The Big Picture - Movie Apocalypse: 'Trolls World Tour' Is the Most Important Film of 2020 | The Big Picture

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

The 'Trolls' sequel wouldn't normally be a topic of serious interrogation on the show, but with new theatrical releases on hold, 'Trolls World Tour' has become a fascinating test case for the future of movies. After what appears to be a successful rollout straight to streaming video on demand, Sean and Amanda break down the industry implications of the film's release (0:57). Then, Rob Harvilla joins to talk about parenting with movies during quarantine, the particular frustrations of the 'Trolls' universe, and why this is one of the most important films ever made about rock criticism (14:29). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Rob Harvilla Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Once again, that's theringer.com backslash WCK. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about these goddamn trolls. This weekend, the big news in the world of movie watching is Trolls World Tour, a sequel to the 2016 film Trolls. Why is that so important and why are we going to be talking about it on this episode of this show? Simple. This is the first film that had been planned for a wide theatrical release from a major studio that instead went straight to streaming video on demand

during the coronavirus. We're going to talk about why that matters, what this means for the movie industry, and also what the hell is going on in this movie. Later, we'll bring in Rob Harvilla to talk about those trolls, parenting, and even a little poptimism. But first, Amanda, Trolls World Tour, what does this release mean for the straight-to-video-on-demand future of Hollywood? Everything and nothing. It's obviously a big deal and we're going to spend a whole episode talking about it. A little bit because we dared ourselves into this. I just feel like it's been a month of being like, the trolls! We're going to talk about the trolls! And now we actually have to talk about the trolls. It was like a dark Sunday night for me when I sat

down to watch Trolls World Tour and my husband just started laughing at me thanks to him. But it is also a test balloon for a new way of releasing big movies. And I think you have to take like 45 different grains of salt because the circumstances here are unusual and it is as much an exception as it is like the future of movie going but there are lessons to be learned about how to release these movies and how people might respond to them on streaming services going forward yeah when i first floated the idea of talking about this it's because i think i saw the trailer for the film before onward and i thought this seems deranged maybe it would make for a funny episode in the doldrums of April and yeah we've we we achieved our dare and the global pandemic right now led to this being really the only film of significance in our world and I basically agree with your diagnosis I think

on the one hand this is a huge deal and we'll talk about sort of the mechanics and the logistics of what is and is not success for a movie of this scale and size that goes directly to your house. But I just don't see it being replicated fully in almost any other experience we've seen for the most part. Most of the major releases that we would have talked about here in a circumstance like this have been pushed to July or August or November or 2021 for that matter. And this is a unique situation where there had been so much money spent on marketing already by Universal. And there was already so much brand awareness for the movie because this is a sequel and also Trolls, which I'm sure you own some Trolls.

We'll talk a little bit about our emotional relationship to the troll dolls circa 1994. And so they kind of, it made sense to move it into this direction. Now, this is a very expensive movie by the standards of animation. It's almost a $100 million movie, which means it has to make a lot of money to make its money back. And it's harder to make your money back, or so we've been told in the movie industry, by releasing it straight to video than by having people come into theaters. The theatrical distribution model

is essentially arranged now around big tentpole releases that can make back a great deal of its budget from having people come into movie theaters and then renting it online and then buying it once it becomes available digitally. There's an interesting conversation between Bill Simmons and Jason Blum,

the head of Blumhouse on his podcast last week, where they talked about the fact that if a movie like, say, The Hunt goes directly to the iTunes platform after playing only one week in movie theaters, what that does is it doesn't just carve out the theatrical distribution money. where people would normally buy it digitally or rent it previously. It essentially takes away one piece of the revenue puzzle that they're fixated on here. This movie cost approximately $90 million to produce, another $30 million to spend on marketing, according to Deadline Hollywood. Do you think we'll ever know if this is a quote-unquote major success? No, because number one, we're relying on Universal to give us the tallies themselves. And it's similar to a Netflix situation or anything where if you don't have the independent box office numbers to count, you have to take everything with some of the aforementioned grains of salt. I think also we'll just never know that it's a success because this

is the first one and there are so many kind of special circumstances. People are going to be more interested because it's like, oh, I could get this theater movie at home. And I haven't done that before. And at $19.99, it is less expensive than taking my entire family to the movies. Also, it is a movie for children. And I think the patterns of how parents rent and screen their movies for children are very different than, say, other types of movies.

And Rob, I think we'll probably talk a little bit about that. It's a sequel. And it's just, I mean, it's an extraordinary time. We haven't really settled into what the new model will be yet. So there could be lessons from this, but I don't think that we'll write papers being like, this is the Trolls World Tour is the day that the entire movie industry changed. I'm sure that means that we will, and I'm totally wrong by having said that. Well, so a couple of things to say about that.

Those are all good points, specifically the success of this movie and the way that the success is going to be communicated. I'll share with you some, but for some families, let's say you have three kids and you have five people living in your house and a dog and you want to watch a new movie. You probably could just fire up Disney Plus, which is significantly cheaper per month, and find a film that your family has never seen before.

Now, there may not be as much energy around the movie as the new Trolls film and the Trolls movie, as I understand it, is very well loved by kids, but you don't need to pay $19.99. That said, as you pointed out, it's a pretty good deal relative to what it's like to go to a movie theater, where you'd be paying somewhere between $10 and $18 for a single ticket just to get into that theater before parking, concessions, et cetera, et cetera. For me, $ me, 1999 for a movie like this is ludicrous. I don't wouldn't normally want to watch this movie. I did not watch the original Trolls when

it was being released. But I also that grain of salt that we keep referring to here. I know that this movie isn't for me. So even as we make fun of it for the next 45 minutes, I want to just say that I understand that it's a kid's movie. I understand that even in the realm of animation that I'm often stumping for on this show, it's in a different kind of class. It's like, it's kind of for like five-year-olds and not for 11-year-olds, if that makes sense. Yes. But so one interesting thing about this being a movie for kids and how kids watch movies, so that 1999 figure that we mentioned is to rent the movie for 48 hours, not to buy it. And one thing that I am told about children not having any of my own is that they like to watch things again and

again. I also watched Trolls, the original movie, for the first time this week. And I was sending some impolite messages to our colleague Jason Gallagher as I watched it. Jason has been on this podcast before, and he identified trolls as like a parent's nightmare. And he was explaining it to me a little bit as to why it's a parent's nightmare. And he's like, the first watch is fine. The 30th watch at 630 a.m. is when you really start to question your decisions as a parent. So it's something like this Trolls World Tour. If the kids expect to watch it 10 times, I mean, number one, you have to worry about the mental health of all the parents in America.

