March 25, 2021 • 45 mins
In this episode, we talk about our geek "comfort foods." Everything from video games to superheroes, to the shows we keep watching over and over. Then we mash up a couple long-standing classics into a completely new and mysterious story.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The large Nerdrunk Collider podcast is a production of my
Heart Radio. Hi everybody, welcome to The large Nerdrunk Collider,
the podcast that's all about the kiki things happening in
the world around us and how super excited we are
about them. I'm arial casting and with me as always.
(00:31):
Is this super fantastic? Jonathan Strickland, thank you for that
lovely introduction, aial, and in return, I have a question
for you. Okay, So this is a scenario question for
those of us who are familiar with my alter ego
Quizster for Ridiculous History. You've agreed to do a twenty
(00:56):
four hour charity marathon, and which you will be playing
a video or a computer game for the entire duration,
same game for all twenty four hours, allowing for breaks
for food and bathroom breaks and that games stuff. Which
game do you choose? You're asking me to do some
(01:18):
big thanks, Jonathan. Uh. I guess I'm gonna say Desert
Plus because that is legit a thing that already happens
and I have always wanted to be a part of it.
Um Desert Bus is a video game created by Penn
and Teller where you drive a bus real time across
(01:38):
the desert, and it veers slightly to one direction. But
they every year a bunch of Internet personalities get together
and and drive it in marathon to raise money for
the Child's Play Foundation, which I think is really cool
and I've always wanted to be a part. It's not
the game i'd pick for funness. That would probably be
Mass Effect or Minecraft with my mom are, but uh yeah,
(02:03):
that's what I do think. And just to stick on
desert bus for a second, I think it takes like
seventeen hours to make the trip one way. It's I
think it's Los Angeles to Las Vegas. And if you crash,
if you veer off the road too far, you get
a flat tire and you get towed all the way
back to the beginning in real time. So and you
can't just set the computer to to go in a
(02:25):
straight direction and walk away because, as Ariel said, it
pulls a little to the right, so you're constantly having
to correct for that. So it was made to be
irritating and pointless, and you get one point every time
you go from one city to the other. It just
takes hours to do it. For me, well, first of all,
I actually have done this a couple of times. I've
(02:46):
done it for charity for for the Children's Hospital of Atlanta,
and both times I played Minecraft for twenty four hours straight.
I built stuff in the world based upon the donations
I got. So people donated, I would build a monument
to them that was fitting for whatever the level of
donation was. But if I were to do it again,
(03:08):
I think I would actually do Star Do Valley because
I find that game really really like chill, and I'm
just curious how far I could get in, just like
if I started a brand new game and had twenty
four hours to go, how much could I get done?
But if it were really chill, wouldn't you fall asleep
during I mean there's always a danger, but then that
(03:29):
can also happen in the game. And if you fall
asleep while you're out and about in Star Dow Valley,
you wake up either when you wake up back at home,
but someone has rifled through your pockets and taken all
your money. So oh, but a good portion of it.
Yeah yeah, No, I mean it's you know, you learned
some hard life lessons. Okay, well we got that answered. Well,
(03:54):
we should probably just segue right into the show and
we wanted to start off, you know, we went gaga
for Wanda Vision when it debuted on Disney Plus, and
now the next mini series from Disney Plus has started,
that being Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and we thought
we would do an attempt check to see what we
(04:15):
each thought of the first episode because we have each
watched it. So what did you think, ariel? Um? It
was good, It wasn't. It was a lot more serious,
and I didn't enjoy it quite. It wasn't quite as
fun as Want of Vision for me, Um, but I
did enjoy it. They did some really cool things with cinematography.
(04:37):
They had some people in squirrel suits doing some some
like paragliding I guess what would be called point plane jumping,
and they would put the same sort of body cam
on them as they would on the Falcon, which I
thought was just really cool. It made it made it
feel so much more real to me, um to see
the superhero flying around. Um. There were some cool little
(04:59):
minor character drops in there that I kind of spoiled.
I'm pretty sure I know how some things are going
to turn out based on those spoilers that I spoiled
for myself. Um, And it It also dealt with Marvel's
been doing a really good job with their properties lately
of dealing with the rough percussions of the snap and
(05:20):
little things you don't think about, like the little things
that happened in the five years between your disappearance and
your reappearance, And they did that in Falcon and Winter
Soldier in a really cool way. So I liked it.
I'm looking forward to the next episode. It just wasn't
quite as fun as one division for me. I agree
that it wasn't as fun, but I loved it. I
(05:40):
absolutely loved that episode. I loved how they are taking
their time establishing the characters and what their current conflicts are.
And so far in the series, the two main characters
haven't haven't teamed up at all. They are in their
separate story relines. But those storylines are really compelling, and um,
(06:05):
I would even say like the Falcons is more compelling
to me than the Winter Soldiers. I mean, the Winter
Soldier is dealing with massive amounts of guilt for the
things he did, as you know, a weapon in the
hands of Hydra. He's he's trying to cope with that.
The Falcon is trying to help rescue his family's business,
whereas his sister is being much more pragmatic and trying
(06:27):
to do what's best for her family. The Falcon doesn't
want to let go of the past. And um, I
feel like this show is also doing some great stuff
and that it is addressing and not in a super
heavy handed way, but addressing things like systemic racism, the
practice of redlining, things that have disproportionately affected people of color.
(06:47):
And you know, in this world, you're seeing that that
stuff happens even for the people who are superheroes. Same
sort of thing where you know the falcon Um spoilers,
I guess if you haven't watched it yet, so skip
ahead a litt bit if you haven't watched Falcon and
Winter Soldier. But he voluntarily hands over Captain America shield
because he doesn't feel he's ready to take on that mantle,
(07:09):
and then the impression he's given is that this is
going to be held as an object of reverence. But
then by the end of the first episode, it's shown
that there is a new Captain America that they chose
someone who happens to be extremely white, and it's not
so it's not Sam, And that also feels like it's
another kind of way of dealing with you know, here's
(07:33):
a country that you've got this heroic figure who was
who was given everything to to serve his country, and
his country is not reciprocating. And I think that that's
really compelling too. So I really like that first episode.
I'm hopeful that the whole series kind of holds up
to this. Let's kind of move on. I think we've
(07:54):
got a lot of superhero stuff to talk about. In fact,
it's almost all exclusively superhero stuff. Yeah, and we want
to talk about other superhero stuff. It's just been some
super heavy superhero weeks. So the first thing is the
other geeky thing I watched this weekend was the Snyder cut.
Oh yeah, the Justice League of the Justice So you
(08:18):
spent four hours and two minutes of your life doing that.
I spent six hours in like ten minutes of my
life doing it because I kept having to stop and go, wait,
when did that happen? Where is this? What was this
in the first one? Oh, I have to pee, Oh,
I need a snack. Yeah, it took me more like
six hours to watch it, but um and I took
a walk in the middle just so I wouldn't be
(08:39):
a couch potato all day. I enjoyed it more than
I thought I would, So, yeah, Snyder. But you know,
one of the things I thought about it was, well,
it's getting such good reviews and not completely across the board,
but it's getting a lot of really good reviews, and
I enjoyed it more than I could. Is there a
potential that they might try to bring back more of
(09:01):
of the Snyder verse? You know, he he set up
a lot at the end of the four hour movie,
and then we got articles saying, yeah, Warner Brothers brothers
have have essentially said there this that is the conclusion
of the Snyder trilogy. So setting up stuff like Martian
Man Hunter is to no avail because we're probably not
(09:21):
going to see that version in future DC. I mean
there will probably we might see the character, but maybe
not that version of the character in future DC movies. Um. So,
I I have not watched the Snyder Cut as of yet. Um.
I just haven't set aside the time to do it. Uh.
I've seen conflicting reviews. I've seen some people who said
(09:44):
it's different but not necessarily any better than the Weed
and cut. I've seen others who have said it's more
coherent than the we din't cut, like things make more sense,
but it's not, you know, the the quippy stuff is
is toned way way way down. Um. So I've seen
a lot of different things. I I don't have a
(10:06):
dog in this fight, honestly, Like to me, I have
a feeling that there's just nothing they could have done
that would have made me really interested, simply because this
was the continuation of storylines that I already didn't like,
So there really wasn't any way of them going forward
that I was going to be totally on board. That's
that's my deal. I'm not saying they're bad movies, just
(10:27):
saying they didn't appeal to me. Um. But me, I,
you see, I felt like they each had some benefits
over the other, So each each each had some blind
spots that I felt like the other one might have addressed. Yeah,
and almost all the reviews I saw did say that
while the film moves along fairly well, it is too long. Um.
(10:52):
Although the helps that they've broken it up into chapters,
so it feels almost more like a mini series that
does a full movie. And I think maybe that's the
way Snyder needs to tell his stories because he does
have a hard time. He's got so much story he
wants to tell almost always, and my biggest problem with
him is trying to fit too much story into two
little times. So maybe he just needs to start getting
(11:13):
some high budget miniseries. Maybe we need to, like somehow
do our own ll en c mashup of Peter Jackson
and Snyder because Peter Jackson took The Hobbit, a book
that doesn't have that much story and stretched it, and
then Snyder's trying to cram too much story into too
small of a form. Factor. Somewhere in the middle is
the sweet spot. Um, Somewhere in the middle is the
(11:35):
sweet spot. But you know, w B and and DC
do have plans to continue the universe. Maybe we will
get Marsha Manhunter. I really liked his design and I
love that actor. Um, but we are getting Zatana movie. Yeah.
