The Flop House - Ep. #421 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Jamelle Bouie

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

Yet again, we steal a few hours Jamelle could be using to write something smart for The New York Times, to discuss his REAL passion: movies about hedgehogs. Yes, Sonic 2 was a big hit with mixed reviews, but how good is it really? The answer may not surprise you! Also, this is our final episode in MaxFun drive 2024 - if you were intending to join, but just forgot, there's still time!Do you live in OXFORD, ENGLAND? We’ve got upcoming LIVE SHOWS for you! And if you DON’T live in the UK, you can still see our SPEED 2 live show as a streaming event! Current Max Fun members should have gotten an email with a code for discount tickets. New members will get their code very soon!Wikipedia page for Sonic the Hedgehog 2Recommended in this episode:Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker (1981)Immaculate (2024)Bernice Bobs Her Hair (1976)Broadcast News (1987) MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

On this episode we discuss Sonic the Hedgehog 2. With two times the animals. Actually three times the animals. Are we sure we didn't watch Sonic the Hedgehog 3? Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse, I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. I'm Elliot Kalin. Wait, hey you, hey you, sorry. It's you, hey you.

It's the Max Fun Drive. Yep, that's right, this is the final weekend of the Max Fun Drive. Yep, that's right. This is the final weekend of the Max Fun Drive. If you're listening to this episode when it drops. And this is, you still have time. It may seem like the drive is over, but you still have time. Why don't you go support our show by going to maximumfun.org slash join.

Thank you. And Elliot, I believe we have an extra person here today. We do. He was so ready to introduce himself, which was great. And we love it when people do that except we had to get in that plug. We're joined today, of course, it's Sonic the Hedgehog Part 2. Or Part 2? Yeah, because the original book was too long for one movie. That's right, yeah, yeah.

I mean, the second book was written because people just missed the message of the first Sonic book, which is that you shouldn't worship heroes. Yeah, the first Sonic people took him too straightforwardly as a hero. They had to write Sonic heretic. But, uh, so... God emperor of Green Hills? Yeah. Joining us, as you recognize, of course, we couldn't do a Sonic movie without the Flophouse

politics and hedgehogs correspondent. That's right. New York Times writer, co-host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast, Jamel Bowie. Jamel, thank you so much for joining us for another Go Round the Sonic franchise. Thank you for having me. Always a pleasure to talk hedgehogs, Sonic,

anything kind of like, you know. You're talking about Sonic the restaurant, right? You like talking about the restaurant chains. And also Sonic the restaurant, right? You like talking about the restaurant chains. I've never been to a Sonic. There was a flood of ads in the New York area for restaurants that you could not find in New York. Sonic, Red Rooster, whatever it was called, and like a golden corral, as I say, golden alley, which is not it.

Sitting there imagining the exotic taste that you'll never taste. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's transmissions from another dimension. But it must be so disappointing to you that in your work on the New York Times opinion page, you very rarely get to talk about hedgehogs. It doesn't come up very often.

Hedgehogs not really a part of the current political scene. Very disappointing. I'd like to applaud you for your commitment to the bit because I know for a fact that Elliot offered the possibility of a different movie and you're like, no, we got to keep it. We got to keep going. We got to keep this going. I'm like, I'm totally committed to this. If there's another Hedgehog movie that emerges, I expect to be first on the policy. We're going to do an episode that's the whole series of the Knuckles show. I know he's not technically a hedgehog.

He's an echidna very cleanly. Echidna. They also saw twice before watching this movie. They were like, we have no other ads, I guess, to put in front of Sonic 2, so you want to see the Knuckles trailer again? They ran that long- Yeah, it's a confirmation to be like, this is your final chance to just tap out.

They ran that long Knuckles ad during the Super Bowl, and I rarely have I been so disgusted at what is available to us as a mainstream culture nowadays than just like, yeah, I guess Adam Pally and Knuckles have a TV show together. The bloody team up we've been waiting for. Seems natural. I thought him and Gabrus was good, but.

Certainly Knuckles is the better partner. So anyway, let's get into the movie though, because Knuckles comes after, the Knuckles TV show comes after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It's the, I guess the third part of the trilogy. For God's sake, let's get into the movie though because Knuckles comes after, the Knuckles TV show comes after Sonic the Hedgehog 2. It's the, I guess the third part of the trilogy. For God's sake, let's get this clear because there's one thing I care about. It's the lore of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Man, boy howdy, was I watching this saying, thank Christ that they included all of this lore about Sonic. Dan, we got off so- Dan got shit on so hard on one episode where he was complaining there wasn't enough lore in Allo Angel Alita. Now he's trying to completely retcon and re-change his character. Now, here's the thing.

Dan, you thought you were getting hedgehog lore. If you happen to watch this on Amazon Prime and you paused it, the comments, the trivia that comes up, because they always show trivia when you pause it, it was paragraphs of text about the history of the different Emeralds and how they're different in the games and how Sonic started snowboarding in the games. And I was like, this is not trivia.

Like this is too much. This is too much information. Well, this is the thing, right? There is like a, there really is a dense catalog of Sonic lore that like for all people of our general age, if you play the Genesis games or whatever, did not exist, right?

Then it was just sort of like, hey, this guy's super fast. And he's like, cool, unlike Mario who's lame. That was the extent of it. Unlike Mario, unlike Mario who's kind of like, who's a blue collar, salt to the earth, everyday American type, Sonic is like an elite. Like he's so fast.

He has all those rings. But yeah, it's one of those things where I don't know if this is lore from the games, if it's lore from the cartoon show starring Jaleel White as Sonic, lore from the comic book series, which got very lore heavy. Where at one point, I think a lot of this

became a living universe or something like that. I'm trying to remember, but anyway. I feel like so much has been extrapolated from that one animation that Sonic would do if you didn't do anything for a while. He would tap his foot annoyed and you're like... So many people are like, this is a cool dude. This guy's got an attitude. Yeah.

We need to make sure everybody understands that he has a background. I did do some, I say the mildest of mild research. I glanced at it until I got bored, which was almost immediately to discover that, yeah, a lot of this stuff is drawn from the games, and like Jamel, my relationship was like, oh, that guy's cool, he goes fast. I didn't know that there was any story behind it.

You might as well have lore about the dog in Duck Hunt. Like, that's how I feel about it, yeah. This is barely a character usually. But, as we know, Dan is very interested in the post-game lore in which Sonic has a baby. Yeah, that's what I'm fascinated about. Yeah, when Sonic is pregnant. Who's this?

It's Shrek's child, right? That's my understanding. It's either Shrek or the green M&M. They can't figure out who the paternity is. So let's get into the movie though. The movie doesn't cover Sonic being pregnant. I guess they're saving that for the third movie after the Knuckles show. And we watched the first one of these, right? We did.

Yes, we did. But Jamel. Jamel was here for it. I kind of remember that. So the Paramount logo, you know it's a special movie because they changed it, it's got rings instead of stars around the mountain. And there's just one logo I want to point out, one of the production companies is called Original Film, which I thought was pretty rich for the sequel

to a movie based on a video game, to have a company called Original Film making it. Anyway, we start on the Mushroom Planet. How do we know it's the Mushroom Planet, everybody? Wait a minute, this isn't Mario? Well, that's what I was, is this a knock at Mario? Is this a little swipe being like, oh, no worse punishment than be trapped

in a kingdom of mushrooms. Very possible. I was thinking about that. I know the last movie does end with Dr. Robotnik. Is that right? Yes. Dr. Robotnik being sent to a Mushroom Planet. I'm not really sure. I was expecting some sort of Mario dig,

but I didn't see one. Yeah, they seem to just take it for granted that you know mushroom plants are bad. And the text, the mushroom planet appears on screen. Later on, we'll see Seattle will peel on screen, and then the movie will give up on telling us the locations of things. They just don't care after that,

even though we then spend most of the movie in Montana and Hawaii rather than, it's Montana, right? The green hills, who cares? Anyway, it's all made up. So we hope that there's an elaborate Rube Goldberg device that makes a bad tasting mushroom coffee for Dr. Robotnik, Jim Carrey.

He's been exiled there, it's day 243. And he's built a machine. And he's just like doing his thing, right? Like Jim Carrey's just like falling into that, like that safe zone of being really like wacky man I mean children's entertainer this guy I said it about the first movie as a kid of the 90s There's something very comforting about seeing Jim Carrey do Jim Carrey stuff And so throughout the movie seeing him do like funny things with his body or go like, oh, huh

Like pull extend syllables out really long. It's like you're back in 1994 and he cranked out three of the biggest hits. Yeah. Schiller's List, Forrest Gump. Well, Schiller's List was 1993. Forrest Gump, Shawshank Redemption. The Mask, and what's the other one? Dumb and Dumber.

All one year, that's bonkers. That was his Anis Merillibulus for Jim Carrey. And so he's built a machine that I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it sends out a bolt of energy which causes alien warriors from another world to open a portal. His traps take out those warriors before he can step through the portal and escape the mushroom planet.

Knuckles walks through, voiced of course, by famed animation voice actor Idris Elba. Yeah, he was apparently a big fan, so he was excited to do the role. Yeah, I had no idea walking in that this was Idris Elba. Yeah. He was apparently a big fan, so he was excited to do the role. Yeah, I had no idea walking in that this was Idris Elba, and I was like, what is this sort of bizarrely sort of for a cartoon character, low energy voice? It sounds kind of like, is that Idris Elba?

And lo and behold, there he is, Mr. Thank you for walking us through that thought process. That process of discovery was fascinating to hear about as it was to live, I'm sure. If the flop house is nothing, it's sort of just an invitation inside our brains. You know, sometimes you come a-knockin' and there's not much there. I'm curious, is Idris like a big Sonic fan? Is he like a lore guy? Does he know the whole deal? That's what he said.

I didn't see him get quizzed on it. There's an actor in one of these, I mean, except for Scarlet Witch, I guess, there's very few actors, or Madame Webb, there's very few actors where the actor is like, I don't know, I don't care, I don't know who these characters are, I don't know. They're always like, yeah, well, I've always wanted to play Gambit. You know, I've always, ever since I was a kid, I've played Flash Thompson. You know, it's been like, hey, I'm an actor, man. This is my job.

