December 25, 2023 • 53 mins
Santa Media Bros 2023 comes to a close as we give our annual Christmas Day episode release to you in the form of the 1988 film Ernest Saves Christmas! One of the most beloved entries in the franchise finds our lovable knucklehead, Ernest P. Worrell, trying to help Santa Claus locate his successor in order to save the holiday for the forseeable future. Filled with his signature gags and character work, Jim Varney turns in an always wonderful performance in the highest grossing Ernest film, to date. This was also Devin's first Ernest movie ever! We call this a generational gap, "Knowhutimean, Vern?"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Supermedia Bros. Podcast is a foundingmember of the Odd Pods Media Network.
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Welcome to the super Media Bros.Podcast, where two best friends give comedically
informative takes on movies, music,pro wrestling, and more. I'm Richie
and this is Cult Cinema Saturday,Episode three hundred and six for Santa Media
Bros. Twenty twenty three. MaryMotherfucking Christmas. It is a Christmas where
Chrimmas. It is a Christmas Dayrelease, which we do every year.
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So if this is your first timehaving Santa Media Bros. We traditionally will
release our last episode of the yearon Christmas Day, So this is our
gift to you in the form ofErnest Saves Christmas from nineteen eighty eight.
And anybody out there that doesn't knowwho Ernest is. I it's hard to
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imagine anybody that doesn't know who Ernestis two hours ago, but that's what
I was getting at. It's it'shard to believe, but this was Devin's
first Earnest movie, which a lotof people, I believe their first Earnest
movie is either Ernest Ghost to Campor Earnest Scared Stupid. My first Earnest
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movie was actually Ernest Ghost to Jail, which is the one that you remembered
seeing pieces of like forever ago,and not even pieces. Dude, like
one of my buddy's dad had mentionedit, Oh you gotta watch these you
love it, blah blah blah blahblah. And I was a kid and
I found it on YouTube, likegod, it had to been like a
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decade and a half ago, maybeeven longer, and I watched, like,
I don't even know how much ofit genuinely. The last thing that
I remember was he rode up thewall on a vacuum or something like some
kind of office. I think itwas a like a floor buffer. Yeah,
that's what it was. Yes,And I don't remember the circumstances,
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but basically it was like, allright, it's time to go, come
on, come on, we're gonnabe like to whatever it was. So
I was like okay, and Ijust never got around to rewatching it,
so i'd only watch what would yousay, like five minutes. Yeah,
and that was in the very beginning, because that was Ernest Ghost to Jail.
He's a janitor at a bank andhe's wanting to become a bank clerk.
So does he have a different jobin every movie pretty much, but
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for the most part. Okay,So in Ernest's Goes to Camp, I
promise we're gonna get to Ernest SavesChristmas in Ernest Goes to Camp like he
was a bus driver and he wantedto be a camp counselor. That was
his whole thing. He wanted tobe a camp counselor. In Ernest Saves
Christmas, he's a taxi driver.And this one doesn't necessarily have like,
hey, I have a goal thatI'm trying to reach. Necessarily, Ernest
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goes to jail. He wants tobe a bank clerk. Ernest scared stupid.
He is a sanitation worker. SoJim Varney portraying Ernest in these films,
and you see this as the filmsprogress, He's typically a janitor or
a truck driver of some sort,which I think is great because the character
of Ernest is portrayed as an everyman. He's kind of a knucklehead. He's
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kind of dim witted, but he'slike very much I mean well type of
character, and he's very friendly,very pure of heart, dumb of ass,
you know what I'm saying. Likethat's kind of his stick and it's
funny. The earlier Ernest films,including Ernest SAPs Christmas, were all done
via Touchdown Pictures, so Disney hadthe distribution for this. Ernest Scared Stupid
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was the last to be done byDisney, and then Ernest Rides Again,
which was the one that had comeout after that, was the last Ernest
film to go to theaters because ittanks so badly. Ernest Saves Christmas,
however, was the highest grossing Ernestfilm. And it's a lot of fun
I got to be honest, It'sprobably the one that I've seen the least
amount of times, but I've seenit many times and I always forget just
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how well done it is as faras for this character and for the subject
matter. And it's a great familyfilm, honestly, like and there are
like I tried to explain this toyou. Jim Varney has done a variety
of roles over the course of hislife before was passing in two thousand,
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but Ernest is probably his most verywell known character just as a character.
He started out doing commercials as thischaracter, and then Ernest SAME's Christmas being
the second Ernest film. It's hardto imagine this character actually like taking a
dip into the direct to video marketbecause he was, honestly such a staple
of the late eighties in the veryearly nineties. What was your impression,
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Like, honestly, like, Iknow that again, this was like your
first time watching the character, whichI don't know anybody who's actually seen this
one as their first earnest movie.Typically not a lot of people have well,
I mean, look at the agedifferent so but honestly, so there
were a lot of questions that Ihad in terms of like, oh,
what was this bit like? Butbased off of the reactions in the room
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from you and Puck and everybody,it's like, okay, so I recognize
that this is an ongoing thing,and by the end of it, I
was like, it reminded me ofthe first time I ever watched in an
episode of The Animaniac. Because here'sa weird thing too. I watched the
fuck out of Wacko's wish hadn't seenthe show until like it was on Netflix.
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I don't know if it was atime or if it was like Freakazoid,
because I remember when Freakazoid was addedto Cartoon Network. It just so
happened that it was on the daysin which I had karate practice. So
I don't remember what the deal waswith the series for ANIMAIAX, but it's
like the first time I watched anepisode of that, I was in college,
and I was like, huh.Within the first episode you realize this
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is an ongoing joke even though it'syour first time seeing it. It just
had that like, I don't knowhow to describe it, but you just
felt that where it was like Idon't know if I'm even making sense right
now, No, it makes sense. It's it felt like a live action
cartoon, but in a good waywhere it's like this is just like when
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you sit down and it's it's comforting, it's you know what you're getting.
Yeah, And the good part aboutErnest is that you kind of can just
jump in yeah. Yeah, that'swhat I'm trying to say. Yeah,
yeah, because the character is veryI don't like to use the term simple,
but he really is, Like thecharacter Ernest is a very simple character
where you get a read on whohe is, kind of what he's about,
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and then you just fall into hismannerisms, you know, and things
like that. Because a lot ofthe jokes now and I love this about
this characters like the more you diveinto him and you watch like Arnist Film
Festival, which contains all of hisadvertisements, he did, you know,
you find all of the Easter eggsthroughout the movie where there's a scene where
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he's making pancakes and he's just throwingthem in the air, and I was
I literally didn't even fucking give itaway because I wanted to see your reaction
when they never came down, becauseyou were just like, oh, every
fucking time you eveuld throw one,you were just oh, like, I
know, you were waiting on something. And then he finally, uh,
a little bit later, probably liketwo minutes, two or three minutes later
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into the into the scene, finallyholds a plate and they just flop down
in a stack neatly, even thoughlike he was walking around the entire room.
They all fell in place, right, which is the best part it
came from. I want to sayit was like a buttermilk ad that he
was doing where he was making pancakesand he does that, he throws them
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in the air and then he holdsthe play it out and they flop one
at the time back on to theplate. Like I said, there's a
ton of Easter eggs for longtime fans. But again, you can jump right
in. Uh the plot of thisone obviously, uh Orn SAPs Christmas is.
I wouldn't say it's unique. Itdefinitely plays on the trope of like
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Santa Claus needs to find his successor, which we've seen in like the Santa
Claus like a few years later whereSanta Claus and you gotta you gotta find
a new Santa Claus. But italso has the trope of, ah,
this guy thinks he's Santa Claus,blah blahlah. You know what I mean.
Like that it was it was actuallykind of clever. In fact,
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I'm I'm kind of glad that we'retouching on that because that was the other
thing too, is you had mentionedhow simple Earnest is in everything. Honestly,
Like, the more you watch it, the more you're like, he's
not dumb, he's he's naive,he he's touch of the tism. Maybe
I'm not sure, but there's somethingabout him where it's like, this is
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the dumbest motherfucker in the room,and yet he's always right. He's not
book smart, but he's very likecommon say, like some of the common
sense is there. It's very weirdthe way he works as a character,
because there's spots where you're thinking,is he just not showing his whole deck
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of cards as far as like that'swhere I kept thinking, Yeah, like
where he's he's definitely dim witted,right right, but he ain't stupid.
No, No, it's dude.It's almost like watching how Forrest Gump interacted
with things where you knew that hewasn't as quick witted, but somehow he
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always came out on top. Butit's like this was a more almost a
parody of that, even though thiscame before that movie, if I'm not
mistaken, Oh yeah, nineteen eightyeight. Gump didn't come out until the
nine ninety same year as a mask, so whatever that was. Anyway,
what an interesting character for some thaton the surface seemed so not even juvenile,
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just straight up churlish. Yeah,And I could see how a lot
of people would think that. ButI mean, he is a kid friendly
character for sure. Yeah. Butwhat I was kind of conveying to you
earlier when we were watching it isthat he's not full blown let's hide the
humor for the adults in the room. It's very subtle, like some of
the like like whenever he was saying, what we have here is a failure
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and you were just waiting on tocommunicate when he was saying, what we
have here is a failure to accumulate, and I was like, this is
great, like right, because Iwell, what it was was I didn't
expect the quote to actually be finishedor even punned or anything like that.
I thought that my just naturally addmind was just like filling in the gap.
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But it's like, oh, stopit. He's not doing a fucking
he's not doing it. And thenhe does the thing and it's like,
oh shit, okay. Yeah.And when I say adult humor, I
don't mean like adult sexual or crude. I mean adult as in like a
child. Yeah, a child isnot going to be like a child's gonna
laugh because he said the wrong word. We are going to laugh because ah,
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yes, he said a wrong word, but he made a punt.
And also the statement was having todo with him not accumulating the fucking money
he was over cabrity, So itwas pretty goddamn hilarious. So to jump
him. Santa Claus arrives in Florida, Orlando, and Ernest is a taxicab
driver, which the opening scene ishilarious whenever he's driving that one guy around
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trying to get him to the airport, which I think was a great introduction
to this guy for you. Yeah, because within like ten seconds, I'm
like, Okay, I think Iget it. I mean, we ended
up finding out that there's a lotmore to it than just oh, he's
kind of dumb. But I waslike, Okay, I at least understand
his gimmick, right, And Iwas conveying, Hey, pay attention to
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the camera angles because the camera anglesare such a big part of this character's
humor. How Like they shoot himfrom underneath sometimes, or they shoot him
at like a Dutch angle where he'sleaned in and there's some shadow on his
face when he's doing some stupid likecharacter work later on. But like that
really lends itself to the delivery onthe funny Like when he's driving, he
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often is shot from like backwards andhe's turned around, not watching the road,
and he fucking waves in and outof traffic so hard that the passenger
in the back seat flies out thecar door and he's frozen literally frozen in
fear because of Ernest's driving, andso that's when we get the humor of
this guy is just like frozen solidbasically all the way to the airport.
