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October 23, 2024 37 mins
Let’s talk about Season 4 Episode 9, Escape From Planet Klongo… It’s the first episode named after a fictional movie! 

We’ll hear from Showrunner and Co-creator John Hoffman and the writers of the episode Alex Bigelow and Ben Smith, 

We'll talk about Ron Howard's passion project (are we witnessing the end of Ron Howard’s career??), what a Klongo is exactly (and can you use it in a sentence, please?), and Bev Melon's protein-packed smoothie (breakfast of champions?). 

Heads up, there are spoilers for episode nine. So listeners, if you haven't watched yet, stream it now and come right back! 

Send us your thoughts and theories (in a voice memo!?): onlymurders@strawhutmedia.com 
Or chat with fellow fans on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/OnlyMurdersHulu 

The Giveaway

Want to win tickets to the Only Murders themed escape room!? This is your last chance to enter! 
There are locations in both Los Angeles and New York. If you’re located around one of those two cities and you’d like to test your mystery solving chops with 3 of your best buds, here’s how you enter. 

Leave this podcast a rating and review on Apple or Spotify — wherever you listen from — take a screenshot, and email it to us at onlymurders@strawhutmedia.com. Include which city you want to visit the Escape Room in — either NYC or LA. 

We’ll pick 2 winners in LA and 2 in NYC. Each winner will get four tickets. We’ll choose the lucky detectives right before the season finale! Good luck! 
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Straw Hot Media.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I watched Mollie finish the scene and make that drink,
pour it in her cup and drink it to finish.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Hello and welcome to the Only Murders in the Building Podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
I'm Ryan Tillotson and I'm Maggie Bowles, and we are
looking behind the scenes and mining for clues as we
meet the cast and creators of the Hulu original series
Only Murders in the Building.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
Today on the show, we're talking all about season four,
episode nine, Escape from Planet Kolongo.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
We'll hear from showrunner and co creator John Hoffmann and
the writers of the episode, Alex Bigelow and Ben Smith.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
We'll talk all about Ron Howard's passion project, what a
Klongo is exactly, and Bev Mellon's protein packed smoothie.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
But first a quick recap and listeners, There are spoilers
for episode nine, so if you haven't watched Pippose, go
back watch it and then come.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Back Episode nine, Escape from Planet to Clungo.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
We opened with Charles narrating two years ago, Sas accidentally
backed her car into a guy and she decided to
help him become a stuntman.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
The trio goes to visit Glenn Stubbins in the hospital
to try and lure him out of his coma with
corn beef and a case of beer. It's the same
beer that Saz had brought to Charles's the night she died, but.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
The nurse won't let him in and they run into
the bartender from concussions. He tells them that Glenn was
not SAS's protege, that' screwed up on the movie project Ronkonkoma,
and they'll need to find the director to learn what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
So Ryan, the search for Ron Howard begins. We see
another Sas flashback. She's talking to her protege and coaching
him on his first fire stunt.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Oliver says he's friends with Ron Howard. They had an
unforgettable night at a Chinese restaurant.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Oliver also requests an epic bachelor party from Charles One
with wa ns whiskey, a list celebrities, and a naughty
secret wands.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Mabel goes to visit Bev to ask her if she
knows how to find Ron Howard. Of course she does,
and Bev agrees to tell her if Mabel will help
Marshall with his terrible rewrites.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
The trio goes to the set of Ron Howard's new movie,
Escape from Planet Clongo, and have to audition as extras
in order to get in. Charles and Oliver put on
blue screen spandex suits and have a big fight. They
end up getting fired before they can even meet Ron Howard.

Speaker 4 (02:33):
The nurse calls Mabel to tell her that Glenn Stubbins
is awake, but before she gets there, someone sneaks into
his room and smothers him with a pillow. Poor Glenn Stubbins.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Charles and Oliver make up and decide to go to
the famed Dumpling Spot to celebrate his bachelor party. They
have a sweetheart to heart moment, and then Ron Howard
walks in. Oliver does know him. He sits down and
tells him the story of Project Run Konkama.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Meanwhile, Mabel goes back to her apartment where Marshall is
waiting for her so that she can help him with
the rewrites, and she lets him in.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
We learn that on the set of Project Run Konkama,
Rex Bailey sass protege reignited after his fire stunt and
burned off Ron Howard's eyebrows.

Speaker 4 (03:09):
Andy stole his shoes.

