Harvey Framed Roger Rabbit

We talk about bizarre new media, viral marketing, and some of our favorite old great films that inspired our geek culture. Then we bounce into a listener suggested mashup.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerdrun Collider Podcast is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to the Large nerdron Collider Podcast,
the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in
the world around us and how very excited we are

(00:27):
about them. I'm Ariel casting, and with me as always
is old Timey, not old timer Jonathan Strickland. Hi, Harry,
I'm here for this here bird kiss. That's that's my
old timey voice. I guess Hi, Ariel, brilliant, Thank you.

(00:49):
I got a question for you. Why is your go
to carnival slash fairs, ash amusement park snack food? You're
at a you're at a fair or a carnival or
an amusement park. What's the sort of thing you you
gravitate towards when you start getting a hankering for a snack.

(01:15):
I can't eat the thing that I normally have a
hankering for, which is French fries dipped and ketchup and mayonnaise.
That's a double wamy no no for me. The tomatoes
and the potatoes are both bad for you. The tomatoes
or the potatoes. UM, I would say, if you're going
traditional carnival food a corn dog and a funnel cake,

(01:39):
you know, like the funnel cake is your side because
you can'ty fries, so so fried dough and a hot
dog in fried dough. It's hard because there are lots
of carnival foods that do contain things that I can't eat. Sure,
and also I'm not very picky about which carnival foods

(02:02):
I like. You know, so you put it in front
of me, I'll probably eat it, especially if it's fried
or includes ice cream. Um, what about you, Jonathan? I
think my go to typically is um uh, one of
the big pretzels with mustard. I like a big salty

(02:23):
pretzel with mustard. Um. Yeah. I jin generally stay away
from the sweet stuff at carnivals and amusement parks, largely
because I do like rides. But I find that if
I eat a lot of sweet stuff before I go
on rides, I might not have that sweet stuff in
my system for very long. So um, I go for.

(02:46):
I go for like the salty rather usually, And yeah,
the pretzels are kind of a go to. I will
say that if I'm ever at Disneyland, one thing that
I always want to grab before I leave is a
turo oh for me. If it's Disneyland, it's a doll whip,
a pineapple doll limp. I'll see I can get those

(03:07):
at disney World anytime. Sorry, sorry Disney World. I've never
been to Disneyland. Disney Listening aerial Disney World. Disney World
is also I'm also big on dull whips. My wife
and I will we pretty much will have at least
a dull whip a day if we're there, including like
I like the doll floats like I like it in

(03:29):
the Pineapple juice. So that's that's that's one of my favorites.
It used to be that I'd always get a Gara
Deli Uh Sunday with dark chocolate fudge when I went
to Disney World from um Pleasure Island slash Paradise Springs
slash whatever it's called, Disney Springs, Disney Springs. Yeah, Well,

(03:51):
we do want to have a big group trip some
point where I do. I want to have a big
group trip down there at some point, and I want
to finally order the kitchen and sink from Beaches and Cream.
I don't know if I've had the kitchen sink. I
have stayed at the Beech and Yacht Club Resort Um
and gotten a really massive Sunday from there, but it
may not have been the kitchen. The Kitchen Sink literally

(04:12):
has every ingredient in the store as part of it,
and it comes in a kitchen sink bowl you see,
just as good with flavors. But I have a feeling
that that might get really close to like when you
make a like when you go to the roller rink
when you're a kid and you take all the soda
drink flavors suicide the suicide, which is a horrible name,

(04:35):
but well, I mean, I have good news for your
arial because they have a chocolate lover's version of the
Kitchen Sink where it's just all the chocolate flavors. That
sounds amazing. That's the one I would go for, and
I probably would take like three bites and say, Okay,
I don't need any more of this, and I've just
spent forty bucks on some ice cream. Yeah, it's um.
It's interesting that you asked this question because I just

(04:57):
found out the other day there is a carnival themed
little Uh storefront that has opened next to my local
grocery store that sells funnel cakes and hot dogs and
ice cream and slushies and things. Wow. Yeah, so you
can't get any of the rides are the terrible games
that are all rigged against you, But you sure can't
get that greasy food. M boy hottie. Yeah. Well, you

(05:19):
know what, sometimes I'm gonna have to ask you your
favorite Southern snack because there's gonna be there's gonna be
a boiled peanuts discussion here one way or another. Boiled
peanuts are one of the few Southern snacks I really like.
Um that We'll get into Southern food on another day,
because it's not that I hate Southern food, but I'm
very particular because I'm I'm a Northern girl. Uh So,

(05:41):
speaking of particular, our first news item, thank you, our
first news item. You've got to have a particular affinity
to animation too, I think really enjoyed. There's a show
coming out on March one on Netflix called Guardians of Justice,
and much like Chippendale Rescue Rangers the new movie. When

(06:04):
I watched this trailer, I was not sure what was
going on. It's every kind of animation you could put
together with some love action for some sort of superheroes,
Space story, Jonathan, you said, you might know a little
bit more about this. Yeah, So it's definitely a mixed
media kind of thing. And it comes from the filmmaker
Audi Shankar, who was very very successful early in his career,

(06:29):
but turns out he was dealing with clinical depression and
he was under the impression that being successful would kind
of bring him out of it. And it turns out
that success and your you know, mental health don't necessarily
correlate one to one, and so, uh, he started getting

