The Flop House - Ep.#465 - Smurfs, with Jesse Thorn

Episode Date: November 15, 2025

We welcome the man who brought us to the Maximum Fun network, Mr. Jesse Thorn, to the show this week. And how did we repay him? We made him watch Smurfs. We never said life is fair. Anyway, of all the Smurfs movies in the world, this will definitely go down as "the one with Rihanna and James Corden."Come see us live in Chicago, THIS SUNDAY, 11/16, discussing K-9! OR, if you prefer to watch us from the comfort of your own home: Flop TV Season 3 tix are ON SALE!Stay updated on Flop House events and side projects, plus a little extra, with our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!Wikipedia page for SmurfsRecommended in this episode:Dan: Batman (1966)Stu: Roofman (2025)Elliott: Flow (2024)Jesse Thorn: A Thousand Clowns (1965)

On this episode, we discuss smirfs. We'll decide, does it smurf that smurf, or is it a big piece of smurf? Ugh. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. Hey, Dan, it's me, Stuart Wellington, your friend. My name's Ellie Kalen, and I'm also Dan's friend. Have the rumors been going around saying I'm not Dan's friend and only Stuart is Dan's friend?

Yeah, that's been talk. Elliot, why don't you introduce our guests as well? I'm very excited for our guest today. As everyone knows, this is MoVember, when we do Moe episodes with Mo guests. So we've got with us, Mo himself from the Three Stooges. Mo Howard. No, I'm just kidding. Yuck, yuck, yuck. With us is the founder and still Lord Emeritus of Maximum Fun.

One of the most pioneering people in podcasting, a radio professional celebrating 25 years of his show Bullseye. Please join us in welcoming one of our great friends, Jesse Thorne. Jesse, thank you so much for being here with us. Hello, friends. And by friends, I mean, Dan, specifically. Dan and I have friends. Yeah, showing off. We're all friends of Dan around here.

I don't understand. I don't get it. How did I get knocked out of friend? I'm not even in the friend zone. We're going to change the name of the podcast to Friends of Dan. Dan's friends. Dan and Friends in Elliot. I mean, this has just been a decades log project to cheer me up.

So it's only right. Hey, guys, this is a podcast where we watch a movie that was either rejected critically or commercially, and we discuss it. Which was this one? Well, this did okay. I don't think it was like a huge hit, but it did okay. So looking at the numbers. Looking at the numbers here on a budget of $58 million, according to Wikipedia,

its box office was $120 million, which is probably about break-even or a little less at this point, the way movies cost and marketing cost. So I'm going to say, I don't know, they're going to be rushing out to make another Smurfs movie anytime soon. I think they don't they, don't they, don't they, don't they, protect the budget cost by selling the advance rights to Belgium? Because that seems like they could get 60 million in Belgium.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. The Smurk, well, the Smurfs were... Payo is a national hero. The Smurfs were like a French or like Belgian. They're Belgian. They were actually elected to the Belgian parliament, despite being Christian characters. Yeah, many years ago. So, yeah, they're national treasures.

I mean, it's certainly shocked that this wasn't a bigger success, given that there have been a couple of previous Smurfs movies and Smurfs is yet another, like, property mostly from the 1980s that I don't think modern kids, like, think about at all. Yeah, what did your kids say about this

when they saw the trailer, really? When my kids saw it, they were not familiar with the Smurfs saw it. When they saw the trailer, they said, they're just ripping off the trolls. They're just trying to make a trolls movie. And I will say that Smurfs, I think, predate those trolls movies, certainly.

I don't know, but the way this movie is done, they are trying to make a trolls movie. Like, they're trying to go with the trolls template. And I never thought I would say this ever. Trolls does it much better. Trolls is a much more satisfying movie. Yeah. I only saw one of the trolls

and I just wanted to punch the movie in the face. There's a Trolls holiday special that they did for Netflix, I think, which I think is the best of the Trolls movies. But otherwise, it's a, yeah, the Trolls, I thought I didn't like the Trolls movies until I saw Smurfs. I saw a world tour during COVID at the height.

You just wanted to see the world again. At the height of, well, it was my height of the, my flirtation with marijuana because the world was sad. Unlike now. Unlike now and things are looking up. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah. Well, Dan, you're just happy that the president is once again

killing people with no legal authorization. That's what you want. No, I'm not happy about that. It's not as much of a thing anymore. It did not agree with me physically. But when I watched... Trolls World Tour? No, marijuana.

Dan got real paranoid. when he watched Trolls World Tour. But at the time when watching it, Audrey remembers me, like, just watching it and going, look at the textures. So that's something that trolls has to offer. The biggest crime of Trolls World Tour was when my kids wanted to hear

the song Barracuda, and one of them announced it, they was, Siri, play Barakuta by the trolls? And I was like, no, that is my heart, sir. Like, let's get one thing straight. Did Siri play the Troll's version, though? And did play the Troll's version. And I turned it off, And I said, we're listening to the heart version.

I have a close friend and colleague. I won't say who he is, but his initials are J.M. And he has curly hair, and he's been a guest on this show. Jim Menson. Who wrote for the Trolls television show for a time. These days, he's been writing on some really great shows. That was just a time when he was unemployed and taking some work that came his way. And the thing that I remember most vividly about trolls and the trolls universe is that the creator of trolls is still alive, or at least was at the time.

And she had established... Is this in the world? This is in the world. Okay. In the simulation. Countries and people. Yeah. Okay.

Thank you. And she had set down rules for how the trolls could operate. And one of the rules was the trolls can't have enemies. And so in the trolls TV show, they had to come up with whatever, 50 plots or 80 plots that had no enemies in them. They could only have misunderstanding. Yeah. That's like spirited away. But in the trolls movies, they do have enemies.

So that seems like a little hypocritical on the part of trolls. Yeah. I'll take it up with that elderly German lady or whatever it is. I mean, I've got a lot things to say to elderly German ladies. But I guess it's an elderly Norwegian lady, yeah, yeah. I mean, one, that's a good story. And two, I would kill for a little work on a trolls TV show right now. I think you would crush it, dude.

I feel like you do a great job, Dan. I think there was a, there was a time maybe. Like friendly misunderstandings is like 90% of your life. Yeah, but I think they get a little crankier than they would like on the troll show. You're like, Dan, you can't just keep pitching episodes where the trolls send a text that they should have looked at one last time before they said it's like can this be taken the wrong way you're like wait wait I've got a pitch about

the trolls being a little annoyed that they're disappointed with the most recent issue of Cooks Illustrated but I'll say this for your unnamed friend maybe there was a time period in entertainment history when people would be like oh I'm working on this thing

you know I'm a little ashamed of it right now work is work unless you're working on like a like the Nick Fuente's show it's it's fine Don't be ashamed of your work. Go check out Teen Titans Go. He works on Teen Titans Go. It's a very funny show.

Yeah, it's a very funny show. I'd also like to say to Cooks Illustrated, you're doing a great job, actually. You've really expanded the types of cuisines that you feature in there. And it's all good. You can hire Dan. He's great at that stuff.

Dan would love to write for Cooks Illustrated. Yeah, jokes. The Cooks Illustrated need like fucking single panel gags? Dan will write that shit? When you do your annual April Fool's issue, Snooks Illustrated where it's just like a parody of the regular magazine? How Dan do that? Well, we're clearly all

raring to talk about Smurfs. Is there anything else can we talk about to put off Smurf's talk? How are you on an etching of a ham? Better get those spirals, Usomaki style. I've never seen Hodgman's eyes light up more by the way than when I

told him that I contributed a tip to Cooks Illustrated and he demanded to find it. and send it to 10. Anyway, Smurfs. So wait, before we get into the movie, do you guys have, like, a history relationship with Smurts? I mean, when I was a kid, I'm sure I watched the old show,

but I didn't, I had no affectionate. Yeah, I watched the old show. And the movie that they did, Smurfs and the Magic Flute, was on a lot, on television a lot when I was a kid, and I would watch that. My mom, my mom, like, actively wouldn't let me watch them. She hated the Smirts because, because, because, because of Smurfette, because of the idea

that there's one female smurf and she's like blonde, basically. She's like this blonde caricatured character jason. I can't fucking... She would love this movie where she's played by Rihanna, which... They really went so far in the other direction that Smurfette is the most competent,

accomplished, psychologically stable character that there is no person, there's no character to her. Like there's just no... And instead, you have... You have to ask the audience to invest emotionally in James Corden. And that's two big flaws right there. And by the way, that's a big ass. Rihanna lobbied to do this movie.

She's a producer on this. She made music for this. This and Wakanda forever, like the only new Rihanna music in years and years and years. It's kind of amazing that she's like Smurfs. That's where it's at now. It's strange when someone, you find out the thing that someone has a deep connection to that they're really excited about. And sometimes it can be very surprised.

Like I just found out earlier today that one of my favorite books of my childhood lizard music by Daniel Pinkwater is being made into a movie and the rock is going to be in it and the rock is the one who's really pushing it and being like I got to make this for my kids I got to make a lizard music music

you guys have a lot in common Ellie apparently and it's one of those things I'm like I never would have guessed this is the book that the rock would be like I have to make a movie out of this book you know so we'll see how it turns out maybe we'll be doing lizard music on this very podcast in a few years I hope not I love that book

I hope it's a good movie well let's get into the details we begin as any Smurfs movie must at the dawn of the universe where we have a prolog... The Smurfs are eternal. They're the Alpha and the Omega. They've been with us forever.

A prolog explains there are four magic books that together rule the universe. Right off the bat. Right off the bat. I was like, don't need this in a Smurfs movie. What are you doing? This part is narrated by Joseph Campbell. The Smurfs were born on the back of a turtle.

All cultures have a story about Smurfs. like supposed to be a parody of the Infinity Stones or a rip-off or like My grandma told me a wise tale of four magical tomes. My mama once told me, stay away from the Smurfs.

You know, but I think, my guess is this is not a parody. My guess is this is a, them trying to do with the Smurfs what every movie does. And I don't always want to put this at the feet of executives. It's not always their fault. But it does strike me as executives

saying like, How do we Marvel movie up the Smurfs, basically? Let's give the Smurfs some stakes. How do we involve a multiverse with the Smurfs? Yeah, how do we give them the mistakes? So the Smurfs are not just dealing with complications between friends in a Dan McCoy-esque way. Instead, how do the Smurfs aren't just... Yeah, how do we keep the Smurk?

Why don't we change the threat from, they're just going to get, like, cooked alive by this weird dude? What did Gargamel really want to do with the Smurfs? He just doesn't like them, he wants to kill him or cook him or something. Yeah. Yeah. Smurfs probably tastes great. That's your tip from Cooks Illustrated, Dan. Fry up some smurfs.

Well, you just might not be the idea of executives. This could be the idea of Chris Miller, the director of the film, who's not Chris Miller, the director of good films, but rather Chris Miller, the director of bad films. Yeah. It could be. Or the writer who was like a South Park writer, apparently. That's a weird combo of...

My guess is that this movie went through a long, torturous development process. Yeah. And as with many of these long... torturous development processes, they ended up with a movie that is trying to imitate just what other movies are already doing. Yeah.

It's like... I was trying to imagine... Like a program where if you just inserted a whole bunch of other screenplays, it just like came up with a new screenplay for it to use. And we have that program.

It's called Hollywood. Jesse, what were you going to say? I was trying to imagine Sue Brady, the woman who like wrote on Team America and stuff and wrote this film pitching jokes and then people just sort of like covering their eyes and walking away. Like, no, we're not doing, no, no, no, no.

It's four magic books, and James Corden sings a song. The only jokes are ones where you take a swear word and swap in Smurf. If it's a different type of joke, get it out of here. So we got these four books. The Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance, led by Gargamel's brother, Razimel, wants these books to rule the world with evil. but the Smurfs, they opposed, they stood against these wizards.