But number two, how many times can you watch it in 48 hours? So that's $19.99 for what? Two watches. The kid's going to ask for it again. And that starts to add up versus something like Disney Plus, where I'm told that the kids are just watching Frozen 2 every day already for the same price. Well, we're going to find out. Let's share some of those data points that Universal so kindly shared with the rest of the world. This is what they said this morning, according to Deadline Hollywood.

Trolls World toured 10 times more than that of Universal's previous digital opening day champion, which was Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom, which according to home entertainment sources did around between two and three million dollars stateside on day one. Avengers Endgame, per sources, had a first digital domestic rental week of 30 million dollars in flash reports. And the extrapolation off first day numbers is the Trolls World Tour will far exceed the figure amassed by the Russo Brothers directed sequel. Other indicators of success over the weekend, the Trolls World Tour is the number one title across all major on-demand platforms, smashing expectations on distributors,

including Amazon, Comcast, Apple, Vudu, Google, YouTube, DirecTV, and Fandango now. So that means maybe this movie made $50 million. If you smash the Russo Brothers directed sequel is that how is would 50 million dollars have been an incredible outcome at the box office it would have been a very good outcome i feel like for that film um i don't i just don't know how to measure any of this and maybe if we see very soon universal announced that it has decided to shift another film that it had on its release date you you know, theatrically into this

format, then maybe that means this was a bigger success than we suspect it will be. Yes. I think if we start getting every single movie on demand, something is working here. And basically they figured out how to adjust their balance sheets and allocate money so that it can be a money-making endeavor for them going forward. Though even there, if this is a mega success, I don't trust that they will still make movies this way where you spend almost $100 million on the movie itself and then another $30 million marketing it because you have to figure if you're doing the numbers that there is a way to make those margins bigger going forward.

So we might get a few more movies. But again, I just I think this is an exception. I'm sure I will be proved wrong. But it does raise something really interesting, which I think Richard Rushfield, the Hollywood journalist, pointed out last week, which is that one the one thing that Netflix has struggled to do on the movie front is create new IP, is to create franchises. Now, they've done it on TV. They've obviously done it with shows like Stranger Things, where you can buy a Stranger Things lunchbox and a Stranger Things notebook to bring to school. And you can buy all kinds of paraphernalia related to the show, which is a big part of, say, how Disney makes its money. You know, it's not just the movies themselves. It's the merchandising and then the rides,

which are drawn to the amusement park and things like that. Netflix hasn't been able to do that. And I think we do talk about kind of like the budget and the energy and the marketing push that companies like Universal put around a movie like Trolls World Tour, which I think we take for granted because we're just like, I don't need to see Trolls World Tour. It's not important to me. But they're trying to build literally a whole universe around these characters and it'll be interesting to see if studios continue to try to do that and spend

that much money while also not having that theatrical experience my question is if you don't have the theatrical experience do you make it a movie because i think if you take the case of netflix and stranger things you could makeanger Things into a movie or you could make it into a four season long 40 hours. You maximize the attention that you have. And Netflix is trying to maximize the attention. So if you're building a franchise, you might as well build it out. And that's kind of what I wonder.

Will the next Trolls World Tour, if streaming works, be a movie or will it, God help all the parents of America, be like a 20-part series? Yeah, I think it's a great point. It's one of those, in that push-pull between movies and TV that we're always referring to on this show, it feels like TV is kind of dragging the tug-of-war forward in terms of how we scope this out. There's more likely to be a Trolls series on the Peacock after this than there is another trolls movie in some way i should just add that there actually is a trolls tv show it is called trolls the beat goes on and it is on wait for it netflix okay well that settles that

perhaps this will be the final trolls film so in order to talk about that we're gonna bring in rob harvilla but before we do that we have a new podcast here at The Ringer that we're really excited about. It's called The Wire Way Down in the Hole. Here's the trailer. You come at the king, best not miss. Hey, what's up, everybody? I'm Jamemele Hill. And I'm Van Layton. We're proud to introduce our new podcast, The Wire, Way Down in the Hole. We're going to recap, break down, and analyze every episode of the iconic HBO hit series, The Wire, starting from the beginning with Season 1. First episodes hit you on April 15th.

Now, every podcast episode will include recaps, signature moments, foreshadowing, key character deep dives, little known facts, and also awards such as We Love This Show But, the Stringer Bell Fuckboy Award, my personal favorite, Who Won the Episode, and more. So subscribe to The Wire way down in the hole on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll see you in West Baltimore on April 15th It's time to bring in Rob Harvilla Ringer staff writer dad, rockist extraordinaire, you know it

critical thinker of the world of music who better to talk to about Trolls World Tour How are you Rob? I'm great, this is a tough beat for you guys and I do want to acknowledge that to be childless to be having to think seriously about trolls world tour you know from buffoon a to trolls this is a tough arc for you guys i feel i feel bad for you thank you for having me thank you for being here the big picture contains multitudes just like trolls world tour so before we get into the nitty-gritty of this movie and frankly we're going to get into the nitty-gritty i just want to put that out there right now

oh thank goodness all right amanda rob can you guys tell me your relationship to trolls which were a series of dolls released in the 1990s amanda why don't you start i would love to i had many troll dolls and i want to tell you i i remember caring for them. I remember brushing their hair. There was one troll doll ballerina family and it had a little tutu. And that was like really a prized possession that corresponded with my very brief ballerina years. And I have spent the last week trying to understand why I loved these troll dolls and why we all loved these troll dolls and like what the nature of the marketing push was that brought us to the troll dolls before even I think the Beanie Babies or the Tamagotchis. I think it was like an even earlier phase. I consulted with many friends who were also alive during the early 90s and also had troll dolls. And everyone

remembers loving them and has no idea why. I honestly, there's no history on the internet. They were, I believe, Danish dolls. They were a big deal in the 60s. And then there was a marketing push in the 90s. And then we all had troll dolls. And it was inexplicable. But I loved these ugly little babies. And let me just go ahead and say, did some Google image searching. The troll dolls are so much uglier than the cartoons in Trolls, the movie. They have really gotten an aesthetic upgrade. And we can thank DreamWorks for that, at least. How large were they? Were they like G.I. Joe size or like Transformer size? This is probably not the right reference for you, how large a transformer is it uh it they were like two to four inches i would say because there were

