The Prestige TV Podcast - Did These ’80s Classics Stick the Landing?

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

Andy Greenwald is joined by Tim Simons and Matt Walsh to discuss a handful of series finales from shows that represent the weird era of ’80s television including ‘St. Elsewhere,’ ‘Newhart,’ ‘ALF,’ ‘Sledge Hammer!,’ ‘Dallas,’ and ‘Dinosaurs.’ They start by talking about their first experiences with finales, how the final episodes of this decade’s shows seemed to both be in conversation and in competition with one another, and the reasons why TV was much more playful during this time (5:07). Along the way, they go through each ending and unpack everything, from the shocking reveal at the end of ‘St. Elsewhere’ to the monolithic nature of ‘Dallas’ to the surprisingly dark messaging in the last scene of ‘Dinosaurs,’ and so much more (13:32). Finally, they answer the titular question: Did it stick the landing? (99:55). Host: Andy Greenwald Guest: Tim Simons and Matt Walsh Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Theme Song and Other Music Credits: Giancarlo Vulcano Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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No more Japanese food before you go to bed. This is Stick the Landing, 80s weirdness. Welcome to another episode of Stick the Landing. I'm your host, Andy Greenwald. This is the season finale to the first season. season of this fun podcast. It's not the series finale, so there will be no meta episodes of the podcast talking about whether we stuck this landing, I hope. People listening may realize we have left a lot of big ones on the table. That's intentional. Hopefully we'll cover them in future seasons,

but I really felt like this was a key episode to the first group. I felt like it was important to do an episode of the podcast that kind of educated our listeners on how modern a concept sticking the landing really is regarding television, but also one that celebrated how fucking weird finale's used to be, especially when we had no way to talk about them with anyone. For this very special finale episode of Stick the Landing, the finale's podcast, I have the best possible guess, or maybe just the ones who said yes. You guys will determine that. The co-stars of a show that had an excellent finale in Veep and also the co-hosts of the Second and Command podcast, Tim Simons, Matt Walsh. Welcome to the studio. Great intro. Thank you. Yeah, that was really good. I'm going to push back on one of the

things that you read there. I think that this is already meta in that for this finale, yeah, this is going to be very different than all of what preceded it because of what we're covering. Kind of like the shows. You're kind of like the shows that we're covering. So I don't want to call you out of doing a bad job. No, no, no, not yet. Well, I'll call you out. There was a way of talking about it back then. It was just in person. Like actual time. Yeah. You said there was no way of talking about these endings back then. That's a great point. Word of mouth was quite valuable. It was a very important currency in the water core. I guess what I mean is sort of corraling the conversation because some of these shows that we're going to be talking about today, I have been thinking about since I saw them,

but a lot of them sort of became like word of mouth, like are you sure that's real? Kind of like when we all thought hoverboards from back to the future existed, but the government wasn't letting us have them. It's just like, it was really a dream of a kid? Is that for sure? I had this. I had this I had this conversation recently about a show that ended in the social media age where somebody that I was talking to was like, there's no way that two and a half men ended the way you're describing it. And I'm like, I promise, was it you and I that were talking about this? No, I don't remember the ending to the ending of two and a half men. Do you recall this? No.

So it starts with, because of course, Charlie Sheen, I don't know if you heard, had a moment where he went insane. Oh, just a moment, though, a temporary. A temporary little blip where he went fully insane. Okay. He was let go from the show. Ashton Coucher replaced him for two years. The finale, a gentleman who looks like Charlie Sheen from the back, walks up to the front door, knocks on the door, and a piano falls on him. And then you pull back to Chuck Lorry.

Yeah, the creator of the show. The creator of the show sitting in his director's chair, who then turned the. and looks to the camera and says, winning, and then a piano falls on him. Yes. And I feel like that show ended in the way that all of these shows that we are going to talk about. So, like, this thing weirdly does still exist?

That's a really good thing. Yeah, and that show is of a tradition of like a multi-camp sitcom. Yes. It's an older style show. Yeah. Yeah. Had run for a decade plus.

And so what are you going to do? Especially with people who are that entrenched, like Chuck Lower, you can do whatever he wants. So he can set his scores and drop pianos. And Bob Newhart famously had a big meth problem. Yes. Like that was... Like Charlie?

Yeah, like Charlie. Him and Don Rickles would disappear in Vegas for like four weeks at a time. What I heard was Rickles did meth, but Newhart just like the porn stars. You know, that was his thing. Yeah. He was his sex addiction, which, you know, is a thing. Guys, as viewers, as younger TV fans, like, did you have a sense of the business and this, like, that were you even aware of a finale?

like, oh, this is something to look forward to. We're all tuning in this week for the final episode of Blank, and it left you feeling a certain way. Do you have a first experience of something like that? The one, it probably isn't as much later in life, was the MASH finale. That's the one that, like, I remember, like, being culturally significant,

and a lot of people, like, must-see TV kind of sit down. Like the highest-rated show ever, right now in Super Bowl Division. Yeah, and so that was dialed into, like, oh, everyone's watching this, but also a show that I had, probably most episodes of. So that was like the one that came to mind. I do remember the Alf finale.

My mom thought Alf was, and this is her word, insipid, and she hated that I wanted to watch Alf, especially when it was on during the summertime. She was like, you could be doing so many better things. But I feel like I was able to convince her to let me watch the finale. The alien puppet likes to drink bruskees. Yes, but she wants to eat a cat. Like, let's fucking go.

So I was aware of them, although I don't, I know there were shows that I had like an emotional attachment to that I remember. I think, yeah, but I would agree, like the first one that I remember, the biggest one that I remember was the mash finale. And my parents made me watch it. But I hadn't seen any of the episodes leading up to it. So I was like, I don't exactly know. You're like, cool, they get to get in a helicopter. Yeah. Like, what's the big deal?

Yeah. Or the Walton's, I'm old. So the Walton's, I remember. Oh, the Walters was a thing. Remember that? But it might have been with like a character left, which is sort of a pre-ending. Yes. Like when John Boy, who was the star of the show, went on to be a movie star or something, I think, his last episode was touted.

And you watched that like a finale. Right. And I think he may have gone off to, like, D.C. or he may have died in war. I don't remember what happened. Here's the other thing about that period of time, which is something I was going to bring up about all of this, is that there's no way of double. checking or re-watching. That's what I mean. So, like, as far as I remember, the Magnum P.I.

finale, he, like, walks into heaven? Well, that's very possible. Like, I did not double-checked that either. But I think that's important to say a couple things. Like, there was no fact-checking, and there was very little re-watching, or once the show ended, it wasn't rerun anymore. Yeah, like, it's gone. If you missed the finale, there's a possibility you just missed it forever.

And I also think that, you know, the goal of a television show for many years, you know, years was you create it and then it just runs and it just makes money for you and the goal was to keep it on the air. It was never to like answer a question or reach the end of the story except for the few obviously some famous examples along the way like the fugitive or the prisoner or things like that. But generally it was just to run, run, run, run. And then when the 80s with some of these shows that we're talking about, there was the realization that you could go out with a bang and you could get some of your old ratings back. You could get a lot of attention just for a last episode. And it felt like it started to become a game of like one upsmanship of like, well, they said,

it was a dream, where we're going to have the devil show up. We're going to, like, trying to top each other in a cultural conversation. And so when looking back on some of these shows, and I'll say, we're going to talk about saying elsewhere, we're going to talk about Newhart, we're going to talk about Dallas, Alf, a lot of these big ones from that era, they were definitely in competition with each other to some degree in terms of, like, how far can we push this? I also think the thing to consider that's different is when you talk about a show like Dallas, the finale of Dallas

was episode 357 of Dallas. There was nothing left for them to do story-wise other than have Joel Gray show up as a vengeful devil urging the main character to commit suicide. What else were you going to do? I guess you could add the angel, make it devil angel. And Tommy Toon could have played the angel

for the height to spare. Yeah. If we're only casting broadcasting Broadway stars in Dallas. But this is a thing I feel like, and I don't know that this has been, your experience too. A lot of times when I, like, in those moments where I have gone in and pitched TV shows, sometimes there is a question of like, okay, well, where do you see this going?

And I'm like, are you fucking kidding? That's part of the conversation. Now, you cannot pitch something unless you have like a series document of like, and then in season five, they'll go to space. Yeah. And they're like, oh, now that's interesting. I haven't seen the show yet, but I mean, like, do you want to steal an asteroid? Yes.

Like, they probably had the, like, seems. In the pitch meeting, they were like, and here's the thing. They're going to steal an asteroid. That would sell. That would sell. That's a workplace comedy set on Earth, but the fifth season promise is too, too, too good. I think the other thing that's sort of fun about this exercise was, like, for me, you guys, I don't know if you remember this, but a formative show for me is something, I think it was on like 83. I could have Googled this, but I'm not going to.

It was a show called Misfits of Science on NBC. Like 82 or 83, a young Courtney Cox was on it. And I now know that it was kind of like riffing on the X-Men. But all I know is like, there's this cool show about people with powers. And I was a fan of this show until it went away. And then it was just gone forever to the point where, you know, then for the rest of the 80s and 90s, I would mention that I loved the show. And I would get the look you guys are giving me now. Nobody else had seen it kind of.

No, and there was nothing to talk about. And it had no resolution. It had no anything. It was just completely gone. Did you remember the final episode or no? No. It just came and went. Because also I didn't understand that if it was on TV,

then someone could just, like, ruthlessly yank it away. Like, obviously there would be more, but of course there wasn't. Partly because Max Wright, who was on that show, had to go on and star an elf, I think. That was a big... Oh. Yeah, it was 85.

It was a one-season show, 85 to 86. I feel like there is going to be a large contingency of listeners that don't understand what it meant to not see a television show because you had a prior commitment. admit. Right. Sure. Like you, like not only, what is it called? Masters of Science. Um, no, misfits of science. If you were a misfits of science guy, we called ourselves misfits. Oh, okay. I get it. Hear me out. Right. This is all pre-Big Bang theory, by the way.

Yes. Yeah, go ahead. That's into Tim's personal. Well, it's the demo that traveled to Big Bang, but it was back then. Yeah. So if you were, think if you're a big banger. Yeah. But you're previous to that, you're a misfit of science. And then your mom's like your sister has, like your sister's in the play. You got to go see the play. And as an only child, that would have been earth-shattering news. Yeah. I probably would never watch the show again.

We're going to grandmas. You have to go to grandma's. Okay. Thank you. And she's going to say quiet but devastating things to you the entire time. Or you're going to go in the boring living room and you're going to occupy yourself while the grown-ups talk. A call back to my appearance on your podcast.

Yeah. It's disturbing that you listen. We pay attention. So there is the chance that if that was like an episode of Misfits of Science that you really wanted to see, you were never going to see that again. And you couldn't even then go find out what happened if you missed the TV guide recap blurb that was on newsstands the next week, but then they pulled. Yes. It was just gone and lost forever. Now, I think there's a flip side to that that's a little more positive, which is when you talk about something as we get into like talking about St. Elsewhere.

So this is a hospital show that ran for six seasons in the 80s. The show came on when I was five and went off the air when I was 11. So I was not like dialed in to the goings on at this teaching hospital. But my father was. This was his favorite show. This was the show that was like, that's a well written, well crafted. You know, it was like a highbrow show that he was a big fan of. because of the nature of TV then, I could sometimes have it on.

