The Worst Idea Of All Time - Plumbing The Death Star
Episode Date: April 12, 2022To celebrate the Melbourne International Comedy Festival two of the worst podcast ideas of all time; Plumbing the Death Star and The Worst Idea of All Time have come together for a very special cross ...over episode where we delve deep into the rich universe of Grown Ups 2. So sit back, close your eyes and listen to 5 grown men dissect one of the many Adam Sandler’s cinematic masterpieces. And don’t forget to subscribe to Plumbing the Death Star. Also you’re probably better off if you unsubscribe to us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Let's just kick it up.
Let's just do it.
Let's just do it.
If we fuck up the intro,
we can just do it.
It's funny.
It's just for fun.
If you're having fun,
they're having fun,
you know,
just don't even think about it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Cheers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We've done.
It's nice.
By the way,
I say that to anyone I meet,
I say that to,
even if it's not about a podcast or comedy,
I think it's like the most inane,
funniest thing you can say.
But just honestly,
just throw this one away.
We've got a great one.
You've got to be Joel.
You simply must.
With Tim's inspiration, I feel like I can finally actually do the introduction.
It's exciting.
Hey everyone, and welcome to a very special edition, a crossover episode between the worst idea of all time and plumbing the Death Star.
I'm Joel.
I'm also Joel.
I'm Jackson.
I'm Guy.
And I'm Tim.
And today...
Oh, you go.
And today we
are asking the important questions
like, how does the economy
work in Grown Ups 2? so guy and tim you're obviously grown-ups two experts yeah yeah yeah uh plumbing the death
star team plumbing the death star have seen the movie uh once together yeah yeah and i think i've
seen it once by myself i need to confess it was something
of a phone watch um the movie did not captivate me yeah yeah uh much that's okay because it doesn't
matter if we didn't really watch it because you two obviously have watched it enough times for
all of us before we go on though let's get some quick math we've got a phone watch what's the
collective total do you think of viewing Grown Ups 2 for your side
of the podcast equation
I would say that I
when we watched it together
I was paying enough
attention to say
that it wasn't a phone watch
my phone may not
have even been with me
so that's
that's one
and at one point
I looked over
at my good friend Jackson
who was on his phone
and I was like
did you see that
that was so funny
which felt bad
to doing Grown Ups 2
and he wasn't paying attention I didn't see what I thought was so funny, which felt bad to doing grown-ups too.
And he wasn't paying attention.
I didn't see whatever was so funny.
Although I think I might have tried to lie and say I did,
so you didn't ask me follow-up questions.
I was like, you missed it.
That was probably the best joke of the movie. And then I did the joke for you.
I know you're reminiscing about the broader experience,
but I just have to know what the joke was.
Yeah, I'm so curious.
So at that point in the movie it was
uh see because i've only seen it once characters names not going to be great with them yeah
physical description will do and we will be able to deliver it was david's iron side from vikings
that character yeah david spade's son brayden brayden thank you so brayden went it's just a
weird cutaway where he is sitting in a floating, inflatable tube thing.
I think he just says, I love summer.
No, he says one word as the camera slowly zooms into him and he dead eyes the camera.
Summertime.
And he says it because he sees those two other boys, Adam Sandler and Chris Rock's sons,
pissing beer out of their cocks.
And he just goes, summertime.
It's good.
It's threatening.
It's menacing.
It's incredible.
It's a promise of whimsy.
That's what I like about it.
It just doesn't match the rest of the movie whatsoever.
It's like a gif.
They just put a gif in the middle of the movie,
and they're like, this will work.
Yeah.
I feel like a lot of the movie is kind of a different movie than the movie that we're watching.
You know what I mean?
Like, it just feels, there's not much like, it's all disjointed.
It just feels like when there's a gag that's run its course, it just ends.
Yeah.
It's beautiful.
There's no real closure to a lot of things.
There's a sitcom thing where they often, and I kind of forgotten this because it has been a little while between drinks,
but they do like a little musical interlude to make a joke work you'll deliver a punch line and then it'll be like
it's like wait a minute this is a movie yeah but it's it's a welcome reminder that a movie
is whatever you make it yeah that's true if it goes for an hour and a half you can do whatever
you want and call it a movie and you're fine.
That's why we got movie length.
That's why we have that as an option.
I just want to answer your collective question.
Probably between us, between 104 and 112 times.
Yeah.
So between us, four?
Yeah, four I reckon.
Versus 104 to 114.
So there's quite a bit of a difference.
I will say that watching this with people that hadn't seen it,
even though I had seen it once and vaguely remembered it,
knowing that the movie opens with a deer piss joke.
Yeah.
It's good.
Is it a joke?
It's just a thing that happened.
Well, yeah.
Presumably it's meant to be funny.
The family take it in their stride.
Yeah.
And we'll get to actually answering the question in a moment.
We've just got to get some feelings about growing up too well.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, because Adam Sandler's character gets pissed on by a deer.
And he's scared about the deer being in his room at first.
But then when the deer's out of the house, they're just like, oh, that's just like a...
It's nice that him and his son shared deer piss.
Yeah.
Like the same deer piss.
Yeah.
Do you know what's weird, though?
And this is like an observation you would only get after, you a collective triple digits effort on the side of the the pond so this deer right
that i had never realized this before but the deer is the whole reason at the very end of the movie
when the party gets disrupted so there's a big fight but then the college kids all get scared
by the deer so this deer at the start of the movie elicits very little fear out of adam
sandler's family but then elicits so much fear out of an entire college campus of kids yeah because
it eats a man's penis yeah it's a man's penis right off i mean if i saw a deer eat a man's penis i
might be scared of deer from then on really it's terrifying you don't expect it from a bear yeah
i think yeah i think in a way I'm already a little bit scared
That not a deer will eat my penis
But maybe a horse or a cow will
You overestimate how appealing your penis is to these vegetarian animals
That's a worst case scenario
That's their last option
I think it's because when you feed a cow or a horse a carrot,
they're like, you need to have a flat palm
because otherwise they'll think your finger's a carrot.
And I guess in my head, I'm like,
if a horse has such a poor understanding of what a carrot is,
if I'm in a situation where I'm, you know,
traceping around the farmyard, dude, is the day you were born.
Yeah.
And there's a chance that a horse will bite my penis off.
That's scary.
You put yourself in a situation
where a horse is at risk of mistaking your cock for a carrot,
and that's entirely on you.
The horse is just operating on instinct.
Jackson, normally I wouldn't team up with Guy to bully someone,
but take some fucking personal responsibility, would you?
If you are so frequently in an environment with horses,
butt naked, your member blowing in the wind.
I think that you need to take a look at yourself.
Yeah.
Rather than be scared.
Have some self-respect, man.
Put on some pants.
This would be rude to say if I was bleeding from my crotch.
If I was lying there and you're like, well, we all came to be nude at the farm, dude.
We put on clothes to pat this horse and here you are.
With the information you've given us, I think it would be totally fair enough.
I would take no pity. I would say, what did you expect?
We literally warned you about this
exact thing.
I'm sorry. Look, I am sorry
you have no dick anymore. Please.
And that that horse ate your penis
and that you're currently bleeding quite a
substantial amount. But!
You've got to understand
that once you're healed up
and aren't going to die from getting your dick eaten by a horse,
we aren't going to be kind about this.
We will be stern and be like, well, yeah, you got what you deserved.
Please call an ambulance.
In a minute.
To berate you more.
Stop admonishing me.
You know what?
Maybe we'd take sympathy and pity and we'd really hold
your hand we'd wait for the paramedics and we'd usher you to the hospital and then you'd be put
under anesthetic for whatever surgery is required to mend the mess that you have created by your own
hand and uh what we'd say is to the surgeon we'd give them a sort of a flaccid slightly old carrot
and we'd say sew that on it feels weird that you guys have taken such a pop shot at grown-ups for having
a deer piss joke at the start and we've been doing an extended riff about jackson's penis
getting off like it feels like an hour now so to move this on i'm going to open a beer onto the
mic that's what do you what do you expect like what what are you left with to talk about yeah
yeah come on i mean so but broadly, what were your experiences of the film today?
Were they positive?
Were they negative?
I think they were sort of neutral.
Mostly negative, I feel, from my end.
It falls into the category of movie for me
where it's a positive experience
because I like to be reminded that movies like this exist.
