#299. 'Tommy Boy' (VOD/UHD)
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This week's main event is a 30th-anniversary look at Tommy Boy, prompted by its new 4K release, and all three hosts land in the same warm place: Sonny calls it a movie that "no movie has ever benefited more from a 4K upgrade," Mike marvels at how many of its lines (fat guy in a little coat, holy schnikes, not here, right here) became permanent playground vocabulary, and JVL admits the rewatch is tinged with sadness now that he knows how much of Chris Farley's real biography (rich nepo kid, Marquette grad, his own dad's business) is baked into Tommy Callahan. They trace the film's lineage through the Lorne Michaels "slobs vs. snobs" comedy tradition (Billy Madison, Black Sheep, Wayne's World), debate whether SNL sketches like the Chippendales bit exploited Farley's weight in ways that fed his self-destruction (Sonny and Mike side with Robert Smigel's take over Bob Odenkirk's), and recount the messy end of the 20th season of SNL that got both Farley and Adam Sandler fired, plus David Spade's guilt about drifting away from Farley before his death at 33. The front third is the usual grab-bag: JVL riffs at length on steroids/HGH/creatine (citing a Stuart Stevens Outside magazine piece and his own kid "Flash" bulking up) and his own life-changing experience on tirzepatide/Zepbound, a long Ozempic tangent, and a callback to last week's "pizza technique" (reheating a slice in a covered pan with an ice cube) with listener testimonials read aloud by Mike, before Sonny previews the blockbuster opening of A Minecraft Movie (bigger than Barbie, directed by Napoleon Dynamite's Jared Hess) and the trio can't quite explain what Roblox is.
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Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Our new brake pads are really cool. You're not even going to believe it like um let's say you're driving along the road with your family and you're driving along and then all of a sudden there's a truck tire in the middle of the road and you hit the brakes. Whoa that was close. Now let's see what happens when you're driving with the other guys brake pads. You're driving along you're driving along and all of a sudden the kids are yelling from the backseat. I gotta go to the bathroom daddy. Not now daddy. Dammit. Truck tire. I can't stop. Help. There's a cliff. And your family's screaming oh my god we're burning alive. No I can't feel my legs. In comes a meat wagon. And the medic gets out and says oh my god. New guy's in the corner puking his guts out. All because you want to save a couple extra pennies. And to me it doesn't. Get out. Now.
Mike00:01:18Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I am your co-host Mike Warren. Joining me as always. Holy shnikes. It's Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon. Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation in the comments. But you've got to be a patron. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to the show, they've got to go to Sub-Beacon.com. Become a patron. Get new episodes every Friday. You can only do that at Sub-Beacon.com. We are going to be talking about Tommy Boy later on in the show. But let's get started first. What is going on, guys? JVL, talk to me. What's happening? I wanted to talk. I want to talk to you boys about steroids.
JVL00:02:02Sure. Do you recall Stuart Stevens, who is a political consultant, but an even better writer? Maybe 18 years ago, he wrote a piece for Outside Magazine about steroids. And did either of you guys read this at the time?
Mike00:02:22Yes, you shared it with me.
JVL00:02:24I forced it on you. Yeah, I forced it on you. Maybe I didn't force it on Sonny. The gist of it was. Stu was really interested in trying to learn how much steroids actually help you. Like, is it a 4% thing or a 20% thing? And so he went on to the juice for a year. And he is, you know, he was he was a grown man. He was four years old. He was an amateur athlete who did skiing and bike riding in, like, you know, like the competitive amateur level, right? You know, there are a bunch of amateur races he liked going to. And so he went on the juice and did it scientifically. He found an anti-aging doctor in Los Angeles who would do it. And he worked his way up through the progression, starting with, like, HGH and testosterone supplements and then all the getting up to D-ball, like getting up to the the anabolic steroids at the end. And what he discovered was that roids do not give you a 2% edge or a 5%. But it's more like 40% improvement. Like, the gains are un-fucking-believable. And it happens overnight without you doing anything differently. And he said that it was he actually went through depression at the end of the year when he cycled off of the steroids, because, like, his body went back to being normal person body. And he said even his eyesight improved while he was on steroids. Like, all of a sudden he had. He had, like, 2040 vision. You know, he could see like a hawk. And so I've often thought about this. And it's not just the juice, just steroids, because Flash started on creatine. So Flash has been spending the last. Flash has spent the last 10 months getting big, because this was part of his VLO program for pitching. And he's put on close to 30 pounds in like nine months. And I mean, he's he's legitimately terrifying now. He's so big. And but he added creatine because his coaches were like, you know, I got to probably, you know, probably use some of this stuff, too. We have the cream in the clear. I don't know if you guys remember this from the Barry Bonds days. But so my my memory of creatine begins with Mark McGuire. When there was the mini scandal that it was discovered in his locker and it was I think it was a banned substance at the time, but not like, you know, baseball has subsequently unbanned it.
Sonny00:05:07Yeah.
JVL00:05:08Anyway, and this is all of which is to simply say that after a month of using creatine. It's noticeable that this stuff works and he just he's like bulging and like, I don't know. He's squatting 700 pounds like it's it's he's at like NFL level player and and the creatine stuff. Just a reminder that everything we see when you watch like professional type athletes, they're doing stuff which is abnormal for us in which normal people who aren't on some form of juice, even if it's legal juice like creatine and the other supplements and stuff. It is like unusual. Oh, yeah. And I just find that wild.
Sonny00:06:00Well, this is I mean, this is the entirety of Hollywood at this point. Yes. Like I mean, like one of the reasons one of the reasons this is kind of invisible. I have a whole theory about this, but it's not fully formulated. But like I really do think that we we spent a lot of time as a society thinking about unrealistic beauty standards for women. Right. In the in. In. In response to like Baywatch and stuff like that. Right. Like we spent a lot of time thinking like or Photoshop magazine covers, et cetera, et cetera. And like every every actor, not not like even the movie stars, because there were you always had your or at least as far back as like the late 70s, early 80s. You had your Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone types, the guys who were like who were juicing, but were very just very big. They were very big guys. But those guys were kind of abnormal. Right. Right. Now, every single actor, not not. Every single star, every single actor in a Bob Odenkirk these days.
