The Flop House - Ep. #312 - Sonic the Hedgehog

Episode Date: May 9, 2020

How can we follow up heavy-hitting guests like Griffin Newman and Chris Weitz, you may ask? Uh, well how about with JAMELLE BOUIE, New York Times columnist and guy you've definitely seen saying smart things on the news. Why does he like us? Who knows! But he stopped by to discuss Sonic the Hedgehog, about some sort of hedgehog who has definitely never been pregnant on the internet. Meanwhile, Jamelle gives us his history with SEGA, Stuart uses literary terms correctly, Dan only has old man references, and Elliott adds a few physics goofs to Sonic's IMDB page. Wikipedia synopsis of Sonic the Hedgehog Movies recommended in this episode: Newsies - Sammy recommendation! Gemini In the Soup Wheels on Meals Barry Lyndon

On this episode we discuss Sonic the Hedgehog. The movie that finally answers the question. So if you had to make a movie about Sonic the Hedgehog, like what would you do? Like how would you do that? What would you even start to make a movie about Sonic the Hedgehog? This movie answers the question. Hahaha. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house, I'm Dan McCoy. Oh hey there Dan McCoy, it's me Stuart Wellington. Hey guys, Elliot Kaelin here from a little place I call heaven, aka my house stuck inside

all the time with a 6 year old and an almost 2 year old. It's amazing. Okay, everyone's cracking up. And also, as a guest this week, we have Jamel Buie. He is a calmness for the New York Times. You may have seen him on television talking about serious stuff. And now he's here to talk about Sonic the Hedgehog. I'll say that if I could say very briefly, Jamel, before you start talking, I just want to say you're been an admirer of your writing for a very long time. I'm a subscriber to your newsletter, which if anyone is interested in, interested in trenchant thoughts on politics and history and

recipes and also photographs of old buildings, then this is the newsletter for you. But you're someone who's, you're a piercing mind who has a lot to say about the issues of the day. So that's why we needed you to come on for our Sonic the Hedgehog episode. I'm ready to bring 10 years of writing experience and deep thought to the question of a blue animated hedgehog. Wait, he was animated oh

Don't first don't show the illusion Summed up the entire personality of Sonic as depicted in this movie he is blue But I believe I believe what you mean to say Dan to to extrapolate further from that statement is that he's blue I believe what you mean to say Dan to extrapolate further from that statement is that he's blue da-badi-da-badi-da-badi-da-badi-da-badi-da-badi-da-badi. Oh, disclaimer, if Stewart seems like he's bringing a different energy to the podcast, that's because he's standing up. Oh, yeah, it's also because my quarantine mustache is threatening to strangle me at this point. Now, Dan, normally on this show, we watch a bad movie and talk about it,

but would you say that this movie fits that category? I mean, it is the second highest grossing movie of 2020. Jesus. That is the year that the movie theaters all shut down. Yeah. Because Sonic, even still, even still, I, that sounds insane to me. Who are the throngs of people who went out there

who were screaming, give us Sonic, give us Sonic? Well, it's strange because those same people were screaming, give us Sonic, but also screaming, don't give us Sonic with real human teeth and animal eyes. We don't want that. I don't know, based on the internet, I am pretty sure everyone wanted a Sonic movie, although they wanted one where he was pregnant, possibly by tales. Who knows?

That would have been the mystery of the movie. Was it tales or knuckles that did the deed? But then also, of course, tales would die, and Sonic would grieve him, because that seems to the other main fan art is Sonic characters grieving each other Yeah, and also sometimes they're Christians Yeah, sometimes yeah, well that was in the movie you just had to read between the lines now Jamel do you have much of a history with Sonic the Hedgehog or the Sega Genesis gaming platform? I do Very formal question So You're a very formal question. Um. I so

Ma when I was a kid, we weren't much of an Nintendo house. We were definitely a Sega house. So my dad had bought a Sega master system. Um, and we, I got a Sega Genesis, I guess I would have been like, you know, second or third grade or something. So we always had a Sega Genesis around. Uh, all the Sonic games I've played like 2, Sonic 3, and Sonic and that whole million times. I watched the cartoon a bunch.

There were two different Sonic cartoons back in the mid 90s. One was sort of like a fantasy cartoon, and the other was like loony tunes. But it was Jaliel White for both of them, right? As the voice of Sonic. Yeah, I think that's right. There was a brief period in the 90s where, if you had, if your original role that you were famous for

was not on anymore, you would become a Saturday morning cartoon star. Like Mark Hamill was the Joker and Jalil White was Sonic, the Hedgehog, and Mr. Belvedere was doing the voice of, I think, Raphael of the Ninja Turtles. And yeah, and then we had who else was there. Like John Wayne was doing the voice of Denver the last dinosaur and Let's see John Wayne John Wayne Gacy of course was doing other cartoon voices, but

Anyway, it's interesting you say that because I grew up in an Nintendo household And so to me Sonic always seemed weird and strange and I like couldn't get it And I was like the premise of a fast hedgehog makes no sense to me. It should be about an Italian plumber who jumps on turtles. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is like a rough equipment of like growing up in a Protestant household and like knowing Catholics existed.

Like I just don't get it. I don't understand what it's all about. I mean, I grew up in an Nintendo household too, although I stopped at the original NES system. I don't think I ever even got a super NES, but I was, like, I was much more in Nintendo guy, but I was jealous of mostly Sonic when it came to Genesis. I also enjoyed a little strider, a little, a little Max. What about fucking altered beast, dude, where you get super chat.

Yeah, sure. Well, that happens with Mario too, when you eat a mushroom, suddenly you're like a monster. You know, you're so much bigger than you were before. I think that is an unfair comparison, although that can you consume is kind of like an altered beast. Yeah, yeah, he is becoming a kind of merger of man and animal, a manimal, if you will, or a Mary-Animal. But yeah, it's the, for some reason, when I was a kid, my cousins had Sega Genesis, and the only game they really had was Echo the Dolphin. Oh, no.

So that was not as fun. That was a very exploration-based game. Yeah. Listen, Nintendo may have had Mario and Zelda and Final Fantasy, even, but could you play a game like Streets of Rage where you could get fresh to cook turkeys out of trash cans What the fail I just I just remember that I I won a One a prize in electronic gaming monthly what because I was supposed to name a Streets of Rage move and because I was supposed to name a streets of rage move. And my move was the lead pipe cinch

when you hit someone with a lead pipe. And I believe I got a controller for that. Whoa. That you were vastly over-rewarded for the amount of work you put into that one. That entire sentence is like unintelligible to anyone like the younger, the younger. That was the youngest person for whom that said that's made sense.

That was the first time I was paid for my writing, Elliot. Oh, that's pretty fair. And that was when you knew, of course, this is what I am. I'm a writer. And that's where your novel, Lead Pipe Sinch, which is kind of like a Bukowski, Tahrhunter is Thompson Tyke thing, came out of. Yeah, where you're always chasing that turkey leg. So Dan, your family stopped with the original Sega?

I, the original Nintendo. I think so. A original Nintendo, I'm sorry. So your dad was like eight bit. That's the only amount of bits that this household will hold. You know, I'm, I may be misremembering. It's hard to say. Like it's all, my childhood is just a warm foes at this point.

All right, well that was, I mean, that was a surprisingly steeped and possible trauma response. So let's move on from that. No, I think my memory is just terrible, that's all. I'm like, while I was watching this movie, I was thinking back to like playing the Sega Genesis in my parents' basement and like the smell of the carpet

down there and the like weird sadness that the game gives me and I'm like, was that, was I just sad or is the game sad? Like is it sad for a little blue guy to get hurt and all his rings to shoot out of them? Like, I think that's just nostalgia sadness. Stuart, I think that is you, despite the fact that childhood is a place filled with pain and misery, you still desire to go back there in some corner of your heart.

Okay, well cool, fun, I'll try and do that. Well, I think here's a way. Here's a way. I mean, perhaps if you could trick your childhood self into touching a magic skull at the same time you do, and your brain would go into your child self-spotty, you just have to redo this every few years because as you grow up, you'd stop being a child.

Oh man, okay, so I think we should start this movie because it opens with a special logo. That's right. Instead of stars around that logo, it's gold rings. That's how you know it's made by true fans. That's because Paramount was like, we've had this logo for just about a hundred years. When should we change it? When there's a hedgehog that needs some rings?

This will show the audience. Now, Elliot, are you under the misapprehension that the Paramount logo has now changed forever? Yeah, that's, I think now every Paramount movie is going to have rings instead of stars. And it's just like, I hope it was worth it for Sonic, you know, it's like, it's when you get a tattoo of someone's name and then you break up with them a couple weeks later and you're like, oh boy, I can only date people named Shari now. Dan, have you been to the movie theater and seen a new Paramount movie since Sonic?

You know what, you got me to do it. So we seem to be in a sort of Shroudinger's Paramount logo situation where until we see one of these movies, we have to assume the logo has both rings and stars. And I guess only time will tell Jimi the other thing is that Since son of was a big hit paramount now demand the producers there executives want a hedgehog in every single paramount film

So when they when they eventually reboot the dark universe. There's gonna be a son like the hedgehog I mean knuckles would fit right in, because that dude... I wouldn't... It's pretty scary. I wouldn't complain if it was a real hedgehog in every movie, because those things are cute. Mm-hmm. Or if it was, uh, uh, you were saying how much you wanted Ron Jeremy to be playing the lead role of this movie.

Okay. I don't know. I mean, he's kind of... He's kind of a hedgehog, right? I guess. Yeah, sure. Can we stop as a culture putting Ron Jeremy and ironic cameos and copies? Dan, how much is that really happening these days?

I mean, there is a big high point in the 90s. Yeah, I think you got to put that message in a bottle and send it back through a time window because I don't think it's happening too much anymore. All right. Okay, so we open media res. Sonic is running around the streets of San Francisco running away from Dr. Wiley and we have Dr. Robotnik. Dr. Wiley is from the Mega Man games, I knew I was going to fuck that up at some point. Yeah, it's Dr. Eggman Robotnik. He's really good. I want to take a moment just to celebrate the fact that this is the first time that Stuart

has said something that is open in media res when it actually has a little media for it. Usually it's opened very much in pre-res, but now this is... So we have our like, I bet you're wondering how we got here freeze frame and we're about to do a flashback, but while Sonic is talking shit about Dr. Robotnik, we also learned that Sonic is familiar with the American Civil War, which is, was kind of chilling for me at that point, like this is a movie for children. Now, this is, this will be a recurring theme, because I am baffled by like the degree to which Sonic does or does not understand earth, history and culture.

I mean, you just, you mean just because he doesn't seem to know that humans have names, but he does know about the Olive Garden franchise slogan. Stuff like that. Or, yeah. It was very strange to hear Sonic go on a long digression about the campaign and Vicksburg. I'm just going to throw it away. Well, especially because he was so pro-conveterate, which is a strange choice nowadays.

Right, right. Sure. Yeah. He was like, Sonic was like all those brave men fighting for their ideals. You know, you don't have to agree with everything they said. I was like, Sonic, this is intense. Yeah, and he was saying something about how

it was taped up sneakers as in solidarity with those poor soldiers who didn't have shoes. Oh, weird. Anyways, there's two hours, two hours of apology for the lost cause. And then we finally get to the end of the flashback, right? Yeah, so we go right into a flashback. We're on like a forest planet, Sonic's a little kid. We get a little bit of exposition. We're introduced to Sonic's mother, Long Claw, who is not a sword, but in fact an owl. And... And now this is a character who I believe was invented for the movie.

Did she ever appear in any Sonic games or associated media? As far as I know, no, I mean, that was the point at which I was like, I have no idea what's happening in this movie. Like, I feel like I have a decent sense of Sonic lore in my head just from like being a kid, and I was like, I don't recognize any of this now. And I don't know what. Did you ever read any of the Sonic comic books where like Knuckles became one with the universe. And there was all this strange stuff that was going on. I did not. OK, well, much like the archie Ninja Turtles comics, which spun off into their own bizarre continuity,

the Sonic ones did too. But yeah, this was, so Sonic right away, he's like, I grew up in this planet. And I always had special powers. And it was like, wait, are you not going to explain whether you come from a race of hedgehogs was like, wait, are you not going to explain whether you come from like a race of hedgehogs like, or is that like, you're not going to explain how you got powers at all. He's just, he's just burst into existence, right Dan?

