Jingle All The Way (1996)

Laci (00:00:21):

Matt

Matt (00:00:22):

Laci, I

Laci (00:00:23):

Have one question. Okay.

Matt (00:00:24):

Why? What?

Laci (00:00:26):

This fucking movie is a nightmare.

Matt (00:00:28):

Oh yes.

Laci (00:00:29):

Why would this be one that we would need to do?

Matt (00:00:33):

Well, it’s a good question. It’s the only question I think that, wait, why did I like it? I don’t know. Why did you The rats need their cheese. We need material, baby. I don’t know what to tell you. This is fucking cheese, right? I haven’t seen this movie since the nineties

Laci (00:00:49):

And that’s where it should

Matt (00:00:50):

Stay. And guess what?

Laci (00:00:51):

Let’s discuss.

Matt (00:00:53):

No,

Laci (00:00:54):

I didn’t like

Matt (00:00:55):

It, but hey, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Welcome to Load Bearing Beams. I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:01:00):

And I’m Laci Roth.

Matt (00:01:01):

We married each other in 2013. We’ve been romantically entangled since 2011, spent many holiday seasons together. But I have this question for you. When is the season right?

Laci (00:01:13):

Yes. And I would like to say I usually am themed in my outfit, but today I decided to theme my immune system and contract the flu. So that’s how in character I am for these Christmas episodes is that I have the flu. How wintry is

Matt (00:01:33):

That? Oh, like a method actor. Okay. Yes. Commitment to the bit. So

Laci (00:01:35):

I’ll be coughing. There will be hacking, there will be excessive. This,

Matt (00:01:41):

You’ve been sick in a way. You’ve rarely been sick. I don’t know if I ever remember you getting as sick as you did. And doesn’t it suck that you’re like, I got the flu. And it’s like I’ve lied and said I had the flu 10 times.

Laci (00:01:53):

Okay, well, I’ve never lied and said that. Yes I have, but no. I’ve said I had the stomach flu. That is different, but it does suck. Yes. It’s like I use my, no

Matt (00:02:03):

PMO had the

Laci (00:02:03):

Flu. I’ve been No, really this time it’s serious. Yeah, it sucks. And I’m old. Ouch. And my lungs hurt a lot.

Matt (00:02:11):

You thought you were going to die. You’d never stop coughing. You’d never get your brain back. I thought

Laci (00:02:15):

I was permanently going to be that version of myself, which was no version at all. Really? I was in limbo. My brain was in some ether, some waiting for instructions.

Matt (00:02:29):

Well, maybe this ties into the question I wanted to pose to you

Laci (00:02:32):

Fucking picture on the screen, Matt.

Matt (00:02:34):

This picture on the screen. Indeed, this podcast is about movies, but also about our relationship, me and Laci’s relationship to each other and how the things that we consume interact with it. But I have a question about our lives. When did Christmas start to suck?

Laci (00:02:51):

The first year I had a kid

Matt (00:02:54):

I remember many fond times with, because we got together and you already had that kid, and I have so many happy memories of us with that little kid and I pinpointed at a different time.

Laci (00:03:05):

Okay, well there are happy Christmas times that exist when you have kids. But I remember a notable shift in change into, oh, I don’t get to get Christmas drunk and then take a nap and then wake up to all the stuff that I’d gotten, things that are for me, things that people bought for me and not in lieu of buying something for me, bought something for my kid or having to go to many, many different places because now we are on demand as humans because now we have that kid and that kid must be paraded to each house,

Matt (00:03:40):

So many different locations.

Laci (00:03:41):

And that was not always, it was politics. It was just me. People were like, ah, we see you, we see you. And that was nice. So that is when the first suckage,

Matt (00:03:50):

I mean, yes, many people will pause it once you become a parent, then the holidays no longer about you. It’s your kids. And now it’s a job. Now it’s a gig. But I’d say even back then, it was fun to get that child presence. We went way overboard. I remember 2014, we bought so much frozen shit because it was frozen mania. And the kid had kind of gotten over frozen by that point. We’re like, well fuck. But I pinpointed on, well, do you remember there was this time you had a Christmas party, an office Christmas party, and I went down to the French Quarter to Gallis and met you afterward and we got a drink. Can you imagine that happening today? It’s a fucking different world. But I think about that. I’m like, oh my God, to be there. We’re young, had energy, but the point of demarcation is when we started working for ourselves,

Laci (00:04:43):

Oh God, you’re so right. Yeah, you’re so right.

Matt (00:04:45):

When you’re working for someone else, they will make your holidays a little more fun. They’re going to pay you.

Laci (00:04:51):

There’s a Christmas bonus. Everyone’s slacking while you’re slacking not. So when you have your own fucking busy, you lose all ability to enjoy any of the normal times where people are looking forward to shifting into down gear.

Matt (00:05:08):

December is a slow time for our business. So it brings with it this element of, I mean you have to have lots of money to enjoy Christmas and we’re just financially, why can’t Christmas be in July or whatever, or just some other time of the year. But also we’re recording this on November 27th and I feel like Christmas is already over and we blew it

Laci (00:05:31):

100%. I mean it is completely depressing how quick a month goes. The month of December felt like an eternity when I was younger and that quickly went away when I got into adult years. But it’s now that we so dread the summers because of not having support and care for our special needs kid who needs stuff other than regular camp in the summer. Now the summer gets here so much faster.

Matt (00:06:00):

And that’s the other thing is because he despises holidays. He loves being in school, he loves school, which is great. He’s truly miserable when there’s not school and you get by on those holiday days by taking ’em out and entertaining. We go to trampoline parks. That’s what we’re doing right now. All

Laci (00:06:13):

Of them. We tore

Matt (00:06:13):

Them. But Thursday, Thanksgiving a few days ago comes along and all the trampoline parks are closed. And he’s like, I don’t recognize Thanksgiving. I don’t celebrate this holiday. Why shouldn’t they be closed for me? But we just have reached a point where it’s like I just, I don’t want the holidays. I want this. Can this be over? Please? Yeah. Can we not do it at all?

Laci (00:06:33):

There’s still something about, okay, I did put up the tree and that is the thing that made me probably feel the most better health-wise was when I finally did that. I felt like not a piece

Matt (00:06:44):

Of shit finally late November.

Laci (00:06:45):

No, it was the day after Thanksgiving, but I had meant to put it up weeks before, but then I got sick and then it was just this pile of tree on the floor that made me feel like one other kind of piece of shit. A non Christmas preparing piece of

Matt (00:06:57):

Shit. Yes, but it’s funny. That could keep going.

Laci (00:06:59):

No. And once I got it up and then I remembered how much I love that giant tree, it is so needlessly large and big, it made the living room feel cleaner. There’s something about Christmas chaos, clutter, Christmas mess presents, piles of things that you could get away with if there’s also a tree.

Matt (00:07:16):

Yeah, that’s true.

Laci (00:07:17):

And now my house seems

Matt (00:07:18):

Cleaner, but it is funny that you are so early for everything that not having the decorations up mid-November made you feel like you’re late and a piece of shit when most people, you’re still way ahead of everybody.

Laci (00:07:32):

But that need also ruins a lot or will aggravate me to no end about nearly every Christmas movie that allows itself to take place over a week of time during Christmas because without the doubt there are people still decorating and buying a tree the day before Christmas. Who would do that?

Matt (00:07:55):

They have to

Laci (00:07:55):

Exist though. It makes me so aggravated and it happens in this fucking

Matt (00:07:59):

Movie. It happens in this movie. They’re decorating the tree, putting my style, my flea.

Laci (00:08:03):

It happens in this beautiful cup that I have, that I love this cup. And it’s going to be the movie that we are going to do is it Next week It’s National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation, my favorite Christmas movie of all time. They fucking do it. They drop a cheer down, it’s on my cup and it’s only like two weeks at least. It’s two weeks before Christmas, if I remember right.

Matt (00:08:21):

Way in below listeners and viewers, do you buy a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve? There’s got to be somebody who does it psychopath. I think you like divorced dads

Laci (00:08:33):

Shell companies.

Matt (00:08:36):

I don’t know. We did start a Christmas. We still have nice things. Like a few years ago we started a tradition of we have our friends over on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and we order a ton of Popeye’s and that’s the thing I look forward to the most now. But I try to do things like with my family. I’m like, let’s do, let’s go to a restaurant a week before Christmas and that will be our Christmas gathering and then day of we don’t have to do anything. And they’re like, that’s a great idea. And then they’re like, no, we’re not going to do that. We’re just going to come over for Turkey and everything

Laci (00:09:09):

Rude. Yeah. Well, and with our kid, as much as we try, we can’t have three weird days in a row. If we do, he goes off the deep end. So just we need the exact schedule we usually have with one alteration spread many days apart. So we need the entire two week vacation of Christmas, two pepper in the Christmas things he needs. He’ll have to suffer through without making him insane. But it never fails. That impromptu shit happens three days in

Matt (00:09:42):

A row. Yeah, let’s stop by. Or why don’t you just bring him on over?

Laci (00:09:45):

No, just be a quick visit. There’s no quick visit when it’s completely abnormal for you to be here at all.

Matt (00:09:51):

Yes. He needs to be wared many days in a row and you’re like, Hey, in three days we’re going to go to your grandparents’ house for this amount of time. And he’s like, he can deal with that.

Laci (00:09:58):

He can deal with it. But he has to know in advance. You can’t just, if you spring it on him, his life is a place where anything can be sprung at any moment. You completely shatter his perception of security.

Matt (00:10:12):

I think that there is a crumb of a great idea in jingle all the way of some ideas that don’t make it through that don’t push through to the final product, but you can see them there if you squint of Christmas as just a bunch of stress and obligation. But we’ll get to it. Tis the season I say and on load-bearing beams this month we’re celebrating in style next week as Laci mentioned, we’re covering National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation. Sad. And I think that’s it for our Christmas movies the week after, right? Because why

Laci (00:10:44):

Willy Wonka?

Matt (00:10:44):

Well, the week after that, the movie Wonka is coming out, I kind of always think of Willy Wonka as a Christmas movie as a, because of all the toys and things. Non Christmas, Christmas movie. I think I associate chocolate with Christmas. It seems like a cold movie.

Laci (00:10:57):

It is. Yeah. There’s snow involved,

Matt (00:10:59):

But we are doing an episode on that. The

Laci (00:11:01):

Halves and the have nots.

Matt (00:11:03):

Yeah, I mean elves a factory

Laci (00:11:05):

A very godfather.

Matt (00:11:07):

Yeah. Okay, makes sense.

Laci (00:11:08):

Gifting

Matt (00:11:08):

A factory. I’ll promise this about that episode. It’s going to be a very normal episode. What does

Laci (00:11:14):

That

Matt (00:11:14):

Mean? Very normal. That’s all. I can’t wait. Nothing out of the usual. We’re going to be off the following week for Christmas. But December 31st, our last episode of the year. What are we doing?

Laci (00:11:26):

We’re doing a mailbag. Here’s where you need to pay attention. We need questions to ask that are in that bag. So if you embarrass us in front of you, I’m going to be so fucking pissed at you. Send us questions. What kind of question? What the hell are they? It can be about my flower is touching my decorations. Oh God, it’s driving me crazy. This better looks so fucking festive.

Matt (00:11:47):

It does festive. You

Laci (00:11:48):

Look very festive. It does festive. Okay.

Matt (00:11:49):

It does festive. You do a great job being festive. Thank you. The looks amazing. The Christmas decorations look amazing. Thank you. So these questions can be about movies, they can be about episodes we’ve done movies we’ve covered or fuck. Just ask us anything. I don’t know. Yeah, just talk to us. Want to know any of the most intimate details about us or you want to know our opinions on things? Like when does a

Laci (00:12:14):

Life

Matt (00:12:14):

Become a here I got into this sort of debate with my friend. Is album art part of an album? You can ask us that. Of course it is a, well my friend said definitively not, but I think it is too.

Laci (00:12:29):

He can eat a big giant gaping asshole. That makes no fucking sense. Of course it’s okay, let’s not get into it. Same for the mailbag,

Matt (00:12:35):

But our opening credits or closing credits, part of a movie is a movie poster. Part of a credits are part of a movie. 100 A movie poster Doesn’t seem like it’s part of a movie though.

Laci (00:12:43):

Well that’s a big F you to the marketing department and there is no movie if no one knows about it. So marketing matters.

Matt (00:12:49):

So any of that. So here, if you leave a comment on this video,

Laci (00:12:54):

You sucked me into our mail bag

Matt (00:12:55):

Or any of our YouTube videos. Just leave a comment on YouTube, we’ll see it. You can tweet it at us. Load bearing pod TikTok US Load Pod Bearing beams

Laci (00:13:03):

Dme

Matt (00:13:04):

Please do we have

Laci (00:13:05):

Or even reply to any of the posts and I’m there

Matt (00:13:09):

Too. Yes. Just put it in a public place and we will see it. So jingle all the way. Is it 1996 Phil? I have on screen two separate posters. One was the theatrical poster and it has kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad, A lot of chaos, a lot of blur and they’re jumping on top of each other. And then there’s the main poster that you see now, which I guess is the home video release that is a little more wholesome. A little Arnold’s like what? But Jake Lloyd’s there with his toy and it looks more like a family movie. Looks

Laci (00:13:38):

Like a Hallmark movie.

Matt (00:13:40):

It does kind of suggest maybe this movie, well this movie doesn’t know what it’s, but the theatrical poster kind of promises one kind of movie and I think people maybe receive it in a more, I think mainly it’s just kids like this movie, but it’s not like the satire of Christmas and commercialism that they wanted to make.

Laci (00:14:01):

Are you asking me a question?

Matt (00:14:03):

No, it’s a comment. What’s your history with Jingle

Laci (00:14:07):

All the Way? Luckily until last night, I had no history with this fucking movie. If I’ve seen it then it was completely, I just filtered that bitch right on out afterward. I thought it’d seem much more familiar.

Matt (00:14:25):

Ew. I was delighted when I heard your prediction because we record our predictions ahead of time and I didn’t realize that you didn’t even know what the plot of the movie was. So let’s hear from Laci.

