Two Hundred A Day - Episode 67: Malibu Madness - Round 2!

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

It's the second half of the Malibu Madness Tournament! We crown category winners, regional champions and then get to the big cheese, the inaugural Malibu Madness Champion! We had a lot of fun doing this, and hope you enjoy it too. Check out patreon.com/twohundredaday to see the brackets and follow along! We now have a second, patron-exclusive, podcast - Plus Expenses. Covering our non-Rockford media, games and life chatter, Plus Expenses is available via our Patreon at ALL levels of support. Want more Rockford Files trivia, notes and ephemera? Check out the Two Hundred a Day Rockford Files Files! Support the podcast by subscribing at patreon.com/twohundredaday. Big thanks to our Gumshoe patrons! Check them out: Richard Hatem Brian Perrera Eric Antener Bill Anderson Jim Crocker - keep an eye out for Jim selling our games east of the Mississippi, and follow him on twitter @jimlikesgames Shane Liebling's Roll For Your Party dieroller app Jay Adan's Miniature Painting And thank you to Dael Norwood, Dylan Winslow, Dave P, and Dale Church! Thanks to: fireside.fm for hosting us Audio Hijack for helping us record and capture clips from the show spoileralerts.org for the adding machine audio clip Freesound.org for other audio clips Two Hundred a Day is a podcast by game and narrative designers Nathan D. Paoletta and Epidiah Ravachol. In each episode we pick an episode of The Rockford Files, recap and review it as fans of the show, and tease out specific elements from that episode that hold lessons for writers, gamers and anyone else interested in making better narratives.

Welcome to 200 a Day, the podcast where we talk about the 70s television detective show, The Rockford Files. I'm Nathan Paletta. And I'm Epidaeus Ravishaw. And I hope you have your nachos and your big foam fingers that say Angel No. 1 on them, because this episode we are going to go through the entire rest of our Malibu Madness tournament and crown a 2020 champion. Yes, I am psyched. I feel like I should put on sports announcer voice. Thank you, Nathan.

We're here at the stadium where I don't know. I literally don't watch sports. So except except for the king of sports, obviously. Right, right. Pro wrestling, the king of sports. Yes. Except for the king of sports, obviously. Right, right.

Pro wrestling, the king of sports, yes. We're here at the empty stadium from the four-pronged brick where Jim found the cartridges from a handgun. I'm just recalling that because I was quickly looking through that episode, looking for something that I did not find. But that leads me to a quick note. We definitely got a couple of references wrong in our previous episode, including at least one of our category choices or one of our at least one of our entries into the tournament. Yeah. So if you were listening to that episode and we're going like, that's not right. That's not in that episode. Yeah, you're right.

We have been doing this show for four years. Some of this stuff kind of combines in our memory we'll go over those when we get to them um yeah as far as i could tell from reviewing all the stuff for this episode um nothing's like dramatically wrong we just kind of conflated a couple things i just want to apologize for consistently calling dennis derrick last episode i think that i don't know why i didn't remember his real name i edited all that out so i'm imagining the podcast where i'm talking about dennis just every single time dennis is mentioned i've watched quite a bit of Rockford Files, which has been a delight.

It's been really fun. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard to stop them. I don't know if you've experienced this, but when I put them in and I kind of fast forward to the section that we're trying to look at and I'm watching that section and then it just keeps going. And at some point I'm like, I don, I got to move on to the next thing. And I think my brain doesn't realize I can stop it, right? Like there's nothing going on in my brain saying, oh, you should stop watching this delightful television show and move on to the next bit.

I definitely had that. And I also definitely had the experience of, especially for some of the ones that we haven't, that we, that we first went over in our early episodes. I definitely had the experience of watching it, starting to remember more about the episode and then being like, oh, here's this thing that could have been one of our things. Right. Like every episode has like four things that could be in there for rock traditionists and like two dialogue choices. That could be in there for rock traditionists and like two dialogue choices. So that is a lot, puts a lot more weight on the whole, you know, keep in mind that this is really a function of our memory as well as our note taking and not necessarily 100% objective quality. Because all of these episodes just have so many great little bits.

And I was like, oh, we should have done that one you know well we i mean we were over on twitter uh talking a bit about the uh the gabby hayes uh scene in uh uh just another polish wedding it it it was in the first round but uh got beat out by uh you feed me an ice cream sandwich and And we both still, there was no reason to go to that section of that episode, but we both just went there and watched it anyways. I forgot that it hadn't advanced. I was like, I'll cast a wide net and make sure I catch the things I want to brush up on.

And so I was like, Oh, let me make sure that I brushed up on this scene. And then I looked at the standings. I was like, Oh, right. This didn't advance. Oh, well that's okay. I, uh, it was worth it. I love that scene. And, uh, uh, well, yeah, we'll talk about when we get there. Um, so that all said, we are going to look forward and not back, uh, all of the things that already uh lost are preserved in amber uh always to be remembered for their service but uh we'll try not to get too bogged down in um uh reminiscences and we'll go forward with our uh with our tournament yes all right so we are going to go through all of our second round pairings and then we will start crowning champions.

We'll spend the most time talking about things the first time we talk about them, I think. And then after that, it'll go faster because we don't need to go into every detail every time something comes up. Right. This happens to be the first episode of our show you're listening to. I highly suggest going back at least one in order to get more of the context. Or, you know, just go for it. You don't need to know about all those losers. Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly how I would phrase that.

Hello, listeners. We really appreciate you being here, and we want to make sure that you know that you can become a patron over at patreon.com slash 200aday. In addition to episode previews and access to the 200 a day Rockford Files file spreadsheet, our patrons get plus expenses, a bonus podcast where we talk about movies we're watching, books we're reading, and games we're playing. 200 a day will remain free to all for as long as we do it. But if you want to help support us and get access to the new plus expenses audio feed, you can become a patron for just $1 an episode. Each episode, we extend a special thanks to our gumshoe-level patrons. This time, we say thank you to Jim Crocker. In addition to supporting the show,

he also sells our games at conventions east of the Mississippi. See where to find him at JimLikesGames on Twitter. Shane Liebling, if you play games online, you know you should check out his free dice rolling app, Roll For Your Party, at rollforyour.party. Jay Adan. Check out his amazing miniature painting over at jayadan.com. Dylan Winslow, Dale Norwood, Dave P., Dale Church, and finally, big thanks to Detective Patrons. Check them out on Twitter. Eric Antenor, at Antenor. Brian Pereira, at Thermaware.

Bill Anderson, at BillAnd88. And of course, Richard Haddam, at Richard Haddam. So should we jump into best episode? Yeah. Chicken Little is a little chicken. Beat out Gear Jammers last time. So it's in. And it's matched up against Quickie Nirvana, which beat out So Help Me God. This will probably be a theme throughout. But for me, because of the quality of the episode that they beat,

they carried more weight with them than they had in the first round, which again, is not how brackets work. Like in real life, you don't get a bonus because you beat something big in the first round. Well, maybe you do get a little bit of a morale boost. I think one could make the argument that it is more exciting for the underdog who has beaten a very high performing contender. They have a stronger narrative coming into the rest of their run. I buy that. So a little background on what's going on behind the scenes with Nathan and I. It's been a week since we recorded the last one.

And in that week, we have decided to go through and refresh our memories and watch a bunch of bits from the, the whatever bits we can. I mean, obviously some of these categories, for instance, the printing press,

we couldn't just find all the bits that that existed. Though, ironically, I feel like I found a good bit for it. We'll get to that later. Yeah. But like the villains, I didn't watch the episodes that the villains were in just to see the villains. Right. So we had time constraints and we couldn't just go and rewatch all the best episodes. Yeah.

I did not have time to watch four to eight full episodes, unfortunately. But that actually, I think, helped in my decision-making process. Okay. Because I was like, oh, I don't have time to watch all of these. Maybe I'll just watch. And then I'd already known that I made the decision. Oh, okay. And I realized I was just going to watch the one I wanted to watch again most.

Interesting. And that's what ended up making my decisions here. My inclination was a little more like, I want to watch the one that I don't remember quite as well. Oh, okay. Which tends to be the one that I'm like, am I only privileging the one that I like more because I remember it better? Yes.

But I did not watch them. So perhaps this point is moot. All right. So this first matchup, Chicken Little is a Little Chicken versus Quickie Nirvana. Chicken Little is a Little Chicken is, you know, heavily an angel episode, a con episode, gangster episode. We get to see Jim being the smartest guy in the room but then we get to see jim making a terrible terrible yes mistake uh in terms of his ultimate

con so uh it's very funny um and it has a lot of great elements that are represented in other brackets yeah quickie nirvana is a more personal episode uh it's more of a just about jim and his interaction with sky the other protagonist for the episode or foil perhaps who is on this journey the spiritual journey of of trying to find the thing that she doesn't really know she just knows she needs something um also has a lot of good humor but is is is counterbalanced at the end by a very uh dark ending where sky seems to have learned nothing and gone the completely other direction in her search for solace while uh you know jim has has tried this whole time to get her to stand up for herself and and uh and realize her herself as an actor in her own life versus waiting for someone else to tell her how she should feel and behave.

Pretty different episodes. Yeah, they're very different episodes, which is fun. I enjoy that we're getting that kind of pairing going on here. Before we go any further, I think we should discuss tiebreakers. Okay. Because if we end up disagreeing on on this there's only two of us right two into yeah two into 556 doesn't go um well my first thought is we could go by imdb rating if it's an episode oh yeah so that's kind of like the the popular vote yeah i think almost everything here is attached to an episode. There's just there's only a few things that aren't attached to episodes.

So if we decide to just go with the rating for the episode it's in, it's as arbitrary as anything else. It feels better than flipping a coin or rolling a die. And if we come down to one where we can't do that, then maybe we should resort to the die rolling. Sure. As game designers. Yes. I mean, considering that we don't have the ability to do any real-time feedback on this stuff.

Although what we'll do is we'll, if we come down to that tiebreaker, we'll just mention each one in the category and give a pause. And you, listener, wherever you are, whatever's happening, just applaud for the one you want. And then we'll go with the applause that we hear through the internet. Exactly.

Perfect. I love it. All right. So that said, do you have an initial pick? I do. And I feel bad for it, which is why I did that preamble. These are all heartbreakers. Yeah. I went with Chicken Little as Little Chicken, and my reasoning for it, in addition to the—it was the one I really wanted to watch, but I do agree that that introduces a certain amount of bias—is that it is so well represented elsewhere and throughout that we just kept going to it for all the all these things i feel like it's just a solid solid good episode now you don't have to agree with me right now my so my initial impulse was was to to to go go to bat for quickie nirvana yeah because as a character study and as a as a piece of writing that sticks with me,

I just think it's like so well constructed. It did win an Emmy, just like it did win the show. It's first Emmy, just throwing that out there for, for drama. And it did beat. So help me God.

So that also weights it a little bit in my, in my mind. That said, if we go to the, which episode would I recommend someone who's never seen the show watch that edge does go to chicken little as a little chicken yeah so does anything there change your mind well the category is best episode oh i actually do want to change to quickie nir. Yeah, fine. You can have this one. This is yours.

Take the win. Victory. I'm putting that into my bracket. Oh, that screws up the rest of my brackets. If this is a reluctant choice, we can go to the ratings. But I think the ratings are... Actually, no. The ratings would be in your favor.

Would it go the other way? Yeah. Actually, no. Because it won the first Emmy and because it beat out So Help Me God, I cannot argue with the fact that they're just really good television coming down that branch of the brackets. I guess for me, just the fact that Chicken Little is Little Chicken is represented elsewhere gives me a little bit of room to be like. Yeah, it's the Oscars. Yeah. We could give the best supporting actress because for some reason we decided to give the best movie to someone else.

