The Worst Idea Of All Time - Family Friends 04

Episode Date: October 16, 2026

PRODUCTION NOTE: Opps - this was supposed to come out ages ago, sorry!Let’s be in a park together, get off our emails and listen to a podcast. Specifically, this one. Guy’s been crushing on some stand up shows and absolutely dying at others. Tim recounts recently contracting a virus that only children should be gettin’. Also - how bananas are encyclopedias?Join us on the visual side at twioat.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim here, if you want to see me in the flesh and you're in New Zealand or Australia, good news. I'm coming to Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland and Wellington for the comedy festivals. Please buy some tickets now at timbat.com.com. Guy Montgomery. Oh my God. What? He just caught me on my phone. I just said your name.

What's going on there? You got a little sticker going on. This is a brick. This is what I used to control. Troll. Oh my fucking Lord. Did you buy one of those things that disables your phone? Yeah.

Is that what that is? I've had it for ages, yeah. I didn't know you have one of those for ages. I put a sticker on it. Dog. Because I bought one for Chelsea as well. Oh my God. You got to tell me about this.

Okay, so you tap it to your phone and then your phone's like immobilized for an amount of time that you see it, right? You can select which apps you were designated as your problem apps. This is not paid for. this is just us talking about something. You literally pulled it out of your pocket, so I'm going to... Because I... When we were idling, I wanted to, you know, check Instagram. And could you?

Yeah, because I... So you have to bring it to the phone to unlock it as well. Yeah. Okay, so there's like a physical act. Yes. Okay. But no, it's... Look, I mean, I got advertised it on Instagram.

Where else? It's like... Basically, this is acknowledgement from... a company that the scientists who are making the phones so addictive. They won. Have won. Well done. Like literally.

Literally. This is. And clinicians who dedicated their lives to, not helping people, but in fact, making more money for Marks. Who got signed like NBA level contracts to basically destroy the human attention span. We love it. And critical thinking. And so I bought one of these and it's helped me.

Hey, that's great, man. I'm glad it's helped you. No further comments. I brought it out today. Usually I leave it at home so that when I'm out and about, you can use your phone. I can't use my phone. You can't.

I'll brick it at home and then I'll leave the house and then I've got no opportunity to fucking idle away, you know, 15 minutes on Instagram when I'm sitting somewhere. Like so many people who can't shit in a public toilet guy bricks it at home. Yeah. Also, it's like, you know, Instagram, it used to be photos of friends. and then it was less of that and then it was like

but people you like and then it was less people you like and more people that the algorithm thought you would like and then now it's AI and now they're pushing the people out of the way and just generating

like guessing it content because I guess the idea is that if you don't have to remunerate generative videos I hold out High hope. I've got sort of an accelerationist's perspective on the internet at this point. I think they're fucking it up so bad that it's just going to collapse and on itself. And great.

Yeah. Good. That would be good. We'll go back to the park. You guys want to go to the park? Should we just like disconnect? We might be in a park right now. This might be how someone's choosing to spend their time in a park.

Beautiful. And it's interesting to think that, because this is what I do. If I'm out and about, I'm walking, I'm sitting, I'm listening to a podcast. but I'm not doing a second activity. Like, or, you know, I could be drawing. I could be doing, I could be doing a medial task at home. But if I'm like, if I'm listening to a podcast and not also checking my emails on my phone, I'm like, I'm doing it.

I'm like, you're really proud of yourself? I think I'm present right now. Because you're doing one thing. That is, that is the, the bar is so low, you guys. That is the slow lowering of the bar. The bar is so incredibly low. Our grandparents went to war And we're stoked that we can listen to a podcast

On a Park Bench without checking our emails So thanks for choosing us Thanks for choosing us Thank you to our four bears For fighting in those wars I guess Seems like a weird thing Do you know, can I say something?

Always In the interest of full honesty I recently did a stand-up show With Chris Parker Where we got people to write stuff down And you pull it out of the bucket And you'd improvise in the back of that So this is

I'm going to reconstitute something I said, but I think it's funny and you might enjoy it. And also, it's good to try recontextualize it to see if it was just funny because it was knowingly made up in front of a people, or if as an observation it has more legs. But when you mention our forebears and fighting in wars, it is staggering to me that, and I know that it was not necessarily a moral position, but that Switzerland managed to remain neutral through World War II. And yet New Zealand was like, yeah, we're going to come. I'm over.

