Mad Science: Horny Creations (The Rocky Horror Picture Show & Weird Science)

In this week’s episode of our Mad Science series, we slip into our fishnets and fire up the floppy disks as we delve into the horny world of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Weird Science (1985). From Frank-N-Furter’s glitter-soaked lab to an ‘80s teenage boys pervy fantasy, we explore two more takes on the Frankenstein myth.

Expect cult cinema, born-sexy-yesterday tropes, and a lot of talk about Tim Curry.

Want to watch the classics we’re chatting about on the podcast? Grab your copies of the movies through our affiliate links 🎬

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

• Weird Science (1985)

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Sorry.
Come up to the lab
and see what's on the slab.
I see you shiver with anticipation.
So why would you little maniacslike to do first
patient?

(00:29):
Food.
Hello and welcome back to JourneyThrough Sci Fi, where we journey
through the many subgenresof science fiction on screen.
I'm Matt and I'm James,and in this series,
we're exploring the scifi subgenre of mad science.
And in today's episode, we'll be lookingat The Rocky Horror Picture
Show from 1975and Weird Science from 1985.
Yeah, more Frankenstein stuff.

(00:51):
Frankenstein running through this series, like through a stick of rock, right?
Like we've got Frank-n-furterin Rocky Horror Picture making a man.
And two horny teenage boysmaking making their own bride.
A bride of Frankenstein.
Yeah.
Do you think Mary Shelley everthought these two films would be derived

(01:11):
from her original novelwhen she wrote that?
I think this is exactly what Mary Shelleyhad in mind when she put pen to page.
Yeah, I mean,
there's a lot of differencesin these two films, but they have that
through a thread of itbeing a Frankenstein film and also it's
very heavy on the the sexual stuff,but they're both horny films.

(01:33):
It's horny mad science in today's episode.
Yeah.
If you thought Bride of Frankensteinwas going to be,
let's get stuck in with these onesinstead.
Yeah.
Had you seen either these ones before?
Yeah, I've seen both these before.
I seen them,
I think I probably only seen weird zonesonce in my John Hughes phase.
But I've seen Rocky Horror, loads and loads of times.
And what age do you thinkyou were introduced to both of these?

(01:56):
I think around the same age,I think, and probably the right age,
which is like mid to late teensas a sort of
sexually frustrated teenager.
Yeah.
Watching Rocky Horrorwhen I was kind of doing drama at school,
that sort of age, which is good.
And similarly, it just kind of
made my way through the John Hughes filmswhen I was like between 15 and 18.

(02:16):
Sort of perfect age for John Hughes films.
Yeah, I think I got into John Hughes filmswhen I was a probably 18 plus,
and then Rocky Horrorwas an interesting one
because I had a compilation cassetteand had the Time Warp on it,
and I knew the song,but I had no idea what Rocky Horror was.
And, you know, those little talentcompetitions you do at school?

(02:39):
Yeah. So me, me and my friend Victor.
Were like. Victor.
We were like, oh, the time warp is like athere's a dance to the time warp.
So we worked out a whole routinefor the Time Warp dance,
even though it tellsyou exactly what the routine is.
And we had every intentionof doing this in our school talent

(02:59):
show in primary school. It never happened.
Oh, no.
I think the. Outfits to.
Extreme fit. Yeah, it was the outfits.
I think the teachersprobably had a word with us.
More like like, look, guys,you can't really do the time warp
for this primary school talent competitionbecause.
Yeah, because of reasons.
But, yeah.
So, that was my introductionto Rocky Horror

(03:21):
before I knew what Rocky Horror was.
That's such a shame.
I think kids kids can do the time.
Well, I don't know if kids should watchRocky Horror necessarily, but you can.
You can enjoy the time.You can enjoy the song.
It's got some dance steps,but we'll get into all of that
as we dive into The Rocky HorrorPicture Show
from 1975, in today's episode.
Should we get started onon which their Brian's magnum opus then.

(03:44):
Or magnum opus could work?
Science fiction.
Double feature.
Down at that time is pretty
madness.

(04:04):
Thanks, toll. But.
Not for very much longer.
I've got to keep control.
I remember Richard O'Brien.
I know him,and I think a lot of people in the UK
know him from Crystal maze,like in the 90s and don't explain.

(04:29):
Crystal mazefrom our international listeners.
I don't know, I don't knowif it's got a version in other countries.
I don't know either.
So Crystal maze was a show over herein the UK where people would go on,
there'd be groups of contestantsand they would be
going into different roomsthat be little puzzles.
They had to do that to like try and geta crystal in whatever puzzle it was.

(04:50):
And then at the end,there would be an opportunity
to win loads of money in this kind ofwhat was it like?
Like a ball?
Yeah, a big ball.
Wind machine, a big crystal. Yeah.
And it's like, grab as much moneyas you can.
But it was a big phenomenon over here.
And that's what I always knew.
Richard O'Brienas being like the host of this show.
And then I find out actually,

(05:11):
he wrote, directed and starredin The Rocky Horror Picture Show,
and I think that's an even bigger legacythan Crystal maze.
Yeah, he didn't direct it.
He, he worked with Jim Sharman, whoI think had directed the stage version.
But he wrote all the songsand the book for the play
while he was like a struggling actor,it was just a slow down time

(05:34):
hobby kind of thing for him.
And I think if you watch Rocky Horror,I think it's quite clear that he wrote
the songs first, and a lot of it is piecedtogether plot wise around the songs.
So he's obviouslysort of a musical brained kind of guy.
But he's also like a massive sciencefiction and B horror movie fan, isn't it?
He had this real passionfor for those genres,

(05:57):
and he managed to combine all of thatand a lot of other stuff
into this kind of schlocky,
B-movie esque play, which it began as.
And hehe was like an unemployed actor in London,
had this idea for this show, managed
to turn it into a proper stage show.

(06:19):
I think they were performing
to like 60 people in the Royal CourtTheatre at the start.
So it was really likea really small venue.
And then it got bigger and biggerand bigger, to the point that it managed
to get a theatrical releaseand get adapted to it into a film.
And then Richard O'Brien
was able to have all this creativecontrol, like, I imagine, over the film,

(06:40):
and then it becomes this big cultphenomenon out of all of this stuff.
But very humble beginningsfor this film, right?
Yeah, humble beginnings for the playand humble beginnings for the film,
because it was a bit of a bit of a trainwreck. Yeah, right.
If not too badly.
Yeah, but it was that kind of midnightscreening audience
where it found its feet,which is an amazing bit of marketing.

(07:01):
Like, it just wouldn't happen these days.
Like, you know, noone working at Sony is going to be like,
should we put Madame Webb on at midnightand see how it goes?
But just a great bitof a great bit of marketing say, well,
this has been a disaster.
Why don't we stick it on at midnightin New York
and see what kind of audiencemight watch it, just like ring a tie?
I think just to bring a tiny bit of moneyout of a a box office failure.

(07:25):
And then it goes on to be,
I think, the longest running theatricalrun of all time.
It's kind of really been in cinemassince May, maybe since 1976.
Or is it like the year after or somethingwhen it when it got back on its feet,
so to speak.
I think it's always been in cinemas.
Yeah, it's a. Proper experience isn't it.
It's, it's like when you goand see not to compare it to tell me why

(07:47):
those films, but it's like when you can'tsee the room and you're throwing spoons
at this at the cinema screenand you're quoting the lines,
it's got that kind of resonancewith the audience and this cult following.
The people are really interactive with it.
They're throwing confetti at the
at the wedding scenethat dressed up like the characters.