(06:50):
treatment for his depression, he said. Once he got that,
then he started getting this idea for this satire. So
it is a satire on superheroes. Looks like it's going
to be very dark, Like I don't think it's gonna
be the kind of satire where you're laughing out loud
and rolling on the floor, but rather it's using the
superhero uh milieu to deal with stuff that he was

(07:16):
dealing with. And he also ended up casting people he
knows like that he's friends with into the project. For example,
one of the two leads is played by former w
c W and w w E wrestler Diamond Dallas Page,
who plays He plays one of the superheroes, one of

(07:36):
the two main superheroes, and DDP, for those who don't know,
is not just famous for being a wrestler. He's also
really well known here in Atlanta as running a yoga
studio where he's turned people's lives around. In particular other
like wrestlers, he's helped them deal with things like addiction

(07:58):
to substances is a depression. And so I get a
feeling like this is it's almost like a type of
therapy for Audi Shankar, and that we're going to see
maybe not even something that could easily be described as
a linear story, but more like bits that kind of

(08:20):
explore different elements of his psyche in the form of
this multimedia superhero presentation. That's the best I can do
to describe it. You have to kind of watch the
teaser to even get a hint of what we're talking about.
I mean, the animation styles range from claymation to classic

(08:41):
two D hand drawn animation to eight bit video game animation.
I mean, it runs the entire gamut to live action,
and I knowing that it deals with different aspects of
his psyche makes it much more interesting. When I first
watched the trailer, I actually thought it might be a
Monty Python project because it had some similar Yeah. Well,

(09:02):
and I was getting a little bit of a Captive
or a Invincible vibe from it, right, Like Invincible is
also a series that is kind of a satire on superheroes.
So it's so good and so violent. It's it is.
It is good, it's violent. It does kind of explore,

(09:24):
like it goes a little deeper than your average superhero
stories do. It would be like I would group that
in with things like Watchmen, you know, they on more series,
where again it's kind of deconstructing superheroes. I don't know
how much deconstruction this the Guardians of Justice will do,

(09:44):
but um, I feel like it is definitely going to
be unusual. My I don't know if it's going to
be the unusual kind of thing that sticks with people
or if it's going to be like through a scanner darkly.
When those trailers came out, everyone's like, oh, this is
really interesting, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone
talk about it since Yeah. Yeah, I guess we'll have
to see real quick side note, Jonathan, I don't know

(10:07):
if I told you this or if you know because
you talked about d DP having a yoga studio in Atlanta.
Did you know that one of the stunt women from
Buffy has a coffee shop in Atlanta. I did not
know that Ground and Pound coffee. That's a great name
for a coffee shop by a former stunt performer. It is, uh,

(10:28):
speaking of stunts. Uh, the NBA pulled a stunt recently. Yep,
that's a that's fantastic. My head is off to you,
thank you. I'm mugging into the camera that only Jonathan
can see. Yeah. So, uh, the Batman released a trailer
for NBA audiences and they did a very viral marketing

(10:49):
thing where they started off the trailer like it was
just their normal going into commercial, and then the kiosks
on the front of the building that the game was
being held in, uh turned into like the Riddler sort
of messaging, and then you could see Batman in the
bat signal above the building. And then it went into
the trailer, which, honestly, and that trailer made me the

(11:10):
most interested into the Batman thus far. Yeah, you got
to see a little bit more than just sort of
the seven kind of feel we've been getting from the
Riddler centric trailers, and uh, I thought it was neat.
I thought the I thought the lead into the trailer
was very cringe e for me personally, like the the

(11:34):
very obviously staged something strange is happening here is that
the Batman? And I'm like, oh, I wonder how much
money they had to give that announcer for him to
do that. I mean, it felt very much like being
at a Disney show. So I'll forgive it. Yeah, I
just like, but it's all about context, right, Like, how

(11:55):
do you know? How do you know this person who
is telling you this thing? And if it's like someone
that you know as a sports commentator suddenly leading into
being part of this commercial, it gets a little I
don't know, it's a little much for me. But the
trailer was a good one. And you also put on

(12:17):
our lineup here the fact that Jordan's Peel orchestrated a
mass natural disaster by killing a whole bunch of birds
to promote Nope, he didn't create it, I believe he.
I like, I had to look this up. I thought
that maybe it was another piece of viral marketing where
he said, hey, this natural disaster happened. Nope, is coming

(12:40):
Um We've talked about how how movies tend to do
that and how sometimes that's some of the best marketing
you can get. But it turns out this was an actual,
like bizarre natural phenomenon that happened, uh, where a flock
of birds all dove to the ground and not of
them made it out. And I'm not going to go

(13:01):
into it deeper than that, because it is a little sad,
especially if you're an animal lover. But then he posted
that video with like a hashtag and little blurb about
his movie is coming, and I don't know. That's on
the one hand, it's clever and and kind of serendipitous timing,
but on the other hand, like, I don't know that
I want to watch something real that's mildly upsetting in

(13:25):
preparation for a pretend movie. Yeah, it would be like
if you know, let's say that The Batman has uh,
like it's the next Batman film, has Batman going up
against domestic terrorists, and then a month before the movie
comes out, Uh, there's a domestic terrorist incident in the

(13:45):
United States. Maybe it's not super serious, but it happens,
And then the next trailers for The Batman incorporate elements
of that into them. It would be like, that's not cool.
That's taking marketing in a direction I am not comfortable
in this one. Obviously not nearly as extreme as the
example I just gave. You could argue it's more borderline. Um.