That is like just, you know, if you look at a map, you're like, how? That's like a house, a house, a fight breaking out of the house party and the host being like, I'm going to let this one run out and us getting an Uber across town to fucking throw hands. That's good. Really good. Yeah. You reckon? I think that's funny. Stand up.

Yeah. I'll give it a go. Yeah. Punch it in, man. That's good. Yeah. You back on the stages? Big time.

Having fun. Enjoying yourself. I've been doing really well at shows which I've put on. And when I've been like headlining on other people's shows, I've been doing less well. That's good. That's so good. Which is right. And it's good to, it keeps me sharp and honest because I think the amount of give and leeway I'm getting from an audience.

So I'm like, hey, I'm going to throw new material out and it might suck. Yeah. It's like helpful, but not honest. Whereas the sort of feedback I'm getting from audiences who have just paid to watch a comedy show. and I'm going out there and like being funny for a bit and then sort of trying to be funny for a bit. It's like that's not a good feeling in the body but it's real valuable input. Valuable is the right word for it, I think. How about you?

Humbling. Oh my God. Fucking so humbling. So humbling. I went on after Justine Smith and Titterangi. She could not have been funnier. Oh my God. Waldemal laughs.

Not a moment without her saying something the audience could not have laughed harder at. And then I amble on. I get some laughs and then I get no laughs and then I get some laughed. I've been better. It's good though, right? Yeah. You don't want a free ride and a fancy car. No, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no, it's good. It's good for me. But I'm fucking motivated. Yeah, great. I'm motivated to be really good. Stuck in that fire. It's nice to take time off and start again. Yeah, definitely.

How's your family? Family's good. Oh, yeah, family's good. Billy experimented with being sick, which is good on her. That's a lovely way of framing it. Well, you've got to push boundaries. She's had a lot of experience being healthy.

That's right. And we thought it was time for her. We didn't think it was time. To grow up. She took agents. And get a virus. Yeah. Hang out with her cousin.

Shout out to her cousin. Who goes to daycare? Billy doesn't. You know, they're fucking incubators. So had a little run with hand, foot and mouth. three of the main baby parts I'm pretty sure I put this on the record when it happened but

Oscar I think no maybe it was Remy got hand foot and mouth and and it's it's not great but it's one of those ones similar to chicken pox where the younger you get it the less severe it is is my understanding so then I said to my wife who is a doctor general practitioner

do I do we need to be worried about this or she says no you don't need to to be worried about this because you really only get it once. It's like chicken pox. You just get it once and you would have had it as a kid. And I said, great. And then I proceeded to catch hand foot and mouth disease as an adult and it fucking sucked.

Oh my God. Did you get the sores? Yeah. Oh, dude. It was no good. That's not good at all. Getting it as a baby looks awful. Getting it in your mid-30s.

Yeah. Also pretty shit. Also like the cells are rejected. Like, you know. And then I rang my mom and I was like, did I have hand foot and mouth? She's like, you want to know something? You were the one. I'm one of four codes.

You were the one who hadn't had it. Oh, well, I mean, good on you. You know, I'm stuck for your mum because it's annoying if your kid has it. So good on her for getting to sidestep at one child. I guess so. But you bought the brunt of it. Yeah, so no, it's, but it was all right, you know. Like, it's not as good as when she's healthy.

Yeah. But kids bounce back fast, you know, the sores have healed. That's good. The tide is high, but I'm holding on. You know, I'm going to be your number one. Mine? I'm not the kind of girl. My number one?

Who gives up just like that? Oh, no. Every girl wants you to be her man, but I'll wait right here till it's my turn. I don't know who sings the original, but I will tell you, Atomic Kitten did a cover that was on the airwaves when I was a young lad. I feel like that's really something I should know.

