#325. 'John Candy: I Like Me' (Prime Video) (Hopefully With Audio this Time!)
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This week Mike Warren hosts alongside Sonny Bunch and JVL for a review of John Candy: I Like Me, Colin Hanks's Prime Video talking-head documentary about the beloved comedian, and all three come away charmed rather than challenged by it. Sonny calls it "a deeply pleasant film" — essentially 110 minutes of famous, wealthy friends (Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dan Aykroyd, Macaulay Culkin, Mel Brooks) testifying that Candy really was as decent as his reputation suggests, praising the film's effective device of counting down the years to his 1994 death; JVL agrees it plays like "a video version of a really deftly written obituary" and singles out Aykroyd's funeral eulogy and a never-before-seen SCTV "Yellow Belly" sketch as highlights, while also riffing on how the SCTV/SNL Canadian comedy scene functioned like a magazine newsroom where talent gets pulled along together. Mike is struck by the doc's uncomfortable archival footage of people mocking Candy's weight to his face, and all three discuss his run of classics with John Hughes and Harold Ramis (Stripes, Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Uncle Buck), his surprising history as a would-be Vietnam enlistee and campus conservative, and his soft spot for young Macaulay Culkin; each names a favorite Candy performance (JVL: Splash/Planes, Trains; Mike: Uncle Buck; Sonny: Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains). Before any of that, the front third of the episode is pure banter: Mike opens solo (audio finally restored after a botched first email) and runs through JVL's FAFSA misery and Sonny's saga of getting his kids passports, which spirals into a long, fond digression on youth-sports "ringer" politics — draft-day dads at McDonald's, a spreadsheet-Moneyball dad named Jason who never got to draft competitively, held-back Texas kindergartners, and Mike's own bittersweet reflection on ballpark community life curdled by news of a since-arrested coach. They close out the pre-movie segment with a Tron Ares box-office post-mortem (a soft $37M opening) that turns into a tangent on Disney/Universal ride-to-movie economics, lightning-lane pricing, and why nobody has tried to revive Song of the South.
From the show notes
For some reason the audio didn't go through with the first email. So you're getting a bonus second email. Lucky you!
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Where do you live? In the city. Do you have a house? Apartment. On a rent? Rent. What do you do for a living? Lots of things. Where's your office? I don't have one. How come? I don't need one. Where's your wife? Don't have one. How come? It's a long story. Do you have kids? No, I don't. How come? It's an even longer story. Are you my dad's brother? What's your record for consecutive questions asked? 38. I'm your dad's brother, all right. You have much more hair on your nose than my dad. How nice of you to notice.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who've been sharing motel rooms, bad rental cars, and an uncomfortable pillow. Wait, that's not a pillow. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to the show, they got to do it at subbeacon.com. There is always a lively discussion in the comments. Join that conversation. New episodes every Friday. Check us out. At Sub-Beacon on Instagram as well. And later on in the show, we're going to be talking about I Like Me, a John Candy documentary later on, of course, in the show. But first, let's see how everyone is doing. JVL, what is happening with you, my man?
JVL00:01:20I will merely say that I began filling out the FAFSA.
Mike00:01:24FAFSA. Today. FAFSA.
JVL00:01:27Easy for you to say. Good God. That's all. It's just what a miserable experience.
Sonny00:01:35Yeah.
JVL00:01:35What a miserable experience. What are you boys up to? Sonny, what's happening?
Sonny00:01:41Speaking of miserable bureaucratic experiences, we're getting we're getting our kids passports, you know, figure it's good.
JVL00:01:48Why is that?
Sonny00:01:49Children should have passports. We were we've been we've been kicking around taking a family vacation to possibly possibly or just. Like down to like Aruba or something or like Cabo or whatever. But like the point is, it's easier for it's easier for a kid to get a passport than it is to have to go through all of that when you're when you're an adult. I feel like it's like a thing you can do for your kids. It's you know, my I grew up in the military, so I had a passport very early. And ever since, I've just had to go renew it. I just take it and I'm like, this is me. I need a new one. And like, I don't have to go through. I don't have to go through the whole process. But it is a process. And it's funny because I never really thought about it before because I've never had to. I've never actually had to go through this. But it is it's like a whole thing. You have to like go. I'm sure I'm saying things that people are probably going to know and be like, yeah, of course, idiot. You of course, you have to go to a post office.
Mike00:02:47The privilege of the military, Brad, is you don't know what hell we've all had to go through.
Sonny00:02:51No, that's I mean, that's that's almost literally true. But like you, you have to go. You you can't take. And it all makes sense. If you think about it for more than 30. 30 seconds. But like, I can't take the children to the the government building where they need to be interviewed and like ensure who they are when they get their passport because you can't have one parent do it because if one parent has to be there, they both have to be there because, you know, again, you're like, otherwise you need legal documents showing that the
JVL00:03:23other parent has signed off on it.
Sonny00:03:25Exactly. If you don't, if you don't both go there, you have to go to a notary public and they will be. Like, yes, this this person has signed off on the children getting passports. And and at first you're like, well, this is such a this is such a ridiculous pain in the ass. And then you think about it for 20 seconds. You're like, oh, that's so people don't steal children. So people don't that's so people don't just like go and get their kids passports and then go to Germany or whatever and never come back. Like, OK, that makes that makes some sense. But it is it is just it's one of these things where, like, I spent an hour last night or well, my my wife spent an hour last night filling out the application. And then I was collecting all the various documents that we needed, you know, three
JVL00:04:06from column A, two from column B, one from column C. So they make it so confusing.
Sonny00:04:12It's it's it's not quite that it's not as bad as like signing up for a job. I remember the first time I signed up for like a real paying job. You know, you get that sheet that it's like, all right, you can bring in your passport or you can bring in a driver's license. And utility.
Mike00:04:30A utility bill or something.
Sonny00:04:30A utility bill. But they but you can't bring a utility bill and a cable bill. You can't bring a driver's license and a student ID. Student ID, no good.
Mike00:04:40You need your Social Security card as well.
Sonny00:04:43But you can't bring but you can't bring your driver's license and your Social Security card. It's like anyway, it's just it's just but it's not quite that bad. It's not quite that bad. We just need the birth certificates. What do you what did we need? We needed we needed their birth certificates. We needed our IDs like our our driver's licenses. Sure. And we and we need a proof proof of my wife's name change because she, you know, because different maiden name versus, you know, names on on the documents. And we have to fill out we have to make photocopies of all these and you got to put each one with the right. And it's just like, just give us like give us our give us our documents.
Mike00:05:29Now, is it the case as I'm asking this as someone who did not get a passport until he was a an adult that even as a child, if a child passport, there's no sort of added difficulty in renewing that as long as you're within the renewal window with renewing it as an adult, you don't have to add in all of because like what you're describing, right, is like your driver's license because your kids are not old enough to. Have government ID other than a passport. They don't have to like keep presenting all of this different array of, you know, calculus of documents.
JVL00:06:11They do. I know this because we've renewed flashes. He's the only one of ours who we've had to renew because kid passports are not valid for ten years. It's a shorter window. Ah, okay. I don't I don't recall how many years it is.
Sonny00:06:22Is it five years?
JVL00:06:23It could be five or seven, but it's it's shorter.
