The Flop House - Ep.#443 - Harold and the Purple Crayon

Episode Date: February 1, 2025

Harold and the Purple Crayon is a lovely, enduring children's classic (if you've never encountered it, have Steve Buscemi read it to you!) -- did Hollywood treat it with gentleness and respect, when they decided to use it as the jumping-off point for the movie "Harold and the Purple Crayon?" The answer may not surprise you!The LIVE tapings of season 2 of FlopTV end TONIGHT with TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze! But a season pass gets out access to the full line-up thru the end of February! And hey, while you’re clicking on stuff, why not subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets?!”Wikipedia page for Harold and the Purple CrayonRecommended in this episode:Dan: Brewster McCloud (1970) & Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) Stu: Flow (2024) Elliott: The Three Musketeers (1973)Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to www.squarespace.com/FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. 

Hi, Floppers. Before we start this episode, I just wanted to remind you we are in the middle of FlopTV Season 2. That's right, the one-hour internet televised Flophouse TV show is here for you the first Saturday of every month through February. Just go to theflophouse.simpleTix.com and get your tickets or season pass for this all-new Flophouse TV stuff. For covering movies we've never covered before, we've got video segments, it's amazing. Just go to theflophouse.simple-ticks.com for Flop TV Season 2. This time, it's personal. On this episode, we discuss Harold and the Purple Crayon. Now I haven't watched Harold and the Yellow Crayon. Am I I gonna be able to understand the sequel? Hey everyone and welcome to the Flophouse.

I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Cailin. I feel like we should leave it to like the whole like YouTube crazy face algorithm booster thing and just be as silly as possible. I do like I know I get a point out for all the listeners watching at home. booster thing and just be as silly as possible. It's like, oh, be, go. I do like, I know I got to point out for all the listeners watching at home, Dan McCoy's wearing a purple shirt.

That's true. I didn't even realize it was theme. Hell yeah, I love it. It's like when I don't watch the fucking endings. You just love this movie so much. Well, you missed something this time around. Yeah. Spoiler alert, probably. Zachary Levy was here is what the back of his shirt says. Did I pronounce his last name right? If I'm going to talk mad shit about this dude, I should learn his last name pronunciation. Yeah, I think it's, I don't know if it's Levy

or Levi. It's his middle name and not his original last name, but his middle name, but hmm Well, this is a lot of great trivia, right? Yeah, we're just goofing out of the cast We watched a movie called Harold and the Purple Crayon. Let me say let me let me back up a little bit In this podcast first principles. We watch a bad movie and we talked about it. How do we say what's a bad movie? It's generally we get like a critical or you know What the commercial critical consensus people saying check the train and weren't on the street, you know a flop Yeah, yeah, hey, yeah, hey, uh Reggie shiny

Do you hear about any bad movies lately? Yeah, I don't know. Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't. How about this? How about $10? Yeah, yeah, I did hear about a bad movie. There's something on Netflix. Something with Harold on Netflix. Harold and Maude?

Harold and something, but I'm gonna need another five. How much is it with you to find out the rest of the title? Here's $5. Harold and the Poyple. Oh, Poyple what?ol what? Oh, you know my pockets, they're empty. Wow. I don't know. I think I've got enough for the search function to complete it for me. I think Google will auto-fill this. Oh rats. Well, thanks for supporting me a little bit anyway. You know with AI search functions, people go to their local shoeshine boy to find information Yeah, so you know, but most of the time I purple to mess in

Even aliens Google is annoying. Yeah, it's too mess and ever used outside of erotic Is 2messent ever used outside of erotica? No, I don't think so. If you're like, I'll just check it. Harold and the Purple feet, Harold and the Purple married, Harold and the Purple net worth. Net worth, yeah, height. Yeah, but 90% of the time we go in blind, so sometimes we're surprised by a movie.

You mean 99% it's invisible? Yeah. Fuck. But this was one that got a lot, a lot of bad word around it. It's based of course on the book of the same name, Shulman's book. 64 page book, huh? Hmm, stretching it out.

What is this? Did Peter Jackson make this? Oh, just kidding. I would never make fun of Peter Jackson. You never would, never. Or his brother Michael Jackson. Now, here's, let me just talk about, let me just talk, or their father Andrew Jackson. Let you brother Michael Jackson. Now, here's... Let me just talk about... Let me just talk...

Or their father, Andrew Jackson. You love them all. Let me just talk about my history with Harold and the Purple Cran. I'm curious about your history with it. I am married to a children's librarian. I have two children. We read a lot of books. This is a particularly special book.

There's a few books. This, Extra Yarn, Where the Wild Things Are, a few children's books that are particularly, Ulysses, the James Joyce one, and also The Odyssey, some children's books that are particularly special to us. So when I heard they were making a movie of this, I was like, oh, it's such a simple, straightforward story.

There's not a lot of plot, there's not a lot of characters. It's literally just about what you can do with visually, imaginatively, with drawing on a two-dimensional surface Like they better not make a movie where like it's like we've got to get the purple crayon out of the bad guys Clutches and then that's exactly what they did So I'm saying so even going into this I was not gonna give this movie the benefit of the doubt So that's on me. That's on me as the critical eye, you know Worse with it than like just that.

Like if it was like, I don't like that idea, but if it was just that and sort of still stayed within the world of Harold, but it was like, the even more cookie cutter, like we gotta just turn this into every sort of other movie where it's like, yeah, let's make him a real human in the real world, but with his crayon things. And he grew up, that's what you wanna see, right? In this make him a real human in the real world, but with his crayon things and he grew up

That's what you want to see right in this book about a child's imagination and discovering the power of imagination and art and holly What what what if he's old enough that he could conceivably have a romantic subplot with a single mom, you know what? Yeah, say yeah that they That they decided to be it, you know? What if there was like a scene where like she has to teach him how to use his wiener? Honestly, I fear that this would be, you know, forthcoming. You know, this is like the male version of born sexy yesterday, born unsexy yesterday, like just kind of a man child goofball

It's kind of like the Jason Bourne stories, right? Yeah, yeah exactly with that. So I so I will apologize going in I was going in ready to dislike this movie High bar for the movie to clear but you know what guys? They did it. What a wonderful masterpiece Yeah, I mean I gotta say I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder because the lead is an actor I don't particularly care for, nor do I care for his personal views on the world.

But he does a great job in this. It's not at all like it's a one-note performance of annoying forced positivity, right? Yes, like somebody who is in a theater camp performance of Elf, the musical. Let's think, people have pointed out, they are both playing into their previous strengths, like Shazam, Boy Man, for Zachary, and for Zoe,

the double Z's, they call them, ZZ Tops on set, top of the call sheet. She was the elf love interest so she's had to deal with this shit before So yeah, she's in she's in the movie elf. I feel like I've only seen it once. She's the she's on the shelf The romantic interest that makes a little feral here at least he keeps her on the shelf just to keep his options open. Yeah Something I don't want to harp on too much, because I feel like it's unfair. I don't know what the budget was,

apparently according to Wikipedia, is $40 million, which seems like a lot for this movie, but there are special effects in it. But I will say that overall, it looks and sounds very cheap. There's like a feeling you get sometimes when you're watching a low budget movie where the camera moves look like real movie camera moves

There's real movie actors in it, but everything feels kind of like TV movie And I don't know if you guys felt that way while you were watching it I I can see where the cheapness came out for me was that he's got this Magical purple crayon, but mostly he, you know, until the end, he just makes like kind of like, oh, a skateboard or a bicycle or, you know, like stuff like very basic stuff. I'm like, well, seen all that shit before. Yeah. Yeah. 3D printer. It's basically the same thing.

I just I like that was the stuff where it's like you can make anything, but you're not in that field. But the actual look of the movie, like it just seemed like bright family movie style to me. This guy came out of animation, the director I looked him up did like Ice Age and stuff. So I think they're occasional places where he has a way with a site guy. He's got some bona fides. Yeah.

Yeah. But he really, somebody should really market a 3D printer called the Purple Cran. They should, but everything that comes out is purple. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Maybe that's the color of resin they use or whatever. It's the 3D printer that Prince would have used. Yeah.

Yeah. I did get the feeling, like you're saying, Dan, it's like this thing can draw anything. They do draw a couple of creatures, but it is mostly like here's a car, here's a hot air balloon, here's a plane. I did get the feeling kind of like with the, wait years ago when we watched Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, where they were like, enter my magical world of whimsy, we're going to jump on the mattresses at the mattress store.

And it was like, really? This is the biggest joy and delight gets? That's how whimsical you can be. Jumping on mattresses. That's the top whimsical thing. Just to ruin the mattress. So I'm going to ruin the mattress. So I'm going to do the summary for today.

So let me talk you through what happens in Harold and the Purple Cran. We start with an animated opening. It really feels like they're adapting the book, kind of. I'm going to stop you right there. Is this what the art in the... Because I haven't read the book. Not exactly. Because I'm not like a little kid.