Speaker 3 (03:11):
Ron shows Charles and Oliver a picture of Rex. It
looks exactly like Marshall, except with long blonde hair. The
immediately text Mabel to tell her.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
But Mabel is in apartment with him, and she opens
the case of beer and finds the script for Only
Murders in the Building the movie, except it's written by
saz Patacki.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
Marshall.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Ok, why does this script say it was written by
sas Pattacki.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
It did dig us a while to catch on to
the titles of the episodes all being movies. But this episode,
episode nine, is the first title that is not a
real movie. It's an imaginary movie, a movie that exists
only inside the Only Murders universe. John Hoffmann tells us
a story.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yes, that was one that I was in New York.
The writers were finishing up that script and Biggs we
call Alex Begelo Biggs. I love her so much. And
Ben Smith, I've loved since day one with the show.
They just sent it to me and said, all right,
so we have titled it. There are other titles. There

(04:23):
are other titles that are real for movies, but we've
titled it the title we want it to be titled so,
but we leave it to you. If you want to
change it back, please feel free blah blah. And when
I saw the title, I thought, no, I'm not going
to call this that. That is so annoying, and like
I love them all and they're just playing a joke
on me. And then I read the script and I

(04:43):
was like, Okay, it's got to be Escaped from Planet Clungo.

Speaker 6 (04:46):
It has to be.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
So I think there are times when I'm so happy
to sort of like reach back out to the writer's
room and say, guess what, guys, it's called escape from
and they like cheer and they like it, so it
was really nice. And then all the people in the
actions were like, oh my god, this Klongo thing and
what is it? Klongo? And my favorite part of Escape
from Planet Klongo truthfully, in this episode, the whole thing

(05:09):
is the moment when Steve Martin says, are we witnessing
the end of Ron Howard's career? Like when he's talking
about Escape from Planet Kolongo?

Speaker 7 (05:19):
What is this movie?

Speaker 1 (05:21):
It's deeply personal? Yeah, that for me no biographical.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
To write anything we wanted to do with Escape from
Planet Congo.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
It really does very small with a budget of twenty million.
I think you guys are a bunch of clongos and
I'm just a girl, right klongos? I mean, I'm sorry,
but what is this movie? Are we witnessing the end
of Ron Howard's career?

Speaker 8 (05:42):
No?

Speaker 6 (05:42):
No, no.

Speaker 9 (05:42):
What I learned about Ron oversup is you got to
just trust him. I told him, I said, Ron, Ron,
You're the beautiful mind. And he loved that, and he
just plunk down the credit card and paid.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
The whole soup.

Speaker 8 (05:54):
The word klongo is one of our favorite things to
say last season during the Writer's Real.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
This is Alix Biglow or Biggs as people call her,
one of the co writers of the episode.

Speaker 5 (06:04):
Clongo can mean anything.

Speaker 10 (06:05):
Really, Yeah, It's kind of like in Philly when they
say John and John means that. We just kept using
clongo to describe anything.

Speaker 6 (06:13):
In the room.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
And this is Ben Smith, the other co writer of
the episode.

Speaker 7 (06:18):
I'm not familiar with this John thing. John can mean anything.

Speaker 10 (06:22):
In Philly, they used John as like a noun, just
like this John that John.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Huh? Can you use colongo in a sentence to help
us understand?

Speaker 5 (06:32):
One example, I don't want to use like something can.

Speaker 8 (06:36):
Be like kind of like very clongo or like we
kept our biggest joke too, is like putting it in
phrases like we were much like last year when Hillary
Clinton said pokemon go to the polls.

Speaker 5 (06:48):
We always like clongo to the polls.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Oh okay, I love that. Maybe we use that, we
need that.

Speaker 8 (06:55):
You can really use it to describe anything. It's just
an addictive word to say. Like when we were on
set filming, I feel like everyone just can't help but
repeat clongo.

Speaker 7 (07:05):
Yeah, it feels good in the mouth, it does.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Yeah, very satisfying.

Speaker 10 (07:10):
I think very often on this show, people will like
be pitching names or details, and like you kind of
know collectively when something lands, and so people will kind
of keep pitching until you hear something and then everyone
kind of stops pitching. And one of our script coordinators
last year, McKenna just like pitched a line of dialogue.

Speaker 6 (07:31):
I think that seemed like.