Sonny00:06:28Okay. So, so when, when flash got his renewed, did he have to go through the whole documentation process again? Did he have to bring all his, his stuff or was it just, we had to bring the stuff you
JVL00:06:36need to do at a renewal. So it was a bunch of stuff to renew. And then I believe even though his passport was just renewed like two years ago, I believe them once he turns 18, he needs to get an entire new one. That was what I was asking. Yes. I think not positive, not legal advice, but uh, yeah.
Mike00:06:57Okay. Yeah. I mean, what you described Sonny is like, I mean, we go through the same thing when we're signing up for like youth sports. Yeah. Um, you know, it's like, it's like that, that same kind of rubric because they're trying
JVL00:07:11to prevent, you know why they do that for youth sports, they don't want a 15 year old
Sonny00:07:16playing with a 13 year old.
JVL00:07:17They're trying to prevent the, the, the thing where you get a 15 year old from, uh, the Dominican Republic, right? Sneaking his way onto the Fairfax spell. Middle league, 12, you team and taking them to the state final.
Sonny00:07:33And then you have all the parents that, ah, that kid's a ringer.
JVL00:07:37He's looking at him. He's got a full beard. It is all of that shit has nothing to do with the kids and it's entirely to do with the parents. Totally. Yeah.
Sonny00:07:48Go ahead, Sonny. Well, it's, it's interesting too, because like, so I, I think I've mentioned this on the show before, but Texas, so we, you know, our kids, our kids weren't really old enough to play sports. When we lived in Virginia, we moved to, we moved to Texas. Um, and it's very different from how I remember the process of growing up and playing sports because here in Texas, uh, in, in our neighborhood, there are large numbers, not all, maybe not even 50 or 40%, but large, a large percentage in the 20 to 30% probably of parents who hold their kids back a year, the kindergarten, if they're in the, if it basically, if they're there between like May and August, like that kid's that kid's hanging back a year. So they come into kindergarten, essentially almost a full year older than everybody else. Not quite, but, and it, and it like that happens a lot here and it happens a lot in like, so you end up with a lot of these teams where it's like, all right, here's first grade boys playing soccer. And like two of the boys are just like much larger and it, and it, and it's almost always a situation where they have been held back.
Mike00:09:00You can get around that if it's age-based right.
Sonny00:09:02If it's not. And then, so that's, so that's like, so that's what all the leagues here have done over the
JVL00:09:06last couple of years is like, you have to be born between this and this, but, but it shows up at, at the high school level. So this is as, as a, for instance, flash played with a kid who, uh, back when he was like 10, 11, 12, and this kid was a really good ball player, you know, like just had very high baseball IQ, high motivation. Good athlete. Um, and his parents were determined to make him like a high level player. And he was just like, you could just tell like his nat I'm sorry, like he just has a natural ceiling. Like, again, I maintain that you can tell very early the difference between elite and just like really good. And they have now, cuz flash like keeps touch with him a little bit. He has now been reclassed for the second time because colleges weren't showing interest. And. So they, they are trying to buy him another year of, uh, you know, like high school development in order for colleges to get a look at, I, I just think it's the craziest fucking thing in the world.
Mike00:10:11This is like Diego Pavia getting like a, a sixth year of eligibility in the, uh, in the
JVL00:10:16NCAA. It's ridiculous.
Mike00:10:18Here's here's, I have, this is a story from my, from my youth when my dad was helping coach, uh, rec football, uh, for my brother. And he was coaching with a couple of other dads. Like one was like a, a, a cop, uh, uh, one was, uh, I can't remember what else, but the point is, is that like these dads who were coaching this particular team were like, had like real jobs and like, and this was like something they were doing because they loved their boys and they wanted them to, wanted to help them play football and it would run up against these dads for whom it's like, this is life. Or death. And they would do these things where they would bring in ringers from not age ringers, but from out of locations, locational ringers. And it was like, and the issue was that there was this, there was this meeting of the coaches before the, the draft of the players at like McDonald's, like they all get at the McDonald's
Sonny00:11:21and they're all meeting and like smoking just a bunch of dads and hats, like old, old looking like old school talent scouts, smoking cigs, their McDonald's coffee cups.
Mike00:11:33I'm imagining the people that Brad Pitt is talking to in Moneyball, you know, so, so, so they all get there. And like, again, like my brother's coaches, a group of coaches, they're there to like, all right, can we, you know, kind of find, you know, there'll be some kids that'll be on our team that aren't going to be great. Well, can we balance it out with some, can we find some good kids? And the other, one of the other coaches for another team comes in and like is, is loaded for bear and it's like, all right, so we've got this kid and they just moved into, he's they just moved into the district and, um, and, but he's, he's gotta be on our team. He's gotta be on our team because his mom works full time. She's a single mom. He works full time. And, and, and his only ride to practice is through us. Cause we know them and we know their family. And so, and, and my dad's fellow coach was like, no, no, no. Everybody goes in the draft the same, right? Like there's no, there's no sort of like holding on to players. And by the way,
JVL00:12:48that kid bad enough, they're going to have to be willing to trade for it. Future considerations, maybe cash, late round picks, future picks.
Mike00:12:57So, so it becomes this thing where they're like, and are you sure he even lives in our district? Like, you know, and it becomes this like big argument and my dad comes home from this thing. And, and my mom's like, well, how did it go? And he's like, um, it almost came to blows. Like, like dads were like getting up and like, and like, again, the head coach of our team is like a police officer. And so like, he's like, he's both sort of like motivated to like deescalate everything. Um, and also is like, uh, if like, if these people want to fuck with us, like we w like, we will like, he's like two sides of this. Anyway, and it was just a disaster. And it was like my first like vantage point into the craziness of the, this kind of ringer mentality, like bring in the, you know, bring in like it's, you know, this is like middle school football. It's like bring in the, uh, the 13 year old, uh, you know, black kid with like a mustache already. Like there's like a foot taller than everybody else. Like, you know, but I got, I got, we gotta be the ones we gotta have him on his team. Cause, cause, cause we gotta give him a ride. You know, it's like, okay.
JVL00:14:07Um, anyway, I get a buddy who, uh, who was one of flash's coaches, another dad, a dad I was friendly with. And, uh, he coached, he had coached, I think it was like an 11 year old little league team. And my buddy Jason is, this guy is just hyper organized. Saw his garage. Even it's a garage where everything is in its place. They're all, it is the garage of our dreams. Oh my gosh.
Mike00:14:35You're a grail.
JVL00:14:36Oh my gosh. It is a grail level garage. And he is like that in every aspect of his life. So of course he's a spreadsheet guy. And so when he went to the combine for little league, he, you know, like everybody else is just like, they got like a, a notepad where they were going to write down like the names of kids who they thought were good. And Jason has, uh, he's created a spreadsheet with a scoring system, like along a whole bunch of different categories for every player. And it's on the iPad and he's sitting there marking it down. And then he's created like his own version of a war based on what he sees for the kids and then rank them. And he, he created this like really complicated, like, oh, when I go to our draft, like I know which players I'm hunting for. He's trying to look for it. How to value pick them. Like, you know, who, who you really want, but you could maybe get in the third round if you wait. And he came and I was like, this is going to be amazing. I kind of wanted to go with him to see it. He came home from it. I was like, so what was it like? Did you money ball up? And he's like, no, it was basically like, you know, uh, I got to take Jim because, uh, Jim's kid is in my class and like they need rides back and forth. Like it was a totally not competitive. Like it was a normal, like it was just like. It was like trading baseball cards or something. And Jason was like, oh, I was so ready. I was ready to money ball. I was Billy Bean.