And because there's a lot of very baffling decisions in it
that are, yeah, pretty memorable. In fact, it's a lot of very baffling decisions in it that uh yeah pretty
memorable in fact it's a similar experience i had so when i saw the adam sandler vehicle blended in
cinemas yeah and there's a dale stain cameo just in the middle of the film and i was like who is
this for this is an american film set in africa which has now just been revealed to be south
africa featuring a south african cricket player And there's a joke about how cricket isn't the same as baseball.
And I'm like, this is in a movie,
and it made it all the way to cinema.
It's for Adam.
There's a lot of stuff that's in the productions.
It's for Adam Sandler.
But then even Adam Sandler doesn't seem to care about cricket.
Why is Dale Stane in the movie?
Yeah, I don't know.
To me, it was just like,
it does give you hope that you can really produce anything. And someone will watch it and find it entertaining, which is really don't know. To me, it was just like, it does give you hope that you can really produce anything.
And someone will watch it and find it entertaining, which is really nice to know.
Grotus 2 made like $300 million or something.
Yeah, which is an insane amount of money.
I just, I don't know, it feels like, you know, they say comedy is a medium that ages real quickly.
And I feel that this one was aging as they were doing it.
Yeah, I think part of that's why I like it.
I like that I can watch a bad movie and be like,
that was just sort of unashamedly a bad movie.
It doesn't impact my life any.
It's crazy that these were some of the comedy greats of the 90s.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On the 2000s.
These are the funniest motherfuckers that we can chuck on screen.
Don't worry.
Everything they do is going to be good.
And I think they themselves are like, man,
we've been out of the game for a while.
We've got to bring our A game for these films.
Man, there's some funny people out there.
It's going to be good.
It's going to be good.
Chris Rock being in this movie still to this day shakes me to my core.
He is an important comedian.
And it's just like, what is he talking about?
This would have come out either during the production
or just before he made Top 5,
which was Chris Rock's return,
like him in a star vehicle in a film,
and also it was like a critically well-received film.
They've all made good, save for maybe Kevin James.
Their career has all maintained comedic value.
No, Kevin James actually has redeemed himself
because he did all of those hilarious online videos
where he would like to suit himself.
And they were brilliant.
They were really funny.
He was the sound guy.
He would put himself, yeah, that's right.
He was the sound guy on like famous sets.
Did you not see these?
No.
I thought I seen them too.
They're fucking well done.
It's just like they'll be shooting I Am Legend or something.
And then then you know
the frame just sort of
turns a little bit
and Kevin James is like
drop the boom
onto Will Smith
it's good shit
as well as Ryan Gosling
and Ryan Gosling
is doing the whole speech
from which film
was it in
a speech from
Ryan Gosling
yeah
most of his films
I guess
a romantic one
if this helps
Crazy Stupid Love
nah
the one where he climbs a Ferris wheel, I think.
Okay.
Alzheimer's.
The Notebook.
The Notebook.
I'd just like to circle back to Jackson's point
about taking comfort and knowing it's bad
and that's fine and you meet it on its terms
and it makes it inoffensive.
And to think of all of these guys as comedy titans
or whatever at different phases in their career,
and it is like there's a weird calm that washes over you
and seeing that none of them are trying.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's just this unspoken, at least to us as an audience,
agreement that none of them are going to put any effort in.
And watching Chris Rock act in this movie today,
I was like, I can act that good.
And I'm like, I can't act.
But he's walking around being like no today's
your diaper day yeah to know that i we could have been in grown-ups too that's the comfort yeah if
the five of us yeah i did that math right did grown-ups too it would be just as good you know
the real hard part would be the five of us cumulatively having worthy comedy careers that
would get us to a point where we just have the right to make grown-ups
do it. And so I
say to the other four of you, catch up.
We're doing our best.
Get on my little trailblazer, Tim.
I don't know, it's very nice, like as a business
owner, it's really nice that you can openly
sort of commit, I guess, tax fraud.
Yeah. And everyone
is just okay with it. It's like, I'm
doing this for a lovely holiday and a catch up with my friends. And everyone is like, with it. It's like, I'm doing this for a lovely holiday
and a catch up with my friends.
And everyone is like, yeah, we're on board.
Enjoy.
Here's some money.
Other highlights of the film is clearly
where there's just no script for certain scenes,
which is fine for the comedy titans of the 90s.
There's also a lot of children in this film.
Yeah.
So often you'll have actors improvising and
the children who aren't meant to be responding in the way they're responding just pissing
themselves laughing in the background yeah well what's his name nick swanson yes wasn't yeah um
you know improvising about how he's cooked as a bus driver and then you've got adam sandler's kids
in the background just laughing non-stop i have to say, just because it would pay me to leave this out,
but I watched this on Netflix today, and we did our whole season, I think,
using a pirated copy.
We downloaded it online.
And they've cut jokes out of the Netflix one that I'm so used to seeing,
and it really messed me up.
So there's a Nick Swordson line about how when they first meet up with him
and Adam Sandler asks how he's doing,
and he says that he got floated a couple pills at a Cypress Hill concert.
Yeah.
And like, understandably, in this children's comedy movie,
that joke has been cut.
Well, yeah, because we watched it, because we're currently in the UK,
we watched it on Sky, and that joke was still in it.
Yeah, thank God.
Cool, cool, cool. The joke that I really missed because i actually missed that and the way the
comedic beat worked instead the joke ended on being like uh she caught me eating a banana with
my butt and then the punchline the or the tag is like i shouldn't have done it at her mom's house
yeah and it gets out and i'm like i don't like the joke but comedically that makes sense yeah
just let him do one improv and left it all in but the joke i
really missed is it's a scene the surrounding scene i don't miss so much it's in a gymnasium
and it's chris rock's daughter and bump d and they're sort of like flirting on the rafters or
something and then the gym the gym teacher who's a sports broadcaster in america called dan patrick
yeah it's like sort of he throws a ball at bump d and knocks him out And then he goes, who wants to watch me climb a rope?
And it's like always stood out
It's just such a phenomenal delivery
And it's actually a funny line as well
And why would they cut that?
And they cut that too
What? That's so Buffalo
Do they cut it because the follow-up joke
Which is significantly less funny
Is Bumty lying on the ground
Looking up the gym teacher's shorts
And makes a comment about his balls That was gone too, I think significantly less funny is bumpty lying on the ground looking up the gym teacher's shorts and
makes a comment about his balls that was gone too i think of course yeah that was gone too you
couldn't cut that line and then just have a scene of bumpy looking at a gym teacher's foot that's
more sinister i guess that's i guess that's why they cut it yeah because the punch line to them
if the punch line to us was his fantastic delivery on who wants to watch me climb a
rope but to them it's the kids seeing the balls of the gym teacher.
Yeah.
So I wonder if for some reason...
We can't have kids watching balls,
so we'll cut this and we'll cut that.
Or it could just be pacing.
They were like,
it's a bit too long.
Yeah.
We'll cut this out.
That one hour, 40 minute run time,
we can get it down to 135, baby.
I did.
It was actually,
when I checked at the start,
it was running 136 on Netflix.
So your instincts are phenomenal joe money things that still work in this movie john lovitz yes david
spade i'm never upset to see him on screen he's got an easygoing charisma i think because it feels
like he's never trying when he's not trying it works for him yeah he's got another joke that
took me by surprise in the movie that made me laugh yeah out loud even though it's a very 90s joke the movie puts like in quotes unappealing women
yeah in situations david spade and then it's referenced that he slept with them yeah and then
it happens again when the pizza delivery lady delivers a pizza and his son's brayden yeah his
name son's name you got nice well's there and he grabs a pizza.
It's like the weird, incredibly intensely sexual flirting.
Yeah.
And then Brayden's looking at his dad and David Spade shuts the door and he's just like,
they're not all tans.
Yeah.
It's good.
He's genuinely funny in the movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's great delivery on that line.
The moments between Higgins, David Spade and his son, Brayden are like, you know, when
he arrives and he's on the phone, he cups McGee and his son, Brayden, are like, you know, when he arrives
and he's on the phone, he cups McGee,
and all that shit you can take or leave.
But then when he shows up
and he's got the drawing of the man,
and he's like, you're him.
Yeah, without the hat.
That's like, you know.
Yeah, it's good.
It's very good.
I feel like if you squint,
there is potentially like maybe four different
potentially good films in this film.