Right. All right. Quickie Nirvana. Okay. Quickie Nirvana. Taking out Jake Little as a little chicken. Sorry to bust your bracket, but sometimes it's just how it goes. All right. So the next pairing, we have queen of peru which had beat out the trees the

bees and tt flowers to get to where it is uh not a easy task uh and the paper palace which beat out white on white and nearly perfect so here we have i think a very similar pairing to the previous one as far as tone and yeah yeah so queen of peru is the the family from indiana that is on vacation and steals uh jim's uh grill that a uh gang from the uk that stole a giant diamond hid it in his grill for through machinations and so now everyone is on the road trying to track down this RV with just this total middle America stereotype of a family that is both charming and just ridiculous and horrible. all the beats of like humor and it's very Rockford-y. There's lots of, you know,

like it is a very Rockfordishness episode. Like I can't imagine that episode in any other piece of television. Yeah. Yeah. And then the paper palace is a Rita Moreno episode. Also Emmy award winning for, for Rita as Rita Katkiewicz, who is the sex worker that is friends with Dennis and then gets introduced to Jim.

Yeah. She's seems to be being targeted for, or the woman that she's friends with and going to be staying with is, is targeted by goons. She ends up getting murdered. The Edmonton Beavers hockey team is a major plot point um we get to see rita and jim develop a friendship as he's trying to help her and and save her from these um goons and then we also get to see their whole social circle you know like there's a bit it's a bit of a social

issue episode and that is like my job doesn't define my personality you know and kind of really punches punches up towards the the prudes and the people in the world who judge others versus you know allowing people to kind of live their life and be who they are again yeah very different yeah so queen of peru uh holds kind of a special place in my heart because it is definitely one of these episodes that i just have remembered not the whole episode but parts of it from my childhood like it i wouldn't have been able to say oh it's the queen of peru was the episode but that rv and like there were definite things that visual cues that just uh stuck with me the whole time uh that said i am definitely leaning more paper palace uh on this one and like i feel even more regretful because i think uh both chicken little is a little chicken

and queen of peru like you you said last time those are great episodes to be like oh you want to watch a rockford files episode here's an episode to watch so you can understand what there is to love about the show i don't know do you have feelings here or are are you a monster no i have feelings i i it's a little weird so queen i i kind of i i want to say queen of peru because i went against chicken little is a little chicken kind of representing the right the comedy conference comedy conference because it is just such a good time. I think because I am so into character, the character stuff in the Paper Palace is just so good.

Yeah. I will point out that Paper Palace is a very funny episode as well. Yeah. There's some of my favorite comedic beats because of just both rita moreno and james gardner just being able to to play off each other the bit at the end where the uh the the neighbor who has been a jerk to her this whole time is comes over to her apartment because he's because he's a client yes and then he's hiding in the closet with like the roses and the bottle of

wine and they open the door and he's just like standing there pretending trying to absorb into the background that's an amazing moment yeah i mean uh uh going with my heart i think i would have to say paper palace okay we're that's what we got then paper we're in agreement all right yeah all right well uh we're gonna put the best episodes on hold for a moment and we're going to now switch to more rockfordishness and uh this first pairing is going to be tough if we have a tie first up we have the uh business card printing press which is uh just throughout the show like we don't have a specific episode although i think later on we'll point out a specific episode and that beat out the tank thievery bit which was in the background of uh two into 556 won't go oh my god i can't

believe i i can never remember the name of that one so So I took a look at that because I wanted to kind of remember what that scene was about. And just for the record, not only did he traded 400 units of rations for the Korean tank, he being Jim, also ran a series of pool halls in Busan. All right. Just saying. That's good stuff. But what made it through was the uh business card printing press and uh it's up against the ice rank hostage exchange which took place in feeding frenzy which beat out jim and beth their whole deal which i mean if you're gonna put some weight

on on a winner uh okay so now we're getting into the places where I did go back and re-watch what I could re-watch. And re-watching the ice rink exchange. Okay, first of all, I scanned forward on the DVD until I saw an ice rink. And then I went back. And I went back a little too far. And that was fine. Because what I got was the negotiation on the phone that led up to it. Yes.

Which is exquisite. Who is this? I'm the guy who stumbled into the Halloween party, and I'm the guy you're going to have to negotiate this transaction with. I'm not dealing with no middleman. Fact number one is I'm very fond of Sandy, but I'm not altogether sure she's worth a half a million dollars. Come on. Who are you kidding? altogether sure she's worth a half a million dollars. Come on, who are you kidding? Fact number two is I helped Charlie boost this dough three years ago, so I've got a half interest in it.

Now, I may be willing to trade that away, but only on my terms. I'm not gonna do any deal and then end up with a stiff. I don't believe you. Then take a hike. You'll call back. Oh, they'll kill her, Jim. Charlie, Charlie, we got to figure that she may already be dead. Now, if she isn't, she will be unless we deal ourselves some cards. I mean, this guy can run us around. We'll end up with nothing. You can answer? Yeah, but not on the first ring. Change your mind, huh? Let's just say I'm willing to keep talking about it.

And Jim is always hanging up on him. Yes, yes. Oh, so good. It's a wonderful moment of status play, but we also get this sort of, again, it's like that thing you were saying, Jim being the smartest person in the room. But more specifically, this is Jim doing his job. Yeah, he's been hired to help out this guy, Charlie. Charlie's second guessing everything he's doing and Jim's explaining how it is. And that's actually one of the things I love about this scene, because just before we go to the rink for the hostage exchange, Charlie is like, why an ice skating rink? And Jim's like, well, how many people do you know that keep ice skates in the trunk of their car?

Like, literally, they're going to be off balance. Yeah, no sudden moves. Yeah, public place. Oh, God. The crowd slowing down to watch what's happening uh but like yeah re-watching it some of the notes that i took included like charlie just going on about how down on his luck like charlie's a loser right like that's an important thing to understand and jim is still got him like obviously charlie isn't the only victim here charlie's daughter is in trouble because of all this and jim's going to help out there too but uh it just has this wonderful warmth to how jim deals with charlie even though charlie is the maker of a lot of his own problems here

yeah well and specifically he says the thing here in kind of the the preamble to the actual exchange where he's like jim's assuming that he's going to make the exchange and then charlie talks him out of it by saying that like this is a chance for him to actually stand up and show that he's a man and like take his take his pride back by doing this this one thing when he's kind of let all this other stuff slide um yeah it's good stuff um the only problem with the scene is that it's impossible to play a clip from for our show because there's no dialogue. It's just the carnival music and ice skates as this whole exchange takes place in the middle of the ice rink. It does have a classic bit of dialogue just before it when Jim and Charlieim and charlie have the money that they're going to exchange and uh i think charlie looks at it or something and jim has like a a negative reaction

stuff really bothers you yeah i gotta think about money i can't help it uh this is all very classic rockford obviously uh also i shout out to the calculator again that's a gorgeous looking ti um yeah so this is a quite a matchup it is a signature thing about the series versus a perfect scene right yes so we didn't put in the firebird we didn't put in the phrase 200 a day plus expenses right um in the realm of this is just the fabric of the rockford files i kind of oh you with the printing press no i i that oh kind of pushes the printing press down for me because it's like oh it's it's another aspect of the show that's just definitional to the show right right not as a gimmick but as as a signature aspect. What are we doing?

Well, you waste a lot of time on people if you don't have the right props. Would you get the ink and the knife out of the glove compartment, please? And one of these cards. The whole secret of a good confidence game is having the right props. But, right, the ice rink hostage exchange is a scene that rises up above

other scenes in terms of just capturing the rock Britishness. Like the kind of offbeat setting. There's money. There's Jim working. Yeah. like the kind of setting, uh, there's money, there's Jim working, but having kind of a difficult client, it's all staged really well. It's directed really well. Uh, the dialogue before it is really good. Like, yeah. So all of that said, I think I have to come down on, uh, the ice rink hostage hostageage Exchange. Yeah, I'm in agreement here.

This was an easy one. It wasn't easy, easy, but it's easy for us to find agreement here. I do think that if somebody is like, not what is the Rockford Files all about, but can you give me a perfect Jim Rockford moment? Yeah. This scene would definitely be amongst them. So, yeah. All right. Ice Ring Hostage Exchange moves up. Yes. In the standings. All right. moment yeah this scene would definitely be amongst them so yeah all right ice rink hostage exchange moves up yes and the standings all right next up we have uh from the attractive nuisance we have

the garlic in the chili versus uh well which beat out the proofreader from uh man eaten by newspaper local man eaten by newspaper yeah uh versus uh arnold love hot dog uh from profit and from Man Eaten by Newspaper. Local Man Eaten by Newspaper. Yeah. Versus Arnold Love Hot Dog from Profit and Loss, which had beat out the handshake from the same episode, I believe. Yes. So we've got a food on food match up here. We do. This is exciting. Going back and watching these, it's just a delight.

When I went back to watch Attractive Nuisance, that was definitely one of the ones where almost right away we get the garlic, the fistfuls of garlic powder in the chili. Yeah. It's at Rocky's Summit Inn and we get Rocky on the CB. We get like the menu in the background. It's 75 cents for chili, but 50 cents for soup. 75 cents for chili, but 50 cents for soup. And Jim, the faces he makes while he's eating it and all the crackers he has to put in it and the skeptical look the chef gives him as he's putting more and more crackers in it. It's wonderful.

Right. And then his whole like he cracks a joke, but then walks it back to be like, no, Vince, it's great. It's really great. Like, yeah, yeah. He knows the right thing to say is that it's good, though he clearly doesn't like it that's a delight and again it was one that like just made me want to watch the whole episode all over uh profit and loss i feel like profit and loss is the clear leader for this one for me the hot dog scene i think i know why but i want to hear your well i it's got everything

it just has everything jim's going to an expert to just hire him he's just trying to get this guy to work from the guy's telling jim how much it's going to cost him to work for him they're having this discussion over hot dogs like a classic jim chili dogs chili dogs yeah it's all about how much money's going back and forth it's jim telling this guy that this thing might not be on the up and up. And this guy's reaction to it, it's them reading each other. It's the guy telling Jim that you got a deal because you got this information for the price of a hot dog.

And then the button is that there's no reason why they had to do this. The button is them giving us the picture of the receipt where the hot dog costs six dollars and 36 cents or the two of the hot dogs cost six dollars and jim just being incredulous mr rockford there is absolutely nothing wrong with fiscal dynamics i don't have to research them for you because i have personally been through their financial statement at least 10 times i've spoken to mr field Fielder a dozen times. All of this before I let one of my clients invest in the stock. That company is so healthy, it's disgusting. I am giving you all this advice for the price of a hot dog.

I got to get back to work. 6.36? It's just golden to me. I don't know. It's good. It's very good. So I'll just golden to me. I don't know. It's good. It's very good. So I'll come back to that. I want to talk about the chili or come back to the garlic chili, I should say.

So the thing about this that I have forgotten and reviewing it I really loved was that it's not just a bit. It's actually a three beat little story arc. I mean, it's comedy, it's a comedy arc, but it has, but it's a, it's a three beat structured piece of food based comedy that positions the

cook Vince very specifically in the context of Rocky's whole project here and his relationship with Rocky and both of their relationship with Jim. And so, yeah, it starts off with him eating the chili and then like be like no no no it's great and then he goes and is complaining to the bartender at the restaurant in paradise cove uh about how there's too much garlic and how it ruins the 12 year old scotch that he's drinking but then he goes back and he orders all this food to try and like encourage other people who are there to order food because no one's ordering food so he has to eat it again and then at the end of the night he's helping clean up and vince asks him if he has any

like feedback on the food sonny are we doing something wrong oh. Not that I know of. Maybe the chili's a little too hot. Hot? What do you mean hot? It's not hot. A little spicy, maybe, but it's not hot. Look, Vance, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but maybe the chili has just a hint too much garlic in it. You know, I've been eating it regularly now for a couple of days, and. And, of course, chili is such a personal thing, you know. Maybe spicy would be a better definition. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of people like their chili spicy. I know I do.

Don't I, Dad? Always like it spicy. The spicier, the better. Oh, yeah, yeah. I think probably the chili is a winner. Sure. It's chef kiss. It's just a beautiful set of scenes.

