BudPod with Phil Wang & Pierre Novellie - Episode 295 - Wicked Special

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

This week Phil and Pierre deep dive into the wonderful world of OZ, after seeing the brand new Wicked film. They both left the theatre with strong opinions on the film, both positive and negative...Catch Pierre's show 'Must We?' at the Soho Theatre in March 2025! Tickets available now here Watch Phil's brand new Netflix special 'Wang In There Baby' now!We have brand new BudPod MERCH!!Patrons get 20% discount on all merch!https://visualanticsapparel.com/collections/budpod-podcastDon’t forget to like, subscribe and follow us on socials @budpodofficialKoji Get bonus BudPod on Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a Fizz member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At Fizz, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fizz.ca. and now for a confusing message. Okay. My Edinburgh show must we in anywhere that isn't London or Edinburgh basically, right? You've already seen a lot of the material because I, to get out of my hell rhythm, I smushed two of my shows into one mega show. So if you saw me on tour, you watched two 50 five zero minute halves because that was two shows sellotape together in a big Franken show. So if you've seen me on tour recently, you've seen a lot of the stuff in must we. None of it's ever been done in London though. Okay. I hope that is the first time in London. Yeah.

Must we must we? It'll be in one man. One man does a show. One show. One man. One show. Two words. Must we? Question mark. Yes, so please come and see me at the Soho Theatre. Code you very much and see you there. Bye. It's Bud Pod 295. 295. Give me reviews five stars. What? Give me stars five. Give me stars five. But that's just running five with five. What I'm trying to say is I want to see what my wiki feet is at. A couple of weeks ago or a week ago, I revealed that I have a WikiFeet. As a result of a hammock photo. One hammock photo from my holiday to Thailand with Fern Brady.

I had my little trotters were poking out of the hammock and they've set the internet alight. Specifically the bit of the internet where they whack it over your feet. Yeah, which is WikiFeet. Now I was at 4.3 stars and we asked in the campaign called Rotten Toma Toes to review bomb my WikiFeet and get me closer to five stars. So Felipe, we were at 4.3 stars for all Phil's feet. Where are we at now?

4.62. The system works. Your feet are now officially 0.32 stars sexier. Yes they are. And you know what? They feel that way. I woke up today and I thought, I don't want to step on these for some reason. I feel like I shouldn't be stepping on these today. I feel like they're too beautiful and precious to be stepped on. Too arousing for people who are in the corner of the internet. Yeah. Thank you to those perverts and pod buds who have helped my feet up the charts. Pod buds who have helped my feet up the charts. Please keep on dragging it to my feet. And let's get closer to five. Let's get 4.9.

Christmas day, 4.99. That's the goal. That would be, what a thing to unwrap at the bottom of my tree. You run downstairs in your one piece romper suit. He's been, he's been blue with stars and moons all over. Yeah. You're blue with stars and moons and like a bum flap. Yeah. You run and then, you know, ironically while you unwrap this, this stat, your feet are in the little booties of the one piece. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you're like kicking as you unwrap and it says

4.99 and you crunch it to your chest with a piece of paper. And I run to the fireplace and in front of fireplace I sort of drag this review around the floor like it's a train set and I still in my pajamas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All day. I'm on that review. Phil stop enjoying your feet, your wiki feet review and come to have Christmas lunch. Oh, okay. And I go and eat and I, I'm halfway through. I'm like, can I go back to the review? And they're like, eat your Christmas pudding. Yeah. All right. Go on then. I didn't get down from the chair. And you can just hear me in the corner playing with this crumpled piece of paper.

So anyway, thank you PodBuds for inflating my feet. Speaking of fandoms from obscure corners of the internet, you and I have both now seen the movie Wicked. We have seen Wicked separately. I saw it in the city of Plymouth. We had to see it separately in case the bomb went off. Yeah, yeah, so at least one review would be safe. At least one member of Bud Pod is safe. We also didn't want to influence one another's review

with our presence. Exactly, exactly. Blind taste testing. I feel like your review, you need to get off your chest even more than mine. So let's start with yours for the movie Wicked, starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. Yes, who both first of all, look like skeletons.

The ever withering, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. They better make that next movie quick, before they're completely gone. It's, yeah, I hope the next movie they make together is about being stranded on a desert island. Or being a skeleton. Because they look like skeletons and it's deeply unsettling. Anyway, yes. Look, everyone in the movie is doing really well as performers. Fabulous. I agree there. Especially Cynthia Rivo, I think.

A new star is born. The wickedly talented... The wickedly talented Sylvia Perinto. Sylvia Perinto. Everyone's doing really well with their tasks that they have been given. talented Silvia Perinto. Silvia Perinto. Everyone's doing really well with their tasks that they have been given. Their jobs that they have been assigned. Their jobs that they have.

Although some people's jobs I think were done badly, but I will get to that. Okay. One thing that does annoy me about really fancy singing is that I can't understand the words. Which in a musical is annoying because I think like, well, the words are like... The diction I found was pretty good except for that first song, which was basically... And I didn't hear a fucking word. Yeah. There's one bit where it's like some

kind of crucial slogan of the whole thing where the Wicked Witch is singing and she goes, the Wicked Witch is singing and she goes, and the answer to the question is. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. It's just insanely high pitch. And I go, what? But it makes me feel like Mr. Burns watching the thing

going like, I miss that. But like, cause it's a musical, the thing she said is part of the plot. Yeah. Whereas if it was just an album where someone sings in a wacky way, I'd be like, well, just look at the lyrics sheet or whatever. It doesn't matter.

It's just a song. I'm enjoying the song. Even if I don't find out what it said, it was probably about love or the dance floor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those two. It's about the fact that they're in the club again. Fine. Yeah.

