Muppets, Mortal Combat, and Magical Mr. Mistoffelees

Which cat from Cats would you be? Do you think Mortal Kombat killed it or suffered a fatality? Do you with there was more sesame street in your The Office? We answer these questions and more in this week's episode.

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Episode Transcript

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

(00:29):
I'm Ariel cast In and with me, as always is
Jonathan Fatality Strickland. I wasn't expecting that you. You genuinely
got me tickled. Hey, Ariel, guess wise what I got
a question for you? You wake up from a long

(00:51):
nap and you discover you've been kidnapped by the cast
of Cats because they need you to fill in. Which
cat are you? Oh, Jeezy Louisy uh rumple Teaser? Nice?
So you so you're partnered with Mungo Jerry, Yes, which

(01:11):
would hide my inadequate dancing skills. I mean, I'm a
decent dancer, but I'm not like Cats level decent. Like
that's what that's got going for it. Rumpled Teaser does
like like cart wheels and rumble Teezer is a pretty
athletic one. I can do cartwheels, but also like I
really like their um cheeky It's it's a fun song

(01:34):
that they have Mungle Jerry Rumple Teaser is a fun song.
They're kind of cheeky, they're kind of a reverent. They
don't take things too seriously, and I feel like that
would be my mentality if I were thrown into cats,
as I cannot take this too serious? Right, good, what
about you? I'm going to go with Buster for Jones
because then I don't have to dance at all, just
a big old fat cat, which I mean, they won't

(01:55):
even need to add padding if I'm if I don't
get to the gym pretty soon. So yeah, bust for
Jones for me. I mean, let me, let me tell you.
It was a close call. Because Mr must Files obviously
is fabulous. Yes, he's my favorite cat. I I love
the character. I do not think I'm nearly fabulous enough
to be Mr must Flees. Uh. And then of course,

(02:17):
uh gus the Theater cat is a lot of fun too,
and it doesn't even have to sing really except for
like one line. So uh So there were a couple
of different options, but I think Buster for Jones is
what I'm gonna go with. Um. I definitely am not
a macavity I I and and to be fair, we're
really talking about the stage production here, not the not
the film. Did you ever see the movie? I used

(02:39):
to own the VHS of the PBS special movie, which
is the one I'm assuming you're talking about, and I'm
talking about the latest movie, the one. No no No,
I did not. I did not see the one with
with the butthole cut. But I did own the VHS
of the old PBS version when PPS used to show

(03:00):
like masterpiece, every kind of stuff, and I would clear
all of the furniture in my living room and try
to do all the dances and songs with the cats.
That's adorable, which also means I know which cat I
would succeed at the most. Got it? Okay? So yeah,
because you've you've rehearsed, I see, all right, that's clever.
You know, I was going to say, I was going
to say that the film. I haven't watched the movie

(03:21):
all the way through because I just don't have that
kind of fortitude. But I did. I did just for
here's the funny thing. You know what song I watched
before I decided to ask you that question, Mungo Jerry
and rumbled teaser and um, I decided to watch the
movie version, and they completely rearranged the song. It's a
totally different tune and I hate it. I haven't listened

(03:43):
to it, but I am a fan of the original,
so I suspect it would take some getting used to.
At the Yeah, I don't well listen. I don't know
that I can handle the Eldridge horror that is the
entire movie. I just a little bit I saw. I
didn't even watch the whole thing because the the c
g I like the faces on on top of the

(04:04):
c g I heads and then the ears that can
turn independently of each other. Was it was gonna be
all the hems? Oh No, I don't like. I really
respect all of the talent that was in that movie,
and I like the ingenuity that they had when they
were thinking about it. I just I I think that
there were some design flaws. I think that it was

(04:27):
a huge mistake to go with a live action approach
in the first place. It should have been an animated
film because there is a different social contract between a
audience that's going to a musical that's accepting a certain
level of disbelief because you are in a space, like
a physical space, where the stuff you're watching is clearly

(04:48):
not really happening. I mean, Shakespeare addressed this in King
and the Fifth. And then there's the enormous difference of
going to a movie theater where things are presented as
if they are usually somewhat realistic or happening in some
sort of real space, and there's a huge disconnect there.
It's asking too much of a movie audience, I think,
and um, yeah, I don't know that I could ever

(05:09):
watch more of it. You've watched some pretty bad movies.
This is true watching bad movies in the past. So
I believe, I super believe in you, Tad Cooper. Maybe
in June you can touch based only because I'm going
to get a little get together with some friends and
who knows, maybe we'll all like decide to be super
silly and try and watch it. But there's some other
stuff we need to talk about, and one of the

(05:32):
things we want to talk about is so the Falcon
and the Winter Soldier concluded, Um, what did you think
overall of the series? Aerial? It had some really high moments,
h and it had a good overall message and plot,
and the moments were so electric that I loved it.
Later in the series, when Sam and Buckey got over