like parent trolls and baby trolls yes does that include the hair height right no that's before the hair height they were larger than what i remember GI Joes being. They were also very stout, which I guess trolls would be, but they had a little plastic meat on their bones. Do you guys remember when we all went to college and got liberal arts educations and then got careers and then started talking about trolls on a podcast? This is an amazing time for us. Rob, did you own any us um rob did you own any trolls i did not know in any trolls uh i my experience of trolls is that my kids became obsessed with the soundtrack to the first movie and i i dislike that soundtrack immensely honestly i it of all the movies that

they got obsessed with and then we put the soundtrack on repeat for months like like the frozen movies and moana and the second lego movie with with tiffany haddish like i somehow avoided seeing the movie itself so i just heard the soundtrack over and over and i was like why is anna kendrick uh singing the sound of silence why is zoe de chanel rapping and also singing lionel richie's hello and then but like remember a couple years ago when and Taylor Swift covered September by earth, wind and fire.

And it was like, the internet was aghast. And it was like, this is the worst possible thing. I'm here to tell you that the version of September that plays over the end credits of the first troll movies, it is some by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. And it is worse than whatever you were imagining.

Taylor Swift is, is capable of like in, in times of great despair, I get a loop in my head of Justin Timberlake singing Chasing the Clouds Away. He puts a little mustard on away. He's like, away. I'm not a violent person by nature,

but I want to punch that song until it falls over. That's how I feel. That's where I am. And so I, no, I did not own any troll dolls is the answer to your question. So I did watch this first film, Rob. Did you go back and watch it? Or are you just so familiar with the soundtrack that you stuck with that? Oh, of course I watched.

I'm a professional, you know? And so, yes, it's a very macabre uh setup is it not like that's yikes Rob was this the first time that your family had seen Trolls the movie did you just exist in the soundtrack only universe no and I'm trying most of the movies that my kids see I take them to in the theater and somebody else must have done that for the first Troll movies I don't know if that was my wife or their grandma or whatever but like i they did just mainline that soundtrack for months and i think like watch it on netflix or something like a few years ago but i did not see it with them originally like i had no familiarity with the plot but but they knew it

of course very well they were happy to revisit it to get a refresher they said before we watched this new one and so we went back to it. It was like seeing it for the first time for them. They were delighted anew. So, yes, the first movie is very bad and very strange. It concerns the ongoing war between the trolls and the Bergens, which are some sort of monster oaf-like creature, I suppose, that are portrayed in part by Zooey Deschanel

and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Were Bergens a part of the troll mythology, Amanda? Is that some sort of Danish mythological reference? Let me be clear that I know nothing about troll mythology beyond what's in this movie. I just had some pieces of plastic with bright neon hair that I combed. I don't know. I enjoyed the Bergens.

I think there's going to be a divide on this podcast between the Bergens, the pro Bergen supporters and the people who are glad that the Bergens were dispatched with after the first film. I guess I just really like annoying villains in movies. See also the minions. I'm not really sure. This is sort of the Bernie versus Biden of the big picture. This is as close as we get to the intellectual and emotional divide between the future of the party.

The first movie just feels like what I think. It lived up exactly to my expectation of it which is that it was kind of a noisy annoying movie that seems immensely distracting if you're four years old and is sort well is capable of doing its job but doesn't bring to the table a lot of the things that rob you and i have talked about on this show a bunch of times about like pixar and even some slightly more sophisticated DreamWorks or other universal properties that do all this animation stuff. This is like the felt like it's not a stupid movie, but it felt like a lowest common denominator kind of a movie in the way that it's edited in the way that it's arranged in the music that is chosen. And I can't imagine

that it really effectively entertained parents while also entertaining kids i wonder if that's okay like is that a category of movie for parents where they're like you know what this one is for them this one's not for me and are you at peace with that i think that's definitely a category and i prefer that honestly a lot of the time to as you say like the prestige like pixar division where it's like emotional annihilation like i would rather be confused and like a little aesthetically offended than like depressed when i walk out of the theater with my kids and so i'm happy to just sit there and just drink a giant cherry coke you know and then just eat the ice that is vaguely cherry coke uh flavored and just sort of tolerate

like a lesser a less prestigious movie that's just sort of random and loud and ridiculous versus one that's trying to make me very explicitly depressed. And so I cannot enjoy Trolls as a movie, but I can enjoy the experience of Trolls comparatively, like just fine. What about parenting during quarantine and the movie parenting that happens here tell us about what you're showing your kids how much are you participating how much of it is just please just go watch this and leave me alone and how much of it is let's have an experience together i think you you try to get to that let's have an experience together place and it is

that very rarely happens and when it does happen it turns out to be a disaster like i for us i think disney plus is pretty dominant in this moment uh between marvel and star wars and pixar like i think the movie we've watched that we've enjoyed collectively the most was tangled which is i don't that's not a pixar movie correct it's it's just disney studios yeah yeah very good though very good movie it was i mean we enjoyed it very much. And so the second tier, like deep cut aspect of Disney Plus is serving us very well in this moment. One thing that we've realized, and this was pre-quarantine, was a PG rating in the 80s was dramatically different from a PG rating here in the 2000s. The worst parenting decision that I have made to date was trying to show my kids.

They are six and nine. We started watching Spaceballs, which as it turns out, just has like, it is a PG rated movie. And I looked it up and it has just like Quentin tarantino levels of swearing and i'm like sitting there and i'm just sort of braced it's like i'm just gonna fast forward when we get to the how many assholes we got on this ship scene like that was what i was worried about we ended up bailing within like five minutes and my kids like still bring up that movie we started watching where darth vader was really short and he had glasses and he had a penis laser that he would

use to shoot dudes in the penis and i was, this is the worst thing that I've ever done. We watched Short Circuit in full, you know, like Johnny Five, like the 80s, Short Circuit. Like they swear all through Short Circuit. And also Fisher Stevens is in just straight up brown face. Fisher Stevens is just playing an Indian person. and it's like i think my blue that blew past my kids thankfully but i just one thing about disney plus is it's safe from both a quality standpoint and also just like a a a content standpoint like it's just it's doing the work that apparently i am unable to do in terms of not exposing my kids like terrible shit i will say it would be absolutely remarkable

if one of your children turned to you during short circuit and said, dad, why is Fisher Stevens in brown face? That would be the greatest moment in your children's lives. I love that guy. How could he do this? Yeah, I guess I hadn't thought of that. Maybe that's why we're so depraved. Maybe that's why me and you and Amanda

have such intense, grotesque taste because we were exposed to these movies in our youth. Yeah. I mean, we want to show them Goonies, but I'm also terrified to show them Goonies. I'm just assuming there's a stuff in Goonies that I have totally forgotten that's going to be just undue five years of cultural sensitivity. Amanda, do you have any questions about parenting during quarantine with screens? How much are you re-watching

stuff? Oh, let's see. I can't think. What are they watching right now? They're watching Minecraft stuff. They're getting into YouTube, which is super harrowing, and we're trying to monitor that in any way.