So you've got like a deadbeat dad kind of connecting
with their very aggressive son that they've just found out about.
You've got like someone being like, oh, I'm aging out.
I'm approaching this kind of thing where I can't do the things
that I used to do.
And I don't want a fourth kid, but my wife, you know,
oh God, she's pregnant.
What am I going to do?
Dealing with that.
You've also got like a nice coming of
age film between like all the kids there you've got something where what uh kevin james loves his
mom too much i don't really know what that was about but there's definitely like some nice films
that you call like nice stories surely it's all coincidental like it's just like david spade was
like it'd be funny if i had a huge son yeah that would be funny right in it huge son with the shit like facial mustache
and it is funny to have a huge son that's not that's not untrue yeah i like the idea of it
because when you write a movie or like not that i've written and made a movie but when you create
anything and you write it down and then there's a separate team of people in production who work on
it yeah you show up and they're like we can't find the right color giant tire and you're
like oh man like it didn't have to be green i just wrote that you know and this movie reeks of
moments where adam sandler showed up to set and they've got all of the elaborate things that
they've called for i can see him in his like production office just throwing a rubber ball
at the wall and someone's writing down what he's saying.
And then the tire runs through the entire town and then we jump off a waterfall.
There's a raft.
The raft gag's so good, we're going to use it twice.
It's the second movie I've seen recently
that has a joke about a man's head
going into another man's arsehole.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hancock being the other one,
the 2008 Will Smith superhero
vehicle. Because we'd watched
that recently for a couple of episodes
and in that,
people do go in arseholes.
It happens.
I'd never seen Grown Ups 2, obviously.
You warned me.
David Spade goes in Kevin James'
arsehole. And then I was almost disappointed when,
cause I think,
I think my personal fan theory is that he didn't really,
you know,
I mean,
it would be like the logistics of it,
of Kevin James falling ass first naked onto David Spade.
Yeah.
And clearly you're like,
oh,
he fell on his head.
That's what,
well,
I'm assuming a digit must've been because he was shielding his face.
Right.
But like the angle and the velocity and all that,
just kind of angling it right for David.
I don't think it happened.
I think David Spade was just making a joke.
Should we give a little context to those who haven't seen grownups too?
Yeah.
So,
uh,
Adam Sandler,
Chris Rock,
Kevin James,
and David Spade are forced by some college kids to jump off a famous peak.
The quarry that overlooks the river called Suicide 35, which is 35 feet above the water.
And they force them to do it naked.
So, we get this hilarious montage of our four comedy superstars jumping naked off of this thing.
And we just see their asses.
And Kevin James is kind of a big guy. four comedy superstars jumping naked off of this thing and we just see their asses and uh
kevin james is kind of a big guy and uh it's actually it's pretty funny because david spades
got in the water just before him and uh kevin james is a pretty heavy guy and he lands right
on top yeah and but he sustains in this looney tunes universe he sustains no lasting injuries
even though like guarantee all of the college
kids are silent at the edge of the lake as their lives are changed forever you know
that's a trauma bond they take for the rest of their lives oh yeah it started off like the good
bit of stand by me but then it ended like the bad bit of stuff yeah i guess if you take a lot
of the looney tunes like i guess the physics of this movie there's a lot of the Looney Tunes like I guess the physics of this movie
there's a lot of dead people
David Spade's dead, the bus driver's dead
multiple times
What would happen if you got rolled in a tyre like David Spade did in real life?
It would go to mush right?
So this happened while we were watching it
There was two scenes, one was a tyre scene
and I can't remember what the other one was
I think when they were hanging the bus driver
I know exactly what it'll be.
It'll be when Nick Swanson, you're right,
he's the bus driver.
It's specifically when he drops him,
and then he's on the floor,
and then he accelerates,
and his head just smacks into the back of the bus.
I don't know.
He's very purple.
His hands and arms and face are very purple.
The blood is rushing to there,
so the moment his face impacts the back of the bus,
it's popping like a pimple, right?
Well, the reason I bring up the tire,
and it wasn't that moment.
There was another moment in the film
where my good friend Joel Zammett was like,
if they did that in real life, they'd be dead.
And two out of the three examples,
not the bus example,
but the tire one definitely.
I was like, oh no, I've seen what would happen
because they do this exact stunt in Jackass.
The new one?
The tire one is in the series, I think.
Yeah.
Right, right, right.
But yeah, like there's a couple of instances
where you were like, oh, no, that wouldn't work.
And I was like, no, I've seen what does to the human body.
They spew heaps.
Yeah, I just feel like going that fast,
like kind of, you know, would do something
to your brain.
Yeah, I feel like
it would also
sever something.
It would kill
Shaquille O'Neal as well
when he stops it
with his wiener.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Big time.
Big time.
Shaquille O'Neal is having
so much fun in this movie.
Everyone seems to be
having a lot of fun
in this film.
It's lovely.
It's lovely to see.
Shaquille O'Neal comes across
as one of the stronger actors.
Yeah.
You know, like,
I feel like he's excited by the opportunity So he actually tries
Guy and I have watched all of the behind the scenes footage
And promo interviews
Even stuff that didn't go to air anywhere
There's special places on the internet that we've found
Where it's like
Promo interviews that never got aired anywhere
And everyone raves about
What a fucking good dude Shaq is.
And that he's just hilarious, kind, great actor.
A big part of Sandler's like,
he has basketball hoops on all of his sets.
And a huge part of,
it would be fun for Shaquille O'Neal
to be in an Adam Sandler movie.
More than that,
it would be fun for Adam Sandler
to play basketball with Shaquille O'Neal.
All he wants to do is play basketball.
It threatened this movie.
There was a guy who was part of
the production of
Grown Ups 2 who got in touch with us during
season one and told us that they were running
hideously behind schedule because
Adam Sandler and the guys just kept playing
basketball.
They were fucking off
all the time. That's awesome.
By all accounts, Adam Sandler sounds like
the nicest man in Hollywood.
I wish we were part of
his circle, just to be involved
in any of these films and have a lovely
time with all these people.
Do you think that we could just label our podcast
as a Happy Madison production and just
hope?
Terrific. Surely he doesn't know
everything within his empire.
So we can fly in under the radar.
I've got a podcast.
Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
I could have done that at some point.
All right.
Put them in Grown Ups 3, sure.
All right, yeah, that makes sense.
Have I met him?
I feel we've reached the point in the podcast where we probably should start hammering down
into the economy of the Grown Ups so talk us talk us through the question like why why why did you
decide that this would be the question for the day i think i've got some theories watching this
film but i'm curious yeah i'm curious as to what what what why you think the economy is is doesn't
make so interesting well i think i'm with i mean i'll let tim and guy answer this because this was
their idea for the question.
But watching it, I was like, straight away, I was like, oh, yeah, they're absolutely on here.
Because no one goes to work at any point.
That's not true.
We see Chris Rock specifically go to work to not work.
That's what I'm fascinated by.
Because when this sort of proposal got floated
that we would do a mashup episode and we were looking for what question to kind of interrogate
the movie with i was like the end at this point approaching the 60th watch the interesting bit
for me is specifically how the economy of this town works yeah yeah it's not like jobs don't
exist that would be way cleaner it would be like we could assume there was some sort of universal basic income program
or they're all rich living off some sort of stipend, whatever.
But it's not like that.
It's more complicated because jobs exist and some of them have jobs.
But Kevin James works in an auto body shop,
which he visits for seemingly 20 minutes a day.
I believe he, does he own it?
Or is he a co-owner of it?
Yeah, it's his, I think it's his shop.
Yeah, okay.
David Spade works part-time at a go-kart track.
Yeah.
We know, Adam Sandler's job in this is never referenced,
and we only know because we've seen Grown Ups 1.
Do you know what?
It is mentioned, and without wanting to get ahead of answering the question,
Colin Quinn, when there's like a sort of a moment of harmony amongst the the townies as they're called by the frat boys uh says lenny fader left this town went to hollywood
made big bucks probably more than all you boneheads were making your whole lives all put
together and then he came back that's true it's time and there's something
to me because watching it i was like the interesting thing is it's they all have jobs
but again it's sort of looney tune universe like a child interpretation of what a job is selma
hayek owns a boutique fashion store where she goes her employee is incredibly unprofessional
and harangues her about having dated her husband and she's like okay well you're in charge of the business she kicks her employee in the head yeah actually you can't do that yeah it's actually not allowed
it's uh i feel like at one point like uh she had easy grounds to fire that woman yeah then
now the employee clearly has grounds to sue this shit yeah out of her employer by kicking
especially in america yeah she's inviting trouble. Well, I guess there is,
yeah,
because we could probably
go through the jobs
that are in this film
because one of Adam Sandler's kids
works at an ice cream store
for about 15 minutes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We've got, yeah,
Salma Hayek
runs the boutique clothing store.