Yeah, this is, well, this is a good, all right. Look, I threw up my hands immediately during this movie because of this prologue because it is like, eating your hands and you threw them up. I threw them up and discussed because it is the laziest like hero stuff that's just thrown away at the beginning of the movie. Like Sonic has powers but he thinks he's one of a kind which that seems like a weird choice right off the bat. I would have assumed that like this alien hedgehog would just come from a race of fast alien hedgehogs

and he like gets stranded on earth. He has this mother protector figure, this owl. I assume is not his biological mother, although I don't know what it was. Do not assume that Dan. I do not know Sonic biology. And he's been, you know, he's been... Well, we know that Sonic has no genitals. So it stands to reason that his species does not have genitals either.

So maybe the owl is his biological mother and it's a race where, like if a horse and a donkey mate and they have a mule and the mule is sterile, if an owl and a crocodile mate, you end up with a Sonic. The Sonic isn't capable of procreating. That's just my theory. I'm just throwing it out there. Guys, publishing it in the New England Journal of Medicine will see if it it gets picked up. Okay, but the point is got me be reviewed Sonic is being chased by these like sort of like

Like Tiki styled maybe like native People with with bows and arrows and you got a little closer Dan those are a kid knows Okay, well anyway, there's because you know what I'm saying is knuckles. Yeah, so they're being chased though. And the owl is like, hey, use these magic rings to escape to another planet where you'll be safe. And if you need to use them again, here's a bag full of magic rings.

And she's like, no time to explain basically, and like pushes him into this earth. Puehle and portal. And we were watching this. Audrey was like, no time to explain, basically, and like pushes him into this earth. Poor old, and we were watching this. Audrey was like, I don't understand these movies why like, if you know that this danger is coming, like run a few like fire drills for it ahead of time and explain the things that need to be explained beforehand rather than being like mysterious

and pushing Sonic through a portal. And the thing is, Dan, we don't actually know that long claw dies. Like maybe long claw just need some alone time. Yeah. Fair. Maybe long claw isn't cut out to be a parent. You don't know. Hey, look, someone could be a great parent and still need a long time. But this is like so much like like fantasy sort of almost chosen one bullshit that's thrown away so quickly at the beginning of the movie and not really important to anything else that happens. Okay, I'm gonna make two points, Dan, want to support and want to rebuttal first, rebuttal. As we see from the movie, Sonic has very little attention

span skills. So it's very possible long claw tried to explain these things to him and he just did not listen that he was too busy making jokes about like professional football and Kenny Chesney and Heinz catch up and whatever other American things happened to come into his head. But too, also, in support of you, this is a very lazy movie. And the story is very paint by numbers. But Stuart, you were going to disagree. You said you said you're gonna say that, I was gonna say that the movie, like its protagonist, has gotta go fast. I mean, I will say, very paint by numbers,

all these things are true, but I did deeply appreciate this movie was 90 minutes or 100 minutes. It was, when I rented it on iTunes, I was like, I hope to God, I'm not gonna be here for two hours, and I wasn't, and that's a blessing. So you said you don't want the two and a half hour Snyder cut of Sonic the Hedgehog.

No, I did. Which, again, weirdly, an hour of that is Sonic going on about the army of Northern Virginia. Very strange, very strange. Yeah, Sonic can't stay on topic often, but when it comes to that sort of thing, he's on point. Now, I want to see now the Snyder Cut of this way, Sonic is fighting Dr. Robotnik, and one of them says long claw,

and Dr. Robotnik was like, my mother was named long claw, it's true. I guess we're best buds now. Okay, so, and the basic thing is that we learn that long claw explains Dessonic that people are going to try and steal his power, that his power, that Sonics power is magical. So we then of course cut to 10 years later, we're on Earth in a small town of Green Hills, Montana, and and were introduced to thomas the donut loving police officer and maddie his supportive veterinarian wife

now thomas's last name is wakowski which i assume there's a little tip of the hat to the create to the film makers behind speed racer what do you guys think coincidences are now oh probably now that that that was fair. Now, now, now, Sonic, Sonic is living in the woods like a hermit near this small town. He has come up with nicknames for Thomas and Maddie. Thomas, of course, is the donut lord because you know what shape a donut is? A ring. Exactly.

That's movie making. Now, now, Sonic lives in a Huffle. He's lonely and I don't know like he you know he's sad but he has invented like a rich history and backstory for all the people in this town. Once again he doesn't really understand them but he understands quite a bit about American history and popular history. So you mentioned Bob, he, uh, so you mentioned that this, uh, this copy calls Donut Lorde is played by James Marsden, who is, once again, criminally underused, uh, I find James Marsden to be like such a, such a likable performer. And he gets, he doesn't, he doesn't get to do too much

in this movie other than be like Sonic, stop or like, hey, come on, Sonic, cut it out. I mean, uh, in so much as this movie works at all, I think it works because the performers are all very likeable, but they yet, to a man other than Jim Carrey, they're given almost nothing to do. Like, he does not have a character to play here. He is just sort of pleasant. Now, the action really gets kick started when Thomas gets offered a a beat cop job on the mean streets of San Francisco and Maddie his wife immediately starts using Zillow and talks about it in one of many advertisements. So they decide that they're going to move to San

Francisco, Sonic plays baseball by himself, which I feel like is an interesting commentary on quarantine. What do you guys think? Certainly, Sonic is very lonely. The thing that drives Sonic through this is his loneliness and his need to reach out. And he lives in a cave and he watches a lot of TV. So yeah, I guess this is very prescient in its quarantining. Not since the lighthouse. Have I seen a movie that's so captured what it felt like to be living in quarantine, you know?

Now, this and the solo baseball scene, of course, makes Sonic sad and his loneliness causes him to do a big blue electric explosion, which shorts out the power grid and draws the government's attention. Now, shall we mention now Sonic up to this point? Now, he's been living for 10 years in just watching other people and not having any friends. You would imagine he's like kind of a dour, quiet type, like real kind of bitter and grump. Doesn't save very much, right? Is that pretty accurate?

No, he is a jolly hedgehog. He's full of them and vinegar. He's played by the voice performance as Ben Schwartz. And he does a fine job. I think there are some funny bits that I assume are just Ben Schwartz improvising because everything else is the blandest nonsense.

They throw so many. He's constantly doing like a... Stick. Yeah, Japs and Jabs and constant running gags and jokes and it's like they they I can imagine being an eight year old I'm watching this and being like this is hilarious because it's because that's how I felt when I'd watch like the Ninja Turtles And they'd be constantly making jokes, but watching as a adult I was like shut up Sonic Shut your mouth. Come on I mean sort of on that point,

this movie feels like a real throwback, the kind of like 90s, that kind of like late 80s, 90s, based off of some external video game property movie. Like it has some bizarre mythology with no connection to the actual game. Like it involves the character from the game going into a whole new world. Like it feels like someone sat down with a script generator from like

90-1991 and was like can we plug this in and see what comes out and this is what would basically come out. And there's like a road trip element which I feel like is also a very 90s property movie. Well I put a review on letterboxed and I think the key line to what you're saying, Jamel, is like, I was like, okay, imagine a Sonic movie in your head. That's what this movie is. Exactly.

They didn't enhance it in any way. They didn't add any plot or characterization beyond what your vague idea of what a Sonic movie might be. And that's this film. The only thing it's missing to be a movie that could have come out in 1990 is like an evil land developer who wants to get to Sonic's home world so he can build condos there.

Like that, that's the one. Or like someone who's gonna let, who's like, I'm gonna merchandise Sonic. Okay, come on Sonic, Sonic dolls, Sonic games, Sonic yo-yo's, and Sonic's like, no way man, I'm one for times. One of the interesting things about the whole like evil land developer trope is that I feel like it just gave, like, you know, there's a lot of young people coming up in the late 80s, early 90s who saw those movies, and I feel like it gave them the idea because it's not like there's

fewer evil land developers in the world now. No, no, there's much more of them and they are more powerful than ever before. So I guess what, maybe we were looking at those movies wrong and those were actually the heroes the whole time. I do also think that this might be the point to bring up that the screenwriters of this movie, there's two screenwriters. They appear to be a screenwriting team because their IMDB pages are exactly the same

with writing credits. And so either a team or the same person getting two checks and they're like oh Jeremy I'll go get them and they leave the room and put on a mustache and they walk back in oh Frank I'll go get him and they go back out and take my stuff. Yeah, it's all probably but but these screenwriters have a long career in things like they wrote some hot wheels tv movies and uh... they're the writers of national ampune's dorm days and dorm days to uh... and this is a bit that is the spell d a z

it is in fact spelled d a z oh thank goodness i was really lots of joke money on the table and this is their first uh...buster movie. They got this huge plum screenwriting job from I do not know what maybe they're good in the room. And I do not want to like intimate that people can't come up through exploitation movies, which is basically what the national ampune movies are the equivalent to. Because, you know, a lot of great talented filmmakers came up through that, but it is strange that they seem to have jumped directly from nonsense movies to the huge blockbuster of

this past year. I would disagree. I think one, like you're saying, you can't really judge a writer just by their past credits. Also to jump from National Ampune dorm days to the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is not the quantum leap in career making. I'm not talking about you, but I'm thinking it is. Elliot, Elliot, you are misconstruing what I'm saying. I know that I know that it's a better movie. I would rather watch National Ampune's dorm days than Sonic probably.

No, but what you described to me is like a pretty common career progression it's not like they were like sonic the head chug we need only the top screener screenwriters get me David kept get me William that is totally wrong Elliott they put millions like hundreds like put a hundred million dollars in this movie they're not like get me the writers of national ampune don't know what I'll tell has I'll tell you how they did it They put $100 million in this movie. They're not like, get me the writers of National Anthem or do-a-day. Now, I'll tell you how they did it.

This is how they do it, Dan. They had a couple different group of screen writers come in and pitch their takes on the character. Then they made them come back and pitch it again more fleshed out. And they narrowed it down. And their agents got them this meeting. And then, or they knew one of the executives. And then eventually, they wrote the script and the network.

The studio said, hmm, can you make it blander? then eventually they wrote the script, and the network, the studio said, mm, can you make it blander? And then they rewrote it to make it blander. And the studio said, mm, can you put Zillow in there? I understand the pitching and development process. I am saying this is a surprising leap that they have made in their careers. And congratulations, congratulations

after laboring in Schlock. I mean, I just made big in Schlock. My biggest big budget is Schlock. My understanding is that this movie, like a Sonic movie has been in development for a while. And this is there like, there've been multiple groups of screenwriters who have taken a swing at this. And so this is, these guys are the ones who I guess cracked it.

Yeah, and unfortunately we'll never get to see that Sonic movie that Richard LaGravani's worked on 20 years ago, you know. Yeah, yeah, I'm assuming what happened is John's Patrick Shanley. Yeah, the one that the current brother's doctor after a little bit, you know, and that Johnny Fish did some punch up work on. Based on a trick, which involved actually just like a human man painted blue. Oh man that would be amazing. Yeah I'm assuming these screenwriters were rejected for their

original script for Portrait of a Lady on Fire but they were better suited for this. Well the problem was they went to the pitching session for Portrait of a Lady on Fire and they were like okay spin us a tail and they're like this lady, right, she's on this fantasy world and her mom's an owl and she has the ability to burst into flame. And they're like, we don't, did you read, did you take a look at our lookbook about what the film is going to be like? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we threw that away. Okay. And hurry this up because we got a meeting later for that shinler's list reboot. We got this. Reboot. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're hoping to turn it into a whole cinematic universe.

