Speaker 1: Weird wad.
Speaker 2: Welcome back midnight viewers to Father Malone's weekly round up.
Speaker 2: I am Father Malone and joining me beside me to
Speaker 2: guide me the little lady who sat through Wes Craven's
Speaker 2: Swamp Thing yesterday. I'm so fucking proud of you, just
Speaker 2: glued to the screen and no freakouts, Miss Ripley.
Speaker 3: Jean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I doubt you'll respond the same to that short
Speaker 2: lived television series. It is very scary, but we are
Speaker 2: not talking Alec Holland or Anton Arcane or Abigail Arcane.
Speaker 2: There's a romance for you swamp Thing and Abby Arcane.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I just said we're not talking
Speaker 2: swamp thing. Actually, later today I am talking swampting. As
Speaker 2: a guest over on a year in Horror podcast. Always
Speaker 2: a delight getting to drop in over there in chat
Speaker 2: with the show's illustrious and hilarious host, mister Paul Waller.
Speaker 2: He's at Waller, not Weller. On Instagram and other socials.
Speaker 2: Probably I'm at Fan Malone on Insta and Blue Sky
Speaker 2: and threads. As in my patients with social media is
Speaker 2: hanging by a few of those threads. Yellowjackets Update, I'm
Speaker 2: actively angry at the show now boneheaded shit. Just to
Speaker 2: keep things moving at this point, that's where they're dumping
Speaker 2: us out at the end of the season. The finale
Speaker 2: is this Friday, Xbox Action. I'm back on Alien Isolation.
Speaker 2: I know I'm very predictable and boring, but there is
Speaker 2: an innovation now too. Actually, number one, I bought an
Speaker 2: awesome NASA jacket, and if I wear it while I'm
Speaker 2: playing it, it makes me feel like I'm in the game
Speaker 2: method gaming, y'all. And number two, I bought my first
Speaker 2: ever expansion pack for the game Soul Survivor. So now
Speaker 2: I'm running around on the actual Nostromo and it is
Speaker 2: a fucking trip. And and I'm the actual Ripley. No,
Speaker 2: I'm Ripley, You're a Ripley. It's really just Alien Isolation
Speaker 2: in Survivor mode with some new skins on some things.
Speaker 2: But fuck, it is a trip to come around a
Speaker 2: corner and run into yaff at Coto as Parker or
Speaker 2: you know, Lambert standing behind a glass divider giving you attitude. Also,
Speaker 2: I saw the Monkey that's Osgood Perkins new film based
Speaker 2: on the short story by Stephen King. You remember the
Speaker 2: main image off of the Skeleton Crew book The Little
Speaker 2: wind Up Monkey with the Cymbals. Well here it's a
Speaker 2: wind up Monkey with a drum. Because that famous novelty
Speaker 2: Wine Monkey with Symbols is actually copywritten. They've turned that
Speaker 2: short story basically into Final Destination. If you want a
Speaker 2: longer review of it, hit me up at Father Malone
Speaker 2: seventy one at gmail dot com, or at the aforementioned
Speaker 2: social spots. I didn't have a huge problem with the film.
Speaker 2: It's just that I'm trying to recommend things on this
Speaker 2: show as much as possible, rather than just have a
Speaker 2: laugh pointing out how hard it is to combine humor
Speaker 2: and horror like in the Monkey. Okay, I'll stop. If
Speaker 2: you do write in you may end up on a
Speaker 2: segment here, what segment?
Speaker 1: What segment?
Speaker 2: The segment with the power the power of voodoo?
Speaker 1: All right, that's enough. Pal from a role.
Speaker 2: Alex Bledsoe he's the author of the Eddie Lacrosse series.
Speaker 2: He wrote in about the crossover episode we did with
Speaker 2: Noise Junkies host HP about Walter Hill's film Crossroads. He
Speaker 2: saw it at a sneak preview ahead of Wildcats. Remember
Speaker 2: when studios would do that? Remember when there were studios
Speaker 2: about a week before the film's premiere. They would have
Speaker 2: a word of mouth screening paired with whatever else was
Speaker 2: their big release. At the moment. These days, the closest
Speaker 2: you're going to get is a Thursday night soft opening.
