The Pocuspuff Girls

Is suspense horror? Is horror suspense? We talk about the fine line and how the two genres play with each other. Then we take two famous female trios and mash them up in a super spooky showdown.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large Nerdron Collider Podcast is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey everybody, Welcome to the Large Nerdron Collider. The podcast.
It's all about the geeky stuff happening in the world
around us and how very excited we are about it.

(00:28):
I'm Ariel Gaston and with me, as always is Jonathan
the spine Tingler. Strickler. No, that sounds horrible. I'm gonna
take that. No, No, I like it. No, No, I
like it. I'm gonna be the spin tingler. Watch out,
I'll tingle your spins. I'm like William Castle. You come
in and watch a movie and ask I'm just sitting

(00:50):
there going up and down your spine. It's like four
D movies sitting with Jonathan Strickland. Hi. I'm Jonathan. Hi Jonathan. Hey, Ariel, Yes,
I got a question for you. Okay, Ariel. We are
well and truly in the spoopy season. So you've got

(01:13):
a spoopy question to answer. Not really spoopy, but what
is a fun movie or television special that you typically
like to watch around Halloween? Well, ah, there are many
movies that are kind of scary but fun that I
like to watch, but many of them are like Christmas
movies like Gremlins, or I didn't I didn't watch until

(01:37):
I was much later, like I didn't watch Beetlejuice until
I want to say, like the last five ten years.
So yeah, my f and now I really want to
go see the musical. But my favorite like holiday Halloween
holiday special to watch is it's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.
An excellent answer, A really excellent answer. I also have

(02:03):
a deep appreciation and love for that special, just as
I do the Peanuts Christmas Special. But the Great Pumpkin
is it's got a special place in my heart. I mean,
like I still will say I got a rock, you know,
quoting Charlie Brown and his Trick or Treat misadventures. So

(02:24):
you want to talk a little bit about what you
love about that show? Yes, what I like about it
is it's a fun way to enjoy Halloween and still
leave out of watching it feeling uplifted. I mean, really
that's what it is. It's it's it's happy, and it's nostalgic.
And I love the Peanuts Gang, the Charlie Brown Gang,

(02:47):
as it were, Like it's hard for me to just
put my finger on it's one of those things that
I think I've watched since I was very very young,
So it's it's just like synonymous with Fall for me.
It's a great answer. It's a it's it's fantasy. I
love that one too. But another one I try and
watch every year is Halloween. The original John Carpenter Halloween

(03:10):
still holds up still very very atmospheric and scary movie
is not like a lot of people think it of
it because of they will say it's like a slasher film,
like it was the movie that started that really started
the slasher category. I mean, you had Texas Chainsaw Massacre
before Halloween. But I would argue that Halloween's not really

(03:32):
a slasher film. There's not much gore in it at all,
which I think of as being a hallmark of your
typical slasher films like Friday the Thirteenth and Nightmare on
Elm Street and all that kind of stuff. But it
is atmospheric and creepy, and it's kind of like Jaws,
where the camera spends time looking at dark spaces and

(03:53):
you're never really sure if there's something there or not.
In fact, spoiler alert, that's how the movie end. You
are given the feeling that Michael Myers has survived his attack,
like at the end of the film, and you don't
know where he is, and you feel like the camera
is trying to tell you where he is, but you

(04:13):
can't see anything. And to me, that's really super creepy. Yeah. See,
I was gonna say, you know, that's one of the
ones that I've never watched and maybe I should until
you said, you know, it leaves you saying, is there
something there? I'm afraid of the dark, like that's that
in Spiders are my big fears? Yeah, and so you
did you ever watch a rachnophobia? Absolutely not, my friend.

(04:36):
That's a great movie. John Goodman is so good in it. Oh,
it's a good movie. You know. It's a great scary movie.
Dylan Dog Dead of Night. I have never kiss I
don't think I've even heard of that one deals with
It deals with werewolves and sabies. It's it's actually a
comic book and it's kind of like a detective comic book.
It's a really bad movie, but I really love it.

(04:58):
It's got Peter Stormare and Ta Diggs and Sam Huntington
and Brandon Roof in it. Like it's a crazy cast
and it's a really bad movie. Like I love it,
I own it. I just call it scary because of
its quality and also because there are monsters in it.
They have the brilliant line. You know what they say

(05:18):
about were wolves. They love the trees. Okay, well, you
know because they're liking thropes. Well, they don't explain that.
I'm just guessing it's because werewolves are lichen ropes. Oh,
I thought it was because you know, dogs have to
lift their leg and that would make more sense. Like

(05:41):
if you just see, if you just see an actor
standing with his back to you facing a tree, you're like, werewolf.
Totally werewolf marking territory. Okay, well, now that we have
covered that important part of our episode, it's time for
us to move on to the news. And the first
thing we want to talk about is actually it's just

(06:03):
a reaction to something that came out. It was a
clip from a property beloved by both Ariel and myself Animaniacs. Yes,
so the new Animaniac series, which honestly, I don't love
as much as the old Animaniac series. I don't know
if it's just because it's you know, my time versus

(06:23):
the new Time and I'm old and cranky, or if
it's just because and it's not what I expected, or
if it's just not quite hitting me right. I've heard
mixed reviews from some of our friends, but this new
clip hits me perfectly. It is a spoof on ThunderCats.
It is the best thing out of the new Animaniac series, Like,