The OG? Yeah. Who wrote an originally released tight as eye? Information is being held more lightly because it's all written down somewhere. But the people who wrote it down do have the power to change it. It's harder to find the information. They offer you a synthesized version of the information before you access the information. And as part of their disclaimer in offering you the synthesized version of the information,

they say, by the way, you might want to double check this information. It could be wrong. But it's harder for you to find the original source because what we're doing is better. Well, how the fuck does that work? I was in Auckland Central Library with my two children yesterday and happened upon a collection of encyclopedia. Wow. I've not seen in many years.

And actually, it was a real trick because the cover on the book, and I've been told so many times not to judge one of these by the frontage, but I did. And it looked like it was a children's books. I pulled it off the shelf. And lo and behold, it was an encyclopedia. For adults, really. a collection of just

I forgot what kind of a banana's concept in an encyclopedia is just like hey you know all things we're going to write them down in this collection of books which you can just have on your bookshelf

and if you've got any correct questions about Ardvaks or Egypt or I don't know the division of sales it's in one of these books yeah It's just a whole bunch of shit

Or like some famous tennis player From the 1960s in South Africa It's just in this book It's so cool And they're just there And the cool thing about that now is What I've heard is that There's AI companies

Are buying all the books And absorbing them And then destroying the physical copies Of the books Which I think is some way to get Around copyright laws perhaps Or maybe they just don't want to Hold physical inventory

Of any things that isn't a hard drive. And I just think it's fucking awesome. That instead of having a printed physical record of something that's been checked by lots of researchers and people that they've committed to print because they've got high confidence that the information is correct, we're instead putting it into a magic calculator, which is provably often demonstrably wrong. Yeah.

And just going, hey, we'll just spin the wheel and hope that you've got the gist of this one. This calculator, this is the best calculator in the world. And it is inevitable that everyone in the world it's going to use this calculator. You want to know what's funny about the calculator? It will often get questions wrong, such as how many O's are in the word balloon. Yeah. That's a bad calculator, man. And yet we're trusting it with like, hey, how do I rescue my marriage?

Do I have this rare neurological disease? Dude, you don't know how many O's are in the word balloon. We have tied up a huge amount of the world's capital in the idea that this calculator will work. will work. But we don't worry about that kind of thing. We certainly don't around here in the family friend house. No. Family friend room.

What do your memories of going to a family friend's house? Not specific. Broad. So I grew up in Christchurch as you did and my godparents, Mary and Steve, huge shout out to them. Can't imagine their listener. Yeah. But I remember going to the place. Not Adam and Eve, it's Mary and Steve.

You get these? Very good. You get this? From memories, I think they were both quite Catholic as well, so that fits. Fuck, yeah. A lot of kids. Three in their family. So we beat them on that count.

Four for us, three for them. Maybe they were sinning Catholics. But I remember, well, you're going to love the next bit. You kind of get these recontextualized flashbacks of your childhood, you know, as an adult, and particularly as a parent. And I remember, I'm pretty sure my parents going over there, and all the adults is just getting fucking wasted. Of course.

And it's like, Yeah, that rocks. Just kids running amuck while your parents are getting on the ones and twos. That's kind of, yeah, I remember that. I mean, I didn't watch or read peanuts or watch like the cartoons as a kid, but as an adult, hearing the way that they had adults talking that, you know, like, whoo, who, who, who, like, that is so representative of me wanting to leave. And mum and dad just bouncing from one white noise conversation to another.

The five more minutes. Oh, my God. It would drive me crazy. Five more minutes. And now, you know, it's actually, the worm is turned. I am, well, no, I mean, I guess I was sort of trying to be the corraler back then. But I was doing some corraling recently. You know, like, you were trying to extricate everyone out of there.

It's more fun to be corralled. Hey, sorry, you know, yeah, yeah, I'll be right with you. I just got to finish this conversation. Da, da, da, da, da. I love being that guy. I don't like being the guy who's like, hey, we have to go now. Who are you talking to in this situation? Chelsea.

Or your partner? You're talking to Chelsea. Oh, okay. So it's your responsibility. So Chelsea is out there just shining your light on the room. That's such as she does. And it's your job to go, the train's about to leave. 100%.

