The Flop House - FH Mini 5 - More Time with Griffin

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Griffin Newman came back (for reals, not one of these "we actually recorded it at the same time") to chat for a bit about Watto, Star Wars in general, his career, and, of course, Tom Selleck.

I'd love to hear more stories of Griffin's showbiz at life, you know, but oh so many stories. I mean, I'm like Robert Evans. It's an analyst well. Well, that is one of the things that got a lot of requests for on Twitter, but I don't know the degree to which Griffin feels comfortable sharing a lot of that stuff. So that's up to him. You can ask him, he's right there. I mean, yeah, you can test me. I feel like there's very little I'm not comfortable talking about. What was it like when you and Ali McGraw split up?

Rough, real rough. I mean, because you have to remember, like, we're coming off of a big hit. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You should have. Because I just, I mean, I know I was just making a joke about it, but for context I was in a thrupal with Robert Evans and Ally McGrath

Evans and I both produced love story. Yeah, so it was just like all like everything and I broke up with both of them at the same time Because they broke up later, but they first broke up with me and vice-versa- But you also left them for Steve McQueen. Oh, so you inspired their breakup. Yeah. Because it was originally me and Ali. And then we were like, we should find a third. And then she was like, what about the most powerful person

at Paramount? And I was like, yeah, that seems like that could help both of us. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that'll fix the power dynamic, right? Right. And then yeah, no, she found him a little more valuable than me in every sense. Yeah, I mean, that'll fix the power dynamic, right? Right. And then yeah, no, she found him a little more valuable than me in every sense. Oh, that's too bad.

Well, you got the last laugh on her. This made up scenario. Thank God. Yeah. Were there actual questions? Yeah, do you want, I feel like I should uh... give you a test also i'll say pass if i can answer yeah yeah i feel like yeah i should answer

i'll i'll say pass to yeah don't don't ask me about uh... families of the mafia not lots of i might pass on anything do you think uh... do you think you think doing the first edition of your one man show about Wato is what caused the lockdown because they wanted that to be the only the illuminati one that to be the only performance? I will say this I I do feel very weird about the fact that there were five days six maybe less than a week between when I did the first and probably only performance of my one-man

waddo show and when the UCB New York closed down maybe forever. It was like a very short period of time between the two. So this is going to be one of those shows like Moose Murders or something where people were like, oh yeah, I was there when they weren't really there, but they want to be that history. 100%. Yeah, yeah. In the neighborhood I live in, it's everybody claims

who have gotten the very last stake from Denny's Steak Pub, which is a top bar. And it's like, dude, I've talked to like 10 guys who have had the last stake in Denny's. It's impossible. They didn't have that much seating. You couldn't even have been parallel with someone having the last day.

You weren't all sharing one steak. My water thing, it's weird. I've talked about this, but like, Blankcheck started out as a podcast solely about the Phantom Menace. That was the idea that David Simmson I had, and then that evolved into a podcast where we covered all the Star Wars movies, which then we retrofitted into, oh, that ended up being more about George Lucas. Let's pick different directors and go through all their movies in that way. And Wato was just the character that I was unnaturally drawn to when the Phantom Menace came out. He was like far and away my favorite character. He was the character I bought merchandise of.

And watching the film like through vaguely adult eyes, recognizing now in a way I did when I was a child, how anti-Semitic that character is, I wonder if the reason I connected to that character so strongly is because he reminded me of a relative. Like he felt like an elderly relative. I think that would have been my guess is that you connected to him because you saw the similarities and you didn't know that it was so way over the top and that it wasn't

created by people who were of that same type. Totally. It was like totally. Right. So then we started rewatching the movie for the podcast. It started hitting really hard. I started doing this wado impression, all the time on the podcast. And then I have a buddy, Connor Ratliffe,

who for my money is the best improviser in New York City, started doing this show called The George Lucas Talk Show, where he would do an hour long talk show, where he would interview people as themselves, as serious guests, people who had projects to promote, but he would do the whole thing in character as George Lucas. And the bit was George Lucas is the least charismatic man of all time, trying his hardest to succeed in a format that is based solely on personality. And he had a guy named Sean Distan who was Jar Jar Binks as a sidekick for a number of years.