She's a magician character who has a lot of history
in the in the DC universe, so that's really exciting.
(11:56):
And Emerald Fennel is writing it. She's the one who
wrote Promising Young Woman. I'm guessing Ariel, you have not
seen that movie. I haven't. I wanted to and then
it just fell off my radar. It's you know, I mean,
it's it's it's a brilliant It's a brilliant film. Mhm.
It is a heavy film. It's dealing with some heavy stuff,
(12:20):
but a brilliant movie. And so interesting that that someone
who wrote something so visceral and heavy is now writing
a like a superhero script. Well, you know, Sitana is
often a part of you know, kind of the dark
dark University. C'ss the hook up with constantin. Yeah. Also
(12:42):
one thing the other. The other thing that we didn't mention,
but I just want to give a quick shout out
to is that despite the fact that we got a
Snyder cut of Justice League, it looks like we're not
going to get an air cut of Suicide Squad. So
the Suicide Squad that we got the theatrical cut, that's
the only version that we ever expect to see, and
I have feelings about that too. I don't know that
(13:03):
I would have liked the Suicide Squad original version. I
definitely didn't like the one that came out, but I'm
guessing that. But I'm very much looking forward today. Well, yeah,
because that's gonna be yes that's that's gonna be handled
by someone who can tell a story and hopefully not
have it chopped up by a movie trailer studio, because
that's what happened to the first one. Um switching back
(13:24):
over to Marvel, though, we have another quick Disney Plus announcement,
which is that, uh, there is a already an announcement
of a spinoff of a series that hasn't even come
out yet, right, So Hawkeye is getting a spinoff before
Hawkeye even comes out on Disney Plus. And this one
should make you really happy because the spinoff is about
(13:45):
Echo U a k a. Mile Lopez, who is a
Native American woman who is hearing impaired. She usually shows
up as a supporting character in dare just who you
have been wanting to come back so bad. I would
love to see Daredevil returned to the m c U.
I really think. I think that the first season, in
(14:07):
particular of Daredevil, it really set the stage for some
incredible Marvel series. Now, granted, the Marvel series we got
post Daredevil and Punisher and all those have not been
nearly as bloody as Daredevil was for good reason, but
I would love to see Daredevil brought back in Echo
has a superpower where she's able to copy the fighting
(14:31):
style of whomever she's going up against, which makes her
very similar to a character named Taskmaster, who is the
villain that will be appearing in the Black Widow movie,
assuming we ever get it. We will, we will. There's
news that that's probably going to come out on D
Plus and in theaters at the same time. Um, that's
(14:51):
wasn't on our list of news items, but it did
come out this week. Uh. And the last news item
we have is about a comic book series called There
Are No Vowels. The r z r K vowels are
for other heroes. Yeah. This is a comic book series
that was created by Keanu Reeves and he of course
(15:12):
has been attached to appear in both a live action
film and an animated series that are both have been
optioned from this comic book series and the short version
of it. Ariel and I decided that it's John Wick
meets the Highlander because it's it's a or Or or
Vandal seven. No one knows who that is. A Highlander
(15:37):
Highlanders so immortal immortal warrior type who at this point
is just looking for a way to get some rest.
M so the comic was originally kick started and it
was produced by Boom Studios, and I actually I looked
at Boom Studios because I'm not always super familiar with
some of the smaller comic houses. But Boom Studios has
(15:58):
done some comics that I like, specifically the Buffy series.
I've really enjoyed this season eight and season nine and
that kind of stuff. Huh yeah, awesome. Well, I'm very
excited to learn more about all of these things. Um,
you know, I'm still kind of curious about why A
or wouldn't get a Suicide Squad re cut. I mean,
(16:18):
with the with the success of the Snyder cut, I
would have thought that might lead to other possibilities. That
does not appear to be the case. Maybe if there's
enough uproar there will be. I honestly don't care enough.
I'm just curious what Suicide Squad originally was going to
be and whether or not I would have liked it.
I don't think I would, but I definitely don't like
the theatrical one. So but again, there were there were
(16:43):
some things I liked, but overarchingly I did not. Now
One thing that Ariel and I both like is to
wallow in the good old nostalgic entertainment that we enjoyed
years and years ago. And it turns out we're not alone.
But we're gonna talk more about that after we take
this quick break. All Right, we're back, and as Jonathan said,
(17:15):
we're going to talk a little bit about nostalgia. So
this week it was announced that Family Matters viewership sword
about four d in UM, which is amazing. Family Matters
is one of my favorite sitcom shows, um, and so
(17:37):
I was super excited to hear this news, and it's
one I feel like has transcended time a little bit
because even even kids nowadays, Uh, you know who Steve
Urkel is, right, and he was a big pop culture
nerd who was oftentimes very unapologetically nerdy, and I feel
like you kind of intro the way into the geekdom
(17:59):
we have now. Um. So that was really awesome. But apparently,
like because we haven't had a lot of new media,
people are just watching their old favorites over and over
and over. I think that's part of it. And I
think another part of it is that there is so
much comfort to be found in watching something that you're
(18:20):
already familiar with, right like, I don't know, Ariel, has
this ever happened to you? Where let's say you've got
some spare time, you want to watch something. You take
a look at the stuff that's on your queue. There's
a ton of stuff you've never seen before. But you
find yourself drawn to something that you've watched a bazillion
times already. Yes, yes, And it's oftentimes when I want
(18:44):
something a little distracting, but I don't have to pay
a whole bunch of attention to. So I've done it
with friends. I've done it with the office. I've done
it with family matters, Full House, Ship's Creek, How I
Met Your Mother? Yep, all those. I'll just put it on.
I've watched it at times, and I'll just put it
on because it's it's like going home to well for me,
it's going home to a dysfunctional family because I think
(19:07):
of it's always sunny in Philadelphia is one of my
go toos Um. Yeah, No, I'm the same way where
like it gets there's a whole meme about this, right
about the idea that you've got like five hundred titles
on on your list of things you've never seen, and
they're readily available. They're just a click away or a
remote button push away or whatever. All you have to
(19:30):
do is start it. Instead, you are like, well, let's
rewatch season three of the Great British Bakeoff or whatever.
Um oh, I can't do that one. I'm so invested
in the bakes and I'm always trying to learn something new,
like I have to, I have to. Like So I
don't mean that I don't mean to get off track already,
but arial you know, recently, I have spent a lot
(19:50):
of time looking up just clips not of British Bakeoff,
but of Master Chef, just clips of people doing really well,
but because I don't like the parts where people fail.
So so it's like I'm watching just I'm watching a
show where nobody does anything wrong. Everyone always is on
(20:11):
their a game and impressing Gordon Ramsey. That's that's the
Master Chef that exists in my world. That's really interesting
to me because you don't want to watch anybody fail,
but your go to comfort show is always sunny in Philadelphia,
which is just But those are awful human beings who
deserve terrible things to happen to them, right, Like it's
(20:33):
like that that's and it's all fictional. I can. I
can enjoy that. In fact, for a long time I
wasn't able to enjoy it because I have a thing
about cringe humor. I'm not I'm not super fond of it,
but from me, the cringe comes in when I have
a great deal of empathy or sympathy for a character
(20:54):
and I don't want to see terrible things happen to
that character. It's always Sunny. Freed me of this terrible
burden by making all the characters reprehensible, so you want
to see term Like, for the longest time, I didn't
want anything bad to happen to Charlie because in the
first season Charlie's Charlie just seems to be downtrodden. He
doesn't seem to be bad, but then as you get
(21:15):
a little further in, he is terrible. Yeah. Yeah, As
I mentioned, all the shows that I tend to go
back to are all sitcoms, but they're more lighthearted sitcoms.
But still the humor in their shows does come mainly
from people's failure. Well, that's that's the thing though. That's
usually where comedy comes in, right. Comedy usually comes in
(21:38):
where like the saying, as you stub your toe, it's
a tragedy, you'd walk off the edge of a cliff.
And it's a comedy kind of thing where it's it's
this idea of subverting expectations and typically setting people up
to have whatever thing they were trying to achieve fall
through in a unexpected way, and that lead to the comedy.