(14:08):
You know, And of course he's feel is free to
to promote his film however he likes. But yeah, this
one kind of hit a sour note for me. Yeah. Yeah,
I'll be interested to see if anything else ties in.
But I don't think that he orchestrated an event that
made it onto CNN unless CNN is really playing the
long game with him. Um. We have one other story

(14:31):
that we're going to touch on really quick that kind
of leads into our discussion today, and that's what we
got a trailer for the Showtime show The Man Who
Fell to Earth And uh, the original there was originally
a book in the sixties and then a movie in
the seventies that start David Bowie, and now there's this

(14:52):
television show about it about an alien who comes to
Earth because his planet is dying and he's trying to
figure out a way to get water back to the planet.
Like that the original story, Um, and Jonathan was super
smart and noticed that this story is a continuation it
seems of the first David Bowie movie. Yeah. I didn't

(15:13):
know that at first, Like I thought this was going
to be a retelling of that story. But no, Bill
ni is in the film and he's playing the character
that David Bowie played in the nineties era movie, which
raises a lot of interesting questions, one of which is
when did the aliens start aging? Because in the original
movie that's one of the plot points is that he

(15:35):
doesn't appear to age. Um and Bill NII does not
look like David Bowie. But uh, yeah, it's it's interesting
that it seems to be a continuation of it. Um.
I I think the trailer looks compelling. Uh, it's definitely not.
This is not like a a raw liking space adventure

(15:56):
style science fiction. This is more of a using science
fiction and to explore things about us as human beings
and things that we think are important or things we
might ignore to our own peril, and so on and
so forth. Yeah. I mean a lot of science fiction
novels and I guess movies and television, but more so

(16:18):
when you actually read books, um, do focus on that
especially as you go back in time to earlier and
earlier science fiction novels. Um So, I think it's interesting.
It looks absolutely wonderful to me. I don't currently subscribe
to Showtime, but I may just have to again. Yeah,
it's definitely. I think it's something that's definitely worth checking out.

(16:41):
And I mean the star power in the series is phenomenal.
It's you know, if you're going to make a science
fiction series, it's good to have stars in it. It's
got Kate mulgrew in it, which if you don't know,
she was Captain Jane Way. And Voyager's got Bill Nigh
in it. He was in Shaun of the Dead. Um.
I mean, it's got four who is is in Doctor

(17:04):
Strange and absolutely brilliant, a brilliant actor. So so we'll
definitely have to keep our eyes on that. And when
we come back, we're going to have a discussion about
some older films that we feel either our geeking themselves
or are very important to the geko sphere. And that
will come right after these messages. All right, before we

(17:37):
get started, we before we even started making up our lists,
Ariel and I had off the air discussion to kind
of kind of like define things because originally the idea
was just classic geegee films, But then you have to
define what is classic, like are you talking about specific era?
Are you talking about a level of quality? Which is subjective?

(18:00):
And we decided that, um, anything before nine we're calling
the classic erab because Ariel and I are of a
certain age and we don't want to think about the
eighties as being classic yet. Yeah. I mean, now, like,
there are some films in the seventies that could maybe
eake in if you're thinking Star Wars or Star Trek

(18:22):
or Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But even that's
kind of pushing it. All of mine are earlier than that. Yeah,
most most of mine are. Um, I think I've just
named all of them that weren't. Well, maybe Young Frankenstein.
I think Young Frankenstein was. Yeah. But it is interesting

(18:42):
because there are lots of movies that we think of
as geeky and and special, and so many of them
get remade. There are lots of movies that either helped
develop our current loves and genres or we're for runners
in it, that kind of get forgotten. I've and I
hate that, and I feel the same way about like
children's books. But then it also gets hard because the

(19:07):
further back you go into movies, the less they line
up with our current social sensibilities. Yes, yes, that's a
that's a kind way of saying that sometimes old movies
can be really sexist and racist and homophobic. Yes, that
is true. That is true. Um, and and some of
them I can forgive. So, Like I always talk about

(19:28):
how I love The Court Jester, which is an old musical.
It's Robin Hood. So to me, that's geeky, it's you know,
medievally fantasy. Um. And I mean there's a lot of
like traditional gender roles, I guess, I would say, but
in relation to the medieval period and so um, stuff

(19:51):
like that I can kind of overlook sometimes. Um, but
that's Court Jester is. Yeah, it's a musical about Robin
Hood stealing a baby with a birthmark on its booty. Um,
and the princess falling in love with him, and him
causing a mess in court, trying to pretend to be
someone he's not. It's hilarious. Um. But you know it's

(20:14):
set place, set place, and it's set place in medieval time. Yeah,
we're gonna go with that. So you know it there,
So their social system is not super progressive in that movie. Yeah,
well it wasn't. It wasn't the time it was made
and was not a progressive time, and the time it
was about was even less. So um yeah. Well, Like like,

(20:35):
I've got a whole list of different movies that I
put down, and a lot of these are ones again
that I think of as being foundational for a geek culture,
not necessarily, like I don't know if I would call
it a geeky movie. For example, Metropolis a Night, Like
we're talking about a black and white silent film, a

