Tosh Show - My Vintage Movie Theater Owner - Judy Kim

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

Daniel sits with Gardena Cinema's Judy Kim, who is fighting to keep the last family-run, single-screen movie theater in LA operating with the help of local volunteers.  Join our Patreon for exclusive content: http://patreon.com/toshshow

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Tosh Show from Show. Hello. And welcome to another episode of Tosh Show. I'm your Your host, Daniel Tosh, with me as always is Eddie Gosling. Eddie, how are you? Doing pretty good there, Daniel. How are you? I'm doing well. I like these new voices we're doing.

Not a new voice, Ed. Professional. Very professional. I've never been offered a lot of voiceover work. Did a cartoon. What's that? I said you were in a cartoon. I was in one.

I said I haven't been offered a lot. He had to make the show. And by the way, just a little brickleberry history, when I came aboard that show, my one condition was that I would not voice a character. And then when we sold the show to Comedy Central, they're like, well, we're only gonna do it if you voice a show.

And I will like, and I said, I'll do the bear and they're like, and they're like, the bear doesn't talk. And I'm like, I know. And then they're like, well, now the bear talks. Ah, they got you. I want people at home to know before they start commenting

that I hate this shirt that I'm wearing. before. Okay. Carrie, she picks out some wardrobe for me to wear on the pod and she'll pick out 20 or so looks and she puts them on a rack. She steams them. Right. And they're ready to go. Sometimes there's some instructions like, hey, wear a t-shirt under this. Yeah, whatever. And once I get through 18 of them, I call her and say, hey, I only have two looks left. Let's, let's, let's, you got to come back in and put some more clothes in here. Yep. But this is number, this is number 20.

Yeah. This is the last one. I've, I've begrudgingly was like, oh, I hope I don't ever have to wear it. And today was the day I had to put it on. It looks odd, but how's it feel? No, it feels horrible. It's shiny. It feels plasticy.

I don't think, it doesn't breathe. I could definitely see some chafing happening on my nips. No, it's not good. It's not good. The patches are, like, They're really sewn on. Uh-huh. They're thick and bulbous.

This is just a bad shirt. Well? I can't wait to give it away. Oh, yeah. This doesn't usually make it to the re-gifting. This is something that I try to pawn off as soon as we say, we're done. I try to get Dylan to put it on because he's usually tipsy. He's like, it looks good.

That's awesome. It doesn't look bad. You got it on backwards. A little long. Speaking of long, movies. Right. You know? Too long.

I've developed a hack lately when it comes to watching movies because I watch too much sports and I don't watch my sports until the family is asleep at night. So now movies has become impossible for me to catch up on, oh, have you seen this? I'm like, I've never seen it. So what I started doing is I watched the trailer to a movie because I find trailers to be kind of entertaining. Yeah. You know, especially if you've got like an extended trailer on a movie.

Apple TV and you get like a two and a half minute trailer and then I just go online and I have then I look up how the movie ended so since you kind of get the whole movie right so I I know everything that happened I got the joy of oh that was good and then sometimes when I'm satisfied with how it ended I'm like I wish I would have watched that movie in its entirety I bet you that was probably good but what's done is done yeah it's the information is in my head I know what happened. You got to feel how it's shot with the director and everything. Well, this was, this stems really from my frustration with like, uh, M. Night Shyamalan-esque movies. Those trailers are so captivating. And you're just like, oh, that, I have to know how that ends.

You know, but it's never worth it when you're watching it. You're like, oh, good God, who cares where the village is located? So that's where, that's where this came about, but now it's, I find it to be a full proof system. I go to the theaters. I just sit in the beginning part for the trailers, and then I look up how they ended in the lobby while everybody's watching the movie. Oh, that's great. I didn't know you're actually going to the... No, no, I still give the movies the money. Yeah, you got to support the cinema. But I'm, I'm getting to watch eight movies for the price of one ticket. Then you're out. I do want to say what movie I just watched in its entirety. And it's...

three years past it'd be in the movie that people talked about. Right. I watched the whale with uh, what's his name from Encino Man. Brendan Fraser. No, Pauli Shore. Oh. Guys stepping on my joke so quickly. No. With that Brendan Fraser. And it was a it was good. I thought it was a good movie. It was depressing. The thing that I was confused about with like

So his lover who had killed himself and toward the end was like having a starvation diet. Yeah, because it was torn between his gay lust and the church, the guilt of the church. By the way, spoiler alert. But what was frustrating about the movie then, and then Brendan's like, well, I'm going to do the opposite. that I'm just going to eat everything because my lover didn't eat. But it was almost how he ate. Like, I understand being morbidly obese,

but, like, you don't have to, like, stack three slices of pizza on top of each other and just, like, like, cookie monster. You don't start eating like that. Yeah, you can have one slice at a time. You can have one slice at a time and just eat a nice large or two larges or three, whatever you want.

It's longer. It goes longer. Nice large. I just, I just, felt like the way they were like making the food go down was a bit. Like it looked like those muckbang videos. Like, okay, all right. We're just throwing food at her face at this point.

I thought that his daughter was amazing. Like just the hatred that I felt for how she was talking to him. Oh, I just was like, oh, you bitch. You know, of course she was going through trauma and she was abandoned by her father. But that was the ridiculous part of it. You just can't, you just can't create a scenario for me where I'm going to abandon my daughter at seven, who I still love. And the one fault that everyone says about me is that I just see the good in everyone. And I'm not going to have any visitation or relationship with my daughter.

he's a writer he's a professor for a you're not going to just write a thousand letters a week to your daughter so that she knows that yes you do in fact have unconditional love for her

forever no matter what you go through that's not going to that part of it bothered me and I get it the story needed that to happen but I didn't I don't believe it I don't believe that the character that he became

and was still, you know, doing all these things. I don't believe that he wouldn't force a relationship with his daughter who lived in this shitty town that he still lived in. Do you watch that movie, John? Yeah, I watched it. How is he not going to have a relationship with that daughter? To the truth, I can't really remember it. Oh, you can't remember it. It's too long.

