Mike Hollingsworth on Popeye

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hello everybody, and welcome to movie Crush. Chuck Bryant here
in the studio pot City Market, Atlanta, Georgia, and Uh,
I had another great in person interview that was set
up through my old pal former guests Brandy Posey of
the Lady to Lady podcast and Brandy's she got in
touch with me because she was coming through Atlanta again
and UH doing a cool uh kind of a live

(00:48):
stand up show called pictured This where comedians get up
on stage and then they have a an artist or
cartoonist or animator draw pictures while they're on stage. It's
a very cool concept. And Brandy was here with Mike
Collingsworth and you may know Mike's work through a little
Netflix show called bow Jack Horseman, which is the best,

(01:11):
very very awesome show. It's it's funny, it's endearing, there's
a lot going on there. It's more than just your
kind of typical animated show if you ask me. And
she was like, man, you need to sit down with Mike.
He's a good guy. Thank you too, would get along great.
Got in touch with Mike and she was right, he's
a very very awesome dude. And he picked the movie Popeye,

(01:32):
which man. If you know me, then you know I
was fairly obsessed with this movie when I was a kid,
and it was really interesting after seeing it so many
times growing up to see it now as an adult
through the lens of a discerning movie goer and fan
of Robert Altman, who I didn't even realize was a
big time director when I was eleven or twelve years old.

(01:54):
And uh, it's a weird, awesome movie. Uh, and there's
always there a lot going on. It's such a strange,
cool film. And uh, really enjoyed watching it again. Totally
enjoyed talking to Mike about this and about bow Jack
and animation in general. Just a good good dude. So
here we go with Mike Hollingsworth on Popeye. That would

(02:18):
not surprise me. That was after my time. Kevin Barnes, Yeah, yeah,
he was. You'd probably be younger than Kevin Barnes. How
old is he fifty or something? Well, I'm seven. Yeah,
I'm up there. So I don't wear headphones, but you
can if you want. Um, just make sure the mike's

(02:40):
in front of you. We already just sort of hit
record and I'll just find a good place to come
in check check Sibilates Cibili from Atlanta. Who is Sibolts?
Is that the first guy who ever checked the Mike
Civil Sibilets, sibilts check check check last name, let's first
name Civil. Yeah, she's from She grew up in a

(03:01):
town outside of Atlanta. She said, where the braves lived,
Where the braves lived, Alpharetta, Alfaretta. Yeah, okay, is that
right outside here? Yeah, I mean it's like a northern suburb. Yeah,
if that makes sense, just pull that over a little.
She went to g A. Like I said, it just

(03:22):
seemed like the coolest place ever that appens Georgia. Yeah,
it's a lot of fun. Um. You know, I spent
six years there just because I wanted to. Yeah, it
was not like I leave. Yeah, I was in no
hurry and it was so much fun. Just went back
a few weeks ago for the first time in a
little bit. Yeah, it's so beautiful. Yeah it was. It
was fun. And during the summer, it's great because that

(03:43):
was always my favorite time because you're sado masks. Yeah.
Well it is hot as ship. The A lot of
the students leave and if you were, um because it's
so hot. Yeah, and not to get well, they would
just go to other hot places in Georgia. They'd go
back to Atlanta probably, yeah, but um it sounds very
snobby and elitist. But a lot of the like the

(04:05):
the frat boys and stuff went home and the cool
people stayed. So summertime in Athens is like hanging out
with Michael Stipe and um yeah and who else Olivia
Tremor Control in uh Neutral Milk Hotel. We're all just
best buds. And you were hanging out in front of

(04:26):
that year old video store which is now a Bank
of America Vision Video. I don't know what's there now.
Actually I didn't go by there. I'm sure it's not
a video store. I should have gone there. I took
my three still a couple of video stores in l A.
Vidiots or something. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. My store in
l A. I lived in Los Felis was Video Hut maybe. Yeah.

(04:50):
I think I heard you discussing that. Was it by
the UCB No, that one. No, it was right on
I think it was right on Vermont. Yeah, sort of
across from the House of Pies. I don't know, Well,
you know that area, I remember, Yeah, there's a video
store there. Yeah, that was my jam. Now I think
it's a yoga studio. Oh well, that's what they all

(05:10):
the time. I just saw the other day that the
last the last Blockbuster is still standing in Bend, Oregon.
The two in Alaska closed the last month, and there's
one butter but it now sells blocks. It sells masonry.
It literally sells blocks blue blocks. It's kind of funny though,

(05:30):
because they said that it's um they get legit traffic
from tourism. Oh yeah, yeah, from just people that want
to go into those Germans who come here to like
take pictures of Detroit. We will go to Detroit and
visit your Blockbusters. Yeah, that's probably about right in your
healthcare system. Yeah. Um, I grew up in San Francisco,

(05:55):
was born San Francisco, and um yeah, wouln't be a
better place to jealous of people who grew up in
the best places. Yes, San Francisco was a pretty amazing place.
It's a kind of place that kind of had everything.
It has everything that California has, and it has seasons. Yeah.

(06:16):
I didn't. My parents couldn't afford to to stay in
San Francisco for very long. I got pushed out by
the first boom that really Yeah, Blockbusters. The house was
turned into a Blockbuster. H Are you serious? Um, because

(06:36):
I have not been. I'm not being serious now, nor
will I ever be serious throughout the duration that could happen. Uh.
So you were there during the good days when it
was still a real city. You mean the good days
when I was young, when I'm old, before the eggs

(06:58):
and paints set in. Um, Yeah, it was great. I
started they're doing stand up comedy, the Punchline and Cobs
although open mics and everything. It was just a terrific
city to do comedy. My comedy wasn't terrific, but the
city was great. It always has been a pretty good

(07:19):
stand up So yeah, yeah, I was at the time
I was there, Arch Barker, Robert Hawkins, they were like
the biggest guys there and they would just destroy they
like own that city. Yeah. He before arche Barker went
off to austral almost just on this show Arge Barker, Well,
because I was in we did a show and a

(07:40):
live stuff you should know as my other podcast, and
that's the one that people actually care about. And so
we do live shows and we had live shows in
Denver and he got randomly got in touch and said, Hey,
I'm gonna be in Denver. My wife's a big fan
of yours and she's going to your show. So I
was like, oh, I can bring a recording gear. Yeah,
didn't record you for movie Crush, but it just it
didn't work. Yeah. Well, um, he seems like a good

(08:02):
he's the funniest guy ever. Yeah, he's good. He Uh.
There was once a bunch of young he wasn't married
at the time of this story. It was a bunch
of young comedians in the back of the punchline after
the show, and he came up to us and he
told us when we were up there, we have to
do do your whole act to the one woman in

(08:22):
the crowd that you want to sleep with. He says,
your actors basically your icebreaker right. If you do it
right to her, you can walk right off stage and
continue the conversation. Like I said, this was twenty years ago.
I no longer know him or his wife. I'm positive
they weren't married at the time, and neither was I.
Right now, Uh, was that advice to young comedians on

(08:47):
how to relax like picture everyone in their underwear? Was
that how to get laid. I think it was how
to get laid. Okay, good, that's good advice. He looked
at me and my group, He's like, he needs some help.
Not a comedy. That's a lost cause. Right, just the
second half of the thing. I think you had to
achieve the first half in order to understand the second half.

(09:07):
What when did you start drawing? I guess that was
probably the first thing for you, right, Yeah. I was
doing stand up and at the same time doing cartoons
for alternative press like your l a weekly Village Voice
type stuff. Um, and doing those two things at the

(09:27):
same time, and eventually, you know, like political stuff or no,
just silly kind of just silly things and uh. And
eventually I was like, I need to make a living,
you know. I was broke as a joke and I
was like, okay, I have this skill and this skill.
How can I marry these two things of doing a

(09:50):
comedy and being able to draw? And I made my
first short um that was like at the very beginnings
of the internet and stuff. And that first short I
made made it into like the HBO as Aspen Comedy Festival,
Annessey International Festival in France. What's that one? Was called

(10:10):
the Mustache Contest. It is online. Yeah, but it's like
remember when every YouTube video was so fuzzy? Yeah, sure
I have right now. I got my I T guy
at bow Jack. I had him pool all my old
films off off offline from various places where they were
still alive as Swift's and so that I can um

(10:34):
turn them into m o vs at some point and
re upload them for posterior um. I use him as
a personal slave. I was about to say, I used
to make a little shorts back in the day on
digital eight, and that's such an easier way than trying
to find all those old tapes. About to have him

(10:55):
on a hard drive just like you know, like you
said from you have an I T guy here? Who's
this guy behind in the glass? Put them to work?
I mean he's just staring at us, I guess, waiting
to see if we peek, if we pop? Can he
digitize old videos? Well? Because I'm smooth, So you know,
I don't poppies. No, I don't pop my piece unless

(11:17):
you're popping and locking. I have a pop filter installed
as braces is what those are. Yeah? Yeah that's nice.
So were you drawing as a kid, though, Is that
always that I was drawing as a kid. Yeah, I
mean my dad really loved Mad magazine. He would draw
those characters and then um, try and get chomped us

(11:37):
and get us all drawing, and then um, I me
and my brother used to my parents, I don't know why.
They had a bunch of butcher paper, and we would
get old Looney Tunes cartoons and tapes of them from
video stores and and pause them and just put put
your paper right up to the TV and trace off
the TV. Little tracing when I was a kid too. Yeah,

(11:59):
that's what I did when I was a kid. That
must be step one. I just had all of these
books and I would trace out of all these books,
these Peanuts books. I wore holes through them. I had
this Chuck a Muck book, this famous Chuck Jones book,
and I just it's so I would just trace and
trace and trace. And then all the kids at school
would call me a trace artist. But everybody's looking for

(12:21):
something to pick on every other people about. But then
I had this Chuck Jones book, and um, it was
so beat up because I just carried it everywhere with me.
The whole binding of it was all had fallen apart,
was all held together with masking tape. And actually he
did an appearance and I brought that book to have
him sign. That's so cool. And he's he was like

(12:43):
to Mike from Chuck Jones, Jones who's also tattered and torn.
Oh man, that's great. Still have it? I do still
have it? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, you know his um,
his granddaughter works for squarespace. Yeah, and like came to
one of our shows one time and introduced herself. Afterwards,

(13:04):
was like, by the way, here's this. It was like
a bugs Bunny thing and uh wait, am I think
he took Jones? Yeah? Not Charles Schultz? Was it? That?
Definitely not with Bugs Bunny? Yeah, it was Goundrel, Bob
clamp It. You got to pick a side. It's either
Chuck Joes or clamp It. They hated each other. He
was the original guys there at Termite. Terrorists were for

(13:28):
his freeling Tech Savery and that guy who directed a
bunch of Bob Hope films. He left animation, he directed
all their road movies. What was his name, I don't know,
but he went on to real entertainment, real show business
and uh yeah, Tech saveris. Two animators were Chuck Jones

(13:50):
and um Bob clamp It. And then when check Chuck
when then when tex tex Savery got fired the King
of Cartoons. He got fired because he had this long
ending at the end of this cartoon where bugs Bunny
was falling and falling. He was like falling for over
a minute, and then at the end he wanted to

