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Get Thee to A Comedy! Here's Our Top 5 · Boomer Has It!

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, this is JB from Boomer Hazard.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: If you're watching this on YouTube, and I've no idea why you would be, you'll notice that my video is a little bit wonky.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is due to engineering work being done in the Boomer Hazard studio, which has affected the Boomer Hazard satellite connection.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: Jim and I have decided not to redo the whole pod as it's so good as it is, and we wouldn't be able to remember what we said on it.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I would advise viewers to either switch to the audio only option or watch the video at a slight angle, maybe while doing the washing up.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your attention to this matter.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is your favorite podcast, Boomer Has It.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of our most challenging episodes ever, in which we name our five top comedy features.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's a special edition for summer.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: We want to encourage people maybe to watch these films that we uh that we endorse, that we recommend.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know Jim's list, and Jim doesn't know my list, so we'll see if we overlap at all.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'd be surprised if we did, but let's find out.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's find out.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, and a little preface here is there's no accounting for taste.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the toughest top five ever.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I've polled a number of different people, and I've come to the conclusion that I I really don't like absurdist farces uh where that relies on too much slapstick, and the characters don't really, they're not really in the story.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I like more of a I would say parody.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to do mine in reverse chronological order, um, starting with the most modern to the most ancient.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that first one is the movie Animal House, which came out in 1978.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the setup is um fall of 1962 at Faber College, which is a quiet traditional Eastern school.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It follows two clueless freshmen, Larry and Kent, who are looking to join a fraternity.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And after getting kicked out of the elite Omega frat house, they stumble onto the Deltas, um, which are a chaotic mess.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: They're outcasts, academic failures, uh, and they're led by the smooth-talking otter and his buddy Boone, uh, and the completely unhinged beer chugging Bluto played by Kennedy on Belushi.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well done.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh their enemy is the Dean, Dean Warmer, who hates them because of their low grades and property damage.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um he can't kick them out right away because of their charter, but if they they put them on something called double secret probation, and if they do one thing wrong, he takes away their charter.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he teams up with the Omegas to spy on the deltas.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason I love this movie is you know, I was a pre-college teenager when it came out.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was funny from the outset when the camera rests on the statue of its founder, uh, to on some on some text on the plinth that says, Knowledge is good.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: I remember that.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was exciting because it merged um two edgy comedy institutions, one that would endure until today, and another would that would be broken up into pieces before declining and disappearing into the ether.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: The first being pretty obvious, Saturday Night Live, which debuted in 1975, uh, was quickly emerging from obscurity uh to a mussy late night show.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: The other uh institution facing a much different future was National Ampoon, uh, which only exists today as a a licensing brand, really.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was a groundbreaking satirical print magazine, as we we've referenced in the past, uh, launched the careers of Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, um, and sadly ceased to publish uh to exist in 1988.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had some casting trivia.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Chevy Chase was first cast to play Boone, but he rejected it because it was an ensemble cast, so he picked a star in the mediocre at best comedy foul play.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Matheson got the role instead, played it perfectly in a little more boomer trivia.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Matheson was the voice of the Hannah Barbera uh groundbreaking Johnny Quest.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was little Johnny Quest, uh, which merits its own discussion because Johnny Quest was um sort of broke the rules of Saturday morning TV because it had bullets and dead villains and dying monsters.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Bill Murray was up to play Boone, but he passed.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Dan Aykroyd was slated to play D-Day.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but Lauren Michael forbid it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lauren Michaels forbid it because for contract reasons.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, he kept missing shows because that's what they did in those days.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nash Lampoon, Karen Allen was the female lead.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: She went on to um play the lead in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but she modeled in print advertisements for the magazine.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But she was cute.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, so beautiful.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And um a teenager's heart goes thump, thump, thump for Karen Allen.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's a great choice, and of course, I remember when it came out as well.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: I watched it when it came out in '78.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: It was a year before I was going to college, and I didn't really know what to expect in college.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: And me too! And I wondered if it was gonna be like that, you know.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it wasn't, and you know, and when NYU was not like Amalhouse, and I wasn't a member of a fraternity, but it was um it was all the more exciting, partly because of our ages and where we were just about to go to college ourselves.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I haven't seen the film in a number of years.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um last time I saw it, I thought it was absolutely hilarious.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And and I I think you're right, it's a great meeting of uh of those two similar but different comic sensibilities, SNL and National Lampoon.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: National Lampoon, um, I don't think it made any films before that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was a pretty it was a magazine, but there was a sensibility in the magazine.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Am I right?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: They they later made National Lampoon's vacation series, but um what was their involvement?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, did so they no, that wasn't a regular series.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: They made the vacation series featuring Chevy Chase, who had snubbed snubbed Nash Lampoon uh initially, but he they they really made his career in many ways.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know I think that's right.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just as another another um um another uh anecdote, foul play, which you mentioned, um co-starred in just one sequence, Dudley O um uh Dudley Moore, who stole the film out from under uh Chevy Chase.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't remember that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, he's in that film.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Alive.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: And he it's it jumpstarted his Hollywood career.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, it didn't, it didn't it didn't kill Chevy Chase's career because he had a successful career, but but Dudley Moore walked walked away with that film, I'd say.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what, maybe you know, anyone not English or not in England might want to know a little bit about Dudley Moore's um pedigree as a as a comic actor.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was part of a legendary in the UK in the 60s.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he did he was famous.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: I we we don't we can't go down too many rabbit holes here because we have a lot of films to talk about.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he was in a comedy favorite famous uh comedy duo called P uh uh with Peter Cook.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, they both came out of Beyond the Fringe, they were half of Beyond the Fringe.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: Let's um can we get on to my my first one?
