#273. 'Saturday Night'
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The main event is Jason Reitman's Saturday Night, dramatizing the chaotic 90 minutes before the first-ever broadcast of Saturday Night Live in 1975, with Gabriel LaBelle playing a young Lorne Michaels. Sonny found it amusing rather than lovable, singling out an annoying writerly tic of characters constantly announcing how much time is left before airtime (he compares it to a Transformers countdown sequence) but praising the camera's constant "Brownian motion" energy, while criticizing Reitman for wanting everyone — even nominal villains like Willem Dafoe's NBC executive and JK Simmons's Milton Berle — to be likable, with Chevy Chase getting an undeserved hero moment. Mike, a self-described full-blown SNL nerd, loved the film as "a tray of member berries," pushing back on Sonny's read of Milton Berle by arguing the old-guard TV showman is meant as a genuine foil representing everything the young SNL cast was rebelling against, and geeking out over cameos (Nicholas Braun playing both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, Tracy Letts as Herb Sargent, an uncannily accurate Billy Crystal lookalike) and Garrett Morris's mini-arc about being pigeonholed despite his operatic training. JVL, who missed the screening while traveling, peppers them with questions about Lorne Michaels's ruthless bureaucratic reputation and gets Mike and Sonny arguing over whether Andy Kaufman is best understood as an abrasive Steve Martin. The episode opens with its usual long banter stretch: JVL recounts discovering Christian Brothers Academy's absurd 50-year cross-country dynasty at a meet in Van Cortlandt Park, Sonny and JVL debate which books are appropriate to assign in high school (landing on the 1984/Brave New World/Fahrenheit 451 troika and dismissing Dune as "gussied-up YA"), and Mike recalls writing Adam Sandler-style song parodies of Camus's The Stranger in AP English and returning from a family wedding in Philadelphia where he learned his cousins never knew he calls their grandmother "Grandma" instead of "Nana." Box-office talk covers Terrifier 3's surprisingly strong opening and Sonny's case that the low-budget gorefest franchise is tracking more like John Wick than a typical diminishing-returns horror sequel, plus Joker: Folie à Deux's brutal 81% second-weekend drop and the odd story of Christopher Nolan cashing a seven-figure Warner Bros. goodwill check before taking his next film to Universal anyway. The episode closes on a long tangent sparked by JVL's other podcast project on the WWE Vince McMahon documentary, debating the ethics of pro wrestlers slapping John Stossel and choking out Richard Belzer on live television in the 1980s.
From the show notes
Plus some other stuff.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00You know, I was thinking, why don't we punt? We should run the dress rehearsal and claw back a win next Saturday. We can't, Dick. It's a live show. We're just not ready. Doesn't matter that we're ready. It matters that it's 11:30. That's when we go on.
Sonny00:00:16Lauren, all I'm trying to do is give you advice.
Guest00:00:19It's in everyone's best interest, mainly yours. Sorry, was that a threat?
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I'm Mike Warren and you're not joining me as always are my two co-hosts who would like to feed your fingertips to the Wolverines, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com where you can comment on all our new episodes every Friday morning. Join the conversation only at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family. If you like a podcast. The dudes chatting and talking about movies. Some of which are in the theater. Sometimes I check out Sub-Beacon.com. Tell them to check out Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about Saturday night later on in the show. But first JVL, I'm coming to you, man. What is going on with you?
JVL00:01:21Very quick because we got to cut down this dudes chatting thing. No, no more than three minutes on this. I was at a cross-country meet over the weekend. It is the largest high school cross-country meet on the East Coast. It was up in the Bronx at Van Cortlandt Park more than 200 schools. There are 4,000 kids multi-state multi-state, right? And what is interesting about this is the tent for my kids school was like two tents away from Christian Brothers Academy. This this name will mean nothing to you guys, but it immediately jumped out to me because when I was in high school in New Jersey Christian Brothers or CBA as they were referred to was a level of cross-country dominance, which couldn't really be understood like they were just they weren't it was bizarre because they you know, they were good at many sports and all boys prep school so they can recruit but not like cross-country and and so I was a little bit interested. I was like, oh, I wonder if they're still good. I wonder if the tradition is coming has been 25 years. Right and the Christian Brothers Academy. So the way these things work in in big meets is you have five runners and your five runners get to the number of points for the place they finish and then all the teams add up the points that their five runners have for the meet and the lowest score wins. Right, so this is my got it. So you're in a race with like 2,000 kids. And if you come in last, you give your team 2,000 points. Right, so you see it like there are many, many, many, many points and we had a Christian Brothers Academy finished with 29 points and how many kids are running five kids five kids. They were all in the top 15 out of again, 2,000 runners and the second place team finished with like 280. So I was like, oh, so they're still really good. They're still very dominant. And I went looking and I just went down a rabbit hole of this school's cross-country program. They have not lost a dual meet, which is a head-to-head cross-country meet since 1973. The in New Jersey, the way the way cross-country is structured is. You know, in every every state does high school sports idiosyncratically in New Jersey, we separate out the public schools from the parochial schools because there were a ton, a ton, a ton of Catholic schools and they can recruit, but the public schools can't. And so we separate them each of those buckets by size. So like four public school groups and two parochial school groups. And again, the idea is to have sort of fairness. So, you know, you don't have a 2000 kid high school competing against a 400 kid high school. Yeah. Anyway, so the state championship produces a champion for each of these six groups. And then the week after the state champions, the six champions go and race in what is called the meat of champions. And New Jersey has run the meat of champions 43 times and CBA has won it like 29 times. And so basically they are the Yankees from 1920 to 1955. Right. Right. That's that's what this school's bizarre cross-country program is. And I was just tickled by it. I don't know why. It's amazing. Question, JBL. Yeah.
Mike00:05:08Because presumably a school with this kind of record in cross-country, like it's a recruitment operation. They're recruiting for a parochial school, the best cross-country runner. So my question is, what is in it for Christian Brothers Academy to be so dominant in? A sport that I'm sorry to say, JBL, I know, like, no, no, kind of, kind of a C level sport.
Sonny00:05:36I would, I would actually, I would actually go, I would actually go, I want to go like one order beyond that. Like what's in it for the kids, right? Like if you get, if you're, if you're like, there's, it's not like you go to a good baseball school and you learn to play baseball and like, maybe you get, maybe you, maybe you play professional baseball. Like what's the best? The best that you can be with a cross country, like maybe you're running in like the Boston marathon.
JVL00:06:05Like, do you guys, you guys did not, did not run cross country. You don't understand the type of kids who run cross country. The kids type of kids who run cross country, the type of kids who are like, oh yeah, someday I want to be an electrical engineer. Nobody who's running cross country, they, they, you know, the, the joke is that it's all, you know, the, the. The high school varsity cross country team at any given school had probably has a higher SAT average than the robotics team. Yeah. It just attracts, you know, like smart, hardworking kids, both boys and girls. And, uh, you know, there's nothing, I mean, you're, you're just, you're really gifted. I mean, they're, they're kid who won this race. He ran a four Oh eight miles, a junior last year in spring track. That's fast, right? Four Oh eight is very fast. Four Oh eight is very fast. Very, very fast. I don't know much about running, but. So, you know, like, but, but no, there's no.
Sonny00:07:04All he's got to do is shave two seconds off each lap.
JVL00:07:07Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, but the answer is there's no, there's no golden apple at the end of this stuff. Um, these are just, they, they like to run and they get to go to this legendary school and be around other good runners and good coaches and, uh, you know, someday they'll go to MIT.
Sonny00:07:23But like, my point is like, it's not like, I mean, I guess, I guess everybody likes to win and be part of it. Be part of a winning program, but like, you don't have to be on a winning program to be a very good cross country runner like that.
JVL00:07:36Correct. No, but you get to that brings me back to my question. No, because they get, when you get a bunch of top runners together in the same place training together, uh, like, I mean, there's a reason that there are colleges. I mean, the college thing is different because there are colleges which are dominant because of the physical location of the college. So like high altitude colleges tend to have great distance programs. Surprise, surprise, surprise.