(08:08):
It's really acting out scenes. Yeah.
And I think it's a fair comparison.
I'm a huge fan of The roomand I've been to
I've been sit at the Prince Charlescinema many, many times and it's a party.
It's really, really fun.
I've never done it with Rocky Horror,even though I love Rocky Horror.
I haven't seen it in the cinemawith the whole experience,
but there would beno experience of the room like that

(08:29):
on the room might not have the same cultfollowing were it not for the
the The Midnight Movies party atmosphere,The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
And The Rocky Horror Picture Show
is so good for our Mad Scienceseries as well, because it is.
It's a mad film in general, but it has
that Frankenstein we're making.

(08:50):
We're making a man.
He's making a man, he's making a creation,and it's got all of this
extra layer of it being like,there's aliens involved.
There's these lots of weird experimentsgoing on
and it's also adding all of that stuff,and it's got these themes of
transformation and a frank effectslike no other mad scientist

(09:11):
we've seen on the series.I feel like, yeah.
But there's something quite interestingfrom a, from a sci fi perspective
about seeing, you know, he's kind of a,he's a drag character is frank-n-furter.
That this alien?
Well, I don't think the alien part isactually terribly important in this film,
but a drag character,this alien scientist, has created and

(09:33):
developed this whole cult of personal ityaround
in this mansionwith all his fellow Transylvanian.
Transylvanian. Yeah,they go by Transylvanian, don't they?
That's the galaxy, I guess.
Yeah, because they're from transtranssexual Transylvania.
And that's the name of the planet.
Transsexual is the planet.
So they should be called transsexuals.
But as as I say,I think the alien element of this

(09:55):
is not not terriblyfront of mind for for Richard O'Brien.
Yeah.
But but this idea of puttingon this character of the mad scientist
with all of the makeupand the clothes that frank-n-furter wears
and that it is all kind of a facade,I think, for Frank.
And there's other thingsI think that that represents in terms
of dressing up and transvestismin, in Frank and in Tim Curry performance.

(10:19):
But looking at it as the idea of like,the mad scientist is also an outfit
that you can wear, which can be,you know, torn at the end of the film
and the makeup can be, can become smearedand he can become incredibly fragile
when he's exposed behindthat mad scientist facade.
And yeah, all that makeup,all of that costuming.

(10:40):
It also made me think about thethe transformation
scenes we've seen in stuff like DoctorJekyll and Mr.
Hyde, and I swear, like some of the
the makeup that Frank is wearingis it's similar.
It's kind of like that white facewith the dark eyes.
It's all of that kind of look whichkind of harks back to these kind of mad

(11:02):
scientist iconic looks,which we've seen, but with a twist.
Yeah.
With a gender rolekind of twist added on to it for the 1975.
And the whole thing is very liberatingisn't it.
It's all aboutlike liberating your sexuality.
And some audiences back in 1975when they were watching this,

(11:22):
this would have been like a taboo
kind of film, because all of the stuffthat it's still dealing with
and it's it's showing on screenis something that you might not have seen.
But then at the same time,it's it's that glam rock era.
So you've got lots of bandssort of playing with this
with like the way that they're dressedand really standing out in the crowd

(11:46):
and really experimentingwith fashion and gender roles as well.
All of that stuff is really sort ofat the forefront of people's minds.
In the 1970s.
It feels like anyway, watching this film.
Well, yeah,I mean, this is post Ziggy Stardust.
Yeah.
Would have been early 70s,
I think, when Bowie was doingthe whole Ziggy Stardust persona.

(12:07):
So, I mean, I don't know a lot about glamrock, to be honest with you,
but I think Ziggy Stardust has to belike the biggest name in glam, right?
And that'swhen it would have been at its peak.
So this is this is thethe world, I guess in London that,
Richard O'Brien, as a struggling actor,would be inhabiting.
That's the culture.
He's obviously a big rock and rollfan as well.

(12:29):
He talked about the horror and the sci fi,but there's some really,
like, heartfelt pastiche of rock music,
proper 50s rock and roll musicthrough a kind of glam lens.
So I think he's very much in that world,isn't he?
I get the impression.
And, I don't know if you foundthis little tidbit online, but Mick Jagger
really wanted to play DoctorFrank-n-furter and you can see, like,

(12:52):
this would have been a kind of rolethat Jagger would have wanted to do.
I can imagine, because given the like,his stage persona and all of that.
But I think Tim Curry is just so,so good at this role.
And the fact that Tim Curry playedFrank in the original play,
it just made much more sensefor him to do this.

(13:13):
But Mick Jagger has tried a few timesto get various roles
in kind of science fiction films. Yeah.
Wasn't there,
there was another filmthat we talked about a while ago
that Jagger wanted to be the lead inClockwork Orange.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Oh,poor, poor Jagger.
Wow. No. He's fine. He doesn't.
I think he was in a film called free Jack,
and the synopsis reads, the

(13:35):
Alex is brought into the futuresplit second before dying in an accident.
He finds himself hunted by Victor,a mercenary.
So some sort of future time travel stuffgoing on in that doesn't quite
feel like the role of the Mick Jaggerwould be able to really let loose on
and do his performative stuffthat he does on stage.
So that's a shame.
I think he was.I think he was also, I think

(13:58):
when we watched Jodorowsky's Dune,
the documentary, I think he was maybe, part of that as well.
So he's just been
he's just been wiggling his hipsaround the edges like classic sci fi.
In the end,what we could. Have had, but we didn't.
Well, well, thank God,because, I think, I mean, there's
we can talk about the performancesin this film

(14:18):
and there's many very,very good performances in Rocky Horror,
but I think the film lives and dies on onTim Curry's performance, doesn't it?
It has to be. Yeah.
Tim Curry is just because this was likehis first role as well,
which I was really surprised at.
I think it's his first movie.Yeah, his first movie.
And then you go on and you just look atall the other stuff that he's done since,

(14:39):
and he's just so iconic.
I think of, I think of Home Alone to
I think, yeah, he's like, I can't help it.
But like he's like the, the he'sone of the hotel staff at home alone.
Yeah. And he's kind of the antagonistisn't. Yeah.
I mean the, the robbers are. Yeah.
And Muppet Treasure IslandI think of what else do you what do you.

(15:00):
Think, Muppet Muppet treasure island.
Yeah.
To be fair,I shouldn't I shouldn't poo poo.
Home alone two.
He's very good in it,but yeah, but Muppet Treasure Island and,
he's the only Pennywise that I can see
when I close my eyesand think of Stephen King's it, of course.
And legends playing the the devil.
When I've never seen legend,I've seen that.

(15:22):
I've seen him in all that makeup though.
And it it's it's amazing.
He reallyI mean, he just transforms, doesn't he.
That's that'swhat makes him such a great performer.
But yeah, he's,he's originated this role from,
from Richard O'Brien's writing on stage,
and it's completely definitive.
I've never seen a, production

(15:43):
of the stageshow of Rocky Horror, but I do wonder
how other actors approach it,
or if it's just the sort of role whereyou just do an impression of Tim Curry.
I mean, it's
they would there would have been hundredsand hundreds of productions
of Rocky Horror by this point.
So I'm sure I'm sure some actors have,you know, taken a different route with it.
But I imagine a lot of themjust do an impression of Tim Curry.

(16:06):
Right? Yeah.
I think that that's sort of the obviousthing to do because he's just so
he just so Tim Curry in this film,and you can't really picture
anybody else doing it
in the same way, or I'm, I mean, I'msure there's lots of actors which do it
justice and payhomage to Curry's performance, but it is,
like I've said many times alreadyin the podcast, a very iconic performance.

