Pop Culture Mystery Minute + The Cracked Sketch That Wasn't

The guys solve a pop culture mystery, fawn over John Malkovich, dive into the "clip show" nature of Happy Gilmore 2 and Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, and realize how much harder they made things on themselves while writing After Hours.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh God, to quick quick question for you. I want
to hear your.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Thoughts on to know what's on your mind.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I've got a quick quick question for you. The answers
not accord and I'm just by the week and and
talk tonight.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
So what's your favorite?

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Did you get me? Daniel hobro see best Friends in comedy,
writs if does an answer that I'm gonna find it.
I think you have a great time. I think you

(00:43):
have a great time.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
You.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Welcome back to another episode of Quick Question. The theme
song is fading Out. This is the show where we
self pop culture mysteries. I am one of your pop
culture detectives, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by Soren Bowie.
Soren say hello.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Hello everybody. How you doing. How are you doing, Daniel?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I'm doing great, Sore, and I have something for you.
Oh because ooh.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Right off the bat, this is an improv game.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
No, it's a pop culture mystery. We're never doing the
improv game thing again. It's a listeners. This is I
take pop culture mysteries very seriously on the show. We
all know this about me and Soren came to me
with a mystery a couple of days ago. He texted
me in the middle of the night, shivering, asking me
if I had seen the movie Opus, which I had

(01:34):
not at the time, starring Iowa Debris and John Malkovich.
Came out within the last twelve months and Soren texted
me and he said, it's about an aging rocker who
makes a record after thirty years of seclusion. But the
songs are good, like stuff I would listen to, and
if you try to figure out who actually made them,
they credited the pop star in the movie a fictional person,

(01:56):
and I thought, this is a rich, oh rich pop
culture mystery, and I'm gonna I put up I uh
told my wife to get a hotel for a couple
of days. I put a few pot of coffee on,
like an AirPod of coffee, like the kind that they
have at the movie theater, like a giant, like two
foot tall office style thing of coffee. I was like,

(02:17):
I don't care what it takes. I'm going to solve
this mystery. And uh Zorn I solved it within I
want to say, ninety seconds of starting the movie. Oh,
the answer was in the credits. Oh the opening credits.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
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Speaker 2 (02:55):
I turned it on with like my notepad out, ready
to fucking go crazy on this and look for and
they were like additional music by Nile Rogers and The Dream,
who are two of the most famous and successful music
producers in the history of time. Like the Dream has
done all of Beyonce's albums since Sasha Fierce and Nile

(03:17):
Rogers co founded Chic. He's ranked as one of the
seventh greatest guitar players of all time. He did the
song good Times, which was sampled in Rappers Delight and
many other things. Okay, so you selling culture mystery song.
I can't.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
I'm all right. This is this is particularly humiliating for
me because I work in the industry and then I
pay no attention to the credits is like a real
disservice to my colleagues.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
It's the faithful I would work with. I'm not going
to pretend that I knew who Nile Rogers was by name,
and that's like a shame of mind. But as I'm
watching the movie and looking at the credits, the opening
credits like nothing has happened yet, and it says additional
material by Nile Rogers and the Dream, I thought like,

(04:10):
that is is there a chance that John Nugovich's character
is named Nile Rogers and they're front loading this mystery? No,
absolutely not, They're they're the professional successful music producers.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, I still have some questions here, Okay, Well, why
are we still crediting these to Moretti?

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It is a good question. If where did you see
that it was credited to MURRETTI? Where are you?

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Before?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
I guess I should have I I said too much
too singing about my methodology for solving this mystery. Yeah please, Okay.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
So I watched the movie and the first song that
comes up is this one called Dina Simone, and I
was like, I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell if I
was being tricked because every the one in the movie
is singing along with the song. It's a montage of
a bunch of people really loving this music, and so
it's people like karaoke, people in their car. Everyone is
grooving to this song. And I was like, I think

(05:09):
I'm grooving to this song. I think I like this song.
The next song that appears is this like really sweet
ballad that they all that they're the people who are
invited to listen to this album together in the desert.
They're all listening to it alone in their rooms and
like listening. And so the film does a good job
of getting you in the mood for a particular song,

(05:33):
and then listening to that one, I was like, I think, objectively,
I really like this song. I think this is a
good song. There's another one later that John Macovich sings
live to them I don't think is as good. It's
a very weird scene, but I think it's supposed to
be anyway. He's supposed to be sort of a David
Bowie type of figure, and so.

Speaker 2 (05:49):
There's like a lot uh Nile Rodgers co wrote and
produced Let's Dance by David Bowie.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
So it has this pop star who has like an
array of music that he is good at and he's
come back after thirty years to do an album, and
so obviously it's.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
Supposed to be the very best music.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
It's supposed to be his opis, so it's supposed to
that's such a tall order for a film, yes, because
you have the songs you're gonna play a least three,
they're gonna have to be good enough that you're like,
oh shit, like that he did it. He really was successful.
And on top of that, you have to convince the
audience that, like I would I believe this guy is

(06:30):
a pop star, that John Malkovich there's a pop star
that you could listen to. That John Malcovich could have
just pivoted on his career trurec trajectory and been like,
you know, instead, I'm just gonna be this vocal phenom
and do this instead. And those are all so hard
to do. It's hard enough to do. You do stand
up in a movie and it's like, oh, well, we're

