The Flop House - Ep.#458 - Snow White, with Rebecca Alter

Episode Date: August 16, 2025

Hi ho? More like HO HUM! Got 'em. Oooh Disney's gonna be smarting from that sick burn so hard they've GOTTA stop making these lackluster remakes, right? Anyway, on this episode we welcome the great Rebecca Alter of Vulture.com to discuss the most already-forgotten of Disney's IP-recycling death march, Snow White!See The Flop House LIVE IN CHICAGO this November!OR, if you prefer to watch us from the comfort of your own home: Flop TV Season 3 tix are ON SALE!Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!Wikipedia page for Snow WhiteRecommended in this episode:Dan: The Naked Gun (2025)Stu: Together (2025)Elliott: The Trip (2010)Rebecca: The Last Days of Disco (1998)Head to squarespace.com/FLOP for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use OFFER CODE: FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Keep it classic and  cool, with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to Quince.com/flop for free shipping and 365-day returns.

Hey, it's Dan. These pre-rolls can get boring quickly, so I'll be fast. Flop TV is back this September, 2025 through February 26, with all new streaming live shows that you can also see video on demand if you can't make it live. Individual tickets and season passes are available at theflophouse.com. That's ticks spelled tix, as well as all the info that is too much to say here. Now the show. On this episode, we discuss Snow White. Snow White, a beautiful achievement in the art of animation. And then there is this movie. Raim, me, ow. Stewart's got claws. Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flop House.

I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin, and who we joined by today, Daniel? We are joined by Rebecca Alter, who is a staff writer at Bulcher, my favorite pop culture site these days. Hello, Rebecca. Oh, thank you.

I like that qualified recommendation these days. Hey. There's been great ones in the past, the golden years of the AV Club. Dan was just like being careful in case fucking Columbo wandered and was like, oh, well. You used to read the AV Club a lot. Actually, it says here, you said that you like to dissolve the most. The dissolve is great, yeah. But these days, yeah, I go to Vulture first and foremost.

All right, I'll buy it. I'll buy it. Rebecca, thanks so much for joining us today. Now, were you chomping at the bit to get at Snow White? Is that why this is the episode that you're joining us for? Actually, I think originally I suggested unfrosted way back, and then I fully got laryngitis and could not speak. And I think I left Dan a voice note being like, I can't talk.

Yeah, that's true. I remember that. And you had watched Unfrosted like three times in preparation. Oh, yeah, I thought this was a good movie podcast. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you thought you were coming on the unfrosted minute where we talk, we go through unfrosted a minute at a time, yeah, yeah. Wow, what a, what a torturous existence that would be.

This is like, oh, thank God. I did appreciate that you left a voice note to prove that you had laryngitis. So you weren't just like, I don't know, I saw unfrosted. I decided to pull the rip cord on this one. See ya, you know, it was like, no, I'm sick, you know. Yeah, doctor said I had no. Nodes. Nodes.

Oh, wow. The doctor said, under no circumstances, can you talk about unfrosted? It would be the needle in your condition. Yeah, they were just hired by Jerry Seinfeld to shut me up. Yeah, big Seinfeld. Has a lot of tentacles in the American Medical Establishment. A year after Unfrosted was released, we was like, we kind of closed the door on the bad, the bad word of mouth on this one. Yeah, staunch the bleeding.

Well, yeah, so we did a makeup. Yep. We decided to watch Snow White. And what are we doing this podcast, Dan? Well, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie. There's at least a hundred great ones out there. We are not one of them. That is so much is clear. And then we talk about it.

This was, of course, the latest in Disney's hunger for shitting all over their animated classics by remaking. Well, I was going to call it the strip mining of their legacy. And I thought that was too hard. but you weren't even farther. I mean, now, was this one that you suggested, Dan, or Rebecca, is this one that you were like, I can't wait to watch this thing? It's actually both. Dan suggested it, and I was sort of like, I can't wait to watch this.

Okay. Yeah, thank you both then, I guess. I mean, you write a lot about theater and vulture, among other things. And this clearly has a desire to, like, tap into, like, oh, there's a resource. Surgeon of Love for Musicals, we're going to combine the old songs that you loved from the original with some really terrible new ones. And they're going to pump up the old ones. Like they added beats to those old ones.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's Passick and Paul, who are the mastermind songwriters behind such beloved things as Dear Evan Hanson. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's kind of, yeah. So they want a great movie track record.

As seen on a previous flop, episode. Exciting Elliot. I guess also Lala Land. That was the editorial. Oh, LaLan. That one's going to stay on the test of time. Now, did you guys feel, so, and the, the screenplay, or I guess it's a musical you could say the book of this film. Really a Schrodinger's comment you made to her. The, the, the, and the screenplay was written by Aaron Cresta Wilson, who also wrote Secretary and, and, and, uh, and I see connections. Other movies along those lines. And so I was, that was something I didn't realize until afterwards. And I was like, I assumed that they wanted to bring someone in who could write a strong female voice.

But I really wish they had leaned into the secretary aspect a little bit more in this version of Snow White, you know. And it's about Galgado's secretarying Snow White. I guess there is a, I mean, was I the only one who's- That's been added to Webster, right, secretarying somebody? Yeah. Or at least Urban Webster. It replaces secretariat, which is when you make someone be a race worse for sexual reasons.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is a fucking saddle on secretary. I guess it all connects It does Well, I'm going to be handling the plot today So speaking of the yarn Let's spin a tail

So do you guys have a lot of experience Like do you have like a good relationship With the original A good relationship? Yeah Or the like Snow White and the Huntsman's There's like three of those There's a bunch of those

Yeah there's mirror mirror was one of them Yeah that was that was the kind of Have any of them been like banged? Have any of them been awesome? The original... That first Disney Snow White, the cartoon one is pretty good. Gorgeous movie.

Like it has elements that I understand why for this movie they're like, okay, well, let's update this or whatever. Although in almost every case that they do it, I think they do it poorly. So you're in a position you're like, I wish that...

I wish I was watching that retrograde version of this story. But yeah. Otherwise, I don't know. Well, it's also, it's so sad because the original was the first feature-length animated. But I know technically that's not true. And, like, there were, there was some, like, alternative styles of animation in the 20s or whatever. But this is considered, like, the first, it's the first feature-length Disney anyway.

And that animation is, like, more sophisticated than the animation in this movie, which, to be clear, is, like, 95% still animation. It's just, like, bad animation. No offense to anybody who worked on. I'm sure you all tried really hard guys. And gals and they thems. I'm sure they're not offended now. But, no, we were watching it and Audrey was like, this is what it would look like if you just fed

the old Snow White into an AI and was like, make a live action looking version of it. Well, that's the saddest aspect of it to me. And I feel like we're jumping ahead past the movie into final judgments in some ways. But well, is that the visual style of the original is so beautiful and unique for what it is. And the visual style of this just feels like

it's that same general, heavily CG, everything's kind of oranges and browns and a certain type of blue and weird rounded shadings and the lighting doesn't look like it exists in a real world, but instead in a sort of like fake simulated world. It has that kind of AI visual style feel to it, which is very strange to come from Disney,

which at its best is, is innovative. And it's uncanny and soulless, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I think these live action remakes are so spiritually similar

to AI for me. Even though they're not, there's something about remake this thing, feed it through computer. Like, there's something so anti-creative, like just the impulse to make these at all.

Yeah, there's just too bad. It's just too bad that this is what they have to do because the original idea minds went dry years ago. You know, the DORVs mined them off. The Earth's resources for original ideas. I mean, they said that we were hitting peak original idea during the spec-scale screenplay boom of the 90s, and they were right.

It's been just going down ever since then, and now we have to look for alternative sources, such as remakes, yeah. It is weird, because this is a movie where, like, the running theme is that there's this, like, bountiful world we live in and you can harvest it to a certain amount, and you're talking about a situation

where they have stripped mined all the ideas completely. Yeah, well, they were talking. I meant how you can harvest the bountiful goodness of the Disney back catalog. That's what they... Well, speaking of this bountiful goodness, that takes us right in there because that's the first unnecessary song of the film. I mean, every song is unnecessary if you think about it. So why not have them in?

But let's talk about the movie, shall we? I'll take you through a little movie called Snow White. So we start with, as always, a hedgehog sleeping on a storybook and some squirrels open up the storybook. This is clearly hearkening back to them. They got like real animals to do this shit? They've got real animals that they trained and then they put makeup on them

to make them look like CGI animals. So they're all wearing CGI prosthetics. Little makeup, little mocap suits. Yeah. The mocap soups and mohair suits. And so these squirrels open the book clearly hearkening back to the early Disney movies which started with those storybook openings.

And the storybook has a voiceover that tells about how there was a virtuous king and queen, no such thing in my opinion. But a virtuous king and queen who want a child, they get a princess during a snowstorm and the implication is that the princess... Yeah, yeah, looks out the window and he's like, I think I have a name for this little thing.

Yeah, the implication is that the princess kind of like that they found it in the snowstorm, not that it was born in a snowstorm because it's, you know, they don't want to talk about like it was a hard labor in a carriage in a snow storm, you know? There's so much placenta in that carriage right now. Oh, they had to, they just dripped out the lining and they had to refurbish the whole interior of the carriage,

yeah, you never get that smell out. And they named her Snow White because she was born in the snow. and they teach her about love and generosity and they sing that song about it about the bountable goodness if that grows in the earth and they also look into a wishing whale

and this song goes on for a long time this is a long song there's a little choreo though you get some stuff to look at it right? This makes a lot choreo but it's very ugly it's very clapping and I feel like

a lot of clapping and stomping at different points and there's they are going for oh hey I feel like you can watch a Disney movie now and you know exactly what kind of song they're trying to get with each of their songs.

And I think they're trying, the content is a little different, but they're trying for the feeling of the opening of Beauty and the Beast where Bell is singing about being in that town, you see all the people in the town, and it's so amazing. It's such an amazing song.

And it's such a great sequence. Then they're the coolest dude in the fucking world shows up, Gaston. And then we get a really cool song finally. Yeah, finally. That is absolutely what they're trying to do. But the thing about that song is it's not just a big opener. It is establishing things about the story.

whereas... And the characters, yeah. Yeah, this is like a completely extraneous extra song. You could say it's a thematic song that it's trying to set the theme for the movie, but the movie doesn't play off that theme, really, at all. So it is very extraneous in some ways, but we also get to see that Snow White's a nice little girl

who hands out pies and things to people. And because monarchy, it rationalized itself by providing a pittance to the people that it leeches off of, you know? But also this pie thing, I realized later on, It's like, oh, the point of, like, the pie focus. Like a Tom's thumb over here. I'm going to stick in my thumb and pull out some screenplay stuff. I'm glad you're sticking your thumb in.

I thought you were a Jason Biggs for a moment. How dare you, sir? Yeah, hi, Chris. No, this, I realized later on, like, this is to, like, layer in, like, the thematic significance of the Apple later on. Yes, yeah. And I'm like, we don't need the backstory for why an Apple is. is what is being used, you know, to put her to sleep. Like, the apple can just be an apple.

Really, a strange stance for backstory-loving Dan McCoy to take on me. Well, they don't think modern audiences would understand why a young woman would take a bite out of an apple, unprompted when handed to her by a weird old crone. Instead, they're like, shouldn't it be like a bag of tockis or something? Yeah, like the Snickers or... At least that would explain why it, like, turns into a skull sometimes. It's like a lenticular bag of talkies.

