Speaker 1: And so that's how I found out there was no
Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: That is terrible. But can we just do the podcast?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Welcome back everybody
to the Surely you Can't Be Serious Podcast. We're here
for part two of our Gremlins Versus Ghostbuster episode in
our series of nineteen eighty four, and we're ready to
jump back into these two movies.
Speaker 2: That's fantastic, let's dive in. I want to talk about
a couple of the problems that these two movies pose. Okay, okay,
So let's talk about Gremlins and the rules.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: So, for those of you are familiar with the movie
of Gremlins, there's three rules that you can't break when
it comes to Grimlins, right right. Number one, they hate
right life.
Speaker 1: Right number two, don't.
Speaker 2: Get them wet, can't give them any water, don't even
let them drink water. And number three, never ever let
them eat after midnight?
Speaker 3: Right okay?
Speaker 1: So the darkness thing, the bright light thing actually was
kind of a technical thing, and you have practical special effects.
You have to hide the wires and the pumps and
the guys who are operating the puppetree and stuff like that.
So if you keep things in the dark, it makes
it much easier to hide those things, and it also
creates pretty cool ending to the movie.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: It does.
Speaker 2: It's very similar to the end of Bright Night, the
movie that we've already talked about.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the bright light thing, we get that, hiding
the effects, hiding the wires, hiding the puppet tree, all
that stuff. Right, Okay, let's talk about water. Can't get
them wet? Yeah, okay, Now, the Magua when they're you know,
wild and on the prairie and Africa or whatever when
it rains. I don't know, there's something. Maybe they're from
outer space.
Speaker 1: That was like there was a book that was done
that said that was said they were from outer space.
But I think Joe Dante said, no, that's not canon
or not. No, I don't like that.
Speaker 2: They're not tribles, No.
Speaker 1: James T. Kirk, they are not tribles.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the water thing is a little bit weird.
But if you get them w they multiply right, like
exponentially multiply right.
Speaker 1: Somehow they drink they drink beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, there's no water in beer.
Speaker 1: No, there's a lot of water in beer.
Speaker 2: Maybe alcohol counteracts the effects of the water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, man, I don't know. It's weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the rules are problematic, don't overthink okay. Rule number three, yes,
is the most problematic though, right, Okay, because.
Speaker 1: It's always five o'clock, I mean midnight somewhere.
Speaker 2: That's right, it is, so what are we doing here
this night?
Speaker 1: I mean right, So Zach Gallaghan was one of the
first ones to point out. He's like, well, yeah, but
I mean it's always midnight somewhere, I mean, what does that?
How does that even make sense? And so then in
Grimlins two, they totally used that line and that becomes
a kind of a sticking point. It is kind of
making fun of itself the whole time.
Speaker 2: Right, this is what kills me about Gremlins. And first
of all, Grimlins is a fun movie.
Speaker 3: I enjoy it all that stuff.
Speaker 2: But the dad, first of all, he obtains the magua
and kind of illegal means, right, it's the grandson sells
it from.
Speaker 1: Out literally a back alley of a back alley deal.
Speaker 2: And they just kind of brushed through the rules and
thankfully hoy Accidon's character takes the rules seriously. Most dads
in America be like, oh crap, I can't.
Speaker 3: Even remember what they told me.
Speaker 2: Don't feed him water, they can't eat pizza. But he
takes it home, gives it to Billy, and Billy promptly
breaks all three of the rules in like ten minutes.
I mean, like instantly. Somebody bug the clock, you know,
no matter how much they cry, don't feed him after midnight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it sounds like my kids.
Speaker 2: And he's like, it's eleven thirty five. It's it's not
technically midnight.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, So here's some interesting things, right right,
this is the first movie that had the Ambulance Entertainment
logo on the on screen appearance. Okay, right, they had
originally you had mentioned this last episode. They planned to
have this release in December because it was a Christmas movie,
right right? Questionable? Is it a Christmas movie? Oh yeah? Okay,
So moved the release up because they didn't have anything
to compete with Ghostbusters or Temple of Doom, and so
it got moved up to June. Now when they filmed
this thing, they filmed it in August in Burbank, California.