And then Sean dissimuthed to LA so I asked can I start doing Wato as your sidekick? Which over a period of time I did Wato for like three years. Now we wonder if we'll ever do the show ever again, but it culminated me doing a one-man show as Wato pretending like I was doing Wato's Las Vegas cabaret review. So I rewrote like seven songs with Star Wars specifics and did Broadway standards in Wato's voice. And that is apparently the thing that ended all live comedy. It would just everything shut down right after that show. I think that was, it had reached a certain level of ironic singularity. And I think God was like, okay,

they have had enough comedy. It is time for a catastrophe to overwhelm everybody's lives, yeah. Yes, so that's my relationship with Wato and how not to be self-aggrandizing, but it might have ended all comedy forever. Yeah, it's it was like the like a cosmic tragedy and comedy mask pairing.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Right. It ended with Wado crying and chugging a beer on steak. Nothing was left to be said in the media of comedy. Do you guys have any W water memories? Oh boy. I remember as soon as a friend of mine really wanted to play the most recent iteration of the Star Wars role playing game and he's like, what kind of, he's like, what character do you want to play?

I'm like, I want to be a wado. He's like, they have a name. Like, yeah, I guess I'll be a toy Darian then. I like that you're being casually racist about a racist caricature, A. Yeah. You know, one of those water types controls the media. I think growing up in the Midwest, I just did not have enough contact with like Jewish people in my life as

Living living amongst the Gentiles like I didn't realize to what degree that was a stereotype Like I was very disturbed by the the traders at the beginning who are so clearly Asians Yes, the the noidance you speak up. Yeah. And that was like, those were people that I were familiar with. But yeah. And you were like, you're like, I love this totally fictional, like bizarre hypothetical like pushy greedy hook-nosed character who always has like a stubbly beard all the time

and lives in a desert like that. Incredible creation. Yeah. Yeah, you were just like, you were like, leave it to George Lucas, master monster maker. George Lucas, but do imagine such a far out thing. But it's a good point too. I think there were two things that was connecting to me. Like connecting for me, one is the Jewish anti-Semitism that I was registering as, oh, what

a comfortable character type that I love. And then two, that Wato is like one of the only characters who feels like a city dweller. Like I was like a New York city Jew. And here's this guy like haggling prices, who seems a little bit exhausted, you know, like hasn't shaved. And I'm like, I get this, like this guy is like,

I talk to this guy four, five times a day. Oh yeah, he's noticeably shorter than every other character including the child. Right, yeah. Everything about him. Right, because I feel like most kids were connecting to Anakin. I was like, this waddo guy.

I'm in safe hands here. I feel like this slave owner. They established rules right away. They explain Jedi mind tricks don't work on him. That's a true. Yeah, mind tricks don't work on. I thought the scene where he took that Rodean child and drained its blood and then made Motsa out of it was a bit much. It was a bit much.

Yeah, I'll agree with that. So I think I'm a little older than you, Griffin. And these guys, the other two guys are much older than you. I'm just a little older than you. So I was old I think I'm a little older than you, Griffin. And these guys, the other two guys are much older than you. I'm just a little older than you. So I was, so I was old enough when I saw that I was, when I saw that I was like, oh, this is not okay. Like this is, but there was still part of me that was like, but all right, it's Star Wars.

I'm a, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is okay, because it's not. You're like, you're saying representation matters, right? It's like your time. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Finally, finally a Jewish person, a Jewish character in the Star Wars universe. I've my prayers rancored. I was so busy trying to force in my imagination, Peter Parker to be a Jewish character when, right, right.

Reality has resisted that. And it was years from when people were like, okay, let's just admit that thing is Jewish. And he's, he's the Jewish member of the Fantastic Four. So, who did I have? Who did I have? Portnoy? Was that the only fictional character I could call my own?

You know? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, no, it was Wato. We were taking what we could get at that point in time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It was either we could either have Wato or we could have a parade of kind of light. It was Woody Allen or Wato.

Those are the two choices, you know. And it's a real Dennis Bargain. And it's a real coin flip on terms of which one is a worse role model. Yeah. So Dan, if Wato isn't your favorite character, what character do you connect with most in the Phantom Menace? Yeah, who do you relate to? Of all did you connect with most in the Phantom Menace? Who did you relate to? Of all the audience surrogates in the Phantom Menace, which one really felt fully developed

to the personable? Are you going to say Kira Knightley is one of the stand-ins for the Malibu? I think you're having a sad bag. I could see Qui-Gon being your guy, Dan. He's kind of like, you know, he's just a guy. People look too for answers. He doesn't necessarily have them. But he's just kind of got not much others going on

