Transcript
Speaker: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that is brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
Speaker: We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson, and i obviously, I love to talk, so I gotta be the Don of the show. Okay. Yes, for sure. 100% I'm the Don. And that means, Greg, you are very much like a brother to me, so you've gotta be the Lou of the show, Mr. Greg Bossy.
Speaker: Lou? lou Don's brother Lou, the one that loves the Three Stooges and it can only speak in Three Are you a Stooges man? no No. Fair enough. No, I discovered that ah like my first girlfriend, they're like, oh, Stooges marathon is on. You got to watch some with this. was like, yeah, I've never checked this out. I'll check it out.
Speaker: And like through the first one, was like, I got to find a way out of this. I got to find a way to leave this marathon. Well, and of course you hear the wonderful laugh of my bosom companion. They must be the Fred of the show. Mrs. Anna Anderson. How are you, my love?
Speaker: I'm doing okay Well, I'm glad to hear it. And I'm very glad that we have with us a very special returning guest. You might know them as my first girlfriend.
Speaker: You might even know her as the woman that I made watch the movie Powder twice. ah But tonight she has chosen our movie. So she is the boss. So she must be our own personal Walter. It's Sharon Cunningham. Wow. i Thanks for having me back.
Speaker: Thank you for coming back. i had to make it up to you after making you watch Powder again. And now I've made it up to you by making you watch Hot to Trot. Yeah, even Stevens.
Speaker: That's right, listeners. Our movie this week is Hot to Trot. And if you haven't seen the film Hot to Trot, here's just a ah brief summary to hold in your
Speaker: A very strange man inherits a talking horse named Don. And together they go on an adventure filled
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, i would I would argue that they don't go on an adventure, but I think everything else is accurate. Okay. They they and they things things happen. They they do.
Speaker: You know? yeah it's like ah It's like a picaresque. It's like Tom Jones. Yeah. Things happen to our simple narrator. Yeah, it's just to slice a slice life of a man who is very strange and inherits a talking horse.
Speaker: And the horse really talks. Talks a lot. Now, Sharon, I came to you and asked, I begged you to come back on the show so that I could apologize to you on the record.
Speaker: And you came to me with a couple of movies. One of them was Hot to Trot. Why Hot to Trot? This was like one of those like sick day mom got like brought you to blockbuster movies that you would, you know, get as a kid. um Had a big crush on Bobcat.
Speaker: Okay. Wow. Understandable. He's very cute in this. yeah And was a horse girl. So it scratched two things.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay. du Do any of you guys have relationships with the horses? i never really interacted with a horse. So no interest.
Speaker: i've never I've never done anything. Like I've never ridden a horse or anything, but I have a strange sort of obsession with horses. yeah Someone managed to give my roommate a bunch of magazine subscriptions as a prank. um And so he had copies of a magazine called The Horse in the bathroom.
Speaker: And one day i was reading it and learned a lot about how they inseminate ah horses for okay for thoroughbred racehorsing and told a lot of people about it when I would drink.
Speaker: So it became like a story that I would tell people. Okay. Not necessarily about the insemination, but about like how horses, all thoroughbred horses are born January 1st. Yes. I remember you telling me that a lot. So you've told, yeah. So you're aware of my sort of strange connection to horses. It's strange.
Speaker: No, you had had a brief ah obsession with yeah horse racing. And I do have, I do have man of war hat and have been to his grave.
Speaker: So there's those, those things. Fair enough. Anna, anna do you have a background with horses? I have ridden a horse probably between three and five times, which I know would be would lead one to say four times, but I really mean just at least three times.
Speaker: No more than five. No more than five. Like, I can remember too right okay ah But they were just like, you know, pretty sedate trail horses. I never did, you know, anything difficult. I did fall off a horse once and I did have to get back on. That's what you are supposed to do, allegedly. yeah I would call it a day.
Speaker: I mean, was in the woods. I had to get out of the woods somehow, you know what I mean? guess you wouldn't to walk the Might as well do it on the horse. Yeah, exactly. The horse has to get back to, you can't just leave the horse. I have not, I have probably not interacted with the horse. I've not interacted with the horse as an adult, but I did kind of...
Speaker: ah like interacting with them as a kid. they They always reminded me of like a big, big dog. Big pit bull type dog. that's Yeah, that similar sort of satisfying slap on the side. Yeah. ah Never, i we get, if I get within 15 feet of a farm animal, I start to retch. I can't stand the stench of it.
Speaker: Wow. Sharon, what's your background with the horses? You said horse grow specifically. Chris, I owned a horse while we were dating. Well, I don't think the three of us ever hung out. That was your thing and I respected it.
Speaker: Yes, my family has always owned horses and we used to own a horse farm in Connecticut before I was born. Okay.
Speaker: Yeah. so very No, that's a legit connection. people Yeah. And the horse was the same age as me. Okay. It's always strange. Yeah. And so she hated me. She hated the shit out of me and would like actively chase me and try to kill me. Wow. Jesus. And my mom actively would always tell me that she loved the horse more than me.
Speaker: Okay. Well, ah now I understand why have we never hung out. That's fine. I don't want to spend time with that horse. Sounds like a dick. She was kind of a dick. Yeah. And she was like a big dog. Anna and on Greg, had you guys seen Hot to Trot before?
Speaker: ah Yes. So I had seen... So Hot to Trot was like a commodity in the house when I was growing up in the sense that they liked comedians. My family really liked comedians. Liked SNL. Was recording SNL every weekend. Was recording stand-up comedy. So it's like John Candy, Bobcat, Goldthwait in a film.
Speaker: We're there. But not like in the theater there. Like at home being chess rental. But what's interesting is that I think that this was the film that taught me that... Words sometimes when put together have different meanings than what they just show. Because it being like, what? Hot to trot.
Speaker: Like, hot to trot. What is that? What does that mean? Like, as a child I'm seven years old and it's called a hot to trot. Like, what is that What is that?
Speaker: And so I think there was some hesitancy to show me the film because I thought it might be sexual. e But it definitely isn't that sexual. No. and I definitely have seen it. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I've definitely seen it multiple times. I think replayed on Comedy Central, like in pieces. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like whole sections. And I also definitely haven't opened it tonight yet, but do have coincidentally a bottle of wine called Hot to Trot sitting on my...
Speaker: On my counter over there. So we're going to have some of that at this point. But I just thought that was hilarious. I don't know if I did it subconsciously on purpose. Well, just subconsciously. But anyway, you have to give us a review once you get a good sip. No, it's good wine. It's good wine.
Speaker: Okay. Listeners, check out Hot to Trot Wine. You're going to love their red blend.
Speaker: Have you seen ah ah Hot to Trot before, my love? I had not. I really liked it. Oh, that's great. It was a fun talking animal movie.
Speaker: It's true. And you know, it's interesting. i think this is our first actual talking animal movie. Because Quigley didn't talk. It's Quigley telepathically communicated with what's-his-face Longlegs director. the director of Longlegs. Yeah, but he didn't speak out loud. they a point of that. And, of course, Air Bud, he just plays sports. No, yeah, the Buddies are the ones that talk. You're right.
Speaker: This might be our first talking animal movie. And we love talking animal movies at the Anderson house. And this is one of the few that seems to be like trying to be funny for like a general audience instead of trying to be like specifically a kid's movie. Or an adult's movie.
Speaker: Yeah. Like a whole family comedy, maybe. ah ah this ah This is a four sectors comedy right here. Everybody wants to see Hot to Trot. This is definitely a four quadrant film.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think I watched it on comedy central. I watched it at some point. The only things I distinctly remembered were the horse fly puppet and the that was great.
Speaker: Yeah. It's a great puppet. And I did deep dive into that. Oh, good. I, I started to, but I ran out of time and I also, uh, remember specifically the, uh, the horse getting false teeth.
Speaker: Oh, like the end of the movie? Yeah, I just remember the horse. Is that Gilbert Godfrey? Yes. And these huge teeth. And imagining this horse with like giant, beautiful teeth and how frightening that would be.
Speaker: ah Do you guys want to talk about what I i learned about the background? I'd love to know why you'd make this thing happen. Well, it's pretty interesting. Let's hit it.
Speaker: So Hot to Trot was released August 26th, 1988.
Speaker: was released august twenty six nineteen eighty eight Your director, Michael Dinner. Great name. Yeah. didn't Didn't have much success in film, but did a ah lot in television.
Speaker: He was an executive producer on Justified, on ah Mayans MC, on ah lots of different TV shows.