(22:01):
But and then how they handle that also leads to
the comedy. But I am curious, like, are there any
particular titles that you really leaned on heavily during pandemic
where we just didn't have the opportunity to get out
or was it just the sort of the ones you
had already kind of listed off? Um, I think I
(22:25):
So I did go through a bunch of shows that
I hadn't had the chance to watch. I like, I
made myself take some discipline, and I I said, here
the series, here are the movies that I've wanted to
watch during pandemic, and I'm going to do that. But
then when that was done, when I'm like getting ready
(22:45):
for bed and I'm just trying to shut off my brain,
or if I've had a particularly rough day and I
just want just something chill, I think it's it's been
The Office, which is really weird because when I first
started watching The Office, I did not like it. I
didn't the for entire first season where they're trying to
be the British Office, I felt I thought it was
(23:07):
mean spirited and belabored. Um. And then you get into
the second season and everybody starts to have growth, and
there's still episodes of the Office that are largely cringe
ey that I can't stand to watch. But um like
it's it's I'm so familiar with it at the point,
and part of it is because my husband also, we'll
put it on and just watch it. Um. So I'm
(23:30):
so familiar with it that I kind of tune out
those episodes or those moments that really make me cringe,
and tune in on my favorite moments. We also rewatched
Buffy and are currently rewatching far Escape. Yeah, I did
a little bit other than well, and I haven't, to
be perfectly fair, I haven't watched any of It's Always
Sunny during Pandemic. It's just that was my go to
(23:52):
for a while when I wanted to watch something that
I had already seen in the pandemic. The stuff i've
watched the most. Actually, what I haven't watched that much
television programming. I watched a lot of stuff that creators
were making, either on Twitch or YouTube or whatever. But
when I was whenever I would watch television, it tended
to be British comedy series, which is terrible because you
(24:16):
will go through them in like two days and they
just got to turn over again. So Garth Mringhey's Dark Place,
if you've never seen that, it's bonkers crazy. The premise
is that there's a Stephen King like writer named Garth
Mringhey who has an extremely high opinion of himself. He's
(24:39):
a dream weave, and there's a television series that was created.
It's a fake TV series, but the idea is that
it's a television series that was created from his works,
and he, being the egotistical person that he is, stars
in it as the main character. UM. And it has
a lot of of British comedy actors in it that
(25:01):
you would recognize from other stuff like Richard Iawada isn't it,
Matt Barry is in it. UM. It is a very
silly take. Uh. Stephen Merchant is in a couple of episodes. UM.
Noel Fielding is in a couple, so yeah, it's it's
a really British British actors are all in. Yeah, it's
a small group of of really tightly knit group. But
(25:23):
it's really it's really silly, it's ridiculous, Like it's it's
really making fun of like early eighties British TV and
the limitations on things like special effects, but everyone's treating
it like it's the most cutting edge stuff ever. And
the other one I watched a couple of times through
(25:44):
was The Mighty Bush, another British comedy series. At least
that one has four series or four seasons, so little
extra to watch in that one. Um very very weird
series as well. But yeah, those really kind of like
my go toos, And it was because I mean, I
had seen them all so many times. I can still
get enjoyment even though I know exactly what's coming, because
(26:07):
the quality of the performances and the weird writing, the
British humor is just so strange, which is one of
the reasons I love it so much. Those were my
go twos. I like going to nostalgic things a little
bit because it brings back those feelings before being stuck
in the house. Yeah, So I think about, you know,
(26:31):
watching these these older shows, and I go back, like
I I think about going out and hanging out my
friends and watching it or talking about the episodes, and
it's kind of like a little mini brain vacation. One
thing I had thought about doing I just never got
around to doing, was doing like, you know, like a
Netflix watch party, because that capability is built right into
a lot of the Netflix apps. But I never coordinated
(26:54):
with friends to do that, to kind of watch something
collectively and then talk about And I think part of
the zone for that is that it it just feels
like everything we do is through Zoom or teams or
you know, some other video conferencing system, So it ends
up feeling more like work than socializing, and it just
(27:16):
ends up being exhausting. At least that's my armchair personal
psychology approach to why I haven't done anything. Now I
get it. I've done I've done a few watch parties,
and we tend to just do it on voice. We
watched the TV on whatever streaming platform we're using. Most
of them have a watch party feature now, um, and
(27:36):
then we'll connect on discord or over the phone and
we'll just chat throughout it, because yeah, you know me,
I love being in front of a camera, but it's
just relaxing to be able to just sit and talk
and not have to worry about making eye contact or
how I look or if I've got pizza in my
teeth or it's it is tough to make eye contact
(27:58):
because it means you're looking to a camera, not actually
looking at the picture of the person you're talking to,
which is usually several inches below where of the cameras.
But yeah, I mean, like I totally get the whole nostalgic,
comforting experience. There's some element of ritual there too, like
the idea of doing something you've done before and being
(28:19):
able to go through it. You already know what to expect.
There's not gonna be any surprises, so nothing's gonna tax
you psychologically. Um, I get all that. So I'm not
really super surprised to see that these numbers are are
so high. Um, and good for them, I mean, it's
and good for all the people who are discovering stuff
(28:40):
for the first time. Like they're younger audiences who may
be watching this kind of stuff for the first time ever.
So I hope that they're enjoying it. Well, you know,
I think good shows tend to come around. You know,
they might be dated, but they also have timeless concept
and relatable humor no matter the age. For instance, one
of the shows that had great viewership was the Andy
(29:01):
Griffith Show, Yeah Dating. By the time I watched it,
I was amazed that jabber Jaw wasn't on there, because
that's a real work of art. You know. I don't
know if you're joking or not, but I actually did
enjoy jabber Jaw. So it was between Jabber John Great
Babe that I was gonna say, liked them both, and
Troopy Dog and Wacky Races and all that snaggle. Now,
(29:24):
you know what else I liked what Charlie Brown Meat.
I still like Charlie Brown, me too. You know how
much I like Charlie Brown. How much Jonathan enough to
mash him into somebody else? That's so me. You're the
one who picked it. So we're gonna do a mesh
up after the break where we take Charlie Brown and
(29:44):
mesh up Charlie Brown with a classic English literature literary figure.
I bet you'll never guess who it is who lives
at two twenty one B Baker Street. Well, you gave
it away, now we'll be right back. Okay, we are back,
(30:17):
and uh yeah, we we chose to mash up Sherlock
Holmes and Charlie Brown and to give you guys a
little bit of a behind the scenes view of how
these sort of things come together. Uh, usually we look
at the news and see if there's anything in the
news where we can mash stuff up. But obviously this
time we were covering so much superhero stuff. We're like,
(30:38):
we've done superheroes. Yeah, so we started kind of thinking
outside of that and saying, well, let's just pick two
things that we wouldn't normally put together and figure out
how would we do that? And um so Sherlock Holmes
is when we settled on pretty quickly. But then we
had to figure out what the other one was. And
my initial reaction was dumb because I was like, oh,
(31:00):
Scooby Doo. But then you're like, but that that's already
like two things that do the same thing. Yeah, And
then you said smurfs and I was like, well, then
all we're gonna be doing is replacing every third word
with smurf. And when one person does it when two
people do it, it's a bits smurfing much it would
(31:21):
have been fifteen minutes of smurfing. We're a family show, Jonathan,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean smurfing. I meant surfing smurfing, Okay.
So then I said, well, what about Charlie Brown, because
you know we're talking about nostalgia. Yeah, and so so
for those who don't know who either of these are,
(31:42):
where have you been? Charlotte Holmes obviously famous detective created
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lots of stories, four novels
written by Conan Doyle and multiple novels written by other
people since then, been in series and films. Everyone knows
who Sherlock Holmes is. Uh. And then you have Charlie Brown,
famous comic strip character made by Charles Schultz, star of
(32:05):
beloved specials and cartoons, so things like you know, the
the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is still one of my
favorite cartoons of all time. It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie
Brown another fantastic one one of my favorites. So yeah,
something that it also comes back around because it's had
a movie recently. Yeah, that's true. So let's let's see
(32:27):
who do you Who do you want to go first? Cally, Um,
I I guess I can. That's the confidence I like
to hear, wearing and ready to go. All right, Sherlock
Holmes in the Great Pumpkin taketh away. One briskfall evening
(32:50):
on two to one Baker Street. Mr Sherlock Holmes and
Dr John Watson got a mysterious letter. It stated, please
Mr Holmes and Mr Watson come to the Brown House
Saint Paul, Minnesota. We have something dark and mysterious going
on here and we need your help, desperately, signed, asked Brown.
Surprised and egotistically delighted, Sherlock immediately packed up and headed
(33:14):
for America, bringing doctor Watson begrudgingly in tow. A day later,
the two master minds walked up to the door of
a modest house with yellow maybe it was white maybe
blue siding. They rang the bell, but no one answered.
They rang again. Finally, a young boy with an oddly
round head in a furrowed brow came out. He hesitantly
(33:36):
began to introduce himself. Hi, I'm Charlie Brown. Can I
help ye? But all of a sudden he stopped stammered
good grief and ran inside, slamming the door. They turned
to look to see what could have scared him so,
but all they could see was a young auburn trust girl.
Nothing seemed odd about her, and they decided that following
her would just be a red hare ingh And that's
(34:00):
when they heard it from around the bushes, us barely
audible above the sounds of some chirping yellow canaries nearby.
Were canaries local to Minnesota. The duo didn't know, but
they did follow the Upon tracking the sound, they saw
a beagle sitting on top of a dog house. They
must have been hearing things, so they turned to leaf,
(34:22):
but then they heard it again. Turning back to the noise,
they saw the beagle and one of the yellow birds
stuck into the dog house. The dog going into his
house wasn't weird, but the bird following him certainly was,
and Sherlock, much to Watson's chagrin, decided to follow. Squeezing
through the dog house door, they found themselves on a
large staircase leading into the dark. They followed it down
(34:43):
and at the bottom of the staircase was a bunker
filled with maps, no science equipment, and monitors. All of
the monitors were looking at one place, a quiet pumpkin patch.