(14:12):
suggest that he died, I believe, and he got into
a huge row with Leon Slessinger, the producer of the place,
and they fired tex Savery, or I think maybe tech
Savery basically was like no, if you guys funk all,
y'all if you don't, But I think you know it
was he was going to really die. He was interesting

(14:34):
dyeing some kind of funny way, and uh so that
left his position open. He went off to MGM to
make all those droopy cartoons and red hot Riding Hood
and and so then that left his position open. And
I think there was some backstabbing that happened and Bob
and then ah not yeah, Bob Clampitt, Yeah, he took

(14:58):
the position and Chuck Jones, ever, I forgave him and
there's I love I live in l a there's so
there's all of these letters where Chuck Jones and tech
Savery when when they were older, because Bob clamp it
was when those cartoons first came back around and became
popular again. Bob Clampitt came out and claimed to create

(15:18):
all the characters, whereas Tech Savery really created bugs Bunny.
He was in everybody was kind of using this rabbit,
but tech Savery was the first one who solidified the character.
But Bob Clampitt claimed to create him. And so Chuck
Jones brought this to tech Saveries and it's all everybody
wrote letters, so it's all all these letters are around

(15:40):
to read, and Chuck Jones brought it to tech saveris
attention and then was just kind of like, we gotta
take this guy down. He's a scoundrel, he's a real
cat and and and on that, and so then tex
Savery wrote him back and tech Savery was was kind
of sweet because he was a Southern boy. He was

(16:03):
from Texas. Yeah, okay, I figured so um he was like, oh, yes, well,
thank you for bringing this into my attention. That is,
you know, not exactly accurate what he wrote, but on
the top of this letter. It was Tex Saveris letterhead
and it had his address, and so I was like,
this is like where Tex Savers lived. And uh, I

(16:24):
went to the house just to see where it was.
It was the saddest, dumpiest apartment in North Hollywood. And
I was like standing in front of this apartment and
I was like, this is where the King of cartoons lived.
This was his castle. This sad you know, like that
melrose play style apartment building that they have all over
l A but no pool in the middle and all

(16:46):
the paint shipping and everything. I lived in one of those. Actually, yeah,
I meant they're all really cool. No, it was. It
was a shitty old place, but it was cheap. It's
kind of perfect. But you went to king of podcasting
like you are now you're just some punk That's right.
You were the surf of podcasting. You were the squire
I was. It was pre podcasting. Who who's your nemesis

(17:06):
and in cartoons? Goodness, my wife always comes down on
me because I do have nemesis. Is you don't have
to name any I don't know if I'll name them.
I've I believe that you have to live boldly and
if you don't have a few enemies, and what kind
of life are you living? And I also believe that
you are not living any kind of life worth living

(17:29):
if you've never been thrown out of a bar at
least once. Oh, man, I don't know that I've ever
been thrown out of a bar. Come on, think about it.
It's probably because you were too drunk. No, I'm just
I'm a fun drunk, so I've never like to get
thrown out of a bar. You have to be a
bit of a dick when you're drunk, right, You're not

(17:50):
like that guy is too drunk and having a great time.
I've checked this box, this rule of my own off
in a sideways manner where I was with a young
lay d who started, who complained too loudly about the
bartenders fake boobs, and then she had us kicked out.
It'll do it. So I didn't do anything, but I

(18:12):
was along for the ride and the box checking off
for this rule I've made up. Yeah, of your own.
Where do you live in l A? I live in
wonderful what do they say, glorious downtown Burbank. I lived
like yourself on the East side Los Felis. But then

(18:32):
I had a child, and they came to us and
they said, oh, congratulations on having a child. To get
the funk out of Los Felis and moved to Burbank
where people who have children live. How many kids got?
I just have the one? How old who's named Avery
after tex Avery. That's how deep I roll. That's pretty
good nonsense. Yeah, they're how I talked my wife into that.

(18:56):
She's also an animator. But she's not crazy, but she
signed on to it. Hold, he is two and a half,
all right, I gotta just turn three year old. Yeah,
so I had heard that, I get I get where
you are right now. Not a lot of sleep. We
did pretty good. She was a good sleeper from the beginning.
Guilt from being out of town, Yeah, definitely that occasionally. Um, yeah,

(19:19):
it's kind of rough when yeah, when I go out
it's out of town. And then yeah, I never thought
i'd do FaceTime before, but yeah, and now it's sort
of a fun thing. Do you do it with all?
Do you put all the little cat faces on yourself?
Can you do that with FaceTime? Chuck is lifting up
his phone. He's showing me a picture of him with
a kitty cat face. Oh, there's adorable little fox. It's
a funny rabbit. Can you do that on FaceTime? Actually

(19:41):
you do it on Facebook? Okay, you do on FaceTime.
I don't know. I know you have your sponsorships here,
I don't know. Can we talk about the video chatting
on Facebook? And okay? Okay? You're not like a branded
No movie. Christ is not heavily sponsored, although I do all.
I do all of my video talking with my child

(20:02):
on Coca cola. Can coca cola the video software of
the now that's also refreshing. Yeah. Um, so you're watching
an animator to where does she work? She works at
Warner Brothers for uniqu Kitty. It's um from the Lego movie.
She's the animation director. She's appearing tomorrow if you have

(20:25):
a time machine at Comic Con a Unikitty panel. I
got the hell out of Dodge when that comic Con
comes around. What well, I mean it's everybody. Everybody empties
out of l A. I mean anybody who's everybody you
know what I mean a lot of people at comic
con right now? Yeah. Yeah, it's so sticky, it's hot.

(20:51):
Everybody's touching everything. You could just go there in your
hands are kind of sticky the whole time, and you're
like the one time, the last time I went to
Comic Con, my friend wanted to go. We had free
passes offered because we're professionals, and uh, he just did
air quotes. By the way, well, to be clear, here

(21:11):
is my show biz ranking. Animation is all the way
down at the bottom of show business. Second from the bottom,
it's professional dog trainers animation, and then pornography were all
the way down at the bottom. I don't buy that. Um,
but my the last time I went to Comic Con,
that main show room is just so overwhelming. At a

(21:34):
certain point, me and my wife were just like, are
you pooped? I was like, yeah, I'm so tired. And
we went in this giant room. We found one of
the four corners and we sat down on the floor
and leaned up back to back and fell asleep for
about two hours in the middle of this cacophony of
nonsense and sticky hands. Yeah, people smelling in weird costs

(21:55):
a lot of smelling stuff. I went one year to
the San Diego one. I think we just did like
a live podcast and um, I saw in a golf
cart one day. Um, Mark Hamill and took a picture.
I was like, oh my god, there's Luke Skywalker took
a photo and then uh, someone had to point out

(22:18):
to me that stan Lee was in the front seat,
and I was like, Stanley and Mark Camill pulled right
to me in a golf cart. It's like, does that
just happen all the time or was that like a unicorn?
So yeah, I think it does happen. I mean, like
every time I've been there, you see like weird owls
walking around the show room and mac Raining is always
making himself as seen as possible here I am mac

(22:40):
Raining loved me and he's do that love. He just
has a mobile booth that he just scoots around in. Yeah.
I went to a Simpson's reading once and did that deal.
I'm sure he'd probably done that, right. No, I've never
done it. No, we have table reach to for bo Jack,
but we don't. It's a different deal, I guess because
Simpsons resets every time basically, but bo Jack doesn't reset,

(23:05):
and so we're not really allowed to, you know, like
it's a linear it's like a binge type situation. And
so if you came to a taping or if you
came to a table read of bo Jack, which is
very fun with Will Arnett and Aaron Paul and Tom
is an invitation and Alison brief. But that's the thing.
Nobody comes because um it's uh you, you wouldn't get

(23:29):
what was happening. And also I think they're afraid of
you know, if you if you went to Simpson's table
read and you said, on this episode, you know, uh,
comic book man is going to start dating Selma, they'd
be like, okay, and that doesn't have any consequences, but
they're trade You would go out and be like, you know,

(23:50):
bo Jack just but chugged some methodone and he's um
flying a helicopter spoiler. Yeah, how did bob Jack come
to you? What's that story? Um? They were looking for
you know, Raphael, and so you know, like you find
the right coattails and you just nail your shoes to him. Um.

(24:15):
I first met him when he was like something stupid,
like twenty five or whatever. And he's just a guy
who was like a real smart and stuff. He's just
real great and you know he's like he writes this
great melodramatic stuff, but he's just like a prat fall
goofball dufus. It's an interesting mix, and I mean that

(24:37):
with all sincerity and yeah, I'm a dufas um so. Yeah,
they were looking for somebody who could, um kind of
bring somebody with comedy chops, and that's what I got
in spades. I mean, like I did stand up for
like fifteen years. I never went to school. I applied

(24:59):
to CAL, I did not get in by the time
they said, reapply in a year. And by the time
a year came back around, I was already working for
the Disney Channel making baby cartoons, um so, and working
alongside all these kids with CAL arts. Uh, student loans
degrees printed on student loan payments are built, um and so.

(25:24):
But I've always just been able to really, you know,
I'm not the greatest border, I'm not the greatest animator,
not the greatest character designer, but I just I'm I'm
really up there as far as gags and um and
uh just comedy and um that's just from doing comedy,

(25:45):
Like I really learned how to like pace a gag
and how to like unpack an idea from doing stand up.
You know, when they do when you do go to
school for these kind of things, the arts and everything.
They always do tell you in animation schools that you
should take acting classes or study Buster Keaton, study Charlie Chapman.

(26:06):
You're like barf. But it really I feel like I have.
I I when I did enter the animation field, I
had such a leg up on everybody because I could
just knew how to execute a joke. But I also
had a leg down on everybody because I treated my
co workers like they were fellow comedians in the back

(26:29):
of a club. I went in there so hot, just
kind of just kind of cutting people down, and it
took a while to adjust to like that. I'm no
longer My colleagues are no longer stand up comedians delicate
people because the inside kits on each other, right, Yeah,

(26:50):
we bag on each other a lot, But the animators
are sensitive. They're more sensitive. Yeah, they're more regular. I
would say, the stand up comedians, you're regular. May I
say in many ways asshole? So I was a I
was an asshole in a toilet paper factory. It's just

(27:12):
trying to wipe it all over the place. So you
had to tone that down. That is not a metaphor
that I feel tested. I like that. I would use
that um. So you had to tone that down a bit. Yes,
I had to adjust because they think you're a jerk.
I was just too big. It's great though, for being

(27:33):
in the room and pitching like um. You know when
you do when you do, when you are a story
boarder and a director, you're meant to basically sell your boards.
You have, you have the script, and here's your execution
of that script, and here's all this other stuff I added,
and you got to sell it. If you go in
there and you can't peddle your goods, it'll get cut, rearrange.