It's like a slicker, more movie animation version of the art in the, because I haven't read the book. Not exactly. Because I'm not like a little kid, I'm a grown man. It's like a slicker, more movie animation version of the art in the book. It evokes it, but is 20% less charming than the actual book. Got it. Okay. I also wanted to stop you here though, Elliot, to ask you, did you treasure these early moments

with child Harold animated, knowing that it was the closest to actual magic this movie was gonna provide you? You know, you would think so No, because it just reminded me like oh this book is is genuinely magical and they've already kind of slicked it up the moment When they say they might notice they really depoeticize it like the book is very spare It's very straightforward But it's like he made some friends a moose and a porcupine and they went everywhere together It's like in the book the moose and the porcupine. And they went everywhere together. And it's like in the book,

the moose and the porcupine appear on one page. He made a bunch of pie. He didn't want to feed, he couldn't eat at all. So he makes a hungry moose and a deserving porcupine, which I always thought was such a funny, like, and just in doing that, the characters have more personality than they really get written in this movie.

But I started thinking about like, yeah, you're adapting a book that's really thin when it comes to story and characters. So everything that happens in it, they've got to make into a bigger deal. Like this moose and porcupine that appear on one page, they're now his best friends. They do everything with him.

And they have their wires cracking personalities. The movie kind of pretends to end, like he goes to bed, the movie prints end, and then it reveals, no, no, that's not the end of the story, because Harold's kept growing up, which implies an eventual future where Harold is a decrepit old man with dementia

who is making horrifying things with his crayon, or like he can't draw well anymore, and so just half living crippled things that are like Destroy me erase me or twisted from arthritis Desperately trying to draw new body parts for himself as he ages. I think Horrible movies that can be made once this goes to the public Horror and the purple crayon. Yeah I'm more crayon than man now.

We get a little bit of gravitas because there's a narrator, and that narrator, none other than Sir Alfred Molina. I don't think he's technically Sir Alfred Molina. He played Doctor Octopus. He's a Sir to me, dude. You can just say Doctor Alfred Molina, which he's also not, but... But the thing is, okay, so we see that Harold grew up, now he does extreme stuff like skydive and make roller coasters or whatever, but... Different animation style, and I would say worse.

Far, far uglier. Even before we enter the real world, you get a taste of how the whimsy of the book will be drained entirely. The purity of Crockett Johnson's work is being drained and stripped. They're like, Crockett Johnson, what if that moose had a little beard? Can we get him a little beard? You know what? The thing is, this moose needs some more ratitude. He doesn't have enough ratitude and this porcupine doesn't have enough attitude. How long do porcupines live? Because wouldn't the original porcupine be long dead if he grew up?

Oh, he's always replacing the porcupine. So there's a narrator talking about how he grew up and he drew the world around him and the narrator can talk to Harold and Harold is like, and the narrator is like, well, I'm in the real world. I created you. So Harold wants to see the real world.

The narrator is like, that's impossible. But then there's some gravitas. Like you said, the next morning, the narrator is silent. What happened to him? He's gone. Harold searched for the narrator. Man searched for God in a meaningless world. This is where we are right now.

So Harold, he says, I'm going to have to draw a door to the real world. He becomes his own God. Yes. He says, no gods, no masters. I have the power. Like Prometheus, he holds the fire of creation isn't in his hand now the movie glosses over the actual details But I believe Crockett Johnson died in the 70s. So does time I assume move differently and in 100% world and then

Have you ever seen inception? It's like that. Yeah. Considering we go to like a, we go to like the Crockett Johnson house and the only thing it's about is Harold and the Purple Cran and like he did other stuff. Like this is, I don't believe this is the real historic crime stand. Is that Barnaby, is that him too? Who's that, Barnaby the Scrivener? Yeah, he did Barnaby the Scrivener.

He did the Carrot Seed, he did, yeah, he did a lot. I mean, he did Barnaby, he did a lot, I mean, he did Barnaby, he did a lot of different types of artwork, you know? But he, but anyway, but the idea that he was a one hit wonder with Harold and the Purple Cran, no way, dude, no way. But anyway- Well, that museum knows what pays its bills. Yeah.

But yes, that's true. But yeah, perhaps, yeah, the Peanuts Museum doesn't have a lot of stuff from Charles Shultz's non-Peanuts work, you know? You know that fucking gift shop is always running out of purple crayons and they have to keep buying the fucking multi-packs. They aren't like, here's the Schultz Museum, here's the big Spike Wing. It's all about the girl in the red truck. So you're saying Stuart that they sell, they buy a full pack of crayons, throw the rest

away and then resell the purple crayons. I mean, they try to resell, they try to sell them at a deep discount, but nobody wants that shit. They're there for the purple crayons, come on. But you're right, time works differently because he, the narrator disappears. Maybe he spends 50 years looking for the narrator until he finally comes to our world, who knows?

Anyway, he draws it. Yeah, testing the limits of his universe. He draws a door to the real world,. He's live-action the moose Accidentally follows and when he shows up, he's a human being and Yeah, reasons unexplained other than I assume again budget Yes, and they appear in a in a public park and boy are they confused by the real world Instant fish out of water comedy. They don't understand anything What I wanted to ask this is the problem that I often have in these movies.

I think you've talked about it to Elliot where it's like, okay, what do you understand? What don't you understand? Yes. Because it seems like he's a total naif when he shows up, he doesn't know anything. And then like, he does seem to understand how various things in the world work later on, including using like modern slang and I don't know It's a it's always confusing to me where the line is drawn Yeah And this and very the line being drawn is a big aspect of this movie because his purple crayon still works in the real world He can still draw things and they come to life

Also porcupine comes through and she's kind of like a British punk lady for some reason Yeah, because she's well because she's a porcupine who's drawn in purple. She has spiky purple hair now Which what leads me to ask is it okay that I have a crush on a porcupine? That's fine But this it shows I feel like it shows the again the lack of imagination in the movie that it's like This white guy needs some sidekicks. He's gonna have a wisecracking black guy and a British lady Those are the two kinds of funny characters that appear in mainstream American comedies, you know, and it's and it's a little Ray Rell Howley yes, how are you?

Who I like fun always fun. Yeah, he's not someone I'm not unhappy to see him I mean he he gets out of this movie as unscathed as anyone can, especially considering the dumb stuff he has to work with. I feel like, I feel like, Lil' Rowe Howie and Jermaine Clement get out of this movie pretty well. Yes, yeah. I think they both get it,

and everybody else, with varying degrees. The kid performer is fine, you know. You're not gonna roast a kid. I'm not gonna roast a kid, not at all. And eat him, surely not. Elliot, Elliot, you monster, what are you doing? Not unless my family crashed on a deserted island that we had to. You're not gonna roast a kid. I'm not gonna roast a kid. Not in you surely not My family crashed on a deserted island that we had to we drew straws my son lost we're eating him Yeah, good draw straws. Why don't you just draw some food to eat Elliot? But he's my purple crayon to just draw some straws so he could pick who we mean I drew them

I knew which one was the shortest. I didn't take it. So... I abandoned my boy, I abandoned my boy. Give me the blood, I abandoned my boy. That's called, there will be purple crayon. So we also meet, hey guys, what kind of character have we not seen in one of these movies before? Perhaps a put-upon widowed single mother.

Have we ever seen one of those in a kids movie like this before? Whose life is going to be turned upside down by this innocent? I don't think we've seen it. So we meet Zoe Deschanel. She's a put-upon widow. Her name is Terri. She has a son named Mel, which I thought was just a funny name for them to give to a kid. Yeah, Mel, yeah.

She almost hits... Melbert. And he has... He is seated next to give to a kid. Yeah, Mel. Short for Melbert. And he has... Melbert. He's seated next to his... He's actually short for Melina, because he's named after Alfred Melina. Yeah, Melina, his favorite character in Mortal Kombat.

I think, wait, is she the purple one? I think she's the purple one. Yeah, has to be. Wheels within wheels. What a rich tech history. I also want to point out that he has, this young lad has an IF. Yes.

That stands for imaginary friend. Oh yeah. Which IF is probably a movie that Zachary Levi is jealous of and wishes he was in. Yeah, or had made, yeah. He does have an imaginary friend named Carl, an IF as you say, and they almost hit Harold and Moose with their car

and their tire pops, and Mel, the son, sees Harold draw a spare tire into reality with his purple crayon, the imagination to draw a tire? Yeah, to draw a tire, yeah. The son guilts the mom into letting Harold and Moose stay in their garage storage room. As far as she knows, they are two madmen

that they have picked up in the park that her son has suddenly taken liking to. Two grown men can stay in me, a single defenseless widow. The idea that you and Dan are walking down the street and a car almost hits you and the kid goes, hey, they should stay at our house. And so does Janelle. But we're dressing like fun outfits, right?

Yeah, but you're also dressed, Dan is in a big purple jumpsuit, and Stuart, you're in a sweater with moose things on it, and you keep saying, I'm a moose, I'm a moose. And I'm a nervingly childlike. Well, how is that different, Dan, for me? I hope I'm nervingly childlike most of the time. The one thing I wanted to say about this, Alex, is you-

Sorry, my note, just say, my note is, Harold and Moose seem either high or crazy. That's what they seem like. But Dan, what were you gonna say? Well, since you bring it up, this is the thing about this movie, all the characters who are painted as if like, oh, you know, the world is too cynical.