(16:29):
But it's also this kind of thistransformation that he's doing in this.
And we've talked about the significancein it, in this film about sort of
like liberation and sexualityand all that kind of stuff.
And also and I think to a lot of audiencemembers watching it and seeing a film
where it's likethere's lots of gender fluidity in this,

(16:50):
sexuality is talked about in a very openway, strong queer identities in this film.
I think seeing that on screenwould have been like, again,
liberating for people to see.
And also, like, I know so many peoplewhich will go out and see Rocky Horror
and they'll dress up like, yeah,they will go and embrace this.
And then we breaks everything about it.

(17:11):
And I thinkthat's such a celebration of it all.
But it's still thisschlocky musical B-movie which brings it
back to this kind of B-moviedouble feature, sci fi film that it is.
It's at its core,but all this other stuff on top of
it has really struck a chord with so manypeople for the representation in it.
Yeah, I think there's I'm surethere's a myriad reasons

(17:34):
why that's the case,and it'll be different for everyone.
For me, it's to bring it back to TimCurry's performance.
Really, it's that change.
Two thirds of the way through the filmwhen they go to the floor show
and everything, just like has a layer ofemotion to it that just hasn't been there.
And to filmit is schlocky. It's a pastiche.
It's a schlocky pastiche of schlockyfilms.

(17:57):
That's whatthe sort of first half of the film is.
So I think you're not really expectingthe first time you see it to be drawn
into a really emotional musical sequencewith with Frank-n-furter
kind of really baring his soul on stageas a performer,
and having a kind of emotional breakdown,realising

(18:18):
that that the performanceis coming to an end so that this
there's this massive tonal shiftin that final act of the film.
I really appreciate the fact that theybring it back to schlock here than ever.
When, Magenta and Riff Raff
come back in with their laser gunsand the incredible outfit changes.
But but having that.

(18:38):
So it's long as well.
It's like a ten minute
musical sequence with Don't DreamIt Be and Rose Tint My World.
You know, those songs that are just likeout of nowhere, extremely emotional.
So for me,I mean, that's why it hits a bit different
than just a schlocky pastiche,because it has that real emotional heart
right at the end.
And I think that, yeah, you're right, itbrings out that emotion towards the end.

(19:01):
But all of that pastiche stuff,like even the opening song,
it's it's called Science FictionDouble Feature,
and it pretty much namechecksso many classic sci fi films.
Doctor X, which we've covered on the showalready in this series.
Tarantula.
It talks about fighting a triffid like dayof the Triffids, one of my favourites.

(19:22):
Yeah.
I had to look up when that came out,because I didn't realise
there was an earlier filmthan the one that.
Yeah, and I was like all of that.
And then Forbidden Planet is in there.
Talks about your. Day. The Earth stood.
Up, stoodstill, talks about George Powell.
It's like all of the stuff like FayWray, King Kong, all of the stuff.
William Fay Wray comes back into it.
The floor shows, she gets namechecked.

(19:43):
I also like Flash Gordon.
Rocky is kind of Flash Gordon.
Right as well.
Like he's got the gold pants on.
He's half naked. He's buff.
Blonde as anything. Blonde as anything.
Like literally, it feels like Frankis creating a version of Flash
Gordon, a version of Buster crapfrom back in the day.

(20:06):
Yeah.
His, his sexuality is kind of framedaround a certain
certain kind of masculinity as depicted
in those movie serials,an early sci fi Buster Crabbe is.
Yeah,I think he's the right reference point.
That's who Rocky looks like.
And then the other sort of referencefor as well would be stuff
like the Frankenstein filmslike Bride of Frankenstein.

(20:27):
I kept thinking about when watching thisand when we talked about James Whale
was an auteur and the sort of campinessthat he's thrown into it.
And then you think about Doctor Pretorius,played by Ernest Vestager.
Yeah, it feels like Tim Curry channelling
those kind of people in this as well.
Like those those actors, the director, like all of that stuff is coming out

(20:51):
and the performance
and coming out in this of the homagethat is, is being portrayed in this film.
Yeah, it'sabsolutely like outlandish, isn't it?
You've got all of that.
That's the that's the plot of it as well.
And then you have all the amazing setdesign and choreography
that just ramps everything up in thislavish and outlandish way, isn't it?
But the the whole plot of the film isyou've got a couple

(21:15):
they are stranded in the woods,they go to this mansion
and then strange stuff happensand they find themselves in this,
this kind of place and almost this world
that is completely foreign to anythingthey've known before.
And it changes them as characters,as people.

(21:36):
It's even framed with this likenarrative device that we've seen, like in.
But basically it's got a narrator,hasn't it?
It's got the. Criminologist.
The criminologistwho is going through and giving you
the kind of RodSerling narration the whole time.
And it is like it is like thatkind of Twilight Zone esque story.

(21:56):
And that's what the framework for it.
And it's it's interesting as well,because The Rocky Horror Picture Show
feels like a Twilight Zoneepisode in some, in some parts as well,
because of all the different thingsthat happen in it.
And you could see it coming outin that kind of like 50 sci fi almost,
but just with lots of flamboyance andand musical numbers

(22:17):
thrown in for good measure.
Well,what other sort of Twilight Zone elements?
Because I'm less familiarwith The Twilight Zone than you are.
Like, can you canyou draw that out for me a bit?
Well, The Twilight Zone is always kind of.
It's strange.
Things happen to ordinary people,
and they find themselves in somethingthat they never would have imagined.
And whether it's like an alien encounteror just like it could be like

(22:40):
a random event happens,could be something almost magical.
There's always something strangehappening in those in those episodes.
Yeah, because I was thinking about it fromfrom a mad science
perspective, but just just sostraightforward plot wise.
And the plot is basically in those terms,it's like,
what if you just stumbled upona Frankenstein's monster creation moment?

(23:04):
If you were just out and aboutand you happen and you are lost
and you happened upon Frankenstein Castle,while this switch was being
thrown, essentially, and you wondered inwhat would happen to you.
And that's kind of the journeythat that Brad and Janet go on.
And they can't escape, can they?
They are completely drawn into this, thiscastle, this manor, which even going back

(23:25):
to Crystal maze, it looks like there'sa crystal maze crystal at the top of this.
Yeah.
And I was like, Richard O'Brien's getting
some inspiration for the later TV showthat he's going to do.
Yeah, they are trapped.
I you get the impressionthey are not allowed to leave,
but obviously that quickly turns intothey don't want to leave first.

(23:46):
Janet.
You know, Janet is more visibly drawnin and interested and getting a bit
excited, you know, by the songsand seeing Rocky and all of that.
She's like, I don't like muscles.
And then at the end she's like,yeah, I like so I'm a muscle fan.
And then after that, Bradalso gets, drawn in.
There's that great, great scene where the,

(24:07):
Frank,like, sneaks into both of their rooms
and just has the exact samerepeated dialogue with both of them.
Yeah, wins Brad over after Janet.
And then they've got the other sortof experiments, like, it seems like
when you see MeatLoaf's character watching this again,
I was half thinking, oh, maybe Meat Loaf'scharacter is a failed experiment.

(24:29):
Like on the way to making Rocky.
It turns out later on in the film that, meatless character was actually just
some guy who fell in with the wrong crowd
and fell in love with one of the other.
Like, is it it's not magenta, is it?
Which is the character.
Columbia. Columbia.
So Columbia falls for Eddie,who's played by Meat Loaf.