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Just a couple casting notes.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'll wrap this up very quickly.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: For anyone who had a many literary or even like print publications in those days, the some of the stars who have the smallest roles were from the National Ampoon editorial staff.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: That would have that would have been the co-founder Doug Kenny, and Chris Miller, who wrote the fabulous Chris Miller stories in Nash Lamp.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, also cast members of note, Tom Hulse, who went on to play Amadeus, Kevin Bacon as the hapless ROTC student, Donald Sutherland as the English professor, and Steven Bishop, a 1970s crooner who's who play had the hit song on and on, and uh whose guitar gets broken in half by Belushi while he's serenading a trio of co-eds in the Delta House.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all I've got on my my number one.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I turn it over to you, Mr.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Miller.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_02: My my number one is uh in uh uh chronological order, not reverse chronological order.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm going back uh beginning with a film that's this year is a hundred years old.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: It is called The Strongman, a silent film made in 1926, directed by Fank Frank Capra, his first uh Get Out, his directorial debut.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, he went on to direct um uh most famously, It's Wonderful Life, that probably a lot of people know, and and it happened one night, which made uh Clark Abel and Claudette Colbert uh stars.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they'd already made a few films, but anyway, it's Frank Capra, and it stars Harry Langdon.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think people think of the three kind of kings of silent comedy being Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: But there was a fourth, and that's Harry Langdon, although he really only made two brilliant films um Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, and this one, The Strong Man.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it is absolutely hilarious.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of my son's favorite films.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_02: He had the first saw it when he was about six, and it's a lovely film, it's only an hour and 15 minutes.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's in the public domain.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: You can watch it for free online.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: If in fact, if you go to the Wikipedia page for it, you can click right on the film and you can watch it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And it's um, I'll have to get up my notes here because it's uh it's a it's a it's a funny, it's a funny plot.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Harry Langdon was famous for playing a kind of baby-faced character.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: He he was a man boy, um, and um he plays a Belgian emigrant to the US who has fallen in love with uh Mary Brown, a blind woman.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: They've met at as pen pals when he was fighting in Europe during World War I.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And she sent him a photo of herself.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So they've never met.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: So he moved he comes to um he moves to the US with with the strongman, the guy who lifts heavy weights as uh as a showman on stage, and he's looking for this girl, and every woman he meets he asks if she's Mary Brown, and he finally does he finally does meet up with her and um ends up rescuing her from a town of crooks and and bootleggers.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just hilarious.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: And it's why is it called the strongman then?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, because he he's he's part of this act called The Strongman who lifts heavy weights on stage.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was an act in those days in vaudeville, I guess.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he ends up taking over the act and pretending to be the strongman, though he's a weakling.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a it's a love it's a lovely film.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: I actually first saw this in the movie theater uh in New York in the early 80s, and I've been a fan of it ever since.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that's my first.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I I hope that's it'd be uh a discovery for people because it's not that well known, and it is a it's a lovely film, and it's very easy to find.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: The strongman, 1926, a century old.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: All right, what's your second what's your second choice?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Second choice is a film called Sleeper, which came out in 1973.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, must we launch into the obligatory Woody Allen discussion as a pariah?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: No, let's skip over that and just talk about the film.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's skip over it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's brilliant.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It it blends, you know.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, speaking of silent films, there are silent film antics in it that I'm sure Woody Allen must have that must have influenced Woody Allen.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um overlaid a sci-fi theme.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great commentary on modern society.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Woody Allen plays Miles Monroe, a nerdy jazz clarinetist and health food store owner uh from New York, of course, who goes into the hospital for minor surgery in 1973.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: He wakes up in 2173 because of he's been accidentally cryogenically frozen.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, an underground group of rebels finds him eventually.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he's in an ineptly run totalitarian police state.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like and the the totalitarians are a little like again, the Keystone cops.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're terrible at what they do, and um they're you know, zany chase scenes, and at the time a lot of very funny topical jokes.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: What uh have you seen that movie, JB Miller?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have a reaction to it?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And why wasn't it on your list?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Oh god, five to get it down to five.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: This was a millimeter off my list because I love this film.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's Woody Allen's funniest film.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: I saw it when it came out in 1973, and it's it stands up because I've seen it recently.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I have a whole set of uh Woody Allen's films.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a beautiful film, and I I I appreciated your nod to silent film because he he knows Woody Allen knows the silent movie film, and and so there's a lot of visual humor in it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: There's a very funny scene.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: He he escapes by dressing himself up as a robot um uh butler and is taken to a factory where they they redo the butt the the butlers that aren't that aren't working right, they kind of take their heads off.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: He's about to have his head taken off, he's not sure what to do.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's this film is just hilarious, it's just a beautiful movie, and I and I discover it, I discuss it in relationship with a couple of other films later in my in my list.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: But that's a fantastic choice, and I'm totally with you once on sleeper.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's it's just brilliant.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_02: If you have many of our viewers or listeners have not seen it, do yourself a favor and and and and find it, because it's it's a treat.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're in a is it what is one of those films, and this is maybe something that that actually any of these films can do, and that is if you're in kind of a a bad mood, or if you're if you're feeling put upon, or you're not feeling well, you have a cold, whatever it is, these films can cheer you up.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: I would, I would, I would venture, and sleeper certainly does that.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a medication in a way, it's great.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well-made point, uh, although I'm reluctant to hand that to you, but yes, I I agree.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, my second choice is a film written or directed by Preston Sturgis, 1944.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Hail the Conquering Hero.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh it's a surprisingly and terrifically cynical film to be set during the war, but it ends up having a huge heart.