Speaker: The Wonder Years, Chicago Hope. Uh, so that's where he really made his bones and and found his niche. Eventually. Uh, we got two taglines.
Speaker: Tagline number one. When I talk, you're going to laugh yourself horse.
Speaker: I love that. Yeah. And on the poster, it's in a speech bubble coming out of the horse's mouth so that you'd know this horse is talking in this fucking movie. Yeah. This is not a kangaroo jack situation where the horse is just talking for a dream sequence. This is the real deal.
Speaker: The kangaroo only talks in a dream sequence in that. Yeah. It's just a kangaroo. That's BS. Yeah. A lot of people were very upset. Tag line number two, the funniest talking horse movie ever.
Speaker: Wow. That is a claim. name Name a competitor. ah miss Francis the Talking Mule? More of Talking Mule I guess that's mule. mr Mr. Ed the Film?
Speaker: i'm goingnna I'm going to say this is going to go toe-to-toe with whatever. If there's a Mr. Ed the Film, whatever There's I mean, there definitely isn't, I don't think. If there is, I'll put Hot to Trot right up against it Well, I mean, it is nice that he doesn't have to talk like this the whole time. Yeah.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Bob Gatt Goldthwait, the star of Hot to Trot, was one of the biggest stand-up comedians of the 1980s. Famous for his pitch-black absurdist humor and a stage persona that mostly evoked a screaming drug-addled maniac.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. He developed this persona when he started doing comedy in high school with his buddy Tom Kenny, who would go on to be the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants. That's so interesting. And on Mr. Show.
Speaker: That's so interesting. That's ah also how he got his stage name. His real name is Bob Goldthwait. The two of them went to go open for a guy whose stage name was Bearcat. So they went on as Bobcat and Tomcat.
Speaker: And Bobcat stuck, whereas Tomcat did not. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: ah But they both did sketch and standup comedy. And in one of their sketches, he played a man that was traumatized by seeing Bigfoot. And that character was the basis for what would become the classic Bobcat Goldthwait persona.
Speaker: That's so crazy. Which made, when I read that, now when I watch the movie, the whole time I imagined part of Fred's backstory was that several years ago he saw Bigfoot and he had never been the same since.
Speaker: That's intriguing. Yeah. Yeah. That's intriguing. A one episode, a one scene X-Files character. Yeah, exactly. Just the guy that's getting interviewed at the beginning of the show. He's the guy that saw Bigfoot.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. ah So this unique persona and his genuine comedic chops, I don't want to take that from him. He was also a genuinely talented comedian. ah They ended up getting Goldthwait work. And in 1985, he got his breakout role playing Zed, the childlike punk that runs the gangs in Police Academy 2, their first assignment.
Speaker: You guys ever seen Police Academy 2? Yeah, I think I've seen all of them. Sharon, seen Police Academy too? I assume I saw two. I've seen some of them and I don't know which numbers they were.
Speaker: I think they're all kind of similar. Do you remember Bobcat Goldthwait being the bad guy in any of them? Kind of? Or a guy ah taking cat turds out of a bowl of cereal and then eating the cereal?
Speaker: oh want to think about that No, I don't either. It really stuck with me with how genuinely unpleasant it was. ah but But Police Academy 2 was one of the few movies that we had taped off of cable. And so that was a movie that I had ready access to at any point when I was a child.
Speaker: So, hello.
Speaker: ah The Police Academy movies are largely looked down upon these days. But back in those early days, they were big hits. And this role did a lot to elevate his career.
Speaker: He was able to get more work as an actor, getting some supporting roles in movies like One Crazy Summer and Tape Heads, Scrooged. ah And they also increased his name recognition and did a lot for his stand-up career.
Speaker: ah He reprised his role as Zed for Police Academy 3, Back in Training, and Police Academy 4, Citizens on Patrol. He dropped out by the time they had gone to Miami Beach.
Speaker: Really a shame. Yeah. Could have gone to Miami Beach. Yeah, that would have been nice work if he could get it. Still, a leading role in a film eluded him.
Speaker: That is until 1987. Yeah. In 1987, Joan Rivers, who had previously been cast in the lead role of the film Hot to Trot, dropped out.
Speaker: What? This movie was originally, well, it was written for a man and then Joan Rivers got the role and they rewrote it for a woman and she was going to play the lead.
Speaker: And then she dropped out because she had to do her late night talk show. Uh-huh. Yeah. So the producers, they were scrambling to find another comedic actor slash standup comic to slot into this lead role.
Speaker: Bobcat's agent sent him the script. Bobcat sent it back to his agent with a note reading, why would I do this? His agent responded with a note that just had a dollar sign on it.
Speaker: ah Uh, fair enough. Uh, Joan Rivers though, was not the only casting change. What? The original voice of Don, the talking horse was Elliot Gould.
Speaker: Fascinating. This was a Joan Rivers, Elliot Gould. Yeah, what do you think that version would have been like? can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. it sounds very odd.
Speaker: It sounds very dry. Or no, I don't know. I don't know. Now, ah there was a version of the film that had Gould in the Don role, but test audiences hated it.
Speaker: Okay. Producer Steve Tisch considered hiring Jack Nicholson, Dudley Moore, Peter Falk, or Tom Waits for the role. Tom Waits?
Speaker: That would have been incredible.
Speaker: It's me, Don the horse. Yeah, found him, the horse.
Speaker: But ah ultimately, they went with Canadian comedy legend John Candy. Who I thought did a really great job as a horse. I agree. He is a real asset to this film.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. ah They knew Don wouldn't just need a new actor, though. He would also need better jokes. So they brought in a comedy writer named Andy Breckman to punch it up.
Speaker: Andy Breckman is most famous today for being the creator of the television show Monk. Shout out to Jesse Black and Lucy Valentine of SamaGuard, previous guest of the show. Okay.
Speaker: So there's a big Monk connection here, but... i I think that that might actually be why one reason why I found this movie funny. it I did find it funny in kind of a similar way that I i did Monk. Okay.
Speaker: Which is like, I know that it's not the funniest thing in the world or the most creative or the most immersive or whatever, but I i i really enjoy it. Yeah.
Speaker: And it it hits its paces. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Breckman, unfortunately, he was working with one hand tied behind his back because he could only rewrite the horse's lines because they only had the budget to re-record the horse's dialogue.
Speaker: They didn't have the money to reshoot any footage.
Speaker: Oh, okay. On top of that, Candy didn't really like Breckman's jokes very much, so allegedly he ended up improvising most of his dialogue anyway.
Speaker: He did a great job. He did. good job. That's why you'll hear a couple of references to like some of his SCTV characters thrown in here and there. But unfortunately, even John Candy couldn't save this one.
Speaker: Hot to Trot only made $6.4 million dollars on its $9 million dollars budget, and it effectively killed Goldthwait's career as a leaning man.
Speaker: ah The good news is it forced him to change as an artist. He stopped doing the voice in his stand-up act, and he transitioned to working behind the camera as a director of sort of dark, independent comedies, and he also directs just a lot of stand-up comedy specials. He's like noted for being really good at that kind of stuff.
Speaker: i when i When I think of him like directing it, I think of him using the Bobcat. Of course, you've got to think of him all. Mm.
Speaker: don't know. We'll get one long tracking shot of you coming out of the dressing room.
Speaker: Other comedies of 1988. What else would a comedy fan be able to go and see? Sure. Yeah. What else could you see? Well, you could go see The Great Outdoors, also with John Candy.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah, that's a good one. You could also see Scrooged, also with Bobcat Goldthwait. Yeah, that's a good one. could also see Big starring Tom Hanks, Mr. Tom Hanks.
Speaker: His breakout role. Don't like Big. You don't like Big. Kind weird. I hate Tom Hanks. My wife hates Tom Hanks. I don't like Tom Hanks either.
Speaker: This is all interesting. Hey!
Speaker: Takes all types. The Naked Gun. You got the Naked Gun. Yeah, classic. That's a classic. thing You got a fish called Wanda. yu Great. You got Beetlejuice.
Speaker: Yeah. Great. Coming to America. Sure. Midnight Run.
Speaker: don't recall that one. That's ah ah Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Charles Grodin.
Speaker: It's a classic. Martin Brist. ah Also, ah Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out this year. Oh, nice. A lot of competition for Hot to Yeah. You could see audiences...
Speaker: Wanting more than what Hot to Trot was bringing to the table. Right. Yeah, yeah. ah But what exactly did Hot to Trot bring to the table? Let's talk about it in the plot section of the show.
Speaker: Yeah. Slam dunk the transition.