Speaker 10 (07:32):
Why is why are we in like the green screen
suits and she's not, And McKenna just said, because I'm
just a girl and YouTube or clongos or something like that,
with no setup. It was the first time clongo had
ever been said, and it just like somehow it made
no sense, but it made complete sense all of us, right, it.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
Made all the sense in the world.

Speaker 6 (07:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (07:51):
It all was based around finding out like what kind
of movie we wanted to put Steven Marty into, and
like we had we went through a million ideas and
basically it was like, okay, well what's the funniest and
what's like the easiest to produce? And obviously it's like,

(08:12):
in my wildest dreams, could I've asked to see Stephen
Marty in skin tight spandex suits?

Speaker 5 (08:19):
And so as soon as we landed on that, we're like,
it's sci fi movie.

Speaker 8 (08:22):
And then our dear mckhead I came up with Clonco
and the rest is history.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
I also just realized that you guys are both wearing
Escape from Planet Clongo hats. Oh my gosh, I mean
I realized it, and I was like, what the heck?
How did I miss this?

Speaker 8 (08:37):
This is our unofficial merch I got made because I
was like, we have to have it, and hopefully maybe
us just wearing around these hats which we do to
the office all the time. I'm like, maybe they'll actually
make these for everyone else. Because the art department did amazing.
The logo is so fun. I was able to keep
a chair back from set that day because it was
fun because they had all the fake mood, like they

(08:59):
just had it dressed like a fake movie set.

Speaker 5 (09:01):
So this logo was like all over that day.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I love that. It's a great hat.

Speaker 7 (09:06):
Yeah, the suits are They're so.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Great, and they also kind of have like they have
kind of a heart to heart, like a very emotional
scene while wearing these blue spandex. I feel like that's
very special. I don't know. Do you have anything to
say about the Charles and Oliver relationship that we get
this episode?

Speaker 10 (09:27):
Yeah, I mean we were kind of mapping I don't know,
it just kind of like naturally happened. I feel like
we were mapping out this relationship story for Oliver and
it was like, you know, a little bit of a
production tricky thing. We didn't have Marilyn every episode, but
we're still trying to tell the story with that off
screen character and one of the like natural steps along

(09:49):
the way. It's like if they just got engaged last episode,
what's a version of an Oliver like relationship? Is Loretta
relationship story that we could tell with the characters we
have and it's like, oh, what about a bachelor party
best man story being at the worst opportune time amidst
an investigation, but that it kind of like involved Charles
as opposed to involving Loretta, And.

Speaker 6 (10:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 10 (10:13):
I think it's just fun when you can both be
very sincere on the show and the show does go sincere,
but to have a way to undercut it, so like
to have that very sweet, vulnerable conversation in green and
blue screen green screen suits, was like, as soon as
that was pitched, it was like, oh, great, that's very
easy to write.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
Now.

Speaker 7 (10:33):
Were you guys worried that they weren't gonna wear those?
Was that ever a concern?

Speaker 5 (10:37):
I actually don't think so. If it was, I don't remember.

Speaker 8 (10:42):
I feel like they are usually they've been down for
so much, and we were just so thrilled by the
idea that hopefully in our minds we assumed they would
be on the same wavelength to like see the vision
and like how funny it would be. And I feel
like we pictured it almost exactly like how it turned out,

(11:04):
which is always like a dream when you're like, oh, yeah,
this actually looks exactly like it did in my head
when we were writing out.

Speaker 6 (11:11):
The scenes totally.

Speaker 10 (11:13):
And I think step and Marty to their credit and
this goes to Selena as well, but just Steven Marty
because of this scene, Like they know comedy so well
and like they understand if something's going to be funny
and they understand you know that they can embarrass themselves
to achieve that. And I think also I do remember
talking about it a little because in their stage show,

(11:35):
Marty has a bit where he's like in spandex and
he's like rolling around on the ground and like, but
Steve isn't doing that, but we're like, oh, Marty will
off hundred. He's made a career out of that.

Speaker 8 (11:48):
You could tell he definitely was the more comfortable in
it because he was really hamming it up on set
in that suit, like it was the best thing every well.