Speaker 2: I went to a lot of these special screenings, pre
Speaker 2: social media, pre overexposure. There were times when folks had
Speaker 2: no idea a movie was coming out up until the
Speaker 2: week of, and there you'd be, having already seen it
Speaker 2: and just bursting about it. Alex's screening was Crossroads and
Speaker 2: then Wildcats. I'd say, I wish I'd seen them in
Speaker 2: the theater, but I did.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: I think I'm bragging, when really all I'm saying is
Speaker 2: I'm really fucking old. Those screenings were great, though, because
Speaker 2: they afforded the opportunity to feel like a mogul. Shall
Speaker 2: we stay for the feature?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Anyone can see that Alex chose to dip out on Wildcats,
Speaker 2: feeling that any other entertainment was going to be lesser.
Speaker 2: I think in that case you would have been fine.
Speaker 2: I like Wildcats. It was great seeing Goldiehan being funny
Speaker 2: and baass and not just in DITZI. She is clearly
Speaker 2: a fucking powerhouse, but funny thing HP and I attended
Speaker 2: a few of those back in the day. We actually
Speaker 2: went to the Beetlejuice sneak preview together.
Speaker 1: Michael Keathon mare is a ghost called Beetlejuice and the
Speaker 1: ghostly and most name twitted Beiji the Speak previews Saturday,
Speaker 1: March twenty sixth.
Speaker 2: That was paired with the delightful Police Academy five assignment
Speaker 2: to Miami Beach. I think we left during the credits
Speaker 2: of Police Academy following that exact same instinct. We were
Speaker 2: right also in the penn Pal Mailbanks section, just a
Speaker 2: continued conversation with our man in Scotland Ian what's up,
Speaker 2: mister Banks. That's like Mary Poppins or that movie with
Speaker 2: Tom Hanks as Walt Disney and Colin Farrell was mister Banks,
Speaker 2: that's neither here nor there, other than I'm here and
Speaker 2: I'd like to be there in Scotland or Wales. I
Speaker 2: want to spend a month of Sundays in Wales. I
Speaker 2: think that's an Irish expression. But whatever Welsh people contact
Speaker 2: me tell me where to go. That's cool. I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously I'm going to make a pilgrimage to the statue
Speaker 2: of Yanto Jones. He is a global hero, not just
Speaker 2: a Welsh local hero, and we all owe him a debt.
Speaker 2: You know what, anyone in the UK hit me up
Speaker 2: if you been to Blackpool. I am not low key obsessed.
Speaker 2: I'm fully on fucking obsessed, and I want to know
Speaker 2: if you've been, what's it like? Have you been in
Speaker 2: the off season? Where I grew up, there's a little
Speaker 2: boardwalk called the Willows in Salem, Massachusetts. During the summer,
Speaker 2: it is very heaven ski ball and arcade games and
Speaker 2: miniature rides to the kids and the best sloppiest fucking
Speaker 2: Chinese American place that makes this fucking sandwich will quote
Speaker 2: a generous slice of American cheese, and it's all great.
Speaker 2: But in the winter, oh man, so desolate. The food
Speaker 2: places are still open, and sometimes an arcade will still
Speaker 2: be open, but there are no tourists. There are barely
Speaker 2: any locals, just you and the guy who makes the
Speaker 2: popcorn bars and the saltwater taffy. Am I feeling nostalgic
Speaker 2: for home?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I want to go to Blackpool, motherfuckers. If I've learned
Speaker 2: anything in this life, it's this the cool people are
Speaker 2: always going to leave us, and the bankrupt, boring worst
Speaker 2: of us will be left behind. That was the case
Speaker 2: this week when we lost a fucking giant. I oh boy,
Speaker 2: I had no idea how hard his death would hit me.