Mike00:16:03He was Billy beating it. That's so funny. Now it's, well, you know, there's, there's one kid.
Sonny00:16:08There's one kid in my, my son's grade who is like, who's not, who's, I don't think is like one of the kids who got held back. He's just like a very natural athlete and has always been good at every sport. And he, uh, he, the, and I, I've mentioned this before that in our, in our. Football league and our first grade football league, you know, some of the, some of the teams have got, uh, like professional coaches. They've hired like, you know, college athletes, you know, college football players to come in and, and coach the kids. And this, this, you know, these, these teams are always, these teams are always arranged by the moms. That's always the moms, you know, who are like putting these, putting these things together in, in my neighborhood. But this kid got like recruited for one of those teams. The moms, the moms, you know, the moms have their little, their little club of, you know, cool, the cool moms and the cool kids.
JVL00:17:02And, uh, here's some Pokemon cards. I don't know if these would interest you. You know, the players on our team get Pokemon cards in their lockers every practice.
Sonny00:17:13Yeah, it was, uh, it was just like, it's the whole thing, whatever. Kids, kids are great. Passports, passports and football. It's great.
Mike00:17:23So can I say one thing and then we'll move on to, uh, to box offices. Um, Mike, what's going on with you to continue the conversation about youth sports? I had a reflection the other day. Um, uh, I was at my, my, my 11 year olds baseball game and, uh, was there early, uh, as during warmups. And sometimes I help out like throwing heavy balls or whatever, but, um, otherwise I'm just sort of getting the lineups set up into game changer JBL, as you know, um, do, you know, just sort of making sure that, uh, uh, everything's squared away and I'm sitting on the bench and I see a kid that I know whose younger brother is on the team that we're playing. Um, and we've been on the older brother's team in a past iteration, right? Um, when my son was the youngest in this, in this, at this level, now he's the oldest. Um, so he comes by and, you know, in a very sort of, uh, impressive way to me, right? Like I get to the point now where like, I'm impressed by kids who. Who can talk to adults, you know, in, in, in sort of mature ways, you know, when, like, I don't expect him to sit down and, you know, talk about, uh, you know, what's going on on wall street or something, but, you know, he comes down, he sits down and he's like, he's, he says like, Hey, and I said, Oh, Hey, uh, grant, how you doing? And, and he's like, good. I said, how's your season going? You're up in the majors. He's like, uh, we're not winning a lot, but you know, I'm doing, I'm doing some pitching and I'm enjoying that and having a conversation. And, and I said, uh, how's your brother's team doing? He goes, oh, they're really good. I said, yeah, we're kind of struggling this year, but maybe we can, uh, pull this out. It says your dad coming by and he's like, yeah, he's coming by later, you know? So I know the dad, um, and we just have this nice conversation and then he kind of goes on his way. And then I see the dad later, um, you know, before the game starts and I just said, Hey, listen, uh, you know, I was, you know, it was really great. Uh, you know, your oldest kind of came by and said, hello. It was very polite, very, you know, just a way to say you're doing a great job, dad, you know, dad to dad. You're doing a great job. And, and we were talking and he kind of made a joke like, yeah, we like dropped them off and I came later. And, and we sort of both kind of came to this realization is that like the ballpark, again, there's this particular park, there's three ball fields. Um, this is on a weeknight, you know, it's like, there is maybe nowhere else in our town and our little community where you would feel more safe and secure at dropping your kids off on their own for. You know, for, for 30 minutes for, you know, four to five minutes an hour, uh, then the, then this ball field and it's, it's because it's like, like you're guaranteed that there will be a trustworthy adult that, you know, and that your kids know who's just there because like, there's like, you, you were in this league long enough. You, you end up, no. And so it's like, I was like reflecting on this. There's like kids that I see I'm talking to. And, and like, there's always dads that. Have coached my kids and just, it's, it's a nice little, it was, it was a nice reflection on this little slice of Americana that we've, we've carved out in our community and we're like, yeah, that's, that's, uh, you know, it's, it's a good, that's a good thing. And then I was reflecting on it and it's like, it, it is a good thing because you know, these dads, you know, you know, these dads, you know, you've played, you've practiced with them, you coach with them. And then like, I was reflecting on it that evening that, um, of course, like there was. A coach within our league who like last year was like arrested for like inappropriate, uh, conduct at a school that he's, it was like, it like completely ruined this, this very, like, otherwise, you know, like, uh, you, that place is full of diddlers. That's no, it's not, no, it's not the grab, the grabber hangs out there, man.
Sonny00:21:20We're not talking black phone too, but that's where the grabber lives.
JVL00:21:23That little black phone too. 10, 10, your review of the black phone too. 10, 10 out of 10.
Sonny00:21:30I love, I love the name, the grabber. I'm not going to lie. It's such a, it's so the, the movies are bad. They're, they're not bad, but they're, they're not that good. But I too, I just love the, the name of the character, the grabber and Ethan Hawke's very good in it. I don't know.
Mike00:21:44Anyway, that's all, that's all I have to say. It's a, it was a, it was sort of a sour note on the otherwise very, very kind of sweet reflection. So, um, shall we move on? Yeah, the box office this week, uh, Tron Aries, number one of the box office, a kind of abysmal 37, just under $37 million in that weekend.
Sonny00:22:08I think what's that?
Mike00:22:09Uh, yeah.
Sonny00:22:1036, eight, $33 million opening.
Mike00:22:15Uh, Oh, well it's the long weekend. That's why that's what I was. I was, I would not have expected anything more than that.
Sonny00:22:21No, no. It's like, there's, there's no, so like the problem. The prop Tron is a fascinating product. We discussed this a little bit last week, but Tron, Tron's a fascinating product because like somebody somewhere thinks Tron is a viable franchise. Somebody is like, we got Tron. We got it. We got to keep making Tron movies and they all do poorly. They all like, there has never been. It's not like, um, God, what's a, what's a, what's a, I don't know what, what a great example would be of a, what's a good franchise that had like one really good entry. It was very, very popular. What's that?
JVL00:22:57Pirates of the Caribbean. Bingo.
Sonny00:22:59No, but even Pirates of the Caribbean, like they, there was the, the first one, which was good and also made a lot of money. And then the next three also made a lot like the second or third movie in that franchise grossed a billion dollars worldwide. A couple of those movies have grossed a billion dollars worldwide, but Tron has never done that. Tron has never, never once even sniffed at that. Like the first one was a bomb and then it became kind of at least a cult appreciation. Over the years, the second one wasn't a bomb, but it cost $150 million and only made about 400 million worldwide. It did. It did. Okay.
JVL00:23:35For the roller coaster is beloved and revered.