It's usually what I think of when I think of Smirsch is Guardians of Order. Rescued one of the books, jaunty grimoire, to hide her. Important to say her because this is an anthropomorphized book voiced by Amy Sedaris. Yeah, that is important. One of the many, many, many celebrity voices in the movie. And I will say up front that the best voice acting in here. No doubt.

I don't know what you're saying. Gargamel and... Yes. And Razimel, both done by the same person, who is a professional voice actor. Yes. Yeah. Like, why the fuck do you keep putting celebrities

with unremarkable voices in these things when voice actors kill it every time? The fact that later on, there's a character voice by Kurt Russell, and I was like, who's that? This is like a nothing voice. And then in the credits, I was like,

Kurt Russell. And I'm like, well, he's a guy who projects such charisma. but it's not coming through. You don't think he walked into that booth ready to voice Ron the Smurf? Yeah, it's like, what the fuck am I doing? I got to go back and play video games. To be fair, I think there were a lot of grandpas out there going like,

oh, I got to see this Smurf's movie. Kurt Russell has five lines. Yeah. Let me take it. He's like, I'll take my grandkids to see this. I'll take a break from playing video games and discussing hockey with John Carpenter and knockies out. But the point of doing a celebrity voice,

is that, ideally, the voice is so recognizable that there's a jolt of... That's the same reason you cast a celebrity in a movie. You cast a star is because the audience can then bring their love of that actor or their understanding of that actor to the role, right?

That's why Alfred H.cock was like, I cast stars. Because when you cast a star, they bring all their previous roles with them. You don't have to build the character the same way because you know who Jimmy Stewart is. You know who Carrie Grant is. But to cast actors whose voices...

And there's some great actors in here who I love, but other than Natasha Leone, there's none in there where I'm like, oh yeah, this person has a very distinctive voice where as soon as I hear it, I know exactly who this person is. Yes, and she also, like, when she was doing the talk show circuit for this movie,

was talking about being in a Smurfs movie, which alone is funny. But we flash forward. My only worry is that it might become part of the Jane lynching of Natasha Leone, which is when someone goes from being super fun to being like, they're everywhere. Why is this person in everything, you know?

I also know the Helen hunting of Jane. lynch you know yeah when the when the last name is lynch i don't like king lynching is not the best it wasn't the best grammar use yeah yeah uh anyway we flash forward from the dawn of time to smurf village now where the smurfs they sing a few bars of the famous theme that's a billions billions of billions of years they sing a little of the famous smurf before papa smurf drops a beat i immediately fucking called this shit yeah the music switches to you everything goes with blue by tyla because these aren't your daddy smurfs no these are you're But this was the kind of stuff where they would show it in the trailer,

my kids were like, they're just trying to do trolls. They're ripping off trolls because this is the trolls movies all over, you know. Well, yeah, the trolls, it's all very music-based in the trolls. Yes, and it's very music and it's specifically pop music, like a pre-existing pop music, you know, medleys of pop songs. There was a time when this movie was going to be called the Smurfs Musical. Oh. And that is weird because there's like three songs in it.

I think that's probably why they changed the title. I don't have that many songs. Like, honestly, if I was going to guess what happened in the process of the development of this film, it's that the woman from South Park wrote a script with a bunch of jokes in it. They crossed out all the jokes. Rihanna signed up and said, this will be the Smurf's musical with songs by Rihanna. Everybody was like, it's been a long time since Rihanna's had songs. Then Rihanna wrote two songs and left.

Yeah. And then they had to fill out the rest of the movie. Yeah, for sure. But we use the song to get introduced to the idea that all the smurfs have, you know, names based on their defining traits. We, you know, meet a lot of the smurfs like vanity, hefty, brainy, grouchy, yes. This is very funny to me is that they have an entire song where you literally have their names come up on screen. And then the next scene is about all the smurfs have something. I don't have something.

This guy has this thing. This guy has this thing. It's like, did you think I missed the beginning of the movie? Like, is this for people who were getting popcorn and they didn't time it right? Like, I just met these characters. You don't have to tell me again. I think it's fun, Elliot, that they all get introduced by their one special quality, like, you know, brawny smurf or whatever his name is, is like lifting up a guy,

hefty smurf is lifting up a guy, et cetera, et cetera. And then through the course of the rest of the film, they don't use their special powers at all. They just run around like regular smurfs that have no distinctive interchangible. But I'm sure you were as excited as I was to hear the incredible. I'm incredibly recognizable voice of Alex Winter as hefty smirp. And I like Alex Winter a lot. I'm glad he's getting some work. I was honestly, I don't know how they can make this entire movie without Jack McBrayor being in at once.

I thought it was wild when we meet the poots later on, and none of them are voiced by Jason Mansuchas, who looks like one of them. You're going to say imaging poots. Seems like a no-brainer. Yeah, the name is right there in the name, yeah. Speaking of names, there's one, no-name Smurf. Again, unfortunately, James Corden's in this film, and he plays the lead. And he has an existential crisis because he's like, I don't know my thing is. I don't know my thing.

Hey, Dan, we've never seen a movie like this before, right? Where there's a society where everyone has a thing and the main character doesn't have a thing? There's this one guy trying to find his thing desperately and he just can't. And he just can't do it. We've never seen this before, right? Yes. This bit of dialogue comes up, by the way, because Papa Smurf says, isn't it great that everyone in this village has a thing

directly to the smurf who doesn't have a thing. Yeah, because Papa Smurps is a jerk. He's a real dick, he is Popper's rule. Is he fucking, like, his thing is being Papa? That's wild. So Papa Smurf. He has Papa, the town, though.

Well, I mean, his thing is fucking. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. When his brother shows up, I'm like, why do they make this one so fucking sexy? This, Papa Smurf is really playing the Charles Xavier your role, which is the leader who the more you see him and the more you see him in terms of course, you're like, this is not

a good guy. The way he manipulates people is not good, you know. The other thing like you're making you realize that when we meet his brothers later on, their names are Ron and Kin, right? Yeah. Like, so like they don't have a thing either, apparently. No, somebody at some point said, this is a movie about

brothers. But then thought of no stuff for that. It also shows that they lost interest in no-name Smurf at some point. They're like, Well, what about Papa's family? Can we get into that? But I think that's because Papa Smurf, this is the subtext of this movie.

He named himself Papa Smurf. He started Smurf Village because he is trying to regiment a world where everyone is defined incredibly tightly by the one thing that they do. And his brothers are not welcome in the village. They do not like that stuff. And so it's a, but we don't get into that. But it says it paints Papa Smurf in a bad light.

But you're right, it's a, the movie kind of careens around being like, is this what it's about? It's about this guy can't find. He's the one Smurf who doesn't do it. Well, actually, maybe it's about how brothers and brothers love each other. Actually, maybe it's about how we're stronger together. What is this movie about? Hold on a second.

Yeah. But I have a question. You mentioned that Papa Smurf named himself. You think it's possible that character was inspired by Father Yode of the Source family? You think there's a possible second film in this where Papa Smurf invents Green Goddess dressing, starts a psych rock band, and then jumps off a cliff and dies because he, assumed that because he's a godman, he would know how to hang glide.

I mean, it sounds amazing. Yeah, I think that's the Smurf movie I want to see. But, yeah, to return to the emoji movie plot of the film, no name is worried about not having a thing. Doesn't have a thing. He's comforted by his friend, possible romantic partner, question mark, smurfette. I think they don't know what, they don't know whether they want that to happen in this movie,

so they don't have it happen, but they're kind of almost having it. And they make a point of pretty up front talking about how Smurfette isn't, wasn't originally a Smurf? Well, this is what I wanted to talk about. So she talks about how she dealt with being the only smurf made out of clay by Gargamel to sort of infiltrate Smurf Village. That's Smurf Cannon. That's not original this movie. That's actually Smurf canon, but it confused me because later in the movie. That's also what you shoot Smurfs out. Later in the movie is what I call my dick.

Gargamel, like, shows her... Can you eat too much blue food color? You eat a lot of blue foods, yeah. Too much? We know what I'm trying to do here. Yeah, exactly. Later in the movie, Gargamel or Razimel, one of them, like shows her, like, a photo album of, like, her time with them.

And it's acted... It's as if it's like this shocking reveal that she hasn't already dealt with. And I don't understand, because, like, right up front, she's like, hey, like, this was me. I was made out of clay by these guys. I mean, it's a weird moment because they show her this book and they're like, actually, back then

you were like super into being a weird clay member of our family. I don't remember that. Yeah, like now we're doing some weird like memory horror. That does read as like an executive note that they had the part later on where she was uncomfortable with it,

but then somebody said, children don't know the smurf canon that well. They don't know that she was made out of clay. bet you better have her say it in the beginning. As someone who is working on a show based on IP where there's a lot of questions sometimes about how much the audience will be aware of the original IP that it's based on,

yes, I think you're right. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point that was supposed to be a reveal and instead they were like, let's just get it out at top because it's going to be confusing. And we also, this character feels very noted to death, this Smurfette character in that like,

she never has, the only problem she seems to have is she loves French fries, much in one scene and she eats all of them which is if that's a problem then lock me up officer you know but it feels like they have been there are probably moments where she shows doubt in herself or anything like that and they probably said no we want a strong female character we can't do this or we don't we don't rana doesn't want a doubt or something like that so there's a yeah because i feel like there's a different version of this movie which is about smurfette's story

and instead they've tried to make her both the strongest best of all the smurfs and also she's in that same wild style Lego movie role where it's like hey, this character should probably be the hero of the movie but the new hero the movie needs to be kind of like a schlubby guy who doesn't know his place in the world. Yeah. Speaking of that schlovy guy,

unfortunately James Corton gets a song about how he feels lost. And it's just like really crazy rap song. It's kind of like ludicrous's area codes. I never thought I'd hear a smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, smurf, when he's just trying to say Skeet the whole time. No, it's like this down-tempo ballad where he's accompanied by a turtle on the keyboard

who I assumed would be just like a one-off character for this scene but weirdly this turtle is like in like half of the movie. Who's the voice in the turtles? Some animator designed this turtle and was pumped. He sold it hard in every meeting. He's like he just raised his hand. What if the turtle's in this scene? I looked at it up this turtle is played by marshmallow

who is a music figure of some kind. Yeah, I'm not familiar with, their work but yeah the uh but yeah this turtle i got very frustrated every time this turtle showed up because there's it's a it's it is like this will be funny to have this turtle show up again but he doesn't do anything and he's not funny so it's like i got i got a serious smurf that is not adding anything you know so smurfs are described as being three apples high yes that's crazy there's no way they're three apples high crab apples high they're very small yeah these are old-fashioned apples these are heirloom apples yeah these aren't these aren't the apples

at the supermarket that have been genetically modified. Oh, thank you, yeah. To be super big. Product of a different time. I mean, speaking of which, like, you know, like, Smurfs had, like, these elements of sort of medieval, uh, culture. Like, there's, like, a medieval element to Smurfs.

Yeah. Yeah. But mostly they just, like, hung out in the village and, like, in the village and they each were named after the job they did, like in medieval time. Right. You know, these Smurf hats are a special kind of hat? This feels like something

Elliot would know about. Yeah, the smurf hats... Did you see the texture? Well, not like I used to, but... What are they called? What are these hensworth hats? These smurf hats are this special kind of hat that's associated with like the Enlightenment.

Yes. And battles for liberty. These are called Phrygian caps. And they became very big, especially during the French Revolution. It was a very big time for these. When they represented kind of like the idea of like the Roman populace, I guess.

And so that became a thing of like a representation of Leah, like Enlightenment and equality, that kind of stuff. There are multiple flags, like national flags, where the central figure in the seal or the flag of the nation is wearing one of these hats because it's like the opposite of wearing a crown. So it represents that you have like a Republican government. Yeah. Well, you know what?