(20:57):
German expressionist film. Metropolis one of the earliest spectacle films
that was ever made. There is science fiction elements throughout it,
but it's really more of a story about kind of classism,
you know, high high high, the haves and the have nots,
really is what it boils down to. A lot of
sci five focuses on that, Yeah, and a lot of

(21:20):
the imagery from the Tropolis kind of you can see
reflected in other science fiction throughout the history of films
really and television. So I think of that as being
one of those kind of cornerstones of geek culture now
not all of my films that I chose are in there.
There's some others like The Cabinet of Dr Calgary and

(21:42):
nos Ferat are also in that list. Those are also
silent films, also instrumental in the way we view like
monster movies and the Mad Scientists character, as well as
establishing certain film language that kind of conveys like dread

(22:02):
and terror and that kind of thing. Um. But then
I've got other ones like for goofy, I've got The
Little Shop of Horrors, not the musical, but the original
Roger Corman film that is that which is very very different. Um,
the basic story is the same. That as much fun,
It's not as much fun, Jonathan. I mean, you've got

(22:24):
you've got Jack Nicholson playing the the the massochistic dental patient,
the Bill Murray character from the musical version. That is true.
I mean I like it. It's good. Yeah, it's interesting
because when I was looking back through like a lot
of the older movies that that I like, uh, the
Incredible Shrinking Man, um, the Fly, which I think also

(22:45):
is the seventies, So no the original original, but yeah,
or any of the black and white monster movies or
for a Bidden Planet, Forbidden Planet was one of my
favorites growing up. Of course it is because your name
is Ariel and Forbidden Planet is based off The Tempest. Yes,

(23:05):
but I would not have been able to tell you
that because I didn't realize that where I forgot it. Um,
But yeah, it's it's a dudent his daughter gets stranded
on a planet and crazy things happen, and there's a
robot and um scientists. I used to getting confused with
Lost in Space. I could see why. But yeah, that's

(23:25):
Forbidden Planet. It's not it's not in a direct adaptation
of the Tempest, but it is clearly heavily inspired by
Shakespeare's The tempest Um. And if you didn't get the
joke I was making at arials expense earlier, there is
a character named Ariel in The tempest Um. Yeah, but
a lot of those movies, because I realized I'm on
a long bunny trail. They are sci fi, but they're

(23:45):
also kind of scary. Yeah. I put down Frankenstein, The
Boris Karla Frankenstein, and then just beside that, I put
in Birtheses and the Universal Monster. Movies like like those
are also obviously they're foundational to the point where Universal
continuously tries to reinvent a dark universe like mythology that

(24:09):
connects all those movies together so they can continue to
make like a Marvel Cinemaic universe type thing, but with
Universal monsters instead of superheroes. It has not worked out
for them, but those original movies are still really worth
the seeing. And I will echo what countless other people
have said, Frankenstein is good, Bright of Frankenstein even better.

(24:32):
I agree, I agree um along those lines. I also
like the time Machine h G. Wells. H G. Wells.
The original movie used to it was sci fi youth
time Machine and fifty leagues under the Sea. Well used
to scare the snot out of well Well, but it's

(24:54):
most leagues under the sea, but leagues and of the sea.
I was so scared I added a whole bunch of
extra lead where you went you went too deep, You're
in too deep aial one of the ones I listed
neither Living Dead very important film in the horror genre

(25:15):
and in drama. I mean, like think of how they're
countless movies and TV series where the George Romero style
zombies are your go to threat, and whether it's Walking
Dead or Shaun of the Dead, which has direct references
to the Neither Living Dead. Like, what my favorite line
in that movie is They're coming to get you, Barbara,

(25:38):
which is in the very beginning of the movie. And
then in Shaun of the Dead you have a bit
where they're calling Sean's mom and they say, Barbara, We're
coming to get you, and I'm just like, oh cute.
It's a direct reference to the to the to the
the film. And that's also fun fact in the public
domain because famously the story is very famous now that

(26:00):
the the when they were making the film and when
they were filing it, they failed to file for a copyright,
so the film was never copyrighted, which means anyone can
make any as many copies of Nither Living Dad to
distributed however they like, with no penalty. I heard that
Steamboat Willie might be close to getting into the public domain.

(26:21):
That Steamboat Willie, I believe is this year. I think
that version of Mickey is in public domain this year.
Uh the That's an interesting case because every Mickey Mouse
cartoon is under its own copyright, so it's kind of
a rolling public domain. So Steamboat Willie version of Mickey

(26:41):
is public domain, but that doesn't mean modern Mickey is. Yeah.
So when I was looking into this, because again I
I there were so many movies that I loved growing
up that I'm like, I want people to look at
these and remember these because they were before my time
and I enjoyed them, and I don't want that knowledge
or that art to get lost. Um. But I was like,

(27:01):
I wonder what like the first sci fi movie made was,
and and what one of the earliest like superhero movies
was not not necessarily like King Arthur or or Robin
Hood but or something more like that. And um, as
far as sci fi, it's Tripped to the Moon La
Voyage don Leloon. Yeah. So if you've ever seen like

(27:24):
the picture of the man in the moon with like
a spaceship sticking out of his eye, yeah, that's that's that,
which is is pretty much that they went to the
moon and they found things. Um. But as far as
superhero it's a great submarine, thank you. Uh. Some of
the first superhero movies were Zoro, Flash Gordon, and Buck Rogers.