We need to get on the carriage. Yes. Right. There is a babysitter at home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're at a film festival event and she's got so many friends, so many amazing conversations to have. And I'm saying, oh, God.

and you can stay she's no no I'll come and then and then corral I would love to be corralled I would love the freedom to be corralled I would love to be like flying high out in the world just like

every conversation I'm having is interesting to me and someone actually better yet let's stop corraling no more caroling well then what happens then the babysitters there the time and memorial I go I go oh you leave

You Irish goodbye, you say... I'll see at home. See you at home. See it home. You could have done that. That's within your power. It's within your repertoire of options. We drove in together.

I was at a children's birthday party yesterday for two hours, which I would say is probably slightly too long for like a five-year-old's birthday park. How long should you be? You want a 60 to 90-minuteer. 60 minutes is long enough for the kids. How many kids are there? Quite a lot. Yeah, okay.

I think there's got to be a ratio. But I had a fascinating chat. Okay. About New Zealand's power grid with a guy, with a dad. Danger. I'm in danger of hearing parts of that conversation. You never will. Good news or bad news?

Bad news now, good news in the future. Oh my God. I'll happily take my medicine now. You've said your peace. No, no, no, no, not from you, but just like the forecast is all I need. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, bad news up front, no trouble.

Yeah. think soul is going to be good. Yeah. We're going to do it, guys. It's such a crazy situation being at kids' birthday parties. If you're not kind of a very gregarious or what's the word I'm looking for? Like an extroverted sort of a person. Torture.

Yeah. I mean, you must go great. I'm fine. You're good. I'm fine. But there's a time limit on it as well. Yeah, of course. Well, because I think I do that where maybe you put on too much sparkle up top.

Absolutely. You run out of gas. Totally. Yeah. It's probably why I've got a 90 minute cap on it. Yeah. Get to that 120 minute mark. I'm like, I'm out of stories.

To me, I'm like, if you've got lots of kids, you can keep it short. If you've only got a few kids and they're going to get into deep play, that'd be long, but don't make the parents stick around. This is a, they always add a, like a fucking trampoline establishment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These sorts of things. Yes. The fucking coffee machine was broken, which is insane to me. So me and one of the cool dads bonded over that.

Because I was from the perspective of like, this is a pretty much intolerable situation without a flat white in my hand. He was like, they are leaving all their money on the table. Like right now in this room, there are 50 adults. Every single one of them would have bought a coffee. Yeah. That's like $400. Yeah.

Walked out the door just because you haven't got your machine sorted out. Oh, wow. I like the son of this guy. It sounds enterprising. He's a cool guy, actually. He's a real cool guy. He looks like a surfer, but he's part of a company that makes bottled water for music festivals. And it's a fucking bottle.

It's all from recycled materials. Yeah, yeah. It's like a new, cool, eco. Because it has to be. Substrate. Yeah, yeah, of course. Are they making good money? Yeah, yeah, it's all going great.

It's all going great. Except the IT thing fucked out recently. and it threw the whole thing out. How are you feeling about the impending grown-ups three adventure that we're going to be going on? Have you thought much about it? Have you had feelings about it? Have you seen much online about what's going to be happening?

We've had the photo released, a table, populated by famous actors who are in the film. Selma Hayek's back? Maya Rudolph. Is she was spayed at the table? I guess at a I guess at a story point based on the configuration

of the table so I'm just going to get the table up and have a look So you've got Selma Hayek and Adam Sandor sitting next to each other which makes sense They are married

in the world of the film Gotcha You've got Maya Rudolph sitting next to Dion Cole who's an actor-comedian New Collaborator in the grown-ups universe Cool

And then you've got David Spade And an unnamed Blonde woman presumably his love interest Then you've got Chris Rock. Okay. So I think Chris Rock is copying life. I think Chris Rock is jealous of, you know, some new guy.

Or they split in the intervening period between two and three. That's a fun dynamic in a movie. I don't think so. That's too heavy. Then you've got Jackie Sandler. Then you've got the woman who played Kevin James' wife, whose name I can't remember. Oh, yes.