Sonny00:07:59That makes sense. Yeah.
JVL00:08:01But, uh, yeah, anyway, it's just, I don't want to spend any more time on this, but just that I thought it was funny that this, this little thing that I remembered from my high school days and I was like, Oh, I wonder if they're still good. The answer is I came when I encountered CBA in the early 1990s, I was actually 20 years into their gigantic winning streak.
Mike00:08:24More things change. That's all. How are you boys? Thank you, JVL. Sonny. What's going on with you?
Sonny00:08:30Not a whole lot. It's we, we had an interesting chat in our, in the work Slack today about, uh, I don't even know how this came up, but we were talking about, we were talking about, uh, books for high schoolers. Basically like what did, what, what did we enjoy encountering in high school and what didn't we, I JBL, how did this come about? What was the, what was the.
JVL00:08:51Somebody, somebody remarked that they had first read the great Gatsby and junior. Oh yeah.
Sonny00:08:58Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
JVL00:08:59Uh, which I think is my unpopular opinion is that, uh, you shouldn't ask junior high school and high school kids to read books that are going to be beyond them, that they can't really appreciate till they're grownups.
Sonny00:09:13But I think, see, I disagree with this because I think that's true of essentially all literature. I think like any, any book that is worth its salt will not make sense to you if you don't have, or at least parts of it will not make sense to you if you do not have life experiences. But like at the same time. You know, again, I, my, my, my favorite answer for this is always like the, the 10th grade light alt history Troika, which is like 1984 brave new world Fahrenheit four 51, which are all like, which are all like, like they're, they're light sci-fi in a way, but they're not really sci-fi.
JVL00:09:51They're, but they're idea books more than their idea of social commentary books.
Sonny00:09:55Yeah, but they're, they're social, right. But at the same time, like. Can you really understand 1984 if you don't understand like the history of post-war Europe? Like, I don't, I don't know that you can.
JVL00:10:07That's easier than understanding like the type of people who make up a British village in Middlemarch.
Sonny00:10:12Yeah, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would never give a kid Middlemarch to read. That's insane. In high school? No way. No, I've like, I've still never read Middlemarch. I wouldn't give me Middlemarch to read. If somebody was like, somebody was like, Sonny, you want to read Middlemarch? I'd be like, no thanks. I got like six Stephen King books. What about Moby Dick?
JVL00:10:29Where are you on Moby Dick?
Sonny00:10:30I have not read Moby Dick cover to cover. I have read, we, we read like parts of it for AP English comp one year. It was like, or AP English literature. It was like, we just, we didn't, we didn't read, we didn't even read the whole thing. I, I mean, it's just.
Mike00:10:46So what's your answer, Sonny?
Sonny00:10:47Well, so my answer, well, my answer is those, those three. It's like that. Those are, those are like the, those are good.
JVL00:10:54That's a great answer.
Sonny00:10:55That those are, those are good to give kids, but there were, there were some answers that were getting. That I like, I, I had to stop and think about like catch 22, right? Catch 22 is a, is a, uh, on the one hand is like, it's a, it's a good book to read because it's, it's a good book for kids to read in the sense that it is well-written and like kind of funny and will keep their attention. Um, but also I, I don't think it works necessarily as a book for kids because you don't, I, if you've, I don't know, but again, I like haven't been through war and I, I still enjoy it. So I appreciate it.
JVL00:11:29Dune works for kids. It's literature-ish.
Sonny00:11:32Well, Dune, that's because Dune is just gussied up YA. Like Dune is, like I have, I, I have long argued this and people yell at me about it, but like Dune, Dune is a book for, Dune is, Dune is just, it's, it's, it's Ender's game. But there's no literary. It's, it's Ender's, it's Ender's game for a 14 year old. Like Ender's game is for a 12 year old. Dune is for a 14 year old.
JVL00:11:55Yeah.
Sonny00:11:55Uh, what would you say?
Mike00:11:59From high school.
JVL00:12:00I, uh, I mean, I think that Shakespeare works at every level because there's so much that you can mine from it, whether or not you can get all of it. Um, like Romeo and Juliet and also Shakespeare has just the language, right? I mean, you can just pick, pick two stanzas out of it and look at like, I am fortune's fool and the meter and how the.
Mike00:12:28I don't know. I mean, you'd look at it the way you would a painting. Yeah. Or, you know, memorizing, um, you know, Hamlet's monologue or something. Yeah. You get to appreciate fascinating.
JVL00:12:38Othello's fascinating. Um, I, I, I like all this. I will say one thing about, I have a deep memory of, uh, Moby Dick. Moby Dick is, I believe the only book that I was assigned in high school that I didn't read because I hated it so much. I read like one chapter of it and, uh, it was the only book I did the CliffsNotes of. And I remember whatever book we read after that, like I got a bad grade on a quiz about, and I went up to my, my teacher, Mrs. Cotson afterwards. And I was like, look, I am sorry, but I got like an 85 on this quiz and I read the whole thing and I really enjoyed it. And Moby Dick, which was two weeks ago, I am telling you, I read one chapter and the rest of that was CliffsNotes and I got a hundred on the quiz. Something is wrong. Here. And she was like, you're telling me you read the CliffsNotes. I was like, yes, because I'm interested in justice. And then she switched the two grades.
Mike00:13:37Oh, I'm sorry.
Sonny00:13:38I put the wrong, the wrong. And she gave you a zero on Moby Dick.
Mike00:13:43Um, well, what is your answer here, Michael? So, so my, uh, say catch her in the rye, say catch her in the rye.
JVL00:13:49No.
Mike00:13:49Oh, even as a teenager, I was like, so I was rolling my eyes at catch her in the rye. I was like, really? So into it. Um, that, that's right. So into it.
Sonny00:13:58Were you actually, were you actually that, uh, yeah, that tracks. Yeah. I, I have still never read it. I still have never, I, I, I said, I admitted this in the slack.
JVL00:14:08I like older than 14 and read it. Totally.
Sonny00:14:11That's, that's the thing is that like, I, I didn't, I didn't read it in high school. I didn't read it in middle school. I didn't read it in college. And now like everybody, I like, I feel like if I, if I tried to read it now, I would be unable to separate it from all of the discourse surrounding it. And I'm just like, I have no interest in any of that.
Mike00:14:28So it's, it's like, it's like when I found out that my wife had not seen Jim Carrey's 1994 classic, the mask. And I was like, oh, well we have to watch it because it's the mask. And it's like, I, you know, and then you saw it realized when I saw it, when I was eight years old, uh, and she was no, no, because we didn't get to that point. Cause she was like, no, it's going to be stupid. And I'm not going to watch it. And she's, she's a very wise woman. So, um, we did not rewatch it, but maybe I shouldn't revisit it. Um, just hold that memory of Cameron Diaz.
Sonny00:14:55I'll tell you, tell you one good reason to revisit it is Cameron Diaz. I watched, I rewatched that movie long ago, maybe like, maybe like four or five years ago. Cause it was, it was on, you know, HBO or something. And I was, uh, and I was just like, oh yeah, she's attractive. I can see why she became a big star for, for a long period of time. That's an attractive lady in that movie.
Mike00:15:19I think she's like back to book. Sorry. Back to put out that fire. Put out that fire, Michael. Um, no, Mike. So my favorite, uh, for, for. For a long time, and I, I think I would still really love it, uh, was, uh, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
?00:15:36Wow.
Mike00:15:37Uh, I. As a high school? Got attached. Yes. Um, I got really attached to the like Christian existentialism, uh, stuff. I mean, like, so it's like, there's this existentialist thing going on and we had read some other existentialist texts like, um, The Stranger by Albert Camus. Um, which I also loved. Um, but, uh, but Crime and Punishment just, of course, it just spoke to me.