(06:51):
just gonna have to buy that this is good stand
up because it's clearly not. There's never been good stand
up in a show or a movie. Maybe Hacks, I
don't know, I feel like yeah, like other than that,
you like marvelous Smiths, maisl it's a get out here.
But to do something, do it a completely different art
form that stands on its own within a movie, and

(07:12):
make it good enough that it could stand on its
own is next two impossible and less. I'm gonna walk
that back a little bit. For musicals and for maybe
some Pixar films, Yeah, like those you can you could
listen to those songs on your own and be like, oh,
that they spent just as much time on each individual

(07:32):
song as everybody else did on the entire movie, right.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
I mean we've talked about this on the show before,
where we were trying to figure out who is the
most believably good at their pop culture job in a movie.
We were talking about like when a movie tells us
this band is great, or this actor is great or
this artist is great, and then the movie does the

(07:57):
very tall order of showing you the art art that
they make and we need to and it's and it's
not supposed to be funny, it's supposed to be sincerely good.
It is, You're right, a really tall order, and they
I think they accomplish it with Like the reason that
thing you do work so well and you buy this
as a pop tune is that it was written by

(08:17):
the late Adam Schlessinger of Fountains of Wayne, who is
just like, like absurdly good at writing catchy, timeless pop
tunes and probably that goes for the producing team behind
Opus as well, where where the people behind the movie
were like, this guy needs to be the songs need

(08:39):
to be like believably as good as what we imagine
late era David Bowie would be doing, right, Yeah, yeah,
and so let's hire the guy who worked with David
Bowie and Beyonce.

Speaker 3 (08:55):
That have a sense.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
So anyway, I looked it up.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
I think it was Spotify. I think it was on Spotify. No.
First hooked it up on the internet because I was like,
let's just find these songs I found on YouTube. It's
just clips of it and it was always like credited
to Some of it had lyrics and it was credited
to Moretti, and I was like, well, fuck you, uh
and so, and then I was like, well, let's go
to the comments and people were like love Moretti.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Like ah, what is going on?

Speaker 3 (09:18):
And then went to uh uh Spotify and Spotify had
credited it as Moretti. I I then found another version
that did say Moretti and then followed by dream.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I think, yeah, that makes sense because because that's who
made it and he's a real person.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Then credit to John Knakovich's fictional character did not make
these songs. We who's this Bubba Gump Shrimp Company? Bullshit?

Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's very confusing. It did make me make me, I mean,
it's it's very funny that you mentioned Bubba Gum Shrimp
Company because I have been thinking recently, like who is
who was the funniest fictional character to con vince someone
in your life is real? Just for just for them

(10:05):
to accidentally slip up at a party. I think Forrest
Gump is. Yeah, it's great, a pretty good one if
you can convince someone that, like, no, yeah, it's crazy,
like the real guy didn't look like that, and it's
and it's weird that we don't have more pictures of him.
But yeah, far like that. That's they exaggerated a couple
of things. But as far as like everything else, Forrest
Gump is real. Just so that person can one day
be at a party you just to drop a front

(10:26):
fact about Forrest Gump. I won't even be there to
watch them be humiliated. You're just taking the pin out
of her grenade and hand it to them. I melily,
it's a point they had to put that down.

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(12:48):
funny one. Forrest Gump is like, what was the last
time you watched that movie?

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Maybe four or five years ago. I love Forest.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
That's clo Okay, So there's I rewatched it again recently too,
and I was like, again, thinking, I like a lot
of this. I like the non stuff. I like so
much of it, and so I'm like, really, there's some
very small jokes in it. And then there's this one
where I'm like, what the fuck is this doing in
this movie? Do you you know it's not coming to

(13:17):
is that registrict for you yet? It's when he's on
his runs across the country, one of his multiple runs
across the country, and the guy's like, I got all
these yellow t shirts and I don't know what to
put on them, and so Forrest Gump is like, right,
He's like, oh man, you just stuffed some shit, and
Horsecump goes it happens, and then he takes the he

(13:37):
gets sprayed by a truck, a truck that goes by
by mud such a long walk, and then he has
to he take one of the yellow shirts, like take
this shirt. Nobody buys this color anyway, And Forrest Gump
wipes his bearded face on it and gives it back
to the man. And there is a circle with a
cartoon with cartoon eyes and mouth mouth smile in the shirt.

(14:01):
Yeh from Forrest Gum watching doing his face. That's even
too much of a of a weird cartoon cartoony joke
for our show, Like we wouldn't do that because it's like,
well that's silly.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
You know, you're conflating two things there. Right, there's the
bumper sticker salesman who's looking for a slogan, oh right,
and says it happens sometimes, and then shit happens we
see as a bumper sticker. And then there's the guy
who sells T shirts. He wants to put Gump's face
on a T shirt to sell them, and then he
wipes his face. It's a perfect smiley face and he says,

(14:34):
have a nice day. And a guy is like, I'm
going to sell these smiley face have a nice Day
shirts that we know to be are you know selling
Are we not selling shirts that have a smiley face
and say shit happens on them.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
Common in pump culture? Is it possible? I'm mistaken.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
It is a very uh cartoony move, like a literal
end and figurative cartoony move for that movie to make.
I don't know why we decide that's more cartoony than
him than Forrest Gump surviving a storm and becoming a
millionaire and meeting multiple presidents and being a war hero

(15:15):
and running across country multiple times. For some reason, he
wipes his face and becomes a perfect smiley face and
just like no.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
I can't I my sus mentioned to does believe just
shatters and I'm like, what what is this?

