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M.O.D.O.K. Episodes 1-5
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We provide our thoughts and opinions on the first 5 episodes of MODOK on Hulu!
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Setup
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:24
Speaker
On this episode of Animation Deliberation, we are covering Hulu's MODOK, episodes one through five. All of that right after these ads we don't have any control over. You're invited to explore cypress swamps and magical gardens and float along the rushing waters of an old-fashioned swimming hole. Plan your journey at visitmississippi.org slash outdoor adventure. Mississippi. Wanderers welcome.
00:00:52
Speaker
There's a highway that stretches across the 93 days of summer, where worship isn't offered to the sun, but to the smoking tire, the s-curve, and the spin turn. And if you ride it, make sure you do it in a Dodge Charger, Challenger, or Durango. Because on this highway, the lines being blurred are the ones between drivers and demons. Welcome to Highway 93. Dodge is a registered trademark.
Listener Feedback and Future Coverage
00:01:24
Speaker
Sing along if you know the words. A one, two, three, it's time for animation, deliberation. A conversation and a celebration of our favorite action animated series, yeah.
00:01:39
Speaker
All right. All right. Well, welcome back. This is animation deliberation. It's the podcast where we take action animation and cartoon seriously, but not too seriously. My name's Jay Scotty, St. Clair, and I am joined by a couple of great guys, my co-hosts Zuhair, as well as a frequent collaborator here, Brian V. Klein, AKA BBK. How you guys doing? Doing pretty good. Glad to be back on the mic after so long. Good to have you back. Yeah.
00:02:08
Speaker
It's a wonderful Sunday morning here. Glad to talk about this show. Right on, right on. Okay. And before we dive into our coverage of these exciting first five episodes, we do want to highlight, uh, the bloodline of this show, what brings us back every week. And that is you, our listeners and the feedback and the reviews that you provide for us. So Zuhair, we have another five star review from one of our wonderful pandas. What do we have this week?
00:02:37
Speaker
Alright, so this one is from MrDandyBoy1926. On the night of the debut of the final episode of Invincible, I binged through all eight episodes in one night. The day after I found myself asking the podcast gods to give me a podcast, I had all eight episode reviews ready for my long commute to work, and the countless hours I work alone in an effort to keep my house and family safe from the recent world terrors of COVID.
00:03:00
Speaker
In a similar fashion, I binged all of your Invincible review and now have followed you to guests from the other shows like Bad Batch. Awesome. Awesome. That's great to hear. Invincible was a hell of a lot of fun to cover, so I'm glad we did it. We will be covering a lot of great shows here.
00:03:24
Speaker
For those listening that have been following us from the beginning, I do want to mention we started this show with Young Justice.
Initial Thoughts on MODOK
00:03:30
Speaker
Fear not, Young Justice season two will be dropping very soon. I've talked to some of my mentors in the podcast space. I had my reservations about doing too many things concurrently. Just a little peek behind the scenes, but Young Justice season two will be coming.
00:03:47
Speaker
I'm glad we could be a gift from the gods. All right. Well, let's get right into it. Uh, Brian, you and I already had the opportunity on the first official live episode of animation deliberation we had. We were joined by Matt Carroll and discussed episode one, but I wanted to give Zuhair an opportunity to kind of give his impressions on the premiere episode of this show. So Zuhair, what you got? I was.
00:04:15
Speaker
whelmed I guess I didn't have like too high of expectations for the show to begin with so I was I was mildly entertained like it was fun to watch it has some good one-liners and Yeah, it was entertaining, but it didn't like quite give me the urge to like hit next right away.
Overview of MODOK Episodes 1-5
00:04:35
Speaker
I was like alright. That's fun What else do I need to catch up on now?
00:04:43
Speaker
Well, I think that's a fair assessment and just kind of seeing the initial impressions of the show. It'll be interesting to see what kind of feedback we get on the season overall, but for my purposes, I'm definitely enjoying it. It doesn't necessarily have the high stakes of some of the other series we've tackled, but it's a hell of a good time for me.
00:05:07
Speaker
But with that out of the way, let's go ahead and just cover these first few episodes that consisted of this first half of the season. And it is your spoiler warning. Let's go ahead and get that out of the way if it wasn't obvious by the intro and the title of this episode. Yeah, we're diving right in. Yeah, so hopefully you've watched. And if not, come back after you've watched.
00:05:32
Speaker
Let's talk about the characters and favorite moments and whatnot. Did you guys have a favorite episode out of these first five episodes?