JVL00:16:06Of course, Sonny, you can see it, can't you? Why? Mike Warren with his guitar sitting on the corner of his bed with a couple of girls up in his room. And he's just strumming and talking a little bit about French existentialism. And those girls are just wrecking their panties.
Sonny00:16:24He's a 17 year old.
Mike00:16:26Mike Warren is like, yeah, ladies.
Sonny00:16:28There's enough of me to go around with a thumb and a forefinger.
Mike00:16:32He's like, this is where your image falls apart because it wasn't the French. It was the Christian existentialism of the backwards Russians that really appealed to
Sonny00:16:41me. See, that's like my hair was like this.
Mike00:16:44I was like, no, you don't understand. You must do the right thing. Even when.
Sonny00:16:48Yeah, he's chugging. He's taking shots of cappuccinos and he's like, you don't understand.
Mike00:16:54The other thing I really loved about it was the way that the names. Of the characters had had like a meaning and, you know, we kind of dove into the etymology of of all their names, which have likes would be what, you know, is lost, obviously, in the translation, but would have some kind of, you know, almost like trigger a meaning in a Russian reader's mind. And I just thought that was really I thought that was really neat. It was kind of one of the first books I came across where like an author was making an intentional decision to name a character to. To define, you know, describe the trait of that character in a in a kind of winky way. So I love that. I love that book. I don't know how I'd feel about it if I read it, but I read a lot of Russian literature in college, Brothers and Sisters by by Turgenev and and others. So I don't know. I like the Russian literature. What can I say? Um, but speaking of the guitar, I I did do for a project, a running project in AP literature. Um, song parodies of the books that we read. Like we had to do some kind of creative Adam Sandler.
JVL00:18:04You were your AP English is Adam Sandler.
Mike00:18:06So, so here, so here's, I'll just tell you this and then we'll move on. But, uh, so how much do I have to pay you to recreate one of them for me? Oh, I could, you know, you know, uh, how much you remember the lyrics? I mean, I probably could. I probably could for this one, for this one, which was a, um, the irony of this is I didn't realize at the time that. This, the actual song that I was parodying was based on an actual book, uh, which was counting crows ranking, which is, uh, which is from the Saul Bellow, uh, you know, Mr. Henderson, the ranking. Um, but I didn't, I didn't get that, but I applied, uh, I applied the story of the stranger by Camus to that. And it was great. And, and what was really neat was we had a, um, we had just built at our high school. They had built kind of an additional high school. Um, on like attached to our high school, which was a technical high school where like you could kind of start moving in the technical college direction by taking classes over there. Um, and it was brand new and they kind of didn't know what to do with it all. And they had a, um, audio recording studio over there. So I got to go over there and like record. And so I think it's like on a CD or something somewhere. So, um, anyway, that's amazing.
JVL00:19:20If you can unearth that, I would be so, so excited to listen to that. We'll see.
Mike00:19:28Um, uh, the stranger, um, that's basically what it was. Uh, why don't we just move on? Oh, no, you're supposed to talk about what I did. Okay. This will be really quick.
Sonny00:19:40So what have you done?
Mike00:19:41What have, what's your, so I went, I went to a family wedding in, uh, in Fluffia, uh, last, last weekend, uh, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Fluffia. Um, it was, it was very nice. So, but, but I, I, I learned something. And my, and my cousins learned something too, which I think is very funny. So I'm the oldest of 10 on this side is on my mom's side, um, oldest of 10 cousins. And, um, and our, our grandmother is still alive. In fact, the, the wedding was on her, on her birthday. Um, so there was some kind of, you know, celebrations of that as well, along with this wedding. And, uh, my, I knew this about my cousins. So my, my brother and I, the first and second grandchildren call my grandmother, grandma, she's grandma. And we were the first, we were the OG. Now we've known for years that the rest of our cousins on this side, don't call her grandma. They call her Nana, um, which always graded on us. Like, it was just like, ugh, like how can they call it? Like, she's not Nana. She's grandma. Like, like you people are imposters. Um, but my cousins who call her Nana did not learn until this weekend that we call that we don't call her that as well. And it like blew their minds. They're like, they're, they're like, wait, what do you call her?
JVL00:21:08I was like, grandma family is its own language. Yeah.
Mike00:21:13Yes. And apparently we are, we are like the, the offshoot, like, uh, you know, the offshoot, uh, Southern German version where everybody else is speaking low German and we're speaking high German. Um, and it's actually. Uh, unintelligible, you know? Um, and, and that's like, that's, that's kind of what I learned. I, it was, but I was floored by how, how they couldn't conceive of it. And yeah, I thought it was funny anyway. Um, anyway, that's, uh, that's let's, uh, let's move on here. Uh, box office number one at the box office, uh, which, uh, by the way, box office mojo refers to it as indigenous people's day. Again, very helpful. They're number one, terrifier. Tell that to the, I ties up by me. It's anti-Italian discrimination is what it is. Uh, terrifier three, number one at the box office.
JVL00:22:09Uh, uh, what is that first week? Terrifier three. That has to be a Walmart direct to video DVD. That can't be a theatrical release feature. What is it?
Sonny00:22:19Sunny? So Tara, the terrifier series is actually fascinating in the sense that it is one of the, one of the only. Only grassroots success, like true indie grassroots successes of recent, recent memory. Uh, so like the first terrifier, um, so this, there, there's this character, his name is art, the clown. He's like a, he's got, he's like a, uh, he wears like the white grease paint and he's got, he's a kind of a mime clown. Uh, but he's also killer. He's murder. And he looks like a French clown. He first shows up in. Uh, as a, as a segment in a, um, in a horror, horror anthology called all hollows Eve, I believe is his first appearance. Uh, and people really liked, people really liked the design of him. And he's like, he's like kind of silly and also ridiculously brutal. Like the whole, the whole gist of this series is like this clown does like pranks and gags and also like skins people alive. Like that's like the, that's like the, his thing. So the first. The first, the first terrifier comes out and it, uh, it is kind, it's kind of episodic. It's kind of like a, it's almost like a self-contained anthology where like a bunch of people are essentially being, it's, it's a, it's a slasher film kind of, but it's, it's not quite a slasher film, but it's close enough to, it's like, anyway, it's like a slasher anthology almost where he is, he's the, the character running through it. Um, again, this, I'm not describing this very well, but that's basically what, what the first. One is the second one. So, and now that movie does, okay, it does, it does a lot of business on VOD DVD. Uh, it does very well in home video. It didn't, it didn't get much of a release. I don't think, uh, in, in theaters a few years later, terrifier two comes out and this came out two years ago and terrifier two is unrated. Uh, it is, it's distributed by like synodime or something and bloody disgusting, which is a horror brand. Like a competitor to Fangoria and it does big business. I mean, it's like $500,000 movie that grosses $10 million in theaters. Like that's big, that's a big, that's a big, that's big business. I mean, that's a, that's a huge win. And, and part of it was, it was driven by, um, it was funded in part by a, um, a, uh, GoFundMe. The, the guy who directed it, Damien Leone put up a GoFundMe. It was like, we need, we need art, we need art, the clown fans to come and support this thing. And they raised like $600,000 or something like that. Um, and so they, they, you know, they turn that around and make Terrifier 2 and that it's, it's an enormous hit. Despite the fact that it's two and a half hours long, it's, it's a two and a half hour killer clown slasher movie. None of those things make any sense in, in like taken separately.
JVL00:25:20Is this like Roger Corman production levels? Can you paint a little picture about what the.
Sonny00:25:25I would say, no, no, I would say it's, it's, it's a, they are. They're competently, they're competently made. Um, you can see it's low budget. The, it's your, the, the actors are no name individuals and like rough around the edges in certain cases. But the lead girl, the like final girl is very good and very, very cute, you know, as you would expect. Um, and, uh, and, but, but again, the big draw here, Chris Jericho's in it for like a scene. Uh, but like, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the draw of these movies is like the unrelenting gore. When the violence happens, it's, it's like, I rewatched the second one last night because I'm going to watch the third one tomorrow, I think. And like, uh, but like it is, I mean, it's really like grotesquely violent. I, when I say like people get skinned alive, I'm not exaggerating. It's like real, it's real horror show stuff. Um, and that is what, that's what the audience. Of this movie really want. It's really, it's really like you guys would not enjoy it.
