The Worst Idea Of All Time - Ep05: Choose Your Own Adventure

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Hey, guess what? Tim lost his audio so it's up to you to use your IMAGINATION! This episode's audio is available for download here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sf4s7sy1125r93e/TWIOATES05.mp3?dl=0  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

hello everyone this is tim from the worst idea of all time episode 5 except not really i'm a ghost for this episode because i lost my audio yeah this is guy whose voice you'll be hearing a lot more of roughly half the runtime of whatever lies in front of you i i don't think it's been since the first season that we've created a podcast exactly like this and a lot of people online have been speculating about how best to release it. I would describe this as a choose-your-own-adventure episode. Maybe in between what I say,

you can build your own conversation. A lot of people say listening to podcasts is like listening to your friends have a conversation. A lot of people find listening to podcasts frustrating when the hosts are trying to find a piece of information that you carry with you. Here's a great chance for you to slot yourself right into timbo's seat on the worst idea of all time and see how fucking annoying it is to talk to a real pos like me gmod be me uh in fact i'm

going to make the audio downloadable i assume it's all pretty easily downloadable but real easy to download so you can uh take a portion out mix mix it up, send it in to us. Tell us what you've done with the egg. Here it is. Happy trails, motherfuckers. You have the boy who has what you need in front of you. He's eight years old. Throttle the fucker.

Beat the living shit out of him. Like, do something within your physical. He's eight years old. Throttle the fucker. Beat the living shit out of him. Like, do something within your physical... He's so little. Hello and welcome along to episode five of this emergency season of The Worst Idea of All Time, where myself, Guy Montgomery, and my esteemed associate, Tim Batt, continue to watch Home Alone 3, or as I've written in my rather frantic notes from these most recent screenings, Home Alone 5, for this is the fifth time we've familiarized ourselves

with the plight of Alex Pruitt and co. Not deliberately. Well, that's sort of all I've got. There are notes that follow the heading, but this is just your general welcome where I say hello, Tim. so yeah it looks like tim is whispering to someone who's just off screen and uh it really does not feel like he's engaging with me but i think this is going to make for a pretty good conversation about a movie that is no no i love the video the video is why i got into this thing in the first place um tim talk to me tell me your name what are we talking what's for brekkie

class there's a classic breakfast. On a couple of bits of toast. Any accoutrement? Sauerkraut? Hot sauce? Chili flakes? Is that sort of a top-end delicatessen barbecue sauce, or is that... It's not out of a large sort of plastic squeezy bottle.

It's a... What about the Tom sauce you were using, though? Yeah. What are you doing? What are you doing putting Tom sauce on an egg? An egg is not a hash brown, Tim. Absolutely not. Not in this house.

You'll be laughed out of the place. Oh, what? Oh, man. Do you know what's... Do you know what's totally overrated? Home fries? It's like when you go out for breakfast in America, they go, oh, we do the best home fries. And then they just give you some fucking chunky little chopped up bits of potato

they've left in a frying pan for not quite long enough to taste good. That's the only time you're really going to be introducing tomato sauce to the breakfast plate because you got to fucking you got to soften up those hard little nuggets of potato that they seem to think are worth charging you an extra three bucks for no i've had no no i've had meals with americans ah that is a good that is a good prank it's a great film um now i've seen americans eat home fries you know and if it is a if it is a prank they're playing the long game because they are going through they're going through it they're putting on the ears of someone who's enjoying a slightly cooked diced potato that's all by the by it is i said i said as much at the at the start you even asked if it was a reference to a sci-fi

game called babylon or show i don't know i don't know you know i'm fucking with a sci-fi book at the moment. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin. Le Guin? Le Guin. My friend. My friend recommended it. It's fun. If you get past all the fucking nerdy jargon that's bouncing around the walls, it's a really good story.

It's really interesting. And there's a really beautiful little essay at the top of the book about the function of sci-fi and what Ursula's using it for. Yeah, I mean, what I'm noticing is we've probably spent about five minutes dancing around the elephant in the room, which is, of course, John Hughes' seminal masterpiece, Home Alone 3. yeah uh i would imagine so i think although i i think the sense of humor like kids movies are more squarely pitched at kids and adults now and so there's a slightly more not adult version of that joke but they sneak in jokes for adults that are beyond just we were gonna swear but we didn't but you you know your your your mind extends the sentence to its logical end point um i did pick

up on a few of those in it and it is it is not like those cartoonish qualities are kind of enjoyable uh i imagine that they still populate some kids films but like i don't know what i'm trying to think of Yeah. yeah what that they're pitched at adults nah I think kids kids fucking like