I was wrong. I'm looking up more about it. It's not a Roman thing, but it is an ancient world thing. And it became, and during those, that time, it was like the Jacobins particularly in the French Revolution. It was like, this is their version of, they were using this as their version of the Roman kind of Liberty Cap, basically. Is that why this Smurfs movie was so heavily covered in Jacobin magazine? Exactly. It's ironic because the Smurf village lifestyle is very much not what, it's the far stage of revolution. where there is now a new dominating leader has taken over, you know. Elliot, are you at all familiar with, like, the original comics?

Like, I'm, in my head, like... No. This is, like, almost akin to, like, the Belgian version of Asterix and Obelisk or something where it's, like, this vaguely, like, historical fantasy world. I mean, like, there's obviously a lot more history in Asterisk or something. Yeah, this person was beating the shit out of the Gauls or whatever.

Yeah. Dan, have you never seen Les Adventure de la Strumpf, the mid-1960s first feature film in the Smurfs franchise? No. Okay. Well, anyway, we will, so we don't have any knowledge of the original. So he sings his dope song, and then he gets his wish granted by a magic book. Yeah, my point in taking us down this non-futiful path.

I forgot what we were talking about. Thank you, Stuart. This all started with that terrible. Just how far this movie, like, just, which is like stuffed with mom. modern, like, fantasy action movie tropes has nothing to do with what, like, historically, the Smurps have been about. I mean, the Smurfs historically are, like, a gentle storytelling thing. Yeah, they're not, like, battling. They're, like, I don't know, like, tricking Gargamel's dumbass and, like, sticking his hand in the fire or something.

Exactly. The worst thing that's going to happen is Asriel the cat might grab you or something like that. I went on R-slash-Smurfs last night or maybe it was R-slash-the-smurfs while I was waiting for my child to fall asleep. just sitting in a beanbag chair in a room. It's just all pictures of Smurfette and she's just got dump truck on the back. First of all, I like looked at the top posts for the last year. None of them were about the Smurfs movie,

except for like the eighth one, which was just sort of like, why don't people like the Smurfs movie? Here's my reasons. Very gentle. And the biggest reason was in the canon, the Smurfs are just hanging out in Smurf Village doing whatever.

And so they were upset that they would do something other than whatever. Yeah, well, I think it's a misreading of what, I mean, I don't have any affection for the Smurfs whatsoever, but it's a misreading, I think, of what appeals to people about the original property, which is, I think, the gentleness of it, the same way that the Ferdinand animated movie from years ago, totally missed, by having him actually fight in a bullfight and win, misreads the point of that fucking book, which is that he refuses to fight in a bull fight, and he gets what he wants through nonviolent defiance, you know, resistance. It's also in many ways a misreading of the kind of fundamental appeal of James Corden,

which is none. He has no appeal. No one likes James Corden. I'll say this about James Corden. I've said it before. When I saw him in one, you know, one man, two governors or whatever it was on Broadway, I was like, this guy is hilarious. And I think when he is playing a character who is not supposed to,

supposed to be likable and is doing farcical things on stage. He is very funny. I think the problem is when you make it, him not playing an unlikable character, and instead you're supposed to have the audience feel like, I really I want him around, you know, or I want to get to know him better.

You know, it's a, he, there's things that you can do very very well. Are you telling me that one of the actors in this film you saw on stage in New York? Uh, let's see. Was it just one of them? Let's see. Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Uh, so, it would be like if they made a Lord of the Rings movie, And they're like, actually, your hero's Gallum,

and you've got to hang out with them the whole time. I don't know, that sounds pretty cool. That sounds like it. And then he keeps ralping up stuff. Stu, you're starting to sound like a real Los Angeles area waiter. This, so this no-name Smurf, who is now a cred, he's gotten magical powers. He shows off the new powers to the village.

This is also hilarious to me. Because he's like, I found my thing. It's like, my thing is I'm kind of a nerd. My thing is I'm very vain. My thing is I have vast magic powers. It's like, this doesn't fit into what Smurfs do. By the way, in the previous scene, there's like a list of types of Smurf and it's not funny. And then at some point, he says, like, I could be Magic Smurf and then Papa Smurfs like, Smurfs aren't magic.

And then like 30 seconds later he becomes Magic Smurf and you're like, did they send somebody back to people? page four of the screenplay to make sure to write in Smurfs aren't magic? Yeah, because they were like, I don't know, he starts doing magic stuff. Kids are going to be confused and assumed all Smurfs are blasting magic beams out of their hands. It's just because Papa Smurf doesn't want them

to get involved in magic. He's trying to hide the truth about the magic book from them to keep them safe. Come on. Yeah, well, it doesn't work because no name immediately shows off by opening a giant interdimensional sky portal that allows RASSO,

To detect Smurf Village. Not the kinds of things that Smurfs usually do. So were we previously familiar with Rasmel? This is Gargamel's brother, Rasmel. This is a new voice actor. I believe this is an original character to this movie. Oh, okay. Razmell, who, I mean, the character design looks like a classic Belgian dude.

And his, he's got a, he's got like an intern character voiced by Dan Levy. I find it, sorry, go on. No, no, it was just. I just find it very strange that if this is a new character, I assumed that maybe this was like some deep smurfs. If this is a new character, then why? Like, if you're already, if you're going to diverge from what the smurfs are so much in the movie, just make it fucking Gargamel. We all know that Gargamel is the bad guy.

Make him the main bad guy. Like, just make that be the thing. My guess is they wanted to have, they wanted Gargamel to be able to be a sympathetic character. That they wanted to have, be able to do more with Gargamel or something like that. So they introduced another guy to shit on Gargamel all the time and be worse than Gargamel so that you could then have a turn so that Gargamel later helps the Smurfs. Because wouldn't that be amazing? Gargamel and the Smurfs on the same side working together. But then at the end of the movie, spoiler, like, there's like the mid-credit sequence is Garcamel like bursting in and being like, we've got some unfinished business with the Smurfs, you know, because now you've built him up.

Now you know, oh shit, Gargamel's now, what's he going to do? You know, this is, we've seen him go through his arc and now he's empowered. I just realized that we're four 40-something men yelling about Gargamel. I love it. This is why you do stuff like this. No, what we are really yelling about Dan is storytelling and how storytelling is done in movies. And one of the Smurfs, one of the reviews of the... Smurps says exclusively about Gargamel's portrayal in the Smurts movie 2025.

Why is the as sexy as I remember? But there was one of the reviews that I was looking up of the movie, they were saying, This is Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian. He says, there seems to be a worrying assumption here that a film aimed at very little kids doesn't need to have a very interesting or engaging story.

And that's my big issue. And I think the Gargamel stuff is part of that. That there's an assumption that this is for kids, who gives a shit, make it the same stuff that we've done in all these other movies, when if anyone needs something, a story that will be wonderful.

It's kids. Like, there are children that I assume this is the first movie they've ever seen. And it's like, that's their poorer, unfortunately, for this being their introduction to film as opposed to something that really moves them or excites them, you know.

I think there's also a very fundamental miscalculation in the lead characters of this show and the actors who portray them. Yeah. Like, to cast a movie like this with celebrity voice actors is de rigour and understandable and like it's not like they were going to go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah, cast incredible voice actors in all these parts. but truly Rihanna could not be more boring in her performance. Yeah. It is as though she is like barely there and James Corden is actively unpleasant and they give him nothing funny to do. So there's no winning here in this story when those, and I don't, the thing that I under, I don't understand the most about it is like, the whole marketing campaign for this movie

was based around Rihanna as Smurfat. That's the only poster that I remember is Rihanna as Smurfat. And like, I know that Rihanna is a hitmaker and she's certainly very famous. Yep. But like, do people want to see a Rihanna movie? Do children want to see a Rihanna movie?

I think there's a great thirst for more Rihanna as someone who is now a billionaire and has retreated into not doing entertainment for the most part. But they don't want it in Smurf form necessarily. My guess is it's entirely a matter of just how many followers does you have on these social media feeds? Great.

We can guarantee X number of people who are huge Rihanna fans will go. You're casting someone entirely for that, for that publicity marketing aspect of it. If it was a Smurfs movie where all the Smurfs were just hanging out with Rihanna. That'd be a better movie. It would love that.

It would be a better movie. Interviewing Rihanna. This is the movie. I'm like helping her write a fucking album. Rihanna finishes her last concert. She goes, I'm just so tired. I'm so tired of being a big star. I just wish I could just relax and hang out somewhere.

And she falls asleep clutching a stuffed animal smurf. She wakes up in the Smurf Village. And the rest of the movie is just her hanging out with the Smurfs. Better movie. A thousand percent better movie. I will say this for this Smurfs movie, which is there were three previous Smurfs movies in the last cycle of Smurfs movies. Two of which were like Smurfs in real life.

one of which was a fully animated Smurfs movie. And Smurts in real life, of course, had that famous... Smurf with the head on his pancakes, yeah. And I have not seen these movies, but I have looked at like trailers for these movies to prepare for this. They looked awful.

Like, they really looked grotesque. They looked nasty. This movie, in the scenes, where they are in those Smurf world, I thought it looked pretty good. Like they seem to have learned some of the lessons of recent films

that have taken greater advantage of the human touch and the possibilities of animation in the context of 3D animation. You know, like, I don't know. I don't know if you guys saw... I don't know if you guys saw Puss and Boots 2. But Puss and Boots 2 is really good.

or at least at least very good and it is a really cool looking and part of the reason is because the aesthetics are very flexible and interpretive um and this has some of the hand of man in it and reflects some of the like values of the comics and the and the cartoons of the 80s in interesting ways and looks pretty decent now later they muddle that up by doing 17 other things but uh i when i was looking at it, in contrast to say trolls, which is just a pile of crap on the screen. I was looking at, I mean, incredible

textures. I got to give it to Dan for identifying that. He just, he just, he just licking the TV screen because he wanted to taste those textures. Yeah, I was like, this is actually kind of, this is actually kind of good looking, I thought. I don't think it looks bad. Everything else was horrible to this point. I think from a technical point of view, everything looks great

in Smurks. I agree with you 100%. I was amazed at how good Smurfs looks. Like it finds that middle ground between like we're doing a computer animated movie but we're going to have some hard lines in here. We're going to like find the

middle ground between... No one's being drug use. There's some stretchingness and bounciness to it. There's a little bit of... Yeah, it feels like a cartoon. There's motion lines. Rather than them trying to make photorealistic smurps. If you, I was saying like

If you put on, if you put the sound down on this and put dark side of the moon on and watch Smurfs, probably pretty good. Yeah, the textures are incredible. The Smurfs and the other movies do look grotesque compared to these Smurfs, yeah. Okay, we're not that far into this movie. We're not at all. So he gets magic powers. Yeah, yeah. And Razumel has now identified where the Smurfs are.

So, uh, yes. And the Smurfs figure, obviously, Popo has to be kidnapped by their old nemesis gargamel, who should have been the main film of this movie as far as I was concerned. But no name brings Gargamel to Smurf Village for them to capture and they interrogate him and he doesn't know where Papa Smurf is. But Clumsie has found a magic record that Papa has labeled as the way to find kin, the guy that as he was being, you know, Papa Smurf was being sucked away, he's like, find kin.

And so when they put this record on... Hold on, Dan, what happens is Papa Smurf says, find Ken, find Ken. And then in the next scene, a guy says, well, this record says, find can on it. That's it. That's the problem. We put together the clues. Mr. Smurf, I gave you all the clues.

They don't even show him looking for something. He just holds up a record. I found the thing he said. Why didn't he just, like, hand him the record as he's being sucked away and be like, play this to find can? Why did he just say, go to Paris to find can? Yeah. Yeah, good point.

Well, they don't know what Paris is. And they need to learn a lesson about the power of music, Elliot. That's true, I guess. Yeah, because this is a musical, as we all know, the Victrola sucks them through the horn of it and takes them into Paris and the real world, which is a weird thing about this movie is like part of it takes place in the real world where cartoon characters live, some of them. I don't know what makes them different from the ones that live in the cartoon world, None of this is commented on these various levels of reality, really.