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it's Preston Sturgis' funniest film.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Eddie Bracken plays the son of a World War II, World War uh, sorry, the son of a World War I hero, but he's been rejected for service in World War II for huff suffering from hay fever.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: So he stayed away from home, writing letters to his mother claiming he's an active service, but he's gonna be unmasked at some point.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_02: He doesn't know what to do.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: So he doesn't want to come home.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: He runs into a bunch of Marines who turn out to be from the same company that his father fought in.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_02: And the sergeant of which, played by William Demerest.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh God, you're kidding.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: William Demerist, Uncle Charlie and My Three Sons, if anyone cares to remember.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, all right, didn't know that.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, William Demerest, who is in a lot of Sturgis' Sturgis' films.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: William Demerist, who plays the sergeant in the very company that uh Eddie Bracken's father was a hero and knew his father, fought with his father in World War I.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: He takes pity on him and essentially Shanghai's into him into returning to his hometown in a uniform covered with metals, pretending to be a the conquering hero of the title.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he gets even talked into running in running for mayor.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um so and he's he's he's he's reluctant every step of the way.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_02: He wants nothing to do with his plan, but the whole company returns to this town with him.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: So they are they are legitimate, you know, heroes, and and they they don't want him to disappoint his his mother, they think that's the worst thing he can do.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's in typical Preston Sturgeon.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Preston Sturgis was famous for writing this crackling dialogue and setting a scene with several characters who all have different lines and they speak very fast.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know how they rehearse these things because they're they're letter perfect in the film, they're just so natural, and it's just it's just hilarious.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: I watch this film every now and then on repeat viewings.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hail the Conquering Hero, 1944.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I had a friend in film school, and they had been assigned Preston Sturgis.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So Carol and I watched about five or six of them, and they were immensely satisfying.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point about the dialogue, it's almost as if Aaron Sorkin wrote um a screwball comedy, which he hasn't done and doesn't do.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they're they're really great films, and the social commentary is always you know, I I think of Sullivan's travels as a favorite of mine.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and uh social commentary.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: The moral and social lessons that come toward the end are always make it a little more than a comedy, or at least make it very satisfying for someone who wants a laugh.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think that I think that's right.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I like your your reference to Aaron Sorkin, because I'm sure Sorkin would be very familiar with with Sturgis' work.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: And because they both write, they both write different, they write different kinds of dialogue, but they both write write their own stylized dialogue.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: And and um, you know, sorkin has been as has been cited uh uh a lot, um often writes in a kind of a um yeah, kind of a screwball comedy style, um, where you know different characters, you know, speaking very quickly, and people have it's very quick repartee.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: Reparte is a great word that applies to old movies you don't hear much these days, or you know, Noel Coward plays.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of repartee in those in those plays.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: The repartee is really kind of um, yeah, I would describe as stylized dialogue.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, that's my that's my second choice.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what's your what's your second choice?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: This would be my third choice.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Third choice, sorry, yes, I can't count.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a little nervous about this one because maybe we'll converge.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Ready?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: All right, um drumroll.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Night from 1974, young Frankenstein.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no, that's not on my list, but yeah, again, easily, easily could be.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know why it's not on your list?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because my taste is impeccable and yours is not.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: Mine's more historical than yours.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: I want to see how far back you go in movies.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: I want to see what your oldest film is.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not as far back as you, and my my old movies uh at I'll hazard to say it's kind of obvious, but directed by Mel Brooks, co written by it by the star Gene Wilder.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know he co-wrote that script?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did, of course.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: The setup is the the grandson of Frankenstein, Dr.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Frank Frankenstein is Dr.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Frederick Frankenstein.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's a respected American brain surgeon and academic instructor in the local medical school.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's ashamed of his grandfather, and that's why he insists on the pronunciation, new pronunciation of his name.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: He travels to the castle where he finds his grandfather's secret private laboratory and a notebook entitled How I Did It.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: How I Did It.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I did it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: So even though he claimed nothing to do with his family's past, he reads the book, changes his mind, decides to bring his own creature to life.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, not to get academic here, the reason I like it is it's the ultimate example of a satirical parody.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, rather than making a silly genre movie, Brooks and Wilder treated the movie with deep affection.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's I like a love letter to the 1930s original movie.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, because it's shot in black and white, which was not being done a lot in the 70s, and I'm sure his producers uh urged him not to do that.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he did to our to our great uh enjoyment.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And he found the original um set for Frankenstein, the original Universals uh studios still had the original set with the with the crazy lights and the and so he he filmed it with the the original props.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it is you it it is a real homage, it's a love letter to the original film, uh, which is I think from 1930.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not only that, I mean, I know I I wish we had a cinematographer handy to tell us about how they got that creamy black and white color.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have an inkling about it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: The the other thing they do tech technically, if you remember, they use these old-fashioned filmmaking techniques, like these and the uh you know, transition between the scenes, and it just it mimicked that Hollywood golden age that makes it feel even more authentic than ever, even though it's smart.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: For me, young young Frankenstein has the most number of quotable lines in it.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: I found myself quoting it constantly.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, could be worse, it could be raining.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: You say that when it isn't, and then it starts raining, it's when they're in the graveyard digging up the body, and um and uh oval teen.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: My mother used to say that a lot.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: Ovaltine?