Sonny00:23:38And what the roller coaster is amazing. And look, and this is, and so what Disney is doing, and I understand what Disney is doing is that they're working the flywheel there. They've got the ride. They've got the movies. They've got the TV streaming channel. They, you know, they can, maybe they can do a Tron series. You work that flywheel, you keep it, you keep it cranking and it moves itself. Eventually I get that on a certain level, but at the same time, like you can't spend $180 million on a movie like this because it's not going to gross $400 million, which is what you need.
JVL00:24:12I have two questions.
Sonny00:24:13Yes.
JVL00:24:14First of all, and maybe neither of you know the answer to either of these. Did the Tron roller coaster cost more to build than Tron Aries cost to make?
Sonny00:24:25I believe the answer to that has to be yes, because these rides are incredibly expensive to build.
JVL00:24:31Okay. Secondly, if you are Disney World, how do you evaluate the economic performance of Tron the roller coaster? There surely is a metric by which they are able to go through and count like number of people put through the ride per minute or something to. But I would be fascinated to know, like, how? Disney evaluates the success or failure of an attraction?
Sonny00:25:00Well, but so Tron, the Tron light cycle, I am I am actually very interested in this as well. And somebody somebody I've talked to before for But Work Goes to Hollywood is writing a book about Disney and with, I think, an emphasis on the parks. And I can't wait to read that. But the so so I just looked it up because I wasn't sure the the I there are numbers ranging from Disney says the ride costs 70 million dollars to make. There are other estimates that say five hundred million dollars. So, like, who knows the numbers? It's some it's some some number. But the way the way that that ride in particular works is that it is not just an attraction unto itself that brings people to the park. It's also one of the it's also one of the like premium rides that you can pay for individually. It's like it's an individual lightning line is what they call it, or at least what they used to call it. I don't know what they call it right now. So, like. You when we went there. So when we went there a couple of years ago, it was the first year it was open and they were only doing, I believe, lightning lane passes because they were still trying to work out the kinks of of how to how to load people onto the ride. Because it is a weird ride to load people onto. Like, you don't sit on it. You don't sit in it like a normal roller coaster ride, like on your bottom, you know, or or it's not like one of the hanging ones. You like lean forward like you're on a. Like you're on a light like you're on a light basically. So it's a it's a weird ride to load. And they but they already had it down by the time we were doing it. But it's it is an individual lightning lane ride, which means that you have to pay some sort of you pay you pay a fee that kind of corresponds to however busy the park is. So on busier days, it's it's twenty dollars per rider or something like that. On less busy days, it's twelve dollars per rider. Wow. So on top of the hundred. Fifty you're paying to get on top. Yeah. So on top of the hundred and on top of the hundred and fifty dollars that you're paying to get into the park and on top of the thirty dollars or whatever you're paying for the lightning lane pass itself that, you know, you use all that is a thousand dollars for a family of four for a day, isn't it? You probably like eight hundred. About.
JVL00:27:17Yeah.
Sonny00:27:17If you do, if you do all the individual lightning lanes, it gets it gets expensive quick. It does.
JVL00:27:22It's not before you touch food and lodging.
Sonny00:27:25Oh, that's. Yeah, you're not. That does not include.
JVL00:27:27Good Lord.
Sonny00:27:28That does not include your hotel, which if you don't get the hotel, you don't get into the park 30 minutes early. If you don't get in the park 30 minutes early, you might as well just shoot yourself in the face. Like, why? Why?
JVL00:27:39That's the real. Yeah.
Sonny00:27:41Why even go? I like it. But no, one of the nice things about Disneyland again, I having been to both Disney World and Disneyland over the last four years now. I will say that the nice thing about Disneyland is that you can stay off the parks. And they don't have the early entry for people who stay in the hotel that's like attached to Disneyland anymore. So it's like you just it's it's so much. It's so much less stressful, so much less stressful and cheaper. It's a million times cheaper to Disneyland.
Mike00:28:11So before we move on from this, I think it's interesting that. So obviously there are rides at Disney World and Disneyland that are based off of movies. And there have been plenty of movies that have been based off of rides.
JVL00:28:25Right.
Mike00:28:25I mean, obviously Pirates of the Caribbean flywheel works both ways. Totally. But like the country, remember, they made a Country Bears movie. There's a Tomorrowland movie. There's Jungle Cruise movie, two different haunted mansion, like unrelated haunted mansion movies, which is kind of crazy. But like, yeah, I do think like Tron, like, is there anything else other than Tron where like the movie, the movie and the franchise like limps along? But the ride is what, like, I don't think there is one, right? Or like the ride is what everybody cares about.
Sonny00:29:01The closest, I don't know this for sure, because you've actually been to Universal, so you would know, Mike, but the closest comp I can think of is the Harry Potter prequel series, the Fantastic Beasts movies, which I think were, I mean, obviously there's like a movie, you know, there's a movie component to this. Like the movies are huge. We got to have more of these movies without understanding that they're only huge because of the books, like the books are beloved and remain beloved. And that's why people people like the movies. But there was there not a Fantastic Beasts component to Universal?
Mike00:29:41If there was, it was lost on me because I haven't seen those movies. I think perhaps because we went before they opened the third park, which has what is it called? That's the epic, epic universe, epic universe park, which has some other Harry Potter stuff there, which may be more connected to that. I don't recall any like to the extent that I experienced the Harry Potter stuff and was like, oh, this is like from the movie. It was all from the books of the original books movie. But but even I mean, to your point, like that's even if that were the case, like that's still attached to this larger kind of franchise and larger. Kind of contained creative universe. But just the Tron thing is interesting. It's like it's like, you know, what are these movies based off of the ride? Like like like if nobody knew about like the original Tron, it'd be like, oh, yeah, it's like that that those movies which are like, you know, it's like that ride, which is usually the other way around. Yeah. So anyway.
Sonny00:30:48Yeah.
Mike00:30:49Weird.
Sonny00:30:49I mean, look, again, it's it's one of these things where, like, I think you can you can justify. It you can you can justify making these movies if they cost about one hundred million dollars, if they are this good and cost about one hundred million dollars like that. That is a thing I think you can get away with. You can't do it at two hundred million or whatever, whatever they were spending.
Mike00:31:09You know what I think, though? I just thought of of an of an example of this, which is slightly different and not in for many, many reasons is it doesn't isn't a perfect parallel, but like the lengthy existence of Splash Mountain. It has a Song of the South sort of, you know, themed ride when like nobody was watching Song of the South for like the like the last 50 years.
Sonny00:31:35Oh, you literally can't like it's well, you can't. Right, right, right.
Mike00:31:39And of course, it's not the ride's not something south, but like like I remember writing that and being like, oh, yeah, this is like that Bray Rabbit thing that I remember like seeing on the this the Disney sing along videos from the 80s, you know, which but like I had never seen Song of the South.
JVL00:31:58Why hasn't bring back Song of the South become a MAGA touchstone? Shouldn't that be one of the cultural demands?
Sonny00:32:06I don't think MAGA I you know, who cares about it more than MAGA is the the like film preservationist people. Yes. Like actual film people are are more interested in bringing Song of the South back than than MAGA people because there's no there's no real, you know, like there's no nostalgia for it. Not it's not like buried relatively wind or soon.
Mike00:32:28Yeah, I feel like it was like it was pushed aside and like even like my parents generation is like, oh, yeah, that thing. But like they don't have the beloved this. It wasn't re-released, I think, into theaters much after it was initially released, which a lot of those classic Disney movies like every few years it was back in the theater.
