The Flop House - Ep. #424 - Baby Geniuses, with Linda Holmes

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

We were so happy when we learned that Linda Holmes was a fan of the show, and even HAPPIER to get her on an episode! Were we equally happy to watch Baby Geniuses? Well... you know... You can't always be happy all the time. Once you learn that, then YOU will be the true baby genius.This is the FINAL WEEKEND you can watch our SPEED 2 live show, VOD, before it goes away on Sunday, May 19 at 11:59PM ET! But if you prefer your live shows really live, there's still stuff coming up! We’ve got some May shows for you, in Oxford, England, as well as one a July appearance in Boston!Wikipedia page for Baby GeniusesRecommended in this episode:Ratcatcher (1999)Challengers (2024)Being Two Isn't Easy (1962)Body Heat (1981)Go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, go to https://www.squarespace.com/FLOP  to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Hey there, floppers. This is Elliott speaking. Before we begin this week's, let's be nice and call it nonsense. I just wanted to make sure you knew about the live show stuff we have coming up, in case you miss it later in the episode or just can't wait to hear about it. We are still in the streaming window for the Flophouse Sinks Speed 2, our virtual online video event. Just go to stagepilot.com slash speed and you'll be able to see that whole show with exclusive footage that the in-theater audience didn be able to see that whole show with exclusive footage that the in theater audience

didn't get to see through May 19th. After May 19th, of course, it goes back to the Flophouse vault where it will never be seen again for a long time. Then on May 24th, we will be in Oxford, England as part of the St. Audio Podcast Festival. We're doing two shows in one night, 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Two totally different shows, totally different movies,

totally different presentations, totally different questions. It'll be great. And then for something even more completely different, on July 26th, we will be in Boston in person at WBUR City Space. We don't know what movie we're doing yet, but it'll be a fun show.

It's gonna be all new stuff. You're gonna love it. So that's the Flophouse Sings Speed 2 streaming now in Oxford May 24th and in Boston July 26th. And now on with our regular nonsense. On this episode we discuss baby geniuses. Not like normal babies that are dumbasses. That's right. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse.

I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Wellington. And I'm Elliott Kalin. And guys, before we say anything else, before we say anything else, anything else like how the weather is, how are we doing, watching the news these days, those clowns in Congress, before we say anything else, before we say anything about the biodiversity in the world today, all the way from alligators to zebras with tapirs almost in the middle. Nothing is being said. Before we say anything about just the new technology coming our way,

AI and stuff, let's, before we say anything about any of that stuff, or even the movie today, which is Baby Geniuses, or what we do on this podcast, which is watch a bad movie and talk about it, we've got a very exciting guest today that I'm excited to talk about before we say anything else. That guest, why it's the one, the only, Linda Holmes, one of the hosts of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, author of the novels, Evie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo. And I believe there's another one coming up at some point.

Linda, thank you so much for joining us and being on the Flophouse today. Oh, thank you so much. This is so exciting. And thank you so much for watching Baby Geniuses. I brought it on myself. I brought it on myself. It absolutely was my choice. I'm just going to say, like I had some options and I was like, Baby Geniuses, sure.

Oh wait, I know you can't really do show and tell on a podcast, so I apologize in advance. It's just hell. I always will do it. But. Whoa. So this is do it. But. Whoa. So this is Talking Baby Sly from Baby Geniuses. Oh, and he's got an outfit. What are, is that from the Tryon montage?

That must be, it's like a tuxedo? Well, he's got a little graduation cap on. That's how you can tell he's a genius. Now, unfortunately, no matter how many fresh batteries we put in him, he does not talk anymore. But it used to be that if you squeezed one hand, he talked like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, baby talk.

And if you do the other hand, he would say, for example, don't mess with a sly man. Just like a real baby. I'm the genius here. And this, I should say, this is actually the property of my best friend, Stephen Thompson, who was the founder of the AV Club and who is a collector of that kind of thing. Ephemeral, let's call it. One of his- Normal stuff. There is a talking master P-doll that lives behind the tiny desk at NPR that belongs to Stephen.

It is one of his two talking master P-dolls, which he is down to after giving away his third talking master P-doll. Wow. And yes, when you poke its stomach, it goes, uh. Anyway, so that's my brief introduction to Baby Geniuses. I brought my fast talking sly doll. That's so, so is the doll as much of a, just a jerk as the sly in the movie?

Cause yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you guys felt all that, the sly man, the titular baby genius is, I did the entire movie. I just wanted to like, I don't know if you guys felt also that the Sly Man, the titular baby genius, is, I did the entire movie, I just wanted to like, I don't know, hit him. He seems like the one. Clow. Elliot admits wanting to commit child abuse.

Just to a fictional character, he's the most arrogant baby I've ever seen. That fucking baby thinks he's so big. His list of talking baby phrases is, la vista, baby. Uh-huh. Look out world, the sly man is here. Timely. Yeah. Don't mess with the sly man. See you on the outside, suckers.

I'm the genius here and the classic, and I think you will agree, very witty, give me a break. Give me a break. Yeah. So yes, he's a jerk. Yes. Exactly. Like I'm sure if this doubt come out a couple years later, one of those would have been

like Jet Fuel can't melt steel beams or something. Yeah. Yeah. Hurry emails. Yeah. Do your own research, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yep.

Yep. Yep. That's the vibe he gives off. I can see Baby Sly being like, I don't trust the authorities. I'm going to figure this out for myself. Yeah. Sure. Yeah, sure. It makes sense. So Elliot talked about this back when we weren't talking

about anything before introducing Linda, but we are a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it. Quite frequently, it's a more recent bad movie, but we've been dipping back into the well of the classics, the bad movie canon. Yeah, yeah. The worst of the classics, the bad movie canon. Yeah, yeah. And so. Yeah, the worst of the worst, yeah.

I've heard actually that Super Babies, Baby Geniuses 2, is even worse than Baby Geniuses, but obviously that film would make no sense to us having not seen the foundational work Baby Geniuses. You joke, Dan, but watching Boss Baby Family Business, without seeing the first one, I was legitimately lost for much of that movie's run time. Because I was like, what?

Who are these characters? What is going on here? Why is this baby a boss? It assumes so much foreknowledge of the boss baby continuity on the part of the audience. So maybe Superbabies, Baby Geniuses 2 would be the same way. I mean, I have no way of knowing at this point.

I kind of believe that probably the continuity would not be same way. I mean, I have no way of knowing at this point. I kind of believe that probably the continuity would not be as important. That's mostly based on looking at the cast list and not seeing a lot of carryover, at least in the adult character. I mean, also the baby characters. I assume they had all grown up by the time of them. Yeah, yeah, probably.

They're not saying babies. Babyhood. I mean, they're adults now. I was gonna say, they're not babies in the first place, exactly, I would argue. Yes. That's true. Yeah, that's true.

They're leaving toddlerhood. They're more toddlers. Are you referring to the stunt people who they make appear to be babies? I will say that it is weird to me that this movie is so predicated on the idea that these babies have their secret baby language and they're clearly of an age

that they would have started talking. At least a few words. That is the part that I kept trying to figure out. And listen, I feel like I have to predicate literally everything I say about this movie by saying, I don't care. I'm not saying that I care. But I was watching

this and sort of- You heard it here first, folks, right into NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour with Baby Geniuses Theories and Explainers. I'm thinking like, first of all, okay, my main question is what does this company actually do? Like this baby company that is making Baby Geniuses? Babyco, yeah. Babyco, they seem to specialize in two things. We see them specialize in two things on screen, indoor theme parks, which are located in their

corporate headquarters and also like education slash indoctrination of babies. Seems like they're more of a robot co than a baby co if you look at their theme park. This is the classic super villain thing where it's like, instead of robbing banks, why didn't you patent your machine that can melt anything or creates vibro shocks that can destabilize anything? Why don't you sell that? Because that you're really, or your freeze gun, if you have a freeze gun, why are you using it to commit crimes?

Yeah, the United States government will give you that, will just pay you for that a lot. Yeah. You can say your prices, they don't care. They'll give you whatever. If you say it's a that, will just pay you for that a lot. Yeah. You can say your prices, they don't care. They'll give you whatever. If you say it's a weapon, they're gonna love that shit. Yeah. And the BabyCo logo is like an atomic energy looking thing.

So like it's supposed to look like they're a science company. Dan, help me. I was wondering. You're asking the wrong guy. Thank you. I was wondering, you know, like when Baby Einstein came out in relation to this, because like, one side of their business seems to be

sort of maybe a Baby Einstein style, like, Yeah, make your baby smart. make your baby smart thing. But then, yeah, they have this other secret thing. I don't want to get too far into the actual plot because Stuart will talk about it, but I laughed early on when, I think it was Christopher Lloyd said,

"'Take them back to the secret laboratory.'" And I'm like, around here we just call it the laboratory. You don't need to do that. I'm like, hang on. Well, he was worried they were gonna take him to the regular laboratory, but there's a secret one underneath. Yeah, the regular laboratory where they're just working

on polymers and they'd be like, "'Why is a live baby right here? What are you doing? Why is this live baby karate-ing us? And I do want to get into the plot, but before we do that, I do want to take a moment to talk about Bob Clark, maybe. There's two human beings involved in this that I'd love to talk about. One is producer John Voight.

This was a passion project for him for a while to get this made. But also, yeah, director Bob Clark, who has one of the more scattershot filmographies, you might say. Yeah, a couple of noted classics, very influential films. I wouldn't call Porky's a classic, dude.

Depending on whatever, well, yeah, that's a very influential movie. To me, it's three extremely influential movies, whether or not you think they're good. On the more critically acclaimed side, of course, Black Christmas, one of the earliest slashers. You've got A Christmas Story, which became a cable classic. Which is a great movie.

And then of course Porky's, which kicked off a wave of more mainstream TNA teen sex comedies after that being sort of bubbling under the surface in the late 70s for a while. America had decided that college kids they were done with, college kids were not sexy enough. They needed high school students to be sexy in American movies. A movement that I disagree with,

but other people may feel differently. To be clear, the actors were not. Which by the way, that was the joke that Audrey made when she came in and saw the babies kung-fu-ing people. She's like, you know that baby's 15. That's the way they do it in Hollywood. And I will say, Bob Clark also made a movie called Death Dream that I recommended on a Fl-as-episode a long time ago.

That's a good movie about a dead Vietnam vet who comes back to his family and is a as close as it feels like Bob Clark came to making like a political statement in a movie. Right. But on the other hand, he's got movies like this. Until Maybe Geniuses. He's got Rhinestone, the movie where Celeste alone learns to sing country music with Elvie Park. That one is a fun bad movie.

I've been trying to think like, you know how Jamal has the hedgehog beat. I've been trying to think like, did I want my beat to be babies or geniuses? But I think maybe it should be Bob Clark. Yeah. Yeah, you could be our Bob Clark correspondent. There's a limit to how many of those movies there are, but there's also a limit to how many hedgehogs there are. I was just going to say, the beat doesn't have to be infinite.

The beat just has to have as much as you would ever want to have me on anyway. Oh, okay. Yeah. But did you want to say anything about John Voight and his relationship to this movie now that we've talked about a little bit about Bob Clark? This, because Bob Clark, because you might think to yourself, Bob Clark, he made a lot of schlock. He probably pitched this movie. No, John Voight pitched this movie to Bob Clark to make.

John Voight's production company had this script called Baby Geniuses. I was doing some research and they were saying how there was like a portal to a baby land, like a world where babies ruled, which is kind of what the boss baby movies are about. And adults drooled. Yeah, babies ruled and adults drooled, just like in the movie when dinosaurs drooled the earth. And that they had like a special effects test reel showing that they could make babies look like they were talking using.

Can they though? That's a good question. That's a good question, true. And that Bob Clark was like, okay, I'll rewrite this script and make it something different. But this was for whatever reason, this was just like a thing John'll rewrite this script and make it something different. But this was, for whatever reason, this was just like a thing John Voight

really wanted to get off the ground. And when this movie was coming out, none of the stars of the movie, as far as I know, did the talk show rounds. John Voight did the talk show rounds, because I remember him being on The Daily Show to promote this movie, Baby Geniuses. And they showed the clip where the baby is like,

where Sly is like trying on different clothes and going like, somebody stop me. And it's like, and I just remember like how baffling it was that John Boy was doing this. And this was I guess the beginning of his descent into madness as he became like a, just like a hardcore conservative. But I don't know, it's very strange. I love the idea that Bob Clark was convinced by this test reel because that feels like such a Jurassic Park moment where it's like, just because you can't do it,

you never stop to think, should you do it? You know? I always assumed that what changed John Voight was Anaconda, right? Yeah, I've been swallowed by that. Like once you've been inside the snake, being filmed on the inside the snake cam. Oh, the snake cam is so good,

but the inside the snake cam is so much better. I have a friend who every time, back in high school, every time he would get drunk, we'd be like, do it, do it again, do John Voight, and he goes, these are my babies. And he like, hold up, fake eggs is so funny, do it every time. Maniconda, man, that's a classic, terrible movie.