We've got the
yoga instructor.
Yeah, that's true.
That's a job.
Yep, yoga instructor
cleaning at the yoga instructor.
Yeah, yeah.
Joe Janitor, that's right.
Yeah.
Although he seems to be cleaning multiple places.
He seems to be a janitor.
He's the only game in town.
Because he's also clean.
The town is very clean.
He's doing a good job.
He's also the janitor at the school, remember?
He's got them by the short and curly.
Me or my human resources wants to fire him,
but boy does he keep things spick and span
Yeah
Hopefully he didn't
Do such a good job
You've got Kmart
Yeah
Kmart is a
Steve Buscemi is a
Driving instructor
Yep
You've got a coffee shop
That the bus driver
Crashes into
And I assume
Orders a coffee
Yeah
Bus driver
Bus driver
Obviously Shaquille O'Neal
You've got the police
You've got the cops
We've got cops
So we've got like
A municipal
Sort of civil service structure going on.
People are paying taxes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's happening.
But how the fuck are they generating income?
Yeah.
An ice cream shop.
There's a school, so there's like a teacher.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
You've got the principal there.
That's a whole system.
You've also got a university that's quite close, I can only assume.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
True.
But is this a university town?
Then on top of that, all of these jobs we see, is quite close i can only assume yeah yeah yeah true but is this a university town but then on
top of that all of these jobs we see yeah apart from the cleaner who is clearly everywhere and
doing an incredible job all the time yeah no one is actually doing their job yeah like oh i guess
tim meadows at kmart seems to be working but then he also gets choked out on shift yeah yeah
an impediment to doing your job.
If anyone is working in this movie, they get stopped immediately.
There's like some sort of force where if someone is being, which is, okay, so here's what I'm thinking, right?
Yeah.
There is like some sort of heavily socialist underpinning which sort of girdles the town.
So if anyone is starting to be productive in this economy they must be cut off
at the knees it's like if you start this cold war arms race of earning actual money and and and
forming a productive industry here suddenly we're all going to be doing nine to five five days a
week and frankly that is not compatible with our lives that really changes the scene where chris rock doesn't go to work because it's it's
i still look like it's he's lazy he's like i can't yeah fighting for his life he is a cable guy
he's a cable guy who we know just has one job for the entire day and that's not even a case where
like with the other stuff like kevin james we're sort of extrapolating that he's there for 20 minutes in the day at the
shop.
And with Kevin James,
he owns the place too.
So you can assume maybe it's employees that are actually doing the lion's
share of the work.
Well,
yeah.
Cause the,
the very muscular,
sexy lady,
she works for the,
yeah,
exactly.
So he's got people working for him.
Yeah.
But Chris rock,
we know his entire day,
like his schedule that day he's been booked
to do one install job yeah yeah what it's not viable guys if i was a cable if i was comcast
yeah i'd get the fuck out of that town something weird's going on see i i have i think yeah so
uh because again when we're talking about there's's a scene just before the hilarious titans of comedy
are jumping off a cliff naked.
So there's that scene where the, I guess,
the frat boys are mocking these people.
We do go through their jobs.
Yeah.
And one of them is like, you know, points to Kevin James.
I think it's Chris Rock.
Points to Kevin James.
Like, he owns like one of the best auto repair shops.
This guy, he works part-time in a go-kart.
But they all very deliberately not mention what Adam Sandler does. James, he owns one of the best auto repair shops. This guy works part-time in a go-kart.
But they all very deliberately not mention what Adam Sandler does.
Oh, okay.
It's a really weird scene because they just kind of focus on Adam Sandler's face and nothing happens.
Yeah.
And they don't really say anything.
And then, of course, they jump off naked.
Hilarious.
Yeah.
I wonder if they did that because that may have been a pickup or something.
It doesn't work if they say.
It's so funny because it's a movie that made 300 million US dollars
and you're like, maybe someone forgot to say it.
No, I think that what happened is not that they forgot to say it,
but just that they had the ending scene where they're like,
he left this town and he came back to this town
after making big Hollywood bucks.
Joel, there's not supposed to be a reveal.
Yeah, what are you talking about?
That only works if no one has seen Grown Ups 1.
It's not a twist.
No.
It's because they're saying it to Taylor Lautner,
who is also the same person who this speech is to before that.
I think it would actually make more sense if it was addressed here
and then later it
would become a callback.
Like, he's like a big Hollywood big shot in the end.
Like, yeah, and he came back because of it.
Exactly.
Anywho.
So they don't mention his name or they don't mention what his job is, whatever, then they
make him do the jump.
So my theory is that we, because we don't really know how much Adam Sandler made when
he was a big Hollywood superstar agent, whatever.
But I think he made a lot
of money i'm thinking he made like billions like i think he's maybe like perhaps in the one percent
as it were and so i think he kind of came back to this town because we don't we never do we ever see
look we haven't not seen grown-ups one no you ever see the town before he came back i'm gonna assume
it was a garbage town that no one cared about and was kind of like falling apart the economy was
just in the toilet so when he came in with all his billions and was like i miss this town and what it used to be
because you have this ice cream shop that isn't really like a modern day ice cream shop that's
true ice cream shop that's vintage kind of like out of like in the 1950s or something so you're
suggesting basically adam sandler is bankrolling the town i think that everyone here understands
the situation,
which is to make Adam Sandler or whatever his name is, Larry Ender.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Sure.
Lenny Fader.
Sure.
Well, I guess I would kind of explain if everybody's kind of like,
Adam Sandler is where my paycheck comes from.
Then when David Spade is tortured by being rolled down in a tire,
he's like, well, this is what I signed up for.
It's also why adam sandler thinks
that he has i guess the you know the audacity to be like i'm gonna drive this bus and no one can do
anything no he can stop me even the cops it's also a functional metaphor for the movie itself
and the way that the economy of the actual happy medicine productions runs yeah i told i i totally
agree the other the other question mark or the other like i feel like anyone who's not a main of the actual Happy Madison Productions runs. Yeah. I totally agree.
The other question mark or the other,
like I feel like anyone who's not a main character
within the world of the film but still lives in the same town
is employed by Kmart.
Yeah.
And I feel like all of those people are earning an honest living.
Like it's sort of Kmart appears to be,
there are these specific stores.
You've got your fashion store, you've got a supermarket. supermarket what else you've got your auto body shop but like by and
large and this is i've been to some small towns like a big store like came up moving in is basically
death to mom and pop stores yeah this is a place that would have previously been populated by all
these little community stores and everyone's you know they've all got their family businesses how
they operate i think between kmart and adam sandler everyone is taken care of and not everyone's happy well i guess this
is the question then did adam sandler commission the kmart i think the kmart is a threat to adam
sandler i think he worries about it i think we don't see it in the movie but at night that's
what he stresses about because he's like it's me versus the kmart in fact if grown-ups three was
about that that would rule.
We've got a duopolistic economy that is just,
the two poles of it are Adam Sandler's character, Lenny Fader,
which funds 50% of the economy, and Kmart funding the other half.
I can understand the tension as well
because the people who work at Kmart would present everyone
beneath Lenny's umbrella because you don't know anything
about Honest Day's work.
You don't do anything
for your money. You just live off
of your friend like a sponge.
You're in this imagined, weird 1950s
pseudo dream of an ice cream store.
But all of the people underneath Adam Sandler's umbrella
would be like, well, that came up, moved into town,
it put my mum and my dad out of business,
it shut down all of the locally owned and operated
original stores.
And so you guys are in fact,
and there's grounds for, you know,
you can see the value in either argument.
To me, this feels like what's happening with the metaverse.
That we're all like in pretty quick order
going to be living in this world,
which is like Mark Zuckerberg's fucked up version of Earth.
And this is like, Adam Sandler's got like,
this is what the hometown was like.