(06:46):
hands down. I don't care what else they come out with.
This is going to be my favorite thing forever. Yeah. Now,
the clip shows the Animaniacs siblings as ThunderCats like characters
while a ThunderCats like song is playing in the background.
That's just referencing the eighties over and over and over again,

(07:06):
and just like it is definitely sending up the trend
of eighties nostalgia and and I love it. Like eighties
nostalgia is a weird thing anyway. In fact, now we're
moving into nineties nostalgia, which is also weird to me.
I guess it's weird for every generation as they get
older to see the stuff that they grew up with

(07:28):
coming back into fashion, but eighties in particular, Like when
I look back on the eighties and the entertainment that
was produced in the eighties, Man, there was a lot
of stuff that would just not I mean, it was
not good then, but people weren't necessarily woke to it.
And I hate using that word, but you know, you

(07:49):
watch like some of the eighties entertainment now and you're like, wow,
that's super not cool that that joke they just made. Yeah,
so it's for me to see nostalgia for it. Nineties
has a lot of I mean, we're One of the
stories we didn't even touch on is the fact that
there's going to be a sequel to that seventies show
called that Nineties show. And that's just like yeah, that,

(08:12):
oh yeah, that you told me. I didn't put it
in the lineup because I was like, this is too depressing,
so want you you want? Well, it was too depressing.
You wanted to shield me from it, and then you
said it anyhow, thanks if it makes you feel better, Aerial.
I lived through the seventies, so I have connections to
both of those shows and you only have connections to one.

(08:35):
Well now too, but well you say that, but like
I was watching a commercial the other day, Yes I
still watch commercials, and they played a song from like
the early fifties on it, and I knew all the lyrics.
But if I go to a karaoke bar, which I
haven't done in a while. But if I go to
a karaoke bar and I try to sing something that's

(08:55):
current that I've listened to a thousand times, I can't
give you one, like one solid phrase without messing it up.
I'm like, I wasn't even alive in the fifties. Why
is this the music I remember? Yeah, it just becomes
a cultural touchstone. But yes, the Animadias totally tapped into
that with the Thundercat's parody. And I don't know what
the heck is going on in context with the rest

(09:16):
of the cartoon because this is just a little excerpt,
But like you, I felt like this was fun and
funny and silly in a way that reminds me of
the classic Animateiac show. The animation style did as well.
I know, the first season of the new series kind
of felt a little more remm and stimpy to me,

(09:38):
and this felt a little more original series, So I
like it. Well, moving on, we also, you know, at
the end of the movie Guardians of the Galaxy Volume two,
there's this post little credit sequence where we see a
sarcophagus that is clearly Adam Warlock inside of it, Adam

(09:59):
Warlock being a an important, very powerful character in the
Marvel universe, kind of like on the level of Captain
Marvel's supposed to be a perfect being like in the comics,
just like Vision. Adam Warlock is the vessel for one
of the Infinity Stones, the Soul Stone. But we've been

(10:23):
waiting since then for any kind of mention of him,
like we thought he was going to be showing up
at any time now, And now we have confirmation that
Adam Warlock will be in Guardians of the Galaxy volume three,
and we even know who's going to play him. Yes,
Will Poulter, who some of you might know from Black

(10:44):
Mirror or we Are the Miller's or Detroit or Dope Sick.
I think those are kind of like his biggest things.
I guess Maze Runner if you watched Maze Runner. But
I know him from Son of Rambo, which might have
been his first like big film appearance. It's definitely the
first one on his IMDb, which I actually thought was

(11:06):
Son of r Ambo, but it's sort of a Son
of r Ambo, but it's Son of r Ambow different Rambo,
different Rambo, but not entirely. It's a little independent movie
and it was an absolute delight and he kind of
played like the rough and temple kid and I at
like super imaginative. I absolutely loved him, and so now

(11:29):
every time I see him in something I like, I
absolutely love him. Whether I liked the movie or not,
I could think it's a bad movie and his character
is a bad character, and for some reason, he still
just touches my heart. I love I love that well.
One that Tibold has decided that he is the third
co host of this show. And two. That's so far
we have covered two movies that you have talked about

(11:52):
not being good but that you have a genuine love
for which I'm all instead of Rambo's really good, Okay,
I think it's good. If I said it was bad,
I didn't need to say that. Maybe that was my misinterpretation.
I'm sure that's not. That's not how it came across
to me. The actual son of Rambo, and it's not
it's some kid who plays at it. And it wasn't

(12:14):
what I expected, but it was really good. I quite
enjoyed it. I am looking forward to finding out what
the MCU version of Adam Warlock is and how he
fits into, you know, the overall story in general. I
also just really look forward to seeing the final Guardians
of the Galaxy film, at least in its you know,
current lineup, because we know that certain characters are not

(12:37):
going to come back after volume three. So I'm I
am I'm I'll be glad to see how it wraps up.
I'm sure I'm going to be sad to see certain
characters depart. Well, it just the Christmas Special come out
before after three. Christmas Special comes out before, so there
is that one. I didn't count that one because I

(12:57):
forgot that it exists, But though it comes out, that
comes out at the end of this year, and Guardians
the Galaxy Volume three obviously comes out later. Speaking of forgetting,
something that I keep forgetting about is the Netflix Lost
in Space, which is maybe why this third season is
its last season. I think it's the third season. It
is the third season. It is listed as Lost in