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's so many lines, funny lines from that film.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, blue horse.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, oh, the cast, yeah.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um wasn't the uh was the monster, was it uh Boyle?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: What's his name?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's a little there's a there's a little cameo with Gene Hackman as the blind hermit in a cigars.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: My brother says it all the time.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Cigars.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's so many lines from this film that I from that scene I always say, I was gonna make espresso.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's just it's just those if it there's a special camaraderie.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: It could be you could have membership in the in the young Frankenstein Club.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: All you need to do is see this film once, and you'll you'll hear these lines and they'll stay with you.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's how good the script is.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's how funny the script is.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I wish I had a little insight about it's the movie's legal restrictions because you can't stream it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: It took many, many years to get it on DVD.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: By the time I found it, I had gotten rid of my DVD player, so it's it's almost impossible to watch.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get a backstory on that one.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe one of our readers knows or listeners as a film uh nut.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, I have a DVD player, uh a Blu-ray player, and lots and lots of DVDs, and I have young Frankenstein, so I can watch it at my at my will.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Get a DVD player.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: How can you not have a DVD player, uh, Jim?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's probably 39 cents online.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can get it easily.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great that's a great choice, that's a great selection.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: So my number three is from 1955.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, in the middle of a decade, a rather unfunny decade, I would say, for films, although toward the the end of the decade had one of the greatest comedies ever ever made.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: But not from 1955, a Danny Kay film, The Court Jester, written and directed by Panama and Melvin Frank.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is almost nominally a children's film, and I probably first saw it as a child, but it it it it it it um rewards viewing from you know any age.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um it somehow so yeah, in a rather unfunny decade, this film somehow slipped through.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: It shows off Kay's great talent for fast talking and split second changing of character.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's a sort of spoof of a Robin Hood-like Technicolor film.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's made in color, uh, co-starring Angela Lansbury, the lovely Glennis Johns, Basil Rathbone, you may know, who's who was famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in the 40s, he played a lot of villains, and the stuffed short Cecil Parker.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of there were a lot of um sort of you know castle epics in those days in the 50s.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: They took these films very seriously.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I like the court gesture, it kind of pokes fun at that um uh at that genre.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and it's it's um a period piece, costume drama in medieval times because he's a court jester, or is the court gesture a metaphor?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's it's medieval times.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's said in the set in the I don't know, 15th century, 14th century.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, yeah, there's character based on Robin Hood.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's not it's not a metaphor at all.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's an actual court jester who has to pose as this as this uh hero um uh who can um it's a the uh kingdom has been usurped by the evil brother, which is the guy that's sort of shades of of Hamlet, I guess, in that.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um and uh Danny Kay plays a court jester who has to be um what's the word?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: He has to be um um thought into um uh hypnotized into being the hero.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_02: He can snap he can snap into heroism and snap out of it by mistake.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's like if I think it's literally a snap.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if someone snaps by mistake, he becomes the the the error-bound court jester in a second, and he changes character in a second, and it's just very he's it's very, very funny.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I'm having a profound moment right now because whenever we as a family we can't find something on TV, we watch the Dick Van Dyke show, and you and I have talked about what a skilled physical, what skilled physical comedy he does, and it was an episode where Mary uh what was his wife's name?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Mary Tyler Moore, the wife, who's played by Alura, invites a friend who's a Mary.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: She invites a hypnotist over.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Dick accidentally gets hypnotized to be extremely drunk.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: He and he gets it's accidentally done because he's he's doing it to Buddy, but Dick's paying attention, and a snap of a finger makes him drunk, and his body, you know, so he carries it into the into work the next day, and there's just a hilarious scene and uh sort of a you know, mistaken identity situation, but um they must have been influenced by the Danny Kay film.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: I would thought so.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: That was only they had only eight years after the film was made, you know.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: It was less than a decade after the film was made.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: He would have been very aware of Danny Kay.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to point out that um uh Dick Van Dyke did play some very funny uh physical comedy as a as as a drunk, which has a odd has an odd um uh irony because he was an alcoholic, and that really undid him by the mid-20s, uh mid-60s.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that was a real problem he had.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um he must have been aware of that when he was there.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: You always have to go there.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: You always have to go there.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's just an interesting anecdote.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: Poor Dick Poor Dick Van Dyke, he's still alive, he's 100, he's doing well.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_02: He wasn't he he's been uh he's been a scene a lot recently.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um didn't he have a cameo in the remake of of Mary Poppins?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: He must have been in that um a few years ago.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that the one where he actually jumped at age 99?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: He jumped up on a table, both legs, one leap.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Mary Poppins?
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was the remake.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, yes, so that it shows his agile uh comedy chops right into his late 90s.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: So kudos to him.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: A super ager.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, excellent choice.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, if I don't say so myself, because that was my choice.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: All right, what's your next choice?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number four for Jim, going back in time a little further, 1964.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: The film Doctor Strangelove.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, was that on your list?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's very sad.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was directed by Stanley Kubrick, it's a masterpiece, it's the you know, uh of an alternate example of a satirical dark comedy, even funnier than 2001 and Space Odyssey.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Much funnier.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what's funny?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was funnier than um Sophie's Choice, which was going to be on my list.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_02: But oh well, you know.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's uh set up is there's a rogue general named Jack D.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ripper.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's a crazy air Air Force commander.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: He goes completely insane.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: He believes there's a secret Soviet plot to pollute our precious bodily fluids.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Does that sound familiar?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's the odd thing.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's no longer a joke.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's come true.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh people have well, it started in the early 60s.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: People there were conspiracy theories about adding um fluoride to the water fluoridation.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Fluoridation.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh now it's just a typical one of many conspiracy theories, right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not only a conspiracy theory, but it's it's it's gone to Washington, and our the head of our Department of Health and Human Services, Rfk Jr., believes it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um now there are you know there are there's a generation of people with very bad teeth and bones before fluoridation who who should get out and vote in the next election because a lot of them uh were living in England.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't Great Britain, uh UK famously had bad teeth, and I don't, and I think uh I don't I think added uh fluoride to the water system much later than the Americans did.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's good dental.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna continue with my setup.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: He orders a secret loophole to order a fleet of nuclear bombers to attack the Soviet Union.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now we know is Russia.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he cut off all communications, he locked down the military base.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a predicament.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the US president and his top generals gather in front of a giant underground war room.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: They have to stop their own planes before there's a World War III.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the Soviet ambassador reveals if a single bomb drops, that a hidden doomsday machine will trigger and destroy all life on Earth.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And why is this film great?
