The Rewatchables - ‘Tommy Boy’ With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Cousin Sal

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey, and Cousin Sal are just a couple of fat guys in little coats trying to save their father's company after they rewatch 'Tommy Boy' starring Chris Farley, David Spade, and Rob Lowe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Rewatchables is brought to you by State Farm. Around here, we love talking about movies that we watch, rewatch, and watch again because they're just that good. It's the thoughtful details, the little things other movies don't have that keep us coming back. Here's the deal. When it comes to insurance, we can't get enough of State Farm. They have all the details we appreciate. They make insurance easy.

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No gimmicks, no games, just guidance you can count on. It's a no-brainer. Go out and get the insurance you deserve. Get State Farm like a good neighbor State Farm is there. Get a quote or find an agent at Statefarm.com. We are still cranking out content on the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network, even though everybody is hopefully staying safe out there

and quarantining themselves and doing what they have to do unless they have a job that's out there helping us. The Book of Basketball podcast is where you can find the redraftables. Don't ask me why it took three days in a reader email to realize that we should be calling redraft the Paloza, the redraftables. I mean, what are we doing? Right now I'm on a podcast called The rewatchables.

But we've been redrafting drafts. We did 96, 97, 98. 99 is coming a little bit later this week. You can find all of them on the Book of Basketball podcast. We've also done. We did one on mine that double ran on there and then one on Rosillo. So if you want to relive just some terrible mistakes and epic head scratching decisions from 96, 97, 98, 99, check all of those out. They're also, at least a couple of them are on YouTube as well.

Don't forget to check out the ring your YouTube channel, by the way. We're almost at 250,000 subscribers, very excited about that. And we have a bunch of really, really great stuff up there. We have not stopped figuring this stuff out. We are probably going at two rewatchables a week going forward, at least while everybody's got the time to listen to them. And everybody else is just bored and wants to talk about anything that is not about everything that's happening right now. I wanted to tell you about World Central Kitchen,

wcK.org. They're doing a whole bunch of awesome stuff. Check out hashtag chefs for America as well. That's part of that. They expanded to Los Angeles, which is near and dear to my heart because I live there. They partnered with America Red Cross, Los Angeles for use in L.A. County,

the Unified School District, to begin meal distribution of families in L.A. And if you want to follow them on Twitter, you can. that would be at WC. Kitchen if you want to donate to them. All the links are on there, and that's a good one to donate

because especially like the one that I donated to do, which helps the frontline workers in L.A., not only you're donating meals to people that are out there fighting for us and helping us, but you're also helping some of the local restaurants too. So please check all of that out. I hope you're staying safe. I hope you are making good decisions.

I hope you're listening to the experts and the scientists and the doctors and I hope your family as well, all that stuff. We're going to try to take your mind off all of it with one of our favorite comedies of the past 25 years, which is having a little anniversary this week. You can read more about Chris Farley on the ringer.com as well. So don't forget to check out because we ran a couple pieces about him this week. But right now, Tommy Scram! Don't give her the weight room thing. Tommy boy coming up next.

Education laid the foundation. I got a deep loss. Heredity opened the door. And dedication. Took it from there. Do we really want to put the future of the company in Tommy's hands? Paramount Pictures presents. It's a clip-off.

Hi, are you sure? Chris Farley. That's going to leave a mark. David Spade. Yikes. Tommy Boy. Did you live under Power Lines as a kid or something? Rated PG-13.

All right, three different locations. Sean Fantasy is here. First ever rewatchable's appearance. The Cuzz, because it's out. Wow. All right. I'm already behind the eight ball. I can't believe how good everybody looks.

Like this is, I feel like I'm in day 73 of quarantine and fantasy is just coming back from the mall. Look at him. Look at his hair there. This is ridiculous. I got to make up for it somehow. Did you pay somebody to come to your house in a hazmat suit and cut your hair? Because it seems like you did.

I've been watching a lot of YouTube tutorials on how to cut hair. So, you know, just got my own barbershop going in the house. Congratulations. Well, 1995, you guys are both giant Mets fans. Not significant from a Mets fan standpoint. Although, Sal did say you did get rid of Bobby Bonilla that year maybe. But other than that, the Mets went 6, 975. The good news, Tommy Boy came into our lives. Yes. The 25th anniversary was this week. We actually had the schedule for next month. And I just screwed up. I didn't realize it was actually this week. It's weird that this movie wasn't like massively successful right away because I do feel like it's one of the most

successful comedies of the last 40 years. And I think by 2004 people came around and in the research, it was stuff about like by 2004, it was one of the 10 biggest VCR slash DVD purchases of anything and all that. Sal, why wasn't this movie a massive hit immediately? I don't understand that. I think it took, I think it brought in $32 million and it cost $22 million to make. And it so it wasn't a massive hit. I think Black Sheep, the follow-up did almost exactly the same numbers. But yeah, as far as rentals go, it was tops. I mean, and everybody talked about it.

It was a cult hit. I don't get it. I don't know why people didn't take. Like, I think this would have been this comedy duo of Spade and Farley, it's already ranked there in the top like 10 or 15. But if they bust out like one more movie or two more movies, it's undeniable that they're right up there with like Abbott and Costello. and yeah, right, like Amy Poehler and Tina Faye and the My Pillow guy and Donald Trump.

Like, you throw any comedy duo at me. I think this could be, if they could have just eeked out one more movie and then maybe like three more presentations at an Oscars. Like you're looking at, okay, these two, they're the shit. But I don't know why it didn't take on right away. Sean, when did you fall in comedy love with Chris Farley? The first time I saw him on Saturday Night, which is one of the great moments. of my life. I think Chippendales is the first sketch I ever saw him do because it was like a phenomenon for people and people videotaped that episode and they would share that videotape.

It's funny what Sal was saying, though, I think one of the reasons why it wasn't such a huge hit is because the people who love this movie and want this movie were stoned at college and not going to movie theaters. And when they got the movie on home video, they became obsessed with it and you could just put it on every single day of your life and learn every word. And just like all those Farley sketches on SNL, watching this movie, again, it's like listening to a great pop song. Like, I just know the rhythm of every single line, of every single joke. It's just tattooed on my brain.

It's crazy. And, you know, when you're, when you're stoned to college, it's useful to have something that you don't have to think too hard about. And we had a lot of great comedies in the mid-90s. It was just an unusually good run. That's when Jim Carrey had his big run. There's something about Mary's coming out, like 97-98 range. So there was this five-year rejuvenation window.

But like for me with Farley, you know, me and Sal are old enough to remember when Belushi was on SNL. And Belushi was, I never really watched SNL until they started doing the prime time kind of the best of shows. And that was what got me into it. And Belushi was just like, who's this? Like, this is my favorite person I've ever seen in my life. So when I was such a big Belushi guy. And when Farley comes on the show, And he's Midwest guy, kind of the same arc.

He's big. He's physical. He's kind of on Belushi's corner. So your instinct is I'm suspicious of this guy, but I also love this guy. And I hope this happens. And you watch him on SNL start to get, you know, he's always the funniest person, even in bad scenes. Your eyes just gravitate to him. And at some point it became clear he was going to make a movie.

but, Sal, do you remember watching him on those S&L things and your reactions? I do. And I'm going to say something very controversial here. You may even want to cut this. Chris Farley blows John Belushi away. He blows him away. Yes, Sal, yes. He's John Belushi with personnel.

I mean, imagine if you had Tiger Woods, but in between Berties, the Tiger Woods, the new version, the Chris Farley version, is doing cartwheels on the green. Like, that's Chris Farley versus John Belushi. Belushi's great. He's understated. You talk about one note. That's him. He provided a lot of great comedic moments. But I'm new to the rewatchables. But correct me if I'm wrong. I think Belushi hits the most rewatchable in like three genres. First of all, this movie, first as comedies go, Tommy Boy is right up there. Farley, I mean, not Boleishy. I'm sorry, Farley, yes. He hits this. S&L moment, most rewatchable. Obviously, the Chippendale scene is right up there. I was meant to think.

that I was wrong for thinking that was funny. I've read a lot of things that say it's terrible. Like it's fat shaming. And then I watched Tommy Boy and there's like 700 fat jokes in it. It's like, all right, I think he was probably okay with it. And then the third thing is you're not going to get a more rewatchable talk show entrance. Maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves here. This was to promote Black Sheep the following year.

Chris Farley's entrance on Letterman was just phenomenal. I mean, you're never, ever going to top it. Comes down the aisle. he's high five and everyone he grabs a spectator in the second row who we later find out as a writer dumps him in the trash fireman carries in him over to the trash then throws him in there obviously it was set up does two cartwheels to letterman has to mike himself up and has to catch his breath to promote the movie and it's like Dave was at his best too jabbing away is like maybe maybe too much candy. Farley's like, oh, the holidays were brutal. And it's just great.