Speaker 7 (11:58):
The placement of the one dot was very funny.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
That was I believe from on set. I believe that
was Marty's idea that he wanted to put one there.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, checks out, That feels right.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
They're honestly always game that it was. It's Dana Kova
Rubias that was so brilliant in the hat with the
way she dealt with that.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
This is John Hoffman again and Dana Koba Rubius is
the costume designer, also an Emmy winner for her work
on the show.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
You know, yes, it's a question, you know what, what
are they going to be comfortable in? What do they
feel like they want to be seen in? All of
those things? And then these guys come in and they're
they're they're just wanting bigger cod pieces and like throwing
like everything at this and so he's like, yeah, but
we were going to do the black one. I said,
I thought they would pick the black ones because they
looked actually great in them. They're like, yeah, but they're

(12:46):
not funny. Yeah, So I'm like, okay, good, fantastic.

Speaker 5 (12:50):
Go there.

Speaker 7 (12:51):
I mean, I thought it was great. I love the
the little dot tracker dot on Marty's crotch. That's someone
who grabbed Steve.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, Charles grabs grives it off of Oliver's crush.

Speaker 7 (13:01):
Very funny.

Speaker 9 (13:02):
There were a.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Couple of lines that were trimmed out after that, but
I bet Marty had a good couple of retorts after that.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
Ill bet.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, so funny and they go so gamely with it.
There are the moments and now I should just post
pictures up when it comes up and stuff. But those
moments of sitting in the chairs behind the monitors and
Marty and Steve having like a serious conversation about something
and like talking like no, no, I saw on the

(13:31):
news the other day that what's happening in the Ukraine
and blah blah blah, and they're sitting in those blue
things with the balls all over them.

Speaker 7 (13:37):
There's nothing better funny. It's so funny.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
A big part of this episode I feel like that
I loved is we get so many really really good
moments between Charles and Oliver. Got like them having the
big fight in the suits and then again in the
suits where it sort of Charles gets honest and admits
to sort of like, you know, feeling like maybe he's

(14:03):
going to be third wheel. And then you also get
the beautiful moments with them in the restaurant.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
You know we're going to be friends to the end.

Speaker 8 (14:12):
Oh God, I'm fine.

Speaker 11 (14:14):
You don't have to say anything nice to me, especially
not while making eye contact.

Speaker 9 (14:19):
What if we went behind our menus that that could work.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
I love that you're bringing this up because I like
those two guys and those characters and how much they
on the surface drive each other insane is like the
great comedy fodder of all time. But just to be
able to sort of have a moment with them where
Oliver is in full flourish of Oliver being wildly frustrating

(14:46):
and annoying and over the it's sort of not over
the top, and it's very much like nothing is good enough,
as Charles says, and insufferable he really says in that moment,
But it's everything about Charles that has been shut down,
closed off, would never express anything like that to anybody,
and is so careful not to let himself cut loose.

(15:09):
But that idea that it opens up the real underneath
of it all, which is I find to be surprising
in some way because it's almost like there's so many
threads in our stories that you kind of forget Charles's
reaction to Oliver getting married, and so having that moment
be what's underneath all of it is, what does this mean?

(15:32):
And to reach this sweet spot of it? Okay, I'm happy.
I love Loretta and I love the two of you,
but it just means a new construct for us, and
I didn't realize it would feel that way, but I've
gotten used to it feeling a certain way and now
I'm going to feel a different way. All of that,
and then that opening up Oliver into a sweetness that
we've always seen from him, where it's like, oh, God,

(15:53):
love him. He's never said anything like that to me before.

Speaker 5 (15:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
It was a beautiful friendship story together by the writers.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
It is after the break Bev Mellon's girl Boss Smoothie
and the third murder of Paul.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
Rudd Welcome Back. In this episode, the trio has the
task of finding Ron Howard, the director of both Project
ron Konkoma, where Saz's protege screwed up big time, and
escape from Planet Kolongo. We asked the writers Alex Bigelow

(16:34):
and Ben Smith if they had always pictured Ron Howard
for this role.

Speaker 5 (16:37):
No, we did it.

Speaker 8 (16:40):
We knew it was going to be a director, and
it all really centered around the eyebrows coming off. That
was something that's was that a you, Ben or or
one of our friends, but someone did the mining of
the eyebrows and that was another one of those things
that sticks with you right away. Were like, well, yeah,

(17:03):
he got to peel his eyebrows.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
Off.

Speaker 6 (17:08):
Yeah, I think that was the moment.

Speaker 10 (17:09):
I don't know if I came up with it, but
I definitely did a lot of eyebrow removal and stuff
of like taking off glasses and like the eyebrows and
like a full beard coming off. Also, it just like
once once we had the giggles about it, it was
kind of like, great, let's do that.