So that was my one problem was that there was a couple of moments where the desire for singing fanciness overrode the desire for comprehension. But because it's aimed at fans who've like, listened to the album 100 trillion times and know all the words off my heart. It doesn't matter. Right. It's not for me. No, incredibly wicked is not for you. I'm somehow not in the demographic for the movie wicked it turns out. So separate to that praise for everyone doing their jobs really well is the most fucking theatre kid summer camp shit I've ever seen in my life. It really is. It doesn't

make any sense. It's stretched out to almost three hours. They say it's okay to be different every fifth sentence. And then I get it wicked. It's okay to be green. It's okay to be green. It's okay to be green. It's okay to be green. It's okay to be green, assuming as in Alphabas' case, so you actually have no other negative characteristics. Everything else is exactly the same.

Everything else she is the same as everyone else. The greenness. I mean, I don't believe that they are so prejudiced that someone as talented and tall and beautiful as her is like, Oh, but she's green. And I think she's that hate her. Yeah. Gross. And my father is like, gross. My mother and father hated the green baby that was delivered by a bear. CGI bear delivered the baby. And they're like, well, that's good. That's a bear.

Yeah. I'll have the best claws near my vagina, but the baby's green, green baby, green baby here in Pupulala land where the gumdrop trees sprout. You know, it's, it's ridiculous. It's, it's like one umpa lumpa being shunned for having like yellow shoes. Like it's just this complete nonsense. It doesn't totally make sense. I was saying to my girlfriend.

Also she's immediately accepted by the way, once she gets to the school, because. They just go, well you are very good. You're good at wizarding, so I guess none of that actually matters. You can come to this now. Yeah. It's not even a wizarding school.

Until the wizard lady shows up, all the subjects they talk about are like stupid bollocks words. Historiography and linguistoronomics and all that kind of shit from the reference to the original book or film. So it's like, right. So it's actually just like a normal uni. Yeah. To feed the burgeoning civil service of the wizard. Yes. The wizard needs accountants and sociologists. Yeah. Hogwarts has a similar problem. Well, shouldn't every class just be about flying on your broom and making spells? No, we have a history of cloaks.

We have maths. Like we can't, even we can't fucking escape the fact that if you can't count, it's a disaster. So what annoys me is that I said this to my girlfriend the reason it the land of Oz works in the original Wizard of Oz is because it's contrasted with the real world of like the Kansas fucking dust bowl black and white Kansas Yeah, but but if we have something to compare it to it's like don't worry about that. This is silly Billy land And you go great. I'm happy with that. But the trouble is that now it's all Silly Billy Land. So nothing means anything. Yeah, what are the stakes in Silly Billy Land? There aren't any, because you just have,

then a marvelous gumdrop appears. And then whatever, it doesn't matter. There are no grades. The stakes are hard to grasp because what is at stake ultimately is the fate of Oz. But we are given no emotional attachment to Oz. We don't know what Oz is. None of the Munchkins are dwarfs.

Yeah, they also don't seem very nice. They're just the, I started calling it- Everyone seems like a bit of an asshole. I started calling it Weasley Village because there's just frizzy ginger head normal people and they're supposed to be Munchkins. They're not any smaller than anyone. Right.

Where are the dwarfs? Of course. Because now, right, a modern casting. But then you've just gone to a bunch of dwarf actors like they finally made the one movie that employs dwarves. And fuck you. It would employ 300 of us at once. It's got a bunch of frizzy haired gingers. Ah, fuck you. But if you look really closely, they're a bit shorter than Ariana Grande. They're about an inch shorter than Ariana Grande. And much is an inch shorter than Ariana Grande and much is made of it. As if that's the really the worst thing that could happen to you height wise.

Yeah. All of you guys could get like a decent pension from the royalties from this film being dwarfs. But no, no, fuck you actually. I was quite pissed off about that. Anyway, let us make this movie about how it's good to be different. It's good to be different. Yeah. We're not going to put any fucking dwarfs in though.

Talking goat, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bear midwife, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You better believe it, son. Yeah, the only dwarf who's employed in the whole movie is Peter Dinklage who's doing a voice of a goat. A voice of a goat lecturer. But there's nothing to contrast anything with. So people are just going like, you can't be late for the crimple crumple ball or the jellywigs

will never flourish. And you go, what? And there's no consequences to anything. It's all very vague. There's kind of police. It's very strange. None of it makes any sense. Yeah, it is.

So there's nothing to contrast it with. There are no stereotypes. The tweet I did about it, which I was proud of was, it's Princess Fiona from Shrek and Barbie go to Hogwarts. Yes, right, yeah. That's it. That is it. That is it. And if you've seen either of those movies story-wise, you don't need to see this one.

It's the same. And they go to Hogwarts and they spent ages there. At Hogwarts. Which is called Shiz. Shiz. Jesus Christ, man. Shiz. But it's a university. They keep going on about it.

Shiz. But university. Shiz. Shiz. You really want to stick with that. Okay. And they spend about a hundred years there. They spend a long time there.

Mainly dancing. And to be fair, the songs, I've not seen the stage production. The songs are really great and Cynthia Reeve is really good at singing and Aria Underground is good in her high pitched squeaky way. Yeah. But for me, I thought it was really good. I enjoyed it.