Really so Billy's out there in like a sweater and
a winter coat in one hundred degree heat. That's fascinating. Yeah,
so all of the snow on the ground is just salt.
It's all Hollywood magic. Wow.
Speaker 2: That is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is cool. Chris Wallace is the one who
did the special effects, which we'll talk about more here
in a bit, but he was the one said let's
do puppets instead of stop animation, like they were going
to do stop animation, right, okay, and so Joe Dante says,
how about instead of that, we use spider monkeys.
Speaker 2: Great idea, right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: So what happens.
Speaker 2: So they put the spider monkey in a Grimlin outfit,
and the monkey panics and is like running around destroying
the set and crapping everywhere.
Speaker 1: Right and so and so they like yell at the trainer,
like get it out of here, get it out of here.
Finally get the monkey out of there, and Joe Dante
turns to Chris Wallis and goes, so, puppets.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's so funny. So this is way
before CGI. So each one, this is all practical effects.
So each one of those gremlins costume or Gremlins puppet
slashed things. Yes, is like thirty thousand bucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Security had to check people's cars at the end
of shooting every day, make sure that nobody was stealing
one of the cute or ugly little Grimlin guys.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you and I talked about this. For me,
this movie was a horror movie, okay. And it's super creepy.
When they make the little cocoon, yeah.
Speaker 1: It's very It's like a or invasion of the body Snatchers.
Speaker 2: Okay, and they they hatch and they're kind of dark
and you hear them kind of giggling. They're off screen,
and it's scary. Right when they attack the mother in
the kitchen, man, I'm like, whoa, she's really in danger.
These things are dangerous, going crazy. And then the whole
movie makes a right turn into the Muppet Show.
Speaker 1: The guys, the Grillins themselves go from just being monsters
to being parodies of people, like they're the worst parts
of people. And Chris Wallace said that was when he
and his crew finally got it that this is a
parody of people. Okay, which is kind of funny because
apparently after they filmed the movie, they got a note
from the studio that said, I think there's too many Grimlins,
and so Spielberg sent a note back and said, maybe
we'll just take them all out and just call it people.
Speaker 2: The scene where the Christmas caroling and they've got little
miniature stockings and mini scarfs and then miniature carol books
and then they're breakdancing. Yeah, all that stuff is really
crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the special effects. Since we're here anyway,
let's talk about the special effects. Okay, So the creatures
were originally they were based on drawings that Chris Columbus
had done, Okay, because I mentioned before, he and Jo
Hartis wanted to be cartoonists, so he had drawn what
he wanted the creatures to look like. Gizmo ends up
being colored after Steven Spielberg's dog. It was a King
Charles Cavalier spaniel, and so the coloring of Gizmo is
based upon Spielberg's dog. And apparently he was driving Wallace
crazy because he kept changing how he wanted. I wanted
Gizmo to look, you know, like, oh, he's gonna be
all brown. Oh no, no, I wanted to the colors
of my dog. Oh, his ears. He need to have
no hair on them, you know, And so that was
pretty frustrating. But Chris Wallace is the special effects guy
who ends up creating all this. He had worked with
Joe Dante on Pirana. He had also worked on Airplane
with Mike Fanell. And so here's an interesting fact about
Chris Wallace. You ready for this one, yes, get it?
Ready for your mind to be blowd I'm ready. He
was the guy who made the melting heads in Raiders
of the Lost Art Oh nice, Yeah, the Nazi all
of that had exploding stuff with Ronald Lacy, wolf Collar
and Paul Freeman. He was the guy who had done that.
And both he and Richard Edlund, who was doing the
effects for Ghostbusters at this time, had worked on both
Raiders and Return of the Jedi.