Which I kind of like. I kind of like that they're not like, whoa, where are we? But it's also very strange when you're like, okay, I get it. So the cartoon characters live in the Smurf universe and they live here and they're like, there's, there's Rasmel's castle here in Germany. And it's like, okay, wait a minute. There's just a cartoon castle in Germany. They're not worried about alienating German audiences by saying Rasmel lives there.

What's most amazing to me about this concept where they're visiting. real-life cities of the world is that they do nothing with it. The extent to which they do nothing with the places that they visit can't be overstated.

They don't even bother to have a scene in the Eiffel Tower. There's a shot of the Eiffel Tower very briefly before they go into a generic nightclub. I mean, later on they do during a song number ride around in kangaroo pouches.

That's true. In Australia. While the kangaroos sing backup vocals, and it's weird. Yeah. Much like, well, they end up in Australia, much like that X-Men storyline for years when they were living in the Outback, you know, when the reapers came after them. But you're right, like, they don't have to slide down a long bread

in Paris at any point or any of that kind of stuff. Yeah. I have to direct some poor chef into cooking good-ass shit. There's a, popcorn his hair. There's a not very important scene where Rasmel. They're all not very important, Dan. learns that that Joel has gotten

Papa Smurf where we also learned that Razmel apparently has a podcast that's mentioned in passing because saying that someone has a podcast is a punchline

instant show in films oh well Dan come on it's not that he has a podcast that's the punchline it's that he was on a Zoom and he was muted

and he should have been using his podcast microphone I have to admit something shameful he was muted on the Zoom Dan I have to admit something shameful they had this magic Zoom and when it cut to him being muted, I snorted briefly.

Oh, wow. But I'm sorry. I apologize. And this magic Zoom, it was probably three voice actors doing the voices for these all-powerful. So the other wizards, you've got Hannah Waddingham is one of the wizards.

Who, like, put some effort into this vocal performance. Nick Kroll is one of the wizards, and Octavia Spencer is one of the wizards. This is the only time I have not recognized Nick Kroll in a voice performance. That's what, that's how bland this film. Dan, you say you snorted, I smurfed my pants. Oh, man.

Don't even get, okay, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. This movie does, it does crime one for me in this movie, you know. But Rasmel, having now located Papa, he tries to magically grab the book from Spurf Village, but only manages to bring Gargamel, who had been trapped there to him. So now the brothers are together. Meanwhile, in Paris, the Smurfs are rescued from a street sweeper. Once again, with Razimel, similar to the king or whatever he is in Shrek,

it is part of the fact that this is a very short person. And you can get some humor out of that because short people are evil and should be objects of ridicule. No reason to live is the song has taught us. I mean, that's the anthem of short person hate for generations. Literally no reason to live. That Randy Newman first done as vermin who are diluting the blood of the nation, I think is really unacceptable. I feel kind of uncomfortable along with Jesse being two tall men here

I'm super tall Is there anything where they put down hunks in this movie because I could get upset about that How tall are you, Stuart? How tall? I'm only, I'm 6'1. Okay. I'm 5.11.

I was like, I was taken out of that. Listeners of course know that I am one foot seven inches five and just five. You're three apples. Yeah, three apples tall. Yeah, but crab apples, yeah. So the smurfs in Paris are rescued by the International Neighborhood Walshs. Isn't that a J-C-album Smurfs of Paris?

They go to their base, which is hidden inside of a disco ball. Because, again, like, you can't do a modern Smurse movie without having, like, a bunch of, like, ninja smurfs doing flips and throwing fucking shirkin of things. Here we meet Ken, Papa's Tough Brother, who's the voice of Nick Offerman. I did recognize the voice of Nick Offerman. Who, again, for some reason. they just like sex this guy up. I'm like, he's like throwing his body around

and I'm like, are they all shirtless or just him? Nick was recently on my public radio show Bullseye and he casually... Yeah, thank you. And he casually mentioned that he's really into massages because he learned it in theater school. Go on.

And so I was like, well, I know how to create a viral moment. Give me a massage. He did. He is genuinely great at it. But when we, posted that clip on Instagram. I don't know

why I hadn't put these pieces together, but just the astonishing flood of horniness that

appeared in our comments. That guy is a legit sex symbol for certain communities. Burley,

masculine fellow who's also seems very sweet. I understand. A really, really nice guy. So, yeah,

this is the power of the offer, the radioactive offer that bit him a long time of the end.

That's true. What was the offer? Was it the show, the TV show? We'll give you this much money for it to be on a television show. Yeah. He said, I'll take it. This is the scene. When I meet Ken, this is the scene with the most arguing where swear words are replaced by Smurf.

But Ken reluctantly agrees to help them, and no name uses magic to create a portal to Razimel's castle. And I'll also mention real quick. When I mentioned crime number one, it is, when kids movies do a joke where they're replacing a swear word with another word or it's just being kind of cheeky it's not like murder right you weren't talking about murder no no murder I'm fine with murder's number two yeah murder's number two after this yeah sometimes my number twos are a murder if you know what I mean I don't you're spurfing this is just Stewart appealing to yet another very specific demographic yeah uh unfortunately Rasmus castle has a force field around them around it that bounces them to the inter-portal Way Station, which is not something that should be in a Smurf movie, and the Australian Outback, I mean, like...

Along with Gateway. It's like fucking, like, it really feels like Congress in like 20, 21, like passed a law that multiverses had to be in everything. Yeah. Yeah. And they just, all of these things are things that they just say.

There's nothing shown. Only to... Yeah. Yeah. Like, they just, like, just at some point, Gargamel, like, they're going to Gargamel's castle and Gargamel says, Well, good news, we've got a force field, so they'll bounce off us and land somewhere else. And then they land in, it's like, when that kind of thing is done well, it feels like children making up a story as they go along. But here it's not. They don't pull it off that way. Good thing is, they're rubber and we're glue.

Whatever way it goes. I don't know. Anyway, the outback is the home of the snooter poots. Of course. We all know this. Every school child learns this. As soon as the snootter poots came in, I was like, whatever. Like, I don't know.

Dan, have you not seen Cancaroo Jack? You know, this actually reminds me. Like, my old sketch group, Mr. White Pants, had a sketch written by the great Rob Morrison about a short show called The Petals Schnorts. And it was like the most insane, like, list of just like stoned guy things about the petal snorts. And I wish I could remember more details about it But that's what I think about when I hear the snootter poots

Who are fluffy creatures who steal from multiverse travelers And they I mean And these things feel like they've been focus group to death To be like the next cute minion-esque type figure Like there is there had to have been a snooter poot Spinoff script again probably starring Jason Manzukas Somewhere in the pipeline The sneeter boots are kind of cute

Yes Yeah, but I'm sure that was When they're voiced by Natasha Leone That like that adds to it Sure, but I'm sure that was part of the thing It was like we need something in here That we can spin off And like they could do a gargamel movie

Or we need another type of creature That we'd like I think you're exactly right Like a minions type thing You know And they're led by as Stuart said Natasha Leone as Mama Poot Who is also an old flame of Kins Apparently and they ask her to open

A portal to Erasmus castle But she is too scared of the evil wizards To help and that makes no name also get scared and run away and Smurfett follows him and we get a song and that's what we're talking about before. And what was the purpose of this song?

I kind of couldn't, the song was, it felt like it was every you can do it song mush together and at a certain point I was like I don't know what the message of this song is anyway. The purpose was to get them

writing around in kangaroos. In kangaroos, yeah. Stu said. But while they're busy in their kangaroos in musical interlude Rasmel kidnaps everyone except for Mama Poot who uses an old broken down

like interdimensional truck or something. That is powered by fear. Now, the song I believe was to make him not scared anymore. And then the next scene, they're like, we need you to be super scared. Good writing. Yeah, when they said that, when they said the Beverly Hillbillies jilloppy

that they drive was powered by fear, I was like, wow, that's an idea from a different movie. Yeah. Whoa. It's so from a different movie that it bounced off my brain like there was a force field around it. Well, they certainly don't do anything with it. Like, it's not a...

Yeah, it's not like they, like, whipped out a phone. They're like, scroll through the news. Yeah. It's like there's the, you know, we all remember in Inside Out when the, when they have to keep singing to power that wagon to get them out of the, like, forgetting place. It's like, they're almost trying for the laziest version of that,

you know? Yeah, yeah. It's funny, when I saw Inside Out in the theaters, I was like, that was good, but it was not like, you know, it's not top Pixar. And then you watch something like Smurfs, and you're like, what an amazing movie inside of it. how much they land

the emotion in that movie. Come on. So they go to Rasmal's Castle and they sneak in inside a fast food takeout bag, which is where Smurfat eats a lot of French fries as mentioned previously. There's a very strange scene of a snooty butler being disgusted

by fast food. And it goes on for a long time. And I was very confused by all of this. Yeah. I think it was supposed to like create some sort of tension about whether they were going to be found inside the fast food bag I guess so but also it's that like

are they're just just how bad these guys are they hate French fries you know I don't know but then onion rings are mentioned and they all go ugh I'm like what's wait a hold on a second wait what's wrong with those I love iron rings yeah uh meanwhile gargamel is uh getting

increasingly disenchanted with Rasmel because Rasmel will not show him any brotherly affection at all and uh as Rasmel is about to smash the smurf prisoners using his smashing machine Yeah, I'd smash those smurfs. Okay.

We know. Ron at least. That's what I'm saying. Our heroes burst in and no name threatens Rasmel with his magic, but it turns out, turns out that no name doesn't have magic. Jaunty has been hiding inside of no name's hat. Now, remind everyone, jaunty is the sentient magic book voiced by Amy Smith. Of course, our favorite character, took America by Storm.

Yep. Another spinoffable possibility is jaunty and her grimoire family. So she's been hiding under his Frigian cap, the whole movie, giving him magic. Were Frigian Caps a place to hold, like, small books? Is that maybe a reference to that? Yeah, I think that's what it was. Maybe that's how they hid their revolutionary texts. We're talking about real life, too.

Fridian Caps are a place to hide Amy Cedaris. Yeah. She's very small. She can get inside. No, but she's revealed because she's allergic to cats. She sneezes it Asriel, revealing herself. She is a book that is allergic to cats. This is the hangout.

I mean, that's not a bad descriptor for Elliot Kalin, actually. Good point. That's a good point, yeah. A sentient book, allergic to cats. Here's where, as I said, Rasmus just smurf at that photo album, and she's like weird about it. And I'm like, we dealt with this. It is purely to set up. It's purely to set up the idea that she might have made a heel turn,

but of course she hasn't. It turns out it was all a trick, you know, but. Okay. It would be so great if the whole movie. It's just so further discord between the Smurfs. Yes. If the whole movie they had been setting up that she has this dark side, that she has to keep pushing away so you don't know which way she's going to go,

that would be very funny. And not Dark Side of the Moon, which again is what you should listen to while watching Smurfs. Yeah, so you can enjoy the textures. So Rasmel leaves all the smurfs to get smashed by his giant smashing machine starring The Rock in theaters now But Gargamel is annoyed Paid for a spot or yeah Gargamel is well he needs all the help

It's not a big success The Rock's Oscar campaign is floundering Gargamel is a really Strangely sad and depressed was not what people wanted from The Rock in movies Uh huh Yeah but you know respect Gargamel is annoyed in his brother and frees

the smurfs and they all fly off on Asrael who he had chance to have wings. I do like after Razimel captures the jaunty grimoire and turns her evil, he then throws her down on the ground and begins surfing around on her like a hoverboard.

I thought that was pretty funny. I also, the more you say words like Rasmel and jaunty grimoire, the more I laugh as well. I think my understanding is that she's one of those human carpets from New York City nightclub culture in 2002. So Asriel loses his wings, not a good enchantment, I guess.

