The Flop House - Ep. #281 - The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

Episode Date: March 30, 2019

MAX FUN DRIVE part TWO! We talk about The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, which Elliott chose for some baffling reason. Meanwhile, Elliott explains Richard Gere's Mothman issues, Stuart reveals the scariest number of ghosts, and Dan takes the show off-road to an abandoned farm. Wikipedia synopsis for The Nutcracker and the Four Realms Movies recommended in this episode: Jason and the Argonauts Us A Bigger Spash LIVE SHOW DATES 2019! June 8 – PORTLAND – Revolution Hall July 13 – MINNEAPOLIS – Parkway September 28 – BOSTON – WBUR CitySpace (TWO shows in one night) October 12 – LOS ANGELES – The Regent Theater

On this episode we discuss the Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Based on the ballet of the same house, I'm Dan McCoy. Hey Dan, I'm Stuart Wellington. Hey guys, Elliot Kaelin coming at you live from LA California. That's right, Los Strangeles, Hollywood, where America makes its movies and moves its makies. Guys, how are you? Makin's the Tony Millionaire comic? Yeah, moves them to what, green light books. What's the, what are we doing?

What are we doing? We're shipping them on a trucker. Yeah. We are. It's a new printing and we got to move it out of here. Well, that joke was for a very small subset of the audience. I'm pretty sure. Although a larger episode is upset than for most things.

Since this is a podcast. You're right. Probably we have more listeners who are aware of Tony Millionaire than say like the big bang theory has viewers who are aware of Tony Millionaire. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But that being said, this is a podcast. And you know what? What? It's supported. This sounds like a very natural segue. This podcast is supported by listeners. Uh-huh, yeah. This is our second max fund drive episode asking you to become a supporter of maximum fund.

I believe you already are. But I'm already a supporter. And your wife was also a supporter. Hey, but you guys could also both upgrade your supportorship by advancing to another level of support. Dan, talk a little bit about max fund. What is it? What does it do? Why are we driving it? And where are we driving it to? level of support. Dan, talk a little bit about Max Fun. What is it? What does it do? Why are we driving it? Where are we driving it to? Okay. Well, is that what we're

driving all these Mocky's books around with? Max Fun Fun is a podcasting network with TK shows on it. I think around 40. I'm not really sure how many, but I tried to count them up, but there's some of them are defunct. So it's a hard thing to figure out But there's a lot of them seems like again. Let's steer back onto the main No, no, no, no, let's get in the weeds and work this out But it's a great network. It's helped us I feel like we were about to get on the highway and then Dan immediately just like Cut the wheel over onto a dirt road going to maybe an abandoned farmhouse in the distance Cut the wheel over onto a dirt road going to maybe an abandoned farmhouse in the distance It's like oh we're gonna make it we're gonna go to Lego land

Wait, let's go see if cheaper creepers is around I certainly hope not. I don't care for those movies Director like it's a great network It's motto comedy and culture is is a true thing it brings you lots of comedy brings you lots of culture Yep, bring a lot lots of culture me a true thing. It brings you lots of comedy, brings you lots of culture. Yep, brings you lots of culture. Me, lots of calmer. But the point is, we did a lot of benefits from being part of the network. It's helped us grow our audience a lot. It's helped us get money to keep going through donor drives like this one, through advertisers. And we come to you once a year to help support our show and help support the network in general, and monthly memberships, though,

mostly go to supporting us, the people that you're listening to right now. And part of why I think it's great to become a supporter of these shows as I am, as the rest of us are, is that it helps you kind of feel I don't know like a little ownership over the show something that you enjoy something that you has become part of your life you can help keep going and you also get a great pleasure. Yeah you're so like when you what do

you send us a tweet or whatever or a letter correcting us or telling us that we're big old dummies, uh, now you feel like we should listen to you. Yeah. I like to think of the listeners more silent partners. Oh, okay. And this organization, our listeners really feel differently Dan. They've heard of you quite vocal. And I appreciate them that way.

You know what? Be vocal with your free speech. And according to the Supreme Court, money is a form of free speech. And so why not become a supporter of the Max Fund Drive and to this very podcast, the flop house podcast. Hey, there's a lot of great donor gifts you get from donating with a $5 monthly membership. You get access to all of the exclusive bonus content. There's a secret. The secret is too hot for TV. Yeah, there's a secret bonus feed with bonus content from all of the shows.

There's over 200 hours of it at this point. At $10 monthly membership, you get a drive exclusive in NAML PIN designed by Megan Lynn Cot. You can, there's a design for every Max Fun show. You can choose your favorite. The flop house pin is a cute cat. Looks like Archie. It looks more like my dead cat Lulu, but thanks for bringing that up, Elliot. I don't believe I did, Dan.

It's $20 monthly membership. You get a lovely puzzle that is the view from Max Fun HQ in LA. $35. The American cement building. So you like you can do that you can grab a grab a little pose glass of mall back or something. Yeah, sit out on your veranda or your floor to room and just fucking tear it up. Go out your gazebo. Just put it on the liniy. Yeah, golden girl. Yeah, $35 a month you get a great glass coffee mug and great for the max fund lani. Okay, golden girl. Yeah. $35 a month, you get a great glass coffee mug and great for the max fund rocket local, listen. There's higher levels that we don't want to ignore

because we would love you to give more money if you feel like you can. But we'll get into that later on in the show. Hey, why not just contribute? Why not? How's that for a pitch? Why not? Because it's there.

Sure, no. So why not go to maximumfund.org slash donate and do that. Okay, Dan, but this is not a donation podcast, right? What do we do on this podcast normally? Let's take the hat that we had passed around for donations, put it back on our heads. Okay. All the money falls out onto the floor, let's pick for donations, put it back on our heads. Okay. All the money falls out onto the floor.

Let's put, pick it up and put it in our pockets. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I am dying to understand why he picked this one. Elliot Kaylen, original nutty buddy. Okay, that's what it says on my business card,

and also in my government file, original nutty buddy. Elliot picked a movie that slid off my brain as I was watching it, so I'm curious to hear what he has to say about it. So, maybe this movie, this was the Nutcracker and the Four Realms, maybe this movie, I think I have two reasons, Dan White, stuck in my mind as existing.

When I think I had to repeatedly tell Dan beforehand that this was a movie, and he kept saying, yeah, I'd never heard of it. I'm like, that's fine, that's cool, but why don't we watch it? Yeah, I'm just saying, I'd never heard of it. I didn't know it existed. I know, Dan, that's great. I know you're too hip to know about ballet movies.

I get it, you're so cool, you don't know that stuff. I mean, I think my argument was more that I'm pretty plugged into movies. So if anyone should have known that the L.A. is, Dan is extremely online. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. He released. So I'm a taste maker and an influencer, Elliott. You're both of those things. Yeah.

I'm also a fresh maker. I was just about to ask if you were a fresh maker also now Dan, are you brisk? Damn it. All right, you still make me spit out my drinks and Did man do us did a spit take okay? So not cracking the forums. I think there's two reasons that stuck on my mind one Dan still you guys don't have kids. I'm exposed to a lot more children's entertainment than you are, and this seemed to be advertised all over the place. And number two, I am, as Stuart said, an original nutty buddy.

When I was a kid, my grandmother would take my family to see the Nutcracker at the New York Ballet every year, around holiday time. That was the big Hanukkah present for my family, was to go see a Christmas-themed ballet. But I really loved it. I've always really loved the Nutcracker. At a certain point, my cousins and my siblings said, are we really going to see the Nutcracker every year? And they made my grandmother start taking us to other things. But I've always loved the Nutcracker. And so when I saw that they were making what was basically like what seemed to be an epic

fantasy quest battle movie out of the nutcracker, I was like, I've got to take a stand. This is ridiculous. The same way that I regret we didn't cover the Alicin Wonderland movies, because the idea of Alicin Wonderland being repurposed as a Lord of the Rings type story really offends me in a certain way. It's just so outside the court. The same way that like any time that there's like a gritty like violent version of Alicin Wonderland, where it's like, Alicess is in an insane asylum, and all the characters are assassins. Like, I don't like that stuff either.

So I was like, the Nutcracker, they're gonna do that to the Nutcracker. Sorry, I'm sorry, I gotta write these notes down real quick. Thanks, Elliot. It doesn't. No. Mental hospital. 13 ghosts. Okay.

I don't, I don't remember saying anything about the number of ghosts, but so, when that, so when I said- 13 is the scariest number of ghosts. Okay. I don't I don't remember saying anything about the number of ghosts. So when that's the scariest number of ghosts. I mean, if you're gonna have a collection of ghosts, you you could have 12, but then like why not just add another fucking. For what? A baker's ghost. Wouldn't 14 ghosts be scarier? Because it's one more ghost. No, I mean, there's a diminishing returns kind of thing that goes on. ghost. No, I mean, there's a diminishing returns kind of thing that goes on. You know, I, uh, yeah, I didn't, I didn't think about that, but I do think 14 is probably scared in 13. It's not like, thank you. Like if it was like 14,000, yeah, like, that's just a wall of ghosts. Like you can't see the forest or the ghosts at that point. Yeah. Yeah. At that

point, you're like, how many ghosts are there? Can everyone please be quiet so I can account the ghosts? You want enough ghosts that you can kind of count them and maybe one or two passes, right? Yeah. The other thing though is there's only 13 really scary ghosts in the world. Oh, okay. Hitler, what?