They make it glow blue. So we flash forward. Snow White's mom dies, has to do it to Disney movie. Her dad marries a beautiful evil witch with a magic mirror. Everything about this woman screams evil all the time in a way that should, like ideally would, again, they want it to sit in the classic Disney villain world where the villains are just kind of like outwardly villains that are super melodramatic. And let's face it, almost always coded as either gay or, um,

or, like, in some way, melodramatically queer or something like that, or belesque or something like that. And here, um, you can't, they're, the queen takes over the kingdom and sends the king off to war and you're like, yeah, she's evil, right? Like, everybody gets that she's super evil. And I guess the implication is just that she is, like, this dad is so thirsty for this queen and that he's going to do whatever. And I wonder if, uh, I wonder, maybe I'm the only one who's picking up.

Dude, she's the fairest in the land. She's the fair. This, like, um, even, uh, much higher, maybe it's that. secretary writing in there a much higher psychosexual dynamic running through subtext running through this and like that her need to be the fairest in the land it becomes feels at a certain points to be it becomes so much like that she wants snow white so badly you know and it's a and it's not that she wants to be the most beautiful most powerful so much as like she needs to she needs to possess her in a way

maybe i'm imagining that i feel like i'm falling down on my job as pervozoid number one because like i did not pick up with any of that oh okay well then uh i mean i mean i'm pretty We touch us all at the same time. I mean, it might just be because I've been writing the Harley Quinn book and they're literally the bad guy is like lusting over. She's lusting over Harley all the time. So maybe I'm just imagining the Harley-Althea relationship in the queen and Snow White. That could be.

I mean, ultimately that's one of the things that I miss the most when they translate these animated movies to these digital slot movies. Is the like horniness that's injected by like lonely animators? Like you watch like hunchback in Notre Dame And you're like damn These guys are fucking hard Oh yeah well I mean like Because you got that whole song about how hot

It's great The lead actresses So we have like eight minutes of voiceover It goes on for a long time This voiceover to tell the story But we finally leave the voiceover When Snow White she's become a servant Imprisoned in the castle by the queen

She is mopping up when a handsome thief Will learn his name Jonathan No Less name shows up and steals some fruit from the kitchens. He briefly privileged shames Snow White and tells her to stop just thinking about helping others and start actually helping others. Y'all, what do you think about this guy?

I don't like that he has, like, a little, like, a little hoodie on under his jerkin. And I also don't like his, like, fuckboy behavior, dude. Like, he's constantly shaming Snow White, and I'm like, but she's, like, in the running for Ferris and the land and she's a princess. And she's, like, the daughter of the dude, you love.

Well, also, the fact that when he sees her, she's literally mopping the floor. So it's not like she's doing something particularly princessy, you know? He does not know that she's the princess at this time. He thinks that she lives in the castle, but he does not know that she's, like, because he does encounter her. Because if he thinks she's just a servant in the castle. It makes sense. Because then it's like, it's his own insecurities later on when he finds out she is the

princess. And he's like, oh, I like to you, but now you're the princess and you're out of off limits or whatever. Okay, I get it, man. I like this character. classic i like this character in theory like they're basically just porting over robin hood and sticking him in as like the love interest rather than just a prince you know and like it gives at least something for this guy to care about it gives him a thing yeah yeah and you know like in a movie that still buys into the idea of like benevolent rulers Like, at least it gives some sense of, like, I don't know, the underclass, but he is a boring guy. He's a boring.

He's very handsome. He's got a great voice. But I feel like the character's, but also the character keeps sliding back and forth between, I do this for the king. Actually, I'm just a thief. I don't believe in anything. But I do love the king. No, I'm just a thief. I don't have any ideals.

Is he a theater guy? Is this actor a theater guy? Yes, he is a theater guy. Yes, I believe so. What's the Andrew Burnap? That's Andrew Burnap. He's done a lot of Shakespeare. You got Tony Award for The Inheritance.

Oh. Yeah. We also glossed over the fact that we also got a backstory, which I'm sure we all needed, about why Snow White has a bob. Wait, really? I missed that part. Well, because in the original, she just sort of has a chic little bob, and it goes unmentioned. A cool, modern haircut for the time. And in this, they have to be like, well, we need to explain.

What's the explanation? That the Galgado cuts it off as a show as a show of dominance she cuts snowy's hair

you know as a way of saying you're mine now I possess you with all the rights and privileges that entails it's all in there

Jane it's turned into a horny animator I guess it's weird when you're a horny live actioner that's the troubling thing so

you'll believe that's more normal yeah then you're just any director I guess that's true you're every director that's ever worked in film yeah um so she asked the queen she goes i gotta help the people they're struggling queen can i bake some apple pies for people and the queen is like no the people need a hard leader who's

made of steel and she sentences the thief jonathan to freeze to death by being tied to the front gate to the palace uh and snow white's like give him clemency and snow white sings a song about wanting to escape her fate and is she going to be the girl that her dad said she could be or something and she And before you freak out, these old fairy tales were full of fucked up shit. Yes. Freezing a thief is pretty normal. This song... Oh, yeah, you're in a fairy tale.

You freeze a couple thieves just by 9 a.m. Yeah, you can't... Then by noon, it's a lot of cutting kids' fingers off and pulling the eyes out of fishermen. The road is littered with frozen thieves. There's just a guy walking around with a sausage stuck to the end of his nose. Say, kill me, kill me, please, yeah. This song essentially also replaces... someday my prince will come.

Yeah. And I understand the desire to do this because they want to give the female lead more agency and not be just like, I'm waiting around for some dude to like come. But I would argue that the song that they plays with is not a good pick for that because she's, it's like singing like waiting on a wish. And it's like, okay, so you're still waiting for some like magical outside force to help you rather than you doing something like if that's the goal

But that's the lesson she's learning in the movie She's the lesson she's learning in the movie She can't just wait for a wish You've got to make a wish happen Yeah I guess so I guess so The Disney movie wish Another great mining

Of Just sort of the idea of Disney IP Yeah that was It's so weird We're going to celebrate 100 years of Disney But just kind of making a thing That feels like other Disney stuff But it's not

It doesn't reference it at all You know Yeah Anyway so I hate to try you guys, but let's get back to this story. This movie is. So she frees the thief, and he runs off, and he goes, you know, you can leave the castle with me, and she's like, nah, I'm not going to.

But the queen saw Snowyte do this. And she asked her magic mirror, the magic mirror, which is the most CGI-looking element in the whole thing. I don't mind that, though. I don't mind it so much, but I wish that they, like, I don't know, made it look cool. The magic mirror in the original movie looks so cool. Like, it's such a eerie, spooky thing, you know. I agree with that.

But I also feel like all of the stuff surrounding the mirror and the evil magic is the stuff that looks best in the movie because it is borrowing most directly from the way the original movie looked. So even though it's a pale copy, I'm just like, oh, well, this, you know, this looks cool. And so she asked the mirror, who's the fairest of the mall? And the mirror is like, not you. And she's like, what? And so as in the story, she takes a huntsman. She spits out her drink. All over the mirror.

Who's the fairest of them all? Not you, my queen. Oh, okay, great. That's good. What? It's all over the mirror. The mirror has a magic hand that comes out in white six face for a dead pan. She's just a clear the mirror with Windex and the mirror's like, oh.

Don't get it in my mirror eyes. Yeah, yeah. I would love all that. I mean, why is there never, has there must have been like a big slapstick goofy version of Snow White at some point, right? Well, there was a Betty Boop one that came out around the same time as the Disney one. that was very slavstick. I bet it was pretty slapstick, and I bet Cab Calloway was probably in it.

That must have been great. Oh, you know, they had the rotoscope machine going on to him. Oh, yeah, for sure. I remember as a kid seeing those cartoons and not knowing how they were made and just loving them, but being so confused by how suddenly the animation suddenly became so smooth.

And again, also how the cartoons would suddenly stop for Coco the Clown to become a jazz singer and just sing a swing song and then go right back to the story again. I'd be like, what is going on here? It gets so eerie. You're like, the movement suddenly became so natural, even though his legs are getting so long and short.

Yeah. Oh, man, like a regular Pedro Pescal. So she orders the huntsman, takes Snow White to the apple orchard. Then you're going to kill her and bring her heart back in a box, which is, I guess, where the, I guess that's the inspiration for the Nirvana song, Heart-shaped Box, right? Probably, yeah.

Can I pause here quickly to say that I've brought you guys an offering? This better be a human heart Oh, this is amazing What is? It's a Disney promotional live action snow white popcorn bucket. Oh wow. It looks like the box

from the movie that the heart is in. So how much, you could fit a fair amount of popcorn in that piece. Dan is already like, how would I have sex with this thing? Exactly. Hold down, dude. Yeah, you may have seen

Rebecca online doing some popcorn bucket reviews she's on the Oh what's your fate All-time fate Journalism is really thriving You guys

Well I just got to play With the Galactus one Oh cool Cool cool Which is approximately 20 inches tall And two feet wide And its eyes glow That

I mean that's a lot of popcorn Right there My arm goes all the way down at That's incredible Wow Wow So it's like It's close as you can get

To a bottomless pit of popcorn Pretty much. But, yeah, this, the snow white box, it's a bit more humble. I like the box shape. I feel like that would be in some ways a lot easier to eat out of. And I like the strap, so it's kind of like a trough. Yeah. Anything that falls while you're trying to eat, it just goes right back in the box.

It's a virtuous cycle. You could fit like two hearts in there. Thank you. All future guests now, you know, take note. Bring offerings. So the huntsman takes Snow White to pick apples, but he can't be able to kill her. She's just too nice and too fair. He tells her, runaway, and she runs in the dark forest and she's pushing past trees and owls and bats are flying at her.

And I kind of like this part. I mean, I love this sequence in the original movie. This is one of the places where I think the unreality or the uncanny valley reality of the AI type visual style works a little bit more because it feels so, you know, hallucinogenic. It feels so phantasmical. It's a moment where they're like, hey, it's similar to some of those stuff with the mirror where they're like, hey, we are, we can kind of do anything with this technology. Let's like play around with it instead of trying to desperately try and make it look real. Yeah. And this is when the movie most closely resembles Valerie's Week of Wonders, you know, the Czech fantasy film.

So I was like, oh, that's good. Okay. Of course. So she eventually, she falls through. I think they said they were intentional. referencing that. Oh yeah, probably, probably. In the press material. So she falls through a pond. She befriends a ton of CGI

woodland creatures. There's just like a shit ton of chipmunks and squirrels and deer and little birds and stuff. And she follows this deer to a cottage and rabbits lead her into the cottage. So if the police arrest her for break and entering, she'd be like, the animals did it. It wasn't me. And she falls asleep

across some very short beds. Who could these beds belong to? I mean, there are names written on the bed. names are like carved into them. Yeah. This is when we enter, enter the, what would have been the titular seven dwarfs if this was still called Snow White

and the Seven Dwarfs was just called Snow White. And of course they sing Hi-Ho, but it's like a supersized version of the High Ho song. Like it's got so many more verses. They go to a mine. They're racing around in mine carts. I think like Pitbull has a fucking verse, right? Yeah.