They just want to watch video game speed runs and like somebody who does like super mario like comedy routines like just with 8-bit mario and it's it's it's that it's it's horrifying and you're just you're just watching for this slippery slope until they become like alt writers or whatever and so i there's nothing there's nothing that we're re-watching as such like it's we for my son's birthday he turned nine like he wanted to watch frozen 2 again and so we had taken them to the theater to see that in november and we watched that again but it's it's not to the level of something that they want to see over and over again and like more to

the point like it's in this moment they're not being marketed to at all. They're watching Disney+, they're watching Netflix, they're watching YouTube to some extent. They're not seeing even trailers before movies in the theater. They're not watching TV ads, Saturday morning cartoons. Even down to the level of we haven't gotten Happy Meals in a while, they don't know what the new movies are. And they wouldn't have clamored to see trolls world tour and again they loved the first movie they listed the soundtrack for months they would have loved to have seen it but they wouldn't have known that it was coming and they wouldn't have advocated for it unless i came to them and said what do you want to watch this like i was

trying to think of the last movie that came out in theaters that they would have been genuinely upset if they hadn't seen and it probably is just frozen too like sonic maybe but it's it's weird that even before quarantine like just the way that things are marketed to kids now is just i i don't know what it is they know and what it is they want and it's just it's very different from my time at least which again was like saturday morning cartoons and like catalogs and and happy meal toys and just the way that kids find out about these movies theoretically is totally different now that's such an interesting point and it's such a great segue to a conversation about this movie rob i here's what i picture you pull up itunes and you pull you rent trolls world tour and the title screen appears and then you push your children out of the room and say daddy has work to do and then you watch the movie alone

furiously taking notes the entire time is that was that the case with a with a feather pen or something i just i am absolutely baffled by the fact that this movie is about rockism, that it is very explicitly, it's not a metaphor for anything. It's not like a vaguely reminiscent of thing. This is a movie about musical genres personified as trolls arguing with each other about how pop music ruined everything. It is this, I am, this is as confused and as I have ever been by a piece of children's entertainment

and also as marketed to personally as I have ever been by a piece of children's entertainment, including when I was an actual child. Amanda, can you just briefly try to explain the story of Trolls World Tour before we get into the thematic aspects of this story? Yes, I'd love to. So Anna Kendrick, who is known as Queen Poppy, which pop just it's right there

in the name for you, which I realized about 30 minutes and one cocktail into this viewing is is is queen over the land of the of the trolls that we saw from the original trolls. And they've learned that drugs are bad, which was the lesson of the first trolls. And they're all very happy. And then within the first five minutes, she learns that their troll kingdom is not the only troll kingdom

and that there are other troll kingdoms in the world. They are the rock trolls, the funk trolls, the classical trolls, the country trolls. Who am I forgetting? Reggaeton. Were they their own world? They seem to be just roving bands.

The reggaeton, K-pop, and yodeling trolls are sort of itinerant, you know, sort of wandering types. I don't think they have an established kingdom. Yes. And so, sure. Yes. types i don't think they have an established uh kingdom yes and so sure yes that's that is correct um yeah sorry so poppy learns this because she's invited by queen barb who's the head of the oh they're techno trolls the techno trolls we forgot about the techno trolls as did this movie but anyway uh queen barb the queen of the rock trolls just definitely the rockiest name that you've ever heard barb invites poppy to be a part of some party or something and poppy being a pop troll thinks this is a lovely

invitation like a well-meaning invitation and sets out to meet bar and then learns that Barb and the rock trolls are crusading to take over all of troll land and unite all of the trolls under the banner of hard rock. That is that's a solid breakdown of the story. Now, I think if this were a different podcast, say slightly more of the Chapo Trap House house variety this would be about how this is a film about colonialism and about the way that aggressive dominant societies attempt to overtake other societies steal their land and steal their resources in this case we're going to talk about this movie as an act of music criticism and that's a good reason why rob is here rob you indicated that this movie is literally about rockism and can you like help even help amanda and i two learned culture journalists

understand what rockism and poptimism and all of that stuff is can you give us a pocket history of those things and why those things matter to trolls world tour and Tour and Queen Poppy and Barb and all of these other characters. I should have anticipated this and should have agreed, just refused to do this. Okay. All right. Too late. Sheesh. All right. Rockism is a 10 plus years rock critical debate about... Rockism is the idea that only rock and roll... Rock and roll is the only real kind of music that sad people with guitars and specifically sad white men with guitars is the only real, the only emotionally pure sort of music. And it is just superior in every conceivable way to any other kind of music,

including pop music, disco, hip hop. It's just, it's genuine and it's an actual real, emotionally pure kind of music. And rockism is just sort of that prejudice against everything else. And conversely, poptimism is the idea that pop music, including hip hop, including Latin music, including any other genre you'd care to name, can be just as emotionally and sociologically and philosophically viable as rock rock music you know and like beyonce can be just as important as radiohead and all that kind of thing like it's a khalifa santa in an essay in the new york times like what was it like the mid-2000s yeah something like that is six or seven sort of the person who brought that debate from various message boards that i don't care to recall at this time to the New York Times and then it sort of went mainstream and we've sent the last

you know 10-15 years sort of playing it out and at this point in 2020 like I rockism has been sort of vanquished and poptimism you know the idea now that Beyonce is the both the biggest star in music and also the most critically respected star in music you know pitchfork you know which once focused on indie rock and had sort of you one would argue like a raucous type mindset will now review like all the taylor swift albums and stuff like that like poptimism won and now theoretically any genre of music is accorded the same respect and given the same sort of critical appreciation that only you know like neil young used to get you know 20 years ago so that's the basic idea so i've wasted my life