(24:52):
But did you think that at all?
Maybe it was something I've always.
Never understood the character of Eddie.
I think he's primarily thereso that Meat Loaf can come out and sing
a song on a motorbike, which is a big partof the whole vibe of Rocky Horror.
Right? Motorbikes and rock and roll music.
So I've never kind of overthought it,I think, I think reading up on it

(25:16):
because he's got the big scar on his head,hasn't he?
I think that his brain has been taken outor partially taken out
and used in The Rocky Horrorin The Rocky Experiment.
Half the brain knee. Yeah, yeah.
Which is why he's then in cold storage.
I really don't think any of thatis explained like on screen.

(25:37):
But that's what's supposed to be going onwith Eddie. He.
Yeah, he fell in with a bad crowd.
He's just like a motorcycle drop out guy,who Frank has found and taken in
because he's, you know, useful,and he can take his brain.
Basically, he doesn't want to usea Transylvanian brain.
I see this is a very like.
It's fun.
It's a fun one to talk about in a in ina sci fi context, isn't it like trying to.

(25:57):
I think this plot is all there.
You know, not necessarily on screen,but like, maybe Richard
O'Brien has sort of explainedwhat's going on
and you can piece it together like, oh,right, Frank is an alien Transylvanian,
and you just want to use one of his fellowTransylvanian in his science experiment,
and then you can kind of piecethat stuff together with a sci fi lens.
But that but ultimately, none of itmatters, and it's not explained on screen.

(26:20):
The point is, Meat Loaf, Scottmotorcycling you get to sing rock'n'roll.
Song, but that does throw it backinto a mad science series, doesn't it?
Because you need a brainto make a Frankenstein
creature creation,and that's what they've done in this.
It's it made me think of the manwith two brains and the brain
that wouldn't die, because you always havethat kind of reanimation part of it.

(26:42):
But it's it's it's more it'smore about creating something new.
And even the way they create rock, it's
this sort of tank and it changes colours
and you can see like the skeletonand then the flesh put onto it.
And all of these again,the transformation scenes

(27:03):
are so importantfor these kind of mad science films.
It's quite a fantastical onewhich breaks into this big musical number
straight afterwards.
He describes it as a new breakthroughin biochemical research,
and then he says that it's goingto lead to Paradise being his.
So you've got that classic likemegalomania, narcissism and mad scientist.

(27:24):
But yeah, that's your kind of scifi expansion and you breakthrough in,
biochemical research.
I don't know what Frank was trying to do,
because I get the impression that he'sjust got he's got, you know, he's very
he's he's braggadocious about discoveringthe secret of life, right?
It's classic mad scientist,egomaniac egomania.

(27:45):
But I get the impressionthat Franks discovered it by accident.
I don't know what he was trying to doand what the original.
Or if he was just,If he's just a tinkerer, do anything.
Got a lab fiddling about, do what I want.
You know,no one from Transylvania can find me.
Frank's very hedonistic, isn't he?
He's.
Oh, he's all about the sensual pleasures.
He's trying to create somethingand he wants to create a man.

(28:09):
And this man is going to be his plaything.
And he gets jealous when Janet starts
getting a bit too interestedin Rocky and vice versa.
And he wants this man,this creation to just be his.
But also in terms of the mad scientistand that kind of like need for validation
and recognitionamongst like peers and everybody else.

(28:32):
He's got everybody in his manor houseto come and see this creation
that he's made.
And then also he's he's got thesetwo random as in,
and he's like, look,I've made this, isn't this great.
And then he wants even more validationand even more sort of like
hedonistic pleasureby seducing both of them
and again, trying to,show his power and his prowess.

(28:57):
And that is all sort of mad scientistbehaviour, isn't it?
It's it's they they wantall of that recognition and that praise.
And Frank is just a bit more directin how he's getting it.
Yeah.
He has the Godcomplex of a classic mad scientist.
He needs an audience for everything,whether it is, imagining an audience
during the floor showwhen everything's falling apart and,

(29:19):
you know, he'she's breaking into tears, or.
Yeah, having the Transylvanian come.
He's got a viewing gallery in his lap,and it's raised up
like the gods, you know,so that they can look down on him.
He's got to have an audiencefor everything. And.
Yeah, you're right, like Brad and Janetstumbling to it in any other contexts.

(29:39):
You know, in a kind of horror context,they would become victims.
They sort of do.
I mean, they're kind of enthralledand trapped there.
But for Frank, I think it'sjust two more members of the audience.
Right?
Two more people to see hishis genius abilities in creating Rocky.
Yeah. So he can almost show off about it.
But the madness creeps in againas well, doesn't it?

(30:00):
Because you see his reactionwhen things don't go his way.
He puts an icepick to Eddie's head,
and it's really graphic that I completelylike a race that bit from my memory
when he kills Eddie off fully,just in the, in the cooler, almost just.
There's blood everywhere.

(30:20):
It's really graphicand then it's kind of like, oh,
he just shrugged it offand it's it's fine.
And then we'reonto the next musical number.
But bits like that really sort of amp upthe the horror of it as well,
because it's, it's this fun camp musical.
But what Frank is doing is quite scary.

(30:40):
And you can see whyit falls into that category.
Yeah, it's a real moment of of no humour,
pure violence,
just an explosion of violence that yeah,I always forget it as well,
because it just kind of catches you offguard.
And it's not, tonally in keeping withwith anything else in the film really.
But I think there's an element of, like,meatloaf shows up and sings a song

(31:01):
that is all about him,and Frank doesn't have any lines in it,
and it interrupts, I'mgoing to make you a man, doesn't it?
There's I'm going to make you a man,and then I'm going to make you a man
reprise after two.
So I think there's this element of like,
he stops the showand makes it about himself.
Meatloaf slash Eddie.
So Frank-n-furter is like, absolutely not.

(31:23):
This is this is me.
Now I'm the star of the showand it gets quite violent.
And he cuts through that.
I think what's nice about thatwhole sequence as well is
just the idea of Rockyas a creation in this,
and it made me think about the term
which Anna used on one of our episodeswhen we did The Fifth Element,
and she was talking about the,the idea of born sex yesterday.

(31:48):
And we've not really seen thatwith a male character as much.
And in this, Rockyis literally born in that day
and then ends up having sex with everyone.
Like, pretty much like doctorFrank confer to like,
takes him into his his abode straightaway, ends up cuffing him to the bed.

(32:09):
And then pretty soon after that, he'shaving sex with Janet
and he is just seen as this
like sexual objects in the film,but he's been created
for that purpose as well, it seems like.
So it's, it's an interesting example ofthat, that sort of ideology.
He's he's a bit he is

(32:31):
he behaves in that naiveborn sexy yesterday way, doesn't he.
But we haven't I don't think we've seenmany characters created for the purpose.
Right.
Like he doesn't Ibut I mean he has an innocence to him
in that he is he has just been createdbut he's sort of built for that purpose.
He's like a sex dollthat isn't he brought to life.
Yeah.
He's been created for sex,which is again, something which we'll see

(32:55):
a little bit in Weird Science as well,because it's the same premise, isn't it?
It's he's creatingsomething to have sex with.
So how does that kind ofhow does that go wrong?
For Frank?
It always goes wrong for for a hubristic,egomaniacal, mad scientist.
How does it all fall apart for Frank?
Well, first off,his creation doesn't just love him.
Janet gets involved.

(33:16):
And also, it's like the sexual liberationfor Janet and her character.
And then at the same time,you've got Brad,
who is also like,having a sexual liberation.
You've got all of this stuff going on.
But after that, things startspiralling out because you get, doctor,
Everett Scott, who arrives as well,throws a spanner into things.

(33:39):
And then you find out as thingsgo on, the riff raff and magenta,
kind of
keeping tabs on Frank-n-furterand what he's doing,
and he's not quite as in chargeas he thought it was going to be,
and that it all leads to themsaying, right, you need to go now.
Where in charge like this is over.