That said, the Arnold Love hot dog scene from Profit and Loss does have a more holistic incorporation of all the things that are great about the Rockford files. Yes. I think you touched on all of it. And it even includes one of a bit of a repeating gag where Jim had his picture taken in the newspaper. Oh, yes. Like all these high powered executives and stuff keep telling him like, oh, you're that detective from the paper.

My secretary cut that out for me. Yeah, he went viral. Yeah, it's a lot of good stuff so in this case while i really i really enjoyed going back and revisiting the attractive nuisance i think you're i think you're you're right and i think the getting the getting the chilly things with arnold love yeah it's a wider representation of all of these Rockfordishness elements. All right. So we're pushing Hot Dog from profit and loss forward.

But I would say that the Attractive Nuisance played a really good game. They took them to the, I don't know, sports metaphor. Went hard in the paint. That's a basketball. Basketball. Basketball. Basketball. All right, cool.

So that's our Critics' Choice Region semifinals? Quarterfinals. Quarterfinals. All right. So we're on to Gas and Gangsters? Sure are. All right. This was extremely fun to revisit.

I think this is probably why I took the most time rewatching where the car chase fits. Yes. All right. So, yeah, car chase fits yes all right so yeah car chase category first up we have the semi chase in the desert uh from the dark and bloody ground which had beat out the helicopter pursuit uh from uh from uh guilt and uh it's up against the drive-through strategy from the girl in the bay city boys Club, which had previously beat out the dumpster strategy from Second Chance. Yeah.

Yeah. So I had not realized that Dark and Bloody was such an early episode. It was not including the pilot. It's number two, right? Yeah, it's the second episode of the first season. So we are still setting the tone for what the rockford files is here and watching this was a delight like you said like going back and watching all these one of the things that to me that stuck out on this watch through uh was the music so we've got this music

playing the music is rockford files music but it's on uh on edge it's got like an eerie aspect to it there's no reason for us to think that this semi is a threat except for how much the camera is on it. Right. And the music is just clearly telling us that it's a threat. But the moment it becomes a threat, the music stops and we don't get music again until the whole thing's over. And it's a long stretch. I timed it. It is five minutes and 14 seconds from when the music stops to when the music after the chase starts to tell you that it's over.

Those are not a boring five minutes. Okay. Again, this is regretful that we can't just play chase foley while this is going on. Well, that's the thing we could because it's all the sound of the motors, that we can't just play chase foley while this is going on well that's the thing we could because it was it's all the sound of the motors uh yes the chunk chunk of gear shifting yeah the like

beeping at because there's one bit where there's a you know another car that they have to yes strategize around and there's a lot of honking um it's all it's not silent right it's just there's no score there's a really creative use to the terrain that isn't showboaty, which I really, really love. Rockford's not doing any jumps or anything like that. I don't think Rockford does jumps, which is another great thing. Usually not. All the stuff in this is kind of tactical, right?

Yeah. The bit that I'd totally forgotten was he does get run off the road, and he gets stuck in dirt, and his tires are spinning, and so he's trying to get out of this, like, you know, just this pile of soft ground while the

semi is coming back up on him, and he gets out at just the last minute, putting him back exactly where he was before the semi cat pushed him off the road but it's this great beat because it's like a downbeat in terms of the action um because he's stationary for a little while it kind of breaks the whole thing into two halves go watch this we'll probably say that for everything in this category uh it's a lot of fun to watch it does

a great job with focusing your eye on what's important. You realize that he's in a rental car that is not built for this, because he'll show us the speedometer as he's just trying to give it gas, and it's barely breaking 70, sometimes falling below 50, trying to get up these hills and and whatnot and uh then the other like traffic negotiations are fun like one of the showboatiest bits is jim going off the shoulder to get around the car yeah uh it's one of those that just feels so real that you tense up watching him. Yes. That's great. Jim's final escape here is he takes a hard left onto a bridge that barely lets his car through and certainly won't be wide enough for the semi to get through or even look like it would support the semi. And then the music starts again. Right.

And I'm like, the music returns and Jim can fly free on the Fury Road. Absolutely. Yeah, it Fury Road. Absolutely. Yeah, it's wonderful. Yes, it's thematic opposite here. Right. Yeah, this is another big difference. Yeah, because so the drive-through thing in the Girl in the Bay City Boys Club is more of a specific tactic versus a full chase. Yes.

But that tactic is extremely Rockford rockfordy which is where he knows he's being followed it's not high speed he just notices that he's being followed and so he pulls into an in and out drive-through um and then the first when the guy when he's at the little squawk box to make his order your order please call the police your order order, please. That's it. You got it. There's a guy following me in a white 1974 Datsun California plates. Tell the police I'll be headed south on Verdugo and for them to intercept. Are you nuts, mister? Is this a rib? Just tell him he took a shot at me.

And while you're at it, would you throw in a taco and a bag of fries? Yes. And it works. And the guy calls the police. We see him on the phone and then we cut to a cop car pulling over this car that was following jim he gets to park on the other side of the road and see who it was and it's all very like rockfordy maneuver achieving what he needs keeping him out of trouble um and getting a taco while he's at it well one of the things i really enjoy about this

is that it's uh slow and probative okay so one thing i do really love about this is the smug looks he gives us when he realizes he has an amateur following him like he knows he's in charge of what's happening right now there's a series of stops and slow starts that he does and just pulling over to the side of the road to watch his tail pull over as well to just see just how amateurish his tail is. And then the fact that he reverses it and follows her after all of it is done, I think is just gorgeous. It's absolutely not paced like the other like uh the semi chase in the desert it tells a completely different story in cars like with a little bit more dialogue but like still i think that having these two up against each other is great because it shows the breadth of car storytelling that the rockford files can do what can jim do behind the wheel and that's a very wide

spread which is great and that's a character thing right jim is this uh driving is part of his character yeah he can tell all these different stories from behind the wheel of a car in a way that a lot of you know a lot of of of tv and movies the the car is just an enclosed space yeah um and a lot of the time jim is is using the car as an attribute to help him there's a lot of television that had car chases that it was that it was almost the same car chase every time and that's fine that's what you wanted or whatever and i think it was easy to reduce the car chase bit from the Rockford files to that. And I think that that would be wrong, right? Like, I think that this is indicative of why that would be wrong.

This is a great spread. I actually had a tough time choosing between these two because of that. The first one, both because it's an early one and just a really good chase. I really wanted to lean that direction. But then as i thought more about the uh girl in the bay city boys club i love how that stands out against like the stereotype of what a rockford files car chase should be and in many ways feels more rockford fileys you've been talking me into a stronger drive-thru strategy position than I think I had coming into this.

Because I was thinking of it in terms of, well, this is the best car chase category. The semi-chase in the desert is a better car chase. Drive-thru strategy is a more Rockford-y scene or sequence that happens to involve a car. However, the fact that this show uses Jim and his car to tell the stories is why this is even a category at all, right? Like why car chases are like a thing we wanted to look at. So now I'm torn. I was going to have an easy call for the semi-chase, but you've talked me into this

being more 50-50. Maybe I can help you out because after all of that, I think I still do lean towards the semi in the desert. As a car chase in the category of car chases, it might be the best one we've seen on the show. Yeah. And thus could be recognized in this category all right are we doing it i'll call this one for dark and bloody ground sounds good to me all right speaking of semis uh up next we have rocky drives the cab from gear jammers uh which had previously beat out gear jammers uh j turned under the uh overpass and that is going up against the j turn parking lot strategy from rosendahl and gilda stern are dead which had beat out the corvette the j turn chase with the corvette yeah yeah now here's a surprise just fun fact uh The Rosendahl and Gildersen are dead J-turn parking lot strategy is the only contender that currently exists that has the Firebird. Oh, yeah. Huh. Interesting.

Just throwing that out there. I thought it was a little surprising to me when we'd gone through all these car chases and I got to the last one that I watched. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. He owns a Firebird. and I got to the last one that I watched and I was like, oh yeah, that's right, he owns a Firebird. Alright, so revisiting Gear Jammers for this scene was maybe my favorite revisit because it's just been

so long since I've seen, since we did that episode and seeing Rocky get a win is so satisfying. So this scene, there's a bunch of like stolen... Semis. Yeah yeah there's semis full of stolen yeah like hijacked goods and there's this whole conspiracy and everything right but so the climax is one of the semis full of uh uh stolen stuff is departing this yard and jim and

rocky see it going rocky jumps into a cab and chases after it it going. Rocky jumps into a cab and chases after it. And then Jim jumps into a cab and chases after both of them. So they're both involved. The semi goes through a police roadblock and Jim is originally trying to get Dennis to stop it. And Dennis just waves to Jim. And I just want to say that there's nothing to do with the chase whatsoever. It's just a wonderful moment.

But yeah, to say that there's nothing to do with the chase whatsoever it's just a wonderful moment but yeah jim jumps in a semi to tell dennis that he's done wrong by letting that semi go yes and then rocky just blows past them yes he's like i'm going to solve this problem because he's offended the core of rocky well it's because it's truckers who are involved in these yes yeah it's like crooked truckers yeah so this chase is great because it's like uh so the the uh the main semi has the full load on the back right and i think it's a little bit before he realizes he's being chased um and then once he does it's kind of this game of chicken where Rocky and Jim in there, just the cabs, no container, are more maneuverable. But the bigger one is heavier and kind of what are you going to do, right?

So it's a bunch of kind of seat of the pants trying to head this guy off, trying to block him, trying to just get to him because he has a head start. And it's a lot of um exciting back and forth between these two trucks and uh rocky is continually in the lead kind of on one side and jim is swerving all over the place trying to get into a position where he can help which is a great dynamic rocky with them is out driving jim yeah yeah no that's great the the other thing that i want to say and this sounds like well whatever we're doing a sports bracket so i'm gonna sound like a pro wrestling uh announcer here the physicality of this one is wonderful like you feel the weight

of these trucks as they go around the corners there's like a fishtail early on i think jim does it or whatever and you just feel like oh man there's uh there's a wonderful shot uh head on to the three trucks as they're in motion and the two on the sides come up alongside the middle one and they're in like this this wonderful frame of like the this repeated motif of the three because they're all the same model of truck they're all from the same company so they all the same color scheme um that i just loved watching it's like oh that's a great shot it's a very every frame of painting uh shot the end of it is great too because you like after it's all over rocky is in a state of shock sitting in the truck and then he snaps out of it in this great way you guys could have gotten killed you know that me in a rig i've been pushing one all my life i know what i'm doing yeah i guess

you do well and what kind of breaks him out of his like like holding onto the wheel is jim saying uh come on you old gear jammer you nailed him which is like is like Jim celebrating Rocky for like doing the thing Rocky does, which is a rare and beautiful moment. Ah, that's good. So that was great. This is counter to a, again, more of a strategic thing that Jim does a lot in the Firebird with this J-turn to escape from trouble from the Rosendahl and Gildo Stern are dead, which has this like fairly short sequence where he's actually being chased. But again, filmed in a very visceral way, very physical.

You can really see the cars rocking on their suspension because as you know, the show, they shot all that stuff practically. Right. So they had drivers driving these cars on, on streets in LA. And then Jim, you know,

using just that, that little bit of an edge of his speed and maneuverability to get around a corner and get into this parking lot and duck before his pursuers can see that they're not going straight and that's how he escapes from the dangerous situation this is the the uh rockford files chase sequence right like this it's got the firebird. Uh, it's got the storytelling that I do really enjoy the fact that the, the villains of this episode come flying in, in their car and screech to a stop in front of the firebird, which is parked,

not moving. And they're like, yeah, we got them. Jim, just from park J turns out of there. And it's just like, no, it's a, it's a it's it's a really

it's it's a status drop it's it's a it's a classic rockford files status drop but done without dialogue or anything like that it's just again the the ballet of the vehicles and then and then just the situational awareness that jim has where he realizes he's gotten ahead of the pursuit and can pull into a parking lot. And then both him and Rita duck down and these car goes by. They have no idea who's following them. I do feel like this one is the platonic ideal of a Rockford Files chase sequence. So I think that that's one of the things it really has going for it. Like there's,

it's wonderfully filmed and got a little bit of everything with also having that moment of like squealing tires and high speed cornering and almost collisions and that kind of thing. For all the wonderful things that we were just saying about uh the gear jammers finale that's very specific to that episode yeah while i think you're right when you think of the rockford files you think of this like this is the kind of chase if you even like the stereotypical chase that for example the drive-through strategy from girl in the bay city boys club breaks out of like this is that basic pattern that we expect. When it's done well, like, it is a thing of beauty.

