The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 176, Fever Pitch With Dan McQuade

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

Brockway and Seanbaby are joined by special guest Dan McQuade to discuss Fever Pitch, the gambling scare film that's unsure what gambling is, but thinks it might kick ass. Also featuring: A man being completely destroyed by a salt and pepper shaker thunder slap.

1-900-HOT-DAUGHT 1-900-HOT-DAUGHT Our podcast slams with maximum hype Say hot dog podcast, word Yeah When you taste that nitrate power You're in the dog zone for an hour Come on

You know the number 1-900 1-900-HOTDOG, the last website. I'm going to give you the soft sell first. The soft sell is that we pay talented comedy writers really well to unearth cursed media and write thousands of words of careful jokes about it every single day. We run a free article every week, but supporting us on patreon.com slash 1900hotdog gets you bonus podcasts, extra articles, monthly team-ups between me and Sean about Grandma voodoo, like this month's. Uh, now I'm gonna give you the hard sell. The hard sell is me reading you 18 jokes from Punsteria's 200-plus clucking amazing chicken tender puns to crack you on. Oh no. You've got to be yoking. These tenders are excellent.

Don't go bacon my heart. Stick to chicken tenders. I'm not too poultry to admit I love chicken tenders. Some people like to eat light, but I prefer chicken heavy, especially the tenders. Feathers or not, here I come for the chicken tenders. Oh no. The tender truth is these chicken bites are amazing. Chicken tender come poultry airy to any meal.

Holy shit. I'm not making that one up. Tendy loving care for when you crave chicken. Let's not poultry around and go get some tenders. Why did the chicken tender cross the road? To get to the sauce side. Love me tender, love me chick, never let me go to a meal without it. I tried to write a diet book but it was peppered with chicken tender recipes.

That's Pepperpon. That's not a chicken tender pun. Sometimes in life, you have to take a breader approach. That's been your only note? Chicken tenders. I mean, I was thinking, thank God they mixed it up. Don't brood over the past. Look forward to the next chicken tender meal. One does not simply walk into more door. They need chicken tenders as tribute.

I was just gonna say what I love about these AI, like it's nonsense, it's insane. But like I like the idea of a real pun writer out there like furious that a robot's taking his job. Like I'll never be able to do it like I do it. Oh, they're so good. Look at them go. They got like their favorite Laffy Taffy's framed on the wall, like I did this one in 1987. The art's out of it.

The art's gone out of it. What's a ghost's favorite color? It's boo. That was me, you son of a bitch. Try to do that, you robot. That's that's so much better, though. Like, he's right. He's right that it's artist time.

I have a bone to peck with anyone who doesn't love chicken tenders. And finally, what's a chicken's favorite type of music? It's R&B, which stands for rhythm and beaks with a side of tenderness. Holy shit. That's it. That's our competition. I like that the robot always like adds just a little a little slurred like just too much. Just like another turn of phrase that it just squeezes onto the end. Like

it's like their computer mind said you know what we need is 17% more chicken and they're like with a little side of tenderness and they're like yep that's perfect. I think it detests the amount of chicken in a pun. Somehow And they're like, with a little side of tenderness. And they're like, yeah, that's perfect. They think it's the amount of chicken in a pun. Somehow they can quantify it. Well, I'm sure the prompt had said chicken and tenders.

So the robot was like, what? I got one Rhythm and Beasts. Oh, that doesn't satisfy. Well, and tenderness. It's like the robot panics at the end, but we have not built a robot that will do a second draft. But we have built a robot that will panic when it realizes the first draft sucks. But that's it, that's our competition, so it's that, all that stuff I just did to you,

or come support us on Patreon.com slash 1900 hot dog. That's the hard sell. Do it, do it or I'll do that again. Anyway, I'm not chicken you, I'm just tender Robert Brockway and with me is pepper around Sean baby Buck and our guests, oops, something went wrong, try again Dan McQuade. Thank you for having me and that excellent intro.

Thanks for tolerating it. I was last updated in April, 2021. so that will be the end of my programming that I can talk about. I'm actually the AI Dan McQuade voice. The AI Dan McQuade is, he's sounding great to me. He's beautiful. Where can people find more of Robo McQuade here? People can find more of Robo McQuade usually at Defector Media, Defector.com.

But I'm on parental leave through September, which at first was like driving me bats because I haven't had time off in a long time. And Defector is a worker co-op, which is probably why I'm off till September. Not just probably, it is why I'm off till September. So I still, you know, I very much care about my job, but it's nice to have been with my son for almost two months without working. And so, yeah, I have nothing.

I have like, they will need to use AI in order to have content from me for the next four months because I'm gonna, I'm off. But occasionally I write some tweets where I'm angry about the Sixers, I guess, right now. Maybe you'll see some other tweets from me at some time. My Instagram has a regular new feature of what my shirts look like after my son spit up on them. So that's really the best content I can provide right now. Besides the film we're going to talk about today. I'd like to see AI render that.

Beat that. Beat that. You can't beat the authenticity of baby puke on a shirt AI. I would never do it. I would never do a page of baby puke puns. See if punsteria has a baby puke pun. All right. I didn't, I wasn't serious, but it is weird because the robot seems to be giving itself its own prompts.

So it'll be like, let's do a bunch of puns about Chinese people. Whereas I think if a human was involved, they'd say, no, let's not do that one. There is something interesting about how AI misinterprets things. I don't, that may be the only interesting part about it for me, but there are like, like the one that stands for, what was it?

Rhythm and beak with the side of tenderness. Like, oh, that's a whole new language. That the best one it could come up with was for the, why did the chicken cross the road? Tenderness. Like, ugh. That's a whole new language. That the best one it could come up with was for the why did the chicken cross the road? It didn't even... Get to the sauce side, of course. Yeah, like why wasn't it to get to the other sauce? Like that, I don't know.

There you go. That's the human touch. Robots will never take that from us. These estimates vary, but I was reading that about every two weeks, AI generates about as much content as all humans have since the dawn of time. Most of it gets ignored, but of course, a robot won't know what to ignore. So the next generation of robots will be, 90% of what it'll be looking at, maybe more, will be that. They'll think that rhythm and beaks of the sight of tenderness is just how humans talk.

And then it will be worse than that. Yeah, that's a real problem. That's an actual problem in like AI that they're dealing with. I read an article about it, it's called Habsburg AI. Like the inbred, yeah, sorry, sorry. Oh, I like inbred AI. That's a good one. That's what we'll call it.

That's what I'm gonna call it. Let's call it Rhythm and Beak with a side of tenderness. We could coin it right now. Anyway, Ponstorio says, That baby is a real comedian. He's always spitting up jokes. There you go. That was better than any of the Chicken Tender ones. Yeah, maybe that's really where it's hitting its stride.

We're not talking about any of that. We did. We did talk about that. We did. Now we're talking about a movie Dan brought us, a movie called Fever Pitch. It is a 1985 movie written and directed by Richard Brooks about a sports reporter who becomes addicted to gambling

while reporting on it. It sounds, just from that. It sounds boring as shit. It is completely insane. Sometimes a madman is like, Oh, no, space foxes took my balls. I need to kill the president to get him back. And it's like, whatever. Shut up, maniac. But then that same maniac will say, like, here's how I think you change a tire. And it's the fucking craziest thing you ever heard in your life.

This is that this is the maniac changing attire. This is Richard Brooks talking about gambling addiction. It was the last film he made before he died. So this is his legacy. So be careful not to do crazy stupid shit right before you die everybody. No, this was like seven years before he died. He tried to make stuff after this but like this people said no. Yeah, this was it. This was the last thing he made up. This was, so that makes it his legacy by the rules that I have set forth just now on the podcast.

To be clear, he has many nominations for Academy Awards and a writing Oscar for screenplay. It stars Ryan O'Neill, who also has an Oscar for acting. And you would never know, You'd never fucking know. I have some Ryan O'Neill quotes to start us off. Excellent. I just wanna, I think we need to go through him as an actor, as a person, to understand

what he brought to this role, and what he really saw in this role that we're gonna get into, of this sports reporter, who is just a perennial loser and realizing that he's lost control of his gambling addiction. So here's some Ryan O'Neill quotes. When asked about his big break in the movie Love Story, he said, I hope the young people like it. I don't want to go back to TV. I don't want to go back to those NAB conventions, which are broadcast conventions. So when asked about his big break raw desperation Was his answer.

Naked desperation. When people started making jokes about his comical like soldier outfit in the movie A Bridge Too Far He said can I help it if I photograph like I'm 16 and they gave me a helmet that was too big for my head And then he later added at least I did my own parachute jumps. So uh Real winning attitude real confidence of a leading man. Not the words of an insecure loser When asked how his career was going he said I think what I have to do now Seriously is win a few hearts as an actor the way Cary Grant did I know I've got a lot of winning to do, but I'm young enough, I'll get there.