I don't know. There was that on Twitter. I remember people got they were up and Marvel fans were up in arms because Taika Waititi was like, yeah, when I took that Thor gig, that was for money. I had to make money to feed my family. And they were like, you don't you didn't do it for the love of Thor. Hold on a second. Like the idea that actors have to be huge fans of the material

before they're even in it is bonkers. But maybe Idris Elba is, I don't know. Maybe he's a huge fan of Sonic, I don't know. Yeah, if you're listening. I completely agree with everyone that no one should have to be a fan of these things but it would be really funny if Idris was like, yeah and I did this deep dive into Zanga to like really do some research on Sonic.

Deviantart. Yeah, there's some Deviantart out there that posits some interesting fan theories. Interesting, I'm bringing notes to the set that there should be a love scene between Knuckles and Sonic. It's just like, the script doesn't make sense. There's no sexy. I do have to say, Knuckles, first off, Knuckles is an echidna, which I saw many of when I

was in Australia and they do not look like him. No, they don't. Second thing is I do love that he has a custom pair of Tims on. They are not available for sale. I looked around, but they are very cool. Okay. But you're right. He does not really look like an echidna, but Sonic doesn't really look like a hedgehog

either. So, you know, that's, that we're dealing, we're in really look like an echidna. But Sonic doesn't really look like a hedgehog either. So you know, that's... Huh, okay. We're in a world where it doesn't matter as much. Then we cut to Seattle. There's an armored car robbery in the offing. Sonic of course has to get involved and be a hero. There's only one song that makes sense for Sonic's attempt to be a hero. It's tricky.

So of course that's what's playing on the soundtrack. As he caused a lot of damage, the driver of the armored car keeps being like, you're terrible at this because everyone in movies nowadays has to be constantly kibitzing on everything that happens. And he only avoids running over a child by speedily disassembling the entire truck as it's going forward.

I kind of like that bit. It's kind of a funny bit. I kind of like that bit. It's a funny bit, yeah. But he fails to be a good superhero. He runs all the way back to Green Hills, Montana, I think. It's kind of a funny bit. I kind of like that bit. It's a funny bit, yeah. But he fails to be a good superhero. He runs all the way back to Green Hills, Montana, I think, it's either Montana or Missouri, where he briefly looks at a feather

from his dead owl mom, Longclaw, who he misses. And he- My brain is already shutting down. This was established in the first movie. He wants to go to bed, but he has plans to go fishing that day with Tom, James Marsden, who, when we're recording this episode, is not quite the favorite of

The internet that he once was for various reasons. We don't need to get into here, but I just want to jump in here now You've you breeze past two jokes that are like classic Elliot Kaelin hates these jokes While on the while on the mushroom planet Jim Carrey says like holy shitaki or something Yeah, I don't like that and then then Sonic later, before crashing into a ice cream truck says like, holy sherbert. Yeah, he says holy sherbert. Both of those, less five minutes apart, it's perfect. That is like classic Elliot Cailin jokes.

Don't like it. Don't worry, there's more sherbert like that coming up. That's true. Well, I'd be lying if I said I thought this was a funny movie. Like occasionally there was a joke where I was like, oh, that's kind of funny. But for the most part, I found it not very funny. I don't like it. So James Marsden takes Sonic fishing.

Sonic is so tired, he falls out of the boat. Tom has to save him. And Tom tells Sonic, I know you went to Seattle, stop playing superhero. You're just putting people in danger. And Sonic goes, you're supposed to be my friend, not my dad. And Tom goes, you're still a kid. You don't choose the moment to be a hero, the moment chooses you. And it's like, goes, you're supposed to be my friend, not my dad. And Tom goes, you're still a kid. You don't choose the moment to be here, the moment chooses you.

And it's like, how old is Sonic supposed to be? I really can't figure it out. He says you're supposed to be a friend, not my dad, but it seems pretty much like they have adopted Sonic as their child. Like it is a family unit and this is, they refer to him as being just a kid over and over again. I don't know what that means in outer space

But like is he 16 or is he 10 or is he five, you know? Yeah, this is something I was wondering about the entire time as well Cuz I don't I feel like this wasn't in the first movie It wasn't sort of a complied at all that Sonic was a child in here I mean they referred to him as their kid. Yeah. Yeah, it's like poor things I mean, they referred to him as their kid. Yeah, it's like poor things. Sonic again was pregnant, makes sense, took the brain out of the baby Sonic,

put it in Sonic's body. Now we get it. That's what happens in that movie, Dan. No, I know, I'm just strap lighting it out. I'm not your ghost, I didn't make up, I mean, Poirotlings is based on a novel anyway. So you're saying that in the third act, Shrek is going to show up and take Sonic back and imprison him and imagine.

Oh, this is me. This is my wife, Sonic. Come back to me now. Oh, it turns out he's shooting people all the time. Terrible. Yeah, okay. So someone, some Flophouse fan, please make the poor things Sonic Shrek poster, I guess. Anyway.

Oh, you're just trying to do a Shrek. I was really confused by the No, I can't I don't know sort of Swedish more than I wasn't trying that hard So Tom and his wife Maddie, they're going to Maddie's They get to Maddie's sister Rachel's wedding in Hawaii Luckily, you don't have to fly when you've got ring portals that Sonic can makes. And so much time is put into this wedding. And the end- Go on.

Sonic makes a ring portal for them. They, and he gives them another ring to make a return home portal. That seems like it's not important, but this is a perfectly written screenplay. So of course that ring is gonna come back when we least expect it. And Sonic, he's home alone.

He does a lot of kid home alone stuff. He's goofing off. He's eating junk food, making a mess. A lot of kid home alone stuff. So he listens to exclusively like 90s hip hop. That's true. I mean, like every single movie made right now, every single human being's musical and movie frame of reference

is that of someone who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, that is entirely it. Later on, Adam Pally will make a very gratuitous reference to Ghostbusters that I also did not enjoy. I thought was unnecessary. But anyway, Sonic has a foam party by himself. It seems like, is this like, do you guys enjoy any of this?

This movie is two hours long. And I would argue that at least an hour of it is cutable. Like this movie makes room for. Not the wedding though, I like the wedding stuff. What would you cut, the dance battle? The dance battle, the inexplicably long dance battle. We haven't gotten to that yet. Unbeknownst to Sonic, a portal opens the outskirts of town and who comes out?

Not Knuckles. Jamel, you're Sonic fan number one. Were you excited when you saw Tails, that's right, Sonic's best friend, show up? Yes, I was hugely excited. I was, I can't wait to learn more about this double-tailed fox. I got nothing, guys.

I got nothing. Why does he? His name is Miles Prower. Dan, do you get it? Miles Prower. Oh. Oh. Yep.

Ooh. Well, that's. That's Carmen Sandiego level name writing, yeah. I'd be criminal or something. In fairness to the writers of this movie, he's been miles, tails per hour since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 in 1993. Yeah, I wanna say that the...

Thanks for the New York Times fact check on Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Nope, no thanks. That's why they pay me. They went one direction for the voice of Knuckles, of course they got Idris Elba. They got one direction to do the voice of Knuckles. Collectively, like a singular entity.

Yeah, all of one direction together makes one Idris Elba. No, they got it. They went in one, I can't, they went one way with the voice of Knuckles, but Tails is, according to my research, the Tails from the games. This is the same voice actress who does Tails, which is why on the one hand,

Adris Elba is giving, you know, he's, like I like him later on when they use his sort of gruffness for comic effect, but it's not like a high energy thing, but she's giving them. No, once he becomes a comedy character, he pays off. But yeah, before then, yeah. But she is giving the most voice actor-y performance, and I'm like, this has to just be like some, you know,

and it's weird, because I'm usually pro voice actors, but in this case, I'm like, this just sounds like kind of every Saturday morning cartoon I grew up with, and we don't ever learn anything about Tails other than that they love Sonic. We learned quite a bit about Tails later on. So meanwhile, we go to, sales flies out, we go to Hawaii, Tom meets Rachel's

very handsome fiance, Randall. So this actor seemed incredibly handsome when I first saw him, but the longer I looked at him, he looked weirder to me. His beard is so weird. He has the tightest little beard. I can't say I had that experience. I can't say I had it. It was like confusing my brain a little bit.

It's like the fight scenes in the new Roadhouse, which while I was watching it, I'm like, my brain isn't functioning. Bodies don't move like this. I don't know what's happening. Was it like an uncanny valley thing? Yes, I think that's it. Yeah. I guess I could say, with Yes, I think that's it. Yeah.

I guess I could say, well, with this, I guess it's a little bit like when someone first pointed out to me how long the distance is between Bruce Willis' his nose and his upper lip, and now I can't see it. Just how ridiculous it is. You just ruined my day. I'm like, no, I'm going to look this up. It's just longer than you remember it being.

And Rachel is like Tom, she remembers that she got in trouble with Sonic in the first movie. She's like, Tom, she remembers that she got in trouble with Sonic in the first movie. She's like, Tom, if you wreck my wedding, I will end him. This is the beginning, end you. This is the beginning of a lot of wedding talk in this. At Sonic's house, robotnik shows up with Knuckles. Knuckles punches Sonic a bunch and he says,

he's a Kedna tribe, we're the enemies of the tribe that Longclaw belong to. Tails drives up in a police car and slams into Knuckles and it's like, Sonic, I'll help you escape. And as Knuckles chases them on foot while they're in the car, Tails introduces himself and explains that Knuckles wants the legendary master emerald.

Knuckles doesn't say this himself. Tails has to bring this information in. And Tails is a real Sonic fan, a real Sonic otaku, and keeps saying stuff like, only Sonic the Hedgehog would do this, about stuff that is not Sonic specific. Like, Tails starts flying and Sonic goes, did your butt turn into a helicopter?

And Tails goes, only Sonic the Hedgehog could think of a butt copter. And there's a lot of that kind of stuff. Only Sonic the Hedgehog could save this thing when it's any, it's not that Sonic specific, you know. Elliot, how did you feel about the introduction of an all powerful emerald that everyone wanted to get? I mean, it comes from the games,

so I guess I have to allow it, but certainly it seems like it was dropped into our laps in a non-organic way, but I did like, one thing I did like, the movie did not start with five emeralds were put together by the Echidna clan. They wanted a powerful, like there's no opening voiceover prophecy. Instead, there's a middle of the movie voiceover explanation.

But I was glad the movie didn't open like that. So how did you feel about a giant emeralds being the MacGuffin that they're looking for? My struggle with this film and look, I would like to put it out there into the world. I understand not all art is for me and certainly not maybe a child's movie about a game that I played only the first version of is,

you know, maybe that's not- You were more of an Echo the Dolphin fan. Sure. But I could not latch into anything about this movie. We were like texting a little bit about it and joking about how there's all the, all that stuff about the wedding. I'm like, at least that stuff, I could have my hooks into some sort of human stakes that I understood.