(28:00):
They're really buying you, like some of our some of
it's so crazy because some directors are so good in
the room, but they're not good at getting the work done.
And then some directors are like drawing like crazy, like
so talented, but when they get into that room in
their face with the EPs, you know they are quite

(28:24):
as a dormouse. You have to kind of find the balance.
You have to basically, in in all arts, you have
to sell yourself. You You've got to be your own. P. T.
Barnum And I consider myself the Willy Wonka of animation.
I'm in there singing for my supper, Well, what is
your job like? I think this is a good chance

(28:45):
because I don't think a lot of people fully even
understand what a job title like yours means to a
show like that. It's so crazy. I've only recently I'm
the supervising director of bo Jack Horseman and the upcoming
Tuca and Bertie for by Lisa Hannah Walt, our production
designer on bo Jack Horseman. The show is going to
be so insane, it's so funny. It starts Tiffany Hattish

(29:09):
and Ali Wong, So Tiffany Hattish and the team behind
bo Jack. It's uh Fortflix. It's also for Netflix. We're
halfway through the boarding and it's just so amazing. It's
and I also think it's like the right show at
the right time. It's I think I'm really looking forward

(29:30):
to people checking it out. And we're having so much
fun making it, much to Raphael's chagrin every time, because
he's one of the EPs of the show, or like,
it's so fun that we can do this. He's like, oh,
it's like bow Jack, right, Oh you could do this
wild take. Oh you can goof around and have fun,
but not on bow Check. I guess, which is not fun.
It's a chore. Now. Well, because you guys, what season

(29:53):
are you on? We just wrapped season five yesterday. Yeah,
we just finished it. Um, the last shots came out
of compositing yesterday. That's awesome and went into color correct.
It's so crazy, so your day to day job, like
what does a director do? Yeah, it's so crazy because
I when I became a supervising director of Jack Horseman,

(30:14):
I reached out to other supervising directors, Like I met
with my friend, uh, my old dad used to be
my boss, Pete Michael's who's a supervising director of Rick
and Morty. I sat down and just wanted to talk
to him. Just seemed like also I was kind of like, hey,
I'm one of you. Now, where is this? What's the
secret handshake? Yeah? And um, every job, every it's so

(30:40):
crazy because when you think about it. When I was
just breaking in, I'm like, how are cartoons made? How
do you do this? Or a TV show or anything?
And I've come to learn that TV shows and animation
it's made by pulling together the talents and tricks of
the staff. You've a massed because like every one of
these animated shows is made slightly different. On my show,

(31:04):
I I approved. I prove every board I get into
the boards, I'm adding gags like crazy with myself, a
lot and the team who are all terrific. They weren't.
I've everybody's risen to the challenge and now they're outpacing

(31:26):
me and out joking me, and um, that doesn't always
make me happy. Um. But I supervise all the story boarding.
I supervise all the background design, I supervise the props,
the character designs. Every one of these departments has a head.
But then I approve all of the artwork in conjunction

(31:49):
with whoever the art director is on the show. And
then so my position is all the way from I
fixed blinks on characters, all the way to writing dialogue
and voicing characters. It's like a pretty big span. And
that's just how that's just how I've in these jobs.
You get in there and you kind of just push

(32:10):
your arms and legs out and see how far you
can push back in every direction. And they're like, oh, okay,
so this is the space I feel. Um. Because I
was talking to my friend on Rick and Morty, I
was talking to a color stylist on Rick and Morty
and he was like. I was like, oh, you work
on Rick and Morty, so you so you must know
Pete the supervising director and he was like, uh no.

(32:34):
I was like, oh, he's the you know, he's a
supervising director of the show. He's like the I think
I've seen his name on emails. Meanwhile, this guy is
a pro and he's terrific, but he just supervises the boarding.
From what I understand, I'm like a bottleneck like every
like I learned that my job is like I'm like

(32:54):
a bottleneck with brakes. I'm either a bottleneck ground breaks.
I just slam brakes on all over the production and
I'm like, no, this is not ready to go. And uh,
I'm like a bottle who's a traffic cop but also
has brakes. And I'm in a toilet paper factory cleaning
up as cleaning her vessels. Well, I mean, it's such

(33:17):
a special show and I imagine that, um, can somebody
untangle these metaphors? We need a hair straightener. Ramsey left,
so we're by ourselves. Did did he go and do
those other jobs? Like I suggested my old videos off
of the internet um, it's such a special show. And
I think, like, I'm curious, like what at the beginning

(33:38):
if you were like, oh man, this is gonna be big. Yeah,
you know, when you're doing these things, you work on
so many shows, and I didn't necessarily know it was
gonna be big. But then when we were working on
season one and bo Jack went on this drug Trip
episode eleven and he at the end was standing there

(34:01):
in this book show with this fake Truman capody extra
who was sitting next to Diane, and he was like,
you know, am I a good person? And she said no.
That made a lot of storyboarders cry and they were
just looking at the antimatic so it's just black and white,
you know, basically an animated comic strip, and they were

(34:22):
watching that, and um, it was really affecting a lot
of the staff and I was like, oh, like people
are crying at this cartoon. They're crying at the unfinished picture,
like we haven't even put in all of our mood
lighting or yeah, or the music wasn't final or anything. Um,

(34:44):
I think it was. While we were making that episode,
I was I was like, this is not this is
not an episode of Family Guy. Yeah, No, um, and
I think it's a show that Uh. I even went
back today and watched the pilot and it was good
from the beginning. But I feel like it's it's a
oh that really just got better and better as it
went on. Yeah, definitely. In a lot of interviews, Raphaels,

(35:06):
I think if we could do it again, like he
was the first few episodes was like meet the cast,
you gotta do that, so you kind of have to
do but that. But then when we sent it out
to critics, we sent the first four episodes. I suppose
in hindsight, we should have sent the whole season. Not
that they if they didn't like the first four episodes,

(35:27):
they wouldn't necessarily got to episode eleven. But um, the
first four episodes are just kind of meeting the characters,
and they were a little bit more kind of maybe.
I mean like episode two where BoJack insults this veteran,
it's a pretty kind of standard set up, but then

(35:48):
he has a monologue where he basically unpacks all this
information about like not everybody deserves to be honored and
what makes what makes this person special? Bl blah blah
blah blah. So and that did get pointed out by critics.
They were like, I think this is a pretty standard stuff.
There was this one kind of thing he said, some

(36:09):
kind of weird stuff. I don't know, like if it
was a mistake, and then if you watched on through
the rest of the season, you'll be like, oh, no,
this wasn't a mistake. Yeah, there's just one thing where
it was sort of a big breakthrough for animation. But
it might have been a goof um. But yeah, and
then we were really you know, everybody was just kind
of figuring out the world, and we were the first

(36:30):
show that was like a binge animation show. I think
we were like the third or fourth uh show on Netflix.
I'm the first animator that was hired by Netflix. That's
pretty cool. That's why you have the jacket. He has
a bow jack horseman jacket. Everyone. I'm sure this is

(36:51):
lots of compliments. Not in LA everybody has these dumb
true jacket. Yeah, but I'm specifically wearing it while I'm
here in Atlanta. Hope that somebody will notice. Yeah, I'm
sure you've probably dealt with Cartoon Network people. Probably Cartoon
Network people here in Atlanta. Yeah, no, uh yeah, or
adult swim adults Swims people. Yeah, I've never worked for

(37:12):
Adult Swim. I don't think, um, well you're all set now,
you don't need to swea. But BoJack is up for syndicate.
It's gonna be It's I think it's the first Netflix show.
It's going to go into syndication. Really, so I could
be on Adult Swim sometime soon. They don't know where
it's gonna land. They just basically there was a press

(37:34):
release that it was available for syndication. It's an interesting thing,
a Netflix show going back to TV. Yeah, because they don't.
Netflix doesn't own bo Jack. They own big mouth. They
make big mouth. But um BoJack is actually produced by
Michael Eisner, oh, former CEO of of Disney, which was

(37:58):
really crazy to be like working with Michael Eisner, he
was like Disney when I yeah, he comes all the
table reads. He couldn't be nicer. I'm on this email chain.
I'm just high enough up in the organization that I'm
on his email chain where he's like, there'll be an
email blast. Would be like I bought a soccer team.
If anybody would like to fly to England, there's uh

(38:20):
tickets available for all staff. And I'm like there's gonna
be a two thousand a plate dinner for some charity,
and I'm like, yeah, I plate, that's my plate average
about as high as I go. Yeah, I forgot about Eisner.
I mean he was student Hollywood for many, many years. Yeah,

(38:42):
he still has his hands and a lot of stuff.
I'm sure he's kind of diversified into owning soccer teams
and he owns tops the baseball cards. He owns the
baseball cards and owns garbage Pale Kids. Yeah, they made
a great set of BoJack Tops cards. Raphael actually wrote

(39:03):
all of them. It's a horsing around set that's meant
to have come out like in the nineties on ironic
set of horsing around cards. That's pretty great. Did they
sell those or is that just like we're only available?
I think yes so they Yes, they do sell them,
but not in stores. They're not for sale Target. Gotcha.

(39:25):
Uh Well, congratulations on the success of the show. It's
thank you. And what's the name of the one coming
out with Bertie. Yeah, it's gonna be Tiffany Hannish, Ali Wong.
What are they? What are their characters? Are they? Two
can and a song Thrush, a Tiffany Hannish is the
Two Can Yeah. It's based on the comics of Lisa

(39:47):
Hannah Waltz. She is a prolific graphic graphic novelist and
she has all these great books that your listeners should
run out and buy. Yeah, it'll be a nice preview
of this very fun show that's coming out. And when
does that come out? I have no idea, really, I'm
just a gearing the machine. I would imagine it comes down.

(40:10):
Netflix is very uh, but you can talk about it.
We're not gonna have to edit this part out, Okay, Yeah, yeah, totally.
They I think they were at least something new, like
every week. They gotta constantly keep their name in the news.
New show drops, new show drops, new show drops. So
my kid loves a lot of the Netflix original animated shows, yeah,

(40:31):
or the ones that they pored over from like Puff
and Rock and Sarah and Duck. I don't know. I
love Sarah and Duck. I measured great shows. I went
to Annecy for bo Jack, this international animation festival, the
biggest one in France, and I met the creator of
Sarah and Duck. I was very excited. Yeah, because my

(40:52):
son loved it so much and it's so cute. It's
that and Puff and Rock are just very sweet shows
that it won't even mind being on. They're so like
soothing and they can't standing. Is great. I don't want
to sit through that Puff and Rock. Oh you don't
like Bobb and Rock. I like story Bots. He it's
it's on Netflix. It's made by jib Jab Yeah. Yeah,

(41:15):
and it's the cutest, funniest show and he um, he
loves it this The song is Storybots, Tata, won't you
come along with us? And my son always goes, I
want to watch Storybouts. Tad want to watch Storybots. That's great.
And I was talking with my wife and we were saying,
the greatest thing about the show is it has no merchandise,

(41:37):
so there's nothing to buy. Well that's good. Well, I
mean you know, because yeah, he's starting to get nuts
about gift shops, like just we go to Target. We
found a trick though, when we go to Target, but
he knows there's a toy aisle, but he we bring
him to the dog toy aisle. He loves playing with

(41:58):
the dog toys. And then in the end when it's
time to go and he's like, oh, I want this
big rubber mallard or pool rope thing. We go like, oh, no,
these are dog toys, and he seems to understand that.
He's like, oh, yeah, they're dog toys. That's a good call.
What do you got against puffin Rock? It's just a

(42:19):
little bit too sweet for me? Oh it's too sweet. Yeah,
the guys like, I prefer the narrator. I prefer the
old Sesame Street to the new Sesame Street. You preferred
the gritty. Yeah, there's some crazy stuff. There's like those
puppets are really yelling at each other, Burton Ernie getting
some spats. Um. There's this great old one that I love.