Speaker 6 (17:25):
But yeah, we knew we wanted to be a director.

Speaker 10 (17:27):
We knew we wanted to be a real director playing
themselves and.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
I think it helped.

Speaker 10 (17:34):
It turned out that like Ron Howard is an actor,
so he was able to like really be funny in
those scenes.

Speaker 7 (17:40):
I did not think that.

Speaker 12 (17:43):
Oliver and Ron Howard actually like really knew each other.
I thought it was like a heightened story that Oliver told.

Speaker 7 (17:49):
So it was really great when Ron Howard does the
soup thing or whatever.

Speaker 12 (17:55):
Can you tell us about their story and their meeting?
Do you know how much do you know about that?

Speaker 8 (18:00):
I mean it kind of is just what was in
the script about them having a crazy night at that restaurant,
and like that was another thing you just you really
there's certain things that when they are said, they kind
of stick. And like as soon as I guess, like,
what is this episode all about?

Speaker 5 (18:16):
Like prop comedy. I'm realizing like this, Like.

Speaker 8 (18:19):
As soon as we did like that like slurping sound
like that was like immediately we're like, yeah, slurping soup.
That like that was their meat cute and they both
like never forget, forgot that like crazy night they had together.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
I loved seeing Martin Short do it so many times
throughout the episode. He really he really had it down
to a science.

Speaker 6 (18:42):
Well, he had it last season.

Speaker 10 (18:43):
He did that whole thing of like pretending to be
a horse eating oats in episode seven last year with Charles,
and I think he's just like he nails that type
of food consumption noise comedy, which is very niche, but
he's very good at it.

Speaker 7 (18:58):
M he's very good at it.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
He definitely is. And then Ron Howard did it back
to him.

Speaker 9 (19:04):
Oh my god, it's you, Ollie.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
It's n n.

Speaker 7 (19:13):
That's what I was like, Oh, this is adorable.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, he does know Ron Howard, he does Ron Ron And.

Speaker 10 (19:19):
To your thing, Ryan. We were conscious of that expectation
that we think it might all be a story that's
not real, because all the stories aren't real, and so
there were moments in the episode where we purposely tried
to hide him like on set, like did the show
really get Ron Howard to be on Planet Clongo or
they just doing a stand in. So we wanted to

(19:40):
like tease that idea that he doesn't really know him,
or that we didn't actually get Ron Howard to do.

Speaker 11 (19:44):
The episode took us so long enough, but we finally
are on the right track.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
The only question is how the hell do we get
to Ron Howard.

Speaker 9 (19:52):
Well, I've been waiting to tell you this for maximum impact,
but Ron Ron and I are close personal friends.

Speaker 11 (20:01):
And you know it's true because he called him Ron Ron.

Speaker 9 (20:04):
I'll have you know. Our head shots are hung right
next to each other at my favorite Chinese restaurant, well
next to each other, in across and down sort of way.
My face is covered by a plant, but my pompadour's pumpin.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
I hope people watched this episode thinking, oh, they didn't
get Ron Howard.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
This is John Hoffman again.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
That's what I thought.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
I know, right, because he's just hidden back there and
all that stuff, and he's.

Speaker 7 (20:26):
Had they just they could only get his voice, you know,
because that was definitely his voice.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
Yeah, Well, you know he's a busy guy talk about
the greatest too. By the way, I just loved him
so much. He had a lot to do that week
and he rearranged his schedule and just the greatest guy.
I know, everyone says it. There are people in this
business La Paul Rudd, Ron Howard like they're kind of
unscathed personalities for very good reason. Because you call Ron

(20:53):
Howard up. I did, and it was Steven Marty and
he loves them and Selena he loves and he loves
the show. He's all sweet and I'm working with Ron
on something else right now. But beyond all of that,
he was very busy. He had a crazy week and
he said, you know what, I want to try and
make this work. I'm going to move some things. And

(21:14):
I said, well, we can make it one day if
you do it. He said, no, no, keep it at two.
I want to do two days. I'm like, I just
love the guy. And he came and again just schooled
us all in how to be the best.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
So do you call him Ron?

Speaker 9 (21:27):
Ron?

Speaker 7 (21:28):
Then I call him Ron Run Now, yeah you should,
wow Run Ron.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
I want to know about when Mabel, Charles and Oliver
have to do their screams for Ron Howard's movie what
do I Do?