Like here, like just like them all chasing around an emerald that everyone wants for some reason. And I guess it's bad that Dr. Robotnik gets it because he's a bad guy and it's a powerful thing, but I'm like, I don't give a shit about any of this, and thus the movie does not engage. What you're saying is it hurt your ability to really get invested in it,

that we never really know what the Emerald does or why it is or why Knuckles wants it or why anyone cares about it or why it's on Earth or why Long Claw cared about it or any of those or how Sonic was supposed to protect it any of those things that hurt your investment? I mean, fundamental stakes, questions, yes. And the powers that the Emerald would grant was left up to the imagination until later when we see them actually work so you don't really know

what you're facing. What they should have done is like most modern horror movies they should have somebody with the emerald like murder somebody real gross right at the beginning. So you're like, oh wow, that's scary. So you're scared the rest of the movie. I mean, but that is a way of setting up the stakes of what's going on. It's like, I remember years ago,

I saw a talk that a cartoonist Evan Dorkin gave at the, to the NYU science fiction club. And he was like, there's always the cop that runs up to the monster in the movies so you can was like, there's always the cop that runs up to the monster in the movies so you can find out what the monster's powers are. And it's like, yeah, that's true. You gotta show off what the monster's powers are

and he would know what it is. Jamel, but you may feel differently. You love movies about emeralds, right? So you were in emeralds. If I look to my left, I see my movie shelf and it's just filled with movies about emeralds. Green emeralds, red emeralds, yellow emeralds. There's Formancing the Stone, other ones I'm sure.

I'm sure there's been a movie that Emerald the Chef has been in at some point. It's close to your Emerald Phenel section. Emerald Phenel section, which is two movies? Yeah. Yeah, I have that section. Oh great. That's a filmmaker I enjoy. Um. Wow. Um, it's funny, this movie like kind of exactly replicates

the problem with the first movie, which is that like, it's weird that this takes place on earth and among humans. Like, I don't understand, like, if this movie, if the Sonic movies are for kids, and it's all lore, it's so much lore, then why not just have it be in Sonic realm? Why does there need to be actual human beings around for this, because it's, like you Dan,

I actually kind of enjoyed the wedding section, but it's also like super weird. Why is there like this wedding, almost like wedding crashers B plot happening in this children's movie? It seems very strange that so much time is being spent on Tom's feelings of inadequacy around his sister-in-law's fiance's friends, who are all super buff.

And there's a part where they're like, show each other biceps. And James Marsden obviously is also a guy who works out. The idea that he's like a weakling. But it was, exactly, he was Cyclops, the strongest of the X-Men. I wish in the movie his wife had been like, honey, don't worry, you were Cyclops.

You were Cyclops. You don't have to prove anything to anyone. So guys, were you guys, so when I was watching the wedding stuff, in addition to being very excited about it, I was really wondering, like Natasha Rothwell filmed this probably shortly after filming the first season of The White Lotus. Now both of those were shot in four seasons,

one in Oahu and one in Maui. Like, do you think she's got a lot of really good four seasons points? Do you think she gets a lot of Benny's when she checks in? Burning question. That's a very stupid way of looking at the situation. What are her Benny's? And those are the questions that the filmmakers want you to be asking while you're watching.

That shows they set it up right. I want to say though, Jamil, I had a very similar feeling towards the end when it's like, we're watching three CGI animated animals fight a big robot, and I'm like, why wasn't this all just animated? Why wasn't this an animated film? Why did they feel like they needed to do the quote unquote live action Sonic?

What is this? It's the thing, it feels very classic to me in some ways, though, because this is the way they would have done this movie in the 80s or early 90s. This is the Masters of the Universe version of doing this. Oh man, but he would have been a guy in a costume or like a puppet. Oh, he would have been a puppet. He would have looked like Munchy or something like that.

I would have, if this were a guy in a costume, five stars instantly. It would have been like an animatronic face and like, but oh, it would have been Howard the Duck essentially. I mean, that's what Howard the Duck is. Yeah, the five stars. I instantly like it more. Yeah, this is, okay, who would have known Howard the Duck, essentially? I mean, guess what Howard the Duck is? Yeah, the five stars. I instantly like it more. Yeah. This is, okay, anyway. So Robotnik's... And Jim Carrey is kind of giving a Jeffrey Jones

and Howard the Duck style performance. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, it's also a Jim Carrey style performance, but it's big. It's a big performance. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What came first, the chicken or the egg man? Oh!

Oh! Great. That was, it makes me, Who's the one that said you said something like that? It makes me glad I have repeatedly not done the Laura X joke that I was gonna do up to this point because I wouldn't have been able to compete with that wordplay.

Hey, so you're probably asking, what is the Max Fun Drive? Now the Max Fun Drive just wrapped up or is wrapping up this weekend, but there's still time to act. And I'm going to tell you for a moment what the Max Fun Drive is all about. Now the Max Fun Drive is the one time a year where we, the creators of these shows, come to you, the listeners of these shows and say, please, why don't you support us with your hard earned money?

And why do we ask that? It's because that's the primary way our shows and say, please, why don't you support us with your hard earned money? And why do we ask that? It's because that's the primary way our shows make money. You know, we get to make the show that we want without having any interference from some corporate overlords. I don't know if you are sick of things just constantly being regurgitated onto your streaming services. Well, we get to make whatever we want.

And the big reason we're able to do that is because we are supported through money from you. And that's a big deal. I know my cohost, Dan Nelliet struggle with that kind of stuff all the time in their day jobs. I mean, if I had a day job currently that would be a thing I struggle with. But yeah, no, it's a great advantage of the Max Fun Drive

is you get to sort of put your money where your mouth is when it comes to supporting the stuff that you like directly, as directly as possible. And then we get to take that money and use it to do things like, I don't know, hire friends of ours to be the editor of the show, hire friends of ours to design artwork for the show. And that sounds like nepotism.

I don't know, I feel like being able to spend money on people that are important to you is good. And support art. And we don't hoard that money. We're not using it to buy back dividends of Flophouse stock or anything like that. I could be doing that! Or give huge bonuses to executives. We use it to make this show. We use it to support ourselves so that we can live,

but also to make this show and to support other artists who either collaborate with us on the show or are just in the universe of great stuff. That's a much nicer way of putting it than I did. Now, you're probably wondering at this point, you're like, how do I support a show like yours financially? Well, you want to go over to maximumfund.org slash join. And what you can do is if you're not a supporter yet,

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You're also able to boost your monthly support, which is great Which could be nice if like say you Started listening to another max fun show. You don't have enough money to jump up in your donations to the next tier But you're like, you know what because I'm listening to multiple things Let me just knock it up a little bit and they max fun is also there for you to give you the option to either Support monthly or if you'd rather do it all in one lump sum, they also provide the option to do it annually so you don't have to think about it throughout the year. So why don't you please go and support our show? If you've listened to this much nonsense already, I think it's time to support it. So why don't you head over to maximumfun.org slash join and support us today. So anyway, we get, this is a sequel to a modern movie.

So of course every single character from the earlier movies has to come back. So of course we see Robotnik's Smithers style assistant, Stone, who runs a coffee shop in Green Hills. Though was it clear to you guys that that's where it was located early on? Not really. To me it was not.

I didn't know where it was. And then suddenly Adam Pally showed up at this coffee shop and we're like, oh, so it's been in the same town as Sonic all this time. I didn't realize that. I mean, they didn't know where it was and then suddenly Adam Pally showed up at this coffee shop And we're like oh, so it's been in the same town as Sonic all this time I didn't mean they didn't they didn't give you a location card like the first two locations of the movie So I could see why you'd be confused. Did you know the view? I know there's a shot like a big later in the movie where you see the coffee shops Sanitation grade or whatever it's f-minus. I thought that was funny. That was great. Yeah, it's a great check No that yeah, he he like closes he switches from open to close. He switches the grade from A to F-

I thought that was- Oh man. Yeah, he doesn't want people to come in. He's turning it into a villain HQ when he finds out that Robotnik is back. He sends a spaceship to bring Robotnik an army of robots and a coat. He needs a new coat and Robotnik makes a deal with Knuckles. They're gonna work together to find the Emerald and destroy Sonic. So Sonic takes Tails to Wade's house. Wade is Adam Pally, Tom's loser co-worker.

And Sonic has a map from his mom and the map decides at this moment to project a hologram of Long Claw that explains what the At Master Emerald is and why it's on Earth and has the powers to turn thoughts into reality. It's the kind of thing where you're like, so this was not something that the map felt the need to inform Sonic about before this moment. This was just, the map was waiting for someone to say master emerald around it or something like that.

And this is when they'd cut to a closeup of Wade and he goes, like the marshmallow man and Ghostbusters. And I was like, movie, enough. I don't need any more 80s movies telling me how to understand modern movies. Like, just stop. Like it's the same It triggered the same reaction in me as in the flash when they were like, oh, yeah, cuz back to the future blah blah blah

It's like can I can I have a different frame of reference for anything in life? That is not other 80 that's not movies from the 1980s guys. Tell me why I'm wrong. Tell me why my curmudgeon well I think that you were wrong in the flash because I do think that back to the future is still kind of a standard way of thinking about time travel, but here it comes out of nowhere, I agree. It's part of the collective culture, Elliot, where we all absorb similar information. There was a time when the collective culture, it covered everything from Howdy Doody to William Shakespeare, and now it just seems to be movies that came out between 1982 and 1992.

If Howdy Doody or William Shakespeare dealt with time travel, maybe we should talk about that in the flash. William Shakespeare did deal with time travel in The Time Pist. The Time Pist. My problem is, okay, you say that the Emerald can make thoughts real or whatever, then why is Robotnik's plan later on just to have a big robot that goes around smashing things? It seems like he's unstoppable.

And then when he loses the Emerald, the robot stays fine. You wouldn't want a fucking mecha? That wouldn't be your first wish, is to have a giant mecha so you can do a mecha battle? You're unstoppable. You don't have to fight people with a robot. You can have the robot if you want it. Pointing to the only frame of reference

that exists, media from the mid to 80s to early 90s. Okay. In the Infinity Gauntlet series, Thanos gets the Infinity Gauntlet and it takes him time to get used to being a god. And so first he's thinking in the way a mortal would think and he's doing mortal things. He's fighting hand to hand,

rather than just snapping his enemies out of existence. Maybe it's something like that. Yeah. It's a process. Yeah, there's a learning curve. Okay. Dan, when you get the master emerald and you have God-like power,

let me see how fast you get used to it. You understand how to harness it. I've been waiting for that emerald. What are you going to do with that emerald, Dan? What is the first thing you're going to do? I don't know, man. World peace? What do we, what?