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Goddamn. Like, Ernest pisses somany people off at this airport when he
pulls up, like he fucks thisdude's bags up. He he pisses off
some people that he runs their bagsover and they chase him out of the
airport. Meanwhile, the man claimingwhich he is Santa Claus, like Santa
Claus is giving some groundwork to thefact that he's forgetful. He's reaching an
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older age. He needs to finda successor enter he needs a cab ride.
Ernest is trying to get the hellout of Dodge quite literally, and
he's like, yeah, I'm yourtaxi, and he's looking like throws some
and he's like a haul's ass ofhim and it's pretty great actually, and
we won't bore you to death withdetails, but he tries. He does
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convince Ernest almost that he's really him. It's not until he like actually finds
his magic sack later. But healso comes across a young lady named Harmony
Starr who is kind of a conor. She's a teenage she's a runaway,
she's kind of a con artist.She's kind of a dick to any and
everybody. She's gonna rip him off. She's gotta like two face the shit
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out of him. It's like,all right, he've got I really mean,
well, bucklehead bitch, teenager,runaway, potentially senile old man in
a cab. This joke rights itself. I'm sorry. Right anyway, Santa
Claus is trying to find a mannamed Joe who is a children's museum worker,
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and apparently, through a shit tonof trial and error, he's found
Hey, this is the guy thatI need to take over because Sanna's one
hundred and fifty one years old.But like Shenanigans later is like he shows
up, people think he's crazy thetalent agent. That's not the kids.
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Well no, no, no,of course not the kids. They know.
Well that's the thing. That's onesubtle joke about it that I really
enjoyed is that all of the kidsrecognize him right off the bat. And
also like before I forget you hadbrought up the Dutch Angles and everything like
that, and all the close ups. It's so weird. I can't explain
why. But for some reason,I don't know if it's like the foggy
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memory of being a child, butold commercials, like old vintage commercials,
when they did that shit like forvideo games for example. I know that
that was extremely popular in the ninetiesto do all those wild, really erratic
commercials. It gives like all handcampretty much. Yes, it would always
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give me a headache. I can'texplain why. Same even though that this
is a cartoon so it doesn't dothat. Rocky and Bullwinkle would give me
a headache as a kid too,Yeah, because it was kind of I
get. I can get that.Like it it was weird because like as
a child, you don't want tobe bored. But then that was almost
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too rapid fire. But for somereason, even to this day, if
I watch any of those things,I still get a headache. For some
reason, Ernest Saves Christmas didn't botherme. Maybe it's because a actually did
have pacing in it like that.Dude. The more I'm thinking about this
movie, the more I'm like,huh, look at that. It ain't
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bad. No, Like, becauseyou think about some of the gags and
it's like Okay, some of thesegags are advanced, but then some of
them, it's like, this isthe dumbest shit. This is like watching
good Burger or something, and andthe best way, like the best aspect
of good Burger is how fucking stupidthe humor is, honestly, but it's
like the more you sit back andjust analyze it from a filmmaking and it's
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just I'm hearing myself speak on itand it's weird. But the filmmaking artistry
to this shit, I'm like,y'all actually knew what y'all were doing.
Yeah, And that's that's the funpart about Ernest is that it comes and
I think that encompasses like the characteras well as the filmmaking. The character
comes off and the movie is supposedto come off pretty fucking dumb. Yeah,
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like legitimately, like this dude's studit, but it's really fucking not.
Like that is a very thinly veiledcurtain in front of what is actually
very well thought out it is.And that's what's so weird is because like
you know, I'm not trying tosound like a hipster or anything, but
I feel like if you tried tomake this same movie today. Without it
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being a pre existing ip, theyjust had this script collecting dust. They
wouldn't have made it this well thoughtout. It would have been solely slapstick.
It would have been slapstick or vulgar, one of the two, like,
because they wouldn't be able to finda good middle ground because Ernest is
not a vulgar character. However,Jim Varney is a good physical comedian when
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when it was called upon, hewas really good at it. But he
was also very fucking quick witted andfunny. Sometimes he improved. I was
about to ask how much of thatwas improv because like he strikes me as
an improv actor, not most ofit. With Ernest, there are sayings
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and things like where he spends somuch time as this character, you know
what I mean? Likes somebody whospends so much time as a character,
like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, forinstance, or Tony Stark. You know,
Robert Johnny Junior playing Tony Stark.You spend so much time as a
character. Bruce Campbell is ash youjust kind of you know that character and
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you're just like, uh, JimMartin's like Ernest would or would not say
this or yeah, Ernest would orwould not do this particular thing for this
other particular character or whatever. Buthe's a good character actor also, which
comes into play a few times inthis movie, which again goes back to
the whole conversation we were having abouthe ain't dumb. No, No,
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So Santa Claus winds up because ofJoe's talent agent, who I'm I need
to point out. I could nevertell and I know you saw this shit.
I could never tell which direction thisman was looking because his one eye
was looking at us the viewer bya complete fucking mistake, and and the
other eye was eyeballing the actor inquestion. He was speaking directly across from
(19:11):
Could you tell that on the oldVHS? No? Because the quality was
so fucking I was wondering this wholetime. I was like, could people
tell back then? No? Hewas probably actually like counting on the the
low pixelation to hide that. Moderntechnology fucked my man's up big time.
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Modern problems. Modern problems require modernsolutions. In poor bastard, my fucking
god, he was both looking athis current talent and looking for a new
talent at the same fucking dick face. Though that guy was like chowed fucking
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couldn't stand him. Now, werethese uh occurring characters? No, No,
Marty Brocken Joe are definitely not reoccurringcharacters. So it's just Earnest and
the two uh baggage claimed dudes.Yes, oh, Chuck and Bobby.
Yeah, yeah, so Chuck andBobby. Chuck only appears like in three
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Artist films, but Bobby has beenin five or six of them, okay,
and then Vern is also a recurringcharacter, right, Well, I
didn't want to I didn't want tocount that because you had told me off
the air that you never see him. He's still a character though. That's
the thing. Yes, that's likeyou you like like and I say you
like the audience. The audience ishaving to be Vern because we all have
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had somebody like Earnest in our lives. When he comes in the house and
he's still deal with that, it'sgreat. Uh, we'll get to Vern
in a minute. But like wewe've all we've all known somebody like Ernest
and we've all been Vern at somepoint, which is kind of the the
gag of it all. But SantaClaus, because of Joe's piece of shit
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agent gets fucking arrested because they're like, hey, this guy thinks he's Santa
Claus put him in jail because whythe fuck not? Like, really is
that? Is that our answer?And then whenever Ernest later says Santa's in
the Slammers, Santa got busted,just those lines alone, I'm like,
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the fuck am I watching the waythat he looks off and has it all
you know what I'm saying that offstair for a minute, he's like,
oh, like he's got a thing. For a minute he's like, oh,
I got a new And this iswhere it gets interesting. Ernest goes
through I want to say, I'veseen many of his films. This I
think is one of them where hedoes the most. It's only outdone by
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Ernest scared stupid in this regard,which I would love to watch with you
for Halloween next year. So Ernestposes as a state government official like assistant
to bust Stanta out of prison orjail, and Harmony is playing like the
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governor's niece who is in a programto learn about all this shit. And
somehow it works because Jim Varney justdisappears into literally whatever he chooses to be,
whether it is this character or asnake wrangler, like a very hick
snake wrangler, or literally an oldlady in a walker with humongous bowling ball
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titties. And I met Grace andit's funny as fuck it. I hate
to admit it, but the oldlady one would have got me because he
was good at it. Yeah,like I would have believed it. That's
how good Jim Varney was, though, Dude. So like he rolls in
there and they get Santa Claus outof this bitch, right, he goes
again, like as the old ladygoes again, like to do some fuck
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shit, and I'm dying the wholetime because it's like we hit this stride
in the movie where it's one ofthese after the other, the way that
he's trying to get Joe and SantaClaus in the same room together, because
Joe only ever heard part of Santo'spitched to him at the Children's Museum before
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he got busted and arrested, whichthey improperly referred to him as Santo's because
they can't ever let him just fuckingfinish his sentence. Dude, that was
one of those stupid jokes that Ikept giggling at because I was like,
that's actually, yeah, that's kindof clever. I like that, and
it's something that would probably really happen, absolutely it would have. I think
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that's why I enjoyed it, becauseI was like, huh, they're doing
so many things I wouldn't have thoughtof, but is still staring right blankly
at you and along with all thatstuff, which I loved your interpretation,
the way that you talked about thisas a whole. I think within the
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first fifteen minutes you were just like, I get it. It's kind of
like a little bit of like liveaction looney Tune gags. Yeah, smartly
though it's it's kind of what theydo. I mean, there's the whole
sequence where the dock workers are offloadingthe boxes from the plane and Bobby gets
squished underneath one of the boxes,and fucking Chuck is just like breaks over
squish, and then later you seehim still stuck to the box being transported
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across the airport runway. It's fuckingfunny. Right next thing, you know,
somebody's gonna like bust through a walland like have a fucking full ass
like cutout outline of them, Likeyou know what I'm saying so eh,
So Ernest is trying to get Joeand Santa in the same room, which
is Joe is you can tell thathe has done like this children roll his
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home life. So when his agenttries to get him into a like a
horror movie, which you don't knowit's a horror movie until later on,
he can't say the lion, sonof a bitch because he's he's too pure
of a person, which you knowthat's why Santa Claus is choosing him.
So he he gets him onto thefilm property by being a snake rancher.
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Jesus Christ, dude. It isthe funniest thing where you're like, hey,
get all not enough and toushed itin there like he's I'm talking like
Jim Varney is just a filthy,fucking vagrant looking guy in this sea,
like he's got suspenders, a fuckedup hat, like somehow he randomly was
missing a tooth. I don't knowhow he pulled that off. He blacked
(25:47):
out that tooth. Is that whathe did? Okay, yeah, yeah,
he would do that quite often.Actually, Like when he would do
that kind of shit, he wouldjust black the tooth out and just like
what I've seen this done, butI've never seen the act of it happening,
Like how do they do It's liketoxic free makeup. Okay, like
it's it's not shiny, it's verymatted that way. It looks like,
(26:10):
Yeah, that's why I was alwayswondering how that worked. Okay, yeah,
that's it's a thing. Huh.So basically that's why he's trying to
get him in there, and whichis funny because like the uh, once
he does get him in there,he winds up actually having real snakes dumped
in the back of his truck andhe's just like like he's flipped out.
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But Joe is having second thoughts throughoutthe entirety of this movie, where he's
just like, I don't know ifI want to do like not the Sanda
thing, but like, you know, pursuing like a real acting career.