There was a tug on Sherlock's pant leg, and as
he looked down, the beagle handed him a letter. It started,
my name is Snoopy, I wrote you the here to
come here, thank you for coming. And through the letter
(35:03):
and an intrigue game of charades and a tour around
the doghouse bunker, Holmes and Watson learned that the town
was being plagued by a creature called the Great Pumpkin.
Over the years, that had been a childhood legend that
most of the town didn't believe in, but this year
was different. Every night, the entire town, and not just
the children, would go and bring all of their greatest
belongings to the field to give to the Great Pumpkin,
hoping in its arrival. But it never showed up. However,
(35:27):
in the morning, when the town spoke awoke, all of
their belongings would be gone from the field. Snoopy believed
this was the doing of his arch nemesis, the Red Baron. Sherlock,
feeling a kinship with this remarkably intelligent dog, offered to
help Watson Ashlock. Where might we even begin, and Sherlock answered, elementary,
dear Watson. Long pause, Sherlock continued, literally, we'll start at
(35:53):
the elementary school, and that's where they headed. And indeed
things were weird. They're the kids were all large and
round headed, and the adults were unintelligible. Sherlock didn't have
much experience with children, so it took him a while
to learn that these children were all, in fact just kids,
big headed and all. But he did notice something particularly odd.
(36:16):
The kids were having a fundraiser. The fundraiser was selling
cans of red bear and branded pumpkin, and according to
the gold chart on the blackboard, all the children had
been successful in selling can pumpkin to the whole town.
And this was particularly particularly odd because Red Baron only
sold frozen pizzas. These FROs and pizzas were a secret
pleasure of Sherlock's when he was alone in his studio.
(36:37):
No one knew about it. So they opened a can
and noticed trace amounts of scopolamine, which, if you don't know,
is a way that people can use to make you
extremely suggestible. Sherlock, nuthn villain must be using it to
make everyone believe in the Greek pumpkins so that they
could get their belongings and valuables and such. But who
would have such knowledge of the mental condition. They returned
(36:59):
to Snoopy, who affirmed that there was no therapist in town. However,
there was a small psychiatrist booth run by the class
bully Lucy. It was then that they knew they had
found their culprit, but now they had to figure out
how to get her to admit to her diabolical plan.
They had noticed Lucy eyeing Charlie Brown, that that awkward
(37:19):
boy they first met when they came into town, So
they commandeered Charlie to flirt with her and offer her
a muffin liced with some of the pumpkin in it. Lucy,
being a proud person, accepted the muffin offering and ate
it in one bite. Upon doing so, Holmes jumped out
and got her to spill the beans all about how
she wasn't a kid of the town, but really Snoopy's
arch nemesis, the Red Baron, how she felt she deserved
all of the good things the town had to offer her,
(37:40):
but the town never appreciated her, and so she took
it into her own hands. Upon her confession, she was
sent at attention and the pumpkin cans were destroyed. The
mystery being solved, Sherlock and Watson returned to England, but
Sherlock and Snoopy remained pen pals, helping each other solve
the occasional mystery. The end very very cute. There are
(38:01):
going to be a couple of common touch points. I
figured as much so minus Sherlock Holmes and the Beagle
of the Baskervilles. Spoiler alert, there's a spoiler in the title. Okay,
Sherlock Holmes has a problem. He's been summoned to Dartmoor
to investigate reports of a giant hound terrorizing the countryside.
(38:24):
His friend and biographer John Watson has joined him. Watson,
being slightly more inclined toward flights of fancy, worries that
perhaps the Moors are truly haunted by an impossibly large
spectral hound, hypothesis that Holmes finds quite unsupportable. But more
than that, Holmes has a bigger challenge on his hands.
(38:44):
It seems that shortly after his arrival, a carriage carrying
a bunch of kids got stuck in a muddy patch
on the road through Dartmoor and then it broken Axel.
The kids, a group of Americans, are all curious little people.
One named Blindness homes of Me Lead Deduces has severe
anxiety issues as he relies heavily on a security blanket
(39:04):
as a coping mechanism. Linus is older. Sister Lucy seems
to be a bit of a brute. Then there's a
rather disheveled child named pig Pen who seems to attract
all the various flies in the surrounding area into his orbit.
A rather musical young man named Schroeder is also part
of the gang. Then there's an energetic young gal named
Sally in the mix, and finally there's a rather hopeless
(39:27):
fellow called Charlie Brown, always Charlie Brown, never just Charlie.
And Peppermint Patty isn't there, so there's no Chuck to
speak of. The coachman, who was looking after the children,
asks Holmes to keep an eye on them while the
coach needs repairs. At least that's what Holmes thinks. The
coachman said, in truth, the driver spoke in such a
(39:49):
way like a muted trumpet that it was quite impossible
to make out what was really being said. While at
first irritated, Holmes soon comes to the conclusion that the
children might prove useful. Being a long way from home,
Sherlock doesn't have access to his assortment of irregulars who
would normally gather up information on his behalf, and so
(40:09):
he names this odd assortment of children his new irregulars.
Tasked with great purpose, the gang begins to help Holmes investigate.
There is a great manor house in Dartmoor, and Schroeder
finds himself there and encounters an amazing piano, upon which
he plays a truly stupendous piece by Beethoven, which impresses
Holmes a great deal. Lucy meanwhile sets up her own
(40:31):
psychiatry booth and through interactions with the locals, begins to
learn more about the general thoughts about the Moors. Seems
the people of Dartmoor are particularly superstitious, and many seem
all too inclined to accept that there is a ghostly
hound haunting the area, though at least one fellow, a
man named Jack Stapleton, seems a bit dodgy. Lucy charges
(40:52):
everyone five cents and then later complains that all the
nickels she got are funny looking. Linnus and Holmes have
some pretty deep philosophical discussions, and Linus is also quick
to dismiss the ghostly dog hypothesis, believing instead that the
creature haunting the moors is in fact the Great Pumpkin.
And so Linus decides to sneak out at night to
(41:13):
wait for the Great pumpkins arrival, and the next morning
he has nowhere to be found, but a little blue
blanket is discovered half buried in the mud, with a
very large paw print next to it. Pigpen also disappears,
but that just happens every time he steps outside, because
he blends right in with the mud and the moors.
He's fine, though Sally mostly just irritates John Watson a lot.
(41:37):
As for Charlie Brown, he investigates as best he can,
but being a bit clumsy, he is usually told to
get out of the way after breaking or nearly breaking
a vase or a window or a bust or whatever.
And so Charlie Brown, while walking by himself and wondering
if he'll ever be good at anything, stops to lean
(41:58):
against a tree. Except it turns out it's not a tree.
It's actually a support for a clever camouflage. As Charlie
Brown leans against it, it causes the whole thing to
come tumbling down. Just as Sherlock is walking by, Holmes says,
you've done it. You've solved the case and indeed revealed
beneath the brushes Snoopy and Woodstock and Jack Stapleton plus
(42:22):
a pair of very big, very fake dog pause. Yep.
Turns out Snoopy, Woodstock and Stapleton have been playing a
bit of a prank on the locals, and while sheepish,
they get off easy, particularly once the group finds Linus
a mile down the road in a fetal position, but
he makes a swift recovery once his blanket is returned.
(42:43):
At the end, Sherlock Holmes turns to Charlie Brown and says,
Charlie Brown, out of all the irregulars, you're the irregularist.
The end, Oh, I loved it. I felt like there
were two stories in the same anthology. You are, Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's two different It's it's a what if
(43:04):
comic book where your story is the right side up
version on the front, and then you have to flip
it over upside down on the back and then that's
my story. Yes, yeah, well that was fun, but obviously
just two different, slightly different takes on how sherl likeck
Holmes and Charlie Brown would mash up. We had completely
(43:27):
different villains, that's true. We just had mentions of some
of the common touchstones, but that's to be expected, right,
like you have to have those touchstones in there. But
if you out there have any suggestions, or maybe you
have your own idea of how this mashup would go,
you should get in touch with us. And the best
way to do a long form one would be email
Ellen C at I heart media dot com. But there
(43:50):
are other ways to get in touch with us, aren't
there areal Yeah, you can reach out to us on
social media at Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast, and
on Facebook and Instagram. We are large ner, drunk lighter,
uh and please do reach out to us. We want
to hear your opinions on the things we've talked about,
topics you want us to talk about in the future.
We love having that conversation with you. Yep. And as always,
(44:12):
if you enjoyed the show, you should make sure you
like it, you know, give it a good rating. Somewhere,
you know, maybe subscribe to it if you haven't. Your
filthy animal and your friends, You're not so filthy animal.
We're getting a little Christmas e and it's we're well
outside the Christmas zone. But I couldn't help it all right,
(44:36):
well until awkward pause, awkward snoopy pause. Uh. I have
been aerial casting and I am always Jonathan Stricklet mm
(45:00):
hmmm mmm m m hm hm. The Large New Drunk
Collider is a production of I Heart Radio and was
created by Ariel Kasten. Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer.