JVL00:26:26I don't think even my really for fan service for gore hounds, very much a gore hound movie.
Sonny00:26:33If you were, if you were done by studio films anymore, it, it, this, again, these are unrated. Like the studios don't release unrelated, unrated films anymore. Like these, that they just don't exist. And so the third one comes out, uh, it comes out this weekend. And again, it's, it's, it's not crowdfunded, but it's very unrated. It's very low budget. It's like $2 million, which like even bloom house doesn't make $2 million movies anymore. Like the $2 million is nothing. That's a zero. That's essentially $0. Um, and it opens your iPhone and friends. I mean, more, more or less. So, and that, and terrifier two opens to $20 million this weekend about that. Right. Wasn't that, wasn't that the number? Yeah.
Mike00:27:1421 million. Yeah.
Sonny00:27:1621 million. So 20, 20, well, is that over the four day? 21.
Mike00:27:20It was, yeah, over the four, over the four day.
Sonny00:27:21Yeah. So it opens, it opens to $21 million over the four day, which is, again, that's an enormous number. Like just for, just for context here, you know, well, yeah, it's 10 X the budget, but also just, just for context, you know, if you may, if a 24 released a movie that opened to $21 million, that would be like the 15th highest grossing a 24 movie, you know, like
JVL00:27:46that's a domestic total and Joker too.
Sonny00:27:49It no way. No. It might, it might. So, I mean, it depends on what kind of, like, it depends on, it depends on how front loaded it is. I mean, I, I could see it becoming a real word of mouth thing. It's adding theaters in its second weekend, which, you know, suggests that theater owners believe that there's some, some room to run here, but you know, look, it's, it's, it's a huge, huge success. No matter how you slice it, it's a, it's an enormous success for, uh, for, for its creators and, um, kind of for, for everyone.
JVL00:28:21And like, look. Like, this is the sort of thing that happens. That's good for the sickos.
Sonny00:28:24This is, this is the sort of thing that happens with, with horror movies, you know, pretty, pretty regularly where something is of a very low budget ends up doing huge business. This is the Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre model. But I will say what's, what's interesting about this compared to those is like, those always have diminishing returns. Those always have diminishing returns at the box office where Halloween comes out and it makes a, you know, 150 bucks. $150 million or whatever worldwide. And then Halloween two makes half that. And then Halloween three makes a third of that. And then like, you know, there's, there's, there's a, there's kind of a steady regression decrease. And these movies have not been like that. It's actually much closer to John Wick. John Wick. You know, John Wick one did about 20 million in box office. Then John Wick two did about 40 million. And then John Wick three did about 80 million. And like that, those are. Those are, you know, like that's the sort of, this is the sort of progression we're seeing with Terrifier two. Now I think it's ceiling as much lower for a variety of reasons. One is that it really is very, it's like you have to be a real gore hound to be into these. You really do have to be into the sicko shit. And like, I don't know. I like, I kind of like these movies aren't even really for me. I like some of that stuff. And these movies are like, Ooh, there's, there's a lot going on there. So I don't know. Terrifier two is fascinating. It's an enormous, it's an enormous success.
JVL00:29:55Yeah. Three.
Sonny00:29:57You mean a Terrifier three. Both of these actually, I mean, both Terrifier two and Terrifier three, but Terrifier three, which is out right now is.
JVL00:30:05How did Joker do in week two? Uh, it dropped 81%. What?
Sonny00:30:1181%. Can you believe it? That's an enormous drop.
JVL00:30:13Has a wide release major studio movie ever dropped 81%. Yes.
Sonny00:30:18It's, if you look at the, if you look at the, it, it basically dropped the same as Geely, but it opened on like $1,500 or $2,000 more screens. So.
Mike00:30:31At least Todd Phillips won't be getting calls from Warner Brothers anymore.
Sonny00:30:35Wow. Did you see the story about Christopher Nolan, by the way? Yeah. There was a story that, that, uh, so, you know, Christopher Nolan has a new movie coming out and, and he was getting ready to send it to the studios and like, as preparation to hopefully be allowed to bid on it, Warner Brothers sent him, uh, sent him. So he had given up his fee on Tenet for, because of distribution and the pandemic and everything. He gave up his fee and they sent him like a seven figure check that was like, here's that fee you gave up. You know, if you're thinking about, you want to let people take a look at this next movie, we were going to, and, uh, he, they never even got to see it. That Warner Brothers never even got to see it for a chance to bid on it. It went right to Universal. The Universal snapped it up.
JVL00:31:19Yeah. But did he keep them? Did he keep them? Oh yeah.
Sonny00:31:21He cashed a check.
JVL00:31:25That's awesome. Thank you very much.
Sonny00:31:26You know, you know, I, I'm sorry. There, there, there are times where you like, if somebody is trying to do you a favor for you, maybe you, maybe you say like, I'm not, you never do that with a movie studio. Never,
JVL00:31:38ever in New Jersey. If somebody is giving you some consideration and you don't even let them bid on it. I don't know that that worked out too well for Christopher.
Sonny00:31:46Yeah. So anyway, that,
JVL00:31:48you don't want our consideration. You don't, you best, be giving us back that check.
Sonny00:31:52Yeah.
Mike00:31:53All right. Well, we are not talking about terrifying three. We're not talking about Joker. We are talking about the number seven movie on this week's box office list. Saturday night, Sonny, do you want to give us a big boy review of Saturday night?
Sonny00:32:10Saturday night from director Jason Reitman, who burst onto the scene in the, in the early aughts with thank you for smoking. And Juno went up in the air. He is back with a new film about the, the, the airing of the first episode of Saturday night live. It's a not quite real time story. Looking at the 90 minutes leading up to the airing of Saturday, Saturday night live. The star of the film is Lauren Michaels, who was played by Gabriel LaBelle. People will maybe remember him as Steven Spielberg. And the Fableman's he's playing another boomer icon here. Lauren Michaels is trying to get his, his team together. He's trying to get all the, all the, you know, hot young talent under control. John Belushi got to sign your, your contract to Chevy chase. Quit being such an asshole to everyone. Girls stop being girls and just do your comedy.
JVL00:33:13Jane.
Sonny00:33:15Stop.
JVL00:33:16Stop your horsing around.
Sonny00:33:18Yeah. And you know, they're up again. He's up against a studio interference. The NBC guys don't want him to go live. He's up against his own actors who are kind of doubting their talents and blah, blah, blah. He's up against himself. Self-doubt comes in. Also, Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson are wandering around and they're both played by Nicholas Braun for some reason, which is, I don't, I, I'm not a hundred percent sure what that was about, but it's, it's kind of fun. It's funny in a, in a weird way. I love, I, so here's, here's, I, I don't want to say I love this movie because I don't love this movie, but I did enjoy this movie a great deal for one very specific reason. Beyond, beyond the cast, which is fine. The cast is fine. They're all doing serviceable impressions of like Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin and Gilda Radner. And you know, all, all the rest of the guys and gals of Saturday Night Live. They're, they're fine. They, they do a good job. And they're, they're the other actors who are playing. The other parts are also, are also pretty entertaining, right? Willem Dafoe is in it. Finn Wolfhard, the kid from Stranger Things has a, has a nice bit. The Matthew Rice, the guy from the Americans plays George Carlin and he's very funny. Patrick Wohl shows up. Arliss himself is there. It's very,
JVL00:34:45Robert Wohl.
Sonny00:34:46Robert, what did I say? Patrick Wohl. Robert, yeah, it's Robert. Robert Wohl is there. He's,
Mike00:34:50he's like the Arliss show.