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Did this guy really live?

Speaker 3 (15:32):
I'm gonna go look it up on Spotify. So one
thing we are really glossing over with Alpus. I do
want I do want to hear if you ate it
or not. But also I am blown away by John Malkovich,
who has the weirdest voice in all of human history,

(15:54):
of all actors save maybe Christopher Walken. Is very strange
delivery on everything he does, a strange attitude, a strange
voice that when I hear him sing, I'm like, yeah,
it's a singer. Yeah, Like yeah, that sounds great, he
sounds he kills it, and that I'm gonna have to
find the song remember or something.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah. I think he is. I think Malgovich is like
singularly great in everything he has ever done. And he's
one of the actors that, like, my whole family really
likes a lot, probably because we all Saw of Mice
and Men when we were that was like a big
movie in our household because we liked that story and
we loved Gary Sneeze Frown Forrest Gump instantly, and John

(16:33):
Malkovich was just so good in everything. And I also
remember my world being rocked because you grow up liking
an actor, especially when I want to be an actor,
and like, Malcvich is like a really good, solid character
actor who can do anything. He's a good bad guy,
he's a good this, he's a good that. Reading the
play Dangerous Liaisons in high school, a very horny show, yeah,

(16:59):
with like famously horny and sexy people, and then in
drama class, knowing that we were going to watch the
movie afterwards to because that's how you fill time in school,
as you read a thing and then you watch a
movie of a thing, and then you and suddenly two
weeks has gone by and you've learned nothing, And knowing
that like this character that I've been reading was going

(17:20):
to be played by John Malkovich with like long fabio hair,
as a fourteen year old, I was like, I don't
think I think he's a really good actor. I don't
think he can be Why are we testing rexy, man,
what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (17:40):
Why are we driving this engine till it breaks? Like?
Why are we trying to put John Malcovich and rolls where?
Like right, let's see if he can do it just.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
A nineties a nineties move that you probably couldn't get
away with. Now we're like, no disrespect, everyone's beautiful all
the time. But like the two hot lead adults are
John Malcovich and Glenn Close. When it's like, hey, kid,
Saidney Sweeney, what are we doing here? Come on?

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Make it for kids. Somebody along the way agreed with
you because they were like, let's redo it as cruel intentions.
They did, and they're like, here's Frane Sara Michelle Geller.

Speaker 2 (18:13):
I'm like, that's right, that's what I read on the page.
Not like sexy because he's tall and smart. Get out
of it here.

Speaker 3 (18:20):
You guys didn't, Just to clarify, you didn't as a
school do dangerous liaisons, did you.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
No, No, we just.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Didn't know your circumstances.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
You read it, okay, No, that would be irresponsible. We
just we just read and watched it.

Speaker 3 (18:34):
I'm gonna write going down, that's a really good bit
for something where like the school's putting on dangerous liaisons
and the teacher just doesn't understand why that's not inappropriate.

Speaker 2 (18:43):
It's an incredibly soaring joke to make you're you're very
keen on high school theater teacher being so dedicated to
a specific play that he puts blinder on to oh right,
everything else whenever that I isolate is a very soortin thing.

(19:05):
Did we ever do that sketch? No?

Speaker 3 (19:08):
Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I do? Oh? Is it too racist? Is that what?
I don't think it's too racist. I actually thought that
was like a solid episode of a television show or movie.
I don't know if you want to. If you want to.
The thing that we've been talking around here.

Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah, I we It was while we went on a trip.
I think we were like filming somewhere distant and Dan
They're staying in a hotel room and Dan was working
on something, maybe the pitch doc or something like that
for cracked genuine work, and I was like, we all
write sketch. Dan won't talk to me, so sketch, So
like I sat down the computer and I started writing

(19:48):
the sketch about uh when desegregation happened in schools. It
was like Alabama, it was like the first desegreated school
and the teachers like talking about it and deciding whether
or not to do it. And there's this big teachers
meeting and uh, and there's one teacher who's really advocating
on behalf of it, and it's the acting teacher there.

(20:09):
It's the theater teacher, the one who does all the plays.
And it becomes clear. It takes a while, but it
becomes clear throughout that, throughout it that the teacher really
is interested in deserogation because he's been wanting to do
a fellow for a very long time and he needs
a black actor. That still makes me laugh.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
I still like it very funny. It's got a lot
of potential. I think it's a good it's a good vehicle.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
And he's quoting Shakespeare a lot in trying to get
because he's his intentions. What he's actually trying to get
done is a good thing, but his reasons for it
suck real bad.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
So like I'm trying, I think the reasons the natural
U like comedic extension of this is the guy like
morally and his soul opposes integration, doesn't want it, like
he is a racist man who sees a great opportunity

(21:12):
right to boost his credibility as a high school theater director.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
It's a good platform for him for his next career
move and Broadway or whatever.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, and like that was really it was fun.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
It was fun to also create the other teachers who
are like scared and creating slipperys like straw Man slippery
slopes about it, like wondering about when we're gonna start
letting bears into school and stuff like that, just the
worst people you can imagine. And writing them all in
a room together was very fun. But yeah, we never
did that. We never got to.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Sorry, I was dizzy with the pitch doc or whatever
my job was. I'm sure I was going over budgets.
So that's what I did.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
When my wife is not available for me to just
like talk to about the wasps I see and stuff
like that. Then I have to write, and I don't
have another choice, but they go write in my garage.
Well she's busy, so I guess I I guess I'll
write an episode of American Down.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
Yeah. No, see that. I'm never more productive on a
piece of just my own writing than when I am
on assignment for work to write something, and when my
wife is gone, and it's like, well, I'm not well,
I can't bother wife and I'm not gonna work. I

(22:34):
just write this little novel. Maybe I'll just let's see
what's going on here?