And it'd be like, oh, that guy looks sick. I bet one of the doctors will help him. Like, there was not that crushing weight of serialization that was necessary. Like, I do remember watching this finale and kind of getting it until it totally lost it at the end. Yeah.

You know what I mean? So it was awful to miss things. They were gone forever, but you also didn't have to have the same completism because they made hundreds and hundreds of episodes of these shows. Should we talk about St. Elsewhere? Let's talk about St. Elsewhere.

Let's talk about St. Because this isn't your podcast, I won't go on a long digression about how my father also was a big fan of Tattingers, the creator Bruce Paltrow's attempt to make a drama set in a restaurant that it was like, well, it's one of the people who made St. Elsewhere. After St. Elsewhere? I think it was during its run. Oh. Didn't stick. Did they have like a, what did they call it when you put a pilot episode in the run of a more successful show? Oh, a backdoor pilot.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was there a backdoor Tattinger's episode? Oh. There wasn't, however, in my research. for this. There was a lot more, and this is going to run through our whole conversation, TV was a lot more playful then, because I think, again, the stakes were much lower, and you just had to make a lot of them. Like, I didn't realize that St. Elsewhere crossed over with cheers. Like, really?

Like, the doctors from St. Elsewhere went and got a drink at cheers in one episode, and then three years later, a character went to Boston and had a drink at the actual cheers with its real name, thus shattering the weird internal logic continuity. But, like, who cares? Right? Who cares? Something that happened. Who cares? Wow. There is something fun. That means they're on the same network, right?

They must have been on the same network. They were both NBC shows. That's right. Okay. I'm still trying to think of, like, do you think it's, I don't know the vibe of St. Elsewhere because I did, I never watched it. Right. But do you think it would be possible tonally that like the Tattinger's manager would

have gotten the host pregnant and we would have been like looking for, like we would have like a very special abortion episode? Like the OBGYN episode. Yes, like an OBGYN. What if she wanted to carry the pregnancy to turn? That's the conflict of the episode. Oh, yeah. I think that's very possible.

Again, I think the thing, so there's a, not to turn this silly podcast series for a minute, but like you guys probably have seen this too, that there is a turn in the industry where people are like, let's just bring back old-fashioned TV shows, let's get medical dramas, let's get cop dramas, as if that somehow necessarily a return to a more conservative type of TV. But looking at St. Elsewhere, which again, medical show ran for many seasons. You can imagine what it is. did these weird things like Cheers crossover. Like an episode over two parts

that told the 50 year history of the hospital with sequences told in black and white. There was an episode called Afterlife where a guy goes to hell and meets former colleagues who died. There was an episode that was all like our town where the main character turns to the camera and talks directly to the camera.

Wow. They were just trying shit. That's fun. So much runway to do that. I'm also going to throw out that I feel like they're a three. line of all of, because what I did was, like, I'm very, I forefront that I love you. Me?

Yes, you personally. Thanks. But over the weekend, I was not going to watch. All right. I love you, Andy. Is this a competition? All right, I love you. I'm not the best thought I've ever done.

What are you doing? I'm just, no, I'm trying to be honest about my. But now you're putting me on the spot because I didn't come forward with that. I could have been, you could have said, I don't love you, but I respect you. I totally respect you. We'll start there. I'm willing to love you. You've been hurt before, Matt.

I see. My heart is dead. But when I'm in a podcast room, it grows. I just glanced at you, and you've read a lot into it. Okay. So over the weekend, I did not watch six or seven half-hour television shows. That's fine. I watched the final scenes.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you said that. And I think listeners, hopefully, haven't one guy listening. He's like, God damn, I just watched eight seasons. No, no. This is to really talk about the end of things. I feel like if you stacked all these on top of one another and you look down, the through line would be the people that made these had so much cocaine.

And maybe that's where the playfulness came from. And I don't know. I think that's going to be like... It was a different town. I think the exception might be the new heart show, but I think all the other ones fall into that pattern. But Rickles had the drugs nearby. But I see what you're saying. I also think that one thing that did fuel...

some of this is, and you see this a lot like in just David Chase's interviews and demeanor, which is that a lot of the people who made TV and got really rich making TV hated TV and themselves. Like they all wanted to make movies because the disparity in terms of how it was received and quality was so great. So I

think that they were a little more contemptuous of their own medium and show and maybe even audience. And you see some of that sometimes. Like the railing against the machine that was enriching them. Serving them, yeah. So St. Elsewhere is an hour-long show that did six seasons. So that's

130 hours of television. Oh, yes, yes. That's the other thing. Like Dallas doing 10 years. It's a great math. 137 episodes. That's thousands of hours of television, or at least 1,000 hours of television problem. Maybe not. But you know what I mean? Like our longs must be especially exhausting. Oh, yeah. And just what, that's why you end up with, we'll get to Dallas, but like all the

different crazy things they did in the run just to keep themselves interested. Yeah. So last thing, a bit of table setting for St. Elsewhere, before we describe it. We're starting with this, because I think this is still the, like, this is the peak for me of absolute bat-shit craziness that influences everything to come.

Although after watching Newhart, that actually may be. So, again, saying elsewhere, can I just, here's some of the names. None of these people were the stars of the show, like the top, top, top build. That was Norman Lloyd, William Daniels.

Like, these were the big, these were the top of the call sheet. But here are some of the people whose career got started or were in the main cast. Ed Begley Jr., Howie Mandel, David Morse, Denzel, Walshian. Yeah, Denzel. Regular cast member for all six seasons.

Whoa, really? G.W. Bailey, Captain Harris from the Police Academy movies to you. Wow. Mark Harmon, Bruce Greenwood, and Alfry Woodard. Wow. Just kicking it in the hospital. That's great. Great casting. So the finale of St. Elsewhere is a heart-tugging episode.

The Norman Lloyd character dies. And so there's a lot of like... Can you imagine how fucking mad the star of St. Elsewhere still is about Denzel Washington being Denzel Washington? You mean on set every day? No, no, no. Meaning like right now when he goes and sees the Equalizer 3, he's like fucking Denzel watch... Like one of the greatest American actors of multiple generations.

Well, but I think... Come on. I disagree with that. Because Norman Lloyd, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 106... Okay, so he was mad at as Equalizer 1. Well, he passed on Equalizer 1 because he was like, I understand what I'm capable of more than what these producers do. Why don't you give it to a kid?

Yeah. I don't think that, I don't know if there's resentment. Like, I think William Daniels, do you think he gets residuals as the voice of Knight Rider, the voice of Kit? Sure. I'm just talking about that sort of like the leap to movies and like the... Oh, he got to do it. He got to do it.

I think Howie Mandel is angrier about that than the older top-line stars of St. I don't swear. Because he was like, were the young guns here. He was the break-up... I remember, maybe this is filtered through my dad, who just didn't think Denzel had it. You know, just didn't see it in him.

I think he was like, Howie Mandel. Like, that's the star. You know what I mean? Like, that's the guy who's really going to pop off of the show. Okay, so there's some death in the episode. There's some life. It's the typical elsewhere mix of humor and heart. And then the main guy, Dr. Mark Craig,

played by William Daniels and his son, named Tommy, who has autism, are in the office of Dr. Oslander, who's passed away. And Tommy runs to the window to watch the snow fall, and the snow's falling. Snow's falling in the hospital. Suddenly, we're in a room of like a normal house, and Tommy is there on the floor with a snow globe. And Dr. Oslander, who has died in the episode, is sitting in a chair alive.

Then William Daniels, Tommy's father, walks in and starts talking about being a construction worker. Suddenly, and he refers to Dr. Oslander as his father, and suddenly you realize that this man is, in fact, Tommy's grandfather. And then Daniel says, I don't understand this autism thing, Pop. Here's my son. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me because he sits there all day long in his own world staring at that toy. What's he thinking about?

Tommy shakes the snow globe. He's told to wash his hands for dinner. He puts the snow globe on the television set. They all walk into the kitchen together. And we zoom in on the snow globe. The fucking hospital is in the snow globe. Cut to black. The entire six seasons of the show were only in the mind of an autistic

for. Who's the man who actually physically took the globe from Tommy and put it on the TV? Because what's his relationship? Because I saw Daniel's in there and he takes the globe and he's like come on, or was he the father? I'm sorry, that's the father. I've mixed up the names. Yeah, yeah.

So that man is the father. Yes. And then the old, and he's the one who said he just sits there all day looking at that's why. What's he thinking? And he's thinking about Denzel Washington. And the other guy in there is his father who is the head of the hospital? Daniels. Unrelated in the hospital timeline. Yes.

Oslander's the one who died in the episode, but is the living grandfather in this scene. And the dad who works a construction job is a character in St. Elsewhere. Yeah, he's Tommy's dad in St. Elsewhere. And he's a doctor. Not a construction worker. So there's some implicit class bias here as well, I think, that he's like, I dream of you being a doctor dad instead of a construction worker. So he's kind of playing his own mother in, I was going to go down a tangent. Yeah, no, that's fine.

The mom being disappointed, he's playing the dad's mom in this situation. This, I didn't know that those were two actors from the show. I thought that this was pulling out to two completely separate actors that we've never seen before. Yeah, so I'm, by the way, I kept saying William Daniels, who was on the show. This is Ed Flanders who played Donald Westfall, the star of the show. He's the dad. He's the dad of the boy. And then Norman Lloyd, who played Daniel Oslander, who dies in the episode.

and is unrelated to Dr. Westfall is grandpa. Got it. Got it. Okay. Here's one thing that I want to throw out, having seen nothing of St. Elsewhere, and understanding that this is a truly insane way to end a television show, I actually found this scene incredibly moving. Okay.

All right. Here we go. I really did. I'm just like in a vacuum. Yeah. This is a dad coming home talking to his own dad about how, like, I want to learn. I don't know. know how to connect with this kid. I mean, like, again, like, probably we had a lot less access to

autism research and autism parenting skills. The idea of that, that word, I think I first heard because of saying elsewhere. It was not something that was talked about. Well, certainly in the school yard. I was nine, but yes. Yes. And I found in a vacuum, this scene really moving. And I'm not sure how I would, but in the context of how do you end a show, it seems like an incredibly strange way to completely undercut. It's provocative. I just want to give props to the dad who put the globe on the TV. He didn't make it like a Vanna White moment.

Like, you know, they could have hand it up. Like, come on, kid, let's go out of the room. And he could have been, like, wudgeting it and setting it. And, like, he just freaking, like, slammed it down like a construction worker. I'm like, I love that it wasn't a thing when he just kind of threw it on the TV. And I just want to say that made me like the ending. If they would have been like, guess what's coming, we're going to go inside the globe, he probably would have telegraphed with the way he handled.

But he's like, come on, kid. And he just go doink. I also think this is clear, Matt, you didn't see the extended director's cut where he goes, Pop, I never will understand why we took Tommy to the hospital's gift shop where they sell branded content of the hospital, including the snow globe. That was such a waste of our time. Yeah, I mean, that was a kid's obsessed with the hospital snow globe. Which I had never bought him that snow globe. God damn it, Pop.

And my prejudice is the snow globe. is they're this big. They're like two inches. That was like bowling ball size. And that's glass. No, it's like cartoon witch predicting the future size. Yes, it's like a magic ball.