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just great.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a comedic, comedic feat by Peter Sellers, who plays three different roles um as group captain Lionel Mandrake, uh, a polite British officer trapped on the base with General Ripper, President Merkin Muffley, the mild-mannered U.S.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: president who has to make an awkward phone call to the drunk Soviet prime minister, Soviet premier, and finally Dr.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Strangelove, who is a wheelchair-bound scientific advisor.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: And former former Nazi, although he doesn't quite have that out of his system.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's modeled after Werner von Braun.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, he's not out of his system.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Every now and then with a Nazi salute, and he has to pull it down again.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a robotic arm that keeps trying to do the Nazi salute.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's but wait, there's George C.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Scott as General Buck Turgenson.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's brilliant because he's plays the role with such deadpan uh expressions, and he's always up till then a very serious actor, almost melodramatic, I would say.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I um he didn't want to play silly.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have a little trivia that Stanley Kubrick tricked him to play silly by asking for a warm-up take where Scott would play the character over the top and loud.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Kubrick lied, promised the takes were for practice, and he kept them.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, Kubrick did often go for the gargoyle take.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's my it's one knock I would have against him with a film like Like The Shining, when he seemed to break um Jack Nicholson, who never quite recovered from overplaying, um um uh overacting.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he Kubrick was notorious for doing take after take, and after the 80th take, he wanted more and more and more.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And he would uh and and finally an actor would say, would do something crazy, assuming that was too far, and that would be the uh take that Kubrick would print.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_02: But with Doctor Strangelove, Peter Sellers is allowed to like in a way overact Dr.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_02: Strangelove and and underact um President Muff Muff Muff Mufflin.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: And and the uh and the uh and the Brit.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's three very distinctive um characters uh played and the and played and played comedically in very different comic styles, and it's that showcase.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my again, I'm not to harp on George C.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Scott, but I you know he's eclipsed by by Peter Stellars, who's genius too, but he just these hilarious facial expressions, and he he chews grunk gum really aggressively, yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Very aggressively arms, and there's a scene where he he accidentally trips and does a somersault on the floor and hops right back up without a breaking character.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: How did he do it?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and then ultimately, the you know, the sort of another irony is that he the act Scott's acting mirrors Kubrick, who's just not known for comedy, it just isn't no.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I mean, I think it must have been cathartic for someone like um George C.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_02: Scott, although he didn't go on to, as far as I know, play appear in in um uh any other comedies.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: But he's very funny, he's very funny in that film.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I think he would have enjoyed playing that role, but um for whatever reason he didn't he didn't repeat it.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_02: He won his Oscar for playing um Patton, you know, General Patton.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not a funny, not a funny role.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_02: Not a funny role.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: He's very good in it, but it's not a funny role.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_02: I can't think of him in any other any other comedies, although was did he spoof himself in Saturday night Saturday Night Live?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Who did he?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_02: I've we can look that up, someone can look that up.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_02: I think he did, I think he may have done because he was in this he was in this film in the seven late 70s, um, where he was trying to track his daughter who had run away from home, and she ends up as a as a stripper, and he goes to the um to the strip club.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: This is in the film, and he's very dour and upset.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and the film was just took itself so seriously that I think he may have spoofed it himself um on SNL.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: The film was called Hardcore.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hardcore designed to be hard-hitting.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's right.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Doctor Strange Love is hard to argue with that film.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not it would it's not in my top 10, but it's uh it's in my top 10 Stanley Kubrick films.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'd certainly put it there.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it might be my top ten comedic performances because um Peter Sellers is so is so good in it.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um okay, should I come to my number uh four?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um I've got to look at my list.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_02: What is my number four?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yes, what's up, doc?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Peter Bogdanovich, 1972.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh this is one of my family's favorite films.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how many times I've watched it.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neill uh starring in, and really it's an homage to Howard Hawkes' Bringing Up Baby from 1940.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it's really like a version of that film in a way.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think uh What's Up Doc's better than Bring Up Baby, and Streisson has amazing comic timing, which isn't a surprise if you'd seen Funny Girl, her film debut in 1968.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: Streisand plays a zany girl down on her luck who fixates and actually stalks a musicologist played by Ryan O'Neill, who's vying for a very important grant.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, she falls in love with him, but he's already engaged to Madeline Kahn in her screen debut.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so it was uh a year or two before Young Frankenstein, and she's a shrill screech of a woman who can't keep up with what's happening to her engagement.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: Every single minute of this film is hilarious and a complete delight, ending with an amazing car chase through San Francisco, uh, making it the film also a great time capsule film for San Francisco, along with Bullet, which came out in 1968, and Vertigo from 1958.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so you see a lot of the city in this in this film.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I I absolutely love this movie.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm proud to say I own a DVD of it inscribed to me from Peter Bogdanovich, because I met him, I knew his PA, and I told him that I once had thrown a party um just so I could show all my friends what's up doc, a what's up dog party.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Oh, you should have seen the film when it first played at the Radio City Music Hall with 5,000 people.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Yeah, I would have liked that.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_02: What's interesting about this film also is that it was made within three years of Woody Allen's Sleeper, which is on your list, and Young Frankenstein, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: There was something in the water supply system in the early to mid 70s that gave us these really, really funny films.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think I don't think we've had such a concentration of brilliant uh comedies within a three-year period since then.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you have to go back to the 1930s.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_02: Are you a fan of What's Up Doc, Jim?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to me, it's a little bit too much.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little falls on the absurd side.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get Ryan O'Neill.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's a musicologist, I think, but isn't he a geologist?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't he have rocks that he carries around with him that he he fawns over?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: He's not a geologist, he but he uses rocks in his musicology.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: He he has this theory that rocks with their different musical tones, if you hit them with like a tuning fork, which I don't think they had in prehistoric times, but his claim is that these rocks formed the earliest known form of music in prehistoric times.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: Essentially, that prehistoric man played rocks making music.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's I mean, the theory in itself is so funny.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's brilliant.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think every minute of this film is funny, but not very deadpan and innocent.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's guileless in it, and she she uses this um unid unidentifiable to me New York accent of some kind.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's a it's a Manhattan accent or Queens, but she speaks in this way that I've heard before.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: She speaks like Barbara Streisand.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's her Streisand accent.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: He's playing Car, he's playing the Cary Grant character from Bring Up Baby.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: She's playing the Katherine Hepburn character.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_02: Although I I I I you know, as much as I love Katherine Hepburn, she didn't have the comedy chops of Barbara Streisand.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she and you know, diametrically opposite personas, right?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely, yeah.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: But they're playing sort of similar characters.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean the difference is that in in Bring Up Baby, Uh Katherine Hepman plays a a society babe, which Barbara Streisand certainly isn't in isn't playing in uh in What's Up Doc.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't know.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: All right, we differ on this one.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's one of my favorite comedies and made my top five list.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what's your uh number five?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my number five.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: You'll have to help me with the date.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: But in the run-up to it, you mentioned Danny Kay, and I realize this film uh and others uh is is a dad influence for me.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's the movie Night at the Opera by the Marx Brothers.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can you name the date?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Can you impress our audience?
