The Worst Idea Of All Time - REVIEW: Christmas Nightmare Edition

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

This was originally a pay-walled episode available only to Patreon supporters. Please consider if you can #PayTheBoiz at patreon.com/join/TWIOAT.You maniacs couldn't decide on which Christmas-themed movie we should watch so WE WATCHED BOTH! Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas & Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa. Saving Christmas is Kirk's earnest and Christian attempt a convince his even more earnest and even more Christian co-star, named Christian, that modern Christmas is an earnestness Christian holiday.Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa is a project starring Nancy Cartwright and Mark Hamill that defies description and belief. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

today you ready okay let's go the hunt for the wildest movie of the summer everybody ends here this is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately borderlands now playing Hello and welcome to the worst idea of all time, Patreon Pal's Christmas Nightmare Edition. And this, mid-January, almost headed into late January. That's right. Hi guys. Christmas lives on, thanks to the boys and their insistence, I guess, on taking a break and your insistence on us providing you Christmas content.

But if I've learned anything from the not one but two films we've just watched, Tim, it's that Christmas is forever. Christmas is omnipresent, omniscient. Christmas is in our waking moments and in our nightmares also it is all around us it is inside of us and it is inescapable um so just a little background on what's happened here is that uh as you may or may not know this is how the patreon works if you contribute five dollars a month or more to us uh then you get access to these beautiful episodes. If you contribute $10 or more a month to us,

you are part of the elusive Deciders Club who come together like a... What is it called who decides the Pope? The Conclave. I'm not sure. But from what I can tell, the people in this Deciders Club are a bunch of cashed up freaks who appear to know only the most obscure touchstones of pop culture.

They're good people, Guy. They're the best people. They haunt the fringes of the internet, digging up these unearthed, you don't want to call them treasures, certainly they have they glint and glow like precious metals and then you look at them really closely and you're like i don't even know what to make of this uh i can't believe you brought this attitude to this special man i am full of christmas joy i fucking loved this so we did a poll as we always do and it was a dead tie. Do you call that a dead heat? Dead heat, yeah. I don't know. At the end, between, what's his name, Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas and Rhapsody Street Kids Believe in Santa.

Two very disparate projects, couldn't be further apart in some ways, but both on the theme of Christmas. And so I looked at the durations of both and I thought, hey guy, you know what? We're putting these out late this really is a december feast that we're eating in january why don't we do both and we'll just ram them together so we've just watched both of us back to back kurt cameron renowned um christian superstar presenting his own christmas special which is an hour long, featuring his sister.

And I later found out the director is the sort of protagonist or antagonist of the whole project. That wasn't actually his sister. That was an actor. No, that was his actual sister, I think. In the credits, there's so many Camerons. I just figured one of them had to be her. No, the woman who played the credits, there's so many Camerons. I just figured one of them had to be her. No, the woman who played the sister,

I was of the impression was Bridget Cameron. Yeah, Cameron. Oh, no. Cameron. I see. She was listed on the credits that I originally saw. I just Googled her then as someone else, as Bridget Riden ran off i've got so

many different things i'm funny bridget ridden but that's a that's your husband's name an internet cave of just like you've got the the thread the red thread is out on the wall connecting all the dots and you've lost where you are inside the web. Oh, absolutely. I just, cause just then for a glimpse into the future of the rap city street kids, uh, believe in Santa. I accidentally clicked onto their IMD page, IMDB page, which we've got opened down at the cast list.

Uh, and so I was trying to find the name Bridget, uh, Cameron or Bridget Redenoy. And instead I came across all over the map. Nancy Cartwright. You, man. Yes.

Mark Hamill. Yeah. So I suppose we should try and present this information as logically as possible. So we've watched Saving Christmas, the Kirk Cameron film, and the Rap City Street Kids Believe in Santa. What order did you watch these films in, Tim? Same as you i did kurt cameron first and then ended on the nightmare that is rhapsody street kids why did you choose that order

i saw pictures uh maybe even a trailer of what rhapsody street kids was and i was like this is a dessert this is not a main course and i was correct it this is a dessert. This is not a main course. And I was correct. It's interesting. That sort of speaks a lot to how you eat dinner because I did the same thing, but in my mind's eye, I was like, but surely the shorter film is like the entrees they do in the cinema where they'll play, think of a Pixar film, they'll play your little short teaser

and then they'll, although those are often thematically connected, which I could say these two are. Yeah, they're both Christmas movies, you goon. Of course they are. Were you craving a palate cleanse at the finish of Saving Christmas or were you craving more Christmas content? I actually think Rhapsody Street Kids is the perfect full stop on watching Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas.

But should we start with Kirk Cameron's project and really unwrap the presents under the tree that is that film before we get into the project as a whole? With pleasure. Kirk Cameron Saves Christmas. You motherfuckers on Patreon, I love you crazy assholes.