And then like after that's done, you know, I'll attend to my own needs, you know, just hang out. What? Hang out? So one world peace? What do we, and then like after that's done, you know, I'll attend to my own needs. You know, just hang out. What? Hang out. So one world peace, two butts. That's basically the way it goes? Okay. I'm afraid of any kind of unlimited power at wealth

because I can see my, I'm an immediate path on like the Howard Hughes train, you know? Just you and your Emerald DVDs just sitting there. All alone in the room. Jars full of Emerald colored piss, you know. Yeah. You're drinking nothing but Shamrock shakes. Yeah.

I feel like I do the... They haven't made those in years. We have to make them. Jimel says, Mr. Bowie says that's all he'll drink. I feel like if I got one of these Emeralds, I'd be like, I'd go straight to like Bezos land or Bezos land and like try and turn myself into pit bull basically. I mean you're doing pretty good already. Thank you. That's what I was fishing for. Yeah. My goals are a little less ambitious. I always say to my wife all the time, I'm like, I wish I was, if I was rich, I could get the things that I want to get.

And she's like, well, what do you want to get? And I'm like, well, there's this person who's selling an ichthyosaurus skeleton on eBay, and I've really wanted it for a long time, and I want to make it into a coffee table. Yeah, you'd be drowning in ichthyosaurus skeletons. I just need the one, but anyway, there's also a Triceratops skull that someone's selling. It's very expensive. So, and Longclaw was like,

it was my job to protect the master emerald, now it's your job, Sonic, it's hidden on earth. And he goes, I'm not going to let you down, Mom. The map says they need a compass to find the emerald. Seems like an unnecessary extra step. They already have a map. The compass is in Siberia. Tails is afraid to go and Sonic is like, I'll protect you.

Meanwhile, in Hawaii, Tom is so intimidated by Randall and his friends. And Tom is like, I wish Sonic had close friends. And he entertains the ring bearer, a little girl with a disappearing ring magic trick. Tom, that's going to be a mistake down the line. Siberia, Sonic and Tails are lost in a storm. They take shelter inside a tough Russian saloon.

And Tails is like, I'm an inventor. I've got all these gadgets. I've been monitoring you, Sonic, all the time using my gadgets. And meanwhile, Robotnik and Knuckles are tracking them through Sonic's phone at this time. Tails has a translation machine, but it doesn't work, right? It accidentally translates what they're saying into rude Russian sayings and offends everybody.

So they have to have a dance battle with some mean looking Russians. And they win by completely cheating. They use Tails' gadgets to create like a hologram field of other Tails' They dance to Uptown Funk. This goes on for a very long time. Every once in a while, you know, like that. It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk. This goes on for a very long time. Every once in a while, you know, like that. It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk. The what?

It's cheating to dance to Uptown Funk. I feel like a lot of wedding reception. It's always cheating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uptown Funk is scientifically designed to get everybody to dance. It's a song that I don't like, but I have to dance to it. You have to, scientifically, yeah.

I just wanted to say, like every once in a while. You lose control of body and soul, which is a different song, but it describes what happens when you listen to Uptown Funk. There's a, there's a sight gag that works for me, just like the F-1. Like there's one here that I enjoyed where like, it's them looking around the room, and you know, like one person has like a knife, and they're like, uh, and like another person is scared, and they're like, uh, and they like look over at it like a woman knitting, and they're like, oh, phew, and then she holds they're like, ah, and then they look over at a woman knitting and they're like, oh, phew.

And then she holds up what she's knitting and it's a skull and crossbones. That's a good joke. That was a good joke. That was a good joke. Give you credit to the Sonic team. Yeah. Enjoyed that one. They did, and then later she holds that knitted skull up

like a mask when they're all intimidating them, so that was very funny. They win the dance contest. Tails is grateful to have a friend. His double tails, they made him an outcast at home. But seeing Sonic and seeing how weird Sonic is made him feel, hey, there's a friend for me out there. And so that's why Tails decided to go find Sonic.

The next day. Randy Newman comes in and sings a song about it and then, yeah. Yeah, because you got two tails on you. That's how it goes. Yep. Yeah, for a tale story. That's the movie you wrote that for. For, yeah, start featuring Buzz Lightyear.

And anyway. Oh man, can he keep going? I can't, that's all I got. Yeah. That was pretty good though. Produced by John Aceter. Anyway, so. Okay.

The next day. So the next day they find the magical cave. There's carvings everywhere that tell the backstory of the master emerald and how the Echidnas made it and the long claws hit it. And as a viewer right now, I was like, yeah, I got it. Like I don't, this is not, I don't need to know that. This is not helpful, but they animated it in a cool style.

It was done in like a cool animated style. Anyway, they get the magic compass from an owl statue, but then Robotnik and Knuckles ambush them. This turns into a snowboarding laser chase, just like in the video games. Were you guys excited to see Sonic snowboarding, just like in the video games. Were you guys excited to see Sonic snowboarding just like in the video games? Right guys? Yeah, anything extreme man, you know? I didn't know he snowboarded. Is that you? Yeah, I didn't either actually. He snowboards in, you know, I joke that I don't

know anything about Sonic, but here I am. He snowboards, I believe, in the Sonic Adventure games. Okay. Okay. It's not like Sonic Sports or something like that because Mario, but here I am. He snowboards, I believe, in the Sonic Adventure games. Oh, okay. Okay. It's not like Sonic Sports or something like that, because Mario, he'll do anything. He'll do any kind of game. Sports, puzzles. He said he was a doctor for a little while.

He was down for a few years. That was not cool. Yeah, people really questioned that one. They were like, Mario, why are you prescribing these pills? Where are you getting this stuff from? Where is it coming from? Man, still, today, the best soundtrack of a video game is the soundtrack for Dr. Mario.

I don't know if I'd say best, but it's up there. It's right up there with Tetris and Mega Man 2, for sure. Anyway, so, anyway, Snowboard Chase, during it, Knuckles reveals that his father died in the same battle that Long Claw died in, and Sonic is like, oh, we both lost everything. Robotnik steals the compass and hurts Tails. I don't remember how, maybe he hits him

in the head with a hammer, maybe he shoots him with a laser, I don't remember. Sonic goes to help Tails, not to chase Robotnik. And this impresses Knuckles for a moment. And the bad guys escape and an avalanche is about to, very our heroes, so he calls, they're snowboarding ahead of this avalanche, he calls Tom, which interrupts the wedding.

He's like, use my portal ring to make a portal. Uh oh, Tom doesn't have the portal ring in his pocket. He has the groom's ring. He switched the rings by accident when he did that magic trick. So he has to go and get the ring in the middle of the wedding ceremony. He can't explain to them,

I am the dad of an extra dimensional blue hedgehog and I need to open a portal. But there is something that he can't explain. And this made me so mad, because all he does is like, can I see the ring? I really need to open a portal. But there is something that he can't explain. And this made me so mad, because he's just like, all he does is like, can I see the ring? I really need to see the ring. Could you just give me the ring? And I'm like, you have the other ring that you switched out.

Just say, oops, this is the wrong one. You want yours, right? I was taking to get it appraised. Yeah. Yes, instead of saying, I'm sorry, I just realized I was performing a magic trick and I accidentally mixed up your ring with another, he just won't tell them and then punches Randall

to get the ring, which again. A worse solution, I would argue. I kind of wish that the wedding had happened slightly, like they completed the wedding entirely before all these shenanigans happened, and that like the portal had appeared on somebody's hand. I thought that would have been way better. And a Cornyn Berkian body horrors.

Or the honeymoon night. Like they're in bed. Especially with the twist that is coming up, I wish that all of this had been revealed. The shenanigans happened after the wedding is what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah. Well, we just wanted to see that wedding go through without a hitch. Oh, the revelations we get.

Well, the revelations make you wonder how far this wedding was going to go. So we'll get to there. but they open up a portal, an avalanche comes out, it wrecks the wedding, doesn't really hurt anybody. So I guess Sonic didn't need help that badly, but maybe just a portion of the snow came through. Randall, his groomsmen and the officiant, now that Sonic is there,

they reveal that they are all federal agents set to capture Sonic as part of Operation Catfish, because the easiest way to capture Sonic when you are a federal agent with law enforcement power is to get into a relationship with Sonic's aunt, and then date for months, plan a wedding. Presumably sleeping together several times. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. They did not strike me as a chaste couple. They struck me as a couple that would give into their physical hunger. They seemed fun, yeah. They seemed fun, they seemed to really love each other. Their physical hunger is a very funny way of putting it. Look, I think about sex the way I think about Snickers. There's a hunger inside you, there's a hunger inside me.

I'm going to totally slip that into my therapy session later today. I'm going to totally slip that into my therapy session later today. And so just the fact that they had to send out invitations and all that, they had to put seating arrangements together, I assume, for this operation. And Rachel, understandably, is livid. She has been used. It's not fair. Yeah. And Sonic and Tom and Tails get captured.

Luckily, Rachel and Maddie, Maddie, the Sonic's mom, adopted mom, they find Tails' backpack full of gadgets and they use it to save Sonic and Tom and Tails in various ways. We don't need to talk about all those gadgets. Randall feels guilty about tricking Rachel and the federal agent leader is like, "'Don't be, we had to do this, come on.'"

She goes after them for revenge using like a laser. And when the lead agent tries to tase her, Randall leaps in front of it and gets tased instead and he admits that he does love her and they kiss. And I was like, again, this is, yeah, in some ways, this is the most, this is the stuff that's most like kind of understandable on a human level, but why is it in the Sonic the Hedgehog movie?

Like, I don't understand. But just how far were they going to go? Because the wedding was almost over. They were putting rings on each other's fingers. I'm also genuinely curious about the bureaucracy behind this one. Who signed off on this? And presumably Sonic, extraterrestrial being, immense power. This is the FBI, I guess.