(42:43):
There's a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza,
and it portrays it's on YouTube. It portrays this couple
and they are this is a spousal abuse situation. There's
so much tension between these It's just very very angry
woman who was married to this very dumb man who
has a hole in his bucket. Yeah, that sounds familiar.

(43:06):
It's I mean, I think it was a popular song,
but it's intense. Yeah, it's so much so that I
think it was like too much for my son Yeah,
he's like, these people got to work out their issues.
I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to Phenomena. Let's watch
a little bit more Phenomena and see if those two
coming out their issues. Because you said you go deep

(43:27):
on the Muppets too, Yes, I love the Muppets. My
big three is Jim Henson, Charles Schultz, and Chuck Jones
in tech savery. That's great. Yeah, yeah, Jim Henson. I
mean as a as a person who on bo Jack
practices the dark arts of animal puntery, you don't get

(43:50):
any better than the Muppets. Yeah, that's a good point.
I never thought about it. There's a great puntery on
the Muppet movie. Is the Mona Lisa of puns it is.
There's no there's no topping it. Yeah, it's coming fastened
furious in that movie. It's just so great. Yeah, that's awesome.

(44:13):
I had my buddy Raymond car in here, who is
a puppeteer, and we talked about Labyrinth and he works.
Um worked for the Henson Company for a little while.
Um was called out there to work on the show
and it's like, man, I got called up to the bigs.
It was the best thing ever, it's pretty cool. Yeah,
it doesn't get any more exciting than that. I have

(44:34):
a friend too, is a puppeteer for Henson, my friend Grant,
and he always says he's puppet up shows. This live
improv puppet show that Raymond was talking about that. Yeah,
it's it's so cool. It's nuts that he and he's
doing it with Brian Henson, hanging out with Brian Henson
everything who was a puppeteer of Audrey Too. No matter

(44:55):
what he did after that, including Happy Time Murders or whatever,
which I'm not terrifically excited about, but he was a
puppeteer of Audrey too. Little Shop of Horrors hard to
top that. That was like one of the greatest feats
in cinema history. Yeah, it's a great uh movie. Um

(45:15):
director's commentary, it was a Little Shop of Horrors. Frank
oz to Check. I mean this lovingly. It seems like
a real son of a bit. He is just describing
the process of how how they filmed it all at
half speed so they can get all the lip The
lip sync is so good of that puppet. So they

(45:36):
were playing all of these um. One of the temptations
was the voice of the puppet, but they played the
tracks at half speed and they were just slowly doing it,
so Rick Moranis also had to sing at half speed too. Yeah,
and Rick moranis, where have you gone? Rick Moranis, Yeah,
well you know what he did? Yeah, I know what

(45:57):
he did. Stopped to be a dad. Yeah, I know,
which is like great, making us feel like a real assholes.
Well and then I think he'd stopped to be a dad,
and then his children got grown, and then he's kind
of you come back and watch that that Ghostbusters movie. Yeah,
Rick Moranis is the star of that movie. He kind
of is. Everything else is a little rapey, like Bill

(46:18):
Murray will not give up with Sigourney Weaver, and she's
great too, her chemistry. The movie is a movie about
Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis, and Annie Potts another unsung hero.
Um yeah, that's yeah. A lot of those movies are tough.
We Uh. I did groundhog Day and for the show too,

(46:41):
and going back and watching that again, I'm like, man
like back off. I mean, I guess if you just
try to get big Hollywood movie, but if you go
back and look at that, like this is a dark comedy. Yeah,
it kind of the fact that you we know that
that was We watched that movie as a kid like
it was present it to to us as family fodder. But

(47:04):
it does really stand as a really dark, messed up comedy,
which we love. Yeah. Yeah, Like if it's just kind
of kind of thought of in that way, then am
I am I another white male explaining away bad stuff
should have fallen into this white male trap. But that's
all right. Well, speaking of weird, this says says, let's uh,

(47:35):
let's get into Popeye. Yes, because well, first of all,
here's my history of this movie. I'm forty seven. So
this movie came out when I was nine, and uh
to say that I was obsessed with it is about right,
Like I for that Halloween or the next Halloween. I'm
not sure when it was released. I wanted to be

(47:56):
Popeye so bad but could not figure out how to
do the arms. Yeah, and that, and I, much like
I learned Robin Williams, I didn't want to do it
if he couldn't get the arms right. Apparently this production
was delayed because Robin Williams is like, now it doesn't
look good. They I think they had the film community
of the whole world trying to They were trying to

(48:17):
figure it out in Malta, Hollywood, Italy, and I think
New York too. They had special effects people while they
were filming. They got started because the first thing they
filmed was the section where Popeye is walking up from
the boat and walking through the very and he's wearing

(48:38):
a trench coat. So it's just basically you don't have
to see the seams. But yeah, they but that was
not intention or not my choice. They couldn't figure out
that arm, the arms situation, do you know, I never
I couldn't find what it actually what they did, do

(48:58):
you know what it was? I think they just kept
reworking it. Um. I did read about what it was.
I mean, I'm sure it's just some sort of fummy
arm that they layered on the makeup or whatever. Yeah,
the prosthetics, Yeah it was. But they had to hide
the seams and everything. Yeah, that was the whole trick
was at the wrist in the elbow making. They made

(49:19):
two different kinds. They made a kind that included a
glove so you could hide the seam, and then they
made a kind that the boxing glove no, no, his hands.
They made a version that had the hands connected to it,
and then they made a version that just went to
the wrist because they found one the ones with the hands.
When you turned your wrist, you would see that rubbery

(49:40):
kind of that stretched rubber kind of situation happening. Couldn't
see that, like that would ruin it, That would ruin it. Yeah, um,
but yeah I read that. He said that basically it
was like wearing two hot French breads on his arms
for six months or something. Yeah. Well, plus he was
probably cooked to the gills. Yeah, I was wondering about that. Um,

(50:03):
what's a coke situation in Malta? I bet you he
found out. Well, it's directed by Robert Altman too, so
I doubt if they had any trouble getting drugs to
the set, you know. Uh. And Almond famously went to
Malta because he'd you know, he's like, I want to
be as I want to make it as hard as
possible for any studio executive to come by. Maybe he

(50:26):
was Robert Altman was like contacting. They were having so
much trouble with the arms and special effects. He's like,
we need these arms to look just right. You can't
see that the wrist is spinning, and they also have
to be able to smuggle large quantities of coke into Malta. Yeah, bigger,
make him bigger. Yeah, it's like the three leads on
this where Altman, Williams and Harry Nilson enjoyed the yeah yeah,

(50:55):
and Robert Evans Yeah. So sure. It was yeah that
time in Hollywood coming out of seventies or I guess
actually shot in the seventies. So I was sort of
obsessed with this movie because I love the cartoon growing up. Um.
I was entrance from this movie from the very beginning
seeing that poster and now they brought everything to life.

(51:16):
But in it was the first time like I had
ever seen, like, hey, this is a real life cartoon,
and it just looked perfect. He looked horrifect. And of
course Shelley Olive Oil, yeah, born to play that role,
and uh but Paramount did not think so I was
reading that who they wanted Gilda Radner Yeah, and Lily

(51:39):
Tomlin was almost on too, and they even wanted um
Bet Midler, who was a little bit more yeah olive Oil,
but they were pushing back. They viewed Shelley Daval as
being just one of Robert Altman's kind of like unprofessional
group of yeah acting ninnies, you know, because I guess
he had a he had like a reputation. I did

(52:01):
learn in reading this that he formed what seemed like
the first kind of like production company, like a you know,
like that lions Gate was his company that he formed.
It was like the first independent producer. I mean, I
know that like Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin formed they
were united artists, right, yeah, but that's a studio. So

(52:22):
this I think I believe Robert Altmond formed the first
production company. Yeah, I mean, one of the great mavericks
of filmmaking, very famously just didn't want to be bothered,
and this movie ruined him for a decade. Yeah. Yeah,
I've seen as a failure, seen as a failure, even

(52:43):
though um and what we'll get through the movie, this
is all the background, and I think it may have
just been a failure because it was a movie that
was just made for me. It was people and Malta
making a movie for my colleagues, or because it is
were you born in a I was. Yeah, it's the

(53:04):
first movie I ever saw in theaters, which I know,
which your listeners are gonna think might kind of you
know effect that it's like one of my favorite movies.
It's not. It's just really great. Um yeah, I think that. Uh,
it's it's just if they wanted this movie to be

(53:25):
really big, he should have been. It should have been
rock'em sock 'em right from the beginning. Yeah, but it's
like a beautiful little character piece. It is really a
celebration of Thimble Theater, the original comic strip. That's what
I've heard. Yeah, it's um, it's so you know, wild
kind of straying from it for because it's a movie.

(53:46):
You know, a movie is not a comic strip. It's
still honors and uh, it still honors it in such
a glorious way. It was written by that Jules Speiffer,
who was a cartoonist himself, but sort of like a
fringe cartoonist, right, Yeah, he was kind of like a
New Yorker kind of guy. But still, I mean, if
you're a cartoonist, any cartoon as you talked to, no

(54:09):
matter what spectrum they are, all the way from Robert
Crumb to like Kathy guys wise, they all like worship
Seeger Schultz. Yeah, like these may and windsor McKay like
these foundation, fundamental, fundamental guys. When I first met my wife,
she she hates Charles Schultz, drives me nuts um and

(54:35):
she's actually got to animate the Peanuts. She animated them
for MetLife commercials. It was like drawing, like learning how
to draw Lucy and everything. I was like, why is
this are you doing this? You hate you don't get it,
you don't deserve to be doing this, this target commercial
for the Peanuts. Oh that's funny and sad in a way. Yes,

(55:00):
So this movie I was obsessed with. It came out,
and I was a huge fan of the movie when
I was a kid, and then had seen it since,
like on HBO. You know. It was one of those
that I've watched, you know, five or six times and
then watch it again last night for the first time
in a long time. And it's an interesting movie to
go back to as an adult if you haven't seen
it in a while, because it's such a weird, such

(55:24):
a weird movie. It is very weird. There's no getting
around that he hired He had the idea to hire
circus people and kind of like very physical comedic people,
the star of which one of the Big Stars. Who
was a second secondary player in it? Is that Bill Irwin? Yeah,
who I only really know, Like, why wasn't this guy bigger?

(55:48):
He yea in this movie he's a clown slash of
vaudeville sort of. Yeah. I see him on He's on
Sesame Street. He plays Almo's friend Mr. Marble's really yeah,
he has like a regular bit on Sesame Streep. I
think maybe it was in the nineties or something. I
mean he's been around forever and he was in like
that Paul Simon video with Chevy Chase. Was the three

(56:11):
of them, Paul Simon, Chevy Chase in Bill Irwin doing
his kind of like physical scrunch up comedy. I mean,
he physically is just so gifted. Yeah, he's a really big,
tall guy who can smash down and and he did
that in Popeye. He's the guy. For those of you listening,
if you have seen Popeye, Bill Irwin is the guy
who kicked his hat around at the beginning of the film.