Speaker: Plot bumper, listen to me I'm gonna give you the plot summary Come on baby, here's the synopsis!
Speaker: Plot bumper, plot bumper!
Speaker: So we open on John Candy reading the on-screen definition of the word horse from the dictionary.
Speaker: Incredible. Got to be one of the least promising ways to start a film I've seen in a long time. But isn't it so classic 80s? It reminds me of like Star Wars or um shit, there was like another one. It was very real genius. Well, I mean, I don't know. Star Wars doesn't begin with the concept of explaining what stars and wars are. I want to say it was like history of the world or something like that. having on yeah Yeah. To me, it was very reminiscent of the cliched doesn't know how to start a best man speech type of situation.
Speaker: It's like, they didn't know where to start their rewrite on this movie. and they're like, well, what is a horse? What if, what if we should tell the audience what a horse is? And then that, boom, we've got another minute added on to our movie. We're bringing it up to 83 minutes. I can feel good charging a ticket for that.
Speaker: Well, a horse is a horse, of course. It's true. Of course. That is true. Much simpler definition, but maybe a little solipsistic. Anyway, he goes on to explain that some horses carry a recessive gene that gives them the ability to speak.
Speaker: Cool. Some of them. Some of them do. Sure. Not only some of them have the gene, you know. We then cut to a stable. where Walter, as played by Dabney Coleman, has brought his mistress so they can have sex. And as soon as Dabney Coleman is on screen, I feel like I'm in good hands. He is a great comedic villain.
Speaker: He is. his His fake teeth are interesting, though. I loved those fake teeth. Anytime he was doing business with those fake teeth, I was giggling.
Speaker: They were so funny me.
Speaker: He was making a meal out of those buck teeth. It's true. I thought they were his realty. They were a very good prosthetic. Very convincing. They suit him. it's true they suit the character. That's true. ah So Walter's wife has just died and he's looking to let off a little steam before the funeral.
Speaker: That plane is interrupted when Fred, Arthur's goofy stepson, played by Bobcat Goldthwait, shows up for no clear reason and finds them on flagrante delecto.
Speaker: The next day, presumably after the funeral, which we don't see. Who cares about his mom's funeral? yeah This is a comedy. Right. Yeah, yeah. The next day, Fred comes to Walter's office at his big, fancy brokerage firm.
Speaker: It looks like Walter kept half of the brokerage in his dead wife's name, presumably for tax reasons or something. And now that she's dead, Fred has inherited half of the fur.
Speaker: Walter is prepared to make him a very generous offer for his 50%. $500. No, he scratches that out five hundred and twenty five dollars That I thought was a very funny side gag. No, I like that he did that beforehand. Where he's like, $500. Actually, wait, I'll cross that out. $525. Yeah. And he's like, that's cash. Mostly cash. Mostly cash.
Speaker: Fred, he refuses Walter's offer. And in response, Walter kicks him out of the house where presumably they both live together. I'm not quite sure how. That was fuzzy to me. It it feels like there's a lot that's been lost in assorted drafts of this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In any case, Fred inherited more than just half of a brokerage firm. He also inherited a horse. So he heads over to the stable to see his new horse.
Speaker: The horse is named Don. And when Fred sees him, we're led to believe that Don is a weak, busted looking horse. But I'll be honest, he looks just like a normal horse to me.
Speaker: He had a sloppy mane. Yes. Which is horse talk for busted horse. No one's taking care of that mane. No one's brushing it. No one's making it look sumptuous. yeah It's not lustrous. There's no sheen. what do you look But it is kind of when you're introduced to a ah you know a handsome character, but you're supposed to think he's busted because he's wearing his hair's a little messy. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, okay, fair enough. Yeah, because he looked like a strong, powerful horse to me. but he see He's a horse. He can pull a cart. horse He can kick and kill you. You know, all the standards. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. ah So anyway, as soon as Fred and Don are alone, Don starts talking and Fred starts screaming. This must have been your dream as a horse girl, Sharon, that one day the horse would start talking to you.
Speaker: I dream all animals start talking to me even now. Okay. That's fair. That's understandable. So anyway, Don convinces Fred to kidnap him, horse nap him. He's his horse. Take him with him.
Speaker: ah And then the two of them, they head out on the road.
Speaker: They find some sort of RV that's retrofitted to allow a horse to just stand in it. I don't know. It's the thing that came with the horse. Yeah, it came with it. I think it was yeah it was his Fred's dad. Okay. His real dad. So it's just been, oh yeah, because ah Don tells him where the keys are. He's like, yeah, the keys are in in the dash. Yeah, it's yours.
Speaker: So anyway, Fred, he drives Don back to Don's family ranch in the the RV. And we learned a little bit about Don's backstory. ah He ran away from home and befriended a blind blues man and rode the rails for a while. You do get to see a horse wearing one of those harmonica rigs. That's a pretty funny gag.
Speaker: Don't get to see him play it, unfortunately. ah But then he befriends Fred's father. And when Fred's father passed away, Don didn't really have anyone else he wanted to talk to. So he spent the last decade or so standing around silently doing absolutely nothing is there as I can tell.
Speaker: Sounds like a form of choice. Sounds completely maddening. Yeah. With the amount that Don talks, it seems like unimaginable that he would take some sort of vow of silence for that long. Yes.
Speaker: But that is what we are led to believe. The next day. Maybe it was some kind of, ah you know, traumatic thing. Traumatic selective mutism. I'm going to say that maybe that's going to be hot to trot the lost years. And we can fill that in with prequels of Don's assorted adventures meeting other people. Kind of like in a Reacher situation.
Speaker: Yeah. But his Reacher, if he was a horse, that's the pitch. Are you kidding me? Imagine this.
Speaker: It's Reacher, but he's a horse. Talking horse. Specifically. He's a talking horse. Now that's a show.
Speaker: ah So ah anyway, he he ran away from home. Yeah, be silent until now. Soon they arrive at Don's family's ranch, which appears to be an abandoned barn. They appear to be a family of feral horses near as I can tell. That happens.
Speaker: Yeah, it's such is life. It does. They got that island of feral horses off one of the Carolinas. Do they? Yeah. It's like a Chinco T. I don't know how to say it right.
Speaker: There's a whole children's book about it. About Misty. Misty. it's that Listeners, check out Misty. Of Chinko Tea. ah But we get to meet ah Don's brother, Lou, who only can speak in Three Stooges quotes and watches Three Stooges all day. yeah And ah his father, who's voiced by Burgess Meredith, he's an old salt and pepper ah ah bay. Would that be a bay? He's a white stallion. I thought he was a little more speckled.
Speaker: Uh, and then, his mom who is a horse that doesn't speak English. She only speaks horse. She's from the old country.
Speaker: Uh, don't, but she understands all horses understand English. And she asked specifically what, what it is like to make love facing each other face to face, which was a weird gag that you now know John Candy improvised.
Speaker: we also We also find out, and this is for later, that all animals understand each other. Well, no, because he says specifically, I speak giraffe, I speak whale. They all understand dog.
Speaker: He understands them, and he can speak their language. He can talk giraffe. He's basically a horse, Mr. Doolittle. Yeah.
Speaker: Which the Reacher horse would also be. You know, last week we had Beastmaster that ah That was sort of a Dr. Doodle scenario. It's getting kind of weird. Yeah. What if the Beastmaster was a horse?
Speaker: That's the origin story. Okay, we've got it.
Speaker: It's called Horsemaster. So ah Don, he doesn't want to stay with his family. ah So he offers to give Fred investment tips in exchange for room and board.
Speaker: Don says that he classic story. yeah Listen, listen, all these rich guys always are coming by the stable. I know everything about stock. Constantly whispering tips. Yeah.
Speaker: Don says that he can help him become a success at the company he just inherited and really stick it to old man Walter. ah But Fred doesn't have much interest in getting stock tips from a horse and leaves him there.
Speaker: It's weird. Well, Fred's a weird guy. We need to keep on emphasizing that the straight man in this movie is very strange. So can we talk about that for a second? Let's talk about the dynamic.
Speaker: It's so weird to me to have Bobcat Goldthwait be like the sane one. It was just like, he's like just this guy. Yeah. You know, like he inherited a thing. He doesn't like his stepdad because he's kind of nuts. Yeah.
Speaker: And he's got this talking horse and like, what about that? It's like, but why Bobcat? Like, it's crazy to me. It's Bobcat Goldthwait. Yeah. They never explained why he's Bobcat Goldthwait. Yeah. It's like a hat on a hat for the whole movie.