(05:52):
there machismo and started becoming friends like that was brilliant
to me. Sam's sister was a super fantastic voice in
the story. I feel like the flag smashers kind of
lost the plot towards the end, totally agree, which to
me made it feel like Sam's ending speech, which was

(06:12):
super moving, it had a titanic effect on me, whereas
the first time I listened to it, I'm like, yes,
this is great, I love it. Thanks for pulling on
my heartstrings. I agree, And then I thought about it
and I'm like, m I don't one agree. It's lost
some of its impact on me now because specifically because
the villains have kind of lost their plot and the
speech was not about that. I felt like the speech

(06:35):
was a little too on the nose, a little too
heavy handed, Like we already as an audience had come
to the conclusion that the speech takes you too, because
we have seen all the stuff leading up to it.
So the speech to me felt like it was a
little too on the nose, like it felt a little

(06:56):
too pat in some ways, and so that that didn't
quite ring true to me. I agree with you. I
thought that the villains kind of got a little muddled,
or or antagonists if you prefer. Villain is too strong
a word. UM. I thought that Sam and Bucky had
some great interactions. I thought it was weird that Zimo
was like a totally different character than the way he

(07:17):
was a Winter Soldier. And I thought that it was
weird that Sharon Carter ended up being very, very different. However,
the reason we're even bringing this up is not just
to recap what we felt about the series, but because
we now know that the writer on that series, or
a co writer on that series, uh, is gonna be

(07:38):
writing a fourth or co writing a fourth Captain America film. Uh.
You know. And as as much as I I don't
think UH, Falcon and Winter Soldier was as strong of
a a series as One Division was, right, um, I,
I still enjoyed it way more than I thought I

(07:58):
would going in. Like you know, I I have had
very few Marvel movies that I've just genuinely not really enjoyed.
Iron Man two is probably the closest, and even still
there are moments of it I liked. I just fell
asleep during it two times. UM. I feel the same
way about four two as well. A lot of people
do a lot of people do, um, but there was

(08:21):
enough that I really liked. I really liked the way
they handled Falcon becoming Captain America. I really liked his
heroic moments when he was Captain America. I don't want
to spoil it for anybody who hasn't caught up yet,
but uh, like he did some really really cool stuff
in that final episode that just made me excited to

(08:41):
see what he could do. I like the fact, I
think we talked about this last week that he's not
or a week or two ago, that he's not superpowered, right,
He's he's more like Iron Man than any of the
other Avenger characters. Yeah, so I'm really excited about this.
Uh you know, they've introduced a character or that I,
according to the comics, will be the next Falcon, and

(09:03):
I really liked that character as well. So and we
still have us Agent. In fact, he's called us Agent now,
yes that really. I was like, are they gonna call
him us Agent? And then uh, Elaine from Seinfeld did,
and I was so happy. And I'm really interested to
see where she goes with her because there's been lots
of speculation about who she actually is and what like,

(09:27):
is she going to come into Secret Invasion? Is she
actually you know, Madame Hydra part of Leviathan? Or where
is she? Or is she starting a Dark Adventures? Does
she so much? Does she have a connection to Nick Fury? Yeah,
there are a lot of questions that we don't know
the answers to. And um, yeah, So presumably this fourth
Captain America film will follow Sam as Captain America. Hopefully

(09:49):
Bucky will be in there too, because those two together
are a great team. I agree and um, I agree
entirely with what you said, Ariel. I think One Division
was the stronger of the two series. I think it
also benefited because One Division had I think three more
episodes than Falcon and when The Soldier did. And I
think we already talked about in a previous episode how

(10:11):
some of the episodes of Falcon and Winter Soldier felt
like they were taking a lot of short cuts in
order to get through the story. Yeah. I think that
they could have used maybe one or two more episodes
to space things out a little bit, so that so
that at the end of the episode, I wasn't saying, Hey,
how the heck did such and such? No to be
there at that time, right, Yeah, that's being said, like

(10:33):
I could, I could see them even with the movies, saying, hey,
this could have a second season and it could very
well do well. But that's not the only Marvel News
we have. So you know, let's move on. Yeah, let's
talk about Groot Robots. Yes you found this story, yeah, yeah.