Yeah, the SCU. The SCU. And there's, oh man, it's just like, it's a, they're trying to look, there's some studio that bought up a bunch of the rights to a bunch of different adult dramas. So they're like, finally, Shindler, Carlito from Carlito's way, Don Corleone. And let's say the sisters from Aliga their own, they're finally in one movie together. So now we finally have a villain. The US government has to bring in their perfect agent that's right Jim Kerry playing Eggman

Robotnik and he's kind of a loose cannon. They don't want to bring him in but they have to because he always gets the job done And he's like a super scientist guy. He's got a power glove on. He's got an army of egg-shaped drones He drives around in a bunch of trucks that are all covered in plates. This is one of the many very hand-wavy moments in the script where they're like, okay, we need to get to the next thing. Where everyone in the government seems to know

that this guy is crazy, but they're like, yeah, but we need him anyway. Like, okay, sure. When,, yeah, but we need him anyway. I haven't seen it. Okay, sure. Well, actually, if anything, it would have been better. They could have had a real political moment here where they'd talking to the president, and it's clearly Trump,

but it's done from behind his head, like George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld. And he's just like, robot Nick. And they're like, no, he's a crazy person. Like, why would, no, no, he tweeted at me, robot Nick. Get him out there. Okay, you said so commander in chief, but instead, you're right, Dan, they're kind of like, let's get robot Nick. What? He's nuts. And they're like, yeah, but what if it's,

have you not seen every one of them? Every one of the room is basically like, that's a terrible idea. Let's do it. I mean, I, I'm glad that the movie, it does do once, it does a couple things, right, which is one that cast Jim Carrey in this role. And there was something very like, chicken soup for the soul, comforting to me about seeing Jim Carrey do the kind of role that he did when I was a kid.

But they weren't like, get Dr. Robert Nicholas. Oh, he's so crazy. He loves robots. They call him robot Nick behind his back. That they just are out and out like his name's robot Nick. Let's just do this, whatever. Who cares? botnic behind his back that they just are out now like his name's robot Nick let's just do this whatever who cares And he so he shows up to green hills and he takes over the investigation Of course he has to supplant the local military leader who was played by Neil McDonough hired of course for his blue blue eyes

His his husky dog eyes and by that I mean the dog husky, not that his eyes are fat. And he has dog eyes. Big old fat dog eyes. The biggest baddest dog. He was thrown away in one scene, Stuart. I was like, okay, Neil McDonough, isn't going to come back at some point, but it's like, no, he's just there to be like humiliated by funny Jim Carrey. And then he disappears. He's like, he was in Street Fighter, the legend of Chun Lee for God's sakes. Yeah, show him some respect.

He played dumb, dumb, Dugan. Come on, everybody. He was in a villain on an entire season of Arrow. Yeah, he was, and justified. Which, which, which character did play in Arrow? Was it, was it Damien Dhar? Yeah, yep, yep. And did he play the same character in Justified?

Because I want Justified and Arrow to be in the same universe. He's not that different in Justified to be honest with you. Okay, that sounds pretty good. So, so, so, Rock Dr. Robotnik is on the case. And where does Sonic go? Sonic knows he's going to be in trouble so where does he go for help so he runs back to his cave he packs up all the stuff or most of his stuff and he heads to the only house that he's familiar with that's right

the house of tom and maddie uh... tom is already preparing to go to san francisco maddie is already gone ahead uh... to find them on a part man i guess uh... tom is so excited. She's staying with her sister who does not like Tom. Despite the fact that he is by all accounts a very supportive and loving spouse, he took three jobs to help her get through veterinary school. But for some reason, because the movie wants jokes, her sister does not like him. Yeah, this is one of my least favorite stock characters in movie the sister that hates the lead

Husband character for no reason that anyone can see Yeah, I mean if you wanted to make the movie just like a little bit edgy. She could hate him because he's a cop Yeah, I mean that's I was kind of what I felt like they were hinting at but it never it never came out But like this is this is a black lady in San Francisco. She hates him because he is a cop. And she does, she knows inevitably there's gonna be a time when she's gonna have some kind of interaction with him in her home city and their family and it's gonna be really bad for all of them. She knows his mask is gonna slip at some point.

There should be a scene where she just whispers a cab. And he's wearing a t-shirt that says San Francisco on it because he just cannot wait. He's trying to become the city. I kind of love. Like I love the idea of this dorky ass dude who's like, I can't wait to move there. I'm gonna buy the t-shirt in advance like those guys who bought the Darth Maul shirt before seeing Phantom Menace. So disappoint, what about the guys who bought the Wato shirt before Phantom Menace? You and Griffin Newman? We saw him and we were like this character is going to be so great and not at all offensive and then we saw him and I was like well I did pay for the shirt I guess I'll wear it. He is kind of like a more realistic, anti-Semitic gun, so it's okay.

Wearing a suit around being like, look, I'm reclaiming Guadal. I guess it was a tip off when the Guadal T-shirt had gold coins on it. Yeah, yeah, the fact that he had gold coins on the back it said, more blood please. It was like this shirt. Oh, wow. Hey, I gold coins on the back it said more blood, please It was like this is this shirt. Oh wow Hey, I didn't make the shirt Dan. I'm not the one who put those shirts out

Yeah, so what you got the shirt you're like, well, I don't like the care to that much I guess it's gonna be my gym shirt and then you just didn't go to the gym It was a very good excuse not to go to the gym because I was like I can't wear the shirt at the gym This is crazy, but I don't have another gym shirt wait I can't ever realize this guys so Wato clearly anti-semitic what about Gonzo he's got a similar nose similar coloring he also is kind of an outsider he just doesn't fit in and he has elaborate stunts that he always wants to pull off which isn't a big Jewish stereotype that Jews always want to get shot out of cannons or ride unicycles across tight ropes and that Jews love chickens. I mean, we do, you know.

Well, I mean, based on the sample size in this group, Jews do love chickens. But I mean, God's eye was one of the most loveable characters in the Muppetiverse. So. Yeah, that's true. It's just him and Scooter, two tops. Oh, God. So you're so awesome. Yeah, that's true. It's just him and Scooter, two tops. Oh, God.

Wow, they're both tops. And what's the one from the Muppet's the first of the Disney movies, Kevin Wayne, what's his name? His name is Walter. He has no personality. When you say Walter's more of a top or a bottom, Dan. Weirdly, he's a switch.

Anyway, let's go on. He's an Nintendo switch. All Anyway, let's go on. He's an Nintendo switch. All right, let's keep going. So Sonic goes to James Marston's house. That goes great, right? Well, James Marston surprises him before he can run away and he shoots him in the leg with a tranquilizer dart that he had to shoot a raccoon presumably.

And then that, of course, leads Sonic to accidentally opening up a portal to San Francisco because he reads it on his shirt. And then he drops all of his rings in San Francisco, like you do, and he passes out. A reference to Tony Bennett's classic song, classic song, I left my rings in San Francisco. Now Stuart is saying this as if it is a normal thing. So I feel like I need to clarify for the audience that like his magic rings he needs to escape to another planet have now gone through a portal to an entirely different city. They're on the top of the Trans-America

Pyramid and also as within real life when you are hit with a tranquilizer dart you must read whatever words are in front of you at that moment. That's the only way your brain can regain purchase on reality. So like, for instance, if you're standing at a pool and you get hit with a tranquilizer dart, you would say, lifeguard on duty, and then you'd pass out. Or if you were at a baseball stadium and you got shot with a tranquilizer dart,

you'd be like, Budweiseriser twelve dollars and then you fall down there is a lot of choices coming out of all of it you're at like you're at the jerseys to sure you're like uh... female body inspector uh... yeah again you're at the jersey shore when i was a kid in like nineteen eighty six i think the idea that dan has he he's like a mesh tank top.

That Dan is like an Encino man or a Blast from the Past type or like a Rip Van Winkle, but he was just in cryogenic for you for like 20 years. I'll tell you something, writing for a younger, hipber talk show host has been great for me lately with all of my 40-year-old man preferences. You're like Trevor, and then we'll have a quick joke to the scene in just one of the guys where, and he's like, I don't know what that is, and you're like Trevor, we all watched it on HBO and we were kids, and he's like, I didn't do any of that. It had nudity and played during the day.

Trevor, I have a joke here about Zima and Crystal Pepsi. The show I'm working on right now, we have a Zima joke in one of the episodes and I'm like, I love it. Great. But there was a younger writer in the room who was like, what Zima? And I was like, I'll tell you about it later. There's a guy that likes to head words that start with Z with Z anyway around the same time as those Richard Lewis Bocaw ads and they were like what? He had a hat.

Cool. So, Sonic and Sonic wakes up he talks to Thomas they immediately decide, okay, we got to get, we got to save this guy Robotniks on his trail Robotnik shows up to Thomas's house and Tricks his way into the home They knock out Robotnik and go on the run together. Did I skip over anything? No all you all you need to mention is Robotnik has an army of robot drones

And also that he manages to get his hands on one of Sonic's quills. Oh that's what that was. Yeah. What did you think it was? Like his his like his tail or I thought it was like a like a shard of his essence like in the dark crystal or like or it was like a crystal that he'd have to take down and build the fortress of solitude with maybe Or just like leave on his nightstand heal the energy of the room or like if Sonic is if Sonic is anything like my children They'll just pick up broken pieces of plastic off the ground and carry it around all day and then leave it in their room And then I'll step on it and I'll be like what is this why is this in my house?

But no, it's one of Sonic's power quills. All right, Stuart, you'd miss one thing, which is how Robotniks didn't demand to go into Morrison's house for a violation of Posse Comatatus. Yeah, I had that written down my notes and I just skimmed right over it. That's one thing. He is, how many amendments is he breaking at that point? That's unreasonable search and seizure, for sure. Well, it's not like he went to a judge and he said, I have reasonable suspicion that

there is a magic hedgehog in this man's house. I need a warrant to search the premises. Yeah. And I love, I love they're like subtle dance when they first meet each other because you're like, either of you could address the fact that you are are like you're either a police officer or working for the government. You don't have to hide that information. But they're like, nope, I got to tease this situation out. Okay.

I love that. Jim Carrey is like, I'm here to read the meter and he's like wearing a long black trench coat. He has black leather gloves on his hands. It's like, what crazy world are you from with people dressed like Dracula to read the electricity meter like come on cool so they they're on the run They Reluctantly decided to team up at first. They have this moment where you like oh shit

They're already breaking up with each other, but now you know they pretty quickly get over that sonic Way to the ocean and runs back. What's up? Yeah, I don't want to, I do not want to gloss over this moment because this is one of my actual major problems with this movie where like James Mars is like, hey, I saved your life. That's all I'm going to do for you.

Like I don't want to go on the run with you or anything. And Sonic's like, oh, okay. All right, I guess I'll go to San Francisco on my own. Like I guess I'll find it somehow. And like, and James Martin's like, just go west. You'll, you'll hit it. And he like, Sonic zooms off, comes back immediately with a fish on his head

because he ran into the ocean. And he's like, see, I can't do it on my own. I'm like, fucking give him a map. Like, there's this, this movie does not adequately explain like why they like go off together. And I feel like it could do it fairly easily. By like later on, like they blame James Marsden for like, they say he's a domestic terrorist.

Like there are reasons that they could give at this point that they're stuck together, but they do not. And I never feel like they truly bonded this movie. No matter how much work they put into it. The easiest thing to have done given what's already in the script is for the tranquilizer or the electric explosion to sap sonic speed. There you go. He can't run as fast anymore so he needs to be driven, problem solved.

Yeah. Yeah, actually, that's pretty good. I will say what I bumped against was that James Marson is like, okay, there's a talking bipedal hedgehog that wears gloves and sneakers, but no other clothes. And he's suddenly in my house, and he's blue, and he runs really fast.

Okay, just one of those days, I'm not helping you. Like he accepts the existence of Sonic so quickly and there's not even, and it's pretty cliche the moment of like, what are you? But they don't even do that. It's just like, dude, get out of my house. Take the fact that you are some kind of abomination of nature and get that no human, and proof of life

in other dimensions and other plants. You're the first, this is the first contact between a human and a Sentient being that is not human get out of my life. I'm a busy man. I'm moving to San Francisco like it's such a straight It's a strange choice to have him be so non-plussed by the existence of sonic I'm sure there was an early version of the script where they're like and here's the part in the script where sonic loses speed and the executives are like Here's the part in the script where Sonic loses his speed and the executives are like, uh, um, Sonic's fast and they're like, no I know, but he'll, you know, he'll get it back to like, nope, that doesn't work for us. They're like, yeah.