Speaker 3 (22:38):
What is this little thing ticking around in my brain?
What are you doing in there, little guy? Do you
want to be out on the page?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
And then wife comes home from bar class and she's like,
what have you been doing? Like, ah, I've been writing
all day and that is technically the truth, and that's
why I am sleepy and I don't have my computer
route anymore.

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Oh what did you write? What did you write?

Speaker 2 (23:01):
I don't want to let the steam out of the bag. No,
what I mean, like, what's the topic of the show
this week? I'd rather just be surprised when you sing
me the show?

Speaker 3 (23:14):
Well, yeah, but if you ever did want to read
an essay on one on how nobody got the real
meaning of RoboCop? Yeah, I might have something somewhere. I
could go dig that out somewhere. I think dust that off, let.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
You see it.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Oh yeah, that's what. When my I was never more
prolific than when my dad, When my Dad was dying
and I was supposed to be working on an episode
of American Dad. But during that time, I was like,
I will write anything else, and it's like that's when
Michael approached me and he was like, will you come
host this podcast episode. That's when I wrote a short
story for Michael for his podcast and stuff like that,

(23:49):
where I was just like, I'll write. I will write
as long as the day is. I don't do anything.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
During the writer's strike. I wrote jack Ship. Yeah, but
give me a deadline and just wash those pages, fly
out pages for something unrelated.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Yep, yep. The first wait, wait, hold on, before we
go on, if you like did you like Opus?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Ah? I was hoping it wouldn't come to this because, uh,
after I had solved the mystery, I don't watch it
myself an ice cream treatment, fell asleep.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
I it's a portion of the text that I think
you left out, which was I think I called Opus
pretty good. Yeah. I've had time just to marinate on
it and married it on the movie and wonder about
certain characters that just disappear and stuff like that, and think,
now I'm like, I don't actually agree with myself. I
don't think it's a very good movie. I think it

(24:45):
was super weird, and I liked the I liked the
agreement at the beginning of this is what You're going
to get, and I thought John Malcovic was very interesting.
But ultimately I don't think it was a very good
movie at all. And there's a lot of good people
in it.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I could see it moving in a weird direction. I,
like everyone else in America, love Iodebriies so much. She's
just the greatest and funniest person on the planet. And
I clearly love John Malkovich and a lot of other
people in that. And I could see what kind of
movie it was trying to be and shaping up to be. Yeah,

(25:20):
I was just not enjoyable enough moment to moment to
keep me awake. And I'm sure I'll give another shot
at at some point. But I you know, two songs
in and you write the two songs that that I
saw and heard were really great, but I like, we
just hadn't gotten two enough like me yet that I was.

(25:46):
I was, yeah.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Slow burn. Obviously it has to be because you have
to put somebody. It's like get Out, where you have
to keep somebody in a situation where they should be
leaving and they're just not. But she's Yeah, she's good
in it. It made me really think of it as
I was watching it, because you know, you can't just
watch a movie anymore. It made me really think about
how if you have a main character, you've got to
give your main character character some sort of selfish moral

(26:14):
failing or some sort of flaw, some sort of flaw
that that is relatable, because when your character I watched
a Death of a Unicorn too, and I had the
same problem with that movie when your main character is
just this is a young woman who is perfect in
every single way. I'm super bored. I no longer care
about what happens.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
She is. There's many no young women shitty. It's twenty
twenty five for crying out loud. Give her sin, Give
her something, yeah, something gross like that. If that's the
same as shitty, give her something that she's tempted by
or something.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
Give them something there just did you watch Death of
a Unicorn?

Speaker 2 (26:56):
No, I've I heard many bad things about it.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
Yeah, it's it's tough. It's the both these movies. I
was like trying to identify it because I like the
cast so much of both these movies. Yeah, And then
in thinking about it, I was like, they share a
lot in common in that you have somebody who's like
surrounded by by wolves essentially, and they're like, they don't
realize it. They don't realize it until it's too late,

(27:24):
and then you're like, well, but I but but this person,
this person is not even realistic to begin with. I
found that very troubling. Anyway, we don't get into why
these movies are bad.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
No, I mean I think there there's there's uh a
curious thing forming around Jenna Ortega where I'm not entirely
sure if her agents should be trusted anymore. I think

(27:56):
her publicist deserves a million dollar raise because I see
nothing but articles about how great she is, and she
is very charming in interviews, and I don't think has
turned in a bad performance. But I don't I don't
know what direction her career is moving in, and she
has made many bad movie choices in that last like

(28:22):
fifteen months. It seems she just pops up in a
lot of things, like choosing the the written and directed
by the weekend movie that came and went that I
think made like fifteen hundred dollars or something absurd like that,
and this depth of a Unicorn movie that no one
seems to like anywhere. The Wednesday Show is like is

(28:43):
like very it incredibly not my thing, but that's so,
but like it makes people very happy, and I'm fine
with existing. But beyond that, it just seems like like
Jenna Ortega is this it girl who has made a
bunch of bad movies, and we just need to to
give her the right agent or like put her on
the right path. We don't need to do nothing matters.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
She's doing fine, but I agree with you that she
has like this or to her that, I'm like, you
belong in something better, you deserve better what you're currently doing.
What else is she doing Wednesday?

Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah? Did I say that? I meant to say Wednesday earlier?
Did I not say Wednesday earlier?

Speaker 3 (29:27):
I don't think you did.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
No, that was the one that is like, respectfully not
my thing, that that other people seem to enjoy. Yeah,
oh okay, whatever, I man, I can't imagine what I
called it.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Well, maybe you did. I just wasn't listening.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
You only the view only the viewers. I'll find out.
And there's when I read the comments week, Dan, what.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
I had a really startling experience the other day. Can
I tell you about it. Yeah. I was scrolling through Facebook,
one of my favorite things to do in the whole world,
just like flipping the channels and get to an after
hours video, and I was like, check in on old
after Hours. I'll revisit this, and I'm watching it and

(30:10):
it's funny and it's the points are good in it,
and I'm like, I like this. I like this. This
is a really good episode. And I was like, who
wrote this one? And I went back and looked I
wrote it, and I had no memory of it whatsoever,

(30:30):
no memory of having written it. And I even like, well,
of course you'd like your own fucking jokes, but like,
I did not remember this one, and I didn't. I
don't remember that. Because a lot of times those ideas
would incubate for a while. For me, I took a
rig a lot of pride in the ones that I
would write, because I was like, I want this to
feel really good and like all the arguments to be
really compelling. I wanted to have to fit within the

(30:51):
universe of the show where everybody like, there's fun stuff
for everyone. We'd be doing I didn't. I don't remember
any of that for this one. The trail, the trail
is gone, snow.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Yeah, it's it's really wild. I think I was. I
had that experience with Agents of Cracked, and I was
trying to think of that show, and especially the first
I think two seasons. We didn't put written by bylines
on episodes, sort of by design, and now that is

(31:22):
completely gone from my brain. Who did what on that show?
And after I was I think I might have an
easier time, but after hours, just because I've I felt
like I was diligent about topics, like I wouldn't pick
something that was going to be a huge lift for
me to like, I wouldn't I would never write the

(31:45):
James Bond one because I haven't seen enough James Bond
movies and I still haven't. And I like to feel
like I picked things where I felt like I had
something in me already that I could bring to it.
But I don't know. You could tell me right now
that I did write the James Pond one.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
You did, and I wrote that one.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh thank goodness, I was.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
This one is the is terrible lessons in coming of
age stories, and at least that's what it's titled. It
doesn't seem to be like that's what we focus on.
We really focus on time a lot in it, and
like how to how you address aging and die. But
it's very compelling, Like we start with us sitting around

(32:28):
looking at Katie because it's her birthday and trying to
guess how old Katie is.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
That's just so it's really fun. What's in addition to
not knowing which episodes I wrote? It's crazy how little
I remember of what happened in that show. I know,
I know, Like that sounds right, it sounds like we
must have done an episode where it was Katie's birthday
and we were doing business with that up top.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
But no, it's good.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
You're gonna tell me I put on clothes and had
a game to play in that episode.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
It's way more than that. The amount of work that
goes into memorizing one of those episodes is staggering because
it's like memorizing other places, Like it's like you have
to have other places. As a play that's almost entirely
a monologue, but it's like you have to memorize like huge,
huge swaths of monologue that are written like an essay
and it has to sound very natural. Yeah, And I

(33:29):
look back on that and I'm like, we I spent
so much time working on those episodes. Granted sometimes on
the day, but like freaking out on the day at
least and being like, get it in there, get it
in my head, get it in my head to now
look back on it and be like down forever. Yeah,
I never even didn't None of these lines even triggered

(33:49):
a thing for me.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
One thing that I would port from my current job
at last week tonight into our past job at Cracked
is uh so, my boss John does about a thirty
minute monologue once a week, and it's a lot of information,
and he's got a prompter. But I will say that

(34:11):
by the time we actually tape, if the prompter skipped
or broke down a little bit, I feel somewhat confident
that he could not do an entire episode from memory,
but like he knows it pretty well by the time
we tape that it's like, I would say, eighty percent
of the way memorizes my guess. Wow. When we're in

(34:34):
rewrite a few hours before taping, we have gone through
a table read for some chunk of the staff in
the office. A second table read in the office with
some graphics happening on a screen behind him, a rehearsal
in full suit in front of the studio you can,
and then we're in rewrite after that. So he's seen

(34:57):
the script a bunch of times, he's done it a
bunch of times, it's been punched up, and we're still
going through the script line by line and he's looking
at it at a big screen and like we're together
making some change that are like, oh, this makes the
joke punch here, this makes this is a word we
don't need. But he's also going through it and like
making it easier for himself to say not in like

(35:20):
a dumbing down sort of way. We're just like, let's
get this. Let's like finally tune this and finesse this
language so it is it flows as well as it
can possibly flow for me to like rapid fire deliver
at this insane click, and like, man, I wish we'd
been doing stuff like that. We worked out after hours
and obsess this pup culture disorder that like we would

(35:43):
write those things and I you know, very often, and
we're writing those up at the up until the last
minute and repeating ourselves in these monologues because we're delirious
as we're writing it. It's just like I just I
need to get I need to make this point clear.
And I'm figuring out what the point is while I'm
writing it and repeating myself, and I'm over explaining and