Yeah. Crystal ball. And also credit to the focus polar. This is it. This is why I bring in industry profession. Yeah. I mean, like this is a big push in. I agree.

And as we're getting in there, I'm like, I don't know if they're going to hit it. It's a oneer. Sharp as a tack. It's a oneer. No, no. That was a oneer. This is a union town. Here's where we're a union town.

We're a union town. We're going to talk. Do you know that they're the most, the most oft-fired position? Focus pullers? Focus pullers. I don't know if it's that. On any given set? On any, well, historically, yes, because it was always, they're like, ah, all the,

because when they would watch dailies, they'd be like, all these are out of focus, fire that motherfucker. He doesn't know what he's doing. But now you can see it in the moment. You can adjust in the moment. Right. So it's a lot easy, not, I don't, it's not easy to be a focus pole. The focus puller on my show just spent all the time he wasn't pulling focus, watching

videos of like big wave surfers, which I thought was so chill. Yeah, that's awesome. Endless footage of just people just crushing breakers. Big waves. Yeah. That's a great thing. That is very soothing. I respect that. There is, I think just going off of what you said about like the guy

not hamming it up when he puts it down on the top of the television, going back and watching, I feel like we have some recency bias about performance and like how good television is now compared to how good it was in the 80s. I think that executives, I'm sure there were bad executive notes in the 80s, but I feel like performances in 80s television were much more grounded and much more sincere and lived in than we give them credit for. In that like going back and watching, like watching the pilot of cheers, there are like two jokes that are in there that are so undersold as jokes and

moments that you would, your memory would be like, oh, those moments were super hammed up. And they're not, like, across the board, they're, like, largely subtle performances. And I feel like there was maybe more room or more time to find it back then. This is conjecture. No, no, but I also think that what we're talking about is an industry that was filled with people, some of it, especially in that age, we're coming off of, like, not vaudeville, but, like, radio plays and had just been working in front of the screen or in front of a microphone for, like, in the case of Norman Lloyd, for, like, at that point,

40 years and he continued to work well into his 90s. And there's just a different level of professionalism, I think, right? Like he did stage, he did radio, he did TV. And he's like, I got a gig for six years. And I'm just going to show up and maybe I'll have another life outside of this. Kind of tying into what you said earlier about a lot of people in TV sort of films was glorious and so respected. And TV was like the stepchild of entertainment, even though they had so much liberty. But I think part of their experimentation are like, who cares? This is just TV. I think that reflects in some of the acting. I think they're intentionally subversive when you comment on like the decade of acting in the 80 sitcoms. I think some of that might be like, we're going to fucking play this

real. I'm not going to be like leave it to beaver. We're not doing that. If I'm going to be stuck doing a sitcom, I'm going to play it how I'm going to get them to play it how I see reality. I would also say that like there's a part of me that's like a modern brain that's like, oh, it's a little bit maybe too contemptuous of the audience to say it was all made up. But then there's the second part of me that's like, it's always all made up. And maybe we take this stuff a little too seriously, that like it's getting me thinking in a different way about the different layers of fiction and storytelling. And this got slipped to 22.5 million people watched this live, which would make it the number

one show. The finale? Yes, which would make the number one show. We'll say this about all of them. All of these shows, finalities, would be the number one show in America easily going away in 2024. And I can only guess that if you're tuning in for the finale of St. Elsewhere, you're like in their minds you're like who's in their minds are like who's still fucking watching this who in their right minds is still watching

a gentleman outside of Philadelphia of Mr. Greenwald because he never let me call him dad so moving on we're going to circle back to that point for the for the Patreon episode

so Newhart if St. Elsewhere at the end then Newhart is the Yang of like 80s insanity in terms of, I think, people sticking with it, remembering is really standing out. Newhart was a comedy that ran for, again, this is shocking, 184 episodes from 1982 to 1990. And it was beloved comedian Bob Newhart's follow-up to his previous show, the Bob Newhart Show, which had run for, I believe, six years in the 70s. And this show started with a relatively, you know, I guess, stayed premise for a sitcom.

And this one, Bob is, he and his wife leave New York City, and they buy an inn in Vermont. And boy, are the people in this town quirky. I was not watching the show. I think it was on like Friday nights on CBS. It was just always on when I was a child. And that was the one I didn't watch. It wasn't cheers. It wasn't any of these things.

I guess for the people who were watching, they were seeing a show that was increasingly spiraling into insanity and like getting weirder and weirder and the people are getting more and more broad until we get to May 21st, 1990, when the episode entitled The Last New Heart airs. I was like you, Tim. I was only going to check out the last moments, because the last moment of this episode is incredibly famous.

I ended up watching the whole episode, and it is so, so weird. I watched the whole episode, too. This is the one I watched the whole episode of. Do you want to take some of the plot points here? It's unhinged. It is a quirky sense of humor. I think they started with a town meeting

about renaming the animal should be the badger. The town animal should be like a quirky, what's a comedy? Platypus. It's a quirky animal. The town bird is the flying squirrel. Exactly. So it's in that vein. And then a stereotypical Japanese businessman comes in or in the meeting, the town meeting, and says, I want to buy everyone's house. And they're like, no, we love it here. And he's like, I'll give you all a million dollars. And he has a bad Japanese accent. And not only does he have a bad accent. If you think this show is above L's and R's jokes. They make that joke. No. That is within minutes of this man. Yes. Oh, gold. I would also say that he doesn't just want to buy the town. He wants to buy it to bulldozing. it to make a golf course because this is the end of the 80s, like, Japanese panic of like,

they're going to buy all our shit. Yes, exactly right. Like, gung-ho. Is that the Michael Keaton movie? Gang-ho, but then Rising Sun, the Michael Crichton book and then Michael Douglas movie would be like kind of the, I guess, maybe the higher low-point. The heighten version. But yeah, and they, I think they tried to have the Japanese man comment on the RL joke.

So they gave him some agency, but it's still, it's rough to watch a little bit. So they all say a million dollars. So I'm in, and they all say I'm in except for Bob. Says, I'm not going to sell. And then what happens? Well, then he's like, okay, we'll build around you. And so then everyone comes to say goodbye to Bob and his wife, including the characters played by Julia Duffy, who racked up Emmys in the 80s.

She was the female John Laracette. And Peter Scolari from Busom Buddies and later Girls place her husband. And there's like a funny goodbye. And then remember, there's like, my name's Bob and this is my brother Darrell and my other brother, Darrells don't talk. But then everyone

in town comes to say goodbye, but they say goodbye in the style of Fiddler on the roof. So these are all like

goys in Vermont doing Yiddish. Because the play in the town happening at the time was Fiddler on the roof. They set that up

somehow. Yes, that's correct. And then referring to why they're leaving, they say to Bob Neuer, they're like, come on, Dick, this place is a hellhole.

Like, it's like it's time to get out. So they all leave. and then it's five years later and Bob's wife is wearing a kimono with a painted face serving rice and tea to guests on the 14th hole of this golf course

and Bob a couple jokes about Bob having trouble getting up off the tatami mat you always hear four and a ball will hit their house so you get a sense of what's happening around now all these guys are rich now because of their million dollar payday including the Daryl brothers and they all have like loud Chicago wives I was going to say Long Island.

I thought that Long Island, they were kind of like Frandrescia-e kind of. But this is also like 80s where they're like, we moved to Chicago, but then they have like women who are clearly from Long Island. Because that's just loud women. Like groupie chicks kind of vibe. And then we've waited eight years for the Daryls to say something. And they're like, oh, they're going to speak in the finale. And what they say after eight years of buildup is they tell their wives to shut up. Oh, my God.

They say quiet or whatever. And then the entire crowd, because it's live studio audience, go. goes apes shit. They were like, not only did these guys talk, they told broads to settle down. Well, look, I just, as the husband of a wife. Here comes. Maybe a hot take. Sometimes broads are talking too much. Especially on a golf course. If you're on a golf course and you're a broad and you're talking, maybe my guy's got to tell you to shut up. This is why you're here. You don't shy away from controversy. Anyway, it's all crazy. And Bob Newhart's character, played by his name is Dick on the show. He's like, I've had enough.

And a... He ignores the four. But we, like Matt and I, the very careful watchers didn't. We caught that. Golf ball flies and then in intense slow motion. Hits him. Hits Bob Newhart in the head,

and he crumbles to the ground. Yeah. Fade to black. But not like the Sopranos because there's more show. So then it cuts to a new scene, and it's a dark bedroom. And at this point, the studio audience fucking knows.

Yes, they do. And also a very different level of monoculture because everyone sitting in that live taping of the Newhart finale was like, oh shit, that's the bedroom set from the Bob Newhart show that went off the air in 1978. So they're ahead.

Oh, okay. They're losing their minds. Yep. Yep. Then a light goes on, and Bob Newhart sits up, and he says, I just had the craziest dream. And his wife turns on the light and slow turn. The crowd is going. The crowd is going. Because they know it's Suzanne Plachette,

who played his wife on the Bob Newhart show. Yeah. And he's saying all the crazy things that happened. Nothing made sense in this place. Blah, blah, blah. And she's like, that's, as I said in the intro, she's like, it's the last time you have Japanese food. And then there's another Kota because he says,

I was married to a sassy blonde woman or a sexy blonde woman? So I didn't, he's like, I was married to a beautiful blonde. Beautiful blonde. The lights go off. Yes. And then Plachette. She's the pros. She's so good.

She sits up and the crowd's like, oh. And he's like a blonde. She's like a blonde, huh? Yeah. And so what I didn't know, this, I only learned this yesterday, and also the show was on when I was a child, the wife's sweaters were a thing. Like, she wore very tight sweaters. I guess it's the equivalent of like what Jennifer Anderson wore on Friends.

And so this was like a big deal on TV. So him... Suzanne did? No, no, the woman who played Bob's wife on... In the New Hampshire show? On the New York. That that was like kind of a scandalous thing. thing.

It's played by she's played by Mary Fran is the name of the actress. And so because, you know, look,

Bob's a pro. Bob knows to like serve people where they live. And so the last video in the show is like your body would look better if you wore sweaters

that everyone's like, oh God, no, they're not really. But like that's the end of the show. I want to, one thing I think,

like let's put the same. Let's all take a pause. Let's all take it. I had a question too. Go ahead. Yeah. I think what we are seeing

just already, is the, when you run up to the finale of anything, all of these people have spent at least a decade of their lives, either working on it or developing it. And I think that there has to be some self-reflection of what was this all for? Was this all worth it? Did any of this matter? And I think that it can turn to making more of some. something in the St. Elsewhere version, maybe you made a little bit more out of what the show was. You tried to heighten it in some way. Elevate. You tried to elevate it beyond what it was. And I feel like I always respect shows that stay what they are through the end, that they resist that

urge to be. Yes, because even when it's not all a dream, there are shows that become a different show in the finale. Yes. So, like, to either fast forward to get somewhere or to say something that they've been wanting to get off their chests and they hadn't had the. opportunity. Right. I agree with that. And although I don't agree with like, I think if I, looking at it now, I'm like, I don't know if like, you know, a Japanese businessman buying up all

the land and building a golf course and then you should wear tighter sweaters is the choice that I would have made. No. But it does seem like he was like, we made a comedy for this many years. Like, we're going to stay a comedy. We're not trying to elevate this beyond anything. And in a way, I think it was in a clever way, self-aware that the show. had totally left Earth's gravity. It was just so over the top by the end. And so he went back all the way to square one, which was the show in which he was a psychologist in Chicago,

and that made more sense. Yes. And it felt consistent with the momentum of the show they were in for some reason. It was connected. And the episode, they explored their quirky sense of humor with, like, they went a little too hard after the Japanese stereotype or whatever. Yeah. Obviously.