JVL00:07:01Yes.
Sonny00:07:02Is cut like they have like cheese grater abs like it's it is it is it is not natural and it is not healthy. And it has like, I think, moderately bad influences and impacts on society. But like but like it's it's this is just the world of of movies and movie stars these days. Is if you are going to be in a movie with your shirt off, you spend six months in the gym beforehand doing steroids and getting big.
JVL00:07:36Yeah. A lot of HGH. A lot of. Yeah. I remember one one thing in the piece where when Stu sits down with his doctor for the first time, the doctor's mapping out what he's going to put him on. And he says HGH for the first time. And Stu is like, is that dangerous? And he laughs and he's like, I have my grandmother on this stuff. HGH is a miracle drug. And the only reason that everybody in America doesn't take it is because it's too expensive.
Sonny00:08:02Yeah. I mean, but like I do think that also, you know, between between HGH and the what's the what's the real name for Ozempic? Whatever. Like the Ozempic style drug monoglutide, I think. Yes. Whatever. Whatever.
Mike00:08:18Wait, wait, wait. Hold on, Sonny. Ozempic? Isn't it Ozempic? Is it? Is it Ozempic? I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about.
Sonny00:08:27Ozempic. Whatever. Anime. It's it's a callback for the old heads. I, you know, I do think that we I think it would be useful to have a society wide conversation about the benefits of taking these things on a regular basis for everyone is what I would say about that. And I like I am full agree. And like, you know, like there's there's part. For me, that is like a kind of resentful of, you know, every once in a while it will come up that I that I lost a bunch of weight a few years back and like, oh, are you on the Ozempic? And I'm like, no, I did it. I did it the old fashioned way with diet and exercise, but also like I don't there's no I don't judge anybody who takes it. It's fine. It's it's good. People should there is a there is a weight.
Mike00:09:20There is something of like a judgment, though, on people who have used it. Maybe that's going away as it becomes more widely employed.
JVL00:09:30But go ahead. Let me just say, because we're in a little the safe space, the tree of trust and understanding. So I'm on not the Ozempics, but on the the tetraglutide, which is the ZEP bound. And it has been life changing for me. And like I'm back to my pre pandemic weight. And it is one of these things where I believe that 20 years. From now, like half the population will be on something in this class of drugs. And I mean, if you follow the medical literature on this, they're even seeing it being highly effective in helping people who are fighting alcoholism because it fights like general cravings and stuff like these things are really like, I don't know, like I just my back was hurting constantly. My knees were hurting. I simply do not have the time to exercise like I don't I do not like it doesn't happen. And I had. Reached the weird point in my life where I could no longer like I just didn't have the emotional energy to be disciplined about eating anymore.
Sonny00:10:32Right. Yeah.
JVL00:10:33And it had never been like that before. But COVID hit and I ate all of my feelings for three years and like it's just bad for my health.
Sonny00:10:43And you've got four kids and like there's you know, there's there's there's a time. It's time. Like making healthy food takes time.
JVL00:10:52Going to the gym, you know, going to the gym. I have an all. Consuming job, which I need to do to make the money for everything. And it's like I said, again, life changing for me. And like I just feel better. My knees don't hurt. My back doesn't hurt. It's like I sleep better. I don't snore as much. It's it's great. And all these things and like the HGH will eventually be, I think someday when the costs come down will be just like normal part of medicine.
Sonny00:11:19Is HGH legal now? Can you just get it? Can I go to the HGH?
JVL00:11:24Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can.
Mike00:11:25Absolutely get a prescription for it. Is there a is there a parallel here? Like the way you guys are describing the way in in athletics and in Hollywood, there's something similar to the way that, you know, certain innovations happen in NASA or in the federal government with the Internet that like are ultimately like get downstream to like us regular folks. Like, is there is there another example where like some? Kind of health trend has started in Hollywood and and move down the line to us to us.
JVL00:12:03Normally low carb probably started in Hollywood.
Mike00:12:06That feels like that feels right.
JVL00:12:08What's that low carb? The idea of like, you know, low carb diets. And I think that that did stop me. Maybe didn't start Hollywood. We started like Miami, right? South Beach. South Beach. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. I will just say this on a serious note. The three of us are incredible. We're incredibly lucky that we got married before all of these unrealistic expectations for how men's bodies look permeated into America's women so that our wives are saddled with us as we are.
Mike00:12:40Exactly.
JVL00:12:41Our wives grew up thinking that all men eventually looked like the dudes on beer commercials and that it was perfectly natural for a woman who is a 10 to be with a guy who is a 6.5.
Sonny00:12:54Kevin James.
JVL00:12:56Yep. And look at us.
Mike00:12:58I don't know what you're talking about. My wife only loves me for my inner beauty.
JVL00:13:04So, yeah, we'll see. That's why. Because she was trained to not expect outer beauty from you, Michael. All right.
Mike00:13:11That's all I got. What are you boys up to? Sonny, what's happening?
Sonny00:13:16Not a whole lot on my end. Have you guys? I guess we'll talk. I want to save my time for box office because I want to talk about Minecraft a little bit. Okay. Because that's a huge hit. We're probably not going to talk about it. Maybe we will. I don't know. You guys want to take your kids. I'm going to have to say Minecraft.
Mike00:13:33Yeah.
Sonny00:13:33But but I have I am I'm like kind of fascinated by this movie.
JVL00:13:37Are you surprised? Because I like I like this is like Sonic 2. I knew this movie was going to be a huge hit. I didn't know it would be 140 million. I knew it was going to like whatever the over was. I was taking it.
Sonny00:13:49I was I was surprised in the sense that well, I kind of like you. I assumed it was going to do well, but I was. When I got to I took my kid to see it on Friday. Again, we will talk about this. But when I when I was in the theater on Friday watching it, I was like, oh, this is going to be enormous. This is this is this is going to be a cultural phenomenon sort of thing.