(10:55):
So the story is that like some Disney World imagineers
have made a robot baby group or kid group I
should say, it's the group that's in between baby grout
and sullen teenager group and um and this uh, this
kid group apparently looks and moves in really amazing realistic ways. Yes,

(11:17):
And I was like, I've seen Disney imagineering before, this
is this is going to be old hat. And then
I watched the video. Good golly, that's like general dynamics
level stuff. Yeah, yeah, no, it's it's exciting. I can't
wait to see this thing at disney World. I'm assuming
they're going to put it over at Epcot where the
new Guardians of the Galaxy ride is going to be

(11:38):
probably probably. I'm glad that it's coming to disney World
and not just Disneyland because disney World is much more
accessible for me. Um, and he will. He will be
my biggest Disney character crush. Yeah, you know I met
blatonic crush. I met Groot at Disneyland, but that was
adult group, was it. I know that Disney World has

(12:00):
had star Lord and baby Grout like potted Grout. Oh,
I didn't know that. That's exciting. Yeah, where you could
just meet him? Um, you could do like a meet
and greet with them. I didn't. I haven't met and
Gret with Grout. It's the group Gret. But are are
are some of our mutual Disney friends have? Yeah? Well,

(12:22):
I'm going to be at Disney World a little later
this year and will report back if there are any
group sightings while I'm there. But I expect that he
will not quite be on this what Maybe he'll be
on display because Disney World is reaching a big anniversary
in October. So man, I'm super jelly If you're Disney

(12:42):
trip dude, Yeah, I'm looking forward to it, but it's
several months away. And between then and now, we have
to talk about Disney and Sony reaching an agreement. Earlier
in a previous episode, we talked about how Sony had
signed a deal with Netflix, which would give Netflix exclusive
streaming rights for stuff right away, but now it looks

(13:02):
like Disney is gonna get a shot at it too.
Sony owns the rights to Spider Man, which obviously exists
in the Marvel Cinematic universe, so that would mean that
Disney Plus wouldn't be able to stream that those movies.
But now we know that Disney and Sony have signed
an agreement where after an initial time period where Netflix

(13:25):
will still have that that exclusivity, things will then be
able to stream on Disney Plus as well. So we
will actually get Spiderman on the Disney Pluses eventually. Yeah, eventually. Uh,
you know, I'm excited for this. We're also going to
get like Jimungi and Hotel Transylvania. Um, I like Jamungi,

(13:47):
So I'm excited about that. Okay, that's fair. I haven't
seen the new ones though, you are missing out, my friend.
They are really good, both of them. Both of them
are fantastic. Aquafina makes the best Danny de Vito stand
in there has ever been. I look forward to finally

(14:08):
giving it a shot. Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's definitely
some kid humor, but it's it's they're both solid, solid movies,
and they even give nods to the original um. But
the Disney movies will be All of the theatrical releases
from that will be on Netflix as well as their
directed streaming. So I don't know how soon they'll go

(14:31):
go on Disney Plus afterwards, but yeah, it might be
a few months, but at least it is going to happen,
because you know, I don't really like having a fractured
cinematic universe that that's tough where you're having like you
already had to do it in the in the past.
Because Netflix had the series like Daredevil and Jessica Jones
and all that, UM, I would love to see those

(14:52):
come back to Disney Plus. It would be weird because
those movies are decidedly darker than or those series are
decidedly darker than the other stuff we've seen on Disney Plus.
But the hope is still there that we will eventually
see some reboots of those over on Disney Plus. I
would hate if those just disappeared, honestly, Ariel I was

(15:14):
thinking about this the other day. I think the street
level characters like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke, Cage Guy, yeah,
fist Man, whatever his name is. UM. I think those
guys would all be great characters to explore, assuming like
they didn't get snapped out during the blip, and explore

(15:35):
the stuff that happened in that five year span in
between the snap and when everyone was returned, because you
would think that street level heroes would be even more
important during that phase. And it makes me think, what
was you know, assuming that they weren't snapped out, what
was Jessica Jones doing, What was Daredevil doing, What was
Luke Cage doing, what was fist Man doing? And it

(15:58):
also gives them the option to con you know, plotlines
in the in the old television series that didn't quite
grab audiences because it was hit or miss. I liked them,
and also like, on the one hand, I'm like, well,
Disney's getting everything. They're becoming this massive media conglomerate, more
massive than they already were. But at the same time,

(16:19):
I'm like, but I also hate paying for every single
streaming service there ever was, so the more consolidation, I'm like,
just make a Disney cable channel and I'll be happy. Um.
At this point, yeah, no, I hear you, Like, I
I also don't look forward to a lack of competition.
I don't think that's good for people. But I also
don't want to have to maintain seventeen subscription services so

(16:44):
that I can watch the various pieces of media that
I'm really into. Yeah, but there's another piece of media
we need to talk about, which you are really into. Yeah,
very much. Not into this, but people aren't surprised by that. Oh,
I'm talking about the ever do Ble Godzilla Versus Kong sequel.
We already are hearing rumors about it. Yep. So they

(17:06):
didn't set anything up at the end of Kong Godzilla
Versus Kong, But apparently people are vaguely open to the
idea of a Son of Kong movie, which the first
one was not good or fun or pleasant. Um. No,
you need to go to Mighty Joe Young for that one.
That's a much better that's a much better big Giant