But it did sort of, I found it interesting, too, those jumps in time and that, like, what's happened, a little bit, but it, yeah, it worked for me, I guess. 29.5 million people watched that live. And it is still consistently voted when TV guide would be like the most shocking events in TV history. People are still shocked by this. Not in a bad way, though. I feel like it's an interesting contrast with something like Sopranos where people are like, we're arguing about it.

I think people were delighted by this. And I would assume the elsewhere fans were delighted by that ending as well. I'm not sure. I bet because the way you describe some of their departure, episodes. Like if you're, they had wet the palate for it. Your father would probably have liked this ending, I bet.

Let's call, Kai, can we get him on the horse? Yes. We probably should have. I feel like one thing we're missing in it, that if Newhart had just held on for like one more year, we could have gotten an episode where Bob Newhart is listening to Nirvana's never mind and it's like, what is this? Yeah. The fact that this ran up into the 90s.

That it ran up into the 90s. It's like when they do that thing for baseball where it's like this person. pitched against this person. And within six moves, you're like talking about somebody who, like, pitched in 1898. Yes. I mean, just from a personal perspective, I think this episode aired just, you know, just days after my bar mitzvah. So really, I only just recently become a man. Yeah. In the, in the Jewish faith. So to see this was, was shocking, but I could handle it in a way that I couldn't have it. Thank God it happened post-Barmitza. Do what did your, is there anything that you want to highlight that your dad said on your

bar mitzvah? I suppose you did a good enough job. No, I don't know. What sort of the character we're creating? Yeah. Would he have, he would never have scheduled it to go against St. Elsewhere's End? That's the thing. Like, your Bar Mitzvah was not going to compete with St. Elsewhere's ending. That's when having Bar Mitzvah on Saturdays really worked out. Okay.

TV wasn't going to compete. The best shows weren't on Saturday night. Carol Burnett had, Carolinette had Saturday nights, I believe. Yeah. Are you a big Shabbat guy? No, not really. Okay, so you were able to watch TV on it. I mean, I can hum a few.

Oh, you mean, like, No, no, no, it was a very secular household. The TV was on. Are you asking if I could watch the ABC's TGIF lineup? Both, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I could. Here's another thing. And you can cut this out if you want, and I'm going to not name names to protect the innocent.

I was talking to somebody recently who knew a Sopranos writer. And the moment that the last episode aired, they got a text from that Sopranos writer that just said, do you think everybody got that he died? Whoa. So I don't know if I want to just end that whole discussion right now. But you just did in the middle of this podcast. Yeah. Oh, have you guys done Sopranos yet?

No. Do you want to come back for it? You just did. The shortest podcast ever. Shortest podcast ever. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity

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gelada where zesty Brazilian lemonade accord meets coconut milk and golden brown sugar. Don't miss Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection only at Sephora. So let's talk Alf. Yeah, please. Matt, I don't know what your relationship was to Alf. I feel like Tim and I may have a similar one, which was Alf was a huge deal.

Fucking so big. My brother loved this show, and I came in and out of it. I wasn't like a big watcher. Because I grew up like, I love the Muppets, but I was always like, the Muppets are a little too soft. Oh, yeah. Finally a puppet that talks smack. That's a great character.

It stands up to the man. Great character. You know what I mean? It's wise ass. It is incredible, though, that like, again, this is the era of TV when a kind of hacky comedian invents an alien puppet character, and NBC's like, great 20 episodes, Greenlit Go. Yeah. And also actors like Max Wright,

or these other people who were professionals, you know, for a long time. Like Anne Mura was on the show briefly, you know, Ben Siller's mom. And they were just like, what's the gig today? They call the William Morris Agency, and they're like, you're playing against the puppet. You know, get to Radford. And that's just what it was. So Alfa's about an alien from the planet Melmac who eats cats, who crash lands in suburbia and lives with a suburban family called The Tanners.

And there's always the neighbor, Mrs. Ackmonic. You remember that name? Mrs. Ackmonic. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Max Wright saying it in that way. She was played by Liz Sheridan, who played Jerry's mom on Seinfeld. Oh, okay. Oh, wow. Trying to contextualize the biz.

Paul Fuscoe, who created the character and did the voice, was so protective of the illusion of Alf that he wouldn't allow in the first few seasons his name. Like, he made it seem like that was a credited member of the cast. No pictures of like puppeteering, no conversations about building the set on four feet risers so he could be back there. That's smart. I respect that. They had a second puppet. If he didn't cash the residual checks,

I'd maybe be a little bit more impressed by it. Like, oh, you don't want to know I'm here. That's true. The Muppets do that. It's good marketing. Create the fiction and commit to it. One of my favorite things in the Wikipedia is that it said, so there was a second puppet called Ralph Rehearsal Alien Life Form.

That's great. My favorite detail in the Wikipedia, which is a gold mine, is however, I love the however. However, in the scenes in which the character appeared in full body, a small costumed actor was briefly used,

though uncredited in that role, the Hungarian-born Michu Mazaros. I'd like to show about him, please. Wow. I do remember it being very special when you would see full-body Alf running to, like, hide in like a laundry basket or whatever.

And the Hungarians had a lock on small mascots in this town for a long time. Look, this is going to be. going to seem like I'm painting with broad strokes, but I assure you this was real. There was like a violence to them overtaking this space. Like it was not a peaceful transfer of the power. It wasn't given. It wasn't given.

Everything the small Hungarian community got, they took. In true immigrant nature, they had to take it. You see the opportunity and you take it. For people who are roughly raged him, like this was a phenomenon. Like I had a lunchbox. I had a sleeping bag. I was sleeping inside of Alf. I don't know why.

He was just so. he was just so clever. You were like the cat in that situation. Well, you were the cat inside of Alf that he had. They talk about Chekhov's gun. Chekhov's cat was never consummate. He never ate the cat. The whole thing looming over the show was that he had a cat. He never ate it. No, so really. He never ate a cat ever like a stray?

No, and it's like he lived in the house of the cat for four years and you never had a weak moment. They only have four seasons? They don't. It lives in my head like they had 30 seasons. And I was shocked in doing the research to find out. It reverberates. 99 episodes? 99 episodes across four seasons.

And it's funny, too, like, it got canceled because it had fallen to, like, it was only the 16th most popular show in America. The finale only got 21.7 million people watching it. Wow. So the show ran from 86 to 90, a true cultural phenomenon for those two of those years. The finale. Again, we're missing out on a... Alv comments about Nirvana's

Nevermind episode. Like where were you? Like the whole thing changes? Yeah. The baton. But like what if it was like what if it was because 1990, it was 91 like blood sugar sex magic came out? Like what if Al bet on the wrong horse? You know? And they were popular but they didn't change culture like

Nirvana. Okay. No, they didn't. I did just do a 5K over the weekend and Flea was there. Humblebreg. It's classic. No, I walked. I walked the dog and the kids ran the 5K. But Flea was there. because it was for like the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music. I just want to shout out that I saw a flea.

Yeah, he's a total citizen of this time. Yeah, yeah, he's out and about. He was still wearing a mesh shirt, like a mesh shirt. Yeah. Oh, good for him. It's hard to pull that off after a certain point. Good for him. The finale of Alf, Consider Me Gone, aired on March 24th, 1990.

A lot of, saying goodbye to a lot of TV favorites that year as the decade turn. Yeah. The plot of this episode is Alf is finally going to rendezvous with his fellow Mel Melmakians and go home. The Tanner family seems a little blue about this. He's become a good friend, a member of the household. Alf is just cracking wise. He just stays Alf, you know?

Speaking about consistency, he's like a lot of jokes about like going to the bathroom in outer space. He packs the VCR. Try to steal it. That's a legit. Good. That's a great joke. Yeah.

The best joke is the kicker. He's like, I'll let you keep it. Yeah. He's kind of a dirt bag. But there's also like, Still a dirt bag. One of my favorite things is the runner at the end

is they're going towards like the rendezvous point with the spaceship is we're cutting to like NORAD and like military people and it's a room full of like nine guys and I just found myself

staring at the seventh and eighth guy being like is that a day player? Is this a, did he win a contest? Like who's the guy who's like I'm the subgeneral for the scene

where Alf gets serious? You know? How would you guys play your professionals? I was more of with the yelling general all the time. He was angry from the get-go. He didn't give himself anywhere to go.

When there was curiosity in the beginning on the screen, like, we're getting an interesting signal there's something going on. He was hot. And I'm like, well, you're working in space. You should be curious and you should be like, this is exciting in a way. I mean, you don't want to emotionally react to data.

I think if you're in that job, you don't want to initially. You can't just be calling the president every... David Batiste and Dune 2, little hot early on. Very hot, but especially it stands out. Early on, right? I think it stands out because Austin Butler was like, I'm just going to do an imitation of Scarsgard.

I'm just going to do what he does. Yeah. I think he could have found a middle ground. I think it's less Bautista. It's not his fault. I'm sure the director loved it. I think Butler wasn't generous. I think Butler kind of put him on an island by being like,

I'm new here, and I need to now triangulate Scarsguard and Bautista. I'm just going to do Scars Guard. All right. I still haven't said, this is what sucks, is that I have, like, tickets to, I haven't seen Dune 2 yet because I'm going to, like, 70 millimeter IMAX, but I couldn't get good seats. The worms is dead.

The worms is dead. The worms is dead. The what? The worm is dead. Sorry. Wait, I can't wait until it pulls back, and it's just like, I don't know how to communicate with this autistic worm.

And the snow globe is just full of sand. Yeah. So I couldn't, here's one thing that I learned. And I don't want to derail it too much. Nope, why start now? Why start now? That all those guys in that room, like the people that got to play those parts, you're right,

that it's a director. He comes in hot at the beginning. The director should have been like, look, man, you got to give yourself some word. Guy's a genius director, yeah. He was blacklisted famously, you know, and couldn't work for decades. And then when he finally got back to work. In this gangs of New York thing, there's the dead rabbits and like the, what's the Daniel DeLewis gang?

Well, he's the butcher. I don't remember. The bill, the butcher. So, like, let's just say the bill the butchers. So I think in this sort of, like, you know, zero-sum game ground war where the small Hungarians took over the Alf performances, the bill, the butchers got the, like, NORAD. The general guys. That was, like, the space that they did.

The general union of them. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. Okay. That makes sense. But so 99 episodes, one of the things that I found out in watching, like, a sort of behind the scenes thing is that all of the human actors were so.

upset with how famous Alf got. Yes. And they had to do these scenes with them. They had to do these scenes with them and it was like a lot of takes and a lot of setup all for the puppet. So like if you're imagine you're a human actor. Like the dad. You guys can imagine if you're human actors. Let's just say for a second. Yeah. You're a human

actor. And you have to like constantly, people are like, oh, what's the puppet really like? I would be fucking furious. So the creator of the show was in fact the guy who voiced Alf? Paul Fusco, yes. Okay. And then this is also background. Permanent Midnight is about one of the writers, Jerry. Jerry Stahl. Yes. Was a big part of this show who was chasing heroin a lot, right, during this time?