The spell almost instantly wears off. Gargamel is not a good wizard, yeah. They crash in a field where... If he was a better wizard, he'd fix the fact that he has, like, one tooth, right? Probably. Maybe he likes it that way. What I'm saying is Dennis are real-life wizards. They're the real wizards.

They're the real magic. Real magic, yeah. God bless you, America's dentist. They crash in a field. Long-venue drill. Smurf had a no name both blame themselves for leading Rasmell to jaunty. But Papa says, no, it's actually my fault.

And we get a flashback, which is just what we need at this point. Where the voice kills the momentum of this high-speeding movie. Kurt Russell, the previous... I mean, this is a long movie for what it is. I actually know it's not. It's an hour and a half. but it feels like a very long movie. Yeah.

Because it's completely miscellaneous. I feel like this sequence, this flashback sequence, is one of the things that highlights what's so wrong about this movie is that this sequence is basically all battles.

And I'm like, why is there so much fucking battling in this movie? Why are the Smurfs like punching dudes and shit? Yeah, why is the Smurfs holding like a sword and a shield?

The Smurfs should not be doing this. It's not what they do. It's not why they're here. You know, it's not the purpose of this. But it's the same way that like um it's part of the issue i had with the like tim burton alison wonderland movies where it's like the evil queen or whatever is going to take over the world and we've got to we've got to

assemble our armies and i'm like that's not what alison wonderland is about like it's not a game of throne style fantasy world it's about nonsense jokes and word logic and and logic puzzles like yeah it's a it's a it's a misunderstanding of what the thing or it's a you're taking you're taking the surface of a thing and then applying it to the inner workings of some other thing you know yeah But this flashback is all about the previously mentioned Kurt Russell as other brother, Ron, who sacrificed himself to save jaunty in the past, which led Papa to create Smurf Village to keep his Smurf safe rather than lose them in battle. And he kept it a secret all these years. Do you think it was weird for Nick Offerman to be playing opposite a character named Ron?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Wow, that's a good point, Elliot. Thanks for interrupting. My understanding is like, can we just get a sound sample? that they can play every time. Do you think, yeah, because I bet he recorded all his lines in a big room with all the other voice actors all at once.

Oh, they all get it together. For sure, for sure. But, yes, Poppa has kept it a secret that Smurfs are the Gardeneers of Good, which I thought was kind of a funny, funny, ungainly title for them. They're making the best use of a thing

that shouldn't be in the movie, yeah. Yeah. With a new sense of purpose, they all team up with Gargamel to fight Razimel. who has trapped the other evil wizards in a water cooler so he can solo rain over the universe and Razimel zaps most of the Smurfs away, including Papa, who sacrifices themselves

to protect Smurfett and no name. And this all occurs in some kind of like nebulous cosmic zone, right? Yeah, yes. It's a real multiverse of madness. Speaking multiverse of madness, Smurfett briefly pretends to always have been on Razmell's side to steal the book and they do a big chase through... Yeah, they do a chase through dimensions.

Just enough so that like a little baby in the audience might start to cry and then would be like, oh, wait. I mean, you never know. It's like when Detective Pikachu came out, when my older son had never seen a movie where a character is revealed to be a bad guy. And so when it turns out Bill Nye, he is a bad guy, which if you've ever seen a movie, you know it from moment one. He was like, him? Oh, that's right. You haven't seen a movie that does this before. Oh, okay.

But this truly, like this sequence, which doesn't look bad, I mean, there's like an 8-bit dimension. There's a claymation one or something. I like some. I mean, I like the concept of it. But it is such a transparent rip-off of Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse, which is a really good movie. Yeah. Like, Spider-Man to the Spider-Verse is legitimately wonderful.

And this is just a garbage version of that. And we've seen it so many times at this point. We've seen it in that. We've seen it in Multiverse of Madness. Like, even going back, like, it's a different kind of thing, but I remember, like, Looney Tunes back in action when they're running through the different paintings. Like, it's very similar to that kind of thing.

But then again, I was glad for some, like, visual inventiveness, something new. Yeah, and this feels like the kind of thing I wish the movie had more of. Even if it's the thing we've seen somewhat before, like, that the Smurfs going through different visual schemes is more, I don't like that. They're, like, cutting Erasmel's arms off and things like that. I don't like that. But I think I'd like that more than them having to like sneak through the sewers of Paris to have a meetup with this, with the, you know, rebel boss or something.

Well, again, yeah, like the idea of them running away from Rasmel to try and trick him in some way is more interesting than what eventually happens, how they best him. There's a weird. Aesthetically, it really, like, highlights the extent to which they have all this, relatively speaking, aesthetic invention in Smurf World. and then they go into the real world and everything looks like crap. Well, the real world has that kind of like AI gloss sheen on everything. You know, it's a, yeah.

But anyway, Dan, you were going to talk before we interrupted you yet again. There's one world, the one outlier world here, since most of these things are like different art styles, is just a microscopic world where Razumel encounters a tardigrade

that creeps him out, which was just kind of a strange. Voice by Hero of Democracy, Jimmy Kimmel. Interlude. Yeah, that's true. That feels like one of those things where, like, Tardagrades are like, one of the things that are, like, big, right now.

And so I think that there's just them trying to get in there. That's a good point. Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't throw a capy bar into that scene. Exactly. That's the same way that, like, there would have been a joke. Well, Jesse's eyes rolled so hard. I thought he had a stroke.

And an axolotel. An axolotle, exactly. The way that all the animals that used to be cool and indie have now sold out. And that's one of them. Yeah. Yeah. But they seemingly make it back. And it's still Mata Matta Matas. Still indie, still edgy.

Matas, yeah, yeah. I can't wait. It's just going to break my heart when Hollywood gets a hold of Mata Mata's the best turtle. Yeah. Do you think that Jimmy Kimmel even goes to a studio or do you think they send a tape sinker? Like, do you think they just go to Jimmy Kimmel's office with a directional microphone pointed at him, say these four sentences and leave? I think that's probably closer. or he just records it on his set, you know, or at a VO booth in the studio where he does this,

and then they just send it over it. Because that's the kind of thing when at the daily show, there'd be times when they need, like, John to do something brief for another project, and he would just do it there. You know, he doesn't go to the studio or anything. John, you're going to do the voice for a tiny water bear. What's that from? I mean, that's a tartigrade.

Oh, okay. I thought you were referencing a real project. Oh, no, no, when he did that movie, tiny water bears. Tiny water bears in the wine. Don't drink that. It's full of tiny water bears. Well, anyway, these guys, they seemingly make it back to a smurf village. But, uh-oh, it's just a nightmare universe where Razmelt takes the book back,

all seems lost until no name realizes he's got the magic in him after all. He does have magic in him. Yeah, and he's immediately super powerful and defeats Rasmel brings back all the MURFs. Guys, this sucks. This part sucks the most. This all sucks. Much like it sucked in

Harold and the Purple Cran that ended almost the same way. Or the Super Mario Brothers movie where all of a sudden he's just like, okay, I guess he's the toughest now. Yeah. He didn't, like, if No Name had like five minutes

to power up like fucking Goku, at least that would have happened. Like what? By just like plugging himself into an outlet? I was going to say, if he just like floats there and goes, ah, and like lightning shoots around him.

Or if he's like, actually, they're still with, even though you think you've gotten rid of my friends, they're still with me. My love for them is still with me, and I can draw on that to make magic. Even there's something that is meaningful in some way or fake meaningful. But instead it's just like, actually, no, it turns out I do have real magic. Bam, bam, bam, bam. Like, okay,

cool. And I'm going to be like really sassy and like give you the deal with it look all the time. Yes, and because that is the, because that's the world we live in now, where the qualities that are most prized are strength, lack of mercy, and trolling. So let's give that to to no name Smurf right now.

Let's have sympathetic voice actor James Gordon do this. Anyway, Razimel's defeated. Gargamel banishes him through a multiverse door and Papa and Ken's lost brother returns through a door. He really just throws his brother into exile very easily, you know. And everyone celebrates at Smurf Village. They dance to another pop song before we get that mid-credit scene

I talked about before where Razumel. Rasmel is stuck in the Tardigrade dimension. where he hates and Gargamel bursts in on his brother's former assistant Joel and says,

break time's over. We have unfinished business with those Smurfs. Very good Gargan's. Wait a minute, is there a professional voice actor here with us right now? Guys, I could do it better

than most of the people in this fucking movie. But yeah, that was Smurfs. Smurfs, 2025. Copy rights, whoever. That's what the official that's the official record say, yeah. Can I tell you the note

that I wrote before I gave up on taking notes? Buy more Smurts. Well, there is this one part that says when he's making clogs, why does one smurf eat sawdust? That was not clear.

Yeah. The people who made this, the people who made this were called domain entertainment. And this was the first note that I took. and it said that Domain Entertainment's logo just looks like it's a stock footage library.

Just truly the most generic entertainment company that could ever exist. It could run before an episode of like Hercules the legendary journeys. Domain Entertainment sounds like the pre-written text where you will alter it when you actually have your real company name. Sort of Lorne Ipsum.

Sorry, I took a little break to have... You guys both drank water at the same time. It was really cute. Yeah, thanks. Looking up to Maine Entertainment, also producers of weapons and sinners. Wow. Wow, they're really crushing it this year. They're all over the place.

So this is where we do, final judgments. And Twisters and a Minecraft movie. They seem to have made every single movie according to this letter box. Wow. That's so many movies. I didn't see weapons, the one, the most prestigious of those movies, perhaps. But I saw the other. I saw the other three, and I liked all of them. So good work, Domain Entertainment.

Yeah. I like Twisters. Take that back. Yeah. Final judgments. This is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like. I'm going to do first damn Smurfs with some faint praise. I'm going to say I had really low expectations that Smurfs exceeded in that for a movie about a 80s

cartoon property that doesn't seem to understand the thing that it's doing. I liked it better than the recent Garfield movie that we also covered on this. And there are a lot of times where, like, I recognize. It's like, I don't support the president, but he's not Pol Pot. Yeah, well, I recognize that this was like a lot of soulless storytelling and baffling choices. But there were times at which the level to which they were throwing in. crap that shouldn't be in this movie amused me like I would

cackle like what the fuck is this movie doing and and as I said before it looks pretty good but it's a bad bad movie it is a mishmash of nonsense with as Jesse says

two pretty bad performances at the center yeah did not did not like yeah this is a bad bad movie I think it's a bit of a mess and I can't Like, I think the biggest sin this movie commits is the fact that we're talking about a property where, like, the Smurfs don't go around punching people.

And this movie's like, what if the Smurfs are blasting and punching people all the time? And that sucks. Yeah, I also think it's a bad, bad movie. I have nothing else to add. Jesse? I had Rebecca Sugar on Bullseye the other day. Actually, Elliot came out. It was a 25th anniversary show for Bullseye. And Rebecca Sugar is the creator of Stephen Universe, which is.

is a really beautiful, wonderful show. And she just got the job directing a Moomans movie. Moomans are sort of like... So are the Moons are going to be defending the multiverse with a lot of magic laser blasts and stuff? Exactly. Like, Mumons are sort of like the Smurfs

if the Smurfs didn't have the 80s, the 80s Santa Barbara cartoon nostalgia, right? The other movements have to get revenge. Very sort of European beloved characters. and she and I were backstage chatting about this job because I was so happy that she got this job. She's such a wonderful person to have this job. And one of the things we were talking about

was how these 3D animated movies, how difficult it is to capture the aesthetics of cartooning in 3D animation and how disinterested people were for a long time because 3D animators seemed mostly interested in being able to create verisimilitude. And recently, that has changed and there's been

some really cool looking one. Spiderverse is one although it's pretty 2D for a 3D movie like that I thought the Teenage Mut from Facts of Life yeah

I thought the Teenage Mutiny Ninja Turtles movie looked pretty good oh yeah that's great and cool like I said I really liked

Puss and Boots too and I think that and actually the thing I was talking Machines had some fun stuff on it

great movie one of the directors of that movie Big Max Fun fan and like one of the movies that we talked about was the Peanuts movie that Paul Feig made

or Paul Feig co-made. And that movie made, I thought, a lot of really interesting choices in terms of reproducing the line art style of an iconic artist in a 3D animated movie that I thought were really successful. I like that movie a lot.