Because I forgot to mention that histelevision show as the you know, the
children's host, is canceled, sohe's got to get another job, and
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that's what this is. But he'she's been having conflict about taking on the
role of being the new Santa,and meanwhile, while all this is happening,
harmony is wrestling with her own kindof bullshit, Like her parents didn't
notice her because they were too wrappedup in their own drama and bullshit.
She ran away. She's kind oflike a not a delinquent, but like
(27:14):
you can tell that she's she's hurtingman and that, and she's acting out
about like fuck this, I'm gonnaleave and I'm gonna I'm gonna steal send
a sack with all his fucking magictoys in it, and shit, even
though I don't believe in him,I'm gonna fucking steal this entire sack with
magic in it. That's what That'sthe only thing about this movie I think.
I was just like, Okay,you don't believe, but you're gonna
pull all this would be wishing formoney out of this fucking sack, right,
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Like, even if it's not workingfor you, it's still like,
Okay, well, how many itemsdo you have to see transformed from a
glowing orb into an item that wasnot originally in Like that alone should have
you off. Also, like isit me? Or like whenever she was
(28:03):
about to board to go to Miamiand she was talking to those kids and
everything, it would have been niceif like in that moment she pulled out
the correct item and gave it tothe little girl that or she pulled out
the item that she originally wished.I kept thinking about it. The baseball
mittn't right because there is at onepoint Santa Claus like kind of out loud
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points out to her the reason shequote doesn't believe anymore is because he brought
her a doll instead of a baseballglove. That was a I expected that
to happen at the end. Iwas surprised it didn't. Yeah, now
that I've gone back and rewatched itagain, yeah, I'm surprised at that
shit too. I wonder if itwas in the original script that they just
(28:47):
cut it out for time restraints.Man, I don't know. This was
an hour and thirty five minute film. Yeah, like it was. Most
comedies back then weren't particularly long.I mean, true enough. Hey,
I'm Hansel Sarin from the bfytw podcasthere with my buddy Stevie Hey was up
and Aggie Hey, and we're hereto first of all, categorically deny the
(29:08):
rumors going around that all we've beendoing lately is copying other podcasts. This
is categorically untrue, and we denyit completely. Having said that, please
enjoy the rest of the super MediaBrothers podcast, and when you're done with
that, feel free to check outour new project, Ultra Telecommunication Siblings,
a show where best friends given formativelycomedic takes on music, gaming, pro
(29:30):
wrestling, movies, and more.Pretty sure that's never been done before.
I think this is where we comeacross the Helper Elves, which is a
funny running gag with doc workers becausereally, yeah, because Chuck and Bobby
were sitting there the whole time beinglike MV oh, I thought you meant
(29:52):
the Elves come and go throughout theseries. Oh no, I'm talking about
So that says that's a V yeahv m V nah No right that right,
there is an m Helper Elms.And I'm like, I'm gonna say,
like, fucking face Pond, like, motherfucker dude, literate sons of
(30:14):
bitches, man, he is theilliterate son of a bitch, Like god
damn, how do you mistake thetwo when the older guy is right,
yeah, I don't mean it like, oh he's older, has more experiences,
No, Bobby, Bobby old asfuck to my guy, Bobby had
a great dropped on him. Shouldhave fucking stroked out underneath that bitch,
But he's sitting there, v heprobably did have a stroke. How many
(30:37):
like coherent sentences did he say?That's the thing about Bobby, though.
Bobby's character rarely speaks in any ofthese movies, which makes it funnier when
he does, because typically if hedoes speak, it's something like no,
it's so he's erb pretty much.Okay, okay, good a good one
there. That's that's very good actually, But anyway, the elves fucking actually
(31:00):
show up at some point which thereindeer have all come out of the crate
and are stuck to the ceiling.Bruh. It just dawned on me now
that I've brought up Phineas and ferband everything, and we brought up as
we were watching it several different thingsthroughout this movie that oh, that reminds
(31:21):
me of this or that or whatever. My guy, hey, hear me
out the earnest movies Watching this andpondering it after the fact is like the
first time I watched The Godfather andI was just kind of like, oh,
that's where they got this technique from, or that's where this story beat
(31:41):
came from. Oh that's where thisquote. What it so much makes sense?
Weirdly enough, No, I meanFreido, dude, even that,
I was like, Oh, there'sa guy I work with every five seconds
say that when he's talking to you. And I just thought that this man
(32:04):
was slow. I just thought hewas kind of because he's old as balls,
so I just thought he was senileand oldest ball. Well, dude,
the thing is is like we makeme and some of the younger ones
are like, dude, he's likea fucking doll. You pull the string
and he's got like five sayings andit's on repeat the whole time. He's
(32:25):
fucking with us. I'm starting toget it now. He's a fucking god.
Damn it. He done figured himout. He done figured him out.
Fuck, it's so wild right.The Earnest Movie, sir, huh,
so weird. I love how muchyou're just having like a pre midlife
(32:47):
crisis crisis across from me. Oh, we're Earnest and just making some realizations
about people in IRL. You knowwhat I'm saying in real life and in
film, Like I'm just like Isaid, I'm I'm realizing Oh so this
is like, like I said,the Godfather to all these different plotlines or
gags or anything. Yeah, anyway, huh yeah, so weird. Yeah,
(33:15):
but the reindeer come out. Theelves fucking shove up. Ernest has
busted this man out of prison.Joe has the realization on set, which
Santa Claus visits, by the way, the movie set whenever he cannot bring
himself to cuss on set when he'sabout to shoot this swamp thing looking fuck
that busts into the room on thatmovie set. Oh, that was old
(33:36):
Greg. And you know it,it was old Greg. He'd done had
a downstairs mix up and everything.He was busting up in that fucking house
looking at Joe. He ever drinkBailey's from a shit, It's like,
bitch, but uh. Santa Clausbusts the fucking director in the face for
making a movie called Christmas Sleigh,which I want to say I actually made
(33:57):
a joke about doing a movie calledChristmas Slag a couple of episodes ago.
However, after punching him, Iwas like, god damn. They're in
an office later discussing signing Joe toa deal for a few of these movies
bro that that director had a bigold fucking shiner from that dude. Oh
(34:20):
yeah, Like I'm talking like SantaClaus, like I beat that ship out
of him. It looked like hefucking beat his He punched him once.
Look, he whooped his ass ina fucking UFC fight or something. Got
the coldflower ears. He fucking didfucking Santa just fall on the ground.
Goddamn beat his ass. Anyway,he has a change of heart completely like
(34:44):
Joe almost just he wants to believe. But he's like, I don't know
if I do believe until he seesErnest, who is taking the reindeer with
the elves and he's flying the sleighbecause he's like, I gotta fucking get
this to Santa Claus somehow, becauseI thenbusted my fucking tires on this rider
truck that I was driving, becausewhy not. So Josie's Ernest flying this
(35:08):
bitch and he's like, oh,well, I guess it's real. You
know. I was like, Ihe didn't say it like that, because
it would have been pretty fucking funny, feel like, well, I guess
it's real, and just fucking likeleaves like fuck this. But he pretty
much is just like, yeah,fuck this, I'm out of here,
and god damn it, man,there's a lot of Ernest flying the sled
(35:28):
around a lot, Like I'm talking, this fucker goes to outer space in
this bitch. Yeah. The thinkingabout it now, I'm like, how
much of this budget was dedicated tothese sequences? Or they got a proof
for the budget and they were like, well, shit, now we gotta
make it happen. What do youthink the budget for this was? That's
the question. Okay, so itwas eighty eight. Yeah. The movie
(35:52):
did come out for those of youout there, November eleventh, nineteen eighty
eight. So this is a fuckingold movie. This is like a third
six year old film about So forme to better at answer that, how
big of an ip was this atthe time, I wouldn't say that it
(36:12):
was the biggest ip, but itwas put it to you this way.
The ip was well known enough thatthis is the second earnest film, fair
enough. That's what I'm trying tofigure out. Six six and a half
yeah, six, okay, yeah, Because the budget was six and a
half and it grossed twenty eight pointtwo nineteen eighty eight, that's good.
(36:35):
Number. No it is. I'mjust like, wow, okay, yeah,
and I feel like that's partly todo with it's a holiday film.
Most people are going to see holidaymovies anyway, and shit, but what
was a release date? November eleventh? Okay, because good choice because normally
so many of these holiday movies,whether it's Halloween, Easter, Christmas,
(36:58):
they always want to release it onthe day. And I'm like, okay,
I as a human being, don'twant to see a Christmas movie on
the twenty sixth. If you releaseit on the twenty fifth, nine out
of ten times, the day afterthe release, it's obsolete. So good
(37:19):
job. Yeah, you see thatso often though. I understand the appealing
marketing strategy, but in hindsight,it's like this doesn't work. No,
in this one did, right.Yeah. So Harmony we mentioned a little
bit earlier, is at a trainstation to leave for Miami, where she's
(37:44):
she's been wanting to just completely runaway. She has deceived Ernest, who
doesn't he likes her, he doesn'tfully trust her. By the time it
comes around that she's swapped the magicsack with a sack full of feathers.
Santa Claus keeps coming up short oneverything. She finally has a change of
heart after seeing these children, youknow, at the train station, and
(38:07):
we're just like, oh, whatis she gonna do? Finally, Joe
and Santa Claus meat and he transfersthe power over to him. She shows
up and she's apologizing to Santa likelike having a whole ass like a moment
where she's crying and shit, she'slike, I even called my mom.
I'm gonna go home. Ernest finallylike after his God, how long would
(38:28):
you say that slate bit happened?Like, well, maybe like five six
minutes. Yeah, it was apretty pretty well dedicated amount of time to
it, which is pretty funny though, because it's a lot of camera trickery
and a lot of like simple computergenerated imagery back then, and a lot
of humor because it's mostly like it'smostly Ernest, I need to pull like
(38:52):
they're they're like pull the brakes ordon't touch that. And the poor bastard
just can't catch a fucking break foranything except for breaking all the goddamn handles
off of the control panel. Theson of a bitch that pour some of
a bitch just it's out of heis out of control. My guy is
completely out of control, out ofspace, dive bombing, fuck man.
(39:17):
But I love the line delivery.Whenever he's he's pretty much like what a
fucking like a ninety degree hangle,like straight up in the goddamn areage,
going straight down. Yeah, andthey stopped right before they hit the ground.
He just like breaks the four Whichthat's another like of running arnest gag
is that he breaks the fourth wallquite often in these movies. He just
looks at the audience just like airbrakes, like you stupid. Fuck I
(39:42):
love you, dude. That's thething, though, is we keep saying
stupid. But it was the onethat knew that old girl was gonna steal
the fucking sack. He knew likeall the ways to get in and out
of these scenarios. Really everybody elseis a dumb one. That's very true.
Santa Claus, his magic had stillgot put in fucking prison prison.
(40:02):
But also look at all the timesthat he was incorrect about his judgment calls.
