January 27, 2021 • 38 mins
It seems like everything nowadays is a sequel or a prequel (or a reboot). We chat about separates the good sequels and prequels from the the bad,.And then we take two properties in the news that have had a ton of sequels to varying degrees, and add our own to the mix.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerdron 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 excited we are about them.
(00:30):
I'm Ariel casting and with me, as always, is the
delightful Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel, I got a question for you. So, Ariel, uh,
for the purposes of this question, you have found yourself
(00:50):
at the Magic Kingdom over in Disney World. You can
pick one ride in the entire park and there will
be no line for you, and you can ride in
your favorite spot on the ride. So if there's a
specific area of whatever ride that you're like, I love
to be in the front, or I love to be
in the back or whatever, it's all yours. Which ride
(01:12):
do you pick? And why I'm gonna say Space Mountain
because it's the thrill ride. It's like the thrill ride,
you know. It also tends to have like the longest line. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I would sit in the in the
front i feel the most like I'm going to hit
my head, because I always feel like I'm going to
(01:34):
hit my head because you know, I'm five. Uh. If
if it were a past ride, it would be the
Alien Encounters ride that they eventually turned into the Lelo
and Stitch Encounter where you all sit in this circular
room and then the lights go out and the alien
attacks n it breathes on your neck and it tickles you.
And the Extra Terrorestrial ride. Yeah, it was fantastic, but
(01:56):
it didn't really it didn't really fit Disney, but I
bit it better. It was very it was very immersive,
like you know, they were using all the binarial audio
stuff and the four D kind of effects, you know,
which was interesting. But it was so mean spirited, which
(02:17):
is what really bugged me. Like the pre show had
a really mean spirited moment with a teleporter mishap, for example,
and it was just something that I felt like, Wow,
this is not a great fit for this particular park.
It wasn't, so I understand what it went away, even
for the when they changed it to Lelo and Stitch.
If it were a future ride, I would probably say
(02:38):
the tron Coaster is going to beat out Space any day.
But but I haven't written that because I haven't been
to the park where it currently exists, Jonathan, what ride
would you? Um? Gosh, and you think I would have
prepared something? You think? Yeah, so, so I'll tell you
what my favorite. My favorite two rides in the park
(03:00):
happened to be Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.
Those are my two favorite rides. However, Haunted Mansion, even
when there's a line, it goes pretty fast because it
swallows up big groups of people all at once. Uh,
Pirates of the Caribbean, that line can be really long sometimes. Um,
(03:20):
I guess that's the one I would go with. Like,
I'm tempted to say Space Mountain as well, because that's
a great ride and I haven't ridden it in ages
because my wife does not like roller coasters. But I
love roller coasters. I used to hate them. I love them.
See you now, if we were both at the park,
I would be okay with saying, all right, i'll use
mine to go on Space Mountain. You can ride in front,
(03:41):
I'll ride behind, and let's let's do this. Uh that
I would do it in that case if I were
by myself. Parts of the Caribbean. Fair enough, Okay, Well,
now that we have answered that question, it's time for
us to move on to what we like to call
the rest of the episode. It's such an original original title.
(04:05):
I mean, we played with a bunch of different segments,
but the rest of the episode one out because we
were both tired. Yes, okay, So the next segment in
the rest of this episode is going to be some
geek news surprise, surprise, And the first piece of geek
news is Godzilla Versus Kong got its first trailer. Yeah,
(04:27):
and also spoiler alert, this story and another one in
our lineup are going to play into our mesh up
later on, So that's some foreshadowing. Yeah, I watched this
trailer which was entertaining. Uh you know, it's it's got
a lot, it's very King Kong heavy, which not very
surprising for the United States audience now, and it um
(04:49):
it features. So the story is that Godzilla has turned
against humanity. If you didn't watch Godzilla and then Godzilla
King of Monsters, which are the previous two movies on
the god Zilla side of this franchise, Godzilla is kind
of an antihero. He's he's kind of a good guy.
He she I'm uncertain on that. It changes depending on
(05:10):
the on the incarnation. Yes, yeah, and in this one,
King Kong, who is also kind of a good guy misunderstood.
I mean that's always been the case for King Kong, right,
He's he's always been a misunderstood, good ape just giant
(05:32):
ends up fighting Godzilla. And so I'm sad because I
like both of them. At first, I was so excited,
and now I'm like, now that I'm like one of
them is going to have to lose, I'm just gonna cry.
I'm sure it's gonna be one of those where no
one really loses and no one really wins, Like it
will be something where Godzilla's you know, lurks off into
(05:52):
the ocean and King Kong is uh slowly limping its
way back to to safety or some thing. Well, the
trailer has a moment where Kong's in chains, well, Godzilla
is rising up to reek havoc and Kong is kind
of losing his ape mind in the process. My favorite
(06:14):
moment in the trailer is where Kong does the action
hero leap away from an explosion shot yes, yes, and
and the punch into godzilla mouth at the same time. Yeah.
It's just to me, it was like that whole it
was that whole trope of you know that you see
(06:34):
the you see the explosive coming down at a building,
and so you make a run for it. You jump
just as the explosion goes off and it propels you
through the air. And to see that with King Kong,
I was like, all right, this is ridiculous. If he
had done that, you say that, you think they'll both
limp away. If they had done that in the original
King Kong movie, he would have survived the Empire State building. Yeah,
(06:56):
I'm just saying. Well, and to be fair, both King
Kong and Godzilla, besides having a history where Godzilla becomes
either a he or a she, they both also have
a history where one their size changes depending upon the
moment of the movie. Like there there are sequences in
both King Kong films and in Godzilla films where you
can't tell how big these things are supposed to be
(07:18):
because they do change from scene to scene, and to
their capacity to soak up damage changes from movie to
movie too. So uh, but it was it was interesting,
Like it definitely is spectacle. It's the kind of movie
that immediately made me think, yeah, this is coming to
HBO Max. But it definitely feels like the kind of
movie that would benefit the most and seeing it on
(07:40):
the big screen. I agree. I hope that once theaters
open back up that they re release some of these
more spectacular movies for people to watch in a larger scale.
That being said, we are going to get it earlier
than expected. Instead of coming out in May, we're going
to get it in March. So that's something to look
(08:00):
forward to. Something else to look forward to is that
we now know that all five seasons of the original
Muppet Show are coming to Disney plus yes, and two
of those seasons have never been released on home entertainment before.
Seasons seasons four and five one through three were released
on DVD, and season four was planned to release on DVD.
(08:23):
They had even had a show of the box art
at a d twenty three event in the past. It
just never happened. There are still some questions. There's a
lot of speculation going on. The big one being will
this version have all the sequences that were shot for
the Muppet Show? Uh? For two reasons. One is that
(08:45):
in the UK there was typically one extra segment per
episode because they had not as many minutes of commercial
to account for. So since they had fewer commercials, they
had an extra segment in the UK version of the Muppets,
stuff that we here in the United States never got
to see and number two. In the past, one of
(09:08):
the things that has held up some of those sequences
is that the Muppets would do music numbers, and often
it was, you know, very popular music of the time,
that being the late seventies early eighties, and that meant
that music licensing rights were a complication. So the DVD
releases left out some of those music numbers because of that,
(09:30):
and there's a question about whether or not those will
be restored for the Disney Plus version, or if we're
going to get the same kind of chopped up episodes
due to those music licensing issues. Yeah. Another question is
if we're going to get all of the Muppet movies
on Disney Plus, because Sony still owns a couple of them, right, yes,
Sony still I think it's Muppets from Space might be
(09:54):
one of the two. There's a couple, um, but yeah,
there's a there are a couple of movies that does
need does not own the rights to. When Disney purchased
the intellectual property from the Henson Company, it was in
bits and pieces. It wasn't everything, and as a result,
it has been very difficult to create a library of
(10:16):
Hinson material because Disney didn't own all of it. Mhmm, yeah,
you know that. Being said, Muppets in Space not my
favorite should be my favorite Muppet movie, and it's totally not.