And so I want to give credit to the people who made this movie on the animation side for making choices and at least in Smurf world, I thought it looked really cool. Yeah. And in Brazumel's castle, specifically,

it looked really like hand-drawn but 3D. Yeah, it had a very, what's that, laser disc video game? Dragons West. Is that the one that you play in the... Full-motion video? With the full-motion video in the arcade from, like, 1980. Oh, Dragon's Quest.

Dragon's layers. Oh, Dragon's Clare. Well, you're trying to... The Don Bluth animated... You're trying to trigger the next piece of animated Don Bluth thing and he never can do it. You can't get... It's so hard.

Impossible. They made an app for the phone where you could just have unlimited lives and it still took me forever. Yeah, so I want to give a shout out to those animators for doing much better work and making more interesting choices than they had to,

despite the fact that the middle 40% or 50% of the movie is in a pretty generic real world setting that adds almost nothing aesthetically. But that having been said, this movie's garbage. It's mostly garbage in that it's so fucking boring. It is just a pile of stuff happening for no particular reason, people explaining things to each other. Nothing is fun or exciting in the entire movie.

The songs are terrible. like it really but what is most distinctive about how bad it is is I was struggling to remember what was happening as I was watching it because it was so boring and forgettable

like the storytelling choices are so dull and predictable but also too complicated to remember and put the pieces together oh it is a mess It is a very bad, bad movie.

And I say that as somebody who's like just left the part of my life where my children need to watch this kind of movie, so I need to take them to it. And I watch a lot of them. Some of them are passable. This is not one of them. This is just the most generic. That said, I saw Trolls World Tour.

And instead of passing out of my mind immediately upon having watched it, it inserted itself into my mind where I hated it actively, continuously thereafter. And so I will say this was better than that in that it is now completely gone from my mind. Everything that Dan said to me

was a revelation just now as he was recapping the film. Four strong recommendations for Smurfs. And then when Jesse listens to this episode in the future, he's like, oh, wow, Ron is Papa's brother? Run, don't walk in the opposite direction from Smurfs.

Yeah. Wonderful is a podcast where we talk about things we like. That's hard to sell in a promo like this, so we've enlisted the help of piano rock superstar Billy Joel to tell you about some of the topics we've covered. Take it away, real Billy Joel. Daddy Rock's been on Lake Sign, Wholeson Shire of Circle Time, Sega Drink House sees a salad tower of annoy.

Keep me a big time capsules, wanes, whirl, cheese, bulls, Wallace Stevens, stonking on, fun-size, almond toy. They didn't stop the podcast. Except that's not true They didn't 22 They didn't start the podcast No, they actually did

That was in fact a fib Listen to Wonderful every Wednesday On Maximumfund.org Or wherever you get your podcasts Thanks real Billy Joel No problem, Griffin What's more action-packed Than Prestige television

With more continuity than comic books A more reality than reality television One, two, three, it's professional wrestling. And to better understand wrestling is the ultimate form of entertainment. You need the Tights and Fights Podcast. This is the perfect wrestling show with a lot of love, a lack of toxic masculinity,

and just the right amount of butts, cats, and spandex. Listen to Tights and Fights every Saturday on Maximum. fun. The Flop House is made possible, an overwhelming measure, by the kind support of listeners like Hugh, but we also make room for a couple of sponsors. And this week, we are sponsored by Factor. You know, fall can be a difficult season for a lot of people. You got kids, then you've got to get them back to school, things, you know, like start

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may vary based on studies of topical and oral monocidal and finasteride. Featured products include compounded drug projects with the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information. Hey, let's take a break from plug in other people To plug us, the Flop House, your pals, sort of If you live in the Chicago area And you don't have any plans For the evening of Sunday, November 16

We added a late show after our first show sold out We'll be talking about K-9 with Jim Belushi Known Worldwide is one of the two balushies The show is at Sleeping Village at 9.30 p.m. And if you go to the events page at Flophousepodcast.com you will find a link to tickets. Also, flop TV is going strong. We just did our episode on Zanadu,

a movie that, spoiler alert, I kind of like. And, you know, I'm recording this before we do our Zanadu presentation, actually, to be dropped into a later episode, so I can't say exactly how it went, but I can tell you that my presentation was on one of my 80s fixations. It was 80s night, so I focused on a 80s fixation of mine, the original cartoon Jim about Jim and the holograms, a band fronted by a lady pretending to be another lady with the aid of a hologram machine that her dead dad left her,

along with an orphanage, part ownership of a record company. Anyway, it's a wild show. I did a whole thing on it. You can get tickets or a season pass, and not miss anything without season pass, because all of the episodes, even the ones that have already aired, will be available on demand through February of 2026. But if you want to join us live, those shows are on the first Saturday of every month. It's a video stream. We're doing film flop starting in the 2000s, going back to the 50s. Big finish this season will be Plan 9 from outer space, which we've never talked about.

It's got presentations, pre-tapes, questions from the chat. So if you want to see the shows, go to theflophouse.symptych.com. That's TIF for TICs. And get those tickets and more info. That's theflophouse.com. Let's answer some letters from listeners. This first one is from Brian last name withheld. And Brian writes,

I'm an archaeologist and frequently have long commutes to remote places, and your podcast has been a constant companion for the last decade. when I was pulling into a work site last week listening to episode 462 imaginary while sipping my coffee Stewart and Dan were talking about the kid with the missing thumb and made some jokes about his inability to hitchhike

I guffawed appropriately then took a long deep draw of coffee at which point Elliot exclaimed he was scheduled to be on roper at the movies and I proceeded to plaster my dash and windshield with coffee it was a spit take for the ages. If every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings, I hope something equally good happens

for the three of you every time you've made someone lose a beverage. My question, my first time teaching at college was as a TA for a class called archaeology in the movies, which used movies as a lens to understand popular sentiments about the past, indigenous cultures, heritage, et cetera, and compare them to what we actually do in the field. You taught about how archaeologists routinely carry whips and have to sneak into submarines. And I like the idea that he has long commutes to remote work sites. And in my mind, immediately, it was like he leaves suburban New Jersey every morning to go to ancient Egypt. Yeah, yeah.

That fucking island of all the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. And then a little line. A line goes on the map to show where he's going. If you had to design a similar syllabus to teach a class about your work or a personal interest, through film, which movies would you include? I'm sorry to break in so fast, but for our work, it's obvious. It's Alex Inc. starring Zach Braff, right?

I know it's not a movie technically, but if you put three episodes together, it's a sort of trilogy. Well, the thing is, it has the scope and ambition of a movie because TV is the new movies and the new novels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, of course, you're covering this extensively on a podcast, movie, movie podcast, your bonus content on the maximum bonus feed about movies and TV that feature podcasting. Your love for Alexink radiates from every episode. It's just good that somebody finally got podcasting right on TV. I know. Like, I've seen TV shows featuring actual professional podcasters

that don't seem to understand what podcasting is. Yeah, yeah. I don't, we have watched a lot of podcast and podcast. Acid Jason Things for podcast movie movie podcast, the bonus show that I've been doing with my Jordan Jesse co-host, Jordan Morris. None of them are anything that I would use to teach podcasting. So I picked my special interest, which is baseball. Are there any movies about baseball?

There's that one about the chimp that pitches, right? Let me check the rule book first. That's for your list of for your special interest, movies with Jason Alexander. I think about baseball movies a lot because I love baseball so much. I love movies so much. And there are like some favorites that I'm not as hot on as other people are, although I think they're perfectly fine. I like Broll Durham, but I don't love it.

I thought Moneyball was fine. And a league of their own is a charming film, but not one that I treasure. This is where you're going to be part ways, but that's okay. We can still be friends. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the Ruffle Feathers Hour. I know how important baseball in all sports are to you, Elliot.

Yep, I love it. But I thought everybody wants some is, I think, a wonderful movie. I know that there's some disagreement on that question on this program, but I know Stu's on my team. I think it's like one of the best expressions, of the way that it feels to be on a team at its best and also the way, like the best way of being a jock. Like being a jock in a really non-toxic way

as like an expression of a sort of fraternal love and the joy of fusing your body. And like I only played baseball until I was like 15 or something, but that's definitely how I felt about playing baseball. Speaking of playing baseball, Ephes, which came out this past year, is a wonderful sort of low-key movie about a rec baseball league and a rec baseball game that's going to be the last one at this park. And it's all these middle-aged men who have been playing rec baseball, their whole adult

lives, and like the sun is going down. and the game is just played inning by inning. And it's just about them as this thing passes out of their lives. It's very charming, very funny, a really beautiful movie that really captures like the adult relationship with baseball, I think. There's a beautiful movie called Sugar that's maybe 15 or 20 years old now. It's about a Dominican play. as he goes from the DR to the minor leagues

and eventually washes out that I think is sort of one of the best depictions of playing baseball on screen and what I imagine the actual experience of professional baseball is like. Like I think people kind of imagine a major league type scenario, but this is a much more humane, human scale

version of what a baseball player might actually be like in their life. Um, Pride of the Yankees, which is, um, like a very corny movie in a very sort of 1940 type way or 1950, whenever that movie came out. But I think it really is a good movie and is the kind of, um, the appeal of the cornyness of baseball to me, um, like the idea of just a, just a pure American hero, you know, Like, it's just a really nice, pure American hero movie. Field of Dreams, which I like.

A lot of baseball nerds hate Field of Dreams, but the idea of baseball as this kind of like, as just kind of like a feeling about this vague past, it sort of captures the way that baseball is this kind of like timeless companion in a way that other sports aren't. Like there's some I know right But like you know

Football is this like Titanic clash And basketball is this You know beautiful ballet And baseball is just sort of like Boring and always there But also in the same way that like You could become As you get older you become satisfied

When you do the dishes You know what I mean Like it is like a friend you know, it is a satisfaction and that is about like being older and connecting with yourself as a child and the field of dreams captures that very well.

And then I was trying to think of any documentary about baseball besides Ken Burns baseball that's good. Ken Burns baseball is good. It's like all the things that are wrong with Ken Burns like he really like he really shaves edges off of things and you know shows archival footage of things that are not the thing

that is being talked about and that sort of thing. And it's very corny, but it is genuinely very good. But I recommend it actually, because I was thinking about it to Elliot, that he watched with his son Sammy, a documentary called The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg,

that I think is a really interesting movie about baseball at its peak in the 1930s and a story of baseball as it relates to the immigrant in the United States and civil rights. And also just sort of baseball when it was the central cultural force in American life. So, yeah, there's some baseball movies for you. Yeah. Well, my answer is going to sound so woefully unthought out after that.

It's that B.J. Novak movie about podcasting. Well, again, yeah, nothing has gotten podcasting right. Oh, Tusk. Nothing has gotten podcasting right. So I was thinking about comedy. writing in general and like the thing is like also famously like narrative movies have not gotten comedy right either like it which is weird since so many of them are made by comedians yeah remember when remember when a really smart pretty good comedy writer wrote a really

well-reviewed a movie about late-night comedy that starred emma thompson the greatest world actor in the world of comedy, and it was a B-minus. Yeah, and I watched it, and I was like, none of this, none of this is how late-night comedy is made. This is so wildly wrong about everything. So I was going to recommend, there are a lot of great documentaries. Just like look up documentaries about comedy. I liked the Steve Martin one that was on Apple a lot.

Oh, I got to watch that. I haven't seen it yet. That's a good one in particular, I think. But there's a ton of them. and on a jokeyer side, but not that jockey, for just writing in general, maybe Barton Fink, because it really captures the misery side of things.