Speaker 2: That's awesome. And the end of the movie when Stripe
falls into the fountain and he's getting ready, he's bubbling up,
he's getting ready to start duplicating, and then Gizmo opens
the window, the sunlight pours in and he melts into
that skeleton thing and you get that jump scared at
the end. Oh, that's scary. So there's that pocket in
the middle where it turns into looney tuns, but it's
still you know, there's a good scene at the very end,
and the effects are great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the some of the scenes they just came
up with at the time, Like they had actually gotten
all of the stuff for a department store. When they
go to the department store and Zach Gallaghan sees some
chainsaws over there, he starts talking to the props guy
the special effects guys, and he's like, wouldn't be great
if they like they had a chainsaw and I had
a bat and we were like fighting with it. Now
the scene is in the movie, it's scary. Now here's
a scene that was not in the movie that they filmed. Yes,
the end where Dismo comes and pulls the shade and
the light comes in. They shot it where Billy is
the one that saves the day. Like he it's the
diehard ending where he comes in and does that big jump.
And he had no idea that they changed it until
he watched the movie for the first all and he's
with Dante and he's like, obviously it's shocked. His feelings
are hurt a little bit, and he's like, uh, I
thought I was supposed to be the hero at the
end of this movie, and Joe Dante just goes the
movie is called Grimlins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, we wanted to you walk to win it.
Speaker 1: Then, Okay, I already quoted it. Let's talk about the
same story.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: This is probably the most controversial part of the whole movie.
Speaker 1: I was young when I saw it, and that was
a shocking scene to me.
Speaker 2: I was just like, oh wow, I had forgotten about this.
I had to stop the movie and rewind it, Like,
did she really just say what I thought she said?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah. I was talking to Arlin on this and
I was telling him we're doing Grimlins and he's got
his ten year old in the back and he's like
and he's like and he's like, so you can see
we let our kids watch totally inappropriate movie and we're talking.
All of a sudden, he's like taking it off speakerphone
real quick. Yeah, we haven't let him watched the Santa
Claus speech because he may still believe in Santa Claus.
I was like, oh, I almost said the line, So
I'm really glad you said something.
Speaker 2: That speech is crazy Number one because parents were super
pissed that they gave away the Santa Claus secret, right,
and you have this horrible death. Phoebe Kates talks about
how Christmas is a terrible time of year because while
some people are opening presents, of other people are opening
their risks.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it's it's the yeah, that whole bit. So,
but here's what's interesting, right, this is a horror comedy
which doesn't go together, right, that doesn't really go together
until they start doing these two movies that we're talking about.
And Joe Dante was really playing off that kind of
you listen to this thing. If you were to read this,
if you were to read this on a piece of paper,
you go, this is ridiculous. What is it about? This
is ridiculous. But then when Phoebe Kates delivers it, it's real.
I mean she sells it as a true event that
happened in her life, and you're like, am I watching
a comedy or a horle movie or what is this?
And that was that confusion, that weirdness of these two
things rubbing against each other that he wanted to capture
that speech. So even though the studio said take it out,
even though Spielberg said take it out, Joe Dante said,
it's staying in the movie.
Speaker 2: All right, if you got kids in the car listening,
you might want to fast forward plast this apart just
a little bit, especially if they're in the Christmas Santa
Claus era. But Phoebe Kats talks about how her dad
goes missing, they can't find him. Pretty soon they start
to smell.
Speaker 1: Something, notices this smell.
Speaker 2: Thetys start to smell something, and they find out later
that her dad was going to do this Santa Claus
thing where he came down the chimney and he got
stuck and he died in their chimney.
Speaker 1: What right, it's absurd. That's why it's absurd, right, I mean,
chimneys are not made for people.
Speaker 2: We all know this, Oh my gosh, and the studios
like take it out. Joe Dante's like nope, Spielberg's like,
I don't really like this, but if you want to
leave it in, I guess you can leave it in.
So it's in there.
Speaker 1: Most one of the most memorable parts of the whole movie, though,
it is, right, yes, yeah, I mean, if we're going
to talk about memorable lines, Ghostbusters have more, but have
the memorable lines in this movie. And so that's how
I found out there's no Santa Claus top of the list.
Speaker 2: If I'm a parent in eighty four, I'm upset. Yeah, Okay,
continuing on with special effects, right.
Speaker 1: Sure, Billy had to wear wires up his pant legs
when he was holding on to gizmo because it's in
his hands, right, so they've got to be able to
control it while he's holding it, and so these wires
would be running up his pant leg he wouldn't be
able to move around on the set and he'd be
holding it and then they'd switch it out like you'll
notice this as you watch the movie. He'll set it down.