(17:29):
ape movie. Yeah. Yeah, But if they do this with
Adam win Guard, it's going to take a while because
we've already talked about he's working on the ThunderCats movie,
which I am super excited about. In theory. Um, in theory,
I'm very excited about it. We'll see if it lives
up to the hype I'm building in my brain. Um,
and then he's also working on a reboot of Base Off. Yeah,

(17:54):
so apparently this is like the new King of Schlock,
is what I'm hearing. Yeah yeah, Like, well, thunder Cats
is quality cinema, Jonathan, Yeah yeah, face off definite. Thunder
Cats is no silver Hawks or whatever the other show
was that was exactly the same, but but with silver

(18:14):
bird people instead of cat people. Um yeah, no, yeah,
I I I have no dog in this fight. I
just I just figure it can't be worse than the
original Son of Kong. Apologies to anybody who liked the
original movie. You know, I've talked about animal movies give
me a stress. So Son of Kong is not for me. Um.

(18:39):
King Kong is hardly for me. But I still love it.
But it's hard. It's hard. It breaks my heart to
go through um and and to lift spirits. We have
one net last news item we kind of just want
to hit on real quick. So, uh, we don't know
if you've seen in the news, but a woman got
charged with felony and beds all meant charges for failing

(19:02):
to return a vh S tape. Yeah, that that's an
old thing that we used to watch movies on kids
VHS tapes with a VCR. Yes, and the tape was
Sabrina the Teenage, which so Satan was involved, the old
nineties Clariss ex blades at all version. So Salem the

(19:22):
Cat was involved. Salem the Cat was involved. Um, And
it was rented in and like this woman she lost
She believes that she lost jobs over it and failed
to get jobs over it because this would show up
on her on her report on her background checks. She
didn't even rent it. It was her kids. She thinks
she had no idea she owned this this video, and

(19:44):
this video like back in the day was like under
it was about just a little bit under sixty dollars
in values. So that's yeah, it's one of those crazy
stories like it. It It makes you think about like if
you ever saw weird stories about people with like astronomical
library fees or something, and you you you are left

(20:07):
with the first of all, to whom would you even
pay that at now? Because nobody, nobody's in that business anymore. Well,
the court in Cleveland where this was originally filed against her,
and who would even actually filed it against her? Like seriously, Um,
dropped all the charges and expunged her records. So that's happy.
You know, the stars of the original Sabrina the Teenage

(20:30):
which kind of spoke up on social media and we're like, oh,
we're so sorry, we're rooting for you, stuff like that.
It's just like, and she found out because she tried
to renew her driver's license and there was she got
flagged for having a felony charge against her. Yes, but
I would imagine between and one she would have had
to have renewed her license a few times. So now

(20:51):
this makes me really anxious, Like did I forget to
return a VHS or a book like I was a kid,
I might see. This is why I don't drive, so
people can never find out about your crimes. Yep, that's it.
I gotta the past needs to stay buried. And with that,
it's time for us to head into a commercial break.

(21:13):
But we're gonna be back because we have some combat
coming up and it's Mortal ariel. Let me ask you
a questions. I thought we already did that section. Yeah, no,

(21:35):
this new question that's actually related to our conversational topic
at hand. You've done seen the Mortal combats, right, I
done seen the Mortal Combats. I watched it Sunday. You've
done seen the Mortal Combats too, correct, Yeah, I watched
it Saturday morning, and um uh so, let's let's talk
about what our feelings were regarding this Mortal Kombat film,

(21:58):
which was all big hit is already some talk about
like ideas for a sequel. Nothing firm yet, but clearly
the movie left it open for lots of different sequels,
which might see the return of some characters that are
very most sincerely dead by the end of Mortal Kombat,
as well as the introduction of characters that that weren't

(22:19):
even you know, include like Johnny Cage uh is not
in the movie, but spoiler at the very end of
this Mortal Kombat film, there's at least a hint of
Cage's involvement in a potential sequel. Yeah, I think you're
being generous with your praise. Like I felt that the
actors are actually good, but the characters that I expected

(22:42):
to like the best I didn't really care about. And
the characters I didn't really care about I liked the best.
And it's like the dialogue. Some of the dialogue was
really really funny or really good and then some of
it felt like it had been translated from another language
to me because it was very still to and phrased oddly.

(23:02):
I get it. Yeah, um like, like, let me let
me name a character. I'll name characters. You tell me
whether or not you found them entertaining. Okay, okay, all right,
here we go, Raydon Raydon m he did good, but
he wasn't. I love that actor, but he just I
don't know, I didn't do much. Okay, got it, got it? Okay. Uh.

(23:24):
Let's go with Sonjah. She had one or two moments,
but I did not care for her. But I think
that was dialogue related. I think that she had some
some pretty clunky dialogue to do it right. Jack's oh,
I liked him. Yeah, same here, but I like him
and Supergirl. True, he was Jimmy Elson and Supergirl was he.