Speaker: And it also, like, I want Bobcat Goldthwait to Bobcat Goldthwait, not Stockbroker. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Because he's not like, I'm not going to get the stocks! Yeah. He's just like, what's going on the paper? Yeah.
Speaker: ah look at this. I got tip about the stocks. And it's just like, okay. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like seeing... this It's weird. It's weird. It's like if you saw a Pauly Shore movie and Pauly Shore wasn't doing the weasel character. He was just like a guy that had like a similar voice a little bit.
Speaker: Like if... He's restrained. It someone who was trying to not do the weasel character. Yeah. Whereas Bobcat is definitely trying to be Bobcat, but they they don't know. They're not letting him off the chain.
Speaker: Yeah, there's no there's no opportunity to really go for anything. There's like one moment where he really like breaks the fourth wall, and that's the credit shot of him, and that makes the most sense because that's the most that's the most Bobcat Goldthwait thing he does is break the fourth wall.
Speaker: Yeah. it's it's It's interesting. It's an interesting movie. Yeah. Uh, what stocks to buy? Well, he's, he's very confident when he walks in.
Speaker: ah he walks into the brokerage the very next day and he tells, ah Walter that he wants to go to work as his partner. Uh, he has the maintenance guys, paint a line straight down the middle of the conference room. I love Lucy style.
Speaker: Uh, the challenge that he immediately faces though, is that he doesn't know anything about investing. Luckily, Don does. Yeah.
Speaker: He's got a horse. Don somehow as made his way back to the stable that it last night was like a 12 hour drive. i don't know.
Speaker: Whatever. He's back there. He's a horse. He can go ways fast. It's true. You know, probably Fred had to take the long way around. yeah And it's probably traffic. Yeah. yeah Don. So, you know. Anyway, he's back at the stable.
Speaker: And he overhears another cheating broker there fucking his mistress in the stable bedroom. And but he has to make a phone call in the middle of their lovemaking. He's like, hang on. I need to call the office and tell them to buy Ventura.
Speaker: Which he does on a pay telephone in a horse stable. Is that a thing? Was that a thing? i mean, that didn't strike me unbelievable. Because of horse stable, a lot of different people are there. They want to have access to a phone.
Speaker: It doesn't strike me as unbelievable, but it it's just, I just saw it for a moment and thought, Would you put one of those? Would you put would you put a municipal payphone? It might have been a private payphone.
Speaker: I guess. in in ah In a horse table. It's intriguing to me. Yeah. Why not just a phone? Well, they're little chintzy at this table. Yeah, I guess.
Speaker: We'll let them put their horses up, but they're going to have to pay for them phone calls. Let me tell you we had a free phone and this guy kept on calling Honduras for three hours every Sunday calling his grandmother.
Speaker: Not anymore. ah So the next day, yeah, line down the middle gets a stock tip from Don. The guy is cheating and he has a hot stock tip.
Speaker: Don overhears the stock tip. He calls up Fred and confusingly pretends to be one of Walter's employees and leaks the insider information to Fred.
Speaker: Fred takes his insider information and immediately uses it to make a fortune. Like in the course of that afternoon. This was a very smart buy. Very smart and well-timed.
Speaker: Yes, really nailed it. Thank God Don was there. I can see why that guy stopped making love to run over to the pay phone. Yeah. yeah But at the same time, i feel like this also kind of takes me back to ah cocktail and 80s movies relationships with like stocks and investment banking.
Speaker: And yeah just like that sort of obsession of this is this is how you get fucking rich. It's yeah. Yeah. You just got to hit one big one. Yeah. Boom. It's just, you know, plucking fruit from a tree. It's just out there for the take.
Speaker: and So we get a quick hitting it. Big montage of Fred and his office, both getting makeovers and it's set to shooting dirty pool by the replacements. Bobcat Gulfway, apparently a big replacements fan.
Speaker: Nice. Uh, He's a big music fan. Yeah. He fun facts. He used to open for Nirvana. True. Absolutely true. Wow. yeah Yeah. He had a lot of like big alternative cred.
Speaker: And ah I think partly through, i don't know who knows how, ah but sensibilities overlapped for sure. Being himself. Yeah. I think like the same way that Janine Garofalo tapped into that audience. She was part of that. He was part of that same scene.
Speaker: Yeah. So he buys an apartment that's big enough to have its own atrium and a convertible Mercedes with a car phone. He even feels confident enough to try asking out his coworker, Allison, as played by Virginia Madsen, absolutely slumming it in this movie.
Speaker: Yeah. And he ends up ah bungling it. Fred gets home and he finds Don lying on the ground. inside Fred's indoor parking lot.
Speaker: And Don's- Which is pretty, I like this image of just like a horse in a parking And you're like, oh, it's so sore. Oh, it hurts. Yeah, the horse is a good actor. It's true. Yeah.
Speaker: um Although apparently in order to get him to move his mouth like that, they did ah like hit him in the face with sticks. Bobcat Goldthwait said he really did not like seeing it, and it made him quite unhappy.
Speaker: I thought it would just been peanut butter. No, no. Apparently, that's not what they did for this one. ah So Fred takes pity on this talking horse, and he tells him that he can stay there for a couple days, but just until he's back on his hooves.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. That was great. I could have written for this movie. They didn't even make that joke. but On the freight elevator ride up, Don confesses to being the source of the tip that helped Fred hit it big.
Speaker: And then Fred sneaks Don past his nosy neighbor, played by Tim Gazerinsky, who was just a great sight gag. He looks super goofy in this movie. It's fantastic.
Speaker: Is that the guy... Who hangs on to the light fixture at some point to avoid the pig. Yes. Yes. And the reason why he was cast in this movie is that in the police Academy movies, he played officer sweet Chuck and he was the timid police officer. So they'd match him up with the maniac Zed once he joined the force and they'd be the natural. Right. Okay. Okay.
Speaker: ah So police Academy fans, when they saw these two on screen together, they're like, yeah yes, yeah yes. I don't. I remember we watched several police Academy movies one day together, but I'll be honest. I don't remember a lot.
Speaker: Yeah. There's a lot. Sorry. Forget. Unfortunately, it's true. So that night. Fred and Don, they stay up late watching TV and talking about everything and nothing.
Speaker: By morning. It's an interesting montage. There's a lot of like fades. and but You know, like when I was a kid, like I thought about becoming a banker or whatever.
Speaker: And then the horse would be like, yeah. And then i was like, you gotta get out of here, man. And it's just like, it feels oddly like real bonding. Yeah. Like movie bonding, like real bonding where I don't really get it, but they seem to be into it. So good for those two.
Speaker: Yeah. It was nice to have a movie where it was just two people bonding by hanging out watching TV. It was like, okay, I can relate to these guys. They don't they didn't bond by going on like a crazy adventure their first night together. exactly. Exactly.
Speaker: They didn't both meet at the concert and then suddenly spend all night together. They just sat in the house talking. Yeah. They didn't like get locked in the basement and somebody had to stand on Don's shoulders and climb out the window, you know?
Speaker: So, uh, they, by morning, they're friends. The next day, Fred gets himself into a comical situation involving a singles party in his building, a very horny woman eating anchovies, and Don the Talking Horse.
Speaker: Fred isn't really interested in a random lady. He is more into Allison at work. Luckily for him, Walter has ordered Allison to investigate Fred and find out the secret of his investment smarts.
Speaker: Sexual espionage. Yeah, just a little bit. Everyone does it, Liz. if we Have we had the second stock tip yet? There was a stock tip about coffee at some point I think it that one this was what precipitates them sending Allison after Fred. Okay. Because I just remember, like, the first one, it made sense because it's like, okay, so you overheard a guy. And this one, it's just like, he just thinks coffee's a good idea, I guess. Yeah, it turns out he's... And it turns out turns out he's absolutely right.
Speaker: Can you just invest in coffee? I thought you invested in company. can buy coffee futures, I guess. Yeah. I don't know how any of this works. Later, I kind of question the other stock tip because it...
Speaker: futures markets are not something I entirely understand, but it's kind of like buying coffee plant seedlings or i throwing money. I only know it from the game Sim Farm, and I feel like that's not going to be very accurate or applicable to this particular conversation. Yeah.
Speaker: Listeners do not turn to us for investment advice. We finance advises we are not sure if i do we're not your fiduciary. Definitely not. Please.
Speaker: ah So Allison comes over to Fred's apartment and throughout the course of their date, she finds out three things. One, he keeps a horse in his beautiful, but cold luxury apartment.