Sonny00:34:52It's always nice to see Arliss in, in a thing. So anyway, the cast is fine. The, the writing is fine, but what, what's, what I really enjoyed about this movie is it really captures the excitement of the new, the new and adventurous and unknown, like going into doing a new thing and, and you know, kind of working without a safety net and what Reitman does. I, and I, he does two things. One of which is kind of annoying, which is he, the constantly has characters saying how much time is left before the show. It's like, they might as well have just put a fucking countdown clock in the corner and counted it down from 90 minutes to zero. Because every, every fourth line is somebody being like, how much time do we have left? 58 minutes. How much time do we have left? 47 minutes. It's so annoying. It's, it's this, I, I, I've complained about this before, but there's one in one of the Transformers movies, I think it may be the first one. It's either the first or the second one. I think it's the second one. Actually, there's a, there's a, there's a sequence where, uh, guys are running across a desert. They're running across a desert. They gotta, they gotta get from one part of the desert to the other. They're like, the Decepticons are 300 yards away. And I swear to God, there's a whole five minute sequence where they're like, we're 275 yards away. We're 260 yards away. We're 235 yards away. It's like every fourth line. And that's kind of what this movie is like. But sorry,
Mike00:36:19I don't mean to, I don't mean to interrupt you, Sonny, but I mean, there is some verisimilitude to that, which is before a live television show in the studio, people are going to be saying over and over again, how much time is left.
Sonny00:36:31I, that seemed true. I agree that it's, that it's true to life. It doesn't change the fact that I found it very annoying.
JVL00:36:38I found it, I found it,
Sonny00:36:40I found it an annoying writerly tick to continue to remind us that like, this is a pressure cooker situation and we're guys, whatever. But you're right. It's probably real. It's probably, this is probably how they really did it, you know, that first night. But, but what the thing he does that I actually like is he, the camera is constantly moving around. It's a series of not, they're not all long takes, but they're all kind of long ish. And again, the camera's constantly in motion. It's constantly kind of pinballing off the walls. It feels the way I described it in my review is that like, you know, those diagrams of Brownian motion, right? Like where you said, like,
JVL00:37:21you know what Brownian motion is.
Sonny00:37:23Introduce heat here. Of course I do. I took Robert high school physics, you know? But the, but the, but like that, that's what this whole thing feels like. That's what this whole thing, it feels like you add heat and this is what it looks like. And it feels like the heat is slowly being turned up on the Bunsen burner and everybody's moving faster and faster. Like as, as the movie goes along, which I, I, I like, I think it, I think visually it captures the, the manic energy of that moment. I don't know. I, I, again, I really enjoyed Saturday night. I don't want to say I really enjoy, I enjoyed Saturday night. I, I found it amusing. The one thing, the other thing I kind of disliked about it is that Jason Reitman wants everybody to be liked in this movie. Jason Reitman is very interested in everybody liking everybody in this movie, even the two putative villains. So there's a NBC executive played by Willem Dafoe who is like, he wants, he wants to kill the show because he wants to do Carson reruns because Carson reruns are much cheaper for, for the network. And then there, and, and at the end of the show, he's the one who gives the, all right, go live. And he gets like a little, a little nice moment. And then, and then the other person who they, who is cast as a villain is Chevy chase. So Chevy chase is, has like kind of famously been become the black sheep of this whole SNL crew. Like nobody likes it. Nobody likes Chevy chase. He's a, an asshole all the time to everyone. Nobody, nobody likes him in real life. Nobody likes him in Hollywood. Um, nobody, nobody likes Chevy chase. And in this movie, he is portrayed just as a complete dick from start to finish. Almost. He's, he's portrayed as a complete dick from start to finish, except he is the face and he does have talent. So when they need somebody to save the show at the end, who does Lauren turn to? Who does Lauren give the hero moment? That's right. It's Chevy chase. Chevy chase. He comes in and he saves the day and everything's good again. And like, again, it's like, I, I, I don't even, I don't even mind that he wants everybody to be liked, but it is, it's just like, it's little, it's just a little, it's too nice. It's too nice.
Mike00:39:37It's very obvious. I mean, understandably given Jason Reitman's father, like he just idolizes this generation and these people. And that comes through. And in the movie you've, but you just sunny, you didn't mention the act, the other actual villains. Well, one is off screen. That's Johnny Carson. The other villain is Milton Berle played by JK Simmons.
Sonny00:40:01But again, I feel like Milton Berle. It's funny. It's so funny. You say that because Alyssa and Peter made the same point on across movie. Oh, they're like Milton Berle is treated as a villain. And I don't think he is treated as a villain. He is treated. He is. So in the, in the film, Milton Berle is played by JK Simmons, who I didn't mention. And he, he is, he is like trying to steal Chevy Chase's fiance basically. And he does it by pulling out his enormous dick. Uh, literally like that.
JVL00:40:28Teenage cock.
Sonny00:40:28He just pulls out, he pulls it out and, and it's like, Hey,
JVL00:40:32just take out enough to win.
Sonny00:40:34This is happening now. This is, that's about what you see. This is just enough to win. You don't, you don't see it all. You just see the, it's like this. It's kind of like the shot. Anyway,
JVL00:40:43I don't want to Dirk Diggler. Is it the Dirk Diggler shot?
Sonny00:40:46It's a Dirk Diggler shot kind of. but the, uh, but you, but you say he's treated as the villain, but he's not. He's the guy who's putting Chevy chase in his place because what happens in that sequence, right? In the sequence, Chevy chase is like, get out of here, old man, you're, you're terrible and you're washed up and the new generation is here. And Milton Berle rightly points out, you have no accomplishments. You're an asshole. Nobody likes you. Everyone will remember me. Are they going to remember you? And that is what like sets him on the, on the path of like he, that from there on, he needs to like prove that he can do what he does,
Mike00:41:25which he's big Dick Clarence.
Sonny00:41:27The angel is what it's, it's that's him. Yes, exactly.
Mike00:41:33I, I have some gribbles with that, but that's a fair, that's a fair ever. That's a fair analysis. So I should say, so I'm going to talk about this now because we should just say, so JVL, you did not get to see this, but I know you've got questions.
Sonny00:41:48JVL, you were on the, you were on the road, you're traveling. Exactly.
Mike00:41:51I'm so interested in, please, Michael. So I think my, my review or my views on this movie are going to be very skewed because I, like I am a full blown Saturday night live nerd. Like I love the show, even though it sucks, like more than 50% of the time.
JVL00:42:15It was great when you were in high school.
Mike00:42:17That's right. Actually, actually, I think, the best era was actually not when I was in high school. It was a really bad era.