for a personality wise, but you're dead. He's trying to get a quiet gravity award. He has a Qui-Gon gravity. Yeah, he admits a gravity force around him. Well, there was a, one of the things that I did not like about a to-be-unnamed internet video about the Phantom Menace where I thought they, you know, it was all about criticizing it and this was one criticism I thought was not fair. Was they were like, describe the Star Wars characters from the old movies with, you know,

right off the top of your head and then describe the new ones off the top of your head and people couldn't do it. It was like, well, yeah, because how many times you've seen the new movie? Like, once? Come on. Yeah, yeah. And they couldn't describe Qui-Gon. But it was like, okay, Qui-Gon. He's a dignified kind of honorable Jedi, and he doesn't joke around. But they couldn't do it. It was like, so this could this character be all characters? I don't understand. Is he like a Harlem detective? But he's also like a court jester from the 15th century? Like yes, you can describe him a little bit, you know? No, I quite got in particular. You can definitely describe.

Like that's the character that tracks the cleanest throughout the movie and the performance works. Not to touch the third rail of the internet, but that's one of those things where like I feel I would hear people complain about the Lord Durn character in the last Jedi and say like I mean how why are we supposed to just accept that this character is like an admiral like we don't know her we know nothing about her and I'm like you know nothing about admiral acbar the difference is you've you've known nothing

about him your entire life so he feels like he's earned that position because we've taken him as a given you don't know it's fucking credentials every Star Wars movie is about introducing a load of top rebel brass that you've never heard of before and you're I guess okay general do don't you just accept it right right all right okay I've been following the farm boy and the pirate and the princess all this time but I sure there's a general, okay? Like, is Mon her first name? Or is that like a...

Right, right, is that a name or is a title? But like for people to cross their arms and go like, well, I mean, this woman has done nothing to prove to me that she's worthy of that title. It's like, she came on screen two minutes ago. And also the fact that she's... You know nothing, the fact she's played by Laura Dern, like she already carries all the gravity and authority

that I need, you know. Yeah, look at that neck. I mean, I loved, I loved in that movie how right she was and how wrong Poe was, like, that the whole point of the movie was like, no, Poe, we have a hierarchy in the military for a reason. Like, you can't just free boot around more on, like, that made me very anxious.

Yeah, I wonder if that's why people don't like the character. It's almost like there's something that they're not interrogating in terms of their automatic response to what woman telling a man that he needs to listen to. I think that's unlikely. Really? I don't want, I mean more likely they just didn't like the color of her hair. But what a good color. I mean that's just a bad bad opinion. Oh, no, no. So just to jump back a little bit, of course, the character I connected most with, you'd think I'd say Chancellor Valorum because it's got a quiet dignity and he's resigned to losing. I think I know who you're going to say. Boss NAS, baby. Boss NAS. Well, I thought you were going

to say a great guy. What's the Jedi with the big tall head? Oh, he had a Mundi. I'd like to say he had a Mundi. No, he's my favorite character. But you you wish. But boss. I would I would that spoke to you. Yeah, I would like that's the thing is when I growing up as you know a tall heavy set handsome white guy from the Midwest. I was like if only I could be a key add a Monday type Well guys, I think we finally did it for four guys on the internet talked about Star Wars so that finally It was never it never happened before and he'll never happen again Hi, I'm Ali Gertz and I'm Julia Prescott and we host roundfield. Round Springfield is a new Simpsons podcast that is Simpsons adjacent. In its topic, we talk to Simpsons writers, directors, voice-over actors, you name it, about non-Simpsons things that they've done because, surprise, they're all extremely talented.

Absolutely. For example, David Exco and worked on the Simpsons, but then created a little show called Futurama. That's our very first episode. Yeah. Toon in for stuff like that with Yardley Smith, with Tim Long, with different writers and voice actors. It's going to be so much fun, and we are every other week on MaximumFund.org, or wherever you get your podcasts. I did, for a long time, the only thing anyone would hire me to do as an actor was play some type of computer expert. It was either that or personal assistant, and very often the two would sort of cross over. They were very similar, but I did two episodes on bluebloods,

where they were testing out whether they wanted like a computer nerd character that I think went out the window once Donnie Wahlberg decided he didn't like me, because he would like, on set be like, why we hire this kid? I don't get it. And I'd be like, oh cool, thank you very much, Mr. Wahlberg.

Did you at least give you a card for lifetime Wahlbergers? He did, he did, yeah. It was just a key to the dumpster behind any Wahlbergers location. I mean, that's, they'd, they'd, yeah, they lock it up. But they don't want raccoons getting in there, so I mean, you're better than raccoons. They also have a scalpel to keep for everyone. Yeah, it lock it up. They lock it up, but they don't lot raccoons getting in there. So I mean, you're better than raccoons. They also have a skeleton scene. There was a scene for everyone. Yeah, it's one.