Speaker 11 (21:43):
I think big, I think we go big. I was
hoping for big.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
You're Out, Dan.

Speaker 11 (21:51):
Finalies are small, going small, smallest, sophisticated, smallest for the silver.

Speaker 9 (21:55):
Screen, really keeping us on our toes.

Speaker 11 (21:57):
Here you.

Speaker 6 (22:05):
I thought we said small. That was my small You're in, Oh,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I'm just curious what it was like, what that experience
was like shooting that.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, okay, so that one. I was watching it thinking,
oh god, this is going to be but each one
was so defined. I loved Mabel's terror and that actually
is what got her cast, and she was perfect in it,
of course. And then Oliver. We had about twelve different

(22:36):
versions of the screen we did, so it was really
a matter of size and scale and fulfilling everything we
needed to fulfill in that thing. And then Charles being
recognized as Brazos was sort of like, my my, it
just felt like a perfect again, a trio's like dream.
But then I felt bad for everyone else around them
who had to scream and do those takes over and

(22:58):
over again and lose voices and stuff like that. But
they were all amazing.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, yeah, I would have cast them all.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
To background players yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Yeah, in order to find Ron Howard, Mabel heads to
the Penthouse to ask Bev Mellon for help, and we
learned that the Penthouse was actually one of the production
designer Patrick house favored sets.

Speaker 13 (23:17):
It was somehow more fun than usual to redo the
Penthouse in a new look, and may you know because
I didn't embrace that as well, you know, the concept
of like, oh, really we're always going to be in
this penthouse and then a different I mean I like
the different look part because I'd done that my whole career.
Of you usually it's trying to like use the same
scenery and have people not know it's the same place. Yeah,

(23:40):
in this case, you're and in this case is a
slightly opposite where you're honoring that it is the same
place and trying to give it different looks but not
really alter it too much so that you can justify
that it really is the same footprint, you know. So,
but the fact that we had the description and the
script was for the Penthouse so simply the CB two

(24:03):
as in the Creighton Barrel to retail of CB two
meets Burning Man.

Speaker 5 (24:09):
So and.

Speaker 13 (24:12):
Once I read Burning Man, it was like wide open
to interpretation.

Speaker 7 (24:16):
Of Toto.

Speaker 13 (24:18):
So it's like Burning Man, but like but like functional
burning Man production office.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
In that Functional burning Man meets CB two production office,
we see bet Mellon played by Molly Shannon make herself
a smoothie you could call it. Even though it looks
like she's got her pick of Kale Ginger Lemons, she
goes for slim Gyms and red Bull. Here's John Hoffman again.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
That concoction was way more than what is in the
cut because truthfully, like we could have made an entire
episode out of that blender and what Molly was doing
with it. She had some pharmaceuticals in there. It's like, yeah,
there were a couple of like there were there were
many other things in there. And my favorite take is

(24:59):
in there's a moment in our blooper reel, not blooper reel,
but our gag reel that was put together for the show.
And I watched Molly finish the scene and make that drink,
pour it in her cup and drink it to finish
the scene and she was like all smiles and like,
oh like that. Then they said cut. She was that

(25:20):
is disgusted?

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Was it the slim Gym, red Well drink? Oh my god,
she ate it. She drank. I wish I had known
that so I could have mashed.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
I love that scene so much, and that was one
of those things like Molly's my friend for years, and
to watch her working with props like that and to
work that out and time it out, and like then,
I love that beat where she's just holding and blending
and there's just like holding and blending and holding.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
It so long.

Speaker 7 (25:49):
Oh wow, I can't believe she drank that. Yes, she
is a superstar. She's a superstar for sure.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Well, I just I came by because I'm trying to
track down Ron Howard.

Speaker 13 (26:03):
Do you my chance to know.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Where he is?

Speaker 14 (26:05):
Of course I know where that fucker is.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Wait you do?

Speaker 14 (26:08):
Oh yes, Mabel, And nobody in this town if you
ain't keeping track of wrong how od He's actually in
New York right now shooting a movie. No one knows
what it's about or who's in it. But I did
hear that it's very autobiographical and very personal and very
small and the budget is two hundred million dollars.

Speaker 8 (26:27):
I wrote and hyper fixated on slim gyms and energy.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
Drinks, and here's Biggs and Ben Smith again.

Speaker 8 (26:36):
I like adore Molly Shannon so much like one of
my all time favorites.