JVL00:14:09So, yeah, like Super Mario.
Mike00:14:12Yeah. Michael, what are you up to, buddy? So we need we need to revisit something that we discussed last week, which is the pizza, the pizza technique.
JVL00:14:22Oh, yes. I can't believe we forgot this.
Mike00:14:25I didn't forget JVL. I didn't forget because. Well, let me back up first. Let's just go over what the technique is for those who didn't listen last week, because in JVL you have an update for us and I have an update as well. But the technique is basically the best way to reheat a slice of pizza. And if you got a big enough pan, two slices of pizza is to place the pizza slice into a cold pan on your stove. Put an ice cube. One single ice cube into the pan, turn the heat on to a little more than medium between medium and medium high, something along that on my stove. You'd put it on six, for instance. That's what I did. There you go. Well, and then put that lid on and let it sit there for about 10 minutes. You could check on it, maybe around eight. What you want to see is a lot of steam forming from that melted ice cube that has been circulating, hitting the top of the pan and then heating at the cheese while the crust on the cold pan, as it heats up, crisps up as well. This is something I've been doing for years. JVL, you say you did it.
JVL00:15:40And you know, I was like Bruce Willis in diehard when he takes the shoes off and starts making fists with his toes in the carpet. And he goes, son of a bitch. It works. That's what I was like when I. Pulled this pizza out of the pan that I had put an ice cube in and like everything about this just seemed weird.
Mike00:16:03It was fantastic. So wrong.
JVL00:16:05It was just gooey perfection with the exact right up moisture level to it. Nothing. Michael, you said you promised that it was just as good as when it has come out of the oven at your local pizzeria. And dammit, if that wasn't true, if it's not wild as good, it is as.
Mike00:16:25Closest you can get to that. So it does something that the microwave certainly doesn't do that. Microwave doesn't add any Christmas right to or doesn't restore the Christmas to the crust. Oh, it makes it hot, soggy, spongy and soggy. It's gross.
Sonny00:16:41The oven boo microwaves.
Mike00:16:43The oven dries it out. Yep. What you need is steam. Steam is an underrated cooking tool. So I'm glad it worked for you, JVL. I want to say reader and friend of the. Listener, I should say listener in front of the show. Ed Condon also texted me to let me know it worked for him as well. And I just want to read some of these texts. Uh, I was deeply skeptical and a now a convert. And he shared a few pictures of his, you guys can see them of, of what he did. Uh, he said it worked exactly as advertised. Uh, uh, this is more from Ed. It really does make a difference, not dry at all, and you don't get the fluffy for five seconds, then toughest shoes effect in the microwave. I'm never doing it any other way again. And, and just sort of the coup de grace here. You're doing God's work, man. Yeah.
JVL00:17:36And as a Canon lawyer, so he would know, I will just say this though.
Mike00:17:39I will probably never, the effect of Canon law that that makes me legally a God labor.
JVL00:17:45It was the best beats I've ever had at home. And I will also probably never do it again this way because the, the, the time to time to pizza, the cleanup afterwards, and you can only do one slice at a time.
Sonny00:18:00Right? Well, this is, this is my issue here is that you can only do one slice at a time.
JVL00:18:04Like if you could do two, like you do have to wait 10 minutes and then you got to clean up afterwards, you got to clean the pan. And I, I'm an eat to live, not live to eat guy. And, uh, so it was wonderful and I couldn't believe it. And I probably won't do it again.
Mike00:18:20This is, this is my wife's house. This is my wife's objection to like, but, but she and. I, this is a place in which we clash and we don't clash in a way that is, uh, you know, that causes any real problems. It's just our different approach. She prefers, uh, speed to quality when it comes to heating up food. And she is much more likely to use the microwave in general. Um, and certainly would prefer to heat pizza up that way. Uh, if it gets the pizza to her plate and I have
JVL00:18:55a quality threshold that I need to clear, which is why microwave doesn't work. I wonder if I could, if I could sort of split the difference here by putting some water in an enamel bowl in the oven while I'm heating it. So that as the oven heats, the water evaporates a little bit and I get a little bit of moisture in the oven. I wonder, and then I'm not doing the cleanup of the pan.
Mike00:19:18I, I don't know the science of that and how that works. Um, and would depend maybe on what kind of oven you have, if you have a, uh, you know, convection oven or, or, um, or what?
JVL00:19:30It's not a toaster oven. Yeah.
Sonny00:19:33Well, at any rate, call back for you, Sonny. Well, the toaster oven is the, is the medium step here. It's you don't have to, it takes, it takes less time to preheat or you just put it in and like hit toast and it'll be, it'll be done. It keeps it crispy. The cheese on top is bubbly without getting hard. I like your, this, this 17 step process to get one. Parentheses figure one slice of pizza rewarmed is insane. That's an insane. That's a thing that a crazy, no, that's a thing. I'm sorry. That's a thing. A crazy billionaire makes his, uh, servants do to reheat his pizza for him because he has 17 people who can each take one slice of pizza and, and, uh, go to the different kitchens in the house and do it. I like, I'm sorry.
Mike00:20:22This is, this is a, your, your.
Sonny00:20:25Your, uh, this is a, this is a Howard Hughes, Montgomery Burns situation that you have, you have created for yourself. And I refuse to take part of it. It's, it's decadent and I will have no part of it.
Mike00:20:38Well, you know, if I can be, if this is my one indulgence, my one bit of decadence in my life, it's great, right? It's great.
JVL00:20:45And I want to give full credit to you on this. Again, I was as skeptical as the day as long. It works by God. It works.
Sonny00:20:51One piece of pizza isn't even enough to let, that's like not even a snack. Yeah, it is when you're on the as epics, I guess that's food anymore. When you don't need any food anymore, it's, uh, yeah.
JVL00:21:03Uh, all right. So, uh, let's do the Minecraft thing.