(56:32):
And but the whole like you said, the whole movie
is populated. What was the name of the group? Do
you remember the Circus Group? Yeah, it was a San
Francisco circus group that he remember, I can't remember their name,
but he most of the the the citizens see Haven,
which was Sweet Haven, Sweet Haven, which was such a

(56:52):
crazy idea. But he really wanted just to be living
cartoons these people, and so he turned to Circle Spoke
because they can move and act like and they do
these great big pratfalls. Yeah, it's it's all over the
place background, and there's no wasted like he cast so
many people and there's no wasted moment. There's like little

(57:15):
kind of circus people doing tiny things all over the screen,
even though it's like so small. Yeah, and it's like
a it's a it's a movie that should not be
watched on an iPhone because he shoots the whole thing
pretty wide. He said he wanted to look that, but
he kind of shoots wide a lot. Remember I watched

(57:36):
that Long Kiss Could Buy, and a lot of that
is Elliott Gould just kind of muttering to himself, almost
like a pre Popeye thing. Yeah, that's why it's ironic
thing too, because he does he was so big for
just looping of dialogue and that's kind of like what
the Fleshers did with those original Popeye cartoons. They would
just animate them and then bring in the voice actors

(57:57):
afterwards to just kind of mutter like Popeye has very
seldom actually has lip sync. Yeah, he's just walking around
just his mouth just in that kind of like crooked thing,
and he's just kind of muttering to himself. Yeah. Well,
and there's so many brilliant lines in there that are
so easy to miss if you aren't really listening, Like

(58:17):
it's a movie you gotta pay attention to if you
want to hear all these little sidelines he keeps saying
under his breath, and a lot of the more comments
about like kind of really wry humor that um something
it feels improv that might have been since Robin Williams. Yeah,
but you know a little political and social statements kind
of peppered throughout that. He just sort of mud us

(58:38):
under his breath. Another great thing about this movie it's
Robin williams first film. And you can correct me if
I'm wrong, but I feel like it's the only movie
ever that Robin Williams wasn't playing Robin Williams. He is,
really he's turning in an amazing performance he is in
this character. He disappears as Popeye. Yeah, he's yesterday, I

(59:02):
was like, it's so amazing to watch him. He looks
so young, and yeah, yeah it's he's and he's just
could not be more marvelous. Yea in it? Um yeah
he was great. Yeah, he was so great. Yeah. And
you know, of course Shelley Long was fantastic in it,
and she well, yeah, was terrible in it. She never

(59:24):
showed up. And they were at first he was it
was gonna be Dustin Hoffman, right and Lily Tomlin, Yeah
is who I think. I don't see Dustin Hoffman is.
And as my wife pointed out, like he played hook,
he you can go you can go there, like yeah, sure,
turn in a he was tutsie, Yeah, you can turn

(59:47):
in a big performance. Yeah, that's true. But it's funny though,
is like this wasn't a kind of wasn't a big performance,
Like Papaye is very kind of reserved in a lot
of ways. Um, like not only with with the voice work,
which is a lot of times center of the chaos. Yeah,
here's a lot of stuff going on around him, but
he's not super big and broad like he wasn't Robin Williams. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

(01:00:13):
Um yeah, and it's all he kind of breaks out
of it when he sings that I Am What I
Am song. That was Robert Evans was obsessed with that,
getting that song and then that concept. I think Robert
Evans lived I Am what I Am lifestyle. He's like
when he came across like this catchphrase of Popeye, He's like, yes,

(01:00:36):
this makes so much sense to me. And he the
whole way through the process his his big insight, which
I'm downplaying his involvement. It was just like it's gotta
be all about I Am what I Am. Right, it's
a central theme, right, that's a central theme. Yeah, well,
let's talk about the music for a minute, because, like
you said, this was Harry Nilson, Yeah, the great um songwriter,

(01:00:58):
and this was post he of course famously there's a
great documentary about him Nielson or Nilson? What is it?
Who is Harry Nilson? Where you know, amongst all the
other highlights of his career, they talk about how he
was a buddy of John Lennon's and him and John

(01:01:20):
Lennon were all coked up recording studio and Harry Nilson
was known for having like one of the smoothest voices
um in singing. Uh popular music, and him and John
Lennon thought it would be a hoot to get into
a see who could yell the loudest into a microphone

(01:01:40):
and for the longest and the loudest, and Harry Neilson
permanently destroyed his vocal cords and he was Yeah, he
was done. That's an idea you only have when you're
on like a bag of cocaine. So this is post
this is post recording career, Like, I gotta make things
work because I screamed my voice out with John Lennon,

(01:02:03):
who then left town. Really well, I mean, you know
it's like, yeah, well, I'm out of here. He didn't
seem to have kind of like that attitude. John Lennon
was the well up here, I'm out here in his
career and in parenting. Yeah, that's good point. But these
songs are I mean, this was um this Disney's answer

(01:02:26):
to Annie. Supposedly, yes, as far as a comic strip musical,
and they're like, well, what can we do? Well, yeah,
I read about that. Robert Evans saw Annie was the
biggest thing on Broadway that ninety nine or whatever. It
was a huge smash. It won all these Tony's and
Robert Evans was trying. He wanted to make Annie initially,
and then he saw the price that they were wanting

(01:02:49):
for the rights to their musical, and he said, Okay,
who else is out there? Well, looking back, it's probably
like I won't give you a million dollars for Annie. Yeah. Um.
And then Paramount. Actually, when he was in discussion with
people at Paramount and they're like, they brought it to

(01:03:09):
his attention that I believe they at that time they
were still making seventy five dollars a year off the
rights to the Popeye song. Like nobody was doing anything
with Popeye, but every year they were reaping seventy dollars
with a profit. Also, it was just on Pope by
the Sailor, Yeah, flowing in. So he's like, you know,

(01:03:31):
there's money to be made with this character. Um. But
then I do believe he really kind of fell in love.
He spirited the project the whole time through Robert Evans. Yeah.
But then Altman and true Altman fashion did not make Annie.
You know, he got Harry Nilson to do these almost

(01:03:52):
anti musical Yeah, weird dark minor chords, drone e right
headit of songs. They're all so weird. I really love
the music though, I do too, but listen to it
all the time with my son. But think about Annie though. Yeah,
it's like none of this stuff like very musical, Like, yeah,
you don't walk around coming these tunes, you know, I

(01:04:15):
do them. My favorite song, one of my favorite songs.
I really like them all and of course we've seen
how they've been used and like punch Drunk Loves, but um,
I love that song Everything is Food. Yeah. I sing
that with my son all the time when it's like
time to eat. Everything is food, food food. It's such

(01:04:36):
a weird song. My favorite. It says it's what it's
emblematic and something about hot dog pandemic. It has this
really great lyrics. It's ubiquitous enigmatic and they can't trick
us with no hot dogmatic. That is food food food,

(01:04:57):
Everything is food. Yeah, like I would google so much
hot dog hot dogmatic? Was this a phrase? Like is
this something people were saying? Oh? No, I think it
was just Harry Nelson just sucked up in Malta. Is
he rented a studio? I did agree. He did not
funk up. No being sucked up? Oh well yeah, yeah,
I can't argue that, Yeah, he rented apparently they rented

(01:05:18):
in a studio on Malta, Yeah, which is there's zero
reason to do that. Yeah, he was location making, creating
these songs. Yeah, in this kind of like not I guess,
you know, band of misfits, like circus people. He was
making these songs amongst circus people, circus fokes, carneys. Yeah,
it's such a weird scene. And um, for those of

(01:05:40):
you listening, we need to shout out uh. Wolf Krog
was the production designer. Yeah, and this movie, like the
production design is almost costumes are amazing. Costumes, hair and
makeup and production design was all this genius. Yeah. The shoes, yeah,
those like they really look like they were straight from

(01:06:00):
the comic strip but also functional. They didn't look at
them and go like, oh, that's Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.
They it was like a complete world, complete picture and everything.
Although there is one of the weird scenes that stood
out to me yesterday was the scene with Olive Oil
when she first is bolting with her suitcases bumps into
Popeye and the darkness sort of on the street, and

(01:06:23):
there's I feel like there's five minutes of her just
stumbling around and going go who, And it's just such
a weird scene. And as a kid, I just probably
laughed my ass off last night. I was like, what
a weird thing to do for that long? I mean,
I do believe one of the I love this movie,

(01:06:43):
probably one of the things that took it down was
its duration for a movie that's ostensibly for children. I
believe it's about it's up near two hours. It's pretty
long for a movie with kind of no plot. Yeah,
and it has a very portant plot. To me, Well, here,
I'm not I'm about the plot of Popeye. I'm not

(01:07:05):
bagging on it. The story of Popeye. Let me read
you this selection from Vanity Fair, because this kind of crystallizes,
um how I feel it says. Critics and even my
own friends like to criticize Popeye for it's confusing or
non existent plot, and they're entirely right. Too much is happening,
and it's all happening at the same time. A baby
gets kidnapped. There are several frantic meals, lots of songs

(01:07:27):
about nothing, characters rushed in and out in their pursuit
of their own half baked storylines, and at some point
Olive Oil wrestles and octopus. But honestly, how many times
has a plot ruined and otherwise perfectly good comedy. The
plot would just distract from the artful chaos and their
narrative incongruities and the beautifully meaningless mayhem. Yeah, and that's
kind of how I feel like. It wasn't about it

(01:07:47):
is chaotic, some contrived plot. It's this weird sort of
and a lot of that. There's so much nonsense going
on on screen. Yeah. Um, well he did that. Almond
did that with Dialogue and all his other films. Yeah,
you know, he was very famous for like setting up
of cameras in a room and having everybody might and

(01:08:09):
having six different conversations going. And he sorted to this visually,
I think in Popeye. Yeah. And really the material lend
itself to it because of the fly shar cartoons. Um.
And it's funny in that quote, Um in what I
you know read about the movie that was a complaint

(01:08:31):
of Altman and um. The screenwriter flight Jules Speiffer, because
Harry Nelson just kept writing songs about whatever he wanted
to write a song for. Jules Peiffer laid out in
the script all of these beats where there would be
a song, and the only one, from what I understand
that he honored was I Am What I Am because

(01:08:54):
Robert Evans was like so insistent on it. But it
was the last one he wrote. It was the last
song because it was the more everything, because it was homework.
It's like that's what he had to do. So it
was the very last thing he did. He stuck to
having fun and just writing songs like food food Food
that has no or He's large because like about blue food.