the number of times I've had frozen on in this house recently i should really be running a podcast with you know with the the person who i watch that most with which of course is olive um but no i thought i think that i think that they're pitched and they still i think they still enjoy them oh fuck I can't remember what I was going to say I'm all at odds and ends here I'm at 6s and 7s Tim yeah yeah

but you know if I'm processing at the right speed I can handle that I can handle whatever you throw at me I'm thinking of not right now well in many ways frozen reminds me of the film home alone 3 tim which is a movie i'd love to discuss with you um i've got some notes that i've written unsurprisingly in chronological order here but there's a there's a mountain of them and you know while i would love to discuss the finer details of elsa's journey and frozen this is neither the time nor the place i'm going to start at the beginning hey

it is yeah you really did um the guy at the start of the movie that they buy the missile chip from not the not the broker in hong kong but the actual very ordinary guy who drives a car and axis axis technology he's a very garden variety sort of seemingly like button down family man fucking meat and two veg for dinner what's his involvement like he seems such an unlikely villain and at the end of it even then it's like he doesn't know the crime that he's committing because at the end of the transaction he says i can we get this over with i've got a plane to catch i'm like what what plane does this guy have to catch where the fuck is this guy going Takk for ating med. Thank you. so he he's he he knows that he's they're going to be hot on his tail as soon as anyone comes into work next thing in the morning he's essentially got an eight hour running start

that he's taking by catching this flight snowed in film snowden film i see because he's so casual about it like he i know that it's just crazy to me the power dynamic at play between in that transaction because he carries the thing that they need but he's immediately on the back foot you know like they're sus towards him yeah the insinuate it's a very murdery vibe and then they just throw a suitcase at him which we aren't told whether or not it has any money in it or not like the intensity of that scene it actually sets up something which uh is visited a lot during the movie you might have heard of uh chekhov's gun tim i think that there's something at play in this film called uh hughes's fish and hughes's fish is not in reference to the transaction over the missile trip but it's instead

in reference to speedy uh speedy is alex's goldfish we see him introduced uh through a rube goldberg machine which very elaborately feeds speedy and the amount of intensity that's put on speedy like the introduction the fact that's put on speedy like the introduction the fact that they label the fish they give the fish a name would suggest that speedy is going to be involved in a much heavier way down the line than he is i mean speedy isn't used at all you know like speedy is labeled then forgotten we deal with doris the mouse we deal with that fucking parrot but speedy i don't know but then you know there are so many other instances in this film of hughes's fish which is uh you know very

the script well yeah i mean that that is specifically fish focused but hughes's fish isn't about fish exactly so much as introducing a character element or a detail or something that might suggest it's going to be relevant to the film as it goes on and then never addressing it so in addition to speedy the fish also got the introducing to scarlett johansson's character she is cheating on the sole of her shoe you know like they're introducing a detail to her character which sort of suggests that maybe we'll get a bit of development or growth from her. We might see the repercussions of this behavior at school or in the house. But... no neither because she's also she's writing that she's writing the answers on her shoe while she's still wearing the shoe also i don't know if you've looked outside tim

it's snowy it's snowy everywhere they're gonna there's gonna be a lot of salt on the streets i've seen the walk from their house to the school bus. You're going to smudge your answers. You'd be a lot smarter to write them down on a bit of paper, fold them up, hide them in your sock, and then halfway through the exam, excuse yourself to use the restroom, take out the piece of paper, look at what you got, rip it into tiny bits, flush it down the toilet,

go back in, ace the exam, no fucking questions asked. But we don't even get to explore the fact that Scarlett Johansson is a filthy cheat because this is a classic case of hughes's fish what about this tim yeah i mean it's just why why did they bother doing it and then you've got alex slamming the lid on his thing they make such a big song and dance about alex slamming the lid on his thing not specifically i don't think we need to discuss his penis but it's just like they really hammer this gag from five or six angles i feel like there'd be opportunity for it to be revisited again also you know they're introducing

profession that is a question this guy has got a monster cock there's no it. He's riding around on a wild hog with John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, and Tim Allen. These four grown men have looked at that thing and said, you ride with us, boy. I was pretty proud of myself. Hey, hey, hold on a second.

When I couldn't get the two-part question, you were very understanding and comforting. And now, later in the conversation, when I'm finding my feet, all of a sudden I realize that you were disappointed and befuddled by my inability to address the two-part question. What's this?

part question what's this anyway all that to say that this eight-year-old boy is packing heat and it's to the point that he he doesn't have control over obviously he's got a lot of nerve endings down there because he's still um sorry i just got a fucking text. God, that drives me nuts. I don't want a text. No, it's not. It's not all right. I don't want to receive a text, all right? I'm trying to talk about the size of this eight-year-old's piece. Well, okay, what about this, Tim?

