The Flop House - FH Mini 137 - Stuster's Millions

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Dan challenges Stuart and Elliott to lose as much money as they can by turning hit movies into bombs.See The Flop House LIVE IN CHICAGO this November!And, if you prefer to watch us from the comfort of your own home: Tickets for Flop TV Season 3 are ON SALE!Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Flop House. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm... Wait for it. Wait for it. Big twist coming. Big twist coming. Elliot Kalin. The twist was that there was no twist. Yeah. Well, you certainly wasted some time. And that's what we like to do here on the Flop House podcast. It's mostly a waste of time podcast. It is often a podcast. We're number one in Apple podcast apps, wasting time section.

Often a podcast about bad movies but every other week we do are somewhat inaccurately named flop house minis where we talk

about just whatever usually still about movies. It's a lot of affirmations usually oh really where we talk

about the good things that each of us bring to the table I must have been out on those days and we talk about our wildest craziest most embarrassing

sex stories so Dan you said you had a pretty amazing one to tell us about today. Dan's always bragging about his body count. Let's find out about it. That is not the topic of today's many that I am leading.

Right. Tune in next time. So for this, we're going to play a little game that I've named Stusters Millions. Oh, no. Okay. In this game, Stuart, you are the CEO of Stu Studios. And Elliot is your trusted top development exec.

Oh, boy. So my job is constantly on the line. I've really got to earn my keep. Well, good news for you, Elliot. Stu Studios is trying to run a pro-stuesters-style scheme and create a slate entirely full of bombs in order to collect the money back as tax losses. Oh, thank goodness.

Yeah, I love it. So how are you going to do this? Well, I've assembled a list of 10 of the most. profitable movies of all time. Not the 10 most profitable because there's some franchise repeating that I wanted to avoid, but 10 of the highest grossing films not adjusted

for inflation. Okay. For each of these extremely successful movies, I want you guys to confer and pick one big change you would make to turn that movie into a megabom. Okay. And then explain your thinking. So this is a collaborative game.

There's not, you're not against each other points, but I will be judging you internally at all times just like real life. And just to clarify... And just to clarify, I'm only talking to Elliot, because if I asked you, you'd be like, add women to it.

And I'd be like, calm down, Dan. Okay. That would not be my personal attitude. Unfortunately, society seems to have taken a different turn. But so let's start this up. Some would say a worse turn. I would agree with that.

I don't like the turn society is taken within the past a year or two, you know? You know, as we get older, there's a, there's a tendency for you to look back at the days of yesteryear and think, oh, man, things were better then. But like, they were, right? Yeah, well, I mean, all times have their good and they're bad. But I will say that I did not think that as I entered middle age, I was like, oh, now I'll be the kind of person whose thoughts helped decide the direction of the country.

Nope, not the case. And I'm like, oh, so I guess that was that, there was that brief peer when I was kind of in sync with a lot of what was happening and now it feels like I'm in less and less in sync with a lot of what's happening. Is this just a process of aging? You'll find out in 20 years

when we do more Flop House episodes. It'll happen to you. So the first one, of course, is Avatar guys. Of course? Huge hit. The air benders. No, not that one.

The last of the air benders, they can't make anymore. The one with the big blue cats. Used up all the bending. Oh, the blue cat. Oh, this is Fern Gully for adults. Yeah. I was going to say, but not that kind of for adults,

but they are pretty nude, those big blue cats. Yeah, but that was also the Fern Gulley, it was the last rainforest, right? So, again, you can't have any more of those, yeah. Yeah, you use the ball of rainforest. I mean, they did make a second never-ending story, but I guess that's more like they're trying to, they're trying to deliver on that promise.

Yeah, I mean, if the first one was called the ending story, then it would make, like, Ender's game. You can't make a sequel to that. That'd be insane. It's got Ender. It was also a huge flop, so. Oh, yeah, that movie also was a big flop. Yeah, probably a Stu Studios film.

Yeah, crushing it. So Stu Studios is loosely based on a song by Rod Stewart, right? It's loosely based on a song by, what's his face? What's Su-Soo Studio? I thought that was Rod's. Okay. Oh, it's Phil Collins. Yeah.

So. I get all those guys. They all are kind of like a steaming mash of singers that my mom listened to when I was a kid. Now, why are they? steaming what happened there. So any thoughts on how to bombify Avatar? Avatar, okay. So how do Obamify it?

So the characters are always like, Oh, um, uh, uh. Just you got to make one big change to make... How do you turn Avatar into a bomb? The world reject Avatar. Well, I would say instead of putting it all on an alien plan, planet, you set the whole thing in, like a Spencer's Gifts?

Like a Spencer's Gifts, you know. So they're trying, instead of unobtainium, they're trying to get one of those, like, machines that you put your hand on the outside of the globe. I don't, I don't know if we're allowed to change that many things. I mean, there's a knock-on effect of, like. Yeah, I thought there was unobtainium in the Spencer's Gifts. in the Voluntaneum section. I mean, maybe, I guess so.

I think another thing you could do, this again, another change is if it's the same movie but in the middle, there's a very graphic child sacrifice scene because the Navi engage in child sacrifice and they kill their children in order to appease their God. I think that might turn audiences off of the Navi

as a noble people, you know? Right. And it's a really graphic. It's like 35 minutes long, this child sacrifice scene. Change the general morality of that. Oh, you'd have no good guys. There's no, there's no hero. in this movie.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. All right. Okay. Another thing you could do, wait, another thing you could do. Okay, wait. Yeah, keep pitching the ideas.