It's like when you have a favorite band and that band has like a two minute and 30 second song that is just perfect. And you're just like, yeah, that's it. That's the one. Even though we were very effusive about how great Rocky is with his semi, I think the J-turn into the parking lot in the best car chase category is what you think of when you think of a Jim Rockford, Rockford Files car chase. Yeah, that works for me. Now on to the gangsters, which we're running out of gangsters in that category. All right. So this is the best villains.

First up, we have Gary Bevins from So Help Me God. He's the DA. He beat out Anthony Boy in a tough matchup, if you remember last episode. That one might have gone to overtime. Yeah. And now he is up against karate champ Dave Delaro,

called the karate champ. That is not a defining feature. We don't know if he's a karate champ. That is not a defining feature. We don't know if he's a karate champ. He is, however, a karate master as well as a painter. He's a very smooth talker. He had beat out Phil the Dancer Gabriel from, was it Rosendahl and Gilderstern?

Yes. Yes, so Gary Bevins versus Dave Delaro. Okay, I said this last time. Dave Delaro is Rockford's Moriarty, except that he doesn't come back ever. He's, to me, like a well-positioned foil to Jim on so many fronts. On the romantic front. front yeah he's everything that jim is and probably like in many ways better than jim at all of this stuff except that he's not a good guy right whereas gary bevins is a character in and of himself but also a stand-in for the grind of legal bureaucracy that is that has always been uh part of jim's problem and and something uh it just occurs to me now something that jim is often tossed beth at to keep himself out of the way who he can't uh she's not able to to save jim from gary or from himself as he's just right obstinate towards uh gary here uh those are

my thoughts on this. I have a pick here, but I want to hear your thoughts before I go. Oh, boy. So Gary Bevins is perfect for the episode that he's in, right? Yeah. So Help Me God is all about this quirk in the legal system where if you're called to testify before a grand jury and you refuse to do so, you can be thrown into jail because you're held in contempt and there's no Fifth Amendment protection from, you know, incriminating yourself because it's not a full trial, etc., etc. So Gary Bevins, as this bureaucratic careerist who's looking to make a name for himself and is going to use every trick

of his trade in order to do so. That's where his kind of villainy comes in. Yeah. It's cold and distant. It's not personal. It gets personal because Jim just ticks him off so much. According to Rockford's attorney, he's ready to to testify i'm supposed to get the court to drop charges so drop them turkey belongs in a cage look the bureau wants servino we spent two months running into dead ends we have to find him through rockford that's how we find him i run the grand jury remember then run it he'll testify when i'm damn good and ready now you saw what he pulled the other day do you think i'm gonna let him get away with that let him sweat it'll do him some good because he just refuses to acquiesce but um what he represents is is more the actual like villain in that episode the system right and he's kind of the avatar of the system while as you say Dave Delaro is, is the Moriarty is the dark reflection of Jim,

um, is the, uh, rival. I don't, I forget exactly if there's a moment where we really know that Dave is like, Oh, this guy,

he's going to be competing with me because there's this whole phase where he keeps on condescending to Jim because Jim's the one that Beth hired to do some work for them right yeah uh so he's like this lesser person in his world yeah but it's going to cut into our plans for this evening oh say I've got a great idea why doesn't Jim take you they're great seats really great German Shostakovich is a marvelous composer. It would be a shame to waste them. Well, please, Jim. Beth really had a heart set on going. So did I, but I mean, I would be neglecting my responsibilities if I went along. I've got two new computer programs that I should really discuss with him now that I can trust him.

Oh, look. Say, are you absolutely certain that those checks are in the ledger? I mean, you're sure you didn't make a mistake or misread them, did you? Yeah, I'm sure. You know something, Dave? You're beginning to get on my nerves. Well, no, no. What I meant was if...

I said they're there, they're there. Now, I will give you a signed affidavit. Beth here can notarize it, the presence of one of the waiters, if we can get one to come to the table, okay? Would you take this gentleman's order, please? Forget it. Lost my appetite. And then eventually I think when they get to, you know, having their

fight where he shows off his karate chops no pun intended he sees Jim as a more personal threat. Yeah, it's hard for me not to go for Dave here just because since the show is about Jim. Yeah. Since he's the mirror universe Jim, he's a perfect villain. And also because that episode is so much about not detailing, but like really exploring the shape of Jim and Beth's relationship. And that is such a central Rockford Files thing, which we did take out in the first round as Jim and Beth, their whole thing. But I think this villain is a villain in context of that.

And that is very Rockford Files thing. Well, so help me God. Well, it's a great episode. And the Rockford Files tackled this kind of stuff. it could have been an episode in a different show uh with the same villain so with all of that i will say dave moves on from this matchup i'll buy that i'm i am uh that was who i picked uh because i honestly just would would have loved to seen a rematch yeah between the the two of them know, when you talk about best villains, I think you do think about like the best villains aren't one shot villains, you know,

Lex Luthor, the Joker, there are people that keep coming back. I mean, really, Angel is really the best villain. Yes. That is very true. And I will also say that if you have Garyary bevins versus dave delaro i think dave wins i think like jim he can work the system and get out from yeah you know whatever gary's gonna throw at him yeah yeah no gary's definitely in trouble if this is an actual matchup uh next up we have electric larry who is from dirty money black light who beat out Roman Clemente, the oracle that wore the cashmere suit. Right.

Then we have the mayor's committee from the mayor's committee from Deer Lake Falls, who had beat out Dr. Herbert Brinkman from the competitive edge. Dr. Herbert Brinkman being one of the more horrific villains that the show has seen. But what we have here. being one of the more horrific villains that that the show has seen but what we have here so i went back and re-watched uh some scenes with electric larry and some scenes with the mayor's committee uh and just to kind of refresh myself i know that like last time i could vaguely recall electric larry but now that i've watched it uh again there's lots of great things in this. So the scene, Rockford has gone. He's asked Dennis about Electric Larry.

Dennis has been wanting to nail Electric Larry for years. And Rockford needs Electric Larry to launder some money for him. And Dennis helps. Also, this is a great episode for skimming through and just stopping whenever you see Angel's face. I highly recommend that so we get to larry's office which is again beautiful filled with like pastels and and just very 60s into 70s and it has that velcro we talked about this last time it's a velcro dart board with instead of darts it's got little balls with velcro strips on them. And Jim is just playing with them. And while Jim's playing with them, he has clearly had an experience with these thugs.

He probably beat them up. This one thug is very angry at him and says when his business is done with Electric Larry, then Jim's all his. He's going to beat him up. electric larry then he's all jim's all his he's gonna you know beat him up and so we get this very threatening thug who jim offers some status to you by like stop he stops being so smart alecky about it and then enter electric larry who just drops that thug right away like it's just such a minor like we're out of seltzer yeah what's going on uh the whole discussion about how the the how like the money is going to work the interest and all that stuff it could have easily just skimmed over that and instead we just get this wonderful scene like i had completely forgot how great the scene is you need 20 grand right i get three for two this time next week you owe me 30

grand the nut and the big little rough for you okay so you don't want to do it that way this time next week you owe me 10 grand as long as i get the, you keep the nut in your pocket. Right? Right. I know I'm right. I just said I was right. We ain't never done business before. So you don't get no terms. Every day, you owe me $1,400. Last day,

$1,600. You understand? Yeah, I understand. No, you don't understand. Because if you miss one day of paying me my money, somebody's going to come by and ask you nice and polite. Second day, they're going to start to yell. And the third day, it's like baseball, baby. You out.

Now you understand. Oh, it's great. Every time he asks Rockford a question, it doesn't matter what Rockford's going to answer. It's going to be wrong. And then it ends with Rockford leaving. And he's like, follow that guy. I remember just before Rockford leaves, Rockford starts counting the money. Right.

And Electric Larry flips out on him. Yeah, it's like, what, you think I don't trust you yeah no it's it's great uh i did not have a chance to go back to the scene i wish i had uh because i don't have anything to add to that okay well i'm glad i did so good job um but i will just throw out that also this is a, in terms of why we advanced Electric Larry, this is also kind of standing in for all of these goons and secondary characters who are antagonists to Rockford, but aren't necessarily the subject of the episode. And just in terms of a memorable side character avatar, he's kind of carrying that whole category with him as part of his pick.

Yeah, this chunk of the brackets here, I think, has seen a lot of that, like, it matters who you're paired up against in the beginning. Yeah. A lot more than the others. I think so. Because if Electric Larry was up against one of those other mobsters, Phil the Dancer Gabriel or Anthony Boy, I don't think we would see Electric Larry at this point. But he wasn't. So on the other side of that, we've got another group here, the mayor's committee, who are up against Dr. Herbert Brickman. The play I made for them was that they're a wonderful single villain pulled into several parts.

So we get to see the competing internal thing uh re-watching it uh i still play by that i still stand by that um i've got to say like they're slightly more sympathetic than i remember them being watching it again they're horrible people out to do a horrible thing they're also slightly incompetent and i think that goes a long way like they're they have to discuss everything they're not of one mind the one guy who like doubles down on like this is what we have to do he is not actually capable of like he's the one who actually ends up taking the gun at the end and he's gonna like snipe yeah jim or whatever and he just like isn't good at it yeah and angel comes in and plays them and does such just a perfect job of playing them it's first of all a delight to watch angel in his

element right but also you're just like oh god you poor little babes in the woods who are plotting a murder my my attachment to this one is is just that it's such like in the frame of the show it's such a rockford-y kind of thing so dearly falls is uh michigan i think yeah these dudes from from the midwest who come out to big shiny la with this strange notion of what they can actually get achieved and they happen to find rockford and he's exactly the wrong person for what they want so it's this kind of clash of uh expectations and these characters you wouldn't really expect in like an la detective show um so it has a lot of like rockfordishness to it which i think and also structurally having the four of them kind of be the villain but in terms of villainy they're more sympathetic than not and they're

less effective than they could be blow into town like a train load of u.s country prime beef ab is intent on murder noah's gobbling heart pills and nude is trying to get ginger rogers autographed and all of you idiots are sort of trying to knock off Lauren in between rubdowns at the Roman Palace. We are doing the best we can. From the beginning, I tried to ice this thing. But you had to do it. Made an attempt on her life last night. Now, that changes everything.

We just can't pack up our extra suit and get on the next jet. So now you want to kill her? I don't want to. I never wanted to. But now we have to. Her only protection now is to go to the IRS. If she can prove our tax liability, then she sets up a motive and we all go into a trick bag. Are you going, are you leaning towards Electric Larry or? That makes me lean towards Electric Larry, but I could be inclined the other way. Well, I am definitely leaning towards the Mayor's Committee again. And I think that is largely because, I don't know, I think I really like them as villain, but I think that that's... Well, on the other other hand, the mayor's committee is what the episode is about,

while Electric Larry is a mechanism in an episode that's not actually about Electric Larry, right? Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's also part of it too. think um what we have here is a victim of the brackets and who's getting paired against two i do think that the mayor's committee is stronger in this particular matchup i think it's it's stronger of the two okay if you want to go electric larry well i start i started with mayor's committee you swayed me to electric larry but i'm willing to come back to mayor's committee if that's where you are because that's where I started. Yeah, let's do it. Mayor's Committee. Alright. It's a shame for

Electric Larry to have been outperformed at this point but that's just how it falls. Alright, so that's one half. Eppie, I need a quick break. I'm going to grab a taco. You tell our wonderful listeners all the places that they can find you and your work on the

Information Superhighway. I'll be right back. One way to find me is to go to Twitter.com and search for at Epidia, E-P-I-D-I-A-H. I'm usually responsive there. Otherwise, you can go to WorldsWithoutMaster.com, where you can find my sword and sorcery fiction and role-playing games. And if you like roleplaying games, maybe you want to check out digathousandholes.com

where I publish all my other roleplaying games. Oh no! I dropped my calculator. Nathan, while I go pick up a spare, why don't you tell the good folks where they can find you on the internet? In addition to this podcast, I also design and publish role-playing games,

including the Worldwide Wrestling Pro Wrestling role-playing game, among many others. You can find links to all of my games and other projects at ndpdesign.com. And of course, you can find me on twitter.com at ndpayoleta. Looks like you're back. You ready to continue the arithmetic analysis for this episode there, Eppie? I'm back. I have my DM-42 with me and I'm ready to dig down into Rockford's books again. All right.