00:05:44
Speaker
I definitely had a favorite moment. Sure. That was the one where you messaged me saying, hey, have you seen episode three yet? I'm like, nope, I'm going to watch it soon. And then I wrote back and I said, I watched that intro like five times because it is so glorious. And what I'm referring to is the little never ending story dream sequence that Modok had when he was flying Fin
00:06:07
Speaker
It was one of my favorite Marvel characters like he was the luck dragon in that scene where oh my god This is so awesome, and then he wakes up. I'm like I kind of figured that but Start over the show again. I watched like four or five times. It was so fun I was unfamiliar with Who were what that was so when I saw that it was like a green creature with purple shorts? I was like is this Hulk is a dragon like what is going on?
00:06:33
Speaker
Now he was actually in the first episode a bit when they go to the Feng Feng Foom's farm, fresh, whatever restaurant. He was the dragon waiter. So he's just one of those characters who has a lot of, he's got a really cool backstory and stuff like that. But it's, I mean, for the comic purposes, he was used in this series. It's been pretty fun. Interesting.
00:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, I was listening to the old initial cast and I kept hearing that name, but then I just kind of got, you know, laser focused on watching. And it was an afterthought of like, who was the one that BBK kept talking about? Was it the Hulk Dragon?
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, I've been a pretty pleasantly delighted by how they're able to like plant these obscure seeds like Not only Fin Fang Fume we've got yeah, you mentioned we got that that reference earlier on
00:07:27
Speaker
But I have to ask you, as somebody that's a little more versed with the comics, do Modok and Fin Fang Foom, do they frequently collaborate? Is there a reason that he was brought up as often as he was? Not that it was a major through line.
00:07:41
Speaker
No, not that I can recall much of, but I just think it was, you know, meant as just an easy comic relief. I mean, since none of this has really any, you know, pertinent to the MCU as a whole, it's just, you know, picking two characters you would never think would team up and here you go.
Animation Quality and Techniques
00:08:00
Speaker
And it was just funny. It was just, it was, I was so happy when I saw it too, so.
00:08:06
Speaker
I like things like that where it's like the the comic book fans can appreciate that moment and the people who don't read comics like myself just kind of see that it's just kind of like what is going on like it is entertaining it gave me a chuckle but like I'm not necessarily missing out on anything but it's still like provide something to the scene
00:08:27
Speaker
And the one thing I think this show has done well was taken, I mean the fact is that some of the characters that were introduced in this season with Fin Fang Foom, which is a totally obscure character, almost being the more recognizable to me, because when they get that murderer's row of the D-list, that was just like most of those guys, I'm like I don't even know who these guys are if they're even real bad guys.
00:08:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's almost worth kind of breaking down and having a conversation of its own in terms of those delisters. But even before that, when Modoc went to the Soho lair, there was a nice little collection of people there, like Mr. Sinister, Leader, I recognized them, but then there was one person I didn't recognize until I looked it up afterwards, but Madame Mask. Yeah.
00:09:16
Speaker
just in addition to that there were some really obscure references in terms of like the Seagramites like I'd never heard of the Seagramites but they were definitely a highlight for me that was absolutely hysterical seeing them come into the scene and just the way they were voiced and animated was was pretty hysterical oh yeah and that was another one too it's like I look up I'm like are these guys really a thing
00:09:45
Speaker
Because like I said that whole thing of like the whole armadillo and tenpin and melter and stuff like that is like
00:09:51
Speaker
I wonder if these were made up and they're like, nope, they're just like, it's like, uh, paste pot Pete, who was one of the big bad guys from the Fantastic Four back in the, uh, sixties. Like, seriously, that's the best they could come up with. Yeah. Didn't he, uh, didn't he go on to like become known as the trap master? Yeah. They finally realized that it was just like, you know, the barbell had to realize back in the day that their, their names had to be a little bit more than just what they actually did, you know, have a little bit more like originality.
MODOK's Family and Work Life
00:10:21
Speaker
God, that scene was so ridiculous. We like to party. Wasn't this like the head of every branch that this corporation owned? So like, is there like a mass hiring going on now? Because it seemed like they offed everybody in that conference.
00:10:44
Speaker
You're thinking of the hierarchical fallout of this in the business side. I know they needed to restructure anyways with everything coming together, but that's one hell of a way to do it. Yeah, you saw what they did to the brood though. Oh, yeah. They don't mess around. No. They never stop.
00:11:11
Speaker
In terms of the animation, there were a couple of times I was really impressed with the series being stop animation. They did a fantastic job of doing some really high octane and bombastic action sequences. Modoc versus the younger version of himself comes to mind. Modoc versus Monica, the mad scientist fight comes to mind. Just really well done.
