re-watched jumanji for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And that movie starts with two prologues. It opens with like the year 1870 and people are burying the book, the game Jumanji in a pit somewhere. And they're like, okay, great.

We're done with that. The year 1983. And it's young Robin Williams and young Bonnie Hunt playing the game. And then finally we get to the present. And they don't... No one actually plays Jumanji until 50 minutes into the movie. It's like, I'm watching this just like completely gobsmacked by the recklessness of 90s screenwriting. That they're just doing whatever they want.

Yeah, there's no structure. No. I mean, other than like you have a love interest, that seems to be the only thing that they all are behold no structure. No. I mean, other than you have a love interest, that seems to be the only thing that they all are beholden to. Yeah. And outside of that, there's just no rules. This movie, by the way, is so dated in that the first time he meets Muriel Hemingway,

it's also because she's on the phone with her mom in the lobby of a studio on a pay phone, and then drops all her change and has to like crawl out and collect it and john candy steps on her hand i remember that um and like really crushes her nails in a fundamentally like like cringy way like she shows her in her hand and it's like she needs to go to a hospital um but the movie starts with him having a cable problem which already was a thing where i was like i didn't have cables as a kid so i'm like already i have to i just have to take your word for it like this shit matters and then it's her trying to deal with a pay like all these quarters at a payphone and i'm like ah none of this is relatable i don't know what any of this is uh will you fill in a blank for me? Sure.

Because I remember loving the movie and I remember basically what it's about, but there are some details that are so clear in my mind, but without any context. Sure. Is Dylan Baker a leper in this movie? Or like pieces of him falling off? Yes. Constantly? Yes. So Dylan Bakerper in this movie? Or like pieces of him falling off?

Yes. Constantly? Yes. So Dylan Baker's in this movie. Right. What would people know him from? Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. He was Dr. Connors.

He's in a Todd Zalons movie called Happiness as well. And he's like the golden child. Okay, there's an antagonist within the world of the soap opera, which is this guy who's trying to get a formula from Marianne Hemingway's dad, who we never meet. He's trying to get this formula for fucking something. And he's a bad guy. I think it's Perry Mason, honestly, who's the character. But he's a bad guy. I think it's Perry Mason, honestly,

who's the character. But he's like trying to get this. Perry Mason is a fictional person. Yeah, the guy who plays Perry Mason. I don't know his real name. Oh, okay. And I'm not even 100% confident that's who it is. But he's trying to get this formula.

And he's a very wealthy guy with a mansion. And he has these children. One of the children is the woman that John Candy is in love with. She's like very conniving. He's got a son who's got an eye patch. He's a bad guy as well. And then there's this, like, sniveling golden child who is...

Dylan Baker. Dylan Baker. Now, she knows that that's the golden child. Let me slow down. The woman, the sister, knows that he is the golden child. She wants to be the golden child because she wants to inherit the estate. Boy, this is a soap opera. They did a good job there. And so she's trying to kill off her

brother. And the way she's doing it is that she's in love with his doctor. Dylan Baker is having migraines and he's going to see this doctor. The doctor's putting him on this new surprise medication and doubling the dose even though they don't know any of the side effects yet because she's hoping he will die from it. Okay. While he's on this medication weird things are happening to

him like his gums start bleeding like squirting blood yeah and his eyebrows are falling off and he's losing teeth and things like that that is very clear to me the the image of of all the things you just described is like yeah i remember yeah, I remember that happening. It's gross. Trying to figure out how that fits into the movie that I remember was very difficult. It's his sister trying to kill him with drugs. Is Robert Wagner the eyepatch brother, or does he show up at the end to shoot John Candy? I don't know who Robert Wagner is. Okay. Oh, no.

I do know who Robert Wagner is. Robert Wagner plays himself in the movie. Cool. do know who Robert Wagner is. Robert Wagner plays himself in the movie. The part that John Candy is playing within the General Hospital universe is Robert Wagner's character. So Robert Wagner shows up at some point to be like, what the fuck?

Why are you pretending to be me? That's right. And he's like, holy shit, Robert Wagner. And Robert Wagner's like, I don't know who that is. And then, yeah. And then sends him away. Um, but it's,

it's such a, it's so, it's such a weird, but weird, weird movie. It's a very strange movie, but it's also the stuff that John Candy does in it is so funny and funny in a way that he's not funny in a lot of other stuff.

Like uncle Buck, uh, um, stripes, like, umpes, like what other institution of his? Home Alone. I mean, a small part in Home Alone. Oh, he's very small in that. But, yeah, he's still doing like a very John Candy-ish thing.