I have never watched it because it's a it's a
film that explains the origins of Gonzo, and I maintain
(10:37):
the Gonzo, very much like another person will be chatting
about later in this episode, does not need his origin explained.
Fair enough, that's more foreshadowing for the rest of the show. Okay, well,
onto our next news item, which is really good news,
(10:58):
and that is that AMC is not going into bankruptcy
at least for now. They suspect to be able to
make it through this crunch of trying to get everybody
vaccinated from at least at least till the end of
our deep into one is I think how they said it. Yeah,
they raised something like more than nine million dollars in
(11:21):
an effort to you know, consolidate debt and cover that
sort of stuff so that they would not have to
go into bankruptcy. So nearly a billion dollars, which is
that is good news. Hopefully that means that the theater
chain will be able to wait it out. As we're
trying to get these vaccines rolled out and to get
(11:41):
to a point where they can open up again, some
other things will be waiting for. We have a trio
of stories that are all spin off sequels or prequels
that we thought we would cover. And also this will
tie into our next segment. That's even more, doesn't I
am shadowing so many fours? Listen, you are really every
(12:01):
almost every story kind of falls into what we're going
to talk about next. That we talked about. One of
those stories is that Warner Brothers is talking about developing
a series for HBO Max set in the universe of
Harry Potter. That's about all we know. Yeah, yeah, I
mean it makes sense. It's it's a hugely profitable to
(12:25):
this day, even that we haven't had Harry a new Harry. Well,
I guess all of the Fantastic Beast movies are new
Harry Potter movies, but I don't count them neither do I.
They're terrible, They're almost unwatchable. Yeah. Yeah, So, like there
aren't any writers or talent actually set yet they're just
(12:45):
exploring the idea. Yeah, so we assume this would be
something like a series maybe said at Hogwarts. We don't know,
but that does seem like you know pretty sure. Bet.
It's the same reason why they decided to make Deathly
Hallows two movies. It wasn't that they felt they couldn't
tell the story in one movie. It was that they thought,
this is literally the last book in the series. We
(13:07):
will not be making another one after this. Let's milk it. Next,
we have a story that Ariel says she's got opinions about.
I do so The Witcher is getting a prequel Blood Origins.
We knew that. They finally announced one of their cast members,
who is Jody Turner Smith, and she is playing a
character Haley I would I would call it a pro
(13:31):
too Witcher, sort of like how in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Buffy eventually meets the first Slayer. This is Kingna, Like
the the character that's sword of is a precursor to
the Witcher type of of of occupation. So I am
really excited to see what Jody Turner Smith does with
(13:53):
the property. She has done other science fiction stories before.
She was in George RR Martin's adaptation for now Fires,
for instance. But I was really hoping for a second
season of Wicher as someone who hasn't played the games
and was incredibly lost in the first season storyline. I
don't want to go to a pre quill and get
(14:14):
even more confused while I'm still trying to figure out
the original storyline. I don't think it's going to help
and our last one in this trio of spinoffs. Some
prequels would be the prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a film
that we had heard about rumored. It was rumored to
(14:35):
be in development for a while, and now we know
that the writer and the director for the Paddington films
they're both attached to this. So apparently we're going to
get a Willy Wonka origin story, which is somewhat challenging,
as Tim Burton tried to do that in the last
adaptation of Charlie Chocolate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and
(14:58):
it was terry. You kind of have to go away
from what the source material does tell us about Willy Wonka. Also,
Willy Wonka's other stories that Rode Doll tried to write
also didn't do that. Well. Yeah, they never really well.
One was the Glass Elevator, Charlie and the Glass Elevator,
and that one didn't really capture imaginations. And the third one,
(15:20):
Charlie was the Charlie in the White House, I believe,
is what it was. That one only got one chapter
in before he wrote. Doll himself gave up on it,
so it didn't even get finished. Yeah, the the and
you know, if you go back to like how Willie
Wonka got the Umpa Loompa's that's not a good story
to tell. So so for me, like Wonka, like Gonzo,
(15:43):
is a character who does not need their back story,
explained that being said having put on Paddington two out
of a moment of boredom and nothing else being on television,
and then watching the entire movie that I thought I
was going to watch for five minutes because it was
so awesome. If anybody can do it, it's that team. Yeah,
(16:04):
so we will have to keep an eye out. It's
very possible that they'll make a good, just largely unnecessary movie.
Now that kind of leads us into what we're gonna
talk about in our next segment where we're going to
have a discussion about when is more too much, like
when is it bad to get more of a good thing?
(16:26):
But we will talk about that after we take this break.
So we wanted to talk about this, this trend where
we get more entries into a franchise, kind of similar
(16:48):
to like Deathly Hallows getting split into two movies or
The Hobbit being split into three movies. Yeah, that kind
of thing where some rights holder, whether it's a movie studio,
television studio, or an author. It could be an author
has gotten into their heads that they need to produce
more of something that was really popular because it's almost
(17:11):
a license to print money. And often that ends up
being unsatisfying experience for fans. Um it can. At best,
it might be that wasn't as good as I wanted
it to be, and at worst, it might be you
have ruined everything I loved and helped dear. So, for example,
one franchise that I think fits into this mold is Highlander.
(17:35):
I think the first film is interesting, It has some
stuff in it that I really love. I love the soundtrack.
Queen did an amazing job. The concept is bonkers, and
I love it. But it's the type of film that
has a pretty definitive ending, and so when there was
a decision to make more films in the franchise, they
(17:56):
had the sort of reet con the ending of the
first film for there to be anymore sequels. Otherwise it
just doesn't make sense. And it still doesn't make sense,
and those sequels are to varying degrees terrible too. The
worst thing ever, um, there are no good Highlander sequels
as far as I am concerned, And even the original
(18:17):
Highlander movie, as much as I enjoy it, is far
from a perfect film. But that's a great example of
more not necessarily being better. There was always this hope
that the next Highlander movie was somehow going to fix
the previous Islander movies. It just never seemed to happen. Yeah,
you know, I feel that way about a lot of prequels.
(18:38):
To for instance, Maleficent, I didn't need an origin story
for the bad guy. I didn't need her to be
a sympathetic character. Even I understand that people like it,
and if that's your jam, more powered to you. But
to me, it just didn't add anything to the story
at all. And if and again, it feels sort of
(18:58):
like Disney cashing in on sleeping beauty, because this is
kind of related to Disney's habit of taking their animated
films and making live action versions, because rather than try
and come up with new i P. They're relying on
the love and affection people have for the stuff that
(19:19):
they've already done, so why not we do that again
kind of thing. Um. Star Wars I think falls into
this category to at least for some people. For me, definitely,
like both the prequels and the sequels fall into this category.
For me. The original trilogy is pretty good. Return of
the Jedi is probably the weakest of the three, but
(19:41):
it's a pretty good trilogy. But the prequels and the
sequels don't do much for me at all. You know,
I would agree there were things I liked about the prequels.