Movie, S&L moment, and talk show entrance. Like, he hit all three. It was terrific. And all the research and everything ever written about Farley and all these guys. And Sandler, I even asked him when him and KG were on my pod, it's just like, so you got Farley there, you have Sandler, you have Norm McDonald for the, for the second part, at least. Chris Rock, Spade, and all these guys become really close. And all of them were like, Farley was so much funnier than all of us. Like just constantly, constantly funny. Like, Sandleros tells the story about how Farley took a shit out the window at 30 Rock.

With the shit dropped 30 stories and just all he wanted to do is make everybody else laugh. He seems like he would have been the greatest person that ever could have been, you know, on your floor in college. Yeah. Like, we were going to be like, oh, my God, we hit the lottery with this guy. He's insane. He's hilarious. Simmons, you've seen my friends. Like, you know I'm attracted to fat guys who like to create chaos, right?

And add to the fact that he has like an international appeal where he can make people entertain like real people, not just idiots like me. And you have Chris Farley. And that's what just made him terrific, I think. And I think that's why, Sean, this is why I love Tommy Boy the most because it's rare that a movie can capture all of that. Like even Belushi, if you look at all Belushi's movies, Animal House

taps into it probably the closest. But Belushi never had his Tommy boy. You go through his IMDB, like Blues Brothers. He's got sunglasses on the whole time. He doesn't even have like his caddyshack necessarily. And Farley, whose movie career is really spotty. I actually really like him in DirtyWark. I was glad Justin Sales shouted out Dirtywick on the Ringer.

That's another movie. I don't understand why. that movie didn't do well. But Tommy Boy, you get the full 100% Farley in that, right, Sean? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I agree with what Sal said, controversial as it might be. I think the only thing you have to say is there is no Farley without Belushi.

Like, you know, Farley looked up to Belushi so much idolized him to the point of, like, excess and danger. You know, he clearly, like, copied a lot of the drug use stuff and really tried to try to make a mirror image. The difference is, and I don't know. I think the reason that I like Farley more, and the reason I think Farley is still so beloved, is because in addition to just being that chaos agent that Sal is talking about, he's also, he's very sweet. You know, it's like when you're watching a movie, you're there with him. Like, you believe in him.

You love his character. The Tommy Boy character is probably the most likable guy that he ever made, too. And the reason the movie works so well is because you're rooting really hard for him. I still found myself, like, getting fired up for when they sold half a million break pads at the end of the movie. I was like, fuck yeah, Tom, you did it, man. So I think that he just, he has something a little bit more emotional in his, in his range, too, that Belushi, especially in the latter half of his career is like more reserved, he's more cool. And Farley is like a big, big, dumb, sweet animal. Belushi, I think, was a better kind of actor, but you didn't really see it except for S&L.

In S&L, they really challenged him. And he did some high-level stuff on that show. Like, I think at the end of season one, there's a big Star Trek that's like a famous sketch where he's Kirk. And he just, like, completely nails Shatner. I don't, I don't think Farley had the ability to nail characters like that. But I'm with you. I'm with both of you guys.

I think he's kind of the evolutionary Belushi. He tapped into all the stuff that I think we all loved about Belushi and put it on steroids. And it's not, like, if you're going to compare it to basketball, It's like how Belushi was like Dr. Jay. And then, you know, Farley comes in and he's Jordan. He's like, all right, I see all the stuff you're doing. Now I'm going to like dunk from the, you know, dunk from the foul lining games and do shit like that. Sal, it's such a bummer.

We didn't have more Belushi. But at the same time, all these years later, it kind of feels like maybe that's how that should have worked out. Like he was like this flame that just kind of went flying through our lives. unlike some of these other people like Belushi in 2020 could have I don't know, been sad in a lot of ways. You know, I don't know how that plays out. Yeah, for sure.

And it's funny, it's like when you see these appearances on Letterman and everything else, and it's like, oh my God, he could have died there. He could have expired there. He could have, we're kind of lucky that we got actually what we did out of him. He was so reckless. And so he just didn't really care about himself.

And the stories, the actors tell about them, you know, it brings that to a different level. It's like a hundred times what we're able to see on screen, which is pretty devastating. Well, and they also had so much more intelligence about somebody with a drug problem. You know, Belushi is running a mock basically from the third SNL season through. So 1978 totally dies. And, you know, everybody was doing drugs back then. And people didn't really totally understand that.

cocaine was this devastating drug that it was. It wiped out a lot of comedians, actors, athletes, everybody for like an eight-year stretch there. By the mid-90s, people knew how bad this stuff was. And, you know, there's been a lot of good far. The Farley oral history book is good. There's also been a lot of good stuff written about him. And the recurring theme is people did try to help him over and over again. He went to rehab like 12 times. There were interventions galore. and at some point you kind of realize you can't do anything else more than that. He famously came back and hosted S&L right near the end

and there's still people in his life that are kind of bitter at Lord Michaels that he even did that because he was in such rough shape. The show's not that great. But it was just somebody that just couldn't stay out of his own way. But Tommy Boy, he seems like he's, I feel like he's at the peak of his powers. and he looks pretty guy.

I mean, obviously he's heavy in the movie, but he doesn't have that drug look to him yet. And I don't know. I'm glad it captures him for 100 minutes. All the stuff we loved. Sean, what else about this movie stands out from a movie nerd standpoint?

I wouldn't say it's the most sophisticated cinematic achievement, but I don't really think that that matters. You know, like I don't, these movies are not designed for that. It's so funny when we're doing this show and we go back and look at the. reviews of movies like this. Always the comedies, the reviews of the comedies seem insane 10, 20, 30 years later where

people are taking the material so seriously and not understanding what the purpose of a movie like this is. You know, I'm sure we'll talk about Roger Ebert's review of the movie. But I think just generally speaking, all you need is great chemistry between Spade and Farley and a story that people can get involved in and just let Farley loose every 12 minutes. Every 12 minutes, he's got to do something ridiculous. Yeah. And you have a great comedy.

You have like a great movie that works for 12 year olds and and 35 year olds equally well. And like I don't, it doesn't matter how the movie shot or whether the story like totally makes sense. There's some problems with the story, but it's not really not that big a deal. Like as long as they're just letting Farley loose and giving Spade, you know, between 25 and 55 incredibly acerbic lines, the movie's going to be great. I watched with the whole family last night, including my six year old because I know there's 10, 15, 20 great physical comedy. moments and, you know, he hits it right off the bat of the first scene or first five minutes in. He face plants. He's at his fraternity there or maybe it was with the rugby team.

He face plants onto the table and that's it. And then you're off and rolling. And Sean said it too. You mix in the David Spade lines. And it's kind of crazy because, you know, you're rooting for him. This is, if there was ever like a biopic on Chris Farley, like this is it. Like it actually considers his roots. I think he went to Marquette.

And in the movie he went to Marquette. It took him seven years to graduate, which is great. He played rugby. I know he played football. He was like all county in Madison, Wisconsin. This takes place in Sandusky, Ohio, which, by the way, we could talk about Sandusky. It seems okay to discuss Sandusky where it's not related to the terrible, terrible tragedy that occurred at Penn State. All of a sudden, unfortunately, the same name as the city.

It takes place in here. But, yeah, Farley, it was all Chris Farley. And Sean says, the sweetness is brought out. and how he saves the town and everything else. But it really is him in a nutshell, you know. It has two really good premises that just transfer, depending on what the movie is. One is the Fredo Corleone piece of just like,

oh, this guy's a fuck up. Now he's going to be in charge of something. That's always going to work in a movie. And we've seen people do that a hundred times. And then the second piece, as soon as they're on the road, the movie takes off. And we've seen this in 100 different. different movies. As soon as you're in the car and you're going places, that's always going to be

the best part of a movie. And this movie understood those two things. And then what Sean said about just can you make sure every 12 minutes, Farley does something? You know, it's like when they made, when they made Caddyshack, you know, which was like a cocaine, you know, fueled mess in a lot of ways and structurally, it's a movie that makes no sense. But at some point, they realized they just didn't have a scene with Chevy Chase and Bill Murray in it. And they just kind of audibled that night golf scene, which if you watch Kaitishak,

that scene makes no sense. It makes zero sense. It has no relation to any other part of the movie. There's no reason for it. But it's clear that they're just like, oh, shit, we don't have a Chevy Chase, Bill Murray scene. Tommy Boy handles this much smarter. They're like, hey,

you know, just let Farley cook. Give the chef his tools. Let him go. the revelation was Spade because, you know, Spade was mid-level S&L guy. He hit with a couple sketches, but was not somebody that you ever would have expected would have carried a movie. And we'll get into some of the casting would have slated. But, you know, this was when Spade really became Spade. Hollywood Midd had taken off. He kind of found like whatever his voice persona is. And that kind of led to everything else that came after for him. A couple

a couple things I wanted to hit before we get to the categories. This isn't technically an S&L movie because Tommy was not an S&L character, but I do feel like it's an S&O movie. They're still on the cast when they're making it. It's two S&O people. It's S&O people behind the scenes.