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_02: 1935.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: 1935.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, fact-check that, people.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you probably don't need to fact check it.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: He knows you know you know.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as a boy, they the Marx Brothers thrilled my father, who grew up in a hard scrabble West Virginia industrial town.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a cultural heirloom from him to me, passed down.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and as a young adolescent, I I I think I had I wanted the DNA of all three of those.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be a smart talking groucho, I wanted to be a clownish harpo, I wanted to be a sharp, sharp-tongued Chico.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and watching the films was an expedition for the family.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, we'd get in the car, we drive out to a Pittsburgh neighborhood called Squirrel Hill.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: We'd buy tickets at what was then described as I don't think we say this anymore, a second-run theater.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or I think we still say art house theater.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have many theaters.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, well, certainly don't have very, very many art house theaters.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: Though you do have there are cinemas, but very I can't, I don't know whether you you've got but the Walter Reed, is that still going at Lincoln Center?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, this is New York City, so we still have Cinema Village, but I think across the country, these are all franchise, you know, large franchises um that play first-run films exclusively.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're you know, I don't think you're gonna go to an AMC and see uh Danny Kay or the Marx brothers.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at that time when I was growing up, there there was a revival for old films, especially comedies.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we'd see the movie, we'd see Charlie Chaplin, we'd dine at um Weinstein's for table service deli food with free pickles on the table.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um it's a that's a good that's a good choice.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I I love a night at the opera.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's not I would choose duck soup over night at the opera, um, just for the reason that it's just pure Marx Brothers and um and Irving Thalberg at MGM actually saved the Marx Brothers' um career because duck soup, which I think is their funniest film, was was a was a flop in 1933.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_02: So they were without a contract.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Irving Thalberg brought them over to MGM and placed them in a film with an ingenue, so there's uh young lovers, and there are dance sequences, singing sequences.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um which one would that have been?
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're all good, they're all great, and I agree with you about that.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: Not at the opera.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um uh what's brilliant about it in a way is they've they found a way to transition a vaudeville act to uh to a Hollywood setting.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's really is vaudeville, which is well and they and they tried out what they what they did.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: The first two Marks Brothers films were based on shows that they had done on stage, the coconuts and um uh and animal crackers.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, then the the the following three um uh Paramount films were original films, but with them with their MGM contract, they toured sequences uh uh comedic sequences to sharpen them.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um so once they were ready to shoot them, they were perfect.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_02: My grandfather saw the Marx Brothers on stage, and he said that when at the curtain call, Harpo grabbed the the bottom of the curtain as he was going up and shot right up into the office and then came down again.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: I just love that.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love that memory.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Marks Brothers absolutely should be on a list of any top five.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: This mine would be duck soup, but they're the night of the opera is probably better made um than duck soup, and it's um, you know, it's got all the sheen of MGM movies.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I and just to stick with this observation, something that's always it's vexed me a little bit is you know, I live in New York and saloons across the city are always finding ways to attract people.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe it's trivia or they have a pool table.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them have they'll have cabaret nights, not not even titled cabaret, but they'll have sketches that people do.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not necessarily sketch comedy either.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I used to follow a few in the 90s and aughts that were serialized stories that actors brought to pubs and they would draw a large audience.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the sort of the the funny part about it to me is some of them tried to convert it to a film format, it just falls flat.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the same would have been for vaudeville pre-cinema, people sitting in small theaters in New York around the Union Square area, that's where vaudeville was centered in New York.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it there's something different about watching live performers.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_02: You can you can yeah, I mean, one of the I think one of the things missing uh is an audience.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have a live audience.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can see some some vaudeville acts in early 30s films, even in even in films from the 20s, because I've got a DVD uh Vitaphone shorts.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_02: These were very, very early sound experiments made well when they were when um Warner Brothers was uh preparing to make um the The Jazz Singer, which was the first successful full-length, well, wasn't a full-length sound film, but it was half silent, half silent, but it was the it's considered the breakthrough uh sound film.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um but then the lead up into that they had vaudeville performers do their act on uh on with sound um in like 1926, and uh they're they are more than uh ancient, archaic.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like seeing emissaries from the Victorian era.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: It just seems like a different kind of comedy, but I think we might be missing having an audience there, and it's it's not contextualized at all.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but anyway, anyway, I by the way, I love your point, I love your observation of wanting to be sort of an an amalgam of the three Marx brothers.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: That leaves out Zeppo, who was pretty boring, uh who wasn't in, obviously, not at the opera or the lost and forgotten Gummo.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: Gummo, who everyone says, but he was the funniest one.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_02: You think Groucho Chico Harper, no, Gummo, who's never set foot on a movie.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, he blew bubbles with a gum, but he'd he'd stick to everything.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: He was a walking adhesive.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: Gummo.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, all right, great choice.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: My number five, and this was tough because I really wanted to include an eagle in comedy, and I would have included the um kind hearts and cornettes, in which uh Alec Innis plays like eight different roles in that song.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I wanted to put in a real uh unknown, crazy wonky film um that probably no one has heard of.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's my most recent uh film on this list.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's called Masterminds from 2016, starring Zach.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_02: How do you pronounce his name?