(23:45):
I didn't know that he was. He was good as Jack's.
I liked. I thought he did a I thought he
did a really good job considering the material he had. Um,
all right, lu kang uh. Yes. I loved his physicality, Okay,
that's fair. I enjoyed watching him move and work in

(24:06):
the environment, but I didn't like Again, the dialogue was
a little stilted here and there. My my reaction was
he was also there. I like when he's super sayand
um oh yeah, Kunglao was awesome. I thought I thought
Kunglaw was better than lu King. I thought he was

(24:28):
more interesting and more fun to watch than Luke King. Snarky.
He was snarky. He had an amazing entrance and a
jawline that would not quit. Scorpion Oh yeah, I loved
I loved him. Yeah, here are you Ki sonata is?
I love him and almost everything I've seen him do.

(24:49):
So Yes, I liked Scorpion Heat. But I felt like
you couldn't understand if you didn't have some knowledge of
Moral Kombat going into the movie, you'd be a little
bit lost as too. They set up with Scorpion and
sub Zero and you'd be a little bit lost as
to what's happening in Why Yeah no, I mean there's
no real explanation, right, It's just that sub Zero shows
up to wipe out the the you know, Scorpions clan,

(25:13):
But there's no explanation as to why that happens. It's
just it just happens. Um So yeah, sub Zero same
like sub Zero I don't think had Like he was
very interesting in the first ten minutes and then after
that it was you know, ninja guy. But the fight
at the end was fantastic, so it was okay, I see,

(25:34):
I have issues with the fights. I didn't think the fights.
My problem with the fights were that because it's Mortal Kombat,
and because you're incorporating the fantastical with those fights, right,
because characters have essentially magic powers, the fantastical parts didn't
look good enough to me, and the martial arts parts

(25:57):
were given a little bit of a short shrift because
they were using the fantastic elements. Like I felt that
it could have been a really amazing martial arts movie,
or maybe they could have like I've seen martial arts
movies that have effectively magic powers in the Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon is phenomenal. It's a work of art. This

(26:19):
is nowhere close to that. Oh, I forgot the character Kano.
What do you think of Kno you you forgot a
bunch of characters. No one else showed up in that movie. Yes,
huh okay, Kano Kano was he was funny, he was
he was he went too blue for me to appreciate
all of his humor, but he definitely was, you know,

(26:40):
the funny guy. Um. But you also forgot Shank Song,
who was the evil Emperor and he was pretty good. Actually,
I'm pretty sure songs not in that movie. I'm gonna
have to have you go back and watch it until men.
And you forgot the character they made up, which was Cole,
which I mean he did find he did fine. I

(27:01):
liked his wife and his like I liked his kid,
and he did fine. But the entire movie, I was like, man,
he looks like Anders from the new Battlestar Galactico, which
Jonathan hasn't watched so he won't get. But someone out
there has got to look at Lewis Ton and be like, yes,
he looks like this other actor. So for me, like like,
I didn't have a problem that Cole was a brand
new character. I kind of get the point, like the

(27:22):
idea that you need to have a character who is
introduced to this world and is the sort of the
surrogate for the audience, except that he doesn't really serve
that purpose because they're trying to pack too much into
one movie, so so you don't you don't really get
a sense of who these people are and how this

(27:45):
all started. You don't get a sense of how long
it is between tournaments. Also, by the way, tournament never happens.
You never have the tournament. I mean officially no, but
unofficially yes, like half the movie is a tournament of swords.
Except though no, no, no, I will not except. I
will not accept that answer, not at all. No, there's

(28:06):
no tournament because the whole point of the movie is
Shang Sung is trying to uh to sabotage, to ambush
the Earth Realm fighters and kill them. Because if there's
no one alive when the tournament starts, they win by default,
or really like when whatever warriors are called up, if

(28:27):
they don't have time to to train, they can't possibly
compete in the tournament. So the tournament never happens because
Shang Sung is trying to plan this out. And then
the Earth Realm folks are like, all right, let's take
the fight to them. So they're just doing what Shang
Sung was doing, but in reverse and no tournament. There's
no tournament. You can't you can't blame Shang Song's logic

(28:47):
on that, considering their past record. I will say, I
like the changes. They did follow a lot of like
the actual lore of the Mortal Kombat games, if you've
followed that at all, a lot of it was similar.
I do feel it was too rushed, Like the biggest
problem I had with the characters was that I didn't
get enough time with any one of them to really
feel them out, exception of Sonia and Kano. Honestly, um,

(29:11):
you spend more time with those two them with Coal
or anybody else, it feels like. And I like a
couple of things about what they did with Sonia. One,
they got rid of her kiss ultimate power, her kiss
mentality power, and I thought that was great. Um. And too,
she held her own. I guess this is a spoiler
if you haven't watched it and you actually care about
spoilers to this movie. She held her own without actually