It feels S&L-ish to me. I think if you're just going to say best S&O kind of adjacent comedy, I think this is probably it. Because Wayne's World, I don't feel like has had the same kind of legs. What do you guys think? Is there one you would put above this? I think it's probably Wayne's World Blues Brothers and Tommy Boy are the three best, most beloved, even though this one isn't like you say based on characters from the show. I still think this is the funniest one. I think Wayne's World is the best movie,

the movie that you like the most that has the most iconic stuff in it. Blues Brothers is, it's kind of similar to the blushi conversation. Like, I get why it was important. It doesn't hold up as well the older it gets. And I'd be curious to know, like, like, Sal, like, did your kids love this movie? Is it holding up 25 years later? Yeah, I think so. And I think it's exactly what you said. It's the 12 minute formula. I think 12 is actually a good number, too. Like, every 12 minutes he has to, you know, it's dumb to compare it to the Incredible Hulk. But Bill Bixby had to Hulk out twice in the hour, right? Before, like, the 28-minute mark. And then like at the 54 minute mark and I was like, okay, let's relate that to a movie such as Tommy Boy.

And we have to obviously pick up the pace. And it's every 12 minutes that he has to do this. But and it's funny because you talk about how, all right, as far as SNL movies, this really, really came from an office relationship. Like this whole thing. Like obviously, David Spade is stepping up the nerdiness. Like we all know this, know it all nerd. We all know we have many of these in our life.

There's like 20 of them working at the ringer right now. We may not want to admit, but no, but you know what I'm saying. It's, it's, and but you might want to say like you're rooting for Farley the whole time. When they battle, when they have a fight, you're also thinking it's funny that Spade gets the best of them, you know? It doesn't make any sense that he would, but it picks up a two by four and finishes them off and the lines in between are great. But so you're actually rooting for both, even though you should be rooting for Farley the whole time. So it was written by Terry and Bonnie Turner, who had done Wayne's World and Coneheads, Wayne Worlds 2, the Brady Bunch movie.

They eventually went to create third rock from the sun in that 70s show. They are very successful. They've made a lot of money doing this. So there's good people behind the scenes. Lauren Michaels was involved. They had Farley at probably the most coherent he was going to be in the mid-90s before he really started to have some issues. I think Black Sheep had two issues.

One was they barely had a script when they started filming, and the other was I think he was in rougher shape. It made $32.7 million, as South said. It hits, it comes out of 95, but around 96 range, that's when the home video experience really goes to another level. That's when 96 is when DVDs start to take off. And everybody is start looking at like, what are the first 10 DVDs?

I want to get. Tommy Boy, for a lot of different reasons, was one of the first comedies anybody wanted. And then that's when the Blockbuster era combined with the DVD era, combined with the cable era, which was the other piece of this, which was the HBO Cinemax run, TBS, TNT, Comedy Central. And it's just on all the time for five years. And, you know, this podcast is called The Rewatchables. This is one of those movies where if it's like, oh, he's about to do fat guy in a little coat, I'm staying. And it has all these different beats like that. So Sean mentioned the reviews, which were not kind. We always do Roger Ebert in this spot.

This is the all-time roughest Roger Eber moment, I think, ever. He gave this movie one star. He put it on his most hated list. He had a most hated list, which was normally reserved for movies like showgirls. Put it on most hated. He wrote, quote, Tommy Boy is one of those movies. movies that plays like an explosion down at the screenplay factory. You can almost picture a bewildered office boy. His face smudged with suit, wandering the ruins and rescuing pages at random.

Too bad they didn't mail them to the insurance company instead of filming them. Very well written. Horrendous take. Sean, defend your boy. Come get him. I have no defense. I have no, Roger Ebert is a very important person in film history for film literacy to make regular people understand why movies are meaningful. But as usual, when it comes to broad comedies, Raj, Raj sucks. He just doesn't get it. He doesn't, he doesn't understand why these movies work well. He was like a basketball player who just couldn't go left. Comedy is where his, I can't go left with a comedy. It's up. I don't want to psychoanalyze the late Roger Eber too much. But I do think that Tommy Boy and Chris Farley's weight as the center of a lot of the comedy might be informing some of

this stuff too. Might have been a little sensitive to some of that stuff. Well, I'd see, I went the other way. So now, now I'm getting a better perspective. But I say, we fat guys need to stick together and shame on you. Roger Ebert, look at this guy. Like I said, he's doing cartwheels, making us laugh with his weight. He's using it to his advantage. You know, it's the same reason I love Kevin Duckworth and Rick Russell and. Oliver Miller. There you go. All right. Well, not great for Raj. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do the categories. Hey, wanted to take a quick break to tell you about a couple of charities that I just really respect what they're doing right now.

One of them we mentioned earlier in the podcast, World Central Kitchen. WcK.org is the website. Hashtag Chefs for America you can find on Twitter or you can follow them at WC Kitchen. They're doing a whole bunch of good stuff with feeding the front lines. of the people that are, you know, the medical workers, the doctors, nurses, ICU, all those people who are working human shifts right now trying to help us and trying to save lives and also putting their own lives at risk. And guess what? They need to eat sometimes. And guess what else? There's a lot of local restaurants right now that are in real trouble because nobody can go

a restaurant. So World Central Kitchen is kind of helping merge those two things, taking care of the people on the front lines, people who need meals, but also trying to work into the local restaurants too. I would encourage you to go there, wcK.org, and check out all the great stuff they're doing. And since we're talking about people giving meals, feeding America.org is another really good one. They have a bank of over 200 food banks tied to different cities and communities and they're trying to get meals out to as many people as possible.

So if you have the means or if you have the time and maybe you have both, go check out those sites and maybe you can help a couple of people and get some meals to people that really need them right now. Okay, back to the podcast.

All right, so the categories. We always start with most rewatchable scene and sometimes we have an issue with this one because there's movies like this, this movie where the concept of a scene is kind of amorphous where this is almost like two, two and a half minute bits

that aren't technically seen. So, you know, honestly, I could have had 20 in here. So I'm going to list the ones I had and if I left anything out, step in. So the first one, the opening credits are phenomenal. Starting out with the little kid running

and then shifting things. to older Chris Farley and then him graduating and him falling through like as South said, such a good way to pull people in. And movies like this so often fuck up the opening credits. And this is like, in my opinion,

the perfect way to do the opening credits where the movie's just going. It's not credits with like wide shots of different things. There's actually like comedy in the credits. So you guys down with that one? Yeah, for sure.

It shows you who the character is right away. Yeah, he's literally running through the credits and speeds up the credits, which is usually the most boring part of the movie. So, yeah, it was nice. And then if you're watching this in the moment, if you love Farley from S&L, and you're worried about, uh-oh,

they made a Farley movie, I hope they don't fuck this up. The first four minutes, like, oh, okay, I get it. They're not going to fuck this up. Next one, Tommy sees his dad for the first time, and they put the hard hat on and they go and look at the stuff.

Farley's doing kung fu against these things. He's going to, you know he's going to get hit. And Spade is just completely dismissive of him. He ends up getting a new office. And that whole thing, it's really nicely set up. And they nicely set up the whole, oh, Spade's going to hate this guy. It's called reading. Top to bottom, left to right.

Group words together's a sentence. Take talent off for any headaches. Might offer any cramps. Shut up. The next one, this is my personal favorite. I don't know if it's most rewatchable, but Tommy on the boat with Julie Warner. And they do the,

first of all, it starts with Farley talking about how his father just died. And there's like real acting from Farley. Like his, he's almost crying. His eyes are glisting and he's like kind of going for it. It's touching. And then it does the wide shot.

You see the boat. and the boat's almost sinking on one side. Like, you know, Julie Waterway is like 70 pounds. And then the kids start heckling them and they're doing, Hey, Gilligan, did you eat the skipper and all that? He's getting madder. And then she steps in and ends it. You are saying,

You better pray to the God of skinny punks that this wind doesn't pick up because I'll come over there and jam it oar up your ass. Peepers, creepers. Those guys keep interrupting us. I'm sorry about. that. You were saying about the... Hey ladies. Bezoids, I know where you live and I've seen where you sleep. I swear

to everything holy that your mothers will cry when they see what I've done to you. That's a perfectly crafted scene. What do you guys think of that one? Yeah, he's a pretty surprisingly good actor, which is part of what I was talking about where you feel really connected to him. I don't know. I would say I don't want to get ahead of picking knits here, but I would probably be a little bit more afraid of Tommy Boy than Julie

Warner. That's just just putting that out there. Chris Farley, when he ratchets it up to 11 and screams, is definitely seems like he would eat you alive. And I was never totally sold on Julie Warner's. You know, I know where you live and I know where you sleep. She knew where they live, Sean. It's so different when you know where someone lives. No, I'm with you. Here's why I think you're right, Simmons. That scene is so important that they brought it back for the ending scene. Like, they didn't have an ending to this movie. And then like, oh, let's go back to the boat. That was sweet. He'll be on it alone this time.