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Galifhanakus?
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sound out your syllables.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Gallienacus.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Zach Galliphanacus.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh why how do you pronounce his name?
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: Galhanacus.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: Galhanacus.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_02: Zach Galfanachus.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: The rain in Spain lies mainly on the plane.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you've got that, you've got the ever, you've got the Greek um uh sort of uh upper hand on me here.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's an inside.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh singing of inside jobs, so the film is about Zach, Mr.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: G.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Zach plays a security guard uh uh who steals all uh steals all the money from an armored bank vehicle and uh mostly gets away with it.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: It co-stars Christine Wigg, Owen Wilson, and Catherine McKinnon.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: My wife discovered this film, and I was very skeptical and grumpy about having to watch it, and I literally fell off the sofa.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it's so funny.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what I love when that happens.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Mastermind on my list right now.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw it again, and it was just as funny.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it might be it might be too over the top for you, although there are films that are often too over the top for me.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, this one is just hilarious and it's just wacky.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think I think it's inspired by real events.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's um it's if it isn't, it should be.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, see if we can go out and find can't be that hard to find.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: It uh came out 10 years ago.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: Masterminds starting exact somebody beginning with you.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I I need to so I need to cheat a little bit.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've gone through our five.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we both have to shoot.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: We both need to add our also rands, right?
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to go first?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, you go first, and then I'll I'll do mine.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I'll try to do this as quickly as possible.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I I think the observation I've made is except with the exception of the of masterminds, I think you and I picked what we'd I'd call foundational comedies that um that had been influenced by early performances of some kind and will would continue to influence future films and comedies.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to have apologize to Charlie Chaplin, W.C.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: Fields, um, and then another category from that era, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton, who were massive.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they you know, those films are just fantastic.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: Last time I visited you, we saw we saw Buster Keaton that was just genius, and for any number of reasons.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, for modern audiences, Lloyd and Keaton were they were massive influences on my one and only kung fu star, Jackie Chan.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: In his film Project A, he's hanging from a giant clock tower.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Clear homage to Lloyd's safety first.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_02: And and like safety last, right?
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Safety last.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: What a great title! Like Safety last.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Safety last exclamation point.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and like Douglas Douglas Fairbanks, who is not a comedic actor, I you know, oh and Clark Dave Gable, um, Chan did his own stunts.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I those two, you know, again, using the word foundational, I mean, they really set the stage for the future of uh comedy features.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I left out something about Mary, Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, the Fairleigh brothers, uh just just for cash, you know, they're hilarious in their own right.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jeff Daniels cast in Dumb and Dumber proves that that actor can do anything.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's one, he's one of my favorite actors of all time.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, three more to go.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: The the Adam McKay, who who was a former SNL head writer, who went on to create Anchorman, Talladega Nights, um, these great ensemble cast films that launched careers.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: He also made the film Don't Look Up and uh the non-comedy Big Short and a little more trivia.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: He directed the HBO pilot for one of the best TV shows ever made, Succession.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: Succession, yeah.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: Which is very funny, which is a that it succession is a weird mixture of drama and and comedy, and that's a lot.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it was the showrunner is a a Brit who um uh is responsible for a peep show.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um Harley highly, highly, highly uh regarded.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Armando Inucci, right?
• 57:07
  SPEAKER_02: Um no, no.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: Armanenucci's got nothing to do with uh succession.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_02: Armandocci is behind uh oh he was behind uh V.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: Very funny.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_02: Anyway, um, can I get on to my list because uh we're running a bit long here?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we are okay.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna leave out I'm gonna get you Saka, the mockumentary genre, and the 1967 film, The Producers.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, producers.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, of course, I don't know how either of us could possibly leave off some like it hot, Billy Wilder, 1959, maybe one of the funniest films ever made.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just JB, it was on it was on my mind.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was on my list for sure.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's it to me, it was just so kind of obvious a choice that I thought I could afford to leave it off because everyone, everyone would know it.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: But you mentioned uh Keaton Sherlock Jr.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Sherlock Jr.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: is my favorite Keaton, 1926, City Lights, Chaplain, 1931.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: You mentioned WC Fields, It's a Gift from 1932 is hilarious.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh My Man Godfrey, um, directed by Gregory Lacava, 1936, starring Carol Lombard, who's a bit shrieky in it, but William Powell is hilarious.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then coming right up to uh recent days, the big Lebowski, uh Cone Brothers.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I don't know how many times I've watched this, but it works every time.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't a hit when it came out, it's become a cult favorite since then.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: There's an annual Lebowski Fest, as there should be, The Dude Abides.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: But another Cone Brothers film, maybe less known, is Burn After Reading.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever see that?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's so funny.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: 2008.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's like a Washington, D.C.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: thriller uh comedy with Brad Pitt as the dumbest personal trainer ever, trying to blackmail CIA operative played by John Malkovich, and John Malkovich reminds me of the film Being John Malkovich.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wait, wasn't it George Clooney?