00:11:38
Speaker
Thinking back on the time-traveling version of MODOK, I really loved the way they animated those portals. It was like the outer rings of them kind of almost reminded me of Rick and Morty, but you could see the gelatinous fluid stuff growing and shrinking and whatnot. Just super cool.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah I wonder how much of this is a hybrid show though where I know a lot of it is the stop motion but how much they use CGI to fill out the stuff to make it look a little more streamlined less robot chicken like and more like a like a computer animated thing because there's a lot of those scenes like you said that the
00:12:14
Speaker
the fight scenes when they're doing the the camera work doing the cut where it's like a like almost like a follow through and then like a reverse it's like that's either take some gonna take some really you know long time to do it or they just put it in the computer and say let that figure it out
00:12:28
Speaker
Yeah, it was something I was actively thinking about during the Monica fight. Because I try to watch these episodes like as close to recording time as I can. So I watched like three of them last night and I watched one like right before recording. So that fight's kind of fresh in my head. And being able to switch between like all the weapons that they were using and like the shallow depth of field in and out cuts that they were using like, there was definitely a lot of
00:12:55
Speaker
Post-work involved naturally, but being able to flip between the stop motion and whatever Post work that they wanted to put in was really seamless and it connected and worked very well especially when they went into 2d mode and then went like right off the screen into their claymation cells again I was like well done and
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, you gotta think they did a lot of that cuz especially with like the style I mean we're gonna compare it a lot to robot chicken because of the fact that stupid monkey does it and Sendrike and green are part of it But you could tell especially with the way the mouths move are so much different than it is on that show because I'm the robot chicken It's pretty much just that piece of paper that looks like the mouths moving on top of the action figure where I'm not sure how much to stop I mean, I think that would just be so painstaking to have to do it like the old like
00:13:48
Speaker
like Gumby style or the old rank and bass style where it would take forever to do that. Yeah, it's worth looking into and I know we mentioned some of the behind the scenes stuff in terms of having like Patton Oswalt like in the get up and whatnot but hopefully that's something you know down the line if this series is successful enough and popular enough
00:14:10
Speaker
The fact that it is owned, even though it came out on Hulu, I mean, it is all owned by Disney. Maybe there's potential we could get, you know, a behind the scenes series. I'm always open to that kind of stuff, especially with something that was so well done and different from anything else we're really seeing out there.
00:14:29
Speaker
But I do want to kind of talk about like what took place during the course of these episodes in terms of, you know, as much as a lot of these episodes do function as standalone stories, there is kind of an overarching through line in terms of like Modoc's journey with his family and his position with AIM. So do you guys have any like, you know, favorite characters?
Character Dynamics and Humor
00:14:59
Speaker
at this point, or anybody you're particularly rooting for?
00:15:21
Speaker
just the way they have it set up where it's, there's a Jewish side to it, there's a Latino side to it, there's a mix, but it's still like, it's still modoc. So that's just like, it makes for so much comic relief, but then again, it's also, the through line on that is that his wife left him and wants a divorce. So it's like, wait a second, where did this come, because I remember when we watched that first episode, like, wait a second, this is, that's part of the storyline? There's ramifications to your bad behavior? What? Yeah, exactly.
00:15:52
Speaker
especially because he's acting like he had such toxic masculinity going where he feels like he can't be the person that's not the breadwinner and his wife is successful and he's not happy with it but he doesn't feel comfortable where she was the breadwinner and stuff like that where it's like the old 1950s style.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, there is a ramification to it, but the whole fact with the kids I mean going back to what you asked Jay Scottie with Lou I mean it with him just trying to find a In the first episode him just trying to find a an outfit for his bar mitzvah And they're having a big a meeting and he's sitting there feeling the guy's fabrics and so it's like insane
00:16:35
Speaker
Loved him. He's just such a Kiss ass to his dad and you know, I was a big fan of bench horses character in parks and red X So I'm getting like that vibe like he's just playing that character all over again It's definitely you get that John Ralfield vibe to it to it It's it with any because all the main cast of the family have other roles. They're known for oh, so when you hear them talking It's sort of just like okay, you could see that
00:17:00
Speaker
you know part of it again like with the daughter with Amy Santiago from Brooklyn Nine-Nine it's like you can you sort of can't help but see that character and feel that vibe yeah Amy Garcia is probably the only one where it's like I know her character in Lucifer but she's actually like trying something new like being the mom character instead of like the giddy child but to stay on loop for a little bit like
00:17:26
Speaker
I just love how much of like a kiss-ass he is to his dad but he's like taking advantage of like every opportunity that he can especially when he's in the hotel and he's like I'm milking this shit out of this like what can I what's something else that I have not we have wheelchairs bring them up bring all of them if you can because like Modoc himself just makes me cringe so much like with the toxic masculinity and just the shit that he says is just like oh my god like I would love to just poke one of your giant eyes out
00:17:56
Speaker
which was really satisfying to see when Monica actually did that. But I feel like Lou was just kind of like the one like normal thing in the family just that like in the sense of just kind of like I'm a happy child and I'm just gonna take advantage of whatever I can in this moment. Like yeah, it's it's so much fun to watch him whenever he comes on screen. This is so ridiculous.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, I like the fact that you guys bring up, you know, the fact that we do have this character of Modoc. He is obviously one of the least likable characters, as great a job as Patton Oswalt is doing, and he's carrying the show in terms of just the amount of dialogue he's delivering.