Speaker 2: But the world got a little less interesting with the
Speaker 2: passing of mister Val Kilmer. I'm gonna do my damness
Speaker 2: not to lose my shit during the next twenty or
Speaker 2: six minutes. Pretty sure we all loved him. Obviously, he
Speaker 2: put his stamp on Doctor John Holiday. That will be
Speaker 2: nigh impossible to top that portrayal. How could anyone be
Speaker 2: Doc Holliday? After Kilmer's antique drawl whispers in your ear,
Speaker 2: how much better it is? Here's my favorite line, By
Speaker 2: the way.
Speaker 1: It's very cosmopouloism. Sheriff may I present a pair of
Speaker 1: fellows sophisticates in Turkey Creek, Jack Johnson, Texas Jack of
Speaker 1: a Million. Watch you here, Creek.
Speaker 2: There are way too many roles in way too many
Speaker 2: triumphs to get into any kind of full on retrospective here.
Speaker 2: So let me say, if you haven't seen the documentary, vow,
Speaker 2: what the fuck are you waiting for? Do you need
Speaker 2: another demonstration of how fleeting everything can be. I realized
Speaker 2: the irony of telling you to live life with us
Speaker 2: by watching a documentary about an actor, is to which
Speaker 2: I say, shut the fuck up, Go watch the documentary.
Speaker 2: The motherfucker always had a video camera. You can see
Speaker 2: every portion of his life. It's incredible, including when he
Speaker 2: was a kid doing this wicked quint from Jaws impression
Speaker 2: with actual funny punchlines. Or maybe it was the performance.
Speaker 2: Now it's streaming for free. It's going to break your heart.
Speaker 2: But now is an excellent time for that. There are
Speaker 2: really so many goddamn good performances. There are entire raps
Speaker 2: of films that can be said to have only one
Speaker 2: good thing in them going into that's Val Kilmer. But
Speaker 2: you can discover those on your own. And naturally he
Speaker 2: is inextricably linked with Jim Morrison and The Doors. I
Speaker 2: think mister Kilmer's version of five to one is superior
Speaker 2: to the original. Is that sacrilege or sacrilicious? That movie
Speaker 2: is always worth a rewatch. And here's the thing about
Speaker 2: Val Kilmer's and Batman. When you cast that part, you're
Speaker 2: really casting Bruce Wayne because the bat is pretty interchangeable
Speaker 2: unless you're gonna do something nuts like try to growl
Speaker 2: like a demon with limited vocal range. That might set
Speaker 2: you apart. But I will say that Val Kilmer as
Speaker 2: Batman is really the only good performance of that character.
Speaker 2: It isn't camp or kitsch like George Clooney or Adam West.
Speaker 2: It's not overly serious like Christian Bale or Robert Pattinson.
Speaker 2: And he can move his neck unlike Michael Keaton. And
Speaker 2: since I'm dropping in Val Kilmer vocals in this episode,
Speaker 2: here is my favorite delivery of a line in any
Speaker 2: Batman film. Matman has just busted his way inside the
Speaker 2: helicopter that two Face has been using to menace Gotham.
Speaker 2: It's the quickest, most informal line that Beliza relationship and
Speaker 2: complicated history that we can only dream of.
Speaker 1: You need hell harm him, give it up.
Speaker 2: And we're not even close to running out of iconic
Speaker 2: roles in films like Heat. You were there for the
Speaker 2: New York stage actors getting together for the first time.
Speaker 2: I was there for Mad Martigan with a machine gun.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Mad Martigan, I know they did that spinoff
Speaker 2: series recently, but who cares too little too late? We
Speaker 2: deserved a Mad Martigan standalone flick or a franchise further advent.
Speaker 2: Absolutely the Mad Martikan chronicles Chiching. I mean, I haven't
Speaker 2: even mentioned Iceman and Top Gun. It's pretty fucking iconic.
Speaker 2: Not that we're covering that gang. I mean, you're probably
Speaker 2: read the title, so it's not like a huge surprise
Speaker 2: or anything. I don't know what your Val Kilmer origin
Speaker 2: tale might be for me. I first saw his For me,
Speaker 2: I saw his first film in the theater. I'd say
Speaker 2: up until Kiss, Kiss, Bang Bang, I saw everything of
Speaker 2: Val Kilmer's in the theater. I don't think I was
Speaker 2: even conscious of doing it. Some performers are just like that.