(01:09:16):
Food Food is basically Whimpy song because the point of
it is they're there not shoehorning, but they're they're working
in Wimpy's very famous catchphrase, especially I mean very famous
for people who are two hundred I'll gladly pay you
tuesday for a hamburger today. Um, but that doesn't come

(01:09:38):
until like two thirds through the song. Yeah, that's what
the song is about. It's kind of really hitting that note,
like you've got to kind of have that catchphrase in there,
and Whimpy in that whole scene is just trying to
get It's a beautifully choreographed scene. They did say that
they had an actual choreographer kind of working out kind

(01:09:59):
of all of their footwork, like how the way they
moved around the room and everything. It's very hypnotic. It is,
it's it's it's constant. Everything is constantly in motion. Um,
which is yes, it is kind of hypnotic. There's no,
you don't really ever stop. I guess maybe in some
of those sweet scenes with Popeye and Olive Oil, it's

(01:10:19):
kind of slows down. But first you first you gotta
earn it without scene that you mentioned where she's just
spinning around for a while for a while, it was
so weird. Um. And then you know, I mentioned briefly
that He's Large song, which is is the clunkiest song,
but I stand by it. Well, No, No, the clunkiest

(01:10:40):
song I think is uh is Blue Doo's I'm mean,
I mean, I'm me and I mean you know what
I mean, which has it has. One of my favorite
things I say, ironically about songwriting is when a word
rhymes with itself drives me nuts. So I mean, He's Large, Um,

(01:11:03):
these are the ones you'd cut, No, these are the
these are the songs that just like stay with me,
the little song to Sweet Pea. I mean, there's there's
there's like there's these really goofy, very broad songs like
food food food, and He's large, which is terrific, and
you know, I mean, but then there's all of these

(01:11:24):
sweet songs about sweet pea and about each other, like
the love for each other. Yeah. Well and he needs me,
he needs me. So yeah, these are like, these are
songs that are would stand up to any song written
by you know, for like Frozen or write these great

(01:11:45):
songs that they make for these movies today. They're just
really sweet songs. I And but the funny thing is
when I play with my son, I skip a lot
of those songs because they're too sad. Yeah, so what
do you play this? Especially? You know, like when you
have a kid, you became a little bit more emotional,
and I just don't want to, like, yeah, trying to

(01:12:06):
get emotional. I have to be strong for my family.
The bank is for closing on our farm. They see
me cry uh um, all the all the repetition in
the songs. That was really funny to me too, because
I just picture Harry Nelson in there like scribbling down,

(01:12:28):
he needs me, he needs me, he needs me, he
needs me, Yeah, and like we'll work it out. You
got me on this repetition repetition thing. No, it's great though,
just because there's so I mean, it's such a cool
movie to see now because I'm just like, man, what
truly Robert Because now Robert Altmond was I'm like, what
a truly Robert Altmon way to go with this movie? Yeah,

(01:12:50):
not conditional, even though it's so Robert Altmon. I do
believe part of its downfall is it's so Seeger, it's
so easy Seeger. It's like, it's so it so honors
something from nineteen twenty ecc Seeger, the creative Popeye. It's

(01:13:11):
so crazy to think. I think he died in like
nineteen two. He wasn't even really alive too. That that's
how old Popeye is. Popeye was the first superhero, um
besides maybe like her, some Bible superhero or something, besides Jesus,
besides Jesus walking on water, Popeye walks on water in
the final scene. Yeah that's right. Uh yeah that was Altman.

(01:13:34):
He wanted to be like show that he is a superhero.
He's he's dancing on water, but then he just suddenly
falls through. He is human. Yeah. Um yeah, but um,
what was I saying? We can cut this part out.
You're talking about something from the nineteen twenties honoring something

(01:13:54):
so old. Oh yeah, it's like something in the nineties
honoring something so old. Yeah, it's it was a crazy
idea to, yeah, try to capture this thing well, and
he didn't modernize it and try to make it like
hip and current. Yeah, like he he very much. Because
I didn't know anything about the original comic strips much.

(01:14:15):
But I definitely love the cartoon when I was a kid,
and uh, he does a lot of like in the
middle of this kind of weird movie. He definitely honors
all that slapsticky, you know, like when when Popey gets punched,
you know, he flies up in the air dead straight.
He winds his arm up and takes these big swings
in the fights and stuff like that. They did cartoon

(01:14:35):
and stuff like that. The original Pipe Spinning, The pipe Spinning,
the original script had Eugene the Geep and the Sea
Hag too, That's what I heard. I would just seen
the Sea Hag, I know that would have been in
her big vulture. Yeah, yeah, it would have been very interesting.
I don't know how they would have done Eugene the Jeep.
I don't think it would have. It would have really
dated the movie in a bad way. In reading about it,

(01:14:58):
I saw that they were even thinking they were They
had talked to the Muppets about sweet Pea having Sweetpee
be a Muppet, which would have been such a bad idea. Um,
that's all his grandson, I think, I know. And it's
really great. Um, there's fun and funny things about that

(01:15:18):
fun and said the little baby had a little, um
some kind of medical situation that was going to go
away after a year, but because of that, he had
part the little baby had parcel facial paralysis, which made
him kind of have that Popeye mouth. Really and they
were really into that, and they were like, this is perfect. Yeah,
and it's my brother. Brought me to my attention that

(01:15:40):
that kid now Robert Altman's grandson. He has this YouTube
video where he's he's basically like, I'm the kid from Popeye.
Did you like that movie? If you did, you need
you owe me money. They robbed my childhood. I've heard
about that. I didn't see the video, but I did
a little investigation as saw that he was basically raising

(01:16:03):
money just too. Yeah, just send me money because I'm
that good I was in this movie none of you saw, man,
what a weird thing. Yeah, yeah, well alone sent around
to see that. At least it's tough being close to stardom.
We should talk about the boxing match for a minute,
yeah with um ox ox bled ox Heart. Yeah, because

(01:16:24):
it is another very strange scene. Yes, very slow paced
and kind of weird how it all plays out. Yeah,
that is something that I do not mind. My favorite
comedians are like Bob Newhart, Bob Newhart, nor McDonald man.
You know, it's tough working a lot on bo Jack
and working in animation. I love a nice, slow, drawn

(01:16:46):
out gag me too, but that doesn't work in TV animation. Yeah,
but I do it when I can, right. I was
so jealous when I saw Zutopia, which Trod's on a
lot of the same comedic sterial that BoJack does. And
they had that great set piece with that sloth at
the d m V which is such low hanging fruit.

(01:17:07):
I know it was funny, but it worked. But they
could do it because it was a feature. We could
never do that we could never eat up, you know,
four minutes of runtime. Yeah, I mean that's the one sloth. Joe.
I was like Bravo. Yeah there, I like that and

(01:17:29):
you picked it up. But yeah, this boxing matches it
is weird. Um, the pacing of it is strange and um.
The whole time, like last night, I was just kept
thinking like, man, when I was a kid, it was
made for kids to just eat up with a spoon,
And now that I'm adult, I was like, it's like

(01:17:49):
this weird drug fueled that kind of pinned on. Yeah,
scene that doesn't seem but it's very fun. Yeah. It
doesn't have a song, which it lends itself to being forgettable.
There's no song connected to it. Yeah, there's no repetitious
song box box box now we must box. That would

(01:18:14):
have been the song be happy to Box you Tuesday
for boxing Glove to day. Uh. And then the sweetpeat
gambling bit was also I thought a very odd little plot. Yeah,
I mean they say it's the on plot. There's your plot. Um. Well, see,
he doesn't have that power in every in any iteration
of the cartoon made up. It was a made up thing,

(01:18:37):
a device for I mean she he was magical in
many ways, and he could kind of talk a little
bit in the comics Trip and then and whenever he
appeared in the cartoon the Flisher cartoons, which was rarely
he was most famously like just walking around on that

(01:18:58):
this Constructions SI where he keeps evading death, which is
kind of magic. Yeah, that's true in this insanely animated cartoon,
Like there's no animation today that's going to beat the
animation in that cartoon from so long ago. It's so
crazy with all these spinning steel girders and everything that's

(01:19:21):
Sweepy just barely keeps walking onto and I keeps falling
and getting hit in the head and everything as he's
trying to save Sweepys the Flesher brothers. It's that's a
crazy story that will get edited out of this podcast.
The Flysher brothers. In Disney, who were head and head
Popeye was more popular than Mickey Mouse. His cartoons were

(01:19:42):
the number one cartoons. But Disney learned his very important
lesson with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit that you've got to
own what you make. He had Oswald taken away from him,
and then he had this brilliant uh idea to turn
Oswald into a mouse. I love how it's like I
thought of his like this genius stroke, but he just

(01:20:04):
took it. It is Oswald but was funny with and
it was also created by Eye Works, his partner who
also designed his signature, Walt Disney signature was designed by
ub Eyeworks. Really went on later. He was a great inventor.

(01:20:26):
He was the greatest earlier boy, I'm going down some
side rows here. Um. He was the greatest animator, one
of the early greatest then. But then he went into inventing,
like he won a special oscar for the birds. He
invented a lot of the techniques that made that Hitchcock
film possible. Um. Anyway, the fly Shirts and Disney were

(01:20:47):
running head and head and then the when they made
when Disney made Snow White, the fly Shars Mad made
Mr Bug Goes to Town. They both made a feature
at the same time. Does history remember that? No? Ok?
Because the fly Schers it was around World War two
and Paramount wanted Popeye, they wanted to cut them out,

(01:21:09):
could and they because they did not own Popeye, they
were cuttable. Even though they were these great geniuses of animation,
one of the founders of animation. Basically they basically were
one of the inventors of animation. Um. Paramount lied about
the h profits from this movie, Mr Bug goes to town,

(01:21:30):
and they kept the money back, They kept all the
European money, and it bankrupted the Flisher studios and they
took and then they just took Popeye away and turned
it into Famous Studios UM, which was in Miami. Oddly enough,
they were making animation in Miami, the bed of animation.

(01:21:51):
So these Flishers who were beating Disney for so long
ended up. That was the end. They were done. And
you know, they were the creators of Betty Boop and
all these other characters, and that was the end. And Disney.
He Disney learned his lesson from losing Oswald the Lucky Rabbit.

(01:22:15):
He learned it so much that he set forth to
gobble up every I P. Deman. You know, he branded
snow White, not his story, Alice in Wonderland, not his story,
Sleeping Beauty, wou Marvel, the Muppets, Star Wars. It's just

(01:22:36):
that was Disney's greatest invention is putting the Disney name
on stuff that he did not create. The Disney signature
that was starting starting from Mickey Mouse, which was created
by Bye Works. He was basically on his way back
from Kansas City when he learned that he lost Oswald
the Lucky Rabbit, and he tell send him U telegram

(01:22:59):
say we've lost this. We need to do something quick,
and by works. While Disney was just on the train
ride back, completely on his own, animated this, uh Disney
a plane Crazy, which was the first Mickey Mouse cartoon,
which was Mickey Mouse like he was Charles Lindberg because
Charles Lindberg was so famous at the time, and he

(01:23:21):
animated the whole cartoon himself, soup to nuts. Um. But
from what I understand, and I may be over simplifying this,
just while Disney was on that train. Um so, Disney
wasn't even in the building when Mickey Mouse was being
created and made. Yeah, so funny how it works out? Yeah,

(01:23:44):
it'll put your name on stuff. Yeah, what a fraud.
And now they owned the Simpsons too, I guess so right, Yeah,
they owned the Simpsons. How will the Simpsons be affected
by uh Disney owning them? I don't know. Yeah, and
the Family Guy they owned Family Guy. Right, it's so weird.
They just owned cartoons. Yeah, yeah, cartoons. Yeah, they owned childhoods.