Well, he he does mention andI'm only slightly defending that like he's
old, Like he's even admitting likehe's like, fuck, I have to
take notes for certain shit, I'mgetting children's gifts wrong because at one point
when he's trying to pay Ernest forthe cab, right, he's got play
(40:22):
money, but he's just like,oh, last year, this kid wanted
like it's literally the name of themoney. Like he's like he wanted this
fun time playhouse thing with play money. I must have mixed my actual money
up with this, and I'm thinking, bro, parents are doing ballin'.
That would have been such a goodlittle Easter egg. Side gag is if
(40:45):
later on in the movie, afterhe said the kid's name, you see
this giant billboard of the whole familylike just rich as fuck. Yeah,
like their pool side. There's likefour or five cars in the in the
like U turn or something like havea horseshoe drive y, Like little things
like that would have been great.And you know what's even more fucked up.
(41:05):
I know it's like a little bitof a side tangent, but why
not It would be funny about thatis that not only is it Santa Clauses
money, but it's it's Santa clausIs money. You think that money ain't
magic and just keeps multiplying. Where'she getting money from? In the first
place. Well, that's the thingtoo, is like it always blows my
mind in these movies. This isa cliche in this movie, Elf,
(41:31):
basically every movie in which Santa Clausis a real character but none of the
adults believe in him. I alwaysstop and go, where do you think
these gifts that you didn't purchase camefrom? And it's often a shitload of
them. Yeah, like I Idon't understand that trope? You got me?
(41:55):
We get the happy ending where Joe'slike he accepts his role. Oh,
and he makes it snow because atthe very beginning seth Applegate, who
was the original Santa Claus, showedup at the airport in the beginning of
the film and the man that hewas speaking to was just like, I
wish it would snow in Orlando.It would feel like a real Christmas back
at home. And it's like,ah, yeah, that that might be
(42:17):
a fucking thing that they make itsnow, or he makes it snow and
he takes Harmony and Earnest on thesleigh ride with him. However, we
go back to the dockworkers and they'rehaving another content market just like that.
That's an e and it's like atthis time, he's right, this time
(42:39):
the time that Chuck is right.Yeah, and it's the fucking Easter bunny,
dude. And there's a couple ofgags that they end on a gag,
but there's a gag earlier in themovie where the reindeer foot kicks out
of the box and then Chuck letsthis screech out, like a long screech,
and then Bobby, without blinking,without changing his face, is hot,
(43:00):
is right there and ready with afire singuisher, and he just hear
sh. I just want to knowwhat did he think was gonna come out
of there that required a fire extinguisher. I don't know, but it's pretty
fucking funny if you think about it. It's like, I don't know,
whatever the whatever this is, Idon't give a shit. It's getting the
fucking fire extinguisher. His stupid motherfucker, you know, dude. He's like,
(43:25):
because he's so old, he's justlike, like, I I feel
like Bobby's internal monologue sounds something likeboom Hower. Yes, Like for real,
dude, he just said, dangRain, You're about to get this
motherfucker fire extinguisher. God damn,dude, that's so fucking accurate, you
know what. This whole movie feelslike, Yeah, everybody in here seems
(43:47):
like side characters, Isn't it amazing? Though, Like, because you could
really say that, Hey, themain character in this movie Santa Claus are
like, the main character is Joe. The main character is is They all
have an arc. They really do, And I think that's fascinating because more
often than not, that's typically thecase with an Earnest film, only with
(44:09):
like the first, this one andScared Stupid, there's a lot more focus
on Ernest himself and many of theother ones. But I like, I
think that's a reason why I evenErnest goes to jail is some kind of
way with that, and I thinkthat's a big reason why I enjoy the
(44:32):
first four. But that was theend of Ernest safes Christmas, where Santa
Claus takes off at seven PM,which they were trying to get to is
fucking deadline, you know, todeliver all the gifts on Christmas, and
it ends with the dock workers withthe Easter Bunny. But I really feel
like that was the magic of thefirst four, and not long after Ernest
(44:54):
rides again. I think we onlygot fuck, I think we only got
like four more Ernest film films.I want to say they were there.
I think they were like nine maybemaybe altogether. I'm looking this up because
I don't want to be wrong,because Ernest had like quite a bit,
because like in our video store,we had every goddamn Ernest movie that ever
came out. Okay, so thereare nine if you go in order,
(45:19):
it goes to Camp, Saves Christmas, goes to Jail, Scared Stupid,
and then Rides Again, which werethe theatrical release. Is now the direct
videos where Ernest goes to school,Slam Dug Ernest, which is with Kareem.
That one's kind of fun. It'swith Kareemo, Juel Jabbar, Ernest
goes to Africa and No for Real, and Ernest in the Army. Ernest
(45:40):
in the Army was the very lastErnest film, and it's kind of sad
because Ernest as the character was alwaysa very physically demanding role for Jim,
and he died of lung cancer.Oh fun, Yeah, Jim. That
was a very heavy smoker, likebig time dude. In fact, if
(46:04):
you listen to him talk normally,very deep, very raspy, voice.
Like the fact that he spoke theway he did as Ernest, you could
tell it was full blown a charactermm and Ernest in the Army had come
out in nineteen ninety eight and hepassed away in two thousand, so he
was still doing all these roles upuntil his death, like still fighting nope,
(46:30):
lung cancer. You say that it'snot surprising that it's a character voice.
To me, it is because keepin mind, what's his other big
role, Slinky, And it's basicallyjust the Ernest's voice. I mean in
a way, yes, but alsoa Jed Klampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Yeah, but that's a very vaguememory for me. So like my two
(46:52):
ideas of this actor is more orless the same voice. So I just
assume that's how he talked. Well. Jim was from Kentucky, so he
was definitely Southern. Like he wasabsolutely like a Southern person. He just
like leaned into it so much more. He's been in a slip of other
(47:14):
movies aside from just the ones we'vementioned before. Like, that's kind of
how I want to end it.Like, if anybody out there would like
to check this movie out, itis on Disney Plus, which fantastic.
By the way. Check out Jim'sother roles like legit. He was in
a we reviewed a movie forever agocalled Fast Food where he plays Wrangular Bob
(47:35):
and this is him being like owninga burger chain and it's fucking funny as
shit. Actually like seeing him inthis role he was in that. He
was in Snowboard Academy. A lotof people probably don't remember it, but
it's an older like I say,older by today's standards, it's older.
It's thirty years almost. It's anineteen ninety six movie. It had Corey
(47:57):
Haym in it, one of thetwo Corey's. He was in the fourth
Three Ninjas movie, the one withHull Cocain. Oh shit, Yeah,
he was lother Zog in that movie. And he was also Jebediah in Atlantis
the Lost Empire from two thousand andone. That was his very very last
film role. Wow okay. Andthen he had different roles throughout the nineties.
(48:22):
Well, I mean, he hada lot of roles in like the
fucking eighties and shit, but hedid. And he did a couple of
episodes of Roseanne. He did anepisode of Duckman. He did an episode
of Hercules, The Simpsons and BiblemanJunior. Do you do you remember Bible
Man? Yeah? Like that.Do you remember Bible Man though, right
(48:45):
of course? Yeah? He playedhimself in Yeah? Is it? I
don't want to say good? Butis it what I remembered the original to
be? Only one way to five? Find out tune in next week whenever
you can. I'm jump king.I'm totally know what by now. That
(49:06):
IP has to be in bankruptcy.There's no fucking way that a Bible Man.
There is no goddamn way. Punintended that that motherfucker was smart with
his investments. There's no there's noway. I want to buy the IP
and make my own movie, myguy. The first release of The Bible
(49:30):
Man nineteen ninety five to twenty twenty. So it's dead. I hope,
So okay, I fucking hope,so okay. I will be locating some
email addresses and I will let youknow how this goes. Please get back
to me if you can somehow securethe rights to Biblemen, Let's please fucking
(49:52):
do this next year. Oh dude. If I can secure the rights to
Bible Man, I'm not living downhere anymore. I'm leaving. I'm making
a big baby. You're gonna golive in Joe Olstein's Christian mansion in Houston.
Jesus Christ, Hey, at leastI open the fucking doors if there's
a flood. That's right. Devinis way better of a human than mister
(50:12):
Olstein. Fight me. Jim Varneywon a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer
in a Children's Series for Hey,vern, It's Ernest, because that was
a television series. Oh wow,it was very good. He also was
nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award fora Fucking Worst New Star for Ernest Goes
to Camp, which he did notwin, because he is better than that,
(50:37):
and you know it. Well,that's what's so interesting to me is
that, like, it's such abeloved thing. I would have thought that
it would have been shitted on,just because it's, like, like I
said, on the surface, it'seasy to be like, oh, it's
one of these, but then wheneveryou actually do take time to analy so
(51:00):
it's like, Okay, I'm actuallyimpressed. Yeah, dude. The Earnest
character is very well loved by somany people, and it's because he's he's
just an everyman, you know,like we've we've mentioned various times throughout this
podcast episode. He was created asa National Products character. He's advertised for
(51:27):
the Coca Cola company, checks,Taco John's, he's done shit for God,
for car dealerships, He's doing allkinds of stuff, dude. But
anyway, Yeah, that's that's ErnestSaves Christmas again. I would love to
visit more of these, considering thefact that this was your first. God
(51:49):
damn, I want to do moreof them. Yeah, I'm down.
It'd be fun to do like anactual like an earn it, not like
a whole month of it, butit would be fun to like maybe like
every every month, every other month, do one of his movies, like
in Succession, you know what I'msaying, Like just just to revisit the
character really that or a ranking episode. Yeah, that would be a lot
(52:09):
of fun. We'd be sitting downand doing them all. But I really
feel like the one's worth like sittinghere on this they're all worth sitting here
and talking about. But for surethe front four originals, like from Disney,
like what would be fun to sitwith and just bullshit on you could
listen to past, president and futureepisodes of the show by visiting super Media
(52:30):
Bros. Podcast dot com. Youcan leave us a rating or review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Good Pods, and Podchaser. You can subscribe to
us on YouTube. That's the thing. Go to YouTube and subscribe to us,
leave a leave a comment on Spotifyor YouTube. If you're listening to
us, they're just just go downand scroll and tell us what you thought
about Ernest, or what you thinkabout Ernest. What's your favorite Arniest movie?
(52:50):
Fucking tell us, is there anArnest movie you'd specifically like us to
talk about? Talk to us?Yeah, yeah, well I fucking believe
it. That wraps up an entireyear. Thank you guys for hanging out
with us for the entirety of twentytwenty three. We will be back in
twenty twenty four with a bunch ofbullshit for you motherfuckers. Thank you guys
(53:14):
for listening to this episode. Thishas been Earnest Saves Christmas. We'll be
back in twenty twenty four, butuntil then, I'm Richie Shades On
Supermedia Bros. Podcast is a foundingmember of the Odd Pods Media Network.