What a picture. Okay, so let's get into the plot of Baby Geniuses. Now, if I sound a little bit weird, that's because I'm coming to you live from the Courtyard Marriott in Four Way, Indiana. As you can see, if Alex posts this clip, I look like I'm the most divorced podcaster. But no, I'm in Indiana helping my parents with some stuff.

And that means I watch Baby Geniuses on the plane. So if I missed anything, it's because I wasn't paying attention to the screen and was trying to hide it so that I didn't get arrested by a fucking air marshal or something for watching Baby Geniuses. Okay, so the movie opens with Sylvester, who I have to insist is a baby,

escapes from a top secret lab. Despite the fact that he can walk. And despite that he has, and he can karate. Despite his karate skills, he is still captured by evil doctor Christopher Lloyd and taken back to a secret lab run by Dr. Kinder, played by Kathleen Turner. Yeah.

That's also a sad auger of things to come for Kathleen Turner. I was confused by the Kung Fu powers just right from the start. Cause I'm like, so- He's a genius, Dan. Yeah, okay, so he has the proportional strength of a genius, I guess.

Well that's, and like, he's able to get leverage. There's moments where babies are swinging from ropes, kicking people, and I'm like, yeah, I don't give a shit, it's a baby, it's not like they weigh that much, they bounce off me. Which is, yeah, there's a, where babies swing on a rope, adults are standing there going, oh, for a while, and plenty of time to brace themselves.

As a parent, little small children throw themselves at me constantly to try to knock me over, or because they want me to hold them. You get, it's not that, at me constantly to try to knock me over or because they want me to hold them. It's not that, yeah, it's not going to knock you over unless you're taken by surprise, which almost nobody is. It's a center of gravity thing, yeah? Yeah, they're so small, you can pick them up and throw them really easily, but I guess

they've come through powers. It's like judo. They're using your bigness against you, you know? Speaking of battling babies, Sylvester is... Battling baby is the project we should be working on right now, Stuart. It's like going to the Barbarian Visa baby. It's the prequel to Million Dollar Baby, you know that. So Sylvester's main mode, as we'll see, is kicking guys in the crotch.

And I feel like he used a lot of weapons and I feel like kids are already pretty good at hitting you in the crotch without weapons. Like I've seen, like Elliot, I've seen you get hit in the crotch without weapons. Like I've seen, like Elliot, I've seen you get hit in the crotch hundreds of times by children. Happened to me just the other day. They'll do it accidentally, they'll do it on purpose. They know it hurts and they wanna go for it, yeah.

Okay, so we get a little bit of backstory from the doctors. They have a top secret lab under a building. There are twin babies, Sylvester, who we are going to call Sly from now on. Sly and Wit, who are raised separately. Wit is raised with normal parents, and Sly is raised by... I don't know.

Okay, granted, those normal parents are portrayed by TV superstars, Kim Cattrall and Peter McNichol. But so he's raised by normal. The film work of those two fine actors, the star of Dragon Slayer, Stu. Split Second. Ghostbusters 2 and of course Kim Cattrall in Porky's where she was with Bob Park in earlier.

Split Second or Big Trouble in Little China, the movie that I don't like that much but you guys like it too. Yeah, Mannequin, sure. Yeah. But yeah, City Limits. More known for Ally McBeal and Sex and the City. Well, the thing I love about this is that they made this

before Sex and the City started, but it came out after Sex and the City started. Oh dear. And you gotta think for her, that's like, Sex and the City is hitting, it's doing great. She's like, oh, fuck this. She's like, oh, I still got that, oh, you know. Cause she's, and I will say also, Stuart,

you kind of, you know, you went right by the masterful exposition on that like TRS 80 level computer that they have in the lab. Yeah. Where they like have the, and this was 1999. I feel like this looks like a 19, I mean this looks like, like this looks like, you know the computer in Pretty in Pink

when they morph into the, yeah, okay. Yes, also that computer in Pretty in Pink, like could you do that with computers back then? That seems wild. I mean, Stuart, there was a movie around that time where a computer made a woman. So like, lots of things from movies that they can't do in real life. But I feel like the Exposition 5000 or whatever this computer is called

is on the level with that pretty and pink computer. And that was, like, many years earlier. This is, like, even for 1999. It's like, guys, I was on AOL by then. Yeah, why are you skimping on your corporate graphics, your corporate videos to show each other your plans? I will say they are a baby company, so maybe the money is going into the baby stuff,

but it is very funny, anytime a character in a movie, as Christopher Lloyd does here, goes, computer, explain to me all the stuff I know already. And then it just tells you everything about the story. It's like, oh good, yes, I was checking you, computer. I was testing whether you knew it, yeah. I do wanna take, oh sorry, just because we brought it up, sorry Stuart, I know, we're. I was testing whether you knew it. Yeah, I do want to take oh, sorry I just got just because we brought it up. Sorry Stuart. I know we're doing a lot of this up

Just because we brought it up. I do feel like for me and I tell you we need to get back to talking about Plotting of baby geniuses magic babies magic babies. I I texted the guys that like, we were talking about Kim Katral. To me, like, she- Which guys, the pep boys? You guys. You're one of them.

And Suzy Other. For me, Kim Katral comes out of this looking the best, actually, because I don't know what she's doing. Like, she's got a nothing part, but she hits it just right. Like, she gets the tone just right in the way that a lot of the movie around her

is chaotic and unpleasant. But. I think there's two MVPs in this movie, I feel like. It is Kim Cattrall, who is doing as good a job as she can in it, and Kathleen Turner, who at least is trying to reach that note of like, I'm an evil business woman who's yelling at a baby going, ah, baby.

Yes. I'm Carola DeVille. And at a baby going, ah, baby. Yes. On Corolla DeVille. And occasionally looking, there is one moment in particular where she looks like she's going to hit on the baby. And I was like, That's true. I was like, oh, I don't know.

Yeah, well, I mean, you're gonna get that with Kathleen Turner. Kathleen Turner's very sexy, but I don't really wanna see her coming up behind a baby like, slide, no, no. She can't control her sultriness. She's naturally sultry. And then on the other end, you have like Peter McNichol, an actor who I think is really great,

who is, it's maybe the worst I've ever seen him doing anything like, and it's, I don't know, he's playing it a little, his character like, like his character is a baby who's an adult, like the way he talks and everything. But you're also playing, there's a lot of other big stars in here, Dom DeLuuis is the comic relief. Ruby Dee, the legend shows up.

How did Ruby Dee end up with this? How? It's amazing sometimes when you're watching movies and you're like, this is a person who like God should have stepped in and said Ruby Dee, you're too good for this. Like you shouldn't be doing this right now. But you know, actors like working, you know. Well, it always wants me to, it makes me want to like,

and I'm sure it's not the case in this case, but it always makes wants to Google like Ruby D IRS, you know what I mean? Because like, how do people end up in this situation? But you never know, because it was around the same time that she was doing this, that Ossie Davis, her husband, was doing like Bubba Hotep, right, and that's the kind of thing that could have been like, what are you doing here, but he's really good in it,

and that's a real fun movie, so you never know. You never know when a movie's gonna turn out good or not. I mean, Ruby Dee should have probably known that Baby Geniuses was not gonna turn out good, but you never know. Maybe she just wanted to hang out with some toddlers. Yeah, she wanted to get out of the house, you know, I get it. Okay, so yeah. I mean, want to get out of the house. You know, I get it

Okay, so yeah, they did they did shoot this in Tuscany, right? So that explains it Classic Sandler motivation The Sandman just her and all her friends just hanging out Okay, so to get back to that actual exposition, these two twin babies have been separated since birth. One of them raised normal style, one raised with a bunch of super secret babies in a like Akira style nursery where the magic babies just kind of sit around and talk. They have like a salon or something. I'm very glad Stuart that you brought up the Akira comparison.

My first thought when I saw that world was I was like, this is why Hollywood should not do an American remake of Akira, they do not get it. It's gonna look just like this. Yeah. And the idea is that when they are both, when these two babies are each six years old, not six years old combined, like three,

that wouldn't make sense. But when they're both six years old, when they're both six years old, when they're both six years old, they're gonna bring them together and they're gonna see which, I guess, which baby's better. I guess they have metrics, I don't know. They're trying to prove that the kinder method, Kathleen Turner's scientist character,

that her method is better, I guess, at raising super babies, which we'll find out in part two. What is her method? What is the method other than the like plan? I'm from outer space dinner theater. That's kind of all it is. You find the best babies and then you stick them in a basement. You put, you never let them see sunlight and you have computers around. Yeah.

Especially because what they're doing isn't that, it's not like, well, what are they doing that's making them genius? I mean, I guess he's really good at building things and he can reprogram a security system and stuff and later on he has a sense of style. Well, also- So that's all like baby genius stuff.

Yeah, later on we learn that that babies are sort of attuned to the mysteries of the universe when they're young and they lose that as they get older. And so maybe she's doing absolutely nothing. Like it seems like it's a weird sort of conflicting thing to have her have this system, but then also be like, oh, you know, the Tibetans thought or whatever. Yeah, the babies are carriers of a genetic legacy

and they're able to live and understand our ancestors. Okay, so we flash forward to the opening of the BabyCo theme park, Joy World. Kathleen Turner is, she's there, I guess, cutting the ribbon. This is a theme park that is filled with a lot of robots. Everything's robot controlled, including the animals at the robot zoo. Everybody gets a-

Tell me about the robot baby. Tell me about the robot baby. Giant robot baby's a crime against nature. It's a horror that I was terrified to behold. Do you guys have thoughts? For a while I thought it was a guy be holed. Do you guys have thoughts? For a while I thought it was a guy in a costume. I post a picture of it too. Although we are trying to divest from this particular

website, it's still where our largest number of followers are, so there's a tweet on X that shows the giant baby if you want to dig back through the archives, but it will haunt your dreams. Why would you have that at a theme park? When I was little, my parents took us to Walt Disney World and my sister was scared to death of Smee, the pirate from Peter Pan. Is it because he's less in charge,

he's more desperate than Captain Hook? I don't know. I don't really remember why. I just remember Smee was very scary to her. Or possibly... Just afraid of Bob Hoskins? Yeah, you think of him as Hook? It could be that it was scary to me

and I'm projecting it onto my sister to avoid admitting my vulnerabilities. But kids are very weird about like what is scary. And so if you have an eight-foot baby who's walking around going, hello little girl, who would put that in a theme park? You're trying to make money. What? I don't care.

It's also prohibitively expensive to say just dress someone up like a big baby When it's much cheaper to create an entire robot baby that still has to be controlled manually by someone in a booth Like it's not they're not very good robots. Exactly. Yeah, I feel like he doesn't use robots me No, and as we see later, they also have like a robot alien that shoots actual lasers Yeah, I was like to the baby genius reprogram that somehow or do they just have like live ray guns that they walk around with? In a children's theme park. I feel like the day of shooting they showed up and John Voight's like, hey we got the

robot baby already and Bob Clark's like, oh yeah. Thought we asked that John and John's like, nope it's already. He's like, I didn't think we could afford it. He's like, I thought we asked that John, and John's like, nope, it's all ready. He's like, I didn't think we could afford it. He's like, I found the money. This is from my personal, I funded this myself. I put a reverse mortgage on my house so we could do the robot baby. Yeah, Tom Salga's counting his money.

Okay, so yeah, we see the robo zoo. A key thing is that they make a point that all the children get access to a remote control for the robot animals. That is our Chekhov's robots. We then cut to Peter McNichol and Kim Cattrall run a childcare out of their home. It's like a childcare research center.