Mike00:21:06Yeah, let's, well, let's talk to the box office because we've got to talk about my, uh, Minecraft movie. By the way, it's not called Minecraft. It's called a Minecraft movie. Um, which seems like kind of like a Star Wars story, right. Or, or the super Mario brothers movie, um, another, another Jack black, uh, point, um, number one at the box office, a hundred and almost 163 million and it's opening weekend. Um, I mean, nothing else even comes close. Nothing else has come close in a long time. Uh, Sonny, give, give us your, uh, your whole brief here on a Minecraft movie and how we should think about it. Box office dominance.
Sonny00:21:47I, well, I'll say, I mean, look, it shows the power of like one hit, uh, to, to resurrect the box, like. Before this weekend or before last weekend, the box office was down, I think 11% on the year, and now it is down only 5% on the year. It's probably down even less than that because the Monday and Tuesday grosses were pretty, um, were pretty big. Yeah. Let's see. We are down now just 4.7% year over year. Um, which is, you know, like, again, that's, that's just, that's just math. Um, 160, what was 163 million, 167 million. Uh, no, no, no, it was a hundred.
Mike00:22:24It was, it was almost 163 million.
Sonny00:22:28Almost a hundred. So that's like, that's literally a hundred million dollars more than Warner brothers was, uh, admitting to in their projections and their numbers were, they were low balling it because they wanted to, you know, blah, whatever pump up, um, I will say, I will say I, I had, there's a, there's an account I follow on Twitter, this like Indian savant who tracks, uh, the presale numbers, who is always very close, uh, in terms of like what the real number will be. No, no, his name is, uh, his name, it's Charlie. His, his name, his handle is, his name is Charlie. His handle is like me, Japs, three 20 or something. Anyway, he's like, he's just, I don't, I don't know how he has time for it, but he, this is his gig. Um, and he on Thursday night was predicting, uh, like 140 or 150 million and I was like, what, that must, that must be worldwide, not domestic. I thought maybe I was misreading it and I went to see it Friday with my, with my son, uh, cause we had a, we had an afternoon boy boys afternoon and, uh, and the theater, the theater for the, we went to like a 4:00 PM screening. The theater was like 90% full, which like 4:00 PM screening. That is not a, it was, it was 90% full. It was full of. Kids who were fucking pumped to be there. They were like shouting lines from the trailer at each other. As they came in, there were kids there who wore dressed like for prom. And I couldn't tell if they were going to this as like pre prom dinner instead, but it was Friday, so that doesn't make any sense because prom's on Saturday. Right? Like you don't have Friday proms, so like, I don't know, I don't know if this was like their pre prom dinner or whatever, or if they were just doing the gentle minions thing and dressing up and, you know, going to the, to the, to, to see a
JVL00:24:33Minecraft movie, did they bring a blanket into the theater with them?
Sonny00:24:37No, no, no. They like the, the most of the, most of the, the groups that I saw, it was like seven, 14 year old boys rolling into a row together, um, while the movie was on. They were shouting. Shouting the lines from the trailer, which apparently it's been a big TikTok phenomenon, like the, the advertising for this movie has been, you know, sliced a million ways and it's on TikTok and when the, when the chicken jock, I don't know if you guys are aware of chicken jockey tricking, there's a, there's a line in the trailer where a, uh, zombie drops down onto a chicken and Jack black shouts, chicken jockey pandemonium in the pandemonium pandemonium, when this happened.
JVL00:25:24So it references a thing that they know about from a game.
Sonny00:25:26It's very funny. They like it a lot. I, uh, again, I'm, I, I, I, I'm not surprised it's a hit. I am a little surprised. It's the biggest Warner brothers opening since like Harry Potter eight, um, uh, like bigger. I think it's bigger than Barbie. I think this did, this did better business than Barbie. It's right. It's right in the same league anyway. Um, it's an, it's an enormous hits, uh, good for good. Good for Warner brothers. Good for Minecraft. Jack black is like one of the few, one of the last genuine movie stars in terms of like putting butts into seats. Kids love Jack black. Um, and what is, what's kind of interesting about it that I had not realized going into it is that it's directed by Jared Hess, Napoleon dynamite, the Napoleon dynamite director. Now, Jared Hess has had, you know, kind of a mixed career, uh, in the, in the years since Napoleon dynamite. But this movie. Feels at the very least like a spiritual sequel to Napoleon dynamite. It is the stuff in the, again, it's a, it's a very strange movie where like the stuff that takes place in the real world is way more interesting than the stuff that takes in the Minecraft world, but that's because the stuff that takes place in the real world is realistically absurd again. And that kind of same way Napoleon dynamite was, it has, it has a bunch of characters who I would describe as charming grotesques maybe would be the best way to. Think of them. Um, and that, and that, that mode that he, he really nailed with Napoleon dynamite. I mean that Napoleon dynamite.
JVL00:27:04Where did Napoleon dynamite go? That kid who played him? Cause he got an all access pass to like Will Ferrell world.
Sonny00:27:12He was in a, he was in a couple of movies and then blades of glory
JVL00:27:15benchwarmers. Yeah. Yeah. And then disappeared.
Sonny00:27:20Well, I don't think he's a very good actor is the thing. He's not a. Again, charming grotesque. Um, the, the uncle Rico is doing well. He's on, uh, he's on the white Lotus last two seasons. Good for him.
JVL00:27:36No, I got excited for the fortnight movie and the roadblocks movie too.
Sonny00:27:41That, that will be an enormous fortnight movie. That's basically free guy. Did you guys, we saw a free guy. Didn't we talk about free? I was kidding.
JVL00:27:48Is there a fortnight movie? I just assume that there will be a fortnight movie. There will be a legend of Zelda movie. We get movies for all of these fucking games, right?
Mike00:27:57What is the, I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a Zelda legend of Zelda movie, uh, up
Sonny00:28:01to this point. There's one being, there's one being made right now. There's a, there's a legend of Zelda movie.