Later on, he said Richard Burton told him, I'm five years away from winning acceptance as a serious actor. On the other hand, my agent says I'm right there on threshold. Split the difference. That's two and a half years. One good picture. That's all I need. That's two and a half years. One good picture. That's all I need. Building raw panic that you could see very clearly. He once got into a fistfight with his own son and he said, Why are guys always picking fights with me? If I'm in a good picture, they like me. If I'm not, they hate me. I'm mad too when I don't make good pictures.

God, people must have fucked him up after Fever Pitch. They really, this was like definitely on the downswing and really kind of destroyed his career as an actor. Don't sympathize too hard with him yet, we'll get to that. A director of his, Paul Mazursky said, "'Ryan, he's as sweet as sugar and he's volatile. He's got some of that Irish in him. He can blow it up.'

One day he was doing a scene and I said, bring it down a little bit. And Ryan said, I quit. You can't say bring it down to me that loud. I said, if you quit, I'm going to break your nose. And he started to cry. Jesus. Was he okay?

Like what was that? We will get to that. He is not okay. Oh no. When asked about his own kids, he was... We will get to that. He is not okay. Oh, no. When asked about his own kids, he said, I'm a hopeless father. I don't know why. I don't think I was supposed to be a father. Just look around. They're either in jail or they should be.

Oh my God. Now here's where it takes the turn. He is not okay. He was actually quite the ladies' man. He was involved with some of the most beautiful women of his and several of that were not his generation. He was involved with Angelica Huston. She says he abused her physically in their relationship. His own daughter says he forced her to take cocaine when she was 11 years old and he was later arrested for shooting at that same son he was arrested for fighting with and at Farrah Foss's funeral, one of those gorgeous exes, I'm not kidding, he hit on his own daughter, in his own words, as he admits it.

I had just put the casket in the hearse, and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me. I said to her, what, you got a drink on you? You got a car? And she said, Daddy, what, you got a drink on you? You got a car? And she said, Daddy, it's me, Tatum. I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman and it's my daughter. I'm so sick. I wouldn't have told anybody that story. No, never. And then they asked Tatum about it and she said, that's our relationship in a nutshell.

Oh no. Oh no. Anyway, I just want everyone to understand when we start ragging on what a pitiful fucking nerd this character is, that's Ryan O'Neil. Like he is not acting, this is just him. I guess I did know that he was not okay because he did a show with Tatum, like a reality show, that was an attempt to reconcile after 25 years or whatever.

And it didn't take, like they were estranged. I don't know if they eventually became not estranged, but they did a reality show about like having a relationship again and they failed, which is- They didn't talk again for a while after that. Which is pretty crazy and like pretty like, I mean, obviously that's what happens when you do a reaction.

Yeah, flavor, flavor hoops didn't work out either. Is anything real? Is anything real enough to last? So onto the movie fever pitch. The movie fever pitch begins with, I took a clip of the opening song. a clip of the opening song. It's Spots starring James Kober and it's identical. And it sounds like that. There is one incredible thing that happens in the intro. Oh, when it switched to the flopping titties

when they go off the strip. Yeah, like not just flopping, like being moved in a circle. My wife was like, I can't wait to hear what you and the hot dog guys have to say about bouncing boobs. But the rioting titties, just the titties of pure chaos. It just comes in for a half second. There's no other nudity in the movie. It's very, very strange. Just got to get him hooked and get him hooked early with crazy boobs. It's a pretty good tone shift though, because it starts off and it's like the high rolling of Vegas.

And then it kind of fades into like people rolling up quarters and counting ones and you're like, oh, oh, this is getting sadder. And then it's like off the strip downtown Vegas and like topless girls and just like, you know, dead beats. And you're like, okay, I get it. I have some criticism right at the top of this movie, because he's a sports writer. And so he's writing about being a sports writer. And he openly sucks.

Like his column is like sports the best. Boy golly sports reporting is as good as the sports sports and action. Wow, geez. And it's like, I don't know, like, I don't know if you've watched Sex in the City. But, but she's a writer in that show. And her columns are like a mediocre nerd trying to sound clever. But, but that's at least something. And you can tell they were written by a writer. And so I guess my criticism for this movie is pretty severe. I'm saying it's worse than Sex in the City, like artistically, because like this is like Wikipedia articles about writing is how they've chosen to represent this writer and and the guy who wrote it the Academy Award winning writer who wrote this movie was a sports writer. And so.

Yeah, it's all very frustrating. As as a sports writer from Philadelphia myself, just like Richard Brooks originally was. Philadelphia myself, just like Richard Brooks originally was. There's a long history of sports writers and other, I'm sure this happens in any sort of journalistic field, like longtime stalwarts of the profession who are very well known, are famous, maybe even everyone awards are like, maybe still well sourced in who like can't write a lick,

but it's not in the way that Taggart, that's his name, writes. He like writes like, yeah, he writes like he's doing a book report on gambling for someone who's never heard of it before. He writes like he did not do a book report on gambling and just found out that a book report on gambling is due. Sports, huh?

Sports, what can they say about man's oldest enemy, sports? The sport that can change a life in a moment. The sport that's in a way pretending to be a wife. The sport that's become a national epidemic. That's sports. It's gambling. And yet he's so famous that his daughter, that the nun at the school, his daughter goes to, where she appears to be the only student, because he goes to pick her up and she's the only one who comes out of the school.

Okay, that's a very, very strange thing. I just want to sell everything Shange we said here with a clip. Oh, excellent. Clips clips from opening the show. The sport played by more people. The sport that feeds on all other sports. The sport that can change your life in a minute. The sport that's become a national epidemic. That sport is gambling. I remembered that word for word almost.

Huh. It was so dumb to me. Gambling? The old sport of gambling, which is not a sport, it's like 8 million actual games. It's the broad term. Yeah, you gotta be a real pedantic asshole to be like, that's a sport. I just think that's wonderfully, wonderfully efficient that this is basically the first line in the movie.

We're like 30 seconds into the movie and they have completely discredited their main character. Like, okay, so he doesn't know shit about it. He's terrible at his job. Okay. Everything that's gonna happen, he deserves. He says he's been working on the article for a year and a half.

And the three of us have worked in media, still work in media. Like if someone pitched you a story today where they said, I'll need the expense card. I'm going to embed myself in a horrors. I'll be back with my one article in early 2026. Like, that's a far, I don't know. And then to come back with like this shit copy about like just the general existence

of cards. It's like, come on. He says he's been working on it for a year and then we do a montage to show what he's doing and he's like watching them manufacture the labels that go on poker chips and like studying it like what the fuck is that? He's been going a year and you've never seen a chip. They're called chips and they're like money. At first I was making fun of that.

I was like, you don't, like, okay, maybe a story about how they make the poker chips. Like, okay, that's like a couple hundred words. Like at most you could put that as like a weird sidebar to your gambling piece. But then when he said he had been working on it for 500 days, I was very, I was like, oh, so then yeah, you should go see who makes the poker chips. Might as well. You got all this time. He says he also makes 70 to $90,000 a year. So that's a lot for a guy who writes one article every 18 months.

That's $260,000 in today's money. It's his annual salary. He also says that he takes home $34,000 after taxes. Yeah. And the casino owner is like, get a new tax man. You're like, yeah, that's cute. Yeah. Yes.

That's not a joke. He's worried for you because that's way too little because you're paying 70% of your income to taxes. Just I think it's just setting up that like every other thing a human being could do. Yeah. He's so bad at this that it looks like he might be taking it on purpose. Like his taxes. Also, I think that he's kind of a Flash Gordon character where he's just kind of invulnerable. Like he does everything he can to ruin his life, but he just kind of can't finish. Yeah, that's a...

Yeah, no, it's extremely bad writing. Yeah, terrible writing. I guess we'll get into it. So at the start of the movie, he is talking to a casino boss who tells all of his staff to open all of their doors to this reporter, like casinos fucking love to do. They love that. Yeah. I, hold on.

I actually, okay. So I was in Atlantic City with some friends from high school over the summer. And it was the, there was a big boxing match that night. And I was like, oh, well, let's go see it. Let's go to like one of the sports box, yeah, one of the sports books and go watch it. And I called all of them and only one casino was showing it.

And I was gonna write about that, like, oh, boxing used to be the biggest thing in AC. And now it's like, it's more expensive to show than UFC and it's less popular. So most places just don't show it. And I called the casino that showed it and I was like, hey, I want to write about how you guys were the only ones who showed this fight and like what a good time I had

and just sort of, you know, how interesting it is. And they were like, nah, we're gonna pass on this. And I was like, man, you're a struggling casino and I was gonna write something nice, but okay. So yes, this is a, and like he's 500 days in and he's just talking to the head of the MGM Grand, even though he has that access, like that might be one of the first things you, you know. He's talking, he's just now talking to the head of the MGM Grand and his questions are,

the MGM grant and his questions are, what is gambling? That's 90% of his question to anybody in the movie and they all know what it is and it's very book report all throughout. It gets real tedious. So, I want to hold on out. Before we get too far, my notes say that it's written and directed by Richard Brooks and when that credit comes on screen, it's when two hitchhiking girls are flashing their bare asses to truckers. And I thought, I thought that's a pretty incredible choice. No accidents.