I love this shit. I love this shit i love this shit this is my fucking jam so kurt cameron as uh he's famous for being christian and making tv and movies and stuff and i say fucking god bless because there's not enough people you know really putting a flag in the ground going this is who i am especially in these uh secular godless times uh the movie is a stinker i think that probably goes without saying if people made us watch it i think it's a given that it's no good almost the entire movie if you think about it takes place inside of a car that is parked on a driveway yeah uh which is you know which would be the the almost one setting where not for the incredible uh descriptive powers of kirk cameron as he tries to persuade his

deeply religious brother-in-law that christmas as it's currently celebrated in modern times is in fact not a sacrilegious sort of pagan festival but all of the uh more modern and commercial roots or you know trimmings that we see now i actually have roots embedded deep within not just christianity but specific bible verses um when this thing opened up, Tim, I was excited because I didn't think it was going to be a film that was set exclusively in a car. I thought it was going to be a one hour and 20 minute stream of consciousness with two camera angles where Kirk Cameron just sits in front of a bristling fire

with a cup of hot chocolate and sort of waxes poetic on the people who are trying to take Christmas away. And while I wasn't upset... That monologue is so special. With everything that happened afterwards, I would have liked to see Kirk Cameron just trying to hold court for an hour 20 because you could feel like he was already touching the sides in terms of how much he could fill out with whatever was a five minute monologue.

Where he starts talking about people trying to take away Christmas. He's like, there's two types of people. People who want you to do it in the privacy of your own home and people who say, uh-uh, no way. What are they going to tell us next? Hot chocolate is bad for us? And I was like. That wasn't even the argument. That was very close to but not exactly

the argument this really stuck in my in my craw because he said um what are they gonna what are they gonna tell us next we can't have hot chocolate because it was invented by pagans i was like no it was invented by aztecs bro read a book come on this this is about reading one book not all books but the way he phrased it also he said said, what are they going to tell us next? It wasn't even because. It was like, hot chocolate is bad for you. And it was invented by whoever. And I was like,

someone needs to tell Kirk Cameron and his poor arteries that hot chocolate is bad for you. It is. Like, he's so obsessed with hot chocolate in this movie. He's constantly sipping his mug he's got a bunch of his nieces and nephews and kids at his sister's place and he's like after having a real heavy conversation with his sister about how her husband's unhappy he's just like well that stinks hot chocolate for everyone he calls it 25 children and the hot chocolate the

serving cups he has for this are those thin plastic ones you find next to water coolers that are not built for containing the temperatures that a hot chocolate is served at. It is served hot. This is scalding hot on these kids' hands. He's filling it up straight out of a massive thermos and then putting gallons of whipped cream on top of it. It is incredible eventually he just starts pouring the whipped cream directly into their mouths it is absolute pandemonium the um the opening monologue is so good from kurt cameron he's uh yeah so there's a roaring fire he's in a chair and it's like this weird which is the thing a tone that persists throughout

the film is it improv is the question i have because it's like there's beats that he's hitting but the pauses are too long and there's just enough kind of weird variance and repetition that you're like what's happening here kirk i think you did anyone tell you you were shooting a feature film today i think turned up yeah he i feel like he probably had an outline and then you know like the way the movie was funded and cast it was like yeah we'll write some lines for kirk but he'll sort of he'll kirk it up he'll spice it up you know and so he sort of just had license to have fun around the fringes um and boy did he so the the opening monologue does throw you off because you

think tonally i thought i was just gonna watch i didn't know anything about kirk cameron i don't know anything about this movie i thought i was gonna watch like a sort of a tim allen santa claus type like i thought there was going to be one central family involved some sort of family hijinks or breakdown and kirk cameron's character was gonna save christmas i didn't realize it was like a propaganda film for his specific version of christmas and i knew that i was in war for christmas yeah i should have been called and for something special when at the end of his opening monologue after he had another sip of his hot chocolate uh a scar cover of silent night started playing over some animated opening credits. And I was like, yes, it is about time Silent Night had that.

And I'm not talking about your pre-reggae Scar. I'm talking about your late 90s, early 2000s, almighty, almighty boss tones, religious-flavored Scar. It was otherworldly. And I was just like, I i sat up bolt upright in my chair and i was like okay we're doing this i'm here casey let's rip in so then the um the film is sort of this presentation of uh the main guy well kurt cameron's the main guy i guess but there's so right someone's house and that person is kurt cameron's sister maybe in real life maybe not guy and i will never agree on this we're just a bickering

pair that way no no i'd love to do the research right now i think it i think you're onto something you do it uh and so they're celebrating christmas it's christmas day there's kids there there's some some co-workers weirdly and neighbors and all sorts of things filling out the pack and the issue here in this film is that kurt cameron's sister is hosting christmas and she loves it but her husband who is as i mentioned a devout christian he can't get over the sort of bastardization of the original messaging of christmas that happens every year uh from here on in the commercialization the materialistic nature of gift giving, the sort of pagan symbols that permeate the festival these days. He's not into it.