Listening to my friends who have children talk about introducing
their kids to Star Wars, and even though there's some
really dry, dry political material in there, like the kids
like it, so, you know, for like, it was great
(20:05):
to put that in place for people now who are
introducing their kids to Star Wars. That being said, not
my favorite trilogy of the bunch, This last trilogy there
were things that I liked about the movies. Honestly, Rhan
Johnson's was my favorite, even though there are certain things
in his episode. I'm also like, why, why why did
you give us Luke milking a walrus elephant creature. But
(20:30):
it's that blue milk, man, It's that blue milk. Once
you have a taste, it was green. But still I digress, though,
Like I feel like it's suffered from the definitive decision
to make each set of those a trilogy, as opposed to, Oh,
I have a story that I think would be great
(20:51):
in the Star Wars universe, let me make that alone.
Rogue One I think was a fantastic story. Okay, well
we just agree on that, but I won't go I
won't use this time to go off on that, but
I will say that I think a big part of
this issue just stood from the fact that in the
first Star Wars film, Obi One makes a vague reference
(21:16):
to the Clone Wars and to Luke's father, and that
was enough to have people have their imaginations go wild
about how that must have played out, Like, what are
the Clone Wars? What does that mean? How did Obi
Wan serve Princess Leah's father during the Clone Wars, what
is that? What is this? How? And everyone just came
(21:37):
up with different theories about how that was going to
play out. And once you get to that point, you're
also endanger of the fact that you're never going to
be able to create something that's going to measure up
to someone's expectations or imagination. It's just impossible. Um, So
that that's a big issue to see. To me, the
sequels that that I tend to like a lot are
(22:00):
ones where it's the same characters, but it's not necessarily
a continuation of the original story. So for example, we
know speaking about Rhyan Johnson, we know about Knives Out
is going to get a sequel, and you know that
Knives Out sequel is going to be a new mystery
with the Detective. It's not going to be a continuation
(22:21):
of the story from the first film. And I can't
wait to see that. Honestly. Uh. Thor Ragnarok kind of
skirted around the continuous like we had Thor, which I
really enjoyed the first Thor, and then we had the
second Thor movie, which Dark Elves on Parade. Look, it
had Christopher eccleston, So I had to like it a
(22:41):
little bit, but but it was not great. I will
admit it was not great. And then they turned it
around for the third largely by just making it, making
it its own thing, you know. And and that's another like,
that's another interesting challenge though, right, because each of those movies,
in all of those different franchises are themselves part of
(23:01):
an even bigger franchise, that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So then you've got multiple, you know, multiple people to
to satisfy. You have the fans of the actual hero,
you have the fans of the overall cinematic universe, and
trying to tell stories that continue not just the individual storyline,
(23:22):
but then feedback into this bigger, overarching storyline. I can't
imagine how difficult it is keep all those plates from
falling off, you know, you have to keep them spinning.
But yeah, I think there's this tendency to go toward
prequels and sequels because of the idea that you've already
(23:45):
got a built in audience there. So therefore you know
you're you're you're banking on a good box office from
the get go. That is, to the detriment of good storytelling,
Like we can get good stories from that, they do happen.
I I'm hoping the new Guest Ghostbusters movie is a
good sequel. I I hope. So I'm not super optimistic,
(24:10):
but I'm hoping it was. If I'm hoping, I didn't
say I expected it to be. Usually I can do
about one sequel before I feel like it's a cash
grab in the same storyline, before they have to go
to different storylines. That being said, you know, I'm see
you like you said, spin Clates does good, good at it.
I you know, the third Foor was great, the third
(24:31):
Iron Man was passible. The Yeah, I'm hoping the Third
Spider Man is fantastic. The Third Captain America was good,
but not as good as the Second Captain America, which
was way better than the First Captain America. I agree,
First Captain America was well. First Captain America has the
(24:51):
same problems that all the Marvel origin stories have. So,
but that's a story, that's a that's a conversation for
a different time. At least they're starting with the prequel,
so it's the beginning of the story and not going back. Yeah,
we're not gonna We're not gonna get a movie filling
in what happened in the interim years for Captain America
(25:11):
because he's just a block of ice, so it would
be nothing happening. May you see like a little like
Penguin walked by occasionally, that would be about it. You know,
I wouldn't watch that movie, but I would use it
as a screen saver. It can. It'd be like the
Captain America Penguin webcam and you just have that up
in the window if you're listening want this. You know
(25:33):
that sounds like a great mash up, but we have
our own matchup to cover in just a second. And yes,
both factors of the mashup have been part of our
conversation in our news segment. So I hope you're ready
to hear some monstrous fun stuff as we move right
along into this next break aieal, Hey, Jonathan, would you
(26:14):
like to tell the good people about the terrible thing
that you're gonna make us do? Now? Listen, you can't
judge you made us do that Gotham. Gotham Universe meets
Veggie Hill Universe last week. Okay, that was pretty bad
and I am not ashamed. So this week we are
taking them up at universe and mixing it with the
(26:35):
Godzilla universe. I'm very excited about it. Do you want
me to go first? Or do you want to go first?
Why message tradition, I'll go first. So my mashup is
a mashup of the original Muppet movie mixed with Godzilla
King of the Monsters, which is the nineteen fifty six version,
(26:58):
not the nineteen nineteen version, because I still haven't been
able to catch that one all the way through. I'm
gonna interrupt you already, arial because I'm so excited. I
have a feeling we have the same joke. Go for it.
Oh no, yeah, go for it. Go for it. So
this is called the Muppet Muto. Beloved comedian Steve Martin
(27:18):
sits in a hospital, bandaged up, broken banjo, telling reporters
of the CHAOSI witness firsthand and how he self saved
l A and the world from a fearsome felt uprising.
You see, it all started started with the scientist Dr Hopper,
who is Evil Matt, on his quest to get the
largest frog legs ever for his true passion, a French
fried frog leg restaurant. All of his previous genetic engineering
(27:42):
feats had failed him. And catching frogs is hard and tedious,
so after weeks of scouring the Okainoki swamp, he was
about to give up when he met Kermit the Frog
singing in the swamp, which is weird one as I
felt frog too he's singing, but he thinks surely Kermit
has frog friends, so he talks Kermit into bringing a
(28:03):
bunch of his froggy friends to l A to start.
The swamp and friends show uh. The address he really
gives Kermit is to his secret lab, his plan being
to catch all the frogs that Kermit brings in the lab,
exposed them to radiation in a controlled environment, and blow
them up to get giant frog legs. However, Kermit, being
a Muppet, ends up not just bringing his swampy frog friends,
(28:26):
but a bunch of other muppets he meets along the way.
In fact, he makes so many new friends, and he
sends all his froggy fat friends back home, thinking the
muppets will make a better team to entertain the world with. Also,
along the way, they meet Steve Martin, the comedian Yes,
who is on a bluegrass tour, who thinks that they
are absolutely darling and encourages them on the endeavor, he says,
(28:47):
look me up once you get to l A. So
the Muppets they get to l A and they send
Steve Martin a note saying we made it. Come watch
our audition, Net so and so addressed, and they enter
the theater, which is really the lab to Dr Hopper.
Dr Hopper only sees Kermit entering the building, missing all
of the other muppets, and he locks the doors and
starts up the radiation mechanism, not realizing that all the
(29:09):
other creatures who entered are not frogs. However, as that
radiation starts upticking, one of Gonzo's rogue chickens bumps into
the wrong button and the radiation goes off the charts
and the next thing you know, out of this collapsing
building emerges kerm Zilla breathing rainbow fires, Rolf Dan firing
(29:29):
musical shock waves, Gonza, who has merged with his chickens,
becoming winged and causing major wind gusts, Mecca Piggy, who
pierce his ear dumps with her high pitched whining roar,
and Fawzuki, who is ridiculous and finds mayhem the funniest
joke of all. They start rampages and buggling all over
l a wreaking havoc, and Steve Martin, who was just
heading to out to watch their auditions, sees it all.