No accidents. In a true auteur. He's a monster. He opened up one of his movies by gathering all of the staff together and saying, I know everybody here is an artist and you have your artistic input and you fucking shut up and you keep it to yourself, this is my movie.

This straight shooting guy that he talks to, the owner of NGM, Grant, when he comes in, he says, what's gambling? The guy basically says, yeah, your pitch sucks, dude. The story is, the story is, the story is trash. You should know that by now. You can't start with that because everybody else knows that. Like, if they know how to read, they know that.

Start a little farther along. But in the middle of this interview, he gets a call at the casino in like the guy's office. In the pit, sorry, he goes to meet the pit boss, Frank. And he's talking to Frank and in Frank's office, he gets a phone call pit boss, Frank, and he's talking to Frank, and in Frank's office, he gets a phone call, and Frank's like, you're getting a fucking phone call in my office? And this is what happens. Phone call for Mr. Taggart.

Urgent. Nasty mouth, too. Hello, this is- I want Taggart. Who wants him? None of your fucking business whoppin'. Happens, I'm Irish. That's the worst kind of whoppin'.

Yeah. It's me, the Dutchman. Go ahead. You're late. I'll see you Monday. Nope. Tomorrow I'm still here at work. Sunday, family business. Monday, it's you and me, champ.

You family can fucking well wait. Sunday 8am same place. Be here. For three white guys in a conversation that got really racist. Against all the different types of white guy. That's the worst kind. You're right, that is the worst kind because it's not that. It's the wrong racism. You used the wrong racism, sir. Yeah, well. I'm just really grouchy. Sorry. All right.

This guy owes me a lot of money. So he gets the racism wrong. He calls him at a casino that he doesn't know where he's at. And then he demands to meet him for their money right away, to which Taggart, he's the reporter, he's our main character Ryan O'Neill, says, no, not until Monday. And then his, the Dutchman, what a terrifying nickname for a remorseless bookie, the Dutchman says, no, you've only got most of the weekend.

Right. Cancel one of your plans. And it's a great compromise. Also, why does he call him champ? Like he's trying to console his son at baseball. Like the way he talks to him is crazy. There's so many people in this movie that want to kill him. Somebody that actually tried to kill him.

And he's just like, yeah, I don't know what consequences are. What? Who are you punching me? OK. So the pit boss then takes Taggart on a big montage tour of all of all of Las Vegas, we go to like 20 different locations here and in each one he is still explaining what gambling is all across town in so many shots that it makes it look like it couldn't take less than 11 hours straight of him just telling this guy, how else do I fucking explain it? Like you put money down on something you think will happen, but not necessarily know will happen. He's like, uh-huh, uh-huh, let's break that down. He drops such an insane statistic here, he says three out of four people will make a bet before they die. I'm just like, wait. Yeah, like what? There's one that didn't.

What are you talking about? Duh! Like... That's so impossible to measure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like who did this study? I'm going to need to see the like what journal... Who's arguing against it? ...to find out what the hell was going on.

Insane. I've never met anyone who's bet. I've never made a bet in my life, not even casually. Nine out of 10 women die as virgins, Taggart. You're like, I don't know how you got that number. Plus, I don't know, maybe this was a 1985 thing that kind of talked about gambling like it's a moral issue, but like, I don't know, I grew up with lottery tickets being a really ordinary part of the landscape

and it was pretty normal for like a breakfast cereal to have sweepstakes on them. So like, I don't know. There's an island target right now that's just a bunch of blind boxes to give to toddlers so they can gamble. Like, so it might just be like, it's hard to conceive of a world where gambling had like a stigma to it.

It kind of feels like this movie should like wants to be in like the 20s. Maybe even earlier. It's also like why does why is the head of the casino driving him around? Like what is he has a job, right? What is the I don't know what the head of a very big job, but he has to watch like this reporter is so famous that the head of the casino spends all day with him, chauffeurs him around, gets his calls and- Unpleasant calls.

And yet he only makes like 36 after taxes or whatever he says. It's- But that's because he's really fucked up on his taxes. I feel like if I'm the head of a casino and I'm talking to some guy and I get a phone call where some guys call me racial slurs and making demands of me, I say to the guy I'm talking to, get the fuck out of my office and if you bring this kind of shit into my

life again, I'll have your knees broken. He's like, oh, okay, I'm glad that's over with. Let's hit the town. I'll tell you what gambling is. Yeah, they're best friends after this. He's so impressed, Frank, the pit boss is so impressed with Taggart that he sends him a bottle of champagne and as a fun bonus, a prostitute that is supposed to be a waitress. He just grabs a random waitress that works at the casino.

He's like, hey, you're a prostitute now. Take this champagne up to him. And she is the most chill about that that anybody has ever been She's like hi, I guess I'm supposed to fuck you for money. That's almost like that later in the script because she's just such a cheerful best friend type and then Then it's she's also yeah I also want to talk about his copy here because he's in his hotel working on his article and he's like gambling is fun It is for delight and for pleasure. It's just, the guy fucking can't write for shit.

Just call one writer. And again, I guess this guy is an Academy Award winning writer who had this exact job in his life. It's strange for it to be so bad. It's more frustrating to me than a casino owner sending a hooker to a writer. Sending a waitress that he just turned into a hooker. They make that very clear when he approaches her.

She comes upstairs and she's like, all right, let's fucking, let's do this. Let's fuck for money. She starts stripping down, she takes off her stockings, she grabs a black-knit grandma shawl from out of nowhere and then wraps it around her. I believe that this is her first day prostituting. That is a rookie mistake. She's real casual. She gives this really terrible speech about gambling and he's like, fuck yeah, then let's go gamble.

And she says, but what about, and then gestures to her own body like she's disappointed, she's not going to fuck for money. And he goes, oh, there's always that. Like, yeah, we can resort to that afterwards. God sent the hooker. And she gives him a little fist pump like yeah we might fuck after that's fine. That's why she got into the work. So they do go gambling and she gives him more speeches about all the rules of gambling

and I just wrote down here she has way more rules for gambling together than she does for prostitution. There was no rules laid down for her first day of having sex for money, but the second he's like, hey, let's go play some match, she's like, all right, listen, there's no touching, there's no kissing, we're not friends afterwards. No, she's a main character afterwards. They do a thing where they're gambling, where it tries to make it look like he has these keen observation skills.

So he's looking at everybody's jitters and tells, and you know he's just going to go back and write, gambling is various things. Webster's defines gambling as, you know, it's useless. But he's working so hard to understand that. It looks like he's very smart because he's working so hard at observing that, but what he's observing is like, people seem to be enjoying themselves. It's just the little, like, the trope of all the numbers popping up above his head. It's all like 1 plus 1 equals 2.

Yeah, he's got it. Beautiful mind. They split. He's got $800 of his paper's money. Again, they've just given him money to go gamble, and they turn it, together they turn it into $4,000 and he wants to go continue losing all of that. She's like, no, you give me the $2,000. They split up, he continues on to, guess what? Lose all of that. I wanted to stop you because there's a moment here where they kind of make it clear that

the hooker's a gambling genius and they win a pile of money. After they win like a hand in poker, a craps or something, he just screams at her, how old are you? She doesn't answer because that's rude and insane and they never bring it up again. It's just like the only dialogue in this long montage of gambling. And I thought, what a strange choice. But anyway, yes, then they he loses it all. Yeah, he loses it. She sees him.

He has to do the walk of shame. He does literally the Charlie Brown walk as he loses it all. Yeah, he loses it. She sees him, he has to do the Walk of Shame. He does literally the Charlie Brown walk as he comes back into the casino, like head slumped all the way down over, kicking his feet. She starts to run up to him like, hey, and then just stops and is like, oh, he's broke. Everybody knows this child lost all of his money.

He goes to Circus Circus and just hangs out with children. And it's as weird as it sounds. It's just, it's just him moping near children. I mean, I'll give him credit. That is what you do when you bust out at babies. Yeah, that is true. This is a movie that's really like, that really like tells and doesn't show. He loses all his money and we don't see it.