John Wilkes Booth. Yeah. What, Jeffrey, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jeffrey Ripper. Who else? Mr. Rogers, they're things about him that you do not know. Oh, wow. Dan, I just spent about him that you do not know. Oh, damn, I just, I literally yesterday just finished reading the good neighbor, the biography of Fred Rogers, there is nothing about him that I didn't, that I was unhappy to

learn about. Okay, good. Except one thing, one terrifying thing. What were we saying about the Nutcracker? Anyway, so the Nutcracker. So I was like, I got to see what they do with this story, how they screw it up by making it into like a fantasy quest. So that's why I wanted to do it, because I have a special place in my heart for the Nutcracker. I listen to its music fairly frequently.

I like to sing the music along to my kids and it really irritates them. I'll just go I'll do what I went through that period that everyone goes through when you're a nutty buddy Where you find the Arabian dance to be very boring as a kid and then as an adult you're like Oh, this is maybe the most beautiful song in the entire show. You know, all that stuff. So anyway, the Nutcracker in the four realms, should we talk about what happens at it? Please. I mean, we get to the door.

Now, are you guys familiar with the original story of the Nutcracker in the original ballet? Uh, so like this kid gets a nutcracker, right? Yes. And, uh, she goes to bed and the Nutcracker, right? Yes. And she goes to bed, and then that cracker comes alive. Well, her little brother breaks that shit, right? Yeah. Her little brother breaks it.

She has an iron. And there's a rat king. Well, okay. Because they fight. Yeah, good enough. Okay. Keep going. And the whole second act actually happens after they defeat the wreck king or something like that.

It's like a weirdly unbalanced ballet because then they just celebrate for a long time. The second act is literally just them sitting and watching dances for a long time. They go and so the okay so not so how are they going to turn that into a fantasy quest movie? Let's find out. Not cracker in the four realms. It's Christmas in 19th century CGI London. It's not a CGI movie, but we have one of those flybys of a city where it's all computer graphics. Yeah, yeah.

Like everything looks very computer- But everyone is frallicking. Christmas in London, oh, what a joyous time. It couldn't be better, right guys? No, it couldn't be. Sure, I got it. Except there is a dead mom.

We'll get to that in a second. We'll get to that. We're introduced to Clara, who's a girl who loves contraptions. She loves steampunk cogs and gears. And here's the thing. Normally, she's like a Saramon. I don't know about that.

She's like a regular Saramon. Yeah. Normally, I'd be like, ugh, enough of this. But there's actually the original Nutcracker story is all about automaton and things like that. So it fits, okay. So Clara, she and her brother make a mouse trap, like a Rubigold Brook type mouse trap that actually ends the way the mouse trap

ends in the game mouse trap with a net descending onto the mouse, and I'm like, wait a minute. So is it implied that they invented the game mouse trap? That's a different movie. Suddenly, it's like that Greg Keneer movie where he invents the windshield wiper or whatever, and I'm like, am I supposed to care about this? Anyway, I was broke of a genius or something like that. Yeah, it was called Scrode of Genius. About what? About how he was going on.

100 genius scrotum down one day. And he's like, oh, I wonder what a good way to drive my scrotum would be. So he drove it, inventsive scrotum dryer, but then he realizes it would work much better on cars. Yeah, I mean, I mean, he'd be the, he'd be the one, when Jill Dwightburn drives. And it wasn't dry, but it wicks, it whizzes away moisture.

So you're saying that he was, he was going through the methodical process, all those men know of drying your scrotum. It takes forever. And he said there's gotten to be a better, quicker way. And he invented a kind the methodical process, all those men know of drying your scrotum, it takes forever. And he said, there's gotten to be a better, quicker way. And he invented a kind of little wick, like a little John Wick,

that he could use. You just squeegee it off is what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, a scrotum is very, I mean, I feel like the natural cleaning product would be a long piece of flat rubber. Yeah. Well, it is.

He took a regular straight razor or safety razor. He took the blade, he took the blade out and put rubber on the end of it. And they turned it into like this little squeegee. Yeah. Okay. So that's Greg Keneer, Scrodo Genius anyway. So, so Clara has a brother, a sister, and a dead mom. And their dad, they're all sad. And their dad gives them their mother's final christmas gifts to them

clara gets a metal egg that has a keyhole in it but no key it's locked what is she gonna do and now brother gets her little brother gets uh... some toy soldiers and that kid fucking whips those out and starts a battle in right away instantly right after a kid after my own heart, you know, he's like, toi solace is cool.

They've surrounded us. Ah, get him. Bam, I'm like, how do they even get into this battle? Where is he fighting? What's going on? Yeah, you got set the scene, dude. And the older sister gets her mom's favorite dress. And there's this very creepy moment where she puts it on and she goes,

how do I look to the dad? And the dad is like, great. And it's just a very weird moment where she puts it on and she goes how do I look to the dad and the dad is like great and it's just a very weird moment. Yeah. So it's before he starts demanding dances. So the father's mad because Clara is too sad to keep up appearances at the Christmas Eve ball they're going to. She wants to have a dance with each of his daughters and Clara is like, I don't want to dance. It's just like that song for the stair saying about how he's not gonna dance. Anyway, so they go, let's talk about the Christmas Eve parties that their Godfather's house. Their Godfather is Drossel Meyer.

He is, describe him Stewart, because I'm sure you thought he was pretty cool. Yeah, he's like a cool wizard, played by Morgan Freeman with an owl friend, like David Bowie in Labyrinth, and he's got a bunch of fucking toys in his basement. And so he's the leader of an aerospace myth album and, uh, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

because the toys, because they're not in the attic. Yeah, or would it be, would it be, what's the opposite of a toy like, math? Like a tool. I don't know. I don't know. We're working out. I like the idea that you're like is the opposite of an aerospace myth album and that he wears an eye patch whereas arrowsmith does not wear eye patches and also he doesn't sing about love in an elevator whereas aerospace does sing about love in an elevator. It's a bio-hero system. We're given no evidence to believe

that he has a drug habit of any kind whereas whereas the Eros Smith members had very bad drug habits. Although his workshop is filled with things that are crazy, amazing, and afterwards I had to cry. But all of his microphones stand, have no scarves on them. So, so this is like, is like a spot, the difference game you would find at work. Yeah, and Drossomire is a kindly old godfather who cares about his charges as opposed to Stephen Tyler who is a monster who did terrible things

to a young woman when he was at the height of his fame. So just pretty much like this. Look, I just don't want to let Stephen Tyler be a subject of fun without pointing out that he's a major criminal creep. Anyway, so draw some iron. He's an inventor. He's got all this stuff. It turns out that he raised Claire's mom when Claire's mom was a girl because I guess her parents died because in worlds of fantasy and whimsy parents are always dying. Yeah, there's no way to get around it. I'm sure there's been like some horrible story in a movie where like a kid watches all these video like sees all these movies about like orphans having an amazing life and then just like kills their parents that's got to be a horror movie somewhere right.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's called uh kill your parents the movie sure Wow salad improv from all of us Anyway, I got through the studio system, but go on. Yeah, it was made in 1943. That's the weird thing. And it starts Joan Fontaine. So Drosselmeyer, he made that egg for Clara's mom.

And he says, oh, you need a key for it. It's a very complicated lock, which Clara already knew because Clara does machines, just like Don Tello. And now here's the thing. He doesn't say, oh yeah, I made that egg. I can tell you what's inside it. He goes, oh, I made that for. I guess you'll need the key to figure out the mystery.

It's like, just tell her what's in the egg. Come on. He tasks his owl with keeping an eye on Clara while Clara goes to find this key. Father's mad Claire is not dancing with him. Then it's gift time. Drossomire gives Fritz a nutcracker soldier and Clara follows a string past owl wallpaper and turns into rat wallpaper

and then back into owl wallpaper. Long dark Wahawais that lead to a spooky tunnel and this string leads her into a narnia like winter wonderlite. Yeah, I like it. Like a weird anus in the wall, right? The turns into a tree. I guess, I mean, from the inside, it does look kind of like a, like a heavily anus, I

guess, yeah, sure. It's, it's revealed to be a overturned tree trunk. But yeah, I guess the first thing you would assume is giant anus. I guess that she's, she's somehow crawling out of the back end of the Sarlach to get her, to get her Christmas present. Yeah. Yeah. Now guys, this movie we should mention, it was co-directed by two people, Lassie Hallstrom,

who you may remember as the director of the Cider House Rules and What's Eating Gilbert Grape, and also apparently I didn't realize this till I learned today, almost all the Abba music videos. Oh wow. So I know if you did, he should have directed Mamma Mia. And Mamma Mia here, I go again. Are you saying it? Why are you saying it? Oh, wow. If you did, he should have directed Mamma Mia. And Mamma Mia here, I go again. Are you saying, why are you saying it?