(00:27):
Welcome to the super Media Bros.Podcast, where two best friends give comedically
informative takes on movies, music,pro wrestling, and more. I'm Richie
and this is Cult Cinema Saturday,Episode three hundred and six for Santa Media
Bros. Twenty twenty three. MaryMotherfucking Christmas. It is a Christmas where
Chrimmas. It is a Christmas Dayrelease, which we do every year.
(00:47):
So if this is your first timehaving Santa Media Bros. We traditionally will
release our last episode of the yearon Christmas Day, So this is our
gift to you in the form ofErnest Saves Christmas from nineteen eighty eight.
And anybody out there that doesn't knowwho Ernest is. I it's hard to
(01:08):
imagine anybody that doesn't know who Ernestis two hours ago, but that's what
I was getting at. It's it'shard to believe, but this was Devin's
first Earnest movie, which a lotof people, I believe their first Earnest
movie is either Ernest Ghost to Campor Earnest Scared Stupid. My first Earnest
(01:29):
movie was actually Ernest Ghost to Jail, which is the one that you remembered
seeing pieces of like forever ago,and not even pieces. Dude, like
one of my buddy's dad had mentionedit, Oh you gotta watch these you
love it, blah blah blah blahblah. And I was a kid and
I found it on YouTube, likegod, it had to been like a
(01:51):
decade and a half ago, maybeeven longer, and I watched, like,
I don't even know how much ofit genuinely. The last thing that
I remember was he rode up thewall on a vacuum or something like some
kind of office. I think itwas a like a floor buffer. Yeah,
that's what it was. Yes,And I don't remember the circumstances,
(02:15):
but basically it was like, allright, it's time to go, come
on, come on, we're gonnabe like to whatever it was. So
I was like okay, and Ijust never got around to rewatching it,
so i'd only watch what would yousay, like five minutes. Yeah,
and that was in the very beginning, because that was Ernest Ghost to Jail.
He's a janitor at a bank andhe's wanting to become a bank clerk.
So does he have a different jobin every movie pretty much, but
(02:38):
for the most part. Okay,So in Ernest's Goes to Camp, I
promise we're gonna get to Ernest SavesChristmas in Ernest Goes to Camp like he
was a bus driver and he wantedto be a camp counselor. That was
his whole thing. He wanted tobe a camp counselor. In Ernest Saves
Christmas, he's a taxi driver.And this one doesn't necessarily have like,
hey, I have a goal thatI'm trying to reach. Necessarily, Ernest
(03:00):
goes to jail. He wants tobe a bank clerk. Ernest scared stupid.
He is a sanitation worker. SoJim Varney portraying Ernest in these films,
and you see this as the filmsprogress, He's typically a janitor or
a truck driver of some sort,which I think is great because the character
of Ernest is portrayed as an everyman. He's kind of a knucklehead. He's
(03:23):
kind of dim witted, but he'slike very much I mean well type of
character, and he's very friendly,very pure of heart, dumb of ass,
you know what I'm saying. Likethat's kind of his stick and it's
funny. The earlier Ernest films,including Ernest SAPs Christmas, were all done
via Touchdown Pictures, so Disney hadthe distribution for this. Ernest Scared Stupid
(03:43):
was the last to be done byDisney, and then Ernest Rides Again,
which was the one that had comeout after that, was the last Ernest
film to go to theaters because ittanks so badly. Ernest Saves Christmas,
however, was the highest grossing Ernestfilm. And it's a lot of fun
I got to be honest, It'sprobably the one that I've seen the least
amount of times, but I've seenit many times and I always forget just
(04:10):
how well done it is as faras for this character and for the subject
matter. And it's a great familyfilm, honestly, like and there are
like I tried to explain this toyou. Jim Varney has done a variety
of roles over the course of hislife before was passing in two thousand,
(04:30):
but Ernest is probably his most verywell known character just as a character.
He started out doing commercials as thischaracter, and then Ernest SAME's Christmas being
the second Ernest film. It's hardto imagine this character actually like taking a
dip into the direct to video marketbecause he was, honestly such a staple
of the late eighties in the veryearly nineties. What was your impression,
(04:55):
Like, honestly, like, Iknow that again, this was like your
first time watching the character, whichI don't know anybody who's actually seen this
one as their first earnest movie.Typically not a lot of people have well,
I mean, look at the agedifferent so but honestly, so there
were a lot of questions that Ihad in terms of like, oh,
what was this bit like? Butbased off of the reactions in the room
(05:16):
from you and Puck and everybody,it's like, okay, so I recognize
that this is an ongoing thing,and by the end of it, I
was like, it reminded me ofthe first time I ever watched in an
episode of The Animaniac. Because here'sa weird thing too. I watched the
fuck out of Wacko's wish hadn't seenthe show until like it was on Netflix.
(05:42):
I don't know if it was atime or if it was like Freakazoid,
because I remember when Freakazoid was addedto Cartoon Network. It just so
happened that it was on the daysin which I had karate practice. So
I don't remember what the deal waswith the series for ANIMAIAX, but it's
like the first time I watched anepisode of that, I was in college,
and I was like, huh.Within the first episode you realize this
(06:06):
is an ongoing joke even though it'syour first time seeing it. It just
had that like, I don't knowhow to describe it, but you just
felt that where it was like Idon't know if I'm even making sense right
now, No, it makes sense. It's it felt like a live action
cartoon, but in a good waywhere it's like this is just like when
(06:28):
you sit down and it's it's comforting, it's you know what you're getting.
Yeah, And the good part aboutErnest is that you kind of can just
jump in yeah. Yeah, that'swhat I'm trying to say. Yeah,
yeah, because the character is veryI don't like to use the term simple,
but he really is, Like thecharacter Ernest is a very simple character
where you get a read on whohe is, kind of what he's about,
(06:53):
and then you just fall into hismannerisms, you know, and things
like that. Because a lot ofthe jokes now and I love this about
this characters like the more you diveinto him and you watch like Arnist Film
Festival, which contains all of hisadvertisements, he did, you know,
you find all of the Easter eggsthroughout the movie where there's a scene where
(07:15):
he's making pancakes and he's just throwingthem in the air, and I was
I literally didn't even fucking give itaway because I wanted to see your reaction
when they never came down, becauseyou were just like, oh, every
fucking time you eveuld throw one,you were just oh, like, I
know, you were waiting on something. And then he finally, uh,
a little bit later, probably liketwo minutes, two or three minutes later
(07:38):
into the into the scene, finallyholds a plate and they just flop down
in a stack neatly, even thoughlike he was walking around the entire room.
They all fell in place, right, which is the best part it
came from. I want to sayit was like a buttermilk ad that he
was doing where he was making pancakesand he does that, he throws them
(07:59):
in the air and then he holdsthe play it out and they flop one
at the time back on to theplate. Like I said, there's a
ton of Easter eggs for longtime fans. But again, you can jump right
in. Uh the plot of thisone obviously, uh Orn SAPs Christmas is.
I wouldn't say it's unique. Itdefinitely plays on the trope of like
(08:20):
Santa Claus needs to find his successor, which we've seen in like the Santa
Claus like a few years later whereSanta Claus and you gotta you gotta find
a new Santa Claus. But italso has the trope of, ah,
this guy thinks he's Santa Claus,blah blahlah. You know what I mean.
Like that it was it was actuallykind of clever. In fact,
(08:41):
I'm I'm kind of glad that we'retouching on that because that was the other
thing too, is you had mentionedhow simple Earnest is in everything. Honestly,
Like, the more you watch it, the more you're like, he's
not dumb, he's he's naive,he he's touch of the tism. Maybe
I'm not sure, but there's somethingabout him where it's like, this is
(09:05):
the dumbest motherfucker in the room,and yet he's always right. He's not
book smart, but he's very likecommon say, like some of the common
sense is there. It's very weirdthe way he works as a character,
because there's spots where you're thinking,is he just not showing his whole deck
(09:26):
of cards as far as like that'swhere I kept thinking, Yeah, like
where he's he's definitely dim witted,right right, but he ain't stupid.
No, No, it's dude.It's almost like watching how Forrest Gump interacted
with things where you knew that hewasn't as quick witted, but somehow he
(09:46):
always came out on top. Butit's like this was a more almost a
parody of that, even though thiscame before that movie, if I'm not
mistaken, Oh yeah, nineteen eightyeight. Gump didn't come out until the
nine ninety same year as a mask, so whatever that was. Anyway,
what an interesting character for some thaton the surface seemed so not even juvenile,
(10:11):
just straight up churlish. Yeah,And I could see how a lot
of people would think that. ButI mean, he is a kid friendly
character for sure. Yeah. Butwhat I was kind of conveying to you
earlier when we were watching it isthat he's not full blown let's hide the
humor for the adults in the room. It's very subtle, like some of
the like like whenever he was saying, what we have here is a failure
(10:33):
and you were just waiting on tocommunicate when he was saying, what we
have here is a failure to accumulate, and I was like, this is
great, like right, because Iwell, what it was was I didn't
expect the quote to actually be finishedor even punned or anything like that.
I thought that my just naturally addmind was just like filling in the gap.
(10:56):
But it's like, oh, stopit. He's not doing a fucking
he's not doing it. And thenhe does the thing and it's like,
oh shit, okay. Yeah.And when I say adult humor, I
don't mean like adult sexual or crude. I mean adult as in like a
child. Yeah, a child isnot going to be like a child's gonna
laugh because he said the wrong word. We are going to laugh because ah,
(11:18):
yes, he said a wrong word, but he made a punt.
And also the statement was having todo with him not accumulating the fucking money
he was over cabrity, So itwas pretty goddamn hilarious. So to jump
him. Santa Claus arrives in Florida, Orlando, and Ernest is a taxicab
driver, which the opening scene ishilarious whenever he's driving that one guy around
(11:41):
trying to get him to the airport, which I think was a great introduction
to this guy for you. Yeah, because within like ten seconds, I'm
like, Okay, I think Iget it. I mean, we ended
up finding out that there's a lotmore to it than just oh, he's
kind of dumb. But I waslike, Okay, I at least understand
his gimmick, right, And Iwas conveying, Hey, pay attention to
(12:07):
the camera angles because the camera anglesare such a big part of this character's
humor. How Like they shoot himfrom underneath sometimes, or they shoot him
at like a Dutch angle where he'sleaned in and there's some shadow on his
face when he's doing some stupid likecharacter work later on. But like that
really lends itself to the delivery onthe funny Like when he's driving, he
(12:28):
often is shot from like backwards andhe's turned around, not watching the road,
and he fucking waves in and outof traffic so hard that the passenger
in the back seat flies out thecar door and he's frozen literally frozen in
fear because of Ernest's driving, andso that's when we get the humor of
this guy is just like frozen solidbasically all the way to the airport.