Speaker 2: If you were to ask me my favorite musicians, I
Speaker 2: don't know how early on the list, I'd say Linda
Speaker 2: Ronstadt ranks, but I look at my record collection and
Speaker 2: I own every fucking album she put out. Either I'm
Speaker 2: mk ultra condition to buy every Linda Ronstadt record, or
Speaker 2: I'm a big fucking fan of that lady. And the
Speaker 2: movie that really did it for me with Val Kilmer
Speaker 2: was his second feature, though really his first, honest to god,
Speaker 2: actual narrative feature film, get Ready for the Tanning Invitational
Speaker 2: Get Down, into those steam tunnels and into Laslow's pajamas.
Speaker 2: Put on your yellow mock turtlenecks. It's ill genius.
Speaker 3: I don't want to hear about any problems done, just
Speaker 3: as long as we have a working weapon by the
Speaker 3: end of June. I haven't had a working weapon since Korea.
Speaker 1: When the military runs short on brains, they go hunting
Speaker 1: at Pacific Tech, an exclusive institution for outstanding intellects, where
Speaker 1: the superstar of smarts is Chris Knight.
Speaker 3: You have a jacuzzi.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, His hobbies violate the laws of gravity. What are
Speaker 1: you doing out there floating, sir? His homework could win
Speaker 1: a Nobel prize.
Speaker 2: He's one of the ten finest minds in the country.
Speaker 1: And his IQ is higher than most people can count.
Speaker 1: I can't stand it.
Speaker 3: Have you ever seen a body like this before in
Speaker 3: your life? She happens to be my daughter, Then I
Speaker 3: guess you had.
Speaker 1: But when Chris makes the scientific discovery of the century,
Speaker 1: you did it. His classmates want the credit.
Speaker 3: You're not number one around here anymore.
Speaker 1: His professor wants the publicity I and the military wants
Speaker 1: to use his discovery as the ultimate weapon.
Speaker 2: This is not good.
Speaker 1: So Chris is about to turn getting even into a
Speaker 1: science start and show them Roger open bombay doors. They
Speaker 1: should never try to outsmart a real genius.
Speaker 2: It's no longer laying efficially.
Speaker 3: It's not shutting down.
Speaker 1: Shut it down, real genius.
Speaker 4: Number.
Speaker 2: When Animal House was released in seventy eight, it marked
Speaker 2: a significant change in the landscape of collegiate comedy, as
Speaker 2: well as making life hell for cafeteria janitorial staff four
Speaker 2: years to come. But in addition to inspiring what must
Speaker 2: have been terrible copycat behavior on campuses nationwide, it also
Speaker 2: cracked open takes of irreverence and prankery that had been
Speaker 2: occurring at schools since time immemorial. And while tales of
Speaker 2: partying and terrible behavior seemed to dominate those narratives, occasionally
Speaker 2: you'd hear of schemes and pranks that were actually just
Speaker 2: fun or inventive. Madison, Wisconsin's official bird is the plastic
Speaker 2: pink Flamingo, thanks to a University of Wisconsin prank in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. In nineteen eighty two, Mit, which has
Speaker 2: no sports team, buried a weather balloon on the field
Speaker 2: of an upcoming Yale and Harvard game. It inflated explosively
Speaker 2: mid play. We all won that game. The granddaddy of
Speaker 2: weirdo pranks and eccentricity has always been cal Tech, California
Speaker 2: Technical Institute. They've been at it since the fucking twenties.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you a recent one. Because most of
Speaker 2: the classic pranks you already know, they were folded into
Speaker 2: the screenplay for Real Genius. But in two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: Caltech students traveled to MIT for their freshman orientation weekend.
Speaker 2: They inflated a cal Tech blimp inside the dome. They
Speaker 2: gave out hundreds of T shirts that read MIT on
Speaker 2: the front and on the back because not everyone can
Speaker 2: get into cal Tech, and they changed the campus signed
Speaker 2: to read the other Institute of Technology. It was stories
Speaker 2: like that that cut a script together from Pat Proft
Speaker 2: and Neil Israel. Those were frequent collaborators of the Kentucky
Speaker 2: Fry Theater. That script was eventually refined uncredited by Loel
Speaker 2: Gans and Babbelo Mandel before ending up with director Martha Coolidge.