Keep pitching. Okay, if you don't do the Spencer's Gifts idea, you don't do the child sacrifice idea. What if instead all the Navi are constantly farting all the time, even the middle of battles, like during the romance scenes, just constant farting. Because that's how their alien metabolism metabolizes the gases

in the atmosphere of whatever the planet was called, Avatar Planet, what's it called? I think you're in danger of making this an even huge your hit, Elliot. Okay, I got it. This is way easier. Instead of changing a thing about the movie, change the trailer

so that it really focuses on one character's mustache and then all the posters and everything are pictures of people with a mustache. Now you're talking. Okay, yeah, yeah. And we give no other indication that there's special effects in the movie.

It's just the trailer is a guy's mustache. It's all about. the mustache. Well, that sounds like a winner to me. So let's move on to a little picture, you know, a small indie film called Avengers Endgame. Avengers End

Game. How are you going to... They couldn't make any more Avengers movies after that because they put stuify this. Okay, Stuify. How do we take up... Slop some stew on that. I mean, the thing is, we're going into this movie on a hot streak. Marvel has not had a single miss at this point. So Stu Studios has

to mess it up. And how will we Studios has landed the Marvel contract from Disney. We chanced it away. Disney decided to outsource for this one entry in the Marvel series. Their most important one. The one that wraps up the whole series, Kevin Feigey's like, you know what, we've set it up. There's no way to mess this one up.

Have Studio Studios handle it. We can all take a vacation. Yeah. Okay. So let's see. Instead of Tony Stark saving the day, we could replace Tony Stark with Harvey Weinstein. Now is this a redcon and we were like he's always been Iron Man?

Or is this, he just jumps into the last minute and saves the day? Yeah, he's natural, well, and all this is built on the trailer. So we have to make sure people know that he's in it in the trailer. Well, do you change the name of the movie from Avengers Endgame to Avengers Epstein. And I think they'll do a huge, it'll take a huge hit, a huge, a huge, A huge hit to its box office. The movie will not be a hit at that point, yeah. Although I think maybe people will be like,

maybe this is the Avengers getting revenge and like beating up Epstein or something. Oh, yeah, no, we don't want that. People would want to go to that. Yeah, yeah. I wonder if, again, so this is things, changes that, Dan, do you want it to be a surprise to viewers? Like the opening night audiences see it

and then they're like, oh, I don't like this. Or is this something that is, are we dread to? Are you going to suggest the farting thing again? Because, I mean, it's a good idea. I mean, in this, I, in this scenario, they have like it's not a pre-existing film that they are now like what what do they do to my beautiful baby oh okay so this is this is the release version the official release version is now your version do you want this to be something that shows up in the trailers or do you want it to be that like

halfway through the movie all the characters just sit down and take a nap for like 17 hours i mean i mean that's going to be a hard sell for movie theater change because you're not going to have that a showings per day, too. Certainly, you know, if it's revealed in the trailer, you're probably going to get less money overall. It's going to be a bigger bomb.

You do have to rely on negative word of mouth if it's going to be a surprise. Instead of, it's the exact same movie, but instead of all the dialogue, it's all musical. So they all have to sing all their lines in every single scene. Yeah, yeah.

People would hate that. And specifically, In the trailer, you see them singing in every scene. Oh, because I would say you don't see them singing in the trailer so that that is a shock to the audience. Like the audience that went to go see Mean Girls based on the musical Mean Girls based on the movie. And then when the singing started, they were angry. They were not ready for it.

They did not like it. Yeah, Tina Fey was like, I hate this. What? She went to see the movie. Was I involved? Did I do this? I did. What if the whole movie was told from the point of view of a guy, who's just, he works at like an olive garden

and he's just occasionally checking in on his phone to get updates about what's going on with the superheroes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of the whole movie, you're just hanging out with a guy who's really high explaining what happens. Yeah, that could be it too, yeah. To his co-worker, yeah.

So the start of the movie, the open, the first few moments are the last 30 seconds of the movie and then you cut to this guy, he's high, he's at the Olive Garden, and he's just explained, he's a patron and he's explaining to the way, waiter what happened in this movie that he just saw. So the waiter is like, I've got work to do. Like, I'm not interested.

I can't really listen, but I want to get a good tip, so I got to listen. And so it's kind of a little bit like my dinner with Andre, except he's trying to explain what happened in the last Avengers movie, and he's not eating dinner with this person. It's a person who works there whose time he's wasting. Yeah, yeah. You could do that. I think it's beautiful. It's, uh, it also would take the budget way down.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, like, it's all losses at that point. But not as big a tax saving. You still got to spend that money, some of it, you know, to write it off. Yeah. So, okay, how about this film? A little picture.

You may be familiar with this one. Every single one are you, Dan, are you going to describe as a little movie or an indie movie? You can't do it for every... We know you're talking about the ten biggest movies. The joke works every time, Elliot. I just had a little picture. I didn't make a big meal out of it or anything. He put all this work in, Ellie.

Let him fucking have his laughs. Why will you never let me have my laughs? I want to have them all they're hot. You will not have your laughs as far as I'm around. You may be familiar with this film. Stuart, you know that Dan's doctor said if he has too many laughs, it could be fatal. Yeah, yeah. But he can't find out about it for some reason.