(29:51):
Martin knows that they think they are doing good for humanity,
and must still think so at their giant size. He
also knows that music soothes as a savage beast, and
so he starts playing the Rainbow Connection on his banjo,
luring Kermit and the other Muppets to the Libreya tar pits,
the closest thing he can think of to match the
swamps back at Kermit's home. His goal is to just
(30:14):
stick them Uppets in the tar pets until he can
figure out how to change them back to regular size,
But giant felt soaks up tar really well, and the
Muppets starts singing to the bottom of the pits. We
flash back to Mr Martin in his hospital room with
all the reporters around him, as a single tear rolls
down his cheek and he finishes his story. The reporters leave,
(30:35):
and all of a sudden, Martin hears in the distance
the brief, otherworldly humming of never before, Never again, Never Before,
Never Again. Cut to black Wow your's got grim he
killed all the Muppets. They're gonna listen, you heard the
ominous singing, They're gonna come back. Godzilla always comes back. Well, well,
(30:56):
I can now say that I thought you were going
to go the same to action I went in and
you did not, So I have got a different take.
Mine is called The Muppets Take Godzilla, and our movie
begins with a flashback. It's the climax of the original
The Muppet Movie, in which Doc Hopper, the restaurant mogul
(31:17):
who wants Kermit as his spokes frog for his chain
of Frog's legs restaurants, is closing in. Animal consumes some
growth formula made by Dr Bunsen honeydew and grows to
a massive size, scaring off all the bad guys and
saving the day. We have a swimmy dissolve. We're now
in the present day and Animal is back to his
(31:40):
usual animal size. The Muppets are on a cargo ship
captained by Tom Hanks, and they are bound for Tokyo Bay.
As Hanks pilots the ship, he hears that they are
being pursued by pirates. How can the same thing happen
to the same guy twice, he says, and someone says,
is that is that Bruce Willis's line. The pirates close
(32:03):
in and are ready to board, and that's when the
Muppets see that the pirates are led by Tim Curry
and the entire crew are from Muppet Treasure Island. Kermit
helpfully explains to Mr. Curry that they're in the wrong movie. Curry,
or Long John, to his friends, apologizes he is a
gentleman of fortune after all, and the pirates sail off
peacefully singing what a nice man, says. Fozzy Hanks maneuvers
(32:27):
the ship toward Tokyo Bay, but chaos is breaking out
on deck. Miss Piggy is practicing her Japanese dr Teeth
and the Electric Mayhem are playing Turning Japanese by the vapors,
and Lose Zealand is hurling his Boomerang fish as he
practice practices his idea for a super fresh sushi delivery service.
One such fish wax tom Hanks in the head and
(32:51):
he veers off course. The ship carrying the Muppets accidentally
nudges another ship carrying barrels labeled super nuclear toxic fish food.
Barrel falls off the ship and sinks into the ocean,
which bubbles a lot. The Muppets disembark and start to
debate what they should do first, with everyone seeming to
have a different idea of what they should do. Kermit
(33:14):
wants to head to the countryside and see the cherry blossoms.
Piggy wants to check out the fashion district. Scooter really
just wants to look at electronics stores. Fozzy wants to
try out some new material. As they bicker, the sea
behind them is roiling and the spiky back of a
certain enormous lizard monster rises up. Godzilla stands tall, his
(33:37):
slash her shadow covering the Muppets as they continue to
argue amongst themselves. Meanwhile, the people of Tokyo sort of
roll their eyes and go indoors, shutting themselves in as
if to say, well, here we go again. The traffic
stops and the streets are emptied. But it's only when
Godzilla lets out that monstrous scream then the Muppets all
(33:58):
freeze and turn around in unison. After a beat of silence,
all the Muppets go into full on freak out mode.
Godzilla starts to make his her way to the shoreline,
approaching Tokyo, which seems almost resigned to what's about to happen.
Kurmit sees that Godzilla is heading directly toward Tokyo Disney
see the theme park, guys. Kermit yells, we gotta do
(34:21):
something or the Boss is gonna be awful mad. The
Muppets all look, and it's clear they are all processing
how Mickey is gonna be miffed if Godzilla crushes that
theme park. They spring into action. What follows is a
series of attempts to distract Godzilla. Fozzy Fozzy tries out
his material, but Godzilla agrees with Statler and Waldorf that
it's fishy honey dew and Beaker tried to distract Godzilla
(34:45):
with her own Mecca Muppet Godzilla, but while Godzilla first
seems interested, a malfunctioning remote control in Baker's hands leads
to the robots premature destruction, and so on, until Animal,
convinced he can take on Godzilla, is who's out his
own roar of a challenge. Godzilla seems either amused or confused,
and it's just about the squish animal when Baker, zapped
(35:07):
by that remote control, accidentally tosses the last remaining vial
of the growth formula forgotten in his own lab coat.
It flies through the air and hits Animal directly, and
then Animal grows to the size of Godzilla. What follows
is essentially the trailer for Godzilla versus Kong, complete with
Animal doing an action movie jump away from an explosion.
(35:31):
But in the middle of their struggle, Animal in Godzilla
find out they aren't so different after all, and Kermit,
teeny Tiny Kermit points this out with a lovely earnest
speech which gets to Godzilla and instead of fighting, they
all become friends. Were in the movie with a montage
of the Muppets touring Japan, Godzilla into We see them
(35:52):
at Disneyland, downtown Tokyo, touring the countryside on top of
Mount Fiji, and in the very end we learned Godzilla
has joined the Electric Mayhem as a backup singer and dancer.
The end. I would so watch that, I feel like
I did in my head as you were saying it,
but I would watch that on the big screen as well. Yeah,
(36:14):
the first thing that came to me was that scene
in the Muppet movie where Animal grows to an enormous size,
And that's why when you mentioned the Muppet movie. I thought, Oh,
I have a feeling we're going to have the same story.
Oh no, really, uh, I just wanted to pick a
movie that I was familiar with, and that one was
the first one. Also, I picked Godzilly King of Monsters,
(36:38):
the version that I did specifically because there it starts
with an injured American reporter named Steve Martin. Nice. I
like that. I like that we also had references to
other stuff. I couldn't resist having the reference to Muppet
Treasure Island, which I maintain it's probably the best of
the Muppet films that came out in that era. Agree.
(37:00):
I agree. In fact, I want to go and watch
that right now. So I'm going to end this episode
with you, Jonathan. That sounds good, Ariel. If people would
like to reach out and send us their thoughts, their
own mash ups, maybe suggestions for things we can talk
about in future episodes, how would they do such a thing, Well,
they can email us at ellen C and I heart
Media dot com, or they can reach out to us
(37:22):
on social media at on Twitter we are ellen c
Underscore Podcast, and on Facebook and Instagram We're Large and
or Drunk Collider. You can also go to our website
and leave us a note there. That's where we put
all of our episodes and show notes. Yep, and thank
you guys for listening. We really appreciate it. Remember, if
you enjoyed the show, leave us a review. Tell your
(37:43):
friends about the show where the mouth helps a lot.
We really enjoyed doing this. We can't wait to hear
from you, guys. And until next time. She has been
arial casting and he has been Jonathan Mecha Strickland m
h m hm hm h m hm hm. The Large
(38:18):
New Drunk Collider is a production of I Heart Radio
and was created by Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is
the executive producer. The show is produced, edited and published
by Torri Harrison. For more podcasts on my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
The Large Nerdron 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 excited we are about them.