There was an ice cream shop and there was a go-kart track
and it just funded
all of these projects
that people have to then
exist in
full time
and that's what
we're headed towards
it's like I gotta go
that would be so weird
to be like
I know I need to go
to my place of work
for a bit
to satisfy Adam Sandler
to be like
yeah they are good
you are working
you don't have to be that long
you kind of see this a lot
in a lot
again you go back to that scene where they're talking to the uh frat the frat guys yeah and
there's almost like you could can't if you scored that a little bit differently to kind of have the
fear in say adam sandler's friends to be like guys shut the fuck up you're gonna ruin a good thing
you don't know what's going on here yeah so please be quiet they're seconds away from leading it to
being like adam sandler runs this town if you if you mention something we're gonna ruin it and then
we're gonna have to like deal with our lives yeah and it kind of like if you look at every single
one of them and how they occupy their time a lot of it is to go around and help adam sandler yeah
yeah you got like like a horny david spade being like i'm fucking around and just doing everything
i guess i go to this there's a truman show quality
to it yeah like when they go to the ballet recital and it's full of all these people and you're like
who found all these people yeah why are all these people in the auditorium to watch this ballet
recital and there's someone it's probably someone close to him it might be lamin soft between visits
like his mom's yeah and the auto body shop he's like in charge of the accounts. And he's hiring all of these people.
He's bringing them on buses.
And he's putting them in a hall.
And he's like, Sandler's going to get here in five minutes.
I've held him up with this big police fucking firing bus entrance from Kmart.
But we need everyone sitting in here pronto.
He's got to see that the town's popping off.
Yeah, 100%.
This is horrifying.
We need someone.
We need a big-titted uh instructor there keep adam
sandler happy uh well can't have it and um yeah it just seems everything there is for his benefit
yeah even he's bullied let's extrapolate this out a little bit yeah is this like is this how adam
sandler is living do you think because he really he is for a lot of people
they rely on him creating these movies sort of annually to keep their families fed boom operators
gaffers assistant directors you know all these he's got this whole infrastructure which is like
a small town that moves around with him yeah shutting out these location movies because
madison on screen yeah well wasn't there actually an issue?
Well, I guess an issue.
Wasn't there a thing behind the scenes with this?
Because Rob Schneider was cut from
Grown Ups 2, but wasn't there a whole thing where he was like
scheduling conflict.
Yeah, scheduling conflict. That was it.
It was like, no bad butt. I was like, ah, scheduling
conflict and my wife is having a kid
so I can't be in this.
I remember, it must have been
something else then because i remember rob schneider being like i'm financially in trouble
now or something like that and i was like adam sandler cut him out that's a crazy going poor
so what i tend to do when i'm watching a movie i either really like or don't care for i'll just go
on imdb and read the trivia and so for the first one, at the end of making Grown Ups,
and I guess it made a shit ton of money
because Adam Sandler then gifted all the cast members,
the main cast members, Maseratis.
And I think it was Chris Rock was just like,
I felt a little bit annoyed because I felt like I was Adam Sandler's bitch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And so I just feel that maybe everyone is like,
and again, the town is a metaphor for Adam Sandler's relationship for everyone else.
Everyone is just like doing what he wants.
And it's like,
you know,
it's,
it's nice.
You don't have to go to work,
but occasionally you'll be rolled into Shaquille O'Neal's penis in a tire.
And you've just got to figure out whether or not that's a deal you want to
strike,
you know?
Yeah.
It's a really interesting question about the price you put on your own
dignity, isn't it? Because it's like, we're going to afford you so much freedom that, you know yeah it's a really interesting question about the price you put on your own dignity isn't it because it's like we're going to afford you so much freedom that you know 23 hours
of the day are all yours to to live out as you choose within this protective bubble where you
don't have to worry about anything yeah however for one hour a day we're gonna need you to get
to the school hall because adam's on his fucking way and we need you filling those seats.
Yeah, I can actually feel within myself like a very dark stirring about the malaise that long-term living in this situation
would put you in.
Just the idea of like...
Is this communism?
Another, I guess, supporting argument here is the fact that...
So the party at the end, the 80s party at the end.
So that was on a whim.
Yeah.
It was not planned.
That's right.
There was no invitation really sent.
Like everyone.
It was the biggest party in the world.
It was just an idea.
It was organized at the start of the day.
I also like to think that-
Everyone had costumes.
Yeah.
I like to think this explains why there were so many people dressed as prince.
It was just like a miscommunication. There more panic there was meant to be one prince what are
you doing i'm gonna ruin the illusion what is the communication network between everyone who is an
adam sandler and his family because you're right this is spread purely through you know word of
mouth it's a whisper network yeah all of a sudden some of Lenny's old friends from the Jay Giles band are showing up.
They've installed a stage and speakers and a light show for them to play centerfold.
It's all like, yeah, this is...
Shit happens fast in this town.
When Tim Meadows gets choked out and then everyone comes out and then there's Shaq there who's like,
Oh, you strangled my brother.
How does he know so quickly?
Well, presumably the police got called. Well, yeah, but it's like a split second.
And they're not really. And I think this is further support of the argument. They're not really
police officers. There aren't actually cops in this town.
There are two guys who are dressed up like police officers. And they do
point a live gun. Adam Sandler dressed up two
guys like cops and were like yeah do what you like
those guns are going off which i assume because no one gets actually shot they're just full of
blanks right yeah blanks maybe there's a secret police we don't see but they're just oh god well
now we are talking communism with secret police and tie the what i love in retrospect i didn't
figure this out at the time is the censors deemed it appropriate to remove the teacher,
ball, kids looking at the testicles joke.
However, the bit where Peter Dante says,
the Peter Dante who sold your parents' snowmobile
and sold it for crack cocaine is gone.
They kept in.
That's cool.
Also, all of Nick Swanson's gay, panicky storyline,
that's all in there. The kids need to see that yeah yeah making out with a dog is good maybe
it's so maybe it is it does the way that like the so there's one thing i want to talk about
about the ending of the film and the messaging of the film yeah uh that is very very strange but
just going back to the gay panicky stuff real quick this movie handles that stuff so weird because
with nicks watson they're like what a freak yeah but then with the yoga teacher they're like it's
very normal this is a very normal thing yep who cares well he's truman in this movie to be like
he that was what radiated from the screen this time i was like the guy yeah the the yoga instructor is the
one sane man yeah i you know excuse the turn of phrase but he's playing the whole thing straight
yeah straight man in this crazy world around his the way that that yoga class or whatever it is
runs is so crazy which like you know obviously there's a weird moment with the janitor before
john lovitz comes in and makes everyone good it's genuinely still so funny yeah john lovitz rocks john lovitz is that much john lovitz in
a movie is honestly incredible delightful but then this like it's weird all of these people
have come like all of these women have come in for this class yeah and that none of them are
talking about the fact it's a new class or it's a new constructor they're all just there like this
is something we do and then the instructor comes in
and is like hi and no one's
met him, no one knows who this guy is
he's like
this is a new course, I'm a new guy
this does go to the Adam Sandler owns
the town theory though because it's like now
I'm imagining there's a notice board and it's like
today's activities, you could go
to a yoga class or
learn parasailing I like as well that if if
adam sandler's hide the yoga instructor he's like it feels like he's getting too deep he's like i
need a guy for my wife to find very attractive but she gotta be gay yeah i'm too threatened
but also he better be there's a point in the movie where he doesn't know he's gay so adam
i think adam sandler's losing track of what's real and what isn't yeah again another argument for this being basically everyone at adam sandler's whim is props yeah so that little monkey
that gets ripped to shreds by a deer yeah this uh instructor somehow just picked by by sewing magic
sews it up like it's brand new and if you look at that uh stuffed animal it doesn't got like so
like it doesn't got like shitty no it's a's a brand new monkey. It's a brand new monkey
that they've tracked down.
Like someone in production.
You can bet they got a warehouse
full of those fucking monkeys
somewhere.
Yeah, someone in production
has to like track down that
and be like,
say you sewed this
because we've got
a great third act finale.
Yeah, we've paid an actor
to lose his nuts.
It's going to be great.
There's a scene
I really want to see
with the yoga instructor,
which is when Higgins is, it's a deleted scene when higgins is rolling through town they roll past selma hayek's boutique business store and outside of it she's standing there with i don't
know if which kids but i know that she's with becky their daughter because the yoga instructor
standing outside like a new sort of louder shirt shirt, and Becky's on his shoulders.