Sonny00:42:24But it's when I was anyway,
Mike00:42:26it was actually when it was actually when,
JVL00:42:29when JVL was in high school, I thought that was, that was the best era,
Mike00:42:3286 to 93 years. The best. That was, that was, that was Dana Carvey's song when he, anyway, sorry, I'm nerding out already. So this movie is for people like me who daily go to, websites that, that like talk about SNL. Like I'm, I'm a little, little ashamed to admit this was like, it was like a, just a veritable offering of little treats and fun little things for me to, to, to just feast on while I was watching this whole tray of member berries. Exactly. Oh, the member berries. I was, there was member berry juice, you know, dripping down my chin. I loved this, this movie. For that reason, I totally agree with Sonny, with your sort of criticisms of it. I do think, I do think it's a little too cute. People are a little too, almost like there's like a little like Aaron Sorkin-y aspect to like the way that like everybody's got like a quip, you know, as they're walking and talking, you know, to hit, hit the other with. So, but, but I was having too much fun enjoying it. It's not even that laugh out loud funny, but it's, it's, it's, it's great to see all of these things come together. Like there's a little thing. So that, that like only the super nerd will appreciate. So, so there's a, there's a part where Lorne Michaels goes into his office. Like, it's like the only time we see him in his office during the whole movie where he's, he's just kind of frazzled and he's been walking around rock 30 rock for, for so long. And he goes into his office and there's a man sitting on the couch and he says, Hey Bernie. And then he just goes about with the rest of the scene. And that's, that's Bernie Brillstein. The, the, who was Warren's agent. Wow. And he was agent to so many people on Saturday live and Brillstein, you know, gray Brillstein, gray entertainment and all that stuff. So just like a little, so Ebersole is in it. Ebersole is Ebersole is sort of the big brother to Lorne in this, in this movie. And he's like the whole time he's trying to sort of, yeah, clean things up, but also kind of be kind of, kind of, there's a moment where he has a kind of come to Jesus, conversation with Lorne, which is great. And, you know, and you could see the seeds of sort of his disastrous tenure when he was running the show. You know, he keeps pushing them to, to, to feature the Polaroid camera, which is a sponsor in a sketch. And Lorne's like, no, don't, don't tell any of the, don't tell any of the actors about this. Like, and then there's like a moment where he's like showing John Belushi, who's like the last of the cast that you want to show this idea to. And he's like, stop, stop. Um, so which, which I love by the way, because people may not know in the first season of Saturday night live, there is a sketch that features a Polaroid camera, which is like not particularly funny, but like, so one thing I loved about this is it's not a strict telling, obviously of the 90 minutes before the first episode of Saturday night live, which was called Saturday night at the time because Howard Cosell had a show called Saturday night live with Howard Cosell on ABC at the time. So they couldn't name it that when they wanted to. Um, but it's not a, a strict telling of those 90 minutes because there's no way all the stuff that happens in this movie could have happened in the 90 minutes before, but it is, it is sort of, it captures the feeling that I imagine was there. I think Dan Aykroyd is basically said as much, but there was all these little things that like that again, for an SNL head, like, do you know that they're not, you know, there's like sort of rehearsals for sketches and stuff that aren't actually in the first episode, but are in either later episodes in that season or later in this, you know, era. And they're just sprinkled throughout for again, member berries, I guess, but it's, I found it enjoyable to kind of see the, these things in their kind of you know, in their infancy there's a whole sequence where Al Franken and Tom Davis are, you know, they're the young stoner writers on the show and they're trying to get Lauren to buy into the Lord actually buys into it. They're trying to get them to buy into this blood idea to spray a bunch of blood. And they come up with the idea for the, for Dan Aykroyd cutting off his finger as Julia child, which is one of the classic sketches anyway. So it's just like stuff like that, that happens. I loved it, but here, here's where I think Sonny, your take on the movie is I have a slightly different take on it, which is why I think Milton Berle is the villain. The, I think to appreciate this movie and to appreciate Saturday night live for what it was in the beginning, you really have to understand that it's a movie that's going to be a that they were sending up television, that what they were trying to do was, was, you know, there's a hint at it where somebody says, you know, it's the first show made by the people who were raised on television. And so much of what made Saturday night live successful. Once they figured out what worked, which was the sketches and that it was a send up. So like, that's where the idea of commercial TV, commercial, commercial parodies comes from, right? Like have a commercial parody that looks like it could be a commercial you're watching, but it's a send up. And like, this sounds like kind of obvious now, but it was, it was not. Then it was like TV was like a presentation. So that scene with Milton Berle on there's a, there's another scene with Milton Berle where he's rehearsing for this other variety show that he's on. And it's just the cheesiest, most awful variety show. And Lauren goes up there to try to poke the lighting director and he's watching the producer, of this awful show sitting in his chair and looking miserable. And like, that is what Lorne Michaels and this crew were like, it was everything they were against was, was what Milton Berle's doing. He's like, he's like dancing with these show girls and this like kind of cheesy sleazy and he's over the hill. And, and like, that's that. I think the, the movie subtly in the sort of subtext, like sends that message home that this was, this was a, this was revolutionary because it was such a send up and somewhat of a middle finger, but also a love letter to, to television. And that's, that's what is so endearing to me about the show, particularly that first period, those first five years, Lorne Michaels, it was so, it was so much a response to the Milton Berles and a, and a, kind of middle finger to the Milton Berles. So Johnny Carson, of course, is the, is the other villain. He's just heard on the phone and he's the kind of like, he's the guy who Lorne is really kind of fighting against because it's all about the contract dispute that he was having with NBC and NBC was trying to, was trying to sort of play chicken with Carson by throwing this money in this show to these kids. So I loved it. I loved all of the, I didn't know, I guess this is true. I didn't know that Lorne was supposed to do the first weekend update, but I didn't know that. So that was kind of interesting. And so they show him in the, in behind the desk in rehearsals and he's terrible at it. And then, and then they decided to put Chevy chase in there. So I don't know. I could talk about this and, and, and Saturday night live for forever. So I'll shut up now. Sonny, you're muted.
Sonny00:50:09Sorry. The one thing I didn't quite understand about the Carson stuff was, so they, they wanted to show reruns from the week, right? It was like correct reruns of Carson shows from earlier in the week.
Mike00:50:26Correct. On, on Saturday nights.
Sonny00:50:29Right, right, right.
Mike00:50:30And I believe that the contract dispute was like, that was a part of what was, what was going on in the contract dispute.
Sonny00:50:38Right. Well, so that, I guess, I guess that's what I didn't like. Carson wanted more money from them to run the reruns. Is that what the issue was? Okay.
Mike00:50:46Correct. Gotcha. And he wanted to, and he wanted to stop, doing Friday shows. Um, that was another part of this, which he eventually got, like he eventually, I think in the eighties, he was no longer, he was just doing four days a week. Right. You would have guest hosts. The guest hosts, like the Joan Rivers is. Joan Rivers and Jay Leno. And yeah. Um, so anyway, so I have questions. You have questions. I have questions.
JVL00:51:11So first question is, it sounds like this is a, almost Christopher Nolan ask decision, which it's really about the making of Saturday night live. But so they decided instead of having it be a sprawling, like we're going to tell about the three months that it took for Lauren to pitch them, we're just like, we'll tell the entire making of Saturday night live as the 90 minutes before go live of show one. Is that about right? I'd like that as a choice. That's interesting. Um, so the only thing I've seen is this is a trailer and I thought to myself, this looks like a Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Yeah. No.
Mike00:51:52Yeah.
JVL00:51:53Did you guys,
Mike00:51:53I can see that. I could see that. I mean, it's, it's, it's quick. I mean, it's quicker paced and, and it's, it doesn't slow down, which is a choice that they have, um, that they've made. And, and it's, I don't know. I mean, but, but that kind of feeling, yes, is, is there a, you know, it's got a PTA sense. Um, go ahead. Sorry. Um,
JVL00:52:19so what is, what is the young Lorne? What, I mean, are, is there any foreshadowing of what he will become? Is like the guy who, I mean, I forget who this was, but in the Tom Shales oral history of Saturday night live, which I don't know about you. I, cause I am, I'm only like a medium Saturday night live fan. And so like, I think the Tom Shales book is great, but maybe you will tell me it's all. It is. But somebody in it says like, you know, the actors, the actors on Saturday night live were all Lorne's children. It's just that he's the type of father who likes to watch his children attempts to kill one another or, you know, watch his children. He makes his children fight to the death or something. Cause this is what he done. I mean, he will bring in somebody clearly who's meant to replace somebody else. Like, you know, and everybody will look at each other and like, Oh shit, Horatio Sands is here actually to replace whoever that guy is. I mean, I forget, you know,
Mike00:53:14it is, it is not that Lorne. This is Lorne keeping his head. Above water. And, and as a, as a sort of, you know, so he's older than everybody, but maybe, well, certainly Garrett Morris, who is in his late thirties by this point. And he's about the same age as Chevy and he's older than everybody else. And there, the subtext I picked up was that this is, you know, this is a boomer. I think he's like born in 1944, but roughly boomer guy from Canada. He's done this. He's been in, he's been on TV now for almost a decade. And like, he's, this is his kind of shot. And he doesn't quite realize that he's being played with by the network. And so he, like one reading of this would be like that. Lauren, that Tom shales describes is like born out of this experience. So it's like an origin. He was always there for him.