When he sets Gizmo down, he sets him down off screen,
and then the camera pans over and gizmos sitting on
the table. Well, that's an entirely different gizmo.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Oh and here's another thing. They had to have several
gizmos and the faces would come off, like because the
happy gizmo had a different face than the sad or
the scared gizmo, so they had to peel the face
off of gizmo as the movie went through.
Speaker 2: That's that's fantastic, that's amazing. Did you know that gizmo
was the inspiration for the Ferbie.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can totally see yeah right, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's flip back to Ghostbusters. Let's talk about
some of the special effects and the production of Ghostbusters.
Speaker 4: I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
Speaker 1: Well. As we mentioned before, Richard Edlin was the guy
who had come over from il M had started their
own special effects company called Boss Films. Later would go
on to do Fright Night. But one of the guys
that came along with them from il M was Steve Johnson,
who we talked about in the Night Night episode. Right,
He's the guy who was happy that they had all
the cocaine. He was the guy who caught his tennis
shoes on fire when he melted the big scary bat
at the end. But he was the guy who was
responsible for Slimer, who didn't have the name Slimmer at
the time, but we know who that is, right.
Speaker 2: They called an onion head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, onion head, right, and so he was the guy
who was responsible for making Slider onion head.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is one of the things. So watching the
behind the scenes stuff, I never realized when you see
Slimer's back he has butt.
Speaker 1: Cheeks, he's got a giant booty. I didn't even know
that I had a bootylicious booty.
Speaker 2: I never really get a good look at Slimmer's butt
in the movie. But they did a lot of practical
effects for Ghostbusters as well. I thought this was cool,
the scene with the librarian, where the was it the
Dewey decimal cards open and start flying out. Yeah, there's
guys hiding behind the wall shooting like air, like through
a straw to make the cards fly out. Right, And
the books that are flowed in the library, those are
all done by wires.
Speaker 1: What about the stack books?
Speaker 2: You're right, no human being stack books like this. But
during production, one of the things that made Ivan Rightman
the most uncomfortable, like the biggest chance of the entire movie,
the state off marshmallow Man. He was not convinced that that.
Speaker 1: Would work well.
Speaker 2: So when they put it together, I thought this was
so interesting. So but when they had finally put together
kind of the basic outline of the movie, they showed
it to a test audience in March of eighty four,
I hate this.
Speaker 1: I like the torture.
Speaker 2: That's right, boys, it's doctor Frankman. They showed the scene
when Dana goes to a refrigerator and she opens it
up and there's zeel, right, but that effect wasn't ready yet.
It just had this big blank screen that said special
effect insert and of course Scorny Weaver screams and slams
and door shut. He said. The audience screamed, the can
see there's just a stupid panel up there. But he's like, man,
they're really going for this, and there's the effects aren't
even in yet. But the biggest leap in reality, the
thing that worried him the most was a Staypuff marshmallow Man.
And when they tested it to the audience, when you
see the big Staypuff guy, there's one little effect where
you see his head passing between buildings that was ready,
and so that was in that cut. Everything else was out.
He said. The audience went bananas over that scene. That's awesome,
and he was like, this is the best screening because
it put him at ease and he knew they.
Speaker 3: Had a hit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the Staypuff marshmallow Man is a combination between
the michel Entire Guy Yes, the Phillisbury dough Boy Yes,
and some Canadian marshmallow sailor guy that Dan Akhroad grew up.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I thought this was funny.
Speaker 2: When they were filming the earthquake scene out in front
of Dana's apartment building and it's right there by Central Park.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you had to tear up the street.
Speaker 2: They estimated that it it jacked up sixty percent of
traffic in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Since you hit this subject. These movies were released on
the same day. Yes, Ghostbusters did overall better than Grimlins did,
except in New York City because the whole city was
pissed off at Ghostbusters for locking up traffic for months
on and filming all the stuffy listen.
Speaker 2: Isaac Asimov lived around that area and he came out
and Dan Akro was like a huge fan. He's like
Isaac Asimov, Oh my gosh. And Isaac Asimov was like,
are you the reason why this is all Jack and
was like yes, sir. He's like it's disgusting. Okay, So
you mentioned fright night the librarian, like the scary library,
and you know the scene where he's like okay, read
get her and she's like get her.