(27:47):
And yeah, Zoro is an awesome superhero who is still
relevant today. So I mean he's a hero, well antihero, no,
he's a he's a hero. I was just I don't
know that he's a superhero because he doesn't have supers.
He's I you know, look, if Hawkeye can have a
dude whose superpower is the Swordsman Zero can be a superhero,

(28:12):
but Batman is a superhero. Batman doesn't have superpowers. Batman's vigilante. Okay, okay,
I'll behave But I mean it's one of those things that,
like a lot of superheroes were based, you know, based
off of similar tropes. Well, and you had these these
sort of pulp films that would come out where they

(28:33):
were shorter, they weren't like, they were done in chapters typically, uh,
and they were usually paired with other stuff. You would
go to a movie theater and you would watch a
reel of different things, and some of them would include
chapters of these stories and that's you know, some of
these would also end up being radio shows and later

(28:53):
on television series, and again they really did kind of
create the the found ation for mainstream pulp entertainment, which
you could argue as like the great grandfather to current
geek culture. Yeah, there there's one more movie I want
to mention um and it's a little more recent. It's

(29:17):
based off a book. Again, it's a nineteen it's a
movie from nineteen seventy, and the animation is not great,
but it's the Phantom Told Booth. I'm in the duldrums now. Yes,
the Phantom Told Booth story is all about math and
language and a fantastical advantage venture in a land that
is based all upon that. Um and they made a

(29:39):
movie about it, and it's some of my favorite sort
of child fantasy, child focused fantasy that's been made, and
a lot of stuff has been built off of it,
like a series of unfortunate events. I would say is
very inspired by Phantom Toldbooth because they play with language
and knowledge of communication the same sort of way. But

(30:02):
so few people know about Phantom Told Booth anymore well,
and I feel like that that Phantom Toldbooth owed a
lot to like Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking
Glass because Lewis Carroll also had a lot of fun
with language. I mean, the whole Humpty Dumpty chapter is
just a being playful with language and being snarky about it. Um.
I got a few others. I just want to give

(30:22):
shout outs to some of which are like like a
little Shop of Hers is not a good movie. It
is an entertaining movie. But I mean, that's also supposedly
was a movie that was made after Roger Corman made
a bet with someone that he could make a movie
on like four hundred dollars in two days, and that's
that was the result. That's the that's a version of

(30:44):
the rumor. I don't know what the actual rumor is
at this point. I'm just going off memory. But how
about how about the most uh, what's often referred to
as the worst movie ever made, Plan nine from Outer Space.
The Room is worse. I would argue that the room
is also well, I don't know if I would argue
that is a geek movie. Yeah, I don't know that
I would call the room worse either. Plan nine from

(31:06):
Matter Space is really bad. I would say that. I said,
they're both really bad in different ways. Is it worse
than Manhos Hands of Fate? Okay? See, these are all
like different movies that are bad in different ways. Like
Manos has some real bad problematic stuff in it, like
like really bad, and so does the Room. Plan nine

(31:26):
is just dumb um then like the Tingler William Castle's
The Tingler, which was I would say the whole William
Castle's whole thing was that he made very gimmicky types
of movies, including gimmicks in the theater itself, to try
and enhance the movie experience. But that I would say
would feed into things like, you know, there's some movie

(31:49):
theaters that have seats that are on like motors, and
they'll blow smoke in your face and water in your
face and all that kind of stuff. All that, I
would argue dates back to the William Castle days. Uh.
Invasion of the Body Snatcher is very important science fiction
film that I think needs to be mentioned. Wizard of Oz.
I don't think you can talk about, you know, the
geek culture without mentioning Wizard of Oz or Psycho. It's

(32:13):
weird to pair those two together, but I think of
those as both being fundamentally important in certain aspects of
geek culture. I agree. Um. One of one of the
movies that nobody remembers but me that is a fun,
old old sci fi, also problematic but still fun, is
Queen of Outer Space. Um. It's about Amazon women who

(32:35):
live on the moon. Ja Ja gaboris o leader and
she's got a horribly scarred face. She wears a mask,
obviously an inspiration for the actual gonzo comedy sci fi
film Amazon Women on the Moon, Yes, which really isn't
a sci fi film. It's more of a sketch film. Yeah,
well it's not even It's like, it's like, what if

(32:56):
you had a whole bunch of different ideas for weird
juvenile sketches and you wanted to link them together somehow.
That's kind of what that movie is. Um, there is
one other movie we should mention that I it would
not be considered a geek movie. Yeah, but I think
has a lot of a lot of ties into geek culture,

(33:18):
and that's Harvey. Yes, and we will be talking about
Harvey more when we come back. Okay, so before we

(33:42):
get into this, this the mashup we're doing today comes
courtesy of our friend Shay, who asked if we could
do a mashup of Harvey and who framed Roger Rabbit. Uh.
And she is a near and dear friend to us.
We love you, Sha, and so here we're going to
do that. But first let's talk about Harvey, which started
off as a stage play but then was adapted into

(34:05):
a film. Um, and Ariel, do you want to talk
about Harvey at all? Or do you want me to
take that one? Um, I can talk about Harvey. So
Harvey is a story about Elwood P. Dowd who one
day met a giant pouka giant rabbit who's invisible to
everybody else. And he just loves taking Harvey to bars