Mike00:28:04But question, um, what is the difference between Minecraft and roadblocks? What is like, what, what are, what are the, what's the same to me?
JVL00:28:17Can't be played on private servers. So Minecraft, you can do by yourself. I, I don't, this is from my perspective as a parent. The reason I allow G money to play Minecraft, but not roadblocks is because I don't want him out on a public server with streams talking to him.
Mike00:28:34Yeah.
JVL00:28:35Minecraft, he can be locked away like, you know, with just his cousins or just him and him.
Mike00:28:41But are they similar in the sense that they're like world building with little.
Sonny00:28:45Well, well, roadblocks is like a development platform. It is not, it is not, you don't go and play roadblocks, you go to roadblocks and you play games that are made in roadblocks is my understanding. Uh, I like, I don't, I, I, when I had, I had Matt Charles Wertheimer trying to explain
JVL00:29:04what a comic book is.
Sonny00:29:05No, exactly. No, this is one, 100%. The thing is I, when I had, I had, uh, I had Matthew ball on my podcast a few, a couple months back, talk about video games. And I was just like, roadblocks is an enormous hit. Lots of people play it. Explain it to me, please. Tell me what this is. I don't understand. I understand Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike makes sense to me. You go and you, you shoot people and you, and their teams and you win. Fortnite makes sense to me. It's like Counter-Strike, but like more kind of pop culture oriented and there's seasons and you're doing, again, makes sense to me. Minecraft kind of makes sense to me though. It seems like a really lame game, but I like, whatever. I, I kind of understand. It's like, it's like Legos kind of in, in video game world. Roadblocks, I don't understand at all. I, I like totally, total black box to me. I have no idea. Okay. Makes no sense.
Mike00:29:55We don't have to belabor the, the, the.
Sonny00:29:57It's like Playpen from Mythic Quest is my understanding, is basically what it's like.
Mike00:30:00Okay, which I also kind of didn't understand when I watched that, that episode of, of, of that show. Okay. All right. Well, any other thoughts on, on a Minecraft movie? I think maybe we should do it next week because I'm going to have to take my kids and spring break next week and I'm going to.
Sonny00:30:17You guys have to go see it. We can do it. I, I'm not opposed to talking about it. It's, it's, it, again, it's kind of interesting to think about in the context. Of the rest of Jared Hesse's career, which I've been like going down a rabbit hole. I think we're right about it.
Mike00:30:29Nacho Libre, right?
Sonny00:30:31Yeah. Nacho Libre, uh, um, Gentleman Broncos, uh, Don Verdeen, which is a movie nobody has seen, but I have now seen. And anyway.
Mike00:30:41All right.
JVL00:30:42For the three of us, Minecraft, the movie is as inescapable as physics. It is inevitable. Yeah. We are going to have to see this fucking thing. We might as well get some content out of it. I agree with that.
Sonny00:30:57If you guys want to, if you guys want to go next week and, uh, we can do, we can do an episode on it. That'd be great.
Mike00:31:02All right. Listeners. This is how the sausage is made. This is how we make these kinds of decisions. A little, a little bit of the curtain being pulled back here, but let's move on from that. Maybe we'll talk more about Minecraft, uh, next week. This week, however, we're talking about a movie that is 30 years old. Tommy boy. It's celebrating its 30th anniversary. I've been seeing this, uh, there's like a new release, right? Sunny, a 4k release. So I thought we should talk about, uh, a movie that I realized upon rewatching has a bigger kind of impact on the language of my childhood than I realized. So, uh, let's talk about Tommy boy, Sonny. You want to start us off here? Do we really need a big boy review of, of Tommy boy?
Sonny00:31:48Tommy boy movie that no movie has ever benefited more from a 4k upgrade slash restoration than Tommy boy. I, I literally, I was going to, I was just going to stream it, but it's not actually streaming anywhere. You have to pay for it on VOD anyway. I was like, if I'm paying for it, I'm going to fucking own, I'm going to fucking own a 4k copy of this movie and it's going to be in my, my library forever. Um, Tommy boy. So Tommy boy is, I, this is the first Chris Farley, David Spade movie, right? They made black sheep. That was after this, right? That was, yes. So it's, it, you know, this, this is, uh, this is this Tommy boy, Tommy boy starring Chris Farley as the titular Tommy boy, uh, dummy nepo baby who is going to take over his dad's brake pad company in, uh, where I guess Callahan motor auto parts in, uh, Sandusky, Ohio, which always like it's all it's. I, I enjoy watching this movie because, um, uh, Sandusky is down like one town over from where my mom grew up. Sandusky is also where Cedar point is. There are a couple of Cedar point mugs in the, in the, um, in the, in the, the movie, uh, Cedar point of course is like the biggest and best rollercoaster park in the world somehow is like on the shores of Lake Erie in Ohio.
Mike00:33:10Uh, if anybody has, has interest, Ohio is the rollercoaster like Mecca.
Sonny00:33:16Yeah, it's, it's bizarre, but that's, that's where, uh, that's where the best rollercoasters in the world are is Cedar point, Ohio. Uh, anyway. Uh, Tommy, uh, Tommy Callahan has graduated from college. He's just going to take over the family business, but his dad dies and the evil step-mom Bo Derek and her lover slash fake son Rob Lowe are trying to tank the business. Tommy's got to save it road trip. We're going across. We're going to sell some parts across the country. We're going to go back and forth across the Midwest. Uh, anyway, I am again, I, the, the movie itself is, is fine. It's, it's funny. It's a, this is a funny movie. I like, I like Chris Farley and David Spade. I, I, I like it, but it really is representative of an entirely bygone era of like a America, but also be, um, movies where like you have, I like, I, Mike, I texted you this last night, like the, the fat guy comedy, the like, kind of the kind of like the, the big. Jim Belushi or, uh, John Belushi, like, um, party animal, Roland ball of fun guy has disappeared basically from con like that doesn't, he's still there.