Speaker 2: She added a whole lot of smart and dispensed with
Speaker 2: the typical sex comedy script was riddled with. Interestingly, the
Speaker 2: villain was originally named doctor Atherton that changed to Hathaway
Speaker 2: when professional eighties asshole William Atherton was cast in that role.
Speaker 2: So now, in the wake of Animal House and the
Speaker 2: Rise of Snobs versus Slob's humor, Real Genius gives us
Speaker 2: something entirely new. Smart people, they're still having sex, but
Speaker 2: it isn't the focus of the goddamn film. You've got
Speaker 2: a fuddy duddy old dean at your university. He acts
Speaker 2: like a real dick when you guys party so hard
Speaker 2: you destroy an entire city block. Well, how about an
Speaker 2: administration complicit with the black op section of the defense
Speaker 2: industry using your inventions for political assassination. Now that's something
Speaker 2: to rally behind with a little more meat on the
Speaker 2: bone than who can chug the most beer. Real Genius
Speaker 2: follows Mitch Taylor in the original script, Mitch Simon, a
Speaker 2: fifteen year old savant who's accepted midterm to the fictional
Speaker 2: Pacific Tech, where he's partnered with a famed student genius
Speaker 2: named Chris Knight originally Chris Kinsley. I don't know why
Speaker 2: these minor changes from script to screen tickle me so much,
Speaker 2: but they really do. Chris is kind of the platonic
Speaker 2: ideal of the eighties wise ass hero. He's actually that
Speaker 2: smart and he's actually that fun. Ryan Reynolds has based
Speaker 2: his entire goddamn career on emulating this character. No, not
Speaker 2: the character, this performance. It'd be easy to turn Chris
Speaker 2: Knight into an insufferable person, but they lucked out here
Speaker 2: with the second screen performance of Val Kilmer Olmers. Chris
Speaker 2: Knight is my absolute fucking hero, top to bottom. He
Speaker 2: is an aspirational icon, incredible sense of style, incredible good looks,
Speaker 2: incredible sense of irreverence, and he's the smartest guy in
Speaker 2: the fucking room. I possess none of those qualities, but man,
Speaker 2: I did and still do aspire to bet Chris Knight.
Speaker 2: On a side note, at age thirteen, I went to
Speaker 2: the mall to one of those T shirt places, you remember,
Speaker 2: those T shirt places, like the iron On places, and
Speaker 2: I had them make me a replica of the Monkey's
Speaker 2: T shirt Chris Knight wears in this film. They had
Speaker 2: to dig the design out of the back, but I
Speaker 2: wore that goddamn shirt proudly knowing that Chris Knight agreed
Speaker 2: that the monkeys were cool. Speaking of which, two of
Speaker 2: the Monkey's guest stars show up as professors here, Monty
Speaker 2: landis as the dismissive prick when we first meet Chris Knight,
Speaker 2: and then the amazing, the incredible, the legendary Severn Darden
Speaker 2: as the befuddled professor Meredith. If you don't know Severn Darden,
Speaker 2: look him up. He is a major force in the
Speaker 2: early improv scene and a really interesting human being. Some
Speaker 2: of those pranks and scenarios that occurred in real life
Speaker 2: At Caltech In nineteen forty a car was disassembled and
Speaker 2: then reassembled inside a dorm room. It was a model
Speaker 2: t Ford and it was idling when they discovered it.
Speaker 2: How about the McDonald's contest in nineteen seventy five, where
Speaker 2: you could enter as many times as you liked. Students
Speaker 2: did They won twenty percent of the prizes, including a
Speaker 2: new station wagon. They wants froze a stairwell and used
Speaker 2: it for sledding. As it melted, it became a whitewater
Speaker 2: rafting spot. There is a legendary student who cracked and
Speaker 2: retreated into the steam tunnels, where he spent three semesters.