We just learn it from the mom from seven heaven. This is who is the hooker slash gambling savant. Right. We need to establish that this is affecting his home life. So what he does is he calls his daughter and he promises her, I'll be back for your birthday and his daughter is a crazy robot. And she says, Oh, Papa, I love you madly. Uh, she, again, she lives in a room with a nun, like a bespoke nun room that he keeps her in. she just loves him so much that she takes care

of his kid while he works on his one big story for them. Right. And maybe the paper gives it to him. Like every, every, every reporter gets a nun when they're on assignment. They give him fucking everything. That wouldn't surprise me. It looked like it killed to be a journalist back then. The casino owner was driving him to the airport and he offered to pay him $15,000 to make it a puff piece. He kind of like, you know, nuanced the language so he wasn't directly paying him. He's like, I bet you five to one that you'll make it a nice article. I can't remember how he puts it, but basically clearly offering him $15,000 to make it a puff piece

and he doesn't take it. So like that's what, again, the writing's bad, but they're trying to show that our guy has integrity, even though he's a degenerate gambler who needs this $15,000 so the mob doesn't break his legs and kill his daughter. I think they're trying to show us that he's once again an idiot. Yeah, yeah, that too. He's like, no, and then I'd like to think that we just lost the scene of him leaving the car and being like, oh, god damn it. Is that what he was trying to do? He's like, just then I'd like to think that we just lost the scene of him like leaving the car and being like Oh god, damn it. Is that what he was trying to do? So before that happens he is lounging around at the casino before he leaves he gets a lecture on gambling from a nearby towel boy

To give him like a five-minute lecture how gambling is, uh, well, everyone does it, but you know what, sometimes you lose money, you lose money, and then like, oh my god, and then a mook, a mook comes in, a mook comes in and he displays his toughness by kicking like a little particle board gazebo, and then he says, this is from the Dutchman and gently mashes Taggart's face into a vinyl lounge chair strap Brutal like the softest thing that he could find I looked it's literally the softest thing in that scene because the towel boy Just took all the towels There was a table nearby there was the railing of that chair there was like some bricks down there

He's like no he might have had some lines on his cheek when he came up from that. Yeah, he left some lines for like a few minutes. That was embarrassing. So he gets back to work. He's driven out of Vegas by this MOOC somehow. He gets back to work to work on his story, and we find out as he talks to his editor, this is the first part, they love it so much, it's the first part of a serialized story, this C-minus book report. He's talking about ancient China and how there was a form of gambling invented back in the

Ming dynasty. It is the most Wikipedia-ass article. Yeah, it's definitely a book report. You're passing, but the teacher is going to want to talk to you about your performance. You could excel if you applied yourself. It's just... Is everything okay at home? No. I got pushed into a lounge chair. There were lines on my face for five minutes. So they fucking... they love it. They love this story. He's gonna have everything he ever needs to write this story. And he immediately goes to visit that loan shark, the Dutchmanman and to establish how tough the Dutchman is we've already met his most

violent mook the vinyl masher but the Dutchman man he's in a different league he's in here in an underground illegal racquetball match just all chain link and filthy bricks halfway through his opponent is like, you can't kill me during this, you'll be out too much money. So this is to the death, it's a racquetball match to the death. And when he loses,

we finally come to understand he's a football player that is in debt to the Dutchman. And he immediately pins the football player's football arm in the gate, like he's gonna break it and therefore make all of his money worthless. Tag arm in the gate like he's gonna break it and therefore make all of his money worthless. Taggart pulls the gate away like freeing the football player from the Dutchman. The football player doesn't run, he grabs a golf club and like now it's this high stakes showdown until the Dutchman tries a fucking Harold Howard two-footed flip kick and just lands

straight on his back and like knocks the wind out of himself and then butt scoots into a corner to die. Yeah. It's the craziest goddamn fight scene I've seen until the rest of this movie. And then Ryan O'Neill stops the murder because he'd hate for someone to kill his loan shark

before he had a chance to pay him back. Like, I don't know. His loan shark that almost killed himself trying to do a two footed flip kick on a racquetball court and just ate it so hard. And anyway, the Dutchman tries to play this off like, yeah, I knew you were going to save me. So I'm going to go and we do this as a trope, like where the tough guy takes you to the gym to show how strong you are.

Here he is. He takes him to the gym, he takes Taggart to the gym to watch him lift weights. And we cut to a scene of the Dutchman bench pressing 75 pounds, including the bar. Including the bar. Yeah, then he does toe lifts. What do you call them?

The knee curls. He's really grunting when he's like, $31,000 of my money. Man, you're lifting a pretty lightweight, I think you can talk normal. And then he's talking about how he's not such a bad guy. He's like, come on, I give people money. I'm a great guy. By the way, your daughter's the only collateral you've got. I'm directly threatening to kill your tiny daughter." And so it's like, okay, so these are the stakes

are getting pretty high. Yeah. You know, what we forgot to mention is that this article that he's writing is ostensibly about a guy named Mr. Green, who's this degenerate gambler that he's supposedly following around and his editor has no idea that this is an author insert. Like, he's like, Yeah, this Mr. Green sounds like a real piece of shit. In fact, he kind of sounds like two different people. Almost sounds like a sports reporter writing himself into a story. Ah, no. That'd be crazy. But everybody's such an idiot. It's like everybody's first day on the job. From Lone Shark, like that's the Dutchman's first day. It's the prostitute's first day.

Yeah. It's definitely that editor's first day. Like everybody's just instantly fooled by everything. Also, I think it's weird that the guy's broke. He makes by my calculations $135,000 for an article plus a $15,000 casino sponsorship bonus. He should be able to pay back $31,000 with like, I don't know, a tenth of a byline. He only takes home 34 of that a year though. It's a year's salary. It's a year's salary, fine. But if he had only just visited a CPA,

the CPA would be like, the government owes you two million dollars in taxes? That can't be right. No, that's right. What have you been doing? Are you an idiot? Okay, so at this point, it sort of feels like it's becoming a propaganda movie

rather than like the adventure. Now you're like, okay, there's stakes. This bad guy is gonna kill his daughter. He's gotta get this money back. But now it like gets, it takes a real sad tone like that gambling is bad. And he takes his daughter to the fun fair and he just can't stop thinking about those goddamn horses. You know what I mean?

Like it's more of a view into an alcoholic's life than a movie, if I'm making sense. Yes, it's definitely very preachy, except for he only had like the one observation about gambling and that was everyone gambles, but sometimes you can lose money and that's bad. And so literally everyone that talks to him gives him a very long version of that speech. And then it will frequently cut from scene to scene where somebody's like, man, I can't believe I lost all that money. And then the next guy's like,

let me tell you about gambling. I once gambled and I lost a lot of money. Why are we doing this? He's taking it all in. He's like, I'm not gonna to put any of this in the article because I'm just going to rewrite the encyclopedia. He's not going to write about Mr. Green. It's the daughter's birthday.

He takes her to the fun fair for her birthday. And then he's like, oh, I got to get back to work. And so you're like, oh, he's going to go leave her at the notary. No, he takes her to the racetrack to meet all the racetrack scumbags. He's like, hey, scumbags, check out my daughter. And they're all like, whoa, why would you bring your daughter here? That's weird. So he takes off, leaving his daughter with the scumbags.

One of them picks her up off her feet and gives her a kiss. And he looks like the principal from Billy Madison. Like, I thought it was the same actor. I thought they're all really nice. They bring her concession stands from the racetrack, so poison, and they put candles in it and wish her a happy birthday. And the whole time they're casting glances on the absence where her father was like, what a piece of shit that guy is.

I mean, there's racetrack piece of shit like me and then there's that guy. She wins an exactus. She wins 264 bucks with her beginner's luck. You can tell it destroys him. The acting choice Ryan O'Neil makes is to just have his heart get shattered by how he isn't winning money and his daughter is. Then she's like, here, hold onto my cash for me. It's like, holy shit, this is so dark. Then as if the filmmaker heard me, so dark, right? And then as if like the filmmaker heard me, it cuts to a flashback of her mom's actual death. Just real maudlin, real, real base level emotional manipulation. So we flashback to the mother's death and she's just road raging, screaming at everybody on the road, driving like a lunatic in the middle of the night. I think they say it's like three in the morning.

It's the middle of the night in a torrential rainstorm and she's taking this turn too fast when she sees a mother and the baby crossing the street at three in the morning in a torrential rainstorm. And she swerves amidst them and crashes into a truck like, presumably fatally wounding herself. So then we cut to see why she was in such a hurry. It's because she was rushing with $5,000 to pay off some bookies that Taggart owed money to. And he's so it's not like his life spiraled out of control after his wife died or whatever. Right. It's that he caused his wife's death with his gambling. died or whatever. It's that he caused his wife's death with his gambling. But despite doing all of this, he still has to ask the head of the MGM grant, what's gambling? I killed my wife with it. I've been doing it for several years. I never thought to ask

what this is. Maybe that's why I'm so bad at it. Now, we obviously have to talk about the phone ninja. The phone ninja. So they have him, the bookies have him there. They pinned him there by slow motion stabbing him with a knife in the hand, which is a weird decision. And then the police call the gambling den where they know he is to tell him his wife spent in a terrible accident. This movie acts as if like cell phones exist, I guess, but it uses landlines.

People are reachable anywhere at any time. And how long ago is this flashback supposed to be? Do they explain it? Because why would he write a long article about gambling if he already was a terrible gambling addict? Maybe, or I don't know. So the cops call the gambling den and reach the main gambler who who answers the phone is like, what the fuck? It's for you, Taggart. And then he's like, don't tell the cops you're here.

The cops called you just called you and talked to you. I love that. It's idiocy on a level like you know, nobody even saw this script before he started filming it because like anybody, you don't have to be literate. If you're being generous to the writer, that's them saying that this character's flashback, he's so dumb that in his flashback shit doesn't make sense. But also in the current day shit doesn't make sense. So no, it's not that. So he hears that his wife's been in a terrible accident, and he turns into a fucking phone ninja. He rips the big headset off of the counter, starts swinging the little elastic cord that

goes to the receiver, and starts swinging the silly little telephone flail. You know, like, okay, this is where he gets the shit kicked out of. No, the bookies scream and run across the room. One of them desperately shields himself with a rice paper standing screen. So we've got a showdown here of two people who have chosen the worst weapon and the worst thing to defend against that weapon in a full blown panic fight. It's incredible. I laughed so fucking hard at this.