Yes. And was the man who played the dad? He seemed a little worse for where. Did he dance with some drug addiction? Yes, he sure did. Okay. Really? I believe there was a... He never looked Alf in the eye in this finale. I don't know if you noticed that. He was just kind of eyes down in his glasses. He didn't give his eyes to the camera ever.

And I didn't know if that was just weariness from like, I am so tired of this puppet taking all the focus. If you Google Max Wright, who was a very popular TV and film actor at that time, misfits of science. I mean, everybody remembers his role in that. The headlines are dead elf stars shocking sex and drugs downfall. Oh, no.

Yeah. D-U-I's porn and drug scandals, crack addiction. that's that's not his funny for Mr. Tanner I do remember now this is something that my friend said often growing up long after Alfred aired which is the famous line when he goes next door and he says Mrs. Akmonic I came to get lucky

and she slabs him because the cat was called lucky that's good bad that's a good bit that's a great joke because other people thought it was sex yeah yeah do you remember professional do you remember when he's like trying to make like a music video to like get his wife sort of interesting at him and then he's like Saturday, Saturday, Saturday. It's that song, and he's like wearing like a sequin vest.

Sequin vest? Yes. Yeah. That's looking at us like. That was a good episode. You guys were true fans. No, this is like my first four into Alf watching this finale. And I watched the whole episode of this one too.

Well, thank you. I did. Just fucking dunking on me for only watching the scenes. You're like, oh, I did neither. I did neither. I've turned a page. I'm not just appearing on shows. I'm going to do my work and I'm going to be in the moment when I get there.

I thought that you're silenced him on the group chat. yesterday when Matt and I were like, that was a crazy episode, was telling, you know, that maybe you weren't prioritizing this on the weekend. I was running a 5K with my family. You were walking. And flee. Yeah. This is what I deal with.

I was running. What do you think about John Prashanti's solo albums? Hey, uh, wait, what? Sorry. That was you running after. That's me running after Flea asking about the fallout once John Prashanty left. The turn at the end of all. To record only water for 10 days is a legitimately great album.

Okay. I'm sorry. I like the chili peppers. You replaced him with Navarro. That's like you can fire one guy for drug addiction, then you bring in Dave Navarro. Yeah. Alf got kind of serious at the end in a way that maybe Elf didn't merit

for the previous 98 episodes. So they're waiting to go away and to go back to space without a VCR. And then there's some hubbub because the military is cresting the hill and jeeps, spooking the spaceship. They leave. And then suddenly Alf is surrounded. by the military. And Alf has been kept a secret

for these low these four seasons. Alf makes a joke about the Lakers. And he's like, just my luck. No one's a sports fan. And it's like to be continued. Or it's like the end. Yeah. And that's the end of the fucking end.

Because they didn't know that they were going to get canceled. No, apparently there was like some handshake agreement for a fifth season. And then later, Brandon Tardikoff, regretted, regretted canceling out. Did you know, did you do that this is what I learned from the YouTube video one that I watched,

that there is a Alf movie that comes out for, were you going to bring this up? I'm about to bring this up. For the real Alf, so again, the idea that there's a puppet alien show for four years, and at the end it becomes like an insane military drama. Yeah. It just ends.

Yeah. That is indicative of our childhood in a way that almost nothing else is. This almost feels more modern that then in 1996, NBC Greenlit and aired a movie called Project Alf about elf in captivity. military prison. This movie stars Martin Sheen as the colonel in charge of keeping him captive. Much better than the guy they had earlier, I think.

A hundred percent. You know Martin Sheen brought some levels. You also know that Sheen passed the first time and regretted it. For eight years, it was gnawing. He wanted it. Yeah. Tell me if they come back. And if they come back, let's definitely make sure that the family isn't in it. Yeah. And make it only about his new pals in the military. So this is before the West Wing brought Martin all the way back. So he's in this, as is Miguel Ferrear, as is Ray

Walston, Ed Bigley, Jr. Ed Bagley, he's everywhere. Charlie Robinson, who played Mac on Nightcourt, is in this. Oh, nice. I'll just read you one line from this. Alpha escapes, but the people who help him, two Air Force scientists told him to hide in the bathroom, which reminds

them what the Tanners used to do to him. The Tanners, meanwhile, have been like witness, into Iceland. Anyway, he tries to escape from his helpers, and he goes into a strip club called the Kitty Cat Lounge because he thinks it's a restaurant that you know that serves. That's a good joke. It serves cats.

I don't think this gave people the closure that the real elf heads wanted because he's still involved with the military at the end and is just named Ambassador to Earth. So they didn't know they weren't coming back. They didn't know. But even as a cliffhanger, I guess it is a pretty solid cliff. That's a solid cliffhanger.

That's a solid. It's a solid. It's a solid. Okay. And also, you know, it's one of those cliffhangers that could potentially, like, just change the status quo of the show. Like, all of a sudden, other people know about it, right? Like, and how are we going to do this?

Right, right, right. So they're doing that, right, right. Right, right. They're doing that thing that, like, as somebody who's run a show where it's like, you're there doing the thing where you're like, don't save ideas, put them all out and then figure out what to do if you get a second season or word. You empty the board. And then get more heroin, apparently. Yeah.

I would say. Between the Alf finale ending with just him going into captivity and 9-11, there's no wonder that our generation feels safety nowhere. I think that's a great point. Thank you. I think that's a great point. Some people of other generations, and Matt, I'm not looking necessarily to you, like Watergate was a moment where they lost trust in the government. For us, listeners, Andy was staring directly at Matt when he said that. Alth and then 9-11?

Alf, in many ways, similar tragedies. one thing that I'll say about Alf, because of the only one thing. Paul Fusco, creator of Elf, definitely does not write his own Wikipedia page. Let me just go out, let me say that right now. Because someone else definitely wrote this paragraph. Fusco kept Alf in the public eye as much as possible after Project Alf. Between 1996 and 2001, Alf made many television appearances, including the Cindy Margolis show, Talk Soup, and Love Boat the Next Wave.

all of this in order to get an Alf talk show for TV land and then there was a attempt to do a reboot in August 2012 which is the last known he's the last time he updated this yeah okay wait so 2012 did that reboot go anywhere well he played Alf in Mr. Robot there was an episode of Mr. Robot where it's like a sitcom episode and Alf is in it and here's a thing

Alf was tech avail Alf you know what I mean like he he came through We can get them. Yeah, yeah, we can get them. Oh, that's interesting. And it sounded like Alph. Fusco's still around doing the voice. Fusco's still around. Yes, it was his voice. It was his voice. Okay. So, like, the last six credits of Alf are wild. There's, he was on the O'Reilly Factor in 07. in 2011. In 2011, he's on Good Morning America. In 2016, he appears in a movie called Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal, The Movie. Owen Burke produced that. Johnny Depp played Trump. He's in Mr. Robot, also in 2016. In 2019, he plays himself in an episode of Young Sheldon.

Oh. All right. Generation post-Elf generation have the controls of the machine. He was on The Simpsons just last year and impractical jokers already this year. So, you know, the residual checks are coming in. Alph's not done. Good for him. There's also that there's that one podcast run where he goes and he real anti-fax spread. I thought that was wild. Yeah, but that was like he hasn't stuck with it.

It was like just like a deep 2020 thing. In his defense, he's not human. So his resistance to certain viruses, you know. And the fact that the alien ship didn't fire. on the government trucks. Shouldn't that have told you something? Yeah. I guess points to the fact that it is generally a peaceful society or at least one that doesn't travel with weapons. It's a society that loves to party.

Yeah. It's like Spuds McKenzie in Space was the log line for future space seasons of Alpha. Yes. And honestly, maybe this was all leading up to the idea that this like, maybe the maybe we're not giving this actor enough credit. Maybe he's doing the long game of I have to start here because I'm partying so hard at the end of episode five. With Alf. Oh, season five. With Alp. Oh, he's got to start up here to end down here fucking partying.

You know what I mean? Just eating cats and drinking beer. Yeah. And watching films on VCR. Oh, yeah. Sick. All right. All right. So I feel like we've established that the finale of Alp is one of the best that's ever been. No, it's good because now that I know the background, they didn't know they had another one coming. They thought, in their mind,

they had another season coming. So it works great. That must be painful for them, I think. And also it's very satisfying, although they must have smelled it because honestly, like, why in that last episode are they betraying the premise of the show? Yeah. They must have known they were on the bubble. Do you know what I mean? Like, the whole point is like, I got to go home. And the whole time, no one ever contacts him.

And then in the last episode of season four, they're like, he's going home. I think that they must have known. I think a couple things. I think that we give people like Mike Schur a lot of credit for like putting the broadcast sitcom through the language of contemporary TV where there's a lot of change. You know, it's like you're watching it like a serialized thing. Really was Paul Fusco and Alf because they refused to rest on their laurels. For example, Lucky, the cat, Lucky was replaced. Lucky didn't survive, not because Alf ate him, but the family got a different cat called Lucky 2.

So the thing is, like, they were ready to shake things up already. So the neighbor comes over and it says, hey, I'm here to get Lucky 2 and he gets. Gosh, that's... That would have gotten you a fifth season. But everything that I understand about it was that it was... By the way, it switched networks. I think ABC ran Project Elf. ABC was like snapped up that sweet Alph IP.

What they understand is that NBC had given them a verbal commitment for a fifth season. It's possible that Jerry Stahl, high on drugs, had answered phone that day and imagined the phone. I don't know. But they made the show assuming they would, and this is, I don't know if this is canon, but Fusco... that Brandon Tardikoff told him, and this is a quote, it was a big mistake that we canceled your show. You guys had at least one or two seasons left. That part is true, but I'm skeptical that they did not see the writing on the wall.

There was more meat on that elf bone. Yes, there was. But why would they launch that plot line in the final episode of season four? They knew, oh, this could be our last. Either way, I admire them. They're fearless. Yeah. Speaking of fearless, Dallas is a show that is hard to communicate to younger generations

because it was so monolithic for so long. It was like death taxes in Dallas. It ran from 1978 to 1991. So again, I didn't watch the finale episode, the whole thing. I'm assuming there was a scene where they talked about Nirvana's never mind. Yeah, they finally got into it. No. They didn't.

Because, Tim, you're really uncovering something here. This is wild. Dallas's final episode, conundrum. aired May 3rd, 1991. Nirvana's Nevermind was released September 24th, 1991. JR never heard smells like teen spirit, ever.

And you can see that in Larry Hagman's performance, honestly. He's walking around this episode like he's missing something. Like his life has no meaning. You know, he had heard bleach. Bleach, but he wasn't that into it. He was kind of like, well, Tad and Soundgarden have something. Yeah. Bleach is kind of for the real head.

I mean, big mud honey guy. Big. I love shows where it's debatable how many episodes they had because some of them were so long in syndication. They've been split into multiple episodes. It's like Dallas would have a two-hour episode on CBS, but then with that syndication money would be two. So it's like this was either episode 356 or 357 for the real people paying close attention. This is like, so I, we, the first four seasons of the show that we were on was sort of written and directed somewhat exclusively by Brits.