(36:06):
I'm not gonna edit it because no one had has
those scripts me and I'm not doing it. And then
we get there on the day and it's just like
just kind of just gotta like cram this paragraph into
my fucking head. And as long as I can hold
it in my stupid head for like four minutes, I
can say it. And I'll look like a crazed person

(36:28):
while I'm saying it because my eyes are dead while
my mind and my mouth are steering the whole ship. Yeah,
it would. It's just been so much easier on ourselves
if we were like, now, before we tape this, let's
just like practice it a few times and see if
we can change this language a little bit and make
it cleaner and tighter. Not once and we ever think

(36:50):
about that.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Knowing into it, I'll say it with this show doesn't
suffer a ton from it either, because you have to
keep in mind like it has to feel very train
of thought. Like in the episode, you can't give too
much at one moment because it's really hard for an
audience to keep up because they're learning it at the
same time. The same reason why teachers when they talk
to from a class talk so slow, it's because you

(37:11):
need time to think about what you digest what you
just heard, and so we certainly give them that. There's
a lot of like reiterating a point over and over
again and kind of circling around it in a way
where like the first Inja Turtle script I wrote, I
was like, I remember stopping in the middle and justin
me like, what is the actual point here? And I'm
like it's this And he's like, well, yeah, can you

(37:32):
just say it like that? And I was like, oh yeah,
I guess I could. Let me write it down.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
You're saying you want this idea just one time, I said,
up three times, all right, you wanted the shorthand?

Speaker 3 (37:45):
Is that we're about to just give them the shorthand? Okay,
all right? Yeah, But it was really startling to watch
an entire episode of that show that we spent so
much time on it, so much for our life, and
then too and I remember that I'd written that it
was my episode.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Speaking of the past sore and let's get into the show.
Oh yeah, I recently watched Happy Gilmore Too. Like a
lot of people around the world, I watched Happy Gilmore
Too recently. It's awesome. I don't karried anyone says that
love it. A thing that's sticking in my brain other
than it's awesome is that the movie, almost to a

(38:29):
distracting degree, reminds you of the nineteen ninety six Happy
Gilmore by including clips like actual clups, sometimes like a flashback,
and sometimes it almost felt like a clip show and

(38:49):
like they were kind of cheaply trying to remind me
how much I liked the first one, to sort of
gloss over whatever flaws this one might have because I can't,
because no one, no one who is choosing to watch
Happy Gilmore Too needs to be reminded of anything from
Haby Gilmore. It's it's we are we know it. No

(39:16):
one is helping to have Gilmore Too, like completely fresh
or blind or it's like, oh yeah, it's been a
while I've thought about Happy Gaylmore. Was like no, no, no, no, no, all.

Speaker 3 (39:23):
Fun to think about that kind of person who.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Everyone's talking about. This Happy Gilmore too.

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Let's see, all right, I'll pull the trigger.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
I'll go see it in theaters. Not only did they
keep showing clips of the Nights and ninety six movie,
they also brought back a lot of characters from that movie.
Uh and they would show clips. They would be they
would they would say, remember, do you remember Blondie, the
caddie that Happy Gilmore strangled in one scene? Briefly, here's

(39:58):
that scene. We're gonna show that happening. And now here
is him in the present talking to that kid and saying, hey, Blondie,
I hope you're not still mad that I strangled you.
And then later Blondie strangles someone else. So they remind
you who.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
These these characters are so minor that they had to
remind you who they are by be able to remember
this from the movie. Watch it for fifteen seconds.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Well guess what.

Speaker 3 (40:22):
Here he is again?

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Everybody right, And and like for characters that died or
for the actors who played them that died, all of
those characters have sons. Now there's like a big guy
who got the nail in his head, the giant that
Happy used to work with, he died in real life,
but he has a giant son who functionally is the same.

(40:46):
And it is like, do you remember my dad? He's dead,
I'm here now. He has chapstick in his head, right,
this is the happy mentor They're like, you remember Chubbs.
He died in the movie, and in real life, I
am his son. And also I am missing a hand
and I have a replaced with wooden hand, and I
work in a mini golf hoarders. Remember the guy who

(41:07):
said jackass. Here are several clips of him saying jackass.
He died. Here's his son also saying jackass. It's really
bizarre moves. Again, I think it's just like as close
to a clip show, like five minutes of new material
and ninety minutes of clip show, and hey, remember this

(41:29):
material to remind you that you like the original movie.
It's still all of it fucking worked for me. It's
here's what makes it slightly more interesting to me. Okay
is The latest Mission Impossible movie also came out this year,
and they also Mission Impossible Final Reckoning. They frequently and

(41:55):
literally referenced the original Mission Impossible movie, which also came
out in nineteen ninety six. The same year Happy Gilmore
came out, and they Mission Impossible also cut to clips
like literal clips. They wouldn't just like Ethan remember that time.
They would show like nineteen ninety six Tom Fruise and

(42:16):
his team doing stuff and other movies too, but mostly
they were like they really wanted you to remember how
much you liked Brian to Palma's Mission Impossible movie. Yeah,
and similar to Happy Gilmore too, they brought back pretty
minor characters. They had William Donnelly in the first mission Apostle.