Okay. Yeah. Send your kid to daycare to get experimented on. You know how it is. Exactly, yeah. Everybody wouldn't do that. And help Dom DeLauise do plumbing stuff and handyman stuff. I was really happy to see Dom DeLauise show up in this. I gotta admit that as a kid,

I was like, this guy's dumb. This guy's a dumb guy who does dumb comedy and dumb things, which is not wrong, but now that I'm an adult, I have a fondness for it. I'm like, this is a man who is really committed to being dumb and broad. I definitely, I also, the same way that I appreciate the three stooges much more now than I did when I was a kid

when I did not care for them, like Dom DeLuise, I appreciate him more now, but when I was a kid, I was like, this guy is sweaty. He is trying so hard. And he always seems like he's on the verge of like failing and collapsing and nosing. Now I get that that's kind of like part of his shtick. Yeah. Because I just remember his voice performance

in American Tale when I was a kid. I was always like, I don't like this. It's like he's trying so hard to please me and it just makes him seem pathetic in my eyes. his voice performance in American Tale when I was a kid. I was always like, I don't like this. It's like he's trying so hard to please me and it just makes him seem pathetic in my eyes. But now I'm like, oh, I see, he's supposed to be pathetic. I get it, all right, yeah, sure. Yeah, the same thing with Secret of Nem.

We rewatched that recently and I love that movie, but I think, maybe I'm putting this on Audrey and it wasn't her. I feel like she reacted to it like, what is this annoying crow? I'm like, well, that putting this on Audrey and it wasn't her. Like I feel like she reacted to it like, what is this annoying crow? I'm like, well, that's Dom Deluise, you know? It just comes with the territory. That's what he does.

That's Dom of Luise. Yeah. He was like, have you ever played Planet Zoo or Planet Coaster? No. You build like a zoo or a theme park, you know? And this is a game, of course, I don't actually build zoos. But you go in and you go in. I heard about this family that bought one.

Well, Elliot, you'll be glad to know that the first time I made one, I titled my zoo, the We Bought a Zoo, which is exactly that joke, because I'm that dork. But when you go in, you can like build buildings from scratch or you can just go in and you can just import an entire building already built, right? I'm just gonna take the little slurpee stand already built. Yeah, here's falling water, just stick it in there. Exactly, and when you put Dom DeLuise in your movie,

you're basically taking all his Dom DeLuiseness as a thing, and you're just moving it over and putting it in the movie. You're not building a character from scratch. You're just using the blueprint that is Dom Della, which is fun. You're just taking him, you're putting him directly into the movie, and he will do the same thing that he does, and people will still like it, the same way that they will like your prefab Serpi stand at your zoo. Yeah. Arguably Al Pacino is kind of the same way.

I mean, now, Al Pacino wasn't always, I mean Dom De La Ruta I guess wasn't always that way either. Like you watch, in Blazing Saddles, he's such a different character in his one scene in that. He went dramatic with Fatso. That's true. A movie that I have never seen in its entirety. I just remember it being on HBO and being like,

why would I wanna watch a movie about this man being sad? Okay, well, so we are introduced to Dom DeLuis who plays a plumber handyman character, and we also meet Wit, who is the twin brother of Sly, and we can tell that they are twins because his first act is to smash Dom DeLuis in the balls with a wrench.

That would hurt so bad. Have a wrench thrown at your crotch, yeah. Yeah, that's the whole point. Okay, meanwhile, Kathleen Turner and Christopher Lloyd are running a secret lab for eight genius babies. These genius babies are the product of their very expensive orphanage program. It's like, the orphanage program is like a loss leader

for their babies. I don't quite get it. As Linda said, I don't understand the business behind it. I wanna see a business plan. I think, wait, does Kathleen Turner have the orphanage? I think that's their farm team for who's gonna be Baby Geniuses. I think they're like scouting out

who's got the talent to be a genius. The important thing is, like every children's movie made in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a certain amount of talk of corporate hierarchy and structure, and also tax planning for the expansion of a family business. You have to have that in a kids movie from this area.

Kids love corporate hijinks. They love knowing who's in charge of a company and. You have to have that in a kids movie from this area. Kids love corporate hijinks. They love knowing who's in charge of a company and how that company operates. Kids love it. Well, I saw the same thing that you saw about it. We're restructuring our loan, kids. All my kids, every night they're like, can you read us Barbarians at the Gate?

Can you read us The Smartest Guys in the Room? All right, can I read you a picture book? No, no, no, read us, I ran out of business books. Those are the only ones I know. Who Moved My Cheese is that one? I don picture book? No, no, no, read us, I ran out of business books, those are the only ones I know. Who moved my cheese, is that one? I don't know. No, Dan, that's more of an inspirational kind of motivational book, yeah.

I saw this- Would they accept Bonfire of the Vanities? Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, it's kind of a Wall Street satire, but I think that would work, I think that would- Yeah, I mean, I think if they- You know what, I'll try it. I think if they care, I think if they care about business.

But I saw the same thing that you saw Elliot about John Voight's original script for this and then like how Bob Clark came on and he's like, no, we gotta ground this in reality. We gotta put it in this world of corporate intrigue. I felt the same way. I'm like, why did adults back then think that this is what kids wanted out of their movies?

I don't know. Well, I guess it was just in the air. This was the go-go 1999s. Yeah, maybe Reagan required it. Every movie was either about companies or the millennium. They'd done it in big, I guess. Yeah. Like the kid goes into a big business and I don't know, Wrangles corporate guys.

Now how much business is in the movie big business though? A lot of business. I just remember liking it, but that's probably my childhood affection for the two stars. Twin-based farce, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It's twin-sweet. Okay.

Okay, so the important thing is down in the secret lab, they have figured something out. None of it's importance too, but to continue. The thing is, down in the secret lab, they have figured something out. None of its importance, too. But continue. That the dumb baby crap that we have come to believe, whether it's their baby art, baby communication, all that stuff, that it is actually highly advanced

and it retains this genetic legacy of everybody who has come before them. So what it sounds like mishmash, it sounds like some kind of Grindcore record. Instead, it's actually like very highly detailed orchestral compositions on par with Rachmaninoff or some crap. Or one of the babies scribbles are like,

oh it's actually cuneiform. And I like how the computer takes random parts of the scribbles and reassembles them. And that's not, they're not writing cutiforms, you have to do that. Yep, and this is when Kathleen Turner says, my favorite line of the movie, every baby might know the secrets of the universe.

I feel like it is such, this movie takes a couple of big leaps. And the first one is, okay, when babies are jabbering with each other, that's a language, okay, I'll buy that leap. And another one is babies are really smart, but once they start learning English or their grownup language,

they kind of lose that smartness and they become dumb as they develop into adults. Okay, there's something kind of satirical in that. When we lose the innocence of childhood, we lose a little bit of wisdom, I understand that. And then they jump to these babies are in touch with the secrets of the universe and they never define what these secrets of the universe are

that they're even looking for. What is that about? It's a big leap. It's a big logical leap. Well, but also I went to Roger Ebert's review of this, as I often do for like these older movies. And he points out that these babies are- Four stars, right?

These babies may be like wise, you know, cosmic geniuses, but they use terms like diaper gravy. Okay, I assume we're gonna get there because I need to talk about that fucking joke. Like, I- Joke? I heard it and then I heard it again. Then I heard it again.

And then I saw it in captions again. When a dog said it. This is all in five minutes. This term diaper gravy, when I feel like I should let Stewart get back to the plot. But I just, well, okay. Now, this was, I also was like, what is this? But then I was so distracted by the sex banter

between hobo sly and the girl, the baby girl in the baby carriage that I was like, I can't, you know what, diaper gravy is taking a backseat tip. It is implied that they have had a dalliance in the carriage. Am I insane? Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. He needs her clothes and he says, take your clothes off and she goes, at least buy me dinner first. And I'm like, I don't want this in a kids movie. And then when he leaves, she's like, call me, I'm listed. And she's smoking a cigar.

No, it's so bad. Oh man. Yeah, let's get back to this plot. And also, Slime may be in touch with the secrets of the universe, but he also knows a lot of catchphrases because the other kids say he's always watching TV. Guys, we've been talking about how these babies are talking all the time and saying all this shit.

Well, actually in the movie, the babies don't start talking until right now. When all of a sudden the eight super genius babies start talking to each other, their lips digitally enhanced, whatever, to make it seem like they're able to talk. It's literally the George Saunders short story about the device you put on a baby to make it look like it's saying I love you because they want the babies to talk in it. Well, anyway, there's a whole short story about this. They did that to these babies.

I've seen some really bad computer-assisted like baby mouth movements in commercials or other bullshit. Like the E.T.R.E. baby? Yeah, this is, I'll give it to Baby Geniuses. This looks pretty natural. It was done by, I guess, recording these babies just. Unsubscribe. Yeah.

I mean, not natural, but obviously your brain rejects it. Your brain is like, this is dumb. Back in my day, we would make babies' lips move by slapping some peanut butter in their mouth. I would just say, they recorded, I guess, these babies just saying like their normal like, toddler gibberish around the set, and then would find like the phenomes or whatever

and like put them together. That's what they said they did. It was better than I expected out of Baby Geniuses. I'm not gonna say it should have like won the fucking Oscar for best baby lip. You just did, Dan. You just said it should have won the Oscar Oscar for best baby lip. You just did, Dan. You just said it should have won the Oscar. It's just, they're just, the sound's coming out and the lips are just, the lips are just

like moving. But I, I reject the idea that they, I, I, Dan, you are a kind and optimistic man always. And I understand that you are taking them at their word. And normally I would do that too, but I look at this and I just saw just flappy, flappy, flappy cartoon lips on these babies. So you think they did it like Mr. Ed style, they just gave the baby some peanut butter?

No, I think they animated it, but I think they animated it kind of randomly. I think just like, this is how long this baby is talking, we're gonna give seven flaps of mouth. I'll be the peacemaker between you two so that this riff doesn't destroy the podcast. I will say there were times when the lips looked pretty good

and there were times when it looked really random and just like they shoved whatever words into whatever mouth movements. Now this being said- LA Cailin raves, babies look pretty good. In my research, I also saw that at one point they experimented with having grownup voices coming out of the babies,

which would have been horrifying. I don't like that. The only thing that makes Look Who's Talking not a total nightmare is that the baby's mouths are not moving while they're all grown up voices are coming out. You know what, I'll admit, I had a hard time paying attention to these babies,

so maybe I saw a moment that it was good, and then my brain just checked out. I mean, these babies are so unlikable, they're so unfunny, they're so full of themselves. The one's a narc? One's a narc, and this baby named Basil, to be honest, by the end, I was sympathetic with Basil just because Sly is so unlikable.

He's such an unlikable main character. It's the thing when you agree with somebody, but they are so unlikable that you're like, I guess I'm gonna side with your opponent just because I find you so detestable. You know, Sly is, I don't like him. He is the ultimate kind of 90s movie hero in that he's always quipping, he thinks he's great, he calls himself the Sly Man, he just has such a totally unearned sense of entitlement

that comes with these white male babies that they, you know, they just think they should be... He's like a poochie, he's a poochie. They just think they're better than everybody else. He's got the quality that has caused a certain reconsideration of Ferris Bueller as a movie character. He's got that kind of like, I get away with everything. Isn't that amazing?

Doesn't everybody love me? And then you're kind of like, maybe not. Maybe I've met too many entitled people in my life at this point. What seemed like a charming power fantasy is now a disturbing power fantasy. Well, because when you're young, you're like, I wish I could do that.

And then when you're older, yeah, exactly. You're like, well, I've met people like that. I hate them. You're like, that guy's the reason everybody else has to stay late at work. Like. That he's the reason that they have all that security at parades now.

Because nobody just jumps up on a float and takes over. So speaking of annoying people, we meet Ice Pick, the nephew, I guess. Is he the nephew of Kim Katrol and Peter McCall? I think he just works for them. I believe it or not, I tried to figure this out. And he's got a deep wardrobe. Yeah. He has a lot of style looks throughout.

He's trying on different personas from Buddhist monk to London punk. He's got a lot of different ways he looks. I sympathized a bit with Ice Pick because the adults were kind of ascending to the style choices. I mean, Kim Cattrall is pretty nicely joking about it, but you know, Ruby Dew would be like plucking at his earrings or whatever, so no thanks.