It says High Ho's Seven Dwar's Feet Pit Bull. It's about living in Miami. I want to say about these songs, though, even the, look, I don't like the new songs. I feel like an old man saying it. Like, the ones that are funnier, I like better. To be a man in your 40s and to be like, this song in a children's movie is not as good as the song in the older children's movie. I don't like these pop style show tunes. I want the old style.

I don't, I just, yeah, I'm not as fond of it. I mean, these are songwriters. I apologize. to them, I guess, out in the world, I generally don't like that much. But even the older songs that I do like, I found the orchestrations of them really bad.

Like, there was something bad about it. Like, the way it was mixed. I mean, I don't know any of that stuff. I just didn't sound. Okay. I thought there was a very prominent banjo in the mix that I was picking up on and enjoying. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with prominent banjo.

During high ho. I remember the banjo and that was. one of the few things. I was like, oh, this is fun. This feels right for these dwarf characters. I'll say hi-ho, I felt like, was one of the more successful song that he does in this. If only because, like, it's still fun. The energy's up the whole time. It goes on for a long time. But, like, and they're using it to introduce the different characters' personalities because otherwise it would be impossible to tell what grumpy is like or sleepy or sneezy. There's no way of knowing what they're like. I mean, sure,

there's their names, but. Unlike in Sibley song, they didn't add like a little crude, like, extra verse in there. Did you, I was like, Ellie's gonna hate this. You didn't clock that. They had like some sort of off color joke right in the middle of the revamped, you know,

ding, don't know, I don't remember that part. You know, I was also, I was taking notes and doing the dishes while watching this. So I didn't, maybe not have picked up all the nuances.

So, but I did notice they race around in mind carts like it's Donkey Kong country. Love that. Love a mind cart race. Can't kick it enough of those. And I will say this about the dwarfs. They look scary. Did you guys feel this way?

Like, I feel like they, their design is very off-putting and very, like, very, just, I imagine a child being scared by them. They're abominations. Like, it's truly one of the worst-looking things I've ever seen, and it's not bad like it's lazy, because it's a very specific character design that I've never seen anything quite like this before, and I found them really repulsive. Like, even their skin was full of these big, pores, and it looked

waxy, and their faces were, it was horrible. They look like lawn gnomes like come to life in like, in a hyper-realistic way. I mean, it looks like, there's AI, YouTube is always trying to tell me that I

want to watch what would cartoon characters look like if they were real that people use AI for. And it looks like, it does look like that. It looks like you took a lawn gnome and you said, hey, I make this real. And it kind of gave you one of those. and it's, yeah, there's like a hyper detail to it, but their faces are all kind of stretched.

And I wonder if there was also the desire to not make them look too much like real human beings because then it becomes a matter of, are we othering, you know, people? There was a whole thing, like, Peter Dinklage in particular was like, you should not use little people for this because, like, you're, like, turning them into some sort of other creature, you know, and that's a bad idea.

So they were originally, I think, going to, and then they swung far in the other direction. Like, okay, like, let's make these exaggerated CGI, gnom-like dwarves. There's a way to make a little gnome, old man, little gnome man very cute. Yeah, look at fucking hoggle, baby. Or, you know, like David de Nome. Yeah, or David the Nome. Right, he's a cute little bearded little old man.

David the Nome is incredibly cute. Give them little rosy cheeks and make them very cute. I was saying Hoggle from Labyrinth. You know? Oh, right, right. I forgot the character's name. David the Gnome, I think the only thing you're up against is that it's maybe the most boring cartoon in the history of television.

That was the show. That was a cute looking. I remember as a kid watching Nickelodeon and David the Nome would come on and be like, well, I have to watch this because it's television, but I'm not going to enjoy it at all. Yeah, you cross your arms. Rebecca, it looks like she's receding into herself. Like, how dare you about David? I need to be honest, I've never seen one second of David the Nome.

I just know it's a cute gnome. I mean, it's one of those things, it's one of those things, it's not, you've just seen that, you've just seen the Rule 34 interpretations of David, I will say, it's one of those shows that if my kids watched it, I'd be like, this is great, it's gentle, like, it's not, it's not loud, it's not frantic, but as a kid, I was like, let's amp it up, come on, get a shot of energy into this. So, uh, there's, also, what if David had a machine gun? You know, now that David the Nome's in the public domain, he can finally be a killer. So the dwarfs also, they have, we meet their personalities. They have magic hands that glow when they locate precious gemstones. That's the thing that never really does anything. It's just a thing they do for a moment.

They go home from a day of mining, just a day of tearing the bounty of Mother Earth out of her guts to replace it with empty hollow tunnels and a fractured substrata. I mean, honestly, those tunnels are pretty spacious. Like, from what I know about mining, They have it pretty good there. And to be honest, and they're just doing that with pickaxes. So, I mean, they talk about how they've been working together for centuries.

It takes a long time to dig a tunnel that is roughly the size of the interior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a pickax. Like, that's amazing that they did that. And they're also probably union members. Well, that's the thing. We never see them take a vote on anything. We never see them talk to their reps. So I'm not sure. What are they doing with all those jewels?

Because that seems to be a rich cash of emeralds and rubies and such. and they don't seem to be wealthy. They're all living together as roommates in a little shack in the woods. So the subtext is I think that it's not so much that they want the jewels and they want to be rich so much as they want to keep other people

from accumulating things because it would make them feel lesser if other people had more. So they just hoard all those gems and don't let anyone else have it. They're very selfish, very selfish characters. But that's the world we live in, Snow White. Anyway,

Yeah, when they're naming them originally. Yeah, originally when they're naming them, And they're like, well, their primary characteristic is selfish, but that's all of them. So we need to differentiate them a little more. They can't be just greedy one, greedy two, greedy three. So they get to the house. They find Snow White sleeping. They run around scared, oh no.

And they accidentally leave dopey alone in the room with her. He's the dwarf who cannot talk. Who in this version looks a lot like Alfredine Newman, which I find very funny. Yes. He looks like a combination of like horrible, ugly CGIA, Nome, man, and Tom Holland. Yeah, there's a lot of Tom Holland in there. Yeah, I can see that.

He rammed them together. Yeah. And is he, he's not bald in this version, right? He has hair or? No, he's got a full head of brown sort of Tom Holland color hair. Yeah, yeah. But I do find him, I found him the most unsettling. There's something about, yeah.

Because he has the most, like, human-like features. Yeah. Yeah. And he's always making, like, quote-unquote, cute expressions. but that's very, like, repulsive with the aforementioned issues with, like, how their skin looks up close. Well, there's, I feel like there's always a problem with a character that really wants you to love it and, and it's not quite connecting. Whereas the dopey and the original one, he does, he's always tripping over things and like, you know, he's got those long sleeves and everything. You know, he can't help but love him.

Come on. Part of the problem with this. He's like a, he's like a bald little gnome. How could you not like him, you know? The conception of this dopey, part of the problem is like, and this is going to sound like an anti-woke screen, which. is obviously I don't go up, everybody. He knew it was going to happen.

Despite what Stuart Elliott try and say is not my vibe. But like I think that the idea is like, oh, we can't make dopey, dopey. That would feel wrong now. But like the original dopey is just like a lovable harpo style goof. Well, I always assumed he was called dope

because he was a heroin addict. Right, right, right. This was pushing like so far into like this is like, I don't know, the Holy Fool sort of thing, but it is trying so hard to, like, tug at your heartstrings that it's, it's, you want to push your way.

The Holy Fool was originally the title for Baby's Day Out, right? I think it was, yeah. Guys, which is your favorite dwarf? I think you can guess which mine is. Oh, yeah, sure. Well, my favorite is Dorf from Dorf goes fishing and Dorff plays golf. Yeah, Tim Conway, yeah.

Yeah, he's cool. Mine's Gimley. I meant among these dwarves. Oh, okay. Now I have to rethink. I don't know, probably there's a doctor one, right? A doctor. Although he clarifies in this that he's not really a doctor.

But he has foreseps. Yeah. I mean, again, there's a lot. Again, that's the secretary stuff coming in. Yeah, yeah. I like, the closest I come to liking one of these is grumpy because I think grumpy, like, he doesn't, he's less horrific than the others. Even in the original grumpy, Grumpy and dopey are clearly the two that you're meant to, like, invest some energy into.

Dopee because he's super cute. and grumpy because he's the one who has a change of heart. You know, he's the one who doesn't like Snow White and then by the end is crushed that she's been hurt. So it's the, whereas the others are just kind of around like bashful, who gives his shit, you know? Pip up, dude. And there's the one, who was, was it happy, who was always hungry?

Like, there's none of them are named to hungry. But what he was like, at the end, I think it's him who gets him who gets some food. And he's like, mm, yeah. Like, he's always talking about food. And I'm like, that's not your thing. Huh. And there's, uh, there's, uh, there's like a sleepy one, right? They're sleepy, he's always going to sleep, yeah, yeah.

And do you know what the one is sneezing is called? Uh, I like it. Mike. So, uh, so she gets left behind with dopey, but she's gentle to him and they guess, oh, she's on the run. She's in trouble. But against Grumpy's wishes, they agree to hide her at the house. Meanwhile, the queen's mirror is like, uh, dude, snow white's still alive, dude. And the queen sings her bad guys.

song, every bad guy gets a song in Disney movies. How did you guys feel about this bad guy song, which is usually my favorite song in a Disney movie? Oh, man. Like the aforementioned hunchback of Notre Dame. Yeah, I mean, Hellfire is the best song in Notre Dame. I love porn. I mean, there's a number of great songs in The Little Mermaid by Love Poor and Fortunate Souls.

Like, there's, you get great songs from, I mean, the Scar's song in the original Lion King, I love it, you know, be prepared. I, there's a split decision for me on here. This is one of the newer songs that as a song didn't bother me as much. I thought the song was okay,

but Gal Gaddad is not really much of a singer, so that was the problem, I think. This was the highlight of the movie for me, because I do think it's where Gal Gadot's limitations as a performer are thrown into this darkest relief. And the whole time, the whole movie, she's making like a smirk, she's playing with her long nails,

and she really thinks she's eating. But she does think that she's doing, that good of a job and she simply like it's horrible and that's very fun and delightful so this is the high point from a Shadenfreude point of view

it just well an entertainment point of view and and it's so cruel to her because it's making her this song especially the lyrics it's it's asking of her to say so many things so fast and actually sing so many things so fast And she's, um...

Did she do her own saying for us? They don't have a stunt voice, do they? It sounds like it. I would assume... They would have gotten a better stunt voice. Yeah. Also, I would imagine that part of her taking this role is that she's like, I want to sing.

I want to show off my pipes. And it's a song about what's it called again. It's something about, she says ambitious girls must be vicious girls at some point. It's the song's like, I'm evil. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is the villain song is highlighting why they're evil or how they're evil or how being evil's awesome. Yeah, this is called all is fair.

It's basically, what's your business is saying, like, it's great to be evil when you're beautiful. You can get away with whatever you want, you know, that that's the most important thing. That's what I always say. That's why Stewart started weightlifting. He was like, wait a minute, hold on. I can finally be evil. Keats was wrong. Beauty is a truth.