(12:50):
Goddamn. Like, Ernest pisses somany people off at this airport when he
pulls up, like he fucks thisdude's bags up. He he pisses off
some people that he runs their bagsover and they chase him out of the
airport. Meanwhile, the man claimingwhich he is Santa Claus, like Santa
Claus is giving some groundwork to thefact that he's forgetful. He's reaching an
(13:11):
older age. He needs to finda successor enter he needs a cab ride.
Ernest is trying to get the hellout of Dodge quite literally, and
he's like, yeah, I'm yourtaxi, and he's looking like throws some
and he's like a haul's ass ofhim and it's pretty great actually, and
we won't bore you to death withdetails, but he tries. He does
(13:33):
convince Ernest almost that he's really him. It's not until he like actually finds
his magic sack later. But healso comes across a young lady named Harmony
Starr who is kind of a conor. She's a teenage she's a runaway,
she's kind of a con artist.She's kind of a dick to any and
everybody. She's gonna rip him off. She's gotta like two face the shit
(13:56):
out of him. It's like,all right, he've got I really mean,
well, bucklehead bitch, teenager,runaway, potentially senile old man in
a cab. This joke rights itself. I'm sorry. Right anyway, Santa
Claus is trying to find a mannamed Joe who is a children's museum worker,
(14:18):
and apparently, through a shit tonof trial and error, he's found
Hey, this is the guy thatI need to take over because Sanna's one
hundred and fifty one years old.But like Shenanigans later is like he shows
up, people think he's crazy thetalent agent. That's not the kids.
(14:39):
Well no, no, no,of course not the kids. They know.
Well that's the thing. That's onesubtle joke about it that I really
enjoyed is that all of the kidsrecognize him right off the bat. And
also like before I forget you hadbrought up the Dutch Angles and everything like
that, and all the close ups. It's so weird. I can't explain
why. But for some reason,I don't know if it's like the foggy
(15:03):
memory of being a child, butold commercials, like old vintage commercials,
when they did that shit like forvideo games for example. I know that
that was extremely popular in the ninetiesto do all those wild, really erratic
commercials. It gives like all handcampretty much. Yes, it would always
(15:24):
give me a headache. I can'texplain why. Same even though that this
is a cartoon so it doesn't dothat. Rocky and Bullwinkle would give me
a headache as a kid too,Yeah, because it was kind of I
get. I can get that.Like it it was weird because like as
a child, you don't want tobe bored. But then that was almost
(15:45):
too rapid fire. But for somereason, even to this day, if
I watch any of those things,I still get a headache. For some
reason, Ernest Saves Christmas didn't botherme. Maybe it's because a actually did
have pacing in it like that.Dude. The more I'm thinking about this
movie, the more I'm like,huh, look at that. It ain't
(16:07):
bad. No, Like, becauseyou think about some of the gags and
it's like Okay, some of thesegags are advanced, but then some of
them, it's like, this isthe dumbest shit. This is like watching
good Burger or something, and andthe best way, like the best aspect
of good Burger is how fucking stupidthe humor is, honestly, but it's
like the more you sit back andjust analyze it from a filmmaking and it's
(16:33):
just I'm hearing myself speak on itand it's weird. But the filmmaking artistry
to this shit, I'm like,y'all actually knew what y'all were doing.
Yeah, And that's that's the funpart about Ernest is that it comes and
I think that encompasses like the characteras well as the filmmaking. The character
comes off and the movie is supposedto come off pretty fucking dumb. Yeah,
(16:57):
like legitimately, like this dude's studit, but it's really fucking not.
Like that is a very thinly veiledcurtain in front of what is actually
very well thought out it is.And that's what's so weird is because like
you know, I'm not trying tosound like a hipster or anything, but
I feel like if you tried tomake this same movie today. Without it
(17:18):
being a pre existing ip, theyjust had this script collecting dust. They
wouldn't have made it this well thoughtout. It would have been solely slapstick.
It would have been slapstick or vulgar, one of the two, like,
because they wouldn't be able to finda good middle ground because Ernest is
not a vulgar character. However,Jim Varney is a good physical comedian when
(17:42):
when it was called upon, hewas really good at it. But he
was also very fucking quick witted andfunny. Sometimes he improved. I was
about to ask how much of thatwas improv because like he strikes me as
an improv actor, not most ofit. With Ernest, there are sayings
(18:03):
and things like where he spends somuch time as this character, you know
what I mean? Likes somebody whospends so much time as a character,
like Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, forinstance, or Tony Stark. You know,
Robert Johnny Junior playing Tony Stark.You spend so much time as a
character. Bruce Campbell is ash youjust kind of you know that character and
(18:26):
you're just like, uh, JimMartin's like Ernest would or would not say
this or yeah, Ernest would orwould not do this particular thing for this
other particular character or whatever. Buthe's a good character actor also, which
comes into play a few times inthis movie, which again goes back to
the whole conversation we were having abouthe ain't dumb. No, No,
(18:48):
So Santa Claus winds up because ofJoe's talent agent, who I'm I need
to point out. I could nevertell and I know you saw this shit.
I could never tell which direction thisman was looking because his one eye
was looking at us the viewer bya complete fucking mistake, and and the
other eye was eyeballing the actor inquestion. He was speaking directly across from
(19:11):
Could you tell that on the oldVHS? No? Because the quality was
so fucking I was wondering this wholetime. I was like, could people
tell back then? No? Hewas probably actually like counting on the the
low pixelation to hide that. Moderntechnology fucked my man's up big time.
(19:33):
Modern problems. Modern problems require modernsolutions. In poor bastard, my fucking
god, he was both looking athis current talent and looking for a new
talent at the same fucking dick face. Though that guy was like chowed fucking
(19:56):
couldn't stand him. Now, werethese uh occurring characters? No, No,
Marty Brocken Joe are definitely not reoccurringcharacters. So it's just Earnest and
the two uh baggage claimed dudes.Yes, oh, Chuck and Bobby.
Yeah, yeah, so Chuck andBobby. Chuck only appears like in three
(20:18):
Artist films, but Bobby has beenin five or six of them, okay,
and then Vern is also a recurringcharacter, right, Well, I
didn't want to I didn't want tocount that because you had told me off
the air that you never see him. He's still a character though. That's
the thing. Yes, that's likeyou you like like and I say you
like the audience. The audience ishaving to be Vern because we all have
(20:45):
had somebody like Earnest in our lives. When he comes in the house and
he's still deal with that, it'sgreat. Uh, we'll get to Vern
in a minute. But like wewe've all we've all known somebody like Ernest
and we've all been Vern at somepoint, which is kind of the the
gag of it all. But SantaClaus, because of Joe's piece of shit
(21:07):
agent gets fucking arrested because they're like, hey, this guy thinks he's Santa
Claus put him in jail because whythe fuck not? Like, really is
that? Is that our answer?And then whenever Ernest later says Santa's in
the Slammers, Santa got busted,just those lines alone, I'm like,
(21:29):
the fuck am I watching the waythat he looks off and has it all
you know what I'm saying that offstair for a minute, he's like,
oh, like he's got a thing. For a minute he's like, oh,
I got a new And this iswhere it gets interesting. Ernest goes
through I want to say, I'veseen many of his films. This I
think is one of them where hedoes the most. It's only outdone by
(21:53):
Ernest scared stupid in this regard,which I would love to watch with you
for Halloween next year. So Ernestposes as a state government official like assistant
to bust Stanta out of prison orjail, and Harmony is playing like the
(22:15):
governor's niece who is in a programto learn about all this shit. And
somehow it works because Jim Varney justdisappears into literally whatever he chooses to be,
whether it is this character or asnake wrangler, like a very hick
snake wrangler, or literally an oldlady in a walker with humongous bowling ball
(22:40):
titties. And I met Grace andit's funny as fuck it. I hate
to admit it, but the oldlady one would have got me because he
was good at it. Yeah,like I would have believed it. That's
how good Jim Varney was, though, Dude. So like he rolls in
there and they get Santa Claus outof this bitch, right, he goes
again, like as the old ladygoes again, like to do some fuck
(23:08):
shit, and I'm dying the wholetime because it's like we hit this stride
in the movie where it's one ofthese after the other, the way that
he's trying to get Joe and SantaClaus in the same room together, because
Joe only ever heard part of Santo'spitched to him at the Children's Museum before
(23:30):
he got busted and arrested, whichthey improperly referred to him as Santo's because
they can't ever let him just fuckingfinish his sentence. Dude, that was
one of those stupid jokes that Ikept giggling at because I was like,
that's actually, yeah, that's kindof clever. I like that, and
it's something that would probably really happen, absolutely it would have. I think
(23:52):
that's why I enjoyed it, becauseI was like, huh, they're doing
so many things I wouldn't have thoughtof, but is still staring right blankly
at you and along with all thatstuff, which I loved your interpretation,
the way that you talked about thisas a whole. I think within the
(24:14):
first fifteen minutes you were just like, I get it. It's kind of
like a little bit of like liveaction looney Tune gags. Yeah, smartly
though it's it's kind of what theydo. I mean, there's the whole
sequence where the dock workers are offloadingthe boxes from the plane and Bobby gets
squished underneath one of the boxes,and fucking Chuck is just like breaks over
squish, and then later you seehim still stuck to the box being transported
(24:37):
across the airport runway. It's fuckingfunny. Right next thing, you know,
somebody's gonna like bust through a walland like have a fucking full ass
like cutout outline of them, Likeyou know what I'm saying so eh,
So Ernest is trying to get Joeand Santa in the same room, which
is Joe is you can tell thathe has done like this children roll his
(25:00):
home life. So when his agenttries to get him into a like a
horror movie, which you don't knowit's a horror movie until later on,
he can't say the lion, sonof a bitch because he's he's too pure
of a person, which you knowthat's why Santa Claus is choosing him.
So he he gets him onto thefilm property by being a snake rancher.
(25:22):
Jesus Christ, dude. It isthe funniest thing where you're like, hey,
get all not enough and toushed itin there like he's I'm talking like
Jim Varney is just a filthy,fucking vagrant looking guy in this sea,
like he's got suspenders, a fuckedup hat, like somehow he randomly was
missing a tooth. I don't knowhow he pulled that off. He blacked
(25:47):
out that tooth. Is that whathe did? Okay, yeah, yeah,
he would do that quite often.Actually, Like when he would do
that kind of shit, he wouldjust black the tooth out and just like
what I've seen this done, butI've never seen the act of it happening,
Like how do they do It's liketoxic free makeup. Okay, like
it's it's not shiny, it's verymatted that way. It looks like,
(26:10):
Yeah, that's why I was alwayswondering how that worked. Okay, yeah,
that's it's a thing. Huh.So basically that's why he's trying to
get him in there, and whichis funny because like the uh, once
he does get him in there,he winds up actually having real snakes dumped
in the back of his truck andhe's just like like he's flipped out.
(26:30):
But Joe is having second thoughts throughoutthe entirety of this movie, where he's
just like, I don't know ifI want to do like not the Sanda
thing, but like, you know, pursuing like a real acting career.