Speaker: Two, There's a horse in here, she tells him, as if he doesn't know. It's funny. Yeah, it's a funny little gag. ah Two, he thinks the horse can talk and is giving him stock tips.
Speaker: And three, when Fred tries to get Don to talk in front of her, he doesn't. Very Michigan J frog. Despite all of this, Allison says she had a really great time.
Speaker: Which I don't understand. Really funny. Really funny. ah I like this because they use that like trope where there's like a sheet and a light that's like exposing the silhouettes. Oh, yeah. Silhouettes. And they're having this silhouette conversation where it's like, clearly there's a horse, but it's pretending to be a dog and he's talking to it. And I feel it was just really funny to me. Yes. The silhouette of the horse and him yelling at the horse was very funny.
Speaker: I don't know what ah yeah about it being a silhouette. Oh, because he thinks he's private, but we can clearly see him. That's what's funny but yeah So Fred and Don, they drive out to the country to visit Don's family again, only to watch Don's father die.
Speaker: ah Don promises on his death haybed that he will pass on the talking gene. Death haybed? Once again, they should have had me on this.
Speaker: They should have had me in the room. You can write the sequel. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, Horse Master is going to have all this great stuff in him. Hot to Trot. Yes.
Speaker: Hot to Trot the Horsemaster the series. Coming to Amazon Prime. ah So ah they leave Don's dead father presumably lying to Rot on the floor of that stable.
Speaker: What else you going to do with a dead horse? Yeah, they're going to call anybody to come pick up a feral horse. You can beat it.
Speaker: God, you need to be on the Horsemaster riding team, Sharon. I accept. Yes. We've got a whole writer's room ready to go. Amazon Prime.
Speaker: Jeff Bezos. ah well Now I feel bad about it. Anyway. ah but but but but but They leave and they go to the stable.
Speaker: They go back to the stable. They go apartment, stable, barn. Those are the three main locations these guys go. And sometimes Fred goes to work. But now they're at the stable.
Speaker: And they find out that Walter has just bought a championship racehorse. And he also bought a show horse for his new wife. And this show horse is sexy and a lady horse.
Speaker: What is her name? Was it Silver s Sable? No, it's like Satin. Satin Doll. Satin Doll. Yes. Satin Doll. Satin Doll. And Don wants to have sex with Satin Doll.
Speaker: Yeah. He experiences horse lust for Satin Doll. Walter sees them and yells at them and they leave. Fred has to go to work all the time. So Don is left to his own devices at the apartment.
Speaker: There he in orders an inflatable horse sex doll in what i am going to say is the absolute weirdest thing to happen in the entire film. No, that was but that part was pretty strange.
Speaker: It was pretty weird. I was not expecting that No.
Speaker: She kind of forgot it happened. Were you guys expecting a life-size pink inflatable sex horse? No, I was not expecting it. Fair enough. i I was not expecting a giant inflatable sex horse. Sharon, were you expecting a giant inflatable sex horse?
Speaker: I feel like that's like a scene that might have been like edited out or something. That was probably not in the Comedy Central cut. Yeah, it's like the only like real dirty part of the whole thing. It's it's pretty PG. Yes. it's It is just a pink inflatable horse that they have airbrushed like garters on. You don't see like a horse pussy.
Speaker: it's It's also pretty weird in that like this isn't like a thing that actually exists, and because it's real, like when it first starts coming out, you're like, oh, it's an inflatable horse. Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, it's a sex doll of a horse. Like it, it took me a moment to kind of register what, what it even was because those things don't actually exist.
Speaker: I don't think, I think, uh, I don't, I hope going to, I'm not going to find out. I'm not going to, I'm not going to look. i will say based on eighties movies, two things that I thought I would see a lot more when I was an adult were inflatable sex dolls and horse races. Yeah.
Speaker: That's fair. That's fair. I've never seen either. A lot of either. and Neither one. ah So.
Speaker: ah boy. Okay. Where was I? Inflatable. Yeah. Inflatable for sex doll. Yeah. So after the sex horse, he also throws a big party for a bunch of animals that stops by by accident. And. Like he sees a horse. Yay! We have a big animal party and it's it's set to You Gotta Fight for Your Right to Party by the BC Boys. Another great sound selection.
Speaker: Unfortunately, there is no soundtrack album for Hot to Trot. I did look. ah This is also feels like a weird 80s trope where it's like, oops, I did a i like didn't mean to have a ranger and everything's out of yeah control and I'm just standing around like, oh no!
Speaker: I invited one person in and then they invited a bunch of other people and then how could I stop it But this time it's a bunch of animals. It's a fun twist. Yeah. All types of animals. Ripping up the pillows on the couch. There's a duck there. There's a pony getting a carrot out of the crisper drawer.
Speaker: Mm-hmm. on. there There was a cat. Yeah, there was a cat eyeballing a catfish in a fish tank. Catfish is a weird pet fish. Yeah, it is. It's it's funny how like like like ah a creature getting a carrot out of a crisper drawer. It's like... oh, no, he's going eat the food in the refrigerator. it's I mean, it's not a big deal. It's just very funny. yeah like It's not like they're breaking a lot. There was some breaking of glass. That was probably the least mischievous thing that the animals were doing. but it's just a lot of it's just a lot of like animals being animals. And it's just like, yeah, that's what they do. Yeah, that's why I don't want to have an an apartment full of animals.
Speaker: Yeah, to be fair. It would get messy. Yes, it would it seemed like it was a problem. They completely destroyed the atrium. Did you see the atrium? They made the little guy piss on the wall. That was the sight gag, right? There was the statue and he's a peeing statue and now he's peeing on the wall. Just like animal. I looked down at that part.
Speaker: ah When Fred gets home, he's very upset, obviously. kicksa I would be so excited. Well, to be you and Fred, I think are very different people. I think that's probably why you're a good match or into his yang.
Speaker: ah But so Fred, he's upset. And but he's only upset for a little while because he did bring home a fresh sack of a new brand of oats for his old buddy Don to eat. And Don's like these new oats are incredible.
Speaker: Every animal in America is going to be eating these oats. These are the best oats I've ever had. And Fred is like, obviously, buy these oats. Indio oats.
Speaker: He literally has a light bulb go off above his head. Oh, it's great. Because it's an animation and it screws into his brain. It actually goes off to the side of his head, which is very odd. It's such a weird choice.
Speaker: and But yeah, he's buying all Indio oats. He's telling all his customers, buy Indio oats. But then Walter, he calls in one of his cronies connections, who's like, Indio Oates is about to get pulled by the FDA. I wouldn't touch that with a 10-foot pole.
Speaker: This is also like a crazy, like, I feel like a very, like 80s trope where it's like a stockbroker in a steam room, but like with his phone or like. Yeah, he's got a briefcase. It's like a briefcase. Yeah, it was like a whole like stock setup, but in the steam room. Yeah, he's always got to be connected. He's that kind of guy, but for the 80s.
Speaker: And ah yeah, so what they do is they lock friend in the bathroom while the stock is tanking so he can't sell it off. And this is very complicated. For this movie, this felt very complicated.
Speaker: For me to write this down... The whole stock thing... is really complicated. And after this part, we'll no longer be a part of the film. Thank God. Yeah.
Speaker: The whole like first half just ends at this point. And to say it's a half, it's more like two thirds, I feel Yeah. Like four fifths. Yeah. We're we're rounding the the final turn in in horse parlance.
Speaker: ah Now Fred and Don are both broke again. Presumably... may It seems like Fred lost his shares somehow of the brokerage in this process. Maybe he leveraged them so he could buy more Indio oats. We're all into Indio oats.
Speaker: I'm very confused. Do typically people who do stocks only buy one stock at a time? going to Fred is not your typical investment broker.
Speaker: Yeah. Right. I also don't think that this is like the concept that someone's like, I'm going to buy stocks because my horse really likes these oats. And he's correct that a lot of other animals are going to like these oats. And then it's going to be reported that a lot of animals are going to get sick. And then the socks going to immediately tank. Like all of that seems like really far fetched to me. I know things can happen very quickly. Well, but it all just seemed like this is all just a lot of hand waving to move on to the next scene to me. Yeah, yeah. It would have been nice if they had come up with something cleaner. Anna, what were you going to say?