00:18:36
Speaker
I just do continue to appreciate how the show's able to deliver these tender and heartfelt moments, but then undercut them with some humor, and it usually works pretty well for me. But as far as Lou goes, one of my favorite moments with him is when he discovers that he's been spending all this time in this daycare at AIM, and then there's this teen zone, and we see the young version, or I guess it's Monica's daughter there,
00:19:01
Speaker
and she's initially put off by his happy-go-lucky nature and she puts on her headphones and he's just like, whoa, I like music too. He does just a great job. Yeah, that could come across as a little over the top, but even by the end, she's obviously, she does a little smile and smirk when he leaves to Monica Chagrin.
00:19:29
Speaker
But yeah, another one of those great moments where he gets to learn a little bit and grow as a character, and I'm speaking about Modok here, is his relationship with his daughter, Melissa. He learns that she actually does kind of yearn for his approval and that he can learn a lot from her, especially in terms of the social environment and actually navigating this corporate environment and actually functioning in a social setting.
00:19:59
Speaker
As far as my favorite character goes though, I'm really kind of like torn between Monica who I've mentioned and Austin as as much as he's kind of that guy like you love to hate him He just continually like gives me some of like the most like laugh out laugh out loud moments just the way that that Beck Bennett's delivering those lines just kind of like
00:20:22
Speaker
off the top of my head when he's like, when Monica told me that you wanted to get the black hole gun, I was like, no way. But tragically, it turns out it's like, yes, way. He said that he's such a like an amalgamation of crap. What was the guy from the guy that was in charge of hooli on Silicon Valley?
00:20:44
Speaker
Oh, Galvin Bellson. And he also has a little bit more of just like the typical startup, because with the scarf and everything, where it's sort of like, yeah, we're going to be really chill here. But he delivers such bad news in the most positive way while he's still backhanding it too. So it's just like, wait, what's he? Oh, OK. He really is a dick.
Corporate Culture Satire in MODOK
00:21:07
Speaker
But he plays it so well.
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's just one of those characters where it's like every time he starts talking, I'm like, please, for God's sake, change your tone in the slightest bit. I do not have the mental tolerance for this. The constant upbeat attitude is just like, ah.
00:21:27
Speaker
I feel like I just deal with it enough at work that whenever I see a character like that, he makes me cringe just as much as Modoc does. Yeah, he tries to deliver bad news in the nicest way possible.
00:21:58
Speaker
is so effective in terms of being unlikable. He does function for the narrative in terms of his interactions with the board, and one of the major things that happened by the end of these episodes that we covered is we get the revelation. You know, we talk about obscure references to Marvel characters. It turns out the board is this hexis the living corporation who I have absolutely no familiarity with.
00:22:09
Speaker
I'm getting better at telling you about good news.
00:22:26
Speaker
No, again, there was one of those ones where I heard it. I'm like, that's a real thing and you're looking and you're like, okay, yeah, it is. But again, if this could bring some of these characters into like the, it gets like what we did to have them look them up to see like, oh, what is this? And then you go to a deeper dive and you go, you could either say, oh, this is the reason why they're so obscure or, oh, it actually is something I can look into to just get a little bit more background because it's interesting.
00:22:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I did like their their introduction at the party where they're just like up at the window It's like oh, that's court. What was it? That's the board of directors and it's like do you think they noticed me? It's just like that little thumbs down pops up. Yeah Yeah, so the little things of like him always checking up to see like what they were thinking. I did really enjoy that It's like there's no dialogue whatsoever but something about their vibe and just kind of like that the very minimal actually just said so much and
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And that does remind me of actually, we made the, excuse me, we've made the comparisons to Robot Chicken and obviously it's been very much influenced by Robot Chicken, but there was that moment in that episode where I thought, far and away, it was the most
00:23:39
Speaker
robot chicken moment to the point where it almost took me out a little bit, but you had that character of like the concierge slash waiter at the retreat when Modoc checked in in the first place. But then when he, when he was at the dinner and he already had been embarrassed by like learning that the speech wasn't for him, but they have the whole like shtick about like, uh, no, I checked in, uh, if you've had diarrhea within the last 14 days, you can't enter the pool. And it almost felt like they had like the laugh track behind it
Favorite Comedic Moments
00:24:06
Speaker
and everything like that. I was like, yeah.