Beauty is power, the power to take the world and make it your play thing. You know, yeah. So she gets this whole big song. She sends her soldiers out to find Snow White. And this is when we get into the dwarf antics part of the story where they're just knocking things over. They're fighting among themselves. And Dope gets upset by all this rambunctiousness

and Snow White talks to him gently. And he kind of silently admits he's afraid to speak and she teaches him how to whistle instead. And she helps the dwarfs get along and they all clean the house together. That's not annoying. They do. This is their whistle while you work sequence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is weird that for so many of these live action remakes, a big thing about them has been like, oh, we need to rehabilitate these female characters to make them better role models. All of these girls are suddenly going to be really good. The princesses all do stem now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're all independent.

And this one is still very much mostly about baking pies and housework. Yeah, I think they're trying to do a hard thing of making her kind of a more, politically aware character without losing the kind of Disney princess in a sense. And I feel like there's a, they're missing an opportunity to play into a different kind of a different kind, but a more retrograde sort of female heroicism. That's more the traditional thing of the female character who is not like tough, but instead wins people over through love and inherent goodness. And that's what they're trying to do with her. but they also want to make her like a character

who is projecting kind of strength and defiance and I feel like there's a little bit of tension between those two things that she could her strength is in her I guess in the old-fashioned version of the story her strength is in purely her goodness it's a very kind of like Christian morality Christian parable type of strength

but here they also want to make her like a political rebel and it's hard to do those things you know at the same time I just realized that before I was wrong it was not during silly song that they had the off-color new lyric It was in this song. It was, I looked it up.

It was, wait, I think that brush is mine. You should have hung a sign. If you don't hush, I'll take this brush and shove it where the sun don't shine. I'm like, we don't need that. I thought you were going to say the lines where whistle while you work while you need and clean and tuck. You know that you can also whistle while you, hey, what's that over there? I thought that was the lyric you're talking about. It was fine.

It was fine. I feel like as far as putting off-color things into Disney, injecting Disney movies, that's what you just said, Dan, is one of the lesser ones, but I still don't like it. Sure, but it's also just... What it's implying. Unnecessary. It's so much, so much, I feel, yeah, that's true.

But I feel like the, I was more worried by a, in the Lion King, when in the original version of Akuna Matata, they don't let him say farted. But then in the new version of it, he goes, what, I was going to say farted, fart, right? I can't say farted? And it was like, there's no joke if you do it that way. Like, the joke doesn't even exist, you know?

Did you gauge your children's reactions? Because I know you're two-bubes. To this movie or to that version of the Lion King? To that version of the Lion King? Do they like the fartage? They found it... I mean, they were so kind of bored by my... I mean, my younger son who just loves watching animal stuff.

He was kind of into it, but they were mostly kind of bored. And we went to see Mufasa... You should have just shown him, like, Microcosmos or something. I mean, he loves Microcosmos. Yeah, we've shown him that. And you play the Flaming Lips record at the same time. Yeah, not usually. But when we went to see it, we went to see Mufasa in the theaters when that came out

because we were out of town and I need to take the boys do something. And that was one where they were both, they had both lost interest, I think, 25 minutes into the movie, you know, but I made them stay. Well, when you sat down, you're like, that's Mufasa. He's gonna die in another movie.

I was, I was like, this is interesting. They're retconning away the idea that scar is clearly queer. Like, they're really working hard to make him a heterosexual character, you know. So, and also, but I think they all enjoyed that Mads-Mickleson got to have a song

where he went, bye, a bunch of times. so anyway Because it was Mads Miggleson They understood Yeah yeah They were like It's great that he's doing it

The star of the pusher movies Yeah So Snow White goes off to find The Rebel Thieves That Jonathan leads in the woods To see if her dad is still alive Because they say that he says

He works for the king Or he's fighting for the king or whatever And she finds Jonathan He's a cynic He sings the Princess Problems song About how She's entitled I guess She literally has been almost murdered and had to run away from home.

But he's still pretty, he's real snarky to her about it, you know. What does you guys feel about this song? Where they like, you know, they play off each other, right? Yeah, it's a two-hander, yeah. Yeah, again, the slightly more comic songs. I guess actually it's two people, so it's really more of a four-hander. Four-hander, yeah. Yeah.

Well, yeah, no, that adds up. The math works. No, he's gently negging her. she's starting to get interested in him and in the communist cause. So it's moving the plot along a bit. It's very love island, the way they're interacting, right? That he's just being like, you stink,

and she's like, I love this guy now. This is who I have to be with. No, I think it's supposed to be the old, they don't get along, but we know they're going to fall in love later or something like that. But they talk to each other. The castle guards show up,

and then Jonathan and his brigand gang fight them. And Snow White, they're more like Mary Men than Briggins, really. They're like, kind of goofy. We never see them, like, really steal from anybody, although they do have the classic cart full of valuables that Robin Hood and his Mary Man always have. And Snow White, I was confused by this. So Snow White, she runs off.

Oh, she's played by Rachel Ziegler. Oh, now I understand. Because I was like, how'd West Side Story get into this movie? Yeah, yeah. Time machine. So she went back in time from the 1950s to. and a different location.

And a different location. I mean, most time machines can change location. Are you saying this is also what the west side of Manhattan was like

before Lincoln Center. It was just forest, castles. Yeah, that's right. Mines, just gem mines everywhere. She runs off and then she tricks

the soldiers into chasing her dress, which actually has birds in it. And then we cut to her on a riding away on a horse or something and she's still wearing her dress. So I was like,

did she have two dresses? That's what confused me in that moment. Or do they show like in their like wheelbarrow full of stuff? Did the Briggins have like spare costumes and crap? Oh, maybe. Maybe that's it. Yeah. I don't know.

Because I was like, what do you guys think of the live action snow white dress? Because there's something about the like Crenelan skirt doesn't, it looks very cheap to me. It looks totally party city. It's very goofy, doofy. Most of these movies try to, you know, interpolate the vibe of the original dress. And this just did a direct one-to-one, which looks very... It's an issue I have actually, to be honest, with a lot of the Marvel movie costumes where, especially the Asgardian costumes and stuff like that, where it should look like it's made out of leather or metal,

but they all just kind of look like they're made out of plastic, you know? And this feels kind of similar. Like, it does feel kind of off the rack. Although I like the colors in it. The colors are bright and bold, you know? Yeah, I like the colors. I think that it's all, like, such, like, shiny satiny stuff that that it's what's giving it that, like, I don't know, like, we got some, like, plastic-y fabric from... Yeah, that's, I mean, that's the issue I really had more with the Queen's headdress.

I love a, I love a big spiky headdress. I love Galactus. I love Helah. I love Maleficent's headdress. But hers, like, it looked like, again, it looked like it was kind of plasticky. Like, it looked like it was just made out of not a, not a material. This is me being a stupidest version of nerd. It doesn't look like the kind of material that the real queen of this fairy kingdom would have at the time.

Yeah, it looks like what you wear under a ski helmet, maybe, to protect your ears from the wind chill. And it just, the dress stands out extra because they've dulled the colors of all the Dwarves clothing. And also, as you mentioned earlier, all of these, the Briggins are all looking like out of a Disney Channel original movie. They're wearing, like, flannel and hoodies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like, they're like a very church camp, like, hey, we're bad boys, but we're also cool. You know, like we're cool, but we're also like wholesome, I guess. Yeah, they're fighting for the king, the one true king.

Yeah, exactly, yeah. I have a CD. It's some pretty cool rock music you should hear. All about his return. It's about Jesus, but you never know. Dan, were you ever in a production of Godspell? No, but I do know all the songs. Yeah, yeah.

But do you know how to spell God? But I could be. Yeah. Any directors listening? I got a good baritone for a prepare you the way of the Lord. Yeah, come on. I have to admit, Godspell is a musical. I don't know any of the songs, too.

I've never seen it. Not familiar with it at all. And this is speaking as someone who's going tonight, the night we're recording this, to the Hollywood Bowl to see Jesus Christ Superstar for probably the fourth time that I've seen it in some form or another. So I'm up for a Christian-based musical. It's good music.

It's Stephen Schwartz. It's good stuff. Check it out. Okay. That's what I'll do. I'll check it out right after this. That's Dan's recommendation at your local library. Go to your local library.

Say, give me Godspell. They'll say, hold on. Hold on, I'm on the phone here. Do you want the soundtrack? Do you want the movie? There is a patter song in it that I do think you specifically would love them. Oh, okay. I'll have to try it out.

I'll listen to it at some point. Do you guys have a preferred version of it? Like if listeners want to check out God's spell? Toronto cast. It had every funny person in it. Yeah. That's my main touch point for Godspell is that hearing about that Toronto production where it was like, where every famous person from Canada was in it.

It was like Martin Short and Eugene Levy and, you know. Ryan Gosling. Yeah, Mayor Rob Ford. Yeah, Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau. Wayne Greshie. Yeah, yeah, Robert Davies. Yeah, everybody was. Yeah.

He was so good on Saturday night long. So, anyway. Snow White has impressed the bandits, impressed Jonathan by how she tricked the soldiers. And he admits, you know, it's nice. I actually do have ideals. I do want the king to come back. And that's when he gets hit by a crossbow bolt

that I guess was meant for Snow White. Yeah, he throws himself in front of it. So she doesn't get shot with a crossbow. The soldiers, I guess, I guess they escape. Because Snow White takes him to Doc. This is when Doc points out. He actually has, I guess, a Ph.D. in mineralogy. He doesn't.

Doc is really more of an honorary title. He's not a medical doctor. There's a post-graduate school in... I have to assume. I mean, with the idea of doc being someone other than a medical doctor, where is he getting that idea from, you know? Yeah, maybe he was born on the docks.

That's what it is. Yeah, yeah. There's no, actually, I'm called doc because I always wear dockers. So it was your Doc Martin. I was wearing Doc Martins and I have a doxent. Oh, so every other way you could be Doc except being a doctor. You got that right, that's for sure. I'm

I also I also will talk about docadiles which is like a crocodile but it was a doctor What the fuck? Really? It seems like that's not a real thing

You're just adding stuff to Oh yeah of course We'll do that too Once you get into branding You just kind of have to push it As far as you can go Here's my app It's called TikTok

Wait a sex Do you have an app Apps exist in this world Just this one I'm an appetizer Appetzer you'd eat before the meal People mostly download it thinking it's

doctor's advice about if you have a tick on you. That's not what it is though. That's not it at all. It's people trying to download

TikTok. Oh, no. Sounds like you have a lot of complaints. I'll add them to the docket. Oh. Now I'll take my

docket ship to the moon. That's not a thing. These are not things, Doc. And then the dog is short for Doc, man. Well, he's the leader. Maybe he's docking their pay.

Yeah. And that's when that's when Dopey reveals he can't talk and he goes, Snow White. we just humor him. It's what we do. He actually gets very violent

when we don't play into his doctor fantasy. So she gives a speech that unites the Briggins and the dwarfs together. They, of course, throw a dance party. During the dance, there's a big musical number where Snow White starts falling in love

with Jonathan and Jonathan's falling in love of Snow White. They're saying maybe we don't have to be alone. Maybe we can walk this path together. They sing about it. But their moment... Do you guys buy it? Do you think they get chemistry?