(00:30):
I'm Ariel casting and with me, as always, is the
delightful Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel, I got a question for you. So, Ariel, uh,
for the purposes of this question, you have found yourself
(00:50):
at the Magic Kingdom over in Disney World. You can
pick one ride in the entire park and there will
be no line for you, and you can ride in
your favorite spot on the ride. So if there's a
specific area of whatever ride that you're like, I love
to be in the front, or I love to be
in the back or whatever, it's all yours. Which ride
(01:12):
do you pick? And why I'm gonna say Space Mountain
because it's the thrill ride. It's like the thrill ride,
you know. It also tends to have like the longest line. Yeah, yeah,
I mean, and I would sit in the in the
front i feel the most like I'm going to hit
my head, because I always feel like I'm going to
(01:34):
hit my head because you know, I'm five. Uh. If
if it were a past ride, it would be the
Alien Encounters ride that they eventually turned into the Lelo
and Stitch Encounter where you all sit in this circular
room and then the lights go out and the alien
attacks n it breathes on your neck and it tickles you.
And the Extra Terrorestrial ride. Yeah, it was fantastic, but
(01:56):
it didn't really it didn't really fit Disney, but I
bit it better. It was very it was very immersive,
like you know, they were using all the binarial audio
stuff and the four D kind of effects, you know,
which was interesting. But it was so mean spirited, which
(02:17):
is what really bugged me. Like the pre show had
a really mean spirited moment with a teleporter mishap, for example,
and it was just something that I felt like, Wow,
this is not a great fit for this particular park.
It wasn't, so I understand what it went away, even
for the when they changed it to Lelo and Stitch.
If it were a future ride, I would probably say
(02:38):
the tron Coaster is going to beat out Space any day.
But but I haven't written that because I haven't been
to the park where it currently exists, Jonathan, what ride
would you? Um? Gosh, and you think I would have
prepared something? You think? Yeah, so, so I'll tell you
what my favorite. My favorite two rides in the park
(03:00):
happened to be Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion.
Those are my two favorite rides. However, Haunted Mansion, even
when there's a line, it goes pretty fast because it
swallows up big groups of people all at once. Uh,
Pirates of the Caribbean, that line can be really long sometimes. Um,
(03:20):
I guess that's the one I would go with. Like,
I'm tempted to say Space Mountain as well, because that's
a great ride and I haven't ridden it in ages
because my wife does not like roller coasters. But I
love roller coasters. I used to hate them. I love them.
See you now, if we were both at the park,
I would be okay with saying, all right, i'll use
mine to go on Space Mountain. You can ride in front,
(03:41):
I'll ride behind, and let's let's do this. Uh that
I would do it in that case if I were
by myself. Parts of the Caribbean. Fair enough, Okay, Well,
now that we have answered that question, it's time for
us to move on to what we like to call
the rest of the episode. It's such an original original title.
(04:05):
I mean, we played with a bunch of different segments,
but the rest of the episode one out because we
were both tired. Yes, okay, So the next segment in
the rest of this episode is going to be some
geek news surprise, surprise, And the first piece of geek
news is Godzilla Versus Kong got its first trailer. Yeah,
(04:27):
and also spoiler alert, this story and another one in
our lineup are going to play into our mesh up
later on, So that's some foreshadowing. Yeah, I watched this
trailer which was entertaining. Uh you know, it's it's got
a lot, it's very King Kong heavy, which not very
surprising for the United States audience now, and it um
(04:49):
it features. So the story is that Godzilla has turned
against humanity. If you didn't watch Godzilla and then Godzilla
King of Monsters, which are the previous two movies on
the god Zilla side of this franchise, Godzilla is kind
of an antihero. He's he's kind of a good guy.
He she I'm uncertain on that. It changes depending on
(05:10):
the on the incarnation. Yes, yeah, and in this one,
King Kong, who is also kind of a good guy misunderstood.
I mean that's always been the case for King Kong, right,
He's he's always been a misunderstood, good ape just giant
(05:32):
ends up fighting Godzilla. And so I'm sad because I
like both of them. At first, I was so excited,
and now I'm like, now that I'm like one of
them is going to have to lose, I'm just gonna cry.
I'm sure it's gonna be one of those where no
one really loses and no one really wins, Like it
will be something where Godzilla's you know, lurks off into
(05:52):
the ocean and King Kong is uh slowly limping its
way back to to safety or some thing. Well, the
trailer has a moment where Kong's in chains, well, Godzilla
is rising up to reek havoc and Kong is kind
of losing his ape mind in the process. My favorite
(06:14):
moment in the trailer is where Kong does the action
hero leap away from an explosion shot yes, yes, and
and the punch into godzilla mouth at the same time. Yeah.
It's just to me, it was like that whole it
was that whole trope of you know that you see
(06:34):
the you see the explosive coming down at a building,
and so you make a run for it. You jump
just as the explosion goes off and it propels you
through the air. And to see that with King Kong,
I was like, all right, this is ridiculous. If he
had done that, you say that, you think they'll both
limp away. If they had done that in the original
King Kong movie, he would have survived the Empire State building. Yeah,
(06:56):
I'm just saying. Well, and to be fair, both King
Kong and Godzilla, besides having a history where Godzilla becomes
either a he or a she, they both also have
a history where one their size changes depending upon the
moment of the movie. Like there there are sequences in
both King Kong films and in Godzilla films where you
can't tell how big these things are supposed to be
(07:18):
because they do change from scene to scene, and to
their capacity to soak up damage changes from movie to
movie too. So uh, but it was it was interesting,
Like it definitely is spectacle. It's the kind of movie
that immediately made me think, yeah, this is coming to
HBO Max. But it definitely feels like the kind of
movie that would benefit the most and seeing it on
(07:40):
the big screen. I agree. I hope that once theaters
open back up that they re release some of these
more spectacular movies for people to watch in a larger scale.
That being said, we are going to get it earlier
than expected. Instead of coming out in May, we're going
to get it in March. So that's something to look
(08:00):
forward to. Something else to look forward to is that
we now know that all five seasons of the original
Muppet Show are coming to Disney plus yes, and two
of those seasons have never been released on home entertainment before.
Seasons seasons four and five one through three were released
on DVD, and season four was planned to release on DVD.
(08:23):
They had even had a show of the box art
at a d twenty three event in the past. It
just never happened. There are still some questions. There's a
lot of speculation going on. The big one being will
this version have all the sequences that were shot for
the Muppet Show? Uh? For two reasons. One is that
(08:45):
in the UK there was typically one extra segment per
episode because they had not as many minutes of commercial
to account for. So since they had fewer commercials, they
had an extra segment in the UK version of the Muppets,
stuff that we here in the United States never got
to see and number two. In the past, one of
(09:08):
the things that has held up some of those sequences
is that the Muppets would do music numbers, and often
it was, you know, very popular music of the time,
that being the late seventies early eighties, and that meant
that music licensing rights were a complication. So the DVD
releases left out some of those music numbers because of that,
(09:30):
and there's a question about whether or not those will
be restored for the Disney Plus version, or if we're
going to get the same kind of chopped up episodes
due to those music licensing issues. Yeah. Another question is
if we're going to get all of the Muppet movies
on Disney Plus, because Sony still owns a couple of them, right, yes,
Sony still I think it's Muppets from Space might be
(09:54):
one of the two. There's a couple, um, but yeah,
there's a there are a couple of movies that does
need does not own the rights to. When Disney purchased
the intellectual property from the Henson Company, it was in
bits and pieces. It wasn't everything, and as a result,
it has been very difficult to create a library of
(10:16):
Hinson material because Disney didn't own all of it. Mhmm, yeah,
you know that. Being said, Muppets in Space not my
favorite should be my favorite Muppet movie, and it's totally not.