Speaker 5 (26:40):
Obviously incredible.

Speaker 8 (26:41):
We ent her in the show, and that like kind
of crazy producer type like girl Boss, too close to
the sun energy. I'm like, I always envision those people
like never having a real diet and just like truly
having such odd ways to think about energy. So like
in her mind, it's like I haven't slept for days,
I need to stay hyped up and I need a

(27:02):
little protein too, so let's just get a slim gym
in there.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (27:07):
I think this shooting script of that was almost identical
to what Biggs wrote in the first draft. She like
tapped into that.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Character and how long she like blends that smooth the
blender for it was very funny, very funny scene.

Speaker 5 (27:25):
It's very delightful.

Speaker 7 (27:27):
And then John told us that she took a sip
at least once on set.

Speaker 8 (27:32):
Okay, I did not note that, and that makes me horrified.
But also that was another one of those scenes where like, okay, yeah,
production meetings to light someone else on fire of course extensive,
and it's so cool to hear behind the scenes, but
also the production meeting for them, so seriously hearing a
group of people be like, Okay, so how are we

(27:52):
going to make this work.

Speaker 5 (27:54):
We're gonna press dates into the shape of a slim
gym so they're easily blendable and X, Y and Z. Like,
seeing a group of people figure out how to blend
like a slim gym was something I won't forget.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
So they weren't real slim gyms. They were Dates.

Speaker 8 (28:10):
Wow, they did because they practiced it, and they're like,
the slim gyms weren't blending clean enough.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
We got to fake a slim jym.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well, that makes actually me feel better about like I
would having a Red Bull Dates.

Speaker 7 (28:23):
Red Bull Dates is.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Not as bad as Red Bull slim Jims.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Since you guys were on set.

Speaker 7 (28:29):
Also, I guess I'm curious your each of you your
favorite part of this episode. Maybe not shooting, Maybe it
was a writing process thing.

Speaker 10 (28:37):
There's so much I looked at in this episode, and
I loved them auditioning and doing the screams. I thought
turned out so well. That was a favorite of mine.
And then also in watching the final product, something that
I love loved was the very end of the episode,
the reveal of Marshall pe Pope as Rex Bailey And

(28:59):
actually the weight was scripted was that it ended a
little earlier that was in the cut, and the top
of episode ten was like the final beat of them
talking to each other, like why does this have Saz's
name on it? But in the edit they like moved that,
you know, two lines up and I thought, I don't
know the end of I loved how it turned out.

(29:21):
But in terms of like favorite scene of just like
the comedy of it and the execution of it. I
loved them auditioning for their their fake scared Yeah, that.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
One was very fun.

Speaker 8 (29:32):
I will have to say, probably at the end of
the day when like they are actually on set and
like about to film the scene and they're with all
the other Klongo like background people, and then when Charles
like blows up it all over. I mean seeing them
do that over and over again, like there was a
whole all the other background people in this fandex. I

(29:55):
just love that blow up scene because it felt very emotional,
but also because they're in the suits and the specifics
that Charles was yelling about about, like what Oliver would
want and this like crazy fake bachelor party ideas.

Speaker 5 (30:12):
It was like the perfect.

Speaker 8 (30:13):
Combo of what our show I feel like is, which
is like emotional but obviously very very funny.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
Oh targos, my sow buy you time?

Speaker 6 (30:24):
Don't let my death be in vain?

Speaker 14 (30:26):
Monster?

Speaker 11 (30:27):
What the hell's with him?

Speaker 5 (30:29):
Charles?

Speaker 1 (30:29):
A little effort please?

Speaker 9 (30:31):
Or is this gonna be my bachelor party all over again?

Speaker 13 (30:34):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (30:36):
Your bachelor party?

Speaker 11 (30:37):
Oh you're right, yes, I should pitch in. How about
a a sunsets the gar cruise up to Gowanas Canal,
or maybe a dining and spa experience where we get
fish pedicures and afterwards we eat the fish. Oh Makazi style?
Whoa wait? Ice luses poured by professional ice lusures? Is
this getting good enough for you?

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Men? To A very sad thing that happens in episode
nine is Glenn Stubbins is murdered. That means that Paul
Rudd has died three times on Only Murders.

Speaker 7 (31:12):
Can we expect to see him again next season?

Speaker 1 (31:14):
When will we.