JVL00:32:47Song of the South is the most itchy and scratchy Disney property.
Mike00:32:53You mean you mean? Uh, uh, Poochie.
JVL00:32:56Um, no, I just don't like it felt like something that itchy and scratchy would have done a parody of. Right. It felt like itself was a parody.
Mike00:33:05Probably. Yes. Yes. Um, uh, all right. Uh, well, let's move on then, because I don't think we don't need to talk about Roofman. Um, although anybody else.
Sonny00:33:16I hear good things. I hear I hear good things about Roofman. I don't know. Okay.
Mike00:33:21Uh, it sounds like the story of JVL's life. Um. Uh, I kind of wanted to see Roofman.
JVL00:33:27I mean, like, not enough to actually go to a theater to do it. Maybe we should see it next for next week. But, uh, like when it comes out to stream, I would.
Sonny00:33:32Yeah, when it when it when it hits streaming. I feel like this is a streaming first show at this point. We're all trying to minimize the trips out of the house. The other day, Mike was like, we got to do a new movie soon. And I was like, do we actually?
Mike00:33:44I don't know. Maybe tell us. Tell us in the comments if you want us to see movies that are coming on theaters. Um, but fine. Streaming first. Well, speaking of, uh, we're talking. Not about a, uh, movie theater release, right? If you're really talking about a real movie, we're talking about this John Candy documentary, uh, that, uh, is called I like me. It's, uh, well, Sonny, why don't you give us a big boy review of this, uh, of this documentary?
Sonny00:34:15John Candy. I like me. Directed by Colin Hanks, not Tom Hanks, uh, uh, is it so I. I want to be very clear, but you say it's not a real movie. It is a, it's a real movie. It's a motion picture. It's a doc. It's a talking head documentary. There's a thousand of these every year, but this one's, this one's a special kind and it is the sort of movie I would normally find in sufferable. I w this is, this is, and I'm going to just be this at the very most basic level. This is a documentary about incredibly famous. Wealthy people talking about how their incredibly famous wealthy friend was the best human being who ever lived. It is literally that for 110 minutes and it only works, it only works because I choose to believe that's true about John Candy. He is, he's, I've never heard of, I've never heard a crossword about John Candy. Nobody has ever said, and he's always been described as like the guy who was most decent to all the crew and all the cast. Everybody loved him and if anybody came out and said a bad thing about John Candy, I would be upset and I wouldn't want to watch this documentary. So that's why this exists. No, Colin Hanks, Colin Hanks directs, Tom Hanks shows up to discuss his co-star and friend John Candy. And it, look, it is, this is going to be a hard episode to do because I don't know how to describe this movie as anything other than a bunch of people talking about how great John Candy is. How great John Candy was and how much they enjoyed working with him and how great his movies are, right? Like I, it would be, it would be easier if there were bad things to say about him. There's, there's, and this is like a funny riff right at the beginning of the film. Bill Murray's like, I wish I had more bad things to say about him, but I, I just, I don't. And then he comes up with a thing where he, you know, John Candy was doing a bit too long or something like that was like the bad, that was the bad thing he came up with.
Mike00:36:23And then he even makes fun of. Of that as his bad thing about John Candy.
Sonny00:36:27Yeah. But I mean, look, it's, it's, again, it's pretty straightforward documentary. John Candy grows up in Canada. His dad dies very young, which kind of informs his, uh, it informs his relationship, not just with his mother and, and, and, uh, siblings, but also his own children. And it creates the, it casts a sort of Paul over the rest of his life of like, okay, when I'm going to die soon, I need to, I need to, you know, get as much done as possible. Some of that reflected in the work that gets kind of skipped over in this movie. There are a lot of late, later John Candy films that do not get, um, do not get much play at all, uh, which is probably for the best. Nobody, nobody wants to linger on things like that, but you know, I look, there's a lot of interesting stuff here about the early years of SCTV, about his work, um, doing improv, uh, his, his early work with, with, um, Martin Short and Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara. And it's, and it's always, I love, I love documentaries like this because I do like watching these connections, these threads of people who come up through the industry together who aren't necessarily a troop. They're not, they're not always working in the same stuff together, but they are, their paths are often intersecting, um, in interesting ways. And I don't know, it's like, it's nice to see Macaulay Culkin, who's one year older than I am, talk about like. The great, you know, uh, the great times he had as a kid with John Candy and how he misses not being able to, you know, tell him about life now. And like, you know, it's the sort of, it's also the sort of, I don't know how you guys felt, but it's also the sort of movie where you could very easily be like right on the edge of like tears for a while and not quite, not quite get there. And then something like that happens. It's just like, oh, this is all very sad. This is easy. He died way too young. Um, I don't know. I, that's, that's about it. I like, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a, it's a deeply pleasant film. And I hope if you like John Candy, I hope you watch it. Cause you, you, you will, you will love it. I don't think it's revelatory. It's, I don't think I'm not, I didn't, I didn't like come away from this with any great deep thoughts about the world of comedy or the world of filmmaking or the world of Canada, but the, but you know, it's, uh, it was nice. It was nice. You know, you know, the, the one last thing I'll say is, you know, who, uh, still looks very good and still has it together despite being, well, Eugene Levy, but also Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks is a hundred years old. I know. Mel Brooks is 100 years old and he is as with it as almost anybody else in this thing. I mean, he's a little bit slower, but like they show, they show stills of him from shooting space balls and like, he looks a million years old then. Like, oh, I guess he was only 60 then. Cause he's a hundred now. That's that. Those are my thoughts. I don't know. I, I loved it. I loved it. And I am totally happy to acknowledge that it is not a profound work of cinema or documentary or revealing, or it's just, it was just very nice. It's very nice.
Mike00:39:46JVL. What, what, what, what are your thoughts? It's a feel good movie.
JVL00:39:50And I would encourage anybody who feels like they need to. Feel good for 90 minutes, 110 minutes, um, to watch it. It's not a document. It is, it is like watching a video version of a really deftly written obituary, right? I mean, sometimes you get like obituaries that are written by like professional writers about one of their friends and this feels like that. So, so the reason I think that we can, we can reasonably believe. All the testimony about him is because there is no reason to make this movie in 2025 except that his friends really wanted to do it as a testament to him. Like there's, there's no commercial reason to do it. There's no, as you say, there's no truth telling reason, but the only reason is because these are a bunch of people whose lives he was a big part of and who he left a huge mark on and they just really wanted to just say, put down. In, you know, in their, their medium, what they thought about their friend and it's really, it's very charming and, uh, and lovely. I mean, I, I, I, I really, I can't say anything else of it. It will make you feel good. I think like it will, it will make you cry a little bit here and there. Um, I mean, just the scene from his funeral where you're sort of getting a video, you know, it's kind of. Grainy was clearly videotaped, uh, it's just in a church in Canada. It's a good Catholic, a lot of Catholic jokes from John candy too, which I really appreciate it. Um, and then I think it's Dan Aykroyd giving the eulogy. Yes, I think it's Dan Aykroyd.
Mike00:41:40It is, it is.