Like let Ice Pick be Ice Pick, you know? Okay. So Peter McNeil is like moving on. Ice Pick keeps trying on different personalities and different personas, like young people do, but instead of really exploring who he is, he's just putting on different costumes. He's just appropriating other people's ideas

rather than exploring his own feelings. I want Ice Pick to be Ice Pick, but Ice Pick isn't letting Ice Pick be Ice Pick, Dan. Ice Pick, let Ice Pick be Ice Pick. You know, Dan, back in the day, more than 20 years ago, when I used to write for a website called Television Without Pity, they teased me one time and they said, "'Your problem is you're the nice one.'"

And I was very offended and I said, "'I'm not the nice one.'" But I realized later that in many ways I was the nice one and Dan, you're the nice one. Well, I appreciate that. I think my problem is that I'm mostly the nice one about movies and then in real life, I can be sort of grumpy.

Well, you're like the neighbor at home alone. You're real grumpy and off-putting, but there's a heart of gold in there when a little kid gets through that and connects. You seek the good quality in every movie. It's very endearing. Yeah. Thank you. It's what we should all it. It's very endearing. Yeah. Thank you. It's what we should all,

and even to somebody as terrible as Ice Pick. I'm just saying. Yeah. No, I mean, Ice Pick was kind of irritating. I just didn't like that they were making fun of his clothes. Now the truth comes out. Yeah. So meanwhile, at this daycare research center,

whatever the fuck it is, Peter McNichol is filming the baby's faces and he suspects that Whit is speaking English. He thinks he catches an actual English phrase from the baby's mouth. So he plays back to take- Now, do you think he was speaking English or that he understood what he said in Baby Talk?

I have the same question as Elliot, which is why it must be important. Dan, you're the expert on baby geniuses. Well, I mean. Dan, you wrote the movie. What was the intention in this scene? Based on subsequent scenes, he seems to be the only one who can understand it. So I think that like everyone else is hearing Gibberish and Peter McNichol. As you said, he's like a big baby.

So maybe he retains that connection to baby language because of it. That's my guess is that Peter McNichol, as you said, he's like a big baby, so maybe he retains that connection to baby language because of it. That's my guess is that Peter McNichol is like, this character is going to eventually decode baby language, so I have to play him like an innocent, and he seems like a kid who's pretending to be an adult throughout the entire movie. But Peter McNichol's a good actor. He's been a lot of great stuff.

He's great. So I have to assume there was some kind of reasoning behind those choices. Yes. You know? Okay. We also learned that Witt believes that he is psychically implanting ideas into his father's head, his adoptive father's head, which seems to bear fruit since he gives Peter McNichol the idea to refinance their loans so they can take out an additional wing and get additional

Research babies so they can make more money. I really understand this. The important thing is it gets explained in more than one scene In a in a what 95 minute movie about About talking babies were geniuses We heard about how they needed a loan to invest money because ultimately they would make more money if they had the larger facility. It's good that that stuff's in there, not padding at all. Yeah. So, meanwhile, in the Talk Secret Lab.

The only way that they could have padded it more is if Kim Cattrall was like, well, while you're doing that, I'll just finish this recipe that you can do around the house with just these simple ingredients and then just pulled out a bunch of things and then just cooked on camera

while explaining what she was doing. I mean, there is, I will get to it. She doesn't come get ready with me or something. I'm not gonna skip there because it'll be our little treat at the end of the movie, but there is some aggressive padding at the very end of the movie. And it's weird to me because this movie is like,

I don't know, it's like an hour 50 or something. Like it's not, that last scene of the movie, the stuff that happens at the end would make sense if this movie would just barely squeak to 90 minutes and they're like, we gotta put this in here to pull it out. But otherwise it's inexplicable to me, but we'll get there. And then the movies that I expect to have padding,

there's a movie I saw, I thought there was gonna be a ton of padding in it. It was called Paddington. There was no padding. It was a good movie. Fuck off. The scenes needed to be there, you know? Somebody lock his ass up. I was sitting here waiting for that truck to arrive.

And I was... When the Wells Fargo wagon came and was coming down the street and delivered that to me, I was happy. Okay, guys, so time to get some baby action. Sly escapes his secret lab using a variety of gadgets that he built or scavenged, and then he hides in the laundry, and this is where he uses the catchphrase diaper gravy

to describe the contents of those diapers. And then that phrase is repeated. I'm surprised the talking doll doesn't say diaper gravy. It is repeated like five times within a like two minute period, which I have to assume the filmmakers are like, kids are gonna love this and not stop saying it. So we gotta get on top of this landmine and say it ourselves. It's really gross.

No, it's really gross. Bad phrases. My dog is barking by the way, if you hear him a little bit. Is it the implication that you would eat what's in the diaper? Is that what's so gross about it particularly since it's a gravy? I think it's the implication about the consistency.

Consistency I think. With lumps or without lumps do you think? Okay. I mean it depends on the baby. Linda's so disturbed already just by the words. So Sly is able to escape and then he runs loose on the city streets. This is where we also learn that Sly is able to escape and then he runs loose on the city streets. This is where we also learn that Sly and Witt have some kind of psychic link, not unlike E.T. and Elliot.

That's true. Like all twins, they can send kind of sensations to each other, sensations and concepts, yeah. So then Sly gets picked up by a cartoonish hobo fellow who wants to sell him for a reward. So Sly beats him up and then steals his clothes and cigar. Mm-hmm. And then he sneaks into the perambulator

of a very fancy lady baby where we believe, we are led to believe that they had some kind of romantic twist and end up swapping clothes while they're in the mall. What do you guys think of this? So here's my, if this was a grownup movie and the joke of it was, he's like James Bond, but he's a baby and he's gonna do all,

it's gonna show you how ridiculous a James Bond story is by having a baby do it. He's bedding women, he's having action sequences. The same way, there's a, is it Johnny Ryan who has the character Stud Baby, who's the baby? Probably. The baby who's so hot that women are like, oh, I gotta get that baby.

The, if it was a joke like that, if it was like a taboo breaking joke where it's like, we're gonna show you how dumb this is by having a baby do it. But it's not, this is a children's movie. So the idea that he had like a romantic dalliance for a moment with this, and that, not that it's even, this is a children's movie. So the idea that he had like a romantic dalliance for a moment with this, and that, not that it's even like hinted at, but that she says, when he says, take off your clothes,

that she says, at least buy me dinner first. Like, I don't like any of that. It's so horrible. All of it. It's what, most of the jokes in the movie are lazy, but this one is grotesque. Yeah, exactly. It's, I don't want my baby characters to have sex.

Maybe I'm on a limb here. Maybe me and God are ritual. I don't want my baby characters to have sex. Maybe I'm on a limb here. Maybe me and God Rishul. I don't want my baby characters to have sex with each other. It's very bad. And as you said, you get the take off your clothes and then at the end he's leaving and she's saying, call me, I'm listed. It's like, oh God, are we?

And she doesn't even hold up a toy phone. I mean, come on. She can't be listed. What baby is listed in the phone book? That's crazy. Well, I's... She can't be listed. What baby is listed in the phone book? That's crazy. Well, and I don't think they traded names, so like, how's he even gonna find her? This is also, I think, where you start to get some of the use of movie catchphrases is in sort of this section.

I think you get the Asta Lavista baby somewhere in this section, maybe. Yeah. And when he starts, I'm sure Stuart will get to, when he gets to his changing montage, which is, which to me was the most grotesque. After the implication that these babies made love, the most grotesque moment to me is the, what they do with him in the clothes changing montage.

Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. It looks like my notes have like four paragraphs about how Peter McNichols now planning on taking out a loan to save their business. I guess I can skip that, right? Also, luckily, none of that information plays into the rest of the movie. And it doesn't matter. It's doing some financing paperwork he was going to read.

Just for the texture. It's like a Robert Altman movie. Some of the stuff is just there to build a world. Just like a Robert Altman movie, we then see Sly hiding out in the mall playing Crash Bandicoot. That, okay, I did enjoy seeing Crash Bandicoot. It was for the steward here, yeah. Yeah, that was like, what am I?

Watching someone else play Crash Bandicoot is like that scene in Uncharted 4 where you get to play Crash Bandicoot in Uncharted. It's amazing. Okay, so now this is the most important thing. Watching other people play Crash Bandicoot in Uncharted. It's amazing. Okay, so now this is the most important thing. Watching other people play Crash Bandicoot, yeah. We are at the putting on the Ritz montage where he puts on a bunch of different baby size clothes.

I don't know, was he at a fucking Photoshop? Like what's going on here? He is at a baby gap, I think, right? But that they have like- Baby gaps have tuxedos? That they have tuxedos? That they have disco leisure suits. Like, what is going on in this life?

But the choice to do the, what, the 80s cover of putting on the ritz is a weird one. That's a creepy song. It's very creepy. The fact that they have him dress up as Tony Manero and do the dance from Saturday Night Fever, which is like, who is that for? The kids watching this movie don't know what that is. John Voight. It's all for John Voight. Shouldn't be watching this. It's all for John Voight. It's't know what that is. It's all for John Voight Shouldn't be watching this It's all for John Voight

He goes on for a long time He goes on for a long time I feel like there was nothing it was so grotesque to me that you're like we're gonna use computers to make a baby Do a pop culture reference for adults and I found it was like truly are, you are staining the idea of childhood at this point. Sorry. When you're doing that. Stewart, you just had me imagining, you know, John Voight just like throwing crumpled dollar bills

of like, make the baby dance around some more. I do think we lost something as a culture when they stopped making like new covers of arguably novelty old songs. Like when the They Might Be Giants did Istanbul Was Constantinople. I was just going to say that Istanbul Was Constantinople thing, putting on the ritz. I want to see like how much is that doggy in the window from like a very, very cool current musician. Yeah, why doesn't Lil Nas X do a Jeebus Creepers cover?

I could not think of one. Yeah. Yeah, Lil Nas X doing Jeebus Creepers. Who's cool? Who's cool these days? I don't know, what are the kids listening to? We haven't had a cover of Tiptoe Through the Tulips in decades. Why isn't Billie Eilish doing that?

Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. That was charted, that taco version of putting on the ritz, like that was a hit. That was a hit. Yeah, in spite of the major handicap of being irritating, it was huge. It was true.

And you guys know we were like, time-wise, we were so close to one of those outfits being fucking Austin Powers, right? Well, he does an Austin Powers line. He does an Austin Powers line. He does an Austin Powers? Yeah, he says, oh, he does an Austin Powers line. He does an Austin Powers line. He does an Austin Powers line. He does an Austin Powers? Yeah, he says, oh, behave.

I blanked it out. And I'm like, movie, go take yourself straight to hell, movie, like don't do that. Uh-huh, I had the same reaction. I had the same reaction. Just like, straight to hell with the babies. Okay, so let's see. Kim Cattrall takes Whit to the mall.

Oh wow, that rhymed. Of course, Sly spots them, and then they all get spotted by undercover goons. This mall is more goons than shoppers. Whit gets snatched up by the goons. Sly gets picked up by Kim Katral, who's a little confused that he's not wearing overalls, but she's like it's still a baby She's like mommy brain you're wearing a different outfit than the one I put you in this morning, you know, yeah

Whit doesn't adapt well to imprisonment as you would imagine this was no actually I've said a bunch of times This is where the movie I wanted to go to this where Whit is just crying like because and I was like yeah this is scary like he's been taken to a secret lab a secret Akira kids lab by like yeah and like this nut there's nothing fun or exciting or adventurous about this to me like it's just you want you want baby geniuses to just be all little animals from Guardians of the Galaxy montage right?

Oh nothing but animals being sad in cages and wondering to just be all little animals from Guardians of the Galaxy montage, right? Like, you want it to only be sad. Nothing but animals being sad in cages and wondering when they're gonna die and stuff like that. You want the, you want like the Werner Herzog baby geniuses. Yeah. Werner Herzog's baby geniuses. To be honest, go in that direction then, at least. Because then I can make it so dark that I'm like, oh, I guess it's, there's some kind of sick joke to it, you know? Although if Werner Herzog was playing the Christopher Lloyd character, that would have been fantastic. If he was the doctor who was like yelling at babies and things like that,

that'd be pretty fun. In these babies, I see no joy, no humanity. Just imagining Kathleen Turner and Werner Herzog's voices in the same scene is so perfect. I will say, if you have never heard, there's an old episode of our podcast where Glenn Weldon, who has done this show with you guys, did a supposed like, what if Werner Herzog made a romantic comedy? And it's extremely funny and it devolves into a whole bunch of Glenn, German Glenn voice. And it's very good. If you like a Werner Herzog voice, which I do, and he talks about, it's very good, very, very good.