Mamma Mia. Because he thinks it's about a mummy that has three male suitors. I mean, mummies are usually like ridiculously wealthy, right? I guess. I mean, if you can't like being buried with a bunch of servants, or anything like that. I mean, usually it's rare that poor people are buried with a bunch of, of, uh, a certain stuff. I mean, usually it's rare that poor people are buried with a lot of gold and servants. So yes, I think mummies are wealthy.

So I could see why, why I'm mummy would have multiple suitors. That's what I'm trying to. Yeah. Uh, and it was co-directed with him and Joe Johnston, who I guess they decided we want you to bring the same level of excitement you brought to the rocketeer in Captain America to this ballet movie. Uh, it's an interesting combination and through much of the movie movie I was trying to figure out who directed what. Yeah. I'm guessing Joe Johnston directed the effects parts. I gotta say like maybe this is the right time to say it like the look of this movie I feel is not bad. It looks much better than I thought it was

going to. Like there's all these sort of generic fantasy movies out there that rely heavily on CGI and such. And a lot of this seems to be done with more like elaborate sets. And when it is CGI, it's not gaudy CGI. Like, it's a pretty movie. I found it very dull, but like, the look of it is nice. Yeah, I feel like they don't too often throw, I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe I was looking at my phone, but I think too often they like throw big CGI scenes in your face, and they're like, expect the audience to just sit there and like, in like amazement at

the thing playing out before their eyes, which is one of those, which is all too common, where you're like, no, I get it. You can do that with computers now. It's a big deal. Like, it's not like you're showing me Mad Max Fury Road or something. Now, here's the thing I'm going to say that might seem a little weird. I actually found the colors in the movie to be much more coherent than in a lot of movies I've seen lately where it's like a lot of movies lately, I feel

like I've been in that same, what's that color palette that everybody uses now, where it's like cyan and orange or something like that. Oh yeah, yeah. Where it's the, I don't remember, I got, I'm sure I got it wrong. Tweet at me, add Ellie, Kaelin, correct me about the colors. But the colors in this, it was like, oh, these feel like bright, like bold living colors as opposed to just like, here are four different colors and we're just going to slather them everywhere or like we're going to make it look really gloomy and dark. Like, it's a color, it's like it is a pretty movie. So, especially when it goes into this, Narnia, like Winter Wonderland, I was like, oh, this actually looks like a pleasant place to spend a movie as opposed to like,

you know, it doesn't look like it's made out of CGI candy or something like that. Okay, anyway, she gets the key to this thing, but a mouse steals it. She chases the mouse until she finds a living nutcracker soldier guarding the bridge to the fourth realm, which is at four, with the other three realms. And at this point, it's like, hold on, you're loading a lot of world building on me at this moment. I guess I'll get out my source book on the four realms. me at this moment. I guess I'll get out my source book on the four realms. The captain's name is Hoffman. A nice easter egg. Yeah, he's he's named after Philip see more Hoffman. It's probably I assume it's a tip of the hat to ETA Hoffman, the man who created the original short story about

the Nutcracker. I think it's a reference to Philip see more Hoffman. I mean, his name is not cracker. reference to Philipsy Moore Hoffman. And his name is a cracker. A lot. Nate nuts. Cause his name is Philip Hoffman, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, she, he says, Oh, your princess. Also, I have a horse named Jangles. This horse is not given the personality you'd expect a horse named Jangles to have. It never talks and never dances. They just kind of, there's a part where it runs off and he goes coward. And then the horse comes back and I'm like, is that all we're going to get out of horse named jingles?

Like, you, you're right and checks your, your body can't catch by naming this horse jingles. I'm sorry, expecting a lot more. They chase after the mouse, the mouse joins a big cloud of mice that form into a giant mouse king. Uh, and, and then it, and they run away from that too. Yeah. And then the giant mouse king is like a massive collection of mouse bodies like in that cloud barbershort story in the hills of cities or when squirrel girl makes

squirrel armor out of a bunch of squirrels. Yeah exactly. And it's a play I guess on the idea of a rat king. I mean the mouse king in the nutcracker often has multiple heads because it's playing off the idea of a rat king, which is you guys know right when a bunch when a bunch of rats get their tails all tangled together and they merge into one organism. Yeah, it's Dennis Duffy dummy. Yeah, is that it? Is that an actual thing? Because I only learned about it.

It's not an interesting thing. It is one of the, it is one of the less impressive cryptids. It's like, cryptosoology, it's like bigfoot, lockness monster, Jersey devil. Leather man. Yeah, and then you've got a bunch of rats got tied up together. Okay, what are we going to go out, look for today? Are we going out for the Yeti, or we're going out for the, for champ, the, the, the beast

of champ, the, of champ, like champ lane, we're going to look for a bunch of rats that got tied together by accident. I mean, it's a lot easier for carnival carnivals though. They can just like catch three rats and like get get like the horse face boy to tie their tails together and then you know right thing hold on anytime that jingles because that was a horse stand. You think do you think every time Zander canons work whipping up a new issue of Kaiju max he's going through his big book of cryptids he gets to the wrecking pages and just flips real quick.

Yeah, he just sees so many pages on rat kings. There's so just rats tied together. Although here's the thing, you know who tied those rats together. Go on, go on. Go on, man. Okay, the moth man, hello. Okay. Yeah, he was like, I prophecy that these rats

will get tied together and then he did it to himself. You know, he wore a ton of together and somebody was like, moth man, it doesn't count as a prophecy if you just do it afterwards. Like that's called a promise. And then he goes, I prophesized my fist in your face. Do you think there's a time where Richard Giro would walk down the street and people would be like, Hey, Mothman. And he's like understandable mistake.

I'm not actually the Mothman. I'm the man searching for the Mothman. Hey, you played Moth man, didn't you? Like most of America, I guess you didn't see that movie. It's not about a superhero. It's my favorite superhero, yeah. Moth man, he's got the power to eat sweaters. Nope, that's not, that's a power we all have

if we try hard enough. Allow me to demonstrate. And he dips a sweater into like tomato sauce and just slurps it down. It's like so much because Dan, when you think about it, is it a sweater just a bunch of spaghetti tied together like a rat king? That's absolutely true. I'm glad he chose tomato sauce instead of soup because that would be the domain of the broth man. Oh, I refuse. the broth man. Okay, so they escaped from the mouse king. They encounter mother ginger, which at this point seems to be a huge clockwork lady.

Now mother ginger as you guys remember from the ballet, right? She has a giant skirt and her children live inside her skirt. So they made her an actual giant thing for this moment in the movie. Yeah, I mean, and it's a huge everybody loves it. Every time you see the ballet, when she opens her skirt and all the kids run out and dance and then they run back into her skirt and then she walks off again, huge applause moment. Guys, it's an iconic ballet moment. So I'm sure you were like, oh, that's how they're doing mother ginger. Yeah, I would like them when I when I saw them like glad they turned it into like a space or gargant mech that is like stomping around and shit. Yeah. So they go to the, I guess the first realm or it's like the castle where all the realms are ruled by. I don't know. And she's

greeted by as a princess once she's introduced to the two comedy relief gatekeepers who the less said the better, but they're kind of the C3PO and R2D to the movie and that they are, I don't know, vaguely robots, I guess they're not, anyway. He's introduced through that away, off like, like, she's into, because they're not comparable at all. R2D and C3PO are lovable iconic characters and you're just going to two like doofs. She's introduced, and everybody has like weird hair and moustaches like they're in the capital in a Hunger Games or then the Emerald City or something.

It's when you go to a fantasy world, rule number one, everyone's gonna have weird facial hair. It just happens. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, let's the ultimate fantasy. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, it sort of is in a way. I was thinking, like I saw like an old man on the TV recently.

Like, he was like an news report. He's just one of those guys you see in the back of a news report. You're like, yeah, yeah. I'd rather know what's going on with that guy because looking at his facial hair. And I'm like, man, I can't wait to have an old guy so I can have crazy facial hair. I mean, you could do that now, Dan.

You just have to wear suspenders and be a mixologist. Yeah, that's the problem. I don't want to be that guy. I want to be the old guy have crazy facial hair. I mean, you could do that now, Dan. You just have to wear suspenders and be a mixologist. Yeah, that's the problem. I don't want to be that guy. I want to be the old guy with the facial hair. Yeah, yeah. Are you sure? Are you sure that old guy wasn't just David Krossby? I think you're your friend, Dan.

I think you're talking about the classic song, Old Man. Look at my facial hair. I am a lot like you. Yeah. I mean, if you look at history books, man, if you see all these pictures of the old fuckers and they're, they're all over the place, man, it's crazy. That's one of my favorite history books is old furs. Volume one through ten. No, I mean, I am currently, I've been working on this for a long time. I'm still working on my

screenplay about Chester Arthur and every time I'm like flagging on it, I look at his facial hair and I'm like, I got to do this for you. I gotta do it for you. Yeah. Okay, so they're introduced to the regions of the other realms. There's the regions of the realm of, the region of flowers, region of ice, and region of sweets.