It's the opposite of Gene Wilder's mom. Yeah, exactly. You ever hear that story? What? Yeah. It's very sad. It is very sad, yeah. Gene Wilder's mom, she had a heart attack or something? I don't remember what it was, but something where her health was really precarious.

and the doctor was like, Gene Wilder, when he was a child, was like, Gene Wilder, if your mom is ever unhappy, she could die. You have to keep her happy all the time forever. You should make her laugh. The most important thing for you is make her laugh. Make her laugh all the time. And that's a huge responsibility to put on a child's shoulders. And she lived forever, right?

And that's why Gene Wilder is hilarious, but also looks a little sad at all times. All the times. The doctor was like, my studies have shown that laughter is the best medicine and the only medicine. So you need to keep her laughing. Dr. Patch Evans on the case. And that laughter should be provided by a child who has more responsibility

put on their shoulders than any child should. Yeah. Look, I know you can do this. Your name is wilder. I've never met anyone as wild as you. If anyone can pull this off, it's you. You are wild to the nth degree, my friend. You're wild at heart.

Okay, well, let me... So what's this little movie, Dan? What's this little indie film we've never heard of? What's the sleeper, this cult-beloved, underground, guerrilla filmmaking, indie, you know, no labels movie, you know. God damn it. What I was trying to set up is you might be familiar with this picture because the director has already appeared on this list. Oh, and the film is Titanic. Oh, Jimmy Cambs.

Titanic. Yeah, Titanic. Well, I think we saw the version of Titanic that's not a big hit and it involves a lot of talking mice. It involves a dog-faced octopus. That's a lot of changes. Those are the only changes. The only changes. Because otherwise, it's very historically accurate.

That's what they say in the beginning of the movie. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to make one big change. One big change. I would say Billy Zane shoots Jack. And Jack dies. And I can get away with it too. I'm a rich man and you're nothing.

Yeah, it happens like halfway through the movie and the back half. You just have to watch Billy Zane and joy in life. And then he survives. Yeah, I was similarly, I think if you replaced Leonardo Caprio with the marionetted corpse of John Carradine, I think that would make the movie less successful. Certainly wouldn't capture that teen girl audience. You can only use this once, though. You can't use this for every movie we do. Do I want to save this solution for another movie?

Just imagine Kate Winslet, her arms outstretched, you know, or whatever, being drawn naked by the marionetted corpse of John Carradine, you know? Well, if you can get the family's permission, I think you've cracked it. Here's another film that I will say nothing about the size of. Dan, make us feel like it's a little thing and then it'll be revealed to be a big thing. Part of a large franchise, a franchise that is very popular, so I'm led to believe. This is a film called Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Oh. The first of the Disney, let's call them legacy sequels.

Why not? For the Star Wars franchise. Okay. Have there been any non-successful financially Star Wars things? There's certainly been Star Wars things that were less successful than they would like. I think that Solo was considered not a hit in the way they wanted, but it made money, you know? But in terms of shows, it's hard to know because those shows. those shows were released through Disney Plus,

so I don't know what the... There's no way of knowing how the viewer numbers actually affect the money they make. So, like, acolyte and stuff like that, it's hard to know what, you know, what is actually a success or not. Here's a question,

a legit question about the industry. Yeah. Do you think part of the... The steel industry. Yeah. The steel industry. Why so hot? Yeah, yeah.

Hopefully tariffs will bring it back, right, guys? Well, they say he who smelt it, dealt it. smelting. Yeah. Yep. He who smelt the steel then deals the steel. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. No, I'm wondering, is part of the problem with stuff like that, them getting out of their, over their skis and announcing, like, we have this huge idea, you know, like, we're going to make this many Star Wars movies and there's going to be a whole, like, slate of them over here. They're going to be, like, one-offs, like, a Star Wars story. And then there's going to be the main line and, like, they outline the plans. rather than just taking each success as it comes,

or in this modern world where so much of it is about, like, fan excitement, is that the way to go even though you end up with egg on your face? I think that the two things are, I think those are both two sides of the same coin, is that it is for the rush of fan excitement at an announcement at San Diego or something like that, that they then fuck themselves over, pardon my French, by promising a slate of stuff that doesn't get a lot of thought put into it, and also promising the release dates,

which I think is part of the real issue. That's why I'm going to see the new Mahersha O'Lei blade tomorrow, right? Exactly. Is they say, like, these movies are coming out on these years. Guys, how is it so hard to make a fucking blade movie? It should be awesome. It's not, they made three of them already. They made three.

Like, it's not, it can't be that difficult. Do you think they keep working on it every time they're like, already did it? I already did it in part two. I wonder. They're like, but what if the vampires had a mouth that looked kind of like a crazy vagina? They're like, already did it.

You did it in part two. I wonder if part of the... What if we had a Trinity, had it in the third one? Yeah. I wonder if part of the problem specifically with Blade is that they're so insistent on everything being interconnected. Because if there's a character that really should be sort of off on his own world and not, like, be like, oh, I guess that there's vampires running around in Marvel World, too. Like, like, it is Blade. I will say in the comics, they've tried really hard to make Blade a bigger player.

Like, he was a member of the Avengers for a little bit. and the vampires took over the world or whatever. And it did feel like Blade was punching above his weight class in some ways that his stories are best told when he's sneaking in the shadows with Hannibal King or whatever and he's up against some vampire somewhere. Well, that's like kind of the joke on Venture Brothers with Jefferson Twilight being like vampire hunter and most of the time he's like, I can't do anything. I just fight vampires.