(13:19):
Space three. I have not watched any of these, so
I used to watch the old series in reruns. I
wasn't it wasn't playing while I was a kid. I'm
not that old. It was in reruns by the time
I was watching it, and I love the old series,
but I had never watched the new one. So I
watched this trailer literally going in just knowing the little

(13:41):
bits I had read about the reboot. I gotta say,
the trailer looks like an incredible science fiction trailer. The
tone is way more serious than the original series was,
which was kind of campy and part I mean, there
was like adventure and there were steakes, but it was

(14:03):
also kind of campy. This did not come across as
campy at all, but it looked. It looked really good.
It's super beautiful. So I watched part of the first season.
I actually didn't stop watching it because I didn't like it.
I just ran out of time and then got distracted
by a castle like a goldfish. But the first season,
a lot of people I know who liked the original

(14:24):
series thought that was a little too dark. You know.
They wanted something more uplifting family travel in spaces. You know,
there can certainly be dark moments and scary adventures and things,
but it was it was just a little bit bleaker
than I think some of the people I know were expecting.
And I heard that season two was supposed to be
more uplifting, less bleak, more like the family going on adventures,

(14:45):
like what everybody expected. So this third trailer really did
take me by surprise. But you're right. It looks absolutely beautiful.
The cgi, the landscaping, the world building in this series
is absolutely stunning. I actually have it on my short
list to go back and start from the beginning of
season one so that I can catch up and watch

(15:08):
the entire thing. Yeah, I have a feeling this is
one that I'm gonna need to go and check out,
because it's also good to know from the outset, like
this is a totally different tone from the original series,
and I've never seen the movie, so I wouldn't be
able to compare it against the film version you talked about,
like the nineties movie that was absolutely horrible. Was that

(15:28):
Gary Oldman was in that one? Wasn't it very dark?
I've never seen darker and not as bad. So yeah,
but but yeah, kind of at tentative thumbs up from me,
someone who has not watched any of the series but
is interested. We have one last little story we want
to talk about before we go into break, and that

(15:48):
is that we both watched a movie trailer for a
twenty twenty two film, the sequel to Scream four, titled Scream. Hmm.
Let me just tell you so. I had watched the
first Scream I think no less than four years ago,
no more than four years ago, maybe three, for the

(16:11):
first time ever. I've only seen the first one. I
started to watch it, and then I got too scared
in the opening sequence, I got too anxious and I
had to turn it off. And it took me a
full year to revisit it. And this trailer starts with
a similar scene, and I had all the old feelings rushback.
I was so anxious. Jonathan, thank you so much. I

(16:33):
loved this trailer. I did not expect to love it
because I enjoyed the first Scream. I liked the second screen.
The third Scream I didn't like very much, and the
fourth Scream I don't even remember. I know I saw it,
I saw it in the theater, but I have no
real memory of it. I just remember like feeling that,

(16:54):
you know. The first Scream was essentially a commentary on
the slasher film genre, and it was, you know, a
deconstruction of slasher films. In fact, that's part of the
plot is one of the characters is listing all the
rules that you're supposed to follow if you want to
survive a slasher film, and you know it's it's a
meta commentary on the genre. The further you go in that,

(17:17):
the further away you got from the meta commentary. And
I don't really sense any real meta commentary in the
trailer for this new screen film. However, it does feel
like it could be a really scary entry into the
slasher film genre, like just a legit slasher movie. Clearly,

(17:38):
this is one that's not directed by Wes Craven. He
passed away several years ago, but he was the guy
who directed the other films. But it, I mean, it
looks very faithful to the spirit of the screen franchise,
and I dig it. I also love the fact that
they played with something that I have had lots of
concerns over that being a Wi Fi connected lock system.

(18:00):
M yeah, way to make it extra scary nowadays. I
felt like this was the Terminator dark Fate issue of
the Scream universe, what with the main character Sidney is
her name right, yes, Sydney coming back and kind of
being like the tough, seasoned woman bringing the young people

(18:23):
through it. What I found scary was that she was like,
I always have a knife. That's a line in the trailer.
I'm sorry if I just boiled it. Like to me
in my brain, I'm like, she just doesn't care if
people get killed, Like she obviously cares, but it just
doesn't face her. That's scary. That's a whole different level
of scary. Maybe other people don't feel. That's also that's
also something that is kind of a journey throughout the
Scream films, and that you see her change over the course,

(18:47):
because obviously anyone who's been through a situation that's similar
repeatedly is going to start building up a response to
that kind of trauma, and she definitely develops that sort
of perspective over the course of the films. So I
felt like it was a very natural progression, unlike say

(19:12):
the recent Halloween reboot where Jamie Lee Curtis comes back
as as Laura Strode and has turned into the paranoid
survival freak, but that that version of Halloween ignores all
the sequels, so it's just the first Halloween and then
that one with nothing in between, and so there's a

(19:33):
bigger leap that you know, you don't see the evolution
of the character. You just see the extremes, and with
the Scream franchise, you actually see the evolution. Now. Granted
that being said, those sequels are not very good so
or at least in my opinion, they are not very good.
They're less effective for me and less entertaining. That's that's

(19:54):
my own opinion, though other people might love them, and
that's totally legit. Scream had a very specific that was
unique at the time, and the more you do it,
the less you can do it. So right, and it
does potentially give you the ability to revisit meta commentary
in a new way. But as I said, like this