(42:36):
He is an employee. He who has a couple of lines,
maybe two or three lines, but mainly his thing is
he gets poisoned and he has to puke and shit
and that allows Ethan to sneak into the fucking place
to get the fucking thing. Whatever the plots of these
movies are, it's one of Ethan has to like drop

(42:58):
from the ceiling and go harrs. Donnelly is the employee
who gets poisoned and shits himself, and we never see
him again until this movie until twenty twenty five. If
they show you a clip of him, remember this guy.
He is back here now and we're gonna give him
some kind of closure and some more lines and more

(43:21):
screen time. Also like happy Gilmore. Yeah, they're like, hey,
do you remember Ethan Hunt's mentor Jim Phelps, who was
John Voyd in the first movie. Well, he died in
that movie, but now in this current mission impossible, his
son is a character functionally doing a lot of what

(43:42):
Jim Phelps did in the first one. And it's I
don't have much to say about this except that it happened.
I'm bringing you two movies that came out this year
that reference an original that came out in nineteen ninety six,
and they both specifically would show clips from that movie
and bring characters from that movie back into this present movie.

(44:02):
And if they didn't bring a minor character back into
the present movie, they brought they mentioned a character from
the first movie, and they introduced a new character in
this movie that was their son, fulfilling the same role.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Man, I what do I do? Yeah, no, I'm looking
at it. I'm I.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
So.

Speaker 3 (44:21):
The way sequels to movies used to work was you would,
like you wouldn't explicitly mention the first one, but you
would follow to a t the exact same formula in
the second film to the point where an audience who
doesn't even know anything about movies can anticipate what's coming.
So like Home Alone's a great example, Like when Home
Alone lost New York. You have to have a moment

(44:42):
where Catherine o'harris says, get Ben, and then you've got
to have it's got to be some creepy person that
Kevin doesn't trust and is scary but then ends up
being like the voice of reason by the end. You
have to have to the to Roberty. You have to
follow the exact same beats, and then you're like, that's

(45:02):
what a sequel is. A major lead did the same
thing and like and when you have that, then you're like, Okay,
I get it. I get we were still hungry for
the same movie. But it functions essentially like an SNL
sketch that was very successful and now we're going to
do a second. One is you know, we're just gonna
hit all the same stuff again because that's what you
all like the first time. Oh, you still have an
uptight for it. Let's do a third And so I

(45:24):
get that, but two, it feels like the step that's
just a little lazier than that is we'll just watch
the first one again, come on, sit down with us,
We'll show you some new stuff. Or really, just watched
the first one of this again.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
You liked the first one, right, that was good? That
can't we rest on those laurels a little bit more?

Speaker 3 (45:45):
It is shocking that they're both made in nineteen eighty six.
I started looking through nineteen ninety six movies thinking, is
this is it possible that other movies are like this
is the last time we had good culture. It is
depressing to go through nineteen ninety six movies because there
were so many original ideas and you're like, oh shit,
we really were making movies then.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
I now just it's especially and I know, like Wikipedia
is going to front load the major releases, but the
Wikipedia is for nineteen ninety six. The major releases this
year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Train, Spotting, The Rock,
The English Patient, Twister, space Yeat, Mission Impossible, Wars Attacks,

(46:26):
Jerry Maguire. Holy shit, that's an incredible run of movies.
And again it's like that doesn't represent the entire year
because there's probably a lot of shit there too. And
some people think The Rock and Mars Attacks are bad,
but just the variety of movies, the different kinds of

(46:46):
things that we were doing and the types of movies.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
I go through this and I'm like, oh, well, we
don't even make that type of music movie anymore. Like
A Time to Kill was in nineteen eighty six The Chamber,
which was like this, like rot Gene Hackman movie, there's uh,
the English Patient. I guess you know, we're still like
making obviously a pre existing IP, but that's such a slow,

(47:12):
slow story about two people falling in love. Yeah, you're like, oh,
we don't know, we don't do that anymore.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
I guess we do technically make screams, twisters, independence, days
in space, jams and missions impossible.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
You might to make those, That's true. Let's see Multiplicity
came out that year.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
God, I love that movie.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Swingers, Ransom like that, we were doing it. We were
making all kinds of different movies, and everyone the same
people were like, okay, I'll give that a shot. Yeah,
Like the same people are going to all these movies,
which is like, also doesn't happen anymore except you. I'd
love to talk more about Happy Gilmore, but unfortunately I
won't be seeing it until twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There was I
wanted to see if Bud was a movie that came
out in nine ninety six. It, unfortunately for our purposes,
came out in nineteen ninety seven. But I bring it
up because there was I'm on the Airbud beat. Yeah,
I don't uh okay good. So when Airbud Returns was

(48:17):
announced that that news comes to my desk ten thousand
times in one day, and they are making this Airbud
Returns movie. And in the press release they say the
movie will engage nostalgic Airbud fans while introducing a new
generation to the beloved basketball playing Golden Retriever. They're going
to child upon the legacy of the og Airbud with
all the fun, magic, heartwarming scenes and Buddy playing basketball.