It's a new organization called GUN. I think it is international. International. Because if it's like federal, it's like, okay, let's just do the ATF agent. So I guess they report to the Secretary of Homeland Security. But like if we're dealing with extraterrestrials, that's like going to the president. So it was like, this was filmed in, you know,

so it was like Biden sort of like... Yeah. And this is why we need a headhug. So it's like Biden sort of like. Dan, do that Joe Biden impression you've been trying to do. You were just showing to me. Should I get the ice cream? Malarkey. This is why Jamel is our hedgehog correspondent because only you know the hierarchy that they have to talk to to get these kinds of operations off the ground.

So let's take a moment. We don't have a lot of time. But let's take a moment to just say, okay, there's an alien hedgehog on Earth. How does the federal government react to this? Like, what legally can they do? How does it go up to the chain of command? What do you think would happen? Well, I think Dan had it about right.

A piece of paper goes to the president and he either signs it, hell yeah, or malarkey then that just authorizes or Stamps and and the and is this under I mean it can't be the Secretary of Defense, right because they can't operate No, so operate on in domestically, right? So this would be this would either be the FBI or Some some Homeland Security agency. Either way, the president, although if it's the FBI, the president isn't like directly involved. Either way.

It's the Justice Department. Yeah, there's some technical separation there. I mean. They just released that report, the government just released a report basically being like, all those UFO sightings, they weren't UFOs. Do you think this falls under that?

Like, is there some kind of like extra-terrestrial intelligence gathering operation that would be like we were wrong, the aliens do exist and they're blue hedgehogs that want to be superheroes and love 80s and 90s pop music. Is it... That would send tremors through the government, right? Maybe. Okay, so this just reminded me, the funny thing about that UFO report is you know who was like really adamant that the government released whatever it knew about UFOs? Maybe. Okay, so this just reminded me, the funny thing about that UFO report is, you know who was really adamant that the government released whatever it knew about UFOs?

Late, now late, but former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was like, we got to get this stuff out to the public. We got to let the people know. So my understanding of that was that he had like one big donor in Nevada who was like aliens. And he's like, yeah, keep the campaign money coming and I'll follow some aliens. Because also like Marco Rubio was pretty big on this too at a certain point, right? Yeah, that makes sense.

But yeah, you're right. Harry Reid's big thing. It was like with his dying breath he was like, tell them about the aliens. Tell them about the hedgehog. The hedgehog. It can't be a secret. And you have to assume. And so how would break it down for me before we move on, how would liberals and conservatives, how would they differ their feelings about the hedgehog?

What would their takes be? Uh, that's a good question. Um, uh, I mean, just as a guy, you wonder, so, you know, Republicans might be like... Dabu-dee-dabu-dai. Yeah. Dabu-dee-dabu-dai indeed. That would be enough for them not to like him right there. So he'd be like a lib hedgehog.

Yeah. They don't like that. It's revealed at the end of the movie, Shadow the Hedgehog has been in cold storage and he's red. Yeah. So he'd be the one they were after. Yeah. He's like the MAGA hedgehog.

There's a MAGA hedgehog and Sonic would be like the Brandon hedgehog But like Sonic always carries the baby to term right so they should like him yeah That's right. Yeah, it's not a kid pro-life. That's right. Yeah, if they can hate based on these memes I have Hidden folder they can hate a blonde white lady who is dating a professional football player, then they can hate anybody, Stuart. Yeah, you're right. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know who's in charge of all this, hedgehog wrangling in the government. All I know is that according to my bumper sticker, the government should have a big sale to fund it, because I don't want my tax dollars going towards that. Yeah, yeah. So, Knuckles and Robotnik, they follow the compass to where the Emerald is, an island

that very helpfully is within sight of the Hawaiian wedding site, which is just very convenient for everybody. Sonic runs off to deal with it on his own and he runs across the waves to the emerald island, not Ireland, the island with the emerald on it. And he follows Robotnik and Knuckles as they go through a bunch of Raiders of the Lost Ark style traps, which are so derivative that the movie makes a point of joking about it. In a joke I did think was funny, Robotnik goes, I don't want to die this day. Wait, it would be too derivative.

And I was like, all right, movie, you got me with that one. Sonic bursts in, fights Knuckles. Robotnik, of course, double crosses Knuckles, steals the emerald, becomes a glowing power being, causes the island to collapse. We all knew this was gonna happen, right, Dan? I mean, you gotta have the darkness before the dawn. Robotnik's gotta get there.

And he betrays Knuckles, and Knuckles is like, I thought you wouldn't betray me because we're friends. Yeah. And Sonic and Knuckles, they each take turns saving each other from drowning. And on the beach, Sonic tells Knuckles his lessons about being a hero and the importance of finding a friend's family. They decide to team up.

Back in Green Hills, Wade earlier discovered an arrested stone. We don't need to go into that. Robotnik shows up. He has godlike electricity powers. The army surrounds the coffee shop. I'm not sure how they knew what was going on there Maybe we'd called them I don't know the secret agent commander and Tom and Maddie they helicopter in Tom and Maddie are now I guess Deputized they're now leaders of this of this organization this assault on

Robotnik just in time to see Robotnik do what everybody does ever since Akira or Magneto. You rise up in the air with your arms outstretched and then you move your arms to create telekinetic force that then disassembles machines and then rebuilds them into something. So he disassembles all the vehicles, turns them into a giant Robotnik mech, as mentioned earlier, just like in the games,

the heroes show up and this is the part of the movie I love to do the summary for because I can basically just say, fight, fight, fight, missiles, et cetera. Like the movie is like, Elliot, you're really tired. Here's 20 minutes of movie that you don't really need to summarize very much. That's what it felt like to watch it to me. I'm like, okay, fight, fight, fight, missiles.

You're not even gonna mention that when Stone doesn't remember how to pilot the vehicle or something, he pulls up the user's manual and it is a classic design, like a classic Sega video game manual. I'm not gonna mention that at all. It will go unmentioned in this episode. I did like that.

I enjoy that. That one got me that bit of nostalgia. I was like, okay, I like that. I guess that's true. If it was, if I was watching a Nintendo, cause I was a Nintendo kid. If I was watching a Nintendo movie and they brought pulled out like an issue of Nintendo power, you know, or something, I'd be like, oh, okay. because I was a Nintendo kid, if I was watching a Nintendo movie and they pulled out like an issue of Nintendo Power,

you know, or something, I'd be like, oh, okay, yeah. Because you're a Nintendo kid, just seeing it made you angry. You like broke your controller in your hand. You're like, mama mia, because you're a Nintendo kid. Yeah, exactly, I was like, it's a me, Nintendo kid. Link, bubble bobble, you know, that kind of stuff. Of course, of course.

Mega man, they call him. Ice climbers. Yeah, Excite Bike, yeah. Yeah. Toe Jam and Earl, I think that was on both platforms. Anyway, I'm just going to tell you I know Nintendo stuff. We don't need to do that. Sonic Knuckles and Tails, Sonic's like,

we need to work as a team. And it's like, well, what were you doing up to this point when you said you were going to be partners? Sonic's going to distract Robotnik because as a team. And it's like, well, what were you doing up to this point when you said you were gonna be partners? Sonic's gonna distract Robotnik because he knows Robotnik hates him the most. While Knuckles and Tails sneak into the mech, Sonic gets real beat up. Knuckles punches Robotnik,

which causes the Emerald to fall out of the mech. Guys, there's a moment where they're staying there seeing this newly created giant monster thing. And I'm like, wow, this is kinda like the end of Suicide Squad where Idris Elba's facing down a sudden appearance of a giant monster thing. And I'm like, wow, this is kind of like the end of Suicide Squad where Idris Elba's facing down a sudden appearance of a giant monster thing. That's pretty cool, right? Is it cool for him, do you think,

that he gets to do the same thing a couple times? It in no way speaks to the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood that all movies operate the exact same way. Instead, that is the majesty of the story circle writing structure, which makes only perfect movies. But yeah, I bet Edris Elba was like, this is pretty funny that I did this in another movie. Yeah, I'm sure he marvels at the irony all the time.

Yeah, he's like, this reminds me of Stringer Bell's final scene in The Wire. I've done this so many times, faced off with an enemy who in their case was standing on stairs slightly above me. So they seemed bigger than me, even though Brother Mazon and Omar were smaller than me in real life. I on stairs slightly above me. So they seemed bigger than me, even though brother Mazone and Omar were smaller than me in real life. I'm a very tall man.

I'm Idris Elba, of course. And he often reminds people who he is while they're talking to him. And the guy he's talking to is like, I know, I'm your authorized biographer. You hired me to interview you and then write your memoir. Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure you knew I was Idris Elba.

No, I'm aware of it. Yeah, we've been working together for months now. I've lived with your family, really embedded with you. Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure you knew I was Idris Elba. No, I'm aware of it. Yeah, we've been working together for months now. I've lived with your family, really embedded with you. Yeah, yeah, I just want to make sure you knew. Wow, that's a real life thing that he does. Biographer character is getting a huge backstory. It's like a Sonic character. Well, Idris Elba's like, I just want to make sure

you know who I am, because I know you went and lived on the island of Elba for a few months to really get into my head, but that's not me. That's an island where Napoleon was exiled. Yeah, that was a mistake. Yeah, so anyway, Sonic, he's all beat up. He takes the Emerald. Tom and Maddie, they help him briefly,

and he's like, go, go, don't get, save yourself. And she goes, no, we're a family. And Robotnik steps on them with his giant mech, but the power of the Emerald gives Sonic super golden glow ultra powers, and he saves them all. He defeats Robotnik's robot, seemingly killing Robotnik. And at the end, later on, the leader of the agent commander is like, well, I guess Robotnik disappeared.

And it's like, it seems like he died in the wreckage. Like, I don't, I guess we're not gonna get into that. They, he uses, and having saved the day, he uses his now godlike power to conjure a hot dog with everything on it and then ejects the power from his body, sending it who knows where. I don't know, back to the Emerald. Off into space for Jean Grey to encounter it and take it on, I guess.

Take it on, yeah, so that she can eat the plant of the broccoli people. And he goes back to being a kid, Knuckles fixes the Emerald shards by squeezing them really tight the same way that Ferris Bueller says that Cameron could do with a lump of coal to turn it into a diamond. I can do 80s movie references too, guys.

That's what we're doing now. Pretty good. That's what everything is related to. I can do that too. Right? Jamel Wright, Nathan Ferris Bueller, he says he's so tight. We do do it on the podcast quite a bit. But that's because that's where I am.