Then you've got Lamansoff himself, K James. How's he looking? Well, he's gone. So he didn't go for plugs. He just shaved. it. He's gone for the classic sort of bald guy beard. But what shape is, I know it's not a huge

photo. I know we're not dealing with 200 megapixel image here, but... Because he got in great shape for that MMA one. Yeah. No, he's like, he's just, he's king of Queens, Kevin James. Gotcha. Then you've got Schneider in a hairpiece who honestly looks as... We don't know that.

He looks as surprised as anyone to be... He looks as surprised as I feel to see this cunt at this table. He's looking at me like, yeah, I fucking did that bitch. It's actually, look at him. Look at him and tell me that's not exactly how he feels. He is like the Cheshire cat who got the cream.

Yeah. He knows he shouldn't be there. Fucking 100%. Then there's a kid who must be from the first movie. The hairpiece is correct guy, because I thought the hair that he was rocking was the same as in Daddy Dota trip. But he's got like an Elvis. Yeah, he's got, so the Danny Zucco style. Yeah.

So, like, look, how do I feel about it? Interested. Like, honestly, surprised that you signed up for a year with it. Oh, look, it's closure. What it is to me is it's the right way of things. It's poetic justice. It's the passage of time. It's, I think as we mentioned in a recent episode discussing Happy Gilmore, it's like, you know,

in the grand story we tell ourselves about life and meaning and purpose. It is family man, Adam Sandler, who's always successfully married his career and his family, put the family first next to the career. We have made a name for ourselves by analyzing the career output, not looking at the interpersonal output, because how could we?

Okay? We've been looking at the wrong thing. Now, he's got his finger on the pulse, is we have young families. He's serving us up a big fucking helping of, how do you like these apples? How do you like my family vacation? Look, I'm not going to lie.

We're going to have a lot of conversations, administrative conversations before the release date about how, about process. Yeah. How are we going to incorporate this responsibility into our lives in a way which does not alienate those we love? Like what is it? What is process?

Well, you're putting that in a binary fashion. I think there's a sliding. How much, how do we reduce the hurt in pain inflicted on others? That's right. I mean, look, I take every day as it comes. I'm not getting ahead of myself. I was thinking in the shower last night, we should probably revisit the source material, you know,

like as we get closer, I think we should probably do grown-ups one and two. I have sworn so many times to not watch grown-ups too and then had to watch it one more time for someone's podcast. I know, but this is for us. Yeah. This is... I'll do it. This is to say goodbye on our terms.

Like, I think it pleases me to know that... It's a house of horrors we've built, and this is like the last room, and it's the only way out, because I can't go back the other way. I can't go... You can't exit through the entrance. Well, I can't fucking go and walk past, like,

I can't go and walk past Arthur Fleck and Dom and fucking Dr. Doolittle and Real Rob and Sjp and the Gals and fucking Maximum Joseph and Zocli. And like I can't go back through all those rooms. There's one room left. You know? And like right now I'm in what is a pretty nice waiting room? You know, I'm in an observatory. I'm exploring the universe. Awesome.

And then, you know, I'm biting my time. I've never more felt like your therapist than I do in this moment. What do you make of where I am? I think that you have suffered in your past. And I think that you are figuring out a somewhat healthy way to deal with it. And I'm worried about the obligations you have coming up, what that means for you, considering your past.

I honestly, like, I've thought about, I've thought about the body feeling of watching it for the first time. And I think there is, honestly, and this isn't euphemistic, what I would describe as excitement and anticipation.

There is like a genuine excitement. What new adventures await? Honestly, there is a long time listeners to our podcast will know about the importance of this. But the one detail that I am waiting on with absolute baited breath is the precise duration of the film. That is going to inform so much of the year. Well, why do we make some guesses? 96 minutes, including credits. I'm going 101.

Something about 101 feels resonant. Yeah, okay Should I Should I dig up Previous Runtimes Yeah, yeah Please, let's see So grown-ups

The original 2010 Directed by Dennis Dugan 102 minutes Wow With an average of 3.4 On letterboxed

Out of Five That's quite high Grownups 2 This is why I think It was going to be 101 I didn't know this

But grownups 2 is 101 minutes 102 and then 101. Well, hopefully it'll be 100. This is three stars on letterboxed. The most popular review is $2,4,4,948,000 worldwide. Our species does not deserve to live.