But yeah, it's telling and it's nice and it moves along nicely. And it lends itself perfectly to an ending. I did a Wikipedia search of Julie Warner just to kind of see if there's anything I can learn. She's listed at 5-2. I think she's like 4-9, 4-10. Like, she seems way tinier than 5-2. You just turn this into a draft podcast. What's happening?

No, I know. It's like a quarterback. It's like Drew Brees says he's six, too. He's definitely five, ten. She didn't throw at the combines, but we'll never know. There's one scene when she's at the amusement park when she sees Rob Lowe and Boderre kissing

and she's talking to one of the board members and she's actually walking on an elevated curb next to him so they can see relatively the same size. So I love the boat because that's, Just the image of that boat and how it almost seems like it's going to capsize on Farley's side. It's just really great. Next one is another classic. Tommy's first sales meeting, which completely falls apart when he starts reenacting the car accident and does the new guys in the corner puking his guts out.

Fucking kills me. And your family's screaming. Oh, my God, we're burning alive. I can't feel my legs. In comes a meat wagon. And the medic gets out and says, oh my God. New guys in the corner puking his guts out.

All because you want to save a couple extra pennies. And to me, it doesn't get out. That whole scene, anyone who doesn't laugh during that entire scene, like, is dead inside. That's all I could say. I watched with my family, obviously, it was my six-year-olds first time. singing and I asked him as I put him to bed, what was your favorite part of the movie? And he said

it was that. And I was on the fence of that being my favorite scene. So they get a bunch of no. He's going out. They're on the road. They're trying to sell these brake pads. And they're getting no, no, no. And that was the first maybe, which opened it up for him. And as a viewer, you're cringing. I mean, it's hilarious, but you're also cringing because it was their only opportunity to make a sale. And you know everything's going to end up good in the end. But it was their only opportunity to make a sale. and he's screwing it up and he's setting all these model cars on fire and doing basically a one act play

while he's in and Spade shooting darts at him is the greatest to compliment the scene. So that I agree. That would be my favorite, most rewatchable. That was what I was going to say was a fun way to watch this movie is to just watch Spade's reaction to everything Farley does. He's in such horror.

Everything that Farley is doing in that scene in particular, it's a really, really great one. New guys in the corner, his guts out is fucking iconic. It's so good. It comes in off the top rope, right? As it's already hilarious. And then he says that.

That also, like, that scene directly leads to the gas scene when Tommy gets the gas and breaks the door and he's fixing it. And then Richard touches it and the door falls. What'd you do? What'd you do? What'd you do? Which my son does all the time. My son just broke. I have, you know, I have like five of these W.W.E. glasses.

Look at this big John, big John Stud one. Isn't that great? So last week, my son knocked one over. And I came into the kitchen because I heard something. And he's like, you put the glass on the table and it fell over. And I'm like, that's definitely not what happened. That was 20 minutes ago. And he just, he's got, it's like when Sal is, when Sal does the.

tongue on the side of his mouth thing. I just know when my son's lying. And I'm like, you knocked it over. Just admit you knocked it over. He's like, no, it fell off the table. But that reminded me of the Richard, what'd you do? Benny Boy, by the way, Benny Boy would be a great sequel to this movie. Oh, it might happen.

When he takes over the ringer? That's right. Jesus Christ. Sean just filed us two weeks. He unloads all the weapons he bought on Amazon. There you go. Next one, I'm just stringing together because these are four mini scenes that are all awesome.

But if you guys want to separate all these out. So this movie basically goes from fat guy in a little coat, which there's a whole story about we'll tell later. But that is so fucking funny. And it's probably that scene. And when he breaks, sets the model cars on fire, the two scenes people remember,

probably the fastest. It goes to the Carpenters sing-along when they're changing the radio and they end up on the carpenters and they kind of look at each other and then they're belting out. Then that leads to the car accident, the fight scene in front of the prehistoric

whatever. And then the diner with the waitress. That's like boom, boom, boom, boom for like 10 minutes. So I'm submitting that as an entire rewatchable stretch. Benning the rules a little bit. A lot of bang for your book there. Yeah, for sure. Favorite of those four, so?

For just those four bits. I think the carpenters. I think, and I was trying to think of a better, superstar comes on, and they're going back and forth. First, they change the station twice because they don't like each other's songs, and that comes on. And obviously it's, I'm right with it.

Yeah, okay, yeah. Talk about Lane. Totally. You can change it if you want. I don't care. It's up to you. I can live with it if you can. Sue yourself.

Then it comes to the crescendo of baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, oh, babe. The way they cut it is perfectly done. Yeah. And it's, I don't think there could be a better song. Like, maybe like something by air supply, but I don't even think so. I think the carpenters was the ideal choice for that scene. Sean, what's your favorite out of those four bits? I love the sing-along callback when they do Ares too later in the movie.

Yeah, that's incredible. They go bilingual. I, it's probably my favorite stretch. is the one that you talked about at the end there where all of that road trip stuff is happening all at once. The moment in particular when he's with the waitress and he starts doing his spiel and he's, you know, his pretty little pet

and he's got the biscuit and he destroys the biscuit in front of the waitress and she's deadpan. She's like, God, you're sick. Oh! I killed it! I killed my sale. That's when I blow it. That's when people like us have got to forge a head, Helen.

Am I right? God, you're sick. Like, it's just such an amazing line reading from that woman. That's probably my favorite stretch of the movie, but there's a lot of little stuff, too, that we didn't talk about that is kind of, like, it's just kind of lodged into my brain. You know, you talked about the first meeting with Big Tom and Tommy after he gets back from college, but when Richard picks Tommy up from the airport and we see Tommy's suitcase,

and then when the M&Ms go inside of Richard's car and the like, your brain's the one with the shell on it. and all that stuff. Like, when you just see them kind of hating each other right away is so great. It's hard to pick a category like this, though, because of what you're saying. Like, it is basically 65 sketches stitched together with these, you know, all kind of centered around these two characters. But I'll go specifically with the diner scene is my favorite.

Also, that has the mark thing, too, where he's like, Richard, do I have a mark on my face? No. Do I have mark on my face? No, it looks fine. The diner scene, and that would bug me a little bit because that's the pivotal moment that Richard and Farley's character, they realize that he does have this ability to sell. I think they could have hit that harder. He kind of accidentally got her to make the wings to go back to reopen the kitchen, which was closed. They were only serving cold stuff.

But I don't know. He was just being a jackass. And I don't know that Richard would have been like the light bulb would have gone off. like, hey, you got something here, kid. You know, I just don't, I don't know. I think they could have hit that a little harder, but it all worked out in the end. I do like the idea of somebody being so pathetic, though,

that you have to give them money. Like, that's ultimately the takeaway is that he's so messed up that you're like, all right, fine, I guess I'll help you out. Right, right, right. Last one after we watch, is when the girl goes in the pool and Spade's thinking about spanking it, and Tommy catches him fucking kills me.

Richard, what are you doing? And then he just rips off over and over again, the Buddy Wackett, the Yankees. Richard, were you watching Spanked revision? Okay, then, let's hit it. Maybe you were watching a movie with that funny comedian. Oh, what's his name, Buddy Wackett? All right, then, let's get some shut-eye.

Hey, that's a pretty girl down there. Good for her. Geez, I wonder if she goes out with one of the Yankees. That's just my fucking funny bone Like the stupid jokes like that He's so delighted that he has something over Over Richard, that one's good Would you have any other rewatchable scenes

Anything I left out? Well, are we talking about fat guy In a Little Coat? Because that's... Yeah, I had that in that whole sequence. Fat Guy Little Coat to the Carpenter sing along To the fight scene to the diner scene. We could isolate Fat Guy in a Little Code

as its own thing though. We could do that if you want because I think it's important. First of all, the story about it is what it wasn't even supposed to be a song, right? It was a bit that Spade would have to endure. Farley would do it in the office and the SNL office. And they said, like, everybody had to go through their office to get to Chris Rock and Adam Sandler's office.

And I don't even know what it was, but he's doing fat guy on a little coat. And Spade's like, dude, enough already. I don't want to see it. And then it became a song in the movie. I think like an editor or something says, hey, you have to sing that like you did in the outtake. Bad guy in a little coat. Fat guy in a little

code. Take it off, Dick Edams. But not only is it great and it's funny and it's funny to look at and he rips his jacket just further demolishing David Spade. I think it's important in terms of what we're going through right now. I think when we get out of this terrible, this quarantine here, we're all going to be fat guy in a little coat, maybe not fantasy. Fentnessy's a GQ model, and I'm sure he's going to remain that way. But I am going to be fat guy in a little coat.