The professional tension between both mom and her boss and dad and his boss. All of this stuff, all of these things that are alluded to, exposition that suggests there might be a story in there that goes beyond just setting up 45 minutes of booby trap scenes. It drives me nuts. All the fun in the booby traps is seeing how they work for the first time. You take that out, you've got nothing left. And if you look at the constituent parts,

there are five or six threads that could be picked up later in the piece if John Hughes had any understanding of Hughes' fish, which is if you see a fish inent parts, there are five or six threads that could be picked up later in the piece if John Hughes had any understanding of Hughes' fish, which is if you see a fish in the first scene of the movie, you fucking introduce the fish, you want at least by the end of the first act the fish to have had some, the fish has to go off, Tim. We want to see the fish get

shot. I don't know. I don't know i don't know i i also have the words sham marriage written down here and circled several times i there's no physical affection or chemistry between them they're both such upstanding citizens apart from the negligence they show towards alex and the fact they're raising a cheater and a thug they by all accounts seem to be you know moralistic and sound of mind they've both got solid jobs they've set up a pretty beautiful life for them and their family and yet there's something missing there's a vital component missing from their marriage and i think that both of them may be you know they could be childhood sweethearts high school sweethearts who commit to one another and then grow apart but

decide that as long as the children are living under the roof they're going to stay there i don't know if this is specifically a sham marriage by its dictionary definition but i feel like that there's more on the horizon for these two obviously you can get all the relationship and sex therapy you need with Mrs. Hess, but I don't think that's what's going to fix it. I think Harville and Williams might have a little thing going, a little fire burning for Mary Lou, the old heel from the workplace,

the woman who she says has no life. Why is she obsessing over her so much? Why does she know all the details of Mary Lou's life? I'll tell you why. Well, she wants to fuck the ever-loving shit out of her, Tim. Nah. well she wants to fuck the ever loving shit out of her Tim nah isn't it a TV show The whole family? The whole family? that means that Alex would be compromising their cover by I understand that.

He did the job. He was expecting to get paid in cash. He should get to choose how to spend his hard-earned dosh. Mrs. Hess... cash he should get to choose how to spend his hard-earned dosh mrs hess yeah that's true i think i get the impression this is a kid who does not want for much if you look at the way that his room's decorated he's literally everything i think he's ever asked for he has been given uh but i do want to actually talk about the about the car and the gifting of it because this has been driving me nuts the whole time. We have a blue box for a mutator. The picture of the car on the box is of a blue remote control car.

It is fucking insanity to me that there's a red car in there and that no one addresses this. If you were a child and you were given a remote control car that had a red picture of a car on the box and inside of the box it was blue i mean you'd probably take it in your stride would you well were you a particular child yeah nice that does sound like one of the real perks yeah you're a flexible guy but yeah i mean i agree he does underplay it somewhat mrs hess you know he just wants to get out of there really yeah well it's sort of you know it is manners and it's it's it's a really mrs hess move isn't it because

she's sort of she's got this buttoned down sort of formal traditional appearance and she abides all of these manners. But beneath that harsh, cold exterior lies a freak. Yeah, 100%. Permission granted. Permission granted. Mmm. Mmm. Of Burton Jernigan he he do you know burton jernigan becomes less intelligent as the movie goes on i think

by the end of it he's reduced to to farce yeah he does but all of his behaviors before that suggests someone who's quite keyed into the operation and knows exactly what they're doing and what they're looking for. Oh, Mr. Bupre. he's the he is he's the odd one out he certainly doesn't fit the bill and he's like the only one who from the outset betrays their competence like everyone else projects an air of ability and he's sort of i think he's probably within the four he's just like the muscle he's the brawn he does what he's meant to be i think he's meant to do all the bum jobs

but yeah i mean i totally agree he's a met the guy's a mess and he's a lot of fun mess and he's a lot of fun can i can i say though alex pruitt uh alex dylan's really brought it for me this time that kid he's a phenom yeah i think he's a really good actor i know that he's got big shoes to fill and i've probably been down on him before but if you if you can get past measuring him against macaulay culkin and what was a career defining performance he he really fulfills the job of being like a cute smart eight-year-old boy yeah i reckon that was in the audition i reckon that was that was probably something that helped push him over the edge i've read that this was a hotly contested part and there was another kid who was going for it uh he i can't remember his name who got beaten out. Well, no, because if a dog catches the car,

then that car is the dog's. You'd be the coolest dog on the block. Yeah. Yeah, if the dog catches the car, the dog owns the block. Yeah. Yeah, if the dog catches the car, the dog owns the car. Nah. I reckon he'd never live that down. I reckon he would have been pretty fucking furious.