I never missed a chance to plug my pals. Yeah. Stuart, how's your bicep circumference compared to Glenn's these days, would you say? I don't think it's as good. I mean, he's a beefcake, man. He's a big guy. Yeah, he doesn't post as many thirst traps as I do though,

unless he's posting them on a burner account. Yeah. I think he tries not to, you know? But there was a poster on your Facebook page, the Facebook page for this show, who said that when you said that I was gonna come on and do this, they said, I am almost as excited about this as I was

when it was Glenn Weldon. And I was like, you know what? Appropriate and fair. I was like, that's appropriate, that's correct. That's correct. I got it. That's the social etiquette level of a lot of our fans is they are enthusiastic but not always tactful.

I got it. I read it and I was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, agree. Reasonable, yep. Well, I think I speak for Dan Elliott when we're saying we're even more excited. Glenn is super strong, but you're the best. Take that. Thank goodness.

Take that, Glenn, the feud begins now. Oh no. Let's see. Almost immediately, Dr. Kinder realizes that the switch was on, that Sly and Whit have been swapped somehow, that her goons are all idiots. They also find out that when a baby hits two years old, then their limbic activity slows down

and they become dumb, normal kids again. This is a pretty common trope where it's like all of a sudden they lose the wonder of being a child or like how in Lock and Key you stop paying attention to the magic of the keys or some shit or flowers for Algernon. It all makes sense, but this is very specific. It's like a two year mark and one baby hits it

and all the other babies are like, oh, you're not gonna remember us. And it could have been sad, but it wasn't because it's this movie. Because it's dumb. They call it crossing over and it starts with a tummy ache. And then it quickly becomes them not understanding baby language anymore.

Yeah, it's a lot like ginger snaps, I think. Yeah, it's just like ginger snaps. Also started with a tummy ache. Okay, so Dr. Kinder goes to visit her, what's her relationship with Kim Katral? Are they like cousins? Dr. Kinder says she's Kim Katral's aunt. Aunt, okay.

Oh, is that what it is? Like I thought, and admittedly, part of this understanding comes from reading the Wikipedia, it's trying to clear things up. Yeah, it's a pretty complicated plot. At one point. Yeah, it's a pretty complicated plot. At one point- The exhaustive Wikipedia tree. Yeah, I thought there were sisters

because they find out that Kim Katral is adopted or something at the end and- Throughout the movie, they say that she's her aunt. Okay. Then at the very end of the movie, Kim Katral says, I'm not really your aunt, you were adopted when you were two. And Kim Cattrall is very happy about this and apparently not thrown at all

because it means she's not related to Kathleen Turner. You can punch her freely. Okay, I guess I assumed a more sort of close relationship because as- Some people are very close to their aunts. I guess I assumed a more sort of close relationship because as you know. Some people are very close to their aunts. I know, I know, I know. But culturally, like sort of in my Midwestern family, like my aunts are like, yeah, I'll see them occasionally,

I guess, you know, at the holiday. I mean, and sure also the fact that Kim Cattrall is two years younger than Kathleen Turner. But in this movie there, there is a larger age gap, I assume, between the characters. Anyway. Yeah, but maybe Kim controls mom, but it doesn't matter.

So Dr. Kinder goes to visit. She's holding down a family tree. I mean, it's true. My grandmother, she had an aunt who is not that much older than her because she had a lot of aunts. There was a big gap between her mother who was the eldest and her aunt who was the youngest.

So I could see, yeah, that could happen, I guess. It's amazing they called the Kathleen Turner character Dr. Kinder. It's like somebody was standing off screen going, try less, try less. Yeah, yeah. It was the laziest moment. It's a lazy moment in a film filled with them. They were like, first draft ago now Kathleen Turner's character. Dr. Mean lady. Can we

Name a little too on the nose Mean man, cruel some Okay With this character villain ex-badman, can we change the name to something a little bit less on the nose? Okay, so I was playing him. Oh, you're right. You're right. He can sometimes be a nice guy That's true. He's heroic in some movies like strange brew So she's trying to steal sly back, but it doesn't seem to work out she doesn't try that hard Sly can apparently still communicate a little bit with Peter McNichol,

but it's also, you know, it's garbled. Goons show up to try and capture Sly, including who's that actor? So these are both well-known. So this is Sam McMurray is one of them from Raising Arizona, from Refreeze Leaks. The other one is Jim Hanks, Tom Hanks' brother, who will sometimes do voice work or stand-in work for Tom Hanks. So these are, this is Hollywood royalty. brother who will sometimes do voice work or stand in work for Tom Hanks. So these are, this is Hollywood royalty.

I was legitimately standing there looking at that guy going, he really reminds me of Tom Hanks, but I know that's not Tom Hanks. And I thought, does Tom Hanks have a brother? And I looked him up and I was like, ah, yes. He does. Dan, you would probably know him best for starring in the movie, Buford's Beach Bunnies. Yeah. I was going to ask if he was the same one.

The same one. So the goons show up to try and capture Sly, but of course he takes the high ground and he tricks both of them into getting whacked in the balls. In an ideal sequence, identical sequences. Identical sequences. Right after each other. This is the one part of the movie that I found genuinely not exactly funny, but the fact that so Sam Mcmurray was like, let me guess, you want me to stand here and you're going to jump on that.

It's going to hit me in the crop in the gonads and I'm going to make a funny face and fall down the stairs. Well, it's not going to happen in slight tricks them into doing it in a way that's not funny. But then that Jim Hanks comes up and has the same exact conversation with the same exact outcome. I was like, you know what, baby geniuses, this is kind of a funny bit. I agree Elliot. I was like, you know what, baby geniuses, this is kind of a funny bit. I agree, Elliot.

I was like, did someone slightly funnier come in and righteous this scene? And the thing that really helped that scene for me is when it happens to Jim McMurray, and he gets whacked in the balls, sorry, Sam, when he falls down the stairs, it is clearly the most fakest looking stuntman swap. It's like he does not have the same hair.

It's like, it's very silly. And it's really, it's like the icing on that cake. So they immediately, they're like, okay, we can't- The stunt matchups in this movie are not done with a lot of exacting care, let's just say. Not like Garbage Pail Kids, the movie, for instance. So at this point, Kathleen Turner is immediately like, okay, we gotta dismantle the lab, burn everything.

We're all going to prison. And I was like, for what? Yeah, yeah, they're not gonna put a baby on the stand. Like, he's a pretty smart baby, a genius even, but I don't think they're gonna put him on the stand. Can you read back what the witness just said? Goo goo, ga ga. I rest my case.

Strike that from the record. Okay, so the babies decide to help each other. We have some training montages right where the babies are training. My notes start to break down here. I was a couple of drinks. As they should. So there's a little bit of a training montage.

There's a scene where the babies are in a truck going to save the other babies, right? And they're like singing like military pep songs. And here's where they line like, I don't know what I've been told, Eskimo girls are mighty cold, and I'm like, what the fuck? Multiple problems with that.

Is Dom Deluise hypnotized by this point? I think so. Because he's driving the bus? Yeah, by the time he's driving the bus, they've hypnotized him, yeah. Yeah, I forgot, he's driving the bus, they've hypnotized him. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot.

Wit has the ability or I guess Sly has the ability to hypnotize people also. And send them into the cornfield. Yeah, sure. That was a good thing you did Sly. No, no, it was good that you made all those pop culture references. No, no, it doesn't instantly date the movie Sly. Those were good. Those were good at Sly.

Yeah. Peter McNichol and Kim Cattrall are confused by why babies are running all over the place. Oh no, it doesn't instantly date the movie Sly. Those were good, those were good at Sly, yeah. Peter McNichol and Kim Cattrall are confused by why babies are running all over the place. Their daughter explains the whole situation. They're understandably getting calls from parents saying why are my babies not at home? Where are they? Yeah.

There's a big showdown at the theme park. There's one line, there's another line coming up. So Peter McNichol, he calls 911. They don't believe him because his story is so crazy. I don't like that part. But then Kim Cattrall calls 911 and goes, you know, baby co, we put a bomb there. And I was like, you want cops there?

You got cops there. And I was like, that was a funny way for them to deal with that too. That's co-MVP Kim Cattrall for you. I think kind of like, you know, somebody good enough, they can put it over. Yes, yeah. Yeah, but I agree with you Stuart, this mayhem at the end, like my brain like,

it's incomprehensible. Like I texted you something similar where I'm like, as I get older, like comedy comedy, just general comedy mayhem, unless it's really funny gags, which this is not, just bores me. I'm like, can we wrap it up, guys? Like, not have robots kick someone in the butt? I mean, that sounds pretty funny,

actually, now that I'm saying it. No, but it doesn't. It's not funny when you see it in the movie. If the highest you're hoping to achieve is like a mild chuckle from your bits, maybe don't put it in the movie. It's also one of those, this is one of those movies where, and I feel like Argyle, which we watched recently,

had the same problem where the main character, the hero of the movie, is so incredibly uber competent that no one can stand in their way. And so by the end of this movie, it's just Sly in a control room, sending out the robots to beat up the adults while he makes... He makes wisecracks and has the same annoying kid laugh over and over again at everything that happens. And it's like, you know what, Sly, I'm not on your side at this point.

Like, you're just torturing. I know that you were basically kidnapped and raised to be a sort of child experiment, but at this point, I want you to be challenged in some way or else you're not the hero of the movie anymore. Sly is just like Argyle. Not to be overly philosophical about action comedies, but I just recently saw The Fall Guy, which I loved. I heard it's really good.

Yeah, which I loved it so much. I was such a sucker for that movie. And one of the reasons why I love it is that because it's about this stunt man and because I think they wanted to be true to admiration for stunt people, every time that Ryan Gosling is doing something that looks like it would really hurt in this movie,

it looks like it really hurts. And he lands and he'll immediately be like, ugh. Like you can tell he can only do so much of this. And that's part of one of the things the movie turned out to be about. And those kinds of things where you actually have, a person who has some vulnerabilities, I think it really helps put an action sequence over,

even in an action comedy. Yeah, my favorite moment in any Mission Impossible movie is when Tom Cruise is climbing the Burj Khalifa and he has to slide into that window and he hits his head on it. And I know that he didn't really get hurt, but that Ethan Hunt is like, ow, like he didn't do it right and he gets hurt, I love it.

I mean, I saw somebody point out, the best part of the Mission Impossible movies is the look on Ethan Hunt's face when he realizes, oh shit, how am I gonna get out of this? Yeah, yeah. The way Tom Cruise does sell that, and that's part of what Ryan Gosling does so well in Fall Guy is the, he sells the vulnerability of that character

and he sells the like, the pain that he's going through so well. And we mentioned a lot, but for me, like, it's going back a while, but the gold standard is like Indiana Jones where like, but he, there's like a whole scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where the movie pauses for him to be grumpy about how every part of him hurts. Like, and I love that. I love that the movie acknowleduses for him to be grumpy about how every part of them hurts.

Like, and I love that. I love that the movie acknowledges, like this is just a guy who like is really good at it, but is really lucky and like is in pain. That Indiana Jones in the best of those movies, he looks genuinely worried and unhappy in the he's running from that giant boulder and stuff. He's not like, uh-oh, guess we're having a ball.

He's like, Oh, I like to punch up for Rays and Laws. Sorry. How, how, how much did the, uh, when, um, the spikes come out after, um, why am I forgetting his name? Dr. Octopus after he betrays him. He's not like spikes to see you. Now I see you got the point. Like instead he's just like, oh, okay. I'll just take this thing and get out of here.

Dan, how much did the sequence where Innea Jones uses his injuries and his general grumpiness to seduce somebody, how much did that inform your own love style? I mean, it's Karen Allen. So I have to imagine that I was like, okay, if this is the way, if this is how you do it. This is why you're standing outside of Karen Allen's house with a boombox just playing

you going, ow, ow. I'm sending her my doctor's reports about, you know, my early onset arthritis. Guys, so the bad guys lose, the good guys win. Oh, okay. There's a montage of babies. Appropriately, appropriately. Yeah, let's talk about this montage, because like, in the movie wraps up,

you know, yada yada, the babies, you know, lose their magical stuff. The babies win. But do they in the end? Nobody wins, death comes for us all eventually. Yeah. It's true. But to me, there was this baffling montage set to a country ballad.