(01:24:11):
Your Childhood branded and owned by Disney Corporation. Um so,
then at the end of the movie. We get enter
Ray Walston, who's absolutely fantastic. He does such a good
job in this. Yeah, and he was an actual like
musical performer. Yeah, he was in some famous musicals. Uh.
I don't of course, I know him as being from

(01:24:32):
My Car or something. Oh yeah, sure, yeah, yeah, I
just think that Mr handon Fast Times Richard. Yeah, I
do you think he was a musical performer. Yeah, yeah,
some kind of lesser known that guy from Yankee Doodle
Dandy his name. Yeah, I know that guy too. I'm
not super up on the old musicals, but yeah, poor
Man's Yankee Doodle Dandy. Uh. Walston comes in as as

(01:24:57):
Pappy Poop Deck Pappy, and scene where they meet is
just so great because it's such a mess and there
there you know, he didn't want to admit it, and
Robin Williams is just like hugging and kissing all over
him while he's tied up, and there's a really sweets
and he's a real scoundrel too. It's really great to have.
He's a super duper scoundrel, whereas like Brutus or Blueto

(01:25:19):
is kind of you know, he's basically he's mean because
we know he's mean, there's a song about it. But
his father has done terrible things. He sanctioned the kidnapping
of Sweet Pie. He's over taxing this whole town and
it's basically like a big slum. Yeah, and it was
sort of abusive, supposedly to Popeye when he was a
little right abandoned Popeye like he indicates that. One of

(01:25:40):
the sweetest scenes I feel for me and all filmmaking
is when Popeye. It's a really funny scene where he
gets into his room at the Oils he's renting a
room and he goes to sit on the bed. He
just touches it. I think the bed collapses, and then
it's a really great visual where he sets up a
hammock above this collapse bed. Yeah. Then he's unpacking his

(01:26:01):
stuff and he unpacks the frame and he's talking to
it for a while. Great, and then we see the
frame and it just says my me, Papa. It's like
it's really it's actually really quite touching. It is. It's
it's shot through a window and he's just having the
conversation with his Peppy and you know, obviously the gag
as you think he's still gonna get a photo. Yeah,

(01:26:22):
but it's just written down. But it is very sweet Sea.
It is very it's the execution of it is very sweet. Yeah,
in the middle of this nonsense movie. Well but it's
as a tag of a nonsense scene. Um. And then
at the end, you know, the very end is when
when they meet up, like I said, and then you
get this very just to cap off a strange sort
of hallucinogenic film, you get this octopus that out of

(01:26:46):
left field that doesn't look great apparently because they spent
all their money on the production, but over budget, over time,
over they were months over schedule. And I think that
Robert Altman had big hopes for this octopus. But it's
mainly it's all shot and close up. It's all shot

(01:27:07):
and close up, and it's like it's kind of clear
that his eyes are kind of rubber too. He doesn't
have a lot of expression in his eyes. Um, he
handled it, you know, like filmmaking techniques, where he mostly
you felt the fear and the the fear and the

(01:27:30):
tension through olive oil, Like he's grabbing at olive oil
and you see a tentacle heading towards Sweetie. Um. So
I think in the end of it works, but it
is definitely Um, it's definitely you can see that it's
not you can see that they were all they were
out of coke. They were out of coke at that point.

(01:27:51):
That's what it was. That was the problem. The wheels
were coming off of the airplane carrying and the coke
to Malta. Um. Well, here's the though is like that
that part doesn't look great, but the rest of the
movie is looks as good today as it did in
eight Costumes. Yeah, because he didn't, you know. Like another

(01:28:12):
movie that came out in nineteen eighty was Flash Gordon,
which I still love it. It has a very special
place in my heart. But there's only one way to
look at that film now, which is very campy and
dated and kind of took it all very practical. Effects
were practical. There wasn't They didn't have Eugene and Jeep.
It was a small story. You know. Some people might

(01:28:34):
say that is a no script or no plot, but
it was a very small story they were telling. It
was really just a celebration of this character Popeye um
and all of the crazy people around him, which are
really great people. I mean that great character actors in
there is Wimpy yeah, or I think he was the

(01:28:55):
dad from sixteen Paul Dooley. Yeah, he does a really
good job in there and everything. I mean he was
it was his great Yeah. Um the wait, what's the
Brutus Bluto deal? Because I forget I think it has
something because there was a Brutus, right, there was no point.
There was no Blue do there was no Bluetus Bruto.

(01:29:18):
I'm not gonna get the names exactly correctly, but there
was no That character did not exist in the comic strip.
It was a creation of the Flesher brothers. So then
I believe it was Brutus. So then that they created
Brutus like they created um Betty boot and Popeye's first

(01:29:38):
cartoon was a Petty Boop cartoon by the way, really
his first appearance in animation. Um. So then when Paramount
took Popeye away, they did not own Brutus because it
was a creation of the fly Shers. So when they
formed Famous Studios, they had to change his name to Blueto,
same character, the same character, but different name because they

(01:29:59):
didn't in the name to that character. I was wondered
what the deal was put down? These two great legends
of animation very interesting. I guess it's a sad how
history steam rolls some of these people. Well, but with animation,
they're like, all right, fine, we we own blue Dot. Yeah,
like we can draw that guy. Uh, I've seen for

(01:30:23):
anything else on here? How do you feel? Do you
feel like we got it? Is there anything else in
here you want? How do I feel? Cover? Popeye wise?
A little hungry, kind of sticky? Uh? Humid? Yeah? Um?
I think uh, I might have a little bit of
poison ivy from the airport. What it would be a
weird place to get poison ivy? All right, Well, in

(01:30:49):
that case, we'll finish with a couple of segments. What
Ebert said in five Questions? Can I can I make
a guess this movie is a complete disappointment. He's not
gonna like it. He actually did. Really, he gets so
funny because I was really looking forward to this. I've
listened to many of your episodes, and you always say, uh, ironically,

(01:31:15):
he did not like this one. What do you usually say?
I don't know, probably that yeah, good. I've listened to
the selection of your episodes. I've listened to every time
you say, actually, this time he didn't like it. But
every time you've said that, and so it isn't actually
didn't like it because he doesn't like every one of
the movies your guests. Yeah, movie like raising like that.

(01:31:38):
He gave us three and a half out of four stars. Yeah,
and he said Popeye has lots of fun. It suggests
that it is possible to take the broad strokes of
a comic strip and turn them into sophisticated entertainment. What's
needed is the right he loves these songs was needed
as the right attitude towards the material. If Altman and
his people had been the slightest bit condescending towards Popeye,

(01:32:00):
the movie might have crashed landed. But it's clear that
this movie uh that he has an affection for Popeye,
and so much regard for the sailor Man that even
bothers to reveal the truth about his opinion of Spinach. Yeah.
I wonder if it has uh Robert Rogert Ebert was
obviously was was grew up on these Fleisher cartoons and
maybe the scripts, but the strips are so old, um,

(01:32:24):
And I wonder I think you just really have to
love Popeye. Yeah, I think would you see this if
you didn't like Popeye first of all, but I mean
Disney wants everybody to go see the Avengers. Whether you
know who the law Dude is or buzz Boy or
whatever the hell their names are films, Well, I mean,

(01:32:44):
that's that's the Popeye that paramount probably wanted as a Popeye.
That was he should have come out. He should have
came in on that little rowboat and punched his way
through Sweet Haven. They were singing that song, sweet Haven,
God must Love Us. Yeah, Because I mean I said
it looked at it as a failure. It I think

(01:33:06):
it made like sixty million bucks on off a twentysomething
million dollar budget, so it wasn't a box office failure,
but I think Disney thought it would be like a
failure on it. That really haunts me because I work
with so many animators and whenever I bring this movie up,
there like, oh, yeah, it was a bomb, right, and
I'm like have you seen it? You're like, no, I've
never seen it. But meanwhile, it is literally it is

(01:33:28):
a It is a love letter to film cartoonists, to
people who love cartoons. This is a movie that was
specifically somehow through the fog of coke and the hot
Son and Malta and was somehow ended up being a
cartoon that was specifically made for us. And it kills

(01:33:51):
me when people haven't seen it and just disregarded as
just it just has like a stink on it that
I think is I and I makes it makes me
sad that like a lot of movies come back around
like find you know, like your idiocracies or the movies. Yeah,
cult classics. I don't. I don't know if it is

(01:34:15):
because I work with animators. Maybe they don't, they don't know,
but I'm I work at the the animation industry in
Los Angeles is pretty small, yeah, and they there's not
an affinity for this film really. Yeah. It's It's really
crazy because when I was doing research on this, I

(01:34:35):
one of my search terms was revisiting Popeye because I
want to see And there are plenty of people in
the last five years that have written I mean, I
guess they're not like cartoonists, but they've written articles about like,
I think this is an overlooked, weird cult classic um
and people have said it's Robin Williams best work. Other

(01:34:55):
people said it's one of Altman's best films, and it
just has the stink on it that you need to
just forget about. It's the best use of repetitive lyrics
and the songs, the best work. It's the best work
Repetition has ever done. Yeah, the best repetition ever. Uh.

(01:35:15):
And finally five questions, Well, number one, you've answered. The
first movie you remember seeing in the theater? Yeah, I
think it was in San Bruno, in the in the
Bay Area. I remember going in and seeing that big
standy that Popeye with Shelley Duval and the baby. That's
still such a great image, a great poster. Yeah. And uh,

(01:35:38):
I must have been very small. Yeah, that's sweet. Um,
but I know you don't have feelings. So I was four. Uh.
Do you remember the first R rated movie you saw?
The first R rated movie I saw? I remember the
first R rated movie I didn't see? We would see.
I treated them. I treated movie theaters like a playground.
And uh. We bought tickets to a film, a PG film,

(01:36:01):
and snuck into Child's Play two. Wow. Because of an
R rated film, we could not get in. But this
was like on A. It was a summer vacation, so
it would have been like on A. We took the
bus to the mall, and it was like on a
Tuesday afternoon or whatever, and nobody bought tickets to the movie.
And if nobody buys tickets to the movie, they don't

(01:36:22):
run the movie. So we sat there waiting for it,
just waiting for it to start. And it was and
just waiting and waiting and waiting. Yeah, you couldn't complain, like, hey,
start the movie and they'd be like, who are you,
We're fumigating the theater. So eventually and then you know,

(01:36:42):
they run movies or two hours, and so we were
in a window where all the movies had started, so
we basically had to walk out with our tail between
our legs and just get back on the bus and
go home. That's the worst sneak story I've ever heard.
That movie I didn't see, Yeah, but yeah, I remember
my dad was a big video store guy and he

(01:37:03):
was always bringing home the weirdest movies. There was always
those situations, you know, you have, like your dad's trying
to be a cool dad and he's renting cool things,
but then you're sitting you're like a seven year old
and you're sitting next to your dad during some alien
sex scene and you're like you're like looking at your mom.