00:24:07
Speaker
This is total robot chicken vibes. It was so forced. And then they did it again. It's like, I'm sorry that you weren't able to watch this pornography from this specific website. And I'm like, yep, unnecessary.
00:24:22
Speaker
Yeah, some of the humor works better than other moments, but let's get into that. Did you guys have any favorite throwaway moments from the episode, just off the top of my head? I really liked Who is Huba Stank? It's the Beatles of the late 90s.
00:24:44
Speaker
when they when they're infiltrating the the helicarrier and he's doing the awful like chicago accent i bet that i wondered what you thought of that brian and he does the whole human projectile it was yeah it was an exaggeration so i thought i mean anytime people mention something like that because i know a lot of times i can slip into that accent where i have like a hard a sound but when you're going that
00:25:09
Speaker
Uh, like hard, like the super, like the, the super fans type thing, where it's like, yeah, that's a little bit too much there, Bob, but it's, it's, it's more recognizable. It's like how they, they make fun of like Boston accents or New York accents.
00:25:24
Speaker
But my favorite thing about that, like, the whole delivery thing I thought was, you know, silly. It was whatever. But the fact that he said, like, how did you get up here? It shows the health carrier. I lost my shit on that part. It's like, yeah, how does the pizza delivery go? Like, how did you let him stand there and talk for that long when pizza doesn't get delivered in the middle of the sky?
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's another one of my favorite characters who didn't get as much screen time, but Gary Hopps in there and he says he's like from what, Ohio, but he's doing like, I'm from Ohio. You saw him. Yeah, he's an excellent character. I was going to bring up now that we talk about our favorite comedic moments is the super adaptoid.
00:26:12
Speaker
I just had to think of the fact with the one where they do the the heist and they pretty much he wants to get involved and they just make him the van and it's just like yeah just that the whole interaction with him pretty much just wanting to be
00:26:29
Speaker
recognized by MODOK did more like spent in the first episode he's like what's the coffee machines not working again he's like I'm not a coffee machine yeah and then he was an alarm clock when they were in the studio apartment so right on the head with the alarm wouldn't stop
00:26:49
Speaker
My favorite from the heist was when he got carjacked. He was like, oh no, I forgot to lock the doors. Yeah, when those kids were joyriding him, it was like, why does it need to stop? They drove by so many times like, save me, Modoc.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, and that does remind me of another moment that got kind of just a chuckle out of me, the fact that the teenagers had a crossbow. It's just like, oh crap, that's a crossbow. I got hit. It's just a license plate. That's the one part of it that wasn't part of him.
00:27:30
Speaker
If anything else, not even the one-liners, but almost like the one-time comedic gags hit so well a lot of times, but it doesn't take away from... It's not like a bit, bit, bit, bit, bit. It's just little things that are happening in the process of the storytelling.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, they take advantage of whenever there is a big situation. They finally have moments to where you actually dwell into what's going on and then they find the prime opportunities to throw in there. So I think that part of the show intrigues to me more than the conversational dialogue as a whole.
00:28:08
Speaker
I feel like that's when it's just kind of like a lot of the a lot of the jokes in the dialogue just seem forced like yeah I'll get a little chuckle that that's what's not really keeping me engaged but when they actually do have a sequence where something is going on and they're on the main point of the episode and they throw those one-liners in there I think that clicks to me more than like the actual conversations between characters do hmm
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. That might be where the show is most effective. I don't think it takes itself incredibly seriously in the first place. Yeah. And especially on the show, we talk about animated series that have a lot of universe building and whatnot. So for me to be as invested as I was in things like Young Justice and Invincible and the anime that we've been watching, such as Demon Slayer and My Hero, to have to
00:29:01
Speaker
Look at this with the observation of being a podcaster and reminding myself that this is a Step back from what we're doing and what I've been consuming a lot of this year Sure, it's just kind of like dial it back. It's not universe building. It's meant to be silly like just Focus on it for what it is. So like
00:29:23
Speaker
I feel like if we weren't doing it for the show I'm not sure I actually would have kept up with it or maybe it'll be like I have nothing to watch I'll throw on an episode real quick but for me to like sure want to watch it back to back to back was just kind of like I'll do it for the show but it's and again like it has these entertaining moments it's giving me moments to laugh but it's not as engaging as like the stuff that we typically record would
Serialization and Narrative Twists
00:29:51
Speaker
I definitely see that. I mean, it is meant to be the humorous side, but it does have a bit of serialization to it, where it is, they're not all standalones. They do, it's not world building, but it's just there is a through story point with Grumbo, with the family, with the corporation and stuff like that, where it's not just like, okay, I could skip one episode because it's not gonna make sense, or it would not make sense if I skipped it, but it'd only be in 10 episodes, it's sort of like,
00:30:21
Speaker
It works for what it was designed to work for. I mean, I never found myself saying, oh, I don't want to continue watching this because it was funny enough. But it wasn't one like you said, it's not like those shows. Like when I when I watched Demon Slayer, I'm like, I'm going to watch one more. And I ended up watching five more because it just was like I wanted to keep going on it. It's not it's not binge worthy.