But I think to getting back to what I said before, announcing these release dates means that there's now a lot of pressure on production, development, all those things to hit real hard benchmark, schedule benchmarks. And it means you don't have enough time to really do the best work necessarily. There was a, I remember reading about

the rise of Skywalker, whatever the last Star Wars main movie was, where they were like, yeah, well, we had the release date before. I was called the last Jedi. No, it was not. I don't recall anything else. Okay. Where they were like, we had the release date

before we had the script. And so everything was backdated from, They couldn't be like, hold on, this script isn't ready yet. They had to be like, no, go into production. And Marvel has, Marvel thought they had made a virtue of that, where they're like, when we go into production, we don't have a finished script, and then we just reshoot 30% of the movie.

And I think that was one of those things where they thought they had discovered a new production mode that worked really well. And instead, they just kind of like got lucky for a long time, you know, with the properties they're working with, and I think with the people they're working with. But they found that magical combination for a little bit. But I think, Dan, I would imagine they also probably hadn't, this is just a guess,

but I feel like they probably burned out a lot of the people that they'd worked with, specifically like the post-production people, the visual effects people who are like, at all levels. They burnt out the post-production people, they burnt out the directors, they burnt out the actors to a certain extent. Like, I think they, and but I think with Star Wars specifically, Dan, I think it's also an issue of they, and this is not fun or funny, but I think the, as much as it hates me to admit it, because I loved that Star Wars world when I was younger. The Star Wars world is not really as big as the Marvel Comics world.

Like Marvel Comics, you can do that for a little while because there's so many characters doing so many different things. Star Wars really doesn't have that much stuff in it for a thing that feels like it has a lot of stuff in it, which is why every other one seems to take place on Tatooine. If they had truly done what it seemed like they were going to do at the start when they're like, oh, we're going to do all these like stand-alone things. Like if they'd really done it, they could have just like, invented new characters

within that world and had stories rather than like the problem is there like. Just pick up the tales from the most icely canteen and just do all that stuff.

We're just like circling the same goddamn characters over and over again. But anyway, the film was... Where's Grand Admiral Thrawn? Star Wars the Force Awakens.

Ruin that movie. Ruin that. Movie. Thron got brought into the Clone Wars show, didn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

That's one of the two things from the Zon novels that's canon, right? Thrawn now and the name Corusants. because George Lucas couldn't come up with a better name. He's like, damn it, that's such a good name. Well, I think obviously what they should have done with Force Awakens

is instead of Ray and all this shit, it's got to be Kyle Katarn. Bring Kyle Katarn from the Dark Forces game. You know what? Or Dash Rendar from Shadows of the Empire. Bring him in, you know? Oh, sick. The timeline doesn't match up, but it's still cool. I don't know who these characters are, so I'm going to assume these are great ideas.

Dan, you have a whole world. of Star Wars to get into and you'll be like there's not really that much in this Star Wars world So what can we do to Star Wars? What was it? Force Awakens. Force Awakens. So that's the one it introduced the new generation of heroes. Ray, Finn,

Po. Po. That, that, what's the 88? Or IG80? No, what's the BB8? BV8, thank you. I was thinking of IG 88. The badass bounty hunter droid. Yeah. So how do we make it bad? How do we bomb it? Let's see.

Hmm. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. I mean, fill time. Fill time. Phil time. Phil. Vamp. Vampires? Actually, I'd love to see a Star Wars movie with the vampires in it. That'd be great. Yeah, there was a really good old, like, Buck Rogers with vampires that I liked. Space vampires, they're cool. Count Bucula, yeah. I feel like...

What if we introduced Count Ducula to the Star Wars universe? Would that work out? I don't think you would have... I don't think it would hurt it at all. I guess probably not, actually. Is there some way of making the first JJ Abrams film, the last JJ Abrams film? Yeah, I mean, let's see. I know the fans got really mad when, like, Luke Skywalker died.

Could we just have him, like, get exploded right at the beginning? Well, I think it was not even him dying so much as him being an unhappy guy that he wasn't, and who seemed like a big grump who said, Oh, that stuff's bad. That reminds me too much of me, the fan said. Can he be just like a badass samurai wizard and be like cool about it? Yeah. I think what if, you know what?

Maybe this would make it a bigger hit, but this is similar to that Olive Garden idea. You just set the whole movie at that space diner from the prequels. And it's just hanging out there. It's like the bear, but it's in Star Wars. Actually, I love it. This would be a great idea. Oh, I thought it was like, but it would be very punishing on a certain group of the audience. If you keep like acting like, oh, and now we're going to go leave.

And then they're like, oh, wait, we got to do this first. They just keep not leaving the diner. Or when the characters that we are invested in who are like, oh, we're going to go on an adventure. And they leave through the front door, but the camera stays. And then if those are the new people who come in, you're like, oh. All right. We're going to get to the fireworks factory. Maybe you hear something on the space news.

about the characters we heard about earlier. Man, this is actually pretty good. So, space news, the capital planet of the universe is destroyed. No one's that upset about it. Moving on, you know. Actually, is that space signer on Corrassant? I think it is, yeah. So it would have been destroyed when the first order, is that what they called?

When they blow up that planet, you just see that kind of like that furry alien. It's its beard flapping in the wind as the planet's about to be destroyed. So that space diner got blown up, right? Dexter Jutzer. diner? I mean, this is the saddest thing I've thought about it now.