Okay, so can the villain be fast? Yeah, that's okay. Well, that works. And we'll get to it later, but there is like, like a quick silver from X-Men sequence in this movie that shows Sonic to, like not only be fast, but basically a superhero himself. And it's like, why does he need James Marsden? Like,

Because he doesn't know where San Francisco is, Dan, and there's no way for him to learn that information otherwise. It's locked inside James Marsden's head, like the map on the back of the girl in water world. There's only one way to find out. Okay. That's a good point because it sort of gets to like the fun, oh, again, I found them with a problem with any property

that involves someone that fast, which is that like they're no longer bound by the laws of physics. And so there are no problems anymore, right? Like all things can be solved, right? Like, oh, oh, no, someone died. I'll just use speed to break the time barrier. It makes the problem.

Oh, I don't know where San Francisco is. Well, I can apparently traverse the entire earth in a minute. So let me do that and figure it out. Yeah, I'll just do that. Simply gone directly to San Francisco. Like, there would have been no time for Robotnik to do any of the things he does in this movie. No, but Dan They had to stop off at a roadhouse to get into a barball. Yeah, well

I'm sure that I'm sure in the goof section of this movie somebody's like Like Sonic is fast enough. This movie shouldn't have lasted this long Guys, I want to rebut my own statement from earlier. I just realized this movie is better off if James Marson just accepts Sonic because it spares us from a scene where he's like, get out of that costume and he's grabbing him all over and he goes, here's the zipper. And Sonic goes, that's not a zipper. And then he like pulls his hand back because there's a worse version of this movie that has that scene in it.

I guarantee you. So, so I'm glad that didn't happen. Oh, actually, I see what I have another goof for you to put in the IMDV entry. Okay, let me just type that up, okay. Okay, in real life, hedgehogs are not fast. Real life hedgehogs are not fast. Or actually put that under factual error.

Okay, yeah. So, our heroes are on the run. Of course, they stop at a roadhouse that has some very energetic bikers and hot wheelers out front. They talk about how Sonic needs to work on his bucket list, introducing children to the concept of dying one day. Okay.

Well, and this is one of the things that Sonic doesn't know. We should put that in the column of, Sonic does not know this, as opposed to all the other things that he seems to be intimately familiar with. Well, we know he's seen the movie Speed because we see him watching it. And we know that he's familiar with the Olive Garden,

but he hasn't seen the bucket list. And you know what, he's not the target demographic. Like the bucket list movie was for like older people, the same people who really love like Grayson Frankie or what's that movie that we watched where the old people go to Las Vegas and it's Kevin Klein and Robert Jn. Last Vegas.

Last Vegas. That was called Las Vegas. What was called Las Vegas? Because the application was that they were all going to die. So like he's not going to go see the bucket list. He's going to be like, that's an old man movie. I want to watch speed or speed to cruise control. Yeah. So, this is where of course they get into a big, you know, they have a little montage of

Sonic Crossing Things Office list in this, you know, pretty populous roadhouse. And then they have packed roadhouse. I mean, it's a big roadhouse that also has like basketball games, like you would find at like Coney Island or like a aura of Czechy cheese. And you know, like this is a confusing roadhouse to me in terms of the entertainment there versus the crowd. That it seems to be. Well, it is very much a children's movie version

of a roadhouse where it's like, it's supposed to seem super tough and super crazy. But like you can't show, it's not though, it can't be from dust till dawn, you can have like a strip show going on, or like, it's not the double doose or anything. Yeah, exactly. So it's just like, uh oh, this roadhouse is pretty crazy.

Well, let's just play this basketball game and get enough tickets so that we can get a big novelty comb and then we'll leave. So of course, this is where they get in a bar fight and this is where we have that moment where Sonic move so fast he's able to stop time and we get that full on quick silver moment that Dan was talking about. I mean, we knew this was coming, right guys?

Yeah. That's it. That scene was the breakout star of that X-Men movie. It has to be replicated. I mean, and the scene here is fun enough. Some gags are set up, but it is. It did immediately raise the question to me, like, okay, well, Sonic is like much faster than I thought he was.

He can stop time fast. He can walk between seconds. Yeah, I think that's also, so here's the thing. If you were moving super fast, could you push like bullets and missiles out of the way, like Quicksilver and Sonic do? Because, or would you like go to touch it and Sonic do, or would you go to touch it and it would go right through your finger?

Because it's still moving really fast. Does your speed really cancel out the speed of the projectile? Right, if your velocity is such that you can do that, at which point you are generating enough force to be able just to move it. Because it's also, because I also wonder, is like if you slam your hand onto a knife, the

knife will go through your hands. Like are you moving so fast that your velocity is adding to the velocity of the bullet or the missile and it is that much more of an impact? I mean it does. Now this this probably has nothing to do with it. Like in terms of real life physics, but I will say he is, you know, he, like in these movies, like they do push the bullet away from the side, rather than they do not put their hand in front of the bullet.

You're right, that's probably it, because that's a force only moves in one direction, I think. So I'm just, you know. Yeah, do you, should I, so I have the, I already have the document open, should I add this to the Goofs column guys? Yeah, but I guess as, make it, call it incorrectly regarded as goofs.

Okay. And it is, I feel like this is the stupid thing in movie viewers brains where I'm like, magic rings, they create portals, you got it. Okay. Speedy blue hedgehog, yes. Could he really do that with his super speed? Like it's the dumbest thing for me to fixate on.

One thing we shouldn't like to mention about this whole sequence is that thus far the only human who has met Sonic is James Morrison's character. They go into this bar and Sonic is just hanging out and people look at him and have no reaction to the fact that he is a talking blue space hedgehog. It is so normal to them that it suggests, well, what it actually suggests about the world is that there are lots of sonic like creatures in the world, and that this Montana town just happens to have never gotten one before. Well, it's like citrusville Florida, home of the man thing,

which happens to be the nexus of all realities. So there's always like, how are the ducks and barbarians walking through? So I guess this little part of Montana, yeah, they're just used to trans-dimensional visitors. But it is very strange that Sonnetsch, like no one can ever see me. And then all he has to do is put on a hat and a jacket.

And people are like, sup little dude, can I get you a drink? It's like, I wonder at any point, he's like, all I needed was a hat. Why didn't I just put a hat on all this time? Especially since you know he's a fan of Sunday in the park with George and of course It's iconic song finishing the hat So it's familiar with the concept of hats because we see him later singing that song right or did I dream that? You may have dreamed it since we've opened this door. I do want to read three actual goofs from the IMDB page.

When Sonic and Robotnik arrive in Egypt near the Giza pyramids, there's nothing but desert visible in all directions. The pyramids in this fangs are actually surrounded by roads, numerous other monuments, and city on three sides. There's a pizza hut, less than 1,000 feet from this fangs itself. That's interesting. I wonder if, but I wonder if that, I mean, that raised the question of did that ring take them

to a different time period? Sure. Oh, yeah. I mean. And that's why there was, that's why the Farrow did a double take looking at them. And then there's a hybrid glyphic in the pyramid of a sonic type figure running from a man with a mustache.

I do. There's an Israelitephic in the pyramid of a sonic type figure running from a man with a mustache. There's a slave pushing up a block and he looks up and it's just weird and keeps on. He goes, he goes, let my people go and he just walks away. I may laugh at this goof, but I did learn something from it, so that's useful. Yeah, you learn where to get pizza if you're ever in Cairo or use it. Now this is a minor goof, but in the incredible music listing for Queens, don't stop me now. Freddie, that's with an IE Mercury's first name is misspelled as Freddie with a Y. Okay. So that's a minor goof, but that's a fair goof. That's a fair goof. Here's one. Even if Sonnets electromagnetic pulse didn't knock out cell phones themselves,

it would affect the cell towers, making them useless. Tom calling Wade during the blackout would not have happened either way. Oh, that was a question I had was that there's a blackout. Everything's out yet the phone at the police station works fine. So I wondered if this phone, do those phones still work during blackouts is a regular landline? That's a landline. A landline would in fact, you're not old enough to know this Ellie, but the landline would still be working No, it's just that I've forgotten it dad. I like I'm I'm almost 40 years old I know I lived through landline phones And I think blackouts the thing that was great about a landline alley

It had this law and had this long cord and you can like spin it while you talked Yeah, that's pretty cool It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that.

It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that.

It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. It's not like that. at the time they had real hoverboards that they were going to sell in stores but parents said it was too dangerous and so they were removed from the market. Now we did get those shoes from that movie but they didn't automatically lace up like they were supposed to. No, no, no.

Instead they just laced the normal way by you yelling at your mom to do it for you. Okay. Well, anyway, let's get back to this movie before Stewart explodes. Promises undelivered. So, okay, so, so we get introduced that there's one last element on Sonic's bucket list and then of course he can die, which is he wants to make a real friend.

And at this point, I think at this point we can address Sonic can die for real, right? Because he doesn't have any rings in his body so now he never now that's video game lore he never ingest the rings if he gets just it's just assume that he'll die if he gets blown up or shot or poisoned or Autorotic asphyxiation or Yeah, or any of those things the same ways normal people die so so they get in yet another fight this time they get in a fight about uh... tom wanting to move to san francisco uh... because of course sonic believes that small towns are better than big

towns and why would he ever want to leave green hills uh... this is another thing that like sorry i do want to just as quickly sonic is like obsessed with how nice this town is that uh... that james martian's character wants to get out of. And like Sonic, as we have established, I don't know if you know this guys, he's fast. He could see the rest of the world. Apparently he has had no curiosity

about planet earth beyond green hills. I mean, in his defense, the last thing he's adopted, possibly biological, Owl Mother said to him was, hide yourself. Don't let anyone see you. So he has been living in seclusion on purpose. Now can he move faster than the human eye can see? Of course he can.

So yeah, but then he's gonna get what, a split second view of Brussels before he's got it spin around and turn back, because he's got a same moving fast enough that no one can see him. Is he gonna see Tokyo for one day? What is he like to other? I don't understand why you think that Green Hill

is the only place where he can be stealthy and high, though. Like, see the world, Sonic. You know, maybe you don't want to stay down on the farm. It is one of many movies that takes it for granted that you know what, it is wrong to leave your hometown to go to the big city, which is the exact opposite of the lesson that life gives you. Oh!

So, while they're in this fight, Dr. Robotnik's card drone catches up with them and Sonic just blows the shit out of it, right? He does that like roll thing and lightning flies everywhere. And then we have a increasing or decreasing in size series of robots that keep chasing them. This was a really funny concept I thought, that it keeps, every time they blow it up, a smaller thing comes out and goes after them. Also, I should notice, I should mention,

as soon as I said, cities were better than small towns, as if God wanted to get back at me. One of you guys had a police siren go off in the background, so it's like, all right, I get it. Okay, thanks for getting back at me reality. But yeah, I like the idea that like each time they blow up a thing there's a smaller thing that comes out after them there's a little kind of loony toonsy about it sonic does some flossing so you know that kids are into it dan was into it dan loves tiktok

wait explain to me what you're talking about because I don't I don't remember that first I thought you meant he actually flossed with something and I was like no it is a low dance. Yeah dance show us the dance I didn't know that that was called flossing. Okay. Yeah, that's the dance Yeah, yeah, yeah, I see it's in People can't see me. I'm doing it 100% perfectly. I like that It's not a pretty jerky at all. It's like I'm not really thinking about it while I'm doing it Dan said people who can't see me, which means all six billion people in the

world except for three other people. The audience of this stupid thing. So that's not flossing. Yeah, that's called flossing. So Sonic then manages to get the final drone turns into a little bomb and Sonic manages to get hurt in the explosion and knocked out. And then Sonic is whisked away to San Francisco where Tom takes him to be healed by his veterinarian wife who, as I mentioned before, is staying with her sister in San Francisco. She is obviously non-plus about a blue alien monster that just appeared in her home, or her sister's home. Her sister is not very happy because, of course, Tom is there. Her sister's daughter has tied her up to a chair,

which, you know, is just a running goof. Like, it's, you know, that's the kind of jokes we get in this movie. I mean, later on, she's like, I have to go to the bathroom and then hours later, she's still tied up and it's like, that's torture. They're torturing this woman. Like, that is the definition of torture.