They can't handle the sweetness, these dreamers. What happens to their imagination? They need to get their imagination back. All through the movie, I'm like, these supposedly cynical characters are treating these characters with a level of patience and forbearance that I could only hope to achieve. They are so nice. I'm like, these are totally reasonable reactions to these characters at all times.

Here's something I will say, considering this is a movie that the Harold and the Purple Cran adaptation that ends in a fight between a dragon and a wizard shooting blasts of force out of his hands, is that it is a pretty gentle movie. I feel like for a movie that like grows up the character and tries to make it more cool, they do not have a scene where like Harold is thrown in, or they do have a scene where he's thrown in jail.

But it's pretty, he is thrown in jail. But it's like not a, I could see a different movie where he gets thrown in jail. But it's pretty, he is thrown in jail. But it's like not a, I could see a different movie where he gets thrown in jail and the other people in jail are threatening him or something like that. Like the characters are always in a pretty low level level of danger, which I think is okay. It's not like when he's in jail and he gets the purple crayon back to break out, he uses the purple crayon

to like draw a gun or something. It just changes the stakes and the path of their lives forever Yeah, and you know even the bad guy who gets a hold of purple crayon like he's kind of silly bad Like so I will say the movie gets points for me for being gentle, you know, not being too intense It's yeah, I don't think it's doing a great job, but it's but it's a gentle job, you know And on that specific note, you know, like no one draws like a weapon that is anything but silly like there's like a big like Trebuchet thing that you can't take it Seriously in the context of Jermaine Glenn McHattie. It does like a like a dwarf an axe. Yeah

That's probably the most menacing anything ever kids. Yeah, so I so there is a lack of I think at the very least What's the most menacing they could have done like a chainsaw or a morning star I mean the one thing that does disturb me and we're about to get there So maybe I'm jumping ahead but when he like the kid creates this like spider fly that is apparently poisonous is just Loosed upon the world. Yeah, and they just it doesn't matter A little bit, but I think the at least this movie feels like a kids movie, which I do appreciate I don't think it's I don't think it's very good But it's not trying to like Harold the purple crayon is finally like extreme for adults for adults

Yes, obviously Darth Vader chopped dudes heads off and there's there's no joke about like I This would have I would have gotten so mad if they're later on the crayon gets broken into and the good guy in the back I both have halves if there was a joke about like my piece is bigger than yours or something There was you know, there was a joke like that. I missed it then Said it the movie you lost me forget it I was I was I did I missed to miss that well I was well, I was not paying attention to closely So anyway, we learned that Terry the mom she used to be a musician, but she put those dreams aside

She works in a store now. That night, Harold bonds with Mel. Mel introduces the concept of dead dads to Harold, and Harold shows him the purple crayon, and Mel makes this poisonous spider fly creature, which is the most dangerous thing in the movie, but is considered just a comic relief joke, you know. Porcupine, trying to follow Harold's trail. She walks into a house and steals a jacket now I guess the police are after her but there's this there's this subplot of like detectives that are on the case and that

Even though one of them Boss so that was fun, but I mean the yeah her Her plot seems to be how she slowly assembles a cute punk outfit Yeah, I mean, that's a plot we can get behind sure. Yeah, what's uh, where's this take place? What's what's the town? Oh United States of America's okay any town. I think it's called any town USA. Okay, cool. Cool. Cool Let me see it. I mean it within drug short driving distance of wherever Crockett Johnson's house was I guess I mean, within short driving distance of wherever Crockett Johnson's house was, I guess. So, let's see. Which makes sense that they would appear there.

He seems to have... Westport, Connecticut seems to be where he lived with his wife Ruth Krauss, who wrote The Carrot Seed, which he owns. That blows my theory that any town stands for a New York town. No, it seems to be a Connecticut town. So So it really should be Act-A-Town. So the next morning, Harold has made a ton of pies, because he does that in the book. He does a lot of pies. He's repainted the house purple. Terry does not like this. I understand that.

Although I will say, when I lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, you guys may remember this house, there was one brownstone that was painted sloppily a kind of peptobismal shade of pink and everyone was like what an eyesore can you believe they did this and they did such a sloppy job of it but eventually new owners bought that house and they just they stripped that paint and it just was brown again and it was like a little it was like a little bit of magic had died that day you know a little bit of the old New York was gone so so, so maybe Purple House is great. I don't know, who knows?

It's well painted, very uniform. Yeah, Harold gives Mel half his crayon, setting up the joke later that I missed that makes me mad. And Mel skipped school to help Harold find his dad, who he just knows as the old man. And this is, this I thought was gonna be more of a runner throughout the movie, but they just do it like once, a couple of times, is him just harassing any old man he sees, assuming that that's the old man.

And he's like, old man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you were. And they're like, I never lived in a crayon world. But anyway. And I would imagine most of these old men are, on one hand, annoyed to be bothered, but also, on the other hand, they're excited to talk to somebody. Something's happened. Somebody's paying attention then. Yeah. Oh, I attention then. Yeah.

Oh, I'm an old man. Oh, you want to talk about World War II? Let me tell you about the 25 years I spent as a dress salesman. This is how Napoleon could have won. Let me say some things to you that sound sweet, but the more you listen, the more intolerant they become. All right? Do I have to stay for the whole thing?

Yes. So they say, hey, let's go to the library. How are we gonna get there? Harold draws up, you guessed it, something really amazing, roller skates and skateboards. And they just skate on over. At the library, yes? I wanted to ask you, now that we're hitting the library,

you mentioned how you're talking. Dan, don't hit the library. It's an important public space. Were you just talking to Danielle about this movie, or did she see any of it? Because I was curious if she had thoughts on the library content of this film. She did not see the movie, I only talked to her about it,

so I didn't get her full take as a children's librarian about this. I was just trying to watch the clips of the library stuff on YouTube or something. I was also probably the best stuff in the movies, it's all Jermaine Clement. It's all Jamein Clement. It's all Jamein Clement. I mean, Jamein Clement, like, the material is not amazing,

but he's still funny. Like, he's just such a funny performer. And I'm sure there are jokes that are his jokes. He adds, like, a little extra level. Like, there's a moment when he sees them playing around with the purple crayon outside, and he, like, smashes his face into the window and his glasses all get fucked up.

And I thought that was pretty funny. He is, I mean, he's playing in some ways a more innocent version of his character. It's him in Gentlemen Broncos, right? Who's the science fiction fantasy author, right? I didn't ever see that one. Me neither, wow. Because here he is a librarian who also dreams

of being a fantasy author. He's written a fantasy novel called like, what, The Legend of Gagary or something like Gagarok, which is clearly his fantasy version of himself, where he's in love with a fantasy version of Zooey Deschanel's character. I feel like I've played D&D with this guy before. Well, this guy is like, he's like the,

not as frightening as he could be in real life, like children's movie version of an incel. Like that's his, because he's kind of like, you know, got this like power fantasy obsession that he's put into this world. And it's all about like, you know, dreaming of Zoe Deschanel, who, you know, is constantly politely but firmly

telling him to buzz off. I guess so. But he's like a good looking dude, and he's got an accent. I feel like he'd clean up in any town, Connecticut to be honest If he was a little less if he was a little less intense, he probably could get a date with Zoe dishen out Yeah, it's not a bad-looking guy. He's got a great accent. He's got he's kind of fun to talk to you know He's a little kooky. He's got a good job a good job that shows that he knows how to handle children, you know

And children need to be he does have a bad habit of getting power mad as soon as he gets his hands on the purple crayon. That's true, but how often are you gonna find yourself in that situation, Dan? One time out of one, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Dan's like, I would be like Faramir in the books and just turn down the purple crayon,

whereas me, I'd be like, give me that shit. Oh no, I'm in Mount Doom, I'm down. Oh no. Whereas me, I'd be like, give me that shit. Oh no, I'm in Mount Doom, I'm dead. Oh no. I must be gone. So, Gary, I think, Gary is the gentle children's movie villain, which is fine.

Gary is a crush on Mel's mom. He agrees to help them look for Harold's dad. And Gary sees, eventually, Harold draw a plane to sky write a message to his dad that says, old man, call me, and then has Mel's mom's phone number underneath it and he realizes, oh, that's Harold from the book, Harold and the Purple Cran.

With that Cran, he can make his fictional fantasy world real, which is kind of funny. It's like, well, why wouldn't you just draw copies of the book you want published? Like, you don't really want to be a fantasy barbarian. Like you want, we see him on a Zoom call with a publisher, an editor who's rejected his book, which is crazy. They are gonna send you a little to get that far Yeah, they're not gonna set up a meeting with you to tell you that they don't want to read the book

but the Doesn't play well in a movie though you want That's true, but it's as someone who has written a novel which I don't think will ever get published I don't want to live the novel. I just want to get it the story to other people So it's just gonna be that he's one to live the novel it would just want to get the story to other people. So it's just kind of funny that he's... Maybe if you wanted to live the novel, it would get published, Elliot. Oh, that's a good point. That's a good point.

Live the novel. Live the novel, yeah. Be the novel. Be the novel? So I've got to slice myself into hundreds of pages? You got it, Dan. That's you. Slice myself in two pages.