Yeah, what a moment. It's a little brother fight I wouldn't bother telling mom about. And they're like, life or death. Yeah, they're like, your parents are like, what happened to the phone? You're nothing. Yeah, worth explaining. I tripped over it. Oh, OK. And the rice paper screen.

Yeah, that's where I tripped. Also, the wife is still alive. Like when they get to her, she's got a lot of strength left in her. They they they cut her out of the car and take her to the hospital. I guess she died on the way, but she seemed okay at the time. He escapes from the gambling den he's in and then almost immediately finds her on the road. At first I was like, that's unrealistic, and I was like, no wait, it's better. He's so sad that his wife almost got there before having to swerve to get away from like a 1920s baby carriage. Like it's like the like Battleship Potemkin, Naked

Gun 3 baby carriage like style. It's so strange. So back to the present day, he's still interviewing people about what gambling is. This time he's talking to an old woman who was a poker player and she says, well, there's no family to stop me from playing. And also I've been playing for several years and I've never won even once. That's statistically impossible unless you're lost in a casino and unaware that you're playing a game. So like this is just a demented old woman that needs help. And he's like, uh-huh, uh-huh. So that's what gambling is. It's not winning. I can do that. Yeah.

He gets it. So I guess, I guess inspired Taggart then goes to play poker inspired by this woman who has never won a cent. He enters a poker game and a woman is he's doing okay. Or at least in his, in his hard boiled copy. He's playing the cards. He's playing the odds. He's playing the odds. Fucking killing it.

Fucking killing it left and right until like somebody's mom comes in. And I don't know if they're trying to play her like a sultry cougar or like a big fucking nerd. I don't know. What I do know is that she sits down. She's like 50 something out on a girls night out. And she fucking bullies him into the dirt with those cards. Like he cuts to him flop sweating while she's just fucking tanking every single move he makes. Yeah, she's just too much a woman for him. She's a middle aged five.

And he's like, well, I've never she's too vivacious. So word they she's just like making fun of him and just taking all of his money. It's the most emasculating thing that could happen Until he goes back to his editor and it's like I need eight thousand dollars for more journalistic gambling. You got a story No, he does ask why eight he's like well three for the bookie and then five to like gamble with and he's like Immediately makes the call. Give me fucking eight thousand dollars to tag its gambler story. Give me an expense now. This is fucking crazy.

The man who wrote this movie was a sports reporter. And, you know, he Tiger gets the line wrong. You the saying is like you play the opponent, not the car. Well, I think that was the point. And he gets it backwards. I think he was doing well. He was playing the cards, but this Babs girl, this lady, she played the people and she played him. And so I think that's how I took it. But again, the writing's so bad. I'm having to be generous to put that into music.

But yeah, he has like an expense report. He has an expense account that would be like, I have no idea how he gets this much money to report a story. Just real quick, $8,000, the $8,000 that the editor just gave him, that's 25 grand in today's money. And that's gone. That's to give to the subject of an article so they can gamble it away while you watch and describe it.

That's how journalism works. He was an actual journalist. I don't understand. So now with this money in hand, Taggart goes around town, and as in his words, paying off the most, only the most dangerous of my debts, the ones that are due tomorrow. Like these people will fucking kill him. And one of these in the montage is a hot dog stand. So he was exactly taking out a buck 50 loan at 20 percent a week. For a second hot two chili dogs at a Pepsi. Just seven. And that guy's going to fuck him up.

He's going to fuck him up. If you don't give me seven hot dogs tomorrow, I will fucking kill you. Fuck. It's just every little like I said said on the surface, this is such a basic like it's a 1940s reefer madness, but for gambling, it's reefer madness. This person has never existed in the real world for a day in their life. Like they don't understand how anything works. They think you you owe a fucking a blood debt to a hot dog joint. Like That's how the real man operates, right? So he immediately goes to his bookie, to the Dutchman, to place another bet.

And the Dutchman gives him a real tough guy lecture. He's like, man, why would why would a guy like you come to me? And why would I even entertain your bet? I actually have the clip. Guys who can't pay, hopeless. I could easier get a French kiss out of the Statue of Liberty than money from guys like you. You've got three days to get up 31,000.

So what if you don't? I ought to kill you, right? Put you out of your misery. But why should I help you? What have you ever done for me? Nothing, right? So fuck you. Live and suffer. Jesus Christ.

Right, it sounds, it's a real tough guy's speech, but what it boils down to is I'm not gonna do anything at all to you, because the best revenge is living well. Like that's your bookie. That's the guy, he's not gonna break your knees, he's like, why should I kill you? I'm not gonna do shit. You gotta fucking live with it. OK.

Yeah. Well, can I have more than so armed with all of this new money and the threat of absolutely nothing, of being left alone to live his life in peace. He drives to Vegas. Taggart drives back to Vegas to gamble it all away. Frank, the pit boss from earlier, takes him in and brings him into the Eagle's Nest, the little room above the gambling,

above the casino floor, to watch what a real gambler looks like. And what they think a real gambler looks like is a high roller who is playing five hands of blackjack at once. He's like Bobby Fischer. He's no, it's like the scene in NCIS where they hack together by typing. Yeah, two people type on the same keyboard.

You're like, no, that's not that's not how that works. He would just bet more money. He wouldn't play five hands at once. I don't think they let you because I think you'd be able to count the cards better that way. Also, you would lose to yourself. Yeah, yeah, there's that too. So anyway, he interviews, he goes down to interview his big shot gambler, Mr. Peru. And it goes, you know, he's very intrigued, they get along. And as he's leaving, he looks back to see that the the MOOC, the vinyl lounge masher is meeting up with Mr. Peru. So, oh no, things are coming together. So Taggart runs to the bathroom

to find a real formally dressed Marine sobbing and trying to shoot himself in the handicap stall. And he stops him. He stops him, of course, and listens to the kid's sob story. Only the kid's sob story is the exact same lecture he's been getting about gambling this whole time. Like the kid stops to define gambling.

You were gonna fucking shoot yourself in the face over it. You know, you have stopped to define it at that point. So his story is that he's going to kill himself because his dad needs the insurance money to be in a home. Taggart then looks at him straight in the face and says, you know, they don't pay out for suicide. The kid's like, what? He didn't think to look it up because it was his first day being suicidal.

It's everybody's first day. Yeah. At everything. Exactly. The only thing Taggart knows is, is Marine life insurance payout details. He buys the kid a ticket home, right? He gives him the, he buys them the ticket home and he goes to the casino and the first thing he sees is the kid's right back here at the casino.

He sold the ticket and is gambling the ticket money and Taggart like looks at him, watches him, watches him win big and then he's like, ah, I love it. He decides that he loves that the kid did that with his act of charity and then the kid like explains, I won exactly the amount that I need back. See you later. I'm leaving. Everything's just great. So gambling's good too. We're both sides in gambling now. This movie is so fucking schizophrenic.

It's confusing. And then while we're trying to deal with that emotion, like, Tiger gets grabbed by William Smith and gets his knees kicked open. The vinyl lounge masher and what he does is he starts kicking him in the shin like a soccer hazing ritual. That's what tough guys do. Yeah, super tough. But here's the thing though, is he's like a white Jackie Chan but for much smaller objects

and since he doesn't have a phone, he grabs a salt and pepper shaker and he's like, quack quack, fights his way out with the double salt and pepper shakers and he's like, quack, fights his way out with a double salt and pepper shaker Mongolian chop. Brilliant. He grabs a salt shaker in one hand, a pepper shaker in the other, and then two fisted seasons the man into unconsciousness. And it shows that he is so fucked up by this, that he is just like, he's instantly out, he might be dead, he collapses just horrifically, like just from that, just from that little,

like what do you think fighting is? Like I know you looked up the gambling and the dictionary for the definition. Did you look up fighting? Because I don't think you did. It would kind of, I think it would hurt. If you hit somebody with a salt and pepper sh It would kind of I think it would hurt if you hit somebody with a salt pepper shaker like that. I think it would sting. That's the craziest goddamn thing to do is just a just a season a man like a

plain steak. Oh, salt pepper. Here's the olive oil. Oh, just deadly devastating. Their fight is also in the middle of a like pack dance club and no one bats an eye. They are off to the side, but just like with when the guy like the the the mook who dresses like uh like uh Norm Macdonald doing Burt Reynolds on Celebrity Jeopardy. He like he attacks him in only public places where no one seems to notice or care at all. Cut him some slack, man, it's his first day.

Yeah. Okay, all right, all right, you're right. I like that at this point though, like he gets some pain pills. Was it the hooker that gave him the pain pills? Yeah, the waitress, remember she's a waitress. She was only put on hooker duty for the day. Right.