(45:23):
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 Nerdrunk Collider podcast is a production of my
Heart Radio. Hi everybody, welcome to The large Nerdrunk Collider,
the podcast that's all about the kiki things happening in
the world around us and how super excited we are
about them. I'm arial casting and with me as always.
(00:31):
Is this super fantastic? Jonathan Strickland, thank you for that
lovely introduction, aial, and in return, I have a question
for you. Okay, So this is a scenario question for
those of us who are familiar with my alter ego
Quizster for Ridiculous History. You've agreed to do a twenty
(00:56):
four hour charity marathon, and which you will be playing
a video or a computer game for the entire duration,
same game for all twenty four hours, allowing for breaks
for food and bathroom breaks and that games stuff. Which
game do you choose? You're asking me to do some
(01:18):
big thanks, Jonathan. Uh. I guess I'm gonna say Desert
Plus because that is legit a thing that already happens
and I have always wanted to be a part of it.
Um Desert Bus is a video game created by Penn
and Teller where you drive a bus real time across
(01:38):
the desert, and it veers slightly to one direction. But
they every year a bunch of Internet personalities get together
and and drive it in marathon to raise money for
the Child's Play Foundation, which I think is really cool
and I've always wanted to be a part. It's not
the game i'd pick for funness. That would probably be
Mass Effect or Minecraft with my mom are, but uh yeah,
(02:03):
that's what I do think. And just to stick on
desert bus for a second, I think it takes like
seventeen hours to make the trip one way. It's I
think it's Los Angeles to Las Vegas. And if you crash,
if you veer off the road too far, you get
a flat tire and you get towed all the way
back to the beginning in real time. So and you
can't just set the computer to to go in a
(02:25):
straight direction and walk away because, as Ariel said, it
pulls a little to the right, so you're constantly having
to correct for that. So it was made to be
irritating and pointless, and you get one point every time
you go from one city to the other. It just
takes hours to do it. For me, well, first of all,
I actually have done this a couple of times. I've
(02:46):
done it for charity for for the Children's Hospital of Atlanta,
and both times I played Minecraft for twenty four hours straight.
I built stuff in the world based upon the donations
I got. So people donated, I would build a monument
to them that was fitting for whatever the level of
donation was. But if I were to do it again,
(03:08):
I think I would actually do Star Do Valley because
I find that game really really like chill, and I'm
just curious how far I could get in, just like
if I started a brand new game and had twenty
four hours to go, how much could I get done?
But if it were really chill, wouldn't you fall asleep
during I mean there's always a danger, but then that
(03:29):
can also happen in the game. And if you fall
asleep while you're out and about in Star Dow Valley,
you wake up either when you wake up back at home,
but someone has rifled through your pockets and taken all
your money. So oh, but a good portion of it.
Yeah yeah, No, I mean it's you know, you learned
some hard life lessons. Okay, well we got that answered. Well,
(03:54):
we should probably just segue right into the show and
we wanted to start off, you know, we went gaga
for Wanda Vision when it debuted on Disney Plus, and
now the next mini series from Disney Plus has started,
that being Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and we thought
we would do an attempt check to see what we
(04:15):
each thought of the first episode because we have each
watched it. So what did you think, ariel? Um? It
was good, It wasn't. It was a lot more serious,
and I didn't enjoy it quite. It wasn't quite as
fun as Want of Vision for me, Um, but I
did enjoy it. They did some really cool things with cinematography.
(04:37):
They had some people in squirrel suits doing some some
like paragliding I guess what would be called point plane jumping,
and they would put the same sort of body cam
on them as they would on the Falcon, which I
thought was just really cool. It made it made it
feel so much more real to me, um to see
the superhero flying around. Um. There were some cool little
(04:59):
minor character drops in there that I kind of spoiled.
I'm pretty sure I know how some things are going
to turn out based on those spoilers that I spoiled
for myself. Um, And it It also dealt with Marvel's
been doing a really good job with their properties lately
of dealing with the rough percussions of the snap and
(05:20):
little things you don't think about, like the little things
that happened in the five years between your disappearance and
your reappearance, And they did that in Falcon and Winter
Soldier in a really cool way. So I liked it.
I'm looking forward to the next episode. It just wasn't
quite as fun as one division for me. I agree
that it wasn't as fun, but I loved it. I
(05:40):
absolutely loved that episode. I loved how they are taking
their time establishing the characters and what their current conflicts are.
And so far in the series, the two main characters
haven't haven't teamed up at all. They are in their
separate story relines. But those storylines are really compelling, and um,
(06:05):
I would even say like the Falcons is more compelling
to me than the Winter Soldiers. I mean, the Winter
Soldier is dealing with massive amounts of guilt for the
things he did, as you know, a weapon in the
hands of Hydra. He's he's trying to cope with that.
The Falcon is trying to help rescue his family's business,
whereas his sister is being much more pragmatic and trying
(06:27):
to do what's best for her family. The Falcon doesn't
want to let go of the past. And um, I
feel like this show is also doing some great stuff
and that it is addressing and not in a super
heavy handed way, but addressing things like systemic racism, the
practice of redlining, things that have disproportionately affected people of color.
(06:47):
And you know, in this world, you're seeing that that
stuff happens even for the people who are superheroes. Same
sort of thing where you know the falcon Um spoilers,
I guess if you haven't watched it yet, so skip
ahead a litt bit if you haven't watched Falcon and
Winter Soldier. But he voluntarily hands over Captain America shield
because he doesn't feel he's ready to take on that mantle,
(07:09):
and then the impression he's given is that this is
going to be held as an object of reverence. But
then by the end of the first episode, it's shown
that there is a new Captain America that they chose
someone who happens to be extremely white, and it's not
so it's not Sam, And that also feels like it's
another kind of way of dealing with you know, here's
(07:33):
a country that you've got this heroic figure who was
who was given everything to to serve his country, and
his country is not reciprocating. And I think that that's
really compelling too. So I really like that first episode.
I'm hopeful that the whole series kind of holds up
to this. Let's kind of move on. I think we've
(07:54):
got a lot of superhero stuff to talk about. In fact,
it's almost all exclusively superhero stuff. Yeah, and we want
to talk about other superhero stuff. It's just been some
super heavy superhero weeks. So the first thing is the
other geeky thing I watched this weekend was the Snyder cut.
Oh yeah, the Justice League of the Justice So you
(08:18):
spent four hours and two minutes of your life doing that.
I spent six hours in like ten minutes of my
life doing it because I kept having to stop and go, wait,
when did that happen? Where is this? What was this
in the first one? Oh, I have to pee, Oh,
I need a snack. Yeah, it took me more like
six hours to watch it, but um and I took
a walk in the middle just so I wouldn't be
(08:39):
a couch potato all day. I enjoyed it more than
I thought I would, So, yeah, Snyder. But you know,
one of the things I thought about it was, well,
it's getting such good reviews and not completely across the board,
but it's getting a lot of really good reviews, and
I enjoyed it more than I could. Is there a
potential that they might try to bring back more of
(09:01):
of the Snyder verse? You know, he he set up
a lot at the end of the four hour movie,
and then we got articles saying, yeah, Warner Brothers brothers
have have essentially said there this that is the conclusion
of the Snyder trilogy. So setting up stuff like Martian
Man Hunter is to no avail because we're probably not
(09:21):
going to see that version in future DC. I mean
there will probably we might see the character, but maybe
not that version of the character in future DC movies. Um. So,
I I have not watched the Snyder Cut as of yet. Um.
I just haven't set aside the time to do it. Uh.
I've seen conflicting reviews. I've seen some people who said
(09:44):
it's different but not necessarily any better than the Weed
and cut. I've seen others who have said it's more
coherent than the we din't cut, like things make more sense,
but it's not, you know, the the quippy stuff is
is toned way way way down. Um. So I've seen
a lot of different things. I I don't have a
(10:06):
dog in this fight, honestly, Like to me, I have
a feeling that there's just nothing they could have done
that would have made me really interested, simply because this
was the continuation of storylines that I already didn't like,
So there really wasn't any way of them going forward
that I was going to be totally on board. That's
that's my deal. I'm not saying they're bad movies, just
(10:27):
saying they didn't appeal to me. Um. But me, I,
you see, I felt like they each had some benefits
over the other, So each each each had some blind
spots that I felt like the other one might have addressed. Yeah,
and almost all the reviews I saw did say that
while the film moves along fairly well, it is too long. Um.
(10:52):
Although the helps that they've broken it up into chapters,
so it feels almost more like a mini series that
does a full movie. And I think maybe that's the
way Snyder needs to tell his stories because he does
have a hard time. He's got so much story he
wants to tell almost always, and my biggest problem with
him is trying to fit too much story into two
little times. So maybe he just needs to start getting
(11:13):
some high budget miniseries. Maybe we need to, like somehow
do our own ll en c mashup of Peter Jackson
and Snyder because Peter Jackson took The Hobbit, a book
that doesn't have that much story and stretched it, and
then Snyder's trying to cram too much story into too
small of a form. Factor. Somewhere in the middle is
the sweet spot. Um, Somewhere in the middle is the
(11:35):
sweet spot. But you know, w B and and DC
do have plans to continue the universe. Maybe we will
get Marsha Manhunter. I really liked his design and I
love that actor. Um, but we are getting Zatana movie. Yeah.