Speaker 2: One of the inspirations for the film that wasn't previous prank,
Speaker 2: but a student. The producers and director encountered Phyllis Rostchis
Speaker 2: nickname Trigger became the basis for hyperkinetic student Jordan played
Speaker 2: by Michelle Myrin. That character would have then inspire gadget
Speaker 2: Hack Wrench on Chippendale Rescue Rangers. Jordan eventually falls for
Speaker 2: Mitch in the film's Only Real stab At Romance. A
Speaker 2: word about Mitch, played by Gabe jam Mister Jarrett is
Speaker 2: very young in the film and has very soft features,
Speaker 2: so much so that when my late wife Jessica was
Speaker 2: watching the film for the first time, she was convinced
Speaker 2: they were going to reveal halfway through that Mitch was
Speaker 2: actually a girl. I hadn't thought of it when I
Speaker 2: saw the film, but now I can't not think of
Speaker 2: it when I rewatch it. Oh and speaking of weird
Speaker 2: inside jokes, the initials INDI appear throughout the film Darlington
Speaker 2: Electronics Incorporated. Later there's a van with Drain Experts Incorporated.
Speaker 2: It stands for it Dabney Eats It, which is not
Speaker 2: a reference to Dabney Coleman's failed network show, but actually
Speaker 2: one of the houses on the campus of cal Tech,
Speaker 2: Dabney House, where during the fifties, a dish of noodles
Speaker 2: was so unpalatable that it inspired the phrase They were
Speaker 2: a conservative bastion until the sixties, when the entire house
Speaker 2: became radicalized. Since then, they've put those initials everywhere they
Speaker 2: can scrawl it. Innumerable satellites are orbiting above your head
Speaker 2: right now, festooned with DEI. Those letters are at the
Speaker 2: top of everest has it, They're on the moon. Let's
Speaker 2: talk in music. There are eighty soundtracks you can point
Speaker 2: to as cultural touchstones of time and place. Fast times
Speaker 2: at Ridgemont High Valley Girl, where usually a soundtrack supervisor
Speaker 2: or consultant cherry picks a few dozen tracks from the
Speaker 2: most popular or guaranteed up and comers to present to
Speaker 2: the filmmaker. That's how you end up with what could
Speaker 2: pass for a greatest hit of That's that's how you
Speaker 2: end up with what could pass for a greatest hits
Speaker 2: of new wave samplers. The other more prevalent eighties soundtrack
Speaker 2: can be exemplified by real genius. There are a couple
Speaker 2: of tracks from then proven winners Don Henley Tears for Fears,
Speaker 2: and then a whole bunch of songs that sounded good
Speaker 2: at the time and go ahead, just put them on there.
Speaker 2: Such situations can be awful, better off dead, y'all. I've
Speaker 2: been arrested by you take me you, Oh my God.
Speaker 2: Or it could be something like number one by Chaz Jankle.
Speaker 1: Number one is.
Speaker 5: A hot time, I'm making.
Speaker 3: Shock? What else?
Speaker 2: Not great?
Speaker 1: Not bad?
Speaker 2: Does the job? Or I'm falling by the comsat Angels.
Speaker 2: To be fair, if you named your band after Cutting
Speaker 2: Age Tech, you were probably gonna end up on the
Speaker 2: Real Genius soundtrack. No better than all Those, though, is
Speaker 2: a Brian Adams song One Night Love Affair. This is
Speaker 2: my favorite song from that Canadian and describes my favorite
Speaker 2: kind of romance, not a one night stand, although the
Speaker 2: name implies that I'm talking about that brief coming together,
Speaker 2: not physically at all, just a complete surrender to a
Speaker 2: time and a place and a person without any regard
Speaker 2: to past or future, the audio equivalent of lost in translation,
Speaker 2: I suppose I'm gonna put that song at the end
Speaker 2: of this episode. They've threatened to remake A Real Genius
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of times over the years. I think
Speaker 2: they may have gotten close just about a decade ago.
Speaker 2: Don't do it, or at least please do it very
Speaker 2: very well. I mean a show about smart kids inspiring
Speaker 2: other actual smart kids to make our lives better while
Speaker 2: constantly fucking shit up. Couldn't hurt these days. Okay, Jesus,
Speaker 2: I can tell you're excited.