(34:00):
The whole thing is over. You failed.
You haven't donewhat you were supposed to do, which I'm
not really sure what he was supposed to dowhilst he was on earth.
Like, I don't know what the the idea was,but I don't think it really matters.
Again. Yeah, I can't stress this enough.
The alienthat just not the point to the plot.
But they do say that
his mission is a failure and RiffRaff is now in charge of the mission.

(34:22):
And that includestaking him into custody,
I guess taking Frank into custody, butthen he just decides to kill him anyway.
And the whole castleis, spaceship that they can fly away.
And, of course, is, Yeah,
yeah.
I remember, like, the first time I saw it.
Just being so confused by all of that.

(34:42):
But you rewatching there's some nice stuffwhere.
When, what's his name?
Scott.Doctor Scott is arriving at the castle,
and Raff, like,do you know this earthling?
I mean, yes, and.
And then it's sort of like little bitslike that creep in, but all of it is just.
It's playing with those genresand that schlocky ness.
So it starts off and you think it's moresort of in the, the realms of the horror,

(35:07):
with it being sort of like it's almost
they keep referencingTransylvania as well,
which makes you think of thosekind of spooky.
It's based on Earth. Yeah, exactly.
And it's got that universal monstertinge to it.
You've got the The scientistexperiments going on, but then it switches
into this alien stuff as well, which againfroze like Mork confusion into the mix.

(35:29):
So it's just so many things in one go.
And then like the weird like theywhat did they do that they, pulled
the Medusa switch and they turn everyone
to stone just out of nowhere.
Yeah. The transducer.
The transducer.
And again,
that's like another bit of sortof like crazy mad science being thrown in.

(35:49):
And DoctorScott's like an X-Files type guy,
working for the
government, chasing down UFOs,also working on a transducer.
So it's just absolutely throwing every scifi concept out at the wall
towards the end of the film,while an enormous song and dance number
is happening as well.
Yeah, it's so good.
And just like all of that,on top of these amazing visuals, like

(36:12):
just to go back to the the intro again,just the red lips as it starts,
like all of this iconic imagery,the campiness of it
all, it's all just like in your face,but madness as well.
Like,they don't need to be joining the dots
about all of this narrative stuffin terms of what's going on.
It's just a wild ridethat's being told free music as well.

(36:36):
Yeah.
So why do you think it has,
had the enduring legacyand lengthy cinema run that it's had?
I think it's it'slike a lot of those B-movie films
which you go back to again,like there's just something about this.
But I think the added extra inthis is just all of the stuff

(36:56):
that it was celebratingthat you just hadn't seen on screen before
at this time, and it is fun and ridiculousand avant garde,
and it obviously spoke to a lot of peoplewhen it came out.
And I think that was incrediblylike refreshing to people as well.
But I think it took a while for peopleto gravitate towards it.

(37:18):
Like we said, it's it's that kind of thatsecret midnight screening
that was on, and you'd hear about itfrom word of mouth and you'd be like, this
film's like a bit out there, and it'sgot this scene and the stuff that happens
and it's it's a little bit naughtyand it's a little bit strange and,
and I think all of that stuff really hasjust meant

(37:40):
that it's becomesuch a enduring piece of cinema.
Yeah, yeah.
I think there's something there
that speaks to anyonewho feels like an outsider.
Exactly.
Who has this safe refuge in the castle?
And the square.
Normal people comeand actually get drawn in and, you know,
start to enjoy that kind of lifestyle.
I think that speaks to anyonewho feels like an outsider.

(38:01):
So you've got all of that,like bubbling away, and then I think
you've just got incredibly good songs,incredibly good performances,
very funny moments, you know, perfectkind of lightning in a bottle
with all of those elements mixing togetherand then putting on a midnight.
So it becomes, like you say,
sort of secretive and cultishalmost as well, you know, having its own

(38:21):
kind of internal languageand all that stuff only helps things 100%.
And and that is obviously whyit's so enduring.
Did you know there was a sequel to this?
Because I had no idea about this at all.
Yeah, I've seen I've got on DVD.You've got it on DVD.
I had no idea. There's a sequel to RockyHorror.
It's called Shock Treatment.
So it's not it's not really a sequel.
It's, it does have Richard O'Brien.

(38:45):
I think he's the only returningcast member, and he wrote it.
I don't think it was evera stage musical.
It was just for film.
And it is about Brad and Janetas a married couple, and they're kind of,
have,
you know, a bit on the rocks or whatever,and they go on like a TV show together,
but then they get trappedin this weird TV show.

(39:07):
They're kind of like stuck on the setand goes a bit mad,
similar to Rocky Horror, you know,replace the castle with a TV studio.
It's not as good.
And the plot is even thinner,
if that's possible, than The Rocky Horror.
But the music is absolutely brilliant,like the soundtrack
is, I would say,just as good as the songs on Rocky Horror.

(39:29):
I still listen to tracks from thatevery now and again,
so I would I would absolutely recommend itto fans of Rocky Horror.
You will like it.
Okay, well, I'll have to seeif I can get a copy of that somewhere.
I find it on streamingbecause I'd be interested to watch that.
And didn't it come out sort of beforereality TV was a thing as well?
Yeah,it wasn't that long after Rocky Horror.
It's about five years after Rocky Horror.

(39:51):
I think it reminded me ofdid you watch stay tuned.
Yes. When they get. So stay tuned.
That when they get sucked into TV.
Yeah, yeah. Reminds me of that.
It's got that kind of madcap crazinessto it.
Interesting.
Oh, well, I'm gonna have to give that onea watch at some points.
Well, that's pretty much sums up
Rocky Horror in the best waywe possibly can,

(40:13):
because obviously there'sso much to cover in that.
And it's such a likeI say, madcap, to use that word again.
It's a crazy, crazy film.
The maddest of sciencein in play in this one.
But thenext film we're going to talk about
also has that kind of Born Sexyyesterday stuff in there as well.
And it's got another couple of hornyscientist

(40:34):
making their own creation as well.
So let's talk about weird science.
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(40:57):
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Now back to the episode.
Okay, look, you know, I
was talking about how you cansimulate all that stuff in your computer.

(41:17):
You know, what's the difference?
Why can't we simulate a girl?Weird science.
Great song, great song. Great.
But Danny Elfman.
It's Danny Elfman with his bandWango Boingo.
Yeah. Oingo Boingo, pretty good.
All their songs kind of sound like that.
They just replace Weird Science withanother couple of words and that's it.
That's basically saying go boyand go vibe in a in a nutshell.

(41:40):
But it's great. It's great.
John Hughes wrotethis entire film in two days, apparently.
Can you tell? Maybe.
Maybe, but I think he was just trying to,get this one done
so we could do Breakfast Club,because Breakfast Club
was released in the same year,and that was his real passion project.
Right. Okay.
But this feels like a real left

(42:03):
fieldkind of avant garde move for John Hughes.
It doesn't feel like any otherJohn Hughes film I've watched before.
It's not at alllike any of his other films.
Certainly his directorial films.
I know he wrote,he wrote absolutely loads of films.
I haven't seen allthe films he wrote. But the,
directing wise, there's
no wacky sci fi stuff in his oeuvre.

(42:27):
No, but I think part of that is JoelSilver's influence in this as well.
He was one of the producers.
I think he was the producer on this film.Yeah.
And he I think I read somewherethat Joel Silver had the rights
to the comic book Weird Science
and part of the title

(42:48):
usage was because he had accessto this title anyway.
And there was also like a,there's a story in Weird Science
that is a bit similar to this, whichI think Joel Silver made sure that he had
I had access to and he could
he could make a filmbased on a similar kind of scenario.
It was called maid of the future.
Do you know anything about thatparticular story?