The second most popular review, five stars. I don't care. I love Adam Sandler movies on a rewatch. that's the second most popular review on letterbox wow yeah all right the third most popular review of it on letterbox yeah no joke as i was leaving the theatre and patting my pockets to make sure i had everything i brought in there was something missing no not my dignity and self-esteem i actually lost those at the ticket kiosk i lost my wallet for a minute i was convinced that adam the con man sandler himself had used some form of black magic reached his hand out into the audience and personally stole all my cash.

Sure enough, after a minute of searching out of my seat, I found my wallet. But you had me there for a second, Sandy, you got me, you really did. I'm amazed that it's so popular, but then I realized this was published on the 4th of August 2013. So this is like an early adopted to Letterbox

reviewing the movie in real time. Oh, was Letterboxed around in 2013? Apparently. Shockin. But there was one, there's one... I think I don't know if I've read this before. But can we end on this? This is like...

Please get on the mic though I found this review of it on letterbox I can't remember when because I started using letterbox after we did this season but this is from letterboxed user Matt Guerrero okay

he's only got 101 followers on letterboxed Is that small? It's not a lot of people M-A-T-G-U-E-R-E-R-E-R-O This is his review of grown-ups two He gives it five stars and this is published on the 12th of August 2019

It begins with a quote I ain't no boy with a mind you can toy Because if this is a ploy I'll destroy Illinois Cinema in all end quote Well he's actually missed The fight sort of the final line of that No no no

A dinosaur Because it kind of rhymes You need to see what You need to hear what is coming up So that's the end of the quote Cinema in all forms Demands to be challenged As it reaches a certain status quo

That can become both stagnant and tiresome It demands controversy and it demands growth. This is something that directed Dennis Dugan and writers Adam Sandler, Tim Hurleyy and Fred Wolf all understand. Every creative mastermind involved with grown-ups to essentially have created a surreal and observant take on the intricacies of reminiscing on your adolescent years as you slowly exit them, moving on to a different period within your lifetime. The experience and lessons that come with periodic experience within one's own lifetime

are both presence and virtues that it be shared with the ones that you love. In its very own essence, the things that you acquire throughout your lifetime are essentially not yours alone. They are to be shared. And this film does a fantastic job in showing the difficulties and errors that can be associated with such important lessons. Grownups too illustrates the difficulties with accepting growth, teaching and family. Our failures and shortcomings can force us to depend on our own specific vices.

Dennis Dugan gives us a harsh cinematic glimpse into what these vices can look like. Vices such as alcoholism, child abandonment, wrong lessons, and so much. much more are captured by Dugan's harsh and unforgiving perspective. This is a masterclass and tonal balance. Harsh and unforgiving scenes are contrast with hypnotically humorous anecdotes that give the viewer both enticed and entertained. Whether it's Kevin James jumping nude into a river, which metaphorically insinuates the issues with body shaming and self-confidence that our generation continues to struggle with, or David Spade impersonating a raccoon, ultimately objectifying animal rights issues intertwined with the human need to survive. Expository allegation.

and elongated anomalies can be found in each and every scene. Every scene in this film is layered in masterful metaphor. We can see this in a scene such as the cheerleader car wash scene. This film's much needed to take on the objectification of the human body is something that babies should be watching as it tells the viewer to leave one's own self rather than searching for the meaning of God and the body of someone else, to love one's own self, sorry. This film understands the complicated and layered premise that it has to convey. We see such a delicate, mathful use of character exposition in Ford Cinematography.

The juxtaposition of metaphor is essentially. interspersed with the duality of man and the search for a higher god. With an ultimate and perfect performance from Adam Sandler, outdoing his performance in the boring and tired film Punch Drank Love, as well as an incredible showcase of acting from Steve Buscemi, so much better than his tiresome and derivative performance in the film Reservoir Dogs, this has to be one of the most important films to ever grace the human psyche. We might as well stop making films, people.

Nothing's ever going to top this. This is cinema in its truest form, pure in its honesty, flawless in its execution. Classics age with grace, and among the classics, rests this masterpiece, basking in its own contemplative emotion. So, I mean, if it's more of that to look forward to,

what are we so worried about? You know what I'm saying? See you there, everybody.