She's a magician character who has a lot of history
in the in the DC universe, so that's really exciting.
(11:56):
And Emerald Fennel is writing it. She's the one who
wrote Promising Young Woman. I'm guessing Ariel, you have not
seen that movie. I haven't. I wanted to and then
it just fell off my radar. It's you know, I mean,
it's it's it's a brilliant It's a brilliant film. Mhm.
It is a heavy film. It's dealing with some heavy stuff,
(12:20):
but a brilliant movie. And so interesting that that someone
who wrote something so visceral and heavy is now writing
a like a superhero script. Well, you know, Sitana is
often a part of you know, kind of the dark
dark University. C'ss the hook up with constantin. Yeah. Also
(12:42):
one thing the other. The other thing that we didn't mention,
but I just want to give a quick shout out
to is that despite the fact that we got a
Snyder cut of Justice League, it looks like we're not
going to get an air cut of Suicide Squad. So
the Suicide Squad that we got the theatrical cut, that's
the only version that we ever expect to see, and
I have feelings about that too. I don't know that
(13:03):
I would have liked the Suicide Squad original version. I
definitely didn't like the one that came out, but I'm
guessing that. But I'm very much looking forward today. Well, yeah,
because that's gonna be yes that's that's gonna be handled
by someone who can tell a story and hopefully not
have it chopped up by a movie trailer studio, because
that's what happened to the first one. Um switching back
(13:24):
over to Marvel, though, we have another quick Disney Plus announcement,
which is that, uh, there is a already an announcement
of a spinoff of a series that hasn't even come
out yet, right, So Hawkeye is getting a spinoff before
Hawkeye even comes out on Disney Plus. And this one
should make you really happy because the spinoff is about
(13:45):
Echo U a k a. Mile Lopez, who is a
Native American woman who is hearing impaired. She usually shows
up as a supporting character in dare just who you
have been wanting to come back so bad. I would
love to see Daredevil returned to the m c U.
I really think. I think that the first season, in
(14:07):
particular of Daredevil, it really set the stage for some
incredible Marvel series. Now, granted, the Marvel series we got
post Daredevil and Punisher and all those have not been
nearly as bloody as Daredevil was for good reason, but
I would love to see Daredevil brought back in Echo
has a superpower where she's able to copy the fighting
(14:31):
style of whomever she's going up against, which makes her
very similar to a character named Taskmaster, who is the
villain that will be appearing in the Black Widow movie,
assuming we ever get it. We will, we will. There's
news that that's probably going to come out on D
Plus and in theaters at the same time. Um, that's
(14:51):
wasn't on our list of news items, but it did
come out this week. Uh. And the last news item
we have is about a comic book series called There
Are No Vowels. The r z r K vowels are
for other heroes. Yeah. This is a comic book series
that was created by Keanu Reeves and he of course
(15:12):
has been attached to appear in both a live action
film and an animated series that are both have been
optioned from this comic book series and the short version
of it. Ariel and I decided that it's John Wick
meets the Highlander because it's it's a or Or or
Vandal seven. No one knows who that is. A Highlander
(15:37):
Highlanders so immortal immortal warrior type who at this point
is just looking for a way to get some rest.
M so the comic was originally kick started and it
was produced by Boom Studios, and I actually I looked
at Boom Studios because I'm not always super familiar with
some of the smaller comic houses. But Boom Studios has
(15:58):
done some comics that I like, specifically the Buffy series.
I've really enjoyed this season eight and season nine and
that kind of stuff. Huh yeah, awesome. Well, I'm very
excited to learn more about all of these things. Um,
you know, I'm still kind of curious about why A
or wouldn't get a Suicide Squad re cut. I mean,
(16:18):
with the with the success of the Snyder cut, I
would have thought that might lead to other possibilities. That
does not appear to be the case. Maybe if there's
enough uproar there will be. I honestly don't care enough.
I'm just curious what Suicide Squad originally was going to
be and whether or not I would have liked it.
I don't think I would, but I definitely don't like
the theatrical one. So but again, there were there were
(16:43):
some things I liked, but overarchingly I did not. Now
One thing that Ariel and I both like is to
wallow in the good old nostalgic entertainment that we enjoyed
years and years ago. And it turns out we're not alone.
But we're gonna talk more about that after we take
this quick break. All Right, we're back, and as Jonathan said,
(17:15):
we're going to talk a little bit about nostalgia. So
this week it was announced that Family Matters viewership sword
about four d in UM, which is amazing. Family Matters
is one of my favorite sitcom shows, um, and so
(17:37):
I was super excited to hear this news, and it's
one I feel like has transcended time a little bit
because even even kids nowadays, Uh, you know who Steve
Urkel is, right, and he was a big pop culture
nerd who was oftentimes very unapologetically nerdy, and I feel
like you kind of intro the way into the geekdom
(17:59):
we have now. Um. So that was really awesome. But apparently,
like because we haven't had a lot of new media,
people are just watching their old favorites over and over
and over. I think that's part of it. And I
think another part of it is that there is so
much comfort to be found in watching something that you're
(18:20):
already familiar with, right like, I don't know, Ariel, has
this ever happened to you? Where let's say you've got
some spare time, you want to watch something. You take
a look at the stuff that's on your queue. There's
a ton of stuff you've never seen before. But you
find yourself drawn to something that you've watched a bazillion
times already. Yes, yes, And it's oftentimes when I want
(18:44):
something a little distracting, but I don't have to pay
a whole bunch of attention to. So I've done it
with friends. I've done it with the office. I've done
it with family matters, Full House, Ship's Creek, How I
Met Your Mother? Yep, all those. I'll just put it on.
I've watched it at times, and I'll just put it
on because it's it's like going home to well for me,
it's going home to a dysfunctional family because I think
(19:07):
of it's always sunny in Philadelphia is one of my
go toos Um. Yeah, No, I'm the same way where
like it gets there's a whole meme about this, right
about the idea that you've got like five hundred titles
on on your list of things you've never seen, and
they're readily available. They're just a click away or a
remote button push away or whatever. All you have to
(19:30):
do is start it. Instead, you are like, well, let's
rewatch season three of the Great British Bakeoff or whatever.
Um oh, I can't do that one. I'm so invested
in the bakes and I'm always trying to learn something new,
like I have to, I have to. Like So I
don't mean that I don't mean to get off track already,
but arial you know, recently, I have spent a lot
(19:50):
of time looking up just clips not of British Bakeoff,
but of Master Chef, just clips of people doing really well,
but because I don't like the parts where people fail.
So so it's like I'm watching just I'm watching a
show where nobody does anything wrong. Everyone always is on
(20:11):
their a game and impressing Gordon Ramsey. That's that's the
Master Chef that exists in my world. That's really interesting
to me because you don't want to watch anybody fail,
but your go to comfort show is always sunny in Philadelphia,
which is just But those are awful human beings who
deserve terrible things to happen to them, right, Like it's
(20:33):
like that that's and it's all fictional. I can. I
can enjoy that. In fact, for a long time I
wasn't able to enjoy it because I have a thing
about cringe humor. I'm not I'm not super fond of it,
but from me, the cringe comes in when I have
a great deal of empathy or sympathy for a character
(20:54):
and I don't want to see terrible things happen to
that character. It's always Sunny. Freed me of this terrible
burden by making all the characters reprehensible, so you want
to see term Like, for the longest time, I didn't
want anything bad to happen to Charlie because in the
first season Charlie's Charlie just seems to be downtrodden. He
doesn't seem to be bad, but then as you get
(21:15):
a little further in, he is terrible. Yeah. Yeah, As
I mentioned, all the shows that I tend to go
back to are all sitcoms, but they're more lighthearted sitcoms.
But still the humor in their shows does come mainly
from people's failure. Well, that's that's the thing though. That's
usually where comedy comes in, right. Comedy usually comes in
(21:38):
where like the saying, as you stub your toe, it's
a tragedy, you'd walk off the edge of a cliff.
And it's a comedy kind of thing where it's it's
this idea of subverting expectations and typically setting people up
to have whatever thing they were trying to achieve fall
through in a unexpected way, and that lead to the comedy.