Because I forgot to mention that histelevision show as the you know, the
children's host, is canceled, sohe's got to get another job, and
(26:51):
that's what this is. But he'she's been having conflict about taking on the
role of being the new Santa,and meanwhile, while all this is happening,
harmony is wrestling with her own kindof bullshit, Like her parents didn't
notice her because they were too wrappedup in their own drama and bullshit.
She ran away. She's kind oflike a not a delinquent, but like
(27:14):
you can tell that she's she's hurtingman and that, and she's acting out
about like fuck this, I'm gonnaleave and I'm gonna I'm gonna steal send
a sack with all his fucking magictoys in it, and shit, even
though I don't believe in him,I'm gonna fucking steal this entire sack with
magic in it. That's what That'sthe only thing about this movie I think.
I was just like, Okay,you don't believe, but you're gonna
pull all this would be wishing formoney out of this fucking sack, right,
(27:40):
Like, even if it's not workingfor you, it's still like,
Okay, well, how many itemsdo you have to see transformed from a
glowing orb into an item that wasnot originally in Like that alone should have
you off. Also, like isit me? Or like whenever she was
(28:03):
about to board to go to Miamiand she was talking to those kids and
everything, it would have been niceif like in that moment she pulled out
the correct item and gave it tothe little girl that or she pulled out
the item that she originally wished.I kept thinking about it. The baseball
mittn't right because there is at onepoint Santa Claus like kind of out loud
(28:27):
points out to her the reason shequote doesn't believe anymore is because he brought
her a doll instead of a baseballglove. That was a I expected that
to happen at the end. Iwas surprised it didn't. Yeah, now
that I've gone back and rewatched itagain, yeah, I'm surprised at that
shit too. I wonder if itwas in the original script that they just
(28:47):
cut it out for time restraints.Man, I don't know. This was
an hour and thirty five minute film. Yeah, like it was. Most
comedies back then weren't particularly long.I mean, true enough. Hey,
I'm Hansel Sarin from the bfytw podcasthere with my buddy Stevie Hey was up
and Aggie Hey, and we're hereto first of all, categorically deny the
(29:08):
rumors going around that all we've beendoing lately is copying other podcasts. This
is categorically untrue, and we denyit completely. Having said that, please
enjoy the rest of the super MediaBrothers podcast, and when you're done with
that, feel free to check outour new project, Ultra Telecommunication Siblings,
a show where best friends given formativelycomedic takes on music, gaming, pro
(29:30):
wrestling, movies, and more.Pretty sure that's never been done before.
I think this is where we comeacross the Helper Elves, which is a
funny running gag with doc workers becausereally, yeah, because Chuck and Bobby
were sitting there the whole time beinglike MV oh, I thought you meant
(29:52):
the Elves come and go throughout theseries. Oh no, I'm talking about
So that says that's a V yeahv m V nah No right that right,
there is an m Helper Elms.And I'm like, I'm gonna say,
like, fucking face Pond, like, motherfucker dude, literate sons of
(30:14):
bitches, man, he is theilliterate son of a bitch, Like god
damn, how do you mistake thetwo when the older guy is right,
yeah, I don't mean it like, oh he's older, has more experiences,
No, Bobby, Bobby old asfuck to my guy, Bobby had
a great dropped on him. Shouldhave fucking stroked out underneath that bitch,
But he's sitting there, v heprobably did have a stroke. How many
(30:37):
like coherent sentences did he say?That's the thing about Bobby, though.
Bobby's character rarely speaks in any ofthese movies, which makes it funnier when
he does, because typically if hedoes speak, it's something like no,
it's so he's erb pretty much.Okay, okay, good a good one
there. That's that's very good actually, But anyway, the elves fucking actually
(31:00):
show up at some point which thereindeer have all come out of the crate
and are stuck to the ceiling.Bruh. It just dawned on me now
that I've brought up Phineas and ferband everything, and we brought up as
we were watching it several different thingsthroughout this movie that oh, that reminds
(31:21):
me of this or that or whatever. My guy, hey, hear me
out the earnest movies Watching this andpondering it after the fact is like the
first time I watched The Godfather andI was just kind of like, oh,
that's where they got this technique from, or that's where this story beat
(31:41):
came from. Oh that's where thisquote. What it so much makes sense?
Weirdly enough, No, I meanFreido, dude, even that,
I was like, Oh, there'sa guy I work with every five seconds
say that when he's talking to you. And I just thought that this man
(32:04):
was slow. I just thought hewas kind of because he's old as balls,
so I just thought he was senileand oldest ball. Well, dude,
the thing is is like we makeme and some of the younger ones
are like, dude, he's likea fucking doll. You pull the string
and he's got like five sayings andit's on repeat the whole time. He's
(32:25):
fucking with us. I'm starting toget it now. He's a fucking god.
Damn it. He done figured himout. He done figured him out.
Fuck, it's so wild right.The Earnest Movie, sir, huh,
so weird. I love how muchyou're just having like a pre midlife
(32:47):
crisis crisis across from me. Oh, we're Earnest and just making some realizations
about people in IRL. You knowwhat I'm saying in real life and in
film, Like I'm just like Isaid, I'm I'm realizing Oh so this
is like, like I said,the Godfather to all these different plotlines or
gags or anything. Yeah, anyway, huh yeah, so weird. Yeah,
(33:15):
but the reindeer come out. Theelves fucking shove up. Ernest has
busted this man out of prison.Joe has the realization on set, which
Santa Claus visits, by the way, the movie set whenever he cannot bring
himself to cuss on set when he'sabout to shoot this swamp thing looking fuck
that busts into the room on thatmovie set. Oh, that was old
(33:36):
Greg. And you know it,it was old Greg. He'd done had
a downstairs mix up and everything.He was busting up in that fucking house
looking at Joe. He ever drinkBailey's from a shit, It's like,
bitch, but uh. Santa Clausbusts the fucking director in the face for
making a movie called Christmas Sleigh,which I want to say I actually made
(33:57):
a joke about doing a movie calledChristmas Slag a couple of episodes ago.
However, after punching him, Iwas like, god damn. They're in
an office later discussing signing Joe toa deal for a few of these movies
bro that that director had a bigold fucking shiner from that dude. Oh
(34:20):
yeah, Like I'm talking like SantaClaus, like I beat that ship out
of him. It looked like hefucking beat his He punched him once.
Look, he whooped his ass ina fucking UFC fight or something. Got
the coldflower ears. He fucking didfucking Santa just fall on the ground.
Goddamn beat his ass. Anyway,he has a change of heart completely like
(34:44):
Joe almost just he wants to believe. But he's like, I don't know
if I do believe until he seesErnest, who is taking the reindeer with
the elves and he's flying the sleighbecause he's like, I gotta fucking get
this to Santa Claus somehow, becauseI thenbusted my fucking tires on this rider
truck that I was driving, becausewhy not. So Josie's Ernest flying this
(35:08):
bitch and he's like, oh,well, I guess it's real. You
know. I was like, Ihe didn't say it like that, because
it would have been pretty fucking funny, feel like, well, I guess
it's real, and just fucking likeleaves like fuck this. But he pretty
much is just like, yeah,fuck this, I'm out of here,
and god damn it, man,there's a lot of Ernest flying the sled
(35:28):
around a lot, Like I'm talking, this fucker goes to outer space in
this bitch. Yeah. The thinkingabout it now, I'm like, how
much of this budget was dedicated tothese sequences? Or they got a proof
for the budget and they were like, well, shit, now we gotta
make it happen. What do youthink the budget for this was? That's
the question. Okay, so itwas eighty eight. Yeah. The movie
(35:52):
did come out for those of youout there, November eleventh, nineteen eighty
eight. So this is a fuckingold movie. This is like a third
six year old film about So forme to better at answer that, how
big of an ip was this atthe time, I wouldn't say that it
(36:12):
was the biggest ip, but itwas put it to you this way.
The ip was well known enough thatthis is the second earnest film, fair
enough. That's what I'm trying tofigure out. Six six and a half
yeah, six, okay, yeah, Because the budget was six and a
half and it grossed twenty eight pointtwo nineteen eighty eight, that's good.
(36:35):
Number. No it is. I'mjust like, wow, okay, yeah,
and I feel like that's partly todo with it's a holiday film.
Most people are going to see holidaymovies anyway, and shit, but what
was a release date? November eleventh? Okay, because good choice because normally
so many of these holiday movies,whether it's Halloween, Easter, Christmas,
(36:58):
they always want to release it onthe day. And I'm like, okay,
I as a human being, don'twant to see a Christmas movie on
the twenty sixth. If you releaseit on the twenty fifth, nine out
of ten times, the day afterthe release, it's obsolete. So good
(37:19):
job. Yeah, you see thatso often though. I understand the appealing
marketing strategy, but in hindsight,it's like this doesn't work. No,
in this one did, right.Yeah. So Harmony we mentioned a little
bit earlier, is at a trainstation to leave for Miami, where she's
(37:44):
she's been wanting to just completely runaway. She has deceived Ernest, who
doesn't he likes her, he doesn'tfully trust her. By the time it
comes around that she's swapped the magicsack with a sack full of feathers.
Santa Claus keeps coming up short oneverything. She finally has a change of
heart after seeing these children, youknow, at the train station, and
(38:07):
we're just like, oh, whatis she gonna do? Finally, Joe
and Santa Claus meat and he transfersthe power over to him. She shows
up and she's apologizing to Santa likelike having a whole ass like a moment
where she's crying and shit, she'slike, I even called my mom.
I'm gonna go home. Ernest finallylike after his God, how long would
(38:28):
you say that slate bit happened?Like, well, maybe like five six
minutes. Yeah, it was apretty pretty well dedicated amount of time to
it, which is pretty funny though, because it's a lot of camera trickery
and a lot of like simple computergenerated imagery back then, and a lot
of humor because it's mostly like it'smostly Ernest, I need to pull like
(38:52):
they're they're like pull the brakes ordon't touch that. And the poor bastard
just can't catch a fucking break foranything except for breaking all the goddamn handles
off of the control panel. Theson of a bitch that pour some of
a bitch just it's out of heis out of control. My guy is
completely out of control, out ofspace, dive bombing, fuck man.
(39:17):
But I love the line delivery.Whenever he's he's pretty much like what a
fucking like a ninety degree hangle,like straight up in the goddamn areage,
going straight down. Yeah, andthey stopped right before they hit the ground.
He just like breaks the four Whichthat's another like of running arnest gag
is that he breaks the fourth wallquite often in these movies. He just
looks at the audience just like airbrakes, like you stupid. Fuck I
(39:42):
love you, dude. That's thething, though, is we keep saying
stupid. But it was the onethat knew that old girl was gonna steal
the fucking sack. He knew likeall the ways to get in and out
of these scenarios. Really everybody elseis a dumb one. That's very true.
Santa Claus, his magic had stillgot put in fucking prison prison.