And the region of... We got some star power at this point. Oh yeah, this Richard E. Grant is the region of ice, right? Huh? And Kira Knightley is the region of sweets, and I don't know who played the flowers. It's what's it's what's his name that guy from the remake overboard. I feel like a head who's been a ton of shit. Is it Eugenio? It's yeah Eugenio

Derbes. Yeah. Yeah. And that guy's like a huge movie star. I mean he is like. I mean he's not he's not here nightly. No, that's true. I was kind of happy to see Karen Eilik, because I felt like I haven't seen her in a while, guys. Yeah, yeah, it's a time to talk about. We should call her up, Dan. She's been asking about you.

What's KK been up to? Mm-hmm. And you know what, Richard E. Grant, man, he's just loving it. Oh, he's great. I mean, in the same year that he's nominated for an Academy Award for what I thought was the best supporting performance of the year. And can you give me? He also gets to put a bunch of ice on his face and be basically Jack Frost. Yeah, I mean, I do kind of want to check in on him because Babs just got canceled for saying that fucked up shit.

But, you know, it's okay. He's probably okay. And he's a huge Babs head. But so here's the thing that here's a moment I had where I was like, so anyway, it was, there was a moment where I was like, oh, these are big stars, but I realized what a thin line it is between iconic fantasy character design and kind of silly, ridiculous fantasy character design. And these designs are not bad, they're pretty good.

But like, I think in my head, like, there's like the scarecrow and the tin man from Wizard of Oz are so iconic and seem so perfect to me. And yet, what is the difference between them and Richardy Grant with a bunch of fucking icicles hanging all over his face? His fingers are long, yeah.

And his long icicle fingers, like there's a world where that becomes an iconic character that is merchandise like crazy. But I mean, what is so much better about a scarecrow with straw coming out of him? Then an ice man with icicles coming out of him. Dan, explain. Well, I don't have an explanation,

but the way you're describing Richie Grant made me like to imagine that the way to make up people did it is they just like sprayed a hose on Richie DeGrant and they're like, uh, go stand outside for a while, Richie, you're gonna be like, like, I'm an iconic character actor. I'm not going to stand outside until I sickle his form on my face and like, you do it. You do it. For your art.

This is California. It's not nearly cold enough. Joe Johnson was like, don't make me get Captain America to beat you up with his shield. And Richard, he grants like, it's a fictional character. And then Chris Evans shows up with that shield. And it's like, no, we've become one. I need to take you down, Jack Frost or whatever. And then it becomes the fight we've always wanted to see

in the comics of Captain America versus Captain Cold. And you're like, but he's a flash villain. I know, that's why I want to see it so badly. Yeah. So there's four realms. There's four realms. There's a region-free realm. Candyland.

There's the realm of easy, the realm of flowers, the realm of ice, and part cheesy. And the realm of amusements, because it's divided into things kids love most. Games, candy, flowers, and ice. All of these kids love. I mean, kids still have to do love to chew on ice. All of those kids love. I mean, kids love to do love to chew on ice. So, and Mother Ginger was the region of amusements and she tried to take over the other realms. And now it's a war between them. And here nightly's character is really scared. She doesn't

want to do. Her name is sugar plum, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like the sugar plum fairies. And time moves differently in this realm. It moves faster. So she can have this whole adventure and it's just going to she can go back to the Christmas Eve party. Anyway, no, it's great. She gets a she gets a princess so she gets a makeover from sugar plum. She has a coming out ball and they watch a ballet starring famous ballet dancer Misty Copeland about that basically tells the story of her mom's discovery of the four realms and using a machine called, oh, anyway, I'll get to that. And this is basically just kind of parts of the nutcracker in a way, but the way they do it is kind of neat.

I like the way they had the sets kind of folding out and everything like that. Yeah, I like the little stage that the floor that she's dancing on, whether that, you know, like flowers are blooming and shit. Yes. And also it's like much of the nutcracker as we said is just them sitting and watching dances. So it's like, okay, they managed to incorporate that.

And we learn how mother ginger she took on she with her clockwork mice that how took over the fourth realm and and made everything bad happen. Now here's where the movie took a turn. I didn't care for quite as much. Similar to the keys turning in the back of the mice dancers. Yeah, you know, is that she then goes, now all of us were toys and we were brought to life by a machine your mom invented called the engine.

And we need a special key to use the engine to make an army of soldiers to defeat Mother Ginger. But Mother Ginger has the key because that mouse stole it. And I'm like, ugh, like, okay, too much origin. That all sounds right. I just want a magic world where magic things happen. Like, I don't need you to explain how these characters came to life. Like, come on. Dan, I see you looking skeptical. Did you like all this, all this origin story stuff? It's as if you're telling it to me for the first time, Elliot.

Now, I know you told me you were folding laundry, I think while you were I was watching this So tell me about the laundry that it was so engrossing that you were unable to pay attention to the movie Oh, it's it's Dan's side gig is side hustle is he folds laundry for people And his boss doesn't like him watching movies while he does it so he had to do it on the slide Yeah, I was watching it. I was actually watching the movie on one of those Laundromat televisions that they have. I wasn't even here anything. Yeah.

Every once in a while, I get a snatch of like score. And that was all I heard. So I was like, now, here's the thing. I imagine you, because I imagine you, like you have a button down shirt and you're like, ah, how to fold this without wrinkles. This will be a devilish dance. This will take all of my cunning and focus.

I have a, it appears I have a nut to crack, how to keep the crease perfect in these slacks. Hmm, well, well. I think you've met your match, dockers. Yeah, I mean, there was a combination between the laundry and the fact that it's possible there have been few films we've watched that I found less interesting than this one. Okay, Dan, can I say my other thing that I thought you were going to say?

Yes, please. Cargo shorts? Well, you will car-go into the drawer. I can't say that. I resent the implication that I have any cargo shorts. Yeah, I'm sorry. I was thinking about when my brother called to his place. It was from that guy, F Fieri Halloween costume you made last day

Which you continue to launder and keep folded just in case something just a it's a crime right breaks out And you have to go fight it as Fieri guy. I actually put those behind a glass case on the wall It says in a case of emergency brake glass. Yeah In case of donkey sauce, break glass. Yeah. Okay. Flaming her town is safe for one moment. So Clara has kind of a dream memory about her mother telling her, your unique and everything

you need is inside this egg. And it's unclear to me if her mother discovered the realms or made them, whatever. She was the queen of the realms than disappeared. Clara goes out, she sees a shooting star, feels a breeze and an owl hoot setter, and she's like, you're right, I do need to go to the fourth realm. Thanks, dead mom.

I was like, okay, so just anything that happens is assigned from your mom, I guess. They go to the foot, she and Hoffman, the Nutcracker soldier, they go to the fourth realm. It's all spooky clowns, statues, and old carousels. Clara gets captured and taken into the giant clockwork, ginger mac so some nested doll clowns can jump around to be all hyperactive In what I guarantee you if my son had watched the movie with me would have been the scariest scene in the movie for him Because it's literally these clowns are just jumping in front of the camera making their face go too close to the lens

And you're like what is this the greatest showman like what long, creepy dancing clowns, like what's going on? Yeah, and I kind of like the weird body horror stuff of the clowns being kind of like Russian nesting dolls and like their bodies flipping open at a hinge and other little guys jumping out of them. That was pretty cool. Yeah, it was actually kind of neat. It would have been great if it was supposed to be scary,

but I'm not sure it's supposed to. And Clara meets the real mother ginger played by everyone's favorite Helen Mirren. Who looks very non-plus to be in this movie. Yeah, she doesn't seem like she's really that excited. Similar to Morgan Freeman, who is like, actually, I thought gives one of his more naturalistic recent performances because he doesn't seem to care very much. So he doesn't pour on the full, and he do fraying crawl through so many miles of shit and mud that I don't even wanna think about it. Like that kind of stuff.

She's like, she, Claire's like, give me the key. And Mother Ginger's like, no, no, you don't understand. We're all in danger. But Clara gets the key. She inserts it in the egg and reveals. A chicken fetus. A chicken fetus that she gobbles on down. And they're like, no, no, you're just supposed to eat the key. She inserts it in the egg and reveals. A chicken fetus. Oh. A chicken fetus that she gobbles on down.

And they're like, no, no, you're just supposed to eat the yolk. The yolk is the chicken fetus in food. She's like, I don't get it. It's an egg. I don't know. I'm a kid. I don't know about eggs. You know, what is she reveals?

Sorry. Jiveels, it's a music box. Just like in that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer and Lisa go to the museum and they see that Egyptian egg that turns out to be a music box. So yes, the Nutcracker and the Four Realms is stealing plot points from episodes of The Simpsons. Look, we've all done it. And Claire's like, what the fuck? It's just a fucking music box. Like, what is this shit? Like she's really disappointed.