He also made that, that diner was in operation before the rise of the empire. So like, they might have shut it down. I think if there's any, if there's any business that's going to survive,

it's going to be a greasy spoon diner, you know. I don't know. I feel like, the empire is built on, like, bullshit, like,

delivery apps and stuff. And that stuff's really bad for diners. Well, guys, we've used up our daily podcasting a lot. of talking about Star Wars. So we're going to move on.

Oh, thank goodness. We're done. Oh, thank God. To Spider-Man, no-way home. Oh, let's shift gears to something not nerdy. Spider-Man, no-way home is the choice. Which one's this? That's the one with all the Spider-Man.

There's like three Spider-Man and six villains and they're all flying around. I think it's pretty easy. Instead of having them all three Spider-Men kind of show up from different timelines, that they accidentally get morphed together and they're like a blind. like a blob with all their arms and legs to be honest there is a there's an internet video where someone did that with with very uh with animation and they're just kind of flying around as a blob yeah yeah i think it's good i think it would be unsuccessful as a movie as a motion as a as a spider-man movie i think it would be unsuccessful i think people wouldn't want to take their kids especially since like so many so much of it is like oh all these spider-men are such cuties and then you turn them into a blob yeah of a arms and limb yeah if it stopped being an action movie and instead it was about these three spider-men they all have to pretend to be the same person and it's more of a like farce where they're they're running in and out and have to switch the costume off it's like if mrs doubtfire was three people each pretending to be mrs doubtfire

and they have to keep switching off and they don't remember what the what the previous one promised and things like that i think you do it like that where it's called like um spider-man which one's the spider-man you know something like that I got it. It's really easy. All we do is we take when Toby McGuire shows up, it's emo Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3. And he's got like the hair flip. Again, I would like it. I think audiences would not like it. How about this even?

We go even further. Instead of Toby McGuire showing up, it's Emo Phillips playing the Toby McGuire Spider-Man. Perfect. That doesn't get more emo than that. And when Emo Phillips comes on, they're like, hey, Toby McGuire, and he answers to it. I'm Toby McGuire. I was a spider. man in the early 2000s like and then instead of Andrew Garfield it's actually um what's saying

Garfield the cat Garfield the cat no but people would love that they'd go crazy there's a Spider-Man cat in the Spider-Verse movies instead of and and for the ad for the trailer we just used that the trailer that they got rid of of Spider-Man saving somebody by putting a web between the Twin Towers Trade Center yeah yeah instead of Andrew Garfield it's Andrew Jackson uh yeah yeah and I think People wouldn't like that at all. Merge with President Garfield. Yes, it's Andrew Jackson and James Garfield, I think his first name was. They've been merged together, but they're still Spider-Man.

And again, they still answer to the name Andrew Garfield. Yeah, yeah. So we're still merging something. Now I really want to see Emo Phillips playing Toby McGuire playing Spider-Man in something. Or playing Toby McGuire in Sea Biscuit, playing Toby McGuire in Wonder Boys. What about Babylon? Babylon. Any role that, I mean, Emo Phillips would have been great.

that role in Babylon. Like, if ever there's a guy you do not want to go into a weird dungeon basement to watch someone eat rats with, it's probably Emo Phillips, yeah. Wait, that happens in Babylon. Yeah, you don't remember that? They go into that dungeon basement and the guy in the maskers is eating rats.

Oh, you, because you don't want to take sides in the Great War between me and Emily. You don't want to waste your time. Babylon on the podcast. No, it's never going to happen. Dan, would we ever do Babylon on the podcast? Do you like it too much? I both like it too much and it is like a long movie.

It's a very long movie, yeah. Hey, let's take a break and for a word from our sponsors. You know, the flop house is, of course, what makes it run is listeners like you who become members at maximum fun.org. It doesn't run on Duncan. It runs on listeners.

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and you know what you're going to want to sleep on, a mattress. Good thing. We're also sponsored today by Lisa. not Lisa from Saved by the Bell, but Lisa, L-E-E-E-S-A, the mattress company. Now, here's the thing. I know a lot of people don't sleep well. I know Dan cannot sleep, and I know I have trouble sleeping much of the time. It's because of that mattress.

When you go to like a hotel or a richer friend's house and you get on their mattress, you're like, oh, man, this is so nice and comfortable, so soft. Why can't I sleep like this on a bed like this? Why can't my mattress be like this? Well, luckily, Lisa mattress will allow you to sleep just to. as well as you do on another kind of mattress because it's comfortable. We have received a Lisa mattress.

I got a twin-sized one for my boys because they have a lot of trouble getting to sleep. They have a lot of trouble entering that sleep state. And I think it's helping. They really like it a lot. And, I mean, the only thing that makes it harder for them to sleep is now they have been fighting over which one of them gets to use the mattress, which is another issue,

but it's not Lisa's fault. It's not Lisa's fault. They made such a good mattress that my boys are nail and tooth trying to get at it. Lisa mattresses are meticulously. designed. They're made in the United States of America, our country that we live in, for exceptional quality. They've got free shipping. It's easy to return. They have a 100-night sleep trial. That's right. If you don't like it within the first 100 nights, then return it.