(34:26):
and listening to people's life stories and aspirations. And most
of his friends accept him, but Ellwood P. Dowds sister
and cousin, I think don't. And they tried to have him. Um,
they tried to have him, uh, committed to a sanitarium
and uh, it's it's all about him convincing people that

(34:50):
Harvey exists. The entire movie plays with with the concept
of his Harvey reel or a part of Elwood P.
Dowd's imagination. Is it dangerous? Is it? You know? Fine? Um?
And And it's really interesting and there's lots of little
stuff that just hints that Harvey is very real and
it's a heartwarming story. It stars Jimmy Stewart and Uh, yeah,

(35:12):
that's Harvey. You missed anything, It's no, No, I think
I think you pretty much nailed it. It is sweet
and like for most of it. The stage plays a
little different, but for most of the movie it's kind
of left up to the audience to decide is Harvey
real or is Ellwood doubt crazy and or just imagining

(35:33):
things due to his apparent alcoholism because he does drink
a lot in that pretty much he's pretty much always
on his way to get a drink or just coming
back from getting a drink in that film. The other
one we're putting in here is a Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
which came out in It was a truly, uh transfer

(36:00):
national movie at the time because it brought together entities
that had never appeared together before, like Warner Brothers cartoons
and Disney cartoons appearing in the same movie. It was unthinkable.
Like if you you know, if you were a fan
of Disney back then or heck Disney now, you wouldn't

(36:22):
expect to see other cartoons. It would be like seeing
mc scat cat in the background of Chippendale Rescue Rangers. Yeah, yeah,
that's happening. They actually I love that. That also comes
in the scene where they make a reference to Roger
Rabbit doing the Roger Rabbit. Yeah, I mean, it's it's
it's a modern day Roger Rabbit is what Chipendale is

(36:43):
going to be? Yeah? So, so it's based off a
a novel called Who Censored Roger Rabbit? But Who Friend?
Roger Rabbit follows the story of Eddie Valiant, who is
down on his luck, alcoholic private eye who gets pulled
in to investigate uh what first appears to be a

(37:05):
cheating scandal h between a movie producer and a cartoon character,
and then quickly it evolves to being something much more sinister,
and Eddie ends up inadvertently getting teamed up with Roger Rabbit,
the the title character, who is a very animated in

(37:29):
more than one sense rabbit with lots of goofy comedy
to his name. And so we're mashing up this sweet
sentimental film and this sort of Zaney detective noir story
and who knows what's going to come out of the

(37:50):
other side? All right, So I'm gonna start and for
this this title has nothing to do with my story,
but um, it's all he could come up with, which
is who framed Harvey Rabbit? Sorry if that's the same
as yours, No, you're good, okay. So Elwood P. Dowd
was known as a man with the invisible rabbit friend Harvey.

(38:12):
It had caused him issues in the past, but nowadays
everyone believed and loved the big old Puka, and everyone
was happy until one day when Harvey went missing. Now
it's not that Harvey didn't sometimes go away for a while,
it's that this time when Elwood p. Dowd woke up
one morning, instead of Harvey, there was a new rabbit,
a shorter, more animated, and much louder rabbit who introduced

(38:35):
himself as Roger. At first, Ellwood doubted his own sanity,
but Roger seemed really real, and Elwood's like, well, if
I can believe in one Puka, or I can't believe
in another giant rabbit. He asked Roger why he was there,
and Roger said that he was on a bunny exchange program.
Elwood said he wasn't interested in participating in the bunny
exchange program and to please go home and send Harvey back.

(38:56):
But Roger begged, please, Mr gimme a chance, please, so
Ellwood did. Roger tried to be helpful around Mr. Dowd's house,
but always attempts to help Elwood resulted in disaster and destruction,
So Ellwood took Roger to the local bar bar, Charlie's,
and began to introduce Roger to his friends and strangers there,

(39:18):
expecting the usual larger than life rabbit to charm them
by listening to their stories and dreams, and he was
surprised that the patrons of Charlie's could see Roger, but
instead of listening to the patrons stories, Roger began trying
to make the patrons laugh, and his stand up routines
were falling flat, so he resorted to slapstick on the patrons,
also known as pranks, which didn't go very well, and

(39:40):
Ellwood and Roger were both kicked out of Charlie's. Elwood,
frustrated and missing Harvey, went to bed the next morning.
When he awoke, Harvey was still not there. Roger still was,
and so was a voluptuous cartoon woman who Roger introduced
as his wife, Jessica. Sure that his sister Vetta would
cry scandal if she found the woman in Elwood's bedroom,

(40:01):
he quickly ushered them out of the house. But you see,
they couldn't go to Charlie's because they had been kicked out,
and Roger said that he knew just the place, so
he took them to a club called the Income Paid Club.
And at this InCom paid club there are tons of
animated characters everywhere and like maybe two real people. Ellwood
had had it. He must be losing his mind, so

(40:21):
he decided to check himself into the sanitarium. One bunny,
maybe a gal was believable, but he felt he was
falling further and further into madness. Unfortunately, the animated characters
followed him all the way to the sanitarium, and the
sanitarium people able to see the cartoons wouldn't admit Elwood,
and Elwood couldn't go home. Vetta and Myrtle May would
not accept this kind of nonsense, and he couldn't shake