And it's like, it's seen, it's part of the world.
Becky and him know each other later on when they're in the supermarket.
She calls him Stud Muffin.
There is a whole scene of him bonding with the family,
shopping with the family, doing all of this stuff.
They're like, we don't need it.
And the idea of any scene in this movie being like, we don't need it,
you don't need any of that.
How do they make those decisions what's the distinction so adam sandler running the town the movie because the the messaging of this movie goes against usually what these exact type
of movies are because what happens in this film is that people that are aging so they're all in
the presumably 40s yeah yeah early 50s maybe
usually what happens in movies like this it's like it's okay that you're losing your youth yeah but
this movie takes the opposite stance which is nostalgia is fucking awesome kids are fucked
and like living in the 80s fucking rules and adults will always run this fucking town
and live in the past.
Relive your past glories.
It's still awesome.
If you peaked in high school, don't worry.
That's actually still cool.
That's sick.
Also, in terms of more Adam Sandler fuckery,
so he tells his kid how you pick up, you know,
the mood.
The three steps.
You've got to get them smiling,
say they've got a sweet smile,
and then you've got to ask them on a date.
Before they realize you're fugly yeah yeah fugly and then you know you see this with his kid doing that but the kid is being at his 1950s uh ice cream parlor yeah and his old i
guess adam sandler's old friend is you know his boss and he's colin quinn he's mentoring his kid
to kind of be like the next Adam Sandler.
Oh, no.
Because he's saying your dad did this and it worked on your mum, basically.
He's like, somebody's going to need to keep running the town.
And maybe my wife, and then he hits another kid with something.
No, he brains a woman who works at the ice cream parlor with a scoop.
Her name's Tanya, by the way.
Stunt actors.
Yeah.
No, she's not she was a
yoga instructor who got roped in for a day on set we met her in los angeles we met her we we uh we
had a real journey trying to like figure out who this woman was and uh eventually figured it out
met her she's super lovely that's like the one movie she's ever done which is like and this
speaks to the the the let's zoom out of grown-ups too but
in real life like happy madison productions she just her dad was like friends with someone and
she wound up in the movie and i think that's most adam sandler flip we joked earlier about
tricking adam sandler into thinking we were part of happy madison productions but i feel like if
we were just you got to get on set and then you in the movie. I feel like that's all you need to do.
Adam Sandler, I know that Grown Ups 3 was greenlit, and I know that your production was halted, and it still hasn't come out.
There is still time to cast all five of us.
You know, if you want to bring your production to New Zealand, and also then Melbourne, I'm sure there's some tax breaks there.
This is not the way.
Ask forgiveness, not permission.
If we find out where it is being shot,
I think we just all turn up holding booms.
No one will question us.
And then we just drift our way into frame when they're shooting.
Wait until there's a scene with five people, five people, five booms.
We're in.
Do you think if you lived in this town this adam sandler town you would be getting worried
like i feel like what we're seeing is the point where adam sandler's sort of losing his mind like
previously we're seeing a town where adam sandler's trying to recapture the nostalgia of his childhood
and he's like this is we're gonna open a 1950s ice cream shop but now he's on jackson i'm sorry
to interrupt you but do you think there's a good point in the town being dictated by one man?
I think there would have been a sweet spot where everyone was like, I don't have to work.
I get a basic income from Adam Sandler.
But now we're at a point where Adam Sandler the night before is like, let a deer into my home to piss on my son.
And then he goes to sleep.
And everybody who works at the production is like, he's losing it.
He's like, later on, we're going to fight some children.
And you're like, I don't know how much longer I can sustain this
in Adam Sandler's maniac town.
You've got to imagine before it first all kicked off,
it would have been just like, you know, middle of America,
just, you know, whole town falling apart, things.
There's just no money to make it, you know,
to do basic repairs or beautification.
And then this guy comes in, cock the walk, and he's
like, I got this idea.
I will reinvigorate this whole town, but I own you.
And you're like, well, what do you mean by that?
But at first, maybe it's a fine deal.
At first, maybe you don't mind doing it, you know?
It's kind of like a serfdom.
Yeah, exactly.
You're like, Adam Sandler is my king.
And I just got to tell the fields.
Those fields are kind of-
Entertaining Adam Sandler, yeah. It's a Jeff Bezos sort of approach to capitalism. and I just got to tell the fields those fields are kind of
entertaining Adam Sandler
it's a Jeff Bezos sort of approach to capitalism
what do you guys think
was the original industry
that was sort of the backbone of this town
when it actually existed legitimately
well it feels like
that what may have probably happened
is based on the buildings and stuff that we've seen
apart from the Kmart
everything is
and the movie sort of
makes a point of it
is that the town
and I think that this is
probably more heavily
in the first Grown Ups
although I remember
Grown Ups 1 being set
in a cabin
but I could be
misremembering
but
that's right
that's right
that is right
yeah fuck yeah
I told it
they go to a lake
somewhere
it's a holiday
well they'll cancel
going to Milan
fuck yeah fuck yeah that's legend stuff
bro yeah wow dude i'm i'm actually fucking on one right now um joel i feel like you were going
something with that what is the architecture telling us yeah oh yeah so the way that the
town is is like it's very much like since adam sandal left the town kind of stayed the same and
got like kind of decrepit like the fact the ice cream shop it's not that reopened it's just the same one that he used to go to as a kid sure you've got
like a lot of things like even just like repair shops and stuff like that as things he remember
like because like it's just things how like everything kind of just stayed the same yeah
except for kmart that's true kmart feels new yeah yeah so i guess the town was probably like an old like uh is it a mining town that
logging dried up logging a quarry what's in a quarry stone there's a lot of brick
i don't know what that's telling us but there's a lot like the bit right yeah it feels like a lot
of the buildings are brick i'm in the exterior i might i remember a lot of weatherboard i don't
i feel i i feel like they probably um there's a
train station i feel like it was maybe a gateway town you have a lot of people through a lot of
people coming to visit you know maybe cold's going through there or oh maybe there's a train station
and the weather seems nice maybe it was kind of like a tourist destination yeah yeah yeah it could
be like an old like sort of in, you know, Australia,
where we have like the old gold rush towns.
Oh, yeah, true, true, true.
It's kind of built up there and then, like, you know,
over time no one really gives a shit.
Yeah, yeah.
It seems like you really want it to be a mining town,
but I think, unfortunately, based on the amount of greenery
and stuff we see, it's probably not.
Where they jump?
Is that a quarry?
Is that a flooded quarry?
That was a quarry.
Oh, yeah, that's true. That's what I'm saying. I don't understand quarries. What's a quarry? Is that a flooded quarry? Oh, yeah, that's true.
I don't understand quarries.
What's a quarry?
A quarry is like a mine.
Okay.
It's like a mine you don't go in.
You just go on.
Jackson.
You got the big brain on Jackson.
Joel and I are doing faces at each other now,
which is not going to get picked up on a podcast,
but we're having fun.
Well, yeah. I mean, okay, so there's a quarry yeah it seems like it could probably be a college town too which i know you said towards the start
of the episode i think that depends and i was going to ask this question are the college kids
in on it or is the college separate and they found this horrible little college yeah it is suggested
as sort of within the greater vicinity
of the sort of catchment of the town,
but they had to travel in
to sort of get to where the grown-ups hang out.
I am on board for the mining thing.
I think the quarry is like our one great clue here.
It's the one thing we can cross on.
That combined with the rail infrastructure,
this makes perfect sense to me.
So we initially, we had mineral resources,
maybe gold.
It went to shit, which has happened.
We've spent a little bit of time in Kentucky
and West Virginia in the States, Guy and I.
We've seen firsthand the devastating
effects of...
When the ass
falls out of these places, it's
terrible. Drugs come in and ruin society.
Thank God for Adam Sandler.
He would have seemed like a godsend when he first arrived.
Here's a guy who left the town.
So already there's bitterness that he's gone.
But he comes back and he comes back pockets deep.
He says, hey, let me buy your town.
Everybody's like, what?
What does that mean?
But OK.
All right.
Okay.
And he's like, now entertain me as kind of like a gesture.
This is my call.
See, I think that starts slowly.
Adam Sandler...
Here's what I imagine.
Say I work at, I don't know, the service station.
I'm at the 7-Eleven.
But Adam Sandler likes hanging out with me.