(43:09):
No. Tell me.
So it centres around a male protagonist
who is basically making a female robots.
So it's a a manstumbles on a group of time travellers
who have returned to the year 1950,and he returns with them
and discovers that he can acquire kitswhich will provide a mate in the future.

(43:29):
He returns with the kits to 1950and is pretty chuffed with the results.
The main premise is he's made a womanfor himself and that's what happened.
Loosely based, loosely based. It's not.
It's not the same.Not the same things. No.
Two horny teenage boys sittingand making their own Kelly in the baroque.

(43:50):
But that's that'sthe kind of like loose basis for this,
I think, from what I can gather.
Okay, well, let's talk about, horny boys then.
Anthony Michael Hall and,I don't know how to say the other act.
His name is the Ilan.
Ilan Mitchell Smith.
Ilan. Ian. Ian.
Ian might be Ian.
I was just calling. He's making wife.

(44:12):
But then Mitchell Smithdidn't do much else after this.
I think he ended up getting a PhD insomething really weird.
Yeah. I can't remember what exactly.
I thought it was medieval studies.
He got a PhD in medieval studiesafter this.
And the other thing he was known forwas he played
a characterin the Superboy TV series as well.
But he kind of likedisappeared off the map after this film,

(44:34):
from what I can gather.
But then Anthony Michael Hall, we we.
Know big star, big eight starAnthony Michael Hall,
they're both very good in this, though.
I think it's very convincingin their roles.
They're good at playinghorny teenage boys, which is unsurprising.
Well, they're good at making
those horny teenage boys quite likeable,which is a tough job.
It really is a very tough job.
It's also John Hughes directing, like,this is a weird, weird sort of genre

(44:58):
move for John Hughes, but he's obviouslyvery good at working with his actors,
particularly young actors, to get quitea heartfelt performance out of them.
And he does that here, and I like Wyattand Gary and like it's, you know,
it's quite hard to like characterslike this, but I do like them.
I think that is important.
And how do you think it worksZeitgeisty wise?

(45:19):
Because so if we go from Rocky HorrorPicture Show in 1975 to 1985
with Weird Science,what's the kind of landscape like in this?
I mean, it's
I mean, there's only ten years
between these films,but they feel a million miles apart
and they just
just the sort of sexual politics at playin both these films is so different.
But I think this is I mean, this is likesmack bang in the middle of the 80s.

(45:42):
This feels much more like Reagan's Americaand this kind of hetero norm, very.
Kind of.
Heteronormative, superficial.
Yeah.
Fast cars, sexy ladies going out to barsin Chicago, throwing house parties.
Yeah.
You know,that feels like a very different place
than than the kind of New York of 1975at midnight

(46:04):
where Rocky Horror was, was developing itand cultivating its audience.
It's obvious, but it feels very 80s.
It feels very sort of the erathat John Hughes was at his peak.
It's got all of the 80s clothing, fashion,as you would imagine,
but also the way that they create Lisa,who is the Frankenstein creation

(46:26):
and this is just the most 80s
hacker way to create something.
It's just it'sit's a funny way of doing it.
But then also it's it's two teenage boyslet loose a computer
trying to make a woman.
And they go through every clicheyou could think of.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, I almost found myselfgetting pissed off with how silly it was

(46:49):
from a sci fi perspective.
But then there's like a whole montagewhere they're just doing
increasingly ridiculous stuffto, to make their, I guess, I woman.
And then they even do likea sort of voodoo type ritual, don't they?
They put bras in their heads like candlesand they chant.
And then that was the point
where I was like, okay, all right,all right, it's fine.

(47:09):
It's just incredibly sillywhere we're well,
at the kind of scopeof the science part of Mad Science.
And they hook up the Barbie dollso they know they're getting the right
creation. It's all just like it's
it's ridiculousness.
But then what you expectfrom a film called Weird Science?
More science, I guess you could.

(47:29):
Or more weird.
I saw some critic onlineand they said, like,
it wasn't weird enough for itto be called a weird science film.
I mean, it's pretty weird.
It's weird in the sense that, like,she has
limitless magical powers,basically what she's created,
but she doesn't actually do anythingthat weird with them.
She just, like, makes a room go blue.

(47:52):
And so temporary really turns itinto a big stinky monster or whatever.
Yeah, he just goes back to normal.
It's like everythingjust goes back to normal, doesn't it?
But is that is that transformation seen?
Which is the first momentwhen you first see Kelly
the Brock appear in the smoke?
It's it'ssuch an iconic scene from this film.

(48:12):
It's probably the onewhich has been like clipped up the most.
It's that lead up to it as well.
They're talking about Frankenstein,
they're talkingabout the Bride of Frankenstein.
Obviously they work out all their bodymeasurements.
They're teenage boys.
They make her intelligence really highby scanning a photo of Albert Einstein.
That's it.
It's all that kind of like pseudo scienceelement to it, which is just hilarious.

(48:35):
And they get the computing power to maketheir home computer work to this level
by hacking some sort of mainframe,some big, like, computer work.
Like, I don't know what the hell it is,but they hack someone to get the power,
don't they?
Yeah, they yeah, yeah,they've got to go down a digital tunnel
into some sort of,looks like a government facility

(48:57):
type thing where there's more electricity,I guess.
More computing power, I think.
Yeah, it'sall of that kind of stuff, isn't it?
And when they've created this, this woman,
it's the way that they're relating to ouras well.
Like, they just they're totally clueless.
They don't know what to do.
And the whole thingis about these two teenage boys.

(49:19):
It's like a coming of agefilm isn't a it's a
how can they become more cool?
How can they get the girl?
And then it's Kelly, the baroquekind of being that guardian angel,
but also the woman that they'rehighly sexually attracted to
and they've created and it's like,but it's got this other element to it.

(49:41):
Where is where?
It's like,is she a sex slave that they've just made,
like Rocky is to Frank-n-furter?
And and you were talking about herin terms of being born sexy yesterday,
which I don't think Lisa is in, in thesame in sort of classic way of that trope.
I think she's createdthere's a lot of talk of like belonging

(50:03):
to Wyatt and Carrie,but she also seems to have a personal
kind of vested interestin making them better people.
So she can leave so she can golike she she wants to help them out.
Not not because she is created by themand she is
like under their kind of control,I don't think.

(50:24):
But because she just
I think she's a bit disappointed in her
creators,maybe much like much like Frankenstein's
creation is and goes on a rampageand swears vengeance.
But instead of all that violent stuff,she's like, right, I've got to sort these,
sort these dweebs out and make make him,make him a man.

(50:44):
Which is what happens.
You get this kind of this arc of thembecoming cooler and suave.
Well,just basically more confident, really,
because they put on all these airsand graces.
They get the fancy suitswhen they go over to the club,
they get the fake IDs, but it's not untilthey're sort of a bit more open with
who they are that they actually become,like, more confident in themselves.