Speaker 1: Hit it HP. But we have here a list of
Speaker 1: these things. If we're good, we're gonna try it. In
Speaker 1: sixty minutes.
Speaker 2: We're gonna try and get you to say it ain't
Speaker 2: over tell us over and say is it true or
Speaker 2: not true?
Speaker 3: When I when I'd brush on some of these, No,
Speaker 3: that's not true.
Speaker 1: Okay. You wanted the director of that movie Island of Doctor.
Speaker 2: Morot to be fired.
Speaker 1: No, no, not true, shruved the Batman director. No, no,
Speaker 1: didn't do that. Not true. On the set of.
Speaker 2: Tombstone you grabbed a locust and extra hat and ate it.
Speaker 1: Well, that is true, all right. You were responsible for
Speaker 1: the breakup of Hall and Oates.
Speaker 2: I was young.
Speaker 1: I reformed they broke up.
Speaker 2: Man, If real genius wasn't far back enough for you,
Speaker 2: young Ripley suggests you take a step further with a
Speaker 2: trip to zaz Land. That's Zucker Abrams Zucker The Kentucky
Speaker 2: Fried Theater Folk, The Kentucky Fried Movie Folk, The Airplane Folk,
Speaker 2: a film that purportedly put Doug Kenny from National Lampoon
Speaker 2: in a tailspin pun intended when he compared it with
Speaker 2: his upcoming Flip Caddy Shank. The As Boys had such
Speaker 2: a huge success with Airplane that they were basically given
Speaker 2: carte blanche for their next feature. There's no other way
Speaker 2: to describe the creation of top Secret.
Speaker 5: Waab bamb a love bamboo too, pruda a rut it
Speaker 5: to the fruit ho rut.
Speaker 3: Oh root it o bamboo. Get a girl name soup?
Speaker 3: Just what to do?
Speaker 1: Gotta got her name soup? No, just want to do.
Speaker 5: Look, I'm not the first guy of fell in love
Speaker 5: with the girl he met in a restaurant who then
Speaker 5: turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist.
Speaker 5: Only the loser who were childhood lover, whom she'd last
Speaker 5: seen on a deserted island, and who turned out fifteen.
Speaker 1: Years later to be the leader of the French underground.
Speaker 1: I know it all sounds like some bad movie.
Speaker 5: A girl named Daisy, She almost have me crazy, She's
Speaker 5: almost ound me crazy.
Speaker 3: You want me to the west sees the.
Speaker 5: Girl that I love best.
Speaker 3: The dordt.
Speaker 5: Rooted rootedded? How rooted Pablo Bamba love Bamboo?
Speaker 2: How do you follow a pointed tank down of the
Speaker 2: disaster film genre? A cold war thriller sent during World
Speaker 2: War Two with a rock and roll hero. Basically, if
Speaker 2: Elvis had fought the Nazis during the sixties while World
Speaker 2: War Two was going on, now, that's going to be
Speaker 2: a difficult premise to laur an audience. So we got
Speaker 2: to give him something recognizable in the lead. I know,
Speaker 2: the third lead of that Broadway production of Slab Boys.
Speaker 2: By the way, you can see that production of Slab
Speaker 2: Boys if you go watch that vow documentary. I'm telling
Speaker 2: you he shot everything. They were looking for a young
Speaker 2: Elvis to play their proxy Nick Rivers for this film.
Speaker 2: They got the future King instead. Remember True Romance Clarence's
Speaker 2: guardian angel is Elvis Prinsley played by Val Kilmer. It
Speaker 2: ran up there with Kurt Russell's portrayal of the King
Speaker 2: in John Carpenter's TV movie Elvis, Val Kilmer, Kurt Russell
Speaker 2: Tombstone Stop Haunting Me. This movie Top Secret represents one
Speaker 2: of my favorite aspects of Val Kilmer as an actor.