(29:32):
being an Earth Champion for the majority of the movie. Yes,
she she is incredibly capable. She's incredibly capable, and I
really like that, not that she wasn't capable in the
video games. Um. But yeah, Like, the the effects didn't
bother me as much as I was worried they might.
I was actually completely fine with them. Um. I just
I feel the story was a little bit rushed, But

(29:54):
that being said, I had fun. I think see here's
here's my biggest issue out of all of it. Yeah,
the a script is shlockey, but it's a movie based
off a video game that's just a tournament style despite
there's no tournament movie tournament style video game where people
are beating the snot out of each other, So I
didn't have high expectations for the scriptum the lore in

(30:16):
the Mortal Kombat games has been retconned twenty times, so
I wasn't worried about there being any consistency. The thing
that bugged me was that the tone of the movie
was all over the place. You had scenes that were
giving homages to some of the goryoust fatalities, like Kong
Lao has a particularly gory fatality that is shown in

(30:39):
the movie. And uh, that's why this movie had to
have an R rating, because the level of gore in
it is far beyond anything you could ever show in
a PG thirteen or PG movie. However, that being said,
the script, the plot, most of the lines, with the
exception of anything Kano says, is not like like, it's

(31:01):
not sophisticated at all. It's nowhere close to something that
you would associate with an R rated movie. It feels
like a PG thirteen movie that has had massive amounts
of gore for a couple of sequences shoved in which
make it required to be an R rated movie. So
it's not it's not like I was. I was telling
you off microphone, I think yesterday maybe that. To me,

(31:25):
it felt like they were trying to walk the line
between the super schlocky camp nineties movie and the very dark, gritty,
grounded web series that came out a few years ago,
and this was kind of trying to walk a tight
rope between those two. And I didn't find it satisfying
because it wasn't campy enough to be goofy can't be fun,

(31:49):
and it wasn't wasn't grounded enough for me to care
about anybody. I can see that, and I mean largely
I would have to agree, Um, yeah, it wasn't as
good as the nineties. To me, I enjoyed it. They're
talking about possibly a sequel and um bringing in some
of the other characters, which I enjoyed it enough. I

(32:12):
would probably watch it because that's you know, it falls
like into the Van Helsing category with me. Um I
will say the other thing I liked, and I know that,
like this is super controversial. Some people hated the soundtrack
and some people really liked it. And I fall into
the camp of liking it because in the nineties movie,
it's the four tracks from Mortal Kombat over and over

(32:33):
and over again, and it gets very very repetitive, and
this one built up. It would give me little hints
and it just kept teasing me with little hints of
like the Moral Kombat soundtrack I liked, and it built
it up to the end, and so when that crescendo hit,
I found it very satisfying. I thought that was neat
to honestly, I also like that to me is a
positive of the movie. I thought the score it was fun,

(32:55):
and that it built up to that. It reminded me
a lot of some more recent like comic book movies,
where you'll get a hint of a motif or theme
that's really familiar, but you know the they're very careful
with introducing it, so it's not like, hey, we're just
gonna lean heavily on this nostalgia and that's going to

(33:17):
take up the place of quality. You'll just remember that
other thing that you like a lot more than the
thing that you're watching right now, and hopefully some of
that will rub off on our movie. It didn't feel
like that's how I write all of my mashups. Um well,
speaking of that, we're gonna have to get to some
mashing up in a minute. But first let's take a

(33:38):
quick break. Arial Jonathan. You know what happened over the weekend.

(34:00):
We watched Mortal Kombat. We just talked about that, okay.
In addition to that, there was a big award show
that happened over the weekend. You know what it was called? Uh?
The Oscars. Yes, So, Ariel, when we sat down to
try and think of what to properties we should mash up,

(34:21):
and I was mentioning the fact that the Oscars had
just happened. That flashed something into your brain, and you
came up with an inspired and yet really weird pair
of properties to mash up. Please tell our audience what
they're about to endure. Okay. So we're debating whether to
talk about Mortocombat or the Oscars, and we decided on

(34:42):
Mortal Combat. But I was trying to find something that
was Oscar themed for our mashup, and I went through
like a bunch of different Oscar nominated movies or geeky
Oscar movies or whatever. But then in the end decided
we would go with The Office and Sesame Street because
they both have characters named Oscar. The best reason ever. Listen,

(35:05):
some some weeks, I got it in some weeks, I don't.
Uh well, I have got my uh my mash up
and you have your mash up. Mhm, who should go first? Um?
I will, I will? I know, I know you spoiled
that your's ends on a little bit of a positive note,

(35:27):
so I would let you once I don't. I don't
have all the characters died terribly, so that would be horrible.
So my episode is can you tell me how to
get to some decently priced paper? And I'm stealing a
queue from Jonathan by the way, I'm starting this out.
The denizens of Sesame Street had a problem. Their show

(35:53):
is no longer popular with children, and because of that,
they found themselves non syndicated and non renewed, and this
meant they all had to get jobs to pay for food,
and they're assorted odd homes. But all the jobs on
Sesame Street were taken by their grown ups, already big
Bird took this the worst and fell into a depression,
locked in his nest all day watching old syndicated TV.