No one's going to fit their clothes. And I think this is going to be our anthem as a country going forward in 4, 8, 12, however many weeks from now. So you think, are you saying our entire country is putting on the freshman 15? That's exactly it. I think there are going to be some hardship cases. I don't want to minimize it. But I think most people don't know how to ration calories going forward. And that's going to be a problem.

Maybe it's just me in this house, but I do think it's going to be an issue? It's just when you're bored, you just tend to board eat. And it's like, oh, I'll have some, it's 11.30 at night. I'll have some pretzels. I'm definitely, definitely trying to do a lot of that. Sean, most rewatchable scene for you is? I think it's probably the diner scene. But I do want to give one shout out to the end of the movie, essentially,

the climax of the movie when Tommy gets Zelensky to sign the order for 500,000 break pads and then we cut back to the factory and the guy says Tommy just sold half a million brake pads and then the black guy in the factory says Tommy just sold half a million break pads. And I swear to God, I got chills watching it again last night. I couldn't believe how invested in the movie I was. I was like, this is a fucking great movie. My favorite is the first sales meeting with the new guy puking his guts out. That gets me every time, every single beat of that, I fucking love the guy's reaction of it. Sal,

what do you have for most rewatchable? I went with setting the model cars on fire and everything. I just because I was cringe-worthy and everything else and physically look beautiful. Yeah. All right. So, Sal and I had the same. What's aged the best? I mentioned the opening credits.

There's some subtle funny stuff in here, like the Luke, I'm your father with the fan. The Callahan family portraits fucking kill me. It's so funny. And then our A&I and Eileen took over the business and it's just Farley in drag. It's such a subtle thing that it's just great. Rob Lowe's performance has aged the best. He's really good in this movie. He was good in all of these, anything S&L adjacent, whether it was when he hosted, any movie he was in.

There was this whole comedy side of Rob Lowe that I certainly wouldn't have predicted in the 80s in any way, shape, or form. we'll get into the story of how he got the part later but I thought he's really good the old lady in the board meeting who's mad that her husband cheated if this factory goes under the whole town goes under and that's when the whores come in

is just like some stealth comedy gonna bring the whores come in Tommy Richard singing songs we mentioned the whole bees gimmick was really good I wonder if people actually tried that in different areas, the whole getting pulled over by a car

and then put any bees in there. I love that they had the jokes about Spade's hair that they kind of acknowledge because his hair is definitely a little weird in this. And they just were kind of like, all right, let's do some jokes about this. And then the last one was when Farley's giving the speech to everybody and he's talking about its connections with all different people.

and he's like, I lost my virginity to your daughter. That guy has a reaction. He's like, Bob, you were there. And Bob stated next to the guy and he just like skulks off. R.T, I lost my virginity to your daughter for crying out loud. Rob, you were there. Anyway. That's what else is age the best for you guys?

I was, well, back to the Rob Lo, Bo Derek stuff. It's like, I even remember at the time thinking Bo Derek was way past, Prime. And I guess she, I mean, it wasn't in the same decade as 10, but she was only 39 years old. Low was 31. Farley and Spade were also 31, but she was 39. So this is like Jennifer Aniston 13 years ago coming on. You're like, oh, man, she's old. Why is even this a casting choice? But the, the idea that we're going to set her up with Brian Denahy, who I think is 57 at the time, I don't know what I wrote down. Fifty seven going on to 80. He's 57 going on 80.

We're okay with them kissing, but as soon as she locks lips with Rob Lowe, it's like, oh, God. Wait a minute. Why is this? We used to suspend this belief for a minute. I know there's supposed to be a mother and son. But I thought that was interesting.

I thought they nailed that casting right there. And I think you could keep watching that over and over. I had for Woodsage the worst her haircut because they intentionally made her look older. I don't know if they had to go that far because as you said, she was still under 40 at that point. They tried to make her look like

I think she was a little older than maybe she was. Well, how about three minutes before she's getting out of the pool and Brian Denny's character's like, what do you think of that? And father's like,

well, is that for me? He's like, no, that's me. That's my wife. It's like, yeah, you're right. And then in the very next scene, she's like Alice from the Brady bunch

with her hair. It's very strange. Anything else age the best for you, Sean? I feel like, Denahey is incredible in this movie. He's really going for it. He's so overqualified to be in a movie like this. This is like a, you know, a legend of the American stage.

This guy was in death of a salesman. He's obviously like almost weirdly like a callback to make him a great salesman in this movie because he played Willie Lohman so many times. And he's just locked in his big Tom. I really, I love that he's like willing to go toe to toe literally with Farley on all the dumb bits. It's really like that makes movies like this so much better. Like when you cast serious actors in movies like this, it just gives the movies more credibility. It makes them more fun to watch. You get more invested in them.

And he's also like a dead ringer for Farley. He's perfectly cast. Agreed. That's a good one. You know, I interviewed him once in Winnipeg, Canada in 2001. Really? What? Yeah.

Back before I had enough sway at ESPN to throw my body in front of bad ideas, they were making the season of the Brink movie. It was the first TV movie they were ever making. And he was the star. he was playing Bobby Knight. And they sent me to Winnipeg to go do a big piece about the movie. And Denahey, it was like, honestly, like minus 30. Like, I'm not even kidding.

It was like minus eight real temperature and like minus 38 win show. It was dead of winter. And I'm in Denahey's trailer. And he's like exactly how I think he was. He was a good guy. We're just basically tape recording a whole thing with him. And I'm just asking about. what was it like to do the Jericho Mile.

It was basically like a podcast for a podcast. What was it like to do Tommy Boy? And I just remember like he loved Farley. Like no surprise. But it was Farley had died probably three years earlier in that. And he was just, oh, man. You know, it's one of those moments. And he's like making himself, you know, a coffee in this fucking trailer is 30 degrees below zero outside.

And he's like getting choked up about Chris Farley. It's just weird. But he's had a, he, if you look at his IMDB, there's a lot of fucking wins in the Brian Dennyhy IMDB. Like a lot. He's, he never, he's incredible.

He never became like famous, famous, but he's, he's just around in a lot of ways. What's age the worst? You mentioned it earlier. Sandusky, Ohio. Tough beat.

Yeah, that's not good. Not good at all. Tough one. It really jumps off the screen right away. It's almost like, I wonder if they could have gone backwards and spent like 50 grand to CGI all the Sandusky stuff and changed the name when the characters are saying the name,

be like, oh, Salmon Dusky, Ohio. You know, there's some way they could have fixed it. They do do that. No, they do that like with the Twin Towers. And like they go back and take them out of film. It's very strange. Like, yeah, they could have. It wouldn't have been taken too much time to take the one shot of the sign entering the town,

population 29,000, whatever, and taking the three or four oral mentions out of it. But yeah, that was a bad beat. This is just purely from what it was like a 95 versus what it's like 25 years later. The stunt casting of Bo Derek in 1995 was like a big deal. Like when Sal and I, Sal and I are almost the same age. Bo Derek was like Marilyn Monroe for two years. She was the championship belt holder of who is the hottest person in the world. And then kind of faded away and nobody, you know, she just,

I don't know what she was doing. And then she popped up in this movie. The only thing I can compare it to is like if they made Tommy Boy now, if Britney Spears was the new wife, only Britney wasn't even like in Vegas. Like nobody had seen her for 10 years. And then she like popped back up. And everybody of the generation that like,

of now for that for the 2020 would be like, Britney Spears is in this? I think it's like that. And now that doesn't translate at all. Flash dance jokes were really funny, but have gotten progressively less funny as, you know, nobody under 35, I guarantee producer Craig doesn't even know if flash dance is.

Right. Sneaking onto an airplane and being the flight attendants, now impossible post 9-11? Yeah. Good point. In 95 seem realistic that they could just like, oh yeah, they'll get on the plane. They'll pretend their flight attendant.

It's definitely not happening now. By the way, where were they going? Where were they going anywhere? I was trying to think they could probably drive to where they wanted to go and not less time, but it wouldn't have been too. Were they in, they weren't in Milwaukee trying to go to Chicago because I know that's a 90 minute drive. I thought they were in Sandusky, Ohio. No, had they gotten back? I think they were back and then they had to like go back out. Oh, really? So that was a Sandusky airport? I don't know. It looked pretty bustling. I don't know what was going on there, but you're right. Yeah, for sure. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sandusky International Airport.

And then the last, what stage is the worst, this is just not enough cameos. I feel like between the S&O universe and all the kind of bit parts people had, it's really strange to me that like there's not Norm McDonald popping up in a scene or Rob Schneider or all the people that were in their universe, they really played it straight with. how they did the movie and just tried to have random actors. But I think they could have had more like, oh, wow, him. Personally, I like that. I like that they didn't overload it.