Dan, you have no idea what you just said. Oh my God. I'm falling with his wrath. He just said, do it. Dan, you were talking about human excrement just now. And you did me too. I'm so embarrassed later on. Anyway, I'd like to thank again New York Times opinion writer,

Jamel Bowie, for being on the episode with us today. So now they decided they're going to join forces to forever protect the Master Emerald. Later, who knows how many days or years later, Sonic is teaching Tails and Knuckles how to play baseball. Knuckles has some funny lines here. It's funny, someone who is, any of the time someone is like a space warrior who's learning a human sport, the jokes write themselves.

Tom is happy that Sonic has friends now. He keeps calling them his squad, right, or whatever, which I did not, don't like, or his wingman or whatever. I don't like it, I don't like that. And Sonic calls Tom dad, which is very, I have to say that the moment is touching, but it's weird when a CGI blue hedgehog from another dimension calls you Dad.

Like, is this the family that Tom saw himself have? We're the first time, Elliot, but, you know, over the years. It was less weird than when Jim Carrey yelled it while sliding under a closing door, and he said, make room for daddy or something. Yeah, that was weird. I didn't like that. That was pretty weird.

Yeah, and especially, because I don't like it because it's a reference to a thing from before the 1980s, which makes me uncomfortable. Was there culture then? I don't know and I don't want to know. They, but I wish the movie then had cut to Tom imagining Sonic's future as his son, where he's like seeing you graduate from college,

he's walking down the aisle at his Jewish wedding because he's marrying a Jewish woman. And his parents walk him down the aisle. And erasing your zone is what you're talking about, right? Yeah, basically he's an old man and Sonic's half hedgehog, half human, hybrid children are sitting around the table. Gross. You know?

Oh, gross. Just like people with like big spiky blue hair. Yeah, exactly. Or very small humans. Oh, God. Thank you. Small pink hedgehogs. Yeah, you know what?

Every option is worse than the one before. I love it. So they all go out for ice cream. That's the one they don't talk about, but everyone knows the truth about it. So they all go out for ice cream. They almost, yeah, yeah, that's the one they don't talk about, but everyone knows the truth about it, yeah. They all go out for ice cream and they almost leave the master Emerald behind. The thing that they just promised they would protect

with their lives to the very end, they almost lost within moments. And then I know Stuart, you don't stay for these, but there's a mid credit scene. That's right. What? This is the secret agent commander. He's told, as Jamel said,

they've discovered a 50 year old hidden government facility project shadow and a containment energy pot opens and shadow the hedgehog opens his eyes. And I was confronted with the knowledge in myself that I don't know who shadow is. And I don't, I have no context for this reveal. Oh man, Jamel's gearing up. I can see the hands go to the keyboard.

There's a reason he's the Hedgehog correspondent. Jermell's talking about Shadow the Hedgehog. So Shadow the Hedgehog first appears in Sonic Adventure 2 from 2001. He's like Sonic's Wario, basically. Oh, cool. So I like him already. He's bad or just misunderstood. He's sort of a Wannock, if you will. He is, so okay, let me take, so Wario, as we all know,

as we're all aware, is like greed and avarice incarnate. And really, he's not, he's neither like a villain. We know where he was on January 6th. Oh, for sure. There's a reason he's been in the hiding zone. Selling shirts outside of the event. That's right. This election, we did a win!

So, Shadow isn't like... Wario is only an antagonist insofar that Mario gets in the way of Wario trying to get those coins. Shadow is more like an anti-hero type who like is an antagonist to the synth that like Sonic's attempt to do something heroic interferes with Shadow's attempt to do something heroic. Oh, I see. But he's not like evil.

He's just sort of, you know. He's like the Hot Topic version of Sonic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. He's the Sonic of the Goths or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting. He's the Sonic that the Goths are running into. You know, I'm GIFs-ing. I'm so much more interested in Sonic lore when it comes from Jamel rather than Sonic 2.

Yeah, I wish, I would have really loved it if they had to keep going to explainers that you were doing Jamel. You're like, well... Oh yeah, like who's that director who I don't like? Adam McKay. Adam McKay, there we go. Like an Adam McKay movie. They're like, no.

New York Times opinion columnist Jamel Bui to talk Shadow the Hedgehog. You're in a battle. Now imagine Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog are the deficit and the debt. Let me explain to you. Yeah, actually I would make those. Now I want to see the big short, Jamel Cut, where you're the person

who's explaining each of the things. And by the end of the movie, you're like, I don't know, just dramatize this information, like it's not helpful. It's not helpful to be told this way. Listen, I'm an adult. I can understand exposition in a film. You can just have a character say it I don't want that Margot Robbie the one that cut well

I mean what was also funny to me was that they were like Margot Robbie in a hot tub and I was like This is the most covered up I think I've ever seen Margot Robbie in a movie so the idea that this is like a sexy way to explain it But anyway, it was later on when they're like look they're finding the prospectuses Littering the lobby of that building and they're like, oh oh, look at these numbers. And they turn the camera and go, this isn't really how we found this information. Really we did this other thing. But anyway, we'll go back to it here.

And I'm like, well, then if you're gonna tell me, just show me them doing it. You know, I don't, what do you gain from this? I feel like that stuff is so much more charming in like 24 hour party people or something. Yes. Which is at least based on like a bunch of accounts and you know, drugged up weirdos telling these stories.

And also, I mean, it's when you have Steve Coogan doing it, it's instantly more entertaining. But also, when the guy from the Buzzcocks is like, I don't remember that happening, when you got the real person doing it, yeah. If you're gonna do this at all, which you don't have to, no one's gonna make you put that in your movie, but if you're gonna do it at all,

I like that better than the explainers. I like the acknowledgement, like, look, this isn't exactly how we did it, but for the purpose of the movie, like, I kinda, because I don't know, I get so mad at movies on the other end of things where they're just like, we're gonna basically whole cloth make up this thing

and then put inspired by a true story at the beginning and then just be like, well, I guess I can't argue with the idea that it was inspired by that. Do you prefer inspired by a true story over some like bullshit quippy thing like, you know, based on truth and lies? I don't know, because when the grade started,

I did like where it says a, what was it? It was like a sometimes true story. I liked that. Well, at least The Great also has some really fun performances and Nicholas Holt is like the most charming fucking gremlin creep you've ever seen. Yeah. I love him. I feel like I should mention one other thing about Shadow.

He loves to use guns. Please. Yeah, this is the time. He loves to use what? Sorry. In his games, he uses guns. He shoots people. Oh, so he's time. You want to see his what? Sorry. In his games, he uses guns. He shoots people. Oh, so he's like the Punisher to Sonic Spider-Man.

I don't like that. No, I don't like that. God damn it, he's so cool. Sonic is like, you're never like this? Shadow? Oh, his name's Shadow. There's no reason to have a gun in a Sonic game. That's bonkers.

That's, come on. I'm looking at a still here from 2005's Shadow of the Hedgehog and he has like an Uzi. Fucking A, an Uzi. That shoots so many bullets. It doesn't last that long. They run out really fast. Oh, he probably has another one, guys.

Now what if an Uzi shot Ooze? The world would be a better place, right? That's actually right. We'd have all these mutants running around. Like Ivan Ooze or like Secret of the Ooze Ooze. Like Secret of the Ooze. Yeah, all right. Yeah, only 80s references.

Yeah, or like the Goo Guns from Ghostbusters 2, like that sort of shit. A Goo Gun that shoots Goo Gone. Yeah. It seems like it's causing its own problem there. Yeah, it's the problem. That's the solution in search of something. When you said Goo Guns, I thought you said Doogongs,

and I was like, like a manatee? Yeah, do you remember them from Ghostbusters 2? It's crazy. That's the Ghostbusters 2 where they go to the aquarium. Vigo did not like them. No. Well, I think that that's enough gibberish to justify our value in this year's Max Fun Drive.

We should move on to. Final judgments. Final judgments, whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, a movie we kind of like. I'm gonna really quickly say that I did not care for this film. The longer we do this, the more I find that the films that really irritate me

are the ones that just feel like, just kind of like the most pro forma versions of the movies that you would make out of, say a property, which is what this is. It's like, okay, we gotta do a Sonic sequel. The first one we did, like, the obvious thing that everyone always does, like, oh, this character's in our real world,

and now we're gonna like- And he loves to party. Dive into a bunch of impenetrable like bullshit that I don't like, I'm never given a reason to care about. I don't know. It just felt like the most bankrupt shit. I'm sorry for being more mean than usual, but I did not care for it.

Do you think it's possible that the screenwriter, one of the screenwriters who worked on it had a spec script about a wedding and was like, I'm never going to be able to sell this script on Hollywood. I'm just going to shoehorn it into this Sonic sequel. I hope to God that's what happened. I really want that to be the case, that they were just sort of like, you know what, we can add another 20 minutes to this movie.

This is the script I wrote for the Sundance Lab that I was a member of. Could I just get it here? This is my new God screenplay. Stuart, what do you have? Oh, Yael, you were going to say. Could I just get it here? Sure, it's on it too. This is my new God screenplay. Stuart Williams. Oh, yeah, Elliot. Stuart, what do you think? No, Stuart, what do you think? Well, first off, Elliot mentioned the idea of like, a character coming to our world and loving to party.

It's like, you're not going to bring somebody here and have them not like partying. Like, yeah, what is this like? The waist. I feel like Alf did it best. Why are we still chasing Alf? You know, new ideas. Yeah, that's, Alf is like like? The waist. I feel like Alf did it best. Why are we still chasing Alf? We can do that in a few ideas. Alf is like if Rodney Dangerfield came to our world.

Of course he would love to party. As opposed to staying on Planet Dangerfield. He's a radio star. He's here. He's been here. He is? What's he up to? Well, not anymore, but he was.

He was being partied as a dog briefly. Yeah. Yeah, I would say I like that a number of people in this movie got paid to be in it. Sure. There were a couple of jokes that I thought were funny, mainly site jokes, and it made me wonder, why don't they make good Looney Tunes movies with like live action elements too, like a Wile E. Coyote thing, but who knows? That'll never happen. It's called Space Fam, A New Legacy.

And then, but yeah, it's just so long. It's so long and it has so many, it makes you, it takes so many extra steps that it doesn't need to. I don't understand the point of this. Who is this for? Okay, thanks. I would say, yeah, similarly, it's like this could be a much worse movie. It's not like

there's, but it's, it's just kind of, there's no reason for it. And the reason for a movie like this is fun, but it kind of never achieves that level of fun. That being said, like, if my kids were like, hey, you need to work for two hours, you're going to show us Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to keep us busy. I wouldn't be against it the same way that I have recently started turning off TV shows in the middle of them when I've noticed my kids are watching stuff that I think is bad for them. Yeah, stop letting them watch fucking Blue Bloods, dude. Each time I think it's going to be the one where they learn something important.