At first, I'm just working at the service station.
But then one day he arrives and he's like, hey, let's go ride go-karts or whatever.
And I'm like, well, I got a job.
And he's like, that's fine.
You can just leave it.
Then slowly I leave it more and more.
And then I have to only go there five minutes a day.
Then not at all.
But it doesn't matter because everybody's getting paid by Adam Sandler.
You know what?
I feel like Adam Sandler would not like, you know, and this holds true in the movie.
It's like your boss at the service station would be like,
hey, if you're not going to show up, that's fine,
but you don't work here anymore.
He's like, no, you don't understand.
Like a big part of the appeal for Adam is that I still work here.
I'm going to come in a uniform and do like five minutes.
You don't have to pay me.
I'm not on the payroll, but it's just so important we keep this going.
What about this though? It's like your options are you go and do your job. I'm not on the payroll, but it's just so important we keep this going. What about this, though?
It's like your options are you go and do your job.
I'm doing air quotes.
You can't catch that in audio.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, you could if I said it like this.
Your job.
That's true.
Nailed it, nailed it, nailed it.
Or you're hanging out with Adam Sandler.
That's your life in the town.
So the elasticity of the hours that you work
are inversely proportionate to your proximity to Adam Sandler.
If you are close to Adam Sandler,
you do not have to spend really any time at all at your job.
But if you are far away from Adam Sandler's social circle,
you must be at your place of work.
It sounds so scary to be in his inner circle
and just be on call or whatever.
I'd rather do the job yeah
i'd rather work at kmart as well this is scary well you mentioned that yeah we all these towns
the bottom falls out and a lot of people go to drugs and that kind of stuff but if you look at
some of the adults who do have like the jobs in this uh town a lot of them seem that they were
maybe drug fucked yeah yeah so i'm thinking of maybe you've got like three examples here.
You've got the bus driver who was clearly like,
I think Adam Sandler was so entertained by how he was pre Adam Sandler coming in.
He's like,
you can stay on drugs,
but he seems to kind of guy who's like,
just like addled because he's had years of abuse.
Yeah.
And this is maybe his recovering,
but the damage has been done.
You then have,
uh, perhaps John Lovitz,
who I think is definitely a reformed criminal of some kind.
And then also the principal.
Of some kind.
The guy is clearly a pervert.
He has been arrested for sexual crimes.
And the word reformed is also pretty generous.
The drugs he was addicted to?
Yeah, pervert pills.
Yeah, pervert pills.
And then, yes, the principal
clearly seemed like
maybe had connections
to the mob at one point.
And it also beautifully explains
the incompetence
of the people
who aren't within
Adam Sandler's inner circle.
If Adam Sandler
just lined up everyone in town
and was like,
janitor, principal,
yoga instructor,
bus driver, cop, cop.
Like, is anyone who has a job
doing the job well no the ice cream
store guy makes i oh no because ice cream store guy also gets tricked into making look he's taking
a big i can't i cannot get past the adam sandler job lottery at the start of some you'll just line
up and he just walks along and he points at different people and tells them what they're
gonna be doing his version of for the fucking next three months. I would say that Peter Dante does a good,
like he takes his job as a cop really seriously.
But then I did have a flash of that genuinely comedic moment in the movie
where the fight has started to break out at the party.
And Adam Sandler's wife says,
somebody call the police.
Out of the crowd,
Peter Dante is wearing nothing but skis,
a Speedo and a foam dome. That's got like eight cans of beer around his head.
And says, we're already here.
He knows how ridiculous it is to even imagine him as a real police officer.
A lot of them understand what this town is.
When he says we're already here, it's sarcastic.
Oh yeah, we're already here it's sarcastic yeah oh yeah we're already here yeah like in the college students the beautiful lonely island uh who are just kind of like
gyrating on a car clearly that feels also like maybe that's a great gag that adam sandler wanted
to play on one of his good friends yeah so i feel even when kevin james's wife is like i didn't
expect this she means like it wasn't on the itinerary like no i think it was on the itinerary
because she's like i didn't expect this big smile and a wink but adam called up or larry whatever
his name was called up and was like i got a great joke as kevin james watches balls squish against
his window he's like this is what i'm paid for so that was the best acting kevin jameson in the
whole movie was when he got to pretend to be actually homophobic. Did that scene make it into the Netflix cut?
Yeah, great question.
Yes, although I've got a weird feeling it was shorter.
Yeah, it felt like it really blew by.
When it was brought up, I was like, was that in there?
It was in there.
There's definitely, yes, the joke and stuff is in there.
You get that shot of them walking towards the car.
But in the cut that Guy and I are used to,
it's probably useful. There's a of like body parts being squished against
windows and stuff and another funny reveal with that scene which again it's it is worth probably
noting the jokes that do land in this movie because you can cover them in one podcast
cutting to the fact that the driving instructor and the kid are the other car yeah funny that's
funny that's good it's a good time good stuff uh i also think again if you look at this where some people may have lost themselves in the role
yeah a little bit too much if there's a scene where they go uh in in the supermarket and this
is i think where adam sandler is like i'm gonna have this great confrontation with who i think
my wife is like crushing on yeah um the yoga instructor and so he wants to have this conversation
scripted conversation that he wants to have there.
But then the woman who is just obsessed with him comes in.
And I feel that bit, she's lost herself in the role.
And Adam Sandler doesn't like this. See, I don't know.
I'm still firmly of the belief that Adam Sandler has lost himself in the role.
Adam Sandler's really struggling in this movie to tell the difference
between reality and his own created fiction.
I have a theory
that this scene I think very heavily
implies which is that Adam Sandler bought
the town but it was never his intention
for it to become Adam Sandlerville
but the town as
time goes by is so scared he's gonna
leave. So they
are like secretly coming together
to make sure that everything
we can't have him leave. He needs to have the secret police.
Yeah.
The whole town.
And this is why there can be no such thing as a benevolent dictator,
because even when the dictator has the best of intentions and doesn't want to
mess with anything,
the mere fact that that much power is centralized to a focal point changes the
behavior of everyone in it.
Yeah.
Cause that scene in the supermarket
where there's i mean that's also a pretty good scene where he's trying to have the confrontation
with a yoga instructor but then you've also got girlfriend from sixth grade coming in and like
there's so much conflict and adam sandler's like yeah i have no idea what's happening but none of
this seems good for me so let's go yeah yeah yeah he checks out of
that also something that has no payoff because it seems like the summer hayek with the person
that dated adam sandler in sixth grade is like you're delusional yeah then she eats the note
as if to be like don't even think about it but adam sandler's like i don't know what's going on what does this note mean and then there's no payoff for that because it's like well she kicks
her in the head yeah she kicks her in the head that's true she does kick her it's also very
telling that that his child's driving instructor and his wife's assistant are married yeah that's
just very like i don't know two people close to my family connect them up i can't stop thinking
and forgive me for not remembering their names the bold family that keep going what imagine that if that's adam sandler's choice i want this family
to behave like this you as the dad have to be like i'm sorry son you're gonna have to say this
horrible catchphrase there's nothing we can do about it i want to make it really clear for the
people listening that literally in the movie grownown Ups 2, there are three characters who are in one family and they try to get the word what across the line as a catchphrase.
They're trying to float that as like a let's get it on merch catchphrase in the film.
It is fucking insane.
I feel like they're really close to Adam Sandler and they've started phoning it in.
They're like, I'm actually running out of ways
to engage with him when he comes along.
What?
How small can I make it?
What can I reduce it to that is still serviceable?
And Adam Sandler's so discombobulated
about what's happening that every time he's like, what?
He's like, well, that is what they say.
That's what I pay him for.
I pay him for that
call back to that like nostalgic era where like catchphrases were just a huge yeah yeah of media
and so that could just be things of being like that's what i want i miss this i miss when this
happened do this what do the what do the what make your wife do the what i am totally blown away
by where we got to yeah Yeah. It's unexpected.
I really, I honestly, I feel like we stumbled into a theory that holds water.
It actually stands up to scrutiny.
Yeah.
Like, there's a real sense of pride I'm feeling.
I'm feeling very proud of Guy. We don't often feel that after an episode.
Yeah, it's rare for us to come to what you might call, what the layman would call a conclusion.