Speaker 1: That's your old plan.
Speaker 2: They had to tone down the original effect because that's
the scary librarian was too scary, and so they took
the scary librarian and it became the vampire from Fright Night.
Speaker 3: Later on Yep, we talked about that in a Friday
Night episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah cool. So a big part of the special effects
on this thing come from the set design right this movie.
The set designer was John de Kerk. We mentioned last
episode that we were one of the number one film
podcasts Inni Burney, Yes, we're in the charts in other places.
One of the other podcasts in the charts repeatedly is
a podcast called Based on a True Story. Yeah. As
it turns out, Dan Lefeb literally lives down the street
from us. I looked it up and I'm like, oh
my gosh, this guy who's also doing a charting film
podcast is next door neighbors with us, and so we
got to talk to him, and he had interviewed the
guy on Cleopatra because Cleo Patrick's like based on a
true story, right, right, right, And so we were talking
about that. Well. John de Kerr was the set designer
on Cleopatra, the set designer on The King, and I
the set designer on Hello Dolly, all of which she
won an Oscar for and he's the set designer on Ghostbusters. Okay,
And so that scene that you see where she opens
the door and it's that's the only thing that's cool
there is that set design. I mean, it's not like
there's a monster there right right. It's the big doorway
that you ultimately see at the end of the movie. Well,
that's all John Dwyer. They changed the storyline based upon
these mammoth awesome Cleopatra big sets that he was designing.
And of course he's got the big doorway. They added
two stories to that building in New York City to
accommodate for the big doorway into the other dimension. That's incredible.
Great when someone asks you if you're a god, you
see yes.
Speaker 2: Okay. So there's a scene I want to talk about
really quick.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So there's this weird scene where there's like this woman
apparition that's hovering over Dan Ackroyd.
Speaker 1: You know, seeing what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, exactly, Sorry, yes, okay. So that's in
this sort of montage where they're running around the city
where where they're running around the city and they're they're
capturing ghosts, and you can tell that their business is
really taken off. Well that scene they were supposed to
be taking place at this haunted fort, and so that
was actually this whole big thing. And so that's why
dan Ackroyd's wearing this like Civil War general costumes.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was like, I'm in a dream,
so I'm going to be addressed, right, going to be
a sailor in this dream.
Speaker 2: So there's a funny story about the woman ghost Okay, okay,
her name is Kimberly Herron. She's a playboy playmate Google search.
So they had to create a foam lay text some
sort of costume for her, and so the special effects
guy had to rub her down with vasilin we too,
oil boys, decrease us up before we do our special effect.
But anyway, he was hesitant when he got to her chest,
and she she just took both of his hands and
put right on our boobs and said, will you just
get on with it?
Speaker 1: Okay, So that makes me think. You know the scene
where Dana is being attacked in her chair, Yes, the kitchens,
and you've got the gloved hand coming up out it.
I'm saying, Cliff Hand, he's supposed to.
Speaker 2: Be like the master hand, right, But there's a guy.
Speaker 1: Whose hand is inside there, who's taking full.
Speaker 2: Of the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Did somebody say, oh, put it right on her boob?
Speaker 2: It really is. I'm like, I mean, he's going for it.
Speaker 1: He's not, he is not holding back. Hey.
Speaker 2: By the way, Kimberly heron just in case you may
recognize that ghost, she's the girl in Zzi Toop's Legs video. Wow.
Speaker 3: Nice another summer ready for for minutes.
Speaker 1: Oh that's right, yeah, okay, eliminating awesome.
Speaker 2: Okay. Hey, one of the things I forgot to mention
when we were talking about production of Gremlins, so well,
the big scene at the end, all of the Grimlins
go into a movie theater and they're going to watch
snow White. Yeah, okay, it's kind of the big climacting
scene at the end. And one of the reasons why
they're watching snow White is because snow White was released
in nineteen thirty seven, right at Christmas time. Ok So
it's kind of a throwback.
Speaker 3: For old Christmas movie.