Like, come on. Also, also the sister may unreasonably like Tom just in general, but just like Tom to be fair at this point. You can't unreasonably like James Marston. He's giving you so many reasons to like him. There's nothing unreasonable about that. But at this point, he is a wanted man who was on the news for domestic terrorism carrying an alien into her home. So she has more reason at this point to be disturbed by his presence. Yeah.

So they make a plan to go to the pyramid building and get the rings. So Tom and Maddie go along with Sonic. I wrote this sentence before the end happened here, but I wrote, they find the rings become best friends and get interrupted by Robotnik, which I wrote moments before Robotnik actually showed up. Because I knew it was going to happen. Now before this point, also Robotnik, he did an experiment on Sonic's quill and it was so powerful, he overloaded his entire mobile lab.

And so he knows he can power all of his machines with Sonic's energy if he can capture him. Yeah. Yeah, I've been kind of glossing over the Robotnik elements of this movie, but Jim Carey gives it his all. I mean, I feel like he gives such a big performance that I feel like Sonic and Robotnik, the whole time, I'm just like,

get these two annoying people together so I don't have to deal with them anymore See but like I I like Jim Carrey's performance in this I I agree with what Elie said before like I found it very like comforting to see Jim Carrey giving a Jim Carrey performance again because like Jim Carrey is like like he is proven in a few movies that he's you know He has proven in a few movies that he's quite a good dramatic actor, but then he got kind of sidetracked into doing bad dramas, unlike say, Eternal Sunshine, where he started out in that zone doing good stuff. He's been in bad dramas and children's movies exclusively.

And this is a children's movie, but it's more of like, I think across over children's movies exclusively. And this is a children's movie, but it's more of like, I think, like across over children's movie, where it's not just like, I don't know, Mr. Popper's Pig Wins or something, where like, it's fun to see him do a big silly performance again, and he's committing. I think the fact that Mr., that I was gonna say Mr. Robotnik,

I forgot about his PhD, that is his father. Yeah, Mr. Robotnik is my father. Call me Dr. Robotnik. That's a joke they should have had in the movie. That Dr. Robotnik is never presented as a scary or in any way realistic character. He is just an over-the-top cartoon villain.

And Jim Carrey is the perfect person to do that. And that there's never, and also, and like, Jim Carrey seems to be the one person in the movie who I don't remember them making any pop culture references that kids wouldn't get, like his jokes or all. So much of it is just him either insulting people or like saying things in a funny way. There's a part where it's assistant who's mean to

says something about like, I brought you this latte with Austrian goat milk. I thought you might like it and he goes, am I an idiot? Of course I want one. I love the way you make it. It just shaps it as loud as possible. And I was like, that's a dumb joke. Like the joke is just that.

Of course he loves it. But like the way he delivers it is so huge that I laughed at it. And it's just like, it's real. It was very fun to me to see him like just doing that kind of character. And like, he's really good at like certain types of movements that you know like real like what do you say he's a physical comedian I mean he's certainly a comedian who uses his body as an instrument more than say Stephen Wright a comedian who could do we do the same act if he was a brain in a jar but he

was doing he was doing some dancing around Ellie in the scene that you were just now referencing where he discovers the energy powers of Sonic that I was like, you know, Chip carries not a young man at this point and I was amazed at some of the physical stuff he was doing in the scene. I think, well, he's in good shape.

He's the J-Lo of male comedy performers and at his age, his body is impeccable. But I think there's that scene in blood shot that we watch recently where the bad guy is like dancing to Psycho Killer and the whole point of it is this is like a cliche thing. And when Jim Carrey does it, it is cliche for the villain to have a little dance.

But Jim Carrey is so good at moving himself that I was like, oh, I could watch this for a while. So I liked seeing him on the, it was called the Dr. Robotnik movie. himself that I was like, oh, I could watch this for a while. So it was just, I liked those, I liked seeing him on, it was called the Doctor of Botanic movie. I would have been like, all right, maybe I'll like this movie. But then instead, Sonic's got to come in and spout out like 40 quick jabs constantly and it's too much.

I'll just say that Jim Carrey is great in this, but the fact that he was cast as Doctor of Botic is again, like a very 90s element in this, but the fact that he was cast as Dr. Robotnik is again, like a very nineties element of this movie. Like that casting is straight up like an issue of Wizard Magazine. Like, no. No.

No. No. Yes, if it was, yeah, it would be, Jim Carrey's Dr. Robotnik how he long as Venom, of course, Glen Danzig is Wolverine. And probably Glen Danzig is Knuckles. Who would, who do you think Wizard would cast in the Sonic movie?

Who would they cast as Sonic? Like, I mean, I feel like they would get some, who's that wrestler with the slick back hair that guy would be, that guy would be Knuckles? Oh, Slicky? I can't remember his name. For Sonic, it would either be like Danny DeVito or because he's short, or it would be like um I don't know who is somebody who because they would either cast it just on appearance

or it would be on like someone that they thought was cool because they were a wrestler or a football player but uh right right. Gambit would be Jean-Claude Van Damme which is actually great casting um and this is we're still casting the Sonic movie. Yeah, the Sonic movie. Yeah, but I don't know the Sonic characters. So, uh, and tails would be like, um, what like, I don't know, McCulloch, McCulloch, that's what I was thinking too, McCulloch, and yeah, look, this is wizard casting, making it big stars. Yeah, I mean, I, I feel like when I, when I said that, uh, Robotnik is annoying, it it is an indictment of Jim Carrey's performance.

I feel like the character is meant to be annoying like a non-threatening villain in a children's movie. Oh, yes, very much so. Yeah, yeah. So they have a big fight. Sonic pushes his friends off a building. He plays drums on a bunch of bullets. And then he starts to run away and we learn uh... oh robot nick is managed to supercharge his uh... his little spaceship thing now he's justice fastest sonic or is he will find out so we are now back at the beginning of the movie where robot the chasing him around san francisco

full circle it's a real last year at marion bed i want to make clear he did not push his friends off of the building to their dad. He did it with a ring that sent them back to Green Hills. Yeah. Well, but we don't know that at first. At first we just see him push them off the bit. He says, you've done your use to me. I'm done with you.

And he pushes them off the building. Wow, that was cool and sonic. And then he looks at the camera and goes, ain't that a stinker? And that's the thing. And then both their body is splat on the ground and he's like, eh. And then he gets his hands. He gets his hands.

And he goes, yeah, the next we see them, they're crawling out of a James Marshal who shape hole in the cement. And they're like, oh, and there's little tails who's fluttering around their heads. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So they're running around the runner on San Francisco. They take this fight out of San Francisco, of course. Sonic, let me say what I want to mention only started to have that San Francisco a notoriously overcrowded city with where the

and that's why the real surprises are so high and everything. The streets are so empty. There's maybe one car per road because they have to see G-I the thing. And I was like, it is a slow day in San Francisco. Maybe this is happening during the quarantine. Like there's nobody out on the streets. So they throw a ring and they go to Egypt. Where else do they go before? They eventually just end up back in Green Hills

because Sonic has a limited imagination. Do they go to, yeah, where do they go beside from Egypt? I was waiting for them to be like all over the world, but they don't go that many places. No, the Great Wall, that was on his office. Oh, that's right, and they run the Great Wall. And he's like, finally I can open up. And he doesn't, again, they should be knocking over

Taurus left and right, but there's nobody on the Great Wall. Now, for a big special effects movie, the imagination of this film is limited in terms of scope. Yeah, I mean, he should have opened a portal to the moon, runs past Neil Armstrong, and he's like, one small step for a man, one giant leap for a hedgehog, and then ground the trolls like, what was that? And then he goes through Paris, and they run up and down the Eiffel Tower, and a mime goes, Socrates Blu, and then covers his mouth with his hand because he's not supposed to talk. He's a mime.

Oh, there is a mime joke, right? Like, they do go to Paris. Oh, you're right, they do go to Paris and there is a mime and this girl does not enjoy this mime and then she sees Sonic behind the mime and laughs. That's not the mime joke they should do. They should have done mime mime joke. And then like, they go to, I don't know, Japan

and there's Sam Ryer or something, you know, kids' ideas of what countries are like. The country's just still what we think. There's a, they remember the wild west. I wrote a joke once for the Daily Show that did not make it on the air, I think. That was during the big uprising in Toreer Square that overthrew Mubarak.

And I was like, so now there's a new thing for us to know about Egyptian history. And I had a timeline of Egyptian history and it said pyramids, 3000 BC, and then nothing until now. And then, because all Americans know about Egypt is the pyramids, which is thousands of years ago. But instead, they just did the pyramids in the Great Wall, and then that one moment in France.

Yeah, but not as good as mine. OK, so Sonic eventually ended up going to Rio and its carnival and Sonic, it's like hiding behind ladies. But you would love that, Dan. So they end up in Green Hills hills all the locals show up. Uh, it looks like it looks like Sonic gets blasted and he's lying on the ground and we're like, whoa, Sonic's dead.

And then like Tom starts to stand up. Wait, if I get it. So Jamel, did you think Sonic was dead at this point? Uh, I did not know. Okay, so. Well, the way to speaking for himself then. So everybody assumes Sonic is dead. He's covered in scorch marks and you're like, man, he got roasted. And then Tom uses a ring to jump on the back of Robotnik's thing and you're like, oh, wait, oh, that didn't work. And then Tom pledges his eternal friendship,

which of course, wakes Sonic up in friendship lightning. Sonic-like is totally cheesed out. He's like super yoked. And he starts bouncing all around and blasting Robotnik before knocking him onto the mushroom planet. The locals rally around Sonic. After one crazy weekend, they all decided

to just move back to montana a government official shows up with an olive garden gift certificate to thank them for high covering up the situation and i assume getting rid of a botanick yeah i'd i'd i'd this this this seemed unclear to me like what the hell like why the government who sent in robot nika suddenly like uh... work with you just keeping this alien

and thanks for everything you did. And it's like, okay, I would appreciate at least one scene before that where they're calling him and be like, we're Robotnik, you're destroying cities, or I don't know, it just seemed very strange that they just turned around immediately, and like, thanks for your service.

It was also around this time that I started wondering, how old is Sonic supposed to be like, is he a kid or is he a grown up? Because if he's a kid, there's something very weird about James Marson, like sharing a hotel room with this kid that he just met. But if he's a grown up, it's very weird that he's like just wearing shoes and no other clothes. It's a 90s young teen, a young teen is the vibe I got.

I don't know. Okay. He's Ageless and journal. Okay. Yeah Yeah, so they welcome Sonic into their home We get a post credit scene where Jim Carey fully goes Dr. Robotnicki looks just like the guy in the video game, which is like such a classic Like adaptation of a property where they're like we're gonna introduce you to the the bad guy before he actually looks like the bad guy you're familiar with. Yeah. To that end, I just wanna say,

him with his crazy mustache, like growling to himself on this really kind of fun-looking mushroom planet, I was like, this is the movie I wanted to watch the whole time. Yeah, it's kinda how I felt when I saw Joker, and at the end he's the Joker, and I was like, okay, I'm kinda interested to see what the Joker does now, and then the credit started,

and I was like, wait, what? I just watched this guy be sad for two hours. Now he's finally the Joker and the movie's done. And then we get our second post-credit scene, and that's Tails, baby. Yeah, Tails Hopster goes, my reader's advice says that Sonic should be here and flies off into the distance, and that was when I turned to my wife. She was not watching the movie with me, be here and flies off into the distance. And that was when I turned to my wife. She was not watching the movie with me,

but she happened to be in the room. And I turned her and I was like, so when the first Avengers movie ended and Thanos turned around and I got really excited, is this that, was that as dumb as the idea that the audience would get excited that Tails is gonna be in the next movie? Like, is my stuff that I'm passionate about

as stupid as this stuff? And guys, I gotta- Probably, I'll let you. Probably, I gotta hope that Jim Starlin's philosophical work in the Thanos comics did not make it so, but there's part of me. It really brought me down to be like, okay, so when I get excited,

when my character shows up, it's just as stupid as if I was there and like, Tails showed up and I was like tails? Yeah, I mean, I'll defend the difference there because like Thanos is like kind of a deep cut like not every single person who's familiar with suit like Marvel comics would know who he was prior to that And tails is like in the title of the second or third Sonic game, right? Yeah, okay, yeah, there's a stop. So that makes it better than they're introducing an SNS-a-dir-a-dir-a-dir-dir-dir. No, it makes it, you're right, great's there. I was just gonna say, Elliot, it's not the same.