I have never watched it because it's a it's a
film that explains the origins of Gonzo, and I maintain
(10:37):
the Gonzo, very much like another person will be chatting
about later in this episode, does not need his origin explained.
Fair enough, that's more foreshadowing for the rest of the show. Okay, well,
onto our next news item, which is really good news,
(10:58):
and that is that AMC is not going into bankruptcy
at least for now. They suspect to be able to
make it through this crunch of trying to get everybody
vaccinated from at least at least till the end of
our deep into one is I think how they said it. Yeah,
they raised something like more than nine million dollars in
(11:21):
an effort to you know, consolidate debt and cover that
sort of stuff so that they would not have to
go into bankruptcy. So nearly a billion dollars, which is
that is good news. Hopefully that means that the theater
chain will be able to wait it out. As we're
trying to get these vaccines rolled out and to get
(11:41):
to a point where they can open up again, some
other things will be waiting for. We have a trio
of stories that are all spin off sequels or prequels
that we thought we would cover. And also this will
tie into our next segment. That's even more, doesn't I
am shadowing so many fours? Listen, you are really every
(12:01):
almost every story kind of falls into what we're going
to talk about next. That we talked about. One of
those stories is that Warner Brothers is talking about developing
a series for HBO Max set in the universe of
Harry Potter. That's about all we know. Yeah, yeah, I
mean it makes sense. It's it's a hugely profitable to
(12:25):
this day, even that we haven't had Harry a new Harry. Well,
I guess all of the Fantastic Beast movies are new
Harry Potter movies, but I don't count them neither do I.
They're terrible, They're almost unwatchable. Yeah. Yeah, So, like there
aren't any writers or talent actually set yet they're just
(12:45):
exploring the idea. Yeah, so we assume this would be
something like a series maybe said at Hogwarts. We don't know,
but that does seem like you know pretty sure. Bet.
It's the same reason why they decided to make Deathly
Hallows two movies. It wasn't that they felt they couldn't
tell the story in one movie. It was that they thought,
this is literally the last book in the series. We
(13:07):
will not be making another one after this. Let's milk it. Next,
we have a story that Ariel says she's got opinions about.
I do so The Witcher is getting a prequel Blood Origins.
We knew that. They finally announced one of their cast members,
who is Jody Turner Smith, and she is playing a
character Haley I would I would call it a pro
(13:31):
too Witcher, sort of like how in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
Buffy eventually meets the first Slayer. This is Kingna, Like
the the character that's sword of is a precursor to
the Witcher type of of of occupation. So I am
really excited to see what Jody Turner Smith does with
(13:53):
the property. She has done other science fiction stories before.
She was in George RR Martin's adaptation for now Fires,
for instance. But I was really hoping for a second
season of Wicher as someone who hasn't played the games
and was incredibly lost in the first season storyline. I
don't want to go to a pre quill and get
(14:14):
even more confused while I'm still trying to figure out
the original storyline. I don't think it's going to help
and our last one in this trio of spinoffs. Some
prequels would be the prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a film
that we had heard about rumored. It was rumored to
(14:35):
be in development for a while, and now we know
that the writer and the director for the Paddington films
they're both attached to this. So apparently we're going to
get a Willy Wonka origin story, which is somewhat challenging,
as Tim Burton tried to do that in the last
adaptation of Charlie Chocolate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and
(14:58):
it was terry. You kind of have to go away
from what the source material does tell us about Willy Wonka. Also,
Willy Wonka's other stories that Rode Doll tried to write
also didn't do that. Well. Yeah, they never really well.
One was the Glass Elevator, Charlie and the Glass Elevator,
and that one didn't really capture imaginations. And the third one,
(15:20):
Charlie was the Charlie in the White House, I believe,
is what it was. That one only got one chapter
in before he wrote. Doll himself gave up on it,
so it didn't even get finished. Yeah, the the and
you know, if you go back to like how Willie
Wonka got the Umpa Loompa's that's not a good story
to tell. So so for me, like Wonka, like Gonzo,
(15:43):
is a character who does not need their back story,
explained that being said having put on Paddington two out
of a moment of boredom and nothing else being on television,
and then watching the entire movie that I thought I
was going to watch for five minutes because it was
so awesome. If anybody can do it, it's that team. Yeah,
(16:04):
so we will have to keep an eye out. It's
very possible that they'll make a good, just largely unnecessary movie.
Now that kind of leads us into what we're gonna
talk about in our next segment where we're going to
have a discussion about when is more too much, like
when is it bad to get more of a good thing?
(16:26):
But we will talk about that after we take this break.
So we wanted to talk about this, this trend where
we get more entries into a franchise, kind of similar
(16:48):
to like Deathly Hallows getting split into two movies or
The Hobbit being split into three movies. Yeah, that kind
of thing where some rights holder, whether it's a movie studio,
television studio, or an author. It could be an author
has gotten into their heads that they need to produce
more of something that was really popular because it's almost
(17:11):
a license to print money. And often that ends up
being unsatisfying experience for fans. Um it can. At best,
it might be that wasn't as good as I wanted
it to be, and at worst, it might be you
have ruined everything I loved and helped dear. So, for example,
one franchise that I think fits into this mold is Highlander.
(17:35):
I think the first film is interesting, It has some
stuff in it that I really love. I love the soundtrack.
Queen did an amazing job. The concept is bonkers, and
I love it. But it's the type of film that
has a pretty definitive ending, and so when there was
a decision to make more films in the franchise, they
(17:56):
had the sort of reet con the ending of the
first film for there to be anymore sequels. Otherwise it
just doesn't make sense. And it still doesn't make sense,
and those sequels are to varying degrees terrible too. The
worst thing ever, um, there are no good Highlander sequels
as far as I am concerned, And even the original
(18:17):
Highlander movie, as much as I enjoy it, is far
from a perfect film. But that's a great example of
more not necessarily being better. There was always this hope
that the next Highlander movie was somehow going to fix
the previous Islander movies. It just never seemed to happen. Yeah,
you know, I feel that way about a lot of prequels.
(18:38):
To for instance, Maleficent, I didn't need an origin story
for the bad guy. I didn't need her to be
a sympathetic character. Even I understand that people like it,
and if that's your jam, more powered to you. But
to me, it just didn't add anything to the story
at all. And if and again, it feels sort of
(18:58):
like Disney cashing in on sleeping beauty, because this is
kind of related to Disney's habit of taking their animated
films and making live action versions, because rather than try
and come up with new i P. They're relying on
the love and affection people have for the stuff that
(19:19):
they've already done, so why not we do that again
kind of thing. Um. Star Wars I think falls into
this category to at least for some people. For me, definitely,
like both the prequels and the sequels fall into this category.
For me. The original trilogy is pretty good. Return of
the Jedi is probably the weakest of the three, but
(19:41):
it's a pretty good trilogy. But the prequels and the
sequels don't do much for me at all. You know,
I would agree there were things I liked about the prequels.