And so he sees, he goes, oh, I can make my fantasy world real with that. Our heroes, they fly around screaming for a while. They sky-write the phone number. And so he sees he goes I can make my fantasy world real with that our heroes They fly around screaming for a while. They skype my the phone number don't damn well One other thing that said, you know cheap movie to me was you know, of course There's a payoff where Zoe Deschanel is getting like all the phone calls from old men and there's like three of them and there's like three of them. A bigger movie would have like... She's like, I gave hundreds of these calls

and you just did three, yeah. Like we can't afford... Can we get AI to mimic old men? Nope, can't do it. The old man budget was very low on this movie. They're like, look, we needed to... If we were gonna get these big name stars, we had to pull the money from somewhere

and it's from the old man budget. Every movie has an old man fund to cover all the old men they'll need. Sometimes a movie never digs into that fund and they can use it for a big party at the end like singles swingers They never really had to dig into the old man fund A lot of movies with s and then ng in it somewhere. They don't have to dig into the old man fund but sometimes a movie like uh, you know, um, uh What's a movie set in an old folks home? Grumpy Old Men.

Space Cowboys. Thank you, Space Cowboys. Yeah, exactly. Those movies they ran out of the old man fund and they had to start pulling from other aspects. And the rap party? Not at all. They're not going to have fun. Yeah, yeah, because they don't like, all those old men don't like rap.

That's true. Once you get enough old men in there. I mean, the fact is the original original the OGs are getting pretty old And considering my kids think of Snoop Dogg as an old man who who sells fast food on television Yeah, he's pretty good at it. He's very good at it. He's America's beloved cute violent rapper Anyway, and we learned that when moose feels like he's in danger. He briefly turns into a moose again But then back to a human being. Does that get talked about at all or just happens like two or three times and then forgotten? It sort of happens, it doesn't really pay off.

It pays off at the very end. It happens about two times and it pays off in helping to defeat the villain at the end. When he like blasts the villain across the screen. He like headbutts him with his antlers and knocks him into it. He could have just pushed him as a human. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, but a moose is able to push someone much harder. Yeah, they need to make it a little more exciting.

Extra pushing. Extra pushing. I mean, that's what moose stands for. Men only oscillate strongly every time this thing hits them with their antlers. Yeah. That makes sense. E stands for a lot of stuff. Whereas human stands for humans, unlike moose, ain't nudging.

You can't push someone as hard when you're a human. Yeah, but this sudden moosification causes problems with the plane. Like, you burst into the plane and they have to parachute out, which left me wondering, did this plane crash on people? Yes, it did. It crashed and hurt somebody. Yeah. And then it disappeared later when all the stuff disappeared momentarily and there was just dead bodies and they were like, it's a mystery. Crash into this house. Kill all these people.

And then the next year, Mark Wahlberg makes a movie about how he would have piloted that plane safely. Yeah. I mean, he didn't make a movie about that, right? He's just the thing he said. Heberg makes a movie about how he would have piloted that plane safely Yeah, I mean he didn't make a movie about that. That's the thing you said He's making a movie right now Like he and fucking Mel Dix have made a movie about this shit They're making a movie where they stop 9-eleven because they're on the plane Something like that. Yeah No, it's like there's a prisoner transport and the prisoner gets released

escapes or whatever and I don't know. It's a danger plane situation. It's a danger plane. Okay, danger plane. So is that kind of like the Jason Bateman movie that everyone in the world has seen 15 times on Netflix? Yeah, carry on. Kind of.

Probably not. I haven't seen the other one because I'm not allowed to watch Mel Gibson movies in my house. Because I get too worked up. Someone's not getting dragged across concrete in his house. Yeah, I had to wait till... I had to watch that in a dumpster. On my phone. So anyway... When they want to throw more garbage in there, I'm like,

I'm in here! Occupy! Meanwhile at school, Mel is getting bullied, and some kind of invisible force hits one of the bullies. We know it's his if, but he gets in trouble for it. I gotta say, someone being bullied and then getting in trouble for being bullied, I relate to this. This movie saw my experience as a kid for sure. I thought it was funny that the bully's strategy was to bully him for being tardy. This is a family I am.

What do you do? Things are different now. Well, as we're seeing in politics today, the way to harness the aggression of toxic men is to give them authority and put them in places of enforcement, rather than to teach them or redeem them in some way. So Harold and the Purple Cran really captures this concept. Oh yeah, they might as well call it Harold and the MAGA Cram. Yeah, for sure. So, Harold Moose, they show up at the store Terry works at. She's like, I have to get mail from school. You know what? I have to move all the stuff in the stockroom.

You do it for me and I'll go get my son, which is a bonkers plan. You don't know these guys. They don't work there. All you know about them is they seem strange. Of course they cause havoc in the store. Someone goes up to Harold and is like, hey, do you sell Pumas here? And he's like, I think so.

So he draws a live Puma, which is not purple. They didn't go all the way and die a real life Puma purple for this movie. Yeah, I'm sure that was a possibility and they had to accept the old man budget. They're like, there's nothing in the purple Puma budget. You know, again, most movies never dip into the purple Puma budget, so they can use, most movies never dip into the purple Puma budget,

so they can use it for other things. A pink Panther budget, sometimes movies dip into that, but very rarely into a purple Puma budget, yeah. So anyway... There's nothing more to say about it. It's just a true thing you said. Yeah, so there's high drinks. A true fact about Hollywood.

They cause havoc and she loses her job, which it seems funny to me that the manager was like, yeah, a Puma got loose in the store because of these two people I've never seen before. You're fired, Zoe Deschanel. Like they don't have to say we know this, you know, I don't know why they have to be connected to her. I think, I mean, this is one of many situations where their hijinks negatively affect the lives of other people.

I'm assuming most of the staff... Like in the movie The Lives of Others, which is about a purple crayon that causes trouble in East Berlin, yeah. Because the store like burns down or something, right? The level of havoc is pretty intense. The lights fall down and yeah. And then later on there's a moment where the porcupine goes into a diner and then despite the staff being firm but patient with her,

she causes all kinds of havoc and like destruction. And I'm like, these employees didn't deserve this shit. No, it definitely feels like the movie in these moments is punching down in the same way that, and I know again, we don't have to get into this. We don't need to be the kind of woke podcast that is no longer popular and will only get us in trouble.

But the people working in service positions. That's not the reason we're not doing. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, there's now. Damn, we got to follow the money. It's all about being mean. I think there was an executive order dissolving the rule that we have to allow wokeness in our podcast.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the Biden ever rule that, oh, we, it was very very sweet this morning We finally got near the end of Biden's term my younger son who loves Joe Biden is very is that he? He sent him a letter and we're like, huh? Okay, they never wrote back and this morning We received finally his his return letter which they must have like sent out a ton of letter responses at the very in January I'm not answering this anymore. Peace of love peace of love Yeah, just like Ringo, but he was but uh, but he was so excited about it January. I'm not answering this anymore. Peace and love. Peace and love. Yeah. Just like Ringo. But he was so excited about it.

It was really sweet. Did it have like ice cream stains or something just to know for sure it was Joe? Oh, I wish. I wish. Yeah. No, it was pretty much a form letter for kids, but then signed at the bottom. So the, but anyway, oh yeah. So anyway, I was going to say that the people working in service positions at these stores and restaurants are all people of color.

It reminded me of an episode of Seinfeld where the job of a person of color is to be a security guard or a manager or a desk clerk who rolls their eyes at these crazy white people who are causing them trouble. Well, I was watching a show where a character gets rejected from going into a country club, and they're like Giving the major D so much shit and I'm like the major D is not rich

Like you're treating them like they're like a rich person, but they just work there. That's their job What are you Michael Moore going in and bothering security guards? Like like what it's a it's charming when Axel Foley does it he's allowed to Everybody else no no way. And I also don't wanna say, I'm not saying don't aim for diversity in your movies because characters are gonna get annoyed or anything like that. And I'm just saying that,

I am agreeing with Stuart's case that the people who live in this world are being very patient with these crazy, with these, I shouldn't say crazy, they're being very patient with these difficult, with these, I shouldn't say crazy, they're being very patient with these difficult characters and the difficult characters only escalate the situation. It's not a matter of they're doing something innocent and someone misunderstands.

There's a swath of chaos in the city behind them. Which can be fun, which is not a bad thing, but when you're presenting them as like, oh, these are the innocents of the world and all, it's just chaos behind them. Anyway, but Zoe takes losing her job pretty well. They're walking around the city, they want her to play piano, like she always dreamed of doing,

so they draw piano for her. She plays some classical music in public. Meanwhile, these two cops are looking for porcupine and the other heroes and this will kind of pay off later, but they're not big characters. I just wanted to say that there was someone on Letterboxd who pointed out that Zoe Deschanel can play piano, but the movie shoots it as if she can.

Yeah, that's true. It's kind of funny. They're playing a different song than she's playing. I think. Doesn't she play like the intro to that Linkin Park song? Well, eventually, I don't remember the first song that she plays, but then eventually she's playing Hungarian Rhapsody Number Two,

the Franz Liszt song that's in a lot of cartoons. Get someone in there for that Which is a hard song but yeah, it was very funny cuz I was like, oh, yeah I don't know what song she's playing like this at the hand motions don't really seem to match but And as you said porcupine for no reason at all terrorized as a restaurant Gary finds Harold and moose and he goes hey I found your old man and he explains them about the book they came out of and that the crayon is made of pure imagination.