No, no. Lasi Fair, like I was brought up by television. Just let him absorb whatever the fuck. That's the other thing is I'm always torn because I'm like, well, when I was a kid, I did watch it, whatever I wanted, and there was a lot of crap. Like, I shouldn't be able to identify

what episode of Saved by the Bell this is within the first two minutes for every episode, but I can. But I think it's not very good, but it's I wasn't offended by it I didn't not as offended as I was by the commercial for the Knuckles TV show where I was like Oh, is there nothing else in the world than IP like really so Jamal? Tell me why we're wrong tell us else why this is a great movie for all those Sonic heads out All the hedge heads out there. Yeah, all you hedge heads out there Exactly what you're looking for

heads up there. This is exactly what you're looking for. No, Ellie, I, you know, as also a father, I very much have the kind of similar reaction, like, you know, compared to some other kids entertainment, this is like perfectly fine. You know, it's like it's not it's not offensive. It's not like it's not too dumb, right? It's not like a egregiously stupid. So on that level, I was like fine with it. I remember kind of liking the first Sonic movie just because it felt like this throwback to the 90s, to like how you would do this kind of thing when I was a kid.

This one I just, I guess maybe I was in a bad mood. I was like, I don't care for this. Like a throwback is fun once. And then once, this movie really feels like we have no new tricks. Like we're not, except we're adding more characters in the game. And even the, like that first movie,

I was like, I really loved seeing Jim Carrey doing Jim Carrey stuff. And this one, I still enjoyed that somewhat. But by the end of the movie, it was really grating on me. And this is one of those movies where you can really see some of the parts where they threw in jokes off camera for moments that they didn't have jokes for before that didn't work.

Like there's a point at the end where Jim Carrey has no lines that are actual dialogue and they're all just quips. And I was like, all right, so this movie is like, it's held together with string at this point. Like it's barely, it's just- We didn't even talk about the moment where he, Jim Carrey plays his leg like a guitar

and then they play like the opening rift for, opening rift for Walk by Pantera. And I'm like, oh, what? Okay. Because his robot's about to walk. I did like when he played his leg like a guitar, but it doesn't really go anywhere. It's just a thing he does for a moment, you know?

But yeah, this is, so we give it our highest recommendation. Show it to children, but don't watch it if you're an adult Or if you're stuck if you're stuck having to watch it with your kids, it's not going to be intolerable Oh, okay. Put it on the poster Not intolerable raves the new york times the New York Times. Hey, and I'm back here talking about Max Fun Drive Boko. I know what you're desperate for. You're like, Stewart, you told us about how important is this sport art that we love.

You're probably interested in finding out about some swag. Okay, so that's one of the great things about the Max Fun Drive. If you support it or upgrade or if you support or upgrade during this time period, it gives you access to a bunch of stuff. For one, our entire catalog of bonus content. Guys, we've been members of the Max Fun Network for years. We have made so much bonus material. We have done feature length film commentaries of what? Brats? We did Brats, we did Cats, we did the Country Bears, all of those, all your hits.

The first two rhymed. We also did episodes where we- If only it was the Country Bats, that would have been the best. That would have been great, why not? We've done episodes where we do the Flophouse, classic Flophouse treatment, but apply it to television shows, what in the world?

We have done all kinds of stuff, including my personal favorite, the flop tales episodes where I make Dan and Elliot and our friend, Jumin, play a role playing game with me. And they make it seem like it's a huge hassle, but deep down, I think they love it. And they go on all kinds of adventures. There's ones where they play Dungeons and Dragons,

but I think all those are in the Adventure Zone feed. We have episodes where you guys go on like weird noir, weird boiled adventures dealing with aliens and whatnot. The last episode ended with me with a bunch of Martian worms in my head that control my thoughts. That's true. You do have worms in your head. Yeah. Being of worms inside you, there're ones about where we're dogs. Yes, that's true.

Hopefully your characters don't have worms in them. Yeah. Yeah, those are personal favorites of mine, where you guys are dogs. That's it. Also, the ones where we're dogs, there's a, our editor producer Alex did a new theme song for those that my kids love to listen to all the time. Oh, that's great. Yeah.

Okay, so that's the stuff that's available. Everybody who supports $5 a month or more has access to that, plus access to all the content from all the shows. There's tons of great stuff out there. It's really awesome. If you support, then there's some additional gifts. If you support at the $10 a month or more,

you get access to a pin of your choice. Each show had a pin design. What's our pin design this year, guys? It's Werner Herzog. Uh-huh, classic Werner Herzog. Of course, what he always has been known to say many times, I'm a bad whittle boy. Mm-hmm, that's true. This is the scowling face of Werner Herzog with a big word balloon

that says I'm a bad whittle boy. It is the perfect accessory if you want people to say, wait, what? Come on. There's some additional other cool swag. There's a bandana that serves as a chessboard, I believe. It's super cute. There's a bucket hat option if you want to look styling

and not get too much sun on your face. There's also the maximum tote or the maximum bag, which is the biggest tote bag I've ever seen. It's enormous. It's also the Maximum Tote or the Maximum Bag, which is the biggest tote bag I've ever seen. It's enormous. It's enormous. Yeah. Large bag. I feel like it doubles as a tent. I'd have to double check the specifics on that. It's like carrying around the trunk of a car in a tote.

So there's all this cool stuff. That's if you're being strictly mercenary about it. So why don't you please support us? get a hold of some of that swag, head over to maximumfun.org slash join. Okay, thank you so much, bye. Let's move on quickly to letters from listeners. Like you, the listener. This one is from Liam Lasting with Held. Liam listener.

While listening to the Flophouse Mini number 99, I was surprised to find out that Elliot worked at the Barnes & Nobles in Chelsea around 2002. I also worked at that exact location around the same time. I worked in the cafe above the bookstore, but would often linger in the store after my shift. To bring the email back to the Flophouse at large, what do you consider to be a novel trope

in movies that is underused or underrepresented? Liam Lasting withheld now. He could be saying novel as in new, but I took it to mean, since it was a book store related letter, a trope from novels, a trope from the written word that is not translated to movies that often, which is a difficult question.

I am realizing as I'm putting it forth, not that I didn't send it to you ahead of time, but I'm thinking about it, I'm having a hard time. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, and you guys can obviously correct me, but maybe, and this is inspired by reading too many romance novels lately, but maybe, and this is inspired by reading too many romance novels lately,

but you don't see as many movies that features two main characters, and it cuts between their perspectives in a way that actually shows you their perspective, if that makes sense? I feel like, yeah. I think similarly, what I was thinking was, I think Better Use is made of unreliable narrators in the same way

in books than in movies. And one of the things that I liked about Tar so much is that it wasn't like, this is a crazy person and we're seeing their insane view of humanity. But there were times where you're like, I can't, I'm not quite sure that the perception I'm seeing this through, which is very much her perception is totally on the level, totally accurate.

And I really like that. When they do such a good job there of like, just giving you enough to doubt what you're seeing without it being bonkers or obvious. And I feel like that's something books do very well and movies are not always as good at. You know what? You saying that reminded me of like,

walking out of love lies bleeding. And I won't spoil the end to Love Lies Bleeding. What happens to love? It's okay, right? It stands up and it is not bleeding. I'm not telling you, buddy. But there were some people outside talking about it like whoa, what happened?

Like what? I would stuff them in lockers. And I was like. After seeing that movie, I feel like a million feet tall. No, I love it, but I was just like, okay, squares was kind of my thought, where it's just like, you don't have to take everything in a movie literally just because it's presented to you.

Sometimes a movie sort of can present the emotional reality, like the way something feels like to you, and it's not necessarily, it doesn't have to like make clear delineations of like, is this really happening the way we're seeing it or not? You're asking entirely too much of modern day moviegoers, Dan.

Yeah. Possibly. Who, you know, there's a lot of, if the movie doesn't tell me exactly what the lesson of this movie is, then that's a plot hole. Yeah. Yeah, the labeling of so many different things

as plot holes is a real problem. I think in internet movie discourse, especially where they're like, why didn't the characters do the most obvious solution first? That's a plot hole. Well, not really a plot hole. If people really do the most obvious. Why don't you do the most obvious solution first, sir?

In your life. Glad that you took it to them, Dan. That's good, that's good. Yeah. I'm gonna go back at him. I'm trying to think. I don't read a ton of novels. I'm a Philistine.

I think what works more- You've read Dune, right? I mean, I've read Dune, of course, yeah. Okay, good. Phew, so you've read the novel. Other than the films of Paul Schrader, no one really does a sort of like, you know, narrator belittling themselves well in film, you know? I'm thinking of the beginning of Desi Evsky's Notes from Underground, which is,

I am a sick man, I am a wicked man. Like, that's how the novel starts, and I want more movies to start like that, with the main character being like, I am the worst person alive. You shouldn't finish watching this, because I'm terrible. I feel like that comes across better in print

than it would in a movie, where you'd be like, what's going on here? I feel like Paul Giamatti could pull it off though. I think that's like a serious Giamatti line. A movie that would open with Paul Giamatti looking at himself in the mirror going like, what are you even thinking you piece of shit? You're an idiot.

I'm like, I'm in with that movie. I gotta watch it. I gotta see who this guy is. Yeah. It's like there's the, I guess she's not the main character, but in Michael Clayton, Tilda Swinton does that, right? She's like angry at herself in the mirror. Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Yeah. Oh man. But you're right, Paul Schrader does it best. What a movie. Yeah, what a movie. Like, Paul Schrader, I think because Paul Schrader knows that he's a jerk. Yeah, because Paul Schrader is like America's

like last living, like I don't know, like Calvinist settler, you know? There was this New Yorker article about him last year, and he's talking about his philosophy of only fucking up. You never deal with anybody who's below you. You only go up. So you always have to be constantly climbing socially and professionally. And he goes, of course, it works, but of course, it leaves a bad impression.