Well, I'm done with this delicious avocado taco. Well, let's get back to the show then. Okay, so here we go. Here's the category. The hardest category. This is the best core character from Jim's world. And I don't know if we're going to be able to do a whole lot of discussion. Yeah, I know. It's kind of like, you've all seen the show, right? So you know what all the elements are.

To research this, I watched the first six seasons. To research this, we've done 65 episodes of this podcast. Okay. Here's what we have. We have Rocky, who beat out Rita, and Beth, who beat out Billings, who is the most lopsided. Yes. So now we have Rocky v. Beth, and it's heartbreaking. I have a choice here.

Okay. rocky v beth and it's heartbreaking i have a choice here okay uh i kind of just think that the best of the world need like one victory against old men so i just shot for for beth in this one i love rocky to death but um yeah my my heart says beth as well she's just so yeah so much of the memorableness, not even the Rockfordishness, but just like so much of what makes Jim Rockford as a character interesting is his relationship with Beth. And that character is so nuanced herself. Yeah. Yeah. I also love Rocky. Rocky's the best, but yeah. It's a tough call, but i think we're both gonna go beth please call us out on it it's what it's what the heart wants and sometimes you just gotta go with what the heart wants in the next matchup thinking of what the heart wants we have dennis v angel why did we do

this to ourselves yeah i know dennis beat out gandy to get here uh angel beat out both chapman and deal i i mean like honestly we originally set up these categories with easy first round picks yeah uh so that we could we could hurt ourselves here now i have a pick again i'm just gonna shout it out and this may be a surprise to our listeners but i'm picking dennis i have just i love broken old men and i don't i don't know if anyone's arc towards broken old madness is better than dennis's it was very hard because this was the first category that i chose before we did our homework uh and then re-watching a lot of these episodes i kept catching myself watching angel but i also caught myself watching a lot of Dennis scenes.

So, yeah, this is, again... It's tough. I can imagine a Rockford Files without Dennis easier than I can imagine a Rockford Files without Angel. Oh, interesting. It's a strong play. I mean, they're both inferior shows, but... Yes. That...

So my initial movement is towards Angel on this one how should we should we coin toss it i don't have it in my heart to argue against right yeah so i guess my only statement would be like is there anyone who anyone who is as perfectly matched to their role oh god damn it as stewart marglin and angel i. I mean, Joe Santos and Dennis is extremely well matched. Right. As well, but like... Okay, all right. I'll give it to you.

I mean, I'm willing to entertain a counter argument. I'm going to let you know, this did not in any way influence my decision, but I want it on your soul to know that we will then put Beth versus Angel. Were you trying to take a dive in the next match put beth versus angel were you trying to uh take a dive in the next matchup is that what you were trying to say no but i know dennis would have like i know dennis would have just backed out at that point but okay all right let's move on all right let's put this this hurt behind us we'll come back to you later yeah all right so now we're dealing with a gym the best Jim Fast Talk.

I did a little more homework for this one as well. The first one we have is weird job impersonation from Just Another Polish Wedding, which had beat out the newspaper cover story from Competitive Edge. So this is the one where Jim goes in and chats with the florist. I will say again, because this is when I put in just another Polish wedding and I just watched the Nazi bar scene again. You through talking? It's a cold house, man. All right. So this is everything you said it was. Jim comes in.

He's establishes what he knows. He knows what he's talking about. He does this whole bit with the flowers that just, like, makes it sound like he's old hat at this. And he is not presenting himself entirely so that he forces the mark to walk to the answer rather than, like, just give him the lie right out so it feels a little bit like the mark is uncovering it. There are some great dodges during it when this guy, I think one of the

best things about this scene is that this guy is never not suspicious of Jim. He's from a service that arranges sending flowers to graves on the behalf of people so they don't have to do it themselves. Now, they told us that your flower shop has been supplying flowers to other members of the family. I came here, Mr. Gertmanian.

Mr. Gertmanian, prepared to continue to buy these flowers from your shop annually. However, if you'd prefer, I can just as easily buy them from the florist at the cemetery. Annually. However, if you'd prefer, I can just as easily buy them from the florist at the cemetery. Well, it never occurred to me that anybody would contract with this sort of thing grave by grave. Well, the world is changing, Mr. Gurdmanian. I suppose you'd probably find it strange to know that more people are building their own furniture or riding horseback. Not really. or riding horseback. Not really.

You get the impression that Jim thinks he's invented something that sounds plausible, but it actually exists and works different from how Jim thinks it works. He thinks on his feet real quick. We're in this very niche version of this business. Play along with me just one more minute. Come on. He does it in a way that's just antagonistic enough to keep this guy on the line long enough. He's snooty towards this guy, which puts him off his guard because this guy definitely feels snooty. Yeah, it's great. It's, I think, a strong contender in this category. It's up against setting up their own alibi

in the reincarnation of Angie, which last time beat out the Wahi Taki exchange from Pastoria Prime Pick. So this is our first major correction because I wanted to track this down and make sure I was remembering it right. This is actually from 2 into 556 won't go the walkie-talkie thing yes yeah i like now i see the scene and i know what yeah there's this

crooked cop who's working for these these gangsters who have this deal with the military base and he takes jim out but he puts down the walkie-talkie so that his boss can hear what jim is going to say but then he takes the id back to the anyway i don't think that changes our pick but the details of it were i was like oh right this is what i remembered because it's where jim has the situational awareness to to flip the the walkie talkie to you know the other way so he can hear them talking and that gets him going in the rest of the episode anyway so correction all right got that one wrong uh but it still uh it still went down to uh setting up his own alibi from the reincarnation of angie oh god this was a delight to re-watch reincarnation of angie is like sleeper

a really great episode yeah i might have said that when we did that episode but yeah it really just is full of good stuff the the setup here is that jim comes in pretending to be his own boss or somebody with some authority asks a secretary to call another office to see if jim rockford has been there yet setting up the fact that he should be there he gathers information while this is happening everyone can't help but gossip with him in this, which is great throughout. One of the things I love is that he bothers to pull the Clark Kent Superman thing. Yes. Yeah, with the glasses. So he's got the glasses on, he's got his hair done, and he's very officious. And that's how he presents authority to this one secretary. When he goes

to the other secretary, he takes his glasses off and messes up his hair, but there's no... It's just getting into character. Yeah, yeah. It's doubtful that they'll compare notes or somebody will stumble upon him, but whatever. When he comes into that office, I know that this isn't the reason why we nominated it, but after

he sets up the alibi, when he comes into that office and he starts talking about a traffic accident. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I am really sorry. I got hung up in traffic. Are you Mr. Rockford from the county tax office? Right, right. Why is it when you're going down the freeway, there's an accident on the other side of the divider. Everybody in your lane stops to look at the accident. What, do they want to see blood or something?

Mr. Rockford, apparently there's somebody from your office who's been looking for you downstairs oh that's just stovall he's supposed to run the tapes out of the accounting department anyway oh it's just beautiful because it's exactly the concern that somebody who isn't trying to sneak into an office would have like he's trying to establish that he's late uh to let anybody who's there know that why he might be late because he knows that somebody might be trying to check up on him uh the layers it's wonderful it's a delicious onion you just peel away each layer eating it raw that's how you eat onions yes uh yeah oh boy yeah i mean this is a tough matchup for me, I think. These are both, like, Jim at his height.

I really love that the Polish wedding feels like it's going to fall apart at any moment. In the reincarnation of Angie, I don't think it feels like it's going to come apart. There's great bits where he starts describing her boss as, yeah, he's like tall, skinny, gray hair. She's like, no, actually. He goes, oh, right. Yeah. Yeah. That guy.

Yeah. So that's they're both they're kind of showcasing two different sets of skills a little bit. for the scene from the reincarnation of Angie is that the manner in which the secretary he ends up talking to at the end spills all the gossip is very in service of moving the plot along. Right, a little info dumpy. Yeah, it's a little info dumpy.

Not in a bad way. Like, again, I think we talked about this in our episode. Sometimes that just has to happen and like, that's fine. Yeah, yeah. But in terms of a little nugget of Jim fast talk effectiveness, that is slightly less because of what Jim is doing and slightly more because the plot requires this to happen. I mean, it all is because of the plot, but like, you know. Yeah, yeah.

I know what you're getting at. The florist scene has a little bit more A to B of seeing why the guy tells Jim what he tells him while being kind of reluctant and suspicious. But also the stakes are low. That's right. And then at the end, Jim wraps up by being like, oh, no, keep doing what you're doing. You're doing a great job. Yeah. If he asked you for roses, then send roses.

Yeah. That kind of invalidates the entire conversation in terms of it being a real conversation. But it kind of gives the florist guy no reason to really follow up on this. Like he doesn't have to change anything. Yes, exactly. Which is a nice little fill up on the end there. Yeah, I don't know. What are you thinking?

It was almost a coin toss for me i had written down reincarnation of angie but i don't think i i think you might have just talked me into uh just another polish wedding the other thing about that is that this this scene encapsulates a thing that he does a lot again it's kind of a signature thing, right? Where he's the, you know, the insurance guy trying to track down someone for an inheritance, or he's from the county tax assessor and he just needs to see some records. Just these like very specific jobs that he has just enough cover to talk someone into what he needs to know. And then he leaves without having actually changed anything because that's not what he's after. Right. Yeah. All do it yeah let's let's let's call it for just another polish wedding

i mean i love that scene from from reincarnation of angie but in terms of a best fast talk this is slightly faster talk yeah yeah this one's more of like you can see him pulling on all of those on the fly where the reincarnation of Angie probably had a little more prep. A little more setup, yeah. All right. So I think we got another correction. Yeah. So our next bracket,

we have this thing about the Oak Line slumber chamber. Now, this is a double whoopsie because first of all, this phrase is not from Tall Woman Red Wagon. It's actually also from 2 into 556 won't go maybe it's time to watch that episode again and it's not part of a con it's actually just a one-liner uh but it's a perfect one-liner mahogany hall yeah it's terrible isn't it but i didn't invent it i just worked for him but it's like I told Quentin. Mahogany Hall is the oak-lined library of slumber chains.

But the scene from Tall Woman in Red Wagon does involve making funeral arrangements. Yes. But it's also not quite the scene I think you were thinking of. Yes. So I was conflating two scenes from this episode. What we did end up with, though. So let's conflate those two scenes. Yeah. So let's reimagine this entry in context of Tall Woman and Red Wagon. There's one scene where he has to find out where a body has gone, been delivered after it went on a train. And the official behind the counter isn't going to give that up we this may even be

the first time we see the printing press i think it is because this is like the fourth episode i think of season one it's early it's the fifth episode sorry he walks up to this guy he uses the the business card uh he uses some great fast talk how does the shipment of this casket yesterday affect all this miss susan dusky paid for our executive box that's the 30756 model and she was given the 30756-a which is a cheaper model it doesn't have the uh fluted scrolled handles or the double line satin headdress well actually it's my fault i usually handle all these purchase Well, he didn't sell the wrong one. His assistant did. Because he brings in the reporter who's his kind of...

Yeah. The woman who's his client in for these cons. I will note, it looks like in the background she's losing it while he's doing it too which is great it's a great detail okay we've done this out of a little bit of out of order what this scene is up against is the time pressured working man so this scene is up against the archetype that it belongs to, which is maybe a little bit of a flaw in our system here, but that's fine. Sometimes you get just positioned against a powerhouse.