(48:39):
The plot is about a twelve year old named Jacob
who discovers an original VHS of Airbud, Holy fucking Shit
and his poss belongings while visiting his childhood home after
his death. Jacob then meets a straight Golden Retriever by
the name of Buddy that he names Buddy, and they
embark on a journey of healing. The United Team of
Misfits and Chase Championship. I don't I don't understand you're.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Gonna spend an hour watching a VHS In that.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Movie, the kid finds a VHS copy of Airbud the
Movie and watches it and then finds a dog plays basketball.
I don't understand the reality anymore. This is a franchise
that I don't know if you kept up with with
the Airbud films. By the end of it, it culminates

(49:27):
in air Buddies. This is where they're all puppies and
they have superpowers and they fight crime and they can
sign it to each other.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
My son watched some of these when he was young. Yeah,
it is still that is a more.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Exciting and fresh evolution of the air Bud idea than
Airbud Returns, where they where they just simply watch Airbud
the movie and then make Airbud the movie.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Yeah, I agree with you. I'm wondering if, like, because
we're coming up on basically the thirty year anniversary of
all of these, I wonder if there's internally within studios
there is a tacit agreement that thirty years you can
reboot something from the beginning, So it's a property that
you've watched, and like, this has got to be the
plan all along, right, was that you you do a movie,
it's a success, So you do a second one, you

(50:18):
do a third, and then at some point you're like,
and now what we should do is just start again
at the beginning. And thirty years is like the amount
of time that you're allowed to do that in, Like, now, okay,
let's just start airbud over.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
It's really it's it's so wild the because until a
few months ago, I couldn't I couldn't tell you when
the first Mission Impossible came out. I know I saw
it in theaters, but it could have been ninety eight,
it could have been ninety five, Like I just it's
not a thing that I think about. But if you
haven't seen the most recent Mission Impossible, they make a

(50:51):
huge deal. Like in the movie, the date May twenty second,
nineteen ninety six is like then madically relevant. It's the
date that a certain mission took place, and it's the
date that Hannah Wadeham's character and the Angela Bassett the president,

(51:13):
like when they met or or did some kind of
thing like the The movie truly wants you to think
May twenty second, nineteen ninety six is meaningful and important
a date that has no meaning other than like it's
the real life release date of fucking Mission Impossible, and

(51:34):
it's it's such a strange move, like they're like, I
guess it's not so wild in modern times, because like
May fourth became Star Wars Day because May the fourth,
and then at some point we just decided that there
was like a Marvel Day where all the Marvel news

(51:56):
comes out and yeah, and it's, uh, it's it sucks,
but there's like the day where they announced the new
slate of Marvels. Like we've all got really hyped for
press releases in modern times. And I think Mission Impossible
is just really trying to also force their own May
twenty second is Mission Impossible Day, and it's going to

(52:17):
be Mission Impossible Day forever and I don't. And again,
it's not like it's not like May the fourth. It's
not like something that you could do something like like
why is May Why is May twenty second, nineteen ninety
six important to Ethan Hunt just because that's the date
the movie Mission Impossible came out.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
It is fun to imagine, it's fun to imagine like
what they were because they were I'm sure that they
backed into it. They were like, well, let's come up
with a day. It would be really nice for us
to have like a day that we own. Yeah, same
way we did I cracked. We were like we should
have like a there should be like something that we're
known for, the same way the Simpsons are known for Halloween. Like,
let's come up with a day. Let's come up with

(52:59):
the holiday that we can hijack. I'm sure that Mission
Impossible was like, what, let's find on Mission Impossible day,
what's the day that's not occupied? And everyone's like, oh no,
every day is occupied. And then you have to sit
in that room with a calendar as people are like okay,
April fifteenth, Like no, it's a National Donut Day, and
they're like okay, we're not doing that one. Yeah, and
then like they're like finally they land on May eleventh,
and they're like, I'm in May twenty second. Like May

(53:20):
twenty second, everyone's like, you know what, that's that's actually
really good. There's nothing going on that day. Man, I
have one.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
I've got terrible news for you. If April fifteenth, your
main preoccupation is donut day. It's a bigger tax day. Yeah, yeah, Buddie,
you gotta mean you gotta make sure you get that
done first.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
But I love that they're like, Okay, well then it's
May twenty seconds, so let's figure out how to like,
let's do the pun, let's figure out how to face
up the movie twenty second am I I right, No, No, it.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Would have been. I'm sure they're really mad now that
they didn't release it on May first, because M one
is so much more helpful.

Speaker 3 (54:05):
Oh yeah, absolutely. Maybe they're trying to get to twenty two.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Yeah, that's all Tom Cruise can do it.

Speaker 3 (54:13):
If anybody can. It's our old pal tone.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
I I don't know. I think that we I'm a
little sad with this conversation because I'm looking at these
movies and thinking, not all hits, but you were everybody
was trying, not all hits.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
All swings though. That's what's huge.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Yeah, everybody's working their hart is and they're making stuff.
And think of all the people that worked on that movie,
all the people that worked on Ed. Think of all
the jobs, all the jobs of every like from the
multiple script drafts that it went through to like the
crew of ed and everybody along the way probably was like,
we're making some got some dog shit. This is great,

(54:56):
we're making dogshit, but we're working. And how that must
have been just just.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
The quiet assurance that everyone working on those movies is like, well,
it'll be in a theater and that's always been a
lifelong dream. That's that it'll be nice to see my
name and credits in the theater. Like it's gonna get
a release. They're not show this movie for tax purposes,
that'd be crazy. There's people in it.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
Yeah, it's sad. Well, it's been a fun podcast.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
I think that's gonna do it for us.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Thank you everybody for listening. Mi Rex, obviously, YouTube, obviously, Patreon,
all the hits. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
I'm going to quick quick question thought, quick question about
the week and talk tonight.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
So what's your favorite who did you girl?

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Be Let Forget It? Or a movie and you O
brois two best friendsom comedy. If there's an answer that
I'm gonna find, I think you'll have a great time.

(56:26):
I think you'll have a great time.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
You