And there is a thing that when we would go over there, as much as people hate, there is a point to this. You either hate the royal family or you're like really into the royal family, but there's nobody that's just like, I don't think about them. I think Dallas occupied that same space of like, even if you hated Dallas, you still talked about it. Like, you still talked about it. You still made fun of it.

Or you're like, that's not what I watch. you oriented yourself against it. Yes. The monoculture was that. But like you also still knew the references enough to be able to make specific jokes about it, even though you didn't watch it. Like it overtook the culture. Did you watch Dallas, Matt?

Not a lot, no. But I do remember Who Shot JR took the country by storm. And I worked at a restaurant that had a Who Shot J.R. Party. And I was waiting tables. And people wanted to come into the restaurant and eat pizza and watch. So that sort of appointment TV was infecting outside of Chicago land marketing of a family-owned restaurant. They were like, we can make money on this.

They want to come out and watch TV and eat pizza. Let's do this. Did you offer JR shots? I don't remember, but it was a lot of hype. And I guess maybe the owners were maybe into the show. I didn't really care. This is kind of the point to make about it. I've been trying to figure out, like, is there an alcohol named Gray?

So the who shot JR is like a Joel Gray? Wait, is JR the guy? This is how... Hagman. Larry Hagman, who was on I Dream of Jeannie, played an astronaut with Barbara Eden

in the 60s. But this is not the one that ended where the guys in the shower? No. So the point I want to make about Dallas is that Dallas, to my mind

as a kid, was like, absolutely like that is like the conservative, like big money, safe show, you know, they weren't,

they didn't know about Muddney. You know what I mean? Like I did in third grade. Yeah. I'm sure. I was watching Alph with the real ones.

But, But when you look back on Dallas, it was doing crazy, crazy shit, almost from jump. Like, the who shot J.R. phenomenon. A cliffhanger of J.R. is the breakout character the show is shot. And all summer people are speculating about it. Was that early in the run of the show, mid-season, mid-run? It was earlier in the run of the show. A couple years in maybe.

Insane that you can be like, oh, it was earlier in the run in season six. Like, it ran for so long. Yeah. One of the crazy things about, it was, no, it was, it was 1980. So it was two years into the show. But that like, no one thought it was going to be a success. It was, they made five episodes, and then CBS said, this is a mini-series we're going to put on. And we're going to put it on Saturday nights.

And then it was a phenomenon. And then they're like, oh, that's season one. We'll just keep it going. And then it ran for over 300 episodes. But so people kind of conflate these things. So it was the JR thing. And then there was a season when Patrick Duffy, who was one of the breakout stars of the show, was like, I've had enough to Alice. I'm leaving the show.

Bobby's no longer on the show. So they made an entire season without him in the wake of this character leaving that got mixed results. And then the last episode of that season, a character wakes up and hears a noise in the bathroom and walks into the bathroom and he's in the shower. Patrick Duffy is in the shower. And then that's cliffhanger. It's like, wait, what the, and what was revealed is that an entire previous season had been a dream. And I think it was a dream because Patrick Duffy, contract details got worked out. Oh, okay.

And he came back to the show. So that's where we're, and, you know, this is a show about, like, Texas, and it was very, it was the 80 show. Oh, yeah. Like soap operatics, but also big money and big hair and big attitude, big suits, and blah, blah, blah. 357 episodes later, we've reached the point where, like, I think they are essentially out-of-story road. They've taken this Titan of Texas Oil, JR, played by Larry Hagman, and they've broken him down to the studs. Like, he's lost everything. Everyone hates him.

And so in this episode, he's wandering around. I read the description before I re-watched any of it. then in the description, you'd think he's basically a bum. And then you turn it on and he's wearing a beautiful cardigan. Like, TV's version of drinking a lot of whiskey and staying up late is very different over the TV. Yeah. Country club drunk. He seems fine.

He's country club drunk. But he has a, he does have a handgun. And he is having a very, like, a Scrooge kind of conversation with a man in a white suit played by. Broadway star Joel Gray, who's showing him what life would be like had he never existed. It's a wonderful lifestyle, yeah.

And he shows him all sorts of things, like one of the characters, like if he doesn't exist, there's another brother all of a sudden who takes over the business and loses it. And a character becomes vice president and then becomes president

when the president is incapacitated. And apparently, like, JayhR's reaction to this is like, he would be a terrible president. And Joel Gray's like, that's not the point. You don't have a say in it because you don't exist.

Anyway, all this is leading to him, like, showing what the world would be like if he was taken out of it. Oh, and Joel Gray says, my boss is a big fan of you. And so, JR is like, well, you know, no, I think I'm, I think you should get back to heaven. Yeah. And what does Joel Gray say? Who says him from heaven? Oh, come on. Airhorn.

And then the red eyes. That's later. Oh, red eyes. Because then Cher wakes up. Oh, oh, I've been drinking. This was all a crazy dream. That guy becoming president. me a break.

Okay. He saw the gun. And I think he says, this is very TV acting, what a strange dream that I've just had. And Joel Gray is in the mirror. And he's like, what makes you think it was a dream? And like, everyone's grandparents are watching this. Yeah. Being like, okay, all right.

Now we're finally cooking with gas. Took 12 years. Yeah. But we're going somewhere. He starts arguing with him. Joel Gray wants him to do it. Joel Gray is wearing a red suit now. Red suit.

He works at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater. Yeah. And his eyes are turning red. And this was also, just as a very quick side note, Joel Gray was on set and that mirror shot was he was just standing where they could angle the mirror. Like this was not done in post. And I was like, oh, that's cool.

Did Paul Busco tell you that? How did you? Well, no, I'm just looking at it because there's no way they had enough money. It's professional. Yeah. You know what I mean? Dallas had money. Well, Dallas had money.

But it looks like he was there. I think you're right. This was just back in the day where the camera trick was just an actual trick. It wasn't just like, oh, could we somehow spend $17 million to do this in post?

Can we get the lights to fade out? And it's like, I don't know, can we just fade the lights? There's something still that takes me out, like considering how much we've built these finalees into events that wild shit would happen in these shows,

and the credits run. And then there's like a local news promo. Yeah. And it's just like life continues in America. Yeah. And also in this one specifically, Specifically, he does the deed or what we don't know. So, Matt, you want to talk us through?

So, Matt, you got this? Well, Bobby is in the house concurrently with J.R. battling with the devil saying, kill yourself. And J.R. is like, no one loves me. I've got nothing. Yeah, yeah. And so Bobby comes downstairs and then he decides to go up the stairs. And right when he gets upstairs, you hear a bang of a gun.

And then he runs to J.R.'s room. And you don't see what's in the room, but you just see Bobby. face and he says, oh my God or oh no, he's upset. We see Bobby's upset. So, I'm assuming JR blew his brains out. Executive producers and then use it 11th. Yeah, yeah. But then also,

the theme song starts playing and the theme song kind of jaunty. Yeah. It kind of slaps. It kind of slaps, but it does not match the mood of what we just saw. You know, Flea played base on that. I'm sure he did. That's why it fucking slapsed, since he actually fucking slapped it. I just want to

say, I fucking love. I fucking love loved this ending. And I don't know if it was their intent. I'm going to make a real big, I'm going to make a real big grasp to connect two things. Okay. J.R. never saw the O.J. Chase on TV. I just want to say that. He didn't see the merging of entertainment and news. He had no idea. And I think that would have blown J.R. He had no idea that a man from a town called Hope could ever come. He was a big naked gun guy, so I'm actually kind of happy that he never had to see that. Okay.

Nordberg, you're right. Why tarnished Nordberg? So one thing, the one thing that I really enjoy about the zone of interest is that for a film that is somewhat removed from the actions of the characters in it, the filmmaker at the end, from my perspective, sends that dude to hell. You about to spoil zone of interest? I'm very sorry, the zone of interest, not a super fun. It does not end on an up note. I thought the blooper reel was tasteful, though. It was.

I didn't think at first it was going to work, but it did work. You know, you just kind of want to see your... We could all laugh again. What a relief. And then the news, then they rolled local news after that, which was jarring? This is a digression of a digression, but apparently, and of course, because I listened to blank check, the end of the predator, McTiernan was like, this is all such a bummer. What if we did the thing

where at the end, we just had all the characters look into the camera and like give a thumbs up. Everybody will leave the theater happy. And that's what the blooper, the zone of interest, blooper reel that ran during the credits when Glazer shouting alts from behind the camera. Come on,

stop it. We need this. You got high nipples. Say you just got really high nipples. So Jonathan Glazer sends that dude to hell. He makes him keep walking downstairs into the darkness you are going to hell. I don't know the show Dallas at all. Right. JR, from everything I can tell. Right.

Not a good guy. Oil magnet. Bad dude. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a part of me that's like, he fucking deserves this. He deserves Joel Gray. Like, this is the ending that the show required in this way of like, bad person should get bad ending. That's my, that's what I'm going to throw up. I think that that's also a really important observation to make in the sense that all of these shows were existing completely in their own creative bubbles to the degree that they had them. Like there was absolutely no instant feedback. They weren't, no one was like reading message boards. No one was like sensing what people wanted, quote unquote, for JR. You know, which I think there, when we talk about more contemporary finalies, there are those that feel a little internet built.

Like, okay, you were trying to make people happy. So you can read that here If there is some sort of authorial hand They're like I've spent 13 years making you fall in love with this guy He's gone to hell It's also interesting noting that For all of the hair pulling about the Sopranos finale Which Tim just ruined

It has a precedent In the sense that like the main character Has an ambiguous ending that is probably death And it's an abrupt cut off Now local news and journey are slightly different But at the same time like that feeling of ambiguity that like I'm going to be pushing the envelope right up to the very last second is I respect that. Yeah.

I respect that in these shows. A couple of things I want to share. One is Dallas was a world phenomena too. I went to school abroad for a year and in Austria of all places. And they watched that show. That's a big interest. No, that was Poland. Zone of interest was Poland.

Yeah, but they were interested. Yeah, they were Austria was annexed and interest. interest. Alastrian was like, okay, my attention. Yes, they were. Right. And they watched that show all the time. They were all about, it's almost like the untouchables. Oh, everybody in Chicago is a gangster.

They still believed in the Texas. They were exporting America, this vision. And they looked at me like, how come you're not dressed like J.R.? You know what I mean? They really were buying into it. Were you dressed? Talk to Joel Gray in the mirror. That's the Dallas way.

Were you dressed as Sue Ellen or like another character? No, I didn't. I did Bobby as Aquaman because he had a run as Aquaman. Patrick Duffy. Where? And what? He had a TV show. There was an Aquaman TV show?

Yes, Patrick Duffy. The guy who played Bobby. He was probably so fucking upset that he got off Dallas to do Aquaman. And then he was like, I got to get wet all the time. That's why they put him in the shower. They were like, how you like it now? Easy transition. He's an aqueous character.

We'll go into real world, but we'll start with a transitional waters. They were worried. His gills are like, amphibious. He's amphibious. But the other thing is like, Dallas is a soap opera

and so I thought it was very consistent. Like you were saying, sometimes shows depart from what they are. I felt like every bit of this was, soap operas can go anywhere and get as insane as they want. And I felt like it was perfectly in keeping with what a soap opera can do.

Yes. And I think that owning the fact that your soap opera, like not that it's a bad thing, is a recipe for success usually. They understood what the show was. This is the people were used to this kind of rhythms, the surprise, the shock. So why not end with one? That's the horse that brought us here.

Yes. We should note that Dallas was resurrected twice. I think it was a TV movie. And then there was a new generation that ran on TNT for a couple years. Was that a few years? Was that a year? Schwarz show. No, that was Dynasty.

It seems like, yeah, Josh passed on this. No, I imagine it's a similar thing. Both of those shows suggested that J.R. had shot the mirror and not himself because he was a winner and he wasn't going to listen to some Broadway devil. Wait, what show? The new Dallas? Both Dallas follow-ups had J.R.

Hale and Hardy. Oh. Yes. So it does kind of undercutting. I don't like that. Why would Bobby be so upset about the mirror? Well, that's the other thing. It's the single best question.

If you watch it, Duffy's eyeline is 100% floor. Yeah. He's horrid. 100% floor. Now, maybe he shot the mirror, and shards of mirror glass flew out cutting JR in a way that caused a lot of blood. Yeah. You can't walk that back. That's a great point.

Head wounds just generally bleed more than others. So it could be even a small head wound who's going to be pretty shocking, a shocking amount of blood. Right. Especially for a creature who's more comfortable in water. He'd been out for a while. And maybe he's like, oh, that is sort of liquidy. Maybe that is mostly water. How do I react?

Maybe he shot Bobby's tank, like his night tank that he sleeps in. He was coming back for a restorative soap. And he was like, oh, no, he was looking down at all the waters. He needed to remoistriize. His drills were covering or hardening. You guys ever see Waterworld? Waterworld is actually a true story with like a little bit of like, well, we got to put this in like a post-apocal. We got a judge it to make it like, you know, more whatever.

But it was about Patrick Duffy. So we got two more here for a speed round. Oh, my God. Are you guys doing all right? Yeah. Speed round. I agree. He senses the pace of the show.

I'm loving the pace. We can be more efficient. Sure. No, only because the next two are, they aren't as like era-defining shows. Okay. One, I wanted to throw in because I loved the show and I kind of love what happened to it because it's a very 80s thing, which is a comedy called Sledgehammer. Yeah. Do you guys watch the show when it was on?

No. I didn't. I'm also now realizing I did not watch the end scene of this. This is going to be great for you. So 86 to 88 starred the great David Rashi. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, from Succession.

Yeah. And it was a show. And Vee. I'm not familiar with that. Was that? No, it's an HBO show, too. Oh. It doesn't matter.

We made five, uh, four and a half to five hours of prestige. Premium cable television every year. Was it like, Avenue five? It's like, that's the one that came. Predates Avenue five. Oh, is it related? No, I don't think the universe has collide. Well, it could have.

Maybe. Could have. We could have gotten there eventually. But no, David Rashi was also. She was also on that show. Yes, he was. 86 to 88, this is a show that exists to be like a naked gun style parody of, like, dirty hairy movies.

He is a police officer named Sledge Hammer. And he just sort of machismo's his way through things. And I thought this was the funniest show I'd ever seen. And this is David Rashi. Yes. Yeah. That sounds. I would watch that show.

It's really funny still. It's really funny. And it was really just like, who gives a, like, it was. Yeah. I'm halfway in on a Greek island with my brother-in-law. Can you imagine that show coming out right now? I watched all of this one too, actually. So the trick here is that this show ran for two seasons.

I wanted to talk about the finale of the first season because it was one of the all-time great, fuck it, we're not getting a second season, but then they got a second season. So to set you up, the first season finale was April 28, 1987. The episode was called The Spa Who Loved Me. The final sequence is Hammer

finds a stolen nuclear warhead in a bottom of a hot tub. He carefully takes it out of the water while being watched by his crusty boss and also his hot partner who's wearing leotard because it's the 80s. And he carefully puts it down and he delicately unscrews it. And they're like, Hammer, you can't diffuse this bomb.

And he says, trust me, I know what I'm doing. And he resumes unscrewing it and it cuts to a mushroom cloud. then it cuts to a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland of San Francisco and you hear his boss yell, hammer! And then it says, to be continued next season, question mark. Wow. That's so playful.

Wow. It's so good. And they, what's funny is the episode, they've been bumping the show around, and then it got good ratings in like the graveyard slot to put it in. So it got a surprise renewal. And they were like, oh, shit.

So they started the show again, and the first scene, the card says, everything you're about to see happened five years before the explosion, even though all the events of the first season are canon. They just rolled with it. But they did the same thing again in the second season, where they moved it around slot, slot, finally airing the second season against the Cosby show. Oh, wow.

They also had filmed the first season on 35-millimeter film, and the second season they put it on 16-millimeter film. Wow. So this is Maybe this is an example of maybe Don't Clear the entire board Yeah, maybe you can be too bold In your storytelling

I met the guy Alan Spencer That's my show What was his story? He made the show Yeah, he did He was really nice I think I played cards with him And I didn't go super deep

My hot take he was a nice man He wasn't still hung up on this Well, he probably was But I didn't poke at it Yeah Yeah What years did this air? 86 to 88

Okay, so we're I guess he probably didn't see the material girl video? Oh, no, he saw it. He saw it. He saw it a lot on MTV. That was 85. Yeah.

He didn't see Popatom Preach. He didn't see Pappalo's response to Madonna. No, he didn't see Like a Prayer Pepsi commercial that only aired once. He didn't see Michael Jackson light his hair on fire. He didn't see the black and white video premiere with a morphing and all the screaming, the broken windows that scandalized a nation. Yeah. Sledgehammer would have had a lot to say about that.

Yeah. This actually, I'm not kidding. this sounds like a show I'm going to go start watching. It's in the airplane vein. It's so dry. And like the opening of this episode is a voodoo doll gag. And that actor's great. Yeah.

He has to like, David Rashi, Sledgehangerer has the doll. And the guy's mimicking whatever David does. And it's really stupid and really funny. And when Rashi showed up on Veepe, I was like, Sledgehammer. Sledgehammer is still working. And he's still funny. And Bill Bixby, the Incredible Hulk, directed it. Directed these episodes.

So it's really. And it's also, when you say 60 millimeter, they worked hard on these shows because there's a lot of set up. There's a lot of camera jokes. Yep. And there's a lot of reveal. So they were working hard. So kudos to Bill Bixby and all the actors who like hung in for those long days

to make what they thought was a perfect comedy. They weren't just like steady cam, we'll catch it dirty, whatever. Oh no, it was set, set up, set up. Unlike the other ones. This is an example of a show that was like, because a lot of what we've been doing is discovering things that were actually quite forward looking and creative and weird in a time that was often thought of as like a graveyard on television. This is an example of something that was ahead of its time.

This was too clever. It was never going to work. I just want to throw this out. And yes, I am cognizant of the fact that you as a good podcast host said, we're just going to speed around these next couple. Tim, I'm going to speed round this comment. If I can, just this comment. So here's the speed round of this comment that having spent some time in New Orleans, the idea of voodoo dolls was actually that these, the people that were voodoo practitioners had the little dolls because they couldn't. reader right, they were the doctors and they were the healers. So if you went, they made a doll

that was a representation of you and they put the pin in the part of the body that they had treated. So when white people came and saw the voodoo dolls, they assumed that it was some sort of like macab, like, we are trying to hurt you. But this was a healer who was reminding himself, this person has a pain in the shoulder and this is what I treated the last time. So that is the speed round version of doo-doll. It's like their medical records. almost. They would look at and go, okay, we did the knee and we did the shoulder. But if you are a white person coming in as being like, that person has a bad knee and this guy has a little doll and there's a pin in the knee, he must have done some voodoo ritual. It's also a HIPAA violation because that doll should be kept between you and your.

I'm not going to answer that. That's HIPAA. I think, Matt, does he do this on your podcast where like, you notice that my strategy is like, let's keep it moving. His strategy is let's just put delicious mind grapes in parts of the podcast that people may have otherwise thought to skip. We're like 90 minutes in, and he's explaining the history of medicine in New Orleans. If there's a wind-up where he starts with this will have a point. Just get a soda or get a beverage. Take a walk? Take a walk. You could even take the cans off and leave the room. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Okay, so the last show we're going to cover today is I kind of had to throw this in because I didn't know when else we did. So wait, sledgehammer, can I just say it was a little

Oh, but I'm the one that goes off on hand. Disappointed. Matt takes his spots. Okay. I do. We can listen to the tape, yeah. I was a little disappointed that it got a little heartfelty. Like, I thought they lost her sense of humor when he kind of showed up at the wedding at the end and kind of asked her to marry her if she would marry him earlier. Right. And it's almost like there were opportunities for jokes there that I was a little... That's when you see the nature of what TV was then, which was like a slow bend towards mediocrity,

because it was like, well, if we're going to be a TV show that exists on ABC, I'm sure they're, can you imagine the notes the show was getting? Yeah. But I mean they had a nuclear ending for season one, so season two, like, it's in their DNA, though. Like, why would they, like, get so sweet? But don't you think when they came back, they were like, we gave you a second chance. Now you've got to give us something like, give us something to root for. Where are the wins here for Sledge?

Oh, my God. By the way, speaking of wins, the Peter Gabriel song Sledgehammer came out in 1986 also just before the show. And ABC ran the hell at, like, all of them. All the promos featured the song, which some people think gave it a little bit of a boost. That's cool. Back when Peter Gabriel could move the needle. Great video.

Great video. Okay, the last show I want to cover, a little bit of an outlier because every single frame of this show is suffused in Nirvana's Nevermind. This show premiered in 1991, and you can feel the flannel, the grunge aesthetic. Chris Nova Sellich's dad was actually an EP. like a non-writing EP. So take that with a grain of salt. This is not the 80s weirdness show anymore.

It's the 90s, but I had to throw it in. This is when Grohl was still behind a drum kit and not in front. Where he belonged. The 90s would agree with you. Yeah, I mean, this is the most in my mind, and I think it's canonically thought of, it was like the most fucked up left-turn weird finale in television history.

And so to set the scene, dinosaurs was a sitcom with animatronic puppet dinosaurs inspired by the success of the Simpsons. And apparently Jim Henson had the idea for a dinosaur sitcom years before during a cocaine binge with Bob Newark. And Don Rickle. That's Cesar's. But no one was like, that's crazy.

And then the Simpsons was popular. And they were like, oh, okay, maybe we could do different sorts of things. They had to tear out the entire floor they were on because there was, like, so much shit, like in the walls, like so, like, resists. like meth and cocaine residue like in the carpet. They were like this is like an actual biohazard. I watched Matt's face be like, is he explaining the Muppets to me?

Like how they get the puppeteers? I thought you were talking about dinosaurs. Yeah. So this ended up being, but then Jim Henson passed away and there was like momentum to like, let's do his last ideas. And the rest of them were too fucked up. But this one they could do. And this was like, apparently this was one of if not the most expensive sitcom ever made

because of the giant animatronic puppets. But essentially it was like the Flintstones was the Simpsons, the dinosaurs are like a working class family. There's the dopy but well-meaning dad and the lovable kids, and there's a baby that gets all the cute lines. We get to the finale. This is an episode called Changing Nature, July 24th, 1994. Did they get one season this show? This show got four seasons.