Speaker 2: He was game man name a genre he didn an
Speaker 2: attempt name a style of acting he wouldn't slip into
Speaker 2: for that character. I know this was his first film,
Speaker 2: and at that point in your career you'll pretty much
Speaker 2: do anything. I doubt Charlie's than would accept a role
Speaker 2: in Children of the Corn three these days, but Val
Speaker 2: Kilmer might have. And he came back to do other comedies,
Speaker 2: and not just comedies, but very silly comedies.
Speaker 1: Over and over again.
Speaker 2: Look at anything he did with The Lonely Island. MacGruber
Speaker 2: is fantastic, largely because of how straight he's playing that role.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing, silly comedy. He's great in the
Speaker 2: straight man role there, and the very silly role of
Speaker 2: Nick Rivers in Top Secret. Not everyone can do that.
Speaker 2: I think we can all agree. Christopher Reeve is an
Speaker 2: enormously talented dramatic actor. I think he's even been funny
Speaker 2: a bunch of times. But watch that Muppet Show he hosted.
Speaker 2: Reverend is not Superman's forte. I'll just say that Batman
Speaker 2: would have killed on the Muppet Show. Talking about you,
Speaker 2: Val Kilmer, this is probably just going to devolve into
Speaker 2: a list of my favorite bits from the movie. But
Speaker 2: before that, I just want to say that this was
Speaker 2: a genre unto itself, the zazz genre. This type of
Speaker 2: bizarro plot doesn't matter, it's just to get us to
Speaker 2: the next gag. Well, a dozen other gags are occurring
Speaker 2: in the foreground and the background, and the gags are
Speaker 2: as pointed as direct references to then current pop culture
Speaker 2: and as timeless as the best slapstick. But what's interesting
Speaker 2: about Top Secret is that it shows what we're effectively
Speaker 2: three defunct genres to parody World War two, Cold War
Speaker 2: thrillers and Elvis movies, and now this genre itself is dead.
Speaker 2: So it's a dead genre parodying three other dead genres.
Speaker 2: And anyone claiming this type of film is still being
Speaker 2: made is incorrect. Those Friedberg Seltz films, disaster movie, here
Speaker 2: come the Spartans. Whatever the fuck They didn't just put
Speaker 2: the nail in the coffin. They dug a fucking hole
Speaker 2: in the ground and then kicked the casket into it
Speaker 2: and waste on top of it. So I'm actually curious
Speaker 2: with a movie link Top Secret, which did and does
Speaker 2: work just as a funny movie, how it would appear
Speaker 2: in the eyes of newer, younger viewers. Does any of
Speaker 2: it resonate beyond how fucking silly some of the jokes are.
Speaker 2: Speaking of game, how awesome is that Peter Cushing not
Speaker 2: only agreed to do a scene in reverse, but with
Speaker 2: a giant prosthetic eye over half his face. I love
Speaker 2: all the perspective jokes in this movie. The giant telephone,
Speaker 2: the pigeon statue, Oh my god, the underwater fight. All right, See,
Speaker 2: I told you I was just gonna end up listing things.
Speaker 1: It's late.
Speaker 2: I've got two more shows to record this morning, so
Speaker 2: that's gonna be doing it for us. Watch all of
Speaker 2: all Kimber's work, all of you you have homework now.
Speaker 2: He is never uninteresting and at the very least you
Speaker 2: get to watch one of the most beautiful people on
Speaker 2: the planet. Thanks for listening. We've got another Tales from
Speaker 2: the dark Side this Friday, and then the Friday after
Speaker 2: we're continuing Fusco Fest. We're Noise Junkies host HP and
Speaker 2: I are tackling the career of screenwriter John Fusco. We've
Speaker 2: already got Crossroads and Young Guns done. You can get
Speaker 2: those on the regular feet. Next up his Young Guns too,
Speaker 2: and that's going to be a spectacular episode. Patreon dot
Speaker 2: com slash father Malone gets things early and commercial free.
Speaker 2: I said, we'd leave you with Brian Adams and we
Speaker 2: are talk to you next week.
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Speaker 3: We're damn good too.
Speaker 1: But you can't be any jek off the street.
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Speaker 6: what I mean, or you.
Speaker 3: Keep regulars.
Speaker 1: Man.
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