About how babies are gifts from God. It's a Randy Travis song. We haven't even talked about the fact that one of the guards who is running the robots in the theme park is Randy Travis. And so that's Randy Travis. And then you get a Randy Travis song at the end, which I guess is all part of the same, maybe they made a deal with the record company

or somebody knows Randy Travis's manager or whatever. But yeah, so that's a Randy Travis song at the end, but perhaps sung in the story by one of the guards, who knows? I have to say, this would make sense to me if like over the credits, they had scenes from the production of Baby Geniuses, just showing the kids running around being kids, and then you've got the sentimental song about kids.

What it is instead is like within the diegetic world of the film, we just get like various small flashbacks to the kids doing stuff we saw in the movie already while the song plays, and I'm like, what is going on? Why is he not cut this? It's just the movie going, wasn't this a good movie? It wasn't this a good movie.

Remember all the characters you fell in love with and the moments you'll remember forever and the ride we've been on? Remember this thing that happened eight minutes ago? This song that should be playing over the closing credits, why not just remember some of these special times with our new friends, the baby geniuses? Yeah, I imagine on set a PA came running up to Bob Clark

and John Voighton was like, guys, guys, guys, get this. Randy Travis loves babies. You're like, oh, let's get them in the movie. I've been looking for a way to do a project with babies at some point. I thought you were going to say somebody ran up and said, I've been looking for a way to do a project with babies I thought you were gonna say somebody ran up and said guys we're short. We're short Always a montage that's a good way and so and this you guys I mean you got Elliott you're a school of

music You know you pay attention to the pop music. This song was a huge hit, right? It was a Grammy winner. So this was a Grammy, it won for best original song, best original album, best album, best spoken word, which is strange. It was number one on the pop charts, number one on the country charts, and number one on the jazz adult easy listening charts,

as well as number one on the hip hop R&B charts, which is not even one of those. A quad, it took the world by storm. I think right that the war in Kosovo ended when they played this song and everyone said yeah we all were babies once they hugged each other. It was just this song brought that world together. We have Randy Travis and Baby Geniuses to thank for that. Unfortunately we've since forgotten that because we all crossed over. When the year 1999 turned to the year 2000, we all crossed over and forgot our knowledge of the 20th century. And so once again, we live in a fallen world that the magic of Randy Travis

no longer holds together. Yeah. I think that's the song I think that's the song where they abolished the baby, the baby music chart, right? It's never gonna sell this well again. Yeah, there's no point in having it probably is still number one on the baby music chart, right? Nothing's ever going to sell this well again. Yeah. So there's no point in having it. It probably is still number one on the baby music chart to this day. That was number one.

Number two was that, I Am Un Bebe, that French song that was a big novel to him. Oh yeah, the Jordy song. Jordy, yeah. Baby Shark. Yeah, baby shark. You know, Randy Travis is listening to Baby Shark and he's like, the baby music these days, it's not what's it really about, there's no message.

It's just ear candy. And then after that there's Baby I Love You, which is not actually a baby song, it just has baby in it, but they're running low that year. Again, it wasn't about a baby Santa Claus, that would be adorable. Santa Baby's not appropriate. Yeah.

No. Although I feel like the makers of this movie would have been like, yeah, I mean, there's Santa in the movie and there's babies and there's mention of a robot Santa. And you know, we've been playing it pretty fast and loose with how sexualized these babies can be. Yeah.

Yeah, I do want to point out one thing, that one detail that we missed, which was the robot clown that is holding a sort of cross with chattering teeth all along the crossbar, and he kind of, he frightens the security goons at the end with it. What was the thinking behind that, do you think? Children are gonna enjoy that?

Yeah, yeah, they're like, hey, we're testing out a new chainsaw man character. I gotta say, in another movie that is not Baby Geniuses, I think I would like that very much. Okay, okay, fair. Before we close the book on Baby Geniuses, I also wanna say after the montage, of course, the main baby is wandering around muttering to himself

that if they want him in the sequel, they have to pay him $20 million, and then the end is stamped on his diaper butt. So. Yeah, where the gravy is hidden. Yeah. With a laugh. Or as we call it, the gravy boat.

Yeah, we call it the gravy boat. Yeah, that's the little baby. And so do you think you both had $20 million for Super Babies, Geniuses, Babies 2? Is he in it? He aged out of the franchise and has maybe possibly some, you know, emotional problems from being in Baby Geniuses when he was too young to process it. I guess considering Superbabies came out five years later,

so yeah, probably all those babies were too old. It features a cousin of Sly and Wit. Ah, okay. Oh, thank God. Annuity is preserved. Let's give our final judgments, whether this is a good bad move. Wait, there's a baby with super strength in it?

Sorry, I'm just reading the plots right now. Well, Elliot, Sly can karate chop adults, so his super strength, his strength is pretty super. Yeah, that's true, but these ones, they're like super babies with super powers. One of them is called Bouncing Boy. That's a real superhero. That's a Legion of Superheroes character.

Anyway, Dan, what are we talking about? No, if you're this trans face with super babies baby geniuses, too We could try and figure out some way Getting it to it down the line. Maybe on flop TV. Who knows? I'm looking at the cast right now John Voight appears finally Scott Baio Vanessa Angel TV's Lisa from TV's Weird Science Which other people? Which other people? Whoopi Goldberg as herself? What?

Snap-plotting, I think. Yeah. Very important to young Stewart, I assume. Let's go to final judgments. Dan Oetown appears as themselves. Okay, let's talk about final judgments. Okay, whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie, or a movie we kind of like,

I will, I do not be roundly laughed at. I will clarify upfront, this is a bad, bad movie. Absolutely, absolutely a bad, bad movie. Do not watch Baby Geniuses. But. But. On the weird curve that we have built for ourselves within the flop house, whilst I did not like this movie,

I had a better experience watching it than a lot of the bad movies, just by virtue of it being like, oh, this is a type of thing we don't get anymore. This sort of like super shitty family comedy. The landscape of what movies are have changed so much that so many of the bad movies we watch just file into this sort of boring slop in my brain.

So I'm like, oh, this is a throwback. This is a nostalgic throwback to the era when a wonderful cast such as this one was forced to exist in this schlock. So bad, bad, but kind of an interesting experience is what I'm saying. Stuart, why don't you go, you're smirking at me. Yeah, no, Dan's right, it's bad, bad.

Yeah, it's just, it's not weird enough to be interesting and to overcome the general unpleasantness of it, I would say. So I would say bad, bad, avoid. I'm going to second, Stuart, and third, the part of Dan's that was about how bad it is. It's very bad, bad. It's not fun. It's just, I think it's, yeah, I think it's not, it's not worth watching.

There's so many other things you can have fun with. Why are you spending time with this? This is one of those movies. Luckily, this movie, my experience of it went back and forth between being disgusted and not really being able to pay too much attention because as Dan said, there's a lot of hijinks that kind of slide right off your brain.

But yeah, I would say don't watch it. Linda proved me wrong. Oh, I can't, no. I think it is very much a bad, bad movie. And I, Dan knows this, but I fell asleep the first time I tried to watch this movie. I feel I'm so weirded out by the way that like every line in this movie sounds like ADR to me. Yeah. Yeah. There's something very strange about how they just, some of the basic execution is incompetent.

We didn't really talk about it, but that opening sequence where Sly is trying to escape the first time has this really ugly, weird aesthetic with these extreme closeups. To me it was- Like a little fish eye, right? Like a little fish eye. I'm not even sure if it was fish eye. I mean, it's not as distorted as I associate with fish eye, but it was like the same, like it's at your nose. But it had that feel of like fading

regional department store Halloween sale kind of thing, ad for. So to me, it's just not competent enough to be a good bad movie. It's very bad, it's very boring. Yes, as I said, I appreciate, I think Dan has a spirit of kindness, but I cannot share it. Fair. Fair. Sound Heap with John Luke Roberts is a real podcast made up of fake podcasts. Like, if you had a cupboard in your lower back, what would you keep in it?

So I'm going to say mugs. A little yogurt and a spoon. A small handkerchief that was given to me by my grandmother on her deathbed. Maybe some spare honey. I'd keep batteries in it. I'd pretend to be a toy. If I had a cupboard in my lower back, I'd probably fill it with spines.

If you had a cupboard in your lower back, what would you keep in it? Doesn't exist. We made it up for Sound Heap with John Luke Roberts, an award-winning comedy podcast from Maximum Fun made up of hundreds of stupid podcasts. Listen and subscribe to Sound Heap with John Luke Roberts. Now.

Oh my gosh, hi, it's me, Dave Holmes, host of the pop culture game show Troubled Waters. On Troubled Waters, we play a whole host of games, like one where I describe a show using a limerick that our guests have to figure out what it is. Let's do one right now. What show am I talking about? This podcast has game after game and brilliant guests who come play you. The host is named Dave. It

could be your fave. So try it. Life won't be the same. A big business starring Bette Midler and Lily Tomlin. Close, but no. Oh, is it Troubled Waters, the pop culture quiz show with all your favorite comedians? Yes, Troubled Waters is the answer to this question and all of my life's problems now legally We actually can't guarantee that but you can find it on maximum fun org or wherever you get your podcasts Hey there listeners, it's me Dan McCoy coming at you solo for a few Advertisements and if anyone has listened to me talking solo, you know how weird it can eventually get so Let's see what let's take this trip together

Well, we hope that the sponsors like it and one sponsor we have is That old favorite Squarespace, which is the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. If you want a beautiful website, whether you're just starting out or whether you have a brand that you're growing, this is a great way to make a website.

You can engage with your audience, sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place. You know, they've got Squarespace Blueprint. from products to content to time, all in one place. You know, they've got Squarespace Blueprint. Oh, I'm tripping over words already. See, this is how it goes, which will help you start a completely personalized website via its guided design system. You can choose from professionally curated styling options

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You provide the good and or service and you expect payment, damn it. Well, with Squarespace, you can get that payment via PayPal, Apple Pay, and in eligible countries, you can get the option to buy now and pay later with Afterpay and Clearpay. You can sell your products and services with an online store, whether it's digital content

or physical goods or services, Squarespace can help you out with the tools you need to start selling online, so why not go to Squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you are ready to launch go to squarespace.com slash flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. We also have a Jumbotron. This is for Maya from Dad and Mom. Maya, congratulations on your amazing performance and Mamma Mia, we were so proud of all the hard work

you put into a spectacular performance and can't wait to see what next year brings. Love you, Mom and Dad. I love this Jumbotron as a former theater kid. I love it and I just, you know, what a supportive thing to do to buy a Jumbotron on our dumb show. Maya, I didn't see you obviously in Mamma Mia, but I also congratulate you on a great performance.

And hey, we don't do only plugs for other things. No, we plug ourselves sometimes. We plug ourselves good. Anyway, that's gross. If you are listening to this before May 19th, and I think you are, I mean, maybe you aren't, I don't know, why did I say that?

Before May 19th, 2024, you can still get tickets to the virtual event, The Flophouse Sinks Speed 2. The video on demand is still available until midnight on May 19th. And so if you want to get tickets for that, you can go to stagepilot.com slash speed. Also, we are coming to Oxford, England on the 24th of May

for two shows at Oxford Town Hall. There is an early show that is at 7 p.m. and we'll be talking about The Avengers. That's the Uma Thurman refines version of the British television show, The Avengers, not the big Marvel one. And of course, we're in England, so we're gonna do Spice World at 9 p.m.

Of course, the great classic of British cinema, towering above them all, there is one crown jewel and that is Spice World. So if you wanna see those again, they're on May 24th, 2024 at Oxford Town Hall in Oxford, England. There's a 7pm show and there's a nine show. And also we will be live in Boston in July on the 26 Boston in July,

on the 26th of July, in fact, at 7 p.m. at WBUR City Space. Tickets are available the easiest way. Go to flophousepodcast.com slash events. There's listings for all these shows I'm mentioning. We don't know what we'll be talking about in Boston this time around, but we do know that we had a great time at WBUR City Space in the past, and we anticipate having a great time again in the future. We would love to see you there.

And now, hey, why don't I get back to that show? ["The Big Bang"] And now, hey, why don't I get back to that show? Let's take some letters from listeners, listeners like you provided that you are a letter writing listener. And this is from Kevin, last name being held very close to the vest. Oh no, someone bumped into me and I'm bobbling it. I got it, no, don't got it.