(40:44):
the tunes. So he found a cheap motel and locked
himself away. When he awoke in the morning, his motel
room was filled with all of the animated tunes feed
in his face, people hanging from ceilings making a ton
of noise, and Goud had had it. He figured the
only thing of to do was to leave town. He
distracted the tunes with a banana peel on the floor
and headed for the bus station. He was just about

(41:06):
to board the bus and leave home forever. When he
saw a familiar fuzzy face Harvey standing across the street
waving at him, Dowd was so relieved. Harvey explained that
he had had to go to Tunetown to help solve
some problems there for his dear cousin Roger, but it
caused a rift and sent all the tunes to Dowdstown too.
Elwood was thrilled to see Harvey, and Harvey helps shoot

(41:27):
all the tunes out of Dowd's motel, home and town
and vowed never to leave doubt again. The end. No,
I like your Roger Abbot impression, thank you, it was not.
I can't like. I can't actually do it. I can't
like the I tried. I tried for like an hour

(41:47):
to do the Yeah, I can't do it either. It's
that weird cheek thing. All right. Well, here's mine called
Dowd in tune Town. Elwood p. Dowd has a problem.
His old partner, Eddie Valiant, was killed by a tune
dropped a piano on his head. Or at least that's
what Ellwood tells everyone. See. Elwood is a private eye,

(42:10):
but it's been ages since he's taken on a case. Well,
he's taken on quite a few cases, actually cases of booze.
Elwood lives on the edge of Tune Town, a part
of Los Angeles populated entirely by cartoons. Except here's the thing,
no one else sees them, No one, Nope, for everyone else,
this is just a shabby part of Los Angeles with

(42:33):
a few stores still trying to cash in on the
glitz of Hollywood, peppered between bars and empty storefronts. It's
a bad part of town. But to Elwood, it's Tuned Town,
populated by cartoon characters of all sorts. There's Popeye, the
Sailor Man. There's Mickey Mouse, there's Bugs Bunny, there's Chip
and Dale. The Dale seems not quite right these days.

(42:55):
There's all fly shirt cartoon characters mixing with text avery
characters and more. Besides, there's cartoons from all different eras,
including future ones. My Little Ponies Can Turn next to Transformers,
Hannah Barbara cartoons tried to get into the finer establishments,
which regularly turned them away because they are bad cartoons.
It's a rich tapestry of cartoonish adventure, except only Ellwood

(43:20):
sees it. This doesn't bother Ellwood really. In fact, he
seems like a pretty jovial guy, kind hearted, generous, friendly.
He does get sad on occasion thinking back to his
old buddy Eddie, but he knows Eddie wouldn't what would
want him to to carry on. Of course, the outside
world views Elwood as more than a little odd. Some

(43:42):
folks think of him as simply being eccentric, always two
drinks in further than he should be. Others think he's
just downright crazy, but a harmless kind of crazy, and besides,
he's a nice fellow. One day, Ellwood stumbles into his
regular bar, his left arm hanging oddly from his shoulder,
and Mr Cracker, the bartender, says you all right there, Ellwood?

(44:05):
Oh sure I am. Mr Cracker says Ellwood. It's just
my exuberant friend here accidentally managed to cuff himself to me,
and I seem to have misplaced my keys, so I
suggest we retire here while I remember where I put them.
And Ellwood then holds up his left hand, and dangling
from his left hand is a pair of handcuffs, one
cuff cuffed around nothing. He lowers his hand quickly and says, oh,

(44:29):
sorry about that, Roger, Where where are my manners? Mr Cracker?
I'd like you to meet Roger Rabbit and Mr Cracker
gives a slightly puzzled, sad smile. He knows Ellwood well
enough by now, pleasure to meet you. Roger. Well, it'll
be Ellwood. I think Scotch would suit me just swell
Mr Cracker, how about you, Roger? Nothing, but come on,

(44:50):
it's not fair to leave a man drinking alone. While
Mr Cracker sets down a glass of Scotch and a
glass of water just till he makes up his mind,
he says, Ellwood. Well, thanks very much. Mr Cracker says
Ellwood well. Just then the bar door opens and a
very tall, very thin man dressed all in black walks in.

(45:10):
He wears a black hat, black sunglasses, almost like goggles
over his eyes. Your honor, what brings you in tonight?
Asks Mr Cracker. The tall, thin man walks slowly over
to it Ellwood and looks at him in almost clinical way,
and then slowly takes a seat at Elwood's right hand business.

(45:32):
Mr Cracker, if I could have a seltzer please right away, judge,
says Mr Cracker. Elwood looks up and smiles judge. Well,
pleased to meet a fellow lover of justice. I'm Elwood P.
Dow Judge. The man smiles a mirthless smile. Doom, Mr Dowd,
I'm quite pleased to make your acquaintance as well. Your

(45:52):
sister sends her best wishes. Elwood grints that well, she
that sure is sweet of her Yours sister is concerned
for your welfare, Mr Dwald, and she was hoping I
might be of some assistance, says Judge Doom. Oh well,
there's no need to go into any trouble. I'm right
as rain. In fact, as soon as I get uncuffed
from Roger, I'll be just about perfect, says Ellwood. Judge

(46:15):
Doom's eyes dart over to Elwood's left cuffed hand, with
the cuff just left there dangling. Yes, I see well,
Mr Dowd, I was hoping you might accompany me to
meet with a friend of mine, a Dr Chumley. He
runs a sanatorium not far from here. Perfect place to
get a little bit of rest, says the judge. Well
that sounds very nice, your honor. If I should ever