It's not a movie, but what about Larry Sanders? How do you feel about Larry Sanders? That, you know what? That feels real. I think some of it feels real. I mean, it's exaggerated in the way that, like, all fiction has to be. I think the thing that gets me is that they get away,

they try to get away with the idea that there's essentially one writer on that show, which you can't do. Elliot. There's two. But you only see one of them constantly carrying his laptop around all over the place. But the, I think it's a I think it's a once it's undercutting how many people it takes to accomplish a show like that.

Which you can't have a show with 60 characters on it, you know? But it's, but it gives the across the idea that like you can make a late night network television show with like a staff of 10, which you could never do, you know. Yeah. But you know, that's the kind of thing you have to do it. Well, Ellie, put your money where your mouth is.

what do you have to say about movies that reflect something? I mean, I was going to take the easy way out and be like, I'm going to teach a class about New York in the 70s and there's a ton of movies about that, you know. But I think there's a, I would find it really hard to do something about my work. Like you're saying, using movies because writing is not a visually interesting thing to do. It's such an internal process. And even writing a TV show where it's a lot of collaboration between people,

It's still you're talking in a room. And so the one thing that comes close is, I guess, I remember when I was a segment producer at The Daily Show, my dad was like, is it like the scene in broadcast news where she's got to get that tape really down the hall really fast? And I'm like, yeah, it is like that. I do a lot of running through halls with tapes to get them there.

That's a pretty good movie about TV. Yeah. And for me, when it comes to running a bar in New York City, there's a couple of movies, I would recommend. I mean, I'll put cocktail up there because it's kind of dumb. It's a dumb movie and it's not accurate

to what being a bartender's like and in a way a lot of it is like, yeah, you don't do this. You don't get up and like sing like 50s fucking pop songs or like read poetry while standing in a busy bar. Like, no, you're slinging drinks, idiot.

Coyotey Ugly. Yeah, coyote, obviously coyote ugly. I'm also, I'm definitely going to, I would definitely show Support the Girls from, what, 2018? Just because it really high, the way that like a restaurant or bar, like the community that grows out of it, and also the way that running that business requires you to manage so many different things.

And it's really complicated. I think that's a really good example. And then I would also, I'm going to, weirdly enough, I'm going to do two Darren Arnowski movies. The first is the recent caught stealing, a movie I don't actually think is very good. But the bar stuff, I think, is actually pretty accurate to my experience of, of bartending in New York City. That's a baseball movie, right? He wears a Giants hat.

He played for the Giants, right? Yeah, there's also baseball element. And I liked caught stealing, so I'm going to be the pro-caught stealing voice here. Yeah, I mean, I think I would say it's a mixed movie as far as reviews you're concerned. And then I would also, for, I think the most accurate depiction to my experience, bartending is Darren Aronovsky's mother.

That's what I thought you were going to say. Because it is like, that is like every fucking bartending stress dream. that has, like, kept me up, just like that feeling that people will not stop coming into your bar and are behaving like maniacs, and you're just trying to get out of there. That scene where they keep sitting on the sink, even when she keeps on them not too. That's exactly like bars. I mean, I've had to, like, yell at people like, no, don't climb and stand on top of a table, lady. I know it's your birthday.

Did they give you that table? Is that your table that you brought from home? We don't allow outside tables in my establishment. A scientist tried to bring in the periodic table and you're like, get the fuck out of here. Get the fuck out of here. Hey. Was that just one question? I can't remember.

That was just one question, yes. Okay. I have to find the letters for the game. We went so long that I was like, okay, now I'll just. Sorry we all gave thought more responses. It's, uh, okay, here's the other letter. This is from Adam Lasting Withheld. Hey, dudes.

How you doing? That's what you had to find, Dan? Yeah, what's wrong with you, Adam? Why'd you write that in? No, Adam writes, I was a graduate student in Pittsburgh when the Dark Night Rises was filming. I was unfortunately away

while filming was happening, but I had friends who were extras in some of the big fight scenes. But the lab I worked at was the building that they used as City Hall, and the final confrontation between Batman and Bain took place in the lobby

I walked through every morning. I don't think the movie is particularly good, but as a graduate school, but as graduate school was not very... I think the movie is very bad as a graduate school.

Yeah. You cannot get a degree from Dark Night Rises. It's a certificate program at best. Yeah, exactly. I don't think the movie is particularly good, but... Excuse me, I have a law degree

from Dark Night Rises. What is this? What is this piece of paper? Where did you get this? Who gave you this? Such a beautiful piece of paper. Yeah, I know HVAC repair. But as graduate...

graduate school was not very good for my health, the Batmobile shooting the building in the face has a special place in my heart. My question is this. Do you have any movies where you like watching one scene and then you turn it off, but you've seen that scene a ton of times because you like it so much? Thanks for your podcast

and attention, Adam, last name withheld. I think the closest answer I have to this, and it might make me some enemies, I don't love the movie Streets of Fire, but I do love the opening song in Streets of Fire. Yeah. that scene is when I'll just put on and watch it

because I love the way he puts it together. I love the song. I think it's, so that it really gets me going before a meeting. If I have a pitch or something, that's a song I'll listen to beforehand. But I don't love the rest of the movies. I don't watch the rest of the movie.

I, like, when I got this question, I didn't really consider, like, I only want to watch this scene. I don't like the rest of the movie as much. I have thought of it more as like, what is one scene that kind of encapsulates the vibe of the whole movie? And thus, you know,

and for me, that is the scene in Unforgiven with Gene Hackman talking in the jailhouse with what's his name, Saul. Saul Rubinick, yeah. And there, it's such a great scene. It's like a full movie in one scene. It's so great.

The rest of the movie's great too. But I feel like that is just, it's such like a beautiful, beautiful bit of acting and writing. And yeah, it's awesome. I'm sure I have some of my own, but I what sprung to mind just now was uh actually there's a lot of there's a lot of online videos will you just watch a little bit of it and then not finish it uh-huh i got what i need you

you kind of don't need the setup or the wrap up the setup's important you need to see what the scenario is i'm an old man watching a lot of videos of ron lately i do yeah and i don't need the setup i have my own fantasy that sets up this circumstance okay um anyway not that uh no i was Again, this is not a movie that we don't like the rest of the movie. We like the whole movie. But there was a period of time when Audrey, when she didn't know what else to watch, would throw on the recent Dungeons of Dragons honor among thieves

and specifically watch the opening where he keeps waiting for Jonathan to show up and asking where Jonathan is and the scene with the corpses who have to answer questions. I'm not a big watcher of movies that I don't like. I will go out of my way to make sure that I'm going to at least kind of like a movie before I'm willing to spend my life watching it, unless I get to see three of my favorite friends in the world and be a guest on their podcast. So I was thinking, like, what is a movie where I like a scene but don't like other parts of it?

The best I could come up with was the movie Dirty Work, which actually has a few parts that I like. And, you know, Norm MacDonald was, like, most people, my age, worth knowing, but also emotionally broken, my hero when I was 14. And there's some real funny stuff in dirty work. But, like, I watched the whole movie. It's not a good movie, necessarily. But I could watch any day, like, the part where they're about to get in a bar fight and Chris, Farley goes, puts a quarter into the jukebox

and goes, street fighting man, rolling stones, L-7, but then he accidentally presses L-8 and the Pena Colada song comes on. Yeah, I remember that having a lot of, yeah, like very good, isolated bits in it. Yeah, Chevy Chase is crazy, funny in that movie. Yeah. So let's do recommendations.

Movies that would be a better use of your time than Smurfs. And I'm going to pull out, we were talking about the dark night rises just a moment ago. Another dark night. We were talking about that, weren't we? Yeah. The darkest night, of course, Batman 66, the Batman movie from 1966. My friends and I have been watching, doing a watch of the whole Batman series recently on Sunday nights, which is, of course, delightful.

and at the end of the first season before we started the second season that's when the Batman movie came out and so we slotted that in there and watched that recently and it's just so much fun you know you go through this thing when as a kid you don't quite understand

that this is essentially a comedy show that you're watching like you're watching a Batman show seriously because you're a kid and you're like why is it so weird why it's so goofy like oh like this is this is dumb or like but you like it

But you're like, this is dumb. And then you realize, oh, like, that's all intentionally dumb. These are all jokes in here. This is a purpose. It's the old thing of, like, people being like, ugh. I feel like there's a long time. They're like, ugh, it's so campy. As if comedy was not the purpose of the show.

Like, they were trying to make a serious Batman show and they screwed it up because they didn't know what they were doing. But I think that's... Sorry, go ahead. One of my kids went through a Batman period and we watched this. And, like, the thing that struck me is just... Adam West is really funny. He is really funny and not like I'm a ridiculous man

and they gave me things to say that make me look funny. Like he is on purpose super funny in it. Well, and similar, I think it's like I was just saying about the show, I think Adam West did not get a credit he deserved for that where it was like, oh, he's so like it was as if it was a flaw of his performance that it is hilarious when that is exactly what he's going for. He is playing a guy who is unaware of how ridiculous the things he's doing are, you know, that kind of thing. But it's, you know, he's great.

And it can, it can simultaneously be funny and campy and have, like, there's some great villain performances in there. Like, Frank Gorshyn and Burgess Meredith in particular, I think are super amazing. I mean, like, also Julie Newmars, Catwoman, just, like, terrific performances in this silly show. When my kid was going through that Batman period, I talked to friend of Max Fun and friend of this show, Glenn Weldon from Pop Culture Appi Hour, who wrote a wonderful book about Batman called The Caped Crusade. And I asked him, like, what's the Batman thing I would enjoy? And he recommended the comic Batman 66, which we bought a few, like, compilations of.

And it really is a blast. And I had a great time also reading those, like, 50s, early 60s, you know, Calendar Man era, Batman compilations as well. Like, I was like, this is genuinely fun to look at and really fun to read. Yeah. So if you haven't checked out in a while,

Batman 66, Batman, the movie, I don't know, just called Batman. The scene where... Do you remember when he's running around with the bomb? I was going to say the scene where he's trying to get rid of that bomb is one of the funniest scenes, actually,

to watch that scene and not realize you're watching a comedy. It always backs. Like, when he sees the little ducks and he's like, uh, He didn't get rid of the bomb there. A bunch of nuns. Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. And you get to a point where he's just like racing around like the same like triangle

like running into the marching band with the tubas and it's just great. Stuart. So Dan just recommended a man movie. I'll recommend a man movie. That's right. A few weeks ago I went to a screening of Roof Man. The screening I went to. This is directed by Derek C. in France.

And the screening I went to, actually had a Q&A with Mr. Channing Tatum himself, the star of the movie. Now, this is a movie that's based on a real-life story of a man who escaped prison and hid inside of the ceiling and then later on inside the building of a Toys R Us store. This is a period piece. It's set in the 90s. And his life gets more complicated when his desires to run away and be first. are complicated by his relationship that he forms with one of the employees at the Toys R Us,

played by Kiersen Dunst. And this is a movie that, for one, is, like, set in the world of, like, I don't know, like, strip malls and, like, suburban America, and it feels, like, so, like, fresh and unique. Like, it feels like I'm in a fucking different country watching this. Even though this is a, this is, like, a world that I lived in and grew up in. And, like, even though the circumstances are. different, but they're spending so much time in this Toys R Us, it really, like, took me back

to my, if you've worked retail at all, like, it took me back to that time in my life where my world was so focused around this little place that sold stuff and the routine of it, and like, I don't know, it's, it's just kind of magical, and I think the movie is a little bit too long, it could be tightened a little bit, but there's so many great performances, and there's so many great performances in small roles. Peter Dinklage plays the manager and he's such a creep. And also, like, he gets involved

in Kirsten Dunst's character's church where the leaders of the church are played by Ben Mendelson and Uzo Oduba. And there's a scene where Ben Mendelso is like leading the show choir with this feathered hair and it's just so much fun. And I think part of it's also this idea that this man is like struggling

with the choices he's made and he knows what he probably should do but his, you know, what his head is saying and what his heart is saying are different things. And I think it's a really interesting movie and it's very sad, but it's also kind of beautiful. So I enjoyed it. Check it out.