I was loving it. That was the literal. This family Disney movie and then like it's been played totally straight So then and what the fuck what the fuck is this fucking my fucking mom what the who the shit and she gets super blue And and and Hoffman the Nutcracker soldiers like Clara I think we should control ourselves and she's like cram at ass face Let's get out of here j Jingles, you're with me. We're going back to my realm. Yeah. Anyway, so she's like, I don't think I can do this.

Hoffman gives her a pep talk and she's like, okay, I can do it. So she had her character crisis of faith in 20 seconds and it's all over. Meanwhile, she brings the key back and sugar plum uses the key to bring these big toy soldiers to life. Uh oh, she takes over. She's really the bad guy And she wanted the soldiers because she wanted to take over the realms and she had cast out mother ginger for wanting to stand up to her Evil plans. Were you guys surprised by this amazing twist? I mean, I think it's I think it's a good

Good lesson to teach kids about how you shouldn't you know with complex political structures teach kids about how you shouldn't, you know, with complex political structures, you should just like jump in there and start making crazy decisions. That's right. That's true. Kids should not help a coup happen. Exactly, man. It's a good point. I was just going to say it's next.

It's next. It's here. It's a good lesson. Like, it's a small, stay away. That's like, like, it's, we were wait wait just sorry I'm just saying it's the small folk who suffer when you play the game of game of thrones you know that's true yeah in this case copyrights do it

oh you coined that I didn't realize that so yeah it's a good lesson hey can you send this podcast back in time yeah I guess I have that technology, but I'm trying to make money off of a podcast. Yeah, watch Primer a couple more times and figure that shit out. Okay.

Yeah, you just, all you gotta do is go to like a storage locker and crawl into a box and you go back in time. Remember, just like in Primer? Yeah. Now, Stewart, if you found yourself in a yesterday type scenario where you fell into a parallel universe where George R. Martin did not exist, would you write those books and take all the credit?

I don't know. That's, man, wouldn't ethical question. I think that would be better served as a plot point on NBC's The Good Place, starring me now. What? Okay. It's a good idea. It's a good idea.

I mean, I think I'm pretty sure I've established on more of a Jason. What? Okay, which character? It's on you. Which character you are. Cheedy. I think I'm pretty sure I've established on more of a Jason. Yeah. Dan, I see you as more of a Ted Danson demon type. Oh, wow. That's very, that's really charitable because I assumed he was a cheedy. Yeah. I would certainly much move.

I would rather be a Ted Danson. I don't know. You're about as buff as cheedy, right? You're sitting here with Oh, yeah, you're not and you're just rip yeah Surprisingly ripped And and I ripped my pants and LA it is because I was Justain and I don't know where those don't like you was like, he ripped his pants like the incredible Hulk, Dan, you're not that ripped, okay? Yeah. Even Chady is not incredible Hulk ripped.

Come on. Oh, God. I don't know. He's pretty good. Oh, God. I mean, he's not a Roku Saki, but he's pretty sure it is. Ha, ha, ha. Okay.

Let's continue with this. So, she said, she's like lock them up to Claire and Hotton. She also, she can use the machine to turn people back into toys. Uh oh, and Claire is like, oh, I have to believe in myself. My mom said everything I need is inside. She meant inside me, not inside some crazy egg.

And it's like, yeah, of course, dude, like what, what did you think she your mom was hiding inside this egg that she would just give to you? Like a big gun. I don't understand. It's just a big gun inside the egg. I mean, that's just a big gun. That's wizard.

There's just a grenade inside. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so she finally figures out I need to trust in myself. Clara and Toffman, they escape. They're sneaking around the toy soldiers. A mouse helps them out and Toffman they escape. They're sneaking around the toy soldiers and mouse helps them out and Tofman goes to warn mother ginger while Clara goes to the engine room via a water wheel

Let's try to shut it down a mother ginger's clowns and her big Mac they're fighting the toy soldiers Clara and manages to shut off the power to the engine and she's fighting the soldiers Amazing well. She's like Hannah. She's like knows all this this Kung Fu and she's like, they're also super slow though. That's true. They're not very good toy soldiers. No, like she's not like them. She's hugging the body, dodging around. It's like a dark soul.

Just avoid the slow slashes and you'll be fine. Mother Ginger shows up to help Clara out with a whip, which is not, I believe, part of the, I can't remember if there's a whip in the original ballet or not. I can only assume. But maybe they were thinking of the ballet, Indiana Jones and the four realms.

Hoffman and the mouse king turn up, they team up together, because their mother Ginger's mice it turns out of the good guys. And there's like a hero mouse. It's what, like mouse winks. What's his name? His name is like mouse rinks or something like that. Yeah.

Yeah. I couldn't tell if that was the name of the mouse or what they just called all mice in the realms. I don't know. This guy's got some he's got some sass. Yeah, he's got real attitude and gratitude. Like he's a real if he was a rescue ranger, well, he'd be he'd be Dale or Chip. He wouldn't be the mouse Monterey Jack because he's not interested. He's not a Pilot who eats cheese all't be the mouse, Monterey Jack, because he's not interested, he's not a pilot who eats cheese all the time. What was Monterey Jack's deal? Damn. Yeah, he was really into cheese.

Like, zipper was his buddy, right? Like they came together. They were like, they were kind of a duo. Yeah. That's, they were lovers. Yeah. All I remember about, he was very loud. I think, I think if, I think if there was like cheese behind a wall

He would like break through the wall to get to it or something that would be like a useful Use of his cheese fixation. Yeah, okay. He's like an airline a video game where you yeah, I'm gonna Men he'll break down walls for you That's all I got the girl who fixed things was she called gadget. It gadget. Yeah, don't don't go. Do not Google. Do not Google. They don't Google gadget a phrase which would anyone living 30 years ago be the most insane gibberish. All right. There was a I don't know if you guys do you guys remember when there was when when C-SOS still existed. I hosted a I, I did a Q&A with the Macro brothers about their show on it, and I asked them a question about like,

do you think anyone, when you hear, when you think someone will hear someone else say, hey, have you seen Mubimbaim on CISO and they'll think that they've had a stroke and they can't understand language anymore? So anyway, this is the point in the movie where the bad guy gets very quippy, and it happens also in Tim Burton's sleepy hollow and in a bunch of other movies where suddenly the bad guy

starts making like puns and you're like, is it's never been a part of their character diamond? Were they hiding it all this time because they assumed if people knew they made puns, they know they were bad guys. Like, what do you guys think? You're like, wow, you're, you're, you're Nighly's making a meal out of this one, yeah. I mean, here's the, you're Nighly also also like she's really selling this role hard. Like every word gets its own inflection.

She's really embodying this evil sugar plum fairy. I was gonna save it till final judgments, but that's one of the things, like other than the way the movie looks, one of the things I liked about this movie was here nightly, because like she doesn't usually get to do this kind of shit. She has to be kind of like the Demure, like restrained woman in like a like a period piece or something like that. But period piece Domino. She is going totally nutso in this role and having a ball and I kind of enjoyed it. She hasn't been able to let loose like this since she made a dangerous method where it was like, yeah, you're a crazy person, just go nuts, like just go crazy. So, okay, and I know I shouldn't say crazy.

That's not that's a wrong crazy. So, okay, and I know I shouldn't say crazy. That's a wrong for a term. Anyway, she captures ginger and Clara says to sugar plum fair, she's like, I know you're mad and you're sad that my mom died, I am too, but you don't have to do this. And then it turns out she's just distracting her cause she rigged the machine to turn sugar plum back into a doll. You know, for some reason, she was like giving her an out, like she's like,

this is your last chance before I basically kill you. That too, I think. I think that's that but she didn't take it. And also she's talking out her own feelings. It's a movie. For some reason, when the sugar plum fairy turns into a doll, all the toy soldiers just stop. When was it?

It was never really established. I think that they have a psychic link with her. It's more like the movie just needs them to be done, you know, so they don't have to go scour the shire of the remaining toy soldiers that are on the loose, you know, Clara, everything's okay now. Hoffman becomes named Captain of the Guard. Now, unfortunately, the realms are in the hands

of flower man and ice man, and thankfully mother ginger, the only one who has her shit together is there to like keep everybody in line, I guess. Clara goes back back to Christmas Eve at Drosselmeyer's place and uh she tells uh she sees her dad and her dad apologizes and her dad says oh no sorry he apologizes then he's like could I still get that day? Yeah before that I forgot she said to Drosselmeyer oh she Drosselmeyer's like you feeling better because of course his owl has been watching all this and she's like yeah and Drosselmeyer, oh, Drosselmeyer's like, you feeling better? Because of course, his owl's been watching all this. And she's like, yeah, and Drosselmeyer says, your mom said that you were her greatest creation,

which is like, she has two other kids. It's kind of a shitty thing to say. That's awesome. Like, if I was, if I'm, if I'm, if I'm, I should have cut to him, like, looking at that at the other two kids would be like, fucking idiot. Yeah. Your mom had some choice words about YouTube dumb bits. Like, come on.