Speaker 2: Okay, right now, Billy and Phoebe Kate's trapped them all
in the movie theater and they blow it up, right okay,
And it's the big scene at the end Stripe is
across the street getting candy. He's got a sweet tooth
or whatever.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to have to pay the movie prices.
That's right, he sneaking in his US.
Speaker 2: I know this is funny though. So Phoebe Kates asked
the explosive guy. She's like, you know, how big is
this explosion going to be? And he said, well, we
we've packed it pretty good.
Speaker 3: Uh huh, And she's like, what the hell does that mean?
Speaker 2: She said it was deafening. The heat was so intense
I thought I singed my eyebrows. It blew the doors
off the feat and as you see in the film,
it shattered windows on a building at Universal a mile away.
Speaker 1: Wow, we pecked it pretty good. We've packed it pretty good.
You should see their first movie, Caddy Check. As long
as we're throwing in extra bits on Grimlin's I'm going
to say this. Do you remember at the beginning the
first scene with what accident is he's in Chinatown. There's
a car, like an old timey car that's got like
its hood up and it's broken down kind of car.
Speaker 3: It is nice time.
Speaker 1: To talk about soundtracks.
Speaker 5: We have to talk about the soundtrack in this movie.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go back to Grimlins. Okay, all right,
So soundtrack for Grimlins we have mister Jerry Goldsmith. Yeah,
so throw back to our Superman episode. Jerry Goldsmith was
like Jerry Goldsmith is to Richard Donner as John Williams
is to Steven Spielberg, right right. And so Jerry Goldsmith
had done the soundtrack to the All Money. He's done
a ton, I mean, just the the list of movies
is gigantic, but he's the one who did the soundtrack
for Grimlins.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Of the two soundtracks, as far as like thematic music
is concerned, score score is concerned, I gotta say that
Grimlins is the more effective, more memorable.
Speaker 2: It's got that d d N. It's like an Yeah,
it's catchy and yet scary and kind of a nightmare thing.
Speaker 1: And you absolutely it's it's got it's got elements of
Psycho and it's elements of Jaws in it and still
manages to tie in the kind of newer sounding synthesizer music.
And yeah, great, great. He also had done Poldergeist, The
Secreted Nim, First Blood, Twilight Zone, Mister Mom and then
that leads him all the way up to Grimlin's. That's
just before he does a few episodes of night Writer.
Speaker 2: And by the way, nice, whoa nice? Okay, So who
does the score for Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: Score for Ghostbusters is our old friend, mister Elmer Bernstein. Yeah,
so Elmer Bernstein has this, He has this fascination at
this time with these old nineteenth century instruments called the
otis Martino. And that is that weird. It sounds kind
of like, you know, when somebody plays the crystal like
the glasses, the wine glasses. Okay, they remember at the beginning,
the very beginning of the movie that, yeah, yeah, that's
all it's it's this instrument which has that almost like
a synthesize of your sound, but it's from the eighteen
hundreds and it's but it's played on a keyboard. Okay,
It's kind of like there amid nice sylintonta nice.
Speaker 2: I think that the theme for the Ghostbusters is very good, right,
it's memorable, right, and it's playful and kind of goofy
and fun.
Speaker 1: Now, on the subject of soundtracks, though, we can't just
talk about the score. We have to talk that's strange.
Who are you gonna call? Well, maybe you call Huey
Lewis and ask permission next time.
Speaker 2: We've kind of talked about this in our Huey Lewis episode.
But they wanted Huey Lewis to do some of the
songs for the soundtrack.
Speaker 1: I don't want to write a sound called Chris.
Speaker 2: He's like, nope, I'm out right right. Uh So they
end up with Ray Parker Jr. And they say, hey,
can you come up with something? He says, okay, I'll
get to work on it. He said the music came
pretty quick. He's like, but lyrically he could not fit Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: Into the song right.
Speaker 3: And he's up late one night.
Speaker 2: He's stress and he's spreading and he's like, they need it.
We're on this tight deadline, you know.
Speaker 3: June eighth.