JVL00:34:37Horatio Sands just doesn't get his own movie.
Sonny00:34:39Well, no, but that's the thing, right? It's like, that guy's never the lead anymore. He's maybe a comic sidekick. Maybe if he shows up, Melissa McCarthy, Melissa McCarthy, Melissa McCarthy, again, like a good example, but like, again, like when's her last hit, like 15 years ago now, like she, she is, you know, on the, on the, on the kind of backside of, I, again, I, it's, it's, it's from, it's a different era and it's also very specifically that like Lorne Michaels era of SNL movie comedy, which is again, very interesting because you have this, you have like, you have this, you have black sheep, you have happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. Um, and then you have, uh, the Wayne's world, Wayne's world, the Wayne, the Wayne, and I, I think of all of these kind of connected in my head cause they are, cause they're all again, Lorne Michaels movies, but the, but, but what was, I was something I was trying to put my finger on last night and I don't think this is quite right, but it's kind of close is that these are, these are, you know, the, the old, the old formula was for like Caddyshack and animal house was like the snobs versus slobs thing, right? It's like, we're the, we're the slobs and we're, we're better than those snobs and we're having more fun and blah, blah, blah, and these movies. Not entirely, but, but it is a running thread through them. Is it, it like takes, it takes the snob versus slob idea, but it makes the snobs, the slob, so like, this is a movie about a rich kid is a movie about a rich kid who, who needs to, who needs to like save his rich family business. Right. And like, we can argue about like, wow, they're not what we, but like, but like, but this is also Billy Madison and this is also black sheep kind of like this is this whole kind of mode of like, it's not snobs versus slobs. It's like the, the slobby snob movies. Does that make, does that make sense?
JVL00:36:35No, it's, it's worse than that. It is the nepo, like the born rich slobs versus the ambitious normies who are just trying to make their way in. The ambitious strivers. Yeah.
Sonny00:36:49Well, this, and this is, this is like the actual, I mean, it's not even subtext. This is the text. This is the text of, uh, happy Gilmore or not happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, right? Cause Billy Madison is like the villain is the guy from the West wing. What's his name? Bradley Whitford. Um, and, and he is like a hardworking guy who is trying to work his way up through the company. And like, he gets stifled by the idiot son. Uh, and it's also kind of David Spade's character here, but David Spade is, they become friends and you know, whatever. Uh, I, again, it's like, it's an interesting little. The, the early nineties were a weird time. It's a, it's an interesting little capsule into like how everybody in the world was reacting to things that am I reading too much into this? Mike, you look a little skeptical. I don't know.
Mike00:37:37Yeah. So, I mean, look, I, I think you're right in the, like the sort of evolution of snobs versus slobs into like the rich guy, but there's a, to me and JVL, I'm, I'm would love to hear your thoughts on this, but to me, there's a kind of. Um, there's a, there's a story in all these movies about like somebody who's like, got who has to, to use a, uh, a term that's sort of loaded now, but like somebody who has privilege, but doesn't appreciate it to sort of, uh, come into, uh, you know, have some level of personal growth and they don't, they don't lose everything. They're at risk of losing everything. Um, but they don't end up losing everything and everything. Actually kind of turns out. Okay. But what is more important in the context of the movie is that that there's that the person is a better person, uh, at the end of it, not because at the end it was all about saving the money or saving the company or, or making sure I didn't have to, you know, go, I wasn't disinherited, but because I learned something, uh, about being a better person. And I think whether or not that works is, is. Is just, I think, uh, a matter of taste or a matter of the movies in this movie in particular working for you and the skill of the actor. But, uh, I think it's an, it's, I think it's an interesting development and, um, uh, I don't know. That's, that's, that's my thought on, on, on that sort of.
JVL00:39:12Yeah. There, these movies are really about noblesse oblige and the, the importance of those for whom much is given, like really learning to earn it. Now Tommy boy is. Just a straight autobiography. Like Chris Farley is born into a rich family. His dad owned an oil company. Um, he, after going to Marquette, which is where the character Tommy boy went, he went and worked for his dad's oil company for a while before like bopping down to second city and getting into comedy. Um, like he never, I didn't know that.
Sonny00:39:43I actually had no idea. I didn't realize it.
JVL00:39:45Like, it's just, it's just the Chris Farley story. Um, you know, I, it's funny Farley. I mean, I view. You this, and my God, this is an ugly, ugly movie. I mean, that Peter, Peter Segal, I think directed it.
Sonny00:40:03Yeah.
JVL00:40:03And it is, I mean, it's just hideous to look at. It's grimy, almost like seventies grimy, but it wasn't shot in the seventies. And, uh, the lack of care that is spent, I mean, it might as well be a TV episode with the lack of care. Yeah. Given to the actual filming of the thing. Uh, and it works only because Chris Farley is so delightful. That's, that's the only reason this works. The only reason the movie exists is because Chris Farley was a delight and it's the reason this movie succeeds. Even the reason black sheep succeeds, even though it's the same movie again. Uh, it's just like, you know, Hey, Laurel and Hardy made the same movie 150 times. We could do that too. Yeah. Except Chris Farley then died. I didn't realize how young he was when he died. He was 33. Um, and his, his body of work is incredibly small. He was only on Saturday Night Live for six years. He only did three meaningful movies. I mean, he had appearances in a bunch of those, you know, in the Wayne's world movie, in the Coneheads movie, in the, um, Billy Madison, you know, he's the bus driver there. So he appears in all those, but he's uncredited. He's just like, clearly he's buddies with people who are in the scene. And so they bring him in. Uh, he becomes this Titanic star overnight on Saturday Night Live. He does Tommy Boy, which becomes a cult classic. I think everybody loves Tommy Boy. He makes remakes Tommy Boy with black sheep and then he dies. I mean, I think there were like two other movies that he does. Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills Ninja, Beverly Hills, right.
Mike00:41:47But, but he was supposed to be, he was supposed to be Shrek Shrek.