He's not into it at all. So he takes himself off to his, he just looks like a sad sack for a lot of it. And then he takes himself off to a car parked in the driveway. And Kirk Cameron comes in and discusses parables. And they just bat around this ball of Christmas is bad. And then Kirk Cameron goes, no, it isn't. off to a car parked in the driveway and kurt cameron comes in and discusses parables and they just bat around this ball of christmas is bad and then kurt cameron goes no it isn't and here's why it's it's very neatly laid out it's unambitious storytelling the guy who plays the brother-in-law who also as it turns out was the director of this film and is an incredibly uh busy christian music

video director he has like he has that sort of glint of familiarity when you first see him on screen that a lot of like not quite funny white bespectacled and slightly bearded comedy actors do from uh probably before this film was made i think it was made in 2014 but you know he looks like a guy whose face you've seen and forgotten in a comedy film or TV show. And to me, I think his performance isn't bad, to be completely honest. Really?

Well, for what it was, because I immediately had him in my mind as that guy, and I was like, let's see what you got. And I know the movie's meant to be a comedy, and it didn't yield a lot of laughs where it designed, where it sort of had the laughs written in, but I believed him in the character he was portraying. Yeah, fair enough.

He was annoying. I'll give him that. He was annoying, but his character was annoying. Also, did you see they have a blooper reel at the end of this film? I did. I watched the whole thing. He has a lot. Directing and acting looks tough you know

it's true um ambitious but so yeah they do they they retire to the car but uh not after introducing a few ancillary characters in the name of i guess love diversity and love and broader commercial appeal namely deandre who if i like the performance of our director who played christian uh deandre this guy's a star he is it just comes in and they're like okay everyone we managed to get a black christian comedy actor could you please fulfill every single trope that you have in your head for what we want you to do. And DeAndre absolutely rose to the bar. He was a tour de force.

He comes in, his first riff is all about how the company they work for is taking away crazy shit Fridays. Yeah, he won't have it. He's going to rise up and bring his people with him. Yeah, and so after that anyway christian still caught in his funk retires to the car kirk cameron goes out to start supporting him and that's mostly where we are in the car there is one brief scene in the middle where they go back into the house and deandre the star is joined by uh i don't know who but if you can say a movie that never really had its wheels on

in the first place did have the wheels come off, it was this scene for me where apropos of nothing, this other character who DeAndre's talking to and they're doing it sort of privately behind coffee cups like NFL coaches lift their play sheets above their mouths so that cameras can't pick up on what

they're saying. He's worried he's credited in the end credits as conspiracy theorist his name's someone henley because i looked him up to see if he had any music out there because he does a freestyle rap in the bloopers i was like my fucking guy uh but they so he's playing this sort of tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist and he puts a they both have to put mugs in front of their mouths so no one can hear what they're saying because they're discussing the sort of the attack on christmas the war on christmas or at least that's where the convo starts yeah it is uh unreal he just lists like all your your bloody uncle's favorite conspiracy theories

he talks about chemtrail like without exploring any of them he just sort of it's like and like like he says kim trails i can't remember what else he says but harp there's some 9-11 stuff in there like it's legit i and you can't tell if he's like i don't know what purpose it serves in the broader you know goals of the movie i don't know and the broader goals of the movie. I don't know who chose to put it in and how it stayed in because it doesn't bolster the argument that Christianity is fine as it is.

It doesn't take away from it. It's just like, oh, everyone's welcome at this Christmas party, including that guy. I guess that's what it is. I guess you've exactly hit on it because we christmas party including that guy i guess that's what it is i guess you've exactly hit on it because we all know one of that guy some some of us are that guy yeah do you think of yourself as that guy tim you can't say this on the podcast where i just pointed at my face i think um in certain circles those people are invariably very fun and interesting to talk to when you first

meet them uh and then often there's quite a steep descent in terms of conversational value because it's like oh your brain doesn't exist in conversation beyond you just espousing whatever conspiracy theories you're into if and like if you like diminishing returns yeah if you're if you're interested in one or more of the same things that they are it's very interesting because they're usually incredibly well researched and they know a lot about it but if it's less than one or one or less it's like you're just listening to someone talk about something you're not interested in which is i guess what a disproportionate amount of conversation is, isn't it, in the world today? I guess you're right. It's people who don't, they're kind of leapfrogging from one little thing to another

as well as the annoying thing with conspiracy theorists. It's very hard to peg down on one particular topic and really shake them down for a sort of core thesis on how they've arrived there. It's a lot of weird soup. I remember when i was younger and my dad explained to me that um politicians uh i was like this is so i was like why are you watching their news dad this is so boring or some politician was talking i can't remember how old i was he's like they're being deliberately boring guy so that people like you don't want to listen and uh it's always stuck with me do you think that's true

uh no i no i i don't i don't think so i don't think so what do you i want it to be true i love it i love it as a concept it's highly conspiratorial thinking to me that the people i don't i think politicians have far less power. As I've gotten older, I think they've got far less power than we think they do. But maybe that's what they want us to think. So maybe Stephen's right. He usually is. He knows a lot of things.