Speaker 2: This comment, oh my gosh. And and he says, is
up late and it was like a like a bug commercial,
like a bug exterminy and they're like, you know, if
you have bugs, you need to give us a call,
give us a call this number right here.
Speaker 1: What are a hundred bug killers or whatever? And he's like,
that's it. Who are you gonna call? Ghostbusters?
Speaker 2: Fantastic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then you get this great video with all
like these TV stars.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I mean, let's I mean, think about
the list of people that are in video. Yeah, the
video and the song Ghostbusters were nearly as big as
the movie was the summer of eighty four.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: So you have cameos of Chevy Chase, Irene Kia, John Candy,
Melissa Gilbert, Jeffrey Tambore, George wint Al, Franken, Danny DeVito,
Norman Carly Simon, Peter Falk, Terry Garr. Not to mention,
you have Bill Murray, dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie
Hudson and Ernie Hudson along with Ray Parker Jr.
Speaker 1: Singing Ghostbusters louder I can't hear you. Okay, so let's
talk about what happens with these movies after they come out. Okay, Well,
they're both gigantic successes, massive hits, massive hits. They create
the careers of multiple people. Joe Dante after this movie
goes on to do Explorers, which is the film debut
of River Phoenix, and Ethan Hawk does Innerspace. We're gonna have.
Speaker 2: To do this.
Speaker 1: It keeps coming up, I know, right, And then he
does Grimlins to the New Match.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about sequels, Okay, which is the
worst sequel, Ghostbusters two or Grimlins two.
Speaker 1: I actually liked Ghostbusters two sequel. It wasn't as good
as Ghostbusters by any means, but I kind of like it.
But it's also been about fifteen years since I've seen it.
I feel like if I went and watched it again,
I would not like it as much. But bad guy
in Ghostbusters two, like the guy in the painting, was
one of the terrorists on Diehard. Yeah, and then his
little Tody helper guy is one of the main guys
on alimcbeale who was also in Dragon's Layer.
Speaker 2: Yes, that guy's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Ghostbusters two Yeah, I can't think of his
name off the top of my head, but he's.
Speaker 2: Lama all the coverage with goof the best part about
Ghostbusters two is I need to put Oscar down.
Speaker 1: And then Bill Marie is like, or Peter Rinkman is like, oh,
I can I do it please? You're short, you're fat,
and your mama addresses you're funny.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think ghost Wisters two is
the more enjoyable sequel of these two movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a great key and peel sketch that
you can check out on YouTube on the brainstorming meeting
for Grimlins two. That is really really funny. I don't
want to. I don't know a butcher, but yeah, just
go check that out. Okay, but you get you get
a movie that's making fun of itself. But I've read
I haven't heard the man say it, but I've read
that Joe Dante actually prefers Grimlins two to Grimlins one.
I don't know how this is possible.
Speaker 2: I heard him say that he doesn't understand at all
why Gremlins one works. He's like, why do people like it?
I don't know, h It's weird. So they are both
huge successes that made tons of money. They are huge
hits in nineteen eighty four. They become icons that last
for decades. I mean, you you see stuff still today?
You was it?
Speaker 1: Sprite seven is Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew, that's it. Mountain
Dew commercial has Billy and Gizmo in it. They're still
talking about I mean, I say, they like Chris Columbus,
Joe Dante. They're talking about Grimlins three. But they've been
talking about it for seven or eight years now. One
thing that they are all confident and steadfast on though,
is practical Grimlins like not going to do CGI unless
absolutely necessary, which is great. We know that that works
from Mandalorian right. Give us the practical.
Speaker 2: Puppet absolutely one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, forget the stupid cg SO.
Speaker 1: On the subject of Ghostbuster sequels, though, we get the
women Ghostbusters of the twenty seventeen Yeah. Even my daughter,
my daughter who loves girl movies, is like, when I said, hey,
you want to watch Ghostbuster, she goes the boy win
or the girl winner. The boy when she's like, oh, yeah,
I'll watch that one with you. I don't like the
girl when I was like, okay, it wasn't like the
worst movie ever, but it wasn't great. I'm still waiting
to see Ivan Rightman's sons new Ghostbusters movie. I can't
wait till that comes out.