There was a scene I had to do where I had found the like smoking gun or some important piece of evidence about a missing person through their social media profile. And the line I had to say was, OK, so I located her social gizmo profile. And it was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do as an actor because just every time a bump coming out of my mouth being like, why would anyone ever sign up for a fucking website called social gizmo?

There was just no universe no matter how fantastical in which that acquires enough of a user base that the NYPD would be using it for evidence. Like impossible. The only way I can imagine is if there was a different timeline for technology and social media existed when Gremlins came out and thinking about everyone's love of Gizmo, they created this thing where it's like you get to pretend to be Gizmo's friend. Great, it's not a Gizmo's friend. As long as you follow the three rules of Gizmo, one,

don't feed him after midnight, two, do not get him drunk, three, don't mention his ex-wife, he's a, but otherwise, why wouldn't you want to be friends with him? So that's the only reality I can imagine where that's successful. Social Gizmo sounds like a branded Gremlin's Tomagachi knock. Like that's what it sounds like. It doesn't sound like a Facebook equivalent, which was what they were asking me to sell. Now, did you work with Tom Selick, which I asked because even though my dad is a, you know, a college professor, like lefty guy and Tom Selick is a noted like national review

uh, pitchman uh, national rifle association right? uh, well that too, but like he also, he does for the national review. Yeah, yeah, he would do like ads for them all the time, but like, I didn't know that. And national lampoon, he likes anything national. Anything national. National broadcast and corporation loves it. Which is why she's on CBS. When I was a kid, my dad loves Magnum PI. That was his hero. So I'm just I'm just curious.

I feel I know I know I never got to work with him. The that show is kind of ingeniously like four plot lines that almost never intersect because the anti-sign's like. It's what it's like. Right, it's like the four different members of this family who each work on a different side of New York City law enforcement. And then the only thing that unifies them is like family dinners.

So I was only in the Wallberg, Jennifer Espazito section. It's too bad you didn't get, if you didn't got a long better with Wallberg, then you could have been on longer, become a friend of the family on the show and get invited to one of those dinners. And then meet Tom Selling.

And you'd be like, what was it like being Mr. Baseball? And I'm so glad we were able to answer so many of those questions and prompts that people wrote in. I really feel like we got a lot done and covered a wide breath in this little man. Yeah, I think people know it. There's no questions left, right Dan? I mean, well, most of them were about moustaches, so we did it from the ones you hand curated from Twitter. I don't know why, like, I'm getting so much hassling

But it's just like you're like oh you can put the call out on Twitter. I'm like great Uh, I figured we were like sort of talking about it beforehand But we just like rolled right into the episode and do it almost slap-dash way possible Yeah, the flop that's man. Yeah, sometimes podcasting's like jazz man, you know, you just got to go with the flow Yeah, sometimes podcasts and it's like jazz man, you know, you just got to go with the flow Mm-hmm, and and the people who listen to it won't stop talking about it to other people who are not interested And go go know but look I really understand this podcast It's just like jazz where it's like look you're gonna love this song But first you got to listen to 70 years of other music to get into it

It's not about the jokes. They're making. It's about the jokes. They don't make So do we do we we, we never did an intro, do we do a sign off on these? We never even mentioned that Griffin was joining us. Oh, yes. Griffin, Griffin Newman of the blank check podcast, everyone. So thank you for listening. I was reminded it would be a good idea. Hey, that scina file live stream we did for charity. If you didn't see it live, it's on the film stage, Facebook page, and if you donate to the charity that they keep putting up on the screen during it, Arthouse America that helps

independent theaters during this economic crisis along with a health crisis, that if you donate to it and, you know, just give them some proof that you donated, I think they explained it during the cast. You will be entered in for a prize pack. That includes floppout stuff. If you're interested in that sort of thing,

because I don't think we ever got a chance to promote it on air. So it's archived over at the Film Stage Facebook. Sorry to hijack at the end, but I think that's a good thing to remind folks of. Cool. But anyway, thank you Griffin for coming back to talk about a variety of nerd things. This has been great guys great to see folks again and for the floppass I've been Dan McCoy. I'm still Stewart Wellington. I'm Elliott Kaelin didn't mention my name at the top but I'm mentioning it now and I'm Griffin Newman. See you guys. Bye.