Okay, thank you. I was watching this with my wife, and this is the point I would she looked up and goes, the fuck is that? And I said, it's a fox. Yeah. Similarly, as long as we're telling stories about watching this with our significant others, I, like toward the end, Audrey was like, so do you think we're going to, I guess, are we going to see tales?

And I'm like, no, I guarantee you, the last thing in this movie is gonna be Tails appearing and being like saying something like, finally, I found him or something like that. And lo and behold, that's exactly what happens at the end of this movie. Exactly. I wasn't sure if it was gonna be Tails or if it was gonna be Knuckles coming through the portal

and being like, all right boys, get him. You know, or something like that. Yeah, that would have been interesting, right? Knuckles shows up and and being like, all right boys, get him. You know, or something like that. Yeah, that would have been interesting, right? Nuckles shows up and it's like, you know, we gotta finish the job. Yeah, but it's like Tails is gonna find him and what. It's like, I mean, if there's, I assume they're gonna make a sequel

because this movie did well. But that might end up being like the end of the Super Mario Brothers movie where the princess comes to the portal with this huge gun and is like, we need your help and we never found out what that was about because they never made another movie. Man, I love it. Uh, yeah, so that was Sonic the Hedgehog.

It was like just exactly enough of a movie. Uh, I didn't hate it. Uh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, How many years have we been doing this podcast like I feel like every time we do it? Too many Dan too many people People start giving their final judgments before the we introduce the segment that we've established since the beginning Which is called final judgments? You're right. Let's start being professional now. I guess so should I just continue talking about this movie without any opinion? Injected Dan should I talk about it like I'm gonna Robotnik's drones perhaps. We have a dedicated segment where you can give your opinion.

Yet you feel like you must give it beforehand. Is this a good bad movie? A bad bad movie or a movie you kinda like, Stuart, what are you gonna say about it? You have an opinion about it. Oh, oh, you want my opinion now. Oh, okay. Yes, starting the right thing, bro. Okay, okay.

I don't know. It was, it was fine. It was short. I actually like, you know, it's, there's a lot of jokes. I don't know what it would be like if you're a parent and you have to watch this with your kid a million times. But yeah, I was fine. I guess it's, it's not a movie I like and it's not really, I get, it's, I was fine. I guess it's not a movie I like, and it's not really, I don't know, I guess it's a movie.

It's almost like this shows why our final judgment segment is a little flawed, and that so often the movies don't fit the three categories. I mean, people can say that in the segment. I just want to, you know, I would say this movie is, like, as people have said, it's relatively short at an hour 40. It could have been 90 minutes. When I watch 90 minutes, what would you cut, Dan? The part where Sonic is just riding a mechanical bowl for no reason?

Probably. When I watch a movie like this that has so little in the way of like interesting plot turns or characterization, I am amazed at movies or TV shows that are much shorter, that pack in so much character development and interesting plot turns. I'm like, how do these exist to the same universe? Do like better movies have some sort of time dilation power where they're able to stuff in? So I don't know, like this movie looks okay. The director is like an animation director

and the actors are giving it their all. It just doesn't have much to it. I think that like if you're eight, this is probably a pretty good movie. There are a couple of off-color jokes that don't need to be in there, but that's the best I would say about it. Like this movie could be worse.

Is my... Yeah, I didn't quite like it for myself, but like I could see allowing my children to watch it. I will say grading it on the very poor curve of video game-based movies. Yeah. I think it probably is pretty, is relatively high on that curve. Yeah, it's up there with, up there with double dragon, right?

Yeah, it's right up there with double dragon and doom and Chun Lee, street bar the legend of Chun Lee, like, and Mortal Kombat, and like, there's, as far as movies based on video games go, this is one of the better ones. But it's still not, I would, if you're over the age of like nine, I wouldn't be like pop it in, you're gonna love it. So incidentally, we actually watched Mortal Kombat last,

not last night with the night before, because we were just throwing the Netflix news on, and I haven't seen it the long time. And it was a movie that I watched a ton of as a little kid. And Mortal Kombat is a worse movie, but it's bad and interesting ways. It's not bland at all. It's just kind of like kind of gonzo.

And that makes it way more enjoyable than Sonic, which is objectively a better put together movie, but it's just so bland and paint by numbers and obviously written by committee. put together movie, but it's just so bland and paint by numbers and, you know, obviously written by committee. Yeah. That it kind of like, it's like the only thing about Sonic that I would recommend anyone is just like, yeah, you can see Jim Carrey do his thing for, you know, 40 minutes tops.

And that's fun, I guess. But there's nothing like, there's nothing crazy about it, it's just sort of like a movie. This is definitely, this is the movie you put on, if you have that car with the TV in the back seat for kids, like you just put it on and you ignore it. And in an hour and 40 minutes later,

hopefully you've made it through traffic and you're where you need to be. Well, and it doesn't have like, it doesn't have any like super irritating musical numbers. It doesn't have like any particularly like long extended annoying parts. Like I feel like it's actually pretty, you know, it goes pretty fast. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I'm casting Jim Carrey goes a long way for me in making it more bearable.

I, uh, correct me. So I haven't seen moral combat since I saw it in the theaters. Uh, I kind of remember a guru just walking out and then, and then not making a big deal about guru being there. Is that, does that, the case or does he get a big build up? No, that's totally the case. There's a scene where Kano is like eating chicken and gurus in the chair and the camera turns to guru.

Just like, oh, yeah, here, here's it's like for armed, you know, man guy. It's monster giant with four arms. No, I mean, so the thing I forgot about that movie is it starts with the Mortal Kombat theme song. Like, there's no, there's no like open and credit to anything. It's just like immediately the theme song plays and it's like at the volume's like 120% and it all sit in all seriousness. Like I kind of lost my mind.

Like I heard it and I was like I got like legitimately excited to watch the movie. It was a very strange feeling. Yeah, you like look down in your remote control had been shattered by your fist. Okay, so wait, can you guys think of any genuinely good movies based on video games? Are there any? Uh, I want someone to write us in. Taking a, taking a Pellum 123. Yeah, yeah, that's based on the video game. Sure. Yeah, and of course, there's the movie, uh, which is based on that rail shooter Descent, right? Right, yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah. I'm looking at a list. But are you checking it twice? The, oh god, this is not a great list at all. I kind of like the first Resident Evil. Like later on it gets like way into like mythology and I don't follow it's like it's got as complex a mythology as the fast and furious movies to ignore the that element of them.

This is very just okay. It's not. I don't know. Yeah, wait, wait, I thought Rampage was like much better than I expected it to be. Oh, see, I never saw rampage. I used to love that game as a kid, because it was what I wanted to do, just smashed up. Did it? Do any of the monsters turn into a person in their underpants, though?

That's the question. That was the best part, yeah. Because it was not so big now. Are you a big bully? Yeah, I think they're all just monsters that have been mutated. I don't think they're actually humans that have become monsters. And that was the point.

I want to take you with a, I'm looking up on Google movies. Oh, I have an answer to this. It just came out detective, detective Pikachu is actually pretty good. Oh, okay. Now, Google has a category here fantasy movies about video games. And they have some interesting movies in this section, Beowulf, Lord of the Rings, Big Trouble in Little China,

King Kong, the original. I don't know who's a city of lost children. I don't know who is, what algorithm is making these video game movies, but okay, oh, the wizard, that's a movie about video games. There you go, great movie, sure. They visit those dinosaurs from Peabies Big Adventure, they introduce the power glove in Super Mario 3. Oh, yeah, You'll Martin. Yeah, oh my God. So much pressure.

I stand up of the new standup since 1987. I'm a writer for Conan. I've written a couple books, have a couple CDs out, have a special out. Who are you, Jackie? Well, I do have a standup comic since 1984. And I do the road like a maniac and don't have a cool writing job, but I have four albums out working on a new album.

We talk about stand-up, we talk about all the different parts of stand-up comedy, so that's the Jackie and Laurie show, and you should subscribe on Maximum Fun if you wanna hear that. And I would encourage you not to. Welcome. Thank you, Paul.

These are real podcast listeners, not actors. What do you look for in a podcast? Reliability is big for me. Power. I'd say comfort. What do you think of this? Oh. Oh.

That's Jordan Jesse Go. Jordan Jesse Go. They came out of the floor. And down from the ceiling? that can't be safe. I'm upset. Can we go now? Soon. George Jesse Goe, a real podcast. Now we go on to the... the, whoo, apparently on Rotten Tomatoes, the best ranked video game movie is the Angry

Birds movie 2, which seems strange, but I just think the Pikachu is right behind it. It's the Empire Strikes Back of the franchise. Finally, finally Angry Birds got serious, and they really, they had a darker story. Okay, well, the flop house is sponsored in part by ExpressVPN. Hey, look, unless you are an essential worker, and if you are, God bless you, stay safe out there. You were probably stuck at home a lot, and not only can ExpressVPN protect your privacy and security online, but you can also use it to unlock movies and television shows that are only available in other countries. You may have run out of stuff to watch already and you can use that ExpressVPN service to change your location to almost 100 different countries. Just think about all the extra

libraries you'll be able to access, for instance, outside of the US, you could watch Star Trek Discovery on Netflix UK, Fresh Prince of Bel Air on Netflix Australia, Black Adder, but also on Netflix UK, all kinds of movies and television programs. So it's compatible with all of your devices, phones, media consoles, smart TVs, and more. You can watch what you want on a personal device or on the big screen wherever you are. If you visit our special link right now at expressvpn.com slash flop, you can get an extra three months of ExpressVPN for free. Support our show, watch what you want, and protect yourself with ExpressVPN at expressvpn.com slash flop.

No one has anything to say about that. So let's move on to Jumbo Troms. I think I sent you some Jumbo Troms. Support our sponsors. That's what I would say. I got a Jumbo Troms store. Do you want to go first?ums? I think I sent you some jumbo trums. Support our sponsors, that's what I would say. I've got to jump at trums, do you want to go first? Do you have one? I do. This message is for Merghan, the message is from Mert. Bwa, bwa, bwa, bwa, bwa. Introducing Dr. Last Name with Held, I'm so proud of you

for passing your dissertation defense, even if you decline to title it. Intrigues, intrigues, intrigues! You continuously amaze me with your hard work, courage, and caring. I'll always be there for you, even after 10 p.m. PS, tacos for dinner. Okay, we end with a mystery. Okay, we end with a mystery. See, that's the extra Zaz that you get with a Stuart Wellington Jumbo-Tron raid. Now he's set the mark.

Pretty high. So let me try if I can outdo it. Okay, check out my wife's new book from Northwestern University Press, imitation artist, Gertrude Hoffman's Life in Vodville, and dance. Gertrude Hoffman was a dancer in the gay 90s, who became a Vodville superstar and one of the highest paid entertainers in America through her innovation of bringing over popular dances

from overseas before the original companies could. Sunny Stalter Pace shows how Hoffman influenced the rise of contemporary celebrity culture through performance of gender, race, and national identity. If you're interested in modernism, theater, and dance history, women or copyright, it's a must-read. So that's imitation artist, Gertrude Hoffman's life in Vaudeville and Dance. You make fun of me as a producer sometimes, but see, I do things like making sure to assign

Elliot the jumbo tron that mentions Vodville and Stuart the one that mentions tacos. So that's the kind of value that I'm bringing to the show as a smart producer. You're really earning that $400,000 a year producing bonus. Okay. Look guys, I took over the board fair and square so I can vote myself. Okay, anyway, that bit has petered out, so let's go on to one more thing in this section

which is to remind listeners that Max Fun is running a survey to help figure out which advertisers are a good fit for our audience. We are still primarily audience supported and you know we realize that times are tough right now we appreciate anyone who is supporting us and we will always continue to be audience supported but advertising can be a big help especially right now. The results of the survey will help us talk to new advertisers, convince them to give us a shot, it's short shouldn't take more than 10 minutes, and you'll get a discount at the Max Fun Store for filling it out as well as our gratitude. So go to maximumfund.org slash add survey to fill it out.