(22:01):
But and then how they handle that also leads to
the comedy. But I am curious, like, are there any
particular titles that you really leaned on heavily during pandemic
where we just didn't have the opportunity to get out
or was it just the sort of the ones you
had already kind of listed off? Um, I think I
(22:25):
So I did go through a bunch of shows that
I hadn't had the chance to watch. I like, I
made myself take some discipline, and I I said, here
the series, here are the movies that I've wanted to
watch during pandemic, and I'm going to do that. But
then when that was done, when I'm like getting ready
(22:45):
for bed and I'm just trying to shut off my brain,
or if I've had a particularly rough day and I
just want just something chill, I think it's it's been
The Office, which is really weird because when I first
started watching The Office, I did not like it. I
didn't the for entire first season where they're trying to
be the British Office, I felt I thought it was
(23:07):
mean spirited and belabored. Um. And then you get into
the second season and everybody starts to have growth, and
there's still episodes of the Office that are largely cringe
ey that I can't stand to watch. But um like
it's it's I'm so familiar with it at the point,
and part of it is because my husband also, we'll
put it on and just watch it. Um. So I'm
(23:30):
so familiar with it that I kind of tune out
those episodes or those moments that really make me cringe,
and tune in on my favorite moments. We also rewatched
Buffy and are currently rewatching far Escape. Yeah, I did
a little bit other than well, and I haven't, to
be perfectly fair, I haven't watched any of It's Always
Sunny during Pandemic. It's just that was my go to
(23:52):
for a while when I wanted to watch something that
I had already seen in the pandemic. The stuff i've
watched the most. Actually, what I haven't watched that much
television programming. I watched a lot of stuff that creators
were making, either on Twitch or YouTube or whatever. But
when I was whenever I would watch television, it tended
to be British comedy series, which is terrible because you
(24:16):
will go through them in like two days and they
just got to turn over again. So Garth Mringhey's Dark Place,
if you've never seen that, it's bonkers crazy. The premise
is that there's a Stephen King like writer named Garth
Mringhey who has an extremely high opinion of himself. He's
(24:39):
a dream weave, and there's a television series that was created.
It's a fake TV series, but the idea is that
it's a television series that was created from his works,
and he, being the egotistical person that he is, stars
in it as the main character. UM. And it has
a lot of of British comedy actors in it that
(25:01):
you would recognize from other stuff like Richard Iawada isn't it,
Matt Barry is in it. UM. It is a very
silly take. Uh. Stephen Merchant is in a couple of episodes. UM.
Noel Fielding is in a couple, so yeah, it's it's
a really British British actors are all in. Yeah, it's
a small group of of really tightly knit group. But
(25:23):
it's really it's really silly, it's ridiculous, Like it's it's
really making fun of like early eighties British TV and
the limitations on things like special effects, but everyone's treating
it like it's the most cutting edge stuff ever. And
the other one I watched a couple of times through
(25:44):
was The Mighty Bush, another British comedy series. At least
that one has four series or four seasons, so little
extra to watch in that one. Um very very weird
series as well. But yeah, those really kind of like
my go toos, And it was because I mean, I
had seen them all so many times. I can still
get enjoyment even though I know exactly what's coming, because
(26:07):
the quality of the performances and the weird writing, the
British humor is just so strange, which is one of
the reasons I love it so much. Those were my
go twos. I like going to nostalgic things a little
bit because it brings back those feelings before being stuck
in the house. Yeah, So I think about, you know,
(26:31):
watching these these older shows, and I go back, like
I I think about going out and hanging out my
friends and watching it or talking about the episodes, and
it's kind of like a little mini brain vacation. One
thing I had thought about doing I just never got
around to doing, was doing like, you know, like a
Netflix watch party, because that capability is built right into
a lot of the Netflix apps. But I never coordinated
(26:54):
with friends to do that, to kind of watch something
collectively and then talk about And I think part of
the zone for that is that it it just feels
like everything we do is through Zoom or teams or
you know, some other video conferencing system, So it ends
up feeling more like work than socializing, and it just
(27:16):
ends up being exhausting. At least that's my armchair personal
psychology approach to why I haven't done anything. Now I
get it. I've done I've done a few watch parties,
and we tend to just do it on voice. We
watched the TV on whatever streaming platform we're using. Most
of them have a watch party feature now, um, and
(27:36):
then we'll connect on discord or over the phone and
we'll just chat throughout it, because yeah, you know me,
I love being in front of a camera, but it's
just relaxing to be able to just sit and talk
and not have to worry about making eye contact or
how I look or if I've got pizza in my
teeth or it's it is tough to make eye contact
(27:58):
because it means you're looking to a camera, not actually
looking at the picture of the person you're talking to,
which is usually several inches below where of the cameras.
But yeah, I mean, like I totally get the whole nostalgic,
comforting experience. There's some element of ritual there too, like
the idea of doing something you've done before and being
(28:19):
able to go through it. You already know what to expect.
There's not gonna be any surprises, so nothing's gonna tax
you psychologically. Um, I get all that. So I'm not
really super surprised to see that these numbers are are
so high. Um, and good for them, I mean, it's
and good for all the people who are discovering stuff
(28:40):
for the first time. Like they're younger audiences who may
be watching this kind of stuff for the first time ever.
So I hope that they're enjoying it. Well, you know,
I think good shows tend to come around. You know,
they might be dated, but they also have timeless concept
and relatable humor no matter the age. For instance, one
of the shows that had great viewership was the Andy
(29:01):
Griffith Show, Yeah Dating. By the time I watched it,
I was amazed that jabber Jaw wasn't on there, because
that's a real work of art. You know. I don't
know if you're joking or not, but I actually did
enjoy jabber Jaw. So it was between Jabber John Great
Babe that I was gonna say, liked them both, and
Troopy Dog and Wacky Races and all that snaggle. Now,
(29:24):
you know what else I liked what Charlie Brown Meat.
I still like Charlie Brown, me too. You know how
much I like Charlie Brown. How much Jonathan enough to
mash him into somebody else? That's so me. You're the
one who picked it. So we're gonna do a mesh
up after the break where we take Charlie Brown and
(29:44):
mesh up Charlie Brown with a classic English literature literary figure.
I bet you'll never guess who it is who lives
at two twenty one B Baker Street. Well, you gave
it away, now we'll be right back. Okay, we are back,
(30:17):
and uh yeah, we we chose to mash up Sherlock
Holmes and Charlie Brown and to give you guys a
little bit of a behind the scenes view of how
these sort of things come together. Uh, usually we look
at the news and see if there's anything in the
news where we can mash stuff up. But obviously this
time we were covering so much superhero stuff. We're like,
(30:38):
we've done superheroes. Yeah, so we started kind of thinking
outside of that and saying, well, let's just pick two
things that we wouldn't normally put together and figure out
how would we do that? And um so Sherlock Holmes
is when we settled on pretty quickly. But then we
had to figure out what the other one was. And
my initial reaction was dumb because I was like, oh,
(31:00):
Scooby Doo. But then you're like, but that that's already
like two things that do the same thing. Yeah, And
then you said smurfs and I was like, well, then
all we're gonna be doing is replacing every third word
with smurf. And when one person does it when two
people do it, it's a bits smurfing much it would
(31:21):
have been fifteen minutes of smurfing. We're a family show, Jonathan,
I'm sorry. I didn't mean smurfing. I meant surfing smurfing, Okay.
So then I said, well, what about Charlie Brown, because
you know we're talking about nostalgia. Yeah, and so so
for those who don't know who either of these are,
(31:42):
where have you been? Charlotte Holmes obviously famous detective created
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, lots of stories, four novels
written by Conan Doyle and multiple novels written by other
people since then, been in series and films. Everyone knows
who Sherlock Holmes is. Uh. And then you have Charlie Brown,
famous comic strip character made by Charles Schultz, star of
(32:05):
beloved specials and cartoons, so things like you know, the
the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is still one of my
favorite cartoons of all time. It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie
Brown another fantastic one one of my favorites. So yeah,
something that it also comes back around because it's had
a movie recently. Yeah, that's true. So let's let's see
(32:27):
who do you Who do you want to go first? Cally, Um,
I I guess I can. That's the confidence I like
to hear, wearing and ready to go. All right, Sherlock
Holmes in the Great Pumpkin taketh away. One briskfall evening
(32:50):
on two to one Baker Street. Mr Sherlock Holmes and
Dr John Watson got a mysterious letter. It stated, please
Mr Holmes and Mr Watson come to the Brown House
Saint Paul, Minnesota. We have something dark and mysterious going
on here and we need your help, desperately, signed, asked Brown.
Surprised and egotistically delighted, Sherlock immediately packed up and headed
(33:14):
for America, bringing doctor Watson begrudgingly in tow. A day later,
the two master minds walked up to the door of
a modest house with yellow maybe it was white maybe
blue siding. They rang the bell, but no one answered.
They rang again. Finally, a young boy with an oddly
round head in a furrowed brow came out. He hesitantly
(33:36):
began to introduce himself. Hi, I'm Charlie Brown. Can I
help ye? But all of a sudden he stopped stammered
good grief and ran inside, slamming the door. They turned
to look to see what could have scared him so,
but all they could see was a young auburn trust girl.
Nothing seemed odd about her, and they decided that following
her would just be a red hare ingh And that's
(34:00):
when they heard it from around the bushes, us barely
audible above the sounds of some chirping yellow canaries nearby.
Were canaries local to Minnesota. The duo didn't know, but
they did follow the Upon tracking the sound, they saw
a beagle sitting on top of a dog house. They
must have been hearing things, so they turned to leaf,
(34:22):
but then they heard it again. Turning back to the noise,
they saw the beagle and one of the yellow birds
stuck into the dog house. The dog going into his
house wasn't weird, but the bird following him certainly was,
and Sherlock, much to Watson's chagrin, decided to follow. Squeezing
through the dog house door, they found themselves on a
large staircase leading into the dark. They followed it down
(34:43):
and at the bottom of the staircase was a bunker
filled with maps, no science equipment, and monitors. All of
the monitors were looking at one place, a quiet pumpkin patch.