00:30:41
Speaker
And like I know I'm talking a lot about how Austin and MODOK are like, they just make me cringe a lot. And that's not to say that like the show is doing a bad job of portraying them. Like I give the actors credit because that is their objective. And like they're doing a good job at portraying a character that makes me feel that way. Not so much that like they're bad at making the show where the actors like aren't doing good at like what they're supposed to be doing.
00:31:09
Speaker
It's like you know that sometimes you get a really good villain that when they do what they're supposed to do, you're like, I hate this person. They're doing a great job at the role, but if I was in this situation, I really hate this person. So that's kind of how I feel about these characters. They're doing good at what they're supposed to.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:45
Speaker
That's, if that's their objective, they're doing a really good job at it. Yeah, it's not because Steve Carell's a bad actor that I'm cringing. It's because he does so good at Michael Scott that I'm like, God, what is wrong with you? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, we do have to keep in mind he is a mental organism designed only for killing. Which makes a lot of his behavior, you know,
00:32:13
Speaker
acceptable quote-unquote because that's just what he's designed for. Like I said I think that's what the juxtaposition between that aspect and the fact that he has a family life he's trying to you know keep together just makes it insane.
00:32:28
Speaker
Oh, speaking of Michael Scott moments, the funeral scene. Oh, when he keeps getting his Venmos and like in the middle of the speech, he barges in and it's like, I'm here for my best friend's funeral and just like bursting through everyone. I'm going to sit up here and he starts crying in the middle. It's like, I'm not upset about him. What if I don't have a legacy? And he goes up and just like, Oh no, stop, stop, stop. Why?
00:32:57
Speaker
and he's like, is this where the family sits? And it's like, you've known him for like a day. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty awkward, but...
00:33:09
Speaker
It is a good example of what little story building and world building and like what through line there is. That is a good example of what we get there because at the end of the previous episode is when, you know, after he has this night out with the boys with the D listers, you know, I'll include pound cakes in there too. I think she's a honorary boy there. Um, yeah, you can get what I'm going for anyway, but you know, we have Melter, uh,
00:33:34
Speaker
die there on the beach in one of the more heartfelt moments for the series and then we go right into this episode dealing with the funeral as unceremonious they are and just like blowing up the body right in front of the poor wife there but that is actually what kind of motivates
00:33:51
Speaker
modok going forward and at the end of these these five episodes at the end of episode five he's kind of almost at the lowest point actually having had the crap beat out of him by monica and then you know having that really sad moment in front of tony stark where he just actually calls him he's like you're actually a clown and you know shout out to john ham i mentioned before how i thought he was kind of doing a rdj impression but as i've heard more from the from the performance i i see that i was kind of wrong i think i did just i kind of
00:34:20
Speaker
Assume that that's what he was doing because I'm just so used to hearing the character but for my purposes I will say I thought that that episode 5 was one of the strongest in terms of I Mentioned the the mad scientist fight was really great. But that also had some of like the funniest moments to me in terms of just like Setting up humor and then having like an effective joke like I think of like right before
00:34:47
Speaker
actually it's in right when in the middle when modox in the middle of like having to go up this your bureaucratic chain and he gives that yeah that precipitation and he does the whole thing like black hole gun won't you come yeah won't you come the whole build up to that got really real too it's like you know you know having to deal with like business license and stuff like that's like can't do this till you do this can't do this till you call there oh well this person said that like they could stop yeah
00:35:15
Speaker
I don't want real world coming into my animation. Yeah, right? The funniest thing for me out of that episode was when they were on the computer trying to change things up and they were doing the distractions and it was Gary's birthday. They were like, happy birthday to... Because I didn't know whose birthday it was or what his name was.
00:35:37
Speaker
And then when they come back into the room and the desk was clear, I was like, okay, they made it out. But like, you see him in the vents. And it was like, we can whisper out of this situation. I lost my shit on that. That part was really, really funny. Especially how they show him moving and it's just like, how can they not tell he's in the vents?
00:35:55
Speaker
How did he get an event? How did it work? He's making so much noise. Did you hear all the crinkling? And that's one of those things. I'm getting so lost in the moment of what's actually going on at the little moment. It's kind of like, OK, I wasn't prepared for that. That was really good.