She brings him home to her house and it like leaves him there in the bed and it's like, okay, good night because she wants to be murdered. But now he's on pain pills while he's also drinking real heavy and he's trying to turn $300 into $31,000 but he's also still at his day job. He's still going out there and getting the stories on the golf course. Yeah, how do cards work? What is a card? The Vinyl Master is still following him. But now he's completely fucked up. He's in like a full neck brace, his jaw is completely broken. He has done nothing. So far he has kicked a little piece of a particle board gazebo, pushed a man's face into some vinyl straps, kicked him in the shins. These are his loan shark intimidation tactics, and then gotten fucking rocked nearly to death

by a salt and pepper shaker. The worst fucking mook that's ever existed. He also has gotta be going off the books now because he's trying to just revenge kill him in broad daylight with a gun. So he would, yeah, you wouldn't get your money back. He'd also probably go to jail. I think people say it's the guy in the Panama hat with a very distinct movie bad guy face

and wearing a neck halo. He's very easy to identify. It's so easy to identify that Taggart sees him and it's like, okay, he's following me now. So, what am I going to do? I'm going to buy a cool cowboy hat and talk about how I'm a cowboy in a shootout. This is the biggest fucking nerd that's ever been put to film. So he puts on his tough guy cowboy hat for the showdown and then calls Mr. Peru, the rich gambler, for help. Just help me, send some goons. And they do.

He does send some goons. He's still a bully. Like, even with his neck halo, he's like muscling some guy in a garage. And I don't even know why he was doing it. He's just like, you get the fuck out of here. I'm like, why is he hassling this guy? Then the bad guys show up

and put a rubber inner tube around him. And Peru, so Taggart pulls into a gas station knowing that like Mr. Peru's goons, the rich gamblers goons are gonna save him. And then he runs and hides with his cowboy hat thinking about how tough he is on the planes. And then the MOOC, the vinyl masher comes into the garage and tries to like intimidate the mechanic there off.

But the mechanic has no idea what he's talking about. He's like, why did you get lost? And he's like, what? I work here. He's like, you get out of here, you're gonna get hurt. He's like, why did you get lost? And he's like, what? I work here. Like, you get out of here, you're going to get hurt. He's like, no, no, like everything's OSHA compliant. This is fine. He's like, okay, here's $10.

Will you leave? And the kid's like, oh, okay. Yeah, I'll go. So he does not succeed in intimidating a lone mechanic away. Like try to imagine a guy in a neck halo trying to intimidate you. It didn't work at all. It just don't. I don't think it would work.

And then he's immediately, he gets at a showdown with Peru's much better goons and they just put him in a big inner tube like a fucking Looney Tune. It's so funny. The fuck is going on in this movie? And if I'm not mistaken, he's gone. Like he never escapes, he doesn't come back to the movie ever again. I think it's implied he's dead. Like they killed him.

Okay. Yeah, I think so. That's how he dies in an inner tube. I just, if you have a neck injury, you can't get out of an inner tube. So you think he's just in the inner tube? Yeah, I think he just, he just is stuck. This is the thing about me. My go-to move when I'm play fighting, I don't like to play fight too much, but what I like to do is I get someone a tie clinch and I step to the side and I pull them with me and then I would like to whisper in their ear, this is how you die.

But like if I did that in this case, like I would pull that guy's head right off. Like I would be like, if this guy came up and tried to intimidate me, even if I tried to just play fight him, I would accidentally kill him. And so I'm just saying like, that's a weird thing about me, but I think demonstrates how you can't still be a bully when you can't like rotate your neck. We can cut all this. People don't need to know that about me, but I think demonstrates how you can't still be a bully when you can't like rotate your neck. We can cut all this. People don't need to know that about me, Jamie.

He was never a bully. He was an aspiring bully at best. I don't think there's ever anybody that was ever actually scared of him. Not even for a minute. This guy is great though. William Smith, though. He's been in like 200 movies. You've seen him and he was in every which way but loose.

He was rollerblade seven. I know you've seen rollerblade seven. Yeah, it's impossible to discern not only not only this guy in all of those various roles, but from every other mook in this movie, like he looks it was so hard to discern. He looks just like the Dutchman. He looks like any other big white guy with a with a plain haircut and a big mustache. And there's 40 of them in this fucking movie. I have no idea what's going on. It's like watching Game of Thrones. It's like watching gambling Game of Thrones on the first day.

He's got some tag. It's got 17 hours now to win his thirty one thousand dollars back. The Dutchman has now come out to Vegas to talk to Mr. Peru, the big shot gambler, and they're putting together a scheme based around Taggart. And they're saying they can make that football player from earlier throw the big game, but he's got too much morals, so they need somebody that the football player really respects, which is Taggart, to influence him.

But they haven't set up anything least of all why somebody would respect Taggart. Yeah, that's, I think in the text of the movie, he's like a famous sports reporter. But I think anyone who talks to him for more than five minutes is like, Oh my God, this guy's a golden retriever. Athletes aren't known for loving sports writers. Yeah, there's that. Oh, I mean, and the only interaction we've seen between them was him, like, stopping him from

hitting the guy with the golf club. Right, like, if I was a competent screenwriter trying to do the scene, I would have been like, okay, he owes you because you saved his arm, right? So that's something instead of like, he loves you, he just loves you guys. Like that's nothing. But this gets stupider because now the Dutchman and Mr. Peru decide they're going to bet on whether or not Taggart can do this. So this scheme is to presumably get some of the money that Taggart owes back and to make even more profit.

And they're like, let's also bet on whether or not the scheme works. Which is just a fucking child's understanding of crime. Like, you didn't look up crime in the dictionary either. But remember this, because this is how the movie really pays off. This is the whole turn. It's a huge part of the movie. This, the stupidest thing I've ever said out loud. I like this part of the movie because it's full like Reefer Madness now.

Like he is just, he's so sad. He's just dumping quarters into slot machines, like a Rube. Like one machine that he really wanted to go to, like he doesn't, an old lady gets there first and then like hits the jackpot and dies. Lady! What happened? What happened? Where? This guy's lying. he doesn't? An old lady gets there first and then like hits the jackpot and dies?

Oh nice. This guy's lying. Don't touch her. You want to get sued? You could be sued by her. What happened, lady? Probably got slot machine bladder. Forgot to go to deterlet. The music at the end of it is so amazing. What is that scene for? What does that scene do? I don't know. It's so fucking weird. I think after that he runs outside and he just grabs two jogging girls.

He's like, just desperate. Like, did the Lakers cover the spread? So after meeting a woman that had to pee so bad she passed out and meeting the best character in this movie, she forgot to go to their toilet. God, you really just stole the whole movie. The way he says it, you could be sued by her. Like, whoa, that was the best take, huh? Like, what?

Pink-pa-bonk, bonk, bonk. So now after this, I don't know, this funny, cute montage of passing out bladder ladies, we go to do some maudlin shit. He goes back to the waitress who was almost a prostitute for a day. She tells him all about how she has an eight-year-old kid, which is crazy. And it gets crazier, just remember that. She has an eight-year-old kid and she crazy and it gets crazier just remember that she has an eight-year-old kid and she already knows he doesn't have to say it she knows just looking at him what a loser he is he's like she's like i've been paving losers like you

all my life she's not gonna give him the money that he needs to keep gambling i was gonna ask if you took a clip of her monologue because she's she does like another acting school audition monologue here that i thought no it was between that or the Turlitt line. Yeah, you made the right choice. But she does like, she knows he wants money and she's like, let me guess the cards are bad, you'll pay me back. I seen your kind of my daddy's shark eyes when he hit the bottle and then my mama, you think I don't know what road you're on.

Like she just goes on and on like this for like, I don't know, feels like five minutes. This film has to be like this for like, I don't know, God feels like five minutes. This film has to be like 20% like monologues. It's, it's the characters just might as well turn to the, turn to the screen and, and it's written for the stage. Like so many people just say in a speech like gambling, a $200 billion year industry. Like they must, that was like the one fact

Richard Brooks learned about gambling. That counted as enough research for a movie back then. It took him a year and a half of research. Yeah. That scene's full of, I know the monologue really steals that scene, but I think it's worth it because at the end of it, he goes like, I love you.

And she walks over to him and like raises his chin like, oh my God, say that again. And when he looks up She just gives him a real targeted slap And it's really good and she's like, oh did I hurt you I'm sorry and she lifts up his chin to look at like The damage she did and she fucking slaps him right there. So good. It's just Cannot help but bully this guy like the lady at the card table, the vinyl mook, he attempted it, didn't succeed, but everybody here just natural bully instincts. Like, I see this guy, I just want to fucking knock him down.

So he, now he needs the money, he's going, he's got a brilliant idea, he's gonna go sell his card in an all-night car dealership. an idea he's gonna go sell his car in an all-night car dealership, only the car dealership is already being robbed and then there's just the speed at which this devolves into a massive police gunfight is hilarious to me. Like again, you mentioned like naked gun, it's totally the like sudden, sudden ballistic chaos of like a naked gun scene where like, it's funny in that how fast it escalates and to the degree where people are just like exploding in the background. And he he gets arrested for armed robbery out of this somehow. But don't worry, because they bail him out the same night.