JVL00:54:16Well, so it's, I mean, it sounds like it's an origin story for him. I mean, this is the, I mean, the other thing he's, he's famous for doing is being a really skilled bureaucratic knife fighter within NBC. And so, uh, I mean, the most famous example of this is I forget what year it was when he was basically looking at quarterly earnings reports for GE and realized that the following year there were going to be budget cuts. So he went and hired a whole bunch of new talent for the purely for the next year and say, see, look, I just did a 20% reduction in my on-air staff. Right. Which is, that's cold blooded, but it's good. It sounds like, again, it's just, I don't know. I feel bad. I didn't get to see this movie because it sounds highly interesting.
Sonny00:55:04It is. I, there, there's a, there's some, some folks who, uh, are not fans of Lauren Michaels who are like, this movie is dumb because we, why are we paying tribute to this middleman? Management hack the suit. And I think that's, I just think that's so wildly unfair about, uh, it like, I don't, I don't really care if you don't like Lauren Michaels. I don't really care if you don't like middle management. I don't like the simple fact of the matter is that Lauren Michaels for creating SNL for creating kids in the hall is like one of it. And like on top of that, basically guiding as a result of both of those things, basically guiding the entire, the entire path of North American comedy for the last 50 years. Like I, like even if you don't like him, the idea that a movie should be made about him is not totally is like is, is far from unreasonable. I think like whatever it, I, there are people who really hate Lauren Michaels and I like, it's all the comedy nerds who are like, well, he, you know, he doesn't pick the funniest or whatever.
JVL00:56:12Is it fair to say that Lauren is the most influential figure in English language comedy of the last half century?
Mike00:56:22Easily, easily. If, if you just look at, right. Yeah. If you just look at pure output, I mean, just, okay, just take this first cast or this early period, right? You've got Chevy chase, uh, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray joins later, um, actually gives the first kind of big exposure to Christopher guest. Um, uh, and, uh, Harry Shearer, sorry, Christopher guest, Harry Shearer. Um, and then there's the little interregnum and then, and then you've got, you know, just then just name like half of the cast of all the rest of the cast.
JVL00:57:01Yeah.
Mike00:57:01Yeah. Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Tina Fey. Um, he's there for all of it. Um, not to mention, uh, you know, I think kids in the hall is underrated as an influential comedy, uh, truth. Yeah. Kids in the hall in second city are,
Sonny00:57:17Oh, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's properly rated by people who think about the influence of comedy. I think it's underrated by math audiences. I think it's like, no,
Mike00:57:26that's a fair distinction. Um, so I'm sorry. Can I, you may have more questions. You have, I'll just, there was a couple of like, like just spare things that I really enjoyed. Uh, the, I don't know who it is. I looked up the actor and I, he doesn't even have like a Wikipedia page, but the guy who plays Billy Crystal in this movie, like does the most uncanny, vocal impression of Billy Crystal like that? I like who, who would have thought that like that was a thing. Um, and I love his little storyline, which is all true, right? He was among the acts who was supposed to be on that first show. And, uh, he, he was set aside. The movie has some kind of reason internally, but for whatever reason, he was not too much stuff.
Sonny00:58:12There was,
Mike00:58:12there was too much stuff, but like there was, they have like, you know, where he gets into a kind of, uh, you know, uh, chicken game with Lauren. And Lauren calls his bluff. But, um, I, I just, I, I was like shocked by, I was like, Oh, if this is, did, did Billy Crystal like dub this guy's voice? Cause it's uncanny. Um, the Jim Henson stuff. I, I love because Jim Henson was such a, was in the Muppets were just not a fit for the show. And Michael Donahue was a real, a real dickhead about it, but like he just wasn't a fit. There's a great scene where like, uh, you know, he, Jim Henson, looks like a hippie, you know, in 1975. It's like, it's like, he's so, he's such an old man by this point in, in terms of like what the, what these guys are doing. And he's, you know, he does, he, it takes a lot for him to curse and he's just repeating what somebody else has written. And I just, I love that. Um, the, Oh, um, Herb Sargent played by Tracy Letts, uh, which was like kind of, I love that little scene.
Sonny00:59:14Tracy Letts shows up for like 120 seconds and he's perfect.
Mike00:59:18Yeah. One model, one monologue. And, and he, and he's playing Herb Sargent, which is, you know, he's a legendary, uh, writer there. Um, just all, again, all these little, um, the, the Andy Kaufman thing, which is great because Andy Kaufman's not in, doesn't appear on the show until I think the fourth episode. Um, uh, but he has like, it's like, again, it's like all just like compressed into this moment. And the other interesting thing is the decision, Sonny, I'm interested in what you think of this, the decision, they do kind of elevate Garrett Morris a bit in, tell his story. It's like a slightly mini arc of,
Sonny00:59:52well, I mean, there, there's a, I think there's a lot of his whole arc is why am I the black actor who is trained in opera? And, you know, I'm, I can do, I can sing and I can, I can do monologues. And yet here I am in these skits and I'm the stick up man and I'm the bell hop. And there's, there's a very clear sense of like white guilt.
Mike01:00:24Yeah. We got to clean up this ugly part of,
Sonny01:00:27we really have to address this and make sure everybody knows he was actually amazingly talented. You know, like I was like, okay guys, I get it. I get it. You know,
Mike01:00:37which she was like, he was fine. I do like his, his song at the end. Very funny. So anyway, I, I just loved it. I don't think it's like, a great movie, but I, I, I love seeing it. JVL. And do you have any other questions about?
JVL01:00:56No, it sounds, it's a, you know what? Here's, here's, can you make the case for Andy Kaufman to me? Because I have always hated him as a performer and a comedian and a presence and a piece of cultural furniture in America. For me, his nails on a chalkboard. And what I hate even more, is the sort of clever, like, oh, but that's the whole point. Like, I know like nails on a, I could make, I can make the case. Okay. He is.
Mike01:01:28Do you believe that he is the outer, an outer orbit version of what I was talking about there, right? The send up of television, like his whole, you know, the Elvis impersonation, the mighty mouse song, like the whole, like sticky standup act. Like he is, is he's sort of, I will grant you experimental weird, not for everybody, but like he is a part of that, which is why I think Lorne Michaels had him as part of that early SNL orbit. It was like a recognition that he was kind of doing the same thing. I mean, if you watch his performance,
Sonny01:02:05he's a more abrasive, uh, Steve Martin is what he is. He's, he's, he's like that, that postmodern comedy, but like,
JVL01:02:13or like Steve Martin, but as a performer, if you ever liked him,
Sonny01:02:18if you don't, if you don't like Steve Martin, if you don't like Steve Martin standup, you're going to, you're going to hate Andy Kaufman because he is Steve Martin to like the next degree.
Mike01:02:25That's, that's a great way of putting it. Um, but, but also like, uh, you know, like I see, I see for instance, Norm Macdonald, when I'm basically my favorite comic comedian is, is sort of a, is a, is a, is an iteration of the Andy Kaufman, uh, kind of continuum. So, um, I don't know. You don't like it. Funny.
Sonny01:02:47No, I don't. Yes. I don't think that's right. Exactly. Because the thing about what Norm Macdonald was doing,
?01:02:55I,
Sonny01:02:56uh, we don't,
Mike01:02:57we don't have to get into this. All I will say,
Sonny01:02:59I think Norm, Norm was doing a slightly different thing in, in that he was trying to collapse a joke into the, he, his whole thing, his whole theory of writing jokes was like, what is the, what are like the, the, the joke, the setup should be the punchline. Like that was his, that, so he wanted to collapse it into, into like, into like almost clever wordplay, but without, you know, not, but not, not like puns and stuff. Just like, you know what the setup, this is why OJ Simpson was such a good, was such a good subject for him. Because like, basically anytime you lead off a sentence with OJ Simpson during, you know, the early nineties, it's like, we know what the joke is here.