Speaker 3 (00:14:37):

I think Jingle All The Way is a Christmas movie that features two couples. For some reason I’m thinking at first I thought it was Tom Arnold and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. But I’m not thinking of True Lies even though they’re all three in that. I just thought they did a fun thing where they put him in both movies. I have no idea. Since it is Schwarzenegger, I assume they will put him with a dainty small thing. Usually it’s a child, but they like to counter his bigness and like isn’t he a gentle giant with whatever dainty small thing. I’m not sure what it’ll be. Before Matt told me the other day that this is a movie about finding the hottest toy of the season. I would’ve assumed this movie was about two families meeting each other and how that clashes and who the fuck knows. I’m sure it’ll have a couple of laughs wrong. I truly have you laugh if I’m going to feel about this movie.

Laci (00:15:37):

Oh God, I was so innocent then.

Matt (00:15:41):

I love when we don’t know anything about the movie and we can just guess what the plot is.

Laci (00:15:44):

It is very rare.

Matt (00:15:46):

Here is what I predicted.

Speaker 3 (00:15:49):

You always

Matt (00:15:50):

Get the better. Here’s the thing, I picked Jingle All the Way a movie that I had seen a thousand times on VHS as a child, but probably not since age, I don’t know 11. I picked it because I assume this is a shitty movie. It’s reputation is terrible good. It’s lumped in with the sad Arnold Schwarzenegger family comedy era of movies. But to get ready for this movie, I’ve been watching lots of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, many that I hadn’t seen. I’d never seen Kindergarten Cop before. I’d never seen Last Action Hero trying to get myself situated in where he was in his career and he’s great. Those movies are good. Then the director of Jingle All the Way, the movie he made right before Jingle All the Way was the Flintstones, the Live Action, the Flintstones. So I watched that. That movie is pretty good. It’s one of my movies. It’s fine. I don’t know, I kind of have a little bit high hopes for Jingle All the Way. What gives me pause is that Arnold Schwarzenegger is playing a normal man in Jingle all the Way, which is not something he can do. In all the movies I’ve watched recently, he never plays a normal guy. So I don’t know. We’ll see. I am cautiously optimistic about this movie being a perfectly fine family comedy.

(00:17:05):

Well,

Laci (00:17:06):

Okay, there’s a reason why they have to reset Buzz Lightyear every single fucking Toy Story is because he only works as a fish out of water. It only works if you let him be as macho self or his awkward self to who’s trying to be something other than as much yourself for moments at a time. Not the entire time. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.

Matt (00:17:26):

It’s not just the performance. I don’t think he’s good in this movie, Jamie. It’s that movies like Kindergarten Cop tonally and filmmaking wise are filmed as if they are a cop movie that then kids get interjected into,

Laci (00:17:41):

Which is hilarious. So

Matt (00:17:43):

Tonally, this movie doesn’t work at all.

Laci (00:17:46):

I’m completely horrible vibes,

Matt (00:17:49):

But I think for about 45 minutes I was like, this is a perfectly fine movie. What you and the 13-year-old were laughing occasionally at it. Okay. But this is kind of fun. This is kind of shitty. It be kind of fun, this’s, nothing fun. And I think it’s just really, really terrible at the end. It

Laci (00:18:05):

Is so uncomfortable. It is. So it does mean things that aren’t interesting. It does funny things on accident. There aren’t zero heartwarming parts. I mean he’s the most non believable when, okay, so it opens with him. Well after the Turbo Man commercial that you see, it opens with Arnold Schwarzenegger kind ala father of the bride. He, he’s an entrepreneur. He’s running his own company. He’s successful, but it’s probably small potatoes. I mean he’s middle upper class, but he’s overworked. He’s always at the job and he’s multitasking. He’s at his, Hey, you’re our favorite customer. You’re our favorite customer. He’s so busy. He’s

Matt (00:18:58):

Also insincere. He’s got

Laci (00:19:00):

Thank you so much. He’s He’s such an office guy. And I wrote down, there is not one thing that this man has just touched on his desk that I believe Arnold Schwarzenegger knows how to operate and I’m including a pin. He has one of those muscle, the things where you squeeze it and you work out your muscles while you’re sitting down with your hand. That is the only thing he touches in that entire scene where I’m like, yes, he knows what to do with that. Oh, computer get down. Yes. Pin, right. Oh, blow up. Now why you don blow

Matt (00:19:31):

Pin. He does not pin get down in this movie, which is a problem

Laci (00:19:34):

Down. It’s a problem.

Matt (00:19:35):

Yeah. He’s just, he cannot play a normal dead. And he’s good with kids. I’ve watched a bunch of his movies recently. He’s really good in commando with little Alyssa Milano and he’s great in kindergarten. Cop with the kids.

Laci (00:19:49):

He’s great in kindergarten

Matt (00:19:50):

Cop. He’s good in Terminator too with shitty little Edward Furlong. But yeah, we’ll get into everything this movie does wrong. But let’s talk a little bit about the history of Jingle All the Way.

Laci (00:20:13):

It’s like it popped in existence to kill me and then popped back out. It is the Terminator. This movie is the Terminator.

Matt (00:20:18):

Huh? I didn’t hear you having the kind of meltdown. I hate everything Reaction last night when we watched it that I normally feel you when we watch movies you hate, but maybe I just said I’m sick.

Laci (00:20:30):

Oh, okay. Yeah, no, my senses were dulled. I woke up with 12% more brain today and was so angry at you for making me watch this last night. No, I’m

Matt (00:20:36):

Sorry. It’s okay. Well, let’s go back 40 years ago, this very week to the Cabbage Patch riots, some call it the original Black Friday, but they don’t have reason to do that. So Cabbage Patch Dolls, I think were the main inspiration cited for the screenplay, for the idea of Jingle all the way in 1983. These brand new dolls, the Cabbage Patch dolls, which have their own really interesting history. And there’s a documentary, very acclaimed documentary in theaters right now about the Cabbage Patch kids and the theft of the idea for them and the weird corporate history and the fact that there’s a cabbage patch like hospital in Georgia that you go visit where you can adopt your Cabbage patch kid and they treat it like it’s an actual child and there’s doctors and stuff working there.

Laci (00:21:21):

It’s born out of a cabbage patch. Out of a cabbage.

Matt (00:21:24):

Yeah. Okay. But when these came out in 1983, they were a phenomenon and too little supply, too much demand. And while we were watching Jingle All the Way and there’s scenes parodying the Cabbage Patch riots, Laci said somebody actually died during this. And then I had to chime in and be like, actually that’s kind of overstated.

Laci (00:21:45):

Okay, but how do you kind of die?

Matt (00:21:47):

Well, they were in a coma for their No, no, no. The worst thing that happened is a woman broke her leg. But this is the sort of thing that just grows in the popular retelling of Yeah, people were ugly, poorly behaved, and employees were harassed, but nobody died. Nobody died.

Laci (00:22:04):

Okay. I instantly thought of Tickle me Elmo. So when would you tickle me? Elmo become a thing,

Matt (00:22:07):

Tickle me. Elmo would’ve been a thing as jingle all the way was in theaters.

Laci (00:22:11):

Okay, but an understood thing. No, no, no. Or just was a coincidence.

Matt (00:22:15):

Yeah. Didn’t know. They didn’t anticipate because have examples of Christmas rushes for toys of fads. You have the hula hoop craze of 1958. You have the original Barbie in 1959. Tickle Me Elmo 1996 again after Jingle All the Way comes out. They didn’t know it was coming Furby in 1998. One thing I didn’t include is Beanie Babies because I’m rereading the Beanie Baby bubble, which is a very good book. But Beanie Babies were never, all of these Christmas things were based on actual demand from kids wanting them

Laci (00:22:48):

Driven by children.

Matt (00:22:49):

Whereas Beanie Babies were purely a speculation, a speculative commodity. I shall buy adults wanting to buy them to hoard them and sell them at a markup

Laci (00:22:59):

Laundering their need to collect and consume by pretending it’s for their children.

Matt (00:23:04):

My favorite detail about the Beanie Baby bubble, the great Beanie Baby bubble by Zach Binet is like these stories of these suburban moms who make all this invest in Beanie Babies. And supposedly these are normal middle-class women who, it’s like Dina, she worked as an administrative assistant, she was on maternity leave and her family’s whole savings of a hundred thousand dollars on Beanie. You’re like, I’m sorry, what? Normal person has a hundred thousand dollars in savings and this is 1996 money

Laci (00:23:38):

And maternity leave. Yes. What the

Matt (00:23:40):

Fuck? It’s just liking jingle all the way. If you had a job, you were rich as shit, but you didn’t know you were rich. Yeah. Okay, so let’s make a movie about it. Why don’t we, and Randy Kornfield writes the screenplay for this movie. His only other theatrical feature credit is eight legged Freaks, but it gets the attention of producer Chris Columbus, who was the director of Home Alone. I think Home Alone is, I think what they’re aiming for with this movie in terms of tone and audience.

Laci (00:24:11):

Wow. I just assumed they were trying to do a cash grab after the success of the Santa Claus. Let’s make a Grumpy Man part of Christmas and let’s have a boy really rely on the Grumpy Man. And he’s a wayward dad. A dad that’s not totally involved, but this will be the way he gets back in with this. And it’s very much felt like, well if Tim Allen can do it, then why not Arnold Schwarzenegger? Where Home Alone had so many charismatic villains and bad guys and a kid that was lightning in a bottle that had charisma. No child actor has ever matched my opinion.

Matt (00:24:47):

You don’t think Jake Lloyd comes close to this movie? I meant in terms of the mixture of antics, of respected comedians like improv with each other, also having slapstick for kids, also having this gushy sentimentality. You’re

Laci (00:25:02):

Right. I don’t think of this cast as stacked, but yeah, the fucking sin bad. Phil Hartman. And then there’s a goddamn Belushi in there for good measure. Vern Troyer. Not that he’s a comedic genius, but when you see all those people on a piece of paper, you think we’re going to get something good out of this?

Matt (00:25:17):

No, and you

Laci (00:25:18):

Don’t.

Matt (00:25:18):

Well, with Home Alone, you had John Candy and Catherine O’Hara and Chris Columbus, just let him go, just riff with each other in the back of that van. And in Jingle all the way he’s producer I’m sure is telling Sinbad and Phil Hartman, and this is documented. They got to improvise most of their lines. And you probably felt like we’re doing it again. We’re catching it again. We’re going to do it again. But you didn’t, just the

Laci (00:25:41):

Tone is so

Matt (00:25:42):

Off. But Phil Hartman is a treasure. He’s so funny in this movie. And SSID Bad’s very fun too. I

Laci (00:25:48):

Always enjoy sba. He had a standup special that I remember really liking on Comedy Central. And am I having a Shazam pizazz moment? Where Was Sinbad ever a genie or is it just that he wore genie pants?

Matt (00:26:07):

Wow. This is the example of the Mandela Effect. Okay, this is the, and we’ve even been on our show. We did a fake episode, we did a,

Laci (00:26:19):

But I don’t know what’s real now.

Matt (00:26:20):

Two minutes where we faked talking about Shazam. What am Iza is the movie that Sinbad allegedly starred in as a genie.

Laci (00:26:27):

Yeah.

Matt (00:26:28):

That’s a movie that doesn’t exist. No. How? And everybody’s like, well, you’re thinking of Kaza and Shaq and you’re just mixing up two large black men. No,

Laci (00:26:36):

No, no. He had these pants. And then

Matt (00:26:37):

Everybody says, no, no, this movie doesn’t exist. He

Laci (00:26:40):

Has Genie pants. And I swear to God,

Matt (00:26:42):

He did Genie Pants in something.

Laci (00:26:44):

That’s what it is. That is what I’m, oh my God. I’m textbook, why would you just search Genie Pants and not Sinbad? Oh, you did. Is Sinbad just the name of a genie? Is that the problem?

Matt (00:27:04):

Well, Sinbad is Sinbad the sailor from the Arabian Knights, which a different Arabian Knight was about a genie. I mean, maybe,

Laci (00:27:13):

Yeah, no, but that comedy specialist where he wore the pants,

Matt (00:27:17):

It’s saying he hosted on TT hosted a show introducing a movie called Sin Bad in the Eye of the Tiger, which had a genie in it. Alright, I don’t,

Laci (00:27:28):

This is blowing my mind. I should say I’m myself. All right. Whatever the manhood pants.

Matt (00:27:38):

So director Brian Levant Levant directed jingle all the way. This is Mr. Levant with his massive collection of toys. He wrote a book called My Life and Toys a few years ago. He’s a big toy guy. And he said he was delighted to do this movie because it allowed him to basically design a toy line and design costumes in a whole franchise from scratch. He was a, the toy stuff is good. I mean it is. It’s

Laci (00:28:05):

Fine. Yeah. I mean, it pulls from a lot of different, I see Power Rangers, I see Iron Man. I see.

Matt (00:28:12):

But it’s well observed. It’s from people who know what they’re talking

Laci (00:28:15):

About. I think. So that part was

Matt (00:28:16):

Real. So Brian Levant wrote for Happy Days in the seventies and The Jeffersons, and then his first movie as a director was Problem Child too. And then Beethoven, the Flintstones Jingle all the way, the Flintstones and Viva, Las Vegas, Viva Rock, Vegas Snow Dogs. Are we there? I

Laci (00:28:30):

Like all of these except for Jingle All the Way. And I did not see, are we there yet?

Matt (00:28:36):

You like

Laci (00:28:36):

Snow Dogs? No, I didn’t like Snow Dogs, but I like everything else. So I like half.

Matt (00:28:42):

I watched the Flintstones this week to get ready for this movie, which I think I saw in theaters, but I didn’t remember it and I thought it was pretty okay.

Laci (00:28:48):

I’ve seen that one so many times.

Matt (00:28:50):

Really? Yeah. It’s like I admire the commitment to the specific tone they’re going for of basically trying to recapture the tone of the cartoon and not being super self-deprecating about it. So I watched that and I thought maybe Jingle All the Way will be good. It wasn’t Arnold Schwartz and Agar. This movie’s very interesting at a very interesting crossroads for Arnold. And

Laci (00:29:16):

Is he crossing over from actor to politician?

Matt (00:29:19):

Not yet, but he was trying. Okay. Well, so 82, we have Conan the Barbarian 84, Terminator 85 Commando, 87 Predator. He in the eighties, he’s on fire with solid hits, but genre hits. The Terminator is a big movie, but none of these are, even the first Terminator is not a giant hit, but he’s obviously a very big star. Late nineties, sorry, late eighties, early nineties.

Laci (00:29:45):

Twins is one of mine. Maybe we should do that one.

Matt (00:29:47):

Well, I watched it this year. Remember when I kept saying Twin Facts for you? Nope. Because I read about twins on Wikipedia.

Laci (00:29:55):

Did

Matt (00:29:56):

You know that Twins, or wait,

Laci (00:29:58):

You even researched movies. You’re just watching for fun. You do research around that movie too.

Matt (00:30:03):

It wasn’t research

Laci (00:30:03):

For Let me Investigate Twins before I watch the movie Twins.

Matt (00:30:07):

I need stuff to read on Wikipedia when I fall asleep. And I’d watched that movie that day and I was like, why don’t I look up twins? And then I wasn’t expecting to find up such interesting facts. Did you know listeners that twins, I can’t get into this. We

Laci (00:30:22):

Really, it’s a whole episode all on its own. Yes, it

Matt (00:30:24):

Really

Laci (00:30:24):

Is. I’m going to submit that for the mailbag.

Matt (00:30:28):

Matt, tell us about twins please.

Laci (00:30:30):

Yeah, we have to use a voice for every different letter.

Matt (00:30:32):

Well, 88 is twins and it is for his first comedy and it’s a big hit for him. And it’s like, okay, this is a different sign of Arnold. Total Recall is 1990. It is a action, but a very different kind of action. I’d say his single best movie I’ve never seen, never recall seen. That’s great. Kindergarten Cop is his first family movie, but it’s not really, it’s not, families can watch it, but it is still kind of made like it’s an Arnold action movie,

Laci (00:30:59):

Very quotable,

Matt (00:31:00):

Which is the key to it. And then Terminator two in 91 is his by far biggest hit, biggest movie of the year. Crossover all time iconic movie,

Laci (00:31:10):

Which is

Matt (00:31:11):

Terminator two.

Laci (00:31:12):

Oh, I don’t think you said it. I did. Did you? Okay.

Matt (00:31:15):

And as I said earlier, he’s been good with kids throughout his career. So this turn kind of makes sense.

Laci (00:31:20):

Oh God, junior. Oh, I forgot that existed. Oh, that’s embarrassing. I’m having a hard time even accepting that it exists right now. It’s so fucked. It’s such a stupid premise. Okay, sorry. I’m looking at it and I’m having some secondhand embarrassment. Okay,

Matt (00:31:41):

So he tries to, I’m going to re-team with a bunch of directors I worked with earlier for we had great success and let’s try to do it again and maybe push myself in a different direction. Yes. You have

Laci (00:31:49):

The poster of Last Action Hero on here. Is this not the exact poster of Back to the Future, same Colors, same every

Matt (00:31:56):

Single thing. It’s going for that vibe. But back to the Future itself was trying to be a sort of throwback to thirties adventure in a way.

Laci (00:32:03):

Okay. Yeah. The Slanty. It’s very Indiana Jones, that font. Okay.

Matt (00:32:07):

So teamed with John mc Tiernan for Last Action Hero with James Cameron for True Lies with Ivan Wrightman for Junior And True Lies is the only after Terminator two True Lies is the only really big hit that Arnold Schwarzenegger has. To this day. He’s kind of floundering and Junior is a disappointment. He’s like, I’ll work with Danny DeVito and Ivan Reitman again. Can you

Laci (00:32:28):

Imagine why that wouldn’t just totally not make everyone very creep the fuck out?

Matt (00:32:34):

I’ve never seen it.

Laci (00:32:36):

I’ve definitely seen it. I just, anything

Matt (00:32:39):

Men getting pregnant?

Laci (00:32:41):

Sure. Any of that genre. And I’m out baby. No, I don’t know. I remember it being very cringe. It is just so sad because they’re like day DeVito and fertility stuff. Remember from twins? My mom was pregnant and one of us was this way and the other one was that. So junior, it’s just sad. I didn’t even think of that. It’s sad them trying to capture the magic in such an obvious way and

Matt (00:33:07):

Failing Well, and until I’d see twins, I think I always thought that Twins was the movie where Arnold gets pregnant.

Laci (00:33:14):

Yeah, there you go. See?

Matt (00:33:16):

And then Jingle All the Way. Try to recapture that kindergarten cop magic. And it is a very expensive movie. It makes back its budget, but it is not the big crossover hit that they were looking for. I

Laci (00:33:27):

Would’ve had no idea that it was so expensive. But yeah, I mean, guess that parade’s real if all that mall stuff is needing to be an empty mall to do

Matt (00:33:36):

It. But also he’s at the point where he just commands giant. He makes $20 million for every movie he’s in. And then after that, Batman and Robin, 97, end of days, 99, sixth day, 2000 collateral damage. These are nothing movies, none of them are hits. He finally goes back to the Well and makes Terminator three in 2003. But no, James Cameron this time and it is like a modest hit, but it’s not the big blockbuster. And he’s like, well, you played your Terminator card and it didn’t work, so just go be governor. So that’s where he’s at at this point.

Laci (00:34:07):

Well, no one else’s name can fit on the damn movie poster with him. So he is always just alone at the top or the bottom. So what’s that?

Matt (00:34:12):

I wonder how they figured out that you need to just put his last name.

Laci (00:34:18):

I mean, it’s just like with my middle name. Once you see any of three of my names, you just read the one that stands out. I’ve always, always referred to as Elizabeth on the first day of school because it, it’s double the size of either part of my other two names, Laci and Elizabeth Roth. So I’m sure it’s just from marketing. No one is seeing the word Arnold if they’re also seeing, it’s basically a shape at this point. Schwartzenegger is such a memorable look that it’s, it’s the triangle. You put a triangle in your movie poster essentially.

Matt (00:34:52):

And also I think there’s a, we’re going to the secret this into happening. This is Schwartzenegger is sort of a throwback stamp. This is Garbo or this is Schwarzenegger

Laci (00:35:04):

Stamp

Matt (00:35:04):

Car off this. These are these big, just icons bigger than movies themselves. Okay. Sinbad AKA, David Atkins, who was a standup in the nineties or the eighties. He named himself Sinbad after the Sailor and his career launched when he appeared on Star search as a standup comedian. And then he was in the show A different World. I don’t think I’ve seen one episode of any Cosby adjacent property. I’ve never seen the Cosby Show. I’ve never seen a different world.

Laci (00:35:37):

No familiarity with it. Yeah, I watched a Different World a little bit, but I definitely watched The Sin Bed Show. Really watched Sister, sister Wait, now I’m just Deming Black shows. Is that okay? Fuck I watched. Why would you say that? It’s Cosby adjacent

Matt (00:35:51):

A different world. Yeah, because

Laci (00:35:53):

Is it a spinoff?

Matt (00:35:54):

Yeah. Lisa Bonnet was from the Cosby Show. She was playing her character, but she left a different world after the first season. So it was like, well, the star of the show’s not here anymore. We got to build it around different people. But they try to launch him as a movie guy in movies.

Laci (00:36:12):

I find him very funny, charming

Matt (00:36:13):

House guest in 95. Have you seen that?

Laci (00:36:15):

Yes. And I didn’t even think of that connection with Phil Harmon.

Matt (00:36:18):

First kid in Good Berger in 96.

Laci (00:36:20):

Definitely saw First Kid several times.

Matt (00:36:23):

Well, it doesn’t really work his movie career. And that’s that

Laci (00:36:28):

I find him so charismatic though charming and funny and I just want to be his friend. You don’t have to get that vibe from

Matt (00:36:34):

Him. I’m sure he’d be a good person to be friends with. I mean, he’s great friends with Bill Cosby and Oh,

Laci (00:36:40):

Okay, sorry. Well, there goes that

Matt (00:36:42):

And let’s just mention Jake Lloyd. Now this is a thing where Laci’s non Star Wars background means she’s just totally oblivious to this totemic figure of menace in all of our lives. You’ve never seen episode one, the Phantom Menace.

Laci (00:37:00):

That sounds right.

Matt (00:37:01):

You’ve never seen the Jar Jar Banks movie? Oh no,

Laci (00:37:03):

Never.

Matt (00:37:04):

Okay, so Jake Lloyd, it plays Anakin Skywalker who will eventually become Darth Vader. The whole reason these prequel movies exist is to see this kid turning evil and his performance. And I blame none of this on Jake Lloyd. He’s an innocent child. He does not have the agency to say yes or no. I don’t want to work in movies. And his performance in Star Wars is so obnoxious and so cute kid. And every word, every line delivery is set at 11 volume. And I’m just a little kid who wants to be a Jedi.

Laci (00:37:41):

No,

Matt (00:37:42):

I always thought, I don’t think I’d seen Jingle all the way since. I saw Jingle all the way a million times when I was a kid. But I think since the Phantom ECE came out in 1999, I had not actually gone back and watched this movie. So this is the first time I’ve seen Jake Lloyd in a non Anakin Skywalker role. And in my head it’d always been like he’s got to be better in other movies. It’s got to be George Lucas. And George Lucas famously is not interested in directing human beings. He can’t do it. He’s just like, do it, do it again. Do it better, louder, less emotion. But he’s really bad in Jingle all the way just,

Laci (00:38:18):

I mean, he’s a really cute kid.

Matt (00:38:20):

He’s playing, he plays, he’s in a commercial, just

Laci (00:38:25):

The entire movie at some point. I wrote it down, it feels like an extended commercial, the whole movie. It is got that level of cheese and disinterest in this feeling of I don’t need to commit or invest in any of these characters. They’re going to be gone in 30 seconds. Yeah. So he was perfect for that.

Matt (00:38:44):

You remember him I guess, but because he’s loud, dad, I want a turbo man.

Laci (00:38:51):

I love your giant mate. I can’t do his accent, but it’s just, oh, I love your Ja Ma. I can’t do it. That line drives me crazy. I was like, oh, this is how we’re starting the movie. Oh fuck. Oh God, this is bad. Okay, so wait, so this actual actor Jake Lloyd, though, he’s got some issues there,

Matt (00:39:15):

Unfortunately. Yeah. So his first movie is Unhooked the Stars in 96 later he’s in Jingle All the Way. And then from that he’s in Star Wars. And this ruins his life because everyone hates him and hates the movie because of him. And he is bullied at school and he retires from acting and then he has legal problems and medical problems and he is diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and was arrested and put in an institution and he’s had a shitty life. And everybody, shame on everybody, me included, for being so mean to him. Blame George Lucas and Blade and the Lloyd family. But don’t blame Jake Lloyd, but also he’s not good in jingle all the way. So, okay. Now is the time for us to discuss the movie itself scene by scene. Are you ready? I’m ready.

Laci (00:40:03):

Okay.

Matt (00:40:24):

So Jingle All the Way opens with the 20th Century Fox logo.

Laci (00:40:29):

Wow. Yeah.

Matt (00:40:30):

I just wanted to point it out because it’s been what, six years since the Fox acquisition by Disney and I think we, let

Laci (00:40:39):

Me check. Yep. Want to put my name the

Matt (00:40:41):

Further and further we get away from it though. It’s just like the more fucking tragedy it is that Fox just doesn’t exist anymore. And I think if we wonder what’s wrong with the movie business right now, Hey, portion of it is, there’s just one of the major studios just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s no

Laci (00:40:58):

Competition. Clever Foxes,

Matt (00:41:00):

No Clever Fox,

Laci (00:41:01):

No, no Rolling Stones to the Beatles, nothing to push each other to their better limits. That’s not it. You know what I mean? To have something to compete against something real.

Matt (00:41:17):

Right? There used to be one more major player. Now there’s not. And I’m sure within two years maybe the Warner Brothers will probably be purchased by one of the others, probably by Universal. And it’s like in Cloud Atlas, they call the section that takes place in the future. They call all movies. And that’s not hard to imagine that only Disney will exist in the future.

Laci (00:41:38):

Have I seen this movie? You have? Okay. I’m sure it was great.

Matt (00:41:42):

Yes. The movie opens with an episode of Turbo Man and this is a pretty good recreation of a Power Rangers episode. This movie is maybe a year too late to the Power Rangers party, but it’s okay. It is probably too high production value for an episode of Power Rangers. I don’t remember. You were too old for Power

Laci (00:42:03):

Rangers. I was, but I would watch it like this. Oh, I’m too cool. I’m not really Well, because I’d be at Before Care at the Owl Tree and they’d play stuff for people younger than me, and so I’d have to sit there and watch it and I hated it and watched it. I hate watched it. Sure. I mean I found it very, I knew Saved by the Bell was cheesy, but I loved it. There’s something about this cheese that I very much hated.

Matt (00:42:31):

Yeah, it would be because the way they made the show was in Japan there’s a show called Super Centi and the American version would just keep the action sequences from Japan and then shoot new live action footage with American actors, which would lead to discrepancies. Like the Pink Ranger has a skirt, she’s a girl, but the yellow Ranger who in America is also a woman in the Japanese version is played by a man. So the Power Rangers themselves, the yellow Ranger does not have a skirt. You know what I’m saying?

Laci (00:43:06):

Oh.

Matt (00:43:07):

So there were discrepancies like that. It would be funny if in this section they, wait,

Laci (00:43:12):

Explain to me what parts, so there are parts of the PY rangers that were used from the show in Japan.

Matt (00:43:23):

Yeah, because they’re costumed, they’re masked. You just dub over the American actors, but you just keep all of the action sequences where they’re fighting behind their masks and then when they take their masks off, that’s when you now cut in your new footage. And that’s why these are these non-union actors, these non-union actors just doing a really shitty Saved by the Bell sort of impression.

Laci (00:43:44):

Yeah, no, completely. They all just look like stuntmen. They don’t look like they’re acting. They look like they’re moving around.

Matt (00:43:50):

But you’ll see the Pink Ranger has a skirt. The yellow ranger does not.

Laci (00:43:54):

I never read it as a skirt to me, but now I see it. But the yellow ranger in this also doesn’t have a dick. So that’s some continuity. Not one I can see. Not a protruding dick

Matt (00:44:05):

Whose dick can you

Laci (00:44:06):

See? None of them. But if you could see the yellow one’s dick, I’d really be taken out of it. I’d really know it wasn’t probably a Yellow Lady ranger. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m just saying that was good lack of Dick.

Matt (00:44:18):

It would be funny if they have this action going and then they cut away to an obviously different actor playing Turbo man who’s like, oh, I’ll look at you to mentor. It’d be funny if you kept in the much, if this just looks too good for Power Rangers, if it looked more shitty. That’s all I’m saying.

Laci (00:44:33):

I was in a rush to get to the real shit movie that was going to be happening after this fake show. So I didn’t give it a lot of thought except for that I was already annoyed. I’m just like, oh, they’re world building. Who gives a fuck? It’s a fucking hour and 20 minute movie. I don’t need you to build a world here. Just I get it’s a fucking action figure. I understand what those are. I don’t need this whole other stuff. And it has a sidekick. I can get that from context clues. I don’t need this. This

Matt (00:44:58):

Is good. The world building is good and the director’s a toy guy, so he’s going to care about these details. That’s true. That’s why this movie’s so good. Okay, so then we cut away and we meet this little piece of shit. Jake Lloyd as Jamie, but he looks

Laci (00:45:13):

Just like our nephew. He looks just like him. So I see a cute little boy who can act.

Matt (00:45:20):

He also really seems younger in this still that I took than he does in the rest of the

Laci (00:45:24):

Movie. Tiny. No, I felt while watching this, they definitely went for maybe a year younger than the kind of little boy that’s usually the driver of one of these movies. He seems almost too young. He’s like right after toddler where,

Matt (00:45:42):

See, he looks older though, but he’s acting. He’s, when we

Laci (00:45:45):

See, I think I find him Tiny four, five.

Matt (00:45:49):

Oh, but okay. I mean the actor seems like he’s seven playing five. Yeah. When we first see him, he’s watching the TV show and he’s doing the moves from the show and he is saluting at the tv. We’ve had lots of kids that we’ve seen watch television. Have we ever seen a kid actually endure the Explorer? They’re like, what do you think? And then they wait for the kid to respond.

Laci (00:46:10):

I think that he’s supposed to be playing someone right out of toddler age and I don’t know. I don’t have any typical boy children in my life that I’ve watched any TV for a very long time, so I can’t say. But anyway, I thought he’s got to be at least a year or two younger than even the boy that’s in the Santa Claus and that boy’s pretty young when you consider how old Culley Culkin is playing and each year makes a bigger difference at this span of life. So it’s not that much different in age, but it is interesting. It’s like the younger that make the kid, the less they want you to care about the kid. It’s like, ah, yeah, kid, kid, kid. Okay, now adults come in. Yeah. So it’s like there’s an age of when this becomes a kid’s movie. A movie that’s going to be run by the kid.

Matt (00:47:05):

Right. Again, all the home video marketing of the movie makes it seem like this is the movie about this kid on the poster. It

Laci (00:47:12):

Couldn’t have been.

Matt (00:47:14):

Let’s circle back to Jake Lloyd and the Phantom Menace because this is not being, this

Laci (00:47:19):

Movie became his Phantom

Matt (00:47:20):

Mena. Huh? One of the 10 most important things in your life. The Phantom Menace. I just want to play a clip for you from the minister. You

Laci (00:47:29):

Said we were circling back. Why are we circling now? Oh, I thought you said we were coming back to this. We are now though. I thought we were leaving it coming back. It’s

Matt (00:47:38):

Fine circling. We circled back. We

Laci (00:47:41):

Now circled, yes.

Matt (00:47:41):

This is the circle right here. Got it. All right. Let me play just, this is maybe like two minutes, but I want for you to experience, maybe I’ll cut this out, but I want listeners and viewers. Laci’s now going to watch Jake Lloyd as Anakin Skywalker when we meet him in the movie. Okay?

Laci (00:47:56):

Okay. But Natalie’s not giving him much either. No,

Matt (00:47:58):

She also sucks. That’s what I realized.

Laci (00:48:00):

And then what happened? Yes. You’re a little boy. You wash cup.

Matt (00:48:05):

Yeah,

Laci (00:48:06):

That cup Dirty. Dirty cup. Boy,

Matt (00:48:09):

Nobody’s good in the star with prequels. It is George Luc Lucas in total control and

Laci (00:48:14):

Having a nap. This was nap time.

Matt (00:48:16):

No, I mean he says, I don’t understand people. He’d rather everybody just be computers. He just wants to tell them. He just doesn’t want them to, doesn’t understand. Here, I want you to play this scene with this emotion. With this emotion, right? Yes. This is what I’m going for. So then we cut over to Arnold Schwarzenegger as Howard Langston and his office and they’re having quite a Christmas party. Yeah, I’ve noticed that. Most of my, I feel like once an episode I point out food in movies. You do? Yeah. I’m always taking, look at this piece of pie. She’s not eating. Look at this great spread at this Christmas party. So apparently it is obsession

Laci (00:48:52):

Of my, this is a shit spread,

Matt (00:48:54):

But there’s a lot of it. I don’t know. This looks like a really expensive Christmas party

Laci (00:48:57):

I guess, but there’s a pasta salad in a basket. That’s not the way to have pasta

Matt (00:49:01):

Salad. But tell us us about Howard Langston when we first meet him.

Laci (00:49:05):

Well, I mean they’re not doing a whole lot of work to explain what he is, but he does seem like he is probably owns this business otherwise why he’s so committed to the customer support aspect of his job,

Matt (00:49:19):

But it’s even sadder if he doesn’t own the business. It’s super

Laci (00:49:21):

Sad and I think fucking sad. Think he doesn’t own

Matt (00:49:23):

The business super. He’s just some shitty middle manager.

Laci (00:49:25):

We don’t even know what this business is. It’s just, it’s supposed to be very cute that he’s just so busy, but he still turns on the charm and tells everyone that he, he’s servicing via the phone that they’re his number one customer. I mean whatever. Okay. We get it. Office party. He’s not even boozing it up and chasing some skirt around the party. He’s just shuffling paperwork and looking at equipment on a desk that he has no idea how to use and we’re supposed to believe that he is business dad. Here comes business dad.

Matt (00:50:02):

He is business dad. But we see right away with this, we have a montage of him telling different customers on the phone. You’re my number one customer and I just think right away, okay, this is not Arnold Schwartz. Arnold can’t play insincere. He, he’s the most sincere. This is supposed to be smarmy, shitty guy. Is

Laci (00:50:22):

He

Matt (00:50:23):

A

Laci (00:50:23):

Swarmy? Maybe that’s why. It’s just not, he’s supposed to be slimy

Matt (00:50:27):

On page and that’s what this is supposed to communicate to you.

Laci (00:50:31):

He can’t, what a misread of what works about him.

Matt (00:50:36):

If this were Tim Allen and obviously

Laci (00:50:40):

Just

Matt (00:50:40):

In the Santa Claus is a very similar set setup. Yeah. You

Laci (00:50:43):

Could have put a clip of that right here and that’d also be the appropriate kind of business dad. Right. You’ve got a picture of Robin Williams here from Hook who I think they do a great job of setting up the kind of dad he is and the level of importance the middle managers of where he is in his role at the companies right away. Robin Williams is important, but he’s still climbing the ladder and that he’s very overly invested in his career and probably not getting the respect he wants. So he’s probably kind of letting that bullshit trickle down the ladder to his family here. Arnold seems happy as a clam to be answering all these phones and telling people how much he loves them and not knowing how to use his desk objects.

Matt (00:51:25):

I don’t think it’s actually, I think he does love his family and is happy to go see his family. He’s just can’t manage his time well, whereas

Laci (00:51:33):

That’s right

Matt (00:51:34):

On paper. This should be a man who is way more interested in work than his family. But Donald Schwarzenegger is like, no, why would I, would I be that way? I’m a nice man. I’m a nice family man.

Laci (00:51:45):

I love answering the phone every time it rings. Yes,

Matt (00:51:47):

It cut it

Laci (00:51:48):

All

Matt (00:51:48):

Interruption. And so going through this movie again this week to make my notes, make my outline, I noticed how much it seems like, I guess on paper, on the script, they want him to do something shitty and smarmy, but it just doesn’t work because it’s him and I don’t know if Arnold himself was telling the director, no, I’m not doing that. Or they just realized it’s not going to be believable if Arnold acts this way. But there’s deleted scenes where he’s rehearsing his apology speech to his wife and it’s like this is supposed to be a shittier person than he’s playing in the movie.

Laci (00:52:20):

Yes.

Matt (00:52:21):

So it all falls apart

Laci (00:52:22):

A hundred percent.

Matt (00:52:23):

He’s busy at this office party talking to his clients and his assistant’s like, you’re going to miss the kid’s karate class. And he’s like, no, I’ll do it.

Laci (00:52:31):

I know. Do it. I can’t wait for your accent all through this episode. Truly, it’s one of my favorite things about our podcast is the mad, it’s the back accents as I like to call them. Thank you. They only had one event for a child that they had to observe correctly in this movie. I know it’s a nitpick, but all they had to do was understand where karate takes place and know that it’s not a school after school sport, a school gymnasium, a huge gymnasium gymnasium. You also belt ceremonies are not done with every single person who goes to that dojo getting their belt on that day. Just only one person needed to know how karate worked for this to be just why take us out of it if you’re going to bother putting us in it. So it could have been anything else.

Matt (00:53:21):

That is a nitpick. It was the nineties. Karate was so hot. You do karate in

Laci (00:53:26):

The nineties? I did. Yeah. I went all the way to the yellow belt.

Matt (00:53:28):

Oh, I couldn’t even get to yellow belt. I got a yellow piece of duct tape on. My

Laci (00:53:32):

Mom paid for that yellow belt and then I immediately quit.

Matt (00:53:35):

But I only realized as an adult, I took what we called karate and they’re like, what type of karate is it? It’s TaeKwonDo. Which I realize is saying, I’m going to go get my favorite type of Chinese food sushi because TaeKwonDo is Korean

Laci (00:53:53):

And

Matt (00:53:54):

Karate is Japanese. But it’s like, no, it’s all What kind? Is it Japanese karate or is it Chinese

Laci (00:54:00):

Ate So the delicious Chinese food from Japan.

Matt (00:54:04):

Yeah.

Laci (00:54:05):

Why do we suck so hard?

Matt (00:54:07):

A more broad question. We talked a lot about, do you mean

Laci (00:54:10):

Like a question for abroad?

Matt (00:54:11):

For abroad, yes. For you. You’re the broad of this show. Tell me, we talked Arnold on our 2020 Terminator two episode, but refresh us, what are your thoughts on the man himself,

Laci (00:54:21):

His character as a person in real life?

Matt (00:54:23):

What do you think of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a movie star?

Laci (00:54:26):

When I got to pick my own movies that I would be watching in my life, I think I had a good opinion of him. I love twins. I love kindergarten cop. And that was probably the extent of any kind of interaction with Arnold Schwarzenegger. But he’s delightful in both of those movies. He’s a great fish out of order. Earnest just wants to do the thing he’s supposed to do I’m just here to drive the plot. We got to keep going. We must go And yeah, I mean, I didn’t know there were movies where they put him in the wrong stuff, I guess. I know I saw Junior because you put the movie poster up earlier and I had a strong reaction to it, so I guess there must, I must’ve also seen the Fall. I don’t know. He didn’t play a huge role in my life in a way that I know he’s really important to certain people,

Matt (00:55:21):

But your opinion of him is just like, it’s positive. It’s not,

Laci (00:55:24):

I think in the right role. Oh, true Lies, which I love. I loved that movie. So that’d be another one where he can even play a love interest if done the right way.

Matt (00:55:33):

I think people, I don’t know so much anymore, but I feel like maybe 15 years ago people thumbed their nose up at him.

Laci (00:55:40):

What? He doesn’t make high art. Yeah. So that’s the only kind of art that matters.

Matt (00:55:46):

Yeah, I guess. Or just he’s not somebody to be taken seriously. He’s a one trick pony. Yeah. I look at his career and especially, and so much of it is informed by today, by what movie stars do today and what movies get made today. The comparison to him is Dwayne Johnson right now, and Dwayne Johnson would never make the choices. Arnold Schwarzenegger, he would never submit himself to.

Laci (00:56:08):

Isn’t that just better management?

Matt (00:56:10):

No, he’s not willing. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger as a producer, hired directors like Paul Verhoeven to work with and say, you can tell me I’m yours. Do with me what you will, even if it makes me look bad. And the Rock would never do that.

Laci (00:56:24):

But the Rock comes from an acting background and wrestling is very much a show. Someone you need to be able to manage yourself, to develop a persona to even get noticed by Vince McMahon and to rise up in those ranks. Arnold Schwarzenegger was just like this oddity to be gazed upon. He was in, he’s in bodybuilding. That is completely fucking different. In fact, people put you into poses. He’s literally a lump of clay. So it makes sense.

Matt (00:56:50):

Okay. I get why the Rock wants to make the decisions better, trying to make better things and push yourself. Arnold did the right thing, which is submit to strong directors, whereas Dwayne Johnson just hires directors who he can push around and Arnold did the opposite.

Laci (00:57:10):

Who are you saying has the good career? I’m completely

Matt (00:57:12):

Confused.

Laci (00:57:14):

Oh, okay.

Matt (00:57:16):

Should we go back and do all this again?

Laci (00:57:18):

No, I just didn’t. I guess I only seen the Rock and things that I like him in and I don’t really follow him around much and I don’t know what he’s up to.

Matt (00:57:25):

Oh, he makes four movies a year and they’re all terrible.

Laci (00:57:28):

Oh, I did not know.

Matt (00:57:30):

And he was trying to sort of do different kinds of roles early in his career and he stopped. And there’s stories about he never look bad. He can never have the lower hand in a scene. He always has to win every fight he’s in on screen.

Laci (00:57:43):

Oh, that’s gross. He takes himself too seriously.

Matt (00:57:46):

He takes himself seriously. Takes his roles, but in the shittiest, most superficial way.

Laci (00:57:53):

Yeah.

Matt (00:57:53):

Even weird things. I

Laci (00:57:54):

Don’t want to surprise anyone, any ever, I don’t want anyone ever walking away from theater going, huh? No surprises.

Matt (00:58:02):

It’s odd. In the fast and furious movies, they had the same actress playing his daughter who was a little kid and she would naturally age up and by the time he gets his solo movie, Hobbs and Shaw, this actress would now be a teenager. But he’s like now recast her with a younger actress so that, because if I’m playing against a teenage daughter that will present a different dynamic, I want just pure wholesome me and cute kid relationship.

Laci (00:58:32):

That’s gross. I didn’t need to know that about him. He just stay Maui. In my mind, that sucks.

Matt (00:58:40):

They’re doing a live action Moana, and so he can play Maui.

Laci (00:58:43):

Wait, wait. They’re doing it so he can play Maui.

Matt (00:58:46):

I mean, they’re doing it. That’s what they do. But okay, he’s, he’s returning. The Moana actress is not, but he’s going to be there playing live action Maui.

Laci (00:58:55):

Good for him.

Matt (00:58:57):

Will Howard make it to the dojo on time?

Laci (00:59:00):

Most assuredly not. This is bizarre. Okay, so now me and our kid looked at each other several times to be like, what are we supposed to think of this guy? This Ted guy?

Matt (00:59:16):

Yeah, Ted Phil

Laci (00:59:16):

Hartman. We are now at the gym where the fucking karate’s happening and apparently everyone in the entire neighborhood has the exact same activities that they do. So Schwarzenegger’s neighbor, Ted is there sitting right next to his wife who is there, and Ted’s got the video camera on the spot. He’s the best. He’s what? He’s a divorcee from this scene. I think he’s a handyman. I think he’s a prostitute. I think he’s married. I think he’s not married. Yeah.

Matt (00:59:48):

It’s so unclear. Yeah, it’s a

Laci (00:59:50):

Horribly convoluted scene. I think he’s creepy and I think he’s a love boat. There are women fawning all over him asking him to come. Fuck. And then Schwarzenegger’s wife, I’m sorry, I should use names. Let’s call her Liz. Alright. And then Liz is sitting next as I think I remember just kind of going, oh, or ooh. Anyway, the

Matt (01:00:20):

Idea which is not communicated here is he’s a divorced dad who I guess has custody of his kid and he’s performatively super dad, and this makes all the other mothers fawn over him. I wish my husband would be this close to my son here. I baked you cookies,

Laci (01:00:35):

Super dad and like a Superman and just he can fix everything He knows when a woman needs to take a bath and lie out. He’s trying to be everything.

Matt (01:00:48):

And I guess there’s maybe like a Meditech jewel, like compare him to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is a literal, he’s like a Greek god, but they don’t look at him that way. They’re like, he’s the shitty dad. Phil Hartman. Oh my.

Laci (01:01:01):

He can fill my heart, man. Okay, so now we have our first interaction with the cop that Arnold Wilson, his characters going, let me just, sorry, Schwarzenegger’s, such a mouthful. What am I calling this man? Howard? Who Howard is going to run into over and over again throughout this movie. He gets pulled over for speeding. So now we know he’s not going to make it on time. I don’t know. This actor, the cop,

Matt (01:01:26):

This is Robert Conrad. He’s a character actor who’s been in a billion things. Sure. Best known to audiences as playing Secret service agent Jim West on the television show. Wild, wild West.

Laci (01:01:35):

Okay. There’s interesting. I prefer Will Smith. I think he’s

Matt (01:01:39):

Great. He’s so funny in this movie.

Laci (01:01:44):

I don’t enjoy his look. I don’t know what it is that rubbed me wrong. I just kept waiting for it to be someone more familiar, more comedically familiar maybe too. I know they don’t give him a lot to do, but we do keep seeing him. So I guess I just thought there should be a different person here. I don’t know.

Matt (01:02:03):

Yeah, they needed to ask their selves. Who does Laci Roth know? I think he’s very funny. He has the best line in the movie. You broke my little mirror.

Laci (01:02:11):

Okay. That is the best line. But I mean, sure. Fine. I don’t know. They put a character actor in every other damn spot and you’re saying he is one. That’s fine. I went limp when I saw him every time. Just went, oh,

Matt (01:02:29):

Well, I’ll make sure he doesn’t appear in anything else we watch

Laci (01:02:32):

In a role where he’s supposed to make me creeped out, then great. But I don’t think I’m supposed to be creeped out by him. I think I’m supposed to go, oh, here’s dad. He’s going to ruin our phone. That’s how I’m supposed to feel about this cop. But instead I feel like,

Matt (01:02:43):

Ew. I feel like exactly what you’re saying you want is what this guy is providing is you want a solid, funny character athlete.

Laci (01:02:49):

No, I felt no funny. I felt ew. All right. I don’t know why. Okay.

Matt (01:02:53):

Well Ted is, we cut to Howard’s house and he pulls up, he’s missed his son’s big karate ceremony and he pulls in and Ted Phil Hartman is on Howard’s roof

Laci (01:03:05):

Doing the Christmas sin.

Matt (01:03:06):

What’s he doing up there?

Laci (01:03:08):

Doing the Christmas sin,

Matt (01:03:09):

Doing the Christmas,

Laci (01:03:10):

Putting up elaborate decorations that take hours when Christmas is one fucking day away. This is an outrage.

Matt (01:03:19):

Outrageous. I mean, yes. I think you have permission to just shoot him off your roof at this point.

Laci (01:03:23):

Oh, I don’t even care that he’s on my roof. Just

Matt (01:03:26):

Fucking movie. Oh, of this again? Yeah,

Laci (01:03:30):

Do something different movie. Oh, it’s Christmas. We should do Christmas decoration. There are plenty of things that are Christmas related that you do right up until the last fucking second that Christmas comes. Putting your decorations up are not one of them.

Matt (01:03:42):

Laci wants Vera Similitude, she wants realism. She wants to feel like she’s watching. And

Laci (01:03:46):

Then they’re the town square. They’re in the town square running around looking for the doll, and there are people extras hauling a Christmas tree, walking a Christmas tree through a plaza. That’s not how you get a tree, number one. Number two, it’s Christmas

Matt (01:04:01):

1. But I mean my maybe biggest pet peeve in life is somebody mad at you because they’re doing a favor for you that you don’t want and they’re making you look like the bad guy for it. And I just think it’s a nice little well observed detail about shitty intrusive people.

Laci (01:04:25):

Oh, you think this subtle do you Nice little.

Matt (01:04:27):

Well, I did not say the word

Laci (01:04:29):

Subtle at all. Didn’t say subtle. You didn’t just a little well observed. Well, when I was watching it, I was thinking Phil Hartman is funny. He can’t not be funny. I just don’t know that he’s the right person to play off of Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever it is. But then I was thinking, this reminds me too much of the very realistic neighbors of the fucking Christmas classic that we’re about to watch next week, which is a Christmas vacation. And the neighbors in that movie are so fucking subtle. It’s also underplayed that it’s perfect. Everything they do is funny. Every interaction that the neighbors have with the protagonists are golden quotable, amazing moments. Some of my favorite in the movie and I just feel like it works because they have such believable interactions. This is crazy. There would not be a man on my roof.

Matt (01:05:30):

Well, yeah, but the people who make the Simpsons would say when Phil Hartman was alive, if you aren’t totally in love with the episode you’re working on, just add more. Add Troy McClure, Lionel Huts because Phil Hartman will make it good and he’ll save you. And I feel like in the course of making this movie, they’re like, just add more. Just do more. I

Laci (01:05:49):

Could

Matt (01:05:50):

See that Phil, because you’re going to save this movie and he almost does.

Laci (01:05:53):

He is the best part of this

Matt (01:05:55):

Movie. It is weird. I only consume him through The Simpsons now, just to hear that voice coming out of a person. Yeah,

Laci (01:06:04):

What are

Matt (01:06:04):

These faces? So he goes back in and his wife’s like, you miss the karate, you bad man, but don’t explain it to me. Explain to that little boy up there. And so he goes into the child’s bedroom and says, I’m so sorry. I’m a shitty. I know I let you down, but let me make it up. Let me make it up to you. I’m going to do something really special for you, Jamie. And Jamie’s like, well, okay, here’s the thing you can do for me. You can get me a turbo man doll because if I don’t have one, I’ll be a loser because all the other kids in school,

Laci (01:06:39):

You know what? This kid was not prepared. Oh wait, nevermind. He asked for it weeks ago. That’s interesting.

Matt (01:06:44):

Well,

Laci (01:06:47):

That’s interesting.

Matt (01:06:48):

This is a mess because this is a mess. They already planned on getting him this doll and he’s like, you can do the thing that you had already planned to do for me.

Laci (01:06:57):

This is a great example of an adult projecting onto a kid the solution that they are capable of having for that kid. This guy is fucking up on such a fundamental caregiver father, give a shit level that Jamie, can you pretend something’s really, really important to you and tell me what it is and hopefully is expensive and then I can get that for you and then I’m not bad anymore. It’s like he pushed, he almost pushes Jamie into just tell me a thing. And it’s like Jamie doesn’t want a thing at all,

Matt (01:07:30):

But the mother almost seems to agree with that. Yes, of course. The thing that you can do for him is buy him the gift when the,

Laci (01:07:36):

I don’t agree.

Matt (01:07:37):

I think the mother’s not a character, so what she actually thinks is unclear, but she, she’s like, well, just keep your promise to him. You said you get him the dog, get him the doll. But the thing with kids that sucks is what kids actually want is your attention and time. Lots of it.

Laci (01:07:51):

Well, and for you to do what you say you’re going to do, and sometimes that’s buying a thing, but most of the time it’s just being someplace.

Matt (01:07:59):

Yeah, being with me. Let’s have quality time. And what sucks about being a parent is a lot of parents will say like, well, it’s quality time, not quantity time, but actually quantity

Laci (01:08:11):

Time. Quantity time is quality time,

Matt (01:08:13):

But that’s the stuff that counts. It’s the boring, it’s the we’re together for long periods of time because

Laci (01:08:17):

It’s not about the interaction you’re having, it’s about the comfort they have from knowing when you get home and when they can expect you around, when there’s going to be a babysitter and when there’s going to be somebody that is a parent who they can completely just decompress around. That’s it. They just want to know the beats. Kids just want to be aware of your schedule, dude. That’s why the quantity of the time matters or at least be regimented about it. But this guy’s all over the fucking place. It’s

Matt (01:08:44):

Weird that the most sort of straightforward family message movie would be, he needs to realize it’s not about the gift. The kid just wants you, Arnold, he just wants you. But the movie doesn’t realize that. It’s like, no, he does need the gift

Laci (01:08:58):

Until the end where Jamie has to explicitly say it. Why would I need the doll? I have turbo man. Jamie is telling you at the end of the movie, I never wanted the fucking doll that much,

Matt (01:09:09):

Ever. I take it literally as he’s like, well, now my dad is turbo man, so this is

Laci (01:09:12):

Fine. I don’t, and the entire time the movie is screaming at you, just come to the parade. Just go to the karate thing. Just stay home today, dad. Somehow by not fulfilling one promise, it’s okay that he’s missing all these other ones. It’s just, it’s very frustrating to watch. Also, I don’t read the mom that way. I read the mom as basically being a single parent and she asks the husband to do this one fucking thing for Christmas. So she mentions the doll as in, I hope you got the one thing. Did you also seems weird for her to leave the one important thing up to him.

Matt (01:09:49):

I’m not going to say it’s all on the mom, but Liz, she should have gotten it. Know your teammate and don’t say like, oh, by the way, this thing four weeks ago I asked you to do. Did you do it? You need to be checking in over and over again about that.

Laci (01:10:01):

Right. It’s on mom a bit here too.

Matt (01:10:03):

Just, I mean, yes, the dad sucks, but also that’s the thing about being married. You got to know person. You got to live a person. Got to know your partner’s limitations.

Laci (01:10:11):

Yeah, for

Matt (01:10:12):

Sure. And just be like, no, well, I checked it off my list, so now I win. I win the marriage.

Laci (01:10:18):

I read it as she’s overworked, stretched tooth thin. I can’t tell if she has a career or not. It doesn’t seem blatantly that she does not, but it just seems like she’s filling in all the roles because her husband’s never home.

Matt (01:10:32):

There is at least that idea of commercialism poisoning Christmas. Also just poisoning families and our ability to be happy with each other because Jamie says he doesn’t want the doll so much because he loves turbo man, but literally it’s fomo. It’s like all the other kids are going to have them too. And you will see when he eats breakfast, he’s eating turbo man cereal. Everything is just branded. Capitalism is crept in everywhere.

Laci (01:11:05):

And that’s interesting for them to push that all the way through this movie so hard and then not have a larger point to make about it. It seemed like they did it to actually sell Turbo Man dolls. They made them, they exist and the two sidekick people or whoever, it’s like, okay, so this movie, I kept saying it feels like an extended commercial. This whole thing just feels the way it’s shot, the way it sounds, the tone, all of it feels as important as a 32nd commercial. That is it. And I think it kind of, maybe it was.

Matt (01:11:42):

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it

Laci (01:11:44):

Feels like a cash grab.

Matt (01:11:46):

It all adds up to That’s the only takeaway you could have at the end of it. Can’t see what the message of this movie is. Don’t really follow any characters’ like individual emotional journey in the end, turbo Man Rules. If I could only be Turbo man,

Laci (01:12:01):

In fact, you’re thinking, oh, this is interesting. They’re kind of setting up a buddy comedy. I didn’t expect a buddy comedy to develop out of this family Christmas movie, but that’s actually interesting. Here are two people from very different backgrounds, Sinbad and Howard. And Howard doesn’t think very highly of this postman for some fucking reason, even though he seems perfectly lovely, but this through going through this war together, he’s going to get a turbo man at the end and give it to this guy because he’s going to realize he’s got what he needs. But no,

Matt (01:12:38):

But they have the kid do that.

Laci (01:12:40):

They allow this poor man to become more and more deranged and more and more in trouble with the law.

Matt (01:12:47):

No Sinbad’s journey makes no sense.

Laci (01:12:49):

It’s mind boggling. And at the end of it, I don’t even think he’s got a kid at the end I’m like, oh, he’s never had a kid this whole time. This was just a way to have friends or go on a little, he’s crazy. He’s a crazy person who’s been blaming all of his actions on a child

Matt (01:13:10):

That is bleak. But I mean, in a dark kid show

Laci (01:13:13):

A kid

Matt (01:13:13):

Different kind of movie that would work. He would be like John Ka and playing strands and automobiles. I’ve been saying I have a kid this whole time, but I

Laci (01:13:18):

Exactly.

Matt (01:13:19):

There’s something this movie’s not interested in that sad

Laci (01:13:21):

About this man. And anyway, I thought I was slightly hopeful that that’s at least where the movie was going and not even a little bit, they’re not even going to keep in touch. You can tell.

Matt (01:13:32):

Oh no,

Laci (01:13:34):

His kid wasn’t even in the audience of the parade. You never even get just to get to see a kid go, Hey dad,

Matt (01:13:39):

No. And he says he’s got no kid. He’s got, the cops are taking him away, but he’s like, my kid’s going to get this doll. He’s going to be very happy. And I wrote in my notes like, no, the CIA is taking you to Poland to a black site and your family’s never going to hear from you again.

Laci (01:13:51):

Yes, those cops, one of them are super psyched that they finally get a turbo doll because they definitely didn’t get it

Matt (01:13:56):

For their kid. You bombed a building full of cops and then you hijacked a parade. You’re a terrorist,

Laci (01:14:01):

Right? You chased a toddler.

Matt (01:14:03):

I know this is nine 11

Laci (01:14:04):

Up a

Matt (01:14:04):

Building building. Maybe they’re just going to send him to Guantanamo just now. The dilemma of the movie, Howard was supposed to get a turbo, man doll. His wife’s like, did you do it? And he’s like, oh yeah, totally. She’s like, oh great, because if you’d forgotten you’d never be able to get one now. And he’s like, what? But yeah, he just lies and says that he did because secretly he plans to just go to the store tomorrow and get one. That’s the

Laci (01:14:28):

Brilliant. No other parents of the movie. No other parents think it in doing that. Yes. Actually it’s kind of shocking. How many parents are doing that in the movie?

Matt (01:14:37):

Well, it’s a big world.

Laci (01:14:38):

Sure. Where do they live?

Matt (01:14:39):

Minneapolis St. Paul.

Laci (01:14:41):

Alright.

Matt (01:14:42):

The movie was shot on location mostly in St. Paul and the Mall of America’s in the suburbs.

Laci (01:14:48):

And specifically that was the clutch thing is to have them all in America. They want to show you that roller coaster in the mall so you understand how big this commercial place is.

Matt (01:15:01):

Important. It is. They said the reason they chose it as a filming location is that it has longest winters. This is actually a pretty big production. So you need that snow. You need the cold to last a long time. So if the snow’s going to stay on the ground for three months or whatever, you got to shoot it there. You can’t shoot it in California.

Laci (01:15:19):

It didn’t occur to me. The snow was real. I never think about it. All right. Okay, so it’s the morning and now he’s got to make an excuse why he’s got to get up out of the house and not spend Christmas Eve with his family, which is the only thing they actually fucking want. And his kid makes it very clear, make it back to this parade. I just want you to come to this parade. I don’t care that you’re fucking your secretary right now. Come back home, pray. And he’s so fucking confident that he’s going to, anyway, on the way out, he runs into the neighbor again. Who’s got a reindeer? Do we need this reindeer? I don’t need this reindeer.

Matt (01:16:01):

Oh no. This is a fine watch of a screenplay. This reindeer is going to come back later and wreck the house

Laci (01:16:08):

In a very disturbing scene wherein a very realistic reindeer gets punched the fuck out and then gets drunk. Made to be drunk by a human. That’s what hell, all right.

Matt (01:16:22):

He’s like my wife. I have to go to the office to get the doll, but he’s actually going to the mall and she’s like, but Howard, it’s Christmas Eve now. We’ve worked at office jobs and we’ve had to work on Christmas Eve, so I feel like I need to feel like I need to make a sound drop or something for the nineties, because back then you got Christmas Eve off. I don’t know. Must be nice.

Laci (01:16:47):

So the shops are crowded. Howard goes to the store and realizes I’m not the only one with this idea. And somehow though they do have a stack of these very needed dolls just happen to have a huge stack of the one store he picks. Weird, but they’re all going to be snatched up by I think they do at the first location. Yeah, they do. Yeah. It’s just

Matt (01:17:11):

Everyone. Some people do go away from the store with the turbo man. And this is where we meet Sinbad. That’s

Laci (01:17:18):

Where we meet Sinbad, who he takes up for this, for Howard for, I guess Howard, he cuts the line. He just muscles his way right through. Doesn’t even notice. There’s people who are also winning this fucking doll and the crowd starts to turn on him and Sinbad’s like he’s just a dad, man, try and get a toy.

Matt (01:17:38):

Yeah. I wanted to play this clip of Sinbad as Myron and they let him just go and improvise and just revel in Arnold not giving him anything.

Laci (01:17:48):

Okay, I didn’t know this. I have

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):

To shop late. The busiest time of year for me. All these important Christmas letters that people send to folks they don’t even talk to, but once a year, not to mention relatives sending presents they’re going to have to send back Anyway, how many toilet street kids does a man need that about just go stupid letters from kids to center at the north pro. Dear Santa, could you send me a bike? And it’s slinky. No, your father’s been laid off. And as if I didn’t have enough pressure in my life, my son sends me off for something like goofy butt toy, some fruity robot named Turtle Man,

Speaker 5 (01:18:17):

It’s terrible of man. My son wants one too.

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):

It’s all Aloy. Don’t you

Speaker 5 (01:18:24):

Employ,

Speaker 4 (01:18:25):

Man? Where have you been? Don’t you watch tv? We are being set up by rich and powerful toy cartels. Oh, come on. No, you got these big fat cats sit there using working class just like me and you. They spend bands of dollars on TV advertisement and then they sit there and use subliminal messages to suck your children’s minds out. And I know what I’m talking about. I went to junior college for a semester and I studied psychology, so I’m right in there. I know what’s going on. And then they sit there and make a kid feel like garbage. If you the father who’s working 24 7 delivery mail, you can make an alimony payment to a woman that slept with everybody at the post office bought me. But then when you get the toy, it breaks and you can’t fix it because it’s a little cheap plastic. Not what I like to do. I like to walk up in the office, grab this guy and just out. Shouldn’t wear a fur.

Laci (01:19:16):

You should wear fur in bed. Does his best.

Matt (01:19:21):

He does. He does what he can. But I do think, again, I just keep saying it again and again. There is a version of this movie that is more about literally everything he says right there is we are all being manipulated. We are all just cogs in the capitalist machine. And Christmas has kind of always been that. You can read in Charles Dickens, Christmas Carol 1843 Scrooge talking about how Christmas used to be different and better back when he was a kid. So that’s just always something people talk about is their creating a need in us. Christmas is about nostalgic. Christmas is about getting back to something that makes us feel good, but we can’t get it because it’s out of reach because they’re creating a demand in us. But I do like how he’s like, he says everything correct except goes one step further and he’s like, they’re using mind waves to subliminally haunt our kids and stuff. And it’s like, you don’t need to go that far. It’s just already figured it out. They’re just creating the need in the kids and now all the kids are looking at each other and you have a thing. So I need the thing too, even though none of us actually wants it ourselves.

Laci (01:20:32):

I am relating a little bit more to Howard in this scene though, because as being someone who is constantly zeroed in on a crowd by the person that wants to rant. That’s happened to me so many

Matt (01:20:50):

Times. Laci is a magnet for weirdos and freaks and crowds. Well, really anybody?

Laci (01:20:57):

It’s not, I don’t think they’re weird as a freaks. I think they’re lonely. And I think they see in me that LA see you a mile away, but I’m listening and by association on what the person’s saying in a way. And every now and then it slips into something crazy and I’m like, also, and I just met you and you’re a stranger to me. I will be leaving. Yeah. Anyway, so the look on Arnold’s face is relatable a few times,

Matt (01:21:25):

But it is like, I don’t know, he should just be reacting more.

Laci (01:21:32):

Oh yeah,

Matt (01:21:33):

He should be sillier or just more

Laci (01:21:36):

Match his energy in some kind of way

Matt (01:21:38):

Less, just more. Plus he’s too, he needs to be more plused by this manic man Instead he’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, come on. Do you remember just backtracking a little, do you remember reading a book, like a parenting book like a million years ago about simplifying your parenting?

Laci (01:22:00):

Yeah, the simplicity.

Matt (01:22:01):

Simplicity parenting. Yes. And it was about don’t buy your kids branded toys, but it had actually good ideas about don’t have elaborate birthday parties for your kids. All your kids actually want for their birthday parties just be put in a field with other kids and they’ll have the time of their lives. And it is true. It is true that what kids everybody actually wants is just a more simple Christmas, just wants simpler, more quality time with each other

Laci (01:22:31):

For everyone not to be tired. By the time that we get to hang out with each other for Christmas to exchange the presents for everyone to not have had seven fights in the car on the way there and to have been stressed and trying to get dressed and get food made on time. It’s like, can we all just agree we’ll eat something really simple or we’ll order something? Or how can we all agree to make this less stressful so that we actually enjoy each other’s company when it’s time to do it.

Matt (01:23:00):

But the thing that is making us so stressed is we want to create something special for you. We want to create something special for each other. It’s fucked up. It’s fucked up. Well, they go in the store and some of the home alone antics start with remote control cars and everybody’s tripping on little micro machines and stuff. Anyway, this ends with neither Howard nor Myron procuring a turbo man doll.

Laci (01:23:24):

And I do feel the entire time that Howard is way meaner to Myron than he needs to be and way more ruthless and sabotage than Myron’s character ever intended to be. I think Myron would’ve made good on his promise to help him find a toy if they would’ve buddied up.

Matt (01:23:43):

No. And they should partner up. They should. But I do note they do get along except when a turbo man is dangled in front of them. And then once the turbo man is taken away, they then start getting along again. Right. We will compete against each other. It’s like the Hunger Games. We’ll compete against each other when the prize is dangled, but otherwise we can have solidarity with our fellow man. They wanted Sinbad principally because he’s as tall as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Laci (01:24:12):

See, that’s interesting because I felt this was the first movie where I felt Arnold seemed short or just average. And that’s why that’s got to be why. I mean the entire time I’m like, what? They’ve just been filming Arnold Upshot, like the way they do Tom Cruise or Sylvester Stallone this entire time. And I was under the impression he’s tall and he’s not. How tall is Arnold supposed

Matt (01:24:33):

To know? I don’t know the height, but I liked him. I know. And I try to preemptively answer your questions. That’s why I put people’s ages now all the time. I try to put what you know them from, but fuck, I forgot height.

Laci (01:24:44):

Yeah, I love height. Well, especially if you’re going to bring up height,

Matt (01:24:46):

You’re the height miser.

Laci (01:24:48):

No, you just brought up height motherfucker. Sorry.

Matt (01:24:50):

Well, but then we’ll have the person he’s going to be interacting with the most. There’ll be similar heights that way he won’t look so abnormal. But no, the point of having Arnold Schwarzenegger is that he’s a fucking God. Right? What’s the point of having him look

Laci (01:25:06):

Normal? They averaged him up. They put him in brown. They un chiseled him. They did all, I was so underwhelmed with him as a person. There’s no spectacle. I need the spectacle.

Matt (01:25:18):

What do you have then? What is he good at?

Laci (01:25:21):

Right? He’s supposed to seem like an alien. He’s supposed to seem like a fish out of water. He’s supposed to be seem like a gentle giant. He’s scary. But look, he’s sweet. None of these things happen. And when they make him mean and petty, especially off-putting, don’t be petty. You already won the genetic lottery. Don’t be petty good for sin bad being tall. Is Phil Hartman tall?

Matt (01:25:48):

I don’t know if Phil Hartman is tall. I said I didn’t.

Laci (01:25:52):

Did he do anything about Rita Wilson’s height?

Matt (01:25:55):

No, I don’t.

Laci (01:25:56):

I didn’t think he won. I think Jake Lloyd definitely puts off Short Boy Energy. Yeah.

Matt (01:26:02):

There’s a montage. Him going from store to store and employees laughing at him and there is all the employees are laughing at them. You’re so out of the loop. You don’t even know what turbo man is

Laci (01:26:13):

And you don’t even know that. It’s crazy. That would be very low odds that you’re going to get this toy if that’s so hilarious. Why is everybody else fucking there?

Matt (01:26:24):

Yeah, I know.

Laci (01:26:25):

What is it crazy

Matt (01:26:26):

Or not crazy, but I guess the other people are there for other toys because all the other people in the store laugh at them too. But it’s like I’m sure the screenwriter’s like I’m a busy dad. How am I supposed to keep up with all my kids’ interests? Well, so what do you think he should do at this point, Howard, if you are Howard, what do you do? The clock is ticking. My family thinks I’m dead. Probably we don’t have cell phones.

Laci (01:26:52):

I would probably start calling every, this is a weird time because there are still toy stores in different levels of toy store. Like your toys are us and then your chain, and then your local chain and then your hobbyist, and then just small toy store for, it’s all kinds of varieties. So there’s a lot of places to call, but I guess I would be looking for something outside of the main town. I’m in a smaller town and be calling smaller stores and I’d spend the entire time on the phone. I think

Matt (01:27:31):

You’re more determined than I am. I would just be like, ah, that’s it. I mean, what he should do is just,

Laci (01:27:35):

I mean, I wanted to go steal it from the guy’s Christmas tree immediately. I mean, just stage a robbery. So honestly, that’s been the easiest thing.

Matt (01:27:44):

The thing I think you do is you go into that store and you buy every line in the turbo, every toy in the Turbo Man line, and you’re like, look, now you’ve got it all. And in three weeks or whatever, you’ll get the main one. Or even better just buy booster and be like, here, here’s your present. And the kid’s like, this isn’t what I wanted. You’re like, oh shit. It’s

Laci (01:28:03):

Not, oh, then you’re an idiot and a disappointment. No, you don’t want your parent to be that stupid. No, no, no, no. Now because at least you give the kid the satisfaction of getting to be mad at you. If you fuck up, don’t fuck up and make them feel guilty for being mad at you. Matt, he tried.

Matt (01:28:24):

The kid doesn’t know that he’s juggling two lies. He lied to his wife that he already took care of this. He needs to just fess up to her, but then with the kid, Hey, I got you all this other stuff and you’ll get the one you want soon.

Laci (01:28:36):

Yeah. I mean I tried. He absolutely seems like his marriage is fine. So he really missed out on not partnering with his smart wife immediately doubling the manpower. And she could have fucked the neighbor and he would’ve given her the turbo. Man.

Matt (01:28:50):

There you go. Yeah, right there. Easy peasy. So he goes to the Mall of America and this movie was very expensive and part of it I’m sure is that they had to pay Arnold $20 million, but also I guess shut down the entire mall for a day and have just a billion extras. And this is an okay sequence. This store in the mall has Turbo Man dolls, but they’re going to do a lottery system with little pinging pong balls. And this was what happened with the Cabbage Patch kids.

Laci (01:29:21):

I think I have an issue with this movie the way that I don’t understand how I’m also supposed to enjoy meet the parents, that the entire movie is in a state of stress of when will this be over? And so I can get to the next thing that this character’s going to feel. There’s just something very unrewarding about spinning the entire time in one mode of being as a human. It makes me

Matt (01:29:51):

Tired. I think that comes with it. Just not having a very fixed perspective or idea that he’s trying to communicate. If they decided to make him more unlikable, you’d know what you were watching and if he were an anti-hero or if you were a bad dad and you’re sort of laughing at how shitty he is and laughing at how much joy he takes in screwing over everybody else.

Laci (01:30:15):

But I can’t get a good read on if the whole time me and our kid are like, are we supposed to like him? Is he supposed to grow on me? Yes. There’s not any one time where I like him.

Matt (01:30:27):

He fucking, he can’t get a ball, that’s all. And he chases a little kid around the PlayPlace and little the ball and he doesn’t get it, but runs into the Jim Belushi Santa Clause, the most

Laci (01:30:42):

Convoluted fricking scam ever. So Stuart Mall Santa have the doll at the mall.

Matt (01:30:50):

He’s despondent. He didn’t get the doll. And the Santa Claus talks to him and he’s like, you want a turbo man? And he’s like, are you talking to me? He is. And he’s Jim Belushi. And then his elf is played by Danny Woodburn, Mickey from Seinfeld, who always has to play roles like this. But I mean, I wrote down, this is literally the origin of Bad Santa basically.

Laci (01:31:13):

Is it? I’ve never seen Bad

Matt (01:31:14):

Santa. Oh, I mean Bad Santa is a movie about mall Santas and mall elves scheming to Rob the mall.

Laci (01:31:21):

All of them. Like a lot of Santas or just one Bad Santa? I don’t. And one Bad Elf,

Matt (01:31:26):

I don’t remember. But in this movie, there’s a syndicate, an unclear syndicate of Santas and

Laci (01:31:31):

Women

Matt (01:31:33):

Closets. I do like that. They’re like, no, we’ve got it. We’ve got the Turbo man here. He shows him a Polaroid of Danny Woodburn holding the toy with today’s newspaper. That’s kind of funny.

Laci (01:31:43):

That’s funny. I just immediately taking out of it because if I guess in my head I was thinking this guy’s got multiple $300 Turbo mans, he has actual turbo men and he’s just marking them up like 600% or whatever. That’s a good scheme. That’s smart. But it’s smart. If you put all your toys, your supply in a location close to where you work, why the fuck are you setting up a scam where for $300 one time you’re going to get a stranger in your car, bring ’em to a warehouse, go through the warehouse

Matt (01:32:19):

Just, yeah. It’s like that’s not the,

Laci (01:32:21):

You guys are splitting this 1 50, 1 50. You probably paid for the doll to begin with. Is this really worth $150 for you guys? You were working now you’re not on the clock anymore.

Matt (01:32:29):

I have no idea. Because this warehouse just has tons of merchandise in it and it’s got a million people working in it. And I guess this is like they’re stealing from trucks or something and they’re organizing it centrally. This is not a very clear

Laci (01:32:45):

Scheme. And the Santa part of it, the role that being a Santa has to do with it is that this is how they lure. This is how they stake out in a non-creepy way, desperate parents and bring them to this warehouse, I assume.

Matt (01:32:57):

And these are other mall Santas who steal from their malls. I don’t know.

Laci (01:33:00):

Fine. But each individual Mark, you trust them enough to bring them to your secret warehouse location and drive there and then fuck them over. What?

Matt (01:33:14):

I don’t know.

Laci (01:33:15):

Alright, this is just so you can see fun, different kinds of Santas. We’ve got the Big Santa and the Little Santa and the Naked Santa for some reason that he gets in a fight with No, he’s just not wearing a shirt. And he pops is, what are these called? Suspenders. And it pops back and hits both nipples and I think Ouch. Yeah, that happened. Alright, so he does have one. I was surprised. I thought there wouldn’t even be a doll. And then at first it’s just like, oh, it’s speaking Spanish. It’s like, so what? That kid from far away looks like he’s playing with the same doll. Anyone else take

Matt (01:33:57):

It? Yeah. Is this doll defective or is it counterfeit? Is it counterfeit or is it just the Spanish edition? But Arnold’s pissed off at this. Well,

Laci (01:34:05):

But he takes it out and I’m confused by the whole thing until he takes it out and it all falls apart. I’m like, okay. So it’s Spanish and effective what it just needed to

Matt (01:34:14):

Be or is this counterfeit? It

Laci (01:34:15):

Just needed to be one or the other. It didn’t need to be all these things.

Matt (01:34:18):

Which again, no, put it back in the box. Take it home. Yes. This is what I got you.

Laci (01:34:22):

Yes.

Matt (01:34:23):

Oh my God. It fall apart. Oh, this shitty God damn Chinese plastic.

Laci (01:34:28):

I wonder if anyone else is having a problem with their total adult too

Matt (01:34:31):

Solution right there. Keep

Laci (01:34:32):

The boy at home for the rest of Christmas and just assume that all of your friends are crying as well. Yes, it’s everyone.

Matt (01:34:39):

You’ve at least bought yourself some time.

Laci (01:34:42):

Right. But okay, so Howard is so incapable of being charming or socially aware of anything he does or says and stuck up, but also pathetic and lovable. He’s confusing me. So he pisses off these room full of Santas and he gets in a fight with a big Santa, but then it gets raided I guess before they can kill him. And who do you know? But Mr. No personality, weird cop shows up. Does he? This Trump there? Yes. At every police interaction this guy works. He’s a traffic cop. He is a detective on a sting. He’s a parade cop. He’s a cop that gets a break.

Matt (01:35:31):

But Howard does play a Frank Abna Jr. From Catch Me If You Can Here. He

Laci (01:35:35):

Pretends he is a cop. He can be a cop

Matt (01:35:38):

When the cops show up. He’s like, what took so long? He

Laci (01:35:42):

Very confidently explains how involved he has been in this raid. It’s like, this has gone on too long. Just move on. Move on. You’ve, you’ve gotten away with it. Keep going.

Matt (01:35:53):

I was very excited when I was a kid that the Big Santa is played by Wrestler. Paul White, AKA, the

Laci (01:35:58):

Big show. I assumed this was a wrestler.

Matt (01:36:00):

Yeah. Very excited. Now can I bore the shit out of you now?

Laci (01:36:07):

I don’t know why you would stop doing that.

Matt (01:36:09):

So the way I usually make these, here’s what we do with our podcast. We make a PowerPoint and then we basically present it to each other, me and Laci. That’s what our podcast is. Hi. So when I was doing this, I usually make it at my computer and I rip the Blu-ray of the movie and then put it in Adobe Premiere and get clips and stills from there. But last night I was just sitting down on the sofa and I had some time to kill. So I turned the movie on Disney Plus and I get a very funny picture of Paul White waggling his finger. Then I go to the computer to try to find the same shot in the movie that I ripped from the blue ray and it’s not there. And I get sent down a fucking what? Conspiracy bulletin board yarn.

Laci (01:36:55):

They’re Santa washing

Matt (01:36:57):

Of the differences between the Disney plus version and the Blu-ray version to eventually discover there’s the theatrical cut of this movie. And then there’s what’s called the family fun edition, which is four minutes shorter and I think is the only version I’ve seen other than when I saw it in theaters. Four minutes shorter. And it does cut out a bunch of stuff that makes Arnold a little slimier in this scene. He Arnold punches the shit out of Paul White to no effect. He punches him over and over and over again in the stomach that’s not on Disney plus it just cuts to Paul White beating him up. You don’t want him to Arnold to look mean. So that’s all I think that I’m getting more and more obsessed with different versions of movies. Yes. I think because especially

Laci (01:37:43):

Now that we understand how different it can, I don’t know The Butterfly Effect movie is the one that kind of was like, oh, I need to care about these things. It completely changes the movie

Matt (01:37:56):

I think because part of my job now is editing video and audio. It’s more comprehensible to me. And that sort of freaks me out. I think about the people making these cuts and I don’t know.

Laci (01:38:07):

Right. You’re making these decisions too. You’re changing the tone of our podcast by what you choose to take out and leave in or what clips you decide to need to be in versus what don’t and

Matt (01:38:19):

What don’t.

Laci (01:38:19):

You’re God, you’re playing God.

Matt (01:38:22):

Well, he makes it out of the warehouse. He’s fine with his, it’s just a fetch quest and he’s fine every time. Fetch

Laci (01:38:29):

Quest. Alright, all right. Now we’re back to him remembering he’s got a kid and he’s on a payphone and the diner that looks fucking delicious. I love a diner that’s made out of a train car. He calls fucking life without cell phones. Says put your mother on the phone now. Why can’t I do? It’s like the easiest accent ever and I can’t get down. Okay. There we go. Jamie.

Matt (01:38:56):

Jamie,

Laci (01:38:57):

Wait is the kid, Jamie and I keep wondering why it sounds so familiar. Is he Jamie and fucking kindergarten crop as well? The kid?

Matt (01:39:04):

No.

Laci (01:39:05):

All right.

Matt (01:39:06):

Well there’s like 30 kids.

Laci (01:39:08):

No, I’m talking about the kid. The kid of the love interest. The one he gets a relationship with.

Matt (01:39:13):

No, that one’s name is fricking they say it over and over again. Right.

Laci (01:39:18):

Jamie? I can’t do it. Get down Jamie.

Matt (01:39:24):

Okay. You can’t Google who is the kid in kindergarten college because there’s so many of them. It doesn’t matter.

Laci (01:39:29):

Okay. No, wait. He calls and he’s, I don’t know what he’s going to do by talking to the mom. I’m not totally sure.

Matt (01:39:36):

Maybe he’s going to fess up.

Laci (01:39:38):

Finally Fess up, right? He’s just at a diner. He’s down. I think he’s probably giving up. He knows he’s getting close to the parade time. I guess he’s just trying to touch base with his mom. But the kid instead goes off on him. You

Matt (01:39:53):

Never keep your promise face.

Laci (01:39:56):

I don’t know the point of his call, but the call instead just makes him feel like shit. But it, Myron is at this diner as well. So I guess it puts him back on the chase. I can’t remember. Does the call rejuvenate his desire? Maybe he was like, fuck it, I can’t find this doll. I almost just got arrested again. Yes,

Matt (01:40:17):

That is it.

Laci (01:40:17):

So yeah, it makes him double down. But it’s like your kid is just talking about wanting you at the parade. I know. Not the doll,

Matt (01:40:24):

But that’s the thing.

Laci (01:40:25):

Go.

Matt (01:40:27):

The solution is in front of you the whole time, but you’re just obsessed with buying. That’s all we can do. That’s how we love each other, is we buy stuff for each other and he doesn’t realize.

Laci (01:40:35):

And then an infuriating thing happens. And this is, I now remember what invigorates the, there’s still a chance is they hear on the radio Myron and him that if you’ve got the right answer to the, who are the eight reindeer, the nine reindeer, you can have a turbo man. Which is insane that, I mean, it doesn’t matter if I already say this, there ends up being no doll and the guy on the radio just meant eventually we’ll get you a doll. In what world, what ratings were you trying to spike? These are the people who listen to your radio show, who like you as a person who was this fake prize supposed to impress and help your ratings pal? What the fuck was this radio guy? Because

Matt (01:41:21):

The DJ even says, because he says it like it’s been rehearsed. Like no, if you listen very carefully, I said, you will get a doll eventually, that’s

Laci (01:41:30):

Fine. But a disc jockey’s only job is to be a likable person. So that way you care that they’re the one on the radio playing your records and not someone else. That is the only way they have livelihood. What asshole, idiot disc jockey would be like, I want to make the public hate me.

Matt (01:41:45):

No, because the public won’t. The only person who will find this out is the winner. And there’s no Facebook. They can’t go tell everybody that they got cheated. I figure all contests are scams like this, but back then there’s no way for anybody to complain about it.

Laci (01:42:01):

Okay. Yeah, fine. Whatever.

Matt (01:42:04):

They run to the radio station.

Laci (01:42:06):

Yeah. With the man, the ponytail who I always liked this guy. I always like, this is a good character. He would’ve been great as the cop, the guy that they use as the, what do I know him from the most?

Matt (01:42:15):

Let’s see who he is. I didn’t register.

Laci (01:42:18):

Oh yeah, no, he’s in a bunch of stuff that I like and he’s always a weasily ass, but he’s always good at it. The way you use the internet. It’s not like I to use it. Yeah, him he’s in this sitcoms

Matt (01:42:30):

Is Martin Mall from, he was Leon Caron. Roseanne, probably.

Laci (01:42:33):

That’s it. Yep. That’s it. But he’s also just kind of like a swarmy dick.

Matt (01:42:38):

You mean Swarmy? You say Shwarmy.

Laci (01:42:40):

Oh, I’m hungry. Is that food

Matt (01:42:43):

Shawarma?

Laci (01:42:45):

It’s like chicken and lamb and stuff, right? But

Matt (01:42:49):

Okay. Howard runs to the radio station. They’re like, if you could name all eight reindeer, which who couldn’t? Everybody knows the name Reer. There’s a song. But he’s running Doc Doel when he does go into the radio station, he’s very excited. And this is basically the only time in the movie they use Arnold’s physicality and him raving like a lunatic freaks out the DJ as he would again, that works. That’s the movie right there to that over and over. This guy’s insane. He’s terrifying. Everybody. He encounters, everybody who sees him should be like, who the fuck is that? And then they go hide and he breaks everything he touches. Like this glass door

Laci (01:43:28):

Doesn’t make sense why he has a loving wife and family that are normal. That’s the problem. He’s got to be normal or doesn’t make sense. But he doesn’t make sense because he’s trying to be normal.

Matt (01:43:39):

And then Myron follows, he shows up too. They’re informed. No, I’m sorry, we don’t have a doll now. But the winner gets a gift certificate, which again, just take the gift certificate here, son, I got you. Will get a Turbo Man in four weeks. Again, it’s just a gift.

Laci (01:43:56):

A toy store. It’s not a guarantee. He’ll get a turbo man with that certificate. How can you get a gift certificate for a specific toy

Matt (01:44:04):

Mat? I don’t know. Of course you can. It cannot. It can be from the manufacturer or perhaps

Laci (01:44:09):

You’re on a wait list. Enjoy.

Matt (01:44:12):

I mean, listen, it’s an okay point. I give you Okay points. Thank you. When I was a kid, what I wanted more than anything was a Care Bear doll God. But of course I got into Care Bears after the Care Bear Place

Laci (01:44:23):

Ended. Please know I my panties,

Matt (01:44:24):

I know I was fucking four. Okay. But sexy. I wanted a Care Bear Doll, but Care Bears weren’t manufactured anymore. And I was like, doesn’t matter. Santa can make one. And my mom Christmas morning, said Santa wrote a note saying that his elf, who makes the care Bear dolls had the flu. There you go. That’s all you have to say to your kid. Santa’s elephant makes turbo, man has the flu, but he sent this gift certificate. We’re

Laci (01:44:51):

Not having told you before Christmas morning that you weren’t going to get it. But

Matt (01:44:55):

Then the whole Santa lie unravels.

Laci (01:44:57):

Yeah, but why lett you be so excited for so long just to fucking kill your hoops and dreams. Dick

Matt (01:45:03):

Moves. My mom was probably having her own sort of turbo man journey where she’s going from store to store looking for cowbell.

Laci (01:45:11):

Yeah. But what she didn’t know, they weren’t being made anymore. That’s different.

Matt (01:45:15):

Nobody knew things back then. I forgot to mention this. I have in my notes, I would rather Arnold goes on a literal eyes wide shut journey where he just sees lots of sex rituals involving Santas. Every door he opens leads him into further and further into the weird Christmas,

Laci (01:45:34):

Christmas culture.

Matt (01:45:38):

So the police come because the DJs called the police on them. And then Sinbad fucking says, I’m going to literally go postal. I have a bomb.

Laci (01:45:47):

Which, when did the postal situation happen? In real life?

Matt (01:45:51):

It was happening at the time because there’s a Seinfeld episode where they talk about going postal. No,

Laci (01:45:55):

No, no, no. I mean literally there’s a shooting that happens where that term, that term is invented. And it was recent. It just seems like, I don’t know, something about nine 11 made it to where we are not casual with any kind of tragedy. But apparently before that we were just casually being funny about it.

Matt (01:46:18):

Between 1970 and 1997, more than 40 people were killed by then ker or former employees of the postal service. So it doesn’t look like it was a single incident,

Laci (01:46:28):

But there was something in the nineties that I’m very aware of. No,

Matt (01:46:31):

The thing that’s fucking insane is that he blows up this building with this bomb.

Laci (01:46:37):

He just blows up a ban.

Matt (01:46:37):

Okay. But you then cut to outside, you see the building and you see the explosion. And this is 18 months after Oklahoma City. This is insane. But no harm is done. Nobody’s hurt.

Laci (01:46:50):

That cop looks weird. Made the cop weird.

Matt (01:46:53):

So now Howard goes back home and he sees that Ted is making inroads with his wife. And then he remembers Ted has a turbo man, all’s fair and love and war and turbo. Man, I’ll go into his house and steal of the turbo, man. Yes, it’s a good plan. But the reindeer gets into the house and causes havoc and the house gets lit on fire, including Ted’s statue of the three wise men. And then Howard kicks it out the window and then it lands in the snow in the front yard. And Phil Hartman picks it up and he’s like, well, bizarre. That’s funny. Okay,

Laci (01:47:33):

You’re skipping over the fact that he punches the reindeer in the face,

Matt (01:47:36):

Punches the reindeer in the face,

Laci (01:47:38):

Knocks it out, knocks a giant animal out with force, he would’ve broken his jaw. And then to make it up to that animal, he puts beer in a dog dish. They share a beer too. Yeah. That’s not cool.

Matt (01:47:52):

It’s kind of sweet. But Howard lights his neighbor’s house on fire and then Liz, Rita Wilson and fucking who’s Phil? Ted come running in, isn’t Ted? And instead of shouting like, oh my God, you lit my house on fire. The wife is just like, Howard, you lied to me.

Laci (01:48:15):

You’re a home invader

Matt (01:48:17):

And an arsonist. And what? I’m sorry. What?

Laci (01:48:21):

You are stealing from a child.

Matt (01:48:24):

And Ted is just like our neighbor for shame

Laci (01:48:27):

Not, oh my God.

Matt (01:48:29):

Yeah. So Ted is going to, now he’s going to assume the role as patriarch of this family and take them all to the parade. So

Laci (01:48:36):

Weird.

Matt (01:48:37):

So if you’re thinking, and I mean what a parade this is,

Laci (01:48:41):

It’s something.

Matt (01:48:42):

And if you’re thinking this is quite a parade for Minneapolis St. Paul to have, it’s this Macy’s Day parade levels, if not more impressive. Yeah. It’s not real. They don’t have this kind of parade. And in fact, this whole sequence was filmed at Universal Studios Hollywood on the back lot in April in 100 degree weather. This is the only stuff that wasn’t shot on location. That’s rough. Yeah. So Arnold tort nger and sin bat are in a hundred degree, degree weather in those costumes. And all these extras are bundled up in parkas and stuff.

Laci (01:49:15):

Yeah. Now the melted snow makes a lot more sense. I mean, it just looks, everything just looks hot now thinking of it.

Matt (01:49:21):

So Arnold Howard is going to follow them there. And just so weird gets sort of abducted by parade people. And they’re like, although it is another instance of his physicality, they’re like, well, he obviously must be the stunt man. What normal man looks like this? So they pull him in they put him in the costume and he doesn’t stop and say, I’m sorry, what’s going on? Could you please, how does Arnold talk again? I lost it. Yeah. It doesn’t say, don’t put me in this costume. I don’t understand what’s going on. They put him in the costume and then meanwhile, Ted is making the moves on Liz, and she rejects him and throws eggnog in his face,

Laci (01:50:01):

Well, hits him over the head with the net heck nog cup and breaks his glasses.

Matt (01:50:06):

Arnold Schwarzenegger is turbo, man. Now it’s finally, this is obviously what the movie’s been building

Laci (01:50:12):

Toward. Infuriating.

Matt (01:50:13):

Yeah. This is really shitty. But I did remember, this is why I love this movie so much when I was a kid, is I loved the idea that, okay, the superhero tech really exists. You can fly and shoot discs, you just have to put on the costume. And that’s why I liked

Laci (01:50:32):

It. Well, you’re a simple boy.

Matt (01:50:35):

And then a bunch of shit ensues and Well, a lot of

Laci (01:50:38):

Kid danger.

Matt (01:50:39):

Howard, as the star of the parade gets to get on the turbo, man float and he finds out we have a turbo man doll. And you can give it away to any kid you want. So he sees this kid and he’s like

Laci (01:50:48):

You out of the box. You don’t take a prize toy out of the box. I’m just letting you know that that turbo man is de roped. That’s not

Matt (01:50:56):

Maybe, yeah. The way they’d actually do it is, this is not the one you’re actually giving away. This is just represents, and then they have a pristine, nude turbo man in the back. Yeah,

Laci (01:51:04):

That’s,

Matt (01:51:05):

That’s a pothole. Ladies and gentlemen, pothole

Laci (01:51:07):

Also, your dad has the most recognizable face of any fucking man. How do you not know that’s your dad? Because

Matt (01:51:13):

He’s a dumb little kid.

Laci (01:51:15):

The woman doesn’t know either and she fucks

Matt (01:51:17):

Him. She’s a dumb little woman. Yeah. So yeah, he gives the toy to his kid, but then, oh, Myron Sinbad shows up and this completely off screen. We at least see what sort of mishap leads to Arnold becoming turbo, man. But Sinbad just did it on his own. Just went And you see him inserted himself into, well, yes, but it’s not like we see the mechanics of how that happened and also why is he doing this? Does he know that they’re giving away a turbo man or is he just trying to get revenge?

Laci (01:51:46):

Revenge’s just gone, right? He’s just off the deep end. He’s in his villain arc, as you can see. It makes no fucking sense.

Matt (01:51:55):

This like a Marvel movie. It descends into this really shitty looking battle. It’s not as shitty looking as a Marvel movie today. I’m not going to be that harsh. But they fly around the city and slam into each other and the child is in danger, but he’s saved. And then Arnold reveals himself, I’m actually your father. There’s this one sort of weird thing where Howard as Turbo man flies through and ruins this. The only black characters in the movie, well, except for Myron Sinbad, but they’re having a nice family dinner and then their house gets destroyed. But I do, if you could stretch it and say, this family’s trying to have a nice little Christmas together thing. We’re simple. We’re just going to recognize Jesus and be together. But ooh, commercialism intrudes and we’ll destroy all of us. And turbo man wins and the police arrest Myron and he’s going to be taken away. But then Jake Lloyd is like, actually, you can have my little guy. Here you go. And Sinbad is like, thank you. This is going to make my son so happy. And what’s the message?

Laci (01:53:04):

I do not know.

Matt (01:53:06):

I don’t know. But that’s it. That’s the movie.

Laci (01:53:11):

It’s a horrible movie. Is it the worst movie

Matt (01:53:13):

We’ve seen the Family Fun edition just fades out right here. But on the super secret Blu-ray that I have, we then cut to them at home decorating the Tree. And Liz is like, I’m so happy that you’re a superhero, but it only makes me wonder, what gift did you get for me,

Laci (01:53:30):

His super dick?

Matt (01:53:31):

And Arnold’s like, what? And that’s the end of the movie. Oh my

Laci (01:53:34):

God, I can’t believe they took that away from us.

Matt (01:53:48):

Is it the worst movie we’ve ever covered? I think so. What a question that is. I mean, I think, no, it’s near the bottom, but

Laci (01:53:57):

What would it be?

Matt (01:53:57):

Parenthood always my answer.

Laci (01:53:59):

No, you’re so

Matt (01:54:00):

Wrong. Oh, because parenthood is aspiring to something so much grander and just trips on its fucking

Laci (01:54:05):

Day. These are your old thoughts. You don’t know how you’d feel right now.

Matt (01:54:09):

Alright, parenthood episode coming next week. I mean, okay, we can redo that episode early 2024. Thank you

Laci (01:54:15):

So much for letting me do that.

Matt (01:54:17):

But that is usually my answer for worst movie we’ve covered.

Laci (01:54:20):

What’s your second?

Matt (01:54:22):

Let me pull up the list of movies we’ve covered

Laci (01:54:24):

Now and then

Matt (01:54:25):

We’re doing a mailbag question. Somebody can ask us this.

Laci (01:54:29):

It’s fine. It’s fine. This is it. This is the worst movie ever. It fucking sucks. It’s thing.

Matt (01:54:32):

I did not hate it as much as you did.

Laci (01:54:34):

That’s you’re dumb.

Matt (01:54:36):

What are your final thoughts?

Laci (01:54:37):

There was no clear vision. It should never have been made. It was a cash grab. It seems completely vapid and I’m worse for it. I hated it.

Matt (01:54:47):

Rating

Laci (01:54:49):

Zero. Kenny, no stars.

Matt (01:54:52):

Fuck you. No stars. Wow.

Laci (01:54:53):

Okay. One for Sined.

Matt (01:54:55):

I think this is really Shittily directed. Really sloppily written. Arnold Schwarzenegger is so wrong. This is a classic instance of just wrong star derailing everything about it. Slide in Tim Allen. Slide in

Laci (01:55:11):

Ster Stallone. You need another guy with body. There’s

Matt (01:55:14):

Other No, you don’t. This movie doesn’t call for

Laci (01:55:16):

The turbo man part. It does seem like the whole thing was just to put the guy in the suit at the end.

Matt (01:55:20):

You can have a normal looking guy. Be turbo man you. Why do you need a 400 pound behemoth to be a costume

Laci (01:55:28):

Character? I guess if the muscles are baked in, fine.

Matt (01:55:32):

Just think of random nineties Dad, Robin Williams.

Laci (01:55:36):

Probably Williams as a, he looked well

Matt (01:55:37):

Just because of Hook. But if he were this, I mean, yeah, somebody would able to, Vince Vaughn in 1996. Yeah. Could have actually executed what they were going for. I give it two stars. Vince Vaughn. I think it sucks, but there’s some redeemable stuff in here. Phil Hartman Sin Bad, and

Laci (01:55:59):

Michael Keaton. This would’ve been amazing

Matt (01:56:01):

Movie. Well, yes. I mean Michael Keaton, fuck.

Laci (01:56:03):

He would’ve made it amazing.

Matt (01:56:05):

And the cop and I do like these. I think that the Turbo man iconography is good. It’s accurate to what kind of stuff. Little boys would

Laci (01:56:17):

Be interested. The employee guy made a toy at

Matt (01:56:19):

The time and there’s some hints of ideas about the commercialization of Christmas and capitalism destroying us all two stars over the course of this discussion. I’m like, oh, I’m overrated it now though. Okay, one and a half stars.

Laci (01:56:34):

There you go.

Matt (01:56:35):

For jingle all the way. Skip it. I say, but don’t skip load-bearing beams.

Laci (01:56:41):

Jingle none of the fucking way is the only thing I have on my board right now. That’s my thoughts.

Matt (01:56:46):

What more needs to be said?

Laci (01:56:48):

None of the way

Matt (01:56:50):

Except this. If you’re watching us on YouTube, thank you. But please do also subscribe to the audio feed of the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow us on Twitter at load-bearing pod on Instagram at load-bearing beams.

Laci (01:57:06):

Interact with us on TikTok. That is my favorite way to communicate with you all. Please follow us on TikTok and

Matt (01:57:11):

Load bearing beams here.

Laci (01:57:13):

Listening.

Matt (01:57:14):

Yes. Load bearing beams on TikTok. You can talk to Laci. Yeah, that’s me. And then she’ll tell me what you said.

Laci (01:57:21):

We have no life.

Matt (01:57:21):

TikTok is scary. I don’t understand it, but you can follow me on letterbox and see what I’m watching. Letterbox, I’m at Matt Stokes nine and the music on this show is by my band, rural Route Nine. You can listen to our album, the Joy of Averages on Spotify and Apple Music. You can hear the song that you’re hearing now, but hear it with words, with singing.

Laci (01:57:42):

It got words

Matt (01:57:42):

Vocals by me and by my wife Laci.

Laci (01:57:45):

It got vocals on it.

Matt (01:57:47):

You can hear her sort of scream. I love the way she screams on that song. Thank you. I mean, what it sounds like when she sings is Tegan and Sarah, but nobody knows who they are. I don’t know. Listen to find out. There you

Laci (01:57:59):

Go. What better

Matt (01:58:00):

Way, and again, please submit questions. We’ve already gotten a few for our mailbag episode, but that’s the some good

Laci (01:58:06):

Ones.

Matt (01:58:07):

Last episode we’re going to be doing this year, December 29th. That episode will come out and then the new year will begin with episodes 99 and 100 of load-bearing beams. We’re doing dirty dancing in Star Wars here

Laci (01:58:18):

We’re Let’s go.

Matt (01:58:21):

Anything else, Laci?

Laci (01:58:23):

No, just that. I love you. Goodbye.