There was a tug on Sherlock's pant leg, and as
he looked down, the beagle handed him a letter. It started,
my name is Snoopy, I wrote you the here to
come here, thank you for coming. And through the letter
(35:03):
and an intrigue game of charades and a tour around
the doghouse bunker, Holmes and Watson learned that the town
was being plagued by a creature called the Great Pumpkin.
Over the years, that had been a childhood legend that
most of the town didn't believe in, but this year
was different. Every night, the entire town, and not just
the children, would go and bring all of their greatest
belongings to the field to give to the Great Pumpkin,
hoping in its arrival. But it never showed up. However,
(35:27):
in the morning, when the town spoke awoke, all of
their belongings would be gone from the field. Snoopy believed
this was the doing of his arch nemesis, the Red Baron. Sherlock,
feeling a kinship with this remarkably intelligent dog, offered to
help Watson Ashlock. Where might we even begin, and Sherlock answered, elementary,
dear Watson. Long pause, Sherlock continued, literally, we'll start at
(35:53):
the elementary school, and that's where they headed. And indeed
things were weird. They're the kids were all large and
round headed, and the adults were unintelligible. Sherlock didn't have
much experience with children, so it took him a while
to learn that these children were all, in fact just kids,
big headed and all. But he did notice something particularly odd.
(36:16):
The kids were having a fundraiser. The fundraiser was selling
cans of red bear and branded pumpkin, and according to
the gold chart on the blackboard, all the children had
been successful in selling can pumpkin to the whole town.
And this was particularly particularly odd because Red Baron only
sold frozen pizzas. These FROs and pizzas were a secret
pleasure of Sherlock's when he was alone in his studio.
(36:37):
No one knew about it. So they opened a can
and noticed trace amounts of scopolamine, which, if you don't know,
is a way that people can use to make you
extremely suggestible. Sherlock, nuthn villain must be using it to
make everyone believe in the Greek pumpkins so that they
could get their belongings and valuables and such. But who
would have such knowledge of the mental condition. They returned
(36:59):
to Snoopy, who affirmed that there was no therapist in town. However,
there was a small psychiatrist booth run by the class
bully Lucy. It was then that they knew they had
found their culprit, but now they had to figure out
how to get her to admit to her diabolical plan.
They had noticed Lucy eyeing Charlie Brown, that that awkward
(37:19):
boy they first met when they came into town, So
they commandeered Charlie to flirt with her and offer her
a muffin liced with some of the pumpkin in it. Lucy,
being a proud person, accepted the muffin offering and ate
it in one bite. Upon doing so, Holmes jumped out
and got her to spill the beans all about how
she wasn't a kid of the town, but really Snoopy's
arch nemesis, the Red Baron, how she felt she deserved
all of the good things the town had to offer her,
(37:40):
but the town never appreciated her, and so she took
it into her own hands. Upon her confession, she was
sent at attention and the pumpkin cans were destroyed. The
mystery being solved, Sherlock and Watson returned to England, but
Sherlock and Snoopy remained pen pals, helping each other solve
the occasional mystery. The end very very cute. There are
(38:01):
going to be a couple of common touch points. I
figured as much so minus Sherlock Holmes and the Beagle
of the Baskervilles. Spoiler alert, there's a spoiler in the title. Okay,
Sherlock Holmes has a problem. He's been summoned to Dartmoor
to investigate reports of a giant hound terrorizing the countryside.
(38:24):
His friend and biographer John Watson has joined him. Watson,
being slightly more inclined toward flights of fancy, worries that
perhaps the Moors are truly haunted by an impossibly large
spectral hound, hypothesis that Holmes finds quite unsupportable. But more
than that, Holmes has a bigger challenge on his hands.
(38:44):
It seems that shortly after his arrival, a carriage carrying
a bunch of kids got stuck in a muddy patch
on the road through Dartmoor and then it broken Axel.
The kids, a group of Americans, are all curious little people.
One named Blindness homes of Me Lead Deduces has severe
anxiety issues as he relies heavily on a security blanket
(39:04):
as a coping mechanism. Linus is older. Sister Lucy seems
to be a bit of a brute. Then there's a
rather disheveled child named pig Pen who seems to attract
all the various flies in the surrounding area into his orbit.
A rather musical young man named Schroeder is also part
of the gang. Then there's an energetic young gal named
Sally in the mix, and finally there's a rather hopeless
(39:27):
fellow called Charlie Brown, always Charlie Brown, never just Charlie.
And Peppermint Patty isn't there, so there's no Chuck to
speak of. The coachman, who was looking after the children,
asks Holmes to keep an eye on them while the
coach needs repairs. At least that's what Holmes thinks. The
coachman said, in truth, the driver spoke in such a
(39:49):
way like a muted trumpet that it was quite impossible
to make out what was really being said. While at
first irritated, Holmes soon comes to the conclusion that the
children might prove useful. Being a long way from home,
Sherlock doesn't have access to his assortment of irregulars who
would normally gather up information on his behalf, and so
(40:09):
he names this odd assortment of children his new irregulars.
Tasked with great purpose, the gang begins to help Holmes investigate.
There is a great manor house in Dartmoor, and Schroeder
finds himself there and encounters an amazing piano, upon which
he plays a truly stupendous piece by Beethoven, which impresses
Holmes a great deal. Lucy meanwhile sets up her own
(40:31):
psychiatry booth and through interactions with the locals, begins to
learn more about the general thoughts about the Moors. Seems
the people of Dartmoor are particularly superstitious, and many seem
all too inclined to accept that there is a ghostly
hound haunting the area, though at least one fellow, a
man named Jack Stapleton, seems a bit dodgy. Lucy charges
(40:52):
everyone five cents and then later complains that all the
nickels she got are funny looking. Linnus and Holmes have
some pretty deep philosophical discussions, and Linus is also quick
to dismiss the ghostly dog hypothesis, believing instead that the
creature haunting the moors is in fact the Great Pumpkin.
And so Linus decides to sneak out at night to
(41:13):
wait for the Great pumpkins arrival, and the next morning
he has nowhere to be found, but a little blue
blanket is discovered half buried in the mud, with a
very large paw print next to it. Pigpen also disappears,
but that just happens every time he steps outside, because
he blends right in with the mud and the moors.
He's fine, though Sally mostly just irritates John Watson a lot.
(41:37):
As for Charlie Brown, he investigates as best he can,
but being a bit clumsy, he is usually told to
get out of the way after breaking or nearly breaking
a vase or a window or a bust or whatever.
And so Charlie Brown, while walking by himself and wondering
if he'll ever be good at anything, stops to lean
(41:58):
against a tree. Except it turns out it's not a tree.
It's actually a support for a clever camouflage. As Charlie
Brown leans against it, it causes the whole thing to
come tumbling down. Just as Sherlock is walking by, Holmes says,
you've done it. You've solved the case and indeed revealed
beneath the brushes Snoopy and Woodstock and Jack Stapleton plus
(42:22):
a pair of very big, very fake dog pause. Yep.
Turns out Snoopy, Woodstock and Stapleton have been playing a
bit of a prank on the locals, and while sheepish,
they get off easy, particularly once the group finds Linus
a mile down the road in a fetal position, but
he makes a swift recovery once his blanket is returned.
(42:43):
At the end, Sherlock Holmes turns to Charlie Brown and says,
Charlie Brown, out of all the irregulars, you're the irregularist.
The end, Oh, I loved it. I felt like there
were two stories in the same anthology. You are, Yeah, yeah,
it's it's it's two different It's it's a what if
(43:04):
comic book where your story is the right side up
version on the front, and then you have to flip
it over upside down on the back and then that's
my story. Yes, yeah, well that was fun, but obviously
just two different, slightly different takes on how sherl likeck
Holmes and Charlie Brown would mash up. We had completely
(43:27):
different villains, that's true. We just had mentions of some
of the common touchstones, but that's to be expected, right,
like you have to have those touchstones in there. But
if you out there have any suggestions, or maybe you
have your own idea of how this mashup would go,
you should get in touch with us. And the best
way to do a long form one would be email
Ellen C at I heart media dot com. But there
(43:50):
are other ways to get in touch with us, aren't
there areal Yeah, you can reach out to us on
social media at Twitter where Ellen c Underscore podcast, and
on Facebook and Instagram. We are large ner, drunk lighter,
uh and please do reach out to us. We want
to hear your opinions on the things we've talked about,
topics you want us to talk about in the future.
We love having that conversation with you. Yep. And as always,
(44:12):
if you enjoyed the show, you should make sure you
like it, you know, give it a good rating. Somewhere,
you know, maybe subscribe to it if you haven't. Your
filthy animal and your friends, You're not so filthy animal.
We're getting a little Christmas e and it's we're well
outside the Christmas zone. But I couldn't help it all right,
(44:36):
well until awkward pause, awkward snoopy pause. Uh. I have
been aerial casting and I am always Jonathan Stricklet mm
(45:00):
hmmm mmm m m hm hm. The Large New Drunk
Collider is a production of I Heart Radio and was
created by Ariel Kasten. Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer.
(45:23):
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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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!