(20:15):
trailer didn't give me the feeling that they were doing
very much meta commentary at all, and that's fine. Like
I almost feel like if they had done that, it
would have been a mistake. I agree. But yeah, this
is a great way for us to segue. We're gonna
take a break and we're gonna have a quick conversation
about something that may or may not have to do
with Horror. And I don't want to tell you anything

(20:36):
else because I want to keep you in suspense. But
we will be right back, Okay, I can't can you
just can you tell us now, Jonathan, because like I can't,

(20:59):
I can't take it. Sure, Ariel, I can tell you
that you suggested we talk about whether or not suspense films,
like suspense stories count as horror, and uh, you know
my admission illusion. Yeah, well I wanted to also thought
this is an opportunity to make you seem silly, and
I know, ye know it was it was I was

(21:21):
yes ending, Yes, that's true, you were yes ending, and
then I was like deny INBROV scene over. Yeah, No,
we're gonna we're gonna talk about suspense and it's and
it's and it's relationship to horror and whether something you know,
whether suspense is a subcategory of horror. I would argue
suspense is not necessarily a subcategory of horror, but suspense

(21:44):
in horror can make horror way more effective for me.
I you know, I I agree that suspense makes horror
way more effective. I looked up the definition of horror
and horror and it's an intense feeling of fear, shock,
or disgust. So I feel like suspense is like that. First, Yeah,

(22:10):
the fear, the fear, and maybe the shock shock, you
know what's so here's the here's some interesting things. Like
first of all, if you go way back to like
the Boris Karloff days, he did not like the genre
being described as horror. He liked the phrase terror pictures
things that were meant to make you feel scared as

(22:31):
opposed to horrified, because you can go the horror route
and just do a massive gorefest, right, and there's nothing
particularly artful about it. It can just be excessive and
gratuitous and gory, and that counts as horror. It's it's horrorfying,
but not necessarily scary in the way that you know,

(22:52):
five days later you're still talking about it. Like I
think about certain movies I saw that really stuck with
me to the point where like months later I would
be thinking about them. The first Blair Witch Project did
that to me, And of course that was back before
that had been overplayed and parodied and turned into a

(23:14):
meme and all that kind of stuff. When I saw it,
for all that, clover Field, that's a that was a
pretty effective film. I'm trying to think the Changeling, which
is a nineteen eighty film with George C. Scott. That
one did it to me, and then I think about
movies that are they have moments of suspense that are

(23:36):
so intense that you're just aching for the release for
that that moment where the suspense gets gets unleashed, and like,
Quentin Tarantino is fantastic at that. I think of Inglorious Bastards.
There's a scene in the very beginning of that movie,
and it's just a simple interrogation scene, and the the

(24:01):
Christoph Waltz's character is not being particularly over the top threatening,
but that makes it even worse. And the longer the
scene goes on, the more you're like, I need, I
need something to happen. I need this release because it's
it's making my chest feel tight. And I wouldn't call

(24:22):
Glorious Bastard it's a horror movie by any stretch of
the imagination. But that sequence is terrifying, Like it hits
me harder than a lot of horror movies do. So
I agree that it's terrifying. I would say, at least
the first time I watched a lot of Quentin Tarantino's movies,
Kill Bill and Glorious Bastards and a couple others, I

(24:45):
kind of thought they were on the border of horror.
Because they were very scary and very bloody and gory,
and like, the scariest movies to me are suspense movies.
And maybe that's just because I get more invested in them,
and I also watch more of them because they tend
to have less score. It's the blood and the guts

(25:06):
and things like that that usually makes me think it's horror,
which I guess to borrow Boris Karlov's Karlov's chagrin. That's
not what he wanted, you know, necessarily not. And my
favorite movies in the genre tend to be more about

(25:27):
suspense than they are about gore. Like I mentioned Halloween.
Halloween has a little bit of gore in it, the
first Halloween. The later entries have more and more in it,
but the original Halloween is really more about suspense. So
is Jaws. For that matter. Jaws is my favorite film
of all time. Like, that's my favorite movie. It's it's

(25:49):
it is horror, it's a monster movie, it's a it's
a horror movie. But Jaws. The reason why Jaws is
really scary is again that suspense, right, Like, you've got
a little bit of gore in it, not a whole lot.
Most of the most of the violence happens in a
way that you don't really see what's going on, and
in my mind, that makes it scarier because it leads

(26:11):
it to the audience's imagination to fill in the gaps.
Whereas there are other movies that are in the gory
horror genre that I have an appreciation for, but I
don't find them particularly scary. So to me, suspense is
absolutely necessary to make a horror movie effective for me,
apart from just like someone's having a grand old time

(26:34):
making a gory movie. Like I think of James Gunn's Slither.
I think that's a really fun horror movie. It is
very gory. I don't think of it as being particularly
suspenseful or scary. I have not watched Slither, so I
would not be able to tell you it. I thought
was going to be more horror, and it turned out

(26:55):
to be more suspense for me because it scary, but
it's it's very suspenseful. There's not a ton of core
in it. There's some, not as much as I expected.
What do you think about Hitchcock? Is he horror or suspense?
I think I think Hitchcock is suspense that can go
into horror, like Psycho, I would argue, is more of

(27:17):
a horror movie than say, an action film. Like I
think of suspense as being a subcategory that can belong
to a couple of different major categories, So suspense, like
you could have horror suspense, or you could have drama
or action suspense. I think of Quentin Tarantino as more
in the action suspense category and Hitchcock generally more in