Yeah. I mean, it's a fun little scene. I think the superset of time-pressured working man should advance here, because this is an example of that. But the scene that I can remember this, but I could not find it. I was skimming through episodes,

so maybe a listener will remember or maybe we just both have made up the scene. But there's a scene where Jim's in like a train station or an airport or something. And he's on the phone. He's having one conversation on the phone and he's having another conversation with a person. And they're both in service of a con does that yes i know what you're talking about i can't remember what that's from and i think that's the thing i was trying to think of that's what you were describing when we did this so yeah you know if if we ever find that scene maybe it'll be maybe it'll get a buy in our uh you know in

our next malibu madness and this episode does have a great phone scene in it where he's investigating somebody telling him that he's calling his insurance. But it's not so great as to be a part of this category. So let's put our mistakes in the past here. Time pressure working man. Time pressure working man gets kind of gets a buy into the quarterfinals. Yes, especially since it just beat out the other category uh the bureaucratic word spewing so from fast talk to the larger con now this is another category where every one of our competitors is an entire episode right they're either the whole

episode is the con or there's such an intricate part of the episode that you can't really just watch a scene. So this is another one where we're just going to kind of go with what we know. First up, we have Counter Gambit, which beat out the big ripoff against the Aaron Ironwood School of Success, which had beat out the movie A Blessing in Disguise. Now, the Counter Gambit one this is the uh necklace this is the uh stolen necklace thing and aaron ironwood is aaron ironwood's con that he's running on jim which is pretty convoluted uh in a good way like i don't want to uh but i think for me this was actually kind of an easy choice i think counter gambit is really good yeah i think i'm there too it's just aaron irewood is is that is a little more rockfordy in the sense of

having this kind of bureaucratic angle on the con um but counter gambit is just like it even has that element where it trips you up as an audience member because it sets you up to expect a thing that itself is part of the the con so then when you get the reveal you're like oh i see i see why specifically why angel made that decision i think we talked about that element in the in our last episode but so it's when angel is brought in to impersonate the fence that the guys who have the real necklace want to get it evaluated. Angel tells them it's a fake necklace. All right, what's it worth? Well, depends on the workmanship.

If it's good, necklace could bring $50, $75. What are you talking about? It's paste. Can't be. Gentlemen, you asked for an expert opinion paste here here take a close look yourselves come on look at this now do you see the pale blue aura that's what we call it an aura you see it yeah it's bad let me show you something else look at this look closer it's round it's a pearl it's man-made not even one of your cultivated pearls you see nature don't make them perfect that's the thing you got to keep in mind pearls are tricky anything else i can do for you

they check and they find out that angel's angel not a fence so they go to confront him and he sells out Jim. And you're like, oh my God, Angel, of course you did that because you're Angel. And then they go to the real fence. They switch the necklace. I can't remember the exact order. Yeah, Angel tells them that it's fake. Because they have a fake real fence, right?

Well, then they have the real fence, but the real fence is now part of Jim's con. So he also tells him it's a fake it's flesh it's what you know good quality i never saw the inside of an oyster that ain't a phony can't be a phony i spent 40 years in this business i'm telling you that ain't worth two bits but jimmy ain't the real ones. I know that for sure. So they go and switch it, but they had the real one. They switch it for the fake, and then Angel was part of the con to convince

them to go to the fence. And then they get it appraised a third time by a third fence, and he's like, oh no, this is fake. And by then, they've recovered the real one, etc., etc. Yeah, that's all to say that it has that layer-within-layer plot that is just so fun to watch unfold. While the Aaron Irwin School of Success is more of a framework for the drama of Jim trying to get out of trouble, which is really what that episode is more about.

Cameron Gambit is another go-to episode. If somebody's like, hey, I'm in town for the night uh i just want to see what this rockford files is about yeah it's a good one all right so uh and the other half of this uh category here we have uh there's one in every port which had beat out chicken little is a little chicken uh in the first round so it's got to be good right and then uh the barnsworth stratagem i think uh one of the earliest episodes is the first episode we did i keep thinking i keep asking we it's the second or third right uh versus the italian bird fiasco and uh this is another one where i think that um i don't think it's necessarily a easier pick. I just have enough of a fondness

for one of the ones in this category that I just went with it. How about you? This one I did go back. I did review the last part of Farnsworth Stratagem just because it's been so long. I think we were talking about how we couldn't quite remember how it all resolves.

Jim is pretending to be this Oklahoma oil man farnsworth who's bought the mineral rights to the ground underneath the uh timeshare hotel that dennis and um peggy have bought into yes that is going to end up costing them a whole bunch of money because it's actually a mob front basically to bilk all these investors out of their money. Jim's whole deal is to scam them out of money in order to pay back that investment so that Dennis, and also by extension, Deal, because Deal also bought in. Yes, on Dennis's recommendation.

Right, to buy out their shares so that they don't get taken down with this whole ship. So he has an oil rig drilling in front of this hotel. We have the delightful thing with with Rocky's kind of the like crew boss, but then Angel's the one hiring guys and they're all, you know, they're who actually are running the scam are mobsters. They're not just scam artists. They're actual organized crime. And he's like, oh, if it's actual mobsters, then they're just going to kill me. The stakes for this just got way higher. I need to get out. So he goes to his contact and tells him, I'm a scam artist. I'm a con man. is a con there's no

oil here there's no natural gas that's what they're drilling for is natural gas oh okay it's all a con uh there's all these fabricated documents that the guy believes and then the mobster shows up well how soon do we get we're not gonna get oil or or anything else. Lloyd showed me the reports. They're phony. I've been running a scam. I'm not Farnsworth from Oklahoma. I'm Rockford from Los Angeles. There's not any oil here, and there never will be. We're paying a very big price. Believe me, there's not any oil here now. I level with Lloyd.

If he brings you into this thing, you're gonna get stung, and I don't want any part of that. If there's no oil, how come you put up this rig? Because I wanted people to think there was. I'm telling you the truth, Mr. Christian. You're not a man I'd lie to. I'm not a guy Lloyd would lie to either. He made a mistake with me once. He's not dumb enough to do it again.

So like the man told you, sell. You don't give me much choice i give you no choice it's against my will sure now you just remember that lloyd brought you into this thing not me remember that sure and then they hit water which they've been saying that's the first sign of natural gas but then it right it's it's part of the con because they were drilling for the water main yes but he got paid is as we find out in the last scene he did manage to pay off everyone's issue right so it ended up working even though he tried to stop it before things went south and that one it's up against there's one in every port which is uh another team of con artists uh he's got like an elite group or maybe elite's not

what i'm thinking of but like a very specific group it's con artists that another con artist wouldn't know right that's right just lay it off on old angel what do you think i like hanging around kenny's apartment while he takes one more shower dropping tidy wipes all over the place plus he calls me a halibut whatever that means well why didn, why didn't you get Lil' Annie or the Greek? They said they wouldn't do it. They said the last time they were in a con with you, it blew sky high. Besides, you said that these operators, they couldn't know any marks. Well, that kind of cuts the feel down.

What does he mean by calling me a halibut? It's a fish that swims on the bottom. All right, well, I'm leaning towards Farnsworth. I don't know how you're feeling, but that one has a special place in my heart. So I'm rooting for it. But I can be convinced otherwise. Not saying you have to convince me otherwise. debt that he owes this mob that this mobster thinks he owes to him because a bunch of money got stolen from a poker game that jim got set up to be in yes was the mark in that con but now he has to run another con to get all that money back from uh and it revolves around um this ship that has multiple can get counted twice because of how it's registered and blah blah now what one of the things this definitely has going for it is that it's, I mean, they're both dealing with criminals in different ways and stuff like that.

But this one, it really has to be an exquisite con to con a con who had just conned Jim. So there's that. Right. And the climax involves treasury certificates. Oh, yes. Right? Or stock certificates. Or bearer bonds. Is it bearer bonds? I don't remember exactly. It's almost always bearer bonds. They just stock certificates or bearer bonds is it bearer bonds i don't remember it's almost always bearer bonds they just really like some kind of monetary document that gets exchanged for cash and then i just remember the like the the con man and his

daughter the two that originally conned jim are are celebrating with champagne and they spill some on the documents and all the ink starts running because they're fake and that's the revelation that it was that they were cons the whole time right so it is a great little climax there um so there's one in every port is closer to counter gambit in that it's a real layer of fiction in order to get to the goal con game the farnsworth stratagem you see jim building the con you kind of see everything there's not a lot hidden from you because we're seeing it all from jim's perspective uh i mean i just like that one too it's very rockfordy they both are but i kind of want to advance it just because it is different let's go with our hearts then yeah and again if you just want to watch one

i don't know i guess depending on my mood i would recommend both of these if you just want to watch one rock for files episode what are you doing listening to us like what is your problem what who broke you all right we are now on to the last category here the best dialogue yeah uh the first pairing in this is bees die of loneliness from if the uh frame fits and also from my ab tattoo. This is delivered by Dennis completely out of context. We talk about that in the previous episode. Really, all you need to know about it is Dennis out of nowhere. You know that bees can die of loneliness? Well, they can.

It's great. It's up against. I brought you over here. I invite you to dinner so we can sit down and discuss everything. And instead of a little honor and decency, you feed me an ice cream sandwich. Delivered by the urban horticulturalist from Chicken Little is a Little Chicken. Chester Sierra. Chester Sierra. Chester Sierra, yes.

This one's another fun one to have gone back and watched. Uh-huh. Oh, I should have said what they beat out the last time. This one beat out what we've been talking about this whole time, which is the Gabby and Gandy going into the Nazi bar scene. So there's a little bit of weight on the chicken little. It's a little chicken one here. And the bees died of loneliness, beat out the scene from the Italian bird fiasco.

There is another Dennis scene. This is the one where Dennis knows that after having this conversation on the phone, that Jim is not actually turning himself in. So this is a heartbreaking one for me because I have a choice and it's not the choice I want. I will say that as a moral offset for advancing Angel over Dennis, I can see advancing Buzed Eye of Loneliness to give the old broken Dennis representation in our tournament. Oh, God.

That makes it harder. So I went with Chester Sierra. Yeah. This whole bit, like, I can't tell you how much this has changed my life watching this scene. But I got to say, B's Die of Loneliness did change my life as well. I at least changed my flesh as we maintain the fiction that i've gotten this tattooed on my body um but uh from the the whole pizza routine uh it's okay like i could show you where the this ice cream sandwich monologue is but just as it spreads out in both directions into so much wondrous stuff.

It just is some of the most Rockfordish-ness dialogue that we have in this category that I can't imagine not going with it. I was willing to go the other way if there was a strong play. But if you're leaning towards the urban horticulturalist, I can't disagree with your assessment. We have been quoting this line since we watched this episode consistently. So it's been years that we've referenced this guy and talked about this line. And so, yeah, I think it moves up. I mean, there's people in my social circle in real life who talk about the urban horticulturalist. There's people in my social circle in real life who talk about the urban horticulturalist. I will say in my heart of hearts, Bees Die of Loneliness is one of the most poetic and beautiful moments in television history and really deserves an in memoriam moment at the end of the show.

But we have to end it here. We have to go forward with Chester Sierra's You's you feed me an ice cream sandwich all right the last last pairing in this category and in all the categories until we move on to the semi-finals first up from hotel of fear we have angel who is contemplating whether or not he has the right to choose who lives and dies muriel is dead d on the ed Now what am I going to do? Bring her back to life? Who am I? Am I God? Which beat out Angel Who is begging Jim to help him By calling upon the fact that

Jim is his friend Also from Chicken Little Yes So Hotel of Fear, who am I? God? And that's up against The Just keep laughing line the ending of the countess uh our first episode it beat out the reliable but chicken this is the category part of the category this is jim's uh philosophical uh underpinnings here i guess that's a penalty we

pay for living in a world where all the price tags end in 99 cents. They sell mortuary plots on billboards next to the freeway. What you do is, you just keep laughing. I went back and rewatched both of these. Angel is just a delight. It's just such a perfect Angel bit. There's some great stuff about him going back and forth and the cops. The cops are whatever Angel needs the cops to be to justify what Angel has to say in the moment. So he's just kind of going back and forth about them being useless or being the greatest police force in the country.