It makes it a better movie. It's not as funny necessarily if you don't have Rob Schneider or Kevin Neillan popping up. We did Happy Gilmore last year. It's great when Joe Flaherty shows up. Like the comedy icons that show up for 10 minutes in those movies. I do like when that happens. But part of the reason why this is actually feels like such a good movie to me is that it doesn't distract you too much. Like, even

Dan Aykroyd's part in this movie is just an important character who drives the story along. And they kind of like it weirdly takes itself seriously. And it's origins are kind of serious. Like Farley's dad owned an oil company. He obviously cares about this part of the country and this part of the world and the people who do these jobs. Like it feels weirdly sincere and that's part of what I dig about it. Sal, what?

Anything else aged the worst for you? I feel bad. But the Herbie Hancock joke just. like I'm watching with my kids and no one gets it. You know, it's like, yeah, my kids didn't get it either. Yeah. It's like, well, who was Herbie Hancock? Like, I can't even really answer that.

I was like, well, he was a rock and roll. Well, no, no, he wasn't even that. I don't know. I just, it's someone I knew. He wasn't John Hancock. Let's just put it this way. I don't know about Zelensky's character. I understand Akroyd.

It served the purpose and everything, but he was doing the cone head's voice with the Mel Kuyper Jr. look to them. Like, it really, it took me a while to get, to get it going like, uh, and then like at the end, like she's going to jail, like everything they hang on Rob Lowe, Bo Derek's getting the same, she's getting the same charge. And he's like, hey, you want to go to lunch at my country club? Like, uh, it's a little bit of a stretch.

That whole last scene, how they got the, um, camera crew in there. He's got bomb. He's got like flares tied to him, um, in the illusion that it's a, it's bomb going off. He had just, in everyone's mind, he had just robbed the bank. So you think they'd have a lookout, be on the lookout for him. He's pretty noticeable. But he gets up there with that camera crew to shoot an exclusive, which ends up being nothing but small town hero here, you know, forces a guy to sign a contract

that he doesn't want in the first place. But yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure about Ackroyd's character. I had some nitpicks about that scene that we could just do now. It's always a funny device when everybody just happens to be watching the local news during a workday. It's something that just never, ever happens in real life. Hey, check the news. Tommy's on.

Like, who does this? And then just them letting him into the office or the, you know, he basically pretends he has a bomb, which is a felony. Right, right, right. And everyone's like, it's fine. He saved the company. Like, it's tough, but it's a comedy. So you can't. Yeah.

you can't go too far on that one what were you going to say Sean there's just one other thing the the whole movie hinges on these guys going out on the road and selling all these break pads right that's the big the crux of the story so they finally do it they get out there they sell all the brake pads they get the success they figure out how to be great salesman then they get back to sandusky ohio and then as soon as they get back they're like well there was a mistake guess we're in trouble again like it happens so quickly like you don't even get a chance to process the fact that anything got fucked up it is a little bit confusing. It's good to keep the movie 90 minutes, but we spend all this time thinking about the

mechanics of selling brake pads to the United States. And then within minutes, like, the whole thing just goes belly up. It's just, it happens just a little bit too quickly for me. Yeah, drunk Rob Lo is he presses two buttons on a computer and everything goes to hell immediately. He's a mastermind. Casting what ifs. So the original story, which apparently was envisioned by Lauren Michaels, who just wanted to do a Farley movie and somehow had some of the idea, but he wanted Rob Lo and the Richard part. And his idea was Chris Farley and Roblo and some version of what this movie became. But Rob Lo was going to be the foil because he loved Roblo. That didn't work out because Roblo had a bunch of stuff going on. So Farley really pushed for Spade or Sandler for the role

Richard. And they were going to do Sandler and pursue that. But Saner's St.ler was already shooting Billy Madison. So Spade ended up being the third choice. And I think that was probably the right choice. If you look at everything on the table, Rob Loe in that role, I think a little bit weird. Scheduling conflicts almost forced Roblo to drop out of the film. And they had to have these quickie auditions for a whole bunch of people, one of whom was Matthew McConaughey. I saw that. I thought the Roblo thing really worked. McConaughey in that role would have been really fun at that point in his career. That's like two years after dazed and confused.

It's a year before he does a time to kill. I don't know. It would have been fun. One more, Helen the Waitress, Fantasy's favorite character, originally supposed to be played by Roseanne Barr. Whoa. But she was busy at the time, unable to appear in the film. So they got whoever the lady was.

What would have been doing? I think she was doing her show. I think probably a good miss for Tommy Boy. Best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award, this is a stealth, that guy. He's so much of a that guy. I had no idea what his name was.

It's one of Tommy's board members. It's the guy who's kind of bald with bulgy eyes. He was in Fight Club. He was in Curb Your Enthusiasm in Season 1. That guy. His name is Zach Grinier. He is absolutely the winner of this category, without question.

This guy is an awesome that guy. He's on that show Devs that's on FX right now and is amazing in it. But he is like, if you look at his IMDB, he has been in everything. He's been on, I think, 75 TV shows over the last 30 years. And he's really funny. And he has one of the best lines in the movie when he's being filmed at the wedding. And he's like congratulating Big Tom and Beverly. And he's like, oh, Beverly, man, would I like to get a piece of that?

Yeah, Tom, you are a lucky man, boy, but I like to get some of that. Good Lord. Oh, God. No, listen, Richard, you got an edit button on that thing. It'll cost you. Come here. You, you little prick. Great job by that guy.

The Vincent Hanna, they knew award for Best Overacting. Honestly, you could give Farley in five of these scenes, but that's what makes. makes Farley so great. Right. I'm going with Accroyd. Yeah. I'm with Sal. I was saving my Accroyd thoughts for this category.

But it's weird. I also think you could make a case that he should win the Deanne Waiters Award. He's, he filmed all his scenes in two days. He's really going for it. I don't know what the fuck's going out with his hair. He's doing that crazy. It's like a Chicago accent crossed with a conehead's accent.

I make car parts for the American working man because that's what I am. and that's who I care about. That's why I'm here, Ray. I'm not really sure what his motivation was in any of this. He's definitely wins the Vincent Hanna Award. I think arguably wins the Dan Waders. It's very acroity. And this is a point of Ackroyd's career when, you know,

he kind of moved into a different phase. He wasn't headlining movies or even doing really stuff like this. This is right when he started resurfaced. He started doing Bob Dole on S&L again. and it's just weird. I don't know what to make of it. So, Sal thinks it's also weird. Sean, what do you think?

I think sometimes he can be an amazing guy like this, like a cameo guy or a guy who comes in for the last 15 minutes of a movie. He does a really good version of this in Gross Point Blank, where he plays like the rival assassin opposite John Cusack, and it works. This one is like a little bit more over the top and a little bit sillier. I promised myself that I wasn't going to get all. pointy-headed about this movie, and I'm trying not to. But one thing that you, like, I think the reason for this

character is this movie is, like, weirdly political about middle-class people working in the Rust Belt and how there are, like, certain figures in the world who are trying to take things away from those people. And the Zelensky character is basically like, he's the face of an evil corporation. He's somebody who doesn't care about people. And they literally, he literally says that, like his catchphrases about the American Working Man. And then he literally says behind the scenes, you know, fuck these people. And he, he's, like, important to represent something that it's clear that Farley actually believes in. Like his whole family is blue collars from the middle of the country. Like there is some real meaning behind this.

And even if Zelensky and what Ackroyd is doing is like pretty over the top and stupid, like I do think you need that guy in the movie. I guess my issue is I didn't think he was evil enough. Yeah. He's kind of in no man's land where it's like, is this a good guy? Is this a bad guy? And I don't think Ackroyd really knew how far he wanted to go with the evil part. of this. I think he should have been like 20% more evil. He should have been more Vince McMahonish.

That's the thing. Like there was no clear villain in this movie. The struggle and the conflict was created by Farley himself for not being able to sell parts and everything. It's like, oh, so that's what he had to overcome. But you would think if this was a typical movie, one of the three suits that hung out with Denahey character, one of them would have been completely, completely against Farley taking over the company. As it was, it was just like one loudmouth foreman who would kind of speak up every now and then. Then you take it to, then you take it to Akroyd's character.

And it's like, yeah, even he wasn't over the top villainous, you know. And if you look at it, it's so funny. I always thought about that maybe you thought differently. I'm like, oh, they're throwing Akroyd a pity roll here. But this guy worked. I mean, Conads was 93. And if you look at his IMDB from 94 to like 2001, he was in like four productions a year. Maybe nothing great.