(51:08):
And before that, like, I mean, the openingscene, one of the opening scenes is them
getting the trousersthat their shorts put pulled down
in front of all the girls in the.
Yeah, in the, in the gymnasium.
So it's like all of all the stufflike that.
And they're getting bulliedby Robert Downey Jr and his and his mates.
All of that is kind of like, well,you want them to grow as characters

(51:29):
throughout the film,
and that's where you've gotthis wacky journey and this kind of.
She is like a genie, isn't she?
The way she's granting.
Yeah, I was thinking that it's much closerto I Dream of Jeannie type.
Type activity than than it's sort of scifi I guess.
And yeah,I think the kind of emotional journey
that Wyatt and Gary go on towardsthe end of the film, you're saying like,

(51:50):
you know, being honest about who they are,that kind of thing,
to have that emotional connectionwith the girls.
By the end, that feels like more John,more of a John Hughes film.
John Hughes kind of reasserting himselfas a filmmaker on the plot
towards the end of the film, because
a big
chunk of the movie, a big part of thembecoming cooler guys,

(52:11):
is that Lisa just gives themsports cars and like,
gives them a nice suit that fits them and,you know, allows them
to do literally anything they wantwith her, with her magical powers.
That's what that's what makes them cool.
It's got is an app.
So there's no character growththere at all.
She just gives them
whatever their heart's desireand that makes them seem cooler to like,

(52:34):
you know,superficial 1985 teenagers in Chicago.
And it's also that kind of that 80smale bravado
and the way that those teenage boysare supposed to be looking at women
at the time, and they've createdthis quote unquote perfect woman.
It's everything that they've dreamedof made to measure the skin

(52:55):
I live in again, made tomeasure is exactly
what's the character that says to AntonioBanderas is character?
John Hughes isn't just sayinglike she is the perfect woman.
This is what they've made.
They're also critiquingthe sort of ridiculousness of that idea,
because the women they really wantare the normal girls at their school.
Yeah, so is the perfect woman,I guess in John Hughes's eyes,

(53:19):
someone who can make these boys into men,
and kind of make them
see the error of their waysin, in creating her, I guess.
I don't know if they do learn Alexby the end, but no.
But I mean, like one of the first things
they do is have a shower with her,but they're still fully clothed.
Really? Like she is a she.
She is an omnipotent genieand the only thing they can think to do

(53:45):
is, is take a shower with herand not even get undressed.
That's the absolutelimit of their imagination.
She's not omnipotent genie thatthey were able to create with a computer.
Yeah, And yet their imagination stops dead.
It taking a half dress shower.
But then alsothey can't handle it as well.
So they can't handle a woman like KellyLa Brock, like Lisa,

(54:05):
like Wyatt kisses herbecause she initiates it.
And then there's all this talkabout, like, some sort of gymnastics thing
that Lisa is doing, and Wyattbasically passes out or something.
So it's this,
this kind of like, well, teenage boys,
if they created their ideaof a perfect woman,

(54:27):
it still wouldn't do anything for thembecause they're they're still just
useless, ridiculous boys.
My boys. Yeah, yeah.
25 years old and 16 years old.
The two actors in that kissing scene.
James I looked it up really quickly.
Brock 25, Ellen Mitchell Smith 16.
Weirdly, weirdly, sort of just a weird

(54:48):
kissing scene where they really go infor quite a long time.
Yeah.
And it is that kind of teen humourthat runs throughout this as well.
It's made for teen audiences.
It's got that kindof ridiculous stuff to it.
What do you remember what you thoughtwhen you first watched it?
Boy, you think I thought it was justfunny and fun when I first watched it?
I do think that, like, I was oldenough to be like, this is a weird one.

(55:11):
This doesn't feel like Breakfast Club.
Like, where's your tip?
Where's the fruit line in the story?
Yeah, this isn't and I and I,this is only the second time I've seen it.
Whereas like other John Hughes films,I've seen quite a few times.
So obviously I've never sort of I neverreturned to it even when I was younger.
I wasn't like,I'll just pop weird signs on again.

(55:32):
But I think I did enjoy it and I like it.
Made me laugh.
There's still funny moments in it,you know. It's a good, fun film.
It's lots of like, hijinx stuff, isn't it?
And all the set pieces that it's like,what happens if they go to the mall
and then they meet the bullies andbut then they kind of impress them with,
like, Lisa turns up and all this kind,and then they have a house party.

(55:55):
It's not a typical kindof framework of a teenage film,
and it's the kind of stuffyou did as a teenager.
You go to, like, you go to a movieyou like, try and throw a house party.
Party won't be anything on the levelwith this one.
I mean, this house partygets really out of hand.
Like really, really out of hand.Yeah, sure.

(56:16):
Yeah.
I mean, to the pointwhere mad Max characters pop up.
Yeah.
And you've got the guy in the hills.
I've always, like, literallythe same characters on motorbikes.
Just. Yeah. Taking over.
Why do they show up?
Does Lisa send them? Yeah.
There's a moment when Lisa.
Oh, it's it is to challengethe guys. Yeah, yeah.
She says you need to kind of man up.

(56:37):
And this is the best way to do it.
By getting a biker gangto roll up to your house
party and threaten you and your mates.
It works.
It does work, but only because they end uppointing a gun at them.
Yeah.
So I mean, again, America.
Yeah,
yeah.
He has a real gun.

(56:58):
We've had some fake water guns
earlier in the film,but he does actually have a real gun then.
Yeah.
I mean, there's so much going on inthis as well.
Like, were there any momentsthat stuck in your mind previously that
when you watched it again, you were like,oh, this is different to how I remember.
I did not remember Bill Paxtongetting turned into like,
what did you refer to as Eddie,a poo monster?

(57:20):
He's in the poop suit. Poops.
Is that what it is?
And I just didn't rememberany of that stuff.
I thought that was really weird.
And just, again, just like, this totallydoesn't feel like it's on his film.
I didn't remembervery much of it, to be honest.
I remember that that iconic kind of,Lisa coming out of the cupboard
or whatever it is that she's created in.
I remember that,and I think I remember the ending.

(57:42):
But I don't rememberany of the kind of set pieces in between.
How do you think this is aged?
Since it came out?
I think it's just I think it's a mid film.
I think it's it might have been funnierwhen you were a teenager
and you could identify to certain bits,like being a clueless teenage boy.
I was definitely a clueless teenage boy.

(58:06):
So I think it's gota really nice sentiment to it,
but I think it is mixed up in all of thiscraziness,
in the kind of liketeenage hijinks of it all.
And there were momentswhen I was a bit like, is it is
do we really need all of this?
Is this like a funny moment?
And. Yeah, I don't know. What about you?
Yeah, I think that like, it'san interesting wasn't it.

(58:26):
Some of it's incredibly dated.
Gary Gary does an accent for a long. Timewhen we go out.
To the bar.
Yeah. The I was like, what?
What is this accent?Why are we doing this?
You know, but some of the,
like the, the, the attitude towards women,
I don't know, it'sobviously inappropriate.

(58:47):
But also like, I think JohnHughes does understand young people.
Yeah.
Like you're saying there's this there is arelatable element about teenage boys
that the film is accurate about,which I have to assume hasn't changed.
Now, in teenage boys, it's still the sameas they always were and always will be.
I don't think a 16 year old todaywould be able to relate

(59:10):
to all the stuff they do with the computer
at the start of the film,and it just looks cheap.
The floppy disk, no one'sgot any floppy disks now. Exactly.
But but the attitudesI think are accurate.
I think that he has actually captured
what I thinkthat Wyatt and Gary are believable.
Yeah.
So even though they are a bit disgusting,I actually think, oh,
that's actually just what.
Yeah, like and I think that's okay.

(59:31):
So I think it still holds up.
There's just some incredibly stupid stuffthat doesn't hold up as well.
And it's more about like it's morejust the kind of humour in the film.
It's not really the kind of
relationships they have with thewith the women characters.
It's more just the sort of ridiculous gagsthat I think I've aged worse.
So I do, I do kind of thinkKelly Brook holds this together as like

(59:54):
as that character who is guiding themthrough this and trying.
I think so too.
Yeah, trying to get them to to look at things in a different way and,
and basically age them in,in a lot of ways, like grow up a bit more.
Yeah, I think there's a lotthere's a lot resting on her.
And I think that that's why she can't bea born sexy yesterday character.