(36:16):
And that's when he saw it the Office, specifically the
episode where Kevin is being compared to the Cookie Monster,
and Big Bird thought to himself, Hey, they might be
onto something here. The similarities are striking. I mean, they
have an Oscar, we have an Oscar, and I'm totally
a Jim. We should take a road trip to apply
for jobs at dunder Mifflin. Besides, paper is integral to learning,

(36:39):
so selling paper seems the next logical step for us.
So from Elmo to Oscar to Count Voncount, they all
piled into a van and hit the road for Scranton, PA.
When they got there, at first the staff of dunder
Mifflin were astonished. They thought that the residents of Sesame
Street were all puppets. Only Michael Scott, the manager of
the company, took it in stride. Of course, they're real,

(37:02):
he said, They just say their puppets to protect their
privacy from paparazzi. Duh, And I should know. I wasn't
Fundel Bundle when I was a kid, don't you remember.
And he immediately put them into internships and everything was
literally funny games at first. I mean Count von Kaunt
went into accounting as a cookie Monster, of course, and
they did a bang up job, except for when Cookie

(37:24):
Monster tried to eat the filing cabinet. Elmo helped Aaron
at reception because, as Michael said, they're both redheads. But
this was a mistake as they fed each other with
manic energy and couldn't even get a phone answered in
time because they were both so excited at each other.
Burton Ernie went into customer service because they had learned
great coping skills from being roommates. Telly, with his caution,

(37:44):
went into QA. Grover shadowed Michael because as Michael put it,
he is super Grover and I am a supermanager. And
Telly and Big Bird went into sales. Oscar didn't have
a place because he's super grumpy. I don't even know
why he went with them, but when he spouted beat
Spars and Battlestar Galactico, we're all trashed. Dwight knew he
had to keep his eye close on his new enemy

(38:06):
and offered to train him. And here's the thing. The
office got much better, and the employees of Dunder Mifflin
all started getting a law and learning conflict resolution, and
that was the problem because Oscar hated this. He didn't
want people to get along. He only came to Scranton
because he saw how horrible the work environment at dunder
Mifflin was and he wanted to feed on the chaos.

(38:27):
And Dwight was equally upset because without without the office divided,
he couldn't adequately assert his dominance over his coworkers. So
Oscar and Dwight teamed up to devise a plan to
stop all the friendliness and plunge the paper company back
into turmoil. However, before they could put their plan into motion,
the TV executives of both Sesame Workshop and the documentary
crew filming The Life at the Paper Company burst into

(38:49):
the office company meeting. Michael Scott called and after fifteen
minutes of trying to stuff Snuffy into a conference room,
they were told that because people who watched the Office
once fans of Sesame Street, Sesame Street had a huge
rise of popularity and the show was back on, which
was also great news for dunder Mifflin because with no

(39:10):
interpersonal drama, their viewership was down the toilet and they
really needed the residuals to stay afloat. I mean, who
buys paper nowadays. So the denizens of Sesame Street were
sent back home and dunder Mifflin went back to being
the way it was before all the positive change, and
everyone was happy ish except wider Oscar, who didn't get

(39:30):
to uh unveil their grand plan uh and didn't get
any plom for it. Now. For one week every year,
the employees of the office and the inhabitants of Sesame
Street changed jobs and homes to not forget the valuable
lessons and friendships they learned and made along the way,
and to keep the ratings going strong. How heartwarming? All right,

(39:54):
mine is, can you tell me how to get how
to get to the Dundees? Michael Scott as a problem.
It's the Dundees. The script and dunder Midlin Office is
to get together for their annual awards show hosted by
Michael Scott. Everyone is told to pile into an old
bus that Michael has somehow rented for this occasion. Well,

(40:17):
everyone except Stanley, who outright refuses to go, and Toby,
whom Michael purposefully leaves behind by shutting the bus door
in his face and they're off with Michael behind the wheel.
It doesn't take long before Oscar is asking Michael if
he happens to actually have a Class B driving license,
which he is legally required to have in order to

(40:40):
drive a bus. Michael attempts to deflect, but the process
he kind of gets turned around while arguing with Oscar,
and they don't find their way to the chilies, which
is much to Pam's relief as she was still under
a lifetime ban at this point. Michael, attempting to reassure
everyone that he is not in fact lost, turn down