(46:37):
find myself an exhaustion, I'll know just who to look up.
Says Ellwood, without an ounce of guile. Indeed, says the judge. Well,
time for me to dip out. Lots to do and
with that that's all. Then Judge leaves. Ellwood spends a
good couple of hours in the bar, drinking, chatting amiably

(46:57):
with other customers, plus the bartender, occasionally chatting with Roger.
But eventually it's time for him to head home and
find those darn keys. So he pays his tab and
heads out the door. But he's only walked a step
or two before a huge net descends upon him and
a group of Weasley guys usher him into the back
of a pattiwagon. Next thing he knows, he's whisked off

(47:18):
to the sanatorium, where he's admitted. Immediately he sees a man,
presumably Dr. Chumley, meeting with Judge Doom. The orderlies get
into a bit of a disagreement with each other, and Elwood,
doing his best to be polite and stay out of
the way, has a little chat with Roger. Well, apparently
Roger needs to go back to his home and grab
his toothbrush if he's gonna stay over, and Elwood agrees

(47:38):
that's reasonable, So the to just walk right out, and
they hail a cab and they head back to town.
Well inside, Doom and Chumley quickly realized that Elwood has
quote unquote escaped, so they leave to track him down,
and we get a montage of Ellwood going around different
parts of shabby Los Angeles, presumably to get belongings so
that they can stay over at the sanatorium, and all

(48:00):
along the way Ellwood has conversations with the various famous cartoons,
so we can't see any of them. We just hear
his side of the conversations, which are always pleasant and amiable. Eventually,
Ellwood bumps into Dr Chumley, and Chumley says, there you are. Yes,
I'm here, says Ellwood, cheerfully. I think we have just
about everything we need to stay in your lovely facility.

(48:23):
Dr Chumley, at a loss for words, sees that Elwood
has a bar of soap, a toothbrush, and some other
odds and ends, oh, very well, I suppose we we
should get you back then, happy to oblige, says Ellwood.
Say you wouldn't happen to have any spare handcuff keys,
would you? This poor fellow has been stuck to me

(48:44):
for ages, and he holds up his left arm and
Dr Chumley turns to look, and he stops dead in
his tracks, staring at the handcuff up. That I think
we we might just have some Mr Dowld, that that
would be wonder full. Doctor. I I sure do think
it wouldn't be fair for Roger to have to stay
there if I'm the one who needs to rest, says Ellwood.

(49:07):
Dr Chimbley says, I think I need to sit down. Well,
I know just the place, says Ellwood, and with that
he takes Dr Chumbley back to the bar, where the
two Well three sit and chat with Dr Chimley, also
occasionally appearing to speak to Roger. You know the imaginary
cartoon cuff to Elwood? Are we the only ones who

(49:30):
can see him? Asks Dr Chimley. You know I hadn't
given it much thought, says Ellwood. He looks over to
his left hand. Well if you're sure, and with that,
the cuffs on Elwood's left hand jump up for a
second then falls slack. Uh what do you know he
could take them off the whole time, says Dr Chimley. No,
not at any time. The only one It was funny

(49:52):
says Ellwood, and the two laugh outside. Lurking beyond the
bar door, a man in black stands, clenching his ists
behind his dark glasses, red lights glow and we hear
him let out a high pitched laugh. Cut to credits.
I love that, Jonathan. It was so heartwarming and wonderful. Uh.

(50:14):
If they do a Jimmy Stewart biopic or another one,
if they've already done one, you are my choice, Jimmy Stewart.
Wonderful that Dana Carvey can can definitely take that role
from me. It's fine. Uh, that was a lot of
fun to do. And then, you know, I don't know
about you, Ariel, but sometimes I have an idea of

(50:35):
how things are going to turn out when I start,
and it turns into something totally different by the time
I finish. Because when I started this, I thought I
was gonna go like really dark, psychological, kind of grim stuff.
But as I was writing and I was like, no,
I can't, because Harvey is such a sincere, earnest, sweet

(50:58):
movie that it just doesn't work. If you do that, well,
that's just the sign of being a good writer. I do.
I do have those moments. This week, I had no
idea where I was going. But yeah, I do have
those moments that you know, and but like I said,
that's the sign of a good writer. And you know,
maybe you've got a heart of gold in there, yeah,

(51:19):
somewhere stuff probably next to like all the books and stuff. Well,
if you have any thoughts on a mash up between
Harvey and who framed Roger Rabbit, or maybe you've got
suggestions for mashups that we should do in future episodes.
One way you can get in touch with us is
to send us an email. The address for the show
is l n C at I heart Media dot com. Yep.

(51:45):
You can also reach out to us on Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter. On Instagram and Facebook, we are a large
er drawn collider on Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast.
You know, let us know what old movies that you'd
consider geeky or your gateways into two geegy movies be,
or things you think people have forgotten about, or if
we've inspired you to watch an old movie that maybe
you haven't seen before, let us know about that too,

(52:07):
and done until next time. I am Jonathan Boop Boop,
but dupe Strickland and I am Ariel. I'm not bad
I'm just drawn that way Casting yalza h H. The

(52:41):
Large New Drunk Collider is the production of I Heart
Radio and was created by Ariel Casting. Jonathan Strickland is
the executive producer. This show is produced, edited, and published
by Tory Harrison. For more podcast on my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.