I thought four stars. Sure. Four? Yeah, I suppose like songs and like- The trouble is it because the scale of it is so crazy. It's hard to not reward the ambition. But they lose the stuff for me because it looks fucking terrible. I think it looks really bad. Really too brightly lit. And the, this is my theory about modern movies is that resolution is too high. Now picture quality is actually too high. When Elphaba picks up a broom,

I can see that it's not a real word because the picture quality is so high high. When Elf of a Bird picks up a broom, I can see there's not a real wood because the picture quality is so high, you can see that plastic clean sheen on it. Yes, yes, that's true. The other effect that having really high resolution has is that when there is any 3D CCG effects, which there are plenty of, and you know I hate those, but when resolution is that high,

when there is a 3D fucking goat on there, you can tell. Because it's in contrast to real life resolution. Yeah, it's a PlayStation 2. It's like if a PlayStation character walked in front of you in real life. You go, no matter how good it is, you go, ugh. Whereas I've been watching The Walking Dead with my girlfriend, and the resolution there is,

what were we at, 720p, 1080p back then. And when there's a 3D zombie a bit of a distance away, you cannot tell because the picture quality meshes with 3D and you actually can't tell. Here, it's 2 HD. We have to draw back on picture quality because movies actually starting to look less real. The sets were good though, they made a lot of sets for it.

But you can tell the sets because the picture quality is so high. You can tell they're on the Shiz set now. They're on the Munchkins set now. They're on the House set now. Everything feels like sets. Because the picture quality just literally is too high. And also this mixing of set and over-aliance and CG means there is no sense of place and without trying not to give it away, but there's a bit, you know, there's a big sort of climactic bit where characters like in the sky and the forces of authority are threatened by her. She moves quite far in the distance and as she turns around, makes a pose and these authority figures make a pose as if they're being challenged directly by her. But you've just seen a fly

far distance away. A good five miles away. And you're like, wait, so where is she now? Because they're there because it's all been filmed separately on on-sets and then green screen, they don't know where she is. The actors, she doesn't know where she is. And when you watch it, it's like they're pointing at different points in the sky. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. So there's just a lot of confluence of technology that's too good and technology that's not there yet. I eat three CGI is not there yet

and picture quality is too good. I just, I don't, the trouble with CGI is that it won't get there I think just because it's possible for CGI to make a 3D goat with individual hairs all over it, right? But it would take 10 years and it would cost a hundred shmish million pounds to the point where it's like, it would be cheaper to try and train a goat to talk. It'd be cheaper to create a super race of goats that can actually talk.

Or do the old peanut butter trick. Oh, what's that? They put peanut butter on the roof of an animal's mouth. It's going like, and they just film it for long enough that they get enough mouth shapes. I'd honestly prefer that. I think it'd look great. I'd be like, haha. Because one of the...

Look at that goat. Because one of the B stories in this, which is unnecessary, is that... I said if you could take it out, it would make no difference to the plot at all. Is that there's this... Fuck it, I can't believe I'm saying this. There's a conspiracy against the English speaking animals of Oz. In Oz, animals can have jobs and do stuff. That's why a giant bear is a midwife, which seems unwise. But for some reason, they're starting to lose the ability to speak. And there's a sort of secret

police, like they read as a starzy, collect rounding up speaking animals. Yeah, but they're dressed like the policeman from a low, a low. Yeah, yeah. So you're like, well, so this is normal police. And every time they punch that 3D goat or dragged it away, I just started laughing. And later looking at me like, stop it. What? It's sad. No, it's not. It's funny. Look, it's a fake goat and it's being bunched by a real man. That's funny. Nothing is happening. Look at the screen. Nothing is happening. I laughed when, um, I laughed when a green baby was being taken away by a bear dressed as a nurse. I laughed out loud at that. There's a bit where a character has a cartoon heart attack. I laughed out loud at that. What do you mean

like, ah, I like, ah, falls. Like, ah, and then falls over. And the thing is that because the musical is clearly like an incredibly fucking camp, silly musical. Yeah. And over dramatic. They've applied that acting to the screen. The trouble is that now the silly actor's face is two stories high.

You do big silly acting for the back of the room. That's right. So, but now this character is going, what? Ooh. Mm. Like it's so, it's mental. They're like Ricky Gervais when he's having to do the, mm. When he's doing the genie character.

They're all doing that. And they're at like a fucking wizard school where like the entire cast of the wizard school is the most diverse fucking inclusive thing I've ever seen. I've never seen so many. Actually, maybe too many Asians for me. I never thought I'd say it. I never thought I'd say this about a big Hollywood movie, but there's not actually too many...

I was like, there's too many Chinese people in this. This is not too far. This is too much. Because like, Bo and Yang is in it, Michelle Yeoh is in it, and then like almost half of the extras are East Asian and South East Asian. But that's what's so funny to me about the school is that the cast of the school looks like an international IB school in Singapore. Yes, it really does.

Every group on earth is represented. There are people in wheelchairs, there are people with albinism. Yes, yes. There's an albino guy walking around. And are people with albinism. Yes. Yes. There's an albino guy walking around and then they're all bullying a green lady. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Who by the way is the only one of them that has magic powers. The only one who can actually do what they're all there to study. Yeah. Well, no, they're not though. They're all they're doing

Historia Bumbles or whatever the fuck. But they're all there to learn some powers, aren't they? No. Aren't they? They can't find anyone who can do it. They can't find anyone who can do it. They can't find anyone who can do it. That's the thing. So she's literally the coolest,

most special person at the school. And they're like, ha ha, green nerd. Like, oh, what are you going to do? Incredible magic power. Ha ha, idea. And you go, this doesn't make any sense. This doesn't make any sense.

She points out the albino guy. It's like, he's got no color. And everyone's like, wait, hey, come on now. That's not cool. Hey, he's got no color. And everyone's like, wait, hey, come on. That's not cool. Hey, he's really good at historial bumbles. All you can do is, you know, fly. Fly, destroy whatever you want and be green. Yeah.