Speaker: Yeah. Well, I was going to say, yes, it is far-fetched, but i i I do feel like... Do you know in the movie Rhubarb, where a cat owns a baseball team absolutely from the I'm not familiar. It's that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great film. Great yeah film.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I don't think that the... The finer details. The The stock. Yeah. Yeah. You don't really. Stock go down. Yeah. You can just sort of glaze over the finer details with your eyes. Since I was writing it all down to have to explain it later and I didn't want to write. They do some stock stuff. I probably should have just done that.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. That's true. So anyway. Anyway. Fred and Don, they're both broke. Don blames Fred for all of this. And the two of end up the two of them end up hitchhiking in separate directions.
Speaker: be The horse has better luck. Yeah. Well, he's more charming. Fred's a little off-putting. I'm going to Denver! I'm headed west!
Speaker: ah Back at the office, Allison finds out that Walter and his cronies are responsible for Fred's downfall, and she quits in disgust.
Speaker: Somehow, she runs into Don, not quite sure how. And Don's he gets around. Yeah, he finds he finds her in the parking garage.
Speaker: Yeah, Don finds her. That makes more sense. ah Don starts talking in front of her and she takes that in stride. And then the two of them go and find Fred somehow. Not quite sure.
Speaker: they agree that the only play they have left is to race Don against Walter's horse in the big El Segundo horse race that's coming up and shame him publicly.
Speaker: And here we are in act two. Yeah. Now, now we get to the horse racing. that's right There's about 15 minutes left. Don says he's not much of a runner, but he can psych his opponents out with the gift of gab.
Speaker: So they sign Don up at the track the next day. When Walter finds out, he starts giving Fred and Don a hard time about it, being like, you guys suck.
Speaker: I'm better than you. I'm going to win. So Don goads him into, or Fred rather, goads him into betting his entire stable of horses against Don.
Speaker: So if Fred and Don win, he gets not only Walter's Championship horse, but also the delectable satin doll.
Speaker: Yes. Will now be Fred's property. Jeez. Got a a bit of a Diggsville scenario where it's someone conning someone into a bet.
Speaker: ah So. Diggstown. Diggstown, yeah. Now, unfortunately, every potential jockey that Fred interviews turns out to be a psycho. So Fred will have to ride Don himself.
Speaker: Don starts to doubt himself, but his father has been reincarnated as a horsefly. And he shows up and he gives Don a little classic Burgess Meredith style pep talk. And this fly puppet is incredible.
Speaker: It's pretty good. The Fly Puppet is from ah Christopher wall Wallace. It's Wallace, but with one L. Okay. ah Who did The Fly. oh small. Oh.
Speaker: Yeah. At least at the end of the credits, that's who it is credited to. Although, not in his Wikipedia. Hmm. Wow. Scholars, you have been remiss. Wikipedians, get to it.
Speaker: Surely one of you listens to the show But he also did Naked Lunch and Return of the Jedi. Oh, wow. Nice. And Gremlins. He's mostly known for Gremlins. Okay. Okay. I could see that.
Speaker: So the next day, it's the big race. There's a couple of jokes about how Don is an atypical name for a racehorse. And then they're off. Don hypnotizes one horse. He tells a Mexican. ah I would like to say that I managed to write down all the horses' names and numbers except for like two. Okay. can i Can I tell you are? please give us the roll. And if you can do it in the style of a horse announcer, that would be perfect. a Number one is Heavy Rains.
Speaker: ah ah Number two, we have Curiously. At number three or number four, I'm not certain which. It's never too early. okay Here comes number five. It's Pablo's Pride.
Speaker: and here's number six, Lord Kensington, the race, the horse in question for the plot. At number seven is cover the bet. And at number eight is Don.
Speaker: Don! Don! Don!
Speaker: So there you go I really tried to track that and it got a little tricky. Thank you. But we got there. So yeah, before they leave the gate, Don hypnotizes one of the other horses into falling asleep. Don can also apparently hypnotize horses at will.
Speaker: Uh, he tells Pablo's pride that he's going to call immigration on him and it arguably the most fucked up thing that he does in the entire movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he tells another couple of horses that there'll be turned to glue if they come in first.
Speaker: And, uh, then he tells another couple of a joke or two. They fall in a, and eventually by hook or by crook, he makes his way to the front of the pack. And it's a photo finish and he wins because Don has big buck teeth that cross the finish line first.
Speaker: So both heroes and villains have big buck teeth in this movie. That's, I think, an important lesson. Isn't it? Yeah. One of them is a horse, though. And Don's been so insecure about his teeth this whole time. They were the secret to his victory. They won. Yep.
Speaker: yeah
Speaker: Allison and Fred kiss. Everyone says, fuck you to Walter. And Don finally gets to go see a dentist as played by Gilbert Gottfried to take care of his messed up teeth.
Speaker: Also a really great special effect at that point. The whole horse mouth view. Yes. Very reminiscent of Little Shop of Horrors from that shot out the mouth. It's great.
Speaker: Final thoughts. Great movie. i i i Great might be... Well, let's settle it. Let's settle it. Greg, final thoughts. Five-star ratings, watchability and weirdness. What do you think? So, this is a tough one for me. Oh, really? Because... Well...
Speaker: Because I think, because I was, I'd seen it so many times, and because it's not trying to do anything too crazy or anything too wild, it just kind of passed through me.
Speaker: Like, I just, I didn't have a bad time watching it. I didn't really have a good time watching it. just had a time while watching it, more or less.
Speaker: And I don't regret it, but it was just, when it got done, it was like, okay, I'm On to the next. and that And that's, and so it's very difficult for me to to give it a rating. I think because it is so, because I feel almost nothing, I'm going to say three. That's reasonable. Because I because i didn't.
Speaker: Like, I keep it on in the background when it came on on Comedy Central for some reason. It's watchable enough, you know what I mean? it's Yeah. It's hard to say something against it other than the fact that it's just kind of doing what it's doing. Yeah.
Speaker: It is what it is. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of weird. um But I would say that it's more weird in the sense that, like, It doesn't really have like a plot.
Speaker: ah There's no real character development. ah It feels more just like a series of jokes, like a list of jokes that we're getting through. Yeah. Yeah. um And that's all kind of weird, but none of it is really that weird, which is kind of weird. So I'm going to say one and a half. Okay.
Speaker: Very reasonable. What about you, Anna, in terms of watchability and weirdness out of five stars?
Speaker: I'm going to give it a four for watchability. Okay. Saying that it was my first time watching it. I don't know, thinking about would I watch it again, like, tomorrow?
Speaker: I'd probably want to watch something else, but it's not something I would never watch again. um like i said, I enjoyed myself. um As for weirdness,
Speaker: yeah, I kind of agree with Greg that I don't think it's that weird. I think it's actually... the Honestly, the reason I referenced Rhubarb is it it feels to me like a very 50s or even earlier, like a thirty style comedy plot.
Speaker: like It's a very simple like guy inherits X and X allows this to happen and at the end, you know... he succeeds and gets the girl. Yeah. yeah um And that, you know, that's fundamentally not weird. That's, that's why it's great. That's with the the comfort of it. um So I'll go ahead and give it a, a one for weirdness. Okay. All very reasonable, all very well thought out. I'm in a very similar range as you guys smack dab in the middle for watchability. I gave it three and a half.
Speaker: I was initially at a three, but I'm bumping up a half star for what I'm going to be calling from here on out. Chris's delight. Yeah. And that's when the movie is under 85 minutes.
Speaker: You always get an extra half star and a certified Chris's delight. i i I did laugh out loud at least five times. ah That said, I also did not like watching the horse talk. I don't like watching a horse's mouth move. I don't like looking at its teeth and gums.
Speaker: It's all very uncanny and and unpleasant. ah so that also fed a little bit into my weirdness as well. Just staring at a horse's mouth so much is sort of an odd experience for the duration of a film.
Speaker: And yeah, also having Bobcat as your straight man, I think is a very strange decision. It does sort of be weird unmoor the film a little bit more and makes it closer to something like a UHF or a Pee Wee's Big Adventure where you are with sort of a strange guy as the center of the film, but he is also surrounded by strangeness. it it And it does...
Speaker: put it closer to that despite these sort of very structurally traditional comedy plot roots. um And also it's just kind of weird that it feels sort of cut to the bone. It feels like something has happened to this movie.
Speaker: You know what I mean? Yeah. What was your number? yeah Just a two. a little It's not that weird, but there's just several little isolated things. Also, weird for a movie to be about a guy that was traumatized by seeing a Sasquatch, but they never bring it up in the whole movie.