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sleeping well. But don't let those villains win. Instead, go to Lisa.com for 25% off mattresses, plus get an extra $50 off with promo code flop exclusive for our listeners. That's right, you get an exclusive promo code. That's L-E-E-E-S-A.com promo code flop for 25% off mattresses, plus an extra $50 off. Be sure to enter our show name after checkout so they know that we sent you. Lisa.com promo code flop. This is actually, guys, this is a good news, bad news situation.

The bad news first, we have a show schedule. in Chicago on November 16th, and it has sold out. The good news. Good news for us. That's good news for us, bad news for any one who doesn't have tickets. The good news is that we have added a late show on November 16th at Sleeping Village in Chicago, Illinois. You can come see us talk about a little movie called K9, a movie where Jim Belushi hangs out with a dog a bunch. It's going to be a really fun time.

It's, you know, it's a late show, so things are going to get. Dan said certified nasty. I don't know who's certifying it, but I guess I'm in. Oh, the Chicago Nasty Department. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The shows at 930 on a Sunday night, November 16th. I hope to see you there.

It's going to be a fun one, folks. And in case you can't make it to that show, there's a new opportunity for you to see us in Chicago, as Dick Stewart just said. You can do that, but in case you can't make it and you still want to see our faces, as we're talking and not just listen to our voices, well, I've got good news for you because Flop TV Season 3 is on the air. That's right. Flop TV is going right now.

That's right. We started September 6th with the first episode in Flop TV Season 3, that is the Adventures of Pluto Nash, and we're going to be going back in time, decade by decade, every episode. So October 4th will be our next episode. We're talking about Jack Frost,

the movie where Michael Keaton is a jazz musician, I think, who dies and comes back as a snowman. It's going to be amazing. Every first Saturday of the month from September through February, we're going to be appearing live on your computer screens doing season three of Flop TV. It's going to be so much fun,

doing movies that we have never talked about before as full episodes and which are flop classics. That's right. We're going to be talking about Zanadu. We're going to talk about Dr. Doolittle, the Rex Harrison version. And we're going to talk because there's a rule

only one Eddie Murphy movie per season where we do play Pluto and Ash. And finally, we're going to end the season with Plan 9 from Outer Space, perhaps the most famous bad movie of the mall. How do you get tickets to this? Well, it's easy. Go to theflophouse.com. That's theflophouse.com.

And then join us in your own home as we show up on your computer every Saturday, every month, not every Saturday, but the first Saturday of each month. But let's say you missed the first episode. It's okay. Getting a ticket to that episode, gets you an access to the recording for that episode, and those recordings are going to stay up. through the end of the series until the end of February. Why not get yourself a six show bundle?

That's the season pass, six episodes for the cost of five. What a deal. That's theflophouse. If you want to feel like you're stealing one show from us, that's literally what you're doing by buying the bundle. Living your dream, living your dream of stealing content from us. Reaching into our pocket and stealing a show. Reaching into my children's mouths and pulling the food out

so you can watch that show for free. Calculated benefit. People. Flop TV, season three, that's the flophouse. That's simpletix.com, the first Saturday every month through February. And you can watch the recordings however many times you want through the end of February. Join us, won't you? You guys want to try and do this promo with British accents?

Yeah, yeah, of course. Let's do it. Okay, iffy, you go. Boy, bro, this is TV chef, Fantasy League. Fantasy League. Okay, Sierra. We take cooking competition. shows and treat them like fantasy sports.

Like a newscaster. Very posh. Right now we're doing the Great British Bake Off or the Great British Baking show if you're listening from the US. Oh, that was really soothing. You chose like a priming proper. Thank you. Out in Abbey.

Thank you. Okay, I think you have the best accent. You want to take us home. Subscribe to TV Chef Fantasy League on maximum fun.org and wherever you get your podcasts. Better than my Boston one. Hi, everybody, it's Ellen Weatherford. And Christian Weatherford.

People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree. But we can judge a snake by its ability to fly, or a spider by its ability to dive. Or a dung beetle by its ability to navigate with the starlight of the Milky Way galaxy. On just the zoo of us, we rate our favorite animals out of ten in the categories of physical effectiveness, behavioral ingenuity, and of course, aesthetics. Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, Musicians, musicians, comedians, and more join us to share their unique insights into the animal kingdom.

Listen with the whole family on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get back to this stu-sters. Here's a film that was a big hit. Uh-huh, yep. Inside Out 2. The sequel. Inside Out.

Inside Out. Okay. So here, I think this is easy. that that main character, that girl whose name I don't remember what it was, and you turn her inside out. This time, it's not that you're going, it's not that it's about her emotions

that she, her body has been turned inside out. Her organs are on the outside now. It's horrifying, it's disgusting. Is she going to be able to make it to the hockey championships now? Probably not. It's, I think it would really horrify a lot of children talk about a box office bomb.

Guys, I haven't seen this one. So is this the, is this what happens after that lady gets the baby cut out of her stomach by that evil French lady? Well, you're thinking of the movie inside, not inside out, yes. Oh, okay. But I mean, they do

take somebody's insides out in that movie. Yeah, so I think he's correct. Yeah. That's right true, yeah. So, I mean, inside out would be a better name for the movie Inside than an Inside Man. Maybe that baby is a little, is a boy, in which case, inside could also be called Inside Man. So, but

that is one of my favorite things about that very gross movie is the occasional shots of a unhappy baby getting like bumped. Yeah, I feel like that's kind of where the movie goes a little too far at times. Maybe he's like, no, thank you. But I think if you added that plot element to Inside Out too,

it certainly would make it hard for it to be the hit family film that it was. Okay. Yeah. So turn Riley Inside Out and Riley's mom is pregnant. And while she's at hockey camp or wherever she is, her mom is being attacked by someone who's trying to cut the baby out of the belly. Yep, we're changing only a single thing. There you go.