And you know how you destroy things when you get angry? We're going to all taunt you a lot. We have shown no fear in that regard. There's a bit where the wizard teacher lady is trying to teach her wizard powers and she can't do them. She's learning and she flips out and smashes a bunch of stuff. She flicks something.

She makes something fly briefly. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, it's not great. It's just like smashing a bunch of glass. Yeah. But the teacher's like remarkable. My God.

Truly incredible. And you think what was that for? The smashing everything in a room. And especially when a couple of scenes before we've seen her do much more. Way bigger shit. Yeah, and then suddenly we're impressed that she's- Remarkable.

It's like- Why is there a big room full of glass that it takes too long to smash with a hammer individually? Your arm would get tired. Is that what this is for? That's it. Dog shit. Dog shit power. You're left really wondering

what is impressive in this universe? What is difficult to do in this universe? What skills are there? Yeah, yeah. What can everyone do? And what can only a few people do? There's a bit where they all fight with sticks, like they're chaolin monks.

Oh yeah. Yeah. What are they fucking training these kids for? Yeah. And I couldn't have any, like I didn't feel any sadness when there's a bit with a goat, Peter Dinklage the goat. Absurd.

Does a long talk. Ridiculous. About how animals used to be more involved in academia. So you could hear a snoo... He's doing his, he's doing his I don't believe it voice. Some fucking Game of Thrones. But it's like Victor Meldrew from in one foot of the grave. I don't believe it.

Oh no. He's doing that voice still as a goat now. So I'm going like, right, the dwarf from Game of Thrones is a goat in this. Fuck it, fine. And he's saying, you could hear snow leopard elucidate mathematics. And it's ridiculous. Shut up.

And they're flashing illustrations of a snow leopard at a whiteboard, drawing something. Am I meant to be moved by this? And there's a bit, the bit that sort of starts, the first instance we see of this prejudice against the talking animals is that he flips over his chalkboard and instead of it being a blank chalkboard for him to continue his lecture, there are the words in red written on the chalkboard. Animals should be seen and not heard. And the music goes, and everyone goes, and he goes, who wrote this? And I was just laughing. I was like, I'll just Nelson Munson in the back of the cinema. Who did this? Who did this? Who did this? Who did this? Who did this?

And I was like, yeah, of course animals should be seen and not heard because they're animals. I didn't, I can believe what I was. There's no point where Peter Dinglish's goat lecturer just like shat out a little, little lumps of poo like goats do. Yeah. A bitter student. Flipped out. Or just ate all their homework. And then I realized, where does this animal thing come from? And I realized, Oh yeah, of course. Wizard of Oz has a talking lion. Yeah. But, but, okay. So here's the other thing that fucked me off about the film. Yeah. It's almost three hours long. You could have lost 90 minutes runtime without all of the

foreshadowing shit. Um, yes. I hate foreshadowing shit. Yes. I hate foreshadowing in the same sense that like, there's like, okay, let's say there's a movie where a time traveler goes back to medieval times. It's an American guy. And he gives like an American at King Arthur's court. There's some bit where like he introduces them to like fucking pizza and skateboarding and shit.

And there's always a character who's like, a flat piece of bread with cheese on it, it'll never catch on. Or like young John Lennon running away from his house and his mom's going, where John? You forgot to imagine. And then John Lennon goes, imagine? Oh, right, yeah.

And writes it down. You go, fuck off, Fuck off. Half the movie is that shit. Where it's just like, I guess you could, like, I guess you could say that this character is good and this character I guess is just wicked. She's a witch who is wicked. And you go, and it's like, where did the hat come from? Where did the cloak come from? Because she's dressed like that because she's a fucking witch. But they have to give every, giving every one of her props a 17 minute origin story. So it's like going like, Oh, I guess the people of Munchkin land were cannibals because they munch on their

kin and some shit like that. And you just got, I didn't, it's unnecessary. It was never a mystery to me when I watched the wizard of Oz as a child that didn't go, I didn't, it's unnecessary. It was never a mystery to me. When I watched the Wizard of Oz as a child, I didn't go, yeah, well, why, where's the talking lion from? Yeah. Why can't I talk? Has it ever been, um, has there ever faced struggles politically? Has it ever lectured? If so, at what institute? Also when you give the origin story for the hat or the broomstick or the cloak, you want to, you assume it's going to have some significance, but it's literally always just, it was on the floor. It was on the floor when the thing happened. I found it. And now I have it. You go, oh cool. It's all, it's like the Terminator, let the jacket. He just takes it from the guy.

He kills, right? There's just some biker guy and he takes it from the guy. The first place he arrives is a biker bar. Yeah. But they don't make it, but that became iconic afterwards. Yeah. It wasn't retroactive. No. But they've gone retroactive and gone, you wanna find out where the cloak is from? It was next to her.

It was there. It was there when she became this. It was there. And also the only reason they put a cloak on is that they're in the middle of like a fucking emergency. And for no reason, the Good Witch character is like, you're shaking. Yeah.

Oh, you're so cold. Is she? Can't she do a spell where she's warm? Yeah. Also she's wearing like a 17 layer fucking Quaker bodice. She's also been running intensely for 20 minutes straight. She's run up 40 flights of stairs. How is she cold?

What? She's go, Oh, you need a cloak. They might have just said that we forgot about the cloak. I'm giving you a cloak yet. Don't worry. I can imagine that at some point she thought God flying around in a broomstick pipe cold. I'll put a cloak on. Yeah. That's what I don't. I'll do that myself in my mind. It's, it's the Redditification of films where people on Reddit go, I would love an origin story. And you go, because you're autistic like me. You want everything to be explained

because you find that satisfying, but it makes for bad storytelling. It's also a symptom of- I guess I'm just some kind of man bat. It's also the system of, well, man bat is a villain. No, okay, yeah, sure. Sorry, in time for me to be autistic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, your turn. Your turn now.