So, the, and she sees her dad or dad apologizes and she apologizes and he says, can I have that dance? And they dance to the music box egg and the other kids join in dance too. And then the credits are just dancing. And you see Misty Copeland dancing ballet. And then it's like, wait a minute, this is a modern movie. Kids don't want to see ballet. They want to see break dancing. So it's just to the Nutcracker music, it's a bunch of people dancing, break dancing. And occasionally shots of Mr. Copeland

like looking on an amazement at what the things their bodies can do. And it's like, you're one of the greatest dancers in the world. Like, why are you shocked to think you do these things? I don't know. It's like dancing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The cast is performing Volk from Suspirea.

So, and that's the Nutcracker and the Four Realms. Yeah, that's the Nutcracker in a nutshell. I've been a coy. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no if you don't, if Dan, if you guys didn't like it and you didn't finish it, you can return any un-viewed realms to the, to the manufacturing, repartial refund. Uh, so that was, that was great. Let's do our final judgments. Whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie or movie kind of liked, I've already said the two things I liked about it.

Otherwise, it bored me to tears and I thought it was bad. Hey guys, do you think the people of the sugar land are going to have to elect a new leader in place of sugar plum or is it going to be dissolved into the other realms? It'll dissolve just because they'll just pour water on it. It's a sugar. Oh. Hey, you know how you get to the sugar land? The sugar land.

The index press. The sugarland. The index press. Okay. So Stuart, what did you think? Because I have an answer that may shock and surprise you guys. You know, it was kind of boring, but it looked, it looked all right and it went along pretty quickly. So I'll say, but it's not like, like a fun goofy movie. That of course, stars the character Goofy.

I just saw him, yeah. I don't know. I guess I'd say it's like a mixed bad bad because I don't think it's actually that bad. But I don't think it really fits into any of the other categories. I guess it's closer to between bad bad movie. I kind of liked.

So that's the thing. I'm gonna have to say that this was for me a sincere movie I kind of liked it wasn't great and maybe it's because I was so ready to hate it because I was like I was so worried that there was gonna be a scene where there was like an army of sugar plum fairies and an army of mice that run at each other Classic fantasy army style and that never happened, but like I thought it looked really pretty and it was not as stupid, as I thought it might be. It's a pretty short movie and like,

let me be honest with you guys, I love the Nutcracker. I love the Nutcracker music, like I mentioned. My mom went to see Bohemian Rhapsody and she's like, it's not a very good movie, but I love Queen. So I enjoyed it and it's like, it's kind of hard for me to not enjoy a movie that has wall to wall soundtrack,

adapting the Nutcracker music. So like, so I genuinely kind of liked it. Now would I go out and tell people to watch it? No, not necessarily. But it's similar to Sherlock Noems. If my son was like, I really want to see this movie. I'd be like, all right, sure. Like it's not my first choice, but I'll allow it.

So, I guess we won't watch the master together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Sammy, I was really hoping that we would see Phantom Thread. Yeah. I know we can watch this colorful adventure movie. I did remember a thing I liked. I liked when they have defeated the

Curon Heitley and the Nutcracker captain and the mouse king are celebrating and Captain Hoffman's like she did it. She saved us and the mice are instead throwing mouse rings up in the air like he did it Like he won the day for everybody. It's pretty great. Yeah, it's the it's the Walter getting thrown in the air of the Muppets. And speaking of throwing Walter in the air,

I want to take a little second and talk about the max fun drive guys. As I said, I only have two, I only have two problems with that segment. I'm only put in the footnotes. We're going to. So, as I mentioned last time on the flop house, when talking about the max fun, joining the network has been a big deal for us. It feels like having, we

did this podcast for a long time and it's the first time that we really felt like we were part of something kind of larger than just three weirdos sitting in dance apartment, stinking like pop eyes and beer. And now we're part of a larger family that is full of great existing shows, long running shows, like ours and others. And also it's a place that actively goes out and develops new content that isn't just three middle-aged white guys talking about pop culture like us. white guys talking about pop culture like us. And... And it's not just the same people spinning out new stuff. It's like they're going to have to find new people who are doing like new interesting things

with podcasts and deserve a wider audience. Exactly. And for me, it's extra important because a few years ago, part of the Max Fund Drive involved us doing a crossover episode where we record an episode of the Adventure Zone where we played D&D and that forced me to go back and pick up a hobby that I hadn't done for a lot of years. And since then, not only have we recorded a bunch of extra episodes of me forcing you guys to play D&D with me, or similar type role-playing games.

But also, it's something that I've been doing more in my own life. So that's a personal, totally selfish reason that I like the Max Fund drive. And it's also great for you, because you get to support this great content and encourage creators that, hopefully, you like, and give them opportunities to explore either more of what they're already doing or explore other cool stuff. Yeah, and it's good because I we've said it before but it bears repeating most of the money that comes in through donation goes directly to the shows that you listen to when you sign up to be a supporter. You choose the shows you listen to when you sign up to be a supporter, you choose the shows you listen to, and the

money gets funneled towards those shows. So you're directly supporting art and artist you like, and I don't want to be a downer. But, you know, it's also like hard to do this show sometimes with three people scheduling. Elliot has kids, Stewart has business, I have something going on, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm wondering the whole thing. So between all of that and just the ravages of time, it can get hard to do the podcast. And so I don't want to like sound like. What Dan's saying is we're all going to die someday. So in order to make it so that we spend these precious moments on a podcast, it helps us to survive.

Yeah, I don't want to, what does that sound like? For us is to watch Nutcracker in the Four Rooms and stuff. I don't want to sound like I'm extorting the listeners, but it helps to get paid. So that's a good thing. You're really exorting the listeners to go to maximumfund.org slash donate now

and not put it off any longer and help support us. And if you can afford to be a monthly supporter, we really appreciate it. And if you're already a supporter, obviously, thank you without you guys. We couldn't do this. And you can consider upgrading because there's a ton of really great gifts out there. Yeah. And we should mention, we don't want to spend too much time promoting this because we want to have Max Fun Drive. We do have new live shows coming up. Go to our website and you can find them, right Dan? Yeah, I actually for once updated the events page. So all of the upcoming shows are on there. So that that good behavior deserves a positive reward. Yeah, that's

right. By ticket and support me being professional for once, or at least just check out the page. Okay. Send Dana Treat. So that's at flop house podcast.com slash events. You'll see that there. We'll tell you more about those in the next episode. But, hey, so what do we do next on this show, guys?

Next, we do some letters from listeners. Listeners like the ones we're asking for money. Hey, they're listeners. We do some letters from listeners listeners like the ones we're asking for money Hey there listeners It's a very special Letters song for the max fun drive We're driving into the future. We hope we won't need too many Suites driving into that future with that max fun drive It's the funnest drive that I can imagine.

Funner than drive in cross country. Funner than drive into the moon. Funner than drive in through time to the past to 1955 where your mom wants to have sex with you. It was in a movie I didn't make that up. It's from back to the future. And he drove in a car to the past But the title of the movie says future

It's very very confusing So hey Instead of using that confusing movie Why don't you go to the website that we mentioned before maximum fun.org slash donate It's great. Hey there. You wait, hold on, wait, wait, wait. You can drive with us in a car called friendship. Hey, Elliot, can you hear me? It's a claim, it's a claim Fandango. Yes, I can hear you claim Fandango.

Did you really need that second ferry? I'll try it again. I'll try it again. Hey, listeners, very special max fun drive song. Hey, now it's the spoken word part of the song. Okay, the word for what times when people need letters, they need to drop the feathers of the work of day world and put on letters. That's right drop the fetters of the work a day world and put on letters. That's right, put on your letters. Wear them like clothes. Don't go outside.

You look like a weirdo. People will run away and you'll have to say, hey, they're just letters to the flop house that I'm wearing like clothes. So just do it on the end, just do it when you're indoors. Okay, thanks. So this first letter, you're welcome, Dan. You're very welcome.

You're so welcome. You're so, so, so welcome. I welcome you, which is not great, because Dan is a vampire and I'm safe unless I welcome him in, but I just did it. Oh no, Dan, please don't bite me in my sleep. Okay, well, I just got an update from Max von, it seems like all our donors revoked their donations.

So, was it because of my singing? Was it because of the bells that are ringing in your ears when you hear my Maliflu is voice because you have a choice to buy a Rolls Royce. Okay, no. Wait, stop. Wait, hold on. I'll also another rhyme. Bad.

Bad. Joyce, James Joyce, okay done. Okay, this one's from Ian Lastname withheld. Who writes, hey, peaches, I've been meaning to send this. Okay, I'll see. Uh-huh, or for Gazing. Okay, I've been meaning to send this. You're my guy. Okay. I'll tell you guys, see. Uh-huh, or for Gazing. Okay.