JVL00:41:41And, uh, I, so I have never gotten Dan Aykroyd. I don't think he's very funny. Um, but he is beloved. And it made me think a lot about our lives coming up through magazines and how similar the world of magazines and this world of comedians is that there are guys who wind up getting pulled along. Um, not because they're the biggest talent, uh, or, but just because they're good guys to have around or they're guys who stir the drink. And I think that's probably Aykroyd, right? I mean, Aykroyd is nowhere near the talent of Bill Murray or do you disagree, Sonny?
Sonny00:42:29I disagree. I disagree with that too. Okay. I just, I, I just, I disagree with that, uh, slightly, but go on, keep, keep going.
JVL00:42:35Which is the, there, you know, when, when a magazine hits, right. Back in the days when there were magazines, every writer who's there gets a push regardless of what they had to do with it. Right. And that happens here too. And we, you know, some, some writer goes on. You edit a bigger magazine and they hire, uh, their friends from the other one. Right. And people just get pulled along because it's a scene. And that is kind of what, I mean, it certainly is what Saturday Night Live has been, but very much what SCTV and kids in the hall and all of that stuff was. And, uh, that explains, I think a lot of the feeling between them because they were not competitors. They were colleagues. They were all sort of working together. Uh, and I think that explains, I mean, Aykroyd. It must just be a great guy. Like, uh, you don't hear people talking bad about John Akra or Dan Aykroyd either. Right. I mean, it's just, it's pulled along because they all liked each other, genuinely liked each other. And, uh, I, I don't know. His eulogy I thought was the most moving thing I've ever seen him do or heard him. I mean, the whole thing really, I found it deeply affecting. Can I say the, I had never seen the yellow belly sketch before. Had you guys seen that?
Sonny00:43:48No, I'd never seen that either.
JVL00:43:49So they, they show a sketch from SCTV, which Tom. Hanks says it was Tom Hanks who says he, it blew his mind. Yeah. Maybe it was Tom Hanks. Maybe it was somebody else.
Sonny00:43:59I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
JVL00:44:00The sketches is, uh, it's like an old timey Western, right? It is presented as like, we are watching the show called yellow belly about a cowardly cowboy. And he is, he, he played by John Candy's walking through like a little 15 foot set. It's like in front of a saloon and he's like, you know, jumping at everything. And, uh, a mother and her son walk past him and the kids are like, that's yellow bell. And he jumps and the kid is like, look at that. He's so scared. John Candy pulls out a gun and shoots the kid in the back. The kid dies. The wife starts, the mother starts screaming and she goes and runs past him for help. And he waits till he's past her and he shoots her in the back. And I'm so, that's just funny as shit. I had never seen that before. And I was like, that's amazing. Uh, I really, I really, boy, I just liked it. I liked it so much.
Sonny00:44:57The one thing, uh, the, the one, uh, the one stylistic, the one formal choice that they make that I think is incredibly, that is actually incredibly effective is the, uh, constantly counting, counting down from 1994 to whatever, whatever year they're going to.
Mike00:45:151994 is the year he dies.
Sonny00:45:16So 1994 is the year he dies. So like, uh, so, uh, you know, the scene will be, or the, the, the movie will basically set from scene to scene and it'll go back. The counter will go back to 94 and then it'll clock down to 76 or clock down to 82 or whatever. And that's just, it was, it's an incredibly effective means of getting across the shortness of his life in a way that is like, there's, there's an, an, an, an inexorability to it that is like almost haunting. Um, it's, it's very, it's very well done. That's, that's one choice, one formal choice. That I will praise in this.
Mike00:45:54Michael, what'd you think? You said you had a lot of thoughts. Yeah. Well, uh, my first thought is, so I felt like kind of a little hood hood winked because I texted you guys while I was watching this because I was so impressed with the, with just the never ending carousel of people of like big people who seem to be like talking about John Candy in this documentary. I was like, this is, this is incredible. Just, I am. I'm impressed by getting a lot of legendary people talking for something like this.
JVL00:46:29And then for no Hera, Tom Hanks is in it. Tom Hanks, Catherine O'Hara, right?
Mike00:46:34You know, and it's like, and then like when the movie ends and it's like directed by Colin Hanks, I was like, Oh, Oh, Oh, it's at first it's sort of lessened to the effect of it, but on reflection, actually it doesn't really. And, and the, the impressiveness of the number of people who not only sort of like knew John Candy and worked with him, but just feel compelled to speak so lovingly about him. Yeah. It's Hollywood. It's the kind of place where like, Oh, I get a chance to be on camera and say something nice about somebody who's dead. And like, I get it. I get that. That's like, maybe not. The, the greatest achievement. But, but it charmed me as it, as I think it charmed you guys. So the, the, the commentary you're making JVL about the, the troopness or the sort of camaraderie among this group, I think is, it's something that really fascinates me because just because of the names. I mean, it was as they were coming on the screen to talk about it, or they were showing our Kybel because some of those folks are dead now. It's like, it's really incredible, right? You've got Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harold Ramis, Dave Thomas, Martin Short, Steve Martin is kind of in that, in that realm. Did I say Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, like, like these were people in Gilda Radner, you know, is, is, is at one point in this, there are these people. Um, many of them are Joe Flaherty, another one who we, who we've lost, um, who were like in this Canadian New York comedy scene in the seventies into the, into the early eighties. Um, and some of them were SNL and some of them were SCTV and some of them were both. Um, but they all kind of, uh, worked in the same sandbox and it's, I almost want to see a documentary. Just about all of them. I don't know how you would group it. I don't know how, what the theme would be. I don't know how you would put it together, but I mean, there's like interesting people who come into that world. Like, like Paul Schaefer, for instance, is a part of that world. Um, and, uh, like he was very close. I think at one point he was, I couldn't have this wrong. He was dating maybe Gilda Radner at some point. I don't know. Um, but he was also like in, in some of the, uh, kind of, uh, you know, they were doing plays together. They were doing sort of, uh, comedy. Comedy shows. And, um, I just find all of that fascinating because it's like, it's like this sort of virtual crucible of talent in which like you can kind of, it's always weird when talent
JVL00:49:35clusters like that clusters.
Mike00:49:36Right. But then, and then what spins off from that and in the ways that which you're still seeing that, like the, the effects of that still. So I, I just, I find that, uh, terrific. Um, and, and I really enjoyed it. And it's interesting how candy is kind of in the middle of it all. Um, and you know, they show him on Letterman, they show him obviously SCTV. Um, he was on, um, he did something on Saturday Night Live, but he was working with all those people. So, um, you know, and he's brought in right, uh, into things like vacation as a kind of like, well, we know, we know he can add something here.
Sonny00:50:16Yeah.
Mike00:50:17Sonny, you were going to say something about that.
Sonny00:50:19Well, no, the, the two, the two guys who I most wish were still. Around, not just to talk about John Candy on this documentary, but just in life and still working, um, are Harold Ramis and John Hughes, who like I, when he gets, when he gets pulled into that Ramis Hughes nexus with, you know, stripes, the vacation movies, um, uh, uncle Buck, uh, you know, et cetera, planes, trains, and automobiles, planes, trains, and automobiles. It like that, that, that, that is where he does his best work. I mean, that is where that is like the John, the John Candy of 19, you know, 80 to 1990 is the, the, one of the great, one of the great cinematic comic runs of modern history. I mean, I, you know, you've got your, let me just read, let me read it out.