I think we should be proud of ourselves today for what we achieved well i think yeah like adam sandler might be in charge i think i'm going around to more the jd theory
which is like adam sandler injected this town with a lot of money and the town are being like
i guess he is our king and we need to service him unbeknownst to him and i think in many ways that
still remains a consummate metaphor for
what's happening in happy madison productions where adam sandler despite you know he he is
responsible for all these people but also these people are sort of responsible for it i think it
still works i think it's still an effective metaphor yeah yeah no one's gonna tell adam
sandler in the town no i don't want to do that because they fear the implications yeah and adam
sandler could never stop because all of these people rely on him so heavily.
You know, it's a kind of horrible catch-22.
Yeah.
It really is.
And sometimes in the same way that Happy Madison and in the town,
sometimes he goes on holiday,
like he gets shoulder-tapped to go and do something of interest,
which is like he leaves the town to go on a holiday
and experience what life's like as an actual person.
Goes to Hawaii.
Met a girl who's got amnesia.
Dates her.
Marries her.
Go and work with the Safdie brothers in New York on a diamond movie.
That's right.
Get involved in the diamond trade.
Get addicted to gambling.
Run up some debts.
Yeah.
Shot in the head.
Dies.
Fine again.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, shot in the head, dies Fine again Yeah It must be nice living in the town when
This Adam Sandler does go on an actual holiday
Because I feel like it might be a nice break
Quick question round the horn, if I may
Please
I feel like we're closing things up
Who would rather work in the construct of Grown Ups 2
For Kmart and who for Adam Sandler
With all we know
I am very much team Adam Sandler.
It means that not only
is my life chaos all
the time, I'm sort of also
getting to live a second teenage
dream of mine, which is to be a member
of the Jackass crew. Yeah, sure.
So I feel like
that's two birds, one stone for me.
So yeah, as close
to Adam Sandler as possible.
Make me...
Part of that crew.
Yeah.
I'm definitely team Sandman.
Sometimes I don't like decisions,
so I feel this would smooth out my brain somewhat,
and I'm kind of at their whimsy.
I think I would pick living close to Adam Sandler
because I think the most appropriate place for me
at any point in history would have been a medieval jester being like,
spitting me eye, my lord.
So I think that's basically, I would slot right in.
Jackson, truly a cuck for the ages.
Oh yeah, we have no dignity.
There's so many things we would do for cash.
I'm blown away by that.
I think
I'd have to work at Kmart
and I know that the hours are harder
and I know it's a more challenging craft
but to me
the freedom of power
of movement, knowing
where my daytime and night time hours are
and like
just being in proximity to the
Sandler Circus and being like i don't think it would be
difficult to to i think it wouldn't be difficult to get in i think it looks pretty fucking tough
to get out yeah i i think you know you've made your sandler beds there boys and um i'm just
going to look at you from behind the gun shelf it came out and say godspeed better you than me
yeah i'm 100 with Guy as well.
I'm team Kmart all the way.
And it's an interesting thing because autonomy is so important to me.
And literally, I think I would be working way more hours at the Kmart,
but it's just that sense of like I feel like I am in control
of my own destiny at Kmart.
Am I earning minimum wage?
Yes, but no one can yank me out
to go to a recital on the turn of a dime.
I think if Adam Sandler woke me up at 2am
and was like, you gotta put lobsters
down your pants, have them bite your balls.
I'd be like, this is where I'm meant to be.
Yeah, I'd be like, yes, thank you for
making this decision for me, Adam. I don't
need to make these decisions. I will.
I dream of, I think, both myself and Jack
to one day be controlled by like Remy the
Rat situation.
Yeah, a Ratatouille situation is basically sweet paradise for the both of us.
Like just to be a big fleshy mech for Adam Sandler would kind of be a dream come true.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'll do what you want, Adam.
Let me be your meat jester.
I just think that subservience is really where I need to be.
I would just like to say that-
The podcast is going somewhere else right now.
You guys do merch, because put that on a date.
It's like maybe you're a fleshy mech for Adam.
I'd just like to say that whilst I am team working for Adam,
I'm there for the chaos of it.
I do enjoy making choices and the idea of being so subservient.
That isn't me.
I don't know what that means.
But I do, I am leaning also, like, because Kmart also seems chaotic
because, like, I guess most of your job is just cleaning up rafts
that have been activated in this store.
Most of your job is dealing with Adam Sandler's gang.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ruining your store.
Yeah, yeah.
You lose a lot of agency because basically the main people
are coming to Edam and his cronies and you are powerless
to stop them from doing anything.
All of you have forgotten that Nick Swanson puts a real human turd
into the display toilet when they're in there.
Yeah.
You think you're out.
You're not out.
You can work at Kmart all you like.
That's the trick.
Even if you work for Kmart, you're working for Adam Sandler.
You'll have lobsters on your balls and you won't even be getting paid for it.. That's the trick. Even if you work for Kmart, you're working for Adam Sandler. You'll have lobsters on your balls
and you won't even be getting paid for it.
You're at the party. You're in the
fight. You're also at the recital
if you're Tim Meadows, who is the only person
we see working at Kmart. At least
we understand the value of money. You don't get
paid in dollars. Everything is free.
You have no idea what a life
actually is like. You don't know what a
life is actually like because you haven't know what a life is actually like
because you haven't been inside a tyre rolling down a hill.
You don't know.
You've never lived.
Even in this thought exercise,
there is a separation between those of us who work at Kmart
and those of us who are under the Sandler umbrella.
This is what they want.
You don't know what it feels like with a tyre just slamming into your nuts
at 200 miles an hour. You don't know what it feels like with a tire just slamming into your nuts at 200 miles an hour.
You don't know that beautiful pain.
You haven't lived until you've potentially experienced what your last moments of life of Earth could be.
We could die at any moment.
Life is valuable to the Adamson.
You've never been strung up by your feet on a bus for three hours.
You don't know what that's like exhilarating yes i i actually i'll join guy in that i think that all of this can
be summed up by the beautiful lyrics of ario speed wagon which are the first words we hear
as the credits roll live every moment love every day because before you know it your precious time
slips away yeah wow it's a message for all of us.
That's true.
That is something that I think,
no matter if you're Team Kmart or Team Sandman,
that is something that you should absolutely take away from this episode.
It's something we can all get behind.
Have that tattooed across your chest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And on that note, I've been Joel.
I've also been Joel.
I've been Jackson.
And I've been Guy.
I've been Tim Kmart Band. been Joel. I've been Jackson. And I've been Guy. I've been Tim. Kmart.
Bad.
We have been plumbing the Death Star and...
We have been the worst idea of all time.
Anyone want to...
Should we plug any...
Plugables?
Oh, yeah, because this is coming out during the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
Oh.
If that's true, buy a ticket.
Come watch Guy Montgomery do stand-up comedy.
I do not mention Grown Ups 2 once.
And if you are coming for us, yeah, go see Guy Montgomery's show.
Tickets will be available now.
Links in the show notes, I believe.
I also believe that we're plugging the entire festival.
So if you're in Melbourne or you can get to Melbourne,
go to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Buy tickets.
Buy every ticket imaginable.
Anytime there's a deal,
snap those tickets up.
Oh, yeah.
Tight ass Tuesdays?
Oh, you better believe
we're going on a Tuesday.
You guys know
what they're talking about.
Important that you do
buy tickets to Guy's show first.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then with all that
extra money,
which we know
you've all got
podcast listeners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stim with all that extra money, which we know you've all got, podcast listeners.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stimulate Melbourne's economy and the comedy scene by going to buy Guy Montgomery's comedy show.
What was the title of that show once again?
Guy Montgomery by name, Guy Montgomery by nature.
Yes.
Remember that.
So it's Guy Montgomery by name, Guy Montgomery by nature.
Buy tickets now. If you can't make, Guy Montgomery by nature. Buy tickets now.
If you can't make it, it's fine.
Buy tickets.
Guy loves performing to a half-empty room,
provided that he knows it's in theory sold out.
Are you not from Australia?
Can you not get to Melbourne?
If you're right now living in the US or the UK
or somewhere where you can't quite travel,
if you don't even have a passport, it's fine.
Go on to the Minkoff website and just search for Guy Montgomery
and buy those tickets.
I've changed my mind.
The show's off.
This has been Plumbing the Death Star, worst idea of all time.
Thank you so much for listening.
And yeah, subscribe to both of our podcasts.
I'm hitting stop right there.
There's such a strangely menacing tone for that.