00:36:10
Speaker
I've watched the episode twice in that moment. Both times it's so effective. It just gets me. I just can't help but audibly laugh. The way they build up, you see Doris walking down the hall and they're like on the computer at the last minute. And that's when you find out that the password was desk three. He had tried desk one and desk two, but then that's when they moved on to other stuff. And then yeah, just the way they cut to the desk, there's no one there and then pan up. And this ridiculously stuffed vent. Oh man, it's so good.
00:36:39
Speaker
I don't think vents expand like that, but hey, it is what it is. It serves his purpose. I love how like Modok always boasts about like having a supercomputer for our brain until he actually needs a supercomputer for our brain. He'll boast about it in conversation, but it's like when it comes to actually like process information, it's like, nah, he just shuts down.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, I could just have imagined always going into like in the first episode where he goes into like that That's sleep mode where it makes the sound like the old dial-up sound. Oh His eyes are just bouncing around like a screensaver. Like yeah, he's not paying attention
00:37:19
Speaker
Yeah. But then it pops up at the most inopportune times, or for him, opportune, because he's like, it's not like I'm looking at your dead husband thinking, Kaching. Kaching, I just sold a couch. This is great for me. Yeah. Melissa, why are you on your phone? You're embarrassing me. But talking about how they kind of like,
00:37:44
Speaker
play into that where he is a supercomputer but he's kind of like the dumbest character on screen but more often than not in that episode when they did the whole reveal where Monica was actually one of those gigalos as well that was just
00:37:59
Speaker
a pretty good twist, and I thought it was pretty well done. It did make for a nice setup for Austin to get another laugh out of me when he's just like, oh, we decided to call him Jigolo's, but you can't have sex with them. Especially because you've got to explain what a Jigolo is compared to what an actual real-life, real-world Jigolo is.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, uh, not the same thing, but it served its purpose. Like they said, the comedic aspect of it in the show. It's one of those things I thought I heard that word before, but I couldn't relate to what it was. I just haven't had the chance to look it up yet. Uh, male prostitute. Oh, okay. I'm glad I didn't Google it. Yeah. Yep. Don't, don't, don't, don't, yeah, you don't confuse it with a person that follows the insane clown posse. Cause that's a juggalo.
00:38:54
Speaker
Which that could have been funny if they called them juggalos too. Well, we've already kind of alluded to the fact that Brian and myself, we've already seen
Future Episodes and Listener Engagement
00:39:09
Speaker
the remaining five episodes that we'll be covering later and hopefully we can get Jeff Randall of the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast on for that and if not that maybe for a recap of the whole season or maybe a feedback episode down the line. With that in mind if you listeners out there do have feedback please send that to animationdeliberationpodcastatgmail.com but as we're as we're kind of coming to an end here did you guys have
00:39:35
Speaker
Anything else you wanted to say in terms of like the characters, the performances, standout moments, any laughs that you had, any gripes?
00:39:47
Speaker
One thing that popped the mind that I just thought of too because I was looking through the name here when Armadillo's little side story about trying to get his wife back and he goes there and the mandrel is in the house and it's like the pixelization is like oh okay I understand why this you know that the whole comedic little one-shot thing of that was just just thinking of like oh okay
00:40:09
Speaker
There's some people that they're just, I mean, I guess that's in a world where those things are, you know, I don't even know what the word is. An animal that is more sentient and it's not, it's acceptable, I guess, because she was married to an armadillo and now is a man. Anthropomorphic character is what I would call it. Especially with the doors that only closed the first half, but he did that on purpose. That's how you wear a kimono.
00:40:39
Speaker
And then, who was the... So, while we're kind of talking about those D-listers again, I wanted to bring up that Bill Hader did the voice of Aengar, the singing character. Oh, I loved him. Aengar the streamer.
00:40:56
Speaker
There at the end when they're kind of talking, when Modok's like, I can't believe I let us fall asleep and we fail. And it's like, what are you talking about? We had a pretty good night. I got to see Mandral's... I can't remember exactly how he put it, but I got to see Mandral's... His monkey parts. Exactly. And what was the name of the band that he was in that he kept singing the one song that they had like a hit of in the 1970s? I completely forgot about that. That was hilarious. Sweet Something. What was it?
00:41:22
Speaker
That's, yes, Sweetwater, not Sweetwater, that was from Almost Famous. That was Stillwater. There was Stillwater. If you can only look this... Let's, I'll look it up real quick. Let's see, the character's name is Angar. The Screamer. Yeah, see, I clicked it on Wikipedia and it pretty much goes to list of Marvel characters. Nothing. Sweetleg, the 60s rock band called Sweetleg.