Mike00:51:07Cause like it, it, it, I mean, I'm, I'm going to skip some of the, some of the stinkers cause there are a lot of those in the movie goes into that, but it's like, it's like, okay, starting in 1980, the blues brothers, then you got stripes and you've got national lampoons vacation. Then you've got splash. Which is different, but like, okay, throw that in there. Brewster's millions, you know, space balls. Oh, he was a little shop of horrors. That's right. Space balls, planes, trains, and automobiles, the great outdoors uncle buck his cameo and home alone. I mean, it's just, it's and, and that ends right, 1990 is, is when home alone comes out and it's just like, it's like, boom, he's everywhere. And, and then it mixed with all that, he's doing a bunch of other stuff to some of the movies. All of it is like less, uh, you know, renowned than it was, but like armed and dangerous is a movie he did. And, and what's interesting is like all of those people that I mentioned earlier, they're like in all of these movies too. And it's just this, it gives this feeling that like he is at the center of, of something. And there's all these other people that, um, kind of fed off of it and maybe he's feeding off as well. And it just, uh, it, you can see why everybody has such warm feelings for him. I'm a part of all the other personal stuff. It's just, he's just a part of the fabric of all of these people's careers in that time.
Sonny00:52:28Can, can, can I ask you guys about what, what was the one like genuinely kind of shocking revelation in the movie to me, which is that he, he tried to enlist to go fight in Vietnam. Yes. Yeah.
Mike00:52:44Isn't that fascinating?
Sonny00:52:45That, that, and he's also also great friends with John Hughes.
JVL00:52:48We got, we've got secret, secret reactions. Reactionary here.
Mike00:52:53Yeah. No, I think that's true. Right. He was, he was like a, an altar boy and, um, a child reactionary.
Sonny00:53:00Oh.
Mike00:53:01Oh, John.
Sonny00:53:02Yes. Yeah. John Hughes, John Hughes and John Hughes and PJ O'Rourke. Good friends. Like he, uh, the, when, when he took over it, uh, or when he was at national Lampoon at Harvard, it took like a kind of, kind of right wing turn. It, it just, he's well known. One of the few well-known Hollywood conservatives like John Milius.
Mike00:53:21Um, so. I, this is brought up something else I wanted to discuss, which like, uh, we don't need to get into like the politics of it all, but I think what's interesting to me, particularly because of the stereotype about Canada, you know, Canada sort of being the, the kind of left wing, uh, cousin of America is that like, particularly in comedy, which is where I think Canadians mostly shine in American entertainment, there is a kind, maybe it's the sort of Midwest of it all. That, but there's like this interesting influence and like, um, like a very positive influence on the industry of these Canadians that kind of flooded across the border in the seventies and eighties into comedy. And I was, I was thinking about this in, uh, in a lot of ways with like what Macaulay Culkin is talking about. Um, there's a moment where he's talking about what it was like on the set with John Candy and candy as a father himself. And the movie does a really. Good job of, and it's got both his kids in it and which is like, could be terrible, but I think it is actually very effective. Um, like just showing him like at the family farm, like doing dad stuff. Um, there's this kind of, again, kind of small C conservative, like a element to John Candy's whole persona and, you know, Macaulay Culkin's talking about like basically candy was able to clock early on. This is Macaulay Culkin's first movie. We're like first big break. He's able to clock early on that like Culkin's dad is a monster and is like the abuse is coming if it isn't already there and that Macaulay Culkin was, could see that candy and recognize that and sort of took him not under his wing, but, but sort of was like checking on him and maybe aware that like this whole Hollywood place is really fucked up and I don't know. The sense that candy was like an injection. He had all these demons. He had the alcohol and the cocaine and all those problems. But I, you know, he, a lot of these Canadian guys like kind of inject a little bit of, um, I don't know if like good values into, into, into Hollywood, which is people. They are good people, right? Like they're good at Canadian. Am I wrong on that? I just, I get that. I got that sense. Maybe I was taken along for a ride by, uh, by the documentary.
JVL00:55:50Nobody ever says. Oh, those Canadians suck, right?
Sonny00:55:54They're nice.
JVL00:55:55Good people, right?
Sonny00:55:56This is right.
JVL00:55:57So one of, one of the stupidest WWE gimmicks ever was trying to make the Mountie into a villain.
Sonny00:56:03What about who was, who was a better villain, the Mountie or the French Canadians?
JVL00:56:08The quote, the quote, remember there was the French Canadians were fine as villains.
Sonny00:56:13Cause the, the, nobody, nobody likes, nobody likes the French Canadians. It was a good tag team.
Mike00:56:19Um, so the, the other thing is the, the, the weight issue, which, um, I think the movie does a pretty good job of kind of, of, of treating and dealing with and using archival footage and not in, and not a exploitive way to sort of demonstrate kind of how Candy's weight was, um, uh, hurtful, you know, the way people talked about it to him directly to him and sort of treated him was, um, I don't know, you know, painful to watch. It was, it was hard to watch, wasn't it?
JVL00:56:57That's the only, the only part of it was really painful. I mean, cause the look on his face,
Mike00:57:01like it's very genuine. Yes. Well, he wore his heart on his sleeve, right? And I think that's
Sonny00:57:07he's also, he's also stuck in a position where he is expected to be the, the fat man and the fat man, skinny guy, you know, pairing like he, he, he understands that his role is to be the jolly, large man, even though he doesn't see himself that way. And part of that, this is, this is an interviewer problem. This is a thing I think about all the time when I'm asking questions is that like, there, there are, there are bits that people play and there are things that you want to ask about. And, and if you're, there's a way to do it where you're just an asshole and you're, and like, you think you're part of the, you know, you as the interviewer think you're part of the bit and the gag and can't read that they're not into it. And like that, that is so, you know, and who knows, like, who knows if you would have been able to tell it at the time? Probably not because like, everybody's just, you know, that's what everybody kind of expected, but it is, it is, it's, it's, it's hard to watch because it's a nice guy. We've, we spend this whole movie with this really nice guy being a really nice guy. And it's like, he's in pain here. I don't want him to be in pain.
JVL00:58:20You know what though? This is a case where it was a different time. Yes. I don't know that anybody contemporaneously watching it would have been able to really pick up on that. Yeah. No, people just not attuned to that.
Mike00:58:33Well, this was my reflection as well. Was that like the way in which people talk about, talked about it, like in these archival interviews, um, was sort of shocking to my 2025 years. And it, that's what it sent home to me. It's like, man, that was really a different time in which, like, I mean, in a way we've sort of, we've, sort of over-corrected where like, you know, the sort of body positivity stuff has gotten sort of out of control. And, and, and, and in my opinion, uh, in, in, in ways in which like, you can't, I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with that. Other than it's like,
JVL00:59:06you can see where people were swinging from. Can't be like Jane gum. Was she, was she a fat
Mike00:59:12person? Was she a real big girl? Anyway, that was the, uh, that was the other reflection. Um, like, what this really made me want to do was like watch SCTV. Like it's, it's so great. Like the Schmenge brothers, they didn't even have one of my favorite John Candy performances, which is the, as one of the five neat guys, just like the fifties, like do my band.