I've been meaning to send this email for a long time. So here I am finally doing it. Look at me go. I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of myself and to anyone else out there in the same situation as me. I struggle with depression and your podcast is usually the one thing I binge when I'm guaranteed to make me smile when I'm having a tough day. Lately, between college and school, things have been hectic

and listening between college and school, things have been hectic and listening between college and school. Things have been hectic. Dan, the guy's already having trouble. You don't need to pile on, okay? Thanks, I've been hectic. And listening to you goofballs, make fun of genuinely terrible movies,

never fail us to put a smile on my face. Elliot, I'm also getting a children's book published soon and sharing in your excitement. Congratulations. Always makes me grin. I hope it's not horse meets frog Stuart He's ripping me off. Okay Shut this guy down. Stuart your one-liner jokes and shield dude attitude never failed to make me laugh

Oh, that's good. Dan is a fellow deep sire. I feel you man Also, I hello relate to you and your honesty about your personal life. It. It has once brought me to tears over how much I related to it. To help justify this email, here's a question. What piece of media be it a movie, an album, a book, or something else entirely? Never fails to make you smile. What's your go-to feel good thing? Thanks again for all you've done for me and the other flappers out there fighting with middle illness, E and last name with with held. Go to happy stuff. I'll start because Stewart's

on his phone and Elliot's looking off into the distance scratching his head. I'm pulling up my feel good. I mean, Ian, you were literally talking and I was waiting for you to finish before I said anything. I apologize that I wasn't sitting here intently staring at the image on my screen of your face. So totally focused and ready, like a marathon runner or like a sprinter, like Usain Bolt at the starting line. Just ready, muscles tense and coiled, ready to leap into action like the spring of a watch.

When you're mouth stopped moving, I apologize that I glanced away at the beauty of the Silver Lake Resort, and it's a gorgeous day out. I'm sucking side talking to you, Yahoo! My head and an itch. I'm sorry, Dan, my head and an itch. Should I just be like a Buckingham Palace guard and not move a fucking muscle because I have to be so ready. So ready in case what? You call on me in a moment. The moment's notice. So again, I have a single microsecond of dead air.

I'm sorry, Dan. I'm sorry that I looked away from your beautiful face for a moment. That I wasn't so entranced by the glory of your visage that I dared to have the temerity. To look at the beauty of God's nature in front of me. Admittedly, the civil, civil like reservoirs and manmade reservoirs. It's not a real natural like, but that I had the gall to briefly remove us source of physical irritation from my head

by scratching in it. Lord, forgive me. Lord Dan got above that I was not so enamored and so concentrated on you that I could not finish my own physical needs. Okay, I apologize. Me a culpa, me a culpa. So, Elliot, so Dan, if just for your reference,

that's how you do an apology. Okay, Elliot, I just want to say, thank you for the compliments about my face. So, I'm glad you got what I was laying down that you picked up when I was putting down there. There are a couple things that say- So Dan, go ahead. Tell us about what makes you smile.

Now that you have ruined my day. Well, your buck anger is one of my top things. But let's see, I was going to say, this sounds like log rolling for the Max Fund Network and the drive, but certainly after my divorce when I was feeling down, I relistened to the entire run of my brother and my brother and me, and that always cheers me up, listen to those goofballs. And also on the subject of goofballs, I was going to say something like, drunk. Yeah, that's cool. I was like, I'm a subject of goofballs.

I enjoy taking goofballs. They make me feel better. No, I'm a subject of goofballs. I really enjoy Mark's Brothers movies. Those will always put a smile on my face no matter what's going on. Mm-hmm. You love them all.

Your favorite room service, the big store. That's right. Go West. Go West. Yeah. Actually, I the big story. That's right. Go West. Yeah. Actually, I will. Love happy. My, my, my, my love happy. My son and I have been watching them all in chronological order and we just watched at

the circus and it was much funnier than I remembered it being. Yeah. No, that one's okay, but it's pretty much. I forgot that it had the second inexplicable racist harpo song. Oh, no. He becomes the, where he becomes the divine Pied Piper of African Americans, but but uh, but it was much funnier movie than I thought it was. Yeah. It's guys it's guys moments Yeah, okay, so I have three songs on my feel good smiley times playlist. Okay. These are guaranteed smiles We got

We got world destruction by time zone. One by one by immortal. That one in particular, like they spend like they spend like three minutes whipping your ass and then then they kind of changed the tempo on you and then a bath do Macalta. I know the, the like king of the snow jugalos. He just lets out this fucking laugh and you're like, oh man, I better buckle myself, we're going to Blasher now, you know. Stuart is staring at me at me during this whole thing as if I know what he's talking about. Yeah, I'm talking about that. And then the third one is, is Terence Trent Derby's wishing well.

Okay. I'll have to say, for me, the thing I go to is the movie Singing in the Rain. That always makes me happy. And I return to it, even just in my memories, when I sometimes when I need to pick me up, it's just like a movie that is like just pure catnip to me, singing in the rain. up, it's just like a movie that is like just pure catnip to me

singing in the rain. Also, you know, there's also pure catnip. No, the what? Also pure catnip. Yeah, I was actually a pure uncut catnip the good stuff. I was imagining Elliot with the DVD box of singing in the rain rubbing his face against it, rolling over so his belly is exposed, just going nuts, just pure catnip. And this isn't exactly the same as smiles, but whenever I need a real like spirit pick

me up, I often go to the sequence in the amazing Spider-Man number 33, is it where Spider-Man is trapped under all those machines and he has to build up the strength in himself to lift them off of him in the weight. The thing that does it is remembering how much his aunt is in needs him and his connection to other people and that's always something that when I'm feeling low it doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily like puts a goofy smile on my face but always makes me feel a little inspired. So that's a shout out to the late Stanley and Steve did go for for crafting that it always affects me.

All right. So this next letter from Stephen Lasting withheld. Spielberg? Yeah, it's directed. Thanks for mentioning the Sugar Land Express today in your podcast, guys. How do you know it hasn't even been released yet? It is a good movie. It's un-arrated. This is directed at Elliot. It says, every time Elliot mentions his new book, I reflect. Where's the speech dog available in stores now.

Yeah, I reflect. So we think it's about a dog that is owned by someone named horse meat. What a terrible name for a character in a shoulders book, I think, before realizing my mistake. That being said, can you write a children's book called horse meat dog? It would make a perfect gift for my increasing number of friends and family that insist on procreating. Thanks. I mean, I would probably not give it that title because it would be very easy to confuse with the book.

I already have out, which is called Horse Meets Dog about a horse that meets a dog. If you're looking for gifts for small children, it can't be beat. But, you know, I'll think about it. I do, you know, right now, I don't know if I'm supposed to announce the title of it. But I do have another book that's going to come out hopefully next year. You can get for kids, but it has a different title. Is it the novelization of episode nine, a Star Wars adventure? Yep, it is.

Is it the novel? That's the book I have. Is it the novelization of Hortz meat's dog? You're expanded into a full... I expanded it into a, I did a lot of world building. I expanded it into volume one of what I think will be a world of time style, a, a, a, a, a wheel of time style, 10 volume series, I think. So, uh, like, uh, like if wheel of time was certain by Faulkner.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's going to be very, uh, very radical, very experimental. Okay, moving on. This next letter is from Paul last name withheld. Who writes from Auckland, New Zealand. He writes, grieving fellow alumni of old flop U. This next question is mostly aimed at Stuart.

Hey, Stu. In the hot seat. Hey, Stu. Yep. Pause for response. What's up? So Stu, what's going on with your hair? Pause again for response. I mean, if the Stuart of 10 years ago, Dan, you didn't really pause for the response.

No, but it would be weird if I read the last part of it after a Stuart actually responded, so I'm rolling through. Okay, because it kind of feels like you're screwing up a David Mammoth script where it's meant to be delivered in a very specific way. Yeah. It continues. I mean, if the steward of 10 years ago saw a photo of steward from today, what do you think his response would be? You think Paul? Oh, yeah, I don't know, man. I think steward of 10 years ago would be impressed that my hair has continued to go pretty gray.

And these two jokers aren't helping. Well guys ready to go hit the links. I think it's just two or ten years ago saw you say that he would be like forget it. I're a second. I don't know. I think the steward had 10 years ago had a lot of opinions about a lot of stuff, but you know, whatever. So my hair, yeah, I don't know. I feel like growing it out because I don't have a boss to other than Jesse Thorn to make fuel good, I guess. And I think me having this luscious

long curly hair probably makes Jesse pretty happy, right? Yeah. He's fucking commenting on the whole time. Yeah. When he's not hanging out with your mom, he's right in textbooks about Stuart's cool, Mrs. Doubtfire look. No, no, when Jesse's hanging out with, and if I hang it out, we should make clear, we mean sleeping with Dan's mom. Mostly a lot of the pillow talk is about stewards hair. Okay. So I just want to remind the listeners and my co-hosts that my parents

listen to this podcast. I, I, Dan, I'm just trying to give you something to talk to your parents about at the holidays. Okay. That's, that's got to be weird. It's extremely weird. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Uh, I'm just, you know, trying to, trying to be a chilled out dude with a lot of hair. I got it. My head is all heavy, you know, what that means. I know there's not like, there's no tragic back story

there. It's not like, like, like my, like's not like my long time barber died. And this is the only way that I can deal with my grief is by growing my hair out. Or I don't know. The hair isn't the source of your strength. Yeah. There was no reverse Lexaloo Thor accident. I don't think so. Wait, are you does that mean that like all humans ever verse that's the accident where all humans grow hair except the ones who

don't I understand? Yeah, yeah, so there's no there's no secret it's just you know I like to look good. Okay. Great. Not interrupt. Not interrupt Stewart's very elaborate monologue about his hair. And I know this is rich coming from me, the guy who rambles on. But Dan, I want to take a moment. I regret what I said about your mom and I want to apologize to your mom and to you, but not to Jesse because he has a great family, but he'd be lucky to be able to land a woman like your mom, Dan.