That's not how that works. No, you don't get bailed out the same night for armed robbery. No follow up questions. I like that the other guys in the jail are playing poker for cigarettes. Yeah, it really is like a Looney Tunes cartoon. Peru the rich gambler has bought Taggart's debt from the Dutchman and he's calling that in. He wants Taggart to do him a big favor or ah, there's a better way to put that hold on You do a little favor

You home free off the hook You don't know nothing not to me nobody We're talking here $31,000 not juicy fruit gumballs $31,000 not juicy fruit gumballs. 31,000 dollars, not juicy fruit gumballs. This is how tough guys talk, big time gamblers. So fucking weird. So Taggart goes to talk to that football star about throwing the game and Taggart pretty

much has him. He has football star and then at the end he's finally like, okay, you need to save yourself and the kid's like, oh, how? Taggart's got a plan. Taggart convinces him to. I don't know. I don't know what happens here. Right. Does anybody know what happens here?

I think he quits football, right, because he's gambling. But what I think was quits football, right? Because he's gambling. But why? I think that was not a possibility. I think the football player was like, I'm not going to throw the game. And in fact, I'm going to tell the FBI about the illegal bookies and quit the league. I think that's what happened.

And so that fucks up the bad guys plan. And so I think we're supposed to think that they're going to kill Taggart. But they were actually doing like a trading places style bet where they were just betting $100,000 on whether or not they could break the character of this degenerate gambler. Like, could they get him to try to fix a football game? So they did. The bookie, the jerk that like, fuck you, live with your suffering. Yeah, the Dutchman. He was the one who bet on him being a man of honor. So he's free of that man's debt, but now he has to live with being a piece of shit.

Disappointing, that guy. This is the dumbest thing that's happened in this extremely dumb movie. The two bookies, the two gamblers, they wanted to enact a scheme for over $600,000 because the football player's debt was $600,000. And if he'd said yes, like let's fix this game, they were going to wipe out that debt because they were going to make so much money on it. But then they also had a side bet for only $100,000 on whether or not Taggart would fuck up their entire industry, whether or not he would get them ratted out to the fucking FBI. And he lost that bet and was like,

ah, here's your money. Yeah, I guess that's a better way to put it. There's no way you can't win. You don't win. Yeah. There's no winning in this thing. It's the dumbest idea. They're trying to play it clever.

It's like, they thought this was a clever twist, but every single person involved in it made only the stupidest move possible at every turn. But he can fall back on his job where he gets paid, I don't know, $16,000 a word writing for this newspaper. And so earlier, John Saxon is his editor, and John Saxon said, get me a picture of Mr. Green or you have to pay us back that $8,000 for your expenses. So he comes in with a picture of Mr.

Green and it's a picture of himself. And John Saxon's like, I don't get it. This is a picture of you. And he's like, no, that's Mr. Green. John Saxon's like, I still don't get it. I am the dumbest fucking guy in any fucking movie ever. What, what do you mean?

Explain it to me. He quits the newspaper, but now he owes the paper $8,000 because this does not count as a picture of Mr. Green. Now he announces that he owes $89,000 around other places. One month left of credit card living, and he needs a miracle. He explains to him, like, listen, I've been the gambler all along. I've been gambling all your money. Here's my resignation, to which the editor accepts it. And then he explains to the editor, to John Saxon,

I actually owe $90,000 to all of these various people. And then Taggart looks at him and he says, what we got here is a catch-22. If I don't pay off what I owe, I got no job. If I got no job, I can't pay off what I owe. Again, somebody thought that was a very clever line, except for the editor is still holding the resignation he turned in. Right.

So you do have no job. You do have no job. So everything you've just said is completely stupid. Yes. Like the only way the editor should have replied to that is, but you quit. You quit this thing. You're looking at me and I'm holding the thing

that says you quit in my hand. Do you not remember that? Cause that was five seconds ago. Things like this happen a lot in the script where I'm like, this feels like from a different draft they forgot to fix. This is the part of the movie where they forget he writes for a Los Angeles newspaper.

Yeah. Cause his, his daughter and the editor are having scenes at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, but they're also in Las Vegas. It's yeah. They just, which makes a later part of the movie makes zero sense, but we'll, we'll get nothing in the movie. Everything before that is true. movie. Everything before this point, everything before this point,

comparatively, makes perfect sense. In comparison with what happens after this point. Yes, it is all very coherent, only in comparison to the last half of the movie. So Taggart admits he has a problem. He goes to a gambler's anonymous meeting where they all continue delivering. With his daughter with his daughter. He leaves her next door in like the kids gamblers anonymous meeting, which I don't think is a thing.

I think it's like for like family members. Yeah, I looked this up. It's a it's a real thing. I don't know if they have it like right next door to the other one. So you can drop yours off and like the gamblers anonymous daycare. But presumably. I don't think so. I do not think that's how it works. I don't think it should be a thing and I do think we get evidence of why that might be a bad idea as a man stands up to give his confessional of how he's ruined his family and then we cut to his son giving sort of his rival take on it. I of course have. Last night my wife and boy came back to me. And that makes me the luckiest man in the world. I really hate that bastard. What he did to my mom should have killed him then.

Two years ago when we split, last night we came back. Hugs and kisses, lies, promises, no more gambling, right? Lies. The day I played in Little League World Series, he was shooting craps in Reno. Yeah, he's my father. And I hate him. I'll always hate him. And one of these days, I'll kill him." So he delivers this Coen brothers bloody revenge speech. The counselor, I guess, in charge of the child meetings is just sitting there looking at him like, yeah, yeah, that sounds good, Carl. You fuck him up.

Very healthy. Yes. What I love is like, I think this is his daughter's, Rhino Neal's daughter's first meeting. So she's here with like no real bad stories. Like, yeah, her dad gambles, but she doesn't really know about it. And this kid's like, I'm going to fucking murder my dad. I've got this long scheme where I pretend I love him. He's like a nine. You can hear it in that clip, but this is not a teenager. This is like a nine year old being like, I'm gonna start working out right now. Go to be an actor like This yeah, he was in like like I don't know like 50 Wow

TV shows maybe even movies minor roles. He's in a Baywatch. Okay. He's one of like Seth Green's bros in can hardly Okay, that's about right. I mean I would say I would say this this kid got far with after seeing this like, soliloquy. Yeah, I would have thought this is somebody's son or nephew or something. So that's a very funny cut to cut from the to come from the guy being like, I'm the luckiest man on earth, smash cut, I'm gonna fucking murder him. Like, that's a comedy cut. That's a good comedy cut. Very good comedy. And then at the end of that meeting, where everybody's very hopeful and he's like,

I'm not going to gamble anymore, we smash cut right to him taking his daughter straight back to the racetrack. Another great comedy cut that is not supposed to be. So funny. In my notes, I put down that this might be an ordinary daycare where the children are playing gamblers anonymous. Like, they've seen a meeting and they're just kind of doing what Doing what they think the adults are doing in the other room

But I'm sorry to interrupt but yes We we we should keep moving with the plot because it is so funny that he takes us straight to the racetrack because it's turning into like a propaganda film and he like He's like having this moment with his daughter where they're talking about how they're not gambling and he runs to the bathroom to cough up blood and these are gambling withdrawal symptoms. And he says that out loud, like, he's having physical like heroin withdrawals from the, because he's there at the horse track, not gambling. Yeah.

at the horse track, not gambling. Yeah. Because that's the best place for him and his daughter to be after coming from Gambler's Anonymous is to go to the horse track just to see if they can avoid betting. And he gets, he says, I can't believe he says it out loud. He's like, I'm getting physical withdrawal symptoms

like a heroin junkie from not gambling. They said it with a straight face. Yeah. Amazing. And then he gets shaken down by like the smallest time bookie who was like, you've owed me $400 for more than a year. And he like throws him into a trash can and has to walk out in shame. Like nobody could even look at him. His daughter's crying. He also falls into a trash can and then somehow his entire body is covered in mustard.

It's all just mustard. It's a hot dog man's mind. It's all just mustard. It's a trash can full of mustard. Wait a minute, was that the hot dog guy he owed the money to? That doesn't make sense. You did fuck up. It's a secret hot dog weapon. That's how a hot dog man collects, motherfucker. That's why you always pay your hot dog debts.

They keep doing these comedy beats, and then they take... The next scene is just a nationwide tour of his crippling addiction. Just, he just shows her his land of depression. Everywhere he takes his daughter to is just like, look at all these people who've lost everything to gambling. Look at my sadness. After a hundred days of being sober from gambling,

he finally gives a speech, gospel music kicks in, his former editor is there, his sponsor, his gambling sponsor is there. And you're like, wow, he did it. His dollar is in the meeting with it. Watching in the meeting. Definitely not allowed. Obviously the climax of the movie, he's learned to never gamble again. He fucking leaves that movie, puts a dollar in a slot machine and wins. I am so frustrated. The second, that is the next scene. It cuts from like, I've made it my 100 days. And then he walks outside of this Gambler's Anonymous meeting,

which was in a casino. Yeah, it was in the church airport, it seemed like. They walk out of that meeting into a casino. If that was supposed to be somewhere else, you fucked up. You fucked up real bad. And again, he's flying away from Las Vegas with several characters who live in Los Angeles, who are just accompanying him to the... So he's either... Everyone...