Sonny00:59:39So I have watched, I have watched almost no SCTV. I've, I've watched like little clips here and there, but, but I, I, when I, when I was growing up, I was watching like SNL rerun reruns and kids in the hall reruns, kids in the hall. I loved I kids in the hall was my, was my, was my jam, but SCTV just wasn't on was, I was just never part of the like broadcast cycle where, where I lived. Um, and I have always kind of wanted to dip into that and really, really, you could, you could watch them on YouTube. You can watch clips on YouTube. So when I, when I was
JVL01:00:12in like middle and high school, I actually think that objectively speaking, Saturday Night Live was a very low ebb. So it was, so me in middle school and high school is like Victoria five. It's, it's 88 to 92. So this is Victoria. What's her name? Victoria Jackson, but that's really Jackson and Nora, Nora Dunn, Nora. I mean, it was fine. Like to me, it was amazing, but the, that was the normie thing to do was to watch Island. The, the, the indie rock version of that was, and the cool kids were like, no, I'm watching SCTV, which was actually on PBS. So for us, SCTV was being rebroadcast on the weekends at like, you know, 11:00 PM on W H Y Y, which was the PBS channel. Yeah. And that was like the punk rock. Cool. Oh yeah. And now I, you know, I watched this thing. You probably never heard of it. It's called SCTV.
Mike01:01:15That's great. That's great. Eugene Levy's fan. I just, ah, Dave Thomas. I mean, go watch, this is not John candy. Go watch the, um, Richard Harris singing, uh, uh, MacArthur park on like the, it's just like, it cracks me up. So anyway, uh, we could do this all day. Uh, is any other
JVL01:01:36thoughts on John candy of John candy be different if he hadn't died so young? It's hard to say
Mike01:01:45probably. Right. I mean, I would assume so. Like what would he have done? Would he have like gone into like early retirement? Because like some of those, and like the, the movie he died making wagons East is terrible. He would, he would have, he would have kept working.
Sonny01:02:02He would have been, he would have kept working. But on the other hand, has our opinion of
JVL01:02:07any of those people gotten worse? Have we decided that Eugene Levy is, is a schmuck and we don't like him? No, no. They blossomed. And we, the truth is every one of those people is still like Martin Short revered, right? Dan Aykroyd revered all these guys.
Sonny01:02:28Those guys all got us, except for Dan Aykroyd, who's a little bit reclusive now. I think there was a story, there was a story in the, the SNL 50 thing where, uh, um, what's his name? Lauren, speaking of Canadians, Lauren, Michael, Lauren Michaels, uh, like invited him to the show and like was hoping he would be there. And, and Dan Aykroyd was like, I'm just going to watch it on my TV like usual. Cause he watches it every week. He watches, he still watches SNL every week. He's like, I'm just gonna watch it here. Um, the, uh, all of these guys have gotten a second life from streaming from streaming series. Right. So like Schitt's Creek and, um, uh, only murders in the building and like those, those, it's the perfect format for them where they can go and they can do, you know, a season every 18 months or so or whatever. And like they, they, you know, they, somebody else is doing the writing and they just get to, they get to kind of be themselves. And I do think he would have, he would have, he would have been well situated for the streaming era, assuming he could say no to some things that seems, which is like the one, the one thing that kind of really comes through in this. Like I re they, they, they show a 10 second clip of his cartoon camp candy, which I don't know if you guys ever watched, but when I was a kid and I had like four videotapes of cartoons from the United States, when I was living in England, that was one of the shows that was on. And I probably saw like three episodes of camp candy about a hundred times as a kid. Um, which is one of my, one of my first exposures to John candy. I still loved him even, even though camp candy was a interesting, interesting little factoid
Mike01:04:05about camp candy. So the, uh, the other, the other lead on it is Valerie, Valerie Bromfield who's mentioned in this documentary, um, as sort of being in that early seventies, she was like friends with Dan Aykroyd. And, um, and she was, uh, if we remember from Saturday night from that, from that movie, she was one of the, um, performers on the first episode of Saturday night live. She did like a, uh, standup, uh, moment, like a standup set or whatever, um, on that show. And she was bumped for Billy Crystal or, uh, sorry, Billy Crystal was bumped for her. Like they only had so much room. And so Billy Crystal did not get to perform on that first episode. Valerie Bromfield, who like I've seen her performance, it's fine. It's like of its time. Um, but like, she's not really done much, but you know, he was helping us. He was helping his friends, you know, 15 years later, helping his friends with, uh, uh, camp candy. So, um, any other thoughts? No. Yes. I think we've gone on quite enough. Uh, tell us your favorite John Candy movement, uh, movie or movie quote. Uh, I particularly, particularly like, sorry, park. Sorry, folks. Park's closed. The moose out front should have told you, uh, tell us that. In the comments. Uh, and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny01:05:31What is your favorite John Candy movie? Just pick, just pick one. Go off the top of your
JVL01:05:35head. JBL. I mean, different things. My favorite John Candy performance might be splash. Cause I think he's the funniest thing in that movie. Yeah. They printed my letter. They printed my letter. That's great. It's really funny. Uh, but like, like my, the best movie of his, it's probably planes trains. I don't know. What do you guys
Mike01:05:58think? Mike, what about you? Uh, it's gotta be, it's gotta be uncle Buck. Yeah. It's gotta be uncle Buck. It's the purest, it's the purest candy, right? It's like undistilled candy. And like, also like my favorite line readings from like when he's like, when that like terrible boyfriend is like ever. What is he ever hear of a tune up? And he's like, ah, ever hear of a ritual killing? Like everything about that, about that one line reading is like the pure.
Sonny01:06:28Well, there it, I mean, these are, uh, it, it's funny that we both go to, we, all three of us went to two John Hughes movies because it is like, there's a moment in the documentary where Macaulay Culkin's like people, you know, say you're the John Hughes guy. I was in three movies with him. Uh, John, John was in nine and like, and, and it is, it does. He, those two were very clearly on, on a wavelength with each other in terms of, you know, understanding each other's strengths. And I, and like planes, trains and automobiles is probably his best movie, probably his best, like actual, you know, the actual filmmaking and, and total storytelling. But I do love uncle buck just as a distillation of his, his personality. It really is. To your point,
Mike01:07:14to your point about Hughes and Ramis sort of both being like two of those folks, we, we recently watched. Stripes and the scene where they're introducing each other to, in the, you know, in the very beginning to everybody in the, in the platoon and the, the seed where John Candy's characters like talking about, you may have noticed, I have a bit of a weight problem. And like, what's great is, and I, it's like, you wish you could have seen this more. It's like Harold Ramis is, is like next to him in, in frame and is like losing it. And I was like, but he's also like mocking, he's like doing this whole like mocking thing where he's like, sort of taking the piss out of Candy's very like earnestness, the characters are earnest as, and he's like, he keeps going, you know, like, Oh yeah. Like, Oh no, definitely. Sure. And the whole, like the whole thing is so freaking delightful. Like I just want a whole movie of that. I just, oh yeah. I miss him so much. Tell people that it's on the Amazon prime. It's on prime video. Watch it. Oh yeah. Sorry.
Sonny01:08:11Yeah. So the documentary, uh, is on prime free. It's free. All you gotta do is belong
Mike01:08:17to prime video. I'm sure it's fine.
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