(41:00):
an odd street. It's a charming town neighborhood with bright
colors and extremely cheerful inhabitants. After much urging from the
co workers in the back they he decides to stop
the bus and ask for directions so everyone has the
opportunity to get out and stretch their legs. Michael hops
into a store called Hooper's, run by a nice guy

(41:22):
named Alan. Pam and Jim watches some kids play, and
they talk about how excited they are to see their
own child grow up, while also being you know, a
little melancholic about it. The idea of being sad that
time has to pass. Meanwhile, Kevin makes friends with a
huge elephant like creature that only he can see. Guys.
Guys stuffle up a gus is awesome. Everyone pretty much

(41:45):
ignores Kevin. Oscar and Finance accidentally stumbles and bumps up
against a trash can, whereupon a green monster pops out.
Startled Oscar the Office. Oscar let's out a high pitched
screen which Oscar uh the Sesame Street. Oscar says his
music to his ears. After the momentary shock, the monster

(42:07):
introduces himself as Oscar the Grouch Office. Oscar and Grouch
Oscar immediately fall into deep conversation about the relative shortcomings
of their respective circle of acquaintances. Meanwhile, Dwight is impatiently
walking around the bus when he encounters Burt and Ernie. Dwight, shocked,
looks at Burton, says cousin, Burt, and yes. It turns

(42:28):
out Dwight and Bert are distant cousins. The two immediately
begin catching up, while Ernie irritates the living hell out
of both of them. The dunder Mifflin crew encounter more
of the inhabitants of Sesame Street, and for the most part,
they're enchanted. Kelly is a bit distracted by the whole thing,
and Angela seems even more uptight than burt Is. But
apart from that, things are going pretty well. Jim and

(42:50):
Pam decided they're gonna pop into Hooper's to see what's
taking so long. They find Michael and Alan are singing
a song about feelings and friendship. Michael looks happier than
he has and years, and Alan, it turns out, is
in need of paper. Big Bird wants to write to
his pinpal Gulliver the Seagull, but they're fresh out of paper.
Alan gives Michael helpful kind instructions on how to get

(43:12):
back on track, though. Now the dunder Mifflin crew are
reluctant to leave, and so Michael decides to hold the
Dundees right there, right on Sesame Street. He even creates
new categories for some of their new friends. Ernie gets
most likely to use a bath toy in an inappropriate manner,
Big Bird gets most likely to scare Angela, snuffle up

(43:32):
against gets most fake friend, which makes Kevin a little sad,
but he and Big Bird both talking about how awesome
snuffle up Agauss is and Pam gives Michael d got
found by getting Lost award and everyone sings a song
at the end about Class B driving license, which begin
with the letter B. The end, Class B driver's license

(43:54):
begin with the letters C. No, let's be says so
right in my script. That was absolutely delightful. I'm I
am like, I watch to watch this episode, and also
I am slightly scared at the lessons that the poor
one months of Sesame Street will learn from Michael Scott.

(44:15):
But yeah, I see, no one died, I didn't kill
I didn't kill a single muppet in this one. And
poor Toby always gets the short end of the star.
I mean, that's just Toby, That's what Let's let's be fair.
That actor is also one of the head writers for
the show, so he more likely than not wrote himself
being abused like that. That's true. That's true. Well that

(44:36):
turned out way better than I anticipated. Yes, well, and
we are curious to hear all of your mash ups
about you know, the office and Sesame Street and what
that might look like. We realized that we both went
you know, we went both you know, fairly fairly friendly,
like pretty heavy on the Sesame Street side. If you
had gone heavier on office things probably would have turned

(44:58):
out a bit differently. There would have been a lot
more embarrassing, embarrassing cringe humor there. But we're curious what
you guys think. Also, if you have suggestions for future
mashups as well as any thoughts on the stuff that
we covered today, get in touch with us. Let us
know what you think. How do they do that aerial, Well,
they can write us an email at ellen C at
iHeart media dot com, or they can reach us on

(45:20):
social media. They can do that at Twitter at ellen
c Underscore podcast, or Instagram or Facebook at large and
or drunk Collider And hey, guys, if you like the show,
make sure to subscribe so you don't miss episodes. Make
sure to write us, and make sure to tell your
friends so that we have more people to talk to.
I'm sure I'm driving Jonathan absolutely bonkers. Yeah, there are

(45:42):
times where we just talk and make up mashups with
each other and we don't even know how to communicate
like normal people anymore. It's true, it's true. So until
next time, I am Ariel casting and I am Ariel. Oh. Shoot,
yeah you know you're at Yeah, you're you're Jonathan Strickland.

(46:03):
You're that's that's, that's who I am m h m
m m m M. The Large Nurgern Collider is production

(46:31):
of I Heart Radio and was created by Ariel cast In.
Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This show is produced, edited,
and published by Tory Harrison. For more podcasts on my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.