Okay, well, here's a movie that I was sort of dismayed to find on this list of highest grocers. Again, this is not adjusted for inflation. This is just in pure today's dollars. No, it's a Jurassic World. Jurassic World is right up there. How are you going to... Who did this one? Is this the Steven Spielberg one?

What? No, this is Trevor. No, that's Last World. Okay. Lost World. Jurassic Park, the Lost World, was... This is the first of the Chris Pratt trilogy. Oh, I didn't see this one.

Because this is not adjusted for inflation. Because the first Jurassic Park, if you adjusted for inflation, made so much more money than the Jurassic World movies. But, I mean, if you're just for inflation, the list would be like, gone with the wind, snow wait, that kind of stuff. So, uh, it sounds like I said, snow weight. Like, Tom Waits is snow white, but... Where's Papa?

Yeah, if you just for inflation, then where's Papa? Is it the top of the world? Dwarfs them all. Yeah, yeah. train coming at camera. The Apple Dumbling Gang. Oh, shit. That happened.

Oh, man. People love Apple Dumpling Gang. If you adjust for inflation, it goes, it goes, where's Papa? The Apple Dumbling Gang. What about Bob, top three movies of all time? Oh, man. I love those are all questions. Apple Dumbling Gang's a question, right?

Yeah. The Apple Dumbling Gang? Like, what the fuck? What? That's not an name for you. I was like, I don't know. this movie's about, but I got a fucking find out how this gang

is somehow made out of apple dumplings, yeah? Dan, it is hard to think of a more disappointing filling for a dumpling if I take a bite into it than apple. I'm just going to say it right now. Yeah, your famed hatred of fruit. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I have some dumplings. I love dumplings. What is this? Oh,

apples. Pah, blah, blah. Don't give this to me. What a horrible gang. What criminals? You would prefer something like what I had for lunch today. potato and onion parogi. Oh, that sounds wonderful. Yeah, because you're taking like a starch

and then you're stuffing it full of more starch, baby. Yeah, exactly. Then sauteing it in butter. Yeah, on a bed of rice. Yeah. Wow. They call it death by his death by starch. No, you're getting extra energy.

That's what that's what starch is, man. You're running a marathon later, right? That's why you're carb loading, starch loading like that? It was because we were. Yeah, he's playing in a pee week's opportunity. It was genuinely because we. had a taping in the middle of the day with a guest and I'm like, I've got to eat something beforehand.

What is pre-made here at the store? What'll make me sleepiest? Some parogi. That's going to keep me awake. Okay, so what are we talking about? Jurassic World, I never saw this one. Should I? How about, I mean...

You like dinosaurs. It's a huge hit. So what I would say is, instead of dinosaurs, you swap them out with, like, I don't know, like ducks? Yeah, just giant ducks. Yeah, I think they're not normal ducks They don't have to be giant normal-sized ducks

And they're like, hey, we're trying to do Jurassic World But like we don't dinosaurs are too dangerous So we're just doing ducks We cloned a bunch of ducks I've got news for you guys All birds are dinosaurs So ducks are dinosaurs So if they said, welcome to our dinosaur theme park

And it's all ducks, they're not lying That's literally true If we release Jurassic World and people come to us with us lawsuit, we're like, technically we're right Talk to a paleontologist These are all dinosaurs living avian dinosaurs. So I think,

but I think you still do it like Chris Pratt is still training the ducks to track, I guess, or whatever. There's still, you know, people are still rolling around in giant balls, you know, dodge and ducks. Yeah, sure, I think we do that, yeah. Love dodging ducks.

Okay, here's one. Duck dodgers, yeah. They're literally duck dodgers. Now, this is not the original cell animated version. This is the CGI also animated version, no matter what they say, the Lion King. The Lion King.

Well, they figured out how to do it is you make it about Mufasa and you make it super boring. Oh, they already did it for you. They already did it for us. But I'll say, what are we going to do with this Lion King to make it not a hit?

Well, you should try and make the animation to look like it's just AI generated. Oh, wait. Make it so like there's no emotion on the animal's faces? You should cast like a real dud like John Oliver in one of the rules. Just kidding.

He's funny. He's a fun. Our old beloved tour. A great guy, legitimately great guy, no reason to hit him. Let's see. So how would you take it? I mean, once again, if you replace any of these characters with the marionetted corpse of John Carrey, and I feel like right off the bat, they're going to save that one.

If it's all ducks and it's called the Duck King, but it's still the same story, I think that's great. And also all the animals are ducks. So like Scara is a duck, Mufasa's a duck, and the wildebeest that kill Mufasa are all ducks. It's like just ducks, ducks, ducks, all the way. Tomon and Pumba are ducks. when they're eating bugs they're eating other ducks you just make it all ducks yeah but not Disney ducks not Disney ducks

well that's the thing I'd be the one guy in the theater I'd be sitting in the middle like wondering when fucking Scrooge was going to show up and so angry when it didn't happen you're worrying when fucking Scrooge shows up so when one of the characters finally has sex with him scrooge

no fucking Scrooge is the name of the character it's the horny version of Scrooge McDouged. You don't want to know he fills his money been with no yeah he's having sex in his money been and that people he's having sex with are like where ducks they're like, it's so uncomfortable

having all this cold change pressed into my back. No, I love it. The only way you can blast, yeah. Yeah. There's been so much talking about blasting recently. Sorry. Has there been a lot? I'm a human, red-blooded man. I'm sorry of my physical needs to make you uncomfortable.