(01:00:15):
She has to be mature and she comes outwith all the maturity and intelligence
that they've asked the machineto, to give her.
So she's kind of like I mean, as far as,like, Frankenstein's creations go, she is
she is perfect, right?That nothing goes wrong.
There is no mad science, hubris and thingscoming back round to haunt them.

(01:00:36):
Only in the sense that, like Lisa sendsin the the mutant bikers to attack that.
Yeah, but but she gets that right as well.
It does lead to to Gary or whicheverone of these, you know,
stepping up to the plateand telling them to leave
and that is exactly the outcomeshe wanted.
And it all goes to plan.
She's like a perfectFrankenstein's creation.

(01:00:57):
She goes completely right.
And she has superpowers.
I mean, all of those things just reallyhelp those guys out, don't they?
And the way that Gary and Wyatt function
as your kind of mad scientists,
that they're mad in the terms of, like,
they're very horny teenage boysand they're mad for it.

(01:01:19):
They have a very bad ideathat they follow up on that is classic
mad scientist behaviour. Exactly.
They cannot see how bad their idea isuntil it's too late.
And then they continueto just do ridiculous things.
But I think a lot of the ridiculous thingsthey do are things
that they would never normally dowithout Lisa being there.
They're not going to hold a big

(01:01:39):
like House party because they're incapableof of doing that.
They're not going, to doall of these like, crazy things.
I drive around in sports carseven though they can't drive, but
because Lisa's there,they're kind of embracing all of that.
But there's not any of the kind of Godcomplex to it.
The only thing that they have towardsthe end is they have to tell Lisa

(01:02:02):
that, look, they've got a new girlfriends.
And what does that meanfor the three of them?
Yeah, they kind of justcompletely get away with it, don't they?
I think they're, they're it's very rarefor a mad scientist to completely
get away with everythingand just have a completely happy ending.
Yeah.
And it doesn't feelit feels like it's it's

(01:02:22):
absolutely off the wall in termsof all the fantasy stuff that happens.
We talked about the poopsuits, the dogs on
ceilings, the crazy stuffthat happens with the grandparents.
You end up frozen in a cupboard.
The dads who forgets who his son is.
I think it's Gary.
All of these weird things happenbecause it is called weird science.

(01:02:45):
But the main thing is it's John Hughes
making a film about teenagers in the 80s.
So it's got that sort of core structureto it, but it hasn't got enough of.
I think
the the other John Hughes filmsI've seen I liked
because they were relatable,but also the character seemed
a bit more well-roundedbecause we're just focussed on Gary

(01:03:08):
and Wyatt the entire time,and they're just hopeless idiots
who are on this kind of like,coming of age character arc.
Throughout the film.
It makes it just a lot simpler,and it doesn't really delve
into anything else, butthere's a lot of fun to be had with that.
And like, it's got its funny moments.

(01:03:30):
It's a bit fantastical.
I think it's like it'sgot all of those things which are fun,
but it kind of lackssomething in certain areas.
But as a film from the 80s,
like it's a good exampleof what they were doing with math science.
I think, you know, it's unfortunate to saythis as a sci fi fan, but is this it's
the sci fi stuff gets in the way of thisfilm, and it's and it's

(01:03:53):
obviously why John Hughes wasn't out theredirecting loads of sci fi films.
It's not his strength.It gets in the way of,
the characterisation and the
character journeythat his characters go on in his films.
That'swhat people love about John Hughes film.
And when you busy it up with a load of scifi and fantasy,

(01:04:15):
comedy sequences and set pieces,that is getting in the way of John Hughes
doing what he is bestat which is the stuff that happens
kind of in the in the final act of thisfilm where, Gary
and Wyatt need to grow up and,you know, it's it's
eventually turned into a coming of agefilm, like all of his films
or his best films anyway.

(01:04:36):
That's what it that's what it needs to be.
That's what he's best at.
And, you know, it's fine for a directorto not work well with sci fi.
I still love John Hughes, but.
But he's not one of our sci fi heroes,I don't think. Nah.
But the thing is, is, well,if we strip out the sci fi from this film,
it would be about two teenage boysalone in the house.

(01:04:58):
They meet this older woman
who stays around their house for a bit,
like takes them to the mall,makes them for a house party
system, has a shower with themand then at the end breaks up with them.
Yeah, it makes it like it doesn'thave to say it doesn't hit the same way.
And there's something grossand weird about the dynamic

(01:05:19):
that you've just described.
But the thing is,that is what happens in this. Yeah.
Not like, oh, that stuff does happen.
And it is weird.
But she's.
A fantasy sciencelike sci fi creation and that makes it
like that somehow
makes it a different kind of film,but it's still the same.
What if it was?
What if it was a girlwho who had the appearance of the same age

(01:05:42):
as as Garyand Wyatt still behave like Lisa,
you know, the personality, intelligence,nor that of Lisa in this film, but
but played by an actorwho's the same age as Gary and Wyatt.
Or it's that kind of girl next doorwho's a bit who's like in the year above
and is kind of taking them

(01:06:03):
under her wing, teaching them the ways,
but not getting to into the weedsof everything, for lack of a different.
As a non sci fi fantasy film.
Yeah, if that was the point. Yeah,I think so.
I think both of those.
Yeah I think there's other ways to do itthat where it isn't just a significantly
older person kissing a 16 yearold on the screen basically, you know,

(01:06:25):
would have made the whole thinga bit less weird.
Yeah, but it's weird. Science, James.
Where it's science.
But it's got a but it's got that.
Great.
So it has, it's got a banging soundtrack,super 80s.
Some weird shit happens.
Bit of crazy sci fi.
It's okay.
I bet it's incredibly nostalgicfor some of our listeners as well.

(01:06:47):
Yeah.
You and I, you know, we saw it.
We would have seen it in
15 to 20 years after it came out,
the right age when we saw it.
But but, you know, well, after the fact,I think a lot of our listeners
will have seen this,you know, in, in the 80s or the early 90s,
and it will have an incredibly nostalgichold over them.

(01:07:08):
So I wonder, you know, I'd love to hearfrom people who are rewatching it,
if you haven't seen it many timesor you watched it a lot way back when,
how do you thinkall of that stuff holds up?
I would like to hear from peopleabout this one.
You know, there's stuff in therethat I like.
There's John Hughes stuff in therethat I think does land, but it's certainly
the the odd one out in his filmographyin that.
Yeah,it does feel like a bit of an anomaly

(01:07:28):
in the old filmography of John Hughes, but
we're going to have to leave this anomalyand put it to one side as we continue
our journey through Mad Science,which we will be continuing very soon.
Thanks again for joining usfor today's episode of journey for Sci Fi.
Make sure you subscribe
so you can hear all the regular episodesas soon as they drop.

(01:07:51):
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(01:08:11):
And if you like usand you want to hear more from us,
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We have bad movie bunkers,we have patrons picks, we have a ongoing
mini series about The Expansethat we have two episodes left of that.
Very excited to get through.
Next time on journey through Sci Fi,and we'll be looking at attack of the

(01:08:32):
Killer Tomatoes from 1978 and Cloudywith a Chance of Meatballs from 2009.
So it's a bit of a switch up,but we're staying on
the sort of the weird sciencebecause both quite weird science stuff.
Get into food mad sciencenext time on the show.
Food Science. We'll be back soon. Bye.
So.