Listening to my friends who have children talk about introducing
their kids to Star Wars, and even though there's some
really dry, dry political material in there, like the kids
like it, so, you know, for like, it was great
(20:05):
to put that in place for people now who are
introducing their kids to Star Wars. That being said, not
my favorite trilogy of the bunch, This last trilogy there
were things that I liked about the movies. Honestly, Rhan
Johnson's was my favorite, even though there are certain things
in his episode. I'm also like, why, why why did
you give us Luke milking a walrus elephant creature. But
(20:30):
it's that blue milk, man, It's that blue milk. Once
you have a taste, it was green. But still I digress, though,
Like I feel like it's suffered from the definitive decision
to make each set of those a trilogy, as opposed to, Oh,
I have a story that I think would be great
(20:51):
in the Star Wars universe, let me make that alone.
Rogue One I think was a fantastic story. Okay, well
we just agree on that, but I won't go I
won't use this time to go off on that, but
I will say that I think a big part of
this issue just stood from the fact that in the
first Star Wars film, Obi One makes a vague reference
(21:16):
to the Clone Wars and to Luke's father, and that
was enough to have people have their imaginations go wild
about how that must have played out, Like, what are
the Clone Wars? What does that mean? How did Obi
Wan serve Princess Leah's father during the Clone Wars, what
is that? What is this? How? And everyone just came
(21:37):
up with different theories about how that was going to
play out. And once you get to that point, you're
also endanger of the fact that you're never going to
be able to create something that's going to measure up
to someone's expectations or imagination. It's just impossible. Um, So
that that's a big issue to see. To me, the
sequels that that I tend to like a lot are
(22:00):
ones where it's the same characters, but it's not necessarily
a continuation of the original story. So for example, we
know speaking about Rhyan Johnson, we know about Knives Out
is going to get a sequel, and you know that
Knives Out sequel is going to be a new mystery
with the Detective. It's not going to be a continuation
(22:21):
of the story from the first film. And I can't
wait to see that. Honestly. Uh. Thor Ragnarok kind of
skirted around the continuous like we had Thor, which I
really enjoyed the first Thor, and then we had the
second Thor movie, which Dark Elves on Parade. Look, it
had Christopher eccleston, So I had to like it a
(22:41):
little bit, but but it was not great. I will
admit it was not great. And then they turned it
around for the third largely by just making it, making
it its own thing, you know. And and that's another like,
that's another interesting challenge though, right, because each of those movies,
in all of those different franchises are themselves part of
(23:01):
an even bigger franchise, that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
So then you've got multiple, you know, multiple people to
to satisfy. You have the fans of the actual hero,
you have the fans of the overall cinematic universe, and
trying to tell stories that continue not just the individual storyline,
(23:22):
but then feedback into this bigger, overarching storyline. I can't
imagine how difficult it is keep all those plates from
falling off, you know, you have to keep them spinning.
But yeah, I think there's this tendency to go toward
prequels and sequels because of the idea that you've already
(23:45):
got a built in audience there. So therefore you know
you're you're you're banking on a good box office from
the get go. That is, to the detriment of good storytelling,
Like we can get good stories from that, they do happen.
I I'm hoping the new Guest Ghostbusters movie is a
good sequel. I I hope. So I'm not super optimistic,
(24:10):
but I'm hoping it was. If I'm hoping, I didn't
say I expected it to be. Usually I can do
about one sequel before I feel like it's a cash
grab in the same storyline, before they have to go
to different storylines. That being said, you know, I'm see
you like you said, spin Clates does good, good at it.
I you know, the third Foor was great, the third
(24:31):
Iron Man was passible. The Yeah, I'm hoping the Third
Spider Man is fantastic. The Third Captain America was good,
but not as good as the Second Captain America, which
was way better than the First Captain America. I agree,
First Captain America was well. First Captain America has the
(24:51):
same problems that all the Marvel origin stories have. So,
but that's a story, that's a that's a conversation for
a different time. At least they're starting with the prequel,
so it's the beginning of the story and not going back. Yeah,
we're not gonna We're not gonna get a movie filling
in what happened in the interim years for Captain America
(25:11):
because he's just a block of ice, so it would
be nothing happening. May you see like a little like
Penguin walked by occasionally, that would be about it. You know,
I wouldn't watch that movie, but I would use it
as a screen saver. It can. It'd be like the
Captain America Penguin webcam and you just have that up
in the window if you're listening want this. You know
(25:33):
that sounds like a great mash up, but we have
our own matchup to cover in just a second. And yes,
both factors of the mashup have been part of our
conversation in our news segment. So I hope you're ready
to hear some monstrous fun stuff as we move right
along into this next break aieal, Hey, Jonathan, would you
(26:14):
like to tell the good people about the terrible thing
that you're gonna make us do? Now? Listen, you can't
judge you made us do that Gotham. Gotham Universe meets
Veggie Hill Universe last week. Okay, that was pretty bad
and I am not ashamed. So this week we are
taking them up at universe and mixing it with the
(26:35):
Godzilla universe. I'm very excited about it. Do you want
me to go first? Or do you want to go first?
Why message tradition, I'll go first. So my mashup is
a mashup of the original Muppet movie mixed with Godzilla
King of the Monsters, which is the nineteen fifty six version,
(26:58):
not the nineteen nineteen version, because I still haven't been
able to catch that one all the way through. I'm
gonna interrupt you already, arial because I'm so excited. I
have a feeling we have the same joke. Go for it.
Oh no, yeah, go for it. Go for it. So
this is called the Muppet Muto. Beloved comedian Steve Martin
(27:18):
sits in a hospital, bandaged up, broken banjo, telling reporters
of the CHAOSI witness firsthand and how he self saved
l A and the world from a fearsome felt uprising.
You see, it all started started with the scientist Dr Hopper,
who is Evil Matt, on his quest to get the
largest frog legs ever for his true passion, a French
fried frog leg restaurant. All of his previous genetic engineering
(27:42):
feats had failed him. And catching frogs is hard and tedious,
so after weeks of scouring the Okainoki swamp, he was
about to give up when he met Kermit the Frog
singing in the swamp, which is weird one as I
felt frog too he's singing, but he thinks surely Kermit
has frog friends, so he talks Kermit into bringing a
(28:03):
bunch of his froggy friends to l A to start.
The swamp and friends show uh. The address he really
gives Kermit is to his secret lab, his plan being
to catch all the frogs that Kermit brings in the lab,
exposed them to radiation in a controlled environment, and blow
them up to get giant frog legs. However, Kermit, being
a Muppet, ends up not just bringing his swampy frog friends,
(28:26):
but a bunch of other muppets he meets along the way.
In fact, he makes so many new friends, and he
sends all his froggy fat friends back home, thinking the
muppets will make a better team to entertain the world with. Also,
along the way, they meet Steve Martin, the comedian Yes,
who is on a bluegrass tour, who thinks that they
are absolutely darling and encourages them on the endeavor, he says,
(28:47):
look me up once you get to l A. So
the Muppets they get to l A and they send
Steve Martin a note saying we made it. Come watch
our audition, Net so and so addressed, and they enter
the theater, which is really the lab to Dr Hopper.
Dr Hopper only sees Kermit entering the building, missing all
of the other muppets, and he locks the doors and
starts up the radiation mechanism, not realizing that all the
(29:09):
other creatures who entered are not frogs. However, as that
radiation starts upticking, one of Gonzo's rogue chickens bumps into
the wrong button and the radiation goes off the charts
and the next thing you know, out of this collapsing
building emerges kerm Zilla breathing rainbow fires, Rolf Dan firing
(29:29):
musical shock waves, Gonza, who has merged with his chickens,
becoming winged and causing major wind gusts, Mecca Piggy, who
pierce his ear dumps with her high pitched whining roar,
and Fawzuki, who is ridiculous and finds mayhem the funniest
joke of all. They start rampages and buggling all over
l a wreaking havoc, and Steve Martin, who was just
heading to out to watch their auditions, sees it all.