No. I mean, I'd call it again. Disney Channel chemistry. Like, it feels like they have chemistry because they're both too attractive people. They're in the movie together. Singing a song together. They're like, they're like,

there's no one else in this movie. I guess we got a date. I don't know. Isn't there like a love connection between a couple of the Briggins too? Yeah, two of the Briggins. Quag, the master of the crossbow. This character, Quag, the master

of the crossbow, who we, he never seems to have a crossbow. They set that up. They set that shit up and then it pays off. It's such, Guardians, the Galaxy Volume 3 type shit where it's like here's the character that no one cares about their arc and now they get to pay it off at the end when he actually gets a crossbow but he's involved with one of the other bring-ins

right yeah I think and uh but yeah that Jonathan is like who am I going to date a CGI squirrel sure is Snow White we're in love now okay so uh their their kiss is first interrupted by everyone looking at them but then interrupted by the soldiers showing up and uh Snow White

gives Jonathan her locket saying go find the king and show him this or it's a necklace or something go find the king and give him this he'll understand the bandit run off and distract the soldiers. Jonathan gets captured and he gets brought to the queen who recognizes that necklace and now she's going to use it in a plan to finally do what the huntsman didn't

and kill Snow White. How she's going to do it? First, she mixes up a potion that makes her an old crone and then she makes a poison apple. Why she doesn't this is a reprise of the All's Fair song, a new version of it. Why she doesn't make the poison apple and then become an old crone, I find very funny

because it seems like she's probably more comfortable in her own physically fit body than as an old hunched crone. But she decided to save that the hard work for after she's in her crone form. I don't know. She makes it supposed an apple. She locks Jonathan in the dungeon with the huntsman and she goes off to find Snow White.

Snow White is about to embark on a quest to find her dad. She of course waits until after making the dwarf's breakfast and then going on. She sees them off to work before she leaves, which is an interesting, which I think is such a funny touch. I have to find my father. Nothing else is more important than that.

But let me make sure you have all your shit for you because you can go mine together. Do you have your pickax? Tie your shoes. Okay, now I'm going to go. The Evil Queen shows up with that necklace and says, oh, Jonathan gave this to me or something. I have a message.

I support the king too. You think Calgadat was like, I'm giving substance vibes here. Yeah, she's waiting on that Oscar nom. This is when I'm finally going to get my Oscar. Finally, her career has been... I mean, she's been in major movies for like 10 years now or something like that.

But the... But, yeah, she was like, this is my moment when I play this, when I play this dual character's part. So she says, hey, you used to hand out apple pies and I want to help you. So here's an apple. It'll really help me feel like I'm helping you. And so Snow White, it's one of those moments where she's like such a nice person that she's going to make this little lady feel better by taking a bite out of her apple.

Cool. Yeah, this apple will help. Oh, great. Which one is like smoking? This apple with a skull on it. A red delicious, huh? the best least mealy apple

delicious Jonathan so the woodland creatures go warn the dwarfs I don't know why the birds don't just swoop down and knock that apple out of Snow White's hand

instead they go to the mine and warn the dwarfs so the dwarves can try to race back in time but they're too late Snow White has bit the apple she falls into a coma just as the queen reveals ha ha it's me the queen

and I killed your dad see ya and that's I'll just leave your body here For everyone to find Even though she knows That the spell can be broken by true love's kiss And she knows that Snow White has a true love

The queen does not take Snow White's body And like throw it on a funeral pyre Or something like that Instead she just leaves it in the woods For people to take care of Yeah, put that in the goof section Well I mean it's classic I mean it's classic Bond villain stuff

Why does Jason Vorhees kill each person individually and not just explode the entire Crystal Lake with an atom bomb. I'll say why this is not that kind of criticism. One, Jason Ford used to say mindless killing machine with no plan other than to murder. The queen is like, my political survival rests on getting, oh, not my close survival. The only thing that matters to me,

which is being the fairest of the mall. Emotional health, guys. My emotional health, which is tied up in my body image, this is not a healthy way to maintain my emotional health, but I'm an evil queen. I have these issues. I'm working on them with my therapist, who is a magic mirror,

who tells me all the time that I'm not good enough so maybe I need a new therapist this is the most important thing to her instead of finishing the job she's just like I gotta go goodbye it's also I guess the irony that is I guess is subtext

that we're just supposed to pick up and if it is then maybe it's way is that in order to achieve her goal of being the most beautiful of all she has to commit ugly deeds which physically make her no longer beautiful you know

yeah she just like really needs like a group of gals you know where they can like talk shit and they'll like big each other up It should be her, Maleficent, Ursula, and who's another evil Disney gal? And Quilla DeVille. They should get together. They should hang out.

And they should just support each other. And it should be called the real evil wives of the Disney universe. Are they not doing that? Why is Disney not doing this already? Yeah, I feel like you could sell this to Disney Plus right now. I should be selling this to Disney Plus right now. You guys should be, we should let Disney Plus, if you're listening. Yeah, this is the only way you can do it, though, which I've heard that you can't outside

pitch to Disney. You have to be invited to pitch to Disney and it's all like, damn, I'm trying. So I heard about this from somebody. You're invited into the vault. Valt's head is there plugged into all these machines and you've got to pitch the head on it first. Ironically, he's not the final decision maker.

He's the first barrier of got to get through. And to get back out of the vault, you have to push Winnie the Poo through the vault door where he's gotten stuck because he ate too much honey. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And swim through Scrooge's coins. Oh.

The dream. Is that the dream, Dan? I feel like it would be really uncomfortable. Well, in the universe where you can do it like Scrooge. Then you have to dance with a hologram of Michael Eisner. Beat him in a hip-hop dance contest, yeah. Wow. So the mirror tells the queen, well, you're the fairest again.

You did it. And the queen is like, yes. Flawless victory, 100%. And the problem is that she set herself a goal that she can never be full. accomplished she can never relax she's like a gunslinger in the old west there's constantly beautiful young women being born we're gonna challenge her yeah this kind of is her the substance yeah yeah i mean like there's a there's an evil queen movie to be made just like maleficent where it's like all about how she's been she's been gaslit into believing that her worth is in her

beauty and she can't ever she has to constantly fight aging and it's it's a losing battle forever and she becomes a tragic figure and she's doing worse and worse things to in order to make that into order to try to keep on this this beauty treadmill. I'll pitch this will be a... Yeah, this guy can't stop fucking pitching over here. Look, I can't help pitch. I'm just an idea factory, you know?

I can't help pitching. I can't help pitching on IP I don't control and have nothing to do. The fact, it's fucking Snow White. So yes, that is IP I could control its public domain. So I just can't use any of the dressers. Yeah, make her a horror out.

Yeah, that's true. Now she's, I mean, she is a killer already, not Snow White, but the evil queen, she said, go killer, pull her heart out. Anyway, the animals and the dwarfs are real sad. even grumpy cries for the comatose snow white uh it's a it's a sad moment uh the huntsman and jonathan they're in the dungeon they work together to unchain themselves and escape the dungeon and jonathan steals a horse and the birds lead him to snow white and he kisses her and she wakes up the dwarves are

all sitting shiva around her that's exactly what it is yep um they they've covered the mirror mirror on the wall and the I think they did a pretty good job I will say of making that kiss not creepy between Jonathan and the unmoving snow white you know because that is a moment that I'm sure

I'm sure is a possible problematic thing and it comes off more as a goodbye kiss consummation of the love they didn't get to have than a oh this beautiful one in the original story when Prince Germain just comes across a sleeping lady in the woods

and kisses. What's this I see? Huh. Which is kind of what happens in sleeping beauty too, right? It's the same basic thing, or no?

I mean, they know each other by then, right? It's such a classic fantasy, guys. I guess so. To be awoken from a coma by a kiss from a stranger? Yeah, that's the side of the fantasy I'm thinking of. Is that what Kiss from a Rose

is about? The Seal song? Have you read those lyrics? I have no idea what that song is. These are very complicated and confusing. Something about a grave. So someone's dead, I guess. It's not even gray.

On the gray. On the gray. On the gray. Oh, so the DVD copy of the gray. There used to be a grain tower by the sea. Yeah, yeah. It's all very, Ed Grell and Posting the dark side of me.

Yeah. And so she wakes up. She declares they need to overthrow the king and suddenly Dopey talks to the first time and he says, well, we're not afraid. Bump, bum, bum. Snowy returns to, or her kingdom slash village?

How late in this process do you think that they had planned on doing a like getting armed up montage of like the dwarves like grabbing shit a la like hot fuzz or something? Because I feel like that is the kind of joke that they were planning on putting in here. Of them like getting their equipment

and shit ready and like bandaliers and stuff. I don't know. I don't know that was ever a part of it. I mean they don't really have that much equipment. They just have pickaxes. That's it. You know. I thought you were going to say how angry do you think the other dwarves are when they're like, dopey, you could talk

this whole goddamn time? What the fuck have you been doing? Nobody asked me to. It's like in the old X-Men comics, they learn Wolverine's name is Logan. And they go, your name is Logan? He goes, nobody asked me. And it's like, really, for months,

you didn't ask this dude you live with if he had a name other than Wolverine? When you filled out your W-2 to be a member of the X-Men, you wrote Wolverine. You say that when you went to a bar and he got carded, his license says Wolverine on it? Come on, guys.

I couldn't talk at any time Only when it was funny I forgot what's that from That's Roger Rabbit That's right Roger Rabbit That's right Handcuffs The yeah that's right

And that's the thing These fucking Disney movies Are basically like bad Like remember when Roger Well yeah Remember when Roger Rabbit came out And we're like oh my God I can't believe they're able to do this

And now that they can do it And it's so bad He's another one of old man Stu's tales of former special effects. Stewart turned into the Chris Farley show for a second.

Remember Roger Rabbit? That was awesome. No, but I'm just saying like, I don't know. Live action remakes aren't live, they're Roger Rabbit. Yeah, they're all Roger Rabbit. Well, I think that's the issue

But there's no fucking weasels. No, there's no weasels. I'm getting worked up here. The one critter they didn't make. Let's not get sort of too angry, but one of the major issues is yes, no weasels, which is a problem. But also, what's so great.

Not one of the wonderful things about Roger Rabbit, the many wonderful things in it. The one of the other things about Roger Rabbit is Roger Rabbits are wonderful things. The bottoms are, the tops are made of rubber, the bottom of the springs. The, uh, is that they're not trying to make the cartoons look real. They just give them like a little bit more shading.

And that's the fun of it, is seeing people interacting with cartoons, right? There's nothing really that fun in seeing a person interacting with a mostly realistic, but not totally all the way there, kind of like cartoon character. Just enough that it's creepy. Yeah. Yeah, just enough. And if you're trying to make it look super real, get it, like, then you go in the Jurassic

Park mode where those are not supposed to be cartoon dinosaurs running around, they're supposed to be real dinosaurs. Man, what if there was a cut of Jurassic Park where it was fucking straight up 2D cell shit? I love that. The original one when they brought Don Bluth in to do the special effects. We've got this original... We cloned it from this, uh, Windsor McKay's

cell. So they used, they hadn't did all the DNA, so they used some of the DNA from Gertie, the dinosaur. Now all the dinosaurs are turning into cartoons. Oh, it would be like, like the end of cool world, but not bad. I mean, it would just make the scene where Sam Neal is struggling with his glasses

to see the dinosaur so much better. I would love that. And then at the... Some of the dinosaurs are 2D, some are not 2D, some are 3D, so you can get a mix of them together. I would love to see that. The 2D Raptors chase them in a 3D... No, a 3D Raptor is chasing them

and a 2D Tyrannosaurus Rex shows up to fight it. And now you understand how that Tyrannosaurus X could sneak up on them because he's only two dimensions. Only two dimensions. He just turns. Yeah, sound is a dimension. When he turns, all you can see is maybe a thin little line. That's it.