It's also part, it's a symptom of cinematic universes, right? Where every little thing could potentially be a series on Disney+. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A midquel. You're right. A lower level franchise film is about Alphabas cloak. Just about the cloak. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe this is teasing. If some executive decides they're going to go for it, maybe this is the tease for the cloak show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be called Uncloaked. And it'll be all about how the cloaks aren't

allowed to go to school. The whole thing where they were like, if the animals are put in cages, they never learn to talk. And then they can't teach at uni's. And I go, right. Also the cage is revealed as a new invention. That's the most insane bit of the whole movie. It was funny. It's like a box with loads of holes in, but it's still really secure. And everyone's like, oh. And then the next thing you're watching a crazy steampunk ultrasonic train. And like they have this train, but they don't have cages. They've only just discovered the cage.

They've only just discovered the cage. It's like the Mayans or something where it's like, somehow Mayan civilization had incredibly advanced, you know, algebra and equations, but they didn't have the wheel. You hear, right? Right. Yeah.

It's some sort of cage based innovation that has only just arrived in Oz. I mean, yeah, they have a steampunk. It's the train, which I thought was the coolest thing in it. I like the train. I like that train. Although that was 3D for too much. I think they didn't have a physical one. It also took them 14 minutes to get on it.

Yeah. Yeah. They did a little party. It was like choo choo all aboard for like 14 minutes to the point where I got anxious. I was like, you're going to fucking miss it. Get on it. That is also why is it going all aboard was only for one person to get on. Yeah. And it's heavily implied that if more than one person gets on to be killed, disappeared by this fucking secret police. But this cage thing is it, is the implication meant to be that this used to be such an inclusive, innocent land? They never heard of cages.

They didn't, they have no need for cages. It's just unclear like why the animals don't learn to talk if they're in a cage. Yeah, just, yeah, just being cooped up is just so traumatic that they forget all their language. Yeah, like, no, the animal learns to talk. If we just drop it off in the fucking woods, you know, really have from what fucking was it the, the, the Marvelatra school of talkification and the fucking woods. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of very silly stuff in it. I will say you want to look, you want to, when I was watching, I was like, right. Because if people are caged when they're young for who they are, they have no voice. They will not develop. I think it might be okay to be different. I think this movie's trying to tell me something about myself.

It's trying to tell me something about being different and a count of the life of me figure out what it is. I need them to say it 12 more times because I'm still not sure if it's good to be good to be different. I thought it was good to be different, but then she seems to be having quite a bad time at pointless uni because she's different. So I was looking bad. She's having a both a good and a bad time for being different. Actually, sometimes it's very good. And sometimes- Also, she befriends Ariana Grande, despite Ariana Grande still being like the wizarding equivalent of like a racist bully.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. She doesn't change or apologize or learn anything. And then she doesn't. They're just singing, yelling, singing into each other's faces about how they're best friends now. Yeah.

And it's such a good example of like, you never have to learn a lesson or apologize for anything. It's true. You just- Yeah. Trump would approve of this movie. Yeah. You just keep battering people with your opinion. Eventually they give up. Eventually they just go, right, I'll join in. Then I'll say, I'm your best friend. It just join in. She's been like racist to the goat lecturer. Oh yeah. Multiple times. Really horribly. She's been racist. She was racist to Elphaba as well. I should make some green comments. Doesn't she? Yeah, she's greenest. She's greenest as well. Immediately and continuously. She's like a weird

bully. Yeah. She's an idiot. All the jokes she gets to say, which are pretty good jokes. They're theatre jokes. She's got comedy chops. She's got good timing. She was in Nickelodeon when she was very young. She's got the comedy timing and stuff, but it's theatre humour. So the books are really rare. Summer medium rare. Oh, for us, I couldn't believe that. Yeah, you couldn't believe that. But you can hear people going, oh! Yeah, in a theatre, they'll destroy.

In a stand-up club, you would get burnt from the feet. In a stand-up club, the books are rare. Summer medium rare. You could hear people thinking, is this what this is gonna be? In the silence, you'd hear that thought from everyone's brains at once going, I'm going to the toilet. If this is what it's going to be. Yeah. And then, and then they're just immediately happy with it. It's yeah, it's a bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think she's off happened for no real satisfying reason,

but whatever it's a musical and it's never clear Why it's good for her to go see the wizard Yeah, your heart's desire they think boss like he's the greatest wizard And so they having his approval means a lot if you are wizard But you're also not as she's to be a wizard the wizard teacher keeps saying to Elphaba that will be your chance to make good Right, and you go, apart from good being opposite to wicked in this canon, why are you saying it like that? Make good.

Yeah, make good. Make good as what? Yeah, cause what's she done? Like not be green anymore? What job? Yes, it's all yes, all right. That'll be your chance to make good. Okay, how do you mean?

Yeah. Well, you go to the wizard and then, you know, you know, I don't know. No one knows. And then you'll be happy. No one's allowed to go see him. No, no, no. What he does. Everyone just accepts what they're told immediately. That's a, that's a big thing in the film. Yeah, right. Someone just says something to you and you just go, Oh, and it's just true. No one ever goes, well, I don't think so. Are you sure? It's kind of like those like exams in heaven China, where if you just do well at the exams, just the exams,

you will then go to, you join the CCP. Yeah, you're just, you're just like the mayor of a town. Yeah. You've passed the mayor's exam. That's what it's like. It's like, well, you're going to go see the wizard now cause you were good at the exams. Yeah.