And now it's spilled everywhere. So thank you for the short story and your last name, Kevin. I couldn't tell if that was you reading or you narrating what was happening to you. No, this is in the email. Kevin writes, dear floppers, I have four kids. Yes, it's a lot. And while I was putting my two-year-old to bed,

I heard my nine-year-old telling me, telling one of his little brothers, "'Dude, you need to read Horse Meets Dog. "'It's so funny.'" All my kids love the illustrations, which have some good visual gags. So a little compliment for you, Elliot, at the top of this email.

Yay, thank you, very nice. I'm glad they enjoy it. He continues. The rest of the letter is a drag on Elio. And then it's like Sharko and Hippo on the other hand, fails to reach the heights of... A sophomore slump we call it here in this household. A horse meets dog has been newly rediscovered in my household and I find it very gratifying when my son, he laughs whenever the horse goes woo hoo oats and he thinks that's the

funniest line that was ever written. And he's right, can't argue with him. Yeah. Okay, well, he continues, Kevin continues. We also recently rewatched, pardon me, Wall-E as a family, which is, sorry, as a family, comma, which is full of great physical comedy. So my question is this,

in the era of say, Feral McKay-esque comedy, which prioritizes silly improvised dialogue, what are some recent-ish films or TV shows that you thought did a great job of using visual gags or physical comedy to get a laugh? to get a laugh. It's not that recent overall, but I think all of like. But when Dick Van Dyke would trip over the Ottoman.

Yeah. No, you know, like, is it every frame of painting that did this? Like someone who does video essays did one on Edgar Wright's like shooting of things. And it's not so much necessarily like that the like, I mean, there are a lot of great slaps at gags, but like the talk about it was like also how beautifully

they were shot to like maximize the comedy of it, which I think is a big problem with a lot of gags. If they are done at all, physical gags these days, I feel like they're done in the flattest way possible. Like they do, they go to the trouble of figuring out what a physical joke might be, but then not how to present it in a way that would maximize the comedy.

And I think Edgar Wright's very good at that. Also, I have not seen it yet, but I'm very excited that I just earlier today bought a ticket to a screening in the one theater that's playing it around here of Hundreds of Beavers, which I hear is very funny. All a lot of physical gags, so I have high hopes. What do you guys think?

There's none specific gags that come immediately to mind, but I was a big fan of the recent show Losa Spookies and There were a lot of funny verbal gags but there also were a lot of funny visuals and it wasn't always like wasn't slapstick necessarily but like things that looked funny or like characters that were designed in a funny way or were kind of Positioned in a funny way. It's like the visual of the show very much was a part of the joke, which I agree, Dan, often it is, especially because so much of comedy seems to come from that improv world that like, there's this sense of like,

it doesn't matter what it looks like and you can't plan for it necessarily because it's just riffing. Let's just get riffs. And I've never been a huge fan of Riff based movie comedy. Or podcasts. Hold on, well I don't know. There's some fun stuff there. But it does make it harder to, on the other hand you don't want to go the other way where

you're so tied to a very elaborate visual joke that it feels, what's the word, that it feels like either forced or, you know, I'm not a huge fan of the movie Caddyshack, but there are funny things in that movie. But the least funny part of that movie is that huge scene where boats are crashing into each other and it's all the broadest physical smashups. It's like, oh boy, what is,

they must've spent more money on this than the rest of the movie combined and it's so unfunny. I mean, yeah, well, that's the weird, like there's this illusion among Hollywood, I mean, yeah, well, that's the weird, there's this illusion among Hollywood, I think, that crashes are inherently funny. There's not really jokes in that scene. Yeah, that is called John Landis.

That was the, and then he had that one crash that was very much not funny. Well, that's not so touching. He's like, let's have a huge car crash. That'll be hilarious. I was going to bring up Blues Brothers to say,, like that's the one case where I'm like, well, these car crashes aren't funny, but I do find these chase scenes exciting.

Like they're well done on a technical level on that end. So at least that's okay. I guess if I'm not expected to laugh, I'll enjoy them. You're like, as long as I'm not expected to laugh at this comedy scene, then it's all right, you know? Yeah. I think the most recent Mission Impossible, a couple of the action sequences are really funny in a way that they don't necessarily play it entirely overtly for jokes. But I think the Haley Atwell driving scene is very funny.

And that train scene at the end is very funny. I kept sort of as that was, I remember being in the theater for that train sequence and as you could kind of see what the next thing was that was going to happen, like they're in the kitchen, so it's going to be oil all over the ground. I would just go, yup. And that's very funny to me. The other thing I would mention, which is the like commercially speaking, pretty close to the opposite of a Mission Impossible movie is the recent, the recent movie, Lisa Frankenstein, which nobody liked except me, but I kind of dug it. It was written by Diablo Cody, who I run hot and cold on, as I think a lot of people do, but I really liked it and the

main characters is a teenager in the 80s who reanimates the corpse of this guy who becomes like her boyfriend and he's still basically dead. And the kid is played by Cole Sprouse, who was one of the Zack and Cody Sprouses. And I think he's actually great in it. I think he gets in a lot of really like funny kind of, cause he doesn't talk pretty much through the whole movie cause he's just, cause he's dead.

And so everything has to be done with like face and body. And I actually think he's very funny. And I was really surprised that nobody liked that movie except me, because I kind of dug it, but even like on my own team, nobody liked it. But I liked it. I thought it was sweet. Yeah, I know Stuart liked it for a fact

because he recommended it. And we watched it and I like and I didn't love it, but I did like it, I did enjoy it more than the general. I don't know how I missed that because normally I would. I feel like those two leads are so fun that it's hard not to at least like it a little bit. Yeah.

You made me realize Stewart's not going to like this, but I find that in a number of Your Ghost Land the Most movies, he has funny physical stuff, Stuart hates it. But before Poor Things becomes mainly a sex movie, when Emma Stone is being a baby, a lot of that stuff is really funny. And there are parts of Killing of a Sacred Deer that are so off-puttingly funny to me in a way. Like there's a part where Colin Farrell-

You get a sicko, he's a part where Colin Farrell- You get a sicko, he's gonna give you sicko stuff. When their son is essentially paralyzed from the waist down and they think it's psychosomatic and they're like picking him up and trying to force him to walk in a hallway and he just falls down in the hallway of the hospital, it's like a very, like it's a horrifying moment.

It's also like a very funny physical comedy bit when someone just falls down. Yeah. Linda, sorry, I know that Stewart hasn't gone, but before, just saying Mission Impossible made me remember on the action side, the end of the most recent John Wick, that stairway sequence in particular

is just classic physical comedy in addition to being thrilling as an action sequence. And his, we're talking about like getting beat up, his like growing frustration every time he has to start from square one is very funny in that. Yeah. And the, I think the John Wick movies in general, you know, when you're talking about the stuff like fighting with the horse and, which is the previous one, but like the fighting with the horse or fighting with like the slamming the book on the guy in the library. And even I know you guys did the recent Roadhouse.

I think the first time that Jake Gyllenhaal confronts the group of Tufts. And I think that's pretty fun. I think the physicality of that is pretty funny. And I think in any good, in any kind of action movie that I'm going to like, there is an element of slapstick to the action. So it's common to see it come out in stuff like, in the Fall Guys the same way.

That makes sense. I mean, there's an argument to be made that Buster Keaton is the greatest action filmmaker of all time. Sure. With the stuff he was doing. Absolutely. Stewart, sorry. I'm not gonna recommend an action comedy or a recent thing, but my wife has been doing a friends rewatch

and one of the things, I feel like the whole cast is very good. Just watching her friends do binoculars or post-ops. And, should I acknowledge Elliot's bit? No, don't, just keep going. Don't worry about it. You know, I'm bringing this up, of course, to tie in with Cole Sprouse.

But one of the things that, I mean, all six of the Friends are such good performers and their physicality is really impressive. And, you know, obviously it's a comedy, so not all the jokes work and yada, yada, yada, but- That's a sign for a thing, not a French thing. Yeah, but they're definitely like, watching it, I'm like, oh yeah,

I get why this was a huge hit. Everybody is so good. Yeah. So moving on to our second and final letter, this is from Zach, Lasting Withheld. Zach Breff, what about me? I do physical comedy. I was in a podcast related TV show.

Your discussion. And a TV show related podcast. Your discussion of the happy-go-lucky, violence and argyle made me think back to the disturbing ending of the first Kingsman movie. Though it's never represented on screen, it is implied that millions of parents across the globe have just come to their senses and discovered they have bludgeoned their children to death.

Clearly knowing that something like this must have occurred. What a family-friendly entertainment. I mean, I don't think it's not family-friendly. I don't even remember this, but I'm gonna take the letter writer's word for it. Clearly knowing that something like this must have occurred, Taryn Edgerton proceeds to smile and slip away to have anal sex with a princess.

And the film seems to end on a mirthful note. My question, what's another movie where the writing and its treatment of violence seems terribly tonally off, i.e. something very bad is taking place off screen, but something that characters know has happened and everyone including the movie's tone itself stays cheery or even comical. Keep on flopping.

I don't think we have to stick to that particular scenario. It's just an example, but. No, but I've talked to before, especially in the quantumania episode, but I talked about that moment at the end of quantumania where Modok literally dies to save the other characters and they joke about it and they're like, this is a weird day, huh?

And it rubbed me, I think about it every now and then, just how much it rubbed me the wrong way. I cannot exist in the world of this movie if the characters cannot even react with the slightest bit of gravity to someone they know dying right in front of them. Like, come on, come on guys, what are you doing? Even if it's a comedy.

Yeah, I would say most, I mean, my answer to this would be most of the time, it's tonally off to me. For example, there is, I know you guys did Olympus Has Fallen at some point, and that movie opens with this like sequence in which just hundreds of people get machine gunned, just hundreds of people get machine gunned, just hundreds of people. And so by the end to me, when you're dealing with the like, the sort of triumphant, we beat the bad guy,

it's like, well, yeah, but you're gonna be thinking about nothing but funerals for the next six months to a year, right? And you're gonna have to bring in like 25 trucks to carry out all the guys who got machine gunned in the first part. And I think it even, even in like, look, I can, I can even in a movie like speed, I think the fact that like you see the end of that movie and they're kind of like, they're kind

of snuggling and they're kind of kissing and it's kind of funny. Like his best friend just died. Like if you scratch the surface of almost any action comedy or triumphant action movie, you will get to the end and be like, okay, you won, however. And it will be, you know, if you count the dead, it gets pretty incredible, which actually is one of the things that I like about the Avengers, is that at the end of that movie, they are very devastated by what has happened, and it carries over to the, you know, as odd as it is to sort of defend that franchise,

it carries over to the future movies that everybody's very traumatized by all of this. It also made the public conclude that maybe you're the bad guys. And I did like the fact that it had consequences despite the other things that kind of are going on in that franchise as it progressed. Yeah, you know what? Like that makes me think about, you know, at the same time that was out or coming out,

like just earlier, like, I think was that just after Man of Steel where it was like there's all of this generalized destruction and no one seems to care. And I feel like a lot of the stuff in the Avengers, I'm sure they have it all widely planned out knowing what happened afterwards. But also it feels like a reaction to that

where there's a lot of stuff about like, hey, save the civilians. Like this is what heroes are supposed to be doing in these kinds of movies rather than just like smashing people through buildings willy nilly. The thing that comes to my mind, I know that this is widely viewed as a classic,

especially among people, maybe just slightly younger than me. But even when I was a kid But even when I was a kid, even when I was a kid, I could not take the second half of Home Alone. I was like, these are some- We watched that with Sammy not too long ago, and he had real trouble with that part,

where the bandits are getting beaten up. It's supposed to be Looney Tunes violence, but these are real human beings stepping on nails, like getting hit with paint cans. I'm like, what, why am I, what, what the fuck is this? So that's mine, I think. Yeah, I think Linda, that's such a good point about those first Avengers movies that like,

they really do, they really make it feel like, okay, something happened here. Like that, what, end credits or mid-credit scene where they're just sitting and eating and they're not talking to each other. And it's like, okay, something happened here. Like that, what, end credits or mid-credits scene where they're just sitting and eating and they're not talking to each other. And it's like, it's a joke, they're finally having that shawarma. But they seem really like worn out.

They seem excited. It's like a funny idea, but it's not a funny scene. They seem so, and that like this shawarma is not filling the hole in them that is existing right now. And the opposite of that- And there's a moment before that when Downey looks around and he says, do we win yet? Yay.