They're reunited with porcupine and the police arrest them, throw them in jail, but they escape using the magic crayon pretty easily. It's fine. It would have been pretty crazy if he made a gun and they accidentally shot someone and they're like, I can't believe we did this. Oh my God.

But we've raised the stakes. If we give someone else the gun, they'll use it on us just draw a dead perpetrator Yeah, draw a gun in his hand The cops are like we know all about this we'll help you with it So the next day Mel is at school and he scares his bullies by drawing his imaginary friend who is a dragon. This dragon is pretty cool. Look, dragons are cool.

There's nothing wrong with him. He's got his own little lockheed that is his best friend. Does he learn a valuable lesson not to deal with his bullies by creating something that's dangerous and deadly? No. Oh, yeah. He's the only rewarded by the street. No, he's that, that with violence, he responds with violence. Yeah. You know, that's, or at least with fear, when met with fear, he responds with fear.

He believes in Fight Fire with Fire, and then he starts singing the song, Fight Fire with Fire, by Metallica. That's pretty cool, yeah. It's pretty rockin', it's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool, yeah. That moment when he goes, we all shall die, is such a, it's a scary moment in the song Fight Fire with Fire by Metallica. That's pretty cool, yeah. It's pretty rockin', it's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's pretty cool, yeah. That moment when he goes, we all shall die, it's such a, it's a scary moment in the song. I'm not used to being scared by a song. Yeah.

Porcupine very unsafely drives them in a four-person motorcycle to Crockett Johnson's house, and Gary sees them along the way and follows, I guess, and Terry is tracking them on her phone. They end up at the Crockett Johnson house. It's a little museum now where Harold, they open the door. This, this dosage, this lady dosage is like, Oh, are you here for the tour? He's like, well, we're here to see Crockett Johnson goes, Oh, he died. And, and, and Harold immediately turns around and walks away. Yeah, they do. They do remedy this at the end of the movie, but I had the same reaction when I'm like, well, I mean, if you think of this at the end of the movie But I had the same reaction when I'm like well

I mean if you think of this man as your dad you don't want to see anything about him He's not here No, thanks, I didn't know I was gonna have to read information plaques too bad. Send it to me as a real, please Terry shows up she gets mad. She thinks Harold is just making their lives more difficult. Objectively, he is. And she goes, stay away from my son. Harold is shattered and he loses his faith in his ability to create things.

All of his creations disappear in a puff of purple smoke, including porcupine and moose. He is now- Including the wreckage of that plane. Yeah, now he's all on his own, leaving a mystery that will never be solved. And now he is distraught. Even the purple tire on the car disappears.

I have two things about, well, number one is my questions about the metaphysics of this, where he loses the, they disappear, but then- Well, I think that can be answered with the fact that it's a magic crayon. Okay, well, they disappear once he loses faith, but then he still uses the crayon later on to make stuff and it works. There's no moment where he gets faith, but then like he still uses the crayon later on to to make stuff and it works

There's no like moment where he like gets faith back it but then they come back only when needed at the very end of the of the climax and also like What matter of faith are we talking about here? Because if it's just faith in the fact that the magic crayon works, he knows it does There's proof of that. I don't know Anymore right? I think he's more losing faith in his own imagination to solve problems. Yeah. Or to. But again, that doesn't destroy everything.

So, Dan, have you ever seen, we've been talking about Alfred Molina a lot today. Have you ever seen the movie Spider-Man 2? Now there's a sequence in Spider-Man 2 where Spidey loses powers and he could not be happier. He's wandering around. He doesn't break up a mugging. It's possibly my favorite thing I've ever seen in a movie. He's just bopping to rain drops. Keep falling on my head.

Yeah. This movie takes one of those moments. What's that? I'm not a professional screenwriter, guys. What's the name of that kind of a bit? Is that a Spider-Man bit? A hero just loses his powers for a little while. What would you call it in like Joseph Campbell? Crisis of Faith?

Yeah, Crisis of Faith, Rock Bottom. This is your end of Act 2. Actually, it's not your end of Act 2, Rock Bottom. It's your middle of Act 2, Crisis of Faith, that leads to the end of Act 2, oh no, the hero is trapped and can't get out of it. That's the rock bottom. But yeah, it's a crisis of faith. I mean, he's trapped in this fleshy prison that we call the real world.

We all are, that we call our bodies. Someday we'll be free of them, and one with that electron field that makes up the universe. I was trying to explain this to my kids. My younger one, he said, he said, I think heaven is you get to play video games all the time and you only eat ice cream. And I was like, hmm, that's a pretty limited idea

of what a transcendent heaven would be. Dante's depiction of paradise involves more of a oneness of the soul with God, a closeness to God, a proximity that fills your soul and fills you with the joy of being just one with creation. And this did not mean much to him. So I guess he's not ready for- If you told him he'd be one with ice cream.

Then he would love it. Imagine having all possible information immediately shoved into your head and having your consciousness shattered immediately. Well that doesn't sound great. The other thing I wanted to say about this moment though, very quickly, while watching it, I suddenly found it very funny if the movie just became about yeah, real life will crush you like You know he never regains his never regains his faith. He gets it. He gets a job. He becomes a man in a gray flannel suit

He starts a family. He's never happy. He does not talk about his past. He's Don Draper essentially Don Draper road not taken for Harold. Oh, well, maybe next time So because instead what happens happens is Gary picks up Harold. Man, if Don Traber had that fucking purple crayon, he would have destroyed. Oh, man. Oh, wow. He would have crushed it. The things he would have made, yeah, what an imagination.

And then eventually he'd steal the idea of another guy, he'd have to hire him to make up for the fact that he stole that idea, yeah. Oh, man. Harold, Mel sees Harold and Gary drive by and he goes, Harold's in trouble and mom is like that's it Give me your whistle that you use to summon your imaginary friend Carl like we're not dealing with this anymore She also says I should have believed you earlier. I'm like no

No, you shouldn't have believed your kid when you said all this magic I thought she said that later. No when she hands him the whistle. I'm pretty late. Oh, yeah She says I should have well she should have believed him because it was true But you're right if your kid comes up and goes my imaginary whistle Calls a dragon and my friend has a magic crayon that can make things real Yeah, I'm imaginary friends I'm fucking sick of this shit like as soon as this kid tells you he has an imaginary friend you're like Oh, yeah, let me give him a little pet and he's like you're touching his bottom like come on kid

I'm gonna fucking halfway trap. I'm little pet. And he's like, you're touching his butt. I'm like, come on, kid. I'm meeting fucking halfway. Feels like a trap. I'm thinking more about eventually he's gonna go to college. He's not gonna bring a dragon with him. Now she's stuck taking care of a dragon. Yes, thank you. It's not his imaginary friend anymore. It's hers.

She didn't want that responsibility. When he's in college, she wants to be out and about, living and loving. You can't take a man home for one night stand and have a dragon in your house. I'm sorry. If movie trends have taught me anything Mommy horny, right guys

Yep, hashtag. Yeah hashtag it so of Harold gives Gary the crayon cuz Gary's like I can use this powerful real Gary seemingly needlessly traps Harold in a dungeon from his fantasy Revenge on the world Mel shows up and Gary shackles him too. And again, this all seems unnecessary really. All he really wants is to be a novelist. After trapping him, Gary and he traps him at the edge of a pit. He's too big. Yeah. Gary, he flew too close to the imaginary sun. Gary draws a chariot and rides off and Mel tells Harold- Man, Deadless would have drawn some fucking badass wings if he had that purple crayon, right? You better believe it. Icarus would have been fine.

Probably still would have gotten all roasted up, but that's okay. Icarus would have found some dumb thing to get him doing. That kid was- Man, what a moron. He had limited time. He's an idiot. He was an idiot, you know?

Look, Dad, I could fly a million miles up, like calm down, kid. Although to be fair, you're a teen or a young adult, your dad tells you don't do that, you're gonna do it. You know? Dauntless should have said, hey, be sure to fly super close to the sun. Ius would have been like oh I'm hovering just over the water dude you can't tell me what to do oh yeah I mean he's a great inventor probably a bad dad right is

that the short is that the long and short I can't imagine he's got the time to give his son a real moral upbringing when he's building a labyrinth to trap a man a bull man who eats virgins Yeah, also starting with like hey, why not try these untested wings with me? Yeah, it was a prison break scenario It wasn't just at his lab. They're trying to get out of the labyrinth, you know I mean, I think everybody has a Jennifer Garner to help them out of a labyrinth, you know I think he also built a bunch of shit that Kratos used in the God of War games I got a double check it. Yeah, Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth? Am I getting my Jennifer's name stuck? Jennifer Connelly.

Not everyone has a Jennifer Connelly to get them out of Labyrinth. Sometimes you gotta slap a bunch of wings together. Maybe Jennifer Connelly is Jennifer Garner's alias. Oh! The listeners at home, Stuart just tipped his glasses down, is looking over them. Give this man a Pulitzer. Anyway, Meryl tells Harold, he's like,

no, you made my life better. You need to believe in yourself. And Harold's like, I don't even have my crayon anymore. But Mel has his half of the crayon, and they escape in a hot air balloon, just as they do in the much better Paddington 2. Terry sees Harold's magic is returning all over, and Harold and Gary, they meet up in the public park.