(29:51):
Martin knows that they think they are doing good for humanity,
and must still think so at their giant size. He
also knows that music soothes as a savage beast, and
so he starts playing the Rainbow Connection on his banjo,
luring Kermit and the other Muppets to the Libreya tar pits,
the closest thing he can think of to match the
swamps back at Kermit's home. His goal is to just
(30:14):
stick them Uppets in the tar pets until he can
figure out how to change them back to regular size,
But giant felt soaks up tar really well, and the
Muppets starts singing to the bottom of the pits. We
flash back to Mr Martin in his hospital room with
all the reporters around him, as a single tear rolls
down his cheek and he finishes his story. The reporters leave,
(30:35):
and all of a sudden, Martin hears in the distance
the brief, otherworldly humming of never before, Never again, Never Before,
Never Again. Cut to black Wow your's got grim he
killed all the Muppets. They're gonna listen, you heard the
ominous singing, They're gonna come back. Godzilla always comes back. Well, well,
(30:56):
I can now say that I thought you were going
to go the same to action I went in and
you did not, So I have got a different take.
Mine is called The Muppets Take Godzilla, and our movie
begins with a flashback. It's the climax of the original
The Muppet Movie, in which Doc Hopper, the restaurant mogul
(31:17):
who wants Kermit as his spokes frog for his chain
of Frog's legs restaurants, is closing in. Animal consumes some
growth formula made by Dr Bunsen honeydew and grows to
a massive size, scaring off all the bad guys and
saving the day. We have a swimmy dissolve. We're now
in the present day and Animal is back to his
(31:40):
usual animal size. The Muppets are on a cargo ship
captained by Tom Hanks, and they are bound for Tokyo Bay.
As Hanks pilots the ship, he hears that they are
being pursued by pirates. How can the same thing happen
to the same guy twice, he says, and someone says,
is that is that Bruce Willis's line. The pirates close
(32:03):
in and are ready to board, and that's when the
Muppets see that the pirates are led by Tim Curry
and the entire crew are from Muppet Treasure Island. Kermit
helpfully explains to Mr. Curry that they're in the wrong movie. Curry,
or Long John, to his friends, apologizes he is a
gentleman of fortune after all, and the pirates sail off
peacefully singing what a nice man, says. Fozzy Hanks maneuvers
(32:27):
the ship toward Tokyo Bay, but chaos is breaking out
on deck. Miss Piggy is practicing her Japanese dr Teeth
and the Electric Mayhem are playing Turning Japanese by the vapors,
and Lose Zealand is hurling his Boomerang fish as he
practice practices his idea for a super fresh sushi delivery service.
One such fish wax tom Hanks in the head and
(32:51):
he veers off course. The ship carrying the Muppets accidentally
nudges another ship carrying barrels labeled super nuclear toxic fish food.
Barrel falls off the ship and sinks into the ocean,
which bubbles a lot. The Muppets disembark and start to
debate what they should do first, with everyone seeming to
have a different idea of what they should do. Kermit
(33:14):
wants to head to the countryside and see the cherry blossoms.
Piggy wants to check out the fashion district. Scooter really
just wants to look at electronics stores. Fozzy wants to
try out some new material. As they bicker, the sea
behind them is roiling and the spiky back of a
certain enormous lizard monster rises up. Godzilla stands tall, his
(33:37):
slash her shadow covering the Muppets as they continue to
argue amongst themselves. Meanwhile, the people of Tokyo sort of
roll their eyes and go indoors, shutting themselves in as
if to say, well, here we go again. The traffic
stops and the streets are emptied. But it's only when
Godzilla lets out that monstrous scream then the Muppets all
(33:58):
freeze and turn around in unison. After a beat of silence,
all the Muppets go into full on freak out mode.
Godzilla starts to make his her way to the shoreline,
approaching Tokyo, which seems almost resigned to what's about to happen.
Kurmit sees that Godzilla is heading directly toward Tokyo Disney
see the theme park, guys. Kermit yells, we gotta do
(34:21):
something or the Boss is gonna be awful mad. The
Muppets all look, and it's clear they are all processing
how Mickey is gonna be miffed if Godzilla crushes that
theme park. They spring into action. What follows is a
series of attempts to distract Godzilla. Fozzy Fozzy tries out
his material, but Godzilla agrees with Statler and Waldorf that
it's fishy honey dew and Beaker tried to distract Godzilla
(34:45):
with her own Mecca Muppet Godzilla, but while Godzilla first
seems interested, a malfunctioning remote control in Baker's hands leads
to the robots premature destruction, and so on, until Animal,
convinced he can take on Godzilla, is who's out his
own roar of a challenge. Godzilla seems either amused or confused,
and it's just about the squish animal when Baker, zapped
(35:07):
by that remote control, accidentally tosses the last remaining vial
of the growth formula forgotten in his own lab coat.
It flies through the air and hits Animal directly, and
then Animal grows to the size of Godzilla. What follows
is essentially the trailer for Godzilla versus Kong, complete with
Animal doing an action movie jump away from an explosion.
(35:31):
But in the middle of their struggle, Animal in Godzilla
find out they aren't so different after all, and Kermit,
teeny Tiny Kermit points this out with a lovely earnest
speech which gets to Godzilla and instead of fighting, they
all become friends. Were in the movie with a montage
of the Muppets touring Japan, Godzilla into We see them
(35:52):
at Disneyland, downtown Tokyo, touring the countryside on top of
Mount Fiji, and in the very end we learned Godzilla
has joined the Electric Mayhem as a backup singer and dancer.
The end. I would so watch that, I feel like
I did in my head as you were saying it,
but I would watch that on the big screen as well. Yeah,
(36:14):
the first thing that came to me was that scene
in the Muppet movie where Animal grows to an enormous size,
And that's why when you mentioned the Muppet movie. I thought, Oh,
I have a feeling we're going to have the same story.
Oh no, really, uh, I just wanted to pick a
movie that I was familiar with, and that one was
the first one. Also, I picked Godzilly King of Monsters,
(36:38):
the version that I did specifically because there it starts
with an injured American reporter named Steve Martin. Nice. I
like that. I like that we also had references to
other stuff. I couldn't resist having the reference to Muppet
Treasure Island, which I maintain it's probably the best of
the Muppet films that came out in that era. Agree.
(37:00):
I agree. In fact, I want to go and watch
that right now. So I'm going to end this episode
with you, Jonathan. That sounds good, Ariel. If people would
like to reach out and send us their thoughts, their
own mash ups, maybe suggestions for things we can talk
about in future episodes, how would they do such a thing, Well,
they can email us at ellen C and I heart
Media dot com, or they can reach out to us
(37:22):
on social media at on Twitter we are ellen c
Underscore Podcast, and on Facebook and Instagram We're Large and
or Drunk Collider. You can also go to our website
and leave us a note there. That's where we put
all of our episodes and show notes. Yep, and thank
you guys for listening. We really appreciate it. Remember, if
you enjoyed the show, leave us a review. Tell your
(37:43):
friends about the show where the mouth helps a lot.
We really enjoyed doing this. We can't wait to hear
from you, guys. And until next time. She has been
arial casting and he has been Jonathan Mecha Strickland m
h m hm hm h m hm hm. The Large
(38:18):
New Drunk Collider is a production of I Heart Radio
and was created by Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is
the executive producer. The show is produced, edited and published
by Torri Harrison. For more podcasts on my heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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