It doesn't matter. Spoiler alert. He dies at the end. Or does he? Because the last scene, we just see him floating in the air. I think they could be setting up a sequel where he is the largest superhero that we've ever seen. So when they called the movie The Whale, that was a double entendre. Because it was about the book report, Moby Dick, that his daughter wrote, but also that he was large like a whale.

That's why he eats so many pieces at war. once. I mean, there were some other things that were frustrating, but... It was a triple entendre. Because you're going to cry in it. You're going to wail. That's spelled different, though. Of course, but it's...

Okay. Don't come at me with that stuff, John. I know how to spell some words. Don't come at me. The whale. So I am looking forward to the sequel, to the whale, which will be coming out soon. The whale, too. The whale.

Two. Just say two. Okay. Why did I watch the whale? Yeah. Okay. This is the real reason. Because I was on tour and none of our apps or the satellite worked once we left the country and we were in Canada on the bus.

And I'm stuck in the bus. So I ended up just being able to watch what was ever on. this Samsung, uh, hard drive. The TV kind of had like five things that you could watch from. What were the other ones? The other movies? Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I've got father still haven't seen it.

No, I have no idea what the other ones were. I just remember going, all right, I'll just start this. I like, you just came out of you. I'm watching the whale right now. I was like, what? I was, and, and, so I'm watching it on some free version of whatever the brand of TV is that's pre-programmed in there. And then on top of this, it has commercials every 10 minutes.

And the volume that the commercials came out was so much louder than what the depressing whale was set at. And so it was just, it was hard for me to stay emotionally riveted. But also I was watching it over the course of, you know, of a few days on the road in between shows, et cetera. The way it was intended to be. Whale was not intended to be watched in between stand-up performances. No, it's not at all.

A lot of people put on like a headset and they get into a good groove, like maybe something upbeat. I like to have the most depressing movie ever penned, you know, on some free Samsung device. You're like, when you were like, I'm going to go finish the whale. It's like, oh, my God, you're still watching the whale. Yeah, it took a while. But I got through it and I enjoyed it. Sometimes I feel like I could be the whale. And I'll tell you what I mean.

Yeah. I get up slowly like he does. Sometimes for me to get out of a chair, I'm just like, oh, oh, I get just so much work. I'm like doing this. So I, that and I could easily never leave my home again. Like if you could give me There's parts of his life that seemed appealing to me Okay

But when he was jerking off in the beginning Right To the gay pornography He wasn't jerking off into anything So that that load just like just Went into one of the folds Or just on the floor Because his poor ex-lover's sister

Who kind of comes over and changes his bedding because he's just always sweating and stuff and sitting on the couch. Like there's no like, oh, hey, don't touch that right now. I just jizzed all over it. Forget about that part. Oh, I didn't. That part, that part was, that part's fresh. And a Kia commercial came on right afterwards.

Yeah, they're like a commercial for OxyClean, like just jumped on right after that. It was a good idea, actually. Well, yeah, they know what they're doing at Samsung. Now, listen, I'm no cinephile. Today's guest knows. everything there is to know about the movie business. Enjoy. I've realized something about being an adult that no one really warns you about.

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Hi, Judy. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Judy, do you believe in Ghost? No. Yeah. You have to answer the question, honestly, do you believe in ghosts? Nah. Good for you.

You were born in Southern California. What was it like growing up as a first generation back then? I was an interpreter since I was like three years old. Yeah, that's what it's like being a child of immigrant parents who don't speak English very well. So you basically are dragged everywhere and asked to explain everything. in both languages. What was it like growing up with Korean immigrant parents? It's like having a day job and a night job.

Like you go in, I felt like Clark Kent. Like you go in during the day, you're going to school, you know, you're talking to your friends in English and, you know, eating, you know, sandwiches and, you know, not eating your green beans and all of these like kid things that you did at school. And then you go home and you're speaking in Korean, you're eating Korean food, you're living, you know, a Korean lifestyle in the U.S., like in our household.

Like, I live by the rules of my parents who, by the way, were frozen in time because they brought their culture in 1971 from South Korea. My parents remember it as a war-torn country, as a third world country that they left and came to the U.S. because my dad had dreams of buying sears. That's what he wanted to do, buy Sears. I mean, but why did he think that was something that he would want to do or excel at? How is Sears doing? I told him he could buy Sears now. Now it's attainable.

It's attainable. It's totally attainable. Where did you move to in Southern California? They went wherever my dad could get a job. Okay. And my dad always had more than one job at any one point in his life. Oh, man. That's the story of my life, too.

I've always had more than one job, too. Do you love working so hard? No, I don't. I always say I really want to relax, but I really don't know how to relax. Yeah, but maybe if given the opportunity, wouldn't you like to try? I'd like to try.

Gardina, do you consider it South Bay? I do. Okay. I know. It's weird, right? I know, I don't. You don't consider South Bay? I don't consider Torrance, South Bay.

You don't? Nope. Oh, Torrance would be very angry with you. Bring it, Torrance. Okay? I literally, I mean like Gardina is five miles east of... I know where it is. Do you know much time I spent in Gardina?