I thought that was just a line approaching us. Wait, let's get around the side of it. Ah, a T-Rex. Yeah. Well, T-Rex can only see movement because he doesn't have that dimension. Flatland, Jurassic Park, crossover we've been looking forward. Oh, finally.

Yeah, I mean, that's a Jurassic Park. It does say loosely based on Flatland in the beginning, right? Yeah. That'd be amazing. So they go back to the village, the kingdom. Snow White starts inspiring people to sing and follow her, and she confronts the queen, and the queen hands her a dagger and says, go ahead, take the throne back, kill me.

And Snow White will not do it. She's too good a person. So the queen says, guards, kill her here in front of everybody, which seems like you're just being inflammatory at that point. Like that's, if you're asking for a riot, then kill Snow White in front of the townspeople. But Snow White recognizes each of the guards by name and talks about the people they used to be. they remember who they were and how they used to be good people and they all turn on the queen and the queen tries to stab snow white but the brigands show up and the and quag master of the crossbow

who has not used a crossbow this whole movie he finally gets to use a crossbow to shoot the blade out of the snow at the queen's hand or whatever and uh all of snowite's allies are there she's managed unite all of the townspeople the animals of the forest the dwarfs of the mines the brigands of the also forest they're all here and it's all about she's built concess consent census she's a unity builder it's a coalition um and uh the queen runs the mirror and because of course her first priority is always who the who's the fucking fairest of them all uh even when her power is going away and the and the mirror is like snow white is good-hearted so she will always be the fairest of the mall and i'm like so that so what i guess because how yeah how did she how was she the fairest for

so long then yeah for the long time the the sheer hotness of the evil queen still outstripped It's the inner beauty of no one. I see. I see. I think that mirror has no magic and it's just jumping on whatever bandwagon seems like it's going to get it to the next place, you know. That mirror is the J.D. Vance of this story. It's kind of like, yeah, I'll sell out my family. Sure, for power, of course.

That's what the dwarves look like. The J.D. Vance memes. Yes. Yeah, they do. They look like across between the J.D. Vance meme and the filter you can use on, I forget it's FaceTime or what where it's called like nervous or something like that, where it stretches your face out. in a weird way.

Like, the, anyway, my son likes to you. Is there a filter that just adds like a million pores to your skin? There should be. There should be. They do a very porous skin. You got to breathe when you're in the mind. Well, that's things. When you're in the mind, all that dust gets into your pores.

And you've got to sweat it out. And so I feel for those dwarfs. Yeah. Yeah. Who I think are never, I don't think they're ever referred to as dwarfs in the movie, right? I don't know if they ever used that word. Maybe they're just thrown it around. Higgledy, paygoly.

So anyway, the queen runs to the mirror and the mirror's like, you've never been the fairest. I've been gaslighting you this whole time telling you you're so fair and she smashes the mirror which then causes her to like decay into ash and all the ash gets pulled into the mirror

universe before the mirror reforms itself. And Snow White runs up just to like watch this shit happen. She's like like, cool. She wants to see her enemy's final defeat. Yeah, yeah. Because there's no, there's in the Snow White world, even for Snow White's goodhearted, but there's still no sweeter treat

than to watch the destruction. of your greatest foe. She yells, say hi, the Kiefer for me. Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a deep...

That's a deep... That's a big callback. Yeah, yeah. Because that movie existed in the snow white world. Like, the same way Moby Dick exists in the world of bone,

yeah. Imagine there's a little Stanley panel that pops up directing listeners back to the mirrors episode. Yeah, exactly.

Dance and Dan. That's the name you use for it. Oh, nice. So, and this ending, apparently was not the original ending, but it kind of smacks of we had

to throw a new ending on there. What was the original ending, Elliot? I don't know. I don't know. That's the extent of my knowledge. If you were going to write a different ending for this movie, what would you have done? Oh, the queen would win, for sure. Yeah, yeah, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. So... Yeah, but that would

probably play super well, right? It would play... I mean, in the world we live in now, I feel like half the audience wants the queen to... I mean, that's thing, when the queen is like, you need strength, not delicacy. I feel like half the audience is like, I like, she's saying the things. We're all thinking. Yeah, yeah, we do need someone like that. As long as her soldiers are keeping the outsiders out

because our country has become a perverse, extreme version of its worst instincts. But anyway... Luckily, it's not just our country. A lot of countries are being bad. That's true, a lot of countries right now. It turns out taking human brains that evolved hundreds of thousands of years ago

to not be constantly bombarded by information and then putting them in a world where they are constantly bombarded by information and then for like a year locked in their houses with no way to communicate of the outside world but this endless information feed drives people a little over the banks

and just blast it with 5G or whatever Yeah, that's it. And also it's the Contrails. Let's not forget the Contrails everybody and the Novakain in the water. Not Novakain. The Contrails? Dem Trails?

Dim trails. Contrails is the actual thing. Yeah, yeah. That's the what's in the water? It's not Novakene the water. It's, what am I talking about? Fluoride. Fluoride, thank you.

Novakane in the water is pretty sweet. Great. Man, I feel so numb to all the horrors of the world. This is wonderful. It turns out we haven't been putting Florida and we've been putting Xanax in the water all this time. DVD copies of the hit action comedy, Nova Gang. In the water?

In the water. Yeah, Jack Wade, baby. So anyway, the queen is gone. Ding dong, the witch is dead. And we reveal, at the end, the narrator, who was time the beginning, was dopey the whole time. And everybody dances,

and they're all dressed in white, and maybe it's Snow White's wedding. I don't, is that what they're hinting at or it doesn't matter? I don't know. It's either wedding or afterlife. Yes. Where it's like a fancy person's tennis party.

They're all in whites. They're all in whites. And they do a lot of stomping and clapping. Everybody's there. They're having a great time. I think Jonathan and Snow White kiss probably. And the storybook closes and the hedgehog that uses it as a bed waves goodbye to us the audience.

And I skipped ahead. There's no credit sequence. There's no like Snow White will return in age of Ultron? Is that anything like that? I didn't bear to look. I like this afterlife idea. I'm imagining I'm imagining Rebecca's online with her fan theories about Snow White.

It's like, Snow White actually dies at this point in the movie and everything else. When Snow White recognizes the guards, that's actually her, that's actually a fantasy when one of the guards stabs her in the back. And everything after that point is a dream in her final moments. Yeah. I mean, very clearly she was like kind of dead before that. So why did they bring her back to life just to kill? I don't know.

So that was Snow White 2025. We sure needed a new one. That was this year? That was earlier this year, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I'm proud of us. And it's already available to watch on streaming? That's crazy.

What wonders is this world filled with? After being such a hit in the theaters? I mean, this movie was released in March, so it's like this is not that crazy a gap in some ways for a movie that didn't last super long. A March release is usually a good sign. right? Has that changed?

Everyone wants to leave the house. That's one thing you know about March. At this point, no theatrical release date, I feel like, is a particularly good one because people have gotten so out of the habit of going to the theaters. You never know. Summer is still better than not, you know.

Yeah, but I... Yeah, Tom Cruise, calm down. I do think that February and March in particular are still the dumping grounds of a film. But, okay, well, let's do our final judgments whether this is a good, bad movie. a bad, bad movie or a movie we kind of like, I

am going to say bad, bad, I think that this movie, like I feel like people are trying in this movie. Yeah, a lot of work went into this movie. This is not a half-assed movie. I think that

Rachel Ziegler does her best with it. Like, she's trying. I think that the supporting cast, even if I don't like them that much in general are all trying um i think that they're trying to do something new with it rather than just be a total rehash and yet i feel like basically all the choices are bad

and i didn't enjoy watching it uh what do you have to say steward uh yeah this is a bad bad um yeah i i i would imagine the the the problem stem from the very top uh the the choice to do a live action digital version of this story is unnecessary. It's already been done a million times, and it speaks to just like the most boring impulses. Yeah, it's not very good. Yeah, I think, unfortunately, I'm going to have to agree because, as I always said, like, a lot of work went into this.

People are trying really hard, but it, you never, I'm not a fan of these live action remakes with Disney animated movies anyway, but this one in particular yet, feels like at many points you're like, why are they doing this? Like what is, when we could have a live action the rescuers down under right now, I don't understand why this is what you're pouring your resources.

Somebody finally says it. Where's my live action Oliver and company? Like, what's going on? It feels like a lot of, a lot of work being poured into something that does not, the concept itself doesn't really necessarily deserve the work that's being poured into it.

And maybe as a result of that, everything just kind of comes off bland and unnecessary and kind of boring and, you know, not fun. What do you think? I'm also going to say bad bad. I agree Rachel Ziegler was sort of born to play a Disney princess, and I wish she was given a better vehicle for it.

She bigger than those CGI doves. She is, if you haven't seen her old YouTube videos from when she was in a high school production of Shrek the musical, and she was vlogging the entire process, she's an incredible, you know, musical princess. And this just isn't the vehicle for it. I do appreciate, like, freaks, though, and those dwarves were so freakish to behold.

Like, it was more interesting than, like, the Mufasa lions that just look like lions. At the very least, at the very least, these characters, as much as I found their designs off-putting, they had faces that could register emotion as opposed to, yeah, that the new Lion Kings were, like, this character's supposed to be singing about Hakuna Matata, and it's just a blank lion face with no emotion whatsoever

in a blank wardhog face, and you're like, And animals are all kind of tawny browns of different shades because animals are designed to not stick out from their environment for the most part so they're not colorful. So yeah, there's a... So I guess if you're looking at it from a point of view of from there, then this is a great movie.

I wonder who would... Here's my question before we go. Who would you want to see as the queen? Clearly, Galgado was cast because she's super... At the moment, she was big. Now, for political reasons, she is not quite what she was in terms. terms of a desirable superstar.

And I would argue a certain lack of juice. Yeah, that too. But I think who would you want to see as the evil queen? Because I feel like that's such a pivotal role. And it feels like they don't have the person carrying it, who could carry it, you know. Who, I was not ready for this. So I will just keep talking for a moment. Well, other people think.

This is what we call vamping. I think, like, get like a jinx monsoon in there. Yeah. Oh. Yep. Somebody with, you know, who can play it big. Yeah. You definitely want someone who can do it enormously.

Yeah. All right. Ryan Reynolds. I mean, it's going to be Chris Bratt. He does all these characters, you know. I mean, he did all the dwarfs, right? I didn't check the credits. I don't know.

He didn't do any of them. Yeah. Hello, I'm John Luke Roberts, and I would love for you to give my podcast Soundie with John Luke Roberts a try. It's basically a parody of every type of podcast imaginable, made up with loads of brilliant comedians. It was named the Best Scripted Sketch Show by the BBC Audio Drama Awards, was a finalist for Best Comedy Podcast at the New York Radio Festival, and it has just been nominated for Best Comedy at the British Podcast Awards. Surely, if there are three things you can trust, they're the BBC, New York and Britain.

So give sound eat with John Luke Roberts a go today, available from Maximum Fun, in all the best podcast apps. Hi, I'm Alexis. And I'm Ella. And we're the host of comfort creatures. We could spend the next 28 seconds telling you why you should listen. But instead, here's what our listeners have said about our show, because really, they do know best.