When I was home recently for the holidays, I walked in on him in a conversation with uh my younger sister annie and uh she was saying our dad and i are just resolving an argument and steven said we're not resolving an argument i'm explaining why i'm right that is brilliant. There's a lot of things in this movie in terms of Kirk Cameron's defensive Christmas that don't quite stack up for me. One that I wrote down in my little notebook here is, so he gets real set on this,

but Christian, who's the guy, the sort of the Christmas hater, who's the director, he gets real hung up on the fact that jesus wasn't born on december 25th um and kirk cameron at one point asks him like why do you think that and he has no answer for it i'm pretty sure the answer is they determined what the star was that the three wise men were supposedly following and it appears in the sky from memory in like mid-june so they reckon they had jesus's birthday nailed to like within a week of that if that sort of parable is correct but anyway kirk cameron's explanation for why um christmas is celebrated on the 25th of december

is because it's in like the dead of winter and everything is dark and the earth is dying and then it is like celebrating rebirth in the darkest part of the year. And I was sitting there in New Zealand watching this film, remembering a barbecue I had outside in my swimmers on December 25th and all the other Christmases I'd celebrated outdoors with cold cuts and beers. And I thought to myself, what godless nation have I found myself in? Do not tell Kirk Cameron about the Southern Hemisphere. It will blow his tiny mind out of the water.

He won't know what to do with us. He really won't. Do you reckon he's a flat earther? No, but he could be dismissive of huge... New Zealand, I think think is recognized as a secular nation we have god defend new zealand as our national anthem but like there is no uh national religion in new zealand uh so i think it's probably quite easy for him to look down at us and say that's probably why you've got a summer Christmas, you heathens, because God's not going to put on the full display for a bunch of non-believers.

Well, fucking sign me up to Satanism then, because isn't it so much better that we get our holidays and coming together coinciding with a bit of sun? Get a bit of a tan? I couldn't agree more. It's an entirely different holiday, and it's a better holiday experience for it. it's an entirely different holiday and it's a better holiday experience for it um but yeah i i i just going back to that like there are so many things that they talk about in that car in the front seat of the car and also like the way kirk cameron explains away so there's sort

of three parables that he uses right to calm down christian um which uh i remember that there's the one of christ christmas there's the one of the christmas trees yeah that one is the loosest thread i think there's the one about uh santa claus where he rearranges the letters of santa to reveal that it also spells satan just like they're wheeling out this is the best turn of phrase i've heard for it uh so i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to use it and give credit to its creator which is um sydney-based comedian john crookshank i'll just look him up on twitter because if you like this turn of phrase you should chuck him a follow but when he's talking about uh conspiracy theories he's sort of building up that he's a big one big one. He's like, I'm not talking about

9-11 conspiracy theories. That's, you know, that's Westfield food court stuff. And that's like a mall food court for those of you who don't know. As though to say that, you know, the people who talk about that are not standing on the same hallowed ground and

that's sort of what i thought about it whereas like rearranging santa to be satan is so basic it's it doesn't even warrant you know the 30 minute explanation of why santa's okay which doesn't mention the coca-cola company once by the way i know yeah look if you're going to get into conspiracy theories you got to bring coke into it. But Kirk Cameron's too afraid of big soda to tackle the real beasts of Christmas. It's good. John Cruikshank, by the way, is at John Cruikshank. J-O-H-N-C-R-U-C-K-S-H-A-N-K.

He is a sensationally funny man. People have paid for this episode. You can't go promoting other comedians' Twitter accounts on here. I used his sooner phrase. I had to give him a credit. Fair call. God bless you. That Christmas one, sorry, the St. Nicholas one, though, is fucking good.

That's my favorite parable where he talks about the origins of Santa Claus. I don't think he's right with his story, by the way. I didn't have time to kind of google research i'd say but it doesn't sound right to me you don't need to research almost definitely not right but you know it's incredible it's a hold at least tell the people very briefly saint nicholas is based on a guy who i think they said he was in germany and he was a bishop and i think they were saying it was around the 16th century sort of 1500s and uh he was uh present at an event i actually wanted to look this event up because it sounded interesting where there was a bit of a crossroads theologically

and they were trying to decide whether or not jesus was actually a um what do you call it like a like a a real being of god the first council of nike nikea nisaia or something nisaia nisaia something like that and uh and so there was this guy who was sort of prophetizing and he was saying no look um jesus was just a man he was a prophet but he was just a man here on earth And this guy Who was going around Telling this Was very popular And he was real silver tongued And people listened

To what he had to say And Saint Nicholas He was a very developed man Beat him up And everyone fucking loved it Yeah They were like This guy fucking rules

And he gave lots of presents To kids too Which is another reason They loved him And so Saint Nicholas Is based on that badass Yeah Cameroneron kept saying that santa claus is bad in a good way is he bad and like the michael jackson he didn't say michael jackson but he's bad bad like good yeah i i mean you know read into that what you will.