I filled out that survey as a Max Fun listener, and I enjoyed it, but I also like filling out surveys. It makes me feel important. Oh, they care what I think. Yeah, sure monetize this, please. Okay, so we've bored Jamel long enough. So let's move on to a non-businessy section of recording the podcast.

I mean, that's usually what you would say when we would end the show and let him go, finally, for the day. You know, we bored Jamel long enough. Let's do 30 more minutes end the show and let him go finally for the day. You know, we've looked up with open eyes. 35 minutes of the show. He's like, please let me go back to my wife and darling child that we've seen in the background running around.

No, but we have to do letters first. This first letter is from John last name with held. It's titled Cincinnati. A worthless Peter regart story. Love it already. Dear Flapphouse, you guys were talking about Peter regert in the Oscar episode and I wanted to share my Peter regert anecdote. When I was a kid around 1994, my mom had heard they were filming something a fluke, a few blocks away from my house in Portland, Oregon, and that Peter Regert was in it.

Mom loved Peter Regert because local hero is her and dad's favorite movie. I remember that Jane Curtin was also filming in this thing, and my IMDB sleuthing tells me it was the pilot episode of mystery dance. Anyway, we rode our bikes to set. I got to meet- I like Peter Regert, they love, they bikes to set. I got to meet. I like the, I like the, it's Peter Rieger.

They love they love local here. Here's their favorite. Jane Curtain was also there. What is it? What a snub. Jane Curtain. Not, not the, not the Kate and Allie fan that they are the local hero fan.

They like Kate, but not Allie, which was which on that show. I don't know. That's a show that I watch. I remember watching as like a young child and it's one of those ones where like, the premise didn't seem like targeted at me. No, I don't think you were,

I used to watch it every day in syndication. And to this day, the only episode I remember is the flashback episode that was just them recapping scenes from previous episodes. I mean like, hey, remember when, but I as a kid, I think I don't remember what the premise was. As a kid, I just assumed they were married. I assumed they were lesbians who were married. No, there were two, that would probably have been a better show, but there were two divorcees who were living together, moved

to their families in together. Anyway, yeah, that doesn't sound targeted to you. And that usually makes you pretty angry based on your letterbox reviews, right? When the media isn't targeted toward you. Shut up. I'm just often astounded by the things I watch as a TV as a kid, just because they're on TV, when there are not things that like my life experience things I watch as a TV as a kid just because they're on TV When there are not things that like my life experience at that time as a child would have set me up to enjoy I've often said the

The show dear John with Jud Hersh about a very sad man recovering from his divorce Yeah, maybe today it would have I mean like I'm I'm not sad anymore But like a few years ago, it may have spoken to me very well, but right now, but as a kid, I don't know what I saw on that. That shit. The fact that as a kid, my favorite things to watch were Gremlins 2, Golden Girls, and Empty Nest. It was like, yeah, I was either watching the Golden Girls

Empty Nest hour, or I was watching Gremlins 2 or the Dark Crystal. And for some reason, those were equivalent levels of entertainment to me. I mean, that's sort of the magic of like the age of cable and just like TV's on whatever it's on. You get as a kid, you can just stumble on the stuff that makes no sense for a child to watch. But some kids are really taken with it. So like when I was, you know, 10 or 11, I watched all of mash because it came on on TV land right before it went to bed. And so I ended up just like over the course of two years, like watching most of that series. And on Saturdays, I

think there was a, it was like a two hour long block, or an hour and a half or whatever. And it was designing women and in the heat of the night. So I like watch those every Saturday. That's can miss television, you know. All right, kids will never know that because my son, he's just like, newsies put it on and he can just watch newsies whenever. So he's never going to have to know what it's like to be like, what's on television? I guess it's what's going in my face right now is, yeah, this is an indicated show from before I was born, you know.

I'll never know the joy of WKRP in Cincinnati. I mean, nobody will, because they can't release the original episode because it's the music clearance rights. It's a shame, because that's actually a very, very funny show. Anyway, anyway, we wrote our bikes to set. I got to meet Peter Reegert and this lady who my mom thought was Jane Curtin.

Peter Reegert was super cool and talked to my mom and I for about 10 minutes and even signed my baseball glove. I've been a big fan of those ever since and have always been delighted when he pops up and stuff. I still have that baseball glove somewhere though the autograph has likely faded. Oh, and it turns out that wasn't Jane Curtain. Thanks for the laughs and keep on flopping John Lasting without so a double insult to Jane Curtain. Yeah, usually when you say a person that I thought was so-and-so,

the implication is pretty clear that it wasn't that person. Like, it's never like, and then I ran into someone I was pretty sure was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it was. Well, also I tipped the twist ending by really punching that I thought was Jane Curtain because I knew the end of the beginning. So how much do you think a baseball glove signed by Peter Rieher it would go for? Again, he's not a baseball player. You know, almost $25.

But at that point, are you paying for the autographer for the quality of the baseball glove? Yeah, that's a good question. It's a question. Sometimes you meet it, sometimes you meet a celebrity and you just need to sign something. I have a friend who, when we were in college, George Clinton was performing and signing records at the bookstore. And she went and didn't have a George Clinton record, but had a copy of the wealth of

nations on her. So she has a George Clinton signed copy of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. That's even better than my copy of Elmer Gantry signed by Neil Gaiman, because that was the book I had on me at the time. Maybe George Clinton did write wealth of nations. I mean, it's possible. But there's time travel involved. At the time travel, Adamorthy wrote about funk and

the. Yeah. You know, it's like the hand of funk. Right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad Jamel said funk because I I'll admit that I spaced out for a moment and I came back and I'm like, wait, are we talking about parliament? Fuck it. Alex George Clinton? What's going on? No, we're talking about New York governor in the 1790s George Clinton. OK.

Who also was very funky. And that's a valuable autograph because you can't get that anymore. Yeah, yeah, very much. He came after New York governor Bootsie Throckmorton. OK. This second and final letter is from Tony New York governor Bootsie Throckmorton. Okay. This second and final letter is from Tony Lastname withheld, who writes hayflop crew.

You know what's interesting about Tony is his middle name is Tony and his last name is Tony, but they're all spelled differently. That is interesting. My friends and I just started a movie group so we can connect with each other during this time. Do you have any tips for engaging conversation on movies? Are there any thought-provoking questions you rely on?

I don't have a good one here other than like I do think it's interesting to sort of look at the individual elements of a movie, you know, direction versus writing versus acting versus look of a film, even though they're also deeply interconnected, you don't wanna separate them completely. It's a way that you can kind of talk about movies without just saying I liked it or didn't like it because they're maybe mixed elements in it that you like or just like, but I would say maybe put a little effort into researching

what different people are, are into or like what they do on a movie because this is a weird like personal pet peeve, but I often find people like complaining about movies they think are too long and being like, oh, they needed a good editor on this movie. Like, that's really like a screenplay problem compounded by the director not knowing what to cut after seeing the screenplay shot. Like the editor is not like necessarily making decisions on like,

like, oh, let's just cut out this entire subplot unless he's like making Annie Hall or something. So unless the editor is Ralph Rosenblum, you do not, it's probably not in his purview. Yeah, well, I guess I'm making assumptions about what the audience knows, but like that movie was vastly different, and Woody Allen was a nation filmmaker at that time and didn't quite know how to do it. And so a lot of that film was made in the editing. You've read his book, right? Yes.

When the shooting stops, the cutting begins. It's a great book, but it's like, it's kind of funny because it's also like, and here's another story about a movie I saved. That's cool. Yeah, I feel like, I mean, I would say do something like what our buddies over at Blank Check do, which is you can always look at a movie in the context of when it was released, and what other movies came out around the same time and I think that leads some kind of fun conversation but that might just be for, you know, moving nerds. Well, and also like where it falls in that filmmakers uvra to use the annoying word.

I would say I don't have any thought-provoking questions, but I would say a tip for engaging in conversation on movies is to avoid two definitive statements about things that are matters of taste not being like this was the worst movie or this was the best movie or like This is anyone who likes this is dumb or like you liked it so you're dumb like to just go into it and be ready to You piece of shit you get it it, get the fuck outta here. Like that's not a light way to talk. But to go into it kind of being open about like,

if I like a thing and someone else doesn't like it, that's okay, if they like it and I don't like it, that's okay. And I want to talk to them and find out why they felt this way or why I felt this way without it becoming a battle. Unless your relationship with your friends is you like to argue with them. I like, there are certain friends of mine that I like to argue with, but you kind of have to know how to keep in your mind in certain bounds of like, I respect these people and

I respect their taste. So if we disagree, that's okay and I don't want to go too far in what I'm saying. Well, also just knowing that like a matter of taste is often informed by the perspective of the person, which is often informed by the life that they have led, which for instance, if I talk about a movie with Audrey, like on a very basic level, she, as a woman, may have concerns that I don't have as a man, or removing it from that sort of identity, like if you

grew up a certain place with a certain way, like it's an opportunity to widen your perspective through putting yourself in their shoes, I think. But it's also even just the fact that like I had to come to terms at a certain point with that, that just like big trouble in little China just doesn't do it for me, but it does it for a lot of my friends. And I can't, it's not worth it for me to argue either way, you know? No, no, I think it's important in the age of the internet to like realize that these are things that are a matter of opinion

and not a personal affront. But I do think that there's like an extra level of learning that you can put on top of that and be like, okay, like I'm broadeningening my personal perspective by empathy. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's like a movie that I'm surprised hasn't been re-evaluated in some ways is his girlfriend Friday. And I remember the first time watching that with my wife and me being like, this movie is so funny, you got to watch it. And she's like, okay, well, I see this woman constantly being crushed by her husband.

And then at the end, her dreams for her life are destroyed. It's like, okay, well, yeah, but it's really funny, right? Like it was. No, I've had the exact same thing with Audrey, who likes the movie, who thinks it's very funny, but it's also like, but he's a monster. Farble to her. And we had a similar experience with Iced a bit on my grave. But anyway, so, Jimelle, do you have any tips about? Wait, wait with I spit on my grave.

But anyway, so, Jimel, do you have any tips about- Wait, wait, I spit on my own grave? Yeah, I guess it's I spit on your grave. You don't want to spit on your own grave. Except there's a vehicle, I spit on my grave or someone has to get revenge on themself. Now, Jimel, I know, I follow you on Letterboxed, so I know that you are both a great fan of movies and an

incisive writer about them. What do you have to say about this? I mean, I guess when I'm like talking to, if I'm like at a party or something and talking about movies or, you know, in the before times when there were still parties, when I was at the movies came up, should I not date the podcast like that? Oh, parties. Oh, parties. Wait, hold on. I'm sorry. What is a party? That's what you're doing to parties even the book or time. No, that's true. I wasn't. Or if I went there, I would leave as quickly as possible.

Which for me, it took a long time to leave them. But my wife would always be like, okay, we wanna leave in like an hour, start saying goodbye to people. Yeah. But I do think, how would you talk to people? I look for stuff that I'm very enthusiastic about in a movie and sort of just talk about that. I find that trying to have a conversation about something

unless both people agree that the thing is bad or whatever, I think it's kind of difficult to have a negative discussion, but say like, oh, have you seen this movie? Or we saw this movie and this is this element of the movie. I really like and here's why in my experience can get people talking either because I disagree or they agree or they can think of other similar examples, you know, getting people to be enthusiastic about things

tends to, in my experience, lead to pretty good conversation. That's a good idea. Yeah, I'm with you. I mean, yeah, it's all about like trying to find something people are excited about and actually want to talk about. I find like, when I'm bartending, I'm always like trying to, you know, I'm trying to find things to talk to people about and I'm like, I stopped saying, got any plans for the weekend because I got tired of being like, oh,

no, huh? Just this, huh? Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're bartending and you're like, so things going great. And the customers are like, yeah. Be like a steward.