You know, I'm not talking like, wasn't Titanic or anything. But he was busy. He was freaking busy. And it was like, it makes you think differently about Dan Aykroyd. Yeah. I have no idea who wins the Deanne Waiters Award. I guess it could be him because he definitely does jump off the screen. It's not my favorite performance.

Is there any other Deon Waiters, Heat Check people? I think it's Rob Lowe. Yeah, it could be Rob Lowe. Is he in the movie too much, though, is my question. He's basically only got four scenes. And he's, you know, he's really funny in the cow tipping scene. Does it make a difference? Oh, yeah.

Wait a second. Is this your first time? Yeah, Tommy, it is. God, you're going to remember this the rest of your life. Can't believe you've never been cow tipping before. Yeah, okay. If he's eligible, I agree. Rob Lowe is the winner.

Rob Lowe's good. There's got a hug. Brothers don't shake hands. Sean, when are we doing an entire Rob Loeb podcast? I have so many thoughts. He's at a complicated life. I'm not sure if that's safe for public consumption. I'm more interested.

His IMDB is kind of fantastic. Yeah. He made a lot of movies that I really liked. Yeah, he also has, he has like an SNL movie villain sweet spot. You know, he's really funny in the Austin Power in Austin Powers 2. And he's obviously like,

he's pretty much iconic in Wayne's world. His character in Wayne's world is incredible. I think he's weird. It's like he's simultaneously incredibly famous, incredibly successful. Everybody knows who Roblo is. But at the same time, it's like,

has he actually ever done anything like authentically great in his career? I don't, I don't know. You know what he's done? You know what he's done? That's great. He constantly looked like he's 27 years old years later.

That's true. So fucking handsome. I mean, who is it? It's Roblo, it's Jason Bateman, it's John Stamos. Is there even a fourth or is it just those three? Tom Brady? I think he had some help along the way. Roblo is definitely.

These guys are in their 50s. Roblo is the vice president of the I wouldn't want to leave my wife alone with him for three minutes club. Costa, Costner being the president because we saw it in action at the Grant Land Party. Oh, right. When the moment he showed up, every woman at the party was like, if he even motions toward me, I'm out. I'm out with whoever I'm with. I'm going home with him.

So we saw it happen. I'm going to read you the Rob Loe IMDB really quick because he made more really entertaining movies than you think. The Outsiders, class. I'm just doing my favorites. Oxford Blues. I stand by. Oxford Blues, solid movie. San Elmo's Fire.

Youngblood. About last night. Masquerade is is kind of dated, but was like a solid erotic thriller. Bad influence. Spader, I stand by that one. Wayne's World. Tommy Boy. Austin Powers.

It's pretty solid, like two decade run there. There's like 10 entertaining movies. He is horrible in San Elmo's Fire as the saxophone player. That's like one of the worst performance of the last 100 years. How dare you? How dare you? Roger. Do we have to do that of the rewatchables? I kind of like saying, almost fire, but Lowe is so bad.

Where do you stand on about last night? That's good. I do like that, actually. Okay. I defend Rob Lowe's movie career. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just want to make sure you're listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 pods at this point. So let's say you're searching for the rewatchables or the Dave Chang Show or The Ring or NBA show. Once you find them, click on the follow button.

That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the app that say podcasts. All the pods you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better. On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5. You can do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite.

everyone sounds like they just had a good cup of coffee. And then there's 1.5 times, two times. And if you're completely insane, three times. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a car play feature that's pretty cool. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device and you're good to go. Should you be embarrassed that you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify?

Well, I don't want to app shame you. But the answer, unfortunately, is yes. Make the move. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Back to yours. Recasting couch, if you could recast any part in this movie, apologies to Bo Derek. I would have gone better actress,

but it also needs to be somebody where there's a nostalgia wheelhouse in place. Phoebe Cates comes out of the pool, little fast times at Ridgemont High throwback when she's in the pool. She's never stopped looking great. I don't know what she looks like now. but I guarantee she looks great.

I think she could have carried the sex appeal thing. And I think she's a way better actress than Bo Derek, who is an absolutely abysmal actress. I mean, really an atrocious actress. So that's my pick. Do you guys have one? You lose the 10 joke. That's the only thing you lose if you don't have Bo Derek.

It's like, wow, she's a 10, which was kind of, it was funny. And obviously younger people aren't going to pick up on that. You know what I was going to? I had written down Michelle for this. And I know you did a deep dive on her. but I think like, I kind of think it works because I think they went for the size disparity. And if she is 4 foot 9, 4 foot 10, as you say, that's perfect. And it's worth it just to have her on the boat in the beginning.

For Julie Warner. So who would you have had instead of her? I had her written down, but you talked me out of it. So actually go to Sean and I'll figure it out. Well, I was thinking about this because we just did Happy Gilmore. What if we just swapped Julie Warner with Julie Bowen? Would that have been better? 1995 era Julie Bowen.

Julie Bowen, yeah. The thing is, though, I guess I have a thought on this. I want to save for later. One thing about Phoebe Cates is, you know, she would have been only 32 years old in 1995. So I don't think that would have been tough as far as the age disparity. Like Sal pointed out that Beauder was only 39. Like 32 would have been much closer to Tommy than to Big Tom.

Fair. Fair point. more wisdom from Sean. Half-ass internet research. Rob Lowe is uncredited. He was filming the stand and felt weird about doing another movie, so he did it because he loved Chris Farley.

They were friends. Farley did all his own stunts. David Spade tells a whole story about him and Farley got an actual altercation on the set. Yeah. Because Spade had gone out to drinks with Rob Lowe and Farley was jealous and kept going. Roblo, how's Roblo?

Just bugging him about it. And Spade threw his Diet Coke on him. And Farley threw him against a wall and he ended up falling down some stairs. And Spade walked off the set, refused to continue filming. And they went like hours without speaking each other, which apparently did all the time. Like sometimes they would just get mad at each other. And they would just talk to the director, you know, to get messages to the other guy. And it sounds like they were like eight-year-olds.

It's great. I love all the research on this movie is funny. Apparently, like they did ask Farley to go out, but he was too sick to go out. I mean, what does that mean for Chris Farley to be too sick to go out? And then they went out without him and he got upset. And it ends, yeah, as part of that is he crushes Spades Tuna Sandwich or something, which I thought was funny. Bo Derek was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.

So congrats to her. Both the name of the lady who was the naked woman in the pool, even though we never saw her naked was Lori Bagley. And apparently both Spade and Farley ended up dating her after the movie. Wow. And it caused tension with them on the set of Black Sheep because I don't know who dated her first and who was upset about who, so who knows there. Original working title of this movie was Billy the Third of Midwestern,

but Lauren Michaels was working on Billy Madison, wanted them to change it. Other names considered Sal. Fat Chance And imagine how much Ebert would have hated that And XL

XL XL Tommy Boy is such a perfect name for this I don't understand how they ever were about I thought I saw Rocky Road Did you see Rocky Road

as one of the titles Sean? I thought I saw one of that I saw that too yeah I like Billy the third a Midwestern that's pretty

highfalutin That's a good one Apex Mountain Chris Farley I'm going to say yes. You guys agree? 100%. David Spade?

I'm going to say yes. My son would say it's grown-ups. My son knows him as the grown-ups guy. The under-20 generation knows Spade, Kevin James, all those dudes, they're all the grown-ups people. Because that's like one of the big movies for people under 20. Would you dream of giving Mike or the Mad Dog,

an Apex moment without each other? Like, you wouldn't, right? No, it has to be both. It had a bit. Yeah. Julie Warner, Julie Warner, I'm going to say yes. I think this Trump's in. No, Doc Hollywood.

Doc Hollywood, man. Really? Yeah. There's an emerging from the water moment in Doc Hollywood is pretty important for Julie Warner, similar to Bo Derek's moment. Oh, I'll have to watch. Hey, go into my, yeah, that's not bad. I think Tommy boys definitely lived on more than Doc Hollywood, though.

Just talking about Julie Warner, though. Just her apex. just rewatch Doc Hollywood. Tell me what you think. That's another case for her being not 5 foot 2, but 4 foot 10 because Michael J. Fox is taller than her in that movie. It's a good point. He's definitely tiny.

That's a good call. Apex Mountain, the Midwest? Wow. Really? I don't know about that. The Packers win the Super Bowl the next year. There's just a lot of good stuff going on in Wisconsin that year. Field of dreams is where.

I don't know. Wisconsin? I don't know. Wisconsin? Apex Mountain? Break pads. 100%. Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. Bill, could you describe what a brake pad does? I could not. Do you want to know? Could not. Neither could Tommy, boy. Any other Apex Mountains or should we move on? How about holy schnikes?