Mike01:03:39Yep.
Sonny01:03:39Killed some people. And like, my, you know,
Mike01:03:42yeah. My favorite Norm joke is, uh, yippee, yippee. Barry Rubin died. Jerry Rubin died last week. And then he says, I'm sorry, that should say yippee. Jerry Rubin died last week. Um, I thought that that's, that's the perfect punchline. The setup is the punchline. Um, but I would say if I can argue for Andy Kaufman, it's, if you watch him, I think it's like 1977 on Johnny Carson and he does his foreign man shtick where he does bad. He calls them imitations and he does all these, you know, bad imitations of, um, uh, of, uh, Archie bunker. And these, these things in, in that, you know, and they're not imitations. And then the turn is he does his, uh, now he's going to do Elvis Presley and this man who had been talking like this the whole time, looking very awkward, like does this entire buildup where he turns around and he, and he, and he combs his hair and he takes off the jacket and he looks, you know, and then he does like a pitch perfect Elvis impression. And, and which is, which is, which is fantastic. Like two songs, like the whole thing, and then at the end of it all, you know, he says, thank you very much. Thank you. And I just think that's like an amazing kind of comedic idea. And there's a reason,
Sonny01:05:01there's also a reason he works so well in the world of wrestling, which is that like, you can never be, you can never be entirely sure how much of it was stick and how much of it was, was real.
JVL01:05:11Kind of wish that Jerry Lawler had actually broken his neck. I'm, I'm team Lawler who, who I'm not. I don't actually say,
Mike01:05:20but in the Lawler versus Andy Kaufman,
JVL01:05:23I'm, I'm team Lawler.
Mike01:05:24All right. Any other thoughts, Sonny on, on Saturday night? No. Okay. Well, that is all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family, join the comment section and we will talk to you next time.
JVL01:05:48I know we've gone long, but I have a question for you guys. Yeah, that's my phone. Go ahead. You were no, no, no, no. It was great. I could, I could have listened to that for a while. Um, so I was so taken Michael with the WWE Vince McMahon documentary that I'm, yes, I heard my other shows.
Mike01:06:07Great show. I'm doing a,
JVL01:06:08I'm doing a full like episode by episode recap with a couple of my friends. And, uh, in episode one, they go over briefly the episode where, uh, John Stossel in 1986 or 87 or whatever. Okay. Goes for 2020 to try to expose pro wrestling is fake and he gets slapped. Do you remember this? No. Have you never seen this video? You never seen this? Oh my God. So he shows up. I've never seen this video. I mean, he goes sort of under false pretenses like, oh yeah, I want to do a piece about, uh, your, this WrestleMania thing.
Sonny01:06:46Popularity of your, you know,
JVL01:06:48but would it, he wants to prove to everybody that it's fake. Yeah. Wow. You're going to do that. That's amazing. How anyway, so, so Vince,
Mike01:07:00it's real to me. Damn it.
JVL01:07:02Vince jr. In the locker room, Madison square garden basically says, boy, won't somebody rid me of this meddlesome priest? And this, uh, mid card guy goes out, is getting interviewed by Stossel and Stossel is like, it's fake, isn't it? Why don't you just, just admit it? It's fake. And this guy goes, Oh, it's fake. Is it, is this fake? And reaches out and slaps him. And Stossel goes down like a sack of shit. And then he pops back up. And this guy's like, yeah. So does that feel fake? How's this? Does this feel fake? And he slaps him again. Stossel goes roll. And this became a, like a huge thing. Stossel filed a lawsuit against everybody. I think he walked away $3 million. He was like, you know, in a next,
Sonny01:07:48like the Brady punch episode. Yeah.
JVL01:07:52Yeah. Like a break. Anyway. So I bring this all up because my friend asked me, uh, what is your feeling about this? And I'm deeply conflicted. And I would like to hear you guys and your feelings about the slapping of John Stossel. Sonny.
Sonny01:08:12Well, I mean, uh, I am, I, I am generally, generally opposed to hitting, uh, journalists who are doing their job at the same time. Uh, I, like I've always, I've always, I don't want to say like he had it coming, but he kind of had it coming. He was, he was being a, he was being a real, like, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you sort of guy in that, in that segment. And like the more interesting one is like, is the Richard Belzer case.
JVL01:08:51That is. So this is the, the other thing is these things both happen within weeks of one another. Cause it's the run to WrestleMania. Richard Belzer has a late night talk show. He's got Hulk Hogan on as a guest. He's like pushing Hogan by like, you know, it's fake. It's fake. You know, why don't you try one of these moves on me? And so Hogan puts him in a reverse chin lock.
Sonny01:09:12Yeah. Puts him in a naked chokehold.
JVL01:09:14And for about like three seconds, and you see Belzer's whole body just go limp. And Hogan then just lets him go. He flops down, hits his head, hits the back of his head. Like there's blood everywhere and whatnot. Also results in a lawsuit.
Sonny01:09:35So that one, that one is trickier because I think I, I am less convinced that Hogan was trying to choke him out. And like, and I, I don't, I like, I don't know. I, I think he was, I think he was trying to be kind of a dick to him. And like, you know, you can't get out of this, can you? And like, you know, in the documentary, who knows, who knows how much of this you can believe from Hogan. But he says something like, you know, I thought it was, I thought he was, you know, doing a shoot. I thought it was a bit. I thought he was pretending to be hurt. And then I saw. Brother,
JVL01:10:07I thought he was just, uh, all part of the show.
Sonny01:10:10So like that, that's one, that's one where I'm like, I think, I think that one is, I think that is both a situation where the wrestler is less culpable, like for intentionally trying to hurt a guy, but also probably more culpable because Richard Belzer was being less of a dick. Does that make sense?
JVL01:10:27Does that totally agree? And I, I would say this is something my, my buddy had brought up. Uh, I would suspect that Hulk Hogan had never put a wrestling hold on somebody of Richard Belzer's physique.
Sonny01:10:44Yes.
JVL01:10:45Before. Yeah. And so would have had no reasonable expectation that Belzer would have gone unconscious in like three seconds.
Sonny01:10:51I mean, he goes out like it's wild because I mean,
JVL01:10:55Richard Belzer weighs like 120 pounds and his neck is this thick. And, uh,
Sonny01:11:02and you, like, it just takes like, it really takes. So this is the story from my childhood. Once I was like messing around with my dad and we were like, you know, put, and like he, he like grabbed me by, I was wearing a hood and he grabbed me by the hood of, my, my sweatshirt and was like kind of picking me up and like, ha ha ha. And not literally knocked me unconscious. Like I, I like, like cut off, cut off the flow of blood to my brain and my karate. And I like, I like went limp and he was like, Oh shit. What if, what if, what have I done? And like, but like, it's, it's a thing that happens like that. I mean, it like, it is, it really, it really is.
Mike01:11:35So, so what are your thoughts on the John Stossel? My, my thoughts on this, having just learned about it, uh, is that look, whether it's Richard Belzer or, or John Stossel, yes, he's working for 2020, but it's on ABC. Um, like it's all television. And frankly, these wrestlers should have known better. Like they needed to make it a part of the bit. And like that, I think is their responsibility. And like, they're the ones with the, there's, they're the ones with the literal power, right? They're the ones with the big muscles and the, and all that stuff. And, and the representative of, of their, uh, you know, of their wrestling, uh, um, you know, of WWF. So like it was a little, I get being you're, you're poking the bear, but like the bear has some responsibility here.
Sonny01:12:27They should have, they should have tricked him into agreeing to be in the ring. I think is what Mike is saying. Mike is saying is they should have been like, this is, this is TV. We'll, we'll do, we'll do some, you know, we'll do some moves with you. You can like, we'll show you, you know, you'll see that it's physical, but like, it's not, it doesn't hurt really. And then just beat the shit out of him. That would have been, you know,
Mike01:12:46I'm sure that would have been fine.
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