They have a crayon object battle. They're drawing stuff that they fight with. Gary's dressed up like a wizard with long hair. Yeah, I was wondering if you liked this part, sir, because it's basically a wizard's battle. I do like a wizard's duel, but I feel like, I mean, the bar is sword in the stone. Yes, that's the best wizard's battle.

Unfortunately, this doesn't measure up. No, no, that's too bad. That is a great wizard's battle though. That is the best one. But mad mad, that's too bad. That is a that is a great Wizards battle though That's the best but mad madam M is also purple. That's Maybe that's where her power comes from Dan from the magic credits Dan's unified theory of sword in the stone and Harold in the purple Cran is the same universe everybody Dan loves that shit. He loves it when you combine a bunch of movies together Probably referring to my San Francisco presentation where I made fun of fan theories, possibly too angrily for the audience.

I don't know. It was a little aggressive. I think the audience was a little... My presentation was also not my best, and so I feel like I didn't set you up super properly. But your presentation was a little awesome. But you know, Stuart cleaned up. It was like when the opening comic at the Daily Show was mean to everyone so when John came out everyone loved Up and then I calmed them down

The greatest city in the world, but let's go on let's move At some point during the battle Gary swallows theon, and I couldn't remember if that was accidental or on purpose. On purpose, yeah. It was on purpose, and he gains the power to become his fantasy character, Guggeror, so now he's like a full, you know, long-haired wizard. Terry shows up and she rejects Gary.

He gets mad and turns the park into a lava field, and Terry, that's when Terry says to Mel, "'I should have believed you back when you told me "'that your friend had a magic crayon "'that makes objects out of nothing.'" She gives him back the whistle. I should have believed you back when you told me that your friend had a magic crayon that makes Objects out of nothing she gives him back the whistle. He calls back his dragon friend Karl who fights Gary This is the moment where I turned to my wife because she walked in the room I said did you think the Harold the purple crayon movie was gonna end with a battle between a dragon and a man shooting? Power at a parable set of his hands and she said no

Gary wins the battle against the dragon Harry says Harold says I believe in myself and I believe in my friends. And Moose and Porcupine show up to help him. Porcupine finds Harold's crayon half, which is in a crag of a rock that is, you know, thrust up through the earth. Harold draws the spider fly from earlier,

which flies into Gary's throat. And then Moose turns into a moose and head butts him. And the crayon comes flying out the spider fly and all the damage that that Gary caused Goes away all the stuff He created leaves and Gary is sad and harold draws a door to Gary's fantasy world So he can live there forever and Gary steps through and then the dragon just destroys the door So you can never come yeah, he can never return yeah, and it's like I mean

I'm assuming the rest of it is like that the Steve Kostanski short W is for Wish from what is that? ABC's death. Yeah, ABC's death. Yeah, that's great. And well, we'll see there's a mid credit scene Stuart that I think you didn't watch Our heroes they go back to the Crockett Johnson house Yeah, Elliot you say that as a joke, but you know, there's no fucking way I watched anything as soon as the credit started. Also, now I think that you just are just like, well, this is my thing. It's my thing.

I let I don't have to do it because it's funnier if I don't get my fucking heels. Start scrolling. So the heroes go back to the Crockett Johnson house. They now deign to take the tour and look around inside and Terry Terry tells Harold that the old man would have been proud of him. And it's so weird. He says to the lady, he's like, he's like, oh yeah, I'm Harold. And she just hands him an envelope with a letter to Harold. Like that Crockett Johnson.

It's like a million of them. Joe Flaherty in Back to the Future Part II. He's like, I was foretold. Well, we've been holding on to this letter for 50 years. Yeah. But like, or was foretold. Well, I'll be holding on to this letter for 50 years, or 30 years or whatever. But the idea that the character, Crocket Johnson's like, someday the character I invented

may come to this world and try to find me, so I better leave him a letter. And the letter, we hear it in voiceover, it explains that Harold is meant to inspire others to live with more imagination or something. It's such empty kind of boilerplate, you know, nothingness. And Harold and Moose and Porcupine, they draw a new door, they go back to his crayon world,

and they start drawing again. And meanwhile, in the real world, Mel still has a pet dragon that lives in their house. Dan, you wanna say something before the post credits? Yeah, before the post credits, you mentioned in passing, I wrote it down the actual line, because you mentioned the response, I wrote it down, the actual line, because.

Sure, go for it. You mentioned the response, but not the line. There's a point where Harold says, I wonder what the old man would say if he could see me now. And I'm like, you don't wanna ask this question, movie version of Harold and the Purple crayon. No, because he would say, what did you do to my book? Exactly, why, what, what is this bullshit that you added?

Well that's the reason, like, the reason why the original book sucks is because he didn't have the imagination to create a world like we see in the movies. With dragons and stuff, yeah. He does say, if he could see me now, that old man of mine, I'm eating fancy food and drinking fancy wine, and then he just bursts into the whole song,

and then it's the best, you gotta guys gotta imagine, it's one of the best renditions of that song from Sweet Charity that I've ever seen on film. And so he goes back to his world, now Mel has given him a box of crayons. So now he can draw with many colors. Oh boy. Ooh, finally.

That's another reason why that original book sucks is because it only has one color. Only one crayon, finally. That's another reason why that original book sucks, is because it only has one color. Only one crayon, yeah. And so the post-credit sequence we then see, Gary is in the fantasy world, and he finds the fantasy version of Terry, and she reveals that she is in a relationship already. And the wizard she's in a relationship with takes her away.

And Gary goes, oh yeah, well, I was pretty busy already too. So even the bonkers reward that this character has been given, of he can finally live out his fantasy world is undercut and this character is punished. It felt like... Yeah, yeah, he's like, at last there's time now and his glasses are all broken. It just felt unnecessary, you know. I think the movie didn't want to give him the win of like,

yeah, like this, he gets the girl in a way of, you know, like that, I don't know, that the realization of that power fantasy was a little too much for the movie, I think, without that happening. I guess the movie fainted towards the idea of the redemptive power of love and happiness and then said, nope. And then there's a second, you guys missed this,

there's a second post-credit scene where he is in his therapist's office, his therapist is like an orc or some shit, and he's talking about how, oh, he needs to learn that just because he's projected this fantasy on someone doesn't mean that he is owed anything. He really needs to just work on himself. And then, wait, you missed the post-post-post-credit sequence.

Oh, okay, that makes sense, yeah. Where he has then, he's come to peace with himself and he's realized, I'll just, my fantasies have to stay fantasies, they can't be real. He's masturbating, and even in his erotic fantasy in his masturbating, she dumps him and walks away. And he looks towards the camera and he goes, I just can't win. Well, then there's another scene after that where he eroticized the rejection.

Yeah. And so that actually gets him off is. Leading to the sequel, Harold and the Purple Cuck. Yeah, of course. I got to admit, the thing that confused me about this post-credit scene is like, she's like, I'm dating this guy, and I'm like, is this guy someone that we saw in a non-fantasy version earlier in the movie? Like, it just seemed to be like a guy.

No, that's true, it just comes out of nowhere, yeah. Yeah, and they don't even list who the actor is in the credits, because I looked at it, because I was trying to figure out whether it was a callback of some kind. Yeah, Yeah. And they don't even list to the actual credits because I looked at it because I was trying to figure out whether it was a callback of some kind. Maybe it's a friend of Jemaine Clements or a friend of the directors or I don't know. I don't think it is like a version of someone we've seen. It's not like an Easter egg or something. It's just a character from his book, I guess.

So that's the story of Harold and the Purple Cran. It taught us all to embrace our imagination and our inner crayon. Now it's time for a little thing we call final judgment. Our inner crayon. Our inner crayon. Are we going to use the crayon to say, this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of like?

So the crayon segment, it didn't really that different. It's just the barest we've heard. No, it's basically the same segment, but with like a crayon skin on it, I would say. Crayon skin. Skin to crayon, horrible. Did I ever tell you about when I was a little kid? No.

Well, you have told us about when you were little, but I don't know if it's this story. So when I was a little kid, my little brother and I would stay with my grandma, and my grandma, or Bousha as we called her, because she's an old Polish lady. She would, when our crayons would get small or run low, she would take the shavings of it, like the wrapper,

and she would have us bury them in the garden. And then when we would wake up the next day, there'd be new crayons sticking up out of the dirt. It was really cool. That's cool. That's really cool. That's really fun. That's cool. A sweet memory. Sweeter than anything in this movie.

Before we go to final judgments, how long do you think this movie was in development for? How long? Since the 70s. Not that far back. Whoa. Only since 1994. So what we saw was only the product of 30 years of multiple people trying to make this movie.