sometimes yeah i just i it does underscore some of the more painful aspects of how we've spent a lot of our time in the last 20 years yeah this. This movie, though, does seem authentically concerned with the questions that you just underlined. And I don't know if that is a function of the screenwriters were just big pitchfork readers circa 2007,

or if this is just a happenstance issue, this sort of idea that beyond the realm of critical thought, there is a kind of human to human debate about like is there something valuable about britney spears or is it just trash i think people do have that conversation even outside of the did you read that long essay in the new york times aspect but this world of trolls which obviously was it's the first film is basically a jukebox musical in which a lot of very well-known songs as you mentioned like the sound of silence

and september but also some more obscure pitchfork-esque song there's a junior senior song in that first film um and then justice yeah there's a justice song which is i mean they're really pushing the boundaries of pitchfork circa 2006 in many ways here in the trolls universe but in this film you know the the film opens with a daft punk song and that's the the we got one more time and and we get a a uh like a trap drop moment where everybody all the trolls which again are on molly the trolls are on molly in the first film and they're on molly in the second film losing their shit are the trolls on molly or are are the trolls Molly? I think it's the latter. I forget the drug subtext of the first film, honestly.

The theme of the first film is drugs are bad. Yeah, because the Bergens just want to eat trolls. And that's their thing. And their whole society is organized around trollstice where they all eat trolls, which is take Molly. And then at the end, they learn that happiness is inside you and you don't have to eat trolls, aka take drugs in order to be happy. Oh, that blew right by me. I thought drugs are great this whole time.

Okay, so then thank you for that. Yeah, some dangerous implications with respect to SSRIs, but we'll move past that. Vaccinations, yeah, right, sure. Yeah, okay, great. Moving on. We're already way off the rails here. I think that this

movie is very conscious of what it's trying to do. I think it is very much like, it feels like it's been reading the texts. Amanda, I feel like you know a lot about these issues, but are also repelled by them. What was it like to see in an animated movie, which you're already or not the biggest fan of a lot of the annoying bar

room debates that you lived through in the two thousands between men of a certain age? It was a very similar experience of just being like, I don't want to be here. And I wish we could just go listen to the music that I like, which is not anything that you guys are discussing. No, it's interesting. I mean, I think ultimately they just decided that they wanted to teach kids about more types of music than pop and specifically possibly types

of music that are available to license by the Universal Music Group, just a guess. And so it is very funny to me that the writers decided that the way that they would just teach kids about music other than, I don't know, what is the Whistlers? What's the band called, Rob, that starts with a W? It doesn't matter. It's okay. I was trying to make a hip kids reference whatever oh sorry sorry we are not very hip over here unfortunately to brawn and kids musical horizons um is to latch on to things that people were arguing about at like scratcher in 2005 i mean did someone have we checked the story credits at some point is it someone who once upon a time was on the message boards? It seems like the only way that you could get to this script because it is so specific

and such a strange pull after being like, going from a movie about don't take drugs to don't believe in rockism is like, those are the two pressing issues facing children. Right. Like halfway through this movie, Anderson.Paak like sings a song called It's All Love in which he explains cultural appropriation to children. Like he explains that pop music watered down and like stole soul and R&B. And like he ad-libbed something about publishing about having his publishing stolen and it's like i i'm not let's not get into the debate about the plot of frozen two but like the point of frozen two is that actually they're the bad guys actually aaron

dell are the bad guys and like actually white people are the bad guys and they sort of separated every other culture on earth and dominated it. And it's basically the same message here. It's Queen Poppy and her fellow pop trolls realizing that actually we are the people who caused everyone to be separated and depressed and miserable. And that's a hell of a thing for a nine-year-old and a six-year-old to process. And I can't really say with any confidence whether or not they processed it but like this is again this is as explicit a message as a kids movie has tried to get across to my kids you know in in the decade that they've been around I think there's an important pair of people that were involved in the making of this movie so the film is directed by Walt Dorn who

is the co-director of the first Trolls movie. It's co-written by Jonathan Abel and Glenn Berger. They have worked on a number of animated projects in the past, including the Kung Fu Panda movies and SpongeBob, and they're well known in this space. And then the other two names are Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarski. Are you guys familiar with either of those people? No. So Wallace and Maya are married. Are you guys familiar with either of those people? No. So Wallace and Maya are married. They are a writing couple.

Wallace is a dear friend of Wes Anderson. He is appearing in the French Dispatch and he has a number of writing credits over the years. Some for children's movies but he brings a slightly more high-minded allegorical approach to those movies.

He wrote a movie called monsters versus aliens which was not a huge hit but is an important movie in that respect he wrote a diary of a wimpy kid movie he is the co-writer of a dog's purpose and a dog's journey um he he earns his bones by bringing these oddly literary conceits to movies that on their face seem very stupid now do you rob as a parent i know you were joking when you said that maybe your nine-year-old and six-year-old didn't totally grasp the colonialist aspect of this story but do you think that by osmosis they might greater understand the value of reggaeton or classical music in the context of the world after seeing a movie like Trolls World Tour? I mean, it's entirely possible.

When I had kids, my hope was that when I took them to movies, they would have these incredibly precocious insights into the movies that would sort of increase my understanding. And that totally hasn't happened at all. I have no idea what they're thinking, but they just have nothing interesting to say after we get out of movies like this. In this movie, Brass Monkey plays for like 10 seconds. And my six-year-old is like, I actually like this. And that's about as close as you're going to get to an in-the-moment reaction to something like this. But I think it's entirely possible.