She's so thrilled. Alphaba's dad is like a classic, like horrible dad from like, generally, more classically than music biopic. Yeah, it's like fairy tale, Meendad. It's fairy tale Johnny Cash's dad. Yeah, right. Or like fairy tale Elvis's dad, or fairy tale everyone's dad seemingly. You'll never amount to anything. And you certainly won't have a number one hit.

They always say have some really specific. Yeah, yeah. And also this dad is incredibly proud and accepting of his daughter who uses a wheelchair. Yeah. But hates the daughter that is green. Is revolted by the green daughter. They can't even look at her.

Yes, yes. So is this guy- And everyone's just fine with it. Is this guy over-minded or not? I mean, does this guy love his daughters no matter what or not? He's the mayor of Munchkinland as well. I didn't clock that until very late in the movie. I didn't realize he's mayor of Munchkinland for a long time.

Yeah, he's the mayor. He's got a lot of local council power in some manner. But I will say Cynthia Evo is really, really excellent in it. And she needs to be, because outside of the movie, she's fucking crackers. She's crazy. It's nice to have that. It's nice to be back to a point in cinema where the great performers are fucking crazy.

And it's why they're good. And in their interviews are weird. Each one weirder than the last. Tom Cruise, weird. Really weird. When you pin him down as a real guy and try and talk to him, he's odd. Presumably you've seen the Holding Space interview. Mad. Yeah, really. I felt like I was having a

panic attack because the misunderstanding or lack of coherence that was happening was so delicate and could have gone so wrong at any time. I just thought, uh-oh, it made me very tense. Cause I could see no one's understanding each other. They've all got these blank eyes. The interviewer says, I don't know if you're aware, but people have been taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity and really holding space with them, which doesn't mean anything. And then Cynthia Reaver hears and she's so overwhelmed with emotion at a meaningless sentence that it spooks even the interviewer. The interviewer goes, Oh God, you can hear

the interviewer thinking, wait, what does she think I mean? Exactly. And you're watching both, you're watching this interviewer trying to figure out what it is Cynthia Riva has taken the sentence as. Yeah. Like if you said to someone, oh, do you want to, do you want to drink? And they went, Oh, really? Are you sure? I started crying. You'd go, yes. It's fine. I can get one of those. Like, do they hear? Do they hear me say? Yeah. What does does significance of drinks have

in this person's life? And also like she's so famous and this is such an important interview for the interviewer. Yeah. It's just such a horrible situation to be in, just go, oh no, what have I done? There's a fun interview with her about the fallout from the aftermath.

And she says like, she goes to gay bars now and just gay guys with t-shirts with her face on it and stuff and she's like she's just like um she is a living meme now. She's been absorbed into the meme verse. Yeah. She created a really camp silly meme with that clip about a really camp heavily meme-ified film. meme with that clip about a really camp, heavily meme-ified film. Like it's like distilling vodka again, you know? Right, yeah. Makes sense. It's interesting, yeah. They both look like skeletons in that.

Yeah, they don't look well. They really don't look well. They were thin before. Yeah. Someone showed me like a before and after of Ariana Grande. She was really thin in the before picture. For a second I was like, I was picture. For a second, I was like, I was looking at the before one,

I was like, oh, that's pretty, that's too thin. And they went, oh! I looked at the after picture. It's like a fucking Halloween decoration. Some of the funny comments online to these videos of them being skeletal and crying at very simple questions about the movie. And they're just like, what happened on that set?

Yeah. What has this process been? It's like Apocalypse Now or something. It's like, it took seven years to film in the jungle and like extras got killed and stuff by the mistimed landmine explosions. And you just think, really the set of Munchkinland was this fucking harrowing film that you made. Like you have to have to be comforting each other.

Every other question. You have to keep each other from crying. It's very odd. Are they just hungry? I think they're fucking theater kids. I think they're fucking theater kids. They can't help to be that hungry. I think the blood sugar is also very low.

I think that can't be denied at this point. Yeah. Yeah. God. It's easy to defy gravity if you're that thin. That's really good. That's really good. You gotta do that. That's for sale.

That joke's for sale. And if any cabaret hosts are listening, I'll sell you that. That's really good. I like that a lot. For your cabaret night. Well, that was a wicked, that turned into a wicked special.

Yes. A wicked special. A wicked special. A wicked special. Well speaking of frizzle-haired munchkins. Oh yes, time for some correspondence. Time for correspondence. This is from Sam. Sam, thank you, ma'am. My dear The Boys. Oh, yeah. It's nice.

Yeah, really nice. Thanks, you cunt. If I'm going to be in The Boys. Thanks, you cunt. From going to be in the boys. Thanks you cunt. I ruined the atmosphere at a gig full of quite old people the other day by using the phrase cunted off. Really? A few minutes of being on stage.

Yeah. She felt the air leave the room. It's so odd. They were old. It's so weird when you, when you encounter people who are still upset by swearing. Worried about swearing. You go, fuck yeah.

You said, sorry, I said a forbidden word. You're still around. Sorry, I forgot you're still around. I'm unwelcome here in the village now. I said a forbidden word. This is a sentence from the 21st century. Anyway, my dear other boys, I'm writing to you fully aware that the following story

sounds simply like a dirty coverup. Mm, a conspiracy. And though there is an element of filth, I believe it can, and should, make it through the filters of decolonization. Okay, okay. We consider all applications. Yeah. Previously, I worked for a sports magazine publishing company.

Ooh, that's cool. Not quite rare for a... Old school. Yeah. Sentenced in the 70s. Working in publishing, yeah,'s cool. Not quite rare for a... Old school. Yeah. Sentenced to the 70s. Working in publishing. Yeah, very cool. As such, I still get the odd PR agency email offering to send me new gizmos and gadgets to test and review. Oh, fun.