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_02: George Clooney is in it, and he's in he's another uh dull bulb in it.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very funny film.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so uh but I I didn't want to uh forget.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: Cameo at the end from J.K.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: Simmons.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: One scene.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, oh great scene.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_02: It ends a great ending, uh, which we won't give away, but uh J.K.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: Simmons is very funny in it.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: Very well, Cohn Brothers always cast so well.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I didn't want to leave out the uh Ealing comedies, um, the Lady Killers, which is hilarious, Alakinis and the young Peter Sellers.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so so many recommendations.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was painful to try to keep it to five, and neither of us could.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you took, I know I took some time over this.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: You must have taken you some time to try to narrow it down.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_02: Anything close to five was difficult.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: So many great funny films.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was definitely a tough one.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: I put some time, I had to poll a number of people, and uh, but I stand by my five uh for reasons I previously stated.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: And do you know what time it is, JB Miller?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: What time is it?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's time for our special segment called Headquakes.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: Headquake! Headquake.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, my headquake is actually a redux from our last podcast because we were talking about MAGA culture.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: And after we finished it, it occurred to me we left out a couple of crucial things.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: And one was architecture, and this has become an issue because uh, of course, uh President Trump has made it an issue.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, he actually signed one of those ridiculous signing statements where he declared that all new federal buildings in Washington, D.C.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: were to be designed in a neoclassical style, which all strikes me strikes me as a bit Albert Spear Nazi adjacent, and I'm sure it did to you as well.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I I and this extends to art in the in the sense that they are but they've been very uh hands-on in uh the Smithsonian.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I just half expect to read about a degenerate art exhibit as staged in the in DC as the Nazis did in Munich in 1937, which was an exhibit of all the art that they declared degenerate, um anti-Nazi or not proper.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it was all of the art that we celebrate now from that from that era, you know, Oscar Kokoshka, all of the abstract artist, you know, from that period.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, these and you know, these people in the MAGA movement are somehow afraid of art and architecture and art.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I've noticed there's a lot more AI-generated figurative slop, art slop on Trump's social media feed than any legitimate artwork.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_02: So Trump seems very anti-art and he's now wanting to close the JFK Center in a peak because he doesn't get to have his name on it.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_02: You must have feelings about this.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh being married to an artist and you're the father of a dancer, amongst other things.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, this is personal for for both of us.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it's it's funny you mention AI slot because whenever I whenever I I query, you know, my whatever AI tool is handy, there's so many of them.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I ask I ask it to provide an idea, anything that's sort of you know slightly aesthetic poetry, it comes back comes back with the quality of you know a Hallmark card because that's all it can do.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: It can't be original.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's probably you know what what's filtering through the MAG aesthetic, specifically in, you know, if you could say a Hallmark version of uh of an architectural piece.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's I think that's what they're gunning for.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: Mild.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Trump has asked that it be beautiful, so it's gonna look like something from you know 18th century Vienna or he wants to build this big uh triumphal arch, which is uh very bombastic.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think he would plan this when he um you know was expected to have all these military victories, which he clearly doesn't have, so it seems like a very um uh wrong note at this point, especially because it's unpopular.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: But as someone pointed out, he wants to build all of these all of these um celebrations and statues to himself because he knows nobody else will.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_02: When he's gone, uh, there's gonna be nothing, no tributes to Trump.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I I just hope this arch doesn't get built.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_02: It just sounds monstrous.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what's your headquake for this week, Jim?
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um just this pleasant state of euphoria that we're living in right now in New York City because the New York Knicks have made it to an NBA championship for the first time since um, I think 1994.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't won one since '75.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Correct me if I'm wrong.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm I'm not, I didn't grow up with a basketball team in Pittsburgh, um, but I've I had a lot of exposure to that great team.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Walt Clyde Frazier, Dave DeBusher, Bill Bradley, who would go on to become a U.S.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: senator.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were just legends, and it's it's all coming to the surface.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: Their ghosts are all among us.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I watched game one, game two, game three as tonight.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: The the city is just in this state of bliss, and I've never seen anything like it in my life.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is just extraordinary.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: I picture, I picture crowds in Times Square and some happy Knicks fan grabbing a nurse and kissing her on the mouth.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little like that.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, to see John Terturro's Instagram or hear him on the radio talking about how great the Knicks are.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's such a he's such a New Yorker.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds like a pizza parlor talking to some guy, hearing Spike Lee talk about how he snuck into the garden when he was 14 or 15 years old.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're just in this manic state.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, while we're on the subject of MAGA, Trump arrives tonight because he says he's a Knicks fan.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, there's been a viewing party outside of the garden that probably draws a thousand people.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because of for security concerns, that will be canceled.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, let's see.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: This one kind of nice thing.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Trump ruins Trump ruins everything, everything.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he's not, you know, Spike Lee is a true Knicks fan.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, of you know, decades standing.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, he's the he's the real McCoy.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_02: Trump is not the real, the real McCoy.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know what else is special about it?
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll end it here, is that you know, here we are, you know, feeling a little like underdogs.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our team, let's just pretend our team isn't that good, but they haven't been good for decades.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're a sanctuary city, we're a very diverse city, we're a liberal city, and all of a sudden, all eyes are New York on New York right now, and even more, you know, New York is the city where everyone leaves in the summer.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we're sliding right into World Cup after that.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I all I can say is it couldn't have happened to a nicer city, truly.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: Truly, you don't hear much about New York these days, it's an unassuming quiet metropolis.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's nice if something good happens to it every now and then, but no, really, it's great.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's a and it's it's a story here in England.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_02: We've been reading about the Knicks and that you know the the euphoria that is therein attached.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that's a great quake.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's a it's a lovely it's a lovely headquake because it balances my uh my my my negative one.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a saying that has emerged, and I'll just I'll just recite it quick quickly.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's on hats, and you see people quote it in your Instagram feed in large crowds of hysterical people.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: The quote is my mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish, my Christian Dior, Nyx in four.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_02: Nyx in four.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we'll find out tonight if they're three quarters way there.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: And um good luck.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: Good luck, Nyx.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's what we that's all we have for this week.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is JB Miller in London.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn, and that's been Boomer Has It.