Holy Snikes. Hey, get out of my! I like that. And if you read about it, Farley claims he took it from John Candy, which in planes, trains and automobiles, which this movie resembles a great deal if you go back and, uh, and compare the parallels. But a holy shnikey's it good. And I just like, oh, son of her. I like son of a when you can't say son of a bitch and just

get son of him. He used it a lot, about a dozen times. Picking Nits. I don't have a couple. It's hard to pick Nits with a comedy that's ridiculous. How hard would it be to drive on the highway without a driver's side door. Just feel like it's way harder than maybe the movie gave it. I think you could put your seatbelt on. Right. I think the wind would be really bad though. And you'd just be way more scared.

I would imagine. Yeah, especially in the fall with the, I mean, you see the leaves are turning. Although he graduated. It's tough to tell if it's the fall. I think it's the fall. But anyway, yeah, they're driving through kind of cold country there. Yeah, and then there's basically a whole convertible stretch for them, too, which in the Midwest, you're basically looking at May, June, July,

and that's the only, in August, those are the only doable driver on the highway, the convertible weather. But if that's the case, then Farley's way sweatier. Because you're talking, like, it's 100 degrees. Like, he's just sweat becomes a character in this movie. So I don't know what season we're in with this movie. Tommy Sr. was rich enough that I feel like. like he's at least having somebody research his fiance. At least not a, you have your friend at the

Sandusky Police Station. Like, you just run a background check, this smoking hot lady in her 30s who's suddenly interested in this old rich guy. I don't know. Where did they meet at a retreat or something? Or was it a spa and they worked there together? I think it was a weight loss camp. Oh, that's what it was. A weight loss camp. Yeah, that's right. Which is a weird. So let's just like, unpack Bo Derek's character's grift here. So she gets a job as like a coach slash counselor at a weight loss camp so that she can meet overweight wealthy guys and then marry them and then hope they die. Like what's the, what was the move here?

Right. And then here's here's my handsome son Rob Blow who's only three three years younger than I am. Yeah. It's crazy. It's tough. Would it be that easy, we mentioned this earlier in 1995, to hack Julie Warner's computer and change hundreds of break bad sales that were across the country?

I still feel like best case scenario, that's three hours of Roblo's Day, just changing all the totals around. I don't know. The movie makes it seem like he's just in there for one minute, presses two keys, and then everything gets fucked up. Yeah, also, here's another thing. He's an idiot. He's not, he's not that much smarter than Tommy Boy, really. I mean, this is a guy can't even shoot out a tire on the trucks. He's having trouble. Everything he does, he does he do? He's peeing on the reactor there and the sparks go up.

So everything flies in his face. We're supposed to think he has this, he's computer savvy. He goes on, like you said, she was probably away from her desk for like three to five minutes. And he changes all these orders, dozens and dozens of orders and knows exactly where to jump in and out? It's tough. It does lead to one of my favorite scenes, though, which is when he actually breaks in and he changes all the numbers, and then Julie Warner's character comes in and he walks away from the computer and he leans against the shoot and the shoot rips his shirt off. And he very quickly says, you know, between that and the sweetness, I'd say hang on to him and

then walks out with no shirt on. It's really some good low in that scene. Right. could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? God no. How about this? Don't remake this movie. Stay away.

Best quote. We mentioned a lot of them. Just had a couple more. A lot of people go to college for seven years. I know they're called doctors. Did you hear I finally graduated? Yeah, and just a shade under a decade, too. All right.

You know, a lot of people go to college for seven years. I know. They're called doctors. Great line. When Farley does the, I'm retarded. Like, I know we're not supposed to say that word anymore. But the way he delivers that with, which he would do on SNL too, but he had that like self-deprecating.

He would do that on the Chris Farley show, S&L sketch too, when he would have the guests on and he would try to talk and he would just get so flustered. And then he would just start hitting himself in the head. I was his like self-abuse of I'm such a moron I can't believe I did that was like one of his best tricks enjoyed that uh did you eat a lot of paint chips as a kid why and then I like when spade says I just barfed on an inhale I think they're pissed when he's drunk I thought it was good like any other quotes we didn't mention on the podcast yet how about uh I can get a good look at a steak by sticking my head up a bull's ass but I'd rather take the butcher's word for it which took him the entire movie

to get right and then it was so gratifying when he actually did. Hey, I'll tell you what. I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take the butcher's word for it. It was good, yeah, he nailed the landing finally. Yeah, we should have put that in what stage is the best. Unanswerable question, probably unanswerable questions.

I only have two. Are we sure Bo Derek didn't kill Tommy Sr.? Yeah. You think she poisoned him. I mean, her whole thing is It's a grift and she wants to marry him and then hope he dies because she's fat. They have the wedding and he dies during the reception. And I don't know. It feels like there might have been a murder.

I was thinking the same thing. What would have been a better way to reveal that this is not a legit. This is not a kosher arrangement to show her spiking his drink during the ceremony or a couple of scenes later where we just see them embrace. I don't know. I think I think you're right. Or they do the toxicology report and it's time to when they had that Zelensky meeting and it's like, we just found he's, he had this crazy thing and we found the bottle in your room. I guess it would have been too much of a, too much of a detour. But yeah, you guys wanted to be like presumed innocent or something. It's Tom's boy. It just bothers me that Zelensky ends up dating her at the end theoretically. I don't know. And then Tommy and Julie Warner, were they dating? Were there, was it a sexual relationship at any point? She's not on the boat at the end. They went on one date.

We never saw them kiss or have any affection. But yet, I feel like it's his girlfriend in the movie. But she definitely wasn't. She was about to ditch him and leave when she thought she screwed up the brake pad. Sal, how do their next six months play out? It's so funny. Do you remember Simmons? You might have been gone by now, but one of the very first years Jimmy did the Uphrants, the ABC Uphrons, where he presents, he does like basically a 10 minutes of standup as the advertisers sit there and decide if they're going to write a check or not. He was going to present the bit and we had it shot and everything. And it was called, it was for a new ABC sitcom called Fat Guy with a beautiful wife. And Jimmy was in it. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. And Rebecca Romaine was in it. And they shot like three scenes.

And it was very similar to a lot of stuff that was on TV. And they brought it to the up front. ABC was okay with it. And then they realized they had three comedies like that were just like it. Like, we can't parody this because this is exactly how our fall lineup is going to roll out. It hit too close to home. Yeah, I remember. Exactly.

So I think she's, I think it could work for them. I really do. I don't think she was too, you know, it wasn't Tommy Boy and Bo Derek. It was, you know, this kind of meek. character who was like cute and I think it would have worked. I think they could last. Sean? The boat could last.

I believe in the possibility of love between Julie Warner and Chris Farley. That's great. Physically it's terrifying because she, as we've learned, she's four foot six. And he's six foot seven, seven hundred pounds. So that's scary. But otherwise, I think they're great together. Who won the movie is usually our last category? This one's pretty easy.

It's Chris Farley. He won. Oh, it is. Oh, you think so. Oh, wow. Twist. We did. I did cast away by myself a couple weeks ago, and that was the most convincing who won the movie

ever. But this is up there. It's in the mix for most convincing. This is a Chris Farley movie. Hey, this was really fun. Sal, any last words? Your first rewatchable's pod? Well, this is great.

You know, I don't know. I sit home. I'm thinking, Sean, maybe I think of it differently in these tough times. I kind of look at, well, what would I be doing right now? Maybe the Mets would probably be one in five. DeGrom would be battling tendonitis in his elbow. I try to think worst case scenario, what I'm missing. Simmons, you know I would have had Kansas on a crazy money line parlay

and they lost like in the third round. Oh, yeah. This is what I'm thinking. But I also, when I look, think back at this movie, who would have been better to do a coronavirus PSA right now than Chris Farley to scream at people. We saw Larry David. He half-ass kind of threw one.

It had pained him to do one. But Chris Farley would have scared the shit out of everybody into staying home. And for many reasons, but for that reason also, I miss him. That was well said. And as you were saying it, I just realized how much money you would have lost during March madness. You're the only person who's actually, actually, the financially, the coronavirus has been better for you because of all the money you're not losing.

Exactly. March madness. You just got killed every year. Yeah, I know. You don't have to remind me. Sean, any last words? We're just sharing this beautiful memorial for the late beloved Chris Farley and all you guys can think about is how you're not being degenerate scamming right now.

Incredible stuff for both of you. All right. That's it for the rewatchable. Sean and Sal, this is a pleasure. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks, fellas. Thanks, Bill.

All right. That's it for the rewatchables. to get a jump start on movies we're doing next week. The first one is Total Recall, the good one, the one that matters. Oh, yeah, that one. And then the second one will be Enemy of the State. So those are two really, really good rewatchables. And you can watch them this weekend.

Check both in the mouth. Hope you're staying safe. Hope you're not getting too down about all this stuff. We're going to be here. We're going to have a whole bunch of content for you to take your mind off as much as we can. Stay safe. Listen to the doctors. Listen to the scientists. Talk to you soon.