John Candy has like a signature that he does. And that is not what he's doing in this movie. It's very different. And, like, when he's killing it, like when he's written himself a part and he knows that it's going to go well and he's, like this movie it's it's very different and like when he's killing it like when he's written himself apart and he knows that it's gonna go well and he's like trying to be the hero it's so funny he has like this shitty smile this like cheese dick smile uh as he's like driving around a porsche like riding a horse and stuff where he like he knows he's the good guy but he was like as an audience at home we like see right through it and it's very very funny to watch somebody like falling in love with this guy yeah um when he's in the real world he's doing a

john candy type of thing but when he's in this the in the universe like in universe john candy it's it's like a completely different character and you're like oh this guy was a really good actor yeah i i think he didn't get enough uh different parts like i didn't get a lot of opportunities to to flex what he could do as an actor but i think he's really great and like planes trains and automobiles certainly is like oh you're like a heartbreaking dramatic genius when you want to be and we just uh sadly didn't get a lot of parts from him. And now he fucking ate it. I know. It's RIP.

But yeah, there's... Well, I mentioned that there's like a whole lead up to him in the real world that you don't really need in the beginning. There's also like a eulogy, basically. No. What's the end of a book? Not a prologue. Epilogue? Yeah, epilogue.

There's like an epilogue that's him in the real world like wrapping up loose ends that we don't we don't totally need wrapped up but he he's spending time in the real world and he's depressed because this woman that he loved he's no longer interested in and like the show that he loved he's now like kind of sick of and everything and so it's a lot of him just like sadly walking in and out of elevators and stuff like that and while he's doing it you feel for him like he's really sad looking and like things just didn't work out for this dude and he's not gonna find love and stuff and you're just like he's doing a really good job um but yeah it's a there there are funny scenes and things that made me laugh out loud um the rare very rich evil family at one point uh the black sheep brother who has the

eyepatch comes home and is looking for his dad because he's found he knows some information about John Candy and so he's trying to find his dad and so he asks the butler like where is he and he's like he's in the study and he's like which study and I was like that's a good joke and there are some other ones

there's some other just moments in there where i'm like even like a 90s 90s like throwaway movie like is really making me laugh that's good i'm glad about that um i think dan if i we can get to this point in the episode i think it's a banger hey I think it's a banger. Hey! I got one. I definitely, when we got back out of the world of the general hospital, I got real bored.

Yeah. But that's just the way the movies moved then. That was like the pacing and everything. And so by the end of the movie, I was like, let's wrap this up. Let's just get out of here. All the fun is over. Let's not do this anymore. We don't need a denouement. Because there's not... I'm trying

to remember if there is an actual conflict in the movie or a thing that... I know there's a conflict because they're considering replacing him with another writer. Is there a character conflict, like a thing that he needs to overcome or learn? Yeah. Okay, there is.

Yeah. He needs to learn that learn yeah okay there is yeah he needs to learn that that this woman is not for him that's what he's chasing is not for him but he also needs to learn to be this the first time he meets meryl hemingway he treats her like he does the character that she ends up playing within the general hospital universe which is this is just a boring nobody yeah like he's not unkind to her when he meets her especially when he steps on her hand and everything like helps her up and like tears off her dress somehow yeah there's a lot of weird things happening but uh he's he's not he's just like this woman he's just like she's just a two-dimensional nobody who cares

and then as he gets to know her he's like oh these are like real rich people like the rich in character um rich people who are interesting and i should give everybody more of a chance i guess so there's that it there are some weird choices that they make yeah i mean like from viewed through a modern lens of power dynamics and especially how workplaces work and especially how like television writers rooms workplaces work it's power imbalance to power imbalance to power imbalance he is a high status writer on a show who is control has control over whether or not his actors have a future in this show and he is trying to seduce

one of his actresses, which is like a bad thing for a TV writer to do. Then he goes into his coma world where he is the power of God and he's still using it to make attractive two-dimensional women fall in love with him. And then he comes out of it and his lesson is, I was

wrong for picking that actress. I should pick that actress. And then he comes out of it. And his lesson is, I was wrong for picking that actress. I should pick that actress. And in fact, you're fired. You have a brain tumor and your character's dead now. And I'm promoting this other one that I want to fuck. Because I didn't like the way

you treated me in my dream. Right. Yeah, it's not great. As you were saying that, I was also reminded of another thing that's a little problematic in this film and we should address, which is there's exactly one uh black person in this movie and this black person is dressed in full african tribe garb

and uh is just like a throwaway joke um meryl hemingway as she's introducing herself to john candy it becomes evident that she is uh as we're learning more like we're peeling back the layers of the onion and realizing that she's a real woman with multitudes we're finding out that she loves ants and that she studied ants for a very long time in just Africa in general and sure and then at some point John Candy sends her there in the script, and she's back in that place, and she's got a magnifying glass out, and she's looking at ants, and you're just hearing, like,

jungle noises in the background, and then this dude walks up who's, like, her helper, and it's a real uncomfortable situation. There's something so adorable about completely unresearched movies. Like from the beginning, a writer wearing a suit, yeah. That's not how writer's rooms work. That's not how soap operas work. But the person who wrote a movie.

I know. Theoretically. But just decided, I think this is what a soap opera is like. And then decided, I think this is what someone who studies ants would do. You take a magnifying, because they're so small. You got to see them. You would take a magnifying glass, right? You would go to Africa.

Where are the ants are from? And you would take your magnifying glass and get, like, really up there to be like, oh, six legs. Okay, good. Got it. I'm glad I got so close. Three body segments. I went four in my brain. Yeah.