It was being burned off at the end, and the last run of episodes didn't air on ABC. They ran in syndication. They came after this absolutely existentially final episode. eventually they had to air the change the order of the broadcast because it made no sense. Kind of like sledgehammer. Wow. Because in the finale, Earl, the dinosaur lead, gets put in charge of some things. And he does things like paves over totally to him unimportant mating ground for some insects.

And basically sets in motion a catastrophic chain of events that leads to an ice age and the extinction of his own people. This show is just a very soft general family comedy. it ends with a baby saying, well, where will we move? And the dad goes, well, little guy, what happened was daddy was put in charge of the world and he didn't take too good care of it.

And they're like, but don't worry, baby, we'll be with you no matter what happens. It's not like we'll just disappear and they all shiver as the snow falls. And we pull out. And then the last thing we see is the character is like the Kent Brockman of Dinosaur World.

A dinosaur newsman whose name is Howard Hand Up Me. Oh, I didn't catch that on first viewing. Yes, Howard Hand Up Me. Okay. We end on this. Says, you know, well, the weather is going to be bad forever. And he says, good night, goodbye.

And we slowly fade to black as everything we watch dies in a blizzard of extinction. And sad music, too. I wonder if they had... Sad, sad music. They didn't jump to their theme song, right? I'm assuming the dinosaur's theme song was much more uplifting than... and what they played at the end of Kent Brockman. Yeah, it was give it away by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Okay. So the thing about the zone of interest and the thing about dinosaurs. I see some overlap already. So extinction, sure. This final scene is, I'm actually not going to relate it to the zone of interest, but it was fucking devastating. Yes. To what the wax fruit factory thing is legitimately funny.

Yeah. But, sorry, the idea of a wax fruit factory is very funny. building it on his friends mating ground. He has to apologize to his friend. But his friend's like, will you hold me against your breasts? And then the wife's like, no, and smacks him. And he's like, I like that anyway. I'll take it anyway.

He falls over. Just jokes right up to the finish line. Yeah. So the baby is asking these questions. These deep questions. These deep questions. And the dad has to respond to them. And everybody in that room knows.

But they keep cutting to the teenager. Yes. who understands what's happening, but still emotionally is like, he knows that he doesn't get to live the life he thought he would, but he is pretending for the baby dinosaur. And I found those moments to be somewhat overwhelming. It's very, very dark. I mean, it's very dark. I didn't know that dinosaur was a teenager.

Now it really hits me. I couldn't, I didn't suss the age. It's the difference, like when during COVID lockdowns happened. and I think high schoolers had a tougher time than babies. Yeah. Because babies came out of it. Okay, but the teenagers lost something fun and mental. It was shaken.

Much like in the show when their father is responsible for the extinction of their species after 150 million years. The onset props person on a job that I'm working on right now, her dad worked props for dinosaurs. And she has a rap gift, embroidered dinosaurs. jean jacket that she wears on set. Oh, and it's sick. Sick. Again, like, this is emblematic of showrunners being like, fuck it. Like, we're done.

So we are going to just lean into the fact that we think that humans are ruining the planet and we're going to make a very hardcore environmental message at the end of the show. Previous three and a half seasons be damned. You kind of respect it, but it is so, so charring. Because it tries to be joking right up to the second where he's like, baby, it's over. And I'm assuming, like, it's not a hard, funny show, right? It's probably more, like, kid-friendly comedy.

It was in that weird. It was in that weird 90s zone. Like, it was a married with children era. Oh, okay. A lot of, like, kind of broad, like, sex jokes, but they're dinosaurs. But it was a family show. It was on ABC. I think it was on Fridays.

Okay. I'm sure there was, like, a Christina Applegate dinosaur who, like, came out in a dress that was, like, a little too revealing. Yeah. Yeah. A few too many scales. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Okay. I'm just trying to understand. Again, it would have been feathers because they are birds. That's why I don't like birds. Side note, we didn't cover that on your podcast, guys. I think that you're right, Matt, because it was a puppet show. It was a kid's show. It was a attempted to be a kid's phenomenon.

Let's put the baby on T-shirts and lunchboxes. And it kind of didn't really take off. And it ended up being very expensive. And then apparently it was a nihilistic environmental parable the entire time. Well, it had good pedigree. Obviously, Jim Henson, they wanted to try to capture people with that. I do kind of feel like this is an example of just stay the show you are. And you could have, like, if it's me and I, again, this is like hindsight being 2020,

I think there is a very funny way to end this show, which is just you have a completely regular show with jokes and the Beatle ones and the girls showing too many scales. And then just in the middle of the last scene, like in the middle of a sentence, the, asteroid hits. And then everybody's just immediately dead, I think, might be a funny way to end it. Like Sledgehammer. Yeah, like Sledgehammer. So do you suspect that the fans of this show, like the people who really cared about it, like the Alf, you guys, do you think they hated?

Do you think I felt, I feel like I've lived a much more exemplary life than to be. You're reading this correctly. You're either an elf head or a Dino Dude. Do you think the Dino Dudes felt betrayed by this? episode. To me, this is the ultimate example of people who are still watching the show. And in my mind, it's like the stragglers,

but in reality it was probably 17 million of our fellow citizens, tuned in for the last bite of the dino apple, and then we're like, what? And this is the moment when millions of them would have wanted to go online and be like, what happened? Can I learn about this?

But like entertainment tonight wasn't like on last night? It just went away. There was no context for that conversation. to continue. I mean, I guess the only thing that I could say about to think that maybe this information age that we live in is a positive rather than an overwhelming negative is the exact experience of watching the dinosaurs finale and then just being like, am I in a fever dream? Yes, you're just left alone with it. I feel like I'm going crazy. And I need to know if other people

feel the same way because I'm unmoored. Yeah, and I think that you could draw a line from that to the Sopranos in the sense that the Sopranos finale was much many, many years later. It was the internet age. But I don't know if second screening was a thing to the degree then. So that like you still hear people watch the sopranos finale on Sunday night and then thought their cable went out because they had cable and they were watching it live. They weren't immediately just checking to see if whomever had tweeted and being like, L.O.L. That was a weird ending.

Like, there was a moment when everyone sat in that discomfort that I think you can connect. Yes. I think David Chase has spoken about how the third season of dinosaurs in particular shaped a lot of his storytelling. I saw that. I saw that. Do you guys subscribe to the Great Man of History theory that dinosaurs seems to be propagating,

which is that dinosaurs would have remained the dominant species, had Earl dinosaur not paved over the mating grounds? For his wax? Wax Fruit Factory? Because I feel like that was a... Generally, that's what they taught us in the 90s, which is like, if you don't cut the rings on the six-pack of Coca-Cola, you will kill all the Pelicans.

Like, that we are responsible. Like, why not make different ways to hold your drinks? Right. But instead, we are responsible individually for the death of the Pelicans. Right. Not big soda. Pelicans are also big in New Orleans, and just a quick digression about the history of Pelicans

and why they're so important to the city. Well, you're dealing with an inevitability. Like, there's no... suspending the fact that that family's going to go extinct. Yes. It's never going to survive. It's baked in. It's a show called dinosaurs.

Yeah, and the way that like Alph will probably want to get home or he will get home. Like it's baked into the premise. So yeah, I guess, I don't know. I don't, I don't think they stuck the landing to use your show's title. Are you, are you asking us if we generally, like, if that's a worldview that we have generally about like a great man of history and like it only turned out this. way because of this one man. I'm just being provocative.

Yeah, he's just posing like, is it the system or is it the system could have worked had the right person been at the helm? Now, that's a direct quote from Alf's appearance on the O'Reilly Factor in 2007. So someone was doing a lot more research than he led on. I think at the time he was speaking about Iran-Contra, but honestly, it could just be, it could be certainly applicable to a lot going on now. Alf has seen everything we've seen. Yeah, he can come back.

Well, he had a lot of early stuff about the wall, which is ringing true, the border wall. Alph didn't know about, Alph knew about Nevermind, and he didn't know about Nirvana until Nevermind, but he wore the bleach t-shirt trying to fucking pose up like he knew about him beforehand. Alf was actually very supportive. I think he filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit that the baby on the cover of Nevermind filed later saying, like, you showed my naked body. And Alf was like, Alf was a character witness. Yes. Alfa's like this young boy's life. A legal scholar? He had a lot of time in the Hooskow, the old military prison. Oh my God. Well, guys, this has been really fun. Do you think we learned anything about this great medium of television? We don't have to say yes. I'm just curious. The thing that sticks with me is the one, the lack of conversation. Like the disappointment for a young child, say if you cared about any of these shows, Alf or Sledgehammer or whatever. And then it's just gone and then the local news is on. It's very disorienting. Like you could have a psychotic break if you had not. nothing else in your life.

Like, if you didn't have a roof over your head or a family that loved you, it could really spin you out. So these are your friends. It's interesting to think about that. There was no net. And it's also interesting to think about, which I think you brought up is like the creative bubble of like because there is no echo chamber or you're not catering to fans, like you can have the Ice Age come on dinosaurs and not worry about the repercussions of what the nerds

on the internet are going to say. No. And so there was more creative license or ownership. certainly like this is our show and we're just going to fuck around how we creatively feel like we're going to screw around. And until YouTube came around, there was no answering for it.

Like dinosaurs was done and it wasn't like for the next 15 years, the masterminds behind dinosaurs were being held to account or celebrated for their weird decision. They just went on to their next job. Awkward moments at dinner party. He's like, hey man, I got to say,

you fucked up the ending. You fucked up the end. We're like at a 5K. I know who you are. I know who you are, okay? And I'm not cool sitting next to. you. I'll just say right now. My wife and I... You're from a different generation in a classy way. You sat next

to Alan Spencer at a car game and you kept quiet. I enjoyed the Spencer ending. There was some little sappy, but I enjoyed that one, so I wasn't going to come at him. One thing I want to ask, and I think we have to throw this to your producers because we can't ask ourselves this question. So we have six ways that we judge if a show stuck the landing.

And they are, do you want to read them out? And then you will have to... Did this episode of the first season of your podcast? I see. I see. Kai and Kaya, five kinds of final shows. Did we, did we land it? Did we take a big swing and it's been really polarizing?

Mm-hmm. Did we fuck it up? Okay. Did we limp to the finish line? I'm voting for that. Did you, we didn't seem like we did it, but in retrospect, maybe we did. I think the zone of interest comments are going to, you know, cause some stir. They're hot.

Other than that, resounding yes. You think we stuck it? You think you stuck it. Okay. Yes, I think you guys stuck it. Kai? Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. I think we stuck it. Kai and Kai, if you would like to go into this audio file and give your real answers when we're not all looking at each other, I would be fine with that. Okay.

I also would really appreciate it. It's just these final words. I want to thank my guest. I want to thank Tim Simons and Matt Walsh. I think you should all listen to their podcast Second in Command, even the episodes that I'm not on. Start with the one you are on. Yeah, start with this one of our best. Just just canonically.

Yeah. We've rejiggered our orders since you came on. You are the origin of the show. It's the Batman begins. Yes, you're the premise pilot. You became the premise pilot for our podcast. Also, it's a lot of pressure on Julia to follow me, you know, which I think she can take. I think she can handle the slope.

She likes a challenge. Thanks for everyone for listening to this first season of the Stick the Landing Pod. I think we will be back at some time because we left a lot of pretty big finales on the table, which will be fun. And really, the only thing I have to say is...