Everything moved to Vegas or he's flown back and forth several times. And this is not like a major accomplishment for him. He's got $7,000. Well, no, $6,300 because they shake him down for 10%. He wins at the slot machine. Oh yeah, it says like, it says like, bet a buck for God. Yes. So he's got, he's up $7,000, but down a 100 day chip.

Like it's day zero again. Right. But he wins it, and an hour and 23 minutes into this hour and a half long movie, the movie starts over. He's, he's right back at it. We cut right back into like a whirlwind montage or like, let's go gambling. We get this insane scene where he's just crushing it, just bouncing from game to game, just because he's not doing like strategy or or playing while he's just like, let's go to craps and try a craps.

Let's go to this game and try this. And he's just winning. While hold on while his sponsor is there the whole time yelling at him to stop it only every time he wins. He's like, huh? Yes, maybe gambling. Good. He's like, I remember this. This shit rules. Okay, let's so he's a corrupted his sponsor is gambling anonymous sponsor. And again, they go to these tables where one guy shows up, that's big wins everything while his sponsors like don't gamble. It's so terrible. Like they've really fucking up the vibe of every single game in this in this

casino. They meet up with the waitress. And she's she's like, you got to quit doing this. But then she gets caught up in it. So now that there's one guy winning every game, while two people are like, you gotta stop gambling. They cut to- But he's invincible. Right, and then he goes up to play Baccarat, and now they stop the movie to explain the rules of Baccarat, which is nice because nobody plays this except James Bond

and he just shows up and wins. The guy on the security monitor sees him and goes, loser for sure. It's so like, so everyone in this whole casino is caught up in the drama of this guy. And recognizes him as a loser on site. Just the second you see him, he's like, that guy's got a real Ryan O'Neill vibe.

Just a real, real fucking loser. But then he beats Mr. Peru at Baccarat and even his gambling anonymous sponsors is just so psyched about this. The security room somehow knows the plot of this movie, so they're like going, okay, now quit, walk away, you gotta stop. They're screaming this.

Every single person in the movie is telling this guy to stop. But he doesn't. They have another conversation about how this is crazy, just stop, just call it, and he's like, no. And you're like, okay. Well, this is a wild move to do at the end when you had that big inspirational moment, but maybe you're saying like, he's right back on the high, he's gonna lose it all, maybe it's not, you know, an A to B journey, there are a lot of setbacks in recovery. So, you know he's gotta lose for this movie to make any kind of sense, for anything in it to have meant anything.

So he, despite everyone screaming at him, goes back to the craps table, and that's where it all goes down. She's like, I'm gonna tell you when you've hit the amount that you owe, and you're going to stop if you win. And of course he does. He's invincible. He's blessed by God. God took the 20% of his slot machine winnings and gave him just gambling invincibility, an invulnerability buff, immunity to odds for the rest of the day. So he goes back and he finally hits it. He makes all of his money back and then he holds the dice up to the light and shares this very long moment with himself while everybody at the table is waiting for him to throw those fucking dice. and shares this very long moment with himself while everybody at the table is waiting for him to throw those fucking dice.

He's looking at it, he's like, will I stop? Will I stop? You know what? You know what a real winner would do? Only a real winner would walk away right now. And then he turns around and he throws the dice as hard as he can across the busy casino. And that should have been answered with a really faint, hey, what the fuck? You can't do that. And also everybody at the table should have booed him and told him we were using those dice. And then you think as a viewer, you're like, okay, well, he's gonna just lose it all the second this movie ends. But no, they make a point of having like an estate lawyer

there to set up a trust fund. He's playing Pac-Man. Like from the start. Yeah, from around the corner. He's playing Pac-Man. I'm like. I guess they couldn't set up the shot where they could talk while playing an arcade game. So he's coming in from the side, peeking around this fucking movie.

And he like has set it up. You can't get to this money. This is for your daughter. Go ahead and fuck up your life. But like, this is going to be a happy ending no matter what for the viewers. So what we've done, the two things we've shown are that the suicidal marine and everything he's just done shows you that gambling actually whips a lot of ass and gives you exactly what you need, but only what you need. So everybody use gambling if you really need it.

Yup, you just gotta stick to it. And it'll work out fine. Just keep at it. They fucked that up so bad, but they really want to sell a happy ending for everybody, so he meets the waitress at the airport, and she's in a white wedding dress, and you're like, oh, I know where this is going. No, she's marrying Frank the pit

boss, which you'll remember was also her pimp for a day, and they're going to Mexico to live high off of Mexican golf, with her eight-year year old son. Why not? That's the happy ending. That's the happy ending is taking my 8 year old son with my day pimp to live high off

of Mexican golf forever. Our podcast is great! And with Maximillian Chao Does Frankfurt's podcast say that? Correct! Yes! The power is not without Send it to the dog's house For an hour Come on, you know the number 1900

1900 Frankfurt 1900 1900 Frankfurt 1900 Einstein, who did it? Frankfurt! Einstein, who did it? New York! Einstein, who did it? Frankfurt! Einstein, who did it? Einstein, who did it? Frankfurt! Einstein, who did it? New York! Yah! 9000! It's Supreme Day here on Hot Dog Prime.

The day where all hot dog denizens stand tall and proudly salute the heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in our never-ending meat war against the vile burger race. Aaron Crosston Adrian H Aidan Mouat Alex Nolenberg who held on to a grenade too long. That's a lesson for you new recruits.

If you love something, like a hand grenade, gotta let it go. Alpha Scientist Javo, Un-Andy, Armando Nava, Benjamin Sironin died from flamethrower wounds received at the Platoon Barbecue, but let the record show his hot dogs were cooked to perfection and in record time. Bim Tullzer Brandon Garlok Brian Saylor Burrito Serrell Chase Clement Ty Danger never opened his parachute. He's convinced you don't take fall damage if you land on the enemy. We applaud the sentiment, even as we mourn the result.

Greg Lemoy. Quavis. Dan B. Daniel Sloane. Devin, the Rogue Supreme. David Schull. Dean Costello. Delta Foxtrot found out his own wife was a burger and turned her in without a second thought.

Some say he died when the Swat Dogs raided his house. We know it was really a broken heart. Drayson Dusty's Rad Title Eric Ria Every Zig Fancy Shark Gareth tried teen-wolfing a burger tank. Tried. I do dishonor to the man. He teen wolfed that burger tank. It still counts if you crash it into a lake.

Jell-o-ho. Good Satan and his Hot Witches. Greg Cunningham. Hem-bone. Haraka died from potato poisoning. Just regular old potato poisoning. Wash those potatoes. No job too small.

Harvey Benguini. Honk. Jaber Alladen. James Borde. Jared Mountain Mad. Jeff Araski fatally crashed the Dodge Hyper Challenger he bought with his signing bonus. How many good soldiers will we lose to the Dodge Hyper Challenger he bought with his signing bonus. How many good soldiers will we lose to the Dodge Hyper Challenger? Jim Salter John Dean

John McCammon John Minkoff Joseph Searls Josh S Joshua Graves Justin B K & M Kamutsas was hollowed out and had his animated corpse used as a honey pot trapped by the burgers. Remember to wrap those wieners hot dogs. Kyle Campbell Lisa M Jahi Chapelle Mark Mahoney

Matt Riley butt dialed an airstrike on himself at a gender reveal party. It's a girl, and she's already enlisted to avenge her daddy. Max Beroy Michael Dillon Michael Lair Mickey Lowman Mike Stiles Moju Mort is actually a burger, who saw the freedoms and benefit packages we offer and was won over. Don't shoot the skinny burger in the long bun, he's on our side.

Mr Bob Gray Indeed Neil Bailey Neil Schaefer Neku 104 held a machine gun nest against a 4,000 strong burger horde, only to die of diabetes at this very awards ceremony. Proper nutrition isn't just a good idea, it's your duty. Ozzy Olu Patrick Herbst Rachel Rhiannon Sarkovsky hollowed out a sexy burger and climbed inside to use it as a honeypot trap.

It worked a little too well, but good initiative, soldier. Sean Chase. Spotty reception. Super Non. Ted H. Thomas Kvatsos. Timmy Leahy knows if you see two buns, you start shooting them. It's a tragedy what happened at that hunk convention, but vigilance is always market

price. Tommy G. Velo Booster Waylon Russell Zach and Ava both simultaneously choked to death on Footlongs, but that was one hell of a USO show, wasn't it, dogs? And finally, Hot Dog Prime hereby posthumously bestows the medal of misguided valor on Sergeant Ken Paisley, who died in a kamikaze run on a burger nest. It turned out it was just an old Pizza Hut. They're shaped a lot alike. Remember, cadets, if it's flat and cheesy, say pizza pleasey.

If it's beefy and round, you bomb it to the ground.