Speaker: It's edited out. What a shame. But you can still tell in the performance. Sharon's watchability and weirdness. What do you think? ah Watchability, probably three. I don't know what I was thinking as a kid. Whatever. Weirdness, also on one. It's almost like if you asked AI to write you a script about like 80s themed comedy with a horse and a guy like it just has like a checklist of things that this would happen in an 80s movie yeah including like the the ponytail that he had when she was like a successful yeah yeah like it was just so like check check check like i don't know it was kind of
Speaker: you know it's formulaic what is not a yeah it was formulaic was not offensive it whole bunch of tropes there were really funny spot like points in it i like the fly puppet probably too much um and i love bobcat he was in the credits as bob uh not bobcat and um i find him endearing i think he was chosen for kind of having this like Yes, it's a weird movie and things going on, but he's not annoying like Pee Wee Ernest or like one of those other types of characters where you're supposed to like be sympathetic for them and think they're sweet.
Speaker: But he's not annoying in that way. Like, sorry, Pee Wee, you're annoying. um so that you can actually believe that he kind of could get the girl, I guess. I don't know. I thought he was adorable growing up. I also had a big crush on Robin Williams, so like that's sort of my vibe. i mean, I ended up dating Chris at some point, so I like funny guys. yeah ah ah you know Yeah, it's not terribly weird overall. It's very PG. Yes. Kids could watch this easily.
Speaker: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, I was going to say that I might not watch it again until I have like 10 year old nieces staying or something like that. It's like that kind of movie. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Well, let's move on to act three of the show. I'm going to talk about a little trend in film. This should be a nice quick segment. So I'm going to stop rambling.
Speaker: Trends in film, they do happen, trends in film. Trends in film, that's the segment, trends in film.
Speaker: So what I did for this week's Trends in Film is I assembled a short list of films that were designed to launch film careers for stand-up comedians and failed.
Speaker: Okay. ah So this is just going to be like a remember a guy type segment. yeah So obviously we got hot to trot. Did not launch Bobcat Goldthwait into being a leaning man.
Speaker: Another classic of the genre, Chairman of the Board, Carrot Top. Yeah. You guys ever see Chairman of the Board? I'm kind of hoping no one would pick Chairman of the Board for this show, but we'll see what happens. Yeah, it's not a fun watch. It's not funny.
Speaker: Obviously this year you got the breadwinner with Nate Bergazzi. That's very topical, topical. Look at us being topical. We got to make sure we put that in the, uh, uh, show description that way. It'll, you know, hit that SEO, baby. We get topical. Yes. Someone's going to be searching podcast, Nate Bergazzi, and we'll be right there, baby.
Speaker: um Larry the Cable Guy, he had a couple of attempts, but his big one I think of as Health Inspector. was thinking Paul Blart, Mall Cotter. Well, Kevin James, I would say, had a mildly successful.
Speaker: I was thinking different people. I was getting Larry the Cable Guy and Kevin James. Oh, that would explain it. yeah My apologies, Kevin James. Yeah, my apologies, Larry the Cable Andrew Dice Clay had two notable attempts.
Speaker: ah The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, directed by Rennie Harlan, of course. And Brain Smasher, a love story directed by Albert Pion. So both of those directors that we have covered on the show. Wow. yeah Both directed Andrew Dice Clay vehicles.
Speaker: ah You've got also covered on the show She Devil with Roseanne Barr. Failed to launch her film. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that would count. Walk Like a Man with Howie Mandel, where he played a feral child that grew to adulthood and they tried to teach him how to be a human. It's weird. Yes.
Speaker: He's raised by wolves. You Pizza Man starring Bill Maher.
Speaker: bet that one's rough. Yeah, I bet. I feel like this is a list of movies that I like no exists, but I feel like there's not going to be anything that I've actually seen. none that and I think that is a great description of this list. I think most people, that's why these guys don't have film careers.
Speaker: ah You got to ah Penn and Teller get killed. with the I'm going to throw Penn and Teller in the mix. I think that counts. And they do get killed in the film. Spoiler alert, but it is spoiled by the title.
Speaker: li ah And then you got a very strange one, a one that I liked when I was a kid and I rewatched it back this year and it did not hold up. The Wrong Guys, which was trying to simultaneously launch Louis Anderson, Richard Lewis, Richard Belzer, Tim Thomerson, and Franklin AJ all at once.
Speaker: very and it was like taking all of their stand-up personas and then they all had to go on a camping trip together it was just a very weird movie that sounds rough uh and louis anderson was like ah ah they were all in a boy scout troop when they were young together and louis anderson still wants to be like an eagle scout now that he's an adult that's sort of the hook of what's going on weird movie yeah can you guys think of any that i forgot I was trying to.
Speaker: I mean, there are a bunch of like successful ones that are people who went on to be successes, but they weren't successful in that initial movie, like Rubber Face yeah for Jim Carrey. Oh, yeah. Or there was one that ah Adam Sandler had where he was working on a cruise ship or something.
Speaker: But. you know I'm trying to think of more female comics. Would you consider Ginny Garofalo as the truth about cats and dogs? Yes, I would. Yes, that's a good one. I like that movie. I'm thinking... Like Amy Schumer did Trainwreck, but has she had a leading vehicle since? No, no, I'm sure Amy Schumer. Well, she had a TV show. Yeah, but so did Roseanne. This would count. Amy Schumer probably has a movie that would fit that list. I had one a second ago and I lost it.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of smaller standard comedians or not smaller, but like ones that I don't know quite as well that probably have had this before. Where it's just like they made a movie, but no one really knows what it is because nobody saw it and we didn't really talk about it.
Speaker: Oh, but I don't know who that would be. I noticed they have Ellen DeGeneres in Mr. Right. Right. Mr. Wrong. Wrong or Mr. Right. I i think Mr. Wrong. wrong Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, Ellen DeGeneres also failed to cross over to the big screen. Well, good job, everyone. We made a list of guys and villains. Yeah. Now, do you guys want to play a game about a guy?
Speaker: Yes. All right, then we're going to play this guy played that guy.
Speaker: This guy played that guy. Yeah! This guy played that guy! This guy played that guy! In a film!
Speaker: That's right, we're playing This Guy Played That Guy. And we're doing it with the films of Dabney Coleman. Yes. Yes. Dabney Coleman, you might know from War Games or Cloak and Dagger or Nine to Five, but we're not talking about those movies.
Speaker: We're talking about nine other films. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a title. I'm going to give you a brief description of the film. I want you to buzz in because I'm going to give you three names. One of those names will be a character played by Dabney Coleman.
Speaker: ah You'll buzz in by saying your own name. If your opponent gets the question wrong, you will have the opportunity to steal. Is everybody ready? yeah yeah Yes.
Speaker: Okay. Question number one, hands on buzzers. The president's plane is missing.
Speaker: Incompetent. Oh, no. yeah um Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't worry. This is, that was just the title of the film. This is just a game. I wasn't reading a news alert on my phone.
Speaker: Incompetent vice president, Kermit Madigan takes control of the government after the president's plane mysteriously disappears with him on board. Did Dabney Coleman play vice president, Kermit Madigan, Senator Burt Hayes or Colonel, I'm sorry, Senator Burt Haynes or were Colonel Doug Henderson.
Speaker: Sharon. Greg. Greg? yeah it Kermit? What did the Kermit one? What was it again? Vice President Kermit Madigan? Vice President Kermit Madigan.
Speaker: No, I'm sorry. It wasn't Vice President Kermit Madigan. Anna or Sharon, can you steal? Sharon. Sharon? The Colonel? No, it wasn't Colonel Doug Anderson. It was Senator Burt Haynes. Anna gets the point.
Speaker: Oh. Congratulations, Milo. I was also going to guess the Colonel. you want me deduct point? The Colonel sounds like a bad guy. Colonels always sound like bad guys. It's an evil sounding rank. I don't trust he always plays guys. It is.
Speaker: Question number two. Black Fist. To make money, a Los Angeles street fighter goes to work for gangsters. Did Nabney Coleman play Logan?
Speaker: Ingo or Heineken? Anna. Anna? Heineken. That's correct. Off to an early lead, my heart.
Speaker: He looks like a Heineken. suits him. Like, that suits him. Yeah. Especially with the teeth. Well, he probably didn't have those at the time. Maybe he did. Question number three.
Speaker: Must be Santa. through good Through a cosmic mix-up, a shiftless but good-hearted man is accidentally tagged to be the new Santa Claus after the old Santa dies.
Speaker: The gruff, no-nonsense manager of the North Pole is decidedly unhappy with this selection. Did Dabney Coleman play Tuttle, Farthing, or Previous Santa?
Speaker: Sharon. Greg. Sharon? Tuttle. You're correct. Sharon, you're on the board. Yay.