I think I'm remembering the previous episode that we just recorded. There was not talking about blasting on that one? There's a little cum talk in that one. That's okay. Hey, this is 18 plus. Yeah, yeah, come on. There's no children alive. So I will say, what else can we do with the Lion King

other than make them all ducks, something we've already talked about? What if instead of it being realistic life? This is actually a really hard one. It's a tough one. Yeah, because the movie itself is already not good. Instead of it being realistic, life-like animals that are CGI, what if it is live-action people,

and they just are wearing t-shirts with the name of the animal they're supposed to be written on it. Like it's a community theater version of the Lion King. Exactly, but they're not acting the animal's motions. It just has written on them like elephant. Yeah. And they just walk around like a normal person. And you don't cast known actors.

No, it's all amateurs or unknowns. It's all unknowns. And this is, of course, because of the lawsuit from people who are like, this live action Lion King isn't actually live action. You just animated in a more realistic style. They go, okay, we'll give you a live action version. And they go down to, like, I don't know, like a local, what's a place where you could find a bunch of people,

like a Costco, and they're just round up a bunch of customers and they're like, come and be in this movie, okay? It's basically, we're doing like a, I think you should leave type sketch at this. I guess this isn't, I think you should leave types of it. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, here's one that's, I think, a little hard because the movies already are pretty ridiculous. Yeah. Pretty ridiculous.

Furious 7. Furious 7. What can you do to? No cars. Take the cars, click on them, drag them to the trash can, drop them in there,

empty trash. Now, were they running around pretending they're in cars and went, Grim, Vroom. Like that? Yeah, okay.

I would love to see, I mean, those actors, I just don't think of Vin Diesel as strong as the man is, as much of a runner. So just like,

running around. He's not doing a lot of cardio, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, everyone, they can't afford the cars, so they just treat them like they're in cars

and they're making the sounds and they're, like, running next to each other on the highway. Yeah, I think that could do it. What if instead of being a Furious Seven, it was called Curious Seven, and it's Curious George is the leader of the Toretto family now? I think you're turning into a kid's film and kids films make dollars.

That's true. We make a lot of money. That's true. But he swears all the time. I think you're right. I think that taking the cars out is the only way to ruin that. I mean, if that's the case, then, like, Star Wars, let's take out the spaceships. Okay, Jurassic Park.

We didn't take out the dinosaurs. I don't think that'll kill Star Wars. You don't need spaceships. You just need it. The aliens, those critters. There's, like, no spaceships in, like, Andor, right? They're constantly flying around the spaceships. Okay, I got to watch Andor.

It's just slightly more realistic. I got to watch that show someday. All right, we got one last. You're like, Andor is mostly about a therapist in the Star Wars universe, right? and he just talks to his clients in his office. No, you think of in-treatment, but that's not about Star Wars universe. Right, yeah. It's just Laura Duren making bad life choices.

No, no, I'm thinking of Enlightened. Yeah. You're mixing up your slightly less celebrated HBO shows. It's a great show. I'm just saying anything about the quality. You know, Mike White hit it big with White Lotus, but he has a deep filmography. He's got other stuff. What about whenever the characters in Star Wars are...

Chuck and Buck with Chris White's? Whenever they hear something they remember an old TV show that they saw when they were a kid because they watch so much TV it's called Star Wars Dream On yeah long for making it

not even hiding it yeah I love it Okay well we got one final one here and that is a a legacy sequel it's called Top Gun Maverick This made BOPOBO guys

Take away the planes They just fly with their arms outstretched And you can't keep stealing my cool ideas. I'm going to say, let's see. Tom Cruise is still in it. Sure. Oh, in the beach football scene, they all have to wear shirts.

You think that would do it? That alone. That alone would be enough. People would hate it. They'd write in. Or wait, that they specify, specify that the enemy in the movie is like China or something, and then the movie will do super bad overseas.

Yeah, I think what if instead of like unnamed nation that they're fighting. Instead of the young people doubting that old Tom Cruise still has what it takes and then he proves them wrong, what if he proves them right? He does not have what it takes anymore. And he's just blowing up the wrong planes and crashes his jet and he has to deal with the fact that he really doesn't have it. He lost whatever skill he had. you know

yeah he just explodes immediately and he's like let me teach you a thing he'll do whippersnappers takes off immediately explodes the midair and the rest of it

is a very realistic funeral for the character of Mavraig it's an hour and a half of just footage slowly panning over his wreck yeah well good news everyone you did it

your tax fraud worked yeah you're the winners. Everyone's a winner here on the flop house. Nobody loses, yeah, except the person who listens. Speaking of listening, thank you, listeners. Thank you for supporting us.

Check out other great shows on the MaxFund Network over at MaximumFund.org. Thank you to Alex Smith, our producer. He goes by the name Howell Doddy on the internet where he does a lot of his own great creative projects. Check those out. please. And for the Flop House, I've been Dan McCoy.

Hey, it's me, Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kalin saying, bottom of the morning to you. Why are you doing a voice? Why are you doing a weird voice? Bye all. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artists-owned shows.

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