This is good. I'm glad I flew here for this um and so yeah that was that part's not so good either but the way that you describe the movie yes that's exactly the way this movie works and uh it's troublesome and it's very funny yeah the the best part of the movie is that at one point, John Candy, when he's drunk on this power, he's at night just like he knows that he's up against this other guy at this point who is also writing some of the story. And they're contending with wrestling for control of it. And so he starts drinking and just going crazy with the story. Like he's not remembering any of it the next morning, but he writes out this party and he goes to the party and he's like playing piano at the party really really well because he wants to be like this cool guy and then after he plays piano this cheerleader

comes up to him he's like you're from my high school and she's like i'm sorry that i never paid attention to you you're great he's like what did i write last night that's awesome and then there's just these other little reveals along the way of like these things that he wrote when he was very drunk and doesn't remember them and it's it's that's a really fun sketch game yeah that's that's a a great idea to put in this movie a thing that is not a good idea to put in this movie i don't feel like we need the additional layer of another writer that he's competing with in this world that's again yeah the the same hat on a hat problem where you can have your writer in the world he created that's a fine enough premise you can have someone who is writing

the world as it passes by that's a fun premise too you're doing both of those plus a third layer where you're battling with another writer and at that point it's like is is this a delusion or not like because that there is a real world writer that he's competing with that is also in his like imagination in in this fake world because when he gets out of this he goes in and confronts the sherwoods and he's like you tried to kill her on horseback or whatever like he's saying stuff from the delusion and they're like we did we did like they're like it was actually happening in the universe of the of the show and so yeah it's yeah it's convoluted also some of the stuff that he learns about meryl hummingway's character in the general hospital universe becomes clear becomes um actually like uh characteristics of her in the real world yeah like she orders cinnamon

toast cinnamon toast with lox and cream cheese on it within the movie or within the show and that's a silly what a funny order but what an interesting person yeah and then he hears that order at a delicatessen when he's back in the real world he knows it's her right so if you if you think about it logically he has real life godlike powers yeah because the things that he made up in his delusion are actually true in real life so he can like see the future or he's yeah he's getting or he can dictate the future in the real world privy to information he didn't already have from the coma. Yeah. Just like, yeah.

I'm not going to pull a thread. No, I don't think we're doing anyone any service if the two of us think about this movie more than the screenwriter did. The joke that made me laugh the most, though, in it was that when he was drunk the night before and wrote all this stuff out, at one point this man comes up to him and he's like, that was, this old man comes up to him, and he's like, that was an amazing piano solo. And he's like, thank you. He's like, old man wanders away. And when he was drunk, wrote a stage direction in the dialogue.

And that's all we get of it. And I was like, yeah. I love that joke. Anyway, yeah, I'm going to qualify it as a banger That's great I'm going to put the little asterisk on it and say A 1991 banger That's fair I'll take that

I'm glad you liked it I'm glad it's a banger I can't wait to rewatch it sometime soon And And just like sort of sit in my own rightness i i think you pointed this out before you watched it when you just uh kind of knew what it was about that the idea of a writer writing themselves into their own piece and interacting with their own characters that's uh i did a sketch version of that for in our live show that we used to do,

and then we eventually made a video sketch that you did a punch-up on. And I've been doing some version of a meta story where a writer interacts with a thing that he's writing as he's writing it for my entire life. And it very may well could be inspired by Delirious. Yeah, so yesterday, after I had watched this movie, I asked Dan, I was like, you've written a version of this several different times. Is it because you love this movie so much?

And he was like, oh, I don't know. Yeah, probably. That sounds right. Yeah. And I was like, yeah. I mean, it's a very fun premise. And it's so clear, like, I want to play in that world. I think I could write a good version of this.

All right, that's it. That's it. Thanks for listening or watching this episode. The show is Quick Question, but you knew that already. You can find me on Twitter, X. That's not the name of anything. Nope. You can find me at DOB underscore INC or Soren at Soren underscore LTD.

You can email the show at QQ with Soren and Daniel at gmail.com. We are recorded, edited, and produced by Gabe Harder, who is the best. You can find us on... And directed, I would say now as well. And directed as well. You can find us on Patreon.

You can find the band that made our incredible theme song, Merex, at Bandcamp or Spotify or anywhere else you get music. Is that all the things? I feel like all of it, yeah. Okay, great. Man, we don't even need to do these anymore. I don't think so. Well, didn't I get yelled at by our CFO when I stopped doing it?

Oh, we didn't do it once? Yeah. That sounds great. Let's try it again and see what he does. On the next one, we're not going to do an outro. I mean, I feel like I flew across the country and we've been here two mornings in a row in this

brick cave to record these podcasts. And he has not even texted hello since I've been here. I don't know what the fuck he's doing. And he's going to tell me to make sure I drop our social handles. Go to hell. Bye.

I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright I want to hear your thoughts I want to know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright The answer's not important I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get?

What will I be? Remember What's it over? Word it over What are we talking about? Oh forget it I saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers

If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here