Speaker: Question number four. Judicial consent. Nice. Judge Gwen Warwick becomes involved in a murder trial she's been assigned.
Speaker: Her marriage is on the rocks and the murder victim is rumored to be her former lover.
Speaker: Did Dabney Coleman play Charles Mayron, Judge Polen, or Lieutenant Kurtz? Greg. Greg?
Speaker: Lieutenant Kurtz. No, I'm sorry. He wasn't Lieutenant Kurtz. Sharon or Anna, can you steal? Anna. Anna?
Speaker: um Mayron. Charles Mayron? Yes. You're correct.
Speaker: Was he the former lover? i don't think so. I think he was just some guy.
Speaker: question That's all DC for you. yeah Just some guy. I mean, you can put him anywhere and he's going to crush.
Speaker: Meet the Applegates. Disguising themselves after the typical suburban family, a colony of insects moves from South America to the U.S., hoping to get access to our stock of nuclear weapons.
Speaker: Did Dabney Coleman play Clem Shepard, Sheriff Heidegger, or Aunt Bee? Greg. Greg?
Speaker: Sheriff Heidegger. These are about insects that poses humans to steal nuclear weapons? I've seen this. Wow. Is it animated? No. you One of the insects Ed Begley Jr. What's the name of this movie? It says Meet the Applegates. I might have it on the Plex.
Speaker: Okay. I'll double check. anyway, I said the thing that I said. You said Sheriff Heidegger. That's correct. That is not correct. correct Damn it. Anna or Sharon? Sharon.
Speaker: Sharon? He's Aunt Bee? He is Aunt Bee. The insects did not understand gender.
Speaker: I assume. Haven't seen. Well, we music they have different ones. It's true. that Why would they understand her human gender? Question number six. Rolling thunder.
Speaker: A recently returned Vietnam veteran loses his family and his right hand in a home invasion. And he seeks retribution against those responsible.
Speaker: Did Dabney Coleman play Maxwell, Texan, or Automatic Slim?
Speaker: sarah Anna. Greg? Automatic Slim. No, I'm sorry, Greg. I had i know. That one was the Greg bait for sure. And I loved every moment of it.
Speaker: Sharon or Anna? Anna. Anna? The Texan. No, I'm sorry you played Maxwell. With that, Anna and Sharon are tied up. Uh-oh. Oh, no.
Speaker: Question number seven. Giving it up. A womanizing New York ad man attempts to cure his sex addiction for a shot at true love.
Speaker: Hmm. Did Dabney Coleman play Dr. Hubbins? Jonathan Gallant? Or Ralph Gagante?
Speaker: Sharon. Sharon? I just want to say Gagante. Very understandable, but not correct. Greg or Anna? Anna? Dr. Hubbins? He did not play Dr. Hubbins. Greg, you're on the board.
Speaker: You could say still tie this up. We could have a three-way tie. Could we? We could. Okay. Question number eight. Hard four.
Speaker: hu When legendary gambler Golden Hands Seagal suffers a fatal heart attack at the craps table, his grandson and his grandson's best friend only have 24 hours to get the body back to New Jersey for burial.
Speaker: Did Damney Coleman play Golden Hands Seagal, Bix Carew, or Spray Loomis?
Speaker: Sharon. Sharon? What was the second one? pick Bix Carew? Bix Carew. It is not Bix Carew. Greg or Anna, can you steal?
Speaker: ah Greg. Greg? Who was the first guy, the one who dies? Golden Hand Seagal? Golden Hand Seagal. Dabney Coleman was Golden Hand Seagal. He was not Golden Hand Seagal, Greg. It's not for the tie. It's not for the tie. Never mind. Strike that. Sorry. Strike that.
Speaker: Anna, you get the point. You're out in front. It was Spray Loomis. okay The man's first name was Spray. He looks like a spray. Sure. Like the lum... I'm imagining the spray they use to detect like blood and... Oh, luminol?
Speaker: Luminol. That's what I was thinking. I was like, that has to be fake. No, that's old Spray Lumis. Question number nine, last one. Devil's food.
Speaker: A television news anchor sells her soul to the devil to get her yo-yoing weight under control. Yeah. Was that Andrew Burns?
Speaker: Seymour Kecker? Or Deep Voice? Anna! Greg? Seymour Kecker. That's correct, Greg.
Speaker: i'm on the Seymour Kecker diet! Hey!
Speaker: Congratulations, Anna. You are this week's big winner. Oh, well, congratulations to me. Good job. Good job. Another slam dunk.
Speaker: Speaking of winners, it's time for the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Now you're messing with a...
Speaker: Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
Speaker: Congratulations to all the nominees.
Speaker: That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The awards that we give out to those little people, places, moments, and details that make a bad movie so good.
Speaker: Greg, do you have a Batty Award? I do. But before I get to my Batty Award, we spoke briefly before this about I said that this movie made me laugh one time. I remember the one time it made me laugh out loud, and that was the alarm.
Speaker: when he When Dabney Coleman crosses the room, they're like, you've crossed the line. And mr it was just like, for some reason, that got me. okay I don't know why. and it's not like It's not like the rest of it was like completely unfunny or something, but that was the only time I was just like, ha or something. you know Anyway,
Speaker: But another moment that I loved, it's a dialogue exchange that I had to write down, so I got it word for word because I just i really liked it a lot. It's near the end um when they've agreed to do the horse race. Bobcat Goldthwait is like barbecuing some hot dogs in a trailer park.
Speaker: The horse is there, and the horse says, look, I'm not stupid, Fred. I know i can't actually outround I can't actually outrun those other horses. And Bobcat Goldthwait says...
Speaker: Well, that's the way a horse race is usually won.
Speaker: And there was just something about that exchange that I just really, really liked. Yeah. And so I just wanted to ah put a little pin on that one.
Speaker: Well, I appreciate you doing Anna, do you have a batty award? Yes, I do. One of the attendees of Don's Animal Party is a white duck, and that white duck is revealed to talk like Donald, and that delighted me to no end.
Speaker: Shout out to the white duck's Donald Duck impression. Mm-hmm. I am giving my baddie award to ah my favorite sight gag, which was, of course, Dabney Coleman's big old buck teeth.
Speaker: he Match with these thick like statement glasses that hey was wearing. It really made him look like a doofy little jerk. It was so funny. And he found like different ways to hold his mouth and like do business with his buck teeth. So you could look at them in different.
Speaker: It was just great. I, I, yeah, I loved these comedy buck teeth. Sharon, do you have a batty word? I didn't think about this ahead of time. ah i do love the pigeon.
Speaker: There's a whole scene where he has to escape out the bathroom to get to his office and he does like one of those classic like high rise building like, oh no, things. And then there is a classic pigeon that's like, whoop, whoop.
Speaker: on his head. and ah he does, he does disrespect the pigeon. They are good, good animals. It's true. Shout out. He was a good pigeon. That pigeon was a great actor. Classic like pigeon moment, I guess. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, you needed that pigeon there up on that. You would have been missing the pigeon on the ledge if he wasn't there. And we would have been missing you, Sharon, if you hadn't come back to the show. Thank you so much for coming back on.
Speaker: do you have anything to plug? Do you have anything going on? Do you want people to follow you? No, follow me. Don't follow Sharon. I like to know you've been anonymous my whole life. I do always want to plug Spay and neuter your pets, adopt cats, and my new one, make a frigging will before you die, please. Ooh, there's an idea. If you're over 40, have a will.
Speaker: Okay. Okay, well, we'll get to work. Listeners, you get to work. Listeners, come back next week if you're still alive. We'll be joined by Mr. J.J. Birch, the researcher for Blank Check. We're going to be talking about Uncle Uncle drew Very excited to dig into Uncle Drew. No what that is. Well, that means you probably...
Speaker: like the rest of us on the show, didn't like basketball in 2018. Okay.
Speaker: Okay. So listeners come back to a very rare sports episode of your favorite bad movie podcast. Yeah. And don't forget to leave us five stars.
Speaker: Follow the show. Tell a friend about the show. Hmm. or and yet find us on social media. We're on Instagram. We are on blue sky. You can also ah come join our discord where we're watching movies. We're watching Tyler Perry's the oval, the craziest show you've ever seen in your fucking life. It's so good.
Speaker: We're also, uh, uh, we've got a sub stack where we've got writing coming out. We've got tons of stuff. Hit the link tree in the show notes. Um, And come back next week.
Speaker: And until then, be good and goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.
Speaker: That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should