Speaker 3: Was that due in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: It was due in twenty twenty and they've pushed it
because of COVID so. Ghostbusters Afterlife was supposed to come
out last year. It's due out now in November of
this year. November eleventh is when it's supposed to come out.
It's directed by Jason Rightman, who is Ivan Rightman's son.
He was also the kid in Ghostbusters two that tells
Ray my dad says Ghostbusters are full of crap. So
that's a nice little cameo. It's got the kid Finn
wolf Hard who's in Stranger Things, who's been doing He's
very popular right now. I like Stranger Things. I thought
he did a good job in that one. But it
also has all of our key players, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Murray,
Dana k royd Ernie Hudson all are in the movie.
Speaker 3: And Annie Pott's Oh nice Ghostbusters.
Speaker 2: What do you want Hey, I'll tell you what though,
we didn't even mention that Harold Ramis passed way sadly.
Speaker 1: And twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: I think I believe that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we didn't even talk about this, like. He
and Bill Murray went on to do several movies together,
and then something happened in the making of groundhog Day
that led to them not being friends anymore, and I
don't know what it was, And obviously they ended up
with a fantastic movie. Groundhog Day is one of my
favorite movies of all time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: But apparently when Harold Ramis was didn't have much time left,
his daughter gave Bill a call and Bill came and
they sat together with hours mended, cried together, laughed together,
and so it's really fortunate that they had that they
had the opportunity to do that. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's time for final judgment.
Speaker 1: Okay, where are you?
Speaker 2: Ghostbusters Gremlins to the Biggest of nineteen eighty four? What
do you got?
Speaker 1: Okay? So I watched Ghostbusters in the theater. I grew
up drawing mooglely, you know, the ghost with the slash
through it. I drew it all the time. I've probably
watched it at least twenty times. It's iconic. The lines
are amazing. I mean, there's so many mineral lines. And
Grimlins is good, But like Joe Dante, when I watch it,
I'm not really sure how it was the success that
it was other than Steven Spielberg's name appears on the
script and you have some fun with these little monsters.
But the effects in Grimlins are they don't hold up
to me. Like watching it now, I'm like, eh, I
like the practical effects better than the CGI, but I mean,
you can almost see the wires and a lot of
this stuff, and so I've got to go Ghostbusters like
as a pretty much landslide on this one. Grimlins is fun.
It was cool to watch it with the kid, But
Ghostbusters every day, all day, no question.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, all right, sounds good. Well, so I
think I told you for me. Grimlin starts off as
a horror movie, and it's super captivating. I'm super creeped out.
And oh my gosh, they ate and they sabotaged the
clock and so oh they ate after midnight and now
they make these weird, greasy, disgusting cocoons and what's gonna
come out of them? And then when they emerge, they're
running around. I can hear them, but I can't see them,
and it goes from a horror movie and then takes
this right turn into what to me seems like the
Muppet Show, right, and you have gremlins with miniature guns
and they're break dancing and they're doing all these silly things.
And then at the end you have the super satisfying
they've captured them all they blow them up. I remember
in the movie Theater when stripe jumped into the pool.
I was like, oh, no, oh, what are they gonna do?
Speaker 1: Best special effect of the whole movie, by the way,
just the music and we're talking about dry ice in
a swimming pool and some lights, right, some Christmas lights,
But that scene is intense. Best special effect in the movie. Yes.
Speaker 2: So as a whole the movie I thought was very enjoyable.
There's a middle part where I thought, man, this is
really stupid, and so I like Gremlins, I thought it
was very enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Okay, now flip.
Speaker 2: Over the Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters literally is one of the greatest
comedies of all time, and it may be one of
the best movies in the nineteen eighties. I mean, it's
in the it's in the discussion of the most enjoyable
comedic fun movies in the nineteen eighties. So for me,
it's Ghostbusters by a landslide. And that's not taking anything
away from Gremlins. It's just I mean, Ghostbusters is this iconic,
unbelievably funny movie, and for me, it's just all Ghostbusters.
Speaker 1: Yep. Well, once again we keep laying on the same page. Man,
what's happening to us? I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We'll have to see what happens next week when we
dive into Footloose and Purple Rain.
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