00:41:52
Speaker
Sweetleg, okay. So just having that little story every time he would break in like doing a karaoke or whatever and have an open mic, he'd start singing the song. No one wants to hear this. So if you're a lyrics man, you'll appreciate the concept all of them we did. We just unplugged the jukebox and said, I had two dollars in there. Those were my last two dollars. Where is that? What did they, what did they call the bar? Just like the unnamed bar?
00:42:21
Speaker
Oh no, the bar with no name. That's actually a bar that is in Marvel Comics, used a lot, is where people hang out. It's alluded to in a sense, never really mentioned that that's the bar in.
00:42:40
Speaker
Deadpool, but they use it a lot even to this day. They use it a lot to this day in Marvel Comics, the bar with no name. It's like where the people just go to hang out, and it's sort of like a neutral space. Oh, that's cool. Oh, nice. Yeah. Right on. Now, the other place where all the A-listers hung out, I'm not really sure if that's a familiar thing or a regular thing, but the Soho bar? Yeah. Yeah, the Soho there. That just makes it seem like it's more upscale, especially with Mr. Sinister and the leader there.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I think Bill Hader did the voice of the leader as well. Correct. And then Kevin Michael Richardson, who's popped up on a number of shows we've already covered, most recently Invincible. He did the voice of Nathaniel Essex, a.k.a. Mr. Sinister. And also Mandrel. Oh, cool. Nice. Yeah, when you get guys to those guys, especially because he's a huge voice actor guy, you get him in there. It's like, well, while you're here, I didn't realize Whatopi Goldberg was Poundcake.
00:43:39
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah. Good call. Cool. I think I kind of noticed them using or reusing Amy Garcia when they had the conference call and there was a delay. Oh yeah, that was a great scene. A couple of the other voices seemed like her. Well, you talk about bringing like the real world into your animation series. That was such a long sequence too. But it served a purpose for like, you know, getting some time.
00:44:07
Speaker
Hey guys, this is Rodney. I think there's a delay. Why'd you tell him to shut up? Did you tell me to shut up? Yeah, we're here right now. Wait, who's shutting up? Oh, that reminds me of like 2005's conference call. We got this new system. People don't know how to use it yet. People don't know that they're muted if they are muted, and it's just like we were talking for 45 seconds. Welcome. No one's listening to me. What did it mean, 2005? That's like now. That's Zoom calls now.
00:44:35
Speaker
That's fair. Oh, speaking of dates, when they had the scene of, like, Monica killed in an unnamed Avenger, and he took credit for it, and he was like, yeah, that was very 2009 of me, although it is 2009. Was that a reference to something specific, or? Hmm.
00:44:56
Speaker
I don't remember, because I know that was basically the main thing why she, because they basically, in that episode was where they showed that Monica, she was basically like a MODOK fanboy, and that's why she wanted to come work for AIM. And then he took credit for that kill, and that sort of just changed her whole mind on that. But that made me think, yeah, I don't know if they ever did anything, because in 2009, there was no actual, that was the only year where they didn't have a new MCU movie.
00:45:26
Speaker
Because eight was when Iron Man and Dark Knight came out, right? Right, and Hulk. I think X-Men Origins came out at that time, too. Yeah, I wasn't sure if there was something specific that that was referring to. I wonder if it was something in the comics, because the only thing I could really gather from it is it looked like it was red cloth adorning what was left of the skull. So the candidates that first come to mind for me are Daredevil,
00:45:56
Speaker
Well, I'll look into it for the next episode. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Well, speaking of the next episode, I think that probably brings this particular edition of Animation Deliberation to a close, unless you gentlemen had anything else you'd like to bring up. I think we pretty much covered the main points I was wanting to talk about. Okay. Very good. Very good. Well, thank you gentlemen for your time and thank you to the listeners for all your support.
00:46:26
Speaker
Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast. We are still a new show, so that helps us tremendously in terms of growth. We did have that five-star review contest that we did in partnership with our network here, the Stranded Panda Network. Again, congratulations to KL Bucks, but we still need those five-star reviews as well as your feedback.
00:46:50
Speaker
Please hit us up visit stranded Panda comm for all the great shows the network and family shows that are happening there we are still doing our partnership with the Star Wars universe podcast for bad batch and We've had some discussions. I think we're going to do some standalone episodes for ourselves as we're
00:47:10
Speaker
approaching the halfway mark for Bad Batch. So again, please send us your feedback for that. That's animationdeliberationpodcast.gmail
Conclusion and Thank You
00:47:19
Speaker
.com. And hopefully we can have some new voices on for that. And I think that'll do it for me. Stay tuned. That's T-O-O-N-E-D. Stay wild.
00:47:32
Speaker
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00:47:48
Speaker
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00:48:17
Speaker
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