Oh, yeah, because you're being an asshole. socially and professionally and he goes of course it goes it works but of course it leaves a bad impression but oh movies he comes I mean like but then you have a movie like first reforms where the main character is not an asshole but he has that he has that amazing doubt and like self self self loathing even if he doesn't necessarily deserve it and one of the top ten movies of the century in my opinion. Yeah Not a joke. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah Movie that's that's that that that went a lot of Academy Awards, right? Fun fact I saw that I saw that right before I went to it One of your guys's shows like 2018 my wife and I were like, oh right three hours between

Your like what we were doing and your show and I was like, let's go see a movie. And I was like, oh, a new Paul Schrader will just pop in there and see that. This'll be fun. And then we came out and we were like, we gotta go see a comedy show. I feel like you told us that. I'm like, I've heard it's good.

But now having seen it, that's a tonal shift. Yeah, I feel better about you sitting stone-faced through our show after this. This second letter is from John Lasting with Hell who writes, hi all, I got $2 American from Nielsen to answer their poll about what and how I consume media. I put the Flophouse down as my main podcast. Yes.

My family was a Nielsen family when I was a kid and involved the installation of a set top box. This was all web. We've arrived. I'll hang up and listen. Well, thank you for, like I wasn't aware that the Nielsen's were now measuring podcasts, but now that I know,

I think our mission is clear. Everyone out there with access to any sort of Nielsen influence, put the Flophouse down, get us up there on the ratings. So I don't know, at upfronts we can ask for, I don't know how it will work. I'm just glad that there's yet another metric that I can use to measure my disappointment in myself that I can use to compare myself to other people and see that I'm not measuring up to them. That's great, I'm glad.

It's especially weird for me because I grew up in a Nelson family. Of course, my family was in the band Nelson. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good way to either measure that or sort of our slide, you know, from semi-relevance to irrelevance.

Well, you can always measure your height or something to feel better about yourself. Yeah, you're right, Stu. You're right. That's a number that always measures up well because other people... Where do you think it started, Stu? Where do you think this neurosis started with, Stu?

Whoops. I've told the story many times about someone I went to elementary school with, has since become a political commentator, and she tweeted out a picture of our first grade class. And I was so much smaller than the other kids that you could like, I was just kind of like a head hidden behind, like, like a, like something very low. And I was like, et in a closet of stuffies. Exactly.

I was like, Oh, that really, I really was a small kid. This is no wonder I've always felt inadequate. Oh, well, no wonder I've always had to prove myself to be the smartest one in the room, constantly interrupting my co-hosts, not letting them talk, saying jokes that aren't funny, just to annoy people. Yeah.

This has been the most- Wow, we really figured some stuff out. Wow, that really made some progress in this session. I appreciate it, guys. How much do I owe you? We'll handle it off, Mike. Let's move on to recommendations of movies we saw recently, stuff that might be more worth your time, perhaps,

than Sonic 2, unless you're a big Sonic fan, in which case, you know, do what you like. We're not the last word. Eat some chili dogs. We're not the last word. If you like Sonic 2, God love ya. Like, don't feel like we're trying to insult you personally. We're just a podcast.

Dan's extra frightened of Sonic fans on the internet. I just know that. What happened after the last Sonic episode, Dan? Did they come after you? No, but there was a lot of people after Super Mario Brothers that are like, you know, like what's the problem? It's just, I'm like, yeah, I understand. Yeah, my children, they still say to me,

why did you not like that movie, Dad? We're just talking about a personal taste or view on things. It's that you don't have anything. Anyway. Listen, I think if you don't like Sonic, I don't know where we're going with that, I'm sorry. It's gonna be brutal though.

It's gonna be terrible. If you don't like the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, or if you do like it, I think is a better way to put it, if you do like it, I't want to talk to you. Stuart why don't you go first for once. Yeah I'm gonna hey Dan we saw a movie together can I recommend it? Yeah I was wondering whether you might that's part of why I do it over here. Yeah heck yeah I'm gonna recommend a little horror movie that's playing in theaters right now called Immaculate starring Sidney Sweeney.

It's a trim, what 89 minutes? Perfect. What a length. In, out, done. It is a little bit Nunsploitation. It is about a young American nun who goes to a kind of out of the way, kind of mysterious convent and gets involved in some bad stuff. And there's definitely a moment, it's kind of slow and it doesn't really show its...

I mean, it kind of telegraphs the mystery a little bit, but it doesn't like kind of show its hand as to what the kind of movie it's going to be until right near the end, then you're like, oh yeah, this is going to be fun, thumbs up. So yeah, I don't want to go into it too much, but if you like a big fun ending, watch it, it's cool. I mean, the ending's great,

but I don't want to undersell the rest because part of what worked effectively for me watching it was like, yeah, there's like sort of a cold open that lets you know, of course, something's going on. But the movie- Something's gotta give. The movie, unlike a lot of sort of, I don't know, mid-budget horror that gets put out there,

it doesn't like telegraph like completely like, oh, this convent is like a totally evil place with like evil shit going down all the time. Like you can kind of, you see the workings of it, you can understand how like people of faith might come in here with good intentions before you see like what those good intentions have led to and like what the nature of the horror is.

And it's, yeah, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Yeah, that's fun. Immaculate. I will also recommend a horror movie I watched last night, late at night on Shudder. I watched Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker. Kind of an oddball horror movie with a lot of elements. kind of an oddball horror movie with a lot of elements.

It's sort of about a weird familial relationship of an aunt and her nephew. It's also about, like, the villain in it is a homophobic police officer, which was a surprisingly progressive thing to see in a horror movie of that era. It's from the 80s. It's got this vibe that I like from sort of a lot of these lower budget horror movies of the time where it has a certain flatness to the direction because it's kind of this cheaper movie, but that combined with how tawdry the elements of it are

make it feel like a after-school special has sort of gone off the rails and gotten really weird and gross. So I enjoyed that. Yeah, I feel like that's like a perfect, kinda out there oddball 80s slasher that's been kind of underseen. Yeah Speaking of horror movies that are short

I've got a movie that's even shorter than 89 minutes and it's about the horror of fashion gone wrong. That's right everybody It is the 1976 adaptation of the story Bernice Bob's her hair by of Scott Fitzgerald this was done for the PBS show the American Story, and it was directed by Joan Micklin Silver. And Shelley DeVall is in it as the titular Bernice and Veronica Cartwright is the cousin that she is visiting. And Veronica Cartwright is, this is the 1920s, the roaring 20s. Veronica Cartwright is the party girl.

Bernice wants to live that life and be attracted to the boys. And she makes the daring promise that she is going to bob her hair And it becomes the talk of the town everyone wants to know if it's gonna happen Bud Court is in it. He's also really funny in it and I found it just be like a really funny little like you know not chamber play exactly but a funny piece of kind of nostalgia Filmmaking but it's the 70s being nostalgic for the 20s. And I really enjoyed it.

So I saw it on Canopy, which is the free service you can use through your library if your library subscribes. And it was really fun. It's called Bernice Bobster Hair. It's like 45 minutes long. Why not go watch it? I enjoyed it. And Jamel?

I rewatched over the weekend James O. Brooks's 87 movie broadcast news, which I'm saying this as a journalist, you know, whatever. It's a movie that I absolutely love and I really had a great time watching it again. If you've never seen it, it concerns three reporters, news people. Holly Hunter plays a news producer for a sort of a national television news show. Uh, Albert Brooks plays her reporter colleague who's sort of prickly and a little unpleasant, but very brilliant.

And then, uh, William Hurt plays the kind of news anchor there. He's being trained to kind of take over. I'm young, talented, maybe a little bit unethical. Uh, and it's both like a love triangle kind of film between the three but i think it's also just like a great film about. Be intensity and emotion like being in a workplace and doing something collective you care about and how that's true to like. Interact with your personal life and and and interacts with like how you relate to other people i don't know I love the movie. I think Holly Hunter is absolutely wonderful in it. And it's like one of my favorites of that decade, but then like one of my favorites period.

That's a great movie. I'm gonna set aside the fact that we are once again talking about 80s movies. That movie helped me personally because when I was a segment producer at The Daily Show, I was trying to explain to my dad what my job was like and he was like, is it like in broadcast news when she's running across, that running through the station with the tape and she's got to get it to them right on time?

And I was like, yeah, it is kind of like that. I do run through the halls with tapes. So it really helped him to visualize what my life was like in a way that I didn't expect. And I watched The Criterion Blu-ray. That's how I watched it. So highly recommend that Blu-ray. Yeah. Jamal, thank you very Blu-ray. Yeah. Jamal, thank you very much for being here. I know we gotta get you outta here, cause you're busy.

Before we go, is there anything you wanna plug? My column at the Times, if you don't like the Times, that's cool too. If you do read the Times, my column is usually every Tuesday and Friday, and I have a Saturday newsletter. And then my podcast, my buddy John Gann's Unclear and Present Danger,

where we watch the political and military thrillers of the post-Cold War era and kind of talk about them, historicize them a bit. I think our movie, our next movie we're doing is Hackers. From 1995. So that'll be a lot of fun. That's a special one. Hack the world people.

1995 was when the two best hacker movies came out, movies came out hackers and the net and then that we We've already done the net which was a fun episode, but hackers hackers is quite special. That's our next episode. Check this out Hey, this is Stuart just chiming in one last time this marks the end of yet another max Fun Drive. Thank you so much. It's been a blast. I've had a ton of fun with these guys recording some extra shows. I've had a ton of fun recording extra material on my Twitch channel, where I painted a model for some reason and shadowed it up. The Max Fun Drive means a lot to me, and I can't express how big a part of my life

Max Fund supporters are. I've gone through a number of hard times over the last couple of years. I know my co-hosts have gone through hard times and it's really great to me to know that there are people out there who have supported my show financially and helped me get through some of those hard times.

It's been one of the great joys of my life that a thing that I love to do that I think is worthwhile, I have found an audience who believes the same. So thank you so much. If you haven't had a chance yet, head over to maximumfund.org slash join and support our show. If you are already a supporter,

I can't stress this enough, you mean the world to me. Thank you. I'll just add, thanks to all who have listened, thanks to all who have given, thanks to all that continue to support us. It's just wonderful to know that you're all out there, you're all with us, you're all helping us out, and we hope that we help you out

in our small way doing dumb stuff. But for this episode of the Flophouse, like to sign off, say thank you to our producer, Alex Smith, and to identify ourselves one last time, I have been Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliot Kalin. Bye!

Hey! Hey! On this episode we discuss Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Too fast to free us. I think that's actually probably one of the taglines. That was like a Chuck Jones. I would be shocked if that wasn't part of the pitch. I think that was the first Wile E. Coyote cartoon actually.

Alright, let me do another one. How about I do this? Okay.