(27:38):
the horror suspense. I think it was Hitchcock who actually
said the art of suspense is you set up something
that the audience knows has to happen, and then you
hold off from ever letting that happen for as long
as possible, and preferably you don't have it happen at all.
You have something else happen. You subvert the expectations of
the audience to release the tension. But it's all about

(28:03):
you set up something and the audience knows, the characters
in the scene may or may not know, and you
have that go as long as you can before you
allow for a release. And when it's done, well, that
is it is truly incredible, not necessarily enjoyable, but incredible.
No no, you know. Along similar lines, if you look

(28:27):
at the twilight Zone, I know that you've got series
that are similar to it, that are very specifically horror.
If you look at Creep Show, Yeah, or Tales from
the Crypt, those things are very like they're modeled after
twilight Zone. I believe they came out after and but
they're specifically horror. But Twilight Zone was scary enough to
me and upsetting enough to me and disturbing enough to

(28:48):
me most times that I still considered it horror. I
do like twilight Zone. But twilight Zone's interesting too because
that I think of it very pulp e And you know,
if you look at the old Hope magazines from like
the forties, they spanned a couple of different genres. You
had your horror, you had your adventure, you had your
science fiction if you want. If you look at the

(29:12):
original season of twilight Zone, there are entries in that
that fall more into the science fiction category than horror.
There there's actually a Western or two in that first season,
so like there there are a couple that like the
binding tissue in twilight Zone is usually that there's some
sort of twist, there's some sort of thing where there's

(29:37):
you know, characters believe one thing is going on, it
turns out something else is going on, and usually it
doesn't end well for whoever the main character is. So like,
I would say, a lot of Twilight Zone fell into
the horror category, but there were also ones that I
would I would probably describe more as being like science
fiction or even Western Like I said, so, yeah, I

(29:59):
mean I think it just depends. Yeah. Another another show
that comes to mind with that, but it's kind of
the reverse of it, which is to me, which is
Lovecraft Country, which we only got one season of, but
that was specifically week to week different kinds of horror,
so it was mainly horror, a little bit of science
fiction or a little bit of pulp in there, but

(30:20):
it was it was interesting to watch the various kinds
of it. It kind of helped me. A lot of
it was very suspenseful. I was on the edge of
my seat quite a bit, and then a lot of
it was just gory, but because it's Lovecraft, but it
kind of really helped me determine what sorts of horror
I like and realize that there are so many different

(30:42):
subcategories because originally, when I thought, you know, I'm like,
to me horror, suspense, because it's so scary and I'm
involved in the story, and then I'm like, and then
there's Gore, right, And that's a completely different category to me,
so that it was very illuminating. I guess there's also
there's also like the weird fiction subcategory of horror, right,

(31:04):
Like this would be the kind of stuff that I
would describe HP Lovecraft's work. I think falls into that category.
This is the almost sort of the mythological elements that
you can see in horror, where you get into those
elements where something otherworldly is happening, potentially with powers that
are far too great for us to comprehend. And there

(31:27):
are whole subcategories of that as well, including some pretty
decent movies that fall into that. So I like those
because they're imaginative. Like I would even say the movie
Mandy with Nicholas Cage kind of falls into that category.
It has almost sort of this weird fiction element to it.
It is also, by the way, intensely gory, So if

(31:51):
Gore's not your thing, don't watch Mandy. But to me,
Mandy kind of feels like if the Cohen Brothers decided
they wanted to make a very intense horror movie, Mandy
is the kind of movie they would make. It has
some wild, outlandish, almost cartoonish characters. It's got an amazing

(32:15):
performance from Nicolas Cage, which I don't say very frequently.
You know, he gets a bomb rap a lot of times.
Well he also he earns it sometimes. But I recommend
that movie for people who don't mind the fact that
there is definitely gornt it. I mean there's a chainsaw
fight at one point, so it's pretty awesome. I will

(32:37):
not watch Mandy, but that's not much of a loss
because I didn't know it existed before. Right now, Oh wow,
it's so good. It's so good. Well, you know, I've
watched and I haven't watched Color out of Space with
Nicolas Cage either, going back to Lovecraft and interesting things,
but I've watched plenty of his stuff. I've watched A

(33:00):
Vampire's Kiss and that was horrific enough for me. Whatever
that movie is called, I'm a fall on par I.
You know it's until I get you to watch Stranger Things.
I've given up all hope of giving you watch Stranger Things.
Oh did you stop of it? I thought you were
I thought you were terrified and you'd refuse to watch it.
I was terrified. I refused to watch it alone. And

(33:23):
then over the pandemic, I was like, Tony, kids, you
just please just give it another shot because I need to,
like give it three episodes because I can't watch it alone.
And he did, and then he was like fine, And
by the end of the third he was like, he
liked the second season the best. I think, yeah, which
is interesting because I know some people who like third best,
some people who like first best, depending on the progression.

(33:46):
But he begrudgingly watches it. Now, then there's still some hope.
Maybe one day I'll convince you to watch Mandy. I
can sit next to you and tell you when the
scary parts are coming up. Maybe that'll work. I have
to watch Shining first. That's higher. Oh yes, Oh that's
a Shining also great movie with some good suspense in
it too. All right, well, we've been we've been rambling

(34:10):
about this for far too long. We have to take
a break. When we come back, we will get to
our mashup, which involves a beloved Halloween tradition for some
though not necessarily for us, and some some fun little
cartoony characters from from the past. But we'll get to
that after this quick break. All right, welcome back. As

(34:48):
Jonathan said a little bit grumbly, we're doing a mash
up with something that a lot of people like, but
neither Jonathan nor I watched it when it came out,
which is focus focus, and so we don't quite have
the nostalgic love for it like I have for The
Great Pumpkin. Yeah. I even did a whole video where
I talked about how I did not particularly care for

(35:09):
that movie. So so so my thoughts on hocus Pocus
are published on the internet. But what's the other one
that we're mashing up? Powerpuff Girls? Ah? Yes, I was
a fan of Powerpuff Girls when it first premiered. I
but to be clear, I only ever watched that original series.