Who would have been... Who would have been... What is it? Larry in the purple... What's the name of the movie? Harold? Larry Fine in the purple... Who would have played... So it's the 90s. Who? Seinfeld? Who was going to play Harold? That's a good question. So they didn't have casting. So looking at Wikipedia, in 1994, Michael Tolkien, the writer of The Player, was supposed to write it. And Henry Selig was going to direct it. Maybe it would have been a stop motion movie. I don't know, maybe live action. But then eventually that changed and Spike Jonze was brought in at a certain point.

That makes sense, yeah. He's got some whimsy. Then eventually David O'Russell was brought in to help rewrite it. That seems like a mistake. Eventually Spike Jonze abandons the project. 2010, the project was picked up again. And that was going to be written by Josh Klausner who wrote Date Night and Shrek Forever After. And eventually another writer was brought in. Then in the 2020s, we get to the current version of it as the new screeners were brought on and Carlos Saldanha was, I don't know if that's his name. Saldanha? Is that a tilde or something? It doesn't have a tilde, no, but it's a, he's from Brazil, so I think it's a Portuguese name as opposed to a Spanish name.

But, and eventually it was that. But it just, it seems like such a, to spend, for this movie to have been in development in many ways for 30 years, and to have ended up with probably the most straightforward kind of obvious version. The least interesting version that any of those people would have made, I think, at least a more interesting version, not necessarily. I mean, I didn't love Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are movie, but it's more interesting, certainly, yeah. Yeah, okay, well, returning to final judgments.

Final judgments. Here's the thing, I didn't like this movie, I'm not gonna say that, I think it's a bad, bad movie. You loved it, you didn't like it, you loved it. Oh wow, he's a reality show judge. I think it's a bad, bad movie, but I do think that had this not been a Harold and the Purple Crayon movie, it had to be the same movie based on nothing, like,

I don't know. Gerald and the Red Marker. Yeah, on the scale of things we watch for the show. Yeah, the spirit Halloween version. On the scale of things we watch for the show, as Elliot says, it's kind of gentle and sweet, essentially, it's 90 minutes. Like, I like hated it less than I thought I would. Like the hatred mostly comes from like that this was a much more beautiful thing that has turned

into a dub generic thing. What do you have to say? Yeah, I mean, I think the movie has chosen an uphill battle and it does not make up enough for the ill will that it causes by taking something that is clearly a nice small little story and extrapolated into something completely unnecessary.

Yeah, I mean, I feel the same way. I think you guys have described it well that I think if I wasn't bringing my emotional baggage of loving this book and finding it to be so special, it wouldn't bother me as much, but it is still a, it's just a forgettable kind of movie. And that would be okay. Like if my kids, of all the kids movies

that we've watched for this podcast, if my kids were like, we want to watch Howl'n Procran, I'd be like, fine, all right, I guess. But it doesn't feel like it really needs to exist. They're like, daddy, daddy, I want to start following the lead actor's ex-account to see what his political views are. And I'd be like, oh, hold on a second. Maybe not.

We still call it Twitter in this house, young man. And what were you doing looking at it? Hey, everybody. I'm Jeremy. I'm Oscar. I'm Demetri. And we are the Eurovangelists. Or a weekly podcast spreading the word of the Eurovision Song Contest, the most important music competition in the world.

Maybe you already heard Glenn Weldon of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour talk up our coverage of this year's contest, but what do we talk about in the off season? The rest of Eurovision, duh. There are nearly seven decades of pop music history to cover. Mm-hmm.

We've got thousands of amazing songs, inspiring competitors, and so much drama to discuss. And let me tell you, the drama is juicy. Plus, all the gorillas and bread-baking grandmas that make Eurovision so special. Check out Eurovangelist, available everywhere you get podcasts. And you could be at Eurovangelist too. Ooh, I want to be one. You already are.

It's that easy. Oh, okay. Cool. The Greatest Generation has been going on for more than eight years. And if you've been Greatest Gen curious but have never taken the leap, we recommend exploring your Greatest Gen curiosity

in a safe, fun environment with partners you can trust. And right now is one of the best times ever to become a new listener. That's because we just started covering a new Star Trek series, Star Trek Enterprise, one of the horniest and weirdest editions of Star Trek ever released. This is your chance to ease in to the greatest generation lifestyle.

The greatest generation now covering Star Trek Enterprise, the one with Scott Bakula every Monday on maximumfund.org or in your podcast app. Hey, let's take a moment to thank our sponsors this week. Harold week we call it. It's a flop. I don't know what I'm doing. I just decided we're sponsored in part by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed

online. Squarespace is a way to make it easy for you to build a beautiful, more personalized website, one that is tailored to your unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity that you, the one who is designing this, can use across your entire online presence. I'm just gonna slow down. Hey, why don't you connect major social and multimedia accounts to your website in a few clicks

as icons, direct links, or embedded feeds? Build visitor trust while updating it, updating your content only where you need it. So, why not go to squarespace.com for a free trial? And when you are ready to launch, you go to squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Well, Dan, we've also got some of our own stuff to promote.

Oh yeah, that's right. Look, there's one more episode of FlopTV. That's right, FlopTV, our live online video broadcast version of the Flophouse. It's like the Flophouse, but you can see it and it's shorter and there's more in it. So really, FlopTV is the steak stake and flop house, the podcast is kind of the ground chuck. Anyway, the live flop TV, I believe Dan, this episode, I believe is going out on the day of our final episode, right? Yes. If you want to watch live, tonight is your chance. Presumably you downloaded this

entire. Presumably you downloaded this entire... You get to hear Dan's reaction to watching hit movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, Secret of the Ooze, a movie Dan has never seen at this point. Yes. I want to know what's up with that ooze. If you're listening to this on February 1st, the first Saturday in February, then yes, tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific,

you can listen and watch as we talk about Ninja Turtles 2 The Secret of the Ooze, big movie for me when I was a kid, did not factor into Dan's life at all. And it's time we're introducing it to him. These are flop TV shows. I think that explains a lot, actually. I think so.

Flop, that's why I have a family and he doesn't, and so forth. Flop TV is... No, there's all different types of families. Dan married with two cats is a family. So, flop TV for those who haven't joined us yet, and I don't know why you haven't, it's really fun. One of us does a visual presentation, we talk about the movie, there's a video segment in the middle that one of us puts together, and the fun thing about it for us is that we do not see each other's segments until the show, so you get to experience them live as we do.

It's super fun, we have a great time, and I think the audience loves it too. If you can't be there tonight February 1st at 9 p.m Eastern 6 p.m Pacific then you can still watch the show afterwards because the recording will stay up online until the end of February if you go to the flophouse dot simple ticks dot com you will be able to buy tickets for each episode or a Season pass that's six shows for the price of five and it gets you Access to the recorded video of those shows So if you missed all of flop TV the whole season until the end of February you can buy a season pass

Watch it all at your leisure and just enjoy it binge it binge the whole thing all six episodes. Why not? That's the new streaming model right make yourself sick on yeah. Yeah, I'll pop out. Oh you like the flop house Well, why don't you watch a fuckload of it? I caught you watching the Flophop TV. Well, you have to watch the whole season, young man. That'll teach you. And so at the end of February though, those videos will go away for quite some time.

So your last chance is February 28th, right? This isn't a leap year that we're in, February 28th. But until then go to theflophouse.simpletext.com and you can get a season pass to watch those episodes. I'm so excited to talk Ninja Turtles to you guys because again, I haven't seen it in years, but when it was a new movie, I saw it many times. Really? Every time with his grandma. Just one time with my grandma. Just one time. She wasn't like, Elliot, Elliot, take me to see these ninja turtles. Yeah. I hear the ninjas and turtles. Such nice young boys.

I also wanted to mention, before we go into the next section, I wanna just do a private plug, a personal private plug. I'm still writing the Harley Quinn comic book for DC Comics. It's in comic stores now. This is, I've been having a lot of fun writing it. It's a real fun series. If you are looking for a Harley Quinn book

that has an intricate overarching story that will test who Harley Quinn is. Your patience. And bring her to the limits, bring her to the limits of her powers, her personality and her patience, this is not the series for you. It is a lot of fun stories.

I'm trying to do one-off issues as much as possible. Oh, nice. There's a theme to it, and there's recurring characters, there's at least one two-parter in there, but the emphasis is on fun stories and just having a good time. So if you were looking for a book that was gonna like, really change the way you think about Harley Quinn,

make you question everything you thought you knew, this is not your book. But if you wanna have fun with the Harley Quinn that you know, then read it, yeah. That Harley Quinn isn't a Harley Quinn that thinks it's a plant, but rather a plant thinks it's a Harley Quinn. She died and her mind went into a Harlequin doll and now she thinks she's Harlequin. Yeah, we're not doing that.

Yeah. Where's the TikTok man figure in? Yeah. Where's the TikTok man? That's a great question, Dan. That's a great question. When when when Harlan When the Harlan Ellison verse merges with the DC universe, and I think we'll finally get to see them see each other. Actually, it'd be very funny if I did a story where she fights the TikTok man and then Harlan Ellison runs in and threatens to sue the whole company. That'd be very funny. See, he's passed, right?

Yes, he's no longer alive. Okay. All right. Well now that that's cleared up, it's the perfect time to move on to letters. Now that we have the happiness of knowing Harlan Ellison is not with us anymore. Wow. Just kidding.