And the ending of it is great. You watch throughout it as Jim peeks out his blinds and he realizes that the cops have shown up. I'm not even sure if it's a joke and a cut or just a perfect cut. The cops have shown up at Rockford's to pick up Angel. Rockford lets them in. How did they know where to find me? Cut to the lieutenant. Mr. Rockford plays a very prominent role in your known associate file.

But that's not the point of this. The point of it is angel i originally proposed this one i was kind of scrolling through episodes that i kind of remembered i was like i know there's something in here once he started on his path i was like oh this one's so good um i mean angel has this messianic complex throughout right like kind of as a little subtext to his character like he either is being totally martyred or he has some kind of as a little subtext to his character like he either is being totally martyred or he has some kind of special special cleverness or special power that other people don't have and that's why he's so good at whatever con he's trying to run um so just this little

moment where he's like who am i god just seems so perfectly angel to me it's telling that some of our favorite angel lines are when he's vulnerable because this does seem like self-reflecting rather than just a con. He's panicked. And so we're kind of seeing his truest self. And his truest self is this incredibly back and forth, confused, unable to pick between all of his competing drives uh yeah person and just trying to find every excuse not to do the thing that he knows he needs to do i mean it's great i love that one uh the monologue i mean it's dialogue but the jim's bit from the end of the countess is uh it combines the philosophical outlook of jim rockford with some great Rockford word choice, some great Rockford diction, right? Everything ends in 99 cents and burial plots are sold on billboards next to the highway, like all that stuff, which I think kind of elevates it even more a little bit.

Quick honorable mention to Dennis just before the scene. You like this jerk, don't you? No, I don't like him i don't want punching his belly and i can't collect if he's doing time wonderful so here's the thing uh this line this moment this dialogue that he has with the countess um with jim all bandaged up in the hospital uh she's openly weeping uh it's incredibly tender and it is the message you need i'm leaning towards this one because i think that this is just perfect not just perfect gym but like why i watch the goddamn rockford files. You know what I mean? Like it just, yeah, it's a little, it's a little melancholy.

Yes. But it's not sad. No. Yeah. It's like, no, this is the way things are. Yeah.

You're going to fake it. That's what we have to do. Isn't that funny? That's where I'm leaning. Yeah. I mean, I think also for me, just because angel did advance in his bracket,

I'm, I'm willing to give the edge to this expression of core gym philosophy. All right. Okay. All right. So we're going to go ahead and go through each region and crown their champions. Yeah. So let's start off. Best dialogue.

Feed me an ice cream sandwich versus just keep laughing. Oh, my God. Okay. I was honestly hoping we'd have time before we came back keep laughing. Oh, my God. Okay. I was honestly hoping we'd have time before we came back to this. No, we can start with the other one. Like a band-aid. We've got to rip it off. So these are, I mean, I feel like these are all going to have to come from the gut, right?

Because we're just looking at these now. My gut reaction is just because it incorporates more people and has more turns of phrase that feeding me an ice cream sandwich has the edge for me. All right, let's do it. Let's just do it. I really cannot decide between the two. I think the Countess one is just completely beautiful, but the ice cream sandwich is so incredibly Rockford. All right. Counter Gambit versus Farnsworth in the category of best con. Oh, boy. Now we're getting down to the very technical bits of it.

I think Counter Gambit might be just the best con. Yeah, these are all going to be either technical things or just like slight edges, right? Yeah. Yeah, if the category is con, I think for all the things we talked about, the Farnsworth Stratagem, we see the con unfold. So it's nice to see Jim doing what he does from the inside. But Counter Gambit brings us along for the ride. And I think that's the fun of the con, trying to outguess what's going to happen.

So now are we going to just do the champion? Okay. So the region four. The marks and gas champion. After all of this has come down to counter gambit. Versus you feed me an ice cream sandwich. And this is where the nonsense really comes home to roost. Yeah this is where we've really given ourselves uh just the worst why did

we do this uh i partially think we're going to run into this problem and this is a fine and delightful problem to run into where larger categories beat the others right like i feel like the con is bigger than the dialogue sure so we would run over it so unless you feel well tell me what you're thinking here so yeah the whole point of these is that these are just going to be like weird category errors and yes obviously these are not comparable things so considering the overall frame of like best thing of the show yeah which of these things is most dear to us about the rockford files yeah maybe that is a better way to think about it oh okay you've convinced me i'm voting ice cream sandwich i wasn't going to but now you've convinced me yeah because if we just look in terms

of like importance then yeah you're right i think everything on an episode scale is going to be more important than anything inside an episode i think the only way to think about this that'll make this interesting is, yeah, what do we hold most dear as like, I love this about this show? Yeah, I think because of all the things we've said so far about how much that the ice cream sandwich has gotten into our... Our lexicon? Yeah. How are you feeling about that?

Let's do it. I'll take that. I mean, Counter Gambit's a great episode, but there's another category for great episodes. You tell me there's going to be a regional four championship and then you Phoebe this ice cream sandwich? Exactly. All right. So we're going up to Jim's World. And in Jim's World, we have to figure out the best jim fast talk this is uh again this is the polish wedding

where he goes into the florist versus the larger category of the time pressured working man and we have another one where it feels like oh no there's no time pressure in this one no this is the opposite this this is a bureaucratic word spew kind of example something along those lines yeah it's kind of in the middle i kind of i think i'm leaning towards the time pressured working man on this one i think so too i think it's a time pressure working man is is this construct that we use as shorthand for all of these cons yeah it's something that we've that is that feels so core to Jim's identity as a PI that he's developed that ability. And while the specific weird job patter from Just Another Polish Wedding is very fun, it's not something that I hold dear.

That particular one is not one that I come back to over and over. Right. And this is where we just completely f***ed ourselves. Because now we have to choose between Beth and Angel. I used this analogy last episode, but if I was in a sinking boat and I had to save one of them, it's Beth. Yeah. I'm not thinking about that at all.

But when it comes to who I'd rather watch on screen it's so tough it's hard to say no to angel it's i could just see him pleading but considering his representation in the other brackets even in this round i'm okay being like you know what we will still see angel if these are the only things we get to see of the show for the rest of time, we'll still see Angel. I'm with you. I like I do find myself in the later Rockford Files missing Beth. I do miss her in like earlier ones, too. Not so much because we've been watching them out of order. But like, yeah, let's go, Beth. And I'll be honest with you, whoever won that was going to win the region two championship. You're not. There's no doubt in my mind about that that that beth beats the time pressured working man for jim's world it would be monstrous to think

otherwise right or do you do you disagree with me am i if i called you a monster by accident no you haven't called me a monster this one i want to think about just for a second i'll give you some time coming from the jim's world framing this is like intrinsic versus extrinsic, right? Like, yeah. Time pressured working man is a Jim thing that Jim does. While Beth is a person who's very important to Jim. Yeah. I will be honest with you. Beth carries the weight of Jim and Beth their whole deal. Right. And she also carries the weight of beating Rocky. Yes. And Billings. Yes, and Billings. Poor Billings. Jim can fast talk in lots of ways, but there is only one Beth. There you go. There you go. However you have to justify it as long as you come to the right answer.

All right. Okay, let's go over to the gas and gangsters. All right, best villain, Dave Delaro versus the mayors. I mean, Dave Delaro could clean a whole room full of mayors. Yeah, the mayors have no chance versus Dave Delaro. Dave Delaro has bought the mayor. Yes. You know, and is making all of the money off of those fake tax breaks that they thought they were going to.

Yeah. I mean, like that one was just one of those that was going to come out in the brackets, right? Like you could watch that bottom bracket. Yeah. It may have been a different thing if Dave Delarue, like, for instance, if we had swapped Anthony Boy with Electric Larry. Sure. Then we might have had a different ending to this. But sometimes that's just how it goes down.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. This one's the best car chase. Semi-chase in the desert versus J-turn parking lot strategy. They're both wonderful. Yeah. One is early Rockford establishing what this is all about,

and the other is later Rockford showing that this is what it's all about. I'm torn here. Part of me wants to go with the Rosendahl because it's got the Firebird, and because, like I said, it's just a perfect chase. But I do think, almost by virtue of its length the uh dark and bloody ground one has um more storytelling going on in it so when we talked about this the one from rosendahl and gilda stern is i think i framed it as this is a great example of a typology right while the semi chase in the desert is its own wonderful little unit. Yeah.

And I kind of am leaning towards that just because so far we haven't seen anything like it. And if the category is car chase, that is a car chase. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Sorry, Firebird. You did well. Okay. So, all right. So Dave Delaro versus the semi chase in the desert. Now, one thing that we don't know about Dave here, he's very capable in many ways, but we never have a car chase with Dave. So we don't know how he would handle himself against a semi in the desert. He does try to escape in a car, but Jim throws paint on his windshield from his studio, if you'll remember.

That is wonderful. So he ends up steering into a tree or something and is thus caught by uh by jim so in that instance jim out you know he is not as uh wheel savvy because jim would have gotten paint thrown on his windshield and figured figured that out i think yeah i you know i gotta say i'm say I'm leaning to Dave. I don't know if this is like I'm biased towards people. I think I am leaning towards Dave. He's such an exemplar of his category. I guess the same could be said of the semi, but maybe it's just the momentum of how well Dave cleared out the mayors. I don't know.

How are you feeling? I feel like I'm having an urge here to kind of push against the obvious. Right. Yeah. A contrarian. A contrarian. Yes. I feel a contrarian feeling coming on because I kind of really love that chase.

Yeah. I rewatched it today. I sat in my chair feeling tension in my muscles watching it even though i've seen it before i know what's gonna happen um dave is a great villain but he does lose to jim while jim wins the car chase i'm not gonna disagree with you here but i do think maybe this is a point for a coin toss okay I can't just let the car chase beat Dave. I mean, I think I'm also trying to push a little against the, yeah, giving individuals the primacy. All right. So here's the thing. If it comes down to a coin toss

and the semi-chase wins, I'll feel bad because I think you're probably right. So if that's how I feel, then we should probably advance Dave. Oh, okay. Let's do it. Unless I've talked to you the other way. No, that's actually half the reason for a coin toss. Right. Is to make you think, how will I react when, if I get one versus the other? Yeah, for sure.

Okay. So Dave advances. Yes. Is the Region 3 champion. Yes. I mean, honestly, you knew it was going to happen. His karate skills are too advanced. John Saxton's karate skills are legendary, or Saxton.

Now we have the most rock tradition, We have the most rock-traditional, which is the Ice Kate Rink hostage exchange versus the Arnold Love hot dog scene. So these are so different. So this one's hard. I think I'm leaning one way or another. I don't. Specifically, I think I know which way I'm leaning. Going by the, like, which of these do I hold most dear uh i think the ice rink hostage exchange is more in my heart it is one of the first things i thought of for the category

right upon reviewing it it it was exactly what i remembered um but the hot dog is like extremely good and we talked about all the ways in which it like encapsulates so much Rockfordishness. Yeah, I think I am leaning the feeding frenzy as well. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as that scene started, I just like the awkwardness of like having to go over the sides of the rink to get into the middle. I think what really what really makes it is how the people all slow down. Yeah, exactly. And how like everyone's just watching them and they're just moving really slowly because they're on skates.

So they still have momentum. It's just shot so well. Nobody draws a gun, but that one guy is reaching for one. Yeah. And everyone's like, what is going on? Okay. So Ice Rink it is. We've talked ourselves into it.

All right. Now, best episode, Quick nirvana versus paper palace oh man so if we were if we're going to go to ratings for this tiebreaker quickie nirvana would win just throwing that out there uh maybe that's the way we gotta go uh and they're both award winning they're both award winning they're They both have really interesting and well-drawn female characters, which is great. One of them is very much Jim, and the other one is Jim and his friends. Yeah. Oh, boy.