That's nice. That's a great perk. Often accompanied by a hint of desperation, I can imagine. A recent, pitiable example. Plea to try out a new compact packable lightweight bench for putting on and taking off boots in car parks. What? A compact? It's a bench that you can fold up and pack away and carry with you. This is my boot bench. For you to put shoes on and off in a car park. Boots. Boots on and off in the car park.

Yeah. okay so this is like if you drive somewhere for a walk drive somewhere for a walk drive to the saloon why not sit in the car there could be no space in the car okay that's that's you know want to sit with your legs hanging out the door of the car i think it it was a very high cause. It is high. Look, I guess you're proving this inventors point. Do you drive to the saloon, but your driving boots ain't the same as your your shit kicking boots? You feel weird bending over and dancing around with your socked foot in the air. Complete guff says Sam. I usually ignore such correspondence. But

the other day someone offered to send me a jacket. Oh it was a nice jacket. A tech jacket or sport jacket. Thinking myself lucky I said okay thank you and handed over my address. A few days later, coming home late at night, I checked the post box and there was a package from the jacket company, replete with their branding. As I carried it up the stairs, I thought to myself, this doesn't feel like a jacket. But part of the PR firm's pitch that I'd skim read was a new efficient packaging and shipping method. Mm. Maybe they had rolled it up into a sort of log to reduce the shipping footprint.

Mm-hmm. I don't know. Presolvera out of it or something. Uh-huh. A little jacket burrito. That's right, a jacket burrito. The boys? Yeah?

Imagine my surprise and the deep chill that enveloped me when I opened it to find a full-sized rubber fist and forearm. What? Clearly, yeah. What does full-sized mean? Like life-sized? Life-sized. Right, okay.

Wow, I'm looking at my fist and forearm right now. So big old. Yeah, that's a lot. A full-sized rubber fist and forearm clearly intended for insertion into people. Yeah. See attached and it's intended for insertion. And would you just, how would you describe the hand? Okay. The finger's position is, it's optimized for entry penetration's optimized for entry. Yeah. Penetration optimized for entry. It's appointed like I would say almost chef's kiss Italian, very Italian Italian. Hey, I put it in your bum hole. Yeah. That's what you'd say as you waggle the rubber fist. All fingers are involved. Yeah. Um, also I would describe that. I would describe it as doing a shadow puppet duck. Quack, quack.

If you do make a duck bill with your hand going quack, quack. But the bill isn't flat, it's bunched. Yeah, it's bunched up. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, it goes in the bum hole. That's what I, you wouldn't want to kiss that hand. You wouldn't want to kiss someone with a rubber fist and then go, ah, mwah. Delicious, delicious asshole.

Just like a mom, I used the fist. I do, with these rubber fists for assholes, they always seem too floppy for me to make any progress. You know what I mean? Cause don't they need the little stiffness to actually get in there? I assume, well, I guess you don't try it without, I'm sure there's a great deal of preparation. You don't go from zero to fist.

Yeah, but yeah, it just seems like they would buckle instantly. That's gotta be part of the process though. We've gotta figure out. Right in. This is Sam, right? Yeah, but we have like one of those ad campaigns. How do you fist?

Oh yeah, but the how do you fist works too- It's actually too real. Yeah, it works grammatically. How do you- How fist you? It's's like find your fist, find your, find your, find your first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thing is fist works as a noun and a verb. So it's just happy. Fist happy is good. Fist happy. That would be my motto for this product.

Fist happy. So how does Sam confuse this for a jacket? So I opened the package to find a full-size rubber fist and forearm clearly intended for insertion into people. See attached? Picture the confusion in my partner's eyes. Well, I stood in front of her gibbering that the toy slash weapon wobbling about in my hand was meant to be a nice jacket. A likely story. Least convincing excuse ever. A likely story. The least convincing excuse ever. I thought it was clothes. But

it's, it's a, it's an enormous black rubber fist, you know? It happens. They're next to each other on the website, Fistsandjackets.net. For the discerning, for the discerning kinky gentlemen. You buy a jacket online and on the bottom it says people who bought this also enjoyed it and they're just rubber-faced.'s fisted. But also it's the jacket's really normal. It's just like a twee jacket. But for some reason enough people who like getting fisted also liked this jacket. And now the algorithm knows. On closer inspection, the package had been opened and resealed with post office tape. The mystery deepens to fist like depths. Someone in the post office had a little bit of fun

on the way, maybe. Someone in the post office had some fucking 70 sitcom interaction. Now, Henemore, don't forget that this rubber fist is supposed to be reinserted into this package for my wife. And this jacket... Has to go to the prime minister by the end of the day. Who hates fisting.

My wife is allergic to tweed. My theory is that whichever rascal in the system is pinching things like nice jackets is trying to absolve themselves by making sure a physical delivery is made and recorded. But replacing the nice jackets with pilfered items, people are probably unlikely to want to make a fuss about going missing. Right. If you steal a fist, it's a victimless crime. Right. I see. Interesting. That's the old proverb. Rubber fist thieves are never prosecuted. That's the old rubber rubbers. The rubber rubbers. Yeah. Do you think this is going to... What if this year instead of coal, Santa gives up black rubber fists? Father Christmas going,

go and fist yourself, you fucking naughty little asshole. Children waking up on Christmas morning, opening presents, crying, ah, and the parents finding rubber fists and going, have you been very naughty? But they're really harrowing for the parents. I cannot imagine kids wanting to like run around and hit each other with anything more. They'd just be so amused by it. Mommy, look, you're like, oh my God, gee, put that down. Jesus Christ. It's like fisted into the stockings.