The show is filled with stories and poems and science, and friendship and laughter and tears sometimes, but tears that are from your heart being so filled up with love. A cozy show about enthusiasm for animals of all kinds, real and unreal. If you greet the dog before the person walking them or wander around the party looking for the host's cat, this podcast is for you.

So come for the comfort and stay for Alexis's wild story about waking up to her cats, giving birth on top of her. So if that sounds like your cup of tea. Or coffee, Ella, we're not all brits. Then join us. Every Thursday at maximum fun.org. A quick live show plug. The flop house is coming to Chicago.

On November 16 at 7 p.m., we will be at Sleeping Village in the Avondale neighborhood of Chicago with our usual shenanigans of some comedy presentations followed by discussion of the 1990 comedy taking care of business starring Chicago's own Jim Belushi.

If you've never seen us in person since we've tended to mostly do shows in the coasts, now is your chance. So go to tiny URL.com slash Chicago flop to get your tickets now. That's tiny URL.com. slash Chicago Flop, and that'll redirect you to where you can buy some tickets.

This podcast, the Flop House, is brought to you in part by Squarespace. Hey, you want to get paid right? Well, Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid online, you goof. Get paid online with on bet, get paid on time even, with on brand invoices and online payments. Everything's on these days. Plus streamline your own. workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools, and Squarespace

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Thing about freshening up your wardrobe, well, why drop a bundle on it when you can use Quince to fill out that wardrobe with some great basics. clothing. Things like cozy cashmere and cotton sweaters, breathable flow-knit polos and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed-up dinners. Now, an important element about quince is that they work directly with the artisans and the designers cutting out the middlemen so they're able to give you all your clothing at a reasonable price. And specifically, they only work with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices to provide you premium fabrics and finishes.

Now, Dan, you recently got a shipment from Quince. What do you think? I did. I got a charcoal, uh, cashmere sweater. I haven't, uh, that's amazing. I have not been wearing it. I haven't been wearing around a lot because there's been hot, hot, hot, here in New York City, as, uh, as Buster Poindexter warned us about.

But I have tried it on. It looked lovely. The cash mirror was soft, you know, and at a much lower price than you would get that kind of a quality sweater. Maybe after recording, you can put it on and do a little fashion show. I'll dance around. Okay, so keep it cool and classic with long-lasting staples from Quince. Go to quince.com slash flop for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. that's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash flop to get free shipping and 365-day returns.

Quince.com slash flop. The Flop House is also brought to you sometime. Actually, the Flop House is always brought to you by listeners like you who pledge every month and we thank you for it. But it's also, in addition, sometimes brought to you by listeners like you who take out Jumbotron ads. That's right. We've got a Jumbotron today.

And this message is for first name with heads. Eliot, no relation. And this message is from, you from summer 2025. So I believe that this is first name withheld Elliot writing themselves a message. And they say, what's up, big dog? Hope you're thriving, even though this summer your dad died and you turned 25. Keep on asking dumb questions, insisting people spell your name right, two L's two T's, please. And listening to the Peaches, even though starting 10 years ago ruined you for life.

Thanks to Hallie and her guest hosts for always making me laugh, ro-row, etc. And this, I feel like there's a story behind this message and I hope that whatever that story is has come to the right, not ending, but come to the right point in the future. This reminds me something, this reminds me something I did many years ago was there was a website where you could write a letter to yourself, an email, and then set it to be delivered at some point in the future. And I did something very similar where I wrote a letter to myself

and said it had been delivered five years later. And it was a very meaningful experience for me, you know, to get the sudden message from myself. from that time. So I hope that first name with Hall Elliott, this has the same sort of meaningfulness to you.

Would you like to send yourself a message? Through the flop house? You can do that. Just go to maximum fun.org slash gemotron. They can do the same thing yourself. Ellie, do you have any plugs?

I have one amazingly important plug and then I have a few lesser plugs. The lesser plugs are just for my stuff. Harley Quinn, it comes out every month from DC Comics. I write at volume one of the collected editions just came out. I just procured

said volume. I am halfway through it. I probably would have devoured the whole thing in one big gulp but Audrey was like, hey, there's this mystery show I want to watch and I'm like Audrey, you're sick. Let's watch the mystery show. But I've been enjoying what I've been reading so far.

Yeah. And of course there's my other podcast Clueless on the Smartless Network. But I've got an even bigger thing to talk about guys, something that involves all three of us. That's right. The Flop House boys are setting aside the rancor and the feuding that have kept us apart for all this time

and we are reuniting for another season. Don't fact check that. Don't fact check that, yeah. We are reuniting for another season of flop TV. That's right. Flop TV, season three, starts this September. You guys, if you've seen Flop TV, you know what it is. It is the one hour kind of internet television version of the Flop House.

You get a presentation, you get a video segment, we talk about a movie, we answer questions. It's super fun. We love doing it. and each season we get slightly better at it, but in the flop-house way of getting worse at other things while we get better at those things. It's a little bit like our,

kind of our love letter to, like, cable access shows. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That's a good way to put it. And this season, we've got an all-new theme. This is season three, flopster piece theater. That's right. We are going to be looking at a hallmark, legendary flop from each of the decades,

from the 2000s, all the way back to the 50s, going backwards in time. So in September, we're going to watch the Adventures of Pluto Nash. In October, it's going to be Jack Frost, the Michael Keaton one

where he comes back from the dead, not the Jack Frost, not the killer snowman one. In November, it's Zanadu. In December, it's Zardaz. That's our Zah, double month mini theme. In January,

it's going to be Dr. Doolittle, the movie that killed a certain type of big budget musical forever. Eddie Murphy, man. And it, no, not that Dr. D. Little. Robert Dudley, Jr. No, the Rex Harris, and Dr. Doolittle.

And in February, we're going to do the grandfather of flops plan nine from outer space. We're not going to be watching these movies with you. We'll be talking about these movies the way we normally do. These are not watch-alongs.

But it's going to be super fun. It's the first Saturday of every month from September through February and you can buy tickets for it right now. Go to theflophouse. com. Again, that's theflophouse. dot simpleticks.

You can buy either individual tickets or a season pass. They can do a little discount. It's a six-show bundle six shows for the price of five it's like you get one free show um i'm really looking forward to this season i think it's going to be super fun i'm excited to talk about movies that we've never covered on the show but which have loom large in the world of bad moviedom and who knows what surprises are in store certainly not me because we haven't figured them out yet uh but you guys

i'm sure you're excited too right how do you feel about this new season of flop tv uh i feel great i I was conceptualizing my special report for the first episode just the other day and laughing inside at all the shenanigans. I'm about to unleash. Oh, can't wait. I've been working on my presentation for that first episode. Yeah, you guys are not going to know what's going to hit you. Well, you do. It's a presentation.

You know what's going to hit you. Stu, how are you feeling? I can't wait, especially because a lot of these are movies I've never seen. So I'm, I think. I am going to be very curious when we watch Zardaw. a movie that has a lot in it to make fun of, but a fair amount that I also really enjoy. So we'll see what happens.

But that's theflophouse. Simpleticks.com. Join us the first Saturday in every month, September through February, and the episodes will stay online through the end of February so that you can catch up on what you've missed. Just because you miss an episode

doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a ticket to it because you'll be able to watch it online, just not live. Yeah. And I have a small plug as well. My wife and I... What? Yep.

I do have a wife. Stuart, I've heard your plug is not that small. Oh, guys. You've been paying attention to the Internet. So, guys, my wife and I have a new business venture. We've talked about it before, but we are opening a studio gym in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, called Jiggle Studio. It's a gym space that has classes, everything from step, step aerobics to kickboxing, to Pilates, to pound, and a variety of other types of activities.

It's a really cool, body positive workout space that's focused on fun and movement and not being worried about weight or anything like that. Stuart, what's pound? Pound is one of those exercises where you like, you use sticks and you like pound on shit. You pound on the ground. I'm not an instructor, though, so take that with a couple of things. couple of sense. But if you are interested at all or you just want to check it out or maybe buy some merch to help support, just go to jigglestudio.com or follow us on Instagram at jiggle

underscore studio BK. Let's answer some questions, letters from listeners. This first letter is from Jonathan last name withheld. Who writes? Oh, the prince. Yeah, Tim. With a weirdly anachronist, question for the prince but Jonathan writes Hi Elliot back when tweeting was still a thing I asked you a question about the power broker that you said you might be able to revisit

once you got to that part of the book during your podcast with Roman Mars my question was about the bonds that Governor Rockefeller pushed through to help upgrade NYC's transit and the LIRR from my memory of the power broker the book didn't address the final outcome of that bond do you recall what came of it

By the decades of neglect that followed, I think it's safe to assume it went nowhere, but I hope you can shed some light on it. I wonder if Robert Moses had some role in killing it or funneling the money to his pet project. Thank you for the Flop House laughs and the power broker learning. Although this letter seems to be mostly geared towards a separate podcast. He should have written into 99% invisible,

but yeah, I don't think they do a lot of letters segments. So there's two different bond issues that you may be referring to. I think you mean the 1971. one bond issue, which did not pass. Well, you heard it here. We got an answer. First? I mean, you specifically probably heard it here first.

It's probably, you could have heard it here somewhere else. I mean, that information has been around for 50 some of years, ever since it happened. Yeah. Yeah. The records are extant. This is from Brie last name withheld. This one's for like all of us, right? Not just selling it.

Actually, it's mostly for Stewart. I just get to kick back this time. Dear Stuart, did this bond issue pass? I'm like, oh, fuck. Hey, Peaches, when it comes to comic strips, we all know Dan loves the Archie Comics so much, he named one of his kitties after them. Now, I'm just going to take a brief pause

and say that while I am fond of the Archie Comics, I named Archie the Cat after Archibald Leach, Carrie Grant's real name. But the Archie Comics are about him. Yes, of course. Yeah, before he was Carrie Grant. He was always mixed up with Betty and Veronica. And Moose.

Moose, Dilton Doyley, of course, Jughead. But for the purposes of this... Reggie, Principal Weatherby. The joke of this letter. Mrs. Grundy. Dan loves the Archie Comics. And that Ellie is basically the creator of Ziggy. During the recent...

At this point... I poured more creative energy into it than I think certain other people. Yeah. During the recent Garfield episode, Stewart insists that he has a strong affinity for that fat orange cat. However, I've been listening to the back catalog And I think there's a dark horse There's a dark horse storming around the track of Stuart's heart Over the course of 456 episodes

Stewart references the ever-relevant Newspaper and anthropomorphic bird-focused comic strip shoe No fewer than seven times I think you just did like the last recording that we did, yeah That doesn't seem like a lot of times to reference something until you think about how that something is the comic strip Shoe. So I guess my question is

Stuart, why Shoe? Keep on flopping in the free world, Bree. So real quick, we have a guest today. Rebecca, are you a big fan of Shoe? I don't know if I'm familiar with Shoe. Yeah, I'm barely familiar with it as well. I believe it's a comic strip

about birds that are journalists. Yes. They live in trees, but they are newspaper birds. And they often hang out at a bar that is also in a tree. Yes. So this is a comic strip that's similar to Elliot's reaction to David the Gnome.

This was the sort of thing that I would come across when reading the newspaper. Just the comic section. I wouldn't read the actual newspaper. I'm not like Dan doing the fucking bridge puzzle every week. So I would be looking and I'd always like, I'd come upon Shue and I'm like, well, I've already read all the comics I actually like.