JVL00:41:52Yeah. And, uh, I mean, I, again, I, it's just kind of weird. And, uh, also that it does seem to have happened all in slow motion. Um, I, I was just reading up on this stuff. So he was brought back to host Saturday Night Live shortly before dying and was in such bad shape that they almost canned it like at the last minute.
Mike00:42:16Like, oh, they, they had, they had Chris Rock basically in the wings and he comes on stage during the monologue. Uh, and Chris Rock was basically ready to host if they need in case.
JVL00:42:29Yeah. In case Farley just like, couldn't do it. And, uh, I, do you, so I was going to ask you, Mike, so he Farley and Sandler got fired from Saturday Night Live together. Correct. Do you know that?
Mike00:42:42So I don't know the story of this. I've just like saw references to it. What happened? So, okay. So it's, there's a lot going on in that period, but basically after, so that 20th season of Saturday Night Live is a complete disaster. There's a big New York magazine piece, um, where Farley's on the cover. Um, in fact, and he's got like a TV over his head. Um, and he's kind of like in the Matt Foley, uh, costume and, um, the headline is not like, I, it's not Saturday Night Dead, but it's, it's a, one of those kind of pieces. And, uh, it just is all about just the disaster behind the scenes, which was, which was all true. Like it was just a, the cast was not melding well together. Um, there had been a huge exodus after the 18th season of a bunch of the writers, um, who really made that period saying along with that, with the, with the actors. And then, you know, Phil Hartman leaves, um, uh, Dana Carby has left by this point. And so the 20th season is a big mess and they're about to take the show away from Lorne Michaels and Michaels decides to completely revamp it cast wise. And, uh, but I think a condition of it was Sandler and Farley had to go. Interestingly, he, they, that also included Tim Meadows, but Tim Meadows was brought back. Um, somehow Lorne was able to get Meadows back and, and, and recognize that Tim Meadows was like the utility player he needed. Um, and, and his, um, and of course Meadows goes on to have like five more seasons, uh, where he becomes into his own on the show. Um, I kept, he kept Norm MacDonald, um, David Spade stayed on for a year and a kind of like almost consultant dad, like one segment on the show, uh, in that, in that year. And then maybe, I think Molly Shannon had come in at the end of that season. She stayed on, uh, Mark McKinney. Anyway, everybody else is new and that's the Will Ferrell age. And so like, it's literally like the Spade corner, isn't it?
JVL00:44:47Like the Spade, Hollywood or something. It was called Spade America. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Anyway.
Mike00:44:52So, but then everything else is. It's like the will, it's like Will Ferrell, Daryl Hammond, Sherry, like all of that comes in, uh, and they, and so they, so, so Farley and Sandler, I think we're seen as like, they were too indulgent. Um, and it was getting too, it was getting too silly and they were the problem. I think NBC thought they were the problem and Lorne Michaels, you know, basically, uh, either agreed or had no power to. Um, to fight, to fight for it.
Sonny00:45:24And, um, well, but also, I mean, but also like Chris Farley behind the scenes is, is a mess still, even at this point, like he's like in a way that Sandler wasn't saying, but Sandler also was kind of an enabler.
Mike00:45:39I think is, uh, I don't know about that. Sandler was more, um, it's, I don't know. It's, it's complicated because the drug thing is like a whole other issue. Which is right. Cause like Lorne Michaels would like put him in rehab for a couple of weeks, like keep them off the show and then bring them back on and, and felt a kind of, uh, paternal. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, instinct with that. Um, the interesting thing about the drug thing that I've heard, and I don't know if this is like Spade covering for himself. I don't think so, but David Spade has talked a lot about how he actually stopped seeing Farley in the last couple of years of his. Life a lot. I mean, he would see him every once in a while. He talks about kind of the last time he saw him, um, but had kind of moved away and pushed away from him because Farley had developed these other friends is how he describes it. These other people that would do where he did all the drugs and all that stuff. And it really isolated him. And I do, I do get a sense. There's a lot of regret that like I pushed away or I kept him away. Maybe I should have kept him closer, but. It was just like something he didn't want to be a part of. And, um, it's all really sad because obviously like, like, uh, I, I think David Spade is a great standup comic and he's had a fine career yet. It was on a huge, major, he's been like two major hit sitcoms and, and all of this, but his movie career really suffered with the death of Farley because he was an important part of that partnership, but like the junior part of that partnership. And that's, um, well, he's a straight man.
JVL00:47:19He's a straight man. And like his sister killed himself. I mean, David. Spades had a, that was his sister-in-law, his sister-in-law.
Mike00:47:26Yeah. Sister-in-law. Right. I mean, yeah, his, his, his assistant almost tried to kill him. Remember that? That was like, that was like 25 years ago.
Sonny00:47:35Who can blame?
Mike00:47:36I know. Uh, uh, his, his sister like broke into his house, like in early in the morning and like started choking him and it was like this big dude. And, um, yeah, anyway, terrifying.
JVL00:47:49Uh, so yeah, I mean the whole thing, it's, it's hard to watch. Tommy boy and love it the way I did in college or whenever it was that I watched, I mean right after college because it was, I mean, you know, like seeing the guy who's gone, who would be dead just a few years later and to know that part of what is making him funny is the thing that's going to kill him. That's tough to watch.
Guest00:48:19Yeah.
JVL00:48:21Yeah. I don't know. Did you guys feel that at all? Or no, in a way that like Billy Madison, no problems, right? Like Billy Madison holds up like it's great. This is like Adam Sandler. Adam Sandler is great. Who doesn't love Adam Sandler? And watching this makes me feel not complicit in it, but but makes me feel sad.
Mike00:48:40It's interesting. Bob Odenkirk has talked about because he wrote the Matt Foley. Yeah, yeah, that's right. By the river. And he does not feel I mean, he stands by that sketch, but he does not feel that the show and everything was good for Farley. Like he hates the the sketch that put Farley on the map was the Chippendales where he's dances with Patrick Swayze. Yeah, with the shirt off. He hates that sketch. What's interesting is that other people who are also close to Farley don't agree. Like there's some disagreement, I think, even between Robert Smigel and Bob Odenkirk on on this on this very question you're asking. And I think it's I think it's certainly up for debate and discussion. But I. I'm a little more on the Smigel side of that of that debate, I think.