I don't know if my kids had really grappled with the notion of there being different styles of music really you know and it's i don't know if that's a reflection of our streaming era and it's just all the same to them or it's just this is the way a kid emotionally develops naturally but i i don't know if they'd ever thought of it that way and and maybe this will cause them subconsciously to start thinking about it that way i'm not opposed to that idea but it's just... This reminded me of, and I'm sure this happened to you too, is the end of Hotel Transylvania

3. Remember that one? Sure. Adam Sandler is a vampire. He's a nice vampire. He's got his nice monster friends. They're on a cruise in the third movie. It's an amusing juxtaposition. At the end of the movie, they have to fight a sea monster and the at the end of the movie they have to

fight a sea monster and the only way to fight the sea monster is to dj and so adam sandler's adam sandler's son-in-law who was played by annie sandberg like has to find like the perfect hits to dj to repel the sea monster and he settles on the macarena and this is a moment when i'm sitting in the theater and it's like okay now i'm really unhappy and I'm like chewing on my ice and it's like I'd really like to not be here anymore and I'm in that moment I'm just worried about the Macarena being implanted in my kids heads the way that the troll soundtrack was and like thankfully that didn't happen but it's there's also a movie called Rock Dog in which a dog that lives in a Tibetan monastery and is being groomed by his father to carry on the family tradition of protecting the Tibetan monastery and is being groomed by his father to carry on the family

tradition of protecting the Tibetan monastery against wolves. But what the dog really wants to do is be in an ACDC rock band. I looked this up on Wikipedia. This is the truth. He wants to be in an ACDC type rock band and his dad just approves, yada, yada. At the end, he uses the power of rock to repel the wolves from the Tibetan monastery. And like, they bring about understanding, like this is the kind of thing that my kids are dealing with on a, on a, on a daily basis. And I,

I have no idea how this is implanting them in like a genre and like a musical sense, but it's, it's all just incredibly bizarre and often upsetting to me. So. Oh, I I'm just speechless. I mean,

you could do a whole, you could do a dissertation about the political undertones of Rock Dog, but we don't need to go down that particular road. There's a lot going on in Rock Dog. Yeah. It's a rich text, as they say. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you were listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the Rewatchables or the Dave Chang Show or the Ringer NBA Show. Once you find them, click on the follow button. That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the app that say podcasts. All the pods you're

following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better. On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5. You can do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee. And then there's 1.5 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee. And then there's 1.5 times, two times.

And if you're completely insane, three times. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a CarPlay feature. That's pretty cool. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device and you're good to go. Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify? Well, I don't want to app shame you, but the answer, unfortunately, is yes.

Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. I really like how you just completely unraveled there, Rob. I did. You just completely, you just felt the crisis of children's entertainment in real time. This is extraordinary.

The quarantine era, my friend. I need outlets. Here I am. Thank you for your time. Well, it's, the way that this movie decides to pursue its story is really strange on a lot of levels but obviously this franchise has a lot of power and maybe that power is just money but there are are a number of well-known people

participating in in this film to the point of borderline confusion i don't know if you guys when you see a movie like this spend time trying to determine who is voicing which character, if that's a game that you like to play. It's a game that I like to play because I'm a sad little man. Amanda, yes. It's actually one of the reasons that I like watching these things at home because I can never place them in the movies. Sean and I sat through Doolittle and I spent like 45 minutes trying the whole time trying to figure out who the parrot was. And then it was my beloved Emma Thompson. And I was just like furious at myself that I couldn't recognize Emma Thompson's voice as a parrot. So I did. I liked watching. I just had the cast list up and I was like, oh,

you know, that's so-and-so. This is it's the one plus of watching Trolls World Tour at home. Yeah. So you guys have mentioned that Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are sort of the stars of this film. If you're wondering why we downgraded Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake are sort of the stars of this film. If you're wondering why we downgraded Anna Kendrick out of our 35 Under 35 episode, you can blame the Trolls franchise, which is very successful, though not very interesting. James Corden, who always seems to be a part of these absolutely terrible projects, is a significant figure here. Rachel Bloom plays Queen Barb. Rachel Bloom is an acquired taste, and she's really going for it as barb i would say she's not entirely my taste but she at least is she she gives a lot of effort i would say ozzy osbourne who is virtually unrecognizable and utters like one line it appears

actually really recognizable i that was the one that i got oh yeah if nobody mumbles like ozzy osbourne at that point it's like it's it oh yeah if nobody mumbles like ozzy osbourne at that point it's like it's it was either somebody doing an extremely good ozzy osbourne impression or it was the genuine articles i i like amanda i struggle to get the i try and get the names and i almost never can but ozzy ozzy was a gimme for sure there's a lot of other luminaries here george clinton is here mary j blige is here here. Kelly Clarkson gets a standout moment. Any watchers of Top Chef on this podcast right now? There was an extraordinary moment on Top Chef last weekend

which Kelly Clarkson appeared on Top Chef as a guest judge hawking Trolls World Tour. And the winner of the Quickfire Challenge won two tickets to the world premiere of Trolls World Tour, which is just an aggressively offensive prize at the end of a quickfire challenge to give to an adult human. Nevertheless, I don't think that premiere actually took place.

Sam Rockwell's in this movie, for Christ's sakes. Jamie Dornan, Esther Dean, the songwriter, Charlene Yee, the hipster actress, Kenan Thompson, probably most absurd, to me at least, was Gustavo Dudamel. Are you familiar with Gustavo Dudamel? Yes, he's the conductor of Valley Philharmonic. Exactly right. He's a luminary in the classical music world, which was wildly disrespected in this movie.

Are you kidding me? They literally played five seconds of beethoven's fifth and that's it that's literally they didn't come back when they all united all the people at the end no mention was made of classical music what are we teaching our children rob that's called lighting the wick what i just did there i I had a strong feeling that Amanda would have some... Expert rapport, yes. Yeah, the guests here are fascinating. I mean, Iconopop, are they Russian?

The Russian pop duo return? Probably, probably not, but sure. Where are they from, do you think? Do you think they're like Westworld-style hosts? I don't know. I would have said Scandinavia somewhere. Yeah, Westworld is the right answer, actually. Season two, Westworld, just deep in the doldrums.

Anthony Ramos, who many people will know from Hamilton, is King Troll-X, the techno troll who opens the film singing his rendition of One More Time. I would really, truly like to see a video of Daft Punk signing the licensing agreement for the use of One More Time in full robot regalia. I was going to say, are they wearing the helmets? They are absolutely wearing the helmets when they sign that deal. This movie is utterly confounding. You mentioned Brass Monkey getting five seconds. There's a significant twist with yodelers, which I guess they're ultimately not trustworthy characters. I'm spiraling out here myself.