Today. You ready? Okay, let's go. The hunt for the wildest movie of the summer. Everybody run! Ends here. This is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately. Borderlands, now playing.

Borderlands, now playing. But that argument that there was just some rogue, sort of devout vigilante who went around kicking anyone's ass who spoke different seemed to be enough to get Christian on board. And every time that one of these arguments were put forward by Kirk Cameron, there was the third and final one. So that one sort of they decided to go back inside and throw a dance party for what felt to me like five hours it was so long but so every time before that because the ones before that was the story of christmas trees where uh kirk cameron's like well the funny

thing about christmas trees is that's all because uh adam was in the garden of eden and he ate an apple and because he couldn't put he stole it and you need to return the thing you steal and because he couldn't put the apple back he would have had to be himself on the tree and i was like he could shit on that tree i've also got a um i'm going to give kirk cameron the benefit of the doubt here obviously theologian i am none but wasn't it eve who ate the apple isn't that what original sin is adam created her with his rib but then eve was the one who actually took the apple and that's why catholics hate women nah catholics decided to hate women independent of the book of genesis i think uh i feel like the there was a snake who was like, looks like a pretty good apple.

And Adam's like, Hey, there's an apple over here. Come get it. Adam's like, you sure it's not flowery? And the snake's like, come on, this is the Garden of Eden.

What, you think you're going to pick a flowery apple in the Garden of Eden? And I was like, okay, I just hate flowery apples. And then God caught him with his mouth full and he was like,

I'm not going to do anything. But so every time you tell one of these stories, Christian, the sort of, you know, the cynical, deeply religious brother-in-law would be like, wow, amazing. Okay, okay, okay. But what are you going to tell me next? Are you going to tell me that Santa Claus gonna tell me that santa claus is in the bible and like the the oscillations he would have between being persuaded and enthused about christmas and then back to being a misery guts about it were i mean again i just think it's really efficient storytelling and to the movie's credit an hour 20 oh not enough movies clocking in under one and a half hours these days it's just because you're

used to the movies people make us watch i'm not it was a delicious duration i'm not just used to them like movies in general are so long they're so long now um we gotta we gotta wrap this up so we can start talking about rhapsody street kids i think but look the um kurt cameron is undeniably magnetic on screen he is truly charismatic and he really does draw you in with his with his charms um devilishly handsome if i can use a pun i don't believe anything he has to say even the stuff that i think he probably should know about i'm like i think you've i think you've got this slightly wrong i'm going to disagree with you wholeheartedly on the director christian um having good acting skills i i invite people to just see if you can watch a little bit of it if you can it's quite hard to come by though man i had i had

a hard old time trying to source this movie um real difficult worth it for deandre's performance and yeah so at the end he's persuaded to go back inside he believes in christmas again and he apologizes to his wife for being a jerk and she sort of accepts the apology and then he goes and you're not going to believe what i've done but somehow in the 15 seconds between being in the car and apologizing to his wife he's organized organized a semi-spontaneous, semi-choreographed hip-hop dance jam featuring all of the members of the Christmas party. And it starts and you're like, this is fun. I could sit in this for a little while.

And then it keeps going and you're like, oh, they're going for longer than I thought they'd go. And then it keeps going. And you realize that on set he is the director who obviously really wanted to show whatever break dancing he could remember from when he was 12 it's like has anyone else got any dance or break dance moves and yeah because he'd set such a low standard everyone on set was like absolutely and it's like we'll roll on all of it and i don't know if you got strong all of it in we'll put all of it in yeah so uh just incredible it is and it's led front and center by a middle-aged white woman who is definitely who you want leading a break

dancing troupe at all times every time uh two quick things before we move on number one guy i want to know if you're with me on this there's a moment when he uh he comes back in so he's just had this kind of revelation moment christian he's like now christmas is awesome kirk cameron's convinced me and he comes in to see his wife in the kitchen and she's just kind of like looking at him and there's a weird like ping pong shot of you see him then you see her then you see him then you see her and she looks weird and she's like you're okay and he says um he's like i've got something for you and she says what have you got in mind big papa and it does a freeze frame and i said out loud by myself are they gonna fuck oh very similar yeah we're on we're on maybe the same page, if not paragraph.

Yeah, and then Kirk Cameron, as your brain is projecting intercourse or anal, is like, no, I don't know what you think happens in these situations. Yeah. And you're like, oh, my God, Kirk Cameron, we're doing it. Fuck yeah. And then the dance party happens. Then the dance party. The other thing i wanted to tell you guy is that kirk cameron's sister is full house's dj tanner i know you didn't watch a ton of tv growing up as a kid but very influential um show for me

and uh that can't be right it is right why do you doubt everything I say? DJ Tanner. No, it might not have been DJ Tanner. You're thinking of Stephanie. Yeah, she went off. Who went and did porn later. Yeah, she went off the rails. She was not DJ Tanner. She was a photographer in an episode. What?

Kurt Cameron's sister? Yeah. No. Look up DJ Tanner. Tell me what her name is candace cameron bue boom cameron it's right there man it's a different sister what are you talking about a different it's still his sister what do you mean a different sister oh i thought you're saying the woman we just watched act was dj oh no sorry no no no. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. I beg your pardon. Sorry.

You're right. DJ Tanner is another other different sister to Kurt Cameron. What an incredible family and inspiration to us all. Absolutely. Now, Rhapsody Street Kids, believe in Santa. Let me tell you something. Last night, I watched the, or actually all but the last few minutes, of the Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix.

And it engendered such a fear in me because they do such a good job of like building up. You could see the train wreck from the very start of the piece. But that's not just the documentary. That's just watching it, securing the knowledge that. Yeah. You know what happened. It's like watching a documentary on the hindenburg and being like i wonder what happened to that blimp yeah yeah yeah it's true but they

do a good job of like punching it up throughout the thing anyway when this when the like first few frames of rhapsody street kids believe in santa kicked off i got that same fear of like dread and in the pit of my stomach that i that i kind of felt when it got to like day zero of the fire festival in the documentary and they're all just going this is completely fucked but we need to let the people in now like there's nothing left for we've run out of time and i and i couldn't help but project back to when this came out, because this aired on the WB back in the day for Christmas one time. Of just this production, the small production team, I assume just going, we have to give them the tape now, I guess.

I guess we have to export the project. Like, we've run out of time. Well, so how much do you know about this? Because I didn't get the chance to research it. But, mean just a little to see the cast list are we in the same sphere as food fight where it's like you know there's a producer or producers who are borrowing against the promise of a product that they just simply do not have the means to deliver because i desperately desperately want to know more about the production of this film but nancy cartwright did produce it when you put it next to five festival like that because i actually i watched um i don't know why uh we're really

dating the podcast here but i watched both of those docs and my main takeaway was i'm like what was the other dog hulu has a documentary as well oh true yeah called fire fraud in which they paid billy mccallister whatever his name is uh they paid him like up to 250 000 to be an interview subject in the documentary so he's in it talking about it the whole time is it good uh i mean i don't know that either of them are necessarily good they've just got such incredible source material that you yeah like i watched them almost back to back i was consumed by it but uh and it's the same thing with this movie where it's like i'm always so afraid that everything's gonna go wrong you know like i'm always so afraid that everything's gonna go wrong you know like i'm always like so fearful of putting anything out into the world i'm so scared

of it going wrong and just to watch people who aren't just afraid but seem to be oblivious to the possibility that that could be an outcome i honestly find it inspiring i am like i'm like i hear you why do i let my own neuroses like and limitations get in the way of just saying this is what i'm doing like because that is and you know some people do deliver it and some people don't and very rarely do you see people not delivering on such a huge scale but uh that seems to be what there's definitely one with the fire festival but it does seem to end with the Rhapsody Street Kids Believe in Santa, although it has aged brilliantly

into this weird of a moment, of a time, like nonsensical, almost ahead of its time. If you think about comic sensibilities and internet culture now, like this is a 2002 film or TV film that is made to be watched in 2019. It's the sort of thing that Tim and Eric or a lot of people who sort of work at Adult Swim would pay good money to produce a look this horrifying these days.

I imagine actually quite hard to achieve with modern technology. It's like, I don't quite know how to describe it. It's real nightmare fuel. It's very, it's very, it's like it's true i don't quite know how to describe it it's real nightmare fuel it's very it's very it's just like horrific and it's worse than food fight which is really saying something yeah and when you're watching it it does give you an you know it does it is funny because it's like how can they go through with animating this all the way like how can they not just scrap the project how can they decide to animate the way the characters move like this the whole way through the movie?

And it gives you a real appreciation for good animation because you're like, this is awful. This is making me physically ill to watch these characters walk because there's so many shots of people walking reasonable distances. And I'm like, just trust us to know that the character traveled to get to where they're going yeah man yeah that is weird it's what it's about is a kid what's his name again ricky ricky rogers and um i only found this out by reading a blurb later, but we find out in the movie that his mum died at some point, but it turns out his mum died really recently.

And this film is supposed to be happening like in the sort of intervening moments or like months after he's lost his mum. So he's being raised by his great grandmother and he goes to Rhapsody street school, Rhapsody elementary. I think it is. And so it just follows this gang of kids and there's like a bully and there's a nerdy girl and there's like the kind of i guess the

popular one nicole is sort of this unattainable airhead um more why she's she's not an airhead she's just vapid she's like it's she's a straight A student, but she has no, you know, she's one of these kids these days who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. You know. I feel like you're channeling your dad right now. It's like he's in the room with me.

Steven, that's how he talks. I used to pick up the phone. He worked from home for a while and so you have all these people calling up to do business with them and i learned how to admit because every time he answers the phone he just goes steven and so when the phone you string i'd always pick it up and go steven and then one of his mates would start talking what was in essence greek to me i didn't understand to this day i don't really know what he was doing and uh then after like a minute of

them i'm like oh look i'm really sorry michael it's actually guy i'll go get dad for you and uh not a popular prank trying to have your fun but it backfired dramatically what was a prank just turned into a goof on you um i know yeah i've written a few notes for this but we'll get to them later um i guess the the in terms of the plot what there is of it and it is a little bit um all over the place but it's about the spirit of christmas it's about a teddy bear that his mom gave him before he died that he wants to give to nicole because he's got a crush on her and then she like immediately throws it away because she thinks it's terrible because it's cheap and um that's mainly what it's about yeah discovering the true spirit of christmas later yeah again not ambitious storytelling but also not clearly done like saving christmas

uh maybe ambitious in terms of the scope of what they were creating like i feel like if they'd put all those resources into a five minute animated christmas short we might have wound up with something that was remotely fluid um i have just dug up the trivia section on imdb for this and my favorite thing that immediately jumps out was you will of course remember the conversations that our lead has with their grandmother when they're talking about christmas uh so give us an impression guy because you just saw the film like what did so the grandma what does she sound like the great grandma what does she sound like well it's hard to do but so i'll give you one okay okay so this is an example of the like this

is an actual line that's in there ricky b uh ricky says to her at one point um he says oh great grandma you always know what to say and she says christmas so that is a very good impression it says here one of the producer's daughters said in an interview that the weird jumbled talking from the grandmother was the result of a corrupted audio file of the grandma's voice actress, and no one caught the error in time. How is that possible? I don't know, but 10 out of 10 people found it interesting. That is very interesting. out of 10 people found it interesting that is very interesting and i actually have to confess i was on the hunt before i got on the phone with you to try and find those tweets because i really i want to i want to track the production this film so bad so this film was um a lost film for over a decade it

aired in 2002 so um you know we're still in the ge W. Bush years. The world is a darker place. And then this suddenly gets birthed into our children's consciousness. And it is once on Christmas Day and then everyone's like, oh, whoopsie, put it back in the vault. And it's gone. It's gone.

For 13, yeah, 13 years it's gone. And there's this guy who runs, I think the website is called like Wikimedia. And they and collect um all of these sorts of rarities and oddities and lost media from around the internet and he found the guy who made it um colin slater who's the director and i think he was a co-producer as well and writer and was like give me this movie it's amazing we need to preserve it and he was like um give me 120 bucks and I'll get you a copy of it. And he was like, okay, here's 120 bucks. He was like, no, give me $240.

And he was like, I guess, okay. So he gave it to him. And then he never received it. And they got in a fight for years and years and years about this. The guy on the internet started posting on all his websites and shit, received it and they got in a fight for years and years and years about this like he started the guy on the internet started like posting on all his websites and shit following around being like my bro i've given you 240 you owe me this movie give it to me and eventually he fucking did he fucking sent him um the movie and uh after initially arguing that he didn't have the rights

for it or anything just like fucking whatever here go. So after about two years of arguments in 2015, this guy got it and it got uploaded to the net on Vimeo, I think, originally. And everyone was just like, holy shit. We've got a new crown champion who has entered the ring. This thing's crazy. Absolutely. Tim, how would you feel if I told you that Colin Slater, as you correctly remembered,

was the director of this project and producer. How would you feel if I told you that two years after Rhapsody Street Kids Believe in Santa, he helmed yet another 45-minute animated film called Wolf Trace's Dinosaur Island and a 45 minute animated film called wolf traces dinosaur dinosaur island that somehow once again had the voice acting talent of mark hamill what hey we've got a question for you is mark hamill a scientologist because i know nancy cartwright is Is Nancy Cartwright a Scientologist? She is a prominent Scientologist. The Scientology people have my address, Guy.

I don't know how they got it, but they have it. And they send me their magazine. And on the front cover of it about a month ago was Nancy Cartwright. Is that how you knew or did you already know? I think I'd heard it ages ago, but I forgot about it. Then I was like, oh, yeah. For those who don't know, Nancy Cartwright is the voice talent

of Bart and Lisa Simpson and Ralph and other characters. A cursory Google find of the word Scientology on Mark Hamill's Wikipedia page does not bring up anything. Cool, cool, cool. Okay, that's good. So, I mean, so much to love in this movie i wrote down a couple things there's a poster in roger uh oh wait fuck not what's his name again ricky ricky rogers new york that just yes it's new york on it because it's just this completely indecipherable undistinguished

skyline it's just some blocks it's some blocks on another color and it says ny it's like okay i took a photo of that i i was also striving to get a photo of uh there was like protect the protect the world or the protect the planet there's a really good poster in the teacher's classroom um i missed that which like no it wasn't like stinky like the way the New York one was like it was just a cool image where I was like

that's a cool image I love cool images yeah well that's the thing there were but you could tell that they had taken JPEGs

like low quality JPEGs and just kind of chucked them in on the background of a lot of stuff like in Nicole's bedroom there's this tessellated apple pattern

that makes up the wallpaper. And it's not symmetrical, which really fucked with me. But they've clearly just found an apple online and like biffed it in. It's really fucking wild, man. This movie did my head in. It did too.

I did not engage in any mind-altering substances while watching this. but to anyone thinking about dabbling with rhapsody street kids uh i think it would probably be best enjoyed uh if you were so inclined uh in a slightly elevated mental state yeah if for no other reason than to enjoy the uh brief tryst between Mrs. Palm or Ms. Parmington, which by the way, is that a fucking name? You know how sometimes you see a name and you're like, is that a name? Names are hard to make up.

Ms. Parmington? Make up a name for a teacher right now. Ms. Worthingwoodton. That's not a name. Yeah, you see? No, there's Ms. Parmington. It just, it doesn't feel like a name to me she gets hit on by the principal and it really cracked me up he appears out of nowhere it's one minute to

three for some reason they show you the clock it's the last day of school before christmas break and it's one minute to three the principal just pops in and starts hitting on the teacher and then she's like i'm gonna have a great time with my family, surrounded by my loved ones, who love me, at Christmas. And he's like, okay, I'll see you all later.

Yeah, it's pretty good. I think also, we have not yet mentioned, that this movie is, or this short, is a musical. It's a movie. It is, in a is a a musical movie uh it is in a way a musical and that there are songs sung

in it yeah uh they're not good songs but they are undeniably songs and so now i have to tell you this there is a rumor that whitney houston was this close to writing one of the songs but didn't and apparently or some people have strung this together that they reckon the offer given to whitney houston combined with all the things that um uh colin slater said and this amazing voice talent that features in here and it's not just nancy cartwright and mark hamill folks it's also these like broadway actresses who are who are here who are like from disney movies and stuff it's fucking crazy and then the thing looks like it's been made in paint but the theory is colin slater was talking about this movie like

it was going to be the next charlie brown's christmas and it would just be perennially rolled out at christmas time so they would get fucking bank on the residuals so every time december rolled around it's just like boom money in the bank and that's how people reckon they got these people on board but then they forgot to hire animators for the animated film yeah it is uh almost an out-of-body experience it is disgusting to watch uh really gross stuff uh i mean i'll give you a line i'll give you a line i wrote down yeah ricky ricky who gave you that candle other character that is a really mean thing to say yeah i i'd stop i'd sort of uh blow on my load on noting saving christmas so i just sort of enjoyed this as a passive consumer and uh the things that stick with me are everything is

inexplicable from start to finish but the fact that they got it done i respect that uh and the fact that it's online after like being pulled from the public sphere for so long, shout out to whoever found it, paid 250 bucks to pop me back online. If you're looking to spend 42 minutes doing something you wouldn't think to do ordinarily, highly recommended. Just watch the spelling though. Whatever you think it is it isn't yeah

it's spelled completely different to how you assume um i don't have anything any other notes on this on this film tim do you no notes are needed uh just you know we've said it all go watch it it's horrifying i fucking loved it can i say that that? I loved Rhapsody Street Kids. I would have liked to watch it with you. I really loved it. I love it. I love Food Fight. It's currently vying for Food Fight status of my favorite movie in this elk.

Although Food Fight, I think, wins because it's even slightly more... Everything's a bit bigger and more bizarre. But this has got Nancy Cartwright and Mark Hamill for God's sake. For Christ's sake. Yeah. It's very good. All right, everybody fights itself. Thank you so much for finding these movies for us.

You guys, we really, um, you know, I often bemoan the choices that you Patreon pals deliver to us, but I mean, they're fine choices and you're fine people. So please

keep them coming and thanks for bearing with us. We'll do another one of these very shortly to make up for the tardiness over December sort of holiday break. And we'll see you on the next Horrifying Vision. Hey guy, looking forward to it buddy? Absolutely. God bless us everyone and Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Don't let anyone tell you you can't wish someone Merry Christmas because you can because Kirk Cameron told me. That's right. Today... You ready? Okay, let's go. The hunt for the wildest movie of the summer Everybody run!

ends here. This is your super friendly and not aggressive reminder to buy tickets immediately. Borderlands. Now playing.