Let me try and figure this one out. I've already done the slylock Fox puzzle. I've already already read roses rose i've already read uh what bloom county i guess i'll read shoe and uh i never got it and didn't think it was funny ever um and i didn't like the way it was drawn either but uh but it is called shoe which is confusing so i find it to be a fascinating touchstone and something to refer to uh when i'm just uh my brain is uh blank and i'm just pulling a comic strip out of it yeah and shoe i feel like it's one of those like vaguely political comics

that doesn't actually take much of a political stance about anything. Like Wizard of Head? Or a crock. Pro Wizard. Yeah, I just like Shoe would like reference current events without a particular point of view. Unlike the far right bird comic Mallard Fillmore.

That's the thing. It's easy to get Mallard Fillmore and Shoe mixed up because they're both birds. And they're both journalists. And they, but one is, you know, more of the kind of Johnny Carson style. I'm doing a joke about the news, but it doesn't really have a point of view. Whereas, yeah, Mallard Film was more conservative. But shoot, so I'm looking at the shoe Wikipedia entry now. She was a comic strip, again, similar to Stewart.

I would read it when I was a kid just because I read everything on the comics page except Prince Valiant. No, thank you. I'll look at the picture. I like the haircut. I'm not reading that huge block of text. Like a snow white haircut. Yeah. And, yeah, yeah.

And I'm looking at now and I'm like, oh, there's so many characters in Shoe and they all have descriptions here on Wikipedia and it's like, if you asked me, I wouldn't even be able to tell you which one was Shoe, you know, but each one of them has a name, has a personality. It just goes, and that

Shoe is not only a long-winning comic strip, it's one of the comic strips that continued after the death of its original creator. That's how in-demand Shoe was. So, Shoe fans, write in, what is it you love about Shue? Yeah, please. Mallard Fillmore fans, do not write in.

I am not interested in your opinions. Go away. So let's get into some recommendations. Movies that we've seen recently or not so recently. It doesn't matter. So Dan has seen like 10 zillion movies lately. It's true. It's a weird.

I mean, it's not that weird. But for some reason it's been a lot. So I'm going to jump in first. I, Dan and I went to a movie the other night. We went to a early screening of Together, a new body horror co-dependency movie. So, of course, I went with my most codependent relationship, Dan. And it was almost too real for me. It stars a real-life married couple, Allison Brie and Dave Franco.

And they play a couple that is dysfunctional, and they get isolated. And then they start to come together in a, let's say, scary way. It's really fun. It was written, directed, and most of the VFX work were all done by Michael Shanks, who I must point out is a flop house listener and invited us to the screening and then let us fill him full of tequila afterwards. And it's a lot of fun. I think it is, I think it works, it manages to where the metaphorical stuff works and the relationship stuff works, and I think it's great and it's gross and fun and oddly like kind of sweet yeah i'm glad that you mentioned that we uh got to hang with the writer-director who was a hell of a nice guy because uh you you know like

it could be easy to be like well you just liked the glamour of the but even before we got to really meet him uh i really enjoyed this movie i know you did too like it was it was a it was a it's a it's very good yeah it's fun um i i'm just i'm just excited i'm just excited i'm just excited to see you guys transition into the ain't it cool news stage of the podcast where you get invited to screening to the Godzilla premiere and yeah

it was I mean it was very cool getting to watch Dan get to meet Allison Brie Dan did one of his classic things where he doesn't know that I don't know what's going on so he texted me and he goes yeah so Allison Brie touched my shoulder at this screening last night I'm like what the hell are you talking about like what we did

talk about how we're going to go to this thing but it was buried in a lot of... Sex. I just don't understand how how Dan just lives this glamorous lifestyle of constant being invited to screenings and meeting famous people. Meanwhile, I live in my bedroom.

I never get to leave. Yeah, she and Dave Franco seemed very sweet when we briefly met them afterwards. Yeah, I saw... It'll be out by the time we see it, but I saw another advanced screening through a critic friend of mine of the naked gun, the new naked gun, and really enjoyed it.

I, you know, there's a lot of talk about, like, how much sort of weight is on this movie being one of the only pure comedies that has been, like, a wide release movie in a long time. It's funny that a movie this silly is kind of going to bear the weight of, like, what's the future of pure comedy in, like, theatrical screenings, but I really thought it was great. It was extremely funny. And for me, the stuff that worked best was sort of like the classic, like a new take on classic Zucker Abrams, Zucker naked gun airplane style jokes. It didn't work quite as well for me when it got into like, we're going to lampoon modern accesses of like Hollywood blockbusters because that stuff has gotten. and so down the road of self-parody already that, like, it didn't do as much for me.

Do they do any, like, below-time jokes? Not that, but they did, like, a lot of jokes about, like, just how ridiculous action stars have gotten these days. And it worked pretty well because it's Liam Neeson doing it, and, you know, it evokes all of his, like, taken nonsense or whatever. But just on the classic, like, dumb joke after dumb joke after dumb joke level, It was really funny, and there were a couple of jokes that really made my audience just go nuts. So I had a good time.

Rebecca, do you want to go? Sure. I was also apparently at that screening, but in a – oh, no. I'm sorry. No, no, I was pointing at Elliot to be like, ha-ha. Yeah, I know. He snaked me. Yeah.

Well, also snaked me because I was going to say Naked Gun 2 because I saw it the same. Naked Gun 2 is the sequel? Yeah, naked gun 2 and a half. The Naked Gun also. But I will say when I got home from that screening, which I loved, my roommate was like, hey, I'm going to watch Last Days of Disco. And I said, okay, sounds like a good enough double feature. And I've never seen Last Days of Disco.

So I watched that. And it was totally lovely. Was it a good double feature, though? Yeah, it made no sense. Sure. I know. I was trying to think of like if there's any sort of thread that I could use to tie them together. but truly, no.

Last Days of Disco is funny, but in a very different way. Yeah, a very grounded way. Maybe the last, when did the first naked gun come out? 88, 89, something like that? Well past the last days of disco. Yeah, I mean, that's Whit Stillman, right? Last Days of Disco? Yeah. So, like, I'd love to see a Whit Stilman naked gun, very understated, you know?

Just like, yeah, sort of like witty repartee naked gun. Chloe Seventy in the Leslie Nielsen spot. I mean, let's pitch this to Disney Plus. What are we doing? Come on. And Cruella DeVille is there. Yeah, we can make it IP somehow. So I'm going to, I'll finish out of a pitch where you're like, yeah, and the country bears.

So I've heard stories about, I always forget whether it was Hannah or Barbaro, who was in charge of pitching. But that he would go into, because one did the pitches and one. kind of ran the actual animating but that he would go into pitch meetings and he'd be adjusting the pitch on the fly based on what the executives were responding to and then afterwards he'd have to go back and be like I know this is the show

we talked about pitching this is the show we're doing right now because it's what they bought and I just I wish that I wish that I could be in a situation like that where I'm like and then of course there's an alligator no a bear and and that's how Jabberjaw ended up being the drummer for a team band

okay so that's why Captain Caveman has two young teenage girls following him around. So I'm going to recommend I think this movie, a movie version of this has been recommended for, but I don't know about the TV version. So I'm actually recommending a TV show, but I haven't gotten to watch a lot of movies lately, but

I did have some time where I was watching episodes of The Trip, the Steve Coogan, Rob Bryden, TV show that was edited into a movie that was released in theaters. And I've always really loved the movie, and watching the TV show, I loved it too. There's a lot more stuff in it and there's a lot more kind of serious stuff in it, but also a lot of their funny jokes.

And I just love seeing those guys. As the movies get on, they like get less, a little bit less mean to each other because at a certain point they've been through so many trips together. But in this one, just the palpable, fictional,

I assume, kind of like frustration they have with each other. I find it's very fun. Especially Steve Kugan's, in the movie version, I feel like Rob Bryden comes off as this nice guy and Steve Kugin comes off

as kind of like a jerk. and in the in the TV show Rob Bryden comes off as so much more irritating than he does in the movie in a way that is very funny to me so I recommend watching the it's six episodes

they're very short oh sorry four yeah six episodes very short and I recommend the trip that's actually in in England Elliot that's a normal length of a TV show

that's true six episodes would be an actual television show I mean we're getting there America is getting there pretty quickly you know that we're going to have six episode seasons well that's it that's another episode

of this show that has no seasons, but a lot of episodes. A whole hell of a lot of episodes. That's what they call them the Master of the Segway. No loose thread untied, they say about Dan McCoy. Master of the Crossbow. It's just a compulsive, I have. Of course, I would like to thank, first of all, Rebecca, for being here. Is there anything you would like to plug or put out into the world before we go?

Oh, yeah. Go to vulture.com. Go there. And click on the articles and then read them. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's just, that's just gravy. Or click on them and don't read them because it's really the clicks that they... Yeah, what do you track? Where are the tracking elements?

Yeah. Tracker on CBS now. Thank you for having me. Dan, don't send people to CBS. Send them to Vulture. What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah, our direct competitor.

CBS is prime times... I mean, I don't want to send them to CBS now. right now. I'm very mad at CBS, but I couldn't resist a tracker reference. He's taking America by storm. That guy he tracks people. Nobody tracks better. Such a popular show.

Coulter Shaw, aka. Tracker. That's it. That's my whole bit. Yeah. Not a bit, so much as a description. Just a fact. Oh, I thought his name was Tracker. His name should be Tracker. He should be named Colter Shaw. Yeah. Well, thank you.

for being here. Thank you for, yeah. I think it's because Ellsbeth is out and you're like, okay, that's her name. It's not like, it's like kind of lawyer or whatever her job is on the show? I mean, there's a long, rich history of TV shows named after their main characters. I don't think it's just Elzbeth that

is causing this misunderstanding. Wait, Elizabeth isn't the first one? It's not like, it's not like in Seinfeld, he's a Seinfeld. That's not his job that he does. That's his name, you know? In those other shows, like... Becker doesn't becker. He is a Becker. Actually, that one's a.

actually complicated because adding an ER makes it sound like that's like an old-timey profession. Yeah, he's someone who becks. Yeah, he's a profession is that he backs. He's a backer. Well, speaking of Seinfeld, I'm sorry that you'll never see Unfrosted now that you missed your chance, but we're glad that you could be here today. Oh, I've listened to this

podcast truly for now over a decade. So this is very, very cool. Now you get to see how dumb we are in person. This feels like a 4DX. Yeah. Because Dan spits a lot.

Yeah. And shakes tears. Well, thank you. And thank you to our network, maximum fun. Go to maximum fun.org to listen to other great shows on our network. And also thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by the name Howell Doughty when he makes music and his own podcast and does Twitch streams. Check those out.

And just thank you for listening for the flop house. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I've been Elliot Caelan, and we've been joined by Rebecca Alter. Bye. I enjoyed your post about, uh, about, um, Patriot Pascal being the guy whose legs are long in movies. Who is a trend? Yeah, that makes it his thing.

Yeah. Wait, who's this? Uh, Pedro Pascal. Did you see the materialist? Of course I did, yes. So when he reveals he had leg lengthening surgery, I was like, that's also your power in the other. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, yeah. That's really funny. I just love that the materialist raises the possibility that there at one point was like a tiny Pedro Pazzo. I do like when he sort of kneels down. You're like, oh, this is what he would have been like. Uh-huh. Immediately got the ick.

Deleted all my folders of pictures of pictures. For Pescal. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.