Speaker 7 (31:15):
See him next?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
I hope you're wanting it? That's all I can say.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
This is John Hoffman again? You know that, right?

Speaker 7 (31:23):
Because I am?

Speaker 9 (31:24):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (31:25):
And he it?

Speaker 2 (31:26):
But no, I think that was one of the both bittersweet.
Poor little Glenn Stubbins in the middle of everything. There
Paul Rudd dying too many times in our show is
how we live?

Speaker 7 (31:41):
Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 6 (31:43):
It's you.

Speaker 11 (31:48):
No, no, no no.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
The last question obviously, the big reveal.

Speaker 7 (32:01):
This is a big one.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Actually, it's a huge reveal. At the end of the
episode nine, we discover that Sas wrote the screen at
least wrote a screenplay of the only murders in the
Building movie, and that her protege was Rex Bailey, who
looks exactly like Marshall p Pope. I don't know. We
do a lot of doubles in here, you know, we

(32:23):
do a lot of doubles of twins, so I'm not
one hundred percent convinced that it actually is him, could
be his twin brother. I don't know. Tell us about
this big reveal, I guess at the end of nine.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
I know I have to be so careful because there
are twists, many twists, and the story to come all
around this, obviously, so I can't say too much other
than I remember, particularly the notion that that script was

(32:56):
found in the cold case that we saw Says arrive
at the end of episode ten in the previous season
with and they all cheer her who wants a cold case,
and that it comes around that there's something inside that
thing that's been sitting in Oliver's refrigerator ever since that

(33:20):
night she was there and he's not a beer drinker,
and that it moves out of there, you know. And
I just found it like, oh, that there's something left
that holds the key to something big.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
I really liked that. I like the reveal of that.
I can't say more, but yeah, that was a I
liked the way it was constructed. We really got into
talking about how the end of episode nine looked and
felt where everyone was and what would feel like confusing,

(33:58):
shocking and scary.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Well, it is scary. He's alone in an apartment with Mabel,
and if he's a murderer, she's in grave danger.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Not looking good, guys.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
So we can't wait for episode ten.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
I hope you like it. It's one of my favorites
we've done. I love the finale for this season. I
really hope you guys like it. But it's got a
lot going on in it. There's really funny, insane stuff
in it. There's big swings and just the performance is beautiful.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Well, I can't wait to see it. Marshall, OK, why
does this script say it was written by SASPATTACKI.

Speaker 3 (35:00):
That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 7 (35:02):
We'll be back in a few days with more from
John Hoffman, Alex Bigelow, Ben Smith, and stunt coordinator Chris Barnes.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
We have to talk about the fire definitely. Please send
your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
And theories to us at only Murders as straw hutmedia
dot com. Take a minute to subscribe, read the show,
follow us, leave us a review if you enjoy listening.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Only Murders in the Building podcast is a production of
straw Hut Media, hosted and produced by Ryan Tillotson and
Maggie Bowles. Associate producer is Stephen Markley. Original music by
Kyle Merritt. Only Murders in the Building theme music by
Siddartha Kosla. Assistant editor is Daniel Frera. Production assistant is
Caroline Mendoza.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
Thanks to Alex Bigelow, Ben's Smith, and Patrick Howe for
talking to us this.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
Week, and a big big thanks as always to John
Hoffman and the entire Hulu team.

Speaker 7 (36:06):
See soon bye. I got this cat hair on my
on my Oh show.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
That's exciting. But you're looking it up right now?

Speaker 7 (36:25):
Yeah, spell it wrung.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
He opened up a images. Ryan, just say baloney loaf,
urban dictionary.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
That's very good in the moment. This is very exciting
to see you realize what.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
The images again, Ryan still hoping to.

Speaker 7 (36:43):
Say, I'm looking.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Spell baloney, not in the in the Italian way, but
in the in the like Oscar Meyer way, you know,
b l A oh yeah, why oh oh?

Speaker 5 (36:57):
Was it?

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (36:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (36:58):
Is that right?

Speaker 5 (36:59):
I can't remember this?

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Is it?

Speaker 7 (37:01):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Suck baloney? I see.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Blooney loaf?

Speaker 6 (37:06):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (37:07):
I don't. I don't.

Speaker 7 (37:08):
We don't have any pictures right now, but I'm gonna sew.
You don't needn't, Okay, So I thought it was you
know what's not coming up? Maybe get rid of urban dictionary.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Yeah, maybe
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