(35:30):
I didn't watch either of the other two that came out.
And of course we're still wondering whether or not we'll
ever get that live action series that was teased for
a while. They're saying they're in rewrites, that it hasn't
gone completely away, so we'll have to see. So if
you're not familiar with hocus Pocus or the Powerpuff Girls,
we're going to give you a quick Rundown, and since

(35:51):
Jonathan I'm sure has watched more Powerpuff Girls than I have,
I will tell you about hocus Pocus, which is there
are some witches and they gain their youth and their
power by sucking the youth from children. And they do
that back in the sixteen hundreds and they turn a
kid into a cat, and then they're kind of reawoken
in the early nineties by a brother and sister who

(36:15):
moved to Salem from California. And it's just a bunch
of Disney high jinks of these three witches chasing after
these kids and trying to suck their youth to gain
power and beauty and youth themselves. And it's actionly and
it's cute, cy and it's you know, it's not very scary.
It's a Disney movie. Doug Jones is the best part

(36:37):
of it. He plays the head witch, who is played
by Btt Midler, Winifred Sanderson's old lover who she got
mad at and sowed his lip shuts and turned him
into a zombie. And he's absolutely phenomenal. But Doug Jones
is usually absolutely phenomenal, so I agree with that assessment. Yeah,
the movie has like The thing that I always see

(36:57):
posts on Facebook is there's a bit where Bette Midler
as Winnifred sings I put a Spell on you, which
I mean, of course she sings in the movie. If
you've got Bette Midler and you don't have her sing,
what are you even doing? Well? They also get Sarah
Jessica Parker, who is also a great singer. That's true.
She she played Hey, she also played a character called Winnifred.

(37:19):
Yes once mattress. Yes she did so, but not not
in hocus Pocus. She plays Sarah in hocus Pocus, and
kathy Na Jenny is Mary in hocus Pocus, and she's
She's actually in another iHeart podcast coming up, Thirteen Days
of Halloween, which season two premiers on October nineteenth, and
she is a primary character in that. So you should

(37:41):
definitely check out that series when it goes life. If
you listen, you should also check it out because Jonathan
said it was Yeah, I was gonna, I was gonna
I was gonna do that. But yeah, I'm in it too.
So Poarwabuff Girls, Yeah, let's talk about that real quick.
So Powabuff Girls, is this this adventure comedy card tune
series that follows the adventures of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup,

(38:07):
three young girls who are created in a lab accident.
Their creator, Professor Utonium, was trying to create three perfect
little girls with sugar, spice and everything nice, but accidentally
dropped chemical X into the mix and thus produced the
Powerpuff Girls, who have superpowers. And they go around trying

(38:27):
to do good while also getting into shenanigans and learning
valuable lessons on the way. And it's a very cheeky,
tongue in cheek kind of series and adorable. Though again,
I've only watched the original run of Powerpuff Girls, not
either of the other incarnations. So those are the two

(38:49):
that we're mashing together. Ariel, who do you want to
go first? I don't know who you want to go first. Well,
there's only one way to decide this, Ariel, and we're
doing it over a video link, which means there's going
to be a bit of a lag, so we have
to both promise. In fact, I say, we're gonna close
our eyes, we're gonna do paper rock scissors, and then
we'll report on who what each person did. Okay, quality

(39:11):
listening folks, Yes, yeah, all right, So trust us. We're
gonna we're really doing this for reels. Ready, Okay, close
your eyes, one, two, three? Shoot? And she did paper,
I died scissors. Oh you go first? Wait? Do you
go first or last? I guess I'll get you know

(39:31):
what we didn't decide the curses, the classic foible. All right,
tell you what. I'll go first. We'll take a quick break,
and then you'll go second. Is that sound good? All right?
Sounds good. Mine and I have no idea if this
is going to be the same title as yours, but
there's a good chance mine is called the power Puff Witches. Nope,

(39:53):
not the same okay. Professor Utonium has a problem. His
formula of sugar, spice and everything nice has failed to
produce the perfect little girl, and he's fresh out of
chemical X. As a result, he's left power puffless. Science
having failed him, he naturally turns to the supernatural, and

(40:14):
fortunately he happens to have this old grimoire sitting around
and a black candle at the ready. He lights the
black candle, and, having lived a rather chaste existence because
he's had little luck in wooing either Miss Sarah Bellum
or Miss Keen and Sedusa hasn't taken an interest in
him yet a prophecy ends up being fulfilled, and that

(40:36):
prophecy relates to a spell that was cast in haste
several hundred years earlier, when three witches were attempting to
escape capture. See we have this quick flashback to sixteen
ninety three. Three witches capture a young girl. They cast
a spell they're draining her of vitality, and the witch
has become younger more powerful in the process. But then