No. Hustler Casino. Oh! Did you go to Lady Luck? Which used to be Normandy Casino, by the way. No, I just went to Lary's. Larry's. Okay, you only went to Larry's.

You got to go check out the other ones too. I don't do any of them anymore. This was back of my, like, bad dark time. Bad dark times, yeah. I remember being in the Hustler Casino on Christmas Day. Oh, no, really? Like a shooting happened out in the front and then every. and then everybody's grabbing their chips.

And I'm like, I don't want to leave now just because somebody got shot in the parking lot. I was so mad. I would get so excited because the donut cart lady would come around at 6 a.m. in the morning to give us free donuts for gambling all night long. It was depressing, but you know. I remember going to Hustler Casino when it first opened. Oh, yeah. We had this big public hearing. It was a big deal.

Okay. Because, I mean, like, you know, there were people in the community that were like, oh, no, we don't want Hustler community. casino to come in. They thought that everybody was being naked and jabottery. Right. You know, what hustler's known for. Exactly. What hustler's known for.

When did your parents buy the movie theater? 19. Well, they made the offer in 75. They closed escrow in 76. You worked your entire life at that theater. Yeah, pretty much. My first job was a four-year-old. They gave me a slotted spoon, and they told me that I had to fish out all the cigarette

butts out of the astries. Back in the days when you can smoke inside the movie theaters, do you remember those days? I mean, I do. I remember on a plane, a smoking section. Yeah. Oh, my God. It was so crazy. You worked up until college in 19.

You left in 91, 90? Graduated high school, 1990. College was 94. Mm-hmm. And then I moved to D.C. And I lived in D.C. until 95. And then my parents were like, you need to come back to L.A. Did you come back immediately then in 95 to help your parents when they told you to?

Yeah. Or did you say, this is not my calling, guys. This was your thing. No, I did. I'm going to get to the root of some of the issues. I'm a filial daughter and I've never rebelled against my parents. It's just the path of least resistance. Were your parents passionate about the cinema?

My mom was, my dad was an angry Asian man who was trying to make my mom happy. Did that work? It might have worked for a little bit and then it wears off. Do you know what your parents paid for the cinema? My dad paid a certain amount for just the business only. Okay. I want to say it was like, I don't know, $50,000, $100,000 somewhere in that range. Years later, like in 1980, 82, my dad finally bought the theater property, and that was probably about half a million dollars.

And then the parking lot, too? No. We never owned that parking lot until 2019, 18, around there. So I went to law school to become an attorney. Because your parents had been swindled? Yeah, yeah. They got totally conned by two different times, right? And two different people.

And, you know, this is what happens. When you're in financial hardship, you are prime target for scammers. Oh, yeah. Because you're just financially desperate, you know. Well, you're looking for a lifeline. Yeah, you're looking for a lifeline. So what I noticed about... So you went and said, I'm going to go get a law degree just so I can handle this

and make sure that nobody's taking advantage of you guys. I mean, you might be, you know, I'm speaking in grandiose terms here, the greatest daughter ever created. I am not the greatest, but I am quite filial. All right, so you got this law to get. Did you seek vengeance on the people that tried to a... In my mind, I sought vengeance and I succeeded. Someday I will make a movie about it. They basically were just conned your parents out of money, right?

Right? Yeah, pretty much. And they really made my life miserable. We lost our home to foreclosure. We lost our car to repossession. I mean, anything and everything that could possibly happen to us. We almost... Where'd you guys move? We moved into the theater. Because that was the last thing that we still had. And we almost lost the theater. It was really crazy because I said to my dad, maybe we should go to the bank and ask them, like, if we could do something to keep the theater. And he was like, well, you set it up. And I said, okay, so I literally am calling the bank. I'd like to make an appointment, you know, because you guys have filed this notice of default, and I'd like to resolve the problem. And so I think the bank at the time was on Wilshire or Santa Monica, and we drove out, met with the VP.

And she basically says to me, okay, I've reviewed your file. I've listened to you. And what I'd like to do is have you bring me $10,000 by Wednesday. This was like next week, right? In a duffel bag, in a parking lot. And a cashier's check. So we were like, okay, we can do that. So we did that.

We went back home. We're like, okay, we bought ourselves a week, right? So we're going to like get $10,000 and give it to her. Then like the foreclosure is going to stop, right? No. We went to her Wednesday, gave her the money. And she said, oh, great. Now I want you to bring me another $10,000 next week.

And we were like, we just gave you all our money. Like you want us to bring more money that we don't have. Like, oh my God, this is crazy. Is this the game we're supposed to play? So like literally every week she would be like, oh, bring me this much, bring me that much, you know? And then eventually it got to like a reasonable amount. And then we got back on track. So now we're out of foreclosure.

We just have to make our monthly payment and we could breathe a sigh of relief except for the fact that like in the course of doing that we ignored every other bill that we had. So like we were so behind on all our other bills. When do you think on the books, you know, factor in inflation or whatever you want? When was the most successful run for this particular movie theater? I would say probably like 78. Okay. So one year after they bought it. That was the best.

Two years. That was the best year. And it's steadily gone down for 50 years since then. Yeah. Has it always just been? one theater? It has. And it's huge. It's huge. How many seats? 800, according to the fire department. Okay. Did you guys do a drive-in during COVID? We did. This is really incredible because, like, I went to law school to work, to get that parking lot that's adjacent to the cinema. And I literally, on clothes of escrow, I told my parents, I said, I have accomplished my life's mission and now I can die peacefully. Oh, man. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? And then.