It says from Santa on a tag at the end wobbling about. Carved into the rubber. From Santa. Like, is this a death rant? Can we report this to the police? What do we tell them? Sam says, because if you steal this, it's unlikely someone's going to march into the nearest post office branch to demand a replacement rubber fist. Right, yeah. I would like to do that.

Dressed up like a lord, like a big mustache monocle. Now see here, I ordered an enormous black rubber fist for my bumhole and it's gone missing. I'm so sorry, but please give me a voice down. No, I won't. Um, that or someone somewhere has been trying to stick a nice jacket up their ass. That's funny. Um, this definitely feels like an ass rather than ass situation. Yes. This is ass, not ass. This is horrible British asses. This is all for, these fists are for horrible,

sagging British asses at Christmas. Do you think? Horrible winter British asses. That's what these fists are for. Really, you don't think anyone's pert little LA fitness. No space, no room for a fist in one of those. There's no room for a fist in an ass. Only an ass is cavernous enough for a face.

And deserves it. And yeah, yeah, it's a piss. Punishment. Anyway, we quickly saw the funny side. It was very enjoyable composing an email to the PR people asking just what the hell is going on here? Wow. You should just send them a picture of the first going loving this jacket. You sent me incredible. Imagine posting a picture of the rubber fist on

Instagram saying loving this jacket. Thanks for the gift and then tag them and like hashtag ad hashtag gift. Keep on jacking please sam well i wonder what what happened there that is i think there is there some kind of theft replacement actually is yeah there's a scam in it's a movie or a book or i can't remember what it's in there's some piece of fiction where the scam that the guy has is that he puts adverts in the back of dodgy porn mags. This is like in the seventies. He puts adverts in the back of dodgy magazines

for like the rubber fist, you know, ass destroyer 9,000 machine. This like insane decadent fucking crazy machine. And it's like very expensive and you can pay for it in installments and it's only by check, right? You have to send a check through the post and he just steals the money because to dispute it you have to go into your bank and the item and the company name is the same ass-blaster 9000 or whatever and he like like, he just takes the risk. Yeah. That even if some

customers have the bollocks that go in and say to their bank manager, I never got my ass Blaster 9000 anal fist destroyer machine. Yeah. 1000. And they go, Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. Even if you know, half the people are too ashamed, you're still making hundreds of hundreds of pounds. Yeah, right. So maybe it's something like that. Mm hmm. Clever fit. Clever bunch of fisters. Yeah, must be. What's the cost of a fist these days? Well, like what was the first set your bank these days? What's this? What are the outgoings of the scammer? This guy? This overheads? Yeah. Yeah. What are the overheads on these fists? Sorry to do this to your search history Felipe. Yeah. Okay. There's one. That one's clenched though. That's like black power. Yeah. That's like that's solidarity fist. Yeah. How much is that? Okay. How much was it? 50 pounds's not not to be sniffed out

Silica whoa 70 pounds that one's red. What's that made of? That one again is is solidarity another solid art Hashtag dildo fifth hand. Yeah, I mean not great marketing Hashtag dildo fifth hand. Yeah. I mean, not great marketing. Body safe. I'll, I'll, I'll be the judge of that. Another way I do it is not body safe. It's waterproof. Good. Yeah. Is it shit proof? Because that's it's this more shit down there in the water. I would say that's more irrelevant. That's more irrelevant. The length is 30, I think. Insertable length. 30 meters.

30 meters. 30 meters, insertable length. What kind of fucking clown trick are they imagining? So total length, 32 centimeters, and then insertable length, 30 meters. Okay, so length of the fist is 32 centimeters, insertable length, 30 meters. It's the length of the fist is 32 centimeters. Insertable length, 30 meters. It's the fist that keeps on giving.

It's got some sort of engine. Yeah, it's telescopic. It's a telescopic rubber fist. Oh, there's veins on the hand. On the hand? On the solidarity hand. Veined for their pleasure. Is anyone's completely destroyed bumhole so sensitive

that they can feel? It's true. I mean, the bumhole is quite sensitive, isn't it? Well, could you do like a blind bum test where you say to someone, Vein, unveined. Congratulations. You have won the fist sommelier of the year. You're a bum-ellie. You're a bum. They call it bum. The bum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've got like a little silver cup of lube around your neck. Oh, that's cute. It's nice.

It's nice. Christ. Oh man, a fist. Yeah, sex party, sex dungeons have a bum-el-ay. Massive fist. It's just not waterproof. Like, don't get it wet. What? 70 quid this? What is this? The Wicked Witch of the West? Now we have an origin story for that black rubber fist that she throws at the Wizard of Oz. There's a great line.

It's supposed to be a jacket. Is it Futurama where Dorothy throws water on her and she melts and she goes, who'd ever thought a small amount of water would ever fall on me? Is it Simpsons or? I think it's Jutram. It's Wicked Witch of the West, isn't it? Wicked Witch of the North. Oh yeah.

East is the nice one. Is that right? I think North is a nice one. Glinda is the Witch of the North. Wicked Witch of the West. Good Witch of the... Good Witch. Which witch is good?

Wicked Witch of the West. Yeah. East. There are multiple Wicked Witches. Okay, well... It's a real blow there. So we have West, East and South covered and they're all Wicked Witches and they're good witches from the North, innit? What? Wicked Witches

of the North too? Listen, we'll continue our Wicked Speak maybe next episode. We've clearly got a lot to say on that. Yeah, Wicked Witches of of the West, Sexy Witch of the East, Hungry Witch of the North, Confused Witch of the South. They're both hungry by the looks of it. Oh yeah, they're both very hungry witches. A couple of hungry witches over here. Well, we've run out of time. Yeah.

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