I'm going to recommend, I figure it, we talked about Smurfs in this episode. I know it seems like it's been a long time since we talked about Smurfs, but that was just this episode. And I was thinking about, what are kids movies that accomplish something more like what the Smurfs,

I would assume them to be doing, which is more gentle or quiet in a way? I couldn't think of anything exactly, but I remembered of the movie that came out last year called Flow. That's an animated movie about some animals that have to escape a flood, basically. There's no dialogue. It's very quiet and very, I found it very slow, but my younger son really loved it.

Like, he was really absorbed in it. And I thought it delivered to him, I think, a very, there's danger in it, like there's stakes in it, but it is a very, like, comforting movie in some ways because it is not hyperactive. Like, it's not loud. And so I think for a kid who wants to watch a movie and does not want to watch something that is about a magic battle

to save the universe, or you think it's not in the mood of that kind of thing, then Flo was really worked well for him as something that he could live in for a little bit and enjoy without it amping up his adrenaline every minute of every moment of it. So that's what I recommend. It's interesting because it is a movie

that has those stakes, right? like it's still like it's still scary at times but I feel like there's a there's a gentleness to it I guess yeah yeah is and I think it's all it's so much of it is in the pace and the tone of it that it is not trying to shove emotions down your throat or shove you know excitement down your throat it's not an really really good capy bar in it and there is a good capy bar on it yeah I know how you feel about cavy bars but still I um I figured like uh I was thinking like what movies have I seen recently that are recommendable then I was like When am I going to get to be on the Flop House again?

I should just recommend my favorite movie. Yeah. So I really love... So boxing Helena. Christmas with the cranks. All ladies do it. My father served on an aircraft carrier early in the Vietnam War, specifically in the war against Laos in Cambodia.

And he, one of his jobs on the carrier was he operated the projector room in the movie theater. And there was like this horrible piece of it, which was that one of the things that he projected was tail films from the airplanes that were on the carrier. But the good thing was that he got to see the movie a thousand clowns over a hundred times. That's 100,000 clowns. Yes. So many clowns. And my parents were very bitterly divorced. My dad's gone now, but my parents were very bitterly divorced. And a thousand clowns was like the only thing besides James Brown that they agreed on. Like the only thing that they both spoke fondly of. Everything else was divided in the divorce. Like somebody had to give up Nina Simone. But a thousand clowns they always agreed on. It is a movie from the early 1960s, the sort of just pre-hippie counterculture in 1960s.

It was originally a play, and the playwright based the protagonist who's played by Jason Robards on Gene Shepard, who was a legendary radio essayist, but also, you know, the basis of the movie, the Christmas story,

Christmas story. But it's about this comedy writer who is out of work and takes care of his 13-year-old nephew who is like a super precocious neurodivergent weirdo

and he is trying to find a job because otherwise CPS will take the kid away. And Robard's character is just a classic comedy writer guy and that

he is unbelievably charming unbelievably fascinating like a guy that wants that wants this kid that he truly loves to have like every vision of what is special

and amazing about the world, right? You know, my mom often talks about Irving R. Feldman's birthday which is the birthday of the guy that runs the junkyard that every year Jason Robart's character takes the kid out of school for. And

And the conflict in this movie is not between Robard's character and CPS, although the guy that plays Mr. Feeney is the CPS guy. And he does a wonderful job. And there's a- William Daniels. Yeah. There's a very sweet love story with Barbara Harris, who's the lady CPS worker. But ultimately the conflict is that Robards is so deeply committed to

his values of the world being a magical, amazing place that he can't accept the idea that he has to take responsibility for his life, right? That he thinks that it's okay

for him to think of himself as so special that he doesn't have to take a shitty job so that he gets to keep his kid. And this central conflict is he's going out for these jobs and he's disqualifying himself for everyone. And he ultimately has to face whether he's going to go work on the Chuckles the Chipmunk show with his old boss that he hated. And Chuckles the Chipmunk is an extraordinary performance. of the just desperation and sadness of show business. And it's like, it's a movie that moves me to tears every time I watch it because it reminds me of how difficult it is

when you are, you know, an idealist who's dedicated your life to laughing and joking and stuff. And maybe you're even good at it that you, what really matters is that you take responsibility for your relationship with the other people in your life, right? That, like, you can't just be a solipsist. You can't just be a heel who's so charming that he gets away with it, you know? And it's also a very interesting film technically.

It was a play originally, and there's not much that happens out in the world. And so if you've ever read that book, when the shooting stops about, film editing. There's a whole chapter in there about all the things they did to enliven the film in the editing room. There's a lot of montages that take advantage of a lot of stock footage to depict the rat race. And it's a very like, it's a very countercultural. It's a very, it's a very vivid reminder that there was a counterculture before there was hippies, that there was like something I think it reminds me a lot

of my late friend Mal Sharp who was one of the creators of the Max Fun podcast Coilin Sharp in that he was like in the early 1960s before hippies like doing things that were really magical and incredible.

And so yeah it is it is the like in the question what is the best depiction of making comedy? it is not my best depiction of making comedy because there's no comedy

made in the film it's about a guy who can't get a job making comedy but in terms of depiction of the emotional life of someone who is driven to create comedy

it is the most compelling film I've ever seen because it is ultimately about like again that conflict between thinking of yourself as special and realizing that your job on earth is not to be special.

It is to take care of other people. And, yeah, the ending is ambivalent enough in terms of where this guy goes and what kind of guy he is, that Gene Shepard actually severed his relationship with his friend that wrote the play and film because he felt it was too scathing of, you know, him being a manic-pixie dream boy um but i i find it inspirational like it reminds me why i am uh you know

besides being a comedy guy also a comedy dad like why i'm so grateful to work with jordan and john hodgeman who are people who will go put up flyers with me at all the campus bus stops you know what i mean Yeah. And it's a really beautiful movie. It is on, it is on Blu-ray. You can get it on Blu-ray. Sometimes it is on AMC. But also, let's say you had a tube that you could type 1,000 clowns into and then filter by length.

I bet you could find it there if you wanted to. I'll also say this, guys. I love the movie Pee We's Big Adventure. There's going to be a 4K Blu-ray from Criterion. coming out, and your boy wrote the essay with a lot of help from my friend Elliot Kalin. Oh, cool. Not a lot of help.

I'm excited to get a copy of that myself. I'm going to second year a thousand clowns' recommendations. It's a great movie. And you wouldn't know it, but you're all familiar with the work of the actor who plays the kid, Barry Gordon, because he went on to be the original voice of Donatello. Yeah. He also sang all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth, and he was president of Sag After.

It's a long-in-older president of stuff. sag like it's great it's but that's it's a great that uh that's it's a performance that uh that jean sax gives as chuckles the chipmunk is astonishing it's such it like it is um it is like it's the best performance of a of a of a an incredibly self-centered narcissistic low self-esteem performer that maybe i've seen in a in a movie it's so it's so hurtful if you read when the shooting stops he was a replacement cast member in a reshoot uh like they just sort of like brought him in four months or something after they finished

the movie. And it is the most extraordinary performance. And what's his face who plays his brother actually? Not won the Oscar? This is the movie he won his Academy Award for was for a sporting actor for this movie. And he's really wonderful in it as the Jason Robard's character's

brother and agent who is a fruit enthusiast and thus very relatable to me. But not to Elliot. No. It's the one thing I don't like about the movie. It's like there's some kind of alien monster in this movie. Jesse, speaking of doing shameful things as a necessary part of a show biz career,

you care so much about your show Bullseye that you watch the Smurfs. If you come on our show, do you want to plug it before we sign off? Yeah, well, first of all, I watch the Smurfs so that I could spend some extra time with three of my favorite guys on Earth. I love you guys.

I saw very much. You're such wonderful friends. I'm so grateful, and you're in my life. But yeah, also, it's the 25th anniversary of my public radio program, Bullseye,

that I started 25 years ago in Santa Cruz, California as a college sophomore with my friend Jordan Morris, who's been a guest on this show, who was my resident on the hall that I was the RA of. But, yeah,

I've been interviewing figures in the world of arts and culture for 25 years on Bullseye, including many people from the world of film. One that stands out is maybe six years ago I got to interview Pedro Almodovar

and it was a really extraordinary experience. I've gotten to interview Mike Lee two times. That's probably my favorite living filmmaker. Ryan Johnson's coming in in a few weeks. It's always, Ryan's been a guest on the show several times and it's one of the best guys around. as well as many, you know, movie stars. But it's in-depth conversations about where art comes from with people who make stuff that's awesome.

Yeah, I'm hard to please when it comes to interviews. It's not my usual thing. I think you're my favorite interviewer. I enjoy what you do. Thank you, Dan. What about you, Stu? Who's your favorite? Is it me or?

It's the hot ones guy, isn't it? It's the guy from hot ones. It's the guy from hot ones. Yeah, he makes you eat chicken. Yeah, I mean, I just like... Like hot chicken. Yeah, he's like my favorite bald interviewer. Yeah.

Elliot's favorite interview, by the way, is the chicken wings from hot ones. It's not even the guy from the house. They do great work. Actually, I'm a huge... You're my second favorite after that guy who did the interview with the vampire. That's tough. That's scary. You're taking your life in hands to do that.

You know, the slate man. Well, not the actor who played the character. No, it was him. Christian Slater, the actor. Yeah, that's my favorite interviewer is the actor, Christian Slater. Oh, to the man. Yeah. Well, it's Michael, it's what, Michael Sheen doing David Frost.

That's my favorite. Man, what a dumb movie at times. The way they like mix in footage of the... I didn't like it either, but we can't litigate Frost Nixon, right? We should do a mini about Frost Nixon where it's like, Why do we have the actors playing the that historical figures doing talking heads to the camera as if this is a documentary?

Like, what is this? Very irritating. So that's a perfect note to sign off on. Thank you to Jesse for being here and watching Smurfs, despite his reaction to it. Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by

Howell Dottie online. You can find all of his creative works scattered across the internet. Thank you to Maximum Fun. You can find other podcast at MaximumFund.org many, many years ago, Jesse said,

hey, what about you guys coming on Maximum Fun? And it was a dream come true as someone who really loved Jordan Jesse Goh and a lot of the podcasts on Max Fun and it's been a great fit.

So thank you again, Jesse. I just saw our friend, I just saw our friend Al Madrigal who on the podcast network that you guys were with previously. and I was reminded that, first of all, I'm still very good friends with El Madrigal, but I was reminded that he texted me,

I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house. I know, and you don't want to be on the wrong side of El Madrigal. Because I'm so mad at you for taking away the flop house. He literally was a professional firing person for a few years. He's like, I'm so mad at you. And he's like, the reason, like, I understand why they did it. It makes so much more sense at Max Fun.

But that's the one show of ours that me and Christian listened to. Oh, that's a very nice thing to hear. It's sweet, and it makes me feel bad. Well, sorry, Al. Thank you, Al. If you're still out there. Al still loves you. Don't worry.

Well, for the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. I'm Ellie Kallin, and I'm so happy that we had our guest today. Jesse Thorne. Bye, everyone. Together, there's almost 50 years. No, there's more than 50 years of pod. I was just going to two shows together.

But all of us individually, there's nearly a century of podcasting experience on the Zoom. So our sound quality is going to rock. Yeah. Certainly. I'm radio, almost 30-year radio professional of Jesse Thorne. No, I got to eat. I got four candy corns left.

Okay. Candy horns. Stop chewing that candy corn. Yeah, gripping and rip it, baby. Are we ready? I'm going to... Okay. Don't grip it too hard and don't rip it too hard.

It's a good place. You've got to grip it hard if you're going to rip it hard. But not too hard, because you want to leave ripping room. Firm but loose. All right, here we go. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows.

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