Remember to ask people about themselves. Not like a Dan who is interested in other people but forgets to do that very simple thing. No Dan I mean you assume that people just open themselves up to you without no. I've had this such a genuine nerve. I've had this talk with many people over the years like I don't want to like blame my upbringing because I have my own agency, but I did grow up in a very quiet Midwestern home where asking people about themselves was equivalent to prying a lot of times.

And we assumed that if people wanted to talk about things, they would just bring it up. Now, it seems like there's certain parts of the country where people are just quieter and less intrusive and the difference between them, I'm talking mainly about the Midwest and the Northeast, is that the Northeast, it's from a spooky point of view where like you can't, if you ask somebody about themselves, they may curse you because they're a witch. When in the Midwest, it's more like, you know, it's like, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to

try attention to myself. I want to ask you any questions. I don't know. Is that the case, Dan? Or as someone who comes from New Jersey where everyone's always talking loud and wants all the attention constantly is scarfing down pizza at the beach Like am I wrong from my perspective? I'm kind of baffled by what the the bid is here about the witches in Northeast I mean you got to spend more time in New England. I guess it's full It's it's full everything everything is kind of dark and spooky and scary, whereas in the Midwest, everyone's just kind of quiet. Yeah. And I was really hoping that you were going to tell me that the Midwest was also full of folklore.

Uh, just like children of the corn. It's like if you go behind the dumpster behind the Benagans you This is smoking like a true midwestern that you're like, ah those damn children the corner out again Don't want to make a big fuss about it just ignore them Just don't you set it like you're your your farmer and they're like, I don't know critters in your in your yard Someone get the 22 we got to take care of the children of the corn again. You're just going, yeah, yeah, get, get, go to someone else's corn. Now, the children of the corn, I don't remember it well. Were they grew out of corn stocks, right?

Like the Huskwood open and be a child inside? Yep. They sort of, they're sort of a, what do you call them? They're, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The mechanic called the worship some sort of corn god, I think, and the kill adults. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and, and get, and get these brought them into life by opening a corn stock and finding a baby in there.

She's, she's the one who in her lab mixed the DNA of a baby in a corn. Yeah. I mean, considering how much of it we eat because of all those government subsidies, I guess we're all children of the corn, am I right? Oh, shit! Shots fired corn industry. Anyway, Dan, what do we do next on the podcast? Next on the podcast, we recommend movies that we enjoyed that, you know, leave Sonic to

the Kids, maybe watch one of these. Before we go, Dan, I just want to say, Sammy was very, and was very, very emphatic that he wanted me to recommend Newsies. I'm not going to recommend it for me, but if you are, you want to watch his favorite movie, Go Watch Newsies. Dan, continue. Okay.

I'm going to go back a little bit, because I've only been watching dumb stuff recently, and say that you should watch Jim and I, which is kind of a modern neon-drenched, like almost like mumble-cord and noir that's focused on, it's a very female focus, which is nice. It is a Lola Kirk plays the assistant to a woman, an actress who is found murdered, and the evidence kind of points to her, but it's weirdly kind of pleasantly low stakes in that like, the evidence kind of points to her, but also no one seems to be that convinced it's her, but she decides to solve the mystery because she's just this kind of industrious character. And what I liked about it is it looks beautiful and the

But mostly the characters feel very lived in like she seems like a character that I Think I know in life, but don't see in the movies where she's like this young woman up and coming Sort of like vaguely hip-streetreet but not like painfully so who is just clearly comes from not that much and is working hard to uh... come up in the world as this woman's assistant and um... and kind of like half

wants to solve the murder mystery because this woman was sort of her best friend and a way and half it's just kind of an extension of her being this woman's assistant and being like, oh well this is the kind of the last thing I can do for her. And it's, you know, funny and a little twisty. Again, feels really low stakes for a movie with murder in it, but a lot of fun. Jim and I. Now, I'm confused. This is the Ang Lee Will Smith movie. No, that's Jim and I man. Oh, right, right, right, right. This is Jim and I woman. Now, this is this is Jim and I on the holograms. The cartoon about the rock band. Or movie. Yeah, true. It's not Jim and I, my own astrological story, neither. It is just a movie called Jim and I oh you're in the pocket of big starch wins I see yeah

So who wants to go next? anyone anyone Anyone I'll go okay, so I'm gonna recommend a movie I watched a little while ago like Dan But uh just cuz I've been so busy with life. This is a movie called In The Suit. It's a movie from 1992. It's our Steve Buscemi and Seymour Castell, and it's a very, very independent movie of the time,

and it feels so much like the kinds of movies that were coming out of the early 90s independent scene. And Steve Buscemi is a screenwriter, a wanna be kind of like screenwriter and director who has written a 500 page screenplay and needs a producer. And for some reason this kind of like small-time gangster decides that he wants to be the producer for this movie. And he really believes in Stevie Semi's talent as a filmmaker. But gets him into a series of kind of like offbeat misadventures. And the movie is kind of this Shai Yidog story kind of a movie, but I enjoyed it a lot.

And Sima Kassel is so good at it as this character who like feels really real because he is alternately very charismatic and very strange and very at times unlikable. And it's just like, this is such a, like a complicated character but he's being presented in this movie that is a fairly cartoony movie. Anyway, I enjoyed it. It's called In the Soup.

See if you can find it and go watch it. I don't know. I think it's on Canopy right now. Stuart, go. I'm just signing people now. Oh, okay. I will recommend, I'm gonna recommend a movie called wheels on meals

uh... and before you ask and yes jackie chan is in this movie uh... it's directed by samohun uh... it is about a pair of guys who run a food cart and in spain and they get wrapped up in uh... some crime stuff and samahung's in it and he's got like one of the all-time top 10 Perms I've ever seen the movie and it also features a ton of like, you know, goofy comedy a lot of great slapstick and the But with all that said it also has like some of the craziest brutal fight scenes. The final fight between Jackie and the headhenchman, this actor, I am probably mispronouncing his name Benny Erquides is so intense and it's so vicious. There's stories that there were rumors that the two of them did not get along on set,

but of course they did because Jacob James great. But it's, it's like, it's such a like violent sequence in a movie that is pretty light other than that. So check it out, Wheels on Meals. Jim L. We recently over two nights watched Barry Linden. We were kind of making our way through Kubrick. And I had seen a bunch of Kubrick's, but I'd never seen Barry Linden. And my impression is that a lot of people really like it, what people really hate it. I absolutely loved it.

It's maybe the most beautiful movie I've ever seen. It's just like Gorgeously Shot and every frame looks like an actual painting. It's slow, but I kind of find it very compelling. It's the story of a would-be aristocrat and his misadventures through continental Europe in the late 18th century. It's much more entertaining than the way I just moved it sound. And I would highly recommend it. It might be my favorite Kubrick thus far. It's a surprisingly funny movie too, very like. Yeah. Like it's, I put it off watching it for

years because I always heard about it. Oh, it's so my dad would be like, what a slow movie. And I finally watched it years ago. And I was like, oh, this movie is it. Oh, it's so my dad would be like, what a slow movie. And I finally watched it years ago and I was like, oh, this movie is really compelling. And it's also really fun. Like I laughed so hard at the end of it, which is not like a, it's not really a joke, but there's just something about it has that kind of like, like tossed off cynicism in a way.

I don't know, like, it's a good movie. I mean, maybe it might just be like the larger moment we're living in, but the movie is such like a vicious skewering of, sort of refined, civilized culture. I mean, sort of the through line of the whole thing is that the aristocracy of late 18th century presents itself as being a courtly gentleman,

but the entire time they're killing each other in various ways or, you know, gambling or robbing each other blind. And so, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a very cynical, these people are monsters kind of film. And it might just be because we are living in an era where our would be aristocrats or a monsters that that really Yeah, that really resonates for me. I hate to break it to you. They're always monsters Yeah That was that Barry Lyndon was one that I always put off because I assumed it was like super dry And maybe I just heard that and then I remember coming across a trailer of it And it was so like fun and funny and also like the prettiest thing I've ever seen.

Yeah, I think it's reputation has like kind of been redeemed a bit recently, but it's still somehow seems to be kind of the overlooked Kubrick movie and I think I also think it's very good. Yeah, I think it's it's better than a lot of his other ones, but. Yeah. Yeah. And for people who love candles, this is the movie for you. All the, all the shandlers out there. Yeah. Well, okay, guys, we should let Jamal get back to doing important things, whether it be writing for the times

or actually spending time with his family. I mean, anything other than talking to us about Sonic the Hedgehog is more important than that, like it's... And Dan, Dan, I have to go open the takeout window with my small business, Dan. So that's important. And we also have to, like Stewart has been a real trooper here with his bad back, standing

through this hole. You guys don't like watching me dance around in my little screen? I mean, I did like it, but at a certain point I forgot it was about your back and I was just like, Stewart must have like a live crab in his pants. He's just moving around a lot. Yeah. Jamel, is there anything you want to plug before we go? Read my column at the New York Times. Sturze up on Tuesdays and Fridays.

If I send it from a newsletter, it's as time goes on, it's getting much more esoteric. I read about communist German refugees in the 19th century a couple weeks ago. They don't really tell me what I can't write about and so I write about anything interest me and my interest sometimes run very strange. Yeah.

I thought that one about the communist who became the Civil War, was he a general? Or was it a general? Yeah, Civil War. Yeah, Civil War, he became a general, late in the war. I thought that was a particularly fantastic one. Like I love how far ranging you've gotten. And it's really great.

So thank you. Thank you. Jimelle, is your Instagram public? Or is it? Yeah, no, it's public. Yeah, so if you want to, my Instagram, as Elliot suggested, I share lots of pictures of old buildings. I like old buildings a lot.

And yeah, so it's like the Instagram is mostly just photographs to take and then the stories is my kid and my dog. Well, now I was gonna say, there's two pleasures to your Instagram, which is your photos on the main Instagram are beautiful. And then your stories often show you cooking, which is my particular fascination. So, Elliot, where you used to say something sorry. No, I was going to ask, I was going to ask one, what you're cooking today.

And two, I'm constantly also, I'm like, how does he find the time to be a parent and have a job and take photographs and cook? I don't get it. He's like some kind of sonic the hedgehog moving faster than the speed of light. Um, the cooking, if it gets mostly, it's just like I've been doing it for so long that He's like some kind of sonic the hedgehog moving faster than the speed of light. The cookie, if I guess mostly it's just like I've been doing it for so long that I don't know how it organized my life if I weren't doing it. It's sort of like a grounding thing.

But tonight I am making from the cookbook, Modern J, vegetarian-India chickpeas and a fresh cilantro sauce with dry-fried okra. Okay, somebody insert a drooling emoji, right? I think we can only do emojis of hearts or people putting their fists in their hands. Over Skype. Yes, Skype's emoji selection is pretty weak. Although Zoom's is worse, it's just clapping hands or thumbs up. And there's no way to express disappointment.

Well, anyway, so everyone, you know, if you've got a little time to tell people about the flop house because I think our numbers are slightly down because people are not commuting or exercising during this. Where does the show's bad? Yeah, there's also that. We have taken a real slip in the slide and our episodes are now four to five hours long. That's true. But mostly take care of yourselves, take care of your families, be well for the

flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. Elliot Kaelin over here. Thanks for listening. I've been steward Wellington. Ellie Kaelin over here. Thanks for listening. I've been Jamel Buie. Bye. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Dan has a new career as a day trader. So he's got like three monitors up all the time. Right. Right. Big, big black Bloomberg terminal with the tax coming down. Exactly. He's like, guys, I'd love to recommend a movie, but the knee-k is going crazy right now.

Ha, ha, ha. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience supported. Artists owned. Audience supported.