(40:57):
we see the townsfolk descend upon the witches and they
capture them and sentence them to death and Winifred, the
leader of the witches, thinks quickly and casts off one
last spell that will allow the witches to return in
the future. Cheating death wants a virgin lights the black candle,
and as I've already mentioned, Professor Utonium has really only

(41:19):
had time for science anyway. We flash forward to the
present and Utonium lights the black candle. It fulfills the prophecy,
and Utonium's mixture of sugar, spice and everything nice, combined
with the spell cast centuries earlier, results in a flash
and we get the power puff witches, Sarah, Mary, and Winifred.
The three young witches. They're just tiny little girls, have

(41:41):
no real memory of their previous lives, but they do
retain their witchy powers. As a result, the trio become
a sort of superpowered source of mayhem and the town
of Townsville, frequently causing the mayor of the town to
flip his lid in frustration. When pies suddenly animate at
the local bake sale. It's the power puff, which is

(42:02):
when all the brooms in town show up outside Eutonium's house.
It's the power puff, which is when the local pet
cemetery suddenly has a lot of vacancies. Well, it's the
power puff, which is But Utonium, the loving sap that
he is, remains protective of his adopted daughters. He does
his best to raise them right, even going so far

(42:23):
as to pretend he likes liver and onions in order
to get them to eat it. Winifred, for the record,
loves liver and onions. But our story really focuses on
the girl's first Halloween. As Townsville prepares for a big
Halloween party, Utonium is concerned his former lab assistant, Jojoe,
is the reason Utonium didn't have any chemical X see

(42:45):
Joejoe stole the chemical X and then broke the vial
by accident, and the resulting reaction produced Mojo Jojoe, a
mad scientist intelligent chimpanzee, and Mojo Jojo plans to turn
all of Townsville into mindless zombies at the big Halloween party.
The Powerpuff Witches, meanwhile, are cavorting in the cemetery when

(43:06):
Winnifred sees a particular gravestone that gives her pause as
if she's remembering something from a past life. The gravestone
reads Billie Butcherson, and she suddenly feels the impulse to
cast a spell resurrecting the poor fellow, and what emerges
is a zombified man with his mouth sown shut. The
Powerpuff Witches are delayed to have a new friend, and

(43:27):
so they cavort a muck in the cemetery amakamakamuk. Mojo
Jojo meanwhile sets up a perch high in the town
hall and preparation for the Halloween dance. He's installing a
mind controlled device in the sound system. After being exposed
to music for enough time, the residents will become mindless zombies.
Then they will rush out and buy Mojo JoJo's new single,

(43:48):
bad Guy Blues, and that'll give him the money he
needs to propel himself toward world domination. The girls, Zombie
and Tow head to the town Hall and there, just
as things start going as people really start to get
into the groove, and as Mojo Jojo sees his plan
beginning to work, the Powerpuff Witches jump up on stage
and they do this weird version of I Put a

(44:08):
Spell on You, and it's like super weird because they're
little girls, and really that song's all about enchanting someone
so that they're in love with you. But whatever's Mojo
watches all his plans seem to go sideways, with Winifred
actually taking over instead of Mojo. So Mojo jumps down
out of the rafters and what follows is a crazy
battle between Mojo Jojo, the Powerpuff Witches, and Billy Butcherson.

(44:32):
During the fight, Butcherson gets blasted with a ray of
weird energy from Mojo Jojo and he collapses lifeless again.
Mary and Sarah find themselves busy trying to take down
Mojo Jojo, while Winifred does her best to retrieve her grimoire,
which she believes contains the perfect spell to banish the
mad Chimp. Ultimately, we see Professor Utonium show up at

(44:53):
the town dance Grimoire in hand, and he chides the
witches on misbehaving and he points out that's how I
raised you, and with the power of science and magic,
he recites a spell that seems to reverse time, bringing
us back moments before the original experiment. The Powerpuff whiches
are gone, Mojo Jojo is gone. Things are back to normal,

(45:15):
but not totally normal. They seem a little different, as
if we haven't really gone back in time so much
as we shifted to a slightly different reality. Now. In
this reality, Utonium retrieves the chemical X before Jojo can
secretly steal it, and he puts the chemical X on
a very high shelf, and then we see the experiment
play out again, with chemical X accidentally falling into the

(45:36):
mix and creating bubbles Blossom and Buttercup and Mojo Jojo,
and the timeline has been restored. But as we conclude,
the camera pans back across the cemetery and we stop
at a grave, and we've seen this grave before, and
we actually see the ground moving a bit, and as
the camera pans back, we reveal that what had been

(45:58):
Billy Butcherson's grave now has a different tombstone and it
just reads him. Suddenly, a lobster claw breaks through the
ground and we go to blackout credits the end. I
really liked that, Jonathan. Our mashups could almost be companions,

(46:20):
but they are well. I look forward to hearing this companion,
but not really peace after we come back from this
last break. All right, we're back, and my mash up

(46:43):
is called hocus Pocus, Sugar and Spice, So here we go.
The year was nineteen ninety eight, Five years since the
fateful day a young boy and his younger sister defeated
and killed the evil tree of the Sanderson sisters. Five
years since the boy and his sister took the witches
for dead and let the traumatic events fade into a
distant memory. Five years since the three witchy sisters let

(47:07):
their consciousnesses fade into oblivion. It was nineteen ninety eight,
five years to the day when the Sanderson sisters were
summoned once more through their grimoire. This time, they thought
by the devil himself, a large clawed red bloke with
a pointy black beard. It's him, shouted Mary Sanderson and
she started to bow the others to other two followed suit.