I was going to say sad, but you can say crazy. It's sad. And so then I, then 2020 happens and theaters are closing. It's like so crazy. And then a friend of mine contacts me and says, hey, I got a great idea. I want to try it? And I'm like, sure. And we first started off with like a blowup screen.

Yeah. You remember those blowups? No, I had one. I gave it away on the show once. Oh, my God. I hated it. It's so annoying because the little wind that blows, it shakes the screen. It, you know, distinctions.

storts the picture and me as like a picture person, I'm like, oh, that's not the right, you know, aspect ratio and, you know, it's blurry. We need to clear it up. Fix the lens, you know. You do have a good eye for all this stuff, too. Well, I do try. I pay attention. But you don't watch movies. No, well, I do watch movies if I can. That's the problem. I find it to be a luxury. You know, all you people, they get to watch full feature. Don't say you people. Come on. You know, you get to watch movies. It's a luxury. Have you seen the movie, T. Yes. Have you seen Titanic? Yes. Star Wars. Yes. Jurassic Park. Yeah. Back to the future. Yes. Oh, I have. I have. Have you seen Rad? No, but I will actually because I plan on showing it at Cardina Cinema. You're going to show Rad? Yeah. It's my all-time favorite movie. They did a re-release of it last year for the first time ever. It never made it to like DVD and there's like weird illegal copies, but I have a few of those. But now you're going to play Rad next year. When? We haven't figured that out yet. I'm working on it, but. And I'm working with this organization.

You know who I'm going to get to come to it? Who? The star of it, Bill Allen. No way. Yep, he's going to come. The lead. There you go. Yeah, we've got to get Lori Loughlin too.

Oh, my God, really? Yeah, we got to get them both. Well, Bill will do it. Bill's a yeah. Lori's going to be trickier. All right, so you have seen. I didn't know if you were like somebody that just hadn't, because I knew that you don't really watch a lot of movies.

I don't watch a lot of movies now because I'm working so much. And, you know, I don't really feel like I have the luxury of studying. aside an hour and a half to like watch a full length feature movie. But when I was a kid and I didn't have adult obligations. Which was never. Which. I had left. Child labor laws were not a thing in a Korean household of Los Angeles. No, they were not. No. Yeah, yeah. You worked like a full-timer as a child. I literally, I don't know if you know this. I used to be a prosecutor. Like after I became became an attorney. I went to go work for the county of Los Angeles as a prosecutor. I was not a very good one. I was terrible. I'd be like, oh, he's got family. His church pastor's here. He's got support.

Let's give him probation. You know, you know, and my boss would be like, what the heck you need to throw him in jail? I'm like, no, he's got family. His family's here. As you can see, I'm very family oriented. Yeah, so I would literally work from like 8 a.m. until like 6, 7, 8, 9 p.m. as a prosecutor. And then I'd literally leave the office and go to the cinema and start my cinema job. And then I'd be going home at like midnight 1 a.m. And then I'd get up at like 6, 7 to go work at my prosecutor job again. You stopped doing first runs.

You kind of do specialty events themed nights. What's the last one that sold out? We've sold out a few things. I mean, like in March we showed the world premiere. of this indie movie called See When I Get Back. And it was made by these guys in a band called Inner Wave. And they're a local band. They're from Gardina.

And I was so proud of them. And I was so happy. And they wanted to premiere their movie at Gardena Cinema. Okay. So when we sell out, I sell 700 tickets because 50 of the seats are upstairs in our balcony. And I don't open the balcony up to the public. That balcony used to be known as a what section? Crying room

Crying room guys At first I thought you're going to say that there was You're going to say something Like I was segregated section No But it was never that No

It was segregated if you're a baby If you're baby Which is fine I think we can all agree It's okay to segregate babies Yeah We should have crying rooms Even today

But in the crying rooms There's different crying rooms For different races of babies Correct? No! Not at Gardina Cinema Okay that's good Which used to be

Park Theater in 19 But even back then it was not segregated. Your theater's on Crenshaw Boulevard. Does that scare away the white folks? I think it does. I have talked to some of my regulars who have said, and they're from Torrance. And they have said to me, yeah, I tried to bring my neighbor's kids, but the parents wouldn't let them go because it's on Crenshaw. That's how I used to feel when I used to live off of like Inglewood Avenue, just because it said Englewood.

I was like, oh, my friend's big, where do you live? I'm like, that's none of your business. You know, angle. A couple rap songs and everything gets a bad name. How do you make money? Break it down. When you were playing first run movies, which you were doing up until what year?

We did first run 1995 all the way through 2023. Okay. So when you're doing first run movies, are you having to research to make sure? Because when you're only picking one movie, it's a different ballgame than a lot of others, like the AMC people. Yeah.

That's why they do what are. called trade screenings. And so they'll show the movie, usually about a week or two before the release. They invite movie theater owners and managers to come watch the movie. The problem is, is we're like a family run business. And if one person disappears, it kind of impacts the running of the business. So nobody ever went to go see these movies in the trade screenings. And I probably should have, but like that probably would have helped not pick some of the dogs that we did. Do family movies do better? They do.

We learned in 1995 like, hey, let's just show like Disney and anything PG-13 or lower. Like no R-rated movies unless there's nothing else showing that's family-friendly. Okay. And it had to have like an artistic value to it. So like the few R-rated movies that I could remember that we played were like heat. I remember showing heat. Oh, that's a good movie. That's a good one, right?

Oh, it's a good movie. Yeah. What is that cost that you have to pay from the studio to rent their movie to play it or license it? I really don't know what I'm talking about, but is that what it's called? Yeah, it is. It's called licensing. You rent the print. You rent it?

You rent the print. What's it cost? And when you rent it, it's a complicated formula that is percentage of the ticket sales versus a minimum guarantee, offset. and calculated with a house expense. Oh, my gosh. So there's like, it's a very complicated thing. What if the movie's a dog? Do they have any, is it like you get, this movie sucks?

Yeah. No one came to see this. They don't care. They don't care. They want you to hold the movie according to the terms of the agreement. Have you ever considered going all the way to pornography? And is 800 seats, would that be the world's largest adult cinema? Oh, man.

I don't know if that would be the world. I don't know if I'd fight for. I'd fight for the crying room. Yeah. You want to be kind of separate. Well, certainly you don't want to be front row with 700 people behind you in an adult film. So I'm going to tell you something. In the 70s, that was like the heyday of adult film theaters.

The reason why all these like single screen standalone theaters, they were all struggling. They were going downhill, right? And it was because the local malls were getting developed. You know, you had the multiplexes. That was the big, you know, new theater. So what do they do to survive? They did one of two things. They showed porn.

Okay. Or they showed Spanish movies. Ah. And what did we do? Spanish. Spanish porn. Born. Spanish porn.

Spanish porn. Spanish porn. People thought we were a porn. theater because we did a lot of sex comedies that were in Spanish. And now you've been running this theater by yourself. Well, not by myself. I have almost 100 volunteers now. Okay. You have 100 people that volunteer that do not, this is not a paid gig for them. They are helping out of the goodness of the community and you and the theater to keep this

afloat and keep it running. And that's incredible, but that doesn't seem like a sustainable business plan. No, so we'll figure that out. I mean, like, you know, I'm evolving. I mean, literally, like, from year to year, I'm not the same business that I was last year. So there are times, I know you have volunteers that help you, but a lot of times you do every single aspect of this by yourself. I do, yeah. Like, so you're ripping tickets. Yeah, I used to. You're getting soda. Yeah. The amount of volunteers, is there turnover? Is it just people in the community helping out whenever they can? That's turnover. Okay. That's the problem with volunteers is that they come when they're available. So their convenience might not

necessarily be my convenience, but I have to be okay with that. Do you put a schedule out? I do. Okay. And they just ignore it? No, they do not ignore it. They're like, hey, that's cute, but we're not getting paid. So, you know what? Exactly. That double that you put me on is just not going to fly. Right. So people can just go to the theater and find a way to like sign up to help? So typically I like to do everything on Instagram. How many movies do you do a night? Would you do two or three?

Depends on what day of the week is. Saturday. I could do the same movie three or four times a day. Or I could do like one movie in the afternoon. And then maybe I might have a punk band and a movie in the evening. So like I could play two, three different movies in a single day. Okay. There was one weekend where I played ten different movies.

It was like really a crazy weekend. again. Yeah, I was like, I'll never do that again. Is that more work for you? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because I have to, you know, make sure that the movies are all put and ready on my server, on my projector. I have to test them to make sure that they work. Each of them has a different sound level that I have to adjust to. And then I adjust according to the number of people that arrive. So like, let's say I have it set to 10 people in the audience and 50 people show up. Now I got to pump up the volume because everybody absorbs sound waves.

So I need to increase the sound. Really? It is, yes. I mean, I believe you. There's a science to it all. No, all right. But why is it? Do you run the movie when there's only 10 people?

Do you ever say guys, there's only three people here and it's the 800 seat venue. We're not playing the movie. No, I never do that. Okay. Although if only one shows up, I will offer them two free tickets to come back another time. And they often take that. They'll take that because then they can watch two movies, right? How much is a ticket to your theater today?

$12 for just a movie. If there's no special event or no added value to the event. I have very famous rock bands, punk bands come and play. And those can be anywhere from $40 to $60. Let's talk about this popcorn that was voted best old school movie theater popcorn in the city by Eater. First of all, is that a coveted title to get? I don't know if it's coveted. but it's pretty cool.

Is there something special about it? Do you use real butter? No. I don't use real butter. Are you kidding me? No. I have no idea. Well, is it taste just like everybody else's popcorn?

I never can taste. People are like, oh, this popcorn's amazing. I'm like, yeah, it tastes just like every other popcorn I've ever had. That's how I feel. I'm just like, popcorn's popcorn, right? How many different candies are you carrying there? Oh, there's probably about 20 or 30 candies that we have in our display. No alcohol?

No alcohol because that was the norm for movie theaters. And now, like, I realize everybody, all the theaters have alcohol now. By getting that license is a pain to ask. What about people sneaking in stuff? What do you do to deter it or do you just turn a blind eye? Back in the days, in the early days, like 90s and, you know, before the 2000s. Yeah, we were like, oh, no, you can't bring any outside food. We were, like, really strict about it.

But now I'm like, ah, you know, hide it. Don't let me see it. I really don't want to know that you brought in outside food. But for the most part, I'm like, you're going to get hungry and you're going to get thirsty. So, like, they'll buy something. What about cleaning up after yourself? Where do you stand on this at a movie theater? Are we supposed to take all of our trash at the end of the movie?

It would be helpful. Yeah. For me, I'd say yes. What about cell phone use? Where do you stand on it? My thing is, as long as the movie's not on, take all the pictures you want and, you know, take video do whatever you want. But as soon as the lights go down,

and I purposely, I purposely show trailers and previews with the lights half on letting people know that the movie's not started yet. When the lights go dark and it's completely pitch black inside, that's when the movie starts. Okay.

That's when you put away your phone and silence it. How much of this is a labor of love for you versus a sense of obligation? It's about 50-50 right now. I knew you were going to be honest. Yeah. It's about 50-50. I feel like...

Is there a number that you walk away from it? Absolutely. My mom made me promise. Your mom made you promise a number that you might not be able to get. I know. But... That's why I'm still here working the theater. Okay.

But you... I think he did that on purpose. You can't... You're not going to hold that line, are you? I am. I'm going to try to honor it as best I can. Oh, my goodness. This is such a cultural thing.

I know, right? My mom would tell me, don't sell it unless you get $10 million. And I would say, okay, mom, I love you. And now that's, that's, 8.5 deal. Moved it for 2.1.

Listen, I hope you run it as long as it makes you happy and fulfilled. And then I hope the day that you let it go, I hope you make a fortune. Aw, thank you. But if you don't, I don't think you should hold on just because of some promise that you made.

Yeah. Break your promise. Which has worse fans. The Star Wars and Sci-Fi nerds, horror film buffs, or the foreign film snobs. Oh, my God. You're asking me to, like, rank my fans? Nope. I just want you to pick the one that's the worst.

There's no worse. They all have good and bad. Star Wars, Star Wars sci-fi nerds. They're not the worst. Horror film buff. Probably not the word. Foreign film snobs. That gets my vote as the worst.

Foreign film snobs. You said it, not me. Okay. What about Rocky Horror? You a fan of them, those fans? I am. I love Rocky Horror and I love watching Rocky Horror. I just don't want to trash my theater.

Right. I don't show it. That's the problem. Talk about your relationship with Sean Baker. And did you think Anora was a porno? No, I didn't think Anora was a porno. I mean, it was close. It was teeter in the line, if you ask me.

I've seen porn. That's not porn. Oh, all right. How did you guys, how did your paths cross? I have a friend who's a filmmaker. She's been following me in my journey of whether or not I'm going to keep the theater or, you know, sell the theater. Anyway, she's friends with Sean Baker. And I didn't know this at the time.

And so during that time period, I was having these monthly meetings with my volunteers and I was inviting people to come. And then one day, she was having a conversation with Sean Baker, which, by the way, this is way before Enora. So, like, you know, like the last movie he had made was Red Rocket, right? So he came to one of the meetings. She invited him. And he showed up and he sat in on the, you know, listen to me. And that particular meeting, I was talking about property taxes because property taxes were coming due in December. And I was telling them I don't have enough money to pay the property.

I don't know what I'm going to do, but we got to figure out a way to raise the money so that I can pay my property tax bill. And so later, he reaches out to me and he says, you know, I have a little bit of money still. I'd really like to donate it to you to pay the property taxes. And I was like really touched by this person wanting to pay me money for this to keep the doors open. I said, you know, I don't have, I'm not a nonprofit. I'm not able to give you a tax deduction for your donation. But what I could do is I will celebrate your films every year. And that's what I do.

I celebrate, I take one weekend every year in February. And I call it Sean Baker weekend. and we just celebrated the third annual Sean Baker weekend. Oh, wow. And can you believe it? Like, who knew back then? This is before Enora. Uh-huh.

Who knew back then that he would end up winning the Academy Award? Right. I mean, there's a chance you could have looked at some of his work and said, respectfully, you need this money more than I do. You will never run. You have to make your film on an iPhone? I'm not, listen, I'm not the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the a file that others are.

I am. Explain the nonprofit aspect of this. When Sean Baker offered to donate money, I realized I need to have a vehicle to like provide a tax deduction for people who want to donate. And at the end of 2024, I realized, oh, look, we just raised $2,000 and I didn't ask a single person to give money. I just posted signs up in the venue. And so then in 2025, we raised $1,500.

No, $20,000. So I thought, hey, why don't I just keep adding zeros every year, right? We're at 15 already because we had a flooding and people donated a lot of money due to the flooding. So that was really helpful. You know what you could do, the flex seal. I don't know if you've ever looked into flexial. Oh, it's good. Is it?

Even in a rainstorm, you can wrap a pipe up. Instantly stopped. Good as new. Actually, I think they actually say in the commercial that it's just a temporary fix. But you can also make a boat. Is that your front door? With the front door of a screen door. Yeah, screen door.

You spray it down. Now you got a bottom of your book. You might want to look into flexia. Yeah, I will. We should brainstorm some of our ideas and give them to her just so that. Absolutely. I am open to ideas. Mine is sell.

Mine is sell. Yours is sell? Yeah, just sell. Oh, get rid of it. Retire. Your time about early retirement. Oh, you're on team dad because that's what my dad says. That's funny team dad.

Me and dad are a lot. But, but, by the way, do you sell merch? Do you sell the merch? I do. Okay. Because that seems like, that seems kind of hipster cool. Yeah. To have, you know, the old Guardian of Cinema's shirt on that?

You know what I'd like? Here's what I'd like in a theater. This isn't going to make you any money. I would like, who's ever in charge of playing the theater, which in this case is always you. I want just randomly in a slow spot in the movie. It's unannounced and you just all of a sudden, boom. movie pauses, lights go up, and then you just go 45 seconds.

And every, you know, it's first come, first serve, you get to race to pee. You get to race to pee and then you come back and it starts back. I would really like that at a theater. Just one unannounced pause. And because if it's announced, then people are going to be timing it and they're going to go. But if it's unannounced, you don't know when it's coming, then boom, it's paused 45 seconds. Everybody gets to go pee. It's like in an announced intermission.

That's what I want. I just want to pee break. What about like a split screen? Now you've got two theater movies showing at the same time. Subtitles, just pick some kind of music that fits both. Oh, there you go. Wait, in the same auditorium? Yes, same auditorium.

Two movies at once. Split screen. You know, we change. Oh. Okay. Which one has the soundtrack going? I just said you just pick some soundtrack. I'm going to, and this is what I'm going to go on Eddie's idea.

Ready for this? We put the movie that we want, the family-friendly movie. Then in a one-third smaller side, the sport game of choice that's going on. No sound for the sports. Parents, dad. Dad's happy. We get to watch this game. Kid gets to watch whatever fucking parents died, sad children's movie.

Is there any grant writing you could do to like, since it's a historic original theater, like right to the state? Yeah, I don't know about the state. I don't think the government's going to help. But I think there are very wealthy foundations that give away money if you do the things that move their mission forward. When you establish a nonprofit, you have to have a mission statement, which is the reason why you're even existing. So for the Gardena Cinema and the friends of Gardena Cinema, our mission is to promote the Gardena Cinema as a gathering venue to show movies and exhibit art and to create memories. What about pledging your allegiance to El Ron Hubbard? Do you think that could help business?

I don't think so. But it might get Tom Cruise to come visit. I don't know. I mean, you make a little Scientology stop. They always have some prime real estate. I don't know what's going on behind the doors. The front of their places always look like they got some stuff going on. Come see a movie, take a stress test.

What's that? They're using free labor. Yeah, well, you're kind of like a modern day El Ron Hubber. I am. This is great. Become a religion. You've got to become a religion. You're already non-profit.

You've got your church. I think I would follow her. Let's do it. Church of cinematology. We'll be right back. Catching yourself in the mirror and doing the mental math on your hairline, most guys know that moment. Hems makes it simple to actually do something about it. Hems, let's go. Get on it.

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Individuals may vary. See website for full details. Restrictions and important safety information. By the way, Pete's wife, Sam, okay? she just finished her first movie, real movie that she produced, wrote, sold, shot, filmed, starring Kevin Bacon. No way! I don't know if she has an L.A. premiere theater picked out, Pete, but I don't know why we're not talking about it. Judy, we might have to do it.

We might have to do it. Henry Winkler's in it. Oh, my God, I love the Fonz. Let me tell you something. The guy couldn't be sweeter. Now, I don't know this firsthand, but my wife went to support Sam on Samp. that. Henry's there. Henry starts talking to my wife. My wife says, oh, I've got two kids. He's like, I write children's books. Give me your address. And then he's mailing my wife children's books signed by Henry Winkler. Oh my gosh, that is so sweet. I mean, the salt to the earth. And when people talk about L.A. in a negative tone, I'm like, you haven't met Henry Winkler.

Right. Everybody's on the show gets a gift. It's just stuff I find in my house that I don't want, okay? Okay. That's funny. Versi, yep. This, I don't, okay? I don't eat these, but they've been in there. They're probably stale. You'll like them. Okay.

Okay. You get two of these mugs. These are Tosh Show original mugs. They were handmade by Carrie, who's my stylist, but also does ceramics. I don't like them. I've never used them. They're not good. Thank you.

Put these on the floor, please. I don't want them. Okay. I found a stack of old DVDs of my. My old special. Oh my God. But here, you have to give these away free to people. No.

That donate to the theater. The donate. Yeah, you give me away. I'll sign all those. Get that on the floor. Oh, my gosh. These are awesome. Okay, okay.

They're super awesome. This is a company that we've sponsored. They're an amazing company, I think. I haven't used it. But it's you can, you do everything by yourself. This is in case you ever have any infestation of pest. This is a way to do it all. It's like commercial grade, but you don't,

hire somebody, you'd just do it yourself. Oh, fantastic. Thank you. Yeah, just have one of your volunteers that you're not fond of. Are they all natural stuff? I have no idea. You have no idea? No, of course. Oh, look, ants, spiders, cockroaches, beetles, centipedes, plus many more. Okay, you're going to love that. Fantastic, I'm going to love it. All right. I got a gift for you too.

What? Yeah, one of my... You got to put this on the floor. Oh, that's a nice bag. This is our T-shirt. Here we go. Oh, look at this shirt. There we go. That's the cinema, the marquee. The Last Family Run single screen theater in Los Angeles. That was basically what I said in the intro.

Yeah, exactly. And then on the back it says, long live indie cinema. You know what? But how come I like your shirt so much more. The one that I'm wearing? Yep. Oh, this was a limited edition neon anora collab. Oh, it is Anora.

Yeah, it's Anora, yeah. This is beautiful. But that one's, I mean, I kind of. like that one too. I'll get you one of these. Well, we'll see. Jersey swap. Jersey swap.

You like this shirt? Not so much. I don't like it either. I don't like this shirt either, okay? And I'll happily give you this shirt. It's not, and it's not breathable. Oh, it's not. It just makes you sweaty?

Yeah, it feels great. Oh, yeah. I don't like the way it feels against my nipples either. Oh, really? It's like plasticy. Maybe you need a bra. No, well. Maybe you need a bra.

Well, movie theaters still exist in 50, years. Definitely. Why? Why do you look at me that way as if you're questioning? No, I have no idea because you never like, you know, I, if you would have told me in, you know, the 80s that one day people were just going to watch all their movies on phones, I'd be like that's absurd. So, yeah. Judy, thank you for being on the show. I look forward to coming to your theater for the next 15 to 20 years or unless you get your magic number and then you just walk out. Thank you. Thank you.

I want to thank Judy. Shortly after she left, minutes ago, Pete comes in real quick. That's what he does. Right when guests finish. We're still having some pleasantries. I'm telling them what a great job they did. And they're like, I don't know. He's like, you've got to sign the release.

You've got to sign this legal paper that says we can air this. he gets in there high he's like we don't need your address and then she uh then she says hey do you mind if i take a picture and i'm like i'd love to take a picture with you but then i realize that she's talking i go yes of course and she takes out her phone and takes a photo of the legal document that she just signed and i could have just you know saved myself the embarrassment but i didn't i said oh i thought you wanted to take a photo with me and so I said of course like that

but I didn't know that you want just a photo of the legal document which makes sense and she's like no I want a photo with you too I go no you don't have to do that and she goes I want a photo with all of you and I'm like okay you certainly don't have to do that then she insists on getting a photo photo with all of us

and I'm like well who's gonna take it she's like I'll just use the timer I go then you have to find a place to put it she goes I'll put it on your fan I go my it's the Dyson fan and it's rounded at the top. That's not a surface. You can set the fun.

She's like, it'll balance. And I'm like, Judy, it's not going to balance. It's going to take so long. And she's like, I want a photo with everybody. And I want to, and I go, and so I take it, I'm taking a photo of her doing it. She goes, three seconds isn't enough time for me to get back into the photo. So we do like 15 photos, guys. She kept extending this timer.

I think I need five to ten seconds to get back into frame. I'm like, okay. Photo actually turned out fine. but it was just a process that was maddening. I was taking a photo of her setting this up, trying to take a photo. She's like, maybe the shutter sound should be on, so I know. You know what I thought about, though?

Sean Baker sheld out 15K, and she's all in for life on him. Yeah. Just imagine if I sent her 17K. Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah. You've got a theater and gardener.

Your exposure? I don't really want them to broadcast my podcast in Gardena because that's only one click, even if 800 people were watching. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. That's the problem. Well, I'm glad she got that photo.

Time for our plugs. We have the Toshoshosh store.com. That's where you can get merchandise, toss show related. There's not a lot on there, but it's not a lot with the podcast. You know, what do you? Yeah.

So we've got some shirts. I mean, what do you? You want a car cover? A leather jacket. It seems nuts. Seems nuts that we would sell car covers. Let's do it. Tosh show car covers.

You're just asking for your car to get fucking egged. Well, we could do umbrellas. That's not a bad idea. You know, or awnings. Ha ha. I'm real into coverings right now. Patreon. com slash toss show.

just in case you didn't get your fill. Right, you want a little more. You can pay monthly or yearly, but guess what? What? I'm thinking about introducing an hourly. Boom. Okay? Industry Disruptor.

My first farewell tour, October dates on sale now. Guys, if you were wondering if there were ever a chance to see me perform, in three different cities in Georgia that weren't Atlanta. This may be your only opportunity. This is it, guys. All right, hit the music. There we go. Whoa.

Nothing like a summertime knockoff. It's time for they love me. They love me not. First up, what are we going to do, Ed? We're going to do, They Love Me. Let's hear it. From Donna Webster, 4310. Donna.

Here we go. You make us laugh. Thank you, and we hope you live a good long life. Nice. Super nice. They want me to live a good long life. Because it's important you have the word good in there. Yeah.

Because a long life. Right, a bad long life is horrible. Oh, but that's nice, Donna. Thank you for reaching out. Now, what do we got now for they love me not? Love me not. From Say 10 Sedzo 56. Mm-hmm.

He doesn't give a shit about the fish. He's fine letting it lives a miserable life. floating around in its own waist. He could have let it be taken care of properly, but that would upset his child for a couple of hours. Okay. I love it. See, this was on the episode

where I was discussing my son's goldfish that my wife resurrected from the dead. I'm not saying it's the second coming, but I'm not saying it's not. It's amazing. Okay, it very well could be. You don't know that he's not coming back as a goldfish. Anyway, I learned, and again, this is on me.

that goldfish need a very large tank, 30 to 50 gown. I learned from a lot of the people online that they create a lot of waste. Goldfish create a lot of waste so the filters work extra time. Okay, but this guy, what's his name again? Say 10, Sedzo 56. Okay. He went back and forth a few times with someone and was trying to pretend like he knew what was going on.

I told the story. Now I want you guys to know, I have an update. Okay? An immediate update. I know this episode was a while ago, but this had my son did the right thing. We brought him to this house that had this beautiful pond and my son released him. And the owner of this house who we don't know was very sweet to my boy as he was releasing his, pet and knowing that he was doing the right thing and they said that we were allowed to come back

and visit whenever we want since then how many times have we come back twice twice have we spotted him i don't know it's it's hard he i think we spot him we have video of releasing him i've i've seen he looks big he looks healthy he's doing well oh yeah there he looks good and then My wife, I wasn't going to be a part of this. I'm like, you got us into this mess. She went with him and they bought a beta fish that can survive in the size aquarium that we have gets fed once per day, three times a week. So not creating the waste. Everything seems to be on the other.

So I just want this person that was so positive they knew what I was going to do to go fuck themselves. Fuck you, you piece of shit. You don't think I know how to fucking really parent. I say things. I get the rise. I know what I'm doing comedically, but don't fucking start acting like you have the answers. You have no insight into my world.

And guess what? I'm wonderful. Oh, I'm fucking wonderful. Love it. My son was sad and he's still sad when he talks about it. And we used it as something real to learn from. and grow from and I took some responsibility. I mean, I've kind of forced it on my wife that she, it was her fault for letting you have something that was going to outgrow what we could

provide for, but he did it. He did the right thing. He loves animals. So shut the fuck up. All right. See you next week.