Sonny00:49:28Well, I'm totally on the Smigel side as well, because it is funny. But also like Odenkirk is right that like the the the punch line of the joke is just telling Chris Farley repeatedly. But you're fat. Like I mean, like it's not I mean, that's not literally what but like. Right. I mean, the joke is just like you had a lot of energy. You're really great. But you're you're not attractive. Like Patrick's like this guy is much, much. You're not attractive. And like that definitely I you know, that definitely I'm I mean, I all his friends say this played into his he he was like, all right, you want me to be the big rotund clown? You want me to be the big, funny fat man? I can do that. And I will. And it did kill him. I mean, it like it.
Mike00:50:11I mean, is that what killed him or is I mean, it's like it's hard to like.
JVL00:50:16The manic drug stuff was part of the whole persona. Yeah. Well, he didn't just happen at the end. You know, it got worse. That's worse. That's that. I mean, part of what made him funny was the manicness. Right.
Sonny00:50:29And that that's what in idolizing, idolizing John Belushi and like and like going to the house that John Belushi built and being like, I'm going to be just like him. And like I there was there's there's a weird. I don't know. Fate is maybe the wrong word, but like there's this weird sense of fate about the whole thing. Like this, this, this acceptance of being a thing, of playing a part when we when we did the SNL episode a couple of weeks or a couple of months back, whenever we did that episode, JBL, you you mentioned Lauren's Lauren's great insight was like, you need these types, you need these types of people who can do the comedy. And and I think there is I mean, I think it's fairly obvious that he really internalized that idea and was like, my type is John Belushi. John Belushi is a legend. He's remembered and beloved by all. And he killed himself by partying too hard. And if that's what it takes, like, you know, I'm sure he didn't. I'm sure Chris Farley didn't sit down and like write up a memo about this to himself. But like, it's very obviously what's happening with him.
JVL00:51:44Yeah.
Mike00:51:45No, that's that's fair. Well, that's a good dark turn. Can I can I talk about a little more about the movie and sort of my thinking watching it? Again, for this week. So I think I said at the beginning of the segment, the the number of phrases that just in my elementary school were just holy, holy shnikes is one. But like, I mean, obviously, it's like fat guy in a little coat, like people would just go around singing that just it was it was like it was like the language of what did you do? Yeah. What did you do, Richard? Like, we would just always go, Richard, Richard, or, you know, the fan Luke, I am your father, like every single like, scene has something that was like, oh, we used to say that all the time on the school bus, you know, like, before I even saw the movie, because I was a little too young to watch this movie when it came out. Like, it was just the thing, you know, it was like somebody's older brother watched it and like said the thing and I, you know, I guess that's what Minecraft is now. You know, there are these things, it just, I like that there was, there were these kind of smaller comedy movies where people would pick up on stuff like this. The Sandler movies are like this and, you know, even like Wayne's World, Schwing, like we would always do Schwing and all that stuff. So, I appreciate that. I also, I was, Sonny and I were texting about this last night, I was struck by just how 30 years ago is not that long ago, like, I remember 30 years ago, and yet the amount of America that is portrayed in this movie, it's a little fantastical, but it's also, it feels like, like so long ago.
JVL00:53:31Could be 70, right? It could be 1975, not 1995. Totally, right?
Mike00:53:35I was like, you know, David Spade is asking the guy on the map, on the physical map where to go, you know, the, you know, everything that, you know, there's no cell phones, you know, I mean, yeah, that's all true, but like, also the idea of this road trip where they're like selling brake pads to distributors and stores and like, we're going to go, we're
Sonny00:53:57going to go to a series of family owned stores and we're going to save this company by selling a thousand brake pads at a time. It's just like, oh my God, that is, it's, it's, that does not exist anymore.
Mike00:54:08It does not exist anymore. And maybe it didn't exist in 1995, but it's, there's this kind of like, oh, it did, I guess
JVL00:54:14it did exist back then. Yeah. Like Pep Boys was it like, yeah, that was the national, the big national chain was Pep Boys, Manny Moe and Jack. Or Sears.
Mike00:54:23They were the, they were the Zelinsky auto of, of, of their time. Anyway, it just, I, I, I like that. And I, I also, I'm just, I, I think it succeeds because of Farley. I also, I think it succeeds because Farley and Spade, it's, the movie is built on their own real life interactions, right? Like if you listen to how, how this movie was made, they didn't know what they were doing. They had no script. It was interesting. I was listening to a podcast with Peter Siegel who said the original script was, almost was much more focused on the Rob Lowe, Chris Farley character, uh, uh, uh, relationship. Um, and that, that Siegel's in his telling his insight was, no, it's gotta be about Farley and Spade because that's why Lauren wanted them in a movie in the first place to do the things that we do around the office. And that's like fat guy in a little coat, the housekeeping thing, housekeeping, um, like all of that. And they just like, we're like, Oh, let's do that now. Let's, you know, um, Oh, I remember one. One of the other thing we used to always do on the bus. It was not here, not here, right here. I don't know why we, we, you know, we would always just like say that. I didn't even know what it meant. I just, it was just exactly Tommy went wingy. Um, okay. Uh, is there anything else we want to talk about this movie?
Sonny00:55:42No, no, no.
Mike00:55:44Okay. Uh, all right. Well, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family. And we'll talk to you next time.
JVL00:56:01All right. I got to go in a minute, but I have something I have to tell you boys once we're off the air. Cause it's too hot for the show.
Sonny00:56:10Oh, all right. Think about that. Listeners think about the secret conversations we're having in the, in the comments.
Mike00:56:15Tell us what you think was too hot for the show.
Sonny00:56:18I'm sure it'll be fine.
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