(47:28):
Who's not going to bow to the devil himself? Him
was confused how the three knew who he was, and
surprised that his plan was going to be so easy.
Oh his plan, you ask, yeah, Well, as he described
it to the Sanderson sisters, he knew about their plights.
You see, one of him's hobbies was recent Salem, Massachusetts history.
He knew the witches needed children's youth to run amuck,

(47:50):
and he had three young girls he wanted to get
rid of. Winifred stepped up and respectfully declined, stating that
getting killed by kids wants maybe twice, she didn't know
so long ago was plenty enough, Their youth wasn't worth it,
and it was too fleeting anyhow, they'd rather be sent
back to oblivion. But that's when him explained to these
sisters that they weren't just any girls. They were supergirls.

(48:12):
Well not supergirls because they weren't supergirl, but they were
super Okay, they had superpowers. They were the powerpuff Girls.
The witches could drain their youth and then would stay
young forever and also gain superpowers themselves and be undefeatable.
The promise of such power was too much for the
sisters to decline, and so they agreed to make the

(48:34):
puff Girls and next victims. The Sanderson sisters hopped upon
their brooms and other devices and hastened to find Bubble's
Buttercup and Blossom. They did find them pretty quickly. You see.
The three were fighting Aberca Zombie, and the battle was
making such a raucous that the people for miles around
could hear it. Winifred saw Aberca Zombie and he reminded

(48:54):
her of her ex So it was love at first sight.
Great thought, Winnifred, I'll get my youth and a new flame.
Everything is going my way. But that thought didn't last,
as moments later Aberka Zombie was blasted into space by
the children. Whenifred charged into battle and her sisters followed
a little confused, usually they had a bit more tacked
to their plans, but they were in it now. It
was a crazy battle of brooms and vacuums and fireballs

(49:16):
and ice breath. Blossom, Shaddy, don't you know you can
never beat us? And the three girls blast to the
three old witches into space as well. No one knows
what happened to the Sanderson sisters or Aberka Zombie. Maybe
they're on a distant planet plotting their return. Maybe they're
waiting to be summoned in another five years by whomever
finds the Grimoire next. Stay tuned for another daring adventure.

(49:41):
I really enjoyed that. That was fun. You know, I'm
not gonna say that either of our mashups are more
fun than the original hocus Pocus. I'll just say I
enjoyed them more. It was certainly more exhilarating to write

(50:02):
than to watch it. Yeah, to be fair, again, as
Ariel said earlier, neither she nor I saw this movie
when we were like kids, which is most of the
people I know who have a deep love for this film,
that's when they saw it, right, They saw it as
a child, and so they have this attachment to a

(50:22):
movie that they loved as a kid. And I get that, Like,
there are movies that I loved as a kid that
I still enjoy as an adult, where at least on
some level, I look at and I think, you know,
this isn't really that good, But because I have that
nostalgic attachment to it, I still love it. So I
get it. And I'm not even saying that hocus Pocus

(50:44):
isn't good. It just didn't click with me. I think
part of the problem also was just that, after just
seeing endless posts referencing Hocus Focus, I thought it was
going to be some like truly incredible piece of children,
you know, entertainment, and it's just it's just okay, it's

(51:05):
not bad. It's just okay. I agree, I was. I
was about to say I don't have quite the same
hate for hocus Pocus as you do, but het it
is not the right word. Uh, it's it's a good movie.
It just was oversold to someone who didn't watch it
until they were maybe too old to really relate to
the main heroes of the story. I get it. Like
if I were to have a conversation with someone about

(51:28):
the movie Big Trouble in Little China and they had
never seen it, and I gushed about how much I
loved it, and then I showed it to them, I
suspect they would have a very similar reaction to that movie,
which I maintain is still a very entertaining film. But again,
like if I saw it for the first time now,
I might not think it's as great as I as

(51:49):
I actually do, because you know, I saw it when
I was much younger, so yeah, you know it's it's
one of those things. And we're gonna wrap this episode up.
If you have any suggestions for things we should mash
up together, or perhaps you have your own mash up
of Powerpuff Girls and hocus Pocus and you've just been

(52:10):
dying to share it with the world and you've had
no venue. Now is your chance, my friend. You can
send us an email. The email address is l n
C at iHeartMedia dot com. You can also reach out
to us on social media if that's more your jam.
On Instagram where Largener Drunk Collider. Also we're that on

(52:30):
Facebook Larger at Large Drunk Collider, and on Twitter we're
llenc Underscore Podcast. I threw myself for a loop because
I did that in the wrong order, but yeah, reach
out to us. We would love to chat with you
and hear your ideas on anything and everything. Yes, we
look forward to continuing the conversations. We've been receiving some

(52:52):
fun messages and we really appreciate it. And obviously, as
always we beg to you on bended knee that if
you like this show, share it with friends. No leave
a review if you haven't already. H and you don't
talk us up to folks who might enjoy it. Because
the more the merrier, as they say. And I think

(53:12):
I think that's I think that's everything for this episode.
Let's wrap it up like a mummy. Okay, I got you,
all right, And until next time, I have been Jonathan
blah blah Strickland, Do I have a are available? Swam
saving cast Amman The Large nor John Collider is a

(53:55):
production of iHeartRadio and was created by Ariel Caston. Jonathan
Strickland is the executive producer. The show is produced, edited
and published by Tary Harrison. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows.