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Dennis the Menace · The Director's Chair Network

• 0:02 [Applause] in this neighborhood this is an 0:08 emergency he's out of school for the summer where people cherish peace and quiet you won't get a moment of peace 0:14 there lives a kid named Dennis hey Mr wilson 0:19 i'm sick i won't f for you George hi Mrs wilson is Mr wilson here doesn't Mr 0:26 wilson get up real real early you should lay you know what I do my dad's asleep 0:32 he doesn't want to be mr wilson mr 0:39 wilson he feels warm you need an aspirin 0:46 [Music] 0:54 now John Hughes brings one of your all-time favorite cartoon characters to life smile 1:03 for a whole new generation to discover don't embarrass me 1:08 you'll love Mr wilson that kid is a menace mrs wilson the Mitchells Margaret 1:15 we could bury you alive i can pound you a steak joey switchblade Sam and a 1:21 menace named Dennis kids are kids 1:27 you have to play by their rules you have to roll with the 1:32 punches you have to expect the unexpected [Music] 1:40 dennis the Menace that's me america's classic kid in a classic American comedy 1:48 directed by Nick Castle a John Hughes [Music] 2:01 production hello hello i'm Katie and this is RetroMade your pop culture 2:07 rewind now today we're going to go back only to 1993 today to revisit Dennis the Dennis the Menace Overview 2:14 Menace the classic comic strip troublemaker who comes to life with non-stop chaos i have a brand new guest 2:23 that I'm thrilled to introduce you all to Amy Lewis of the Pop Culture 2:28 Retrospective podcast it's a show that I could not relate to more it very much 2:33 speaks to me Amy so welcome to RetroAde please tell us about you and your show 2:39 all right well thank you so much for for having me on your show i really appreciate it you know us podcast women 2:45 with you know radio ready voices really need to stick together and I think that you certainly fall into that category so 2:52 yes so my show is the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast good job pronouncing that sometimes people have a 2:58 hard time it's a little bit of a a tongue twister at times but um yeah I started a shows about five years ago now 3:05 um which is just crazy so in May it'll be five years and I started the show about a year after my sister 3:12 unfortunately uh passed away very tragically she had a long um unfortunate 3:18 battle with significant mental health issues and so unfortunately that um ultimately you know played out in an 3:26 unfortunate way but taking sort of that grief and trying to take a positive spin 3:31 on it i decided to channel my grief into um kind of reminiscing about my 3:38 childhood and teenage years growing up with my sister because we loved watching movies together listening to music 3:44 together talking about the toys that we had as kids reciting lyrics to Rainbow Brite 3:52 songs together so I thought instead of sort of sitting and feeling horrible 3:57 about all this which I mean of course does happen I decided to just think about times in our lives that were 4:04 really fun and hilarious and our generation is sort of notorious for just really amazing uh pop culture that is 4:12 funny diverse corny cheesy profound and everything in between so yeah so I've 4:18 been on this journey now for almost 5 years and it's been absolutely incredible and I had no idea what I was 4:24 getting myself into when I started this podcast but I'm still doing it and loving it and getting to meet so many 4:30 incredible people and it's just pretty amazing that something so meaningful and positive and special 4:39 and unique has come about because of this unfortunate situation in my life so 4:44 thank you for letting me be on the show oh my gosh you you couldn't have said it 4:51 any better i just want to kind of reiterate that you know well first of all congratulations on 5 years that's 4:57 Thank you yeah i can't believe it yeah and second of all I think you it's the show is really good like the quality of 5:05 your content and you know your sense of humor and little dry a little sarcastic 5:12 and I love it and but and you always honor your sister with the shows it's just a wonderful balance of memories and 5:20 like you said you turning something really unfortunate into something positive so I highly recommend you all 5:26 check out Pop Culture Retrospective with Amy oh well yes thank you so much yeah 5:32 thank you for Yes and before we before we get into the time capsule of 1993 I 5:38 wanted to share with you all a book that was recommended by a listener Jen H 5:43 thank you so much for your recommendation i had to put it on my list at the library and it's here it is 5:49 called You couldn't ignore me if you tried the Brat Pack John Hughes and 5:55 their impact on a generation by Susanna Gora oh nice it is the book now I 6:01 haven't started it yet the back but you know I'm a big fan of The Handy Dandy Library yes and um so I'm going to dive 6:07 into this you guys and so be on the lookout for some tidbits in future episodes nice oh that'll be Yeah that'll 6:14 be a great read i'm not I'm not familiar with that book so I bet that's that's going to be a good one i wasn't either 6:19 and this whole season is about John Hughes so again thank you Jen for your recommendation all right Amy are you 6:25 ready to you know spin this pop culture retroade time capsule wheel yes I am i 6:32 always like to say that it'd be nice if I could remember you know what the Constitution consisted of or you know 6:39 which president was number 10 but I don't remember that kind of stuff but I do remember a lot of unnecessary stuff 6:45 from my childhood and adolescence so we'll see if that proves to be correct useless trivia is my favorite kind of 6:53 trivia all right can you see the wheel Amy i can yes i'm I've I've listened to said wheel on the show and so I'm really 6:59 excited to actually see said wheel in person all right hopefully hopefully we 7:05 get some good ones the first category we come upon is prime time rewind okay 1993 Pop Culture Trivia Wheel 7:12 okay so these are the top five prime time TV 7:19 shows from 1993 okay I have some clues but do you have any guesses 7:25 before I give you any clues let's see i think I would have some guesses yes um 7:34 I'm trying to think 1993 i think she had ended so that would have been you know 7:39 very high up there i'm trying to think 1993 specifically i'm going to say Cosby 7:45 Show nope oh okay i think that probably ended 7:51 just a little bit smidge okay yeah yeah okay yeah seinfeld seinfeld is number 7:59 three okay man why am I drawing a blank 8:04 1993 suburban sarcasm suburban sarcasm 8:10 it's a It's a an auto city it's set in an auto city home improvement home 8:16 improvement okay i was I was was like thinking 1993 cuz I think sometimes there's like these things are on the cusp and it's like was that like 96 or 8:24 91 you know so anyways yep yep let's see roseanne roseanne yep yep yep okay and 8:32 we have one set in Minnesota the Coach coach and the number 8:40 one is not a sitcom okay it's a very 8:45 serious show investigative journalism 8:54 okay 1993 it's got a very iconic opening 9:01 mhm uh this is book I'm trying to think it says CSI but I feel like that started 9:07 after that it's It is uh It's non-fiction okay h I'm trying to think 9:14 it's not Unsolved Mysteries is it you're getting You're getting warmer give up i 9:19 think so because I never watched a lot of like serious stuff or scary stuff and still to this day I'm a bit very skittish so it's 60 minutes i wanted to 9:27 do tick tick tick tick tick tick tick but yeah you kind of forget about that kind of a show when you're when you're 9:33 kind of talking about but that was number one show prime time 60 Minutes man i think that's usually when I was 9:38 like ah time to go to bed yeah same i would that was not my jam in 93 right when Andy Rooney came on and complained 9:44 about something I'm just like I'm done i'm going to bed good night all right the next category is Return to Toon Time 9:53 this animated series which debuted in 1990 1992 but was incredibly popular into 93 10:01 followed a group of mutant superheroes who dealt with both personal challenges and powerful 10:08 enemies all while exploring themes of prejudice and acceptance what was the name of this show 10:14 okay is it is it Teenage Mut Ninja Turtles or is it Mighty Morphin Power Rangers you're close oh it's X-Men the 10:22 animated series oh which I was like super into yeah I was not I've never seen that one yeah interesting i guess I 10:30 guess I didn't pay attention to the whole prejudice thing cuz I was probably a little bit too naive to pick up on any 10:36 funny revisiting things all right let's let's let's do another category here 10:44 big screen time machine so this is box office the top five movies at the box 10:50 office mhm for 93 yep let's see any 10:55 guesses off the top of your head before I start with clues the Yeah I think I might I think I might need clues 11:02 so Prehistoric Creatures Roared jurassic Park very good very good which 11:09 I like to tell a fun story about Jurassic Park that which is not that great of a story but anyways I don't 11:15 know how we ended up agreeing to all go see it in the movie theater but like both me and my mom are like I said 11:21 skittish fearful don't want to watch anything stressful or like people dying or people getting injured but in 11:28 Jurassic Park you know there's dinosaurs constantly coming out trying to attack people and my mom kept like digging her 11:33 fingers into my arm the whole movie and by the end of the movie my arm was like 11:39 completely red and like irritated cuz she was so scared and I was like so scared I wasn't even paying attention 11:45 and she likes to likes to deny that this happened but it did oh my god what like 11:51 she's making your child at this time that's like child abuse i know i know call DHS what's the statute of 11:58 limitations is it 31 years is that too long yeah so it was very scary at the time and those special effects hold up 12:04 pretty well they do i actually really like Jurassic Park i don't remember it being that scary but great movie great 12:10 movie definitely okay that that was the number one so good guess yeah yeah but 12:15 you can keep going clues are good crossdressing got Parental 12:21 mrs doubtfire mrs doubtfire yes let's see 12:27 a young lawyer joins a small but prestigious law firm only to find out 12:32 most of their clients are on the wrong side of the law 12:38 h I'm just going to guess cuz again this like the top movies may have not necessarily been targeted toward my 12:44 demographic was it like the firm the firm yeah okay nice and then in a 12:50 similar vein from a title p title structure perspective wrongfully accused 12:56 of murdering his wife Harrison Ford 13:03 oh yeah title's not coming to me 13:09 the fugitive oh yeah god I feel like I Yes that was like Yeah I remember I 13:15 remember that being extremely popular which would make sense yes yes so we have both The Fugitive and The Firm and 13:21 then the the last one is a Tom Hanks romantic comedy mhm sleepless in Seattle 13:28 very good very good all right i think we have time for one more category 13:33 okay i live for this kind of stuff i know oo stars and Scandals let's see 13:41 here 93 i don't know how's your supermodel knowledge 13:48 uh of this era probably better than anything after so yes okay yeah famous 13:54 supermodel mhm arrested in 93 after a well publicized altercation with a 14:00 member of the press she's known for being kind of a [ __ ] uhhuh naomi 14:05 Campbell very good very good yeah i She like whacked somebody with a purse or 14:11 something like that or I'm trying to remember you have a better memory i don't really recall this one but I very much remember Naomi Campbell in the the 14:18 '9s era supermodels very much yeah which is how do I know that cuz I have no I 14:24 mean no fashion sense i mean period i mean based I think that's pretty obvious 14:30 well if you grew up at that time I mean how could you avoid it right right it's just so interesting that like they these 14:36 Yeah these supermodels sort of infiltrated everything it's like what exposure did I have to any like the 14:41 fashion industry at all magazines any of those like teen magazines well my sister 14:47 did yeah that's probably why yeah that's true that's probably why yeah I I probably have told this story before but 14:53 I mean and and I you know got to find a scapegoat somewhere for all of our 14:59 eating disorders in the '9s right so they I just remember being like 12 15:04 reading these magazines and being like why don't I have a 22 in waist like Mhm 15:10 naomi Campbell or whoever Christy Tarlington right yeah really oh my gosh 15:16 so bad okay similar okay i'll do one more stars and scandals question sure this rapper in 93 faced multiple legal 15:23 challenges including charges related to his involvement in a violent altercation the controversy would follow him for 15:29 years despite his growing fame and then he was later involved in a 15:36 murder trial in 93 a Snoop Dog snoop yep 15:42 yep very good amy you did pretty good I got to say oh thanks yeah I remember 15:47 1993 quite well so it was it was a good year yeah i feel like I like some of the 15:54 80s movies better but I was too young to remember a lot of the trivia so yeah the 15:59 '9s man okay indeed now before we start talking about Dennis the Menace you know 16:05 this season is about John Hughes do you have any particular thoughts about him 16:10 as a writer or director or how you came to start watching his movies if you did 16:16 yeah I was essentially raised I would say on John Hughes movies and I think a lot of that came from both my dad and my 16:23 sister so I know you recently did oh well very recently did an episode on Ferris Spieler's Day Off and that is 16:29 like my dad's all-time favorite movie i grew up just outside of Chicago both my 16:34 parents grew up in the city so we have a lot of emotional ties to the city of Chicago so huge influence on us and grew 16:42 up watching The Breakfast Club pretty and Pink was probably one of my sister's favorite movies of of all time and so 16:49 and Home Alone I mean the list just goes on and on and on and so I definitely was one of those families that fell into the 16:56 you know watch a dozen or so movies like a million times and several of those were John Hughes movies so I'm certainly 17:02 a fan some of them you know certainly hold up better than than others but I 17:08 think in the grand scheme of things I think we've all been sort of impacted in some way shape or form by a John Hughes 17:13 movie if you grew up in the in the 80s or or ' 90s so I'm certainly I would say 17:20 a pretty pretty big fan well I'm very jealous that you grew up just outside of 17:25 Chicago so you have kind of that extra closeness with with his films yeah yep 17:31 definitely and what we'll be talking about later too grew up pretty close to where they filmed the movie very 17:38 familiar with that community so the location connection I have big time with John Hughes movies h love it all right 17:46 well without further ado let's get into the movie Dennis the Menace yes 17:52 [Music] okay it was released June 25th 1993 it's 18:00 rated PG it's got a much lower IMDb rating than the last several John Hughes 18:06 movies we covered with 5.7 I believe which is actually generous um given some of the other like Rotten 18:13 Tomatoes and some of the other critics they were not kind to this movie no no they weren't and I think I I kind of 18:19 know why in some ways yeah why they would be yeah so the director here is 18:25 not John Hughes so John Hughes was a writer here the director is Nick Castle does that ring a bell in any way with Cast Breakdown & Switchblade Sam Critique 18:33 you Amy i'm trying to remember wasn't he connected with 18:39 like something a little bit like on the darker side or I'm trying to remember what it was yeah Halloween yeah he was 18:44 like the the Mike Myers oh right in Halloween so he worked with John Carpenter quite a bit we talked about 18:51 Nick Castle in the Escape from New York episode because he co-wrote that mhm and 18:56 then I did read though that and we'll get into Warner Brothers association 19:02 with Dennis the Menace but they when they purchased the movie rights to the character of Dennis the Menace they 19:08 offered the role to direct to Tim Burton which would have been a very different movie right yes yeah wow that would have 19:15 been very interesting take yeah definitely so so yeah so Nick Castle 19:22 directed this John Hughes wrote and then Hank Ketchum is also a accredited writer because he was the original 1959 TV show 19:32 writer now are you familiar with the you know what's your history with Dennis the 19:38 Menace like the comic strip the cartoon the original show did you watch any of those oh yes i was a huge huge Dennis 19:48 the Menace fan i was actually looking on my bookshelf the other day i have like old comic book compilation books of his 19:54 of Hank Ketchum's of the original series huge fan i watched the black and white 20:00 TV series on Nick at Night I think it was or I think it would also play during the day i think when I was homesick from 20:06 school sometimes it would be on and I own DVDs of that original show i watched 20:11 the cartoon the the Deak cartoon religiously as a kid recorded a lot of 20:17 those onto blank VHS tapes bought the series when it came out onto VHS and 20:23 then eventually onto DVD which one of the DVDs is still currently stuck in a in our DVD player which I need to remove 20:30 haven't done it the made for TV movie I was obsessed with i could do a whole podcast episode just about that so when 20:37 I heard that this movie was coming out I was I mean over the moon because if there ever was like a Dennis and dork 20:46 that you know is still alive today that would be me to the point where I think 20:51 even like some of my like the neighborhood kids would like joke and say like it's Dennis Amen and um I was 20:57 just enamored i don't know I can't quite identify why but I loved Dennis Amen i 21:03 mean emphatically as a child and still to this day were you mischievous and pesky like him or No not really that's 21:11 the thing i don't know what it was like I was yeah didn't really get in any trouble i mean did you know things I 21:16 probably shouldn't have but certainly not known as like being the you know kid in the neighborhood that's going to you 21:23 know annoy the crap out of everybody and knock everything over and break a bunch of stuff that certainly wasn't me that 21:29 there was just something about it I I that I just I don't know just thought 21:34 was funny or entertaining or maybe it was a dynamic between Dennis and his next door neighbor i I don't know quite 21:39 what it was and I was also a big tomboy too so I really which I know people don't use that term anymore but you know 21:46 I was a huge tomboy so a lot of the TV shows and movies and stuff that I related to more were like um you know 21:54 little boys that wanted to shoot slingshots like that stuff I wanted to do and ride bikes and skin my knees and 21:59 play in the dirt that was all stuff I wanted to do so I always related a lot more to like little little boy 22:06 characters when I was little kid than little girls like Yeah exactly he he comes cruising down with his I you know 22:13 wagon full of like terrors in my opinion and there's like snakes and stuff yeah 22:18 loved all that i remember catching ladybugs and now I'm like "Oh cuz I'm such an animal person." And I'm like "You shitty little kid why?" And 22:25 lightning bugs why did I catch these creatures and put them in a jar that was of me i know i know i did too or we'd 22:31 step on them and pull it back so you'd see like the glow guts for like two seconds yeah oh my god gross 22:38 yikes well I am kind of embarrassed then to be doing this episode with you Amy because I am so not I'm like the 22:46 opposite i'm I'm coming to this with a vague understanding of you know what 22:54 that it was based on like an old like a comic strip and that there was a te I know I'm aware that it exists but that's 23:01 kind of it so I feel bad covering this with you well that's okay no I think you 23:06 know I I'm flattered i mean what are the chances that like some random person is 23:11 going to be really into that as a woman is going to be really into Dennis the Menace so I mean good point it's it's 23:17 not something that I don't I mean I don't I can't think of one other person in my life that I could shoot the breeze with about Dennis the Menace cuz that 23:24 person does not exist doesn't exist doesn't exist at least in my circle so you're it's okay well thank you for 23:30 making me feel better yeah you're welcome also if if there's any of you out there like me that are less aware so 23:36 Dennis the Menace is everyone's favorite kid from the comics back in the day when his parents need to go out of town on 23:42 business they both just so happen to have work trips the same weekend and they cannot find a babysitter for him he 23:48 has to stay with the neighbors George and Martha Wilson and he drives Mr 23:54 wilson crazy but it's not malicious you know he's just trying to be helpful even to the thief who has arrived in town so 24:01 we'll get to all of that yep trying hard not to roll my eyes about that part but 24:07 continue so Walter Matau is the perfect Mr wilson 24:13 isn't he he is he is brilliant i mean he is fantastic in this movie i mean in 24:20 everything but amazing he He really was good i 24:25 mean I I only know him as playing a grumpy old man in in any movie like he 24:31 plays that perfectly he does yes and I looked up some information about Walter 24:36 Matau today just out of curiosity cuz I've always adored him and my dad is the 24:42 same age as Walter Matau is in this movie and my dad seems about 20 years 24:47 younger than him which is just a very bizarre realization how old is he supposed to be in the movie i don't 24:54 think they ever really said I mean probably like 60s or 70s and he's like 24:59 73 in this movie um in real life okay mhm so I think you know I I think when 25:06 the comic strip would have come out I probably you know things did happen a lot younger so I'm guessing probably in 25:12 the comic books he was supposed to be probably like early 60s or something like that but yeah in real life he was 73 i was like dear god that is the same 25:18 age as my dad this is really weird so oh my gosh this comes up this comes up every literally every movie 25:27 people just looked so much older yes back in the day oh my god yes holy glory 25:34 you know like a like a woman my age back in the day would be like "Well let's put her out to pasture she's done and over 25:40 with." Right it's like either going to play a grandma role or you're done so yeah yeah pretty much wild i know well I 25:47 think Walter Math although you know unfort I could see him having sort of like a partying kind of hard outside of 25:53 things i think he looked like he was 90 for you know a very since he was like 40 25:59 so he is one of those there are a handful of those yeah that we talk about he definitely is 26:05 did were you familiar with the actor who played Dennis Mason Gamble not really not Not prior to No I think he was kind 26:13 of like a a relative unknown um but prior to this film and yeah he was I 26:18 guess selected out of tens of thousands of people kids that auditioned for the 26:24 role which is just I mean unbelievable and I'm not really sure if there was 26:29 anybody else that was like more wellknown that was also up for the role but he he won it and yeah I mean oddly 26:35 enough a lot of times so in some of the trivia that we'll get to later I have a 26:41 lot of casting could have gone a different way but none for Dennis Nobody well known he he certainly was a cute 26:49 kid and I don't even like kids but he was he was very cute not really in 26:54 anything like he did go on to be in Rushmore Gatka and Spy Hard and apparently he's supposed to be a 27:01 5-year-old but he was seven the the actual actor was seven okay so the 27:06 actress who plays Mrs wilson Martha Yes is extremely famous and but her name 27:13 didn't just come to me it's Martha i'm sorry Joan joan Blowight yes do you have 27:19 do you have thoughts about her yeah same with same with me is like yeah she's this super well-known had been acting 27:26 for decades and decades and was married to somebody very famous but I think I only knew of her from this movie i can't 27:34 think of anything else that I remember watching that she was in but I think that she was also well cast i thought 27:40 that she did a great job too i think they really the two of them really made made the movie kind of Mhm quasi 27:48 tolerable to watch so which you know Yeah they did a great job you probably 27:54 do know her from she also starred in 101 Dalmatians from 1996 also a John Hughes 28:00 film and then she was in Flubber in 97 with John another John Hughes film now 28:07 she is a dame or she was a dame yes and also a baroness married to Lawrence 28:14 Olivier yeah i like how did that happen i That's third she was his third wife 28:21 and and his widow so she was married to Tim when he passed away yeah but yeah like stage actress a career that spanned 28:28 like six decades oscar nominated she won two Golden Globes so yeah she's Joan 28:35 Plowight i wouldn't have come up with that on my own but she did look very familiar yeah and she should have won an 28:41 Oscar for her performance of reading that poem writing the poem to Dennis at bedtime it's like I remember watching 28:47 that as a kid getting "Oh my god this is so beautiful." Yeah so beautiful like I 28:52 just want to lay in the fetal position and cry silently to myself and listen to her recite that again because it's so so 28:58 well done you're right and I had kind of forgotten there was a sweet moment when Cuz at first you're 29:05 like "Oh they aren't really going to show their marriage but they they do." She Yeah kind of they talk in bed they 29:13 never had children and so they talk a little bit about that and she's like "It's not that that's bothering me it's 29:19 that I want to talk to you about it." Yeah and I can't right i know there's 29:24 all these profound moments that like in this beautiful like script writing and then the next moment this stupid switchblade Sam crap happens and it's 29:31 like what in the we could have eliminated half an hour of this movie from that ridiculous plot i don't know 29:39 and that but unfortunately fortunately or unfortunately you know the whole switchblade Sam thing is stuff that my 29:45 sister and I would recite to each other for no reason for a really long time especially like the scene where he takes 29:52 the apple from the kid that's crosseyed as my sister just out of nowhere be like what you got there sport uh apple i mean 29:59 it's like what does that I mean that could be a whole episode by itself like why the heck was this person in the 30:06 movie like part one which person the crosseyed kid or switchblade kid well both yeah really and the like with the 30:12 emphasis of the whole crossey thing short for his age and crosseyed i mean 30:17 why so we're you know knocking somebody with a disability which you know I take 93 right taking offense to you i've got 30:24 two you know neurodeiverse children i don't appreciate the you know crossey jokes not that has anything to do with 30:29 that but you know and and then the Switchblade Sam thing seriously come on 30:35 there's never some creepy robber slashstabber slashfilthy whatever in any 30:41 in this stuff so I could really go off on a tangent but I'm going to restrain myself oh there wasn't that's That is interesting not that I'm aware of but 30:48 that's a good point i almost don't know which direction to go with with So 30:54 Switchblade Sam is played by Christopher Lloyd and I love Christopher Lloyd but it same he's he's a brilliant actor 31:01 brilliant actor he was very similar to Uncle Fester in a lot of ways though there were things he 31:08 did in this that I was like "Oh that's very Uncle Fester." I didn't even think of that that that but you're absolutely 31:13 right yeah yep i think the reason So it's interesting to hear that this did 31:20 get pulled out of nowhere yes and I hadn't seen this movie so I I did see it 31:26 in the theater at a matinea i remember like our small town theater going to the matinea and I remember loving it and 31:31 oddly enough I probably only saw it like that one time you know 30 years ago yeah 31:37 until I rewatched it last night and it's funny because the this the one scene 31:43 that I well I remembered a few but the scene I remember most was the apple 31:49 Uhhuh with that kid what you got there sport that's this for whatever reason 31:55 that was the most memorable thing to me yeah which that's a bad sign i mean that's that is a red flag 32:03 yeah yeah that's what you remember that's I did not recall how gross this 32:08 hobo like stereotypical oldtimey train hopping 32:13 hobo is is what he was basically yes a hobo yes my my dad went as a hobo for 32:18 Halloween as well back back when but yes I I don't understand well I guess one thing I learned was that you know John 32:25 Hughes did Home Alone and I think Christopher Lloyd was offered a role of 32:30 one of the robbers or whatever you know one of the bad guys in the movie and he turned Joe Peshi's role I want to say 32:36 yeah yeah and he turned it down and he always kind of regretted it and he said that to John Hughes so then the minute 32:41 that there was some other you know villain person to play you know John Hughes booked him for that but it's like 32:48 I would have never thought that that would have been incorporated into a 32:54 Dennis and Menace movie i mean it had nothing to do with anything and um Sis 33:00 Eert even threw that right under the bus what did this have to do with anything there's all these beautiful tender 33:05 moments between Dennis and Sin and and Mrs wilson that was such a beautiful 33:11 thing and then there's like this Yeah hobo that fills up on reffried beans or 33:16 whatever and you know what I mean is trying to allegedly stab apples and you know maybe 33:23 stab children i I don't I don't get it and I'm I'm still hanging about hanging 33:28 about the town for three days doing just just being creepy you know just walking around being creepy right you're right 33:34 it didn't have anything to do with anything and now that you say that you're right so John Hughes clearly it 33:40 was like a hamfisted I gotta figure out a way to get Christopher Lloyd in a robber role in 33:46 one of my movies so I'll write that into this right and they could have I mean 33:51 there's so much that more they could have done with him and still included him in the movie but it really just did 33:57 not make sense and just and I can hear that I forgot what that music sounds like every time that his character comes 34:03 onto the screen and I rewatched the movie too and I was already just like "Oh crap." Like here comes this like 34:10 creepy guy who is still really creepy to this day i mean that's how good I mean 34:16 if I saw you know like it's not even about being homeless hobo whatever i 34:21 mean just the presence of every I mean yikes i mean that's the stuff that nightmares are made of his teeth his 34:28 sinister nature yeah it it was it was a bit much I thought too even like for 34:33 this PG movie right and speaking of the music Jerry Goldsmith famous you know 34:39 prolific career spanning over 50 years we did let's see what episode we talked 34:46 about last season where Jerry Goldsmith did the score was Kurt Russell film Executive Decision 34:52 but it sort of seems like I mean he has what movie did he not score it seems like he's scored Yeah so many right and 35:00 it was brilliant i mean the music is like sinister creepy i mean it's fantastic but again that is not that 35:07 does not fit the you know the theme or whatever you want to say to you know 35:12 it's not staying true to the whole Dennis and Menace thing it just yeah it 35:17 just doesn't it doesn't drive and so if that could have been cut out there still would have been like a story there like 35:24 he was not necessary to the you know to the story at all no because then there 35:30 was the it was like well which was the A plot and which was the B plot the flower 35:35 extravaganza with the orchid or and that getting ruined i don't know it does seem 35:41 to be there there was no like 35:48 overarching plot to the movie it just seemed to me anyway just a series 35:54 of hy jinks just kind of shoved together 36:00 a a little bit and and it I remember really liking I remember like being a kid and thinking a ton of it was funny 36:06 but Yes it's all the same it didn't work so much when I rewatched it and the first thing I thought of was like "This 36:13 is just Home Alone but by accident." Mhm yeah pretty much it's literally Home 36:18 Alone but the kid is doing it by accident right basically yes and not as 36:23 good no not even close and it's wild then because I that's the I kept think 36:30 being like "Wow this is literally Home Alone." Mhm and then afterwards I was like reading some of the reviews and 36:37 stuff and so clearly that's a every that's a common criticism I guess mhm i 36:42 I I am I I can't believe that Hank Ketchum was okay with that and I don't really know that much about him 36:48 personally actually do have his like biography that's not in no longer in like publication i found a old old copy 36:55 of it or whatever that I'm going to sit down and read at some point when I have three minutes but I I mean I I don't 37:01 know how I would be like "Are you kidding me don't take my you know this 37:07 this you know comic strip that I put together you know 40 years ago and destroy it with this you know character 37:15 that's going to terrify children when this movie is aimed at children." I I I just Yeah i don't I don't know how that 37:21 was approved right what did you think about the parents so 37:26 played by Leah Thompson is the mom yep we all know Leah Thompson and then 37:31 Robert Stanton plays Henry the dad who is you know he didn't he really was just 37:38 like a Melba toast type um you know or milk toast what's the What's the phrase 37:45 for just eh i don't know a tool do people say that anymore a tool it's 37:52 so 90s it's so 90s i love it but he aside from his look I thought his 37:58 look was spot on with the the comic strip yes but the dad served like zero 38:04 purpose other than that and Leah Thompson's the mom i don't know yeah maybe she could have made Christoph 38:10 Christopher Lloyd the dad or something i mean come on um he actually was considered Yeah yeah maybe I'm getting 38:17 it wrong let me let me double check yeah I feel like they're decent like well-known actors that were considered 38:22 for the role i don't know how this kind of like Carson Daly if you will like 38:27 just we always talked about Carson Dailyaly was a tool when again reference it was Daniel Stern okay was I was 38:34 thinking of Home Alone there was considered for both Switchblades Sam and the dad which is interesting but go on 38:41 sorry I didn't mean to interrupt no that's okay no I think the dad getting into yeah or or like my mom would say 38:46 he's a big zero I'm I'll let her know that she'll I'm sure she'll listen to the show I'm not kidding but I thought I 38:52 mean Leah Thompson son I thought you know she did you know a good enough job as as Alice and you know certainly stood 38:58 out more a lot more than the dad but I think she also had more dialogue and I 39:03 think although this movie is set in the '9s which you kind of feel like is sort 39:08 of as a progressive time it still kind of isn't either because she's still sort of doing the traditional mom stuff and 39:15 getting flak for being a mom by another woman coincidentally which is you know interesting yeah but I thought she did 39:22 major clashing with a woman who has kids versus one who who doesn't have kids but 39:27 she has a life right yeah yeah that's what she says i know that's I totally 39:32 forgot about that also unnecessary you know other story uh other plot line 39:37 that's like not necessary but I thought she did Yeah I thought she did a great you know great job but I think yeah the 39:44 dad could have been you know cast better cuz I think the the whoever played the father in the original series the you 39:51 know the te original live action television series I thought that you know dad was definitely more memorable 39:58 than the dad in this movie so okay interesting okay now I actually did kind 40:04 of get a kick out of the annoying little girl like Margaret Margaret Wade yeah 40:10 played by Amy Sacas sacits sacas that's a hard That's a hard 40:18 name to say amy Sacits wow she was probably I'm sure people really butchered I mean 40:23 made fun of her yeah poor thing she was like just a a mini adult i I kind of got 40:30 a kick out of her just because of all of the adult things she was doing and saying yeah yeah she was pretty fun i 40:37 mean she she looked like kind of like an American doll like with her curls and the the glasses and stuff but yeah I 40:42 think she did a good job of playing sort of like an annoying neighborhood girl you know that wanted the boys to play 40:47 what she wanted to play so I think she was pretty you know pretty convincing in that role so yeah not too bad i don't 40:54 think I I certainly don't remember her from anything else either but I probably wouldn't have recognized her if she was 40:59 in something else too just because of her costumeuming and stuff for for the movie so she didn't I think she did a 41:06 few things but both her and the the kid who played Joey the other friend like the other little boy um Joey mhm he's 41:14 played by Kellen Hathaway and neither of those two really went on to really do much else so 41:22 this is kind of it well I'm sure when people saw this we were like "Oh you were in that movie never mind." 41:28 I thought Joey was really cute i thought he was like a cute little kid and I thought she did a good job as an 41:34 annoying annoying kid the chief of police is pretty well known though paul Winfield yeah he's definitely one of 41:40 those people like I know I've seen him in something yeah he was in Cliffhanger Mars Attacks The Terminator 41:48 and I've never seen this but I hear it's pretty good star Trek The Wrath of Khan oh yeah i've never never got into Star 41:55 Trek but Yeah me neither yeah yeah I mean they got we certainly got some big names for the movie and 42:02 again I'm just I guess I was surprised that Walter Matau especially would agree 42:07 based on the whole Switchblade Sam thing cuz I feel like he would have been not to assume or stereotype but I feel like 42:14 he would probably would have been familiar with the comic strip just solely based on age and so I'm just 42:19 surprised that he's like you know oh yeah sure like he gets like kidnapped 42:24 and swallows a key that's that's that sounds great sign me up 42:30 sign me up oh he's going to fall onto like a couch that like fell in the river great i'll be in that movie that sounds 42:36 wonderful i don't know if Well actually he kind of had a resurgence in the Well here Grumpy 42:43 Old Men come out like he kind of had a right around then i think it was right around then 42:49 9192 something like that so maybe he was just kind of riding the wave with it the 42:54 last two people that I wanted to talk about on the cast uh Natasha Leon I love 43:00 her so much she plays the babysitter Paulie and I don't know I I I just dig her every You 43:08 guys all know who she is she's been in like tons and tons of stuff she's been em nominated for an Emmy five times very 43:16 famously in Orange is the New Black Russian Doll Poker Face and then Oh she 43:22 was also like back in the day in PeeWee's Playhouse i think her name was Opal in that wow and then the movie 43:30 Slums of Beverly Hills and American Pie those are some those are all big hitters so you know Natasha Leon redheaded known 43:39 for her hair yes like that's a that's a look that she has yep and then her boyfriend very stereotypical in the 43:46 movies the babysitter invites her boyfriend over to make out and the boyfriend is none other than 43:53 uh Buzz from Home Alone which I can't think of i don't know his real name unfortunately which is sad but Yeah yeah 43:58 i don't Yeah I didn't write yeah but yeah it's Buzz from Home Alone yeah which I feel like his character was more 44:05 en is his brief appearance in the movie was significantly more enjoyable than 44:12 the other like subplot line characters cuz he was really funny and I feel Yeah 44:17 and I feel like to this day and and this movie was not something that I watched religiously as a kid because I you know 44:23 I kind of liked it i think just because it was Dennis a menace but still to this day I like find myself like when my kids 44:29 were little in the tub I felt like saying sabid sabid you know I will never be big e nug 44:36 you know he can't read which again is probably not that you know probably people like cancel this now but at the 44:43 time I thought it was hilarious and yeah last night when I was watching it I was like why is the boyfriend basically 44:50 doing the babysitting where's Paulie he was in there reading the book while Dennis was taking his bath mhm he was in 44:57 there reading the book to him it's like what where's Polly what's she doing she's the babysitter that's true that's 45:03 true who knows i mean she's willing to like make out with the lights out i mean 45:08 who knows what else maybe she's hitting up with you know going hitting up the bars or something with Switchblade and 45:15 um you know loose morals that one yeah yeah yep indeed it's questionable 45:21 well speaking of questionable this poor kid Mason Gamble 45:27 got a Rousey nomination for his his role in this which I don't think they do for 45:32 kids anymore i don't Right yeah i don't I doubt it which is which is good 45:37 because I and I've always kind of felt this way anyways but I had an episode on 45:43 of my show recently where I got to interview two individuals that put together a film about kind of what can 45:51 happen to child actors you know as they get older and you know I feel like it's 45:57 something that I'm kind of like sensitive to for some reason i I don't really know why cuz I like was always really sad about like Dana Plato and 46:03 like where her life kind of went after different strokes and you know Gary Coleman people were so awful to him you 46:09 know and so I'm glad I hope that they did away with that i mean it's certainly not a great movie and probably you know 46:17 not maybe his favorite piece of work that he ever did but I think yeah giving a you know seven-year-old kid to say "Oh 46:24 guess what like your movie sucked." Not even that the movie sucked that his his performance you know which I didn't 46:31 think that's interesting but we you know I I go off on the Razies it's it they do 46:37 lowhanging fruit like they really do yeah so right um 46:42 and there was also a stinker bad movie award for this movie a nom nom i didn't win for worst resurrection of a TV show 46:50 which concur probably yeah again just cuz it's if it was its own thing if it was 46:56 just called if the movie was just called like Bob the Kid Next Door you know 47:01 that'd be one thing but it's tied to this you know beloved comic strip you 47:07 know i think that that's where the criticism you know where people sort of drew the line is that it's tied to this 47:14 beloved thing but yeah I'm glad you know Razies that's just yeah not cool you 47:20 bring up a good point though tying it to Dennis the Menace is probably I'm just 47:27 guessing here what got Butts and Seats it made a It was a success at the box 47:33 office it was made for $35 million and made $17 million worldwide so again 47:40 things that make money aren't always quality and vice versa right right yeah and people and and they're playing and 47:46 playing on the nostalgia you know like we talk I I always get worked up when there's like reboots and you know that's 47:52 so dumb and you know can't they think of anything else but I wasn't thinking about thinking that actually you know 47:58 and in 1993 when I was begging to go probably see this movie 50,000 times but 48:04 same thing i mean it's like rebooting something that was decades old already you know when you stray too far then 48:10 that's you know then that's where the real fans start coming out and throw Yeah throw Rotten Tomatoes at the screen 48:16 and get upset so y but so I take it that you loved it as a 48:22 kid what's your history with this movie i think again I think I was because I was already regardless it had nothing to 48:28 do with this movie i was a huge fan of Dennis and Menace several years before this movie even came out so I was like 48:33 already liked it hadn't even seen it i think I even had the movie poster of it hanging in my room before it even came 48:40 out so I think at the time you know rosecolored glasses thought it 48:45 was amazing loved it you know really liked Dennis the character liked Walter Matau so absolutely loved it but now as 48:53 an adult I you know unfortunately I don't think it holds up pretty well it doesn't hold up very well and I think 48:58 it's not really something I would want to watch with my um kids either especially my my older son I think would 49:04 be absolutely terrified um of Switch Light Sam and would probably never want to watch it so I 49:12 think that I think that character alone would be would make both of my kids actually pretty nervous because it's it 49:20 feels like a like a weird not horror movie but just like a weird creepy creep factor that 49:28 you know oh yeah let's watch that movie with the guy with the rotten teeth and the oily hair i don't you know they're 49:33 not going to say that so I don't No so and you have little kids 49:39 though right yeah they're they're eight and 10 and you my my my my 10-year-old is has a lot of a lot of challenges and 49:46 you know things that make him uncomfortable and um you know and so I think this would be 49:53 which is sad because I there's so many things that you know when you become a parent or you be become an auntie or you become a you know your best friend has a 50:00 has a baby and you're involved in their life there's certain stuff you kind of want to show them and Dennis Amen was like a huge part of my life but this is 50:07 like abs I think I've shown them the cartoon the D cartoon but I I don't I have no 50:12 desire sadly to sit down and watch this with them um maybe if I fast forwarded through those parts but other than that 50:18 I mean not really so which is that's not how it should they should have thought about that you know in advance you know 50:25 good point you know are people going to watch us with their kids in 30 years no so yeah it's not a Yeah i mean in 50:34 addition to the you know all of that I mean I don't know we're not supposed to really pick it apart but I Yeah as an 50:42 adult like watching this I'm like we see like kind of the opening of this very 50:48 you know what what's the word perfect little Norman Rockwell small town yeah definitely and and you 50:55 know so clearly it's a very safe place to live and we see everybody including the neighborhood cats and of course Mr 51:02 wilson is like "Oh crap they can hear Dennis coming he's pedaling on his bike 51:07 with his with this wagon full of weird stuff and they're like "Oh we got to get out of the way of the chaos." And Mr 51:13 wilson goes and pretends to sleep but why doesn't he lock the door 51:19 if he knows he'll just come in right and that was like a really unnecessarily long opening scene too like 51:27 it just again something like just doesn't make sense it's like why would you think oh we should have them like 51:32 give him an aspirin even though he's sleeping but he should like shoot it in it's 51:38 like can we just I I mean I'm not a writer you know I'm not a television or movie writer not a screenwriter I write 51:46 and runons however I mean really I have you know they 51:52 probably had way more knowledge of the whole Dennis Amen backstory i mean they've got freaking Hank Ketchum right 51:57 there that's what you you know like that's what you open with really really good point i do remember 52:06 getting a kick out of when I was a kid so I mean I me as an adult I'm not the 52:11 audience i mean it's it needs to be you know passible enough for like adults to watch with their kids I guess but 52:16 I remember thinking all of these gags and like this the slapstick stuff was hilarious yeah but 52:24 watching it last night I guess I was just sort of like this is not funny i don't know did you find any of them any 52:31 of the you know chaos slapstick moments yeah you know I was funny i've um never 52:38 been like necessarily like a huge slapstick comedy person and I love I mean I love comedy that's you know my 52:44 favorite genre but I you know anything that I feel like there's always has to be like the something happening to a 52:51 man's groin area which I just don't find funny um like oldest trick in the book 52:56 so like that whole thing where he like does the splits like completely unnecessary and like very uncomfortable 53:02 actually to to watch and uh didn't need to see Walter Matthau in a in a compromising position like that but no I 53:09 didn't find I mean and again there's I feel like there's so much stuff that could have happened like so many more dynamics 53:15 that could have been more more entertaining i mean I guess kind of like the the whole scene with the garden 53:22 lanterns falling on his face and then like Dennis pulling off one and talking to him i mean that was kind of funny and 53:27 cute and that's true you know that was kind of like like an old man and a little kid kind of thing that made sense 53:32 but the other stuff it's like shooting an aspirin into somebody's mouth as a slingshot that's just dumb i don't know like not very 53:40 creative i don't know and it's like and and why would like some kids sneak up into a bedroom of a neighbor's house 53:45 it's like yeah movies are all like unrealist it's unrealistic but it's not relatable like oh yeah I was I snuck up 53:52 you know I went up to my neighbor's bedroom last night too this is great i can relate to this kid no you didn't you 53:57 know it's just weird i I don't know oh it's one of those things too where I think it's written by somebody that's 54:04 like not Dennis's age obviously but it's that somebody that's like so far removed from being a seven-year-old kid that 54:11 it's like really obvious you know so that's a good way of putting it yeah i mean I I at first like I had to 54:20 for the first probably 20 minutes of the movie I was like is this set in the 50s 54:26 or is this current day yes like there we go back and forth there are a lot of things that are very old timey yes but 54:33 then clearly it's set in current day because of the cars and they have a microwave and the phones and stuff like that but right like the old timey blocks 54:41 the mom like when we first meet Alice her hair and her dress is uber 1950s but 54:48 then the next scene she has like a normal hair like for the night you know it's right um like the Wilson's clothing 54:56 very oldtimey just the whole train hopping weirdo like the very stereotypical 55:03 nature of that and maybe that was meant to call back to the original Oh I I don't know i couldn't really quite tell 55:11 and just even Dennis like this this kid is just out playing outside all day every day you know with his overalls and 55:18 no shirt and no one is supervising him right i mean if that didn't leave a 55:25 really bad farmer's tan then I don't know what would and I would I refuse to let my children have 55:31 a overalls tan like that cuz that's just unacceptable how's that gonna what's 55:37 that going to look like when he goes swimming i mean that's going to look terrible you know what I mean good point he 55:43 wasn't putting on sunscreen if he wasn't gone all day there's no way he did say 55:48 something i did take note of that for a 5-year-old to say something about "Oh when he's being when he was sort of like 55:54 taken hostage so to speak by Christopher Lloyd he's like "Oh we got to swing by my house i got to pick up this and this 56:00 and I got to get my sunscreen." And I thought "What 5-year-old knows about putting sunscreen on?" Yeah good for him 56:07 okay well maybe maybe there was no farmers after all but also what what 5-year-olds 56:13 are just out and about adventuring in the forest with all day every day yeah 56:19 5-year-olds mhm i mean nobody's ever watching these kids ever 56:24 no nope i mean no wonder he's always doing something you know he's got no no 56:31 boundaries no rules whatever he doesn't you want to run away with a hobo that sounds great go you do you you do you 56:40 the parents were major pushovers i mean from a parent like I'm not a parent but I'm watching this like come on yeah mhm 56:50 oh yeah you know but sometimes you just you know you're so exhausted that you know it's just whatever 56:59 things just things just happen because you're just haven't slept in years and your decision-m skills are like whatever 57:06 they used to be go hang out with a hobo yeah you know right yeah exactly you 57:11 know I'm so tired of you and your attitude and cleaning up after you you know what go find a nice hobo go find a 57:18 nice Go join a nice hobo family you hate this family so much you go join a hobo family okay yes that was right yeah yeah 57:26 mhm oh you think Oh you think it's You think it's bad here you go live with a hobo and have beans that are opened with 57:33 a pocketk knife switchblade with a switch with a switchblade okay i will 57:38 say there was one part of this movie that I genuinely got a kick out of 57:43 because because I'm easy and basic i guess the the phone hanging up montage 57:48 yes that was partially because it just showcased all of the different types of 57:54 phones that were a thing in 1993 yes yep 58:00 duck phone mhm clear phone with the colorful insides yes car phone i forgot 58:07 that of those ever existing in the first place yes that cost like $5,000 for a 30 58:13 secondond phone call yeah yep and then several different versions of that like fancy ornate with the gold 58:22 like rich person princess I think it's called a princess phone is that what it's called yeah i don't know why I 58:28 don't know why I know that again not helpful information for getting into college useless information and then 58:34 there was like a yellow retro phone and the I liked the red phone that the the Mitchells had in the house so I really 58:42 did kind of like Nobody wants to babysit Dennis cuz he's such a terror and we just we solve the '90s phones mhm 58:48 twilight yeah well and I think it also is like really satisfying to slam a phone you know so that's that's a lost 58:55 art too so there's a lot of elements to why that was such a great great scene and a great song too um that just made 59:01 it fun too so yeah definitely a great you know uh and a good moment for like the the parents characters and which 59:07 again they could have done more stuff with that too so 59:13 yeah it's interesting movie one other qu again there's a lot of questions that I 59:18 you know again I'm in my 40s watching this movie last night after 30 years and 59:24 I'm like okay I don't know anything about dentures but Mr wilson has dentures but there's gold teeth in them Final Thoughts on Nostalgia & Flaws 59:32 is that a thing why would there be gold teeth in dentures that I have no idea 59:38 unless he had like his real originally had his teeth like a tooth replaced with a gold tooth and then wanted it salvaged 59:46 and put into his dentures i don't know anybody know anything about are there any dentists out there that 59:52 can fill me in on what the story is with gold teeth in dentures why that would be 59:58 a thing mhm yeah no idea but I mean there's a 1:00:03 lot of unknowns and you know why did he have chicklets locked in a safe 1:00:10 that you know Yeah he had to run home and or was it in a safe or like a secret like a bank or like a piggy bank or some 1:00:16 kind of like like special box or something it's like Yeah it was a special box like that's out of like 1:00:22 that's what you put in there was like chicklets really mhm but yeah I don't I 1:00:27 don't know why yeah gold teeth i mean maybe it's just you know they were worth something and they didn't want to 1:00:33 throw them out or you know I don't know that's a that's interesting the things that come to mind when I'm watching a 1:00:39 movie nowadays mhm there's probably some kind of symbolism though I'm sure to it cuz you know John Hughes always threw 1:00:45 little you know things in a movie i bet there's some some reason for it there has to be because that's too bizarre 1:00:52 you're right and speaking of which so John Hughes is is famous for kind of reusing actors and there's you know Ben 1:00:59 Stein who was in Ferris Peeler's Day Off that we just covered i didn't notice him but I saw that he was on the cast list 1:01:05 he like was one of their Was it the mom's boss like he was in the workplace 1:01:12 must have been a very brief moment because I missed it yeah same moment no 1:01:17 that's interesting yeah who know yeah that's that is a mystery yeah and then similarly he's 1:01:25 kind of known for having either scenes while the credits are rolling or postredit scenes there wasn't any postredit scene but there was the main 1:01:32 work lady got her comeuppance by Dennis mhm while the credits were rolling yes 1:01:37 which was another thing I totally totally forgot about yeah that was a weird a weird a weird ending after all 1:01:45 that which again it was wasn't it which again is like not you know Dennis's whole thing is not about like revenge or 1:01:51 you know intentionally you know messing with somebody you know I I just again it goes against the the whole thing you 1:01:57 know yeah it's like he acts it's like he he's I mean I'm sure he would be diagnosed with something not like he 1:02:03 just can't help himself he he he's nothing ill intend right he's not ill intentioned but a he just he just causes 1:02:11 chaos everywhere he goes yep se severe ADHD or something like that yeah very impulsive Mhm mhm yep now did you 1:02:19 babysit when you were you know a teen or a pre-teen i did a little bit i wouldn't 1:02:24 say that that was my favorite job to do that was more of like my my sister was really into into babysitting and would 1:02:32 buy Babysitters Club books with her babysitting money um yeah i love that 1:02:38 yeah I did i mean I did kind of here and there a little bit but I was not big into I was not Yeah that was I was kind 1:02:44 of like not cut out for babysitting and watching this made it totally reminded me why I always I hated 1:02:52 babysitting um like I was Walter Mata like I think since birth I have been a 1:02:59 grumpy old man and I'm annoyed by the innocent mhm but annoying nature of 1:03:08 children yeah that you know what and I that think that's good to know that honestly like if that's not your thing 1:03:13 and Yeah so I did not have children yeah so I did yeah totally i get it yeah 1:03:19 totally makes sense yeah i I was not cut out for babysitting or you know I remember there was like one house that 1:03:25 my sister and another friend of mine like always kind of ended up sort of randomly babysitting at and their house 1:03:31 was a mess and it like drove us insane and like all you wanted to do when you 1:03:37 were there was just like clean the crap out of the house because it was so messy and it's like how does this family live 1:03:42 like this so it's like you get an insight into people's lives that you don't need when you babysit so great 1:03:48 point really good point the only thing I liked about it was like the parents would sometimes order us pizza for 1:03:55 dinner yeah like that was the bonus for me but yeah same my sisters i have two 1:04:00 older sisters and they were both super into babysitting and they never understood why I didn't like it and now 1:04:07 that they know me and as adult they're like "Yeah I get it." Yeah kids are not your your jam no and I think at that age 1:04:14 too to like to have the forethought or whatever to be like "Okay I'm going to plan these activities." I wouldn't I 1:04:19 didn't think like that you know i that's just not how my brain worked as a you know and I think and you know our age 1:04:26 too like our generation you know we were babysitting at 10 11 12 years old which 1:04:31 I would be horri horrified to have a 10 10year-old or a 12-year-old no way 1:04:37 babysit and you know on God's green earth would I have a 12-year-old come over here to babysit my not going to 1:04:43 happen but yeah I just did not have the that skill set to think oh we're going to need okay 3 hours so we're going to 1:04:49 need like dinner and we're I did not think like that just what do I do you know nope not not for me 1:04:55 mhm well neither is neither was Mr wilson because on the rainy day when 1:05:00 when Dennis has to stay inside he can't go outside and wreak havoc on the forest or whatnot he just he doesn't know how 1:05:09 to deal with that like he cannot cons contain his boredom and he's basically like any kid will you play I can't 1:05:15 remember will you He wants to play some game or I can't remember what he asked say cops and robbers or something like 1:05:20 that something and Mr rollson's like "No I'm an adult i'm finicking here with my 1:05:26 my coin collection." Yeah well here's my question that because I think this is one of those 1:05:31 moments where I didn't know what he meant until like way later when you saw 1:05:36 this movie and he and Mr wilson kept saying "I need the GD blah blah blah blah blah." Did you know what he meant i 1:05:43 thought I was like "Is that I know it." I think I remember watching as kid I'm like "He keeps saying GD does he mean is that like a brand do they own a bunch of 1:05:49 things and the brand is GD what does that mean and then I then I think I 1:05:54 watched it again as I don't know when maybe 10 years ago i'm like "Oh my god he means godamn 1:06:01 which I did did not pick up on." Good point i probably didn't either but I did 1:06:06 note it cuz he does it a like last night when I watched it i did note it because it's PG movie and also he's you know 1:06:13 that type of a man probably doesn't swear right so yeah the 1:06:18 O where are the G i was like GD is that the brand name of Is there a company called GD and they make garden lanterns 1:06:24 okay guess how naive I was which is I guess good but 1:06:29 so I don't think this will surprise you given what we all what we just talked 1:06:35 about with Hank Ketchum's original story john Hughes did you see that he never 1:06:42 watched a single episode of the show no he drew his inspiration only from the 1:06:48 comic strip he never saw the TV show i need to leave um that is Wow well 1:06:56 makes sense though right yeah I guess yeah that's true i guess I would just wanted I mean again and what do I know 1:07:03 i'm just like you know what I mean i don't know anything about the the the movie biz but I would have thought that he'd um and so iconic you know and of 1:07:11 course I'm biased but you know is a huge fan but how would you not want to watch that it's not like it's like torture to 1:07:17 watch it or something i mean it's uh out of all things from that era I mean it's a pretty you know tolerable funny show 1:07:24 to watch i mean so that's that's surprising but he's kind of interested he's kind of a quirky sort of person 1:07:31 though so I guess on the one hand I could kind of see it too yeah and the more I'm kind of getting to know him 1:07:37 through this season I think he can in in some ways be difficult to work 1:07:43 with there was another director I think that they had on board that they ended up replacing before Nick Castella came 1:07:50 on board because of creative differences with John Hughes i mean that could mean a number of different things but yeah he 1:07:57 only drew inspiration from the actual comic strip and not the show which 1:08:03 again how did that translate into this POS you know 1:08:09 what I mean yeah he was I mean I I guess I'm you know all of the just little you 1:08:16 know he's like a bull in a china shop and is annoying his neighbor but then 1:08:21 the Switchblade Sam thing is the out of left field bit whoever like whoever really took the 1:08:30 lead on Switchblade Sam needs to I don't know be punished 1:08:35 and I don't know what that looks like but that was a big mistake well not to 1:08:40 be morbid but I think that did happen cuz John Hughes died and I'm pretty sure he was the one that was like I'm going 1:08:46 to write him in because he originally you know like we talked about he wanted to be in Home Alone 1:08:52 that's true that's what caused he thought he thought was reflecting on his career and then thought about oh praying 1:09:00 and 16 candles and switch blade salmon and that's just when he that's when the heart attack happened it Yeah indeed 1:09:07 yeah sorry too sorry too too soon too soon it's too soon too sorry not sorry 1:09:12 no I I've got I have grief myself i deal with grief through having a dark sense of humor i apologize not trying to 1:09:18 offend anybody that's how I cope no no no nobody I don't think the listeners of of Retro are easily offended people okay 1:09:25 so Warner Brothers I talked about or I brought up earlier and I wanted to come back to it because I read this was their 1:09:32 first film warner Brothers Family Entertainment's inaugural film first of five films that the that particular 1:09:39 division released in 93 the family edition h ouch free 1:09:45 Willie Secret Garden The Nutcracker and Batman: Mask of the Fantasm 1:09:52 i do not remember that at all yeah I don't either and then and then Dennis the Menace so that was those were the 1:09:57 five movies that the Family Entertainment portion of Warner Brothers 1:10:02 and it was also the first film where they introduced the version where the logo is with Bugs Bunny leaning against 1:10:09 the W yes my goodness yeah I remember this i I 1:10:15 I think I saw The Secret Garden in theaters and probably saw Free Willie also in the theater and also tried to 1:10:24 recreate the scene where the whale jumps over the kid with a pool toy but that's for another time but were you the were 1:10:32 who were you in this recreation the whale 1:10:37 no I Wow no I'm kidding no I think I was one of No I know i know i'm kidding i'm 1:10:42 kidding no I was one of the people I think who was like chucking the the inflatable whale toy over the girl who 1:10:48 had her hand out like up to it and thinking of Michael Jackson song so um 1:10:54 That's right yeah but I mean that's Yeah i mean on the te on the like tears of all the you know those five movies I 1:11:00 mean this it's pretty low and this is from the 1:11:06 true dieh hard you know Dennis that's a I'm interest that I mean I guess it's very interesting for me to hear that 1:11:11 from you but I guess because you hold it so dear and this fell so short then yeah 1:11:17 I can see why you have feelings you know it's like when the not that I don't know anything about Star Wars but 1:11:23 you know when those like the Phantom Menace I think people got really mad about those cuz they weren't like the 1:11:29 original movies or something you know this is on the same level as that yeah yeah i I I'm glad that there's another 1:11:37 non-S Star Wars person because I sometimes I feel like I'm like the only person on the planet so I I think for me 1:11:45 it's it's like it has to do with I'm trying to remember who I was talking to about this but um the whole like fantasy 1:11:51 movie thing I just can't I cannot follow it's like you don't understand the movie 1:11:56 they have to go through the fifth door and get the book and put it on the on the number on the shelf that's by the 1:12:04 goblet and it's like I don't want to hear any more i don't want to see that 1:12:10 movie i don't want to read that book that sounds terrible i do not like fantasy stuff at all it makes me makes 1:12:16 my it makes my blood boil that's how much I can't stand it harry Potter Lord of the Rings no thank you no my son at 1:12:24 all no my youngest son is obsessed with Harry Potter which is wonderful i can't stand those movies at all and I'm sure 1:12:33 you know people are gonna screaming at us throw their iPhone like out in the oncoming traffic because they're so 1:12:39 angry but I can't follow that stuff at all no I'm not interested oh but you 1:12:44 didn't you didn't read the the fourth book where the where the owl comes and then it drops the notes i know that 1:12:51 sounds really horrible but did you like watch that movie that was really funny or did you you know it's like I either 1:12:58 want to learn something or laugh and if that doesn't happen then I'm out i'm with you i think we have very similar 1:13:04 taste and I and that's why I think I your show resonates with me so much well thank you likewise 1:13:10 you like the facts you do the you know you do the trivia and they're like yeah stick to the facts people not oh look at 1:13:15 the they got to the second level of the map it's like no no thank I think that's 1:13:20 why I didn't The one Kurt Russell movie that I did not like from last season Stargate was weird i haven't even seen 1:13:27 it you wouldn't you would hate it i did not like it at all i was like why you how can you screw up Kurt Russell plus 1:13:33 Egypt add some fantasy weirdness to it that's how Yep the only like fantasy movie I feel 1:13:40 like I can tolerate is Labyrinth you know there are exceptions to all of 1:13:45 my I I feel like I'm like such I really am a grumpy old man because there's so many things that I dislike i don't 1:13:51 really like musicals but there are exceptions to that same i also love Labyrinth but yeah it's an exception to 1:13:58 the rule yes yeah no I agree and I we went I remember going to the movie theater to see the first the whole like 1:14:04 Mockingbird Mocking Jay what is that series the I'm trying to think what the first book is looking at my bookshelf 1:14:11 right now but can't read it from here the Hunger Games I want to say yes thank you the Hunger Games i never read the 1:14:16 books heard the concept sound that I said that sounds terrible but somehow was convinced to go see the movie in the 1:14:24 first 5 minutes I knew that I was going to hate that movie and I did and I sat there for like however long that movie 1:14:30 was which was way too long anything over a minute was too long long yeah yeah 1:14:36 anything over a minute for that movie was too long for me and I like was stewing in my chair the whole time it's 1:14:41 like I do not want I have no interest in how this is these people are classified 1:14:47 and no nope doesn't do it for me i don't get it it makes me very it makes me very 1:14:54 angry it's wild how you know everybody has such different tastes in in movies 1:14:59 and how they you know there's so many different ven ven diagrams that 1:15:05 some weird crossovers in some cases yes um but so Dennis Mennez casting wise I 1:15:12 Leslie Nielsen I saw was originally offered the role for Mr wilson yeah very 1:15:17 glad that it's Walter Matau yeah he doesn't and Leslie Nielson's you know great and everything but he doesn't have 1:15:23 the same I think like genius comedy I think 1:15:29 presence that like a Walter Matau does he's just kind of just slapstick I feel like period which is which is great 1:15:36 which is fine but Walter Matau is like a good combination of of the subtlety that 1:15:41 it's like subtlety that's it that's what it is yeah like that scene the scene 1:15:46 where he wins the garden whatever thing and he's like really affectionate like 1:15:52 smiling next to his wife and then when he turns around and stands up in front of everybody his demeanor changes um 1:15:58 immediately to be more serious is like so spot-on and is just so just so well executed that yeah thank 1:16:06 god Walter Matau was was cast in as M agreed agreed some other like big 1:16:11 hitters were considered too mickey Rooney Mel Brooks Tim Conway Edner all 1:16:17 like all all kind of from that same Yes book you know 1:16:23 tim Curry was considered for Switchblade Sam after he was in Home Alone 2 Lost in 1:16:28 New York another John Hughes movie yeah and to go let's go back to Switchblade Sam for a second 1:16:35 but again the name too it's like that is just a horrible name couldn't it have 1:16:41 just been like hobo number one like why did he have to be called Switchblade Sam okay that just sounds instead in the 1:16:47 movie is it exactly yeah exactly that sounds like the name of a horror movie is called Switchblade they should just 1:16:53 make a movie separate called Switchblade Sam where that character just I mean 1:17:01 goes you know goes nuts and you know agreed you know agreed well so do you 1:17:09 think it would have been better with another you know either a Tim Curry Tim Curry or like Danny DeVito Michael 1:17:16 Keaton Bill Murray Jack Nicholson Michael Richards Daniel Stern William Defoe those were all considered do you 1:17:22 think it would have worked better with any of those or I think it would have been I don't think anybody could have 1:17:28 salvaged that because it just didn't make sense and I think that's a testament to how how brilliant of an 1:17:34 actor Christopher Lloyd is like so good you know but it just didn't have 1:17:39 a place in this movie so I I don't know like maybe yeah you're right it didn't like I despite my being like oh that's a 1:17:47 little too Uncle Festery in some cases but but yeah I I thought he did a good job it was just like what what's 1:17:53 happening here yeah I did see that a number of people for Alice basically all 1:17:58 like all of the blonde popular women of the time Melanie Griffith Madonna 1:18:04 Michelle Feifer Kelly Preston Sharon Stone all of them considered i'm not a huge 1:18:11 Leah Thompson person like I don't dislike her but she's not I don't love her right so I could have taken any of 1:18:17 those other Kelly Preston probably would have been good yeah yep yeah honestly 1:18:23 Sharon Stone has that little Maybe that that could have been interesting yeah she Yeah she could have that that would 1:18:30 have been very interesting if she was Alice yeah mhm but I think I could see 1:18:35 where Leah Thompson feels a little bit more kind of like that the girl next door kind of thing you know um but 1:18:42 Madonna really I mean Yeah sharon Stone and Madonna seem similar mhm and then 1:18:48 Melanie Griffith and Kelly Preston and Leah Thompson seem kind of similar yeah interesting tim Allen Jerry 1:18:56 Seinfeld Ed O'Neal and Rick Morannis were considered for Henry 1:19:02 henry was a It was such a nothing role all very 1:19:08 famous people for such a nothing role such a big zero role yeah zero a big 1:19:13 He's a big zero my mama will never say you know would never say anything like disrespectful or like an 1:19:20 expletative or anything about anybody it's always very like appropriate and like kindly done so instead of saying 1:19:27 you know he's a big blah blah blah blah exploitative exploit of show he's a big zero so yeah 1:19:33 big zero role but Rick Morannis I could have seen i mean he would have probably at least done something with that to 1:19:38 make it more interesting just cuz he's like good at being kind of a nerdy 1:19:44 character and and and Henry is kind of a nerdy sort of person so I think he would have been at least made it more 1:19:51 interesting I think good point the other i thought the dad looked the part but 1:19:58 that's probably the one that got it yeah pretty much which is Well I will say 1:20:04 re-watching this last night Dennis the Menace was very a very different 1:20:10 experience to my original matinea viewing experience in 1993 but I am 1:20:16 still glad that I did revisit it and Amy thank you for revisiting it with me yes 1:20:22 uh to reminisce both Dennis Benis and 1993 little little gem of our childhood 1:20:29 memories yes um do you have closing thoughts about the movie and then don't forget to tell us where we can find you 1:20:36 and and I don't know a little preview of what you've got upcoming sure yeah so let's see i think in conclusion I am you 1:20:43 know I think it's been made very clear that I'm you know not a not a huge fan of this movie and I think the reason why 1:20:49 if I wasn't such a huge Dennis Amen fan I probably would not be nearly as 1:20:56 critical as I as I would be i probably would have just been like "Oh yeah you know it's a kids movie from the '9s 1:21:02 whatever you know it's got some funny moments or whatever." But I think because I have that deep dorky 1:21:07 longstanding connection with Dennis and Menace I think it's hard for me to sort of speak you know super highly of this 1:21:14 movie so is it worth watching as an adult i mean I guess if there's nothing 1:21:21 else to watch I'm sure just you know focusing on Walter Matau will will serve you well um and so where you can find me 1:21:29 the best place to go probably is my website popculture retrospective.com find all of my past 1:21:36 episodes blog posts um links to my Instagram account Twitter X whatever you 1:21:43 call it um things like that i also have a YouTube channel that I try to get episodes posted on to and little clips 1:21:48 of stuff here and there and then shows that I'm currently working on i am working on a show about my show's very 1:21:55 oftentimes is very heavily like researchbased which is why it's kind of on a um sort of undetermined release 1:22:03 cycle i try to get out a couple episodes a month as time time allows i'm working on an episode about Shell Silverstein uh 1:22:10 which has been really interesting and also working on a retro tech part two episode we're going to be talking about 1:22:16 some of the kids electronics that came out in in the '8s like the Speak and Spell and things like that and kind of 1:22:22 the backstory behind Yeah what's the backstory behind the Speak and Spell how did that come about you know always like 1:22:27 to kind of teach listeners about pop culture and stuff and then I'm also going to be having an author on my show 1:22:34 coming up he's written a book that was set in 1995 which is really interesting and a fun read so yeah there's always 1:22:41 always something in the works on my show that's focused on the 80s and 90s and early 2000s in memory of my sister and 1:22:49 yeah popculture retrospective.com i will have Amy's information in the show notes for you 1:22:55 listeners yeah you have a lot of your episodes are varied so there's there really is kind of a little for everyone 1:23:01 whether it's music or movies or TV shows i especially loved the Today's Special 1:23:07 episode oh nice oh god that's that's dipping back into the archives but that's when I feel like I found my 1:23:12 groove was around that episode is when I kind of like felt a little bit more comfortable yeah really liked it well so 1:23:19 you guys if you liked this episode of RetroAde please let me know you can email me at 1:23:25 retroadepodcast@gmail.com if you are new to the show you can also find RetroAde 1:23:31 podcast on the director's chair network so head over there there's a lot of other podcasts about different directors 1:23:37 like Ed Zwick Brian de Palma let's see Michael Man and if you are joining 1:23:43 RetroAde from the director's chair podcast welcome i hope you enjoy and until next time be kind rewind 1:23:53 [Music]