This is a letter from Justin Lasting withheld. Who writes? McElroy. He addresses, or they address to me they say hi Dan oh okay all right I blame you I was critiquing a friend's work a nonfiction piece on the movie the women and was trying to remember the name of one of the actresses I came up with Rhonda sheer my friends face scratched up a bit he reminded me it was Norma Shearer.

If you were offered the chance. Very similar. If you were offered the chance to produce the 21st century version of USA's Up All Night, what would it be? Who would be the host, and what types of movies would you screen? Dan isn't super vocal about celebrities he hates,

so I can't really make a joke yet. Yeah, I would have to think about my host a little bit. Maybe you can come back to that part of it, but I was trying to think of like, what's a sort of subtype of dumb movie that I have a real fondness for? And maybe I would just, it would would have to be you know, like a one or two season thing you would run out of stuff a lot faster than I think the up all night purview but

It's a hard question to think about in order to answer it partly because yeah What USA up all night was doing is something that you don't necessarily need done anymore, and also is not as acceptable in some ways. You could just dial up Tooby for it. But I was going to say, the genre... Or not Tooby. ...would be like dumb techno thrillers or horror movies. Oh, yeah, that's good.

I just have such a fondness for anything that's like... With like, you should have like a, what, that's good. I just have such a fondness for anything that's like... Yeah, yeah. You should have like a, what, a Garth Marenghi style opening where you're like logging on to a scary computer. Oh, that's good. And I wonder who would be good for that kind of role. That's Matt Barry always.

I mean, Jemaine Clement, you know, or Matt Barry. Oh, yeah. I think he's casted for me. Yeah. But I feel like I was starting to put an answer to this in my head and I realized it was Just monster vision with Joe Bob Briggs, which yeah, I think that exists already. Yes. Yeah. Yeah Do you have any ideas Stuart or should we move on? Let's move on. Let us move on to letter number two

from Zach withheld from Zach Withheld. Zachary Levy. Did you guys see my Harold the Brickle Cran movie? Did you like it? Maybe a recommendation. Dear Peaches, what was the knight in the Last Crusade up to for all those years in that cave? Clearly not dusting. Much love, Zach Withheld.

So was that a real question? I mean, it's a real question. It has a question mark at the end of it. To defend the knight in the Last Crusade, what was he supposed to dust with? He was not equipped with cleaning supplies? Yeah, yeah. He doesn't dust super well. No, not at all.

He's not going to scratch those artifacts. Come on. Also, a fucking tunic could turn to dust as soon as he started moving it. It's a cave. You know, it's nothing but dust. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, if dust is going to live anywhere. Is that the definition of a cave?

Let me just look it up on Webster's. Hold on. Nothing but dust. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if dust is gonna live anywhere. Is that the definition of a cave? Well. Let me just look it up on Webster's. Hold on, hold on. Webster's Densionary. Oh yeah, cave, noun, nothing but dust. Yeah. Dust in the wind. See nothing but trouble.

Okay, let me flip to nothing but trouble. Says noun, not a cave. Okay, well, I'm glad they made that clear. He's a religious man. I mean, clearly, you know, from the Christian tradition, if he's guarding the Holy Grail, so maybe not meditation in the traditional sense,

but I would assume sort of quiet religious reflection is what he's doing most of the time. Yeah, reflection and prayer. And you know that dude has got to be so annoying because he hasn't talked to anybody and he's like He just need he's craving that human contact at this point. So he's like, yeah, anybody walks in there is like, okay, man Just take it down a little bit. I know you're thirsty for this shit, but like Here, let me give you my phone. You can just play around on that for a bit. Yeah Let's move on to recommendations movies that we've seen, that we would say maybe you should spend your time

on something like this rather than Harold and the Cricket Cran. Something like that. I want to very quickly do a dual recommendation because they're linked. The Nighthawk Cinema here in Brooklyn has been doing a Robert Altman retrospective, and I got to see two of his films on the big screen that I'd never seen before, despite Altman being one of my go-to, like, if someone asks, you know, favorite American director.

But I saw Brewster McCloud, and I saw Come Back to the Five and D dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. The play turned into a movie where they're like, this title's not long enough already. Let's repeat that Jimmy Dean at the end. But very different types of movies. Booster McCloud, it gets kind of serious at the end, but mostly is just kind of Altman's gag a minute movie It feels it gave me this feeling like I was watching sort of the doodles in the corner of Mad magazine But in movie form and I found a lot of it extremely funny and it's a very strange movie About you know a boy who is building some wings and maybe they'll fly But mostly it's just about a bunch of weird stuff happening Maybe they'll fly, but mostly it's just about a bunch of weird stuff happening. And come back to the five and nine, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, it was a, was a Broadway

play that I believe was also directed by Robert Altman. He films this version of it, but it's still, it's very cinematic. This is a big like plot spoiler. So skip ahead a little bit if you don't care like it involves a character who we learn is a is trans and You know while I think probably from today's eyes I'm not the best person to speak on this but probably from today's eyes there are certain things that may be ways of talking about this that

would be frowned upon but be ways of talking about this that would be frowned upon. But certainly for the time, it is one of the most like empathetic portrayals. Like obviously the movie's heart is with this character. And that was kind of neat to see in a movie of that period, but also like sad to see like the backsliding. But it was a very movie picture. And it's got your, it's got your share in it Stuart.

So you know share you like that both really good. Stuart? Oh cool. Okay. I'm going to recommend a movie. I'm going to recommend a movie that is I think nominated for at least two Academy Awards including Best International Feature and I'm guessing animated feature and that is a movie called Flow. Flow is a movie called flow

Flow is a movie. It's like an adventure movie about mainly following a cat character And a series of other animals who are inhabiting a kind of abandoned human civilization And then they have to contend with a sudden and then they have to contend with a sudden, like disaster level flood and they have to kind of rely on their own abilities as well as a slowly developing kind of friendship between them. Now these animals are not particularly anthropomorphized and they don't there's no dialogue in the movie. I will say the amount of scared cat sounds was pretty distressing.

And I guess those are all cat sounds. The director's own cat made all those sounds. But I found it to be a really touching and just a really well told story. It's directed very beautifully and the action is very... The action moves really well and it's just a really exciting movie to watch. I'm going to recommend another kind of fun, action-y, exciting movie.

One that I had been meaning to watch for a long time and I had not gotten around to it. And I have not seen the second movie which comes after it yet, which is the continuation of the story. But I finally got on seeing the Richard Lester version of The Three Musketeers from 1973. And it is a, you know, it's just telling the story

of the Three Musketeers and it's adaptation of the book. But I think it's really funny and the action in it is really fun. There's really good sword fighting in it. And it's funny that I was looking at some of the contemporary reviews and they were like, oh, the sword fighting is too precise and choreographed. And you watch it and you're like

I guess a little bit like compared to the stuff that we see now where everything is so intensely choreographed It's it looks more natural than that But um, it's you know, it's your classic three musketeers story guy shows up wants to be a musketeer falls in with these musketeers They gotta help the they gotta help the Queen of France Not get caught by her husband because somehow that's gonna help Cardinal Richelieu when she's having an Affair with a British guy and there's a lot of just jokes and stunts and there's a very light tone to it the kind of we Just talked about Cuthbert Island at the in San Francisco And I think the light kind of breezy tone that they were going for in Cuthbert Island

But didn't quite get Richard Lester does a really much better job of capturing in the three musketeers So I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to the second movie, The Four Musketeers, which I haven't seen yet. Yeah, those Musketeers movies from Lester. Yeah, I really love them too. Great pick. Before we move on and say goodbye, I just want to do a quick shout out. This story ends happily, spoiler alert, so no one stresses out over it. But I wanted to shout out to Vince, the guy who runs the Flophouse Discord. He had mentioned an injury a while back and then disappeared from the Discord for quite some time and no one had heard from him and a lot of people were worried.

And I'm not telling tales out of school because he posted this on Reddit himself to update everyone. He resurfaced recently confirming like, yes, he had been in the hospital and it had come close to being really bad, but he is alive and well. And he's just like a really enthusiastic listener who set up the discord and I was Personally genuinely very scared that something had happened to him because no one knew And so at a time when I feel like there's a lot of bad news I was really happy to hear that he's well, so I send wishes for continued health to events

That's really good to hear. Yeah And I would like to take this moment to thank our for continued health, so advance. That's really good to hear. Yeah. And I would like to take this moment to thank our network, the Maximum Fun Network. Go to MaximumFun.org, check out all the other great shows on the network. They keep adding new ones. There's a lot of funny stuff, a lot of informative stuff. I'd like to thank Alex Smith, our producer.

He goes by the name Howell Doddy all over the internet. You can listen to his music, watch his Twitch streams. Check out his stuff as well. But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Cailin. Bye. Bye.

Good bye. Bye! Bye! Goodbye! I think some people, they don't have a lot of control over things in their life, so they decide to get mad at about the things they feel like they can control, such as the opinions of others about movies. Other times, someone has tons of control in their life, and yet they feel like they get mad about stuff, and they get into politics and they ruin the country. What are you going to do? People get mad about stuff. It's weird.

It's a silly time. It is weird, baby Stewie. It's weird, yeah. Maximum fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly.

By you.