But, you know what? I should apologize. I went too far in having some fun with my bros, and I don't need to hurt anyone's feelings. Thank you. So now we go on to the last segment. Well, not the last segment, because we're gonna make one more picture of Max Fun.

But the last segment normally, where we talk about movies that we saw that we liked. And I'll go quick, because I don't have a lot to say. I've been very busy, haven't seen a lot of new movies or any pretty much. So I'm picking a movie out of the air. And I'm gonna say, why not watch Jason and the Argonauts? It's great.

Ray Harryhausen, so many great effects. And the skeleton sword fight is justly famous. I saw it again recently and I'm like holy shit. Just think of all the justics that went into this real actors interacting with model skeletons, painstakingly, stop-motioned. It's beautiful. Is there a watch that? I can't remember. Is there a post-credit sequence where his wife kills his children and flies off in a chariot and I think they were leaving it for the sequel. Yeah I'm gonna recommend a movie that I'm gonna snatch it before anyone else can recommend it

But this is a strange time for me where I've actually seen a movie that came out this weekend I recommend Jordan peels us which I don't know if you're gonna recommend, if you've seen that story. But I'm seeing it this week. What? I'm seeing you later in the week. Okay, I saw it last night, and what was it? Yeah, no, the night before last, I'm sorry.

It was Friday night, the moon was right, I had some fun, show them how it's done, TGIF, and I don't know what I mean is thank God it's funny. I can't believe that you're gonna throw it on the very end of the fight. I was gonna make fun of you for caring enough to tell the people on the podcast the exact night you saw it, but then it led to that great Friday night thing.

So, yeah, I was very serious. So, us, it was more that I had this weird moment of like, wait, what day is it? And I had to figure that out for myself. But thank you. Us, what's to say about it? If you like to get out, you'll probably like us to. It's a real solid horror movie. It's got some laughs. It's got some scares. There's already an us too. And it may, just may, make you think. As I was walking out, I was talking about the sequel, us to them, which would be about the other

us's. But, uh, there's already a bunch of good. I recommend it. Yeah. So what? There's already a bunch of horror movies called them. Um, and they're home. Yeah, I know. There's the one about big ants. Yeah. Uh, I am going to recommend a movie that I watched a couple of weeks ago for the first time, uh, for my birthday. Thank you. Thank you. I'm, I'm 39 years old now, guys. Uh, I was 39 years young, Stu. Oh want 39 years young still. Oh, thanks. That's what I tell everybody. I watched a bigger splash directed by Luca Guadaguino. And oh man, what's his, I can't remember his writing partner,

but it's the same screenwriter who worked with him on Call Me By Your Name and Susperia. Those were both movies that I loved, so I decided to go back and check out his filmography. A bigger splash is about a rock star played by Tilda Swinton, who is recovering from vocal surgery, so she goes on a vacation to an island off the coast of Italy, I believe, with her boyfriend and a ex-friend and lover played by Rafe Fens and his daughter played by Dakota Johnson show up and kind of disrupt their idyllic vacation. And it's, I don't know, it's a really tense movie. It plays out into a kind of horrific tragedy, spoiler alert. And, but the way that the movies may just like,

builds this world that similar to his other movies, Guadalchino builds a world that like, I just, I get so absorbed in. And even if it, like, it, it clearly goes, it goes slowly, my wife also, like, five minutes in. And it, I don't know. There's just something about the world that he creates. And yeah, I found it totally engrossing.

A bigger splash. All right, three movies they are. Elliot, anything you want to say? I wanted to take a brief mention before we leave about just one more. Q up the band final moment. It's the end of another max fund drive episode guys and with that comes the flop houses contribution to max fund drive. And you know, let's have a little set in our live end of the episode moment.

The man is playing, but um, da da da da, but we're all gonna hug each other and make the audience feel like they're part of some amazing party. They've just enjoyed for an hour and a half before we go out to our party that we do at the end of every episode. Whether it was a good episode or not. Anyway, enough SNL version. Usually. Because that's when their tame entertainment should be. It should feel like a private party that the people involved in are enjoying and you are just kind of watching from the outside and being like, okay. And the flop house is the opposite of that. We're a party that everyone should feel a part of, especially maximum fund members and supporters.

Because if you're a part of maximum fund, you are at that party. You're actually being part of the process and you're actually being someone that we need and rely on. There's a reason that they're called supporters. It's because we rely on you for support. It's because you're supporting us and you're keeping us up. Now, and I don't mean keeping us up in the bad way of your baby's crying at night, keeping you up.

I mean, in the good way of like, stealing alerts, keeping up a beautiful building. Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. Uh, exactly. Uh, some I don't like to talk about this aspect of it too much because I feel it feels a little bit too much like a heartstring tugging or I don't know. It feels like I'm crying poor when I should not be because I am a very lucky person and I feel like I'm I can support my family and that's great. But I've come to really rely on the money from the Max Fund drive to help me out to make sure that I can support that family while also making the career choices that I hope to

make. And so by being a Max Fund supporter, you are supporting both this podcast and also in a very selfish way. You are supporting me and making the creative choices that I hope to make and creating the kind of work that I hope to make outside of this podcast. And hopefully that's work that supports this podcast also enjoy. So I hope you feel like you're getting two benefits out of it. This podcast and also the other things that I can do that I can use the income

from this to support me on. So anyway, if you want to, so I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to keep food in my children's mouths, then please. Wow. Well, that's the, that's the little way I don't like to it. A lot of pressure. But doing the podcast is something that I always enjoy doing. It's great to be with Dan and Stuart and have a reason to talk with them regularly because

I miss them very much. And doing the podcast and getting hate to do it is even more amazing. This can be something that I consider what I do professionally is amazing. And it's all because of supporters like you, supporters who join up, if you haven't, supporters who upgrade their monthly levels to help us give it even more support. It's something that like, I cannot overstate what it means to me and I'm sure these guys feel the same way. So please, if you can support us, go to maximumfund.org slash donate. If you feel like you just can't afford it, that's totally cool and I totally accept that and it's

totally fine. Do not feel that pressure. But if you're like, hey you know what? I'm feeling a little flush these days and I want to pay for the content that I enjoy because content doesn't want to be free unlike what wired magazine might say or whatever. Then we'd really appreciate it. And I will thank you personally right now. Thank you. Insert your name here for supporting Maximum Fun.

So I hope you enjoyed that personal thank you. That was just for you. Maximum Supp supporter name here. Mm hmm. Yeah, so that's three favorite guys. Steely Dan, Deakin Stu, and I don't know, Kid Kale main. Okay. Okay. Okay. So yeah, Steely Dan, fantastic. Okay. I guess that's our sign off now. Go to maxwantfun.org, check out the other shows. We've been talking a lot about the network. And thanks for supporting us or even thanks for just listening. Thanks for just, yeah, just the most the biggest support you can give us even beyond this is

listen, giving us your ears so that we're not just shouting into the void. We have no mouths yet we must scream and we're the monsters that shout love at the heart of the world. And other Harlan Ellison references. Can I add everyone? Wait, wait, wait, Dan. We should also say, if you'd also like to support us, give us a review on iTunes or whatever in tweet about us or whatever. We should say that.

Okay, Dan, should you say that? No, I, no. Okay, I refuse. Okay, Dan's vetoed it, nevermind. Cool, okay, so for the flop, I was, I've been Stewart Wellington. I'm in Dan McCoy. And I'm kid, Kale, what's my name now? Kale, I mean, yeah, I like Charlemagne, but with your name, yeah, but eat a lot of

kale. Alright, good night, everyone. Bye bye. I don't know why I'm singing like an old Jewish man. I mean, I am a not yet middle-aged Jewish man. I mean, if this was the middle ages, you'd be like, you'd be totally grown, as they say, right? Yeah, good point. Good point, if this was a century ago. Yeah.

Which is what inspired the musical of your life. So oh Okay All right guys Let's get down to brass tax. Yeah, okay. Let's do this thing the best kind of tax Maximum fun dot org comedy and culture artist don't audience supported work. Comedy and culture. Artistote? Audience supported.