(01:37:24):
She's dodging right, just trying to avoid eye contact. Yeah,
that was always very uncomfortable. Yeah, my dad got a
reputation for being like, it's just going to be another
Dad movie. Meanwhile, me and my brother, all we want
to do is rent The Smurfs and the Magic Flute
over and over and over again. My mom would be like,

(01:37:44):
you can't rent that movie again. We're like, we really
want to see it. Yeah, And we would just rent
this person the Magic Flute over and over and over again,
because before you could buy video cassettes, so would you
tape it off of TV? Or we would rent it
every time we do a video store and rented over
and over again, so you spent like sixty I remember

(01:38:04):
like the first time I saw boobs and stuff. Yeah,
that was like we loved. We would watch at a
neighbor's house, that Alvira movie. I would love to watch
that again. Vira she did a movie. She did a
movie and she's you see cleavage, side boob, under boob.

(01:38:25):
She's wearing tassels. There's a part in it where she's
spinning tassels for a long time, and I was like,
for a long time for a long time. She's been
tassels for as long as olive oil trips around on
the dock with greater results probably, And I remember we
would always watched this movie chorus line that had great

(01:38:46):
I remember so I don't remember specifically if they had
boobs in that movie, but they had that great song
tits and asked that always goes through my head only
as I walked down the street. Right, I'm sure when
you're a kid, that was very titilating. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
fun inten Um, will you walk out of a bad movie?
I will? I don't. Oh my god, you're a parent now.

(01:39:09):
I would love to go to the movies. Yeah, to
get out of the house. Me and my wife loved
this new Jurassic Park movie, and all of our friends
at work were like the problems, problems, problems, and I
was like, listen, we were out of the house, were
having such a good time. Um, so obviously now you
won't walk out of a movie. Oh my god, that

(01:39:31):
we would have to go back home. Was that one
of your moves? Though? I was The only movie I
really ever walked out of was Spice World. Oh. Um.
My brother loved the Spice Girls. I was not on
board and I that was when all theaters had a
really great arcade connected to him. And I had a

(01:39:54):
quarter on a string. Oh did you really? I had
a quarter on a string that were ragged up. It
didn't work on every one, but it worked on some
of my favorites. Yeah, Rampage and Dig Doug and I
Big Doug. Just last week. Actually, you know, I'm like
tapping my pocket feeling that I have this quarter with
a string on it, and then I'm looking at this

(01:40:15):
garbage movie. Yeah, and I think I just got up
and just slunk out and play Doug, Play Dig Doug. Yeah,
it's funny. I played that last week for the first time. Jeez,
I don't even know it. It holds up. It's a
good game, Dig Dug. Yeah for sure. You know that
game was also directed by Robert Alman. It was weird.
That explains the songs, uh it, Dig Doug, Dig Doug.

(01:40:42):
So let me see for four I usually tailored to
the guests. Now, um, what cartoon, what animated show in
history do you wish you would have created? Which do
you wish was your own? I would have loved have
been one of those directors. In term my terror us
when it was Chuck Jones for his freeling. But then

(01:41:04):
I've thought about this. If I was there, then one
of them wouldn't have been there, scenario right, filling a
spot like I wish I was the person who created Peanuts.
That was a time when all of the animators went
to work in a suit and tie, and they would
they Bugs Bunny can dance so well. It's because all

(01:41:28):
of these termite terrorists. Where they made Bugs Bunny and
all those cartoons. UM was located right across the street
from the Hollywood Palladium, which was where all the big
which is still there today, famously from the Blues Brothers
movie where Cab Callaway plays the big final scene the
Blues Brothers UM. But that was where all the big
bands played, and all the animations will get all from

(01:41:49):
Warner Brothers and go right across the street to go dance,
so they could all dance like crazy. They all knew
how to dance. They were over there dancing to whomever
these big band guys. UM. That would have been fun. Yeah,
Or maybe what's your favorite all time cartoon? My favorite?
My my favorite cartoon right now is Clarence. I love

(01:42:10):
it so much. I watched it with my son. It's
so fucked up. It's really a great cartoon that shows
what it's like to be a child, like a middle
or middle to lower middle class child entertaining yourself in
a dirt lot. Oh nice, it's a really great cartoon.
Cartoon Network just ended did three seasons. You can watch

(01:42:34):
it with your kid. Really. Yeah, it's really weird. Who's
the voice? Who's the star? Um? No, nobody? Famous nobody? Yeah, yeah,
that's a Could Mel Blank have had a career today
because they need like, uh, you know, the rock to
voice every cartoon, Like what would Mel Blanks place Blank?

(01:42:54):
Who was basically like the Babe Ruth the Michael Jordan's
the third sports person of voiceover actors. I that was
the extent of my Noze sports. So what would Mel
blanks role? Of course Mel Blank was Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvaster,
Tweetie fog Legor and Woody Woodpecker, um, all these people.

(01:43:20):
But he but it would have been all like Hayley
highly duff for Duffy Duffy hay or what what are these?
Do you have a boy or a girl? I have
a girl. Oh yeah, you'll be in it soon. Yeah. Yeah,
Duffy Duffie Hey, Duffy, hay Hilie Cyrus Hayley, Duffy stuff,
duff stuff, Clarence, I gotta check that out. That's a

(01:43:42):
great show. And then bow Jack Horseman. Oh sure, I'm
sure we have a lot of listeners that are into
bow Jack. Uh. And finally movie going one on one, Mike,
what is your when you would get out to the movies,
what's your jam? Where do you sit? What do you
get at the concessions? I'm a forty two old man now.
My life has gone through many stages. When I was

(01:44:03):
a kid, I'd get the newspaper and I'd cut out
the movie listings and I'd go there and just cruise
all day from theater to theater. I had my watch,
an actual watch, and I would go to one movie
and then it would get out and I'd see what
was starting next, and I would just sneak over into
that theater and I'd spend I'd be in there. I
go in there and you know when it was when

(01:44:25):
it was light, and leave when it was very dark.
That's great. And then as a young man who was
all about sneaking in food, Uh, I always say, if
I was on death row, if my crimes finally catch
up with me, that I'd love for my last meal
to be at Chipotle burrito and chips and guacamole. That
is my jam. And it drives my wife crazy, would

(01:44:47):
because I eat chips and guacamole in the movie and
she says it's too loud. How do you sneak that in?
But I say, listen, what, let spill all my seekers
out here. It'll be over. She goes, She's up my
butt so much for this chips and guacamole. What they
sell chips and nachos? She says, nacho cheese a quieter

(01:45:10):
food than guacamole. It's like a silencer on the chip.
But it's the exact same foods, the exact same food. Yeah,
she'll let me, she will let me buy nachos, but
she won't let me do this. Uh oh. And then
of course there's a crinkly paper bag and all this
other nonsense. But but she like, you're disturbing everyone. Can
hear you eating your chips? Is that the That's what

(01:45:30):
she says to me all day every day. You're disturbing
everyone in the movie. Out of the movies in the house,
out of the house. Uh, and then what about after
that period in your life? Oh? Now, I just I mean,
now I'm a father and I can barely get to
a movie. And when I do get to a movie, yeah,

(01:45:53):
I guess I'll eat nachos because time is I mean
every movie, now, movies are then you add like a
hundred dollar babysitter tab or so every movie costs like
a hundred bucks or whatever. So yeah, we're not stopping
to pick up food for eating the garbage and food
at the theater. Yeah, good, like you should. But why

(01:46:15):
don't they serve me real food? You see, I go
see movies at dinner time. Yeah, I don't want to
eat popcorn for dinner. Yeah, but those dinner theaters are
I want courses, like a tasting menu. Yes, I want
a wine selection of man that would be nice. Yeah,
but the dining theaters it's never I don't want to

(01:46:36):
eat a cheeseburg. No. I had a terrible thing. We
went to go see that um Elysium or something about
rich people making their own planet in space, and uh,
we saw that at one of these fancy theaters in
l A where they bring you your meal, and they
bring your meal while the movies already started. So they
crawl to you, and I'm like, this movie, this what's

(01:47:00):
putting in front of me? Here? Yeah, the tray on
his back. Yeah, I have somebody crawling to here's your meals.
Sorry if one of my hairs got in the way
of the screen about the movie about rich people breaking
off from society. All right, man, this is a good one.
Thank you, thanks for coming in. It's been a pleasure.

(01:47:22):
And good luck with the new show. Yeah, and everybody
check out. I'm here in town for Picture this. This
great show that we do. If you you have you
ever seen the show the cartoon Duck a Muck We're
bugs Bunny screwing around with heavy Duck. We're on the
road doing this picture this show where and animators live
screw with comedians. Um, it's in New York, it's in

(01:47:43):
l A. It's frequently in San Francisco. We're on the
road all the time. Check this show out. It's a
bonker show. Yeah, with former guest the great Brandy Posey
took this up. Yeah she's a producer. Yeah, she's great, Brandy.
I will all right, thanks man, thank you, all right,
good job. I think everybody went home probably. I mean,

(01:48:03):
I'm supposed to go out there and uh space bar
or whatever, it's spacebar. Yeah, you got it, shows it aid, Yeah,
I'm worried, but it's close, right, yeah, I mean it's
seven now. Yeah, yeah, giggy, how did you like that?

(01:48:29):
Everybody like, how did you like my bad popye impression?
Just then? Now I'm just kidding, how did you like that? Interview?
I thought it was pretty cool. Mike's a great dude
and uh, super talented and interesting and it was really
cool hearing about his life as the and work as
the first animator that I've had a movie crush. So
I'm kind of ticking through a bunch of cool jobs
here in the entertainment industry, which is really exciting for me. Uh.

(01:48:52):
The whole goal of this podcast was to get a
range of people across the entertainment industry, and it was
very very cool to to get Mike in here. And uh,
he actually signed I posted it on the website when
he came through here, but he signed the back of
our MC monitor. He had a sharpie in his hand
and it's like, man, I got my callings with here.
You need to draw something for us somewhere, looks around

(01:49:14):
on various walls. Nothing jumped out at me. And then
I saw this big, gorgeous twenty five inch Mac computer
screen and said, signed the back of this thing, and
he drew a little picture of a horse and he
signed it, and Jerry didn't get mad, In fact, she
was delighted. So that really worked out. Well. Maybe i'll
repost it just in case you didn't see it, and
I hope you liked her talk on Popeye. He's a big,

(01:49:35):
big fan as you could tell, and had a lot
of great insight on that film, and I just couldn't
have been more pleased with how this one went down.
So thanks to Mike. You can follow him on Twitter
at stuffed animals uh and that his capital st U
F F F E d animals. That's three f s

(01:49:55):
everyone at Twitter, and you can follow my twitter feed
there support bo Jack Horseman really really great show. I'm
glad they're still going strong and all his new efforts.
So thanks Mike for coming in. I hope you guys
enjoyed that talk on Popeye. And until next week, remember
eat your spinach. It's good for you. Movie Crush is

(01:50:25):
produced engineered edited and soundtracked by Noel Brown and Ramsey
Hunt at how Stuff Work Studios. Pot City Market, Atlanta, Georgia,

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