I reckon he probably paces around just, you know, cussing out Alex D. Lins. He's got a real vendetta against him. Yeah, I think that probably ruined his life. Alex D. Lins, by all accounts, is probably doing fine. What do you reckon he got paid for this film? Like, $800,000. Imagine getting paid $800,000 to do anything. That's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. Especially in... 50% of what? My shining light was Unger's delivery on, he picks up the phone and overhears Alex talking to his mom and saying, everything's under control. I'm just playing checkers with Mrs. Hess. And even though we know that he's at danger at in at danger he's at risk and uh mr anger no mr pray sorry he hangs up the phone afterwards and he says what a brave little fellow

and delivery performance uh like the respect the respect that it communicates from Mr. Beaupre to Alex, I really enjoy. And then later on, though, I get frustrated at Mr. Beaupre. When Alex is going to save Mrs. Hess from freezing to death in the garage with the door open, and he's hiding in the corner, and he comes out, and he's like, where's the chip? And he points a gun at him. And Alex goes, that gun doesn't belong to you either. I'm like, okay, maybe the gun is not the gun he thinks it is but you're a grown man

who is wanted by the FBI they've been on your tail for 7 years you have the boy who has what you need in front of you he's 8 years old throttle the fucker beat the living shit out of him like do something within your physical he's so little

he's only 8 he's so light don't Like, do something within your physical. He's so little. He's only eight. He's so light. Don't. Absolutely. It's just have at him, you know the criteria that we're going to be setting for this movie by the end of this journey tim i imagine will be very're talking about and i just want to say that while you might associate these two parts of the movies being close together they actually represent a 40 to

45 minute chunk of time passing because it's all one section of movie which is booby traps in the house it feels like it's one movement but every time they get to it i'm like oh we must be close and then i check the what the time lapse and i'm like 45 minutes 45 minutes of a bunch of shit i know is about to happen hmm this i will i will give it to it's also in chicago yeah i will give it to the movie though a lot of the exposition shots and a lot of the stuff that we're seeing i did long and this might just be a representative of the situation i did long for a wintry stroll through suburban chicago i wanted to rag up really warm some nice woolen socks and maybe some very grippy boots and just take a fucking evening stroll for a couple of hours.

Real aimless. it would have been it would have been funny also and again you know we're veering into perilous territory here but it would be funny if the physical maladies that before the crooks and have a cartoonish impact had very real consequences for anyone who isn't one of the four thieves and so while these pranks are quite playful and you know inconsequential for the the crooks if any of that shit happens to a person who exists in the real world they fucking die yeah he's got so many that's the thing like there'd be so many booby traps that went unused what are the chances you set up x amount of booby traps and that is exactly like you know you understand the

innards of your house so clearly that the crooks follow exactly the blueprint you imagine for them i'm imagining gonna have to okay yeah and he puts it but he puts it next to a car like so this is this is i actually think this is kind of clever from an idiot from someone who we understand to be fucking dense he's created the appearance because this is a cul-de-sac or a non a no exit street he's created the appearance of a very long driveway it fools it fools the um the snow moving truck it fools one member of it fools it fools a council member we see a shot of a um a snow plow or whatever plowing snow who completely misses a usual turn off because there's a car in a post box where they would usually turn down a street that they presumably have driven past and down hundreds of times before yeah it really is uh it's an accurate way to look at it tim and like right now i have to go away to

do a voiceover for a car company and i'm all going well i can kick them to the curb and just record conversations with you of varying quality uh it's been a blast i hope everyone's looking after themselves i am not looking forward to seeing this movie again although that was much less painful than watch four so if you were to graph the experience i'd say we just saw a little uptick looking after themselves. I am not looking forward to seeing this movie again, although that was much less painful than Watch 4. So if you were to graph the experience, I'd say we just saw a little uptick in experience. And also, I've got a conspiracy theory

to discuss with you that we didn't get to today, Tim. Well, what I've done is I've drawn a line between Alex and Brady. Congrats in my appropriate. Now we're fucking talking. So a mule is the product of a donkey and a horse. I'm pretty sure.

Yeah, a donkey that is absolutely punching. Yeah, how fucking well is that donkey doing?