(40:02):
But also look at all the timesthat he was incorrect about his judgment calls.
Well, he he does mention andI'm only slightly defending that like he's
old, Like he's even admitting likehe's like, fuck, I have to
take notes for certain shit, I'mgetting children's gifts wrong because at one point
when he's trying to pay Ernest forthe cab, right, he's got play
(40:22):
money, but he's just like,oh, last year, this kid wanted
like it's literally the name of themoney. Like he's like he wanted this
fun time playhouse thing with play money. I must have mixed my actual money
up with this, and I'm thinking, bro, parents are doing ballin'.
That would have been such a goodlittle Easter egg. Side gag is if
(40:45):
later on in the movie, afterhe said the kid's name, you see
this giant billboard of the whole familylike just rich as fuck. Yeah,
like their pool side. There's likefour or five cars in the in the
like U turn or something like havea horseshoe drive y, Like little things
like that would have been great.And you know what's even more fucked up.
(41:05):
I know it's like a little bitof a side tangent, but why
not It would be funny about thatis that not only is it Santa Clauses
money, but it's it's Santa clausIs money. You think that money ain't
magic and just keeps multiplying. Where'she getting money from? In the first
place. Well, that's the thingtoo, is like it always blows my
mind in these movies. This isa cliche in this movie, Elf,
(41:31):
basically every movie in which Santa Clausis a real character but none of the
adults believe in him. I alwaysstop and go, where do you think
these gifts that you didn't purchase camefrom? And it's often a shitload of
them. Yeah, like I Idon't understand that trope? You got me?
(41:55):
We get the happy ending where Joe'slike he accepts his role. Oh,
and he makes it snow because atthe very beginning seth Applegate, who
was the original Santa Claus, showedup at the airport in the beginning of
the film and the man that hewas speaking to was just like, I
wish it would snow in Orlando.It would feel like a real Christmas back
at home. And it's like,ah, yeah, that that might be
(42:17):
a fucking thing that they make itsnow, or he makes it snow and
he takes Harmony and Earnest on thesleigh ride with him. However, we
go back to the dockworkers and they'rehaving another content market just like that.
That's an e and it's like atthis time, he's right, this time
(42:39):
the time that Chuck is right.Yeah, and it's the fucking Easter bunny,
dude. And there's a couple ofgags that they end on a gag,
but there's a gag earlier in themovie where the reindeer foot kicks out
of the box and then Chuck letsthis screech out, like a long screech,
and then Bobby, without blinking,without changing his face, is hot,
(43:00):
is right there and ready with afire singuisher, and he just hear
sh. I just want to knowwhat did he think was gonna come out
of there that required a fire extinguisher. I don't know, but it's pretty
fucking funny if you think about it. It's like, I don't know,
whatever the whatever this is, Idon't give a shit. It's getting the
fucking fire extinguisher. His stupid motherfucker, you know, dude. He's like,
(43:25):
because he's so old, he's justlike, like, I I feel
like Bobby's internal monologue sounds something likeboom Hower. Yes, Like for real,
dude, he just said, dangRain, You're about to get this
motherfucker fire extinguisher. God damn,dude, that's so fucking accurate, you
know what. This whole movie feelslike, Yeah, everybody in here seems
(43:47):
like side characters, Isn't it amazing? Though, Like, because you could
really say that, Hey, themain character in this movie Santa Claus are
like, the main character is Joe. The main character is is They all
have an arc. They really do, And I think that's fascinating because more
often than not, that's typically thecase with an Earnest film, only with
(44:09):
like the first, this one andScared Stupid, there's a lot more focus
on Ernest himself and many of theother ones. But I like, I
think that's a reason why I evenErnest goes to jail is some kind of
way with that, and I thinkthat's a big reason why I enjoy the
(44:32):
first four. But that was theend of Ernest safes Christmas, where Santa
Claus takes off at seven PM,which they were trying to get to is
fucking deadline, you know, todeliver all the gifts on Christmas, and
it ends with the dock workers withthe Easter Bunny. But I really feel
like that was the magic of thefirst four, and not long after Ernest
(44:54):
rides again. I think we onlygot fuck, I think we only got
like four more Ernest film films.I want to say they were there.
I think they were like nine maybemaybe altogether. I'm looking this up because
I don't want to be wrong,because Ernest had like quite a bit,
because like in our video store,we had every goddamn Ernest movie that ever
came out. Okay, so thereare nine if you go in order,
(45:19):
it goes to Camp, Saves Christmas, goes to Jail, Scared Stupid,
and then Rides Again, which werethe theatrical release. Is now the direct
videos where Ernest goes to school,Slam Dug Ernest, which is with Kareem.
That one's kind of fun. It'swith Kareemo, Juel Jabbar, Ernest
goes to Africa and No for Real, and Ernest in the Army. Ernest
(45:40):
in the Army was the very lastErnest film, and it's kind of sad
because Ernest as the character was alwaysa very physically demanding role for Jim,
and he died of lung cancer.Oh fun, Yeah, Jim. That
was a very heavy smoker, likebig time dude. In fact, if
(46:04):
you listen to him talk normally,very deep, very raspy, voice.
Like the fact that he spoke theway he did as Ernest, you could
tell it was full blown a charactermm and Ernest in the Army had come
out in nineteen ninety eight and hepassed away in two thousand, so he
was still doing all these roles upuntil his death, like still fighting nope,
(46:30):
lung cancer. You say that it'snot surprising that it's a character voice.
To me, it is because keepin mind, what's his other big
role, Slinky, And it's basicallyjust the Ernest's voice. I mean in
a way, yes, but alsoa Jed Klampett from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Yeah, but that's a very vaguememory for me. So like my two
(46:52):
ideas of this actor is more orless the same voice. So I just
assume that's how he talked. Well. Jim was from Kentucky, so he
was definitely Southern. Like he wasabsolutely like a Southern person. He just
like leaned into it so much more. He's been in a slip of other
(47:14):
movies aside from just the ones we'vementioned before. Like, that's kind of
how I want to end it.Like, if anybody out there would like
to check this movie out, itis on Disney Plus, which fantastic.
By the way. Check out Jim'sother roles like legit. He was in
a we reviewed a movie forever agocalled Fast Food where he plays Wrangular Bob
(47:35):
and this is him being like owninga burger chain and it's fucking funny as
shit. Actually like seeing him inthis role he was in that. He
was in Snowboard Academy. A lotof people probably don't remember it, but
it's an older like I say,older by today's standards, it's older.
It's thirty years almost. It's anineteen ninety six movie. It had Corey
(47:57):
Haym in it, one of thetwo Corey's. He was in the fourth
Three Ninjas movie, the one withHull Cocain. Oh shit, Yeah,
he was lother Zog in that movie. And he was also Jebediah in Atlantis
the Lost Empire from two thousand andone. That was his very very last
film role. Wow okay. Andthen he had different roles throughout the nineties.
(48:22):
Well, I mean, he hada lot of roles in like the
fucking eighties and shit, but hedid. And he did a couple of
episodes of Roseanne. He did anepisode of Duckman. He did an episode
of Hercules, The Simpsons and BiblemanJunior. Do you do you remember Bible
Man? Yeah? Like that.Do you remember Bible Man though, right
(48:45):
of course? Yeah? He playedhimself in Yeah? Is it? I
don't want to say good? Butis it what I remembered the original to
be? Only one way to five? Find out tune in next week whenever
you can. I'm jump king.I'm totally know what by now. That
(49:06):
IP has to be in bankruptcy.There's no fucking way that a Bible Man.
There is no goddamn way. Punintended that that motherfucker was smart with
his investments. There's no there's noway. I want to buy the IP
and make my own movie, myguy. The first release of The Bible
(49:30):
Man nineteen ninety five to twenty twenty. So it's dead. I hope,
So okay, I fucking hope,so okay. I will be locating some
email addresses and I will let youknow how this goes. Please get back
to me if you can somehow securethe rights to Biblemen, Let's please fucking
(49:52):
do this next year. Oh dude. If I can secure the rights to
Bible Man, I'm not living downhere anymore. I'm leaving. I'm making
a big baby. You're gonna golive in Joe Olstein's Christian mansion in Houston.
Jesus Christ, Hey, at leastI open the fucking doors if there's
a flood. That's right. Devinis way better of a human than mister
(50:12):
Olstein. Fight me. Jim Varneywon a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer
in a Children's Series for Hey,vern, It's Ernest, because that was
a television series. Oh wow,it was very good. He also was
nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award fora Fucking Worst New Star for Ernest Goes
to Camp, which he did notwin, because he is better than that,
(50:37):
and you know it. Well,that's what's so interesting to me is
that, like, it's such abeloved thing. I would have thought that
it would have been shitted on,just because it's, like, like I
said, on the surface, it'seasy to be like, oh, it's
one of these, but then wheneveryou actually do take time to analy so
(51:00):
it's like, Okay, I'm actuallyimpressed. Yeah, dude. The Earnest
character is very well loved by somany people, and it's because he's he's
just an everyman, you know,like we've we've mentioned various times throughout this
podcast episode. He was created asa National Products character. He's advertised for
(51:27):
the Coca Cola company, checks,Taco John's, he's done shit for God,
for car dealerships, He's doing allkinds of stuff, dude. But
anyway, Yeah, that's that's ErnestSaves Christmas again. I would love to
visit more of these, considering thefact that this was your first. God
(51:49):
damn, I want to do moreof them. Yeah, I'm down.
It'd be fun to do like anactual like an earn it, not like
a whole month of it, butit would be fun to like maybe like
every every month, every other month, do one of his movies, like
in Succession, you know what I'msaying, Like just just to revisit the
character really that or a ranking episode. Yeah, that would be a lot
(52:09):
of fun. We'd be sitting downand doing them all. But I really
feel like the one's worth like sittinghere on this they're all worth sitting here
and talking about. But for surethe front four originals, like from Disney,
like what would be fun to sitwith and just bullshit on you could
listen to past, president and futureepisodes of the show by visiting super Media
(52:30):
Bros. Podcast dot com. Youcan leave us a rating or review on
Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Good Pods, and Podchaser. You can subscribe to
us on YouTube. That's the thing. Go to YouTube and subscribe to us,
leave a leave a comment on Spotifyor YouTube. If you're listening to
us, they're just just go downand scroll and tell us what you thought
about Ernest, or what you thinkabout Ernest. What's your favorite Arniest movie?
(52:50):
Fucking tell us, is there anArnest movie you'd specifically like us to
talk about? Talk to us?Yeah, yeah, well I fucking believe
it. That wraps up an entireyear. Thank you guys for hanging out
with us for the entirety of twentytwenty three. We will be back in
twenty twenty four with a bunch ofbullshit for you motherfuckers. Thank you guys
(53:14):
for listening to this episode. Thishas been Earnest Saves Christmas. We'll be
back in twenty twenty four, butuntil then, I'm Richie Shades On
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