This is a very, very strange movie. And I feel like it would be very confusing for a child. Was it confusing? Was it confusing? I think they had a great time. But again, they have a great time because they think the cloud is funny. I believe the cloud is voiced by the director and is a callback from the first movie. They thought the cloud was funny, like the little

rainbow inchworm dude who poops glitter or something periodically. They thought he was very funny. They totally enjoyed themselves. It was absolutely worth $20. But yeah, it's it's they totally enjoyed themselves you know it was it was absolutely worth twenty dollars but yeah it's just the soft to rock critics level like people have been clamoring for kelly clarkson to make a country album for like 10 years like it's it's that's been the big rumor that she's gonna go full nashville and just do a full country album and just blow everybody away and for it to actually transpire in a Trolls movie is just another bizarre intersection of my parenting life and my critical life that I'm sort of at a loss to even begin to grapple with. I thought she was pretty good, though. I was curious. Sure.

If you have to live in one world, which world are you going to live in? Oh, my goodness. I'm with the classical world does sound interesting, you know, when it's not on fire and there's just like, I mean, it was demolished. Yeah, exactly. That's the other thing.

It's pretty, that's kind of disrespectful. And so I, but I, I think the funk mothership is actually the right answer though. Like it's like sartorially, you know, it's pretty fascinating and it's,

I, I would, I would hang out in funk land as I believe it was known. Yes. I don't remember, but yeah, i agree with that except i that seems like where the fun is and the music that i would most want to have but i did appreciate that the vistas of of country world or whatever right right the tumbleweeds and yeah

so forth yeah i was confused by the presence of mary j blige as the queen of funk i would you know mary j blige has many things very talented among them, but not a funk artist, at least not in the way that George Clinton is a funk artist. Right. I guess funk is a catch all for R&B and soul and other things. And hip hop, which they try to bring in almost immediately, which is like a, that's not my favorite part of the movie is how they just shove all black music into like one spaceship. You know, and they do give this speech about how it influenced every single other type of music. But, you know, they also, they do not play a rap song in this entire movie. And I understand that it's, I guess, like,

movie for children or whatever, but come on. They didn't have Zoe Deschanel. Yeah. Yeah, well, Kenan Thompson raps too. I mean, they have, like, original raps,

but it's bizarre that no rap songs have been licensed as these sort of tentpole, you know. Getting into the racial dynamics of this movie seems almost absurd, but you're right. It's very weird all of the the native black forms of music are just bundled under something called

funk which i even if you had to choose the one genre to bundle everything under even that seems like absurdly uh um i don't i don't know just like insensitive somehow it's just it's not it's not ideal. Should have gone with a Grammy definition of just urban. Just call everything urban. Could have solved everything. So this movie, like so many movies in recent memory, turns on the song Barracuda,

which Jessica McLeish last month on The Ringer wrote a piece about how Barracuda became the go-to song for scenes of female empowerment and did not even mention Trolls World Tour because we didn't know that the movie was going to be appearing in it. But, you know, the Heart song has been used in Charlie's Angels and the Jessica Jones TV series, and it finds itself here again. I love Heart. I'm fond of barracuda like any other human being i could stand to never hear it again in a movie um what do you what rob what do you what do you think about this usage yeah there's like a dozen songs that equal rock in a movie and this movie has them all basically right like it has there's crazy train is that the very first one that barb queen

barb sings right right so yeah it, you got to do Crazy Train. You got to do Barracuda. It's, yeah, the rock canon is shrinking down to like half a dozen songs at this point. And it's a little disconcerting. Amanda, any thoughts on Barracuda? I enjoy the music of Heart and Barracuda. I don't understand really any of the music choices in this movie i mean i do there are some classics but even the presentation of pop music right in

this film i kept being like when are we getting to a good song when are we getting to one of like the the whether it's i mean i understand why we didn't get the beatles and it has something to do with licensing and i understand that at some point even even with Universal behind you, you run out of money. But if all we're getting is LMFAO, what's happening? What are we teaching our children? This is where I wanted to take this conversation. So there is early in the film a kind of trolls mashup moment in which they all sing seven songs across three minutes. There's something that happens in the first film.

It happens in the second film. In the second film, the songs that they all sing together include the Spice Girls wannabe, Who Let the Dogs Out, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunches, Good Vibrations, Gangnam Style, and LMFAO's Party Rock. Now, I think that you could make the case that those are some of the worst popular hits of all time. I like Wannabe. Everything else should be lit on fire. And that is supposed to be representative of the spirit of the pop trolls. Rob, what do you make of this?

The Good Vibrations inclusion was most fascinating to me. That feels like a troll is a verb to our friend Marky Mark. I do like the fact that they do that mashup and Kelly Clarkson immediately throws them in jail. That's what happens. Plot-wise, you're going to jail and the alt-country troll, as played by Sam Rockwell, busts them out of jail.

Yeah, that was the right response to that medley by, by country troll Kelly Clarkson. And so I, I agree with her decision there. And, and then Sam Rockwell does sing Patsy Cline, which I appreciated. Yes. One of the good song choices, but I just don't understand how you're making a whole movie about honoring everyone else's types of music. And we all influence each other and respecting genres or whatever. And then you have an original song written by Justin Timberlake, I assume, to end it that is not on the level with the great pop classics that I expected to end this film.

Let's just put it that way. No, the original songs were bad. And to be fair, I thought the original songs in Frozen 2 were trash when I saw that in the theater. And then after hearing it nonstop for three months now, I love the soundtrack to Frozen 2 actually. But yeah, as the movie climaxes and all the genres of music go back

together I was sitting there thinking what song are they going to use to represent every single genre of music existing in harmony and it turns out you know to be just a fully corporatized like Justin Timberlake song that I never want to hear again I'm like actually that's probably accurate in a real world sense but yeah it's I they sort of backed themselves in the corner where there was no existing song that could begin to unify any of this. And so I sort of respect them not even trying.

Rob, let me ask you this. Where does this movie rank in the canon of films about rock journalism? You know, we've got Almost Famous and High Fidelity. And, you know, there's some other texts, but where does this sit in terms of reflecting some of your career pursuits on screen? Okay.

Well, it's number three out of those three for sure. I'm trying to... Wow. Is there a fourth fourth first of all or are we just going to have to i think this trilogy is going to have to do it in terms of popular music dealing with rock journalism i feel like that's like a rom-com job that some people have had and it's sort of ancillary to the plot but in terms of movies that are very explicitly about rock critic debates i think this is only the third in modern history and i think it's a distant three

um can i can i share share something with you rob please i just i just googled the phrase movies about rock criticism okay two of the first returns are central intelligence and san andreas starring the rock so i don't i don't think that, and I guess those are movies that were criticized. Is The Rock a music critic in San Andreas? No, I think this is more a reflection of the fact that his name is The Rock. Oh, okay. It's a quarantine brain again.

Yeah, this is a distant third. I guess I'll go ahead and put Almost Famous at number one, High Fidelity at number two, because I relate to it a little too closely even now but yeah it's it's this is the first again like i end up seeing movies all the time that recontextualize pop music in very disturbing ways like there was a christmas eve i took my kids to see sing which is a movie about a singing you know like some sort of karaoke competition to save an old theater and like they walked out of that wanting to hear baby got back on a loop for months and i didn't care for that very much and so in in that

respect you know there are thousands of movies i feel like i've watched at this point that like sort of regurgitate pop music to my kids in disturbing ways but this is the only movie we've ever watched in which it's theoretically about my job and i kind of hope it's the last rob did you point that out to them? Did you try to use this as a way to explain what daddy does on the computer all day? No, I haven't gotten around to that. We'll wait for month four of quarantine for bring my kid to work day, which means bringing them into the home office with a door that I have here in this house. I feel like a wall should continue to exist between my professional life and my personal life as much as possible.

I don't want to subject them to that unless we're really, really bored, basically. But I'll consider it. I'll consider it. I'd like to open the floor for any closing comments on the film Trolls World Tour here. Any thoughts, Amanda? Something you need to get off your chest about this film? Well, I shared the classical music take, which I'm still very angry about,

even though I don't really feel like any of the genres, besides possibly country music, were given their due in this film. I thought the country world had a nice bit of time and there was some, you know, reasoning behind their music theory approach. Yeah, I think that's it. What am I missing? Well, you mentioned, so you're a Pearl Bergen, generally speaking. Oh, that's right. I did enjoy it. I really liked Prince Gristle. Sure. He was pretty goofy looking. He was. And I mean, I genuinely think it's funny when

they have all the bergens singing clint eastwood in a children's movie i was like what is happening right that's that's the song my kids really like and so we listen to the original version and they're like there's like swear words in the original version so that was a fun little interval there but like i i like that the bergens don't appear in this new movie at all except like at the very end and i sort of like the idea of the Bergens is the Vin Diesel of this franchise where they're like, we're way too good for this. Now we're going to go off and do prestige stuff.

And like, they're going to be back like three movies from now and be like, fine. Like this is, this is our lot in life and we accept it. I do hope to see the Bergens again. Christine Baranski, of course,

I believe was that was the especially evil Bergen. And you know, we, we were pro Baranski around here. I I believe was the especially evil Bergen. And we're pro-Baranski around here, I understand. She's like the Dick Cheney Bergen. Exactly. Yeah. This has been a highly political episode of the show. So I assume that there will be a third film, though, before you jumped on, Rob.

Amanda pointed out to me that there already is a Trolls TV show. Is that something that airs in your home? I believe it does. Yeah. I want to say that's Netflix and yes. So yeah, I have not gotten around to that yet, but there, yeah, there's a, there's a rich extended universe. I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I defer to the experts here, but I'm curious again, my kids were vaguely aware that this movie existed, but certainly didn't know it was coming out on Friday and would have not have thought to clamor for it. And certainly not to the degree where I would pay $20 to show it to them when I have Disney+, when I have Netflix. And again, I don't think there's any movie other than Frozen 2 that would theoretically rise to that occasion. So I'm very curious to see how this movie does in that respect. We're all locked down here and we're desperate to entertain our kids,

but can this movie, which is fine, it's totally acceptable as just distract the kids for two hours, but do we need it to be $20 or is this just not going to work as currently constituted? I'm really curious about that. So early returns are that the film has been a huge success on streaming. And there are obviously a lot of mitigating factors there.

One is the source of that information, which is obviously not being made public, but is only being shared by the company that produced the film. The other is the fact that this is a previously existing universe and so creating awareness for it or even being able to communicate to your kids, hey, you know the Trolls movie. This is another Trolls trolls movie makes it a little bit of an easier sell then we have

some breaking news here which is relevant to this conversation but disney just decided to move the release of soul out of june 20th and into november 20th away from obviously this quarantine period that we're experiencing and soul Soul is an original Pixar film. It's a film with no IP attached to it, with no universe. It also seems unusually deep for an animated film. And it might be a harder sell at home. It might be a harder sell for your kids to say, sit down and watch this movie about the depth of the human soul.

I think Pixar movie would do it for them. They've seen that trailer probably half a dozen times in other movies. And so there is some familiarity, but yeah, I mean, how I would sell that or I to sell that would be, it's a Pixar movie. I mean, it was the same with Onward, which they saw that trailer

at least a dozen times probably. And they got really into that. And so that's sort of the IP thing there is just Pixar and into that. And so I, I, I, that's sort of it. The IP thing there is just Pixar and just, you know, that signifies for them, not in the same way it signifies for me again, as sort of this emotional devastation that I'm preparing for, but like they want to see a new Pixar movie, you know, just for the lamp jumping on the Pixar level letters at the beginning, you know, so we'll, we'll, we'll do'll do that one i'm sure and they will at least have some interest in doing that one amanda any any closing thoughts on this recent more recent

excursion into animation i will say i liked the colors it's really interesting to watch the difference between the the movies that are definitely made for children and the movies that are made for adults and to for rob to have feelings as he discussed and there is something easier about watching these i mean it's more fun obviously because then you can just make fun of it for 45 minutes as we did and i i know that a lot of people spent a lot of time and money making trolls world tour and a lot of small children you know learned about the spice girls from. So who am I to judge it? But there is a difference in the types of animation.

And I do find this kind of specific kid animation easier to watch at home. Right. Like Onward was very dour. Like it was very imaginative and very clever and very happy in its own way. But yes, there is a huge difference just visually between watching trolls and watching Onward. And I do think that they would gravitate more toward trolls, obviously. Well, guys, thank you for your candor, your insight, the depth of feeling that you brought to this podcast. It's been a very special one um we're trying to whiplash as aggressively as possible in the big picture during this very

confusing period so later on this week we're going to be having a very special conversation about the 10 most essential erotic thrillers that you should watch during quarantine i advise you to keep your children far far away from those films and from this coming episode. Rob, thank you. Amanda, thank you. See you guys soon.