Cause it's the same thing. Yeah. I was thinking about with this, there was that run of movies in the nineties where it was like, isn't it funny when people die, like very bad things and stuff like that, which is where it's, they just didn't seem to know what they were doing and they were chasing something.

But then I started thinking about one of my least favorite movies, the 21st century, The Rise of Skywalker, and how the heroes are like, oh, we're fighting a bunch of people who were kidnapped as children and brainwashed. Well, sucks for them, I guess I'll blow them up, blow up thousands of them. There's just so many, every one of those ships

that blows up, there's hundreds, if not thousands of people on it. And the body count is so enormous. And it's a, I find it so distasteful, you know, for exactly that reason. The action movies that I like tend to have a specific reason why people who get killed have to get killed.

And especially if they're not bad guys. And I have said this a million times about Die Hard is that the reason why you get that really grisly, gruesome execution of Mr. Takagi early in Die Hard is that if you didn't, you would root for Hans and you can't root for Hans and have the movie work. So he has to do something really bad in the early part of the movie

so that he's established to be the bad guy. You still have to want them to catch him. You have to want him to die. And to do that, you have to have that really brutal execution because that establishes the movie's kind of like, the movie still has like a moral sort of world that it occupies.

They don't just execute 20 of the people who were at the Christmas party, you know? Yeah. The only other way you can get people to root against Alan Rickman is by having him cheat on Emma Thompson or something. Accurate. Yeah, I mean, I feel like when it comes to like,

flippant violence, there is that moment in game night at the end that's really great when the guy gets sucked into the jet and takes it. But that's funny because she's reacting with confidence. She reacts reasonably to it. Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny. Every time that clip gets posted, I gotta watch it.

What are the best line readings of the century so far? It's so funny. And it was such a funny setup when she's like, don't shoot me, I have kids. And he's like, no, with an ass like that, you don't. It's so funny. Okay, I was gonna say, a movie that I remember talking about with producer Alex Smith,

is that movie Wanted, where at the end, like James McAvoy, after like assassinating somebody with a fucking scrimshawed bullet is like, what the fuck have you done today? I'm like, I haven't assassinated anybody, asshole. Like, don't question my life choice, bitch. And that's a toned down version of the ending of the comic book,

which is even more disgusting and kind of, and hostile and toxic, yeah. Yeah, it's bad, it's a bad thing. There's a, I mean, it goes back to the beginning of movies that there's something cool for a lot of audience about seeing someone shoot someone specifically or kill someone. But yeah, in the better movies,

they find some way to morally show why it had to be done or justify it rather than just kind of like, yeah, this guy kills people, isn't that cool? I've been on the record many as not liking Hitman movies, movies about Hitman for that reason, except for Gross Point Blank, which is all about him struggling with that. But like the that it's like, it's not cool to go kill people. I hate to say again, I hate to be on a limb here.

It's like I earlier when I said I don't want babies having sex with each other. I hate to go and say it's not cool to kill people. Well, I mean, I think we're all talking about movies that seem to be made by people with emotional maturity. Yeah. Not to throw shade. But also like, look. I'm not saying every movie has to be Margaret either, but you know, the hero should have some compunction

about killing, you know. And I also have to say like, look, I love emotional immaturity in movies sometimes, but then you have to have the tonal control to pull it off. That's the other half of what's being said here. It's not just like, oh, what's reprehensible? If you can create a tone within the movie

that supports the gross joke, yeah, it'll work. Or if it's, do I think it's funny in Monty Python, the Holy Grail, when the knight just slashes the throat of the historian who's talking? Yeah, of course I do, it's really funny. But the tone in that movie is that this is a cartoon, these characters don't exist, nothing's real, you know? It's similar to why when you have your like

gross out immature comedies, and then they inevitably try and pull off like a heart of gold at the center, some like emotional moment. You know what, we are friends, aren't we? And I'm like, fuck, yeah, I'm like, fuck this. Be gross all the way. and try and pull off like a heart of gold at the center or some like emotional moment. And I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm like, fuck this. Be gross all the way. I want only gross.

Yeah, have the courage of your God damn convictions. Yeah, be 100% gross. Get are you gross in there? Michael Gross, some kind of gross, yeah. A gross of pencils, I don't know. Let's move from sort of our moral outrage to some recommendations of movies that we think are more worthy of your time than baby geniuses.

If such a thing is possible. Hard to imagine. Yeah. Speaking of children, guys, so. Oh, this is gonna get weird. No, I recently, I think I've mentioned it before, got the Criterion Channel back if you're not having it for a little while.

My body was craving nutrients after watching all of these movies for the Flophouse, and so I had kind of a list of movies that I should catch up on that are on the channel. I sort of picked one at random on a nice Sunday afternoon and it was Lynn Ramsay's Rat Catcher, a film. Just looking to check your brain at the door, have some fun.

A movie that begins with a tragic death of a child and does not get easier to watch thereafter. As opposed to the other kind of a death of a child that's not tragic, Dan, what would that be? I think, I, sure. Like a hilarious death of a child? No, you got me. I mean, Dead Alive has a pretty hilarious catch. Good point, Stuart, I got Dan and you got me.

Okay, Dan, continue. But there's a particular sort of realism and matter of factness to the death that opens the movie that makes it like very difficult. I guess is what I'm trying to get at by saying that. He has a movie about horrible conditions amongst his poor family in Ireland during a garbage strike when there are rats all around.

I've now seen all four of Lynn Ramsey's movies. I think she's one of the best there is. I think her movies are great. This one is the roughest one to watch, I think. But I'm glad to have closed out the four. So Rat Catcher, I guess. It's kind of a recommendation if you can handle it. Who wants to go next?

Oh, wow, okay. Speaking of children. No, I'm going to recommend, I'm going to, people who have followed my recommendations are not going to be surprised by this at all. I'm going to recommend the new Luca Guadagnino movie, Challengers. I love that guy's movies.

Everyone's a hit. I love it. And this one is no exception. It is like faster, more kinetic than some of his other movies, but it's still got that same like emotional depth and also like a physicality and like a sense of place that's so great. I mean, it's loosely up. I guess it's about a two competing tennis players, as well as a third competing tennis player played by Zendaya.

And yeah, I don't want to talk too much about the plot of this. Go see it. It's great. It's sexy. It's about tennis. It's intense. It's got an amazing score. I loved it. It was great. Thumbs up. Challenging. Love that movie. Absolutely love that movie. It's great. I was thinking about what's a movie I could recommend

that is a better version of a movie about a talking baby what's a what's a movie with a talking baby in it that's not bad and Guys, you know what it has to be that talking baby classic being too isn't easy from 1962 This is a Japanese movie that is also on the criterion channel right now which is just about a kid who is almost two and his parents and it's about kind of those the a series of months in this family's life and there are parts of it that I found very sweet and very touching and parts that I found very funny where you can hear the child's thoughts and he is

confused that his conclusions about things are not the same as his parents. There's a part where they're trying to get the crib to stay closed so that he can't get out of it. And they tried a latch, they tried tying it shut, and they're getting very frustrated. And the kid is like, I don't understand why they're mad at me. It was really hard to untie that knot. It was hard to undo the latch. I solved it.

Why are they mad at me? Like the child thinks that this is a puzzle that's been presented to him. And the, it's, you know, it's a series of scenes. There's not a, it's not a lot, It's not a plot-driven movie. Maybe it touched me a little bit deeper as a parent. There were times when I was like, I remember when I felt like that or when this child was like that.

There's some funny parts. And at the end, there is a scene where, spoiler alert, the kid turns two. And there's a part that involves him blowing out his candles that I found so beautiful and genuinely tear-jerking. And so I would recommend it. I really loved it.

It's called Being Too Isn't Easy. That's beautiful. That is beautiful. I having seen Kathleen Turner in Baby Geniuses was very interesting because recently for a different work-related project, I had watched Kathleen Turner and Body Heat. Body Heat, which came out in like 1981 to think 1982 maybe, it was really where she became famous. It's a neo-noir, I think some people credit it with being one of the most important neo-noirs. It's semi of a re-imagining of something like double indemnity, not exactly.

It is still a very hot woman who seduces an idiot and things get worse from there. Ultimately, it is a movie about the most boring thing I learned in law school, which is the rule against perpetuities. But it is also a movie in which I think the atmospheric qualities of how it's shot, the way that they use airy spaces versus closed in spaces and some of those things are really, really cool and good. But also she is just such a hot movie star in that film and she's such a wonderful presence. And that's a kind of role that can be really hard

to pull off because it can really be, I don't know if I want to say dehumanizing, but it can be really, you know, a shallow kind of role for an actress to play. I think she finds a lot of good stuff in that character. And it has really sexy sex without being, it's not the same kind of like vulgar, really sexy sex

that people sometimes associate with really sexy sex. In a way, it's like challengers and that you see a little bit more, a little bit less than you feel like you saw in some ways. And- It's two words as wackily as I was. It's like you feel like you saw the people very much having sex and you didn't necessarily. So anyway, Body Heat, Kathleen Turner, William Hurt, very, very young Ted Danson pre-chairs.

Who's Danson? He does Danson. Yeah, it's true. And again, you know, learn the rule against perpetuities. They do such a good job in that movie. I feel like when I think of film noir, I think of coolness. And they think and like, and they do such a good job in that movie. I feel like when I think of film noir, I think of coolness. And they think, and like, and they do such a good job of making a movie of heat. Like it's such a sweaty movie in a really like palpable way

in a way that like is sometimes sexy and sometimes just feels like, ugh, this seems like such an unpresently humid place to be. Absolutely, absolutely. That's why they put, I mean, they sit it right down there and it's in Florida, I think. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, as was the recent Roadhouse, you know,

you put it in that like, I don't know, hot, sweaty environment, yeah. Well, we should- There's fewer boat chases in body than in Roadhouse, though. Just a little bit. Only a couple. We should really wrap things up, but Linda, it was a joy to have you on.

Like, you fit in perfectly. You felt like a natural member of it all. It was so nice to have you. It's gonna be my favorite thing I do all year. I'm so excited. Is there anything in particular you wanna plug before we do our usual stuff? No, just, you know, pop culture happy hour.

And as as Elliott mentioned at the top, Evie Drake starts over and Flying Solo are my novels. I have one coming out in 2025, which is called Back After This, which takes place in the world of audio and podcasting. So so we'll see how that goes. We'll see a thinly veiled Dan McCoy in there. No! It's like everything hurts, babe. We are running a platform.

But no, this is very exciting. And I do want to say, as somebody who has been making a podcast with the same team for almost 15 years, I am very well positioned to understand what you guys have done by working together for this long and successfully without. I told Jesse Thorn once that when I listened to this show, my hobby is trying to figure out when people are actually irritated versus pretending to be irritated. Usually when I'm talking, the other guys are pretty irritated. I know that from my own show as well.

So I just want to say that I do appreciate the accomplishment of keeping a team together and working for this long so successfully. And the fact that it's still so much fun to listen to is really quite a special thing. So kudos for that. Thank you. Thank you. I think it's a testament to our genuine affection how we are able to weather the not infrequent irritation

that comes along with it. Listen, all I'm asking is that every once in a while, now that we're pals, every once in a while, just shoot me a little note, say, I was really annoyed when this was happening, you know? And then I'll just be able to put it away in my little diary in my brain. That's all I ask.

Done. How can a Sagittarius, a Gemini, and a Pisces get along for this long? Especially when one of them gets annoyed at the implication that that means anything. It's happening! Before I thank our team of one other person, I want to say check us out on our socials. You can find us on Instagram. We now have a Mastodon.

There's a fan-made Discord, Blue Sky, there's a long-running Facebook group and YouTube videos. If you like any of that stuff, look it up. But also thank you to that aforementioned man, Mr. Alex Smith. He goes by HowellDawdy online. He does Twitch streams, he does music. Check his stuff out.

Thank you to MaximumFun at MaximumFun.org. You can find a lot of other great podcasts. I'm sure at least one other one will tickle your fancy. So check him out. But yeah, that's it. Thank you again to our guest for the Flophouse. I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington.

I'm Ellie Kalin and we've been joined by Linda Holmes. Bye. Bye. So if you haven't been recording locally, now is the time to start on it. I've been recording locally, but thinking globally. I'm recording hyperlocally. I've been visualizing world peas. Yeah, shaving the whales. So Dan.