I think I do lean quickie Nirvana here. It's slightly, and this is just like a total just personal feeling, you know, tipping things one way or the other. It's just slightly purer of a plot. Yeah. Like it's just slightly more focused as a story. And so like perfectly balanced as a humorous episode with weight to it. Though I guess in both of these, the like the actual like crime mystery is a little like yeah but i think that's what's great about the show is it's not necessarily i mean the ones that are about the crime are about the crime and the ones that aren't don't waste the audience's mental cycles on stuff that isn't

as important so yeah are we good we're good elevating quickie nirvana to winner best episode yeah which means the quickie nirvana has to go head-to-head with the ice rink hostics exchange for the region one championship and uh again this is one of those categories where i feel like there's a weight on quickie nirvana yeah that said like i mean we've spent a lot of time talking up this ice rink moment uh i think the weight on quick you have on it yeah i think one of the reasons it is the best episode is is because it contains much rock furnishness yeah it has the like hippie commune with the vegetables it has the uh weird backhanded jokes about karma. It has the burger scene where he lays it all down. It has Dennis moonlighting as a...

Oh, yes. In a pizza stand because they're staking someone out. Yeah, that's a good one. Okay. Quickie Nirvana is a Region 1 champion. Yes. Now we're on to the semifinals. Now this is where it becomes utterly impossible for

me not to look forward. Right. And I just want to point out where we're at. First of all, Chicken Little is a Little Chicken has a possible shot at revenge against Quickie Nirvana. Right? That's true. Because the ice cream sandwich monologue from Chicken Little

is a Little Chicken is Region 4 champion if it wins its semifinals nirvana right that's true because the ice cream sandwich monologue from chicken little little chicken is region four champion if it wins its semi-finals and quickie nirvana wins its semi-finals then the two would go head-to-head again in the championship right age-old rivalry uh quickie nirvana chicken little is a little chicken but if we if it goes the other way if it goes the other way of both categories right then we have A Portrait of Elizabeth redone here in 2020. This is quite the matchup because this would be Beth Davenport versus Dave Delarue. And what a matchup. But we're not there yet.

We have to deal with these semifinals. I'm not going to say that I didn't look ahead uh specifically when making the uh best villain uh pick oh really yes just from the order that we did it i was like yeah all right so uh start at the top yeah let's start at the top so quickie nirvana versus beth oh my god which i like because beth isn't in quickie Nirvana that I can recall. Okay. This is really, really tough. It's the next level of something inside versus something larger, right?

Like something inside an episode is hard to elevate over the episode, but an episode is hard to elevate over a character through multiple seasons. Yeah. Yeah. How do you even compare? We've not thought this through. This is nuts. All right, so I have a gut first reaction,

but I don't want to prejudice you if you're working your way through some stuff. I mean, I have a gut first reaction that I don't trust. Okay. My feeling of what hurts the Rockford Files more, not having Quickie Nirvana or not having Beth. Right. It's hard to say that not having Beth is better than the other way around. That metric in this particular matchup and like a lot of these matchups, like with the best character and whatever it's is elucidating but it doesn't uh like if we if we drop it to the other semi-final i think that that's when it

becomes like oh my god yeah what all right let me look at this semi-final let me not look ahead here yeah i think you're right i think that was my gut was beth um i don't want to just whatever you're region one champion quickie nirvana. You earned it, but you're no Beth. As it turns out, nobody in the top half of this is a Beth. I think that's also weighted by, I think, our contention, right? Which is that the show does such a good job with its characters. Yeah. The characters really matter.

And so, yes, I will, in this moment this moment sitting here today this could change at some other day some other set of brackets that we looked at but sitting here right now the best character in the show is superior to me over the best episode of the show and that's not necessarily true of other shows at least for me yeah so i think you're right uh so going down to the other semi-finalists and using that same metric here, very interesting because we'd be like, without Dave Delaro or without the You Feed Me an Ice Cream Sandwich, the Rockford Files could exist. I would bet for a lot of our listeners the Rockford Files exists without one or the other of them because they may not have caught that episode yet or what have you. Dave Delaro, best villain versus You Ephemian Ice Cream Sandwich. Best dialogue in a show that I will argue is more memorable for its dialogue

than for its villains, taken as an entire series. So here's the thing. Honestly, laying it all out on the line, I want to see Beth go up against Dave. And that makes it so difficult for me to decide in this category because i do actually think you're right about the dialogue i think uh because at this point right these are kind of carrying the weight of their whole deal right along with them yeah and maybe just to make our championship interesting i don't know maybe whisper in the ear of the refs a little bit and uh see if uh cheshire sierra can slip a little little cheddar into some

pockets to get feeding me an ice cream sandwich all the way up to that semi-final slot i i like i don't disagree with with any of that uh obviously with this sort of stuff uh you you have this thing where you're like, oh, but then if that was the way it was going to be all along, we can't look back. Can't look back. Yeah. Can't look back.

I think it depends. I mean, it depends on where they are in the standings. Like they're the penumbra of meaning changes. Okay. This is why I am going to go against my desire to see Beth versus Dave Delaro. Uh,

first of all, we've seen that play out. It's a wonderful episode, Portrait of Elizabeth. You can go watch it. Second of all, if you are a listener to Plus Expenses, our companion podcast, you heard us try to sort out how to fill these categories in the first place. There are eight in each of the categories. fill these categories in the first place are eight uh in each of the categories and one of the ones that didn't make it is the urban horticulturist chester sierra was up for best villain in the early early didn't quite make it in the in the play-in round yeah uh and uh so it's so this is the revenge of chester sierra well the reason why why Chester Sierra wasn't in it is because this scene was really all there was to Chester Sierra.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. It is a little bit like the revenge of Chester Sierra. And also, like, this scene being what it was, was almost strong enough to put that villain into the villain category. I think I'm putting Ice Cream cream sandwich forward if you're doing it i'll take it if you if you don't need me to convince you anymore i was willing to go to a coin flip for this one if if we were in a deadlock i will say that go watch a portrait

of elizabeth yeah like it's just like it's it's a great great episode uh and you get that showdown that we're not going to get now because now we have beth versus i brought you over here i invite you to dinner so we can sit down and discuss everything and instead of a little honor and decency you feed me an ice cream sandwich i know when i talked to local friends about this when i said we were doing this i think they predicted the winner that i'm about to choose uh yeah i think when we first started talking about this, one of our, this would be great if we go the opposite way, actually. But one of the jokes, but not really, I think that we made was like, but really the best

core character is going to end up winning. Right? Yeah. I mean, I can't imagine that not being the case. This lets Billings be like, well, yeah, no no i just just up against the champion i would have gone much further if that wasn't the case yeah we've talked about all the great things about you feed me an ice cream sandwich but at the end of the day if i have to take one thing out of the rockford files while it would be a big blow to our show we would have missed out on a lot of of

banter uh without this scene but are we really going to say that Beth Davenport is not the 2020 Malibu Madness champion of the Rockford Files? After beating Billings and then beating Rocky and then beating Angel who had beat Dennis. Right. Like if any of these categories carries the weight of all of the previous ones, this is the one. I think that not only does this seem like the obvious answer here, but I think we should make an oath now that the next time we do Malibu Badness, we don't include best core character.

Right. Because it's such a hard one to vote against. All right. Let's make our case for Ice Cream Sandwich, even though we both know. I'm already putting it in the slot. But no right let's make our case for ice cream sandwich even though we both know i'm already putting it in the slot but no let's well yes let us talk about the case for a feed me an ice cream sandwich let's show the audience the game that the ice cream sandwich put up so this scene beat gandhi and gabby punching nazis which already that's a hell of an opener it it beat our favorite individual line of bees dying of loneliness oh my god yes it beat jim's mission statement of you know seeing the world

uh you know for all the the parts that it's playing but you just keep laughing like you just have to be in on the joke yes it beat the best con game episode of Counter Gambit. Yeah. And it beat Dave Delarue, the Moriarty to Jim's Sherlock. That is a hell of a pedigree. Yes, that's true. Okay. Okay. So I think you and I both are in agreement that Beth is taking this, right? Yes. I think Beth wins. I think there's just the weight of the character is, is too strong. We did, we did try to put it in the bracket again, so it would face best episode, but right. Yeah. So, okay. Given that, uh, and given that this, like, like all brackets could have played out differently, had it been up against quickie

Nirvana or, you know, whatever, whatever uh it certainly would not i don't think in my mind played out differently if beth was up against dave delaro uh i think beth would definitely i don't think we'd be talking about it this much i think we'd be like oh yeah she beats dave yeah there's beth and then you feed me an ice cream sandwich is almost everything that isn't beth right yeah like it's angel it's gangsters it, it's this weird crime, it's a con game. So they actually have a little more valence versus each other. Yeah, I guess that's what I'm thinking about here is that you feed me an ice cream sandwich, does it go the distance, right? That's the question. Is it a last minute buzzer shot? I'm running out of sports metaphors, I understand.

Is it close, or is Beth just like, by halftime, it's clear that Beth is going to win? I think that when the second half starts, there's still a possibility. If everything goes right for You Feed Me an Ice Cream Sandwich, there's a shot. goes right for you feed me an ice cream sandwich there's a shot but as the time ticks on the it gets increasingly clearer that uh that this is fate angel draws a foul and we're like oh okay yeah no that's and beth davenport ends up with a strong but not not dominating it's not a blowout yeah but by like 10 minutes left you kind of know she's gonna walk away with it so that's what i say i'm in it yeah that's it that's that's the thing so uh well first of all a big congratulations to the 2020 uh malibu madness champion Beth Davenport.

She went the distance. And obviously a big, big round of applause for all of our quarterfinal champions. Quickie Nirvana, Dave Delaro, and you feed me an ice cream sandwich. And then to all of our contestants here. I think this feels like it ended in the place that maybe it was fated to end the whole time, but I'm glad we went through it because it was fun to revisit all this stuff.

And I will go ahead and just point out that I think our category winners is a hell of a set of things, right? Quickie Nirvana, Ice Rink Hostage Exchange from Feeding Frenzy, The Semi-Chase in the Desert, Dave Delaro from A Portrait of Elizabeth. Beth Davenport, of course. The Time-Pressured Working Man Fast Talk Construction for Jim. Counter Gambit. And You Feed Me an Ice Cream Sandwich from Chicken Little is a Little Chicken.

Yeah. Those winners feel like they hit all of the quadrants of the things that are great about the rockford files so i call that a success yeah i think so too this is this was a lot of fun i've got like for something where we weren't sure for something that was entirely arbitrary from the jump yeah uh i think it was meant to be less work but i it probably was more work than just doing an episode or was it meant to be less work? I mean, it was less work for me because I do more of the talking in our normal episodes. That's true.

Yes. It was an extremely refreshing change of pace to look at the show a little more holistically. Yeah. For me. I think that like this was a lot of fun to just kind of look back, refresh our memories on some of them. Honestly, like the homework exercises that we did this past week were just a delight uh it was very difficult to turn away from any episode once it start going i i am satisfied with these results there are certainly

ones that i in the beginning i had uh hopes for some of them made it. Some of them didn't make it nearly as far as I had hoped. But in the end, I don't disagree with any of the choices, which I think is probably inevitable since we both just agreed. I think we had some good points of contention and we were able to kind of reframe things for each other in order to come to an agreement, which is what I think a productive conversation is all about. Yes. All right. Well, thank you all so much for hanging with us for Malibu Madness.

It was fun for us. If you have thoughts or want to tell us how wrong we were with some of our picks, feel free to tweet at us nicely, please, at 200pod or come over to the Patreon at patreon.com slash 200aday, where you can tell us all of your thoughts. If you have gone through the trouble to fill out all of these brackets, I would love to see them. Like, I really would love to see, I mean, sure, if you just have one or two that you're like really excited about, tell us those. But if you've printed this out and filled them all in, I want to know. Absolutely. So this was super fun. We'll see

if we do it in another four years when we have another 60 odd episodes of the show under our belt. I'm not sure if it's sustainable as an annual exercise, but maybe we'll see. We'll see what happens next year. I can tell you that we will be back next time in our usual format to talk about another episode of The Rockford Files. Do you know that bees can die of loneliness? Well, they can.